De Ja Vu and The Mysterious Lack of an Ozone Layer Hole in Shrek (Part 1)
You'll Never Know If You Don't Go
I had this whole essay planned out before we left.
The weather at the top of Am Bodach put paid to these plans, but I'm going to write the essay as if it hadn't, and it does still sort of make sense, I suppose.
Anyway, we were going to hike to Fort William to collect some new pans (as mentioned in last week’s essay (below) and also a compost bin, but L was unconscionably bored by this idea so won me round (with some needless grumbling on my part) to a new plan.
A Long Walk, A Locked Door, and Unexpected Serenity
Last week I wrote 2000 words about going shopping, as an exercise in writing about the mundanity of life. Here are 2000 more about going not-shopping.
I was hesitant because I'd already messaged the furniture shop telling them I was going to be in on Saturday for the pans and didn't want to flake on them. But L pointed out that A) they wouldn't care and B) they had already flaked on me once before, after I'd walked 25km to get there, so it really wasn't a big deal.
Scouring the Walkhighlands website for an appropriate hike, we settled on Am Bodach, which can be climbed directly from the village by diverting to the right off the West Highland Way track.
I've climbed Am Bodach before, which is part of the story, but we have to move back to Manchester to get the full picture.
Cornbrook
When I lived in Didsbury I would sometimes get the tram to work, or into town. All trams in South Manchester (by legal decree, and whether or not the route actually physically passes through it) must go via Cornbrook, which is a nondescript station seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
I remember getting off my first tram and standing on the platform, looking out over the newly built skyscrapers and wondering where the heck I actually was. It was a liminal space, populated by transient buildings and transient people. A place in which no one could possibly live, yet which was apparently full of people. And even though it was one or two stops on the tram line from the city centre, it gave off the feeling that getting off would leave you at least a two-hour walk from anything of note.
Cornbrook Again
Then I moved to Hulme and met L, who lived right next to Cornbrook. And my relationship with the place changed. I remember the first time I boarded a tram after meeting L and the sense of dislocation that told me I had been here before.
How could I have been there before? It felt so different now, but it was undeniably the same. The same skyscrapers, the same traffic lights, the same car dealership. Only now I knew where I was. I was next to L's flat. I was a twenty-minute walk from my new house. Cornbrook now had a place in my mental map, this solidified it and morphed it from being an ethereal gateway to a very real place.
It is similar to the feeling you get if you visit a place you've seen in a photograph. Or if you return to a place you last visited as a child, before you had the ability to conceptualise a sense of place. All you remember is the imposing hulk of a country house, the cold steel of the monkey bars in a playground that seems to have shrunk since the last time you were there.
Cornbrook is now an anchor in my memories of Manchester. A point on a line between my workplace, my house, L's place and the city centre. A solid link in a chain. In another life L and I might have opened a coffee hatch in the railway arches, called Cornbean. As it happened we left Manchester, and it’s not necessarily that I'll look back on Cornbrook with any particular fondness, more that it will always have an association in my head as the bridge between the two lives I lived in the city.
Ringo Starr
Back to Am Bodach, which I climbed in 2022 as part of the Ring of Steall (pronounced steel not staal as I’d been saying incorrectly for years), with three friends from work (they were here this weekend, and demanding I write an essay about them, so this will have to do) on a trip where we also tackled Ben Nevis.
The relentless up and up of The Ben was far easier than the up and down and up and down of the Ring of Steall, which is a route taking in four Munros. It took us all day and tuckered us out so much that we all fell asleep on the sofas in the Ben Nevis Inn after having tea.
The views that day were spectacular, and I now know that, specifically from Am Bodach, they are views over Loch Leven. Where we now live.
This was the nugget on which I had planned the entire essay in my head.
A fool's game.
Anything which relies on gorgeous visibility at the top of a Munro is a fool's game. Relying on gorgeous visibility in the middle of January is the next level of a fool's game. A jester's game? In my head, a jester outranks a fool.
But indulge me for a second (as if you haven't already) and I'll tell you what I was going to write about had the skies allowed it. I'll embellish the fake story a bit too, to try and make up for the fact none of it ever happened.
I Am Bodach Again
We have been climbing for close to two hours. Tough, but at least the ground has been fairly solid. We made it up to the Ring of Steall with no trouble and set off to the right up Am Bodach. Only about fifteen minutes to the top, I reckoned. The sky is covered with fog, but I am sure this will clear by the time we reach the summit.
The ridge isn't too scary, but we try to avoid the bits which are closest to the edge. There is a gully with some snow which hasn't melted despite the end of the cold snap. Scrambling over the last few rocks we reach the top and the fog immediately rolls away, leaving us with gorgeous views over the entire Ring of Steall and down over Loch Leven.
I am struck with Deja Vu. I have been here before. I already knew that, of course, but being here is something else.
My legs become weak and I stumble into a seated position, mouth agape with wonder at the sight I am beholding. The sense of dislocation threatens to take me over and I try to say something but can't get the words out. I have been here before, but I didn't know where I was then.
I am here now and I know where I am.
There is something primal and beautiful in that truth and I survey this land which I now know as my own. A loch which has adopted me and hills which nourish my soul. I was here before but I was never really here until now.
Unfortunately, none of that happened.
Other than there being mist when we made it onto the Ring. That was true. There was also a biting wind, but I thought I'd leave that out of the rosetinted version.
The mist suggested a few times that it might be willing to part slightly, but never fully committed, and we huddled behind the cairn at the top to eat our bread and hummus with frozen fingers before immediately making our escape back down the way we'd come.
So, rather than being overwhelmed with a feeling of reverse homecoming, or a powerful deja vu, I didn't recognise the summit of Am Bodach at all. Partly because there was nothing to recognise, and partly because I was too cold to have recognised anything anyway.
On the way down I was thinking to myself about how I would probably be able to spend the rest of the day in the same trousers I was wearing because it hadn't been a particularly sweaty day, when I slipped and splattered my butt with a lovely dollop of mud. They'll be good for another hike, at least.
What A Concept
Later I overtake L by navigating an exceptional (if I do say so myself) route through a bit of bog. I turn back and hit her with the loser sign, though I always forget which hand I'm supposed to use to get the letter the correct way round. This gets me thinking about All Star by Smash Mouth, and how, given that it famously featured in Shrek, it fits into the Shrek Universe.
I am not the first person to point out that All Star is partly about climate change, with lyrics about the ozone layer and the ice caps melting.
But does global warming exist in the Shrek Universe? Unlike I'm a Believer (written by Neil Diamond, what?), which Donkey sings and which is a straight-up love song, All Star doesn't make sense in a world without climate change.
Shrek occupies a land somewhat similar to our own, albeit with medieval tendencies and populated by all manner of magical creatures. But there is no evidence of widespread industrialisation, giving rise to the question - if there are ice caps in the Shrek Universe, what is causing them to melt? And if there is an ozone layer, what is boring a hole in it? We never see Shrek using any aerosols containing CFCs, but it might happen off-screen.
That is where I’m going to stop this week’s essay - next week I’m going to dive deeper into the lore of Shrek. The conclusion I draw is admittedly a bit left-field, so you don’t want to miss it.
In the meantime, I’ll end by saying that if there’s one good thing that will come out of climate change it’s that I’ll probably be able to get nice, warm, clear skies at the top of Am Bodach in January, which would have rendered this essay slightly more truthful.
Never has a drink tasted more beautiful than that ice cold Tennants at the top of The Ben 👌