A LONG WAY TO WALK

 Will Pavia interviewed the now late Martin Amis in 2018, 

when Amis was in his late 60s, not so very long before 

his death as it turns out.

Amis said, ‘I’m more and more averse to any kind of exertion.’  And then discussing the walk to his local grocery store he said, ‘When I come around the corner and look up the street (I think) that’s a long way.’ 

I wonder if it had something to do with the cigarettes.

 

From the Smithsonian magazine

You know, sometimes I look out of my window and see old people struggling with walking sticks and Zimmer frames and occasionally Nordic poles, and I admire them enormously because they’re still out there, determined to carry on walking.  But at the same time I think, if I had that much difficulty walking, if I needed a stick or a Zimmer frame or Nordic poles I don’t think I’d ever leave the house.  No doubt time will tell.

 

LOST IN SPACES

 I know I’ve led a sheltered life but even so I’m surprised it’s taken me so long to find out that the line ‘Not all those who wander are lost,' which I think is a pretty good line, comes from Tolkein’s poem  "The Riddle of Strider," written for The Fellowship of The Ring.

 

I’ve always found Tolkien pretty much unreadable, but somehow his reputation has survived this obstacle, and that quotation (with variations) has thrived on a lot of those ‘inspirational quotation’ sites around the Interwebs.  

Now, there’s nothing quite like an inspirational quotation to bring out the cynic in me, so you can imagine how pleased I was, while looking for something else, to find this, which I subsequently found in various other versions :

 

And finally, to prove, as if proof were needed, that not all who walk are noble, moral or decent, here is a picture of a walker, in fact power walker, whose name shall not be spoken.

 

EVERYBODY WALKS IN L.A.

 For various reasons, some of them obscure even to me (perhaps especially to me), I’ve been in southern California, pretty much avoiding all my old friends and acquaintances there, trying to sort out my feelings about a place I loved for decades, lived in for over 15 years, and have ‘lost’ one way or another.  I mean, I haven’t really lost it.  It’s still there and I know how to find it, but even so ...

 

Naturally I did a fair bit of walking while I was there because that’s what I do wherever I am, and although I was seldom the only person on the street, sometimes I was:

 

The walking was great. I really do think that the LA authorities should promote the place with some slogan such as “Los Angeles – One Helluva Walking City.”

 

The place is built on a grid of course, which makes finding your way around comparatively easy, although admittedly the things you might want to see and places you might want to go are seldom walking distance from each other, and once in a while you do have to walk around or through a tent city, but what’s pedestrianism without a little local difficulty?

 

On my wanderings I briefly thought I’d found a Thomasson – in this case a set of stairs to nowhere - but in fact I think they’re part of the emergency exit from the building above, so unlike a true Thomasson the stairs do have a function.

 

There were ruins, just like ancient Rome:

 

There was even an obelisk:

 

There were cool vehicles of course. Here is the author with the vehicle of his dreams:

 

photo by Caroline Gannon.

And I saw a couple of VW Beetles still in action on the street, which is always reassuring. I even managed to get a picture of one of them.

 

There was walking in the gardens at the Huntington in San Marino, not least the desert garden.

It was fabulous.  And then the inamorata and I got in the rented car and drove inland to do some ‘proper’ desert walking …

 

MIRACLE ON OXFORD STREET

 

OK well, I’m still banging on about ‘Nicholson’s Guide to the Ground’ – a project of 

potentially infinite scope and duration.

 

I was in London for a few days last week; and you know, the stuff you find on the ground in London does seem more interesting and curious than the stuff you find on the ground elsewhere.

 

Some of the stuff is not necessarily surprising - it may just be litter – but most litter isn’t quite as eye-catching as this package of ‘Sliming’ Herbs, found on the pavement in Leytonstone. (That's one for the archive).

 

But other things are more mysterious.  Yes, I can imagine circumstances in which I might abandon my socks while out for a walk but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t just leave them lying on the pavement, like these near Leicester Square:

And what exactly is the story behind this mysterious pair of crutches left in Oxford Street.  To be fair they’d been left next to a waste bin which could be construed as an attempt to be tidy.

 

But it so happened that immediately after I’d taken that picture above, the man who empties the bins came along and asked me suspiciously, ‘Are these yours?’

 

I thought of one or two smart replies involving miracle cures but thought it best to play it straight, and said no they weren’t mine and I think he believed me.  And we both said they looked brand new.  Who throws a way a brand new pair of crutches, we asked each other?  We didn’t have an answer.

 

But I was reminded of a book I used to look at in my catholic grandma’s house when I was a kid.  The book was about Lourdes the scene of any number of miracle cures, and a place where a great many crutches were abandoned, like this:

And on the ground in Walthamstow – a pro-bee graffito (I think that’s the word even though it’s on the ground). 

 

WALKING IN AND OUT OF NATURE

 

I went for a walk, not a very long one, at a place called Nature in Art, at Twigworth in Gloucestershire, according to the website ‘the world’s first museum and art gallery dedicated to fine, decorative and applied art inspired by nature’ which sounds a bit catch-all for my tastes.

 

Not so very long ago people spent a lot of time saying to themselves and others, ‘Yes, but is it art?’  These days we pretty much accept that it IS art, whatever it is.

 

I spend rather more of my time saying, ‘Yes but is it nature?’  I don’t find ‘nature’ quite such a simple concept as so many people seem to. 

 

Nature in Art is in fact a permanent, though changing, exhibition partly inside Wallsworth Hall, a Georgian mansion, and partly in its garden. In the house are galleries featuring depictions of ‘natural’ subjects – frogs, lions, elephants, snakes, dodos and whatnot.  Some of these are paintings.  Some of them are three dimensional.

 

And of course you walk around the galleries just as you walk in any other gallery, but the real action is outside, a chunk of land, looked after but not too well-groomed, with pieces of sculpture scattered around it:  a metal squid, giant poppy seed heads, the tail of a whale (seen above).

Now, it seems to me, you might ask yourself whether a walk in a garden really counts as a walk in nature.  I mean a garden is green all right.   It has things growing in it.  But a garden is as much a creation as any piece of art. I don’t want to sound like a sour puss, but I’d have thought Art in the Garden would have been a better name for the outdoor space; but names are tricky.  The place is run by the Nature in Art Trust which was established in 1982 when it was called the Society for Wildlife Art of the Nations, so it’s definitely made a step in the right direction. 

And in fact I had a great time strolling around between the sculptures and the teasels, but I also spent a certain amount of time agonizing about what exactly is meant by ‘nature.’

 

         If you’ve ever pulled up a weed, trodden on an ant, or, lord knows, planted a tree, you have by definition interferred with nature.  You know, just like Capability Brown

 

These thoughts were nothing new.  I happen to live in the Stour Valley which is ‘An area of outstanding natural beauty’ (AONB – yes, I know it should be AOONB).  AONBs are protected by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CROW - yes, I know it should be CAROWA) which is all about protecting. conserving and indeed enhancing natural beauty, because obviously nature on it’s own isn’t enough.

 

The Stour Valley is a great place to walk, but do I really need government legislation to tell me what’s outstanding?  Or what’s natural or indeed beautiful? I’d have said not.

This may be because I enjoy walking in areas that some might call areas of outstanding unnatural ugliness.  That’s how we flaneurs are.  And of course I don’t need the government (or anybody else) to tell me what is and isn’t ugly.

Footnote: My friend and top photographer Berris Conolly tells me that ‘Art in the Gardens’ is the name of an annual summer sale at the Botanical Gardens in Sheffield. He writes, ‘I paid for a stall in a tent one year (2008ish) and did quite well, although amazingly, because of poor security, there was a (selective) theft in the night, and they took two of mine, which is probably quite complimentary. No insurance, of course.’

 

 

 

 

 

I WOULD WALK 500 STEPS ... AND SO ON

  

This is Peta Bee:

 

A little while back she had a piece in the Times Weekend Section – ‘Why walking is the best midlife exercise. Peta Bee on how many steps you really need.’

 

It was variations on the usual flannel –  ‘Improve the scenery to improve your pace,’  ‘Walk faster,’ ‘Complement walking with weights,’  - but there was an interesting part in which she quoted someone called Thomas Yates who is – wait for it -  a professor in ‘physical activity, sedentary behavior and health.’  Imagine that.  I suppose later in his career he may become a professor just of sitting about.

 

The quotation runs as follows, ‘If you are someone who is very sedentary then increasing you daily walk by 500 steps or just aiming for five minutes of continuous walking would be enough to provide a reasonable health boost.’

 

You see that.  You don’t actually have to DO it.  You just have for AIM to do it.

 

However, according to a sign currently displayed at the Barbican Centre, the government takes a different view – 

 

They say you need ‘a daily walk lasting 20 minutes or more to reduce the risk of heart disease,’ though they don’t say how MUCH more than 20 minutes.  And of course it doesn’t say you actually reduce heart disease, just RISK or heart disease.

 

Now, if you find yourself between trains at Chelmsford station, as I did recently, you’ll have the time to walk from one end of the platform to the other.  In fact you’ll have time to walk from the middle, where the platform entrance is, to one end, back to the middle, down to the other end and back to the middle again. 

 

I’d estimate that the platform is 250 yards long, so that’s your 500 steps right there, though it seemed to take me longer than 5 minutes.

 

In fact if you’re at Chelmsford station and your train is cancelled you’ve got a good half hour to walk back and forth, do you 500 steps and then a great many more.  That must begged for your health, though that's not why I walk.

 

And at the southern end of the platform there was a sign, in fact a use of language, in fact a concept, that I’d never seen before:

 

‘Cess path continues at other end of platform.’

 

I'd never seen the term 'cess path' before. It was the kind of thing that makes a walk worthwhile.  Strange that it's not a category of experience mentioned in Peta Bee’s article.

BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN

 War involves endless movement, getting civilian and military personnel from one place to 

another, getting to the right place and escaping from the wrong place  Very often 

machines are involved – cars, trains, tanks, planes, armoured vehicles.  And yet for many, 

especially (though not exclusively) refugees, war involves a great deal of walking.

 

These are Ukrainians:

 

These are Afghanis:

These are Rohinya refugees:

 

And obviously it's not just civilians. In the Falklands. British soldiers referred to ‘yomping.’

My dad was in his teens when Sheffield was bombed in World War 2.  The day after a round of bombing he still went to work, walking over bodies on the way. 

 

In the same week that a war started in Europe there was a piece in the papers about researchers in Canada who had discovered that - and I'm quoting from the Times here 'that the prevalence of obesity among adults living on "highly walkable" neighborhoods was 19% lower than in those living in areas with 'low walkability.'"

And yeah, you might think, trivial First World problems, although until recently we tended to believe that Russia and Ukraine were firmly in that first world.

 

Also at times like this it might be reasonable to remember Ed Ruscha's line, (which I don’t imagine he invented) the phrase ‘Brave Men Run in My Family.’

ABIDE WITH ME, ETC

 Here’s a picture of an old feller walking in Sheffield.

 

I took it about fifteen years ago when I was walking around the old neighbourhood where I grew up.  It’s taken at the corner of Crowder Road and Crowder Crescent, and I’d have said it was on the Longley Estate, but it could be the Southey Green Estate: these things are finely nuanced and I’ve been gone a long time.

 

I don’t make any claims for myself as a photographer but I’m rather pleased with this one: the twisting of the trees contrasted with the bending of the old man.  (Are they trees? I suppose they may be bushes or shrubs, but never mind). And for one reason another I decided to take a look on Google Street View to see what had been happening on that corner. This view, dated 2021, shows that the twisty trees are gone.

 

What a sad thing.

 

However, if you let Street View take you into the side street, Crowder Crescent, they’re still there.  They’re not looking as healthy as in my pic but they’re hanging in there.  But that picture is dated 2012.

 

So we can say that somewhere between 2012 and 2021 those trees were either removed or possibly they just died.  It seems a sad thing but it may be nature taking its course. 

 

The old man, I assume, is long, long gone.

WALKING WITH WINDOWS

 And speaking of flaneuses, I see that Deborah Moggach is back in the news: new book and newly single.  

 

I remember a time when her Who’s Who entry listed one of her recreations as ‘walking around London looking in people’s windows.’  This sounds so much more fun that just ‘walking.’  This is as close as I can get to a picture of her walking:

 

I did once walk with her for several hundred yards, maybe half a mile, around central London, near Oxford Circus, as we looked for a place to have lunch.  We didn’t look in any people’s windows, and at the time I didn’t know this was one of her recreations, but I certainly would have given half a chance.

EARLY WALKING SYSTEM

 Look, I don’t know much about Nadiya Hussein but I gather she’s a lovely woman, famous 

for baking cakes.  Beyond that I remained in happy ignorance until I saw this headline in the 

Times, ‘I make my kids go on 6 am walks.’  

 

This strikes me as both cruel and unusual, but that isn't the half of it.  If you read the article you discover the line ‘The family wakes each morning just before 5am to pray.’  'For me,' she says, 'it's about making the most of the day.' -  I mean, really?

 

Naturally I was reminded of the blessed Christopher Hitchens’ remark that he thought teaching religious knowledge in schools was a very good thing because it guaranteed an ongoing supply of atheists.  I assume much the same can be said about waking children at 5am for prayers. 

But I do worry that waking children at 6am, and making them go for a walk is most likely

guaranteed to create an ongoing supply of pedestrians and couch potatoes.

        Christopher Hitchens didn't look like a man who ever willingly went for a walk, but I 

could be wrong. Nice bookshelves.

SIMPLY WALKING SIMPLY

 

Some people say that all great ideas are simple.  Obviously this isn’t literally true.  Some 

great ideas are incredibly complicated.  And of course not all simple ideas are great.

 

But one great, simple idea is exemplified by a piece of art title Walking by the Chinese artist Deng Tai.

 

It was shown at the Hammer Museum in LA in 2015, at a time when I was living in LA and could have gone to see it but I’m only reading about it now

 

The description from the Hammer runs as follows.

“Walking is a series of photos made over a three to four year period of time, in different cities, always at night, using only the street and shop lights for illumination. It is simply the recording of a journey, walking an endless road, without a map, to some distant and undefined destination “  

 

The description goes on for a while getting a bit artspeak-ish, but concludes more or less sanely with the words 

“Walking is a simple travellers (sic) passage down streets, over bridges, up stairs, around corners, past buildings, glass, trees, and lights. Each photo, or each frame, is a painting of a day in the life, but all together it is a bigger story, a journey without beginning and without end.’

 

In other words it’s a video of a couple of thousand blurry photographs of some bloke’s feet.

And not only is this a simple idea, but it leads me to the thought – I COULD HAVE DONE THAT!!

 

But of course I didn’t.

 

However the most telling line on the website is “Music for Walking video by William Basinski.”  Now, getting William Basinski to do the music for your art is a great idea, but I’m sure making it a reality is not at all simple.