Foreign Correspondent

The contagion spread. Just like 28 Days Later.

It's bechamel sauce trying to be too clever metaphor got out of hand and the next minute we knew, we were two moldy friends left out in the rain.

So there we were, me and my subconscious standing at the bus stop waiting for the mythical X30 service to 'Future Aspirations via Irrelevant Trivia'.

Like a Souffle

Today I am learning to step outside of time.

'WTF?' some of you might be thinking. But bear with me a minute.

Is it a luxury to be able to work on yourself and make yourself better? A better person? In whichever way you find that works for you?

In a physical, financial, spiritual, emotional etc way?

Surely society, your friends, neighbours, family etc all benefit from having a better, more productive you in their lives?

So how is this 'better you' meant to manifest itself, if the prevailing attitude is one of not allowing such 'daft things' to come into your life in the first place. To just knuckle down and accept the prevailing idea that 'that's reality' 'that's the way it is' etc.

Apparently to most people in 'this' culture or mindset, the answer is no, that is not allowed, it's not 'normal', it's self-indulgent to engage in such things. And then we wonder why so many people are apparently being prescribed anti-depressants (Cause and Effect in plain action).

Apparently you should just get on with it and stop thinking about such things, settle for the lowest common denominator, the turgid mass of non-stop glottal flummery.

The idea being that you should be a good little worker and soldier on through years and years of mundanity and delirium in order to reach some middling ground of half-arsed ideas.

Retire then die, being not only utterly unfulfilled as a person, but also never having allowed yourself to ask the powerful questions that matter, or rather never allowing yourself to seek answers.

I'm not painting a bleak picture here, i'm suggesting that there is more available to me and you if we want it, that the majority of content of the mainstream of society is vapid useless crap, just watch the news on any big corporation 'the voice of authority'. It turns your power down.

It saddens me to think that most people would consider any time spent on bettering themself in any way, other than the purely financial (and that is usually the straight trade of time for money) as being self-indulgent or in some way lazy, not right etc. Are their minds really that small?

It's difficult to not be effected by it, you have to charge your batteries with a different way of thinking.

Not normal? Normal is Boring. Not Reality? Reality is boring.

In the words of a whole bunch of wise people 'The past does not equal the future'.

As in my past, your past, our past, does not equal the future. Rise Up.

Once Upon a Time in Wetwang

Years ago when I still owned a house and ate take-away vegetable birianis, I had a fantasy (one of the only ones that didn't involve x-rated content), which was to get a camper van and travel to all the places in the British Isles and beyond, that had amusing, daft or interesting names.

I yearned to see Upper and Lower Slaughter in Gloucestershire, England. My loins ached to hit the streets of Dyfatty in Carmarthenshire, Wales (yes, achieved it, tick it off my list) and I had to go down on Cuntis, Galicia, Spain (yes it exists-have a look for yourself).

It later became a whim, downgraded from fantasy to something I would do someday (not even in the days of the week).

Had I failed to realise a burning desire?? Not really, goals change and some things aren't really that important.

I would like to point out that I have in fact been to Upper and Lower Slaughter, although not in a camper van, and I have yet to savour the pleasures of Cuntis, but hey soon mayhap?

My point is that some things are the eternal desires within us which drive me/you/us to achieve certain things, to break through our limitations.

These are musts. As in I (me personally) must write scripts and screenplays every day because I am compelled to, even though there have been many occassions, where it would of been far more practicable for me to have been a plumber, carpenter or double-glazing salesman.

But no, none of these remotely interest me, whereas living a creative wonderful life does. Gosh am I deluded, should I lower my expectations?

Short answer: No.

Will I ever get do my tour of the British Isles in a Camper Van visiting all those places with daft place names? Yes, in fact I've done quite a bit of it, again, not yet in a camper van, but the camper van will come when I want it enough.

In fact I might just get a camper van and forget about buying another house for the time being, after all if you don't like the view in Dyfatty, you can always move to Machynlleth or for that matter Wetwang (it's in the north of Yorkshire, England).

For the record I also like Garstang (also in that North Yorkshire/ Cumbria/ County Durham nexus), whose name refers to stabbing someone with a spear (i'm not just a pretty face you know?).

You'll Rhu the Day

I looked across the inkyblue ocean. There in front of me was Thailand, land of the Siamese, but not joined at the hip.

Paddling the canoe out from the bay shaped like the horns of a Stag Beetle, I figured that it was less than seven miles across the straight to the mountainous tropical island in front of me.

I was so glad that I had packed my beany hat and pieces of colourful fabric to keep the sun off me. It was seering hot and the humidity was awesome, like standing in a warm shower.

Stoked up on bananas and fantasies about finding an island full of nubile women all gagging for me to pleasure them senseless, I rowed on heroically I thought.

I imagined being one of our ancestors, facing the unknown thousands of years ago, crossing oceans on the back of beer matts and prehistoric pool tables.

Three Miles out and I was leaving Malaysia behind, sure was pretty, I hope they let me back in.

At a rock outcrop a very large fish passed by, a Marlin I think, it was whopping, I had to stop to and watch it glide beneath the boat.

My friend Iqbal had always told me about Marlin fishing in Mauritius and how dangerous they are, how powerful.

It was all that and more. An eye stared intently from beneath the crystal water and then with a nonchalant flick of its tail it shot away.

'Hey Matt Saleh!', 'Matt Saleh', 'Excuse me Sir' came the cry from thirty feet away.

A Malaysian Fisherman pulled his small boat up to my canoe, big smile on his face, he asked me what I was doing, curious rather than nosy. We chatted-in broken english and I got to use the smattering of Malay that I had learnt-for a few minutes and then I continued with new vigour.

If Tryfan was Cnicht and Cnicht was You.

Tryfan is a beautiful pyramidal peak in the north of Wales. It's jagged smashed outline is that of a classic iconic mountain.

In summer's light we looked up at the top. Red Kites and Buzzards circled the high crags, a perfect spongy doughnut cloud ringed the head, like a giant cockring poised for the saturday night sky.

We ate our camping store meal, rehydrated on the fuel block stove. One more cup of tea and a choccy bar and then we would set off.

We'd talked about climbing this peak for years, we'd talked, talked, talked. 'We should do that you know, we should go to north Wales and climb a few proper peaks'. We talked some more for a few months at least.

Until I got so sick of talking that I said that we had to do it. I made it a must, so I nicked a good lightweight tent and sleeping bags from the Army Stores where I worked and thought about how the hell were we going to get there from the south Wales to north Wales. Us two kids no transport, only a few tins of beans between us.

We got there. Dropped off by a bus that was out of the 1940s, which rattled our bones over miles and miles of mountain scenery, dodged clagged-up sheep and kids on wild horses, no saddle, just clinging to their manes raging wild across the mad scree of the land.

On the comfy grass the warmth of the sun lulled us into a nul-state. I daydreamed fucking that girl who worked in the bakers.

Get up, because we have seven more hours of daylight and it's three thousand feet of sheer up.

We made it a must, we set out, across the alpine-meadow, across rhyns and over boulders that have been there since dirt was young.

Clambering up over huge slabs, along ledges, sharp stones, up up up up up.

Strange Lights in the Sky (Part 1)

Opportunity sometimes comes from the most unlikely of sources.

I mean, if you are anything like me, you throw yourself one hundred and fifty percent into something, focus like a laser and smash down the walls of Jericho with a toffee hammer and spoon, until you have reached your goal in a blaze of triumphant tub-thumping and orgasmic waves of gristle.

But lo, what's this?

Whilst you were trebucheting yourself over the escarpment again and again and again, behind you, trying to get your attention is a very large billboard saying 'this way please'.

A few years ago in the late summer/ early autumn I was not a happy bunny. Everything that had been going right in terms of momentum, career etc, had suddenly started going kerwrong, because I had taken my eye off the ball etc etc (insert other trite metaphor here).

One day, it was a thursday or friday in September, I was walking up the top of Grays Inn Road in Kings Cross, London, where I was living at the time, seemingly the weight of the world on my shoulders, when a voice popped into my head.

'You should buy The Stage you know'.

The Stage for anyone wondering, is the leading 'theatrical' newspaper in the world and sometimes has a few 'Situations Vacant' jobs listed in it, in amongst the looky-likey Elvis impersonators and ads for strippers to go to Greece and Turkey.

Anyway I carried on walking down Euston Road pissed off, thinking too much, deep in self-immolation.

'You should buy the Stage you know' came the voice again.

I turned around and looked across the race track that is the Euston Road/ Pentonville Road dissolve, at the newstand where I always bought my magazines etc.

Should I bother? I mean there's never anything in it, that's why I haven't bought it for a couple of months, I mean really, what's the point?

(More in Part 2 that follows, sometime)

Who Were You Today?

Walking along the beach in the dark, the water lapping at our beautiful Welsh shore, I was struck by how nature lulls us one minute and buffets us the next.

The pebbles under my feet, were once boulders and will one day be sand and glass. The driftwood pieces wedged into cracks and strewn over the high water line were once part of great ships, of houses, trees and ballustrades.

The water itself playing here in Carmarthen Bay may well of come from many miles away, other continents, other places.

God's eye cracks no tears just wise when asked for all the answers. No great portent casts its way down the wire to ever eager souls in situ. Nope, nothing external was forthcoming.

Do the monks on Caldy (Ynys Byr) pray for their own redemption as much as ours. In their darkest moments do they stare into the great unknown and just slightly, imperceptibly, shudder.

Who were you Today?