Coastwalk

Orford → Aldeburgh

Distance: 20.2 miles
Ascent: 302 metres
Duration: 6 hours 55 minutes

Marathon
« Bawdsey Quay | Sizewell »

The reasons why aren't important. Just note that today's walk is the furthest distance I've covered in one day.

I'm knackered. But the good news is that with this write-up, I've completed the East Anglia coast for the second time. Draw a long line round the edge of the country from The Thames to The Wash and be impressed.

Personal

Fake wooden trees

For months now I've been puzzling over a fake tree that overlooks the M25 just east of Upminster. It's flanked on either side by electricity pylons, and stands adjacent to a traffic monitoring camera.

Is it a mobile phone mast? Is it unintentional? Is it art?

Tonight, in between a meal with new friends and a drink with old ones, I decided to find out.

There's no plaque, no sign, no marker. Just the tree. But it's sited in Thames Chase, a young forest just inside the M25 so I'll guess its purpose is this: to draw people in. To take strangers off the busy road and stroll awhile amidst the forest improbably planted within the bounds of London's orbital motorway.

If I'm right, it serves its purpose well. I just wonder why I drove past so many times before pulling off the road.

Coastwalk

Bawdsey Quay → Orford

Distance: 13.2 miles
Ascent: 199 metres
Duration: 4 hours 31 minutes

The ferry boat man
« Woodbridge | Aldeburgh »

Suffolk again. In fact, the stretch of coast closest to my house. No long drive to the start. No overnighting in a B&B. Just a short bus ride, then back tonight to my own bed.

Many of my favourite memories of walking the coast share the same pattern as today. It goes something like this.

I've been walking for ten miles. I've not seen a single soul. A river is the final obstacle that stands in the way of my destination. And on the riverbank, a man and a rowing boat. He's waiting. As if he's been there for days, waiting for me. I sit in the stern (there's only room for one passenger) and am ferried across to the opposite bank. I hand over a few pennies and get on my way.

I'm not describing this well.

The memory is about finding someone who can help just when I need it most. About five minutes' pleasantries after a day of solitude. And there's something about the slow pace of life. About an England many would have you believe is lost forever.

I was delighted to find the Butley Ferry running today. It was a fitting close to a beautiful day's walk. A surprising new experience along coast I know oh so well.

Personal

Am I disturbing you?

Ever so rarely I'm overcome with crippling shyness.
Never when it matters.
Never when others are depending on me.
But once in a while, I'll freeze up completely.

In its own way, this is a good thing.
It reminds me of who I was,
and of who I am now.
It reminds me of how others may be.

And tonight it's altered my plans for the evening.
It's given me thirty miles of Anglian back-roads to savour as I wind my way home.

Roof down.
Stereo on.
Back road.
Slow curve.
One hand on the wheel.

Arts

Film: The Day After Tomorrow

The near simultaneous worldwide release of a film can mean one of two things. It's either a defining moment in cinema history, or the film's an absolute turkey.

A bigger clue is when on the day of a film's opening, it's playing thirteen times in Ipswich. See if you can guess: perfect or pants?

I had high hopes for The Day After Tomorrow. The only other Roland Emmerich film ended with a spontaneous standing ovation from the audience in one of Brighton's seedier cinemas. But there's none of Independence Day's tongue-in-cheek alien butt-kicking here. Instead there's a film that takes itself far too seriously.

It's gripping in parts, tedious elsewhere, but more often than not, downright laughable.

Comment

Playground hits

So Frankee's F.U.R.B. (F U Right Back) is number one for a second week. If it hangs in there on Sunday it'll equal its identically-tuned predecessor, Eamon's F**k It (I Don't Want You Back) stay at the top.

The likes of the Daily Mail have focussed on counting the expletives, but I originally disliked the songs for another reason: I don't want to be drawn in to a childish lover's spat, whether real or manufactured. Don't they have anything more interesting to sing about?

Then again, we have companies slagging each other off through press releases, film-makers and studios tossing "he-said, she-said" mud around, and flour bombs apparently becoming a legitimate way of projecting your views.

Maybe Eamon and Frankee are more relevant than I thought.

Personal

The sneer

Sometimes I stumble across the most unpleasant truths in everyday tasks.

Today I spent five minutes in a photo-booth. I was adamant I'd be smiling on my new work ID. All I could muster was an ugly sneer. While my world didn't exactly collapse, it was certainly a shock to discover I'd forgotten how to smile.

If you see me pulling faces in the coming weeks, encourage me. I'll be practising.

Personal

Church is full

I've been thinking some more about Church of Fools.

It's been an interesting fortnight since the experimental virtual church opened its doors. One clear issue is that there's not enough room. Pretty much any time of the day and night it's hit-and-miss whether there'll be space for you to get in. The church can only cope with so many virtual visitors, and if it's already reached the limit you're left outside.

Of course this is a mixed blessing. It's annoying to be left in the cold, but it also shows the church is a vastly popular idea.

But what can the organisers do?

Suddenly my mind is thrown back to cold, dark churches I've known up and down the country with their reserved family pews. I'm guessing CoF won't go this way, but it's an interesting contrast to the draughty, empty, echoing buildings you normally see such solutions in.

Personal

The Suffolk sea

The best thing about living in this part of Suffolk is the sea. And on a day like today, a little local knowledge goes a long way.

Let the tourists pack out the beaches of Felixstowe, Aldeburgh, Southwold and Lowestoft. I know where I can have a mile of coastline all by myself. You'll find me with a book on the edge of the surf.

Personal

Time traveller

It can't be a particularly original thought, but I reckon everyone comes equipped with a pair of time machines. For each of us there's an activity that makes time pass at breakneck speed, and another that drags it on painfully slowly.

Today I remembered: for me, the latter is gardening.

I'm sure one day I'll be pleased to have put some effort into the garden, but this afternoon I couldn't see that far ahead. What felt like a whole afternoon of work was disappointingly only fifty minutes.

To make up, this evening's revolved around a mug of tea, music and the Mac. And although I feel like I've only just sat down, it's midnight already.

Arts

The sparrow

"That's where the sparrow is," the guy in front of me tells his partner as I step into Tate Modern once more.

Ah yes, the dying sparrow, a work by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset. There's been a lot of press about this.

Here's an excerpt from the notes in the gallery:

"We are raised with a perception of public space as a place where we are not allowed to act in an emotional or personal way, we wanted to make a work which questions our assumptions of what is and what is not supposed to happen in a place like this."

Reasonable as far as it goes, but I'm not sure I believe the premise. People act in personal and emotional ways all the time in public.

Even if they didn't, the publicity surrounding this work means that I can't muster a single emotional response to it. The sparrow's a robot. I know this. It flaps its wing in a pathetic, mechanical way. Sure it's well made, but it's not alive. I can't respond emotionally to a cold lump of metal, however realistically clothed.

Neat trick, but it didn't quite do it for me.

Greenbelt

G-99 days

Last night was one of those key moments in the Greenbelt calendar. At midnight the number of days before the festival dropped to a two digit number.

This normally sets organisers' pulses racing.

Unusually I have retained a sense of calm. This may be because James has taken over management of the Media programme this year. Somehow I'm not stressed by the fact that he's leaving for the States this week, will be married a week on Saturday and won't return for the festival. This is a good thing.

Tonight, then, was James' last Media subgroup meeting, and everything looks under control. There'll be a big screen, a new-look radio station and a few other goodies. So long as I don't get roped in at the last minute, it'll be a programme strand for me to enjoy rather than fret over this year.

Arts

Film: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

It's stars Kate Winslet. It was written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry. The safe money was on me loving Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

There seem to be a lot of films these days dealing with identity, and combined with Charlie Kaufman's habit of a script that swallows its own tail, you end up with a film that you can't just watch and move on from.

If you're tired of watching the same old things at the cinema, get out and see this. It'll tease your mind and revive your soul.

Website

Atomised

A public service announcement: this website now has an Atom feed.

If you don't know what this means, you're not one of the geeks who've asked me to add it. Be proud of your ignorance.

Personal

Evening sun

Evening sun
why don't you stay
just a little longer,
please?

A track from Gemma Hayes' near-perfect debut E.P. is on near constant rotation in Angel Lane.

My friends and I:
well, our party's almost over.
Why don't you stay
just a little longer,
please?

It must be summer now.

Greenbelt

Nine o'clock service

I took my PowerBook to church tonight. Or my PowerBook brought church to me. I can't quite make my mind up which is most accurate.

Plenty of other sites have reported on the opening of the Church of Fools, an experimental virtual church from Greenbelt friends Ship of Fools.

Tonight the church held its first regular service.

It doesn't have the peace and tranquility of vurch.com, or the cerebral density of other Christian websites. What it does have is a sense of community that other virtual chapels come nowhere near. Seeing individual people stand, kneel or raise their arms independently brought home the fact that there were hundreds of people like me sat at home trying to share a private connection with God in a new way.

It'll be interesting to see how the experiment progresses.

Coastwalk

Strood → Allhallows

Distance: 10.0 miles
Ascent: 174 metres
Duration: 3 hours 19 minutes

Hundred
« Rainham | Allhallows-on-Sea »

This, my hundredth coastwalk, represented the other ninety-nine in miniature. All the usual features were there. The worry as to whether I'd left the car somewhere safe. The yuppie flats, industrial estates and marinas. A power station. A path made impassable by chest-high nettles. Extended road-walking. Hacking inland to avoid the advancing tide. Missing the bus, stumbling upon a taxi, writing the walk up over a strawberry milkshake.

Arts

Mass destruction

Have you heard Mass Destruction, the new Faithless single yet?

The radio has been playing it for a few weeks now. It took me a bit of getting into, but now I think it's fantastic. A relentless backbone of a beat, punching horns and a laid-back but challenging rap question our attitudes and actions in recent days.

The first three tracks of Faithless' debut album form one of the best album openers ever, but over two more albums they never seemed to reach that high-point again. Maybe they have now.

Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction

Arts

Last chance to see

In case you hadn't noticed, I watch a lot of films. I love my local cinema so much that I see pretty much every film they show. (That's not so daunting a prospect; they only have one screen.) As a result, I go to all kinds of movies I'd normally choose not to.

Tonight is an exception.

For the past fortnight, The Riverside Theatre has been showing The Passion of the Christ. Tonight was my last opportunity to go. I chose to stay in instead.

Most of my friends have seen the film, and their views represent the wide range of reactions given by the reviewers. Some say it was fantastic, others a heresy.

Originally I didn't want to see it because I didn't want my money going to something I suspected I'd disapprove of. Later I steered clear of it because I wanted to be able to judge it in its own right, and the echoes of reviews were drowning out my own critical voice. But when it came down to it, I didn't go this week because I'm plain not interested.

So don't ask me what I think of Passion. I'm in no position to answer.

Arts

Blue, White and Red

It's the time of year when the world's entertainment press are in Cannes. The film festival opened today, to much fanfare.

And already I'm bored of hearing how Quentin Tarantino is President of the Jury this year, of how ten years ago his Pulp Fiction scooped the Palme d'Or.

I'm seeking an alternative. I think I've found it.

The film that most people expected to win the Palme d'Or back in 1994 is my favourite film of all time: Rouge, the closing chapter in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs trilogy.

Some say Red lost in Cannes because the jury didn't want the trilogy to take top awards at three European festivals. (Bleu had already won the Lione d'Oro in Venice; Blanc was awarded the Silberner Bär in Berlin.)

I'm not sure I believe that claim, but I'd say ten years later it's clear which is the better film.

Tonight then I'm going to watch Three Colours Blue. Tomorrow I'll watch White and Friday, Red. The films are in French, but I've seen them so many times I don't need the subtitles. (I don't want them either. I want to see the full picture.)

Each film stands alone, with no direct links to the others. Each tackles a single idea, most commonly said to be liberty, equality and fraternity. Together they combine to be more powerful than a simple tricouleur.

These sublime films speak directly to the soul.

So soon I start with blue: liberty. What is freedom? What keeps us bound? It's a film you could open another festival with.

Arts

"Radio for boys"

... that's how one person has described 6 Music to me, but I have to admit I'm listening to it more and more of late.

Example: right now they're playing the club mix of The KLF's Madrugarda Eterna, possibly the most esoteric (but wonderful) track I've ever heard on any radio station. I didn't think the real world even knew this track existed.

OK, some of the DJs wind me up by the music... the music is great.

Greenbelt

Difficult decisions

I'm on the train. Heading home after the hardest Greenbelt Management Group meeting I've ever been to. Not hard in a bad way, just lots of important business to get through. Busy.

The worst part of being involved in the festival from an organisational standpoint is seeing all the things that might-have-been. There are so many ideas that come up which we'd dearly like to follow through but can't because of logistical, financial or other reasons.

And when these proposals are tables, we're so loathe to let them go that we examine them from every angle looking for a way they might work. A couple of folk will splinter off to discuss a detail, while others huddle over the site plan looking for the one piece of unclaimed space. In the midst of it all I'm trying to minute the decisions and the reasons behind them. But in the end, inevitably there are some things we have to shelve. Maybe next year.

Ah but even so, Greenbelt's going from strength to strength. We reckon we're on target to top even last year's spectacular festival. If you've never been, you really should make it part of your summer.

Personal

Woodbridge 10k

Today was pay-off day.

For weeks I've seen them. Always at the same time of an evening. A man on a bicycle and two children running alongside. They puzzled me at first, but then I remembered the Woodbridge 10k.

The weather today was probably perfect for participating in a road race, but not so good for spectators: overcast with a fine mist. Consequently the Market Hill wasn't as packed as was the last time I saw the race.

But all the same characters were there. The moments of tenderness as runners check up on each other. The children, nearing the end of their race, holding their stitches in. The fathers (never mothers), once whispering words of quiet encouragement, now barking instruction: "come on, you're there!", "don't give up now!".

Ipswich Hospital Radio was there too, pumping out motivational tunes. (Although I'm not sure how someone laid up in hospital is supposed to respond to Moby's Run or Girls Aloud singing Jump.)

The old gent with the microphone, stopwatch and Adidas top, is the Murray Walker of road-race reporting, although with far fewer pile-ups. (And to be honest, today he's looking a little Jimmy Savile too.)

If this all sounds cynical or even rude, I don't mean it to. I love these events when the roads close and the town comes together. You never know, I might even join in one year.

Arts

Film: Wondrous Oblivion

A mediocre choice at best.

It's always good to see a film set in the UK, and Wondrous Oblivion fits that hole nicely. Trouble is, it doesn't do much else. Another film that's simply okay. Or am I just getting bored of the same usual take on prejudice and immigration?

Comment

Good vs. bad news

In his blog a few days ago Steve asked if the world is really falling apart. I suspect the usual adage about bad news selling more than good is one contributor to this feeling.

It's not always the case that the bad news surfaces first though. Yesterday I stumbled across a report that the village of Chorleywood has the highest quality of life in England.

What's puzzling is that this article seems to be the sum total of the BBC coverage of the Government's Indices of Deprivation 2004 report.

I don't want to pull numbers out of this document for fear of missing the key point, but I suspect there's more to it than slapping ourselves on the back for making Chorleywood such a nice place to live. The clue's in the title of the report, and the goals of the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit that commissioned it. Perhaps we're just trying to suppress the news we don't want to hear.

I was happened to be talking with Mum about Chorleywood a week or so ago. We lived there for the first nine years of my life. It was the time - I think - when our family's income was at its lowest. (Mum didn't work; Dad was a church youth worker.) Yet if you were to value it today, the house we lived in then would probably be the most valuable of all the ones we've had.

I'm not sure what to make of this. I think it shows how quickly times change situations, and something about the shift of poverty and riches.

I suspect Church Action on Poverty would be a good place to go to try and figure it out more. I guess that's my weekend reading sorted out!

Comment

Sanity prevails

After one month of confusion, it seems One has figured out their company name wasn't so clever after all.

Or maybe they've just noticed that we don't care which company provides the service. If it's a train and it's going in the right direction, that's all that matters.

Arts

Greatest gigs

This month's Q carries an article describing the 100 Greatest Gigs Ever.

Looking it over, I was at only one of the gigs (a U2 one), and have seen just three of the other artists mentioned play live (R.E.M., Faithless and David Gray). Not the best score on the planet.

And for those who have the list in front of you, yes that means I missed Moby when he played Greenbelt. Both times.

Personal

The fair

I wanted to get home at a reasonable time last night so I left Boston before the fair got going. I'll have to imagine the shadows dancing across the faces of the old town buildings, the coloured lights catching everyone in freeze-frame, the smell of diesel generators, the noise, the candy-floss.

I did manage to walk around the nearly completed site on Sunday night though.

Coastwalk

Boston → Freiston Shore

Distance: 8.02 miles
Ascent: 108 metres
Duration: 2 hours 47 minutes

Prisons and persecution
« Fosdyke Bridge | Wrangle »

Two monuments stand on top of the sea bank east of Boston.

The first marks the spot where the Pilgrim Fathers first tried to set sail in 1607 "To find religious freedom". They were betrayed and captured, held in cells in Boston itself. (They finally to set sail years later from further round the coast.)

The second commemorates the work of the North Sea Camp (one of Jeffrey Archer's recent homes) in constructing the current sea wall to reclaim land from The Wash.

Arts

Film: 50 First Dates

I'm going to have to go against every review I've read of 50 First Dates and say that it was a thoroughly enjoyable film. A witty, touching, pleasing rom-com.

So shoot me.

(Or maybe it's because I saw it at the Boston West End again. I think I've fallen for this cinema.)

Coastwalk

Fosdyke Bridge → Boston

Distance: 11.2 miles
Ascent: 118 metres
Duration: 3 hours 43 minutes

Postcard from a small town
« Holbeach St Matthew | Freiston Shore »

As well as nuclear power stations, military firing ranges and sewage treatment works, it would seem the British coastline is the natural place to site refuse tips. A mile or so out of Boston the sparse fenland landscape is replaced by the calling gulls, the rough piles of rubbish and the accompanying atmosphere.

Arts

Film: Kill Bill vol. 2

So, the second part of Tarantino's latest film. It's the same as Vol. 1 in many ways. At times a work of genius, at times it drags. Almost always violent, frequently funny, occasionally touching.

Here's a piece of trivia about the film: because the opening credits don't have the full title, the BBFC certificate carries the abbreviated name Vol. 2. Yes, I should get out more.

I saw the film in Boston's West End cinema, an independently-owned multiplex. The only other independent multiplex I've been to is Oxford's Ozone. Both cinemas were spacious, comfortable and clean. If the big chains followed the cinema's lead, I might even have to retract my anti-multiplex rant.

Coastwalk

Holbeach St Matthew → Fosdyke Bridge

Distance: 6.98 miles
Ascent: 107 metres
Duration: 2 hours 7 minutes

Lunch at noon, GMT
« Gedney Drove End | Boston »

You learn a lot about the today's walk by understanding that the most interesting thing I found to take a photograph of is something I've been carrying with me on just about every walk - my GPS receiver.

Today was the day I finally reached Fosdyke Bridge - the third of the circular walks that replaced what would have been an eighteen mile trek from Sutton Bridge.

Website

No Comment

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