Circles and cycles

Easter Saturday took us to Avebury, where we walked a seven mile figure-of-eight from Overton Hill to Windmill Hill and back again, crossing through the famous stone circle twice.

We entered the village from the herepath and acting on impulse we popped into the Antique Shop, something we've never quite managed to do. We were just in time. A succession of people were lugging furniture out from the house upstairs. After twenty-five years, Brian the shopkeeper is retiring.

Now I'd heard about Brian before. Born and bred in the village and having lived there all his life, he's something of a mine of information about the history and prehistory of Avebury. He was cagey at first but we soon got talking about William Stukeley and, warming to his subject, he showed me an original Stukeley print of the circle, now a treasured family heirloom. 

He reminisced about the making of Children of the Stones, and explained how his shop had been the grocers back then, how it was used as such in the show, and where exactly the counter had been. 

He talked with pride about having known Avebury's greatest archaeologist, Alexander Keiller. 

And then he hinted that he had his own theories about how and why the circle was built. 'They did it with sound' was all he had time to say, before being called to help shift a chest of drawers the traditional way. I've no idea what the National Trust intend to do with the shop but I'm happy that Brian is staying in the village, which is where he belongs, a true guardian of the stones.

From there we walked up to Windmill Hill. Normally we're there in summer when the trees are in leaf and the grass is tall but by contrast it was bleak and cold and we didn't linger long.

Back in Avebury we were just about to cross the main road when Nomi elbowed me in the ribs: 'psst, Druids! You probably know them!' 

She was right - we'd bumped into old friends Philip Shallcrass, his two sons, and Elaine 'Wildways', of the British Druid Order. They'd been doing ceremonies all day in honour of the World Drum which is currently in their keeping.

The World Drum is a Norwegian/Sami initiative, co-founded by Morten Wolf Storeide and Kyrre Gram Franck, or White Cougar, a Sami/Kven shaman who had the original vision to make a drum and send it around the globe. Since 2006 it's travelled from country to country, from people to people, to shamans, Druids, indigenous healers and the like - in fact, to anyone who will hold ceremony with it. The aim is that by doing so we 'rediscover our spiritual relation with nature and see that we are all dependant on each other and nature'. And perhaps more importantly, that we find the political will to make that change happen. Ho to that.

The drum is beautiful. It is made in the Sami tradition from mottled reindeer skin, marked with a simple device indicating the four directions and the circle of life. It has a definite presence and I can confirm that it sings with a deep thundery growl. It's a story-thing, and being such it leaves new stories wherever it goes. I felt honoured to hold it, to play it, and to sense the many hands that have carried it on its way.

Accompanying it are messages of peace, many from indigenous peoples whose lifeways are threatened by the relentless march of modernity.

Bumping into Philip et al. with the drum was one of those happy coincidences, and if it was going to happen Avebury was surely the perfect place. As Brian told us earlier, in his singsong Wiltshire burr: 'Avebury is mystical. Once it's got under your skin, you can't help coming back.'

Let's visit Scarfolk

I grew up in the small Devon village of Stoke Gabriel, which sits at the end of a small creek on the River Dart estuary. Its economy was once based on farming and salmon fishing, though now it's both a holiday destination for day-trippers and a popular place to retire. But back in the 1980s when I was in my teens and the place was still a tad more rural than it is today, I became convinced that the village had a darker secret. I was quite certain that it had its very own coven of witches.

The evidence was clear.

First, the village has a famous ancient yew tree in its churchyard, a thousand years old. It's said that if you walk backwards around it seven times your wish will be granted.

Then there's the church, which has a couple of beautiful Green Man carvings.

During renovations of one of the village pubs, the Church House Inn, built in 1152, builders discovered the remains of a three hundred year old mummified cat, stuffed up behind the chimney breast, and quite obviously put there for occult or apotropaic purposes.

Once, driving home at night, we saw a bonfire on top of one of the surrounding hills with what looked like people dancing around it. "That'll be the local coven" my father joked.

And then there was the time I found what I thought was an altar, improvised from feathers, driftwood and other flotsam, down on the foreshore. It all pointed to one conclusion: witches among us.

Cognitive Science has a name for this sort of thing: confirmation bias, the process whereby one selectively fits evidence into a pre-existing set of beliefs such that the two become mutually reinforcing.

I prefer the older, Freudian term wish-fulfillment, which makes me sound less like a faulty appliance and allows me a genuine psychological need behind the fantasy. In my case the witches were not satanists, but ancient, benign, magic-wielding earth-worshippers, who had somehow persisted secretly in the village since ancient times. Sooner or later they would recognise me as one of their own, initiate me into the mysteries and rescue me from a life of dull mundanity. Classic fairy tale stuff.

But there's another, less psychological reason why I ended up convinced of the witches' existence. The idea of occult goings-on taking place behind the civilised veneer of English village life has been a trope of popular fiction since the nineteenth century. It was particularly zeitgeisty in the 1970s and 80s and I was steeped in it. I heard it on radio plays. I read it in Alan Garner and Susan Cooper. I watched it in Doctor Who, The Changes, The Children of the Stones and later, Robin of Sherwood. It appeared in horror movies, The Devil Rides Out and more famously The Wicker Man, later parodied in Hot Fuzz. Not surprising, then, that I thought it might really be happening at home.

If you think I'm just making excuses then check out the wonderful Scarfolk blog.

'Scarfolk is a town in North West England that did not progress beyond 1979. Instead, the entire decade of the 1970s loops ad infinitum. Here in Scarfolk, pagan rituals blend seamlessly with science; hauntology is a compulsory subject at school, and everyone must be in bed by 8pm because they are perpetually running a slight fever.'

Like Hot Fuzz it's a delightful parody but proof that I wasn't alone. Children who grew up in the 70s clearly lived in a completely different hauntological dimension, but one, as Stewart Lee confirms, that we could do well to bring back.

Interestingly, about fifteen years ago, and long after I'd left, some druid friends moved to Stoke Gabriel. They held ceremonies in the woods not far from the beach where I found that 'altar'. I could've gone along at any time if I'd wanted. I never did. Reality could never live up to expectation.

Mask

Winter may still be raging outside but I felt it was time for a little spring cleaning. I've tidied up the blog a bit and, most noticeably, given it a new title and header (though the URL's the same): the Bosky Man.

I've talked before about how I started this blog on the recommendation of other authors as a way to promote my book, Shroom, hence the original, unimaginative but unambiguous title: Andy Letcher. Over the last couple of years the emphasis has gradually changed. It's no longer so blatantly about self-promotion (!) but more about the things that interest or intrigue me or just inspire me to write. I've come to love blogging for blogging's sake.

Bosky means 'wooded', 'full of bushes', 'tipsy' or 'intoxicated', and as you know the Bosky Man is a character I've been taking out onto the streets of Oxford on May Morning and the Day of the Dead. He's half traditional, half my own creation. He's a persona or mask.

The change of title is designed to reflect the changing emphasis of the blog. But it's also a reminder, to me if not to you, that the 'me' I present here is a fiction. However much it's based on the reality of what I do and what I think, the people I meet and so on, it's still a representation, another kind of persona or mask. It's how I choose to narrate my life, not life itself.

I thought the new title more honest.

Busy bee

It's been a busy couple of weeks.

First there was International Bagpipe Day at the Pitt Rivers Museum. 

Phil Powell's Leicestershire Smallpipes (by Julian Goodacre) - photo by Ian Clabburn.

Even though I say so myself, it was a rip-roaring success. Large crowds assembled on the balcony to hear demonstrations of English, Mallorcan, Galician, Turkish, Tunisian, Bulgarian and Bohemian bagpipes. The lecture theatre was rammed all day. And we had 600 punters at the makers' fair (on top of the 1500 who'd have visited the museum anyway), come to try instruments and to watch further demonstrations. I was rushing around a bit but did manage to play a short set with Wod (for which, I must admit, I wasn't really on top form) and some tunes on the balcony with Jim, Jane and Jo.

Even more heartening was the extent to which International Bagpipe Day has gone truly global. There were events in the US, in South Africa and beyond. A group of pipers played in an orphanage in Nigeria and there was a piper's picnic in Athens on a hill overlooking the Acropolis. How wonderful to be making these kinds of global connections through nothing more than a shared love of an ancient instrument.

Then last weekend I was in the studio with Telling the Bees. It's been a long time coming but we've finally begun work on a third album. 

The old Bees magic was at work with arrangements falling into place and everyone playing as one. Over the years we've perfected a recording process that works for us: we piss around a lot, eat a lot of food and drink a lot of tea. Then we play some music and then we drink more tea and finally we have a go at recording. We do everything live, playing together without a click-track until we've got a take that we're all happy with. Then we do the odd tweak here and there, add overdubs, backing vocals and the like (a much longer process that takes up to a year to finish). The aim, always, is to get the vibe right. We did, and we managed to get Astrolabe and One More Mazurka in the can.

Then we went for some fresh air.

Telling the Bees outside Middleton Stoney church, March 2013

Then on Tuesday Nomi and I drove down to Canterbury, where I gave a talk on 'Psychedelics and Spirituality' to the University of Kent Psychedelic Society: all very learned and I got to use the word hermeneutics. Which is nice.

It was also an opportunity to stay over with Dr Matthew Watkins of Canterbury Soundwaves and Secrets of Creation fame (photographed here on the Ridgeway a couple of years ago). 

Unbeknownst to me he had another guest staying: old friend and old cove Matt Spacegoat, renowned for his illustrations for Wooden Books, his work as a studio engineer at Pond Life Studios, and for playing bass, bouzouki and sitar with Martha Tilston, Camel Nitrate and Transglobal Underground (not forgetting the Space Goats). The two Matts are hard at work on the much anticipated third volume of the Secrets of Creation Triology - out in June they assure me. I've had a sneak peak at the artwork and it's awesome.

We immediately launched into one of those beautifully looping, intoxicating conversations about all manner of weird shit: the mystery underlying prime numbers; the demise of the publishing industry; Terence McKenna; 2012; Rupert Sheldrake's humility; the 'missing' Douglas Adams-penned episode of Dr Who; 1970s children's TV; why it's possible to tell the difference between plastic and amber by touch alone; the latest archaeological findings at Stonehenge; just how good a draughtsman M.C. Escher was; the divine feminine; the Canterbury music scene and so on and so forth. The University of the Hedge was in session.

Nomi and I slept in a wooden hut, curled up against the frost in a pile of sleeping bags, blankets and duvets. We were woken by a particularly mellifluous wren improvising long phrases from the bushes.

Dr Matt treated us to some of the best porridge known to man before treating us again. He filled a tub with water, lit a fire underneath and voila! A bath in the woods!

I can think of no finer way to unwind.

Something for the weekend

Pssst. I don't know if you've noticed but things have changed in the trouser department (nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean, say no more, say no more). That warhorse of contraception, that touchstone of virility, that 'something for the weekend sir?' lucky charm, the Durex Fetherlite, is no more.

It's been rebranded, upgraded, given a good polish (ooh err). Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 'Thin Feel: thin for greater sensitivity.' Doesn't quite have the same ring about it (fnarr fnarr), even if it does seem to imply that vistas of hitherto unexperienced pleasure await my purchase.

The Durex logo has also been given a tweak (now then!) to look like an inviting and very-clickable app, and they've added the words love sex. Is this an exhortation to enjoy sex in the context of a loving relationship, or permission to enjoy buying condoms with none of the traditional stigma attached? Those cunning marketing men seem to have both bases covered (matron!). Either way, I can proudly display my wares (steady!) as a lifestyle choice. See everyone, I love sex! Don't you?

As a child, my mother used to take me to a traditional barber for a monthly haircut. I'm sure you remember the kind of place. Pneumatic chairs, brylcreamed men in nylon jackets, glasses of disinfectant to clean the scissors in-between clients (eugh!), the use of combs to bend back the ears (ow!), and surreptitious boxes of Durex stacked below the mirrors.

Once I asked rather loudly, 'Mum...what's Durex?'

The shop went quiet. Buttocks clenched. The barber stopped and swallowed. Even Simon Bates on the radio seemed to draw breath.

'I'll tell you on the way home.' The relief was palpable.

She never did. I'm not even sure how I found out. That was the point. You either knew or you didn't. No one was going to talk about it.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating a return to the 'no sex please we're British' 1970s. Buying condoms always used to be a furtive, purse-lipped, rather embarrassing affair. It's so much easier now, chucking them in the trolley with all the other groceries of the weekly supermarket shop.

But I'm allowing myself just a moment's nostalgia for the lost Carry On! world of prophylactics, French letters, rubber johnnies, sheaths, Coney Island Whitefish (no really), helmets, raincoats, socks, durex and fetherlites; for the world where knowing what a condom was was a mark of initiation, a sign that you were a man not a boy.

Now as the checkout girl wrests the Thin-Feels from the security box she barely suppresses a yawn.

Scary monsters

Experts are often incensed by mistakes in fiction. In his hateful little book, Lord of the Flies, William Golding famously made Piggy short-sighted, only to have him light a fire with his glasses! Like duh! As any physicist will tell you he'd have needed long-sighted lenses. Every time a coma patient wakes up to a zombie apocalypse and rips the intravenous drip from their arm, a thousand nurses scream 'do you know how long that cannula is?' And if Thames Valley Police really solved crimes by pontificating their way around the pubs, colleges and other landmarks of Oxford, we really would be living in the murder capital of England.

As an ex-ecologist my pet annoyance is monsters. In particular, the way in which monsters always announce themselves with a blood-curdling roar. So prevalent is this cliche that its hard to think of a Hollywood monster movie in which it doesn't occur. Jurassic Park, Avatar, Life of Pi, Alien (actually, that's more of a blood-curdling hiss) - I could go on.

Now as any biologist will tell you, and as anyone who's ever watched any nature programme will concur, predators do not announce themselves to their prey. The moment you know a jaguar is after you is when it lands on your head. Any lion that gave a herd of wilderbeest a blood-curdling roar would be a very hungry lion indeed. Every time it happens in a movie, therefore, I find my annoyance levels rising. (And don't get me started on the ecology of Alien - I mean a predator/parasitoid would go extinct rather quickly - didn't anyone think about this stuff?).

No, the only time predators roar is when they're fighting each other, or, more strictly speaking, when they're trying not to fight each other. Here, the blood-curdling roar is a handy non-contact way of saying 'I could have you.' Much less costly than actually having to fight.

Now before you accuse me of missing the point entirely, no one has ever let the facts get in the way of a good story, nor should they. Fiction is fiction and monsters are not predators: they're monsters. As such they're human projections, our worst nightmares made flesh. No wonder that they behave like humans. The blood-curdling roar is just movie shorthand for 'I could have you', or worse, that 'I'm coming to get you.' Horrible.

Who doesn't remember the roar of the ogre in Jack and the Beanstalk?

Fee, fi, fo, fum
I smell the blood of an Englishman
Be he alive or be he dead
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.

It terrified me in childhood and chills me to this day, even if bakers everywhere are clenching their floury fists and muttering darkly "that bread'll never rise."