Empty empathy ….. in My things ……
- Feb. 19, 2014, 3:34 a.m.
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- Public
Not quite like yesterday today, it isn’t raining but there are those cool pinprick feeling on my skin, a soft Cornish day and looking up and down the valley it’s like a photograph from an early camera; as slight soft view of reality.
I have a few old cameras, those that fold near flat and slip in to a jacket pocket, the one I’m thinking of make a six by nine centimetre negative, just eight exposures on a roll of film. It was made in Germany in the late 1920’s, a simple camera just five shutter speeds; and it still works.
The lens is slightly soft, I used it in Manchester and the images it made took the city back to the era when the camera was made. The other two or three I have were made in the 1930’s, in those few years lens had moved on, to a sharpness near to we expect now.
I haven’t used them since moving to Cornwall, when I left Manchester I also left behind the darkrooms; my own darkroom is a wish packed away in several boxes. One day I shall unpack …..
Here in the UK our Churches are speaking out on the new welfare reforms, these come in on the first of March, these reforms combine six means-tested benefits into one, the one fits all approach that seems better as seen by those who rest on the security great wealth.
The Archbishop of Canterbury the Most Reverend Justin Welby used his first Christmas Day sermon to highlight "injustices" facing Britain's poor. Reverend Justin Welby a former oil company executive - who this year launched a campaign against payday lending firms - referred to "injustices at home; even in a recovering economy".
"Christians, the servants of a vulnerable and poor saviour, need to act to serve and love the poor, they need also to challenge the causes of poverty." He added,
Now the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols described the changes as a "disgrace" last weekend. The welfare state was growing increasingly punitive amid the biggest shake-up of the system for decades "My concern is to echo the voices that come to me of the circumstances today in which people are left without any support for weeks on end, are hungry, are destitute," he said.
And the Prime Minister’s reply: ‘For me the moral case for welfare reform is every bit as important as making the numbers add up’
woman in the moon ⋅ February 19, 2014
Thank you for writing this.
TruNorth ⋅ February 19, 2014
That's a tough issue to address. I remember when I lived in the UK, there were masses of council house estates where generations of welfare recipients lived. This is obviously not good for the overall economic health of the country. How can you get the average person off their rump and out into working society while retaining a welfare safety net for the truly needy?
NorthernSeeker ⋅ February 19, 2014
At least the churces are speaking up.
Tick Tock Tick ⋅ February 20, 2014
The pervasive grip of the powerful rich will lead to our downfall if we don't loosen it. Of this I have no doubt. May already be too late.Thanks for sharing what's transpiring in the UK. Have fond memories of those old cameras and their photographs.
I have thought of you countless times as the images of the flooding in the London area are shown and then the waves soaring over the coast "in the southwestern UK." I know you are high and dry but I wonder how that shop on the beach is faring. Need to read backwards. Haven't been here in too long. Have been caught up with the Olympics in the evenings, my usual time to write. Hope all is well with you. I wonder if the rail tracks are again washed out on the way to your Mum's.
jamez Tick Tock Tick ⋅ February 21, 2014
RYNote’s. Nice to know your well but sorry about continuing winter, but I know your weather patterns are rather different to our; our pattern has been no pattern but we shall see what comes! Some years ago at work we had a man from Kodak going some research, I once got in conversation with him about weather, I think he told my he lived ‘up state New York’ which I took as Long Island. He told me there were two weeks in October when the warm weather finished, until then the evenings had got colder, but in those two weeks it would snow, and there it was –winter! Then he changed his summer wheels for the spiked winter set, an they remained on the car until a time in late April; the ice and snow began to thaw. We have had snow in June, only once and was done by afternoon, up until now our weather has surprises not patterns!
These last three months were the wettest winter since record’s began, we’re not celebrating! The railway service out of Cornwall and Devon is closed due to the line being washed away near Dawlish, there was talk of repairs being finished by late March, now it has slipped back to mid April; I’m not expecting much until May or June. That part of the line was quite amazing in the autumn of 2012, there was a storm blowing of the sea, along there the rail lines run along the back of the beach, the wave were hitting a wall and going up and over the train; exciting - or more ….
We have been lucky here, in Portsmouth they have much more rain than us, as well floods there have been holes opening up, normally we have one now and then; since Christmas there have been three. A few properties have been lost to the storms, mostly on the east coast that has been slipping into the sea for hundreds of yours. There are places across the world that have worst weather, but not the infrastructure that we enjoy. It seems we are going to dredge our river again, something that was always dun until a few decade’s ago, keeping the rivers clear will allow the water to move down stream quicker, it might note stop floods but it will reduce the area affected.
Our daffodils are not in flower yet, our winter shade keeps them back, but where the sun gets through daffodils have been in flower for a month; a benefit of life in Cornwall. We got Ziggy and Lola to agility on Sunday, but not on Thursday there was enough rain to make the field unusable again, the ground is saturated and any more rain sets thing back; so they have walks on the cliffs or the dunes – both areas drain well!
I think all of us are due a little sunshine soon or even sooner, and I hope your snowdrops come through for you.
jamez ⋅ February 21, 2014
RYNote’s. Nice to know your well but sorry about continuing winter, but I know your weather patterns are rather different to our; our pattern has been no pattern but we shall see what comes! Some years ago at work we had a man from Kodak going some research, I once got in conversation with him about weather, I think he told my he lived ‘up state New York’ which I took as Long Island. He told me there were two weeks in October when the warm weather finished, until then the evenings had got colder, but in those two weeks it would snow, and there it was –winter! Then he changed his summer wheels for the spiked winter set, an they remained on the car until a time in late April; the ice and snow began to thaw. We have had snow in June, only once and was done by afternoon, up until now our weather has surprises not patterns!
These last three months were the wettest winter since record’s began, we’re not celebrating! The railway service out of Cornwall and Devon is closed due to the line being washed away near Dawlish, there was talk of repairs being finished by late March, now it has slipped back to mid April; I’m not expecting much until May or June. That part of the line was quite amazing in the autumn of 2012, there was a storm blowing of the sea, along there the rail lines run along the back of the beach, the wave were hitting a wall and going up and over the train; exciting - or more ….
We have been lucky here, in Portsmouth they have much more rain than us, as well floods there have been holes opening up, normally we have one now and then; since Christmas there have been three. A few properties have been lost to the storms, mostly on the east coast that has been slipping into the sea for hundreds of yours. There are places across the world that have worst weather, but not the infrastructure that we enjoy. It seems we are going to dredge our river again, something that was always dun until a few decade’s ago, keeping the rivers clear will allow the water to move down stream quicker, it might note stop floods but it will reduce the area affected.
Our daffodils are not in flower yet, our winter shade keeps them back, but where the sun gets through daffodils have been in flower for a month; a benefit of life in Cornwall. We got Ziggy and Lola to agility on Sunday, but not on Thursday there was enough rain to make the field unusable again, the ground is saturated and any more rain sets thing back; so they have walks on the cliffs or the dunes – both areas drain well!
I think all of us are due a little sunshine soon or even sooner, and I hope your snowdrops come through for you.