They're off!

Update: some good photos here.

Poverty map of London

Via Jane's London I've just discovered Charles Booth's online archive. His poverty map of London gives a fascinating insight into how London has changed since the end of the nineteenth century.

Beware

http://mydavidcameron.com/posters/annoying1/

No time

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

"Leisure", by Wm. Henry Davies.

Gogarth

We're just back from a weekend climbing on the Gogarth sea cliffs, on Holy Island (just off Anglesey).

On Saturday morning, as Nick and I approached the massive cliffs, I was having doubts about whether we'd made the best choice of venue for our first rock trip of 2010. After a few months' gap I'm always jittery getting back on rock. And Gogarth
can make you feel "gripped" at the best of times.
For some reason though this weekend, Gogarth felt almost friendly: warm sun shone both days and there was little wind. There was no big swell or waves booming in the zawns. Instead, seals watched us from the sea as we climbed. Oystercatchers piped, the first bumblebees of the year buzzed around, and puffins flew in formation above the calm surface below.

I started on The Gauntlet, soon relaxing into the climbing. The quartzite rock at Gogarth is a pleasure to climb on: hard, angular and positive. Nick then led The Ramp, running the 2 pitches into one, and suffering bad rope drag. We then climbed the Puffin Direct/Force 8 combination, the first pitch of which was quite strenuous. I was happy to get up it without resting on gear.

Today we climbed Gogarth, E1 5B, the original route up the Main Wall. The first four pitches gave excellent, varied climbing. The final pitch was hard and we struggled up it in poor style.

It was an weekend of fine climbing in warm sunshine, with Gogarth feeling friendly for once. 3 HVS and an E1 - not bad for our first weekend back on the rock.

Photos on UKClimbing

There are some superb photos on the UK Climbing website.

One of my favourites is this one of Ueli Steck flying up the Supercouloir. The darkness below makes it look like he is climbing above a void, deepening the sense of vertigo. Judging by how far Steck has climbed before placing a runner (protection in case of a fall) Steck seems oblivious to the exposure.

Burma, then and now

As a teenager I was lucky enough to spend a few months in Burma during 1980. That was before Aung San Suu Kyi was put under house arrest and before the regime in Burma became a pariah state. At that time the only English language newspaper available was the Rangoon Working People's Daily, which was little more than a laughably dull list of the activities of government officials. I laughed, but at the time I was too young to understand.

Since then things have worsened. The government's refusal to recognise the outcome of national elections was followed last year by further crackdowns on street protests, widescale round-ups and imprisonment of dissenters. At around the same time a Burmese blogger was sentenced to 59 years in prison for posting up video footage following Cyclone Nargis. Burma heads the Committee to Protect Journalists' list of worst countries to be a Blogger.

On 10 March this year a UN report called for an investigation into whether the generals running the country are guilty of war crimes against their own people. I do wonder whether the threat of war crimes tribunals may be counterproductive, helping to dissuade the generals from any relaxation of their grip on power, encouraging them instead to dig in further. Then again it may be naive to suppose that they would ever give up power voluntarily. There are indications already that this autumn's elections will be a sham.

Looking back to earlier and happier times, Wendy Law-Yone has written an interesting article in the Guardian about her childhood memories of her father's pioneering editorship of the old Rangoon Nation newspaper, prior to the 1962 coup. Once it carried a headline:

Burma has only twenty dentists but every Tom Dick and Harry is pulling teeth, Rotarian says

I can't imagine such a headline ever appeared in the Working People's Daily.

Update 14 May: Simon Tisdall has written an interesting review of the state of Obama's policy of "positive engagement" with Burma.

Two old photos

I love these two old photographs. They aren't brilliant technically (they're just snaps) but I love them nonetheless. I found them in a box of negatives belonging to my cousin Joan, who died aged 85 in 1998. From other photos in the box it's clear they were taken in 1918 or 1919. They seem much more modern than that, at least in part because of the natural and informal pose of the subject (I think both photos are of the same woman, captured in strikingly different moods).

She seems pretty in a modern way, too, somehow.

She must have been a relation or a friend of the family. In the second photo she's sitting on the Richards' family boat. But we don't know who she was.

Archie's postcards

In 1903, 5 year old Archie Emms (my maternal grandfather-to-be) was busy building a collection of postcards of Lowestoft, the Suffolk coastal town in which he lived.

Present-day Lowestoft is a quiet place, but back in 1903 it was a busy Edwardian seaside resort.

It was also a thriving fishing port, from which hundreds of fishing smacks worked the North Sea for herring.

Like Covehithe 10 miles to the south, Lowestoft was then under constant attack by the sea. Many of Archie's postcards show this.

I wonder what went through Archie's mind as he looked at these images. They must at least have helped to keep boredom at bay. Edwardian Sundays can't have been much fun for a 5 year old.

These postcards must have offered excitement and escape much as video games do today.

The Evil Weed

At school my housemaster called tobacco "the Evil Weed". He was dead right of course. I thought I knew better though, as teenagers do, and so I saddled myself with an addiction that's been with me ever since.

I've stopped a few times. In the last few years I've become a bit of an expert on Giving Up Smoking. In fact I've got it down pat. My problem is STAYING a non-smoker.

Anyway, from tonight I'm going to start another "break" from the Evil Weed, and this time it's public. Let's see how it goes.

Cyclists vs. HGVs in London

I've cycled to work on-and-off for over 10 years, and I've never had a serious accident. I've come off the bike twice in all that time. On each occasion it was entirely my own fault. I cycled off a high kerb on a pitch-black night in an unlit park. The other time I was riding too close to the back of a London bus, then, when it braked, I cut out right only to find a stationary car in lane 2. Oops. On both occasions I escaped with nothing more than a bruise or two.

A couple of scrapes is nothing in 10 years. Perhaps that's why it was a shock to hear that three London cyclists have died already in 2010, in collisions with Heavy Goods Vehicles. The great Real Cycling blog provides stats, links, and some perspective.

Covehithe

Rachel and I took the dog for a walk along the beach at Covehithe near Southwold this weekend. This part of the east coast is under constant attack by the sea. A section of the cliff-top path has disappeared off the cliff.

The old medieval church at Covehithe was always too big for the number of souls in the parish. The old church fell into ruin as a consequence, and now has a much smaller church built inside the ruins. There can't be more than 5 houses there now.

On the wall of the church is a memorial plaque for James Gilbert who "put it out" in 1672.

Day 7: Stac Pollaidh

Mindful of the recent heavy snowfall and high risk of avalanche, we set off next morning to try December Grooves (IV, 6) a mixed route on the northeast buttress of Stac Pollaidh. The climbing was technically quite hard (for us) but very well-protected. In winter I'm much happier on ice than on rock, so Nick led both main pitches before I finished up an easy section. The view from the top is among the best in Britain.

If Nick looks knackered in that clip, that's because he was.

After packing the ropes we traversed the summit (not so much a ridge traverse as a scramble over and around wierd, eroded formations of ancient Torridonian Sandstone) before dropping back down to the car. We were pleased to get back. Stac Polly isn't a big mountain but it punches above its weight.

Another good day.

Days 5 & 6: around Dundonnell

Once back at the car after descending Creag Meagaidh, we recharged with Red Bull, nuts and raisins, then drove northwest through atrocious conditions to the coast of Wester Ross. We got to Dundonnell and the Sail Mhor Croft Hostel just in time: that night the road from Inverness was closed by drifting snow, and stayed closed for 3 days.

The next day was still snowing and windy to boot so we rested, with a short trip to Ullapool for some R & R.

On the way we spotted an icefall across the river from the Dundonnell Road, and the next morning we decided to have a closer look. After a mercifully short walk-in we found the base of the icefall. Although a bit wet it gave very good climbing for 2 full pitches after a short ice step.

It was a fun day, and the climbing felt more adventurous for not being in the Guide Book.

That night at the Ceilidh Place we logged onto UKClimbing.com and found that the route had been climbed before (Fain Falls IV, 5).

Day 4: Creag Meagaidh

As we left the Bank Street Lodge at 0600 next morning, cloud cover signalled a return of normal Scottish weather. But the forecast was reasonably good, so we had no real inkling of what was in store.

Near the end of a longer walk-in, of just over 2 hours, slowly the huge "Meggy" crags loomed up out of the mist and cloud. As we geared up in the shelter of boulders another team passed us, heading toward the easy gully leading to the base of Smith's Gully, our chosen objective. Nick threw his gear on and set off in pursuit, eventually overtaking the pair who confirmed they'd been intent on the same climb. They decided to do another route rather than follow us up Smith's and risk being hit by the falling ice we dislodged.

The route felt more serious and committing than anything we'd done on the trip so far: for one thing, at V, 5 Smith's Gully is one of the harder Scottish gully routes. The wind, cloud and spindrift snow blowing in our faces certainly added to the atmosphere in this remote and wild place.

The climbing was continuously varied and interesting for 3 long pitches. I led the 2nd, eventually belaying with ice screws at the very end of the 60m ropes. The 3rd pitch was supposedly the crux of the climb but the gully held plenty of ice and it felt pretty straightforward.

At the top, the buffeting winds blew snow hard into our faces.

The low cloud created a "white-out" with next to zero visibility, so Nick sat down with map and compass to take a bearing. Fifteen minutes later, as we slowly followed the bearing, Nick disappeared with a yelp. He'd dropped through a cornice - which had been completely invisible to us - luckily falling onto an easy snow slope. He climbed back up, waited a moment or two to collect himself, then we promptly put 50m distance between us and the edge, before turning again to follow our original bearing.

Lesson 1. Take a 1:25,000 map if possible rather than a 1:50,000

Lesson 2. Give yourself very generous leeway from a cliff-edge in a white-out

Lesson 3: take the forecast with a big pinch of salt!