Beyond That Desert Life

My 30th Birthday...

2011-03-10T18:32:00.003+01:00

has been awesome so far.

We had planned to go skiing for a week with a group of friends. It didn't happen when no friends wanted to join the group! So I was worried that it would be a damp squib and add to my concern at reaching the age. But it has been so much fun. A great night out in Shoreditch with 19 of my favourite people and then the surprise of playing at St Andrews, the home of golf yesterday. With a caddie. A once in a lifetime experience.

Being 30.

2011-03-10T17:59:00.002+01:00

I have reached 30. Unlike some rock stars I have not lived fast, died young. I have not burnt out early, I am not a blazing comet flying a firey line through space before exploding in millions of shiny fireworks. I am quite happy of the former and not quite sure what the latter means. All in all, life is great. Saying that....

You begin your twenties with dreams and end them in reality. We are programmed to believe that if we reach thirty and are not yet established, not yet someway down the career path or halfway up the career ladder, the strong likelihood is that we won't get to the end or climb to the top. Even though there are thousands of exceptions to this rule, it is still VERY hard not to be daunted by the big THREE O. Add to this the biological factors of women's ticking clocks and men's falling labidos (not a problem at the moment but will keep you updated) and the age is one to approach with trepidation.

- When I was five years old I was put in a taxi marked 'primary school'. In this taxi I passed through the villages of Times-Tables, Paintingwith Potatoes and Early Spellings. For the most part it was a happy taxi ride and all the way the taxi driver told me exactly where we were going and what to do.

-I then got placed on a bus for secondary school, journeying through various short tunnels of love (after a disturbing voyage through the darkness of Puberty), getting out at a number of sports fields and music classes which added potential routes to the map of my life I had spread out on my knee. But even at this stage, I ignored some of the paths, figuring that I should stick to the main road. I thought that side roads would only lead you to limit your options. I did not realise sometimes they can lead to greater destinations.

- At the age of 16 I was instructed to trim my choices and at 18 the options got even smaller. Destination unknown, I chose the ambiguous road marked Marketing Management. I knew that this road did not end in a single route - I knew it would open up some options although I didn't know if I'd want to take any of those options when I got to them.

- Now at this point things sped up and I was passing side roads on my left and right without really looking down them. It was full speed ahead and not now possible to circle backwards and try my luck down those paths I had earlier ignored. A life in sport had gone - I had not spent enough time on that path so did not have the skills or experience required. Music was a little more possible, although I would have to choose now or I would not have the necessary skills or experience either. If, at this point, this had been my dream, perhaps I would have chosen that route but it was not until a couple of years later when I realised the pure joy of standing on a stage playing songs you have written.

- It was now, having left University when I could have pursued a dream. Sport was long over but maybe music? But as I wasn't actually very good at any instrument, this would have required full dedication and, having come so far down the road and with a full concrete mass of education behind me, this would be a full hardy diversion. And probably be a cul-de-sac. And so I entered the motorway marked 'Career'.

- Not that it hasn't been fun, exciting, interesting, compelling. The eight or so years I have spent on the M-Career have been all of those things. It's just that when you are driving on a motorway sometimes you miss things that are going on in the surrounding world. A bypass takes you around things not through them. And when you see that motorway stretch out in front of you and you are still not sure of the destination, you want to get off. But sometimes there isn't a junction and sometimes there is but you are not sure that if you come off it you will find something better and then what if you can't get back on the motorway? Where do you go then? Are you stuck by the side of the road waiting for someone to come and tow you away?

And that, for me, is what being 30 is about. My 20's were, in the most part, awesome. For the first few years of the decade I completed university, enjoying life as a student. Then it was 18 months in Birmingham, living in a house with some of my best friends and enjoying the carefree life that comes with your first job and your first taste of disposable income. Five years of the decade was sent in Dubai, an experience that has shaped me (hopefully for the better). I left Dubai on my 29th birthday. And spent the next six months having probably the best six months of my life - skiing in Verbier, Casa Segura, Mexico, Costa Rica, then moving to London. And the last few months have been a little uncertain but my job with The Stripe Group has given me the opportunity to try my hand at a dream which may actually be possible - writing a novel. Sounds ridiculous considering this awful stream of consciousness that I might actually think I may be a writer. But thats what I though about all those other side roads I ignored. So now I am going down that side road and if it ends up a dead end then I hope I can find my way back.

30 - when you are old enough to realise that you should follow your dreams but too old to follow some of them.

The new blog - Disclaimer!

2011-03-10T17:35:00.003+01:00

The first post for a lonnnnnng time. This was due to two reasons: firstly I wanted to leave the Casa Segura story up so I could refer people to it and they would find it easily, and secondly because I haven't had enough motivation to write a blog. However, for the past year I have been saying to myself that once I reached the top of the hill of life, past the flag marked '30', and started the long (hopefully) descent downhill, I would make every attempt to start a blog, primarily to aide my older self to remember these early 30 years.

The problem I have always had with diaries and now blogs is the overwhelming desire for a) structure and b) to start with a grand essay which gives background to how I have got to this point. I realise that both these desires have prevented me from just sitting down, logging on and typing so am trying to ignore them now.

So from now on I will endeavour to write something every day. Most of it will be stream of conciousness (like this is), not spellchecked (see 'concousness' earlier in this line) and probably not very interesting. But maybe there will be the occasional gem.

The Happiest Place on Earth

2010-07-04T00:35:00.009+02:00

The below post is my first for some time, as I have just returned from my travels. It is my account of one of the places I visited. It is pretty long but please do try to get to the end! And if you want to watch a photo video, then just press on the youtube screen here...

Johann and Johani are brother and sister. They both have beautiful wide eyes, brown circles swimming in pools of white. Their mother is a drug addict, a former ´street kid´ of Brazil who at some point in the last eight to ten years crossed into Bolivia illegally. No one knows who or where their father is. No one, including themselves, knows their last name, nor how old they are. They do not even know how their first names are correctly spelt. Johann, at some age between eight and ten and the eldest of the two, weighs 25 kilograms, just two times the weight of the average American two year old.

Luis is seven years old. Six months ago, he was a runaway street kid causing trouble in Guyara, a small town split in half by the Amazon, one side in Brazil and one side in Bolivia. Each time the Bolivian authorities put him into a home, he ran away. Each time they put him in a school, he ran away. Although he had relatives in Guyara, they did not look after him well. He doesn´t know where his parents are.

Nathaniel, aged 13, and his sisters Llueda, 11, and Rosita, 6, come from a large family in a town in the mountains close to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. A year and a half ago their mother died giving birth to their youngest sister. Their father, a farmer aged 70, could not look after them so sent them to live with their aunt in the south of the country. Before this, Nathaniel, Llueda, and Rosita were all sexually abused by the workers on the farm.

Three true stories stained with tragedy and sadly stories that are all too familiar throughout the towns and cities of Bolivia, a developing country of 10 million people, a 60% poverty level and a history of economic and political instability. But the children at the centre of these stories are different to thousands of others with similar biographies. Miraculously, despite the horrors that their young lives have already experienced, they spend every day, almost every minute, with broad smiles across their faces. For these are the lucky ones. These are the children of Casa Segura.

* * *

Gifted with a far higher prize in the lottery of life, Michael “Mik” Henzell is a slightly framed, warm, gregarious and humble forty something Australian, born and raised on Moreton Island, off the Sunshine Coast. Up to the age of 32, Mik lived an unremarkable life, similar to many of his peers: a number of jobs as a chef both in Australia, America and Europe, a slightly over-healthy appetite for alcohol and marijuana, and in his early thirties a lack of clarity about his life’s direction. The years since then are the reason for the smiles on the faces of Johann and Johani, Luis, Nathaniel, Llueda and Rosita.

Living back on Moreton Island working “eight hours a week managing a few holiday homes, making enough money to live on”, Mik was staying with a friend on the Gold Coast “partying until late at night”. One night he “started seeing weird stuff, mainly black mists floating around”. This continued for more than 24 hours. Scared and concerned, Mik left, bound for home, but the black mist followed him to the point where he saw it in the eyes of people on the train. “Whatever it was, it was evil. It felt like demons and I thought that if there were demons, then there had to be a god, and something inside me snapped. I felt that if there is a god, then I am living my life wrong”. At that point, Mik immediately stopped drinking, taking drugs, even left his girlfriend of seven years. With a compulsion to read the bible, two weeks later and for the first time since childhood Mik attended a church he found through an acquaintance. “My friends and family thought I was crazy, seeing these things, but this person said ´Don´t worry, it happens all the time, come with me to church´”. From this starting point, Mik enrolled in Ministry college, studying for three years. During this time, he saw a documentary about the street children of Bolivia and knew he could make a difference to their lives.

A few months later, Mik arrived in La Paz, speaking very little Spanish and knowing no one. After an initial few days spent hiding in his hotel room and fighting the urge to return to Australia, whilst out exploring the streets of the highest capital in the world Mik heard some music and, realizing it was emanating from a church, stepped inside. It was through people in the church that he met a similarly minded man with an effusive personality, beaming smile and a name that suggests he should be a character in a UK Sunday night detective show – Pastor Louis Antonio Diamond.

A Jewish-Christian native of Bolivia, Louis Antonio was working with the street children of La Paz and people in the outlying river villages. When they first met, Mik spoke no Spanish and Louis Antonio no English, but something clicked and they immediately became great friends. It was a friendship that would endure. Mik spent his early time in La Paz making soup and taking it out on to the streets. He progressed to helping those street children with crippling drug addictions, trying to encourage them to stop injecting. At one point, realizing that to have any chance of fighting the addiction he had to take them out of their environment, he asked the 10 most addicted boys if they wanted an adventure. All of them agreed and he took them six hours by bus into the jungle and trekked four hours up a mountain to an abandoned village, where they lived together for three months whilst the kids went through drug withdrawals and ¨learnt how to survive without living off handouts or crime¨. Each Saturday, Louis Antonio took the 12 hour round-trip to drop off supplies at the bottom of the mountain before returning to his young family in La Paz. But helping the street children of La Paz was not enough – they wanted to do more.

In 2005, after two years in La Paz, and feeling that there were a lot of people helping the street children there, Mik decided that it would be better to work in the area of prevention rather than cure. He had an ambition to start an orphanage - to get to abandoned or orphaned children before drugs or another form of destruction got to them. Sharing the ambition with Louis Antonio, they decided to move to Riberalta, a tatty but burgeoning jungle town in the North East corner of the country, an hour from the Amazon and the border with Brazil. Riberalta ´boasts´ more abandoned and orphaned children than in most other areas of Bolivia due to the harsh habitat of the jungle, lack of facilities and clean water, and high amounts of malaria. It seemed as good as place as any to work towards the ambition.

* * *

In May 2010, I arrived in Bolivia in the midst of a ´career break´, looking for a bit of food for the soul and with my own lack of clarity about the next stage of my life. Two months previously, I had left Dubai, a city where I had lived and worked for five years. With plans to move to London in August, this was a few months off that seven years of hard work since graduating from University had bought me, and I was spending it with enthusiasm: firstly snowboarding with my girlfriend in Switzerland and now travelling alone around Bolivia and Central America. A friend had spent February volunteering in the region and having heard about her experiences, I felt that some time here would be a good way of fulfilling an ambition to visit the Amazon that I had held since a childhood geography project about the rainforest. One of the attractions was that this would be the complete antithesis to Dubai: I would be exchanging kilometre high towers for wooden huts with grass roofs; all-you-can-eat buffets and cocktails for rice and water purified with chlorine tablets; the humid Arabian Gulf-lapped beach for the sweltering insect-ridden Amazon; one of the world´s fastest growing cities where the pursuit of fortune gleams from everyone´s eyes for a small project whose goal is purely to give a few unfortunate impoverished children a safe home. After five years of chasing the pot of gold at the end of the oil slicken rainbow, after half a decade of excess, I could not wait.

From the dizzying altitude of La Paz, it takes two short plane rides riding low across the altiplano and then the vast luscious canopy of the rainforest to get to Riberalta. After the cold temperatures of the highest capital city in the world, the pilots do their best to warn you of the contrast to come, the lack of air conditioning turning your clothes to wet rags within minutes of being onboard. I was met off the plane at Riberalta´s “airport” (a grass and concrete field with a small shack that serves as a departures terminal and a tin covered area of benches and tables that welcomes arrivals) by Mik: I wasn´t hard to pick out, being the only white face amongst the 20 arrivals, and towering over all of them by at least five inches. From here it was a half hour journey in Mik´s blue and rust Nissan truck along the Roman-straight brown dirt road that, in a rare display of cooperation between South American governments, is currently under construction to link Brazil to Peru via Bolivia. Passing single floor houses of wood and corrugated iron separated from the road by an open sewage trench, the ribs of dogs showing through their taut stretch of skin as they ran in between the scores of motorbikes hooting repeatedly as they carried three people at a time together with a range of objects from bags to tables, scaffolding to logs, this was a stark enough contrast to the urban bustle of La Paz, let alone Dubai. I instantly felt sweatier, stickier, dirtier, the dust from the road covering the motorcyclists in a brown cloud as we passed them. The dense rainforest began at the edges of the road and from there it stretched on endlessly, the lungs of the world just a few metres away from me. And then, ahead on the right, a kilometre after passing a Bolivian army base, I saw a large clearing dotted with smart rectangular wooden cabins, a football pitch, volleyball court and a hill that sloped down to a creek. “Get ready to be attacked by screaming children”, Mik grinned. “This is home”.

Home is Casa Segura. Spanish for ´Safe House´, Casa Segura is ostensibly an orphanage, but there are no Dickensian bleak dormitories here, no lice infested children pleading for “more”, no dark shadows looming over the inhabitants. This is the living, breathing, and constantly evolving result of the vision Mik had back in the year 2000, the ambition he developed in La Paz, and everything he has done since. Currently home to Mik, his fellow Antipodean friend and staff member Kay, and (at the time of writing) 23 children including Johann and Johani, Luis, and Nathaniel, Llueda and Rosita, Casa Segura is a breathtaking example of what one man´s vision, stamina, persistence and passion, aided by the kindness and efforts of a small number of friends and strangers who buy into the vision, can achieve.

Back in 2005, upon moving to Riberalta, Louis Antonio opened up a church and radio station and helped Mik to find a 35 hectare piece of land on the outskirts of the town. Mik had had a vivid dream, “one of those ones which when you wake up you think it was real. I was flying over a rainforest and saw a clearing, it was all green, had grass hut cabins, loads of kids running around and ladies making bread…that dream pretty much gave me the design for Casa Segura”. The first three years were incredibly tough, a combination of fighting bureaucracy, hard physical labour, and severe illness. The first stage was getting the relevant permissions from the authorities, clearing the jungle and constructing the first buildings. Mik spent much of this with just one helper, a local man called Ruddy who still works at the project. The second stage was made easier by the arrival of Kay and involved much building work, whilst the third stage was spent preparing for the arrival of the first children with the construction of ´luxuries´ such as toilets. In that time, Mik contracted malaria twice, typhoid, and a number of bouts of food poisoning. “I nearly gave up several times but as soon as the first kids arrived, it felt amazing. It was all worth it”.

* * *

Stepping down from the truck, I spotted the first two or three children running towards us. Bursting with energy they rapidly braked a few feet short of Mik and I, a little shy of this pale gringo towering above them. Mik laughed telling the children to say hello. I knelt down and they each came forward, holding out their hands as Mik introduced them. Each one looked a picture of health (if very thin), their clothes smattered with mud from the game they had just been playing, their big eyes sparkling, following us as I was given an initial tour of the project. At each stage more children ran out and the procession grew. At the entrance to the project stands the church, the first building that was completed, a simple but well constructed 15mx8m rectangle of wood chopped from the forest, with a roof of grass and leaves also taken from the forest, and a brick floor. The other buildings follow the same design give or take a few tweaks: an office, a dining room/living area, two school buildings, a clinic, a toilet and shower block, and four sleeping cabins for the children, with the frames for six more already in place. A building housing a family who work as cooks, cleaners and builders on the project is on one side of the project, Mik´s cabin is secluded down a 20 metre path through the forest on another side, and Kay´s living quarters are on the third side. A short walk further into the forest from Kay´s is the blue canvas cabin which I called home for the time I spent volunteering at Casa Segura. Add to this lemon, orange, mango and avocado trees, two parrots, two dogs, chickens, a pig, a planned cow field, a football pitch, a volleyball court, and acres of playing space including a creek the size of a municipal swimming pool to swim in, not to mention the surrounding rainforest to explore, this is a world away from the broken homes the children grew up in. For them, this is paradise.

The physical description alone does not do Casa Segura justice. The atmosphere is almost impossible to describe: the whole place has an infectious air of life affirming positivity. The ghosts of memories that the children carry around with them are locked away, the darkness eclipsed by a sea of laughter, games and love. In the 23 days that I spent there, only a few times did I see sadness in the eyes of two children (Luis and Llueda), as the spectre of past grievances flickered through their minds, and the only tears were in short lived moments following the usual harmless scraps between children. I found it incredible that the scars of their history were not etched across their faces, eradicated as they are by the home they now enjoy.

On weekdays the children wake at 6.45, shower and change into their football kit-like uniforms, and breakfast in the dining area. After breakfast it´s four hours of school (most children in Bolivia only go to school for four hours a day) where they are joined by 20 other children who come from small communities in the jungle. Then it´s lunch and an afternoon of leisure, before dinner, homework and bed. Meals are meat and rice. Lots of rice. Including for breakfast. The reason is twofold – firstly, the amount of insects makes growing vegetables in the jungle almost impossible and buying them in town is prohibitively expensive and, secondly, Bolivian people just love meat and rice. For Mik and Kay, the mundaneity and blandness of their meals is one of the many small sacrifices that they have made.

Mik tries as hard as possible to avoid the rules, regulations and timetables of an institution. “I had a brilliant childhood, going to school, doing chores and homework and spending the rest of the time playing. This is what childhood should be about so we try to give it to the kids here” he explained to me one day as we watched the kids playing football. “Some people criticize us, saying we should be more formal, that we should organize more activities, but kids create their own activities, they make their own fun. Why should these ones be any different?” In addition to schooling, the children will learn a trade – either cooking, carpentry or farming, ensuring that they leave Casa Segura with an education and a skill. It strikes me that for some of the children, those like brothers Nacho and Winky whose mother died and whose father lives in Riberalta but can´t look after them, this is like a fun and liberal boarding school. “Those with families can see them any time they like and we encourage them to. It is really important that they do that and maintain the connection”. In the time that I was there, some of the children´s families joined us for Sunday lunch, others spent the weekends at their brothers’, mothers’ or fathers’ houses, and on the Bolivian Mother´s Day, three travelled by bus to visit their aunt at her home one hour away. The sense of family is strong, with all but two of the 23 children having brothers, sisters or cousins also living at the project, but more than that, each of the 23 are like brothers and sisters to each and every other one, with Mik and Kay as the surrogate parents. The whole ´family´ sit down together for three meals a day, the children sleep in cabins of up to six, and on a Sunday everyone piles on to the truck and head to church. The children go to school together, play together, and do homework together. Dinner times are full of talk and laughter, the cheeky grins looking up at you with wide-eyed innocence as they hide your fork or tickle you. One day, as I watched the kids run around the football pitch, play a game with bottle tops, and then throw themselves off the wooden platform that juts out over the creek, the sound of shrieks and giggles in the air, it struck me that theirs was the childhood of Enid Blyton stories; the rose-tinted reminiscences of our parents who grew up in the 1950´s and were ´happy playing with a stick and a ball´. There are no health and safety concerns here, no worries about playing outside alone, no societal views from on high about how children should spend their time. There is, as per Mik´s childhood, school, homework, chores and play. Plenty of play, plenty of smiles and plenty of laughter. A community comprised mainly of children with tragic pasts, this could very well be the happiest place on earth.

* * *

There are great plans for the project, with the ultimate aim being to house 60 children. I wonder if the spirit of the place, which is reflective of and relies on Mik´s personality and on each child receiving lots of attention from him and Kay, would be diminished by having this many children. “It is a concern”, Mik confides. “All of these kids need love and attention, which is one of the reasons we appreciate having volunteers. If we get more kids, then the amount of love and attention we can give each one will go down”. In the past three months, eight children have been taken in, growing the project by 30%. I suggest to him that perhaps it is better to give a smaller number of children more love than to spread himself and his limited resources too thinly. He seems to agree but then admits that he finds it hard, if not impossible, to say no. Two days later, and one of the children´s mothers asks him if he can take in one of her other sons – he agrees immediately. An Australian woman is due to arrive towards the end of the year to live and work at the project for at least one year, which will relieve some of the pressure, but I wonder how many children will arrive in the meantime, stretching Mik and Kay further. The two used to take annual trips home to Australia for a much needed break and to see their own families but, with so many children, this is now impossible.

The project relies on fundraising by Mik and Kay´s church in Australia which now acts as an administrator, four other churches in Brisbane and Sydney, a small amount of governmental support, private donations, and on sponsors of the children (many of whom are past volunteers). Mik and Kay draw a meager salary, and end up spending much of this on gifts (and sometimes essentials) for the children. They don´t seem concerned by financial planning for their own future. Like most families, there are constant financial concerns – but most families are not 25 people strong. Currently, the monthly payments made by sponsors do not cover the US$ 1200 monthly food bill, with eight of the children without sponsors. In the time that I was there, the expected monthly donated payment did not arrive and Mik´s mood noticeably darkened, obviously with deep concerns about the mounting bills. Add to this Bolivia´s notoriously volatile political situation, regular teacher strikes, and a shortage of petrol and diesel in Riberalta (needed not just for the trips into town but also for the trips into the jungle to chop wood for cooking), and the stresses on one man´s shoulders must be huge. But Mik remains remarkably optimistic. “Whenever we have had times like this, where things have seemed a bit bleak, something always happens to help us. There have been too many instances where we have needed something and it has arrived for me not to believe that God helps us and will do so again. Like when we needed to build a clinic and we received an email from two nurses asking if they could volunteer. They came and set up the clinic, bringing the medical supplies with them. I have faith that He will help us”.

For someone like me who wavers between atheism and agnosticism, this is a difficult confidence to understand. Mik´s strong faith is at the centre of the development of Casa Segura – without it the project would not exist and the children would not enjoy the lives that they do. To talk to him about his Christianity was immensely enjoyable. I found his liberal attitude to ´non-believers´ or ‘doubters’ like myself combined with his own deep-rooted belief, knowledge of the bible and absolute conviction that God has helped him along the way, a fascinating conversation. It showed me the power that faith can have and made me question my previous cynicism towards so called ´born-again Christians´. As an (at the very most) Agnostic, I still don´t understand how he can believe the words of the bible in a literal sense – how he can believe the Genesis story and not believe in evolution, how he can absolutely believe the stories of Noah and his ark, the parting of the Red Sea, and the Virgin Birth – this is beyond the paradigm through which I view the world. But I wholeheartedly respect and envy his belief and faith and found myself for the first time ever not ignorantly mocking someone with such views, greatly appreciating that it is this which has resulted in the creation of Casa Segura, the closest to the Garden of Eden that the children here could have ever imagined experiencing.

* * *

As you can probably tell from what I have written so far, it is hard if not impossible to be less than overly effusive about both Casa Segura and Mik Henzell. Mik would no doubt be embarrassed to read some of the praise given here – whilst he admits that his work has done wonders for the lives of the children, he seems devoid of arrogance about what he has achieved. He may be humble, but he is a force of nature too – if that is not a contradiction in terms. In creating Casa Segura he has been planner, architect and builder, plumber, father and doctor. Despite having no formal medical training he is adept at both diagnosis and treatment: I saw him treat malaria, ear infection and fever, and on one occasion give Johann stitches on his chin whilst reading how to do it from a Spanish medical book. In addition to the direction given to him from his belief, he has had a lot of help along the way without which Casa Segura would not exist. Kay has been and continues to be a huge contributor, giving up her life in Australia to live and work at the project, a rock on which Mik can rely. Then there is Louis Antonio and his family, the church in Australia, a number of large donors, and the various volunteers who have contributed much: the Australian nurses who helped establish the clinic; the British Engineering students who helped create the wells that supply the project with fresh water; the Australian electrician who wired up the project; and the numerous other volunteers who have each made their own contribution.

I wholeheartedly encourage anybody to volunteer at Casa Segura and think that those that do will take from it much more than if they pay $1000 for the privilege of volunteering at one of the thousands of projects advertised online, where I suspect the experience is slightly manufactured. There are negatives – the bites from insects larger than I have seen on any nature documentary, the sticky heat, the constant feeling of dirtiness, the risk of illness, and the occasional hours or boredom without the usual distractions of television, radio, computer or books. But these are far outweighed by the wide range of positives - it sounds like a poetic cliché but one smile or hug from the kids makes you forget any of the above. Nevertheless, it hasn´t always met every volunteer´s expectations. I asked Mik whether any volunteers had been counter-productive and he admitted that a very small minority had. “Everyone who has come has made a positive difference, but there have been a couple who have been a little difficult due to the expectations they arrived with. They came believing they could make a huge difference, with grand ideas of achieving something big whilst they were here, but people need to fit into the rhythms and demands of the project. For example, if there is no building work to be done, then volunteers aren´t going to leave here having built something. And that has annoyed a couple of people in the past who wanted to leave some form of physical legacy”. But even if as a volunteer you do not leave behind something tangible, everyone who has come to help, whether for one week or three months, has made some form of difference. “The most important thing is the children – they love having the attention that a volunteer gives them. And they talk about volunteers for months after they have left. It makes a real difference to them”. As with the volunteers mentioned above, prior to arriving at Casa Segura I had preconceived notions that my time would be spent doing physical labour and that I would leave with the knowledge that I had contributed to the creation of something that would be in the project for years to come. But this was a period of relative quiet at the project and the only physical work I did was a day up to my neck in water pulling weeds out of the creek to enlarge the swimming area. The only other ´work´ I did was helping in the daily washing of clothes, serving meals, and running errands in town with Mik. My main role was playing with the children – exhausting but hardly a tough job. I did leave something tangible behind though - in my first week, walking through Riberalta´s Sunday market, I stumbled upon a shop selling electric pianos and keyboards. Remembering that as a child, having always had a piano in the house I found it odd when friends’ houses didn´t have them, I bought one for the project. From then on, my alarm clock was the sound of the demo tunes drifting across the project to my cabin and the days were punctured by the discordant sounds of the children attacking the keyboard.

* * *

For Mik and Kay, I sense it is a lonely life. They each have a couple of friends in the town but I get the feeling that one of the big advantages of hosting volunteers is that they provide some much needed company. Over the course of my weeks there, I became very friendly with Mik and I realized how lonely I would be if I didn´t have my girlfriend or group of friends as constant presences in my life. On a Friday evening, Mik heads into town for his ´boys night´ with Louis Antonio, which they spend chatting over a meal. Louis Antonio is a great support and friend to Mik, and they enthuse over their joint plans for the project. On the land next to Casa Segura, Louis Antonio has began building a shelter for abused women, funding it with donations from his small church in town and the selling of small almond sweets which his family make in the kitchen of his home. Eventually, whilst remaining separate entities, the two projects will share the church at Casa Segura and the women in Louis Antonio´s project will act as big sisters for the children. Past this, long term plans for the project are unclear: when I ask Mik how long he sees himself being here, he simply answers: “For a long time yet. I want to see this generation grow up. How can I leave them? Their mothers and fathers left them, it would be too much for them if I did too”. He has hopes that one day, Mariano, at 13 years old the eldest child both in years and in time at the project, will take over, and is already showing him the ropes. The children will be welcome to live at Casa Segura for as long as they want – into their adulthood if they wish. Most of the boys will likely become laborers or farmers, and Mik and Kay will do their best to not let the girls fall into the trap that many of their peers do: becoming pregnant at the age of 14 due to a combination of a lack of education and the ingrained tenets of Catholicism that the Spanish invaders brought with them centuries ago. Hopefully a couple of the children will go on to greater things, such as Nathaniel who is exceptionally bright for his age. Over one meal Mik posed him a puzzle using matches – he had solved it within 3 minutes and within 5 minutes had made up his own which took Mik and I much longer to solve. The project pays US $10 per month to send Nathaniel to a school in town and it reaps rewards – he excels in most subjects, already knows basic English phrases, and within a few days of me buying the keyboard he had learnt a number of simple tunes and was eager for me to teach him more.

Every child arrives at Casa Segura with a tragic history but within a couple of days they are living firmly in the present, and enjoying every minute. It was touching to see the way Nathaniel watches over his two sisters, for example buying them ice creams in town on a Sunday with the odd Boliviano he earns through his chores and going without himself. Likewise, Llueda acts as a mother to Rosita, making sure she cleans her teeth, washing her hair, scolding her when she is naughty.

When Luis arrived at the project, he came with warnings about his behavior from the authorities who had taken him from the streets and placed him at Casa Segura but he has undergone a massive transformation, Mik saying that he often wonders if he is the same child. “It´s all to do with getting love and affection. If a child gets none, he goes looking for it, and maybe Luis found it from kids on the street”. Although he was the one whose eyes most showed the sadness of his life, I found Luis an incredibly sweet child, whose former time on the streets now manifests itself in a mischievously playful spirit, creeping up to jump on my back, wanting a hug.

Johann and Johani arrived at the project only one week before I did, but I couldn’t have guessed from the way they were already part of the family. Mik and I spent a day in Guyara where like Luis they had been found by the authorities, trying to find out their last name but their paperwork had been lost so this and their ages remain a mystery. Johann makes bangles and wears them on his wrist, saying that they are for his mother. However she is waiting to go into a drug rehabilitation centre and until she has done so, they will not see her. As yet, they haven´t asked Mik or Kay about her but if they do they will be told a softened version of the truth. ¨They need the hope to one day go back to her”. Malnourished, his skin as taut as the dogs I saw when I first arrived in Riberalta, Johann is one of the first to put his hands up for seconds at dinner time but also one of the first to break into a grin.

* * *

At a time in my life when I am trying to decide what my next step should be: when my desire to attempt to make a living from being a writer contrasts with the concern that this would be following a whim and wasting the steps I have taken to date on the career ladder; when my love of expensive toys, clothes and holidays that a well paid job provides conflicts with the knowledge of the fulfillment I would get from a job that contributes to society, it has been an enlightening experience to see what a difference people like Mik, Kay and Louis Antonio are making to people´s lives through sacrifices they have made in theirs. As I wrote above, an infectious air of live affirming positivity swirls around Casa Segura and for three weeks it was a privilege to breathe it in. Further, the slow rhythm of life was an antidote to the hectic pace of Dubai and without work, without television, cinema, radio or books, I had the time to just sit and think, reflect and contemplate - a luxury which our non-stop western lives have all but eradicated. It would be disingenuous to say that three or four weeks at Casa Segura ´changed me´ - I am not going to pretend that I am going to swap the life I enjoy for a life of sacrifice for the good of others - but I have no doubt that it was an overwhelmingly positive experience and one which I am sure I will reflect on in the future and use as an inspiration in many facets of my life.

To give up a comfortable life, to move to a developing country and give yourself over for the good of children like Nathaniel, Llueda and Rosita, takes a special type of person and yes, maybe it does take a deep faith, a life-changing vision. Whatever it was that propelled Mik Henzell along this path, it has resulted in the creation of something truly wonderful that has changed the lives of at least 23 children and forever turned a river of tears into a sea of smiles.

* * * * *

Message from Charlie (the writer):

I hope that this story has done justice to Mik Henzall & Casa Segura, that it has demonstrated what one man can achieve, and portrayed the air of happiness that swells around the project. It is an uplifting true story and I hope that came through. However, one man can only do so much on his own – as I wrote above, Casa Segura rely on donations and whilst I was there the anticipated monthly batch of donations did not come through. I know that we have all become a bit antipathetic to requests for charity – I admit to hiding from the guys dressed in red holding a clipboard on the streets – but please do consider donating to Casa Segura, either as a one time donation or by sponsoring one of the kids. They could really do with your help. And if you are tempted to take some time out of your life (even just a week) and have an amazing adventure in north-east Bolivia, I completely recommend it. The details are below. Thanks.

TO HELP OUT:

Either:
1) go to www.casa-segura.org and click on the donations link
2) Email Mik at casasegura@hotmail.com
3) Email me at taylor_charlie@hotmail.com and I can help you send the funds

This Weeks (or rather, fortnight’s) Top Ten (or Six) Stories

2010-04-13T18:59:00.000+02:00

Spending time snowboarding in Verbier, time seems to pass very quickly (nothing to do with the pace I set on the slopes, which is still decidedly escargoutesque), so it seems that I neglected to post a ‘diary’ entry for last week. Oh, and the week before. So here is a ramble on things I have done or stories that have caught my eye in the past 14/21 days (or so). Problem is, when spending the day snowboarding, and the night researching travelling on the web, there aren’t ten things to talk about. Maybe I will think of some more over the next few days and just add them in…

Lazy Sunday Afternoon’s, supping on a pint, face glued to a 13 inch screen

Global multi-media conglomerate monster News International have announced that they will start to charge for access to their websites for The Times and The Sunday Times from June. This is a major step in a new business model, which is looking to address the fall of newspaper sales over the past decade or so, but I wonder how successful it will be.

This is one of those cases which makes me question whether I am truly part of the ‘ipod’ generation or a Luddite who would not really have been bothered if technology hadn’t moved past the items on which I first consumed film and music – video and tape cassettes. Yes I own an ipod, (well actually three of them, although I should mention that one was a corporate gift from the launch of Trump Tower which I worked on), a Mac, a Play Station 3 enabling me to watch films on Blu-Ray, a projector and several other such hi-tech pieces of apparatus. But it’s very rare that I am ‘an early adopter’. I didn’t use the internet until I was 18 (in 1999, a good three years after usage had become widespread and commonplace); I didn’t get an email account until I went to University later that same year; I (foolishly) boycotted the ipod when it first came out opting instead for the iriver because the Daily Mail scaremongered me into thinking that the ipod’s white headphones would make me more susceptible to being mugged; I was very late in signing up to Facebook and I still do not have the foggiest how to use Twitter and can confidently proclaim that I will never use it. But then, I said the same about getting an Ipod, a Mac and Facebook so who knows when I may stop writing such long-winded bumph and start writing in 140 characters or less? Last week, Apple (a company which I am now, against my will, a disciple of – Steve Jobs being the technology equipment of Willy Wonka) launched its latest best-new-thing, the ipad. A convert to Apple I may be, but I do not see myself buying an ipad. I just do not see the benefit of an oversized ipod that doesn’t do all the things I need it to do. On the other hand, as history has (allegedly) shown, an apple can tempt the best of men so let’s give it 6 months and see if I bite.

When reading the news about having to pay for access to the Times website, my immediate thought was that this will not catch on. When I say that, I do not mean that people will not pay for the access, but rather that it will not replace buying a newspaper. Is there any better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than in a pub garden reading 5 kilogrammes of rainforest? Part of the reading experience is the texture of the paper, the smudges of black ink on the thumb, flicking through pages until a story or a picture catches the attention and you delve deeper. Reading news online is just not the same experience. And a newspaper has a structure that we have become used to – we know how to consume it. A quick look at the front page for the main story of the day then it’s a jump to the sport at the back for an in-depth browse before returning to the front of the paper to see the key stories (depending on what newspaper it is, this may be via a saucy glance at Zoe, 23, from Brighton), and then a very brief look at the business news, before checking that a sports page has not been missed. This can never be replicated online.

Nevertheless, there is no denying that the newspaper industry is in dire straits and perhaps this is the step forward that the industry needed. It took too many years for the record industry to recognise the need to adapt and it seems that the only answer that the film industry has to minimise piracy is to bring in 3D (works for Avatar but can you honestly say that The Godfather would be better if they retrofit it to make bullets fly at you during Sonny’s death). The instant access to the latest news that online gives us has transformed the way we gather knowledge but will we pay for the privilege? Only if all sites are accessible by giving over your credit card details, which is some way off, if at all. Of course, News International will be relying on the fact that readers are loyal and will not swap to a competitor’s free product and they have stated that they will be adding extra content to their sites to ensure that the £1 a day is worth it. But I would rather spend that money on a physical paper and then use other online news providers for my instant hit.

Of course, when I read the news, I was browsing BBC Online and not reading it in print, so maybe I will be proven wrong.

May 6th looms – but does everybody know?

Sitting on the terrace of a bar/café here in Verbier, I overheard the following conversation between three English guys who we shall call John, Jack and Ignorant Dave (who had revealed in an earlier conversation that they were 29 years old):

John: So Dave, are you going to vote?
Ignorant Dave: What for?
John: Brilliant! In the election
Ignorant Dave: Is there an election? What in England?
John: Yes Dave
Ignorant Dave: I didn’t realise.
John: How could you not?
Jack: Be fair John, he’s been in Verbier for the past few months
Ignorant Dave: Yeah. Maybe I will vote
John: Who for?
Ignorant Dave: Probably not. Can’t be bothered. They’re all tossers anyway

This delightful scene played out in full glorious technicolour before me, raised two questions. 1) How the Gordon Brown could he not know there was an election? and 2) Will I be voting?

Yes, our ignorant Dave may have been in Verbier for the past few months but surely SURELY he would still become aware of an election taking place in his own country? Okay, it was only announced a few weeks ago, but its not like it hasn’t been on the cards for months. All of which must mean he does not look at nor listen to any form of news outlet, be it television, radio, newspaper or online news page. Fair enough, he may not be able to watch British television or listen to British radio (although I imagine that Swiss television news will have made at least a passing reference to the UK election) but as a 29 year old Brit living in Verbier, there is a fair chance that he has both the wherewithal and the ability to access the internet (in reference to this week’s first top story above, being able to access UK news when you live overseas is one big advantage of online news sites). How could he NOT have read about it? Does this mean that in all his time in Verbier he has not once looked at the UK news, or come to think of it, any news? Is it just me, or is that ridiculous? How could you not want to know what is going on in this world? I don’t mean to sound judgmental here: I just find it baffling that someone of my age, someone who is almost certainly from a fairly well off background in the UK (how do I make this leap of assumption you ask? He is living in Verbier for at least a few months a place where it costs £7 for a pint of beer) and therefore someone who has almost certainly been given the opportunity of a reasonable education, someone therefore like me, has not any ANY!! interest in what is happening outside of the admittedly pleasant mountainous walls of this little part of Switzerland.

Sadly, even though he now knows that there is an election to decide on who will run his country for the next five or so years, Ignorant Dave will not be voting, partly because “they’re all tossers”. Tossers they may be my vacant friend, but they are the only tossers we have so we better make sure that the best tosser gets the job. And at least we have a choice of which tosser will rule our green and pleasant land. And isn’t this the point? It is a well-worn one, but people around the world even in this ‘modern age’ are still putting themselves and their family in physical danger just to cast a ballot , whilst millions of others don’t even get the chance to do this. One of the responsibilities of living in a democracy is surely to use the privilage that we have been given and to get out of bed, get down to the voting booth and place our cross in one of the boxes on offer. The fact that Dave’s view is one held by a fair amount of Brits at the moment, largely due to the constant desire that our MPs seem to have to see their faces on the front page of the tabloids in some scandal or other, is not the point. Is the Australia system, where it is a legal obligation for everyone to vote and if you do not, you are subject to a fine, a better one? I am not sure, but at least it would mean that more people would vote for our next Prime Minister than who is going to be Andrew Lloyd Webber’s next Dorothy.

So who will I be voting for? I really don’t know. And to be honest, right now, I am not that much ‘better’ than Dave, as I don’t actually know how I can vote. Having lived out of the country for five years, I am not sure that I am on the electoral register. Add to that the fact that I will likely be in some far flung darkest corner of Bolivia on May 6th, and it all does seem a bit of a bother. But I can’t have the reaction that I found myself having to the overheard conversation above, and then not cast my own vote. So that is my first step.

Thankfully there is not a wine list to look at

Imagine going into a beautiful restaurant and being presented with the menu, glancing over the first page and finding that everything causes your mouth to salivate thus causing an impossible dilemma over what to choose. Then you turn the page and find another 20 equally compelling items. Turn the page again and the same. And again. And again. Then you realise that the menu is 100,000 pages long and the waiter tells you this is only the first ‘chapter’ and there is a store room the size of Wales bursting at the walls with the other chapters. For me, seeing as I struggle with a menu of three choices, and always have to know what everyone I am dining with is ordering before I place my request, this is the ultimate nightmare.

But this is what it has felt like over the past few weeks when I have been looking on the web for where to visit in South America – my next continent of choice when we leave Verbier. It used to be that when picking a holiday, you would go into the high street travel agent, pick up a few brochures on your chosen destination, spend some time with the agent and leave an hour later knowing what you would be doing each day of your holiday. Now, with the internet, the choices are almost literally endless. And it is addictive. When you find something you like, you can’t stop thinking that if you just look for 30 more minutes, you will find something a little bit better. Of course, the majority of travel sites are promotional so it is hard to get a balanced view and means you end up thinking every place is amazing.

Knowing very little about South and Central America makes it even tougher – I don’t even know which country to visit and yes, the internet makes each seem like they would be the amazing experience that I am looking for. Do I go for Argentina, Peru, Chile or Bolivia? And how about Brazil? Or do I go to Central America, and if so, should it be Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico or salsa and mojitos in Cuba? Do I spend loads of time in one place, trying to get under the skin of it, or cram in loads of countries so I don’t miss out? Can I really go to South America and not go to Machu Pichu? What about the alliterative wonder of Lake Titicaca? Add to the bottomless well of the internet the recommendations of friends – all of whom say “you must” go to this place, but all contradicting the others - and there is just way too much choice.

With only a few weeks to go, I am very torn on what to do. I have applied to volunteer in an orphanage in the rainforests in north-east Bolivia but following sending in the application forms, have not heard from them for 10 days. I know that they have to drive quite a long way to get internet access and rarely check it, but it is proving a little frustrating, as all other plans are on hold until I hear back from them. Following three or four weeks there, I plan to fly up to Mexico to meet with Becs as it seems this is the only place where both I and her can get to (she coming from New York and on her way to Australia). After that I will travel for three to four weeks but don’t know whether to stay in Central America (perhaps Costa Rica) or head back to the Chile/Peru/Bolivia area.

Here’s hoping that when I do finally make my choice, I don’t find myself in a sweltering latino café with a 20 page menu to choose from. I’ll be happy with a chicken fajita and a mojito. Or should I have a beer? Or maybe a Rum. Is the Rum good here?

The global village – but is it social?

Another internet related story here – last month for the first time Facebook overtook Google as the most visited website in the US. So people spend more time (or is it that more people spend time?) using the internet for social networking than in the pursuit of knowledge (or searching for porn?). Perhaps this means that we would rather connect with friends then look at naked women, men, or whatever else takes people’s fancy in their darkened, blue lit, me time? If so, that is arguably a good thing.

Facebook has been one of the true internet successes and has many positives. But even though it may mean we spend more time communicating with friends and acquaintances, has the quality of communication decreased? Here in Verbier I have spent a fair amount of time on the internet, and a good proportion of that on Facebook. The normal order of events when I wake is 1) get out of bed, 2) turn the computer on, 3) turn the kettle on, 4) return to computer and log into hotmail, 5) log into Facebook, 6) log into bbc.co.uk/news, 7) make a cup of tea, 8) browse the three sites listed above. I would say I spend 15 minutes a day on Facebook, which increases if I have received emails on it. A lot of my emails to and from friends now take place over Facebook rather than via hotmail, and I enjoy seeing what my friends have been up to. Often I will also talk to a friend via Facebook messenger (which seems to have replaced Windows messenger in popularity). But communicating this way is not as good as a phone call (or obviously a face-to-face chat). The conversations, by the nature of the medium, are stilted, and I often flit between a conversation with one person and one with another, looking at a web page, or maybe looking at the television (and I am pretty sure the person I am ‘talking’ to, is doing the same). Written conversation is far less fluid than verbal conversation. There is a flexible beauty to verbal conversation, which tends to flit between subjects, often coming back to an earlier subject far later in the chat, with many ‘topics’ not coming to a clear conclusion – it is a shared construct between two or more people where we are the artists, improvising a piece of intangible and transient art. We pick up different meanings in the intonation, non-verbal clues such as laughs, snorts, the volume of different words, stresses on phrases. A verbal conversation has far more warmth, depth and emotion to it. I say all of this because I sense that we are having less verbal conversations due to the advent of social networking, emails and text messages, and I think that we are losing something because of it. People seem to prefer to text or email rather than to pick up the phone, and so a two-way conversation becomes a one-way communication, a statement rather than a fluid exchange of ideas and thoughts.

Further, do Facebook and other social networking sites fool us into believing that we have more friends than we really do? A study by Professor Robin Dunbar found that there is a finite number of people that we can maintain stable relationships with (ie you know who they are and how they fit into your social world and vice versa), and that number is 150. The study came about when Professor Dunbar found during his studies on apes and primates that an ape’s society numbered no more than 150. Dunbar wondered if this applied to humans and found that the villages listed in the Doomsday Book were all of a size of about 150, and that the sizes of villages in the 18th century were of the same size. Dunbar believes that this is historically (ie in the long, distant evolutionary past) to do with the pressures to have cohesive communities and also that the limit is due to the size of our brain – we can not handle more relationships than 150. He took this further by looking at social networking sites, predominantly Facebook, and found that the average amount of friends we have on such sites is between 100-150. Further, Dunbar believes that those who have more than 150 friends on Facebook are not actively engaged to that amount of people.

I have 275 friends on Facebook but would estimate that half of them I have never written to and not spoken to for at least more than a year (some for more than 10 years). What if Facebook asked us to classify our ‘Friends’ into three categories?:
1) Friends,
2) Acquaintances,
3) Past Acquaintances.

How many would we have in each category?

Or how about four categories based on how you will feel when you are told that they have died:
1) ‘I will go to his/her funeral and almost certainly cry’,
2) ‘I will go to his/her funeral because it feels like I should’,
3) ‘I will not go to his/her funeral but do feel a pang of sadness
4) Who?
From a quick look at my friends list on Facebook, I would estimate that there are about 45 in the first category, 50 in the last, and the rest in the middle two. There are at least eight ‘friends’ who I have absolutely no idea who they are.

So, not counting the 50 in the last category, I do have over 150 ‘friends’, but have I really ‘socialised’ with them in the past year, five years or even ten years? And if I have done (and I include in this the act of sending a simple message), what was the quality of the interaction?

Ben Fisher, a friend who I first met in Birmingham and then moved to Dubai with, used to joke that he had a list of 100 friends and each time he formed a new friendship, he had to delete one of the 100. This is actually not a bad idea. Why don’t we treat ‘friends’ like we are supposed to treat clothes – if we haven’t seen/worn them for a period of time, discard them? I think the answer is two fold – firstly, we all like to think that we have a large number of friends, and secondly because we hold on to some friendships due to nostalgia. Who doesn’t think fondly of the friends that they had when they were 10? Who doesn’t remember the friend that they first got drunk or high with? And who doesn’t want to hold on to the university years. But in reality, it is a melancholic part of life that some friendships do, for what ever reason, fade into the ether, becoming just that – an element of nostalgia that reminds us of past times. And rather than pour energies into trying to keep these flickering flames alight by once every four years sending that friend a one line message on Facebook, are we not better to invest our time and energy into the 10, 25 or 100 people closest to us? Because its likely in this Facebook world that we now live that if we don’t, then they won’t, and all we will be left with is 150 people, represented by a small photo on a computer screen, sending us an occasional one line message.

Wouldn’t they have to be smarter than the average bear?

The US Defense department recently revealed some of the suggestions which members of the public have submitted to it, via its website. These include:
- using trained sniffer-bears to hunt down and bring Osama bin Laden to justice because “bears have scent detection that is far superior to bloodhounds. Trained bears with GPS and day/night cameras around their necks might be able to hunt down the scent of bin Laden”. And how should the trained bears get into Afghanistan (forgetting the fact noone knows whether bin Laden is actually in Afghanistan)? “Overnight parachute some bears into areas he may be”
and
- a new theory about 9/11: “Has anyone at the Department of Defense noticed that the Twin Towers were destroyed on 9/11, and that when you dial emergency services in the US you dial 911? Is so, is this merely a coincidence?”

I read about this in The Guardian, but what the Guardian writer didn’t point out was that some equally bizarre methods and theories have been put into action. Some of these are discussed in ‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’ a book by Jon Ronson, that was recently made into a film. I haven’t actually seen the film nor read the book but did hear a few interviews with the writer. The book examines connections between paranormal military programs and psychological techniques being used for interrogation in the War on Terror. Such methods have, in the past, included:
- using the theme tune of Barney & Friends as a torture device
- a military uniform that includes loudspeakers that would emit ‘indigenous music and words of peace’
- and (hence the title), trying to create a ‘super soldier’ who can stop a goat’s heart simply by giving it an intense gaze. Such ‘super soldiers’ refer to themselves as Jedi Warriors, because the thinking about their occult superpowers dates back to early Star Wars days, when post-Vietnam, the military would try anything to find a new source of power

Is the Pope Catholic? Yes. But he isn’t exactly PR savvy

Somehow managing to out goof Tiger Woods in the PR savvy stakes this past few weeks has been the Pope. Or rather the Vatican Church. I am not going to write too much about this as I can’t pretend to have read up on the subject to any deep level, and I feel such a subject deserves that before I pass comment, but in brief… the Catholic Church has made a number of blunders recently in the (just) furore surrounding the unbelievable level of child abuse that has taken place by priests in the past few decades. The latest came straight from the at best naïve, at worst bigoted, but certainly poorly judged mouth of the Vatican’s Secretary of State who blamed homosexuality for the abuse of minors and not the Church’s celibacy.

I have some pretty strong views on this whole matter and also have some unanswered moral questions but I want to wait until I can give the matter more thinking time before I comment on it here. In the meantime, lets hope someone with a little bit of PR savvyness speaks to the Pope and the other Vatican hierarchy and suggests they consider where they put the blame for these horrendous sins – at least in public.

This week’s cultural delights

Book: ‘This Bleeding City’ by Alex Preston

Films: The Hangover

TV: Masterchef, Entourage 3, Over the Rainbow (shit, I had to include that as I am trying to keep this diary honest), Curb Your Enthusiasm 7

Music: Snowboard Playlist including Artic Monkeys, Arcade Fire, Ben Folds, The Bravery, Coldplay, Counting Crows. Doves, Editors, Empire of the Sun, Faker, Fratellis. Groove Armada, Hard-Fi. Jason Mraz, Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, Killers, Kings of Leon, Kooks, Libertines. Modest Mouse, Morrissey, Mr Hudson and Library, Paulo Nutini

Thoughts on That Desert Life #1 – The potholes and perils of falling into clichés and generalisations when writing about 'the City Built on Sand'

2010-03-30T15:15:00.011+02:00

Walking through the reception of the single story office in which I had worked for the past seven months, my eyes were concentrating on the phone in my hand so I didn’t notice the assortment of colleagues, gathered in small groups, chattering in excited whispers. It was only when I got to my destination – the door to the men’s washroom – that I looked up from the phone and straight into the chest of an exceptionally tall half-man/half-gorilla, wearing a large badge that said ‘SECURITY’ and a grimace that said ‘I’d like to crush you but I am currently busy”. But armed with a distinct lack of respect for figures that assume some form of authority due to the badge on their jacket or the whistle in their mouth, I politely asked him to move, as I needed to get to the toilet. Ape Man looked down at me from on high and slowly shook his head. Angered by his self-imposed jurisdiction, I raised my voice: “Sorry mate, this is my office and I need to go to the toilet”. The hulking simian just stared straight over my head, not granting my statement with even a flicker of his eyes. From behind me, one of my colleagues loudly whispered. “Charlie. You can’t go in. Michael Jackson’s in there”.

The fact that the King of Pop was urinating in the washrooms of my workplace would have seemed absolutely unbelievable in my previous employment. But an office in Birmingham this was not: these were the corridors of one of the largest property developers in the world, at the epicentre of the building boom, in arguably the most bizarre, ostentatious and mind-blowing city on the planet at the time: Dubai.

These three adjectives: bizarre; ostentatious; mind-blowing, were words that visitors used but that those of us who worked there rarely did. It was November 2005 and I had only been living in Dubai for seven months, but already the absurdities had become normalities. Michael Jackson taking a piss in the toilet? Not surprising. Writing a speech for one of the most important statesmen in the country? All part of the day’s work. Organising a tour for The King of the Zulus? Oh, do I really have to? I am being conceited for the sake of effect – of course these things were exciting and stimulating but they did become unsurprising. To use a cliché, those of us who lived and worked there quickly learnt to expect the unexpected, and as time went on, these sorts of things just caused the small raise of the eyebrow.

Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself

It was the second day of 2005 when I received the call from a former boss asking if I would be interested in a job in Dubai. She and her husband had moved to Dubai some months previous, after he had been offered the position of Sales and Marketing Director for one of the Emirate’s largest and most notable organisations – one of the three companies that was rapidly changing the face of the city’s landscape with incredible property developments that would not only provide homes and offices for millions, but would also stun the world with their ingenuity and pure, unadulterated excess. I was in Birmingham at the time, which wasn’t at bad as it sounds. In fact I loved living in the city, I had a great job which I had somehow landed after University, living with some of my closest friends in a typical post-University house enjoying the excesses which the first post-University full time job brings you (Jacobs Creek instead of Lambrini, Heinz Baked Beans instead of Somerfield Savers Own Brand, a living room!). I could afford to go out with more than a £10 limit, I didn’t need to spend money on 400 page Business Studies tomes, I didn’t feel guilty that I was watching TV instead of writing one of two 40,000 word dissertations, I was in a band. Admittedly not a great band, but an okay one with 4 of my very best friends. Life was good. La la la la la la la life was wonderful.

So when I received the call asking if I would be interested in helping to form the in-house Public Relations team for one of Dubai’s key organisations, I was tempted but I didn’t pack my bags straight away. First off, I had to figure out where Dubai was. One of my house mates had a large map of the world on the wall – the sort that when you are younger you put pins in to show where you have been, merely to be vaguely disappointed that you have only been to France and Cornwall – so her and I searched for Dubai on here. We found it, smack bang in the middle of the Middle East. Shamefully, I must admit that at this point, despite being a fairly well educated 23 year old, I knew absolutely nothing about Dubai or, in fact, the Middle East. The only image that I could conjure up was of wealthy Arab sheikhs (although I am not even sure I knew at the time that ‘sheikh’ was the correct term) at a wealthy horse race – I must have seen images of the Dubai World Cup on television. Armed with the knowledge of where on the planet it was, I started researching the place. Pretty much all of the articles I found were Daily Mail type stories of incredible property developments, sporting events and publicity stunts. In the weeks after being told about the job, suddenly it seemed that every day there was a story about the city. From English couples who had made a fortune investing in property to an underwater hotel that was due to be built, a seven star hotel in the shape of a sail to the success of Emirates airline, Dubai seemed to be in every newspaper that I picked up. One day, walking to work in Birmingham, I picked up a Metro newspaper and there, on the front cover, were Andre Agassi and Roger Federer playing tennis on the helipad of the aforementioned sail shaped hotel, the Burj Al Arab. Having just organised a publicity stunt for a Birmingham local business affiliation that involved getting business owners to stand together in the shape of a ‘b’, I realised that the opportunities in Dubai were levels above where I currently was, and the decision was a no-brainer.

From Shangri-La to Sodom in Three Years

I spent one month shy of five years in Dubai, which, by Dubai standards, made me a medium to long-termer. However, I am no more qualified than anyone else to write a critique of the city and there are thousands better placed to give a behind the scenes, tell-all story. To my regret, I did not keep a diary during my time there so I cannot even give a chronological account of the events and emotions that I experienced. But, having left Dubai for good (of that, I am sure – there are many pull factors which may tempt me back to the city, but I have done my time there and am absolutely convinced that I will not be seduced to return to live there again), I feel a need to, in some way, document my thoughts on the city which has grabbed so many headlines and caused so much interest across the globe in the last few years. Perhaps it is because I did not keep a diary and that it was such a key time in my life that I would like to ensure I archive my experiences before I forget them all. Or perhaps, having now left, I feel I can give a more balanced view than whilst I was living there.

Ah, a balanced view. There are hundreds of articles about the city, its staggeringly fast journey from fishing village to international metropolis, and its subsequent fall from grace during the current economic crisis. Perhaps as someone who has tiptoed around the outskirts of the journalistic industry, I shouldn’t be surprised by this but its worth pointing out: the large majority of articles written about Dubai are unbalanced pieces of lazy, shoddy journalism, with the angle of the article decided before the journalist arrives in Dubai (if he even visits the place at all). The amount of times that my colleagues or I met with European (mainly, it is sad to admit, British) journalists who had clearly come out to Dubai with the story already 80% written and were just enjoying a free holiday was startling. It didn’t matter what they saw or what we told them – the article bore no resemblance to these things. In the early years, the articles were positive descriptions of a 21st century Shangri-La, where anything was possible and all a western ex-pat had to do to make a fortune was to step off of the airplane. Never mind that the journalist had seen for himself some of the negatives of Dubai (I shall come to those at a future date), Dubai was the city of the moment, a Disneyesque paradise where dreams came true. In more recent times, Dubai is depicted as a rival to Sodom and Gomorrah for most evil city in history, where excess of every kind rules; a devil’s playground for tax avoiding lager lout Brits. In these instances it was always strange to me that the journalists were happy to enjoy themselves for five days in a five-star hotel, party in the bars and clubs and were generally as rude and arrogant as the ex-pat Brits that they depicted in their 400 words once they returned home.

What’s more, you could take 90% of those articles, tear them up into tiny phrase long segments, put them into new, coherent paragraphs, and you wouldn’t realise that the new articles were comprised of phrases from different articles by different authors. During these two distinct phases, the vast majority of articles about Dubai boil down to the same key components:

Shangri-La

1) A city of marvels and a miracle in the desert – the Burj Al Arab, the Palm, the World
2) HH Sheikh Mohammed as a world leader in innovation
3) The crane is the national bird of Dubai
4) Anything is possible – and anyone can make a fortune, unlike the UK where governmental bureaucracy holds you back
5) Move here or visit as a tourist and you will be surrounded by premiership footballers and Hollywood celebrities

Sodom and Gomorrah

1) A city of over spending, where Arab greed has led to huge debt
2) A ‘dark side’ – massive human rights issues, gross mistreatment of labourers who work on the building sites, prostitution, lack of press freedom, environmental and ecological disaster
3) Construction of mega projects has stopped
4) Lack of legislation has led to economical issues for expats
5) Greedy drunken expats living a life of excess

Whole swathes of the articles are copied from other articles and, when reading them, it often seems that the journalist in question believes that he is writing something new, something revelatory. Some journalists seem to base their career on trotting out the same article over and over again. One particular British journalist from the Daily Telegraph must have visited Dubai at least three times a year during my time there – and strangely it always seemed it was around the time of a major sporting event which he would attend, yet he wasn’t a sports writer and his articles did not even mention the event he had attended. Each time, his article would bear striking similarity to the last article he had written.

I would like to point out that these are not the ramblings of a bitter PR executive – as I said above, I do believe that I am able to take a balanced view now, as I hope the rest of my writings/essays/litanies of nonsense will show. I haven’t worked in media relations for a couple of years and when I did I actually enjoyed the vast majority of my dealings with journalists. It was just always incredibly disappointing to me that a supposedly top-class journalist would visit Dubai and through sheer laziness would not write the article that was there to be written. Don’t get me wrong, there have been some very good and accurate articles written about Dubai but on the whole the ones that I read were either facsimiles of a previous article, contained some blatant inaccuracies (probably due to poor research) or they would exaggerate points for affect (something I am certain to be guilty of throughout this piece but I am not a journalist; I do not have a journalistic responsibility). Yes, a journalist should have an opinion but s/he should at least make sure that basic facts are correct. For example, I can categorically state that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie do not own an island on The World development, just off the coast of Dubai.
Yet I would estimate that in at least 85% of articles about property in Dubai and probably in at least 30% of other articles about Dubai, it states as fact that they do indeed own an island; some go as far as to say which island (allegedly Ethiopia). In fact, why have I just used the word ‘allegedly’? IT’S NOT TRUE!! Googleing ‘Brad Pitt Angelina Jolie Dubai’ brings up hundreds such articles – the first of which being the Dubai based business magazine ‘Arabian Business’. Arabian Business, owned by publishing house ITP, is one of Dubai’s most respected (and, I would say, best) business magazines, yet they got it wrong and were perhaps the catalyst to many of these other articles publishing this as fact. Unlike the majority of the other articles, at least Arabian Business quote their source:

“Dubai-based celebrity and society web site Ahlanlive reported today that the film stars [Brad and Angelina] have bought an island with a view to turning it into a showpiece for environmental issues with the hope that it will encourage people to live a ‘greener life’’, the website said”

Arabian Business may quote their source, however that source is Ahlanlive. Guess who publishes Ahlanlive? ITP, publishers of Arabian Business. And so we have one journalist quoting a mate from along the corridor who, in the original Ahlanlive article, does not quote a source. (For the sake of trying to stick on this tangent, let’s not question how a showpiece for environmental issues could be built on a man-made island off the coast of Dubai, nor how platinum air-miles card holders Brad and Angelina could hold themselves up as leaders of the green movement). You can see how the blatant untruth can now be mistaken as fact: a journalist researching Dubai looks to the city’s most respected business publication, finds this interesting ‘fact’ and duly uses it in his article, without even thinking of a quick call to the press office of the developer of The World, Nakheel. Now, fair enough, the Arabian Business article does state:

“Nakheel does not comment on who has bought islands within The World without the permission of the owners”

and I do believe that Arabian Business would have put in a call to the press office, but I also know that the vast majority of journalists who subsequently used this as ‘fact’ did not make such a call.

Why, you may ask (if you haven’t fallen asleep, shut down your computer or attacked your screen with a sharp knife), have I taken a trip around this particular cul-de-sac? After all, it’s hardly revolutionary to state that journalists do not always check their facts. Two reasons: firstly, it shows how lazy some of the writing about Dubai is – some of the journalists repeating this falsehood actually visited Dubai and actually met with the press office of Nakheel but still did not check the veracity of the ‘fact’; and secondly, I know how the big, screaming whopper started…a press officer for Nakheel, whilst a little bored on yet another journalist visit to the islands of The World and asked for the three millionth time which celebrities owned islands on the world (I believe that the true number is precisely zero, but I may be wrong) said something along the lines of “I obviously can’t give you names but I will say that arguably the most famous couple in Hollywood visited recently and were very interested”. Two days later, the first article claiming that ‘Brangelina’ had bought an island on The World was published.

Riding close to the wind of truthfulness…but falling into a puddle of inaccuracy

To go back to my earlier point, when reading these articles that contained glaring inaccuracies or were clearly written with a predefined agenda, I read them with a feeling of immense disappointment. So many of the articles rode so close to the wind of truthfulness, were so interesting and compelling, but somehow fell at the last hurdle (a woefully mixed metaphor but one that hopefully emphasises the point). A classic example of this is an article published in the UK’s Independent on 7th April 2009

Titled ‘The dark side of Dubai’ (#3 in ‘The Ladybird book of Titles for Articles about Dubai, pipped to the top two spots by ‘A Desert Miracle’ and ‘A City Built on Sand’) the reporter Johann Hari describes his visit to the city and in doing so addresses the various issues popular in the majority of other such articles written in the past year: broken expat dreams; labourers; building projects that have been put on hold; ecology and sustainability; drunken Brits etc. The article is a largely interesting one, full of individual’s stories and quotes, and some great turns of phrase such as “a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing into history”, “an adult Disneyland, where Sheikh Mohammed is the mouse”, and “Dubai is Market Fundamentalist Globalisation in One City”. Further, to give Hari credit, he does something most others do not: quoting Emiratis, both those who are 100% pro-Dubai and those who have publicly criticised the city. He also seems to have looked deeper than others do, visiting the underground gay scene, a centre for disadvantaged women and the ‘homes’ of labourers. It is so close to being a very well written and researched critique of the city. But it falls short. Firstly, the article is spoilt by some blatant inaccuracies:

• “Thirty years ago, almost all of contemporary Dubai was desert, inhabited only by cactuses and tumbleweed and scorpions” – there are not, and there never have been cactuses nor tumbleweeds in the desert
• “…a resident of Dubai has the biggest average carbon footprint of any human being – more than double that of an American” - it is bigger but certainly not double
• “[Dubai] was built by slaves. They are building it now” – incredibly underpaid labourers living and working in sub-Dickensian conditions? Yes. Slaves? No

These inaccuracies may seem petty but for me it calls into question the veracity of some of his other statements and descriptions. For example, early on in the article he tells of a Canadian expat couple, the husband of which is in prison due to debt whilst the wife has been sleeping for months in the car park of a hotel. According to Hari:

“She is not alone. All over the city, there are maxed-out expats sleeping secretly in the sand-dunes or the airport or in their cars”

I don’t question this poor woman’s story but I can’t remember hearing of any such stories so for Hari to say that “all over the city” this is happening seems at best over-exaggerative, at worst made up twaddle, especially considering his other stretches of the truth.

The other thing that spoils it for me is the clear bias due to the obvious angle of the article, shown first in the title “The Dark Side of Dubai”, which results in a number of unbalanced depictions, not least that of the expat Brits. They (or rather, We) are portrayed as racist drunken morons, devoid of any social morals who live in Dubai solely for a alcohol fuelled lifestyle and whose only grumbles are banks which use faxes and not emails (to be fair, that is REALLY annoying!}, stringent drink driving rules (I’m all for them), and the traffic. Now I am not denying that there are a fair number of moronic Brits living a sun-kissed, tax-free, alcohol fuelled life in Dubai. Nor am I going to pretend that I have not enjoyed the odd night out where drink has made me dance like an epileptic monkey watching a McG film. However, Hari’s gross generalisation tars all of us British expats with the same bigoted, half-witted brush. Statements such as:

“When I ask the British expats how they feel to not be in a democracy, their reaction is always the same. First, they look bemused. Then they look affronted”

and:

“…one theme unites every expat I speak to: their joy at having staff to do the work that would clog their lives up back home”

damage the point Hari is trying to make. Some of us actually have views on what it is/was like to live in a non-democratic society and we certainly didn’t all have live-in maids walking five steps behind us in order to clear up our alcohol induced vomit trails.

And so, like a number of others, Hari’s article merely serves to infuriate those of us who know the city, rather than have a positive influence on us. Of course, we were not the audience for his article, but if only Hari had not succumbed to the temptations of over-generalisation, gross exaggeration (if that is not an oxymoron) and publication of blatant untruths, he may just have written a very accurate depiction of Dubai’s negatives. Not that I am saying it is not worth reading – 80% of it is a fairly accurate depiction - but if you do read it, please take it with that metaphorical pinch of salt we perhaps all need to ingest when reading travel articles or critiques of cities by writers who visit the city for just a few days. And, when reading it, do it with the knowledge that it is written from a fairly oblique standpoint and appreciate that, along with all its negatives, Dubai actually does have a lot of positives.

But perhaps in all of this I am being harsh – is it really possible to write a truly new essay, article or commentary about Dubai? Is it possible to find a new angle, to reveal a new layer to the city? I am not sure it is. After all, I have already used some of the oft-written clichés. Rereading what I have already written, the following clichés appear: “the epicentre of the building boom”; “bizarre, ostentatious, mind-blowing”; “rapidly changing the face of the city’s landscape”; “pure, unadulterated excess”; “from fishing village to international metropolis”. So perhaps, whilst attempting to retrospectively discuss my time and experiences in Dubai, I will end up writing carbon copies and duplications of other accounts of the city. Further, despite my criticisms above, I am sure that I will fall into the quagmires of generalisation, exaggeration and stretching of the truth. For that, I can only blame the lack of a diary to revert to and the desire to make this more interesting than a chronological account of my time. I can only write my feelings and my emotions, and writing retrospectively these will naturally be slightly skewed. But then, unlike those I have criticised above, I do not have a journalistic responsibility. I am writing these accounts for me and me only. If others read them, then great, but I have no responsibility other than to myself.

It is my belief that only those who live and breathe a city can write with authenticity about it. And even then, every single person will have a different viewpoint. What will follow (whenever I get around to writing the next pieces) will be mine.

This Week's Top Ten Stories

2010-03-25T20:34:00.001+01:00

In a move to lesson the amount of boring 'today I did this, yesterday I ate sausages, tomorrow I have a hair cut appointment' writings, the form of my 'diary' is inspired by popular female magazine 'Grazia' (I hasten to add that I have never bought a copy of this fine publication, but will admit to have read a few which I have found lying around). One of Grazia's key features is 'This Week's Top Ten Stories', in which the top ten news stories from the week are discussed. I say 'news stories' because the lovely writers at Grazia seem to often forget news such as Iraq War Enquiry or MP's Expense Row in favour of important news about shoes. Or bags. Or celebrities. Sometimes its all three combined. And so, here is my 'Top Ten...'

1. "Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow"

I write this from a small apartment in Verbier, Switzerland, where I have been for the past 10 days. And a mighty fine 10 days it has been.

I learnt to snowboard in Dubai (we'll forget the irony of this statement and move swiftly on) and have been on two snowboarding holidays - firstly two years ago with Nai and Em whilst Em was doing a ski season with her brother Dan, and secondly with Nai, Mike and Becs to Zermatt. Both were awesome fun - La Rosier because it was my first time in the alps and it was with Nai and Em so the three of us ripped it up on and off piste, and Zermatt because it was with Nai, Becs and Mike and was in a five star chalet with incredible food, all you can drink wine and amazing snow. So with only fun times on the slopes in my memory bank, when I knew I was leaving Dubai, the natural first stop was the Alps for the rest of the season. And here, myself and Becs will be for a grand total of five weeks, carving it up, being narly, and hopefully staying entirely intact.

How good is that?! Lovely apartment, spending each day outdoors riding down a steep slope on a small piece of wood, and ham and cheese. LOTS of ham and cheese

2. "Three Best Men"

In between Dubai and Switzerland, we spent a couple of days in England, visiting friends and family. One night was spent in the company of some of my favourite people in the world - all of the Bright Lights and their associated others (except for lovely Ruth who was either working or didn't want to see me). During that time, James (Bassy Brightlight aka Old Brightlight aka Rob Brydon/Postman Pat Brightlight) asked me to be Best Man at his wedding, along with Joe (Clammy Brightlight) and Jim (Naked Brightlight). I was, and am, incredibly proud to say yes, and incredibly excited at the fun that lies ahead. The four of us did spend a legendary three days in Vegas once upon a time, but that was some years ago and I am not sure we will be allowed to do it again, so the alternative planning starts now. What's more, I can't wait until November to see James and Ruth get married - firstly because I love them both, they are incredibly suited to each other and I know it will be a very happy day, and secondly because there is a rumoured Bright Lights reunion. It's probably only the Bright Lights who are looking forward to this part of the wedding, so we will try to keep it brief. And I will try to stay sober until after the performance – unlike when we played at Ruth’s wedding when the choice of the final song ‘Nobody Does It Better’ couldn’t have been any more ironic

3. Smiling all the way to the bank

One of the advantages of living in Dubai was obviously the tax free wages (although I would like to point out that while there is no 'tax', there are lots of ways that the government do impose unseen taxes). However, after making a bad investment in shares a few years ago, I have been incredibly worried in the past year about another investment I made - in a property in Dubai. For the past 8 months, I have been embroiled in lengthy attempts to get the money back from the investment and many times over those 8 months, it has seemed like fighting a losing battle. However, this week, the deal went through and I got back most of the money. It does mean that I have lost a little bit but nowhere near as much as I thought I was going to lose and it means that my time in Dubai was rewarding on three levels - friendships, experiences, and financial.

4. Knight The Transvestite (see my earlier post)

Watching the BBC one-off special about Eddie Izzard completing 43 marathons in 51 days was truly inspiring.

5. Going all the way back to Australia, just to get to England

The only bad news of the week has been that Becs will have to go back to Australia to apply for her visa to get into England. This puts a dent into the travel plans and is a general pain in the arse

6. Volver a la escuela

For those of you without access to 'google translate', that means 'back to school' in spanish. For yes, I have gone back to school in a doubtless futile attempt to learn Spanish. I have attempted once before but didn't really have any willpower or desire to learn. Hopefully this time will be different - the fact I am intending to go to South America in little over one month, will be travelling on my own, and am unable to speak anything other than English, is my motivation. I am in a class of two people - the teacher is French, the other student is Germanic Swiss and I understand about 1% (uno percento??) of what is being said. This must be how it is for Australian's speaking to English people.

7. Must try harder

On to sports news, and last Saturday was spent watching the final three games of this year's Six Nations. Wales finally showed a bit of flair in dispatching Italy. Scotland defeated the Irish in the best game of the Championship and England went down bravely to Grand Slammers France. After 4 turgid performances, it was good to see England taking the game to the opposition, largely through the might of Mike Tindell and the running flair of Ben Foden. But Tindell seems to be the rugby version of Joe Cole – after a long time out of the team, England's best player and only hope of victory gets substituted after 60 minutes for no obvious reason. A bad mistake by Martin Johnson who is making it hard to stick up for him - I still think he was the right choice of manager but probably only because of blind loyalty caused by one night in 2003 (of course I mean the RWC final, not a night of romance I spent with the big man). If Johnson is to stay, which I believe he will until the world cup next year, surely he must shake up his coaching team and he must, HE MUST, pick James Simpson-Daniel.

8. From Russia with love

One of the freedoms that not having a job has afforded me is the time to read a book. It seems like I haven't read a book, other than an Inspector Rebus novel, for ages. This past week I have been reading the excellent 'Child 44' by debut writer Tom Rob Smith. I heard a review of this on Simon Mayo's old Radio 5 show some time ago and searched it out at the airport on the way to Switzerland. Set in Cold War Stalinist Russia, it is an absolutely compelling story about an MGB investigator whose years of sending innocent men to their death (or, arguably worse, the Gulag), finds the tables turned on him when he is ordered to investigate his own wife. The central focus of the book is that in a society where crime doesn't exist (because that would suggest that it is not a perfect society), a mass murderer is on the loose. But it is far more than a simple crime novel - it is a very interesting portrait of Stalinist Russia, something which I have never had an interest in before.

9. Celebrity News.

I can't be inspired by Grazia's Top Ten without mentioning this week's top celebrity news. But having just trawled both the BBC and The Sun websites I can't find anything of any note at all. Believe me, this isn't a vain attempt of mine to show disdain for celebrity news - I admit to being interested in it. I just can't find anything interesting at all. But I am sure that something has happened between Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Oh, and Tiger Woods has announced he will return to play at the Masters and did another horrendous interview - this time with the exalting Golf Channel, the presenter of which asked Tiger some of the question we all want to ask him but didn't re-ask the question when Tiger sidestepped it. Now he has done it, if asked any 'controversial' questions, Tiger will simply reply that he has answered these questions and move on. But he hasn't! But does it matter what Tiger has done in his private life? Shouldn't we only be interested in his life on the golf course? That would be the case if he hadn't have taken money from sponsors in portraying himself as a whiter than white, all american family man (case in point being the advert he did for a credit card for Fathers Day). And does anyone really believe him when he says he regrets everything he has done and gives the camera big puppy dog eyes? The only thing he regrets is being caught. And he is still lying, telling the Golf Channel that not one of his entourage knew about his 'discretions'. How could they not? How could one of the most famous men in the world participate in bedroom olympics with upwards of 10 women (allegedly!!) without anyone knowing? Of course, The Golf Channel need him far more than he needs them, so were never going to press him on the interesting questions or be anything other than reverential. Which is what his management company, IMG, would have known, hence picking them to do the interview. But does anyone really thing he is sorry?

10. Fashion News (for their must be some)

After 29 years on this earth, I have found out that I look much much better in v necked shirts than in t shirts.

Knight the comedy transvestite

2010-03-22T19:05:00.000+01:00

Eddie Izzard should be knighted with immediate effect. Footballers get MBEs for being paid 100,000 grand a week to kick a ball around, cricketers get MBEs for winning one ashes series, Elton John gets a knighthood for singing candle in the wind at a funeral and consequently resurrecting his career. Knight him now.

My appeal (admittedly only sent out as a post on my Facebook page so unlikely to come across the desk of the Prime Minister or The Queen) follows watching a BBC special about Eddie Izzard's epic ultra-endurance fundraising effort for BBC's Sport Relief. Absolutely incredibly, Eddie Izzard, an untrained and only reasonably fit 47 year old comedian ran 43 marathons in 51 days, starting in London and going through England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland before ending in Trafalgar Square. Running 6 marathons per 7 days would be an almost impossible task for a highly trained Olympian. For someone who has never run a single marathon before, it was nothing short of super human.

Watching it was unbelievably inspiring - although I suppose that statement can only be true if it does inspire me to do something. Fair enough, I did donate 35 quid to Sport Relief and today I went for a run and when wanting to stop I thought about the program I had watched last night and I did keep going, but 35 quid is not a lot and I only ran for 37 minutes (but in fairness it was at altitude being as I am, in Switzerland, and was up and down fairly steep slopes). Will it inspire me to do anything else? I don't know but I hope so. I can say now that I do intend to do more for charity but that's easy to say - let's see if I do it.

It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down your thoughts. It saves you having to bother anyone else with them

2010-03-22T18:52:00.000+01:00

Having spent five years in the desert wondrousity that is Dubai, I have allowed myself a few months off before putting a foot back on the career ladder. This has allowed me the creative and mental freedom to start a diary – something I have been intending to do for some time. Over the past five years I have tried a number of times but was either too busy or too lazy to keep it going.

With the extra time I find myself having, now is the time to see if I can start one and keep it going. I also feel the desire and creative freedom to write about my experiences in Dubai so some of the posts will be about that. I am not sure what the other posts will be but hopefully they will be mildly coherent and occasionally interesting.

This blog is mainly for me, but I guess if that was 100% the case, I wouldn't be publishing it online so feel free to read, and, if you feel so inclined, judge. But, be nice. If you can.