“Someone took a bradawl to that I reckon,” says Ishmael. I’ve called Ishmael via Halfords and we are standing next to Bergman. He has reinflated the flat tyre and we are both looking at the big deliberate hole in it.
Here and now in this blog I call down the powers of wind and earth to blow a nasty itchy little persistent fungus into an intimate area of the anatomy of whichever road ragey twit did that. Thankfully Ishmael couldn’t get the locked wheelnut off without the lost unlocking tool, so I’ll get back most of my £167 from Halfords. He put enough air into it that I could drive it ten minutes to the local part worn tyre shop, and Sai. Sai had had a bad day. I got to him 5 minutes before he closed. He got the bolt off in no time. “You make it look easy!” “It is, but it’s also technically illegal.” I am happy to give him my £100 cash. With his help Bergman and I are back on the road despite the malice of the weird man who is going to have a slightly itchy groin for a day or so.
We drove to Lewes, Bergman and I, on very off balance tyres. I’ll need to do some pressure tweaking, but no time for that as I had a ticket to a talk at the town hall. This is why I was anxious to get back on the road. I didn’t know there was also a train strike, so I’m double pleased that it is all fixed.
David R Abram. That’s who I was anxious to see talking in Lewes. Lou is an enthusiast as he aligns with many of her things. He wrote The Rough Guide to India back in the day when she was living out there, and now he is obsessed with ancient sites in Britain. He has written The Aerial Atlas of Ancient Britain and filled it with incredible composite drone photos often taken guerrilla style despite asshat farmers or zealous security guards. It’s my jam too, as you know. I love ancient things. I find it perplexing how many people take their British identity from the Normans, or maybe the Romans. How few people consider the ancient peoples who came from the south with their handaxes and started to leave their marks through over thousands of years with barrows and monoliths. This Somerset Welsh Dad Geek has done lots of thinking for us, about how things are aligned. Ley and river, liminal borders, height and depth, different layers of rock. I reckon he spends more time on Photoshop than in the field, but his results are remarkably beautiful and approachably cosmic – just the right sort of balance in the Instagram age.
I bought his book. He will actually get money if I buy it direct, I hope. Surely nobody but the publishers can make money from books these days. Like musicians. Like actors. It’s a miracle anyone still makes nice things, but fuck it, we are obsessive and surely something will give. The actors and writers strike about AI regulation is absolutely crucial to lots and lots of people in lots and lots of creative industries not starving. I really really hope it gains some traction.
Meanwhile I’m off to sleep to dream of ancient things that have carried through despite all our fear of nature and our atrocious hubris. Good on David, getting up in the morning and pissing off his children to bring us these reminders of how we can be oblivious to the wonder we walk on every day of our cotton wool lives.
AlBarclay 