Monday 28 June 2010

The Moon, A Song To The Sea and Some Naked People (Not Pictured).


In my excitement about my trip to London I almost forgot about the events of Saturday night.
Linda and I had spent the afternoon and evening at a garden party in Chichester.
As we drove home we marveled at the enormous full moon which seemed to float about two feet above the horizon.
On arriving home we went down to the beach to take the photo seen above.
We returned to our flat and settled down for the night, Linda snoozing on our comfy settee whist I finished washing the dishes left over from lunch.

I gazed out through the kitchen window at the moon and became transfixed.
An idea entered my head.
I quietly unpacked my banjo and tip-toed from the flat down to the ocean shore, plonked myself cross-legged on the shingle and began to sing and play.
I sang a song to the moon, I sang a song to the sea, I sang a song to all the fishes in the sea and I sang a song to my adopted lobster, Bobnit Tivol, in his home off the Cornish coast.
I made the lyric up as I went along.
If I got stuck I made up words stretching out the vowels trying to make the kind of sounds throat singers make.
Sometimes I hummed, sometimes I yodeled...

'Excuse me, are you going to be doing that much longer?'
I nearly jumped out of my skin.
The voice came from the sea.
'Excuse me, we'd like to get out now if you wouldn't mind'.
I followed the sound of the voice and could just make out two heads bobbing about down by the breakwater near the launch ramp.
'Oh, Hello, do you want your towels?' I shouted, 'If you let me know where they are I'll pass them to you'.
'Errr, actually, would you mind f*%kin' off so we can get out?'
'We've got no clothes on'.
 
I stood up, brushed off the pieces of shattered dream and trudged back to the flat.

7 comments:

Oldfool said...

Why do people think they will shrivel and die if they are seen naked? Or maybe they think they will show something the world has never seen.
I knew a girl once that said her tits would turn to stone if they were seen. Strange girl.
My best to Bobnit Tivol.

OutaSpaceMan said...

If they hadn't called out chances are I wouldn't have noticed them.
Well, not until they'd got their clothes on.
(We British are a bit like that.)

Anonymous said...

Well I suppose guys have got to be careful about airing their differences in public although there's actually no law against it I believe. Maybe you should add Nightswimming to your repertoire and then next time you can serenade them appropriately.

Parkingspaceman said...

You only have their word that they had no clothes on. It could just have been a wind-up. And I think there is a law against it -"indecent exposure"? That'll apply within the three-mile limit, too, I shouldn't wonder.

Anonymous said...

No Mr parkingspaceman Sir, surprisingly not! Although indecent exposure, conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace, lewd behaviour, or however these crimes are termed are offences, just being naked is not. Remember that nude living sculpture guy, standing on the plinth in London?
You might still get arrested if a police officer wanted to stop your peaceful nudist protest but you probably wouldn't be charged.
Best Wishes,
Orlando (2476 arrests, NO convictions)(*joke*)

Parkingspaceman said...

Hmm, Orlando, you might be right, but any male going naked would be sticking his --ck* out, imho.
* neck, just in case. Any lady suspected of being naked should make a clean breast of it (less trouble in the long run, and one in the eye for the law).

Anonymous said...

Although I'd mostly prefer people to keep their nudie-nakedness covered up by as many clothes as possible with an extra coat or two just to make quite sure, I did watch a television documentary on the subject in which I witnessed the simultaneously repulsive and ridiculous spectacle of three male nudist activists going for a country walk wearing rucksacks, heavy walking boots and nothing else. One of the men explained the legal situation as follows: public nakedness is not in itself prohibited by law, although prosecution might be considered under one of three (I think it was) laws. I'm afraid being no student of the law and in a state of shock from what I had just seen, I cannot tell you what these actually were.

Common sense suggests that if you needed to change into your stripey woolen Victorian bathing suit but lacked a bathing machine or beach hut in which to do it, you might still do so in a public place provided you were as discrete as possible so as not to risk causing offence. I would have thought that this last is the lynch-pin. As soon as nudity becomes a deliberate attempt to shock, it becomes illegal.

For that reason I would have said that the naked hikers were breaking the law but according to their spokesman, a brief period of arrest without subsequent charge is the only danger they face. (I would add brambles, stinging nettles and insects to that).

Although I would prefer people to be fully clothed at all times, there are two situations with which I do have sympathy, One is the unplanned opportunity to swim although on reflection I think OSM's bathers were probably transgressors of a local byelaw (see Countryside byelaws in the UK (Section 10, Commons Act 1899 as substituted by Commons Act 2006)
There is also the natural and inoffensive practice of breastfeeding (provided this is limited to mother and child).

Please forgive my lack of any real solid fact in the above. I fear a Google search for 'nudism' or 'naked' would reveal rather more than I wish to see on the subject.

Orlando.