Thinking and Wilting

With all this dangerous and subversive thinking I've been doing on the bike, I've managed to formulate several trains of thought I later discovered to be established philosophical paradigms, often dating back to the Greeks. So my ego deflates at my unoriginality, but at least I'm in good company.

Apparently I'm a hedono-anarcho-primito-apocaloptimist if I string everything together, which broadly means I like the kind of freedom that kicks permission in the nuts, simple but elegant comforts, and plan to thoroughly enjoy watching society implode when the technological singularity grips in a few decades. Bye-bye Dickensian hierarchy, hello inherent egalitarianism. (I've probably misspelled these prefixes, and may indeed have made a couple up, but who really gives a shit about Latin outside academic ivory towers and Harry Potter fans?)

Now, some people might think this just another political rant, but I'm talking about a much larger perspective than socialism versus capitalism, here. Technology is catalyzing such a colossal change in western culture we're entering completely unexplored territory. (Socialism doesn't work, it is said, because a few members of society will always be capitalists (our societies are too large and unintegrated for the social repercussions of selfishness to be effective), while capitalism requires secrecy and cunty behaviour to operate: inevitable perpetual transparency will force both to go away.)

I think we're reverting to behaving the way we've most evolved to, and our drift back to the village is the first step towards this more communal living. Think about it: we've spent perhaps 400 generations as property-owning agriculturalists, but the previous hundreds of thousands of generations lived in small, social, largely self-sufficient groups. Which lifestyle do you think we're more comfortable with?

Technology increases access to information, and the powers that be typically derive their influence from controlling that access, so the two are constantly at odds. The powerful want to keep us regular folk arguing among ourselves, not questioning every move our extorted tax dollars make. Unfortunately for them, technology is growing exponentially from a global wellspring, and people all over the world can now communicate instantaneously, for free, despite myriad efforts to stem the flow. The fractious natures of the world's governments and their sponsoring corporations are their own stumbling blocks. This selfish, grasping, my precious mentality I've been going on about, works to their disadvantage. Which is sweet justice indeed.

See, when technology and biology finally and meaningfully merge (if the overwhelming consensus of futurists' predictions hold true), we'll be actually able to sense each other's thoughts, or moods at the very least. As dark as this promises to be, I imagine we'll rapidly familiarize with the novelty, and models of acceptable behaviour will revert to previous village-like integration, finally sloughing the crippling shadow of strict Victorian influence. And this time we won't have some rat-faced inbred lording over us playing peasant Whac-A-Mole.

I'm looking forward to the antisocial ideas of property, race and organized religion, that've been cluttering culture since we started planting crops, being soberly reassessed. I've often wondered at the universal ridiculousness of one bit of the biosphere claiming to own another, and inexorably come to the conclusion that property = violence. Without violence, property is meaningless, even when we dress the wolf in the sheep's clothing of legislation and a police force.

Of course, I would've discovered this far sooner if I read more philosophy books, but there aren't enough explosions, car chases, or lusty sluttish women to be found amongst the pedantry, as far as I'm concerned. And I've been too spoiled by the likes of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams to wade through dusty pages of rhetoric without the promise of at least a chuckle to lure me on.


Dunblane
'If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.' - J.R. Tolkien

After three and a half weeks on the road, I decided it was time to go on the Big Piss.

I mapped some pubs and a route, and after securely locking my bike and trailer in camp, I headed off on foot for a hostelry engagingly titled The Tappit Hen, located in the shadow of Dunblane's grandiosely labelled 'cathedral', which is really just a sizeable church.

The liquid personalities were all less than £3 a pint, however, which dared me to try at least one of each and more of the ones I liked, and there were six.

A few happy hours later I swayed exuberantly out of the Hen and meandered to the Riverside, cheerily acknowledging every passersby with a lurid wink or conspiratorial gesture on the way. (My inexplicable favourite became the discrete index finger nose rub of The Sting fame. I'm not even sure what it means, but it feels like we're sharing a secret, which is always fun.)

The Riverside was more of a fancy restaurant than a pub, and I felt rather out of place sitting at the bar while Dunblane's suitably attired waltzed in for dinner. I delved into a menu, alerted like a sniffer dog to the Gallic semen word aioli, downed my pint and lurched heroically over the bridge to the Village Inn. This was far more my scene.

I got talking to a few construction lads sitting at the bar. I can't say I miss the hardship of the decades I spent in such work, but I do miss the banter of men who measure their day in sweat, blood and bruises. There's a purity to physical professions that infuses their opinion with authority, a purity that can't be matched by those who get paid to sit in the air-conditioning, me now included. Making friends quickly, we downgraded to the slightly grubbier Dunblane Hotel over the road, and spent the rest of the evening solving global problems. I do vaguely remember quizzing everyone in the bar about their opinions on Scottish devolution, hopefully with my trousers on, which they wholeheartedly dismissed as a stupid idea. In fact, during my entire time in Scotland I didn't find a single supporter of the movement, which I didn't expect at all. Mind you, I didn't ask as many people as I perhaps should've.

Drunk hungry at kicking out time, the fish 'n' chip shop (that also bizarrely sold cigarettes) across the road was shut. However, one of the lads told me of an exceptional Indian restaurant up the hill, so I said my goodbyes and wobbled up the incline on legs no longer familiar with this level of inebriation.

I decided quite quickly that the India Gate Tandoori was far too nice for the likes of me and ordered to go, with a pint while I waited. Curry in a tent on a golf course? I mused, leaning heavily against the bar and feeling a Tom Jones song coming on, first time for everything.

Now, you know the popular marketing idea that people don't remember what you say, but how you made them feel? The same seems to be true with late night curries. I don't recall what I ordered, but back in the tent I experienced some kind of gastronomic rapture. Damn, it was good. I woke up the next morning wearing it like a balaclava, but damn, it was good.

Day 27
Today was all rain. Ambitions for the road dashed, I fired up season five of Mad Men. I did need some food, however, so after a couple of episodes I made a run for Tesco. On the way, a window cleaner, obviously far more capable than I after our night in the Dunblane Hotel, grinned at my dishevelled appearance and bid me a hearty good morning.

This little connection struck me immediately, despite my delicate condition. The humanity in it. I'd made friends in a foreign town, not out in the countryside, where such interactions are more expected. The ritual of the pub seems to subvert the 'stranger' barrier. I couldn't for the life of me remember his face or what we talked about the night before, but it gave me a little glow of community I didn't know I'd been missing. British pubs are good for that: they typically serve as the living room of the neighbourhood. Bars elsewhere seldom fulfill the same role.

Tesco
My goal was sausages, and the result was more sausages. I bought so many sausages in my befuddling hangover I created an instant oligarchy of Scottish sausage barons and established Dunblane as the new Offal Capital of the World. Not content with clearing the supermarket shelves, I staggered under the massive weight of my meaty purchases to a local artisan butcher's shop, whose window pies had been rioting for my attention the previous couple of days. I ordered a warm chicken and ham, and while I disappointed at the use of a microwave the butcher introduced me to my first truly impenetrable Scottish accent.

It was a granite surge of consonants. I'm fairly used to Scottish accents having grown up in an English town with a high percentage of retirees from north of the border, so I managed to decipher the occasional 'big man', which I took to be a compliment, but the rest could easily have been coded attempts at homosexual grooming or suggestions for what meat products I might prefer addressing rectally. I nodded neutrally and said 'absolutely' and 'indeed' whenever a gap appeared in the staccato. I like to think the universe's hidden camera will ultimately cut to the lonely incoherent butcher grimly masturbating by an empty public toilet glory hole and percussively barking 'fukkin' cocktease!' in subtitles after an appropriately comedic pause.

Back in the tent I cooked up some links with peppers and onions and finished off season five of Mad Fucks. I loaded up the first few episodes of Deadwood for a change more than anything else, but again, like when it first came out, I couldn't get into it after the first couple.

The next day was a Saturday, and my electronics needed recharging after the last few days of laziness. I hiked to Dunblane library, but weekend hours eventually steered me towards a coffee shop. How expensive can it be? I reasoned, in my hangover's hangover. It was ten quid for two cups of tea, a croissant and a scone. So this is how the Scots were able to give up their plundering ways.

Disillusioned, I went back to the tent and started on season six of Mad Tits. I did do a quick run to the cigarette/chip shop at 8 pm, however, just to see if fish 'n' chips away from the northeast coast of Yorkshire continued to be lesser fare. They do, but they were cheap and filling, and that was good enough.

Day 29
I was going to set off this morning but the forecast rain dissuaded me. The window of time to find an appropriately secluded campsite in Callander would be too small, I reasoned, if the rain stopped at noon and I set off then. And I needed to buy some waterproof pants and gaiters, but nowhere in Dunblane, as far as Google was concerned, sold such things at a reasonable price.

I decided to leave the next morning, Monday, so I could stop by the library for recharging and still have time to see Doune Castle of Monty Python's Holy Grail and Game of Thrones' Winterfell fame.

Castle Doune
I pulled up to the junction leading off to the castle, and a burly road worker (by appearance, at least), blocked the way with a 'road closed' sign. I asked him if I could still get through with a bicycle, as most road works leave a channel for pedestrians. He said 'no', and refused to elaborate. Usually construction lads with such jobs are glad of a chance to chat, not this dude. Strange. After further tight-lipped answers, I figured they must be filming GoT today, and reconsidered the importance of television in general. In hindsight, I should've made up a bullshit story of travelling the world by bicycle visiting Python sites or some other such nonsense, and got him to engage the production company via walkie-talkie. Might've worked. I couldn't care a fig for the stars of the production, you understand, though I love the show, I just wanted to see the castle. I'm a big castle man, if you haven't figured this out yet.

Callander
On to Callander library for work and recharging, I scoped out a camping spot in the woods on the way. I arrived an hour or so before they closed for lunch. During the enforced break I walked to the main street and brunched on five custard doughnuts and a cup of tea, and memorable they were, too. Thereafter I visited an outdoors shop to buy some waterproof trousers, and baulked at the £22 price tag. So I bought some silicon spray instead, determining to spray my regular trousers and render them waterproof. Like that was ever going to work.

The library closed at five. Rain relocated me to the nearest pub, one Crags Hotel, and I spent the vast majority of my time bullshitting with the locals rather than getting any work done. Still, I managed to get pretty lubricated, and waiting for the rain to ease seemed to increase its intensity. By 11 pm, it was fuck it time.

The place I'd selected to camp was off the bicycle track coming in to Callander, elevated off the path (people tend to look down elevations rather than up) and hidden by a bank and some trees. However, I was drunk and got lost several times. It was only while trying to wrestle my rig through several inches of mud in a pitch black farmer's field a good mile from the nearest street light I realized I need to start being more systematic about my navigation. I propped the bike up, covered myself with the bike poncho, and fired up the GPS.

On a positive note, I did invent a few new swearing combos.

On a negative note, my dedicated sleeping bag drybag isn't. There is nothing worse than going to bed wet and cold. Scratch that: yes there is: waking up wet and cold, knowing you have to change into colder wet clothing. The next morning I grimaced and did it anyway, packed up, and hit the road hard to generate some warmth.