Heat, referees, penalties July 1, 2006

Heat, referees, penalties and portuguese have all beaten us again. I am due at a party in Brussells…hosted by the Portuguese I met at Euro 2004.

England's day arrives July 1, 2006

Kept awake by squaddies fighting amongst themselves and with the local girls from Bergen-Belsen. Visited the camp. Went swimming.

England July 3, 2006

Team England must focus – away from the media. And the girlfriends. They must become more fluid and less confrontational.

Dancing July 4, 2006

They must dance more, country dancing style with much movement and passing partners like the Mexicans and Argentinians. Both were even more unlucky than us.

Country July 7, 2006

The English photographers I have met say they have had no time between hotels and matches to see the country. We all agree this is wrong.

Kaiserslautern July 8, 2006

Kaiserslautern showed that a small city could successfully host the World Cup. Erfurt, Weimar, Jenna in the east could also have been considered. I watched Germany’s final game of the tournament there.

Dresden July 8, 2006

Whilst the World Cup has been a raving success, the old East Germany has been less involved…Dresden should have been preferred to Cologne.

Brandenburg Gate July 10, 2006

Then I saw the team feted before Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate in the sunshine, before a million people, a few hours before the Final proper.

The day after the day after July 11, 2006

In all I went to 22 matches, including the first game and the Final and all England’s games. I photographed 27 of the 32 nations in action at all 12 venues. I saw yet more games ‘live’ in the big screens that complemented the Fans Fest programme (THE great success of Germany 2006). I made two picture montages for the BBC, did a picture-essay for Four Four Two magazine, made a documentary film with a crew from Cumbria, visited Austria, France and Belgium as well as driving 7,000 miles around Germany. I visited 3 concentration camps: Belsen, Dachau and Buchenwald as well as Luchenwald prisoner-of war camp where my (R.A.F.) uncle and 150,000 other Europeans were held until war’s end. I made friends and fell in love with Germany.

The after party... July 12, 2006

Never before has there been such a party – lasting 31 days in 12 or more cities. Indeed, throughout the whole of the majority of Germany. In Kaiserlautern alone there were 5 matches staged at its stadium on the hill, each attended by a capacity 41,000. In the city there were 3 giant screens (plus supporting cast of big small screens) doubling/trebling the city’s population of 100,000. Indeed so many came to catch a whiff of Italy v USA that the streets in almost every direction were jammed with people. The city had turned itself over entirely to the World Cup for a month, and for a month the entire city and more turned out to embrace the football fever. Many had and will never have again a detailed interest in football. Still, this could be their World Cup too. Germany’s instruction to its cities and its people was clear and demanding and not just an affectation : IT’S TIME TO MAKE FRIENDS. Of course the war was within living memory; culturally Germany was still paying a price for upsetting the whole of the 20th century… and recently there were signs that its economy, the envy of the World, was being surpassed by still larger nations and those with greater imaginations. This could be the time, like no other, for Germany to feel good about itself and to be at the hub of a new world positivity. The partying would be important. The German’s ability as hosts – their welcoming smile, their police putting aside momentary intervention and irritation for the sake of the bigger picture (the party) would be all important. The efficiency (German trademarked) could kick in the morning after in the amazing clean-up operation, in the getting everything ready again for more partying and football-related fever-pitching.

The World Cup would not be here again for several generations (Germany had only just seized it from the Africans). Football’s unique language could not be spoken in quite the same way, across so much of Germany, for decades to come.

Germany had the chance to stage the World Cup – and they did not miss their goal. On the pitch they were less than brilliant. But they were SO enthusiastic. And the underdog. Which added to the fun. Helped prize open the door. Germans, as other fans, were only too keen to adorn themselves in the apparel of other nations, sometimes at a whim. In advance of or on the back of a result. Suddenly Germans were Ghanaians (Ghana excelling). Or Trinidadians – suddenly Germans understood the idea of supporting the underdog, even a no-hoper. And of course, where there is double-speak and Shakespearian dressing-up as another, there comes irony… and humour. Of course the Germans always had it, it just did not come first to mind. TV crews would rush to interview ‘typical’ fans from a certain country, when actually they were Germans, having a ball, being good hosts, simply making friends.

What does world domination football really mean? Brazil are that dominating force. Whereas on the economic front, and on most fronts, Brazil is division 2, 3, 4 or unclassified, in football they fire the imagination and bring respect to their flag and to their name. Their style is well-documented : a mixture of grace and power and cunning and daring. Football resembling ‘ good fun’ and of a certain beauty. A beauty admired by ordinary people. A beauty appealing to the most intellectual. As though the highest knowledge and feeling could be expressed at our lowest points : at our feet.

Foot-ball, the only truly world ‘game’, centered around a ball the shape of the World, simply has the power to connect, to communicate across all 500 languages/barriers. Where even there is no language. Its problems and its tactics and its regional politics can be complicated (and interesting), but more often than not it’s easy to understand and hard to ignore.

And World Cup format offers a slightly complicated group system, followed by a supremely simple knock-out stage – replete with penalties of needed. Seasoned football fans hate the penalties for deciding matches. Onlookers love them. So simple, so dramatic.

The World Cup is easiest understood looking backwards. “Oh yes, of course, they were the best” and “this is where it obviously went wrong for…” (the rest). Granted, some had bad luck. Others were caught out, shown up. Some were frazzled… the game invented in England “to warm and tire lusty peasants on cold winters afternoons” is played, at World Cup level, always in the summertime and/or the heat. Every World Cup has been a hot one, save for that in 1966 – an English summer. On tv this World Cup heat looks great. Colours are rich , clothes colourful or scant – people look tanned, the World looks healthy. At pitch level players are wilting (at the end of a long domestic season) despite their will to win. Despite their riches. Indeed, it is doubtful that how much they get paid really comes into it. There is still in the World Cup Finals theatre, before the biggest audiences ever known to man, an enobling quality.

The Italian Fiasco July 14, 2006

The Italian fiasco – found out, exposed – concerning match-fixing (it could never happen here) has relegated three of the major clubs, including Juventus, from the top tier. For me this is good fun – I can visit Italy and photograph them and their egos and their great international troupe of fans crammed into tiny stadiums in unfamiliar Italian haunts. Even if all the star players have been sold to England!

Latitude July 17, 2006

I have been to my first big Festival of the summer. A new one, inspired by “Glastonbury”, in a similarly remote place, but without the holy grail about it. Indeed without a real sense of “I simply have to be there”. But hold on, this is the debut summer for “Latitude”. Give it a chance!

The danger for the new festival, of which there are many, is that, given the high demands of being well organised, they become a bit like all-seater stadia in football… a bit too safe. Actually, I don’t think football or festivals can be “too safe” given what has happened when they were less than safe. Rather then they become super-market, “choice” festivals where although everyone is there together in effect they are each to their own really and it’s all about choice and suiting the “customer”.

Latitude, in easternmost England, in a park surrounded by woods, with a lake and rolling fields was simply superbly organised. Surely it will be back next year with a doubling of attendees. And the moving further apart of the stages so that Patti Smith and whoever don’t have to ask “what’s that racket?”.

Artistically the festival allowed me to create some new pictures to add to the “Festival” body of work I am doing. New titles include : “The two posh tarts with the paper-padded bras perfect their deckchair debacle”... “Camille on the uncut stage”... “Laura smoking instead of breakfast”...”Latitude-man under a tree asleep”... “Carling-couple in the woods”...”Boy-squirters hide beneath the A-board”...”Guitarist trying to get it on (scenes 1&2)”... “ The tent of the body of the unknown Rodeo Cowboy, or girl”... “Man alone on a bench in the Guest Arena power-naping”... “The multi-coloured sheep-of-dreams all counted and correct”.

Yes, Latitude had red, blue and yellow and green sheep grazing by the lake adorned with a thousand candle-lights.

'Frozen North July 18, 2006

The hot weather has spurred the Tarn Taggers of The Frozen North to resume swimming twice a day. Anyone who fancies joining up for life-affirming swims in Ullswater, Windermere, Grasmere, Derwent, Devoke, Tarn Hows, “The Tardis”, Coniston, Crummock , the River Eden or the Duddon Estuary etc. etc., get in touch.

Hot hot hot July 19, 2006

Today could be the hottest day ever in the history of the Lake District. Hotter than on any day when man started carving his axeheads up Langdale. Hotter than on any day when King Arthur roamed around Arthuret and the River Eden, near Carlisle. Hotter than any day when Bosnian-Croatian Roman Centurions left Hardknott Fort for the bath-house siutated outside its walls. Hotter than any day on which Wordsworth or any poet ever strolls lonely or otherwise. Hotter than any day that gave Melvyn Bragg the idea for a seduction in one of his novels set near Wigtown on the Northern fells. I’ve gone out photographing heat rising on this ‘hottest day ever’. Just an ordinary hot day, relatively unexpected and unannounced.

Hot hot hot II July 20, 2006

Hotter than any day on which any Cumbrian farmer, particularly around Esthwaite Water, drew back from his work wiping his brow with an aside to his wife bearing fruit; hotter than any day on which anyone climbed a Cumbrian mountain; or dipped in a cool tarn half-way up (and that includes Blue Tarn); hotter than on any day that I myself was with anyone; any day on which we were slumped like seals over hot rocks off the Amazons island in Coniston; hotter than any day sat on Humphrey Head watching cocklers; hotter than all of Barrow’s days when the road tar would bubble; hotter than any sun-kissed Sunday with the children at Askam sand-dunes. And in the valleys, no scaremongering fighter-jet has ever tipped its wing through hotter air; no fire-engine has ever been called out on a more blazing day; no new fangled wind-turbine blade has ever turned silently or creakingly through hotter air. And are these record temperatures for the waters? I have never swum in an Ullswater so warm and nor have you.

Like a bath July 21, 2006

The temperature in Ullswater, a big ‘cold’ Lake, was 22 degrees today. You could stay in all day. Albeit shrivelled.

Leadership lost found drowned July 22, 2006

That Blair and Bush have lost the confidence of their people, is not right. Blair has been a most capable man – not so long ago he was seemingly supreme at sorting anything, particularly the troubles of this country. There hadn’t been a proper leader for a long time. Was ever there such an able Prime Minister? Yet Cameron, with a fraction of his talents, seems to be winning the hearts of some British people. Mainly in England. Or certain parts of England. Brown however remains the only politician in the game who has a deep conviction.

Blair and Bush stand despised. Blair is not despised physically as was Margaret Thatcher – I don’t think people want to stick pins in him – they just hate what he has done. I so wanted to see him do what ‘he’ did in “Love Actually” which was to stand up to America and not go with their brand of laddishness. Iraq, where there were no weapons of mass destruction, where there was just a bully waiting to be bullied, seems to have taken him from us. Mark the spot in the desert where he drowned.

Despite the hot weather July 23, 2006

Where I live there is no shortage of water. The levels of the Lakes and the reservoirs are pretty much as per normal. Thirlmere Reservoir-Lake is about the size of a man down, if you look at the discolouring of the shoreline. Someone told me that the pipe that takes water from Thirlmere to Manchester, to feed and wash the population there, is about the size of a man – you can walk in it. Indeed they did when it was being emptied for cleaning. Does Manchester really need our Lake District water? I thought it rained enough around Manchester? The pipe is up and running again, sucking our water away.

Africa bound July 24, 2006

Of the three books I am on with, make that four if one includes “Gretna, It Could Only Happen Here”, the World Cup one is progressing the most. This is because it needs to be out first – not too long after the event.

But it is lacking something I have realised : it is lacking Africa, where the World Cup is headed next.

And with it : 1. public attention. And with it 2. the attention of politicians. And with it 3. people out to make a fast buck. And 4. people out to build an Africa fit to stage the World Cup. I will be photographing there for a month, September into October to make my World Cup book even better.

Works of arts my books July 25, 2006

With the books taking shape before me, in my garden, in Cumbria, I realise that the World Cup book, with the African bit waiting to be moulded on its front, as opposed its end, where you might have expected it (to follow on from World Cup German Summer) is by my own reckoning ‘a work of art’. But not an obscure one. One you can really get into. And I know why : it starts with a look at where football has got to and suggests there is a kind of homecoming with the WORLD Cup being staged in (South) Africa, since it was in Africa’s Rift Valley that man got up and walked. The following subsection of the African introduction shows how football clubs are faring south of the African Equator : are they producing the players of the future – players who will get up and walk into clubs all around the World just as the Brazilian are doing . I have called this section Rift Valley Wanderers Rule Ok? (After a project me and some fellow artists thought about but scrapped some 10 years before.)

The Cumbrian book, the first of my People Versus Place portraits, is not far behind. It’s possibly more complex, but living amongst it – being in Cumbria more days than not – I feel it is more organic than anything I could possibly do.

The Festival book is good, if not great, but perhaps suffers from my thinking it can almost write itself. Given the glamorous nature of the pictures : sum-sum sum-sum summertime.

People have asked how my Environmental Nudes series fits into any of this?, I have not yet fully decided. I just know it is the right thing to do.

Environmental nude series July 26, 2006

The first successful series “Saint Maria” was taken in Portugal. A country which is suffering from fires every summer. The planes come and scoop the sea water and drop it on Monchique and even parts of the North in attempts to dampen it down. The country, along with parts of Spain, is in danger of becoming an extended part of the Sahara desert which fears not the Mediterranean Sea.

In translation July 27, 2006

Lydia from Dresden has been with us this week to turn the World Cup book into a German version.

The start of the football season. World version. July 28, 2006

Following on the World Cup, I will not only be looking out for how all manner of teams are doing in England, plus Gretna in Scotland, I will be interested in the Italian league given the relegation and ‘promotion’ again of several top teams. COME ON JUVE, avoid the drop a further time!! In France I will be looking to see if Metz can bounce back – and what about Clermont in the lower divisions?!

Following a great time in Kaiserslautern I will be seeing if they can remain ‘great’ in the German second division and not shrivel up inside their cauldron of a stadium. And I will be supporting neighbours Pirmasens too since they were so nice to me.

In Spain I will be rooting for Basque teams Real Sociedad of San Sebastian who hung on to the top League (just) and Alaves who did not. In Mexico I will be rooting for UAG of Gudalajara and, something of a desert team Monacas of Morelia. No one team catches my fancy in Portugal.

Then there is Trinidad & Tobago. And the womens League of nearby Dominica. The list is endless. What a world of football !!

Love affair with Germany July 29, 2006

(My) love affair with all things German, continues. Even withstanding the departure of our fabulous German translator Lydia Richter. If I was to return to Germany now, post World Cup, would I be disappointed that the magic and much of the goodwill has now gone? I wonder.

Northern Ireland here I come July 30, 2006

Derry City of Londonderry , have knocked out Gothenburg in the UEFA Cup. Which means they now play ‘my’ team Gretna in the next round. It means a return for me to this fabulous, vibrant, tragic city where I was in October last.

Keep them out July 31, 2006

The sheep keep getting in my garden. I may have to erect a wall, or fence, or barricade to keep them out. They should not be here. Don’t they know that?

It can never happen Aug. 1, 2006

They said it could never happen. The Lake District run dry. Without rain for more than 3 weeks, becks and streams have almost lost their source. Some houses and pubs, fed only by natural streams, are running out of water. Baths are out of the question.