Enough.

WHAT on earth is happening in Gloucester? Who ever thought that which they have done to one of England's finest cathedrals is even remotely acceptable? They have put hideous solar panels all across one side of the nave's roof, they have built atrocious vomit yellow wooden things for a quire and a communion stand. Why cannot these people do things properly? Do they not look around at the architecture they have inherited and think, perhaps we ought to be in keeping? Ely has a similarly stark piece of timber. Salisbury Cathedral, my favourite building, is ruined with ugly interior lighting and museum furniture, to the point that I never will go there or I will make myself ill with disappointment. Winchester may have the longest medieval nave in the world but its beauty is spat upon by televisions set up along its pillars. The vast majority of the cathedrals all have sterile, clinical, hard, cold, metallic, vomit yellow, Ikea, seats in the nave, utterly ruining the aesthetics of each building. They also have spent very large sums on glass installations: glass doors, glass exhibits, glass money boxes. Do they wonder why some people are reluctant to donate to them when they see the money spent on solar panels, disco lights, and glass doors? It is unacceptable, it is odious. If the cathedrals of England want to turn themselves into modern disgraces, into tourist attractions solely, if they want to depart from all the artistic vision around them, on their heads be it. I am finished with them.

   Other blots on the Rembrandts include: - ugly modern altar frontal cloths; - ugly modern vestments to match; - bowdlerised and diluted prayer books and Bible translations; - excessive informal showmanship; - montone and uninspired reading, as though instead of reading the Holy Gospel they were reading notes at a commitee meeting; - excessively enthusiastic reading, as though they were second-rate actors in a musical hall, regard Olivier; - post-twentieth-century pronunciation of Latin, 'Hosanna in exchelsis', Matron please; - sermons about the priests' secular interests and political opinions; - prayers for the priests' favourite political parties, organisations, and social groups, not for God; - garish new stained glass windows in the Picasso style, utterly out of keeping; - reading the Lord's Prayer so quickly it seems almost as though it were an annoyance to read it at all, when those words should be savoured utterly as the only words any Christian needs in this life. I will not cease from mental fight. I would happily pay money for the church not to do these things. How refreshing would it be to walk into these portals for once and see them as they ought to be! Places of God! Places of worship! The cathedrals need funding of course, and they receive funding, from people who love them and wish their legacies to continue. They do not receive funding so that this should be done to them. Nobody pays for betrayal.

   Peterborough Cathedral and St. Albans Cathedral have pretty good wooden chairs with armrests, and if they could employ a carpenter to varnish them into a dark wood so much the better. Carlisle Cathedral has good basket weave cushioning on their seats. All of this pinewood is bad for the soul, how many quires do you see made of light wood? Ill fitting, ill keeping. Newcastle cathedral sold its beautiful dark wooden pews a few years ago, the barbarians. I recognise the desire for mobility, it is they who do not recognise symmetry. Canterbury Cathedral has very good seats in the crypt, although they creaked something chronic last I went to a service there. I think they were replaced of late. As long as they replace these blasted stacking chairs with something which might at least have looked reasonably suitable five hundred years ago, such as the wooden chairs with armrests, and as long as everything were dark wood, I should be satisfied.

   The reason why I so detest electric lighting in churches and cathedrals is of course obvious. The artists who designed these buildings were indeed artists and therefore accounted for daylight, night, and candlelight, in all their designs. A crypt is dark for a reason and stained glass windows are positioned for a purpose. The magic of a church is that one may step into it and step into the 19th, the 18th, the 17th, the 15th, the 13th, 11th, or 8th, centuries. This effect is destroyed by modern electric lighting. The best electric lighting is that which simulates candlelight in candelabras, but nothing can truly replace the flickering flame, the moving shadows it casts, and the shapes to which it dances in the cold or warm night's air. Nowadays a vast array of human occupations has been replaced, and I will venture to say ill replaced, by technology. The surveillance camera is one. It is true the surveillance camera does not require a personal salary or pension, and that it can be useful in guarding things, yet it cannot prevent any wrongdoing but can only detect and perhaps furnish its later punishment. This is no replacement for the worthy and liveried guard who, with bristly beard and hanging watchchain, inspired security in the hearts of all who saw him, who by his mere presence deterred nine-tenths of all rogues in their roguery, and by his timely interventions prevented the last tenth in all their acts of daring. The same holds true for electric lighting in churches, they have docked worthy old fellows of their lamplighting duties, and this is not to the general good. For though it is a convenience not to have candlelight, it is subtraction of romance and even of religion. The Lord is not trapped in argon and contained by glass. Last of all, I mention the beaming coloured lights now much employed at cathedrals but borrowed from many a disco and rock concert. I am not impervious to the bewitchment of colourful lights, but in this case they diminish the effect of artistry and do not increase it. It is more difficult to see the sculpture and carving of such wonderful architecture when it is covered by a blue or purple blanket of light, which is actually projected onto the often white stone so that it is bounced directly back into the eye.