Denmark is real!

No shit. I'm in it right now. There are strange letters on the keyboard, like æ and ø and å.
Glasgow and London and the Lakes District are also real. If you too have been to these places then you don't need my confirmation, but if you haven't then you can take my word as evidence.
We arrived in London after approximately 24 hours of torture under the guise of international air travel. In an eerie reprisal of that perennial Salientin-joke about Wee Hamish who did not stop crying fra' Aberdeen to Auckland, some children several rows behind us screamed the whole way from Singapore to Heathrow. I was welcomed in to London by the worst airport organisation I've yet seen and a terrible cup of tea from Starbucks. We made our way to Euston Station, where we sat on the grass and were stared at, as I tried to properly cognise the fact that I was actually in actual England and everything was twelve hours different and I was suddenly an outsider.
England is very old and very crowded and very manicured. All the gaps are filled in: hedges are clipped, trees have been planted, fences are painted. Nothing is wild except the weeds that grow to the sides of the train lines. We went for a walk when we got to the Lake District; the forest was a plantation and you could watch the 'Squirrel Camera' from the comfort of the cafe at the bottom of the hill (which, by the way, served some of the best hot chocolate I've ever had, an anomaly in this land of surly service and dishwater-strength coffee). And CCTV is absolutely everywhere.
Scotland is a bit rougher. In Glasgow people on the street sound like they are garlging ball bearings when they talk. Too many things have happened for me to bother retelling. Mum says to say that she is in love with Charles Rennie Mackintosh, whom you can Google search if you don't know who he is. I was briefly inspired to relocate to Glasgow University, and am still mulling this option over... Glasgow is dirty in the most innocent literal sense: buildings are covered with a century's worth of coal soot and car pollution. Everything is older, bigger, more beautiful, more awe-inspiring than I could have ever imagined, and by contrast I felt young, small, scruffy and naive.
And now, Denmark, which is even older and several degrees more foreign. The houses have thatched rooves and cars drive on the wrong side of the road and the language is completely different (as opposed to Glaswegian, which admittedly does have a lot in common with English). We are staying with Frede, an old friend of my Dad, in the house that has belonged to his family for a hundred years. Down the road - less than 50 metres - is the church and graveyard where his parents are buried. The town was founded some time in the 12th century.
And this is normal here.

Broken window theory

(In response to the blacking-out out of the Ian Curtis RIP tag on Wallace Street)

the walls are not enough for these vandals.
your wives will be next - you'll find them on the doorstep, sunny Sunday morning, face down and covered
in spray paint. clean up graffiti before it spreads
to your sleepy suburb, your front gate and your beloved spouse.

Someone broke a window. But before that,
someone's grandfather got the cane
for speaking his native tongue in a classroom, and it's too late to employ measures such as
litres
and litres
of thick black paint.

Experience Overseas

Us humans really aren't as good at perceiving time as we think we are. A year, ten years and five minutes all go by and they feel the same to us. We know that things have happened and time has passed but our minds can never quite seem to grasp the weight of it. Our memories stretch and compress the bits of our life that have already happened, until they are way out of proportion.
As for the future, we make plans and expect things but it's always like a slap in the face when they actually arrive. The future is like one of those colouring-in books we used to have as children, the ones where you just washed water over the lines with a brush and the colours would come out on the page, grey-tinged pastels on a newsprint background and cartoonishly thick black outlines. A pale, insubstantial and two dimensional image of what's to come.
So when you're leaving the country, you speak of 'it hitting you'. It hasn't hit me yet, and won't until I'm on the plane thousands of feet in the air, that I'm actually going to a real foreign country. And then another, and another. Am I excited? Sort of, but only in the distant future of next week will it hit me. And those foreign countries are just like the colouring-in books and my grasp on the future: exaggerated and slightly mythical, but as yet still very translucent.

I am going to blog my adventures and misadventures as much as possible, or as much as I can be bothered because I will probably have more interesting things to do on my journey. Please do watch this space and leave me comments so I feel vindicated in my ramblings. It's nice to know that people are listening.
And here is a list of fun synonyms for travel:
sojourn
pilgrimage
voyage
mission
expedition
tour
progress
migration

And here is some brief trip information:
With mother. Fly out of AK 19/9/09 to London, train to somewhere in the North nearish Carlisle. Friends and relatives. Glasgow. Art and buildings. Denmark. Dad's friend Fred. More art and buildings. Eurail pass! Germany. Berlin. Munich. Oktoberfest! Austria. Italy. France. Spain. France. Belgium? England. Mother leaves. Germany? England? Ireland? The world?
Home.

Oh, just some stuff, you know?

So..
Things have been happening. Things haven't been happening.
That's a weak start to a blog, but how else can I sum the past few weeks up?

It's like one of those parties, such as the 21st I was at a few weeks ago, where you keep running in to people you knew a few years ago in high school or something, and they all ask me,
How are things?
What have you been up to?

"Well, after high school I went straight in to Uni, and I was doing this that and the other subject and then I decided I needed a break and now I'm just living with my mum and working in a cafe and saving up money to take an overseas trip, yeah it's alright I guess, I'm enjoying myself."

Later in the night, befuddled by drink and half-familiar faces, the conversations veer towards the surreal and jocular. But my replies only grow more honest as the evening progresses. A casual observer, if they didn't know me, might think I'm taking the piss, such is my sincerity. I soon reach a sort of zenith of erudition. I offer long-winded answers that speak about the big picture and the meaning of it all, and am seriously in need of someone to shut me up:

"How am I? Man, I've been up and down and all over the fucking place. It's been a long three years, lots of shit has gone down, and you know, I really do think that life is a beautiful thing and we are lucky to be living it."

"What am I up to? Just kind of living, you know, getting up in the morning, some days I have work and others I don't, I spend quite a few days sitting on my arse and sometimes I do shit.. I keep myself busy. I could give you a blow-by-blow account of the average day in the life of me, but honestly every day is different and they're all the same and there really isn't much to tell. I'm not trying to blow you off... But really, I think that's the essence of what life is like - apologies for getting all deep and meaningful - but really life is just some stuff happening and bouncing off some other stuff happening and it all kind of comes together, and it's beautiful, and that's really what God is and beauty and music and it's everything -
you know?"

Eventually, the booze takes over good and proper:

What are you up to these days?
"What am I up to these days?? What is anyone up to? What are we doing here on this fucking universe, in this godforsaken arse end of a planet?"

How are you these days?
"Good."
(A broad, fuck-off grin)
(Nothing else)

--

Make the change today: Every time someone asks you how you are, give an honest answer. Even if the truth is unpleasant. It's rude, I believe, to fake positivity. Less rude to confess that you have mad period cramps, and you didn't get enough sleep last night, and you're worried about where your life is going and things are generally pear shaped.

--

Yeah. What was I talking about? Oh, it doesn't matter, I'm sure you can relate. No, that's right, I was making a weak start to a blog, and then I got carried away trying to fix it. Yes, and then I was saying, sometimes blogging is a bit like one of those parties, like the 21st I was at a few weeks ago, when you see all these people you used to know a few years ago...

Elsewhere in life, I have been reading On The Road, and I think it might be influencing me rather too much.

--

I hope this hasn't been too much of a limp cock of a blog entry.
I hope you are well, and all your friends and family too. No, really. I love you all. Cross my heart and hope to die.

I don't know how I can make you believe me on this one. I've been sarcastic for so long that I can't remember what sincerity sounds like.

Why Washing Dishes Is The Best Job You'll Ever Get

Dishwashing is hard, unpleasant work.
What's more, if you are a dishwasher, you are the only person who works entirely by themselves. You are the odd one out, with your stiff plastic apron, flecked with foam and pieces of food, sweating, pushing your damp hair out of your eyes and with no one to share the discomfort. Whereas a waiter has fellow waiters to chat to when there is no work to do.
(When you are a dishwasher, there is never no work to do).

What's more:
- Your area is the last area of the kitchen to be renovated and have the outdated or broken equipment replaced.
- You are paid less than some of the front of house or waiting staff, who only have to swan around with nice manners serving food and taking orders to earn their bread.
Whereas you must bend, lift, sweep, wipe, carry, and above all, scrub. Whereas you must battle with your instinct to take off the bloody apron and go and sit down somewhere with a hot beverage (and possibly never come back) every minute if not every second.

When you are a dishwasher, it is easy to feel sorry for yourself. Too sorry for yourself. Remind yourself: Not all of us are lucky enough to have jobs. Not all of us are lucky enough to live in countries where there is a set minimum wage. Be grateful for your $12.50 an hour. Not all of us work in places where we get fed.

(If you are a dishwasher, and you do not get fed at work, complain or quit. That shit is way out of line.)


Don't say dishwasher. Don't say dishie. Kitchen hand is what you should call yourself. Remind yourself: I am a kitchen hand. I am handy in the kitchen. I am useful. If I do not do my job, this place can not do business. I am essential, I am the central cog in the machine that keeps everyone else running. Deep down, people appreciate how useful I am, even though this may not be reflected in my wages or work environment.

Remind yourself:
When you wash dishes, your thoughts are your own. Treasure this. Any better-paid, better-respected position requires leasing not only your body but your soul.
That shit will kill you.
When you wash dishes, it is possible to reach a Zen-like state of detachment when all your movements are automated and your mind floats off to an altogether more pleasant location. You cannot do this if you are a waiter, or a chef, or the restaurant owner. When you wash dishes, you can think of art, music, love, hope, the end of the world, God, death, the future.
I admit that when I wash dishes, I tend to think a lot about dish washing.

The more pot you smoke, the easier this job becomes. This is a fact. It enhances the detachment/automation thing. It makes you care less. This is a good thing. The more you care about stuff, the angrier you will become. This applies not just to dishwashing, but to life; perhaps the former could be said to be a microcosm of the latter.

Dishwashing is easy. It involves next to no investment on your part in terms of
a) giving a shit
and b) bothering to learn anything new.
Treasure this also. The next job you have, if it is not another dishwashing one, will require you to focus, at most if not all times, and it will require you to at least pretend to care about something, and it may require you to learn difficult stuff. You may not even be paid for learning the difficult stuff. It may need to happen in your own time. You may even need to attend courses, which you may even have to pay for, possibly necessitating a student loan which will hang over your head and suck up your income for a large chunk of your life.

That shit is lame. Keep washing dishes.

Another thing:
Being a kitchen hand is obviously not a permanent state of affairs, not a career, and thus it gives you ample room to fantasise about your untapped potential. You are obviously capable of much more than washing dishes. In a better-paid, better-respected position, you may realise that in fact the extent of your talents was not quite as wide as you thought it was.

So long as you wash dishes, you can pretend that the next job you get is going to be better.

44 pianos

Check it out:
http://www.jonathancrayford.com/html/44pianos.html
Oh yes. 44 pianists playing 44 pianos at the same time.
As one of the musicians, it was an awesome experience. Hella intimidating - there were some seriously talented people there. But after I got over being scared of these people I realised what a cool thing it was that I was there too. So that was nice.

Of course, some of what was played was a total mush - 44 musicians who are used to playing solo, all in their own little worlds, no communication = shite. But then some of the recordings sound really amazing. And who but Jonathon Crayford would have the imagination, skill and daring to put it together? That man is the man.

Up Holloway Road

I have a new lover, and he lives in a fairy tale street. A stone cats perches on a letter box, gaze fixed, as real ones slink around below. Strange things are nailed to the walls and fences, there are swings in gardens and colourful paint jobs. Each step takes you further away from the grimness of the city and in to what might be an old shanty town, with whorehouses and saloons and humble cottages. Or maybe not; it could just as easily be goblins sewing tiny shoes behind the rickety wooden doors and weatherboards. Or maybe just hippies.

You get the feeling that you could wander up this street right to the end and never come back, you could be sucked in to one of the houses or in to a cave and who knows what might await you... or you could just climb in to your lover's bed and stay in its hazy, warm confines forever and ever.