Farzaneh has an imagination, which directs his hero towards a variety of young women encountered during a year in downtown Vancouver, where “all types of girls can be found on the street”. At the end of the novel, in conversation with a waitress, he confesses “I like insecure, moody, promiscuous ice princesses who like to… Continue reading Love Affairs
Author: Vincent
Glad
My life has changed so radically in the last 7 days that I don't know what to say. Unless I write, knowing I'll reach a handful of readers, I won't have access to my true thoughts and feelings. Strange perhaps, but it's been this way for a long time. In ordinary consciousness, this radical change… Continue reading Glad
Brexit dream 4
I was going to call this “The Vision of Perfection”, I’ll try and explain later. But then I jotted down the outline of a confused dream I’d just woken from. An interpretation slowly took form. To dream it at all seemed exhausting. There was a great deal of fruitless effort was being made, seven nights… Continue reading Brexit Dream 4
The Free Soul
I've written several times about spiritual writings from the thirteenth century: Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe. Each risked being fingered by the Inquisition as a heretic, and took steps to demonstrate orthodox obedience to the powerful Catholic Church. Marguerite Porete stands out from the others and is the most interesting by far. Almost… Continue reading The Free Soul
The Book of Margery Kempe
Margery Kempe was a bloody-minded woman, living in a time when England was still Catholic. Bishops, priests and friars held worldly and spiritual power. bloody-minded: Chiefly Brit. Perverse, contrary; cantankerous; stubbornly intransigent or obstructive. Cf. bloody adj. OED She came from the provinces, had no education and bore 14 children to a husband socially beneath… Continue reading The Book of Margery Kempe
Angels, Chaos, Truth
The last two pieces posted here have left important questions unanswered: What can we really know? What kind of consequences may follow inaccurate assumptions? Do we have any chance of explaining the unexplained, and should we even bother? Is there a wisdom we can call upon, or allow to reach us, which we can use… Continue reading Angels, Chaos, Truth
What looks after us
Posted on Jan 4th , ’21 by Vincent I’ve been wanting to write about the role of angels in my life. Like most words in any language, it’s loaded with baggage going back millennia. Let’s strip off that heavy weight of meanings, leave it in a heap and walk lightly away. I want to go… Continue reading What looks after us
Girl with a Pearl Earring
From Bryan White I just finished reading Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. A few posts back, when Vincent said that he was "inspired" by books that he was waiting to get in the mail, I was in a similar situation at the time with this book. It was sitting on my bookshelf,… Continue reading Girl with a Pearl Earring
Art as Generosity
Art is a way of giving to the world what one holds most precious John Sebastian Bach had good reason to be grumpy. There was scant appreciation for his enormous efforts. He didn't get paid for writing music. In those days there was a system of patronage. He'd be engaged by a city council or… Continue reading Art as Generosity
Wittgenstein on imagination
And if that thing itself ends up being disappointing? All the more reason to try to return to the thing as you were imaging it beforehand. Obviously a space exists for it, the space that the thing you wanted to find defaulted on occupying. From Philosophical Investigations: “If I say I did not dream last… Continue reading Wittgenstein on imagination
Jordan Peterson & Susan Blackmore
following on and in response to Bryan's piece "Something Meaningful". Here are some notes I wrote while watching this debate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syP-OtdCIho “Peterson is a hard man to categorize” – he frowns at the very idea! “The new atheists have a problem with establishing an ethic” “Measuring well-being” – right Harris & meditation (Blackmore does it… Continue reading Jordan Peterson & Susan Blackmore
Bless my soul
Bless My Soul I know why the blackbird sings his strange and mournful song on a summer’s night ’n’ I know why the spirit brings us back into this world until we get it right ’n’ I’m on a roll and I begin to see the light bless my soul I’ve been around so many… Continue reading Bless my soul
The late V S Naipaul
The other day I briefly published a piece on the late V S Naipaul. It was a synopsis of a lecture he gave in 1990, which he called “Our Universal Civilization”(1). After 24 hours, with vague misgivings, I took it down again.(2) It was fun to revive an old skill, the one they used to… Continue reading The late V S Naipaul
The Wretched
© Anup Roy 2018, edited by Vincent. The story was originally drafted in December 2008, inspiring my piece "Ghetu Files a New Story". I started an edit in Jan ’09. It didn't get very far, but Ghetu provided some edits of his own, amounting to a partial rewrite. We didn't pick it up again till… Continue reading The Wretched
About the Magdalene
Click for Wikipedia article Obtainable from Amazon etc. but beware: the alleged Kindle version is a different translation that might not contain the above chapter.
Baby Days
This post is an appendix to "Life Story Part 2". Click to view full-size. Note father's name given as J J Mulder Click to view full-size. "Harold" is my unacknowledged father. Both grandmothers are entered, one as "Harold's mother", living nearby in Perth, the other as "Grannie", living in England. Peggy was my mother's sister,… Continue reading Baby Days
Life-story part 2
I looked again at this post today, it's not good enough, nobody will follow its intricacies, & nobody but I will care. Will try to make it more readable. Consider it as under refurbishment. "My father died in the war," I used to say, "so I never met him." It wasn't true but I wasn't… Continue reading Life-story part 2
Life-story, part 1
I want to tell the story of my entire life up to the present: the bare-bones series of events, with no fanciful embroidery. Let it be like a series of chess moves without the expert commentary. Let it be like a dispassionate ship's log. Let the facts tell their own story. As far as possible,… Continue reading Life-story, part 1
There and back
We had a ten-day window free, so we seized it, took a plane to Jamaica. It was partly a surprise visit to see Karleen's granddaughter on her 21st birthday; but also to catch up with many old friends. It was too long since we'd last seen that extraordinary island, Karleen's home for more than fifty… Continue reading There and back
Sail Away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCRGrnhdNQE I can’t remember the train of thought, or musical musing, which led me from Laurie Anderson to Randy Newman. It may have gone in the other direction. I ordered “Sail Away” on the 10th of Jan., then posted the piece about Laurie (O Superman) 2 days later. They patently have much in common, being… Continue reading Sail Away
O Superman
O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad. O Superman. O judge. O Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad. Hi. I'm not home right now. But if you want to leave a message, just start talking at the sound of the tone. Hello? This is your Mother. Are you there? Are you… Continue reading O Superman
Rooted here
I've never been constrained by any sense of what this site is supposed to be about. It's always arisen from the urge to write a post, in the context of this moment in space and time. The topics have been innumerable, but after all these years I've realized there's no need to index them, when… Continue reading Rooted here
Jotted psalm
We cannot own love, only glimpse, feel it touch us, pass through, dwell in us. We are more or less feeble receivers, picking up signals from an unnown transmitter. Science is a petty thing before love, for it wants to know, grasp, possess, dismantle to fragments harness, claim, proclaim. Yet science is a thing: wonderful,… Continue reading Jotted psalm
“outnumbered by blessings”
It was one of those "whisperings" that I get occasionally when the conscious mind is quiescent. The brain can do funny things. Shostakovich had a fragment of shrapnel lodged in his, left over from WWII. When he held his head at a certain angle he heard music. All he had to do was write it… Continue reading “outnumbered by blessings”
When the Past Haunts the Night
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night ... I find myself surprised to discover that the boarding school* I was so glad to leave in 1954 is actually still open for business, run by the same headmaster and his… Continue reading When the Past Haunts the Night
Remembrance
We just got back from the Remembrance Day Parade in town. There was a biting wind. In previous years we've attended the church service, but today it was enough to watch the march-past, the saluting of and by the senior officers; to see the Mayor, aldermen, bigwigs, old soldiers and uniformed youth. We were dressed… Continue reading Remembrance
Desborough Road
No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in the morning.* “Desborough Road has, in recent times, become a mythical place to me. Though often empty of humans, its pavements are occasionally trodden by those who realize that walking is the only way to know the world; and by those… Continue reading Desborough Road
An Air for Cello and Soprano
Öffne dich, mein ganzes Herze Open up, my whole heart Click here to open the sound file in a new tab From J. S. Bach, Cantata for the first Sunday in Advent, Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland (BWV61). John Eliot Gardner with the English Baroque Soloists at St Maria im Kapital, Köln, December 3rd, 2000.… Continue reading An Air for Cello and Soprano
BWV 140, a Church Cantata of J.S. Bach
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Awake, calls the voice to us) Ton Koopman’s version, with lovely trills and such expressive faces on the video. Koopman is a Dutch conductor, organist and harpsichordist. Like John Eliot Gardner, he completed a project to perform all the sacred cantatas, I can't remember how many there are. I… Continue reading BWV 140, a Church Cantata of J.S. Bach
How we got here, where we go next
I had pretty much done with A Wayfarer’s Notes, actually, didn’t feel loyalty to it any more, only a certain nostalgia, as when you pass a house where you once lived. You see it now owned by someone else, and realize that the fabric of the building, the bricks and mortar, are not what made… Continue reading How we got here, where we go next
There’s a Grand Scheme of Things
Is there a grand scheme of things? Yes, this is something I do believe. As to what it is, I cannot directly say: only circumstantially, in reference to what we can see with our own eyes. As I said in my last, politics and public discourse are toxic these days. After hearing what passes as… Continue reading There’s a Grand Scheme of Things
The Idea of Perfection
Perfection certainly doesn’t exist in the seen world. I conclude it must lie in the beholder's eye*. To see only perfection is surely a knack worth having. How we use words is our own business, for such is language; and how they help us understand one another is a great wonder. For some, perfection is… Continue reading The Idea of Perfection
Friendly White Sheep
Karleen & I were crossing this meadow on Christmas day, it being a mild winter and the grass still growing enough to be cropped by a flock of sheep. They mostly minded their own business and kept at a distance, except for this one. We thought at first she wanted something from us, perhaps some… Continue reading Friendly White Sheep
Friendly black sheep
Loving What Is
I came to know about Byron Katie through her husband Stephen Mitchell whom I encountered through his translations of Gilgamesh and the Tao Te Ching. Her work, as expressed in books, videos, website and notably workshops staged in many countries, fits easily into the “self-help” genre, especially that aspect which focuses on human relationships and… Continue reading Loving What Is
English literature’s first terrorist
From the Introduction to John Carey's new book: Honour and empire, with revenge enlarged, By conquering this new world, compels me now To do what else though damned I should abhor. (Paradise Lost, Book 4: 390-92) “This is a terrorist’s logic, and the Satan of Paradise Lost is English literature’s first terrorist. Terrorism—the destruction of… Continue reading English literature’s first terrorist
How to quell terrorists
Disclaimer: Vincent does not know how to quell terrorists, religious or Communist, and has no opinion on any methods for doing so, past, present or future. My title is deliberately provocative and refers to methods used in 1954 in Malaya. When Burr Deming, in "Fair and Unbalanced" (see Pingback at bottom of comments below), says… Continue reading How to quell terrorists
Travelling on Foot
A Wayfarer’s Notes has changed its motto again. Farewell “not-doing”; back to Werner Herzog and his dictum: “The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.” To be sure what he means, I check context. Patrick House: You once walked from Munich to Paris to visit your dying friend, and in your film “Wheel… Continue reading Travelling on Foot
Clouds and simple things . . .
I like clouds, trees and grass. They help reconnect with my primitive self, which has no care for fashion, technology or politics. So we went to Saunderton Lee, where I photographed flat-bottomed clouds, the sort you get on a day of sunshine and rain, and which first struck me as worthy of note one August… Continue reading Clouds and simple things . . .
Julian of Norwich
. . . all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. The Web is riddled with orphaned "quotes": mangled versions of what someone—the author or one of his characters—may or may not have said. We use them for our own purposes, with no regard for the… Continue reading Julian of Norwich
“There is No Other Doer but He”
As journals, blogs are like life: open-ended. You finish one piece, you've no idea what the next will say, or whether there'll be a next one. After ending my last with a quote from Julian of Norwich, to round the thing off as I thought, I never expected to encounter her again so soon. A… Continue reading “There is No Other Doer but He”
Watching the English
Like Paul on the road to Damascus, I know exactly when my eyes were opened. It was Monday April 3rd, on a trip to town for two significant appointments. One was to see my specialist nurse, to arrange details for my stay at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. It didn't happen then. The other was to collect… Continue reading Watching the English
Tethered to a Robo-goat
It's not curtains for me yet, much as I admire the views they bear of Chiltern scenes, as I saw again on my latest visit to Stoke Mandeville, which lasted two nights. I'll pull back the screen to show what happened. Let my goat be called Chemo. I was fed intravenously from her high-dangling udders,… Continue reading Tethered to a Robo-goat
Eleventh Child
I woke in the night after a dream, went downstairs to jot it down in the great leatherbound book from Margaret in Canada; then went back to bed and slept again. On awakening once more in the morning, I jotted down another dream. I tried to polish up the drafts into something coherent, but it… Continue reading Eleventh Child
The Exchange of Gifts
As Dr Johnson put it:Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. Even a personal health scare, when you don’t really know what’s going on, does concentrate the mind to an extent, till you decide that it’s going to be all right… Continue reading The Exchange of Gifts
Owen Glendower
Written in 2002 for La Lettre Powsienne, a periodical edited by Jacqueline Pletier I don’t know of any novel to compare it with, unless you feel able to imagine that Sir Walter Scott, whom Powys admired, had like Coleridge experimented with drugs and rewritten his Quentin Durward under the influence of peyote or LSD, and… Continue reading Owen Glendower
Everything fits together
Things fit together, said I. That’s what they are supposed to do, said K. If only we have faith, said I—in the right things, of course. We were having our morning tea in bed while doing the cryptic crossword, where things always fit together, if you puzzle over them enough. The clues fit the answers… Continue reading Everything fits together
John o’Saturn meets women from Earth
Written in 2002 for La Lettre Powysienne, a periodical edited by Jacquelline Peltier How many autobiographies have been written in which the author fails to mention his own mother? One at least: and in this instance he goes further and omits from his narrative any reference to his five sisters and two wives. If I… Continue reading John o’Saturn meets women from Earth
The Towers of Cybele
Here's another essay written for Jacqueline Peltier's Lettre Powysienne, a little magazine in two languages for a list of subscribers. On her website you can only find her French translation, but I've fortunately kept the English original, written in 2005. When I mentioned "Amazon" in my first paragraph, she asked me to explain what it… Continue reading The Towers of Cybele
Peg, a minor character
In the last couple of days I've been horrified to discover myself becoming a hapless patient, lacking the means or strength to act in the world and thus demonstrate personhood, that prerequisite for the continued will to live. It was like being a ghost. It did not even occur to me to pray or give… Continue reading Peg, a minor character
Kindness (audio podcast)
click to to access the podcast transcript … I don’t know why, but the pain and the weariness started first thing Sunday morning, February 5th and here it is today, on the 23rd. I don’t even know what. At first, when I was told it was diverticulitis, I took the antibiotic and thought it was… Continue reading Kindness (audio podcast)
“All actual life is encounter”
We went to the Island for a long weekend with a couple of friends, staying at Mimosa Lodge, where I took a photo at dawn across the Solent from our bedroom window. Outside it was chilly and neither of us got to take photos, especially as we were acting as guides to our friends, to… Continue reading “All actual life is encounter”
The gift of literacy
When she was ten days old, Karleen was placed in the care of her grandparents, leaving her mother free to come to England, get properly settled, then call for her daughter to join her. But when she began to talk, her great-grandmother took her and brought her home to the country parish of Westmoreland, where… Continue reading The gift of literacy
Taking the Bull by the Horns
From Friday’s Daily Telegraph. The last of the aurochs died in Poland, in 1627 I’m writing this post in pen and ink† while my computer’s still at the mender’s, being restored from the wrecking job I did on its data. An ignorant computer user could never have ruined it so thoroughly, but I’ve proved the… Continue reading Taking the Bull by the Horns
Eternal Echoes
From John o’Donohue: A house can become a little self-enclosed world. Sheltered there, we learn to forget the wild, magnificent universe in which we live. When we domesticate our minds and hearts, we reduce our lives. We disinherit ourselves as children of the universe. Almost without knowing it, we slip inside ready-made roles and routines… Continue reading Eternal Echoes
Who am I?
Based on jotted ideas recorded while out walking on a winter's day December 20th, 2016 I've been thinking all week about hate, without feeling any hate myself. And also about slogans—how they brainwash us, not into believing what they want us to believe, but by reducing the subtlety of our ideas, preventing us from listening… Continue reading Who am I?
Talking the Walk
Transcribed from an ad-hoc recording made on December 14th between 12:30 and 13:50, while walking the above route. To hear the audio please click here. It will be played in a new window. There are problems with politics [referring to words rather than deeds]: when it’s diminished to binary options, with clichés replacing awareness when… Continue reading Talking the Walk
Eye-Witness
There’s a particular spot in town where I’ve seen a few distressing incidents. I don’t why they happen there, at the entrance to a large supermarket. Usually it’s some altercation, even a clan feud with vicious words and gestures that might detonate a fight at any moment. Sometimes there’s bitterness and tears between a man… Continue reading Eye-Witness
The girl who torpedoed the Government
We met on a summer afternoon in ’59, two 17-year-olds, Pisces born within days of each other. We discovered we had much in common. Both from fatherless backgrounds, lacking any proper home. Each had been granted a single talent, you might say, in compensation for the lack. As her father-figure Stephen Ward said, she had… Continue reading The girl who torpedoed the Government
Pastures New
I posted this when I decided to transfer from Blogger to WordPress on 15th November 2015
Reminiscences of a Highland Parish
By definition the past is lost. We can’t live there any more; only in memory, imagination and books. To my simple mind, a progressive is one who’s excited by plans for the future, whereas a conservative takes inspiration from aspects of the past. In my own case, I concur with Robbie Burns that the best-laid… Continue reading Reminiscences of a Highland Parish
The legend of honey
We find ourselves drawn to joy, truth, harmony, security, beauty, thrills, fulfilment, meaning, ecstasy. We don’t want to be stuck in some pointless, shitty situation. Such is our yearning for the pure wild honey of imagination, that we’re willing to risk being stung as we trace the sweet comb to some nest high up in… Continue reading The legend of honey
University dreams
Continued from "How I came to inhabit this body". I’d been accepted for some Civil Service or academic post, it wasn’t clear which or what. A colleague from a different department invited me for a chat, a sort of all-day induction. He was such good company that I felt guilty to be getting paid for… Continue reading University dreams
The Sellout
The last time I read a Booker Prize-winning novel was when Midnight’s Children came out in paperback. It wasn’t the best reading fun—or the most edifying, come to that. This time it’s happened by accident, when I heard the author interviewed on Radio 4. If this is the man, I thought, I may like his… Continue reading The Sellout
Words and pictures
In my last I mentioned “a post in preparation, called ‘Just Words’, but it may take several days, or forever.” All very well but there is real life to be lived, can’t leave this hanging & festering like a debt with mounting interest due. “Just words” has been consigned to the great junkyard of unwritten… Continue reading Words and pictures
Just pix
Four Weddings and a Funeral
We managed to make it to his last show yesterday, but not to any of his weddings. That’s him on the left when he came to ours. We didn’t know him well but his acts of kindness were unforgettable. Often it’s the way of things that you don’t find out what a person is till… Continue reading Four Weddings and a Funeral
Via Ledborough Road
After the questionnaire, and further Skype-messaging with the lad (a good way to preserve the minutes of our meetings), it was time to meet Karleen for lunch in the pub. As usual on a Friday, I took along the 2-wheel trolley (“cart” in American). Karleen had already paid for our breadfruit, mangoes, yams & plantains… Continue reading Via Ledborough Road
Around the neighbourhood
I thought I might have nothing to say today, but I managed to get out and take some photos of neighbouring streets in this part of the valley. The people in the Council Offices call it the “Heritage Factory District”. I call it home. It pleases them to put protection orders on derelict buildings simply… Continue reading Around the neighbourhood
finnegans wake on the desborough road
with the sun shines on all of desborough road you could say heaven smiles the chillier the climate the more i like the sun on my back if i were in jamaica or malaysia now the sun could be cruel only the shade would be merciful so why do the english like jamaica for its… Continue reading finnegans wake on the desborough road
Lysistrata
Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman’s extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace—a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between… Continue reading Lysistrata
Theology of the Body
It’s a month since I wrote Living in a Body. I’ve been wrestling with a sequel ever since. One was briefly published, and Bryan added some cogent comments, but it was no good, for myriad reasons. Let this post dispose of the matter, the better to move on. As for Not-Doing, whereby, according to Lao-Tzu,… Continue reading Theology of the Body
Passion and Society
The present train of thought started 54 years ago with a red book. Technically it was shoplifting but I thought of it as using the campus bookshop as a lending library. In mitigation of the offence, I returned it stealthily to the original shelf ten days later. That was the hard part, very scary. I’ve… Continue reading Passion and Society
Black Books
In reality I don’t have a front garden, just a concreted area big enough to hold four bins, for the separated recyclables, and a few plant pots. It also serves to provide a seven-foot gap between our front door and the sidewalk. There’s no separation from our neighbours’ concreted front area, and their front door… Continue reading Black Books
If I had stayed in Cowes
We took a short day-trip to The Island. I went to live there aged 12 and left at 18, so it speaks to me in tones of a golden hue, of all that I did there—and didn’t. Especially in Cowes, East and West, where I lived first. It remains much as it was sixty years… Continue reading If I had stayed in Cowes
Living in a body
In my last I described how a stranger’s eyes met mine in the street. I imagined that his glance said “My soul soars, but I’m stuck in this body.” I don’t claim the power to discern a person’s thought from his silent face. More likely, the thought had lain dormant in me for a while,… Continue reading Living in a body
Figures in a landscape
I was walking along the Ledborough Road this morning, past the little shops and into town. You see every kind of person, it seems, from anywhere on earth. Something struck me about one man, the way he glanced at me as I passed. It seemed to say “My soul soars, but here I am stuck… Continue reading Figures in a landscape
Grace & Effort
I ended my last with this: “All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” When I try I usually fail at first, then again & again. I don’t like to give up. It’s a compulsion. I was going to write in praise of failure—clearly an… Continue reading Grace & Effort
Brexit dream 2
Yesterday I succumbed to a feeling of exhaustion, after the strain of the last few days, which got to me in spite of trying to detach from it, for I knew that the situation was not mine to untangle. So after breakfast I went back to bed and succumbed to a blessed emptiness. After a… Continue reading Brexit dream 2
A Manhattan Odyssey
Battery Park, Lower Manhattan, c. 1929 [Written on July 16th, 2016. See also the version published on Amazon.com, which includes a review of an earlier version published here on September 6th, 2013.] A reader of this blog has published a novel. I promised to submit a review for Amazon and then spent weeks agonizing about… Continue reading A Manhattan Odyssey
Beggars and Choosers
I tend to put my trust in the reality I see with my own eyes. . . . Here we have immigrants of every kind, including the odd terrorist, as we know from rare arrests on behalf of the security services. Is there much prejudice in our community? Yes of course, as much as anywhere,… Continue reading Beggars and Choosers
The Cycle of Imperfection
For months I’ve been working—which means mainly procrastinating—on a new book. Instead of me boring you with an essay on its structure, you can download a sample. Initially I titled it A Cycle of Days, reflecting the way that it reflects the changing months and seasons across the years. It’s been quite a slog. I… Continue reading The Cycle of Imperfection
Brexit dream 3
I dreamt about Clive again, along with two other friends. We’ve been on a trip to Brussels (as I did with school friends in ’58): the headquarters of the European Union. Now it’s time to go back. Our Metro train has just arrived at Brussels Midi, the terminus for the Eurostar train to London. You… Continue reading Brexit dream 3
. . . Until the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse land at Heathrow
I listened this morning to Peter Hennessy being interviewed by Paddy O’Connell on Radio 4’s “Broadcasting House” (starts at 54:11). His views on the impact of Brexit largely match my own. It took an hour or so to transcribe, but has saved the much greater effort of trying to cover similar ground in my own… Continue reading . . . Until the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse land at Heathrow