Continued...

August 31st 1982, Ios, Greece

The north west coast of Ios

"At about seven thirty, with the sinking sun about to touch the western horizon, I saw the sihouette of a motorised fishing boat - about a quarter of a mile offshore. 

Luckily, I had my little shaving mirror with me so I did my best to flash it at the boat. Maybe I'd read about this being done before in one of the adventure books I read as a boy but would it work? And I waved my white shirt overhead like a flag.

The boat passed out of view. My heart sank for several moments. They had not spotted me! But then, almost magically, the boat nudged back round the right headland and came into view. They were heading for my cove, my human containment trap.

Awkwardly and by now in a state of exhaustion, I was able to clamber aboard the blue and white fishing vessel in spite of the swell but with the welcome assistance of crew members. They did not speak a word of English but it was obvious that they were on their way out for some night fishing. I imagined I would have to spend that night with them which rather appealed to me - casting nets in Aegean moonlight as mariners did in Ancient Greece. But I was dehydrated and hungry. 

The fishermen gave me cold water which I  gulped down  like air as I pointed out the northern beach that I had tried to  reach. I indicated that they could deposit me there and I could then walk in the gloaming - back to Ios Town.

Before the four fishermen took me into the beach I tried to offer them money as a reward for possibly saving my life - "For birra! For retsina!"  but they refused it so I just shook their hands and thanked them profusely. I waved my saviours off to the purple and  rose horizon where shafts of golden sunlight indicated that the day was conclusively over and what is more - I was saved!

The walk across the island, along a rough and stony track was at least two miles. I stopped at a well to drink and later purloined a bunch of juicy grapes, overhanging from a little stone enclosure. How deliciously sweet they were.

Once back at the port of Ios, I went into the first taverna and bought a 1½ litre bottle of mineral water with a bottle of beer.  Camel-like I gulped the liquid down as I waited for a plate of traditional Greek food - egg and chips. That cost me just 65 drachmas.

I was soon joined by a Welsh gardener who had ordered another traditional Greek dish - sausage roll and chips with baked beans!

After this I walked to another bar for another beer and there I picked up a recent copy of "The Sunday People" which held my attention for a few minutes before the walk along the coast to Sunset Beach (known locally as Koumbara) where I was sleeping. Moonlight sparkled on the gentle sea waves -  so beautiful to see and after what had happened that day I felt so grateful to be alive.

I slid into my sleeping bag feeling contented and comfortable but when I arrived at the very edge of sleep I heard a rustling in the back of my shelter - no more than eighteen inches from my head. I sat up with my torch and saw a brown rat cowering with its coal black eyes. 

Hell, I have seen many rats and it never bothered me but I did not particularly wish to sleep with one! I pulled my sleeping bag out of the shelter and took it down to the beach's  tidemark and there I slept till morning light appeared again. I was woken by a labrador puppy from The Sunset Beach Taberna. He walked right across me and licked my face.

I have shaved this morning, had some coffee, studied more pages of "Hamlet" and now I am sitting in the taverna with a lemonade. No more rocky coves for me! Andros, the grizzled proprietor, has just played one side of an old Leonard Cohen album:-

Like a worm on a hook

Like a knight from some old fashioned book

I have saved all my ribbons for thee...

&

Now so long, Marianne, it's time that we began

to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again."

⦿

Most people face more than one brush with death as they travel through life and that time on the island of Ios was certainly one of my close scrapes. No wonder I had blogged about it previously - here in 2010 before I  recently rediscovered my little journal from the summer of 82. The first version was drawn entirely from memory but this second version is an actual transcript of what I wrote down soon after the event - while I was still on Ios.

1982

 August 31st 1982, Ios, Greece

"There were no paths. I just guessed where the beach would be. I slid down the cliff and to my dismay found I was in the wrong place - there was only a small pebble beach and fallen rocks with crumbly, sun-scorched cliffs all around.

Anyway, I decided to make the most of it. I swam and sunbathed, drank my water and read "Hamlet" until - at around one o'clock, I decided to leave the trap I had so willingly put myself in.

In that hot Aegean sun, I struggled upward  but when I was about fifty feet above that inaccessible beach, with unforgiving rocks below, I slid and slipped back about ten feet. Glued to the crumbling, unstable cliff-face, I trembled as a current of fear coursed through me and it was a few minutes before I became calm enough to descend the cliff, ever so slowly. Arriving in the secret cove had been easy enough and I never considered that ascending would be an issue when I decided to leave.

Over the next two hours, I made half a dozen attempts to climb out of the cove via the rocks on each side but found unassailable cliff faces after a while - on both sides. I had my blue day bag with me containing passport, wallet, air ticket etc. so I couldn't have attempted to swim a mile around the headland back to safety even if that had been something other than an entirely desperate idea.

I was more than tired because of my exertions so I found some shade in the lee of a large rock and simply rested for an hour or so trying to regather my strength. I was thirsty but all of my water had been consumed just before I attempted my first aborted ascent.

Around four that afternoon, I tried another route out of there but the same thing happened as before - the rock face crumbling under my hands and feet as I tried to find some purchase. Then I asked myself a question - if a boat passed by out beyond the bay would I signal for help?  The answer was a resounding "Yes" for I was more than a little scared and hyper-aware of my dangerous situation.

Again I rested, conserving energy but no boats came by so I tried yet another route up the cliff - my blue "Fjallraven" bag around my neck - but this effort was like all the rest - useless. If I had fallen I would undoubtedly meet death - either immediately or slowly  through serious injury. It was clear that nobody ever went there.

Where were the boats? Sunset was getting closer. I was starting to think that I would have to spend the night there with the sea and the sun-baked rocks and an empty water bottle. Would this in fact be my last resting place?"

To be continued...

Delusion

In 2006, the same year that Stephen King published "Lisey's Story", Richard Dawkins published "The God Delusion". I had never read it until this summer and now I have finished it. The act of reading those 450 pages was very different from the process of reading the King novel. Much more concentration required.

Of course I was drawn to the book because I have been an atheist as long as I can remember and instinctively I have always been 99.999% sure that the idea of a "God" is delusional. I realise that a few people who visit this blog are Christian believers and who knows - there may be a few Muslims, Hindus and Jews too as far as I know. But like Richard Dawkins, I firmly believe that they have all got it wrong They have been misled. It is indeed all a great big delusion.

We atheists are painfully aware that we live in societies where we are supposed to "respect" other people's views and their religious habits. If the truth be known, most atheists in general give that "respect" reluctantly while internally growling and dismissing the whole religious shebang as dangerous poppycock.

We look on as innocent children are indoctrinated with their parents' religious beliefs. Shouldn't they be allowed to form their own judgements when they are older and make properly informed decisions? How often are they presented with the illuminating possibility of atheism?

I found the early chapters of "The God Delusion" quite hard to read as they are framed in the style and language of academia. There are many quotations and references to wrestle with as Dawkins hacks his way through the troublesome undergrowth of religious belief. It can seem as though he is addressing an auditorium filled with quizzical postgraduates.

However, beyond the middle of the book I was finding the content much easier to master as the author explored such matters as the roots of morality,  Hitler and Stalin, Darwinism, the physical and mental abuse of children and the awful symbolism of the burka in Islam.

Richard Dawkins has thought the whole thing through rather like a scientist pursuing a big research assignment. Several times he paused to reflect on religiosity in America, the frightening ignorance of creationism and the unhealthy bond between religion and government over there. It's not easy to be an atheist in America and in that land of legends and fast food, folk frequently realise it's best to keep their godlessness to themselves while religious zealots espouse their nonsense and blow their proverbial horns.

Here, for your interest, are four random extracts from "The God Delusion":- 

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

&

“A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents. This latter nomenclature, by the way, would be an excellent piece of consciousness-raising for the children themselves. A child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose -or reject- when she becomes old enough to do so.”

&

“To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries”

&

“Do you really mean to tell me the only reason you try to be good is to gain God's approval and reward, or to avoid his disapproval and punishment? That's not morality, that's just sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great surveillance camera in the sky, or the still small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move, even your every base thought.”

The quotations above, I think, provide an authentic foretaste of the book.

First

In the entire calendar, this day, August 1st is more significant to me than July 4th (American Independence Day), April 23rd (St George's Day/ England's National Day) or December 25th when some baby or other was allegedly born in a smelly stable in faraway Bethlehem. Yes folks - it's YORKSHIRE DAY!

If you feel like getting out your bongos, your kazoos, your trumpets and your beat boxes then please do and play them with joyous delight as we celebrate all things Yorkshire. For this is a county of 5.6 million souls - slightly bigger than the population of Scotland but so often air-brushed and actively sidelined by successive London-based governments and the general British media. Where are the Yorkshire voices beyond that odious stereotypical soap opera - "Emmerdale"?

Let us celebrate flat caps and whippets, the chalky coves of Flamborough Head, The Bronte Parsonage, John Smiths Brewery, Sam Smiths Brewery, York Minster, rhubarb, parkin, Ted Hughes, Andrew Marvell, Amy Johnson, David Hockney, the curving spit of Spurn Head that guards the mouth of The Humber, the rolling Yorkshire Wolds, The Three Peaks, The Arctic Monkeys, The Human League, Joe Cocker, the coal industry that Thatcher butchered, Harold Wilson, Hull City A.F.C., Sheffield - the birthplace of modern football, Dame Judi Dench and Sir Patrick Stewart, Kevin Keegan and The Chuckle Brothers, William Wilberforce and of course the great Captain James Cook. And let us celebrate our many prehistoric sites, stainless steel and cat's eyes, the spring mousetrap and the first commercial steam railway in the world. And we give thanks for neighbourliness, kindness, common sense, hard work, bluntness and having the most beautiful no-nonsense women in the world and Wensleydale cheese, Yorkshire chutney, our public footpaths and of course, it goes without saying, the mighty Yorkshire Pudding that rises golden above all of us like a mighty pagan god.

Back in 2018, I wrote a poem to mark Yorkshire Day and I shall share it again with you today...

Yorkshire Day

August the first is Yorkshire Day!
Our hearts lift up, we shout hooray!
From Flamborough Head to the Pennine Chain
We cheer our county once again
Dear blogging friends, for what it’s worth
There’s nowhere better on this Earth.
You can keep your Sydney and L.A. too
Your South Sea isles and your Timbuctoo
I would rather walk a Yorkshire street
With Yorkshire ground beneath my feet.
From Middlesbrough to Malham Cove
Our county is a treasure trove
Of coastal path and rolling dale
And foaming pints of Yorkshire ale
Where people use their common sense
No empty words or proud pretence
A land of graft and imagination
Surely The Lord’s very best creation
So drink and feast and dance away
August the first is Yorkshire Day!

P.S. We do NOT give thanks for The Yorkshire Ripper!

Influencer

The term "influencer" is bandied about a lot these days. In fact this blogpost has been inspired by the senior influencer Crozier Magnon who currently resides in a luxury residence in south west France - paid for by his work as an influencer.

Apparently, the main point of being an influencer is to boost sales of particular products or services. Many influencers have become stinking rich in this social-mediaed, smartphoned western world. They are courted by profit-hungry businesses, forging mutually beneficial relationships.

With all of this in mind, I have taken the decision to become an influencer myself. However, rather than taking the usual social media path, filled with persuasive hints and cunning imagery, I have decided that my style of influencing will be somewhat different.

As an influencer, I will be rather like a mafia godfather. Some will perhaps come to see me as an intimidator rather than an influencer.

I will employ gangs of thuggish young men who will appear at your door to promote the week's highlighted product  or service. And if you say you are not buying you will be thrown to the floor in a judo-style move with your arm thrust up your back. Let me tell you, you'll soon change your mind and make the required purchase.

Here online and within the dark web, I may decide to uncover your most zealously guarded secrets and use that knowledge to drain your savings. And if you try to report me to the police, I will simply switch identities. Yorkshire Pudding will become Bakewell Pudding or Steak and Kidney Pudding or Chocolate Pudding. The alternatives are endless.

I must say, I am looking forward to starting my second and much more lucrative career as an influencer. In fact, I have already received a commission from "Bonkers" chocolate biscuits, sales of which are bound to shoot up like bamboo shoots in Mrs Moon's sub-tropical garden or the beanstalk that young Jack grew.

1974

 June 29th 1974

Cape Clear Island, County Cork, Ireland

"There is a castle on the rocky promontory of an island which lies at the very edge of Europe. Years of gales and human neglect have caused its walls to crumble, so that instead of towering nobly above its mother rock it has, like a chameleon, taken on an appearance which does not clash with the cliff faces and the rocky islets that surround it.

Ah, but despite the decline, this ancient fortress has not yet revealed the rich history which the surrounding geology jealously watched being formed. Still, still midst the coastal rock plants, standing there ever so still you can sense worlds that have gone, a pirate called O'Driscoll, on those eroding stairs of stone, his footsteps padding, a tankard of stolen Spanish wine in his right fist. He stops on the parapet., hacking his throat clear. He looks out through the dark night to the ocean and his eyes stumble upon the distant lights of two of his wooden ships returning from the Americas.

On that very same horizon, two centuries later it is the blue and white spinnaker of a French yacht which reveals itself to the island. 

But what if that, that man of the sea with lice in his scalp and food detritus in his ragged beard could see his proud castle as it is today. Perhaps standing with me in the soft clifftop grasses, his shell of hardness and vulgarity might fracture and at last words would rise up from his buried heart, "I didn't know. I didn't know".

And we would walk along the clifftop, watching mewling seabirds glide to their ledges and he would stare at it all, leaning over the edge, seeking his reflection in the waves below... and having failed to find it renounce his days of plunder and piracy, finally seeing like me  a world of waiting and wondering - not rushing to fulfil a fool's dreams."

⦿

That long ago summer I was twenty years old, exploring Ireland on my 
own with a rucksack on my back and a few pounds in my pocket. I used
 a little notebook as my journal and rediscovered it earlier this week. 

The castle in question was Dun an Oir or Fort of Gold but known 

locally as O'Driscoll's Castle.

Sheaffeld

The Sheaf from Cutler's Walk

Most English place names have evolved through history, emerging from times when spelling expectations were not as clearcut as they are today. When I was in Uttoxeter recently, I learnt that through the centuries the little Staffordshire town's name had gone through no less than seventy nine changes from Wotocheshede in 1086 to Utoc Cestre and Utcester just before standardised spellings became the fashion.

This city, Sheffield, also knew  name or spelling changes through time. I used one of the older versions as the title of this blogpost - Sheaffeld.

One of the city's five little rivers is the River Sheaf. It travels for little more than seven miles from its source to its confluence with the much larger River Don. Historically, those seven miles marked a section of the border between the ancient kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia that predated the very notion of a united country called England.

In Old English the term "sheaf" or "scēað" meant a boundary. "Feld" that later became "field" meant an open area of land or pasture. So you can see that way back in history when a small settlement grew in what is now our city centre Sheaffeld was a logical and rather simple choice. It was not fanciful.

Cutler's Walk

Today I walked down by The River Sheaf. For three or four centuries it drove a handful of waterwheels and industrial premises grew up along its banks - mostly connected with metal working - including the manufacture of cutlery, wire and farm implements.

But I was mostly there to see a muralist at work by Cutler's Walk  which narrowly weaves its way by the The Sheaf and the main Midland railway line. And there she was up a ladder hard at work - Zoe Genders. She has been commissioned to create a 200 square metre mural which is likely to see her working into early September.

Zoe Genders at work today

I stopped to talk to her and it was interesting to hear that she views her creations as ephemeral. They are just here for a while and she expects taggers and teenage scrawlers to come along with spoiling additions. That's all part of the reality of being an urban muralist.

I wished her well and promised that I would return in September to see the finished work.

To tell you the truth, Zoe's abstract graphical shapes and lines and blocks of colour are not my favourite style of street art but it is what she does and she seemed happy in her work.

⦿

This morning at 4.30am, the Irish singer-songwriter and musician Glen Hansard died in a tragic motorcycle accident in County Dublin, Ireland. When I first heard this news, a sharp intake of breath was necessary. I hope they play "Falling Slowly" at his funeral. He leaves behind his Finnish wife Maire and their beloved three year old son. So sad. He was only 56.