‘The best views are views of familiar things, like cities and farms and bottlenecked freeways. So set aside the beauty of sunsets, the majesty of mountains, the imprint of winds on golden prairies. The world beneath our wings has become a human artefact, our most spontaneous and complex creation … The aerial view is something entirely new. We need to admit that it flattens the world and mutes it in a rush of air and engines, and that it suppresses beauty. But it also strips the facades from our constructions, and by raising us above the constraints of the treeline and the highway it imposes a brutal honesty on our perceptions.’ – William Langewiesche, ‘The View from Above’.
Starting later today is a new two part series on the Cuillin Hills of Skye . It is presented by Robert MacFarlane. It will, of course, be excellent, especially given the involvement of the three musicians that he mentions here. Hello––I made a two-part @BBCRadio4 programme abt Skye's Cuillin Ridge, all recorded in situ. First ep goes out this Tuesday at 16.00hrs. Would love it to find ears! Prod by @HelenNeedham , w/ a new song by @juliefowlis , @DuncanWChisholm , @ShawDonald & me. https://t.co/9ReravY19T — Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) September 18, 2023 In this two part series, we accompany the writer and mountaineer Robert Macfarlane on his attempt to complete the Cuillin Ridge. This expedition marks twenty years since his first book 'Mountains of the Mind' in which he tries to understand the human fascination with mountains. Along the way, he muses on the ways in which these particular mountains have been explored imaginatively and in reality. The reality fo
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