Author: morgue

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent February 2003]

It’s not my habit to self-criticise on these things, which is a bit crap really considering that it’s going out to an audience who don’t necessarily want to read any given ramble. But, having decided not to read through it before I send it, I have a feeling that this one’s even less coherent than previous ones. So be warned.
—-

February 6 is Waitangi Day, New Zealand’s closest equivalent to a national day. It commemorates the occasion in 1840 when the Maori tribes gave sovereignty to the British Crown. It is a day so heavily laid with political landmines that most New Zealanders pay little attention to its nominal purpose, and increasingly it has been bound up with another commemoration on the same day, that of Bob Marley’s birthday.

New Zealanders have always been suspicious of nationalism. It’s there right from the start of our national history, where we were proud subordinates to the British Empire; it’s there in the time before the Europeans arrived, where Maori identity was founded on tribe and hapu and devoid of any wider collective; it’s there even now, where our young and bright leave our shores to wander the world, and a cultural imperative, for those with means, to see beyond our country is obvious. The (apocryphal?) tendency of well-off Aucklanders, at the top of the country, to holiday overseas rather than in other parts of New Zealand, is a source for derision but really just another expression of how much value we place on seeing different horizons, and how aware we are of the limitations of home.

This is not to say we are without national pride. This is a hugely important stream in New Zealand culture; we thrive on the overseas successes of our native sons and daughters.   The All Blacks remain the main conduit for Kiwi pride, but the increasing New Zealand presence in Hollywood is a continuing source of bemused triumph for us.

Yesterday was February 6. I stayed home. There were some half-hearted efforts to organise a get-together with the other Kiwis in town, but nothing came of it. Ultimately it just didn’t seem important enough to mark.

——-

I’m living in Broomhouse, which is a suburb to the west of Edinburgh, about 20 minutes by bus to Princes St so quite a way out, a way further than I’d prefer but it’s a good deal and I’m enjoying the solitude. There is much to read – Roderick has moved all his books in well before himself, and I’m coming off reading Lord of the Rings to the end for the first time so the fantasy/science fiction bias to his collection is more appealing now than, well, since I was about 11 and trudging through the Belgariad. (If any explanation is needed as to why I stopped reading fantasy, ‘David Eddings’ is convenient and probably fairly accurate.) I’ve knocked off the Cryptonomicon at last, and yes it is quite brilliant. Chuck and Matt Mansell and all the others who’ve told me to read this over the years can all proceed with the ‘I told you so’ line. Now I’m reading a Harry Potter. A few other books have found there way into my reading list. I’m probably reading too much right now, but it’s comforting and accessible and cheap. So I’m gonna keep on doing it. Rah.

The Broomhouse house is nice enough. I have it to myself, and most of the early problems have been sorted out, including the (hopefully) final solution to the ‘no central heating’ problem that was sorted yesterday. (Another reason to stay home in my nice warm house.) The big trick now is that the kitchen is undergoing fundamental reworking and as such is not fitted out. I have a microwave, a sink, and an electric jug. I’ve been making lots of interesting meals here, lots of rice as you might expect, and it’s a pleasant enough challenge to grapple with. However, anyone out there with nice suggestions for meals or snacks that can be made with microwave, boiled water and sink would become a personal hero if he or she sent them in.

I am looking for work. Not sure how long I’m going to stay here, but I’m telling all potential employers I’m here for three years. Thus far it hasn’t been enough to get me a job, so next job application I’m going to say I’m here forever. That ought to do it. In the meantime, I’m getting a trickle of spending money from a job at a video chain, simple work, not overly boring, and the nice perk of free videos and DVDs. (Chris, Dale, Dean, Chuck, Pearce – watch Dagon as soon as humanly possible, preferably together.) Actually, it’s a dangerous perk, more incentive to go home and stay there, but I’m managing my habit nicely.

These are things that I am doing. Edinburgh is becoming a place for doing things now, as opposed to a place for seeing things and experiencing things. It’s an interesting conversion and I’m aware enough of how it’s progressing to watch how I’m going. It’s still an amazing place, and I have lots more to see and experience here, but it’s transforming before my eyes into quite a different environment to the one I arrived in six weeks ago after months on the road.

Londoners/Cambridgers/Leicesterers will notice I have not in fact visited them yet, despite my last email’s enthusiasm. I still have the itch to travel again, but as long as I keep getting interviews for ‘real’ jobs I’ll stay here. I’m in a limbo that is partly self-inflicted and partly dictated by financial reality. Just like everyone else in the world, pretty much. Sometime soon I’ll have to remind myself of how much freedom I really do have right now.

——

So, in all, not much to report. But I’m still having a nice time, I’m getting writing done, I’m thinking, I’m living in a place that isn’t home and that in itself is giving me new perspectives. It’s all good.

——

Shout outs to my grandmother, who had her birthday since the last email, and to my baby sister, whose 21st birthday sounded quite amusing and I wish I’d been there to deliver the pineapple in person. Also to the Salisbury Centre which was a wonderful home for my first month plus in Edinburgh, and to Helen and Matt who have a wee bairn on the way!

And to everyone I used to work with, because now I’m thinking about work again, I’m realising that I really did meet some classy people while earning a paycheck. And to Holly, who I just this second read is moving to Bristol!

And to all of the rest of you. I have this desperate urge to list everyone I know and give personal messages, but I’ll spare you that nuisance. Just be happy, all of you.

—–

Peace,

morgue

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent January 2003]

Reports of my death have been…

—–

[To the politically squeamish: don’t turn away. I won’t be boring. Or very political.]

This past weekend I went to an anti-war conference in Glasgow. It was, believe it or not, the first time I have been beyond the boundaries of Edinburgh since arriving here in mid December. I know. I was in the passenger seat of Neil’s car, Neil being a resident here at the Salisbury Centre and an all-around good chap. He’s a wee Scotsman (I’m stretching the definition of wee but it’s a word used a lot around here so I’m forcing it into the gap) in his mid-thirties, generous to a fault, always smiling, and he’s put me on to this great cinnamon tea that I’ve been drinking regularly. Oh, yes, the tea. There are so many kinds of tea in the Salisbury kitchen! It is truly a wonderful thing.

So off we rode to Glasgow on a Friday evening, making our way to Neil’s Aunt Sandra’s, there to put down beds and sleep, after stopping off at Neil’s mothers for a feed and to pick up a chair. Come morning we were up bright and early (for a Saturday) and managed, despite being sent in the wrong direction, to get to the venue in time. And out we got, and in we went.

It was a community hall a little bit out of the centre of town. There were banners up and down the length of the walls, stalls along each side for the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Scottish Greens, and the other usual suspects. Seats were arrayed before the stage, about 200 of them, and 3 TV cameras roamed for shots. (Neil got in the firing line and ended up on Scottish news, but my UK TV debut is still pending.) A wide variety of people, a good age range, the over-40s seemed overrepresented until I realised there are more of them than there are 20-40s.   It was good to see the grandmothers there, anyway.

Anyway. There was a lot of good material over the duration – opening speakers, then two one-hour discussion sessions, then a closing plenary with more speakers. It had my mind racing in all kinds of fascinating directions. The tone was very sensible, with a real lack of conspiracy theories and people decrying Bush as a flesh-eating lizard in human skin (search ‘david icke’ on google). What there was instead was a real sense of informed people who are representative of a growing movement, a movement that opposes the serious business of war being brought about without very compelling reason.

Many factoids were shared, some useful, some not. The one that stuck in my mind – according to the University Professor who spoke in one of my seminar sessions, whose name I have written down but upstairs, global supplies of oil will last, at present rate of consumption, another 30 years. In other words, according to this professor (who brought a formidable array of numbers which he said were sourced from the US energy department’s research body), things will change, and my generation will be alive to see it.

But the most potent thing about the weekend was more visceral. In New Zealand, there’s a baseline of apathy about any kind of public action, because, well, we’re New Zealand. Is George Bush gonna care? Helen Clark’s already dangerously liberal in the eyes of the US – what can we really achieve? Here in the UK, on the other hand, the audience for protest is none other than Tony Blair. And while Tony Blair changing tack probably won’t by itself stop the prosecution of war, it might combine with other political costs to stop things before they start. An effective protest (and I still wonder whether ‘effective protest’ is a contradiction in terms) here can really make a difference. And that’s an unfamiliar feeling. Pity they only managed a turnout of 263 from the enormous population. Still, the march on Feb 15 is the one to watch for. Count numbers then, I guess.

———

Oddest moment – guy from PLO is up and talking, not making much sense. He refers to the death of Jesus. Interjection from the floor from man in turban: ‘Jesus is not dead. They killed someone else.’

Yes, I know the theories about Jesus’ brother Thomas who died in his place, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc etc etc. No, I don’t buy it. No, I don’t know why this chap thought it was worth interrupting a rambling PLO guy to share this with us.

———-

Glasgow itself got a good drive-through on the way back from the conference to Neil’s dad’s place. We
delivered the chair and slept again. Reports that we watched ‘Armageddon’ before sleeping can be neither confirmed nor denied, but if true, you must admit it’d be the perfect counterpoint to the day’s events.

———-

The countryside around Edinburgh and Glasgow looks very much like rural New Zealand, until you reach the towns, which are completely different. It was very calming.

———-

I’m finally moving on from the salisbury centre on Saturday, shifting to a nice house a bus-ride from the middle of town. Why and how? It’s long and complicated and not worth going into, but kudos to Blair for being the main connection. He is so cool only Michael Upton could express it adequately.

———-

Brad, Holly and I just saw 8 Mile. It is indeed very good. No, I didn’t expect it either. I am still unsure about Eminem, but the guy can hold a movie together.

———-

Going to Glasgow fired me up for bouncing around and I had to talk myself out of jumping on a plane back to London today. But I need to find a job. So I’m staying for a bit and filling out lots of application forms. Come to me job! Come now!

But I’m thinking of going back to London next week, if I’ve applied for enough stuff and won’t be interfering with interviews. Then I can finally see the Londoners I still haven’t adequately caught up with – you know who you are! And then maybe coming up through Cambridge to see Jack and Heather and Karen? And through Leicester to see Melissa? Hi guys! Email me! I’ll try and ring y’all!

———-

Shout-outs to my baby sister who’s 21 in a couple days.

And all those everywhere who are newly back at work.

———-

peace, love,
morgue

[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent January 2003]

It snowed last night, for the first time. A light dusting on the cars parked along Salisbury Road in the morning, like icing sugar on matchbox cars. The day is bright and clear and blue.

Two has gone into three. There was talk of chaos in the streets of Edinburgh at New Years, a bunch of arrests made in this city, terrorists hatching their plots… real information is thin on the ground. There were
a lot of police at the Princes St party but it was all good cheer, everyone was happy to be there with none of the drunken rowdy I was expecting. Maybe it was just too cold for much roughhousing.

Princes St and the Princes St Gardens are the venue for what is billed as the biggest new years street party in… well, I can’t remember what they claim, but it was big all right. Blair Rhodes, good friend from NZ now
Edinburgh resident and all-around nice guy, had a spare entry ticket and we arranged to meet at ten pm outside one the gates. Naturally we were no more precise than this, and as I wandered through a large crowd in the enormous space we’d agreed on I realised it was a pretty dumb suggestion for me to
have made. However, Blair found me soon enough, stumbling upon me going through the contents of my complementary goodie bag – a slab of chocolate, a sipper bottle of fresh Scottish water and a badge to pin on marking me out as a survivor of the Princes St revelry.

Hogmanay is a big deal in Edinburgh, for everyone except the locals. At the party, the main event for the four day celebration, Scottish accents were thin on the ground, Australian flags were flying everywhere – yes indeed, wherever there is a promise of a party the antipodeans show up in force. (Just ask those poor German oktoberfesters.) But the atmosphere was wonderful. Eschewing the Culture Club reunion stage and its £30 ticket fee, Blair and I bedded down in the throng before a stage where the Dhol Foundation were playing. They are drummers, all Indian playing traditional Indian drums over an explosive amped-up backbeat that got the crowd hopping. Outstanding music, just right to jump around in the chill and get
scrunched against everyone around you! They banged their last bang with ten seconds left in the year and by the last five everyone had caught on to the countdown.

I have been in a big crowd for new year’s before, and it remains a damn good way to see in the new and farewell the old. What was special this time was the fireworks. Man, that was a lot of fireworks. The whole
thousands-strong crowd, fresh into their new year enthusiasm, gaped at the sky. The only thing missing was ‘Auld Lang Syne’, absent of course because there were no Scottish people anywhere to be seen.

Great fun. Then the party continued.

The following night there was a street theatre event. It involved eight giant red giraffes pacing their way down the Royal Mile, pausing as they went to dance in patterns as a flying clown screamed out ‘Zere will be a Scottish parliament – perhaps?’

Yes.

Edinburgh is great.

——

I saw Two Towers twice in its first three days.   Ah, home.

——

Stay well you all. Thanks for the emails. Will one day try and respond.

morgue

I’m in Edinburgh.

It’s amazing.

When I told people I was heading up there they’d all say “it’s so beautiful” and you know, it really is. Not scattered spots of beauty mixed in with miles of chaos like you find in Barcelona or London, but a comprehensive all-around goodness that you can’t run from without finding yourself in the middle of even more. The hills and valleys give it fascinating character, with the awesome Salisbury Crags overlooking the city, and the view from shopping-central Princes Street across the narrow valley of Princes St gardens to the old town up on the facing hill, with the castle itself dominating everything from its high perch… amazing. Yeah.

I’m staying with Bradley, yet another friend who goes back to primary school days, at a comfy place a fifteen minute walk from Princes Street. The quickest route goes straight over South Bridge, which is closed as workers pick through the extensive damage from last week’s fire. The smell of burnt
wood carries through the cold.

It’s a good place and I’m going to stick around a while. It’s time to be still for a little bit.

---

In London one evening I met up with Joop Jagr, the guy Leon and I had met on the plane coming over. Surprisingly he’d been in London the whole time I’d been travelling; the number of stories he had about what he’d got up to here were still never less than hilarious and often a bit disturbing. He’s done a lot of travelling, and over a pint he asked me how I’d found it, ‘the whole travelling around business’. I tried to answer as best I could.

Here’s an attempt to retell what I came up with, using literary license to make it all sound a lot better than it would have that evening, and probably missing out some stuff and perhaps putting in some stuff too.

-Travelling is weird. It’s a whole bunch of things, all sort of bundled up together for no reason other than logistics. You do them all at once but they don’t really have anything in common. Like, you see things – monuments and icons and famous places and museums. And that’s cool, that’s reason enough to go travelling all by itself.

And also you meet people, all kinds of people from all kinds of places, and because of how it is on the road it’s so easy to make friends… I think it’s always easy to make friends but most of the time it seems harder, you know? On the road it seems as easy as it really is. And that’s cool, that’s reason enough by itself as well.

And then there’s the thing about being in new places, hearing a different language all around you, seeing people live a daily life that’s recognisable but unfamiliar, or even wildly strange. That’s invigorating and enlightening and it sort of puts you in your place culturally, gives you some perspective.

And it’s a test, as well. Can I handle myself? Can I avoid starving to death somewhere?

And then when you travel there’s that ‘go with the flow’ thing, where you can just find yourself riding a current and life starts making itself up for you as you go along and suddenly you’re in the middle of the most amazing new situation… [here Joop nodded sagely and made a comment like ‘I’ll drink to that’ – all of his travel tales stem from going with the flow, at least the ones I’ve heard]

And when you travel you learn stories and make stories. You sort of are stories, you’re hyper-aware of how you’re living in something that one day’s gonna be a narrative you’ll spin out for your friends.

And… I studied anthropology at University, so I get to see that in action, and it’s even more amazing because I know that the cultures I see all around me go so much deeper than I could understand without living amongst the people and learning their language and becoming part of their community.

And you see how place defines experience and how experience defines your reality. So I get to be Morgan in a new place, which is different to Morgan at home. You just skim over the surface of the world and your headspace changes. Everything changes. –

At this point Joop reminded me of something I’d said on the plane coming over, about how I had one real goal for travelling: to try and understand the size of the world.

And I said to him, – all the rest is a part of that, right?

---

I’ve travelled Europe for three months without a watch.

I now have a watch. It’s time to stay in one place for a little while.

---

Merry Christmas all! Don’t hold your breath for Christmas cards, I’ve kind of left it too late… there are plenty more tales to tell, and I’m sure Edinburgh will yield some of its own!

Sorry to the Londoners (and surroundings, hello Cambridge people!) who I missed yet again. Not many of you this time, thankfully. I’ll get to you, I’m gonna try and come back down early next year.

Peace and love (and, for the old-timers who appreciate old-time-references, antelopes)

morgue

[waybackmachine link to original]

Andorra is one of those tiny countries, the ones that aren’t large enough to merit a block of colour on large-scale maps and are instead identified by a line pointing at their location. The ones you forget about, basically. It’s sandwiched between Spain and France in the heights of the Pyrenees. The local language is Catalan, same as Barcelona. It uses the Euro as currency even though it isn’t part of the EU, and both the Spanish and French postal systems are in place, everywhere there is a post box for one there is a post box for the other alongside. (Which reminds me of the three parallel postal services we had at one time in New Zealand, each with their own stamps and letter boxes, and once again I shake my head at the folly of
it.)

There are two things to understand about Andorra:

• it is high in the mountains
• it levies no import duties

The first is important because mountains mean slopes with snow, and slopes with snow means ski. All of the towns in Andorra are basically ski resort hotels and the homes and shops of those serving the skiers. So while the high Pyrenees are incredibly scenic, anything resembling a local culture is pretty thin on the ground.

The second is important because of what it means for the central town, Andorra la Vella (which I believe just means ‘Andorra Town’. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) and more specifically its main street. Well, it really is just a main street. And all along the main street are exactly the same shops you find in the duty-free sections of airports. Cheap consumer electronics, copious amounts of alcohol and tobacco, and all the rest. It’s a giant mall in the mountains.

---

A weekend trip was in the offing. The posse were Julian and myself, and three of Julian’s fellow language assistants, Lucas and Julia whose car it was and who were organising the whole thing, and Leanne. Lucas is from Argentina and would serve as chief translator for the trip, while Julia and Leanne are both from the UK, London and Leeds respectively. I’d met all three on my first day in Auch, joining them and Andrew for an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet lunch mere hours after stepping off the train and surprising Julian with a phone call saying ‘Viv, I’m at Auch train station.’

It is appropriate now to give due respect to Julian for coping with my unexpected arrival with such good grace and charm and, indeed, enthusiasm. Cheers.

Anyway, Lucas, Julia, Leanne (and also Andrew, who was not along for this mission) had made a previous expedition to Andorra a few weekends before, and they had lucked onto a nice three-star hotel with Jacuzzi, kitchenette and enough room for six, all for 60 euros a night for the room. The deal ran out at the start of December when the ski season kicked off, so they were keen to go again and I was in the right place at the right time.

Friday morning, mere hours post-Tip-Top, we set off. Lucas drove with great consideration and Julian held tightly to the doorhandle for most of the journey. There were no accidents, and Julian was a bright light for us all, enough that he managed to inspire me to overcome my own hungover state. I was a third of a bottle of whisky down on Julian, after all, and if he could rise to the occasion then damn it, so could I! The car was small and Leanne was jammed in between us, doing the best she could to be happy about it, and the journey was full of corners, and when you touched your skin to the windows it was clear exactly how cold it was getting outside.

As we rose into the mountains I was more easily able to put aside my queasiness. The views really were stunning, and when we hit the snowline I was sold. I’ve done lots of describing of mountains lately, seeing as I’m currently in Switzerland, so I’m not going to make the effort here, but they were massive, impressive, and very different to the Alps in ways I can’t quite put into words.

We got settled into the hotel, which was everything that had been promised, and sallied forth to Andorra La Vella for a shopping expedition (I managed to resist temptation). Not fond of malls, I was quite ready to return to the room for a nice meal and a relaxing evening of conversation, ‘Jaws’ in German, and a very pleasant Jacuzzi.

---

Saturday morning and we jumped back in the car and explored the country a little. The highlight for me was leaping out of the car into snow a foot deep or more, and the impromptu battle that instantly developed. I threw my first snowball, badly, achieving spiritual communion with Charlie Brown after all these years. The highlight of course was Lucas leaping headfirst into the snow in a pratfall so spectacular he either planned it or is truly one of the world’s great stumblers.

All too soon the cold had eaten into our fingers and we were back in the car. We ended up back at Andorra La Vella, in a small bar/restaurant just off the main strip where we shared a half-dozen plates of tapas. These included spiced fish, potato wedges and slices of chorizo and other sausages. All in all, very filling and very tasty. Then we returned to the hotel room to relax for a bit before heading out again after nightfall for the main event of the evening: Caldea.

---

Caldea is a health spa complex right in the heart of Andorra La Vella, its glass-walled central tower rising high above the surroundings in a narrow pyramid. Inside it’s a multi-leveled arcade of subdued lighting and bubbling fountains, expensive tourist shops making way for a large reception area for the various areas of the club. It didn’t seem like a real environment, and after a few minutes I realised I was being reminded of the kind of set you’d see in an episode of Star Trek.

We paid about 20 euros each for entry to the complex for three hours, from 9pm to the closing time of midnight. After hurried changing and much faffing about with the lockers, trying to convince the keys to work, the five of us strode forth into the heart of the complex. Oh, lord. If the reception area had the garish shiny futurism of a Star Trek television episode, the main space was like a big-budget Trek movie where the crew go to the pleasure planet, crossed over with the barmy 70s sci-fi décor of, say, Logan’s Run. (Note, however, that I found no evidence of sinister goings on behind the scenes.) The main pool was huge, roughly oval in shape, all about waist deep or slightly deeper and a very pleasant temperature. The ceiling was very high above, and a few storeys up on the walls were full-length windows into the on-site restaurants, where diners ate while gazing over the whole interior. More important, however, were the other pools above the main one.

From within the water there were staircases rising up to five enormous basins, set at varying heights above the pool, each large enough for a dozen or so people to settle within. From below they looked like shallow half-spheres with water spilling over the edges and cascading down to the main pool. They were at a variety of temperatures and included different kinds of designer turbulence, the piece de resistance being the highest pool where you could sit against jets of water designed to massage the back. There were six sets of jets evenly spaced around edge of this pool, and you started at the weakest and proceeded around them until you came the last, which pummelled the tensions in your back into a most pleasurable submission.

As impressive as all this was, it was only the beginning. One arm of the main pool went outside, waist-deep all the way, where the city lights played against the mountainside and steam poured upwards off the water. Here there was a circular channel with a strong current and a number of other nooks and
corners. Also outside, but set apart from the main pool, was a large Jacuzzi in a particularly dark corner of the courtyard. To find this one you had to brave the icy cold exterior while soaked to the skin, and when
you found it, it was a great pleasure to jump in. The real problem was working up the nerve to get up and out again.

There was a very cold dunking bath alongside the hottest of the pools, where Julian took particular pleasure in testing his resilience (greater than mine, I promise you), there were numerous alcoves where you could settle and rest, there were dark rooms and steam baths and stunningly hot saunas. I can make that last description with authority, as I spent some amount of time that I cannot remotely estimate in one of the hot rooms, and when I emerged I was indeed quite stunned. I wandered in a state of utter
relaxation to the side of the main pool and settled on to a deck chair, one of about thirty set out in this dark corner, although I was the only person to make use of them all night that I could see.

From this spot I had a spectacular view of the next stage of the evening’s dramas – the sound and light show. All through the evening there had been soothing music thrumming through the sound system, music that actually enhanced the atmosphere rather than polluting it. Now the lights dimmed and changed colour and the music changed tenor, becoming a medley of classical and semi-classical themes that were vigorous, rousing and sometimes sinister (including that particularly ominous piece that gets wheeled out in every second Hollywood film, the piece of music that all by itself makes me put Young Sherlock Holmes in the scary movie category, you know the one, dum dum dum dum, dum dum dum dum, dum dum dum duuum duuum dum dum…). While that was going on water spouts were rising and spinning in the middle of the raised pools, arcing water into the air to rain down on the main pool, sprays
rising and receding in time with the ebb and climax of the music, all building to a glorious purple finale where ice-cold water leaped from unexpected jets to fall on to the exposed parts of a delighted, squealing crowd in the pool. Magical.

The same show came again about an hour later, but the time went very fast. I drifted from pool to pool, and couldn’t quite believe it when midnight came and we were all ushered out of the water – I can hardly think of a time when three hours has passed so quickly.

---

One other part of the Caldea experience you should note to really get a good impression of what it was like: the sheer amount of affection on public display. There were a lot of couples making out all over the place. I’ve been in Europe for a couple of months now but it still rings bemused ‘get a room’ bells in my prudish NZ-cultured brain.

---

So ended our Andorran expedition. The following morning, after what were universally agreed to be very restful post-spa sleeps, we piled into the car and set off on a roundabout return route that took us through Spain. We stopped for lunch in a small town called Sort, and again enjoyed a healthy spread of tapas. Of particular note this time were the snails that Lucas and Julian ordered. Now, I’ve heard it said that eating snails aren’t the same as common garden snails, but I couldn’t spot any difference. Imagine a cast-iron tray, about the right size to bake cookies, and cover it with a layer of snails from the garden, and you have a precise image of what was delivered to the table. Of course, the snails weren’t moving. To eat them you pick them up by the shell and jab at the little beggar inside with a wooden pick, dragging him out and into your mouth. The consistency: chewy and juicy. The taste: they were coated in a rich buttery flavour, and some of them were particularly spicy. I had four in all, enough that I can now say with confidence that yes, I have eaten snails.

Yum.

---

And Hoa spells his name Hoa, not Hao. Thanks Jon Ball for the correction. Sorry Hoa! I did know, I was just stupid!

---

morgue

[waybackmachine link to original]

Two announcements before I start ranting:

(1) Londoners: I’m getting into London this Saturday afternoon. I’m leaving again on Thursday and probably won’t be back until after New Year’s. I’m keen to see as many of you as possible, particularly those I didn’t manage to catch last time, so give me an email or wait until my phone is in the UK and contact me there, 078 17772635. Suggestions for Saturday night gratefully received.

(2) Wellingtonians: heritage couch free to a good home! My sister’s shifting, and the couch she inherited from me is surplus to requirements. This is the marvellous gold/green creature that so happily participated in every party at Todman St. It’s a bit threadbare but it’s dead comfy and my mum has a photo of me sitting on it as a baby, so it’s been in the family for a long time and I’d like to see it placed where someone will give it the same loving attention I always did. Anyone interested, call Miriam on 021
137 8640. (You’ll have to pick it up, mind.)

---

After my expedition to Montpellier, Avignon and Carcassonne, I returned to Julian’s place in Auch. I was backtracking for a very specific purpose: I had been invited on what promised to be a very worthwhile expedition to Andorra.

So, Friday morning and the bags were packed, the car loaded, and we set off bright and early. Very bright and very early. This was a problem. you see, the previous night we had experienced… Tip Top. And Julian had experienced it more than anybody.

Let’s see if I can run this down.

---

Julian lives in a roomy apartment next to a high school. The education system that he’s entangled in, working as a language assistant, also provided this accommodation which he has, essentially to himself. He does have a nominal room-mate, Jan, who only very occasionally appears to make use of his sparsely furnished room, thus giving Julian all the freedom he requires to kick balls through doorways. Mostly, Jan lives with wife and children in a different place entirely.

When I got back to Auch, I was surprised to find that Jan had chosen to materialise. He’s tall, very agreeable, quite young for someone with wife and multiple children, and when he practised his English with me it was really quite good. Certainly vastly better than my French. Anyway, that Thursday November 22 was the night of the release of the new Beaujolais, and Jan proposed we go out for a little drink to mark the occasion. We readily agreed. We would, it transpired, be meeting up with another person, a
female colleague of Jan’s. All well and good. Evening came, out we went, and the wine was ordered and tried – as Julian put it delicately, ‘it’s very young’. Jan agreed that it’s always terrible. (Why the entire country makes a song and dance each year over what seems to be universally agreed as a crap wine, I have no idea. Genuine French culture for you, anyway.)

Jan’s friend showed up, a fierce-talking chain-smoking deputy principal just barely in her thirties, one of those women with career in her blood. As we consumed more wine I was less and less able to understand her rapidfire French, and before long she and Jan were having an intense and unintelligible conversation across the table, the barrage of French diagonally separating me from Julian. We just smiled and nodded to each other and the wine kept coming.

Finally we got up to leave, and I was quite ready for bed. But the night was just beginning. We jumped from bar to bar, getting drunker and drunker, the time getting later and later. As Jan and his colleague sink deeper into each other’s company, Julian and I welcomed fellow language assistant Andrew, who had been led a merry mobile-phone chase around Auch before tracking us down. Andrew is an sturdy Irish lad of 21 years, with a ready smile and a penchant for rugby. It was at his rugby training that he met Go, who was also with him that night. Go is Japanese, represented Japan in the Sevens at one time, and played rugby in Canterbury, befriending along the way such Kiwi rugby legends as Todd Blackadder, former All Black captain. And here he was in southern France, with not a whit of French to his name, to play rugby for Auch.

So we chatted, and marvelled at how Go really is called Go, and I was able once again to wheel out the story of how I used to play basketball with How and Why. (Although, okay, not at the same time, and their names are spelt Hao and Wai. Hey Hao! You’re an anecdote!)

And then we made it to the infamous Auch nightspot… Tip Top.

They checked us in the camera before opening the door to let us in. It was by now circa 2am on a school night but the place was just starting to fill up. I was ready to go home but I hung on – I couldn’t leave Julian behind! The group’s reasoning process was by this time well impaired, and with a bottle and a half of Beaujolais under my belt alone I was in no state to lead the group out of the Valley of Death/Tip Top. I called it a night when the bottle of whisky appeared, leaving Julian to battle on while Jan and his colleague were, ah, becoming steadily more collegial.

Julian sprinted in sometime in the region of 5am, a third of a bottle of whisky later. We were due at the car about 9.30. It was, needless to say, to be a long ride to Andorra.

Oh, Jan appeared at 9ish, as Julian and I were getting ready to leave. There, my friends, is another piece of French culture for you.

---

next: Andorra!

[waybackmachine link to original]

When I look to my left I see an array of red-brick apartment blocks, three to five stories high, arrayed in a loop around a block of bright green that could have been drawn in with a felt-tip pen. Near to me there’s a sloping rock garden leading down to the driveway, to its left a small play area, a wooden tower with a pyramid roof and a slide rolling down from it in a narrow plastic wave. On the top floor of the nearest apartment block there’s a man in his twenties on the balcony. He’s leaning inside the sliding door to talk to someone else. He has a shoe on his hand, a black workshoe. On the balcony railing, looking down on the concrete path at the foot of the building, is a santa claus figure, two feet high with a smiling cherub face and waving his glove to the nonexistent passers-by. The trees to the left of that block have given up to winter already, their limbs bare or fuzzed with brown, but to the right they are still green, although fading. It has rained through the night and is starting to rain again. The drops come down thin and perfectly vertical.

These buildings make up the bottom third of the view. Beyond the apartment blocks is a hillside. It is an almost vertical slope covered with tall trees, almost all of which are bare of leaves. The ridge rises and falls sharply, echoing the shape of the children’s slide.   The hillside makes up the middle third.

The top third is cloud. Cloud is heavy here, rarely lifting, sometimes casting tendrils of mist down into the valley where they settle or drift, sometimes enveloping the whole valley floor in a cloud so thick that one can only hear, not see, the destination of a thrown stone.

It’s a beautiful valley. A few days ago I went for a walk, it turned into a five-hour expedition, to see what I could see. All around there were hills and mountains, wreathed in fog that occasionally teased me with areas of clarity – snow on the pines here, a steep bank of green there. I walked from Stansstad village to the larger town of Stans, and kept going, following the road and railway line up the valley. Had I kept walking I would eventually, long after dark, have made it to the ski resort of Engelberg, at the foot of the Titlis mountain, one of the giants of Switzerland. This is also the place where Craig, my co-host and old friend, is teaching.

Titlis was obscured by intervening hills and mountains, but there was plenty to see around me. The valley floor has wide fields, impossibly green, agricultural stations mingling with the fringes of the towns. The sloping valley sides, as green and smooth as a pool table, play host to tiny gatherings of cottages, halls and churches, while in the centre a bright red train runs along a slowly curving line. It reminds me of nothing so much as the model railways my grandfather so enjoyed; too detailed and delicate and unblemished to be real. As the eye drifts up the slope the green shifts to white at the snowline, or sometimes to a line of white fog that had wiped away the upper parts of the hill like an eraser to a pencil sketch.

The clouds lifted as the day wore on and I was treated to more and more of the mountains until finally, late in the day, I had a clear view of the two nearest peaks, the Stanserhorn just above Stans and Stansstad, and the more distant and still taller Pilatus, both classic mountains, studded with dark green trees and steep slopes of rock and snow, towering paternally over the small villages.

And I’m told its even better in summer.

——-

Saturday night and Craig and Marcel were dinner party hosts. Eight of us gathered around their dinner table for a traditional Swiss raclet. Two hot grills were set in the middle of the table along with a wide variety of cut meats (bite sized), slices of cheese, small baked potatoes and gherkins. you cook for yourself at a raclette, putting the meat cuts on the top of the grill and plucking them off to your plate and your mouth when they’re ready, and melting the cheese slices in special trays with handles that sit under the element. When the cheese is good and melted you scrape it off the tray with a wooden scraper, over the potato or gherkin or whatever it is on your plate that you want to douse in cheese. And then you eat, and throw some more cheese on the tray and some more meat on the grill.

It’s reminiscent of the traditional kiwi barbecue, but it has more in common with the happy camaraderie of a good fondue party – that of course being another Swiss winter specialty. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, listening to conversations switch from English to German and back again and indulging my affection for cheese. I managed to completely cover my melting tray in a bubbling, browning crust of cooked cheese, clearly the sign of a rank amateur.

The Swiss love their cheese, and they also love their chocolate, represented at the dinner party by Craig’s ridiculously intense mudcake which gave me a glorious headache when I was halfway through the square-inch section I had.

(Craig, making the mudcake, checks the icing: ‘hmm. needs more chocolate.’ Unwraps an *entire block* of Swiss chocolate and dumps it in. Oh Lordy.)

———

Sunday, Craig and I went driving. Switzerland is surprisingly small, since we went almost the width of the country in a couple of hours, travelling via autobahn from Lucerne in the German language area to Gruyeres in the French language area. This is a small, well-preserved medieval village with castle on a hill overlooking the lands the Count once ruled, and itself loomed over by a range of stunning alpine heights, which happily were under sun and blue sky when we arrived. It has given its name to the cheese, but I was more interested to find that the name comes from ‘Grue’, the heraldic creature on its coat-of-arms, a sort of fearsome heron. The reason we made this pilgrimage, however, apart from as an excuse to do a grand tour of the Swiss countryside, was the HR Giger museum.

Explanations. I’ll try and keep this short.

When I was 11, my friend Luke managed to source a bootleg video copy of Jim Cameron’s film Aliens, newly out to the rental market. We settled down in my lounge on a sunny Sunday afternoon to watch. It scared us so much we had
to turn it off half way through and go for a long walk before we had the nerve to watch the rest.

Thus Aliens became my favourite movie of all time (a title it holds to this day, still seeing off all challengers). Furthermore, I’ve long been active in the roleplaying game scene in Wellington, and between 1995 and 1997 years I organised a series of well-received events based around the Alien movies, involving nearly 150 people across all the different events. Thus my reputation as ‘the Aliens guy’. Since the last event, in December ’99, I’ve given the Aliens thing away through total burnout, but still my reputation precedes me and Craig had the Giger museum well and truly on the list of things to show me. And I’m glad he did.

Giger is the Swiss painter/sculptor who designed the creature in the first film, and the success of that movie is largely due to the absolutely terrifying nature of his design. It didn’t come out of nowhere – through the sixties and seventies he had created a series of airbrush paintings exploring the juxtaposition and integration of the biological (usually in
terms of the human form) and the mechanical. These are some very disturbing images; there’s something very visceral and primal about their impact, about combining biological elements with mechanical structures and experimenting
with different kinds of interface, not least the often overt sexual/death
imagery that is part and parcel of any exploration of biological reality.
Furthermore, while a surrealist, Giger specialised in realistic depictions
of coherent environments and landscapes – they don’t distance you through
abstraction, thus making the impact of the bizarre entities and structures
he designed still more profound. There’s a beauty to it, but there’s also
something abhorrent, and in a way it’s the combination of beauty and
abhorrence that is the most important thing about Giger’s works. (For more
on Giger, see www.HRGiger.com)

The gallery is spread throughout three floors of a house in the middle of
Gruyeres, and it included lots of things I’d never seen before, and lots of
things I had. Seeing the originals of images I had been familiar with for
well over a decade was a lot more exciting than I expected it to be,
particularly the originals of Giger’s little-seen designs for sections of
the first movie that were cut from the first draft of the script. The
filmgeek in me was most excited, however, by the extensive design sketches
Giger completed for Alien 3, almost all of which were not used and none of
which I’d seen before. I can see why they weren’t used – they were very,
very weird and disturbing, far too weird for mainstream Hollywood. Hell, if
Alien 3 was my movie I wouldn’t have used them either. But they were
absolutely fascinating.

Craig – thanks for organising this, because even if I’d known it was there,
I probably wouldn’t have bothered to go, and I really would have missed out
on something cool.

——–

My tan is fading.

——-

Be well you all,

morgue

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Switzerland began with another train journey, a long one. I farewelled Julian and left Auch on the 7.30 train and pulled into the station in Lucerne three changes and almost fourteen hours later, just after nine pm. It was a pleasant enough ride, lots to see through France, particularly tripping over a flooded landscape where fields were submerged, fiery autumnal trees spiked up from brown water, and isolated cottages rose like ghost ships out of apparent lakes. It was dark by the time I was cruising through Switzerland but it was also apparent I was in a different place, a long way from the placid south of France. The view from the train showed lights arrayed on slopes and around lakes, and there seemed to be a lot of people working late at the office buildings we were passing. The stereotype of the Swiss-German work ethic is very true; and sure enough, the trains did run on time.

Through the journey I read from cover to cover Herman Hesse’s 1920s work ‘Siddartha’, a distillation of Eastern philosophy into the form of a novella, along with explanatory notes from some bloke who prepared the Picador edition I was reading. It was a great read, and I must make due shout-out to Aaron Andrews who made the trade – I think I got the better part of the exchange, coming away with Mo Yan’s satire of Chinese culture ‘The Republic of Wine’ and ‘Siddartha’ while he had to walk off with Edward Rutherfurd’s history lesson/potboiler ‘London’. Sorry about that.

(Now’s as good a chance as any to mention the way reading is so huge in backpacker culture. Everyone reads and talks about what they read and trades old books or simply gives them away – a finished book is just dead weight, after all. I have been consistently surprised by the kinds of books getting read. They don’t tend to be the ones on the bestseller shelves of your local bookstore. Instead you see a lot of classics – I’ve seen Hemingway, Faulkner, Salinger, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Fitzgerald… and a lot of more modern works, but ones off the beaten path are fairly common. Lord of the Rings has finally disappeared from the circuit, apparently, I’m told it was what everyone was reading nine months ago. Harry Potter still turns up now and then. Anyway, there’s no real point to this aside, except to say that everyone reads, and they read interesting stuff, and it’s all good.)

Right, where was I. Oh yeah, Hesse. Well, he was German, but he ended up in Switzerland. So there you go. It was even relevant.

I was met at the platform by Craig Duncan. He’s another old friend, one I met on the same first-day-of-intermediate-school that provided my first meeting with Leon, travel buddy on the first part of this mission and again through Portugal, and Adrian, kind host on that first anxious night in the northern hemisphere two and a half months back – a fateful day indeed. Craig is now living with his partner Marcel, who is Swiss, here in Lucern He’s currently teaching hotel management law at a hotel management school but as I understand it other opportunities are appearing all the time so I don’t know how long that will last. He and Marcel live in an enormous, beautiful apartment in Stansstad (I think that’s the spelling), a short car journey from the Lucerne train station. To my eyes they seem pretty well set up. I’m told they have a great view of the mountains but it has been foggy, but still scenic with the nearby craggy hills, and the lakeside just a short walk away – this is very nice indeed, especially with the fog drifting over its surface and obscuring its far side.

I’ve been here a full day now, and apart from a bit of walking about the neighbourhood I haven’t done much – most of today was spent in intense catch-up/discuss Switzerland mode with Craig. Nevertheless I can pass on some things I have noticed about this country that differentiate it from all the others I have been in since leaving New Zealand:
* no dog-gifts in the streets
* no-one asking me for money
* some evidence of driving laws

All of these are changes for the better.

Right now I am stupendously full after eating an enormous plate of food prepared by Marcel. I will sleep this off in the room I have all to myself in a comfortable bed with a fogged-out view of the mountains, and the only unnerving thing will be the full military kit, rifle included, sitting next to my bed – Marcel is off to military service on Monday.

I’ve never shared a room with a rifle before.

——–

Shout outs to Luke and Sam, who got married on Saturday, and Dan and Chrissy, who did the same thing on Sunday. Hope the days were, respectively, a blast and a blast.

And to Julian, my kind and generous host in Auch, who for some reason walked me to the train station at 7 in the morning. Cheers.

And to Tintin.

——-
morgue

is in my mouth. mmmmmmm. I had a late-night chocolate crepe. all of europe has a sweet tooth but this really is ridiculous – a delicate crepe liberally sprinkled with sugar and then thick, melted chocolate poured warm into the folded nest and then you just can’t quite eat it fast enough and the chocolate goes all over the white plate and it really is divine…

———-

i am in Montpellier. It’s a great town, elegant and sincere, with a pedestrianised heart that keeps going and going. I’ve found it a bit hard to penetrate the nightlife, much as I found Toulouse by night somewhat impenetrable – both student towns, both very pleasant, but unless you want to stand and drink alone they can be difficult after sundown.

i spent a bunch of days in scenic Auch, west of Toulouse, before heading here. There I enjoyed the hospitality of my childhood friend Julian McKenzie, working in Auch as an English language assistant in the high schools. We’ve had a fine old time, and he’s taken me to a different bar each night, and introduced me to a pleasant bunch of fellow tutors. In Auch there is a cathedral and a statue of d’Artagnan, so I’ve seen both of those about a thousand times as well.

France is interesting. The suburbs look more like suburbs to me than elsewhere in Europe. The people I’ve found to be very pleasant indeed, even as I butcher their language and drop its twitching corpse in front of them and expect them to LIKE IT, okay??? Let’s just say I’m better at listening and reading French than speaking it.

(This is the perfect point to note that I had to jump through numerous hoops to study French in my sixth form year, leading to the pleasant solution of being sent to the girls school down the road for that class… it might even have helped my French a bit. More notably, it gave me a wonderful friend, hey Melissa!)

(okay, it also gave me a good story to wheel out when schooldays talk gets going, but thats by the by.)

———–

the place is about to close around me and I’ve barely begun to write! more will have to wait. I had a coffee in a cafe last night and filled 16 pages of notebook with furious scribble, so there are definitely things to be said.

in the meantime, I’ll just recommend those who have time to check out Krzystof-from-Barcelona’s webpage, its fascinating reading.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/journal/?pics=small&doc;_id=120

a bientot!

morgue

[waybackmachine link to original]

I spent a few nights in San Sebastian. These nights just happened to be over all saints day, which are pretty big-deal holidays in Spain. On arriving at the train station and finding via phone that the hostel was full (despite promising us there´d be no problem when we´d called that morning), we actually listened to one of the room touts at the station.

(Whenever you arrive at any place with a backpack on, there will be someone at the station offering you a room at a handy price. Usually the best plan is to walk past these people, but they can come in useful, as here.)

We ended up in a dinky little room right smack in the middle of town, about two doors along from the big fancy hotel that, the tourist brochure gushed, was where all the big names stayed when they came to town for the San Sebastian film festival! So the location was great, and the price wasn´t bad at all, thanks to some nifty negotiation by Ella.

We went exploring of the old town, which is right nearby, and find large numbers of bars, a reminder that this is a big tourist town. The oddest thing is stumbling on the presence of a fifty-foot woman, well, perhaps thirty feet – I came up to her shin. She was made of cardboard and dressed after Xena, and promoting the San Sebastian festival of horror and fantasy films, which was going on all over town. She loomed at the end of a long narrow street, and whenever we walked through the old town we´d glance down and see this woman with her sword in the air far, far away. It was, I have to admit, pretty fun.

San Sebastian consists mostly of two beaches, which are both beautiful. One of them is excellent, yellow sand and pleasant surf and long and wide, but the other is simply magnificent, a glorious curve of archetypal beach-ness that just kept going and going. Hence the tourist destination. At night the beaches become the domain of groups of teenagers drinking under the walkway, but they´re still very pleasant, and the strange curve of the bay inside the harbour mouth gives rise to interesting surf. At either end of this beach are hills, neither of them too large, one of them rising up over the old town and playing host to a grand lit statue of Jesus, which itself rises out of an old castle/fortress… we explored the fort by night after finding the gate unlocked, which was hair-raising and not exactly informative, but did give a great night-view of the city when we hit the top and relaxed at Jesus´feet.

The other hill is climbed by a cable car, which both Ella and I weren´t interesting in using, so we tromped up the road. It´s on a similar scale to, say, Mt Vic, maybe a bit higher. Anyway, just near the top we find the road blocked by a guy with a road barrier and a sign saying you have to pay a euro to proceed, because, apparently there were restaurants and a lookout up top. Well, we weren´t standing for that nonsense (its the *principle* of the thing), so we settled at the side of the road just in front of the barrier, where there was a pretty stunning view, and hung out. For a very long time. I thought the guy would be perturbed but he didn’t seem to be, Ella was convinced he was having too much fun raising and lowering the barrier arm when cars came up or down to really care about us. He did seem to enjoy raising and lowering the arm.

On our last night in town, we went to a bar for tapas – small snacks that you consume with your beer, arrayed all over the bar surface in an enticing smorgasbord – which served as our dinner. I can´t even describe the things I had, but they were all very nice indeed. Then we found a notice saying there was a free movie at a cinema down the road. So it was that Ella and I ended up watching the ’57 Hammer classic The Abominable Snowman, starring Peter Cushing, in the foyer of a cinema with one other guy and the cinema staff. Peter Cushing is even more dashing with a Spanish voice.

—-

Ella is gone, and I strike out alone for Toulouse tomorrow. From the calls I’ve made, everywhere seems full. Will I find a bed? Will I survive? Don’t touch that dial.

—-

Jocularity from the UKers in the hostel after the All Black´s big loss in the rugby test to England. Hope all of you back home are staying indoors until the riots have ceased.

morgue

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