Getting the wind up

As I hammered yet another chock into the ground in an attempt to stop my fenceposts resembling a metronome in the wild winds earlier this week, I counted myself lucky that I was at the benign end of the blow.

This, of course, has been something of a crisis week for wind. In unlucky America twisters have been leaving a trail of very-much-not-CGI devastation on a grand scale across some huge States. At the same time winds have been blowing volcanic ash from Iceland towards Europe and towards Europe’s runways in particular.

The North of the country got the worst of it and listening to traffic reports brought home how vulnerable to climate the power and transport infrastructure is. As well as power cables being brought down cutting supplies to homes and railway trains, bridges, roads and passes were closed to high-sided vehicles, cars with trailers, motorbikes and – get this – pedestrians! They weren’t even trusting people to be able to cling onto the safety rail and make it to the other side of the bridge.

Also cancelled were the ferries that serve the Scottish islands

In this busy world, a lot of busy people seek isolation. But they seek it on their terms. Connected via their smartphone to their friends and by rolling news to world events, the idea of ‘turning off’ can mean a relaxing stroll somewhere with no mobile signal, or ‘Norfolk’ as it is commonly known.

However, it must take a particular sort of person not to be made anxious when the power goes down and the wind is shrieking. ‘Scottish’, is one description ‘Possessing a wood burner and an Aga’ is another.

Norfolk notes - The Coast Hopper and other roadside advertising

The long ribbon of coastline that runs from Hunstanton in the West to Cromer in the East is well serviced by the busses that run back and forth along it, stopping at the villages, hamlets and occasionally just apparently hedges that dot the route.

There was, on this trip, ample opportunity to check out the front of the busses, usually when trying to squeeze round one at a coast road pinch point like Stiffkey, where one focusses very hard indeed upon the front of the bus currently just inches from your front bumper. Unusually for busses, there was not that much of an opportunity to check out the back of the vehicle, as the drivers subscribe to the 'foot down' school of motoring.

What I first took to be commercial advertising on the front of the bus, or even the name of the vehicle, was in fact tourist advertising. Just a couple of words and a sentence about some local attraction, personality or legend. The moment of realisation came when, after considering that Thomas Coke may well be a firm of Cromer Solicitors, it's unlikely that any such organisation might decide to call themselves 'Black Schuck' (the phantom dog of the fens). Also good to see devilish folklore making it's way onto public transport.

The coast road was actually a rich source of entertainment, and not just in terms of wildly swerving to avoid the twitchers that seemed to lurk in every hedge and thicket. Apart from walkers there are lots of things at the roadside, not just the roadkill that, depending on how 'successful' it have been in its attempts to cross, are near the centre of the road rather than at the side. No doubt some wag will compile a roadkill spotters book with different points depending on how exotic the creature concerned was, with bonus points for artistic impression or, to give it it's technical name, splash pattern.

As well as the roadside shops, there are roadside stalls. Just as in warm foreign parts with scooter hire every bend brings a little shrine with some flowers and a faded photograph of some bloke who thought that he could overtake on a blind corner on a road regularly used by lorries doing the run from the local cement works, so there are little stalls with fruit for sale. These are based on the honour system, you take a bag of apples and put twenty pee in the tin. You can tell the visitors to the area because they all first remark upon the refreshing honesty of the system and then start bleating about the lack of credit card payment facilities and loyalty card schemes at such roadside stalls.

It's not just fruit though. Every day on our way to Wells we drove past a sign advertising kittens for sale. I'm not sure how long kittens stay kittens, but we were there for two weeks and by the end of the holiday I was expecting to see the sign amended to 'cats for sale'. The sign showed quite a lot of optimism. This is dog owners' country, where one feels underdressed without at least one gun dog and a telltale bag of poo that marks you out as a responsible dog owner.

Rage!

There seems, to me anyway, to be a lot of rage around these days. I think one of the reasons for this is that people feel victimised by nebulous forces of oppression beyond their control and that, when they get something to focus their aggression on, they turn from a seemingly normal person into a red-faced screaming quivering bundle of pressurised vileness, spittle flying from mouth, one step away from peeing themselves in anger or developing a nosebleed.

The other day walking across the railway station concourse, I saw a swearing young woman rushing in that way women do in high shoes, a sort of clip-cloppy run, knees bent and arse out as a counterweight to maintain balance, pursued by a ticket inspector who was trying to stop her without actually grabbing her by the boobs.

The scenario that fell into my mind was that she had caught a train but been unable to buy a ticket and, on getting to her destination had thought better of queuing to pay a penalty fare for the privilege of standing for twenty minutes on an overcrowded train that was running late and smelled of wee. Those exit barriers became the focus of all of the bottled resentment about public transport.

The problem is that there is no direct redress for the indignities we cannot escape from. That’s why blogs are so full of bile, vitriol and shite - we’re punching fog.

For example - the documentary about the death of Diana. (Why is it even on? Educating people or cynical exercise in rating grabbing - what the fuck are they trying to prove? ‘And so, we see, it really is safer to travel by pumpkin coach if you are a princess!’) I was fairly wound up by there being a(nother) (bloody) documentary. Then wound further up by the documentary team showing photographs of a dying young woman. Then wound even more up by their refusing to pull the photographs even though the woman’s young sons asked them too. But the capper was undoubtedly the defence that ‘her face would be obscured’.

What. The. Fuck.

That’s okay then is it - face obscured so it’s okay to show the pictures.

Well. I’m taking direct action. I considered chartering a Lancaster bomber loaded with 12 tonnes of horse shit and charting a course for the C4 building but, finally, decided on a boycott. That’s it for Channel 4 and me.

Actually, this is not so much of a sacrifice. The C4 schedules appear to be solid Big Brother for (checks paper), er, the rest of time. Still, must be easier than actually, you know, thinking up a programme idea.