Friday was another moderately eventful day for yours truly. This was my first active visit to the new dentist in Macclesfield, a state of the art practice if ever there was one that seems to be manned by a team of Asian dentists and all with doctorates so I assume I am in good hands. Unfortunately, I did have to have another tooth extracted. This time it was one quite near the front (adjacent to my right canine or eye-tooth) but fortunately, it has not had an adverse effect on my speech and I was more worried about that than anything else at the time. Now of course I have a rather fetchingly roguish gap to the far right (your left) of my smile, the tooth deficiency equivalent of a facial scar no less — how cool! I seem to remember that Tony Wilson had all of the teeth on his left upper jaw missing and it didn’t effect him adversely. I’m glad that it has gone though, my mouth now feels at lot more healthy and I am looking forward to some cosmetic treatment on my remaining good teeth — of which there are still quite a few I hasten to add.
The wait in the dentist’s surgery was probably the most painful thing of all in truth, as they had GMTV on the large LCD TV that was difficult to avoid. A pre-valentines day schmaltz fest for simpletons is probably the only way to describe GMTVs theme for the 13th. God, to think if the Daily Mail lobby got their way all of British media would resemble GMTV! I’m not so sure about Valentines Day this year, it has temporally joined the ranks of those pointless and annoying commercial festivals that I despise such as Halloween.
If Halloween is the commercial celebration of the kind of unscientific naffnes that only makes sense to histrionics with learning difficulties and gives ill mannered kids an excuse to throw eggs at their neighbours front doors. Then Valentines Day is an aid memoir for disingenuous lovers, a green light for creeps and another Christmas for insecure self-centred adoration seekers. Valentines Day actually causes more strife in relationships than it solves apparently and this day sees the largest number of break ups and bust ups than any other day in the year. Some people take this crap far too seriously — bar humbug!
Sometimes I feel that capitalism would not balk at the idea of mapping every event, feeling, and motive in our lives in terms of some stupid ‘day’ for the purchase of thematic trash. Is this all part of the consumer moron conspiracy to turn us into unthinking homogenised fashion victims that need to ‘purchase’ every aspect of our being and can only express self identity and the finer feelings through consumption of product and the giving of ‘gifts’?
On a lighter note, I went for a little local explore and decided to take myself off across a field that leads from London Rd over toward the railway. I have never been down there before, I always thought it was private land but there is indeed a foot path which leads up to a rather large over-bridge crossing the railway. It’s is quite an interesting vantage point and I intend to try a few photos around there soon. Both of the very old ‘pebble concrete’ crossing styles are still in place. These enabled walkers to surmount the old railway fence but freely walking across the main line to London (on a 100MPH stretch) is not advised so they had to build this very elaborate over bridge in the middle of empty fields to satisfy the foot path bylaws. Nobody ever uses it of course.
Last nights Bollipot Loop ride (Prestbury, Bollington, Pott Shrigley, Bollington, Prestbury) did not go quite to plan though this ‘perturbation’ shall we say, constituted one of those events that helps to restore my faith in human nature. It was a lovely clear but temperate night with a gorgeous unclouded sky, Venus shining out in the East quite magnificently, I just knew that I had to head out to the ‘Hills’.
The Bollipot Loop ride usually consists of a stop at the top end of Bollington for chips, before the climb up to the highest point then dropping down into Pott Shrig. At this point I decided to put fresh batteries in my rear light but unfortunately put them in the wrong way round in the dark and must have blown all of the LED’s in the unit. No rear light on this particular ride can be almost suicidal, as one has to traverse a number of pitch-black hilly lanes that are frequented by mad drivers and country boy racers in vans, 4x4s, and large tractor trailer combos etc and even after dark. At this point I had to abandon the rest of the trip up top and headed back down into Bolli where I met a very nice lady walking her dog and asked her if there was a garage near by that may sell bike lights? Nearest is in Tytherington, a long dark lanes ride away. Jane invited me back to her house where she was able to lend me one of her daughters bike lights. So, I managed to get home without incident. Only in Bollington will this kind of thing happen, in fact other people have asked me if I am alright on other occasions when I have had to stop with bike problems, or just chat about the general minutia of my trip.
So there we are, not much in the way of news but my spirit is replenished and I’m finding that basic satisfaction in my environment and the sense of just being out and observing. It is great when otherwise familiar settings seem to take on a whole new life of fascination, this is when you start to notice details and certain qualities that are conducive to photographic work. I’m still trying to perfect my night time photography and find a certain group on flickr to be particularly fascinating. It is for nocturnal photography with no artificial light.
Mark (our man in London) is attending the Festival of Sins in Camden tomorrow night and he has provided a photo of his make up for the night, actually this was just a test run.
I really do need to get my act together with regard to trip down to the big smoke to meet up with some of my old chums.
I’m still quite enjoying the abundance of free time and the sense of not having to rush along with things or avoid certain things altogether because of a need to adhere to a certain hierarchy of events / chores / activities through the weekend. I spent most of the afternoon lazily returning from a trip to Macc. This time cycling back along the Bollin Valley Way but taking all sorts of exploratory detours and looking for photo opportunities. I really do need to record more of my experiences with my camera.
Last week was a particularly difficult time for me both emotionally and physically. My new-found loneliness is not getting any easier and I do miss Gill and the boys such a lot. Sometimes I find it hard to get motivated or inspired to be creative. I was also struck down for the fourth time with the most appalling acute toothache resulting from yet another smoking and stress related abscess. The situation could have been a lot worse when I discovered that my local dentist had ‘struck me off’ due to missing a couple of previous appointments. That was back in the days when I used to feel such a strong commitment to my employer that I would even go all the way into Manchester with chronic tooth pain just so that I could make sure certain ‘clients’ where up to date. Of course, it’s not clever, or heroic, and I feel a return to the days of union lead contempt for this kind of corporate sycophancy is long over due. Fortunately, I did manage to get treated by the NHS emergency centre in Macclesfield. Then re-register with another practice in Macc and hey presto, my new dentist said that he can treat and restore the tooth that others said would have to be ripped out and all at a very reasonable NHS cost, viva the NHS! Yet another smoking cessation is one of the more positive side benefits of the recent dental malaise and this abstinence appears to be ongoing. I’m really going to quit once and for all this time!
I managed to miss all of the local snow bound photo opportunities due to the general discomfort of the last few days not to mention the groggy side effects of painkillers and antibiotics. I had in mind a few shots up in the fields in virgin snowfall conditions, my solitary footprints disappearing into the distance, that sort of thing, existentialism in the English landscapes no less! These would then be infra red processed in B&W. It may still be possible to do this as yet more snow is forecast.
One of the highlights of last week was helping my friend Rob with a bonfire in the Churchyard on a rather beautiful winter day. Rob is the village’s entertaining and erudite odd job man, an ex merchant seaman with allegiances to the beat generation and early counter culture ideology who never really sold out! I always think of Rob as a sort of legacy of the 70s heyday of Cheshire (country) living fashion when places like Prestbury would not have been completely devoid of creative bohemians, youthful eccentrics and other colourful characters with maverick anti conservative values. It is these little moments with Rob that help to keep me sane in Prestbury. It is the meeting of minds, the joy of simple pleasures and the shared love of the environment. This is always combined with a healthy dose of often comedic bourgeois bashing and the deconstruction of consumer capitalism (consumer moron culture) with plenty of Jazz and situationist detours not to mention a healthy dose of pythonesque self mockery.
It’s a fabulous start to the month of May, wall-to-wall sunshine for at lease the last week, though temperatures seem to be more ‘normal’ for the time of year. Gill and I had a fabulous time in South Wales last weekend and it was a joy to meet her lovely parents and family. We did plenty of cycling and visited a number of interesting places. I must admit that I have never been to this part of the UK before and found it all to be rather pleasant. We cycled up to the curious folly that it Castle Coch, not a real castle, but instead a palatial home built by the eccentric lord Bute and constructed in the Bavarian style that has come to be the model for all Walt Disney castles. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go up to the much more impressive ‘real’ castle at Caerphilly; but maybe next time. On the ride up to Castle Coch we stopped off at a curious little cafe, more a shed beside a mini vineyard which dished out gorgeous stone baked Welsh Cakes with filter coffee. Maybe it was the French girl that served us or the vineyard setting, but for a moment it felt as though we were actually in Southern France rather than Wales. Still, it gave a sense of that certain quirkiness and invention that is a distinctive part of this little country which is such a popular destination for all of Britain’s alternative life style seekers.
I didn’t manage to get quite as many pictures as hoped, or at least pictures that could be configured into a nice sequence on flickr or this site and (foolishly) I omitted to take the D80 to save space. So all photos from Wales are courtesy of the Sony. Fortunately, I now seem to have gotten to grips with all of the D80’s peculiarities including the infamous firmware glitch in the matrix metering and the need to set up a permanent -3ev to compensate. The camera is producing fine results in spot and the rather old fashioned (and disfavoured) centre weighted modes and I definitely prefer to use the assignable ‘single area’ auto focus mode, when actually using auto that is. Results with the other two dynamic modes where proving to be a little frustrating at times as the camera has a tendency to make random assumptions about the point of focus within the frame.
Thankfully the pre-Christmas stress is over for another year but it has been a rather enjoyable festive season — my first with Gill and family Though we are spending most of the Christmas-New Year interim at mine. Today we cycled up to near by Hare Hill with the intention of having a sneak (out of season) preview of the magnificent gardens but the ornamental lawn with sculptures and surrounding arboretum were closed to the public as is customary with NT properties at this time of year.
Gill however, was suitably impressed with the general Mottram St Andrew setting which seemed to be at its most atmospheric in the misty winter half-light. At this time of year much of rural Northern England has a certain quality of verdant dankness, a becalmed quiescence or a tangible lull in the proceedings before the fertility storm of spring. Our local high rainfall and atmospheric moisture levels promote the most vivid growths of bright green moss and algae on virtually anything that remains still for long enough and these bright greens combined with the rich browns of earth, mud, and leaf mould are the predominant colours of the landscape. I got to try out my new Sony W70 camera in alfresco mode for the first time. The results are quite adequate thus far and at last I now have a digital camera with a satisfying degree of manual control—but it is still just a step on the ladder to a decent digital SLR. I keep pondering the prospect of a return to film and the resurrection of some pretty good kit from previous years but unfortunately the convenience of digital continues to override virtually all other concerns.
Mr P seemed to be airing a number of concerns about London life last time we met but we appeared to reach something of a consensus on the self evident superiority of life in the North. At least one can entertain the prospect of actually being able to own the roof over ones head in many places around Manchester and Cheshire, and more than just a ‘flat’ in an over populated area. Friendlier people, a much less competitive but highly creative cultural industry sector, low density housing, open space and a generally less frenetic pace of life are just some of the things I would recommend about life up here. As would many of the those decamping to the Mancunian suburbs or Cheshire towns and villages from the South. Even by comparison with near by Manchester my local town of Macclesfield seems to be pleasantly ‘relaxed’. Gill is still marvelling at the shear quantity of good quality privately owned shops in the town along with the extraordinary concentration of pubs and inns.
Yes it’s the good old B5470 at Rainow, or more precisely the B5470 just in front of the Highwayman Inn to the east of Rain. I quite like this road; it’s both a challenging and exhilarating cycling route but probably a little safer than the Cat and Fiddle Pass. Gill and I managed to get up here in less than an hour via the tormenting Kerridge route with all of its steep assents. Then we returned via Blaze Hill through Bollington, an almost continuous high speed down hill mess to the Poachers Arms and what’s more she could do all of this on a mountain bike—I’m very impressed!!
Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get too many good pictures, probably because the lighting and all important sky conditions were not to my liking. I did however notice that Rainow was already prepping up for this years Scarecrow festival and a few odd “crows” were appearing here and there and in the more unlikely places but nothing quite as impressive as last year’s collection of straw and cane figures has appeared yet. I will return soon and see if there are any pictures to be had and then possibly press on to Whaley Bridge or Buxton—the joy!
It was yet another bright sunny day and we finally managed to get up to White Nancy cycling from Prestbury—naturally. We were armed with a borrowed Sony Cybershot P100 camera, a much better machine than my A205 but unfortunately White Nancy proved to be a very difficult subject to capture. I think this was due in part to the lighting conditions and the huge contrast (dynamic range) of this famous white object with shadow foreground against sky. But photographic disappointments did not detract from a lovely weekend with the even more lovely and capable Gill!
On the way back we stopped off at the revamped Lord Clyde in Kerride, one of my favourite refuelling locations on the Middlewood Way blast. By now the weather was positively balmy, though conditions atop Kerridge hill were typically gusty and a little chilly when the sun went in. Long range visibility was no where near as good as it can be in autumn or winter but we could still clearly see the land marks of Jodrell Bank, Stockport and Manchester. The new and ever ascending Beetham Tower near Castlefield was remarkably clear and well defined in the distance.
Note to self, Total millage as of today: 5,817.9
Spring really is here now and a number of consecutive warm and sunny days have helped to lift the mood and inspire a degree of optimism, though I’m rarely lacking in that latter quality.
Gill and I managed to bike it into Didsbury last weekend and it was certainly a more fulfilling trip than one I made (and commented on) last year. This cultured and cosmopolitan Manchester suburb was positively buzzing with the old vibe, the essence of studentvile that characterized Didsbury when I was a kid visiting my grandmother’s house just outside the main town. But the blight of the megaplex mess on Kingsway is still just as irksome as ever. This temple to consumer orientated culture and artificial indoor activities was partly responsible for sweeping away the old Parswood rural studies centre, a very bohemian institution run and managed by the Workers Education Association and a place that offered some sort of a glimpse into the delights of rural life for inner city kids , now of course its just an over sanitized picnic area completely overshadowed by the giant tin shed temple to fast food, manipulative main stream cinema, and bingo.
We managed to stay ‘up the smart end’ for most of the visit and in this more halcyon time of spring Fletchermoss Park and the Parsonage Gardens looked just as good as ever. The photo of the magnolia tree above was taken in Parsonage Gardens close to the location of mum and dads wedding photos and my christening shots.
Next weekend I’m taking Gill up to one of my local vantage points, the famous white Nancy atop Kerridge Hill. Photos and reports to follow….indubitably.
It’s a short entry today but I felt compelled to note some recent thoughts and observation on photography—I think it is a sort of motivational dialogue with myself in truth.
I have got to get a Nikon D70 digital SLR as soon as poss. One of my contacts on Flickr has produced some outstanding work with one of these “affordable” SLRs and I know from first hand experience that this is a very satisfactory make. At one time Nikon was the king of Japanese cameras.
My good old FG20 saw me through college and more than ten years of film based shooting and it has never let me down. The shutter still moves like silk and the exposure meter remains highly accurate and reliable. Unfortunately, my days of film based work are petering out; I find that the convenience of digital (even bog standard digital) hugely out weighs the stress and tedium of a processing and printing stage.
Flickr in fact is proving to be highly educational, it is a sort of show-case for the digital idiom and one thing that strikes me about the medium of digital photography is the new found acceptance of a semi ‘pictorialist’ approach. Once again photographers are free to manipulate their images almost to any extent and still command respect from the photographic establishment, such manipulations have become intrinsic to the new medium. The process of ‘denaturing’ photography in the pre digital days was sometimes regarded as an almost sinful or treacherous act. It implied a desire to make the photographic image conform to the values of painting whilst simultaneously denying the photographic medium’s own unique set of artistic and cultural ‘values’. Now you are no longer seen as a photographic apologist if you over saturate to the point of melt down, apply all sorts of masks and layers, or radically denature the subject through post processing applications.
Music for the morning: Steve Reich ‘Variations for Winds Strings and Keyboards’. It is a long time since I listened to this piece of music though it is one of my favourite Reich recordings. ‘Variations’ has a warm intuitive feel (relatively speaking), and it is not quite so intensively processional as Reich’s other more overtly ‘minimal’ and experimental compositions. Some have defined it as one of his most “classical” sounding arrangements and for me The part for keyboard (organ) that forms the foundation of ‘Variations’ is a bit like a decanted and looped Bach toccata. The thing that is so unusual about this piece (for Reich) is the more fluid approach to performance. ‘Variations’ departs from the usual methodology of transcribing percussion like patterns to any conceivable instrument and delineating a musical “process” in the form of rhythmical augmentation and diminution. It’s hard to believe this is by SR at all.
It all takes me back to a vivid late October morning in London, watching the skyline from my Langham Place hotel window, the view across London was like an effecting homage to human endeavor; a bit like a frame from one of those Godfrey Riggio films. Steam rose into the crystal clear morning air from air conditioning stacks and the hands of the Broadcasting House clock ticked away the minutes. It was one of those epiphany moments when everything seems to correlate in a fortuitous and effecting way. This was the day after an important BBC job interview and I remember the intense sense of optimism and awe at the prospect of a career within such an historically significant organization. Of course, it was also the pre Burt era, (Alistair Milne was the DG) and a career in broadcasting still had some vestige of august cultural significance. The industry hadn’t quite dissolved into the bottom line extension of the marketing and PR “trade” as much of it has now.
‘Variations’ was playing on R3 and its expansive and broad ranging 20th century feel was a perfect accompaniment to the mood. I looked across to BCH and thought of all of the historically significant figures from cultural icons, to world leaders, that had passed through that immaculate greco/roman art-deco entrance hall. As well as a 1001 other voices that had steered and comforted the national consciousness through the darker moments in history and I felt so excited about the prospect of being in some small way a part of it. The moral of this story is that I need to retrace options for engagement in a cultural life of sorts. I may not really have any profound talents but I do have the knowledge and skills that are essential to the facilitation of film and media production in a technical sense. But above all, I guess I wish I could just recover the optimism, enthusiasm, and clear sightedness, of my early 20s
OH! Of course—happy New Year. Nothing happened—naturally. This is going to be a year of autonomous ambitions or revolutionary life changes. I am doing what is right for me, not diligently slaving away my precious time and efforts for the non benevolent and under rewarded benefit of others! No doubt when the spring comes I will return to a simple desire to work out doors in forestry or something of that kind—I always do—hehe. My brother and SIL are coming down later today, we plan to have a jolly good nosh up in one of the village’s eateries—so looking forward to that.
2005 was not such a good year for cycling. Current mileage is 5,371.2 that equates to 1,753.5 miles for the year. Normally I would expect to be in the 2,500 range, which of course confirms super human status—naturally. More interesting bike stats: I have done 4,291.2 of these miles on my Muddy Fox mountain bike both up hill and down dale :-)
Last night was a good moody night, one of those nights when I have a clear sense of the ethereal harmony of things, the characteristics of the seasons, the weather, an almost syneasthetic sense of correlation’s. Actually, I was out and about on my bike but I don’t really know quite where I was as I managed to get lost somewhere between Adlington and Pot Shrigley on very dark lanes. Eventually I found my way back to the secluded Macclesfield Canal and made a very precarious return journey along the rutted towpath to the familiar setting of Whitley Green. The prospect of a “strange encounter” and the possibility of having to route an assailant or a misjudged high-speed manoeuvre resulting in an impromptu slam dive with bike seemed to add to the excitement in the dark darkness. Yes I know, I’m weird crazy personified :-)
It was a bracing night with a fierce looking sky made up of hard edged broken cloud scampering to the east in a jostling squally fashion and allowing the impressive stars to show through; albeit somewhat tentatively. My favourite planet Mars looked fabulous last night, skulking low in the south and standing out from the crowd with its unmistakable fiery orange glow. There was a curious mood of ominous portent with a robust war like essence to this red theme’d and typically seasonal night. Don’t ask me to explain! Actually, I have quite a soft spot for Jupiter too, naturally! It’s an interesting and highly energetic world perfectly suited as the Ruler of Sagittarius—but of course.
I am continuing to indulge in a sort of nostalgia for the music of my youth, or rather shall we say the missed (non-attentive) years of my pre adolescence. Actually, my adolescence was firmly rooted in the “Punk” era of the late 70s, a time when one had to pretend not to like any of the preceding genres. Nearly everything we hear now appears to be in some way derivative and it is easy to convince oneself that the non “classical” music styles have run out of material and exhausted all possibilities for invention and progression.
This is why I like to loose myself in a sort of retrogressive journey of belated discovery trawling through obscure 70s back catalogues for those fiendishly well arranged and ambitiously orchestrated “P Funk” masterpieces from the early 70s and virtually everything on the Stax label. No one does music with this sort of quality now. It would be fascinating to delve into the John Peel shows from the pre-Punk era too if only to get an angle on the “underground” or serious and innovative stuff when all we can think of is razzal dazzle commercial rubbish. Who can remember “Family” and those gritty social narratives set to organ rich compositions with a hint of 70s TV themes?