A REAL DEAD RINGER FOR LOVE

Was it love or was it obsession and how do you tell the two apart? For half a year, aged 18 she was the only thing I could think about and I spent months in love with her before I told her. She was the first thing I thought of in the morning and the last thing I thought of at night. Had mobile phones been invented I'm sure we would have surpassed the eighty texts in two days that me and Brighton girl sent and received. Kate and I saw each other every day as she used to pick me up every morning and drop me off every night from college. But she just wanted to be friends. Best friends. And that’s what I had to take even though I knew it would never be enough…

When I say I was in love, do any of us really know what love is, or more to the point have we really been there, I mean really? I'm not so sure. The most meaningful three words in the English language are also the most selfish. Look at the structure of it as a sentence. The "I" comes at the beginning and the "you" at the end, almost as an afterthought. Its a strange feeling and it comes in many shapes, I loved my ex in a very different way to what I'm talking about now. The only way I can describe how I felt about Kate all those moons ago, to some degree Brighton girl and Natalie is like when I fell down a mountain when I was three. I tripped and tumbled down the slopes of Hellvellyn towards the rocks... Its the same feeling.

I do know what it is in fact. Are you sitting comfortably? Once upon a time a Canadian couple were out walking in the countryside and were attacked by a grizzly bear. It went for the woman first but the man fought it off and positioned himself in the way, thus taking the brunt of its attack, rolling himself into a ball. They went to hospital and after many operations the man refused to let his girl see his mauled face. This continued for months. Every day she arrived, he refused. Eventually a doctor convinced him to let her, she walked in and winced when she saw his scars. Cutting to the chase, he asked how could she love him and how could she want to be with him. She replied "How could I not?"

Now that is love, unconditional love on both parts.

And I've never done anything like that. Have you?

I remember those words I said to Kate off by heart. I don’t say them often.

Twice, in fact. I guess when the sun shines that bright, I have to blind myself with the light.

Gotta dash, there’s another part-ay to go to…

BLAAST FROM THE PAAST!

I mentioned the town you come from that you have to escape from a moment ago and opening Facebook I had a message from someone who was once very, very dear to me. She is called Kate and when I was eighteen I was very, very much in love with her. But she just wanted to be best friends. I’d actually been thinking about her just days ago, albeit it briefly though I’ve no idea why I did. She almost supernaturally got in touch after finding a book from my childhood I gave her. It was called “When we were very young” by A.A. Milne, you know Christopher Robin from Winnie the Poo’s dad. It contained some of my favourite poetry as a lad.

What do Winnie the Pooh and Jack the Ripper have in common?

The same middle name.

She said it "made me smile and I had a warm and fuzzy moment. It takes me back to a lovely time in my life." I smiled and felt the same. Anyway she spoke emotively of what’s been going on in her life. It’s been ages since we were last in touch and we’ll have so much to catch up on if and when I see her when I next visit my mum, who incidentally asks every time I’m there “how’s that nice girl Kate?” begging the response “I dunno, I haven’t seen her in fifteen years mum.”

One of my lasting memories of her is me telling her I was completely and utterly, one hundred percent, head-over-heels in love with her. She almost crashed the car and killed us both. Dead funny. We drove to Tessa's house who asked me in hushed tones upon arrival “Did you tell her yet?”

THE INCREDIBLE BONGO BAND

Last night was Etta’s party and I arrived fashionably late and set up my virtual wheels of steel while some guys hopelessly played bongos in feeble attempts to seem cool and new age. In fairness one of them was pretty good.When they had quite finished I began and the place slowly began to rock, with one French guy Eugene insisting I play “The Seed” from the Collateral soundtrack again next. I explained that I would put it back on in a bit as I’d selected the next few choonz and was building. Then, leaving the playlist running with banging tunes, I went for a cigarette. When I returned some guys had plugged in their ipods and were playing some awful Latin music and continued making a din until Eugene reinstalled me at the helm. Many people (save the Latino guys) came and complimented me on my choices and taste in music while I drank red wine from a plastic cup.

Now I'm really sorry, they were nice people n' all that but I don’t like people touching things as precious as my laptop without my permission. My laptop is the most important thing in my life at the moment, if they had asked yes they could have played anything they wanted but at a suitable point. I dislike the fact that people just wanna hear what they want in a room of thirty people. I’m DJ. I decide. I’ll play for my audience, not me; so you all get something, not just you.

John is staying at Etta’s too. He is forty eight, has a sob story too, but has cycled from England to Australia! Simply amazing. You can follow his blog at www.cyclingtoaustralia.blogspot.com - I have had a skim and will attempt to read it all from the beginning, he is on day 548 at the moment so it may take a while... From what I read he writes very well, unlike most bloggers who don’t write, they erm… wrong.

DIRTY OLE TOWN

Speaking of bastards, I’ve come to realise that Surfers can join backpackers and the Irish to the list of people I hate, along with whinging Aussies. My mate Scottish Pat on Koh Samui retorted to hearing one say “There’s nothing worse thhn whinging Pomms” with “Yes there is; whinging Aussies!” Good lad Patrick. Of course there are exceptions to the rule but ninety nine out of a hundred of them are self-centred nothings… Yes, I love a ddddrink and to socialize, but I don’t have to piss everyone else on the planet off in doing so.

The New Brighton Hotel in Manly was an experience I haven’t felt since going to Oceana or Park Avenue, (the only club in Richmond) by mistake. You know; the feeling like you’d walked into the terrible nightclub in the town you had to escape from. Being schoolies, yeah they might be younger and prettier than me but not everything I do is for effect like them. I sat and watched a group of them after following them from the hostel. They stuck their boards in the sand and sat for a few hours popping off intermittently for ice-creams. Now I know I cannot surf, hardly swim but I have seen their like before. I used to meet plenty of kids who called themselves skaters but would carry their decks under their arms. Fakes. It was the same as these guys. So many people get into things for the wrong reasons, like surfing, sk8ing or the television industry.

JUST AN URCHIN LIVING UNDER THE STREET

I have of late been eating three bread rolls and hummus for every meal while I sit in cafes with wireless access. Couchsurfing means that you have to go to bed when the last person goes to bed and wake up when the hosts get up to go to work. Speaking to someone on the other side of the world means you only ever get to say goodnight over and over again like a scene from Groundhog Day. Sometimes this gets me down. Sometimes it does not. I need a base. Then I may even have the stability to get some real writing done, my comedy-horror or my supernatural series, or find some work, but that’s an impossibility at the moment. If I do get a job I know I’ll be comparing the seven pounds an hour to my hourly rate in London. I’m not gonna tell you what that is but let me just say it would take me TWO DAYS here to earn what I used to in AN HOUR. Oh and speaking to someone on the other side of the world means you only ever get to say goodnight over and over again like a scene from Groundhog Day.

It’s a far cry from my life now; eating people’s leftover cakes in cafés, hoping no-one sees my roll-up cigarette stained fingers take them. I feel like The Littlest Hobo. I bought a pair of Jeans… Well half bought, half stole. I took two pairs into the changing room, took the $69.95 tag off mine and replaced it with the $39.95 from the inferior pair. I nervously made my way to the checkout, where the white-haired old man said they were $29.95 before he saw the replacement tag. I said I wished they were $29.95 so with a wink he said he could do them for that price if I kept it quiet. Unbeknownst to Keith, he had just aided and abetted me stealing one leg of a pair of fake Diesels, so I dobbed him in to the Rozzers and scarpered, quick-sharp over and over again like a scene…

I chipped one of my teeth, it hasn’t been right since the accident but I can’t afford to go to the dentist, so I will have to not grin and bare it until I can afford to go see the overpriced sadist bastards.

HEY-HO LET’S GO!

One day sitting smoking near the steps of Sydney’s Town Hall, and seconds after thinking how funny it would be if I bumped into someone I knew from London, I spotted a girl I swore was Sharna. I half-heartedly called out her name but she did not stop. An hour later Rob and I met Sharna outside Woolworths - it was her, earlier she had arrived here from Fiji that day. Oh and she showed me pictures of Bounty Island which is where I worked on Celebrity Love Island.

I’m a bit worried about Rob; he’s not himself, and I feel he thinks of me as an annoyance; a far cry from being the El Dude brothers with Callum in Brighton. Himself included, we all think he’ll be better when he leaves his shit-sounding job next week after he’s drunk his way through half the $4000 bar tab they have at their Christmas party on Saturday. I’m excited about Henrietta’s party, might even get to DJ and going to see Sydney FC on Sunday but we’ll see if Rob’s still alive first.

I’ve been hanging with Sharna loads, she’s ace and very wise, we’re staying at a backpackers in the surf-town of Manly, I had hoped to find a dress shop called Manly Dresses but no such luck.

The lock on the door of my dorm is a bit sticky so the surf-twats prop it open with flip-flops then one of them gets stroppy when I take MY flip-flops. I lost the plot at him when he woke me at 8am this morning banging on the door demanding to know who closed it. I promptly told it was me, instructed him that he was a prick and told him he could fuck off or we could “go some”

I thought knowing Rob so well, she would but Sharna doesn’t get my humour, that said we’re having a good time and I’m glad to have a new friend as, not having a base I’ve felt a bit lonely, deserted even.

It was Natty’s birthday yesterday but my phone is rubbish so I don’t know even know if she got my texts and it’s the first day we haven’t really spoken, which feels a bit weird. Perhaps it’s cos I didn’t send her the world’s biggest bunch of flowers but hey-ho. There we go. I still miss her loads and think the world of her, Just so you know, like. How could I not have the deepest of feelings for her after everything... A beautiful, intelligent, mature, funny twenty-two year old girl enters my life, gives me sex and non-stop companionship for three months. Then leaves. I don't care admitting that it saddens me that she is no longer by my side.

I’m a little more than hungover today; having gone to the pub for a cheeky half. I’m not enjoying Sydney -I’d rather be back home in Thailand, sometimes even London but I know its cos I miss Nat and have no money and no home. I don’t particularly want a job as that’s not why I came away. I worked my arse off for the last seven or eight years to save for a deposit for a house and we all know what happened there. A grand profit of three thousand pounds. I just need somewhere more permanent to live, which may be on the cards over Chrimbo.

I’m thinking of going to New Zealand early to join Colsie and Francis on a road trip. Which may mean I arrive in the States earlier than planned. We shall see.

Off to party now.

DJ Willer is back in da house.

SHRIMPS ROASTING ON AN OPEN FIRE

Christmas is a few days away yet in the sun it seems just plain wrong. Hymns and carols should be modernised for this country with Frosty the Sandman, shrimps replacing chestnuts roasting on open fires and decking the halls with boughs of Eucalyptus and Acacia. Australia is such an odd place, completely devoid of London’s soul. The sweeping helicopter shots in Layer Cake confirmed this and I missed my home city for one of the first times. Christmas in England is unbeatable, its like a token attempt at Chrimbo over here.

CHARITY BEGINS AT SOMEONE ELSE'S HOME

Marty and Laura were also staying; (yes Henrietta really is that warm and welcoming a person that she often has three couch surfers at a time. I’ve joked that we should marry, but she really will make quite some catch for some lucky guy) Laura is from Florence and Marty from Leeds. He has been travelling for three and a half years and his list of countries reads like a CV or a menu. It does make you question if you really do want to settle down in a house in England with a wife, children, a mortgage and cats… or more likely dogs.

The second day I stayed Etta fed me Coco Pops with rice milk (she eats healthy, hippie food which I admire) and off I popped to Gloria jeans to steal their electricity. After a while an elderly gentleman sat down and on the phone he mentioned needing access to his website so I offered him my laptop. After a discussion about said website he very kindly bought me a coffee. And then we went for beers. Sixty nine year old Bill told stories and was generally a bit of a guru and philanthropist. Aged twenty five he disarmed two men, one with a gun and one with a knife for which he won a medal for saving the policeman they were kicking to death. It was one of those, tear-welling stories of awe, inspiration and humility.

Then Bill insisted he buy me dinner - ribs for starters and a New York Strip steak in Sydney’s best steakhouse! More stories and advice on love, life, philanthropy and his seven month jail term where he built a prison garden and began a charity. He was no saint and it turns out had a secret, hidden past including suitcases and guns and people leaving the country. On the way to the station he reached into his pocket and handed me two fifty dollar bills. Crazy! Stuff like that doesn’t happen! Of course I declined but he insisted saying he didn’t need it and I did. I accepted on the condition that it could be a loan.

My friends say that he was after something, most likely my arse but had you met Bill and heard his words of wisdom you too would understand that its just the way he is. A guy Chris from Southport said its sad that society assumes acts like this mean Bill must be after something and I agree. He is a philanthropist not a filthy rapist. Maybe he is just one of life’s guardian angels, come to think of it he did look a bit like Clarence from It’s A Wonderful Life.

WITH YOUR ARMS AROUND MY LOVE

The next two nights I stayed at Henrietta’s house. Who is ace. She’s a thirty six year old, gorgeous masseuse who loves life and her job. We have quite a good laugh together and I think she thinks I’m amusing. I’m going back to stay again and have been invited to her party. Although its been a lifesaver and I need to be around other people, I’m not sure I could open up my home unconditionally as Etta and other couch surfers do, but I will give it a go when I have a home in London or Brighton again. If that ever happens.

Speaking of London, Australian place names are either

a) silly sounding Aborigine words like Woolongong or Funnytummy or Rottonbottom or

b) nicked from England. There’s even a suburb of Sydney called Chiswick; the one place I came away to escape from so I didn’t have to watch a girl meet someone else, get married and have babies from a viewpoint half a mile up the road.

There. I said it.

SURFIN’ AUS

Although I have enough money to stay in backpackers hostels, I don’t know how long I need to live this frugally and things were getting desperate so couchsurf.com came in handy on more than one occasion
Allan texted me saying I could crash at his for a couple of nights. Andy, a twenty three year old English guy let me in and I relayed the story of my near escape at the hands of Fernando. At the end of the story Andy said he better warn me that Allan is gay… And Philippino. How do I always manage to drive so fast down faux pas Avenue?

Allan works in I.T. and for some bizarre reason gets all his restaurant bills paid for so took Andy and I out to dinner at an Italian place. Andy and I stayed up talking til about 5am. He used to live with Beardyman in Brighton, if you don’t know who he is, you should check him out on youtube. Andy is a cool funny lad. He drifts through life, not in a stoned way or a wasters way, he literally drifts. He says he almost hears voices telling him to turn left or right, or to get on the train or got to the beach whereupon something excellent always happens upon him. Of course excellent things don’t always happen to him but whereas he seems to think they do, I put this down to his positive outlook. I am not at piece with myself enough or am too much of a worrier to be like that. I do want to know the what if’s had I turned right instead of left, or if I did that instead of this…

What if I meet someone in LA in February?

What if I didn’t?

Hmmm.

But I blame Marvel Comics for those What if’s.

As my favourite warthog says “You’ve gotta put your behind in the past”

I WANT A TOMATO TOM

So as I prepared for another wworse than homeless night in a hostel, again frequenting Gloria Jeans, this time armed with a bottle of water and a loaf of Cole’s cheapest white bread, some salami and slices of tasty cheddar I sat from about nine til four trying to find somewhere to live.

Someone called Tom arrived on Facebook chat, I hadn’t seen him in four years but I was pretty desperate so I asked if I could stay at his. He said yeah, not a problem and after a scramble to get his mobile number he rang and invited me to a Jazz festival (not gay slang) and a barbeque that night.

I didn’t make it as far as the Jazz Festival. It wasn’t on, Tom had got the dates wrong and was either two months late or ten months early. We went to the Barbie and had lots of red wine from goons and had a really nice if quiet (due to the smokes) night. Tim, who’s house it was is a really great artist and cartoonist. When I’m rich I’ll buy some of his work. Dan was from Coventry and his six year old boy Manny was really well-trained yet funny. Matt apparently did his normal trick of Houdini’ing into the night unannounced. Not after he walked straight into the wall though! I like those dudes and hope to see them again.

I stayed at Tom’s penthouse apartment in Bondi for four nights, which considering he hadn’t seen me in all that time has elevated him into legendary status in my mind. He is a cool lad, and he too fed and bedded me (definitely not like that!) His flatmates seemed cool, so I officially hope to hang with Tom again of an evening, when I’ve found somewhere to live.

THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THE AIR THAT NIGHT

So after crashing with Becs for over a week I stayed at The Bat and Ball backpackers hostel with a one of my best buddies, Rob. Only with both of us disillusioned with Australia - it just doesn’t match up to the romantic visions we had, we went out for a walk and a beer, but I managed to piss him off with advice that I would have liked to have heard from a mate if I were in his shoes, but it seems everyone isn't as reliant on friend's advice as me... I do get so confused sometimes.

The next night I spent at Fernando the Philipino's apartment. He had seen my ad asking for a couch and called me the night before. Cool, free accommodation! Sweating from carrying my two-tonne laundry around for two days, as I'd left my rucksack at Bec's and Philippa's I arrived to a warm welcome and lamb steaks with carrots and broccoli and custard tart with ice-cream to follow. My first home-cooked meal in Australia. Score!

Mentioning the giant poster of The Lord's Prayer which adorned his bedroom, and the guitar he kept in there, I made small-talk. Knowing that I was working as a handyman the next day, Fernando asked me for some help erecting an Ikea bed in his bedroom. Not a problem. I took charge of making sense of the instructions and we set about this bunk bed...

Yes, bunk bed. Now you might be quicker on the uptake than me, but I was in engineer mode and so not so good at multi-tasking. It therefore took me a good ten minutes for the self-same thought you just had to flash across my mind.

"Wait a minute! Bunk bed? Where does he want me to sleep?"

Boy it was H.O.T.! Not just boiling, more how Wham would have used the term. Putting a bunk bed together in England would be sweaty work but on a balmy night in Sydney it was oppressive. As lightning lit up the room with immediate thunder claps crashing under the stars like canon-fire or distant drums, I opened the sliding window as far as it would go, but the noisy bird calls on the ledge trumpeted like bugles so he closed it. He disappeared and reappeared in a pair of shorts. At least he was cooler, but I was starting to get uncomfortable. In more ways than one.

After mentioning my girlfriend about a thousand times over the next hour it took to construct the bed, it transpired that I was to be on the bottom while he took the top bunk.

Now, I'm not too versed in this kind of thing but I took "top" and "bottom" as gay slang for "give" and "receive". I've heard it's better to give than to receive but it was late and I wasn't about to do either. Besides, in my world, Christmas is the time for giving and receiving and that was a full three weeks away. I wasn't about to end up the sixpence in his Christmas pudding, the brandy butter on the end of his brandy snap, the pork and chestnut stuffing in his turkey, the joke in his cracker, the fairy on top of his tree nor the bread sauce on his Brussels sprouts...

Fernando complained about the temperature; "We could open the window again" I proffered but it seemed to me he'd rather take his top off. Which he did. I was sitting on the floor of a homosexual man's bedroom (the bedroom he intended me to sleep in) trying to avoid his gaze... or moreso, his gays.

In nothing but his skimpy shorts; no shoes, no socks, no top... that's when the touching started.
At first it was the kind of innocent punch on the arm any two straight building contractors who knew each other might make. Then when I made yet another nervous joke he touched my knee. 'Terry Wogan used to touch people's knees; it's fine' I told myself. Only it wasn't really was it? Then he ruffled my hair and touched me on my love-handles, like an uncle might do to his niece to test the nonce-coloured water.

I don't care who's house it was, this was completely fucking inappropriate.

Punching my arm; fine.
Accidentally brushing my knee; hmm.
Ruffling my hair; errr.
Grabbing at my love-handles; Hang on! I know what's going on here! I've read about this...

When he was not looking I pulled up a corner of the carpet and hid some of the vital screws so that the bottom half of the bed could not be finished that night. He shook and scratched his head as to where they could have disappeared, for they were right in front of him a minute ago. We searched and searched but it was getting late so he suggested we turn in.

"Turn into what?" my internal monologue asked.

After ten minutes of very English insistence I convinced him I was fine sleeping on the couch in the lounge. I waited fifteen more minutes making idle chit-chat about the terrible export we had given his country, that of Holby City on the TV but he simply would not leave the lounge. Desperate, exaggerated yawns, more mentions (this time without the space to hammer the message home) of how much I missed MY GIRLFRIEND who was in Russia... I even showed him the picture she gave me to put in my wallet. Nope; nothing would budge him. My mind was groggy but racing. Come to think of it, my mind was really groggy...

He lit a fire.

Very, very groggy...

Picked up his guitar...

Unusually groggy!

And gently started playing...

What was that fine powdery substance floating on the bubbles of that last orange cordial he gave me?

So tired, if I could just...

No. We're four storeys up...

I'd fall to my death, it was no good.

So... Very... Tired.

I drifted and slumped off the sofa, my legs splayed, my arse cheeks in the air; ready to be hewn apart. Cleft in twain. If my arse-hymen remained unpopped tonight it would be a miracle.

As I explained to this oh so righteous Christian I was not religious but if ever there was one, now was the time for Psalm 23:

"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..."

In my spiked-drink induced state I remembered long ago another starry night like this. In the firelight, Fernando was humming to himself and softly strumming his guitar. I could hear the distant drums and sounds of bugle calls were coming from afar, they were closer now Fernando...

Every hour, every minute seemed to last eternally, I was so afraid Fernando, and I'm not ashamed to say the roar of guns and cannons almost made me cry.

There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando:

They were shining there for you and me.

There's no regret... If I had to do the same again, I would, my friend, Fernando

I awoke alone, with a funny taste in my mouth. but that's smoking roll-ups for you. I had been asleep for the last twenty minutes; must've nodded off. Fernando was in his bedroom with the light on, probably planning another, non-imagined attack. I could feel what he was thinking: The night was young and the prize was my unpicked and therefore over-ripe arse cherry.

I was back at square one, dreaming ABBA lyrics hadn't done any good whatsoever so I volunteered to take middlewatch (that's midnight-four to the uninitiated) Cowering like Withnail awaiting Monty up at Crow Crag I surveyed the darkened room for something, anything to use as a weapon. American horror-movie style lightning as my only guide. Nothing.

If he came towards me I'd have to beat him off with my hands.
My feet, anything. Fists. Mouth. Teeth.

And that’s what I did. I beat him off.

He said it was the best thirty bucks he had ever spent.

He was happy, I was happy. I had thirty bucks and my very own pearl necklace.

And as I walked down the stairwell I swear I could hear the sound of a bunk bed being dismantled, ready for the next hot young English boy…

WHEREVER I LAY MY HAT

I stayed with Becs my friend for over a week, first in her old flat in Crow’s Nest (a whole suburb named after my local on Koh Samui) and then in her new flat down the road before she left to go to see her sister working on I’m A Celebrity up on the Gold Coast. How I miss that gig, business class flights, three square meals a day, endless chocolate brownies, beer in groups of twenty of us in the Coolie Hotel every night, on fifteen hundred quid a week and per diems. How life changes.

Becs treated me like a long lost brother and she deserves a medal, she fed and bedded me, (no not like that!) and even lent me some money. She insisted. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. And while I didn’t really want to accept, I kind of had no other option. She is my hero, and saved my skin! I will pay her back and treat her like the princess she is when I get some money.

I went out for a meal with her and her friend Deb and she invited me out for an afternoon on her new boyfriend’s yacht. Five days in Australia and I was part of the yacht set! Always land on my feet somehow! We drank beers and Rowan dropped us off at the harbour in his “surfboat” a little speedboat dinghy type thing that skimmed across the water, cancelling out the effects of the numerous beers as we passed under Sydney Harbour Bridge.

We went out for a pub quiz but it wasn’t the best of pub quizzes but I had a nice time and met an absolute loon called Scott. Wandering the streets trying to find Becs’ new house I decided it would be a good idea to use all my credit by phoning Natalia in Moscow as opposed to ringing Becs to ask where she lived. Genius! She found me in her pyjamas, though why I was wearing them I don’t know.

Becs went on holiday and I became homeless! I stayed a night in Rob’s hostel and then spent the days in Gloria Jeans coffee shops stealing their electricity and wireless.

THE VENGABUS IS COMING

They had to go so Seamus dropped me at the backpackers hostel in West End.
West End is cool - a hybrid of Byron Bay and Camden located a mile from the centre of Brisbane. Backpacker’s hostels are not cool. Like I say, I was so tired I just wanted my own room to shower, take a cat nap and get a good night’s sleep in. “That’ll be $84 please” Jesus Wept. I’m not Mary and Joseph, we’re not pregnant and this ain’t Christmas, yet it felt like there was no room at the inn.

I took a $30 (£14) room sharing with three others who luckily turned out to be three Kiwi guys, Michael, Mike and Mickey or something,; to be honest I stopped listening after the first intro. They were over for the test match, I presume at The Gabba. Fortunately for me they were not the Irish Mick plebs drinking, shouting, throwing each other in the pool and showing each other their arses and cocks in the way that only real heterosexual men can. The three Mikes were very reserved when they arrived back from wherever they had been all day to wake me from my top-bunk cat nap at six o’clock.

Venturing downstairs the place was full of gorgeous English and Irish girls. Oh, and few chunky monkeys…. and lots of Irish boys. A few of the former were stunning but not really my cup of tea. These type of stunning girls are always either stupid or snooty or both. Not snooty in a posh way, more in a ‘fit but you know it’ way. They can reserve their sun-dyed hair, bronzed tummies, perfect bottoms, pert breasts, tan lines and no chat for ugly Irish boys, who incidentally could all be identical twins. Twins that were born drunk with malformed potatoes fror heads and badly crafted Celtic tattoos like House of Pain. If one of said girls attempted, by mistake, to have sex with me then I guess I’d have no other option than to let them, but they’re not the kind of girl I talk to. I’ve worked out that I prefer interesting looking people. All these beach-fond, bleach-blonde girlies look the same or watered down versions of each other. I like window shopping but I ain’t talking to any of ‘em. It’s just a shame that interesting gorgeous girls are so few and far between. Or in my case far away. Other ones do exist. I’ve read about them in magazines… Well, I’ve seen pictures of them anyroad.

The hostel had arranged games for all and it seemed that everyone was staying in to play. I prefer going out to play, unless it’s in a bedroom. The thing that struck me about this place and therefore all backpacker hostels was that it was essentially Butlins. It’s as if a part of their brain has been removed and they can’t decide what to do or where to go for themselves and need to be told. For the same reason toddlers shouldn’t be politicians, these people don’t deserve to be on the other side of the world, they should be back at work. Burgers will always need flipping.

Everyone seemingly goes on organised tours during the day and drinks Heineken, eats ten-dollar steaks, plays pool and loud games organised by glorified club reps. I thought everyone would be surfed-out guitar-playing hippies. Couples with names like Bodhi and Jodie. Or at least people like me and my friends, or younger versions of them, but instead shaven-headed shouty, drunk, Man United-supporting Irish now outnumber also bald Hare Krishnas ten to one. I guess all backpackers were subversives a while ago, but everything underground eventually becomes mainstream. Even my punk music gets diluted nowadays.

While I’m ranting in E minor, why can’t the Irish get their own game. We’ve got football, you’ve got shinty… or whatever it is. Sorry, it’s just that when there is no escaping them; Bangkok, Chaweng, Brisbane, and they’re all the same (they are all the same) it grates a little. When will someone teach them not to piss on the toilet seat? Let me just say that I’m really glad I’m not a backpacker cos if I had to stay in dorms every night I’d be a proper murderer by now, and would be in a dorm for the next thirty years. With someone called Bruiser or Chopper.

Feeling really ill-at-ease with the place, I felt more at home in Thailand or even Malaysia - at least you can find somewhere that will sell you some food for under fifteen quid. Granted, it will be chicken’s feet but it all comes out the same way. So, cautiously I went out, only to be tricked into parting company with three dollars for a glass of flat Pepsi from a two litre plastic bottle in return for an unforthcoming free wifi connection. It was open decks night in the same bar and had I been able to see straight or stand up properly I might have taken them up on the offer. I’d have cleared the place in seconds but I’d have found some melon-twisting, cop-calling, fudge-packing, cool-as-fuck, punk-fucking-rock bollocks in amongst all the Spiller and Groovejet extended club-house 12 inch remixes.

In the only flip-flops in existence that can hurt a man (Sorry; thongs, I‘m in Oz now) , I walked the streets until I eventually found a café that had free wifi:
“You’ll have to buy a coffee though”
“Oh, ok that’s fine…”
“But I’m closing up now”

He could have saved a whole sentence.

After buying some tobacco, skins and filters for the first time in a very long time I found free wifi. Everywhere, everywhere you have to sign up and part with two bucks for twenty wireless minutes. Tis scandalous. This island’s ancestors were such notorious thieves, cut-throats and horse-pleasuring, grave-robbing-corpse-rapists that our forefathers sent them on six-month boat journeys to the other side of the world just to get rid of them. Many of the journeys carrying the worst offenders never made it. Perish the thought. On an evolutionary scale, DNA doesn’t mutate that much in two hundred years, so why do people holiday here? In not giving me free wifi their true colours were shining through now. Even Thailand has free wifi and that’s a developing country! Anyway, sitting in a rather well-done out restaurant, without parting with any money for a drink I sat down to abuse the system, anarchic communist that I had become.

A text from Nat’s parents in response to mine giving them my Oz number said they had chatted to her and that she’d hiked The Great Wall of China. The first of two man-made objects visible from space. My rucksack being the second… so she buys a Chinese SIM card and texts her parents but not me. The cold-hearted bitch! Two seconds later I get a text and four seconds after I appeared online up flashed ‘You have a new message from Natalie!’. We chatted for what must have been nearly two hours before my battery died. I had no UK-Aus travel adaptor. The only one that I don’t have, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Europe, The States, Mars, The Moon, but no Ozzie one.

My eee PC died after the perfect sign-orff and I walked home with passers-by thinking I was drunk due to my swaying… I slept for nine hours.

RUNNING ON EMPTY

So here I am, sat at the airport staring at my own face on a REWARD poster: Wanted in six countries for stealing electricity and wifi. The reward seemingly builds by ten dollars since the last country. I feel like the Osama Bin Laden of wireless blagging. Especially in this fake beard. But at least I’ve caught up with myself and am writing about the events of the last day and this morning, not last month as I have been of late, distracted by you know who.

Still running on empty, waiting for my Jetstar flight which has been delayed by two, scratch that now four hours. At least airport electricity is free. Shouldn’t electricity be free anyway; who owns electricity? Thomas Edison or Michael Faraday or something? You can’t own electricity, that’s like paying for water, a concept that would trigger the collapse of all civilization. Tobacco and cocoa were free to the Mayans and Aztecs. It grew everywhere... Cocaine too. That should be free. Beer should be free. Chickens should be free. Never mind buy one get one free, what about “See one, get one free” or “Free Subway of the day” or “do a really loud impression of a goat in a library and eat all day for free”

I should definitely be King or at least Prime Minister of some country or other.

I’d be a mighty king.

Maybe Koh Samui.

Home.

‘STRAYA

“ASIANS!!!”

This was one the first words uttered to me in Australia; the most racist country in the world.

An Antipodean asked where I was headed, when I told him eventually Sydney he volunteered that the city was “full of them”

Thanks for that.

The most racist country in the world. Even that nice Mr. Kellogg is at it…

I’ve been told by an aborigine friend that you drop the A and the U at the beginning and that the “L” in Australia is silent. Hence ‘Straya

Like the silent “F” at the beginning of “Will”

I can’t believe you said that out loud.

I amuse myself sometimes.

Despite the year-long bus ride through Thailand and Malaysia with less than two hours sleep and the same on the surprisingly short trip from Singapura to Brisbane by having all three seats of the middle aisle to myself, (must remember that trick) I was really very happy to have landed in Australia. I arrived at the crack of Dawn, the sun was beating me off and a good beating off felt good.

Transit through immigration and customs; to, by and from the overpriced train ride to the centre of Brisbane, I walked the nine a.m. streets as the office day began. It’s a nice town, with some handsome buildings amongst the erect edifices that scrape the sky. I think they’re called Queenslanders; wooden-fronted, hotel-like structures usually painted cyan or burgundy. The CBD as we used to say in geography class but is common phrase here looked like any other, a smaller Sydney in fact. Louis Vuiton and Bally stores standing out from the McDonalds and Gloria Jeans cafés.

One thing I love about ‘Straya is the fact that the man I bought my SIM card from, proprietor of a news stand seemed far too well-educated to be a news-stand vendor. He spoke politely and eloquently but had no sense of being below his station. There’s much less class-structure here and in my book that’s cool.

When it suits me, that is. All the rest of them are inbred, knuckle-scraping oiks. I was just lucky to stumble across the one nice local man in this country. I hate Australians. Why had I come here again? Where else on the planet is the volume of piss on a metal trough a measure of manliness? I guess they are still Anglo-Saxons at heart despite the distance.

Carrying my 28kg backpack for more than six minutes at once is death-defying. Why I brought so much stuff I’ll never know. In Fisherman’s village I had a base, our home and rarely used the backpack; I must have a clear out when I can. I only need one bigger daypack. That said some of the things I carry with me are indispensable and most of my rucksack is full with first aid and useful outdoorsy type things that always come in handy. I like being the person to go “will this help?” in sticky situations, whether it be tiger balm, plasters, tissues or electric razors to offer pretty girls as dildos. You know, those kind of daily sticky situations.

Speaking of which there’s millions of them; pretty girls, not dildos. I haven’t seen many of those save for the 27kg of them I carry round in my backpack, just in case…

Walking the streets I forgot how gorgeous Aussie girls can be. Of course there are huge munters as well as “Bogens” (what we’d call chavs) but Britain is made up from four in five chavs for every fit girl while here is it vice versa. That said, I just saw one of those girls that looks like Wayne Rooney and should not be from this century, instead a farmer’s wife about to take up pitchforks as arms against the Cavaliers or Roundheads in Cromwell’s English Civil War.

I’m mostly against war, but I think I could fight a civil war…

“Hello, my name is Will. I’m a soldier from the British Army and I’ll be your killer today. Would you like a sherry before I run you through with a bayonet, rape your wife and children and burn down your home? How d you feel about that?… Good well, lets get the show on the road, would you like my entire battalion to violently sodomise your wife before or after you die?… Good choice sir. That‘s what I would have opted for… Something to remember her by…”

You know, let’s bring a little decorum back to warfare in Basra, Afghanistan and no doubt soon Pakistan; I mean… Manners don’t cost anything.

Conversely, and brilliantly, I forgot just how ugleee Aussie males can be. Yeah, the surf-types are hot but on the whole they are a one in ten with the other ninety percent ending up a more gormless Mr. Bean. I just need not hang out in any surf-towns.

So after walking what felt like a the 26 miles 385 yards of marathon staring at girls and carrying a giraffe, I dropped it on the ground to hear the cry of

“Oi you can’t leave that lyin’ there”

“It’s not a lion, it’s a giraffe”

Spinning round it was my friend Elizabeth Baulch; “Bink” for short. It could be worse; she has a sister called Moo! It was ace to see someone I knew as I was so tired from my seven hours sleep in the last four days that the duldrums were setting in. Oh and I was pissed that this place was so expensive. Seven bucks or three quid for a can of coke and a picnic chocolate bar. The long-haired leftie galaahs.

Bink and her gay friend Seamus (she’s such a fag hag) picked me up in the first car I’ve been in for an age (taxis don’t count) and we went for food. Well I was too tired to eat so I shared Bink’s and had her leftover tarka dahl - I didn’t tell her it was my favourite as I couldn’t afford one of my own.

Another thing I love is the fact that security guards, postmen, train drivers, traffic wardens and maybe even the police wear shorts. I couldn’t take a shorts-wearing traffic warden giving me a ticket seriously, and from a policeman it’s just a licence to snigger. With their knee-high white socks and trainers they all look like boy scouts. I’d not be surprised if all bare-legged senior police chiefs play conkers on their lunch breaks. In the opposite way, all train and airport announcements are delivered with formal English accents, as if this land of convicts would not respond to anything but their overseer’s commands.

One day I got psyched out and stared down by an Aussie male walking towards me. Nothing unusual there aside from the fact he was a schoolboy complete with grey shorts and knee-high socks. He was bigger than me too!

Old people here dress differently to English geriatrics. Shorts, sandals, baseball caps and Marilyn Manson T-Shirts make senior citizens less worn by the effects of age… but not the sun. I mean, I want a tan but I don’t want to look like a fossilized crocodile handbag in my autumn years. (Will I have to call them fall years in America?)

Speaking of crocs, aren’t those plastic shoes just best prophylactic - the greatest form of contraception? No matter how good looking someone is, if they’re wearing crocs they cease to be sexually attractive.

Like wearing condoms on your feet.

Two of ‘em.

Fluorescent green condoms.

With holes in.

Sitting in the park by the river in West End I was bitten by ants while we smoked cigarettes and chatted with Bink’s brother, his wife, their nine month old but Hulk sized baby Levi. Very cool baby. It was cool to see Binky after so long, it must have been when she stayed at mine in London about three years ago that I last saw her. She was the same as ever, I didn’t enquire but I am probably not quite the same… I was too tired and, just like on the bus and in Raffles, I was nodding off every few minutes like an aforementioned geriatric.

PRETTY VACANT

SINGAPORE, AGAIN...

Foregoing a shower as the minibus picked me up half an hour earlier than expected, resulting in me opening the door stark bollock naked to my landlady and Natalie the cat who got an eyeful, my 26 hour ferry and bus ride took me to Singapore. Pretty uneventful really but I met Dan, a 24 year old lad from Nottingham. He was pretty funny and we entertained each other with stories of two-timing girls at university, football talk and bad jokes. I realised I missed blokes company, having spent three months with just one girl.

I don’t like Malaysia; even though it’s very modern, it still stinks. It’s not modern and clean like Singapore.

Its a fine city... They fine you for everything; jaywalking, sk8ing, not flushing poos in public toilets (who on earth checks and what is his job title?)


There is still the rural charm of Thailand on the roads but the Esso, BP and Petronas stations spoil that somewhat. The evil bus driver dumped my rucksack at customs with me so high on painkillers and sleeping pills I didn’t realise it had to go through Singaporean customs so yet again guns were pulled on me as I dazed around, back the wrong way through customs having been through immigration once. I swear they only pulled their pieces as they thought I was a zombie from the still open wounds, pretty vacant expression, the smell and the dribbling.

So my common phrase when travelling this part of the world came into play yet again… “dropped in the middle of shitsville nowhere” I called the bus driver an orang gila for being a grumpy old bastard and made my way here, to the real Singapore. The Singapore I know. Number 1 Beach Road.

Though I must say that standards have slipped since I was last here. I think I heard a Sheffield accent and saw some brown people who weren’t in uniforms. After asking at reception if I could use a bathroom, I took a luxurious hot shower in one of the restrooms (score!) and spent a good forty minutes shaving, washing, changing into a double-cuffed shirt and dressing bandages as wedding guests stepped round me for a reception.

I walked into the reception lobby looking like an extra from Dawn of the Dead, complete with Burt Reynolds moustache, having not washed for two days from my trip on the Charabang of the Undead. I walked back in to thank the funny little fuzzy- wuzzy behind the desk in my mind looking rather dapper.


And so it came to pass that I went out to smoke a cigarette and got chatting to a very nice man, Keith from Tenerife. He had good teeth, Keith; was proper gay and had turned over a new leaf. Keith seemed to have gone on holiday with eleven people he didn’t know. After explaining that he hadn’t worked in eighteen years and was loaded so very kindly bought me a beer. Half a pint of draught Tiger costs sixteen Singapore Dollars; about eight quid or you can get a jug for thirty-five. Thanks.

Here’s a quick joke…
Two lawyers walk into Raffles.
The first turns to the second and says “Cigar? I’m fucking loaded”
The second pauses.
Turns back to the first and says “Thanks. Me too!”


Keith did say I could have anything I wanted and I what I wanted was a Gordon’s Dry Gin, Dom Benedictine, Cointreau and cherry brandy mixed with a little lime and pineapple juice with a dash of Angostura Bitters and Grenadine. Shaken not stirred but thought that too cheeky cheekster to ask. I’ll get them for free on the plane tonight as I’m flying with Singapore Airlines.

Huzzah for me!

I remembered the last time I drank Slings here… For I am now sitting at the same seat under The Long Bar I brought the girl I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. I just never got round to proposing… if we’re honest she never really wanted me to.

Well I’ve been here all afternoon stealing their electricity as well as soap, hot water and available light and have nearly caught up with myself on this blog (I guess I must have if I’m writing present tense) so that is a good thing.

Opposite me is another good thing; a beautiful Australian girl drinking Singapore Slings with her parents, she must be all of oooh…twenty-two. It amuses me that she doesn’t have a clue that I’m writing about her. I am in fact grinning hard about it. I might take a picture of her as my phone is charging next to my laptop and pointing in the exact right angle. Hey, I could even post it on here. Now that would be funny. Is this how stalking starts?

Taxi to Changi airport… Make it so.

‘Stralia, here I come!

She just held my gaze that second too long and smiled at me.
I smiled back, but that’s where I’m gonna leave it, as:

a) Both her Australian mum and dad are bigger than me, and I’m still nursing many injuries… and

b) There’s a girl I want to bring here one day…