Cameras: a post without a picture.

90 per cent of my life I've kept away from cameras. To be honest they irritate me. If I'm carrying one it won't let me forget it. I feel I've got to be taking photos. So, despite living in this gadget obsessed age, I resisted the temptation to buy a digital camera until finally getting the one used to take pictures on this blog. I had always felt that a camera would somehow get in the way of using my eyes and my judgement when enjoying the scenes around me. To some extent that fear turned out to be accurate. In other ways of course it's been useful.

Still, when visiting Paris for a few days ( that's why the posts stopped this week) I left the camera behind. But the wretched gadgets nearly ruined whole sections of the trip. Everyone else seemed to have three of them at least. And they had to flash them in my face just when I was trying to appreciate a sublime artefact. In fact a large proportion of the tourists didn't actually look at the tourist attractions - they held up a camera in front of their faces and clicked again and again. This is pernicious in the extreme in places like Chartres Cathedral where the whole experience of the architecture is designed around the dazzling light coming through stained glass into an otherwise dark interior.

I wonder if many murders are committed there.

The Sound of Testosterone

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Chain Saw Madness

Giving a man a chain saw is a bit like giving him a powerful motor car. Instead of just using it to get from A to B the car becomes an end in itself, a toy to be played with. Cars may have been invented to make it more convenient to do all those things you need transport for but once you've got one you look round for reasons to drive. Power tools are similar. Things you wouldn't have done before now suddenly become necessary. It's to do with the sense of power you get and it gives instant gratification. I don't usually go round saying things should be banned. But in this case I think it shouldn't have been invented in the first place. There's some virtue in having to think hard before you do something. And if you have to expend a great deal of time and energy in cutting a tree down by hand, you think twice or thrice before doing it.

So I groaned when a friend told me he had come across people being trained to use chain saws in Lady Canning's Plantation not far away. What do you do once you've been trained? You look round for ways of using your new skill - not good news for trees. Incidentally Lady Canning's Plantation would seem to need thinning because of the trees being so close together, but once you do that the trees collapse when gales get in - they will never be as strong as trees which have grown well spaced out. Has that been considered?
And there's a mad chain saw man loose on Blacka these days.















It's a fair bet that no proper strategy has been worked out - he's just been sent up there to cut some birch. And what happens to the cut trees and branches? Are they left in pile, drawing attention to itself? Whatever happened to the idea that the place should look natural?

















A few years ago SWT promised that trees along this path would not be cut. But, as we now know, what they say and what they do are two different things.

An Eyesore

Some buldings are just put where they are and others can be called architecture. This one is of the former class. What's wrong with it? First it's too big being out of place among all the other houses around. Second it looks like a prison or some other drab institution. Third it occupies a prominent position in the landscape. Fourth it shows absolutely no distiction at all apart from its value to the developer enabling him to make money from the sale of apartments. It's fine for the occupiers of the flats - they look out onto Blacka Moor. It's a kind of landscape painting on their wall. For those of us who actually make the effort to come to Blacka we have no choice but to see this blot on the landscape. Things might be different if it was a marvellous example of architecture such as Chatsworth or Hardwick. Whose planning criteria, I wonder, let this get through?

Away From It

While others are having a restless start to the day worrying about their jobs, pensions and their HBOS shares what better to do than get way from things to our favourite place. And this view we return to again and again, watching the changing seasons. This only partly explains why it figures in so many of the photographs on this blog. The path beside the wall is also sheltered from some of the keenest winds that affect Blacka and today's caused some regret at having left behind the gloves and woolly hat.

Fire and Water

By dawn the heavy rain in the night had stopped. The hills were holding more water than I remember seeing before and shedding a good deal at speed. Every path and bridleway was a running stream.
A lot of birch has been subjected to SWT's punishment in the last few days. I remember that as little boys we used to get great pleasure in laying about ourselves with sticks usually at the expense of nettles and brambles. These days it's done in the name of conservation. At least they had the decency to leave this oak; there's something about oak that gives pause for thought. The area occupied by the oak has been largely cleared of birch regrowth around the stumps of a number of larger trees felled about 5 years ago. Since then bracken has become dominant no longer constrained by the shade. Hmmn...well.........

It looks as if a fire is being considered here. Will local people be invited? I've always loved bonfires - far more than fireworks- and a blaze in the night up here would be a spectacular opportunity to engage with the community especially if combined with a ceremonial burning of management plans and other unnecessary paperwork.

Is There No Limit ?

Sorry to disappoint anyone who interpreted my last post's title to mean this blog was going away for a while. Blacka Blogger is still here and posting and hoping that in some very small way he can shed some light on what's valuable around here (and at the same time make life just a little bit difficult for the philistines).

Recent rumours have suggested that SWT and Derbyshire Wildlife Trust are wanting to take over a large area of public land not far from Blacka Moor, a section of the moorland known as the Eastern Peak District Moors. This is something that Blacka Blogger cannot avoid commenting on. How far this scheme has advanced I don't know. It may just be at the lobbying stage when various people with a strong view get together and form a strategy hoping to get their act together and their pitch agreed. It may already have been discussed informally by various interest groups who will have been expected to be sympathetic in order to be well prepared before it gets into the public domain. The wider public and those who might have reservations usually take some time to get any opposition articulated.

From what I've learned about the way wildlife trusts operate I am utterly oppposed to any further land in this area being handed over to SWT or any other trust without a properly established consultation process. The record of these organisations and especially SWT has been very mixed to say the least. Their philosophy is all about control and management with no place for informal natural change. And there are serious questions about their competence.