Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
People say that Wordsworth wrote in praise of the early morning in London, saying that ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair’. That was in 1802, half a century before before the The Great Stink changed the way London used the River Thames for waste management.
The Dalkey Archive features a swimming spot from when it was for gentleman bathers only. It was in a cave near there that De Selby encountered St Augustine and surrealistic visions of eternity. This was the Vico Swimming Club, a real place I frequented as a child and student. Today, some call it The Ramparts. Others call it the Vico Baths. Yet others call it The Men’s Bathing Place despite today’s gender neutrality.
My first job found me working in Sharjah in the UAE. Thwarted for years, I carelessly used most of my fourth monthly paycheck to buy the state of the art Canon A-1 in 1979, taking advantage of the freedom from purchase taxes in neighbouring Dubai. Friends and colleagues were buying the more affordable AE-1 but I thought I’d likely hold onto the camera for a decade so I went for the A-1; future proofing was the justification for acquiring this object of professional desire, with its better viewfinder, faster shutter speeds and exposure compensation. It was worth it because the A-1 made me out to be a better photographer than I had been. And it helped that there was often more sunlight in the desert than in Ireland.
I’ve been taking (and storing) photographs since about 1970 and I’m unsure when my eye for photography first began to be a dominant force in my life. All I recall is that many adults around me were very good photographers and I was encouraged by their interests. I grew up in a world where having a camera to hand was as normal as holding a cigarette and perhaps a glass of malt or a glass of wine. In fact, a third hand might have been useful to many of the adults I knew.
Science and experience both tell us that it may become harder to learn as we get older. On the grounds that it’s never too late to learn, I was thinking about science books overnight. Which is the best? Could it be The Selfish Gene? Or perhaps The Periodic Table? Maybe The Emperor of All Maladies? Or Factfulness?
So I thought a web search would help remind me of some that I have read. Where better to start than the annual Royal Society Prizes for Science Books?
Isn’t it ironic that my brain started making it’s own free associations at a time that social free association is proscribed?
It started again when there came a pier walk first thing this morning. And with that came a waft of stale urine from long closed public conveniences.
