And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually.

---

Young woman share your fire with me,

My heart is cold, my soul is free,

I am a stranger in your land,

A wandering man, call me sand.

Lee Hazlewood, 1966

Do you see what I did there? In the style of high brow writers such as Ian Rankin and Stephen King I have put an excerpt from a song pertinent to the context of the following passage. And I've used a line from a song as the title, further adding to the cultural referencing and pretentiousness.

It could be a competition to see who knows from what song the title comes from, or from which album, but all you'd have to do is cut'n'paste it into Google and it would tell you straight away, like so much today, technology has cheapened so many aspects our lives to the point of worthlessness, falsely raising our expectations and need for constant entertainment.

A photograph used to be a thing of value. If you were rich enough you could get a family portrait done, posing solemnly in your Sunday best to take pride of place above the mantle piece. Today every schoolchild needs a multi media web enabled mobile phone so they can simultaneously send a digital photo of a dog turd with the message "ur sht, lol!!!! ;-)" to their friends while listening to the latest trite, vapid Pop Factor Idol X single illegally downloaded from the intraweb. The telephone conversation has been devalued too. People make excuses to phone for the most trivial matters. Blokes phone their wives from supermarkets - "what milk do we normally have?" and we have lost the skill of arranging to meet someone at a certain place and time. I can remember a time when you would make a commitment to be at a pub at a pre-ordained time, now all you get is "give me a call" or "text me". Since when has "text" become a f*cking verb? I'm only thirty bloody six and I'm talking about the early 1990s as some sort of Golden Age of humanity. WTF is going on?

Anyway, sand. What is it? I know it is a powdery substance consisting of very small rock or mineral grains, found on the sea shore and in deserts, but why is used so prolifically as an allegory and as inspiration for prose or song? "Like sand slipping though your fingers", "The sands of time", " Enter Sandman".

That is why it is so difficult to describe the pictures taken in the desert. At the Sand Falls - the sand was cascading down the face of sand like some sand - or the one of me digging Mike's Prado out - trying to dig the sand from underneath Mike's Prado was like trying to dig out a load of sand from underneath a 4X4 that was stuck in the sand - and what about the Shamal, the famous sand storms of the Middle East? - the hot sand whipped around and stung our faces like so much hot sand that had been whipped around into our faces, stinging.

And what of it's use in the cinema? Lawrence of Arabia would not have been half as dramatic if Peter O'Toole had been prancing around in the gentle, rolling Chiltern Hills. Any fight scene in a Western or Gladiator film would not be complete with the baddie throwing a handful of sand into the goodie's eyes to distract him, you can't do that with a dozen blades of grass. In Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope, the iconic sunset of Tatooine featuring two suns above the expanse of sand clearly represents the the global unease of the threat of nuclear war in the 70s.

It is because the grain of sand represents that which cannot be broken down into anything smaller, it makes us question our own mortality and relevance in the universe, after all, we are no more than a grain of sand on a beach - I realise this is a bit deep. Plus, desert camo gear looks way cooler than the standard green stuff.

So just enjoy the pictures of the Sand Falls, I took some "artistic" shots too, and by that I mean they are "crap".

---

Photos

Sand Falls
Sand. Falling.

Sand Falls 2
More sand. Falling.

Sand Falls 3
I think you get the idea of what is going on here.

Coming round the mountain.
This is The Saddle, probably the scariest bit of the trip. Luckily my seat covers are easily removable and washable.

Ya dig it?
The trusty LRDG issue shovel sees some hot sand action.

Wild Camels
I don't know why they call them wild, they didn't even look mildly annoyed.

Comments

[Charles Webster]

you are a ..
Pretentious wanker … Mission accomplished.

[Uncle Pat]

Sorry!
Er.. sorry mate but could you run that by me again. I was busy texting somebody.

[tommy stewart]

what? no!
where you pished when you wrote this?

[marykanijo]

English we understand.
Great stuff Alan. Well observed and written, an art gradually being lost with all the abbreviated thinking and writing, now fashionable. I look forward, as I always do, to the next instalment.