7/30/2003

Flyfishing by J.R. Hartley :  I haven't had a drink in nine days. I've started to think again, which can be dangerous. Mostly, I have been thinking about having another drink. People think this walking stuff is good for you. I beg to differ. Apart from not keeping my liver embalmed in a protective sea of lager, my waist is also suffering. The only food I can find with enough calories per kilogram to carry and eat en route is chocolate and nasty dried food. So my daily consumption is typically a pot noodle made with cold water, some porridge made with cold water, and an enormous slab of chocolate. Hmmm.
posted by Garreth at 8:01 AM

Tchotchkes in the hills :  Imagine your tired and it's stoating down with rain, and you've been walking for five hours. You see a marker post which tells you that you're on the right track, which momentarily raises your spirits about three millimetres from rock bottom. And then you catch sight of the centimeter tall lettering on the post: ULTREIA

You realise this means that there is a hidden coin in a hidden box nearby. Some fiend has devised a set of commemorative coins for Scotland, and hidden them about the Southern Upland Death March. You somehow want to find them, thinking that finding one would give a ray of sunshine on the generally overcast quest.

But this isn't like finding a hidden package in a video game - for one thing, the very act of looking above where your feet are trudging is a huge effort - it means facing the incoming rain with your eyes. For another, there is no cheat cheet - you can't hop on t'internet and find out where they are. This means that if you want to find a specially minted coin, you have to scour the undergrowth. Every regular shaped stone gets over-turned in rage. Bracken gets beaten with sticks. Profanities are offered up into the heavens. Muddy banks are slithered down in search of lost treasure. All to no avail.

You look at the nearby peaks, thinking that they would be logical places to hide a box full of coins. You decide that you are beaten by geography and metereology once again and trudge onwards. Then you see an enormous tree stump with a box on it, and curse yourself for thinking that anyone would have been sadistic enough to make you scout around the swamp to find them. Then you realise that it was yourself. It was you that forced yourself to scour the countryside.

Then you get to the box, the cache of treasures. You take out a coin. They're made of lead. Just what you want to be lugging about.
posted by Garreth at 7:45 AM

Sleeping with Dogs :  True, walking up and down hills in agony with an enormous amount of weight crippling your back is not always the best way to spend your time. True, I just posted a kilogram of clothes home, so that I now really do look like a tramp at all times, with no clean clothes to change into (I found my current trousers where they had been discarded under a bench in a bothy). Every extra kilogram really is like a bushel of lead-coated straw ready to break this camel's back.

The thing at the back of my right foot where the heel used to be is a testament to the misery of walking. I can no longer recognise what shape it was. I applied special plasters to the suppurating wounds there. Plasters that form a 'second skin' if left for seven days to work their chemical magic. But if they fall off each day you end up with a kind of red and clear plasma discharge - some sort of soup of skin in the making. I haven't tasted it yet - I'm waiting for bits of old skin to drop off and provide croutons, but you get the picture - walking can be grim for the uninitiated.

So why do it? Where's the fun in that? The simple answer is bothies. "What the sweet jumping jehosephat on a pogo stick is a bothy?" I hear you ask. Well, it's a shelter. An old house that is often only accessible by foot, kept in a reasonable state of repair by the mountain bothies association so that the walking wounded such as myself can curl up into a ball and die inside, rather than die outside like a dog.

A bothy can be a stone building, with an open fire and a nearby stream and loch, or it could just be a shed. Either way, they are a delight to fall into in a soaking state, and much preferable to sleeping under canvas. The marvellous thing is that they are unlocked and open to anyone. You can meet all sorts of people in there, and then have a blether over a roasting fire as your every possession starts to dry out. Then you sleep on a raised platform next to them in blissful dryness.

Staying in a bothy can be very much like renting a beautiful cottage in the countryside and partying like crazy in there, only cheaper. Some people park their cars a few miles away on the nearest road, and hike in with 30 kilos of booze, drugs, steak and coal. If they fancy fish for breakfast, they catch a trout in the nearest loch, fire up the stove, and cook it before rigor mortis has time to set in.

One guy I met in the White Laggon bothy had come for his free four day vacation. He had carried in a large camp bed for himself, and a sleeping bag and thermarest bed that was far superior to mine for Max. His dog. He also brought a carton of lager, and an ounce of what he described as,
"Fine hash, none of yer council black."

I asked him why local kids didn't come here instead of camping in their back gardens and drink strong cider and burn each other.
"Often they do," he said. The guest book was testament to the passing of teams of neds. It contained references to chopping people up, vomitting all over the walls, and a strange sense of psilocybin-induced time-dilation.

Bothies are great. They're free, and you get to meet some interesting people. And sometimes the occasional walker, but they generally pass out at about 8pm, so you can ignore them. When all of this hiking nonsense is over, I'll get me a car full of booze, drive it to a special bothy known only to a few sacred bothy brothers, and ferry it all in. Then I'll hole up there with a fishing rod and some potatoes like a hillbilly. Possibly with a rocking chair.
posted by Garreth at 7:16 AM

7/26/2003

So what happened to the seven day trek? :  '212 miles of the Southern Upland Way' - a nice jaunt with a few bottles of Buckfast I figured.
'Experienced and fit walkers only should attempt this' - heck, I'd been walking on a virtually daily basis for decades, how hard could it be?
'Can take between 14 and 20 days' - sod it, I could do it in a week. After all, we did a 65 mile walk for charity in 18 hours once.

Day five so far. I am 64 miles in. It's tough. Bone-shattering terrain. Laser guided horizontal rain that can penetrate any amount of waterproof armor. Wind that blinds, cows that moo too loudly and stampede left and right, and people firing shotguns all over the place. Oh, and jets flying way past the speed of sound about 100 feet from your head, just in case you were trying to concentrate on where your feet were going. Not so much a trek as a trudge. A death march. With trench foot.

I missed out a word when I was checking out the information. It said 'only experienced hill walkers should attempt this'. Ah. Hill walking. Not on roads like the charity walk. On hills. In secret camouflaged bogs that suck your feet in up to your knee. The cows have put up field defences akin to cattle grids. They have put up 'human grids' by dotting the terrain with deep holes filled with mud and pooh. It often smells like you have been dragged through the three stomachs and five colons of an angry cow when you've crossed a booby-trapped cow pooh 'human grid'.

I've had to buy new boots already. My heels have no skin left on them left to blister. My feet now sport open sores, which irrigate my new boots with a mixture of pus and blood. I'm sure Gore-tex was never designed to cope with this fluidic onslaught. My back feels like it's broken. After a night sleeping in my emergency shelter (the bivi-bag has been demoted from being a viable sleeping option to being an emergency shelter) I couldn't move my neck at all, and I can now just about look over my right shoulder after four days of recovery.

It all went wrong with the supply of Buckfast. I couldn't carry enough for seven days, and there have been no local sources en route. There's been very little at all en route to be honest. Just sheep, cows, military jets and rain for company. It means you can shout "C*cksucker" as loudly as you like each time you discover a new hill to climb, that some fiendish park ranger has designed into the route.

The Southern Upland Death March goes from coast to coast in Scotland. I am traversing it West to East. If you look at a map of Scotland, you'll see that there's a much shorter distance between the coasts that links Glasgow and Edinburgh. Why didn't they build the path there? There's even a motorway to make it easier to clear a path. None of this forest, mud and moor malarky.

And the hills. All of the other walks follow the valleys. This walk takes you over every sodding hill in the area. For 'spectacular views' in the leaflets, read 'uphill slog in the rain to get to the top of a huge lump of mud where you'll be able to see more rain clouds and nothing else'.

Oh well. At least the weather forecast is promising for the next four days. 'Showers', and 'windy with showers'. Makes a change from there being daily showers with a weather forecast of 'sunny'. Expect more in about ten days if I can get over the next ludicrous sections. Tomorrow promises 25 miles of trudging up 'unimproved' land over huge mountains with no shelter. In the rain.
posted by Garreth at 9:24 AM

Life insurance :  "Hello, is that Directline?"
"Yes, how can I help you sir?"
"I'd like a quote for some Death Insurance please."
"Death Insurance? I don't follow sir."
"Insurance against me dying. Against my death. You know, death insurance."
"Ah, I think you want 'life insurance' sir."


posted by Garreth at 8:54 AM

Conversations on Ben Nevis :  A dragonfly approached us, and Monica looked uneasy.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I'm allergic to certain insect stings. They can kill me."
"Oookey dokey. Anything I should do if you get bitten?"
"I have these tablets. Put one under my tongue if I lose consciousness. I may go into a coma, so it's best to get me to a hospital."
"Nice to know."
posted by Garreth at 8:45 AM

7/21/2003

Who wants to live forever? :  Some folks with too much money in their pockets are throwing some of it into the sea. Like some billionaire's wishing well project. They're not throwing in pennies. They're throwing in an un-naturally large island. Billed as the world's most ambitious engineering project, some crazy cats are building a resort in Dubai in the shape of a palm tree. Using 80 billion cubic metres of stuff thrown into the sea near the coast. That's 'stuff' with more volume than China's annual egg consumption.

That's not enough for one guy though. He's getting another resort built, with dwellings placed to spell out a line of poetry that he wrote. Is this some vain attempt at becoming immortal? The last efforts of a powerful man to leave his mark on the world? Maybe it is some kind of modern day pyramid of Giza. Which is nicel if you're filthy rich.

For everyone who isn't, I reckon we could all make our own little bit of immortality - a present to future generations. Without having to be billionaires. All we do is get a brick sized chunk of marble each, write our name on it, and send it to the 21st Century Pyramid Project (TFCPP) with 200 GBP. Then the TFCPP build an enormous pyramid out of the stones, and our names will be immortalised. For a few thousand years at least. On the cheap. If anyone is interested in providing some stones, send me a mail, and I'll set up the TFCPP.
posted by Garreth at 7:45 AM

Pipe nightmare :  I was lucky enough to get a room in the centre of the historic scottish town of Fort William for a few nights last week. I was tired after running up and down slopes, and needed some rest and recuperation. 'Historic Fort William', as any mediocre guide book will tell you, is a popular destination for tourists wanting to explore some of the world's finest hiking country.

And what comes with tourists to Scotland? Something worse than SARS or stretchy-waistbands on over-filled jeans. Bagpipes. Those whining bags of shite. And the instruments they carry. While trying to get a spot of kip in Fort William, the town centre was invaded by a legion of noisy, pasty-faced miserable kids in their tartan, banging drums and blowing bagpipes into a horrific submission as they marched up and down the pedestrian zone. Situated directly below my window. Sleep deprivation and ear-splitting pipe music are not comfortable bedfellows.

Everywhere you turn in the scottish towns I've visited, there's some giffer puffing away on a tartan octopus, doing a medley of irritating baby-wail tunes. Stop it. It's horrid. And tourists, please stop asking them to pose for photos, and stop giving them money - you'll only encourage them. Have you never read about all of the wild bears in North American parks who lose the ability to fend for themselves while living on sugary handouts from passing tourists? The park rangers have to shoot them to stop them attacking cars with twinkies in them. The same will happen to these kilt-wearing giffers if you keep giving them money - someone will have to shoot them. And the kids.
posted by Garreth at 7:23 AM

Radio Glasgow interview transcript :  Justin - So you're planning on undertaking quite a hike then Ron?
Ron - Absolutely. The Southern Upland Way stretches over 212 miles of gruelling Scotland.
J - That's a long walk Ron, and it's supposed to be quite challenging isn't it - what kind of training have you been doing to prepare for it?
R - Mostly, I have been eating curry, and placing emphasis on second breakfasts. And I just had a crack at the West Highland Way. That's around 95 miles and is described as quite an easy hike. Though I didn't quite finish it.
J - Yes, that's right, you had a few problems on that one - why don't you tell the listener about them?
R - Yes, well I'd packed a few too many luxury items in my backpack - it was well over the prescribed 14 kilos, more like 20 kilos in fact. We had to slow our pace right down, and my companion had to catch a flight back before our projected finish.
J - Luxury items? I thought this camping and hiking was a spartan existence - what kind of luxuries did you take?
R - Coins. Have you ever noticed how heavy coins are? And shampoo. A portable stove. And a book. And my companion's hair-dryer.
J - Hair-dryer?
R - It's not as bad as it sounds. Trust me, it's much better to have a happy Italian with a small hair-dryer, that one deprived of grooming products.

J - Okay. Let's move on to the next hike then. Just to recap, you've got no real experience of walking, you've not trained, and the walk is classified as extremely demanding, and you've been binge eating.
R - Hey, second breakfasts are not binge-eating. It's just getting value out of the breakfast in 'bed and breakfast' when you're companion doesn't want a full fried breakfast. Besides, this trek is going to be different. I had a few ideas.
J - Oh, do tell.
R - Well, when you're walking up and down hills, weight is your enemy...
J - Those second breakfasts are going to slow you down then?
R - Weight on your back is your enemy. Hills are your enemy. Sun is your enemy. The rain has it out for you. Rocks try to twist your ankles. It's man versus the environment. So I'm thinking that man normally changes his environment, but that's pretty hard to do in two weeks over 200 miles right? So I think to myself, how have the scots adapted?
J - And?
R - Buckfast tonic wine. I figured I could cover ground very effectively with a bottle of that. All night if necessary. So I could take less stuff. Less clothes, less tent, less shampoo.

J - Sounds very much like becoming a tramp on a mission.
R - That's exactly what my Italian companion said.
J - So you want to become a tramp?
R - Well, I'd always wanted to sleep on the streets of London for a few weeks, but then I found out that Anita Roddick had already done that.
J - So you don't like to imitate?
R - No, I just wanted to be absolutely sure that I didn't end up fighting for cardboard with Anita Roddick. Have you seen her nails?
J - No I haven't.
R - Anyway, this walk is about denial of pleasure, save for a bottle of Buckfast. I'm sending my tent home and have bought a Bivi bag.
J - Bivi bag? Isn't that some sort of hi-tech breathable binliner that you sleep in all snug and warm?
R - Yes, that's the theory. Admittedly not very tramp. But it should save on campsite fees, as I'll be able to sleep in ditches and underneath sheep.
J - So how long do you think you'll be doing this for? I see from the website that 14 - 20 days is typical for an experienced walker.
R - Well, I'm aiming for about a week. It's very hard to carry more than a week's supply of Buckfast.
J - Well Ron, that's all we've got time for, so I'll just wish you luck. Quickly though for the folks at home, when are you off?
R - Probably Wednesday.
posted by Garreth at 7:07 AM

7/19/2003

Parsimonious brit :  If anyone knows how to sail across the Atlantic for free, please let me know.
posted by Garreth at 6:48 AM

Parsimonious scots - a stereotype in the spotlight :  Due to an obsession with not carrying any unneccesary weight over big hills, I have not bought my mobile phone charger on my extended excursion in Scotland. Instead I have been relying on the kindness of strangers, and the fact that 40% of the world's mobile phones are made by the same company as mine to ensure a healthy level of charge in my phone battery.

A friend duly brought the ubiquitous Nokia charger to the pub in Edinburgh as my battery's spark had suffered from ten days in the wilderness. I found a spare socket, and plugged in my depleted unit, while attending to the business of consuming Belhaven Best in The Oxford - described as the best old man's pub in Edinburgh.

Engrossed in conversation, I suddenly became aware of a mild commotion at the periphery of my vision. Two very scottish people were gesticulating at the wire connected between the wall of the pub and my bag. They probably suspected some kind of terrorist device, so I rose to explain the matter to them - a simple dribble of electricity into a harmless communications device.

I was met with no less than a stream of vitriol at this explanation. I quickly surmised that the couple were in some way related to the ownership of this giffer's pub, and were outraged at the imposition I had made.
"That's stealing that is!"
"That's not right!"
"Aye, we have to pay for that electricity."
"How could you do that? That's our electricity bill, that is."
"That's stealing that is, no less."

In my best and politest southern British accent, I profusely apologised and prostrated myself at the mercy of these cheeseparing economists. I had a few facts to hand, since I had had a previous argument with someone about the cost of leaving a light bulb burning all night. True, the calculation was a gross simplification - a very limited estimation confined to the charge levied by an electricity company for a small amount of joules, ignoring the wider societal impact of negligence to such matters and the ensuing vicious spiral leading to global environmental meltdown. I chose not to point out the negligible cost of such an economic crime to them, but continued to grovel for clemency.

None was forthcoming, and I realised that real psychological damage had been done to these people by my unwitting larceny. No amount of humble apology was going to stop the reddened proprietor from looking down his broken-veined nose at my lowlife crime. Soon after, we left the pub to the old men that were glued to the floor, enraged by my purloining. This morning, I realised that I hadn't turned on the switch - my phone had received none of the landlord's expensive electrons. Maybe I'll go and point it out to him.
posted by Garreth at 6:10 AM

7/17/2003

Hit in Scotland :  Ben Nevis is a big hill in Scotland. Scotland isn't exactly a country, but is part of the United Kingdom. The Romans couldn't really be arsed with Scotland when they showed up in Britain - they figured it wasn't worth the bother, and hung out further south in places like England. I am English. When I am in Scotland, which is not a real country, I tell people I am British. Before yesterday, no-one had hit me for being English in Scotland.

Ben Nevis is not just a big hill in Scotland, but the biggest hill in the whole of Britain. I started to walk up it yesterday. Ben Nevis is in quite a pretty setting. If you try to look up Ben Nevis on t'internet, you'll find more about distilleries than hills, but don't let that put you off. The hill is not that high - less than 1500 metres. The only other hill I climbed lately was Mount Kinabalu. That was on a really poxy piece of rock island, and even that was about 4000 metres.

One Scot ran past me on my ascent of the highest mountain in Britain. I had read the leaflet telling me what to take. In the baking hot sun I carried a compass, torch, waterproofs, thermal underwear, food, water, first-aid kit, my companion's midge hats, and pretty much everything else except for the emergency flares. The Scot ran past. He was wearing shorts and trainers, and carried a sponge tucked into the belt of his shorts. He ran past twice, as he did two ascents in the time it took me to haul my heavy climbing boots up and down the footpath. This was no climb. It was a stroll, or a run to the determined.

The Scandinavians were ambling along. They sometimes wore sandals. For them it was merely a hillock on the way to some scenery. French children ran vertically down the hill, avoiding the tedium of the shallow angled zig-zagging path. I trudged on. Eventually the smalltalk with passing amblers petered out. I didn't say any smart arsed comment to the helpful Scots who said things like,
"Black's a bad colour to be wearing in the blazing hot sun on a mountain."

So I still haven't been hit in Scotland.


posted by Garreth at 6:00 AM

7/09/2003

Hitch-hiking Notthingham to Glasgow :  Fastest lift of the day: 150 miles from a Glaswegian speed freak who arrived so fast that he took me out of his way into the centre of Glasgow to kill time before meeting his friends.

Shortest lift of the day: once around a roundabout while my driver and I figured out that we wanted different directions on the M6.

Food intake: Nasty nasty nasty - Ginsters pies from petrol station shops, and cardboard burger and chips at an unexotic location known as 'Truckhaven'.

Longest waits: two hours on two occasions.

posted by Garreth at 5:12 AM

Synchronicity behind an internet cafe in Glasgow - a needle is worth a thousand words :  I didn't notice the hypodermic at first - my mind was preoccupied with the mystery of the sweater and the opened can of Budweiser that sat on the pavement beside it. The arms of the rusty brown sweater were splayed on the paving stones as if the owner was fending off an attack when she simply disappeared. The crime scene was not complete. The sweater was playing the part of the chalk outline where the victim expired. Of her upper body at any rate. But something was missing. What grisly end had become of her legs?

Searching for signs of her legs and head, I caught a glint of the hypodermic needle. Everything clicked in my mind, and my theory for this crime scene investigation was complete: a semi-naked woman was supping on a tin of Bud, searching for enlightenment. She was trying to balance the four forces of her personality - 'poor me', 'inquisititor', 'intimidator', and 'aloof'. She plunged a small amount of low grade brown into her forearm, and set the empty syringe down. Enlightenment occurred. She disappeared.

My theory rests heavily on information received about the Celestine Prophecy from a white van driver named Darren who was kind enough to drive me around two hundred miles yesterday on my far-from-spiritual journey as I tried to discover Glasgow yesterday. He was smoking some exceptionally strong marijuana, and appeared to be quite enlightened at times. He was a kind of cockney brummie - a cockbrie or brumney if you will, and told me of twelve paths to follow to achieve a higher state of consciousness, as outlined in the Celestine Prophecy. A race of people called the Celestine all suddenly disappeared without trace, just as they achieved enlightenment. You could trust Darren's opinion - he had been a pill-head clubber in London, joined the French Foreign Legion to sort his head out, and now delivered orthopedic equipment with mellow gusto and the odd schizophrenic slip into his former self in times of passion or road rage,

"If someone steals from me, and the police catch 'em, I want to know who it is. The police give out their justice, but then I go to the bloke's house. I know he stole something of mine. And now he knows that I know. I don't do anything, but I just let him know mate. Yeah."

"F*cking codgers. Driving at 40 miles a bleedin' hour. That's f*cking dangerous driving that is."


Darren's own driving was alarming at first. He was frantic. He did many things at the same time, such as showing me a junction on a road atlas, smoking a spliff and veering back between the white lines that bordered the lane of the motorway that he had been creeping away from. Hitch-hiking and being driven around the world by warm-hearted characters like Darren restores a bit of faith in the human race. The kindness of strangers can do that for you.
posted by Garreth at 4:54 AM

7/08/2003

Driving :  If anyone is driving in the driving rain, and sees a bedraggled figure in a layby heading north on the M1 motorway, please stop and give me a lift.
posted by Garreth at 1:34 AM

7/04/2003

Metox shock syndrome :  "Man used to gain experience by travelling the world, by crossing uncharted territories. In the 1800s it would take three years to cross Europe, and would require the use of a steam locomotive, a pack of huskies and three sixty gallon drums of vaseline."

"In modern times, advances in technology have made the world smaller..."

Eh? Dr. Dooms mysterious shrinking ray?

"... and the challenges in travel are no longer external, but internal. Man's new tests are during travel in 'inner space' as we go on a voyage of self discovery."

Quite frankly, that's all poppycock. However. When momentarily stranded in Loughborough, it is time to push back the boundaries of human experience in different dimensions. So back to more detox diets, not least of all because you get to bathe once more in the weedkiller and dicarbon monosulphide that's trapped inside your greedy little body, waiting to get out and wreak havoc on your mental wellfare.

In my extensive twenty minutes of research, concentrating especially on regimes that would only last three days, I came across this one which looks like an absolutely incredible experience:

Have you ever wanted to fire seventy green balls into the loo? Sized between 1mm and 1cm in diameter? The mind boggles, but this article tells you how to do it - the liver flush. In just two days! Personally, as soon as I get my hands on twenty litres of organic apple juice, my long-suffering liver and I are going for it.
posted by Garreth at 5:47 AM

Loughborough :  Home of the fabled Loughborough Well Endowed School. A university town renowned for its student athletes studying worm counting and spelling. Home to more than the occasional goth. A market town scandalized by the gossip of one of its leading educational establishments.

I had never been asked for the time in an internet cafe before I came to Loughborough. It has happened twice in two days, by people sitting in front of screens with the time displayed on them.

posted by Garreth at 5:27 AM

7/03/2003

Croydon - so much to answer for :  Living on the sofas and spare beds of empty holiday homes and people's flats in Europe as I now do, I get a fantastic opportunity to see and experience new locations and cultures.

One such opportunity arose this week to stay on a friend's sofa in Croydon. If you don't know much about Croydon's stigmas, a good place to start would be to look up references to Croydon in the fantastic urban dictionary. (A perenial favourite is the Croydon facelift) Croydon's besmirched reputation should be cast aside though; it really is a seething mass of eclectic options, as I found out on Tuesday.

The first thing that the visitor to Croydon should know is that it abounds with places to eat and drink. Safety is a key concern, so although the council has granted an abundance of late licenses to clubs serving discount hooch, it has also recently designated certain public areas as no drink zones. Perhaps no drunk zones would be more appropriate, but eck, at least they're trying.

A walk along the main drag of Croydon reveals many many bars, including the Black Sheep Bar (or Black Sheep Baaaa as I like to think of it). Tuesday night's theme is 'Anything Goes'. I went with my friend, in our 'anything' costumes, and promptly set about the business of getting some of the one GBP pints of lager down our necks. I haven't seen 'Pound-a-pint' offers since I was a student, so this was quite refreshing. Very refreshing in fact.

In the pub / club, I spoke to a man with a funny fag. He kept mumbling, "Croydon is a w*nker." The DJ incongruously followed the Aphex Twin with Justin Trousersnake. Extremely young-looking girls danced about. There was a bit of breakdancing. The tallest woman I have ever seen got (physically) picked up by a short sweaty man. It was a thoroughly entertaining night out.

Neither my friend nor I can remember the journey home, after he fell off a chair in the local gristle-burger joint, and I had to give him a piggy-back away from the scene of the crime. I awoke on the floor of his flat, huddled on top of a duvet in my shorts. He awoke curiously naked on the sofa. Sopping wet clothes were strewn about the floor.

Maybe the drinks were drugged. Maybe they weren't. Perhaps there was a drug that wipes away your memory, but makes you think that you had a great time when you think back to it. All I know is that when I'm next in Croydon, the Black Sheep Bar will be a definite port of call, to get some more of whatever they put in their ludicrously inexpensive drinks. Even if I didn't see any Croydon facelifts in there.
posted by Garreth at 8:41 AM

Accommodation wanted in New York December 2003 :  Quotes like:
"Nothing puts a smile on someone's face the way a pack of marauding Santa's does"
"No force on earth can stop one hundred Santas!"
"Blow their minds and their bodies will follow -- Santa Melmoth"

make me want to go to the 2003 Santacon in New York. To that end, if anyone wants an inebriate Santa staying on their floor sometime in December, do let me know.
posted by Garreth at 7:35 AM

Conversations in a field :  "I was wandering around in my blanket on the way back to the tent last night. Most other people were in t-shirts."
"Yeah, there's something wrong with your body temperature regulation. You were wearing a blanket while you were sitting in the sun yesterday. Sun that scorched my skin, and made all the tents into unbearable saunas."
"Good buy these blankets."
"Yeah, true."
"Except for their propensity to pick up bits of grass."
"And to cover all of your clothes in fluff."
"And your beards."
"What, you got fluff on both your beards?"
"No. Well not that kind of fluff."
"Ah."
"I still prefer to wear about six layers of clothes, in case it gets cold and wet at night."
"Don't you find that a little restrictive?"
"A bit. Stops me dancing around too much though."
"Can't be a bad thing."
"There's plenty of other people to do the dancing about for me."
posted by Garreth at 7:15 AM

7/01/2003

Glasto Moments :  Fortunately I missed Michael Stipe whining on the pyramid stage on Friday night of Glastonbury festival, and talking about 'Glasto moments'. Through the general fog, gibbering and trembling that cloud my memories of my time at the festival, these 'moments' stand out:

• Seeing a young scouser out of his tree. He tried to talk to me, but couldn't actually form words. He managed to make a few gurgling sounds with a hint of punctuation and a bit of inflection, and then looked at me quizically for an answer, evidently unaware of his ability to talk.
• Being able to pick out odd voices in the crowds saying things like "Arthur Fowler!", "Look, Arthur Fowler!", "Aw-rite Arfur?!"
• Hearing a comedy drug vendor in the Stone Circle peddling his wares by hollering, "Cr*p acid, sh*t weed, w*anky happy dancing tablets!"
• Hearing a desperate plea in the Stone Circle of, "Has anyone got any Ketamine?" There were only responses saying, "Why not just take a trip and some smack?" so the desperate man returned later with a megaphone to spread his request over a greater distancee
• Saying, "It wasn't until I thought the phrase 'dry mouth' that I really started to feel that my mouth was dry," and watching my friend discover that his mouth was dry as if by magic at the exact same instance I said the words
• Seeing a totally naked woman pass us as we stumbled through the crowds. Waiting a discrete ten seconds before saying anything to my friends, and learning that they had all not noticed a totally naked woman walk five feet away from them. Repeating the experience with people dressed as superheroes. They were really there, I swear. Other people were taking photos of them
• Remembering that our group was carrying a laminated picture of Arthur Fowler on a 10 foot pole, and feeling relieved that there was a reason people were shouting out his name
• Burning things. In small fires all over the place. All the time. Scavenging for wood, and ferreting for cardboard boxes in bins, and everafter seeing bins full of rotting detritus in a whole new light
• Being very confused
• Stumbling about in the dark trying to find somewhere to sit in the cinema field, with a very loose sense of sight, and a heightened sense of touch. Then standing on a bunch of people who didn't seem to complain much as I poked an exploratory foot onto a leg, and then walking over the person it was attached to
• Watching people fire fireworks out of their asses in Jackass the Movie
• Watching Radiohead, and not being able to recall anything at all about it
• Being told that I didn't work any more, and then retorting that "I'm not broken though"
• Getting my hour and a half of sleep between Friday morning and Sunday night
• Being shown the way out of a tree that a friend and I had inadvertantly become entangled in while trying to leave the Glade
• Being told that the menu items 'Vodka' and 'Sangria' were probably supposed to be separate items, after buying a friend a 'Vodka Sangria'