Phil's Phworld

ENTEBBE – The Long Way Home

2009-11-22T17:10:00.005-08:00

Uganda may be officially at peace, but it’s a country prone to explosion. Like all of East Africa, it treads a fine line between nationalism and tribalism. My final days in Uganda were marked by the latest in a long line of flashpoints in the country’s long, tortured history. The day after our return to Kibaale from Kisoro, it became clear that there was a situation brewing in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. The king of Uganda’s largest tribal people, the Buganda, was meant to be speaking at a youth rally close to the capital but the national government had made moves to stop him. This angered the king’s supporters, who protested and, soon, that protest became a riot. (The BBC covered the rioting and you can read more of the background at this page on their website.)

Most of the pics for this, final, entry come from Entebbe because, well, folks were distracted with other things elsewhere in the country. So, we start with pretty lilys...

The rumours were soon followed up by alarming e-mails from the Canadian embassy warning expats to stay out of the capital and to consider evacuating the country. A standard response for most western countries when local trouble kicks off; and a slightly unhelpful one since most road routes to the international airport at Entebbe pass through Kampala. However, what became clear over the course of the day as we scanned the Internet news headlines was that the violence was spreading south from Kampala and throughout the Buganda region. In other words: right towards us. When gunfire was heard in Masaka, a number of the Pacific Academy’s volunteers decided to leave town and head to Kibaale. But with the army beginning to shut down major routes to contain the riots, they were forced to take a long, circuitous route along back roads. Friday evening was uneasy as it appeared that protests were beginning in Kibaale as well… The Canadians gathered to play board games (as fine a distraction as can be conceived) and see what would happen on Saturday, when the controversial visit was scheduled to happen.

Thankfully, by Saturday morning, the king had decided to call off his visit and the announcement quickly ended the rioting. Kibaale and Masaka returned to normal but reports from Kampala suggested that the army’s presence in the city and manning roadblocks wasn’t going to end soon. This was destined to be a problem for me since I was due to be flying out of Entebbe on Sunday evening. So, after receiving advice from locals and from Kampala, we decided to make the trip a day early and try and find a different route to Entebbe. We travelled in two cars, each of which had an armed guard in the front seat. (Another first for me: a road trip in which someone really was ‘riding shotgun’) First stop was in Masaka where we left the rest of the Pacific Outreach team. The city appeared to have gotten straight back to normal; with only the occasional ominous black smudge on the road to mark where a tyre fire had been burning the day before.

... the impressive sounding Dragon Spider. Another of those charming species where the females kill and eat the males; and other such delightful things like that!

The main route to Masaka was also quiet and, although there were soldiers posted along it, none of them seemed to be blocking travel. Before Masaka we turned to the south east and towards Lake Victoria. Jeff had been told about a possible means of evacuation for those needing to avoid Kampala in a fishing village by the water’s edge. A series of motorized fishing boats on the beach seemed to be running an impromptu taxi service which, for only a few dollars, would take me across the mouth of the lake to Entebbe. A ten minute journey which would bypass an hour’s congested traffic, and possible roadblocks, in Kampala. And, after briefly stopping to help rescue a family whose boat’s engine had cut out halfway through the journey, we buzzed through the afternoon rain to reach the other side without mishap. (Jeff, Rachel and our guard headed back to Kibaale that evening without further incident and the past couple of months have been trouble free in Uganda)

Arriving on Entebbe's rainy shores; but still a little piece of calm after excitement elsewhere.

Compared to the tension which had gripped other parts of the country, Entebbe appeared to have remained as an oasis of calm throughout the troubles. Being away from the capital had helped to ensure that all flights in and out of the country had flown as scheduled, and the dock on leafy suburban streets was calm. Without a taxi in the vicinity, I took my large rucksack for a death defying spin on the back of a boda-boda through Entebbe’s streets to my motel.

Curiously out-of-place Californian palm tree in Entebbe Botanical Gardens.

This turn of events does mean that I get an unexpected day to wander around Entebbe; which is a beautiful little town broadly ignored by virtue of the fact that most who come here are either heading to or leaving the airport. I spend a lot of time in the Botanical Gardens, which appear to have been planted by a very diverse group of personalities over the years. There are Californian palm trees, coffee plants and aloe vera spread throughout the large area. Entebbe was formally the capital of Uganda and there are signs all over the gardens of some of that past. Idi Amin used to spend time here thinking over his most important decisions; although given what he came up with you have to wonder if he wasn’t interrupted… Apparently Hollywood also found its way here in the 1930s when Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan films were shot here. Truth be told there isn’t quite enough jungle to film that much; but the dark canopy complete with hanging creepers (strong enough to swing on!) do certainly have the right look.

Hanging out in the jungle part of the Botannical Gardens.

And after a few hours waiting at the airport, I began my epic 24 hour journey home. But compared to some of the journeys I’d just undertaken on the breakneck dulla-dullas of Zanzibar, the bush roads of Kenya and with shotgun toting guard across the waterways of Uganda; it’s probably tamest bit of travelling of the entire journey...

And, of course, no Phworld journey would be complete without the inevitable, and not quite chronological, line-o-map! So here's the East Africa one.

KISORO – The Gorillas of the Impenetrable Forest

2009-11-20T20:55:00.009-08:00

It’s early morning in a misty jungle and Benjamin, our fifty one year old tracker, acts as part ranger and part school teacher as he runs through his briefing. There is no be no flash photography, no food taken beyond a certain point, anybody who is ill and does not disclose the fact to him before we depart will be removed from the group and, once we reach the appointed area, we must follow his every instruction. It’s 7am on the morning of our journey to track gorillas in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest; and the four of us are hanging on his every word.

Rachel and I arrived in Kisoro, the nearest town to the Impenetrable Forest, yesterday during a monsoon style rainstorm. We’d been driving for almost eight hours since leaving Jeff and the Kibaale truck in Masaka earlier that day. Our driver’s name is Norbet; and he’s become Rachel’s designated tour guide of choice as she’s been undertaking her various trips around Uganda. Apparently he, like our safari guides in Kenya, finds out his latest assignments at the last moment and so having just done the three day round trip to Uganda’s most south western point, he’s now about to do it all again. Most of the day’s driving was dry and sunny but as we left the plains behind and headed into the mountains, the sky began to darken and we began driving slowly through ever larger areas of mist as we ascended and descended on narrow mountain paths. We are in the Virunga Mountains, which straddle the borders of the south western region of Uganda, northern Rwanda and the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Inhospitable, rugged and under populated; this region has been a flash point for violence in all three of the countries which border it over the years. Which, coupled with the traitorous state of the roads, makes it strange that it’s become one of Uganda’s biggest tourist attraction. The reason for that is the reason we’re here: mountain gorillas.

In 1902, a German expedition to map the borders of German East Africa were the first to encounter gorillas on these mountain sides. It quickly became clear that the gorillas in this part of the world were a separate species to those found elsewhere. As it became clear that the numbers of gorillas in the region were small and in danger of becoming extinct, others came to study them including, most famously, Dian Fossey in 1967. Most of Fosse’s studies were done in Rwanda but, given the fact that gorillas rather understandably pay little attention to human borders, she would often travel to Uganda as she observed and studied the mountain gorillas (she was ejected from the Democratic Republic of Congo; the first instance of the violence and opposition which would follow her throughout her life in the region) and when she was in Uganda she’d often stay at the Travellers Rest Hostel in Kisoro, which is where Rachel and I stayed while in the region.

The Traveller's Rest in Kisoro.

Nowadays the hotel is a well developed operation which primarily houses tourists before and after their gorilla trekking expeditions. Gorilla tourism was publically condemned by Fossey, which makes it interesting that she’d constantly return to the Travellers Rest. Ultimately she probably realized that carefully controlled visits gorillas could both keep tourists away from making their own damaging treks through the delicate eco system and help to raise substantial funds for the conservation of the animals. And if the Travellers Rest is meant to be an introduction to the gorillas’ world, it’s certainly a dramatic one. The thunderous storm which began as we were arriving in town continues all night. And the morning brings an eerie mist throughout the lower lying areas; giving the region a sort of lost world / Transylvania feeling as we head out early to reach the starting point of our trek by sunrise.

The mysterious jungle which is the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

Gorilla tourism certainly isn’t cheap. The cost of a permit to track gorillas is $500 (hence my dalliance with Kampala’s ATMs!) and the lengthy list of terms and conditions makes it clear that no encounter is guaranteed by purchasing it. The permit allows a small number of tourists a day to track gorillas (no more than eight following each gorilla group, and there are perhaps four or five groups being tracked in Uganda each day) with the services of guides. Trekking is simply that; heading into the jungle and following the guides as they track the movements of the gorilla groups. Finding the gorillas can take all day and, as some of the displays at the Travellers Rest attest, in some cases it may not happen, especially if the gorillas have moved over one of the land borders.

All this and more is covered by Benjamin in his early morning briefing. As well as myself and Rachel there are two Australians making the trip with us; Jesse and James. There were, apparently, meant to be four others in our group but they do not reach the check in desk by the allotted time and so we leave without them (and, at $500 a permit, that makes that an expensive day’s sleep in…) As well as Benjamin we have a second guide carrying a gun. This isn’t, we discover, for the gorillas but for the possibility of other wildlife which might cross our path in an unwelcome way, including elephants! Benjamin tells us that this group of gorillas, the Nshong group, are always found at some point during a day’s tracking but that initial trek can last anywhere between ninety minutes and four hours. There’s no way of knowing that before we set out, although there are already three trackers in the jungle looking for the gorillas’ trail who we will be in contact with via radio.

Descending the first ridge on the trail of mountain gorillas.

We drive to the top of a mountain ridge above the Bwindi forest. The day’s hiking begins, therefore, with a steep 600m descent. This, for me, is my least favourite way to begin a day’s hiking. Downhill on sharp rocky paths isn’t a lot of fun, especially as sliding isn’t an option close to sheer drops. The early morning mist has cleared, though, so that the sky is sparkling blue. Of course, that also means it becomes very hot very quickly and we’re soon glad to finish the initial descent and find our way onto the valley floor (just to put our efforts in perspective, we pass several local houses clinging to the sides of the slopes, and their residents are nimbly making their way up and down the ridges as they undoubtedly to every day of their lives) We follow the river marking the border between the grasslands and jungle until we reach our crossing point: a fallen log over the fast flowing water. Once across, we are swallowed up by the impenetrable forest. Twisted trees are all around us and the sounds of the river are quickly extinguished. It may not be impenetrable; but it’s a different world under the boughs of these ancient trees.

Heading along the river valley towards the jungle edge.

As we get deeper into the jungle, Benjamin seems to loosen up considerably and becomes very animated as he tells us about his history with the gorillas. He’s worked in this region his entire life and, for the past twenty years has made this trip practically every day. He helped to habituate this particular gorilla group. In other words, he visited them every day and sat in their presence observing them and allowing them become comfortable with him, so that he could begin to bring in small groups of tourists without seeming like a threat. This habituation process is the same one Dian Fossey pioneered, and is still used by researchers as they seek to become acquainted with the groups of gorillas they wish to study.

During a quiet moment, Benjamin explains more about the Bwindi gorillas.

With each rest and check in with the early morning trackers, it seems like we’re getting closer and then, somewhere in the distance, we hear a prehistoric scream from the jungle. Benjamin looks into the air and muses whether it could be chimpanzees but, after a conversation with the trackers, it’s clear that they’ve found the Nshong gorilla group and after around ninety minutes walking from the bottom of the mountain, we’re shedding our rucksacks and preparing to enter their area.

Benjamin leads us into the gorillas' current habitat.

And here's what we were looking for. Mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. Or so the gorillas claim...

Benjamin goes first; beckoning and halting us as we approach the area where many of the female gorillas and their infants are waiting. The first gorilla is above us, sitting in a true and observing with a detached interest. Once we reach the resting site, though, we find that we are surrounded. There are gorillas everywhere. Sitting on the ground with infants, wandering around with even younger children on their backs and climbing some of the nearby trees. There are also huge silverback male gorillas patrolling around the area, giving us the occasional snort as if to remind us not to come too close. It’s abundantly clear just how much Benjamin loves his job; he barely contains his excitement as he points out the various family groups he has named and known for years, and shows us the best spots for photographs. Seeing as how my camera has a pretty poor zoom; I take a few token photographs then spend the time simply watching the gorillas go about their business. Really, it’s much like any family. Parents are spending time with their children and so we as the visitors are just distractions and; seeing as we’re not really moving, we’re not very interesting ones either.

Spotting gorillas through the undergrowth...

... and then just wandering around the corner and finding one right there!

As the gorillas move out of the clearing and onto the nearby jungle slopes, we slowly follow them. It’s a fascinating process as Benjamin motions around a corner and suddenly we’ll find there’s a gorilla sitting just metres away. Part of Benjamin’s briefing was to tell us that we need to keep at least six metres away from the gorillas; but obviously nobody told the gorillas as they often seem intent on surprising us with how close they will be before slowly slinking away.

These closer shots come courtesy of Rachel's camera and its zoom, which is several times better than the one I'm using!

We carry on this fascinating journey for an hour until, sadly, we have to leave. (The permits are strict in only allowing tourists an hour’s encounter with the gorillas) It’s clear that the way Dian Fossey described these incredible creatures is precisely correct: they’re peaceful, maternal and paternal and have no natural inclination towards violence. They’re not very many shades of development away from us; including the vein of curiosity which runs through them since as we begin hiking out of the jungle they begin following and observing us from afar (much as we’ve just been doing to them)

Heading out of the now hot and sticky jungle.

Being a regular hiker in Vancouver’s mountains; steep ascents in hot sun are a regular occurrence and substantially easier than doing the same route down. Rarely, for Australians, Jesse and James aren’t very quick hikers so I have plenty of time with the early morning trackers hearing stories about their daily hikes into the jungle. Astoundingly, when they have walkers who can’t make the entire walk themselves they’ve been called upon to actually carry them down the mountains and across the jungle. My mind boggles at how hard that must be; I can only assume the resulting tip for their services is very generous. I also fill them in on the latest developments in the Premier League. Or, at least, developments from two weeks beforehand when I was back in the UK.

Heading back up the hill. Hotter, yes, but a lot easier than the rocky slide to oblivion in the morning!

The excitement from everyone who observes these creatures is obvious. Once we’re back at the tracking centre; Benjamin hands out certificates detailing our day’s achievements. He takes this process surprisingly seriously. That’s partially down to his demeanour, and also because it’s clear that our experience as guests and participants is of primary importance to our guides. As an expensive and off the beaten track journey, gorilla tracking relies on positive reviews and word of mouth as advertising. And it’s vital to the local economy; both in protecting the gorillas (which is where much of the expense of the permits goes) and for the guesthouses which cater to the visitors. Whether or not the local communities see much of this benefit is up for debate. By my calculations; even if every gorilla tracking spot every day is filled there’s probably less than 100 tourists per day staying in the area and we’ve passed several guesthouses in and around Kisoro. Not everyone is going to be reaping the rewards of the industry. It’s clear, though, that what these mountains offer is an experience like no other. And with mountain gorillas still on the verge of extinction (the decline in their numbers observed since the early 1900s has stopped, but they’ve only risen by a few percent each year since) there is vital work going on here which is being subsidized. For Benjamin and the rest of the ecologists who work in the gorilla tourism industry, it’s the gorillas which are the excitement and getting the chance to share some of that enthusiasm as well as knowing they’re helping to preserve the species keeps them going back into the jungle day after day.

Looking across the ridges and farms of the Virunga mountains.

As we make our way back to Kisoro the clouds return and, as if to remind us of our fortune for finding the gorillas relatively quickly, by early evening the village is enveloped in another huge storm which we watch from the fireside at the Travellers Rest. Which makes me wonder what the gorillas and their families do each day as the rain falls around them…

KIBAALE – School Daze

2009-11-18T23:31:00.003-08:00

Just to affirm how large a project Kibaale Community Centre actually is; when Rachel takes me on a tour of the site it lasts for pretty much half the day. We begin as the students gather for their morning assembly. It’s very much like the old style British versions; except with praise music filling in for hymns. The primary and secondary schools assemble in two different groups. For the younger students, especially, it’s a chance to make sure uniforms are complete and well presented before the start of the day.

As we look into the various school buildings and see classes underway, it’s clear just how large the Community Centre’s ministry has become. There are traditional academic classes, as well as a whole vocational school with tailoring, woodwork and baking as the mainstays (sales from the produced items form part of the centre’s funding) There are also special classes for deaf students. This is, Rachel tells me, a rarity in East Africa as usually if children with special needs are able to find a place to be taught, it’ll be at specific schools for the deaf or blind and far apart from the mainstream schools. To be able to minister to those with special needs as part of the whole school community is really rather special.

A North American favourite; Duck Duck Goose.

We also take a look at the new clinic building; which appears to be very well equipped (I also get to see the corner of the old community centre where a pair of nurses ran what was the old clinic; it’s a vast improvement) and the even newer daycare centre for the children of staff members which, literally, had opened its doors for the first time that morning. Obviously the centre is well funded via its Canadian supporters, but it’s also clear that there’s a lot of passion among the senior Ugandan staff who run the ministry which keeps the centre seeking to do even more for its community. Rachel spends most of the time fielding questions and sharing ideas about what’s next for the school, she explains that the Canadian staff aim to direct the project and its funding; while equipping the Ugandan staff to actually staff the school, clinic and all of the centre’s other ministries. The trick seems to be matching the funding and resources with the ambitions of those growing the ministry!

The Kibaale Community Centre Clinic. Shiny!

Another impressive sight at the centre is the blzing hot smoke-filled kitchen where, each day, a small staff cooks lunch for the hundreds of staff and students. There’s a feast of rice, beans, chicken and matoke (that’s the name for the savoury mashed bananas which are a Ugandan staple) Like back at Alfa Gente in Brazil, the provision of a full daily meal is actually one of the most significant ministries of the Kibaale Community Centre. The school charges a nominal fee for students; but that’s mostly to ensure participation rather than for funding purposes. The need for nutritious meals is paramount and, when there is a drought and a poor harvest as seems to be the case in Kibaale at the moment, not every family can feed themselves properly.

Kibaale's kitchen. Imagine cooking for hundreds in here every day. Now that's commitment!

Later in the week Jeff and Shannon’s eldest son, nine year old Joel, takes myself and one of the other Canadian volunteers for a walk up a nearby hill to get a better look at Kibaale and the centre. Joel bemoans our unwillingness to scramble up vertical slopes of thistles as we skirt around the edge heading for switchbacks. Along the way we pass by a collection of dilapidated buildings. They look like classrooms but many are missing walls or pieces of roof. I wonder if it’s a former school but, apparently, it still is. This is one of the government run schools and the poor condition demonstrates why so many churches and foreign agencies are working on education projects in the country… From the top of the hill, the scale of the Kibaale Community Centre is even more obvious. Together with the staff housing and farm land it encompasses, it’s comparable in size to the town itself!

The town of Kibaale; you can see the beginnings of the Community Centre nearby.

Joel heading straight for the most vertical part of the hill...

UGANDA – Rigatoni on the Southern Road

2009-11-16T23:58:00.004-08:00

I’ve never eaten macaroni and cheese at an American style diner in Uganda before. Especially not one situated in the corner of a busy parkade. But then, it’s not exactly macaroni and cheese anyway; rather it’s rigatoni covered in cheese sauce. Is this the strangest cultural experience so far in East Africa?..

Flying out over Lake Victoria.

Despite the various hassles of Nairobi, it’s a little sad to be leaving Jomo Kenyatta Airport for the last time. How I will miss its identical corridors of identical stores selling identical, overpriced merchandise. Excitement builds, though, as my flight takes me north west and over Lake Victoria. The dry Kenyan countryside is left behind for lush green grasslands and jungle. It looks like that this area of Uganda isn’t suffering the same drought as Kenya. The area in question is Entebbe, a satellite town to the capital, Kampala. As my friend Rachel Leng tells me after she meets me at the airport, Uganda’s straddling of the equator means it’s prone to all sorts of diverse climate patterns. What’s true in Kampala isn’t the same a few hours to the south west close to Masaka, where she and other Canadians work at the Kibaale Community Centre.

Flying into the lush greenery of Entebbe.

Our first stop is to head into Kampala and to pick up some paint for the centre. Then, on to the local mall where we meet up with Shannon, another of the Canadians working in Kibaale. Apparently mall visiting is a high point for Canadian missionaries; for Shannon it’s a chance to buy more books for her fast reading children (after being surrounded by Swahili for two weeks; it’s strange to suddenly enter an East African country where English is the primary spoken and written language) and for Rachel, a chance to get the Community Centre’s new truck cleaned.

I, meanwhile, need to obtain some Ugandan shillings to pay for an excursion we’re planning which, first, means a trip to every bank in a mile’s radius looking for one which takes Canadian cards, and then means withdrawing a pile of notes so large I don’t need to worry about being robbed as I could easily beat someone to death with them. (A thousand dollars equates to almost two million shillings, and for some reason the cash machine won’t dispense a note with a greater value than twenty thousand) Following lunch at the aforementioned New York themed café, we head out in the sparkly truck for a drive through Kampala’s wondrously random traffic patterns and out into the countryside. The experience is probably more terrifying than Kenya since, rather than having large minibuses to dodge, on the mean streets of Kampala the cheap taxi driving is done via motorbikes; which seem to get everywhere at a moment’s notice. Traffic lights are untrustworthy devices and it seems lone traffic police at major junctions are all than stands between Kampala’s drivers and certain disaster. There’s one frightening moment where we and three other directions of traffic are all hurtling straight towards each other and it looks like nobody is going to stop until a few waves from the local police suddenly slow them all down.

On the road in Uganda

The drive to Kibaale takes several hours. We’re dodging pot holes all the way along sealed and not so sealed roads. We cross the equator but, as I’ve done it a few times and Rachel and Shannon do it every couple of weeks, we decide not to stop. Kibaale is far to Uganda’s south; within striking distance of the land border with Tanzania. On the outskirts of town is the large, guarded compound of the Kibaale Community Centre. In actuality, a community centre is just one of the functions of the site. Since the mid 90s, the site has grown to include primary and secondary schools, housing for staff, visitors and workers and, most recently, a community clinic. Much of the money for building these projects comes from Canada, via the Pacific Academy in the Lower Mainland of BC. Rachel and most of the other Canadian staff are either alumni or have close connections with the school, which is how they became part of the work in Kibaale. Rachel’s professional background is as an accountant; and so she came to Kibaale Community Centre to run the project’s finances. No small task when there’s over a hundred staff on the site and it’s easily the biggest employer in the area!

The guest house and staff accommodation at Kibaale Community Centre.

School has finished for the day by the time we arrive, so there’s enough time to meet Shannon’s husband, Jeff, and their children before settling in to the Kibaale guest house. The best feature of which is a large jigsaw lying unfinished on the dining room table. A great distraction although, sadly, it turns out to be impossible. Or, perhaps, just very, very difficult. But I prefer to think that it was impossible. It eases the pain.

The guest house at Kibaale Community Centre. All the comforts of home, including impossible chimpanzee jigsaw. Yes, you heard me: impossible.

NAIROBI – The Ol’ Sudanese Refugee Trick

2009-11-15T15:18:00.002-08:00

Nairobi has a fearsome reputation among the world’s cities. One of the most dangerous, one of the most crime ridden, every tourist is guaranteed to be robbed / stolen / mutilated etc. etc…. As with most such reputations it is, of course, mostly undeserved. The dangers of Nairobi are well away from the CBD; which is constantly being patrolled by police and private security firms. The trick with any city like Nairobi is to memorize where you’re heading to on a map and then simply to follow the Doctor Who advice for new places: just wander around like you own the place.

Nairobi’s problems, I find, have less to do with crime and more to do with the fact it’s a really very annoying city. Wandering around the streets and markets of Nairobi is the single most irritating experience you can have in a major city. On practically every single block you’ll meet someone who wants to open a conversation. And, in every single case, these conversations are leading to you hopefully handing over some money. I would like to say that these are exceptions but, no, sadly I didn’t have a single conversation on the streets of Nairobi which didn’t end up this way (and I was happy to speak to everyone who I could; at least until the twelfth or so time when pure exhaustion kicked in) Let’s run through some of the characters you might meet on the streets of central Nairobi:

1) Safari Salesmen
Stand outside travel agencies with cards and brochures and, of course, attempt to sell safaris.

2) Taxi Drivers
Same as above, but with taxis rather than safaris.

3) Market Boys
Met at the entrance to street markets. Or, indeed, several blocks away. They’ll wander in with you and follow you around. Any attempt to ask them to leave is met with an insistence that they must stay with you because “markets work differently here” and you need them to help you make purchases. And, of course, you don’.

4) Refugees / Refugee police
These folks are involved in a highly elaborate scam which involves them being a Sudanese refugee with a scholarship to come study in your country, and if they can only get 40 / 50 dollars to get out of Kenya they can escape. After dealing with them, you head around the corner and meet a couple of ‘police’ who are looking for illegal refugees. Apparently this has been going on for decades but, sadly for them, in the era of 419 e-mail scams, the formulaic scamming is all rather sad.

(N.B. Obviously this is not reflective of the entire breadth of such a cosmopolitan city as Nairobi; these are merely a few particular brands of local who happen to stand out on a visit to the city as they’re encountered so frequently)

Some of the many birds in the national museum. Ah, swallows. African and European as well. If only they listed the speeds when they're flying unladen...

On their own, these are annoyances. But after half a dozen city blocks the ‘wandering around a city’ part of wandering around the city becomes exhausting. Which is a shame as that’s my favourite part of being in a new city. So, instead, it’s time to go see a bit of Nairboi’s cultural quarter and go hit the National Museum. Like Nairobi itself, the museum is a slightly confusing place to navigate. First of all, you have to get into the place. The museum was apparently designed to be as difficult as possible to reach on foot; and is strangely located in a piece of park directly opposite a casino. Inside, there’s a whole range of conflicting design styles and dispirit exhibits. The first chambers are large and lofty, with just a few minimalist displays of art and pottery. Wander through a couple of doors, though, and you quickly find yourself in cramped corridors weaving through hundreds of stuffed birds. There’s a rough distinction made between natural history exhibits on the ground floor and human history above; but some of the temporary exhibits don’t seem to belong anywhere. A particularly incongruous contribution on display whilst I was in town was a photography exhibit which featuring the entire Manchester United squad holding doves. Oh, and Sir. Alex Ferguson as well. Really.

The mammal room in Nairobi National Museum. The skeleton in the middle is a real elephant. The others? Not quite so real.

In amongst the madness, there are some gems buried away. There’s a very impressive elephant skeleton in the mammal room featuring some almighty tusks. Most excitingly, though, is a room which is somewhat hidden away in back of the human exhibits (check out the *hilarious* DVD slideshow if you make it that far.) This chamber, which looks like every futuristic bank vault you’ve ever seen in the movies, houses a number of glass cases containing skull fragments. These skulls, found in East Africa, are some of the oldest found anywhere in the world, dating back millions of years. It’s a small, understated display of breathtaking finds. The only detraction from the wonder comes from the the bizarrely cheap waxworks depicting neanderthal life which have been erected in one corner.

A screenshot from the 'history of humanity' video at the museum. There's other great moments, but this caption is my favourite.

After scouring the depths of the museum, it was time to go shopping. Despite the annoying presence of over enthusiastic hawkers, Nairobi really does boast a fine selection of every type of tourist craft you can imagine. In fact, it’s rather too fine a selection. The problem in Nairobi’s Central Market is that every store features the same collection of beautifully made but absolutely identical wares. From ebony statues of elephants to Massai beads; there’s often no questioning the quality but there is a problem finding anything distinctive. And that’s a problem with me because, if I do find myself souvenir shopping, then I’m going to be looking for genuine tourist tack. I don’t want a beautiful soapstone carving of something which is identical to all the other millions of soapstone carvings in every other city store. I want something so utterly horrendous; so devoid of any charm, that it surely must be a one in a million or the universe is doomed to failure. Thankfully, on my careful scouring of Nairobi’s many tiny emporiums, I finally found a piece of tack worthy of my purchase.

My favourite piece of Nairobi tack. How long and hard I had to work to find such a beautiful piece of ugliness!

A successful shopping trip behind me, and a fine meal of sizzling Kenya stew in front of me, I was able to reflect on the fact that Nairobi certainly isn’t the worst city on Earth. It’s a fairly boring piece of urban design, but it there are streets of tiny stores and curios for the wanderer (touts aside) It also has another, interesting, virtue: it makes you want to get out as soon as possible. Whether it be at the beginning of a trip and you’re heading for a game reserve or a smaller town. Or you’re at the end and perhaps feeling wistful that you want to stay in Kenya just a while longer. Nairobi chews you up and spits you out; and spurs you on for the next phase of your trip wherever that may be. And in a country where supreme natural beauty and the general friendliness of rural life is a much bigger draw than the cities, anyway; that’s actually not a bad thing.

LAKE NAKURU – This Time, There Were Monkeys

2009-11-14T13:31:00.012-08:00

It’s time for the final chance to meet and greet some of Kenya’s wildlife as we head into the final days of our safari. Setting out from Elementaita, we head off to explore two of the other soda lakes in the same region. The first is Lake Nakuru; which is almost invisible beneath the masses of pelicans and flamingos who crowd its shores. Nakuru is famed for its abundant wildlife both in and out of the water. Above our heads; fish eagles wait poised on the edge of nearby branches waiting to pick off wildlife below including one poor sick flamingo who we watch... as I mentioned in a previous journal, safari turns us all into blood sport enthusiasts. There are also other eagles and even ospreys darting overhead.

Baby flamingo with an injured leg limping around. All together now: awww...

Me and a whole lotta pelicans.

The park surrounding the lake is a nature reserve; and so has a more formal system of fences, gates and artificial water holes than the sprawling Massai Mara. But that also means the wildlife are even more accessible. Early on in the day we meet White Rhinos at the side of the road. Like the ones we saw in the Massai Mara, these are huge and beautifully old looking animals. They’re not white and, as Elijah explains, that’s down to an error of pronunciation rather than colouration (early colonists referred to them as ‘wide rhinos’ which was obviously misheard at some point)

White rhinos on the shores of Lake Nakuru.

One animal which has eluded us in our travels thus far has been the leopard. With low hanging trees providing plenty of hiding places, we hope to see one as we head through the park. Heading up and down the escarpments of the park we see plenty of old favorites including more zebra and buffalo. We also see plenty of Rothschild giraffes, a sub species with slightly different colouration and which are, perhaps, a touch more graceful. There’s also plenty of monkeys throughout the reserve. Baboons roam on the ground, in large family groups, whilst colobus monkeys swing through the trees above us.

Another giraffe, this time a Rothschild varient.

Baboon family at Lake Nakuru.

But as the afternoon wears on, it becomes clear that the leopard will remain elusive to us. Elijah and Samuel are disappointed; they haven’t found one for several safaris now and I think they take it as a bit of a personal failure. It may be that the drought around these lakes has driven the leopards somewhere else temporarily. For us, however, there’s no disappointment. Not just because of the abundant wildlife we have got to see, including a glimpse of the elusive leopard tortoise (the one animal on nobody’s Kenyan animal watching list which jolly well should be) but because we truly feel like we’ve had an experience of discovery and exploration. We’re all pretty sure that no zoo will be able to complete anymore.

The infamous leopard tortoise. I'd like to think it climbs trees and pounces on passers by, but I can't prove it.

Late afternoon gathering at the watering hole.

No trouble spotting the most famous residents of our final stop, Lake Naivasha. Unlike the other Rift Valley lakes we’ve visited, Naivasha is fresh water. But that means it has suffered more problems than just drought; increased irrigation of nearby commercial vegetable and flower growing operations have reduced its size exponentially in the thirty plus years since Lois last visited, and the change, she tells us, is startling. Fresh water also means different animal life and we exchange trucks for boats to go around the lake and see it’s most famous inhabitants: hippos. Hippos are reputed to be protective of their young and therefore rather dangerous, but they seem rather unimpressed with us as we float past. More interested are the fish eagles who, for the incentive of some fish thrown by our boat driver, make speedy high angle dives under the water’s surface before soaring back to their perches.

Hippos on the shore of Lake Naivasha.

Fish eagle grabs its prey!

Naivasha is also a reserve, and we spend a few minutes on dry land where buffalo and giraffes are roaming around. This is the first time we’ve been able to take any of our game viewing on foot (because, y’know, those predators in the main reserves can be somewhat pesky) and we’re treated to the thunderous roar of running wildebeest who dash across the fields just a few metres in front of us.

The running wildebeest. Not included; the ground shaking!

Boating among the hippos. Forgot to mention the extra large life jackets which would have been fairly useless in the event of an emergency. Having just been working at summer camp a couple of weeks before, these are the things I notice!

Once more back in the truck we head for our final journey back through the Rift Valley and up the escarpment to Nairobi. We return to Rock House and have a number of farewells to make. Demetrius, having cooked three meals every day for two weeks, finally gets to return home to his family. As do Samuel and Elijah; although they don’t know if they’ll be called upon to head out on safari again soon after. They have been fabulous guides and travel companions; and may possibly have picked up some new card games from us to take up Mount Kenya the next time they make the trip! The Capes are also off: Jon, Doug and Ruth have one more day before heading home to Scotland whilst Lois will be staying on to attend a conference in Nairobi. It’s always strange to go back to travelling solo after been part of a group for a week, especially when we’ve had a lot of fun getting to know each other and the country we’re exploring. But it’s time to move on… back to the Kenya Comfort Hotel for a day’s layover before I fly to Uganda.

The whole gang. From left to right: Elijah, Samuel, Ruth, Douglas, Lois, Jon, Demetrius and me!

Thanks to the wonders of slightly-underpowered-photo-stitching-software; a panoramic view of Lake Nakuru.

LAKE ELEMENTAITA – A Distant Cloud of Pink

2009-11-11T18:19:00.003-08:00

We are walking across a dry lake bed to a cloud of shimmering pink shapes in the distance. The ground alternates between soft patches of mud, and crunchy areas of salt which have been left as the water has receded away. At certain points, this is a huge lake. In the dry season, though, the water recedes into the far distance. The shimmering pink cloud in the distance hovers over what’s left of the water. It’s a large flock of flamingoes, the last of the thousands which rest all over the lake in the wet season. Of course, it’s meant to be the wet season right now…

Sunlight breaking through above Elementaita

The dry lake bed of Elementaita

Elementaita is a soda lake situated to the north west of Nairobi; and driving here from the Massai Mara has taken us back over the escarpments of the Rift Valley. This time, though, it’s the greener farmland which represents a large part of Kenya’s agriculture. It’s also the hotbed of tribal tension which saw some of the worst violence after the 2007 elections. Perhaps there is still something of unease about the place; as small private farms struggle for position alongside large, new commercial operations which produce for Kenya’s export market.

Bungalows on the hillside above Lake Elementaita

A few hours of ascending and descending later, we reach our next overnight spot on the shores of Lake Elementaita. It’s an impressive sight from the highway. A vast lake bed surrounded by rugged hills. We’re staying in bungalows perched right over the lake’s eastern edge. In the last of the day’s light we take our first walk across the lake bed, but aren’t able to get as far as the flamingos just yet. The view at sunset is stunning; the heavy metal doors and large padlocks which make everything look a bit like jail cells, are a little disconcerting.

My bungalow at Elementaita. Complete with alarmingly heavy and solid metal door

The next day we return to the lake bed, this time heading for the southern edge. This time we manage to reach the flamingos which, even though are apparently far less in number than they should be, are still an impressive sight, standing still as they do without wavering in the water. Heading around the water, we reach the Kekopey hot springs. These springs seem to serve as the main bathing, washing and social spot for the local villagers. Basically, they’re like a community centre. Spending some time swimming here gives plenty of chances to speak to the locals about life, language and to explore conspiracy theories regarding the death of Michael Jackson. The hot springs are *very* hot, and leave a rather strange mineral residue which we can’t identify. (Further exploration of Wikipedia tells me that the local Massai believe these springs can cure AIDs…)

Flamingos standing on the lake shore.

The hot springs at Elementaita.

There is more time to share with the Kenyans in Elementaita in the afternoon when we head out to the home of George and Lucy, who run a small farm from their property. The youngest of their seven children, Virginia, shows us around the farm whilst wearing a Santa hat. As well as explaining the many fruits and vegetables crammed into the tiny garden, she tells us all about her school and her desire to become a doctor. We also meet her sister, Regina, who’s much quieter and their nephew, also called George, whose energy is boundless.

Sitting in the hot waters, and maybe feeling the beneficial health effects, of Elementaita.

After walking through the grounds (and after Ruth and I have taken turns bouncing Little George the whole way) we’re invited into the house to talk to George. It’s clear that he’s both used to meeting overseas visitors, and that he enjoys holding court. We tell him who we are and where we come from, allowing him to launch into a speech or story which may or may not be related. Renewable energy provides one sorts of interesting discussion, as does the politics of the Anglican Church of Canada (a somewhat inevitable debate in the highly evangelical churches of Kenya) Whilst all this is going on, Little George is busying himself trying to force feed Lois and Ruth tea and fruit; whilst stealing the pieces of fruit he wants from everybody else’s plates.

Looking across to the hills on the other side of Elementaita.

It transpires that George is enamored with both Scotland and Canada; and he produces a book of photographs from Canada which a previous guest sent to him. He’s very proud of it, and excited when I’m able to point out where I live on a photo of the snow capped North Vancouver mountains. He insists on me putting my contact details in the book; and I happily give him my number at the switchboard at the Diocese of New Westminster. Clearly the women of the house know to let George do his thing when he has visitors, and so when he takes a break we get a chance to speak to Regina and Virginia again. Regina is a physics fan; which according to Elijah means she has to make a choice between studying it or agriculture in the future. George clearly has a lot of traditional views; but it’s clear that the education of his family is important to him as well as his fascination with other cultures and those are the marks of Kenya’s growing aspiring middle classes.

Sunset over Lake Elementaita.

We head back to the bungalows for another stunning sunset, set against the ribbon of flamingos standing tall in the far distance…

MASSAI MARA - We’re Surrounded. The Entire Place is Crawling with Living Things…

2009-11-05T23:41:00.004-08:00

Living in the UK and Canada isn’t the best preparation for an African safari because there’s a temptation to think of nature reserves as very large zoos. Going through the front gates (where one can’t help but be reminded of Jurassic Park…) you look intently from side to side waiting for the first elephant to lumber out of the undergrowth, swiftly followed by a cheetah at full sprint. Instead, what you find is an area of over farmed dirt stretching off into the distance. Those who remember the last blog entry will remember my references to Massai cattle herds sneaking into the Mara; and that’s what you see when you enter the reserve. It’s brown and bleak; with a few lone gazelle or zebra climbing over the rocks on one side or the other.

The Massai Mara, though, is a huge ecosystem covering 1500 square kilometers. And as we reach the head of the first set of hills, a sight familiar from postcards the world over greets us. Vast expanses of grasslands stretch out under the glint of the morning sun, with occasional acacia trees breaking up the flat horizons (wildfires are common here, and the acacia trees are the only ones which tend to survive) The next lesson to learn is this; safari is a systematic blend of tracking and opportunism.

The tracking comes from Elijah and Samuel who, with an incredible knowledge of the on and off road tracks of the Mara alongside their short wave radio, are able to systematically guide us through most of the reserve’s habitats. The opportunism comes from following the vultures. Either the animal kind, which stick close to dead animals and can be a good way of finding recent kills, or what we come to refer to as the ‘white vultures’: the legions of non descript minibuses carrying safari tourists who congregate in large groups around interesting animals. The practice seems a little distasteful, except for the facts that (A) We, of course, join them as well to see what they’ve found and ( B) It’s clear that, as most drivers seem to be adept at the practice of watching, the animals pay their watchers little or no regard.

And there are, of course, always the groups who have their own particular focus for their day’s viewing. We encounter our Canadian agri-foresters several times during the day and realize that, more often that not, the thing that has gripped their attention and caused them to reach for their zoom lenses is not some great moment of animal activity, but a rather interesting tree.

Our first moment of excitement during the day comes when we spy our first lion. A lioness, to be exact, lying out on a mound beside some bushes. For a moment it looks like she is sleeping; then we spot buffalo moving amongst the undergrowth nearby. It becomes clear that the lioness is hunting; watching the buffalo (who are big enough to defend themselves and give a single predator some nasty injuries, Elijah tells us) and waiting for her time. We wait with her. The situation looks like a stalemate until a curious warthog wanders into the fray. The lioness’ attention switches and, a few minutes later, our patience is rewarded as the warthog steps just slightly too close and she makes her move. Unfortunately for us; her move is a rather lazy jog towards a warthog which is more than prepared to make its dash for freedom. It’s soon over; as the warthog reaches safety long before the lioness seems to get very interested in the chase. The incident gives us two major pointers for the rest of the day: patience is important in the course of a safari, and it’s astounding how nature lovers become surprisingly bloodthirsty when it looks like we’ll see an actual kill.

Lionness preparing to do... well, not much as it transpired.

Radio contact from other safari expeditions brings us to our next major sightings: a group of three male lions lying under a tree, followed by a family of cheetahs close by. The lions are a particularly prized sight, remarks Elijah, since male lions rarely spend time together once they reach the age to gather their own prides. Our three are young and lazy, but astoundingly impressive all the same. The cheetahs are livelier; a mother watches on as her two cubs scrap atop a nearby ditch. It transpires that the sprinting for which they are famed is such an exhausting process that they can only do it for a few dozen metres at a time. As we get deeper into the park, the numbers of the animals we see at any one time become larger; to the point where we’re driving through uncountable groups of zebra, buffalo and gazelle all grazing in the same watering holes and grasslands.

Bachelor lions lying out in the shade.

Young cheetahs at play.

One of the most impressive natural wonders in the region is the annual wildebeest migration. At the end of the winter, thousands of these animals flood over to the border from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania (of which the Massai Mara is, effectively, the northern continuation) and then once the grass has been eaten for the season, they head back in late summer. We are in the Mara at the end of the return process, and we see versions of it throughout the day. Sometimes up close, as we watch herds of wildebeest at watering holes and river crossing, and often from afar as we’ll be driving across grasslands and see hundreds of the animals in the distance walking single file across the border. It’s fascinating to observe although, as with everything else in the reserve, there is a nasty temptation to want to see animals come to harm for our entertainment.

Grazing in the foreground whilst, in the background, wildebeest migrate southwards.

This reaches its zenith in the early afternoon when, as we approach the Mara River, we see groups of wildebeest standing at the edge of the river canyon. They need to cross if they’re going to reach the Serengeti but, as becomes clear as we drive along the edge of the river, there’s plenty of good reasons for them not to want to. Crocodiles and hippos are clearly visible in the waters below. It’s clear that if the wildebeest make their move, at least some of them will be sacrificed. So we wait to see what will happen, along with several other safari vans. Having dozens of long lenses focused on the site of an impending massacre is all rather gruesome but, clearly, the wildebeest are aware of this and they do not move. At all. For almost an hour. Finally we decide to head off to other pastures, leaving the wildebeest to contemplate their fate under the watchful eye of the remaining white vultures.

Hippos in the water.

The white vultures (well, not so white this time) await the wildebeest massacre. They are to be dissapointed.

Leaving proves to be the better course of action since, on our way back towards the gate, we have two of our most impressive encounters of the day. First there is a group of elephants we encounter on open grasslands. For a while we believe it’s just one lost young elephant, wandering alone under gloomy skies. But after following him for a while, we find the rest of his group who have trudged much further ahead. We’re able to gently coast along beside them, admiring their graceful lumbering. Just as we leave them, the clouds finally break and we’re treated to an intense bout of rain. As we splash along the road we see the remains of a recently killed zebra to the side of it and, on closer observation, a group of lions lying down in the grass around it.

Lone elephant wandering the plains...

... not so lone elephant wandering very, very close to us.

Clearly what has happened is that the lions made their kill but their eating was interrupted by the rain. We decide to wait and see if we can wait out the rain and see them resume eating (because, again, safari going seems to make us all want to see things die and be eaten as much as it does live things) We wait for some time as water pools on the road ahead and the smell of fresh earth fills the air. Finally, the rays of the sun return (along with an impressive rainbow) and the lions too seem to come back to life. First they wander into the road and spend time playing with, or possibly taunting, each other. The group is a pride of one male and two females. And as they move back to their kill, we can see the group dynamics as work. The male begins to eat alone, with one of the lionesses picking away beside him. It’s only when he leaves that both the females eat together.

Lionesses playing, or maybe fighting, after the rainstorm.

Male lion gets sleepy as it waits out the rain.

The male lion begins his feed. Moist zebra! Yum!

The lionesses move in for their share of the meal.

Watching the lions play and eat is incredible. So much so that we barely notice the sun begin to dip and our final drive to the gate has to be made at some speed. The Mara isn’t open to safaris at night, and the fines for leaving late are steep. Elijah and Samuel are used to the phenomena of the most impressive sightings occurring in the evening, though, and we’re soon heading back to our tent camp for a second night’s stay. Leaving the animals of the Massai Mara to hunt, play and eat away from the observation of the death obsessed human vultures!

Zebra and distant rainbow following the late afternoon Mara rainstorm.

Following an evening where we regale the rest of the camp with the sound plastic cups being slapped down on tables (thanks, Ruth!) we head back into the Massai Mara at dawn to see if we can find some of the animals we missed. Including the elusive, and rare, black rhino. In the quiet morning, our first encounters are with giraffes. Having not seen any close up the day before, we spend a lot of time watching one of them feeding alone; fascinated by its extraordinarily long tongue. They're very deliberate eaters, and seem to be the animals most aware of the human presence.

Early morning giraffe.

Impressive tounge length from the feeding giraffe.

We then creep (read: drive really slowly) through the undergrowth looking for tell tale signs of the elusive rhino. We meet another group of elephants in the middle of a feed, and even some more lions lying out after their early morning hunt. Finally, after following an ostrich across open plains we receive a radio call which has us u-turning back towards a low valley. There we watch as two rhinos are lumbering around just a few hundred metres away. They’re fabulous animals; a sort of throwback to prehistory. To see them wandering around is exhilarating.

Sunlight begins to hit the Mara as elephants head off for the morning.

Black rhinos out in a Mara valley.

MASSAI MARA - God Walking

2009-11-04T23:45:00.004-08:00

Aside from some occasional howling (not from me, or from the Mark Kermode podcast I was listening to late at night) it’s an easy sleep in the Kenyan bush. We awake to one of Demetrius’ wonderful breakfasts, served under pink early morning skies. Jonathan has changed from traditional Massai kanga into civvies to join us for our day’s travelling. First we take a walk through the quiet morning bush. It’s clear from Jonathan and Elijah’s commentary that the aridness of the area has taken a huge toll in all the ecosystems here. Aside from a few occasional zebra and gazelle in the distance, we see few animals. There are herds of cows being driven by Massai, although Elijah tells us many of them have moved their grazing ground closer to the Massai Mara nature reserve and (at the dead of night when they won’t be spotted so easily) even inside its gates to the grasslands beyond, putting increased pressure on that area.

Dawn at the bush camp.

Elijah shows Jon and Ruth the remains of a skull.

We find evidence of where Massai have been using the area, and with CSI precision Jonathan is able to dissect the remains of an abandoned campsite to tell us how many Massai were there, how long they stayed and even what they ate for dinner and breakfast. (A skull fragment revealing the former, and various porridge stirring sticks in the nearby gorse bushes telling us the latter) All in all, the Kenyan bush is a vast, eerie place, especially in drought season, devoid of a lot of the familiar sights and sounds which would help orient a lost hiker. With the exception, of course, of Jonathan’s cell phone ringtone!

Jonathan guides us around the abandoned Massai campsite.

Rather impressively, as we reached the first dirt track our safari van trundled towards us. Obviously good tracking (or, now I think about it, the cell phones might have had something to do with it…) and soon we were on our way to the Massai Mara itself. Well, not inside the reserve just yet… Bizarrely, considering it’s one of the most travelled routes in the country, the main road heading south is in terrible shape. Elijah tells us it’s due to a dispute between the national and local government over who should foot the bill for the cost of the tarmac. It’s another interesting indicator of why Kenya’s desire to boost their tourist trade doesn’t always gel with what the local tribes want; to the ultimate detriment of, well, everyone.

We head to our next campsite literally a few minutes drive from the main gate in the foothills which mark the border to the Mara. The Mountain Rock camp is definitely a step up in terms of amenities from bush camping. The tents are permanent, and contain large beds of the solid variety, as well as various other pieces of furniture. Each one is on its own lot, with a garden out front… basically like an old colonial style camping experience, complete with English country gardens. The hot water showers built onto the back of each tent are something of a marvel of science, and very welcome.

Homes and gradens; tented camp style at the Mountain Rock camp.

With a couple of days of solid drive time ahead of us (the Massai Mara isn’t a place where walking safaris are done) we decided to use the remaining daylight hours to climb one of the local hills and get a better view of the Mara. With Jonathan having left us at a nearby village, we enlisted the services of a new Massai, Mataka, to accompany us. Mataka’s English is not very strong, but he does have a very shiny spear which he takes great delight in throwing ahead of him (he’s got a good arm for a man his age!) Ruth and Douglas are able to point out which of the nearby dung samples belong to elephants thanks to their experiences on Mt. Kenya (look for undigested plants and grass…) although that’s not an entirely comforting thought when you’re climbing a confined bit of slope with only Mataka’s throwing arm for protection.

Elijah and Mataka guding us safetly up.

Lois and Mataka conversing once we reach the top of the hill.

We reach the top without incident, although a careful check is made of one tree at the summit whose trunk has distinct leopard claw marks in it. By this point the sun is beginning to set behind low, darkened clouds. Much of southern Kenya is too dry but the Massai Mara’s ecosystem has remained more balanced; hence why it’s teeming with wildlife. Against the rainclouds, the sunbeams shine down distinctly across the plains. I forget who uses the phrase first, but it’s not long before each time we see this phenomena we’re referring to it as “God walking.” It’s a very appropriate term.

View over the Massai Mara from the hilltop.

God walking across the Mara.

Back at camp, we bump into a group of Canadians who are on a short safari following their attendance in Nairobi at a conference on agri-forestry. Not plain forestry: agri-forestry. After a few moments spent trying to figure out the odds of meeting a group of Canadians in Kenya who make a living dealing with trees (a national obsession, no matter what anyone tries to tell you otherwise) we end up talking about their afternoon’s game drive in the Massai Mara. Their tales of elephant herds and watching hyenas hunt are beguiling, as all safari stories are. And thoughts start to turn towards the wonders that may await us when we do the same thing tomorrow…

Hiking back down the hill!

Sunset over the hills of the Mara.

EWASO NGIRO – From the City to the Wild

2009-11-03T14:37:00.002-08:00

Returning to Nairobi, things got off to a more auspicious start than last time when I was actually met by the taxi I had ordered. However, on the downside, the vehicle in question was a decades old jeep which had a rather unfortunate habit of stalling whenever it was driving at low speeds in any gear higher than first. And, on a typical traffic crawl through Nairobi, that happens a little too often for comfort. Perhaps it’s a useful reorientation to the madness of mainland travel in East Africa after the relative quiet of Zanzibar (dulla-dulla racing aside.) I tell myself that as we sit helplessly on a roundabout with traffic around as snarling as it tries to get past.

The traffic eases off somewhat as we head into Karen, the leafiest suburb of Nairobi filled with large houses owned by expats surrounded with high fences and gates. Rather like West Vancouver, only with more private security guards brandishing guns. Testament to the fact that when you live behind a high wall you can construct any mad type of place you want to live is Rock House; the bed and breakfast owned by the Mountain Rock safari company. It’s a house which has been custom plastered and painted to look like something from the Flintstones. There’s no other way to describe it. It’s positioned in beautifully manicured gardens, and has a scale model of Mt. Kenya in the backyard.

Rock House and gardens.

That’s a useful visual aid for meeting Jon, Lois, Ruth and Douglas Cape that evening since it transpires they’ve spent the previous week climbing up said mountain (the real one, not the model.) We share stories over dinner and red wine. They with their days of altitude induced sickness, freezing cold nights and occasional elephant stampedes and me with my many different and varied white sand / turquoise water beaches… The Capes are from Scotland, which allows for some catching up on yet more British things I’ve missed over the past few years. I also get some insight into local history; Lois had lived in Kenya back in the sixties, when her parents came to help set up the teaching wing for Nairobi hospital and so this was her second climb of Mt. Kenya. The changes on the mountain, especially the reduction of the ice at its top, have been devastating and have had a profound impact on the surrounding area (I noticed a similar lack of ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro when flying to Zanzibar) It’s something we come to appreciate even more the next day as we headed out on safari.

After a good night’s rest in Rock House’s very comfortable, brown bedrooms (a consequence of the décor choice!) we meet Elijah, Demetrius and Samuel who will be our guide, cook and driver for the next week. Demetrius has just returned from Mt. Kenya as well, and discovered he’d be spending another week on the road away from his family just a day earlier. This, apparently, is quite normal for safari staff. At least this time he and the others won’t have to carry all their food and cooking equipment on their backs all day before settling down to cook meals at altitude! Some very impressive packing squeezes all of our luggage into the very back of our safari van, and soon after we’re heading out of Nairobi and looking out over the Rift Valley.

Perched over the Rift Valley. Just out of shot: more identical souvenirs than you can possibly imagine.

The Rift Valley is one of those natural wonders you (or at least I) feel slightly guilty about when you find you hadn’t previously registered their existence. It’s an immense cut in the landscape running thousands of miles throughout eastern Africa. And in areas such as Nairobi (which is built at altitude on an escarpment) you can really see it. Of course, no immense natural wonder would be complete without the requisite tourist traps alongside it. Up and down the road to the valley each metre of the edge has some sort of signage telling you that it is *the* viewing spot for the area. And each comes, coincidentally, complete with a store nearby. Although I don’t realize it, I’m destined for constant disappointment with Kenyan souvenirs, about which I’ll relate more when we return to Nairobi. For now, though, we get the first of many photographs and then head off for the first six hour drive down into and through the valley.

We were travelling with a British company called IntoAfrica, who mix wildlife safaris with cultural and environmental visits. So instead of heading straight for the game reserves, our first stop is the town of Ewaso Ngiro. What’s probably a quiet place most other days of the week is jammed with people and stalls because it’s the fortnightly market day. There’s plenty of cheap clothing and houseware for sale, but the real business is happening at the back of the market, where cattle are being sold. Elijah tells us that Massai from twenty km away will walk to this market to buy and sell. It’s all rather like an old style farmer’s market would have been in the UK many decades ago… just with more cell phone accessories. Phones are, of course, as big here as anywhere else in the world. Perhaps more so because, for Massai who spent their days driving their cattle and trying to find the next water hole, fast communications in the desert are a priority.

Cattle being bought and sold at Ewaso Ngiro.

From Ewaso Ngiro, we head into the bush. Quite literally, as we leave the sealed roads and head off on an indistinguishable series of dirt tracks. The landscape isn’t featureless; it’s dry but not a desert. Aside from a few gazelles and two ostriches which briefly run alongside us, it has an empty feeling. We’re told that the latest wet season is running late; and the last one was disappointing. Finally we reach a glorious spot of greenery, in which a natural spring is leaking out of the ground and gushing water around it. The tall trees and bright grass mark it out from the desert around, and here we make our camp for the night. As we put up our tents, Massai bring their cattle across for watering, and baboons cry out noisily in the trees around.

Massai herdsman and cattle at the watering hole.

One of the local Massai, Jonathan, joins us at camp and invites us to come visit his village. It’s a twenty minute walk away across the bush; whose sounds are becoming more distinct as the sun dips on the horizon. As we enter the circle of outer huts which marks the village, there is a sense of nervousness from those we meet (and from us, of course!) The Massai here are obviously somewhat used to greeting visitors from IntoAfrica’s excursions, but by virtue of its position over an hour from the main roads, it isn’t a place many visitors stumble across. Once we have greeted the many children who come to meet us (a pat on the head is the custom) we all become a lot more comfortable with each other.

Approaching the Massai village at sunset.

The village is made up of several huts, made from dried cow dung, built around a central pasture. They’re small dwellings, and rather dark too we discover when Jonathan invites us into his. As our eyes adjust to the gloom, he tours us around the dining room, kitchen and bedrooms. They’re all in the same central space, but to the Massai who live here the different parts of the dwelling are distinct and functional. There are few possessions apart from some pots and sticks (each of which has a very specific purpose for preparing part of the Massai diet) And there’s Jonathan’s cell phone, which he busies himself topping up with minutes which Elijah has brought him from town.

Elijah and children in the Massai village.

Perhaps the reason why the Massai seem to have few possessions is that each of their dung huts only has a life expectancy of between ten and fifteen years. The women who build them tend to be married to the same men in the village (the Massai are polygamous by culture; a fact which, as far as I can tell, is accepted among local churches) Some of the men, like Jonathan who trained to be a teacher, will make their way to towns for further education. Others will stay in and around the village, learning the old ways of hunting and survival.

Massai villagers and their homes.

It’s clear that, for these Massai, “Kenya” is still very much a construct which doesn’t necessarily define their own identities. We noticed chalk marks scratched over the doorways of the village huts, marking where the national government had been attempting to take a census. The perception seems to be, though, that the census takers will simply find what they want. Elijah informed us that he wasn’t at home when the census takers called; so they apparently went next door and asked the neighbours about him and his family and then extrapolated their results accordingly. The different between tribal and national identity is clearly still a deep, important one. I was to encounter this even more forcefully in Uganda a week later. But I digress…

Sunset in the bush.

In the darkness we head back to camp. Jonathan joins us to sit by our fire during the night on the lookout for any particularly curious animal life. And there we leave him as we head to bed, with occasional late night serenades from baboons and hyenas. It’s all a long way from Nairobi’s thunderous roads and traffic…

MENAI BAY – On Distant Sandbanks

2009-10-29T23:20:00.004-07:00

The resolve of Patricia and the Italians for more adventurous sightseeing holds true and so for my final day on Zanzibar I decide to join them for the excursion they’re taking with the tour company Safari Blue, who operate in the Menai Bay Conservation Area on the south of the island. Zanzibar’s costal flora and fauna have trouble competing with the growing numbers of resorts elsewhere on the coast, so the protection of Menai Bay is all the more important.

Modern dhow heading towards Kwale Island...

... and not so modern canoe moored in the shallow waters closeby.

We start the day travelling by dhow from the beach at Fumba to nearby Kwale Island. It’s a journey carried out in traditional style… except, perhaps, for the outboard motor on the stern of the dhow. Conservation area or not; Menai Bay is another big business opportunity for Zanzibar’s tour guides. There are half a dozen other dhows racing across the open water to try and get to the prime beach and snorkeling sites on Kwale Island. I’m suddenly reminded why I do most of my travelling alone.

Tour guide Idris, though, obviously has a spider sense about him and so steers us away from the crowds and into some of the mangrove lined bays around the island. The mangroves, along with the turtles who visit them to breed and lay eggs, are one of the primary conservation projects on Kwale. At low tide, with their rocky bases slowly eroding, the statuesque trees look particularly stunning in their isolation.

The northern beach of Kwale Island as the morning's boats arrive.

We return to the northern edge of the island where it’s (yet) a(nother) stunning day on the beach and in water which is all kinds of shades of blue. Accompanied by (yet) a(nother) wonderful seafood lunch. It would be easy to spend days in Zanzibar and do nothing else if one so wished; be driven off to beautiful beaches everyday and do much the same thing time after time. Watching half a dozen groups doing the same thing around us, I found myself missing my dulla-dulla. I still had my lucky find copy of “All Creatures Great and Small” to read. Which had an added interest for animal – obsessed Patricia. Explaining the finer points of James Herriot’s writing style to an Italian on a white sand beach was a rather surreal use of an hour.

In the water off the coast of Kwale. Sea and sky... perfect blue.

At sunset, and with the prevailing winds allowing us to actually sail back to the mainland, we stopped off on a sandbar for final photos and to watch the waves in the gathering dark. Reflecting on the week, the day in Menai typifies a lot of Zanzibar. It certainly feels like a place where the ancient and the modern have collided and are looking to find an easy peace. The thing about Zanzibar, and I see this as a good thing, is that it doesn’t seem to do the modern very well. From what I’ve seen of the resorts and Stone Town, they’re at their best when dealing with simple pleasures and local seafood. The dhow motor breaks down a fair amount; the sail doesn’t.

Patricia and I on a sandbank in Menai Bay. We're squinting, incidentally, because the setting sun is shining directly into our eyes!

The trip to the airport the following day is typical. Air travel does not suit Zanzibar yet. Checking in is like living a newsreel of the arrivals at Ellis Island. Lines of passengers are everywhere, snaking in and out of the shack like terminal. You may or may not get checked in before your flight leaves, and even then all that enables you to do is to join one of the many other lines dealing with luggage, visas and immigration (of which there are many; all unmarked) There appears to be one computer in the entire building, as check in staff write information on pieces of paper and then disappear for ten minutes before coming back with boarding passes. In the days of large, anonymous airport terminals (and large, anonymous island beach resorts) Zanzibar’s is a lot of fun. It does things at its own pace and you just have to go with it. Of course, I my judgment here might be influenced by the fact that, after my check in attendant returned from his mysterious visit to the back office, he told me that my flight was overbooked and I’d been upgraded to business class for my flight back to Nairobi.

Well, you can take this whole ‘travelling on a shoestring’ thing a bit too far, can’t you?

Shell on the sand in Menai Bay.

CHUINI – Meandering around Matemwe

2009-10-25T23:27:00.009-07:00

Typically, Mangrove Lodge guests go out on a series of excursions during the day. I’ve resisted so far, as I find tour groups all sorts of annoying and it’s never the most exciting thing in the world to be the only English speaker in a group. Yesterday, though, a new group arrived. Still all Italians; but this time with English speaking special powers. The best English speaker is Patricia, possibly because until recently she was engaged to a man from Vancouver. This sets up an interesting dynamic since she loves all things Vancouver but talking about them slightly depresses her. Luckily, kittens make her happy. So as long as we talk in the part of the dining area where stray cats wander in and out, things seem to go well. Some of her companions, who are also lovely, mention to Haji that they’re not fish fans on their first night. He looks worried. I know why; I haven’t eaten a meal in Zanzibar yet which doesn’t contain some form of seafood. Crab, lobster, octopus… It’s all here, and it’s all fabulous. The Italians end up eating a lot of fries.

The dining room at the Mangrove Lodge. In a rare, non-fish related moment.

That said, the majority of the guests at Mangrove this week are much older than Patricia or I and it quickly becomes clear that their taste in excursions extends to, well, the very dull. So I make my own plans to head over to the opposite side of the island using public transport. This intrigues Idris, the tour guide who leads most of the excursions. “How many people are you used to on a bus?” he asks, quizzically. I tell him about the time I once travelled to Foz do Iguaçu on the floor of an overbooked bus. Satisfied that I will not be mortified by Zanzibar public transport, he gives me the numbers of the dulla-dullas I need.

The bay outside the Mangrove Lodge.

East African public transport is, for my money, a lot more efficient than that in North America. First of all, everything tends to start in the same place in whichever major town you’re in. As long as you don’t mind scanning the numbers of several hundred identical vehicles (I pretended I was in The Amazing Race…) then you’ll find what you’re looking for eventually. Dulla-dullas (minibuses, or glorified vans) then leave when they’re full. Not when they’ve been waiting five or ten minutes. And not even when all the seats are taken. When they’re *full.* And, even after that, they’ll still stop to take on board more people. That’s rather impressive when there’s no more than 15 seats to begin with and there’s already 20 people on board. The most I counted was 26… plus luggage!

The slightly annoying thing about dulla-dulla trips is that they come in two speeds. Breakneck; or snails pace. The first trip across the island is one of the latter. Every corner must be stopped at, and everyone who gets in board seems to have some huge pile of vegetables, or planks of wood or even buckets of rotting fish with them. Amazingly, though, there’s always a space for everything. And with 26 people in a confined space, the smell of rotting fish is surprisingly not the most pungent around. The trip takes around ninety minutes. Mind you, for a cost of around 20 cents, I’m not complaining. (The trip back, incidentally, took about thirty minutes. Including several occasions of being bounced around and wondering how long it would be before my head bounced high enough to make skull crushing contact with the roof above…)

Matemwe village, built on the sands...

We arrived into Matemwe village just after lunch. Back in Chuini, the weather had been rather grey but Zanzibar’s reliable microclimates meant clouds on one side of the island gave way to clear blue skies on the other. Matemwe isn’t just close to the coastline; it’s built right on the sands of the beach. With turquoise water lapping on the coral white shore, Matemwe Beach is the definition of tropical paradise. It’s also a little less built up than other stretches of coast on the island, perhaps because of the proximity of the village and the dozens of dhows owned by the locals which are parked on the beach during low tide. It takes a good few minutes of concerted wandering down the beach until I find the first resort and snag a free chair thanks to the deployment of a few words of Swahili to the man who’s minding them. (Jo Russell taught me maybe half a dozen words of Swahili before I left the UK. Most of them variations on ‘How are you?” and “I’m okay.” For the first time ever in my learning of a language, every one of them was not only useful, they pretty much covered every eventuality)

A view from a beach chair. Blue skies, white sands and turqouise waters. Mmmm...

It’s an(other) easy afternoon on a Zanzibar beach; with a few breaks to explore the crystal clear lagoon and to watch the occasional soccer ball get pelted up and down the shoreline by the local kids… After my harrowing dulla-dulla ride back, I have a half hour walk from Chuini to Mangrove Lodge, watching farmers working quietly in the fields whilst an orange sun disappears behind the horizon. I arrive back in time for dinner (fish again, of course) and Patricia explaining the non-wonders of the day’s tour. Apparently the south of the island was grey all day. I try to downplay Matemwe, but after she gets hold of my camera and sees my day's photos, she demands to know how to get there. I explain dulla-dulla etiquette as best I can and draw maps on napkins. Her travelling companions look horrified at the thought of using such horrendous sounding transport, and resolve to do a more interesting excursion the next day to avoid the possibilities of bone crushing accidents, or having to share air space with anyone’s bucket of rotting fish. It leads to a good night for all; with a momentary moment of cultural horror for Brit, Italians and stray cats alike when a Swahili remix of “Who Let the Dogs Out” starts playing on the stereo.

Looking down Matemwe beach; white sands stretching into the distance.

STONE TOWN – The Cautionary Tale of Princess Salme

2009-10-24T23:48:00.006-07:00

Among the many displays in the questionably named House of Wonders museum in Stone Town, there’s a stamp dated from the 1960s entitled ‘Religious Tolerance.’ The stamp has images of several of Stone Town’s major places of worship, including both the Anglican and Catholic Cathedrals as well as several mosques, all closely packed together on the same street. It’s a stylized representation of how life in Stone Town seems to operate. This is a tiny piece of land, filled with buildings from several centuries and different cultures (particularly Arabian and Portuguese) built within a few feet of each other. With the differing colonial influences also came different faith groups; so as you wander around the Anglican Cathedral you can quite clearly hear the midday prayers being broadcast from the mosque across the square.

The Zanzibar religious tolerance stamp. Postage should always make good statements.

And it works. It has to; there just isn’t any room for anyone in Stone Town to get territorial about their religion or anything else for that matter. That’s especially true during Ramadan; when many of the city’s eateries close for most of the day and the usual East African occupation of relentless selling seems oddly muted. That may either be because the island’s mostly Sunni Muslim population is spending all their time in prayer, or possibly because even in the cooler season in which I visit, it’s still warm enough to make twelve hours of fasting a day a rather tiring thing to do. And relentless selling is rather hard work. That means I’m relatively unhassled as I wander around the narrow rocky streets (and it is wandering; using a map sort of misses the point of the possibilities for discovery in the maze of Stone Town) The only thing I end up buying is a battered copy of “All Creatures Great and Small”, and the seller simply *insists* on giving me a discount which I hadn’t even bargained for.

So, what to do in a slightly sleepy East African version of Morocco? Well, there are two cathedrals in town… The Anglican Church arrived in Zanzibar in the middle of the nineteenth century, just as slavery was being abolished. So much so that the Anglican Cathedral is built on the site of the old slave market; with the altar being on the very spot where slaves would be whipped and beaten. That might seem rather distasteful, but then I could tell you a thing or two about some of the more gruesome pagan sites on which English churches got built… Also, it’s fairly clear to me that the choice of location for the Cathedral was intended as an act of healing rather than an expression of colonial power. That’s a response which fits right in on an island of outstanding natural beauty which religious tolerance is a way of life. Here, figures like David Livingstone are regarded with a great deal of affection (his campaign against the slave trade and time of residence in Zanzibar make him much revered) What’s left of the slave markets themselves are two small holding cells across Cathedral Square underneath St. Hilda’s Youth Hostel. They’re just two dark rooms with iron chains still in place. But it’s enough to make the point.

Anglican Cathedral with mosque just around the corner.

One of the sobering holding cells underneath St. Hilda's hostel.

After signing the Anglican Cathedral guestbook on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada, I headed over to the much more gothic looking Catholic Cathedral. After reading a tip in the Lonely Planet which mentioned a perennially open back door, I headed inside to be greeted with a garish pink and yellow paint job, and a local resident playing extremely slow praise music on an electric keyboard. The whole atmosphere was too surreal; I had to leave before anything weirder happened. I ducked into a local Internet café for the first e-mail of the trip and found a rather large selection of pirated DVDs for sale whilst I was waiting. If you had any doubts about the influence of tolerance weighing against the local conservatism, it all fades away when you find a copy of “John Tucker Must Die” on the crowded shelves. E-mails away, I then continued on the British-tourist-abroad trail and hit up the local museums.

The Palace Museum viewed from the balcony of the House of Wonders. Top marks for museum naming!

Of all the local heroes, none seems more revered in Zanzibar’s public history than Princess Salme. Born to the life of a Sultan’s daughter in Zanzibar, she left to Europe to marry a German merchant. After his death, she seems to have made some attempt to return to Zanzibar but (to the obvious regret of whoever wrote the displays in the Palace Museum) was never quite accepted back. I wonder if it’s because, by that point, she was neither one thing or the other. Not quite Arabian, not quite European. Zanzibar’s tolerance, perhaps, requires a little loyalty to go along with it… Neither the Palace Museum or the House of Wonders are quite as exciting as they should be. The former has a number of rooms decorated in the style of the former Sultans over the course of their rule. By the time Zanzibar was approaching the end of its independence, the palace living room was looking suspiciously like a middle class British sitting room. It was probably best they unified with Tanzania before the eighties fashions arrived.

The Sultan's sitting room. Where I can imagine the Sultan and family gathered around to open Christmas presents and listen to the Queen's Speech.

The best thing about the museums is their top floors, which open out onto large balconies with views across the crowded town. You can see where buildings are almost falling into one another because of their proximity, and where power and clothes lines weave in and out of multiple residences high across the streets below. For a confusingly designed cityscape, Stone Town really does make much more sense than it lets on.

Painter on a balcony in front of the towers of the Catholic Cathedral.

Old Fort ampitheatre and the rooftops of Zanzibar.

ZANZIBAR - Why Did God Create the Sinus Cavity?

2009-10-21T23:36:00.003-07:00

Obviously as an act of revenge for my covering up my cough when I entered the country, my head was aching as I boarded my plane for Zanzibar. Having travelled when all kinds of sick in the past, I didn't think anything of it. We flew south east, on a surprisingly overcast Kenyan morning. The only sight - and what a sight - was as we entered Tanzania and Mt. Kilimanjaro poked up through the clouds. I happily snapped away at that, and the Tanzanian coastline as the water became bluer and more beautiful. And then comes the descent. Anyone who's ever been on a descending plane with a blocked sinus will be able to tell you something of the plane. Here's my version. Imagine your head feels like it's going to explode. You're there, right? Okay; now imagine a tropical paradise island is below you which you are desperate to photograph from the air because you are an enormous geek. But everything about operating your camera makes this pain feel many times worse. And, yet, with beautiful coastline being joined by stunning town, you just can't stop snapping...

Mt. Kilimanjaro; the landmark in the cloud between Kenya and Zanzibar.

The stunning west coast of Zanzibar, as seen through my stunning sinus splitting headache.

By the time I'm through Tanzanian immigration (who issued a Visa upon which every piece of my identity was recorded incorrectly) and baggage claim (four burly guys throwing luggage from a truck onto a table and folks clamoring to grab it) I realize that, although the sinus pain has eased, my ears which haven't popped are not going to do so for quite some time. This makes communication with my new cab driver (on Zanzibar, they are called Stephen) somewhat difficult. In fact, it makes all conversation somewhat difficult. And considering that English is the third language of Haji, the manager at the Mangrove Lodge, check in promises to be rather difficult.

Thankfully, though, this is East Africa and not the US or Canada. Can't hear because your ears are hopefully blocked? No problem; just head over to your bungalow on the beach, relax and come deal with the hotel register when you're not so deaf anymore.

One of the bungalows of the Mangrove Lodge. No editing necessary on a photo of a place like this...

I tend not to get into long explanations or recommendations of accommodation when travelling. Because, really, there's nothing more boring than someone telling you about how wonderful this place-you-aren't-at really is. But I'll break my rule for the Mangrove Lodge. Ten beautiful bungalows nestled among palm trees and mangroves; just a stone's throw away from Zanzibar's western shore close to the village of Chuini. (Quieter than other parts of the island, but no less beautiful) Great service, good meals and for a ridiculously small price. It's owned by Italians, and Italians are mostly the ones who stay there (Haji informed me that they did have Canadians from Vancouver just a few weeks before; but I tend to hear that a lot in East Africa so can't vouch for his veracity) but considering this was meant to be the wind down / decompress part of the vacation, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I spend the rest of the afternoon and the next day on the beach ploughing through pretty much every book I brought with me (note to self: yes, children's books are almost always the most satisfying of reads, but they're always going to be short. Remember that!) and chatting with the locals who pass by. "Pass by" is a nominal term since, given that everyone speaks perfect Italian it's clear that this is premiere tourist interaction territory. But there's none of the Brazilian beach style hard selling going on here.

Sunset on the beach outside of the Mangrove Lodge.

I get chatting to Mustafa, a teenager who lives just down the beach. He tells me how he's looking forward to leaving Zanzibar to go almost anywhere else. That's, obviously, a strange thing to hear when you've just stepped off a plane into paradise. But when you look at it logically: a small island with one major town and a whole lot of tourists to flash their wealth and tell you about the wonders of the rest of the world, I can see where the urge comes from. It's probably less enchanting than it looks fishing all day or hauling rocks up and down the beach via reluctant looking cows.

Cattle with rocks being driven down the beach. Daily life on Zanzibar's shores.

I wander down the beach to the next resort; passing the fallen ruins of a Sultan's palace on the way. This resort is called Hakuna Matata. It's owned by Germans; and costs twice as much as the Mangrove Lodge despite (from my cursory glances) looking roughly the same. Perhaps slightly less beautiful. There are locals here as well, doing the same beach bound occupations which look staged but which really aren't. Except here, they speak German as their second language, instead of Italian.

NAIROBI - On the Street without my Breathalyzer

2009-10-20T23:37:00.005-07:00

(These are the journals I took whilst travelling in August and September 2009. Not wanting to spend all my vacation in Internet cafes, I decided to handwrite them and then type them up when I got home. I hope to post regularly over the next few weeks, but that depends on both time and discipline. But we will get there! We begin in Nairobi on the evening of August 23rd.)

Things get off to a less than promising start when the promised cab is not at the airport to pick me up. They may be avoiding meeting flights because of the imminent danger of swine flu; as well as the inevitable visa forms I'm asked to fill in a questionnaire to ascertain my probability of having H1N1. "Are you suffering from any of the following?" it cheerfully asks before reeling off a little list including "Headache", "Sore throat", "Cough", "Sneezing" etc. etc. You know; the sorts of things which you might get from, say, sitting on a plane for twelve hours. I answer no, and stifle my coughs as I hand over my Yankee dollars to purchase a tourist visa. (Don't worry, world, I didn't have swine flu. But more on my exciting illness later!)

Thankfully, East Africa is full of cabs. Really. They're everywhere. So twenty minutes later I'm driving through the cold Kenyan night in the company of my first of many drivers called John. He's typical of most of Kenyan cab drivers. Not only because he's called John, but also because he's unerringly enthusiastic despite it being 10pm on a Sunday night. "This is the worst night to be driving," he tells me as he weaves round some questionable road users, "everyone drinks all day on Sundays, then don't think about it when they drive." That strikes me as a slightly odd statement to make. "Don't the police catch on to that?" I ask. John shakes his head. "They know. But they can do nothing. They do not have those..." He then begins to make a Darth Vader style heavy breathing mime. "Breathalyzers?" I offer. "Yes!" he slaps his hand on the wheel with great enthusiasm.

After giving me his business card with both work and home numbers, he leaves me at my first night's stop; The Kenya Comfort Hotel. I mostly chose this place because it's cheap and right in the heart of the city's central business district. In the middle of the night, the area is somewhat seedy ("That's a lot of women just hanging out by themselves...") but the hotel is really rather good. It has doors; which lock. It has a shower and a toilet; which work. And it has a 24 hour restaurant; which is good. They are using their immensely large flat screen TVs to play an episode of Oprah. But I can forgive them.

By the morning, the hookers have left the corners around the hotel and have been replaced by cab drivers. They stand. They wait. And then they pounce on anyone who wanders out of the hotel. It doesn't take long to be whisked back to the airport by another John who, also, is extremely enthusiastic and keen to hear all about the mysterious country of Canada. This is my first chance to talk about Kenya's current favorite son: President Obama. I tell John that his first international visit was to Canada. This makes him very impressed. I don't have the heart to explain that it was just a hop over the border for him.

For just one night's stay, Nairobi has been somewhat exhausting. Everyone is interested, and intrigued. You don't want to disappoint anyone by not participating fully in the conversation they offer. You will, of course, eventually disappoint nearly everyone if you don't buy the inevitable service offered by conversation's end. But I'm getting ahead of myself; the true touts of Nairobi aren't in full swing at 6am on a Monday. And in Zanzibar during Ramadan? Well, they have other things to think about...

VANCOUVER - Infrequent Flyers Unite

2007-08-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

I decided to do some research on air miles (long story). Here's the most fascinating of the many facts about the aviation economy;

There are around fourteen trillion air miles in circulation. Fourteen Trillion.

There's some debate as to how that equates to monetary value. In my experience; an air mile varies in value from airline to airline (for the difficulty of earning them from British Airways or Cathay Pacific, you'd think they were priceless where as, in fact, they just don't want tourists to earn any) but The Economist had a stab by putting an arbitrary amount on them. Five cents.

In that equation; the value of the world's air miles is $700 billion.

To put that in perspective, that's more than all the US currency in circulation in the world today.

If that seems rather a lot; it's because it is. There are far more air miles in circulation than there are eligible seats for them to be redeemed. If everyone in the world who had accumulated miles were to cash them in all at once; it would take 25 years to get through the backlog.

Be afraid, American Airlines. We're coming for you...

Does this seem like a bit of a problem to anyone else? That the world's airlines have created a system of currency which has left them with an impossible liability? Not really. The potential for such a crisis to occur is, after all, fairly small. And even if all the miles in circulation were to be eventually cashed in; airlines have over the years been gradually squeezing more and more clauses into their redemption.

American Airlines, for example, informed me a few months back that the expiry date on the miles I had accrued during my trip around the world had jumped forward from 2009 to the end of this year (yes, all air miles have an expiry date attached to them. Typically you need to post activity to your account every eighteen months or so to keep them active) There's also the possibility to squeezing the value of miles by limiting the types and times of flights they can be redeemed on.

In other words, and just like any other type of currency, air miles are prone to inflation and will become increasingly worthless as time goes on. Therefore, the sensible thing to do would be to spend them whilst they still retain something of their value. Especially if you're an infrequent flyer, since yours will become the most worthless most quickly. In fact; let's all do it together and force an air miles meltdown!

OHIO - The Sense of an End

2007-07-21T17:35:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure you were all expecting, it's time for the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows review. As I'm sure you were not expecting; it shall be short and contain no spoilers. This is because I have just one point to make. It's about endings.

Broadly speaking; there are three ways to end a series. Typically, I find that people have a particular favorite and, therefore, a good ending is one which fits in with their view on what endings should look like and anything else is, therefore, a disappointment.

You can tell a lot about a person, I think, by what sort of ending they prefer.

The first type of ending is the completely open kind. One which takes us out of a story right in the middle of the action; sometimes literally mid-scene. Good examples of this type of ending are Joss Whedon's Angel which left our heroes standing in front of an impossibly large army and said 'Let's go to work' and David Chase's The Sopranos which left our anti-heroes in front of an impossibly complicated meal and said nothing. This sort of ending really doesn't turn up in literary series very much and tends to court controversy whenever it rears its head in TV and the movies. Those who enjoy these endings typically point to the fact that series are about ongoing threads and that, just because we will no longer be viewing events, does not mean they are not occurring without us. Life goes on; there's no such thing as an 'ending.' Those who loathe these point out, of course, that they're not necessarily proper endings at all.

The second is the one I call 'winning the battle but still fighting the war.' Victory has been achieved on one level and the central struggle of a drama has ended. However, the larger over arching conflicts remain unresolved. The characters, though, will not be left the face the coming onslaughts with the same frailties and flaws they have suffered in the past. Something has fundamentally changed underneath and, somehow, we know that the tables have turned. Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a fine example of this type of ending (I choose to ignore his entirely unnecessary "Season 8" graphic novel nonsense) as are the closing moments of Chris Carter's The X-Files as Mulder and Scully realise they've pretty much *lost* their war, but are probably more invested in fighting it than they were at the start of the series. These endings are enjoyed by those whose imagination is sparked by the idea of ongoing adventures and stories happening of which they have no knowledge but which keep their favorite characters alive. This type of ending is loved by those who find endings traumatic, and who like to still have a sniff of a potential sequel to ease the pain of their favorite series passing; but others point out that this sort of ending is surely reserved for episodes in the middle of a series (the endings of Harry Potter 4, 5 and 6 all fit the bill, for example) and to put it at an end is rather anticlimactic.

And then there is the third type of ending. The 'happily ever after' ending, or maybe the 'ten years later' ending. The battle, the war and the story are all over. We are now given assurance by the author that we have witnessed the most significant parts of their characters' lives. Of course, those lives go on and we may find ourselves brought in at a later point to see where everyone has ended up and who married who and what they named all their children etc. etc. We are safe in the knowledge that we have not missed anything, and that our characters are no longer in danger. Obviously, this is often the chosen ending to fairy tales but other great series have utilized it to great effect. Tolkien saw fit to tie up each and every dangling thread of The Lord of the Rings; and when he couldn't quite squeeze it all into the main text he provided a whole raft of appendices just to make sure that the finality of the ending was not undermined. Similarly, C.S. Lewis saw fit to end the Chronicles of Narnia by ending Narnia itself. Interestingly, Lewis actually acknowledges that the characters' stories won't end simply because he is not writing them, but he leaves us in no doubt that the story is most definetly over. It's really rather good, so I'll quote it:
And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
This type of ending is, of course, loved and loathed in equal measure. The need to see a story through to its very end is seen as deeply romantic and effecting on the one hand, and as sentimental twaddle on the other. 'Happy enders' are typically portrayed in criticism either as people who know nothing of the tapestry of life; or people who appreciate it far more deeply and profoundly than those who clamor for troubling or abrupt endings.

I guess that I'm unusual, then, in that I enjoy all three types of ending. When, of course, each is used in their right context. I equally enjoyed the endings of Buffy, Angel and Narnia

I do, however, have a favorite type of ending. Everybody does.

Deathly Hallows probably isn't the best of the Harry Potter series but its problems are irrelevant. The only thing that matters about Deathly Hallows is how it brings to an end the Harry Potter series. Not just in its final pages; but throughout the story. It's a great one. A really great one.

And obviously; it's my favorite type of ending.

WASHINGTON - The Bitch is Back

2007-07-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

Another month or so of silence and then the blog returns. Apologies, as usual, for the delays but the end of term squeeze for youth group matters followed by quick trips away and then relentless reconfiguring of my brain for summer camps has rendered me almost incapacitated as a blogger... And, at the end, a review of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; a film which has puzzled me more than any other this year.

But firstly: Desolation Peak.

Of the many joys about living in the Pacific Northwest, none is more joyous than the fact that just a few hours away in every direction there is wilderness (well, an awfully wet kind in some directions...) and incredible glacial landscapes waiting to be explored. Over the long weekend, three of us headed down from Vancouver to the small town of Hope (where they filmed Hope Floats, Colin Firth fans!) and then south along gravel track across the US Border to Ross Lake on the northernmost point of the North Cascades.

Brown bear by the side of the road on the way to Ross Lake. Brown bears are the dangerous ones, but this one didn't seem too bothered by three hikers in a car. On the bear intelligence scale, he's obviously a little closer to Winnie than Yogi.

The aim of the weekend's hiking was Desolation Peak; a charmingly named outcrop surrounded by such cuddly named features as Starvation Ridge and Nightmare Camp. Obviously someone had a pretty lousy experience or two in the region at some point in their life (so much so they even named one of the other mountains Jackass) But, for some, isolated wilderness is not just something for the weekends but a real way of life. On top of Desolation Peak's two thousand or so metres of elevation there sits a lookout hut. Like many around the US, it's home during the summer to a park ranger whose job it is to look out around the surrounding area for fires. Unlike others, though, which are often towers in forests, this is one of the most isolated in the country. It's a four hour hike up on a good day; meaning that if you decide you need to get hold of someone it's a seven or eight hour round trip and there's no guarantee of encountering anyone without another eight hours hike at the bottom back to civilisation.

The shack at the top of the world.

For some, then, hiking up to such a place is a way of life. To others, something to aim for during a strenuous hiking trip. But for many it's a type of pilgrimage as this shack was once home to Jack Kerouac; who spent a season as a fire lookout on one of his many Beatnik travels. And then wrote a string of books and poems about the experience. Depending on which you read it was either the greatest, or the worst, experience of his life.

Purely from a hiking perspective, the experience is nothing but rewarding. From the gradually widening views of the lake beneath you on the way up, to the deer quietly munching beside the path to the awesome views of the craggy landscape as you break out into the alpine vegetation; there's plenty of incentive for the walk itself. The final ascent up the pillar of rock which houses the hut feels almost designed to inspire achievement, especially early on in the summer when you may have just spent five minutes trudging through still heavy snowdrifts in the blazing sun and wondering how fresh the bear prints and bloodstains are... And then there are the moments you can spend wandering around the lookout hut and the summit and viewing the snow capped peaks in every direction. It's a landscape which one might find lonely, but impossible to see as empty.

Jack's shack

Although lugging a backpack two thousand metres isn't always hilarity; it's worth making camp up on the mountain for the night. As the three hundred and sixty degree sunset gives way to starscapes (and, apparently, the Aurora Borealis over Mount Hozomeen according to Jack. We couldn't see it, though) the sense of the world being closed off around is palpable. Yet what remains in the darkness is no less enchanting; especially as when you're living in the city you miss so much of it.

One of the questions about Kerouac is why a man who spent so much time with and writing vividly about living life with a host of colourful characters would want to spend such extended periods of time alone and in such complete isolation from the world. Modern personality testing might provide some of the clinical explanations. But spending a night up on the roof of the world is how you can really begin to suggest some answers.

And now, onto Harry Potter.

Funny thing; when I first saw this poster for Harry Potter:

I was immediately reminded of this one for Alien 3:

... Which, for those who remember such things, is probably the closest cinema has ever come to producing a truly nihilistic film. From the opening minute culling of the remaining supporting cast of Aliens through to Sigourney Weaver's suicidal plunge in the closing moments; Alien 3 is an almost relentlessly bleak story of ever increasing loss against a seemingly unstoppable series of foes.

I then forgot all about that until I saw the film. Harry Potter 5 is great. It's the best of the series by far. But it is also incredibly grim. Cold, remote and unrelentingly dark from beginning to end. It may not be nihilistic; but it's certainly the most hard going film I've seen for a good couple of years. And most of those weren't marketed towards children. Like I said right at the top of this post; this film *really* confused me.

Harry Potter 5 is a fascinating lesson in the process of adaptation. The film's greatest strength is that it takes a pretty poor, overly convoluted book and turns it into an incredibly tight piece of character storytelling about how Harry, trying to cope with the darkness of film 4, sees himself at a crossroads between giving into anger and revenge or embracing his friendships and human connections. It's really the only one of the films to have a strong emotional arc for Harry which makes sense. And the credit for that belongs to new screenwriter Michael Goldenberg because those threads were all lost in the mess of the original novel. The storyline is outstanding, Dan Radcliffe's performance as Harry is mesmerising and David Yates carries on this series' fine tradition of making each entry grow up along with its characters. Prisoner of Azkaban hit the raging hormones of thirteen year old life spot on, Goblet of Fire successfully showed the change to fourteen with the utter confusion of relationships and Order of the Pheonix gets fifteen completely right with mood swings and a sneaking mistrust of all authority added to the mix. And, for once, the film makers have done it better than J.K. "CAPTIAL LETTERS TO SIGNIFY EMOTIONAL RESPONCE" Rowling. Order of the Pheonix is the best cinematic adaptation of J.K. Rowling's work.

All good, right? Here's the problem: Order of the Pheonix is also the worst cinematic adaptation of Rowling's work. Because, despite the ever growing sense of darkness and insecurity in Harry's world, the Potter world has never been so unrelentingly grim as it is during the two hours of this film. We begin with scenes of horror, progress to witch hunts (figurative and literal), take a quick stop at child torture before a trip into mental illness and, finally, some more torture and a good dollop of death to top things off. Pheonix may have gotten away with a PG certificate on this side of the Atlantic but I'm not sure I'd want anyone under the age of fifteen watching a scene in which a children are physically tortured and mentally abused by sadistic authority figures, as happens at least half a dozen times in this film.

All of this comes, of course, from Rowling's original novel. But that's not all there was in that book. Although the physical and emotional torture was at the centre of Harry's story; there were plenty of brighter passages to lighten the load. Characters like Tonks and the Weasleys provided comic relief and subplots like the "Weasley is our King" Quiddich saga lightened the load between he tragedy. The problem was that, without any sense of an editor's pen on the manuscript, Rowling's book was too unwieldy for cinematic adaptation. The film makers were right to focus on Harry's story (it's the film's greatest strength) but the price they've paid is to suck all the heart from the original story. And, more worryingly, to create some really rather problematic characters.

Take Luna Lovegood. Easily my favourite character from the books; Luna is from the Emma Woodhouse and Cordelia Chase school of characters who are present in the text to say all the uncomfortable things which usually remain in the subtext. In the books, Luna is a delightful character who has a kookiness and paranoia which allows her to operate on a different level to the emotionally repressed teenagers around her. She brings a childlike innocence to exclaiming and dwelling on home truths, which Harry eventually realises make her an authority... In the film, though, there is no time for Luna to be a speaker of truth. She is a kooky cipher who throws out non sequitors which all serve plot exposition rather than humorous asides. We learn quickly that she's a victim of personal loss; and Harry continually identifies with this side of her. Barely anyone else interacts with her. As such, there is no other conclusion to draw from the character of Luna in the film than that she is a terribly emotionally damaged young woman who cannot deal with the pains of the real world and so decides to live in a self created fantasy. She is a symbol of madness which Harry could become; rather than a loveable kook. It's wrong, it's unsettiling and it deeply bothers me.

So is it the best of the series? The worst? Or something in between? So much of myself tells me that it is the best; it's certainly the first time I've ever become emotionally invested in Harry's character, for example. And, coming from such a poor novel, that's an outstanding achievement. Yet (and speaking as someone who is a firm believer in the vital importance of carefully used darkness in children's books and films) I can't possibly recommend something so unrelentingly grim and horrific which clearly is advertising itself to children. If it were for adults, I might not have a problem (although it's *still* a dark film, even then) but it's not. And I do.

Ultimately we have to go back to Alfonso Cuarón's Prisoner of Azkaban to answer this question. Possibly the most important children's film of the decade; Azkaban is the perfect blend of darkness and levity. It redefined the series by basically picking up Christopher Columbus' first two efforts, shaking them violently and yelling 'grow up!' until all those starched school uniforms loosened. Its production design was second to none (and, indeed, it's interesting to note that Pheonix has taken a step back from Goblet of Fire and looks and feels almost exactly the same as Azkaban. All Cuarón's contributions to Hogwarts are revisited multiple times, from the courtyard set to the covered bridge, pumpkin patch and fabulous Clock Tower. Note that Mike Newell's Owl Tower is nowhere to be seen) but I've always had a lingering suspicion that the script wasn't quite as good as it needed to be. The greatest moments of Azkaban come from off-the-cuff interactions and pure comic improvisation which make it an *hilarious* film, as well as a dark one. So although the script is weak, the necessary story beats are all there and there is plenty of time for cinematic flights of fantasy on the side. As such, it was the definitive cinematic interpretation of Rowling's work.

Order of the Pheonix beats Azkaban on the script and performance front but chooses to confine its adaptation of Rowling's world to the grim side. As such, it is a wonderful, wonderful horror film and a great adaptation of The Order of the Pheonix, but a lousy adaptation of Harry Potter

Random points which need making:

1) Having moaned that Voldermort's return in Goblet of Fire wasn't scary enough, I was pleased to see that David Yates went in completley the opposite direction this time and made him utterly, utterly terrifying. From appearing in suits on Platform 9 3/4, to a surreal shot in which he takes over the eleven year old Harry's body (a terrific bit of referencing to his original plan in Philosopher's Stone) he is truly the stuff of nightmares. At last. Although I'm not keen on some of the other darkness of the film I do firmly believe that the Lord of all Evil should be, y'know, actually evil rather than pantomime...

2) ... On the other hand, Imedla Staunton's Umbridge is just demonic and I suspect the film makers didn't quite realise just how scary it is watching a woman in pink and her cat pictures all smile whilst a teenager is (basically) self harming. The trappings don't lighten the tone. As Rowling well knew when she created the character, these things make her *more* scary.

3) Another example of how topsy turvy the film's tone is: Harry and Cho's super sexy kissing scene is ended with a lingering shot of blooming mistletoe; a confusing image to say the least; given that mistletoe is a symbol of death if ever there was one. It's like Yates and team took every possible light moment and said "now how can we make *this* one horrible as well?..."

4) Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith, bless them, continuing to mine whatever they can from their half a dozen lines and minuscule amount of screentime. Rickman's "obviously" is wonderful. Helena Bonham Carter, meanwhile, continues her career with another barmy performance. For those who follow such things, Bonham Carter has two performances within her: corseted or MAD MAD MAD!!! Needless to say, this is one of the latter.

5) Do try and see the film in Imax if at all possible. The 3D sequence at the end rocks beyond all measure.

Basically; it's Alien 3 for children. And, as much I love both that film and this one; I don't think that's a good thing.

VANCOUVER - The Movies Sucketh

2007-05-31T16:22:00.000-07:00

I'm mildly irritated by the almost uniform awfulness of everything I have seen at the cinema for the past month. I feel I need to vent; and this is my favourite exhaust pipe to the world. Now this isn't a "I hate sequels, I like art" rant. I love blockbuster films; I think genre films are almost always more satisfying cinema going experiences and back in my journalistic days I was always "Hollywood defender" when some precocious first year film studies student wanted to publish yet another rant about how brilliant Scorpio Rising was; purely on the basis that they'd watched it in their previous week's lecture. I live and breathe big budget nonsense. And, yet, even I must conceded that the cinema of summer 2007 is in a dire state. Let's rundown the usual suspects and worth out why:

Spiderman 3: So, okay, I wasn't crazy about the first two. The interesting thing about the Spiderman series is that it's the only successful comic book franchise which has remained truly close to its original source material and style. Batman and X-Men quickly ignored their brightly coloured roots and went straight for the modern gloominess and heavy philosophising. Spiderman was all about the colour, the thrills and the fact that it really might be quite fun to be a superhero. Trouble is that when you're painting adolesents with such bright colours you don't really get to any psychological depths. So Spiderman for me has always been a little disposable. Like the OC with action scenes.

And Spiderman 3's problem is not just that it's the same as the others but that, this time, there isn't anything left to say. Here's where movie franchises have big problems (and we'll come back to this in every review): unless you have some sort of Lord of the Rings cast iron guaranteed way of knowing you have sequels to continue a story; you have to wrap everything up at the end of each film in case you deliver a clunker and the whole thing is scrapped. Sometimes you can hedge your bets (George Lucas knew he could put a cliffhanger on The Empire Strikes Back because, by that point, he was pretty much financing Star Wars himself) but with a mega money gargantuan like Spiderman, nobody is willing to.

To recap: at the end of Spiderman 2, Peter Parker has successfully overcome both the desire to use his superpowers for revenge against folks who personally wrong him, and a whole bunch of normal fellas turned super villains by ever more unlikely industrial accidents. He has managed to get things together with the untouchable Mary Jane Watson...

What happens in 3? Well, basically, Peter Parker has to overcome to desire to use his superpowers for revenge against folks who personally wrong him (in the most unlikely bit of continuity wrangling you'll see all summer, it turns out the random killing of his uncle wasn't quite so random as once thought. A turn of events so dumbass it not only messes up the film, but also messes with our experience of the first) He also has to battle a normal fella turned supervillian by the most unlikely industrial accident in the history of industry (frankly, any city which allows a 'Particle Physics Facility' to operate with such shoddy safeguards deserves to get smashed to bits) and, after a quick bit of mid relationship angst, he managed to get things together with Mary Jane Watson.

It's pointless. It's insulting and it's really, really annoying that the whole thing takes half an hour longer than the last couple of films when nothing of importance is actually happening. Anything to redeem it? Well, the action is all good, especially in Imax. But, you know what? It cost two hundred million dollars, of *course* the action is going to be good. And I did enjoy the EMO sidetrack; only because it reminds us that Sam Raimi is the sort of guy who finds pretentious superhero cliches as pretentious as the rest of us and is happy to undercut it with ludicrous dance numbers whenever he's allowed to by the producers. Sadly, after that, we're back to the same old, same old... Also worth mentioning is the performance by James Franco who is either such a gifted actor, or so devoid of acting ability, that all his truly sinister moments take place when he's smiling in a happy and carefree way. Those teeth can cause damage, man. Just put them away.

Shrek the Third: Joining Spiderman on the pantheon of 'films which have nothing new whatsoever to say' is Shrek. To be fair, the first one didn't have *that* much to say aside from 'body image doesn't matter, as long as ogres only date other ogres' but there was some reason for its existence and that was pushing the limits of computer animation further forward and yet still maintaining the simple fairy tale charms which ink and cel animation has dominated since Snow White. I love traditional animation but I'm not against a little progress. Nor exploding birds; the highlight of the whole enterprise.

Shrek 2 was more of the same; although with most of the story removed and replaced with sitcom set pieces (the embarrassing dinner with the in-laws, double entendres from the gender-ambivalent bar person, the bit where the sidekick has a fight with a new sidekick etc.) and, for the highlight, Rupert Everett turned up in a great extended cameo as Prince Charming. Not surprisingly; the first thing Shrek the Third does is to destroy those small moments of good will by bringing back Prince Charming as a *completely different* character who's suddenly not a fully grown mummy's boy but an evil genius hell bent on domination of the increasingly dull fairytale kingdom of Far, Far Away.

Can anyone explain to me what the point of Far, Far Away is and why it's so tremendously important who's the king, queen or court jester of the place? Who cares if Prince Charming takes over the place and turns into into dinner theatre? There's a perfectly good kingdom back where Lord Faquuad ruled in the first film. As with Spiderman's indecisiveness on the subject of Ben Parker's death; Shrek suffers from retroactive story dis-continuity of the highest disorder. Except this time the material is aimed at ten year olds and, although I can take crappy storytelling aimed at my age group (I'm an expert on that myself) I refuse to let it taint the minds of impressionable youngsters.

For adults, then, Shrek the Third's problem is, simply, that it's not funny. With original scriptwriters off punning away on the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels (more on *them* later) a whole raft of new gag writers have come in and attempted to string the gags together and call it a script. Not the same thing, fellas... Comic set pieces are replaced with one liners of the lowest order, Live and Let Die is utilised completely out of context (a crime in my book) and Justin Timberlake is in it. Sigh.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: Now this was the one which really hurt. I couldn't really care less about Spiderman or Shrek but I *loved* the first Pirates film. I loved that it snuck up almost entirely unawares between those tiresome Matrix sequels and produced the funniest, most imaginative film of 2003. It was flippant; it mocked the concept of blockbusters and characters needing to be deeply felt. Of course my heart sank when the 'back to back sequels' idea reared its ugly head. I mean, come on, we were there. We saw what happened with The Matrix when a great one off idea was suddenly rewritten into a franchise. We all knew Pirates 2 and 3 had to be crap.

I forgave Dead Man's Chest a whole bunch of problems on pure good will alone. Yes, it was too long and suffered exactly the same 'break up happy couples and decent endings for no reason' syndrome of Spiderman and Shrek before it. Yes, it squandered a lot of good will by taking Johnny Depp's wonderful supporting turn from the first film and repositioning him at the centre of the sequels. And, yes, Orlando Bloom's sex face is getting increasingly tiresome. But it was, generally, fun. New additions like Naomie Harris and Bill Nighy were allowed to run rampant with their characters; the location shooting was beautiful and there was that great bit where, in the middle of a swordfight between the boys, Kiera Knightley sat on a beach and pouted.

At World's End may be the worst film produced this year. Just before its release, everyone involved commented how, in the rush to get production off the ground in 2005, a script for Pirates 3 wasn't written when shooting got underway in the Bahamas. Let's just consider that again: scenes were shot, dialogue was spoken, and nobody involved really knew what was happening. This explains pretty much everything in Pirates 3. It explains why there is barely any action in the whole three hour mess (you can only write action scenes when you know where characters are in relation to each other and what everyone hopes to achieve by the end of them. The fact that, to get to the film's only two major set pieces, there are literally hours and hours of dialogue scenes comes as no surprise) it explains why Orlandom Bloom and Kiera Knightley give soul destroyingly awful performances (they have no idea what their characters are doing. First they love each other! Then they don't! Then they don't even trust each other! Then they're getting married! Usually all within the same scene! Then she becomes Head Girl of all pirates! And they stick his heart in a box! etc. etc.)

There are good moments; which there darn well *have* to be when there's this much talent involved. The afformentionned Bill Nighy and Naomie Harris: good.... Until they're both written out of the story because, obviously, somebody realised how they were acting all the 'stars' off of the screen. Geoffrey Rush is great fun as Barbossa; the only real piraty pirate in the film. And why is he there?... Ah yes, for no reason whatsoever... And then there is Tom Hollander's death scene. Best. Death. Ever. Of course, all of this is completley outweighted by the remaining two hours and fifty minutes of crud.

But the worst thing; the thing which makes my gut churn most is that it takes itself utterly, utterly seriously. Not only did the writers and director attempt to back engineer a mythology for a swashbuckler; but they've configured it in such a way that every single character buys into it whole heartedly. It's not only non sensical, it's not only badly directed: it's also no fun whatsoever.

And herein lies the problem with all three franchises and pretty much all of Hollywood's output this year: after one successful film and plenty of money made, various film makers now consider themselves to be gifted storytellers and masterful artists. They believe that because people paid a lot of money to see their work, that the work itself is elevated above the level of mere entertainment and must be far more significant. As such, when it comes to the inevitable sequels, the true purpose of the original films (in all three of these cases: to have a whole lot of fun and be flippant and offbeat) is thrown away in favour of pretentious garbage like Aunt May's hideous "heroes" speech in Spiderman 2, the whole issue of kingship in Shrek (I mean, hello; he's still an ogre) and the entire 'Davy-Jones-locker-pieces-of-eight-heart-in-a-box-crap of Pirates

These people have squandered vast amounts of money, the services of hundreds of professionals and our goodwill on producing sanctimonious drivel. And, with franchises popping up and being resurrected left, right and centre with the same idiotic delusions of grandeur, we're going to see much more of it to come. I have to confess; although I wish no ill will to one of my favourite actors I have secretly been hoping for many years that Harrison Ford will have some sort of major injury. Nothing life threatening, you understand. Just some sort of major, limp-inducing catastrophe which means he can no longer perform his own stunts. And, therefore, that Indiana Jones 4 will not get made. I've said many times that it's my favourite film series; and in many ways it encompasses the "screw you" attitude towards blockbuster movie conventions which I've professed so much admiration of in this post (is there another hero, aside from Daniel Craig's Bond, who gets so beaten up and battered as our man Jones?) The fourth one will be crap. There is no other possible outcome. And, if it is, I may stop caring about genre films. Really.

... Thankfully, there is always TV. Hurrah for TV! Constantly involving, constantly interesting and barely any back engineering / pretentious waffle in sight. Except for Battlestar Galactica, but its constantly desperate, ever despairing bleakness is what makes it so wonderful. Last week the season three finale of Lost probably restored my faith in the ability of visual media to be as involving as literature when constructed in the right way. The episode Through the Looking Glass is a masterpiece and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that, in this decade, TV has definitely overtaken the cinema as the best storytelling media. And as someone who loves cinema, that does make me a little sad.

Cliche? What?...

Anyway, enough of all that, here's a picture of some lumberjacks shinning down trees in the glorious Vancouver sunshine to make this blog look ever so slightly more Canadian than it did a few minutes ago. Hurrah!

VANCOUVER - Monkies and Spreadable Lunchmeats

2007-05-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

Ah, yes, blogging. In between bouts of Extreme Youthwork (like a real job, only longer) and trundling to hang out with new crowds of exciting people who don't live on the North Shore of vancouver, it's beeen a bit of a quiet period for me and the blog. Not a quiet time for communication, though, since recently I have been discovering the many varied wonders of Facebook. You see, it turns out that those of us who previously conducted our lives via the media of beautifully laid out and structured e-mails might as well have been ripping feathers off geese and trying to scrape away on parchment. E-mail is dead and instant messaging is king. And, for those of us who hate the latter and long for the former, Facebook is a happy medium between them. So join up now and come be my friend, you have a much better chance of being aqaunited with the intricacies of my life if you do.

Probably a future Church homepage picture. That whole realism thing is so passe

Easter is, of course, a marvellous time for the Church. If you're not working at one, I hearily recommend visiting around the time. If you are; you're in for a fast and furious few weeks where every concievable activity the church is involved in has to have some sort of big statement; whether it be producing a newsletter or wheeling out some bizarre decoration which nobody remembers the point of anymore for an annual airing. Between the madness we dragged dozens of eldery folk down to the local rocks for a rain fuelled sunrise service. It all rather sounds like an attempt at a mass culling, I know, but actually was one of the spiritual highpoints of the year. Big grey clouds make a good service... Of course, the day doesn't end there for your church employees who then have to drag themselves back to Church and dry off for the next service at which they might be involved in setting up, singing, managing the worship group and putting things away. Or, indeed, all of the above. At least there's Easter Monday. Unless you're a youth leader, in which case your day off comes somewhere around Thursday.

That said, the twelve hours or so of Easter dinner / egg hunting and poker with the Galvanis as a followup certainly didn't hurt (especially as gas prices rose again this month and I managed to win enough not to have to worry about them)

The West Vancouver Boys in Black. We made car rallying look *good*

Other exciting distractions have followed. The St. Francis Car Rally (which is now less of a car rally and more a version of the Amazing Race with less exoic locales) took place last weekend and was a blast. Obviously the youth groups were well represented; and the youth leader's car was looking suitably smart for the occassion. Unfortunatley, the vicar was also competing and nobody can compete with a man of God decorated with flowers... That said; there's no church bonding experience like seeing photos of members aged 8-80 gathered in grocery stores with strangers doing the YMCA dance. Or climbing into a random ice box at a local gas station... just because it's there.

And then there were confirmations, which was terribly exciting for me as I'd never led a confirmation class before let alone a whole series of preperation. Whether or not those where a success is for beings more ethereal than me to judge but everyone managed to kneel before the Bishop and have the confirmation magic happen and nothing burst into flames or showed obvious signs of Satantic interference. So a job pretty well done. T'was one of those weekends where, despite exhausation abounding, I could expereince the full scope and wonder of what youth ministry is all about and get to feel all pleased with myself about how things have been going. And then on Monday we played Kabaddi! Ah yes.

Just enough time before today's crucial Canuck/Ducks playoff (don't worry if you don't understand) to give you your film recommendation of the month: Everything's Gone Green is a good example of Canadian filmmaking and storytelling. Written, as it is, by Vancouver's foremost social commentator, Douglas Coupland. Fans of Coupland will know what to expect (and I mean that literally as great chunks of the thing have been lifted from a number of his works, especially JPod), with a whimsical tale of thirty-something angst in the offices of the British Columbia Provincial Lottery. Worth seeing for the droll dialogue and general understatement but especially for the glorious location shooting in Vancouver. You too can become familliar with my daily wonder which is driving the Lions Gate Bridge between Downtown and the North Shore, or understand why a joke about picking up West Vancouver girls on the Grouse Grind is so very funny. There's also plenty of canny Coupland observation about the social makeup of the city and the fact that greater immigration and cultural mixing does not necessarily a melting pot make. Go see it; then book your visit.

VANCOUVER - A Little Something for Easter

2007-04-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Mel!

VANCOUVER - Why We Love Shades of Grey

2007-03-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

Ah, Spring Break. A sort of break. In the Spring. Whilst my youth types are off gallivanting around the country for late season skiing or early season sunbathing; I've had the chance to go off and explore a little more of British Columbia. Oh no, wait. I have wanted to be doing that. But then came the rain. You've heard of this. yes? As a result, those travels have been postponed all week. Since, really; much of the excitement of going into the province would be to enjoy a sort of mini-roadtrip-type-of-thing. And, as we all know, mucho-rain-does-not-an-enjoyable-mini-roadtrip-type-of-a-thing make.

Until that point, I've been making do touching in on some as yet unexplored regions of Vancouver.

Big ol' mountains as viewed from another big ol' mountain. Do mountains get bored being climbed and skied upon, and looking at each other all day?

Mount Seymour is the third of the local mountains, after Cypress and Grouse. Each has a slightly different atmosphere. Grouse, with its cable car system and mountain top restaurant, feels the most commercial. Cypress is typical West Vancouver efficiency all over leaving Seymour to feel like the wild, untamed looking stepchild on the east of the North Shore. There is, of course, skiing and views galore available from the top but the more interesting aspects of Seymour are beneath the summit. It has a great deal of forest on and around its slopes; a few metres walk into being enough to make one feel incredibly isolated. (These, incidentally, were the forests used to double for numerous 'backside of nowhere' locations in The X-Files) I guess the perfect description of a couple of hours hiking around the lower, snow free trails in late winter would be 'gloomy.' But really rather enjoyable. That tells you all you need to know about the place, really. And this author.

Rock pools and the lingering smell of sea life on the air. That'll be Deep Cove, then.

Just down the road from Seymour and at the eastern edge of the North Shore is Deep Cove. West Vancouver may have the reputation but there are other pretty corners of Vancouver which are slowly becoming more built up and exclusive. Deep Cove, though, still has a fishing community kind of charm, even if the boats are all a bit too white, shiny and onboard motor filled. There is a great little ice cream place on the main street, near a tiny theatre and souvenir shops boasting all manner of Deep Cove merchandise (I didn't go in but I can honestly believe you could get more lost in the shop than you could in the Cove) Sitting on a rotten log down on the grey, rocky beach I had vague memories of New Zealand's west coast north island. But maybe that's just me mixing up my coves.

That's your travel-log for the week. Apologies for the long delay between entries but I've been without computer for several weeks (apparently my hard drive is defective. Which, if you know anything about computers, should make you feel incredibly sorry for me as that's a one-in-ten-thousand type problem for a new computer to have. Sympathise, darn you!) but I do aim to write some more interesting things soon. Maybe something about what life in Canada is really like and how it differs from the UK. Hmmm. That sounds like fun.

Mission of the week for North American readers and those who have no guilt about YouTube piracy; watch the season three finale of the marvellous Battlestar Galactica this Sunday and find out who those naughty final five Cylons really are, whilst marvelling at the scary way Mary McConnell's increasingly dark President Roslin always smiles when relaying dire news. Sorry for those for whom all that means nothing. Make it your duty to rectify such a sorry state of affairs.

VANCOUVER - Battle of the Operas

2007-03-02T14:22:00.000-08:00

I have much more blog worthy things to talk about; but I couldn't let this particular gem of a report from BBC News pass:

US woman crashes into test centre

There are two things going on in this story which I draw your attention to. Firstly, and obviously, anything about people having more trouble with their driving tests than yours truly is always pleasing to read. And, thanks to the foresight of BBC journalists who know those old adages about people loving car wrecks, they even provided video of the incident for our voyeuristic pleasure.

And I'm obviously not the only one enjoying the pleasure as, at time of posting, this was the most read story on the BBC News website (eclipsing such non-stories as the abduction of tourists in northern Ethiopia and the murder of several Iraqi police by insurgents) But even that is not the reason for my real interest.

No, that's not what really interests me. It's the last paragraph:

The videotape also shows a man in a Superman costume walking around the car, but he did not stop to help the driver or any of the victims. His identity is unknown.

Aside from the sheer randomness (always a plus, in my book) it's the implied accusation here which makes me wonder if there is any hope left for modern journalism in the Internet age. Since, apparently, not only is it relevant to tell us that there was a man dressed as Superman in a story about eleven people being injured by a driving accident, but it is important to note that the mystery man wasn't actually Superman because he didn't help anyone out. And that this revelation is more important than reporting the actual incident; since that's what the article's concluding paragrpah is solely concerned with.

There are two conclusions to be drawn from this: (1) The BBC is implying that people who dress in superhero costumes have some sort of implicit mandate and responcibility to be getting involved in world events. And that faliure to do so is a newsworthy event. Or (2) Clearly, the process of reportage from this incident was someone at the BBC finding this rather funny video on some sort of file sharing site and then playing 'say what you see' to create a news story around it.

BBC News were moaning and groaning about job cuts towards the end of last year. Stories like this do not, I feel, help their case. That said; it was a heck of a lot funnier than that Ethiopia story.

VANCOUVER - Notes on an L Plate

2007-02-13T22:57:00.000-08:00

So, when I was weighing up leaving Britain for Canada-town many months ago, I drew up one of those lists where you divide the piece of paper into 'pros' and 'cons' and gradually weight the columns into the configuration you wanted them to end up in in the first place. For example, my pros list included such list-fillers as "seeing Oscar nominated movies before the Oscars take place" and "getting neck cramps when sizing up tall trees." The cons list was relatively short. However, amongst its more significant entries and, indeed, higher than pretty much anything else, was "re-taking my driving test."

I hate driving tests. I hated doing it the first time back in Britain; so much so that between my first (disastrous) attempt and the one where I finally passed, five months elapsed. And I proceeded to get anxiety attacks about the whole experience even after it was all over. Cut to six years later and I'm faced with having to do it all over again in Canada with a whole new set of driving laws and regulations to contend with. Knowing that failure would result in the confiscation of my British license (and, therefore, being unable to drive without supervision) I put it off until my grace period of three months had elapsed. Since then, and for the previous three weeks or so, I've been repeating that same cycle of anxiety attacks and almost constant inferiority complexes about the whole business.

Why I suffer so badly during this ordeal, I do not know. I am not an unconfident public speaker, I can walk through even the dodgiest areas of New York City without a care in the world, but put me in a car with someone pointing the end of their biro in the direction of travel and observing my shoulder checks in multiple mirrors and I am capable of the silliest of mistakes and the most complete of mental and physical breakdowns. Like many of my more unusual social disfunctions; I like to blame this one on genetics and the quirks of my parents. Because then they can blame it on their parents, and so on, and nobody has to shoulder the blame for anything.

Long story short is that, last Friday, I managed to pass the damn thing to become a proper Canadian drivery person. And I'm hoping that sometime over the next few months I can safely forget about the whole experience. Someone suggested to me I might want to train for a minifies license in the future. Having considered this for a couple of days; I am making the following Steve Redgrave-esque pronouncement: If I show any sign of taking a driving test ever again, everyone has my permission to shoot me. I never, ever, want to go through one ever again. If I'm emigrating again; it shall be to a country which accepts a British or Canadian driving license without the need for a further road test. End of discussion.

Of course, those familiar with Sir Redgrave's achievements will know how reliable *that* pronouncement turned out to be... So, cooking:

Some men get their kicks out of driving tests. Real men bake lasagnes.

When I've not been locking myself away from the world dealing with driving anxiety, I've been enhancing my cooking skills. Somewhat for my own delectation, somewhat to appease the ravaging hordes at youth group who demand either interesting food each week or start clamoring for culinary horrors like Kraft Dinner (the North American equivalent of heart disease in a box) I've been experimenting with making new and exciting dishes. My first lasagne was something of a victory for me; and the second was even better. Although I haven't yet bit the bullet and made my own white sauces.

The most exciting new discovery of the week, though, was bread baking. A process I've never much been interested in since, frankly, I think of it as slightly tedious. All the bother of making good cake, without any of the sugary goodness and much potential for monstrous un-bread-like hybrids to emerge. It turns out, though, that it was rather fun. And it came out perfectly. Which just goes to show; baking has nothing to do with talent. It's just about following the recipes... Doubly impressive, I feel, since I was babysitting at the time and this was a childcare pacifying activity rather than serious baking. I suddenly feel the urge to experiment with new types of bread construction. The insertion of sun dried tomatoes into the dough! The application of cheese at the crucial rising stage! But, then, I feel rather tired and need to sit down.

Random photo of the month: turtles amassing hordes of change under spotlights. Because that's the lengths a bored turtle may go to, folks.

A quick word on Oscar nominations as I probably won't blog until after the 'ceremony'. As usual the nominations reflect the needs of Hollywood's great and glitzy to feel positive about their craft rather than actually recognising the best films, performances, writing etc. of the year. Indeed, almost all the Best Film nominees this year are total garbage.

However, it's worth noting that this year almost none of the acting nominations come from Best Picture/Director nominees. That doesn't mean to say that they're in any way indicative of the best of the year's performances (Peter O'Toole, bless him, is only on the list to remind us that he survived another year) but at least it means the top honours are actually difficult to predict for once. That said; if I were looking to give up my life of Church service and retire on the back of a colossal accumulator betting win, here's where my hard earned dollars would be going:

Best Film
Will win: The Departed
Should win: None of them... Little Miss Sunshine is the best of them, but isn't nearly as scathing as it should be.

Best Director:
Will win: Martin Scorsese (The Departed)
Should win: Paul Greengrass (United 93)

Best Actor:
Will win: Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland)
Should win: Forest Whitaker (If he doesn't, I'll retake my driving test)

Best Actress:
Will win: Helen Mirren (The Queen)
Should win: Helen Mirren (Ditto on the driving test thing)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Will win: The Departed
Should win: Children of Men

Best Screenplay:
Will win: Babel
Should win: Pan's Labyrinth

Incidentally, just so we're clear, the best five films of last year were The Last King of Scotland, Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, Inside Man and United 93. Go watch them all and then come back and tell me how right I was.

OHIO - What is this, Miami Beach?

2007-01-21T22:22:00.000-08:00

First off; the resolution of the not-very-long-running mystery which has already been called "tired and predictable" by some commentators. It turned out that the party responsible for the distribution of illicit Harry Potter merchandise in the BC Lower Mainland area was, indeed, UK based and was, in fact, my sister. Which goes to show the trouble that can happen when you don't put a message in with your birthday presents. So, anyway - my vacation.

"Don't forget your booties 'cause it's COLD out there today. It's COLD out there everyday!..."

With freezing temperatures, an almost never ending barrage of wind and/or snow and a general disregard for central heating in my place of work, it seemed only right that I should go take my first North American vacation in somewhere equally cold, often rainy (at least whenever I'm there) and even somewhat snowy. And with more temperamental heating. Yes; I vacationed in Cincinnati in the Winter. I'm proud of the fact. Don't try raining on my parade.

As those well versed in the art of deciphering blog-to-blog flirting will already be well aware, Cincinnati is the hometown of my darling Mel (yes, that one) As an activist and wanabee world citizen, like me, Mel makes veiled threats much of the time that she will one day leave the place for some exotic foreign land. But, unlike me, she hasn't quite gotten around to it yet. Hence the reason why our first hike together in John Bryan Park was broken up by stops by icicle clad rock formations and snow covered waterfalls. Mad props to Mel, incidentally, for not complaining at being dragged through the mud for three hours, especially when her navigator managed to get lost on the subsequent, and far easier, trip to an ice cream parlor on the way home.

NOTE: At this point I was hoping to insert a picture of the excitingly named Orton Memorial, followed by a discussion of the life and works of Edward Orton who sounded like a thoroughly upright and decent, if rather dull, kind of a chap. Unfortunately, I realised when I got home I'd forgotten to take any pictures. So, instead, you'll just have to look him up on Wikipedia yourselves. Go on; you'll be glad you did.

Other highlights of the week included: the astonishing singing of a young Christian Bale in Newsies (due for a revival anytime now), more Italian food than is strictly healthy for a night out and the reactions of staff in the local store when asked where hummus could be found. Cincinnati being a sort of satellite part of the Bible Belt, we were no doubt regarded as crazy heretics trying to obtain esoteric devil food... As a penance we went to church both on Saturday night and Sunday morning. And then Mel scored extra bonus holy points by going to an alternative worship service on Sunday evening whilst I and her friends watched Jack Bauer break out his vampire fangs on 24. There's something about small town America which inspires one to try and be a little holier. Perhaps because all my aspirations for perfect holiness revolve around a peaceful, tranquil world of justice and that's what small town American is designed to look like on every surface. Scratching underneath that doesn't take too long; but when you're on vacation for just a few days you can stay happily oblivious.

Look at those happy, smiling faces. But are there enough vomit bags in the world?

From a social experiment point of view, though, the aim of the week wasn't analysis of the American Midwest, but answering the perennial question "can a couple who do most of their business long distance actually bear to spend any time together?" To which I say the answer is yes. And if Mel then says that the answer is no; then you'll have your answer. Neither of us killed the other. Which, from two people with a wide assortment of sociological disfunctions between them; coupled with an overdeveloped knowledge of sarcasm, is no mean feet. The next task, then, is to repeat this experiment in the mountains, hills and snows of West Vancouver. Where hummus is plentiful, but church on a Saturday night? Please! That's talk we just don't hear north of the Peace Arch...

VANCOUVER - The Mystery of the Masons

2007-01-09T15:50:00.000-08:00

As regular readers will know, I turned 25 this week. I dislike dwelling on such things (suffice to say, the 'list of things to do before thirty' is looking a lot less intimidating this year having had 'travel around the world' and 'be published academically on Buffy the Vampire Slayer' ticket off it in 2006) Thankfully, I don't have to because, returning to my apartment after my last bout of pet sitting, I became embroiled in a mystery.

Exhibit A: Every good mystery begins with a gift from a mysterious benefactor...

I love a mystery. I was reading Agatha Christies when I was ten and have been hooked ever since. But, I've got to say, this one has me stumped. Having been away over the entire Christmas/New Year/birthday season, a rather large pile of mail had stockpiled under my bedroom door. Many lovely cards, the odd cute stuffed animal. And lastly, like the Grail Diary under Indiana Jones' post pile, a small yellow package with an unfamiliar postmark.

Inside: a copy of Quidditch Through the Ages A book I did used to own back in Britain but which, like so many others, sits in boxes in my bedroom until I can raise the pennies to have it shipped over here. Obviously my benefactor foresaw my need.

But here's the catch: I have no idea who sent it. There was no note, no inscription in the book. More mysteriously than that; Canadian postage always has a return address on it. And this one is entirely unfamiliar to me. The plot thickens, Watson! Foresooth and all that!

Exhibit B: Who are the mysterious Dorothy and Avery Mason? Are they an anagram, or a pseudonyms? And what about the name of the town: Windsor, Nova Scotia. Am I being drawn into a cross country DaVinci Code scavenger hunt? I hope not. Air fares going eat do not come cheap... The dragon, incidentally, is also named Phil. Obviously a fiendish plan on Mel's part to confuse me. He is not part of the conspiracy as far as I know. He's just cute.

So the mystery is this; who sent the book to me? Obviously it is someone who knows my liking of things Harry Potter esque. As far as I know, that doesn't include any Canadians and especially not any outside of British Columbia. There is also the possibility that the envelope is a cunning forward. You may have noticed that the address label has been stuck on with tape.; as if it had come from somewhere else itself. But the book is a Canadian edition. So it didn't come from Britain itself.

And what of the mysterious Dorothy and Avery Mason (if that *is* their real names...) What is it they want from me? What do the seek to gain by providing me with Harry Potter reading material? Does this conspiracy include the elusive J.K. Rowling; or is her name on the copyright page entirely co-incidental?

The investigation continues. If anyone has any information or theories which they'd like to contribute, please do so in the comments section. This amateur detective eagerly awaits your deductions.

VANCOUVER - Flight of the Bumblebeast

2006-12-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

My small but slowly-gathering-pace Vancouver Phworld following tell me that I'm obviously working too hard as blog frequency has been suffering of late. This is quite possibly true: working for the Church is not like anywhere else. Your working hours are an opening offer; not a done deal. Mine are some multiple of twenty... Also, I have had nature to contend with. Following the recent blizzards, we had literally days of grey normality before the skies rolled and another huge set of storms battered the lower mainland. No trees down this time, but some big power outages including one of the major sets of traffic lights on the roads between Downtown and West Vancouver. Cause of many an hilarious incident of overly polite Canadians being too terrified to actually move at junctions (I was back in the Mercedes and took the right of way which was, quite obviously, mine) Finally, early Saturday morning after the fabulous Galvani Christmas Bash I found myself driving home on empty highways... and into an horrendous blizzard which came from nowhere.

So, you see, a lot of busy-ness and no news whatsoever... Hmmm... Well, in the absence of real news, here's a lot of me wittering on about my new apartment.

New living room! New TV and DVD player! New fouton! New Christmas tree! New Tibetan prayer flags! And, guess what? None of them are mine! At all! Not even the prayer flags; despite the fact I own a similar set back in Britain! Isn't it lovely when you meet people who share some of your more bizarre interests?

There's a couple of ways of finding houses. Back in the olden days; one would arrive in a new place, spend some time in a youth hostel or alike and after money started dwindling make a haphazard selection of people from the slim pickings in your dorm and go find a horrid apartment to go suffer in for several months until seething resentment grew to a point where you'd either move on to repeat the process or kill everyone in sight. Those days were, of course, around last year. These days, however, we have craigslist.org (thegumtree.com for you limeys out there) For just a few taps of the keyboard, all sorts of potential new friends and psychopaths for your choosing!

I actually did all the scouting, viewing and choosing within my first weeks of arriving here. However, due to several factors (mostly involving my fabulous no-money status) I only moved in at the beginning of this month. Obviously I am not living with a psycho: most of our decor is cream and if either of us did have to butcher the other to death then there would be all sorts of blood on the walls/carpets problems to deal with and we're both rather too keen on decent interior design to let that happen. Josee (for it is she) is a French Canadian who works on one of the local ski resorts. She is into indie cinema, decent cooking and long distance relationships. We get on famously, not that I'm in enough for us to actually see each other...

Josee and I purchased and assembled a funky Ikea bookcase/showcase. For books and, uh, showy stuff. Being a new immigrant with only two bags to my name, very little of the interesting French literature and reference material therein is my own. However, givers of some of my more wonderful pieces of tack and cute stuffed animals may be able to recognise their contributions.

As you can see, we're a little unfurnished at the moment. Some of the better blog pictures from the last year will be printed out in massive style for the walls; and I'll be acquiring some furniture to go with my bed (which is *huge*. Bigger than a poker champion's wallet and entirely unnecessary for my needs. But I work in West Vancouver. This is what I have to do these days) I'm also planning to have a couple of youth group Christmas parties this week, as well as jumping on ship for a couple of Christmas dinners next Monday. Sometime in the middle of all the chaos, I'll be dissapearing for a week in Cincinatti, and maybe even taking the BC driving test which is an inevitable horror I've been dreading for some time... And then maybe, just maybe, I'll find something genuinely interesting to blog about.

VANCOUVER - The Chronicles of Nah-Nah-Nah

2006-11-27T20:55:00.000-08:00

Regular sufferers of my contrary mind will know that despite my constant exposure to the great wonders of the Earth's natural beauty; I am constantly moaning about not seeing enough snow. Obviously someone got as sick of hearing about it as the rest of you because, for the past two days, West Vancouver has been deluged in the white stuff.

St. Francis-in-the-Snowdrift.

Really, and I'm not complaining here, Vancouver has had rather a lot to deal with over the past few weeks. We had the torrential rain which flooded the highways and caused much spinning out of control type incidents (I was driving to the stables that day) and the huge storm which brought down trees and dumped so many pollutants into the city's reservoirs that water boiling advisorys were put in place for over a fortnight (I was walking to the office that day) and now, just a few short days later, a couple of feet of snow have been dumped over the city (I was driving to buy the bedding for my new apartment at the time. Even a blizzard could not keep me away from the sixty buck comforter clearance at Home Sense)

In many ways, it's made the past twenty four hours or so rather quiet. Church attendance was down to under two dozen on Sunday; the evening lecture series had similar numbers... And then the snow got *really* heavy. There's still at least one car sitting outside the church brought by folks who came to that lecture and haven't been able to get it back out yet.

Insert your wise-ass "faun-and-sign/lamposts-in-the-snow" type jokes here.

Monday morning, then, opened with even *more* snow and the news of public and private school closures across the north shore (Christine's screams of delight, it should be noted, were even louder than Aaron and Anna-Mae's) and had this particular youth worker been staying anywhere else but the rectory he wouldn't have trekked into work either. Sadly, I'm pulling double duties this week as both youth worker and parish administrator (sitting in an office, dealing with phonecalls and editing a newsletter... Wait? Does this sound familiar?)

What struck me, as I mentioned before, was just how quiet the day was. Aside from a few phone enquiries ("Have the snow ploughs been down yet?...") a couple of hardy visitors, the morning was cool, crisp and silent. The kids may have all been off school but, besides a few cursory taboggon runs, Caulfield Cove remained silent. It later transpired that all the kids had gone up to the top of the hill to find steeper runs. Which were mostly in the playing fields of local schools. In other words, on the one day nobody needed to go there; the one place you were guaranteed to find kids today was at school. It turned out that those who had stayed away were the wise ones. All visitors who made it to the church in anything but a four wheel drive car were promptly stuck soonafter. Special mention must go to the guy who came in to drop off some flooring equipment and got stuck for so long that he did a whole day's work stripping out the carpet in the lounge for reflooring tomorrow.

All this relatively peace and quiet went swimmingly until early afternoon. When, just as the print order for the newsletter was being written up, the power went out. Cue several hours of darkness; some huddling around the gas cooker and me raiding the hot chocolate supplies which didn't get used at youth group (to which nobody turned up. A first, then. Youth group competes with school - and loses)

When the snows come, the fabled mountain dogs of West Vancouver emerge from hiding to take control of the Earth... Either that or some dog walkers decided to brave the snow. Whatever.

Still no sign of the snow ploughs as night falls and, although the snow has stopped, the temperature isn't forecast to rise about freezing for another couple of days. In fact, with the windchill factored in, we're predicted a cool minus nineteen degrees for the night... Needless to say, plans for moving into my new apartment at the end of the week are looking slightly shaky. First order of business tomorrow will be to find the Chevy. I parked it in its normal space on Sunday evening and it's getting pretty hidden right about now. And then there's that newsletter to finish. And all the other office work. And, wait, aren't I also a youth worker?

What is the handy little moral at the end of these recent adventures and hardships, I hear you ask? What is the philosophical bon mot I plan to leave you with? Well, here it is: we got a whole pile of snow; and the rest of you didn't. Nah-nah!

VANCOUVER - I've Seen Angels Fall from Blinding Heights

2006-11-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

Somewhere on the shiny, British exterior the dull edges are beginning to show through. I feel the sheen ever so slightly beginning to tarnish. This isn't the end of all good things or any nonsense like that, just the adjustment from new immigrant staring wide eyed at beautiful vistas to youth pastor getting on with the job he's been asked to do and having to make apologies for leaving a splotch on the sanctuary carpet as he does so. That means there may very well be a splotch on me but, what the hell; I was never a very good Mercedes.

So, anyway, Casino Royale. After a jaunt across town for a meeting which never happened (the first of many, I'm sure) I found myself with some time to waste and so thought it was about time to reaquaint myself with my old friends; the movies. My list of must sees has gotten rather long recently and now that The Prestige, Children of Men and Babel are all pretty much out of the door until DVD day I felt I should try and see at least one movie that's been on my awaited list for quite some time. Review follows. As usual, those without enough hours in their life for such things and just want my rant of the day about youth group matters should skip to the photos.

Bond films have been some of my favourites for pretty much ever. Obviously there's a certain action-movie-bloodlust reason for that. Casino Royale happily provides the requisite thrills to qualify on that basis. There's running! There's jumping! There's a bit where James Bond punches two guys at the same time and another where he deflects an oncoming machete hit with the silencer of his Walther PPK! It's all there, it's all great...

Now, the *other* reason I can rewatch the Bond films pretty much all the time is that each entry is so very much a product of its time. You want to know what was considered cutting edge at the end of the sixties? Watch the Vegas scenes in Diamonds are Forever Want to see a showreel of great cars of the eighties? Chase scenes in A View to a Kill How an action movie in the mid nineties looked? Tomorrow Never Dies. I've purposely chosen some of the iffier entries in the series to make this point. Even a bad Bond film is worth paying attention to; even if it's just for the amazing production values and attention to detail in costumes and special effects. It's why I think the whole series is still worth a great deal in modern cinema.

In this light, the supposedly revolutionary Casino Royale really isn't that revolutionary at all. The mainstays on the Bond films are still there; establishing shots of extraordinary vistas, cutting to Bond driving through said vistas in his latest car, cutting to Bond getting out of car wearing impeccable Brioni outfit etc. etc. Yes, there's no Q and no gadgets and blah blah blah. But those things have often served as distractions from the broader context of the film, rather than feeling that integral parts of it. Bond's cars get newer and newer each time around but the Q scenes remain exactly the same.

Here's what's really new in Casino Royale:

(1) As Goldeneye was designed to show Bond could operate in a post Cold War world, so Casino Royale is trying to get us to accept Bond in a post 9/11 world. Forget Die Another Day (which was already well into production when the Twin Towers were attacked); this is the start of Bond vs. terrorism. And, surprisingly, the producers have decided to get very jingoistic about Bond vs. terrorists. He, quite literally, chases them to the ends of the Earth inflicting countless amounts of damage on the way just to make sure he gets his kill (a cynical person would be reminded of Team America, World Police during action scenes in Madagascar and Miami Airport) and MI6 has had a bit of a paradigm shift as well. Back in Goldeneye, Judi Dench's M was mocking Brosnan's suave Bond as a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War." In Casino Royale she spends the entire movie actively trying to turn Craig's rougher Bond into just that, whilst bemoaning the fact that the Cold War is over. The context of this film then, is that apparently the solution to the world's problems today is pretty much what it was yesterday; to hit and shoot them until they stop moving. Which was the same context of Goldeneye and, actually, is the context for all Bond films. So, really, there's no change there.

(2) Decent dialogue. And, this time, it really is new. Forget the Purvis, Wade and Ian Feming credits; this is surely down to Crash and Million Dollar Baby's Paul Haggis, who *knows* how to write flirting banter between two intellectuals without resorting to single entendres every other sentence. This is easily the best written Bond of all time and that alone is the reason why the film is a success. If Pierce Brosnan had been given a decent script, he'd have done a fine job with it because he is a fine actor. He wasn't (well, he *nearly* was in The World is Not Enough) so he just did a pretty good job. Daniel Craig is given a decent script and he does a fine job with it because he is a fine actor. Simple. This leads to the final point...

(3) ... Daniel Craig. Who, quite simply, allows us to accept that James can still be Bond and yet bleed considerably to earn the privlidge. Craig has one of the toughest action hero roles written in Hollywood for quite some time. He has to take a beating, physically and/or emotionally in *every-single-fight.* And he does a great job with it; still making it darn obvious that his Bond is an egotistical maniac despite all his punchups. That said; the arc his character is going on is to turn him into the Bond we know and love from the previous films in the franchise. In other words, at some point in the future (and I predict it shall be the near future) he will face a megalomaniac wanting to do something truly horrific to the world and he'll make a witty bon mot whilst punching him repeatedly.

Casino Royale isn't designed to reinvent Bond; but to just make the character palatable again. It succeeds; it's great fun to watch and will be fun to rewatch because to the decent script adding to all the things we already knew and loved about Bond which are all present and correct. A few other minor points:

(1) The product placement, which is as horrendous as it was in the Brosnan days, has survived even after getting rid of the puns. This gives the film a bizarre sense of humour since, in the absence of double entendres, I found that the long, lingering shots of Bond's Ford Car, or Bond's Sony Eriksson Phone or Bond's Sony Laptop are now the jokes you laugh along to in the cinema but feel dirty for doing so. Funniest line in the film? "What's the watch, Rolex?", "Omega", "Beautiful."

(2) The producers deserve kudos for casting Eva Green and doing the impossible; make a beautiful actress with an astoundingly sexy French accent even *more* sexy by turning the accent British. Surely a first in cinema... Green is pretty great. Even if her character makes *NO SENSE WHATSOEVER.* I don't want to labour this criticism because it's a holdover from Fleming's original novel but, seriously, when you've seen the film and know what you do about her character at the end; go back and try retroactively to make sense of her behavior in individual scenes. If she weren't Eva Green, she wouldn't get away with holding such a silly role together. Thankfully, she is. If you want to see an actress try to make a silly role work and fail miserably, take a look at Halle Berry in Die Another Day.

(3) Did I mention that cool bit with the pistol silencer and the machete?

Basketball, Air hockey and a big-ol-space in a church. That'll be youth group, then.

Working with the youth group has been a lot of fun so far. The way I see it, the current tension this ministry faces is getting beyond doing interesting things each week (which is, panic attacks on Monday mornings aside, relatively straightforward) and putting together a vision for the ministry in upcoming months and years. There's a lot of ideas and possibilities. From social action and mission trips through to study and discussion groups. It takes time to work out the most appropriate actions and slot them in; whilst still being vaguely interesting in the contact times for youth group as they exist at the moment on Mondays.

That said, I've learnt in recent days that certain other people see the tensions of this ministry slightly differently. They see the tension as existing between the youth group doing what it does and the rest of the church doing what it does and making sure that the former's actions don't adversely effect the latter. Perhaps I'm just a born slob but this doesn't really seem like a big deal to me. Make some mess; clean up said mess and serve church warm and with salad garnish to next group. Done deal. However, it turns out that my attitude may be wrong. And that the mess itself, to begin with, is a great sin and no amount of cleaning can help with what is a fundamental failing of today's youth to not make a mess.

To this, I say: whatever.

Laurence mixing it up on the cello. What youth group may be all about? Possibly. Just don't tell anyone it was in the Sanctuary. It was our little secret.

Oh, there was also a big storm this week and some folks in the not-too-far-away neighborhood had parts of their houses smashed by trees, and have been without water and/or power for the best part of a week. I bet they may even have had some splotches on their carpets as well. Better send Daniel Craig round to sort them out.

VANCOUVER - Anyway the Wind Blows

2006-11-11T21:56:00.000-08:00

Having been a bit of a social butterfly for the past few weeks I've found my way into a few other circles of St. Francis life besides those directly related with youth type matters. One of the most interesting is the bi-weekly home study group who, as well as offering me copious amounts of food and furniture, have some fabulous stories of travels past and their own journeys to Vancouver (seeing as how skiing and snowboarding are reduced to the level of 'past-times' around here,
finding a born and bred Vancouverite in West Vancouver is, apparently, what passes locally for extreme sport) and advice about living in the city. And, obviously, they ask what I've been up to in the past week.

So I reel off my list. Wake up early, drive kids to band practice, take dog for walk in lush forest park, drive Mercedes out to large house across town to look after some other children, go with them to country club and maybe go curling or play a little badmington (depending on which courts are open, y'know) Maybe head to the office or do the work on someone's wireless laptop in a nice coffee shop, before driving the Mercedes along a ridiculously beautiful section of highway to the study group. And most people, at that point, nod a bit and tell me of their similar happenings (if they're, like me, a desperate housewife) or of their job in a ridiculously beautiful office somewhere across town (if they, like me, have a ridiculously beautiful office. Well, okay, it's not *that* beautiful. But the building it resides in sure is) and away we go on some conversation usually ending with a theory on when the snow which is gathering on the peaks at Cypress or Grouse Mountain is going to get heavy enough for the skiing season to begin. Such is life.

One boy and his Mercedes. Treasure the picture. This scene shalt not be repeated in hither boy's life again. Until he nexteth housesit, of course.

One person, though, always responds a little differently. He screws up his eyes a little. He smiles. And then he says to me: "this isn't real, you know. People don't actually live like this." And he's completely right. They don't. I've been in suburbs of major cities, and quite recently too, where running water if an optional extra and six hours of cut power at the height of the summer heat is regarded as a good day (and it's not like these things are for using an AC unit. This is just for turning on the one hob ring to make dinner) So what is 'real life' and does this weird lifestyle actually count?

Real life is such a hard concept to define, I think, because the standards we measure it against are constantly shifting around. Shit happens; life's what goes on as you attempt to dodge it, get as little on your shoes as possible and blame somebody else when folks ask you what that awful smell on you is. What seems to happen in this town, though, is that folks try to set their ideal life standards in such a way as to try and make themselves immune to the changeability of life. The weather is a good example of this since Vancouver, on a natural level, has delightfully random standards. In the course of a day, we can go from bright and clear skys through to monsoons on the highway.

Downtown Vancouver. Somewhere, off frame, the clouds are impatiently gathering. Waiting to roll on in and start causing a ruckus.

Yet the lifestyle makes little or no concessions to the weather. The city is designed around the car, there are few outdoor activities which have not been replicated indoors (and often on a larger scale) The lifestyle operates through a combination of routine and careful execution. Even the change of the seasons is catered for, with separate cabin visiting in the winter offsetting the overseas travel of the summer and baking rituals in the fall. That said, there are a plethora of weddings and funerals in any given month here. Life still finds a way of throwing in the unexpected. The question is; is there enough room for the unexpected in the West Vancouver lifestyle? And, more to the point, where does God fit in? He who has historically shown great impatience with lifestyles which are controlled, categorised and easily referenced?

I sense that my youth ministry will revolve around trying to find an answer to that question, and being in a place where I can throw in a few curve balls of my own to mix things up a little. To do that, though, I can't be where I am now. I need to be across town in North Vancouver, in my new apartment where I cat might be swung if only it's an ickle, docile one. And I need to get there in my new car, a busted up Chevvy with such endearing quirks as a driver's door which may or may not choose to open when shoved hard from the inside. But someone still needs to give me that wireless laptop I was talking about. Let's not get silly about this, people...

VANCOUVER - One Fine Day in Suburbia

2006-10-30T12:03:00.000-08:00

The early school run is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God to mankind. Maybe not the actual drive itself; depending on how snarled up the highway is (darn commuters) but there's a blissful hour or two straight afterwards when normal people are still asleep when you can put the dog in the back of the car, drive off to the provincial park of your choice and go watch the end of sunrise over the bay without any distractions. There's the odd other person winding through those forest paths with their dogs at their heels; you won't see any of them nattering away on their phones, or being distracted by a diary. The world won't wake up for another half an hour, and they're making the most of it.

Another gorgeous Vancouver skyline. Will I ever get bored of them? Not likey.

I have been able to make this discovery through my recent acquisition of a house, children and a cat and a dog. Not my own, I hasten to add (I'm sure my girlfriend will be relieved to hear it) but those of some of the parishioners at St. Francis who I am housesitting for whilst they are off to the other side of the Atlantic for the better part of a fortnight. Which means I am the parent substitute for Geoff (16) and Maggie (13). Or, to put it more rightly: the guy that drives the car to school, football practice or the stables. Ah yes, the stables. This being West Vancouver, this level of housesitting comes with a free ticket to the world of the desperate housewife. My initiation began with lattes and a yoga class (which, if you're suitably lazy about it, boils down to a relative peaceful lie down away from the driving rain outside) and has seen me spending my Saturday at the stables trying to work out how to attach a pair of Mickey Mouse ears to a horse's bridle for a costume competition. And then doing the same for Angel the dog in time for a Halloween styled video evening.

Continuing the ever so infrequent Phil's Phworld series of cute animal pictures: Angel as Snow White. Awww.

A few days in and I can safely say that the desperate housewife's lifestyle does seem very compatible with the writer's. There's ample opportunities for hours of peace and quiet, which can be filled to the rafters with all sorts of little distractions in the kitchen or around the house if you so want them to be. Sadly there hasn't been much opportunity to resume novel duties in between scouring the classifieds for apartments and scooting round town in my lovely little red Mercedes. Yes, you heard right: little red Mercedes... Yes, I know what you're all thinking. And, no, I don't see any threat to my legendary masculinity from my new homemaker stylings. But just to get the obvious question out of the way: no, I shall not be putting myself in for a bikini wax. I don't care how many hours of free time I have in the week.

ADDENDUM: I discovered the fabulous Celebrity face matcher at Heritage.com and am posting the results here for everyone's perusal. I'm guessing that snooker's Anthony Hamilton and acting's James McAvoy are not in the database since, although I'd love to think that I have similar bone structure to Billy Boyd, I can't quite see it. Nethertheless; he, Mr. Sarah Michelle Gellar and 'that guy from N-Sync- join the long list of people guilty of the most heinous crime of stealing my face.

VANCOUVER - Arrival

2006-10-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

I really must figure out a new way of doing my headlines - the location is going to be pretty samey from now on. Or maybe I won't. It makes things look exotic.

So, yes, Canada. After a thoroughly enjoyable if somewhat uncomfortable flying experience (sitting in the middle of the three seater section is really no good if you like the experience of moving your legs once in a while) I hit the pretty coasts of the North Shore once again. At the moment I still feel like something of a traveler. I'm relying, once again, on the boundless kindnesses of the Stuarts and living, as usual, out of my backpack. I have, however, bought my first new Canadian clothing. A big, wooly jumper. Because it is *freezing* wandering around at night. Also, I've done my first stint of right hand driving. Doubly fun because it's also my first experience outside a tiny European style car. It's rather like how I imagine dislexia to feel. You know where you think the car should be going, but your brain is looking at the situation in the opposite to how it should be. And even when you sort that out, there's still the matter of a sluggish beast to maneuver.

Me! In Canada! Excitement!

Once the apartment is found (and, for my Canadian readers, any useful hints as to available North Shore pads would be greatly appreciated) and the work is started I shall begin to feel a little less hobo and a little more Canadian. All this will gradually occur in the next few weeks. Having had a few months not needing to go far to meet my living and transport needs I've reminded myself that, although I much enjoy the traveling lifestyle, it does come at the price of some mental comfort. For now I'll relax on someone else's sofa, with their cats and figure out what I'm going to do with the youth group tomorrow. Currently I have a piece of paper with the words "eat pizza" heavily underlined.

NORWICH - Bye Bye Britain. Again.

2006-10-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

If I had to list my special skills, or super powers, then leaving countries would have to be one of them. Packing my bags, even for a long term seismic trans-continental move, takes me all of about an hour these days. Much more difficult was putting all the books into boxes in a pleasing shape/colour formation (they may need to follow me sometime in the future and, therefore, must be aesthetically appealing to whoever is shipping them. They need to *love* them if they're going to pay them due care) Much the same can be said for the obligatory cross country farewell tour. You can just do some phone calls and e-mails. But, really, you wanna try and see as many folks as possible.

St. Peter Mancroft in Norwich, on a cool, clear morning circa 2002.

This has meant I finally got to do the long overdue Norwich visit. As per usual, the cosmetic changes of the town were the least interesting part of the visit (why does my previously grungy market now look like a set of beach shacks? Why is there a new mall the size of a blue whale just down the road from a mall which already was the size of a fairly mature sperm whale?) but there were many meetings and chance encounters with peeps. Special thanks to the Skivingtons for use of their fine home, and to Bertha the cat for endless hours of entertainment. I don't really take to animals but I do enjoy the company of one who is obviously hell bent on destruction. Incidentally I did promise to Jenny I'd open up a discussion here on the many virtues and vices involved in modern air travel; should we curb it to save the planet? And does air travel, as the Bishop of London informed us, constitute sin? The answer to the latter is, quite obviously, no. But that's difficult to square with legitimate environmental concerns, hence a lot of very complicated and contradictory theology emerging on the topic. It gives me a headache, but hopefully the cleaner airs of Vancouver will help to ease the discomfort.

Seeing many of the wonderful Dorset, Norwich, Bristol and London brethren does make the psychological process of leaving the country a little more tricky. I'm suddenly reminded of how much I enjoy these people's company and how I'll miss the fairly-easy-if-you're-not-relying-on-the-trains methods to get between them. But then I come home, and I start putting things in a bag and; lo and behold! It's remarkably easy all over again. And, to me, it all makes perfect sense.

So it's ta-ra from me. Pending some Canadian immigration official taking a dislike to me or my funky Diocese of New Westminster headed notepaper, I'll speak to you all on the other side.

Flying over south east Britain on the way out of London's beautiful airports. Bye bye mellow brick roads...

DORSET - The Dangers of Excessive Moderation

2006-10-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

As you can probably imagine, it's been a bit of a busy week. There's been a few phone calls, a bit of e-mailing, a flurry of enquiries to agencies who apparently know more than a thing or two more about me than is healthy for them (more on all this to come, I'm sure) and finally some flight booking and a big circle in the diary. Friday October 20th. Goodbye Britain day.

For this entry, though, I wanted to backtrack about six weeks ago to my train journey from York to Bournemouth. As you might remember from a couple of posts ago, this was where I had a certain moment of clarity which took Vancouver musings out of my head and put them out on paper (well, electronics) in glorious application and CV format. Today, I'm going to tell you what sparked that moment. And maybe, just maybe, it may spark something in one of you, faithful readership. Because to have even gotten to this point in one of my random constructions which I insist on referring to as 'a paragraph', you must surely share just a little of my madness.

I brought two books to read with me in York. The first was a particularly fine piece of work called Reading Angel... I know, I know. Shameless self promotion. But, actually, that was the first time I'd actually had a chance to read the darn thing all the way through. It's actually pretty good in most places. Although not in the places where the usually reliable Roz Kaveney contributed and was just plain wrong. Anyway.

The second was a book I pulled off the shelf in the lounge (we have so many books in our house now that you can find them, literally, piled in every room. My mother blames my father for his addiction to Waterstones's 3 for 2 offers) called Watching the English by Kate Fox. It's a sort of sociological study for people who don't know anything about sociology. More to the point, it has a picture of people reading a newspaper during a rain break at a sporting event. I assumed it to be Wimbeldon. In any case; it was striking and very pretty. Which are the things which influence my picking up of a random book off the shelf.

So, anyway, Watching the English. Basically an attempt to try and discover the underlying rules which make the English tick, there's a lot of very enjoyable observations about typical English conversations and behaviors and an attempt to provide an analysis of them. All the old favorites are here; why are the English so perpetually obsessed by the weather? (We're not; we just can't think of anything else to say) Why is the pub the only place where the English are truly relaxed and open? (Actually, it isn't, there's just as many behavior codes operating there as anywhere else. They're just a little more subtle) So far, so fun. Kate Fox, handicapped from the start by actually being English, attempts to unravel all these quirks and poke a little gentle fun. But rarely does she dare to make a judgment.

When I'd gotten on the train at York, I was still fairly undecided about what my next job move would be. I had a job interview scheduled in Bristol (which I subsequently attended) and, after a quick browse of the ever reliable Gum Tree, had decided that there would be more than enough housing options in the city and so was feeling pretty relaxed about it. The thing I *was* sure about was that I was probably not going to try for the Vancouver job. I'd only just gotten back to Britain, I was pretty short of money and the amount of variables which would have to fall into place for me to get the job, let alone consider a move, seemed like an awful lot of hard work. I'd just had my big world travel. The adventure was over. Back to life.

Somewhere past Darlington. I started reading the section on English work habits. And, in that, the subsection on the effect of moderation on English working ethics. This is where we get to the point (and, I believe, it's the only point in the book) where Kate Fox developed a judgment about the English. It's difficult to describe the content without quoting huge chunks. So I'm afraid you'll have to do a bit of reading. If you feel aggrieved by that just remember that (A) You've gotten through the first seven paragraphs, so really you've brought it on yourselves and (B) I'm the one who had to sit here and type it all out for you:

A quick break in all that reading; another of my recent Vancouver pictures. It's a pretty bird!

The phrase 'work hard, play hard' became popular in England in the 1980s, and you will still quite often hear people use it to describe their exciting lifestyle and their dynamic approach to work and leisure. They are almost always lying. The English, on the whole, do not 'work hard and play hard': we do both and most other things, in moderation... We work fairly diligently and have a modest amount of fun in our free time.

[And] nor are these rather staid, conventional, conservative habits confined to the middle-aged or middle-class. Contrary to popular opinion, the 'youth of today' are not feckless, irresponsible, thrillseeking hedonists. If anything both our [the Social Issues Research Centre] own research and other surveys and studies have found that the young of all classes are more sensible, industrious, moderate and cautious than their parents' generation. I find this rather worrying, as it suggests that, unless our younger generation grows out of these middle-aged attitudes as their get older (which seems somewhat unlikely), the English will as a nation become even more ploddingly moderate than we are now.

In our survey, when asked where they would like to be in ten years time, 72% of young people chose the safe, sensible options of being 'settled down' or 'successful at work' compared with just 38% of the older generation. Only 20% of the 16-24 year olds chose the more adventurous option of 'traveling around the world / living abroad', compared with 28% of the 45-54 year olds... In focus groups and informal interviews, when we asked about their aspirations in life, almost all young working people wanted to be 'financially secure and stable.'

[Insert more statistics demonstrating young people's ideas of 'fun' essentially boil down to a routine of weekend drinking, dancing and shopping. And that 70% of the young believe that 'getting ahead is down to hard work and dedication' in contrast to 53% of the older generation]

I felt like saying, 'Oh for heaven's sake, lighten up! Live a little! Rebel a bit!... All right, I did and still do, realise that many people will find these results reassuring. Even some of my colleagues felt that I was making an unsuccessfully fuss. 'Surely it is a good thing that most young people are being diligent, prudent and responsible?' they said. 'Why do you find this so depressing?'

My concern is that these largely commendable tendencies are also symptoms of a wider and more worrying trend: our findings indicated that young people are increasingly affected by the culture of fear, and the risk-aversion and obsession of safety that have become defining features of contemporary society. This trend [a 'cultural climate of pervasive anxiety'] is associated with the stunted aspirations, cautiousness, conformity and lack of adventurous spirit that were evident among many of the young people in our survey and focus groups.

... Whether I like it or not, we are a deeply conservative, moderate people. But what worried me was that these young people were more conservative, moderate and conformist than their parent's generation, that there seemed to be a trend towards even greater excesses of moderation (if one can say such a thing). And although I am in many ways very English, I can only take so much moderation. Moderation is all very well, but only in moderation.

A pretty,. and not-moderate-in-the-slightest, Canadian mountain stream.

After reading that; I felt pretty depressed as well. (This is, incidentally, not a judgment on the lifestyle of anyone who reads that and doesn't feel depressed. We're talking about me, here. Nobody else) And I identified strongly with the feeling that the only reason I was turning down the more interesting choices available in my life was this bizarre English attraction to moderation in all things. I couldn't think about going abroad again, simply because I'd only just come back from the last trip. Whereas the truth was; I could go abroad again any darn minute I pleased. It just depended whether there was a decent opportunity for adventure worth taking up. There was. And whether I could get beyond that feeling of moderation which I suffer from more than many other people (perhaps surprising news from a career traveller. But it's very true) I decided I wanted to. So, after that train journey, I decided to take the chance.

Obviously all I did about it at that point was to write a few e-mails and start putting my CV in order. You don't want to get too over-excited about these things, do you?

VANCOUVER - The Next Life

2006-09-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

VANCOUVER - Why Do the White Gulls Call?

2006-09-26T15:59:00.000-07:00

An interesting turn in the slightly tedious process of job hunting. Conventional wisdom dictated that, the year's travels over and money to be earnt, the forseeable future would be spent in Britain with travelling relegated to occassional jaunts. But I despise conventional wisdom. I loathe it. It is anti-action, anti-adventure and anti everything I believe in. Also, it depends on you being *wise* and I resent being humilated like that. Therefore, when the chance to shun conventional wisdom rears its head to me, I am always one to refuse it.

Which is why this week, almost exactly a year after my first visit, I was back in Vancouver. And this time, for a job interview which would not only see me leaving British shores again; but this time with a one way ticket. I sense some further clarification is in order here...

Greater Vancouver. From the airport, through Downtown to the North Shore then the mountains beyond. "One day, lad. All this could be yours!", "What? The curtains?..."

Regular readers will recall that, during my last visit I was rather taken with Vancouver and, especially, with the parish of St. Francis-in-the-Wood, home of the Stuart family. As Charity reported back in July, Angus was back in Bristol this summer for a visit and reportage of how wonderful all Canadian things are. And, also, that the church was currently searching locally for a Youth Worker without success. Being unemployed and having Charity (the mistress of vocational mischief) at my side it didn't take long for the two conversations to merge. So we had a quick chat about Visas, the awesomeness of Vancouver and my fabulous no-money and left it at that.

A few weeks of dreaming, pondering and serious consideration (including a particular moment of clarity during a train journey from York to Bournemouth) later; an application was made. And soon after that, I was back at Poole Bus Station with my trusty rucksack having been invited for an all expenses paid trip in one of my favourite cities of the world for the first stage of a Phil's Phworld reunion tour. With the added bonus that, this time, there might only be a week and a few interviews standing between me and developing a more permenant interest in ice hockey.

Pilot Cove; one year on. Still immensly pretty, only this time with bonus blue sky.

When you're having a bad time travelling or, indeed, anywhere, you do have to have a few happy places to mentally retreat into and to remind yourself how lovely the world can be. West Vancouver was one of those places; so wandering back along the shores a year later was a familliar experience. No seal this time but, instead of a light drizzle, plenty of bright sunshine. Indeed, apart from one day of torrentiol rain I was treated to the full summertime vistas of Vancouver for the entire week. Which, of course, did give everyone a natural point of cross cultural introduction ("Just wait until you're here in winter. Rained for thirty days straight last year!") but also opened up some good hiking oppotunites.

Last time around, Angus and I had to content ourselves with a short jaunt across some of the cross country sking runs in Cypress Park. This time, we set out on a major day long trek to the downhill ski runs and to the summit of Mt. Strachan. Cypress Park is primo skiing territory during the winter months, and is currently being dug and clawed at by the diggers in preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics (another good reason to hang around town, methinks) When the snow melts away, though, the peaks are still just as awesome. A readjustment of our original plans took us on a three, rather than one peak, hike. Covering nearby Hollyburn Mountain as well as the Southern and Northern peaks of Strachan. The latter, a fifteen minute rock climb from the south peak, was easily worth the five or so hours work. A rocky plateau, surrounded by views of Vancouver, Vancouver Island and the Cascades mountain ranges.

Angus on the summit of Mt. Hollyburn. Interesting sidebar; there's a hewn wooden bench up there dedicated to a mysterious 'J.R.'...

Following that; a gruelling descent through a wet gully (with Danger! Do Not Proceed! sign helpfully already crashed to the bottom where it couldn't be seen until at least half way down) followed by a quick jaunt into West Vancouver for some house hunting in gorgeous basement apartments and a round of dinner and poker... Angus will tell you the story of how he came to equate his little corner of Vancouver as home long before he was considering moving there. My experience was slightly different; leaving Vancouver I had a profound sense that I was going to miss people I'd met, less than a week after having met them. And geographically having already established my favourite emotional spots in a place I'd spent relativly so little time in.

You'll notice that there is little mention of the interview process, the community of St. Francis or really even the job itself here. ("Youth Worker!? Weren't you a writer last week? Or an activist? Or in student ministry?") The reason is simple; I want to go there so *very* badly that writing about it and then not getting it would be torturous. I'm expecting a decision at the end of the week and, of course, you'll all hear about it when I do. For now, I just have to hold my breath. And, seeing as how its so quickly and powerfully captured my imagination, I'd like to think there's at least one peak or valley in Canada which is doing the same for me.

The view from the top. Lions' Rocks to the left, Mt. Garibaldi covered with snow just to the right. Maybe it looks like a biscuit?

DORSET - Four Score

2006-09-06T12:13:00.000-07:00

Current Statistics on the Phil's Phworld job hunt -

Number of potentiolly good jobs offered: 1

Number of potentiolly good jobs turned down: 1

Number of potentiolly amazing jobs not offered yet: 1

Potentiol stupidity for passing up real good jobs in favour of fabled amazing jobs: A lot.

Why Gentlemen Don't Prefer Blondes

Princes Charming, Charming and Charming were surprised
one Tuesday night,
When they all met each other whilst speed dating, at
the exclusive Club Twilight.
They knew about the divorces, they'd read about them
in the papers,
But until this night they could not realise,
the similarity of their respective capers.

Cinderella and Charming had lasted about a month.
About as long as it took for that 'glass slipper'
anecdote to lose its punch.

Snow White was beautiful, to be sure.
But, sadly, she turned out to be rather a bore.
When exploring Fairyland's romantic wharfs,
all she could talk about were those blasted dwarfs.

And poor Sleeping Beauty was doomed from the refrain,
which signalled the Court Jester's arrival to entertain.
She giggled innanenly at puns about meats and bread,
But the ironic references to insomina just flew right over her head.

The Prince Charmings ended up sat together during the lull,
exhausted from discussing hair extensions with Rapunzel.
And finding; as they drowned their sorrows, a shared wish
that there could be more to fairytale girls,
than rosy red lips and golden curls.

YORK - Icelandic Interlude in Verse Four

2006-08-21T09:01:00.000-07:00

This week's great British trip was up to York. Former home of the Vikings, current home of the Jorvik Viking Centre and, uh, will no doubt have some more Vikings in the future. Maybe they'll invade again one day? Currently it's also home to Jo and Matt; long time readers may remember the joy their bouncy castle wedding brought me last year and how it offset the pain of getting there and away by rail (similar pains were had this time around, with a 'four engine blowout' between Oxford and Banbury on the way up. I'd blame Jo and Matt for this but, really, it has nothing to do with them. It's just *the way trains are*)

York, for those who are not familliar, is in Yorkshire. Which is a county up in the north of England and a very, very long way away from anywhere where I might be living. It is also, I have discovered, very cold in August. And frightning that is since I was always the great achiever when it came to living in cold climates (possibly due to a time living in my first house in Norwich when Lois and I couldn't work out how to turn the heating on for a week) and now I can't even cope with a little no-sun and howling wind. Nevermind, though, because York is enormously pretty, has a beautiful river and lots of green bits.

Jo on the York walls circa 2004 because I forgot to bring my camera this time. Jo has often been scared and confused by my method of putting photographic subjects to one side (in the name of "art", people) and so I have many hundreds of photos of her leaning into shot like this, lest I chop her out...

Matt and Jo have my favourite type of house. That is the one which has stuff in it. I have lived in houses with both stuff and no stuff (the latter because my mother appears to have an allergy) and I very much prefer the former. What is the point of acquiring a large collection of bricks and mortar arranged with wood into room and living space format if one does not put things in it? The only exceptions to this rule should surely be exhibition halls and, as I've never been into an exhibiton and I didn't find cold, sterile and draughty, I'd argue that even this is an unsatisfactory usage of space.

So there was stuff, there was some frisbee action and there was plenty of tea and there were DVD and video moments of related joy. For anyone who misses the seminal British soap opera Night and Day or the cruelly axed CBS series Now and Again, you have friends here. Also, one of the long running preoccupations of this blog has finally come to an end. We watched Serenity and it did, indeed, turn out to be glorious. But, then, I've been telling you all that for over a year, now.

A lovely week, with lovely people in a lovely place. Aside from some niggles with the cold, a pub quiz we didn't win (although we didn't get a single film question wrong. These things make me happy) And marks deducted for the pub which promised us a cheap tea and doughtnut combination and which then refused to serve us... at three o'clock (for the trans-Atlantic types; this is quintissential British tea time) If that sort of thing isn't already illegal then it jolly well should be.

Proper Yorkshire field. In the middle of proper Yorkshire. Different from any other field you might see anywhere else in the world. Really.

The rest of my life is currently consumed with the ever more complicated business of deciding a job I might like to do, hunting for it and then going through the dehumanising process of applying for it. Job applications are one of the fundamental areas in life which could turn even the most mild mannered of us into beret wearing philosophy spouting gits. They ask for individuality, they make all sorts of noises about what *you* might bring to a role but, when it comes down to it, everyone produces exactly the same application and more or less looks for the same answers. I feel my individuality slipping away from me, one person specification at a time...

Actually, the real reason why this business is more complicated than usual at the moment is all down to me and the fact I can never do these things simply. I had resolved to move back to Bristol and simply concentrate my search and, although this might very well happen fairly soon, there are still some other ideas in my orbit which stop me from being as decisive as maybe I should be. Because if they align right, they could be very exciting.

Until then, I was struck by something my favourite man-about-Bristol, Matt C, blogged this week about how although many of us are called to serve in some capacity, few will actually do it working for a church or charity and few *should* do it. This is something I used to rant and rave about an awful lot when I was trying to figure out ways of doing some service and do something interesting and inspiring without getting stuck in a church ghetto or failing to have decent adventures at the same time (see that whole year where I went away and did non-mission volunteer work in some vaguely exotic places, for example) I'm a big fan of church people taking all these brilliant ideas about working and serving others and being all humble but dynamic about it *out* of the church and into the real world. Because, really folks, the world needs you in it more than the church does. And you need to spend more time with non-church people. Really, I can tell.

So, why is it that practically every job I've thought about applying for or had dangled in front of me recently *is* within a church? Why am I, someone who set myself up to be the antithesis of this culture, suddenly finding that all the things I want to do are back inside of it? Am I suddenly giving up? Stopping having adventures and trying to retreat to the safe place where the nasty non-Church people can stop scaring me with all those sex, drinking and fixed rate mortgage things? It's my quandry of the month and I'm not sure of the answer. But I'm finding it has something to do with my insistance on wanting to do a job, at least for the moment, which is directly about serving and reaching out to the poor and all that jazz. And, for someone in my position, it seems that poorly paid jobs within the sphere of the Church are one of the clearer ways of doing that. Perhaps it's just a matter of language - because I find the vocabulary used by various Church type jobs describing action and adventure hits me far harder than the management speak used elsewhere. We all may moan about it being a ghetto; but the reason that ghettos are what they are is because everyone there is speaking a similar language, right?

For the moment, it seems, I'm firing my applications off in that direction. And maybe that's where I'll be. At least until I've worked out how to understand the vocabularly of the rest of the working world and get myself into the positions there where I can make a difference and enjoy what I do. I suspect that when that happens, I'll be becoming a teacher.

A quick final word on Snakes on a Plane, the fabulous film title and trailer which, sadly, turned out not to be just a great pitch but has just been released as a proper film. Sad because, although I'll see it out of my love for trash of all varieties, I just can't believe that any film could ever be as good as that title. In that vein, I suspect the more interesting legacy from this reptilian extravaganza will be the multitude of spoof campaigns for spoof films punning on the title. So far I've seen trails on YouTube for Snakes on a Train (predictable), Snakes on a Bike (interesting), Planes of a Snake (I like it) and, my personal favourite, Snakes on Claire Danes ("That's it! I want these so-called snakes out of my so-called life!") Frankly, even if the film had never seen the light of day, the fabulous title was and the ease of video sharing were all that were necessary for the imaginations of geeks everywhere to run wild. Hurrah for that.

BRISTOL - Let me Grab your Soul Away

2006-07-31T14:54:00.000-07:00

The last post I wrote on Bristol caused something of a firestorm among its inhabitants - with many being accused of being 'the one' who made me proclaim that, after my day long visit, I had resolved to leave the country again. I should set this one straight: nobody in Bristol did that. Certainly not Charity; who fed me so many cups of tea that I'd probably have never left her flat if I didn't have weddings to go to. Or Jutta and Martin; although obviously I shall be visiting them in Bamburg very soon because, y'know, it looks very pretty. Indeed, let me be clear here, there is one person who you can credit for my booking of flight tickets that I cannot afford and you won't find her in Bristol. Or, indeed, on this continent.

In fact what I meant to say the last time was that, although the days to be notching up another stamp in my passport are numbered (I'm flying out to the States in January) I'd like nothing more than to spend them somewhere in the West Midlands and hopefully within striking distance of Bristol. That, incidentally, is both a whimsical blog comment and also a quick shoutout for anyone around there who wants to give me a job. I find writing applications a very tiring sort of business because of the genetic defect I have which forces me to fill up all the spaces on anything I fill out. Anyone who's received a birthday card from me can tell you how unpleasant the results of this verbal diarrhea can look like. The reason I am not a poet is because when I look in poetry collections I tend not to think 'what a lovely poem' rather than 'what an awful waste of space! Couldn't they have thought of something else to fill in all the white bits? Why on Earth does this thing cost so much when it's all blank verse and blank pages?!'

But, anyway, back to the point.

I have many more beautiful photos of Martin and Ros but this is my favorite. I call it: "Wedding pauses briefly as Bride and Groom spot something unsightly emerging from the undergrowth."

Obviously going to a wedding is the highlight of any trip for me at the moment since, it seems, they are my foremost method of social interaction. This particular example, of good Bristolian friends Martin and Ros, was much fun because of the random assemblage of guests who I half-recognised and half-remembered doing some sort of a campaign once at some undisclosed point in the past. Trying to recall names whilst slowly choking on volcano hot Indian snack foods is the sort of wedding activity I want to be much more involved in in the future.

Ah yes, Indian food. After a short ceasefire following those illness filled days at the end of the Phworld tour, curries and I got reacquainted this week. Four times. But, really, when you're meeting up with impending grooms, future chaplaincy assistants and ex-pats, Indians are not a choice: they are a responsibility.

Your guide to posh Bristol. We have one pretty but fairly useless tower. And, in front of it, a pretty but fairly scary statue. Posh Bristol: pretty scary, and pretty useless.

Aside from weddings and curries; this week was about getting properly reacquainted with all the folks I'd left behind a year ago and it was pretty much all delightful. And, perhaps more importantly, getting reacquainted with the city. Not owning a car and shunning the ways of the bike in Bristol means you get to see an awful lot of the place as you stroll from place to place. Going to and from the station is an epic hike taking in harbour side redevelopment, a bit of the grungy downtown (understand that the way I go isn't necessarily either the shortest or most pleasant) followed by the rolling hills, soaring university buildings and finally the so-white-it's-unbelievable Clifton.

There's a good mix in this city - although you do sometimes have to get on the fabulously bumpy local train to get at it. I took my first trip to Stapleton Road this week where church sits alongside mosque, Sikh Temple sits near Pakistani Women's Centre and you can find every Polish or Indian after dinner sweet that your heart desires. Yes, I'd like to get a job based in Bristol or thereabouts. I'd like to spend some more time in the lovely West Country. And then, I'd like to leave again and come back and get all the pleasure of leaving and coming back again. That suits me. Now let's hope it suits someone whose job I've applied for.

Other recent highlights: (1) Finding the first outside toilet in a house for many, many years (they must be so proud) (2) The first meeting with Samuel Taylor (two thirds of the way to literary greatness already) who has developed the fantastically useful habit of sleeping through church. Clever baby. (3) Fajitas. Where did you go? Don't ever leave me again, baby.

DORSET - Shelves in the closet. Happy thought indeed.

2006-07-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you a little story about shelves. Once upon a time when I was a lot younger and smaller than I am now; things were different. Money was tight (pocket money didn't go nearly so far in those days) rooms were small and I was accumulating stuff. The accumulation of stuff was something I spent many a happy day doing in my youth. I was a great collector. Adventure books? Sure! But one was never enough. Dinosaur magazine? Hurrah! But they get you addicted after the first issue and so you just *have* to buy the other hundred or so.

I became such a successful accumulator that it took my parents by surprise. My mother would tell me in no uncertain terms that I must move the stuff blocking her cleaning route (my mother is very particular about her cleaning route) but soon realised that moving said stuff only put it in another part of the same route. I tried putting it on my desk. The desk collapsed. I tried stuffing it in the closet. Unfortunatley I then insisted on carrying on wearing clothes, and so out it would fall. And, of course, I wanted my stuff. To read. To look at. To have around me in as wide and messy a circle as possible because that's what kids want to *do* with our stuff.

So my parents eventually got me some shelves. Not just any shelves, though. To fit in to the tiny wall space I had not already alloted to posters or to standing up in (like I say; small room) they bought me the world's tiniest little shelves on which to store my worldly posessions. And up they went. Books, videos, magazines. All nicely stacked and ready for using and tidying afterwards. This happy stalemate carried on for a while. Sadly for stalemate; I was still acquiring stuff. Lots of stuff. This was the period in my life when I had realised I had picked up the infection of wanting to be a writer and I had acquired the most virulent strain which dictates your choice of university and makes you read a lot of books. So there were a lot of books entering my life and nowhere to put them. Except the shelves.

Eventually I left the country. The instructions I left to my parents were few and vague. "Pile up my mail," I commanded. "Open my credit card bills and burn them! Just tell me they've arrived" (I eventually told them to forget the second part of that instruction) and, most importantly, "If you find anything of mine lying around the house and have nowhere to put it. Slap it on my shelf. I'll deal with it when I get back."

One year later... This is the super fun interactive part of today's post. Open up the picture, magnify and scroll around to your heart's content. This is my life. Enjoy.

The results of this vague instruction giving I present to you now. Because it occured to me today as I was surveying those shelves that this is the most concrete representation of my development avaliable to view in any one place. It's like the Seven Stages of Phil; but all mixed together in that charmingly random way which only Freud or my mother could possibly understand (the latter because she's the one who stacked most of it up there)

For today's Phworld visit, then, I would like you to allow me to give you a brief guided tour of me. Pay attention. There will be a quiz. The top shelf is dedicated to the logical, learning me. Back when these shelves were put up, the first things to go out of harm's way were my many big, heavy fact books. Along with my dinosaur collection and computer magazines. Like some sort of science fiction monster I spent a lot of my early life absorbing facts. From HTML line coding to the discovery of the Iguandadon; I wanted to know everything technical, wordly and, most importantly of all, as completley useless to everyday living as possible. Imagination was more important than life in those days. Who wanted to be in the real world when you could dream and talk dinosaur? There's also some early literary classics up there because, you all know, I was all about the classics. Which of course means: abridged Shakespeare, classic fairy tales (abliet; Disney retellings) and my grandfather's beautifully illustrated copy of Treasure Island which is hidden betweem the Disney and the 20th Century book.

Then there is the bottom shelf which comes from my adolesent period and obsession with films. Nestled in there you will spot such treasures as the Chronicle of the Cinema (it's a *big, heavy book* and therefore it must be *very, very important*), the Buffy the Vampire Slayer yearbook (a later but crucial addition) and a big, heavy hardcopy of the Green Mile which one of my very best friends gave to me for a birthday one time and which I have still not read. Which is pretty good going as I've read everything else on these shelves. There's also a considerable collection of X-Files memorbilia. I make no apologies. Mulder and Scully taught me great things about writing.

But, for me, the joy is scanning over the paperbacks clustered everywhere else. Because, truly, this eclectic collection of volumes sums me up like nothing else in the world ever could. From Jane Austens to religious mysteries, political thrillers and Black Beauty. A few puzzle books, some travel guides and language courses. Peter Wimsey, Arthurian legend, some funny books about Jesus and a rogue copy of T.S. Eliot poetry which is obviously there to make me look clever.

Some people travel the world to remember who they are. I look up about forty five degress whenever I wake up to do the same.

DORSET - What's So Amazing About Poole?

2006-06-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

Now, you see, the problem with having a blog about traveling rather than about yourself (except in passing) is that when you're not traveling, it gets rather hard to find things to write about. However, until I give in my stubborn insistence not to bore the world with my personal ramblings (and, really, it would be a very scary place. I mean, this is meant to be the more user friendly version of me and look how many incomprehensible, run on sentences I've managed this year) I shall remain on topic. And that topic today is Poole, Dorset.

Where? Ah yes. Run your finger along the southern coast of Britain west of Southampton and east of anything which looks like the end (like, y'know, Land's End) and eventually you'll find it. Poole has a few claims to fame. One of them is its natural harbour. Which may be the biggest, second biggest, or just one of the many biggest in the world. Which puts it on the same lists as Rio de Janerio, Sydney and San Francisco. Yeah! And then there's Brownsea Island in that aforementioned harbour, which is where Lord Baden Powell took some boys on a camping trip and decided it'd be a jolly good thing for every boy to know how to camp and so created the Scouting Movement. But, aside from these little contributions to the world stage, Poole has remained relatively out of the eye of the rest of humanity except those of us who live here or who used to visit an older relative here (which, based on the folks I've met over the past few years, seems to be the entire population of Bristol)

Boats!...

Poole is a great place to be a boat spotter. Having a large natural harbour (it's possibly the biggest in the world, so I've heard) means lots of boating potential. And of all types. From the mighty passenger ferries which daily make the five hour chug to Cherbourg to the tiny but fabulously expensive yachts, sitting watching the workings of the harbour has passed the minutes of many a long, cold afternoon. It's strangely restful; really. Poole, being a British sea side town, has a fine selection of tacky harbour side amusements to accompany your stay. Sadly the most interesting of the tourist traps (the fabulously dingy aquarium and the astonishingly overpriced model railway) have long since given way to trendy wine bars but, if you look hard enough, you can still find candy floss (cotton candy, Yankee readers) and 2p slot machines.

These devices, common in various forms throughout the world, give the pleasure of being wonderful and useless all at the same time. Like all such machines, you shove in 2p coins in the hope of being skillful enough to win more coins based on the way your coin falls. But, since all you can win are 2p coins and since 2p coins are useless apart from being used in 2p machines, the whole thing is nothing more than a glorious waste of time. In other words, typical British rainy day at the seaside entertainment. There are precisely five people in the world who find 2p machines tremendous fun. I'm glad to say that I am one of them, and that I know two of the others.

... and beaches! Incidentally, these pictures aren't the products of some seventies photo documentary of the town, but of my first and most awful digital camera and the days before I discovered that 'Night setting' you've all come to know and fear in my photography.

Should the sun ever appear in Poole (and it does for, literally, minutes in the summer) then you can go to the beaches. Miles and miles of lovely sandy beaches flying EU blue flags to demonstrate their cleanliness. Despite the fact, like many British beaches, you can't get over the fact that both the sand and the water seem to be tinged a dull grey colour. (Reminiscent of the Gangees at Rishikesh. I'd like to think that the British variant doesn't contain piles of ashes and decomposing body parts but, really, I can't be sure) As such, except in the height of midsummer you can always wander along Poole's beaches in relative peace. Especially in the middle of the night, lit only by moon and starlight.

Because, you see, that's really what's so amazing about Poole. Not the harbour, not the beaches: but the fact that not a lot of people know that it's all there. You can travel the world looking for beautiful solitude; but you're more likely to find it around 11pm out on the rocks at Sandbanks beach than pretty much anywhere else.

BRISTOL - Same Old Bread and Rolls

2006-06-20T17:04:00.000-07:00

Bristol is a funny place to come back to. On the one hand, I spent two very happy years here doing a job I enjoyed a great deal with people I get very giddy about at the thought of seeing. Especially when they have some potentially very exciting new hair. On the other hand, Bristol was the place I was in when I felt my very strong and urgent need to collect my moneys together and leave the country.

For me, Bristol has a history of being a place where I get things done. Much of this is due to people. Staying with Charity for a couple of days and having Jutta (she of the most impressive new hair this visit), among many others, very insistently asking about my future life plans has a way of making all those little thoughts rearrange themselves in my brain into targets, goal sheets and little spider diagrams written in different shades of purple pen.

It was most exciting to be back for the launch of the Bristol University Multifaith Chaplaincy. A project which was a buzzword when I first arrived in town, a catchphrase during my second year and has now become a state of mind. Half a decade may sound like a long time in a town where things get done: but anyone who's ever tried to get people of different religious dispositions to even agree what to eat and drink in the same company can appreciate the enormous blood sweat and tears (some English, many German) which went into a two hour presentation in a very nice university room to lots of very interesting people.

All the faiths, together at last in Powerpoint format!

Working back in the chaplaincy for an afternoon, though, did handily remind me why I don't work in chaplaincy anymore. When you're done, you're done. And there are plenty of lovely people (even more now) who will do wonderful things there until they too get the call and leave into their respective yonders. Also, I cut myself cutting fruit: I've shed way too much blood for this job already. It's time to share the love somewhere else.

The other moment which inspired some concrete future planning was at the commissioning of my friend David as a local Methodist preacher (or initiation into the coven, as Charity puts it) A lovely service in the Welsh border town of Chepstow, with some curious turns of phrase during the sermon. "There isn't just one culture in this world, but many cultures!" was one moment where, still having vague memories of having been on a different continent less than a week before, my universe suddenly felt it was closing in around me. The thing with living on an island? Island mentality. It's a scary thing to re-encounter when, the last time it scared you, you went off for a year.

So I resolved to be off again, soon. I already had the incentive but it was time to add a little resolution. I shall be in Cincinnati again by the end of this year or early next, seeing the winter with my American girl. Hurrah for Bristol! Travelers need a place which inspires them to make each trip and Bristol, the big city with a scary provincial underbelly, is my personal traveling muse. Also, it is a place of new and exciting hair. In this case, mine. But, boy howdy, did it *hurt*...

LONDON - Like the Murphys

2006-06-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

It was either on the second frisking or when they took away Sarah's souvenier walking stick never to be seen again that we decided the Indians really wanted us to get the heck out of their country. Why is there such a disparity between the love and attention bestowed by the volunteer host family leader or school teacher, and the smirking indifference of anyone in any position of authority? It may be that I am destined never to truly understand the complexities of the Indian psyche, but I do plan to spend some more time on it before anyone starts trying to cremate me into Gangees sized chunks.

A no-points extra bonus question for you all. Which Greater London landmark, on the final approach into Heathrow Airport, is this? I'll give you a clue: I actually don't know. Windsor?

Britain produced its usual no-holds-barred welcome. The London Underground still refuses to operate according to the rules of logic, and the heavens opened for showers of monsoon proportions which had me fishing into my backpack in the middle of a flooded Walthamstow station whilst waiting for a bus to come and be overcrowded. Yet nobody beeped, nobody stared and nobody stepped on anyone else's face despite the pretty awful conditions outside. Natural disaster in Britain is an inconvinience and is treated with the same indifference and maybe a little grumbling. After having spent several months witnessing end of the world excitement at the selling of fruit and vegetables, it actually felt relaxing rather isolating (as travel in Britain eventually becomes)

Final photo of yours truly for the trip. Pop back to that first New York post and witness the differences in hair and weight. A good session with some clippers will remedy the former, the latter may mean going back to a life of sweating at the gym but this time self rather than Dehli inflicted.

The crossing of London to visit my grandmother took three hours: which is about how long it takes to fly over Europe these days. I am always astounded how much of a London identity everyone who lives here has, even when it takes the best part of a morning just to get into the centre of the place. But yesterday was one of those times when you can't mind it. Just trundling along a familliar bus route I haven't seen for a year bringing back memories going back two decades before that (travelling around London with my grandparents was my earliest travel experience) All very nostalgic and, eventually, rather wet.

The most important first stop for Sarah and I upon returning home: the regulation pint of bitter at J.D. Wetherspoons. God bless Heathrow Airport for catering to alcoholics and nervous fliers everywhere. And the most expensive drink I have ever bought, too.

Returning to Dorset was much the same; although seeing lush green countryside by the motorways for the first time since New Zealand reminds me why I shall never be living permenantly anywhere which can't provide me with at least a hill, a field and a tree out of my left hand window. Poole is much the same. A few trees got chopped down, my parents bought a new dining room table and the hideously ugly and inoperable IMAX cinema on Bournemouth sea front still hasn't been torn down. But only a few days to appreciate it all and start processing the experience before I start off on the wedding/visiting march.

Was I in India two days ago? I can barely remember.

RAJPUR - Twenty One Years Later

2006-06-05T03:26:00.000-07:00

Conversation classes with a bunch of bright Tibettans are a speedy and fun process. Aside from a little shyness at communicating in a second or third language, a few prompts are all that is necessary to start long discourses on the state of modern Britain and Tibettan relations with China, the current composition of the England football team (I've *missed* guy conversation...) and comparisons of ideals of love in life, relationships and literature. They're smart cookies. And musical, as well. We've been serenaded in Tibettan and English. Everything from the Eagles, to Boyzone and Take That. And Celine Dion. But you can't have everything, right?

Karma plucks away at some of the finer chords in Back For Good. That song will never die.

Talking to Stephen about how he sees the future for his boys, it's clear that he is in somewhat of two minds about the whole thing. On the one hand, it's clear that the House of Peace is a terrific project and that the lives of everyone who comes through it have been dramatically turned around for the better. And it's enabled Stephen himself to become immensly well connected in the west (he was sitting next to the President of Croatia at George Dubya's prayer breakfast this year. How cool is that?!) On the other hand, though, hope for the future doesn't necessarily extend to Tibet itself. The current Dalia Lama is now 71 and s clearly not going to be around forever. His leadership has been inspired: but it comes at a price in that the Tibettans believe firmly in the principle of the Dalia Lama and so, when he does die, the process of finding his successor will begin. Who will be a child. Then, after the twenty one years of maturing and education, he will take on the mantle and pick up Tibet's cause. But what will the world look like after twenty one years? China has modernised the Tibettan territory in ways which have made it unrecognisable in just a few decades, and it will soon become either the biggest or second biggest superpower. It's showing no signs of wanting to leave, and every year that passes makes it all the more unlikely. India, as well, will reach a population of a billion and the question of whether it should still keep hosting the Tibettan Government in exile is sure to arise.

The Tibettan identity seems to have been made secure in so many ways, but it seems that the identity cannot come with a homeland. Nobody really knows how long it can last with one and not the other. But with organisations like the House of Peace to help it along, there will be little pieces of Tibet somewhere for a long, long time.

Sunset over Rajpur. I do never tire of ending countries with a sunset photo. I'm sure everyone else did sometime back at Camp Aldersgate. Sorry about that. I won't trouble you with them again!

And so we reach the end of India blog. Words cannot describe it (except for, you know, the words I've been using thus far to describe it) and my mind will take some time to adjust to not being here. One week to go in a land with much staring, few road rules and rather few scruples about public urination. The land of the limeys awaits. I'll see you all on the other side.

Yes, it's the India line-o-map. Kinda wiggly. Kinda small, but I think we hit all the best spots, right?

MUSSOOREI - The Top of the World

2006-05-29T00:39:00.000-07:00

Obviously it was meant to be: that in the final few weeks of my travels I'd return to the enviroment which brings me the most happiness: tiny towns perched on the edges of mountains with rain and mist aplenty. Revered by the British for many years and visited by Queen Mary (then a mere Princess), Mussoorei seems to have been recolonised by the Americans and Canadians. There are at least a dozen in semi permanent residence in the guesthouse where we stayed. With the exception of the owner, who is a German who went to Israel and became a Christian, then came to India, married a Tibetan and is now planning to open a guesthouse and working amongst the Buddhists in Tibet for the next five years. Activists certainly live bizarre lives...

The twisted, windy road up the mountain. Just pretend you don't have an irrational fear of heights and embrace the vertigo...

Most of the residents are studying Hindi at one of the many language schools in the area. Although some, like us, are just happy to have found somewhere in summertime India to escape the sun, enjoy the trees and the gorgeous English/German cusine on offer. Never has mashed potato been so greatfully devoured.

Winding through the back paths of Mussoorei, a lesson in how random town planning can be beautiful at every turn. Just as long as you aren't driving.

Mussoorei is also a surprisingly well stocked shopping and communications centre: I had better phone reception than I've had anywhere in the world since leaving the States. And the selection of beautiful handicrafts and woollen goods is awe inspiring, and gives you a warm fuzzy feeling that you're giving something back to exiled Tibetans. I was informed today, though, that a lot of the produce is actually Indian. "It's because we have different faces," one of my Tibettan boys informed me, "People think we're selling the real thing." You have to admire the manipulation of the market economy, really you do.

Back down the mountain we've started conversation classes with the Tibettan boys, who range from the astoundingly proficent to the incredibly shy. There were a few moments of wondering whether we'd be able to cross cultural barriers. We talked a little more about soccer, and music, and then movies. One of the guys gave me a look and then said something in Hindi. "He's asking if you've seen a movie," his mentor explained to me, "He says it's called Narnia." I nod. The guy looks at me with a smile on his face. "Mr. Tummnus", he says.

RAJPUR - The House of Peace

2006-05-22T02:45:00.000-07:00

Thousands of feet in the hills above the Indian planes, groups of Tibetan refugees are quietly carving a life out for themselves. Having been exiled from their homeland in the late fifties by the Chinese, two generations of youth have been scraping livings to various degrees of success and quietly planning their vengance against the Chinese. Stephan Hishey and his family, ex Tibet themselves and educated in Detroit of all places, decided seven years ago to reach out to this disenfranchised area of society by setting up the House of Peace. Rajpur and the other towns in this area have a massive Tibetan population, about three thousand (the hills have about fifteen thousand Indians) and Stephan's charity seeks to give the youth some formal schooling, skills and teaches them reconciliation, rather than anger, against their Chinese oppression.

Gardening with the boys from Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan. Lots of weeding after a few months of non manual labour plays havoc with one's beautiful fingers.

A pretty darn good NGO, then, which benefits from plenty of foreign funding (Tibet's plight is one of those which the Western world is pretty aware of. Must be the influence of Richard Gere. And, y'know, the Dalai Lama.) and one we'll be working with for a few short weeks. The Himilayan foothills remind me a lot of Lantau Peak back on Hong Kong island. They are much more developed, though and, thus, instead of staying in one of the shanty towns like most of the refugees we are in a guesthouse which seems to have been built to resemble small town America. Window seats, rocking chairs, a healthy stock of Robert Ludlum on the bookshelves... Jessica Fletcher could be here, twiddling her specs and shaking her head wearily at the young kids who occassionally run past the windows on their way up and down the hills. She'd also have appreciated the house's spooky qualities. We're close to monsoon season and, at night, the lights dramatically extinguish and we're treated to a Hollywood style thunder and lightning storm of epic proportions. We wouldn't mind, but the satelite TV stops working as well. Which is a real shame when you're in the middle of X-Men and enjoying it immensly.

Err... Did I mention I was in an isolated area of hills? Okay, we'll call it semi isolated.

Feet in the Gangees at Rishikesh; spiritual centre for Hindus and Buddhists alike and the inspiration for all that funky sitar work the Beatles briefly got into. Beautiful river. Bit grey, though.

DEHRADUN - Song and Dance

2006-05-20T09:03:00.000-07:00

The end to a relativly quiet week as far as India is concerned. Secluded in Chez Kumar away from the bustle of Dehardun and, this being a city a fraction of the size of Delhi, I've found myself enjoying the sounds of thunder and falling rain rather than those of people and traffic. It makes a welcome break between projects because, as I'm sure you've all gathered by now, doing any sort of business in this country is best accompnied by firstly banging your head repeatedly against a brick wall (the headache tends to subside quicker, that way)

This week, then, has been about exploring some of the finer points of the city. Which, in Ranman's case, means going to an awful lot of tiny food stalls and buying everything in sight. Well, everything Indian in sight. Whenever I ask for a bunch of bananas or a loaf of brown bread my request is first greeted with laughter before we start heading for the grocery store. Must be an Indian thing.

Buying fruit is like an extreme sport in India. Even when you've worked out exactly what it is you're buying, you're never quite sure exactly what you're paying until you leave and see if you've ended up with any change. Frequently, you haven't.

Living with Ranman has taught me the proper procedure for rapport with Indians. And that is, to be willing to talk about any random subject which comes into their heads, be able to eat mountainous levels of food at all hours of the day and to be firm whenever a negative responce is required. I get the impression it takes a lot to insult Indians as they can spout some of the most outrageous comments in the world and simply laugh afterwards. They also have a very romantic view of the white Western world. Which is, of course, we are all filthy rich and just visiting India to 'slum it' for a few weeks. How have a I possibly survived so far in my life without a camera on my mobile phone or an iPod? I don't know, but if Ranman is any judge I'm probably about to drop dead through poverty.

But, then, on matters of personal taste things operate very diffently here. Ranman took me to see my first 'proper' Bollywood movie (I'd sat through the many horrors of the English lanaguage Mistress of Spices a couple of weeks back and safetly repressed most of the horror), and India's current favourite, 36 Chinatown. The usual ludicrous mix of facile whodunnit, terrific overacting from everyone involved (full marks to the detective who managed to deploy a 'smouldering squint' in every single one of his scenes) and fantasy song and dance interludes inserted at regular intervals in the 150 minute running time. For no reason whatsoever. In the car afterwards, Ranman wanted me to explain why no Bollywood film is ever shown at Cannes or nominated for an Oscar. He had a hard time accepting that, what is considered the height of sophistication on one continent fits squarely into the box of 'camp curio' everywhere else on the planet. For a giant country with such well connected borders and a fascination with world affairs, in so many ways India is one of the greatest isolationalists on the planet.

Mussoorie by night. That's those ickle tiny lights off in the distance, in case you were wondering.

Meanwhile, away from the madness of the city (because it is madness, all of it. No matter which size of a city you're in) are the Himilayan foothills and the hill stations such as the renowned Mussoorie, which receive Nepalese and Tibetan refugees during the winter, and tourists fot the summer. We've only taken a short drive into the hills so far but I'm looking forward to spending some more time up there in the (relative) peace and quiet. Ranman seems to find it quite arresting being up there; I get the impression he rather likes looking down on people. I enjoy looking the other way, towards the larger hills and the mountain ranges beyond. When I explain this to him, he laughs and tells me how strange I am.

DEHRADUN - The Fast Streets of Dehradun

2006-05-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

Nothing lifts my diorrhea ravaged spirits like the sight of trees, hills and big grey clouds on the horizon. After six weeks in a dusty, hot city India was beginning to lose some of its allure (staring at the opposite wall of the bathroom for considerable lengths of time for a few days will do that for you) But even a few hours in the greener and pleasanter north has done a lot to kick start the last few weeks of round the world daring do. And also taught me that, however many discussions on farming techniques I've had with the Colonel over the past few weeks, how little I've really learnt about Indians.

Pretty grey clouds with much pretty plinky plonky rain inside of them. Look, I've not had a proper dose for a couple of months now. Give me a break, okay?

Meet Dr. Ranman Kumar, my host for my first week in Dehradun. He's a qualified eye surgeon and, like the Colonel, has long since retired. "I made my first million pretty quickly," he explained to me as we sat watching the thunder storm, "once you have one or two, you live pretty comfortably here. You can work for twenty but you're mad to do it." Relinquished of the necessity of earning a living and, having seen both his daughters fulfill their life's work by gaining qualifications and marrying out into southern India and Australia, he's free to persue his main hobby: stocks and shares. Every day his accountant rides up on his sleek black moped and the two of them spend five hours from ten in the morning hunched over Ranman's laptop watching the rise and fall of the stock market until it closes in the evening. Some people (I'm talking to you, Dad) might consider this an enviable use of retirement. I, however, I'm not entirely convinced that it doesn't send you slightly eccentric. When I told Ranman that I was a writer his eyes lit up and he told me to follow him into one of the smaller rooms in the back of the house. He turned on the lights to reveal a mountain of English paperback novels, at least fifty high and deep, as well as shelves crammed with the same. The accountant (who, it turns out, is also Ranman's book club reading buddy) tells me that they spend happy afternoons going to bargain basements and filling the doctor's car with paperbacks. Is it cheap, I wonder, to have a house which looks like the stroage depot for a mafia book pushing kingpin? No answer, except the the famed Indian side-to-side head nodding.

Needless to say, I'm not going to be short of a John Grisham this week. No Charlotte Bronte, though. "Too challenging," sighs Ranman, "I gave her a week then went back to Tom Clancy."

Dr. Ranman, force of nature, negotiates melon prices at a hundred haggles a second. Just slightly slower than his driving, actually.

Ranman personfies a lot of the Indian contradictions that I've been trying to rationalise: on the one hand (and like the Colonel) he is incredibly dismissive of the Indian fixation with the aquisition of wealth. He believes firmly that society (and his neighbourhood) have declined as a result of the prosperity of India's wealthiest class. On the other hand, though, he spends most of his waking retirement firmly in pursuit of the aquisition of more wealth, with no real reason why he's doing it. Perhaps retirement in India is just a boring concept: a population which is so obsessed with working simply cannot find anything to do with itself once it stops, and so the cycle simply continues. Certainly his attitude to driving is no different from any of the twenty something flyboys who tore around Delhi; his regular shouts of "See these young people? Cowards!" as he cuts them up on the road are something to behold. Ranman tells me he's had at least one heart attack since retiring. "That's why I have the treadmill," he explains, pointing towards the gleaming new, never used machine in the corner of the book depository.

And, yet, beyond all that there is something which separates men like Ranman from other rich retirees: and that's a fundamental sense of social awareness. The week before I moved in he semi adopted an orphaned teenager from one of the mearby hill stations (I say semi because there's few formal procedures, it would seem, for this sort of thing). He is devoting the next few years (in between the close and opening of the stock markets, obviously) to teaching her English, Maths and Science and paying for her schooling. No mean thing in Dehradun which houses some of India's richest and most exclusive schools. He stands to gain little from this generosity on a financial level; the best thing for his adopted daughter will be to gain the skills and experience she needs to move to one of the bigger cities and find trained employment. Similarly, he is paid nothing for hosting me for this week (aside from borrowing the Carol Voderman Book of Sudukos. I hope that woman appreciates all the advertising I'm doing for her these days) and yet is willing to bend over backwards to provide a real taste of Dehradun. We spent an hour driving around looking for an authentic roti tossing stand (like making pizza bases) because the one Ranman usually visits had given their boy the night off and he was keen for me to see the impressive spectacle of one of the trained fourteen year olds spinning out dough to a hankerchief thin consistancy by handiwork alone. Eventually, after two tip offs and picking up a small boy who assured us his dad's shop down one of the back alleys could provide us with the definite article, we found the elusive roti spinner. Darn nice they were, too.

Roti tossing in the back streets. As wonderful a spectator sport as you can imagine.

Later, watching the end of the storm and mopping up the last of the afformentionned rotis, Ranman told me about his life living in three different areas of India and travelling much of the rest of the country. "I've been here about sixty years," he told me, "and I still couldn't tell you much about Indians. I don't think there's anyone who really can." And you know what? He's absolutley right.

DELHI - A Light That Never Goes Out

2006-05-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

The Colonel left for Punjab again yesterday, just days after getting back after his last epic journey. "My man there tells me that he wants to leave," he explained with exasperation, "I do not understand it. He said he was lonley so I bought him a cow and a bullock, and yet still he wants to leave..." With aspirations of hotel ownership for this particular propety and the thought of leaving it unattended in bandit country for any amount of time not a pleasant one, the Colonel decided to head back north and try to resolve the problem. Will he be back in time to bid us adieu next week before we too head for the hills? Head nods side to side...

A Study in Torchlights. Or: How to amuse one's self during a blackout.

Delhi's increasingly fragile power supply has reached breaking point this week. The city's aging power plants have been randomly causing outages ever since we arrived but now, with temperatures settled on the ridiculously high mid forties, the Government has been forced to take drastic action to stop persistent six hour outages and much freezer defrosting/roasting in non air conditioned homes. Their brilliant solutions? Force all shops to close at 7.30pm, encourage air conditioning to be switched on only after 9.30pm and stop industrial production during the night. So after sweltering in their offices all day, the workers will not be able to buy anything because the shops will be closed at the only time of day cool enough to shop during, they'll have to boil for two hours before the AC kicks in and there won't be anything for them to buy, anyway, because industrial output is going to fall. Oh, and I haven't even mentionned the water shortage yet. (Which we've miraculously avoided as the Colonel proudly claims to have the deepest well in the whole of Delhi.) Delhi has a campaign on at the moment to become a world city by the time it hosts the Commonwealth Games in 2010. Which means complete overhauls of the city's transport, green areas, sports facilities and entire infastructure in less than four years. It's chances based on current inability to even light and water itself? Comical.

Nice thing about Akshay Pratishthan: everyone really helps each other out. Even if they're actually to small to realistically push wheelchairs around.

One week left at Akshay and, although I'm rapidly running out of amusing hacky-sack related diversions, it'll be sad to leave my special needs kids. Life upstairs in the resource room, where I spend the second half of my day, has become more frantic of late thanks to the efforts of Usha, the resident fifty something force of nature who dictates work which needs carrying out like nobody I've ever met before. And I include Germans in that assessment. Usha is one of those old birds who has not a clue how or why computers do what they do but knows *exactly* what they can achieve, and so therefore can ask for all sorts of bizarre slideshows and font shadings with a smile on her face and leave you to bang your head against a wall for ten minutes thinking how you can possibly give her the results she wants within the hour. I now have an understanding why life is tough for Hollywood producers. And also plumbers: as soon as the clock strikes one, we're out of that office and down to the canteen faster than you can say 'biryiani.'

Next week we head five hours north and, more importantly, five degrees cooler for the final month of the Phworld tour in the foothills of the Himylayas. I can already begin to hear Britain calling me: it's saying "Don't worry, I'll never get anywhere near forty degrees. And don't forget that the World Cup's starting as soon as you can get back."

DELHI - The Mysterious Journey of Col. Bindra

2006-04-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago on another stinking hot Delhi afternoon, the Colonel came up the stairs to visit and tell us he was off to his hill station in the Punjab. "I have a new house," he told us with a smile on his face, "you should all come and visit it." (The Colonel is always inviting us to come to the other end of the country with him, which would be fabulous if we didn't have work every day and, therefore, only weekends for these epic journeys) He told us that he'd be gone three to four days, leaving our food and water needs in the hands of his daughter who'd been left to run the household. A week later, still no Colonel. Asha (the daughter) was beginning to look harassed but we didn't press the issue (her responce to questions on her father's whereabouts was the characteristic head nod from side to side which Indians give to mean yes, no, maybe and "don't be so stupid, you stupid tourists.") Lightning storms racked the skys, rumours abounded from our co-ordinators of burst pipes and fallen trees causing hill station havoc. And then, a few days ago, the Colonel reappeared. He came up to see us and we asked how the trip was. He nodded his head from side to side. We didn't ask again.

Lightning over Delhi. After the dissapointment in Brazil, finally I managed to capture nature's most elusive eletrical effect photograph. Hurrah!

In other goings on, the excessive Delhi temperatures have become even more excessive. Now simply leaving the house for five minutes is enough to cause premature sweating and exhaustion. Coincidentally, I now run the morning games lesson for one of the Special Needs classes at Akshay Pratishthan. A curious activity to be involved with in a class where most of the children have some sort of physical disability, half a dozen are in wheelchairs and not capable of moving themselves and English is not understood. Oh, and on asking to be shown the school's sport equiptment I was presented with a single flat volleyball. Thank goodness I have a hacky sack and Sarah has been carrying a long skipping equipped piece of rope for the entire year. Both of which, incidentally, are all that is required to elicit peals of excitement from my lovely kids.

Demonstrating the art of skipping. Not that any of the kids actually did skipping, per se. Luckily the rope is amusement enough.

In the cause of finding ways to use the sun to our advantage and satisfy the growing need for non curried snacks (since everything, *everything* tastes of curry) we spent a happy afternoon melting Mars bars in the sun and over the toaster and mixing them with cornflakes to make some gorgeous Mars bar/cornflake cakes.

Mars bars and cornflakes. Happiness is just a short sit in the fridge away.

A word on jogging, which Mollie and I have been doing in the mean streets of Delhi (she's worried about having put on too much weight this year, I'm worried about having lost too much) A fun activity which involves the dodging of children, old people, bikes and, eventually, cars. It'd probably be a good idea not to do it in the middle of the night, but it's just too darn hot to try at any other time.

A cow on the middle of a street in an upper middle class area of Delhi. A normal occurance. They're sacred, you see, so they can roam where-ever they please.

AGRA - For Love Nor Money

2006-04-19T23:10:00.000-07:00

So, the Taj Mahal. Mausoleum and signifier to Princess Di's mental state. It is a big, white, marble building and it is as astonishingly pretty as all the pictures you have seen. The Taj photographs particularly well but, due to symmetrical design, either comes across looking like a cardboard cutout or looks impossibly angled. I'm sure the mentally anguished Prince who built it for his dead loe would appreciate the frustration of photographers several hundred years later. Inside the Taj itself is the most evocative spot in the complex: a tiny darkened crypt where every word and whisper is magnified into something like a wail. It must have been a cathartic way to mourn. Darn hot, though.

Behold the vast, white prettyness of the Taj Mahal's frontal view...

... And the bizarre fakery of its angled one. I secretly blame Shiboan and Sarah for throwing off the universe with their grins.

Elsewhere on the fast streets of Agra, thousands of tourists try to negotiate crumbling streets to find the other four or five mounuments in the town worthy of visiting. Despite the abundance of tourists from all corners of the world, it seemed that the six of us were the ones who everyone in town wanted to stare at. Perhaps our mostly female quotient makes us look like some sort of celebrated Hollywood harem, or maybe there's a large billboard of James McAvoy somewhere which I haven't seen yet. All I know is that I'm getting the stares but not the requests for autographs or the offers of multiple camels for my companions (I was told that you can be expcted to be offered twenty by the upwardly mobile rural types looking for cosmopoliton wives) an it's another of the reasons why India is a country the tourist tends to enjoy in very small doses. We did manage a walk around Agra Fort; a building whose purpose has become confused over the centuries between a palace, a place of worship and eventually a British stronghold. The architecture is all very impressive, but the place suffers from a glut of over enthusiastic 'tour guide touts' who try to charge unsuspecting tourists to be told historical titbits which they'll instantly forget. I object to this type of commercialisation for two reasons. Firstly, when confronted with an elaborate building with tiny passages and hidden rooms I prefer to discover and ascribe meaning to its mysteries by myself and, secondly, after tagging on the end of a couple of tour groups in the same elaboratly decorated room and hearing two entirely different histories given I have concluded these people must surely be failed creative writing students trying to make their way in the world by scamming its populous. Actually, I do quite admire the latter. Must jot it down as possible future career.

Agra Fort and the tomb of one of its former commanders, one John Colvin. I'll have to break the news gently to my dad. It's always a shock to learn that you're going to die a hundred and fifty years in the past in the middle of India.

My favourite sort of shot, people walking down immensly long corridors of interesting looking pillars. Does it ruin the effect to tell you we were heading for the bathrooms at the end? Well, they were very nice ones by Indian standards.

Life in Delhi has hit a bit of a standstill this week. A week into the placement at BVB School we began realising that our presence there wasn't really adding much to the institution or to ourselves. See, the problem with the school is that it's a normal, privately funded school full of middle class kids and fully staffed by professional teachers. Basically having foreign visitors adds prestige to Indian instituions, and it was this prestige which BVB wanted to attain, rather than desperatly needed volunteer help. And as much as observing the day to day antics in a British style education system is diverting for a few days; it isn't really something I needed to come to India to do. The school has bent over backwards to welcome us and to show us every single thing they do but my sense of social activism is not nutured by watching a teacher read through a textbook to her class for an hour, or not turning up to work one day and leaving us volunteers to teach the class, only for someone to wander in half way through and tell the kids they needn't bother doing the work we set them as we're not their proper teachers.

So myself and the Sarahs spent a couple of days in limbo waiting to see if there was an instituion in the city which needs some volunteer help. Which apparently wasn't as straightforward as it sounds, despite poverty levels in the city currently riding around the twenty five percent mark and all of us having experience volunteering in stituations where we speak barely a few words of the language (something which apparently just "isn't done" to foreign visitors in India.) Thankfully a four second investigation on our part led us to discover what eluded many others: which was the second project which Shiboan, Molly and Lauren have been immensly happy with for two weeks is desperate for more volunteers.

We are now based with them at Akshay Pratishthan, a school for the disabled in South Delhi which aims to equip kids with physical and mentally disabilities with the skills which will help them find paying work in the fast, scary world of commercial India. So there's a mind boggiling array of subject areas from the academic to woodwork, yoga, cookery, dress making and even the manufacture of their own prosphetic limbs. All mighty impressive. For our first day, we were treated the the annual school prize giving which inclued the usual mix of terminally uninteresting guest speakers, small scared children clutching large trophies and a bizarre choice of entertainment. The undisputed highlight of the day, if not the entire month, was a dance by half a dozen boys dressed in black tie, wearing mascara and using vegetables as their instruments.

Best. Dance. Ever.

A word on the food as everyone seems to be asking. It's India. It's curry. All the time. This is causing much trauma to some but for me whose diet was practically all Indian curry *before* leaving the UK it's a veritable heaven of spice three times a day with only occassional stomach cramps (there's only so many lentils you can eat, you know). And yet, thanks to the current bird flu scare depriving India of certain poultry products, I'm still craving a Chicken Byriani from the takeaway at the top of Whiteladies Road.

DELHI - You Cannot Tame a Camel in the House

2006-04-14T01:15:00.000-07:00

We've been here and already we're exhausted. Life in India, it seems, is best lived at a slow and non tourist like pace. A typical day starts at 5.45am: which is actually something of a blessing because by 9am the heat really begins to hit town (this week has been mostly above forty degrees. That's pretty much brain frying temperature) And then comes the daily arguments with auto-rickshaw drivers. India's shaky transport system is supported by a network of independant drivers of even shakier three wheeled vehicles who'll take you anywhere in town. That's as soon as you get them to agree to a reasonable price since, having white skin in this country means you are regarded as a bottomless money pit. Amusing the first time but tiresome on a twice daily process, the convoluted method of dealing with these people is first to settle on a destination (not always straightforward. Why should you know where to go better than someone you've never met, right?), then to agree on a price (i.e. you say what the ride actually costs having done it every day for a week, they say it should be twice as high, you beat them down again and then threaten to walk away and then, lo and behold, ride granted. Anyone who remembers dealing with Stan in the seminal Secret of Monkey Island will feel right at home)

Playing cards with the Colonel in Chez Bindra. Rummy went down well, Big Scum, Little Scum took a little more explanation.

It's no wonder that the schools start at seven and are done by one. Just getting anywhere and spending half an hour in constantly honking traffic is exhausting enough in itself. The school I am working at, along with the Sarahs, is your usual common or garden Indian school. Which is, pretty much, a British school but with yoga classes. We are based in the Special Education department, which has some very curious work practices ("Don't worry about him," one teacher assures me as I help an austic boy with his homework, "We all know he lives in his own little world." I think my mother would have a thing or two to say about that) but a lot of very bright kids who speak faultless English and call me Mr. Phil. And, really, who wouldn't feel proud being addressed like that?

Slghtly disconcerting moments this week have included receiving some very bizarre philosophy from the teaching staff, (see the heading of this post) having to take an entire class's lesson on my first day because the teacher needed to leave for half an hour to talk on her mobile phone (and then tell her friend in the next class all about it) and then taking my kids over to a mainstream class for an art lesson where forty kids were sitting, unsupervised for an entire hour. Cue bedlam and lots of anxious waiting for hometime.

See the many varieties of tourist at the local museum with their bizarre array of headsets and guidebooks.

Elsewhere in Delhi, the National Museum is well worth a visit especially for the esoteric experience of sitting in an empty cinema for over half an hour before watching an out of focus video on archelogical discoveries in Palestine. We tried to work out the link to Bollywood cinema, really we did. Oh, and then there were the relics of the Buddha. Enough said about those, the better.

Those relics of the Buddha in full! Eww.

Me on the big screen. At long last, I'm sure you all agree.

Perhaps the best experience so far was getting out of the city on one of our school's trips to see the local charity village. Run by the Austrian based SOS, the purpose built village provides homes for around two hundred orphans. Perhaps more interestingly, though, it provides a place of employment and eventual retirement for India's middle aged and unmarried women, a subclass who like their English counterparts some centuries ago seem to not really exist in India's social hierarchy. Interesting stuff, especially since it was Sports Day which allowed for all sorts of communal reminising about skipping races past.

Sports Day at the SOS village. It's very sweet how the kids put on all their best party clothes to go running down a field.

So, India. A fabulous, crazy country. But much improved by constant sleep and not acting like a tourist. And where am I going to tomorrow, I hear you ask? Why, the Taj Mahal of course!

DELHI - Beep If You're Driving

2006-04-07T02:55:00.000-07:00

Never again shall I complain on the loudness of roads anywhere in the world. They are quiet, restful places of personal contemplation. The M4 on a Friday morning, or the LA freeway on a Tuesday afternoon are places of ordely conduct and the upmost respect for the rules. Delhi's roads are a free for all. Ruled by the maniacs, respected by only the biggest Mercs and used by everyone. Red lights? Lanes? Merely squiggles on the road and pretty coloured posts. It's a chaos which everyone understands and which very few ever come to harm on. This is India: madness of living a life whilst the sun beats down.

The five merry ladies of Delhi and my companions for the last leg of this trip. Lauren, Mollie, Sarah, Sibohan and Sarah (remember her?)

Living arrangements are one guaranteed source of amusement. Unlike Brazil where our volunteer squad was scattered around our home city in separate families, all six of us are sharing one roof in the scarily named but very pleasant Defence Colony. Our host is Colonel Bindra (Indians like their titles. And ours really is a bona fide Colonel with twenty five years service behind him) who after seven years of retirement has decided he wants to enter the tour industry by opening his house to groups of foreign tourists. We are his trial run and therefore are treated to all the comforts of home, both Indian and foreign. Lisa Kudrow's purple eyed visage stares out from imported napkins, showers run whenever they are wanted abliet always cold or tepid and the toilet roll, a rarity in this counry, is endless and pink.

Government House and one of the many relics of British colonisation built on a massive scale. Perhaps to try and upsurp the city's indigenous places of worship which are also massive.

Work at our school placements begins on Monday. Myself and the Sarahs are working in the special education section of one of the local schools which, in the proud tradition of many former British colonies, keeps to familliar British syllabuses and impeccable school uniforms. With an exciting sideline in social action and responcibility. Indian poverty is, like Brazil, a part of life but, unlike Brazil, is integrated into the middle classes way of thinking. Sometimes in literal ways: most houses employ servants (which poses the usual quandry: servitude versus unemployment) and sometimes simply in the designated areas where beggars can congregate and collect arms.

The seedy underbelly of a Delhi subway. Which means, uh, a couple of dogs trying to get out of the sun. Or maybe even cows if the steps are easy enough to climb down.

You might think of Delhi as a seedy place but, really, it just isn't. It's dirty, dusty and the chaotic road system means a pavement is no guarantee of pedestrian access. But you're more likely to get ripped off by a westernised travel agent than a market stall holder. Or so we've been told. Certainly what passes for a tour is an interesting experience. Seven hours on a coach with Hindi/English commentary is a fascinating way to spend a day (Hindi has picked up not only modern English words to add to its vocabulary but also whole turns of phrase. In a mobile phone shop you can expect to understand everything which is said until pricing becomes the issue, at which point the words "rip off" and "debit card" are all that can be gleaned. I'll stick to postcards.)

The Lotus Temple which marks the centrepoint for world Ba'hia. Now I don't claim to be an expert but it seems to be all about collective love, peace and sitting in silence for a few minutes in the Indian equivalent of Sydney Opera House until the next group comes shuffling in. All very bizarre but, as you can see, rather popular. The Hindu temples and rituals are much more impressive. More on those at a later date.

One name which crops up a lot is that of the Ghandis. Many of them lived and died, and usually violently, in this city. They are the closest thing to royalty or perhaps more aptly, the Kennedy family. Life as a Ghandi, whether Mahatma, Indira or Rajiv consists of growing up with an international education, discovering a social conscience and then waiting for assassination (and giving speeches pertaining to that fact, starting "If I am not here tomorrow...") And yet they are perhaps the closest thing Delhi has to organsation in the chaos. Sonja Ghandi is seen by many as the potentiol link to India's continued development and relations with the west. Whilst we were touring Indira Ghandi's house, and the spot where she was assisinated, the road ahead was closed for Sonja's motorcade to pass. For a few minutes not only did every car stop running, but so did the horns and the shouts. And then the barriers came up, and somewhere someone started screaming about how good their bottled water was.

HONG KONG - Big Buddha Mountain

2006-03-31T22:59:00.000-08:00

I couldn't leave the city without posting up some pictures from my day on Lantau Island - the second largest of the islands which makes up Hong Kong. It's perhaps an hour away from the city but has such a different atmosphere - take a walk through the peaks and you'd think you were hundreds of miles from civilisation.

That's the second biggest Buddha I've ever seen. And the bronzest.

The main tourist draw on Lantau is a bronze statue of the Buddha which is touted as: the biggest outdoor, seated, bronze Buddha in the world. Which means somewhere there's probably a bigger seated Buddha. Or a bronzer one. Or there's an aircraft hanger somewhere with some very devoted Buddhists in charge of the interior design. Whatever. It's still mighty impressve. It sits on a plateau high above the island next to the Po Min Monestary, which is the more beautiful of the landmarks. I was told later that the Monestary is, in fact, as much of a product of tourism as devotion: the monks of the original monestary (a few older buildings at the back of the complex) opened a vegetarian resteraunt to cater for Buddha visitors, which has paid for most of the larger buildings such as The Hall of Champions:

Hall of the Champions. Your vegetarian meal dollars as work.

I'm not quite sure how such enterprising sits with the teachings of Mr. Buddha but, hey, everyone should have a Hall of Champions to call their own.

Following the Wisdom Path you find all sorts of interesting things. These incredibly elaborate carvings are, I'm told, a visual representation of a core Buddhist chant. And their arranged around the symbol of infinity. That's something which looks like an 8 on its side for those of you who don't read as many occult mysteries as I do.

But its away from the peak and the coachloads of tourists that the real beauty of the place lies. Rather than take the bus back down to Tsung Chung and the metro, I wandered down a hiking path across Lantau Peak and down the back of the hills. Beautiful forests, stunning views and barely a person in sight. Those that you do see, ambling along in their pale blue robes, are the real monks who still live and meditate in these hills. Their tiny dwellings and, occassional monestaries set into the woods, are the only buildings you'll see on your way down.

Another of the Lantau monestaries. All of which boast exceptional gardens. It is a rather long walk to the shops... The figures on the left are, I assume, some form of scarecrows and not a bizarre Buddhist punishment ritual.

Eventually civilisation reminds you that it's there: as you cross out of the woods and onto the descent you can see the new Inernational Airport sprawled out over the headland, and the town of sixty floor tower blocks which has quickly grown to support its workers. The whole thing has been built by reclaiming land from the sea and then systematically flattening some of the hills nearest the coast, a process which will gradually make Lantau into another cityscape. Just across the water is a new convention and exhibiton complex, and somewhere around the other side of the island is where Hong Kong Disneyland is not yet drawing a crowd.

Soon even the footpath up the mountain may be rendered obsolete as a (ugh) cable car is about to open, taking folks from the town all the way up to the Buddha and his entrepreneurial monks. I'm not sure what that'll mean for his quieter soil tenders on the lower slopes of the mountain but my advice? Go pay them a visit before they start selling carrots by the roadside.

HONG KONG - Disneyland II: The Quirky Asian Sequel

2006-03-30T01:08:00.000-08:00

Hong Kong - technological marvel and city of few USB ports. Two posts today, scroll down for a look at all things Hong Kong-y. Yes, they're both long ones but they have a lot of pretty pictures. And, as I always say, why give a mere splattering of words when you can successfully drown people in a sea of them... And I went to Hong Kong Disneyland which means I'm going to be talking Disney. You really think you can shut me up about Disney?

Would you ever guess you were on a Disney train?

Let's have a quick Disney history lesson here. Once upon a time, there was Disneyland. And the world was good. Then there was Walt Disney World. Which was like Disneyland, only a lot bigger because Disney didn't like having outside operators building too close to their propeties. Then came the eighties and the Japaneese electronics boom, and with it: Tokyo Disney (note the subtle name changes here: these will actually become important. No, really) And it was a roaring success with a rich Japaneese population who loved theme park rides. After that, new CEO and resident nutcase Michael Eisner decided Disney should expand its international empire. Along came EuroDisney to an apathetic French population who resented high prices and couldn't care less about theme park rides if they weren't allowed to drink a glass of wine between them. Some cost cutting, a new roller coaster, a flashy rebranding and plenty of wine later, Disneyland Paris finally started pulling in a profit. Disney decided to strike for a third time, and looked for a country with a massive population to be its next consumer base. India was discussed, as was mainland China, but in the end Hong Kong won out. And thus was born Hong Kong Disneyland. And, lo, it was very pretty.

Main Street USA. Hong Kong style. Note the subtle differences. Which are... err... Well, a lack of people for one thing.

The most interesting things to talk about in terms of Hong Kong Disneyland are what are not to be found within its walls on a pleasant March day. Those are: attractions, inflated prices and people.

The Mouse has obviously learnt its lessons from the Paris fiasco. Rather than plow money into a large American style park which can't possibly make a profit without inflated prices, Disney have invested in a much smaller propety, a couple of hotels and (most importantly) the room to expand once the coffers are filled. That means that Hong Kong Disneyland is not the place to go for your theme park thrills. There are only two (perhaps one) bona fide "E-ticket" attractions in the place, and both of them are imports from other sites. There's the perennial favourite Space Mountain and the choice for the new millennium, Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. There are, of course, other rides, shows and the like. Dumbo, the Mad Hatter's Teacups and the carousel all rear their vomit-enducing heads. And there are some interesting shows we should talk about. But, in reality, you'll be getting through everything in the park within about three to four hours.

"Mommy, when I grow up I wanna dress as a starfish!"

Then there's the food. Which is both appetising and not even slightly overpriced. Actually, it's probably better value than a lot of eateries in the city. And you won't be finding any imported burgers and fried chicken here. (Well, okay, there are a few) Noodles, BBQ meats and dim sum are the order of the day.

So how does the Mouse expect to attract the billions from mainland China? Herein lies the genius of the place.

Adventure Land. Which, for the first time anywhere, has real mountains for a backdrop. There may not be anything to actually *do*, but looking around is just as impressive

You see, Hong Kong Disneyland is the most immacuately manicured, visually enticing theme park Disney has ever built. The site of the park itself is surrounded by grassy mountain slopes, and then every green space inside is impeccably planted and shrubbed. Not only that, it's got the biggest collection of characters wandering around of all the parks. Indeed, it has an attraction which is simply a big meeting spot where Mickey, Donald and the rest are guaranteed to be found. Along with an armada of Disney photographers, capturing moments with top of the range digital cameras providing instant print outs in the nearby Kodak shops. It's an astounding bit of design based on a stereotype but it seems to be paying off.

South east Asians, it turns out, really are avid photographers. And it seems that their 'dream come true' is a family oriented, spotlessly clean photo oppotunity. In other words: Hong Kong Disneyland is designed to be a glorious bit of window dressing with a few attractions thrown in for good measure. The western concept of a theme park (big attractions surrounded by window dressing) doesn't apply here. And it's interesting wandering around sampling the park from that perspective, as everyone else always seems to be elsewhere.

Parade time at Hong Kong Disneyland. Or, looking at it another way, the place is being attacked by a giant mouse!!

Ah yes, the people. Now early Disney visitor figures for the park have been pretty good. Indeed, there was an incident earlier this year when, on a traditional Chinese public holiday, floods of visiors from the mainland were deined entry to the park. Leading to some infamous 'passing children over the walls' madness. However, aside from these national holidays, the Chinese workforce tends not to get much in the way of leave from work. So I'd imagine the typical attendance is much like it was on the day when I visited. Which is to say: not a whole lotta people. By the end of the day the Space Mountain turnstile counter was reading around 6000. Which is a ridiculously small amount. Especially when some of us rode more than once. There have even been stories of confused visitors wandering in, looking around Main Street USA, photographing a few minor characters who bear a passing resemblance to Hello Kitty and then leaving, assuming they'd already 'experienced' the entire place. Theme park culture is a different beast here.

Cinderella's Castle. Like the one in LA, the Hong Kong varient is very, very tiny. Probably to keep it in scale with the tiny, tiny park which surrounds it.

The other thing to bear in mind about a Hong Kong (and, indeed, any Chinese) Disneyland is that Disney's Asian market is not actually that big outside of Japan. The characters are, of course, recognisable but the films themselves aren't so big. With that in mind, there's a lot of effort put in here to introduce some of the concepts of Disney which the rest of us are already familliar with. I'll explain as we go along.

So, to recap. Small park. Not many rides. But also, not many people. What's a typical visit to Hong Kong Disneyland like, then? Well, it's all very strange... Let's go ride... sorry, attraction... by attraction.

1) Space Mountain

The interior of Space Mountain. Or, as some of us now call it: Rollercoaster Mecca.

Opening minute at Disney is usually akin to the start of a major sporting event. Whilst the less well informed migth get distratced by the first pretty thing they see, the vast majority of the crowd are a group of truly dedicated animals surging at speed towards one or two particular spots in the park. This is why Space Mountain and Splash Mountain will seemingly have lines all day everyday anywhere in the world.

Except in Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong Disneyland the rules of junkie theme park addicts do not apply. Families stroll in and are immediatly accosted by groups of smiley Disney characters. In the other parks these suited guys stay well out of harms way until the rampage is over. In Hong Kong, though, they're ready and waiting at all the scenic spots from opening minute. And within minutes *they're* the ones with large lines forming. Whilst further down Main Street USA and into the park itself, emptiness abounds. You don't have to run to Space Mountain in Hong Kong. You don't even have to walk briskly. About thirty minutes after opening time, this was the scene at Disney's flagship attraction:

This is the queing area for Space Mountain. Empty. It shall remain like this all day.

So what's a boy to do when there's no waiting for his favourite ride? Why, go on it again, of course! Repeatedly in fact. Ten times, to be precise. It's a funny little paradox that, although only having one serious ride should make Hong Kong Disneyland ineligable to be called a thrillseekers paradise, the fact that said ride is shunned by almost all the locals means it's actually a nirvana for fanatics becausde you never have to wait for the thing. Hong Kong Disneyland makes rollercoaster junkies of the most unlikely of us. But it comes with a health warning: increased exposure to Space Mountain will damage your sanity, as these in-car photos will testify:

Look upon the sad varients of the Space Mountain junkie. The thrill seeker...

... the Penitent...

... the Surfer...

... the "I thought this was It's a Small World"...

... the "Get a bunch of Candaians together and all get on the same coaster to pull stupid expressions." Special thanks to the Canadians...

... and finally: the "time to go home."

Oh, and the other weird thing about Space Mountain Hong Kong style? No screaming. No shouting. Silence all the way through almost every time. Weird.

2) Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters

Just across the way from Space Mountain are the many wonders of Buzz Lightyear. Which means happy hours can be spent simply walking between the two. Since Buzz features the same bizarre lack of attention from all other visitors. This one is a little harder to fathom since, even if they aren't rollercoaster fans, the Hong Kong crowd sure are big computer gamers. There was more than one trigger happy granny getting into the spirit of the thing, I can assure you.

Buzz prepares recruits for their latest mission... Not that there are any. I was keeping a distance at this point, I wasn't sure if he'd forgotten certain indiscretions from last time I was on Disney propety.

Like Space Mountain, though, repeat exposure to Buzz comes with a health warning. You see: Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters is a designer drug for the 21st century. Here is an attraction which obsessive compulsives will take their hearts, their heads and their itchy trigger fingers. When you only get one shot at Buzz during your theme park stint, it doesn't really matter what score you get. You're there for the ride, the experience and the funky music. Twelve times through, however, and it's all about business. It's about learning exactly when to rotate your car to take you towards the biggest point bonuses. It's about learning exactly how many points you get for each type of target, and how many you get if you shoot the same one twenty times in quick succession. And it's about learning *exactly* where to shoot the super bonus 100000 target in the penultimate room, and cursing yourself when you miss it, itching for the ride to finish so you can go right back and make amends. It's dangerous. I would not recommend it.

And, of course, by the end of the day I had managed to amass a mighty score. Boo shucks to Hong Kong Disneyland for their faliure to equip Buzz with the same crazy 'action' cameras which made it such a kick in LA. (And, given the pre-eminance of photography elsewhere in the park it's a big oversight) Not that a thing like that would stop me from bragging, of course.

If your Buzz Lightyear score is bigger than this then you need to get help. And tell me, because then I have to go back to beat you.

My exemplary performance, however, meant that I was able to make amends with Buzz. The queue to meet him, incidentally, was twice as long as for his ride.

You may think that the universal shunning of Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear means the Aisans dislike all rides. But you'd be wrong. There is one bona fide smash hit in Hong Kong Disneyland, which boasts a mighty *fifteen* minute wait at peak times. But what is this kracken, I hear you ask It's...

3) The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Hong Kong Disneyland's most popular attraction. No, really.

This is obviously where the park's emphasis on the very young becomes most noticable. Not that Mr. Pooh and friends are the exclusive domain of the very young, of course. But the genuine excitement that this ride eliceted which eluded Space Mountain was pretty special.

I have a feeling this one is in a couple of the other parks but can't remember having ridden it before. It's a track ride around some of the Disneyfied versions of A.A. Milne's stories (complete with authorial credit given. I wonder if that has something to do with the legal action the Milne estate took out against Disney a few years ago?) and comes compelte with simulated blustering during the blustery day, bouncing for Tigger's intro and even psychadelic dream sequences for the Honey Thief. Even more startling is that it's this ride, and not Buzz Lightyear which has an in ride camera. To capture those moments of, uh, relaxing ride terror. Like I said. It's all about those family photos...

Smiling for Winnie the Pooh. You gotta inject your own excitement into it, sometimes.

4) Mickey's Philimagic

Mickey's new show hosted in a Fantasyland style Opera House. It's all very sweet.

The one other bit of high technology on offer is one of those '4D' film things which Disney has become increasingly obsessed with since doing a Muppet one for it's Florida MGM Studios park. (By 4D I, of course, mean a 3D film with extra effects like water splashes and moving floors. And, in this one, even smells.) This is one of the best: a 3D musical tour through a bunch of different films, mostly the post Little Mermaid crowd. It serves as an interesting introduction to the films for the uninitiated, which is probably why it's here.

Marks deducted, however, for the simultaneous Cantonese translation which has the part of Minnie Mouse being played by a man. I can't vouch for the content but it must have been *really* confusing for the non English speakers.

5) The Golden Mickies and Legend of the Lion King

These two attractions are Disney's way of introducing its increasingly important Broadway musicals to Hong Kong. Both are cut down stage shows (about half an hour each) and feature some interesting concessions to local culture as well as, of course, the usual round of songs. Unlike in any other of the parks, there's no 'no photos/no videos' rules in either. They'd never be able to enforce it.

The Golden Mickies in their stylish theatre. It makes you feel important just being there.

The Golden Mickies is some sort of Oscars pastiche. I can't really be sure as the narration is done entirely in Cantonese (and, thankfully, they employed a female Minnie translator this time around) but the singing is in English. The general gist seems to be that it's a lot of musical numbers performed very close together allowing for an ever more elaborate set of costume changes. And everyone ends up in bikinis for a Lilo and Stitch / Little Mermaid medley. Less Oscars and more Miss World, really.

Scary giant elephants. That'll be the Lion King then.

The most interesting cultural fusion in the park is in the Legends of the Lion King which takes influences from the original film, the artistically more interesting Broadway show and with some Asian dressings and choreography for good measure (there are several moments where the performers start running madly around the stage for no reason, which is highly amusing to say the least. I later found out in the Hong Kong Museum that this is the traditional Chinese opera method for symbolising journeys. Should have guessed.)

It's entertaining in a bizarre sort of way. Where else would you have two men in African dress simulating lions, fighting with Chinese fighting sticks to the music of Elton John?

6) Jungle Cruise

It's a shame the elephant isn't a little more mobile. When you travel past him it looks like the poor fella may be drowning.

A mainstay everywhere in the world but particularly notable in Hong Kong for the sheer unadulterated enthusiasm of the narration. There are three different lines for the ride depending on which language you prefer to be screamed at in by your resident tour guide, who knows his or her script so well that all the translation howlers are performed with gusto. "We're in the headhunter village!", our guide screamed at the top of her voice, "Look out for unsuitable behavior!" Well, I didn't see any. Just a few nice natives wanting to be left alone from the tourists.

That final Disney mainstay: the fireworks. Only in Hong Kong you can always get to the viewing spot you want for them, because there's nobody else there to take it first.

A few fireworks later and it's all over. All in all, Hong Kong Disneyland is definetly a smaller sibiling to most of the other parks but it has a lot of charm going for it and will obviously grow in the next few years (the next round of attractions are, not surprisingly, geared around the kiddie friendly with the ever annoying It's a Small World going to put in an appearence. If you ask me, this is one park screaming out for a revival version of Mr Toad's Wild Ride Eventually I'm sure there will be more thrill rides once the park takes off with the international crowd.) And, perhaps most importantly, has made a much easier fit into the indigenous culture than its Paris cousin did. Remember I talked about the name? Disney has clearly sought to give Hong Kong a feeling of ownership with this resort: prefixing the Disneyland with the city name is just one way of showing it. Sure, it's all a bit more cutesy, high tech and Westernised than the rest of the China. But that's exactly what Hong Kong's relationship with the mainland is as well.

Me and the Mice.

Phew. In the words of Madonna: "I need to lay down."

HONG KONG - Crossing Victoria on the Golden Star

2006-03-28T19:11:00.000-08:00

Hong Kong is the sort of city I like. Vast beyond all reason, sprawling over green hills and a harbour without overwhelming them but still being a place which makes you want to walk around it at all hours of the day and night. It's got a lot to do with the people. Hong Kong is a very touristy city: hotel prices are some of the highest in the world (although hostels are completey reasonable and actually a lot more upmarket than in most Western countries. For around eight pounds a night I'm basically sharing a flat with three other people, with living room, kitchen and scrupulous cleaning done every day. It also has the fabulous "security camera TV channel" where you can watch live feeds from the lobby and the lifts to your heart's content, seeing if any misenthropes are headed your way so you can put the chain on the door. It is also, sadly, compulsive viewing) but, assuming you stay away from the grotty parts of Kowloon where people desperatly try to sell you things, it's an unintrusive kind of business.

In Causeway Bay where I'm based Hong Kong's denizens, instead of hawking you things, always seem to be doing something interesting. Whether it's wandering to work with paper in one hand, iPod in the other and taling breahtlessly on a hands free mobile. Or in the local parks in their droves early in the morning doing their excercise routines. It's the best city in the world for pure people watching. And they're usually happy to take a few minutes out of their time to explain to you what they're doing (except the mad shouty phone people. But, then, when are they ever?)

Early morning excercises in Victora Park. There are at least ten sites around the park with the same thing going on, as well as countless indivduals from 8-80 going through their own routines.

There is, of course, plenty of stuff to see. My favourite spot is down by the harbour where Hong Kong hosts its answers to Hollywood boulevard: Avenue of the Stars. Despite sounding suspisously like a Troy Mclure film, it's really a long walkway filled with stars, handprints and signatures from some of the big names in local cinema. There's even a big bronze statue of Bruce Lee there for good measure.

John Woo's star. Sadly, no doves fly around it in slow motion.

Meanwhile, at the harbourside, trouble was brewing. Thankfully bronze Bruce Lee was there to stop it.

As I wandered around I was repeatedly accosted by groups of blue and yellow clad schoolchildren breathlessly asking me to help them with their surveys of Hong Kong. I later found one of the teachers who explained to me that they were all from the Mission Covenant Church Holm Glad Primary School, and that the survey was part of their English langauge teaching. And jolly good speakers most of these five year olds were (a few of them probably come from English speaking families, though, since Hong Kong is completley bi-lingual) Apparently, the teachers had been kept busy by trying to help communication with some of the German and French tourists whose English was shakier than the students. They all looked pretty exhausted. The kids were pretty happy, though.

Probably the tenth group of Holm Glad students I met this afternoon. Little sweethearts, every one of them.

The Hong Kong History Museum is also well worth your attention. With information ranging from prehistoric Hong Kong harbour (similar, without the skyskrapers) to British colonisation, Japaneese occupation and eventual return to Chinese rule. (For the unitiated, Hong Kong was the last piece of the British Empire to be returned in 1997 and has never had quotas on the import or export of currency. Hence why the city is a vast business centre and is bi-lingual.) It's all very happy and chirpy, very nice about British rule and scathing of the Japaneese occupation during World War II. It also has a comprehensive rundown of the impressive, but utterly confusing, traditions of Chinese Opera. Chinese society is one of those interesting ones where everything (from early morning tai-chi to those costumes) has a deeper, spiritual reason for it. Speaking of which, there's a big bronze Buddha to go and see somewhere nearby...

Chinese Opera costumes. Not shown: the vast amount of taboos which have to be circumnavigated before actually putting them on.

And finally mention must be made of the Star Ferries. A Hong Kong institution which have been running for some hundred years. For a miniscule fare (10p or so) you can take a rocky eight minute ride across Hong Kong's Victoria harbour. And you'll probably wonder if it's not just the instituon which has been there for a hundred years. The boats creak, they rock and there are tires on the sides instead of lifebelts. Well, I guess they might float...

The Star Ferry. It's what they mean when they call something 'classic.'

An awesome city, then. One of my favourites. Like New York, except they don't close the parks at night and actually pay to have them lit and policed so they can be frequented. Wandering around Victoria Park on my way to my hostel on my first night in a thick, warm mist felt like wandering around a peaceful bayou rather than going through one of the world's biggest cities. Not that I've ever been to a bayou, peaceful or otherwise...

Every night Hong Kong boasts one of the biggest light and laser shows in the world. It impresses us tourists. And also lets all the local skyskrapers play a game of "my lights are more impressive than yours" against each other.

SYDNEY - A Life in Plasticine

2006-03-13T21:20:00.000-08:00

A riverting week's work at Sydney Fashion Exposed. Where the beautiful and the anorexic came to sell their latest wares and befuddle an unwitting industry with their confusing floor layout. As a result, small time retailers who sweat every day of their lives were sometimes just metres away from the corporate giants who rely on sweat shop labour for their existance.

Darling Harbour. Home of fashion victims and big buildings designed to look like ships. Uh huh.

Needless to say, reporting on this festival of egotism would have made for dull reading and, indeed, many a dull ten hour shift. Probably because these fashion folk were rather more difficult to please than any of the other fashion folk I have dealt with recently. Must be the presence of a catwalk which makes them all antsy. Thankfully, due to the foresight of our supervisors leaving white tak all over the computers, amusement was to be found in other ways:

I call this little sculpture: 'Fashion Victim.' It's very existensial.

Something for the folks in icy cold Britain. An ickle snowman. Notice how I made him off-white to reflect the often grey appearence of our national snow men. Fun fact: Britain has some of the dirtiest snow in the world.

This one goes out to Mrs. Russell in memory of great Fimo brides of the past. Sadly my camera thought it would be more interesting to focus on the wires in the background, instead. Philistine.

Gandalf the Grey.

Thanks to Info Salons Australia for allowing such diversions. And special thanks to my supervisor, Naomi, for helping to set up the camera angles because she was even more bored than I was. My last show is next week. Can't remember what it's called. C-Base, C-Section or something similar. Sounds like fun. Could get messy, though.

In other news, on the eve of the Commenwealth Games down the road in Melbourne, one great Australian record came to a crushing end when our hosue lost the local pub quiz for the first time in two months. The humble pub quiz is a very British type of institution. Lots of folks huddled together across bar tables taking the proceedings *very* seriously. I've only ever seen then in Britain, or íf overseas I've found that the most committed partcipants are always the Brits or ex-pats.

Sadly, having lost half our team in this week's series of moves (the perils of living in short term accommodation) our unparalleled knowledge of film quotes, opening lines to great novels and Greek mythology was sadly not enough to help us overcome a crushing ineptitude on Australian TV advertising. Not all things last forever. Which is a good note to end the Australian travel diary with, as I'll be in Hong Kong in less than a fortnight. No line-o-map this time because I didn't go anywhere. So, instead, test your brain cells with the picture round from last week's quiz night. Of course, you also have to work out what the questions were, as well. Answers on a postcard...

Ariel Sharon and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Together at last.

SYDNEY - Cooking Skippy

2006-03-03T16:03:00.000-08:00

I don't usually do a news review type thing with this blog. However, there are a few bits of recent news which gave me warm fuzzy feelings. Firstly the news that the afformentionned Kylie exhibititon in Sydney has been a roaring success proving that there are plenty of other Kylie obsessed tourists in town longing for their squiz at those overalls and hotpants. Secondly, the news that 'historians' Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing 'writer' Dan Brown claiming that his 'book' Da Vinci Code ripped off their 'history book' The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail published some twenty years ago. An hilarious turn of events seeing as how, for several years, Baigent and Leigh vehmently defended their incredibly long and silly bit of fiction as historical fact (it had, like, eight pages of photos in it and everything) but surely any success in this current injunction would rely on their book being classified as fiction. Since it's hardly libel to write an historical fiction book based on actual history, is it? Hell, every mystery writer in Britain would be locked up if that were the case (we can't resist flinging in lots of funny historical sidebars). Sadly, the third 'author' of The Holy Blood... Henry Lincoln isn't involved in this class action. A pity since Lincoln is my favourite of these three: not only having stood by his work and subsequent books on the subject, but even having gone so far as to actually invent and destroy historical evidence to try and support it. A real class act. Actually, I'm being unfair to Brown since his book is a fun read. If I could write something which captured peoples' interests only half as much as his, I'd be a happy bunny. Needless to say, I'm betting he'll come out of this one unscathed.

Sydney Harbour Bridge looking all bridgey and lovely. Sorry for the unimaginative photos recently, I haven't been feeling very inspired recently. Roll on Hong Kong...

Anyway, back to me. Last weekend I could be found back at Darling Harbour doing all sorts of interesting duties surrounding the bi-annual Gift Fair. An exhibition of truly mammoth proportions spanning thousands of square metres of floorspace where the great and the good from the world of gift retailing came to see what's big in, uh, gifts and place their orders for the winter season. Which meant a whole lot of keyrings floating around the place, let me tell you. It also meant a whole lot of folks trying to get themselves in to the place. Goodness knows why they were bothering: surely wandering around aisles and aisles of wholesale homeware is enough to drive you insane, not giddy with excitement? But, excited they were and many an ammusing moment was had looking at business cards from 'Joe's Plumbing' and the like and listening to the wonderfully lame excuses they were giving to try and connect themselves to the gift industry. Long, long days (six hours standing and scanning, another five sitting and typing) but the five day stint paid well over a month's rent and food costs. These crazy corporations.

Speaking of food: let's talk kangaroo curry. My latest culinary obsession thanks to the fact that kangaroo is both (A) Delicious and (B) Cheap. And before you all get over excited by the fact that I'm slaughtering Skippy, just remember that the kangaroo is regarded as something of a pest in this country. Bronwyn and Chris regaled me with many stories of the detrimental effect these hopping maniacs had on their parents' farm whilst we were trekking the New Zealand wildernerness. Coupled with the lengths they would go to exterminate the things afterwards. And a good thing too, since kangaroo is without a doubt the most gorgeous 'ethnic' food I've had so far on my travels. I heartily recommend it.

The other fun activity I'm developing (and which I'm going to patent to hope it takes off with the kids) is the fine art of wasting time without wasting money. My job hours are fairly irregular so I tend to work eleven hour days for a week on a trot and then do nothing for the same period. Current favourite activities for passing the time include the perennial book shop skulking (I think I've gotten through most of the film section in Dymocks. Heartily recommended is the nine hundred odd pages of Disney War, a book I wished had been written a couple of years back when I was writing academically on the Mouse), art gallery mouching (you too can pretend to be pretentious by spending inordinate amounts of time in front of the canvas of your choice) and the puzzle page in the free daily newspaper, mX. I'm not a big fan of Suduko yet (after the initial logic spurt they're all very samey) but Scrabblegrams are probably what's keeping me sane. Or maybe the opposite.

I really need to start travelling again...

SYDNEY - Ask Me About Shoes

2006-02-17T21:34:00.000-08:00

As I'm sure you are all aware, I am one of the world's greatest experts on all things shoe related. Therefore it was no surprise whatsoever to find myself employed on the front desk of the Australian Shoe Fair this week; my first job in Australia. Actually, the job had very little to do with shoes. Somewhere in the cavernous convention centre behind me I was aware of the presence of this large conference, but my employers were the company dealing with the registration of exhibitors and delegates. That didn't stop people, however, from assuming that because myself and colleagues were the first people they saw on their way into the centre, we were obviously in charge of the whole thing and, indeed, the universe. Here's just a selection of the many shoe related questions I was asked over a three day period:

Behind the desk at the Australian Shoe Fair. Life does not get more exciting!

- How do I find taxis / car parking / ATMs etc?

To be fair, not unreasonable demands. But bonus extra no points for the best request in this particular category How do I find a better cup of coffee than the crap they're serving in there?

- Where do I buy Rob Thomas tickets?

Perhaps not unreasonable given that the Sydney Entertainment Centre is only five minutes away from the Sydney Convention Centre and looks identical. Except for the large 'Sydney Convention Centre' and 'Shoe Fair' signs right in front of everyone's faces, of coruse.

- Do you know anything about [INSERT ANY TYPE OF SHOE/FASHION RELATED QUESTION HERE]?

Do I look like I would? Really? I bought my work shoes from a market stall and the rest of my work clothes from a clearence sale, that's all you need to know about me and fashion.

- Do you know how to get to the Melbourne Exhibition Centre?

What made you think I did? My English accent or the fact I'm working in Sydney?

- Do you speak Portuguese?

Yes, actually, I do. Which was convinient as the person who asked this had brought along a Brazilian associate who didn't speak any English. Understanding that they needed to find a bathroom and directing them there felt like a justification for all my hard learnt Portuguese. That and spending three months in Brazil, obviously.

Check out the black shirts. It's that unique blend of trendyness and facist overtones which makes the fashion industry what it is, I feel.

All in all, it was a fun weekend and it's always a pleasure to deal with my two favourite types of people. The nice, friendly ones who want to give you some helpful insights about living in Australia. And the rude so-and-sos who you can feel free to give all sorts of helpful insights about walking away from your desk. Mostly the great Australian public were the best bunch, seeing as how this was a trade show and they were told they couldn't come in, nobody gave any trouble. The real problem bunch were the (ahem) fashion types who decided they didn't need to bring any ID, or could ignore the little notes on the publicity about bringing children / members of their extended family / half the population of Korea with them.

My favourite: the woman who told me that the no children policy in a fashion industry trade show constituted discrimination. I might have made some point about aboriginals, but we had a long queue to deal with. My least favourite, the ten year old Italian girl who looked crestfallen as her mother went into the show without her and who walked her grandmother too and fro in front of the entry doors with a miserable look on her face for half an hour until she returned. It's experiences like that which remind me why I don't work in the fashion industry. It's a real cut-throat kind of a place.

SYDNEY - The Ashton Kutcher Effect

2006-02-06T16:38:00.000-08:00

Much job and new house style excitement to report in this entry, being presented at around 70wpm and several thousand clicks per second. But, first, some film ramblings.

As a reward for getting myself a job I've been treating myself to catching up on some of my missed viewing from the past few weeks. Being Oscar season, that has meant a number of buttock numbing sessions with a mumbling Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain and a strangely engaging yet very sweaty Eric Bana in Munich. Both of them good enough viewing and obvious Oscar fare, but the latter is quite clearly the better film. For all its controversy, homosexuality and that darn mumbling, Brokeback is a beautiful episode of soap opera and nothing more. It's not remotely challenging, but features many interesting scenes where we watch animals wander down hills. And, since director Ang Lee was denied Oscars for almost identical scenes in the far superior Sense and Sensibility a decade ago, it's probably some sort justice that he'll get the Best Picture and Director awards this time around (which he will, dear readers.) Probably.

Munich, on the other hand, is a remarkably low key, yet really-quite-glossy thriller from the increasingly morose Steven Spielberg. Not much needs to be said about its take on the Israel/Palestine question since I can't quite see what problem anyone would have with its over-riding principle: killing is not a nice thing to do and doesn't do good things for your health or sanity. It's probably the most violent film I've seen all year, but also the one for which the violence has the most justification to be there, and that's saying something from Mr. ET It's funny that folks are calling this the year of the low-budget, low-key Oscar shortlist. Since most of the films I've seen off it are, although admittedly cheap, filled with the sort of sweeping sweeping shots which Titanic and Return of the King made into a cliche. The difference is that the frames are filled with CGI sheep and seventies Europe, rather than Orcs and Leonardo DiCaprio. That includes the year's best film and the one which the Academy (of course) practically ignored: The Constant Gardener. Make it your mission in life to see it. But it comes with a health warning, since it may well turn you into an activist. So watch out.

In a quiet night in my new house (more on that in a minute) I caught the surprisngly intense Ashton Kutcher drama The Butterfly Effect. Which had the unexpected outcome of making me feel more angry about a film than I ever have before. It's an interesting mix of chaos theory and post-Donnie Darko cod metaphysics but features the most deeply disturbing and nihlistic ending of any film I've ever seen. In fact, as a writer, Christian and, indeed, human being, I found it rather offensive. It would be against the spirit of the thing to spoil it but, I've gotta say, I find it hard to believe any writer or director could truly believe in such a pessimistic view of humanity, let alone glorify it as some sort of heroic ending featuring cinema's answer to the kiss of death, Ashton Kutcher. Yuck. On all levels.

Darling Harbour. Where I shall work for the good of all corporate mankind. Hmmm... As you can see, it's an Epcot-y monorail-y type of a place.

As you can probably tell from the preceeding paragraph, this week in the Phworld hasn't been the usual spate of relentless people watching and sightseeing. Filled, as it has been, with job and house hunting. Never the most interesting of activities, especially on a limited budget in a new country. However, both have slotted nicely into place. I am living in a shared house with twenty five (count em!) other travellers. Which has a few cleanliness issues but is, basically, a good place. And it has a decent kitchen, which is fast becoming my most coverted amenity. I'm obviously not twenty three anymore. It's also conviniently just five minutes away from the exhibition centre where I'll be working some ludicrously long days doing furious typing for various trade shows (hence the typing tests I took this morning). Should be a lot of fun and, having walked up and down hills to jobs and universities for several years, the round the corner aspect of it all will be a decided novelty.

More interesting content next time, I'm sure of it. Unless I watch another relentlessly depressing thriller. Or another Ashton Kutcher film.

The old standby for lack of a pertinent shot - a pretty sunset. Just add a multitude of bat squawks and you could be right here too. Awww.

SYDNEY - Hotpants and Fireworks

2006-01-28T17:03:00.000-08:00

It's Australia Day week here in Sydney and yesterday I joined a rather large crowd of others crowded round a pair of slightly worn looking gold hotpants in a plexi-glass case. Said hotpants were the centrepiece of a museum exhibition dedicated to pop princess Kylie Minogue, who donated several hundred pieces of memrobilia for the occassion. I know what you're thinking (especially my non British/Aussie) readers: who cares, right? Well, if the proddings towards various features of the afformentionned hotpants are anything to go by, the answer is plenty of folks. Kylie is one of those interesting creatures who has resisted all attempts to curl up and dissapear, constantly reinventing her image yet somehow looking exactly the same as she did twenty years ago when she slapped on a pair of battered dungarees and made a mark for feminism by playing the ultimate tomboy mechanic, Charlene Robinson nee Mitchell in Neighbours. (Afformentionned dungarees were also in the exhibition, in all their tatty glory. Needless to say, amongst the spangles and sparkles, they were my favourite item.)

The transport room at the Powerhouse Museum. My favourite of the Sydney museums thanks to its bizzarely effective collection of both science and interior design. And, of course, Kylie. Incidentally I would, of course, have photographed the hotpants and dungarees had not a needlessly strict photography ban been in place. Obviously they're afraid of terrorists using information of Kylie in their fiendish plots, or they want to sell more brochures, or something between the two.

And I realise that, like it or not: Kylie has been one of Australia's foremost emissaries to the rest of the world for two decades. From the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics to her marvellous cameo as the Green Fairy in Moulin Rouge! she's managed to get herself almost everywhere. It's gratifying that the Australians do seem to like it. In the UK we're quick to savage our icons as soon as humanly possible. It's a fun exhibition, I was glad I got a chance to see it. (Kylie even donated one of her Smash Hits Poll Winners' lumps of perspex to be oggled over. Brits of a certain age will remember how exciting that used to be)

Another entry in the fast becoming 'nearly-as-tedious-as-from-the-air-and-weird-signage-shots' series of fireworks around the Phworld: fireworks. This time for Australia Day.

So, anyway, Australia Day. Actually, it was right to start with Kylie since, when the customary compliation of great Aussie songs started up to accompany the local Castle Hill fireworks display on the big day itself, there were at least three of Kylie's. And a whole bunch of country music. We decided to avoid the throngs around the harbour and stick to the suburbs for our choice of holiday entertainment (it seems more right, anyhow, since as I remember writing in my last post, Australia is a country of suburbs, not cities) It was all very civilised and family oriented fun. A particular highlight was seeing McDonalds' gaudy McCafe shoved back onto the fringes of the showground, with pride of place centre spots being given to Aussie brands. It's enough to make even a Pommie shed a tear or two.

SYDNEY - Can You Tell What It Is Yet?

2006-01-24T18:53:00.000-08:00

You get all sorts of unusual oppotunities coming along when you're travelling. Fourth of July fireworks in the States, Oyster festivals in Brazil, even marking off Harry Potter filming sites in a British atlas for an Aussie family you'd met on a random New Zealand hillside. However, attending the Australian premiere of Walk the Line with a work party of eight Aussies will go down as one of the best of the year.

One of the wonderful things about being British is that we have an obsessive compulsive attitude towards queing. If we see a line of people anywhere in the world we know there's got to be something worth having at the end. So we'll always go to investigate. On this occassion, the line was doubly interesting as it was in the middle of th Botanical Gardens and in the blazing sun: signs that something interesting was obviously happening. It turned out that the line was for the Sydney Openair Cinema. Nine years ago, someone had the genius idea of putting up a large cinema screen across the water from the Opera House throughout January and screening films in the beautiful summer nights. It's grown since then into something of a mini festival, hosting several previews and even premieres. Such was the case this week. The well reviewed recent Golden Globe winning biopic of Johnny Cash, Walk the Line was premiering. The queue, it transpired, wasn't for the tickets which had sold out in about five minutes, but just to get in to the place to secure god seating (and this was about two hours before the gates even opened)

On my way out, I was accosted by a couple. They'd organised a work party some months back to see the film but one of their group had rung in a few minutes earlier to suddenly cancel. In their general pissed-off state they decided they'd scout the area and offer their remaining ticket to anyone they could find (Aussies do righteous anger very well) and so I got to join them swiping free samples of Lindt Chocolate and pulling up plastic chairs, waiting for sundown.

The Openair cinema in front of Sydney Harbour. If you've been to a more impressive cinema, let me know. But I think you're probably lying.

There weren't any stars in attendance (although, funnily enough, Charlize Theron was just twenty minutes down the road attending her premiere of her latest addition to the canon of worthy celluloid, North Country) but there was still glamour of sorts. The fish and chips, for example, came with little pots of gourmet tartare sauce. Classy. And the film was pretty good, too (Joquain Pheonix and Reece Witherspoon are both incredible and deserve as many awards as they can carry, everything else is a bit turgid) so, all in all, a good night out.

Sydney Opera House and Bridge. Again. But this time, by night!

More fun and games have been had at my latest stopping point on my tour of old and new friends around the world (or: the 'see how many free nights you can get' tour) This time my hosts are Chris and the rest of the Croan family in the lovely little suburb of Castle Hill just outside of Sydney. I met Chris this summer at Aldersgate. (Two weeks on and off joke sharing being enough to secure at least a few days stay, you understand.) Australia really seems to have even the USA beat for leafy surburbs since there's a huge population trying to fit itself into a reasonably tiny space. The country is, of course, huge, but practically everyone lives in a narrow band around the coastlines. Especially in Sydney, which has sprawled for miles in all directions. Except, of course, into the water. The Croans have many wonderous things in their house, including most excitingly for a Pommie, two original Rolf Harris paintings. I was most impressed.

Rolf Harris. Adding colour to living rooms across the world for goodness knows how many decades.

So the plan at the moment is to stay in the suburbs for a few days, venturing into Sydney for the usual tourist behavior and maybe for some Australia Day fun and games. My passport is currently being babysat by the Indian Consulate (yes, another country, another Visa) so I won't be actively looking for work until next week. However, having now attended a film premiere and lost my favourite hat somewhere along the way, I've decided to forego the fruit picking and instead do temp work in Sydney. Which will mean wearing a tie for the first time in a while. Bleugh.

SYDNEY - Fame and Marriage

2006-01-21T00:20:00.000-08:00

First, a sales pitch.

Reading Angel. Not sure why I'm posting the picture because, of course, you're all hopelessly devoted to me and, therefore, you already own copies. Right?

When I got to 21 I made a very short list of life's aims. Excluding the obvious ones (occassional meals, the odd cosy bed and worldwide domination by thirty) they were fairly straightforward. Leaving Britain as soon as humanly possible was one of them, subtitled with working my way around the world and living in some countries as well as travelling. Check.

Another was getting a first novel published. Hmmm... Well, I've still got time for that one. It's half finished. And another was publishing a piece of literary or film criticism. Somewhere. Anywhere. And, if possible, making it about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now funnily enough I thought that one was going to be the real toughy. Having avoided all MA and PhD related entertainment like the plague (because you guys doing it make it sound *so* inviting) meant that I'd never have the right combination letters after my name to be worthy enough for even consideration for publication. Of course, I forgot that I am obviously some kind of unmitigated genius because, on the first time of asking, I managed to get a submission accepted for the book Reading Angel by its lovely editor, Stacey Abbott. Fearing it was all some kind of trick I dutifully wrote the first draft months ahead of schedule (I think I started researching it at two in the morning moments after getting the e-mail that my proposal had been accepted) And, after four or five drafts and the series in question getting cancelled (hasty re-writes all around. Thanks a lot, Fox) I left it in Stacey's hands and promptly moved on with doing other things whilst the book's publication date got pushed back and back. It ended up coming out weeks after I left the UK and, then, the US date got pushed back so I missed it *there* by a month or so. I'd almost forgotten about it, assuming I'd maybe find a copy a year later on eBay or wake up and find I'd imagined the whole thing.

And then I arrived in Sydney. Which has, amongst other things, some truly excellent bookshops stocking the kind of TV tie-in trash which I enjoy immensly (as well as good children's stock. Found copies of Louisa M. Alcott's Little Men and Jo's Boys which have eluded me for some time. I know, there's probably only about half a dozen of you who aren't confused by that) and there it was. The first book with my name, essay and (snigger) biography in it. It's a strange feeling being a writer and seeing your first essay in print (well, actually it's my second. But, hey, I'm not one to boast. And, yes, that was a lie) and sitting on the glittery floor of this tiny bookshop reading it was a fun experience. It's not too bad, if I don't say so myself. The last couple of paragraphs are a bit too wordy but, astoundingly, it's all my words. Nothing has been added, deleted or reworded from the final draft I submitted. Of course, it did take six drafts to get that far but I remember from my Concrete days the occassional mauling which my articles were subjected to. So if it's rubbish, it's all my fault. And I like that.

That's an awful lot of words to basically so 'no qualifications, no real experience and who the heck is this kid anyway?' Still a fine piece of writing, though. Yes, it's mine too.

And here it is, in print. Of course, to read the whole thing you'll have to buy the book. I wasn't going to sit there and photograph the whole thing, thus breaking my own copyright (yes, I don't own the copyright on this essay. That's publishing for you.

You maybe wondering why I put lots of silly photos here instead of just buying and coverting the thing like I should. Well, the truth is that, irony of ironies, having written for an academic text instead of a nice little novel my first real published work is in a book I can't actually afford to buy. At least, not at Australian import prices. Nobody ever said this writing gig would make you rich or give any material gain. It does make me very happy though. Especially today.

Back to Sydney, then. Which, I'm pleased to say, is a dirty city. I love New Zealand to bits but the activist in me always felt a little uncomfortable in its shiny and clean streets. Where was the dirt? The homeless and the night shelters? They'd been swept somewhere tourists couldn't follow. But Sydney is a different beast. A true metropolis with plenty of disolussioned folks wandering the streets. Mostly, actually, they're not the locals but the throngs of tourists looking for work. It's the high season here and short term work is hard to come by. My travelling companion extrodinaire, Sarah, told me her woes of two weeks hard door knocking to no avail. But she's celebrating now, having find an au pair job on the south side of the city looking after a two and four year old. Needless to say, I was not envious.

Sydney's bizarre mix of high rise, Victorian facades and strange fountains. A little like Santiago, perhaps, but with much more green. Just not in this photo, obviously.

The other thing to be said about Sydney, besides the fact it can be brutally hot without a cloud in the sky, is that if you head to the park on a Saturday you're fighting for breathing space between groups of weddings. I counted at least seven wandering around the edges of the harbour looking for the perfect shot of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House in the background. It's always funny watching brides trying to get up slopes in their dresses. Or crossing busy intersections. One particular example was slowly picking a bunch of grapes to death whilst the groom, bridesmaids and camera man tried to set up the perfect shot. The poor woman looked bored out of her mind.

No idea who you are, Jacquie, but thanks ever so much for inviting everyone to share your nupturals lying all over the ground so we can pick them up and throw them away for you.

On Monday the great job hunt begins. I suspect it won't be so hard as many have found it as my intention is to get out of the cities and go do some hard, but rewarding fruit picking in the outback. But, of course, I doubt my new status as a published academic will turn many heads. No problem. We famous authors can't all be about big cities and constant attention now, can we?

Well, what did you expect in a Sydney blog post? Torquay, perhaps?