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December 7, 2006
Will Self walks to Manhattan from JFK airport, a distance of 20 miles, partly because to someone who walks a lot it’s not really that far and partly because it’s really the only way to enter a city. I like that this is seen as odd when it shouldn’t be and I don’t think I walk around as much as I should. Maybe it’s time to walk from the NEC into Birmingham. Anyone want to join me? (via)
7 Comments on “Will Self walks to Manhattan”
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Yea, happy too so long as we’re not just slogging along the A45. I’ve taken the bus from JFK to Manhattan, and it’s a site more interesting than the bus from the NEC to New Street :) Birmingham airport’s only about 10 miles too, so perhaps we should start at Coventry?
Doh! Will Self arrived in a plane (or from space as Momus would put it) so he started at the airport. You/we would have to get there by means other than a plane (unless we took some kind of massive detour), so a circular walk from, say, Waterstones on the High Street to Waterstones on New Street, via the NEC and airport.
What interests me is the stuff about entering the city slowly, starting on the edges where it’s still technically coutryside dotted with villages and industrial estates and moving through suburbia into the centre. In other words what I did when I was stranded near Curdworth that time.
I was thinking of just getting a commuter train somwehere like Lichfield or the NEC and walking back from there. The distance isn’t the thing – it’s the journey.
Indeed. Looping out and then in would match the symmetry of Self’s walk out of London and into NY.
You could go out through Yardley and Chelmsley Wood, round to the airport, back through Solihull, Hall Green, Balsall Heath and Digbeth.
Walking along one of the rivers makes a good journey, because in some parts you’ll be walking through a previous era, like the time I found a stone millwheel along the Tame near Bescot. Any of the region’s rivers should offer up some historical treasures.
Following the Tame upstream from Tamworth would be an interesting walk past Water Orton to Spaghetti Junction. Similarly, following the Cole in from Shustoke looks like it goes through some interesting places.
Aside from that, you might want to have a look at Leadville, Edward Platt’s book about a walking tour of London’s Western Avenue, along with books by the usual suspects like Iain Sinclair. Could prompt some inspiring concepts…
Irony of ironies (or coincidences), the Independent is running an auction for a walk with Will Self:
“Lot 4: Self Interest
The author of The Book of Dave will visit you at home, join you for a walk around the neighbourhood, engage you in sophisticated badinage and write up the whole experience in his PsychoGeography column in The Independent Magazine. (Last year: £1,615)”
While I am deeply suspicious of a ‘PsychoGeography column’ (given he’s about 40 years late on the topic), I do think that a bid is in order, even if it’s purely as a joke. Might prompt the urban rambler to give a halfway decent characterisation of our town…
Clearly this auction is why I don’t read the Indy. There are only four lots out of 40 I’d consider bidding on – Will Self and Janet Street-Porter, even if they are can both be a bit pompous, Mark Steel, although you can hear the same kind of thing seeing him on tour or when he’s on Radio 4, and Ralph Steadman.