ganching

In Which I Become A Travel Writer

This is it.  My first attempt at travel writing.

Amsterdam And Blast

 I set off for the airport on a sunny September morn with the sound of my friend Tobias Brimington's* last words, still ringing in my ears: 'Under no circumstances are you to bring me back any clog-related  souvenir type rubbish - do I make myself clear?  If you do it'll be going straight into the bin.  I'm not joking!'.  I haven't known TB for 40 years without knowing not to take him seriously.  I immediately made a mental note to remind myself not to forget to bring back a little present for TB.

I was on my way to Luton airport, (not our most glamorous airport! [poss. legal action if say this?]) for a weekend on my own, in wonderful, wonderful Copenh Amsterdam, made famous by the TV series Van Der Valk.  Canals, tulips, tall houses, yellow trams, pancakes, mouses on stairs is what I was looking forward to experiencing.

I arrived in Luton airport and queued up to check in, along side a large party of men in their 60s, dressed in T shirts with the words, 'Lads on Tour' printed on the front.  I considered pointing out to one or two of them that, as it was more than forty years since they could legitimately call themselves 'lads', they might feel more comfy in M&S cardies.  I find though that however well-intentioned advice is, it is sometimes taken the wrong way, especially by those drinking pints of lager at 10.30 in the morning.

In just a few short hours we were all seated in the plane.  The captain began speaking, in English, thank goodness: 'Welcome on board this short flight to Amsterdam.  This is your captain, John Green.....'. I immediately breathed a sigh of relief.  I know I shouldn't admit to this but somehow I always feel happier when the pilot driving my plane is a man and is not called Pedro or Mohammed.  Any woman would feel safe in the hands of a man with a good Anglo-Saxon name like 'John Green'.

The flight was short and enjoyable and I managed two large G&Ts before the pilot gave me a fright:  'The weather this evening in the Netherlands......'.  I was on the wrong flight!  I called one of the male air hostesses: 'I'm supposed to be on a flight to Holland!'.  That little misunderstanding was soon cleared up.

I arrived at the airport and in no time at all was on a train to Central station.  It was a double decker train and I allowed myself a nostalgic moment or two thinking about the dear old Routemaster, gone but not forgotten!

Central Station is undergoing extensive building work so it took half-an-hour to find the tourist information office.  I must say, by this stage I was looking forward to putting my size sixes up  [Fact checkers - US size?] in the bedroom of my canal-side hotel.

'This hotel is a long way away!'

The woman in the tourist office was a middle-aged lady so a few years younger than myself.

'You must take the Metro'.

I sometimes wonder why people choose jobs for which they are imminently unsuited.  One would imagine that liking foreigners who do not speak Dutch was one of the essential requirements for the job of a tourist official in Amsterdam.

When I arrived at my hotel I was teensy bit disappointed to discover it was in a business park in the suburbs rather than overlooking Ann Frank's Haus [check -could this be considered disrespectful?].  I opted for the bottom bunk and was soon settled in.

Hunger drove me out into the Amsterdam night.  I was soon in Rembrandtplein [sp?] which was very lively - lots of men, also wearing T-shirts.  I chose a Dutch Italian restaurant for my evening repast. The waitress seated me at a little table in a bay window at the front of the restaurant where I could watch the people passing by.  She bustled around, handing me a menu and lighting a small red candle on my table.  For some reason this made me feel a little uneasy.

I ordered Risotto.  English Risotto is a truly comforting dish made from creamy arborria rice, a glass of good dry, white wine, a handful of Parmesan cheese and a tablespoonful of wild mushrooms.  Dutch Risotto is a slightly different dish. To make it you boil some mushrooms in one pan while in another you boil some American rice - you then combine these ingredients and fry in sunflower oil in a frying pan. I did my best to get through it while ignoring the rather rude people outside on the street who were staring in at me and sniggering.  I suspect they were Germans. 

I woke up on Saturday morning refreshed, with only a tiny crick in my neck, and ready for whatever the day could throw at me.  I headed down to the hotel restaurant for a breakfast of cheese sandwiches which I had to make myself [is this normal in Holland?] and currant buns. 

I spent the day going to markets.  Albert Cupy is the busiest street market in Europe [that's what it said in the guide book - check needed?] and reminded me very much of our own Chapel market here in Islington, except with more herring and people smoking pipes.  I could not help noticing how fond our Dutch friends are of coffee.  There were coffee shops everywhere and I resolved to sample some of their wares before my visit was finished.  Noordmarkt market [sp?] is next to a very nice Church - Protestant, naturally, and very much to my taste.  I stuck my nose in the door and discovered there was something going on.  A Dutch woman approached me:

'You are coming to the concert?'

'Oh no, my dear, I'm....'

'The best musicians in the Nederlands - hurry, it is just starting!'

'What is the concert?'

'12 Euro.'

'The music?'.

'10 Euro.'

I got the last seat in the house.  It was in the centre of the front row between two Dutch women. 'Oh you are very lucky indeed.  You arrive so late - the last person - and yet you get the best seat of all even though you have not booked several weeks in advance like we had to do!'

I thought it politic not to mention the two euro discount.

The musicians were very jolly - perhaps they came from milling stock? - and all looked like they enjoyed hearty dinners of potato pancakes.

I went back to my hotel for a little snooze and then my stomach told me it was dinner time. (It is strange how a large slab of apple cake and slag cream [sp?] looks so filling and yet half an hour later one is ready for something else?)  I decided that I would go Dutch.  I headed off to a little cafe I know in the Jordaan [called after Michael?] and ordered a typically Dutch dinner - boiled white fish, boiled carrots and boiled potatoes.  Afterwards, I strolled up and down the cobbled streets next to the canals which was very relaxing apart from the few times I was almost killed by cyclists. Dutch swearing sounds so much nicer than the English kind.

The following morning after another breakfast of cheese sandwiches I headed out into the Dutch sunshine.  It was a glorious day. My destination was the Reich museum [something to do with the occupation maybe?] where I saw some rather good Dutch paintings, including a lovely little thing by the once little-known artist, made famous by the film, Girl With A Pearl Necklace, Vermeer.  There was also a special exhibition of a painting by Rembrandt of a man called Strada.  I read all about it in the handily provided notes.  (They did not mention that his ancestors this century, opened a chain of restaurants, rather unimaginatively called, Strada, here in London.)

The Dutch are very progressive except in one respect - they do not allow photography in their art galleries.  Many of the visitors were milling around, confused - some were looking at the paintings through cupped hands - and others were just staring at their switched-off mobile phones. Poor lambs.

I lunched in a cafe nearby and due to some misunderstanding ordered potato soup without bread.  It was a little bit disappointing but soon forgotten after another large slice of apple cake, this time in the Van Gogh museum cafe.

Van Gogh, made famous by the well-known song, Starry, Starry Night, was a Dutch painter who moved to the south of France and cut off his ear.  All of his early works are pictures of potatoes painted in shades of mud - his later work is much more jolly - mainly sunflowers and pictures of himself with a bandage over his ear.  Sadly he killed himself, allegedly because of teasing about his red hair [check this as may have accidentally made it up].

I left the museum district and headed towards Dam Square.  I'm hardly the first person to notice this but the Dutch are very fond of bicycles.  They cycle everywhere, often with a friend perched on the back or, more often still, with several small children, attached to the bike in some fashion or other with scant regard to health and safety issues.  Everywhere you go there are small, dumpy figures, with blue eyes and blond, tousled hair on bicycles, waving their arms about and jabbering on in Double Dutch   Really, one couldn't help coming to the conclusion that Boris Johnson must have fathered most of the under-5s in Amsterdam [poss. legal action]! 

My little trip was almost over although important business meant I needed to remain in Holland for a further day or two. Sadly I never got a chance to visit a coffee shop and I'd completely forgotten to get the clogs fridge magnet for TB. Next time.

*This name has been changed.

Insight

Heron
Originally uploaded by ganching1

I have decided to become a travel writer. I am thinking of doing a series aimed at lone women travellers who, while urbane and sophisticated, are slightly nervous about going off on their own to foreign climes.

I think I have just the skills needed for this new venture. Travel broadens the mind and while I am already extremely broad-minded as well as being rather broad in the beam*, (see, an example of my excellent self-deprecating sense of humour!!) a person can never be too broad, especially when abroad, if you see what I mean.

I love nothing more than talking to strangers. I think it is something to do with my inherent modesty which my friends are always commenting on. They say things like, 'How come a woman as intelligent and talented, not to mention good-looking, as you is so self-effacing?'. I am a complete chatterbox when there are any foreigners around.

I am well-known for my cultural sensitivity and my natural talents for languages other than English.

Initially I am going to try getting printed in newspapers. This means I may have to change my style slightly. It will come as a surprise to some of you but occasionally I do play around with the actualitie when writing here - in small ways only, for example, I tend to downplay how popular I am and how much I enjoy my job and sometimes, I attribute to Traybake things he may not actually have said, in order to make him seem more intelligent or funny. I do it out of kindness. I'm planning to be franchised across the US and, as we all know what demons the Yanks are for fact-checking, I will have to be meticulous in my research. In just the same way that you can trust anything you read in an American newspaper so my "Insight" (tm pending) column will be 100% reliable.

Look out for my first column, provisionally entitled, 'Amsterdam And Blast'.

*That was a joke, right?

Aren't Other People Prejudiced?

I have been away for a few days with some other important urbanists who had come from all over England.

I am always quite surprised when I meet people from the provinces that they do not immediately recognise that I live and work in London.  It shocks me that they assume, because of my accent, that I am doing my essential urbanist work somewhere like Carnlough or Randalstown (except, of course, they have never heard of these places). I would have thought that urbanists would be able to recognise that someone as urbane as myself was bound to live in a world class city like London.  Instead how they respond, when I tell them that I am based in London, is by saying something like,

'Oh London! I hate London! I went there once. Never again...I wouldn't want to live there. Horrible place - all crowded and so hard to get anywhere!'

I find it interesting that people believe it is acceptable to be so rude about the life choices of others.  I am thinking about doing a little experiment where I turn the tables on people like these.

'Birmingham?  You live in Birmingham?  What a dump!  And that accent....they put it on, don't they?  No-one actually speaks like that in real life, do they?'

'A traffic engineer, you say?  I would detest more than anything in the world to be a traffic engineer.  In fact I would rather lie down on the M1 and be driven over by a stream of 16-wheeler trucks than even contemplate being a traffic engineer. Tell me - was it because of your complete lack of social skills and imagination that you chose that job?'

'A boy and a girl?  I don't know how you can bear it! So noisy and expensive.  I wouldn't have one of those things about the place even if you paid me!'

While I was away I had a good think about my life and how I might change it.  First thing I need to sort out is a change of career.  To be continued.

What Are You Like?

Health Reports

Fish Finger Sandwich Eaten In The Tranquil Vale Cafe
Originally uploaded by ganching1

I have just been talking to my mother on the phone and she is really cheerful and invigorated, following a couple of days in hospital. Apparently it was better than a tonic. The wee lady doctor who was looking after her was very young and friendly and from Africa. The Consultant was a great doctor altogether and, like all the people she knows who have been under him, she was very pleased with him.

The first night she was in a ward with six men who kept themselves to themselves but the second night she was in the lady ward where there was plenty of chat and swapping of People's Friends and tins of talcum powder. The best thing of all though was when she got home and found out that the fact that the curtains remaining closed in her living room for two days had caused much talk in the neighbourhood. Two different people had let themselves into the house and searched every room and under every bed, to make sure that nothing had happened to her. (She did not say why they thought she might be under one of the beds.) The next door neighbour's phone was red hot with people ringing up and asking about her.

My mother has no idea how lucky she is with her neighbours. It is a different story here in Titter of Wit Street.

Traybake has been diagnosed with a minor complaint and has been advised to eat mainly bland food. This is what he gets for teasing me about only being able to eat Farley's Rusks.

I, myself, am waiting for a call from the doctor. My medical notes have gone missing between north and south London. ( I think if you change your doctor from the Camden and Islington PCT to a practice based in south London you are automatically asked to come in for a psychiatric assessment). Anyway the doctor has told me I need to book a double appointment with her once my notes turn up. I am preparing myself for bad news although obviously nothing as serious as Traybake's recent news. A future of rice pudding and fish finger sandwiches is what he has to look forward to.  (Although the death of neo-liberalism is cheering him up!)

Ten Interesting Facts About New York

1
Photographing Marilyn
Originally uploaded by ganching1

1. In NYC there are more than 500 art galleries which people visit in order to take photographs of the works of art or, better still, have their photographs taken while standing, self-consciously, next to the works of arts.

2. The Empire State Building was the world's tallest building until 1972.  It is still very tall.

3. In NYC everyone believes they are featuring in a movie - so,  for example it would not be unusual, while in a diner to see a waitress of a certain age, who has been round the block a bit but underneath it all is still plucky and hopeful, suddenly pull off her apron and shout at the short-order cook, 'I quit!'.  I witnessed this happening.

4. New Yorkers have a great devotion to St Jude.

5. It is compulsory in NYC, to wear your shirt tucked into your trousers if you are a uniformed employee of the state.  (If you are a woman employee of the state you also have to wear blue eye shadow.)

6.  Tourists believe that NYC consists of three Avenues and 40 cross streets.  They have never heard of Boroughs. (These are the same kind of lazy tourists who when they visit London don't even bother going to places like Brent or Lewisham!)

7. Some eating establishments in NYC have taken to displaying the amount of calories contained in all their products. This means that it is possible for a person  to work out that, by ordering a muffin and a large coffee, it is perfectly feasible to consume before 9.00 a.m. each day, more calories  than Ms Deyn does in a fortnight.

8. If going to see Mary Poppins in New York expect to have just as terrible an experience as you would if you were going to see it in London except that in NY the audience will talk more and the seats will be smaller.

9. No self-respecting New Yorker would ever be seen dead carrying a Bloomingdale's Little Brown Bag (and nor should anyone else be seen with one either).

10.  New York is still the second best city in the world.

It's The End Of World And.....

.............I'm just getting a quick post in while I can.  In less than two hours it could all be over. 

I was very impressed by the YouTube video made by the young scientists working on the CERN project and, encouraged also by Traybake, I am considering doing my next presentation (if I'm still here) in the form of a rap.  It is provisionally entitled Regeneration For Da Nation. I am sure it will be a great success and create just the right impression.

So that's it - ending with a bang and and with a whimper.

Wasting Time

When I was a student I was very good at wasting time even without the help of a laptop. In those days I  used a computer about once a week and only when there was a lab technician present.  The rest of the time we had to rely on old fashioned methods of passing the time.  In my first year at university all my lectures were in the morning and, what seems so unlikely now, I actually attended most of them - at least in the first term.  This left me swathes of time to fill every afternoon. 

For the first week or two I spent the afternoons diligently writing up my notes and reading.  As one of my subjects was English Literature this was actually quite enjoyable.  I raced through Hard Times and Persuasion both of which I was reading for the first time.  I loved them both although I didn't form any Iong term attachment to Dickens. I did go on to read everything that Jane Austen ever wrote. I also read about half a dozen Shakespeare plays; Macbeth for the nth time and all the Henries.  I had trouble remembering who was who.

It rained everyday - cold, northern rain. By the end of October all the leaves were off the trees and it was getting dark before six.  I stayed in Halls of Residence.  In Scotland people 'stay' rather than 'live', in places.  I loved my room which had a single divan with a tartan cover, a desk and chair, a bedside table, a bookcase, a hard, uncomfortable easy chair, a built-in cupboard with drawers, spider plants and Picasso posters and, best of all, a door that I could lock.  It was my first 'room of one's own' and I liked it very much.  I was shocked when many years later I met someone who had lived in the same Hall and she complained about how poky the rooms had been.

My room overlooked the tennis courts.  At the beginning of November the nets were taken down and every Wednesday afternoon I'd watch Rugby players exercising out there. They would run up and down, shouting almost as loudly as they did in the Union bar where I always avoided them. I liked watching them though in their shorts.

One of my main ways of wasting time was doing jigsaw puzzles.  I no longer understand the appeal of jigsaw puzzles - too slow and cumbersome.  Frustrating too as you can never be completely confident that the final pieces would be in the box. 

I have endless ways of wasting time now.  I have a strict deadline for something I need to do for tomorrow and this is what I'm doing - wasting time.

Louise Bourgeois - Yeah!

Louise Bourgeois
Originally uploaded by ganching1

If I was a wittier/more intelligent/ariculate kind of a person I would be able to invent a term for the emotion you experience when, after many hours of foot slogging round Manhattan on a hot afternoon, you arrive at an art gallery and discover that you have already seen the exhibition (twice!) when it was on display in another city, so instead of trailing round the gallery you can just sit in the cafe instead and eat an enormous cupcake washed down by a large iced coffee.

I am home from Ireland and NYC seems a distant memory. In NI it rained a lot! I got lost. I visited aged aunts. I listened to yarns. I didn't miss the plane home.

Today I am prevaricating.