Friday, September 25, 2009

mind you don't get sand in your eye

A few brief notes on the last couple of weekends' activities:
  • The weekend before last saw our annual trip to Swanage for the usual drinking, golf, barbecue and walking adventures. This time our Sunday walk took us over to Sandbanks and thence back round the coast via Studland, Old Harry Rocks and Ballard Down to Swanage.
  • Studland is most famous for a section of the east-facing beach being reserved for naturists. There seems to be a bit of controversy going on at the moment about a possible restriction on the areas through which one can gambol with one's genitalia flapping freely in the breeze - there is even a website campaigning for greater freedom (needless to say most of this is NSFW). Whether the guy who had parked himself at the extreme south end of the nudist zone, literally about 5 feet from the "please put some pants on now" sign, with just a t-shirt on and his exposed genitalia pointing towards the "textile" zone, was executing some sort of nudist activist protest in relation to this or whether he was just a pervert I do not know. Despite having no particular urge to cavort naked in the dunes I am broadly sympathetic to their cause, but I don't think waving your cock at people to make a point (as it were) necessarily helps.
  • Last weekend Hazel and I went to Bruges for a long weekend. I haven't seen In Bruges, as it happens, so all I can say is a) we went to some of the locations in the film and b) it looks like it might be quite amusing.
  • What the world needs now is probably not a list of things to do in Bruges, but I would recommend a visit to the De Halve Maan brewery, where you can go on a brewery tour and then sup a complimentary Brugse Zot afterwards.
Anyway, about these photos: Swanage here, Bruges here. Enjoy.

2 comments:

Brian Taylor said...

I hope this is not an inane comment!

I am the Public Relations Officer for British Naturism (BN) and would like to say that I agree with your comments regarding Studland beach. It is a very popular naturist beach enjoyed by many people whenever the weather permits.

We would consider the behaviour of the individual mentioned to be unacceptable if he was indeed deliberately 'displaying' himself to the non-naturist section. It is not our intention to upset or alarm anyone.

Fortunately we have a very good relationship with the local police and the National Trust at Studland and they help us to keep undesirable behaviour to a minimum, so the behaviour of the minority does not spoil the enjoyment of the majority.

As for yourself...why not give it a try? Most people are surprised how good it feels and end up asking themselves, why didn't I do this years ago?

electrichalibut said...

Brian -

No, not inane at all.

I can't think, even in my most charitable moments, of any alternative explanantion for what this gentleman was doing - although he was clearly obeying the letter of the regulations (by a few feet), he did have the rest of an almost entirely empty beach to choose from. But, well, he was just lying there, and none of the handful of people who passed, ourselves included, were notably traumatised by the experience, so no harm done, really.

As for me I certainly wouldn't rule it out - I might wait for warmer weather though....