Whilst in India I have started to write a book. I’m calling the book Red Moon and here’s an early excerpt. The book centres around disappearances of young people in Goa. The initial inspiration was supplied by some spooky events in Pondicherry. This is the second post related to the book. You can read the other by clicking the link at the end. Enjoy! Or not as the case may be… Continue reading
I want to achieve on my own merit. I want to work hard and be the best person that I can be. So should I vote Tory? After all, a vote for the Tories is a vote for, ‘The Great Meritocracy’.
Hailing from a poorer family but having half a brain, I’ve always felt that the idea of a meritocracy is a good thing. Encouraging people to achieve whatever they can achieve and finding their place in society by their own endeavour. I think it’s healthy to promote values of entrepreneurship and effort. It seems I align with a mainstay of traditional Tory themes here. Continue reading
A ten day experimentation with pranayama whilst reading, ‘The Wisdom of Yoga; A Seekers Guide to Extraordinary Living’ by Stephen Cope. This journal was posted daily onto the Facebook Group, ‘Yoga For Men Leeds’ incrementally over the last ten days. Here it is, collated. Continue reading
Our bedroom is in the attic of a handmade house. All wood with a slate roof, there’s nothing we are wanting for. A comfortable mattress on the floor, some make-do pots and pans in the kitchen, a place to meditate and practice asana. Beyond the rough hewn door is a balcony that frames the most extraordinary view. Bougainvillae creeps around the struts and beyond are the steep sloping terraces of Jibhi. Green upon green, the pines rise up to the peaks, and dotted irregularly are the pink and green homes that remind us we are still in India.
“Your forehead smells like a lost corridor, as you move towards the staff quarters of a Balearic hotel”. Pete.
Born on the day of verbal acuity, Pete has always had a way with words. He manages to articulate and translate the world in the most remarkable ways. Sights, smells and experiences are all wrapped up in alarming, acrid metaphors. Vivid, corporeal and often crude, he speaks the world alive in ways that often leave me awestruck. And often lost for words. Which is ironic because my writing business is called Found for Words.
As a kid my mum would give me one of those impossibly big old fifty pence pieces to put in the donations basket and pack me off to church with my siblings. Winny, my dear gran, is Roman Catholic. Paying respects to her religious tradition, us five siblings were biblically named in age order; Simon Andrew, Paul Richard, Rachel Mary, Christopher James and Peter Philip. Oh how names can deceive.
Our mother didn’t come to church with us. A housewife with five children, she would wisely take the opportunity to have some time for herself. She would catch up with the two-metre high piles of dirty washing, over-boil some potatoes in the pressure cooker and listen to Fleetwood Mac. And rightly so. She has more important things to do with her Sundays. Continue reading
“These review are all from jealous people.”
Abu
We made some lovely new friends in Jaisalmer. As a thirty five year old boy, I’d instinctively refer to this quartet of handsome and bright seventeen and eighteen year olds as boys. However I have no intention to condescend, in fact, the opposite. At their age I was vomiting Blue WKD behind Squares. Here, these men were embarking on a final cultural venture prior to their looming two year stint of compulsory national service for their native Singapore. Hussain, Sanni, Ratch and Nas looked like an entry to South East Asia’s Got Talent in their matching desert outfits and through the laughter we talked; politics, travel, photography, Youtube, history, art and dreams.
If you’re a die-hard outlaw and in a fictional bike gang called The Road Dog’s, like we are, then this article could save you from the clutches of the Goan Five-O’s. Peace braa. Kriminalz!
Pony-haired, yogic, London plumber, Tom pre-warned us about Goan cops pulling over tourists to extort them for cash. Continue reading
Shoeless, I was in a predicament. The car park was stony, dark and dirty. Our last minute stop at the funniest restaurant in Mapusa meant that I had a large Kingfisher to drain from my bladder. Our over night bus to Mumbai was taking a scheduled break at some bleak café and someone had half-inched my Birkenstocks. Continue reading
“See, you don’t get the same experience of India from a car”. Pete was right. Behind the darkened windows of the a/c taxi, you couldn’t feel the warm wild of the wind. You couldn’t hear the ripping of the road in your ears or smell the cavalcade of cashew, masala, garlic, sulphur, diesel and shit.
complaints book available 