Over the sea to Skye...
November 19, 2007 4:49 AM Subscribe
What a fascinating adventure. And all shared with his teddy bear.
posted by gomichild at 5:14 AM on November 19, 2007
posted by gomichild at 5:14 AM on November 19, 2007
I am working on a theory about this kind of 21st century completion obsession.
posted by Miko at 5:35 AM on November 19, 2007
posted by Miko at 5:35 AM on November 19, 2007
Many call what I do 'Island Bagging.'
Decorator bags all 162 in four years
Strangeway, 42, a decorator from Pocklington in the Yorkshire Wolds
blah blah, over forty hectares
So 40 hectares is the new 3,000 feet and "island bagging" is the new Munro bagging.
the UK's greatest ever challenge
I do not believe that what I have achieved will ever be repeated.
This guy could well be a top bloke, and I'd go and see Clyde give a talk, but colour me sceptical about the whole thing. WTF is this actually about?
I became aware of the enormity of what I had embarked upon. Alas, I don't think he meant that. While the thought of random Yorkshiremen dragging hordes of copycat "island baggers" through the region makes me sad, "enormity" would be hyperbole.
posted by GeckoDundee at 5:46 AM on November 19, 2007
Decorator bags all 162 in four years
Strangeway, 42, a decorator from Pocklington in the Yorkshire Wolds
blah blah, over forty hectares
So 40 hectares is the new 3,000 feet and "island bagging" is the new Munro bagging.
the UK's greatest ever challenge
I do not believe that what I have achieved will ever be repeated.
This guy could well be a top bloke, and I'd go and see Clyde give a talk, but colour me sceptical about the whole thing. WTF is this actually about?
I became aware of the enormity of what I had embarked upon. Alas, I don't think he meant that. While the thought of random Yorkshiremen dragging hordes of copycat "island baggers" through the region makes me sad, "enormity" would be hyperbole.
posted by GeckoDundee at 5:46 AM on November 19, 2007
I am working on a theory about this kind of 21st century completion obsession.
Me too, but I have to finish my theories for the other 20 centuries first.
posted by grouse at 5:49 AM on November 19, 2007 [1 favorite]
Me too, but I have to finish my theories for the other 20 centuries first.
posted by grouse at 5:49 AM on November 19, 2007 [1 favorite]
I am working on a theory about this kind of 21st century completion obsession.
I think it's a kind of territoriality, like dogs that have to piss on every tree, fencepost and fire plug in their neighborhood. For a complete explanation, compound that with the record-setting mentality induced by the Guinness Book, and with philately and other collecting hobbies. It's been around since at least the 19th century, it seems to me.
posted by beagle at 6:24 AM on November 19, 2007
I think it's a kind of territoriality, like dogs that have to piss on every tree, fencepost and fire plug in their neighborhood. For a complete explanation, compound that with the record-setting mentality induced by the Guinness Book, and with philately and other collecting hobbies. It's been around since at least the 19th century, it seems to me.
posted by beagle at 6:24 AM on November 19, 2007
It's a great idea and sounds like it was a really interesting journey, but the prose on his website is really annoying.
I also don't understand why people need to make up these comprehensive tasks and then, well, complete them. Is everything else to do in the world that unsatisfying? And would he feel a sense of failure if he'd only reached 161?
Also, he used to be a decorator. Does anyone wonder if he felt the need to spruce up some of the islands he visited?
posted by bassjump at 6:31 AM on November 19, 2007
I also don't understand why people need to make up these comprehensive tasks and then, well, complete them. Is everything else to do in the world that unsatisfying? And would he feel a sense of failure if he'd only reached 161?
Also, he used to be a decorator. Does anyone wonder if he felt the need to spruce up some of the islands he visited?
posted by bassjump at 6:31 AM on November 19, 2007
I think it's a kind of territoriality, like dogs that have to piss on every tree, fencepost and fire plug in their neighborhood.
My belief is that it's a quite different process from what happened in the nineteenth century, which was more an obsession for classification: naming and ordering, bringing raw, wild nature under rational, industrialized control. This completion thing, I believe, is a response to the information age. We have succeeded so well in the ordering and organization of information, and in the creation and gathering of new information, that we now find ourselves overwhelmed. The response, then, is to carve out a set of things of limited number and complete a task with a finite amount of repetitions and a beginning, waypoints, and ending. This, I think, is somehow giving people a sense of comfort that the experience of living in the world has not grown completely incomprehensible to the human mind.
posted by Miko at 7:10 AM on November 19, 2007 [3 favorites]
My belief is that it's a quite different process from what happened in the nineteenth century, which was more an obsession for classification: naming and ordering, bringing raw, wild nature under rational, industrialized control. This completion thing, I believe, is a response to the information age. We have succeeded so well in the ordering and organization of information, and in the creation and gathering of new information, that we now find ourselves overwhelmed. The response, then, is to carve out a set of things of limited number and complete a task with a finite amount of repetitions and a beginning, waypoints, and ending. This, I think, is somehow giving people a sense of comfort that the experience of living in the world has not grown completely incomprehensible to the human mind.
posted by Miko at 7:10 AM on November 19, 2007 [3 favorites]
I don't know...
Without Summerisle, it just doesn't seem complete.
posted by Katemonkey at 8:14 AM on November 19, 2007
Without Summerisle, it just doesn't seem complete.
posted by Katemonkey at 8:14 AM on November 19, 2007
What about the Summer Isles, Katemonkey?
He's a braver man than I, visiting Gruinard.
posted by matthewr at 8:23 AM on November 19, 2007
He's a braver man than I, visiting Gruinard.
posted by matthewr at 8:23 AM on November 19, 2007
His idea of calling all the islands he's slept on 'strangeways' after himself seems just a little egotistical. As does his mission of making 'these great islands accessible to as many people as possible'. By sleeping on them?
Hm, I once slept in Didcot, Andy - allow me, therefore to make that noble town, (one of the Phanxes) accessible to you.
posted by Phanx at 9:07 AM on November 19, 2007
Hm, I once slept in Didcot, Andy - allow me, therefore to make that noble town, (one of the Phanxes) accessible to you.
posted by Phanx at 9:07 AM on November 19, 2007
I suddenly feel an urge to visit 125 distilleries.
posted by cairnish at 9:50 AM on November 19, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by cairnish at 9:50 AM on November 19, 2007 [1 favorite]
I'm still not sure whether this is an interesting thing to do - or a pointless, pedantic and rather arbitrary (40ha) thing to do.
posted by rhymer at 10:41 AM on November 19, 2007
posted by rhymer at 10:41 AM on November 19, 2007
"I suddenly feel an urge to visit 125 distilleries." - cairnish
I'll drink to that.
posted by WerewolvesRancheros at 12:03 PM on November 19, 2007
I'll drink to that.
posted by WerewolvesRancheros at 12:03 PM on November 19, 2007
I might have enjoyed reading about his experiences if he sounded a little bit less impressed with himself. Not so much with the fact that he did what he did, but his whole view of his accomplishment and himself. To wit: Beyond this great adventure, there is something far greater, something that I cannot see. I can only feel it and I do not know of what I talk.
posted by DrGirlfriend at 1:07 PM on November 19, 2007
posted by DrGirlfriend at 1:07 PM on November 19, 2007
I hope someone helped him write his forthcoming book. His prose is, quite frankly, unreadable.
posted by Lezzles at 1:24 PM on November 19, 2007
posted by Lezzles at 1:24 PM on November 19, 2007
Bah --- now, every island of Greenland, that would be a test.
posted by DenOfSizer at 2:32 PM on November 19, 2007
posted by DenOfSizer at 2:32 PM on November 19, 2007
Clutching a teddy bear called Clyde that accompanied him on every journey
Oh. You know, I wondered if anybody would have missed him. I guess not.
(As the New Yorker used to say ... there'll always be an England.)
By the by, if this interests you, I Know Where I'm Going! would be a fun movie to substitute. It's an overlooked classic. There's also Tight Little Island.
posted by dhartung at 3:38 PM on November 19, 2007
Oh. You know, I wondered if anybody would have missed him. I guess not.
(As the New Yorker used to say ... there'll always be an England.)
By the by, if this interests you, I Know Where I'm Going! would be a fun movie to substitute. It's an overlooked classic. There's also Tight Little Island.
posted by dhartung at 3:38 PM on November 19, 2007
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posted by triv at 4:51 AM on November 19, 2007