Faking documentaries

I am not a great TV fan. Much of my viewing is after the 9pm watershed and some of it with the aid of a drink or two. That is not to deny that there is some great TV, just that it mostly is not for me. I mainly watch documentaries or films and am becoming very tetchy about the former. However, one that I particularly enjoyed recently is called: The Railway: Keeping Britain on Track. It’s great. Commentary is light and we never see the commentator, and why indeed should we. What we see is real people doing real things, travelling, selling tickets, driving trains, paying and avoiding paying. Oh and there was a Sisyphean cycle of a drunk repeatedly walking up the escalator the wrong way. It’s fascinating, there are scenes of drama, anger, kindness, selfishness, loyalty and comedy. And it is all real.

The railway documentary has none of those awful fake entries when the presenter, often a ‘personality’ with little connection to the documentary’s topic, knocks on a door and real people open it feigning surprise at this obviously prepared and often much rehearsed scene. Do they think we are idiots? In my recent appearance with the Hairy Bikers I was made to do one of these. No door this time, just a slipway to the punting station on Oxford’s River Cherwell. After chatting for an hour or so whilst the director and general dogsbody set everything up, we had to pretend to meet ‘for the camera’. Our ‘first’ meeting took four takes. On the third one the Hairy Biker slipped on the wet decking and fell over – now that was the entrance that should have been screened (no Hairy Bikers were hurt in the making of this sequence).

The Hunt is currently being screened by the BBC and it is excellent, though I am torn between supporting the hunter and sympathy for the hunted. Commentary is heavier, but we never see the commentator. He is a media personality, chosen I suppose to give authority to the script, but it could have been done by anyone with good diction. It is secondary to the action which could be enjoyed without commentary at all. And to see how it is all made described by the crew who actually filmed it – magic.

Please someone stop these ‘personalities’ walking towards the camera as they talk, and stop screening close ups of their thoughtful faces, presumably to provide drama where this should come from the documentary itself. Please stop inserting irrelevant clips of fires when the word fire is mentioned in the commentary. We all know what fire looks like. Similarly for storms, or crowds, or stars, or the sea. Please stop showing matey scenes between the ‘personalities’ and the complete strangers that they meet. These strangers are the real stars, we know that the personality does not know them, will never see them again, will not even recall their name after the next documentary. These things should not be called documentaries, they are simply chat shows on the road where the presenter is the focus and the subject, the experts and the real people are simply a backcloth for the show.

Ah well, that’s got that off my chest. Now where did I leave that bloody remote? And where’s the ‘off’ button.

Syria Remembered

I visited Syria about ten years ago, alone and with a backpack. I entered the country from Turkey and visited a number of towns and cities that have recently made the headlines. I had no agenda, just a Lonely Planet Guide and a will to explore. I recall the kindness of Kurds, Arabs, Armenians and Alawites.  Also the many pictures of Assad, the desert wastes, the heat, the incredibly low prices, the decrepit trains, the ancient remains and women shrouded in black.

Sadly, I have mislaid my notes of the month or so that I spent there, so these recollections are from a distance. My only experiences of aggression and violence occurred in the first place I visited: Deir ez-Zur, a small city in the east. Endeavouring to get cash in the bank the cashier held me entirely responsible for our involvement in the war in neighbouring Iraq. On the main street two cyclists resorted to fisticuffs following a collision. In a park a group of young men approached me with seeming angry intent. They demanded to know where I came from and I replied, with some trepidation, “England”. They looked at each other as if making a decision, then together shouted, “Bush bad, Blaire good,” and insisted upon my accepting a bottle of orangeade from them. That was a near thing.

Later my wandering took me near to the entrance to a large school. Teenagers were pouring out at the end of their day and I was soon surrounded by a vast crowd of them demanding answers to questions such as “Where you from? Are you married? How old are you? Why are you here? Do you have children? What is your name?” Finally a fully uniformed gateman pushed his way through the crowd and told me to go away: the crowd that I had unwittingly attracted was blocking the road.

Next I went to Palmyra and had the fortune to see the Temple of Bel, since tragically and pointlessly destroyed by ISIS, and then onto the capital, Damascus, one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in the world where the main danger was crossing the wide central road. Further west I met the Mediterranean coast at Tartus. Such a relief, such a pleasure. Here the women actually exposed their hair! On my first day there, sitting eating my lunch in a park, two uncovered young ladies joined me, talked to me and shared their food with me. It was a relief to leave behind the black-draped uncommunicative ladies of the east.

In Tartus my visa was due to expire so I had to visit a photographic studio to obtain a snap for the visa application. The photographer was outspoken in English. After the usual interchanges I pointed to the large portrait of Assad and asked, “Why do you put that there?”

“We love him,” he replied with a genuine smile. “He asks us not to put his likeness on our walls, but we want to. He was educated in your country you know.” I knew.

Leaving Tartus and the dirtiest beach I have ever seen behind, I made my way through Latakia to Kasab and was quickly embraced by Armenians who complained bitterly about the government. Not the Syrian, but the Turkish government. The Ottomans had marched their ancestors out of their country to Syria during the First World War and many had died in transit.

There is more, much more, in those mislaid, maybe lost, notes, those memories of a peaceful country with people going about their business, their lives. Okay, maybe I was naive, blinkered, deliberately misled, but I do not think so. Would that we could wind back the clock to the time of my visit and start again, but that is foolish talk. Like everyone I feel so sorry for those killed, maimed, deprived of their homes, their livelihood, their lives by this awful conflict.

Do I have a solution to this crisis? Of course not. There is just one thing I am sure of: things have certainly been worsened by other countries taking sides, arming one side against the other, castigating one side or another – yet that still continues. So what can we do? There is something - help those that are helping the refugees in the area: Save the Children for example.

Nature strikes back.

Most years I would be heading for Spain just now for the autumnal visit, but wife support has changed that. So I am in England and the season has just started in Oxford with a talk arranged by Skeptics in the Pub on the theme of philosophers and science. Though I enjoyed the beer and a chat with a friend I was not impressed by the talk. A youngish self-styled called philosopher tried to convince a packed audience that scientists have no ethics and philosophers (whatever they are) have a monopoly on both ethics and logical thought. Fresh from The Edinburgh Fringe, I think he found Oxford sceptics extremely sceptical and a hard bunch as they repeatedly attacked his Venn diagram. This had a big circle labelled philosophy embracing a smaller one labelled science and everything outside the big circle was labelled stupid! The speaker probably scores quite high on entertainment value (with some) but low on rational content (with many).

The day before that I lost my wallet on the Chipping Norton to Oxford bus. The moment after I stepped off the thing I patted my back pocket – wallet gone. And with it all the usual stuff from credit cards to bus pass and drivers licence plus an irreplaceable poem on Turkey. The bus went on to the railway station and I intercepted it on its way back – wallet gone and a different driver. Sod it.

The day after I received some photos from Dolors, a good friend in our village in Spain. I could see from the thumbnails that the pictures were of my caseta - my stone hut at the huerto - and left the message for later. I opened it at around one o’clock this morning and could not quite believe what I saw – my two roofs, only completed last year, wrecked; my solar panel pocked and undoubtedly ruined! Sod it.

Many pictures of Spain feature the sun, the sea and the beach, and I guess that is the picture that jumps into most people’s heads when the country is mentioned. Our area is not like that. It does get hot in the summer, but it also gets cold in the winter. And though there is much more sunshine than in Britain we are rocked by storms. The Spanish word for storm is tormenta and sounds to me stronger, wilder, more tremendous and the storms around La Fresneda are certainly all of that: ripping lightening, deafening thunder, flash flooding and sometimes, just occasionally billiard ball hail. The latter is rare, usually localised, and bloody frightening. If you are caught in one you run for your life for shelter, the balls of ice usually start small, but rapidly grow in size and intensity. They damage cars, crops and of course, roofs.

The hail storm that damaged my little creation over there broke on Monday. When I heard about it early this morning my reaction was subdued, sad more than angry. When all of my tools were stolen from the caseta a few years ago I was furious and vented my fury in a blog (7^th September 2012) in which I poured anger and blame on the thieves. Who or what can I blame for the damage to my roof? Nature I suppose. Global warming perhaps – and thus all of the car drivers and coal consumers of the world – not really, I’m pretty sure that hailing predates the discovery of global warming.

So what’s next? Go over there sometime to reroof the caseta and install a new solar panel, I suppose. Sadly I carefully mortared the latter into the roof so that thieves could not take it! I wasn’t expecting an ice ball attack so soon.

PS a friend in Spain sent me a newsclip which contains a video showing the ferocity of the hail storm shot at the swimming pool of a nearby village. Reports now say that the hail stones were as large as eggs!

The meaning of life revealed in an Oxford pub!

I hate August in Oxford; it’s the peak of the tourist season in my city and the pits for intellectual stimulation (my Harry Potter tours aside ;-). The students have gone for their long vacation or forever. The city has the feel of a boxing ring at the end of  a sixteen-round lightweight boxing match as the dregs of the language students depart for their own countries, “Oxford English” now embedded in their souls. Lectures are a very rare treat after the surfeit of term time when I often have to make difficult choices. Even the music scene is at low ebb though I did score a double whammy on a recent Saturday evening: a writer’s drinks party followed by an upbeat performance by the Pete Fryer band in a working class pub (yes, they do exist in Oxford) – what a contrast.

Praise be that one thing does survive the desert of the eighth month: Philosophy in Pubs – philosophy is perhaps eternal. The subject for discussion is usually chosen by Ben, our erudite and urbane host, maitre D and convenor. This time Ben was sporting a newly shaped beard (beards are in at the moment, though I fear the word ‘in’ isn’t in) and wearing his distinguishing philosophical hat. He had chosen an Everest of a topic: The Meaning of Life!

At first, I seemed to be the only person at the Thames side Isis Farmhouse pub, but I linked up with another lost person and suggested that tonight’s topic was too daunting for the regulars or perhaps they already knew the answer. He was a young prison officer from the local magistrate’s court which led directly to a discussion of Jeremy Bentham’s ‘panopticon’ a prison design that allowed all prisoners to be viewed from the centre. “Ah, a miscreant masturbating over there,” I quipped to my new acquaintance.

“If that was the worst thing they got up to my job would be easy,” he said sadly, and then explained that he was looking elsewhere, the job was too demanding and unsatisfying. I could see that he needed to find new meaning in his life.

Ben arrived at last and drew us together at tables in the garden. One man in our group sat at another table and shouted a series of complex words to us that I did not comprehend and said so. He responded with another stream of rare and presumably philosophic terms. Too much philosophic knowledge kills open philosophic discussion, so I changed tables.

I think that I am usually the oldest (but not the wisest) attendee at Philosophy in Pubs (PIPS), but the man I then sat next to was near my age and accompanied by two content  King Charles Spaniels: they both knew that the meaning in life is stroking and food. He, the owner, struck me as having interesting views on our topic, but his argument led directly to god or something like god; oh and love, lots of love. Those spaniels can get you that way.  A much younger man took me to task as I banged on about the meaning of life being personal, related to personal happiness and satisfaction and the need for others to be happy and satisfied in order to create a society in which I, and they, can be happy and satisfied. He maintained that since I did not believe in life after death my life did not have meaning. I admitted that he had a point, but later after a few more pints in another pub which had live music I thought of the answer. So, I now know the meaning of life – my life.

That young man was studying for a doctorate of music. His interests lay in the structure and meaning of music, including its relationship to complex mathematics. He maintained that the shared enjoyment of music takes one beyond the personal and gives life meaning – interesting. Later, on another table, someone suggested that searching for meaning is futile: it is the journey though life that provides its meaning. At that point I timidly suggested that the inclusion in the American constitution of the phrase ‘the pursuit of happiness’ may be the answer, then left to do just that in another pub. Hence, I do not know if PIPS agreed on a meaning for life that evening. I rather doubt it. It’s personal you see.

The end of Oxford and me?

I cycled down to Oxford last Saturday to give a tour to some youngsters. I was not looking forward to it particularly. Youngsters know very little and therefore cannot easily relate to what they are seeing or what I am saying. They are generally much more interested in their friends, in eating and the odd passing distraction (a rising bollard, a descending bollard, a trashed student, a shop, etc).

My negativity was reinforced as I approached a renowned tourist focus - the Martyr’s Memorial. I could see a long line of white coaches with colourful streams of youngsters pouring forth and surging towards the city centre. They had damned up at the pedestrian crossing at the mouth of Beaumont Street no doubt in a deliberate attempt to block my path to the cycle stands. Nonetheless, I ploughed my way through and on towards the Playhouse where five of us badged guides were due to meet our hoard of 100 sixteen-year-olds from somewhere or other. The two coaches arrived disgorging their youthful cargo onto opposite sides of the roads. Bringing 100 independent bodies together in one place on what seemed to be Oxford’s busiest day was no mean feat, but we did it somehow and left it to the helpers to divide them into five groups and to distribute food bags (yep, they often bring their own). This took some time, in fact it nibbled almost half-an-hour off a tour duration of just one and half hours!

At last we were off with our separate groups all converging on New College where Harry Potter awaited. Threading ourselves through an over laden Broad Street was not easy. Mostly the pavements were blocked by large groups where the leader was often indistinguishable from the led and the street itself was chock-a-block with more conga-like groups, also threading. There was some easing around the Sheldonian, but the exit was blocked by a brilliant young woman who had the brilliant idea of addressing her crowd from the steps – brilliant.

I think it was about then, or maybe when a sub-group of my group announced a growing need for the toilet, that I decided that this was not what I wanted to do with my life; no more than I desired to contribute in any way to attracting yet more youngsters to visit Oxford. Enough was enough. So I smiled vaguely, turned on my heel and walked quickly back to my bicycle and pedalled off to my comfortable little flat high above the Woodstock Road and well away from the maddening crowd.

Not really. I persevered and, with the possible exception of two Spanish lads who probably could not understand a word that I was saying and were distracting two Spanish girls who could, they were a nice enough bunch. I can still remember the smile of delight as a pretty Italian girl first saw the Holm oak tree in New’s cloister (it’s the tree beneath which Harry Potter’s enemy...ah you don’t need to know that). Some of them even asked questions. I gave them the best time that I could – and allowed them a toilet visit as well.

Next day I led a literature tour and this healed the wounds. The invasive tides had ebbed; Sundays are usually quieter in Oxford. My group consisted of adults, all of whom had made a conscious choice to take the tour and had paid for it. Most of them knew of the authors that I talked about. They chipped in, asked questions, corrected me at times, laughed when they were supposed to, and were even mildly interested in where the Potter locations were. Someone bought one of my books, and I enjoyed the tour as much as they did – I think.

Isn’t Oxford a wonderful place? Yes it is, but its capacity to absorb ever increasing numbers of visitors has its limits.

By the way, these are not my photos. They were taken by a Spanish visistor during one of my tours. I thought that they were rather good. 

Permissive Paths: No Dogging

You might guess from the title that I have been walking lately. Yes, just returned from trudging along the first section of the South-West Coastal Path from Minehead to Westward Ho! The exclamation mark belongs to the Ho by the way. Odd name for a place, though there is a town in Canada called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! with two: show offs. But they can’t beat this: our exclaimed village is named after a novel, a book written in 1855 by Charles Kingsley. It’s true, the book came first!

I walked about ninety miles over five days hefting a backpack containing amongst other essentials:  my one-man tent, my sleeping bag and mattress roll, plus my Kindle. Doesn’t sound far I know, but miles are not a suitable measure when traversing the North Devon coastline where there is a lot of fairly gruelling uphill and scrabbling downhill. Actually, I cheated at the end. Booked into a B&B in Barnstaple on my last walking day, dumped my backpack there and walked the path to Westward Ho! - naked. Not really naked of course, but I did feel almost naked without the hefty backpack and wearing my sandals rather that boots. That aside, I slept out every night, mostly wild camping. The weather was very changeable for the first three days – storms and showers - and too hot on the last two: hikers are rarely happy with the weather.

My worst night was at Lynmouth. The weather was quite nice as I limped slowly through the little town towards the ocean. There I found a narrow strip of grass between the low sea wall and high wooded cliff. I ignored the dog walkers as I pitched my little tent, just as they carefully ignored me. Once camped I stepped out for a clean up (don’t ask), some beer and food. As I left my second pub I met a torrent of rain so heavy that I had to dash into another for shelter and more beer. At last the rain abated and I took a muddy walk past the harbour, where the boats were being thrown around by an angry sea, to my camping site. Then, after a worried look at the large waves rolling towards my flimsy home, I squeezed into my little tent just as the rain started again – lashings of it. Inside I recalled the 1952 deluge that killed over thirty people Lynmouth. I thought of the cliff above me and the waves just below me. I didn’t sleep much.

Things were a little better in the morning. I packed away the wet tent, had a hot chocolate with crumpets in a cafe and, fully recharged, carried on walking.

So why do we do these strange things? The countryside was beautiful, a beauty that can barely be glimpsed from a motorcar. I was immersed. The ups and downs of good and bad weather brought sympathetic mood swings, and the upswings were much higher than the down swings. And, even though the rugged grandeur of the coastal route presents challenges to people with vertigo (like me), the rewards are sweet. Edging around a promontory to be suddenly presented with a panoramic view of the coast ahead, of a beach below or the unexpected view of a shimmering white Devon village – these things outweigh the discomfort, the fear and the pain. And then there’s the people that you meet along the way: strangers, yet drawn together by a shared adventure. And all that aside, there is the sheer escapism of an untimetabled trek; the escape from routine, from the Internet, from the clutter of familiar things and places, and the promise of a joyful return to same.

Does any of this explain the title of this blog? Permissive pathways are those routes that the owner allows hikers to use, but are not public rights of way. In fact, I didn’t actually see a “no dogging” sign, just “no dogs”. However, I did see one stating “no naturist activities” and my mind boggled. Was this code for no dogging? In my youth there was a degree of titillation available from pictures of naturists playing games: volleyball was popular I seem to recall. Was this innocent pursuit one of the banned naturist activities, I wondered. Or was it merely being naked that offended? Anyway, I kept my clothes on: the straps of a heavy backpack would certainly have dug well into my naked skin and my tan would be so patchy. Besides, there was the danger of ticks attaching themselves to vulnerable parts of the body.

Softbridge: Architectural Challenges in Oxford

I like change, most of the time, and in Oxford I live in a changing environment. I start each of my many tours of the city by stating where I live then asking my group where they are from. A few years ago I told them that I resided in paradise in Oxford and I did: 18 Paradise Square! Nowadays I tell them that I live in the part of this city where the rich and famous reside: most visitors find this amusing, not all. To make the latter even happier I describe a property they might like to buy, my current example is a house around the corner in Crick Road which has an asking price of over £5m! Ridiculous. You could buy the entire block of flats in which I live for that.

Actually most of the changes that occur here are in the colleges and university buildings surrounding us rather than the residencies. St Hugh’s has recently completed its Chinese centre; St Anthony’s  thankfully blocked the view of its ugly concrete dining hall a year or so ago with a quite passable residential building; St Anne’s is currently digging a deep hole on which it will build, if the artist impression is anything to go by, a bulky building which will fit in quite well with its existing buildings, but will hardly grace the Woodstock Road. Added to this, the university recently completed its new mathematics and humanities building nicely incorporating the old 19^th century hospital building. Furthermore, it has nearly finished the new governance centre on the same campus: I love that new building with its diminishing glass circles.

Architects , I believe, divide into two camps: one of which tries very hard to design buildings that fit their surroundings and adjacent buildings; the other endeavours to make a statement. Nearly opposite me, in the grounds of St Anthony’s College, is an example of the latter. It is sometimes called the Softbridge and sometimes the Investcorp Building, by either name it is something of a shocker: it reminds me of the sinking of the Titanic for some reason. Built predominantly of stainless steel it links two innocent and attractive brick building from the 19^th century. As the new building grew so too did my horror. An awful thing was evolving on my doorstep. I thought of writing to the Oxford Times about this monstrosity signing the letter ‘Bemused of Butler Close’ but felt that I could not since I no longer buy the paper.

After two years of work the Softbridge is now complete, the gardens are nicely planted and manicured, the trees hide quite a lot of the tapering, shiny tube and…and I must confess that I quite like it! The stainless steel reflects the trees, the lawn and the plants in a rather interesting way. The sun glints on the odd truncated portholes which lie along the backbone of the monster, and it now looks milder, softer.

Am I going soft? Not really. I am still appalled at the University of Oxford for spoiling, and the council for allowing them to spoil, the views across our cherished Port Meadow. The latest compromise for this travesty of planning is that the guilty buildings should be demolished at the end of their thirty-year lifespan. Thirty years! I and many of the protestors will not be there to see the destruction – or protest.

Still, perhaps it’s all about perception. More on that later.

Peak achievement

Our huerto in Spain (garden/orchard thing) is one of many that line the Mataranya River. They are all long and thin. At the river end there is quite a large level area which in our case is planted with young olive trees, above that there are three terraces which we have managed to tame over the years and are mostly cultivated, then comes the track which is parallel to the river and serves all of the huertos and alongside that track is our little casita which I have spent five years extending. Beyond this, the ground rises rapidly and is mostly pine-forested rocky outcrops.

 I was quite amazed to find that I owned a strip this lovely wild area right up to the top of the Mataranya valley. Of course, I was keen to explore it all, but for some reason I made a vow to myself that I would not climb to the peak until I had completed the work on the casita – and I stuck to that promise.

On Saturday 9^th May 2015, we held our opening party: a big and important event for both of us. The Spanish call it an ‘inauguration’ which sounds a bit formal. In fact, it was great fun. Though I did most of the work on the place alone (“solo”, the Spanish say), Margaret joined me in the rush to finish during the week before the party, spending many hours grouting the floor and wall tiles that I had laid. We also sent out the invitations together and tried valiantly to ascertain how many might come, how much meat to order for the barbecue, how much bread, how many rice salads to prepare and so on.

And everything was all right on the day, though with a wood fire, charcoal barbeque and gas barbeque all sizzling away our lovely casita became hot and choked with smoke. I greeted the guests with streaming eyes and a hoarse cough. Lots of people brought wonderful gifts which I really did not expect: my favourite was an old and worn hand millstone that I placed with pride in the middle of the floor of the casita and then tripped over it twice. I made a speech in stumbling Spanish, Dolores recited a Lorca poem from the steps in passionate Spanish and we did the Hokey-Cokey in Spanglish.

In honesty I have not quite finished the job: I have to renovate the little lean-to at one end of the casita and sort out some drainage and water supply issues (at present I pump up water to supply the casita from the irrigation channel below, in future it will use rain water). However, all the big stuff is done and we can live in the place once we have some furniture. Hence, the day after the inauguration party, I, accompanied by a well-deserved hang over, set off for that much-delayed climb to the peak of the valley so far above us.

The ascent was hot and hard, and I suppose is best described as scrambling rather than rock climbing. As I rose, I passed through our pungent pine forest with many of the trees at odd angles due to the slope, some were actually horizontal as if they too had attended the opening party the night before.

I reached the peak at last, fully expecting to see more pines, more wilderness. Instead, I was shocked to see ploughed and terraced fields growing almond and olive trees. It was like discovering the lost world, but in reverse. I even found an old iron bed up there, accompanied by a rusting, white-enamel chamber pot and water jug.

The view down into the Mataranya valley and beyond was stunning and I was overjoyed at just how difficult it was to spot my much-extended casita. It blends in perfectly, which is in stark contrast to other buildings that have sprung up along the valley. I did so enjoy that ascent and my time at the peak. I had looked longingly at the ridge high above me so many times during the five years of lonely construction work then, at long last, I was looking down at my completed project. I emitted a triumphal whoop into the wind-ruffled silence and began my descent.

What next? Well, I have already started writing the book which will record my struggles, the amusing interactions with the locals, the inevitable confusions that arise when building in a foreign land, and the highpoints that occurred over the last five years. I hope to finish it this year. And there’s plenty more to at the huerto.