Travelling

I love travelling. 

Not that I’ve done that much mind you, but then that makes it even more exciting when I do go somewhere. I’m sure that deep in my DNA history, there’s an explorer or sailor, as I constantly long for a different landscape, or a new horizon. I’ve always had this thing about going somewhere without using air-travel, a la Michael Palin and “around the world in 80 days.” About the furthest I’ve actually travelled without using a plane is 300 miles to the Lake District, which isn’t very far at all (but well worth driving any distance to visit). 

I’ve been lucky enough to leave England a few times on the usual family Mediterranean trips, and to Tunisia, and the Canaries. A couple of holidays that stick in the mind are one; when I went to the Island of Guernsey when I was about 12 years old with the school. It was one of those coming of age moments. The first time I had ever stayed away from home without my parents, and the first time I had a girlfriend, in a very innocent type of holiday romance way.

Venice in the mid 80s is also up there. My parents took me and my little brother on a trip across the Adriatic Sea from Yugoslavia, in a rusting old passenger ferry. The trip out was on a mirror smooth sea with a beautiful crisp blue sky. Coming back was like something from a horror movie. The ferry which had seemed amply large for us and the other French and German tourists on the trip out was now positively tiny on the rolling waves and in the darkness.

And there were also the road trips to go camping in Devon, Somerset and Cornwall with my parents in the 1970s. Mum and dad would get me and my brother up in the middle of the night at our maisonette in Heston, and we would lie down in the back of their little red Austin Maxi on sleeping bags. I can remember waking up in the back of the car at first light, and looking out of the window at the countryside as it rolled past. I’m sure that one year my mum woke me to show me Stonehenge as we trundled past on the A303. Me and my brother would swap extra thick summer special copies of Battle, Warlord and the Beano as we made our way to the coast. Back then, that first glance of the seaside was absolutely magical, and in fact, still is for me.

But as I pack for a trip that in the morning will take me over to mainland Europe, I can’t help wondering if I love travelling so much because it’s basically just like running away. Leaving all the troubles in your life behind for just a few days, pushing them to the back of your mind for just a little while.

[I’m off for a bit. Back soon, when I’ll be posting amongst other things: about the odd folk in my local town of Farnborough, the CSA, a smattering of melancholy and a piece about my apparent “airy fairy gayness.”]

Rioters and bankers all in the same class

There’s not that much about the riots last week that made me laugh, apart from the 15 year boy caught by Police trying to run away from a newsagents with over 50 packets of chewing gum inside his tracksuit bottoms. It’s like something out of the Beano; a young lad running off with pockets full of confectionary, an angry shop keeper left shaking his fist in the air. Did the boy have a small black dog with him called Gnasher? I doubt if anyone in the history of infamous robberies, ever stole such a stupid item. Unfortunately that lad will now have a criminal record to follow him around and hinder his future employment prospects and for what: a few sticks of Wrigley’s gum.

But I wonder if in some ways the riots were actually ‘handy’ for the Tory government. They came along at the same time as more bad news about the state of the stalling British economy, and it’s failing recovery. We could forget about the mismanaged economy for a few days and blame the chavs for all our problems. Although as it turns out the impoverished rioters didn’t turn out to be the disaffected young underclass that we thought they were, with employed architects, designers, graduates and Olympic ambassadors amongst their numbers.

So what did the reason for the riots turn out to be in the end?

From what I have read it can be only one reason: greed. These people saw that they could get something for nothing. A free pair of trainers, a new flat screen TV or even some chewing gum. The cost to repair the damage has been estimated to top £100 - £200M according to some UK newspaper sources and The Association of British Insurers.

But at least we have seen some of the guilty being dragged through court over the last few days, which is more than we can say about the greedy bankers and hedge fund managers who saddled this country with £850 billion of debt three years ago with their greedy deals. Apparently wearing a suit, rather than a hoodie to commit your crime makes you immune from the consequences.

Hanging out

At midnight last night I found myself perched dangerously on the top of a stepladder, with one foot on top of the wardrobe.  Now this may paint an image in your head of some sort of crazy sexual antics involving chandeliers, but it was nothing of the sort.  I would love to tell you that it was part of a drug fuelled crazy sex game getting completely out of hand; rather it was an attempt by me to climb up into the loft to find a travel bag containing an envelope full of old letters. 

Why are lofts so f*****g difficult to get into?  In the house that we live in at the moment, I swear the loft hatch is only about the size of an A4 sheet of paper!  I couldn’t possibly put on any more body weight as the stuff we have up there would be trapped for evermore, or at least until I went on a diet.  I would have to employ a thin person to climb up there to dig out the Christmas Tree next December. 

To make matters worse, I was wearing just a towelling dressing gown and everything was swinging free – if you know what I mean?  If Loub chosen that moment to look round the door to see what all the noise was, she would have needed serious counselling or therapy.  Climbing into lofts ‘semi-naked’ has many dangers including; splinters from rough wooden joints (ouch), and my nemesis: the wasp!  A swarm of wasps attacking my nether regions whilst trapped in the confines of the loft doesn’t bear thinking about.   

I do envy those people with swish ladders, which pull out from the loft hatch.  Surly at my stage of life I deserve a luxury loft ladder that drops down from the ceiling with a swish of smooth greased aluminium.  And maybe a light that has a long cord that dangles through from the land of water-tanks, old photo albums and empty suitcases.

And whilst on the subject; is it a loft or an attic?  I’ve just had a look on the web and according to Wikipedia, ‘the major difference being that an attic typically constitutes an entire floor of the building, while a loft covers only a few rooms.’  

OK, it’s an attic then?  Why do I feel so posh calling it an attic?

False riot alarm at Farnborough Gate

One of the most interesting things about the civil unrest (although its anything but civil) in London over that last few days and even earlier in the year during the student protests, is the increasing use of social media and mobile phones to organise people.  I’m not such a big fan of Facebook, but I do love Twitter and can see how this stuff spirals out of control.  For example: early evening last night I started to see Tweets that mentioned rioting chavs at Farnborough Gate.  Allegedly large groups of hooded youths were there, waiting for the chance to grab some free clothing.  This rumour started to spread until some clever member of the public pointed out that he was 'actually' parked at Farnborough Gate and there were no youths or chavs in sight.  I don’t know what the grounds were for the original Tweets or posts on Facebook (please tell me if you know more), but it amazing how quickly this stuff gets out of hand.

Word of mouth used to be the way that news of a riot or protest spread.  Across estates and workplaces, pubs and meeting halls.  Now days it’s much quicker and simpler than that.  Mobile phones and social media enable protesters to organise themselves and can even be used to avoid the authorities in real time.  Imagine how students rioting earlier in the year used Twitter and SMS to avoid the police, by changing the route of the protest to use another street in a matter of minutes, thus foiling police attempts at kettling.

I did have to laugh though at some of the Tweets from the riots in London, especially the gang related ones.  This one was published in today's newspaper: 

'I would love it if every click [clique] from north, south, east turned on feds am telling you a lot of fed man will quit their job.'


OK, so I wasn’t aware that we had the FBI in the United Kingdom. Do you mean the police by any chance?

Is it that some of the 'Grand Theft Auto generation' have lost touch with reality?  Have they forgotten that they live in a fairly easy going city?  One where you can vote for your leaders black or white.  A country where the police are becoming more and more accountable, to the extent that they can’t do their job?  Maybe it’s time for these angry young men to look around and realise that they aren’t living in Compton L.A.  These chavs are also not taking part in something similar to the Arab Spring.  Quoting Mosa’ab Elshamy an Egyptian activist who wrote on Twitter yesterday about our riots;

'Egyptians and Tunisians took revenge for Khaled Said, and Bouazizi by peacefully toppling murderous regimes, not stealing DVD players.'       

Chav Armageddon arrives in London riots

I have always imagined that at some stage in my life there would be an Armageddon.  An 'end of the world scenario' if you like.  Shambling figures, glimpsed through the heat haze of burning buildings and cars, night time suburban streets brightly lit by the flashing blue of emergency services lights.  The Police unable to gain control of a crowd of shuffling monstrosities.  Is this the end of the world?  Have the dead arisen from their slumber, now that hell is full; to reclaim the streets once again as brilliantly depicted by George A. Romero.  No not at all.  This is something far worse than that.  This is Chav Armageddon!  These zombies aren’t after brains - oh no.  They want something far more superficial than that.  As darkness draws its veil over London, they wander, dressed in their best hoodies and trackie bottoms, through the streets of Peckham, Croydon, Catford and Bethnal Green murmuring repeatedly to each other 'Reebok trainers.'  Smoke rises above Lewisham, Clapham and Hackney as they smash shop windows and clamber inside in search of an Xbox or two.  There are even some reports that they have even been seen with armfuls’ of their favourite pray: the iPhone! 

What amazes me about this weeks events in London, is that I haven’t seen one single interview with anyone on the rioters’ side, that could shine a light on the reason for their actions.  It’s obvious that these aren’t the sort of middle class teenagers who are angry about the lack of first-time-buyer mortgages or the increasingly expensive cost of university fees, so what are they actually rioting about.  Which brings me to the question: do they even know themselves?  Maybe all we have here is just large groups of Chavs, using last week’s incident with Mark Duggan in Tottenham Hale, to get themselves a new pair of trainers and an iPhone.                  

Chavegeddon has finally arrived and maybe coming to a MacDonald’s near you soon!

The broken tooth dream

Last night I dreamt I had broken my front tooth in half. I’ll paint the scene for you:

I’m sitting on the sofa absolutely crying my eyes out, and I mean like a baby. I’ve somehow cracked one of my front teeth clean in half leaving a big gap. Me and Lou B are so skint that we can’t afford to get it fixed. We’ve talked about super-gluing it back together, but have decided against it. The last thing that I remember of the dream, is Lou B sitting down next to me and putting her arm round my shoulders and saying,

“Don’t worry Honey, just think, you’ll have a lovely cheeky grin.”

    

The same old same old?

Well... what’s this going to be about then?  It can’t be all that stuff I blogged about over the last three years because you’ve already read that.  It will have to be new fresh material.  Trouble is I can’t hide behind an anonymous name this time, so it will have to be the same, but different I suppose.  Don’t forget though, I’m not trying to win any awards or get anything published, so expect the occasional spelling mistake or error as I am only human.’

So here we are and welcome to my new blog... (here I go again, ending blog posts with three full stops)