RR - Ok. Here are a few. Much of the red tape complained about is for everybody's good: protection from fraud, bad banking practice, human rights, important health and safety, cleaner rivers etc., etc., but nobody seems to mention this, preferring to concentrate on bendy cucumbers. Without the protection from Europe on these points ruthless Tory type governments would be allowed to rule without hindrance. We would only have the House of Lords to fall back on, and that may well be soon abolished.
OK the Union has its faults AND SO HAS EVERY OTHER ORGANISATION IN THE WORLD, but it has existed and done more good than harm over the longest period of peace Europe has ever known. It has introduced beneficial legislation, (as well as some fatuous stuff I know, but how much does that really matter?) and will continue to do so with good intentions. If we go independent the emphasis will be on money grabbing, bigger fortunes for the rich and general cynicism with no thoughts for humanity and environmental issues, and we will most likely become one of the world's most hated countries. All that is fairly certain, and enough to underline a decision to remain rather than embark on a risky strategy which will almost certainly create economic difficulty for the next few years at the best, and no guarantee whatsoever that we would improve on that in the fiercely competitive international trading climate.
OK the Union has its faults AND SO HAS EVERY OTHER ORGANISATION IN THE WORLD, but it has existed and done more good than harm over the longest period of peace Europe has ever known. It has introduced beneficial legislation, (as well as some fatuous stuff I know, but how much does that really matter?) and will continue to do so with good intentions. If we go independent the emphasis will be on money grabbing, bigger fortunes for the rich and general cynicism with no thoughts for humanity and environmental issues, and we will most likely become one of the world's most hated countries. All that is fairly certain, and enough to underline a decision to remain rather than embark on a risky strategy which will almost certainly create economic difficulty for the next few years at the best, and no guarantee whatsoever that we would improve on that in the fiercely competitive international trading climate.
There are many other points but in the interests of replying to you as suggested asap in view the time left there you are.
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What a difference between walking on a popular well established LDP (The Dalesway) and other nondescript public footpaths marked on the map.
Today, in order to devise a circular route to avoid a there and back one, I set off on minor paths so I could leave my section of Dalesway to enjoy as a finale. All to the north of my starting point on the A684 was off -Dalesway - see the map below. To be fair those paths were just evident on the ground and they were way-marked, but they had no apparent purposeful direction traversing fairly boring livestock fields, although the surroundings of the southern edge of the Howgills to the north and the more distant northern edge of the Bowland hills to the south provided a splendid background.
Towards the end of that section I was confronted by an immovable metal gate, impossible to lift and covered in barbed wire along the top, and I had to retreat back on to the main road. I have reported this to Cumbria County Council.
Once back on the Dalesway I was following the river Rawthey on a good path mostly high above the river but shrouded by mature trees, so I was only getting tantalising glimpses of the river which, far below was tumbling, gushing and surging over its limestone bed with much vigour appealing to an innate connection with this staple ingredient allowing us to exist on this planet.
Several dog walkers were encountered and a couple of serious backpackers, again carrying far too much weight. It was all pure pleasure and this short six mile section was over too soon.
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| Glimpses of the turbulent and hugely appealing river Rawthey - it joins with the river Dee flowing out of Dentdale a few hundred yards further on, and a little later it flows into the river Lune |
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| Confluence with the river Dee |
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| The railway is disused. Are they (we always say "they" not being too sure who we are talking about) going to let the bridge just rust away? |
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| Drastic solution, but if they had made the ring stick out more we may have become caught up in it |
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| Lincoln Inn's Bridge, my start and finish. 17th century (so they say), named after a now defunct Lincoln Inn pub |
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| Click to enlarge |
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Another grumpy old man dislike that is becoming too prevalent:
After making some statement indicating difficulty to overcome it is followed up by the phrase, "no pressure then?"
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I DO NOT NORMALLY DO POLITICS HERE. THIS REFERENDUM IS BIGGER THAN POLITICS AND THE RISK OF OPTING OUT IS FAR TOO SERIOUS, AND FOR MANY OTHER REASONS,
I AM VOTING IN
Scrolling down this post I read your headline in two bites, pausing to speculate with wonder whether Sedbergh to Lincoln's Inn... might end with ....Fields! A Homeric walk in one day, the last twenty-five miles (at least) being on truly well-established paths. Imagined you arriving among the money-gouging lawyers, appalled at not finding a recognisable tea-shop, making do with a hamburger joint and being appalled yet again by the prices, expressing your outrage that the tea came in a mere cup (No teapot! I arsk you!) unsurrounded by a milk jug, a tea-spoon and, no doubt, a doily.
ReplyDeleteI passed by your only-too-relevant adumbrations about "them", struck by the irony that these rural wanderings might well begin and end without any reference to what was going on in any direction you cared to look. As if I'd come upon a page torn from the diary of elderly resident of, say, Caen who decided to take a beach-walk on June 6, 1944 and who had returned home without noticing anything untoward.
Was gladdened to find at the very end an acknowledgement that the world contained more disturbing matters than a gate that should have been open being barred - quite a metaphor for our momentous times when you think about it. To the point where you felt it necessary to resort to red capital letters and even an increase in type size. But not a hint about your reasons.
Remember, people read your blog (more than read mine). The consensus is that the result will be tight. Aren't you worried that afterwards, on reflection, you might dwell on that single person you could just possibly have influenced? A walker like you. An outdoors enthusiast like you. A good guy like you.
I speak with some feeling on this. Yesterday I ditched a post "on great art", feeling I couldn't remain silent about what was going on. What I came up with is not only fearful in tone but also selfish. But selfishness is only one of the emotions that is generally abroad today; and an X in the right box carries no detectable emotion. Might you add a reason or two? The polls haven't yet closed.
RR - Ok. Here are a few. Much of the red tape complained about is for everybody's good: protection from fraud, bad banking practice, human rights, important health and safety, cleaner rivers etc., etc., but nobody seems to mention this, preferring to concentrate on bendy cucumbers. Without the protection from Europe on these points ruthless Tory type governments would be allowed to rule without hindrance. We would only have the House of Lords to fall back on, and that may well be soon abolished.
ReplyDeleteOK the Union has its faults AND SO HAS EVERY OTHER ORGANISATION IN THE WORLD, but it has existed and done more good than harm over the longest period of peace Europe has ever known. It has introduced beneficial legislation, (as well as some fatuous stuff I know, but how much does that really matter?) and will continue to do so with good intentions. If we go independent the emphasis will be on money grabbing, bigger fortunes for the rich and general cynicism with no thoughts for humanity and environmental issues, and we will most likely become one of the world's most hated countries. All that is fairly certain, and enough to underline a decision to remain rather than embark on a risky strategy which will almost certainly create economic difficulty for the next few years at the best, and no guarantee whatsoever that we would improve on that in the fiercely competitive international trading climate.
There are many other points but in the interests of replying to you as suggested asap in view the time left there you are.
Sorry if I appeared to goad you. Delighted by the result.
ReplyDeleteToo late, was the cry...
ReplyDeleteBC - perhaps go and live in Scotland?
ReplyDeleteNo - France for me - despite its faults and problems, it is still probably the most civilised country in Europe - and the weather is, by and large, choosing ones sort with some care, better than Scotland:
ReplyDeletecan't stand the SNP or wind-powered power stations on prominent uplands instead of on flat lands, where the visual impact is limited, as in France.
You are, of course, wrong about Conservative governments and only partially correct about the EU - one of its great problems is corruption, arrogance and cynicism at the highest level - the great British failing is and was not to mobilise a constituency in the rest of the EU to root out the neo-napoleons. The greatest widening of the divide between rich and poor in recent centuries came during the reigns of King Tony and Emperor Brown.
ReplyDeleteGimmer - I'd rather live with Nicola Sturgeon anyday than face the next French Revolution withe Marine le Pen, and the latter potential eventuality is not said in jest.
Whilst I concur with your 'action', I think that the problems with the organisation that the EU has evolved into are much more serious than you imply - it is much more than the mere 'meddling' you dismiss as not very important.
ReplyDeleteI think also that whilst the EEC and then the EU has encouraged much enlightened legislation and action on environmental and social matters, but not uniquely or even worldwide leaders, the contemptuous disregard for the consequences of what might originally have been laudable goals and policies in the conditions of the latter 1940's and '50s, when translated into the completely different continental and global world of the '90s and now the early C21, has brought both the organisation and more importantly the 'ideals', which you rightly laud, into the most serious disconnection with the peoples of the constituent nations and has lead to the rise of intemperance at best and dangerous intolerance and extremism at the worst: I think it is folly to 'leave' the EU almost for these reasons alone, in addition to the other more 'idealistic' ties you imply, as to leave when the issues are much more serious than mere bureaucratic meddling is to avoid responsibility for ensuring the vital reform.
The original French Revolution, amongst its many causes, was, at it most basic, due to the gulf that developed between a centralising government and the people - between ruled and rulers; the rise of the le Pen type movements is a direct analogy and is neither to be ignored nor dismissed by refusing to acknowledge its deeply felt roots - in all the nations of Europe, not just France or England: that really would lead to further revolution: we saved ourselves from such a fate by evolution and maintaining, however erratically and tenuously, those links.
Maybe we should say, translated two centuries, that to save Europe from itself, what is needed now is not simply our example, but our exertions too: counterproductive to 'leave' unreformed a construct which has become more than a mere organisation serving the people but a form of - shall we say, perhaps appropriately - 'huit clos'.
(by the way, it was labour and the liberals who wanted to abolish the Lords, but were, in the end, frustrated by Conservative actions.)