NEW YEAR'S DAY

NEW YEAR'S DAY   #ExploretheElements

…we were set for an early rise on New Year’s Day - an early morning skinny-dip in the Atlantic Ocean!

Before dawn, two young couples - Mel and Chloe, and Hamish and Serena were hauling themselves out of their creaking bunk-beds and staggering towards the boot-room to kit out for a bracing destination: the whistling sands of Clachtoll.

Having tumbled out of the Hostel door, the four-some were greeted with a drifting mist that spilled over the sea wall and onto the harbour road. The chill air cast a spell over the travelling friends which dispelled the torpor from the excesses of the previous night and sharpened their senses in anticipation of the challenges ahead.

Peering into the darkness, Chloe was startled by a sudden flurry from the shallows, as a Heron flapped furiously before gliding mysteriously into the darkness from below the harbour wall. The others hurried over to see what was happening, as the ungainly enigma vanished from sight across the waters of Loch Broom. 

FIRE

First light was starting to show as the party bundled into their jalopy and sped off up the road, heading Northwards towards Coigach. The road wound round through some spectacular scenery, which was only fully evident as they motored beside Loch Assynt, unveiled in full splendour with the rising sun. 

EARTH

The girls had made some preparation for this adventure. Serena had cobbled together some turkey sandwiches and Chloe had filled a huge flask of hot tea before they set off. But the men had other ideas. Both Hamish and Mel were plotting to make a detour via Lochinver and a certain pie shop.

Sure enough, first in the queue for the famous pies that morning stood this itinerant band of gluttons. Breakfast would be the most substantial and memorable that they could experience in a long time! This was fuel to prepare them all for what was in prospect -some icy waves and biting winds on a mid-winter sea-shore.

When they finally rolled through the caravan site at sleepy Clachtoll, some of the caravanners were stirring. A cold wind was blowing and everyone was braced for some shocks to the system. 

WATER

They found a sheltered hollow in the sand-dunes to shed their garments and one by one, like parachute-jumpers, each made a break for it, streaking across the sand and plunging head-long into some huge breakers crashing onto the shore. The surf stung to the quick, and the shouts and screams were a mixture of agony and ecstasy but their exhilaration was unmistakable and excitement intense, elemental and profoundly climactic.

The girls re-emerged together, with a hand for a fig-leaf each, hastily retracing their steps towards the sand-dunes out of the wind with the comfort of towelling bath-robes enveloping them before the men sidled coyly back into the fold with cloying sand stuck to their parts and sheepish grins to cover their embarrassment.

This was an undeniably invigorating experience - but what could possibly lie in store around the next corner?

AIR

Where have all the people gone...

http://hypoconcer.ning.com/video/don-mclean-empty-chairs

Cliffs Bays and Coves Final Draft2

Cliffs Bays and Coves Final Draft2

Restorative Relaxation - M E T A M O R P H

Restorative Relaxation - M E T A M O R P H

Seeking Assynt

http://issuu.com/rodneyyates/docs/seeking-assynt-agent-copy?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222

Cliffs Bays and Coves Final Draft2

Cliffs Bays and Coves Final Draft2

http://issuu.com/rodneyyates/docs/cliffs-bays-and-coves-final-draft2?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222

Cliffs Bays and Coves Final Draft2

Cliffs Bays and Coves Final Draft2

http://issuu.com/rodneyyates/docs/cliffs-bays-and-coves-final-draft2?mode=window&backgroundColor=%23222222

Scenes of Kernow

Summer may seem long-gone as the year runs towards its close, but the Summer I spent in my usual snappy way has yielded something to show of the scenery of Cornwall, which I hope the browser can enjoy in the form of this slideshow, here in The Big Idea sequence.  Who knows where the time goes?  I hope that for you the time goes pleasantly, with something worth appreciating.  

memphasis@btopenworld.com

Follow the link to www.paypal.com and subscribe via the above email address. If you would supply a forwarding address, the disks you order can be sent to you within 28 days of placing an order.

Terminal atrophy

We are an Innovation Nation. We are also currently a ConDemnation and like it or not, no one voted for the ConDem coalition, no one wants their obnoxious Agenda and no one will mourn the hastening of their ignominious departure. That said, they might redeem themselves with good works instead of the Damnation they have it in them to bring upon the heads of all of us. One worthy action which I seek is out-lined in my submission on Parliamentary Prejudice. If this shower cannot set their own house in order then the task before them of setting the country in order is way beyond them, and even at this early stage the signs are there that the time approaches for them to throw in the towel and admit there is no Mandate for them to govern if there is no electoral support for their project. All else is of passing relevance here. Emancipate the disenfranchised and accede to the wishes of the electorate and then a mandate can show through. Without it, puppetry and shadow-boxing is a diversion but no substitute for bowing to the will of the people in fresh elections. That is who it is for.

Coming home to roost

http://www.wereyouthere.com/individual-topic-post.php?topicid=879&category=3&tpostid=1055

Please follow the link. You might be inspired by what you find!








The story of our family is one of exile. Two world wars dominated the social experience of successive generations in the 20th century, and my family was no exception. Exactly how we came to be diametrically the opposite side of the world from our parents in my early years, is the story I have to tell.

My paternal Grand-father had a bad experience. He was at the Somme in the First World War, was gassed, by our own side, and invalided out. His breathing never recovered properly, and TB took him later in life, at the age of barely 50 years. My Father and Uncle were fortunate to have a Father but sorely disadvantaged with my Grand-father's reduced capacity to work. The welfare state was still a long way off. My Father knew full well what had brought his Father down, and vowed always to settle differences by peaceful means. As the country prepared to do it all again in 1939, my Father actively sought to reconcile the gulf between the factions which took Europe and the world back into war. My Father and Mother met while they were both engaged in this important work of reconciliation.

As a School teacher, my Father converged with many of the young people evacuated from Britain's cities and had a caring role for many who were away from their homes, their families, parents and the familiar surroundings of their tender years. The life they led in the country was demanding, with shortages and rationing featuring strongly in the lives of everyone in the war years. In 1941 Mother and Father were married and by 1943 a family had started with the birth of my eldest brother.



The subsistence life of growing their own food, the country school and internal exile
came to an abrupt end three years later, when my Father was ousted from his job. The war-time community was broken up, as many of the Evacuees met with even bigger shocks, being deported and cleared from this country as child migrants, to the far corners of the now-defunct Empire, because no one had the energy or application to restore these displaced people to the lost world of their early child-hoods. We were making way for the heroes of World War II, back to inherit the spoils of war and rule the roost of a country which was in big trouble, having been unable to feed its population for years.

Exile was the destiny of our family also, as the grim realities of not being able to feed a family of four and no prospect of work as the armed forces demobilised on a massive scale and swept the country with their demands on the services and their own needs as heroes. We set sail for Papua New Guinea in 1947, a journey of three months and our lives were tangential from the post-war Britain of conquerors, for the next 20 years.



Life for us in New Guinea could not be more different. As the youngest son, I remember fresh fruit straight from the tree, a scorching hot sun year-round, torrential rains, dangerous snakes and crocodiles and huge breakers on the shores of a beach which we had to ourselves on most afternoons. This was all to come to an end, as we returned to school in England and our parents continued their work for a young Commonwealth territory which was approaching independence.



Post-war Britain was bleakly austere, but change was on the way and the youth of the 60s had their own take on what life could be like. The progenitors of austerity had to make room for a new generation with new aspirations. After an exile of 20 years we were coming home to roost.

Forty years later, the evacuees have also moved on. The child migrants may not know who they are, not know where they came from, but their legacy, though not told, bears down upon those who seized the ascendancy and sent them into exile - a story which each of them has to tell of how their heritage was stolen from them never to be returned. They too are coming home to haunt the perpetrators of war and the self-serving ways of those who won the war but lost the peace.



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Paradise Island

Rodney Yates

Rodney Yates

Restorative Relaxation

A leisurely saunter across Loch Alsh to the Highland Isle of Skye, to Loch Scavaig, Loch Coruisk, the formidable Cuillin Ridge via Elgol, then across to Sligachan and on down to Kyleakin Harbour and the Skye Bridge at sunset.

Over the sea to Skye

Across the water after the fashion of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora MacDonald

20 Years in the life

A Pictorial Account of the activities of the

Nottingham Schizophrenia Fellowship

who we were ~ where we went ~ what we saw

The Long Road to Social Inclusion

Campaigning is under way to secure a better deal for the beleaguered multitude of people with discrimination issues in this society, notably the much-stigmatised and marginalised people with first-hand experiences of mental ill-health. If you would like to lend support to the Campaign, please follow the suggested links and sign your endorsements of our activities.

Link to:-

http://hypoconcer.ning.com

Enfranchising the Disenfranchised

The current sculpting of social policy is based upon the carve-up of Political, Social and Economic power into polarities that ensure government policy is shaped by vested interests and the Economic clout of lobbyists in securing aprotected view-point that then goes on to prescribe and direct policies that manipulate the people who stand outside of these forcing-houses. These excluded people then struggle to have a voice to articulate their distinctive stand-points, and finish up resorting to blogging and remonstrating on sites like this one. Hence the need for this Campaign.
WHO ARE WE THEN?

WE are claimants, the ill, the disabled, the unemployed, the homeless, pensioners, the young, the old, the socially excluded, the designated pariahs of journalistic fame - which includes 'foreigners', 'asylum-seekers', 'ex-offenders', 'schizophrenics', 'anorexics', the 'mentally ill', in fact every brand and shade of religious and cultural persuasion which is not your own!

WHAT DO WE WANT?

We seek and deserve to have a voice in shaping the conditions under which we serve as Citizens of this country, conditions which affect our lives, our futures, our social security, our surivival, our potential-fulfilment capacity and our creativity.

HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET IT?

The Campaign goes under the name of M E M P H A S I S - the Movement EMancipating People to Have A Say In Society. This has particular relevance for people with continuing mental health needs, who bear the brunt of mis-construed and mis-directed negativity towards them. There will be more on the Campaign to de-stigmatise and release these people from current subjections and impositions as the Movement gains momentum and we really start to roll.



We are not a discrete group and our disparate and divergent nature is as it should be. We have in common that we are ostracized and socially excluded, frequently on the instigation of more organised and single-minded Political machines which drive policy and do not consult us when our lives and perspectives are most deeply affected.

WE AIM FOR EMANCIPATION TO SPEAK ON OUR OWN BEHALF ON THE MATTERS WHICH SHAPE OUR LIVES AND OUR FUTURES

This site can be found at:-

http://hypoconcer.ning.com

Rapid Transit Extension Campaign

STOP  OLD  TORIES

SAVE  OUR  TRAMS!

VOTE   LABOUR  

4th June 2009

Sign below in Support