Out and about – around the Abbey reservoir

It beggars belief, but yesterday’s domestic news was dominated by our recently ousted PM’s unsubtly trailed and somewhat premature angling for a comeback. In her forty-day tenure – the shortest serving PM in history – she crashed the markets, wiped billions off investments, stunted the growth of defined benefit pensions for millions of workers, and ruined the UK’s reputation for sound financial governance. But, she writes, it was not her fault. She was badly advised. And worse, there are those within the now bitter dregs of her party who think she’s right. My heart sinks, says the leader of the opposition. Mine too, mate.

Then, political journalist, Andrew Marr, now released from the constraints of corporate news media, has been more frank and informative in his analysis of world events of late. Rumours of an early end to the war in Ukraine are premature, he says – though I must admit I had not heard any such rumours – and we should be prepared for it to go on for another five or ten years. This will cast a dark shadow over European – indeed world – affairs throughout the 20’s. But the UK is particularly exposed, it being now the worst performing of the western nations, including Russia, with stagnant growth and levels of entrenched inequality that are quite staggering. You are better off being poor virtually anywhere else in the world, than in the UK. We must expect energy and food prices to remain high, for a long time.

All of this paints a bleak picture, one that is in contrast to the positive vibes of the morning, with clear skies and the frost still lying across the meadows. We leave the car on Dole Lane at Abbey Village, and walk down to the Hare and Hounds, then strike out along the right of way whose signage does its best to say it is not a right of way, but access only to a private residence. But a right of way it is, and has been forever, so off we go.

Just a short walk today, more of a dog waking circuit for Abbey residents, and incomers like me, around the lower reservoirs, and the Roddlesworth plantations. We have no dog, but there is no shortage of yappy canine accompaniment, and our trousers are soon muddied by an over-friendly, jumpy creature, who gets a telling off by a scold-faced woman. I am ready to wave away her apology, but do not get one. Most people we meet are open and friendly, but we tend only to mark the ones who are not.

We’re planning a bigger walk in the Forest of Bowland for later in the week, when the weather is looking iffy, but today, being such a good day, it was a pity to waste it indoors, so here we are, but not wanting to wear our legs out for the upcoming epic. We have time to linger over familiar ways, to take photographs, and to ponder world affairs. As we move from winter’s dark into the first hints of post Imbolc light, and the snowdrops begin to show, there is the feeling of a weight lifted, of an optimism returning. The media, however, have other ideas and would sooner scotch all hope before it has the chance to bud.

I have the long lens today, not the obvious choice for woodland photography, but I’m looking for details in isolation with blurry backgrounds. The obvious targets are the lone juvenile copper birches, holding onto their leaves, and rising into shafts of sunlight against a backdrop of fuzzed out darker woodland. I’ve a feeling it’s a cliché, but I’m not selling photographs, so it doesn’t matter. There’s something in them that’s worth a moment of contemplation, anyway. The branches have poise, like a dancer, expressive of,… well,… something.

The big international news of course is this devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria. Over 5000 souls are known to be lost, so far. It’s an unimaginable and sudden tragedy that puts our European troubles into perspective. It’s also worth remembering, however, that a study by the University of Glasgow concludes we lost 335,000 souls, across the home nations, between 2012 and 2019, due to poverty alone, as caused by political austerity a fact the media seems curiously reticent about. But to dwell on these things, says our redoubtable chancellor, is to talk Britain down.

On the middle reservoir, the fly-fishermen have pulled their boats in for the winter, so the cormorants are perched instead on the mooring buoys. Patient birds, they share the character of vultures in their Victorian funeral feathers. We are also befriended by a robin which hops onto a post within arm’s reach, and eyes us cheekily. He bobs about there for ages, so enchanting we forget about the camera, and as soon as we do remember it and try to get focus, he’s gone.

Then we meet a bunch of guys we used to work with, the entire department actually, all retired, but still keeping in touch and meeting up for regular walks. It was a tonic to see them looking so hale and hearty. The chancellor scowls and tells us we are part of the problem, we, the early retired, and economically inactive, and should get back to work, along with the sick and disabled, fill in all those vacancies left by our European friends who went home post BREXIT. But the taxman still collects his dues from us, which is more than can be said for certain members of the cabinet. He will have a tough job coaxing us back into the office, should we even be wanted, which I am sure by now we are not.

We have in common our freedom from the constraints of those things we cannot alter, like the clocking machine for a start, and the daily deluge of bullshit emails. We have the freedom to focus on those things that are within our remit: to stay at home and write, do a bit of DIY, tidy the garden, come out for a walk, explore an unfamiliar part of the country, choose which lens to bring with the camera. These are small things for sure, but important all the same, if not as things in themselves, then as vehicles for exploring the deeper self. But even granted such freedom, we risk ignoring it, to go fretting instead over those things we cannot change, like what further madness the chancellor and his swivel eyed colleagues might be planning next. How about scrapping all environmental, food, employment and animal welfare standards? And making it illegal to go on strike.

I have begun a new story, about a man living alone on a remote Scottish island. He finds a humanoid robot of the type they are now developing, and hyping to a ridiculous extent, washed up on the beach. I take all the frankly improbable tech utopian projections, and bestow them in spades upon my fictional bot. It wakes up and proves itself both intelligent and an astonishingly capable companion, as well as gorgeously female in appearance. In what ways does it alter the man’s outlook on his own life?

Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic, but even as a romantic with an increasingly non-dualist perspective, I hesitate to make fun of it. It is a thing to be reckoned with and, if the impact of the Internet is anything to go by, it will render the near future unrecognisable, and in ways that are not predictable and not entirely benign either. Again, this is something we have no control over, but at least as a writer I can explore it, whilst being careful not to be too shrill in its condemnation, or as its advocate. We’re up to three chapters and the ideas are still coming, but we’ll say no more in case I jinx it.

Anyway, just two and a half miles today in frosty sunshine, then a pleasant drive back over the moors. At home, we clean and waterproof the boots for Bowland. I read on a blog recently of a method of spiritual and philosophical reflection, where we cast our minds back over the week, and ask what lessons we learned, something our former PM would do well to dwell upon. I’m not sure if I’ve heard this before – I think I might have – but it’s not something I do by habit, and it’s early in the week yet, so I hesitate to jump to conclusions.

We’ll see come Friday.

Thanks for listening

https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/53.6950/-2.5344&layers=C

Read Full Post »

Many a true word

The day begins with a scam text message purporting to be from the courier, Evri. It wants us to “Click here” to re-arrange delivery. I’ve not ordered anything. The sender intends emptying my bank account. I wonder how many poor souls have fallen for it, and thereby helped swell the coffers of an organised criminality the world seems unable to outwit. I wonder how they came by my number, since I am ever so careful with it. We block the sender for all the good it will do us, and, while we have the phone in our hands, we turn to the news.

In the UK, right leaning ministers of state are spurring hot-heads to violence with intemperate language. Internationally, the UN reports the last eight years were the hottest in recorded history, and that limiting global temperatures to what is calculated to be a relatively safe 1.5 degrees is now a forlorn hope with, thus far, no realistic plans in place, anywhere. In America, Trump looks set to begin a return to the presidency, following the mid-term elections, while various armed MAGA hatted militias are discussing outrages which threaten civil war. Back in the UK again, the pollster, Sir John Curtice, reports significant buyers’ remorse over BREXIT, with a 15% lead among the public for those in favour of now re-joining the EU, but the political debate has closed on that one, BREXIT being the one thing no one talks about. All this and we have only scrolled half way. What other grumblies await us down there? Shall we doom-scroll some more, and see? No, that’s quite enough.

We set the phone aside, rise into the cold of the house, make coffee and check on the washing machine.

Current affairs hold a significant fascination, dare I say even an addiction. We imagine, by keeping ourselves informed of the various goings-on, we gain a greater understanding of the world, that it is a virtuous thing to do, the mark of an intelligent, well-balanced and educated person. At least that is what I was encouraged to think at college, forty years ago. Now I’m not so sure. The media landscape has something of the nature of quicksand about it. Perhaps it always had, and I am simply less sure-footed than I was, for I suspect the older one gets, the more it seems the world is going to hell in a handcart. Things no longer conform to one’s personal expectations, and perhaps, too, one’s expectations begin to narrow, thus alienating us from life still further, whatever our disposition. And we find in media whatever data we need to support our personal hell in a hand-cart hypotheses.

There are plenty of things in life we should be wary of – alcohol and other drugs are the obvious ones, but also this connection to fast-food and short sell-by media. They each poison us, make us less useful as the eyes and ears, and the heart and soul of the universe. Our phones suck us down into a sorry world that is void of imagination, and creativity. They land us among the sterile refuse of data, where we become much less than our selves, as the spark of individual value drains from us. Then we merely subordinate our selves to a tribe who holds certain data to be sacrosanct, other data to be heretical, and thereby we become mere unreflective data-points ourselves, so we might be served more of the same unwholesome junk.

So now, the washing machine has finished its cycle. There are clothes to dry, and the maiden is still full from last week. Things dry slowly these colder, autumn days, and it serves to remind us there are only certain kinds of data that are unequivocal. Your clothes are still wet, or they are dry. Other data requires nuance. It requires a more right brained, wholistic approach in order to separate the wheat from the chaff. Anyway, after sorting that one out, we take up our coffee, pick up the phone once more, note that in the meantime there has been a glitch. The phone has rebooted itself, and come back with a curious error message in which, with brutal honesty and admirable self-flagellation, it tells me it is corrupt, and cannot be trusted.

Many a true word and all that.

Read Full Post »

The sutra of the king’s return

The abbot gathered the order in the meditation hall, brothers Angus and Benjamin among them, and bade them sit. Then he spoke of hard times ahead. This was nothing new, thought Angus. There had been nothing but hard times for decades, that indeed the hard times were the main reason he had turned to the monastery, for peace of mind, in the first place. But even now, after many years, he was finding peace of mind still hard to come by.

Then the abbot spoke of the recently deposed king. He reminded the monks of how the king’s misconduct, over many years, had been the cause of his eventual removal by exasperated ministers, and how the king, following his disgrace, had been cast into exile. In his place, there had been appointed a princess, a choice many had thought ill-advised, on account of her having kept company with forces believed to be allied with the barons.

Now, the barons had long ago accomplished the impoverishment and defenestration of the serfs, Angus among them, and had begun to turn their attention towards the merchants. But the barons had acted in ignorance of the full power of the merchants, who had caused a revolt, which had threatened to bankrupt the entire kingdom. In renewed desperation, and with great effort, the ministers had persuaded the princess to surrender the crown, so the merchants might be placated.

Although cloistered, Angus was only too well aware of the turbulence beyond the monastery walls. Indeed, he was ever hungry for rumours, which he picked up from the lay-brothers, who had greater contact with the outside world. What puzzled Angus now, though, was what any of this had to do with them, since the monasteries had no power, and no influence over events.

The abbot went on: so great had the chaos been in the halls of the palace, the ministers had looked about in vain for someone else among the royal line who might now take up the crown. But then some ministers had begun to look back fondly upon the days of misrule by the king, for even though his behaviour had been disgraceful, and dragged the name of the kingdom into disrepute, reducing it even to a laughing-stock among its neighbours, he had been careful never to upset the merchants. And sensing now the ambivalence of the ministers, the king, had begun petitioning for the restoration of his crown, which he saw as his by right.

Thus, the kingdom was suddenly agog with rumour that the old rogue might actually return. Now, this was news to Angus, and he sat forward, listening ever more intently. Could it be true? What would the abbot have to say about it? Opinion in the land was polarised between those aghast, and those who were delighted, for it was said the king possessed a powerful charm, gifted to him by the Goddess of Misrule, and to which only the most settled, and clear of mind were immune.

Of course, some ministers looked less forgivingly upon those days of misrule, and were inclined to dismiss the king’s ambitions as beyond the pale. But already the criers, and jesters, who had themselves called for the removal of the king only months before, and had sung in praise of the princess’s accession, were even now preparing the way for the king’s return with sweet songs, sung in the town squares, throughout the kingdom. And even among the defenestrated serfs, there were murmurs of assent.

Being themselves of the most settled and clear of mind, the monks listened to all of this news, impassively, for theirs was not the world of the town squares, or the serfs, or the merchants, or the barons, or the ministers. As for the criers, and the jesters, their duplicitous songs were transparent to anyone who was not tone-deaf. As for what the monks’ response should be to all of this, the abbot smiled mysteriously, and suggested they would do well to meditate upon it.

But this failed to quell the anxiety in Angus’ breast, and he turned briefly to Benjamin, a more experienced monk, for reassurance, only to see him tip back his head and let out a silent laugh, before nodding in approval at the abbot’s wisdom. With that, the monks were dismissed, and it was later, in the courtyard, Benjamin said to Angus: “Well, brother, you’ve got to hand it to the Abbot. He’s one crafty old devil, and a genius of a teacher.”

“But I didn’t get it,” said Angus. “What would the abbot have us do about the return of the king? Take to Twitter, or something?”

Benjamin shook his head, picked up a stone, and handed it to Angus, then instructed him to go down to the pond by the farm, at sunset, to toss the stone into the water, that by doing so he would have his answer.

So Angus did as Benjamin suggested. He went down to the pond at sunset. It was a beautiful evening, the pond was a perfect mirror for the sky, and a balm for the soul. Angus tossed the stone in and watched as the ripples broke the surface. Then the ripples were reflected, intersecting each other, until the entire pond was made up of separate shards of light all pointing in different directions, and the clarity of the reflection of the sky was lost.

He slept better that night than he had for a long time, and promised himself in future he would distance himself from the lay-bothers, whose endless gossiping kept him awake at night, wrestling with matters he had no power to influence, yet which prevented him from attaining the clarity of his own mind, and thereby the authentic nature of his being.

(Photo by Sanjay Indiresh on Pexels.com)

Read Full Post »

Into the lost valley

Brennand, Forest of Bowland, Lancashire

I’ve been thinking I should be travelling a bit further out these days. It’s July after all, and seriously summer. I don’t want to waste another year’s retirement, barely venturing more than a day’s return journey outside of Lancashire. Time to book some B+B, then, and seek out those more distant places, places I don’t get to very often – say the Western Lakes, Southern Scotland or North Wales. But I’ve not done that since before Covid – stayed in a B+B, I mean – mingled with,… you know,… strangers, who might be carrying,… you know,… it,…

So far, touch wood, I’ve not caught it. But people are telling me I’m in the minority now, that I’m bound to get it, that I’m in denial if I think otherwise, so I should just go out and catch it and be done with it. I know it’s less likely to put me in hospital these days, but I also know several people who have caught it recently and it’s taking them a long time to get over it, and then it’s leaving them drained and with lingering chest problems. Getting over it sounds like a long-winded business. Hiking in the hills is about the lungs as much as the legs, and Covid seems to take both. Is it wise then to risk company, for a taste of the unfamiliar, when, to catch it might finish my summer altogether?

Or so ran my thoughts as I browsed places to stay this week, and yes, I’m starting to feel impatient for adventure, but cases are on the rise,… we’ve just reach 200,000 deaths, and in the end, I decided to play it safe.

So it is, you catch up with me today, motoring by the Inn at Whitewell, bound for Dunsop Bridge, and a day out in the Forest of Bowland. The plan is to park a little way up the Trough road, by Langden Brook, then climb the track up Ram’s Clough, to the nick between Whins Brow and Whin Fell. I’m thinking I should get a good view of The Brennand Valley from there. There are lots of stories of lost valleys, secret places, mythical places, idyllic places hidden from view in an otherwise inhospitable wilderness. The most famous perhaps is the legend of Shangri-la, while, amid the bleakness of the fells, here in the north of Lancashire, we have the seldom seen Brennand Valley.

I first came upon it many years ago, after a very long walk along a private road from Dunsop Bridge – private meaning you can walk it but not drive it. I was heading for the circuit of a hill called Middle Knoll, and wasn’t expecting the revelation of the valley on the way. After all these years, the valley is the thing I remember, while the circuit of Middle Knoll is a blank. The way up over the fell from Langden promises to be a more interesting walk, and not as long if I just nip up and down, plus, the start point puts me in the vicinity of the Langden Grill chuck wagon, of which I have heard great things.

However, I’m disappointed today to find there is no chuck wagon, so there’s no gourmet breakfast barm. But never mind, we’re here. It’s an overcast morning, a flat light, the sky mostly featureless, somewhere between Flake White and Paynes Grey. Meanwhile, the air is heavy, pungent with the smell of ferns, and the buzz of flies. The walk takes us up the Trough road a little, which, for such a lonely road, proves busy with zipping bikes and cars. If you’re on the tourist trail in Lancashire, a run through the Trough is likely to be on your itinerary. This brings about an immediate change of plan, and a commitment to not returning this way, but dropping into the Brennand Valley itself and circling back via Dunsop Bridge. It’s further than I was planning, but involves less traffic.

The Trough of Bowland

I’m determined not to get sucked into the already breathless coverage of the Conservative leadership contest. On politics, I prefer satire now to what passes for objective journalism in the UK. The satirist, John Crace, writing in the Guardian describes it all as game-show territory, and even Peter Obourne, former chief political commentator of The Daily Telegraph, speaking on DDN paints us a picture of future governance that is even bleaker in prospect than the Bowland hills this morning. But I’m trying for a day without current affairs, and the little blue car agrees, its radio suddenly, and mysteriously, having refused to pick up the BBC on the drive over.

I find it’s quite a pull, up Ram’s Clough, to the top of the ridge. Considering all the hills I’ve climbed since I was a kid, you’d think they’d be getting easier now, but they never do. It’s with an air of anticipation then we crest the ridge and, sure enough, the Brennand Valley comes suddenly and dramatically into view. It’s remote and lush green against the dour, shaggy brown of the surrounding fells, a patchwork of sweet pastures fanning out from the central hub of the High Brennand Farm. It has to be one of the loneliest places in England. Alas, it’s not a dramatic light sort of day, so any pictures will be flat, even after teasing them out in post-processing. But we’ll see.

Ouster Rake, Brennand

We’re about 1400 feet up, now, so find ourselves an impressive perch to soak up the view, and settle down for lunch. Here I meet the only other walkers I’ll see all day, a sprightly Scottish couple, well into their later seventies, making an ascent of Ouster Rake. I’m curious about the rake as I’ll shortly be heading down it. It has a slightly sporting look as it cuts across the face of the hill, which appears uniformly steep, and vertical in places, so I ask if it had given them any trouble. Oh, you’ll be fine, says the lady. You’re plenty young enough. To have reached my sixties, and still be considered a young man, and without irony, by a pair of active seniors, is encouraging, that while old age can be daunting in prospect, it need not be entirely downhill. I still hope to be rambling the hills at their age. What puzzled me though was how neither seemed out of breath. I will always be found out of breath in the hills, and sitting down for a rest.

But speaking of down-hill, lunch done, and having taken our fill of the beauty of this elevated view of the valley, we make our descent into it. Ouster Rake, though a little giddy in places, at least for a wobbly head like me, was nothing but beautiful. But poor weather, and in particular, snow or ice, I think you’d have to watch your feet here. It would be a pleasure to come back when the heather is in bloom.

The way down to the farm is occasionally faint, the line of the path petering in and out, but we gradually leave behind the shaggy greens and browns of the fell, and enter the fertile grounds, as we make our way into the bosom of the valley. Looking back up the fell from here there’s a sense of regret, now, the high land only briefly graced, and a long yomp back to the car awaits us, along that private road, to Dunsop Bridge, then a little way along Langden brook.

I’m kept company from here by oyster catchers, which seem to be fishing the river. Over the moors, I’d seen and heard nothing. The Forest of Bowland can swing from an austere beauty to a terrible loneliness, in the blink of an eye, perfectly reflective of the personal predisposition, so it pays to keep your pecker up. No drifting off into depressive thinking on current affairs, or this place will crush you. Better by far to let it help you forget.

Later, as I drive home through Osbaldeston, rattling over the potholes, I note the speed camera, which was set afire, back in May, is still in a state of ruin (police seek witnesses). And as I pass the blackened mess of it – the miscreants used a burning tyre – it’s tempting to read it symbolically, as both a brazen contempt for authority, and authority’s now threadbare lack of finances to fix things when they go up in smoke. Is that the state we’re in, now? But let’s not go there. Let’s remember the day, and the beauty of Bowland.

The valley of Brennand, one of Lancashire’s least seen places, and one of its most beautiful. Yes, it would be nice to get a little further out, but there’s still plenty to be going at in the meantime, in this little corner of the North.

The Trough Road

Read Full Post »

Keeping the shine

So, today is Monday. It’s cold and rainy. I’m ironing. I’m bleeding the radiators. I’m replying to a flurry of overnight comments on the blog. I’m pondering the next chapter of “A Lone Tree Falls”. Retirement is bliss, even on rainy days. Then the phone rings.

It’s a very well-spoken young man who’s concerned I’m missing out on loft insulation deals. I don’t quite get the angle, but anyway, he says my house has come up on his database as having a certain type of insulation. It doesn’t conform to the current regulations – tut tut – but not to worry. It means I can claim for,… well,… something,…

“If we could confirm your details, sir? Name, address, postcode?…“

Now, I know very well what type of insulation I have, because I’m the one who put it in. So what I want to know from him is how come he knows so much about it. I’m a little more assertive than I usually am, but there are issues of privacy at stake here:

“If I could stop you there and ask: exactly – and I do emphasise the word ‘exactly’ – how you came by that information?”

I surprise myself. I seem to be settling in for a crossing of wits here, when I could as easily hang up. That’s what I normally do, though with a polite “sorry, not interested”, thereby extending courtesy even to ne-er-do-wells whose aim is to raid my life savings. Did I get out of the wrong side of bed or something? Where is your patience, Michael? Where is your joy of living?

Anyway, the line goes dead before the young man can explain himself – a fault at his end, I presume. But never mind, all is in its place again. God is in his heaven, and the scammers are sweating the phones.

And I have more important things to be thinking about, such as November 3rd 2019. Why? Well, that’s the day I took this picture:

It was a Sunday, the first dry day, after weeks of heavy rain. The gentle undulations of the meadows had become lakes, and in the early light of that morning, they were as beautiful as they were unexpected. I don’t know why the picture strikes me now, as it has languished on the memory card for years. Perhaps it’s more the date, marking a time just before the time everything changed.

My diary fills in the details:

I had bought a new lens for the camera, and was trying it out with this shot. I had also bought “the Ministry of Utmost Happiness” by Arhundhati Roy, from my local thrift shop. I was lamenting how I’d probably never get around to reading it, that it would languish on my TBR pile, which turns out, thus far, to be true. My hall table was also full of leaflets extolling the virtues of the Labour-party. I was delivering them in batches, around my patch, for the local party office. It seems I too was caught up in the heady Corbynism of those distant times.

Then, the day after I took the picture, I sat down with my boss and took pleasure in giving him a year’s notice. Of a sudden, I tasted freedom. I was as excited by that as the thought of an imminent, and long needed, change of political direction. Yes, politics featured large in my thoughts in those days, which I find embarrasses me, now, because it doesn’t feature at all these days. In fact, quite the opposite, I find I view such matters with a very cold eye, or perhaps that too could be called political thinking? But let’s not go there.

Covid was not even a rumour in November. The first cases would appear in China in the coming weeks. But it would be March before Britain, after believing itself immune, would be on its knees. Suddenly, I could not travel even to the next village without fear of curtain twitchers dobbing me in. As for our health service, it proved to be so ill prepared, hobbyists were in their bedrooms, churning out face-masks for doctors and nurses on their 3D Printers.

But back to the photograph. I wasn’t overwhelmed by it at the time. Perhaps it was because events overtook us, and everything that came “before” seemed no longer relevant in the world. Then I tried a different crop, and it seemed to speak to me a little more.
I remember the season came on with a record-breaking wet. The year after was the same. The water table rose, filling the hollows, spoiling crops of winter wheat and oilseed. Migrant birds enjoyed their new-found wetlands. But then each spring, came a drought that baked the land, first to iron, and then to dust.

The photograph tells me the world was beautiful then, as of course it still is. But I detect also now a more deeply entrenched fatalism among its people. There is a growing acceptance of the ruin, and all the casual corruption, and that there’s nothing we can do about it. It just is. And, as if by metaphor, while once upon a time we could avoid those of low character by avoiding a particular part of town at night, now they come at us in our homes, down our telephone wires, wherever we are, and there’s no protection, other than our wits. But such a wit as that risks also tarnishing the spirit and rendering it blind to the beauty of the world. It will make us cynical, it will tempt us over the threshold into the hell of a collective nihilism. And then we are lost.

We need a powerful formula to keep the shine on things, and to keep believing it all means something. For myself, I trust it is sufficient never take our eye off the beauty of the world, never to let it be diminished in our souls, that therein lies the path to truly better days.

Now, please excuse me, the phone is ringing again. Perhaps it’s that young man with his explanation.

Read Full Post »

The word that shall not be spoken

Photo by Erik Mclean on Pexels.com

The Automobile Association reports there is no actual shortage of petrol. They say it is panic buying that has created a local shortage, here in the UK. But we could also say it was yesterday, or the day before’s media headlines, urging people not to panic buy petrol, that caused the panic buying, which has caused the emptying and subsequent closure of petrol stations, up and down the country. That’s a very different story. Then, we could also say it is a shortage of heavy goods vehicle drivers that has caused the disruptions in supply that we should not have panicked about, and the reason for that,… well,… there, opinions diverge, become political, and I leave others to pick apart that side of things.

I’ve lived through enough fuel crises over the past half century to understand people’s anxiety over shortages. I’ve been in a hard place more than once, commuting, the car running on vapours, and with a decidedly obtuse line-management offering no support whatsoever, when I told them it was less than certain I would be there in the morning. But now I’m in the position where I don’t need petrol for anything other than travelling for pleasure, and we can easily curtail that until this particular moment passes.

What’s more interesting are the media headlines themselves, not so much what they say, but why certain stories are chosen to be told, while others are cold-shouldered. It’s interesting also to ponder just how much of our reality we construct upon a landscape shaped by the well-connected writers of this mass media. So we should perhaps be more concerned with asking ourselves who they are, and with whom they are connected, rather than with what they say.

My local petrol station ran out of fuel last night. It’s inconvenient, but I’m fine with it. I’m not tied to the car any more. Covid has taught me I can stay local for months on end without actually losing my mind. But that’s not the only thing going on in the UK at the moment. I’ve had emails from my energy supplier warning of a serious hike in prices this winter. That’s galling, but I calculate I can cover it. Then the weekly food bill has spiked, and stuff I used to see on supermarket shelves, I don’t see any more – or rather its presence is no longer to be relied upon. That’s irksome, but not exactly worth a letter to the Times. My local builder reports a sudden 40% hike in the price of wood, and do I still want that job doing? I’ll have to think about that one. Meanwhile, there may also be actual food shortages ahead, in particular meat, but I don’t eat much meat anyway, now, and I don’t give a stuff about turkey for Christmas.

All in all these are just ongoing shots in a barrage that seems woven into the fabric of British life, now, and I don’t see the future being any different, and certainly no better. In general, the message is: the future is not so big as it used to be. One might think the causes of such a collapse in a nation’s mojo would be the subject of heated debate, but it appears to be a mystery to almost the entire UK media, including the BBC.

I wager we all know the reason, but there is an omertà on that word, so I shall not speak it. But again, the word doesn’t really matter any more. What’s done is done. It’s more important to note that its presence in the landscape of our reality is so firmly resisted by the media. It is deemed no longer part of the official socio-economic history of the British Isles. That we did this to ourselves runs against the grain of British exceptionalism, and is therefore unthinkable – so we’d better make a mystery of it, or better still blame the Johnny Foreigner any which-way we can, than face the truth of our own stupidity.

Stories are important. They are vital to life. Those who stormed the US Capitol building inhabited a reality shaped largely by the right-wing conspiracist regions of social media. The stories they believed in seemed absolutely barking to me, but the issue is that they did wholly and sincerely believe in them. For a time, I inhabited a polar opposite region, one that spoke of the imminent birth of a socialist Shangri-La, under the leadership of Jeremy Corbin. There were many who felt that was equally barking. Reality, then, is a fluid concept, and even, to a degree, personal. I wonder what my own reality would be like if I lived a life isolated from all record of human thought, contemporary and historical. Would I even be able to think at all?

The big British media is so appallingly manipulative, I wonder how anyone can expect to be reliably informed by it, other than by developing the insight to read above the headlines, and to ask: what is it I am being led to think and believe here? There are alternative sources of media, of course, both right and left leaning. On the left we have the likes of Novara Media, and Byline Times. I find them telling stories that suit my own biases better. But I also feel I can trust their analyses, if only because their influence is as yet quite small and poorly connected with the corridors of power. Small in the influence to be pedalled, determination of facts, critical reasoning: whatever our bias, these are valuable touchstones, ones we should cleave to, but rarely do, in such polarised times as these.

Ongoing crises, populist but otherwise incompetent leaders, a drift to the nastier fringes of the bonkers right, the spectre of authoritarianism, appalling cruelty to others deemed not British, or not British enough. These are not the headlines we read, not the story that is written for us. But they are all of them facets of the reality that is indeed coalescing around the cold hard slag of a spent materialism, and an economic model we really need to ditch, but which ossified and unimaginably wealthy interests are keen to perpetuate. Thus, a story is spun which tells us there is nothing to see here. Or rather, what we are led to believe is entirely at odds with the increasingly uncomfortable truths of life in Britain, at least for the ninety-nine percent of us who still live here.

I have sworn never to utter that word again in the annals of this blog. Still, I cannot help but predict the outlook to be stormy on account of it [that word]. I shall, however, continue to marvel at the circumlocutions of the media, as they studiously avoid the elephant in the room, even as it defecates daily, and copiously all over their nice, shiny shoes.

Take care what you read, and what you choose to shape your reality.

Read Full Post »

Hillcraft

I begin with an apology to those who have downloaded my story “Winter on the hill”. I’ve been going through it in recent days and discovered it’s riddled with more typos than usual. This is embarrassing. There’s a fresh copy on Smashwords now which tidies it up somewhat. Still, there’s no getting away from the fact I’ve been a bit distracted this year. We all have, I know. But worse, I began the year angry, and that’s never a good sign, and certainly not a good start.

It suggests there were more shadow issues inside me than I’d thought. This is always the case, the shadow leading us on a merry dance all our lives – a blessing when we can spot his tricks, a curse when we do not. The trigger for my anger was the result of the December 2019 election and the rout of Leftist politics, to which I’d hitched my wagon, my shadow plainly visible in those talking heads I’d labelled “right wing nutjobs”, “gammons” and “swivel eyed loons”. I’d seen the election as the last chance for a reversal in our direction of travel as a nation – less poverty, a renewal of the regions, and a green new deal. The majority of my countrymen, however did not agree.

2019 was an ugly year, a year of lies, fakery and flying spittle. It was also the year I realized it was no longer possible to make sense of anything, that the optical apparatus of the western world is so bent out of shape it swerves all semblance of truth. We have resolved it out of the equation of our life and times, and are thereby building a new Zeitgeist on quicksand, one in which the poor sink first, while sustaining the rich on their backs. In some respects, then, 2020 is the year we deserved, if only as a reminder there are some things that have an inescapable truth about them. You can ignore them all you like, say they’re not true, but that won’t make them go away. There were those who denied the existence of Covid from the beginning. Indeed, even with seventy-five thousand dead in the UK, some still do.

So the lesson of 2020 is that truth does not belong to those who shout the loudest, or to those who pour the most money into public relations. I don’t know where we’re going as a nation, only that I’m not angry about it any more, and I have “Winter on the Hill”, and my dialogue with its various characters to thank for that. I accept some people firmly believe in things I think are strange, and I accept persuading them otherwise is not a matter of pointing out my own version of the truth. Indeed, this is as likely to inflame them, as it runs counter to their own world view, that dialogue – true dialogue is presently impossible.

This is not to say I no longer believe, for example, that BREXIT is the biggest act of self harm in our post-war history. It’s an opinion based on an analysis of geopolitics and global economics, at least in so far as I understand these things. Many more of course understand things differently and therefore disagree with my view. But Winter on the Hill has taught me not to label these contrary opinions as merely crackpot, or even dare I say dangerous? It has also granted me some insight into the reasons Brexiteers think the way they do. But reaching this point you find you have transcended politics. You have swapped partisanship for the hill-craft necessary in crossing the daunting terrain as it now presents itself in 2021 and beyond.

The sight of Londoners fleeing the Capital, before the new Tier 4 rules came in, reminds me we shall not be spared the stupidity of crowds any time soon. The temporary blockading of the Channel ports and the halting of continental freight is a reminder of the fragility of the supply chains keeping our supermarkets stocked. But my hill-craft also tells me this is simply the nature of the new landscape we are traversing, and this, the incoming and decidedly inclement weather. Better to prepare for it than merely shake our fist.

I wish I could say I think 2021 will be any less “distracting”, that the stories I write will be free from error, but I suspect this will not be the case. What I can say though is that a partisan anger at the poverty, the foodbanks and the holes in the road has gone, and is in any case counterproductive. It doesn’t solve the problem, but if the best I can do is buy the homeless guy a sandwich and a cup of tea, then so be it. That’s all I could ever do. Compassion is a bottom up thing, and we’d all do well to remember that, because it’s only by the grace of God it’s not us sitting there instead of him.

And yes, come the next election, there’s a chance we’ll be falling over ourselves again to vote for more of the same, because most of us are not interested in solutions to longer term questions, even those concerning the sustainability of the species. We just want to know how to go on living as we are right now, without changing anything, even when we know change is likely coming, and the truth of the world is poking us in the eye day by day, by way of warning.

True hillcraft requires more than knowledge of the ropes and a gung-ho spirit. It requires a calmness of mind. It requires us to have the confidence not to go jumping at every passing fluffy cloud that sweeps the tops, but equally we must beware the overconfidence that scorns the anvil-heads. Angry, we remain blind to the subtlety of the way ahead, and come to grief in quick-time. Only by calmness do we navigate winter on the hill, and see ourselves safely to the other side. This is not to say I’m done with the shadow, only this particular manifestation of it. Heaven knows where he’ll take me next.

My thanks to everyone who has kept me company over the year and my very best wishes to you all.

Read Full Post »

The King who ate too much.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Once upon a time there was a King and his kin who ate and ate and ate, and when they’d stripped the kingdom bare with their eating, they made war on their neighbours and ate their land bare too. They felt they had no choice in this, that if they ever stopped eating – even for a moment – they would disappear, that only by eating more and more could they remain fully present in the world and meaningful, and their followers, the people, who also ate excessively, would still worship them. The strange thing was the more everyone ate, the sadder they became, and the King told them the reason for their sadness – though he’d no idea really – was because they had not yet eaten enough.

But when all the neighbours had been slain and the King and his kin and their followers had stripped the earth bare, all the way down to the shore of the sea, and when there was nothing left to eat, and even the fishes were choking on the King’s excrement, the King and his kin sat down in puzzlement. They were still hungry, and sad, and in their hunger they despaired and became grumpy with one another. And their followers, the people,  were confused and afraid, and hungry too – and as they grew hungry they grew angry there was nothing more to eat. After all had the King not told them it was their duty to eat as much as they could every day?

So the King and his kin turned their anger back on the people for questioning the wisdom of the King, and they sent the King’s army out to beat them until they bled, and while they were at it, to rob the people, to search their pockets for any last crumbs that might sustain the King and his kin. But the crumbs were few, for in truth the people had been hungry for a long time. So the King took to his bed and his kin, fearing the end of the world, sent for the wise man.

Now the wise man knew the King and his kin were foolish in their beliefs, and tyrannical in the lies they told the people, most of whom knew no better. But they were many and stubborn in their beliefs, because everyone had been eating for so long it was impossible for them to think of any other way to be.

“But you’re forgetting the stars,” he said to the King.

“The stars?” said the King. “What about the stars?”

“Everyone knows there are planets orbiting the stars,” said the wise man. “I shall build you rocket-ships to take you there. Just think of all those planets waiting to be exploited in the name of the King.”

This rather excited the King. “And all of us can go?” he said. “My kin too? I wouldn’t want to be without my kin, who tell me daily whatever I want to hear.”

“All of you,” said the wise man. “I insist.”

“And what about us?” said the followers of the King and his kin.

“All who wish to go and eat, shall go,” said the wise man. “But there’s a catch. These rocket-ships will use up the very last of our materials and our fuels on earth, and there will be no chance of ever returning.”

So the King and his kin looked around at the wasteland of the earth and they laughed, thinking this wouldn’t be a problem. So the wise man gathered the experts, who gathered the materials and the fuels and they built the rockets and fitted them out with the most wondrously luxurious state-rooms, and filled their larders with the very last of the fruits of the earth.

Of course, as is ever the way in human affairs, not everyone was able to find a berth on the rocket-ships. The old and the sick were decreed by the King and his kin unwelcome, as were the poor for fear they might bring bad odours and misfortune with them. But the wise man comforted those doomed to remain, and promised he would stay behind to look after them.

“You mean you’re not coming?” said the King.

“What need have you of me, your majesty,” said the wise man. “when each of your rocket-ships is equipped with the most artificially intelligent computer ever known to man?”

“Fair enough” said the King, who had perfect confidence in computers. He didn’t much like the wise man anyway, was always afraid he knew something the King didn’t. And with the wise man gone, the King’s wisdom was once more the last word.

So came the day and all the rocket-ships blasted off into the void of space, never to return, and the wise man watched them go and he bid them good riddance, knowing everyone aboard would be long dead before they’d crossed even a fraction of the distance to nearest star. And just as well for he would not have wished such an obscene  pestilence to be visited on another world.

Then he turned to the old and the sick and the poor, and he took from his pocket a bag of seeds and he said:

“We’d best plant these then, and try not eat so much next time.”

So the people planted the seeds, and in sharing the work of the tilling and watering and the harvesting, they realised they were happy, yet they had nothing and were still hungry. So they asked the wise man: “How come we’re so happy, when we’ve not yet eaten?”

“Perhaps,” said the wise man, “the greatest nourishment is that which we find in harmonious relationship with others.”

And so the old and the poor and weak and the sick all looked at one another and agreed they’d do well to remember that, and not eat so much in future. And as the earth slowly recovered and grew green once more, and the remaining shy creatures came from their burrows and multiplied, the people looked around at this new beginning.

And saw that it was good.

Read Full Post »

The great debate

Photo by Ralph W. lambrecht on Pexels.com

On the night of November 28th 2019, Channel 4 broadcast a debate on climate change, on the steps we might take in the UK to put our carbon footprint in order, and provide an example of best practice that others in the world might follow. Leaders of all the main political parties were invited to speak and all agreed something must be done, the only difference between them was how much each would fall over itself trying to outdo the others’ ideas.

At bottom it required a radical move away from carbon based fuels and intensive agribusiness but, with targeted investment, it looked possible, that we might indeed reduce our carbon emissions to zero by 2030. I felt the vision served that night was not one of a defensive decline, but more of a positive, prosperous and sustainable green economy, one built upon a genuine political consensus, and I was heartened by it. The debate was of course part of the build up to the 2019 general election.

Notable by their absence that night were the Conservative party and the Brexit party. The podiums they might have occupied were replaced, much to their annoyance, by dripping ice statues, which spoke volumes to the nation, that those parties had nothing to say about climate change, let alone how to mitigate it. Their crass no-show seemed disastrous, guaranteed to wreck their credibility and severely damage their chances of winning the election.

But the Conservative party romped home to a massive majority and are now in power for the next five, possibly the next ten years. Everything progressive that was debated that night was rendered meaningless, and won’t now happen. This implies the majority of UK voters either don’t care about the impending climate catastrophe or – even as Australia burns and Greenland melts – they still don’t really believe in it.

We can’t wait another ten years to do anything about it. By 2030 all the sensitive ecological tipping points will have been tripped, and savage environmental phenomenon will have settled in on a scale that makes it obvious to even the most egregious denier the planet is adapting itself to our toxic presence with a view to wiping us out.

The feeling among many climate scientists is that even if we act now, and in unison, globally, it’s probably too late to do anything other than stabilise the climate in its present state of distress. Without action, as now seems the case, not just in the UK, but across all the major world powers, vast areas of the planet will become uninhabitable, harvests will fail and future wars will be fought, not over oil but over fresh water, grain and habitable territory. Meanwhile, unimaginable numbers of climate refugees will cross the world trying to find safety in the temperate zones. And they will not be welcomed.

The rich are insulated from the problem by virtue of their wealth. They are buying up land in places like New Zealand in order to build their fortified palaces, complete with zombie apocalypse bunkers, where they imagine they might continue to consume in extraordinary luxury the last of the planet’s resources. Meanwhile, our children will struggle daily in the face of hardship and danger.

So what to do? Well, in my latest work in progress: “Winter on the Hill”, (currently being serialised for free on Wattpad) my protagonist, a former eco-warrior, veteran of street protests, and with a criminal conviction for civil disobedience, surveys the wreckage of that climate debate and the ensuing results of the 2019 election with a cool head. His conclusion? He buys himself a three litre diesel four-wheel drive SUV, takes up hill-walking and, though it’s late in the day for him, he falls in love, more than once. The argument is lost, he says, no sense even debating it any more – just enjoy the next twenty or thirty years as best you can, because that’s all you’ve got left.

He’s an interesting character, at times prickly, and something of a socialist firebrand which may annoy some of you, but he’s also a very persuasive old curmudgeon, and I’ll be spending the next year or so getting to know him. I hope to convince him he’s wrong of course, not about love – I mean good on him for that, the old dog – but that we need him back on the barricades. Oh, and he’s to swap that monstrous diesel for an electric vehicle that won’t pull the skin off a rice pudding.

How do you rate my chances? Well, from the off, and as dispiriting as it is, I’m already tempted to concede that he might be right.

Read Full Post »

2019,…and all that.

Well, I tried hard to come up with a pithy take on this pig’s ear of a year that was 2019, also the decade I suppose but found myself speechless in the end. Instead this thing popped up in my You Tube subscription from DDN, and I turned to fellow Brit and seriously honoured fellow Lancastrian, Tez Ilyas – in my humble opinion a truly brilliant, unifying voice who speaks as much for me as I hope for all of us.

These are staggeringly remarkable times, times when intellectuals are left dumbfounded, times when only a gifted comedian can make sense of what’s going on. Tez, my man, you’re so much younger than me, (say like 30 years at least?) you’re sharper, more clued in, cooler, and infinitely more handsome, but apart from all of that, and probably because of it,… I love you brother:

Read Full Post »