Sunday

So, as of yesterday I’ve been taken completely on board by the Silent Noise team. Last night I helped organise the loaning of headphones (if you don’t know the concept of Silent Disco, Google it, it’s quite innovative) and getting them back. I was on crowd control and I somehow still managed to get far too drunk; still, the organisers didn’t say a word and seemed quite happy with my performance.

Today I’m writing a press release for them, which they can supply to one of the major papers here in the area, who has decided to write a big article about them. I’m a little hung over, so it’s going slower than usual, but I’ll get it done. After all, I’ve written articles with a high fever, drunk and a whole other host of mental states, without any serious negative impact on the quality.

I guess you know that you can do your job well when you can still do it when you’re not a hundred percent. Of course, it’s better to try to be a hundred percent, but unfortunately life never works that way.

After the press release (and this blog entry) it’s time to work on university applications. I’ve found a couple of places where I wouldn’t mind studying, with my first choice being Social Psychology at the VU in Amsterdam. It seems to pretty much combine everything that I’m interested in. I’m just hoping they’ll accept me. I mean, my grades at uni were pretty good, but they weren’t brilliant (largely because all I did while I was there was role play, smoke pot and not go to class). I’ve basically only really developed a thirst for knowledge and learning in the last few years, but how do I show that to the application board?

I guess it’s going to have to be the same way that I got into my first university, which was through my motivational letter. I remember walking into the office of the dean who said ‘your motivational letter was very interesting, but we have no idea what you were trying to say’. I might not try that same trick again, but it is there that I have to shine.

Yup, I’m working on a Sunday. Of course, I don’t really have a problem with that, as the normal work week has not been a part of my life for well over seven months now. I prefer it that way; I like to work when I want to work, not when some clock says I have to.

Yeah, there really is no way I’ll ever be able to work in a standard office. I’ll either drive everybody else mad or commit suicide. For the life of me I can’t understand how all of you do it. I greatly admire your ability to do it, but I can’t understand how. Don’t you hate yourself every single morning as you drag yourself out of bed for yet another day under some other person’s thumb? I guess it’s all right to be under somebody else’s thumb if you respect them, but what if you don’t?

I’ve heard that bad bosses are the primary reason most people quit, while having a best friend in the office is the primary reason why people stay. I guess I can get into that. Ultimately it is all about who you share your life, your ideas and your time with.

And I seem to share all of that with you. Figure that.

Glug glug glug

It feels like I’m back in Singapore. Last night, for the first time since I’ve been here (and the first time in Febuary for as long as people here can remember) it rained. One of those tropical rain storms that I got oh so used to in Singapore, but I was hoping I’d kind of left behind. Now it’s muggy, hot, humid and hazy; sweat is pouring down my face, the shade is just as hot as the sun and everybody is moving at a crawl.

The only solution is, of course, beer. (that’s the great thing about beer, it is pretty much a solution to nearly everything, including hangover, breakups, stress, boredom, nervousness, ugly women and – of course – heat.)

I haven’t had one yet, as I only really came to the conclusion that that was the solution as I was writing this, but I’m going to remedy that right now. Just a second, right back.

Situation remedied. A large cold one, with condensation beads rolling down the side. It’s a Kingfisher, which is probably the most palitable beer out here (I have to say, the Indians could take a lesson in beer-brewing; to think that this beer, which franky isn’t that good, helps support an entire airline is quite shocking, to say the least. Still, beggars can’t be choosers and this beggar likes to be a boozer, so I’ll go with what I can get.)

The rain storm last night hit during our newest attempt at a party. It’s a 60s – 70s disco themed party and many people were convinced that it had gone to hell when the rain started coming down. They were quite wrong. You see, what happened was that everybody ended up having to huddle under what ever cover was available and since there wasn’t that much available, it made people get much closer than they usually would. The consequence was that everybody started talking to everybody and a really great mood resulted.

When we turned the music back on, where before we only had three people on the dance floor, it suddenly flooded with people, who danced till the small hours (well, not that small, only 2:30). I’ve been trying to tell everybody that the best way to make a mood is to force people to be close together, so that they have more opportunity to interact. The most successful clubs I’ve been to have always done that (by keeping areas closed until the club fills up to a certain limit). Maybe now they will try to incorperate that into the rest of the parties.

Of course it might be hard, considering the big party is in a grassy field, which might be a little hard to block off, but I still think it should be considered.

This is probably of absolutely no interest to any of you, is it? Maybe I should just go drink my second cold one away from the computer (yes, the first one’s finished). Then I can sit and bitch about the weather, while secretly having a great time. Actually, I might possibly be having a great time because of the bitching. A good bitch never really goes amiss.

I’ll shut up now.

Too much and too little

Palolem is becoming incredibly busy for me personally. There is less and less time to just hang out with friends and shoot the shit, instead I’m finding that I don’t even have enough time in each day to do everything I need to do. Every day I’m being forced to push something back to the next day. This way stuff is going to keep piling up and I’ll end up stressed out in one of the most relaxed places in the world.

I’m not sure if I told you, but I’m working with a group here that do parties with headphones. The reason for the headphones is that there is a rule out here in Goa, that you can’t have live music, movies or really any kind of noise after ten o’clock. Yes, it really still is a third world country in many ways. So we get by that by giving everybody radio headphones (as in, they receive radio signals).

Originally, when I first started helping them flyering, it was only a few hours a week and it kept me in focus (they are also the people helping me out with my modeling work). Now it has turned into a four to five days a week job (albeit paid, so not all bad). The reason? Well, they’ve gone from only one party a week to four. This means that they have more work and more flyering has to be done. In other words, less people are out there to flyer and more flyers have to be handed out.

Yesterday I needed four hours to go across the whole beach, from one end to the other. It’s only a one and a half kilometer stretch! Of course, the work doesn’t quite end there, as I then still have to show up at the even itself and make sure people are having a good time. You see, I only get paid if they make a profit.

Besides that I’m still trying to get a few hours a day in on my short story, I’m trying to apply to university, stay in shape (which isn’t as easy as it sounds, with the gym being 45 minutes away) and a whole plethora of other things.

Add to that the fact that I’m not that far away from possibly going back (I still haven’t got any jobs that actually pay me well enough that I can consider staying out here and making my money here for university) and it’s all becoming a bit stressful.

I seem to be incredibly good, these days, at always getting myself involved in far too many things in far too little time. Still, at least I don’t have to feel guilty about not getting anything done. The only thing I have to feel guilty about right now is that I still haven’t sent out any proper applications to universities.

Elegance

I was sitting on the beach with a couple of mates yesterday, discussing women. In fact, I’ve been sitting on the beach for the last two months with a couple of mates discussing women; but yesterday was a little bit different from those other days, because mixed in with the usual ‘ooh, she’s got big ones!’ and ‘why do whales wear thongs?’ was a topic of slightly more sophistication; namely the topic of elegance (no pun intended).

We discussed how elegance was attractive, but since we were at an Irish wake (yet another person I knew has died, January has been a vicious one) and we were celebrating it in Irish style (i.e. we were on the piss) the topic soon got dropped.

Still, the idea kept bouncing around in my head and I’ve come to the conclusion that elegance is, as a matter of fact, a common characteristic in all the women that I find attractive. Elegance isn’t just a nice bonus; it seems that to me it is essential.

For example, I was at a live music night and a few chairs down there was a woman who I initially thought was truly stunning. The moment she started to move, however, she became a little less attractive, then she started to talk her stock dropped a little more and turned herself from a true beauty into a monstrosity. It was much like one of those films, where the girl is a real stunner until she smiles and reveals teeth that are more appropriate for a donkey’s mouth.

The reason? There was no grace to her. Her movements were choppy and hard, her voice was uncouth and her laugh belonged to a woman five times her weight, who could carry ten litre glasses and drink them too. She acted like a man with not enough hair and too much belly.

Alright, so she now we know she wasn’t elegant, but that doesn’t answer what elegance is. Truth be told, I’ve only thought about it for a little bit, so I’m not sure this will be my final answer, but right now I think elegance is largely an awareness of your body and the way it moves. It has something to do with the efficiency and speed of a person’s movement. That is probably why many people say elegant women float, it’s because their movements are so efficient and calm that they don’t have that up and down jarring motion that is common in almost everybody else.

Another part of elegance is that it is not masculine. Don’t get me wrong, men can be elegant, (though it is less common) but elegance isn’t masculine. Elegant men will doubtlessly often be called gay and quite possibly many elegant men are actually gay (though certainly not all gays are elegant). Masculine behaviour is hard and edged. If I was asked to associate materials with masculinity, it would be bone, steel, sweat and blood. None of those four things can be considered elegant.

Therefore, women that act like men are – by definition – not elegant; they appear unnatural and uncouth. Of course, maybe they are perfectly happy not being elegant and that is their choice, of course. Just as it is my choice (unconsciously, I might add) to not be interested in them. I’m sure there are enough men who don’t give a damn, just as there are enough women that do; and thus everybody remains happy.

On Creativity

Not too much to report in my daily living, so time for some philosophical rambling.

I’d like to talk about creativity, today. The reason being that I was recently invited to possibly give a guest lecture at a university in Bangalore on that exact same topic, so I thought it might be a good idea to throw some of my raw thought out here for me to refine at a later date (yes, you’re my sounding board, don’t you feel honoured?)

For me creativity is a battle between my imagination and the little man on my shoulder. It isn’t really the most original analogy, but it’s one that works well. The little man on your shoulder is that little bugger that goes ‘hey, that isn’t good enough’ about nearly everything that you do. I believe a large part of the difference between creatives and non-creatives is that the latter listen to that little asshole (excuse my French), while the former manage to shut him off.

The best way to shut him off, of course, is to just ignore him; the problem is that that is extremely hard. A much more common way for people to switch him off is to drown him out. The most popular way to do that is with drugs (i.e. alcohol, marijuana, LSD, etc.) and that is possibly why you hear of so many creatives being druggies. This is not the most advisable way to kill him, as ultimately it will probably kill you as well (those that use drugs recreationally are called users, those that need to take drugs are called addicts).

The little man on your shoulder is, of course, self-doubt. Everybody has it, nobody can get away from it and it will always be there. The thing is, that when you first start to be creative that is when the little man is the loudest and that is also when you need him to F off the most. Creativity is just like any other skill. It is one that you learn over time. The more often you create, the better you become at it.

When you first start to create, your work will be raw, probably conventional (you haven’t veered away much from the mainstream yet) and possibly even childish. That’s okay when you’re a child (that’s when I started my creative process), but it’s a lot harder to deal with if you want to start being creative as an adult.

The trick is to realise that every single creative process that you embark on is only a stepping stone to something better later on. That way you can tell the little bastard on your shoulder ‘yes, I know it’s crap, but if I make crap now, then I’ll make less crap later’.

You see, the thing is that to be a creative you actually have to create. Many people forget this part of it (I did, for a very long time. I called myself a writer, when I really wasn’t writing terribly much). You can philosophise about creativity as much as you like, but the only way to become more creative is to actually try to create something. Only in that way do you learn to think outside the box.

Learning by rote is something you become better at over time, socialising is something you become better at over time, reasoning is something you become better at over time, so why shouldn’t creativity be something you become better at over time?

Don’t listen to that little guy. Create, create and create. And remember, you can be a creative even though nobody else knows. Artists don’t need to be recognised; only successful artists need to be recognised. A good friend of mine said it well, when he said ‘Is it art? Well I say it is, so it’s art.’ Of course, he’s allowed to think that way because he’s a recognised artist, but then he might have become a recognised artist because that’s how he thought.

In other words, which came first, the chicken or the egg? You decide.

Real Life Intrudes

Yesterday I sat down and took all the entries from three days before my trip till now. I had no idea how much I had written and was keen to find out how much it was. It exceeded my wildest expectations; I had written nearly 100 pages, or about 50,000 words.

It took quite a while to put them all in the right order (from oldest to newest). The idea is that I take all this stuff and turn it into a story, of some kind. I’m not yet sure when I’ll do it, but I think it might be a good bit of fun. Of course, I kind of doubt that anybody but my friends would be interested in reading it, but sometimes it isn’t necessary to do something for the whole world to see.

I’m also planning to use it as the ‘photo album’ of my trip. Since I haven’t taken any pictures, I’m going to have to make do with words to remember. I think it should work alright, though I suspect it won’t be a terribly effective remembering tool for anybody, but myself; though that is probably true of a normal photo album as well.

Since I haven’t read the entire thing yet, I wonder what kind of a feeling it will leave me with. Will I be excited, elated, melancholic, unhappy, upset, disgusted, irritated, embarrassed or something completely unexpected? Only time (free time, mind you, it will be quite a read) will tell.

For the rest I’ve been writing a great deal.

Last week I spent most of the week stuck on a specific point in my writing, fortunately I solved that about two days ago and I’ve been writing ferociously. That will keep going until I hit another road block and then once again I’ll have to just sit around and wait for the problem to resolve itself in my head (it’s kind of a passive process, much like a witch’s cauldron, where you’re never sure what’s going on inside, but you can be pretty sure something interesting is going to float up if you stir it the right way).

I guess the right word to use for my writing would be ‘sporadic’, which isn’t really a good word to associate with it, seeing as I call myself a writer (beach bum doesn’t have quite the same ring to it).

I should also really be working on applying to universities, but I’m already far exeeding my ‘things in a day quotiont’ for Palolem. Still, I feel bad about not doing it every morning, so I don’t think it will be too much longer before I get started on that. Bugger my guilt!

I concluded a few days ago that I’m not living the beach life anymore, but more a life by the beach. Real world responsibilities reach you even in Palolem; which is a good thing, as there is only so much relaxation one can do before it becomes stressful.

Beach Life

The land washes into the sea, an eternal moment of regression, digression, destruction and rebirth. Dreams are born here, at the edge of consciousness, there between that space of you and me.

Collective unconsciousness fantasises about a day when she can break through, from the idealised to the realised, there to understand suffering and embrace mortality; for only when your time is limited does a moment matter.

This isn’t poetry, she sneered, it isn’t even good! I could only shrug, while I fantasised about a thousand moments of murder. I’d curse her and she’d ask – but why does my opinion matter? – I’d hesitate. She’d get away. Outwitted, by my own imagination.

Father Time had lost track of time. He could have sworn he’d put her on the table, by his beer glass; but now she was gone. He could still feel the sand trickling away, he could still hear the continuous rush of inevitability, a dull roar that only he couldn’t ignore; but the hourglass was gone. She’d probably found somebody younger to spend herself with. Another beer, bartender, for tonight might never end.

The smoke from a single cigarette dances the tango over the ashtray.

They moved among each other, but lived different lives. White and Black swirling in and out of view, but never really into each other’s existence. A barrier of derision, stereotyping and miscommunication colouring both their lives.

The eyeless corpse stares back.

Beach Bum

Yesterday I spent all day running around to help organise a party and getting absolutely inebriated in the process. That’s the problem when the organisers give you free piss from three o’clock in the afternoon and the party keeps going till six the next morning. Apparently I was very amusing. I might have been, I’m not quite sure.

Today is a day for recovery. My mind is foggy and a little on edge, but already on the mend. I’m not exactly sure what I’m to do with myself while I slowly recover (sometimes you’d just wish you could not be there while the recovery process goes on), but I imagine it might involve walking down the beach at a leisurely pace while looking at people (preferably of the opposite sex).

I might have some work down here now. The organisers of the party (a weekly affair that involves head phones and radio signals to get passed the noise ban at 10 o’clock) might be taking me on board for pay, rather than just free plonk. It’s funny how I can now find work pretty much everywhere I go. It never quite covers my expenses, but it makes the slow bleeding of funds from my account a little more bearable.

Did I mention I moved apartments? In order to survive the odd two months that I’m still hanging around I downgraded my apartment. It actually isn’t much of a down grade. It’s more of a moving into something slightly more permanent; out of the bamboo hut (nice for a few weeks, but a bit inconvenient) into a cement structure. Cement keeps the heat better at night and it can get bloody cold on this beach. This place has a real dry heat that fades very quickly when the sun is gone.

The only problem with it is the vermin. Mosquitoes try to eat me at night, while rats on occasion try to eat my roof. I’m not quite sure why they do that either, but they are slowly trying to gnaw through my tiles. Not to get through, mind you, if they were trying to get through they would have got through a long time ago, instead they seem to be gnawing along some seam in the tiles that they, for some mysterious reason, find rather tasty.

Many people are rather shocked that I am so blasé about rats sharing my living space. I guess it’s a matter of travelling a lot as well as realising that rats always share our living space, but some are smart (or scared) enough to keep hidden, while others obviously don’t care if we notice them. I happen to have the second type of rat (unfortunately).

Yeah, the adventures aren’t quite done yet. I think it’s time for a Bloody Mary.

Why I like it

I thought I'd sit down and discuss what it is I like about Palolem. I believe it's often an important exercise to think about what you like about a place, rather than what you dislike. It's easy to discuss (or bitch about) what you dislike, more of an effort to discuss what you do like; but ultimately worth it. After all, it makes you realise what you're living there for.

I'll start with sounds. I was discussing what sounds were nice in Palolem (yes, having the time to discuss those types of things is one of the things I like about Palolem) and we decided that the sounds that were beautiful in Palolem (and also happened to typify it) are: the sound of the waves, the sound of the wind through the palm leafs; the sound of a single Enfield (India's answer to the Harley Davidson) in the distance; and the crows.

As for the feelings, I'd have to go with the sand between your toes, the sun on your skin after a chilly night, the feeling of only wearing swimming shorts, the temperature (very close to perfect, except at three in the morning when it's frigin' cold) the cushions on the seats that they have everywhere around here and hammocks.

The tastes too are quite extraordinary. You see, when you first arrive here you eat a lot of crap, that's because most of the restaurants are only good at making one or two things and you don't know which is good at what when you just arrive. Now, however, by asking a lot of people and eating out a lot myself I've come to find where the really excellent (and really affordable, two things that are not necessarily mutually exclusive) food can be found.

Yesterday, for instance, I started with a wonderful banana-honey porridge, then had an Greek salad, moved on to a steak sandwich, had an apple pie and finished it all of with excellent coffee and ice-cream; interspersed with the occasional beer and gin tonic.

The smells are fantastic as well, with food smells mixing with the scent of the sea, the wind and India (the last a quite particular smell); cigarette smoke with sun tanning lotion, bamboo with coffee.

And the sights. This still remains one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen, even though people are trying to convince me that one beach over is even more spectacular. Beautiful in a semi-circle punctuated with a peninsula and monkey island.

Palm trees everywhere, bamboo shacks, lounging travellers and exotic cocktails. Souvenir shops and shopkeepers who have a surprising good memory for faces (they all know me now, though I doubt I even know five of their names). They all smile. Bonfires. I should have mentioned those before, because they really encompass all of the senses; warmth on your skin, the taste of smoke on your tongue and the scent in your nose; the cracking of the wood and nature's own light show.

In other words, I like quite a lot; which is nice to realise while I'm still here.

On rationalising emotions

I’ve got better. We’ve bought Monopoly. I finished my book and started another one.

Now that you’ve been completely updated about what has happened in the last two days, let’s look at a few of the thoughts that have been sparked off by Mr. Taleb and his randomness book (possibly the last, seeing I’ve already finished the book).

Somewhere in the last quarter of the book Nicholas discusses what he rationally knows and what he emotionally knows and how the two are not only different, but in many ways almost completely unrelated. I happen to agree with him, so I’m going to make a similar statement here.

I am an emotional creature, full of instincts, illogical assumptions and superstitions. Though I realise that many of the things I feel and believe are wrong and destructive (take for instance my smoking) I am in many ways powerless to stop them. Rationally I am aware that I’m making a stupid mistake and that there is a better choice available, but unfortunately my emotions generally end up winning the battle.

A good example Mr. Taleb uses is of being honked at in traffic. You know it serves no purpose to get angry at the person who is honking unfairly, but still you do. Your instincts take over and make you feel angry. You can control that anger by choosing not to act on it, but you can’t control the actual act of getting angry. That is instinctual and not under rational control.

An example from my own life happened last night when I was sitting on the beach drinking a bottle of wine with some friends (yes, very decadent) two girls that were obviously interested (and interesting) walked by. They’d been sitting in the restaurant we’d just vacated. One of the people in the group urged me to call out and intellectually I knew there was a very small chance of me being rejected. Even if nothing would have happened, we’d at least have got the chance of speaking to some (attractive) people.

Did I call out? No. I couldn’t do it. My mind came up with a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t, each worse than the last. The thing was my emotions had taken control and my mind was working hard to rationalise it away, so that I’d end up thinking it was a rational and well thought out reason that I didn’t call out.

My emotions high-jacked me and made me act in a manner that was not potentially the best course of action.

The thing is, I can sermon about it all I like, it won’t help. Any rational analysis of what I’m doing wrong won’t change the action. It isn’t my rationality that is the problem, it’s my emotions.

The way out of an emotional roadblock is not information or intellectualisation, it is action.

The thing is that this has crystallised in me the reason why I don’t like classical philosophy anymore. Almost all classical philosophy about people comes from the (completely incorrect) perspective that we are rational creatures that make rational decisions. But all our recent research has revealed that we aren’t so much rational creatures as post rationalising creatures.

Their philosophical musings, though interesting, are ultimately about a world that we do not, nor will we ever, live in. It’s like reading incredibly complicated fantasy novels, without the amazing landscapes and interesting beasties. Since I’ve stopped reading fantasy, I think there’s a great likelihood that I will also stop reading most philosophy. Of course, never say never, but you get the idea.

No Change, so chance

Nothing has really happened since I wrote last. I helped flyer for a party, watched a couple of films (something I hadn’t done in quite a while) managed to stay away from the alcohol, ate good food and healed. It has possibly been the quietest days in the month of January. With January’s track record, that is a good thing.

So instead of boring you with my life, I’m going to bore you with my thoughts. Fun, aye?

I’m reading a book by Nicholas Taleb entitled ‘Randomness: Bla bla bla’ (it’s a bloody long title and if you want to find it, I suggest your just look up the author, rather than the book. He hasn’t written that much). Now I find him a very interesting writer because he writes about things that you don’t commonly find discussed in other literature. He talks about how we associate things with skill and ability that we really should ascribe to randomness, better known as luck.

One of his examples that I really like is that people often only look at the winners and say ‘wow, they must be really clever’ without looking at the pool that these people came from.

He uses that famous ‘if an infinite number of monkeys smack away on keyboards for long enough, one will produce the entire works of Shakespeare’ (though in his case it’s the Iliad). He then takes it one step further by saying something like, if there’s only ten monkeys and one re-produces the entire works of Shakespeare you’d be very impressed and might think that monkey an actual reincarnation. If, however, the original group is infinitely big, well then you’d not really be that surprised, as it would mean that random chance is probably the reason that that monkey did so well.

If we apply that in highly random jobs (he talks about stock traders, but you could also talk about gamblers, sooth-Sayers, soldiers, criminals, writers, painters, actors, etc.) then when there is enough people just starting out, some people are going to have stellar success just based on luck, with skill not playing any role. Of course, these people would probably think of themselves as brilliant and other people would emulate them, thinking that it was the way they did things – rather than random chance – which got them as successful as they are.

The funny thing is that there are probably people that have absolutely miserably failed using exactly the same tactics, but you never find out about those, because the losers never get interviewed or written about.

The result is that you’re probably copying the behavior of people who’s behavior has nothing to do with their success. It’s basically a supertition (which work on the same principle, if there are enough people that do a certain superstition then obviously one or two of them will always have the result happen every time after they do the superstition, like something goes wrong every time they spill the salt, simply because of random chance; but the people around them wouldn’t see it that way).

That thought is still banging around in my mind and it will probably force me to re-evaluate a number of my held norms and beliefs.

If nothing more interesting happens in the next few days, then more of this stuff is bound to come.

Back on the Beach

I’m back! Palolem hasn’t changed a great deal since I’ve left it, except that a couple of the friends I had down here have moved on. That’s alright, it just means that I’ve got to make new ones. I’m not just back in that way though, I’m also back in Spirit. I’m back on top of the world and rearing to go.

With a restricted budget, anyway. That’s the way the cookie crumbles of course (I’ve been using that saying far too much). Things were going to be relatively comfortable, but then I used up 20% of my remaining cash on traveling. So now I have 20% less cash every day. Not a pretty way to look at it.

Still, it is better to be poor on a beach than poor in cold, horrible Europe. Besides, it means there is less temptation for me to go out and get plastered. Instead, I can read, write and generally try to be intellectual.

I actually only drank two beers, smoked ten cigarettes and did nothing else for the whole week I went around working. It’s certainly been a very long time since I’ve done that. Quite proud of it. Even since I’ve been back here (which was yesterday afternoon) I’ve been well behaved. Not as well behaved as the week before, mind you, but certainly better behaved than the week before that.

So now it’s a matter of working, reading, relaxing and waiting. Hopefully one of the jobs I went to look at in Bombay will pan out and put me in a comfortable position again. I just need one and I went to about five castings (plus the jobs that my pictures were sent out for, but I know nothing about). That’s not bad odds, right? Especially if it is actually true that there are very few foreign models out and about in Bombay.

I’m still a bit sick, though. Physically I don’t feel much trouble, though I feel a little uncomfortable when I eat a big meal, but I still do need to go to the toilet a little more frequently than is perfectly normal. That is compensated by the fact, of course, that when I do go it all comes out a great deal quicker than normal. Good in terms of the time I spend in the toilet. Not so good in terms of my physical wellbeing.

Oh well, what to do? I’ve thought about going to the doctor, but I do seem to be improving, so I don’t really want to fork out money for a doctor, when I’m already naturally on the mend. If I take a turn for the worst, I’ll have to go get an antibiotics cure, until then it’s just a matter of waiting to see (and watching what I eat). Still can’t go to the gym, though. Exercise weakens the immune system for a short while and that is something that I definitely should avoid right now.

A day in Bombay

This morning I arrived at 7:30 in Bombay, to do that I needed to get on the plane at six, to do that I needed to be at the airport at five, to do that I needed to leave my friend's house at four, to do that I needed to be up at three. I only bought the ticket at ten last night. I’m proud to say I at least got three hours of sleep, better than nothing.

And I need it, because today is one mad day of running around. This evening at eight I once again leave Bombay, to head back ‘home’ (Palolem). In the twelve hours I’m here I’ve basically got to get the modeling thing in Bombay started.

There’s people helping me an awful lot with that. I’ve met a major agency here and they directly sent me out to meet a bunch of people. I met the agency through contacts in Palolem, who also sent me out to meet a few people and some of those people, in turn, have sent me out to meet a few people. All in all I think I’m meeting about twenty people today. I’m not sure how I’m finding the time to write this.

That’s the great thing about being busy, you can be tired and busy and manage perfectly well. If, on the other hand, you’re tired and bored, no way you can last the whole day.

I actually quite like Bombay. People here are telling me I should stick around here if I really want to work. Now that I’ve had to run up to Bangalore and down here, I really do need to work. The money would have been fine, if I would have stayed put, but of course I didn’t. The travel bug is definitely as strong as ever. Of course, it was a work trip, so I can use that as part of the excuse (why do I need an excuse?)

I’m really looking forward to hitting the beach again tomorrow. Then I can finally rest out this bug and recover my full health. I miss the gym. Yes, I’m sure you’d never expected me to say something like that (mister ‘pass me an empty beer bottle, I’m too lazy to get up from this couch to take a wee’ Symbol). I had never expected myself to say something like that, but truth be told I like being in shape and, what is more, I like the buzz you get from exercising. It is, strangely enough, quite energising.

I also managed to pick up a whole range of books in Bangalore, while I was there. The problem with Palolem is that they only do beach books. I don’t do beach books. If I want entertainment I pick up popular science, psychology, economics or anything else that I feel I can learn something from. That’s not to say that you can’t learn anything from beach books, it’s just not what I want to learn right now. (was that a good escape?)

I directly started in on Nicholas Taleb’s book ‘Fooled By Randomness’, which has been quite enjoyable so far, though I’m either stupider, more tired or the book is more complex than his second one, because I’m not finding it as easy of a read. It’s probably a combination of all three.

So, tomorrow back to the beach, back to my stories and back to good health. Until then, meet greet and, for god’s sake, smile!

Editing Suite

Today I’m in the editing Suite for the second day. It’s been going a lot better than expected, actually. My fever broke during the night, before I started the editing and though my stomach is still giving me trouble, medicine has kept the pain from the spasms down, while will power (and enjoyment) has managed to keep me focused. True, pretty much the moment I arrived at the place I was staying last night I crashed out, not to wake up for ten hours, but that’s ok. It means I’m spending less money.

When I saw the original rough cut, which was done without me, I actually despaired. I broke down and believed that I had let everybody down and that everybody has mistakenly put their faith in me, when they obviously shouldn’t have. For two weeks I refused to look at, or think about, the short film that I’d been given. Then I realised that even if my short film might have let people down, what I was doing right there was certainly letting people down. So I bit the bullet.

My solution was to try and massacre my original script. The idea was to cut out as much as possible, so that even if it wasn’t good, at least people wouldn’t have to suffer through much of it. I actually thought I’d done a real good job cutting it down to half the length. Unfortunately, when we put it together in the editing studio it turned out I’d only managed to cut away about one third.

Still, I had managed to cut away some of the scenes that offended me most, as well as the verbosity that got to me in the original showing. Of course, now I’ve been stuck with my nose glued to the screen for many hours, seeing the same footage again and again, so there is a good chance I’m not objective, but at least I have the feeling it is better.

I’ve moved from never ever directing again (the decision I had made deep down inside) to maybe directing again, if somebody pushes me hard enough and gets me to agree while intoxicated.

The current version I wouldn’t be too embarrassed to show my friends.

It really was terribly unfair of me to leave others to edit my work. They didn’t feel right about cutting out scenes that didn’t work (they really stuck to the original script), nor did they exactly know what I had in mind with the different shots. They didn’t want to move shots around and they didn’t run with their own ideas. As a result, it was a compromise of what they wanted and what they believed I wanted. Compromises might work in politics, but they rarely work in art.

Still, if they hadn’t done what they had done, then I wouldn’t have realised what didn’t work and cut mercilessly into the script. Their work was immensely valuable for the simple reason that it showed me what didn’t work and sometimes eliminating what doesn’t work is the first step to finding out what does.

Hopefully all of you will get to see the short film soon.

Ill Feelings

I arrived in Bangalore a few days ago with a very busy schedule. I have a short film to edit, a visa to extend, people to meet and so forth, and so forth. Of course, January being by far one of the worst months I’ve experienced ever, it wasn’t going to be that easy. There’s a bug going around here and, of course, I got it.

Frustrating, especially seeing as I normally almost never get sick. It’s about a once in a year thing (and that’s mainly because I don’t live quite as healthy as I should). I remember when I heard about the bug thinking to myself ‘oh, I don’t have to worry about that! I’ve been healthy and I’ve taken good care of myself, lots of juices and vegetables, this bug won’t affect me!’

Obviously spoken too soon.

Yesterday I basically spent a whole day on bed with fever and diarrhea (I did get out of bed for the diarrhea). Today I have to spend a good solid working day (possibly a working day and a half) working on the second edit for my short film. Fortunately, I do feel a bit better today so hopefully it won’t be too much torture. Still, there is no choice. Most people that have had this illness have been floored with it for five days to a week, I don’t have five days or a week.

So it’s once again one of those times where we have to survive on will power and stubbornness. I’ll probably feel the consequences of that afterwards, but if everything goes well I’ll be back on Palolem and even illnesses don’t seem quite as bad on the beach and in the sun (though I have noticed toilets seem to be a little further away, on average.)

There’s only ten days left to January. Somehow I’m going to have to hang on. Hopefully fate/god/chance will have lost interest in me by now and moved on to torture some other unfortunate soul.

All things said and done, however, I’m still relatively up-beat (though not yesterday, to the chagrin of those people taking care of me, bless them) I refuse to be beaten down and even if this turns out to be a terrible year – instead of just a terrible month – I’m going to make sure I come out of it with a smile on my face and laughter in my heart.

Besides, they say it’s the bad times that shape us, teach us and make us who we are. The good times are just the interludes in between where nothing much changes. I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is then I’ve definitely been shaped these last twenty days. Into what, I wonder? A triangle or a parallelogram?

Taxi Ride

I’ve just left Palolem, hopefully not for the last time. My taxi – a little Indian car with a brand name that I’ve never heard before – is taking me through a landscape of hills, jungles, rice paddies and winding roads. I thought I should do one last post before I hit the airport and leave this place at least for a week.

I’m not looking forward to Bangalore one bit. For some reason I see that chapter as closed and do not look forward to reopening it. As if I actually have a choice. We should make those decisions that we get to make and accept those paths that we have to take. I’ve met a few people in the last few days who can’t make decisions and yet bitch about those things they can’t control. Now that doesn’t seem very grown up to me.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about today, I wanted to talk about Palolem; more specifically I want to talk about the place where I laid my head down to rest for the last 12 days. It was almost like being 21 again and staying on Ko Lanta, Thailand. There I stayed in a bamboo hut, on the beach with a view of the sea for less than five dollars a day.

Here I stayed in a bamboo hut, on the beach, with a hammock (some of the time) and it cost me about eight dollars a day. Not a terrible inflation rate in seven years, aye? My hut here was a ramshackle affair on stilts, which shook if you did anything too active inside. The walls were made of a mixture of criss-crossed bamboo lattice work and those reed mats that you’d normally find on the ground in poorer Asian households (they were on the ground too). My only electrical point was actually under my hut, which meant I had to run extension cords out of my front door, over my porch and under my own floor. Charging my laptop took a bit of inventiveness.

Every single day I fell asleep to the sound of crashing waves. Most mornings I woke up to the same sound, though on the last few days it was the sound of loud music from the hut next door. I guess they thought it was reasonable to play loud music at 10 in the morning. And it was, it was just that I often went to bed at unreasonable hours.

From my hut you could see beach, rocks, water and waves. That’s why I picked the place. I wanted to be able to see the sea when I opened my front door.

Most people wouldn’t have been caught dead living in a place like that. There were no amenities (the toilet was shared and about 20 paces away), there was no real privacy, you were basically almost sleeping outside, if it would ever have rained (which it didn’t) I would have got wet, sand got in everywhere and slamming the door too hard made the room shake. There were no cupboards, there was no night stand, there was only one light and often there was no electricity. There was a fan, but it had only two positions; off or way too fast.

Most people are fools. This will be one of those memories of a place I stayed in which I will cherish for decades. I miss it already.

On a positive note, though. The owners thought I was fantastic renter and said that when I come back they’ll drop the rent drastically, just as long as I stay there again.

Palolem, don’t forget me while I’m gone.

January

Loneliness, worry and depression watch the sun set in paradise. She left them there, fleeing back to normality; leaving them stranded in this place of dreams. They walk the shore, stepping gingerly among the fish carcasses. Fishermen with dynamite.

How are you, my friend? Would you like to buy something? They shake both their hands and their heads. Good, they say, while they keep on walking. The meaning of the word friend so far diluted that they are no longer even an acquaintances.

They almost wanted him, but not quite. That’s how it always went. He hadn’t even got his hopes up. He’d long since accepted his fate as runner-up. It filled him with a kind of peace, knowing that the best had to struggle to beat him, even if they always did. It wasn’t so bad being a second.

Sanity had run off together. It had left them somewhere on the second day. That’s why he too had tried to run away. It was cheaper that way. If they ran off together, they thought, then everybody will know. It would be a story to tell the children, even as they gibbered on about the shadows and the shapes that chased them through the night.

Giggling paranoia consumed their world.

Death in the family. It was difficult at dinner parties. He didn’t say very much. He just sat there, chewing his food, a bucket at his feet to catch the things that fell through. There the dog could eat it. That way it wouldn’t steal a part of him. He’d lost more than enough already. Somebody had given him a party hat.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go back. Normality frightened him. The ordinary drove him insane. ‘Mundanity’ he called it, that affliction of man that made them accept ignorance and mediocrity. It was an insidious disease, closely linked to fear of failure and it was spreading, growing stronger by the year; slowly snuffing out dreams and feeding on ambition.

Just be normal, that’s already strange enough.

The hooks of commitment and responsibility were firmly lodged in his soul, pulling him this way and that. A network of cords and bands that kept him firmly lodged in the fabric of society. It made him feel safe, these chains of expectation and obligation.

I wonder if all marionettes think they are free.

The Plan

I’m not going back. Not yet. I’ve decided to extend my stay in India by another two months. That way I’ll be coming back right at the beginning of spring; which is a hell of a lot better than the middle of winter. This despite the fact that I didn’t actually get the job with the agency. Still, the agency says that it really shouldn’t be a problem for me to get a bit of work while I’m here. That should make the finances at least a little easier. Still, even if I don’t get any work I should still be able to survive, though it won’t exactly be comfortable. Well, rather poor in paradise, than poor in Germany.

Mentally I’m pretty much on top again, though in the real world not that many good things have happened to me. I didn’t get the job, my grandmother passes away (though I wasn’t that close to her), and a whole bunch of women related nonsense that I’m not going to bore you with up here (even though that might be one of those things that some of you would find interesting).

Still, things are on the mend and once I’ve got my positive, go-get-em attitude back I’ll be well set to tear up Palolem. The question of how I will tear it up hasn’t quite settled in my mind, but I think it’s best to just see what happens. I definitely want to work a whole lot more (working on a group of short stories now) and get back to reading. Basically haven’t read a book in a month, which is really odd for me (and might actually be partially responsible for why I’ve been feeling a bit down; reading is important for me).

Palolem is still as idylic as ever and just watching the sun set into the sea every day is great way to gain perspective. The sea has always had an amazing calming effect on me. It’s hard to worry about the small stuff when you’ve got this huge, almost unending expanse of water in front of you. In fact, the sea is one of the few things that I can stare at for hours without getting bored (I unfortunately get restless easy, which is probably part of the reason I can’t stop moving around).

It’s going to be a good few months. I just hope that it will be reflected in the work I produce.

Improvement

Things are starting to improve, at least on the inside. I’ve had two good nights sleep, relative calm and some pretty good people around me. My head’s starting to calm down and I’m once again starting to enjoy myself. A shame I’ve only got four days left before I once again have to go to chilly Bangalore. Of course, I’ll only be there for four days, so it shouldn’t really be that bad.

After that I’m still not sure what’s going to happen. I hope to find out by the end of today. I’m very undecided about whether I should head back straight away or spend another month out here. I’ve mentioned that a bunch of times already, I know, but it’s one of the biggest concerns in my life right now, so obviously I’m going to want to talk about it (yes, it might not be interesting, but then obviously some of you disagree with me about what is interesting, anyway.)

The good thing is that it isn’t really my decision which path I take. That is now firmly in the hands of an advertising agency in Bombay; a group of people that I’ve never met, in a city that I’ve never been to and with intentions that I can’t even fathom. Brilliant, in a way. Sometimes it’s nice to let your fate be decided by complete strangers. At least they don’t have any preconceived notions about you, or any desires to screw you over or ‘help’ you.

I often find a compliment from a complete stranger far more rewarding than a compliment from somebody I already know. The complete stranger has nothing to gain by giving that compliment, while your friends almost always have underlying motivations that have nothing to do with that actual trait being complimented.

Wow, I’m making odd observations again, things must be improving.

Another day in Paradise

And then I once again had friends, acquaintances and a reputation. Just a few days on this beautiful beach and I’ve already become involved in the lives of people in ways that are both unexpected, interesting and (in some cases) worrying.

I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking in the last few days. That is, of course, what you (or at least I) do when you’re in one of your less positive phases. You think about what things you should change in your life to make yourself once again more positive. I’ve succeeded to some extent, though admittedly I’m still not in the happiest state I’ve ever been, which is kind of funny because this is possibly one of the physically most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

Light and fun on the outside, but still a hint of shadow and melancholy on the inside.

Basically it’s still up in the air as to whether I’ll be off on the 22^nd, or if I’ll be able to stay an extra month. I think that might be all that I do, though if more work opportunities present themselves I might go for two more months. It would be brilliant to arrive back in Europe in the spring rather than in the winter. After all, one of the big reasons I fled Holland to begin with was the horrible winters. If I go back now, I’ll basically be arriving back in Europe seven years after I left (I think I left somewhere at the end of jan).

I’ve accepted that I’m going back to Europe now, however. I think it is time to actually really sit down and get my masters. That is one thing I agree on with all the people that are critical of the way I’ve decided to live my life.

Of course, I’m no longer sure my masters will actually help. It has been a very long time since anybody I’ve worked with has asked me about my degree. They normally work with me because of who I am, not because of the piece of paper I hold; that, I have to say, is a beautiful thing. I’ve met far too many people that have been screwed over because they didn’t manage to get that piece of paper, and that while they were absolute gems with ideas that the world will now have to lose, because it doesn’t give enough credit to people without degrees.

But I digress.

My life

Two days ago I decided to get up and go from Anjuna. I realised that I really just didn’t want to be there anymore. It just wasn’t any good without my mates. So I packed my bags and pushed off. It was one of those impulsive decisions. Those always seem to work the best for me. I’m now a couple of hundred kilometers further down south and I’ve found the most idyllic beach I’ve ever seen.

The place is called Palolem and though I might well help destroy it by talking about it here, it is a place that all of you have to see. It is truly stunning, with a curving beach that ends on one side with a rocky outcropping and on the other side with a place called ‘monkey island’, though half of the day it isn’t really an island, but more of a peninsula.

I was walking along the beach a couple of times, scouting out my new home for the next days when I got tackled by an English bloke who wanted to know if I had ever considered modeling. It seems they are looking for a model to take part in a TV advert and I might just fit the bill. That would make things a great deal easier for me, with a bit of extra cash and the possibility of earning even more. Will it happen? We will have to wait and see. I’ve now learned not to get my hopes up. Half the time they’re dashed anyway.

Yesterday a good mate of mine commented on my blog, saying that ‘it is time to settle down’ or something to that effect. He seems to be of the opinion that I’m wasting my life with parties, drugs and loose women.

He doesn’t seem to understand that a) I don’t actually do that many drugs, parties or women. It’s just that when I do them I talk about them here (more interesting than talking about going to the grocery store) and b) that you can still live a perfectly happy and profitable life on the move. Moving is in my blood. That will probably never change. It isn’t a sign of immaturity; it’s a sign of a different way of life.

I could never imagine a ‘normal’ life; wife, kids, car (probably a Mitsubishi), mortgage, house in suburbia, one and a half children. Christ, that would drive me absolutely up the wall.

There’s a great little analogy I picked up along the way. ‘Imagine you’re in an apple orchard. Every day you wake up and go to the same place to pick apples. What will happen? Soon the apples will run out and you only get tough little ones that haven’t ripened yet. If, instead, however you decide to go to different places in that orchard then you’ll always find new apples and your basket will always be full.’ I’m making sure I see as much of this apple orchard as is humanly possible and I can tell you I’ve picked some mighty fine apples.

The world is moving; the world is changing. Trying to live your life the way your parents did is like trying to ride a horse down the highway. You’ll get where you’re trying to go, but that guy that just passed you in his Ferrari will certainly get there faster.

I am alone again

My friends have pushed off, back to Singapore. Both of them I will probably not see for a while, chances are that one I might not see for years. Last night I went home alone, I slept in the room alone and I got up alone. A few weeks ago that didn’t bother me one bit, but last night it was really hard. At the moment in time where I needed some company, unfortunately the company I’m in had to depart.

The problem is, that if I didn’t care about being alone no doubt I wouldn’t be alone for very long at all. I’d end up speaking to people within no time and hanging out with them. The thing is, when I do care about being alone and I actually want to be in company people to hang out with are a lot harder to find.

It’s completely the fault of my mood, of course. When I’m up and happy, people want to be around me. When I’m down and out, people have better things to do. And even that isn’t fair. Yesterday I went to the night market here in town and spoke to at least a dozen people.

There was the Japanese couple who I talked into sharing a rickshaw into town with me, so that we all had to pay less. There was the three Australian hippies who were discussing how much Goa had changed and who’s conversation I joined in on. There was the people from Bangalore I knew who walked up to me to say hi. And there was the group of Israelis I had met on the beach who I hung out with for a few hours.

The truth is probably that I’m not seeking their kind of company. The conversations seemed stilted and not completely natural. I wasn’t in my normal talkative form, where the words flow naturally. I didn’t feel that either they or I were making a significant contribution to the other’s evening.

It’s funny. When these two mates left last time from Sri-Lanka, I also crashed out. For two weeks I locked myself in my room and just read. That was at the beginning of the trip. Interesting, that now near the end the same thing seems to be happening. Maybe this is a good time to just sit on the beach, read and work on my writings.

But somehow that doesn’t feel right. These might well be the last two weeks of my last world trip. After this it might well never be possible for me to do this again. I certainly don’t hope that’s the case, as these trips have always made such a massive difference to the way I operate and the way I interact with the world around me, but I must accept that that might be the case.

Do I really, in that case, want to spend my last bit of time in voluntary isolation? Do I really want to lock myself away again and remember the end of my trip alone? Or would I rather do something with my time that I’ll remember more fondly?

It is, of course, a semi-rhetorical question. I shouldn’t waste these last few days. I should fight my way out of this pit and make these last days matter; now to find a way out of this pit.

Maybe that Russian folk-tale I was told might help. ‘A hedgehog is walking through the forest, when he falls into a pit. He sits at the bottom and looks at the sky. One day passes, then another. Finally the hedgehog says ‘what am I doing at the bottom of this pit?’ He then climbs out, to continue his walk.’

Choice

My future is so wonderfully undecided that it would drive a normal man crazy. Fortunately, I’m already mad as a hatter and insanity is second nature to me, so no real worries.

It looks like Dubai is falling through for me. The plan that I had of heading down there and making back some money so that I could continue my travels seems to have been a bad one. That leaves me in the position of having to re-evaluate what the hell I’m going to do now.

The problem is, I don’t really have a clue. While I was making the short film I didn’t get any money paying work done (completely my own fault, I might add, I should have looked harder) and now the finances are stretched a bit thin. The next stage of my trip needs to be either making me a great deal of cash or needs to take me home.

Home is in Europe. At least, that’s the feeling I’ve now got. Home is in Amsterdam, preparing for my university. Home is a place where I can study and learn. Home is a place that will make me enough money to let me leave again in a few years time without any need to ever come back, unless I want to. Home might well be a place that I now have to go to so that I’ll have the choice never to come back again after that.

Do I want to go back to Europe? I used to violently against the idea, but slowly it is starting to grow on me a bit. It might be nice to see the place and get a feeling for the European mentality now that I’ve been as asianised as I’ve been. See what does work and what doesn’t, get to understand what has become distorted and warped by distance and what I still remember correctly. Come to grips with the place that a great deal of my ideology was originally shaped in.

Fortress Europe.

That strange place that so many people are so desperate to become a part of, while I’ve been so desperate to stay away from it. That place that first colonised and conquered the rest of the world and now believes that the it is being colonised and conquered in return.

Am I ready to go to Europe?

I think the real question is, do I have a choice?

Crash and Learn

The last few days we’ve crashed hard. I guess that’s the consequence of partying non-stop, without sleep for two weeks. We just got hour from a 15 hour sleep. We were only supposed to sleep for one or two, get up, have dinner, possibly a few drinks and only then start our night rest; but it seems our bodies thought different.

I do feel better now. I’m almost back to normal. Still, I’ll be sure not to do anything like this again. It just isn’t really worth it, if you ask me. Admittedly, it does look like we picked up a bug at the end. Two of us had bad stomachs, while one of us couldn’t even really eat. For me, turning my head to fast made me light headed, which is really annoying when somebody calls out your name behind you and you turn to meet them. I think I’ve had that feeling before, somewhere, but I can’t remember when.

When my mates have buggered off (which will be tomorrow) I’m going to commence a period of isolation. I haven’t really had a great deal of time, lately, to be on my own and consider the lessons learned.

I’ll have till the 18^th of January to do exactly that. I was thinking of hitting the gym every day, eating healthy, wholesome food and spending time only with those people that I actually want to spend time with. What ever time remains I’ll spend on the beach either writing or reading (more of the former right now, it seems, because I have no good books and I haven’t seen any book stores that might help alleviate that problem).

There is a bit of a sense of guilt that I’m feeling over the last few days. One of my mates from Singapore just rocked up and said exactly that. I told him that it wasn’t his fault, but logic rarely actually changes how you feel. I know that, because I feel the same way. There is a sense that time was wasted that could have been so much better spent. Where were the new ideas, the new amazing friends and the new dreams that were supposed to arise out of these last days?

I guess I’m actually getting older; not old, mind you, but older - more responsible. The time to fuck around seems to be passing and I feel there is much more of an urge to actually really get a move on.

Of course, apparently I didn’t feel that way two weeks ago when I first hit Goa, otherwise I wouldn’t have done the things I did. We’ll see if I remain this ‘wise’ when the next get together comes along, but for now I’d like to think that I’ve finally taken to heart the lesson ‘everything in moderation’.

2008

I’m going to start 2008 with an apology. If been taught by many argumentation teachers and other figures who try to teach you how to be persuasive and convincing that this is exactly what you shouldn’t do, as it makes your case weaker, but sometimes you should throw the experts out of the window, along with their ideas.

I’d like to apologise for my long silence. A week has now gone by and I haven’t told a thing, that while my life was wildly exciting. I’ll try to do it some justice in this first post of 2008, but I don’t know if I can.

I’ll start with the dead body.

Some poor bloke didn’t make it past 2007. We know because we nearly stumbled over his dead body on the beach. We had been warned that there was a dead body somewhere on the beach, but with us all being used to western ways and western practices we hadn’t expected quite what we found.

In the west they would have covered the body cordoned off the area, closed the nearby restaurants, had police all over the beach and checked from commutable diseases; but of course we aren’t in the west, we’re in India which means that all that had been done was to put a young excitable bloke with a flashlight, to watch over the body. The problem was that he was far more interested in freaking people out than actually protecting their fragile sensibilities, so he’d let you almost stumble onto the body, then come out the darkness and made sure you got a really good look at the ghastly sight by shining his flash light all over it.

Some of our company didn’t take too well to that.

Then there was the lap dog.

We were sitting in a little restaurant, as you tend to do a great deal of the time while you’re on the beach, when we heard a huge commotion. We ran over to the side of the restaurant and found two dogs that had apparently taken a disliking to each other. The problem was their size. One was a little fluffy critter that I always refer to as ‘please kick me’ dogs, while the other was one of those dogs who could easily chew through a grown man’s arm, even while it was still attached to a struggling man’s body.

The big one had the little one’s head in it’s mouth and was being pounded over the head with a stick by the little one’s owner. It was the look of absolute and complete surprise on the little mongrel’s face that really turned the situation from ghastly into wildly hilarious.

We were actually disappointed to find the little mongrel scampering over the beach the next day, none the worse for wear. Not that we’re sadistic and cruel, but it just seems a bit of an anti-climax after such a wild scene.

The Russian mob boss was also interesting.

We met them at club. It was a very beautiful Russian girl, who was attached to a group of Russian men. One was paralysed from the neck down. We never asked why, but we assume it was violence. The girl was his wife and the other Russian men his body guards. We originally thought that she was completely off her trolley (aka high, for those not into drug speak) as her eyes were huge and she was hugging herself.

We soon found out that she was completely terrified. Her eyes were that big because she wasn’t off her head, but because she was like a doe in the headlights; realising the destiny was coming but too paralysed by fear to do anything about it. We talked to them for a while and discovered that the girl didn’t even know the body guard’s names, only their nick names. That way she obviously wouldn’t be able to harm them even if she was caught by the police.

That bothered some of our group as well, but what were we to do? C’est La Vie. That does sound terribly blasé, I admit. I guess I have become pretty insulated over the years. Sometimes that seems like the only way to survive in a semi-happy state.

Don’t hate me because I’ve learned not to care. Happy 2008.