Converse Used To Be Good

Another update and another toilet.

July 14^th 2011. The 100 Club. Oxford Street. London.

I note the above was scrawled on the wall adjacent as I took a leak. It made me smile. On and off, I have lived in Converse for over half my life. I like them so much, I have been known to sleep in them but remain otherwise naked. Used to be good? Nah. They still are!

To understand why I was standing in the Gents at the 100 Club, I need to step back a few years. To a summer day in 2008.

In my last post, I spoke of the cyclical music loops at Topshop that the staff became conditioned to ignore.

I recall a day when I strolled across the shop floor toward some dull but vital meeting with a department manager. As I noted last time, you only really took in the music when it warmed your heart and cockles or spat in the face of all that is musically pure and holy. On this day, my ears pricked up at the sound of an angular bass line setting off at a relentless pace, accompanied by feedback, jarring guitar riffs and an obtuse and challenging chord structure. I couldn’t make out the lyrics but the vocals were delivered at the same break necked speed as the bass. It was all underpinned by a swirling, fairground like organ.

I was smitten. It was utterly magical.

I slowed my walk to make sure I took the whole track in. With no phone on me, I couldn’t Shazam it. Other than realising that it was “greatness” incarnate, I had no idea who or what it was. I felt like Tim Smith (Cardiacs) and JJ Burnell (The Stranglers) had had a car crash and the resulting sound was being broadcast to me.

I knew it was on a loop, so over the following days, I kept returning to the shop floor to hear it again. Over the course of the next week, I made up more and more spurious reasons to eschew the safety and comfort of my ivory tower office and step onto the shop floor into the firing line of the stores demanding staff and pesky customers. All because I was determined to hear this beautiful masterpiece one more time, to maybe get a lyric that I could google.

Despite my best efforts, I never heard it again.

Plan B was to resume my normal working patterns in my office but get a copy of the recent store playlist and work through it in my spare time.

A regular complaint of Topshop from its customers was that they never posted or published the playlists in store making it difficult to ID a song that was played. And I was in the same boat, except I had an advantage of Joe or Joanne Public; I could just go and borrow the various discs from the team responsible for updating/uploading them into the system. So I did.

There were dozens of discs. All with about 20-25 tracks. The team responsible filed them in an unhelpful pile in a drawer. Few had content lists, fewer still had dates or anything that may indicate when they had been issued. What I thought would be a ten minute job seemed to stretch into forever. I was left with the formidable task of sitting through all the discs to explore all the music designed to be ignored and find it.

For over a week, I dedicated a couple of hours each night to the search. My Colliers Wood flat rang out to the sounds of the appalling and anodyne gush that passes as “Alternative”, these days. I’ve said before. I love and hate music in equal measure. At times it was a pretty tough task.

Most tracks were skipped after thirty seconds. They clearly were not what I had heard and they left me cold. Forgettable.

Many tracks that I played through resulted from acts of involuntary masochism. I would sit open mouthed and stunned as the tepid and insipid numbed me to the point of oblivion. Coldplay. Kings of Leon. Foo Fighters. Tragic.

There was some pretty shite stuff being ignored at Topshop in 2008.

But some demanded my total attention. They seemed beautiful. Smitten, I became distracted while I wallowed in aural delight, exploring back catalogues of bands that I had never previously heard. A fair few times, I fell head over heels in love.

After two weeks, I had reviewed each and every disc available. And my song wasn’t included on any of them.

Did I imagine it?

I began to question myself. Had I, created an epic soundtrack in my own mind to take me away from the moment?

It began to convince myself that it was conceivable.

Thinking back to the day I heard it, I was probably on my way to have a conversation with a shoe concession who had lost a pair of shoes sometime in the previous 18 months and wanted someone to look at CCTV images to see who had been near them, or some such nonsense. I would have been walking through the store with leaden shoes, a leaden head and a heavy heart. The meeting was probably offset against a background of dealing with one of my staff who had managed to get another two weeks signed off work by their doctor because they had a slightly sore throat or felt “an ickle bit funny”.

It was entirely possible that my little, fizzy brain had given up on the bollocks that was weighing me down and I had created something that would make me feel momentarily happy… If only I was able to have transcribed what I had imagined; I could have made some money.

Step forwards to a night out in late 2008 or early 2009.

Somewhere in London.

I meet up with my brother, who produces a small CD sized bag and offers me a Birthday or Christmas present. I doubt that it was around either my birthday or Christmas when this happened. My brother and I have a habit of presenting and receiving gifts early or late. Year’s merge into one.

Unsurprisingly, as usual, the bag contained a CD.

Silvery. Thunderer and Excelsior.

My brother enthused – he had heard them on the Gideon Coe show on radio 6 – and kept using the words like, “Cardiacs” and “Sparks” and “Incredible” and “Best Album of the Year” and “Whhhhaaaahhhhhhooooowwwwwwww” all the while grinning like the type of demented cat only Lewis Carroll could imagine. 

I had already latched onto two key words. Sparks and Cardiacs.

These two words were enough to make me need to hear the album. But Alex went on to explain that one of the tracks appeared to have Sparks lyrics being spoken across a solo (still haven’t found that, yet), another detailed the demise of a class of UK diesel locomotive and a third listed off a series of London’s Lost Rivers as a near chant during a fade out.

My brother had clearly thought through his sales pitch well. He sold me three irresistible ideas and concepts. What more could I want from an album?... See notes, below.

But he missed out a few more surprises…

>> Allusions to ghosts and flying saucers above cemeteries.

>> And a muse about the demise of a ship which was crewed entirely by mice, bar the ships cat.

But I think that it still took a couple of days to find the time to give it a listen. I was probably locked in the rota-cokey shift patterns I wrote about last year.

You can guess the rest?

Track two. Devil in the Detail.

The sound of an angular bass line setting off at a relentless pace, accompanied by feedback, jarring guitar riffs and an obtuse and challenging chord structure. I couldn’t make out the lyrics but the vocals were delivered at the same break necked speed as the bass. It was all underpinned by a swirling, fairground like organ.

Sitting in my Colliers Wood living room, I was immediately taken back to that solitary walk across the sales floor at Topshop. Although the album turned out to sound like the inside of my head, I realised that I hadn’t imagined it to make myself feel calm and free of daemons. It was real. Very real. Almost flesh and blood. And it became more beautiful as I listened to it over and over and over.

It’s late 2015 and I still feel warm each time I hear the album.

By the time I got to see Silvery live, for the first time at The 100 Club on July 14^th 2011, I’d found a live bootleg from the Bull & Gate (RIP) and waited at the edge of my seat for the second of three official album releases – Railway Architecture. Back catalogue entirely absorbed, I’d read a million words about them and become lost in their old world videos. I’d had a moment where, back on the shop floor, on the receiving end of an earnest whinge, for something I or someone else had done or hadn’t done… who cares? I’d bitten my tongue to the point of bleeding to stop myself shouting at them:

“Blah Blah Fuckity Blah. Don’t trouble me with your bollocks! I’m listening to Nishikado!”

And that night in 2011, alongside my brother and about another twenty fair souls they were as good and great as I imagined that they would be. Like the best gigs, I was pulled into a vortex where my brain could relax and swirl around and around like something out of The Wizard of Oz leaving me giddy and wound up like a clock-work toy by the end. But – for all my passion for the moment - I sensed that James Orman wasn’t feeling it that night. He seemed disengaged and remote… the rest of the band had to persuade him to play “You Give A Little Love”.

But it mattered not, to me. I was lost. But found.

Now, I’m not going to encourage you to visit Topshop. I doubt they play Silvery anymore.

And I’m not going to say that you should all go out and buy everything that Silvery have ever released. That would be senseless.

But, I will say that, if you don’t go out and buy everything that they have ever released, I consider you an idiot.

For Reference:

Christ On A Bike

The Charge of the Light Brigade

                                      

NOTES

I suppose that the album could include Sarah Nixey making a fake BBC public announcement regarding an imminent nuclear threat to London. I would have to wait until 2015 to have that appear on an album, thanks to Luke Haines.

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.

Coppice - 30th September 2011

INSTAGRAM

As a kid, I was once in the grounds of Grimsdyke on the edge of Harrow. Myself and two friends had been taken there as a treat. I guess we were seven or eight. Running wild. Exploring.

We had found a tree that had partially fallen and dared each other to climb the remains. It seemed easy. All long straight bows and thick branches. I was the least nimble of the three and struggled as my friends reached higher and higher, branches bending under their weight. But they grew bored, navigated back around me and returned to terra firma.

But I remained rigid, stuck and unmoving. Not very far from the ground, but stuck still and petrified. I couldn’t reach higher but I couldn’t retrace my steps. I didn’t dare just jump and let gravity do its stuff. I couldn’t move.

With resignation and a good degree of embarrassment, I accepted the help of my friends' mother who eventually stumbled across me. She reached up, prised me off the branch where I was stricken and lifted me back to safety.

I was ripped to shreds by my peers. Even their mother joined in. I was mortified.

So, since then, I’d been wary of trees. I left them to the birds and the leaves.

Step forward to the more recent past.

September 30. 2011.

Autumn hadn’t even threatened. Summer seemed to be endless when I found myself off work and at a loose end. I’d already been up and out, early, trying to capture a few autumnal, misty shots near Tring in Hertfordshire.

Tring.

But the weather was incredible. Clear. Bright. Warm. It was no day to waste staring out of a South Harrow living room.

Mad Bess Woods in Ruislip called.

I walked and walked in the shade of the still green leaved trees. I watched the dappling light play and pattern on the woodland floor but I was drawn to the canopy, high above me. A dozen shades of green and yellow on a pale blue backdrop. The trunks of the coppiced trees reached, stretched and crawled skyward toward the light. I was smitten.

I snapped away. Shot after shot. But nothing was quite working.

Until I sensed a tree calling me. It could hear it and feel it whispering…

“Climb me. Climb me. Climb me.”

Which is when I started to recall the incident at Grimsdyke so many years ago.

But the tree was insistent. So I listened to its croaky tree voice, accepted the dare and gave the tree a climb.

I felt alone. On a weekday afternoon, you can go an age in Ruislip Woods without seeing another soul. And so it was on that late, late September afternoon four years ago. I was alone but felt conspicuous, as I crawled to a suitable vantage point.

And from my vantage point a few feet above the ground, wedged and locked in the old coppicing cuts of a hornbeam or an oak (apologies, I am no expert), I captured the shot of the canopy that I had been searching for.

For a better resolution, follow the Flickr link, below:

Coppice - FLICKR Gallery

The tree reaching upward seems to form a tunnel guiding you/your eye to the light. Layers of coloured leaves high above appear kaleidoscopic. Other worldly. All the main, dark trunks in the image seem separate yet are all from the same tree, cut and coppiced many years ago.

I stayed in the tree for a while. In part, because I was captured by the moment. The movement of shape and colour above me. But, also, because I was revelling in breaking my idiotic and needless fear of tree climbing and wallowing in my defeat of a stupid childhood demon. But, I also remained tree bound because, in all honesty - after all these years -, I still find it far easier to scale a tree than climb back down.

I suppose that makes me a Treecreeper. Not a Nuthatch.

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.

Oman. A Story in Two Parts. Part Two.

“You can’t wear those!”

V is pointing at my shoes. I am wearing a natty pair of olive green Converse.*

“I know. I have hiking boots in my bag.” I point at the bag I have placed in the back of the car.

“I told you. You need strong shoes!”

“I know, I know.” I point at the bag. “I have hiking boots. In the bag.”

It’s not going well. Momentarily, it feels like I’m transported back to my first day of school. I’m worried that if it going like this, I might involuntarily do a wee in my pants. It happened way back in the days of Mrs Reynolds, it could happen again today.

I open the bag. I show the shoes and V visibly calms down. But she rises again and snaps back;

“You have a hat? Sunglasses…”

I know where this is going, so cut her short. I open the bag wide and demonstrate that I have prepared exactly as she instructed. Hiking shoes, sunglasses, sun cream and a hat. I demonstrate that I have also brought a long sleeved shirt to protect my poor freckled arms.

It’s the first time that I have met V. V is a tour guide.

You will recall that I am in Oman for a break, a holiday. If you don’t recall, take a look here:

CATCH UP HERE - Oman. Part One.

I’d arranged a couple of days with V to get me out of Muscat. The first was to hike in the Al Hajar Mountains. The second was to explore one of the river valleys east of Muscat. Get my feet wet.

I had been sent direct instructions about preparation which were being followed up in a forthright manner that precluded the taking of prisoners if I had deviated from instruction. V’s demeanor made me fear that I had maybe been on the wrong websites again and accidentally booked a Dominatrix rather than tour guide.

Too late to back down, I jumped in the front seat of the car. Whichever I had booked, I wasn’t worried. In for a penny.

Within minutes we are out of Muscat and the atmosphere has changed. V has relaxed and dropped into guide mode. History, geography and local politics are quickly reviewed to give me a sense of where we are going and where we have been. Top line stuff but delivered in a relaxed and cheerful manner.

The sun is up, the scenery is amazing. It’s going to be a good day.

V is from Russia. Siberia to be precise. I learn this as we swap informal snippets of our lives that have led to me to purchase her services to take me to the top of a mountain. How we reached it so quickly, I do not know, but we quickly find ourselves deconstructing American and EU Interventionism and V - especially – is becoming vocally supportive of economic ties that Putin is encouraging in developing markets such as India, Pakistan and South America.

I was on holiday, stunned by the sharp, jagged, yellow, orange and blue grey mountains soaring above me while we wound through luxuriously green and rich plantations in the valley bottoms. And as a bonus, I was getting a chance to lay into my own countries politics and ridiculous, outdated, pompous, overbearing, irrational and condescending insistence that it still has a place as a World leader.

It was cathartic. 

I was feeling alive and I was loving it.

V tells me about her childhood. A childhood where she felt safe and protected. She gushes about her education, her degree, the sports that she used to take part in, the facilities and her family home. All free. All provided by the state. How her community pulled together, how there was unity and equality. Everyone had been happy. Then she lamented that the splitting up of the (Soviet) Union had removed much of this and was the beginning of the end. Her nationhood had disintegrated and her people were forever fighting. Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine. V said that she missed the strong leadership of the Union.

Her lament took me back to tree lined avenues leading from Kiev airport to the City Centre in the back of a People Carrier with my friend Paul and his father back in 2006. Our Ukrainian guide discussed the volatile and divided political movements of his country. He noted that his nation didn’t seem cut out for democracy and that he sometimes just wished they had a single, strong leader for the people to rally around, to create identity and determine collective direction. Whether that be orange, blue, right, left or indifferent.

Back in Oman, it all felt much the same.

And it occurred to me, that only I could have booked a Soviet tour guide. I felt warm in her eulogy. I luxuriated in the obvious warmth she still holds for the society she grew up in.

And I could have shed a tear.

Back in the 1980’s I was a vague Soviet apologist. As Kilometres were eaten up, speeding our way into the Mountains, all I couldn’t help wishing I was fourteen again having silly political fights in the play ground at school. I wished V was at my side fighting the good fight; we’d have trounced those Tory fuckers.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a Communist - quiet at the back - but some of my friends seem to think that I was and probably still am. But I am not. I don’t think that I ever have been. But I grew up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud and – even as a kid – couldn’t see why I should back the USA above the USSR. One state appeared to exist solely to make money at any cost and was led by a moronic ape who thought that tomato ketchup was a vegetable.** The other state was overtly militaristic, with leaders that appeared to be constantly on the verge of death but stood – well appeared to stand, at least – for labour and equality for mutual reward.

I was an idealist. I still am an idealist. I was contrary. I still am contrary.

Back in the day, to me, there was only one side to back.

Today, there is none.

OK. During our reminiscing, we conveniently missed out many of the Soviet era faux pas. Trotsky, Hungary, Czechoslovakia… their influence on Ethiopia’s man made famine of the early, mid 1980’s and the eternal war in Afghanistan where they failed to stop the, US backed, Taliban.

But we didn’t miss it all. V’s grandmother was from Kiev but had been deported/transported to Siberia when she was young for the greater good of the Motherland and Her economic well being. Without routine purges and mass deportations, V’s parents would never have met and V would not have been born. Everything turns out rosy in the end.

V’s national pride is palpable. It is as strong as mine is weak. She fits the Putin ideal. She still holds her Orthodox beliefs, showing me her icons and good luck charms handed down by her mother; small pictures of saints surrounded by exquisitely detailed images of colourful flowers. Reminders of her home that she cannot bear to be without. We spoke of how the Great War of the Motherland (WWII to you and me!) had united people more than ever. The effect on the Nation(s) is long lasting and still stands. Her affinity to the homeland is unbroken. But she confided that she did not think that she would ever move back. She tried a few years ago but failed. Aside the brutal capitalism that now pervades, which she accepted as a modern way of life, she explained that the cold had been unbearable. She had suffered with a chest infection for nine months that no antibiotics could touch, only for it to disappear within a fortnight of her arriving back in the UAE, her then home.

I’ve only been here for ten months, but I understand. Northern Europe is the land of the snotty nose and wheezing chest.

But back to the Mountains.

Where I live, the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, it is flat. Not Norfolk or Suffolk flat. Dungeness flat! But for hundreds upon hundreds of square miles. Ridges and hills rising 100 meters above sea level are few and far between. The landscape is sparse, harsh and largely unrewarding. Rubbish strewn. Uninviting and unforgiving. And I was tired of it. Yes, it may be more comfortable to walk, but it is so, so dull. So, for Eid, I sought excitement. I sought height and drama. In true style, my research had been top level and I hadn’t grasped just how bloody high they are. Ear popping, breath shorteningly high.

And starkly beautiful.

We start with a stop of at Nizwa, Oman’s original capital city. We trek through the old souk looking at the silversmiths and sweet makers at work. In passing we look at the castle from the outside. We don’t stop, we are heading high. On through Al-Hamra the gateway town to Jebal Shams. And it was here that I started to realise the difference between Oman and the rest of the Arabia I had seen.

The colours. The variety. The personality. The individualism. Gone are the two tone, black and white clothing of women and men. Women, rather than covered in black are decked out in the richest and warmest of colours. Orange, blue, green and scarlet. Their faces are uncovered, although they remain wearing scarves covering their hair. Street sellers line the roads and tracks into the mountains, close to small hamlets surrounded by a few fields and trees. They sell local produce. Dates, limes, pomegranate and handicrafts in wool shorn from the local goats they farm. Everyone appears relaxed. We lose track of the number of people we wave at as we pass. For a few miles we offer a lift to an elderly guy who is clearly struggling up the mountain dirt track that we traverse. He accepts our lift and water with gratitude. He humours my regular stops to capture photographs. The women selling fruit and tourist trinkets at the roadside smile, laugh and joke with us as we talk. It is just after Eid and their skin is covered in the most intricate henna designs, twisting, turning under their sleeves and up their arms. So different to the conservative black clad “Ninjas” that I see in Khobar, Manama and beyond.***

It’s no surprise. The links to India are strong. India is just across the Arabian Sea, after all. For centuries, the two countries have traded.

The shame is that – despite offering the best charm I can manage – none of the women are happy to be photographed. No problem.

On and on we traveled. Upward. Each turn leading to another incline. I wasn’t prepared for the height. More importantly, I wasn’t prepared for the drops. The sheer, stomach twisting drops. Away from the staged and secured viewing points we eventually hiked a valley side where it took two hours to reach a point where the bottom could be seen. Scree slopes held together by sparsely spread shrubs and grasses. Evidence of storm damage is everywhere. When it rains; it proper rains. The pathways have been washed away several times. The evidence is clear. Although feeling safe, the paths are on ledges that are maybe only twenty meters wide. Beyond the edges, there are drops. Sheer drops that top 1,000 meters at points. Drops that are higher than a mountain.

Does anyone else get that desire to take that one last step toward the edge while butterflies dance in your tummy?

That’s what I get on tall buildings and the cliffs and Oman valleys. Roller Coaster scary. Wonderful. I loved it.

Two days later, on my second trip, we traverse a Wadi – a valley bottom. Tracing a river. Where the path dies out, we take to the water and wade and swim 10 meter deep plunge pools to reach the valley end. A cave with a waterfall. A cave that I eventually bottled and plain couldn’t get into. I don’t like water. I don’t like swimming. And I don’t like currents dragging me underneath rock outcrops. I'm fussy. I think it is because I have lungs and legs, not gills and fins. I blame my parents. It was somewhere so far outside my comfort zone that I was enthralled and amazed that I could push through to get as far as I could. Weeks on, aware that I missed out on something magical, I still cannot regret it… But V was there at every step. Encouraging, supporting. Driving me.

We watched Egyptian Vultures soar and hang on thermals above the valleys, Bulbuls and Wheatear flit between rocks and shrubs and Purple Sunbirds imitate Hummingbird on Acacia bushes. I was stunned by the country. Stunned by the scenery. Stunned by the differences between this land of excitement and promise compared to the flat, grey wilderness of Saudi’s Eastern Province.

Purple Sunbird. Wish this was my picture. But it is not. I own no rights. Tis very pretty, though.

All through this, V kept up the tourist chat. Telling me of abandoned and lost villages, showing me the long lasting damage of a Cyclone that hit in the 1990’s and the devastation that it brought to the near subsistence farmers. And it was great. It was everything and more than I expected my cash to buy. But it was the conversations that we fell into when we slogged the kilometres back and forth to Muscat that caught me off guard. These were where I was really inspired. The tourism stuff – incredible, engaging, inspiring and beautiful that it is – couldn’t compete with the frank honest conversations about life and the World that I didn’t expect. It was here, that I was truly inspired.

V showed me ribbon developments of houses scattered along a main road between Nizwa and Muscat. She explains that all Omani citizens are given a plot of land for free at the age of 21. It is provided so that a family home can be constructed. Which explains why none of the houses are the same. Different designs, different sizes. Different people.

We drifted past a more regulated housing development. Two storey and white walled. Social housing provided for the needy; for people who were cared for by the state. For the old, the infirm, the widowed and disabled. V spoke with warmth about the life that she was showing me. She couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said and his vision for the country. Absolute ruler since 1970 he continues to seek a better path for Oman that learns from other Gulf Nations and won’t accept its mistakes. He won’t allow high rise development, preventing Muscat from becoming another plastic playground like Dubai, he is encouraging the population to make use of the land; hence the ribbon housing developments in the apparent middle of nowhere and he is encouraging sustainable tourism based on the countries natural landscape.

Now. I am sure that you can find loads of negatives for Sultan Qaboos if you desire. Knock yourself out, go and check Google. But my story saw nothing but warmth.

V openly expresses a fear of Sultan Qaboos dying. She explains that the population love him. She fears for the nation, emotionally, hoping that his dynasty maintains the positive but caring outlook of his rule… 

And it made me realise why she was in Oman. Because it all falls back to the conversation earlier in the day. Of how she felt sorrow at the passing of the Soviet Union and regret that the split had led to infighting and disillusionment. On a political level, it began to fall into place. A leader. A figurehead for the population to adore and follow who – through his works – is supportive of the population. Unity. Support and equality. Although the ideological and economic differences are as mountainous as Oman, the net result is the same. The absolute monarchy, underpinned by a religion that believes in equality and well being of the population that it rules is not so far different to the Soviet model. Right down to it's dependence on "faith" at it's heart. 

And it took me back to where it started. 

At a Costa Coffee in Bahrain Airport with Hussain suppressing a laugh as I inadvertently highlighted the gaping hole in the democratic process in Britain. 

But now I was thinking about the apparent acceptance, belief and happiness with an individual who has chosen to be a leader and the bickering, backbiting and nonsense that our fair political system has created. 

And I felt stumped. 

Notes

*    My Converse would have looked even better at the top of Jebal Sham!

**   I have no idea whether this is true but it makes a good story. I’ve nicked the idea from Kristin Hersh. During the introduction to the song “Pearl” on her Cats and Mice album, she states that Ronald Reagan had defined ketchup a vegetable. And let’s face it, it can’t be a vegetable… a fruit, maybe, but never a vegetable.

     Here is "Pearl". Cracking song...

        And some stuff as context to the comments I attribute to her.

       Ketchup is a vegetable

***   OK. Maybe it is a bit derogatory to describe women dressed in Hijab as Ninja’s. I understand. But I feel less bad using the term after Hussain admitted that he and his friends use the term… Remember, Hussain is a Saud.