Leonard Cohen

Early memories late sixties the privilege of sixth form a place to listen to music and competing with Sergeant Pepper's arrived songs of Leonard Cohen and songs from a room.
Lyrics always meant a lot to me - I was, probably still am a person who, cued in, could go through album after album word by word - not singing in a public context because my singing voice is terrible but to myself.- being connected to headphones has passed me by because I can sing to myself -so Leonard Cohen
What amazing - crafted lyrics You could sometimes improve on the Beatles or the Stones or David Bowie just the odd word and a matter of opinion and to be fair they sometimes changed them themselves - but Cohen that sounds wrong we called him Leonard Cohen not Leonard or Cohen this was a person a poet not a commodity or a kid.

And then a gap - I went one way and Cohen another. I listened to those West Coast Americans Grateful Dead  , New Riders of the Purple Sage

And then all the things that fill up a life

And Leonard Cohen kept on  he even resumed touring

And recently I picked up some of his later (but not necessarily much later) work and now it speaks to me so strongly. It is about love life death getting it right, getting it wrong, religion,  being human and maybe a bit superhuman without going on about it. It touches on the messiness of life and of being male and flawed. It is also about Fathers and sons what we do to each other without even thinking about it. And of course it is entertainment.

And really despite my rabbiting on it leaves me speechless. The man is just so good so to the point so apt so expressive so true.

One song sticks out from my "early period" someone constantly playing and singing The Stranger  LC drumming into me the idea that the word was not stranger but dealer and that the disappointment was foreshadowed.

In my late period I single out Lover Come Back to Me Lover Later sound Madrid Video

A Compendium of posts from my JustGiving Page

Early on

Tooltip trigger

Still planning but will be setting off mid May. Have the book by Phil Horsley as a guide but any other ideas welcome.

Just received my first donation from Professor Modood. He is of course a keen cyclist himself. Carrying on with thinking and preparation.

The plan is to send Photos etcetera once I get going to this page but I may also use my rather moribund blogspot http://tenterhill.blogspot.co.uk depending a bit on how the technology works (and whether I have power wi fi etcetera. I am sure some people will wish to wait until I have completed before donating and of course either way is fine by me. 4 months ago Wow a contribution from Andy Babington Tutor Extraordinaire and a man whose physical feats make cycling a thousand miles look like a walk in the park!

Thanks to Kay and Dave for their generous donation just when things were going a bit quiet. i have a general route in my head but aim to do some more detailed planning. Already have one person planning to accompany me some of the way and other are of course welcome - but i may be a bit slow with all the gear i am carrying!

No new donations for 10 days now - but hoping there will be a bit more interest nearer the date. I  have decided the broad outline of the route   (going for the West  of Scotland before traversing the Great Glen). I am planning to provide more background, information and pictures on my blogspot. http://tenterhill.blogspot.co.uk 

4 months ago

Hello - no new donations but a contact from Amnesty who have offered  a cycle jersey (I am going for medium) and a link to a video , https://youtu.be/fV4YLDN0MxM (I think you will need to copy and paste).

I am feeling impressed and humbled by the generosity of friends. Jane I think I know who you are and Anonymous 2 - I know you thanks and Anonymous 1. This is the first time I have done any fund-raising so, as I say, people's generosity in these times of "austerity" is so encouraging.

All these donations - add some reality to the trip. I was committed to it before, but now I am motivated to do more active planning and I will share it on this page. Things like the bike - built from the frame up. The planning, the route and so on.

Just had a donation from Harry - what a star! Well they say ask a busy person but it is inspiring when you know just how busy he is.

Have now completed email contacts- sorry if you have been contacted more than once.

Three Months Ago Wow thanks Glenys. I am still not quite used to the generosity of friends in 2017. After 10 years of austerity people are still digging deep and literally putting their money where their mouth is. I have been doing some "training" running with the dogs and even some fartlek (Sweden's gift to running) which is less unpleasant than it sounds. My normal training approach to cycling tours is not to do any but this one being rather public, makes me feel that I have to at least appear prepared. Later this month I plan to rebuild the tour bike. Second opinion on kidney stones was that the symptoms didn't add up. Further investigations but I am assuming it was "one of life's little mysteries" so will get back in the saddle. Thanks to Johnnie Dellow (who could do the trip in half the time!). "Training" temporarily halted by kidney stones so need to find out what procedures are for that. Getting some training in jogging with the dogs (sub zero today!) here's a dilemma Amnesty has sent me an XL cycling jersey rather than the M I requested. Do I ask for a replacement or wear it as a jacket?

Two Months ago

Tracy - that's fantastic  am not sure how land's end to John O groats compares with cycling across Iowa more traffic and worse weather I would imagine. Hope all is well on your side of the pond and you are not missing keeping SPR in order too much

Thanks Sue and Roger your humanitarian efforts dwarf my little cycle jaunt so it is great to get some encouragement from you both

One Month ago Three more brilliant donations from Liz who I have known from being a toddler Robert and Sarah who are fearless pursuers of mountains and Teresa who will somehow be in John O' Groats around the same time. Doing a bit of running and cycling now the weather is warmer. and planning to "de-click" the LEJOG bike. No word from the Glasgow man who made the frame, I guess he's busy.

23 Days ago

Thanks to Anonymous - almost 25% there!

22 days ago

Tooltip trigger

A ride or a run every day is my target (mainly reached). in the past I have taken the view that for a long trip the early days can be the training - but one needs to be aware that losing fitness takes place very rapidly when you are on the wrong side of 60. Riding in the UK will require more clothing and bedding and thus carrying more weight. Planning to research the route in more detail looking for campsites and possibly B&Bs and hostels.

8 days ago Promises from Bruce W, Lynne A and to "think about it" from Bill S. I think this means I need to present evidence of a trip done.Installed two new (second hand) tyres today and transferred my most comfortable saddle. Now sorting out wash bag etc. Need to be ready for the train trip to Penzance.

7 days ago

Ok I spent some of today getting my front derailleur to work. It worked on the stand and then not on the road - at one point only giving me one ring! (I have three) Now all seems to be working. I can fix things on the road but good to have things working for the start.

Yes Derailleur a bit of a mouthful legend has it that Eric Clapton mispronounced it Disraeli leading to the eponymous Cream album. https://youtu.be/I3iI_8ek3DU

Well I feel a little humbled £100 in one donation - that is a lot and anonymous. It is hard to know who to thank but if you read this you will know who you are and thank you very much.

Brilliant donation from Ralph - thanks so much

6 days ago

Amazing donation from Ben Cooper of Ben Kinetics who built the frame. With political turmoil all around people are supporting Amnesty isn't that great

5 days ago

Brilliant thanks Nick!

2 days ago

Thanks to two more supporters Caroline and someone anonymous. I have the tickets for 17th May to Penzance and have cut and glued a fairly thin strip of map (100gms) that follows what might be called the West route up through the Welsh Marches the Lake District Dumfries and Galloway Arran Oban the Caledonian Canal up to John O'groats and then I hope Orkney.

hey that's brilliant another anonymous donation and the first in Euros!

One day ago

As I was saying I think some donors have experienced difficulties in their lives and  feel OK about the generous gesture. Some people tell me they have their own charities - my feeling is that this situation is about being spontaneous rather than judging oneself as virtuous or otherwise.

Anyway i will soon be on the road and try to update with words and pictures as I go along.

Busy preparing the bike and the GoPro practice footage quite hard to install when you have a tank bag - in the end installed on top of the tank bag. Carradice has supplied some bits and pieces of pannier equipment, which is very generous of them.

Over 900 messages sent on Linked has yielded a relatively small number of donations. I realise that fund-raising is a bit like this but I find myself running out of new ideas at this stage.

Some people are remarkably generous and I think that that is because they have experienced difficulties in their own lives tbc.

Today

Thanks so much Susan.

Another day mainly spent doing other things - but I found my warm sleeping bag and a liner and various potions that claim to ward off mosquitoes ....we'll see.

I discovered the super luxury three layer bubble wrap sleeping mat only fractionally heavier than the two layer version so that's coming.

Thoughts on Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein

When I was an undergraduate student, Wittgenstein was, in a certain sense, the man of the moment. Wittgenstein died on 28th April 1951 two days after his 62nd birthday. Twenty years later there were still plenty of academics, who had known him during his years at Cambridge and he continued to have a profound influence not just on philosophy but also on the social sciences. I think it is fair to say that he was not well understood. People would quote from him and some how association with him would, in some circles, be seen as positive.

I think it is fair to say that he was something of a cult figure. He attracted devotion and emulation both during his lifetime and over the subsequent years. I think there is still an interest but probably this has lessened over time.

As one of many retirement tasks, I have planned (and who knows whether I shall succeed) to read and more importantly try to understand his various writings. Of course, it is likely that a body of work that stretches from his teens to a couple of days before his death will contain more than one viewpoint. If I were younger, or more intellectually capable, I would stick with primary sources and seek to separate the work from the life. As it is, I think I need all the help I can get, so I will go to secondary sources (both praising and critical) - the aim is to understand and perhaps to see whether his insights can be applied in other fields. 

Coming Soon Bicycles and Bicycle Touring 

Before I started touring on bicycles. I searched the web for clues on how to prepare myself. The idea being that there is knowledge out there that will ease the process or inspire or at least feel that you are not alone.

My sense is that those who tour on bicycles are a varied lot. I am sure that many hardly think about it at all.

My first bicycle trip without parents was in 1968. A school friend Charles and I decided to tour Denmark visiting friends of his (if I remember correctly in Vissing and then meeting up with other friends in Kongs Lyngby near Copenhagen. 

I travelled on a three speed flat barred bicycle with normal clothes some kind of carrier (containing hardback copies of Turgenev) and possibly a cycling cape. Charles and I split up shortly after arrival in Esbjerg - meeting again in Vissing.

I mention this early "tour" because in those days, it did not seem remarkable for a couple of fifteen year olds to be travelling in a foreign country. Furthermore, I am pretty sure that beyond pumping up the tyres and oiling the chain, the adjustments for "touring" were minimal.

I suspect that for some tourers little has changed. They jump on their commuter bike in -say- Amsterdam and head South.

When I re-engaged with bicycle touring after 45 years, I felt that more preparation was required. This time corresponded with my retirement and although I had been making forays into bicycle building over the previous few years, the big R gave me far more time to turn daydreams into reality.

I know that this Blog has no followers - but that may change. If there is a follower out there, the message is - more about the building of bicycles and bicycle touring is to come. 

Land's End to John O'Groats may 2017

I have just committed myself to cycling from Land's End to John O'Groats this coming May. The commitment is nailed down by opening a JustGiving page . LEJOG is rather iconic and it will please me (I hope) to ride the length of the country. It feels like a target to pass after which one could be condescending or dismissive but nonetheless one to aspire to. Being 60+ helps to relieve me of any sense of competitiveness. I know it will be fairly slow and that will be partly because I am carrying a lot of stuff and partly because I am no great athlete and so on. i want to do some things to get in shape before setting off but i know that anything like a serious training schedule is unlikely to happen and if I get fit it will probably be en route. I would like to place updates here but as this site has virtually zero traffic (thanks google!), i may have to prioritise the Just giving site.

August Diary

Mito, Alcantara Gorge, near Etna, Sicily

31^st August 2016

Sicily is at once a redolent sensuous present and a layering of pasts that demand attention from even the most indolent passers through.

We are in a small house in an estate that rambles along the Alcantara a sweet watered river that cuts through and tumbles over the grey volcanic rock spewed out in the distant past by Etna our ever present smoking companion.

We are not alone. This is a working estate. Fruit trees must be irrigated, animals attended, paths extended. There is a working day – brought forward to accommodate the heat.

At some hour too early to be fully conscious the thump thump thumping of the irrigation brings relief to the parched trees. As you drift off again the workforce arrive, starting the ancient tractor breaking your slumber with a judder and a whiff of diesel. The workforce converse soto voce. The patient dogs, there are three, whine and bark. The sun is turning the sky red. Who would want to laze in bed at the beginning of such a day?

Breakfast on the narrow terrace fruit, bread and coffee while the three dogs and a thin cat hope for crumbs. We reflect on our visit to Taormina and its breathtaking theatre built by the Greeks for plays and modified by the Romans to make room for wild animals. The place where an American tourist stops to compliment Jo on her choice of travelling outfit. Taormina where Lawrence wrote Lady C and, I fancy, given the spring in the grounds of his villa, where he wrote

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

After breakfast, time to walk down to the river not to drink but to bathe, plunging and holding the rocks to avoid being carried away – then more relaxing and eating and reading. Is it ok to laze away the day? Should we be up and gardening or out and absorbing culture?

Well the dogs seem happy to laze except that one has disappeared. The rangy brown male has gone leaving his female lookalike and a more heavyset black female – like a tall bull terrier.

When we decide eventually to walk up the valley to see the Gorge, the female dogs come too.

It is as we climb a path up the hill that we see the snake still on the path partly shaded by an overhanging fig.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
And she was quite black and very long and...

The black dog leapt and the snake slithering at speed made it through the fence to the orchard and in a moment the black dog was upon it – breaking its back – worrying it, and worrying it so long that we left it and carried on.

And carrying the snake in our heads

On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And not having Lawrence’s education there was shock and sadness at the death of the snake but an awe, an admiration for the dog so decisive, focussed, competent. And in a way the dog stood for a simpler connectedness than I can have, just being and acting in the moment.

And as we continued on our way the black dog caught up, her belly hanging low.

At the Gorge we found the beach and the tourists and, fast asleep on the sand, the male dog. We paddled in the river, took our photos, woke him and walked together home.

Mito 2016

Panhard Dyna

My Panhard before it became mine

Well something interesting happened today. I went to the hairdresser for my (always somewhat tardy haircut). It is always hard to get motivated when your hair is definitely on its way out but still hanging on in pathetic denial of its destiny. Anyway I was at the hairdresser and a man walked in - not as he explained for a haircut - even though as he offered "he might need one" - no he wanted to present the man with a Panhard with a book.
When I have my hair cut, I am always asked to remove my glasses, so my vision was via a mirror and hazy but I asked the man to leave his name and address so that I could thank him and he presented me with a Panhard Dyna "Manuel d'atelier" in English - something so rare I didn't even know it existed.
Owning an old car can seem like a daunting proposition but as I said to the hairdresser "more things go wrong but they are easier to fix".
Truth is she was profoundly uninterested "Didn't your car come with a manual?" she asked. Wondering perhaps why anyone would be so pleased at the gift of a dirty old book. This isn't typical, usually hairdressers attempt to respond to my no doubt oft repeated reflections on hair loss or whatever it is I happen to be doing. Just as I try to remember what my plans are when they ask whether I
am going out this Saturday. Still she did a good job and we ended with the ritual offering of the mirror to the back of my head - while I scrabbled for my glasses and responded positively to the "How does your hair feel at the back".
Now the Panhard Dyna Z is a rare car so what are the chances of there being two independently owned ones in one small Yorkshire town? Well there is another one in this town so in due course I shall contact the owner.
This could become a Panhard blog - not very attractive to the general reader but to the enthusiast a source of little bits of information that might help in that endless problem solving quest that old car ownership becomes.
An example from this week is "starting". On my Panhard after switching on the ignition, you pull a handle that engages a gear and at a crucial point switches on the starter motor. Lately the starter motor has not switched on - so not expecting much I squirted it with WD-40 - the car starts. Today the WD-40 doesn't work so I think "perhaps tapping it with something will loosen it up" - success.
Next time however both procedures may fail and so comes exploration, undoing bolts cleaning things. hoping you don't drop some vital part somewhere you can't find it and then putting it back together.

The joy of an old vehicle is that things are less likely to fail comprehensively more likely to be repairable with a cloth or a file or innovated in some way. On the other hand taking it to a garage or expecting a new part to be available are far less possible than with a modern car.
Panhard owners club

Want your own try McPheat