back of beyond

He coined the phrase "back of beyond" and was never happier than when in a cozy camp built entirely with his hands.

These trees would live in myriad habitats from soggy coasts to the driest deserts, deep valleys to the shoulders of alpine peaks, backyards to the back of beyond. Some would stand alone like arboreal explorers in a wilderness of adverse conditions, others would crowd together in forests dense enough to affect gravity.

Lawrence stayed at Back of Beyond (www.backofbeyond.tc), a peaceful nine-room inn on the island's south side, decorated in the soft red-clay colors of the American Southwest and overlooking a turquoise sea, in search of "an affordable sunny spot away from crowds and cruise ships, which are prohibited from docking here and damaging the third-largest reef system in the world." He continues: "Innkeeper Ed Darragh, a weathered fellow who is retired from overseeing maintenance of a national park, gives us only one warning about life in Provo: "Stay off the roads on Fridays." Apparently, the number of crashes along the island's lone highway soars as residents parlay their paychecks into Turks Head beer.

So it's intriguing to discover this distinctly low-key take on a creepy subject set firmly in America's rural back of beyond.

In a nutshell, Sharpeville is a small South African township in the back of beyond where, in March 1960, police opened fire on members of the Pan-Africanist Congress who were protesting against 'pass laws.' Despite official investigations, not-so-official investigations and wild speculation getting the oxygen of publicity in the past 40 years, there is still a lot of uncertainty and dispute over exactly what went wrong and what really happened.

In the back of beyond, for instance, he was speaking to people whom time had passed by when a policeman approached and warned that he should not be there.

It examines the practical application of these ideas to the many conflicting facets of everyday life whether we live in the city or in the back of beyond -- how we let ourselves be governed (when we should govern ourselves in smaller more governable communities), how we rely on the car quite needlessly (but would not need to if working/living/social patterns were different), how we expect to be supplied with endless energy (when we could use less and even generate it ourselves), how we use supermarkets to supply us with food from all across the world (when we could be growing it ourselves).

But as Conroy's new boss makes clear when he welcomes him and his family to "in back of beyond," his assignment probably isn't a reward for good behavior.

The problem is that no-one wants one of these places anywhere near them (nimbyism) and I know places out in the back of beyond that get harassment off the nimbys to the point of calling it a day.

There's metal aggression and pop knowhow bonded in Back of Beyond, and Little Momma has the feel of a mosh pit Depeche Mode.

Unfortunately his son, tired of living in the back of beyond, sets out to join the firm, now being run by his brutal uncles.

His plan for Caerphilly and the whole of the Gwent area is at Llanfrechfa Grange Cwmbran, the back of beyond.

POLICE sergeant Nicholas Angel's arrest record is a country mile above those of his colleagues, and that's why they ship him out to the back of beyond.

Okay, so it could get a tad hairy in some of its wilder places, but it's hardly the back of beyond. Charley even suffers a panic attack while diving to a wreck in Lake Huron; we certainly can't imagine the likes of James Cook, Edmund Hillary feeling out of sorts during their trips to uncharted areas of the world.

He transplants his teacher wife Tammy (Brooke Shields) and teenage son Tyler (Matt Prokop) to the back of beyond while he completes the year-long project.