Done diddly done

The counter down to the right of the page is now reading 2 hours left until blast-off.

Blast-off being the final walk down Pentonville Road to King's Cross St Pancras and down under the streets of London for the commute home. It is done. How can nine months of employment feel like an eternity? But it is done. I just want to say it a few more times until it sinks in - done, finished, completed, all over, never again will I be back in Myddelton House, unless some twist of fate deems it so in the future. But not the foreseeable future (my powers of clairvoyance only extend 18 months ahead).

My sister arrived on Monday afternoon while I was in Edinburgh for the final seminar and the Socceroos were being cruelly robbed of a deserved place in the next round of the World Cup. On Wednesday night, the occupants of the house (all nine of us plus Farah) all ventured out in Covent Garden for a night on the turps. With a massive day of work waiting for me the next day I quietly resolved to take it easy and get home at a decent hour. I realised that things weren't going according to plan when I fell off the table I had been dancing on in high heels.

The next day was not what I had planned, after toppling over in the shower and gashing my back and struggled into work and sat there, still drunk for most of the day, doing 15 minutes of stabbing the keyboard with shaking index fingers before finally staggering home again at 5pm to pack my backpack (I have learnt that hungover packing is always the most effective and efficient).

So today I was supposed to, again, achieve the impossible and write an options appraisal that would bring a tear to the eye of even the most hard hearted critics. Alas, my brain is burnt to a cinder, my limbs are weary, I am tired. Tired working, tired of worrying about work and the time! Oh how soon it will be when I don't look at a clock and 5pm will sound trumpets in my soul, while 9am will draw daggers into it - to be free of the clock will be a joy. Alarm clocks will be a thing of the past.

So tonight. Tonight is the night that you've all been waiting for - the big one. The Grand Finale at the Walkabout. Tradition has decided on the venue, the Walkabout was my crutch over winter - the excitement of never knowing what was going to happen even when the same thing happens every weekend - always being surprised and delighted when Living on a Prayer sounds and the crowd roars with a approval - the moment we're all here for. Hands in the air screaming the words in unison. No doubt tonight will be the same as every other time - sensational.

Will this be the last post from the UK? Perhaps, or maybe I will feel the need to write another little summary about another aspect of my tenure here. Almost certainly.

Me voy.

Globalisation

I just picked up a magazine produced by our trade union – Amicus. There was a brief mention of how so many ‘quality jobs are being lost to cheap labour in countries like Poland’.

This reminded me a question that I never end up asking or resolving. Globalisation, especially the free movement of labour, will result in wage equalisation – at least to some extent. From a left-wing global humanist perspective, how can this be a bad thing? I think the more jobs and money and resources, that flow out of wealthy nations like the UK, US, Australia etc into poorer countries, the better. The mini-globalisation process in the EU is a perfect example. London, and even the South West of England now, is being flooded with cheap, and often skilled, labour from eastern European countries. Why do anti-globalisation demonstrators want to prevent this free movement of wealth between countries? I thought they came from the left?

I admit openly that I am under-briefed on this issue. But assuming that there is no exploitation of cheap labour – which there isn’t when people are legally competing for jobs in a regulated labour market such as the UK – where is the problem? Again I would be making assumptions about the regulation of industries and especially tight controls on the activities of trans-national corporations, but the free movement of labour and removal of protectionist trade policy can only be a good thing for developing countries can’t it? (again, can I re-iterate the assumption I am making about the domestic policies of developing nations regarding the role that TNCs are allowed to play in their nation – which gives me the feeling that the crux of the argument against globalisation might be related to this point – in which case protestors are possibly barking up the wrong tree and should be lobbying the IMF/World Bank to encourage such policy – then again maybe they are…. ). Am I being too micro-economically minded here? Some input - for and against – would be appreciated.

Meanwhile, I have 7 days of work left – two of which will be taken up with the oft mentioned seminars and five of which will be used to write a paper that looks like an options appraisal to the naked eye, but is actually the plans for a Marxist revolution.

Trent and Amanda have moved into our place and will take on the mantle of Kings of Kilburn when Lucas and I abdicate from the position to go and find our fortunes in the East.

The network is down at work so I am not able to access any documents I need to work on – and am typing this in Word. Did deadlifts at the gym yesterday and my legs are feeling great – I want to charge up stairs and through doors to use the explosive potential that this exercise unlocks. Just a quick note to all sportspeople – focus on the posterior chain for improved sporting strength, balance and quickness (that would be calves, hams, glutes, erector spinae – and core in general, lats, traps and delts).

Longest day of the year today (or shortest for you Southern Hemisphere lot).

Why does time fly when I write a page of whatever I want compared to a page of something for work, when time seems to freeze and my body has a physical rejection of what I am trying to do (nail biting, agitation, tight shoulders, sweat, hunger, blurred vision)?

Some thoughts before traveling

The closer I get to the leaving date and the more research I do on the various destinations, the more vividly I can see the faces and roads and towns that I'll be passing. Each country - and possibly even different areas of a country will be wildly different to everything that went before. The historical development of the cultures will be such a contrast to those we experienced in South America.

Historically, South/Central America was inhabited by the Aztecs and Mayans in Central America and the Incas in equatorial South America, and the indigenous people of Patagonia and the Tierra del Fuego (sadly I don't recall their name). They inhabited latin america until the tidal wave of conquistadors from Spain and Portugal enslaved and murdered whole societies, the common theme of colonialism. This covered the whole continent with a layer of one culture upon several others and resulted somewhat in an homogenisation of many aspects of the cultures (language of course) in South America.

I'm not saying there wasn't amazing diversity in the people and the cultures of each region (especially North vs South and the African influence in Brasil), but the historical development of Latin American culture is extremely different to the countries I'll pass through over the next 6 months.

Central Asia and Persia, being the cradle of modern civilisation, and part of the silk road, have had the influences of empires sweeping back and forward across them through out recorded history. Even now the West is attempting another counter-conquest of the region, with it's culture and politics rather than with swords and horses.

If you could overlay the reach of every empire throughout history on top of one another, I'm sure that Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan would be the most densely covered regions as the forces of the 'East' and 'West' play tug-o-war.

Obviously religion, Islam in particular, has stamped an everlasting footprint on these regions and to a great extent characterises them now. But when I travel there I hope to be able to see behind the hegemony of Islam and understand the people as they really are, and not the servants of an ancient superstition holding their minds captive behind bars of false promises and fear. I want to see (if indeed they are) the gradual changes in faces, practices and personalities as one moves further East, like the spectrum of colours blending into one another until you have something in glaring contrast to where you started from.

But I also hope there is an unchanging underlying spirit of humanity beneath it all that helps to restore my faith that humans are animals worth saving from extinction. Because given the evidence of what a 'developed' world would look like from the examples of the West, I don't feel for a second that the utter extinction of mankind, in whatever way we destroy ourselves, should be delayed for a moment, lets just hope we don't drag the rest of the world down with us.

Aussie Aussie Aussie!!!

AUSTRALIA 3-1 JAPAN
12 June 2006
by FIFAworldcup.com

Substitute Tim Cahill was the hero for Australia as the Socceroos scored three times in eight minutes to beat Japan 3-1 in Kaiserslautern and record their first ever win in the FIFA World Cup™ finals.

Trailing at half-time to Shunsuke Nakamura's 26th-minute goal, the opening Group F match turned on its head with the arrival of Cahill. He equalised with a close-range strike in the 84th minute and then fired a spectacular second in the 89th before striker John Aloisi put the icing on the cake two minutes into added time.

Getting excited

Just like the countdown to leaving Australia I am starting to become a bit bi-polar. If anything the factors contributing to the emotional see-saw are more forceful than those when I was first leaving on this adventure. The forces holding me back from travelling are mainly the fact that I will be starting the homeward journey and I will be leaving Heather for an extended period of time.

When I think of Australia, especially my imagined future lifestyle in Brisbane, I envisage waking slowly to warm sunny days with no pressure to be somewhere unless I actually want to be, studying a course that I'm interested in, eating the freshest fruit and vegetables and my super-human home made muesli, warm afternoons on the verandah at Central Avenue, weekends (and weekdays) at Gold Coast or lifting rocks, digging holes and building things with my dad on the farm, then lying on the cool kitchen floor talking to Mum. All the while zipping about in my first child - the Honda. But I also see Australians, a vast generic sea of caucasian Australians, dotted with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese students. I don't see the daily mix of many cultures in a tiny space. Access to other cultures, particularly people who still hold onto their culture will be in very short supply. I'm not one to go to multi-cultural fests, as I said to Lucas to Tracy the other day - those festivals are generally a romanticised exaggerated display of a small part a culture has to offer. I prefer the opportunities to observe people from other countries who aren't advertising their culture. For example, going to the gym Lucas and I are quite often the only white guys in the place, occaisionally there a giant Russian, but generally we are working out with big black guys. Having never known or been around anyone of African descent in Australia - I had never realised what a naturally expressive talkative and extroverted personality so many of them have. Obviously that is a big generalisation, just like the ones that could be made about white English people - plenty of accurate stereotypes there. The people who love to dress themselves up the most and take huge amounts of care with their appearance are more often than not the black British. How this compares to people in African countries I would like to see. Anyway, that was one instance among many in a city like London that people in Australia don't get to observe in daily life and is something I will find difficult to deal with when I am back. One of my favourite things in London is watching how the black women dress, I think it is great, sometimes tacky, but not subtle and boring at least.

As I said, the other thing making me want to not disappear into the Hindu Kush asap is Heather. I won't bore people with mush, suffice to say that she is my girlfriend and appears to be a reincarnation of Mother Theresa.

Enough of why I don't want to leave just yet! The Hindu Kush has been calling my name for far too long and I am desperate to get on the road. Living the life of a traveller again where everything you own can be carried on your back - sounds cliched but it was a lifestyle that I adored in South America and I still haven't adjusted to the repitition of the same place every day. Nest building and putting down roots is still something far off in my future and I dread the day when I'll spend more than 12 months in the same place without a good six month adventure in between. Quickly other reasons why I can't wait to get going:
- London - sh!thole
- English people (except the ones I like) - sh!t
- Working - sh!t
- English weather - sh!t
- Persia - exciting/cheap/different/unknown to me/possibly dangerous

With my array of audiovisual equipment that I'll be travelling with I'll be sure to take a lot of really bad photos and film quite a lot of my right foot as I walk along, hopefully having no battery in either camera when I need them most. Ideally it'll all get stolen in the first week and I'll break a leg after stepping on a hypodermic needle whilst running to the toilet with amoebic dysentery.

But until then I have three very intense weeks left of work - typing furiously until the clock strikes 5:20pm on Friday 30th June when I will once more be a free man. Today is the calm before the storm - a meeting in one hour will be the first event in a series of meetings and seminars that will occupy me until the last minute. That is assuming of course that the motivation levels stay at a reasonable level - day dreaming of the blue mosque of Mazar-i-sharif is not proving fruitful in this project.

I just hope that I maintain sanity as the competing pressures mount, the final night in Canberra could be repeated - doesn't matter, as long as I make to Chinese at 3am on the 1st July.

Amsterdam Anniversary

The anniversary being of course the 26th of my innings.

To briefly sum up events - we flew into Amsterdam on Friday evening - collected by that 'Handsome Dutchman' who we met in Brazil and again in Santiago - a night out in Schagen - his local town at the tip of Holland. Felt interesting walking around and then going up a hill to the ocean - almost like the sea was an above ground pool. A quick dip in the North Sea by Lucas and I ticked another box under the 'swum in' category of boxes. Not as cold as the Channel - although that was probably due to the breeze being less than gale force.

Edwin then drove us into Amsterdam where we checked into our hotel then set off on the tram into the city centre. My first impressions of Amsterdam was how amazingly well organised it was - efficiency and continental charm coexisting perfectly. If anything the public transport system was under used because every second Dutchman and woman was on a bicycle.

Everyone knows what the main tourist attractions in Amsterdam are, right? The red light district and the 'coffeeshops'. I've heard the odd person say that the red light district can be a bit seedy - totally the opposite - the closest thing I can compare it too would be a cross between Covent Garden and Queen Street mall, but safer than both and with friendly (possibly stoned) tourists - groups of little chinese women skittered around looking into the windows at the women perched on their stools batting their eyelids and waving at everyone.

The place is also of course set up for Aussies, Poms, Kiwis and Yanks who prefer ales to hash cookies and we soon found ourselves behind a bar - the naked women serving drinks not distracting us from the serious task at hand. We then went to one of Edwin's old haunts and the hoofs were again shaken till the wee hours until we retired to our hotel room.

The following day was another touristy sort of day - we hired bicycles and rode them virtually non-stop for our allotted four hours, around the countryside outside of Amsterdam and then back in again via the FREE ferry to CENTRAL station (another tribute to their public transport). I put CENTRAL in capital to emphasise that this place is the hub of the nation - if not Europe. This is CENTRAL station for virtually every form of transport available (except the airport which is a 15 minute train ride away).

We finished our bike ride, ate some dinner, then retired to a coffeehouse for a brownie and a juice. I have no idea what they put in their brownies over there but Pat, Lucas and I were walking around like zombies about three hours later trying to find Pat's jacket he'd misplaced the night before. Having no accommodation booked for that night due to an early flight the next morning we managed to negotiate our way to CENTRAL station and to the airport for a celebratory hot chocolate and doughnut bought by Lucas. Along the way I decided that I did not like the layout of Amsterdam - every street looks almost exactly the same (to a newcomer like me) and I had huge difficulty getting my bearings, even with a map. So we crashed at the airport from the hours of about 12:30am - 6:00am before checking in for our flight home.

The birthday was spent sleeping most of the time, although I was treated to some tuna and avocado on toast from Heather and she replenished my gym clothing supplies.

Photos are up! Check the Europe Gallery.

Di di doo doo, di di di di doo, di di doo doo, di di doo doo doo doo dooooo.

The Final Countdown.

29 Days. Tomorrow it will be 28 days. Anyone seen the movie 28 days later? It would be cool if something like that happened....I will get the video camera on the ready.