Soundtrack to my life

There's a new Half Man Half Biscuit album out. Cue rejoicing by the massed ranks of sarcastic balding men of a certain age, too old to mosh, too young to admit that they own a wide range of sensible walking gear.

This one is 'Descent of the Stiperstones': a beautiful range of hills (highest in Shropshire, fact fans) I've walked many times. It leads, as do so many Half Man Half Biscuit tracks, into an wry, well-observed disquisition on the absurdity of modern life.



If you need visuals, here are some old pictures I took on a very wintery walk up the Stiperstones, involving lunching on top of a dead sheep. Again.

A Cold Sheep Was My Table

The Map Twats had a glorious day in Shropshire on Saturday. The wind was biting, the snow still lay round about deep and crisp and even, and the beer was good. Typically, the spot we chose to shelter for our lunch turned out to be the last resting place of a sheep - Dan noticed the ribcage sticking up, and John turned out to have been sitting on its skull. A dead-sheep theme is starting to emerge on our walks. Lots of photos here, including some of the natural ice-sculpture we found.

To top off a great weekend, Stoke drew with Liverpool, and we could have beaten them. If we'd scored a goal, that is. I wonder what Diego Maradona made of his first (I presume) visit to Stoke…

Oh Salopia!

The Map Twats and John are off to the Stiperstones tomorrow - a long, steep ridge of Stiperstones Quartzite packed with prehistoric sites, geological curiosities and other fun stuff. Picture by Sabine