8/8/06

Conspiracy theorists – and there are many up here, perhaps because it is easy to hide out in the hills, obscured by clouds – some believe Princess Diana was killed because of her relationship with a Muslim; others that 9/11 was a plot by the Bush administration to give fuel to his W.O.T. and thereby give him reason to finish the job his Dad left incomplete a decade ago. The theorists will rapidly tell you these things in bars and cafes; as if they share something that no-one else has ever heard of. But then that is the way of things up here in the rarefied atmosphere of Cumbria – maybe it is too much exposure to the sun, maybe it is simply geography? Bearing in mind the recent evangelist convention here and I begin to see a pattern – a version of the 21^st century US frontier emerging in the wilder parts of this country: rednecks, bible freaks, conspiracy theorists etc. – perhaps this is the millenarian town of the UK, the locus mundi of Armageddon?

However there is one thing that many agree on and can be proven: the recent increase in RAF practice runs over the town. Yesterday they flew at least 7 missions – mostly Jaguars from what I can see, perhaps the odd F-111 – coming in low over Walla Crag and turning sharply north along the river plateau toward Bassenthwaite. It’s a nasty and frightening experience when they do – all peace is broken, you’re left with a dry taste of fear in your mouth at the shock of noise. Sweet Barbara tells me how two collided above the lake 19 years ago – killing one of the pilots ands leaving debris of one plane on the Crag itself and the other at Grasmere some 5 miles south.

Rumours; high energy thespians playing cat and mouse with each other’s emotions. In some ways it was inevitable, in others it’s just simply sad. I keep my mouth shut.