Back in the late 1990s on a Saturday afternoon I was driving on Channing
just west of Telegraph in Berkeley when this guy came walking down the
street carrying his shopping bag and wearing a baseball cap, sandals and
nothing else. Back then there was no law against public nudity there.
On 01/21/2014 04:22 PM, s3raph...@yahoo.com wrote:
Stephen Gough - the "Naked Rambler" - is an activist, and a former
Royal Marine. In 2003-2004, he walked the length of Great Britain
naked. He did it again in 2005-2006, but was arrested in England and
in Scotland. He has been repeatedly rearrested for public nudity
within a short period, each time he was released.
On his walks he wear nothing but boots, socks, rucksack and sometimes
a hat, after having quit his job as a lorry driver. He has been
arrested and imprisoned numerous times during the course of his
rambles. In UK law it is not actually illegal to be naked in public
but if a member of the public complains you can be arrested for a
breach of the the peace. He has spent six years in prison - most of it
in solitary confinement (as he refuses to wear clothes).
My initial impression of the guy is that he was probably an
exhibitionist and mentally disturbed. It does strike me though that he
has an illustrious forbear: the Cynic philosopher Diogenes who
despised possessions; openly masturbated in public; taught a
back-to-nature approach to life; and was one of the first to warn of
the dangers of "civilization".
Maybe Stephen Gough is just the latest in a long line of English
eccentrics. But maybe we need more naked ramblers - more people who
can wake us up from our slumber and our obsession with conspicuous
consumption.
Here he is . . .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b039086d/The_Naked_Rambler/
