To Birmingham.

The purpose of our journey was to image abandoned streets.
To capture the unsettling silence of roads without cars.

We failed.
Instead of creating a sense of unease
We drove straight into it....

The journey begins half an hour before sun rise.
The engine of the motorbike purrs.

The second image was taken when we were midway on Mucklow's Hill, at the B+Q roundabout.

At first the image seemed so normal and ordinary
But as I kept looking I realised we were at the edge of a star-field.
As if stars grow on stalks

Distant street lamps.

Next location is beside Street Bike, at the top of Mucklow's Hill as we go into Quinton.

Now stopped at traffic lights.
The river of cars flow along the M5 as we wait for the traffic lights to change.

Onwards to Harborne.
Stopped beside the swimming baths.

Then we reach Birmingham.
Sea gulls and Broad Street.
People still hanging around besides the clubs.

Final image
Ambulance.

Parked
Door open
No crew....

Manor Way.

The alley way leads towards Tenterfield's school. When I was a child, I was told that this area was called Tenterfields because travellers (the tenter folk- because they had tents?) used this land to set up camp. Tenterfields school took the land that was once occupied by an isolation hospital. The hospital was demolished, and a single arch remains- not shown in this film.

A Coop dairy, the place milk floats went...has been replaced by McDonald's

The Christadelphian's have been waiting for the end of the world, all my life. They are a millenarian church. Christadelphian's like the Jehovah's Witnesses believe that there are signs indicating end times. The Olivet Prophecy in particular describes the signs that Christadelphians believe indicate the return of Jesus. The signs are described by Jesus in Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13 and Luke 21 and include war, famine, "men's hearts failing them for fear" and people being more interested in themselves than in God. Christadelphians believe these signs have been fulfilled and, consequently, that Jesus will soon return. The Christadelphian movement was founded by John Thomas (1805-71), in America in 1848.

A surgical plaster stuck on the wall by the bus stop.

As we began to walk along Manor Way, Gavin saw round things on the pavement. Most likely the round things are damsons from this tree.

At the side of the road Gavin spotted the second instant of detached kettle lead. This is inexplicable.

Manor way and the sun shines directly into our faces. Traffic is slow, one lane has been coned off for gas repair. We walk past Sandvik. A set of offices, or it it a factory, that sells tools for the handyman; saws in particular. Sandvik is Scandinavian. It means sandy bay.

We leave Manor Way. The Clent Hills and Walton are on the horizon.

Walking towards Manor Way school, an amber cat.

A hole in the hedge leading back to Manor Way.

At the top of which is 'Death Island'. This rather innocuous traffic island was called Death Island because someone died there. The accident happened in the early hours. Two guys were racing, but they smashed into each other because this island is not all that it seems to be. The island used to be much smaller.

We walk back to Tenterfields.

Wessex. 22nd July 2014.

It was time to visit Stonehenge once more.
Not the stones, you understand.

It is the visitor centre that fascinates me.
Every surface is non-stick.

And yet something of the old, messy, confusing and temporary Stonehenge remains in the absurdity of the land train...

The film is a mix of static and moving.
No dialogue.

My written notes made at the time, are transcribed below the film:

10:00 am
Service station.
We left the M5 and stopped at the service station.
Non stop flow of cars into the car park
Amazing blue sky.
... a Polo mint..

11:50
Barberry Castle.
Sitting under a tarpaulin. The sound of a plane, crickets and a few distant voices. The sounds of gun-shot from the shooting school located just a little way from here, further on down the narrow road.

11:52
String failure
The black tarpaulin flaps like a disconsolate crow around my head.

4:15 PM
Stonehenge.
After navigating the queue to cross over we sought privacy and shelter from the sun. The surrounding grass land isn't grass. No trees, no grass. The ground sprouts clover and sorrel and the promise of thistles. Eventually we come to rest on some concrete steps, close to the land train station. The similarity to a shopping mall, almost always a shopping mall has a bus station, is making me feel distinctly depressed. A shopping mall is designed for flow to create a need to consume. Likewise here we are subtly pressurised into feeling uncomfortable for contemplating eating food that we have not purchased here, but elsewhere.

The design of the building funnels air towards us, sucks air through the gap between restaurant/gift shop and museum. As the day is so hot, this wind-tunnel effect is very welcome.

The corporate flexi-shrine, slippery and impenetrable; new Stonehenge makes me want to give up! This is of course how I am meant to feel. Thousands of pounds have gone into designing a place to make people feel hollow, and empty inside; to create within us all a discontent that can only be filled by buying stuff...For some stupid reason, we fell for it too and bought coffee. Horrible, machine made. A mistake!

The land trains are still operating. There doesn't appear to be any direct or even indirect way to walk to the stones unless I walk along the road. The land trains move at the speed of a hearse, no doubt to give the impression that the stones are impossibly distance both in time and location.

7:05 PM
The Sanctuary
The concrete markers have been repainted. A tanker is parked in the lay-by. The sun shines hot on my back as it begins to set. I am very glad to be away from Stonehenge.

8:35 PM
The Inn with a Well.
An old house with a hole in the floor! The well is now covered in glass and is the blue disc in the film. It is just a bit disconcerting to walk over it. I am so hot, sipping a glass wine, waiting for a bowl of curry....