No.275 Of Getting the Message

I had a call from HSBC Mastercard yesterday. It was one of these part human part machine calls where a human starts off by saying he has an automated message for you. The machine message then asks you to call them urgently. It's a really infuriating way to communicate with customers. I promised myself I would complain. I hit call back and got an automated message saying there was nothing to be concerned about and that there was no need for me to call again. I tried another number and eventually got through to someone who told me that they thought my credit card details had been stolen and that he'd need to ask me about recent transactions. He gave me the last 6 and I could understand little of what he was saying and not because the line was bad either. I suggested we just leave it. He suggested we didn't and cancel the card. I agreed and quickly finished the call in case he had another automated message for me with which to close the call.

No. 274 Of Tony Robbins and Dame Edna

I drove to work this morning in my Z4 sucking my thumb. You see I had cut my thumb and it was bleeding badly. There was blood all over my keys, on my shirt and hands. The strangest thing is that I've no idea how it happened. It just did.

My cousin used to suck her thumb a lot. We'd be travelling in the car for a family day out and Uncle Bryan would suddenly shout out at the top of his lungs "Thumbs"! and we'd all jump out our seats startled - all except except cousin Jen who carried on with her thumb in her mouth. She had an iron discipline and will our cousin Jen.

I'm currently reading Anthony Robbin's "Unlimited Power". He talks about ways to re-model behaviour and gives an example of how to stop biting your nails. In fact he addresses just about everything in the book and with authority too although he does make many brave assumptions.

Dame Edna also gave advice on how to stop biting your nails to the MP David Steele if I remember correctly. She said "David if you're biting your nails. It so easy to stop sweetie. All you have to do is dip your finders in your jobbies in the morning and you wont put them near your mouth all day darling". Top advice Dame Edna...

No.273 Of Epic Journeys & Epic Memories

Its' "Oh yes it is. Oh no it isn't time again". According to the radio this morning a fruit and veg heavy diet does not actually reduce your risk of cancer. But they didn't say what does. Chocolate?

The radio programme also asked can you remember where you were exactly 20 years ago? As it turns out I can because twenty years ago exactly today I was at a human rights conference in Caracas, Venezuela. It was there that I met a fellow aspiring do-gooder of a student lawyer called Oswaldo who was a local and like me then out to change the world. At the end of the conference after just a few days knowing him I asked Oswaldo what plans he had for the following week. When he replied "Nada" in my broken Spanish I suggested that we go travelling. "Loco hombre" was his reply. But the next day we were on a plane to Quito in Ecuador with a plan to take a series of buses through Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela right back to his front door.

What followed was what turned out to be an epic journey over many days on many campesino buses shared with locals in their ponchos carrying their poultry to market. Buses that wound their way round narrow mountain passes sometimes slowly sometimes, when in bandit country, at breakneck speed.

I don't remember getting much sleep during these days. It was very hot and every B&B we stopped at seemed to be within vicinity of the local town square which always seemed to have a game of bingo going on. It was like we were following the "Bingo route" of Latin America. Every night we would lie awake listening to a distant voice shout "Doce, vingt-uno, ocho". It drove us loco.

The journey was an amazing cocktail of experiences. We laughed, we fought, we talked, we played, we drank with the locals and we watched carefully as we toured three amazingly beautiful countries.

An epic journey indeed. But where are you now Oswaldo? And did you manage to change the world for the better? I hope so.

No.272 Of Romania, Reality & Redemption

On Sunday I visited an old friend Father Des in Liverpool. I had first met Father Des when working in a children's project in Romania for two weeks. During this time we became very close and to a point depended on one another to get through what proved to be a very challenging fortnight for many reasons. At the time there wasn't much good food about which bothered us both being rather keen on our tucker. Our accommodation was basic too. Our mattresses had bugs and the showers were so cold it took a good hour for your head to recover from the pain afterwards. We were also having to work with 12 other strangers which brought pressures of its own. You might say we were thrown into some sort of early reality TV show but without the cameras and a vote as to whom should be thrown out at the end of the first week.

I arrived at the Bishop Eton Redemptionist church unannounced and the poor fellow looked quite shocked to see me but warmly welcomed my nephew and I in for tea and biscuits and a good reminisce about times gone by together among many excitable kids.

Father Des used to do the services in Romania and they were beautifully done even in the eyes of someone who had seen far too many of them at school for his liking. He struck me at our first meeting as a deeply humane man and still does. There should be far more people like him in the world. It would make this "reality" thing far more easy to endure....

No.271 Of Friends Family & Celebs

This weekend was all about family and friends oh, and as it turns out, a few celebs too.

I stayed at my cousin Jens in Chester or thereabouts. Chester is a lovely city and somewhere that evokes many happy memories for me from my days as as boy when I would visit Gran who lived there and walk the Roman walls, jog alongside the River Dee or go shopping at Woolworth for the next round of school equipment for my pencil case.

On Saturday I attended my cousin Richard's 40th birthday in Altringham. It was also his wife's birthday and their 17th wedding anniversary. The party took place above another in a nightclub attended by it seemed a number of celebrities including Janice Battersby from Coronation St and Onslow from Keeping Up Appearances. Nephew David was star struck and kept disappearing to the mutual Gents to see who else he'd bump into there.

Also there was third cousin William and his wife Michelle. Little Willy as he was once known is a big bloke of whom it would be wise not to tangle. A motley bunch when you think about it rather like those in the party downstairs I suppose...

No.270 Of Whispering Secrets

Until last weekend I had never been inside St Paul's Cathedral. This is despite having lived close to it for several years and worked in offices even closer still. For some reason I always felt it was overrated and any visit would inevitably end in disappointment.

Last Saturday I marvelled at the beauty of its interior doom. It provides an explosion of colour to the eye that is quite intoxicating. Ascend the stairs to what is called The Whispering Gallery and you can see the doom's art work close up and get lost in all its glorious detail. Of course, its called the Whispering Gallery because if you whisper to its wall anyone else can hear your message as it scurries along at break neck speed to whoever is trying to do the same farther around.

Climb even higher and you're outside on the upper balcony with fabulous views over London. There's a Guide there trying to hurry everyone along and down. But you soon develop selective hearing for this is a place you want to stay for a long, long time. Below is a huge patchwork of something that resembles a mix of Lego, concrete, iron & steel and glass, punctuated by nature's shout with the green of parks, the blue of the Thames all overlooked by the moodiest of clouds and a darkening sky.

St Paul's is not only famous for its doom but its crypt too where two of the greatest English leaders lie. The tombs of Nelson and Wellington lie end on like they're keeping each other company. May be at night their spirits meet and they do their own whispering to each other about great battles and the fortuitous moments that history lost or never knew about.

St Paul's - a place that when you finally arrive you labour to leave....

No.269 Of The Railway Children & What it Means to Some

Easter. It's a funny time of year when some people are off and just as many are not. For me it means two days without phone calls and interruption and a whole load of work done.

I was buoyed by some wonderful news today. The film "The Railway Children" is to be re-released in improved technicolour. The Railway Children is one of the most quintessentially English of films set in Yorkshire about a fractured family which is finally re-united after the father released having been wrongly imprisoned. It features blistering performances from many actors and actresses, who young then, went on to enjoy great careers..

Several years ago I went to visit the railway station where they shot, among other scenes, the bit where the oldest daughter sees her Daddy returning home. He is gently revealed as the train's steam on the platform dissipates and she runs along the platform into his arms producing one of the most moving moments in British Cinematic history. When I visited said railway station it was full of Japanese tourists running along the platform falling into the arms of anyone who was crazy enough to volunteer to stand in a certain spot. Ho Hum progress hey?