990622.0101 tamarisk farm , agnes

i lie on my bed in johann’s lean-to . whitewashed granite walls , sloping corrugated roof , blue and white striped cotton curtains , a bare bulb slung from the ceiling . the wind has dropped and i hear only the ever-present grinding of the sea .

my heart is filled with emotion . tomorrow i move to st mary’s . my boxes are packed and arrangements have been made with the launch and the carriers . i know i will return regularly to this island and my nostalgia is foolish . but i do feel that i am leaving . my relationship with the place and its people will change . but something of me remains .

it has been an evening of intense experience . supper with johann included crab , potatoes and mange touts from the island . john elliot gardiner’s heart-stopping recording of bach’s st matthew passion in the background ( or perhaps the foreground ) then i attempted to set up a bt talk21 email account for mike and christine hicks , which aroused the usual rage at the pitiful shambles of desktop operating systems , and particularly windows . i accidentally discovered a highly entertaining site at http://www.clickfree.co.uk , which i don’t imagine will be there very long .

after i’d done all i could with mike’s machine , we went outside with his four and a quarter inch telescope . today is the solstice , with a half moon to boot , so there was rather a lot of light around . but it is a perfectly clear night , and there is minimal light pollution here , so the views were still startling to me . at 170 times naked-eye size mike showed me stars which were actually binaries , mars clearly visible as a ruddy disc , the moon swollen beyond the lens’ bounds with her razor-crisp pocks and gashes . my first opportunity to use the star-chart which christian brought me when he came to stay . i was transfixed .

finally i went for a walk round the coast in the moonlight , as i have done so many times before . memories of all those previous explorations surged across my consciousness as i trod across sand , grass and boulder , the cradle of the bishop rock , peninnis head and round island lights holding me always in its rhythmic swing .

990623.0054 watermill , st mary’s

lying in my tent , a hitec green pod nestling amidst the trees which surround gaz and button’s wooden cabin . although it has been an afternoon of unbroken sun there is now a gentle soft rain pattering on the trees and on the gossamer membrane about me .

i lie on my front in my cosy purple bag , cushioned on the light blue mat bought for yoga practice but scarcely ever used . my large and small rucsacks lie beside me on the left ( there is plenty of space ) . my camera is to my right . the cardboard box containing all my clothes is under a projection of the fly-sheet , accessible from where i lie by unzipping a mesh screen .

i have clipped my tiny maglite to one of the eyes which secures a panel over the window above my head . it hangs down , shedding a pool of light over the screen and keyboard of my psion . just enough to work by .

if i am not mistaken , the last time i slept in a tent was in february last year , in a clearing off a dirt road half-way up a mountain in northern madeira . i was travelling with three friends from finland , who were filming for a multimedia project . kirmo , matti and pepe .

prior to that it was july 1997 , when i spent some time treking in lapland with kirmo . one of the most magical journeys i have ever been on .

as i knew would be the case , i find myself enormously relieved to have the move behind me , to be able to get to work sorting eveything out again . the event itself was no great trauma . the sun and the cheerfulness of everyone made it pass lightly . this morning on agnes ( technically yesterday morning ) i stacked all my boxes in a tall wire cage . johann’s eternal tractor has an ingenuous fork-lift attachment which hoisted up my worldly goods and rattled them down to the quay . tuesday is a big delivery day since the steamship company’s freighter , the gry maritha , makes a crossing from penzance . consequently the scene at launch ( as it is called ) was frenetic . many of the island men ( and a few ladies ) come down to load and unload the lyonsse lady , the artery connecting the off islands to st mary’s . i took lots of photos .

once everything was unloaded , my caged boxes were hoisted aboard , along with my bicycle , and we were off . a lovely crossing , many yachts on the water . the crew had fun with the air-horn on my bike ( repeatedly ) . at st mary’s the carriers were waiting at the quay . my things were winched onto a truck and away we went on the final leg . most of the boxes were dropped off in the shed at normandy farm , which its owner had swept out and also installed a desk consisting of a big door , complete with its handle , on sturdy trestles . it still smells a bit odd ( but the dead starlings have gone ) and bt haven’t quite managed the line yet , but i have a good feeling about it . the first home of the scillonia digital workshop .

finally up to watermill with the last couple of boxes . a brief audience with florence watts , the delightfuly sharp-witted eighty-year-old whose land this is . then unfurl the tent , set up and enjoy a lovely evening with gaz and button . after supper we watched david lean’s film of blithe spirit , noel coward’s superb play . rex harrison and margaret ruthorford starring .

the torchlight is yellowing . it’s getting harder and harder to write .

990623.1523 watermlll

the light finally gave out as i slipped my psion into on of the tent’s pockets and turned my thoughts to sleep . i slept well , though i will be glad to have something a little softer on which to lie . i woke up to birdsong and dappled light .

one observation i wanted to make last night is that there was no mention of money in my dealings with the launch or the carriers . it is simply assumed that i will , at some point , visit their offices and settle up . a fair price will , fairly arbitrarily , be decided in each instance . this is the usual style of business out here , based on trust , informality and individual discretion . it works well and i like it .

i’ve already spent about an hour this afternoon speaking to bt , trying to sort out the line to my office . but this is becoming an overly-protracted despatch . time to draw to a close and send it .

: cH

990618.1641 penzance , cornwall

a bench outside the heliport , sitting in the ferocious sunlight . i’ve been off the islands for almost two weeks , my longest absence so far . in little more than a week i must return again to london for my monthly set meeting . after that i hope it will be possible to stay in the islands uninterrupted for four weeks .

.1831 porthmellon , st mary’s

the beach is deserted other than myself , tucked amongst some rocks , and a man rigging his wayfarer dinghy . it is calming to sit and hear only the gentle churning of the waves on the sand .

there’s a boat for agnes at 1950 , following this evening’s gig race . until then i’ll drift around , reabsorbing this place .

a second wayfarer is wheeled onto the beach . a third dinghy , this time of a different denomination . a fourth mast can be seen approaching from the road . perhaps a race is in the offing ?

last saturday , in london , i enlisted craig’s assistance in choosing a tent . perhaps there’s something about software engineers that beguiles one into trusting their advice ? it always sounds so logical and well-considered . in any case the rucksack and sleeping bag he helped me select a couple of years ago have served me well . the tent we settled on is notionally specified for three men , though how this measure is arrived at remains mysterious to me . it looks as though it would be comfortable for two . ideal for one , plus a few boxes . enough ventilation to avoid it becoming an oven in bright weather . sufficient anchorage to prevent it taking to the air in windy weather . it will be tested hard on both counts .

during the next week i must gather my boxes from johann’s barn and the gugh , mount them onto pallettes , ship them to st mary’s and have them taken by road to their new homes . i must set up office in a shed at normandy farm ( hopefully a phone line has been installed by now ) and erect my tent beside gaz and button’s cabin at watermill . i must also put together a web page to go with the sse recruitment poster i produced with bobo and seb whilst in london . the prospects for a relaxing week are somewhat slim .

the boathouse doors are open and the st mary’s gigs are being prepared for launching . time to head back towards the quay .

.1949 the seahorse

everything’s falling back into place . as i was walking off porthmellon i recognised some familiar faces by the boathouse . now that shah ( the agnes gig ) is laid up for maintenance , her crew is racing in islander . it was they i saw preparing for action , all looking very tanned . tonight’s race is from st mary’s to agnes , so the turk’s head will be busy later . gigs mill restlessly about the harbour . golden eagle , nournour , bonnet , islander . czar arrives , towed from tresco by a fishing boat . the flotilla of spectator boats detaches from the quay and jostles for position around the gigs .

more boats arrive : dolphin , tregarthens , men a vaur . they form a line ready to start . all at once several crews start rowing , thinking the race has begun . but the race official , here aboard seahorse , orders them back to the line .

they’re off !

good heavens , islander is in the lead . nearly a full length ahead of czar .

but czar pulls up , then bonnet , then golden eagle , which almost clips its oars against the steval rocks . come on islander !

it’s a long row to agnes . the final order is : golden eagle , czar , bonnet , islander , nornour , dolphin , men a vaur , tregarthens . a very respectable showing from the agnes crew .

990619.1143 tamarisk farm , st agnes

back where i started . johann’s letting me stay while i organise the move to st mary’s . it’s change-over day for visitors and this morning i helped change the bedlinen . it was strange being in the house where i lived through february , march and april . it seemed very bare .

my proposal for the digital workshop seems to have gone down well with the council’s economic development committee . i am summoned to make a presentation at their next meeting . and the duchy land steward sent a friendly ( though non-committal ) response to the proposals i sent him . it all feels like modest progress . enough to be going on with .

: cH

990603.1833 st mary’s

perched on the side of a dinghy in front of keith buchannan’s sailing school on porthmellon beach . there’s a good steady breeze , strobing clouds across the sun . a couple of windsurfers dart back and forth between the moored yachts . samson , bryher and tresco spread hazily across the horizon . four children play with buckets , spades and a ball at one end of the beach . around me boats are pulled up on the sand , halliards jangling in unsteady counterpoint against their masts .

here i am , transitory in the midst of it all , unsure of so many things . i am barely back from london and returning once more on saturday . the rapid alternation of gugh and the metropolis leaves me jarred , dislocated . my time on the little island is drawing to a close in any case . rhondda and alan are back for the summer and my work calls me to st mary’s . a tent remains my most likely habitation but it seems there may be a shed i can employ as an office . i need nothing more . the prospect of moving my belongings once again , uprooting and resettling , adds to my sense of indeterminacy . i am of no place , rootless . perhaps this is the state i sought through this project ? certainly it affords a clarity unlike any i have known before .

the world moves darkly on but i find myself avoiding news in a way i have not done before . the correlation between experience of mass media and my state of mind became obvious during my time on gugh .

keith comes over and we talk for a few minutes . he thinks this state at which i’ve arrived means it is time for me to get a boat and take the next logical step , break all remaining geographical ties . of course that is something i have thought about . perhaps the time is nearing .

i suppose i sound gloomy , but really that is not how i feel . my current situation exerts a certain pressure on me , touches on some deep fears . i do not find these days easy , but i rarely choose my steps for their ease .

my writing is indulgent . is this inevitable ?

: cH

990520.1423 the kingfisher

casting off from the quay at agnes bound for st mary’s . about fifty day-trippers , mostly towards the senior end of the spectrum . a beautiful day . blue sky and enough breeze to raise white crests . this feels like summer .

my time on gugh is coming to an end . rhondda returns tomorrow morning and although she has said there is no hurry for me to move i do not wish to outstay my welcome . my next habitation remains unresolved . when i arrived it soon became apparent that finding accommodation for the summer was going to be difficult . demand far exceeds supply and it is a constant struggle for islanders’ children to get places of their own . as my work here proceeded i realised that i would need to spend an increasing amount of time on st mary’s , the island where the council , the duchy offices , the secondary school and most of those who are becoming involved in the digital workshop are situated . for the last few months i have been putting out feelers , hoping that something would come up . every promising lead has come to a dead end , and i sense some anxiety in myself about this .

it is not hopeless . if all else fails i can live in a tent . but this would pose problems for my equipment and for my work .

yet i maintain my faith that everything will work out .

we round newman point and begin our approach to hugh town harbour , now filled with yachts flying british and french ensigns .

last week a yacht crossing from the azores was wrecked on a rock off annett . its master was making the passage single-handed and it seems he may have fallen asleep after four days crossing the bay of biscay , coping with high seas and an unreliable autohelm .

a german visitor staying on agnes phoned the coastguard around two in the morning reporting a flare . mike hicks , the island’s senior coastguard , was roused and went round the shore with a torch . but he saw nothing . the yacht had struck hard on the rock and filled with water before a mayday could be transmitted . its master resorted to a liferaft which luckily drifted to agnes , making shore at troytown . his yacht was floated off on the next day’s high tide and towed at a snail’s pace to st mary’s , filled with inner tubes to keep her afloat . it was the most pitiful sight .

990521.2321 gugh

preparing to leave for london tomorrow morning . i’ll have to be across the bar by nine or the tide’ll cut me off . rhondda got back this afternoon and didn’t seem too disturbed by the state of her house / cats / plants after a couple of weeks under my care . amazing.

: cH

990517.2348 gugh

those half-baked thoughts on tv provoked more responses than anything else i’ve written . it seems that more of my friends are thinking about it than i realised . i’d like to broadcast some of their responses . hope that’s okay with everyone concerned .

from stefan schutt
<
I remember nights in front of the TV while I was in high school; my sister and mother motionless, emotionless, inert, the blue light flickering on their faces.

I remember getting fidgety, feeling uneasy with the random grab-bag of information straming its way into our brains, undigested, unending.

I remember eventually escaping to another room, finding things to do (in Whyalla, a small steel town in the South Australian desert, there’s not much to do in the “outside” world)

You could borrow Karl-baby’s “opiate of the masses” phrase to describe this phenomenon – but at least some versions of religion encourage reflection, spritual initiative, personal evaluation. TV – at least in its mainstream form – encourages you to be passive, or to react, knee-jerk, from the impotent comfort of your living room.

For the information you get is ready-made, packaged, polished, perfect – what more could you, the amateur, in your infinite lack of knowledge, possibly contribute to that?
>

from margaret crosthwaite
<
It’s scary stuff – I get a deep sense of horror in moments of ‘conciseness’ when watching TV with other people, addictive gazes on our faces…

– it seems to lower people into a ‘base’ state and what is absorbed in this state of ‘surrender’ informs our attitudes, decisions interactions with others throughout our whole lives … and once seen can not be unseen.

I was quite interested in this subject when I was at college and decided to take a fresh look at the design of television remote controls (there are a whole load of issues related to power/control/gender/life stages that are reflected in how/who uses the remote control).

I did a range of different concept designs – but the simplest was to have more than one remote control to diffuse the power. It suddenly seemed absurd that only one person should have the access to control and others watching seemed handicapped to do anything to influence what was watched or turn it on/off. ( I used the metaphor of a ‘fruitbowl’ containing a number of simple remote controls which was offering control to everyone equally)
>

from sebastian neerman
<
i think the strongest attraction comes from our fascination with stories. Myths, parables, sayings, heroes, songs, historical anectodes, jokes…. the papers, TV… they’e all creators. and they all rely on shared familiarity. the basic stock of stories to any culture will always be limited. Subjected to the familiarising, we then bring the infinite to it and it forms us in our own ways. add some salt, stir and wait for 5 mins…

During a chessgame with an imp, the introspective, intellectual Steppenwolf realisedthat he was nothing but a collection personalities/characters like the pieces on the board. Taken individually in their crude extreme form, they seemed to reflect nothing of his own nature. In sum, he saw the contour of his own face. In a seedy Berlin cabaret bar, moved by the jazz and booze (!), he overcame the morose faustian streak that had been aflicting him. he learnt to start laughing with the rest of the world.
>

from rosie rayner
<
I have not watched TV for two years. I find when I watch it that the subliminal images are very powerful and that I am deeply effected by their demands. I remember and Iceland advert making me thing that I really should be married to some arian bloke baking for him and the kids. It surprised me that and advert could be that powerful.
>

from ash nehru
<
Ghod you do write a lot of bollocks sometimes.
>

with which i bid you adieu . the tide has ebbed the full distance of its current equinoctial springs . an amber crescent of moon rises low in a star-filled sky . the wind freshens .

: cH

990511.1904 gugh

over the last week i have watched some television broadcasts , having
previously seen none since arriving in the islands . i have sampled a range of programmes : news and current affairs , historical documentary , serial drama , mainstream comedy , off-beat comedy , advertisments . my primary response is of nervousness and distaste . i do not much like the society these products represent .

i have never invested a great deal of my time in television viewing . probably it reached a peak of fifteen hours a week in 1996 and fell away almost to nothing after that . but i have never so specifically avoided it as i have these last months . nor have i observed it with such a sense of critical detachment as i have this last week .

it is sobering for me to reflect how unquestioningly i viewed it in the past . from my earliest childhood the television set was there , situated at the focal point of successive sitting rooms . rooms symbolising familial privacy , security from the outside world , safety . in these rooms one’s behaviour was unguarded , trusting . and there , alongside my father’s , mother’s and sister’s voices were the multitude of other voices . each in its way as familiar as those of , well , my family .

of course i did not blindly accept all that those voices said , any more than i did what my parents said ( i was an impossible child ) . but i never questioned the act itself , the ritual of fixating on a bulging rectangle of glass , listening to the thin sound , reconstructing people and a world in my imagination . nor did i question how this act might over time be changing me . i was an intelligent child and i did not question these things . at university i studied critical theory and mass culture yet still i did not question these things . it took my relocation to a tiny island and an instinctive decision to fast from this habit before the questions became apparent . the experience is of a spell broken . i shall not see things the same way again .

what we have in our homes , wrapped in the innocent mantle of furniture , is a story-teller . one with the ability to bring numberless characters and scenes to life . traditionally we react differently to someone telling us a story than we do to a neighbour telling us his barn is afire and our help is needed . but the mechanical story-teller has overcome this boundary . by telling the same stories to enough people , by establishing shared familiarity with a range of characters , something is constructed which is able to pass as reality . of course we the audience are firmly in control , able to switch on and off , change channel at will . but in this relationship i wonder where the power really lies .

it is interesting . although my ethnography is expressly focused on this little community , i find myself reflecting quite as much on the world i left .

: cH

990505.2341 the gugh

well here i am , my first night of proper solitude . rhondda left at quarter past two . the rising tide called back the last few trippers some three hours later . i watched , fascinated , as the strip of dry sand narrowed with each wave until finally the water was unbroken . the gugh had a human population of one .

it does feel odd . from where i am working i can see the sand bar , or the water which covers it , just by looking over my left shoulder . throughout the evening i found myself periodically staring out that way , seeing the puckered grey surface of the water where the tide flowed over the sand .

the party on sunday night to celebrate the conclusion of the gig championships was a marvellous affair , located on a farm in the middle of st mary’s . a stage had been built from scaffolding , polythene and wooden palettes . this stood at one end of field , its boundaries defined by bare grey trees which reached up and met thirty or forty feet above the ground . it was like the skeleton of some crazy gaudi folly . in the centre of this space an enormous bonfire had been laid . coloured lights were strung along the trees and across the front of the stage . elsewhere two barns housed a bar and a barbecue .

it had been a blazingly gorgeous day . but as the sun sank a fog descended and with it an expectant hush . i arrived early with < touching cloth > , the evening’s main band . after a rudimentary sound check we wandered up to the bar . then it seemed as if the place was suddenly thronged with people . most of the evening is a blur . i was up on stage for a few songs , playing my soprano sax with appropriate gusto , but i suspect it was generally inaudible . the fire was damn hot . i think i took some photos . everyone seemed to be having a good time . especially james watt , to whom i spoke for the first time having conversed formerly by email . somehow he managed to demolish ten feet of granite wall through the sheer force of his dancing . didn’t do his ankle any good though . i remember walking up to watermill along the moonlit road with gaz and button .

monday was a quiet day .

: cH

990501.2345 the gugh

a different room . unambiguously a study . twin-pedestal desk , floor-to-ceiling books , pictures of boats , quills , paint-brushes , a red and white striped model lighthouse , friendly clutter .

my boxes jiggled across behind johann’s tractor this morning , myself following close by bike . i was rather reminded of the music hall song which begins < my old man said follow the van > , though the absence of a cock linnet did spoil the effect . there was a real sense of passage as we crossed the sand bar , waves nibbling on either side , and achieved the islet from which i now write .

my goods deposited we returned to tamarisk farm and spent a pressed hour making the place ready for the arrival of the year’s first proper guests . it was heartbreaking to leave , but bearing in mind i was originally expecting to be there only until the end of february i must consider myself a lucky sod .

this weekend the islands are hosting the gig world championships . i may have explained before , but a gig is conventionally a wooden boat of around fifteen feet rowed by six men each of whom takes one oar . historically they have played an important role in the islands’ life , and still each island fields at least one boat and crew for weekly races during the summer . agnes’ representative is the shah , a splendid vessel built in the 1870s and painted bright blue .

in recent years the sport has been gaining popularity elsewhere , and the championships now attract more than sixty boats from britain , the netherlands , germany and the states . the opening event was on friday evening , with all the crews lining up off agnes and racing to st mary’s . the sea was smooth and a fog hung across the islands . it was beautiful and mysterious to see the flotilla of gigs and spectator boats weaving across the water in the flat light , shadowy islands discernable on all sides . the whole thing is delightfully unpretentious . everyone just gets on with what they’ve come here to do .

i watched a couple more races today , then came back across to gugh to start unpacking . the rising tide was almost across the bar by the time i realised i needed to stock up on groceries . i made the shop and got what i sought , but my feet got a wetting on the return as i leapt from stone to stone amidst the rising water . somehow this seemed an appropriate baptism .

: cH