Time flies when I’m sitting at the PC. Time passes slowly when I am in a waiting room. Time goes in a flash, sometimes, but drags at others. Everyone knows this and relates to it.
But we assume it’s just a perception, and not literal. Why? Suppose it’s real? It seems real enough to all of us, and happens consistently, and to everyone, so what’s the definition of reality that excludes such a consistently real event?
I don’t sit at the PC and suddenly find myself 10 feet to the left of where I was when I started – but I do find that an hour appears to have passed when I only experienced a few minutes. I wasn’t travelling near the speed of light...
Suppose there is a second time dimension, orthogonal to the one we’re familiar with – the usual one that is part of the 4D physical space-time world. Suppose we are travelling along both time axes, so making an analogy to a 2D X/Y frame, we are travelling along a gradient with respect to both time axes – i.e. a component of our personal time is along both. Now suppose increased brain activity affects our direction of travel and moves us closer to the normal time dimension, then the component of our personal time in that axis increases – the projected component is greater. The effect then is that ‘normal’ time appears to have passed much faster...
Or maybe time doesn’t exist at all? It’s just a perception?
Saturday 24 September 2011
Thursday 22 September 2011
Down The Dun Cow
I was in The Dun Cow because I hadn't gone to the monthly meeting of the cynical negativists society - why bother?
Anyway, their ping-pong table was broken...
"The geese are flying South and it's a bad summer for leeks" advised the ginger-bearded Franciscan monk in the corner, over his pint of stout and copy of The Racing Post. Inspector Birkett (master of disguises) had cunningly started using coded phrases, so we would still know it was him.
"If you ask me..." declamed Jack Hatcher, vegetarian pork butcher and latent politician, who had never actually waited for anyone to ask him anything, "...that monk looks a bit dodgy."
"I think it's Inspector Birkett..." started his wife, Blanche, timidly.
"Away, woman!" interrupted Jack. "You know your trouble, Rose? You get everything wrong!"
The new barmaid at The Dun Cow was blond and nearly six feet of violin shape, and it followed therefore that Herbert Mangle the Wallsend poet and hypothetical metrosexual, had fallen instantly in love with her.
O pass me my glass, fair amazon lass
May our love, like it, never be empty
And shine like that brass, be fine as this Bass
But...er... didn't I give you a twenty?
Sadly, not yet fully understanding English, Ulrika still gave him a completely undeserved smile, and completely deserved change from a tenner, and left him sighing into his glass. Still, as Shaw remarked, 'What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do'.
"If you ask me..." informed Jack Hatcher, "...people these days don't have enough to do, Mavis!"
Blanche didn't answer, as she was blinking demurely at Herbert Mangle, whose roving spirit (and eye) was inspirationally seeking a new folly.
Jack would have declamed to the barmaid, but she was disappearing out the back with Inspector Birkett to discuss the finer details of expired work permits.
I'd have stayed for a pint, but, you know, someone is always trying to talk to you - and you can never get served, can you? I should have gone to the cynical negativists meeting after all, but I'm always rubbish at ping-pong...
Anyway, their ping-pong table was broken...
"The geese are flying South and it's a bad summer for leeks" advised the ginger-bearded Franciscan monk in the corner, over his pint of stout and copy of The Racing Post. Inspector Birkett (master of disguises) had cunningly started using coded phrases, so we would still know it was him.
"If you ask me..." declamed Jack Hatcher, vegetarian pork butcher and latent politician, who had never actually waited for anyone to ask him anything, "...that monk looks a bit dodgy."
"I think it's Inspector Birkett..." started his wife, Blanche, timidly.
"Away, woman!" interrupted Jack. "You know your trouble, Rose? You get everything wrong!"
The new barmaid at The Dun Cow was blond and nearly six feet of violin shape, and it followed therefore that Herbert Mangle the Wallsend poet and hypothetical metrosexual, had fallen instantly in love with her.
O pass me my glass, fair amazon lass
May our love, like it, never be empty
And shine like that brass, be fine as this Bass
But...er... didn't I give you a twenty?
Sadly, not yet fully understanding English, Ulrika still gave him a completely undeserved smile, and completely deserved change from a tenner, and left him sighing into his glass. Still, as Shaw remarked, 'What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do'.
"If you ask me..." informed Jack Hatcher, "...people these days don't have enough to do, Mavis!"
Blanche didn't answer, as she was blinking demurely at Herbert Mangle, whose roving spirit (and eye) was inspirationally seeking a new folly.
Jack would have declamed to the barmaid, but she was disappearing out the back with Inspector Birkett to discuss the finer details of expired work permits.
I'd have stayed for a pint, but, you know, someone is always trying to talk to you - and you can never get served, can you? I should have gone to the cynical negativists meeting after all, but I'm always rubbish at ping-pong...
I remember
Oh – I remember
And remember and remember
You have the time, on your own
Between drinking, sleeping, and working
They each blot out some memories for a while
But then you remember –
The world in blazing colours
Being alive – and glowing
Every second slowed down – and tasted
A dimension to reality that never existed before
That coming home, end of a quest, Spencer-The-Rover-returned feeling
And you just want to forget
Because you can’t bear it to be a memory.
Oh yes -
I remember.
And remember and remember
You have the time, on your own
Between drinking, sleeping, and working
They each blot out some memories for a while
But then you remember –
The world in blazing colours
Being alive – and glowing
Every second slowed down – and tasted
A dimension to reality that never existed before
That coming home, end of a quest, Spencer-The-Rover-returned feeling
And you just want to forget
Because you can’t bear it to be a memory.
Oh yes -
I remember.
Saturday 10 September 2011
What's Up, Doc?
14th Jan 2009
“Hmmm. Let’s do some tests.”
We did blood tests, blood pressure tests, we did a chest x-ray (?), we searched on-line on ‘Puffy Feet for Dummies’... and at the end of two months the conclusion was:
“Why don’t you try sitting differently?”
Hmmm....
Recently, I had some pains in the lower abdomen/groin region, so off I went to the new quack, the old one having left, (or maybe he is just lost, endlessly cycling the M25, unable to find his exit?)
“Hmmm, well one thing it definitely is not is a hernia”, he said, after more tests.
“Let’s get the consultant to look at you, eh?”.
A month later, the consultant was too busy, so his registrar saw me.
“Hmmm, it’s definitely a hernia.”
Oh yeah?
“We’d better do some tests”.
Another month later I had an ultrasound visual examination, which was interesting. My (ahem) ‘lower abdomen’ was liberally covered in jelly and they did a live scan, watching a monitor. I fought back the overwhelming desire to ask ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ (it probably wouldn’t be the first time they’d heard that one, eh?). Nothing there.
“We’d better do a colonoscopy - and have a little look around”.
Oh good.
Another month and it was time for the camera up the bum. Now the worst thing about this, I found out, is simply the laxatives you have to take the day before - they’re the industrial strength ones... The hospital visit, however, was great. First came the cabaret. As I was scheduled to be the last to go into surgery, I watched others return, still drugged and out of it, and more accurately, listened to them return. Jings - it was like the campfire scene from Blazing Saddles, but under blanket. A ward full of farting in various keys - tenor farts, alto trills and others, more 'basso profundo', shook the beds. I had to give up pretending to read the ‘paper and just hide my head for a while...
Eventually it was my turn and I was wheeled in. I watched, fascinated, as five different injections went into my arm and was just about to ask what they all were... when I woke up back in the ward an hour later. And whatever was in them, I want more - I felt great! I was ready to leap tall buildings with a single bound! My son had, as instructed, come in to help someone who ‘may still be drugged and need assistance’. Well, the only assistance I needed was being persuaded we should take the bus to the pub rather than simply fly there... And then for a large Chinese takeaway - wonderful.
The results? Nothing there either. So, two weeks later, it was back to the consultant. As he summarised the negative results, I thought to point out that no one had checked my prostate. There was silence for a few moments.
“Oh. Didn’t we do that?”
“Er, no, actually.”
“Hmmm. Let’s just pop into the next room, shall we?”
Oh, look - it’s jelly time again...
Well, that turned out to be ok, too. And so finally:
“What now then, doc?”
“Hmmm. It’ll probably just go away - whatever it was.”
Aye. Well it was a few months ago...
And I’ll sit differently. I mean, you never know, eh? Still, I’m like a Ford with a brand new MOT now - good for at least another year. Everything still seems to work as the Intelligent Designer planned, and my blood seems to be good enough to sup with a little liver and fried onion, Clarise... Even my puffy feet sorted themselves out a while ago.
See? My quack probably knew what he was talking about after all...
Hmmm....
A Kid In Sunderland
The King’s Arms. My grandparents ran the pub after the war, so I spent much of my first few years down there. You can’t tell, can you...? It was down by the shipyards, so grandad used to pre-pour 40-50 pints at lunchtime and have them ready on the counter for the one-hour shipyard lunch-break, when the door would burst open and a torrent of boiler-suited caulkers, welders and rivet-catchers rushed in, gratefully grabbing the nearest glass. Thirsty work, shipbuilding...
I’m pleased the pub is still serving excellent beer, and another good pub in town, Fitzies, actually used to be my doctor’s surgery back then. Dr Kelly - he was a doctor figure from fiction - tall, handsome, square-jawed, tweed-jacketed - a sort of Sean Connery of a G.P. At least it hasn’t been bulldozed - and the beer is canny.
There were still bomb-sites all over the town centre. My local recreational ground - right opposite our house - had been kindly donated one night by a Mr Heinkel. Trams clattering and sparking their way over the bridge. The joys of Joseph’s Toy Shop - our mini-Hamleys. Standing outside ‘The Picture House’ cinema, next to ‘Notrianni’s Ice Cream Parlour’, and asking adults ‘Take us in, Mister?’, because the Western film was classified. Putting a penny in the machine at the North End of the station that stamped your name on a metal strip - and then getting home, looking at the strip and thinking ‘er... why did I do that, exactly?’ But you did.
The magic of helping my mum blackberry-picking up Tunstall Hill - tossing our liberated fruit into my haversack. Every kid at school had either a khaki haversack or an air force blue one - mine was the only purple one.
And Roker Park. As a young kid my aunt lived nearby and my cousin and I would sometimes have a competition to guess the correct score by counting the roars we heard from the ground. I wasn’t that interested until my teens, but I remember being impressed by the huge crowds crossing the bridge - one river below, and another one above. That wonderful noise - a clunk and a fizz - as they turned on the flood-lights for a night game. King Charlie (Charlie Hurley) was my early hero - a colossus of a centre half, far more than just a mere mortal. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him much later. He wasn’t 7-foot tall any more - he must have shrunk, somehow.
Ah - footy. What do they say? You can change your job, you can change your wife, but you can never change your club.
Why do we do it?
Wise men have said
I’ve nee bloody idea, but -
I’m Sun’land ‘til I’m dead.
Memories of Roker
Lord Rowell, Todd and Gabbers
The Roker Roar went on and on
I was bloody hoarse for hours.
Beers in The Kings Arms
More bevvies up at Fitzies
Let’s gan across the bridge, man
And have a few quick whiskies.
We’re gannin up! We’re gannin down!
Every fan across the land
Is thinking just the same as me -
‘It’s the hope that I can’t stand’ !
I’m pleased the pub is still serving excellent beer, and another good pub in town, Fitzies, actually used to be my doctor’s surgery back then. Dr Kelly - he was a doctor figure from fiction - tall, handsome, square-jawed, tweed-jacketed - a sort of Sean Connery of a G.P. At least it hasn’t been bulldozed - and the beer is canny.
There were still bomb-sites all over the town centre. My local recreational ground - right opposite our house - had been kindly donated one night by a Mr Heinkel. Trams clattering and sparking their way over the bridge. The joys of Joseph’s Toy Shop - our mini-Hamleys. Standing outside ‘The Picture House’ cinema, next to ‘Notrianni’s Ice Cream Parlour’, and asking adults ‘Take us in, Mister?’, because the Western film was classified. Putting a penny in the machine at the North End of the station that stamped your name on a metal strip - and then getting home, looking at the strip and thinking ‘er... why did I do that, exactly?’ But you did.
The magic of helping my mum blackberry-picking up Tunstall Hill - tossing our liberated fruit into my haversack. Every kid at school had either a khaki haversack or an air force blue one - mine was the only purple one.
And Roker Park. As a young kid my aunt lived nearby and my cousin and I would sometimes have a competition to guess the correct score by counting the roars we heard from the ground. I wasn’t that interested until my teens, but I remember being impressed by the huge crowds crossing the bridge - one river below, and another one above. That wonderful noise - a clunk and a fizz - as they turned on the flood-lights for a night game. King Charlie (Charlie Hurley) was my early hero - a colossus of a centre half, far more than just a mere mortal. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him much later. He wasn’t 7-foot tall any more - he must have shrunk, somehow.
Ah - footy. What do they say? You can change your job, you can change your wife, but you can never change your club.
Why do we do it?
Wise men have said
I’ve nee bloody idea, but -
I’m Sun’land ‘til I’m dead.
Memories of Roker
Lord Rowell, Todd and Gabbers
The Roker Roar went on and on
I was bloody hoarse for hours.
Beers in The Kings Arms
More bevvies up at Fitzies
Let’s gan across the bridge, man
And have a few quick whiskies.
We’re gannin up! We’re gannin down!
Every fan across the land
Is thinking just the same as me -
‘It’s the hope that I can’t stand’ !
Thursday 8 September 2011
Two wee poems
Did I dream it?
It couldn’t have been me
I was at home in bed with the flow
I never saw anything
The sun in my eyes it was so slow
I knew nothing about it
I’m young and I just didn’t glow
Sir, realism is to blame -
That Ernst now, he would know.
A Dent in Guildford
I once met a girl known as Trillion
A chance that was one in a million
Impossible reduced to improbable
At a Guildford party just horrible
Near a park with a pond with a lily on.
I was at home in bed with the flow
I never saw anything
The sun in my eyes it was so slow
I knew nothing about it
I’m young and I just didn’t glow
Sir, realism is to blame -
That Ernst now, he would know.
A Dent in Guildford
I once met a girl known as Trillion
A chance that was one in a million
Impossible reduced to improbable
At a Guildford party just horrible
Near a park with a pond with a lily on.
A Fine Day For Amnesia
It was while rubbing E45 into my shins and contemplating logical positivism that it came to me. Well, what actually came to me was that I didn’t understand logical positivism. Mind you, I was still scratching my shins too. Still, being cricket scorer gives you ample time for philosophy - and scratching.
Geordie Duncan, professional gardener and amateur psychotic, was the fast bowler for Wallsend Amnesia FC against Billingham Sinfonia FC in the local football league’s annual summer cricket and sandwich and cake-making tournament. And he didn’t like symphonies - 'however they are spelt!' - or toffs, or cucumber sandwiches.
“Well played, sir!” said the Sinfonia captain from the boundary, waving a half-eaten cucumber sandwich.
“Me pease pudding and ham sarnies are going well.” said Granny Smith proudly from the Amnesia table in the food tent.
Herbert Mangle, Wallsend poet and hypothetical vegetarian, was philosophically debating internally if he, as a hypothetical vegetarian, was really eating his third pease pudding and ham sandwich, or whether this was a sensory deception brought on by a hypothetical protein deficiency, but he was definitely sure (as he had been in love fourteen and a half times before), that he was now in love with Vera Arbuthnot, daughter of Sinfonia 's benefactor, Sir Horatio Arbuthnot, as she demurely handed out smoked salmon canapés at the Sinfonia table. And anyway, as he opined to Chas Hunkers, family butcher and declamatory pessimist: “As Shaw remarked,‘Virtue is insufficient temptation’ “.
Out on the green, Geordie Duncan was striding stiffly back to his mark, eyes bulging and knuckles cracking, as the ball was retrieved, post-six, from the long grass, while the stripey-capped Sinfonia batsmen met in the middle with a toothy laugh and a ‘yahhh!’.
“I’ve always said...” said Chas Hunkers (and he always had) “...that England will perish overnight if Brussels ever bans the British banger...”
“Has anyone seen me hearing aid?” Asked Granny Smith.
“Eh?” She added, somewhat superfluously.
Herbert Mangle had written an ode to the fragrant Vera Arbuthnot on a serviette, and slipped it to her while pretending to admire her Battenburgs:
O gorgeous Vera, my heart is slain
Geordie Duncan, professional gardener and amateur psychotic, was the fast bowler for Wallsend Amnesia FC against Billingham Sinfonia FC in the local football league’s annual summer cricket and sandwich and cake-making tournament. And he didn’t like symphonies - 'however they are spelt!' - or toffs, or cucumber sandwiches.
“Well played, sir!” said the Sinfonia captain from the boundary, waving a half-eaten cucumber sandwich.
“Me pease pudding and ham sarnies are going well.” said Granny Smith proudly from the Amnesia table in the food tent.
Herbert Mangle, Wallsend poet and hypothetical vegetarian, was philosophically debating internally if he, as a hypothetical vegetarian, was really eating his third pease pudding and ham sandwich, or whether this was a sensory deception brought on by a hypothetical protein deficiency, but he was definitely sure (as he had been in love fourteen and a half times before), that he was now in love with Vera Arbuthnot, daughter of Sinfonia 's benefactor, Sir Horatio Arbuthnot, as she demurely handed out smoked salmon canapés at the Sinfonia table. And anyway, as he opined to Chas Hunkers, family butcher and declamatory pessimist: “As Shaw remarked,‘Virtue is insufficient temptation’ “.
Out on the green, Geordie Duncan was striding stiffly back to his mark, eyes bulging and knuckles cracking, as the ball was retrieved, post-six, from the long grass, while the stripey-capped Sinfonia batsmen met in the middle with a toothy laugh and a ‘yahhh!’.
“I’ve always said...” said Chas Hunkers (and he always had) “...that England will perish overnight if Brussels ever bans the British banger...”
“Has anyone seen me hearing aid?” Asked Granny Smith.
“Eh?” She added, somewhat superfluously.
Herbert Mangle had written an ode to the fragrant Vera Arbuthnot on a serviette, and slipped it to her while pretending to admire her Battenburgs:
O gorgeous Vera, my heart is slain
Run off with me - the world we’ll scorn
We’ll catch the ten past midnight train
And be in Whitley Bay by morn...
Geordie Duncan thundered in and unleashed a beamer that was but a blur. The Sinfonia batsman did manage to raise his bat enough to get two previously quite intact fingers to change the missile’s direction, in this case towards the elbow of a half-turned PC Jack Townsend, the insecure policeman, who was umpiring at square leg in his blue serge policeman’s trousers, as he felt these might lend him extra authority in his umpiring capacity.
“Yaaah, partner!” shouted the non-striking Sinfonian, setting off for a run.
“Arrrgh! Ohhh! Oooo!” shouted the struck Sinfonian, not running at all.
“Ow, yer b****r, ow, yer b****r...!” shouted PC Jack Townsend, running at least 13 in various directions.
“It’ll all end in tears” observed Chas Hunkers. “Mark my words. It always does.”
“Shaw observed” said Herbert Mangle, “that Hegel had observed that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.”
“It’s the Worcester sauce in the pease pudding that makes the difference”, said Granny Smith, winking.
Vera Arbuthnot clearly felt that the 'sauce' in Herbert Mangle’s serviette made no difference at all to her and made no response to his poetic overture. Herbert Mangle, after a few moment’s philosophical reflection, reacted both positively and logically, and soon another serviette found its way, this time to the palm of Vera Arbuthot’s shapely helper, Juanita St.John Fortinbras.
PC Jack Townsend felt it was his painful duty to exact swift justice, so changed into his blue policeman’s tunic, (but had to swap the blue serge trousers for his cricket whites as the material was making his leg itch badly). He then confiscated the cricket ball, deeming it a ‘dangerous weapon’, thereby terminating the match. Under the modified Duckworth-Lewis-Townsend formula, Wallsend Amnesia were thus awarded the game based on runs scored divided by the number of stripes on their caps.
Granny Smith’s pease pudding and ham sandwiches also took the prize for Amnesia in the cake and sandwich contest - being fulsomely praised by Sir Hugo Arbuthnot as ‘nonpareil’.
“Eh?” said Granny Smith.
Not only did Sir Hugo behave as a good sport - even Juanita St.John Fortinbras seemed to take Granny Smith’s triumph in good heart, as she was smiling shyly and quite rosy-cheeked as she left, folding away a serviette into her purse.
Geordie Duncan finished off the remaining pork pies, raising a half-eaten one in one massive paw and waving it cheerfully at the back of the departing ambulance.
“Well” said Herbert Mangle, commendably stoic in his swift recovery from Vera Arbuthnot’s rebuff, and carefully folding up a railway timetable and slipping it into his pocket as he also got up to leave. “All in all, I think it was rather a fine day for Amnesia.”
(Inspired by, and a few bits nicked from, the stories of Leonard Barras)
A walk through Surrey woods
26 Jun 2010 at 12:24
I've been a bit lazy on my days off, so I decide to enjoy the weather and get out for a country walk. Right out of my street in Bramley and I’m straight on to a footpath. This part is the green tunnel section - a straight level footpath kindly donated by a certain Dr Beeching some decades ago and now the trees and bushes have grown up and over to form the tunnel. Dappled sunlight flickers through the greenery and it’s a peaceful start as I settle into my 2nd gear strolling pace - it’s a long walk for me, so steady does it.
Right at an old stone bridge, a crossover bridge where horses could cross to the other side of the Canal and the towpath on that side, apparently. Canals seemed to have had an incredibly short life, being replaced by railways after only a few decades. The Navy apparently wanted this one for an inland route from London to Portsmouth safe from the French fleet, but once we put the French in their place it’s fate was sealed.
Up through a country lane and across a small road. I’ve seen no one so far but now pass a man strimming grass on the corner. Safety glasses, orange helmet and orange jacket - now let down over his jeans in the heat. ‘Morning’, ‘Morning’. A little nod. We can be gently polite in the country, whereas there is no time for it in town or city. Here there is just me and orange-man - and half-a-dozen little buzzy insects.
The softness of silence in the country - it’s got a ‘˜feel’ to it somehow, yet I can’t put a finger on just what that is - enveloping, familiar and I rather like it. I’ve brought an mp3 player, but I will never use it today. You become aware of your footfalls sometimes, and I do as I plod up this little track with gently sloping open fields either side. They’re a steady plodding back-beat, with the occasional crunch as you walk through a patch of pine cones (do they fall all year round?). On top of this foot-drum are the backing vocals of Midge and The Insects, and an occasional flashy solo from a bird or two disturbed from the hedgerows - flappity-flap, flap, flap, flap, cheep, and into another bit of hedge or tree further up my path. You daft b****r - I’ll be there in another minute and then you’ll be off again! A flash of yellow on that wing - a yellow finch?
Sweat is streaming down my back now. I brought a sack so I can bring a few odds and ends like a map, a couple of apples, a cagoule - just in case, dib dib dib. The downside today is a very sweaty back. I try it on one strap, but it’s no good - it creeps forward round my arm and slowly slides off.
On towards Tangley. I love this countryside. Gently sloping fields, copses and distant hills crowned by woods, blue skies, scattered clouds, soft breeze. Somewhere over there to the left is St Martha’s Hill, and that is my first target - a little church perched on the top, on the old Pilgrim’s route across the North Downs.
Now I’m on a long drag up through Blackheath Forest, and in a while, just off to my right I detour to a small War Memorial. Just a few names inscribed here from WW1, and I wonder about its lonely location in this clearing. Then as I turn around, through a small gap-toothed opening in the trees, I get a perfectly framed view of St Martha’s church up in the distance. Maybe that’s why?
On, down through the woods, some winding country lanes, then out into the open, over the railway and main road, and I start on the climb up to the church at the top. The last few hundred yards are the hardest - it’s soft deep sand on this path, and steeper - hard going. Finally, I get to a bench up next to the church and am able to sit down and take off the boots for a while and take in the great views. I angle myself on the bench so my back only touches the bench at one side - I’m drenched and hope it might cool off a bit. Not too tired - just a bit of an ache in the groin from that last steeper stretch. The view is worth it.
After a rest and an apple, it’s a gentler walk down another side of the hill and then up a roadside path, cross over, along a little wooded stretch and then it’s out into the open, halfway up a superb large open bank-side facing South. This leads in a few minutes to Newlands Corner, just off the main road, with car parks, benches, coach trips, chips and fizzy pop... but this bit is the best, and the trippers don’t come this far around. It’s such a great view I walk to the top and at the tree line there’s a bench where I can take it in and get the map out and try to plot places I know. A small plane putters overhead. Then I too need the pop and chips, so I walk on to join the throng for lunch.
Across the busy road, then along a leafy part of The North Downs Way, then sharp right and down a steep rutted path. My ex had dodgy knees and always said it was harder to go downhill than uphill - I see what she means now - must be all the bending down at Sainsbury’s. At the bottom I reach the ‘˜Silent Pool’. Think Monet and lilies and you have the idea - a beautifully tranquil spot. Agatha Christie left her car in the nearby car park once and then disappeared for days. They dredged the Pool looking for her, but she was up in Harrogate, staying in a hotel under the name of her husband’s mistress. Not much mystery there then. Now - what was the film version with Dustin Hoffman?
Over to Albury, a few more woods, fields and a small gently bubbling ford, and then finally into pretty Shere, The White Horse pub... and cider. You can’t have a country walk without cider - it’s illegal. Shere’s often used as a film location - Bridget Jones’ dad got married over there at the church, and Jude Law had a beer here with his girlfriend in ‘˜The Holiday’. No sign of Cameron Diaz today, but the cider will do fine just now. Ah....
I think it’s the bus home...
Right at an old stone bridge, a crossover bridge where horses could cross to the other side of the Canal and the towpath on that side, apparently. Canals seemed to have had an incredibly short life, being replaced by railways after only a few decades. The Navy apparently wanted this one for an inland route from London to Portsmouth safe from the French fleet, but once we put the French in their place it’s fate was sealed.
Up through a country lane and across a small road. I’ve seen no one so far but now pass a man strimming grass on the corner. Safety glasses, orange helmet and orange jacket - now let down over his jeans in the heat. ‘Morning’, ‘Morning’. A little nod. We can be gently polite in the country, whereas there is no time for it in town or city. Here there is just me and orange-man - and half-a-dozen little buzzy insects.
The softness of silence in the country - it’s got a ‘˜feel’ to it somehow, yet I can’t put a finger on just what that is - enveloping, familiar and I rather like it. I’ve brought an mp3 player, but I will never use it today. You become aware of your footfalls sometimes, and I do as I plod up this little track with gently sloping open fields either side. They’re a steady plodding back-beat, with the occasional crunch as you walk through a patch of pine cones (do they fall all year round?). On top of this foot-drum are the backing vocals of Midge and The Insects, and an occasional flashy solo from a bird or two disturbed from the hedgerows - flappity-flap, flap, flap, flap, cheep, and into another bit of hedge or tree further up my path. You daft b****r - I’ll be there in another minute and then you’ll be off again! A flash of yellow on that wing - a yellow finch?
Sweat is streaming down my back now. I brought a sack so I can bring a few odds and ends like a map, a couple of apples, a cagoule - just in case, dib dib dib. The downside today is a very sweaty back. I try it on one strap, but it’s no good - it creeps forward round my arm and slowly slides off.
On towards Tangley. I love this countryside. Gently sloping fields, copses and distant hills crowned by woods, blue skies, scattered clouds, soft breeze. Somewhere over there to the left is St Martha’s Hill, and that is my first target - a little church perched on the top, on the old Pilgrim’s route across the North Downs.
Now I’m on a long drag up through Blackheath Forest, and in a while, just off to my right I detour to a small War Memorial. Just a few names inscribed here from WW1, and I wonder about its lonely location in this clearing. Then as I turn around, through a small gap-toothed opening in the trees, I get a perfectly framed view of St Martha’s church up in the distance. Maybe that’s why?
On, down through the woods, some winding country lanes, then out into the open, over the railway and main road, and I start on the climb up to the church at the top. The last few hundred yards are the hardest - it’s soft deep sand on this path, and steeper - hard going. Finally, I get to a bench up next to the church and am able to sit down and take off the boots for a while and take in the great views. I angle myself on the bench so my back only touches the bench at one side - I’m drenched and hope it might cool off a bit. Not too tired - just a bit of an ache in the groin from that last steeper stretch. The view is worth it.
After a rest and an apple, it’s a gentler walk down another side of the hill and then up a roadside path, cross over, along a little wooded stretch and then it’s out into the open, halfway up a superb large open bank-side facing South. This leads in a few minutes to Newlands Corner, just off the main road, with car parks, benches, coach trips, chips and fizzy pop... but this bit is the best, and the trippers don’t come this far around. It’s such a great view I walk to the top and at the tree line there’s a bench where I can take it in and get the map out and try to plot places I know. A small plane putters overhead. Then I too need the pop and chips, so I walk on to join the throng for lunch.
Across the busy road, then along a leafy part of The North Downs Way, then sharp right and down a steep rutted path. My ex had dodgy knees and always said it was harder to go downhill than uphill - I see what she means now - must be all the bending down at Sainsbury’s. At the bottom I reach the ‘˜Silent Pool’. Think Monet and lilies and you have the idea - a beautifully tranquil spot. Agatha Christie left her car in the nearby car park once and then disappeared for days. They dredged the Pool looking for her, but she was up in Harrogate, staying in a hotel under the name of her husband’s mistress. Not much mystery there then. Now - what was the film version with Dustin Hoffman?
Over to Albury, a few more woods, fields and a small gently bubbling ford, and then finally into pretty Shere, The White Horse pub... and cider. You can’t have a country walk without cider - it’s illegal. Shere’s often used as a film location - Bridget Jones’ dad got married over there at the church, and Jude Law had a beer here with his girlfriend in ‘˜The Holiday’. No sign of Cameron Diaz today, but the cider will do fine just now. Ah....
I think it’s the bus home...
Tuesday 6 September 2011
The English Revolution - Part 1
Ok – the Three Lions have to go. I mean – as Billy Bragg sings – they ‘never grew from England’s dirt’. We need something indigenous. I thought about 3 red squirrels... but you can hardly find any now. I’m from the North – let’s make it 3 whippets.
And the ‘British National Anthem’? Hell – it’s England so why are we singing a ‘British’ national anthem anyway? Is there another country in the world that does NOT have it’s own national anthem? So I’ve re-written Jerusalem (daft words, Blakey lad). Did it years ago, so that will do. You can thank me later... (...quite fancy being Poet Laureate, if you must – but of course that’s up to the full council of the revolutionary committee of the People’s Popular Liberation Front for New England...)
Now – St.George. See ‘The Three Lions’ above. He was from Lebanon, for goodness sake! What we need is an English hero. Someone who is an English legend. And there is one such man. Unique amongst all Englishmen, this man did not just live at one point in our history, but at several key points right throughout our history – he is therefore the very embodiment of English history. I give you our new patron saint – Edmund Blackadder.
And the next time our rugger lads have to face the All Black’s Haka, I want our forward line to follow up by pulling out pairs of nice white hankies and bells and terrorise them with a Morris Dance – that’ll show ‘em.
New England
And were our father’s long ago
Walking on England’s mountains seen?
And did they bravely fight and die
For England’s pleasant pastures green?
And came our friends from far and wide
To make us strong and cure our ills?
And was our nation great builded here
Among these green and pleasant hills?
England the home of Will Shakespeare
England the home of Constable
England the home of brave Churchill
England the home of Charles Darwin
They did not cease from mental fight
Nor let the time slip through their hand
And they helped build this nation great
In England’s green and pleasant land.
Let me die a springtime death
Let me die a springtime death
A lambs-gambolling, daffodils-nodding, cricket on the green sort of death
Not a bare-branched, hunched in overcoats, flecks of snow in the hair, bleak mid-winter death
May the smells be of cut grass and barbeques
And the path strewn with the fall of magnolia petals
And the sounds be of birds chatter and outside-the-pub natter
Not of slush in the gutter and the swish of the gritter...
May folk be late for my wake because of cricket practise
Or miss it to make love in fields under circling swallows
Not grimly stuck in snow, ice-crystals on windows
Let my ashes disappear in new-growing grass
Rather than lie naked on hard cold soil
Let me die a death in Spring...
...but only when I’m tired of it.
(Inspired by Roger McGough)
Sunday 4 September 2011
A foot long
Feet. Do you like yours? I have to say mine are a bit too long. They’re like those DIY limos which are ordinary cars, cut in half, and an extra straight bit welded in to lengthen them. My feet go straight in the middle – they’re a bit plate-like.
Now my ex had lovely feet, like a tricky race course - all curves and no straights – yet she hated her feet and I could never figure out just why. Mind you, she had a few peculiarities like that. For example if you touched her belly-button she would scream. She wouldn’t even clean it in the bath – there’s probably lint in there turning slowly into diamonds… And her hair! Her hair sometimes made me wonder is she was really an alien. It was the most elastic hair I have ever seen – I couldn’t resist playing with any rogue ones that feel out. You could have made an excellent catapult out of what could be garnered from her hairbrush…
Anyway – feet. The play a peculiar role. Foot-fetishism is well-documented, but why on Earth does it exist? Tits, arses… perfectly understandable… but feet? How does that work? Is it perhaps those curves? Is the curvaceous foot a subconscious stand-in for a curvaceous body? I guess that could work for a man.
But what about women? Could my long feet bring me some welcome interest, hmmm? And women love shoes – and men don’t. Could that be women transferring their re-imagined and perfected self-image on to a shiny, curvy, red sling-back?
This is quite exciting stuff. I think I’d better focus on gnarled wobbly knees for a while to calm me down.
Was it not Herbert Mangle, the great Wallsend poet and hypothetical vegetarian, who once wrote:
O how I worship your plates of meat
In sling-backs red they stride the street
Your body’s curves mirrored so neat
If you should go – could I keep your feet?
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