Jan Merry Eclectic Mix

Vogel Winner, A Treacherous Country by KM Kruimink

2021-07-15T20:28:00.000-07:00

“How came I to this place?” asks Gabriel Fox when he finds himself at large and out of place in Van Dieman’s Land circa 1840. In the short time we spend with this protagonist, he never does feel at home, but the reader comes to know quite a lot about him and his naivety.

A worthy winner of the Vogel, KM Kruimink writes a convincing tale with solid description of the treacherous untamed Huon Valley, setting the theme of immigrant at the mercy of nature in a landscape that is way too big and uncontrollable for this Englander. The prose is aptly convoluted for the period, yet rather than being tedious, it becomes clearer as you sink into the adventures of Gabriel abroad. The short time frame is a clever device that leaves the reader wanting more of this action packed story.

The Historian's Daughter Rashida Murphy

2021-05-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

This is a novel about how a person’s history follows them through life. Those little things that happen, the fleeting moments, the overheard whispers all form a trail to the person we become. Ranging from the Indian Hills to Perth, Hannah’s story slowly reveals the moments in her past that have made her who she is.

Entertaining all the way through, The Historian’s Daughter deserves a second volume, because there are many questions left unanswered. Occasionally there were moments when I wasn’t quite sure what happened and reading back over, I still didn’t find the answer. Nevertheless, the fact I wanted to go back to find out is testament to the depth of the story.

Rashida Murphy’s prose is eloquent and multi-layered and I recommend her novel to literature lovers.

Madam Midas by Fergus Hume

2021-05-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

Like a suave character from his novels, Fergus Hume at the time he wrote Madam Midas and Mystery of a Hansom Cab

Madam Midas is an enjoyable read despite being laden with melodrama. Well written and at ease with itself, there’s an effortlessness about Fergus Hume’s style. Melbourne and Ballarat circa 1888 are depicted vividly with plenty of social commentary, especially on the plight of women, rich and poor, who survived at the mercy of men. Good and bad men, gentlemen and cads and cads disguised as gentlemen, all attempt to control the women in their lives. It’s all here in the seedy streets of the city where if a woman failed to hold on to her virtue, she was a mere step from prostitution.

Hume slings arrows across a broad sweep of society and includes sharp commentary on the back-patting philanthropists who built alms houses with their names upon them, but never entered the real slums.

“Professional philanthropist…who does his good deeds in a most ostentatious manner, and loudly invites the world to see his generosity, and praise him for it. He never did good by stealth.” Who knew virtue signalling was a thing in the 1880s.

The reader might expect a work written in 1880s to be bogged down by convoluted prose, but this is not the case. Just as in Mystery of a Hansom Cab, Hume weaves a tale of intrigue and suspense. If you are interested in Australia during the Victorian era, Madam Midas is a for you.

Quality Australian Writing

2021-02-24T20:15:00.000-08:00

Amanda Lohrey’s, The Labyrinth, is a perfect example of quality Australian writing. The novel is entertaining and moving, but what stood out for me, was the skill and control with which Lohrey develops the plot, builds characters and presents a powerful setting, which is almost a character in itself. Just like it should be really, in a story which encompasses landscape as much as people.

I won’t recount the plot as it has been done elsewhere, except to say it is set on the south coast of NSW in a small coastal down, where protagonist, Erica, decides to build her labyrinth as a way to come to terms with the past.

Novels of this type don't have to actually be true, or be the real life experience of the author, but readers must find them believable and feel they are true. Writers usually take snippets from all over the place, their own life, tales they hear, gossip, research and so on. But it must all come together like one well rounded story and The Labyrinth achieves that beautifully.

Details, whether for the landscape or the characters or actions are chosen with care and the prose is sparing. Sometimes you don't want a book to end because you will no longer have the pleasure of reading it. The Labyrinth is such a book.

2019-06-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

Are you taking part in the...

Aussie Author Challenge 2019

This should be an easily achievable challenge. I love to read Australian authors. Australian writing has blossomed through the last twenty or thirty years and now with the advent of self publishing, there's simply no going back.
It is wonderful, though, to have the support of publishing houses like Text and Hachette who are reissuing many Australian classics and supporting new authors.

Set in Japan snd really different

I am putting myself down for a Wallaroo challenge, but I may reach Kangaroo without too much trouble. (Only insiders will understand this strange statement.)

Some impressive Aussies authors I've read recently:
Richard Flanagan, First Person
Gerald Murnane, Landscape with Landscape

Beautiful cover

Mirandi Riwoe, The Fish Girl,
Darry Fraser, Daughter of the Murray
Charlotte Wood, Animal People

Inspirational Women Writers Lead to the Stella Prize

2017-04-22T19:02:00.001-07:00

Judy Davis played Sybilla Melvyn in the 1979 film, My Brilliant Career

When writing a short story about a family in Australia during the Great Depression, I recently found myself referencing, almost subconsciously, books I’d read in early childhood. Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit and May Gibbs, author of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie both came to mind as I related the differences between a childhood set against an English landscape to that of an Australian childhood spent in the bush. Thinking about those influences a little harder, I realised many of those early experiences of storytelling are still informing my writing now.

I didn’t notice these were female writers at the time; that came later, and when these classics were published many females wrote under male pseudonyms, even when writing specifically about and for girls. But women write differently to men and though I read many books by male writers too, the ones who really reached me were the female voices.

Returning to those women writers who set me on the path to literature and writing has been an inspiration. Miles Franklins’, My Brilliant Career, published in 1901, particularly so because it’s written by a sixteen year old girl, who understands the concerns of girls in an unashamedly chauvinistic world. Franklin’s passion and determination to become a writer, at a time when failing to conform to social mores could subject a girl to judgemental psychoanalytical assessment, has inspired feminists and women writers around the world.

Born in 1879, Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin published the story of Sybilla, trapped on her parents’ farm near Goulburn in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales and forced to choose between a conventional path of marriage and her plans for a ‘brilliant career’. Writing under her great-great grandfather’s name, Miles, but full of barely disguised biographical detail, her protagonist rebels against the dullness of women’s lives and what she describes as the degradation of marriage which to her is nothing short of unpaid drudgery.

Sybilla’s character is the embodiment of the fears, conflicts and torments of every girl and could well be the topic of magazine articles anywhere around the world today. She is plain and therefore not valuable in the marriage market. She equates ugliness with being unloved. She is rejected as abnormal because she is too outspoken. Sybilla is offered marriage to a man who admires her spirit and character but finally rejects him because she cannot have marriage and career.

2017 winner of Stella Prize, Heather Rose

She was just a little bush girl with first-hand experience of the struggle to make a living as a writer. Now the Miles Franklin Award is Australia’s most prestigious literary prize. Established through the will of Stella Miles Franklin, her bequest honours a novel of literary merit depicting Australian life in any of its phases.

Miles Franklin

Now a major literary prize celebrating great books by Australian women, the Stella Award, saw its first winner in 2013. Celebrating women’s contribution to Australian writing, this legacy of Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin raises the profile of women’s writing, encourages a future generation of women writers and builds awareness of the work of Australian women.

Next time you fail to find that creative impulse when facing the blank computer screen, try going back to the early writers who inspired you; read their biographies and stories, and rejoice that you are not limited by low expectations, inferior education or intellectual aspersions. In this have-it-all age, when women writers can choose to combine marriage, children, travel and careers with writing, remember Sybilla and her cohorts had much narrower choices.

Universal themes overcome appropriation concerns

2017-03-15T15:48:00.002-07:00

This review contains spoilers.

Appropriating another culture is now frowned upon in certain quarters, but Nene Gare’s, The Fringe Dwellers, is an example of how a writer can bring to life a story, sympathetic and convincing in its detail, that reveals a culture to a wide audience.

Published in 1961 and made into a film by Bruce Beresford in 1986, The Fringe Dwellers is the story of Western Australian Aboriginal family, the Comeaways. The protagonists are daughters, Noonah and Trilby. Noonah accepts her life on the fringes of town, but Trilby cannot.

Themes concerning all women, not just Aboriginal women, give the book universal significance: a mother’s role in the family, how to do the best for your children, taking hard decisions for the long term good, providing material sustenance and nurture in equal measure. There is a real attempt on Gare’s part to expose Aboriginal life to audiences never likely to come in contact with Aborigines. Between the lines, there seems a desire to say, this is why and how decisions are made, so white society should not judge.

Gare lived beside Aborigines for 10 years when her husband, Frank,was appointed District Officer with the Native Welfare Department in Carnarvon and was later transferred to the position of District Officer for the Murchison Region. Nene Gare wrote from those experiences and from her friendships with Aborigines. In this intimate look inside a family dynamic and in every carefully constructed scene, Gare’s is not exploiting Aboriginal culture, rather, she is exposing her knowledge of it.

Complaints might be made that she has appropriated Aboriginal culture, but in her exploration of its complexities and the problems and compromises of trying to be part of mainstream culture, she sends a message to white readers.

The action takes place in the 1950s and it is important to read the novel in the context of its time and not be deterred by the white author/indigenous characters paradigm. The history of the period serves as a background with social housing increasing, immigrants from Europe and Great Britain arriving, the wharves and the railway, once places of employment for Aborigines are providing work for an expanding white population.

Then there is the sad downwards spiral of Trilby, a situation that could apply to any girl in any town or country. I recommend this novel and suggest it is a good place to find some answers on whether art related to a culture that is not your own is acceptable or not.

Girls gone wild without a mother’s guidance

2017-02-13T19:45:00.000-08:00

This review contains spoilers

Salt Creek Lucy Treloar 4*

Women dying far too young, either in childbirth or worn out from having too many children, is regularly visited in stories set anytime before reliable birth control was put in to women’s hands. Even in the 1950s, especially in Catholic families, women’s health suffered through having more children than their bodies could cope with.

So it is a familiar scenario in Salt Creek, when Mrs Finch dies giving birth to her tenth (I think this is correct) child. As so often happened, the eldest girl, fifteen year old Hester, takes over the domestic chores and plays the role of ‘mother’ or should that be housekeeper.

One of Treloar’s telling moments is the father’s comment that Adelaide, the younger sister, has run wild without her mother’s guidance. We wouldn't necessarily recognise this attitude today as men take a much greater role in their children’s development. But in the past, even recent past, orphanages were filled with motherless children because their father would not or could not, look after them. I can recall at school a girl ‘turning bad’ because her mother had died and some children were not allowed to play with her because she was now less respectable. This is despicable, but such were social mores. Society may have changed, as has the role of father, but it is still sad to hear of children without the close emotional involvement of their parents.

I had a few reservations about Treloar’s depiction of the Finch patriarch. He is a very negative character and gradually turns into a hypocritical monster. Although this was probably done by the author to develop the story, this depiction seems unbalanced. In the 1850s when the novel is set, expectations of men were extremely demanding in an unknown world. They had to provide for their many children and be a protector. They had to be physically and mentally strong, and hid their own insecurities by being aloof. Emotional guidance was the mother’s role so many men, faced with bringing up children alone, did not know what to do. It is still fairly recent that men have been expected to do ‘women’s work’ such as child care and domestic chores. Men were and possibly still are, ill equiped to deal with a girl’s sexuality.

Men’s or boys sexuality was often seen as animalistic with an inability or desire to restrain themselves, for the preservation of their wife’s health. In Salt Creek, the Finch sons and their father consort with aboriginal women without conscience yet for the daughters, sexual risk-taking has profound consequences. I guess this is the heart of the story. In the 1850s, options were limited and society was judgemental. Women had little control over their own lives.

Robe Streetscape

I didn’t enjoy the opening scenes of the story and was about to discard the book when I found myself involved and interested. Once I reached the conclusion, I reread the first pages and found them more accessible. The historical detail provides a solid background and the story of the Chinese who went to the gold fields via the Coorong and Robe is well, if slightly, woven in. I have read some criticism that the history is not fully accurate, but I didn’t notice any glaring errors.

The Coorong is a beautiful, wild setting, well described by Treloar without overdoing the description or allowing the setting to take over from the action.

Salt Creek is well plotted, romantic despite the tragedies and well written. I didn't give it five stars because it was not multi layered, but told on one level. I still enjoyed it and recommend it to those who like a good story.

The Chinese, unpopular in Victoria and NSW found a route to the gold fields via the Coorong and Robe. Robe still has many historical buildings and a Chinese presence.

Old Customs House Robe 1863

Peter Goldsworthy’s Darwin. Maestro's setting, vibrantly alive, is a character in its own right.

2017-01-16T17:24:00.001-08:00

Darwin circa 1967 may seem an unlikely place for literary inspiration, but Peter Goldsworthy’s, Maestro, with its exotic setting and the emotions he attaches to it, is an irresistible combination. Music infuses the story and it is at a piano lesson, that the teenage Paul Crabbe, a recent arrival from the south, encounters the maestro, a refugee from Vienna with a shady past.

I hoped to experience Darwin the way his protagonist, Paul, experiences it. There’s a risk involved in seeking out novel settings and the locations within because they may not be real and if they are real, may disappoint. Writers usually get the detail correct through research, but unless they have lived, even temporarily, in a place they write about, their pages are not imbued with the warm rain and wet earth smearing itself with greenness, like Goldsworthy’s prose is. Like the Crabbes, the Goldsworthy family moved to Darwin in 1966. Would the written Darwin mismatch the real thing or would I understand why Paul loved the tropical hothouse blooms where everything grew larger than life as I walked the streets of this lush and isolated town, a mix or orient and outback, a port to where immigrants drifted as a place of refuge.

Visiting a novel’s setting can be disorientating and laden with a ‘where am I’ aura. The heavy embrace of Darwin’s scent laden air strikes the minute the plane doors open and there’s no mistaking, this is the tropics. Ominous black clouds loom on the horizon and thunder rumbles away in the background waiting for that almighty moment when rain clouds burst, releasing moist compost air, sweet and sour, just as Goldsworthy describes.

Some novels can be transported to different cities without affecting the overall story, but some narrative locations are inherent in the story and should the action be moved, the story would be different. Maestro, published in 1989, amusing, wise and enormously entertaining, sweeps effortlessly into 1960s Darwin, a tropical backdrop that becomes its own character.

There’s nothing insipid about Darwin and the two seasons, the wet and the dry, provide a dramatic backdrop to even the most bland of locations, a 1960s designed, form matched to function, school. Darwin High School, where Paul took refuge in the music room from bullies, still overlooks Mindil Beach and Darwin Harbour from the headland of Bullocky Point. Not as isolated as it was in the 60s, it now forms part of East Point Reserve a beautiful place for walking where you may spot red-tailed black cockatoos and wallabies and, depending on the season, witness magnificent sunsets or spectacular lightening displays.

Mindl Beach

The Botanical Gardens, where Keller arrives drunk during a concert arranged by the Crabbes, are now a heavenly brew of monsoon vine forest, coastal dunes, mangroves, woodlands and plants that have survived cyclones, wildfires and World War 2. Concerts continue to be held in the amphitheatre.

The Swan, the fictional crumbling pub where the maestro, Keller, lives in his darkened room above the bar, shuttered against bright sunlight and the noisy locals below, is surely based on the colonial style Victoria, a heritage listed pub built with local stone in 1890. Before Cyclone Tracey hit in 1974, pictures show a large weatherboard accommodation annex, perhaps the inspiration for Keller’s room in the warren of crumbling weatherboard where Paul took his music instruction. Bougainvillea has grown in the courtyard since 1890, but sadly, although the monsoons of beer remain, I’m told the bougainvillea has been removed since my visit.

Writers capture fleeting moments and no location remains intact forever. But the geography of the setting, the place on the map, its droughts, flooding rains and distant horizons do largely stay the same within the Australian landscape. Our literature often has a complicated, complex relationship with landscape, seeing it as menacing, a place from which we are often estranged. The young Paul’s enthusiastic embrace of Darwin, isolated at the Top End, with Asia to the north and the vast outback to the south, is so infectious, as a setting it becomes a must see.

Victoria Hotel in 1950s, the model for The Swan

Rural fiction with soundtrack. Take two minutes to listen to Dimming of the Day.

2017-01-08T20:22:00.000-08:00

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC-mwZmMkVzpXQua35mGfrQg

Fever of Animals

2017-01-08T17:56:00.000-08:00

Miles Allinson raises some interesting ideas in his novel, Fever of Animals. I particularly liked the theme of art and the artist and for me the strongest scene was when the young artist realises his own art is just not good enough and he will never make the grade. The low point of the story was the repeated denigration of landscape art, as though it is a lesser form. But I guess this was also a comment on the egotistical nature of some artists. He shows how pretentious and insecure creatives can be.

The story held my interest most of the time, but I did start to drift away from the middle chapter and his travels in search of Emil Bafdescu. This is where I felt the writer was trying too hard to create "meaning" rather than letting the prose work alone. It just felt too forced.

There is the potential for two separate novels, the Bafdescu/Romania story and the other, first love/artist's struggle etc, though the character of Alice was very unappealing. As is, combining the two didn't work for me.

Miles Allinson clearly has talent as a writer and hopefully will reach full potential if he refrains from trying to inject literary significance, but instead lets it develop naturally.

Writing as compulsion

2016-10-03T22:13:00.002-07:00

Writing is a compulsion for me, but where does that force within come from, I wonder. I’ve never tried to explain it before, but perhaps it stems from reading. Librarians and teachers of literacy often express a desire for youngsters to “discover the joys of reading”. I’m guessing that joy of reading is behind my urge to write.

An adventure into another world.

It is not a desire to recreate the great writers (as if) but to recreate the feeling reading those writers gave me, of entering a different world, a subconscious world, an imaginary world . From those earliest days of my own literacy, I was able to enter other lives, whether it be from the simple story lines and characters of school books to my mother’s magazines which seemed always to feature stories about exotic lives lived on tea plantations in Ceylon or India. Reading was mind expanding and other worldly. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, read as a child in Australia, opened a door to the world that has never been shut, as did Heidi, the story of the little girl who lives with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps.

The Swiss mountains were a long
way from the Australian bush.

In retrospect, the revelation of the inner lives of those and other characters, had a profound impact and influences the way I write and what I write about.

Then there is inspiration. When I first read Faulkner’s, The Sound and the Fury, I remember closing the last page and thinking, wow, how did he do that. It was one of those profoundly moving novels that imprint themselves on the psyche; long after you have forgotten the plot details, you remember that moment of revelation; this writer is different to everyone I have read before. I think it inspired me in many ways to want to be a writer. Not so much to “write” like Faulkner, but to recreate the moment. It’s hard to explain.

Writers come fairly quickly to the realisation they will not reach parity with the great writers of literature, but that does not stop them persisting, perhaps in a desire to find “the moment” or in an attempt to clarify their thoughts. As Faulkner said, ”I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.”

This post was first published at http://booksbywomen.org/writing-as-compulsion/

May Gibbs imagery creates a Stella Spark

2016-01-30T19:44:00.001-08:00

When writing a short story about a family in Australia during the Great Depression, I recently found myself referencing, almost subconsciously, books I’d read in early childhood. Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit and May Gibbs, author of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie both came to mind as I related the differences between a childhood set against an English landscape to that of an Australian childhood spent in the bush. Thinking about those influences a little harder, I realised many of those early experiences of storytelling are still informing my writing now.

I didn’t notice these were female writers at the time; that came later, and when these classics were published, many females wrote under male pseudonyms, even when writing specifically about and for girls. But women write differently to men and though I read many books by male writers too, the ones who really reached me were the female voices.

Intertextuality has been an aspect of writing and reading I really enjoy, so when I was describing in Place of Many Birds, a scene at Sandringham beach, in which two children find a seahorse, May Gibbs’ imagery leapt into the picture as if conjured from another sphere.

“We look at the big belly of the sea horse in the palm of my hand, turning it over and over and holding it to the sun to see inside. The sea horse’s body, yellowish and leathery beneath my fingertips, is dry and hard, blending a thick neck and curving tail encased in bony rings. At the end of its horse-like tubular snout, the dead eye of the sea horse stares back at us. I think of the dead seahorse, ridden by a sea fairy, floating gracefully through the waves. Reins made of seaweed hang from its mouth. The fairy escapes just in time from the mouth of a giant fish.” Place of Many Birds

Even that fish has its roots in the Gibbs’ stories. The giant fish, John Dory, puts Snugglepot’s head in his mouth. Those vivid images, whether of terrifying Banksia Men or sweet little Ragged Blossom in her fraying blossom skirt, are imprinted so deeply, they are still able to appear unannounced. Rather than lighting a spark, they ignited a love of literature that continues to burn. Can anyone walk past eucalypts drooping with pink blossom at this time of year, without recalling Gibbs.

New 5* review for Place of Many Birds

2015-06-11T22:28:00.001-07:00

“Place of Many Birds” by Jan Merry is an exquisitely-written collection of short stories that takes place in a span of time from the late 1800s into the mid-20th century in Australia. The landscape of Australia becomes the primary “character” and common link among all of the short stories: the danger and struggle it imposes on its inhabitants as well as the vast beauty in which birds provide the soundtrack that become an integral part of the characters.
The core family plays a large part in many of the stories—“Before Winter Comes” is a particularly poignant tale of the delight an unexpected sponge cake brings to a sister and her two younger brothers whose mother has passed away. Loneliness is another theme found throughout: In “Killing Time,” Maurice piddles away his days, stretching out tasks, and taking long bike rides. He feels like he’s in the way of his son and daughter-in-law who live with him.
The title story, “Place of Many Birds,” reads almost like a stream of consciousness in which the narrator takes us through his family’s life out in the country, where he, his brother and mom stayed behind while their dad and older brother go to the city to prepare a life for the whole family there. His mother misses city life as she grew up in a quaint town in England with cobblestone paths and busy shops. The narrator becomes intricately tied to the land. As inconvenient as the dust, heat and flies can be, it’s something that will always stay with him. “All along the dusty edges of the road, we pass wattle trees, bottle brush and flowering gums where tiny creatures dressed in gamnut hats and ragged blossom clothes live.”
“Place of Many Birds” is an excellent collection of short stories. I highly recommend it for someone who wants to take his or her time and delve deeply into the characters’ thoughts as well as the vast landscape of Australia.
http://www.amazon.com/Place-Many-Birds-Australian-Stories-ebook/dp/B00BZ4O9MK/ref=cm_cr-mr-title#customerReviews

The Break Away an extract from Place of Many Birds short stories

2015-05-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

When writing about the past, about family, about true events, what does one leave in and what should be kept for posterity? The Break Away is based on a true event which resulted in the death of John Ickeringill in Australia, in 1891. I don't know about his personality, nor that of the others who witnessed the incident, so their characters are fictional. What I could comment on truthfully was the 1838 Battle of Broken River which forms part of the narrative.

“Eight men were slaughtered in the skirmish. In revenge, a hundred Aborigines were killed. There were many reprisal killings, a long time ago, nearly fifty years ago. It’s known as the Faithfull Massacre because the Faithfull brothers owned the sheep. Some call it the Battle of Broken River.”

Firelight flickers on the smooth trunks and writhing branches illuminating the ghostly whiteness of the trees in the moonlight. Long ribbons of shedding bark dangle in the soft wind coming off the river. Trees sway in a stealthy dance, like spirits from another world. How long does it take for ghosts to be laid to rest, I wonder. Is fifty years long enough?

“Their bodies are buried out here, but no one knows exactly where,” says Berry, the cool wind at our back and the warm glow of the fire in front.

“They didn’t attack because it was a hunting ground, but because it was ceremonial ground, a kangaroo ground.”

A coroner's inquest was held into the incident involving Ickeringill and his friends who set out one Saturday afternoon on a hunting expedition.
Place of Many Birds is available on Amazonhttp://www.amazon.com/Place-Many-Birds-Jan-Merry/dp/1500608947/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 and http://www.amazon.com.au/Place-Many-Birds-Jan-Merry-ebook/dp/B00BZ4O9MK

Quiggan Brothers store Shepparton 1890s

Time for a Highland Fling

2014-08-22T07:17:00.005-07:00

Scotland and England are so different it is a wonder they have been joined together at all. Hadrian's Wall says a lot about the relationship and explains some of the resentment Scots hold towards England. The remains are not nearly as impressive as the original which was six meters high and three meters wide and stretched across the country for 117 kilometres. Designed to keep out the Picts (a kingdom of northern tribes occupying eastern and northern parts of Scotland) and built by the Romans, in many ways it defined the relationship. The wall was guarded and patrolled for almost 250 years and though the Romans upped and left, the wall remained; a dividing line reminding those in the north they didn't belong in the south unless they left their tartans and chiefs behind.

Hadrian's Wall near Birdoswald

Ancestors of David Cameron, British Prime Minister, are descendants of Clan Cameron from the Western Highlands, a spectacular place for walking and getting away from it all. On Knoydart peninsula the Old Forge pub is the most remote in the British Isles. Expect to find lots of music and rowdy locals enjoying the long summer evening on Inverie Ho. Reached only on foot, or by boat you can't ask for a more special destination. If you are looking for somewhere to stay, The Old Byre is highly recommended. Once a dairy, and now described as a bunkhouse, it has very comfortable with stylish accommodation.

The Old Byre Inverie on the Knoydart peninsula

Wild and remote, Inverie is reached by boat from Mallaig or a two day walk from Kinlochhourn.

Cats of Montenegro

2014-05-01T08:24:00.000-07:00

Icelandic World of Ice and Fire

2013-10-03T08:15:00.001-07:00

Witness the tectonic plates being slowly torn apart

It’s easy to see why scenes from Game of Thrones were filmed in Iceland. The land is a spectacular backdrop for any film location and for any holiday adventure. Iceland is Europe without the dainty, without the Baroque, without the castles and without the touts and queues. What it does have is mind blowing scenery, big open spaces, empty roads and a fascinating history that is well documented and presented for your entertainment and information.

Reykjavik serves as a perfect base from where to start your exploration of a land that lies on the tectonic plate, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. You can actually see where the Eurasian Plate and the North American Plate are slowly separating at 2.5cm a year. How cool is that!

Based in Reykjavic, you are nicely positioned to take day trips along the Golden Circle which takes in the national park of Pingvellir, Gullfloss waterfall and the sites of Geysir and Stokkur. Geysir must be where we learned the name of geyser which we have attributed to all sorts of water spouts. It comes from the Norse verb geysa, to gush. In fact, many of our words and customs stem from this Norse culture.

Geysir is not as strong a Stokkur which regularly bursts forth

Summer wildflowers brief appearance

Did you know law is Norse as are the concepts of Commonwealth and Parliament. The site of the very first parliament or assembly, the Althing in Norse, established in 930, is in Pingvellir National Park and you too can stand on the rock where gatherings of lawmakers and clans set about keeping warring factions apart and ensuring all Icelanders had a share of the pie. The mediaeval Icelandic state had a unique judicial structure based on the principal of consensus, so way back then, they had a uniquely democratic structure of governance and law making.

My visit is in summer, so I don’t see the Northern Lights, but the long, long days make up for that. During August it doesn’t really get dark at all, so you have extra time for sightseeing and road trips. Tour companies offer many pricey treats, but if you are a driver, it’s far better to hire your own car and do your own thing. Beware the speed limit though...just 90k. If you are caught speeding a hefty fine will arrive in the post a few weeks later. Highways tend to be single carriageways and there aren’t many freeways, but the bonus is, traffic is minimal.

Blue Lagoon bathing

The Blue Lagoon thermal springs and spa are just about the most popular item on most tourist’s agenda. You won’t be alone in the warm bath of geothermal seawater, silica, algae and minerals but you will emerge feeling simultaneously calm and energized. There’s a mid-pool bar and plenty of silica to baste and exfoliate your skin. At 40 euros it’s not a cheap experience but it is a unique one for most.

Skogafoss wall of water

View Seljalandfoss from the road

Then there are the dozens of waterfalls across Iceland. From Reykjavic be sure to make the effort to reach Gullfoss, a spectacular force of nature and Skogafoss in the south, which is very easy to access. In fact you can walk right up to its thundering wall of water. Also in the south is Seljalandfoss which you can walk behind.

Gullfoss in winter

If you visit in summer, you will understand why Game of Thrones took inspiration from such a unique environment and want to return in winter to enjoy the experience in a different season when glaciers grow every larger and rivers and falls are transformed into walls of ice. Or should that be Beyond the Wall.

Spectacular force of nature Gullfoss

Songs for the Road

2013-09-03T07:20:00.000-07:00

Music, an essential ingredient of any road trip, has the knack of crystallizing the mood of the moment and transporting us, even years later, to another time and place.

Open top driving in Hawaii accompanied by Tears for Fears

While living the experience of your journey across the Nullarbor, to the back of Bourke, along the Birdsville Track or beyond the black stump, the car stereo pumps out the accompanying soundtrack. Whether going up the highway, along the coast, over the mountain pass or down through the valleys, the sing-along, the radio, the cassette and now the CD fills lulls in conversation, quiets the too talkative or acts as lyrical companion to the lone driver.

Some songs, seemingly disconnected but somehow integral to the trip, are able to reach into a past we think we’ve forgotten. In the 70s, the guitars of the Allman Brothers and Derek and the Dominoes filled the sandy campgrounds of the Greek Islands. Olive groves wavered to the clatter and splutter of Volkswagen combi vans and Layla’s entwining guitars. In Spain, the single lane country road between Barcelona and Sitges, now a six-lane highway, strummed and hummed with Cat Stevens and on Mediterranean shores, young people got drunk, fell in love and danced in the moon’s shadow.

As our open topped convertible circumnavigated the Hawaiian island of Oahu in the 80s, the palm trees swayed, the surf rolled in and the sun shone to Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears who topped the charts and chimed out of every doorway on Waikiki.

Not that all road trips have to be exotic. Elvis Costello accompanied my sons and me on our drives to school in the 90s. During that 15 or 20 minute trip, depending on traffic, I listened to his quirky lyrics, instead of adolescent bickering. The man who sang, What a good year for the roses, many blooms still linger there, made for a little more harmony and soothed fragile morning tempers. Whenever I hear that funny old voice, dispensing one of his ironic narratives, I still see two stroppy teenagers, all insolence and spots, arguing over whose turn it is to have the front seat.

When I left London for the Continent recently, my son thrust an eclectic collection of CDs through the window. Here, he said, you’ll need these. He was right. By the outskirts of Calais, Europop made station-flipping tiresome. The CDs became travelling companions and over the following thousands of kilometres, we rotated through them, testing and getting to know them until the songs and voices became inextricably entwined with place and experience.

Elvis' baritone is a wonderful driving companion

That other Elvis, boyish and exuberant in his first Sun sessions, rocked us around Amiens and the Somme battlefields. Raw and untrained, his youthful and vigorous, That’s all right, Mama, could have been the poignant cry of any soldier buried in the cemeteries dotting the landscape. Instead of evoking connections with a swivel- hipped love hound with bouffy quiff, his molasses-dripping baritone now suggests the rumble of war and poppy strewn French meadows.

The southwest corner of France meets Spain where the long black ribbon of the

Poppy fields of the Somme Northern France

tollway penetrates the mountains in a series of tunnels. Australia’s, The Dirty Three fits the mood of the Pyrenees perfectly. Indian Love Song, quietly intense as we enter the gaping mouth of the tunnel, builds with energetic passion as the mountain consumes us. The soaring violins start to race with the traffic…150kph…170kph. It’s adrenalin-pumping music to accompany a fierce contest of who will reach Spain first, you or the monstrous Mercedes throbbing at your bumper daring you to go faster. Cars race by, big, black and powerful. The violins play a rousing accompaniment to the startling pace. A BMW races into the rear vision mirror, braking at the last minute before swerving to the outside lane and sweeping past in a dramatic overtake.

Serge Gainsbourg accompanied us along the Riviera

All the way through Spain and Portugal we played the collection. From Lisbon to the Algarve, Johnny Cash played dry and mean. Tom Waits’ growled all the way from Valencia to Avignon. Serge Gainsbourg rode with us along the Riviera to Nice, Cannes and Monte Carlo. Jane Birkin panting en duo avec Serge seems apt as we negotiate the cliffs leading to the playground of the decadent and infamous. Je t’aime, she gasps as Serge brings her skillfully to a breathless crescendo while below the fabulous yachts flaunt themselves on the azure sea.

Ahhh…places in the heart made all the more memorable by the backbeat of songs. These are the road trips that live on in our memories. These are the places we remember all our lives.

The stepped streets and hidden undercurrents of Devon’s Clovelly

2013-08-07T08:39:00.001-07:00

Bideford Bay, Devon

The cobbled streets of Clovelly tumble into England’s Bristol Channel near Bideford Bay. Whitewashed cottages, piled one above the other, cling to the sheer Devon cliff face, forming a picture-postcard village so cloyingly perfect, you suspect you’re in an olde worlde re-creation purporting to show the life and times of a bygone era.

If you hanker after ragged ranges and sweeping veldt, then Clovelly’s chocolate-box charm may not be your cup of tea. But there’s no denying, it is quaint, cute and oh so sweet.

Listed in the Doomsday Book, circa 1100AD, this fishing village stands on the site of an ancient Saxon settlement. Now preserved and protected for future generations by the Clovelly Trust, the settlement is a living relic of a time when life was measured by the ebb and flow of tides, by sunrise and sunset.

When I arrive, late on a summer afternoon, Clovelly exudes an air of tranquility. The stepped streets, staggering steeply down to the harbour, are virtually empty of the usual pedestrian hordes. A few red-faced and out-of-puff stragglers struggle up the main street, which climbs 150m in half a kilometer. My descent into the village, an official car-free zone, promises to be crush-free as the throngs of tourists have already retreated for the day.

I mince gingerly down, taking dainty steps suitable for this cute little toy town. The cobblestones, hauled from the beach to pave the main thoroughfare, called Up-along or Down-along, depending on which direction you’re walking, can be precariously slippery. I’m terrified the leather soles of my sandals will skid, sending me helter-skelter down Down-along. And it’s not even raining. In fact, it’s a scorching 26 degrees.

Being Britain, summer rain is always on the cards. A smattering of drizzle or even a fine sea mist must turn the cobbles into skidpans for the unwary. Goodness knows how the daily busloads of pensioners escape uninjured. Rubber soles are a must but not rubber slip-slops, which make exploring side alleys arduous, as will tottering along in high-heels. A young Britney clone looks decidedly uncool crawling on all fours, mini skirt barely covering her rear, after a humiliating cobblestone tumble.

Clovelley's main street

Taking it slowly, I reach the 17th century New Inn, its William Morris style decor sumptuously elegant for what was once a humble seafarer’s watering hole. I daren’t have one for the road. It’s too steep. The extreme incline renders Clovelly inaccessible to cart or carriage, so guests’ luggage is delivered to the Inn by sledge. Traditionally, all heavy deliveries - mail, groceries, furniture, beer - were slid down the cobbles. Donkeys bore the loads back up as recently as the 1990s, when animal welfare issues ended the practice. Today, donkeys are restricted to giving rides to children and posing for photographs, or left to roam freely in the top meadow.

I continue down Down-along. Flower-decked cottages, some half-timbered or decorated with stones from the beach, line the road. Some residents show off chintzy interiors bursting with ornaments and book lined shelves, others hide behind filmy lace curtains.

Although you could call the entire village a museum, two cottages are open to the public as museum exhibits depicting the past life of the village. The Fisherman’s Cottage recreates 1930s scenes from a typical fisherman’s family home. Next door, the Charles Kingsley exhibition shows the style in which the famous Victorian author and social reformer lived. The museum’s voice-over recites Kingsley’s 1851 poem, The Three Fishers, about three fishermen’s wives waiting through the night for their husbands to return.

‘Three corpses lay out on the shining sand,

In the morning gleam as the tide went down,

And the women are weeping and ringing their hands

For those who will never come home to the town.’

As a child, Kingsley lived in Clovelly where his father was rector from 1830 to 1836. Charles Kingsley’s experiences there inspired his children’s classic, The Water Babies.

Kingsley later returned to Clovelly where he wrote his historical novel, Westward Ho! The town of that name, complete with exclamation mark, lies just along the coast.

Reaching the Look-Out, a stone-walled plateau on the cliff’s edge where villagers watched for returning fishing boats, I’m reminded that Clovelly is not just a pretty face. It’s a place of underlying grief.

At Temple Bar, the street passes under an archway containing a resident’s kitchen and dining room. I find a place to perch and gaze across the estuary. From here I can rest while admiring the scenery, but for Clovelly’s fisher families, it was another place to gather to scan the sea for homecoming boats.

The life of the ancient mariner envelopes Clovelly and wherever you scratch the surface, hidden undercurrents are revealed. The village’s delightful veneer hides the tragedy that often befell a community waiting in vain for the boats to come home. Such tragedies drew the villagers together and, today, that strong spirit continues. As a working fishing village, the danger of sea, storms and squalls are ever present. Yet these elements also unite a community where tenants must apply for residence and agree to contribute to village life. The result is tenants working towards common goals, keeping the village shipshape and themselves happy.

Since 1738, the Hamlyn family has owned Clovelly and they are responsible for renovation and restoration. If you balk at paying the entrance fee, bear in mind, maintaining a unique living and breathing village is a costly duty. Traditional craftsmanship and materials such as oak and slate aren’t cheap.

Clovelly is steeped in brine and the smell of the sea saturates the air, pickling every stone and wooden beam. This is especially true of Clovelly’s oldest cottage, called Crazy Kate’s after a fisherman’s widow, who watched her husband drown as he fished in the bay. The sea literally laps at Kate’s doorstep, and one day in 1736, Kate Lyall, clothed in her wedding dress, walked out her door and into the sea to join her husband.

Clovelly harbour and Red Lion Inn

The harbour, with its 14th century quay, is a rewarding conclusion to a precarious walk. I’ve glimpsed the coastline, notorious for shipwrecks, smuggling and piracy, throughout my descent, but when the harbour appears in all its glory, it’s a revelation. Small, compact, akin to a movie set waiting for a piratical Johnny Depp to swing into shot, the harbour is picture perfect. Actually, pictures don’t do it justice.

Clovelly harbour is testament to the substantial fishing fleet, which once thrived on huge shoals of herring in winter and mackerel in summer. Today, dark patches of fish dart and dive in the deep green transparent sea. On this day, only one brave child, belly sucked in with trepidation, treads one-step-at-a-time into the icy water. A shrill squeal signals the plunge into deeper water. Sea birds wheeling overhead, though momentarily silenced by the intrusion, soon resume their eternal cries.

The Red Lion Hotel, built on the quay during the 17th century as a beer house for fishermen and villagers, today provides respite for tourists in need of fortification to face the arduous climb back up UpAlong. A recent renovation, although architecturally sympathetic, inevitably means some of the inn’s original charm has been lost with the twelve new ensuite rooms. In the Snug bar, still with remnants of the original building, the barman, a local, recounts tales of storms and killer waves breaking over the quay, and the need for lifeboats, in service in Clovelly since 1870. Seduced by his West Country burr, I drink a pint of heady local cider.

To my relief, I discover there is also an easy way back to the cliff top in the form of a summer Land Rover service. All too quickly, I’m whisked around the village outskirts. Along a narrow back lane, beneath dark canopies of oak and ash, we roar in first and second gears. I’m deposited near Clovelly Court, the estate manor house and gardens. The manor supplies locals with flowers, fruit and vegetables which flourish in the maritime microclimate caused by the warm Gulf Stream.

Wildflower meadow, Clovelley

I clear my head in the salty air with a coastal walk through woodlands draping the cliff tops. Birds sing and butterflies flutter amongst the summer wild flowers. I take time to savour the impossibly pretty views of the bay, thankful I’m not scanning the horizon for a late returning boat.

TFL Please keep your rubbish with you at all times

2013-08-01T07:32:00.003-07:00

A few months ago, I wrote an open letter to Boris Johnson about litter in London, especially on the tubes which at times are a disgusting mess of food scraps, drink cans and newspapers. I didn’t have a response from Boris, so put my quest for cleaner trains aside until I noticed a post about trains in Mumbai. http://janmerryauthor.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/anti-litter%20campaign

India is not known for being spick and span and their trains suffer over-crowding and harassment issues, but at least they're clean. I contacted the blogger and asked if all Indian trains were so clean.

Joe Brucker Taipei train

Spot the difference: London train

Here is her response:

Its surprisingly clean on the trains - what you might see out of the window is a different thing entirely! You would never see all that paper like in your post - someone would have nabbed it to re-sell it within minutes. http://mumbaimag.com/train-spotting-mumbai-local/

India trains are clean but have other problems hindustantimes.com

Doesn’t that tell you something about our throw-away society and how here in the ‘developed’ world we should and could do more about our waste. Perhaps Tranport for London could change those annoying announcements from Please keep your belongings with you at all times to Please keep your rubbish with you at all times and have consideration for other travellers by taking your rubbish home with you.

The sweet allure of ancient Cadiz

2013-07-12T08:21:00.001-07:00

“…Cadiz, sweet Cadiz! is the most delightful town I ever beheld…,” wrote Lord Byron to his mother in 1809.

Byron was entranced by the town and “the most beautiful women in Spain”, whom he declared were charming and pretty and graceful. In fact, they were a voluptuous delight the staid English could barely imagine.

Narrow alleys lead to ancient squares

Cadiz may no longer hold the allure of the exotic, after all, the Costa is just around the corner, but there is still plenty to be besotted with.

Founded by the Phoenicians in 1100BC, Cadiz is a peninsular-island on the Atlantic Coast. Less than a day’s drive from Lisbon to the west or southeast across the Straits of Gibraltar to Morocco, Cadiz enjoys a location, which is simultaneously isolated and strategic. Seville, Cordoba, Ronda and Granada are hours away. Jerez, the home of sherry, is a day return trip. Coto de Donana, the largest national park in Europe and the habitat of wildlife and numerous species of birds, lies to the west. And to the east, the vast wild beaches of the Costa de la Luz are probably the most untouched in Europe.

Once the launching point for ships sailing to the newly discovered lands of America, today Cadiz is a quiet, laid-back resort where Spanish holidaymakers enjoy the surf and wide sandy beaches.

Sun and surf in Cadiz

Cadiz old town is a warren of narrow alleyways, once the salty haunt of sailors and vagabonds. Next door is new Cadiz, a strip of high rise hotels and apartments overlooking the sea. The two worlds collide when the promontory of the modern town meets the headland of the old town.

The old town, preserved from development by its ocean fortifications, is a relic of the 18^th century when Cadiz was at its most prosperous. The plazas, both grand and intimate, the churches, public buildings, turreted houses and golden domed cathedral, were financed by the gold and silver trade. With loads of Spanish loot floating around, no wonder Cadiz developed a reputation for indulgence.

The old town's golden domed cathedral sparkles in the sun

European merchants spent their wealth embellishing the city. All the routes from America converged here, so to keep an eye on the movement of ships in the port, the merchants finished off their mansions and palaces with watchtowers. Today, 126 of the original 160 watchtowers are still standing. The Torre Tavira, the tallest tower in the city, has a camera obscura, an idea of Leonardo Da Vinci’s, which reflects a panoramic view of the city.

A leisurely stroll over a few hours is all you need to take in the entire old town. And wherever you walk, whether through the parks on the fringes of town or down back streets, a glimpse of the sea is just around the corner.

Cadiz has endured its share of drama and violence, withstanding a siege by Napoleon’s troops and falling to the forces of Franco’s dictatorship. The decisive Battle of Trafalgar, waged off this coast in 1805, remains a wound in Spain’s side. The Anglo-Spanish Maritime War may be over, but the locals seem to be still smarting from the notorious raid and sacking of the town by Sir Francis Drake in 1587. In an audacious attempt to gain control of trade with the New World, El Draque (The Dragon, as the Spanish called Drake) destroyed up to thirty of the ships the Spanish were assembling against the English.

The site of Drake’s attack is Playa de la Caleta, a pretty beach with seafood restaurants inside the old harbour wall. The beach is flanked by the fortresses of Santa Catalina on the western tip of the headland and San Sebastian, at the end of the protective arm of the wall. Jutting out to sea, San Sebastian Castle is home to the Faro (lighthouse) but is open to the public by appointment only.

Given its century after century history of being fought over and occupied, it’s ironic the atmosphere today is so relaxed. The town feels safe to walk around and unlike so many towns in Spain, is not over run with pickpockets, bag-snatchers and car thieves. Perhaps its size means fewer places to hide or perhaps there are richer pickings in the pockets of English, American and northern European tourists elsewhere. For one thing you won’t find in Cadiz, is hordes of tourists. Yes, you will find people on holiday, but these are overwhelmingly Spanish, largely Andalusians escaping the excruciating inland summer heat. Unemployment in Andalusia is high and much of the available work tends to be seasonal whether as an agricultural labourer, a waiter or a concierge. The overall effect is to lower prices, maintaining restaurants and hotels at a level affordable for the Spanish consumer.

During July and August, the Gaditanos (Cadiz was named Gadir by the Phoenicians) get down to an abundance of consumption, especially in the fish restaurants specialising in Gaditian cuisine which dominate the town. Stalls selling fried fish operate along the beach and it’s likely English seamen took the dish home to the East End of London from Cadiz, because this is where takeaway fried fish originated.

Although Cadiz seems relatively wholesome and void of some of the tack associated with Malaga and the Costa del Sol, it covets its tradition of liberalism and tolerance. Certainly Lord Byron seemed to be looking forward to just that when he described his ride through Portugal and Spain to Cadiz.

The first canto of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage salivates at the delights awaiting:

“But Cadiz, rising on the distant coast,

Calls forth a sweeter, though ignoble praise.

Ah, Vice! How soft are thy voluptuous ways!

While boyish blood is mantling, who can ‘scape

The fascination of thy magic gaze?”

Byron had a great time in Cadiz

I didn’t find too much vice in Cadiz, but there was a certain lust for life displayed in the thonged, well oiled bodies of the boys and girls frolicking in the surf of Playa de la Victoria, on the left of the peninsular as you approach the town. Behind the hotels lining this strip of beach, a four-lane highway is less than inspiring, but along the beachfront, numerous restaurants and bars swing into action as the sun goes down. A night market selling African and Spanish crafts sets up at 9pm and operates until the customers run out. If staying in this modern part of town, the ingredients of sun, sand, sea and sangria make for a memorable vacation.

The clean water sparkles in the sunlight, coarse golden sand, combed daily for rubbish, is spotless. Senoritas flirt cheekily with their amigos, while aging Don Juans and their senoras laze, languid and sensuous, on the banana lounges. Beach bars continue serving drinks and snacks throughout the afternoon and, as a place to while away the siesta hours when the rest of Cadiz is literally deserted, the lure of the beach is almost irresistible.

Cadiz is definitely old Spain and in mid summer the siesta is adhered to with a vengeance. Between 2pm and 3pm locals go into a feeding frenzy. In packed restaurants waiters thrust giant platters of fresh and fried seafood upon tables crowded with families and friends. Crab legs are crushed ruthlessly and devoured without any false homage to etiquette. Squid, anchovies, plaice, red mullet and hake make up the traditional Cadiz platter while prawns, lobster, shellfish and shrimp parcels satisfy the more restrained.

You soon realise the wisdom of partaking in this feast; otherwise you run the risk of siesta time starvation. Because once the shutters come down for the afternoon, you may have to wait until 9 or 10pm before they go back up again.

What to do all afternoon with everything closed? Well, you could go to the beach. Or, you could spend the time engaged in that indoor activity which Lord Byron was so enamoured of. Byron seemed to set out on his travels intending to bonk his way around southern Europe and from several accounts, he succeeded. But it was the Girl of Cadiz who captured his imagination like no other. No English ice-maiden when it came to love, the Spanish girl, in Byron’s case an admiral’s daughter, flashed her fiery eyes and tossed her dark silken tresses in one big come-on.

However you spend your time in this busy port, the sting of sea spray and salty air will linger in the senses and Cadiz’s easy-going, slightly seedy charm will seduce you.

Reading: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and The Girl of Cadiz by Lord Byron

Place of Many Birds free fiction download this weekend

2013-06-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

Place of Many Birds is short literary fiction set in Australia in the aftermath of the wars and in the shadow of the Great Depression through to the 1960s. Themes are family, love and growing up.

It's available for free download this weekend: Saturday 22 June and Sunday 23 June 2013.

If you don't have a kindle, you can easily download a kindle app for use on PCs.

Australian and USA readers:

http://www.amazon.com/Place-of-Many-Birds-ebook/dp/B00BZ4O9MK/ref=la_B007Y57CWI_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371558496&sr=1-1

UK readers:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Place-of-Many-Birds-ebook/dp/B00BZ4O9MK/ref=sr_1_fkmr3_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371559250&sr=8-1-fkmr3&keywords=books+jan+merry+place+of+many+birds

How do communities take on the taggers?

2013-05-19T07:21:00.002-07:00

Berlin's fine street art defaced by tags

Berlin’s East Side Gallery is a fine example of the difference between street art and tagging. Street art is all about artistic expression whereas tagging is about identity.

Street art is designed (and I use that word deliberately) to make a comment, to raise political awareness, to enhance a neighbourhood, to make the passerby think while enjoying a visual spectacle. Tagging is all about defacing the environment in the name of self and what is worse, it goes straight over fine examples of art. Street art takes skill, tagging doesn’t.

It's a crying shame to see Melbourne's Hosier Lane, which has hosted artists like Le Rat and Banksy, graffitied over by nobodies who can do no more with a spray can than squiggle their ‘name’ for want of a better word. Even Mr Squiggle could do better. Most of these taggers are teenagers who will one day grow out of their childish habits. If only they would grow out of it more quickly.

Taggers have spoiled some fine artistic and political
comment on Berlin's East Side Gallery with their
nasty little tags which all say me, me me.

What can be done to reduce the problem blighting cities all around the world? For a start councils could ban the sale of spray paints to under 18 year olds. Though not always effective, it’s a start, as are store lock-ups. Maybe education is the way to go. If young taggers were educated and encouraged to use art to express themselves they might see how crass those tags really are.

Hosier Lane Melbourne

Where's the artistic merit?

Letter to Boris: Fix the Litter

2013-04-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

Dear Boris

Could you please, please, please help clean up Litter London?

As you love to say, London is the best city in the world, but is it fast becoming one of the dirtiest too?

On every stroll around this fabulous walking city, you can’t help but notice rubbish littering footpaths and roads, markets and High Streets, parks and waterways, gutters and lanes, railway lines and bus routes. It is so very depressing.

Picnicers in Harringay have thoughtfully made a neat pile of their
litter but they need to think a little harder and take it home with them.

So often I see people discarding litter carelessly without a thought for the consequences. Cigarette ends, chewing gum, receipts, tickets, chip wrappers and packaging are thrown to the ground with abandon. Thickets and hedges, still bare from winter, are frequently traps for litter and make a sorry sight with their tangles of rubbish.

London needs an education campaign to build awareness that our environment is being ruined. Even the Tube is not exempt with half eaten sandwiches, chicken bones and spilled drinks rattling around the carriage with the newspapers. I ask you...is that OK? Your banning of alcohol on the tube has been a great success and many admire you for doing what the majority want and not kowtowing to a vocal minority. Now we need please-take-your-rubbish-with-you announcements along with the regular reminders to keep belongings close-by.

Just like a makeover and spruce up make us feel good about ourselves, a clean-up campaign would have the knock on effect of bringing back some pride in the environment and make Londoners feel good about their city...sort of like the Olympics did.

Even the Tube is treated as a rubbish dump.

You love to extol London’s virtues. Why not start a Clean Capital Campaign and encourage schools to participate. Perhaps you could ask your friend Dave to spread the word countrywide because so many verges along highways and byways are shamefully strewn with litter.

OK it would cost a little, but you could run a competition for home made ads like you get on YouTube and ask the BBC to run them as community announcements. Besides, it would pay for itself anyway in reduced road sweeping and garbage collections.

Just think Boris, you could be remembered as the PM... oops, I mean mayor, who put his dosh where his mouth is and created a city so clean it was the envy of the world.