T is for Travelling

he excessively long train journey I was on last night made me realise that I don't really enjoy travelling that much. I like the end points -- the getting to the destination, and then arriving home again -- but the actually journey I find unpleasant. I'm not one of these people who can kick off their shoes, put on their noise-cancelling headphones and neck pillow, and then be perfectly at ease for the duration of the trip, arriving relaxed and chilled at their terminus. My modus operandi is to be grizzly and uncomfortable throughout, kind of impatient, so that I arrive a hot, sticky mess with my muscles in knots. Also, I am definitely not a person who packs light. It's not that I pack a lot of stuff, it's that for some reason the stuff I pack is inordinately heavy. My laptop weighs a tonne, I usually pack an extra set of clothes for contingencies, and in most cases I am also usually lugging around a whole lot of camera gear too. I am completely envious of those effortless travellers who make it look so easy.

It's not that I haven't had a lot of practice travelling; I probably travel more than most. I've commuted to work for the last 3 years or so, and as part of my job I have to travel a fair amount. I usually go abroad three or four times a year to present my work at international conferences, and I try to take the opportunity to tack on a few days either side of the conference to explore the country. This has been a great way to see some of the world, and if my memory doesn't fail me, I've been to 20 different countries now: Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Chile, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, (Malta), Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Singapore, Taiwan, USA, Vatican City, Wales. That's 8% of the world, apparently:

Create your own travel map - TravBuddy

I've also lived in countries other than the UK. I spent two years living in Chile, not knowing any Spanish whatsoever when I arrived. That was hard going for a while. Luckily my co-workers spoke English, and I found a group of ex-pats to hang around with while I was there. Chile is a beautiful country: its people are beautiful and its landscape is gorgeous. There's something for everyone... deserts and high mountains in the far north; the verdant pisco regions of what they call the "little north"; the central valley, famed for its wine, which hosts the capital city, Santiago. South of Santiago, there's a lush hilly region reminiscent of the English Lake District, and in the far south leading to Patagonia, there are mountains, glaciers and penguins. The west of the country is limited by the Pacific Ocean, and the east is bounded by the impressive Andes, which are snow-capped much of the year. I explored the country a fair bit, but didn't quite get to the far south or the far north. I need to go back!

I spent three years in the USA, in California. That was amazing... such a different way of life to what I was used to, even though many things were the same. The sun shines literally every day for 11 months of the year and that really buoyed my mood considerably. It surprises me how much weather can affect one's outlook on life. Most of the time I was in the city, in and around LA, but I did the beautiful trip on the I5 from LA to San Diego with regularity, and I managed to get up north twice, to see San Francisco, and to go to Monterey. The trip down the coast from Monterey to San Luis Obispo is amazing... the ocean is amazing, the beaches are amazing, the undulating cornfields and blue skies around SLO are fantastic. I went out east to the desert, to a wolf sanctuary near Joshua Tree National Park... the wolves were huge and mightily scary, but I got to go into their enclosure and spend a couple of hours with them, feeding them and watching them wrestle and swim. In the National Park itself, the joshua trees were otherworldy, and what looked like a stick in the road turned into a slithering, rattling snake! Some of my favourite places were the beaches... the pier at Santa Monica, the amazing views from the Getty Museum, the gorgeous golden sands at Santa Barbara, the crash of the waves in Big Sur, and the tranquility of the beach at Carmel. Again, I seemed to miss out on a lot of what California has to offer... the National Parks in the north, and its proximity to Oregon and to Mexico. All the more reason to go back!

Following a brainstorming session and with a little bit of help from Trip Advisor earlier, I reckon I've been to about 250 places in the world. Trip Advisor's "Cities I've Visited" map is a little odd since it classes London as one place, but all the little cities and towns around Los Angeles, for instance, as separate places. Thus I've been to 40 or 50 places in LA and southern California, but only one in London! Anyway, this is what my world map looks like:

• Create your own travel map or travel blog

Although heavily dominated by Europe, South America and the coasts of the US, I have managed to visit every continent apart from Africa, and I have been to Madeira, which is pretty damn close to Africa. I've also been to the Far East... 24 hours in Singapore on a stopover, a few hours hurriedly looking around Hong Kong (post-handover to China), and a week in Taiwan. I was also due to travel to Japan a few days after the massive earthquake this year, but was advised to cancel the trip due to safety reasons. It's a shame, since one of my favourite films is "Lost in Translation". Speaking of cancelled trips, I was due to fly to Washington DC the day that massive blizzards hit the north-east of England earlier this year. I got to Manchester airport about 5 minutes before they closed it down, meaning that I had to endure a hair-raising taxi ride home on slippery road... an exact repeat of the journey there. I also got stuck in Toulouse during a British Airways strike last year, and had a bit of hassle from that Icelandic volcano's explosion. Not to mention the delayed trains, the traffic jams and never-arriving buses. Travel isn't always fun, but it's definitely worth it. To finish off, a few pictures from some of my favourite places on the planet:

A is for Albums

nyone who knows me even vaguely should know that I love music. I've loved it since I was fairly young, and at one time I had a huge (bootleg) music collection on cassette tape, which I only recently disposed of. I don't remember exactly what my first album was, but I think it was either Now That's What I Call Music 5 or Hits 3 (The Tape), both of which came out in 1985. The latter album is undoubtedly the best album ever made, but sadly I no longer have a copy. Just check out this playlist... there's not a single bad song, and so many excellent ones. "Life in a northern town" by Dream Academy? Awesomeness! Listen while you read:

I would like to take you through eleven of the best albums of my life. It's been fairly straightforward choosing these, unusually... they're simply the albums that I'm still listening to 10 or 20 years after they were released. Also, since I'm fairly musically fickle, at a later date I'll take you through five of the albums I'm listening to now that I think might stand the test of time.

A bit of background: I grew up in the 1980s, by religion we listened to the Top 40 on BBC Radio 1 pretty much every Sunday night. My family drove around quite a lot... long road trips to visit distant family were dominated by my parents' taste in music. If my dad got his way it was Chris Rea, the Beach Boys, Tom Petty, Dire Straits and the Travelling Wilburys. On the rare occasions that my mum won, it was Cliff Richard, Tina Turner, Madness and The Doors. A fair mix, which probably had the effect on me of aversion therapy. With that in mind, let's dive in to the top albums, listed chronologically:

Bat Out of Hell -- Meat Loaf (1977). This is the fifth best-selling album of all time, having sold about 43 million copies. That means there's about one copy for every 160 people on the planet. It came out in 1977, before I was even born. Every track is a rock-opera style belter, and I am proud to be able to belt the lyrics out alongside Meat himself. This album never fails to lift my mood. Favourite track has to be "All Revved Up with No Place to Go", entirely for the baseball commentary at the end.

Whitney -- Whitney Houston (1987). Whitney Houston's first album has a few good tracks on it, but this, her sophomore album, is packed with powerful ballads and rhythmic and catchy upbeat numbers. I am fairly embarrassed to say that I probably know all the lyrics to this album, but even more embarrassed to say that I lifted many of the lyrics to include as lines in love poems to girlfriends. I was young, what can I say?

Appetite for Destruction -- Guns'n'Roses (1987). For many years I wasn't allowed to listen to this album, the "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" sticker being heeded to the letter. One of my parents got it as part of a CD club deal... I'm not sure why. It really wasn't their taste in music at all, although my mum's penchant for Thin Lizzy makes her the prime suspect. What an excellent debut album though, surely one of the best ever? This album is packed with so many memorable songs. I probably know the lyrics to every single one. "Sweet Child O'Mine" and "Paradise City" are the most well-known, but "Nighttrain" and "Mr. Brownstone" stick in my mind.

Out of Time -- REM (1991). Now for something less embarrassing and more critically acclaimed. This was probably REM's first big album. The band from Athens, Georgia put together a jingly-jangly album evocative of sunshine, cornfields and the American midwest. "Shiny Happy People" and "Losing My Religion" were the songs picked up by the radio stations at the time, but the song of the album for me is "Near Wild Heaven". "Low" is also a big favourite. For a long time if anyone asked me, I would say that this was my favourite album ever. Clearly better than any other album REM have put out, except maybe for their retrospective which also came out in 1991, "Best of REM".

The Definitive... -- Simon and Garfunkel (1991). This is a bit of a cop-out since it's a "Best Of" album, but it holds a place dear in my heart since it was my first ever CD -- part of a Christmas present with my first ever CD player. There are loads of good tracks, from the broody "Sound of Silence" and "The Boxer" to the foot-tapping "59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" and "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)".

Achtung Baby -- U2 (1991). To round off the hattrick of albums from 1991, this early U2 classic. For a couple of years I kept hearing great songs on the radio, and I'd never figured out who they were by (this was way before Google). Then one day I was visiting my uncle with my family and he put on a CD... and the stereo played iconic rock song after iconic rock song: it was all the songs that I'd been hearing for the past couple of years. I managed to steal a look at the CD cover, and the mystery was revealed: Achtung Baby. So many good tracks.

Rage Against The Machine -- Rage Against The Machine (1992). This is another one of those albums, like Bat Out of Hell and Achtung Baby, that fits together so well you just have to listen to it in its entirety every time. It's definitely a magnum opus, and it marked a change in my musical listening to a heavier sound.

August and Everything After -- Counting Crows (1994). After REM's "Out of Time" was released, I struggled to find anything I liked as much musically. Their follow-up album, "Automatic for the People" was a disappointment... it sounded a little too "produced". And then along came this beauty, which blew my socks off. It had everything that "Out of Time" had, including the delicate little ballads. But with "August..." there wasn't that hint of country twang which came with "Out of Time", which made it better in my books at the time. Great album, with some great tracks: "Perfect Blue Buildings", "Anna Begins", "Raining in Baltimore".

Tragic Kingdom -- No Doubt (1995). I kind of hate this album because it reminds me of Sundays, and Sundays for me were the most painfully boring day of the week when I was growing up. I really really really hated Sundays. No shops were open, there was nothing to do, it was a day of chores and "getting ready for school". Musically it was a day of listening to Dave Lee Travis, Fluff Freeman and Ken Bruce on BBC Radio 2 (kill me now), and occasionally parts of this album would be on. Years on from then, though, those associations have somewhat worn off, revealing an album that is a cracker. Loads of bouncy, quirky, funky songs to sing along with.

If You're Feeling Sinister -- Belle and Sebastian (1996). I first heard this album sitting in a friend's room in a hall of residence in my first year at university. It blew me away, because it was like nothing I'd ever heard before. I consider this to be my first ever "grown-up music". At times it's painfully awkward, at other times it just runs away with you, like a lanky boy stumbling through a cross-country race on Games afternoon. Each track is individual and finely crafted; stand-out tracks for me are "Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying", "Like Dylan in the Movies" and "Judy and the Dream of Horses".

Word gets around -- The Stereophonics (1997). To round off the top 11, what feels like a modern album... still! I seriously have to limit how much I listen to this album because the songs will just be stuck in my head for weeks to a painful extent. Even thinking about it now, phantom singers in my head are keening "Billy Davey's second daughter // threw herself to dirty water // Billy's left with nothing but a dream." There's not a single bad song on this album, it's pretty much perfect.

A little bonus, but I can't add this to the top 11 since I don't own this album any more:
The White Room -- KLF (1991). 1991 was clearly a year of good music. This classic album from the KLF is jam-packed with good tracks. From the opening "What Time Is Love?" to the Tammy-Wynette-free "Justified and Ancient", the album is a very funky listen.

M is for Manchester

any words have been written about Manchester, in the north of England (definitely not to be confused with Manchester, New Hampshire, or Manchester, Bolivia). It was a key town in the Industrial Revolution in England, becoming a major textile centre. Subsequent development meant that it blossomed into the world's first industrialised city, and hosted the world's first railway station. Rutherford first split the atom at the University of Manchester, and the first programmable computer, Baby, was developed over the road. More recently, Manchester has been home to a vibrant music scene (giving birth to the likes of Joy Division, New Order, Morrissey, Simply Red, Oasis, James, Badly Drawn Boy, Doves, etc.) and many sporting franchises, with Manchester United Football Club being perhaps the most famous, having a reputed hundreds of millions of fans worldwide.

More pertinently, Manchester has been my home for a good number of years (nine, in fact), and even though I've moved away and gone back and moved away and gone back and moved away... I still consider it home, even though I'm a Southerner by birth. It's a city which I have a love/hate relationship with, and I'm going to tell you a bit about it.

I first visited Manchester in 1995, when I was 17. It was winter, it was cold and the rain was horizontal. The sky was dark, even though it was mid-morning, and the daylight was scant when it did arrive. I was attending a university open day at UMIST, an old university trying to become new. We were shown around a huge, domineering red-bricked building, filled with mazy, dark corridors laid out with scuffed green lino and wooden locker-lined walls. When the wind blew, the single-paned windows rattled in their frames, and papers rustled on desks. It was grim.

The degree course it offered sounded good, though, and so a few months later I found myself applying for a place there. And then this happened:

(Apologies for the OTT Americanisation).

How nice to know that in three short months I was off to live in an IRA bombing target. This just added to the poor imaginings I had of the city: not only was it a gun- and knife-crime hotspot (Moss Side, anyone?), innocent-looking Mancunian vans in crowded shopping centres suddenly injure hundreds of people.

Needless to say, I moved there in autumn of 1996, and it was as grim as I expected. The incessant rain soaked to the skin, the chill wind penetrated to the bone, and the gloomy darkness of Manchester winters penetrated right to my heart. I lived a park's width away from Moss Side, and shared the streets with all sorts of shady characters and drunken yobs. I counted myself fortunate not to have been mugged until my third year there; we weren't burgled until later than year. My car wasn't broken into until the fourth year. Inner-city life in south-central Manchester, amongst the curry houses, world-food supermarkets and dark and dirty backstreets was depressing, survivable only through the escapism of time spent with friends. In 2000 I graduated university, had no career plan, and stayed in Manchester working nights in a Salford casino. In a way I graduated from the dirty, poor underbelly to the clean, rich underbelly; both equally sleazy.

The dawn of 2001 took me away from Manchester to a foreign land. It was still dirty and poor and I didn't speak the lingo, but the Sun shone daily, and life was good. It's amazing what a burning ball of hydrogen in the sky can do for your outlook on life. Two years passed in a flash, and I found myself back in Manchester, back in south-central studentville, back in the darkness -- environmentally and mentally. The next two years dragged, but nothing untoward happened: I'd learnt to avoid potentially dangerous situations, I walked around with the minimum of cash on me, I'd sold my car previously. The backstreets of Manchester were plagued by scallies at that time, but you just took the long way around, or you kept your head down and avoided eye contact. My cache of university friends slowly dispersed, but I gained a scant few new ones to help keep me afloat in that sometimes rocky sea.

The mire ended when I got the opportunity to go overseas again, this time for a longer period, and once again to a city bathed in sunshine eleven and a half months of the year. My whole demeanor changed, life was good again, I was confident, happy and carefree. All good things must come to an end, though, and all too soon, seemingly, it was time to apply for jobs. Few jobs were available, because it was a difficult time of year, and even fewer jobs were attractive. I applied for just three, one of which was in Manchester. I had my reservations, but after all, I knew the city and the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. They were offering much better pay than I'd had before, which meant that I didn't have to live in the scally-infested backstreets of Rusholme and always have that worry of personal safety hanging over me. They offered me the job; I thought about it, and accepted. The project I was to work on sounded interesting, and that helped me overcome the feeling of dread that arrived with the knowledge that I would be moving back to a city that I didn't like so much. I touched foot on Mancunian soil again. It was damp soil, because it was raining. It was dark soil because the day was overcast. It was hard soil because the day was freezing cold. Goodbye sunshine, hello rain. The obscuring black mantle of depression settled once again over my mind.

It didn't stay long, though. Of course, during my time previously in Manchester, I'd had some good times. Some of those involved walking in the countryside. Manchester is ideally located for access to the Peak District and to the hills in Derbyshire. Edale is a particularly pleasant location, as is the Hope Valley. Closer to Manchester, Marple is a leafy little commuter village with some old-world charm, cobbled streets, canal walks and a country park. That's where I headed. I could afford the hike in price from studentville to commuterville, and I eventually settled on a very nice apartment right on the canal. The journey to work was no more than an hour, door-to-door; I could walk down the canal in one direction and be in industrial Manchester, I could walk down in the other direction and be in open countryside within minutes. And it worked... I could work in Manchester, go out in Manchester, explore Manchester, visit friends in Manchester, but live outside Manchester... and life was good. No feeling of doom and gloom. And I managed to keep it that way for the two and a half years until I left again. This is where the "love" of love/hate comes in. Manchester is an amazing city -- it's beautiful, the range of cultural experiences is large, there are lots of things to do and it's easy to get around (especially now that there's a tram to Chorlton!). Manchester is great, as long as you don't have to live there.

The corollary to this story is that now I live in London... and wow. Simply... wow.

J is for jogging

ust the thought of becoming like my father is enough to motivate me to do something about it. Not that he's a bad man (I'm sure I've mentioned this before), it's just that he has traits which I don't like. His ability to form and defend viewpoints which are just based on ignorance. His super-short patience. His negativity. In this instance, it was his portly stature that was motivation to me. I don't know how much my dad weighs, but he stands about 5'10", and he has a belly on him. I reckon 14, 15 stone. I shudder to think what his waist measurement is -- 38"? 40"?

So, the desire for my stomach not to double in size by the time I'm forty has pushed me into jogging, for fitness, weight-loss and peace of mind. Around here, the jogging community is huge. I was amazed, the first time I walked around my neighbourhood, how many people were running at all times of the day and night. So it was relatively easy to pick up a pair of trainers and join them. There's a park a block away from here which is a haven for runners, and the paths are well-trodden. I decided, one Sunday, to just do it.

I should explain that there was some scepticism here. I used to play sport, hockey in particular, but had to stop due to crippling shin splints. I couldn't last a half, let alone a full match. I haven't really played sport competitively since then. The shin splints even started happening when I walked too fast (which I do a lot), and there's nothing you can do about them apart from rest. I found that rushing for that train that I had two minutes to get is likely to end in disappointment because my shin splits left me whimpering by the side of the road in agony. I thought moving on to running was going to be a futile endeavour, but since I didn't really know for sure, and faced with impending doom, I thought I'd give it a shot. The first time I jogged, it was fine. No shin splints. The second, third, fourth times... same thing. Wonderful!

The rest of my legs, however, were absolutely on fire. I probably ran two miles each time, not terribly far, but enough to work up a sweat and burn some calories. The second day my legs would hardly bend. The third was somewhat better, the fourth not so good. But after that things improved. Until the injuries started. Not just aching, but tangible pain. First it was my right calf stiffening up, making it painful to run. When that eased up after a few days, my right knee started hurting, followed by my left calf and then my right Achilles started getting tight. The final nail in the coffin was my left knee, just under the patella. It hurt quite a lot to run on it, so I rested it for two weeks. And then I ran on it again, and got pain after a mile or so. It was (and is) painful to touch. I found that icing it did a lot of good, and so had another couple of days off and ran again. Ouch. So I guess my body is telling me that running is no good.

Sadly, I really got to enjoy it. It's quite liberating getting up early in the morning and running into the rising Sun. You get into a rhythm, a kind of gait that makes you feel like you can run anywhere. And of course, there are the endorphins... ah, sweet endorphins. Running a couple of miles, coming home to have breakfast and a hot shower... it really sets you up for the day, it's energising. I'm going to miss my brief flirtation with it. I think my last hope is going to be a knee support; if that strengthens my knee and means I can run, great. If it doesn't, hello 40" waist jeans.

H is for Haruki Murakami

aving never been to Japan*, my only impressions of it come from pictures, films, the media, and in this case, its literature. One of my favourite films is "Lost in translation", because it's a beautiful and fleeting coming together of two people in a culture where it seems (from the outside looking in) that touching relationships are very rare. I find that I can relate to both main characters because they're Western, and they're so obviously adrift in the Eastern culture, not really understanding what's going on around them, and not being understood.

Something of that ability to relate is probably what makes the writing of Haruki Murakami appealing to me too, but there is also something else. Murakami is a Japanese author who brings a lot of Western influences to his work. Having grown up in the 60s and 70s, he was heavily influenced by American writers of the time, and particularly American music. Often his writing references Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. Some of the titles of his novels are songs from that era -- "Norwegian wood" (The Beatles), "Dance, dance, dance" (The Dells/The Beach Boys). He also references American movies of the time, particularly classics starring film legends like John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and of course, Humphrey Bogart. But despite all these Western influences, his books are very much Japanese. They're set in Japan, they're led by Japanese protagonists, they're even written in Japanese (and translated). And my impression is that they're like Japanese food, too... delicious to look at, delicate on the palate, but completely insubstantial, like a good tempura batter.

When you pick up a Murakami novel, you know exactly what you're going to get. The plot will be different, and the locations will change, but the real bulk of the novel is exactly the same. And that's somewhat comforting (like comfort food), but also a little wearying. The recipe is so reproducable that it can be parodied, and I'll share an amusing example of that later. You can guarantee certain ingredients:

The protagonists are always going to be clean, ordered individuals. The kind that is meticulous about everything, from their appearance to their style of cooking to their style of speech to their obsession with cleaning. Everything is very precise, and you get the impression that they live in the amazingly manicured apartments that you see in Dwell and Wallpaper. They usually are Westernised to some degree, like Murakami himself, and this usually comes out in their preferences in movies and music. And alcohol: Murakami's protagonists will undoubtedly have an acquired taste for beer (usually Western, e.g., Budweiser), and whiskey (again, usually American bourbons).

Murakami often pairs up his male leads with a series of female counterparts. Usually these women are femmes fatales, straight out of film noire.

       She wasn't the type to turn heads, though she was certainly attractive. She was wearing an expensive green silk dress. I guessed that she was about thirty-two. She could easily have made herself look younger, but she didn't seem to think it was worth the trouble. Three rings graced her fingers, and a faint smile played on her lips.
       'You look exactly like someone I know,' she said. 'Your facial features, your back, the way you talk, your overall mood -- it's an amazing likeness. I've been watching you ever since you came in.'
       'If he's that much like me, I'd like to meet the man,' I said. I had no idea what else to say.
...
       Her smile deepended for an instant, then softened. 'But that's impossible,' she said. 'He died five years ago. When he was about the same age as you are now.'
       'Is that right?' I said.
       'I killed him.'

(New York Mining Disaster, from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.)

I really appreciate the film noire touch, because it nicely balances the airy lightness (and dare I say it, innocence) of the males. And in fact, if you take the novels in general, each one will either be dominated by light or dark (although each one will contain elements of both). "Dance dance dance" is a particularly dark novel.

All of Murakami's characters are loopy. At some point during the story that will become evident. Whether it's chasing sheep-men around, or having delusions at the bottom of a well, or having a penchant for going to zoos in the middle of typhoons, there will be something bizarrely odd about them. But Murakami will generally portray these things as normal, and although the characters may realise that something is a little out of the ordinary, they will convince themselves that they're on a spiritual journey to some kind of enlightenment or discovery. Perhaps this is more common in Eastern literature, whereas in Western the journey is more often physical or emotional rather than spiritual. And this transportation will be the subject of the novel.

Let me just comment on Murakami's writing style, because it is incredibly idiosyncratic. Generally the language he uses is simple and clean, and sentences are short. He often rephrases himself, changing the words he uses to slightly alter the angle at which he addresses something:

       She picked up the ballpoint pen lying on the table, and played with it for a few seconds, but then she looked at the clock again. It had done its job: in the five minutes since her last look, it had advanced five minutes' worth.

(Aeroplane, from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.)

This also gives an example of another Murakami trademark: stating the obvious. He also is a big proponent of contradictions in his writing and in his characters:

       I felt that I knew what he was getting at. At the same time I felt I had no idea what he meant.

(New York Mining Disaster, from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.)

There are many other Murakami devices, including some really bizarre similies, and some really awkwardly stilted conversation. I found this great parody which apes Murakami's writing style very well (only exaggerating a little, for humour. Please read it after finishing this post.)

Finally, let me come back to Murakami's storytelling. For me, the overwhelming thing about Murakami's writing, and the reason I have read all of his novels (the ones which have been translated to English, anyway; his first two novels are only available in Japanese) is that his stories take reality and skew it. Sometimes severely, and sometimes only slightly, but always enough to make you start wondering, "What if?". And they're always so beautifully crafted, so clean and exact. They also take Japanese society, its traditions and practices that are otherwise hidden to us Westerners, and make them accessible. However, there is a flipside, and it is very frustrating for me... the stories at best leave you feeling a bit lost and thinking something along the lines of "Hmm, that was interesting... I think" and at worst thinking "What the heck was that all about?". For example, the plot of the short story "New York Mining Disaster", from which I have already quoted, is: man visits neighbour, to borrow a suit for his fifth funeral in a year -- man returns suit, post-funeral, and drinks with the neighbour -- man visits restaurant and meets femme fatale -- some miners are trapped in a mine. I mean, what on earth? I'm fairly okay with being a literary dunce and missing some hidden meaning, but surely I'm not stupid enough to miss it every time? I think I'll just have to be satisfied with savouring the most light and delicious tempura batter while it lasts, but ultimately come away with a rumbling tummy.

* I was due to visit Japan for the first time a few days after the large earthquake in March 2011, but for obvious reasons cancelled.

G is for God

od is good, right? Wikipedia says that "God is most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. The most common among these include omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence." Being good, God should not wish upon us any kind of misfortune, or evil, except perhaps in the case that it is temporary and it brings about a "greater good". So then why does the overriding impression of religion in general verge toward unhappiness and denial rather than happiness and comfort? For centuries the devout have pared away their lives in order to get closer to God, they have fasted, gone on pilgrimages, abstained from sex, been insular and serious.

At the risk of boring you with another long quotation, here is an excerpt from "Eat, Pray, Love": "The search for God is a reversal of the normal, mundane worldly order. In the search for God, you revert from what attracts you and swim toward that which is difficult. You abandon the comforting and familiar habits with the hope (the mere hope!) that something greater will be offered to you in return for what you've given up. Every religion in the world operates on the same common understandings of what it means to be a good disciple -- get up early and pray to your God, hone your virtues, be a good neighbor, respect yourself and others, master your cravings. We all agree that it would be easier to sleep in, and many of us do, but for millennia there have been others who choose instead to get up before the sun and wash their faces and go to their prayers. And then fiercely try to hold on to their devotional convictions throughout the lunacy of another day."

But why should it be that way? Why is it so ingrained into our collective psyche that we must reject ourselves and our natural impulses in order to find God? Why does fulfillment not lie in the path to God? Why not do what we enjoy? For me, in my life, the state of happiness is the epitome of goodness -- it's when I feel the most "good". So, if God is good, and wishes us to be good, then surely I should make myself as happy as possible? Why all the negativity? Is this just an aspect of religious control that results from putting faith and religion in the hands of imperfect humans? I mean, if your religious doctrine is "Do what you want, whenever you want", you're not going to get a whole load of people turning up to your church or mosque or shrine -- they'll be hang-gliding and swimming with dolphins and having sex and doing crosswords instead of sitting around listening to what you're saying. Churches will go out of business! However, if you make people feel bad about themselves, guilty and ashamed (but subtly, of course), then they'll be queuing up at the door trying to learn what it takes to get rid of these bad feelings... which allows you to continually indoctrinate them, while spoon-feeding them placebos. Massive crowd control, and significant power. This is probably the sort of thing which lead to the concept of buying and selling of indulgences in Catholicism, which Martin Luther so vehemently opposed.

Of course, there are limits, but I think, on the whole, this hedonism is self-regulating for any intelligent human. For instance, I enjoy going out for drinks with friends. The alcohol relaxes me, and conversation is often open and humorous. But if I drink too much, then the next morning I sure don't enjoy it. I can then temper my next alcoholic excursion so that it's more balanced. I can drink a little less, and therefore hurt a little less the next morning. Another caveat is that one person's enjoyment can be another person's misery. One person may enjoy stealing money from another because that makes them richer, but the victim probably isn't going to enjoy being intimidated, and made poorer. But in a way that's regulated too. If it's something criminal, then, as a civilisation, we've instituted a police force to deal with that. If it's more of a personal thing, then there are consequences that act as future deterrents (social ostracism, etc.). A third concern is that, of course, there are things in life that we don't enjoy doing that are inevitable and unavoidable. Hopefully very few people enjoy having a loved one depart, but as yet, we have very little power over preventing that. We all have to pay taxes. Generally, we all have to work, which for some may not be particularly enjoyable (thankfully, I love my job!). And here the idea of the greater good comes into play: we pay taxes so that we have roads to enjoy, so that children can enjoy learning, so that lives can be saved. We work so that we can enjoy spending the money that we earn. The goodness is delayed, and perhaps not even directly delivered, but it is still a result.

Probably at this point many of the people reading this are thinking, "Hey, bozo, this already exists! It's called ATHEISM". And that's true, atheism is pretty much hedonism -- people just do what they want when they want, within the constraints of their pay packets and social norms. But this article is about God... so why can't we combine enjoyment with God? I think we can. Certainly within Christianity there are small movements of "Christian Hedonism" -- John Piper is a very well-known and active purveyor of this doctrine. I imagine there must be similar things in other religious movements. This is far from widespread, though. To me it seems clear that with a good god, and a loving god, beautiful and lovely things must flow. Disciples of this god should also be like him/she/it. Enjoy yourself, responsibly, and no longer be shackled by thoughts of guilt and imperfection and conscience-imposed misery! Take a lie-in every once in a while, indulge yourself in a little present on occasion, love and enjoy yourself, other people... and your god, because he would surely want you to.

E is for East Coast

very once in a while you come across a music artist who just seems completely different to anyone you've heard before, and they just blow your mind. That's kind of what happened to me when I discovered Jenny Owens Young's song, "Fuck was I". It was a song that spoke to me for its simplicity and its sheer truth. It came at a particularly poignant time in my life (see "D is for Divorce".) It was also the song that lead me into discovering a whole new movement of music, primarily coming out of the East Coast states of the US -- New York and New Jersey. Check it out:



I was watching a show called "Weeds", from Showtime. It was fairly big in the States at the time, and all the cool kids were watching it. The first show of Season Two contained J.O.Y.'s song, "Fuck was I", and its haunting and anguished refrain just had me hooked. I immediately found out who the song was by, and listened to the rest of her songs (on Myspace, I think, such were the times!). That song came from her first studio album, "Batten the Hatches", which was an independent release back in 2005. I ordered it, along with her "The Scrappy Demo" EP, and received both from the fair hand of Jenny herself. In 2007, she re-released "Batten the Hatches" under the Nettwerk label, and then in 2009 released her current studio album "Transmitter Failure". I have to say, I didn't like it at first. It was a lot more poppy and upbeat compared to the stripped-back, relaxed tone of Batten. I think I probably listened to it a couple of times, and then let it fester on the shelf. I went back to it later that year, though, with fresh ears, and was just blown away. The songs are definitely growers, and the whole album is really packed full of gems. I think it is probably one of the most listenable albums I own. Check her out playing some old and newer songs, courtesy of the SXSW music festival and Roxwel.com:



Jenny, along with many of her modern singer-songwriter kinfolk, plies her trade extensively through the internet. As well as being active on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Ustream/Livestream and I daresay, Myspace, she uses the internet to her advantange, advertising shows and merchandise, and even raising money for her next album. Through Kickstarter, Jenny asked her fans for $20,000 to record and release a new CD. Within *28 hours* she had that, and more, such was the devotion of her fanbase, and the power of internet-based word-of-mouth. On day 2, she upped the goal to $30,000 and that was reached too. Currently, the project has been funded to the tune of $38,543 by 646 people. Most of these people will receive a copy of Jenny's new album, effectively buying it in advance and easing the financial nightmare it must be to record and produce an album.

But Jenny Owen Youngs is not out there fighting the good fight for singer-songwriters on her own. Oh no, she is surrounded by a veritable commune of folky friends... Brooklyn is bursting at the seams with blossoming talent. A similar tale of success belongs to Ingrid Michaelson, who found fame through an episode of Grey's Anatomy. Her songs are now heard all over the US, she has performed nationwide TV and she even wrote Cheryl Cole's recent UK hit, "Parachute", widening her renown. She recently duetted with Sara Bareilles at the White House, for President Obama. Ingrid's regular band contains two talented artists in their own rights, Allie Moss and Bess Rogers, both of whom have solo releases. Her drummer (Elliot Jacobson), bassist (Chris Kuffner) and keyboard player (Saul Simon-MacWilliams) also play with other singers, including Allison Weiss, another internet phenom who has raised money for her musical projects through her fanbase. Of course, musical collaborations abound. The last couple of years have seen joint tours by Jenny, Bess and Allison; Allison, Bess and Lelia Broussard; Allison, Lelia and Lauren Zettler. Allison also plays with the band Field Mouse, comprised of her roommate, Rachel Browne, and friend Andrew Futral (who is also known as the solo act, Age of Rockets). Jenny, Bess, Andrew and Saul make up The Robot Explosion. Lauren often teams up with (accomplished solo) guitarist Cameron Mizell. Many others have cameo roles: Hailey Wojcik, Julie Peel, Mercy Bell, Amanda Duncan, Joanna Burns, Dannielle Owens-Reid, Alexa Wilkinson, Maryanna Sokol, Katie Herzig, the list goes on. The endearing, and enduring, thing about all these talented musicians is that they're personable, they're personal, they're regular people with amazing skills, all willing to share them with you via internet updates, online webcasts, or if you're really lucky, at a show near you. Oh, and by the way, their music ROCKS!!