Don't worry, I've already read the rude bit... I have eyes everywhere (though I don't subscribe to your mailing list). I wondered if you'd actually say it to my face or not.
What I wrote was from the heart and it's how I feel, so I stand by it. It seems to me that the skeptics are allowed to say what the hell they want and that no-one ever really fights back with the same force. Take Michael Dames. People go on as if he should never have bothered writing those books. I could list a thousand insensitive, hurtful remarks that have been directed his way on this forum: "woven from a fabric of utter bollocks", "belongs in the comedy section" to name but two (sorry FW, I have to say it though). Yet that's just one point of view (although one that remains largely unchallenged in this place). From my point of view those books contain so much vision and sheer <i>engagement</i> with the landscape and monuments (Andy - why don't you like this term? - I have even less understanding of what you've got against the word "heritage") that they are of immense worth. I feel for anyone who reveals their most out-there visions to the world only to be met with scorn and derision. I feel for anyone who spends time and effort researching and writing a book (whatever you think of Dames you can't deny that he's done his fieldwork) only for people to call him a madman.
So I don't understand what a Megarak is? You remind me of Humpty-Dumpty in <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>: "words mean what I say they mean". All I know is that it's the word <i>megalith</i> combined with the word <i>anorak</i>. Isn't that true? <i>Anorak</i> might mean something else entirely to you but to most of the rest of the world it is both an insult and a reference to trainspotting. I'm not going to get into morality of deriding trainspotters - the fact is that this is widely understood to be a boring and obsessive pastime, rightly or wrongly. Given this, the word megarak means, to those who know nothing of megaraks or megaliths, "anorak" or "nerd" or somesuch. A big part of what I was saying is "don't call me a megarak". I don't want to be thought of as one and its my right to say this if I so choose, surely? I deny your label.
As for my caricature of what a Megarak is, I'm quite happy to admit that it was just that - a caricature (ie. a deliberately exaggerated and distorted portrait). My intent was to make people question, to think twice about what they're visiting monuments for in the first place. The fact that it's generated all this discussion, both here and on your stones mailing list, only serves to show that my writing has been successful in its goal - not bad for a load of "rambling twaddle" (told you I'd read it). When people get so put-out I have to ask myself - have I touched a nerve? Is the truth uncomfortable? If what I said was simply a load of crap without any truth in it then you'd all have just ignored it, after all.
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