This Is This

I used to wonder about impersonators who could do loads of other voices and I mull over why they chose to talk the way they do.

It’s like actors who can behave in loads of different ways at the drop of a hat and I’d think: “If you can be funny and confident and personable and kind, then why are you such a shallow miserable git off the set?”

It’s a good point, although a stupid one, because I realise just because people can behave in a certain way, it don’t mean they’re gonna.

Take me, for example. I can make an astounding pumpkin and ricotta ravioli. I use normal flour instead of 00 because it holds together better and you need that toughness to bind the parcels. The trick’s really in the best olive oil you can find. Ooh, and pine nuts. And nutmeg. But not just virgin olive oil, but extra virgin, that’s been rolled on the thighs of other virgins. And it’s hard to find that many virgins, unless you’re like are a suicide bomber, apparently. What? Fuck those guys, OK? My site.

Anyway, how many times (what?) - how many times have I cooked this manna from heaven? Twice. Once in Villefranche-Sur-Mer in March 1999 and once in Bethnal Green, London, in the mid 1990’s.

Why, if it’s all that? Because I’m lazy.

I’m no slouch - I’ll do myself a nice stir-fry; I’ll throw something together with cheese and homebaked bread, pears and really nice chocolate, but I’m doing other things instead of taking the time do so something I know would taste even better.

Most folks you meet aren’t going to always be at their finest hour or do the best they can for everyone else, let alone themselves, and that’s not just their fallibility, it’s our own as well.

Whether it’s Christmas spirit, or a moment of selfish madness, a person is who they are.

I’ll take someone who can do their own best instead of someone else’s. They’re only human, like you and me, all flaws and charms.

Chapter 28. John and Caroline
Map

The train to Austria came and we got on. It was hot so I kept a bottle of water down in my seat and hoisted my rucksack upon to the luggage rack. A couple in their early twenties stumbled into the compartment with more rucksacks.

“Um…” said the long-haired male, “…”

This is a ritualistic call of confusion and determination. Roughly translated, it means “I may not speak your language, but here goes…” 

I didn’t have to ask them if they were English. They were both sunburnt, they had long black hair, looked like hippies and were carrying bags of vegetables. Like me, only without the groceries and mine was light brown.

“Yes?” I asked them.

“Are these seats reserved?” she asked, pointing to the remaining two empty seats.

“No, go ahead.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“We can sit here, John,” she said to her companion.

The train pulled out of the station like a forlorn sigh as we set away from Greece.

When they were settled in, we asked each other the usual questions. They had been to Czechoslovakia and were going to Amsterdam before returning home to England.

“Where are you going?” she asked. Her name was Caroline.

“I don’t know,” I said, but thinking: “Where isn’t there Claus?”

“What?” said Claus, who was listening, apparently shocked that I had not made plans on the hope of sticking with him.

“Well,” I said, “I’m heading for Vienna, but… I’m not sure yet.”

They nodded.

“Oh, I’m sorry. This,” I said, “is Claus.”

John laughed, waved and said, “Hi, Claus.”

Claus returned an awkward smile. Seeing him feel uncomfortable with us after his platform blunder and Danish alienation aroused in me a guilt-free sadistic pleasure. I was driven by a darker force to prolong the agony.

“Claus is going to Vienna,” I said.

The couple nodded and looked at him. He nodded back and gave them the same smile. I turned away from Claus to face Caroline.

“So how are you getting to Amsterdam?”

“We change at Vienna. So we should be in Amsterdam at midday the day after tomorrow.”

“Have you seen a newspaper lately?” I asked them both.

“No,” said John, sitting up. “What’s happening?”

“I’m asking.”

“I haven’t seen anything for over a week. We could be at war for all I know.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Caroline.

Claus laughed. We all looked at him. He was compelled to say something. I was hoping he would screw up.

“England is crazy,” he said.

You’re doing fine, I thought, keep going. We continued to look at him.

“In what way?” John asked, sounding offensively intrigued.

“Well,” Claus said, trying to explain, “they’re so- conservative.”

Brilliant. Right in it. I sat back and watched.

“Sorry?” asked Caroline.

“Well they are.”

“How? In what way?” asked John again.

“They don’t like change, really.”

I stepped in. “We know what conservative means. How is England conservative?”

My tone of voice let him know he was not making friends.

(more…)

27. Thessaloniki, Briefly, Then North
Map

Claus and I got off the train in Thessaloniki and caught a bus with the girls to the campsite they had been to twice before. When we got there I ordered a separate pitch away from their tent, which they thought was rude, despite their having said nothing to me all evening except for a few Danish puns about carpentry.

Maybe they were dirty jokes which had gotten lost in translation. Shit - that’s a depressing thought that has just dawned on me seventeen years later. That’s why they agreed to go with Claus, the Euro-weenie. They totally liked me! Maybe - and if so: “Fuck.”

Anyway, before I went to bed I had a shower and went with Claus and the girls to the canteen on the site. The noodles bolognese, chips and beer came to more than I had planned and realized when I sat down that I wouldn’t have enough money to pay for the site when we left in the morning. At least it gave us something to take about during the meal.

Five minutes into my dinner I said, “Um, I think I’ve got a problem.”

They kept on talking in Danish.

“Girls? Ah, excuse me. Girls? I might need you to lend me some money.”

It turned out they weren’t leaving on the same train as me (and apparently Claus), so I wouldn’t be able to pay them back. Claus forked out about three dollars and they ended up paying one dollar between them. They gave me the money and I paid the campsite owner that evening because I had to wake up at five in the morning to catch the early train through Yugoslavia to Vienna.

While I did so, they were figuring out ways of how I could get the dollar back to them. The best they could come up with was for me to pay Claus who would give them the money when he saw them back in Copenhagen in a month’s time.

They weren’t best pleased about lending me the money and they didn’t talk to me for the rest of the evening, not even in Danish.

I felt bad for a short while and then got angry because I had just helped Benson out for a hell of a lot more money than they would believe. And arranging for me to give Claus the money so they could get a dollar each back in a month’s time? Jesus Christ.

I also knew that at that time the next day I would be laughing at the whole incident.

I was woken up before dawn by Claus who watched me roll up my tent and pack my things away. He was all packed up.
 
“We’re going to miss the bus,” he said.

We had to catch a bus to the station.

“We’re not going to miss the bus,” I said.

(more…)

I left the house this morning at 6:40 beneath the most incredible sunrise. I walk up my road to the west, and this time of year, I always look over my shoulder because the sun’s coming up as I leave for work.

Well this morning it was heartbreaking how beautiful it was. It was an Oscars sunrise - the star that stole the show. I started thinking how great it was going to be watching it out the windscreen as I travelled east into London. There’s an elevated section of the M4 right that looks out over the flat land around Heathrow where you can see for miles, although these days the sun rises over Windsor Castle.

Either way, I was looking forward to getting a better view. Which is why I was gutted to find I had missed the bus. I caught the later one, by which time it had started raining and the sunrise was gone. I felt bad for a second, but realised it was only for myself. There would be other sunrises. There were people who had seen the one this morning. What was I so worried about?

Personal mishaps are the bummers. Forgetting your mobile phone at home, missing a call that you wanted to get, getting stuck in traffic and missing your connection, losing a plant to an unexpected frost, breaking the tip of your pencil when you have an idea.

Regretting a sunrise is just selfish. You didn’t think it was there just for you, did you? What were you going to do with it anyway?

There’s always tomorrow, and little by little it’s there at the same time for someone else waking up further west.

Windsor. Then Reading. Bath. Bristol.

Cardiff. Swansea.

Dublin. Galway.

Then up out of the ocean for no one in particular.

Good morning.

26. Head For The Border
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I spent the first half hour of the trip with my head out the window. This was a dangerous habit had I picked up. Leaning out the window had given me a feeling of motion, and reassuring notion of going somewhere new.

It was relatively safe away from the commuter hubs of western Europe, and once I was out of the train I could see what was coming. What was scary, however, was the moment my head went out because I didn’t know what was immediately coming, but such was the journey.

Most of the tracks in Turkey were single line anyway, so there was no danger of an oncoming train coming. The engines moved slowly so you can see the obstacles without your eyes streaming from the wind resistance.

An hour into the trip our car was still the only one on the train with no lighting. I fell asleep around midnight to the sound of the German couple drooling into each other’s ears and was woken up an hour later by a guard who wanted to see our tickets.

Half an hour later the train stopped at the Turkish customs office before the Greek border and everyone was woken up with bureaucratic hospitality. All the passengers were moved off the train without their luggage and made to line up in front of a building while we waited for our passports to be stamped. This was one of the two daily trains west out of Turkey, the other being one through Bulgaria, for which most Europeans needed a visa, including myself. So the train on my route was packed.

It took at least two hours for a couple of guards to wake up two hundred people, get them out, check everyone had their passports stamped when entering the country, and get them back on the train again.

Once this was done, it was getting light and half the passengers on the train couldn’t see the point in going back to sleep. These were mostly the people who knew unlike me that there was another passport control waiting for us at the Greek border. There our passports were stamped with Turkish exit visas, which were issued once the authorities were absolutely sure that everyone on the train was leaving the country.

After all this was done, it would have been impossible not to leave the country and live. The train passed through what looked like an Army camp. After a final guard house we travelled through a break in a wall of barbed wire four feet thick, then over a bridge across a river. On the other side of the river was a similar post, only smaller, flying the Greek flag.

Greece. You still had to shit standing up, but at least you could wear shorts.

(more…)

or:
Unknown Outsider Causes Stir After Winning Buddhist Weblog Awards

So wow - this post about the time I spoke about my daughter’s school was awarded Post Of The Year in the 2007 Blogisattva Awards. The awards are there to “honour excellence in English-language Buddhist blogging during calendar year 2006.”

They said:

A chorus of “HAPPY!!!!!”: The award for Best Post of the Year goes to This Is This’s Cliff Jones’s irresistible “Vesak and the Art of Changing Tyres” which tells of Cliff’s success teaching the meaning of Vesak to a class of winsome five year olds. In his post Cliff captures the essence of the five-year-olds’ experience and the adult experience dealing with the jumpy, trusty, loving minds of the cute-as-peaches very young. Vesak has never been explained more winningly to the gappy toothed nor with such toothsome brio to an older set, blog readers. A stunning achievement. Huzzah, Cliff!

I also won funniest post for this which owes more to Everton Football Club and a Vietnamese Zen master than anything else, but I guess not many posts can say that.

It’s humbling, validating and exciting all the same time, and I do see the irony of Buddhist awards, but you read this, so you might want to know what they said and hear how I’m getting on, which is why I mention it.

The award for Best Achievement with Humor in a Blog Post goes to Cliff Jones’s well rapped “Burrito” which appeared in his blog This Is This. “Burrito” is an economical post, told with gentle humor, which explains how a tasty burrito, sports fans and all of us “inter-are” – a term that Thich Nhat Hanh coined. Cliff’s examples of how things inter-are are sometimes whimsical. They include original insights on how we and everything are interlaced, entwined, transmogrified and bound in a tapestry of being [and, well, yeah, non-being, too, as well as being sharers of sights and sounds]. Zounds! 

Congratulations to Bill Harryman for his Integral Options Cafe, which was named Blog Of The Year, and a big thanks to Tom Armstrong of Blogmandu, who ran the awards, for highlighting some excellent writing this year.

And yes, I know Yin and Yang are Chinese mythological and not Buddhist concepts, but the headline. Come on.

I don’t know about you, but you know - Saturday morning, after the rain, loving life and now this.

There was a guy getting on the bus this morning - normal commuter guy, suit, paper, case, what have you - except have he was a saw handle sticking out of his shoulder bag.

It didn’t match up.

Maybe he’s doing some handiwork and hiding it from his wife. Busy hands indeed. She knows something’s up, though. The calluses, the glow of achievement, the late nights when he comes home stinking of creosote. It all fits as snugly as dovetail joints in the chiffarobe that appeared two weeks ago. From nowhere.

Or he’s a disgruntled employee in a law firm, and today’s the day he finally cracks and runs amuck with the saw. He goes into Starbucks on the way into work and buys a coffee - a huge coffee, bigger than anything they do, taller than tall. He gets it made special, quad shot hazelnut and full cream. The barrista thinks it’s a bit wierd, but then he sees the saw handle, and says nervously, “It’s cool, man, whatever you want.” The Attorney-at-Saw (because that’s what he’ll be called in tomorrow’s downmarket papers) declares his new creation the Hyper Venti Latte and he laughs for the last time in ten to fifteen years as he heads to the office.

Whatever, it don’t sit right.

Have a good weekend everyone. I mean that.

Oh - good to know you’re out there, too. Thanks for all the comments on Wednesday.

25. Leaving Turkey With The Dane
Map

When we got back to the train station, it was time for him to catch his train to Belgrade. He found his seat and leaned out the window to me.

“The first thing you do when you get to Belgrade is go to the Nigerian embassy and tell them about your friend. They should be able to help him.”

“Okay, goodbye, Cliff.”

“See you, Benson.”

I turned and started walking to a stall to buy some more water. Behind me I heard the train leave.

I was heading north, through Yugoslavia with no fixed plans other than to get back to Western Europe for a while.

I bought a bottle and got on my train to find a seat early. I walked through a dark carriage to a compartment with a young man in.

“Are these seats free?” I asked him.

“Yes, sure,” he said. He sounded Scandinavian.

“I think it’s time to leave Turkey,” I said, “I mean, it’s a great place but I need to go somewhere where you can at least drink the water.”

He laughed too much and said, “You’re American?”

My accent at the time was stronger than it is now, so to make life easier, I just lied: “Yes, and yourself?”

“Danish. I live in Kobenhavn”

I hauled my rucksack up onto the overhead rack and collapsed into a couple of seats. I sat there in the dark wishing the train would leave. The Dane was saying something about Denmark. Five minutes later a German couple walked into the compartment. He was about twenty seven and she was no more than nineteen. They were embarrassingly in love and my mind turned the cultural differences, their attitudes towards intimacy and the logistics thereof.

This made me hungry, and I realised I had no food, so with ten minutes before the train was due to leave. I had some Turkish money left, so I ran to a snack truck outside the station.

“No, you will not be back in time! The train will leave without you if you go and get food,” the Dane anxiously explained. He was worrying for me, so I gave him permission, although it was more of an order, to throw my rucksack out the window and back onto the platform if it left without me on it.

(more…)

I’d like to apologise for a lack of a significant post today, as I am recovering from being overserved. Due to the excessive nature of last night’s drinking, Thursday’s entry had been rained off. Pissed off might be more appropriate.

Either way, though, it ain’t happening.

As a gesture of goodwill, Friday’s post will be made available FREE OF CHARGE to everyone in the world at 8:30am GMT.

You can’t really say fairer than that.

Every so often I get comments from people who say they have been reading for a while but don’t leave comments. Fair enough - there are lots of sites where I don’t leave comments even though I read them religiously.

By religiously I mean I probably should but don’t actually get around to it. Thanks, no really, but seriously.

But it’s always good to get feedback. I really appreciate people leaving comments. The other week Ed described us as a team and that blew me away, truly.

So with slightly more ado than I would have originally wished, I’d like to say hi to regular readers and commenters Ed, Tom, Mr Angry, *, Wendy, Iain, Pete, Scroob, Sooz, Sam, Katy, Ted, Joan, DiB, Salvadore, Bonnie, Leemer, Meg, Anna, Jonny, Mike, FB, Anglosaxy and Chris.

If I’ve missed anyone out and you want to let me know then say hey, but it’s cool if not and thanks for reading.

24. Benson Anigboro
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I collected my bag, bought a bottle of water and checked the train times. The next train west was five hours away, so I got comfortable on my sleeping mat with Hemingway.

About half an hour later, a tall black man struggled up to me with his luggage: a leather hold-all and a briefcase. He put them down next to me.

“Hello.” He had a deep voice with a West African accent. He pointed to my bottle of water, “May I?”

“Do. Sure.”

He uncapped the bottle and lifted it high, quickly drinking almost half of it.

“Thank you, my friend.” He introduced himself as Benson Anigboro. He showed me the name on his passport. Benson A. Anigboro.

We shook hands and sat on the station floor.

After a while, he said, “Are you leaving today?”

“Yes, I need the West.” I wondered if he understood.

“I know this feeling.”

Two men slowly strolled up to us as they talked amongst themselves. Benson stood up and walked towards them. I followed. One was Nigerian and the other was from Uganda.

“Hello, you going to Belgrade?” Benson asked one of them.

“No brother, I’m waiting for some friends.”

“Oh, this city,” said the Nigerian.

“I cannot believe it,” added Benson.

“All the people they are crazy. The speak nothing but Turkish. What is this? Nobody speaks Turkish in the world. I ask them, but nobody speaks English. The information staff, tourist office, nobody.”

I wondered if a Turk with limited English would be able to understand Benson’s strong accent.

The Nigerian added, “All they can say is ‘You M’sieur! How much!’ This is a crazy country. They always want your money.”

Benson came to life. “This is a country of rooks! They take your money.”

“That’s the truth,” I said.

Benson continued: “All of them. Rooks! I leave my hotel for five minutes yesterday, they take my money.”

“Really?” I asked.

“All my money. Five hundred dollars, they take it.”

“Shit. All of it?”

“All my money! Five minutes, I say!” He held up five fingers.

(more…)

I missed the bus yesterday morning. The last coach into London pulled away as I turned the corner so I kept on walking to get the train, which pissed me off because it was a cold two mile walk on a damp Monday morning. 

About 200 yards on from the bus stop, right where the turning to the motorway is, a car had pulled over the roundabout. As I approached, I could see the passenger side window was rolled down, so I suspected someone has stopped and was waiting to ask me directions.

“Hi - morning. Have you missed the bus? Need a lift?”

It’s another commuter I know by sight but not name.

“Great! Did you miss the bus too?” I ask.

“No, I was just driving in today. Then as I turned the corner I saw you and thought you would need a lift.”

Wet bus stop, I’m waiting, his car is warm and dry.

“You work in (PLACE WHERE I WORK) don’t you?” he says.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to -”

“I’m going up to our Mayfair office today as it happens. I go right past (PLACE WHERE YOU WORK).”

So, again. Right where I needed something, just at the right time.

On Sunday it’s a magazine, on Monday a large black four wheel drive BMW with climate control and a television.

Synchronicity?

My friends are so jealous.

23. Back In Istanbul
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The next morning I stepped out of the bus and into Istanbul only to be met by a taxi driver who nearly ran me over before leaning out the window and asking, “Where you going, my friend?”

“Home, at this rate.”

“Where is home?”

“No idea.”

He looked puzzled.

“I think that man wants a taxi. Taxi. Go.” I pointed to our bus driver who had got out to stretch his legs.

The taxi shot off. It was a one way street so I watched the whole performance in total security and hysteria. No, I was not pleased to be in Istanbul.

I found myself longing for the West. It surprised me because I didn’t think I would be, but I needed something familiar hang on to, even if it was just a sedentary shit.

I checked into the same hotel where I stayed the week before on the way through, dumped my backpack, changed into some clean clothes and hit the town, or rather, it hit me. I didn’t know what I was doing back here. I was just using it as a place to get a shower and a cheap night’s sleep. I drifted into the covered market and walked around a little. I bought a doner kebab and a beer and headed for the part I knew by the Blue Mosque.

I sat in the shade and had lunch, wishing the next twenty four hours away so I could travel to the many places I hadn’t yet visited. I finished lunch and walked up to the Sultan Ahmet mosque. I sat in a park opposite the Pudding Shop, a cult cafe and favourite hang out for travellers and undercover policemen.

It was were Billy Hayes, author of Midnight Express, bought his hash before being arrested. I bought a sausage roll and before I could swallow my last mouthful a man in checked trousers and a white shirt approached me. He sat  down and said nothing for about twenty seconds.

He leant towards me and shifted his eyes in my direction while facing forward.

“English, Deutsch, Francais?”

“Right first time.”

“Eh?” he spoke almost too quietly for me to hear.

“English.”

“You want hashish?”

(more…)

I’m not a hugger. Trees, metaphorically, but not folks generally.

So it comes as some surprise to me that I dispensed such two public displays of affection in the office in as many weeks. And they were both girls! Yuh-huh.

One was to a friend who has been very supportive over the last few weeks while we went through a reshuffle and we were both relieved to keep our jobs. She’s a rock and I’d been in between her and a hard place. Oh fuck off.

The other was to someone who actually lost their job who has been working for my employer for ten years.

The good thing about being a selective hugger is that it means more when you put out.

The bad thing about being a selective hugger is that is means more when you put out.

So if you’re not careful, the huggee can think two things in the heat of the moment.

Either: “Woah, coffee and cold shower for Table Me, please.”

Or: “Ummm…. OK, this is wierd. And, we’re still hugging…”

I am fully aware of this, which is why I am very careful. I’m probably a little too aware with my personal space, but if no one was, we would all be Italian. Yes, the food would be great, but who would fight all the wars?

—-

Reading this back, I realised I wrote: “One was to a friend”

A “hug to” instead of “with” or just, um, ”hug” is a telling turn of phrase, I guess. I’m leaving it in, though, because that’s me.

Morning.

22. One More Highway Song
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That afternoon it rained in Cappadocia for the first time in two months. One minute it was any other lazy, clear afternoon and the next it was coming down in sheets. In a rush, we moved our belongings away from the edges of the terrace and just sat back enjoying the unusually moist air. I braved the rain to buy a beer around the corner and returned to Hemingway.

We spent the afternoon practising what seemed to be a local pastime, swatting flies. They were trying to get out of the rain, too. As the rain grew thick, one of the French guests ran into the courtyard below, clutching a newspaper.

“Regardez!” he called out enthusiastically, “Le Figaro!”

“When is it from?” I asked in French.

“Doesn’t matter!” He shouted back as he dived for shelter.

Buying a foreign newspaper in Avanos was harder than buying a roll of toilet paper (you could only buy packs of twenty). I hadn’t heard any news since I left Barcelona in mid-July and we were now into early August.

After a couple of hours reading Hemingway, I went down below the courtyard to another shelter where the musician I had seen on the first night was playing his baglama, the Turkish equivalent to the lute. He sat in his wheelchair and played to himself. I sat opposite him and listened. After a few minutes I picked up a drum, a sort of bongo with a long body and tried to reproduce the rhythms I had heard in the bus. He nodded in approval and we broke into a long ethnic jam session.

After a while, he handed me the baglama. Seeing that it had six strings, I tried some standard guitar chords. It sounded awful. The baglama, or saz, is a long-necked lute with three pairs of strings tuned to D-C-A.

This was the instrument of the asik, who, like the medieval French troubadour, travelled from village to village in fifteenth century Anatolia. Because the instrument is open tuned, it sounded better strummed, changing the pitch of the bottom two strings. I sat out when Mustapha appeared and he began playing the drum beautifully.

After five hours, the rain stopped as suddenly as it had started, without warning, leaving behind a clear blue sky and fresh air.

That we joined fifteen other French guests in the courtyard for a large, delicious traditional Turkish meal. After this, the master showed me how the baglama is meant to be played. A man called (I swear) Ali Baba who worked at the hostel accompanied him on the drum while we clapped and danced to the music. After each song the baglamist basked in our applause and the newfound sunshine with a smile that let us know that all the hours spent practising had paid off in a few seconds of praise.

I woke up the next day and unzipped my sleeping bag knowing it was time to leave. (more…)

Something that happened today. Enjoy. Ad libbed, so there’s a deal of muddling.

High quality (broadband)

Low quality (dialup)

“All I’m saying is that if she were to relocate her shell market inland, and away from the competition, she would be able to charge more and increase her profit.”

It’s kind of panel show meets reality-based porn flick.

Contestants battle through a series of gruelling auditions in front of celebrity judges from the adult entertainment industry.

Working title is “Bone Idol”.

Who’s in?

In fact, that’s the catchline:

Bone Idol. Are you in or out?

Then a film crew follow the makers of the programme as it happens. An, if you will, cockumenatry.

Just a thought. Probably won’t happen.

Related posts:
Idea For A Programme - Walken With Dinosaurs
TV Quick Hits
Reality TV - What A State!

There are people who don’t annoy me who annoy other people. Maybe I’m not fussy. Actually, I am. I take that back. I like you though.

There’s a guy I know who annoys people, but we get on OK. I can kind of see what it is that bugs other people about Allegedly Annoying Man, but I’m just not that bothered.

So now I’m doing this thing every time I see him to see what might bug me.

He’s eating an apple really fast - that’s kind of annoying.

He seems to more about anyone than I do when I bring someone’s name up - that grates a bit.

He never talks about his family - that’s slightly of odd.

But not really. I mean, it’s not enough for me to bring up the gripes with mutual friends the way they do with me. And I do do that - don’t get me wrong, I can be a jerk.

It’s like when you know someone and you really like them and other people can’t see it, they will start looking out for things on that person to like. It’s the opposite of that with me and Allegedly Annoying Man.

I think that’s why famous people have it made, because you’re already looking for what makes them appealing. Reese Witherspoon, OK? Great looking, and I’m thinking all kinds of things. But if I saw her on the train, I’d be like “she’s all right”, but that would be it.

I’d look twice, I’m not saying I wouldn’t, but I’d probably do this thing where I’d think I couldn’t sit next to her if there were other seats next to other people because she is attractive and it would look like I’d chosen to sit next to the pretty girl. I do that a lot, the not doing that, because sitting next to the pretty girl is so corny. It’s like walking in time with the beat or potting the black off two cushions.

So basically, if Reese calls, I’m busy.

Have a great weekend.

21. Cooling Off
Map

We were driven out to a canyon and dropped off on the plateau above. Hacim and Mustapha arranged to meet us five hours later downstream.

We walked down into the steep valley and alongside the river until midday when it became too hot to walk.

We stripped off and swam in the deep water and lounged on its banks. We climbed overhanging trees and swung ourselves off, splashing into the cool water. When we got hungry we walked until we came to a village. We knew we wouldn’t get lost if we followed the river.

The village was more remote and untouched by what I at the time would have falsely called “civilisation” than any I other I had ever been in. Like the others, mule dung baked on the flat roofs, but twenty children ran up to greet us, as we trampled in through, dusty in our faded jeans and rucksacks. Children smiled up at me and walked alongside.

Mothers stopped washing their clothes in the stream to see what the commotion was. I waved to them and they all smiled and waved back. I looked at the children and drank an imaginary glass of anything. A five year old confidently held my hand and led me and the children to the local bar.

“Lutfen, Allahaismarladik,” I said to them. Thank you, goodbye and may Allah be with you.

This was greeted with endless smiles and a chorus of Allahaismarladiks.

The bar was two tables with some chairs in a dusty clearing by the river. We ordered three beers and mentioned that we would like to eat. The waiter-chef-proprietor led us into the kitchen and showed us an assortment of raw meats and green and red peppers.

I pointed to some skewered lamb and Bertrand and Jean-Luc pointed to the beef and peppers. He picked up the meats and led us outside, motioning for us to sit down. He placed the meat over a small oil drum barbecue, fuelled by mule manure.

We drank our beers and contemplated the standards of hygiene. We watched the naked children bathing in the river as the men washed their mules and watered their sheep and the woman washed their clothes alongside.

The meat was delicious and cheap. We paid the man, waved goodbye to the children and left as strangers.

After an hour’s walk downstream, we came by two ten year olds fishing in the river with a bent needle of the end of a string attached to a twig. I sat on the bank for a rest and watched them wade delicately to where they thought the fish were. I took a few pictures and they wanted to give me their address, but it was no use because I couldn’t speak Turkish and they couldn’t write.

We moved on and met Hacim and Mustapha at the end of the valley. On the way back we listened to some amazing Turkish folk music. All the way back, we were drumming of the backs of seats and tapping the outside of the van. We stood up and danced with Hacim as the van rumbled along the road, while Mustapha looked in his rear-view mirror, smiled and shook his head.

It was getting dark when we returned and at around nine and we ate with the other guests on cushions around a low table in the courtyard.

The next day we took it easy. We sat around on our balcony, talked read and listened to some of Jean-Luc’s many Tom Waites tapes on a small tape recorder he had brought along. We established that this pocket of Asian Turkey was all right if you didn’t mind flies, being stared at or taking a shit standing up.

We went for a walk around Avanos after lunch and bumped into Ahmet, the villa owner, after lunch and he invited us into a carpet shop which was owned by one of his friends. We sat drinking sweet mint tea talking a mixture of French and Turkish through Ahmet, sitting on cushions as we chatted and pleasantly argued. The shop owner and his three friends were trying to convince us that Ahmet was “fada”, or crazy.

“Completement fada,” they told us, laughing each other on as Ahmet shot them looks of strained amusement, much to our own.

———

All Of Monday’s Reasons - Archive

One of the definitely best things about growing older is the amount of time you have known you friends. They make us stronger, they sweeten our victories and they cushion our defeats. Friends rock, expecially my friends.

One of the downsides of growing older is the amount of time you haven’t known the friends you’ve just met. Last time I looked, fourty was five years away and every time I check it’s getting closer. I meet someone I really like almost biannually and age increasingly comes into my head every time we click.

I say click, but you have to work them in, so it’s more like stickle bricks or tinker toys than Lego, which do actually click. Not that I’ll actually tinker with or stickle any of my friends. Can we move on?

The other thing about getting older is that it’s easier to be thankful. You can pray if you like or believe what you want. It’s all the same to me, but good for you if you’ve got what you need.

But  if you can’t be grateful for really cool stuff then you maybe should.

You can count a blessing without actually being blessed and see goodness without a written sense of good. You have the purpose of morality with a moral purpose and whether you are spritual or not, you can feel your spirit lift and it’s all down to really cool stuff.

20. Mustapha, The Gentle Murderer
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There was a wooden hut next to the bus. A little boy, who Hacim explained was the son of the guardian of the site, offered us tea. We accepted his offer and he ran into the hut.

We sat down at a small table and he emerged with a tray five minutes later. The driver said something to Hacim and drove off.

“That’s Mustapha,” Hacim said.

“Why’s he so quiet?” Asked Jean-Luc.

“He’s just spent the past ten years in jail.”

“What for?”

The boy brought the tea. We thanked him. He sat down next to me and listened to us speaking French.

“Murder.” Hacim sipped his tea. “Killed a guy who attacked his sister. He’s got a wife and little daughter. He’s just doing this to get some money until he can get a better job.”

“But no one will hire him, right?” I said.

“Right, and he’s a really nice guy. He doesn’t talk much because he’s not used to people. That’s why he doesn’t come with us. He likes to be alone a lot and doesn’t like being away from his family, which you can understand.”

We finished the tea and thanked our hosts and walked along the valley for about a mile. We climbed a steep hill up to a ridge where Mustapha was waiting for us with the van. The sun was setting slowly as we reached the top.

He was sitting on the ground with a table-cloth and a content grin spread out before him. On the cloth was a bottle of local red wine, a vase of flowers, and a bag of baked chick peas, the regional snack. He smiled up at us from his lotus position. He picked up the bottle and punched the base hard three times, sending the cork flying without spilling a drop.

We smiled back and joined him, drinking the wine and dunking for chick peas as the sunset became more and more breathtaking before finally disappearing.

In the morning we went with Hacim and Mustapha to some more remote villages. He showed us the ruins of an ancient Koranic school, but I was more interested in a large, cloth clad, middle age lady making tossing wheat germ ten feet high in the air and catching every scrap in a small sieve. After  fifteen minutes of Hacim’s explanation of why Ataturk was against Islam, we started to take pictures of her. She stopped sifting after I took a few.

“Address,” she said to me. Jean-Luc and I thought she wanted our addresses.

“Oh no, not this,” said Hacim, who had given up his historical monologue.

“What does she want?” I asked him.

“She wants to give you her address so you can send her copies of the photographs you took of her.”

“Why?”

“It’s a novelty here to have a photograph of yourself.”

Hacim started talking to her in Turkish. She had been preparing bil-bils, wheat germ sifted into grains. Apparently it is much more nourishing than rice or pasta.

Jean-Luc handed her a pen so she could write her address down. She took these and handed them to Hacim. She was illiterate, as were many people in the region. She dictated the address to him and said something else.

“She says three photos,” explained Hacim.

 Whether she meant we were to take three each or three total, I didn’t know, but I didn’t ask to find out. Ever since I had arrived in Turkey, I had been wanting to take pictures of the people. Now was my chance. I snapped away mercilessly.

She filled a bag full of bil-bils and gave it to Bertrand, who thanked her.

“Do French women work like this?” Hacim asked us. I kept on forgetting that he had never been out of Turkey.

We all said they did, but when we all confirmed something, Hacim knew not to believe us.

There’s a killer on the road.

Sometimes people mispronounce my name, so here’s the deal.

Cliff - It’s a “ff” but with “Cli” in front of it, as and in the word “click”.

Jones - hmmm, let me see, let me see. You know “bones”? It’s like that with a J.

And yet, I often get called Chris, especially over the phone because of the tinny mikes and the interference, but NEVER, strangely, by Scottish people. Ever - they always seem to get it, even if they do say “Clef”.

 To make life easier, I sometimes just call myself Clifford. Sigh.

“Cliff Jones”, on the phone, often gets repeated as “Christian”, or even wierder: “Christians”.

So if anyone calls me and asks for Christian, I know they have the right number and I correct them and say “It’s Cliff. Jones.”

No one has ever called to speak to “Christians”, but if they ever do I will say that we just fed the last one to the lions but the Emperor would like to issue a statement. And in 25 years of answering phones, this has never happened.

I also get called “Phil” a lot. Maybe it’s the F sound, I don’t know, but it happens more than is random. I have an F sound of my own for people who do that.

Apologies to anyone reads my Vox blog. This was the Vox Question of the Day yesterday and it prompted a This Is This-sized post over there, so I’m recycling it. Also, I have a day off work tomorrow, I’m blogging a book and it’s already gone midnight now as I write this.

Give me a break! It’s Valentines Day!

Love me, love my shortcuts.

19. In Cappadocia
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We ate breakfast in the courtyard in the cool of the morning. We sat under the cloudless sky on cushions in front of the low table. We had rose jam on fresh bread with mint tea. We sat and talked about previous travels with the other French guests.

After breakfast I had a shower and dressed into some clean clothes. Despite the heat, I wore jeans to comply to conformity.

Our guide was Hacim, a twenty-three year old Turk who spoke French. We packed our cameras and bottles of water and he took us across the street to a white van driven by a man who only spoke Turkish. He had broad shoulders and was solidly built and smartly dressed. He barely spoke, whereas Hacim never stopped talking.

Hacim was a joker. He kept telling gags and stories about women who had hired him as a guide. Half of them couldn’t have been true. It was hard getting him to talk about Cappadocia at first. The van tore along a narrow paved road through the plains, through stunning valleys and around cliffsides and foothills.

The only other cars on the road were like pick-up trucks, with women in the back being driven out, by men, to work in the fields. We passed these every ten minutes; most of the women had been in working since the early morning.

Children splashed each other as they cooled off in irrigation tanks. It was beginning to get hot. The kids would always wave frantically as we sped by and we would always wave back. The women would wave if there were no men around, and the men would wave if there was no one else around.

(more…)

Go on, I’m not going to bite you:

High quality (broadband)

Low quality (dialup)

18. To Central Anatolia
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As we rolled on through the countryside, I noticed that the women worked in the fields while the men sat in village squares. The boys played soldiers while the girls collected water from wells. I was becoming increasingly aware I was in a male-dominated society, and with that, increasingly grateful I was male.

Night fell slowly, bringing with it a cool, moist air and a crescent moon like the one on the Turkish flag.

Rather than spend the night in the train with no food, I got off at Kayseri in Cappadocia. The town lies in the shadow of the huge snow-capped Erciyes Dagi, a mountain which soars to 3916 metres. I stepped out of the station hoping to find a place to eat and a bed for the night for the night when I heard two Frenchmen my age talking. They had rucksacks and were consulting a guidebook.

“Excuse me, are you French?” I asked in French, but like an idiot.

They said they were.

“What is there here?” I asked.

Bertrand and Jean-Luc began telling me of the beautiful landscapes of the region. They told me there were underground villages and caves in the surrounding valleys. They were fairly vague, but they had come to discover for themselves.

“Do you know where you’re going?” They asked me.

“No idea.”

“We’re going to this place in a town called Avanos. There’s a villa and the owner speaks fluent French.”

“How are you getting there?” I asked

“By bus. Come along?”

“Do you mind?”

“No, of course not. Come along.”

We walked to a small bus stop where we took a bus to a bigger bus stop, where we got on a large blue bus. It was empty so I found a seat at the back behind Bertrand and Jean-Luc.

I had no idea where I was going, but I had new companions who did, more or less, which was the next best thing. My head broke into The End by The Doors.

Come on baby take a chance with us… Meet me at the back of the blue bus… The blue bus - is calling us… Driver where you taking us?

(more…)

I’m an idiot.

I missed out Chapter 16.

Me, Claus and Mark played football and hung out with some Istanbul locals behind the station in 16. Intercontinental Three A Side

Then I got split up from Mark and Claus and headed to Ankara, which is has been reposted as 17. Ankara

Confused? I get that a lot.

Here’s the archive.

I bet this never happened to John Steinbeck.

17. Ankara
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I stepped out of the station into a cloud of smog and the sound of car horns. Apartment blocks blocked the horizon. A dusty kid ran up to me: “Monsieur, taxi.” I shook my head and walked back into the station.

I bought a beef roll and a bottle of water and sat on the steps outside to consider my options over breakfast. There were four from which to choose. To the west was the Aegean coast, to the south the Mediterranean, to the north the Black Sea and to the east lay the Arabic borders lands. Each had its attractions, but after the easy decision not to stay in Ankara I was faced with the choice of where to go next.

I seized the moment to fulfill a lifetime ambition. As I finished my sandwich, I looked up at the large Turkish flag flying above me. It was waving towards the morning sun in the hot wind. My choice was made: I was heading east.

The next train left in ten minutes, so I got on and found an empty compartment on the beaten up train. I was soon joined by an old man with a face so wrinkled it obscured its features. I got out a guidebook I bought in Istanbul and started reading up on the region I was headed for. After a couple of minutes the man asked to see the book and began looking at the pictures. He pointed to some of them and started speaking to me in Turkish. Despite several attempts at signing that I couldn’t understand, this carried on for ten minutes. I took the book off him and turned to the vocabulary pages. I slowly read out “I don’t speak Turkish”, in Turkish, to explain that I didn’t speak Turkish. He nodded and said something to me, which, of course, I couldn’t understand.

I turned to the maps and pointed to the name of the destination on my ticket, asking him to place it on the map. Hakkari was a small town on the Iraqi border. I asked how long it would take to get there but he shrugged hopelessly as he held up ten fingers, then eight, then three before shrugging again.

At the best of times the train moved at thirty miles an hour into a landscape which became increasingly rugged and arid. It looked vaguely Mexican, like a scorched Wales: bare with rocky hills with the occasional shepherd leading his flock over the occasional stream.

(more…)

There was a baseball player when I was a kid. A guy by the name of Tug McGraw. He was a rough-edged relief pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, who would come on as a substitute at the end of the game to change the pace and seal it - what’s known as a “closer”.

He was a real character, and I don’t know what cloth he was cut from, but there wasn’t much left over to make too many others. When asked if he preferred astroturf or grass, he said he’d never smoked astroturf. He had names for his pitches, like his fastball, which he named Peggy Lee, because she sang “Is That All There Is?” He called another the Cutty Sark, so named because “it sailed”.

His son’s a country singer - Tim McGraw, who is married to Faith Hill who you also may have heard of.

He signed from the New York Mets at age thirty one and was considered by many as past his best then, but he was thirty six when the Phillies made it to the World Series in 1980. He wasn’t a last resort either, Tug helped them get there, with the trademark slamming of his mitt on his thigh at the end of an inning after striking out the batter. He stood in for ace pitcher Steve Carlton, winner of the Cy Young award and no slouch on the mound himself.

The 1980 Philadelphia Phillies were one hell of a team: Mike Schmidt on third base, Pete Rose on first, Larry Bowa at shortstop, Bob Boone behind the plate with Manny Trillo and Bake McBride in outfield. These were the finest players of their day, and the best in the history of a team which had never won the championship.

They were the stuff of dreams, and it’s not just because I was nine years old at the time. They played like a symphony and that season was like a legend before it was even over.

Like in the playoffs, the way Bake McBride took the fly ball at the top of the last inning against the Houston Astros to win the game that sent the Phillies into the championship. His positioning was so right and the moment so perfect that he caught it with his eyes closed.

Game Six of the World Series was on 21 October 1980 and the Phils were up 4-0, but our pitcher Steve Carlton was pulled after allowing the first two Kansas City Royals’ batters to reach base. Enter Tug McGraw who starts throwing smoke.

The Royals fought back and loaded the bases in the last inning with the winning run at the plate. Willie Wilson steps back up to the plate with two out, two strikes of his own and 65,838 fans jammed into Veterans Stadium, holding their breath.

Some thirty miles away I was glued to the TV with my heart in my mouth.

Everyone knew that a home run would win it for the Royals and force a seventh and deciding game.

Tug McGraw winds up the pitch in his trademark style, both arms to the heavens almost in salvation. He unleashes Betty Lea and it that is all there is.

Instead of charging off the mound, slapping his glove and tapping his chest the way he would after a close call, he stood there for a split second, like Zeus on Olympus. Then he launched himself into the air and my memory, turned to his right to Mike Schmidt who was running over from third base to become the first player to embrace Tug.

I spent many afternoons at Veterans Stadium, and would be lulled to sleep by the potholes of the Skuykill Expressway, rolled up in the back of a blue Chevy Caprice, wishing it were red, but in a state of bliss. That was, and remains, my finest sporting moment and one the Phillies have never repeated.

I remember in the victory parade live on TV when he was addressed the crowd. He held a mic in his hand and said “New York City can take this championship - and stick it!”

We hadn’t even played New York, but he was talking about the Mets who had traded him five years earlier, writing off his career and casting him out of the big city.

I remember the crowd going nuts to that, the formerly anguished sports fans of Philly who had fallen for him, utterly smitten. His personal message became the soundbite of the day and I didn’t understand why he apologised for it a couple of days later. It wasn’t the most gracious thing to say, but it hardly seemed rude compared to what I heard every day.

He was everyone’s hero, and that’s why one of my most prized possessions is a ball signed by Tug. The Phillies had won the series in six games, but had it gone to seven, the ball I have sitting above my desk at home would have been used in the decider.

Tug died of a brain tumour in 2004, and you can barely read the signature on it now, but you can make out, there under “World Series 1980″, the mark of the man who said: “Ten million years from now, when then sun burns out and the Earth is just a frozen iceball hurtling through space, nobody’s going to care whether or not I got this guy out.”

But he’d do it anyway.

16. Intercontinental Three A Side
Map

We went further into town, up a hill through some winding back-streets. We found around ten children from the ages of eight to eighteen playing football. The ball rolled over to me. I flicked it onto my knees, juggled it about, and kicked it back.

“Eh, Eengleesh!” one of the older boys shouted to us. “Football! Yes?”

They cleared the area of the smaller children and we were faced with three eighteen year olds. Someone from the sidelines pointed to us, then to the Turkish boys. “Three-three. Yes?”

I thought this was too small a football team. “Five-five?” I held up five fingers, but they were too keen on the idea of a Turkey versus England match to listen.

Claus and Mark told them they were German. The Turks understood and started reeling off the names of German international football stars.

I pointed to a Turk our age and said “referee?” I blew an imaginary whistle and traced stripes on my t-shirt. He nodded and designated the goal posts (parked cars and the sides of the street) and he let the Europeans have the ball. I kicked off and soon understood that the use of the walls and balconies in the alley was permitted. We soon had an audience of about twenty youths, shouting and cheering at every shot and pass.

The Turkish footballers, called Kamil, Davut and Mustapha, clearly had the better team. We were playing with a plastic ball and the Europeans were wearing hiking boots. We only needed to tap the ball for it to fly.

All of us scored at least once and when we did so, the members from both teams would always congratulate the scorer. The result of this international friendly match at full time was six-four to them. After half an hour, it got too dark to play so we sat on the sidewalk and talked.

“What is your favourite football?” Mustapha asked me.

I looked puzzled and he listed a few names.

“Oh, my favourite team?”

“Yes, team.”

“I don’t like watching football. It’s good to play, but it’s not the same on telly. I like basketball.”

“Basketball?” asked Davut, “Very good. I like this.”

“Excuse me, sir.” I turned to find a chubby ten year old tugging at my sleeve. “Can I play football with you?”

“Not now, I’m too tired.” The game had nearly exhausted me.

“All right, sir. But if you want to, I pray you tell me.”

“OK.” He spoke with a remarkably convincing English accent. “Have you ever been to England?”

“No, sir, but I would very much like to go one day.”

“Where did you learn your English?”

“In school. English is my favourite subject. Excuse me now, sir.”

(more…)

We’ve had a couple of seasons this week so I’ve been taking pictures. I put them on up on my Flickr page to keep the page weight down here, so click the pictures to see the full size versions and soak up the transience.

First we had the Spring and the magnolia tree outside my house thought it was time to wake up.

But then it found the snooze button on nature’s alarm clock and it snowed.

Briefly.

I am torn by the decision to put pictures of myself online. I see my face plenty, so I don’t see much call for it. But sometimes when I’m reading something written by someone, I think it would be nice to put looks to words and you might feel the same, so here’s one taken last week on a farm near where I live. Note the wolfish smile concealing a pained expression.

Remember. Fish. Don’t do it.

There are driers in our office toilets. Not in the actual toilets, that would be an electrical hazard, but in the bathroom.

I often think that we should use the American word bathroom, rather than name a whole area after a shitter. “Office toilets” sound like some executive gizmo for today’s modern professional - “the Poomaster 3000″.

Anyway, on the toilet wall (again, ewww) there is a handdrier made by a company called “Watrous”, with the name in big bold capital letters.

I am not sure how to pronounce it - it looks Flemish.

“Your grandfather fought with the Fifth King’s Light Green Howards in the Battle of Watrous. Gassed, he was. Never spoke a word about it.”

But I like to think it’s phonetic spelling of a Monty Python French accent. I can see Terry Jones in a restaurant sketch going:

“Errrr, watrous. Ah woould lahhhk to see ze managerrrrrrr. Zees ees the wurrrrst meal I have everrrr had in my miserabul exeeestonce…. Although you are a very luvleeeee watrous. You stupid woman, etc.”

Tell you what is funny. French people who can’t speak English doing American accents. They talk very loudly and go “Walla walla wallagon coney walla”, which sounds not far off if you can unfocus your ear, because “walla coney wallagon” are not sounds you typically hear in French.

Look, about yesterday. Honesty may be the shortest distance between two people, but a laugh will still get you there twice as fast.

And we’re back - have a good weekend.

15. Asia And Bullets
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It felt good to be alone again. I went back to the hotel and stole a roll of toilet paper from the chambermaid’s trolley. I packed this into my bag and checked out. I took a boat to the Haydarpasa railway station which was to be my gateway to the East.

I entered the large station to find that the 2130 to Ankara was fully booked, so I reserved a seat on the overnight eleven o’clock train. I dropped my rucksack against a large pillar in the middle of the grand station and threw myself against it.

A few minutes later, two German men, both twenty, crashed near me. One introduced himself as Claus and the other was Mark. They were headed for the China Sea.

“The China Sea? By rail?” I said.

“We’ll see for the money,” Claus explained.

They had all the visas for places like Iraq and Afghanistan and they both carried huge rucksacks which must have weighed a ton.

“Asia. Nice, yes?” Asked Claus.

“Yeah. First time. You too?”

“Yes, very nice.”

I opened a beer and passed it around.

“Very nice,” he said again.

He paused, then said, “So. We celebrate now.”

He dived into his rucksack and produced a litre bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “You have a glass?”

We placed our mugs in front of him. He poured the bourbon carefully and we toasted the city. “Skol.”

As we sat there on the polished stone floor in a public building of a Muslim country drinking straight whisky, I couldn’t help feeling slightly self-conscious. A soldier moved us into the waiting room after a few people walked past us,  casting down curious looks at us keeping vigil over a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

We finished our round, and Mark poured out some more. He brought a can of Coke from out of his bag. The ring pull had snapped off so Claus produced a survival knife with a ten inch blade complete with blood groove and jagged edge and stabbed the can three times to produce a perfect spout. He poured the drink into his whisky. When we had finished nearly the entire bottle, I suggested to Claus that he should save the rest for to trip that night. We left our bags in the station office and walked out alongside the tracks into town. On the way, we passed a large Army base.

“Eh, Eengleesh!”

A guard at the fence beckoned us nearer. We walked up to the fence which started at eye level, so the guard was two or three feet above us.

(more…)

I was at a party when I was a kid. It must have been about fourteen because I was living away from home and my parents had split up. I was old enough to be able to remember everything that happened but young enough to believe they happened for a reason.

It was mostly a get together of adults, but there were other kids there younger than me by about seven or eight years and I didn’t really have much in common with them. There was one boy my age who was mentally disabled. He had Down’s Syndrome and it was his parents’ party.

He was happiest sitting with a record player with the volume turned up really high. If I had anything to say to him I would have had to shout it, but shouting’s an intimate exchange and one not best left to strangers, least of all a shy boy and a disabled child.

I had never been round or met the family before, but apparently their son loved parties because he was able to shut himself away and play music really loud. He took great care taking the records out of their sleeves and he delicately put them back as if buttonholing a flower. He looked happy and I wondered if my inward sadness was more for me than him.

I have an autistic cousin and I know through experience that love is always better than pity. People need happiness more than they need compassion.

I had taken as much as my ears could stand after half an hour, so I went off looking for other company in the awkward way that fourteen-year-olds have at most parties. Or that I still have at most parties.

I found my mum sitting in the middle of a group of adults, loving the attention as she always did. I hadn’t seen her since we arrived at the party and I stood in the doorway without saying anything.

“Cliff,” she said sympathetically, then explained, “Fuck off.”

Now why

would someone

say that?

No one said anything while she sat looking at me.

I left the room and thought for a bit. I returned in a few minutes later.

“Can I talk to you?” I said to my mother, and she followed me into the other room while I excused us to the other guests.

We went into the next room.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“Oh, come on,” she said dismissively.

“That was embarrassing.”

“No one thought I meant it. You didn’t think I meant it seriously, did you?”

“Why did you say it?” I asked.

“Well, you know,” she said, “because you’re…”

I looked at her.

She said, almost pleading, “Just try and enjoy yourself, OK?”

She went back in the room. I went outside for a couple of hours until she drove us home. We never spoke about it.

I know it must have been hard breaking up with my dad, and I know she behaved in ways sometimes which did not make her or others happy. There were other situations; things that would turn this into a whole different blog, but it’s ok.

Are those things a big deal? I’ve been blogging for two and a half years if I thought they were, you know I would have mentioned the David Copperfield crap earlier. (I know - Salinger)

So have I buried it? Am I in denial? Am I hiding away from the past? No - scroll up. There it is.

Do I need counselling? I honestly don’t think I do. I have considered it, but I don’t think anyone can explain how other people act and I have no problem with my own interpretations of other people’s actions. I have a loving but small circle of friends and family and a wealth of support from a company of readers here who I’m sure give me more than I put back in.

Things happened. Screaming, vows, punches, grudges - knives drawn, even, at one stage.

Then one day there were tears, a screech of brakes, silence and then nothing.

But there was love and laughs and a few regrets since.

It’s a life, you know? That’s what you get.

OK, maybe not the knives.

Today is my daughter’s fifth birthday. I hope she will always understand why I do what I do and that I will always be able to justify my every word and action. And if I can’t, I hope she will understand that we are only human after all.

You’ve got a beautiful granddaughter, mum. You should see her. Maybe you can.

I love you, girls. I couldn’t be more proud of you.

14. Istanbul
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After a rough night, Istanbul was a welcoming sight. Minarets towered over the mosques, looking down on the dusty streets.

The first thing I noticed about Turkish men is that they all had thick black moustaches. Even the young teenage boys have a dark fluff on their upper lip. This is a sign of virility to the Turks and is worn by ninety per cent of the men in Istanbul. This was once a display of political leaning. If the moustache ends sloped upwards it signified a preference for the parties of the right, whereas downwards displayed a loyalty to the left. A guide book I bought said this was no longer true, and that most of them were horizontal. Nevertheless, I did observe the trends in working-class and aristocratic circles.

We found a hotel near the station in the middle of town. The room, for 20,000 lira (less than £5) had a toilet, shower, hot water, and a window. Jackie and Sharon took a room next to mine. Richard was only in Istanbul for the day, but he came up to my room for a shower and to stow his bag.

Once clean, the four of us immersed ourselves in the city. It felt good to be walking around without a a bag for the first time since Barcelona. I stopped to buy a sausage roll which filled me up for  twenty five pence.

We decided we should make the Blue Mosque our first stop, and we took a short cut through a park. Walking in the cool shade of the trees, I felt like I was in another world. I felt different. Then it hit me that we were the only Westerners in sight.

People stared as I walked through wearing shorts. Despite the heat (hot, but not unbearable) no one was wearing shorts. Even the young boys wore loose shirts and light fabric trousers, and the girls wore long, shapeless dresses. It seemed that nudity, even in its slightest forms, was considered vulgar. This seemed ridiculous in the ninety-degree heat, but acceptable in the light of the cultural differences. Turkish men generally weren’t seen with their wives during the day. Groups of men sat in the streets talking, gambling and drinking tea among themselves. The women in the park were the wealthier minority of the Istanbul population. Instead of working, they spent the cooler hours of the day in the park with their children.

We left the park and approached the mosque, where the surrounding streets were lined with temporary stalls. Men and boys called out to us as we strolled by, each boasting what they believed to be unbeatable prices for their scarfs and fake antiques. They shouted their sales pitches in a number of languages and respective currencies, but we walked on.

A boy not older than six ran up to me and walked alongside.

“Monsieur,” he held out a wooden flute from the bundle in his arms, “twenty five thousand. Special price. Twenty five.”

“I’m sorry.”

He looked incredibly young. His apparent innocence and multi-lingual capabilities instantly won the hearts of Sharon and Jackie. These kids were just as professional as their fathers and grandfathers in the business.

The instrument was the ney, a wooden, oblique flute common to Arabic countries and the primary instrument of Turkish mystical orders, such as the Whirling Dervishes, who say the sound of the ney is akin to Allah’s voice. He played the flute at me as he struggled to keep up. It had an Arabic tone; woody but shrill.

(more…)

I had a dream the night before last that I was at work.

It went like this:

It’s really early in the office. I’m sitting with the papers, reading in for that day’s news as I always do. I hear the door and someone’s coming my way. It’s a female colleague who I get on really well with and there’s no one around. She walks up to my desk and I express surprise to see her in at that time. She explains that she came in to see me.

That’s right. And even - oh yes.

Reality bite: I should explain if you work with me and you’re female and think this might be you, it isn’t. I have discussed with her and she was cool. You’re not the girl. You think you are?

So back to the dream:

She disappears to the kitchen and says she’ll be right back.

Then she returns.

With a coffee.

And we and talk while I’m working.

And that’s it.

Crazy, hey?

No, it’s lame - this is stuff I do anyway. My subconscious is unconscious.

I should be turning over aspirations, playing out fantasies or addressing fears in my dreams, not having a coffee morning.

What about the wild crazy sex with a young Lana Turner? What about “The Man Who Could Levitate Pears”? What about getting even, to the strains of The Lighthouse Family, while I wield a maniacal laugh, a blowtorch and a nine over everyone who has ever done me wrong? What about the one where I’ve got enough to pay off the mortgage, but I’m staking it all on “Famous Dansons” for triple or nothing?

Did Martin Luther King say: “I have a dream. I have a dream that one day little black coffees and little white coffees will be enjoyed side by side by co-workers while papers are read to decide that day’s agenda. Brothers and sisters, I have a dream today.”???

He did not. But in my dream, I was at work. With a colleague. An ace colleague and a dear friend so I mean no disrespect, and with whom talking is brilliant, but a colleague none the less.

And we’re not photocopying our butts and sending it round internal post, or getting loose on awards booze in the breakout area or anything. We’re talking.

Living the dream, my friend.

I’m finally living the dream.

13. Thessaloniki, Briefly, Then East
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I woke up at seven and looked out the window at the rugged countryside of northern Greece. I arrived at Thessaloniki half an hour later and ate the rest of the Athinian pretzel rings before walking around the town.

Thessaloniki at the waterfront was grey. It looked like the worst areas of the Moscow of my imagination. The nicest buildings were featureless. They looked like giant shoe boxes made of granite turned on their side. I walked down to the industrial port, where Russian oil tankers rusted, before deciding I had seen enough. I returned to the station, got a ticket for Istanbul and spread out on my sleeping mat with a beer and Hemingway.

The train towards Turkey left in the afternoon and passed though some breathtaking scenery. Every half an hour, the landscape changed dramatically. One moment we were travelling along a mountain pass, next we were traversing a plain. For a couple of hours we rode alongside a river in a wooded valley, where huge storks flew silently away as the our passage disturbed their fishing.

I shared a compartment with three English people and two Swedish couples. For a while, the respective nationalities kept to themselves. Richard had just finished college at Trent. Sharon and Jackie were still at school in London. I wondered what the girls were doing on a train headed for Turkey.

“I can’t wait to hear the gossip when we get back,” said Sharon to Jackie.

“We’ve got to have some great parties,” Jackie replied to Sharon.

“Is Ian still together with Michelle?”

I tried to change the subject back to the moment in hand. “It’s getting a bit hotter.”

Jackie thought for a while, and then said, “If we’re going south, then it should be getting…”

“Cooler,” said Sharon.

“Hang on,” said Jackie, “…heading - south.”

“No, definitely hotter.”

“The equator is hotter, therefore…”

“Going towards the equator makes it hotter.”

“But we’re going south.”

“Oh.”

“No, were going towards the equator.”

“So it is getting hotter.”

“Yeah.”

They looked pleased with themselves at their revelation.

We were going east anyway.

(more…)

Hello.

No? I thought I’d have you there.

Hi if this is your first time here. Hi if it’s not. But hi especially if it is.

It’s OK. Seriously, come closer. Can everyone here me at the back? We’ve got emergency exits and if you want to stop reading at any point and refresh yourself then please be my guest.

I say this because a couple of sites are linking here for the first time and you may not have been here before.

And that’s great, because:

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What! You too? I thought I was the only one!”

CS Lewis said that, and it’s safe to reply: “Hell no, you may be the only one somewhere, but hopefully here isn’t there.”

Feeling sheepishly guilty about loving Crowded House getting back together? Join the club.

Do you have an ambition to bake bread from scratch with your bare hands? It’s great - do it.

Worry about carbon emissions but keep flying? Then get skyward, come back safe and do what you can.

Here you are. Although you nearly weren’t.

Funny story actually, because yesterday my site went down. Like properly down. Not just a template fuck-up - like: down. Like “This Isn’t This”. Or “That Was That”.

I’d been waiting for a new credit card to arrive and the old one ran out. I knew it had run out, I just didn’t realise that Very Big Hosting Company had it on a standing order for the dubious honour of hosting this site and it failed. And like Arty Fufkin of Polymer Records, I fucked up the timing, so they took down the site and replaced it with a big alarming “Oops!” page where my site should have been.

Seriously, you went to thisisthis.org, you got a page that actually said “Oops!”

Aside from that, my web address was due to expire in April, so they were sending me notices that said “If you do no register the sitename and someone else takes it, your website and all data will expire from our servers. You will not be able to recover any of this loss, in accordance with our terms and conditions.”

I ignored these, so when I got “Oops!” I got worried. I started sweating like a bull and dialled the phone number on the page where MY FUCKING SITE SHOULD BE.

They explained that the payment didn’t go through and I said that my credit card had expired and I had a new shiny one which I was looking forward to using for the first time with Very Big Hosting Company.

“Well, we have a number of special offers for our loyal customers wishing to renew their hosting terms and domain name with Very Big Hosting Company.”

Fuck that, I paraphrased, I want to know why my site’s gone down like a cheap floozie.

“Oh, we’ll have that back up for you within the hour,” he said, much to the thank of my fuck.

I reached for my credit card and was shouting out numbers like it was bingo night at the Tourette’s Society.

I forked out nearly $200 on another two years’ worth of hosting and stuff, because I realised I’m not going anywhere. Here’s what I do, so stick around if you like the cut of my jib. I cut my jib myself, because I haven’t found anyone who does it just nice.

Sometimes I write about nothing, like today. Sometimes I write just enough about decent stuff and sometimes I write too much.

But every so often I’ll write something that will give us the feeling you get when you’re driving through tunnels and that’s when we know we’re doing it right.

Thanks for stopping by, and remember: if it doesn’t say This Is This in the title, it’s probably written by someone else.

12. Leaving Athens
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I sat on a bench on the platform and read some Hemingway to kill some of the two hour wait. There was no point in going back into Athens in case the station moved again.

At the entrance to the toilets, of course, there was an old lady sitting behind a desk with a saucer of coins in front of her. I had seen this a bit in Greece and it was beginning to annoy me. They normally don’t clean the facilities and often charge extra depending on whether or not they think you’re a tourist.

I went to the toilet and came out and the lady at the table pointed to a fifty drachma coin in the saucer. I swore and fumbled in my pockets searching for a coin and the courage to put it in the dish.

While I was looking in my wallet an American came out. The lady pointed at the coin. “Fifty?” he said, “Jesus!”

I found two twenties and put them in front of her and returned for the crucial ten. She said something in a charitable tone and waved me on without looking up, as if to say “have this one on me”, just as I was beginning to wish I had.

“Too kind, really.” I said and walked away.

No pun intended, but it’s a shit job and my heart goes out to them. Trouble is, so does my money. I wondered that if the Greek authorities stopped charging people to go to the toilet, the streets would start smelling better.

You know you’re away from home when sitting on the railway station platform is almost as interesting as walking through the town itself. A gypsy family of seven stood silently at the far end, out of sight of most of the passengers. One very dirty girl, ages about nine or ten, walked the length of the platform puffing on a cigarette as she paraded before the travellers. A goose waddled behind her, trying to keep up.

A gosling will attach itself at birth to the first thing that cares for it. This has happened with cats, ducks, dogs and apparently, ten year old smoking gypsies.

The grubby youngster walked by and waited at the other end of the platform. Her sister followed next, also smoking and just as dirty. She was a year younger. Even though she was smaller, she carried her filthy four year old brother on her hip even though she could barely walk with him. He cried as he looked at the people on the platform. His sister took no notice and carried him on, dragging on her cigarette as if she had been doing it every day of her short life.

(more…)

A very cheap pun for the title, but bear with me.

On Sunday I made the world’s best French toast. Reviews will no doubt be posted here later, but there is talk of a Legion d’Honneur. I can say this without getting all big-headed because the award isn’t for me, but for the work that went into the French toast. I’m just saying - I may be in line for a toastie.

So anyway, rewind to Saturday when I was in Boots Chemist (non-Brit readers: big drugstore).

Actually, re-rewind* - on Friday I went to the dentist who told me about the recent advances in mouthwash, recommending a brand which heralded a breakthrough in dental science. She also recommended a softer toothbrush, and as we know, you don’t argue with a dentist. Ever. Not before, not during, not after. They know what’s best. You just stare down at the floor and open wide. Not easy to do if you think about it.

Back ahead to Saturday and I was in Boots, buying toothpaste listening to some random in-store announcement about double loyalty points or something. The voice stopped and the speakers piped through Tempted, by Squeeze.

I recognised it straight away - the sang-froid of the first long chord on the organ and the laidback bass licks. I picked up the mouthwash and looked to my remaining item on the shelf above when the lyrics kicked in.

“I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face…”

My initial problem is that I don’t know if I can claim the coincidence. The fact that I was looking for a toothbrush at the exact moment Glenn Tilbrook sang that line may be of no matter.

What if Boots FM played nothing but songs about toiletries? I didn’t hang around to find out, but what if the next song was off the Hairspray soundtrack? Or something by Shampoo? Or Cream? Or Band Aid?

I have to be more selective with my coincidences, since they seem to be coming in so thick and fast at the moment.

But - it is a coincidence is that Wendy came up with the title of this post with a joke on Friday and I mentioned her in a post which went live yesterday but was written last week.

So

1. I am standing one foot away from toothpaste, actively buying toothpaste, when a song comes on at random, the opening line of which (ie - I didn’t hear it and then subliminally drift over tothe dental section) starts “I bought some toothpaste…”

2. This is coincidental.

3. Coincidental has the word “dental” in it

4. Friend sends me a text on Friday with the word “Coinci-dental” as a tooth pun because she knows I’m going to the dentist.

5. I write post on here about the same friend before any of this happens, when I rarely post about my friends out of respect for their privacy (unless they have blogs in which case they are fair game).

Actually, yes. I’m claiming it.

* “the crowd say bo, selector”
What can I say? I am weak. Seriously though, who saw that coming?

Related post:
Doctor Beat

11. Yeah, Let’s Go
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I was woken by a humid heat, the sound of traffic and buzzing flies; and the smell of carbon monoxide mixed with rotten meat.

It was eight o’clock. I unzipped my sleeping bag and looked over the roof top to see a busy crossroads below. I traced the flies and the smell to a ledge less than a foot below me where there was strewn the rotting carcass of a pigeon, covered in flies and maggots.

The guy who had been sleeping next to me woke up, brushed the flies off the peach he had left out all night and bit into it. He smiled and nodded at me.

I had a shower and packed my stuff back into my bag. My clothes had dried overnight. I tried to make a collect phone call to my mother from the hostel phone but there was no answer. This was a complete waste of time because the call had taken half an hour to connect. I was told I had been lucky, because sometimes it took two hours. I walked out to see what the town had to offer me.

I walked towards Omonia Square, the centre of modern Athens and stopped somewhere to buy another watch. I thought this time it would be wiser this time to buy a waterproof one because it would be tougher, although I was sceptical because it cost less than a pound. The stereo in the electronics shop was blaring out traditional Greek folk music.  “Nice music! You like?” said the sales person as he set the correct time on the watch.

“I love it.” I really felt I did. At least it wasn’t an old Michael Jackson or Madonna record. Or techno lambada. I wondered how Adriana was getting on.

I walked up Athinas Boulevard past dozens of identical snack bars which all served identical food at identical prices.

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