How do I manage my prejudices.

This morning at 9.25 am I find myself listening to a radio 4 programme concerning the immigration issue and Britains' borders under threat.
My particular difficulty is not to do with the arguments so much as the fact that the programme is being broadcast from one; "state of the art studio at Harvard in America".  The eminent Professor is answering incoming questions from a tranche of 30 countries.
I feel that our BBC is promoting the views of this American Professor, over and above those equally qualified UK citizens, be they professors, doctors, teachers or experts and the like, from any of the illustrious UK universities available.
Not only am I having to listen to the strong American accent but the views of someone not resident here, not born here, not knowing first hand of the issues as they apply to our Great Britain.
If I tune in at random any time of the day the odds of hearing an American accent are becoming increasingly noticeable and increasingly irritating.

Michael Sandel explores the philosophical justifications made for national borders. Using a pioneering state-of-the-art studio at the Harvard Business School, Professor Sandel is joined by 60 participants from over 30 countries in a truly global digital space. 

He is about to "draagh" a conclusion and I have to listen irritated or not !

And now he is gone and I am none the wiser...  9.45 am.

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Since you nor made nor battered humankind 
Let not yourself be uselessly inclined 
To shape them on your heart, as if it were 
An anvil, with the hammer of your mind 

Ernest E. Laws        

1890 - 1982          

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Bone Hill rises up at a gradient 20%

South west property prices show a rise of twenty percent over a couple of years; the highest across the whole country, say the papers. Here is 20% at Bone Hill, near Chinkwell Tor down towards Widdecombe. It's steep enough to break a neck and requires bottom gear going up.

Trump tells it as it is, but an old Etonian bends the vernacular into soggy verbage like the sphagnum moss found on Dartmoor yet his holds far less water.
Bring on Boris, listen to the honest passion and read his writings slowly.

Enough, enough!  Back to the business of my jalopying about the lanes at the crack of dawn. The light was soft this morning, so delayed sunrise through a haze over this area of out-standing natural beauty.

Further on down the lane grows steeper and steeper

Bonehill Rocks

Hound Tor

Ancient wall by Saddle Tor

I told this heavy horse she looked lovely and I swear she nodded in agreement.

Whiteworks Tin Mine, Dartmoor

 Wall to wall sun down by the sea but a blanket of broken cloud at Princetown. A study of my OS map led me near Princetown where a single track lane leads south east beside the Fox Tor Cafe and is signed "Tor Royal Farm". The lane passes a tree plantation where gales have done considerable damage lately.

Spongy mosses and rivulets run everywhere

A tinners hut or perhaps a bank vault

Warning deep water

Public Bridleway reads the sign  (unsuitable for motors beyond here)

The lane eventually degrades into a dirt track as it reaches the tin workings which have long since been abandoned.
A torrent of water was running down one side of the road and joined one of the abandoned courses into the workings before descending into one of the rock filled shafts.  At the peak of production the area is said to have yielded up to 20 tons of  tin per year ( c1860).

The way up onto open moorland

Evidence around Whiteworks of early tin streaming since the Bronze Age has been found here. Later activity from the 12th Century is to be seen and streaming was carried on into the 16th C. Documents later uncovered show that work continued in a haphazard way with lesser men losing their investments, while the few made their fortune.

The higgledy piggledy tin workings lie all around

The Beech Tree a few days later and the scene is more inviting. I spotted a Hen Harrier .

The site altogether must be several hundred acres sprawling down towards the near horizon

One sheep that failed to reach the table

Blink and its gone !

Up with the Lark again this morning and fully intending to scamper off to Dartmoor, the pilgrimage towards my seventh heaven. Cloud cover of  the moors looked heavy.

Little Haldon was where I stopped, content to view Hey Tor from a distance.

Hey Tor seen on the horizon 9.6 miles distant as the crow flies

Snow shower on Yar Tor

With no particular venue in mind, today's venture up onto the moor was a case of following where the 4/4 Morgan wanted to go. The Dart bridge, under repair has been closed off to traffic for a few days but today was clear. On the way up the steep incline towards Poundsgate the birds were in full song, even above the drum of the twin cam engine.

FL24mm/1/160s/f4.0/ISO 100

From Sharp Tor I was soon up beside Yar Tor but nothing dramatic came in view until in the north west appeared a mighty threatening cloud-bank.  A snow shower heading directly towards the Tor forced a dashing about to raise the hood of the Morgan.

Imaginary fears of being marooned by deep snowdrifts were quickly dispelled as no more than a gentle reminder that the moor can sometimes surprise. 

FL32.mm/1/125s/f4.5/ISO  100

From the variety of light and shade you may think these shots were taken on different days of the week but you would be quite wrong since they were all done within 40 minutes as the shower passed and revealed its powdering of bright white icing across the scene.

FL32mm/1/125s/f4.5/ISO 100

FL46mm/Ex1/500/f14.0/ISO 500

The shower passed overhead and here is seen heading away towards Torbay and out to sea.

FL50mm/Ex 1/80/f4.5/ISO 100

FL28mm/Ex 1/160/ f6.3/ISO 100

FL 32mm /Ex 1/160 /f18.0/  ISO 320

FL 24mm/ Ex 1/200 /f 20.0 / ISO 320

FL24mm / Ex 1/160 / f18.0 / ISO 320

Adding camera settings here is something not normally done by me. With the light rapidly changing minute by minute a degree of guesswork is called for.

Lost and found at Beer

Mariners, seafarers, navigators, adventurers and the like, have many ways to find their way about the wide open ocean.

A weighted plumb on the end of a long line, charged with a mass of sticky tallow. Deployed over the side into the sea, was soon retrieved with a sample from the ocean bed. With their knowledge of earlier passages the route could be re-traced by feeling and seeing what this primitive probe held at the foot. 

A leisurely walk along the tideline of Beer in Devon, revealed these few clues to my location. Nodules of flint, a scallop shell, a whelk and a sensor of some sort off a BMW engine.

The black plastic moulding is scuffed and smoothed all round its edges from the abrasion since being washed off the container ship Napoli, beached near here in January 2007. 

To remove this item from the beach at that time was soon to be made a criminal offence, but many took advantage of the opportunity regardless and items of far greater value than this were recovered from the shoreline.

The receiver of wrecks was nowhere to be seen yesterday, nine years after the hull of that stricken ship was cut up for scrap.

One of the divers engaged on the task of salvage operations was my nephew Jonathon. 

The seabed between Portland and Plymouth today remains littered with plenty more BMW motor parts.