AN EXPENSIVE WAY TO GET ANXIOUS

FLEETING VISIT

COME BACK WITH THINGS AND NOT HIGH

ANOTHER BOXING DAY

A GOOD WALK SLIGHTLY SPOILED

The idea of the woods is an attractive one. When it comes to the stretching of the legs and the inhalation of relatively fresher air at the weekend, a consensus has been settled upon by the three members of my little family: the woods are the best. A woody walk: that's what we call an afternoon stroll among trees, along muddy paths, over little brooks, crunching over a thick carpet of fragrantly decaying leaves. This all happens just barely outside the M25. So even the biggest of these woods is tiny, really - a little slice of dampened footfalls, of birdsong, of bramble-tangle, of toadstool, of hollybush. The rounding of a corner or a change in the direction of the breeze and, yes, you can hear the swish of traffic on some not-far-off stretch of motorway. People and their houses and their out-of-town business parks and their bigbox furniture stores: close by, really. How long ago was it, then, that to be in the woods in England truly meant to be somewhere unpeopled and unmanaged? Before the industrial revolution, surely. Some time before that, most likely. Weren't our ancestors cutting swathes through old wood so we could build ships and rules waves? Didn't our ancestors' masters take big bites out of ancient oak, hazel and birch so they could enclose land and own it and own the people set to work on it? Something like that. Anyway, however we got here, here we are: tiny green wedges among the tidy homes and the efficient agriculture and the corrugated sides of giant logistics sites. Of these little wooded places, we have a reliable favourite for our Sunday strolls: colour-coded signs marking out circular walks of varying length. The yellow walk, I think, is the longest (and therefore best): X number of miles in a leafy loop back to the car park. It works. And for a while, it worked especially well, marred-yet-improved by the fat trunk of a fallen tree right across the path at the top of a stretch of gently rising land. 3/4 of the way around the circuit, this obstacle lay there for months. Climbing over it became the highlight of the leg-stretching, the muddy palms brandished like proof of having achieved something. No way to get over it without laying hands on its footprint-smothered bulk, you see. It's gone now. And while we still like that walk, it feels like something important is missing as we climb into the final quarter of the circuit, minds turning to "home learning", work deadlines and the cramped, wired, electrified England crowding in on us just beyond the edge of that minuscule remnant of the old forest.

WWBAGWFT2: NOT DESIRE PATHS BUT...?

Just over a week ago, I dropped in on an old friend who lives just outside Chichester. My pal is a big reader - has worked in publishing for ages; used to work in bookshops; used to send me bundles of books to keep me supplied with fresh reading material when living in my pre-Internet Poland of the early-to-mid nineteen nineties. 

We only had about an hour to chat and to look around the new house he's just moved into with his wife and two wonderfully polite daughters, all of whom were at home when we stopped by. So there was little time for one of our proper catch-ups. But I could tell he'd read something new and had it on his mind. I noticed that he kept returning, a little obliquely, to the concept of unloved, unlovely places at the edge of town and country. Every now and then, with just a few words, he would capture quite evocatively the essence of these ignored strips and patches of land. More than once he used the term edgelands. Something about how he emphasised this word suggested that it was one around which he'd lately and repeatedly been wrapping his mouth and mind. But for whatever reason, I didn't pick up on this possible cue to ask more about this apparent neologism, edgelands. I guessed, however, that he and I would return to this theme some time soon.

So it came to pass. Two days later, my friend asked me if I knew of a book titled Edgelands. I replied that I did not. Shortly after that, I was surprised to receive said book by post, courtesy of my thoughtful pal. Replying to my words of thanks, he advised me that he'd "found it to be a mixture of fascinating, amusing, concerning and slightly irritating but a good read nonetheless." I am part of the way through it and I am minded to agree with my friend's words. I do feel that the book contains much to admire while being, at the same time, frustratingly unsatisfying in places. 

Much of the photography and, I think, a little of the writing, here at this is my england (and the associated Instagram account) is evidence of my interest in the kind of spaces and atmospheres explored by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts (both are poets) in Edgelands. In fact I'd really like to find my own ways to capture the essence of these untidy places in my own short stories and attempts at poetry. Effective ways, I mean. Ways that properly please me if no one else. 

Overall, then, it feels like I keep nodding with approval as the two poets put into words a half-formed notion that I've never properly articulated myself. But then, rather more often than I'd like, I feel that the Edgelands authors miss the mark, even if only by a fraction. It's like this book reminds me of an itch... and then fails to scratch it. So at some point, I may feel inclined to say more about Edgelands. But for now I just want to express my dissatisfaction with one particular term coined by the authors.

Consider the photograph below. It shows part of the route I must take if, as now, I find myself travelling, daily, in and out of London in pursuit of a living. Here, I am drawing close to the station near my home:

Notice what has happened to the landscaping crafted around the mid-sized office building which sits close to our local station. In step with other commuters, I cross a busy road and then a bridge, before approaching the corner you see here. Some nameless town planner, you will observe, wanted us to stick to the footpath, our progress describing a gentle curve as we turn our steps into the station's approach road. But see that dry, grassless groove, a sharper angle worn across the well-trimmed grass maintained by some contractor serving the owners of the office complex. On rainless days, numberless pedestrians have shaved three seconds or so from the daily commute by cutting out the prescribed curve, flattening and then killing the grass as they go. For me, it's a decision. I realise now, in fact, that many, many times I have allotted some small portion of my attention to the question of whether to contribute to this process of erosion by angling across the corner of the lawn. Or whether to curve around the outside of the lamppost like a good boy. Does it depend on the weather? On the newness of my shoes? On whether I'm unobserved? On whether others around me are widening and deepening that illicit groove, or sweeping dryly and correctly along the footpath? 

These countless tiny decisions and a surprisingly clear picture of the corner shown above both sprang immediately to mind when reading the following passage from Edgelands:

The post-war overspill developments seen on the edges of many of our cities were planned right down to every concrete walkway, subway and pathway. But their green squares and verges were soon criss-crossed with desire paths: a record of collective short-cuttings. In the winter, they turned to sludgy scars that spattered trousers and skirts and clung to shoes, and during hot summers they turned dusty and parched. Once established, they fell into constant use, footpaths which have never entered the literature. These footpaths of least resistance offer their own subtle resistance to the dead hand of the planner.  

I enjoyed almost every word of this. Almost. But "desire paths"? No, no. This term really doesn't cut it for me. On one hand the Edgelands writers very deftly bring into "the literature" an  instantly recognisable feature of urban and suburban environments which has escaped the descriptive remit of other texts. But on the other hand, once conjured into something tangible, this quotidian phenomenon is mislabelled with a term that seems altogether too attractive. Sylvan, even, speaking to me of improbably nubile faeries leaving traces of their passing across the glistening caps of dewy toadstools. This is about real people cutting across real patches of grass, using the spaces they live in (or travel through) not quite as the planners hoped. Nothing more. No faerie dust. No longing. No lust. So wherefore desire?

So I am looking for a more suitable alternative term for desire paths while being mindful that it may be difficult to create a sufficiently elegant one. But maybe such a term exists in German? Or, if not, perhaps a native speaker of German would find it easier to create one than would a Brit or an American. After all, just over a month ago, this is my england noted that "the German language outperforms English in one important area - a facility for the creation of abstract nouns which neatly (i.e. with one word, albeit sometimes a rather long one) convey quite complex and highly specific concepts or emotional states." This observation was followed up with a rambling attempt to convey certain frustrating emotions experienced (by me, anyway) at pelican crossings and an appeal for passing German speakers to encapsulate these with spiffy new nouns. I asked, then,  "What Would Be a German Word for That?"

So, dear German reader (or, more realistically, M.P. Powers) - these desire paths of Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts: What Would Be a (Better!) German Word for That? Yeah, this is #WWBAGWFT2.

BARK

LOOK DOWN AND BETWEEN

it feels like the more the gloss, the glitz, the noise, the stimulation etc. are sold to me, the more my eye is drawn to the relief of stillness and the quotidian little tableaux of twig, cigarette end and cracked paving slab: the blank bits of ordinariness meant to lie unnoticed between the shouty billboards, the shouty people and the blare of the screens. buy the stunning new album? experience the latest in whateverwhatever? I'll pass. I'll pass.

ERSATZ EASTERN SPIRITUALITY AS DECOR

SUN, SEA AND BONEHEADS

Dear old Brighton. For all its faults, we like it a lot. Love it? That might be going a bit too far. But it remains dependably likeable and it's rare that a trip down there does not prove to be enjoyable. This weekend? No exception. Plenty of sufficiently eye-catching new (or new to me) graffiti, street art and whatnot  to warrant the constant snap-snap of the trusty SLR (see results below);  and, as ever, the people-watching was decent, the seaside city's residents and visitors combining to create an interesting mix... tough girls with generously-filled leggings stretched over hi-vis thongs; quasi-bohemian media monkeys with their iPads, Bugaboos and Birkenstocks; loudly chattering gaggles of excitable ragazzi, burdened by the branded backpacks of EuroTrash Language Centres.

All of this was the normal seaside stuff. Different, though, was learning on the drive down that our kiss-me-quick Sunday was to be affected to some degree by the presence of literally tens of dismal pricks, mixing their fearful fug with the better notes of fish, chips and beachy ozone. You see, as we were feeding a hungry car park ticket machine and looking forward to some family fun, a supposed March for England was getting underway down on the seafront. Various Facebook pages and Twitter feeds associated with this event would have you believe that the intention was nothing more sinister than a display of pride in Englishness, timed to occur as close as possible to St. George's Day. So you'd expect a bit of morris dancing, right? A sort of Jubilee street party vibe... tea and cakes... bunting... all that stuff. Well, not so much. Instead, Brighton was treated to repurposed football songs, badly done casual gear and artless tattoos. The March for England, you see, however much its participants may try to protest to the contrary, is a confection cooked up among the rabble this country's chaotic and mercifully short-handed far-right groups. MFE is the alphabet soup you get when you mix up ingredients such as EDL, EVF and maybe even a dash of BNP.

Of course, one of the really charming things about this mob is their insistence on provocation. The nonsense about merely celebrating their patron saint's day (What's racist about that? No one minds St. Patrick's day or bloody Diwali etc. etc.) is so obviously disingenuous because of the location of the march. Its two Tory MPs notwithstanding, the city of Brighton and Hove is home to many left-leaning folk and the atmosphere of the city is certainly sold as one of cosmopolitanism, diversity and tolerance. Whether these values are truly at the heart of the experience of living there is probably something only a resident could tell you for sure. But the reputation is there. Throw in good-sized contingents of local anarchists, anti-fascists and all that and there you have it: the perfect destination for the far-right's bickering street gangs when they're looking for their preferred kind of seaside day out. They want a hostile reception. They want to leverage that hostility when attempting to add some weight to their specious and incoherent arguments. If they didn't want to court disapproval, presumably they would go marching somewhere well-stocked with ideological fellow travellers.

No close-up shots of these charmers here, I'm afraid. No video footage of the bits and pieces of trouble that are meant to have broken out during the day. How come? Well, when you've got a 7-year old kid in tow and you're in town for the rides on the pier and a quick round of crazy golf, you're disinclined to get into the firing line of potential missile throwers or fist wielders on either side of barricades. So for proper details on what went down, and for the inevitably slanted accounts of the marchers on one hand and the much more numerous anti-march protesters on the other, you can do a bit of Googling. But don't get excited, you'll soon find that the whole thing was a bit of a damp squib. It was hardly Cable Street 2.0.

That said, we were not a zillion miles from what passed for action. Take it from me, navigating the pitted green concrete of a crazy golf course just a couple of hundred yards from all the chanting and whistling and general hoo-ha is a weird experience - not least while attempting a kid-friendly explanation of the point of the march, the nature of the marchers and the presence of so many heavily-armoured police officers. By the time we were attempting a tricky shot under a sad-looking windmill, we had, if I remember rightly, got so far into the ensuing discussion that the topic blowing the nipper's mind was the business of why his great grandma had had to run away from Germany in the 1930s. If nothing else, it was educational.

But tears looked imminent when it seemed that the repeatedly promised visit to the pier and its rides would be delayed, if not made altogether impossible. Happily, however, there was a viable route onto the pier via steps up from beach. This route, though, took our kid within close proximity of a particularly malevolent-looking fellow who seemed to have become separated from the lads with the St. George's flags and the fear of change. It was a nothing moment, really. But there was something a bit chilling about it. Yes, you might argue that when we heard about the shenanigans going on that day we should have aborted our plans for a bit of harmless family fun. But you hear that line about not letting the terrorists terrorise us out of living the lives we want to live, right? You know the kind of thing: if we become so fearful that our daily lives become constricted then we've let them win. Well, in Brighton on Sunday, we felt a bit like that about the EDL et. al. not stopping our kid from enjoying the day out we'd promised him.

Once we'd braved the creaking, rusting log flume (AKA Wild River) and the loopy Galaxia (which the Mrs. really endured rather than enjoyed), we headed back along the planks for dry land to find that the marchers had been loaded onto coaches. The last of these was pulling away as we made it up onto King's Road. What fun it was to see rows of contorted, bloated faces snarling and sneering at us from a forest of v-signs and raised middle digits. Another fun memory for the kid to treasure forever! 

After that, it was just blissfully normal Brighton stuff. Meeting up with an old friend. Getting stuck into a good supper. Snapping a few more pics. The nonsense had blown over. As seems to have been the case for the last few years, the March for England had generated a bit of noise, got a few of the locals very annoyed but ultimately left Brighton unchanged and unimpressed. 

Anyway, here are those street art pics:

RUNNERS: THE HOLE TRUTH

as the FCC war on graffiti rumbles on, someone is now writing the word ANUS on the side of the trains:

What's it all about?

The First Capital Connect/BTP war on graffiti continues, with the legions of security staff protecting valuable rolling stock at night somehow unable to prevent the stylings of one devil-may-care cheeky chap: