Spirit of Place: A Moat in Birmingham?

Many of the bus routes from the south of the city decant on Moat Lane by St Martin's church, the perfect stop if you're going to the various markets. The name may seem strange, since Brum isn't the obvious place to find a moat, but of course it refers to the moat of the original manor house of the de Bermingham family, & true to form this has provided me with one of those little puzzles which then fall together nicely.

I love the modern slang use of manor to indicate your patch or area where you hold authority, a use it is given by both police & criminals, & ironically very close to the original meaning of the word. The site of the manor is variously given as on the current wholesale markets site or the Moat Lane car park site. The first picture shows the manor with its moat on the 1731 map of the city (assuming the pictures come out in order). The strange thing was that I couldn't find a picture of the manor anywhere online, & eventually found one in the book referenced below.

The manor was demolished & the moat filled in in 1815, & the then Smithfield market was built on the site. The succeeding pictures are two views of Moat Lane looking increasingly recognisable as today's view, & of a commemorative plaque on the previous fish market. Next comes a scanned newspaper cutting of the cleared site in 1973, in preparation for the building of the wholesale market. I have read that stones were removed from the site to Weoley Castle, which were thought either to be from the manor itself or the retaining wall of the moat, but no archaeological investigation was done. Finally, a picture of the market presently on the site, itself mooted for redevelopment in the near future.

(Picture credits: http://mydigbeth.co.uk/historic-digbeth/

http://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=27596

Simon Buteux: Beneath the Bull Ring. Brewin Books, Studley, 2003.)

The Books in my Bathroom

I have recently finished decorating my bathroom. It is now fit to be seen in public, and the completion of a little plumbing that needed doing has meant I have been able to replace the shelf you see in the picture, and thus have somewhere to put the books that are on it. For some weeks they have been in a heap in my wardrobe. Yes, I know it's such a bloke thing to read on the loo; although I get the impression that women do as well, they just won't admit it and certainly wouldn't go as far as keeping books in the bathroom. This post was actually prompted by a recent Tumblr thing of people posting ten books which had stayed with them, and this is the Hound's version – you will notice the complete absence of classics.

In my own case, the bathroom is more or less the only place I read nowadays. I was a very bookish child, and up to about five years ago I was a voracious reader – until I sold them or gave them away, realising that I will never read to the extent I used to, my house was full of shelves of books. The event that stopped me five years ago was that I was diagnosed with glaucoma – probably misdiagnosed in reality, since my present diagnosis is ocular hypertension. I will be on medication for this for the rest of my life, but when first diagnosed I was on latanoprost drops, which both damaged the surface of my eye, and so irritated my eyes that I was dying most days to tear my eyes out of my head. The movement left to right necessitated by reading was particularly painful, and so I rather got out of reading. Fortunately I was able to move on to another long-term interest, cult TV shows, a witchly example for me of adapting to circumstances and making life liveable. These circumstances combined with my problem with depression and accompanying problems with concentration, mean I have read very few books in those years. Certainly not novels – find I can no longer keep on with them, although in the past few years I have re-read novels by Margery Allingham, Edmund Crispin, Jasper Fforde, and Terry Pratchett, when the mood has taken me.

These also tend to be in electronic form by and large, so that my one remaining bookcase is mostly populated by box sets of DVDs these days. The books I keep are usually books which are of some personal significance. I have a number of what I would consider the better books about magic, which would be expensive to buy again or difficult to find in libraries. These are mainly ones which have been personally influential to me: Laurie Cabot's Power of the Witch, which was the first book I read in my first foray into practical witchcraft; Phyllis Curott's Witch Crafting, Kaldera and Schwartzstein's Urban Primitive, Budapest's Holy Book of Women's Mysteries. I also keep some of the magical classics at hand for reference: Crowley's Magick, Regardie's The Golden Dawn, Aradia, and so on.

I have chosen to depict the books in the bathroom because they are books I dip into, or (I will admit it) books I either really want to read or about subjects I want to get my head round. Leaving these books by the bedside simply does not make me pick them up and read them. I will just enlarge upon a view of them.

Beneath the Bull Ring is a fairly academic tome about excavations of three sites during the redevelopment of the Bull Ring. In my impatient way I am tending to fast forward to the conclusions in each section, but this book is a major reminder that I am living a stone's throw from the site of the manor of the de Bermingham family (covered now by the wholesale market). Some of their tombs remain in St Martin's, should you want to see them. I have discovered that the clue to approaching history for me is to get the feel of it – I am approaching this book as a series of snapshots of different times in the city's history, so that I can walk around the city getting the feeling of those times and visualising what the city would have been like then.

The Palmistry Bible is there because I'm going to learn the theory of palmistry if it kills me, but I'm having real difficulties getting it to stick. This has been very much my experience when I have tried to learn Greek, that it just doesn't take. Latin is always like coming home, as is the theory of the tarot. Hmmm… I wonder what this says about me.

The rest are mainly 'light' books, perfect to dip into on the loo, but there is also Heavy Words Lightly Thrown, about the real meaning of many nursery rhymes, and the book you can't quite see is a book of old photographs of Digbeth, Highgate, and Deritend.

The book called Apartheid – The Lighter Side, was a supposedly funny book published about apartheid in the 1980s. Nowadays the only things which make you laugh are how truly ridiculous the example adduced therein (see, I've read books) really are. It gives the example of a woman who was legally three different ethnic groups in a year, the wonderful one of a bus where the seats were divided differently according to which part of the route it was on and the conductor had to change the apartheid signs accordingly, and the twenty page South African Railways instructions for making a sandwich.

Spirit of Place: Another altered sign & 'Rentboys' Corner'

I was ashamed, after my last post on altered street names, to find on Flickr that another street name, which is both near two of the previous ones & near my broom parking, is fairly routinely altered. I'm also ashamed to say I've never seen it altered to Bent St, & in fact made a point of wandering up & down it today, only to find all the signs say Kent St. I particularly like the older-style one, with another little sign added underneath for the addition of a new-fangled postcode.

Kent St is probably best known for being the site of the original municipal baths - I mean of the sort where you would actually go for a bath & would take your washing there too. In more recent days it forms part of the gay 'village', although I would venture to comment that the alteration doesn't compare to (C)anal St in Manchester.

It has also been host to the famous (at least in gay circles) Rentboys' Corner, which the internet has sadly left abandoned. That said, imagine my joy, when looking online for reminiscences of the corner, to find the escort whose picture adorns this post. It was taken in the courtyard of the building I live in!

Update 21/2/23 Very very gratified that some twat has flagged this post to Blogger as containing adult content. 

(Image credit: https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/ell-r-brown/6929454479/in/search_QM_q_IS_kent+street+birmingham_AND_ss_IS_2_AND_prefs_photos_IS_1_AND_mt_IS_all_AND_w_IS_all and https://mobile.sleepyboy.com/uk/midlands/gay-escort/Jamie20)

Keith Haring's Once Upon A Time

Some readers may remember a UK poster shop called Athena. To anyone around in the 80s & early 90s it was enormously formative on our visual taste, including many of its works being considered quite controversial at the time. This was merely the preamble to my comment here, that heterocentric norms predominated then, as now. Keith Haring was one of the artists I remember as emblematic of 1980s art, but it is only now I have discovered his gorgeous mural in the gents' at the New York LGBT Centre. I certainly didn't realize he died of AIDS complications, I didn't even realize he was gay! This is art, kids, but not as the establishment would have it. It both comes from another place & takes us there.
'Haring's diagnosis was never a secret; it was public knowledge and an accepted part of his persona in the media. Those publicly shared thoughts were reflected, often with more depth, in his work. Despite all the fear that led up to diagnosis, in some ways Haring found his impending death liberating. It pushed him to produce more work as quickly as possible. In a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Haring stated, "That's the point that I am at now, not knowing where it stops but knowing how important it is to do it now. The whole thing is getting more articulate. In a way it's really liberating."^[16] Critics have recognized this about Haring's works – particularly his later works – as well. "Haring's way of living life – liberated and with death in mind at a young age – allowed him to pull himself away from his diagnosis," Blinderman writes. "A year after his original diagnosis he was producing radiant paintings of birth and life." The introduction to the compilation of Haring's journals sings the same song: "Haring accepts his death. For in his art he found the key to transform desire, the force that killed him, into a flowering elegance that will live beyond his time."' Source

Avoiding Routine

Throughout the experiences which have left me where I am now, I have always accepted the need for routine and discipline. This is a major theme in 'spiritual' traditions of all sorts, and now strikes me as being unbelievably dreary. It is also one which has somehow made its way into the modern witchcraft and pagan milieu. So many of the books advise one to develop a daily practice, one which will become routine by means of discipline. Do the majority of people stick to their spiritual disciplines? No, they don't. In fact people don't stick to 'spiritual' disciplines to such an extent that some religions actually cultivate a sort of elite of spiritual practitioners, whose expertise is assured by their disciplined sticking to their routines. Sometimes this is even called a 'rule of life'. It is not for nothing that the concept of asceticism was born in a Greek gym, and also not for nothing that Christian monasticism arose after the state sanctioning of the religion, prior to which a career in the church had been a simple question of martyrdom.

But here's the contradiction in this: ascetics of all religions will say that they have to belong to these structures of discipline because they couldn't do it on their own. And this is also where my major problem with this starts, that it brings in a question of authority and motivation. At its lowest level discipline implies some sort of authoritative imposition of rules by another: do this because I say so. This takes us straight back to school. On a more exalted level it implies discipline by means of self-imposed commitment to a course of action, which may be helped by other people or by whatever motivation we have.

There is an undercurrent running through the whole history of the modern witchcraft movement, of turning things on their heads. The example I like is undressing for church, for example. So in line with this tradition, what happens if we turn the concept of 'spiritual discipline' on its head? I think we end up with 'embodied inspiration'. When I look at the experiences which have been most formative to me as a witch, I find that not one of them has been planned. They have all been accidental, often hateful. No amount of ritual, routine, discipline, could have made me a witch. I'm really exploring my way towards a concept here, but I would therefore like to think that (this will sound rather Zen) if I just Be, everything that I need can be found in the Hedge. I wouldn't want this to sound too passive, so perhaps I'd better include ideas of exploration and response to life event.

I suppose the key word is embodiment. I don't want to live in a world from which divinity is absent. In fact I believe that I am my Goddess's priest, and hands in this world. It would therefore be a slap in the face to Goddess to make out that my witchcraft can only be accomplished by my own discipline, routine, ascesis, whatever.

That said, if I had to talk about disciplines for the witch, I would have to talk about values. Dealing with integrity. Being prepared to be surprised at all times. Being open to whatever I find in my Hedge. I'll grant you that these things would require a certain clarity of mind, but I would rather go for a walk and see what happens than get into a ritual. If I'm finding my head a bit crowded I will meditate for a while, but even then that can often take place on a bus or in a crowd.

But the greatest discipline, given the tradition of turning normal society on its head, would be the avoidance of routines and rituals. I merely throw this out there – if getting into routines is a 'spiritual' discipline, then a major 'unspiritual' discipline would be the avoidance of those routines as limiting and closing up the opportunities the universe has for me.

Spirit of Place: Altered Street Names

The Hedge is a pervading theme of this blog, & thus also of my witchcraft & life. By it I mean the particular setting of the witch - I suppose it needn't be a geographical location, it could be a time or group, for example - which both forms her & is worked on by her in a spirit of reciprocity.

These spirit of place posts tend to refer to a particular spirit of a particular place. In this case, while there are things which seem to be unique to the Birmingham spirit (for example elsewhere a suburb of a city will usually be homogeneous, while in Brum often one end reclines in the lap of luxury & the other rots in squalor) this one surely isn't unique.

It's just that these three examples tickle the Hound no end. I was delighted to pass along Fore St recently & discover the council have given up on the battle & replaced the sign with one where the words are closer together so that there isn't room to write 'skin' in between.

I've never seen the Rea St sign with additions, which indicates the battle of cleaning up after the vandals persists, as it does with Inge St. The only trouble is - you've guessed it - these three streets are now permanently their alternative names to my mind!

(Image sources: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tonyworrall/2952923152/ and http://flickr.com/groups/545366@n20/pool)

Charlatans Revisited

I have posted here before, in general terms, about fake magical practitioners, and the differences with real magical practitioners. I was delighted recently to find a perfect example of a fake magical practitioner's advertisement, which I shall comment on below. If you click on the source link, you will find it was actually posted in the form of a comment on someone else's blog. Please take note at this point that any such comments posted to this blog will only be published for the purpose of tearing apart any fraudulent claims made!

'My mouth is short of words, i am so so happy because Dr.Aluta has healed me from HIV ailment which i have been suffering from the past 8 years now, Well my main reason why i am writing this right now is to inform the whole world about the great deeds, i know that there are lot of scammers on the internet who claim to be who they never be, if you are reading this you will know that there is different between me giving this testimony from other testimony. I was diagnosed of this deadly disease HIV/AID VIRUS in the year 2008 ever since then i was taking my medications which cost me a lot , until i meet this great spell caster though i never believed in spell. I saw many testimonies on how a great spell caster cured their deadly diseases I contacted him through his email address He gave me a form to fill I filled it and send it back to him. He told me that his god's required some items in which he will use in casting a curing spell on me and also sending me some of the herbal medication he had prepared. I don't know where to find the items he required He told me that the only alternative is for of to send him the money then he can help me to purchase the items from the items sellers in his country. i never wanted to send money but i decided to give it a try if he surely help me I promised myself to do anything to get cured. I sent him the money He bought the items and caste a curing spell on me he even sent me some herbal medication to take for 1 week which i did and this really work out for me. other fake spell caster who give rubbish testimony will claim to cure aids for just two days which are all lies it never done so at least you also take herbal to make sure that it kill off the virus finally. Two weeks later he asked me to go for check-up when i did the check-up i was tested HIV Negative. If you passing through hardship and you need a way out kindly contact him this is real and i never stop sharing this to the entire world. via his email on [email removed because I will not give this dangerous idiot free advertising].' (Source)

There are a number of points which spring to the eye in this collection of lies, from which may be extrapolated characteristics of many or even all fraudulent magical practitioners:

1. It pretends to be written by a grateful patient of the practitioner.

2. The fake magical practitioner calls himself 'Dr', a title calculated to inspire confidence in the public for the practitioner's knowledge and probity. I don't think for an instant that he will be a medical doctor or hold a PhD from any university which actually exists.

3. The commenter claims to be different from all the scammers out there on the internet: this alone may take in the desperate and gullible, since it is so easy to forget that on the internet it is very easy to appear to be something you are not.

4. The commenter identifies a perceived shortcoming in conventional medical treatment of HIV – medication is expensive, particularly to the poor and in so-called developing countries, that it is expensive. Of course it is expensive.

5. The commenter claims not to have believed in spells until she met this great spell caster. There are a couple of problems here, empirically speaking. One is that the 'doctor' plainly does not have sensible knowledge of how to treat HIV, nor is he a reputable member of the medical or scientific community, because in reality he would have published his research to enable peer review which would actually have strengthened his discovery. Secondly, the commenter makes the doctor the necessary focus of magical power. That is rubbish. Real magic never takes power away from one, it empowers one to make changes one needs.

6. The fake magical practitioner then resorts to the oldest trick of making out that certain things are necessary for this magic. Firstly you will note that they are not named here, which means that the only way to get this particular knowledge is to contact the fraudulent doctor. Secondly, even though the commenter was told what was needed, the ingredients were unobtainable except if purchased from the quack magician. No sum of money is mentioned, but it is contradictory to comment that conventional medication for HIV is expensive while you have to buy something from the mountebank sorcerer to get it cured. I'll bet it won't be cheap. I have a feeling that his gods have very expensive tastes.

These people are scum. I don't say that lightly, and regular readers will understand that if the Hound actually starts calling you scum publicly it's time to get worried, because they're pretend magicians and I'm the real thing. They are making money out of some of the most vulnerable people in the world, those worried because they have a life-threatening illness and that is worrying enough on its own without having the worry of whether you can afford medication for it.

Here's the thing. For a start HIV is a rogue virus, and there are cases medically documented of people who have repeatedly tested positive, suddenly testing negative for no apparent reason. That is a rogue aspect of this disease, and the hope that was engendered a few years ago by newspaper reports of one of these cases further demonstrates how people will do literally anything to be cured of it. So just for the record, here is this witch's recipe for treating HIV. Since the whole point of witchcraft is that we use all the available sources of information, there is no ground in ignoring the conventional medical approach. None. You will die. If your will is to live as long and healthy a life as possible with HIV, the first thing to do is to engage with conventional medicine to the best of your abilities or finances. Turn up for your appointments and blood tests, and take the medication. Let me say the last three words again. Take. The. Medication. That is the only thing that will optimise your chances of a long life. Secondly a full and frank inventory of your lifestyle is necessary, since any chronic disease is helped by a healthy lifestyle. Stop smoking. Drink in moderation. Eat sensibly. Exercise sensibly. Use a condom for sex. This is real witchcraft. How can this possibly be witchcraft? Because it puts the power and tools in your hands to make what you want of your life without making any unrealistic promises of extraordinary miracles. Once you do this, it makes it easier to continue to make changes, and all of a sudden funny things start happening in your life. And my advice is free. There isn't an alternative unfortunately to conventional medicine and I can't really shy away from the fact that it is expensive and not available to everyone. But you would probably seriously be better avoiding these quacks completely and taking the advice of a proper doctor, if you cannot afford ongoing consistent treatment, as to how best to proceed.

In tandem with this quack practitioner I am delighted to add an account of another fraud, who has fortunately got caught out by the law. How this MP's blog post give me joy (and incidentally is the source of the cartoon which illustrates this post):

'The Champagne corks were popping today at the Guardian.

An attempt to silence them and their ace journalist Ben Goldacre has collapsed. In his Bad Science column Ben exposed the claims of a Vitamin Aids 'cure' peddled in South Africa.

'Matthias Rath, the vitamin campaigner was accused of endangering thousands of lives in South Africa by promoting his pills while denouncing conventional medicines as toxic and dangerous. He has now dropped a year-long libel action against the Guardian and been ordered to pay costs.

I hope the costs are enormous. Rath is not the first to try to use his wealth to silence the truth. Rath's campaign almost certainly led to the deaths of those who abandoned retro-virals in exchange for his vitamin pills. While there is well-founded cynicism about the exaggerated claims of the Pharmaceutical industry, it does not mean that quack medicines are acceptable alternatives.

'I had a constituent who refused to take the conventional treatment for a potentially fatal illness. She sought alternative treatment. I urged her to use both. She refused. She died within six months. Another woman in my constituency who was in identical circumstances took the conventional therapies and is alive and well now, ten years later.

'Whether out of ignorance or cynical malice, many lesser newspapers than the Guardian encourage the use of alternative medicines at the expense of treatments that are scientifically tested. One of the worst cases was the MMR Daily Mail hoax that cut the take-up of the triple vaccine to dangerous levels.

'The Dr Rath Foundation focuses its promotional activities on eight countries - the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, France and Russia - claiming that his micronutrient products will cure not just Aids, but cancer, heart disease, strokes and other illnesses. The group is reputed to have made millions from their vitamin pills. He is now concentrating on Russia.

Congratulations Ben and the Guardian. This is journalism at its courageous best. Not only did they expose these dangerous falsehoods but they also risked crippling financial losses by standing up to richly endowed lawyers out to gag them. MPs face the same threats. Sadly we are not always well resourced enough to withstand the threat of bankruptcy.

'Quack medicines are sweeping Europe especially in the science free nutritional field. This may well be an issue that the Council of Europe should adopt on Europe wide scale.' (Source)