Ignorantus Travelicum

   This was written almost seven years ago and is all true.
It was brought back to my mind by a recent conversation I had with a friend, of which the conclusion was: “I would more gladly excuse profound stupidity than ignorance, as, if you choose to do so, ignorance is curable.”


I have a new best friend. She makes me laugh!
I don't even know her name...

I met her yesterday when I was going to enquire about the different means at my disposal to, from the country of the Lambs and Leeks, go to say hello to the “vahines”. I'll explain: For our honeymoon trip, I would like to take my beloved to Bora-Bora but, as it isn't a very popular destination from the British Isles, even with the Tinterweb, I struggled to find any clear information.
Therefore, with a nonchalant gait, I never the less drove – it's about 10 miles away! – to the closest Agency for Travelling.
It was when I was pushing the door of the humble store of the second biggest British purveyor of exotic scented dreams – my muscles bulging under the light material of my little blue summer dress, the one I like to wear on Thursdays, the one with the very cute print there – that I saw her for the first time.

To say that she looked average would be to pay her a compliment. Her forties come and gone, she had a face wrinkled by the expression of eternal surprise of the simpleton, with tired hair sporting a do that could have been fashionable back in the 80s, in the region of Holdrege (Nebraska), and two long and scrawny arms. Despite this, she was radiating experience behind her small orange counter, which is an effect relatively easy to achieve when you are the eldest of twenty years of any of your colleague and have a pale complexion, perfect to reflect the orange colour. So, I was walking towards the ugly woman (at that moment of the story, she's not yet my friend) when she spoke to me along this line:
“Hello, can I help you?”
… I understand your surprise, I too was astonished.
She had said 'hello'! In the United-Kingdom?! The proverbial Albion wouldn't be as perfidious as one might think?

Sorry. Let's start again.

Her: “Hello, can I help you?
Me: Hello, and you most certainly can. I would like to go to French Polynesia, departing from here, or from London, which ever is simpler. Could you find the information for me please?
Her: er... like we may have a problem here, because, as for us, we don't do them, the train bookings.
…
Me: Even better! The French Polynesia is situated in the South Pacific and I was favouring the idea of taking a plane.
Her: Oh sorry, I thought you said “Pyrenees”.
Me: No, Polynesia.
Her: Not the Pyrenees then?
Me: No.
Her: Gosh.
Me: Quite.”
I was starting to like her a lot, that lady. I carried on with the usual platitudes of this kind of conversation, with a renewed interest and a gently amused curiosity. Where exactly? Bora-Bora. How many people? Two. When? In six months time.
And we resumed our verbal tango:
Her: “Like, I can't find any international airport in Bora-Bora me...
Me: It's normal, there isn't one. The closest is in Tahiti.
Her: Well... Like I can't find any either... I know, I'm going to call the people of the planes.”
Then she told me that it might take a while and that if I had something else to do in town, I could maybe pop in later... What?! Our newly born and fragile friendship just blossomed that she was already rejecting me? With a torn heart and a heavy soul, I got up from my seat, ready to return to the street and its anonymity, where no-one would make me laugh for at least five minutes.
I suddenly pulled myself together.
Was this a way to treat an 'almost' friend? No.
I had to have faith in her professionalism and trust her expertise. Yes. I will comeback later. And yes, this woman will have all the answers. The cost, the flights, the dates, why you should never put the milk before the boiling water, the hotel, all of it!
I took advantage of my free time to sneak in a nearby similar agency where I found all the answers I needed (but not the milk/hot water one) in five minutes. Then, after a few purchases, as I couldn't stand it any longer, I went back to see my friend who I already missed.
Her: “Ah! I couldn't speak to the people of the planes but I have some information for you.
Me: Wonderful.
Her: So, for the flight, it should cost £1056.64.
Me: But that's fantastic!
Her: Isn't it just? I thought that too.
Me: Per person?
Her: No no, for the both of you.”
What a surprise! The nearest quote I got was of £1500 per person. What a bargain? I knew that this woman was gifted!
Me: “This is really amazing!
Her: But be careful though, this is just the price for the flight from London-Heathrow to Haïti like.
Me: ...
Me: You mean Tahiti?”
And then, with the most imperturbable smile and without any trace of embarrassment, she replied:
“Why? Is there a difference?”

After the brief explanation that “yes, there was a little one, like: they're not in the same ocean/sea", I assured her to return very soon in her small shop, to enjoy her amicable company again.
Then, I left, smuggish, feeling at ease in my own skin and comfortable in my knowledge of geography.

I think I'll go back tomorrow.
I tell you, she is my new best friend.
She makes me laugh!

Well, yes. Yes, I like Coldplay.

If you think you have found a fan-blog about Coldplay, think again.

If after those second thoughts, you still think this is a fan-blog dedicated to the British pop-rock band Coldplay, well, no. Sorry, you're wrong. But don't worry, it happens to the best. Not that I would try to flatter you in such a blatant way, it happens to the mediocre too...

A while back ago, or probably yesterday, if you're a Dave viewer, Noel Fielding, of the excellent Mighty Boosh fame, declared in a memorable episode of Never Mind The Buzzcock... Oh come now, there are some, like the one with the fantastic under-cover funny guy Josh Groban (@joshgroban) or that one with Doppy(not his real name), from that band thingy, with his comedy hat, you know? Who's apparently not only half as stupid as he looks*... anyway.

In that episode of @NMTB_TV, Mr Fielding was relating the anecdote of when he told “I hate Coldplay” to the manager of the band, who replied “Oh yeah, I heard it was cool to hate them lately”, he then retorted “No no, I'm not trying to be cool. I really hate Coldplay”.

Well, this, Ladies and Gentlemen, got me thinking, which is hardly a surprise coming from a guy who has to think hard upon existential questions like 'tea or coffee?', 'pudding or cheese?', 'Am I left or right handed?'

At first, I thought “Well, Mr Fielding is...”

Sorry, I have to stop for a moment here. I can't carry on calling him Mr Fielding. I sound like a man-servant or the prosecutor in a Court of Justice, which is not the purpose of this piece. Nor Noel either, it makes me sound like his chum, like I know him or even worse, like I have delusion of knowing the man! Ah, grammatical and etiquette conundrum rolled into one. I guess his full name will have to do. Bear with me...

... I naturally thought that Noel Fielding was of course untitled to Noel Fielding's own opinion and who was I to begrudge Noel Fielding on what Noel Fielding could like or not. Noel Fielding is one of the most creative and unique mind of this televisual age and Noel Fielding can bloody hate what Noel Fielding bloody wants! Oh, how I love Noel Fielding!_ er... (too much? Probably too much).

Never the less, Noel Fielding not trying to be cool is a thought defying the imagination...

BUT – and I like big buts, I cannot lie – what really got me thinking is the other bit, the bit about cool hatred of something fashionable.

Why is there that communal idea that if something is remotely popular it is obviously shit? Did we all become hipsters?

This concept is as ludicrous as ideas along the same line of: “If it's light entertainment it can not be clever” or: “if nobody thinks like me, I'm obviously right”.

Most people think it a bad idea to cross the motorway on foot and no lunatic would probably live long enough to prove anyone other wise...

If you're starting to think like this, that your opinion uniqueness is in itself the obvious proof of its undeniable veracity, it's a very slippery slop my friend.

Bear in mind that, globally, there is fewer racist people than non-racist (that I would probably just naturally call 'normal' people), that creationism is not the commonly admitted norm and that Jedward's fans are still a tiny minority; are those people right because they are fewer? Well, hasn't God created white, blond and light-brained perfect Irish twins in less than seven days?!

Hasn't He/She/It/None Of The Above?

In short, next time you judge that something is 'shit' solely based on its popularity – be it Harry Potter books or films, football, Justin Bieber, Game of Thrones, Twitter, Apple's product or, for that matter, Microsoft's rubbish(this list is non-exhaustive and doesn't reflect my taste) – especially if you use the reason: “Everyone says it's great/good, but I prefer to make my own mind up” whilst really meaning “... therefore it must be shit because I have individual taste, me, you know”, you're doing exactly the opposite of what you're preaching and are behaving like a teenager, and not even a clever one.

Yes. I like Coldplay.

Last night, I've realised that I appreciated Mumford & Sons too.

Millions of people might not be that wrong after all... even if it is a bit bland. So are millions of people. A bit. And so, in all likelihood, am I.

In conclusion, it is of course a matter of taste, but ultimately, don't think too much of your self-perceived uniqueness. Cultivate it, cherish it, yes, but remember that that idea of “uniqueness” is not the thing that makes you unique. This is the most common trait of all: We're all different.

* Fact confirmed beyond any doubt by an article I read lately, in Closer or something... I know, I should be more careful about my readings but, in my defence, there was nothing else to read in the surgery waiting room and I'd brought only that one magazine.

~ After re-reading those few lines, I have now no idea of what exactly was my point... Originally, I wanted to speak about my age and my inability to find jeans that fit. It didn't go that way.

Until next time

Heart-Break

~ Three days ago I received a call from the school. My little boy had broken his arm on the playground. It turned out to be a rather nasty business, with surgery, 24 hour in hospital, etc... but he's fine now and very proud of his red cast.

However, the feelings that this call had awaken were somehow deeper and more complicated.

It reminded me of this old text below.

It's my worst translation to date, for which I apologise, but I still wanted to share this with you.

It happened a little over seven years ago and this is what I felt at the time.

All is true... ~

She is resting next door now. She fell asleep peacefully front of an old Audrey Hepburn film, her favourites. I can hear her breathing, regular and light, and it is good.

I still have flashbacks. Images which come to me, of the kind that keep you awake at night, that haunt you whenever you leave your mind wandering in the wrong direction. Images that send a long cold shiver down your spine, hollow out your guts, eat your life away. I'm ashamed to admit that those visions have nothing to do with war or famine, there are no children dying in my mind... only her. She's there, lying on the floor, still. A tiny drop of blood pearling at the corner of her lips. A small red puddle has already formed on the pavement and my heart forever stopping.

My darling, my love, my life... My Geinor has had an accident this weekend. 
 
There are a few things that I understand better now. Most of them are literary expressions, like sick with fear or knots in the guts, the others are more difficult to explain... certainties which somehow became suddenly even clearer, like: "Shit. I couldn't survive her."

I've experienced the most excruciating minute of my life, followed by the ten most intolerable.

When I turn around to see her there, on the ground, inert, almost at my feet, the realisation is almost immediate. I don't have time to laugh about it that my mind already registers the off-key details: an arm with a slightly odd angle, a sudden pallor – for fuck sake why is she not moving? – and of course the blood. The blood that fills her mouth, that drips from her nose, drop by drop, for fucking Christ WHY is she not moving?! My retina can only see red, this horrible viscous colour which has nothing to do out here. I can even feel its metallic taste in my mouth. Time stops. Everything becomes of a precision like white-hot iron branding my memory of the burn of the deepest anxiety imaginable.
Everything turns into a confusion of primal chaos, in a blur that has nothing of artistic, which smears all the sharpest details.
That big moron who tripped her, like that, just for fun, what colour was his t-shirt?... Yellow? Green?... This seagull cry piercing the sudden silence, tearing my soul, will I ever forget it? Why doesn't it shut the fuck up that stupid bird?! Down here, my world's falling apart.
 
Everyone rushes, nobody talks, except the idiot babbling unintelligible excuses like: “it was just a joke...” I can't even bring myself to be angry with that twat, she is alive and I thought I'd lost her, I don't care, he is nothing to me... and at that precise moment he's just a remote satellite in my reality.
She has no reaction... oh good lord. My knowledge of first aid flies away, my insides go hollow, my eyes overflow. Her mouth is open, there is blood everywhere now ; her eyes are open too, glassy, distant ... she's gone. She has the face of Death. I can't stand my crying any longer, my heart in my throat is about to explode. How horrible is that obscene and uncontrollable selfishness of those times of unbearable pain? I don't want to live without you.
God, don't leave me alone. Stay with me, me, ME...


They always speak of a panic wave. It's stupid. A panic tsunami overwhelms me, I'm shaking, my stomach is but one huge cramp, I am a torrent of tears. I vaguely hear that someone called an ambulance, I think... I stroke her hair, holding her head. Someone is trying to calm me down. He takes care of her too, he tells me that it's going to be al'right, those silly little words that we always repeat in such circumstances, void of sense, hollow. Everything is hollow without her... I don't even know if she's breathing? I don't any more. I don't know if her heart is still beating? Mine has stopped.
Ten intolerable minutes. We talk to her constantly now. Ten interminable minutes...
Her eyes close and then open slowly. After a little while, she regains a bit consciousness, says her name, pronounces mine. A landslide of relief almost crushes me with happiness. Nothing can stop my tears any more. And finally the ambulance arrives.
 
She walks to the door, I support her. At the hospital, they make me wait in an anonymous room where the tired seats have probably never seen better days, just the time to examine her. The apprehension suffocates me.
We fill in the few compulsory forms common to all the hospitals in the world and after two or three hours, I drive her to her mums, close to our home.
She's still in shock, we need to monitor her for the next two days, in case of trauma, but other than that, it's fine.
I'm still in shock, it will last more than two days I think, but other than that, it's fine. She is alive.




Whilst organising our wedding, we re-contact many friends who we have more or less lost sight of. It had been three days that one of them was trying to contact us. So I take advantage of Geinor getting some sleep front of the fire to call her on her mobile. She is an actress, has a lot of talent, my age and I like her a lot.

"- Hello sweetie.
- Oh Jeffw! So how is it going in your whales country?
- Well, it could be better. Geinor just had an accident, we just returned from the hospital. I was very scared...
- Shit... Nothing serious?
- No. No, it should be fine. Thanks.
- So... nobody told you then?...
- No, what? "
And then she tells me that a year ago to the day, on the 20^th of May, her beloved Maxim, the man of her life, had a serious car crash... I'm speechless.

He died on a first of June. Yet, it was such a nice day that day...

Forewords

… “I had to start it somewhere

so it started there” ~ Pulp

Yes, a new blogger and yet another blog.

Even if I would prefer to call it a column (with no newspaper backing, true), I fully understand that we could begin straight away on a divergence of opinion.

You can't be the victim of yet another French man with delusion of 'grandeur', even though I'm 6'1'', which cast me aside of the historically famous one. Furthermore, I never wear a bicorne hat and only occasionally play with my left nipple, through the material of my shirt, under my waistcoat...

However, it does look like a blog – not my nipple, silly, this blog – and on Blogger too, of all places, so you might have a point...

I just wanted to have a few words of introduction, as you don't know me yet.

Why would you otherwise be interested in what I could think of the price of locally grown corn in the markets of La Paz?

On second thought, even if you knew me, why would you be interested in what I can think about the price of locally grown corn in the markets of La Paz?! Or anything else, for that matter?

But eh! It isn't the point, is it? You're here to satisfy my disproportionate perception of my self-importance as long as I, in return, amuse and entertain you. A pretty much win-win, if slightly disturbing, situation really, if done well...

So, hi! I'm Jeffw (pronounce Jeffoo) and I am an actor.

Before you ask, no, not a failed one, just an actor.

True to say that what you generally see is that bright shiny crust of the famous ones at the top, the star dusted icing of Hollywood, but there's plenty more of us underneath (we are the raisins of this giant fruitcake). All those cheap adverts and bad TV series walk-on parts don't act themselves you know.

Still, it's one of the professions with the highest rate of unemployment - around 90 to 95% in average.

How the none-working ones can call themselves actors if they don't “act” and how the thing is calculated is a mystery to me far greater than the lost city of Atlantis (which I found at the bottom of my bath once. Well... I hope that's what it was).

All I know is that, like most of them/us, I've done hundred of other things to make ends meet, to name but a few: manager of an Irish folk band, window cleaner in the posh quarters of Paris, sea-diver in a South-Pacific black pearl farm and guest-star in a sitcom on national Welsh television.

I also choose something years ago that my kind – the Homo Sapiens Thespians – generally don't go for: life over career.

I turned out to be a bit of a family man.

Instead of trying to make a living out my 'calling', establish myself, reach a substantial financial security before settling down, I went at it all back to front. In a very 'boheme' spirit, I decided to

follow life for a while, to see where it would take me. And a good idea it was too!

After just a couple of attempts, I found myself a wonderful wife. We're now happily growing home-made organic kids in rural Wales and all is well.

“But what of that artistic fibre of yours?” I hear you NOT asking as you must be fast asleep by now!

It is true to say that it is the kind of beast that you have to satisfy, once in a while. Especially when life becomes quieter and when some extra incomes would not go amiss – children do need to be fed, who knew?!

What am I suppose to do then? Leave my wannabe-widow and the sprogs of my own evil behind and hit the road again? Well, yes, but the offers don't come so often. So what?

Living in an isolated village of West-Wales, so small that I could probably kill its entire population and not make it to the national news, I naturally turned towards an old friend; this activity you can do at home and on your own, when you find a bit of time to yourself. No, not that one, the other one: Writing.

I have been writing for as long as I can remember (but I have very little recollection of my pre-school years, which might explain this).

My earliest work include an manuscript Alphabet, of which I was only really satisfied after numerous revisions, and a few stinging and brief pamphlets about a classmate called Eric.

More recently I became, at a short stretch of the imagination, a published author, when one of my short-stories appeared in a specialised magazine – and once again, no, not that kind of 'specialised', it was a publication dedicated to literary short-stories, obviously. Mine was all about Erotica.

No, it wasn't.

The blogging is a dramatic consequence of that writing bad habit of mine. First in French and now, here.

Am I trying to define and recreate myself through my writing? Nah, it's just a bit of a laugh really.

You'll find in these pages my hopefully humorous rants on topics as diverse as news, fashion, television, politics, why football?, inequality, religion, parenting, my War Against Stereotypes, the unbearable cruelty of the daily scalding of innocent spoons in boiling liquids (not even always tea!), life, the universe and the rest...

You'll find some anecdotes, funny and less so.

You might find some useful lessons too, but I doubt it.

You might also find, if you're less lucky, some of my short fiction!

er...

And I'll try to keep everything concise, of course.