Sunday 20 October 2013

Wendover, Wallingford, Watlington & Wetness - a Cycling Perambulation



This is a short resume of a cycling expedition that is featured in more detail in the 2016 book 'Stair-Rods and Stars' (ISBN: 978-1513605258) - available now on Amazon and by order from all good book shops.

My most recent cycling expedition took me along the Chiltern Hills and involved camping for two nights, as always eschewing the option of paying to use an official site, and instead diving into the nearest wood as things get dusky. I alighted with my bike at Tring station and headed southwest along a B-road which forms the Upper Icknield Way. I diverted down Tringford Road to join the towpath of the Wendover arm of the Grand Union Canal, but discovered that the gap on the map, which I'd assumed to be a tunnel, was actually a gap of several miles in the middle where the canal was allowed to dry up. I rejoined the B-road and bridged the A41 (pictured), which was the tenth longest road on the UK until the authorities decided to hack out the middle chunk and renumber it as a B-road!

After enjoying the impressive view, I descended Tring Hill and rejoined the towpath, which was hard surfaced here (as opposed to just grass) and very pleasant, winding beside the narrow, often overgrown waterway to Wendover. After a look at this pleasant town, which reminded me of Cranbrook in Kent, and visiting a micro-brewery (basically a pub in a shed) where I sampled the excellent Chiltern Gold ale at £2.20 a pint, storm clouds were gathering. Lightning flashed around as I continued southward on the bike. When the hail started, I was just outside Princes Risborough and had no option but to lay on the grass verge and pull the tarpaulin I was carrying over myself and wait half an hour for the torrential downpour to subside.

I then headed for the nearest Tesco (not something I make a habit of) and used their hand-driers to expunge the absorbed liquid from my clothes and stock up on a few supplies. I then headed for the hills to set up camp for the night. A tree groaned and creaked above me, and having seen what an uprooted cherry tree can do at my regular camping woods near Appledore in Kent, I decided to pick up all my gear at midnight and move twenty feet away.

The next day involved cycling the Ridgeway trail to Watlington. This runs along the bottom of the hills (unlike the western section beyond Goring) and passes beneath the dramatic M40 cutting.

Just after Whatlington, the Ridgeway departs as a footpath, but the byway continues as Swan's Way (reminiscent of Proust?). I then followed the undulating lanes to Goring on Thames, heading for the first pub I could find for a calorific breakfast. I was stunned to learn that this would cost £9.95 and didn't include a drink. So I opted for a £7.95 'smoked haddock and poached egg' instead. I think they call this 'nouveau cuisine' but I just called it small!

£13 lighter (I had two cups of tea), I had a wander up the Thames path and tried some crab-apples, before the drizzle sent me scuttling to the nearest bar, which was actually a hotel. The beer was £4.10 a pint - expensive in my book but maybe about standard for such a plush establishment.

I sat on some decking, watching the boats on the Thames, while a friend confided in me about his relationship troubles on the phone. I then decided to cycle the Thames Path to Wallingford. Eventually leaving the Thames to join the A329.

From a board in the centre of this pleasant town I learned that William the Conqueror had travelled here seeking to cross the Thames. Initially he was refused, but when he returned with something resembling an army, permission was granted and the town was rewarded with an extra hour of trading after the 8pm curfew. I also learned that the town doubles as Causton in the TV series 'Midsummer Murders', so I took a few pictures to show my mum.

On the way back along the bottom of the Chilterns, this time on a B-road, I stopped at the Red Lion in Chinnor. A 6-year-old boy called Adam seemed fascinated by my maps and kept asking where various places he'd visited were. Relishing the attention, I stayed there for another half an hour!

I ended up back in Princes Risborough and made a beeline for the nearest kebab van, opting for a healthy 'shish'. Then it was back into the hills, to join the owls for the night.

The rain began at 5am and my tarpaulin had puddles in it by 9am, so I hastily packed everything away and had a free bath as I cruised back down the hill into Princes Risborough. Thankfully, there is a clock tower in the centre of the town, which is on brick 'stilts', so I sheltered underneath until the rain eased enough for me to search for a cafe.

After a £6 breakfast which included a cup of tea (hurrah!), I had to dispense with my plans to ride the old rail line to Thame and head for the current rail line instead. The journey to Marylebone was quite pleasant; the bike ride to St Pancras less so!

Another hour and I was home again and ready for a well-earned snooze. A real bed never felt so good!

Saturday 20 July 2013

Thoughts on the Russian Language & Milton Keynes



This is a modified extract from the Hamstreet and district parish magazine, written primarily for local people in rural Kent, so please don't take my (hopefully humorous) musings about learning Russian and exploring Milton Keynes to be representative!

I recently uploaded a video of a bike-ride along the bottom of the White Cliffs of Dover to the Internet (search YouTube for 'Ashford ring road' and you'll find my channel). This was made possible due to an attachment I bought for a few quid that fixes a smart-phone to the handlebars of the bike, opening up whole new avenues in the field of amateur video.

Of course, the wartime song about the cliffs, made famous by Vera Lynn, is known internationally. Indeed, my Russian girlfriend is even familiar with it. However, my Russian language skills aren't progressing so well. I know the two most essential words of course - pivo (beer) and chai (tea), but the 6 'cases' which change the endings according to the context have proven a step too far for me. For example, in the phrases 'I give you a knife' and 'you give me a knife' the pronouns 'I' and 'you' change. If 'I cut myself with the knife' the noun 'knife' will alter, along with my pain threshold!

Then there's the male/female/neutral part to contend with. As any student of French or German will know, many languages attribute a gender to inanimate objects. In England, we may affectionately refer to cars or boats as 'she', but very little else. In Russian, a train is male and a station is female, so the name of the station has to be feminised too – our local one would be something like 'Hamstreetskaya'. Even numbers can be male or female – adin (one) becomes adna if talking about something female. So when I need one journey on the Moscow underground I have been told to say 'adna'. When I see the price (approx. 60p for any journey), I can then say 'ochin harrasho' (very good). So if you thought Russian was just about writing the Rs backwards think again!

To illustrate what a large area you can traverse for your 60p, Moscow is the 5th most populated city in the world. In contrast, London ranks 21st, yet it is still the most populated city in the rest of Europe (Paris is a contender, but due to the way its borders are defined it appears much smaller). This is interesting, as Britain is coincidentally the 21st most populated country in the world, yet we are the 4th highest spender on military matters. Draw your own conclusions there according to your sensibilities; mine are that this could be better spent on the national health service, education, railways, post offices (as opposed to privatising them), renewable energy sources (as opposed to tax breaks for 'frackers') - you know, things that might make life a bit better for ordinary people!

A little later I got into a number crunching session with my father, looking up various populations and areas whilst cooking an English breakfast. This was prompted by Mr Putin's representative's alleged comments about Britain along the lines of 'nobody cares what that tiny island thinks'. However, with Russia's area working out at roughly 70 times that of the UK it is hard to argue really, although I think he should be made aware that what the 'island' thinks and what our leaders think are not always the same!

Yet, I was surprised to learn that the world's largest country is only just over twice as populous as the UK with 140 million. Comparing this data with an atlas from the 80s, we noticed that the USSR had roughly 270 million inhabitants (compared to 240 million in the USA), so deduction tells me that the former soviet states that left the federation account for a whopping 130 million people, Ukraine being the largest in population terms. With all this mental arithmetic my dad forgot to heat up the beans, so I had to surround mine with sausages and lay an egg on top to warm them up.

Back to the subject of languages, sometimes I remark that English is much simpler that Russian, but I am informed that this isn't necessarily so. In Russian, there are three tenses – past, present and future; in English there are 17 according to an online source I checked.

It is interesting to hear my girlfriend's opinions on the local area too. The nearby 'market town cum international gateway' of Ashford has come in for a bit of a drubbing in the local press recently, courtesy of a regular correspondent opening up a hornets' nest! Whilst I cringe with embarrassment as we pass all the boarded up shops in the town centre (just how is building a huge out-of-town John Lewis store going to help this?), she always states that it seems a nice town. I recently went on a cycling trip and ended up in Milton Keynes. As a result I have to agree with her. Let me explain:

Having ridden the peaceful towpath of the Grand Union Canal, admired the flight of locks at Foxton, taken in the historic vibes of the Richard III museum in Leicester and fleetingly visited Rugby and Northampton (which claims to be the UK's largest town that hasn't acquired city status), I ended up following the canal route into the aforementioned 'new town' (maybe a 'not-so-new town' now that we are in the 21st century).

By now, the route was lined with a seemingly endless avenue of trees, which I'm sure bordered some very pleasant parkland, but you have to understand that I had just ridden around 50 miles and I was gasping for a drink. I suddenly realised that I wasn't getting closer to any kind of town centre, and the endless, equidistant, identical trees only enhanced this feeling of pedalling hard and getting nowhere. I had imagined an 'up and coming' marina, with trendy bars selling (I would expect 'overpriced') beer. Realising I was just going to get trees, I asked a schoolboy for directions to the nearest shop or pub (there was nobody else around), but due to the grid-structure of the town, his reply required a considerable level of concentration for somebody used to the concentric town model to take in. You see, in most UK towns you generally know which side of the centre you are, and pretty much all roads will take you to the middle.

So having followed his instructions, I discovered the shop to be an anonymous Tesco Express, and the pub was rather reminiscent of a place called The Nelson which was once the only pub on an Ashford housing estate that since gone 'dry'. It was also closed.

Having asked for directions, I found my way to the town centre. A teenager was pleading for his life in a subway while his similar aged attacker was growling like a wild animal. 'Should I call the police?' I wondered, 'Or is this normal here?'

With apologies to anybody living in MK, you can see why my impressions were perhaps not as positive as they could have been, and with both tyres now punctured, heading for the train station seemed the only logical option.

Until next time, 'dosvidania' and maybe one day I'll give MK a fairer assessment.

Friday 31 May 2013

Desert Island Albums - 2013 [Adam's Music reviews #1]



Many of the pieces I write for this blog are edited versions of articles I write for a local magazine. This month I am going to give you something different. I always enjoy writing about music, so I thought I'd initiate a 'Desert Island Discs' feature. [This is BBC Radio 4's programme where famous people choose records they would like to have with them if stranded on a desert island.] I have selected ten of my favourite albums (or downloads) in no particular order and given the reason why I have chosen them. The musical musings and humour continue in '2021: A Musical Odyssey' - now available in digital and paperback formats.

Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). 'Money' is about the only song on this album which receives regular airplay (usually edited because of the rude word), but the album spent 6 consecutive years on the UK album chart. All human life is explained in the lyrics. 'Time' is particularly apt. If I had to pick a second PF album it would be a tough choice between 'The Wall' and the totally bonkers 'Ummagumma,' which features a track called 'Grantchester Meadows' (see photo).

The Beatles – White Album (1968). The sequel to Magical Mystery Tour (which in turn followed Sgt Pepper). On this album, the Beatles did whatever they felt like with no constraints towards commercialism. Styles vary from folk to Charleston to country and western to heavy metal, and 'Revolution 9' simulates the effect of waking up during a series of bizarre dreams, before Ringo lulls us back to sleep with 'Good Night'.

Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home (1965). Lyrically I think this is Dylan's masterpiece. You've got 'Mr Tambourine Man' and 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', but for me the highlight is the verbal deluge of 'It's alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding'. This album is half folk and half rock – both sides of Mr Zimmerman's oeuvre. For a second Dylan choice, 1996's 'Time Out of Mind' comes close, but so do about ten others!

Brian Wilson – Smile (2004). The Beach Boys' lost album from 1967 finally appeared in the early 'noughties' as a solo effort (but still sounding like the surfing group). More like a concert-piece of linked songs, the lyrics are fun and random (such as a song about vegetables), but with a sense of triumph that the composer, who pretty much lost his mind making this the first time around, had finally pulled the album together. Includes 'Heroes and Villains' as it was supposed to be heard and 'Good Vibrations' (often voted the best single of all time).

Radiohead – OK Computer (1997). The 90s were almost like the new 60s in terms of music, with a return to rock styles. The Oxford band here went beyond rock with experimentation hinting at what would come on later albums, whilst retaining some very memorable songs such as 'Paranoid Android' and 'Karma Police'. The lyrics seem to be a rather cynical look at life (a la Dark Side of the Moon). 'No alarms and no surprises' depicts provincial life very adeptly too.

Blur – 13 (1999). Blur are usually remembered for the Chas and Dave-esque singalongs from the 'Parklife' era, but on this album they pushed the envelope, with everything from a 7-minute folk anthem ('Tender') to several all-out sonic assaults worthy of Hawkwind. I think Damon Albarn was trying to illustrate how his head felt at the time following a break-up, and he did a pretty good job. Phew.

Mike Oldfield – Hergest Ridge (1974). Most people would opt for Tubular Bells. This album follows the same format, with two very long pieces on which Mike plays most of the instruments. The mostly relaxing style (inspired by rural walks on the aforementioned ridge) makes the intense sonic assault a third of the way into side two even more striking.

The Kinks – Arthur (or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969). Following the more famous 'Village Green Preservation Society' album, this one depicts an old man looking back over his life and assessing the worth of it, from the Victorian era ('when the rich were so mean' to quote the lyrics), to the world wars, to his family emigrating to Australia, and finally the sad repeated refrain of 'Arthur' at the end. Here the Kinks gave us longer instrumental jams like 'Australia' and it is unfortunate that the band are generally only remembered for their singles.

Dire Straits – Love Over Gold (1982). Here, most people would go for 'Brothers in Arms', but this album includes the 14-minute 'Telegraph Road' (which seems like a brief history of civilisation),'Private Investigations' (where a Spanish guitar has never sounded so menacing) and the amusing 'Industrial Disease' in which Mark Knopfler impersonates a doctor!

Beethoven - 3rd symphony "Eroica" (1804). You have to have a 'token gesture' classical piece when you go on Desert Island Discs so here is mine. This one has the famous melodic first movement (make sure you get the full 17-minute version), followed by a dramatic funeral march, a light third movement and a rousing finale. Initially composed to honour Napolean, Beethoven changed his mind as the leader's lust for power became apparent. The 5th 6th and 9th symphonies are also pretty essential.