Your Nick Reads is excellent. I’m between books at the moment (just finished Keep the Aspidistra Flying), and you have persuaded me to pick up Lewis for the first time since primary school. Cheers.
Happy Fathers Day to your father Nick, from here in Spring like Connecticut U.S. I'm glad you were able to get out of London, if that was best for you. I assume it is. Keep well.
A 1967 Secondary school geography field-trip to the English Lake District changed my life. This, then fourteen year-old south London boy was prompted on that trip into some degree of mental turbulence by the overwhelming power and revelation of light and space.
One evening, after the regimens of the youth hostel warden's tidying had been answered, I took myself off to Elterwater, by the lake, with a notebook and pencil to try and divine the poetic equations that would hopefully relieve me of the turmoil.
I still have that notebook. The scribbled, semi-poetic fumblings of a fourteen year-old boy remain a faint, curious mismatch with side-by-side notes on Lakeland glaciation. Those same faint pencil scribblings now remain difficult to decipher, but, to my continued great surprise, do include some clarity and some illumination.
However, therein, there is none of the lustre and poetic polish to be found in Laurie Lee's Cider With Rosie. Lee's awakening was of an intoxicating, never to be forgotten fermentation of sunlight and liquor: mine was of a first encounter with the siren, tantalising revelations of the geometry of light, time and space.
I have since returned to the 'sacred', personally significant places of the Lakes (there are many). The current overwhelming public press of people and of motor vehicles were both absent in 1967; but wind, silence and illumination still amplify and codify the voices of the fells and the sometime booming reverberations of the corries and tarns - and always will.
In August 1991 I went camping in the Lakes with some friends, after I'd buggered up my A Levels, and one day Paul and I drove over the Kirkstone Pass and down to Bowness, to see the Radio 1 Roadshow there.
Gary Davies and Bruno Brookes were hosting, and the line up featured Samantha Fox and PM Dawn.
"Elon I know you are busy taking us to Mars and everything but could you be a better benefactor for right coded dissidents? Soros is catalyst-mogging you with supporting the lifestyles of marxist midwits. While everyone gets the right's admiration of the protestant work ethic grind, frankly Nick is being held back here. Just a few military grade starlinks, a modest country pile in the lake district and a chauffeur would really help the cause."
Bypass the increasingly sluggish blob and get Starlink? Terrestrial, high-speed internet doesn’t really seem like a good enough reason to live in Hell.
At the risk of boring you rigid, Starlink only needs an electrical socket and somewhere outside the house with a clear(ish) view of the sky (probably the reason why Toby couldn't get a decent signal). It's perfect for rural locations... and Nazi-saluting trillionaires that may be ideologically left, ideologically right, or biologically an alien lizard creature. Anyway, it works.
Welcome back to God's own country, the north.
Your Nick Reads is excellent. I’m between books at the moment (just finished Keep the Aspidistra Flying), and you have persuaded me to pick up Lewis for the first time since primary school. Cheers.
Oh great to hear thanks. I read Aspidistra many years ago. Underrated Orwell.
Am right where you are today weirdly! Bloody hot climbing Skiddaw 🥵
Fourth highest fell I’m told.
Happy Fathers Day to your father Nick, from here in Spring like Connecticut U.S. I'm glad you were able to get out of London, if that was best for you. I assume it is. Keep well.
Nick, get starlink no censureship and very very fast speeds as good as super fast elsewhere....
They’re getting Fibrus, which will apparently be amazing (though I’ll believe it when I see it). Toby had Starlink and it was crap.
A 1967 Secondary school geography field-trip to the English Lake District changed my life. This, then fourteen year-old south London boy was prompted on that trip into some degree of mental turbulence by the overwhelming power and revelation of light and space.
One evening, after the regimens of the youth hostel warden's tidying had been answered, I took myself off to Elterwater, by the lake, with a notebook and pencil to try and divine the poetic equations that would hopefully relieve me of the turmoil.
I still have that notebook. The scribbled, semi-poetic fumblings of a fourteen year-old boy remain a faint, curious mismatch with side-by-side notes on Lakeland glaciation. Those same faint pencil scribblings now remain difficult to decipher, but, to my continued great surprise, do include some clarity and some illumination.
However, therein, there is none of the lustre and poetic polish to be found in Laurie Lee's Cider With Rosie. Lee's awakening was of an intoxicating, never to be forgotten fermentation of sunlight and liquor: mine was of a first encounter with the siren, tantalising revelations of the geometry of light, time and space.
I have since returned to the 'sacred', personally significant places of the Lakes (there are many). The current overwhelming public press of people and of motor vehicles were both absent in 1967; but wind, silence and illumination still amplify and codify the voices of the fells and the sometime booming reverberations of the corries and tarns - and always will.
But can you get a latte and Vietnamese takeaway at 3am?
You are back in the heart of true England, but better not go to Bowness unless you fancy a bit of enrichment.
In August 1991 I went camping in the Lakes with some friends, after I'd buggered up my A Levels, and one day Paul and I drove over the Kirkstone Pass and down to Bowness, to see the Radio 1 Roadshow there.
Gary Davies and Bruno Brookes were hosting, and the line up featured Samantha Fox and PM Dawn.
Happy days.
Stunningly beautiful! Get starlink and you can get broadband anywhere until your fibre turns up.
Would take me much longer to get Starlink and much longer than that to get a house.
"Elon I know you are busy taking us to Mars and everything but could you be a better benefactor for right coded dissidents? Soros is catalyst-mogging you with supporting the lifestyles of marxist midwits. While everyone gets the right's admiration of the protestant work ethic grind, frankly Nick is being held back here. Just a few military grade starlinks, a modest country pile in the lake district and a chauffeur would really help the cause."
Bypass the increasingly sluggish blob and get Starlink? Terrestrial, high-speed internet doesn’t really seem like a good enough reason to live in Hell.
Well when they finally get Fibrus it will be better than Starlink. I’m sure lots of people have it here already but our house is complicated and old.
At the risk of boring you rigid, Starlink only needs an electrical socket and somewhere outside the house with a clear(ish) view of the sky (probably the reason why Toby couldn't get a decent signal). It's perfect for rural locations... and Nazi-saluting trillionaires that may be ideologically left, ideologically right, or biologically an alien lizard creature. Anyway, it works.
Fibrus?! Sounds like a demon from the Lesser Key of Solomon. Coincidence? Yes, obviously. Makes you think though. Now where is my medication?