Pictures of the Day: The Royal Navy, Portsmouth Harbor, England

Another post from my photo backlog:

The Royal Navy has its main base in Portsmouth, on the south coast of England. I love the water and all that floats and flows upon and within it; all boats and ships, warships especially. I grew up reading Horatio Hornblower and other 18th and 19th century naval war stories, and my family has a bit of history with the U.S. Navy. I ought to have joined the Navy, if I had I'd probably still be in the military..  

These were all taken this past week, the night I took the ferry to France:

HMS Warrior Quayside

This here is the first ironclad commissioned by the Royal Navy, the Warrior.

You can't see the more famous historical ship docked in the navy yard there without entering through the gates. I didn't have time to do that, so I only caught a glimpse of Nelson's flagship, the champion of Trafalgar, and the current flagship of the Second Sea Lord, the Victory. It's a 104 gun, triple decked ship of the line. One of the most dangerous warships constructed of its era. I took this from the ferry as we passed out of port:

HMS Victory Quayside

It's kept docked, but is still commissioned, just like the USS Constitution, Old Ironsides (a fifty gun frigate, nowhere near as potent in firepower, but much quicker under sail than the Victory) in Boston.

One last gratuitous ship shot, this one of the Illustrious, which I think is now Britain's only current aircraft carrier. It's a short carrier, that only fields Harrier jump jets and helicopters, but it is still cool:

HMS Illustrious Quayside

There were a clutch of frigates and destroyers docked there in Portsmouth with them, too. My landlubber's eye thought most of them looked pretty well worse the wear, lots of streaming rust and crumby paint jobs. Not as tight and shipshape as the U.S. Navy looks at Bath Ironworks or Norfolk Naval Shipyard, but then few things look as sleek, dangerous and beautiful as a Aegis cruiser being refitted at Bath..



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Pictures of the Day: Prayers from Walsingham

I finally fulfilled a decades long wish this past week, and made my pilgrimage to venerate Our Lady of Walsingham, in Northumberland, England. This is England's national Marian shrine, and one of my favorite icons of Our Blessed Mother. Here's a photo essay therefrom, with succinct comment:

The English Countryside

Not the best shot of the village, but just somebit to give a notion of how quaint..

The Anglicans have taken over the middle of the village, which is very quaint, in that high English tradition of quaintness:

The 20th Century Era Anglican Shrine

The Anglican Shrine's Icon

1st candle

Aide a l'Eglise en Detresse has a storefront there..

My Pasture, Minus the Stallion I Slept With..

This is where I pitched my bivy while there. There was a big horse that they let into it after dark, which concerned me briefly, but we ended up getting along swimmingly, and I slept like a stone.. 

Walked Out Past Great Snoring.  

The restored chapel (burnt by the prots in the 16th Century, rebuilt by a Catholic convert in 1897) is a good mile outside the village center.  I walked out there and back again twice.

Slipper Chapel, The 11th Century Catholic Shrine

Garden Behind the Shrine

2nd candle

Room for Votive Candles

3rd candle

These next two I took with my iphone, because I didn't want rudely to disturb the silence with a shutter click:

The Shrine Chapel

The Statue of Our Lady of Walsingham

Pilgrims at Adoration

And Finally, the Obligatory Self-Portrait.

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Pictures of the Day: Prayers from Knock

So, last week I finally returned to Knock again.  Twenty years ago this year I made my first pilgrimage there, in the fall after I graduated from college.  I walked - and hitch hiked - there from Belfast.  I'd meant to try to make it all the way to Jerusalem by foot that time, but I only actually made it as far as Rome, and that mostly by bus, not foot..

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is all too weak.

This time I've made no such stupid resolutions, and am going to get to as many places as I can, any way I can. Still, I am back on that old path.  I'll write about the genesis of the urge to do this, and other ancillary topics soon. In the meantime, I give you a little photo essay from the shrine up at Knock:

The facade of the original parish church, Msgr. Horan's ugly modernesque basilica in background.

Interior of said parish. Old School Irish Catholic Style.

Chapel of the Apparition, on back of the parish church.

The parish church, from vantage of the basilica.

This is what happens when you give some odd Irishman a camera..

Slightly better, this time.

The promised candle.

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Song of the Day: I Never Seen a Miracle Like that Old Airport Up In Knock..

Did NATO donate the dough me boys, did NATO donate the dough?



Blogger's gotten all squirelly on YouTube, so if that won't play, perhaps then this will:



I actually think the airstrip is more suited to anti-sub warfare in the North Atlantic, especially seeing as how most of the planes that actually ended up taking Qaddafi out flew from Italy..

Still, a song particularly suited to marking my pilgrimage to.. ah, Knock.

Father Horan, from the information desk giftshop:

Poor Old Father Jim's Gone to the Airport in the Sky.. Yet the Msgr.'s Still Very Well Remembered.

And just to clarify, the next field while actually full of rocks, was still quite comfortable. I know because I slept in it.

And on the way back to Dublin we passed by the airport, and while I couldn't get off to take a proper shot of the runway, I did get this:

And it's 88,000 feet!

And that's all I've currently got about that old aerodrome up in Knock. Cheers.



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Hobo Chronicles: Le Conte Continue..

So, as you may have noticed from my last few posts, I am again in Europe.  I flew into Dublin a week and a half ago, spent a couple nights in Dublin, then went to Westport in County Mayo (that's the west coast of the Isle, sort of the Irish version of California, which is to say that it is nothing like California at all, excepting only that the landscape there is stunningly beautiful, which is one of the few things that I utterly adore about Cali, the others being the redwoods, the wildlife, the Asian cuisine, the vineyards, the Mexicans, SS Peter & Paul in Ben Lomond and the mission churches.. All of which is to say that that comparison is somehow despite all that still immensely to Ireland's favor) where I intended to climb Craugh Patrick (St. Patrick's penitential climb, 2500 ft. to where he fasted for 40 days and cast all the demons off the peak, and sent all the snakes from Ireland) but did not. It was way too wet, and I've realized that I really am not much a fan of mountain climbing. I am meant for sea level, and enjoy looking at mountains from down here.

Anyhow, I enjoyed Westport very much. One of its many virtues is that it is a mere 45 minutes or so from Ireland's nation Marian shrine, Knock. I spent one night there, in the rough for the first time this trip. The prior post (that self portrait) is of me at the shrine, in the sanctuary they built on the backside of the local parish church where the apparition of Our Lady, Saint John and St. Joseph and the Lamb on the altar occurred.  There will be another post quite soon with some more pics from Knock.

After this, I crossed the Irish Sea to Wales, and took a train to London, where I caught another train north to the English national Marian shrine at Walsingham. I've always wanted to make a pilgrimage there, ever since I learned of its existence, so the visit was a dream come true. I spent two days there, and debated going to Aylesford, where the Carmelites keep a monastery, where Simon Stock received the brown scapular in the 13th Century. I've worn the scapular for a couple decades now, and shedding it was one of the major reasons I couldn't remain Orthodox. I felt naked without it, I only ever take it off when I'm about to get wet.  I was drawn there, but..

England is way too expensive, and I was feeling the yen to parle some Francais..

So I took the channel ferry here, to Normandy, yesterday. I'm in Ouistreham, which happens to be on the most eastern of the Norman WW II invasion beaches. Upon Sword Beach, specifically, which is where the British and Free French landed. I slept last night in the dunes off the beach, near the ferry terminal here. It's been sublime.. I've been sleeping rough now for over a week, with Army bivy sack and sleeping bag, strung tarp when needed. I've been doing this all over Europe ever since my Junior Year abroad in 1991-2, and it never gets old. Like Hilaire Belloc, mon maitre et inspiration, I just can't get over the yen of humping and hoboing it all over here. I'm now approaching a dozen trips like this, easily more than 100 nights total. I so very love it. Besides being utterly cheap (I'm on the same budget I was in Latin America, trying to keep expenses to 30-40 euro a day, which buys good hotel rooms there, but gets you a bed in a hostel dorm here if you're lucky, and I'd rather sleep outdoors for free, merci bien) it is also way too sweet.

This is where I slept last night:

Slept in that nook there.. with camo bivy, presque invisible, n'est-ce pas?

So, tomorrow I take the bus a town over to Lisieux.  I'm backlogged a couple three posts with pictures, so I'll get to posting about that and Mont St. Michel later this coming week. I'll try to get blogger working for me, by writing posts in advance, dating them to automatically post for me later on.. I can do that, right? Yes, of course right. All the coming three days' posts will be done automatically. I'll post on Ste. Therese and St. Michel on or about Wednesday..

Anyway, for the moment, one more image from the dunes of Normandy:

Du cidre sur le plage..

Well.  That's about all I've got at the moment.  On va souper.



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Self Portrait, Knock

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This Past Night at Matt Malloy's

Not a great image, I was too distracted with the craic to take a good one.  Still, a digital postcard from Matt Malloy's in Westport, Co. Mayo.  Cheers.



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Taking Tea in Dublin

First Breakfast.

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Posted with Blogsy

This Green Mountain Daybreak

desde la ventana de mi habitacion

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Planet Earth is Blue, And There's Nothing Left to Do..

And this may simply be the greatest cover by anyone, of anyone, ever.  I here give you all my beloved public International Space Station Canadian Commander Chris Hadfield, covering Bowie's inverse epic Major Tom:


(If the video won't load click here.)

Incidentally, the shirt's 14$ at Target (that's pronounced "Tar-jeh-aye").



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Oh, How We the Common Must Cry..

This is my song this week.  It's over the top hipster twee, forsure (with an Ira Glass & John Hodgman cameo!) but I cannot care anymore, I abjectly & simply love it.  Hope you enjoy it, too:

(It seems Blogger and YouTube are at odds these days, I can't get any embedded videos to play properly here - click on the YouTube icon in the bar at the bottom of the video window here to link to the video there, if it refuses to play.. Or else just click here.)

The Semi-Sensical Quasi-Prophetical Lyrics:

If it'd been my youth would it come to me,

Oh love won’t you bite my eye?
I miss the sweet God in men,
Baffle a skeleton dry.
All they wanted was a villain, a villain,
And all they had was me.
All they wanted was a villain, a villain,
So then they just took me.

Hold my county line, get down on my city floor.
I will suffer no humans, they've been my habit before.
Ah Oh, and how the earth did shake.
And tumble and tremble, for what the people do take.
And I want in, all over your mind.
Cause oh, how we, the common do cry!

Ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooo waoohwaoooh..

Ooh waha, aha, aha, Ooh waha, aha, aha
Where do you go from me?
Ooh aha, aha
When I wait for you faithfully?
Oh aha, aha
And will they take my life in time?
Ooh aha, aha
I love my girl, will you remind her?
Ooh aha, aha
And oh how we, the common do cry!

Ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooo waoohwaoooh..

We die, we die, we die until we try.
We die, we die, we die until we try.
Well I could be yours, you could be mine.
Well I could be yours, and you would be mine.

If it'd been my youth would have come to me?
Oh love won’t you bite my eye?
I miss the sweet God in men,
Baffle a skeleton dry.
All they wanted was a villain, a villain,
And all they had was me.
All they wanted was a villain, a villain,
So then they just took me.

Hold my county line, get down on my city floor.
I will suffer no humans, they've been my habit before.
Ah woah, how we, the common must cry!

Ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooo waoohwaoooh..

And oh, how we, the common must cry!

Ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooh, ooh ooha, wahooah, ooo waoohwaoooh oohwah..

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On Being from Boston: A Meditation Upon Patriot's Day

WBZ CBS News is finally reporting that they got the second suspect - "that knucklehead" (as the main announcer keeps calling him) who committed that bombing at the Boston Marathon on Monday. 

I'm sitting here, welling with gladness. The tragedies of this week that those two fools perpetrated upon the people of my city have been the catalyst for a minor emotional restoration for me.  It's reawakened my dormant sense of passionate attachment to this place, New England, my home.  

I've been sitting here today thinking how Boston somehow oddly belongs to me, even though I've never lived there.  It's like this: when I am away from home, very few people know where Maine is.  Hardly anybody's heard of New England.  Foreigners tend not to know all that much about the States. I usually have a slight problem when people ask me, as they often do, what part of America I am from.  

My simple solution: I always tell them I am from Boston. Often that draws a blank, too.  At which point I just say that it's sorta like New York, only wicked awesome. That last part's impossible to translate into French or Spanish, so I'll interject the English then fudge translate (bien chouette, demasiado chido, algo y nada como esto..) No way they could possibly understand, it always makes me laugh. 

Sometimes I'll add another incomprehensible line about Boston being the hub around all known creation radiates (le centre autour qui orbite tout le reste de l'univers connu, el centro acerca todo el resto del universo orbita - just watch the linguistic ginsu master, how I roll).. I get on a slight comedic bend, and crack myself all up while the person who asked stares at me wondering what's wrong with the crazy damn gringo.

Anyway, I am somehow actually in fact from Boston. Because as anyone from Maine will tell you, going Down East is coming from Boston. That's how you go to get there from here, across the Gulf of Maine.  

What's more, we were once politically - until 1820 - part of Massachusetts. And to this day Boston's teams - the Sox, Patriots, Bruins, Celtics - are our teams. That's called belonging to something in your blood and guts. From the sea and soil. Blood, salt and dirt.. Family. Boston is our town. 


In my mind's eye I see the skyline of the city shimmering up from the inrushing tarmaced horizon of I 93 flowing toward us, the very first time my dad and mom took my brothers and me into the city back in 1980. We sat in the backseat of the stationwagon, I utterly entranced by the mystical majesty of those two clusters of towers thrusting high into the hazy summer sky.

Dad took us to Jacob Wurth's by Tufts, where he hung out in his graduate school days at B.U. The fat white shirted mustachioed German waiters kicking sawdust as they brought us our platonically delectable bratwurst and sauerkraut..

It was a love affair from the very beginning. All the graceful intimacy of the town, colonial class of Fennel Hall and the golden capitol dome, with the Aquarium & Old Ironsides hedging the Harbor throwing off briny mist, to Fenway and the Charles so storied, all democratically regal..

Which is merely to say the horror of the week has been unrolling across terrain I know. Places I often inhabit in my dreams.  Boyleston Street. Cambridge. Kenmore Square.  

I'm still riding this train, see, after all these years.. Florida could never keep me:

Tonight I again find myself patriotically emotional in ways I haven't been in years. The last decade has been very harsh on my patriotic feeling. I'm still ferociously patriotic. This country, this land, is my home. These are my people. My heart's not going anywhere, even if I happen to be physically abroad. But these past years my heart's become pretty well bruised and cynical. The love's intact, but the adolescent magic was gone. I've come to know too much, have been repeatedly disappointed.  

But now tonight, on Patriot's Day, the anniversary of the shot heard 'round the world, the old ferocious emotion floods back.  

They finally got that knucklehead.  

Not even news of Lindsay Grahm spouting the now all too trite quasi- fascist Republican idiocy assaulting our precious constitutional tradition of due process, once again whyping his nasty southern ass with the Bill of Rights, like those jack booted thugs have been compulsively for the past twelve years now can damp my happiness.  

How was it that I ever allied myself with those assholes, thinking that they were somehow pro-life?  Like they actually care about the unborn. Was I an idiot? Was there crack in our water supply back then? Why doesn't Lindsay and the rest of his gibbering cracker horde just succeed again, and leave us Yankees alone? Why was it we fought so damn hard to keep them last time?  I have no idea.

Whatever. My contempt for them knows no end. They call themselves patriots. Cretinous fuckers. Go fellate some more bankers. Put their plugs in your gobs like good little kept catamites. I have no more patience for your bullshit.

The people of Boston just put you all to shame. This week has been a minor epic, I felt like I was watching the boys form up on the green again, staring down Gage's thugs with calm defiance. 

No pathetic would-be terrorist is going to scare us. They only succeed if they terrorize us. They failed.  

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled..

The character of free men is defined in the conquest of fear, see.


Two hundred and thirty eight years ago today, on April 19th 1775, the people of New England faced down the forces of a foreign tyrant, and won our freedom.  

Tonight we triumphed once again.  God Bless Boston.  God Bless America.  



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