Spirit of Place: Our Welsh Water

 Surely it must be common knowledge that Birmingham has its water brought here from Wales?

Every day 320 million litres of water travels 73 miles (117 km) from Wales to Birmingham to fill kettles, baths and boilers. But why does it come so far?

It dates back to the Victorian era when Birmingham was a rapidly growing city plagued by illnesses like cholera and typhoid which were caused by contaminated water.

A search for clean water sparked an "amazing feat of ingenuity" to bring it from the Welsh hills to the city.

 During the industrial revolution Birmingham's population soared and the city's wells and rivers, the Rea and Tame, become contaminated by sewage.

In 1873 Joseph Chamberlain became mayor which went on to cause a hostile takeover of the city's waterworks, creating the Birmingham Corporation Water Department.

His surveyors went out in search of clean water and decided the best place to get it from was Elan Valley in Wales.

 It had an average annual rainfall of 1830mm and its landscape was higher than Birmingham's, which would enable the 55 million litres of water to be transported to the city entirely by gravity.

Sarah-Jayne O'Kane, from Severn Trent Water, said the ambitious plan was to create a series of lakes by damming Elan and Claerwen rivers and transporting water via an aqueduct.

'No say'

The Birmingham Corporation Water Department achieved an Act of Parliament in 1892 enabling the compulsory purchase of the Elan Valley.

"The people of the village had no say," said Glyn Webster at Elan Valley Visitors Centre.

"About 100 people had to move out and around 20 buildings were destroyed.

"Most of the villagers were tenant farmers and only the land owners were given a small amount of compensation." Source

Actually what made me post this was reading today about a new government initiative. They want us all (or perhaps it's just schools) singing - the article I read compared this to North Korea. It also commented that Wales just isn't doing it. In fact nobody is doing it except a couple of schools in Bradford. What is wrong with them? Tomorrow is OBON day but the education secretary is having the piss taken out of him over it. Here is the song:

Agony Hound: My cash-loving girlfriend won’t stop having affairs with rich men

No, seriously. This is a Dear Deirdre (Here) and is just calling out to be worried by The Hound.

DEAR DEIDRE: MY girlfriend loves flashing the cash so much that she has constant affairs with rich men.

I’m a joiner, I work hard and earn a decent wage but it’s not enough for her.

I’m 28 and she’s 27. I wanted to marry her but I think I need to face the reality that I won’t ever earn enough money in her eyes.

She’s a beautician and is really stunning so has no problem getting attention.

We’ve been together for three years and I found out about her first fling within the first six months because her colleague let slip that she was seeing someone else.

I forgave her after she explained she wasn’t sure we would last — and this other guy was “insurance”.

I reassured her I wanted us to work and she said she did too. I thought we had put it behind us.

I try to spoil her as much as possible and take her to the best bars and restaurants I can afford.

But it’s not enough. Last month I found a stash of designer handbags, shoes and jewellery in the back of her wardrobe.

We don’t live together and I was looking for a jacket I’d left at hers.

I picked up a tiny Burberry clutch and a note fell out. It read: “The hottest bag, for the hottest girl. Love your sweet cheeks M.” She walked in on me while I was still sitting there.

Within minutes the gory details had tumbled out of her mouth.

She said it wasn’t about the sex, which was normally forgettable, it was about being spoiled with gifts and being driven around in luxury cars.

How can we have a future when all I can offer is a ride in my white van?

DEIDRE SAYS: A glitzy lifestyle and wads of cash are no substitute for true love. If she doesn’t want you unconditionally, no amount of money will ever be enough for her love.

Perhaps there were other reasons apart from her expensive tastes that made her cheat. While it may seem she is nothing more than a gold digger, there may be other aspects of the relationship she was not happy with.

She has to learn that she can’t have it all. Talk together about changes you would both like to see that would make your relationship more satisfying.

My support pack Cheating – Can You Get Over It? will help. But ultimately if her love for you remains shallow, you need to seriously consider walking away.

You deserve someone who would be proud to sit next to you in your Transit.

The Hound says: I have honestly given much thought about what to say to you. I have thought about how to try to be subtle and it's frankly rather difficult to know how to, so I am giving up on the subtlety front and will say what I'm thinking!

Firstly, you do realise you are her side hustle don't you? She has actually told you that she sees people as insurance and while she would deny it if you asked her, there is no indication she doesn't see you as insurance as well.

If you think about how she sees you, it is not impossible that she sees you as the reliable one who will put up with her games, in fact as insurance!

Secondly, I would suggest you keep my side hustle scenario in mind if you talk to her about it. Since she seems to see people as mere scenery to prop up her own life, if you try to talk to her about this it is not outside the bounds of possibility that she will say all the right things and, if you press it and confront her with her behaviour, she will try to manipulate you. My bet would be that she would talk about her poor self esteem and tell you how good you are for her. Keep in mind, though, the sort of things she could also be saying to her other hustles!

The bottom line is you are frankly too good for this gold digger and she's taking you for a ride. However you are in charge of your own life and I'm never one to stop people screwing up their own lives. You may care to optimize your income though, and I think that the film studio called Triga would like to use you in their films. They use this talent agency if you want to apply. Your girlfriend's reaction should be interesting.

If you decide you want to end it with her, it sounds like she either won't be bothered (she's probably got several insurance policies) or else it will turn into a mammoth drama and she'll try to marry you. My suggestion would be rather than try to end it have some fun by telling her that since she's basically a prostitute anyway you would like to formalise this and be her pimp.

Knowing the Shadow with the Tarot and Another Great Occult Secret

It is surely common knowledge that in Jungian psychology there is an idea of the shadow, defined either as parts of ourselves that the conscious isn't aware of, or else possibly the entirety of the subconscious.

We get hints of it when reflected by other people - the classic one is when someone tells you that you do something and it is complete news to you. I must probably stress caution here because of course the reflections we get from other people are influenced by their perception.

In one of my many previous jobs every year you were given feedback. This took the entire team being given the opportunity to say whatever they liked about you and it was then given to you completely unfiltered. I must say that as a tool for personal and professional development it was completely useless. If you have any self-awareness at all, there will be no surprises, and if you lack self awareness it will come as such a shock it will also be useless. The team lead in particular spent a fortnight crying in a corner.

A means of divination such as tarot can give us a privileged insight into what is going on for other people and also into stuff we ourselves may not be aware of. An exercise I like to do is go through the deck and see which cards either repulse me or that I find it difficult to connect with, and it's fairly likely my shadow will be in there somewhere. I'm delighted to announce that I seem to be making some progress because the cards I find difficult are not the same as they were some years ago. I do, however, have an ongoing problem with the 6 of cups, sometimes called the 4711 card because it brings up grandma's scent. My own upbringing means that I tend to interpret it in a twisted way.

I have recently come across a tarot writer who blew me away by saying that our perception is influenced by evolution and survival. I have never taken to the idea that everything is illusion but this is an idea I like a lot. I'm just not naming the writer now because he credits someone else with the idea and of course I can't find it in the book. He says that if we saw the whole of tarot we would die. Like the face of G*d although of course we witches say that that's just like seeing the face of the milkman.

Speaking of change and perception, the great occult secret I'm going to let out of the bag today is that progress in magical traditions is almost invariably accompanied by a load of shit happening to you. I mean, you only have to look back through this blog. The reason for that is that unfinished business from previous incarnations and this one gets corrected as you go on. Yes I know this is no comfort at all, I just put it out there to indicate that if anyone claims magic can get you three homes, four lovers and a string of cars, and never experience any problems, they really don't know what they're talking about. For those you need the prosperity gospel, not us, and the fact that we witches think every day should be a celebration and there is no need to make things difficult, doesn't stop Life happening!

Why I can't write a Book about Witchcraft

Try as I might. I have started so often, then either find that what I have written either seems to vanish as I write it, or I find someone else has already written the book I am setting out to write. For this reason I have tended to find the episodic writing of a blog suits the subject matter better, and while writing things down has the same effect of making them vanish for me, the blog allows themes or patterns in my thinking to appear.

I used to think it was almost the fault of the subject matter. I didn't want to write a 'do this, say that, whack that' beginners guide but wanted to write a book about what was behind the beginner's guides. This is of course impossible, because these things are intangible. I would liken the layers behind what we see to a dynamic in psychotherapy - you can't see it but you can definitely feel it. And it is essentially these dynamics that all magical traditions work with.

Even in the real world of management, there are recognised things called intangible assets - for example the loyalty returning customers have to a company. You can't necessarily measure the loyalty, you can only measure the return and the reasons for it.

It is also not surprising that other people should helpfully keep writing the book I mean to. There isn't a tangible history of witchcraft succession, but we sure as hell know each other and walk the same paths without necessarily visibly meeting. And of course there is the tradition that witches keep meeting, so it's no surprise we should cover the same ground. We are, after all the ultimate intangible tradition.

I have also noticed that published authors who write more than one book either publish the same stuff rehashed or else publish different stuff as their own interest and journey moves on. Exactly the experience I have that I write something down and it's no longer my current focus.

I don't think you'll be seeing an actual book by the Hound at this rate...