WIDE OPEN FOR BUSINESS

Of course I enjoy walking in the wide open spaces.  What kind of fool doesn’t?

And yet I realize, all else being equal (and I also realize that in this context all else is never equal), that given the choice between walking in open spaces or taking a turn down some potentially claustrophobic, potentially threatening alleyway, most of the time I’d take the latter.  

I also realize that in the greater scheme of things we may all have bigger, more pressing, choices that need to be made.

Even so, finding myself in London, more or less in the City, t’other week I started walking down and photographing a few narrow constricted alleyways, as seen above. 

Did I think of Tony Christie singing ‘Avenues and Alleyways?’  Yes, I’m afraid I did.

And what is it about constricted spaces? Does it have something to do with the birth canal, or does it have something to do with pretending to be the kInd of guy who can comfortably walk down mean streets, and damn the risk of being mugged or blackjacked? A little of both, I'm guessing.

Above is the (or at least a) bridge in Silverlake, in LA. which I used to think was sung about by Red Hot Chilli Peppers in ‘Under the Bridge’ but various sources place that bridge in many different locations all over LA.

This is (or at anyway was) in Chelmsford, but I understand there have been some 'improvements' around the station.

This is definitely in Berkeley:

And this I'm reasonably sure is Tinderbox Alley in Mortlake  (I had to walk down it because of the name), and here it’s made somewhat more constricted by somebody parking a car in it.

And back home in Manningtree, I found this amazingly constricted space between two garden fences.  

Again I felt I had to walk down it, and at the end there was an undergrowth or perhaps overgrowth of nettles – and I broke on through to the other side and found I was on a dangerous stretch of road with no pavement or grass verge, where any passing car might run me down.

Friends, it made me feel ALIVE.

WALKING WITH AGE AND CARDUS

I’ve been listening to Toby Jones on BBC radio reading The Great Romantic: Cricket and the golden age of Neville Cardus, by Duncan Hamilton.

Some claim that Cardus is the greatest cricket writer ever.  I’ve always thought there was something not quite authentic about his ‘poetic’ style:  the guy on the right below seems to share my opinion:

It was interesting to hear in the broadcast that Cardus carried an ebony walking stick ‘purely for ornamental purposes' because it ‘allowed him to pose.’  There is supposedly some footage of this, but I can’t find it in the usual places.

Cardus did list walking as one of his hobbies, and in the radio reading, and therefore I suppose in the book, there was a nice quotation from him about walking.  He said, ‘The tragedy of what is called old age is that the body gets older and the mind gets younger.  I want to go for an eight-mile walk.  My mind goes for an eight-mile walk.  My damn legs won’t go.’

I haven't experienced that yet, and I hope I'm some  way from there, but it sounds all too likely.

Incidentally, there’s a street in Manchester called Neville Cardus Walk .  It looks like this:

SO LONG, HUGH

I’m not quite sure of the etiquette of this, and if any members of the family think this is inappropriate I’ll immediately take it down, but here’s a very small memorial, a photograph of my friend and occasional walking companion (and many other things too) Hugh Paton who died last week.  

The picture shows him and his wife Anna walking in Suffolk some years back – I can’t be any more precise than that. He’ll be missed by a great many people, including me.

OBELISK FINDER GENERAL

I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason.  I believe that most things happen for no reason whatsoever. And I don’t believe that life brings you what you need.  And yet and yet ...  

I currently find myself billeted (for reasons that make more sense some days than others) in Manningtree in Essex. That’s where Matthew Hopkins, aka the ‘Witchfinder General,’ did some of his best work.  Funny thing about witch hunts – they always find lots of witches.  He did look at least somewhat like Vincent Price who played him in the movie.

 Quite independently, and before I moved here, I had developed an interest in obelisks.  Now I discover this area is strangely well-supplied with obelisks.

If you start somewhat to the east of Manningtree you’ll find the Mistley Towers, op cit, quite the folly landmark, but rather more intriguingly from my point of view it’s also the site of the obelisk commemorating Jean Death, a hard name to live with.  

In fact there’s a bakery in Manningtree called the De’aths Bakery, so presumably there’s some connection, and something for me to investigate.

If you go into Manningtree from Mistley and walk up the hill to the Trinity Free Church, you’ll find a churchyard which looks rather older than the church, and in there you’ll find a couple more obelisks, small, discreet, unspectacular and all the more appealing for that.

And then last weekend, I walked to Cattawade, part of which I’d often seen from the train heading up into Suffolk, and I’d spotted some fine industrial ruins; ICI, Ilford films, Xylonite, as I now know.  Part of the area was once known as Highams Park. Some say that Margaret Thatcher worked for Xylonite at this location, but others say she worked up in Lawton – more research needed there too.

Most of the Cattawade site has been demolished or left to collapse, which was why I was there, but (need I say) I discovered an obelisk.

In fact it's a war memorial that used to be in the grounds of the now absent ICI compound.

At one time it had obviously had commemorative metal plaques attached to it, but they’ve been removed for safe keeping, and so the stone has become a canvas for some profoundly unambitious taggers. Couldn’t any self-respecting street artist do wonders with an obelisk? This one’s in Lincoln County Oklahoma (pic by MJ Alexander, I believe).

ICE COLD IN WC1

During World War Two a team of scientists (American I think though I’m not certain), studied how long soldiers could walk in the desert without water.  They worked out that, if the soldiers were properly hydrated before they started, they could walk 45 miles in 80 degree heat, 15 miles in 100 degree heat, and 7 miles in 120 degree heat.  I’m getting this info from Bill Bryson’s forthcoming book The Body: A Guide for Occupants.

Well I’m no soldier but those distances strike me as enormously optimistic. Walking 7 miles in 80 degree heat without any water strikes me as quite bad enough.

Thursday June 25th, was predicted to be the hottest day ever recorded in English meteorology - that would be 38.5 degrees C, 101.3 F.  And I do hear most of my American contacts saying, ‘You call that hot?’  

So, being the mad dog and Englishman that I am I decided walk around London and see how things looked and felt. I also had a vague plan to plan to see the Cindy Sherman exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

The first think to say is that it felt nothing like a hundred degrees.  After my years in the states I’m rather more attuned to Fahrenheit.  I mean it was definitely hotand it wasn’t a dry heat, but it didn’t feel, and in fact it wasn’t, as hot as predicted – 37.9 or 100.22 at Kew and Heathrow, which is plenty hot enough, though I was nowhere near either of those places.  And although it’s possible to find weather forecasts online for the whole of the world, finding what the temperature was in central London two days ago has defeated me.

Still, as I walked around, camera in hand, it was interesting to see how people coped with the heat

Some managed to look downright icy:

 

Some tried to sleep through it:

Others were definitely suffering:

And then about 6 o’clock it rained very hard and very briefly.  That didn’t seem to make much difference to anything, though I suppose it must have cooled things down at least slightly.

Though not everyone looked any better for it:

Did I walk 7 miles in the course of the day? Yes, I think so, more or less, but I certainly took on a lot of liquid along the way.

And the Cindy Sherman? Oh I dunno.  I’m not sure that putting on a bad wig and bad make up is synonymous with exploring ‘identity,’ though I'm sure other views are possible.  And as for the clowns …  

On the other hand I still love the Untitled Film Stills, and have for a very long time. At least it used to get her of the studio and doing a bit of walking around.