Bright tomorrow…

Only one book in the post today, the new edition of Rousseau's Reveries of the Solitary Walker, translated by Russell Goulbourne (translators are important).

I'm a walker, though not often a solitary one: my friends are all walkers too. Rousseau's piece is a classic in the walker-philosopher tradition: I'd add the promeneur movement and their friends, like Perec. In English, there's a group around the psychogeographer Iain Sinclair: men (always) who attempt to recuperate unofficial history, culture and city growth through the slow, subjective accumulation of observation via walking.

There's a tentative split visible: Rousseau's walking is an aid to self-analysis. He's interested in impressions, epistemology (the study of knowledge) and self-development. In a sense, the Reveries are in at the start of the self-help movement, one I deeply distrust as narcissistic and apolitical, though there's a perfectly good argument that Romanticism, by challenging rationalism and objectivity, is radical on another plane. The promeneurs seem to straddle the divide: by keenly observing the currents and zephyrs of a city's everyday (quotidien), they privilege personal insight and refuse objective analysis, but at the same time, their attention is  focused outwardly, rather than using the walk to look inwards. The psychogeographers are much more political, sometimes with a capital 'P': what they see is the imposition of values and priorities from the top, ignoring Raymond Williams's assertion that 'Culture is Ordinary'.

Interestingly, pop music is interested in the possibilities of walking too. Here are a couple of relevant tracks (and what a rich term for a song that is):





And some top quality Northern Soul:

Out and about

I've been too busy to blog today - so much work (thanks to the 5 great students who came to class and talked about Cwmardy this afternoon: I really enjoyed, sod the rest) and planning for the strike on Thursday.

At the weekend, the Map Twats had a day out, at long last. We started at Macclesfield's finest pie shop (mmmm hare and venison and pheasant in one package) and headed along the canal, up Sutton Common overlooking Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope on the Cheshire Plain, along Wincle Minn and Bosley Minn, taking in ruins, prehistoric monuments, sheep and pubs along the way. It was a beautiful day. Lambs gambolled, and kestrels, larks and curlews frolicked around us as we wended our way from ridge to ridge. I'm still aching, to be honest. Here are some pictures - click on them to enlarge, or see the rest here.

Shutlingsloe and clouds

You can take the boy out of the The Dark Place…

Top quality dry-stone walling

Shutlingsloe bathed in sun

Rust tanker

Don't fence me in…

Sod this

I've got so much to do that it's become impossible to work out where to start. Marking, next week's lectures, research: it's all urgent and yet there's no time. I also need to clean my house, buy food and do some laundry.

So I'm doing what I do best: ignoring it. I'm off walking tomorrow, up the Long Mynd in the company of the Map Twats. Even Cynical Ben is coming, joy of joys.

If you don't know the Long Mynd, it's a massive tract of upland in South Shropshire, near the beautiful mini-Alpine village of Church Stretton. Prehistoric burials, ancient industry, the Portway, views across Wales and the good bits of the Midlands - and there's no sign that The Dark Place exists!

These boots were made for…

Hello all. Slow start to the day - yesterday's admin marathon left me sluggish, lethargic and comatose.

I tried to buy new hiking socks today - I like Thousand Mile, but no success. Instead, I returned with three more maps - Yr Wyddfa, the Peak District and Harlech/Porthmadog and Y Bala. There's just something compelling about maps, and I'm determined to wean myself of Dan-dependence, just in case his burst of paid employment becomes a habit.

Neal and I watched a truly terrible film yesterday - Teen Wolf Too, which hasn't even humour to soften the edges. He thinks it's the worst film he's ever seen, but I'm not convinced that it's quite as bad as Howard the Duck, The Rocketeer, or (my candidate for worst ever film) Drop Dead Fred, though Peter's Friends must also be hovering around the bottom.

So the floor's open: what's your suggestion?

A World Without Dan

It's too terrible to contemplate. The Map Twats went walking between Ludlow and Richard's Castle this weekend. It was muddy, wet and gloomy in the trackless commercial forests. We didn't reach Richard's Castle because, although we had maps (I bought two in a lovely independent bookshop in Ludlow), we didn't have a Dan (he has a cold, and he's starting an actual job today). We wandered round endless paths, confused and increasingly grumpy.

Obviously, I got my recriminations in first, but this is the internet, and is therefore the official place to settle scores.

Yes, I got us lost as soon as we left Ludlow. BUT: I was right when I said 'Richard's castle is over that ridge'. It was. We ignored the ridge and trudged off in a different direction. Actually, I enjoyed the day, though we walked a goodly bit further than intended. I hope that our meanderings spell out a very rude word, viewed from space.

It wasn't much of a day to take photos, but I put a very few here. Neal took the insect ones, and I played with them. Click on them for a larger view.

A very expensive student

I had to be out of the office this morning while my colleagues talked to a student. So I went to a well-known discount store to buy undercrackers (boxers, if you're interested). Half an hour later I leave with said undercrackers, a new waterproof and a new hiking rucksack. I was several pounds lighter too.

Yet more Lud's Church pictures

Why 'Lud'? It could be a corruption of Lollards' Church. It might refer to the Celtic god, Lud (cf. London and Ludgate).

Lud's Church pictures

Click on the images for larger versions, or here for the full set.

Neal - chief Map Twat for today's expedition

Destination: head-chopping

The Map Twats went walking on Saturday. We started off in Flash, a damp, bleak, snowywindchilled village which is the highest in England. It was all downhill from there, I can tell you.

Our aim was Lud's Church, a stunning, hidden limestone chasm which was apparently the Green Chapel in Gawain and the Green Knight (based on descriptions and the dialect) and later a haunt of Lollards (14th Century heretics) and Luddites (18th Century peasants resisting replacement by machines) before it was invaded by Romantics and then people in sensible anoraks. Gawain accepted a challenge from the Green Knight: if Gawain chopped off the Knight's head, he had to find the Green Chapel by the next New Year's Day and return the favour - cue many adventures and a moral test.

Here's the relevant bit (and the original is here)

They rode up steep slopes where the branches are bare 

They climbed up rock faces gripped by the cold 

The clouds were high up – but dark underneath. 

Mist drizzled on moor – broke up on the hills 

Each peak wore a hat - a big cloak of mist. 

Streams boiled and splashed down the hillsides about… 

Then the knight spurred Gringalet, and rode adown the path close in by a bank beside a grove. So he rode through the rough thicket, right into the dale, and there he halted, for it seemed him wild enough. No sign of a chapel could he see, but high and burnt banks on either side and rough rugged crags with great stones above. An ill-looking place he thought it.

Then he drew in his horse and looked around to seek the chapel, but he saw none and thought it strange. Then he saw as it were a mound on a level space of land by a bank beside the stream where it ran swiftly, the water bubbled within as if boiling. The knight turned his steed to the mound, and lighted down and tied the rein to the branch of a linden; and he turned to the mound and walked round it, questioning with himself what it might be. It had a hole at the end and at either side, and was overgrown with clumps of grass, and it was hollow within as an old cave or the crevice of a crag; he knew not what it might be.

   "Ah," quoth Gawain, "can this be the Green Chapel? Here might the devil say his mattins at midnight! Now I wis there is wizardry here. 'Tis an ugly oratory, all overgrown with grass, and 'twould well beseem that fellow in green to say his devotions on devil's wise. Now feel I in five wits, 'tis the foul fiend himself who hath set me this tryst, to destroy me here! This is a chapel of mischance: ill-luck betide it, 'tis the cursedest kirk that ever I came in!"

"By God," quoth Gawain, "I trow that gear is preparing for the knight who will meet me here. Alas! naught may help me, yet should my life be forfeit, I fear not a jot!" With that he called aloud. "Who waiteth in this place to give me tryst? Now is Gawain come hither: if any man will aught of him let him hasten hither now or never."

   "Stay," quoth one on the bank above his head, "and ye shall speedily have that which I promised ye." Yet for a while the noise of whetting went on ere he appeared, and then he came forth from a cave in the crag with a fell weapon, a Danish axe newly dight, wherewith to deal the blow. An evil head it had, four feet large, no less, sharply ground, and bound to the handle by the lace that gleamed brightly. And the knight himself was all green as before, face and foot, locks and beard, but now he was afoot. When he came to the water he would not wade it, but sprang over with the pole of his axe, and strode boldly over the brent that was white with snow.

Day 93 of the marking marathon

Still slogging through massive piles of essays. As usual, there are excellent ones, good ones and, well, others, though often lightened with hilarious comments which I'm not going to share with you.

I ran away from marking yesterday to go for a local walk with Dan and Emma. We struck out west of Penkridge and mostly squelched through muddy fields, meeting nobody. The animal life had returned - kestrels, yellowhammers, reed-buntings and best of all, a pair of hares, not too far from us. They even had a perfunctory go at boxing. If only I'd had my camera… Hares are great - they're quite rare (and apparently very tasty), they have massive ears and back legs, and run very, very fast.

A few more picture (not of the Map Twats, thankfully).

OK, these are the last ones I'll post. The rest can be seen here. Click on them for larger versions.

Is this the last Wimpy franchise in the world?

More Map Twat day out pictures

More pictures here

Map Twat Christmas Walk

We went walking on Cannock Chase yesterday - Dan, Neal and I. I'm missing swimming (none until my ears work again) and it showed - I was falling behind those rangy gits.

The weather was perfect. It was very cold, really clear and crisp, and the sun shone. The light was perfect and the ground was icy. As we traversed the hills and valleys, we spotted a woodpecker, deer (mostly deer arses, actually) and the wonders of nature. We ate fine cheese and Dan's homemade olive tapenade (!), then back to cosmopolitan Stafford for dinner with Dan's partner, which was very convivial.

It wasn't an official Map Twat expedition: Dan went mapless! More pictures here.

These boots are made for walking… again

Two of us Map Twats went walking up Caer Caradoc this weekend: good cheese, steep hills and a brilliant hill-fort. I've stuck photos on Flickr, but here's a taster.

On the road again…

Walking on Saturday was stunning - from Macclesfield's finest delicatessen where I bought hare and venison pie, up Shutlingsloe, across the moors to the Cat and Fiddle for a pint in front of a fire. I'll post some photos (of lichen and icicles) when I work out why my camera isn't showing up on my computer - I'm hoping it's just a low battery. 

The views were amazing - all the way to the Clees, the Breiddons, Cannock Chase, the Wirral and Caer Caradoc. 

I'll also post some photos of mathematical veg - I got this amazing fractal thing in my veg box the other day. Neal informs me it's a Chou Romanesco. Here's a photo of it by someone else:

These boots are made for walking…

Unless it's actually snowing tomorrow, I'm going up the Cheshire Matterhorn: it's said to be bleak and steep. So far it's Dan, Neal and myself, but others may be foolhardy enough to join the Map Twats. 

Then in keeping with Orwell's description of middle-class liberals

'that dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking to the smell of progress like bluebottles to a dead cat … fuzzy-haired intellectuals in pullover sweaters'

(The Road to Wigan Pier, Part 2, Chapter 11)

I'm off to see Dick Gaughan (Scottish lefty folk singer) in the evening! He sounds better than he looks…

I'm not exactly an Orwell fan, but you have to admit that he had a talent for winding people up (also from The Road to Wigan Pier): 

'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.

Anyone know why this thing is ignoring my formatting?