This Is This

I like flying long-haul because it enforces sitting somewhere and doing nothing. Robert Persig, author of Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, said: “Necessity may be the mother of invention, but boredom is sure the father.”

Boredom’s good for creativity, but personally, if I want to be productive, I need a deadline. It’s a balance I guess. I’ve been super productive recently and I need some creative time. Coffee and deadlines will only get you so far, and while you’ll churn out the shit, your ideas may suffer.

Anyway, chances are that if you reading this at some point in your daylight hours on Earth, I’ll be in the sky, and like I said, there will be guest blogger posts here every day. Some of them write for the sites I link to from here, some are criminally under-represented in the field of good writing, so if you like their stuff, be sure to bookmark them, because they do good words over there.

I haven’t packed.

Not at all. A thing. Nada. Zilch. If I were a film director, I’d be Steven Sodallbergh.

I’ve been invited to a posh event early on so I need one good set of clothes, so the parka and walking shoes aren’t going to cut it. Which means either I travel in my good set of clothes or spend my first day wandering around Manhattan waiting for the shops to open. My fashion sense isn’t great at the best of times, so to impair it with jetlag and baked pastries could lead to a deportation order.

I’m a good packer, but I’m an even more economical dresser. It helps that a lot of what I wear goes with other things. One of the upsides of being colourblind is that you build your wardrobe around your limitations, so a lot of what I have matches, apart from when it’s blue, but I can see blue, so I have my blue days and my non-blue days. Easy.

If it’s not blue, it’s going to be a combination of brown and dark green and beige or lighter in the summer and I can’t believe I’m telling you this, because I’m not a clothes guy and I’m kind of self-conscious.

But colours I can’t co-ordinate. Flashes of red here and there. I don’t think so. Looks good on you, though. Actually, you know it might. I just don’t see it, and that’s where I would probably slip up.

Anyway, didn’t I say I was going? Jesus. I’m like a bad smell.

Oh, I always smell great, though.

Right, you.

I’m off in a bit for a while. It’s “hard to skyward”, but while I’m gone this site will keep updating every day, just like normal.

I contacted some writers from my bestest blogs to guest post while I am gone.

Hey all,

I hope you’re all doing well and apologies in advance for the blanket email. I pick on you because you read my blog and leave comments every now and then and you’re good writers. I know it, you kind of know it and your other people know it.

I’m going on holiday and I have prepared nothing in the way of posts. The timing’s not great, because the Shaggy Blog Stories (writer 26, y’all) has just come out, the pimpage of which might pick me up some readers like your (I think) good (I think) selves.

So it’s with blanket email and cap in hand that I ask for volunteers to send a post for me to use online while I am away to enable me to do nothing in New York for a while.

I’ll going to programme them in while I’m gone so a new one will go live every day. In return for your efforts as a guest blogger, you get a link back to your site from the post, your name in pixels, my readers for a day and the knowledge that This Is This is (and will remain, let’s be clear about that) in your debt.

We’re talking really small posts, not choking hazard small, but a few paragraphs written in your own inimitable style.

I stormed my brain and here’s what washed up. Feel free to come up with your own ideas, or comb the beach of my thoughts for worthless trinkets such as follows:

Your perfect morning
Arguments you should have had
The hours of your life you’ll never get back
When did you last learn something about yourself
Things that smell better than they taste
Your greatest moment involving music
The smells of my childhood
Words that people say wrong
Good actors in bad films
Things you’ll never eat or drink again
“The only time I ever (action) was in (place)”
Opening line: “I remember how quickly the weather changed that day.”
Why you might be someone’s best friend, but they don’t know it yet
The most cash you’ve ever seen

Or something else, or just a good post you’ve written in the past from your own site with suitable links to more good posts of yours.

If you’re keen to take part, send an email back by Wednesday 28 March with your post, title in the subject field and you blog url at the top and we’ll see what we get. If you want, write a two line description of yourself or your blog.

I’ll know you’re all busy so don’t worry if you don’t have time.

Cheers all, and I will return in early April with a caffeine addiction and an arrogant swagger, saying things like “I’m walking here” and calling people I barely know Toots.
 
Best wishes,
 
Cliff

This Isn’t This - Starts Monday 2 April

I found a bunch of old pictures so I put some in my flickr page.

If you remember the post about getting lost in Canada, here’s photographic evidence of my stupidity:

Still, we were men on the frontier.

If I’d have been a film director, I would have been Manly Kubrick.

I’ll stop soon, I swear.

I haven’t got much to say today apart from being really busy rushing all over the place in the expectation of things. Now that I have explained the title of this post, I can tell you that I have been doing DIY in the house, sanding stuff down and lining my lungs with a fine coat of paint dust.

I’ve been hiring staff (not for here - who’d want to work here?)

I’ve been buying last minute stuff for my holiday. I really need a hard glasses case because mine are getting bent out of shape. It’s springtime and I’ll be wearing sunglasses a lot. My eyes are very sensitive (although on the inside they are hard as nails) and without glasses, if I were a film director, I’d be Squintin’ Tarantino.

Actually, I’ve kind of been hiring for here, busy scheduling some guest bloggers (assembling the finest minds of the blogosphere*, etc) for the next two weeks and it’s scary how good their posts are. So if you were considering letting your subscription to here lapse while I wasn’t looking, at least wait until I come back because the quality of post on here will improve over after Friday, raising the bar for me.

The bar was pretty low already, but now it’s like chest height, so it’ll knock me off when I come speeding back like those Nazi guys on motorcycles when they come off and the bike keeps going.

Classic. I wonder if that was the same guy in all those movies?

“And what do you do?”

“I’m in motion pictures.”

“Really? Have I seen your work?”

“Undoubtably. Hold that umbrella out about chest height.”

WHOOMP!

“Oh my GOD! You’re Nazi-motorcycle-guy-who-gets-knocked-off-but-bike-keeps-going!”

“Nazi-motorcycle-guy-who-gets-knocked-off-but-bike-and-sidecar-keep-going…”

“Honey! Honey, you’ve got to have a picture of me and guy-who-gets-knocked-off-but-bike-keeps-going.”

“..and sidecar.”

“Right. Wow. Me and Mr. Keeps-going. I loved you in Black Forest Chateau.”

*I actually said it. I just fucking came out and said it. I did. Just then.

—
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I often gets words in my head that can’t get rid of just because they sound so nice.

Ointment
Pink (not ping-k, but piN’k with the N pronounced)
Mollusc
Neck
Stirrup
Time
Distant (pronounce both t’s - you’ll thank me. Feels good doesn’t it?)

And I often get rhymes in my head, or a pattern of words, the syllables of which gather in tones of pretty gaggles, like “turn it up a constant notch”, or “down away the fargone yonder”. They don’t have to mean a lot to ring out.

So I need very little encouragement to add words to things that don’t need them, whether it’s the William Tell Overture, which in my head will forever go “Titty bum, titty bum, titty bum, bum, bum” or the theme from Star Wars which goes: “Star Wars/It is the greatest/It is the greatest/Story of all!”

I found out last week by accident that Wendy does this with theme tunes and it was one of those moments that you realise that maybe either you’re not so weird, or that those with whom you surround yourselves are just a weird as you.

Her lyrics to Parkinson are particularly good. If she were a film director, she’d be Awesome Wells. Check it out

Should we call urban pint-sized professionals Metrognomes?

If you search Google images for Ralph Macchio hair, you’ll get a picture of me.

Yesterday I didn’t post a thing. To be honest I’m so busy. Short-staffed at work, new starters and training for get done, mind on other things and holiday to take.

While I’m away (New York, did I mention?) I’ll still post every day thanks to a scheduling tool and some help from guest bloggers who write well.

A couple are on board already and their some reactions to guesting on here have been really cool, and sometimes disarming. One modest fellow said that being asked smacked his gob so much, it was like asking the Cheeky Girls being asked to perform an impromptu set at The Grammies. That’s ridiculous, of course, not only because they wouldn’t get asked, and by way of his funny reply he’d show exactly why I begged him to write for here while I was away.

Notice how I say “here” instead of “me”. Thanks for reading here. Interesting.

What I can promise you is that while I’m away from late March to early April, you’ll still be laughing and maybe learning and feeling good and will hopefully discover some good writers, as I know we can resort to nostomania* when it comes to writers we like. Although, most of the guest writers have blogs which get more readers than me, so I say that with a soupcon of je ne sais quoi**

Have a good weekend.

*An overwhelming desire to return home or to go back to familiar places
**a dash of whatever

Hey.

It’s not just me, is it?

No. I’m just going to come out and say it.

What’s so cool about Iraq?

I know it’s four years since the war in Iraq (no, not that one, that one) started in Iraq, but now everything everywhere is about the place. There was a programme on TV last night about doctors in Iraq. I watched it and it was very good. What those guys have to go through every day is better than anything I could do.

You’ve got surgeons sleeping in the hospitals away from their families because it’s safer than walking to work since they are targets for treating both Shiite and Sunni Muslims. It’s amazing what they do every day, so fair enough. Whack it up on the telly and I’ll marvel in humble admiration at the triumph of their spirit.

But yesterday Huw Edwards was anchoring, not reporting but anchoring the BBC headlines at ten in a flak jacket from the outskirts of Basra. As he stood there telling me about world events in front of armoured personnel carriers, I wondered if we could get this guy a seat and put him in a studio where he might not get shot.

Do I really want to listen to the headlines thinking there’s a chance my newsreader could be shot? Do I really want my broadcasters to wear body armour? No, it’s stupid - bring him in. Unless he really needs to stay out there in genuine danger, in which case what the fuck are the BBC are playing at?

“We do not care what you believe. You are in great danger. We want you to read this statement we have written. And you might be shot.”

Sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it?

But here’s the thing. Producers love it. They think we think it’s cool.

The Guardian this week interviewed the guy who stood at the bottom on the Saddam statue that was torn down at the end of the war (outside the Palestine hotel where all western journalists were staying, I remind you). This guy was captured by the world’s cameras, sledgehammer flailing, taking chunks out of the podium of the effigy before it was toppled.

If this guy were British, the media would call him a thug, chav, hoodie and a menace. But because he’s Iraqi, he gets the front page of The Guardian.

Baghdad bloggers, too. I love those guys, but if they are writing about hard times, there are lots of people with hard times who don’t have access to the internet, but who are less cool, because they’re in San Salvador. Sorry guys, it’s all about the ratings. Maybe next year, hey?

Maybe it’s because we love adversity. Like abusee turned bestselling author Dave Pelzer. Forget A Child Called It, we have A Country Called There.

And it doesn’t sit comfortably with me. It’s over-dramatised, it’s a public display of affliction, it’s mournsterbation and I’m not sure it’s right.

Also, a friend of mine went to school with Iraq, and he said it was never that cool. He said it talked in a funny accent, supported Everton, listened to old jazz records and wrote stories. No hang on, that was me.

Oscar Wilde once said that “a true gentleman is one who is never intentionally rude.”

I’m often doing or saying something that people may find offensive, but it’s not rudeness. I’m not sure about the gentleman part, but it’s not intentional.

Not that I can’t be intentionally rude, though.

Examples.

If someone calls up my house and says “Who am I speaking to?” I say, “that’s not how telephones work. You called me.”

And don’t ever ask if I’m the homeowner. Like I’m really going to discuss my assets with you, whatever your name is.

Or Friday, while I was working from home and a guy walked across my lawn to knock on my door. I have the computer by the front door. No, I don’t have wireless. I’m all retro. I’ve got wires fucking everywhere. Seriously. Mark my word: it’s going to be all about wires in 2007. And horse brasses.

Anyway, this guy had a clipboard, and I looked at him looking at me through the window after he knocked on my door.

“Fuck you,” thinks I, “Any interruption is a request for someone to talk to you.”

And an unsolicited interruption is a request which I don’t even have to acknowledge.

Socially, I mean. At work, there are things like seniority and deadlines and things which go vertically breastwards which mean someone can say “Stop what you’re doing. We need to talk about the thing.”

Not that I work in the West Wing. We don’t actually say “the thing” when we mean the “the Q2 budget proposal” and no one says “walk with me” - to our loss, I think, but no one does.

I don’t even know the business of the man on my doorstep, but I knew what mine was, and that was my work in hand.

Another time I was intentionally rude was last week when someone’s phone rang in the office and the ringtone was the Borat theme tune. I shouted out “FUNNY ONCE.”

I think this is fair enough, because if you’re going to have a ringtone, then it’s going to be heard. Mobiles are taken to public places, and novelty ones are going to be heard intentionally by a number of people, who can all have their say.

Sales update, 17:00 Monday.

Total copies sold: 364. Total money raised for Comic Relief: £1,688.96.

Read about it here and buy a copy of Shaggy Blog Stories

Actually, what is the plural of faux pas? Is it fauxes pas, or faux pases. I think faux is already plural, like bureaux and Grand Prix. Yeah. Prix Fixes. I’m saying faux pas.

Either way, I think I put my foot in it this morning.

Me and neighbour were talking on the bus and she mentioned a house that has been up for sale in the street nearby.

“Lovely house,” she said, “nice little old man lived there for years.”

“I wonder if he died in there,” I thought, but said, “Yeah, we looked at buying it, but they were weird and didn’t want an offer.”

“Well,” she said, “They are knocking it down and building two smaller houses. The estate agent probably had a deal with the builder and turn down any offers. They do that sometimes.”

“Makes sense actually.”

“It’s a shame. Did you speak to them?”

“Wife did.”

“Such a shame they are building little houses. Nice little old man,” she said again, which got me to wondering which was the operative word in her description.

“Well,” I said, seeing that the conversation had run its course, “guess you can’t stop progress.”

Her facial expression adopted an air of slight defensiveness. “OK. Right, well I was just asking.”

She put her headphones in and pressed some buttons on her minidisc player.

I started worrying that she misheard me, because her face and tone changed when I said “you can’t stop progress”.

I think she must have thought I said something else.

What?

Mind your own business, you witch  ?

He was going to die anyway  ?

Maybe I looked at her minidisc player when I said it, because I pulled my video ipod from my pocket and that might have been a snub at technology which is, like, I mean, seven years OLD.

Either way, I couldn’t go back and say, loud enough for her to hear above her music: “I said YOU CAN’T STOP PROGRESS” because that’s a crazy people thing to say on a bus at any volume.

So I let the possible misunderstanding linger, because it’s Monday and no one’s taking anything that seriously yet.

Actually, you can stop progress. It’s character that you can’t keep down.

Good news from Mike Troubled Diva about the sales of Shaggy Blog Stories

At 16:00 on Saturday, 40 hours after the book was launched, 266 copies had been sold, raising £1234.24 in total for Comic Relief. He’s justifiably proud, and says: “Considering that my initial estimate was around £500, it’s a stunning achievement.”

I originally wrote about it here, saying I was one of 100 contributors. It’ll make you laugh and help people who don’t have much to laugh about.

Click here to buy the book, which costs £8.96 (US $16.26), of which £4.64 (i.e. 51.8% of the cover price) will go to Comic Relief once printing costs have been deducted.

Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow and I don’t care who knows it.

Sweet, shy, heartfelt, good voices, close harmonies, blue notes, uplifting chorus. Turn it up like it’s Saturday.

Today is Red Nose Day and if you want to do some good and spread some cheer, then you could do worse than buying a copy of Shaggy Blog Stories, which is out today.

Here is the full list of contributors. I’m really pleased to be writer number 26, especially when you think of that actually funny and genuinely smart people took part. Incredible work by Mike Troubled Diva for getting it off the ground.

Click here to buy the book, which costs £8.96, of which £4.64 (i.e. 51.8% of the cover price) will go to Comic Relief once external manufacturing costs have been deducted. That’s  $16.26 of your Earth dollars, folks.

So dig deep and have a great weekend.

Here’s the press release, written by Scaryduck.

I didn’t care much for scary movies when I was a kid, and Son, 7, seems to have followed in my footsteps. He caught my eye over the weekend when he was flicking through a sticker book about ancient Egypt.

Me: That reminds me. I have a DVD for you.

I produce “Legends Of The Pharaohs” which came free with a Sunday paper. Sometimes, we are so suburban. Our conversation is pitched just above the distant drone of a squadron of Flymo stukas.

Son: Um, I hope it’s not about zombies or anything.

Me: No.

Son: Is it an information DVD?

He means a documentary.

Me:  Yeah.

Son: OK. Phew.

I love the way he says “Phew”. You know when you love someone so much that you can encapsulate it in almost every single thing they do?

Friendship can stride over and puts its hand on your shoulder, but only love sidles up so gently that you wonder what right the heart has to creep so soft.

Stevie Wonder scares me a little bit.

He was brilliant. A prodigy, then a genius, then almost a mythical figure. And now he’s just OK.

If Stevie Wonder had died in 1975, you’d still be seeing kids the world over wearing Stevie Wonder t-shirts to gigs.

Same with Paul McCartney.

But then old father time dealt us I Just Called To Say I Love You. And The Frog Chorus. Then (gulp) Ebony And Ivory.

Even in my finest hour of my greatest ever day, if I come close to Stevie Wonder’s creativity in 1973, I’d die a happy man. But at the same time, I’d be thinking there’s a chance that one day I’ll be struck down by jungle fever and write shmaltzy cack like I Just Called.

Yes, some people are late bloomers. Tolkien didn’t write Lord Of The Rings until he was in his sixties. My dad is writing the best stuff he’s ever produced and I wouldn’t be so bold as to say he’s in his twilight years (his birthday was yesterday), but the bar’s just opened.

Now there’s a guy who’s written a proper book, and it’s with no shame that I plug it by saying the publisher has just announce a release date of September 30 for the paperback edition.

You can order it here and yes, of course I’ll remind you nearer the time. If you can’t wait (and frankly, why should you?) you can get the hardback here.

Dig deep, and together we can save Ted.

First Ben Taylor, then Ted Jones.

Sorry to come round your screens shaking a tin, but I write this for free and have kept advertising and contribution links off this site, even though it costs money to run, so don’t say I never give you nothing.

My foray into underword of web awards has earned me some notoriety.

I was interviewed by Wildmind.org last week who stuck me in a podcast which you can hear here.

They kept asking me a lot about Buddhism, so I kept throwing back answers, and they did a lot of slick editing, so it sounded like I was was talking at great length about theology.

My answer to: “How does your daughter feel about having a Buddhist dad?”,  straight out the traps I said, “I’m not sure I really am a Buddhist, but I have a deep appreciation of the precepts. She is aware of the things around the house and my infrequent meditation. She is aware that I don’t eat meat…” but they cut the disclaimer out, so it looked like I launched into it. Still, it’s a Buddhist website, so it’s cool.

Despite the sound quality, I think it came off rather well, and it was great to take part. Hello to everyone from Wildmind and I hope to become a valued and regular contributor to the good stuff they’re doing there. Bodhipaksa, who interviewed me, is a really interesting guy and so please pay his site a visit.

Oh, and you think that the guy who won the Best Use Of Humour in a blog post isn’t funny in the interview?

That’s called irony. 

See what I did?

Hear the podcast

About a year ago I asked you for a favour when I said you should go out there and buy Teen Dance Ordinance by my friends A. It came out, and due to a forward looking and progressive restructure at their record company and an almost complete lack of promotion, the band were dropped.

So I’d like to put the This Is This kiss of death on Ben Taylor, whose single Nothing That I Can Do is released in the UK today. Ben’s warm, honest tenor is reminiscent of his dad James, his songs lean lyrically towards his mother Carly Simon, there’s hip-hop phrasing in there, but it’s folk-tinged loveliness all the way.

He’s touring in the UK and this is his second album. Six months ago he was playing fish restaurants to a small handful of eager diners, and if that doesn’t tell you there’s no justice in the world, then I’m not a newsman.

Radio Two love him, the critics love it and god damn it to Betsy, I love him. There, I said it.

It’s out there, so buy the single. Come on - less than a pound and downloads now count towards the charts where he belongs.

I’d say the first album, Famous Among The Barns, is a better introduction than the new one, called Another Run Around The Sun, but essential tracks running across these include No More Running Away, Island, Just Like Everyone Else, Rain, Safe Enough To Wake Up, Think A Man Would Know and Someday Soon.

I remember he wrote to me once. “Cliff,” he said, “Thanks for telling people about the gig. I can’t wait to play the UK,” he said. True story.

Check out the Rogers and Hart masterpiece Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered here - (not ripped off, this is on his music page here, but the streaming’s a little dicey on the official site). It’s a little rough around the edges because it’s just a demo, but you’ll get the idea.

Nothing That I Can Do - on You Tube

I try and be humble round here, but sometimes things get the better of me. And I try to be mild mannered for the most part, but today at least, I’d like it if you would check my shit the FUCK out because as of this Friday, I hold tickets to:

New York City

James Taylor

and

The Police

I got my The Police tickets within 10 minutes of them going on sale. I was twelve when they played Nice and I was too young to go, and instead had to wait a couple of years to see Sting play in Avignon, which was my first gig.

But now that I hold some The Police tickets, I am filled with the pride and smugnamity of someone who has laid to rest a demons of their youth after 23 years.

It’s OK though. Not a big year or anything.

Related posts:
So Close To Me

Hello.

Are you funny?

Do you have a blog?

Do you like helping people?

Then blog about funny stuff and help people by taking part in:

Mike (from Troubled Diva)’s amazing project

Mike’s brilliant idea is to gather funny blog posts and put them all together in a book to be called “Shaggy Blog Stories: a collection of amusing tales from the UK blogosphere” which we be sold to raise money for people less fortunate than ourselves.

It’s a great idea and the only catch is that the final deadline is 6pm UK time on Wednesday evening and you have to be a blogger from the UK.

So we’ve only got three days to save the world.

The book will be available to buy next Friday, on Red Nose Day, and it should be a reasonably-priced hoot.

It sounds corny, but it’s only after seventeen years, and after finally publishing this story, that I feel like the trip is finally over.

Life is different now. We have mobile phones, we can send emails, we can get money out of an ATM when we are travelling. Many European countries use the same currency, but then I was at the mercy of my wits most of the time, and that wasn’t much to go on.

Seventeen years on, I have a credit card, and a house and a job and a family. I can spend £500 in an afternoon when I’m on the road, although I’m not sure technically how much of the road I’d be on, travelling these days.

I don’t have any regrets, but there are things I would have done differently. I should have taken more pictures. I took a big SLR camera which I used for half a dozen photos, which you’ve seen here. I shouldn’t have taken my camping stove, which I used once to cook macaroni in the Pyranees and tea in Amsterdam. I used it a couple of times in Arcachon but only because I had it with me.

And I should have called home more. It was selfish and I even knew that at the time, but the trip was my time before getting a job and settling down and waking up and rushing to work at the start of the week. I was doing something I felt I had to do, for all of those reasons.

I should have left Claus in Istanbul. Your first impressions of someone are often right, there are lots of different kinds of people in the world and life’s too short to be friends with all of them.

I probably should not have given Benson the money - I can’t be certain if I was conned. He sent me a postcard, for which I had to pay the postage, six months later, asking me to send money for a winter coat which he could not afford. Maybe he was honest. Maybe he returned to Nigeria and he’s sending emails asking for people’s bank details. I’ll never know.

Then there are my old school friends, with whom I stayed in Aquitaine. Kara’s living in Amsterdam and Sian’s a mother of two. I lost touch with James and Aimee, who I had a bit of a thing with. I think Tesni lives in Spain, and I know Patrick is a writer who lives in Australia. Zarya works in PR in London and I still see her occasionally. Lindsay works in music publishing in Germany, and he went to Southampton University with Luke who died unexpectedly in 1993 in the house they shared. This is for him.

Tongues have been wagging in India, following Liz Hurley’s arrival to complete her week-long international wedding tour with husband Arun Nayar.

The pair arrived in Mumbai yesterday, closely followed by her new husband.

True.

I put something on here a few weeks ago about something I’d heard about how your entire body’s cells regenerate after seven years. One reader asked if it was true - I don’t know, some doubting Thomas (or *cough* Wendy) - so I thought I’d look it up. You know, it’s when people find out facts about what they want to write about before they publish. I think it’s called research.

I googled it, but couldn’t find out much and was instead bombarded with search results about cell regeneration and platelets and stuff from the L’Hospital des Tetes d’Oeufs in Boffinlandia. Heh. Boffinlandia.

Anyway, what grinds my gears is that I’m out here trying to be funny, thought provoking, warm, honest, edgy and such, and some geeks at the University of Loserville are using the web to exchange medical knowledge with other scientists.

I mean: dude. We gave you uncool table at every school lunch hall across the developed world and now you want the Internet? Do you mind? I’m writing a blog here. You know? With my thoughts?

And you want to swap stories about cell regeneration. Jesus Christ. Can you please stop thinking of yourselves for one minute?

What is cool, though, is Wikipedia, which just got, like, way cooler because I’m in it.

Ok, not me, but This.

I don’t know how it happened, but there’s a link to one of my posts under the word “Anglosphere“, there’s a link to one of my posts. And I’m not even sure what one is, but check it out:

The word Anglosphere describes a group of anglophone (English-speaking) nations which share historical, political, and cultural characteristics rooted in or attributed to the historical experience of England and wider United Kingdom. The Anglosphere includes all the UK’s formerly self-governing colonies or Dominions.

The term is usually attributed to science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, used in his 1995 novel The Diamond Age. Its first published use after this was in an article by James C. Bennett entitled “Canada’s World Advantage” which appeared in a Canadian newspaper, The National Post, on 4 January 2000 (page A16). The term “Anglophonie” is used rarely [2][3] usually in contradistinction to Francophonie, but is more common in other languages [4][5] 

THERE! Back right there.

The word Anglosphere describes a group of anglophone (English-speaking) nations which share historical, political, and cultural characteristics rooted in or attributed to the historical experience of England and wider United Kingdom. The Anglosphere includes all the UK’s formerly self-governing colonies or Dominions.

Forward a bit.

The term is usually attributed to science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, used in his 1995 novel The Diamond Age.

Bit more.

The term is usually attributed to science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, used in his 1995 novel The Diamond Age. Its first published use after this was in an article by James C. Bennett entitled “Canada’s World Advantage” which appeared in a Canadian newspaper, The National Post, on 4 January 2000 (page A16). The term “Anglophonie” is used rarely [2][3] usually in contradistinction to Francophonie, but is more common in other languages [4][5]

That bit! The [2]!That’s me!!

Yeah, it’s the old website design because they got the url screwy, but there it is.

Sure, a footnote today, but I’ve got my sights set on the “External links” section. Then after a couple of years, one day the navbar guy calls in sick and I have to stand in at the last minute. Mr. Pedia asks me if I can handle it and I say “I won’t let you down, Sir.”

I tell myself: “Right - this is it, Jones. The moment you’ve dreamed about. Wikipedia. The big leagues.”

I get to work. I’m witty, sharp, self-depricating and informative. But apparently, you can’t say “fucktard” on a publicly-funded educational resource, so I get given a one way ticket right back to Blogville.

Cell regeneration.

Fucktards.

“After all the kind of fanfare, and even more, I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of ‘thinking’ and ‘enjoying’ what they call ‘living’, I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.”
Jack Kerouac, Lonesome Traveller

34. The End
Map

I didn’t stop over in Bordeaux, but caught a train a short way to Arcachon, a resort I had never been to on the west coast, by concidence less than 100 miles from Agen where I stayed with my school friends at the start of the trip.

I walked from the station to the beach, bought a beer, stripped off to shorts, lay against my rucksack up propped on an old wooden fishing boat and sat in the sun and light breeze on the edge of France looking out into the Atlantic.

It was as good a place as any to reach the end of the road - alone and content in perfect weather and peace. After a couple of hours of resting my bones and wasting time, I bought a British newspaper.

I learned that Iraq invaded Kuwait on the second of August 1990 and had seized British nationals in both countries. I retraced my steps and it turned out that was the day I was going to go to Iraq.

Their forces invaded on the afternoon I was going to cross the border. I hadn’t phoned home for more than two weeks and the last thing I had written to anyone was a postcard from Turkey to a friend in England which said nothing apart from: “Going to Iraq, tell you about it when I get back.”

I gave the newspaper to some English people on the beach and walked to a nearby phone both.

I didn’t want to call my mother, who would have been worried. My dad has been staying with friends in the US, so I called them collect. They explained he had gone to Mexico to see an old friend, and they gave me another number.

After wrestling with an operator to reverse the charges from a French phone booth to a Mexican residential number, my dad answered.

“Dad, hi.”

“Cliff, where are you? Are you all right?”

He was crying.

“Dad, I’m fine, I’m in France.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“I’m really sorry. I haven’t picked up a paper until just now. I’m sitting on a beach on the French Atlantic coast.”

“Thank God.” His voice was trembling. Mine was on its way.

“For crying out loud. Everyone’s been so worried, Cliff.”

“I’m fine and I’ll be home in two days.”

We said an emotional goodbye and I went off to find a campsite.

I spent the next two days sitting under pine trees and on beaches, cooking, drinking, reading and watching the tide move the water.

I went home on the morning train. I finished my last beer, having one for the road. I jumped off at Antibes station and patted the train’s side as if to say “thanks for the ride” or something. My mother, who had come to pick me up, was pointing me out to total strangers.

I got back home, had a shower, changed into some clean clothes, cooked myself a stir fry, went to bed and woke up in time for dinner.

———

All Of Monday’s Reasons - Full story archive

All right, not so much confessions of a loner - more a declaration of my lonerhood.

I can be happy as a clam when I’m left to my own devices. I know a lot of people don’t like it, but I love it. And you know you love something when you can’t stand not having it, or doing it, or both.

I enjoy being around people when there are people around. I don’t want anyone reading this thinking they now have to avoid me. You’ve seen my reaction to flattery on here so you know I’m an needy little web urchin, but I do like time away.

If I didn’t get a couple of hours on me tod at least once a day, I’d be worse off for it, for sure. Trouble is, I’m totally aware this affects the people I love; the folks around me. The trick is learning to spend my time on my own time, and that’s not an easy thing to do and my time becomes more of a shared commodity.

So I swing things in my favour, which is why I get time to write this and be a half-decent dad and husband and get the love back.

I don’t sleep all that much, so I use that time to enjoy sitting in the evenings, picking on a guitar with a scotch in front of me and cats to my side (OK cats also, but they don’t count). That goes into the Time Bank Of Me, as does sitting on the bus writing this and that fulfils the need.

I’ve always liked isolation, and if necessary I isolate myself with my companions. Explain that. Maybe it’s because I live in the busiest part of the UK, near one of the busiest airports in the world, in a busy home peninsulared (?) by three of the busiest motorways in the country, a house which I leave as near as damnit to dawn’s crack to do one of the busiest jobs in my department for one of the busiest companies in the world.

It’s a good life. I really enjoy it. Every now and then, though, I have my Marlene Dietrich moments.

It takes me a lot of effort to be involved in people’s lives. I suspect people who don’t need time alone find it easier, but then they have their faults too. I know my need for loneliness affects the people I love, but I need time alone.

That’s just the way it is, and if you can’t change the way you roll, you have to make sure you rock twice as hard.

Tomorrow: All Of Monday’s Reasons - last chapter

33. Somewhere

We woke up in plenty of time for their midday train, so with still plenty of grass left, I boiled up the kettle and made us some strong tea. We smoked the rest of the grass, which stoned me so much I could hardly stand up, which I had never known weed to do. The stash was diminishing, but slowly.

While we packed up, and as time grew shorter, Caroline suggested we ate the rest of the hash. John tossed me a chunk and I popped it in, swallowing it whole. He turned around from his rucksack towards me.

“Well?” he said.

“Delicious.”

“You fucking what?”

The block of hash had been intended for both of us, possibly all three
of us. We had more left, that wasn’t the problem. He was worried for my sake.

“Oops.” I said, a little worried. I probably would have been more concerned if I hadn’t already been stoned off my box.

“Happy trails.”

We put our rucksacks on and I kept checking where I had set up camp. I was sure I forgot to pack something, because I couldn’t feel how heavy my pack was. In a similar manner, they finished the rest of the drugs.

We sauntered to the station, exchanged addresses and said our goodbyes.

I walked around the station for a bit until I wandered to a platform where a train was about to leave. I hopped on, with no idea where I was headed, and drifted off to sleep.

Four hours later the train stopped somewhere, but I had no idea where on the continent I was. I got out of the train at an insignificant station and found a map written in a language I couldn’t understand.

I looked around for flags to tell me where the hell I was, but couldn’t find any. My growing curiosity to find out what county I was in turned into a quest, then a desperate urge. I looked at road signs, shop fronts, newspapers. Nothing was in French. Maybe I was still in Holland? Could be Germany. The language looked more Saxon than Latin, but I had no real clue.

It took me most of the next hour to discover I was in Belgium. Well, you don’t see Flemish every day, so I didn’t have much of a point of reference. Road signs din’t help me. Seriously, name four famous Belgian towns. See?

It’s not like I could have gone up to someone and said “What country is this?” especially as I didn’t know what language in which to ask it.

It was getting dark and I laughed annoyingly at myself for getting a day train that finished its trip in a city at night, leaving me nowhere to stay.

Belgium.

Shit.

I stood there for a time, deciding what to do next. The incident had sobered me up slightly because I didn’t want to make the same mistake again and end up somewhere worse than Belgium.

I had less than a week to go on my monthly ticket and my money had nearly run out. I needed a place to sleep but would not have been able to afford a hotel and I was too stoned and it was too late to find a campsite and pitch up.

The next night train anywhere was to Bordeaux, so I took it. It was practically empty and I had a carriage to myself the whole night. I slept beautifully.

———

All Of Monday’s Reasons - Archive

32. Amsterdam
Map

The minute I stepped out of the station, I realised that everything I’d ever heard about Amsterdam was probably true.

Across the street a Chilean folk band played traditional Andean tunes to dancing hippies. We took five steps towards the nearest street map before we were being offered high prices for small amounts of weed.

We took a bus to the camp-site and set up the tents. I changed into some clean underwear and put on my flip-flops before creeping into the town. I went alone because I wanted to give John and Caroline some time to themselves and they’d had me playing second fiddle since Vienna.

I found the red light district and walked through. At least I knew no one would mug me. I looked dirty and poor, mainly because I was, and was wearing flip-flops.

The brothel windows had girls in, each beckoning me in. Like cheap restaurant menus, they had snapshots of couples locked in various acts of sexual contortion stuck on the windows, each with various accompanying prices written underneath. I guess it got around the language barrier.

Heroin addicts looked at me passing through their sunken eyes in hollow sockets. In the more expensive part of town, where the menus had no prices, a well dressed man with gold jewellery and Ray-Bans on a street corner cracked an imaginary whip at me, making a whooshing noise and clicking his fingers. A crack dealer. He seemed to be making a good living out of it.

I walked around the sleaze for an hour and a half. Sex shops, coffee bars, brothels. Eyes opened and contentedly disgusted, I returned to the camp-site where I found John and Caroline.

They were settled in and wanted to buy some hash. They still insisted on buying mine, and who was I to argue?

So we found a coffee shop owned by a Moroccan guy, who I spoke French too. We bought a half ounce of grass and half an ounce of hash for a quarter of what you would pay in England.

We went into a nearby park, rolled a long joint and laughed at the rats swimming after the ducks in the pond. We smoked it, I ate three large chocolate ice creams and skun up again.

In the background, though I wasn’t sure how far, a band was tuning up. We walked towards the music and found a bassist, guitarist and drummer from Liverpool playing Dark Side of the Moon covers. We sat in the twenty-odd crowd, also smoking, enjoyed listening and, I liked sitting still under trees for the first time since Thessaloniki.

Back at the campsite, I couldn’t tell you how many hours later, but before dark, I was smoking a eight inch-long joint. I drew deeply and was about to exhale when two Dutch policemen walked past my tent. Not wishing to attract attention to myself, I kept the smoke down, which wasn’t helping things, unless I wanted to pass out.

Do you have any idea how slow Dutch policemen walk? I had to breathe out. A large, thick cloud of yellow smoke rose reluctantly as the policemen strolled by. I’m sure one of them looked at me and smiled, but they didn’t seem to care.

We listened to Stairway to Heaven stream out from a car stereo as it got dark and I cooked some pasta on the stove before smoking more. The drugs were much stronger than any I had ever had in England.

When I could no longer tell which was up or down, even in a seated position, I though it was time to call it a day. I slid into my sleeping bag in my tent and never remembered falling asleep.

I blinked, and when I opened my eyes it was morning. More or less sober, but still stoned from the night before, I walked into town, buying a pastry on the way in.

There were shops in Amsterdam which seemed to sell everything except for the actual drugs themselves. Books in the windows displayed titles such as like “Indoor Horticulture” and “Closet Gardening”, behind pipes and papers of all different shapes and sizes. Not knowing why I had left the camp-site in the first place, I spent an hour listening to a blues guitarist in Dam Square.

I returned to the site in early evening. John and Caroline were in town, so I read some Hemingway for half an hour before they appeared.

“Looks like we’ve got a problem,” he said.

I looked up at him.

“We’ve got over a half ounce to smoke in under two days.”

Their monthly train ticket was nearly up, so they had to get back to England.

He continued, “We’re crossing borders, and there’s no way we can take that shit with us.”

Still holding the book, I looked up at him.

“Don’t just sit there,” he said, “skin up.”

And so I did.

———

All Of Monday’s Reasons - Archive

Courage is a scary thing. It’s something to inspire, regret, defy and carry with you. Courage’ll kill you if you’re not careful.

People draw on courage in different ways. I don’t know if instinctive bravery is more commendable than the kind you muster up, but it all counts.

I was sitting up with my friend Chris Anderson when a bunch of drunk college kids walked by and kicked over the metal trashcan outside the house we shared in New Orleans when I was 20.

“Hey, you guys want to pick that up?” Chris called down from the balcony.

“Fuuuuuuck YOU!” said one of the fratboys in a way I found amusingly shameless.

Within a second, Chris ran into the house, grabbed a baseball bat and took off down the stairs before I could say a word.

Chris wasn’t a big guy. He had the squarejawed good looks, but he was a law student who looked like the actors who played young plucky lawyers in TV movies called “I’ll Win The Kids” or “In Todd We Trust”. He must have stuck out a polo match when he visited the projects of Jefferson Parish as a trainee public defendent.

Anyway, I ran after him because before he could say anything, these five drunk guys grabbed the bat off him. I was putting my shoes on when I heard them through the window saying: “What were you gonna do with this, you faggot? Oh you wanna hit us with the fucking bat? Was that what you were about to do?”

All the time this was going on, I was pulling my shoes going “fuck” “oh fuck” “fuck” “fuck FUCK” knowing that I was about to walk out the front door into five drunk guys with a bat, who Chris had just threatened before the fastest and most peaceful disarmament I had ever seen.

I didn’t give it a second thought and jumped in between them. No one had been hit, so I tried to talk things down.

“Look, come on,” I said, “We’ll just take the bat and go. Forget it. Just go.”

One of them, a guy without the bat puffed out his chest and said, in a postured insult: “What did you say?”

“Look, let’s just calm d-” out of the corner of my eye I saw an elbow, a shoulder and a thin line fly by and then DING - an almost metallic noise and a flash of pain in my left knee and I hit the ground sideways. I can’t remember if I clutched my leg first or my head when I landed, but the next clear memory was a metal six foot side of a bedframe which had been salvaged from someone else’s rubbish for the purpose of bringing down onto my left arm.

But my strongest memory of that night was me pulling on my shoes matter-of-factly repeatedly swearing as I went out to intervene to save my friend from a bat-wielding drunk guy and his five friends of whom I had not the measure.

Parenthood has brought on similar acts of courage. I’m not a big fan of large dogs, or even a little fan of small ones, but they all seem to like my kids, who share my feelings. But when they run up, I will always jump in between them and the dog and put myself in harm’s way. OK, potential harm.

Point is, we put aside our discomforts for the things we most love. And that goes not just for frat guys with bats, it goes for eating the crusty bits of the bread when they want the middle bits “end bit make too crunchy toast.”

Courage is the keeping-on-living that Robert Service talks about.

It’s the bravery that Chekhov talked about when he said: “Any idiot can face a crisis, it is this day-to-day living that wears you out.”

It’s ten years today since my mother was killed. I’m not going to say how it happened but it was violent, sudden, unexpected and what something that scientists refer to as “fucking awful”. One minute we were talking and an hour later the police were standing in my apartment. I knew it was up, too, and I had my shoes on before they took their hats off.

It’s the small details you remember. Like how young one of the policemen was and thinking, “You poor bastard.” Or feeling out of place because I didn’t own a suit to wear in court. 

It’s shitty. Fairness doesn’t come into it, and that’s life. I don’t say that in a bitter way, because that’s just how it is.

I don’t say this to make you feel bad, I say it just because that’s just what’s up. I’m not sinking into some dark place but thanks the concern I’m sure you have because you’re good.

Courage isn’t the avoidance of adversity - that’s luck. Luck runs dry every now and then.

Courage is what you do with adversity.

Keep on.

31. The Train To Amsterdam
Map

More passengers arrived and the train came. We found a compartment on the Austrian railway and were joined by three English seventeen year olds who had a year to go at school. They had been to Auschwitz and had been moved to tears by the experience, they said.

They showed us a British newspaper from the day before. The international section was missing when they bought it, so I read about UK news home affairs in a land which seemed even more distant than home.

All the passengers on the train were between the ages of nineteen and twenty seven. They were trying to promote the image of reckless youth and were headed for its capital city, Amsterdam. Everyone was either drinking or smoking or listening to some seventies psychedelia on a stereo. Some were
doing all three. In one smoke-filled compartment, three hairy guys with flared jeans and tie-die t-shirts were strumming out a Dylan tune on their beat up guitars, harking back to an era in which most of them were only seven years old.

We talked and drank the beer between the six of us. When that was finished, we had a litre of Greek rose and when we drained that, we had half a pint of ouzo. The others crashed out while Caroline and I finished the rest of my food. She thanked me for having shared it with them. I said it was no problem.

“I feel a bit guilty, though. It was your food. We’ll pay you back.”

I knew they were low on money so I said I would accept very little, since she insisted.

There was a pause before she said, “Do you smoke? You know- dope?”

I said I did, but I never went out looking for it.

“You don’t have to,” came the reply, “that’s how we’ll pay you back. If you stay in the same campsite as us, you can have your share of what we smoke.”

I was even more glad I had met up with these two, first from saving me from a fate of certain Claus, now with free drugs to tackle that lingering, nauseaus, Clausy feeling.

I was the first to wake up the next morning. I woke reasonably early because I had slept so heavily, and I didn’t feel hung over but my mouth was dried out. I went to the buffet car and bought half a litre of beer which I drank slowly as I looked out the window. God, in some ways, to be seventeen again.

This was my first time in Holland. The countryside was beautiful and unlike any other I had seen so far on the trip. It was flat and green. The smooth landscape of green meadows flowed smoothly past the window. I didn’t believe that there really were working windmills, either, but we passed several on the way. I half expected to see a boy with clogs on with his finger plugging a leak in a dyke.

The beer woke me up and I began to look around me to see the debris of what must have been a wild party. The corridor was strewn with beer cans and sleeping hippies. Those who were awake were wearing dark glasses and were probably hung over.

Walking back to my compartment I passed a guy drinking a can of beer on a pull down corridor seat. He looked like he had just woken up. To his right side were five cans in a six-pack neckring and to his left were a dozen empty cans, crushed and piling up next to him. I slithered around him and shuffled through the beer cans.

I looked into the next carriage where five nuns conversed and a vicar were sitting upright in their seats, politely laughing as they conversed. It was Sunday and one of them was reading a Bible.

I walked a little further and found a place between bodies where I could stand and watch Holland unfold before me. After five minutes I felt a tugging at the left leg of my jeans. One of the party animals had woken up. I looked down.

He pointed to my bottle and a sluggish voice with a Dutch accent asked, “Hey man, where’d you get the beer?”

I pointed up the car and wondered how many days I would stay in Amsterdam.

My companions woke up and we pulled into Amsterdam a measly half an hour late. I laughed when I heard people complaining that the train was behind schedule.

———

All Of Monday’s Reasons - Archive

Would all my best intentions serve to guide me to your lips?
Can all my untold declarations rival this eclipse?

The tranquil sea’s reflection, the stars which shine beyond -
in deeper space your mystery lies, my heart grows ever fond.

Though clouds obscure your gentle beams, nocturnal stirrings wake.
You’re hanging lonely, shy and bold, to subtle shadows make.

And though your light may fade at times and while you lack the laughter,
swing high, sweet moon - I promise you you’ll shine again soon after.

So it’s taken more than two and a half years, but we’re finally here.

The film was on TV on Thursday and while I have written about it, here’s the sound:

High fi - Broadband/cable
Low fi - Dialup

I think my favourite part is right at the end when Christopher Walken says: “Hey man, you’re out of line.”

It’s a tough act to juggle our relationships and honour our commitments. The best and worse of adulthood is the balancing act we put on all the time.

I’m up there on the wire myself. Right there at the top. Guy with the sheepish grin like it’s under control? It’s all part of the show.

We move people aside, fit in dinner engagements, hold down jobs and hold up promises, defying gravity all the while. And every so often, just to get the heart racing, something comes along that shakes the wire. Death, births, the whisper of a memory or the memory of a whisper.

It reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon of a guy in a talent agent’s office. He’s juggling balls, spinning plates on a stick balanced on his nose and he’s twirling hoops on one gyrating ankle. The agent sits, concerned and nonchalant, stares at his foot on the ground and says: “What can you do with the other leg?”

It’s a funny reminder that you can’t have it all. All’s too much.

The main thing is that, while you have enough, and although you main not be the main attraction, you step the fuck right up.

And enjoy the show.

You have a good weekend.

30. Living Well In Vienna
Map

We were all happy to reach Vienna. As soon as we crossed the Austrian border, Claus said, “Ah, civilisation.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“Can’t you see, we’re back in the West!”

He sounded like he had been in prison.

“Back from those fucking Turks. It’s the middle ages there.”

I was too concerned with getting some food. We arrived at  Wien Sudbahnhof and Caroline stayed in the station with our bags while John took Claus and me to a supermarket. He had come to Vienna earlier that month on his way to Czechoslovakia and knew his way around the city.

We stepped out of the station and Claus said, “Ah,
civilisation…”

I ignored him until we came to a pedestrian crossing where a car actually stopped to let us cross. The driver waited until we had reached the far curb before he carried on.

“Civilisation!” repeated Claus.

I laughed and said, “You haven’t stopped saying that since we crossed the border. What’s the matter?”

“We’re back in the West!” he explained in a patronising tone, as if I hadn’t realised something that was blatantly obvious and of critical importance. “High standards of living, stable currency, pleasant people-”

“-Organised crime, rising prices, Capitalism, a one-in-three divorce rate…” I continued.

John laughed. Claus was annoying him, too. I could see what he meant, though. It was nice to be in a clean country where you could walk down the street without being stunned by the too-familiar, sickly-sweet smell of piss; where you can walk into or even past a shop without an enthusiastic sales assistant picking up the object they thought you had been looking at, waving it in your face and saying “How much my friend? For you, special price. Where you from?”

On the way to the supermarket, we passed a McDonalds.

“Oh,” said Claus, “do I have time to get a Big Mac?” He looked at me.

“Well let’s get to the supermarket first. We can come back.”

“I’ll just run in, I’ll eat it as we walk along.”

He ran in, leaving John and I on the sidewalk looking at each other. I walked in after him. I found him speaking to the man at the counter in a mixture of English and German. He was trying to pay in Dutch gilders, and the man on till was trying to explain that the currency was not accepted in Austria. Claus persisted. I told him to give up and he did immediately.

I led him outside and we continued towards the supermarket, with me wondering why, if he had Dutch gilders, hadn’t he changed any to get some food in Yugoslavia?

A little further on we were walking behind a lady in her late twenties. She was wearing a short skirt, high heels, and a tight top. She was tall for an Austrian and had long legs.

This must have sparked off some Danish machismo on our friend, who said, quiet enough for her not to hear, “What an ass.”

(more…)

One of the problems of being colourblind is that my eyes are very sensitive to light.

The good thing about this is that I can see in the dark. Not totally, but I can see really well without much light.

The bad thing is that I squint a lot and wear sunglasses when it’s bright out. This brings with it the obvious concern that people think you’re trying to look cool. Not so much a problem in London and Milan, but if you you’re walking around somewhere that isn’t cool, you look like an idiot.

Another downside of this (and fucking hell I’m wierd) is that that I don’t like carrying shit around in my pockets. There must be a name for this condition. God knows that they’ve named every other discomfort.

Jones’s Syndrome? Actually they probably have that already. Something Welsh, doubtless, where you end all your sentences, even statements of fact, with “isn’t it?”

Thisitis?

Either way, modern life sucks at our souls and stuffs our pockets. Today alone, as I write this, I have in my pockets a flash drive with blog and book on it, wallet, iPod and phone - just in case I have to dump my bag and still need to listen to music, post to the web, make a phone call, buy stuff or donate an organ.

So when you add sunglasses to this, it’s a considerable bulk for a body to cart.

One of my blogging commandments is: “I will never start a post with the words ‘These days…’ “, but - um, now, everything is smaller but not small enough. I’m not saying I want my phone to be a choking hazard, but maybe some scientists at the Institute of Thisitis in Switzerland or somewhere could invent something that converges all my shit.

I don’t know, sunglasses which are an accepted form of payment that play music and store files while keeping me in touch with my friends.

The pocket market would collapse at the news, and the Freres LaPoche factory would have to close down, but I they’ve been on borrowed time since the emergence of clips.

I don’t know how it would happen - all I know is that there’s a market for it.

29. Hungry In Yugoslavia
Map

An hour or so into the journey a uniformed guard stepped into our compartment and asked for our passports. He leafed through them individually matching up the photographs with the bearers, stamped them, and handed them back.

He strained a “thunk yo” as he handed back the British passports. I turned to the page he had stamped. The stamp was a rectangle with the name of the Yugoslavian border town, Gevgelija, printed above the date. Below that was a cartoon silouette of a black steam train puffing a trail of vapour behind it. John noticed this at the same time.

“Oh wow. How creative,” he said, almost pondering.

The stamp was unofficial in appearance and looked ridiculous next to the Turkish symbols of excessive bureaucracy, whose entry stamp filled an entire page. The Yugoslavian choo-choo required a modest inch in length of the opposite, previously blank page.

I asked John if he had ever been to Yugoslavia before. He said he hadn’t. He had hitch-hiked around Europe for a month and a half when he was seventeen and went on a train trip for a month the previous year.

I thought of buying some food in Belgrade, but I didn’t want to change any money into Yugoslavian dinars. My travellers’ cheques were in twenty pound denominations, meaning that if I changed any, I had to change a lot.

Yugoslavia was a centralised economy which was suffering the effects of over-borrowing from the West in the Seventies. In mid-1970, the exchange rate against the dollar was 13 dinars. By early 1990 that figure had risen to 1,000,000,000. In February the government made the dinar convertible into
more western currencies and announced the elimination of the last four zeros from the Yugoslavian banknote in an effort to stall inflation. The rate, therefore, dropped to 100,000 dinars to the dollar.

Although the dinar in 1990 could be bought with a variety of western currencies, it was technically illegal to leave the country with more than 10,000D, which with the inflation rate at 2,600% was ten cents. It would have been difficult to change dinars outside Yugoslavia and the selling rate within the country would be criminal.

A man came through the train offering to sell his dinars. He got on at a small stop in the republic of Macedonia, just before the city of Skopje. Dressed in plain clothes, he carried a soft leather briefcase.

“Dollars, deutchmark, francs francais, sterling,” he called as he walked slowly through the carriage. He told me took travellers cheques but he was charging half the official rate.

“Are you going to change any?” asked Claus, who had reappeared from the corridor.

“Forget it. Not for what he’s offering.”

I was getting hungry and Claus probably was too. Even if I had accepted the rate, I could not be sure of when we would get to Belgrade, or if the train would stop long enough for me to buy some food, or if I would find anywhere that sold food, or if it would even be open when I did. I also knew nothing about Yugoslavian prices. If the food was cheap and I had twenty pounds to spend, I would have to buy more food than I could carry and lug it around cramped spaces. It was not worth it.

I felt ashamed at dreading the prospect of waiting twenty hours for my next meal, but hunger was getting to me, as I had not eaten since dinner in Thessaloniki, the night before.

Claus looked at me for a solution.

“Looks like breakfast in Vienna,” I said.

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled with one side of his mouth as if to say “I guess so”.

(more…)