Suffolk Pagodas

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In July I visited Orford Ness, the former military testing site on the Suffolk coast. In the 1930s it was one of the places where the technology that became known as RADAR (RAdio Detection And Ranging, now normalised as an actual word, “radar”) was developed, then it was a base for the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, and finally it was a powerful radio installation responsible until 2012 for broadcasting the BBC World Service to Europe. It’s now owned by the National Trust. Access is severely restricted and visitor numbers are strictly controlled because of the danger from unexploded ordinance, and to protect an extremely rare and fragile habitat of vegetated shingle. It’s also situated on a long spit that has to be accessed by boat. As you’ll see from the pictures, probably the only way to describe it if you’ve not been there is as a kind of temperate maritime desert. I was there on an extremely rare hot, dry and sunny day when you could walk around without being blown over sideways. Not much can live on the Ness permanently. Despite growing up not far away from Orford, and living in the vicinity on and off over the years, the inaccessibility and isolation of the place plus the fact that I don’t have a car had always conspired to keep me away from a place that I found fascinating.

Danger Men

Scans of weird pictures from old Ladybird books for children, Part III: the last of them for now. See Part I for background information and the first set of images, and part II with a pair of huge bastards. This picture is posted apropos of nothing in particular except that it evidences a Ballardian relish at the prospect of getting totally fucked up in a horrific car crash and- like the burning guy picture– I would love to own the original painting.

Sadly, nowadays one is unlikely to encounter an image like this in a book intended to help young children learn to read. Never did me any harm. <Watches David Cronenberg’s film version of Crash and laughs uncontrollably/masturbates furiously.> This picture comes from a book most excitingly entitled Danger Men, although many of the masculine activities described therein suggest an alternate title might be more appropriate, perhaps something like Bloody Idiots.

'Danger Men': yes, evidently. Illustration by Frank Humphris, 1970.