Today, the television that mounts the ceiling at work playing Sky News all day long stirred me more than usual and made me want to write something. Across the bottom of the screen, the permanent Sky headline, 'BREAKING NEWS', ever present, reporting stories which they showed yesterday, and the day before that, and last week, and last month. 'Michael Jackson's murder trial - BREAKING NEWS!' 'Dale Farm Eviction - BREAKING NEWS!' 'Siege of Sirte - BREAKING NEWS!' Anything that the controllers at Sky decide to repeat all day every day: 'BREAKING NEWS!' For once, maybe they actually had some.
Reports started coming through that Colonel Gaddafi had been captured and injured outside his home town of Sirte, by the men that the elusive entity known as 'NATO' has been arming, training and supporting, dubbed in the usual acronym fashion, the NTC, or 'National Transitional Council', but the men on the television don't look like any kind of council representatives to me. Sky showed extended live footage of soldiers gathered round the camera, pushing for the front spot, occasionally firing their (presumably US/UK taxpayer funded) weapons off into the air, showing peace signs, chanting and singing. In the background was the bruised and battered city of Sirte, with not a single Libyan woman or child in sight.
"VICTORY! VICTORY!" they shout, "VICTORY!" The non-NTC people of Libya are nowhere to be seen. They are irrelevant to Sky News.
"VICTORY!" Sky gratuitously shows the NTC firing anti-aircraft weapons and rockets (presumably US/UK taxpayer funded) off towards unseen targets. The non-NTC people of Libya are nowhere to be seen.
"VICTORY!" Sky shows the victorious NTC soldiers, mostly without uniform, firing their (presumably US/UK taxpayer funded) weapons into the air while they maintain their dance for the cameras.
"VICTORY!" The non-NTC people of Libya are nowhere to be seen. The victims of this war are nowhere to be seen. The hospitals are nowhere to be seen. The corpses are nowhere to be seen. The African prisoners, tortured by NATO propaganda, are nowhere to be seen.
"VICTORY!"
The news is updated to say that Gaddafi is actually dead. The celebrations increase, but they feel animated, not quite right. Sky shows a shaky video of a bloodied face, reminiscent of Gaddafi's, being pulled about in front of the camera, for all the world to see. A dead man, a bloodied corpse, loved by many, hated by many, a man with family, being thrown about on live television, in front of the entire world. I am reminded of 'Karma Police'..."this is what you'll get, when you mess with us."
The NTC soldiers fight for their place in the camera's eye, but the people of Libya are nowhere to be seen. Their homes are behind the soldiers, smashed, bullet-ridden, looted. The houses still stand, but their occupants are gone;the familes are gone. Where? Sky does not care. Its cameras do not deviate from the soldiers, who dance in the eye of Sky like marionettes. Marionettes with guns and live ammunition. Marionettes with rockets and missiles. "VICTORY!"
I did not feel the animated victory portrayed by Sky. I felt sad.
My early impressions of Gaddafi were formed by my memories of stories of the 'Lockerbie bombing' and the occasional related news story. An old girlfriend met him once many years ago after winning a beauty competition, and I remember thinking, 'why would you want to meet that guy?' When the western media began their tirade of propaganda against him I got caught up in it initially, but then I started to see leaks in the news stories, such as the Russians denying that he had bombed his people like BBC-Sky told us. They said they had seen no evidence on satellite footage, which they had been monitoring.
I decided to a bit of research on Libya and Gaddafi, and quickly found out about the hugely successful housing and educational programs that the BBC-Sky don't tell us. I found out about his desert irrigation and farming projects. I found out that Libya HAD-had the highest living standards in Africa thanks to him - no longer perhaps. I found out that Gaddafi had supported revolutionaries in their battle against oppressive US-led regimes across Africa. I also found out that he had been trying to convince the African and Arab nations to refuse US dollars for their oil and only accept gold. Wow...dangerous position to take.
VICTORY! GADDAFI IS DEAD! VICTORY! HIS BLOODIED FACE PLASTERED ACROSS THE NEWS; BREAKING NEWS! VICTORY! BLOOD AND DEATH FOR ALL TO SEE! VICTORY!
...where are the people of Libya? Where are the families? Where are the children? Where are the Gaddafi supporters? Are they all bad? Will we see all their bloodied faces on Sky News? Will we see them being beaten and tortured by the new, heavily armed owners of their country? Will the country with the highest living standards in Africa ever see free education and healthcare again? Or will the women be raped at gunpoint by the armed mercenaries our government armed and financed in this war, while we plunder the natural resources and keep the bullet-supply coming.
VICTORY! BLOOD AND DEATH AND VICTORY!
This is 'The Eighteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-10-09
The Sixteenth Blog Of Trig - Dragons
I have a business idea I'm thinking of taking to the 'Dragon's Den'. I'm going to start up a business which looks after people's money. Me and my colleagues are going to pay ourselves the highest wages in the world, give ourselves enormous bonuses, and invest this money in shares of big companies whose bosses will also pay themselves the highest wages in the world.
When the money dries up I will borrow more from those who can afford to lend it to me and pretend that I am actually selling something called a 'bond', which is a pretty looking IOU note. I will sell lots of these IOU notes to cover my wages and bonuses and the 'losses' I make when the investments don't cover all the outgoings. I will buy and sell these 'bonds of debt' with other people in my business and charge extra for the privilege. I will pay people massive wages to hide these debts until they are like an elephant hiding in a single bed.
When my debt (your debt) gets to the point of bankruptcy I will speak to the 'government' and tell them that if they don't give me billions of pounds, RIGHT NOW, that the elderly won't be able to withdraw their pensions, businesses won't be able to pay their employees, and the entire country will collapse into chaos. Of course my money isn't held in my bank. It's in offshore tax-free havens safe from the disaster in my business, so my money (your money) is fine.
The government doesn't want to just print up money because they don't like inflation, which is the value of money going down, so they borrow it. Like me, they pretend that they are selling something, a 'bond'; an IOU note. They sell these bonds with minimum investment amounts, like £50,000, £100,000, £500,000, so I'm afraid this counts you out. But me and my wealthy friends can afford that with a month's wages. The government takes all this money that me and my friends lend them and then gives it back to me so I can continue paying myself enormous wages and bonuses, and give your grandparents the meagre pension they worked their entire life for.
Now the government owes a shitload of money, and they can only just about afford the interest on the debts they have, so they sell off your public services to private investors (me) to help them cover it all.
Now I own the services you rely on to live, I own the bank that holds all your money, I own the bonds that your government 'sold' me so that they could bail me out. I have multi-million pound mansions, private jets and yachts, pilots and captains, bodyguards and butlers, chauffeurs and champagne and cocaine, and absolutely no blame.
I now take a percentage profit from every single service you rely on, the services your parents and grandparents and ancestors worked and fought for, and for all this, you are indebted to me.
Your country is mine and your debt is to me and you will all continue to work for me until this debt is paid off, which will never happen.
So, what do you think of my business idea?
This is 'The Sixteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-09-16
The Fifteenth Blog Of Trig - The France Fiasco
I think it's about time I wrote about my trip to France. The nerves have just about worn off enough for me to type about it and my back has nearly recovered. Let's get started.
May 2011, I had booked my CELTA course to start at the end of June, and I was trying to find some short-term work to get me through the month in Barcelona. One friend had promised work in the weeks to come, but it was not showing much promise. I had spoken to my mate Baz who had been out in France doing tarmac and paving for three months, and he encouraged me to go out and work with him. I asked him some questions about it, and he told me that I would get 50 Euros a day plus lunch and accommodation paid for. Sounded okay. Not brilliant, but I needed money, so I decided to check it out. Barry gave me the number of his boss and I dropped a text asking about it. I got a reply telling me to be in the high street at midday on the coming Sunday and we would drive down to Dover and get the Channel Tunnel. I packed my things up and got ready.
Sunday arrives, I am waiting in the high street and a Toyota pick-up spins a u-turn to pull up in front of me. A red-haired guy gets out and says hello to me in an unmistakeable Irish gypsy accent, introducing himself as James. He is short but fairly well built, with a tough weathered face. Age, probably about late-thirties. He seemed friendly, but Barry had neglected to mention that he was working for gypsies. This might have influenced my decision to go out there. No, it WOULD have influenced my decision to go out there. Still, here I was. I couldn't exactly turn around and say, "sorry mate, didn't realise you were gypsies. I don't work with gypsies." It might not have gone down too well.
I threw my bag in the back and jumped in the car where he introduced me to his son. Friendly lad. We chatted a bit and I asked how old he was, and he replied that he was eleven. "So you just started secondary school then?" I asked him. He replied that he didn't go to school. "Okay. Cool." I should have guessed that. I kind of admire that though.
We stopped off and picked up his younger brother Martin, who was probably mid thirties. He seemed friendly, and we chatted briefly before he showed me his fist, swollen to double size after he went to some guy's house the night before and beat the crap out of him. He told me it was because the guy had insulted his wife. I diplomatically told him it sounded like the guy deserved it. James suggested that he get his story straight in case the police come knocking.
So off we drove. They told me about Aaron, the other guy that was working with my friend Barry, telling me how he was getting on their nerves because he was always complaining about the job. I asked the fiery-haired boss how long the journey would take. He replied that it wouldn't take more than three hours or so, but that we would be stopping off so that the three of them could go for a round of golf. I said okay, not feeling like I was in the position to bargain. He suggested that I either join them or I could wait in the car. I waited in the car.
I waited for probably two hours while they played nine holes. I smoked a couple and listened to music, wondering casually what I might be getting myself in for. 'Fuck it', I thought, 'it'll be an experience whatever happens'. That it was.
They returned from their golf and we set off to pick up Martin's wife and his almost-newborn son, then headed for Dover. On the journey I chatted with James' son. He played the Game Boy I'd brought along for a while, then took my Blackberry to play more games. I munched a bag of sweets I had and offered him one. He had one, then said he had a stomach ache a bit later, thinking it was probably from the sweet. He was probably right. Sugar is a gut-rotter.
Early on in the journey I had noticed that none of them wore seat belts, not even the mother holding her young child. James sped down the motorway at a minimum of 80 miles an hour, driving with his knees from time-to-time when his hands were busy. Now, I'm not trying to tell anyone how to raise their children, but my parents were very strict about seat belts. The first thing I do when I get into a car is put mine on. This was fine until I noticed that no-one else in the car did. From then on I felt like I might be somehow insulting James' driving skills. I imagined him turning round to me, "watsamattur-Saam, yoo tink-umma bad droivur?" I still wore it.
Dover, we drove onto a channel tunnel train, zipped across in no time. As we parked in the train James' son jumped out of the car and went off to explore the train, disappearing through the door in front of us. I wondered what he would get up to. James turned to me. "So, whaddaya tink Saam?" "What do I think of what?" I asked. "Just whaddaya tink?" I was stumped for a moment. 'What do I think?' "Just looking forward to doing some work and seeing France and Belgium mate. I've never been." "Itsalraight Sam, not bad."
We chatted idly on the journey under the channel, came out in France and headed towards the Belgian border, not far from Dunkirk and a lovely old Norman town called Bergues. The land became amazingly flat as we came into Belgium, you could see for miles, across wet farmland dotted with the odd tree. I imagined the German tanks rolling across the plains towards Dunkirk to drive the British Expeditionary force across the channel to Blighty. I could smell the history in the air.
I didn't notice slipping across the border to Belgium. There was no border security, not even a line on the ground. We drove for a short distance over the border, through one or two ghost-towns where the windows of every house we saw were covered with security shutters. It seemed like a holiday resort after the zombie takeover, not a single person on the streets, hardly any sign of human life except for the buildings and the parked cars. It felt a little ominous.
We arrived at the chalet we were staying in, part of a small park of holiday chalets, again lifelessly quiet. I expected the zombies to jump out at any moment. They didn't though. The chalets were fairly cosy inside, although ours had a peculiar smell like something had died in the walls. Barry spent some time trying to get into the extractor fan hole a bit later, convinced there was a dead rat or bird in there. There was probably a corpse hidden somewhere.
When we got in I met Aaron, a friendly lad of about 29 from Dover. He was smoking so I rolled up one of my own and smoked it with him, and played a couple of racing games on the playstation and small TV they had. We were staying on beds which were in a raised open roof space up a ladder. The back of the chalet had a nice tidy garden which looked out across a few acres of completely flat wet farmland. A family of birds somewhere sang sweet songs. At the far end of the line of sight across the farmland was a railway that crossed the entire horizon. It was very quiet. Peaceful, but with a slightly ominous undertone.
Barry, my old friend from London, had popped out. We said hello when he got back, having not seen each other for several months. He had a bag of groceries from the supermarket so we had some food and went outside to enjoy the view and have a smoke. He spoke to Aaron and asked that they put their differences behind them - they had apparently had a falling-out earlier.
I asked James what time we were starting work tomorrow. In his 'Oyrish' gypsie accent he told me that they didn't have work yet, and that they were going out tomorrow to find some. "Ah. Okay." I had been under the impression that the work was already there.
Barry, Aaron and I spent the evening out in the garden drinking beer and smoking, watching shooting stars and satellites in the clear night sky, popping in occasionally to play on the Playstation. It was a pleasant evening, and we felt hopeful about getting work tomorrow. Barry told me they had been working solidly for 3 months. We headed off to bed once we were tired.
Monday. James and Martin head out to try and find work. The lads and I get up and decide to pop into the nearby town, which is a half hour walk away. We walk down quiet roads with nice spacious detached houses along them, cars parked in the driveways, but not a single sign of life. We head through a forest and across a quiet main road and stop to look at a war cemetery, before heading into what seemed to be a deserted seaside resort. It turned out to be, in fact, a deserted seaside resort. We have some food in a cafe that we are lucky enough to find open and sit on the beach with a couple of beers. We see a couple of people. At some point Barry gets a call from James, who tells him us three lads are moving out of the chalet and into a caravan in a park just over the border in France. We are not too happy.
That evening we pack up our stuff and drive to the caravan park. It seems friendly, but it is off a main road in the middle of nowhere, the nearest shop a good few miles away. In his favour James does leave us the work van to get around in, but tells us not to waste too much petrol. When we get to the caravan our hearts drop. It is tiny. With our bags in there it is hard to get in. James busies himself about trying to make it seem infinitely better than it is. It has electricity, but no water supply, no fridge and no cooking facilities. The caravan park did have toilets and showers costing 1Euro, but the caravan was awful. We glumly moved our stuff in and waited for James to go off before starting our bitching. "He's havin' a fuckin' laugh." "Where are we supposed to sleep?" "We can't even cook anything."
That evening we go out and get a few drinks. Wine is very cheap. We hope that Tuesday will bring work, but when Tuesday comes we are let down again. We make the most of the day, exploring Dunkirk, and driving to a lovely place called Bergues, an old town built around dominating Norman churches and an enormous moat system with more than 5km of medieval ramparts. The walls still display bullet holes and shell damage from the second world war, and there is a couple of areas where you can very clearly see human-shaped bullet damage where executions have taken place. We wander round the place drinking wine and soaking up the atmosphere.
Barry rang James and very politely complained about the accommodation. He pointed out that none of us had any money, there was no work and the caravan had no cooking facilities. James made out like he was hurt, pointing out that he had done us a favour by getting us this caravan, like we were all being terribly ungrateful. We didn't have much choice but to put up with it. James said he'd sub us all a little cash the following day.
Wednesday finds no work again. We meet James who lends us 10 Euro each and expresses his absolute distain that we don't like the caravan, emphasising complete and utter shock at our ungratefulness. The three of us stay fairly quiet. We say goodbye hearing promises of work soon and again spend the day in Dunkirk.
Barry had met some French people previously who sold him smoke and he wanted to try and find them again. We found them in the park milling among a few groups of friendly students and so we had some more cheap but wholly adequate wine and a smoke, threw around a frisbee for a while, and then moved onto the football, booting it about between us in high spirits.
A short tanned French guy of probably early fifties who was relaxing in the sun got up to play with us. We kicked the ball around a while before more French lads came over to play too. A couple were very good, doing impressive tricks when the ball came to them. They looked like a tough bunch, many seeming to be of Algerian origin, some black, some white, some somewhere inbetween. Everyone was friendly. When they left we said goodbye, kicking the ball around some more before we sat down for a smoke, joined by a couple of French girls. They spoke a little English and we talked with them a while. We left soon after them and drove back towards the caravan park, listening to music through my phone. I remember 'Sloop John B' coming on and skipping it. Those lyrics were too close to my feelings at that moment.
Thursday, we get up, fed up, and I'm talking about going home Friday whatever happens. I consider the prospect of hitch-hiking. We once again go into Dunkirk with a football and a frisbee and chill out. We meet the French people and buy some more smoke and a some more cheap wine. We eat the cheapest food we can get our hands on by the port and have a fairly nice day. When James calls to tell us there is still no work, he suggests to Barry that we find the nearest job centre and sign on. He's having a fucking laugh.
That evening we decide to go to Bergues and set up a bonfire in the forest with a few beers and a few smokes. We find a nice spot, a small, flat, clear patch at the foot of a wooded hill, with a ledge a few metres down from us falling about 15 foot, before a field of tall grass with a path cut through it. We drink a couple of French beers each, listen to music, chat and watch the fire burning. It was nice. Love a bonfire. As it started to get dark we begin to think about packing up, but we had a couple of beers left so we stayed a while longer, heating and bending bottles in the fire.
As the fire dimmed I got up to get wood. It was dark. I carefully walked round the fire and up the hill, grabbing some dead branches on the floor and headed back to put them on the fire. As I put them in the flames smoke blew into my eyes. I recoiled back, hands over my eyes, and fell, misjudging where the ledge was behind me. Suddenly I am weightless. I hear myself shout out in surprise a brief moment before I land hard on my back on the ground below. It is a long fall. I am in shock. I am in pain. I cannot breathe properly. I cannot move. I open my eyes and I see darkness. I take as much breath in as I can and call out, "lads, I need your help."
Aaron later told me that upon hearing my shout and then my call for help, Barry jumped up and nearly ran over the edge of the drop himself. Aaron had to grab him and stop him from falling straight over after me. That might have finished me off. They edged down the slope near to me, shining the torch on me as they approached. I quickly told them not to touch me, that I was hurting and needed them to give me a minute to compose myself. I was very short of breath, very shaken. I had to check if I had done any serious damage.
I was lying on my back, but arched up over an old log which I had fallen onto. This log had broken in two under my weight. In my mind I was very aware of the possibility that I might never walk again, and looking back I'm surprised how calm I remained. I was certainly in shock however, and what else can you do in that situation but stay calm and assess the damage. I wiggled my toes successfully, which gave me hope. After a minute or so I attempted moving my legs slightly, which I managed painfully. Barry and Aaron removed the log from under me as carefully as they could, and I lay flat on my back, which hurt even more. I quickly asked them to help me onto my front, which we managed carefully. As soon as I was onto my front and off of my damaged back I thought I might cry with the relief from the pain. I lay face down in twigs and dirt and asked them to give me a couple of minutes, that I thought I was going to be okay, but needed a bit of time to get my breath back and get over the shock. I lay there and breathed beautiful air from the forest floor, feeling incredibly relaxed and relieved. I had just escaped death or very serious injury, but I still did not really know if I had done permanent damage to my back.
Barry and Aaron nipped up the slope to put the fire out and grab our stuff, and I lay on the forest floor in the twigs and leaves and dirt. When I opened my eyes the world around me was pitch black, so I kept them closed. They came down ready with our stuff and gave me a minute or two more. Barry shone his torch up at the ledge from which I fell. "Holy shit Trig, you're a very lucky man." I tried to look up at the height and agreed. The ground around me was littered with spine-breaking loose cobblestones. If I had fallen a foot to the right or left my back would have been broken like a twig.
I was ready to try walking again, and both the lads gently helped me to my feet. I could just about walk, very slowly and painfully. Barry gave me a large branch to use as a walking stick, and we slowly made our way back to the van. By this point I was smiling and joking, definitely still in shock. I was hurting a lot, but I was alive and walking.
We got back to the caravan and I tried to get some sleep, but it was difficult. Before I drifted off I told the lads that I was going to head back to England the next day, regardless of what happened. I couldn't work now. They both agreed they were going to do the same.
Friday morning, I wake up early, hurting. I want a shower so I struggle to my feet and struggle even more to get to the shower block. When I get back I am covered with sweat and exhausted. The lads slowly wake up and I start discussing our departure with them. We talk initially about walking to Dunkirk, about 4-5 miles, then get the train to Calais. I tell them I could do it, but I would be very slow with a bergen on my back after my fall. Then we discuss the possibility of hitch-hiking, but three lads with all our luggage are going to have trouble finding a lift. Then someone suggests driving the van to Calais, about 30-35 miles, then calling James to apologise and tell him where it's parked. It's a bit dodgy, and Aaron isn't too comfortable with it. Barry and I suggest that he could drive us to Calais, and we'll give him petrol money to drive back, but he doesn't want to stay out in France in the shitty caravan by himself, so it is decided. We are going to drive to Calais in the van, park it somewhere safe and tell James where we parked it once we're away.
We had very little petrol in the van, maybe just enough to get to Dunkirk to fill it up, so we head off, hoping that we have enough to get there. The petrol light is on most of the way, and as we are coming into Dunkirk the engine dies. We find ourselves rolling dead down a road with parked cars either side, but no spaces. Then literally as the van stops its roll, a space appears on our near side, and with a foot or two to spare, we roll in.
We get out and hunt for a petrol station. We are all a little worried about meeting James and Martin, and go as fast as we can, but of course I cannot walk fast at all for my back. We cannot find a petrol station anywhere and head back to the van, where we find a little diesel in a can in the back. We put this in, and head to the nearest station and fill the van up. Finally, we are able to hit the motorway and get to Calais.
We head down the motorway towards Calais. We are happy to be leaving, having gotten more than tired of the cramped caravan that week. We joke briefly about what would happen if James and Martin turned up, but I dismiss this, as we would have to be the unluckiest guys in the world to run into them.
We see a sign that says 15 miles to Calais. We cheer. Then, after a brief silence, Aaron says three words that will always haunt me, "They're behind us".
"Fuck off Aaron, that's not funny mate."
"They're behind us."
The quiet, calm fear in his voice sent a shiver up my spine, and sure enough when I looked into the side mirror there they were. James was driving the Toyota pickup, leaning out of his window with absolute rage in his eyes, screaming at us to pull over. Martin his brother was out the other window, more rage, more aggressive, spit flying from his mouth as he swore and cursed us.
"We're fucked."
"We're dead."
"They're gonna kill us."
Their car swerved at us, threatening to drive us off the road. We continued, unsure what to do. They pulled in front of us and screamed for us to turn off at the next junction. We agreed that we couldn't do that. We didn't know where we were turning off and didn't know what they would do to us. We told Aaron to turn back onto the motorway at the last minute, that we had to get to Calais, to a police station or somewhere safe.
We began following them up a motorway slip road. As we headed off the motorway a large concrete separation approached us, splitting the road off from the motorway. It got closer and closer until I believed it was too late for us to turn off. I looked in the wing-mirror, and seeing a 40 ton lorry speeding up in the nearest lane I was sure that it was too late - we were turning off. My heart sank. Then suddenly Aaron twisted the wheel left and we flew back onto the motorway, just missing the concrete by inches. My heart jumped back up out of my chest as we sided into the lorry, which flew past and bounced us across the road without seeming to notice we were there at all. "Holy shit! DRIVE!"
Aaron sped down the motorway, but we all knew that their car, faster than the heavily laden van we were in, would catch up again very soon. We agreed that we had to just drive to Calais, another 10 minutes or so, find a police car and get out near them to be safe. It was not to be. James and Martin caught up with us again, twice as angry, twice as aggressive, and this time they forced us off the road. Both brothers jumped out of their car, screaming in absolute fury for us to get out of the van. I sat there and watched them, staying fairly calm considering, trying to stay focussed on what was happening than worrying about it. James told his brother to stay in the pick-up, for which I was glad. Aaron locked his car door. Barry, to my left, suddenly spotted a police car going the other way on the motorway, opened his door, said "run!", then ran across the motorway to hail the police car. I looked over and saw James screaming at Aaron to open the door. I got out and ran across the motorway as best I could, seeing Barry chasing the police car down, which had stopped a hundred metres away. Back at the van, Aaron was being screamed at by James. I couldn't leave him there, so I headed back across the road. Upon seeing me James screamed, "Fockarf y'asshole!" Then he told Aaron to get in the van, and he would drop him at the next turnoff. I hoped Aaron would not get in, but he did, and the van drove off.
I watched the van speed off with my bag, Barry's bag, and of course, our friend Aaron. I am left standing on a French motorway, luckily still holding my wallet, passport and phone in my pocket. My back is hurting. I have no cash on me, but I luckily have an overdraft I can hack into for the return journey, but first we have to try and find Aaron, and our bags if possible.
I head across the motorway to find Barry and the police, catch up and tell him they have taken Aaron. We are very worried for his safety, explaining to the police that we have to find him or he might get hurt. I tell the police that James had told Aaron he was going to drop him at the next turn-off, so we could try there, but I am not too hopeful. Sure enough we do not find them, and so we head down to Calais to see if they have dropped him there. As we drive the police are asking us questions and making notes, taking names, numbers, dates and details, but their English isn't brilliant so we find some barriers.
We arrive in Calais but see nothing. We are very worried about Aaron, but reassured that they had seen Barry chase down the police car. The police find an English border control guard who speaks French fluently, and he speaks to us and tells the police the full story. The police ask where we have been staying and we tell them, but inform them that James and Martin are staying just over the border in Belgium, and they tell us that they can't go there. They decide to drive us to the caravan to see if they have gone back.
As we drive down the motorway Barry and I try to ring Aaron, but we soon realise he has no credit and so he cannot receive inbound calls abroad. We are worried. The police pull off the motorway and rendezvous with three police vans, get out and start talking when Barry gets a call on his phone. I answer and it is James. He asks where we are and I tell him we are in a police car. I ask if we can come get our bags and talk to Aaron but he won't tell us where they are, swearing at me, calling me every name under the sun, saying that we will get six years in jail for stealing his van. I explain calmly that we did not steal his van, that we needed a way to get to Calais, and that we were going to park it up and tell him where it was. I explained that we had wanted to leave but since we had hardly any cash between us, it was our only option, and that we were worried that he might try to make us stay if we asked him. I reminded him that I had sent him a message that morning asking when he was going to head back to England, because I had injured myself, but got no response.
I went backwards and forwards with James, receiving non-stop insults. I did not react to them, reasoning with him and asking if we could come and get our bags. He refused, saying that he didn't have our bags, that a couple of dickheads had left two bags in his van, obviously didn't want them, and now they were his. He also said that they had found work that day and were at a job. I asked if we could speak to Aaron, but he refused, saying Aaron was on a job. One of the French policemen asked if he could speak with James, but he got nowhere. James promised he would bring Aaron and our bags back on Monday. We did not believe him, but he refused to tell us where he was, and the chalet was over the border in Belgium, so the police could not go there. We ended our call and the police asked Barry and I what we wanted to do. We looked at each other. There was nothing we could do. "Can you take us to Calais?"
We drove to Calais in thoughtful silence. When we arrived we thanked the police for all their help and headed to buy tickets. They ended up costing £70 each, but it was worth it to get home. We had a short wait and finally got onto a ferry, relieved, almost ecstatic to escape the scene of the drama we had experienced. We got on board and went straight to the bar. I remember looking at Barry with a big puffy 'phew' look on my face, and we had a laugh and a good old man-hug before tucking into a well-deserved pint of beer. We sat and watched France disappear and the white cliffs of Dover emerge on the horizon, glad to escape, but worrying and discussing Aaron's fate. We felt that the involvement of the police might have saved him from serious trouble, but we still weren't sure. We resolved to top up his phone as soon as we were in England again.
We got a train to London from Dover, and decided to hit Camden for a drink or two. We were tired, and I was in pain still, but glad to be alive on more than one count. We grabbed some smoke and had a little on the way home, meeting a couple of Barnet pals on the night bus, sharing some of our crazy story. Finally got home and slept like a baby in a comfortable bed, still nursing my injured back.
The next day I put some money on Aaron's phone, and sent him a message. He replied back that they had not hurt him, but had scared the shit out of him, threatened him some, and that we could kiss our bags and their contents goodbye. I told him to stay in touch and that if he needed anything he just had to ask. They brought him home a few days later, leaving him at the side of the motorway a good few miles from home.
I spoke to James a few times over the next few weeks to try and negotiate the return of our bags, but he insulted me and asked what charity store I preferred, Oxfam or Barnardos. I ended up offering him £100 if he returned it to me. He didn't respond. Barry lost a laptop among other things, and was going to go and make a police report, but it never happened in the end.
So, that was the France fiasco. The last I heard from them was that Barry got a call from Martin apologising that it got so out of hand. He thinks that they probably wanted him to go and work with them again, as he was a good worker and made a lot of money for them. I asked and Barry assured me that he was never going to go and work for them again. Good idea.
So that was France. Went to earn some money. Came back with back injuries and stories of gypsy car chases, a couple of hundred of pounds down from the return journey. All good fun though. Or as Barry describes it, "The horror.....the horror..... :)"
This is 'The Fifteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
May 2011, I had booked my CELTA course to start at the end of June, and I was trying to find some short-term work to get me through the month in Barcelona. One friend had promised work in the weeks to come, but it was not showing much promise. I had spoken to my mate Baz who had been out in France doing tarmac and paving for three months, and he encouraged me to go out and work with him. I asked him some questions about it, and he told me that I would get 50 Euros a day plus lunch and accommodation paid for. Sounded okay. Not brilliant, but I needed money, so I decided to check it out. Barry gave me the number of his boss and I dropped a text asking about it. I got a reply telling me to be in the high street at midday on the coming Sunday and we would drive down to Dover and get the Channel Tunnel. I packed my things up and got ready.
Sunday arrives, I am waiting in the high street and a Toyota pick-up spins a u-turn to pull up in front of me. A red-haired guy gets out and says hello to me in an unmistakeable Irish gypsy accent, introducing himself as James. He is short but fairly well built, with a tough weathered face. Age, probably about late-thirties. He seemed friendly, but Barry had neglected to mention that he was working for gypsies. This might have influenced my decision to go out there. No, it WOULD have influenced my decision to go out there. Still, here I was. I couldn't exactly turn around and say, "sorry mate, didn't realise you were gypsies. I don't work with gypsies." It might not have gone down too well.
I threw my bag in the back and jumped in the car where he introduced me to his son. Friendly lad. We chatted a bit and I asked how old he was, and he replied that he was eleven. "So you just started secondary school then?" I asked him. He replied that he didn't go to school. "Okay. Cool." I should have guessed that. I kind of admire that though.
We stopped off and picked up his younger brother Martin, who was probably mid thirties. He seemed friendly, and we chatted briefly before he showed me his fist, swollen to double size after he went to some guy's house the night before and beat the crap out of him. He told me it was because the guy had insulted his wife. I diplomatically told him it sounded like the guy deserved it. James suggested that he get his story straight in case the police come knocking.
So off we drove. They told me about Aaron, the other guy that was working with my friend Barry, telling me how he was getting on their nerves because he was always complaining about the job. I asked the fiery-haired boss how long the journey would take. He replied that it wouldn't take more than three hours or so, but that we would be stopping off so that the three of them could go for a round of golf. I said okay, not feeling like I was in the position to bargain. He suggested that I either join them or I could wait in the car. I waited in the car.
I waited for probably two hours while they played nine holes. I smoked a couple and listened to music, wondering casually what I might be getting myself in for. 'Fuck it', I thought, 'it'll be an experience whatever happens'. That it was.
They returned from their golf and we set off to pick up Martin's wife and his almost-newborn son, then headed for Dover. On the journey I chatted with James' son. He played the Game Boy I'd brought along for a while, then took my Blackberry to play more games. I munched a bag of sweets I had and offered him one. He had one, then said he had a stomach ache a bit later, thinking it was probably from the sweet. He was probably right. Sugar is a gut-rotter.
Early on in the journey I had noticed that none of them wore seat belts, not even the mother holding her young child. James sped down the motorway at a minimum of 80 miles an hour, driving with his knees from time-to-time when his hands were busy. Now, I'm not trying to tell anyone how to raise their children, but my parents were very strict about seat belts. The first thing I do when I get into a car is put mine on. This was fine until I noticed that no-one else in the car did. From then on I felt like I might be somehow insulting James' driving skills. I imagined him turning round to me, "watsamattur-Saam, yoo tink-umma bad droivur?" I still wore it.
Dover, we drove onto a channel tunnel train, zipped across in no time. As we parked in the train James' son jumped out of the car and went off to explore the train, disappearing through the door in front of us. I wondered what he would get up to. James turned to me. "So, whaddaya tink Saam?" "What do I think of what?" I asked. "Just whaddaya tink?" I was stumped for a moment. 'What do I think?' "Just looking forward to doing some work and seeing France and Belgium mate. I've never been." "Itsalraight Sam, not bad."
We chatted idly on the journey under the channel, came out in France and headed towards the Belgian border, not far from Dunkirk and a lovely old Norman town called Bergues. The land became amazingly flat as we came into Belgium, you could see for miles, across wet farmland dotted with the odd tree. I imagined the German tanks rolling across the plains towards Dunkirk to drive the British Expeditionary force across the channel to Blighty. I could smell the history in the air.
I didn't notice slipping across the border to Belgium. There was no border security, not even a line on the ground. We drove for a short distance over the border, through one or two ghost-towns where the windows of every house we saw were covered with security shutters. It seemed like a holiday resort after the zombie takeover, not a single person on the streets, hardly any sign of human life except for the buildings and the parked cars. It felt a little ominous.
We arrived at the chalet we were staying in, part of a small park of holiday chalets, again lifelessly quiet. I expected the zombies to jump out at any moment. They didn't though. The chalets were fairly cosy inside, although ours had a peculiar smell like something had died in the walls. Barry spent some time trying to get into the extractor fan hole a bit later, convinced there was a dead rat or bird in there. There was probably a corpse hidden somewhere.
When we got in I met Aaron, a friendly lad of about 29 from Dover. He was smoking so I rolled up one of my own and smoked it with him, and played a couple of racing games on the playstation and small TV they had. We were staying on beds which were in a raised open roof space up a ladder. The back of the chalet had a nice tidy garden which looked out across a few acres of completely flat wet farmland. A family of birds somewhere sang sweet songs. At the far end of the line of sight across the farmland was a railway that crossed the entire horizon. It was very quiet. Peaceful, but with a slightly ominous undertone.
Barry, my old friend from London, had popped out. We said hello when he got back, having not seen each other for several months. He had a bag of groceries from the supermarket so we had some food and went outside to enjoy the view and have a smoke. He spoke to Aaron and asked that they put their differences behind them - they had apparently had a falling-out earlier.
I asked James what time we were starting work tomorrow. In his 'Oyrish' gypsie accent he told me that they didn't have work yet, and that they were going out tomorrow to find some. "Ah. Okay." I had been under the impression that the work was already there.
Barry, Aaron and I spent the evening out in the garden drinking beer and smoking, watching shooting stars and satellites in the clear night sky, popping in occasionally to play on the Playstation. It was a pleasant evening, and we felt hopeful about getting work tomorrow. Barry told me they had been working solidly for 3 months. We headed off to bed once we were tired.
Monday. James and Martin head out to try and find work. The lads and I get up and decide to pop into the nearby town, which is a half hour walk away. We walk down quiet roads with nice spacious detached houses along them, cars parked in the driveways, but not a single sign of life. We head through a forest and across a quiet main road and stop to look at a war cemetery, before heading into what seemed to be a deserted seaside resort. It turned out to be, in fact, a deserted seaside resort. We have some food in a cafe that we are lucky enough to find open and sit on the beach with a couple of beers. We see a couple of people. At some point Barry gets a call from James, who tells him us three lads are moving out of the chalet and into a caravan in a park just over the border in France. We are not too happy.
That evening we pack up our stuff and drive to the caravan park. It seems friendly, but it is off a main road in the middle of nowhere, the nearest shop a good few miles away. In his favour James does leave us the work van to get around in, but tells us not to waste too much petrol. When we get to the caravan our hearts drop. It is tiny. With our bags in there it is hard to get in. James busies himself about trying to make it seem infinitely better than it is. It has electricity, but no water supply, no fridge and no cooking facilities. The caravan park did have toilets and showers costing 1Euro, but the caravan was awful. We glumly moved our stuff in and waited for James to go off before starting our bitching. "He's havin' a fuckin' laugh." "Where are we supposed to sleep?" "We can't even cook anything."
Barry rang James and very politely complained about the accommodation. He pointed out that none of us had any money, there was no work and the caravan had no cooking facilities. James made out like he was hurt, pointing out that he had done us a favour by getting us this caravan, like we were all being terribly ungrateful. We didn't have much choice but to put up with it. James said he'd sub us all a little cash the following day.
Wednesday finds no work again. We meet James who lends us 10 Euro each and expresses his absolute distain that we don't like the caravan, emphasising complete and utter shock at our ungratefulness. The three of us stay fairly quiet. We say goodbye hearing promises of work soon and again spend the day in Dunkirk.
Barry had met some French people previously who sold him smoke and he wanted to try and find them again. We found them in the park milling among a few groups of friendly students and so we had some more cheap but wholly adequate wine and a smoke, threw around a frisbee for a while, and then moved onto the football, booting it about between us in high spirits.
A short tanned French guy of probably early fifties who was relaxing in the sun got up to play with us. We kicked the ball around a while before more French lads came over to play too. A couple were very good, doing impressive tricks when the ball came to them. They looked like a tough bunch, many seeming to be of Algerian origin, some black, some white, some somewhere inbetween. Everyone was friendly. When they left we said goodbye, kicking the ball around some more before we sat down for a smoke, joined by a couple of French girls. They spoke a little English and we talked with them a while. We left soon after them and drove back towards the caravan park, listening to music through my phone. I remember 'Sloop John B' coming on and skipping it. Those lyrics were too close to my feelings at that moment.
Thursday, we get up, fed up, and I'm talking about going home Friday whatever happens. I consider the prospect of hitch-hiking. We once again go into Dunkirk with a football and a frisbee and chill out. We meet the French people and buy some more smoke and a some more cheap wine. We eat the cheapest food we can get our hands on by the port and have a fairly nice day. When James calls to tell us there is still no work, he suggests to Barry that we find the nearest job centre and sign on. He's having a fucking laugh.
That evening we decide to go to Bergues and set up a bonfire in the forest with a few beers and a few smokes. We find a nice spot, a small, flat, clear patch at the foot of a wooded hill, with a ledge a few metres down from us falling about 15 foot, before a field of tall grass with a path cut through it. We drink a couple of French beers each, listen to music, chat and watch the fire burning. It was nice. Love a bonfire. As it started to get dark we begin to think about packing up, but we had a couple of beers left so we stayed a while longer, heating and bending bottles in the fire.
As the fire dimmed I got up to get wood. It was dark. I carefully walked round the fire and up the hill, grabbing some dead branches on the floor and headed back to put them on the fire. As I put them in the flames smoke blew into my eyes. I recoiled back, hands over my eyes, and fell, misjudging where the ledge was behind me. Suddenly I am weightless. I hear myself shout out in surprise a brief moment before I land hard on my back on the ground below. It is a long fall. I am in shock. I am in pain. I cannot breathe properly. I cannot move. I open my eyes and I see darkness. I take as much breath in as I can and call out, "lads, I need your help."
Aaron later told me that upon hearing my shout and then my call for help, Barry jumped up and nearly ran over the edge of the drop himself. Aaron had to grab him and stop him from falling straight over after me. That might have finished me off. They edged down the slope near to me, shining the torch on me as they approached. I quickly told them not to touch me, that I was hurting and needed them to give me a minute to compose myself. I was very short of breath, very shaken. I had to check if I had done any serious damage.
I was lying on my back, but arched up over an old log which I had fallen onto. This log had broken in two under my weight. In my mind I was very aware of the possibility that I might never walk again, and looking back I'm surprised how calm I remained. I was certainly in shock however, and what else can you do in that situation but stay calm and assess the damage. I wiggled my toes successfully, which gave me hope. After a minute or so I attempted moving my legs slightly, which I managed painfully. Barry and Aaron removed the log from under me as carefully as they could, and I lay flat on my back, which hurt even more. I quickly asked them to help me onto my front, which we managed carefully. As soon as I was onto my front and off of my damaged back I thought I might cry with the relief from the pain. I lay face down in twigs and dirt and asked them to give me a couple of minutes, that I thought I was going to be okay, but needed a bit of time to get my breath back and get over the shock. I lay there and breathed beautiful air from the forest floor, feeling incredibly relaxed and relieved. I had just escaped death or very serious injury, but I still did not really know if I had done permanent damage to my back.
Barry and Aaron nipped up the slope to put the fire out and grab our stuff, and I lay on the forest floor in the twigs and leaves and dirt. When I opened my eyes the world around me was pitch black, so I kept them closed. They came down ready with our stuff and gave me a minute or two more. Barry shone his torch up at the ledge from which I fell. "Holy shit Trig, you're a very lucky man." I tried to look up at the height and agreed. The ground around me was littered with spine-breaking loose cobblestones. If I had fallen a foot to the right or left my back would have been broken like a twig.
I was ready to try walking again, and both the lads gently helped me to my feet. I could just about walk, very slowly and painfully. Barry gave me a large branch to use as a walking stick, and we slowly made our way back to the van. By this point I was smiling and joking, definitely still in shock. I was hurting a lot, but I was alive and walking.
We got back to the caravan and I tried to get some sleep, but it was difficult. Before I drifted off I told the lads that I was going to head back to England the next day, regardless of what happened. I couldn't work now. They both agreed they were going to do the same.
Friday morning, I wake up early, hurting. I want a shower so I struggle to my feet and struggle even more to get to the shower block. When I get back I am covered with sweat and exhausted. The lads slowly wake up and I start discussing our departure with them. We talk initially about walking to Dunkirk, about 4-5 miles, then get the train to Calais. I tell them I could do it, but I would be very slow with a bergen on my back after my fall. Then we discuss the possibility of hitch-hiking, but three lads with all our luggage are going to have trouble finding a lift. Then someone suggests driving the van to Calais, about 30-35 miles, then calling James to apologise and tell him where it's parked. It's a bit dodgy, and Aaron isn't too comfortable with it. Barry and I suggest that he could drive us to Calais, and we'll give him petrol money to drive back, but he doesn't want to stay out in France in the shitty caravan by himself, so it is decided. We are going to drive to Calais in the van, park it somewhere safe and tell James where we parked it once we're away.
We had very little petrol in the van, maybe just enough to get to Dunkirk to fill it up, so we head off, hoping that we have enough to get there. The petrol light is on most of the way, and as we are coming into Dunkirk the engine dies. We find ourselves rolling dead down a road with parked cars either side, but no spaces. Then literally as the van stops its roll, a space appears on our near side, and with a foot or two to spare, we roll in.
We get out and hunt for a petrol station. We are all a little worried about meeting James and Martin, and go as fast as we can, but of course I cannot walk fast at all for my back. We cannot find a petrol station anywhere and head back to the van, where we find a little diesel in a can in the back. We put this in, and head to the nearest station and fill the van up. Finally, we are able to hit the motorway and get to Calais.
We head down the motorway towards Calais. We are happy to be leaving, having gotten more than tired of the cramped caravan that week. We joke briefly about what would happen if James and Martin turned up, but I dismiss this, as we would have to be the unluckiest guys in the world to run into them.
We see a sign that says 15 miles to Calais. We cheer. Then, after a brief silence, Aaron says three words that will always haunt me, "They're behind us".
"Fuck off Aaron, that's not funny mate."
"They're behind us."
The quiet, calm fear in his voice sent a shiver up my spine, and sure enough when I looked into the side mirror there they were. James was driving the Toyota pickup, leaning out of his window with absolute rage in his eyes, screaming at us to pull over. Martin his brother was out the other window, more rage, more aggressive, spit flying from his mouth as he swore and cursed us.
"We're fucked."
"We're dead."
"They're gonna kill us."
Their car swerved at us, threatening to drive us off the road. We continued, unsure what to do. They pulled in front of us and screamed for us to turn off at the next junction. We agreed that we couldn't do that. We didn't know where we were turning off and didn't know what they would do to us. We told Aaron to turn back onto the motorway at the last minute, that we had to get to Calais, to a police station or somewhere safe.
We began following them up a motorway slip road. As we headed off the motorway a large concrete separation approached us, splitting the road off from the motorway. It got closer and closer until I believed it was too late for us to turn off. I looked in the wing-mirror, and seeing a 40 ton lorry speeding up in the nearest lane I was sure that it was too late - we were turning off. My heart sank. Then suddenly Aaron twisted the wheel left and we flew back onto the motorway, just missing the concrete by inches. My heart jumped back up out of my chest as we sided into the lorry, which flew past and bounced us across the road without seeming to notice we were there at all. "Holy shit! DRIVE!"
Aaron sped down the motorway, but we all knew that their car, faster than the heavily laden van we were in, would catch up again very soon. We agreed that we had to just drive to Calais, another 10 minutes or so, find a police car and get out near them to be safe. It was not to be. James and Martin caught up with us again, twice as angry, twice as aggressive, and this time they forced us off the road. Both brothers jumped out of their car, screaming in absolute fury for us to get out of the van. I sat there and watched them, staying fairly calm considering, trying to stay focussed on what was happening than worrying about it. James told his brother to stay in the pick-up, for which I was glad. Aaron locked his car door. Barry, to my left, suddenly spotted a police car going the other way on the motorway, opened his door, said "run!", then ran across the motorway to hail the police car. I looked over and saw James screaming at Aaron to open the door. I got out and ran across the motorway as best I could, seeing Barry chasing the police car down, which had stopped a hundred metres away. Back at the van, Aaron was being screamed at by James. I couldn't leave him there, so I headed back across the road. Upon seeing me James screamed, "Fockarf y'asshole!" Then he told Aaron to get in the van, and he would drop him at the next turnoff. I hoped Aaron would not get in, but he did, and the van drove off.
I watched the van speed off with my bag, Barry's bag, and of course, our friend Aaron. I am left standing on a French motorway, luckily still holding my wallet, passport and phone in my pocket. My back is hurting. I have no cash on me, but I luckily have an overdraft I can hack into for the return journey, but first we have to try and find Aaron, and our bags if possible.
I head across the motorway to find Barry and the police, catch up and tell him they have taken Aaron. We are very worried for his safety, explaining to the police that we have to find him or he might get hurt. I tell the police that James had told Aaron he was going to drop him at the next turn-off, so we could try there, but I am not too hopeful. Sure enough we do not find them, and so we head down to Calais to see if they have dropped him there. As we drive the police are asking us questions and making notes, taking names, numbers, dates and details, but their English isn't brilliant so we find some barriers.
We arrive in Calais but see nothing. We are very worried about Aaron, but reassured that they had seen Barry chase down the police car. The police find an English border control guard who speaks French fluently, and he speaks to us and tells the police the full story. The police ask where we have been staying and we tell them, but inform them that James and Martin are staying just over the border in Belgium, and they tell us that they can't go there. They decide to drive us to the caravan to see if they have gone back.
As we drive down the motorway Barry and I try to ring Aaron, but we soon realise he has no credit and so he cannot receive inbound calls abroad. We are worried. The police pull off the motorway and rendezvous with three police vans, get out and start talking when Barry gets a call on his phone. I answer and it is James. He asks where we are and I tell him we are in a police car. I ask if we can come get our bags and talk to Aaron but he won't tell us where they are, swearing at me, calling me every name under the sun, saying that we will get six years in jail for stealing his van. I explain calmly that we did not steal his van, that we needed a way to get to Calais, and that we were going to park it up and tell him where it was. I explained that we had wanted to leave but since we had hardly any cash between us, it was our only option, and that we were worried that he might try to make us stay if we asked him. I reminded him that I had sent him a message that morning asking when he was going to head back to England, because I had injured myself, but got no response.
I went backwards and forwards with James, receiving non-stop insults. I did not react to them, reasoning with him and asking if we could come and get our bags. He refused, saying that he didn't have our bags, that a couple of dickheads had left two bags in his van, obviously didn't want them, and now they were his. He also said that they had found work that day and were at a job. I asked if we could speak to Aaron, but he refused, saying Aaron was on a job. One of the French policemen asked if he could speak with James, but he got nowhere. James promised he would bring Aaron and our bags back on Monday. We did not believe him, but he refused to tell us where he was, and the chalet was over the border in Belgium, so the police could not go there. We ended our call and the police asked Barry and I what we wanted to do. We looked at each other. There was nothing we could do. "Can you take us to Calais?"
We drove to Calais in thoughtful silence. When we arrived we thanked the police for all their help and headed to buy tickets. They ended up costing £70 each, but it was worth it to get home. We had a short wait and finally got onto a ferry, relieved, almost ecstatic to escape the scene of the drama we had experienced. We got on board and went straight to the bar. I remember looking at Barry with a big puffy 'phew' look on my face, and we had a laugh and a good old man-hug before tucking into a well-deserved pint of beer. We sat and watched France disappear and the white cliffs of Dover emerge on the horizon, glad to escape, but worrying and discussing Aaron's fate. We felt that the involvement of the police might have saved him from serious trouble, but we still weren't sure. We resolved to top up his phone as soon as we were in England again.
We got a train to London from Dover, and decided to hit Camden for a drink or two. We were tired, and I was in pain still, but glad to be alive on more than one count. We grabbed some smoke and had a little on the way home, meeting a couple of Barnet pals on the night bus, sharing some of our crazy story. Finally got home and slept like a baby in a comfortable bed, still nursing my injured back.
The next day I put some money on Aaron's phone, and sent him a message. He replied back that they had not hurt him, but had scared the shit out of him, threatened him some, and that we could kiss our bags and their contents goodbye. I told him to stay in touch and that if he needed anything he just had to ask. They brought him home a few days later, leaving him at the side of the motorway a good few miles from home.
I spoke to James a few times over the next few weeks to try and negotiate the return of our bags, but he insulted me and asked what charity store I preferred, Oxfam or Barnardos. I ended up offering him £100 if he returned it to me. He didn't respond. Barry lost a laptop among other things, and was going to go and make a police report, but it never happened in the end.
So, that was the France fiasco. The last I heard from them was that Barry got a call from Martin apologising that it got so out of hand. He thinks that they probably wanted him to go and work with them again, as he was a good worker and made a lot of money for them. I asked and Barry assured me that he was never going to go and work for them again. Good idea.
So that was France. Went to earn some money. Came back with back injuries and stories of gypsy car chases, a couple of hundred of pounds down from the return journey. All good fun though. Or as Barry describes it, "The horror.....the horror..... :)"
This is 'The Fifteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-08-27
The Thirteenth Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 4 - 03/07/2011)
Finally, my first Barcelona beach day! Sunday the third of July, CELTA-1.
I woke up leisurely after my long walk and party-watching day Saturday, and went out early to go shopping. I had not had the opportunity to buy any groceries yet. I kept it simple; cereal, yoghurts, bread, cheese, ham, pasta, and of course a couple of large bottles of water. When I got home I made myself two large sandwiches with ham, lettuce, tomato, and avocado, and packed them into my bag with some English teaching books and my notes, before saying goodbye to Alan and setting off to the beach.
It must have been lunchtime by the time I got off the Metro at the bottom of La Ramblas, and I was feeling quite hungry. The sandwiches in my bag were calling me, but I decided to wait until I made it to the beach before I tucked in. I headed past Columbus' Column by the port and walked down towards Barcelonetta, occasionally looking up to smile happily at the sun above me. This was partly to distract me from the multitude of lovely bronzed legs that surrounded me on the route to the beach, not one fake-tan in sight. Gotta love summertime.
I arrived at Barcelonetta Beach and sat on a bench facing the shore. Barcelonetta is a long stretch of beach with bars dotted along the back, each with a public shower/changing area for beach-goers. Volleyball nets are all taken by lovely bikini-clad ladies and lads straight out of the gym. Behind the beach there is a foot-and-cycle path that covers the entire length. Here, as with most of Barcelona, rollerskaters pass constantly like a Malibu cliche. The female skaters catch my attention; wonderful thighs. I eat my sandwiches and watch the world go by before moving onto the beach to enjoy my last day before the course starts.
I chose a spot near the back of the beach and before I've sat down an oriental lady approaches, calling "Massaja? Massa-he?". I say no initially, but she is persistent and it's only 5 Euros, plus I have a bad back, so I accept. I try to tell her to be gentle with my back but she doesn't understand. It takes a minute or so of acting to explain that I am injured, and that she must be careful around my spine. I wrap my arm around my bag and lie on my front and she begins.
The massage is good. She works my back, bum, arms, neck and head for a good ten-to-fifteen minutes before asking if I want my legs and feet done for another 5. I accept. When she is done I am very relaxed. She tries to get more out of me but I am happy. I give her ten and another Euro tip and she says goodbye. I lay back and enjoy the sun on my body.
It is very warm. I consider going in the sea, but I hadn't brought any swimming shorts with me, hoping to buy some here. In any case I couldn't leave my bag here what with all the thief stories I'd heard, so I made myself a sand-pillow, got out an English teaching book and did a little last-minute revision, while enjoying the view of theose ladies who were confident enough to go topless, and the others too. It's hard to concentrate under these circumstances, but I somehow managed it in between cheeky peeks.
While on the beach I listen to the voices around me. I hear lots of Australian girls, a few loud American guys, a few Brits, and a few Spanish. I start getting pain in my back from the way I am sitting, so I remake my sand-pillow a few times to keep my posture straight. I've not written about this yet, but a few weeks previously I fell something like 15 foot off a ledge in a forest in France and landed on my back, breaking a log that I fell on. I was very lucky to walk away, or hobble as the case was. My back has not been the same since, and might not ever be. I'll have to write about that trip sometime.
As the sun moved slowly behind the city I got my stuff together and moved off. On the way back past the port I encountered a salsa-style band playing well-known songs in their own style. I sat down amongst a sizeable crowd of people to listen a while. They danced as they played, jumping around each other with so much energy I wanted to get up and join in, but I didn't. I filmed them a while, enjoyed their music a little longer and then headed off, dropping my change into their hat at the front.
When I arrived back at the house Alan offered to take me out for dinner again since it was my last evening of freedom before the course started. We went out for pizza. As we eat and drink a couple of beers we discuss 'demons', those insecurities which can whisper in our minds and drain our confidence with their patronising self-criticism. We discuss ways of defeating these demons, and whether they actually need to be defeated, or just understood and satisfied. Alan says that he tries to imagine them as having some positive purpose hidden in our subconscious, and through discovering this purpose and giving attention to these subconscious monsters we can satisfy them. Of course, any subconscious demon is simply an aspect of its' host's personality, and for a person to be whole and complete they must acknowledge their own subconscious and not do battle with it.
We discuss the demons of worry. When I have things to do and I put them off, I worry about them. Subconscious demons whisper words of discontent to me, making me uncomfortable and causing me stress. This is remedied simply by acknowledging the demon, by either doing the task I am putting off or making solid plans to complete it. The 'demons' are a call for unity from my subconscious. A part of me separates from the 'active me' and attempts to influence the active me. It should be my aim to eliminate the distinction between these parts and myself. These nagging thoughts I am referring to are just like any other thought; an integrated part of myself. To allow for internal conflict creates them. When I eliminate my internal conflicts my subconscious will have nothing to say. Rather than my intentions materialising as thoughts trying to initiate actions, they will manifest as actions first time around, removing the need for internal nagging.
Anyway, got a bit lost there. I talked to Alan about Krishnamurti and his views on the thoughts of man, how thoughts are time, and time is an illusion that can be escaped by the cessation of thought. How we try to observe ourselves in our lives, but in doing so split ourselves into an observer and an observed, where we are only one person who should embrace our unity within infinity. I could go on and on about that but I won't. It's quarter to four in the morning and I need to get some sleep.
Alan and I finished our food and went home. I got to bed straight away to get up early for the beginning of my CELTA course in the morning. I was a little sad that my free time in Barcelona had ended, but excited to be starting the course. It was going to be one hell of a ride.
This is 'The Thirteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
I woke up leisurely after my long walk and party-watching day Saturday, and went out early to go shopping. I had not had the opportunity to buy any groceries yet. I kept it simple; cereal, yoghurts, bread, cheese, ham, pasta, and of course a couple of large bottles of water. When I got home I made myself two large sandwiches with ham, lettuce, tomato, and avocado, and packed them into my bag with some English teaching books and my notes, before saying goodbye to Alan and setting off to the beach.
It must have been lunchtime by the time I got off the Metro at the bottom of La Ramblas, and I was feeling quite hungry. The sandwiches in my bag were calling me, but I decided to wait until I made it to the beach before I tucked in. I headed past Columbus' Column by the port and walked down towards Barcelonetta, occasionally looking up to smile happily at the sun above me. This was partly to distract me from the multitude of lovely bronzed legs that surrounded me on the route to the beach, not one fake-tan in sight. Gotta love summertime.
I arrived at Barcelonetta Beach and sat on a bench facing the shore. Barcelonetta is a long stretch of beach with bars dotted along the back, each with a public shower/changing area for beach-goers. Volleyball nets are all taken by lovely bikini-clad ladies and lads straight out of the gym. Behind the beach there is a foot-and-cycle path that covers the entire length. Here, as with most of Barcelona, rollerskaters pass constantly like a Malibu cliche. The female skaters catch my attention; wonderful thighs. I eat my sandwiches and watch the world go by before moving onto the beach to enjoy my last day before the course starts.
I chose a spot near the back of the beach and before I've sat down an oriental lady approaches, calling "Massaja? Massa-he?". I say no initially, but she is persistent and it's only 5 Euros, plus I have a bad back, so I accept. I try to tell her to be gentle with my back but she doesn't understand. It takes a minute or so of acting to explain that I am injured, and that she must be careful around my spine. I wrap my arm around my bag and lie on my front and she begins.
The massage is good. She works my back, bum, arms, neck and head for a good ten-to-fifteen minutes before asking if I want my legs and feet done for another 5. I accept. When she is done I am very relaxed. She tries to get more out of me but I am happy. I give her ten and another Euro tip and she says goodbye. I lay back and enjoy the sun on my body.
It is very warm. I consider going in the sea, but I hadn't brought any swimming shorts with me, hoping to buy some here. In any case I couldn't leave my bag here what with all the thief stories I'd heard, so I made myself a sand-pillow, got out an English teaching book and did a little last-minute revision, while enjoying the view of theose ladies who were confident enough to go topless, and the others too. It's hard to concentrate under these circumstances, but I somehow managed it in between cheeky peeks.
While on the beach I listen to the voices around me. I hear lots of Australian girls, a few loud American guys, a few Brits, and a few Spanish. I start getting pain in my back from the way I am sitting, so I remake my sand-pillow a few times to keep my posture straight. I've not written about this yet, but a few weeks previously I fell something like 15 foot off a ledge in a forest in France and landed on my back, breaking a log that I fell on. I was very lucky to walk away, or hobble as the case was. My back has not been the same since, and might not ever be. I'll have to write about that trip sometime.
As the sun moved slowly behind the city I got my stuff together and moved off. On the way back past the port I encountered a salsa-style band playing well-known songs in their own style. I sat down amongst a sizeable crowd of people to listen a while. They danced as they played, jumping around each other with so much energy I wanted to get up and join in, but I didn't. I filmed them a while, enjoyed their music a little longer and then headed off, dropping my change into their hat at the front.
When I arrived back at the house Alan offered to take me out for dinner again since it was my last evening of freedom before the course started. We went out for pizza. As we eat and drink a couple of beers we discuss 'demons', those insecurities which can whisper in our minds and drain our confidence with their patronising self-criticism. We discuss ways of defeating these demons, and whether they actually need to be defeated, or just understood and satisfied. Alan says that he tries to imagine them as having some positive purpose hidden in our subconscious, and through discovering this purpose and giving attention to these subconscious monsters we can satisfy them. Of course, any subconscious demon is simply an aspect of its' host's personality, and for a person to be whole and complete they must acknowledge their own subconscious and not do battle with it.
We discuss the demons of worry. When I have things to do and I put them off, I worry about them. Subconscious demons whisper words of discontent to me, making me uncomfortable and causing me stress. This is remedied simply by acknowledging the demon, by either doing the task I am putting off or making solid plans to complete it. The 'demons' are a call for unity from my subconscious. A part of me separates from the 'active me' and attempts to influence the active me. It should be my aim to eliminate the distinction between these parts and myself. These nagging thoughts I am referring to are just like any other thought; an integrated part of myself. To allow for internal conflict creates them. When I eliminate my internal conflicts my subconscious will have nothing to say. Rather than my intentions materialising as thoughts trying to initiate actions, they will manifest as actions first time around, removing the need for internal nagging.
Anyway, got a bit lost there. I talked to Alan about Krishnamurti and his views on the thoughts of man, how thoughts are time, and time is an illusion that can be escaped by the cessation of thought. How we try to observe ourselves in our lives, but in doing so split ourselves into an observer and an observed, where we are only one person who should embrace our unity within infinity. I could go on and on about that but I won't. It's quarter to four in the morning and I need to get some sleep.
Alan and I finished our food and went home. I got to bed straight away to get up early for the beginning of my CELTA course in the morning. I was a little sad that my free time in Barcelona had ended, but excited to be starting the course. It was going to be one hell of a ride.
This is 'The Thirteenth Blog Of Trig', signing off.
2011-08-12
The Fourteenth Blog Of Trig - My Dad
"In the face of so much anger, greed and violence, we must all guard against the danger of those emotions manifesting within ourselves as a response, not to mention the emotional cancers of cynicism, apathy and despair. The world is in a constant state of evolution and if we remember that in order to be part of the solution and not the problem, we have to look inside ourselves as well as at those we perceive to be the perpetrators, then there will be, as there always has been, the chance of a better future."
- Stephen Broughton
2011-08-05
The Twelfth Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 3 - 02/07/2011)
Okay, I'm catching slowly up with the present, day by day. It's the fourth of August now, and I am about to write up my notes from my third day in Barcelona, 32 days ago. I might have to do a brief summary of the course itself when I finally get around to it, otherwise I worry that my backlog will get worse and I'll spend the rest of my life writing about the past, which is just a horrible idea. So anyway, Saturday it is...
I woke up fairly early as always, a bit of the 'morning glory' keeping me face down and smiling for a while before I noticed the light in the room, and my mind ascended into reality. I opened my eyes slightly and then quickly shut them tight, pulled a sheet over my head, put my arm over the sheet blocking my eyes and went back to sleep. Very soon the sound of the birds outside had gotten the better of me and I was up.
I went downstairs and had some cereal and then a cup of tea, which I took up to the roof terrace with me to smoke a cigarette. Once I smoked I did a couple of exercises, couple of press-ups, then went downstairs to my room and surfed the net a while.
I heard Alan call my name and I answered. He asked if I fancied going out to grab some food and get a little orientation round the area. I gladly accepted and we left soon after, heading up to the local food market, then on to the local shopping centre. Now, I hate shopping centres. I walk into Brent Cross and a migraine appears and I want to break shop windows, but this was a nice place. Expensive, but nice.
We sat down at a sushi counter and Alan ordered two glasses of Cava. Very nice. We sat there and chatted, and, almost inevitably when you are talking to me, we got onto discussing the banking system and how corrupt and detrimental to society it is. I somehow got onto conspiracies of all kinds such as 9-11 and 7-7, telling him about all the evidence that points to conspiracy and my theories on it all. We talked of various issues in the world for some time, before we finished our glasses and left to get some food. We wandered the Barcelona streets for a while before stopping at a cafe. I had a very mediocre chicken and chips and then paid for lunch since Alan had bought me dinner the first night. Then we headed back to the house.
After we got back I decided I was going to go and see the 'Neucamp' Stadium a couple of miles away, and I set off with my map and not much else. I bought some beer on my way, thinking it would be nice to have a couple somewhere. It took me a while to get there, but it was one road all the way so no risk of getting lost...and I actually didn't.
I arrived at the Neucamp stadium and was a little disappointed. It is a hideous building of grey stone from the outside. Still, took a couple of pictures and carried on round to the far side of the stadium where I found some cool graffiti. I took a few pictures and then walked on to find a large concrete playing ground the size of a medium sized football field, with a number of Asian guys playing cricket and sitting around. A high wall went around the perimeter of the playing ground, saturated with what from a distance seemed to be very nice graffiti. I wandered in as a group of them were leaving, saying 'ola' to one who seemed to want a stare battle with me, took a couple of photos, and left straight after, feeling slightly out of place.
Looking at my map I saw that I could walk down one main road and be a couple of blocks from where I was staying, and there was also a park on the way that I could check out, and maybe stop for a beer.
I set off, eyes all around me soaking up the noises of the city. As I approached the park I noticed a couple in wedding dress outside the park, looking like they had just been married. I knew I had seen something appropriate in my little Spanish book so I pulled it out and flicked through until I found the right page. "Felicitaciones!" I said with a smile as I passed them. "Gracias senor."
I set off, eyes all around me soaking up the noises of the city. As I approached the park I noticed a couple in wedding dress outside the park, looking like they had just been married. I knew I had seen something appropriate in my little Spanish book so I pulled it out and flicked through until I found the right page. "Felicitaciones!" I said with a smile as I passed them. "Gracias senor."
I walked into the park and wasn't too impressed. There was some nice fountains but the water in the pools was very dirty and the park looked un-maintained in general. It was nice, but could have been much nicer with a little work. I did not spend long in there.
As I approached Les Corts a little further down the road I recognised the shopping centre I had visited earlier with Alan. I knew my way home! I was deciding to go and have a beer or two on the balcony back home when I suddenly heard drums coming from the side roads. I had to stop and investigate and was fascinated to find children running down the road in fireproof demon costumes, with catherine wheels on sticks, stopping running when the wheels stopped spinning as they exploded above their heads. I later learned this is called 'Corre Foc' by the Catalan people, or 'fire running'. They were being led through the side-streets slowly by the drummers, cycling back to their group leader to have new fireworks attached to their sticks. I got my camera out and started filming. I had to avoid the white-hot sparks as they ran past, and as I was crouching filming one runner, his firework flew off, and without me noticing, landed next to me. It then exploded a couple of feet from my head, sending my head spinning and my ears ringing (see video at the top).
After an hour or more watching the show it finished, and everyone watching cheered and clapped. I did likewise and then left to make my way home. As I passed another road I heard more drumming, this time more accurate and professional sounding, so once again I followed my ears to the source and found another two groups of older, more experienced drummers hammering out great rhythms. There was a crowd surrounding them as they marched through the streets to their beats, with older, more adventurous fire-runners ahead of them. These guys did not shy away from the sparks and the fire, they attacked each other with it. They ran at each other with lances like 'Roman Candles', covering each other in sparks. After following them for twenty minutes or so we came to a busy square full of many more drummers, locals, a stage and a bar. I sat down to watch the party.
The drummers and fire-runners performed for a long while on-and-off, stopping at around 11pm (a guess), when a band started playing on the stage. I had already had a couple of my beers at this point, and I cracked open a few more and just sat on a bench watching the festivities around me.
A photographer documenting the party sat down next to me and spoke in Spanish. He looked about 55 at a guess. "Ingles", I said, pointing to myself. He acknowledged me but his silence told me that he did not speak any English. We both sat there checking out the scene in front of us silently, when I caught a whiff of rotten eggs. He tapped me on the shoulder and made a smoking motion while saying something I did not understand, pointing at the group of people sitting on the floor near us. I did not understand him, and motioned this to him. He made like he was injecting something into his arm and then the smoking motion again. I understood. He was telling me that the egg smell was heroin and that they were smoking it.
The party went on as I finished my beers, soaking up the atmosphere happily, smoking far too many cigarettes. I looked up at the clock tower above me and it was midnight! I had been following the fire-runners, drummers, and sitting watching the party for almost five hours! I was a little tired and decided it was time to leave. The photographer had left a while back so I left the party without a goodbye and vanished into the side streets. Within ten minutes I was in bed.
Saturday over. One more day until I start my CELTA course, and really, it would have been stupid not to make it a beach day.
This is "The Twelfth Blog Of Trig", signing off.
2011-08-04
The Ninth Blog Of Trig - Distr-Inter-Actions
We are all so wrapped up in our daily lives that we rarely stop to investigate it all. We accept the definitions and explanations provided to us without question, and this acceptance accompanied by familiarity breeds contempt and complacency.
I often try to visualise everything through the mind I had before I learnt language, inevitably taking me back into the experience of a person that was still trying to establish spacial awareness. As a mobile being this is mandatory, or we would bounce off walls like flies off a light bulb. And we do, for a short while.
Before I learned to discern between a small, close object and a large, distant object, my perception of the world must have been very pure. I would have initially had no technical distinction between what we call 'objects', with growing familiarity giving rise to what could almost be described as contempt for the familiar; 'I know this'.
The initial influx of senses into an untainted mind must be amazing. Imagine opening your eyes for the first time to see the world without any definition of it. Un-named colours, shapes, lights, shadows, hots, colds, all these and everything in between, with no description except that moment as you perceive it. Trees stop being 'trees' and return to their amazing fractal forms, without familiarity and description. The earth becomes another fractal, with infinite complexity and repetition at magnification. The beauty of the Earth reveals itself to you, and you are amazed, until you are told that it is nothing, that the important things in life are ideas made by man. You fight this, you scream, shout, but you are lucky if all you get in response is a smack on the bum.
"Ignore your amazement at this amazing experience that has been thrust upon you. Listen to us and learn these words and forget about experiencing this amazing life in its purity. There is no profit there...we'll tell you about 'profit' later, when we have conditioned this fascination with the world out of you completely, and you have gotten over the shock and settled into a comfortable state of placid acceptance."
We occasionally glimpse fleeting moments of the beauty that we have been distracted from. This is sometimes when the sun shines, when we are at leisure to relax and enjoy it. The brilliant beams of light bounce off of the world and hit us with such force we have to squint and hide until we have accustomed to it again. We breathe deeply and smile and look, absorping every moment of, well, the moment we are in, which of course, if you have read any of my writing, or any of the writing of the many people who have influenced me, is all that really exists.
That's all for now. Writing this is distracting me from the beauty of experiencing this moment : )
This is "The Ninth Blog Of Trig", signing off.
I often try to visualise everything through the mind I had before I learnt language, inevitably taking me back into the experience of a person that was still trying to establish spacial awareness. As a mobile being this is mandatory, or we would bounce off walls like flies off a light bulb. And we do, for a short while.
Before I learned to discern between a small, close object and a large, distant object, my perception of the world must have been very pure. I would have initially had no technical distinction between what we call 'objects', with growing familiarity giving rise to what could almost be described as contempt for the familiar; 'I know this'.
The initial influx of senses into an untainted mind must be amazing. Imagine opening your eyes for the first time to see the world without any definition of it. Un-named colours, shapes, lights, shadows, hots, colds, all these and everything in between, with no description except that moment as you perceive it. Trees stop being 'trees' and return to their amazing fractal forms, without familiarity and description. The earth becomes another fractal, with infinite complexity and repetition at magnification. The beauty of the Earth reveals itself to you, and you are amazed, until you are told that it is nothing, that the important things in life are ideas made by man. You fight this, you scream, shout, but you are lucky if all you get in response is a smack on the bum.
"Ignore your amazement at this amazing experience that has been thrust upon you. Listen to us and learn these words and forget about experiencing this amazing life in its purity. There is no profit there...we'll tell you about 'profit' later, when we have conditioned this fascination with the world out of you completely, and you have gotten over the shock and settled into a comfortable state of placid acceptance."
We occasionally glimpse fleeting moments of the beauty that we have been distracted from. This is sometimes when the sun shines, when we are at leisure to relax and enjoy it. The brilliant beams of light bounce off of the world and hit us with such force we have to squint and hide until we have accustomed to it again. We breathe deeply and smile and look, absorping every moment of, well, the moment we are in, which of course, if you have read any of my writing, or any of the writing of the many people who have influenced me, is all that really exists.
That's all for now. Writing this is distracting me from the beauty of experiencing this moment : )
This is "The Ninth Blog Of Trig", signing off.
The Eleventh Blog Of Trig - Footsteps on the Moon
I walk out of class on Wednesday the 20th July, after what I consider to be the best lesson I have taught so far, and find that while I have been teaching, the people of Barcelona have converged in the streets to protest the ‘financial crisis’; the greatest theft in the history of mankind. I can't go home as I intended. I have to join the procession.
I march through the streets looking around me with a smile. After a while I try to take some photos but my phone is dead, so I sit down for a coffee and plug it into my laptop. This is where I write from now. I don’t know how many people are marching past me now as I write this, but the street has been flowing full of people since well before I sat down. As with the London protests, I can not see the beginning or the end of the procession of people. I can only see the flow, which is steady and unceasing, reminding me of the rivers that washed through the streets during the heavy rainfall this week.
I march through the streets looking around me with a smile. After a while I try to take some photos but my phone is dead, so I sit down for a coffee and plug it into my laptop. This is where I write from now. I don’t know how many people are marching past me now as I write this, but the street has been flowing full of people since well before I sat down. As with the London protests, I can not see the beginning or the end of the procession of people. I can only see the flow, which is steady and unceasing, reminding me of the rivers that washed through the streets during the heavy rainfall this week.
The noise of whistles fills the air like the screech of a football stadium, but this is different. These whistles have purpose. They are blown to the rhythm of the chanting that accompanies them. They synchronise with the drums that beat out the indignation of the Spanish people, of Earth’s people, at having their lives spat on with such disregard by those with power. A banner waves a giant hand with it’s middle finger clearly raised. The Spanish and Catalan people chant words which I recognise from Youtube videos: they sing, “They don’t, they don’t, they don’t rep-re-sent us! They don’t, they don’t, they don’t rep-re-sent us!” They speak of the politicians, and they are right, they don’t.
After twenty minutes or so I am half way through my small 4 Euro(!) coffee, and a largely built man in plain clothes with an earpiece hovers around me. It is obvious he is undercover police, wondering what I am doing on my laptop in the middle of this rabble of smiling 'terrorists', typing away so frantically. He isn’t very inconspicuous. The crowds start to thin out and I consider packing up and moving off after them, but then a new wave floods through the area and the chanting is renewed. Then, slowly, the streets return to their usual shopper + tourist bustle. Behind the protesters heavily armoured police vans crawl slowly and menacingly. Their drivers have balaclavas on…time for me to leave my coffee and catch up with the people.
By the time I catch up with the crowds they have been stopped outside Estacio De Franca (where I type now) by rows of heavily armoured, handgun-armed police. For a hundred metres in front of the barricade the protesters all sit down in the middle of the street. A car up front with a megaphone shouts messages to the crowd and they cheer and whistle in approval. I move up to the front and check out the riot police. A pretty girl walks up their lines smiling at them and offering her lollipop. They shake their heads without a word. I get the feeling many of them would love to take her up on her offer, and would jump at the chance in any other circumstances. What a sad world. I am reminded of the soldiers in world war 1 ceasing fire to play football and exchange presents on Christmas day, before going back to their lines to kill each other.
Fuck the police. I want the police to chant that with us, “FUCK THE POLICE”, and join the people, as people they themselves are.
I have been desperately trying to charge my phone off of my laptop at every safe opportunity I get to sit down, plug it in and type, but it is not easy. I move into the station and see seats. I am very aware of how I appear. There are security men walking round the station with sniffer dogs, eyeing me suspiciously as I sit down, get my laptop out, plug it into my mobile phone, and start typing frantically. I wonder if they are thinking, “is this some kind of hacker here to tap into our station and cause havoc? Is he setting bombs to go off? What is he doing?” I get my notes out, stick my pen in my mouth and get on with what I am doing. When I think my phone is charged enough to take some photos I’ll move back to my notepad and go back out, but for now this is perfect. I can still hear the crowds outside. I can still hear the lady with the megaphone talking in Spanish about how we have all been ripped off. I wish I could speak Spanish so I could tell them my angle on it all; ‘the biggest ‘Ponzi scheme’ in the world’; 'the biggest theft in the history of the world'; 'the biggest load of bullshit believed by the biggest number of people in the world, ever'. The protests are here to show people where they might find truth.
I check the clock and it is 21.34. Suddenly the crowd outside erupts into applause and cheering. I feel I am missing out, but I must wait a little longer so I have enough battery to take some photos. I feel a little bit uncomfortable, knowing that I have lots of work to do, but there is always time. It’s amazing what little sleep you can survive on when you need to, and I have plenty of experience of that, more than I can remember. I check my phone but it still doesn’t look very charged. Time to give it a try. I’ll be back soon.
My mobile works long enough to get some video footage of the riot police and some shots of the protesters, and then it's time for me to go home, cook dinner, maybe get some work done, and then to bed for some much needed sleep. As I walk back along the route that I took with the protesters earlier, I see that the signs they taped to the buildings on their way down are already gone. The banks seemed to have had men at the ready with soap and water to remove the graffiti daubed on their walls and windows. The physical evidence of the protest has been erased in the blink of an eye, but the footprints find no disturbance in my memory, or the memory of those who witnessed it, participated in it. Soap and water cannot remove this. These footprints remain, like a trail through a dark forest, reminding us that others have come this way before, smiling and fearless, passing through unscathed to look back and find the path behind them a little bit more defined, a little more pronounced, and as more and more people tread the path, encouraged by those brave feet that have cleared the way, the wider it becomes. As it widens it accommodates and encourages more travellers. They look down the path, venture down it, reassured by the parties of brave smiling people returning from hacking their way through the forest of the unknown, uncovering the path of truth as they go.This is "The Eleventh Blog Of Trig", signing off.
(P.S. My phone and laptop got stolen a few days later, with all the pictures and footage of the event...)
The Eighth Blog Of Trig - The Barcelona Diaries (Part 2 - 01/07/2011)
Okay, Barcelona blog part two! As I write this I am sitting on the roof terrace of International House Barcelona, the school I am studying at. There are students all around me chatting, smoking, drinking coffee and eating. I have drowned out the background with headphones pumping Beck's album 'Odelay' into my ears (special thanks to Davey Bee for the great times we had trying to decifer the lyrics). I think I left off on Thursday night after meeting my host Alan. So I guess Friday morning is a good place to continue...
So, I wake up Friday morning and have a shower, hot then cold, taking care to pick all my failing hairs out of the bath afterwards (yes, I meant 'failing', not falling). I go downstairs and say hello to Alan and he offers me breakfast. We have Bran Flakes with a sliced banana, OJ on the side. I'm out of cigarettes so I decide to go out and find a shop. Should be simple, but it doesn't work out to be. I head out into the streets and wander in what seems to be a promising direction, but the promise turns out to be broken. I didn't take my map out with me, assuming I wouldn't need it, forgetting of course, that all of Miss Assumption's children are named 'Fuckup'.
I failed to find a shop that sold cigarettes for some time, and by the time I did, I had no idea where I was. I wandered the streets for over an hour, sweating like a pig on a spit, pumping my legs faster and faster in frustration until I finally found my bearings again, realising that I had pretty much been walking circles round the block I was staying on. I also did not feel I had any better idea of the surrounding area. Lesson learnt - always take a map.
Alan greeted me when I arrived back, laughing as I told him my survival story, in the manner of a man who has just crawled his way out of the desert. We had a sandwich for lunch and then I grabbed my bag and set out towards the Metro station. I was on my way to the language school to say hello, and then have a wander round the town and maybe the beach. At the Metro station I bought a ticket which gave me 50 journeys on Metro or buses, within 30 days, for 31 Euros. That's three days' travel in London, if you're lucky.
The underground Metro reminds me of the one in Budapest, but more modern. They both have similar '80s-computer-game' sounds on the train to announce arrival, departure, and doors opening. I prefer it to the aural torture inflicted on London commuters. I have on many occasions been very close to unleashing my fury upon the speakers on the London trains. I have envisioned myself running at the things with a biro-bayonet, sending the little beeping bastards straight to silicon heaven with a calculated stab through the tweeter, while commuters drop dead from shock upon hearing my horrific war-cry.
The Metro stations are all absolutely sweltering, being too large an area to effectively air condition, but the trains are nice and cool. I left the train and walked into the heat outside with a smile. It was bright outside, and I didn't have to look in the direction of the sun to be forced into squinting.
Getting off at Catalunya station, I found myself in Placa De Catalunya, a big square with water-featured monuments dotted about. I walked around taking a couple of photos and soaking up the atmosphere, trying to recognise the different accents around me. I heard lots of American, lots of Australian, and of course lots of Spanish. I gazed around me for a while, being reminded of Trafalgar Square a little (Spanish style, without Nelson), then I headed for the far corner of the square, which my map told me was where I had to go to begin the short walk to the school.
I arrived at the school 5 minutes later, and was directed to the first floor where I met Gloria, the Head of Administration. She had a bright smile which made me feel comfortable immediately. I was hoping for a tour, but her assistant was at lunch and she had to stay at her desk. She told me to arrive at 8.30am Monday and she would introduce me to my fellow students and show me to my class. Before I left she introduced me to another Sam, who holds a senior teaching position. He was also smiling and friendly, making me feel very positive about things.
I came out of international house and I walked towards the 'Ramblas', but I got distracted by the interesting alleyways cutting off of the main roads, and decided to investigate. A part of me echoed the warnings I had heard about the crime in Barcelona, but I wanted to see as much as the city as possible, not just the busy tourist areas, so I headed off the beaten track into the side passages, which were made slightly ominous by the tall buildings that created them. Some looked less inviting than others, with sombre faces staring out from the shadows, and the smell of urine and sweat wofting through the channels. I chose my alleyways carefully using the criteria of piss saturation and ominiscity. Is that a word? It is now. 'Ominiscity'. You heard it here first.
After wandering through the passages a while I came across the cathedral. I guess it was one of Gaudi's creations by its beautiful architecture. In front was a market with all kinds of antique curiosities, which I expected to be expensive by the looks of them. I browsed a while and then headed up the side of the cathedral where I found a couple of guys playing Indian music. I stopped a while, took a video (at the top of this page), and then headed off in some random direction. Maps are useless in these maze-like streets.
I had decided earlier to visit the port and the beach, so I headed down the Ramblas (once I found it by complete fluke) towards the ocean. At the bottom of the Ramblas is Columbus' column, very much like Nelson's, but for CC. Behind this is the port. I headed over and watched as two enormous Scottish guys were told off by police for jumping into the water in the port half-clothed for a swim. Then I sat on a bench and read my Spanish phrase book a while, then my English teaching book. I decided to walk round the port to see how far the beach was, but it was pretty far and I had already walked a long way so I decided to head back in the direction of home.
Shortly after leaving the port area I came across a small park by the main road with some amazing graffiti art. I stopped and took some photos, and then for the next few minutes, every corner I turned I found more (graffiti blog shows more pics). Then I came to the foot of Montjuïc (translated in Catalan as 'Jew Hill), a hill which begins the 'Port Vell Aerial Tramway', a 1300m long carriage journey on a 45mm rope across the harbour to Barceloneta Beach. I started walking up the hill to get a view from the top, passing a man painting the scenery on the way (below), before making it up to the top fifteen minutes later, covered with sweat.
At the top of the hill I found a lovely bar with a cliff-terrace overlooking the ocean, the whole of Barcelona, and even the mountains to the north-west. I ordered a beer and sat down to admire what I guess to be a 270 degree panoramic view of the city and surroundings, got out my laptop and started typing. I finished off a piece of writing about my history teacher, Mr Oulton, and what he taught me about analysing information to find truth.
I had a couple of beers looking out over Barcelona, feeling very comfortable about where I was (or WHEN I was - the one and only real moment of time - now) and the course I was about to embark on. I thought about light rays and the false wave-particle duality of reality. I read my English Language Teaching book. I read my book, 'Dope International', about the international heroin trade and how it was run after WW2 by the the Sicilian/Italian MAFIA, Corsican gangsters, and others. I read how the author suspected the 'Big Boss' to be in Britain. I looked out and smiled.
As the sun started to go down I left the bar and headed back to the house. It was a long walk, through busy pedestrianised streets, filled with tables and chairs occupied by the customers of the many bars and restaurants either side. Children kicked footballs around. Skateboarders tried their tricks out in front of their friends. The bustling noise of the people was comforting and friendly.
When I got home I had some food and then went to bed fairly soon after. I had walked a lot of miles that day. Bring on Saturday!
This is "The Eighth Blog Of Trig", signing off.
2011-07-10
The Tenth Blog Of Trig - Barcelona Graffiti Art
Not gonna waffle on with this one. This is a picture post. Enjoy:
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This is "The Tenth Blog Of Trig", signing off.
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