Stonehenge vandalized

Suspected souvenir hunters broke into Stonehenge and vandalised the ancient monument, English Heritage has said.

A hammer and screwdriver were used to take a small chip the size of a 10p piece from the side of the Heel Stone.

English Heritage said further damage was prevented by security guards who spotted the two men at the 5,000-year-old site in Wiltshire.

Police believe the vandals could be the same two people caught on CCTV acting suspiciously a few days earlier.


BBC article

At one time, chisels would be handed to people visiting Stonehenge, so they could chip away at the ancient monument to get their own souvenirs.


But the practice has been outlawed since 1900, when landowner Sir Edmund Antrobus decided the site needed protecting and introduced charges


Further BBC commentary

Dorset castle ruins revealed to be 'ancient forest' of rare lichens

By Rosie Walker
Published: 27 December 2007 The Independent

Corfe Castle in Dorset has been revealed as one of the country's most important sites for lichen, housing 102 varieties among its ruins, including four species described as "rare" and 11 described as "scarce".

Experts have compared it to an ancient forest, and say the castle's location, on a hill on the sunny south coast, away from pollution, has allowed such an unusual collection to grow.

Full article

A new mode of nature writing?

Madeleine Bunting writes in The Guardian on what she sees as a new way of writing about nature. She sees this as a visionary movement, where learning to pay attention to particulars has a redemptive quality that benefits both humans and the natural world (though I'm not sure that was a quality absent from previous modes of nature writing).

Bunting argues that books such as Mark Cocker's Crow Country, Kathleen Jamie's Findings, and Roger Deakin's Wildwood are "a new genre of writing. It doesn't quite fit to call it "nature writing", because what makes these books so compelling - and important - is that they put centre stage the interconnections between nature and human beings."

"The floods in Yorkshire last month were a sharp reminder of what happens when we don't understand the land on which we live. The sight of thousands of flooded homes made us realise what many previous generations would never have forgotten about the way in which water has to move through land. Renewing our relationship with the natural world, on which our wellbeing depends, is at the heart of this genre of writing - but it presses its case not with statistics and fear of apocalyptic scenarios of global warming, but with seduction, urging on readers an aesthetic case for the spectacular beauty that lies beyond their windscreen if they can be bothered to stop the car and get out.

It's the British equivalent in the 21st century to John Muir, the legendary writer who founded the US Sierra Club and Yosemite National Park, and who in 1901 wrote that "thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilised people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home". We may have hills rather than mountains, but that's what summer holidays should be about - going home."

Sounds like a good group of books to add to your reading pile. Bunting mentions that all of the writers she discussses have pebbles to hand, or lined up on their desks. What pebbles do you have lined up on your desk? I'm tending currently toward smooth, water-rounded stones nearest my desk; the fossils are six feet further away.

Pseudo-Elizabethan Placename Generator

Blearybarrow Snitterel Snapemore Babbingporte Ashead
Lindfield Locktonleigh Newdery Umbermount Wodeney
Huttonhope Cuddonshaw Woltonston Marshbrygg Foggford
Cravenlocke Throckstin Swainsreagh Marhearst Wolfdenwocky
Fishstocke Cheddarswich Follygrass Listerfork Cassyden
Wintergill Asplinchase Barmfens Beldansridge Colbyham
Crowsteeple Pinchcourse Brokesheaf Complincliff Augurland
Waldewake Bacuplark Deeringwedge Faldoveldt Winklebury

Et cetera.

Forget that you can hear the nearby bulldozers knocking down the homes of little woodland creatures, to be replaced by developments like "Quail Run" named after little woodland creatures they've replaced. Flee to the imagined past of The Olde Country. When my children were small, on the way to our occasional vacations in Bath, I'd sing to them when we passed the sign for Nimlet,

We go to the hamlet of Nimlet
Go to the hamlet of Nimlet
Go to the hamlet
Eat egglets and spamlets
Go to the hamlet of Nimlet

(It's folk music, dammit, it doesn't have to be brilliant, and I'm not Brightshadow) :)

Part 2: Military Helicopters Over East Field Wheat Formation

Linda Moulton Howe's continuation of the crop circle article I posted July 20th.


Part 2: Military Helicopters Over East Field Wheat Formation

By Linda Moulton Howe

"There was a terrible smell from the helicopter.
I can describe it as being a sulfurous smell – very powerful!
It made my eyes burn. I noticed half a dozen other people as well –
they were quite severely affected. I saw one man throwing up
into the crop.... and my dosimeter shot up very high between 300 and 500 ...
which means get out of the place. It’s dangerous!"
- Andrew J. Buckley, U. K. Graphic Designer

FULL ARTICLE

Aggressive swarming by unmarked black helicopters, possible infra-sound, significant yet transitory radiation levels. Very disturbing.

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Crop Circle: Alton Priors

1,033-Foot-Long East Field Wheat Formation "Happened Within 90 Minutes." Investigators presented video and eyewitness evidence

Linda Moulton Howe has a presentation on a recent crop circle formation at Alton Priors, Wilts. July 7. This is part 1 of 2, second is not up yet. Aside from the witnesses, and the tantalizing bits of documentation, what I find particularly interesting is this:

The East Field is not a totally flat pancake field. It actually curves up and down. When you look at the formation from up above from an aerial photo, you see that the circles are absolutely 100% correct circles. To make circles look 100% from the air in a field that has up and down hills, you cannot create 100% perfect circles on the ground. You have to create ovals. And that’s the case here. All the circles that are lying on a hill more than flat surface, they are ovals. To construct 100% correct oval in total darkness – everything you do is extremely difficult because you can’t see anything.

So, to construct not just one, but several ovals and large ones – the largest one is like 50 meters, or 160 feet. Under those dark conditions, I would consider that impossible and everyone I have spoken to among the researchers down here and also civil engineers who are used to land surveys – they say that to do that under those conditions and also within that limited time frame (90 minutes), they regard it as absolutely impossible for humans to do.

Photo is by Lucy Pringle (more on site). I felt this one shows the slope of the land fairly well.