Badger Tracks

Monday, July 25th

Wine, flamenco guitar and estate agents

A quick interlude before I finish up the tale of being blown by Emily. This interlude will consist of three elements; wine, flamenco guitar and estate agents, so if you're weird enough to not be interested, in any way shape or form, in any of these, you can slope off now and have a fag in the bogs.

Firstly, wine. A while back, whilst stumbling around the interweb, I came across a web site - not an unusual thing to do when hooked up to the interweb and staring at a browser, but at least you now know how I came across the information I am about to impart. Anyway, on this web site - and I have no recollection of which one it was by the way, so don't bother asking - there was a message to bloggers (those, like me, who run a weblog web site) to submit an e-mail requesting a sampler bottle (a full 750 ml no less) of wine from a South African producer called Stormhoek. Clearly it was a clever ploy to get people to submit live e-mail addresses that would be added to a massive datebase...which in turn would be used to send out vast numbers of e-mails promoting penis enlargement gadgets. However, I'm a gambling man and I like my wine, and the infinitesimally small odds that this was not a spam scam, were more than good enough for me. Well, it arrived - the wine, not the penis enlargement gadget - all labelled up with my name and number (there are clearly 75 other foolhardy bloggers out there gagging for free booze), and I have to report that it is really rather good. I had the Stormhoek Sauvignon Blanc 2005 and it was just as good as the latest overrated, over priced Sauvignon Blanc offering from Messrs Cloudy Bay. I'm not sure where I can buy more, but if you're interested, try the boys at Orbital Wines (http://www.stormhoek.com). Ah, I've just remembered the web site where I came across this little gem, http://www.gapingvoid.com. It's run by a chap called Hugh Macleod. He produces cartoon business cards for people/companies that don't take themselves too seriously - more power to that. On that note, check out the ecclesiastical cartoonist, Dave Walker, at http://www.cartoonchurch.com.

Secondly, flamenco guitar, or rock-flamenco guitar. Sounds strange I know, but if you're serious about your music, or if, like my good friend Roland, you simply like a nice tune and still have early Madonna CDs in your car CD multichanger, then Rodrigo & Gabriela Live in Manchester & Dublin (on CD) is a must. Frankly, even if you hate music but occasionally drum your fingers on your desk whilst talking to pre-scripted photocopier salesmen on the telephone, then this is worth a listen.

And finally, estate agents. Working at home has its upside; I don't have to commute and thus there is no chance of finding myself sitting next to a swarthy looking gentleman clutching a rucksack loaded with explosives he made in his mother's Magimix the night before. The downside is that I have to put up with leaflets and free newspapers and magazines exploding through my letterbox three or four times a day. The former may be extremely hazardous to life, but the latter doesn't half scare the bejesus out of you when the only other sound is the cat snoring gently in the corner. Death and the attributes of a congested cat aside, the biggest contributors to the exploding-letterbox-whilst-a-cat-snores phenomenon, or EL WACS as I call it, are estate agents. Nine different free property newspapers and magazines are hammered through my door. After a spot of weighing and multiplying, I've calculated that 9,096 metric tons of free property newspapers and magazines explode through Londoners' letterboxes every year; that's the equivalent of 147 Challenger 2 tanks or 1137 average sized African elephants landing on our doormats, without as much as a by your leave. Of these 9,096 tons, 2,819 tons - or 352 average sized African elephants - are the unsolicited glossy output of just three estate agents; Foxtons, Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward, and Douglas Gordon. Even more staggering is that apart from Foxtons, these figures are for south west London alone! Quite apart from the number of trees being destroyed to fuel this avalanche of largely unwanted advertising and the cost in terms of landfill, what is it doing to the mental health of those that work peacefully at home - with or without a snoring cat? I rang these three agents and politely asked them to stick their magazines up their fucking arses, but still they come, exploding through my front door. Later today, on a run to Waitrose to pick up provisions, I will be ramming, commando style, three weeks worth of recycling waste (two bin bags) through the letterbox of one of these three agents. I bet the bastards won't like it up 'em!

If you too are appalled by the thought of 1137 average sized African elephants exploding through letterboxes every year, I urge you to do the same. MAKE EL WACS HISTORY. All I need now is a modest, softly spoken Scottish sidekick, from an electronic 80s pop band, and I might just scare up a Knighthood.

That's my morning out of the way. Now for a straight six hour run at the book, which is going very nicely by the way, and should hopefully be finished just before the bailiffs arrive in a few months.

[@ 01:17 PM GMT]

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Friday, July 22nd

See Emily play

(sometime last week...)

I was awoken this morning by a phone call from my good and lovely friend Nancy, who was in a hardware store buying sandbags.
'Sandbags!', I said.
'Yes, sandbags', she said.
'What in hell's name are you doing buying sandbags?, I said.
'Where have you been for the past 24 hours', she said, 'the island's just about to be hit by a hurricane.
'A hurricane', I said.
'Yes, a hurricane, hurricane Emily' she said.
'People are buying up as much water and food and as many candles and batteries as they can carry. The island is shutting down at 11 O'clock and people are being told to go home and batten down the hatches. Have you got any provisions in?'
'I have rum and possibly half a carton of soya milk. Will that do?'
She laughed, and with that she was gone.

I phoned my good friend Roland in London and relayed the news. He's a good man in a crisis and once despatched two injured sheep with a three foot fence post, in front of a crying pilgrim, rather than let them suffer. He was on the case immediately and came back with the latest interweb report from the BBC.
'It's been downgraded to a tropical storm with maximum 75 mile-an-hour winds. You should be fine. Do you have provisions in?'
'I have half a gallon of rum, I've just finished the soya milk, and I'm low on cigarettes'.
He advised me to get some mixers, and with that he was gone.

I scootered down to the Texaco garage under darkening skies. A light, but worryingly vertical rain started as a rode and a ferociously gusting wind was getting about the palms and flamboyants. The beach was empty and the sea, although flat, was simmering like a glass of water on a washing machine. The Texaco garage was teeming with life and the normally lethargic locals were moving to a new found and somewhat faster rhythm than usual. The food chiller cabinets and shelves where the water bottles lived were empty, but fortunately there were plenty of mixers left. I made my selection, grabbed some Marlboros and departed.

Once home I made the rounds of the windows, checking each was secure on its rusty hinges and that the security bolts were as secure as they could be in their rotten casements. Happy that I hadn't left anything to chance and that from this point on if any of my neighbours were decapitated by rotten, rusty, low flying windows, it would be karmic revenge and not as a result my criminal negligence, I hunkered down on the deck with a cup of black tea and a tumbler of rum and waited for the show to commence.

[@ 02:03 PM GMT]

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Thursday, July 21st

It's all crazy now

(Sometime last week...)

I'm going to have to send this before I sober up, because, in the words of the prophet Noddy, 'It's all crazy now'...and who am I to disagree...which I believe are the words of the great prophets Dave and Annie...but then if we're going to continue in this vein, everything will be sacred and I'll be out of business.

Moving swiftly on, I'm in Barbados...for the last time. I'm packing up and heading back to Blightly, for reasons I really can't be fucked to go into right here, right now. Just believe me when I say,' It's better this way'. Corrosive heat and cheap rum have taken their toll and I am no longer the person you used to know, or would recognise. It's time to jump ship and head with the rats to dry land, or a larger piece of land than this. This is a hellish place to make camp. The locals drugs to want sell drugs you. Sell you locals drugs want the to. They're lovely really, and loud talk is the only way of stopping them, and if that fails rum will do...but only just. There is a thin line between drugs, rum and beer and sunning yourself quietly on the beach, and if you do like Skywalker Senior, and tread the wrong path, you're doomed, doomed I say!

I will lose a day tomorrow–or today as it is. I'm in no fit state to face its heat and nothing will get done. So I'll give it a niffty body swerve, keep my eyes shut and pretend it didn't exist. This is the way around here if, like me, you hang with the Roadview Crew, to whom Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the new Friday and Saturday. Einstein would have hated this place because things are most definitely different for different observers.

The fridge was initially well laden, but is now bare; that quantity of beer would have lasted me months on any other patch of the planet, but here it goes like charlie at The Brits.

I have five days left here, and I can feel the heavy stuff moving inexorably in. I have at least three more days of heavy hitting in me, but if I pace myself, I may be able to stretch it to four; five is out of the question because the plane ride home will get ugly and bouncing around in a tin can 40,000 feet over the Atlantic is a bad place for things to get ugly. I'm Premium Economy on Virgin and although you get Champagne and a copy of The Times, wild eyes and the shakes is no more acceptable here than it is in cattle class.

Time to stop. Spellcheck is running far too hot and something is biting my leg.

[@ 04:14 PM GMT]

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