Comedy Club

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We stayed for a couple of days with a medical student in Providence, Rhode Island where the main bit of excitement (even more exciting than hearing me singing the Eagles song The Last Resort loudly and incompletely as I couldn’t remember any more of it than – “She came from Providence, the one in Rhode Island, where the something, something, something, something in the air” and something about packing “her hopes and dreams like a refugee something, something father something across the sea”) – yes, even more exciting than me repeating that over and over again was that we went to a Comedy Club.

It was staging a qualifying round of a national competition to find a new comic talent. The two winners from that night’s heat would win a trip to Vegas to compete in the next stage. There were 9 comedians lined up. We got there early. We were hungry and they did sort of bar food there so we went in to eat. They put us at a table for two slap bang in front of the stage.

Basically, the front row – – was us. Ordinarily, I would have moved because it didn’t take a genius to figure that it was extremely likely that we would become involved in some of the stand up and we were a little worried it might not go well and would be awkward for them knowing there were two vicars sitting smack in front. But the thing that kept us there was that this trip was about new experiences and well, what was the worst that could happen?

What was the worst that could happen in a grungy flea-pit comedy club in a beat-up part of a rundown town where there were only two items on the menu; a menu which was a testament to the art of de-cluttering and keeping things simple. There were only two words on it. One was “Ribs”. No indication where the ribs had once lodged. Just, Ribs. And the other was “Burger”. “Do you want ribs or burger?” asked the barman when I enquired about food. I was just about to ask what the low fat gluten free super-food vegetarian option was tonight when I realised I would never say that.

We had burger.

The compere got up to get things rolling. He was large, round and very, very bitter. Like a 6 foot aspirin.

He clearly resented being there. He’d been in the business for 20 years he said (several times) and yet there he was, nowhere else. He couldn’t think why he hadn’t made it. We could have given him some ideas but he was too bitter and angry to risk telling. I think he had decided long ago to take his anger out on his audience.

Maybe 20 years experience had taught him that people weren’t going to laugh if he tried to tell jokes, that they weren’t going to laugh if he engaged them in wry observational humour or situational comedy and, basically, with him they just weren’t going to even snigger. I think he assumed we would only laugh if we were afraid he would hurt us if we didn’t.

Shall we engage the audience? Nah, let’s not look for engagement, let’s go for an acrimonious divorce.

And two middle aged vicars were sitting immediately in front of him. We were close enough to actually hear his mind unhinging. We nibbled nervously on our burgers and hoped that if we had our mouths full he wouldn’t ask us to speak.

To kick things off he spent a few minutes picking on the drunken stag party lurking around several tables near the back, asking them questions, ignoring the answers and begging to be heckled. He then moved on to make fun of the guy at the bar who couldn’t help coming from Wisconsin. Warming up, his eyes then ranged around the room: he looked straight at me: leaned back slightly and, as I stuffed an entire burger bun in my mouth we were saved. Saved, it must be said, by an unlikely source.

A gay suicide bomber.

He spotted a suicide bomber sitting at one of the tables in the third row. A suicide bomber sitting on his own. A suicide bomber, therefore, with no support. Nor, it must be said, with any form of explosive device. We only know that he was a suicide bomber because the compere told us he had to be because he was Arabic. Repeatedly told us. And then we learned that he must be gay because he was sitting on his own and so obviously had no girlfriend. The compere’s brain didn’t necessarily follow logical pathways. Having someone whom he could call a gay suicide bomber in the club seemed to be the answer to all the compere’s wildest dreams and so he spent a few minutes of what he probably considered “jolly banter” but what sounded more like the recipe of a hate crime until he eventually tired of that and, as contentedly as a cat that’s just left an unpleasant present in your slipper, introduced the first comedian.

In one respect he was a great warm-up for the contestants. After that opening it was easy for them to look better.

But gee willikers it was stereotype central. The old Jewish guy only did jokes about being an old Jewish guy, the gay guy solely did jokes about being a gay guy, the menopausal woman exclusively did jokes about being a menopausal woman, the massively overweight guy limited himself to singularly doing jokes about being massively overweight. And so on. And on. Each of the 9 hopefuls were drawn with a broad brush deeply dipped in a big pot of cliché.

The language was often stronger than the jokes, but hats off to them, 9 very brave individuals; and it was brilliant fun. A small sweaty club full of vocal locals. Some material to laugh at, some to groan at and you could even download an app to vote for your favourites as it went along.

And then, once they’d all had their 5 minutes of fame the compere got back up to change the tone. With the judges off compiling the votes and deciding on the two winners Missed-a-Personality returned to fill in.

By now the stag party were pretty far gone and he wasn’t getting any coherent response from them. The suicide bomber, fair play to him, had stayed and this defiance brought with it less “comic” potential. The Wisconsin lad had moved from being sat at the bar to being slumped over it, which meant new blood was needed.

The compere breathed in and smelt the sweetest aroma a bully’s nostrils can snort on. The smell of fear. He looked down with veloceraptor eye.

“Soooooo, where are you guys from?”

We no longer had burger to protect us.

“England.”

At least, I’m pretty sure that I said England but from his response what I think I must actually have said was “I bet you can’t scream at me for 5 minutes.”

Impressively he didn’t seem to draw breath during the whole tirade. When he did pause, having finished off with a rapid and increasingly rabid version of “I’m Henery the Eighth I am” he leaned close and said “And what do you English *&^$$$! ++$$^&* do in England?”

“Urrr, well, we’re both priests, actually.”

“Ohhhhh ****!”

The audience seemed to think this was the funniest thing that had happened in their entire lives.

And you never know, maybe this would be the cue for him to enter into some clever witty banter with us.

Or maybe we’d just thrown a meaty bone to a doberman. He launched. Verbally. Though most of the verbs were variations of fairly intimate activities. He had a very loud voice. He also had a microphone. This was only going to be very one way traffic. I got the impression that even the stag party were feeling a little uncomfortable with it all and the suicide bomber had stopped entering codes into his phone. Eventually one of the judges came onto the stage to stop him and produced an envelope within which was the name of the two winners. The neurotic new dad who had told jokes about being a neurotic new dad and the massively overweight guy had made it through. We all clapped.

People started leaving. The menopausal comedienne came up to us and said hi and thanked us for coming. Then the compere came up and wanted to know why on earth we had come to something we knew would be offensive and where we clearly would never be welcome.

We told him perfectly truthfully that we hadn’t been offended by any of the 9 comedians. Admittedly, we probably wouldn’t be able to use much of what they’d said in a typical Sunday sermon but this was a comedy club and we wanted to experience it and so why should a priest not be there? You choose whether or not to take offence at something and there was nothing in what they had said that would cause us to do so.

The only thing we did find offensive about the evening was him – and that was only because his brand of humour was bullying and vicious. The others were just trying to get people to laugh: I think he was just trying to get people.

He said that the audience expected that sort of humour from him.

He’s been doing it for 20 years so I guess they do expect it.

But it doesn’t mean they can’t hope for something more.

Exciting new development…..

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Welcome to the all-changed blog.

It’s now more of a building site: a work in progress whose ultimate aim is to become a book. (You are warmly encouraged to be a part of the process by commenting on what might and might not work and also what might be added.)

If you visited the site last year you’ll have seen blog posts from our travels round the world – an amazing and life changing adventure. After too long a break I am adding new posts to complete the picture and also expanding things by looking at the whole area of the changes and the challenges surrounding midlife.

A survey released last week (Feb 2016) by the Office of National Statistics based on a survey of more than 300,000 adults across the UK showed that those aged 45 – 59 reported the lowest levels of happiness and the highest levels of anxiety.

The same thing was shown in a joint report from UK and US academics of over half a million people from 72 countries which show people are happiest in their 20s and 30s and then again from their 60s onwards and there is a universal dip between 40 and 60.

The book this blog will become is my attempt to fight it.

When I speak to anyone over the age of 30 about the subject of midlife everybody has an opinion; an interest in it along with their own concerns over what life and particularly worklife holds for them.
Worries about life passing them by, comparisons with others, feeling stuck in a treadmill: being owned by their job…

We took a pretty big step in selling up, making ourselves jobless and homeless and taking a deliberate year out exploring the world and ourselves. I think there’s a story to be told.

And there are lots of possible questions to be asked – such as:
how easy it is for any of us to keep doing what we’re doing and whether we do it just because that’s what we’re used to: how we’re different people at 50 than we were at 40, 30, 20… How do we use what we know of ourselves to inform what we should be doing and how we should be most happily living for the next half of life. How do we avoid regretting chunks of it. Do we have the need, the opportunity, the desire to alter direction. What are the costs, what are the benefits…

So – the first few pull-down tabs you’ll see along the top of the screen will contain all the old blog posts as well as the new ones along with thoughts and ideas that will join them in the planned book. Then there are some extra odds and ends up there as well, poems and other stuff that are nothing to do with the book but which may be of interest to someone.

Please feel warmly invited to comment – and to add your own experiences. Please also share the blog with others you think might enjoy it.

(No need to keep scrolling down – the blog posts below have been added to the pull down tabs up there….)

Drive in Movie

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We spent a few days on Cape Cod, staying in an Air B&B run by an interesting guy who looked a little too much like a serial killer for my liking. Still, we needed a room at short notice and he had one (serial killers will always make room for one more.)

Please note I am not saying that he was a serial killer. I’m sure he probably wasn’t. Not even a bit. At least, I have no reason to suspect that he was: I’m just saying he did have that sort of look about him. The sort of look that means you do NOT turn your back on him and that Ella and I always tried to make sure we were either side of him so that if he went for one the other could escape.

Apart from his day job in the healing profession (obviously wants to give something back) in his spare time he played in an incredibly unlikely looking band and invited us along to watch them on our first evening. The venue was a small bar on the beach and we spent the night eating excellent local chowder and talking for the locals. I say for, rather than to cos they lurrrved our accents and kept getting us to say stuff.

We returned to our room late leaving our host playing mellow jazz and I wondered about sleeping in the chair and putting pillows in the bed so it looked like we were there which might buy us a valuable few seconds of confusion if he rushed in and we needed to escape.

We made it through the night un-killed and next day, as we drove up to the top of the peninsular we passed a sign for a drive in movie theatre. The place looked exactly like it should look. A huge field with an old style diner stuck in the middle of it and rows of original 1950s poles and speakers as far as the eye could see. A wellying great big screen gave a pretty good indication of where you should be pointed towards – – and it was $7 for a double bill! That would be our evening sorted.

How could we not.

It started after dark with Jurassic World, followed by San Andreas. You can’t get much more All-American than those. We arrived about an hour before kick-off and pulled up in a bay about 3 rows from the front. The field was already filling up and, although this was a Monday evening we ended with several hundred cars and pickups by the time the films started. People were having barbecues behind their cars, picnics all over the place – many vehicles were pointing away from the screen with tailgates open and people lying in the back. It looked, felt, smelt, sounded just exactly as you’d hope it would and if Sandy Olsson and Danny Zuko had skipped round the corner belting out “You’re the one that I want” it wouldn’t have seemed out of place.

The national anthem exploded through the speakers and all around people instantly stood up. Quite a few of them banged their heads on car roofs but once they’d realised their error and got out of the cars all around were hands thrust across chests and lusty singing filling the night air. It was great – and let’s face it, they do have a far better anthem than us so why not.

I loved the fact that in between the two films when we all piled in to the fast-food booth to stock up on snacks I found that they only served two sorts of popcorn: plain or salted. They didn’t serve sweet, the lady told me, as it was less healthy for you. So far so laudable. What they do have however, at the end of the counter, was a massive container of syrup with a tap at the bottom where people were taking their plain popcorn and covering it with rivers of golden goo. That has my seal of approval. Unsweetened popcorn is a waste of space.

At the end of San Andreas, which is basically a film about an earthquake managing to destroy everything on the West Coast of America except Dwayne Johnson’s family they, and a few other survivors are wandering up a hill away from the devastation and one of them asks “What do we do now?” and Dwayne stoically replies “We rebuild!” and from the pick-up truck next to us the dramatic stillness is rent by a guy shouting “Yeah! Yeah! That’s why they call us Ameri-CANS”.

Cue car horns.

I love Americans. They’re just so…. American.

Awaiting nightfall.

Awaiting nightfall.

A very grand canyon

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Sometimes you just have to embrace the tack. Don’t fight it, you’ll only come across as a grump. Embrace the kitsch and allow the awfulness to wash over you like a warm, badly made, slightly smelly blanket.

And you never know, you might end up enjoying some of it.

We embraced the tack – we went for the full experience. There’s no point merely going to the Grand Canyon, seeing how big it is and then going home. No siree. Not when there are other ways….

So we went on the train to the Grand Canyon. Not just any old train – but THE Grand Canyon train which takes you from Williams, Arizona to the south rim of the canyon in a gloriously tacky way.

They wouldn’t call it tacky, mind you. Indeed I didn’t find the word tacky mentioned even once on their website. They call it things like “exciting” and “adventurous” and words like that. They’re obviously entitled to choose their own words – I’m happy to stick with mine. I’ll stick with tacky.
The day starts authentically in exactly the same way it would have done in the good ol’ bad ol’ Wild West with an early morning cowboy shoot out in a mock-up Wild West street next to the platform: the Cactus Creek Gang had a run in with the sherif and he filled them full of lead. There was audience participation, mockery of Wisconsin folk, a bit of slapstick – all good clean fun.


(Another one bites the dust)

 

Once boarded, we had “entertainers” come along the train to “entertain” us. A guitar playing chap on the way out who had a moustache and a mouth organ, and then a truly manically and almost certainly drug inducedly-enthusiastic accordion player on the return journey who led a repeated singalong. A repeated singalong is where they play and carry on playing each song until you singalong. The trick was to avoid eye-contact at all costs or she stole your soul.

And we had a real life train robbery. On the return journey those pesky Cactus Creek Gang members reacted surprisingly well to having been shot dead that morning by riding alongside the train and, following a wonderful announcement from the conductor that for health and safety reasons we would have to bring the train to a complete stop for the robbers to be able to board safely (no one, not even hardened desperate cowboy baddies are allowed to board a moving train nowadays), they then came along the carriages robbing people.

It was all good natured, though you didn’t get anything back that you gave them!

I think the key ingredient missing from our carriage was children. There were no children. I think we probably needed some.

I inadvertently became the guy diagonally across from us’s best buddy by pouring him a glass of lemon from the buffet as I had the jug in my hand and he had an empty glass in his. This was apparently the secret sign that meant we’re blood brothers. He was on the trip celebrating 30 years of marriage. His wife uttered only one line the whole journey (coming up later). At one point, Hilarious Hal turned to me and said: “Hey buddy, I’ve got a drink problem!” at which point he put the open end of the glass against his forehead and spilled half of it down himself. He thought this was probably the funniest thing that had ever taken place.

His wife looked out of the window.

I smiled, politely, but hopefully not too encouragingly.

The most telling line of the trip was when the train robbers came along the carriage and one of them stopped by Hilarious Hal and said to Hal’s wife: “is this man bothering you ma’m?” She replied wistfully: “I wish!”

Hal, however, had just the best time.

They released a buffet shortly after the trip started and you would have thought people had been injected with poison and then told the buffet was the only known antidote. I think the received wisdom was get the antidote first or it may run out. It was also fairly clear they thought the more antidote you could get the better you’d recover. It was like velociraptors had been thrown a burger.


(“This man bothering you, ma’m?”)

But, say what you will, the day was memorable. I can remember every second of it. I’m even remembering the bits where Hal was involved in slow motion no matter how much I try not to.

And it was fun.

And the Canyon, when we got there, was absolutely spectacular.

A boy of about 13 had the best response. He was there with his family and as he approached the edge he kept repeating “that is so amazing: it’s incredible: it’s just beautiful,” and similar. Over and over again. I thought at first he was sweet-talking his mum, showing he loved it in exchange for a guaranteed ice cream, but a little later when the rest of the family were off away I saw him again, this time on his own and he was taking photos, still saying quietly to himself: “this is so amazing, it’s just too beautiful….” Even though my normal response to things is more along the lines of “it was alright” or, on an exceptional day, “it was alright” but with an upward inflection on the “right”, on this occasion, I was with the kid.

It’s one place where photos fall so desperately short of capturing the true scale and scope of the scene. I could have happily sat for hours, just looking out over the extraordinary scale of just a fraction of the Canyon. I think they said it was 270 miles long and, at this point, 18 miles wide and a mile deep. Not everything in America is bigger and better, but in terms of canyons, I think they’ve got it sewn up.


(Photos don’t even get close to the scale. There are actually buildings down there you can just make out sitting just before the stretch of trees you can see in the valley foreground – – maybe they are actually matchstick houses but I think they’re probably bigger. I did suggest they should dump a double decker bus or similar onto one of the big stacks in the distance to give an idea of scale but the warden thought it might not be in keeping with their desire to keep things natural.)

I also had my first “birthday cake flavoured ice cream” from one of the shops there.

I’d been out in the sun for 2 hours and I think I was missing Hilarious Hal.

McDonald’s: no place for young men

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We popped into McDonald’s, mainly because they offer free wifi. We felt we should order something but couldn’t bring ourselves to get any food, so I ordered two coffees. It was proudly displayed on the board that coffee was one dollar for any size of cup. Sounded reasonable so, two coffees it was.

The 14 year old behind the counter looked at me, asked if I wanted cream or not to which I replied that milk would be fine – he said something to the effect of not having milk but cream was milk and then mumbled in juvenile-speak and asked me for one dollar twenty eight and lolloped off to fill something. I presumed he must have misheard my order and would return with a cup of something that wasn’t coffee as even with my dodgy maths I could figure that two lots of one dollar is a relatively straightforward calculation.
He returned with two cups that actually looked and smelt of coffee and placed my change and a receipt in front of me. On the receipt it said two snr coffees. We’re not a million miles from Mexico: there is a lot of Spanish speaking going on round about here and so I initially thought the snr meant señor, though why it mattered if you were male or female to order coffee escaped me. But the amount was clearly wrong.

Excuse me, I thought the coffees were a dollar each.

Yes sir, that is correct.

But you only charged me one dollar twenty eight.

That is correct sir.

That’s less than two dollars.

It is indeed sir. Would you like anything else?

No, just the two coffees really.

Very good sir. Have a good one.

Thank you. You too. But why are the coffees cheap today?

They’re not sir, they’re always a dollar.

I’m confused.

Did you want a larger cup? They are the same price.

No. I just wondered why you charged me less than 2 dollars.

Oh, I gave you a senior discount.

A what?

(Looks a little apprehensive and starts speaking as one might when faced,with a grizzly bear) A senior discount, sir.

When do you get those?

When you order, sir.

But how old do you have to be to get a senior discount? How old do you think I am?

Umm, over 50, sir. The manager doesn’t like us to ask so we just guess and if someone looks over 50 we give them a discount. (He looked awkward and stared over my shoulder to the next person in line hoping I would go quietly.)

I went quietly, hoping my joints didn’t creak too loudly and walked slowly off to join Ella at the booth, trying not to shuffle as I went. Happy to get cheap coffee of course, and pretty good coffee at that, but confused (it comes with old age I guess) that the 12 year old server had thought I was over 50.

Nobody thinks I look 50. I don’t look anything like 50. Admittedly I will be 50 in December but nobody thinks I look fifty.

OK, one person obviously does.

And where there’s one there are bound to be others. This sort of thing spreads like nasty disease.

50!

That’s what happens when you employ 10 year olds.

And what am I doing having coffee after 6 pm? I’ll never sleep.

So, that’s it. I officially look over 50 even though I’m not. I don’t want to return to McDonalds, ever – but they have free wifi and cheap (even cheaper, now) coffees and we’re sleeping in our car.

I’m an old, homeless, jobless person living in a car and existing on McDonald’s coffees, hmmm, I think it’s time we booked into a hotel. So I turned to Ella, (who looked to be suffering early signs of claustrophobia – the car roof is only 18 inches above us as we lie on the inflatable mattress) and say the words everyone woman is waiting to hear:

“Let’s go to Vegas, baby!”

Las Vegas

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We drove into the night, partially through the night and, having been pleasantly surprised at how much the petrol (or, gas, apparently although it’s obviously not gas) plummeted when you got into Arizona, had our first glimpse of Vegas from a full 45 miles away. It was still on the other side of some mountain range, but sat nav said 45 miles still to go and we could see a clear, strong glow in the sky from the city lights even at that distance.

We arrived after midnight and thought the most sensible thing to do would be to head for the main strip and see if it looked like it did in the films. Not knowing where it was we pooled our Vegas film knowledge and came up with a few likely candidates to put into Ms Sat Nav. Caesar’s Palace, Planet Hollywood and Bellagio’s were our finalised list. They must be on the main strip – they’re on the telly. Caesar’s palace was acceptable to Ms Sat Nav and she directed us downtown.

Our sunglasses, having been placed in the cup holders in the doors earlier in the day when the sun had gone, came out again to protect tired eyeballs from the fallout of the sun’s explosion which seemed to have been captured and then poured over every building as far as the eye could (so long as you had sunglasses on) see. It’s like a Dulux paint shop had been hit by a sunburst and the whole lot had landed in a Fluorescent tubing factory.

Which had then been struck by an atom bomb.

Our black Jeep Patriot was just about cool enough to hold its own among the glittercarti strutting up and down the street, though it looked like the tiny baby of some of the ridiculous Hummers that towered over us. (Those, the eye-wateringly ugly cube cars and Fiat Multiplas are on my list of top three awful looking vehicles that should be banned from the roads.)

Having been well and truly wowed by the fantastic over the topness of the Strip we found a room in one of a large chain of cheap uncheerful hotels (spell check wanted to change that to cheap ‘n’ cheerful but cheap uncheerful sums it better). It was a hotel whose aspirations had long ago been knocked out of it and whose joie de vivre had become, after many disappointments and let downs, a tired, world-weary sigh.

On the bright side it had a bed and the bed wasn’t in a car.

I asked the guy behind the desk if there was a gym in the hotel. He said it wasn’t hotel policy to give out names of guests. I smiled. He didn’t. Even though I had had a very long day he looked like his had been longer. I went to search for the stairs.

While the hotel was cheap uncheerful, breakfast was included, though it wasn’t to be found in the hotel. To achieve breakfast you had to go into a neighbouring casino, in one corner of which was a tiny add-on in which you could decant a bowl of the dust that’s left at the end of a box of normal cereal when you’ve taken out all the reasonable sized bits, a glass of either vaguely orange or in another container, not quite green, and as many waffles as you wanted.

Five was the answer before I had one.

Not even one was the answer when I’d bitten into the first.

Even at 8.30 in the morning the casino was about a fifth full. Rows and rows of slot machines, many of which had people who looked like they were surgically attached, on some sort of bizarre life support machine as many of them had credit sized cards on leads that were attached to their belts while the other end was inserted into the slot machine. This joined human and machine and it wasn’t clear which thought it was benefiting more from the arrangement. Was adrenaline being pumped into the people through the wire connection, or was hope being drained out? I’ve not understood what’s going on with slot machines since the 1980s, simpler times when you simply had to line up fruit and then occasionally you could nudge wheels up or down and would peer up into the machine to try to see what symbol was three away. Now? Not a clue. There was certainly an awful lot of “winning” music blaring around – but I didn’t see anyone who looked like they’d won.

Slightly less zombified were the people playing on the craps tables (long oval tables with lots of numbers on and someone throws two dice to the other end and everyone cheers or groans at the same time depending on what’s thrown). There were, maybe, two dozen small tables for a whole variety of black jack type card games.

Add to that a smattering of roulette wheels and you had the carbon copy of every casino on the strip. Lots of drinks waitresses rushing drinks to people at the tables to keep them topped up lest they sober up and leave.

How I wished there’d been a table at which you could just have a simple game of Snap. Or a table at which 8 fancily dressed gamblers were engaged in a nail biting game of Happy Families.
People didn’t look too happy, but it was early morning and most of them probably hadn’t had breakfast yet and no one looks happy before breakfast and so we left them and went to explore the town.

Every 15 minutes the long, fancy fountains outside Bellagio’s hotel fire into life and shoot dozens of water jets high into the air to music. Some of the shows were brilliant, and the big lake also gives a great natural meeting place for people and draws in street entertainers and people dressed up so you can have photos taken with them. I had mine taken with a minion who must have been 300 degrees inside the huge sponge suit.

On the flip side, the city exposed its greasy underbelly on each and every section of pavement along the strip. For every 100 metres you walked there would be at least one and up to four individuals or in some cases what looked like entire family groups handing out business cards promising to have girls delivered to your room. Lots of tee shirts declaring the same as well as A-Frame boards, advertising trucks and stands at the side of the pavement filled with leaflets.
People had brought young children to Vegas. Are they nuts? Are they selling them? Are they in any way shape or form responsible to look after children? You know the big buzzer on Family Fortunes that sounds when a contestant gets an answer wrong. (“Uh uh!!!) That was the sound that blasted in my head every time I saw families with children on the main Strip in Vegas.

Come to Vegas. Bring the kids. Uh uhhhh!

(If the French want their tower back, Vegas have got it)

We thought Caesar’s palace was going to be way over the top in its tackiness but I think the Trafford Centre out-tacks it. (Go Britain!) We drifted around and saw the sights, some of the free shows and played a fairly long game of “find the exit”. Planet Hollywood with its “Miracle Mile” of shops was great to window shop in and we saw an awesome Turkish ice cream seller who had a brilliant routine which involved elaborate methods of taking back the ice cream cone he’d just handed someone. One of the routines lasted about ten minutes until the hapless child finally got to gobble their cornet, followed by him dancing to hyped up dance music (the Turkish guy! not the child). He had a lot of photos taken of him but I bet his boss wondered why his ice cream sales were so low.

We went to a recommended restaurant in the evening which did big plates of steak and salad for about £4. Unsurprisingly it was a little busy and we were handed a buzzer thing which would buzz when a table was ready and we were asked to come promptly when it buzzed as they had lots of people waiting. Meanwhile we were to wait, unsurprisingly, in the accompanying casino.
Well, we managed to avoid putting a single cent into a slot machine or onto a roulette table the whole time we were in Vegas. But we didn’t stay entirely gamble free. While we were waiting for our buzzer to buzz we stood next to a craps table trying to figure what was going on. Lots of numbers, lots of people, four staff, one of whom kept pushing chips round with a long stick. Dice being thrown and people throwing chips round like they were confetti. The couple to our left decided we needed educating and tried to explain the game.

I am monumentally poor at describing games to people and always make things sound far more complicated than they are. These good people were from right out of my stable. In the end they said it would be good luck for everyone round the table if a dice virgin (I think he said dice virgin – he might have had a cold) threw the dice. Gamblers are superstitious sorts, he said, and someone who’s never thrown before always brings luck. Having less than no idea what she was aiming to do, Ella was handed the dice and told to throw them to the other end of the table. She duly obliged and was allowed another throw. Whatever she threw seemed to make people happy as they all shouted “hooray”, or American equivalents, and asked her to try the same again. They said throw a nine and lo and behold, Ella threw a nine. A couple of throws later they had changed their mind and seemed to want a 10. Duly dispatched. It was becoming the table to be at. Ella, the dice machine, churning out the numbers. It was a little like on the Bond films (and she had her sparkly dress on too). Bet, bet, bet, dice throw, roll, bated breath, stop. roar!! People were coming across to see what all the fuss was about. I expected a tap on the shoulder from security accusing us of dice counting, or something equally frowned upon.

Then, disaster. The buzzer went off and we said the words that not many hard core gamblers utter in casinos in Las Vegas:

“Terribly sorry, but we have go for dinner.”

You’d have thought we had just burned an American flag and said guns were bad. Apparently when you’re on a hot streak you don’t go for supper.

If that lot were superstitious before, they’ll only be extra so now because with the buzzer of doom vibrating merrily on the side of the craps table (couldn’t switch it off), Ella immediately threw a 7 (losing throw) and the bubble was burst. The couple who had drawn us in insisted we take the winnings they had bet for us as you can’t throw without being in the game so they had apparently staked us in and placed chips accordingly. We declined but they said that everyone around the table had won from Ella’s awesome throwing. They had both won handsomely themselves and even taking back their original stakes that they’d placed for Ella she had still cleared $110 from the small amounts they’d bet on her behalf. They had own much more themselves, so we said thank you very much and went to eat cheap steak. And ended up getting through three days in Vegas 110 dollars up on the house having bet nothing at all.
And yes, it was tempting to try again. But no, we didn’t. We still have a few weeks to go and the budget’s still just about on target.

As it is we’re sleeping in cars and in hotels that smell of sadness.

Vegas. Tick. Next stop, the Grand Canyon….

(They’re probably putting this photo out all round the casinos to warn them about the English broad who’s breaking the bank, little by little…..)

Christchurch

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The coach journey from Picton finished bang on time in Christchurch and we were picked up by Jill (cousin of a lady we were in the same church as 19 years ago) (on this trip that counts as a super close connection) with whom we’d be spending two nights before getting “The Beast” (our camper van for the three weeks on South Island).

Christchurch is an extraordinary looking place. Hit by a devastating earthquake 4 years ago it still shows the gaping wounds of a city centre torn to pieces. You’d be mistaken, walking around, if you thought that the earthquake had only happened a couple of months ago. Huge plots of land are empty. Half-torn-open buildings, mammoth chunks of masonry and long stretches of boarded up facades surround you. And you keep being able to see much further than you are used to seeing in any city. You look around and you expect to see office blocks, bank headquarters and department stores: not far off hills. It’s a place whose disaster currently defines it. Everybody talks about it. All of the time.

(A typical Christchurch city centre scene – 4 and a half years after the quake)

Many people here have mentioned the container “city”, a small area where 40 or so shipping containers have been put so that people could open small shops and coffee bars. We were there at the same time as Prince Harry who drove past us on a tram (he has been in Melbourne, Wellington and now Christchurch at the same time as we have and we get the distinct impression he’s stalking us).
More people talk about the “cardboard cathedral” – a structure that is causing huge division and upset and will lead to court cases and make people shake their heads in despair at the church in general.
Here’s the view of a (reasonably though partially informed) outsider. The cathedral in Christchurch (built in the exact centre of the city when the city was started to be being built (if that’s a tense) in the 19th century and a huge undertaking when there were only a couple of thousand people there) was damaged when the quake struck. It was at first thought that the whole structure would have to be demolished and a new cathedral built. The bishop of Christchurch went public and said this would have to happen but meantime a new temporary structure would be built half a mile away on the site of a demolished parish church – rapidly built and nick-named the cardboard cathedral because its main visual internal struts look like wellying great big cardboard tubes. Which, indeed, they are, but these are just convenient wrappings for the stronger-than-steel wooden poles within them which keep the whole structure ship-shape. The rest of the building materials are pretty standard – a properly weatherproof metal roof and polished concrete floors. And really ugly canvassy curtaining along the insides to form little rooms in the eaves – it has the feeling of a marquee inside.
Over 100 structural engineering experts have since stated that the damaged cathedral is restorable. None has been found to say it’s not. The cost of restoring the original will be a lot less than building a new one. Donations for restoring the original will be a lot more likely to arrive than donations for a new one. I don’t think it helps that the bishop is Canadian (no offence, Canada) and had only been in post a short time and by being Canadian therefore wasn’t a New Zealander and as such is seen as an outsider with different traditions and views (and is also much quoted as saying her cathedral in Canada looks like a grain silo so you don’t need a beautiful, old building as a cathedral). This is probably a deliberate quote out of context by the traditionalists who are agin her.
Anyway, the bishop’s dug heels in, those who want the original restored have mounted a campaign – everything is stalled and lots of lawyers will get fat on the proceeding court led stalemate and meanwhile what could have been an opportunity for the church to bear witness to God amidst calamity is just becoming another calamity.
Draw a line in the sand. Get a new study done in the light of new evidence as to the soundness of the original building and make a thought through choice.

(Inside the cardboard cathedral)



(The container city)


(And just behind the container city, right in the middle of town)

Camper Van

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Well, we’re now fully fledged camper vanners having been in our camper van for a couple of weeks. At the depot where we picked it up we had to sit and watch an informative video which included the awesome line…. “In New Zealand you should always drive on the left hand side of the road: if you find while you are driving that your passenger is in between you and the lines in the middle of the road please reorientate yourself on the carriageway.”

We went for cheap and cheerful. We had to go for cheap, we were hoping it would be cheerful. We booked the smallest self-contained camper; turned up to claim it and found they’d given us an upgrade (they always make it sound like they’re doing you a huge favour when it’s probably down to an admin error or the original vehicle being dead but we were very thankful all the same). Basically, it’s a Mercedes Sprinter van that’s been attacked with a chainsaw and had windows added all round and various ingenious storage units fitted in. It has the world’s smallest shower/loo – good for washing etc, bad for claustrophobics: fridge, microwave, sink, heater and gas hob and a barbecue which folds out cunningly from the outside of the van but as we’re into N Z winter now it’s probably going to stay firmly tucked away.

(Our sweet “wheels”)


(Ella cooking and either dancing with joy, or trying to keep warm. To her left is the world’s smallest shower/loo)

With the van having the world’s smallest shower/loo it means we are officially self contained and therefore can park pretty much anywhere outside of civilisation and don’t need to be dependant on campsites.

Brilliant.
However, what the blurb didn’t tell us was you can only use the heater (very necessary piece of kit in the increasingly cold evenings) and the electric sockets when the camper van itself is plugged in to the mains which, due to the plugs they’ve got, can only be done when you’re in a campsite. Similarly for recharging the reserve battery which they suggest you do every other day. So, we’re not quite as free-from-campsites as we’d hoped to be.
We have done some “freedom camping” (we stayed at a look out point on the top of a mountain our first night: awesome view – excruciatingly and literally mind-numbingly cold overnight) and also tried a few campsites along the way.
I must admit that, never having campsited before, upon successful completion of the first thorough excavation of the collection tanks lurking in the nether regions of the van into the imaginatively named “dump station” and refilling the water tanks I did feel very rugged and manly even though, as we were the only residents of that particular camp site there was no one around to be thralled at my rugged campsiteness. Ella dutifully swooned but that may have been the dump station fumes.
The main reason I thought it would be a good idea to get a self-contained camper van was so we could sit in the middle of absolutely nowhere (and in New Zealand there are lots of middles of absolutely nowhere) and, if I’m honest, more importantly, to not be on camp sites because camp sites tend to be a gathering place for campsite people. Campsite people are weird. They are permanently jolly and wear shorts they’ve long since outgrown and they always try to engage you uninvited in conversation from their deck chairs and always have kit you wish you’d thought of bringing but they have done this sort of thing for so long it’s a perfect art form for them now but because you are also on a campsite they assume you share some deep bond and, like them, have no shame.
I’m not so into all that chatty stuff. (Add that to the list, along with thumbs ups – see skydiving entry). I want to know how early is reasonable to pull all the curtains closed so you avoid that awkward eye contact of passers by, or neighbours, because when it happens I feel the need to make some ridiculous acknowledging gesture which is bound to be misconstrued as being friendly and they’ll take it to mean I want them to come over and chat. But it doesn’t, it really doesn’t.
It’s meant to mean “this is my cave: admittedly it has wheels and I’ve been forced to bring it into your midst for the purposes of having electricity and heat but it’s still, fundamentally, my cave. Go away.”
Ella has none of these hang ups.
However, as it’s turned out, it being winter here, unsurprisingly the camp sites are mostly relatively, and in a couple of cases mostly totally, deserted.
This is good, and in addition to that I’ve discovered the optimum angle at which to park to leave the minimum of window frontage on display to the passing world.
Ella says I can’t put a fence round the van.

(View from our pitch on one of the camp sites…… And below is the same  campsite the next morning. #perfectcampingconditions)

(And here is a lake I jogged to. Not too shabby)

It’s been fun driving a big long vehicle. I did almost get it inextricably stuck in a walled-in supermarket car park which, once you were in seemed irresponsibly small for large camper vans to be lured into. Nevertheless I managed to park as unobtrusively as possible (which was to unobtrusiveness the same as an elephant carrying a party balloon). Ella went in to the shop and I waited in the van in case people couldn’t get out of any of the parking spaces we were possibly preventing exit from. After enduring a few native hand gestures of welcome I figured it would be diplomatic to leave and find somewhere else to park. This however required me to wait for two cars to leave before I could achieve the right angles to safely manoeuvre out again and nearly scraped a sign on exiting which, I noticed when I looked back said “No Camper Vans Please”. I would contend that, by definition of my not having seen it on the way in, it wasn’t nearly clear enough.

That evening, with curtains satisfyingly completely drawn I managed to destroy 20% of my entire wardrobe in one fell swoop. 6 night light candles burning merrily, giving a bit of ambient light and even a little extra heat, placed in a bread tin (cos we’re safety conscious and the bread tin would keep them safe). Someone opted to place the bread tin onto a dinner plate in case the bottom of it got hot and burned the camper van worktop. Still looked pretty safe. Then someone (I know I keep using the term someone but I’m trying to protect the guilty by keeping her identity hidden) opened an overhead cupboard and a loaf of bread fell down, hit the edge of the dinner plate which launched the bread tin and candles in an arc of waxy warmth all over my trousers and shoes and (my only) jumper.
Never fear, thought I, if there’s one thing being a vicar has taught me it’s how to get candle wax off things (mainly carpets and pew kneelers). So, after buying some brown paper from the local post office the next day I commandeered the camp site ironing board and iron. Unfortunately, in my uber-zealous ironing on the dirt-cheap, waffer thin ironing board I managed to imprint long lines of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxs from the metal mesh the board was made of and which were hidden under its micron thin cover. Top + trousers ruined. Happily, we’ll be off to the States soon and it’ll be hot so I’m consoling myself with the thought that a.) they would only have been unnecessary baggage in the heat and b.) I might legitimately make the 7kg carry on luggage allowance on the next Qantas flight.
New Zealand is by far the prettiest country we’ve visited. When we were in Queenstown we drove the road to Glenorchy which is on the list of the 10 most beautiful drives in the world. Stunning – with a new reason to stop and take photographs round each of the very, very many bends. We also visited Arrowtown which was pretty and stumbled across a little museum in which many of the exhibits were touchable, climable on, sittable in and contained stuff like huge saws and tools U K museum curators would have slapped barriers round and shouted “health and safety nightmare”. A printing press was there, open to the touch, with a massive roll of newsprint stretched across rollers – you could just reach out and stick your finger through the paper if you wanted. And yet, no one had.
Either, New Zealanders have and use far more respect and common sense than we do and this magically rubs off on visitors. Or, some oik had nicked the barriers and we weren’t actually meant to touch any of the stuff we were handling. Oh well.
Some of the early medical exhibits were interesting – including this everyday essential….

World travel – it’s an eye opener.

Sky Diving

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Sky diving. You get in a little plane, ascend very quickly to 16,500 feet and then get out.

It was one of those things that we had agreed back in England would be one of the “specials” on our trip. We’re watching the budget on everything but had said if there were one or two once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that came along then we should feel able to take them. (I’ve got an “everything on red!” feeling coming on for when we get to Vegas……)

Sky diving above the Fox Glacier was on the short list. On Tuesday this week we found ourselves only a few hundred km away from Fox and woke up to the most glorious crystal clear, calm sunny winter morning so we thought, let’s go and see if there’s room for a small one. Ella figured that we needed a strong “ground support team” and so wisely opted for the “terra firma” option. I went for the terror affirmer choice.

I’ve bungy jumped before – from a tiny platform high up on a cliff face above a cave in the South of France. High on the list of the 5 coolest things I’ve done was catching my “Englishman abroad” straw hat in one hand as it flew off my head mid-jump and holding on to it so at I could then replace it while being lowered to the ground at the end of the jump – but there was not to be another hat incident at the sky diving. Sadly, you had to wear a fairly unfetching swimming cap affair.

I had no idea how I would feel in the plane. As it was I felt entirely emotionless. Not only no nerves at all, just nothing at all, really. I was interested, but not what I’d call excited. I think my body just couldn’t figure what it should do or how it should feel and so flicked onto a Trade Test Transmission mode, a bit of holding music until something happened that it could link to a known, appropriate response.

I was nervous when I bungy jumped, which was about ten years ago. I went with my two sons and as they were both due to jump ahead of me I was secretly hoping one of them would wimp out so I could escort them back down the mountain without losing face – but they both executed ridiculously cool swallow dives and muggins was left with no choice but to go through with it. And then, I was nervous. I remember standing on this tiny platform with two French guys shouting French stuff and thinking: “Why would I want to do this? I’ve got a rubber band round my ankles and the floor is a heck of a long way down and at some point I need to turn upside down. How does that happen? How do I turn upside down?” Then some more rabid French insults from behind (I was the last to go and they wanted to pack up and go for their garlic croissants or something).

So, with my main reason for going through with it being not wanting to offend, I stepped off. My hat, which they had gesticulated I should take off and I had made clear was staying with me, flew off – caught it – was so pleased I then didn’t really think anything else apart from wishing I’d stop bouncing. But climbing the mountain, watching the boys, standing on the ledge – really nervous. Sky diving – nothing.

Older? Closer to death anyway? Fully confident in Nico, my jump partner who did have very cool sunglasses and looked the sort who’d own a cool flying jacket too? He’d be doing all the work, after all – I’d merely be his parasite for the duration. Or was it just my body saying “Didn’t we agree no more jumping off high things? You’re on your own pal, I’m off to my happy place.”

Probably a combination of all the above. But no nerves on the way up. There were two others jumping and when we got to altitude they both sodded off, leaving me and Nico. I had been sitting in his lap for the past fifteen minutes which was odd, and he shuffled us along towards the door – shouted “remember the banana” (stick your legs back, head back, and make like a banana) and slipped out of the plane.

That first two seconds is indescribable. So, to pick up from there…… Initially you’re facing the sky, which is absolutely fine because there was nothing to see really, – just sky, and a perfectly good plane disappearing which brought a pang of separation anxiety. Then you flip over and there’s a really big planet rushing at you full force. It was at that precise moment my feelings decided to rejoin the party. If they’d been off in a strop in the plane they had come back with a vengeance. The free fall was 70 seconds and you could see both West and East coast at once, and straight below you, Fox Glacier, Mount Cook, beach and rainforest, all in one vista.
To be honest, the most awkward bit of the descent was neither battling the pain of the goggles digging into my face, nor my eyes watering, nor my ears popping, nor my feet being freezing. No, it was Nico trying to get me to give a thumbs up so he could capture it on film. I’m not a thumbs up sort of guy though. I’m more a casual nod of acknowledgement sort of chap. He took about 70 photos on the way down and seemed to want a thumbs up in over half of them.

“Wahay! Give me a thumbs up, Jonathan!”

“No, you’re alright, Nico.”

“Thumbs! We need thumbs up in photos.”

“Honest, we’re good thanks.”

“Give me five then!” And holds out his hand.

“You’ve got entirely the wrong continent, mate. I’m English.”

“Righto, just one last photo before we open the chute. At least give me one thumb!”

There were replies to that.

Is he paid according to the number of digits he manages to capture in his photos? He had said in the plane that even if he had a heart attack on the way down the parachute would open automatically. I wondered if I could punch him unconscious. In the end I gave him a solitary thumb up along with what I hoped was a suitably ironic facial expression and he seemed happy enough and opened the parachute and we continued our fall at a more leisurely pace.

With the chute open we could take the goggles off and that gave an even better view of the ground. Parachuting is definitely the way to go. Free fall – too fast. Floating down – absolutely perfect. Nico gave a running commentary of all the sites to see and tried to get some variety in the photos he was taking by throwing in a “what about a salute then?” to try and get through the plucky Brit’s defences.

We landed, not entirely in the Bond-like pose of my imaginings, skidding in on our backsides. Then it was a quick unclip and one last “Thumbs up? No? OK” and a hand shake sealed the deal.

I couldn’t find a box of Milk Tray to present to Ella so she had to make do with a bar (slightly broken after the landing) of Cadbury’s.

Can’t help it – now feel invincible. It’ll probably wear off soon enough but I’m on the lookout for kittens in trees and falling things I can catch and forest fires to extinguish.

For, now and forevermore – I am a skydiver – (or, as spellcheck just suggested…… a screwdriver.)
 (Quite a good view. Quite a bad cap)

 
 (Nico waving to the camera. Me having facial reconstruction.)


(Down safe and sound and forever more……. A screwdriver)

Lord Of The Rings

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The only real time we spent outside of Ngatiawa during the month was to drop into Wellington (which is apparently, officially the windiest city in the world, – and I can believe it) so that Ella and I could make wedding rings for one another. 29 years ago we had no money at all and so all we could afford were really thin, cheap gold rings and mine had got more and more worn over time until at the New Year it decided to end its life as a ring by snapping.

Having been told it would be pointless to fix it given its overall condition, we figured it would be symbolic at the start of part II of our life together, while halfway through our sabbatical year and half way round the world, to make new rings.

We contacted a crafty person in Wellington who had the means and the skills to show us what to do and we spent two wonderful afternoons making new rings for each other. It was a bit like being back at school only without the possibility of being sent out for misbehaving and being allowed cups of tea. We also melted down our two old wedding rings (which resulted in a surprisingly tiny amount of gold – not even enough to make a single new ring – so Ella crafted a shape in a cuttlefish shell for a mould and created a little pendant that the lady soldered on to her bracelet.) (Ella’s, not the lady’s – that would have been cheeky.)

The process of making the rings was fairly straightforward: first off we had to make prototypes out of hard plasticcy wax which would then be sent away to have moulds made of them. This involved sawing and filing and sanding and, quite frankly, lots of pretending to be Gollum – and then when we were sufficiently surprised that we hadn’t made a complete pig’s ear of them they got sent off to the silver people and a week later back came the rings cast and ready for us to finish filing and sanding and trying on and going “ooh” and “it’s stuck” and generally sculpting til we had the finish we wanted.
And they look awesome!

 (The elves at work on the prototypes)

 

 (Finished!)

It’ll be worth being married another 29 years just so’s I get to wear mine for that long.

I’m secretly waiting for a bunch of dwarves, orcs and Cate Blanchetts to waylay us in order to read the strange markings on the inside of Ella’s ring which look to the untrained eye to be scratches from my shoddy workmanship but might well be ancient rune markings and which sends them off to Hobbiton (like to see them get 75 dollars a head off the orcs when they turn up for the tour) and then grabbing Bilbo and running off up mountains all over New Zealand.

Talking of running, I started again, finally, while at Ngatiawa. Having taken my trainers and running gear away with me and only having got them out three times in Zimbabwe and never since I was determined to make it worthwhile having used up a goodly proportion of my allocated baggage allowance on them by getting back into shape.

The main difficulty was that Ngatiawa is in a valley and there is nothing flat in sight. So every second day my route was, turn right at the end of the drive and run up a steep, steep hill sounding like a wounded hippo til the road ran out. Then turn round and run down hill, back past the driveway, then turn round and run uphill back to home. Ella said, after a few weeks: “It must be beautiful running in such stunning scenery” and I had to confess that when I run I’m oblivious to the scenery because all I can hear is a voice in my head screaming “Kill me! Make it stop.”

This had improved by the end of the 4 weeks. The voices were still shouting the same thing, but the runs were thankfully taking less time.

We left Ngatiawa physically and spiritually fitter – and, as the ferry to take us over to the South Island left from Wellington at 8.30 in the morning we arranged to spend the evening before in the city at the home of a fantastic couple who had been at Ngatiawa the weekend before and whose house overlooks Wellington and who have their own Heath Robinson looking monorail-open-elevator thing running up the cliff face to get from the road to their door. Their own monorail-open-elevator thing! Straight up the cliff! I’d have completed signing the papers for the purchase by the time I was halfway up the monorail-open-elevator track had I been shown around by the estate agent. You ride in a sort of big open crate, straight up the cliff face! To get to the house! Good luck postman and paper boy!