Now.... what the English fail to ever have recorded as maybe they don't know about it (me only interested in the actual counter-culture, internationalist version and TOMORROW) was how from the 80s meandering many thousand kms of European hills byways out of the way places... almost only; almost continually for twenty years.. from the hillpaths of S Island NZ early 80s to all the European ranges (never ever with walking poles or crampons as the only place you need them - top 'o those Alps or Pyrenees is for showoffs with less sense and more cash than those of us who are quite content with a few thousand metres and no showoffs with neon or the lastest expensive haversack around (i saw that the antique version is so so so the bird magnet around Gweek Helston most of their polluted S coast - clearly the way to entice a girlfriend..if you are a girl.. errata middle aged woman pretending you still are one with an antique rucksac as old as you all shiny and refurbed just for a walk to the shops )
is how if one were tramping around the 'bothies' - yet another word monetised to trap tourists in absurdly overpriced 'shepherds huts' - i am a allowed to parody lampoon say what a load of wank as i was an actual real Full Monty in fact quiote often solo hillwalkin lookin for the lost sheep one...shepherd, in the days no self respecting shepherd would require shelter from anything ...
in that one went Bathsheba herding on wet or cold days a more indoor sport that wasnt a sport as you needed someone to help salvage the burning hay with you ...Johnny come lately from Troy pissed as a fart ....... and fine days went to work....
Anyway meandering further afield for good one hoped then, walkers huts, youth hostels.... all over Europe..cafes in the morning in the outdoors the olnly civilised way to chat up girls ... with philosophy
And over the years one would fall in at times with other likelminded humble walker/cheapbackpack-er types... many who may have a copy of Siddhartha tucked into their bag ..i was too prejudiced to read not against Germans but knowing already the 'East' is full of bonkers most materialistic types who would sell you a dogburger made from your own pet one if they could turn a 'Buddhist' buck just so ... these days they sell the backpackers some kind of supposed alcohol that...kills them...as they knew it would as sure as ferrits are...
Anyway none of my interest as its not for others of any other county to comment on the indigenous county unless they are George Borrow updated just meandering and chronicling all counties, as one meandered all around Europe especially....
What one does NOT encounter is always far more interesting: even then.... Europeans kiwis... even the occasional Yank one would sort of fall in with for a few days completely sex-neutral good company maybe walking together... almost every one would NOT wish to be at the same table in the Youth Hostel as...the English...
So interesting.... some kind of second sight some kind of intuition or maybe just an allergy to arrogance especially in such places .... the places one was in so as to be nobody...
I wonder if there ever was any truthful travel writing about just this...Graves? probably not... whasisface getting his disproportionate Chatwinesque attention...?
noting how many on these European Tours or just meandering did kind of avoid the English...
None of my business as i began to mainly mate with the actual human ones...
But theres one thing for certain in life a life of meadering ...and living many years at 1400' in the Black Mountains 2/3 of the 00s... hill people are far far far more chilled and 'above' the nonsense this Frog is being lauded for ... by the 'tech bros' (and now the BBC yestermorn predawn) - no nobody EVER coveted ANYthing - never ..i never even sensed any person wanting what others had.... needing to be in that herd...
which is either a hill-person inner setting or maybe just a standard GENUINELY 'rural' person inner setting.... i have never wanted ANYthing anyone else has or is... well maybe one... a certain 'skirt' ...
but other than birds 'n Bees... nowt ever
But i met one mountain dwelling mum who clearly WANTED something.....
The only one ever.
Funny that so if i wrote about or even to, her daughter.. famous BAFTA babe, for nothing i bet...
"Gina never mind the nights we spent under the cold moon up outdoors on The Pass.... i think you made the first pass, i wonder if you recall with crystalnacht clarity when you took me home to mums for dinner that time, .... and i loved to bits her warm girlfriend, Jen, too... but didnt really have the attention span to take her in too as your utterly Grande Belazza mum spent half the evening smiling at me in a way - with her Elizabeth Taylor kindof look on a good day all supermodel sexy full woman way...that only said ONE thing...
never mind not caring for her daughter's rights to her boyfriend.... that just maybe her girl-on-girl thing she they made SUCH a thing - i guess the first in valley and surrounding hills........was just a phase...
your own existence being rather proof of that too...."
Nope its a strange sad thing being shipped off to an English boarding school does to you (i still have the letters so many) ...
Go and become business partner creative partner of a British 'national Treasure'...
who has done more to ruin this society than anyone else ..
if a man.. i mean a man-man like Primo who never really even moaned about Auschwitz that near killed him but looked inside at us ALL through the lens of it...
.. had slightly fallen from 'grace' publicly in a way that one cannot remember why it was so made up...
and then spends a decade making public and then internetty pity pieces about all his so many issues and illnesses and mental wonkinesses
he would have been told to fuck off and get another agent if he can find one that is....
but no..... the one good thing about Mister Fry is he discovered (i forget why)
that freedom of speech is rather crucial
otherwise.... talk about having owning neurotically NEEDing..... so so much public space, oxygen....with nothing whasoever to say ever...
beyond which good old Oscar once did in actually BEAUTIFUL words, getting his fair proportion of one of many 1.5% minorities ... for a whole lifetime of Frys..
Never mind how many other genuinely opressed minorities exist that never get a word ... like the solo environmentalist wandering the lanes of Titley or Herrock hill where 2020 thousands of acres were felled IN BIRD BREEDING SEASON 100% against the lore...but nobody dared say... so i couldnt
even parody the signage put up around by their woman PR with her details giving the snidest reasoning ever for breaking the law....
(the only reason your environment is fucked is NO Green or even likely future BAfta nominated Fergal Sharkey ever does the extremely hard DULL work over many years to make sure quite adequate EXISTING law is actually even policed! never mind kept to)
Of course Gina won't make that film.... as she ran away from hers ok fair dinkum a tad mined .... and fabulous MOST modernist romantic lanscape under the full moon that night....
you either STAY a person of the hills or...
funny thing is thought it could never be wrenched out of you...
Perhaps one man alone could, whats their word ohh yes transition, someone...
But dont think io am negative as in the audio yesteraft the FULL version of the only one.... who actually ever did transition ALL the way....from corporate MAnchester PR queen...
to actual shepherd...
to wandering down to COOP, ion her truck, in the middle of nowhere, if she saw me on my old bike heading that way
as she knew only one man appreciated her genuine 100% curative healing transition:
" Helen you make me bonkers the way you are wearing as usual your eau de lanolin to go shoppin'.... but more than that its the way you really are proud of it.... always.your face always says just that.....and it is the REAL you....not just a phase..."
