The blog will be quiet over the next week or so because my other half and I are going away for a break. I’ve long accepted that if I travel through customs or a major airport, I’ll be hauled in for a “chat” as my devices are searched. It’s a surprisingly common phenomenon that people tend to speak about in closed group chats but not publicly. From what I can gather, if you’re “marked” by the state security apparatus, then the system pings when your passport is scanned, and you’re asked to come for an interview where your ideas and views are discussed with lovely gentlemen from the counter terrorism squads.
Mark Collett was recently kicked out of Sweden and banned from the entire EU Schengen Zone for fifteen years. He was called:
A threat to public order, the fabric of society and the values on which Sweden and Europe are built
Besides trips to Ireland, I haven’t left the United Kingdom since 2010 and, by the looks of it, I never will. This is why my travel vlogs and blogs tend to be very much “on the doorstep” as it were, and to be honest, I’m fine with this. I’ve never been to Wales or much of the South Coast of England. There are parts of Cumbria I’d like to delve into more, and I haven’t been to the Scottish Highlands since I was a boy.
We like to tell ourselves that there remain pockets and corners of the British Isles where Old Gods slumber, and legends wait to be reborn. The metaphysical and enchanted realms hold fast for us to escape into. Where the sacred is holding the line against the profane.
It is for this reason that there’s been so much controversy over a mosque being built in the vicinity of the Lake District. It is, correctly, perceived as a foreign intrusion and victory over a place that is distinctly, and spiritually, ours. Yet such thinking is incomprehensible to dead-eyed wraiths within governmental planning departments because it isn’t quantifiable, and anyway, we can’t be racist. To the managers, there is not one iota of difference between the Lake District and Bradford town centre. Tintagel and Tower Hamlets are “equal” in the sense that both are utterly devoid of cultural and identitarian significance. Both are subject to de-territorialisation in equal measure.
There’s more than an element of Douglas Adams’ Last Chance To See in attempting to reach an unmolested, authentic experience when planning a “staycation”. We scamper about as if we’re on a melting iceberg, trying to avoid the cold, harsh depths of the Yookay.
It’s a gamble, a roll of the dice.
Your identity can be reaffirmed, your sense of blood and soil emboldened, or you can be left utterly despondent and demoralised. A friend of mine who is hurtling toward the “far right” at breakneck speed, recently went to the Lakes and witnessed foreigners of one hue or another washing their feet in a pristine stream. Retelling the story, he suggested that it might have been better not to go at all, because then his idealistic inclination would not have been challenged and defeated. However, this is just a retreat, and we’ve already retreated so, so far.
For reasons that I’m sure my readers will understand, I shall not at present reveal where I will be going, though when I return, I shall write up my findings.
I have a feeling that I shall be pleasantly surprised, but we shall see…
I live in Essex. I had a 4 day break, 2 years ago, in Suffolk. Less than 1 hour car journey. Weather was great. Even had the mother-in-law. It was the best holiday I ever had.
Severe lack of Bomalians also helped.
Enjoy your break Morgoth you deserve it!