May the Lord Have Mercy on Stringy Bob

The sun shines. It usually does over here.

In a few weeks’ time, I will be in the grey and overcast battle between a UK winter and spring. So, it’s back to the Corniche to sit in the shade of a tree on a concrete bench to watch the World go by. A goodbye to the sea front that has served me so well over the past 18 months.

I stroll.

I’m watching Tern hunt a metre or so off shore when I hear a cry from behind me.

“Hey!”

A look back and recognise Ibrahim immediately. He’s not dressed in a dish dash but dark jeans and a heavy jacket that looks too hot for the weather. It’s touching 30C. I’ve bumped into and spoken to Ibrahim a dozen times before. I won’t say that he’s a friend, but he is as welcoming as any other soul out here.

Ibrahim lives and sleeps on the Corniche. I’ve seen his stuff laid out across benches in the past. I have no reason to doubt that he lives as a vagrant.

He is Libyan.

He has repeatedly told me his story. Over and over. It doesn’t really deviate.

He has reached a point where he lives on Khobar Corniche. And each time the story ends with an explanation of how he will be moving on in a few days. Today, he was talking with friends who have offered to pay for him to go to Jeddah in the West. Previously, it has been Bahrain, Jubail, HufHuf, Kuwait City, Doha and Abu Dhabi. The reason that he needs to travel is always the same, he has no paperwork, Saudi does not recognise his legal identity or status and he needs help. His friends will help.

The story, over the year has become Godot like. Helplessness and inertia. A permanent promise of improvement tomorrow.

The story that I have been told is one of success, bad luck and dispossession. Ibrahim says that he is from a well known and widely respected Libyan family. His contacts have led him to meeting the great and the good. Gadaffi, Qatari Royals, members of the Saud family and UK Royals; Elizabeth, Phillip, Harry and William. The stories don’t change. He explains that when he was introduced to “Liz” – his abbreviation, not mine – in London she touched his hand as she spoke of her respect for his father and uncles.

We all read the press. We all know that Libya is in disarray and he tells me that he has not heard from his family in years. They live(d) in Benghazi. He hopes… he prays that they are well. If I prayed, I would, too.

When I first ran into him, I assumed that it was the usual preamble to asking for a spot of cash for a bed for a night or a cup of tea. But Ibrahim has never asked me for anything. Money. Food. Nothing. The opposite, in true Arab style, he offers to share his tea and food. In reality, he appears to appreciate someone to talk to.

I first heard this way back in early 2015. It was late. Dark. I had no idea whether I should take him seriously. I guess I still don’t. But it’s his talk of UK royalty I find unusual. It got me thinking back to something that happened way back in Birmingham; something that has always given me the creeps. When I have bumped into Ibrahim, the same sense returns albeit, to a lesser degree. As if the story is being told to me is prophetic in some way...

I will explain.

I sat on a bench at New Street. I was on my way to Belper in Derbyshire. Later in the day, I would bump into and chat for a while with a former railway worker who claimed that – while living near Cambridge – had snuck into the grounds of Jeffrey Archer’s home and poured super glue into all the locks he could find; cars, doors… anything. A story that I so want to believe is true that I lie still lie awake at night laughing when I think about it.

Back to Birmingham. An interlude...

I had forty minutes plus to wait and the platform for the Derby train was deserted, so I was a little miffed at a guy not only choosing to sit at my bench, but right up alongside me. It felt as if my personal space was not just invaded but had surrendered and the equivalent of the Vichy Government had been imposed to govern it. He barely gave me a moment to “tut” before starting to talk.

He talked of where he was going. Chatsworth House, out near Bakewell. He told me why. A reason I had forgotten within moments. He told me of the route he was taking. He told me of every other stately home he had visited. And it went on and on and on.

I have no idea of when the conversation changed. But, I suppose that it was just before the train arrived.

“Do you think Diana is happy” he asked.

He was referring to the UKs beloved Princess. I was non-committal.

“She seems so happy with Dodi”

I cared so little about either of them, that I gave them no show time in my thoughts. But he went on and on. Or, so it seemed. He wouldn't stop talking about their relationship, their happiness, their luck and their love. 

I couldn't have given a fuck about them. So, I just wanted out, but he went on for some minutes. It’s a long time ago, but my memory (my dream) is that his voice was monotone and dull. My imperative was to lose him when we boarded the train.

I managed to get behind him. I figured that he would find a seat, I’d spot where he was and keep walking until the end of the earth to avoid sitting next to him. The train was crowded. It took a while for the crowds wanting seats to force their way through the crowds happy to stand.

And I lost him.

Happy.

But, we’ve all been there. You cannot help but look around to see what other poor soul has landed next to him. It was a small carriage and, try as I might, I couldn’t see him. It was odd, because it was a little one carriage train and I hadn’t pushed past him. A few minutes on, I didn’t care… But at Derby, I kept a wary eye to avoid him.

But he wasn’t there.

I scanned the platforms and even the onward train to Belper, as I knew he should have been on it. But, no… I never saw him again.

I immediately found it a bit unnerving. Like I say, he would have to have pushed back past me to miss the train. We were going the same way using much the same route.

The following morning – a Sunday – I woke early and couldn’t sleep. Switching on the radio, I was confronted by wall to wall sombre music only broken occasionally by an equally sombre presenter telling me that Princess Diana was dead.

Since then, I have often thought back and wondered whether the guy at New Street station was there or whether I had imagined it. But, given my antipathy toward the UK Royals, I think it’s a really odd thing for my imagination – fevered or not – to latch onto.

Now. Back in 2016, following my chats with Ibrahim, nothing odd has happened to the UK Royals, to my knowledge. Although, I accept that such is my dispassion toward the family that I wouldn’t immediately read anything about them. Even a death. But, even I, would have to accept that I would probably have noted the Queens death and resulting coronation of Charlie Boy, Sarah Ferguson, Clare Balding, Katie Price or whoever is next in line these days. So I am guessing that lightning hasn’t struck twice.

But, I’d not seen Ibrahim for an age. Maybe six months. Like my Brum experience, I had thought of him and questioned whether some or all of our meetings were in my imagination.

Back to Ibrahim.

His stories are fantastic and fantastical. They seem extraordinary and utterly false. I cannot prove them to be either true or false but I warm to the conviction in the way he tells his tale. Though his English can be laboured and his voice mousy quiet at times, the tale seems to have the sincerity of truth.I enjoy listening.

Away from the Royal associations, he tells me how his life changed at BAE. He worked at an airbase where he was belittled and physically abused by Saudis. He wasn’t assaulted by the British or Americans. Eventually he suffered a severe head injury, leaving him hospitalised for a long, long time. Even then, laid out and injured in a Saudi hospital (he has tried in vain to explain which one) he was visited by members of many royal families; Saudi, Qatari… et al. They sat with him. They shared their families concerns and offered hope and prayers for his recovery.

And Ibrahim tells the story with unnerving sincerity and belief. I’ve spent a year looking for holes or angles. Not to attack him, but to satisfy myself that I am just listening to yarns. But, no; the story doesn’t change.

What is it that I read or heard? If you tell a lie often enough you end up believing and acting as if it were true. As a test, perhaps we should ask Jeremy Hunt.

Although his story is the same each time, it isn’t a monologue. He talks and listens to me. He engages. I tell him stuff. About my family, about life in Saudi. Small talk. But he listens, interjects and understands, offering opinions and advice. And he remembers. He picks up on things that I said months ago, pursuing updates. He appears to care. It’s difficult not to talk with him and – once sitting down – he can be difficult to leave. There have been times when I’ve wanted to just walk away, but others where I’ve found his story telling utterly compelling and I am left enthralled.

Ibrahim is a great story teller. He tells his tale with pathos. Misfortune. They always seem sad, but he tells them in such a matter of fact and dispassionate way that all emotion is suspended. Again, as I say, there is a hopeless, hollow, Godot-like aura to our interactions. Sadness. And senseless hope.

Today, I explain that I’m heading back to the UK. I share some of the reasons and he is broadly supportive. He, certainly, doesn’t look to try and make me reconsider my decisions – unlike just about everyone else I talk to out here.

He says that it is the end of a chapter. Which is how I have viewed it since the first conversation that I had about it.

Ibrahim goes on to tell me about heaven. Of how we will both meet again after death. But, when we meet again it will be for eternity, not for the few years that we have in life on earth. He explains that we will sit in the shade of a tree, just as we do on the Corniche and we will talk for 100 years. But the sea will be of milk or honey. Something unexpected. A gift from Allah.

Expanding, Ibrahim explains that heaven will be like our dreams. But that dreams, themselves, are just memories. But as we live and build more and more memories while having more and more dreams, the edges between the two become blurred. Many of our recollections are from our dreams rather than from actual memories. Both become clouded. Neither true nor false. But real.

Our conversation started to take a more philosophical direction than usual.

And I go back to the suggestion that, if you tell a lie often enough you end up believing and acting as if it were true.

I left him today with a million thoughts buzzing through my head. But I feel a little phased, just as I did after my conversation at New Street station and events that followed.

I have no idea how to take Ibrahim and his story.

He claims to be a vagrant. No. He claims – and appears – to live a vagrant life. Everything that I see supports this. His stories of royal ties are sold with such conviction but – to the sceptical outsider – they do not hold water when reviewed in the cold light of day. But, although his tale is tragic, I hope that it has a basis in truth, even if it is exaggerated. I want to believe that I have met a Libyan from a noble family. I hope that he has met Gadaffi and our dear, dear Queen Liz. It’s a good story. As a result, I will miss him. I will miss our little chats. I will miss his serenity in an apparently hopeless position. I will miss his quiet inspiration.

However, I am also well aware that he could just be an expat worker who has overstayed his visa and is now stuck in a bureaucratic limbo where he cannot leave the country without being found out and imprisoned prior to deportation. Perhaps, a bench on the Corniche is favourable to the cell and a one way trip to a war zone. The tale he tells walks the edge between a dream and a memory. But it passes the time of day.

…

…

…

Of course, he could be completely off his tits and as mad as a box of frogs. 

I hope not, but, - if that is the case -  “May the Lord have mercy on Stringy Bob”

Of Drakes & Kings

There was a park behind the house I grew up in. It was an area of open land, split into three fields. Closest to my home, there was a field that two local schools shared as a sports ground. Cricket pitches, football pitches and a 400 meter running track overlapped and competed for space. The second field had more footie pitches, landscaped borders and a kids’ play area. The third was an open field that was waterlogged by a stream most of the time. It wasn’t impressive but was a fair, adventure playground for a kid growing up in the suburbs.

The park was accessed by three or four formal entrances from local streets but the local kids had decided to cut through the chain link fences that lined service alleyways along three sides. As a kid, I always took the informal, vandalised short cuts. It’s just what you did.

But what got me thinking about Drake Park and my childhood?

Let me explain.

It started at a desk in Khobar.

Mel dropped a pair of tourist brochures on my desk. He says he found them while not working at a local shopping mall. One featured iconic and historic buildings in the Eastern Province, the other was a vivid green, highlighting all kinds of places that you can visit to explore the great outdoors. I chuckled. I’d been through this before. Look back in my past entries and you’ll find my dismay at finding a fenced off castle and yet to be built museum being advertised. I flick through the brochures and – sure enough – both places are still there, encouraging others to be disappointed.

Flicking through the list of “sights”, I ignore the obvious disappointments; the archaeological remains that are listed as being vaguely close to an ill defined main road in South Dhahran and a natural hot water spring that is clearly housed in a building surrounded by barbed wire. But I am drawn to a sight/site that I had read about in other sources. King Fahd Park in Dammam.

Before I set foot on a plane to Saudi, I’d researched things to do in the area. In part to allay the fears of my mother who was convinced that “there would be nothing to do” and partly my own identical fears.

Google it. King Fahd Park is there in full glory. Much of it is just like the green tourist pamphlet dropped on my desk. Cafes, green space, lakes, cafes, a theme park, cafes and coffee shops.

I’d been meaning to go for over a year but never got around to it until last Saturday.

And the curse of Saudi Tourism strikes again.

You see, King Fahd Park is being redeveloped. Much of the once beautifully landscaped grounds around the edges have been ripped up by diggers ready to build new 21^st Century facilities like Paintball Centres and football pitches. A drive around a wasteland and a quick chat with a gate keeper in a ramshackle entrance to the deserted Cobra Theme Park – where rollercoasters sit idle and rust – we established that there is only one entrance remaining open to the public, way back in the direction that we had already come. Retracing our steps, we found a massive car park alongside a 500 meter square children’s play area that is protected by a wire fence that blocks it off from the apparently, once beautifully landscaped park.

Which is how I got to thinking about Drake Park in Rayners Lane.

Back in my teenage years, I would sometimes while away the evenings watching joy riders racing and trashing their hot-wired cars around Drake Park from my bedroom window. Naming no names, I recall discovering one of my class mates had almost flipped a car when he misjudged where a concrete platform for tennis courts used to be in the dark. I’d watched it live. It was the talk of the school for a few days. The occupants boasting of their near death experience and of the excellent driving skills averting disaster. All I recalled watching was a car getting stuck in a rut and the occupants bailing out, trying yet failing to push the car back onto smoother ground before running away.  Another time I watched the same kid, again, abandon his stolen car after forgetting how physics works when you plough a large, heavy item at speed into a static post buried deep in the ground. The second incident I found strange because Roger Christopher (damn!) always seemed quite good at the science subjects at school.

Anyway, before I saw the chain link fence separating the kid’s area from the former park, I was already thinking about Drake Park based of the number of apparently abandoned cars parked at jaunty angles with their doors left wide open in the car park and on the access road. It seems that this, too is a place for the end of a joy ride.

Saudi Tourism really excels. Perhaps they misinterpreted UK news footage of kids joy riding in Cowley, Oxford in the 1990’s as a travel guide.

But, like Drake Park, King Fahd Park has the same myriad of informal entry points. Within minutes of my arrival, I had found a hole in the fence and started to explore the old park.

You may recall my visit to the old castle on Tarout Island that I wrote about last year. It seems that Saudi isn’t big on visitor centres and entry gates when a simple vandalised chain link fence will do. And who am I to argue. Informal works. It discourages the civic minded and makes the place more interesting to me.

Camera in hand I started to explore.

And I liked what I found.

The lakes have drained and are now shallow remnants of what they clearly once were. Brown water with stubborn plants cracking the concrete retaining walls and floors. Street lights, smashed and dirty. Old benches rotting from concrete cancer, exposing their rusty steel frames. Once manicured lawns yellowing with age and reverting to desert as the winds do their erosive best or worst. Picnic tables – empty - stretch away in all directions, many having had their shades removed, I assume to keep them safe(r). The entrance gate houses now stand empty with smashed windows. The gates are wired shut. The many, many coffee shops now stand idle with faded Coca-Cola signs atop and the windows shuttered with wire; inside their shelves lie barren save pigeon shit and the fuse boxes are ripped open.

The only place that still seemed to be maintained was the mosque at the centre of the park. It was the sole building that continued to look cared for – albeit that it was closed – and up to standard, surrounded by colourful plants and shrubs.

Thirty minutes into my exploration, I realised that I was finding it heavenly.

No surprise. I am a sucker for that type of stuff. I’m a loner and love large spaces where I can get away from everyone, the sounds of the outside and leave the civilised world are far away. Many of my adventures and trips, if you were to see them in isolation at the start of a horror movie would cry out either:

“OK. This is the bloke who will be first to cop it”

Or: 

“OK. He’s gonna find the dismembered body and become possessed by its evil spirit”. 

I like it that way and – to date – I have neither “copped it” nor (aside for a flamingo, a small deer and a cat) ever stumbled over a dead body.

But in King Fahd, I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t the only visitor on the wrong side of the fence.

A few hardy souls were there before me. A family had chosen a decaying slide to play on rather than the well maintained equipment in the “official” site down the hill. A couple of older guys chilled out on a beaten up a concrete bench in the shade of an over grown and badly manicured tree. And we all, politely, ignored each other. It was as if we all knew we shouldn’t be there and were all worried that we’d have to kick each other out.

The park, with its shabby abandonment, reminded me of my all too brief visit to Pripyat near Chenobyl (a whole different story for another time) ten years ago. Ghost like, sure, but with a character and a charm all to itself. Far from the character that the municipal authorities envisaged of a large happy go lucky, clean living, family friendly open space full of happy go lucky, clean living families; but a character all the same. It was a little like walking into a time capsule. It felt as if all the park’s inhabitants had left with the intention of returning a short period later. It is just that they never have and each passing day, week, month and year make the amount of polish and elbow grease required to make it shine again increase exponentially.

But the park still feels lived in, wanted, needed and desired. The hole in the fence shows that people still crave the space. Recent tin cans and gaudy coloured footballs discarded in the lakes show that despite attempts to exclude, people – like me – are still visiting. And that is good. It makes me happy.

Khobar and Dammam both possess beautiful formal parks along their sea fronts, but they are just narrow strips of land that encourage people to stroll back and forth in straight lines. Neither city has enough space where you can wander and become momentarily lost. King Fahd Park still holds a bit of that.

Fenced off or not, King Fahd Park has become one of my favourite places in Saudi Arabia.

A Gatehouse and a Roller Coaster

The Tourist Leaflet

Official Entertainment

Abandoned Car

Once There Was Light

Drained

Coca-Cola

Hardy Souls In a Wilderness

Landscape

Rubbish

Seats

Towers

A Drained Pool & The Mosque

Informal Entrance

I spoke with colleagues and friends about the park. No-one seemed to know anything about it. Where it is? How big it is? What you can do there? 

While it may not be Brigadoon, it is certainly an enigma.

I have no idea how long it has lain in decay. With hindsight, I guess I first read about it on my favoured bird watching website. Looking again, although it is listed, I can find few references in the site to suggest that its contributors visit on a regular basis or have visited recently. I am guessing that the park has been closed for years.

And I am left astonished at how wrong Saudi Tourism seems to get it. How can you promote and push somewhere that is so clearly out of bounds?

I’m sure that something will rise in the parks place. It will have a second shot at being a public place that people want to go to. The hoardings around the edges promise all sorts of family based entertainment. Football pitches and a gym have already been opened. Shiny and new. With heart and hope. In time, I expect that the cash will be found to revisit the gardens and to clean the lakes, tidy the trees and grass and replace the dying concrete. And King Fahd’s Park will rise again. But not for a while…

But before that. Before I get on a plane bound to Europe for the last time, I think I may go back and find a shaded bench one more time to watch the world go by for a little while. But when I am there, as with most of my strolls into isolated places, I will be hoping that I don't stumble over Roger Christopher’s dismembered body in an abandoned car.

Echoes From A Shopping Centre

I’m standing at a urinal at Heathrow Airport. Terminal 4.

It’s early June. 6am. I have just been “deplaned” rather than disembarked the plane from Bahrain. My ears are yet to adjust. Sounds are muting, amplifying and echoing at their own pace and own rhythm, no matter how much I fuss with and rattle them.

From a cubicle, I hear a voice singing along to a tune playing over the airport PA. I'd been ignoring it but become aware that it is something ghastly by Michael Jackson. Something from his post “OK” phase and eons away from his “good” phase. A phase that ended in 1982, if I am feeling generous.

The occupant of the toilet cubicle sounds happy. But he is murdering the song. Murdering it slowly. No quick bullet to the temple for this one. This evil, sadistic fucker is killing it by the death of a thousand cuts.

I find it a truly unpleasant thing to hear.

But, it got me thinking. It was the first music I had heard in a public space in months.

This is a difference between life in Saudi Arabia and the UK. Silence in public spaces.

In the UK, music is everywhere. You can’t avoid it. Even when you think you are out of harm’s way, it creeps up on you. TV jingles, advertising, ring tones, computer games… some little bastard on the back seat of the bus playing with his bastard phone. It is always there, replacing the dull throb of the humdrum. And you become so used to it, by and large, your subconscious deploys its own mixing desk and fades it down so low that it may as well not be there. All though you are largely tuned into it, you are simultaneously tuned out; grabbed into the moment, only when you hear something that you either love or hate.

Back in my Topshop days, it could be quite startling and unsettling when the PA system stopped. Not just because it meant that it may be a precursor to a fire alarm and – as an employee – I'd wait to establish whether it was a male or female voice cutting in to politely reassure me that the incident unfolding was being investigated. The gender of voice determined the level of blind panic you were required to deploy (see notes below). It wasn't that. Without music, the store just lost something.

Topshop was a barn, so everything echoed. Music filled the void. Without music, it became cold. Time stood still. It became utterly dispiriting. Lonely. Somehow – I have no idea why – it seemed to die. 

But, to counter that, and to hark back to a previous point, the staff simply ignored the cyclical music soundtrack that was pumped out hour after hour, day after day and week after week to fill the gap. No one praised it. When it was mentioned, it was always criticism. Staff pushed to breaking point by music that they didn't like. But mostly, it was ignored and unnoticed by all and sundry. I lost count of the times, while talking to a colleague, I would refer to a track I had heard on the shop floor that I liked - a track that had somehow passed the Bruno Brookes taste test (see notes) to be included on the playlist – only to have them stare at me as if I were an imbecile. 

There was usually a blank look in their eyes:

“Music?"

"Music played on the shop floor. Is there?" 

"What song? Who?" 

“No Pussy Blues?" 

“No Pussy Blues” was the very first song I heard being played while I walked across the shop floor as a Topshop employee. Thinking back to a couple of horrific, cringe worthy conversations in pubs that stepped right to the sheer cliff face of personal humiliation, perhaps it was prophetic. I mean, I was about 100 years older than most of "the young and the beautiful" that I was working with. 

But, hell, the track still gets to me every time. Magic!

But, back on topic.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a fan of music being so ubiquitous and unrelenting. 

I love music. But, by default, I hate music in equal measure. I do not understand people choosing to use it as background noise. Music is there to be heard. As an experience, it should be immersive. You should swim in it and you should be prepared to drown in it. 

The best music is life itself.

So I have always been confused by and often plain offended by music being used in the background. 

But I wasn’t ready for Saudi and it's silence.

Picture a shopping centre where the only sounds are the low throb of air con and distant traffic, the sound of feet walking on tiled floors, the click click of metal hangers on metal display arms, the muted sounds of a thousand disassociated conversations endlessly echoing around a soulless glass and concrete space.

Cold. Emotionally dead.

But it steps beyond the shared space, over into the thresholds of the individual stores. 

No music. No muzak.

Not even Richard Clayderman being piped in. "Live from hell".

This is how I find Mall of Dhahran, Venicia Mall and Al Rashid Mall. Musically silent.

I’m going to pause. I typed “Al Rashid Mall” into Google to check my spelling and immediately linked to the following YouTube clip. Take a look… it is NOT a fair representation of the real experience. The only tiny temper that you are likely to hear in there is from an irate child/husband being denied some sweets.

I spoke with an Arab colleague about it the other day. He agreed. But he couldn’t explain the logic or reason why music is not played. There are radio stations out here. Western, Arab and Indian music is not difficult to find. It’s intrudes in advertising and jingles as much as in the west, so it isn’t music per se. Music may not be encouraged but it is not outlawed. My colleague highlighted that it is probably driven by the proximity of mosques and prayer spaces in the shopping centres… which I understand, but I am surprised that music isn’t piped and faded for prayer times. The technology is there. But – hey - who am I and what do I know?

But I cannot help being troubled. A year on, I still find it slightly unnerving. shopping centres feel as if they are closed. I walk round feeling as if I've been locked in or am trespassing. Almost as if I will be approached imminently and escorted to the exit for to be fed some wise words by a Security Guard before being thrown on my arse into the street.

Restaurants are the same.

Think what it is like at a chain restaurant. Take away the music and all you are left with are echoes, the sound of extractor fans, cooking, scraping cutlery and furniture and mastication. Everyone talking in whispers to avoid being overheard three tables away. 

There is a void.

A void of mild discomfort.

Many restaurants get around the issue by turning the volume up on the TV. So you eat with the sound track to the news in Arabic, or to round the clock sports coverage or – as in my case, in a Thai restaurant – a documentary about abattoirs. I don’t watch TV anymore (see notes, below), so I find this even more distracting, intrusive and unnecessary than loud music.

TGI Friday can be found all across the Kingdom. I’m not a fan of their food. It’s frozen. It is heated, rather than cooked. It has nothing vibrant or fresh associated with it to offer. It is as plastic and fake as the presentation.

But, in the UK, I get that it offers something beyond a McDonalds meal deal. 

Like it or loathe it, it is a destination based on the atmosphere that it chooses to create. It aims to be the party of all parties. Whatever the day or time it may be, it wants you to buy into the idea that it is the night before the biggest weekend of your life.

OK. I’ve started something… I guess I ought to finish.

In Saudi, the weekend runs Friday through Saturday, so the chain should really be renamed TGI Thursday.

And realistically, I am not sure that they should keep the “G” in the name, given the religious connotation. It doesn’t mean “Golly” because that could be deemed racist. If it means “Gosh”, then that is because of the stupid, vacuous, wet morals of Christians choosing to play fast and loose with the word “God” to get around the whole, apparent, blasphemy issue.

The “G” stands for “God”. We all know it. No good hiding. No good pretending. Move on. (See Notes)

Now, I am not suggesting they replace the “G” with an “A”. Ignoring the fact that it would be commercial suicide, it would just be silly. Perhaps they should go with an “F”, instead. After all, it was one of Chris Evans’ two ideas and it worked for him in the UK; it’s wild and rebellious streak really put punk to shame.

OK. Back on track.

What TGI Friday in the UK does to create an atmosphere, is pump up the volume. For all the dark lighting, all the big personalities among the waiting staff, it is reliant on the musical backdrop to set the scene of unparalleled fun.

Back off track. 

In KSA, TGI Friday have also done away with employing staff who are wannabe actors or natural extroverts. TGI, over here, is staffed by average blokes taking orders, delivering food, hanging around, waiting for you to finish to claim a wage at the end of the day. In silence.

TGI provides an eye wateringly loud and bass driven soundtrack to your night out. It gives you all the latest homogenised, viciously calculated and "sales demographic" driven pop hits alongside hateful, classic party anthems that you could wish for. In my case, it gives me 100% more of this type of music than I could ever actually wish for. And so it goes. You have to shout to be heard like you are at a nightclub. Conversation is retarded. You eat the overpriced food and think about what you will do when you've been set free.

It’s fun. Honest. I love it. 

At home and in KSA. It's my favourite.

So, in Saudi, I have reached a point where going out I wouldn't care if I heard “Earth Song” or some other abomination that Wacko left us as a parting shot to the World. A point where I wish for almost anything to fill the void.

It’s mid September. London.

I’ve, again, been “deplaned” by Gulf Air. Again, I am in the toilets.

Washing my hands, I note the music playing. It’s something ghastly by Culture Club. Something released after their “Not the best” phase. It’s sweet and sugary. My teeth are immediately set on edge.

I am immediately brought back down to earth with a crash. And it makes me think: "Heathrow Airport really knows how to test me".

NOTES

Topshop Fire Alarms - A female voice meant that it was probable that it was a false alarm or drill. A male voice meant that the incident was urgent, ominous and very real. With a male voice, your life expectancy had just been shortened and it was now every man, woman and child for themselves. Even the mice would head for the exits. The chaos, panic, paranoia and senseless drama it caused was only surpassed at opening time on Boxing Day.

Bruno Brookes - Sorry to ruin any dreams you may hold that a bunch of fashionista in Shoreditch dream up what is played in Topshop and Topman stores. It is a bunch of accountant types in an office in Kingston working for former Radio One DJ and alleged domestic abuser, Bruno Brookes. I don’t think he has ever been cool or "on trend". Note; even when he played an uncensored version of “Killing in the Name Of” with it's 17 "fucks" on prime time radio, it was an accident.

Television - About three years ago, my TV broke. I decided not to replace it, as its primary use was as background noise. I used to waste days channel surfing without knowingly watching anything. I have a TV in my apartment in Saudi. I’ve been here over twelve months and am yet to switch it on. Recently, I got a message from a colleague telling me that one of the Saudi channels was showing a decent film that I should make an effort to watch. Relenting, I decided to watch it… After five minutes, I could neither find the remote control nor figure out how to switch the TV or cable box on. I read it as an omen. I don’t watch TV.

The "G" Word - When I worked at Topshop, there was a period where the staff T-shirt had a front print reading “OMG Topshop” in bright yellow print on black. The design was the winner of an in house competition among the staff who were going to have to wear it. There was a fuss in the management team because one staff member (maybe more) refused to wear said shirt based on his/her faith. Many of my colleagues were annoyed and vocally stated that they should just “get on with it” because it was just a generic phrase that everyone uses. The staff concerned considered it inappropriate and a betrayal of their beliefs. Now, I do not share said beliefs and the slogan didn't impact me at all, but I had sympathy for them. If you believe in something to the core, you should never compromise. I was on their side. It got sorted out, they were allowed to wear a plain tee instead, from memory. Obvious. Common sense.

What amazed me about the situation, though, was that after the resolution was reached, we were told that the “G” in question did not and never did to refer to or mean “God” but “Gosh”. And it struck me that senior management appeared were trying to claim some ridiculous moral high ground. It seemed that they were trying to convince me that they were showing benevolence to the foolish rather than just accepting that they hadn't considered that some people get touchy about glib blasphemy (actual or not). As always, I just let the arrogance wash over me... Worse still, within the management team, even after the compromise was reached, the conversations/gossip/bullshitting/general backstabbing/political positioning went on for an eternity and I recall one person – remaining nameless to protect the fucking stupid – who would correct you if you dared to refer to the word “God”. And it left me stunned. Did she really believe the utter and total bollocks that Topshop fed her? Worryingly, I think that she did.

Finally

I'm posting this on 21st October, Lux Interior's birthday... Had he lived, he would have been 69 years old today.

So let yourself be immersed. Feel free to drown.

RIP Lux. Stay Sick.

A Short Walk to Nowhere

There is small, open gate in the fence along the road from Dammam Airport to Al Qatif. You leave the car there, next to a mobile telephone mast.

You are below sea level at this point. It’s marginal, but you are just below. It is a natural basin at the edge of the desert. Which explains why water gathers there in a lagoon. A lagoon surrounded by reed beds that, undisturbed, grow in excess of nine feet tall.

It is barely past dawn and the start of a short walk to nowhere.

Soon after I arrived in Saudi, a friend posted a comment about a picture I posted of the Dammam Riyadh highway suggesting that it lacked the romance of Lawrence of Arabia. He was right. It did and where I live, it does. The mental image of the desert is of vast rolling peaks and valleys of golden sand. Of light and shadow. These exist. There are thousands of square miles of them. Vivid reds and yellows, stretching toward and beyond the horizon toward forever. Most are to the south of Arabia in the Empty Quarter. The south of Saudi and the edges of UAE, Oman and Yemen. But out in the Eastern Province, it isn’t really so. Its pancake flat and a dull yellow brown. Worse still, it is regularly littered with building rubble, scrap metal, food waste and plastic bags. One day, I swear, I will find a faded Sellanby bag from South Harrow which I will save and keep. Treasure.

Sellanby was a 2nd hand record store in Harrow.
It's plastic bags were legendarily strong and long lasting. When it closed, 1,000+ students had to swallow their pride and buy proper bags to carry there stuff. It was a sad day. 

Despite the above, I still hold a romantic notion that the desert will offer me drama; offer me the long shadows of dunes at dusk and dawn. Failing that, it’ll offer me the unexpected. Which is what led to me heading out close to Dammam airport for a walk on an early morning in early July. I’d read about a place on a great Saudi Birdwatching site called, unsurprisingly, “Birds of Saudi Arabia”. Out of the way, remote and isolated. Heaven.

Birds of Saudi Arabia Website - see note below

It starts in low drifts of sand with grasses and roots holding it together. Occasional exposed stretches of sand show tell-tale signs of lizards. Twists in the sand showing the twists of their bodies and tails. Fragile and small paw prints – hand prints – showing the direction of travel.

The paw prints bring relief. You would rather be walking in knee deep grass risking a casual encounter with a lizard than a snake. I’ve left my antivenom at home. Come to think about it, I don’t have any antivenom.

Francis, my ever intrepid if vaguely unwilling companion, stops to draw my attention to the tracks. We argue for a while about whether they are snake or lizard tracks. I think that he is trying to convince me that they are snakes, so that I will relent, give up and go home back to bed. He is clearly knackered and his heart isn’t in it. But I remain steadfast and bullish.

Walk on.

After five minutes you are up close to the reeds; a formidable, verdant barrier in a barren waste. Tall, lush and thick. You cannot see through the barrier but can tell that the lagoon is behind them, but only because of the myriad, non-plussed alarm calls of one hundred invisible birds rising around you.

Heading north you look and fail to find a gap in the reeds bar one that is waterlogged and unpassable to idiots with unsuitable footwear. Sure, Peter O’Toole would flounce off through the gap, carrying his supplies and camels on his shoulders.

But I am not Peter O’Toole. I am an idiot.

Walk on.

4x4 tracks skirt the edge. The sand is flattened down to concrete. You follow, as it is easy on the feet, and begin to disturb Egyptian Nightjar. One. Two. Four. Sixteen. The numbers are close to becoming exponential. They are sitting, invisible at the side of the track until they rise in silence on long wings that betray their relative small size and silently glide to safety. They start ten meters away from you. They are happy when they reach twenty five, where they settle down again and, static, blend back into the dusty grey brown soil and heat haze. In time you grow use to them and you start to pick their shapes out and focus on their wide, watching eyes. Watching them, watching you. You walk, guessing how many steps it will be before they are again spooked into rising above you to twist and turn their way to safety.

The car tracks break away from the reed beds.

Stretching to the horizon, two tyre width strips lead the way. You follow and become increasingly aware of the damp presence of water. The soil surface is dried and caked. Salt crystals have formed at the surface. The top soil cracks and crunches under foot exposing a dark brown undersoil that is sponge like. Where you pick the wrong place, the top soil sinks to an ankle depth. If you stand still, you seem to sink further. If you hurry through, you trip yourself up. It is abundantly clear that you you’re walking on a dried lake bed that appears to have no boundary or border.

So you choose the car tracks. Progress improves as you follow the crushed soil lines. You walk, single file in near pigeon steps onward toward the horizon where you see sand dunes, proper sand dunes waiting. Light and shadow. White and gold.

You walk for fifteen minutes in a straight line and reach the first of the dunes. Unimpressive. You feel cheated at dunes that would look half-hearted in parts of north Norfolk. Even in a low breeze you can see the shifting sands but the presence of thick grasses testify that this is not the dynamic moving dunes of your dreams. But that is where you stop.

The low horizon has already caught you out. What you thought were the start of a range of dunes is merely a low hedge like barrier to another endless and barren salt crusted plain. It seems to stretch for miles, again with the faint promise of sand dunes on the far side. This time, there are no car tracks to aid your trekking.

You are forced into a choice. Onward or bust.

Way behind you, Francis is walking in the opposite direction. Toward his car where he has shade from the fast rising sun, air con, Saudi Aramco Studio 1’s classic rock on the radio and a place to sleep.

Decisions have been made. 

Lawrence of Arabia will have to wait for another day.

Notes

As a rule, when travelling, I tend to look for local ornithology sites. Yes, I am interested in bird life, but generally the sites are great starting points to identify areas to get out and about exploring, often off the beaten track. The Birds of Saudi Arabia website offers not only great tips on locations to watch birds but also posts some great photos that capture nature/natural life in the region. I'd recommend a look.