Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
‘We should have walked to Buxton today. It should have been the first stage of the trip to Rome … We’ll do it same time next year .. it’ll be 18 daily hikes before we can catch the Dover ferry to cross to France. And then, well, then it’ll be a mere 96 daily hikes to get to dinner in Rome’ or so I wrote this day last year.
Have you ever heard of Robert Gregg of Colorado? He’s connected to the eighth wonder of the world, in St Petersburg, in my mind at least.
Gregg died in 1991, famous among ant lovers for having written the seminal book The Ants of Colorado published in 1963. He identified and was allowed name many ant species in Colorado during his decades of searching them out.
Caveat emptor: today’s musings may suffer from sleep deprivation.
I woke just before first cheese. It was light but overcast, very grey. Dublin Port was handling at least two cargo ships, one leaving, the other arriving. My mind was jumbled. Outgoing stolen cars and animal flesh? Incoming vaccines and fruit pickers? Pigeon toes above the bedroom ceiling scratched me wider awake. I picked up a book but it was too early for the whores who were grabbing fistfuls of jewels in the hallway as they left 738 Keizersgracht. I changed books. It was better to be reading of pancakes whose menu depictions tasted better than the real thing. Probably.
JG Ballard was in the news in 1973 for his novel Crash and I had no idea of the controversy the book created. Many considered it to be utterly pornographic. Then I saw the 1996 Cronenberg movie. After which I read the book. But why did I ever read the book? I suppose it’s because I presumed the movie was more extreme than the book. I was horrified even though I classified the movie as urban science fiction. But it was more Alien than Barbarella. Before seeing the movie, I didn’t know there was a word for a car-crash sex fetish. I was intrigued that symphorophiliacs existed at all. Sometimes reality offers things even more strange than a vampire. And since I lived under the flight path to Heathrow at the time, I briefly wondered if there was a word for plane-crash fetishists.
We watched Leinster Rugby host Ospreys for a very rare home loss. We can’t go to home games due to the pandemic and so we watched on TV. There was a degree of horror for home supporters as Ospreys scored 21 points in the last twelve minutes to win by 24 point to 19. Leinster had the game in the bag from half time but did nothing to consolidate their 19-3 advantage.
I was sent home by the police recently. I was stopped at a road block and in truth, I couldn’t justify my travel as essential. I explained that I was less than 5 km from home and that I was headed for a walk in order to take photographs of trees for an upcoming book. ‘That’s hardly essential work’ he said while his colleague was clearly issuing a fine to the driver ahead of me.
‘I’ll go home then’
