My July Holiday

I forgot to mention earlier, that actually the very first visit we made, before driving up to York, was to Fountains Abbey, four miles west of Ripon in North Yorkshire, and is a World Heritage site (since 1987 apparently).

It was really quite a place – a bit magical, a bit ruined, a bit like Stonehenge. It was actually reasonably sunny when we started walking the grounds... but it soon turned quite bleak (cf. ominous clouds in picture), and we didn't get to see the structure's beauty in all its glory. Still, if I wanted to, there are postcards to look at. (Updated photographs available here on Flickr – if you're registered as a friend, you'll get to see much more, obviously!)

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The Hunt Harrison Mission (as mentioned before)... originated from an innocent day out in Birmingham, when we went to watch the cricket at Edgebaston. J and I were in this pub before meeting the rest, getting a pint and generally mucking about. From across the room, J looked up and smiled at this guy – when I say guy, I actually meant giant – he was huge, more than 6" tall, had long white-grey flowing hair, was wearing a white vest and jeans, with a black leather jacket on his shoulder. He was more than twice the size of me put together, but he was a really nice bloke, with a friendly smile. J described him as a gentle giant.

This guy, whose name is Harrison, as it turns out, lives in Bristol and owns a Harley Davidson. He was left more than 1 million pounds when an old friend of his died. They didn't know each other before, but Harrison was friendly and happened to meet his old bloke, who happened to have no family to leave it to. I thought such things only happened in films, or in news stories, but it was amazing chatting to someone who, in real honesty, just got very lucky because he was friendly.

J and Harrison really hit it off. Harrison, who plays the drums in a band around Bristol, also owns a dutch barge which he uses as a house boat which he moors there – he liked J so much he told us we should look him up anytime and he'll put us up in his swanky new boat which costs a quarter of a million, and we'd go out drinking in town and the works. So they exchanged numbers. J took Harrison's. Harrison didn't take J's, because J said he would text him. And as it happens, J lost his phone that very same night.

***


Cut to a week ago, we were driving to Bristol and J turned to me and said, "Should you choose to accept this mission... there will be no turning back." What mission, I asked? "The Hunt Harrison Mission", came the reply. I laughed. I'm in, I said. After all, it can't be that hard to spot a giant-like guy who rides a Harley, plays drums in a band, and owns a dutch barge on the docks of Bristol.

Cut a few hours later, we walked into a pub called the Hope and Anchor – the owner, Martin, makes a few calls and says he hasn't heard of anyone who fits the description, but directs us to a green porta-cabin where Tim who knows every boat in Bristol, will definitely tell us where to find him.

Cut a few minutes later, I'm a bit tired. I'm supposed to direct J, we can't find this cabin and we drive around in circles. Finally, someone directs us there and after locating Tim, who swears he hasn't seen anyone like that, we are told there might be a possible barge located at this specific place down by the docks.

Cut again, we drive down towards the docks. I'm getting even more tired, J's not really getting my directions. Tension rises. We can't find free parking. We decide to pay for it in the end, and walk towards the specified spot along the banks... only to find another boat, smaller, sitting in its place. We talk to its owner (who actually lives on that boat with his wife and son, slightly weird, but kinda nice if you actually think about it long enough), who told us to go down to the Marina.

It's still quite a way to walk, but too troublesome to drive to. My feet are tired, I feel skanky, and I finally say, "Mission abort. I'm tired, I want to go to a nice restaurant for a bite to eat. Fuck the mission."

J looks disappointed. How can we fail? We're so close, but no cigar. He looks crestfallen and I'm tempted to say, oh well let's go on, but I don't falter.

"If you really want to, I'll walk on with you – but to be honest, I'm really not bothered walking another few miles looking for a guy who might or might not be there", and I added in my head, who might or might not have told us the truth. Either that or maybe we got some details wrong.

And so it was, that the Hunt Harrison Mission came to an end.

Or has it, really?

I've got a feeling it'll be coming back to haunt us.

Back 2 Reality Part II

For the first time since I started my postgrad degree, I actually went to the library and borrowed three books. My library card record has been a clean sheet due to my dogged resistance to avoid stepping into that building at all costs.

I also actually enjoyed reading all that academic writing on my topic – probably because I haven't done it in awhile, and also, I'm interested in what I'm writing about. But it's all pretty complicated...

On another note, I played the grand piano today – a long time since I've exercised my fingers that way – and I really miss it. I miss playing for mass on the sundays, and being able to play bollocks after everyone's left – my fingers since have lost whatever dexterity it had before to becoming more like clumsy bananas tripping over each other in a race to get up and down the scales. It was saddening. And I would have loved to have a full-on get-my-fingers-running-session on the piano but this room, which was the only one available, was situated where everyone who walked into the main building could hear every bloody note I was playing. For fear of adding to the heat woes of general humankind, I kindly decided to spare the ears of surrounding unsuspecting victims. I need a soundproof room to get my fingers back to the land of the living.

Back 2 Reality Part I

After a whistle-stop tour around England, I am finally back in London, armed with a great tan and a wonderful collection of photographs from our visits to York, Scarborough, Whitby, Bristol, Exeter and Devon (in chronology).

Alas, I am also finally back to reality, which came crashing down when I awoke this morning – blurry-eyed, flustered, and sick with a sinking feeling inside that my holiday is now officially over.

So I've given myself about a month off since my last deadline and the next is looming ever-so-close that I wonder if I'm going to kill myself doing an all-nighter again, except this will have to be all-nighter(s) since it involves more than just academic writing and evaluation – interviews, and so on...

I had a great time on holiday – it's funny to think how many students come to England to study but only remain pretty much in their one area of England. Thanks to J, I've toured pretty much all that's significant in England. And I really am going to miss it when I make my imminent move come October.

Having said that, I think I'm really ready for a change. No matter what that brings. I'll probably be ready for a change in another year. Only this time, I'll have to stay six years.

York was possibly the prettiest English city I've ever been to. I walked the Shambles and its wonky houses on the side of the cobbled streets had such a quaint charm, I couldn't quite put my finger to it. We walked around just looking at the maze of streets and York felt more like a little town than a city. We discovered The Most Wicked Pub of the Century according to Me called the Evil Eye Lounge, which was hidden at the back of a tobacconist and once inside, revealed a spectaculor interior with an Indonesian/Balienese decor. It had rows and rows, shelves and shelves of every single spirit you could ever think of (see above picture), and the biggest cocktail menu I have ever seen. On top of that, it served Malaysian, Indonesian and Thai food. Upstairs, you had soft cushions in little cubicles to cosy up within, and on the other side, an internet cafe. It was almost surreal. The food was the best I've had in ages (to the acquainted, I had beef rendang and nasi goreng!!! I nearly died of food-or-gas-mic-delight. We made such good friends with the bar staff, we stayed out with them till late and partied deep into the night. It was brilliant.

I would go on and on about my holiday, but to keep it digestible, here is a summary:

- After having had two hours sleep, got up very hungover and drove to Scarborough.

- Typical British seaside town, I saw the biggest seagull ever and they were nasty, tried to intimidate me, a full-sized human being, into surrendering my ice-cream, the cheeky bastards!

- Went to Whitby, and more accurately, a little village called High Horsken, to visit J's grandpa. He's 86, but still very mentally acute, intelligent and well-spoken. We sat drinking whisky and listened to his World War II stories – he flew in Lancaster planes as a pilot/navigator and was intricately involved in the British forces' operations during the war – and stories about J's nan. We went to the North York moors where it was so big and vast and beautiful, and so windy that I was literally blown away as I stood at the highest point of the moors to admire the beautiful countryside.

- Drove a massive journey all the way from Whitby (North-east) to Bristol (South-west). Got very car-sick on the way due to ups and downs and constant swerving (J's impatient driving). Sat by a hotel bar at the Clifton Suspension Bridge and had a pint of Magners and some chips. Embarked on a Hunt Harrison mission (more of that to come later) before finally giving up and eating at a very nice but stupidly pricey restaurant on the docks. Met up with lovely friends living in Bristol and went to a local pub where you got the most eclectic mix of people, mostly young and students, in this grubby but very lively pub, drinking and skinning up.

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(top left, Robin Hood's bay, near Whitby; top right, the North York Moors; bottom left, Whitby harbour; bottom right, Salcombe, Devon)

(Part II coming up)

Packing hell and agony

These two last days, I've been to packing hell and back. See the messy state of my room there? Imagine a chaos ten times that magnitude and that's what I've been living in the last two days.

Richard (my next door Canadian neighbour) walked past my room and shook his head, saying, 'you've got too many objects for such a small person'. Well, I've concluded that I'm not small, but I do have too many things – I sat defeated on my chair about halfway through my packing yesterday and looked at everything around me sadly. You have no idea the agony I have to go through, and it's not so much the physical act of packing, but more of the fact that I had to make a milliongazillion decisions about every bloody thing that I owned which made me go a bit crazy.

And the clutter. It's amazing how much one can accumulate, and it's even worse when you're doing a job like journalism where every piece of information could be important and I keep everything from newspapers to magazines to press releases and lots and lots of junk. I went through three huge black bin liners and they were so heavy I had to drag them out from my room to the kitchen (where I heard the cleaners complaining loudly in some foreign language in the morning, which I assume has got to do with the rubbish). I even surprised myself at the amount of stuff I could actually store in my reasonably-sized L-shaped room.

And to be truthful, my packing nightmare has been a bit of a revelation – it has been a surprisingly reflective and self-discovering process... at the end of it all, I actually knew myself that little bit better. It was really hard deciding which category each thing belonged to; some things I didn't think were important actually were, and some things I thought were important, weren't really...

Some examples:

1. My silver-blue Wharfedale hifi – it's nice, really good, with speakers connected with fibre wires which makes the sound great. The top panel is even transparent and vertically opens very stylishly when I press the 'open' button. I bought it for a 100 quid in the first year and it's played many-a-tunes, from preparing me for nights out, to chilling me out or, cheering me up in times of distress. I couldn't live without music, and there're so many memories attached to it, but yet, it is quite a big hi-fi, and it would cost me lots to ship it back. After thinking about it for a whole hour, I finally decided to let it go. So I'm going to try and sell it at the car boot sale this sunday, and I hope I get an okay price for it.

2. A very plain pink long sleeved off-shoulder Topshop top – it's the sort of top that could also be like a jumper and I couldn't place it immediately in the send-home category (because honestly, no one ever wears long sleeved tops in a hot country), but I couldn't bring myself to sell it either. In the end, I decided to send it home, only because J said I looked nice in it before, and it's actually really comfy!

3. My orange rug, my moon-shaped lamp, my orange translucent door-curtain-like-things, the vase which contained the first flowers J ever bought for me, my leather jacket, my nice pink pilot jumper, and [most painfully] my black fluffy furry boots which I used to podium dance in at raves... are some of the things which I really hated to let go... but I have done in the end.

I did, however, keep a couple of jackets and my newest pair of Bertie boots, and my leather gloves... stuff that I'll probably use if I do travel.

In summary, this has been a trip down memory lane, although slightly premature (I have another three months before I leave) but I guess it's good that I'm getting things done early (what a change) and I can finally concentrate on getting started on my dissertation (yeah right).

The Weekend That England Failed Itself Again

What a weekend of sports, and losing.


A bunch of us went to watch the Twenty20 Cup between Warwickshire Bears and Gloucestershire Gladiators at Edgebaston at the weekend. I've only been to a cricket match once before in my entire life, and that was last year, at the same place when the Bears played some other team.

This time, however, we managed to get great seats. They were right in front of the wicket, and the sun was shining brilliantly at us, I got an amazing tan, and of course, a refresher course on understanding the ways of cricket – I've always thought cricket was a thoroughly boring and tedious game, but yknow I'm actually beginning to appreciate it. The Twenty20 match is great for cricket appreciation for beginners – the bowlers go for more whacks and the pace is so much quicker. Just a quick summary for the uninitiated – both teams take turns at bowling, and the whole point is to accumulate as many points as possible in the limited number of 20 overs. Gloucester Gladiators went first and got a total of 188 points. Warwickshire Bears then came on and they really underperformed in the first half, like they did last year. But in the end, it got really exciting because they quickly caught up towards the second half. Whenever they got a '4' or '6', the crowd went crazy, and some sort of pop-ish music would start playing and people would get up and start dancing on their feet, waving their placards to celebrate the points. It was actually really funny sitting and observing the different ways people cheered. I've also concluded that without England's chavs, there would be hardly anyone left to cheer for England. For all their faults and social consequences, England's matches would be deadly silent without them.

Indeed, they sing and cheer with such gung-ho that it often doesn't take long before it starts to get really grating on your ears, and your nerves. There are some times that they aren't so bad, like at the cricket, but some other times I wished I had a dumb-gun which I can point and shoot at them, that will automatically make them quiet for the next hour. Anyway, the cricket. We [the Bears] were down to the last ball, and if they hit a 4 or 6, Bears would have won the game. But they came so close... only to lose out at the very last minute. Exactly the same way they did last year. It was kinda depressing witnessing their lost two years in a row... but hey, I don't think I'll be around next year to see if luck turns around for them. Managed to take some pics of the grounds and the action.


We got so silly drunk by the end of the game, I even joined in the lame mexican waves that made its way across the stadium, and the short dancing spurts of celebration when everyone lept to their feet if a ball flew out of the boundary. We went into Birmingham to club and thanks to a mate who wore inappropriate trainers, we ended up in quite a crap RnB club, which was still dancable [there was a very nice DJ who played all the songs I requested] but I soon gave up from tiredness and drink. Can you believe the taxi back was 42 quid?!




*

We prepared ourselves for another day of drinking [when I say drink, I meant I actually had only one pint of Magners which lasted me the whole game while the guys downed close to 10 during the whole period we were watching the match] and had, annoyingly, to find ourselves a pub to watch England v Portugal in last minute because the pub we arranged to go to was filled with those noisy chavs I spoke about. The sniggering and shouting was seriously doing my head in – I wanted to get up and tell them to shut up or give them a smack on their head [disregarding the fact that EVERY one of them was larger than me] but G said, what's the point, it'll take so long to sink in their thick skull the game will probably be over by then.

So we trooped away and found ourselves a nice pub garden to watch it in, which was a bonus. And then there was the match, which was again disappointing in performance – but did have its good moments when I really thought things were looking up. Then of course, the sending off and the penalties. One bad mistake, one bad decision and a few lousy penalties and England's fate was sealed. Lampard has been consistently shit this season. The last match they played was the first he actually had some shots on target. I have no idea why Sven let him take the first penalty. The psychology of winning the first penalty is so important. But Sven's probably secretly plotting for England to lose, what with falling into the fake sheik trap and all that and being disgraced.

When Ronaldo pelted that ball into the net, someone in the pub actually shouted ha! He missed! before realising that the whole Portugal team was fucking estatic with joy for a reason. A huge, incredibly acute silence suddenly descended on the pub. It was really, agony. Not just where I was watching it. Even outside, the cheering stopped. It's like time stood still for that few seconds after the ball went in and all of England's dream of reclaiming the Cup on the 40th anniversary of their only win evaporated along with the muggy heat of the day.

People around me started crying, some kicked the chairs, some threw their pints down. Several minutes later, everyone spilled onto the streets and sat on the pavements numbly, while a group of lads started kicking a ball around mindlessly.

It was national mourning. And a cloud of desperate disappointment, and the air of losers, pervaded the air.

I sat there surveying all in front of me, and even though deeply disappointed myself, I wondered about the amazing ability of such human, constructed, events to influence the emotions of people at such a massive level. Surely every pub in England [except maybe, the Portugese-run ones] must be in tears... I couldn't imagine the same scale of national pride, and disappointment, existing in my home country. Maybe it's something that comes with time, but being proud to be English, is very different from being proud to be Singaporean.

I watched on, musingly, and wondered if we would ever reach that stage.

Having watched two sides lose in two different matches in one weekend, I've concluded that it's not so much about the winning, or losing, but the fact that the game is still there. The years will come and go, and the next World Cup will come around, and all of a sudden, the loss four years ago will be but a distant memory and a country's hopes will be revived again.

In the words of a guy, Tom, whom I met at the weekend,

"Hey, I'm fucking gutted about England. But yknow what? I'm going to look at the material side. I'm still a millionaire, and more people will probably come to my club tonight because they want to cheer themselves up, and I've still got a pretty amazing bed to sleep in tonight... so it really don matter in the long run."