What’s Shakin’ On The Hill

News travels fast on Medium —Stories worthy of attention

Early morning photo by the author of Silbury Hill, Wiltshire, which is part of the complex of Neolithic monuments around Avebury, which includes the Avebury Ring and West Kennet Long Barrow, and was probably completed around 2400 BC.

I’m partly guilty in the demise of newspapers and magazines. Online reporting has done quite a bit of damage, too, with Instant News. At one time I took three national dailies, the music paper New Musical Express (NME) and two monthly Guitarist magazines.

Now all I get is one national paper at the weekend and it takes me all week to read it — doing the crosswords/puzzles — browsing through all the endless supplements.

When I was a kid growing up in the UK in the 1960s, news travelled around my village by bush telegraph. A story might take a week to make our local newspaper. A policeman in our village once told me that if I committed a misdemeanour on remote Flamborough Head (30 miles away) he’d hear about it. I think it was a warning not to get into mischief. There’d be no hiding place. He’d find out what’s shakin’ on the hill and be coming to see me.

Among the mountain of articles on Medium, there are a few that have caught my attention recently. They have intrigued me and given me food for thought. Some have spurred me on, sparking an idea for a story of my own. Not just stories — comments made in response can also generate ideas. Here are some stories that made me think...

The Benefit of Being a Tourist in Your Own Town

Kevin Alexander wrote a neat piece about not being able to travel abroad during Covid Lockdown. He’s asking the question — What is on our own doorstep? Get out there and look — as he says in his story — “We found a few new restaurants, new parks, and new sights. We found spaces we never knew existed”.