Author: R J Adams

^{Peel Island, Coniston Lake – The Setting Chosen By Arthur Ransome For His Book “Swallows & Amazons”}

Recently my good blogging pal, Twilight, at “Learning Curve on the Ecliptic” wrote of the Portugese/Brazilian sense of nostalgia known as ‘Saudade’.

Twilight tells us that ‘Saudade’ is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves, often carrying a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return.
(For a more in-depth understanding of ‘Saudade’, nip over to “Twilight’s Place”).

Reading her post and watching the videos she presented made me realise how much Saudade was, and still is, present in my own life.

I remember the first time it appeared.

When I was a very young boy of maybe seven or eight years my parents took my sister and I camping every summer to an idyllic spot, known locally as Blea Brows, on the shores of Lake Coniston in the English Lake District. They would pitch an old, ex-army, tent near a small pebble beach not far from where the lake runs into the River Crake. It was a remote, peaceful, place tucked away behind trees and invisible from the main Ulverston to Coniston road, though that scarcely mattered as in those days the road would be classed as busy if half a dozen cars a day passed along it.

It was two weeks of sheer heaven for me. I would roam through the woods, catch minnows in the lake shallows, but most of all I discovered the bounteous spiritual magic of nature. Whether it was watching the sun set over the hills, the flash and roar of a summer thunderstorm echoing around the fells, or shuffling out of the tent at three in the morning for a pee, only to be caught, mesmerized, by the mighty searchlight of the Milky Way, it’s billion glowing stars reflected in the glassy, mirrored, surface of the lake.

As I grew older the Lake District holidays with my parents waned until they ceased altogether. I returned on a number of occasions, trying to relive those wonder years, but somehow it was never quite the same. Eventually other interests took over as I matured; those childhood holidays faded into memory.

Sixty plus years later, the Lake District and my magical area around the Coniston Fells have changed little geographically, but my time was before the invention of motorways. The sound of a car winding its way round the twisty curves of that lakeland road would send my sister and I scurrying up the path to stand excited at the roadside, waving enthusiastically as it went by.

Now that same road is choc-a-bloc with traffic in the high season, the fells spattered with the bright red and yellow mountain jackets of young enthusiasts at the many outward bound schools, or at rock-climbing tuition. Every farmhouse, it seems, sports its “Swallows and Amazons” tea room.

I hadn’t been back there for quite a long time. I was beginning to feel that thing called Saudade. At first I was perplexed that although those intense feelings that drew me there as a child still moved me, the place itself no longer held the same magnetism. I realize now it wasn’t so much the place I was missing, but those particular moments of my childhood.

The Lake District of my early years no longer exists. Businesses have sprung up to cater to the huge influx of summer visitors. Camping is now only allowed on designated, controlled, sites with shower blocks and toilets. Elsewhere, the “NO CAMPING” signs abound and wardens patrol to ensure their adherence. The quiet isolation I remember has given way under the strain of modern life.

So, too, has the beautiful, idyllic, spot that was all mine for two weeks every summer of my childhood. It still exists, but nobody’s allowed there anymore. That very place, Blea Brows, where my parents pitched their tent so many years ago was sold by the British government to a private developer two years ago for the princely sum of 90,000 pounds, along with a number of other areas of the Lakeland National Park. ^[1].

BLEA BROWS
Coniston Water, Torver Common, Cumbria
About 9.99 acres [4.07 hectares]
with 575m of Lake Frontage

Tenure: Freehold
On the instructions from the Lake District National Park Authority. A truly wonderful, majestic, stretch of shoreline. Prominent rocky features, variety of trees, stunning views. Immense amenity value. Wonderful birdlife. 575m of Lake Frontage. About 9.99 acres (4.07 hectares).

For Sale by FORMAL TENDER. Closing Date: 12th MARCH 2015.

GUIDE PRICES: £70,000 to £90,000

“Saudade is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves, often carrying a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return.”

I can never return to those halcyon days of my childhood spent at Blea Brows on the shores of Lake Coniston, but the longing for them never fully goes away. Now that longing, that Saudade, is tinged with feelings of revulsion and disgust at a government hellbent on selling off the birthright of its people. No doubt by now the place where I played as a child is fenced off and signed: “KEEP OUT PRIVATE PROPERTY.”

At least, in my heart I will always have access.

^{[1] “First they came for Coniston Water. What’s next?” Telegraph, March 9th 2015}

^{THE LUNATIC ASYLUM}

To anyone who has access to the internet, TV, or radio, it must surely be obvious by now that the lunatics have taken over the asylum. While governments, and those who make up the composition of such bodies, have never been totally trustworthy in their dealings or promises, events of the last few days provide clear evidence that those once running the asylum have been well and truly ousted, and the inmates are in charge.

Donald Trump is undoubtedly the “Master Psycho.” While murmuring soft promises of fidelity into the ears of ex-coal miners, and showing macho pretence of caring for the American people, he only yesterday signed an order preventing some hundreds of visa and ‘Green Card’ holders from returning to their homes in the United States.

Stranded at airports inside and outside the U.S. these people were coming home from business trips, vacations, or visits to relatives in other countries. They have wives, husbands, children, parents, sweethearts, fondly awaiting their homecoming. Trump, with one flourish of his spiky, psychotic, signature, kept them apart.

^{Trump’s Signature (or, possibly, an earthquake reading!)}

Thankfully, the sane people outside the walls of the asylum have taken legal steps to overturn this constitutional nightmare, at least temporarily, and allow these poor people to their homes. We wait to see how the next move of the chief inmate will pan out.

Meanwhile, an escapee has fled to Turkey. Theresa May, until yesterday inside the asylum cooking up further chaos with her leader, Donald Trump, has now managed to break out and was last seen in the company of another lunatic, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of Turkey to whom she’s agreed to sell 100,000,000 British pounds ($125,500,000) worth of military fighter jets.

You don’t believe she’s a lunatic? Consider the evidence:

When May was British Home Secretary pre-Brexit she sat on the fence over her position regarding the E.U. until finally she came out and said that she couldn’t agree to remain in the Union because it would be wrong to accept Turkey as a member. On April 25th 2016, the BBC reported:

Mrs May said Albania, Serbia and Turkey had “poor populations and serious problems with organised crime, corruption, and sometimes even terrorism”.
She added: “We have to ask ourselves, is it really right that the EU should just continue to expand, conferring upon all new member states all the rights of membership?”
She said the UK had “forgotten how to lead” in Europe and must re-assert itself to force change from within, adding that it could veto Turkey joining the EU. ^[1]

One day later, the Telegraph also reported:

The Home Secretary is trying to cast herself as the reluctant Remainer already, carving out very deliberate dividing lines between her and David Cameron by raising questions in her speech today about whether it is “really right” for the EU to give countries like Turkey “all the rights of membership” and that Britain just needs to leave the European Court of Human Rights. ^[2]

Apparently Mrs May thinks it would be wrong to allow “countries like Turkey” to join the E.U. because of “serious problems with organised crime, corruption, and sometimes even terrorism,” but it’s absolutely okay to flog this same nation one hundred million pounds worth of lethal fighter jets.

Given suitable evidence, to label one particular nation a potential enemy is an eminently sane thing to do. To then provide it with the weaponry it needs to harm you is insanity.

Anyone who considers Theresa May’s antics rational should, perhaps, consider joining the rest of the inmates in the asylum.

^{[1] “Theresa May: UK should quit European Convention on Human Rights” BBC, April 25th 2016}

^{[2] “Theresa May wants you to stay in the EU. Has she blown her chances of ever being Tory leader?”Telegraph, April 26th 2016}

^{“Is it a gun?”}

How do we manage to get such total prats into our governments. I’m referring in this instance to the pathetic character, Michael Fallon, who landed himself the job of Defence Secretary to the British government, despite his only qualification being a Master of Arts degree from a Scottish university, after reading Classics and Ancient History.

The BBC reported today:

A British warship and three RAF Typhoons will keep “a close eye” on a Russian aircraft carrier and other ships as they sail past the UK.
The carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and other Russian ships are passing through the English Channel on their way back to Russia from Syria.
A Royal Navy Type 23 frigate, HMS St Albans, was dispatched to meet it as it neared British waters.
The Ministry of Defence said the ships would be “escorted all the way”.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said: “We will keep a close eye on the Admiral Kuznetsov as it skulks back to Russia; a ship of shame whose mission has only extended the suffering of the Syrian people.
“We are man-marking these vessels every step of the way around the UK as part of our steadfast commitment to keep Britain safe.”

I’m sorry, I must have been somewhere else at the time. I never heard the declaration of war. Apparently Mister Fallon did, otherwise why would he have a Royal Navy frigate ‘escorting’ the Russian aircraft carrier. It’s rather a puny force if he wants to ‘keep Britain safe’, given that the carrier is also escorted by the Pyotr Velikiy, a nuclear-powered Kirov-class battlecruiser.

It was only last October these same Russian ships passed through the English Channel (an international waterway) on their way to the Eastern Mediterranean. Fallon stated then: “…the UK would “be watching as part of our steadfast commitment to keep Britain safe”. ^[2]

He does have a penchant for repeating himself.

And what’s with all the, “…ship of shame…” and “…as it skulks back to Russia?” It doesn’t look to be either ashamed or skulking in this picture:

What utter drivel these politicians spout. Who do they think they’re fooling? Their ‘steadfast commitment to keep Britain safe’ entails sending out a puny frigate against an aircraft carrier and a battlecruiser. I bet the Russian sailors are laughing their socks off.

A Navy spokesman said the British craft were deployed to “provide reassurance to the nations which border the North Sea and English Channel”.
He added: “Remaining at a respectful distance, but keeping the Russian warships clearly visible, Royal Navy sailors keep watch on every movement through their binoculars and use state-of-the-art radars to track the course and speed of the ships as they pass close to the UK.”

Thank God for the Royal Navy! The good folks of France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Sweden will sleep safe in their beds knowing those nasty Russians can’t pillage and rape them all.

As for keeping “…watch on every movement through their binoculars and using state-of-the-art radars to track the course and speed of the ships as they pass close to the UK…” the bloody channel’s only twenty-five miles wide. A blind man and his guide dog could track them going by! What do they think these fiendish Russians are going to do, anyway? Invade Bournemouth? Blow up the pier?

Bournemouth Pier is the town’s most iconic landmark, providing one of the best advertising opportunities in Bournemouth! The pier is home to an 11 metre wide LED screen which operates from 8am-11pm every day of the year. Adverts can be displayed for 10 or 15 seconds and a wide range of packages are available for short & Long term advertising. For more information and to receive a quote, please contact 01202 237915 or e mail [email protected]

AN ELEVEN METRE WIDE LED SCREEN FOR ADVERTISING?

Oh, please, Mister Russian sailor, please blow it up. Oh, PLEASE!

Darn! They’ve sailed right past the thing.

Hands up all those who think Michael Fallon is a TOTAL PRAT!

^{[1] “UK warship escorts Russian carrier in English Channel” BBC, January 25th 2017}

^{[2] “Russian warships pass through English Channel” BBC, October 21st 2016}