This rootedness of reality in the concrete presence of the past is one of the things which makes history so important. We need to know where we’ve been in order to know where we are and where we’re going. — Joseph Pearce
Just back from the UK. I was in London, Norwich, Portsmouth (HMS Victory) and Southampton. I saw four football matches- Norwich/Millwall, Norwich/Queens Park Rangers, Eastleigh/Barnet, and Southampton/Brentford. It was more than two-weeks to read, travel, think, and drink gratuitous amounts of coffee. Masses were at Westminster Cathedral (4th Sunday of Advent), Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (Midnight Mass for Christmas and Holy Family on December 29), St. Edmund’s (Mary, Mother of God), and St. Joseph’s. I travelled with Faith of Our Fathers: A History of True England by Joseph Pearce. I also read Conclave¹ by Robert Harris. I knew the latter would be critical of the CC, but I also read similar tripe from Peter Ross. Both were truly works of fiction. The only quote in Conclave that wasn’t FICTION:
“In the United Kingdom – that godless isle of apostasy…”
Related
King Charles Christmas Speech – A Declaration of Civil War (YouTube)
Three important articles that are all connected:
(1) Rapid-Onset Political Enlightenment: How Barack Obama built an omnipotent thought machine, and how it was destroyed by David Samuels (Tablet)
“We imagine most things before we experience them. And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception.” Or as he put it even more succinctly: “The way in which the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do.”
(2) Elon or Leo: Capital versus the conservation of community and tradition (GRIPT)
(3) The Stages of Grief at the Frontier (The American Interest)
Elaine Pagel imitating Pelagius:
(4) Critical Look at Elaine Pagels’ Religious Scholarship (Amercian Greatness)
Trip Details
Inbound Logistics: Amtrak (Penn Station), LIRR (Jamaica) to AirTrain > Elizabeth Line (Heathrow) to Ealing Broadway; District Line to Turnham Green to Richmond
Similar to 2023/24 I stayed near King’s Cross/St. Pancras whilst in London.
Outbound Logistics: Southampton Central, Waterloo, Jubilee to Elizabeth (via Bond Street) to Heathrow T3; AirTrain to LIRR (Jamaica) to Penn Station to NYC Subway 1 to S at Times Square-42nd Street to Grand Central Station to Metro-North to X. < 3,371 miles.
In Flight Movie Recommendations: Girl You Know It’s True and The Fall Guy
Flickr Album: Merry Old England 2024/2025
12 Hours: Southampton Central, Waterloo, Penn Station, and Grand Central Station
Notable Highlights
JMW Turner and changing visions of landscape (Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery)
HMS Victory (National Museum of the Royal Navy)
Cobwebs
The Betjeman Arms
The Belgian Monk
Bits and Bobs
(5) Build Me a Shrine! (The Imaginative Conservative)