Turned out nice again!

Those of you with any semblance at all will recognise my title as one of George Formby's catchphrases. I don't need any excuse to quote George, a man whom I deeply admire (his wife Beryl too: anyone who tells Malan, the architect of apartheid to 'piss off' because he is a 'horrible little man' deserves our cheers). But it's especially relevant this week because not only has it turned out nice again – though far too hot for me – but because I visited Formby this weekend. George wasn't actually from there, but his music-hall star father adopted the town's name for his stage act, and lots of George's songs are about saucy goings-on in places like Formby and Blackpool. (It also turned out nice because Dan Martin rode a superb race to win Ireland's first Tour de France stage since Sean Kelly in 1992). Murray who?



Formby itself is like all the Mersey/Lancashire towns: half classic seaside fun, half UKIP-loving retirement town. The beaches are enormous, the dunes high and the red squirrels cavort in the pines. But Formby has something special: lots of Anthony Gormley statues dotted about the beach and immersed in the waves. They're all casts of Gormley's naked body (George would have approved: half his songs are about being spotted naked, or spying on other naked people) in the same pose, but they've aged differently depending on whether the sea or the wind has got to them, and what the locals have done. On their own, it's like a slightly creepy suicide cult. They all stare out to sea, perhaps watching the subaquatic statues' last moments, or admiring the wind farm built subsequently. Gulls perch (and poo) on them; people have painted and dressed them. Lichen festoons them and rust has pitted them, so that they're now individual works of art as well as collective. I like them as statuary and I like the way people have interacted them: giggling at the cast-iron penis, adding a bow tie, having their photos taken.

Here are a few pictures I took (click to enlarge): the rest are here.

I like the effect over-exposure gives here

With this one, I saturated and vignetted to give the effect of using lurid Velvia film like it's 1976

James Bond meets Iron Man

Spotted the heron?

Top quality graffiti: a donkey demanding more ketamine (which was originally an equine drug)

A day at the beach

I don't often go to the beach, and I've never been to the Lancashire coast, bar an unpleasant stay in Blackpool for the NUS conference many years ago. For me, the beach means sand in the face, social mixing and sexual licence. Not personally, you understand - but in a lot of the fiction and travel writing I've been reading, such as Lewis Jones's Cwmardy and We Live.

In Cwmardy, poor weird Len, who has underlying incestuous desires, happens upon his sister Doing It with a pit-manager's son - the class enemy. So he becomes a Communist (I paraphrase). In the sequel, his Party branch go to Blackpool. Len's at first horrified by the brassy women - drinking and flirting - until his girlfriend Mary tells him to grow up. He then tries to recreate what he saw his sister (who died in childbirth thanks to that day on the dunes) up to, with Mary, but she stops him: she too is dying - rather slowly - and they must dedicate themselves to The People instead.

I also just read an article about Mary Morgan's Tour To Milford Haven in the Year 1791 which says she was scared by the power, liminality and licence available at the beach. On the other hand, it also says that watching her husband go swimming re-enacts maternal separation anxiety, which just goes to show that having a theory doesn't justify anything.

So beaches are weird places, culturally and psychologically. But not this one. Obviously my reading coloured my experience, but there were no psychological or cultural shenanigans. Just natural beauty and good friends. Did I take pictures? I did take pictures. You can see them all here, and you can enlarge these samples by clicking on them. Red squirrels! Well, one red squirrel. But that's one more than I'd ever seen before. I read the other day that grey squirrels have been known to swim the treacherous Menai Straits to Ynys Môn / Anglesey. As Dan pointed out, they must be pretty dumb: there are two massive bridges they could use instead.

'You won't see any red squirrels', said Ben. 'Too late in the day and too close to the ice-cream van'. 3 minutes later… Didn't see any more, mind.

I'm convinced a calendar of Dan scowling at the environment would be a best-seller

What an insect. Anyone know what's it's called?

A rabbit lurked nervously in the mouth of a burrow until the kestrel got annoyed by us and flapped off

(A few more in the next blog entry)