CURRENT MISSION

Finish PhD, learn languages, walk, camp and cycle the world

ABOUT ME

I am currently pursuing a PhD in Contemporary Literature. It’s all about the earth’s new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, salvagepunk, and solarpunk and on life in the ruins.

I thus spend my days reading fun and crazy and fascinating fiction, oddball eco-philosophy and am pretty ecologically minded. Otherwise the literature of walking and food is good.

I think there's never enough fun in houses. Too much is given over to 'sitting/living rooms'. Slumped on sofas isn't living! I want to see funky papier mache and found object sculpture, wood carving, slack lines, olympic rings & horses, skateboard half-pipes, punch bags, wine presses, hammocks, monkey bars, rope swings, slides and climbing frames and throwing-knife targets instead of sofas, objets d'art and tvs. This is what the main room of the house should be about - getting energetic, dirty, frisky and weird in. The ability to messily paint, throw glitter around and make things, dance like you’re possessed, to swing the proverbial cat and and when it flies loose, not worry about splatters of blood and gore. That's a living room to me.
And don’t get me started on the layout of houses… Bring back the centrepiece of the hearth! Everything should revolve around the energy source. The moveable, transient bed, the workshop as the hub of one’s life!

LIKES

I like errancy, idling & loitering, places accessible only by chance, ideal situations for infinite possibilities, riding banisters, raiding skips, those times between desire and regret, ornamental gourds & giant vegetables, circus acrobatics, macro yoga, modularity, minimalism & simplicity, degrowth, low-tech, punkabbestia, debranding things, religious irreverence, cobb & Adobe architecture, tasteful sin, pins & needles, box fights/wars, billhooks, utilitarian & practical bicycles, chess, codpieces, tattoos & piercings, eccentric haircuts, the contents of gutters, skinny-dipping, yoga, circus-acrobatics, packrafts, longboards, green tea, sign language, midnight prowling, house gymnastics, open source, permaculture, fruit stickers, prostitute cards, heavily bejewelled fingers, bawdy and satiric literature, oddly positioned self-portraits, bleak short stories, an e-reader in a pocket, atheism, grotesques, body painting, polaroid nudes, etymology, Freeganism, Swann Morton scalpels, tramping, spending the night in a cold and wet bivvy bag on Welsh & Scottish hills, sniffing fresh marker pens, found things, pocket knives, places of secret quiet, walking on rooftops, boules/quoits, leggings/tights, naked saunas, Ostalgie, girls who wear men's watches, girls wearing no bras, rarely shaving, fee-free races/marathons, superseded but happily sufficient technologies, bringing back the horse and cart, crosswords, backgammon, Radio 3, nudism, obsolete/esoteric first names, not locking the house, peeing all over the bathroom, erotic fiction, Tintin's lifestyle, food dye, bulging veins, espadrilles, naturalism, guerilla gardening, abandoned buildings, having no keys, indecently short shorts, popping out in public, climbing in the manner of Whipplesnaith, cities with rivers flowing through them, being nude on balconies/in windows, huge maps, courtyards with excesses of greenery, papier-mache, Saki, stick 'n' pokes, dirty feet-clean hands, truffles, hyperbole, wearing speedos on the beach, hookers' sauciness, the demotorization of the world, cinghiale, getting caught looking down girls' tops, villains, smoking cigarettes on tops of mountains - Go Smokers!, sex with socks on, the Society of the Friends of Crime, how breasts are drawn in comic books, weeds, scablands, drosscapes, decay, dilapidation, and ruination, patina, i.e. Wabi Sabi, Kaizen, hard pillows, seeing my breath steam in a cold bedroom while under the duvet, futons, suspended beds, clothes moulded to bodies, eating elegantly with my fingers, slurping the end of drinks, wooden kitchenware, macabre pottery, ancient denim, moss, rust, cardamon, fennel, Dark Skies association, compatibility, non-proprietary systems, getting kicked in the balls, depaving the planet, hemp, dremels,

DISLIKES

hoarding, having favourites, advertising, branded goods, logos & labels, truisms & banal repetition of common sense, poker, cupcakes, teabags, fireworks, driving, air travel, religions, trains with sealed windows, nationalism, anything Keep Calm & …, any fetishised old advertising, golf, motorsports, football shirts, "mate", stereotypical male camaraderie, lad culture, watching football, getting smashed while watching sport, large glasses of beer, lads all drinking beers, manly handshakes, monarchies, office/computer chairs, adverts of every kind, uncritical reverence for the hookah, store-bought greeting cards, movie credits & studio graphics before films, musicals, Bond, Bourne, Ironman & Batman etc films, Croc sandals, Irish/Scottish/English pubs abroad, England - "the last, most deeply occupied, British colony", goats & sheep, jar and packet sauces, 99.9% of cosmetic perfumes, DRM/proprietary systems, fabric softener, Beats style headphones, boast brands, the inexplicable UK trend for separate taps in bathrooms, supermarket/chain bakeries, lawns & tidy gardens, banal/vapid municipal flowerbeds, tidy cemeteries, typical coffins, office/business parks, idling cars & noisy machinery - I'm looking at you motor vehicles, hoovers, leaf blowers, chainsaws and lawnmowers, blutac, gardens becoming driveways, Ugg boots, radiators & air conditioners, Richard Curtis films, Monopoly & 95% of board games in general, plastic, bubble wrap, cellophane, cling film and foil packaging, packing tape and sellotape, chrome plating, dust jackets, first editions, most paperback/hardback formats, concrete, asphalt, escalators, moving walkways, onesies & tracksuits, padded, clumpy running shoes, when TVs are the central focus of a room, TV in general, McDonalds, Subway etc, readymeals, the size of supermarkets, new things when old things still work... Coke, Nutella and how utterly banal they are, cinnamon in sweet things, slovenly mediocrity. modern carnivals/circuses - the noise, pollution, litter and cheap plastic and fake food; the smell of deodorant and perfume subsuming a street as someone walks past,

This quote, from Mario Vargas Llosa, The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, is very very key to my outlook:
'a rich, independent mental life demands curiosity, mischief, fantasy, and unsatisfied desires which is to say a 'dirty' mind, evil thoughts and the blossoming of forbidden images and appetites that stimulate exploration of the unknown, renovation of the known, and systematic disrespect toward received ideas, common knowledge, and current values'.

Likewise I cannot stress how crucial a point this is concerning what saddens, annoys or angers me: I am only truly serious when I feel I am combating stupidity, convention, uncritically received ideas & traditions, greed, provincialism, nationalism, and aggression.

I strongly appreciate the notion of preemptive, holistic, Ayurvedic healthcare/lifestyle. I keep as fit, limber & lithe as possible and am absurdly healthy. I love yoga, hiking, kayaking, bicycle touring, (though on as few roads as possible), cross fit style exercise, circus acrobatics and green tea.

Otherwise what I want to indulge the rest of my life in is scholarly "errantry". To be a 'hunter of errata', a 'conquistador of the useless'. I love "loiterature" and the literature of digression and whimsical, polymathic, esoteric, obscure, irrelevant, "useless” knowledge. To be an intellectual vagrant, of continuing adaptable mental flux,if the practicalities of life would so let me...

I wish to spend the next 10/15, if not more, years also indulging in less scholarly “errantry”, long-distance walking and cycling. A slow and leisurely bimble, open to sudden interpretation. A Sebaldian meander. The 4/5 huge American paths - the Continental Divide, Pacific Crest and Appalachian Trails etc... Also the Te Araroa, down the whole of the Danube, around Scandinavia and down around Eastern Europe/the Balkans, to circumvent the Black Sea. I'd like to follow in the footsteps of Nicolas Bouvier and Patrick Leigh Fermor. I greatly appreciate slow, self-sufficient, self-powered travel, its rhythms and the simplicity and minimalism of its pursuit. If a nomad is someone who travels between fixed places, then what do I wish to be? More akin to simply a slow traveller, a bimbler, not fixed to any particular route or rhythm, but happily staying in a place for 4 months, a year, and able to move on easily and simply.

What nicer thing is there to wake at dawn outside, to brew green tea and do yoga with the rising sun before exploring what's beyond the next horizon and always with a justifiable, large and guilt-free appetite? Or to spend a night tossing and turning, hungry, uncomfortable and shivering on an insufficient mattress that barely masks the cold rocks, before finally arising in the murk and howl of wind and rain to pull on grotty, clammy, wet clothing, to put one's feet in cold, gritty, muddy shoes, to eat boring trail mix and tepid instant coffee and pack up sodden kit in the rain and wind and tramp hunched over with aching limbs up a steep scree-ridden path before swiftly getting lost and frustrated with miles and miles to go before the next laundry, shower and supermarket? Nothing could be better! it is about being comfortable with discomfort. Moudling oneself around it and out of it. “Hardship is vanishing, but so is style, and the two are more closely related than the current generation supposes.” - E.M. Forster

I dream longingly of places the internal combustion engine has missed and left blessedly untouched. Marked by an aura of unhurried tranquillity, organised and developed around a rhythm of pleasure and weather. Shade trees and cooling ponds, meandering paths and worn benches, ancient walnuts, peaceful weeds and somnolent dogs, a clatter of crows and carts the only elements coming closest to discordance.

Personal descriptive predilections I like to flatter myself with:
democratic, socialist, anarchist, egalitarian, pacifistic, collectivist, cooperative-ist, anti-authoritarian, and anti-fascist, with a strong emphasis on the dignity and the rights of the individual.
whimsical, mischievous, gently preposterous, intellectually impatient, louche, feral, voracious, sly, devious, lackadaisically irreverent, rigorous, efficient, intensely observant, anomalous, dirty, frisky & weird, troublesome, harroumphing, facetious, flippant, roguish, shameless, truculent, tightly self-contained, agile, minimal, slight, simple, aberrant, given to spontaneous efficiency, pleasingly blasphemous, as blunt as a biscuit
A leisure pirate, buona forchetta, Rabelaisian, slowly descending towards being a punkabbestia, nightcrawler, teratologist, ragamuffin, rapscallion, Anachronaut, elusive deviant, young fopling, miscreant, thief, derelict, pariah, poltroon, spalpeen, curmudgeon, clotpoll, bawd, brigand, toper, tosspot, sot, archsot, lobcock, smellsmock, runagate, rake, felonious debauchee.
Romance at short notice is my speciality.
Older than yesterday, but fascinatingly later than tomorrow.
My glass is being perpetually filled up.
Although sometimes without fail whenever I reach for it I knock it over.
I love nonsense, in all forms, poetry, real life, and fiction. If I could be anyone, I would like to be Clovis Sangrail, a character out of Saki. A fine purveyor of nonsense and disdainful whimsy.
I like making papier mache sculptures.
I like to make ritual objects for tribes that don't exist.
I am interested in what my totem pole would be and making one. Barry Lopez said Eskimos told him that their totem animal was always one who could teach them something they needed to learn. I would like to add, animals which have made one humble. Thus pigeons, hares, hornets, and crows would all feature. Or maybe a totem tattoo?
I still haven't tried opium, mushrooms or acid and very much want to.
I'm absolutely a staunch/fervent atheist and anti-monarchist.
I do know that I like quiet, I like calm, I like organization, I like efficiency, I like solitude, I like peaceful, I appreciate clean and neat. I dislike crowds.
I do know that I like tumultuous parties, bustle, chaos, spontaneity, the down and out, the seedy, the faded and decrepit.
I can only rouse myself to non-competitive participation in sports. i.e. watching, talking, getting agressive and laddy about = no no no.
I am intensely saddened by mediocre food/meals and would be most distraught if the last meal before my death were to be a bad one.
No park bench should uncomfortable to sleep upon save for the inescapable design-constraints of the firmness of its material.
“we are happy in the company of people who make us feel the unquestionable presence of the world” Claudio Magris

Live Fast, Ride Slow!

Twitter - https://twitter.com/WilburNarwhal

PHILOSOPHY

I am increasingly enjoying keeping aware of and cycled to a different calendar, one of equinoxes, solstices and moon cycles. It seems a far more wonderful and joyous organisation to cycle oneself with the moon and the seasons. To feast and celebrate with each astronomical/celestial event rather than an irrelevant Christian calendar. A touch of paganism slips in perhaps, but does not need to. You can like the moon and seasons and not have to heap pseudo-religious sentiment into it. Reverence and thanks do not have to involve deities.

I myself have never been drawn towards a singularity of worship directed towards a single transcendent god, since the idea of a single source of creation, meaning or purpose outside the immediate world which subsumes all others within it has always seemed too centralised and remote. For me, creativity, meanings and purposes have always been multiple, various and amply discernible in the world, not located above or beyond it. I have found insights from many cultural sources helpful and relevant in avoiding spiritual remoteness, but especially so the sort of concept of spirituality that is sketched by the Native American writer Carol Lee Sanchez, who defines being spiritual as being ‘inclined to honour, respect, and acknowledge the elements of our universe (both physical and non-physical) that sustain and nourish our lives’ (Sanchez 1993: 222). 223-224

Thus a ceremony & celebration of the first strawberry, the return of the swallows, the first frost. What is nicer to celebrate the beginning and end of seasons than with a raucous feast, a fire, a swim and a night slept outdoors? Instead of Christmas imagine a celebration of the winter solstice. A bike ride crunching through the frost or a run and roll in the snow, a dip in icy waters, a beaker of mulled wine, an earthy mix of Christmas-y (as they are still fairly seasonal) foods and evergreen decorations, of bacchic revelry in a circle of pines and misty breath. Celebrate turning the compost afresh, uncorking the rumtopf, and sex with the scent of pine needles in the air… Hell Yes!!
Just no error-ridden farce of the biblical story and cheap tawdry traditions. Why the Dickens do we need to farm pine trees and chop them down for 2 weeks of the year or less?! Horrid. And wasteful greetings cards, a mass of light pollution, wrapping paper, slobby over-indulgence, no thanks.

“we are happy in the company of people who make us feel the unquestionable presence of the world”

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Hmm, who's going to say they are grouchy and difficult here? Couchsurfing to me in the material sense means to provide generously of the simple sustenances of life - a good meal, a good shower, a good bed and a quiet, dark place to sleep. Overall it means to practice patience, generosity of spirit, acceptance of alternative views, politeness and consideration of privacy and personal rhythms.
Ha, and Benjamin Franklin said fish and guests start to smell after three days… Don't worry, you'll be chopped up and eaten long before then! Or enslaved in the soundproof torture basement… I at least give people the choice. I’m kind like that.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

A modest number of nights, 20/30 or so, all good/great/weird & wonderful.

Interests

I started training as a chef instead of going to university but after 4 months I had a change of heart, both irresponsible depravity and more literary study seemed more worthwhile than perfect julienne and choux and filo. Food however has remained central - I even hoped to do a PhD about food in literature (Flaubert in particular), but it was too difficult to find a supervisor/funding at a reputable university so I had to give this up. Plus Walter Palter had already sumptuously covered much of it with his The Duchess of Malfi and other Literary Fruits. But I'm going to persevere and it's going to be the 2nd PhD/Post-Doc research if returning to professional cooking doesn't also reassert its influence. The Literary History of the Truffle. Of Words and Bread: The Symbolism of the Staff of Life… or similar, or merely updating Palter - all delicious tasks whichever.

“True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Humanity’s true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect humankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.” Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984

I also increasingly like the idea of eating with one’s fingers. And it can still be elegant. It just has a sensuality that seems so refreshingly foreign to my western upbringing. And when not indulging in this whimsy I greatly appreciate food that can be easily eaten with just a fork or spoon. Thus like the notion of chopsticks, everything should be cut down in the kitchen.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I don't have favourite anythings.

Teach, Learn, Share

A kiss without a moustache is like an egg without salt.

"A pulled-up skirt moves faster than a pair of lowered pants"

Live Fast, Ride Slow!

Death to the Supermarkets
Bake Bread
Action is Futile, Quit moaning, Make Music
Stop Consuming, Start Producing
Back to the Land
Smash Usury, Embrace Beauty, Embrace Poverty
Hail the Chisel
Ignore the State, Reform is Futile
Hail the Spade
Hail the Horse, Hail the Quill
Love thy Neighbour, Be Creative
Free Your Spirit
Dig the Earth
Make Compost
Life is Absurd
We Are Free
Be Merry

Eat healthily and probably less, exercise more.

The old, familiar world of ever-burgeoning growth and consumption is dead, everything is about moulding oneself to be a responsible, ecological citizen of a new world highly attune to, and respectful of finite limits and responsibilities.
We must drastically adapt if we are to live well in the Anthropocene.
Green capitalism/consumerism isn't enough.
There must be a fundamental commitment to the principle of scarcity as an insurmountable fact of life and the consequent limits to growth imposed by a finite system.
But some ancient force in the Western psyche seems to perceive limitation as the demonic obstacle to be eliminated rather than as a discipline to evoke creativity.
Fundamentally radical changes to patterns and modes of thought, politics, practice, aspirations and societal mores are essential.
Consumerism, profit and growth are not the basis of an economy. And economy is not the basis of a nation or country or tribe.
To not be afraid of the reordering of the mind this will entail. Nor of losing the mental armour with which you have long defended yourself and way of life.
Contrary to what Bush said, ways of life are negotiable.
An attitude of “enough” must replace that of “more” through the notion of voluntary simplicity and self-sufficiency.
The middle way between indulgence and poverty. It is about the quality of wealth.
I find the idea of ‘rubbish’ and ‘landfill’ utterly abhorrent.
And on and on…

I cannot really fathom people who say they could never not have a job as they wouldn't know what to do with themselves, or would get ‘bored’. Have they no mind/independence of thought/spirit?!!
Likewise I will admire anyone who refuses to allow their fanciful ambition to be channeled into practical moneymaking ventures.

My idea of a job is about slowly (and even so one with plenty of room and time for digressions) researching something utterly idiosyncratic. And the idea of self-sufficient, self-powered slow travel around the world, by foot or bicycle beats any such job. Interspersed with bouts/rest stops or a month or so for intensive reading/local exploration, this is my idea of life.

I like the ideas of being voluntary “poor", to work little, but volunteer a lot and to pursue personal projects and explorations rather than work. And to be materially/commodity sparse/spartan. This is in reaction to how we produce indiscriminately and consume voraciously, and our status and aspirations are largely judged and dictated by the wealth at our disposal and the nuances of our paid jobs, extent of our possessions, and where we get off for our holidays.
To be single and unemployed and only own a bicycle and no smartphone, oh dear, oh dear.

Thus I genuinely find the idea of unemployment and being essentially 'homeless' ones that need extensive redefinition and renegotiation.
Unpaid work, volunteering, caring, independent study, meditation, and reflection and the pursuit of idiosyncratic skills and dreams should not be seen as exceptions or considered indulgent, crazy, or unfortunate responsibilities or sacrifices.
To be a ‘bum’ or to exist happily on the margins should carry no stigmata.

To not work for 3 months so you can read through a series of authors or to learn an obscure skill is not exceptional nor irrational or indulgent.

To work only 4/5 months so that the remaining months can be dedicated solely to exploration by simple means seems to me a wonderful way to spend a life.

I admire the concept of roots and belonging/dwelling/inhabiting a place but this does not mean accumulating material weight in a place.
Nor should it castigate rootless/seasonal living in different places/slow wanderings of several months in each place before another relocation of several months.
Thus simple, light, minimalistic living full of thrift, ingenuity, patience, generosity & quietude.

I will never ever own a motorised vehicle or any sort. I can’t help but think that if someone's eyes longingly linger on or follow a car we probably won't have much in common.

Without cars, vans and lorries imagine how roads and towns/cities would look and sound = wide, spacious streets devoid of parked rows of empty metal and plastic, no multi-story car parks, fewer signs/emergency telephones/stop lights, lay-bys would not be needed. There would be square miles more space, pleasant outdoor cafes, more urban greenery, I even wonder how quickly one could cycle down a motorway free of cars. Now imagine that as a stage of the Tour de France! The M1 stage.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, Tunisia

Countries I’ve Lived In

Italy, Switzerland, United Kingdom