Fly me to the moon

One tragedy of the drive for a low carbon economy is the emphasis (whether right or wrong) on less travel. I’m not sure there has been an open debate on the cost versus benefit of encouraging the inhabitants of earth to travel less.

First of all, my personal view is that there is way too much talk about air travel being a premier league environmental evil. The best estimates are that air travel accounts for between 2% and 5% of carbon emissions. Does it really feel like air travel gets 2-5% of our environmental indignation?

I worry that there is a lot of self righteousness at work, and not a little reverse snobbery. The guy who sits beside me in work has a bit of an SUV, not exactly a Chelsea tractor, but enough of a ‘gas guzzler’ that he gets a lot of banter and jibes from my more eco work colleagues. He recently took the time to investigate on t’internet and found that his SUV, over its life cycle was more environmentally friendly as eco colleague’s 20 year old VW camper, which she drives to Cornwall every other weekend. I can’t help feeling that she just doesn’t like the fact that he can afford to, and chooses to buy himself a nice big car. Is it anti capitalism in another guise?

Arguments are never advanced by tagging opponents with easy uber-insults. Support Palestine? You must be anti-Semitic. Want to control immigration? Must be racist. Want more air travel? Must be a global warming denier.

I worry that this sentiment is evident in the demonising of air travel. My (rambling) point is I think, that we need to prioritise. Ambulances have a carbon footprint, but I’d rather we keep using them as opposed to having the paramedics arrive on a hemp powered bicycle. Similarly travel, whether business or pleasure is a massive addition and enricher to the human experience, global warming is going to happen, and we need to reduce our carbon emissions, but we need an adult debate about whether we should accept 2-5% more global warming and keep our foreign holidays, youthful exploration and inter-continental business trips.

Come fly with me

Guest contributor… David Aaronovitch

Until I was 28, and got my first job in television, neither my family nor I had any money. One result of this relative penury was that, by my mid-20s I had only been in an aeroplane four times: twice in infancy aboard internal flights in the Socialist Republic of Bulgaria, and then by Vickers Vanguard return to Lyons at the age of 13. That was it. Every other trip abroad or at home was by train and ferry or Bedford Dormobile. I didn’t cross the Atlantic till I was 27.

It is, then, with something more than jaundice, that I read the words of those who have, since their youngest days, left microscopic traces of their privileged DNA in airports on all continents, but who now rail against the “hypermobility” of others. Hypermobility - the capacity of millions of people to move around the world - we are told, destroys communities, weakens social bonds, creates pollution and threatens environments. “The business plan [for air travel expansion] cannot be faulted,” says George Monbiot. “The more hellish our lives become, the more we seek to escape from them.” Who has never been on holiday to, say, a Greek island for any reason other than a need to flee from Hades? What bloody condescension!

The relatively rich have always travelled - first by coach and boat, then by car and plane. Hypermobility is the fancy name for when the not-so-rich can travel as much as the rich used to. Mine has opened the world to me: Cairo, Colorado, Berlin, Beijing, Dublin, Rio and Bombay. And I have loved being in all these places. For others it might be Skiathos, Ljubljana and New York for work. Naturally most - since their time is limited - want to travel by air, and so we require more and larger airports and a greater number of flights.

READ MORE…

Larry David Norman (4/8/1947 – 24/2/2008)

The American ‘Dylan-esque’ singer songwriter Larry Norman died last week. He’s a man I’ve seen in concert more than a few times, and had the honour of sharing a limo (people carrier) back from a gig to a hotel in Eindhoven one time. I didn’t know him personally so wouldn’t pretend or assume to write a homily, but I’ll write about my experience of him.

Underrated by the main stream? Certainly. Overrated by the Christian music scene? Most definitely.

It feels disresepectful to write what I’m gonna write next, but I know there will be loads who think the same when they hear he died. They’ll say, seriously! You mean he’s not dead yet!? I remember going to a concert with GrumpyMan in the Assembly Buildings in Belfast circa 1990, everyone was in their seats waiting expectantly about half an hour before Showtime when the promoter came out and told us that he was actually still in Holland, pretty much at death’s door. Over the next, well 18 years I guess he had been rumoured to be almost dead. I wonder how it would have changed his life to know in 1990, than actually death wasn’t just around the corner. Maybe that’s a great way to live, or maybe it’s not.

Next time I met Larry was in 1997 when my little band of musicians were sharing main stage at a festival called Flevo in Holland. He held the crowd of thousands in awe as he stumbled through his repertoire, like an aged price fighter, every anthem felt like it could be final. Afterwards myself and Vox were waiting in the back stage drivers area waiting to be shipped back to our hotel - the drivers were having a bit of banter with us, talking in dutch of course and probably taking the mick, so we were in the boisterous mood pretending to be jack-the-lads ourselves. A knock game to the door and for some reason I thought it would be funny to pull the door open really quickly and shout YES?! WHATAYAWANT! At who ever it was. It was of course Larry. “I need a drive, man” he mumbled. I felt really daft and said…. “ur, um I’m … an artist not a driver” (I’m going red, as i did then).

Of course now that Larry was wanting a lift the drivers swung in to action, yes larry, no larry. So we were told we could share a car with Larry. Memory fails me, but I think I jumped in the front seat, just for the laugh of seeing Vox have to make small talk with the big man, but it didn’t mater, all Larry wanted was a McDonalds. At 1am! In the outskirts of Eindhoven! The legend is that Vox made some comment under his breath re: Cheese Burgers causing his heart problems… but I can’t remember if he actually did.

An hour or so driving round looking for a Micky D’s and suddenly Vox and I were less in awe of him and more in a ‘ can we, the heck, get back the hotel please’. So we talked him into the idea that there would be food at the hotel and he seemed happy.

I’m doubting that story tells much about an important and sincere artist like Larry Norman. But it’ my story, it’s my addition to his legend.

For a real obituary jump here - http://www.stocki.ni.org/news/item/127

In a New York minute

[greatist 'hits' redux] 

As mentioned in an earlier post, myself and GrumpyMan spent the millennium on a pilgrimage to New York City. We maxed out the credit cards, jumped on the last Aer Lingus outta Shannon, dodging a few millennium bugs on the way and landed in the Big Apple with woolly coats and big hearts. People forget now, due to the events a year later, but there were serious Islamic terrorist threats on Times Square - the news was doing a ‘countdown to carnage’ rather than countdown to new years. At one point it was rumoured that it would be called off, but in the end it went ahead so as not to ‘give in’. During the actual ‘standing around’ in Times Square bit a middle eastern looking guy who was standing in front of us was thrown to the ground by police who dragged him away (probably to father of Guantanamo).

GrumpyMan and I often used to get into a reckless game of egging each other on to do things, which sometimes led to excitement, but more often led to feelings of ‘hmm that wasn’t the best idea in the world’. On our first night there we were looking for a great NY Bar to go to, so we looked up a nightlife brochure we found in the hotel (hotel was of course one block from the Empire State Building - I say again, nothing by halves), anyway, bars… we found one we liked the look of, it was the Korova Milk Bar, based on a Clockwork Orange theme. We jumped on the Subway and emerged near to were it was, which of course, turned out to be downtown Brooklyn. Dodgy empty looking streets, no cars, dudes standing on street corners, us walking around in the cold for 30 mins looking at a map (jeepers). Eventually we came of a hidden doorway, walked in (expecting to maybe die soon) and arrived in the blacked out pub/club. If I remember right - it was actually a tad rubbish, but we stayed there for a couple of drinks anyway due to the hassle getting there.

This picture was taken by GrumpyMan from the Staton Island Ferry. Good uh!?

The next day we went to the World Trade Centre towers, I remember it like yesterday, leaving our coats in the lobby, getting in the express lift of Tower 2, up to the Windows on the World restaurant on the top floor. It was an awesome sight and chilling to think what happened there a year or so later.

That night we decided to make sure we went to a bar that was packed and happening. “Hogs and Heffers” was the choice. To give you an idea, this bar was the inspiration (in 2002) for the movie Coyote Ugly. The blurb said “the barmaids dance on the bar to country hits, try the dentist chair, for a great night out”. Must be said (to wives and such who are reading) there was no hanky panky sought or had - we just thought - this is bound to be a good story to tell.

Again - the rule should be to check out where the bar is before you jump in a taxi. The taxi driver gave us a ‘look’ when we told him where we wanted to go - then promptly dropped us off behind some scary warehouses down by the docks… the kinda place you expect to see cop cars chasing bad guys, knocking over fish crates and boxes. When we saw the bar we hung outside for a while, having decided not to go in, it was just too scary looking. Problem was there were no taxi’s around… so we bit the bullet and headed in. I can’t quite remember the rest of that night.

Next day was New Years Eve, and seeing as we were going to die in a terrorist attack, Grumpy and I decided to get tattoos in Greenwich village. Ok, this is heavily disputed by Grumpy who said he never intended to get one himself. He certainly encouraged me to anyway, we spent a while looking round for a good ‘parlour’ and we eventually found a guy with a spiders web tattoo on his face and thought - he looks nice, lets ask him to do it. So Grumpy told him what I wanted (yes), which was something to commemorate the date and the place… he spent a while drawing it out in pen on some paper, so it would have been rude to then say no. So, the rest is history, except its not, its present on my right shoulder - and I’ve just heard that these things actually don’t wear off!

There are other tales from the american odyssey - but sometimes a blogger has to know when enough is enough.

Those pesky islamists

There’s something very oppressive about the climate of fear brought about by deadly Islamic attacks on western civilians. Has there ever been a more unnecessary statement you may say, but it’s the small things that get to me. Yesterday evening I was coming back from a work meeting on the train, and sitting across from me was a Muslim woman, head to toe in black complete with a head scarf. She was quietly sitting there by herself, eyes closed, lips moving, obviously praying to Allah. I wanted not too, but I couldn’t help it, I was looking around to see if she had any large bags or if she looked like she had any bulk around her waist. Whether I liked it or not I thought that my chances of making it to my destination had at least slightly reduced.

Two years ago I was in Australia with my then girlfriend, flying from Perth to Sydney. It was completely clear as we flew over Western Australia and we could see the shadow of the plane miles below on the dessert earth. After about an hour’s flying time I noticed that we were slowly changing course. At first it didn’t even register as unusual, I thought it was a change of flight path or normal routine, but slowly over the course of 5-10 minutes we kept turning and turning in a large circle until it started to become obvious that we were headed back the way we came.

I don’t know if anyone else noticed but certainly no one said anything and there was no message from the pilot. I took a breath and started an internal dialog, asking myself if what was happening was really happening and what it meant. I decided that either some person was forcing the plane to turn back or something technical was forcing the plane to turn back, neither was good.

I was listening to some music at the time, the song was Bob Dylan’s Forever Young - that’s irrelevant, but I just remember it. It sounds so naff and bravado-lite but I started to physce myself up for trouble. I swapped with my girlfriend from the window seat to the isle, put on my shoes and looked around for any likely helpers should it all ‘kick off’. A bit embarrassingly Rambo-esque, but at the time it felt completely real.

I didn’t want to tell my girlfriend what was happening, as I knew she’d be quite panicky, but unbeknownst to her I was planning to ask her to be my wife that evening, on the steps of the Opera House. The idea came to me that I should just go for it now in case I didn’t get the chance (seriously, this is how I was thinking). So I turned to her and said…. Bing Bong… it was the captain.

‘Ladies and gentlemen you may have noticed that the plane has turned around, we had a slight problem but it’s been resolved and we’re now turning back on our original flight path’

The cabin crew had smelt ‘something funny’ in the food storage area… which on further investigation turned out to be rotten coffee at the bottom of a trolley. Good job I was all physced up for some Steven Segal action!

By the way she said yes, on the steps of the Opera House that evening

Good story in the locker! - the Tour de France

[greatest 'hits' redux] 

I’m always of a mind, that it’s good to have an array of good stories in your (metaphorical) locker. To the point were i’ve certainly ‘done things’ in my past just cause i knew it would make a good story to tell.

Sometimes though , good stories just happen. A few years ago i went to Paris with a couple of mates (very last minute thing - wanna go somewhere next weekend? yeah. ok where? etc etc). I should note that we were staying in the south coast of England anyway, so its slightly less flash than it sounds.

ANYWAY, on the Saturday we decided to go to the Arch de Triomphe, to check it out. When we got there is was crazy busy, and i mean busy! There was obviously some kind of event happening on the Champs Elysees (we assumed Red Bull promo or something). Being up for any kinda of craic we fought our way to the front of the crowd only to see a whooosh of colour and excitement as, of course, the riders of the tour de France crossed the finish line right in front of us!

People in the crowd had traveled all over the world to be there, for a once in a life time opportunity, and we had just stumbled upon it!

I think thats a reasonable story, and 100% true. What do you think?

(still think cycling is boring though)

Indonesian Knights

This may or may not be interesting - as with most QMonkey musings, it’s one of those ‘stories’ again - part of a finite resource which will someday soon run dry, not unlike the oilfields of Arabia. I’ll then have to investigate more renewable post sources. A few years ago I spent a year working in Singapore, it involved quite a lot of travel in SE Asia, visiting remote power stations to install software. The actual job was as boring as it sounds but the trips made for some interesting copy.

One of those trips was to a little remote town on the north cost of Indonesia, called Paiton. Myself and fellow Irishman Sean were joined on the trip by our new recruit in the office, Catherine (Catherine was a local Singaporean, who was in her mid 20s like me, but wasn’t really ‘up for the banter’ and eventually resigned after 2 months saying she couldn’t work with Sean and I. How embarrassing!). We flew from Singapore to Surabya with Gaurda Airlines - a scarily stereotypical journey, if there had been chickens roaming free in the cabin they would have fit right in - I took extra notice of the ‘in the unlikely event’ announcement!

We were met at the airport by a driver in one of those ubiquitous Toyota vans. The journey to our apartment was to take about 2 hours, it was late at night so I figured I could maybe get some shut-eye.

People often talk about scary car journeys, but with this one I KNEW we were going to crash, I was just praying that it would be a small crash and there wouldn’t be too many injuries. It was no better than a dirt track, no road markings, but heavy heavy traffic in both directions, no one travelling below 70 mph and our driver overtaking at every possible chance. On a number of occasions we forced the oncoming trucks to brake hard to avoid us - and we did bump in to a number of cars along the way… barely acknowledged by the driver! Sean, Catherine and I didn’t say a word for the entire trip but when we arrived we all just started to laugh manically… well… Sean and I laughed… Catherine just stared at us, shaking her head.

Next day we headed to the Power Station and did our bit - no really problems as expected. The main guy Pieter was a South African who’d be living there for a few years and was keen for Sean and I to join him for a night out in the village. I was a bit hesitant and said I’d maybe stay behind with Catherine… but that was greeted with cheeky smiles and winks… it all got a bit embarrassing, so I ended up going out with the boys. Paiton village had no street lights and was really just a succession of open air stalls, hawkers selling exotically smelling street food and questionable women hanging around doorways. The locals mingled in the middle of the street, constantly bumping into people on bikes, old rickety cars and even oxes (oxes or oxen?).

We were the only white guys around - but everyone was very friendly and some of them seemed to know Pieter. We headed into a bar and the lady at the door said, hello Mr Pieter, your usual table? No idea why she said that, because there only really seemed to be one table… it was a white plastic garden style table in the middle of the room in front of a big screen. All this time I was trying to look like a ‘cool’ man of the world… in a ‘I do this sorta thing all the time’ kinda way… but the screen had me worried. The worry enhanced slightly as all got our own ‘personal bar maids’.

So the three of us sat around the table, with our personal maid standing beside us, pouring the Bintang beer into our glasses and grinning a lot. Their job seemed to be constantly shower us with complements… Mr Peiter you so funny, Mr Jonny you so tall etc etc.

It was at this point that I made a complete tit of myself - my maid was very keen to keep the glass topped up, so every time I took a sip she topped it up - catching me quite unawares and causing me to spill it all over myself. Much running around to find towels and dabbing of t-shirts ensued.

After I’d been cleaned up, and made to look like a complete amateur, Pieter nodded to the head waitress and she shuffled around at the bottom of the screen. I started to get very nervous - I’d no interest in any hanky panky and this seemed to very much be what was on the cards. Until all became clear… IT WAS KAROKE NIGHT! Sean was handed a microphone and the words to Brown Eyed Girl came up in the screen. He belted it out with gusto, with his maid sitting on his knee swaying along.

Once I knew that It wasn’t about the hanky panky I was WELL into it…which is weird because I never seemed to get to the end of my beer  … I started to find it very ironic and, well, the makings of a good story. I shuffled through the booklet of songs… and selected With or Without You… I was on my feet… blasting it out, in a shack in the middle of Piaton, dancing a long to it with my personal maid… she said Mr Jonny you such a good singer… I said… thanks I used to be in a band.

Oh my giddy aunt… I did actually say that… I’ve gone red even now as I type it. I might not publish this post - these kinda things are best left unpublished!

Who starts an accent?

How the heck to accents work? How the heck did that happen?

When the convicts starting colonising Australia, did someone just start talking in that aussie accent, and everyone else just though - hey that’s pretty cool, lets talk like that… and it caught on. Then over in New Zealand they decided to do something similar, but a little more nasally. Could that really be it, or are there some more scientific reasons to do with the climate and the terrain or I dunno, the local animal sounds.

Same with America, when did they decide to talk like that? And why did Canada decide to do something similar but slightly more sing-song.

Just one of those things, it’s weird. I don’t know, and I want to know.
Anyone would think I had too much time on my hands!

It’s NYC baby!

Mid 1999, everyone was talking about what to do for the millennium. I think new years is always a bit of a let down, I always feel that I should be doing something more exciting than I actually am, so the millennium bought added internal pressure. As is usual, by early December I’d still no idea what I was going to do, bars were charging massive entry frees, anything remotely different and exciting was already booked up, so it was looking more and more like we were going to be ‘going around to someone’s house’.As soon as this realisation had set in, my mate Grumpy Man decided to lead a last ditch effort, “let’s just go down to the travel agents and see what there is, just to see”. Neither of us had any money, but we did have newly minted credit cards, which is as good as money, right?

Our first thoughts were to go somewhere obscure, Eastern Europe, Africa or Russia. Right from the off the nice travel agent lady was strangely open to the idea. We’d assumed she’d laugh at us and say ‘don’t be silly, everything was booked up a year ago’. But quite the contrary, she said people assumed everything was too dear and booked up, so no one asked.

There was a flight to Moscow on the 28th returning on the 2nd for about £300 (I think). So we thought ‘what the heck! Let’s do it!’ we didn’t book right away, we went for a walk around town to chat about it and phone people to see who would go (we were thinking 3 or 4 of are mates would definitely be up for it). To our great disappointment, no one seemed interested.

It was disappointing, but we decided we’d just go ourselves. We went back to the travel shop and right away we noticed something about an Aer Lingus deal to New York. We joked with the lady about it, saying phew, I bet that’s dear, millennium in Times Square! She nodded and looked up the price for the laugh - £400!

£400, 5 days in New York for the millennium! We couldn’t believe it. We’d heard of people spending thousands on things like this. (It goes without saying that neither of us HAD £400, but when you’ve got a credit card what’s the difference between £-300 and £-400… right?). New York, Times Square, for new years, for THE new years, too much to pass up.

[Coming soon "what happened in New York"... including ill-advised Greenwich Village tattoo story - possibly with pictures]

We Fins luv your soft rock stylings ya?

OK, it’s come to this, im going to have a roll out an other ‘when I were a rock star’ tale. Reason being that two of t’other legends have got blogs and are likely to mine this story soon if I don’t get in there first. Truth be told we were small fry, we managed to cultivate a reasonable close-to-home fan-base who would buy enough of our CDs to pay for the next one, and a great slap-up Christmas dinner. But one thing our illustrious manger did well was to publicise us in European countries who frankly didn’t know any better.

There was a period of two years or so when approx one long weekend a month we were jetting off to Scandinavia, Holland or Germany to rock the socks of the unsuspecting locals. Best part of it was without doubt, the fact that it was a free weekend away with yer mates. Most times we’d stay in hotels but some times we’d be sleeping on the floor in some random house of a promoter who looked like Ringo Starr. In retrospect those were the most craic - ‘getting in amongst em’ as our manager liked to say.

The venues would vary greatly, sometimes it would be a festival in a holiday camp near Eindhoven, next it was a youth meeting in downtown Düsseldorf, next it would be a wee pub is the snowy hills around Essen, or a beach hut along the Hague sea front or a summer festival by a late in mid Sweden. We never really knew what to expect until we got there.

One February weekend we were booked to play at an unpronounceable festival in Turku, Finland. We usually flew to Amsterdam then on to our location, this was a particularly cold weekend and when the plane landed in Helsinki it was minus 16 degrees. As we walked from the plane to the terminal the wings were being de-iced for take off (I wouldn’t have fancied the return journey). We got to the luggage carousal and waited as usual for our instruments and our bags to come around, as we always did hoping they hadn’t got damaged in transit (as was common). Fifteen minutes later we noticed that the bags had stopped coming, and the horrible realisation set in that we we’d been de-bagged!

Vox came to the fore, and marched up to the KLM desk to let them know that we were world renowned recording artists and we needed our bags by 11am the next day for a sound check. This seemed to do the trick so we made our way to the hotel, finding it all quite an adventure.

At the hotel we had a bit of banter at the bar, meeting up with a crazed fan (crazed seems harsh, but he was a bit of a mentalist). He was Finnish and had travelled to gigs in other parts of Europe to see us, and he was really proud to have us on his home turf.

We were still wearing the clothes we’d travelled in - I have an awful feeling that I opted for casual slacks and a polo neck sweater. We’d no wash bags or night attire, other than the wee wash pack KLM had given us on the plane. So when the morning came we were dying to get at our bags so we could have a good shower and change before the gig.

But yes, you’ve guessed it, the bags hadn’t arrived. At this point we started to get a bit concerned. The cavalcade arrived at the hotel to bring us to the gig venue and seemed uninterested in our story and more interested on getting us there in time. ‘Don’t worry we’ll sort it out’ seemed to be their favourite phrase. So in we got, still wearing the clothes we put on the previous morning and smelling like angry Swedes (that joke slays them in Finland).

As with all these trips we still had no idea what to expect. In my mind I was thinking it would be a little town square festival, where we played on the back of a lorry while some people listened and others wandered around the stalls. When we pulled up at the biggest ice hockey arena I’d ever seen we were convinced we were just using the car park.

As we got through the doors we realised that it was a 20,000 seater arena and they were hopeful of filling most of it. We started to get that pit of the stomach feeling of oh oh, we’re soooo out of our depth. They obviously think we’re something we’re not. Think about the stage at Live Aid, but indoors, massive screen each side of the stage, excited teenagers everywhere

THEN it hit us, oh my word, we’re wearing the clothes we travelled in, oh crap, we’ve got no instruments. The hunt was on scavenging and begging random punters to see if we can borrow a few guitars - eventually it paid off and we got what we needed (though I ended up playing this Level 42 like 5-string poncy bass). We jumped on stage trying to look like it was the kinda audience we were used to - shouting things like     Hello Finland!

When it was over we were euphoric, taking pictures of everything that moved, chatting non stop about the gig, but even as we were manning the merchandise booth, servicing a queue of enthusiastic Fins,  it was tempered with the melancholic thought that we would probably never play to this many people again. We never did, but we’ll always have Turku.

Irish stew in the name of the law

 

A relative of QMonkey, lets call him Answer Chimp wrestled with a question this morning, the question of when is it ok to make a citizens arrest. Let’s put his case

There were a number of people walking ahead of me as I came out of the train station this morning, when a chocolate wrapper floated its way towards me (much like in a toffee crisp advert, except I think it was a lion bar).

.. 

I looked ahead (in the way that all the best witnesses look up after they hear the bang) and realised it had been dropped by a fairly professional looking bloke, who was walking along with a girl, who was also smartly dressed and a grown-up. I considered tackling him about it, and I even prepared my answer to the predictable defence I was sure he would use about him keeping someone in a job. Then I didn’t and I just sort of stared at him in a weird way when I overtook him.

.. 

Should I have picked up the wrapper and tried to give it back to him? Should I have performed a citizen’s arrest?!

If I were writing this story, I would probably just go ahead and say that I DID make the arrest as it would add some spice to the tale. Has any one out there ever made a citizens arrest? What kind of offences does it cover?

As an addendum, GH (bloke who sits opposite me in work) actually made a citizens arrest last year (I just remembered). A local hood was trying to nick a car outside his house, so graham called the rozzers, then went outside to apprehend him. It should be noted that Graham is a hooker for Clifton Rugby Club (I advise you to follow the ‘hooker’ link to avoid confusion). He did of course, ‘give him a few digs’ before the constabulary arrived, leading the arrested crook to threaten legal action (no further news). A warning maybe.

Celebrity Encounter: Rolf Harris

It was circa 1991, Harris was at his height, and Rolf’s Cartoon Club was required watching on a Sunday evening.

My sister and I were on a family holiday with our parents, waiting at the baggage carousel at Heathrow, when one of us noticed the bearded one. My mum at this time was in a wheelchair, and as you’d expect from grumpy teenagers, neither of us wanted to do the pushing – until that was, we noticed Rolf. I grabbed for the handles and pushed mums chair at break neck speed, the long way round the carousel to where he was standing. I tried not to look directly at him, lest I turn to a pillar of salt (or whatever), but deliberately steered the wheelchair at him.

Then he spoke. I will remember these words till the day I forget them. Wheel on through there mate, wheel on through.

yes,   wheel on through

Miss Teen Singapore

Well, I have a small pantheon (if that’s not a contradiction) of stories, which, when I run out of post ideas I slowly whittle down - this is one of them. Lets call it Miss Teen Singapore - bound to get some hits aren’t I ?!

A few years ago I spent a year living and working in the beautiful island state of Singapore. My friends were mostly British and Australian ex-pats, along with their local wives, girlfriends and a couple of locals who played in our football team. One of the wives was a bit of a minor local celeb, she did some promo work and presenting at events and the occasional TV slots. I’d only really been there for a week or so when I was invited to one of the events she was hosting, I was told it was a fashion show. So I thought its a Tuesday night, I’d nothing else on, and a load of the guys from the football team were going might be a bit of craic.

We arrived quite early to the nite club where it was taking place, and by show time I found myself part of a group of pissed up pale skinned blokes who’d had 6 or 7 Tiger beers and were looking forward to checking out the ladies (if you know what I mean).

To be fair to us (at this point in the story im still referring to US rather than THEM and I), we thought it was a fashion show, in a nite club and that it would be perfectly ok to be a bit lairy and photograph everything that moved - you’ve guessed the problem here haven’t you.

It was more than an hour or so in until we realised that we were actually watching (and a-whooping and a-hollering at) 15-16-17 year old girls parading around in sometimes not very much. I few of us started get back our peripheral vision and notice that we were the only ones making any noise, and that everyone else was looking at us (possibly parents).

If memory serves me, I was actually at the loo when the police arrived. Now, in Singapore the police don’t take any nonsense, I don’t mean they might grab you by the arm a bit tightly, I mean if you give any lip you can find your self with 10 lashes, and a month in Changi Prison on bread and water.

Fair to say I was reasonably concerned - it was miles more trouble than I’d ever been in before, but through the alcohol and the adrenaline of it there was part of me was quite excited. It wasn’t until afterwards I thought to myself,  this is the kinda thing could end up with me on the sex offenders register!

No one was actually arrested but we were told to leave, and it made the dammed news the next day! I learned a lesson about gradual escalation of jeopardy until you’re some where you don’t want to be. Similar to the frog vs. boiling water parable.

I wish i’d taken more (any) Class-A drugs

Sage advice for my 3 month old son, im sure you’ll agree. Lets be honest though, when he’s old enough to read blogs we’ll be flying around with rocket packs and eating protein powder - blogs will be like the 8-track or the beta max, but less cool.

I don’t want to be a heroin addict stealing silverware from granny to pay for my fix (surprisingly). BUT, I do have a romantic vision of ‘wintering’ in Prague, living in a cramped, but grand old townhouse overlooking Wenceslas Square, hanging out with bohemian types, discussing great ideas while mixing strong Opium with Absinthe.

I then would move on to my Keef Richards stage, months on end summering in the south of France, having multicolor visions as ‘Mick’ plies me with LSD and Somalian Miraa.

I’m the first to admit that scientists are increasingly massing around the view that there are downsides to experimenting with mind-altering substances; maybe I just want a wild and bohemian themed holiday or a weekend with my mates at a Rolling Stones camp.

Unlikely to happen, I would say. But i’ll keep an eye out at the local Thomas Cook window.

Walking to the shops ‘damages planet more than going by car’

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

The sums were done by Chris Goodall, campaigning author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, based on the greenhouse gases created by intensive beef production. “Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

So, THATS why im fat - it’s because i care about the environment!