The Scrawl Of The Wild

A DISAPPOINTMENT AND A RINGSIDE SEAT...

2012-01-28T03:03:00.000-08:00

Funny how you notice things that puzzle you…

I asked Mariama the following morning what she was thinking about when she looked to be uninterested in what was going on around her while she was playing ?

You know what she said ?

‘The cleaning women…’

‘What ! You were more interested in the cleaning women ?’

‘They were talking about me…’

‘What were they saying' ?

‘They kept saying what’s that girl doing up there with the drummers’ ?

‘Well… You know they probably haven’t seen a girl drummer before… It probably surprised them a bit, that’s all…’

‘I didn’t like it’

‘Listen little one… You know you’re going to get a lot of that, don’t you ?

It’s not just going to be cleaning women, there’s going to be a lot of men, too…

Thing is… You’re just going to have to ignore them and play better than anyone else and then they’re all gonna be saying hey, look at that Mariama… She can really play… And besides, if it happens, you just keep this thought in your head… Just keep thinking to yourself you might be seeing me practice now, but next time you see me you’re gonna have to pay to get in and watch, because I AM going to be the best Mandinka drummer in Africa…’

Sometimes you say the right things at the right time and I reckon that was one of those times, because I got this big smile and a little ‘Hrumph’ and then she said

‘They will have to pay…’

‘Yeah darlin’, they’re gonna have to pay to see you… And if you keep practising it’ll be sooner rather than later…’

She went off grinning, so hopefully that cured her doubt ?

Not sure it cured mine though ?

That shit suddenly brings it home to you what an uphill struggle she’s facing.

I was hoping it wasn’t going to start just yet, but since it has, let’s just face it and get it out in the open.

She’s a bright little child when she wants to be, and she has an innate knowledge already of what is ‘right’ and what is ‘unjust’-her word, and if she thinks something is wrong she’ll just stand there and keep telling the person concerned, whether they are adult or not.

It’s not considered particularly polite to contradict your elders, even your older sisters and brothers in Gambian society, but she’ll stand there and take all the crap and the beatings and she’ll still be telling them that it’s not right at the end, as her sister Fatou has already found out when she ‘borrowed’ her drum without asking…

She’s got her Mother’s stubbornness times ten, and she doesn’t mind using it when she feels she has to, and the strange thing is, when you look at it from an ‘outsider’ perspective as I do, then ninety nine per cent of the time she’s right and the other person IS in the wrong.

It’s quite scary…

Well, I finally got the vote for the meal and so we’re off to the Chinese restaurant at Bakau.

It’ll be a first for the girls as none of them have eaten Chinese before unless I’ve made it in the compound, and to be honest that doesn’t really count.

Haddy and I are the advanced guard and we’re going up there about an hour before the tribe turn up so we can order in advance and to hopefully reserve a table big enough for the lot of us ?

Well, we got the table, that was a success at any rate…

I’d wanted to order up an assortment of things I knew, so that everyone could dip in and try different things, but I got overruled when Haddy discovered the peppered prawns…

The girls all turned up with ‘Tufa, who had borrowed somebody’s car to drive us for the evening.

They would all be taken home afterward in a couple of trips while Haddy and I ‘camped out’ for a couple of days at the African Village Hotel.

The Chinese restaurant is slightly closer to Ocean Bay Hotel but it’s still an easy walk from the African Village Hotel, not that we were going to walk it, we were getting a lift…

I mean why would any self respecting Manchester City supporter not have a Chelsea supporter to drive him about ?

That’s what better teams fans do, it’s a superiority thing…

Now if ‘Tufa had been a Barcelona supporter I’d have had a bit of a problem, but Chelsea ?

No worries.

The other reason we were getting a lift was the amount of ‘bumsters’ hanging about.

The fact we were in the Chinese restaurant was a sure giveaway that we had money with us. Not much it’s true, but enough to pay for a meal for eight people and quite honestly that would have been enough for a couple of them to take their chances, so we weren’t about to give them the option.

Better safe than sorry, anyday.

It sounds awful doesn’t it ?

But it’s no different than it is in the U.K. is it ?

Anyway… We’re camping out for a little peace and quiet away from the compound although Haddy’s got Mariatou coming over in a couple of days to do her hair and she’ll have to go back for that, but apart from that and the day that Mariama and Jalika are going to visit us and use the pool, we’re going to hopefully get some peace and quiet.

But first things first...

The first thing you notice about the girls is that they’ve all dressed up.

From Sainabou to Jalika they’ve all done it.


From the left it's Housainatou, Hassanatou,Mariama, Me, Jalika, Sainabou & 'Tufa

Haddy looks reasonable, but I have to admit compared to the rest of them, I look like a complete scruffbum.

Oh well, can’t be helped, I’ll do better next time.

When we’d ordered, Haddy had ordered three large portions of peppered prawns…

Ouch !

Not one of her better ideas ‘cos they were horrible.

Dry as a bone and instead of succulent, very sour tasting.

I tried one… Just one because after that one I couldn’t face anymore and the trouble was, neither could anyone else.

Nobody liked them.

Apparently the chicken was nice and my prawns in garlic sauce was sublime, but nobody else had ordered that.

Jalika liked her fried rice and her sesame prawn toast, but I think everybody was disappointed on the whole.

Shame.

I knew we should have varied it a bit…

Chicken and cashew nuts or black bean sauce, maybe ?

Definitely duck in pancakes.

Oh well, back to La Mer next time.

Sainabou, who is a great instinctive cook, thought the flavour mixtures were interesting and said she was glad that she’d tried it, but that she preferred the food at La Mer.

That’s it then, the cook has spoken, so let it be written and so let it be done… Next time.

Peace and quiet…

Just the soft sounds of kids splashing in the pool and the birds chattering in the trees.

Maybe a muffled curse every hour when another tourist decides that they have overdone their roasting…

The waiters from the bar and the restaurant padding about taking and delivering orders…

Yes, there’s something to be said for peace and quiet and we’ve got three days of it before we have to go back to the compound and Haddy’s next meeting.

It’s likely to be chaos as there are apparently nearly fifty members of this particular organisation and they’re all women, and they’ve all had their invites…

Still, it’s got to be done.

Haddy’s not going to be there, and so they will have to elect a new secretary and all the formalities of that sort of thing are going to have to be observed, but in the meantime she’s left me here poolside and buggered off home to get her hair done.

Typically, my phone goes while I’m actually in the pool…

Apparently ‘Tufa will be picking me up to bring me to the compound for dinner and then later on in the evening Haddy and I will be returning to the hotel.

The two little ones, Mariama and Jalika, will be turning up tomorrow, armbands at the ready.

It’ll be Mariama’s second time ever, and Jalika’s first but apparently Mariama has been trying to give Jalika a bit of confidence…

I hope she’s managed it, because water for swimming in and the average Gambian are not exactly happy bedfellows.

Ah well… Well see tomorrow.

Eeeeee… Now that’s what I call a new hairdo…

Haddy, bless her, has actually gone for the one that I really liked, and is now, hairwise, the spitting image of blues singer Buddy Guy, without the moustache thankfully, but the hair is a dead ringer.

As far as looks are concerned it takes about five to ten years off her age too.

That is definitely going to take some getting used to.

When ‘Tufa brought me to the compound the whole place was packed with kids.

Little Haddy is there with her younger brother Pa Musa, and N’dey, her younger sister who is Jalika’s age, so the seating arrangements in the lounge are a bit cramped with all the younger girls crammed onto the sofa.

Mariama’s best friend Ida, from over the road, is also there and she’s babysitting one of the little ones (another Omar) from over at the opposite compound.

N'dey, Jalika, Haddy, Mariama & Ida with baby Omar

Thankfully, he’s got a dummy stuck in his mouth and is giving out beaming smiles all

around so there are no worries on that score.

Ida’s Omar is also there, trying to get everybody to play with him and generally being as awkward, spiteful and grizzly as only he can, and the more tired he gets, the worse he gets…

Omar on the left & Pa Musa on the right, immediately before the launching...

Mariama and Jalika are playing cat’s cradle with a length of string that one of them has found, and they are having a right old time trying to outdo each other with the patterns when Omar decides he wants to cut in whilst they are in the middle of it.

His first mistake was trying to snatch it from Jalika who just holds it higher so he can’t reach it.

Now, thoroughly exasperated and knowing he’s not going to get his own way, he screams at Jalika…

‘Your mother’s head…’

SMACK !

Jesus H. Christ !

Nobody even saw her move, but they certainly saw Omar, whose body has just described a perfect arch, albeit with legs flapping, straight over the coffee table with the large flower arrangement in the centre, and hit, head first, the tiled floor on the other side…

This of course, just made him scream louder.

Fucking hell !

She must have launched him about three feet upwards ?
His mother, Ida, has run in to see what has happened to her screaming son.

Jalika has fired off a few words in Wolof, which I later heard mean ‘Don’t you dare insult my Mother or I’ll do it again’.

Haddy has ordered a screaming Omar from the premises and told Ida to keep him out…

Oh it’s all great fun in Fagikunda...
I guess it's what doesn't pass as 'peace and quiet...?

Me ?

I’m just wondering how the hell Jalika managed to upper-cut him from a sitting position ?

Jalika is just sitting there, eyes aflame, waiting for the inevitable fallout from her actions and everybody else is totally speechless.

‘Come here, little one… Give Uncle Chris a hug…’

And I just reached down and scooped her up.

‘Sometimes these things have to be done… Don’t worry, it’s all part of growing up…’

Jalika wouldn’t have understood a word I’d said, but that didn’t matter.

What mattered was that she understood she wasn’t in trouble because of it.

I kissed her forehead and gently dropped her back on the sofa next to Mariama.

‘Mariama… Look after your sister…’

‘I will…’

And everybody started talking at once…

You get told these things occur but you don’t really understand it, then you see it with your own eyes…

Bloody hell, that girl packs a punch.

I’d been told, and you know what it’s like, you think that maybe there is more than a hint of exaggeration, after all, she’s only seven years old, and then… SMACK !

Right in front of your eyes…

There had definitely been no exaggerating.

Mohammed Ali would have been proud of that one.

It’s late when we finally get our lift back to the hotel.

Sorry ‘Tufa.

Haddy has had words with Ida about Omar’s behaviour, and has basically banned him from the house until he learns that some form of behaviour is unacceptable.

Sainabou has been told that all the girls can take over if Haddy isn’t there.

Hassanatou already does, and has clouted him previously on a couple of occasions but now they’ve all had official permission.

Either he learns that some things are beyond the pale, or he stays out.

The fact that he now cannot watch the television is going to be punishment enough I think, but we’ll see.

Only time will tell.

Time Out For A Tea Break...

2011-11-27T07:27:00.000-08:00

So there we were, laying in bed that night, and I turned toward Haddy and said ‘What happens now ?’ ‘What happens with what ?’
‘What happens with Mariama ?’
‘I don’t know… That’s the trouble…’
Silence.
‘Are you happy with what she wants to do ?’
‘Yes… But I know there will be problems…’

What the hell ?

She isn’t going to change her mind in a month of Sunday’s so why not just forget it ?
Chalk it up to karma.
If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, then…
Karma.
She has our total support and I think at some point she’s going to need it ?
It’s not just the whole of her society but her religion as well.
Female drummers are just not ‘done’.
The weight that could be brought to bear is astronomical but I still don’t see a problem ?
It’s her ambition for Chrissakes ?
Nobody has the right to get between a child and their ambition…
Can I finally switch off and go to sleep now, please ?

Blimey !
It’s morning… And we’ve run out of teabags.
A pit stop at the supermarkets and a quickie into the bank for some more cash are in order, I think ?
We’re going out for a meal at some point and hopefully the Chinese restaurant at Bakau is going to get the vote ?
I’m still lobbying just for a change from La Mer, but we’ll see ?
Right, bank first…
Stock up on ginger beer, Fanta, Vimto (foul muck, but the younger ones love it) and Coca-Cola, and…
Tea bags.
Which are on special offer in both establishments…
Ok, we’ll go for Liptons, it’s a recognisable name after all.
It’s funny how you do it ?
I just started reading the Liptons box…
And discovered something a little strange.
Ok, most of the print is in Arabic of some kind, but the bit that wasn’t was intriguing…
There on the box, down the right hand side of the top is a flash stating ‘Catering Pack’ and there on the bottom left of the top, is a diagonal flash stating, in English, ‘Not For Retail Sale’.

Oh dear…
It looks like we’ve just bought some dodgy gear ?
To whit, yer honour…
One box of Lipton’s Yellow Label Finest Blend Quality No 1 boxes of one hundred tea bags.
Catering packs go to hotels and prisons, even ships at sea, but one place they do not go is into the local supermarket to be bought by all and sundry…
And both supermarkets had piles of these boxes.
Pile ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap…
Especially if they’re knocked off, eh ?
Even the baby mini-mart at the top of the road is flogging them…
It seems after a bit of local investigation that the whole of the local Gambian grocery retail establishment has a bunch of these boxes to sell off ?

Tut tut !
Methinks a container went missing somewhere ?
(I hope Mr Lipton is reading this ?)
Oh well, they were cheaper than usual so I guess we all benefit, don’t we ?
Except for Lipton Tea and the Gambian economy, let’s say…
But thieves and retailers seem to benefit most of all.

The Afro-Manding Band Practice

2011-10-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

Early that evening, the three of us, me, Haddy and Mariama, taxi off to Westfield…

Mariama has stopped talking, which means she’s gone off into ‘serious’ mode.

Who knows what thoughts are going through her eleven year old head right now ?

She’s been invited to watch some of the guys she admires playing music that she knows, understands and loves, and that’ll do for her.

We arrived early at about half past six.

A couple of the guys are already there with their prayer mats out and nothing will be happening until they have all arrived and made their devotions, and so we grab a couple of tables and three chairs facing the band.

It’s a funny thing… The musicians are all praying outside in the car park before they practice which is not something that the vast majority of musicians would do back in the U.K. but it seems so natural and unforced ?

I can’t say I totally understand the reason behind why they should do it, but it just seems so natural here, like it’s the right thing to do ?

The difference between cultures has thrown a total curve-ball, but is it so different from me telling everybody to sod off about ten minutes before my time onstage ?

I just want to be by myself with no distractions and think through what I’m going to do.

It’s not necessarily what is going to come out, but I want and need that time to mentally prepare a framework for the gig’s set without any interruptions, so although it might sound as if it’s two totally different things, I think it’s a totally natural thing.

Somebody more knowledgeable than me would have to clue me in on the finer points, but somewhere inside my head I know it’s the right thing for these guys to do.

I quite like Jokor as a venue.

Haddy and I had been there before to see a couple of gigs.

It’s a raised outdoor stage with covered sides as a roofed area, and the bar runs along the left hand side, and we are sat facing the band, just in front of the bar area where the guys can plug in their microphone and two amps.

Makumba comes over to greet us and to tell us that they have two missing members tonight, a singer and a drummer, but that they will be running through their album as a warm-up before heading off into their newer tracks which have not been recorded yet. Hadim gives us a smile of acknowledgement as he sits to tie his drums to his legs, and

Bubacarr (Jally) the kora player calls over to Haddy to ask if she has any money for a taxi back, and Haddy replies that he hasn’t done anything yet, which gets a laugh from the others…

I just feel honoured, if that’s the right word, to have been asked along to watch ?

Unfortunately I haven’t got my minidisk recorder as the damn thing broke, so there will be no recording at all on this trip.

And suddenly Makumba counts in, and they are away…

We all recognise the track from their album ‘Duniyaa’, and three sets of feet start tapping in tempo.

Ok… Just so everything is clear, here are the participants in the evening’s action

Makumba Nyass. Lead Djembe

Muctarr Bittaye. Dungdung Drum

Arafang Faal. Tama Drum

Hadim Nyang. Bukarabou Drum.

Lalo Sarr. Singer and dancer

Bubacarr (Jally) Suso. Kora and Doudou Bittaye, the band’s manager.

Sambou, the other singer, and Mam Jam, the Sabarr drummer have not managed to get here for tonight’s practice.

Midway through the second number, Lalo dances over to our table and grabs Mariama’s arms, pulling her to her feet and telling her to dance with him.

A very nervous little eleven year old moves into the centre with Lalo, and starts dancing until the track ends, then she moves back towards our tables, but Lalo is having none of it and takes her back as the band go into their third number.

When it finishes Makumba calls her over.

We are too far away to hear what is said, but she is taken to Lalo’s chair next to Arafang where Lalo’s drum stands, and an even more nervous little girl sits in front of a drum…

Poor thing… She looks absolutely petrified.

Makumba counts off and they’re away…

Mariama’s hands stay on top of the drum…

I keep looking at her and try to catch her eye and make drumming movements with my hands…

And suddenly, just like that, she is off and away, her small hands finding the rhythm of the band and locking her body into it.

Her legs are clasping the drum closer to her body as she hunches herself over it, finding the most comfortable position for the drum size and then slowly loosening her grip when she knows where it is best suited for her body.

My concentration is now totally on Mariama, filtering out all of the other drummers.

She’s found her groove and now she’s playing with it.

Now the others…

Arafang, sitting next to her, is playing a totally different rhythm…

Hadim, closest to us, is playing something totally different to Arafang and Mariama.

Muctarr, punctuating the sound with what to western ears, sounds close to a tympani, and Makumba, the rhythm master, keeping the basic beat, but taking it where he wants it to go.

Bubacarr’s kora, playing out a melody over all of the drummers, and Lalo, vocalising with Bubacarr over the top of it all through their one microphone that Doudou is holding for them.

It sounds like musical chaos trying to describe it verbally, but nothing could be further from the truth.

A word or two about rhythms…

African rhythms are poly-rhythmic.

They are not linear like a western rhythm, in that there is no accent on the first or third beat.

Most western rhythms as we know them, especially in rock or pop music are in 3/4 or 4/4 time.

An African rhythm on the other hand, might have three, four, five or six differing rhythms occurring at the same time.

This creates confusion in most listeners who tend to just put it down to ‘drum noise’.

The fact that it is more complex than western music doesn’t even occur to them, but it’s fact.

What Mariama did, very nervously to begin with, was to create a rhythm of her own, and then merge it with the other rhythms being played around her, a sort of counter-rhythm, which only she is playing.

This merging of her rhythm into the rhythms of others is what creates a true drummer in the African sense.

The fact that she is listening to maybe three other rhythms at exactly the same time is what creates that poly-rhythmic sound, and when it is done seamlessly without jarring, is what natural African drummers do as a matter of course.

Rhythm sharing is one way of putting it, and it is a reasonably accurate description.

The fact that most western drummers tend not to play with other drummers, leaves them way outside the scope of the Africans.

Think of your favourite bands ?

How many use two drummers ?

Some use a drummer and a percussionist, but two drummers ?

No, it’s a very few.

The other thing is that it is not improvisational.

Most of the rhythms are traditional and this does not really give any space for improvising or experimentation.

It is the merging of the rhythms that creates the complexity where you have threes beating against fours and this creates a form of harmonic tension.

This, as most Africans will tell you, is best resolved by dancing or by singing.

The more I learn about this subject, the more interesting and fascinating it becomes.

So now you know… Ok ?

By the time the band have finished playing the last track on their album, Mariama has been totally integrated into their sound.

At one point she looks as if she’s concentrating on something totally outside of what’s going on, but her hands are still beating the drum.

The new material, which none of us have heard yet, is the clincher.

The last three or four items played on the night are all brand new to us, and to be honest, a much harder, rockier sound, if we are using a western musical expression ?

And she’s there…

She’s never heard these tracks before in her life, but her rhythms just slot in effortlessly with the rest of the musicians.

At one point in a song, Bubacarr, the kora player, starts singing a verse addressed to Haddy, who grins and shakes her head, before putting on her ‘headmistress’ face and admonishing him by shaking her finger.

I’m grinning, knowing exactly what is to come when they finish.

By the time it’s over and the band are packing up before the nightclub has to open, I finally get a word out of Haddy.

‘Well… What did you think of your daughter ?’

‘She did well… I did not know…’

And her voice tailed off…

One thing about my wife…

She has the most expressive eyes I know, and they were shining.

Bubacarr calls over to us for his taxi fare and the others all start laughing.

His nickname is ‘Mey ma pass’, (pronounced may, mar-as in Martha, and pass as in passive) It means ‘I am begging money for my fare’.

‘Hey ! You think just because you sing to my wife, you get money ?’

He laughs and says ‘I am a family man…’

‘Yeah man… So am I…’

More laughter from the rest of them…

I pull out two hundred Dalasi (taxis are five and ten, remember ?) and hold it up so they can all see it, then hand it to him.

‘Get home safely my friend…’

The moment he takes it he is surrounded by all the others, who are all telling him that since they have no money, they need their fares too…

Honestly, it’s like sharks around a bleeding surfer.

When Makumba comes over, he asks what we thought of the newer material, and I tell him that it sounds harder since the band slimmed down, a harder, rockier sound if we were we talking in western terms ?

He seems satisfied with the answer.

‘Now all we need is the money to record’

I ask him how much, and am amazed that it’s going to cost about the same as it would in the U.K.

That is going to be a serious stumbling block.

We say our goodbyes and look around for the little one, but Mariama has vanished with some of the band, and is helping them load up their vehicles around the back.

It has definitely been a pleasant intermission in our break, but it has also been a definite eye-opener for someone.

We walk around the back and wave our goodbyes to the drivers, then head back to the main road with Hadim.

He’s walking back to his place, and we’re taxiing back to Fagikunda.

Before we leave him I tell him to give us a couple of days and then pop into the compound if he’s passing, and I’ll have burned the photo’s we took onto disc, and he can share them around the band.

When we finally get a taxi, I asked Mariama if she enjoyed her time drumming, and I got her ‘serious’ face again, and a one word reply…

‘Yes’.

Says it all, really.

To be fair to her, I think it was probably a little overwhelming and Lord knows what thoughts are going through her head right now ?

I’m not sure I would have known what to say after something like that if I were eleven ?
Just let her calm down inside herself... Right now the adrenaline is probably still pumping and she needs time to re-adjust to the world.

But the thing is, she has the talent.

Haddy was definitely surprised at how well she did.

That certainly took her by surprise.

I know she asks the older girls sometimes when they ‘phone each other, ‘How is Mariama doing’, and the answer is usually the same… ‘Drumming’, or ‘She has finished her homework and now she won’t stop drumming…’

But being told is very different from witnessing it yourself, especially when it’s your own daughter.

As soon as we get back to the compound, the lights go out…

It’s a power cut.

Bummer !

The only light outside is now from the lights of the taxis plying their trade up and down the road.

On the plus side, Hassanatou is back from her college course, and so the whole family is back together again.

I think I’m going to sit quietly at the back with a beer and think about what I've just seen while Hassa’ goes through her week…

Anything for a quiet life, that’s me.

Think This Through With Me...

2011-10-02T02:48:00.000-07:00

Politics…
The best thing to do is stay away from them but unfortunately we all now live in a political world and if you don’t take note of what is going on around you, then you find there are problems further along the line.
We’re not talking party political politics either, family politics cause just as many problems, if not more ?
Hassanatou is due back from her college trip tomorrow, and Hassanatou is not talking to Amadou, Ida’s husband and Omar’s Father.
She’s not just not talking to him, she’s blanking him totally.
The guy might just as well not be there for all the notice Hassa’ takes of him.
The problem has apparently been going on for a month.
So what caused the problem ?
Politics.
That’s what caused the problem.

It arose one morning on the President’s clean up day, when everybody clears all the rubbish from in front of their compound and the municipal trucks come along to collect the bags of rubbish.
Hassanatou had showered and was still in her wrap-around towel and Sainabou was towelled-up and about to dive into the shower when the truck turned up.
Now with two complete sackfuls of household rubbish plus all the rest that had been swept up previously, there was quite a weight in the bags, and because both girls were not dressed for going outside, Hassanatou had asked Amadou to help them get the bags outside and lifted onto the truck.
Amadou’s answer was to tell Hassanatou that he didn’t do ‘women’s work’ and that they should carry the bag out themselves…
Now it’s one thing to say it…
But it’s quite another to act it !
Amadou wouldn’t lift a finger to help and so the two towel-clad girls had to manoeuvre two sacks of rubbish outside and between them lift the bags onto the truck, causing all manner of mirth and admiring looks from the truck gang and totally embarrassing the pair of them in the process.
If you don’t believe me, try lifting a sack of your own household rubbish above your head whilst dressed in only a towel ?
It isn’t that easy to do without an accident happening to the towel...
As far as Hassanatou was concerned it was the last straw, and so she blew her stack...
Loudly.
Lazy… Pays no rent… Pays nothing for our electric… Pays nothing for our water…Eats our food… Gets us to baby-sit his child and won’t even lift a finger to help in cleaning up or taking out his own family’s rubbish ?
That stops now.
And she did.
From that moment on, she refused point blank to have anything whatsoever to do with any of it, if it appertained to Amadou, Ida or Omar.
As far as Hassa’ was concerned, Ida was Amadou’s wife and she could do it all.
She was not going to lift a finger to help any of them.
She wasn’t prepared to cook food or share her food with them, neither was she prepared to let Ida use the family’s charcoal to cook with.
‘Amadou is your husband, let him work to provide you with the things you need, it is not for us to keep you fed’.
And we’ve just walked in on all of this ?
Great !
Sainabou and Husainatou are doing their best to try and keep the peace while Hassanatou is not there, but it has been an uphill battle.
Amadou thinks ‘women’s work’ is beneath him and refuses to do any,
Ida needs somebody to keep an eye on Omar because he is into everything right now, plus, Omar’s nose had been put out of joint by Jalika coming into the family, and so he is behaving as all bullies do, by being as spiteful as he possibly can toward Jalika.
Jalika won’t take any form of bullying when it’s directed toward her and is apparently fighting back in her own sweet way, although to be fair, we hadn’t seen it occur since we’d arrived.
Mariama and her best friend Ida are both getting older, and neither of them particularly want to baby-sit Omar because they have their own things to do.
In Mariama’s case, she daren’t even get her drums out unless somebody else is playing with her, because otherwise Omar will attempt to muscle in and mess about with them.
And what’s more, she is right when she says that they are her ‘tools for her job’ and she does not want people to play about with them.
Until she decides not to be a drummer, then I think she is perfectly correct to have that attitude, but then, that’s me…
Gambian politics are not my thing unless they affect me directly.
I have enough problems with U.K. politics to want to get involved in another country’s politics… Even another country’s family politics...
The problem is, I am involved whether I like it or not ?
Problems, problems, problems…

So with all that in the background Haddy and I are heading off to Banjul to visit Uncle Pa, and then to see if Hadim is about in the market ?
We spend a pleasant hour with Pa in his office.
He has a larger one now, on the top floor of his compound, and thank the Lord for that.
The previous one suffered from a total lack of space.
I think it had previously been a walk in cupboard ?
This one is beginning to feel the same but at least he can get another chair in it, and, it has a window to let some light in.
That is a definite improvement.
Finding his mobile under the clutter on the desk, or the computer mouse without following the connecting wire is virtually impossible, but it’s definitely a major improvement on the last one.
Visit over, we go back downstairs and walk to the market.
Hadim has his own stall now in Banjul’s craft market.
His younger brother Badou has one also, and since they’ve both become friends and what shall I say ?
Colleagues and teachers, I think is the right way of putting it, in Mariama’s drum education ?
I’m always happy to see them.
The craft market in Banjul is around the far side so the easiest way is to literally follow the road around the left hand side from the entrance and then turn right when you see the wooden or cardboard signpost, or whatever they have up on the day ?
This is where the travel companies bring their tourists and coach parties.
You can haggle to your hearts content over the price of anything and sometimes you can get a serious bargain.
But… The political problems of the world’s banking system and the resulting recession has hit hard, and the tourists are not coming as they used to, and now everybody is scrabbling around for a little money.
Things are hard everywhere, but in a poor country things are hardest of all.
Hadim is not there.
Apparently he had a gig last night.
Ok, fair do’s, that’s understandable.
Badou is, and he greets us both with outstretched arms and a big hug, before telling us that we are welcome and that he hopes we brought along lots of friends and tourists with us so they could buy lots of gifts ?
Is it really that bad ?
Apparently it is.
Shit !
That ain’t good.
Those in the craft market are just about scraping a living.
I’d done thirteen and a bit years as a market trader in the U.K. and gone through one major recession so I’m a little bit clued up on what their problems are.
It’s pretty much like it is in the U.K. but unfortunately nobody believes that in The Gambia if you’re white.
To them you are just a ‘tourist’ and you have money to spend because you come from a rich country and can afford your flights and hotels etc…
Nobody believes that you can be in the exact same position as they are, if you’re white.
So they play the ‘screw the toubab’ game, and screw them for anything they can get.
It’s difficult not to feel insulted when they try it on, but I can at least understand why they persist in doing it.
It’s just difficult to live with, when it’s happening to you.

I left Haddy to talk to Badou while I went for drinks at the small café, and what do I get ?
‘Hey… You’re back… Do you recognise me ?’
It’s a big guy sitting at one of the tables…
Think, think, think…
‘Drum practice right here, right ?’
‘You remembered…’
I ask him how is it going with the band and he tells me it’s not so good ?
The band has slimmed down somewhat to an eight piece and they’ve had to let the singers and dancers go, but the eight piece is practising hard and has some new material that they want to record for their second album, when they have managed to save the money.
They are not quite ready yet, but they are practising every Friday at Jokor, the nightclub at Westfield, and would I like to come and watch ?
Oh yes…
For sure I would, and could I bring Haddy and Mariama, because she’d love to watch the guys playing ?
‘Ah… The little girl who wants to drum… Yes, please bring her, too…’
‘You’ve heard that she wants to be a drummer, then ?’
‘All the local drummers know that she wants to be a drummer…’
Well don’t that just figure ?
I tell him we’ll be there, but right now I must deliver the drinks or Haddy and Badou will be pools of grease if they don’t get something cool in them.
He laughed…
‘I am Macumba… I will see you tomorrow.’
‘It’s a date… See you there at about seven-ish’
Now I know why I like going to Banjul ?
Stuff just happens.

When we arrive back home we find that the guys have been round to fix the water pipe, so thankfully we can wash the dust off.

Cold water only, but any water is better than none at all.
Then we greet the constant stream of visitors to the compound…

Fatou had sent Sainabou some shoes from the U.K. and Sainabou was in absolute hysterics just looking at them.
They were ladies fashion type, and had a high heel that was at least six inches from tip to shoe.
The precarious balancing act required to walk in them without going over and breaking an ankle or two was keeping everybody in absolute stitches of laughter.

Awa, who had popped over for a visit on her day off, was going to be the bravest of the brave…
She was actually going to attempt to walk in them.
Everybody has their fingers crossed as she straightens up and takes a couple of faltering steps before wobbling, stopping, re-balancing and trying again…

Hmmm… Not sure they are suitable for even the fashion conscious younger members of the family, but what do I know ?
Haddy is off trying to sort out a meeting for one of her committees, so it looks like I’m the dj for the rest of the afternoon ?

That evening we tell Mariama about the invitation and ask her if she’d like to go ?

She just looks up at us with her ‘serious’ face and utters one word…
‘Yes’
She certainly wasn’t expecting that, I know that much.
Still, It’ll be an eye-opener for her, watching the guys play.
We’ve probably ruined any form of concentration in lessons at school for tomorrow, but hey ?
She doesn’t get invites like that every day, so she might as well make the most of it.
It feels like it’s been a long day when we finally crawl into bed.

The guys turn up early to fill in the hole above the pipe, which is nice.
At least that means Gordon can go back to his normal wall and not have to keep a wary eye out for a marauding cat.
Gordon ?
Gordon is the house gekko, and he lives inside or outside the bathroom window depending on the weather or his mood.

He’s a godsend when the mosquitoes are out in force, so nobody attempts to harm him except Princess, but so far Princess hasn’t yet learned to climb a vertical wall…
Oh come on…
He’s a gekko for God’s sake, so what would you have named him ?
I think Oliver Stone would be quite pleased that his ‘creation’ lives and breathes in reality ?

We spend the morning with Haddy’s sister, who has come to visit.
In the afternoon we are visited by two of her Aunts.
I get the feeling that they are looking for handouts and presents above and beyond the shoes and material that Haddy has brought over ?
It’s strange…
There is no way that we can afford a monetary handout, it’s been hard enough to get the fare over here, but that ‘screw the toubab’ thing is always at the back of my mind.
Why is it that because you live and work in the U.K. you are supposed to be rolling in money ?
I don’t know and I don’t care.
What I do know is that we are finding it hard enough over there and I have a full time job.
Nobody who has inferred that we have loads of money is either maimed or sick, so why not find a job yourselves ?
I know it’s easier said than done, but it’s not impossible.
When we get back, we are going to have to up the amount we send to the kids just to keep the younger ones in school and everybody fed, which leaves nothing for anybody else…
It’s hard times on the planet, believe me ?

'Cause When Life Looks Like Easy Streets...'

2011-09-24T04:02:00.000-07:00

Before we head out to Ocean Bay we’re going to visit the younger ones’ school.

Mariama had changed schools the previous year and instead of languishing at number forty-one down the class of fifty-five, she’s basically had the ‘kick up the arse chat’ from me.

She had one from her Mum as well, but mine was… Let’s say a little more pointed…

‘Mariama… You know what a contract is ?

A contract is where the promotor who is booking the musicians gets the musicians to sign it to say how much the musician is going to be paid for doing the gig… You understand ? It also says how much the promotor is going to take off your money for his expenses… So messing about in school when you are supposed to be learning how to count and how to read is pretty damn stupid if you want to be a musician…

How are you going to read what the promotor has written… How you gonna add it all up and read what he wrote ?

Because if you can’t do the mathematics and you can’t read the contract then you aren’t going to earn any money at all being a musician, so you may as well start studying to do something else because you’ll never be a successful musician… You’ll never earn any money.

The promotor, the agent, and, if you’re any good, the management will take all your money and you will be left with none…

You understand what I’m talking about here ?’

A very solemn faced nod of affirmament.

‘You do… Whatcha gonna do about it, then ?

Silence.

‘Oh well… I’ll let you think about that, but I’m serious, it’ll never happen unless YOU are prepared to put the work in…’

Jalika, on the other hand, is so shy and quiet that you wouldn’t think she was there half the time.

Admittedly this has a lot to do with the sadness of her childhood so far.

Jalika’s mother was Haddy’s eldest daughter Fatou’s best friend at school.

As soon as she left school, she fell pregnant with Jalika.

Unfortunately and tragically she died giving birth to her daughter.

For the first six years of her life Jalika had been brought up by her Mother's family, specifically her Grandparents, but now they couldn’t cope any more, and so Fatou had said no worries, we’ll take her.

No worries ?

Another girl ?

And one who had been teased unmercifully by some of the local children about her not having a Mother…

This teasing had hurt her so much that she developed a way of stopping it as soon as it started…

She hit the main perpetrator.

She didn’t warn them, she just hit them and she only needed to do it the once.

It mattered not to Jalika that some of them were older and some were younger.

As far as she was concerned they were being spiteful and horrible and so she stopped it the only way she knew how.

Smack !

One little fist straight at the target, which in the majority of cases was approximately the same height, and another body bites the dust screaming with a bloodied mouth or nose.

Boy or girl, it mattered not a fig to Jalika.

Nobody had the right to impugn her Mother’s memory or to tease her about it, and if they were stupid enough to do so ?

Smack !

The same person rarely did it twice unless they were totally stupid or trying to get her into trouble.

It didn’t matter to Jalika, the result was always the same.

She’d take the trouble, but she wasn’t prepared to take their spite.

Smack !

So we were off to school to see their teachers...

Hopefully the kids wouldn’t feel too embarrassed when we turned up ?

The school system in The Gambia, rudimentary as it sometimes is, has one clear advantage over the British system.

Parents are encouraged to visit the school.

They don’t have to ring to make an appointment (although that would be a nice touch) they can just turn up in lesson time.

I’m not sure how it works with the senior children, but the juniors ?

Just turn up, tell the headmaster/mistress, and you’re sorted.

So what did we find out ?

That Mariama is actually making a bit of an effort.

Forty-first to eighth in her class (and first in French ?)

Something has definitely changed.

Whether the change in schools helped we don’t know, but Haddy suspects that might also have had something to do with it ?

And Jalika ?

In the twenties out of the usual fifty-five to sixty students in the class.

Sometimes painfully shy and not wanting to join in.

Always on the edge of what is going on.

Wanting to get involved sometimes, but holding herself back.

My heart goes out to the poor girl.

She’s just turned seven and she’s frightened of involvement.

I can certainly understand why ?

She’s a year behind the rest in the class, but she’s got the intelligence and ability to catch up.

She just needs the confidence.

Her life has just gone through a big shake-up.

Whatever Haddy and I do, she’s going to be feeling like a bit of an outsider for a time.

We’ll just have to show her that she’s included and not excluded, and THAT is going to be easier said than done…

Photographs of the classes which will be sent on, were taken with their teacher’s permission, and we’re off again…

A whole day of relaxation…

IF… Haddy can be persuaded to turn off her mobile ?

Ocean Bay Hotel at the top end of Bakau.

Ocean Bay is a four star hotel.

It has a programme for the guests who are looked after with an expertise and a lot of hard work, by Mr Kamara and his staff.

One day, when we can afford it, I’d like to spend some time there.

But in the meantime, I’ll take a ‘Pool’ ticket and avail myself of the swimming pool and their chefs on a daily basis.

It is a beautifully kept, landscaped and relaxing ‘escape’ as far as I am concerned, and I can ‘live’ next to, or in their pool, for as long as they’ll have us.

One of the positives of the way I look and dress when I’m in The Gambia is recognition and the hotel is a classic example.

Straight out to the ‘Pool office’ with my ticket and the guy gives us a big smile, welcomes us both back, hands us our towels for the sunloungers, and asks me if I’ve managed to give up smoking yet ?

No ?

Ok, he’ll bring me an ashtray.

Now THAT is service.

As I’ve mentioned previously, when you avail yourself of a pool ticket at Ocean Bay, you get a voucher that entitles you to one hundred Dalasi off the price of a meal from the poolside restaurant.

That’s fine by me, because after discovering one of the joys of Ocean Bay’s cuisine, I’m sticking to it.

Food is food, but when it’s this good it’s something else and as far as hotels go, I’ve never had better.

I love this meal.

It has everything in taste that anyone could possibly want, and so recommendations go out to anybody and everybody.

If you are in the hotel, either staying as a guest or visiting, then try it.

You certainly won’t be disappointed.

Taste-bud heaven.

Prawns in Citrus Salsa.

I keep trying to make it at home but I can’t get close to it.

Oh well, one day if I keep practising ?

Haddy has the grilled fish in garlic sauce, which I know she enjoys, and we just kick back and while away the sunshine.

One day I’ll manage to get her in the pool but she’s resistant to water and swimming like most Gambians.

Maybe later when I can get the two little ones in ?

Mariama has been telling Jalika what fun it is, and so with a little trepidation Jalika is looking forward to her first go in the water later in the week.

They’ll both be armbanded up, but that’s for later.

The ‘phone starts going off the wall at about four in the afternoon and so we head back home.

Haddy has some meetings to organise and sort out with the women’s groups.

Oh well… It was nice while it lasted.

It turns out that’s not the only problem…

We’ve got a compound full of people and we’ve had a burst pipe.

Not good.

Everybody pitches in for dinner, and the rest of the digging out can wait until tomorrow.

What a cheek !

‘Baby’ Sarjo has turned up with Alagie, one of his friends, after telling him that because Uncle Chris and Naneh Kombo are back, and Uncle Chris has a digital camera then he’ll take our photographs…

You’ve got to hand it to the guy… He’s got the cheek of ‘Old Nick…’

Ok, say cheese…

Sorted.

The one member of the family who hasn’t been mentioned yet is getting herself ready for another night on the tiles, and this is causing much laughter and hilarity among the rest of us…

I refer, of course, to Princess… The family cat.

With about five or six ‘boyfriends’ in the local vicinity, her morals are being questioned rather a lot.

All I can say is ‘What a slapper !’

Her behaviour is definitely a bit suspect.

Find a quiet corner and flirt outrageously and then, at the top of her voice, consummate the ‘friendship…’

Princess, you’re a slut.

And if you wake me up tonight by having one on the roof you little madam, then you are going to be in serious trouble tomorrow morning, believe me…

THE FIRST DAYS ARE THE HARDEST DAYS...

2011-09-19T00:04:00.000-07:00

Monday night before the flight and it’s the usual cramming everything into pockets…

Haddy still hasn’t worked out the importance of pockets when you’re going to be overweight on the flight.
To whit : ALWAYS wear the things with the most pockets as it’s quite amazing how much the weight comes down when you’re wearing the weight.
Yes, it can be uncomfortable hanging around the airport, but you can always cram the items into your piddly little five kilo maximum bag that you can take onto the ‘plane whilst you’re in flight, and then just carry the bag off at the other end whilst you wait for your luggage.
We’ve booked a two week stay for the car at one of Gatwick’s most outlying car parks, but at least I’ve been there before so there should be no trouble finding it.
Right… Are you ready, love ? It’s two o’clock in the goddamn morning, so let’s go…
Apart from the fact that I’d been up since six the previous morning, it’s such an easy run down to Gatwick at that time.
There is literally nothing on great stretches of the journey apart from us, a few delivery vans, and the long distance truckers, so nobody is jostling for position and it actually makes the M25 a pleasure to drive down apart from the coned off areas…
Hand over the paperwork in the car park, get my ticket and wait for the coach to Gatwick South.

First things first…
Wait at the check-in to see if they’ll let us weigh upfront ?
Bollocks !
They’ve changed the system…
After a bit of re-packing we’re three kilo’s over and have to pay the full whack.
Shit ! Bollocks ! and Fuck it !
Buy a newspaper, sit and drink a black coffee to stay awake, find a chair and stuff some of the sarnies we’ve brought down with us, get up and go outside again for a last fag and then hit the departure lounge…
Strip off jackets, shoes, boots, belts and the whole rigmarole to get through the scanners…
Do it a second time because one penny had got stuck in my jeans pocket…
Put clothes back on again and collect the gear…
Which as soon as I hit the departure lounge I realise is short by one set of keys, my camera and my mobile phone…
Back through the ‘No Entry’ signs to ask where the staff have taken them ?
‘Oh, are these yours ?’
Yes, actually, and if you hadn’t moved the tray onto the sodding floor and had left it on the belt, I wouldn’t be missing them, would I ?
Buy brandy for us when we’re out there, and a three pack of giant Toblerone for the kids.
They’ve sold out of any reasonable tobacco, so I’ll wait and chance it when I get there.
Finally, the flight is called and we start the damn near three quarter mile trek to the farthest gates to board the ‘plane, where we finally collapse into our seats.
Can I sleep now, please ?
Typically, Haddy is now wide awake, while all I want to do is get some zzz’s.
Oh well, as soon as we’re up, maybe ?
Stuff an inhalitor in my mouth and lord it over the poor sods who have all forgotten to buy one.
As soon as we’re up I doze for about an hour before the cabin staff start their routines…
Coffee ? Tea ? Drinks ? Duty free ?
That wakes me up… And… There’s a deal on Golden Virginia tobacco.
Right… Two five packs for thirty eight quid.
That sorts out me, Lamin and Hadim and the guys over there who smoke.
God knows what the film is ?
It’s totally forgettable anyway, so Haddy sticks the radio on and I doze off again until dinner.
‘In flight’ chicken and veg’ as usual…
And now we’re over the Sahara desert…
Another cup of ‘in flight’ tea…
Ugh !
Last pee on board as we’re on our way down…
And we’re there.
Banjul airport, and it’s three o’clock… And it’s got to be about thirty five degrees out there ?
Coach to the terminal and let the fun begin…
The uniformed lass in the booth checks the passport and the card and asks why I’ve put down ‘visit family’ for the trip ?
‘Because I’m visiting my family’ I answer.
‘My wife is behind me, and we’re visiting the children…’
‘You are married to a Gambian woman ?’
‘Yep’
‘Where do you live ?’
‘Fagikunda, when I’m here…’
She smiles at that point and hands me the passport back, now it’s Haddy’s turn.
It may sound like it’s a problem getting in, but it isn’t really.
The reason it sounds like I’m getting the third degree is that there is no hotel listed on the immigration form, and since unlike parts of Europe, sleeping on the beach is frowned upon and you could get picked up for any number of offences from vagrancy up to drug smuggling or gun running, the immigration staff ask.
It’s no problem.
All you have to do is answer their questions.
If they don’t like the answers you give them, then you’ll soon know about it…
No ‘Tufa ?
Apparently his taxi was absolutely totalled by a relief driver, and so the poor guy is jobless again, but we’re picked up by someone Haddy knows, and driven straight to the compound.
Now the thing is… Haddy had told her daughter Fatou that we were travelling on the Friday and not the Tuesday because she did not want a house full of visitors when we arrived.
It’s a bit sly I know, but bearing in mind the jungle telegraph is a damn site quicker than a mobile ‘phone out there, it seemed a reasonable thing to do.
So as soon as we walked through the compound gate there is a very audible scream from Sainabou…
Surprise surprise !
Followed by hugs all round from Husainatou, Mariama, Jalika, Little Ida and Omar and Mum Ida, and then the noise began as everybody started talking at the same time…
Our missing twin, Hassanatou, is on a college course and is staying with the rest of her classmates at a hotel, and so we won’t be seeing her until Friday.
Then the kids all ran outside to tell everybody that Naneh Kombo was home...
So the following couple of hours were absolute chaos.
Unpack ?
Forget it.
Check the freezer for Julbrew ?
Good, they remembered to buy it.
Cheers… I’ll have a beer… Or maybe three ?
And just let them get on with it.
Finally, at about one-thirty the following morning, we collapse into bed.

One of the reasons that we’re here, apart from seeing the kids and the family, is to extricate Haddy from some of the organisations that she’s a member or secretary of.
Most of that involves money and about forty to fifty women of the village.
When you are a bank signatory of an organisation and you live in the U.K. then if the other signatory falls sick or dies or has any other problem involving them not getting to the bank, then problems tend to arise.
Sainabou has been looking after the accounts since Haddy moved, but now they need somebody else to take over Haddy’s position and therefore elections need to be held or organisations closed and the saved money shared back out between the members and Haddy has three of these to sort out.
You’d think that was easy wouldn’t you ?
I mean, put as simply as that then it should be, right ?
Would any Gambians reading this please stop laughing ?
I’m not Gambian, ok… I’m writing this from a European perspective so please do me a favour and cut the hilarity.
Talk about easier said than done.
If one person is prepared to make decisions and stick with them for the good of the group as Haddy did, then obviously Haddy is the person to do the job, which is why they all said she should do it in the first place.
Now, with Haddy retiring from her position, other problems are going to come into play.
Problems which we don’t seem to get too much of in Europe, but this is emphatically not Europe, this is Africa and specifically The Gambia and so you have to factor in the usual things like competence, availability and honesty and then you have to factor in things like jealosy and tribalism…
To tell you the truth, I can see this lot going seriously pear-shaped, but first things first…

I must have been tired because I missed Mosque-man…
Usually I wake with the early morning call to prayers, but not this time…
This time I slept straight through until I got a nudge and heard the sound of a most welcome cup of tea being placed on the bedside table and a voice I seem to recognise from somewhere coming through the fog and telling me breakfast is on the table.
Ok…
Gimme fifteen minutes and I’ll be there…
Possibly ?
Ah… Gambian breakfast.
Lettuce, tomato, sliced onion, cucumber, tinned sardines, tapalapa and mayonnaise.
That’ll do me, thanks very much.
Tapalapa ?
It’s a cross between a baguette and a finger roll.
The shape of a finger roll and the length and consistency of a baguette.
It’s the local bread and it’s baked fresh every day at the local bakers round the corner.
Ok…
Shower… In cold water, because the kids have run off all the hot before they went to school and college.
Ask Sainabou what we’re short of, provision wise, in the house ?
Get a taxi to the top of the road and then another to Westfield and pick up some money which we’ve sent via Western Union to our bank, and then hit the supermarkets, which thankfully, are together but on opposite sides of the road.
I’ve promised Sainabou that by the time we leave, she’ll be cooking some of the recipes I’ve brought with me.
Sainabou can cook and cook very well, but she wants to learn more about other types of food, not just Gambian or West African, so it’s a good time to stock up on some ingredients.
They’re going to cost a fortune compared to the U.K. but what the hell…
Herbs and spices for instance.
Just under a pound up to two pounds depending on the spice in the U.K.
In The Gambia it’s just under two pound fifty up to five pounds per same sized jar, and that’s if they sell it ?
Food wise, all the prices have gone through the roof over there.
The worldwide problem with the banks and the recession has finally hit them, and it is hurting them badly because it’s a petrol or diesel based economy.
Everything has to be trucked around the country.
The taxis, whose prices are regulated by law, are screaming at the government to let them be allowed an increase in fares because fuel has gone up so much.
So far the government has resisted because otherwise people will not be able to get to their place of work or school or college, whatever ?
But it will have to change soon and they’ll have to put up prices and everybody knows this…
They just want to put it off for as long as is possible ?
JEEEZUS ! How much ?
That was me at the supermarket checkout.
Christ mate, I just want this stuff, I wasn’t planning on buying your bloody shop !
Ouch !
That was a shock to the system, believe me.
We’ve spent probably in U.K. terms, an extra twenty to twenty five quid on the stuff that I’d normally buy when I’m over here.
The herbs and spices are up slightly, but the basics have gone through the roof.
I think I need to get home before my wallet suffers another seizure…
We unpack it all when we get back…
It doesn’t seem a lot when it’s all laid out on the table.
Hey Saina’… Tomorrow we cook.
Moroccan meatballs on cous-cous…
Sainabou is none the wiser… But she will be tomorrow night.
I just hope that we can keep the food within the family, as although I’m just a self-taught cook, when the word gets out that I’m doing the cooking we do seem to get an inordinate amount of visitors at food time…
Not just the blokes, who come over to take the piss out of a man doing the cooking, (It’s women’s work in The Gambia… Men just sit around on their arses and wait)
but the women and kids, too.
Everybody wants a plate of what Uncle Chris has cooked…
Which is why anybody taking the piss out of my cooking the meal won’t be invited to the next one.
This attitude might be a bit less friendly, but I’ll tell you what… Once the word gets round that the food was good, then it stops as suddenly as it starts.
The local vulture population doesn’t want to miss out…

As soon as we arrive back, Ousman appears.

Ousman looks after Haddy’s land compound plot at Killy on the Soma road.
I’ve only been there once on my first trip out here, but he looks after it, grows as much rice and vegetables as he can on the land, and then sells it, giving a proportion to Haddy.

The problem out there is lack of water as there are no pipes yet, and so it all has to be carried by donkey cart from the nearest well.

Ousman is a good old boy, and we can talk vegetables without any problem.

He’s been trying to get some dwarf green beans to grow, but the local insect population discovered their taste before they were ready and stripped the lot.

That’s a shame because a kilo of dwarf green beans could get seventy five Dalasi a kilo from the local hotels and fifty Dalasi a kilo on the veg’ markets and at forty two Dalasi to the English pound, that’s a considerable amount if you have a reasonable harvest.

Oh well, keep trying.

If ever a country needed a figure to learn from, then I reckon Scotland’s Robert The Bruce would be perfect for The Gambia ?

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.

We will get those beans to grow.

Don’t know which year, but it WILL be done.

I’m told we are going to see one of the village elders and the village’s oldest resident this afternoon, who I’ve never actually met before.

He has been one of the elders for so long that most people cannot remember him not being one, nd is eighty nine years old which puts him a year behind my Father.

The fact I’ve not met him previously is quite surprising because he’s drum-maker Lamin’s Father.

A couple of years ago, he’d been knocked down by a car and seriously injured and one of his hips had been put out.

Did it stop him getting about ?

Did it heck ?

It made him a bit slower and he now has to rely on his stick a bit more, much to the local kids discomfort if they should come within range of it, but stop him ?

No chance.

The other visit is going to be Ebrima’s Mother at her own compound.

She had already popped over to visit us last night when she had heard we had arrived, but respect says we go to her.

That I know I’m going to find difficult.

I don’t think of it as a duty, it’s something that I have to do, but I know in myself that it’s going to be a hard one.

It’s the first trip where the old pirate hasn’t come over and given me a hug, and said ‘Hey Chrees, you are welcome…’

So yeah… That’s going to be a hard one.

The noise level has gone up because Mariama and Jalika have just arrived back from school, and little Omar, who is not so little now, but a big, chunky, misbehaving brat of a child, has decided that they are going to play with him.

The sooner that child starts school and learns a little discipline, the better.

Ida, his Mother, refuses to chastise him at all, and so when he does something naughty or spiteful then it’s left to Sainabou, who is slow to anger, but bloody quick when she’s reached boiling point.

Apparently Ida’s cries of ‘You are going to kill my child…’ are getting a little monotonous around the compound.

Oh well, simple answer…

Clout him yourself !

We spend a pleasant hour talking and chatting to Lamin’s Father who requests a photograph to remember the visit.

No sweat.

That’s something we are happy to do.

Now it’s back to the compound and then off to see Ebou’s mother…

As soon as she sees us coming she bursts into tears and has to go inside to compose herself before she greets us, but Ebrima’s brothers are all there to look after us while we wait.

We both get hugs, and tearfully she tells us that Fatou Manta, Ebrima’s wife, is going to leave the compound and go back to her own family.

This means that she will not be seeing Amie or Samsidine, her grandchildren, unless they come for a visit at Koriteh or Tobaski and it upsets her greatly.

Haddy tactfully says that since Fatou Manta now has a stall on the market, then she will be better placed to look after her children, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.

She is upset.

To add insult to injury, Fatou Manta will be taking her son’s possessions with her including her late husband’s bed.

I don’t quite understand the politics of these decisions, so I do my best to remain understanding and sympathetic.

I’ll have to ask Haddy later.

One thing I do notice is that their compound is a lot quieter…

The local lads do not visit anymore, therefore she has nobody to talk to as she used to while they waited for her son.

I gave her a copy of ‘Ebou’s Song’ and tell her that most of it comes from the times I spent with Ebrima, therefore this is how I will always remember him for these are the things we spoke about whilst we drank tea here in the evenings, and she asks one of the brothers to read it and translate it for her.

As he begins to read the first verse it becomes so silent you could definitely hear a pin drop, even into the dust…

The second verse is in Wollof however, which is when Ebou’s brother starts choking over the words…

Shit !

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea ?

He finishes, and the tears are flowing…

I’m finding it hard, but I think the whole family have ‘lost it’ ?

Ebou’s mother takes the paper back from his brother and takes it away to put it indoors somewhere ?

I don’t think she expected this ?

The brothers just cluster around, wiping back tears and hugging me…

One of them saying that ‘He always said you were his true friend and never judged, just said the truth before God…’

I'm not quite sure that comment was totally accurate from my perspective as Ebou' and the guys took no prisoners, but it's close enough.

I was just happy that I didn't come over as some sort of prat.

But by that time I was about to lose it, too...

Haddy hands me her handkerchief and we force back the tears together.

Christ ! I wish I knew what to say ?

Maybe what is written is enough ?

I don’t know ?

What I do know is that you cannot have too many friends in this world, and I’ve lost one of mine.

That is certainly enough to make a grown man weep.

As soon as we can, we make our excuses and leave…

Ain’t no disguising it, I need a brandy.

I woke up the following morning with a thick head…

You can take that any way you like ?

Today I’m definitely staying a little closer to home.

So I become the ‘gift monitor’ as the piles of clothing that we brought over slowly start going down and we finally see parts of the bedroom floor.

When you look at it laid out, with paper names on top of each pile then you realise how much we actually brought ?

It’s no wonder that apart from underwear and socks and a few t-shirts, I’ve got two changes of clothes only.

My only ‘work’ today, is going to be the cooking and so as soon as is convenient, me and Sainabou get together to plan a course of action.

The cooking bit is easy, but what do we serve it with ?

I think cous-cous and salad, the cous-cous as a change from rice and Saina’ seems ok with that, so she shoots off early down to the mini-market to pick up the salad’y bits before all the good stuff goes.

We’ll start the preparation when Mariama, Ida and Jalika get back from school, as then we can involve them, too.

If we don’t then they’ll only keep sticking their noses in, and asking what we are doing, so if we involve them then it’s a win-win situation…

Besides… making meatballs can get a bit messy, so who better ?

Yeah, I know… Cold calculating git.

It’s just seems that way.

The reality is that like most kids that age, they want to help so rather than have them get in the way, let them do something helpful… Especially if it’s messy.

It used to work with my two when they were young and it works with these two now.

They won’t do it for ever, I know that.

But for a first grounding in different foods, then getting involved, especially at the beginning, is invaluable.

First things first… Amadou has popped around for a visit.

We don’t see Amadou too much these days.

He’s stuck at college but is getting out as much as he can.

God ! He’s getting tall…

He’s going to dwarf me soon.

He and Sainabou discuss the forthcoming feast…

Feast ? What feast ?

Oh God ! They mean the meal tonight…

Actually, I should have thought about the ‘How many we could possibly feed and still have some left for ourselves ?’ question, but I sort of stuck it at the back of my mind, which was pretty stupid when you think about it ?

Sainabou does the calculations based on the approximate size of a meatball and how many the family are going to get in each portion.

Yes… It really does come down to that.

As soon as she’s worked it out to her satisfaction then they start the usual messing about.

Those two have a relationship between them that goes beyond care, love, family and friendship.
Sainabou was originally adopted by Haddy when she was young, and Amadou was born when Saina’ was about six or seven, so Saina’ has always looked at Amadou as if he were her responsibility to look after.
Now of course, he’s a young man of twenty-one and she’s twenty six-ish but they still have that special relationship.
Nowadays Amadou can take the mick out of it, being a big growing lad and all, but Saina’ gives it back all the time, causing much hilarity to the rest of the family…
They really are like some old bickering married couple.
Hey ! The kids are back…
Right you two… If you want to help then go and change and then wash your hands… I want to be able to smell the soap on them…
Hey Saina’, we ready ?
The nodded head signifies the affirmative…
Right… Let’s hit it !

Know what ?

We could have made twice the amount and it still wouldn’t have been enough.
We still had people coming into the compound as the last finger wipings of sauce were being licked from fingers.
Chalk up another one.
Sainabou judged it as ‘different, but good’.
That’ll do me.
I ask if she’s going to make it, and she says yes, it was the lemons that made it different and not like Gambian food at all.

Tomorrow I’ve been promised a day off from the chaos and we’re going to rest up at Ocean Bay.

I can just loiter in or out of the swimming pool and Haddy can hopefully just turn off her mobile ‘phone and relax.
It probably won’t happen like that, but that’s the plan.
I want to go to the craft market at Banjul at some point and see Hadim, give him his gifts and all that.
The likelihood is that he won’t be there anyway, but I can always leave them with his brother, Badou, if he’s away.
The thing about the Craft Market is nowadays I can just hang there and relax.
I don’t get hassled to buy all the time.
It’s not as if I’m not easily recognisable, and Haddy seems to be known at most places she goes, so we can just drift around and talk to the traders without pressure.
Ok, it’ll probably cost me a bit in Coca-Cola’s, Fanta’s and coffee, but what the hell ?
Anyway, that’s for the future and that changes by the hour.
Right now it’s time to play some music…
The choice seems to have come down to African vs Pop hits (Beatles, Abba, Aretha Franklin… They are all classed as ‘pop hits’) or Reggae ?
OK, mix and match…
Anything’s got to be better than the interminable ‘soap’ that the kids are watching inside ?

LIFE IS JUST A BOWL OF...

2011-09-01T02:42:00.000-07:00

Life is a funny old thing when you think about it…

No matter what you do or what you plan for, it still ends up as a catalogue of disasters that you end up trying to salvage as best you can.
It had taken about a year out of my life to get Haddy into the country, and as for the cost ?
Don’t even go there.
Basically, any reserve I had was now pretty much wiped out.
Physically and mentally I was completely shattered, and to make matters worse my Father’s health was beginning to deteriorate badly.
This, of course, put extra strain on my Mother who quite frankly couldn’t cope with the situation that was beginning to occur, but who struggled on regardless because the alternative was moving my Father into a home, and there was no way that was EVER going to be considered.
He had been in and out of hospital over the last couple of years, usually with the same infections that never seemed to get cleared up, but they would chuck anti-biotics at him until they said he was fit enough to leave and then they’d release him into my Mother’s care and send him home.
Of course within a week or two or a month at most he’d collapse at home again, the paramedics would be called again, and he’d be back in hospital, in the same ward usually, with the same complaint… And this was happening on an average of once every six weeks…
The situation was not helped either by my Father losing his hearing (He was now profoundly deaf) or, belligerently refusing to have anything to do with hospitals whatsoever.
When he collapsed at home, my Mother didn’t have the strength to help so it was going to have to be hospital regardless of his objections…
I’ll tell you… Life doesn’t get easier.
I’m sixty miles away at the top of the coned off section of the M.25 and I’m the
nearest member of the family, so who you gonna call every time he collapses ?
I’ll give you a clue, it ain’t fuckin’ Ghostbusters…
To make matters worse (could it ever get better ?) the pair of them have made promises to each other that they’d never be parted from each other and they’ve been together for over sixty years…
This is the stumbling block that everybody in the family who is trying to help is finding out about when they fall over it.
Dad doesn’t want to go to hospital even though he’s obviously ill and so Mum ignores the illness and does her best to cope at home.
Dad collapses because he’s ill.
Dad gets taken to hospital.
Dad moans about being in hospital.
Mum capitulates before they find out what’s wrong with him and takes him home.
A month later the same thing occurs again…
And a month later the same thing occurs again…
And a month later the same thing…
You get the drift ?
There’s a pattern to it.
A child could see it for Christ’s sake…
So why not break the pattern ?
I sometimes wonder why I bother ?
Still, Christmas is coming and it’s supposed to be the season of goodwill and all that stuff…
Haddy and I were hopeful about going out to The Gambia for Tobaski at the end of November but that’s been put on hold because it conflicts with half-term holidays over here and so the flight fares have rocketed from about four hundred pounds each to seven hundred and ninety nine each…
Never mind… There’s always next year but first we have to get through Christmas and there’s only so much overtime I can do to pay for it.
And then it occurred…
My Father had been taken into hospital after a fall at home.
He had apparently been left for four days without anybody helping him or changing his clothing…
When my Mother rang me (In floods of tears, naturally) I hit the roof…
The whole family got told what was GOING to happen if things didn’t change.
Needless to say they all objected to it and I was immediately sidelined and forbidden to do anything about it whatsoever.
Was it wrong of me to want somebody at Epsom Hospital Trust’s head ?
I don’t think so ?
You don’t leave a ninety year old man to live in his own filth for four days just because you can’t be bothered or you’re short staffed…
But apparently THEY do.
And so I wanted somebody’s head to roll…
Not to be hushed up, not to be glossed over and swept under the carpet, but a big and loud complaint in capital fucking letters…
It was ‘Verboten’.
Never in a million years…
My Mother who wouldn’t make a complaint at the time, wouldn’t stand for it…
And so my brother was going to deal with it.
The fact that he lives in the U.S. of A. didn’t seem to have crossed anybody’s mind…
Ok…
Fuck it !
You try, because somebody HAS to do something, but if nobody is interested then let them sort it out…
My kids from my first marriage are ‘Oop North’ and in Spain respectively, and my brother is in the U.S.A… And now he’s got to come over to sort things out.
Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Since the e-mail had been sent I was now persona non-grata anyway, so I was going to have a rest and get on with booking The Arcadeclectic Stage at Rhythms Of The World…
Thank God for a bit of sanity.

Christmas came and went with me taking one day off to visit my parents…

Thankfully my Father was back at home and not incarcerated.
I don’t think I’m ever going to actually be able to speak to him as his deafness is getting worse or his hearing aids don’t work or worse than either, every time I try and speak, my Mother decides to butt in on the conversation and answer for him…
It’s driving me fucking mental, but what can you do apart from let her get on with it ?
According to Haddy the strain is beginning to show…
I don’t know when I’m next going to spend any time with my wife as it just seems that every time I try and get something planned, the whole thing comes crashing down around me ?

The first week of January I’m doing a gig for Mark Astronaut at Club 85.

Apart from compering at ‘Rhythms’ it’ll be my first gig since the previous February and I’m out of practice.
I can ‘fake’ it, but that’s not my style so I need a re-think.
Right…
The first live outing of ‘Ebou’s Song’, with Haddy on the Wollof bits.
She’s scared witless, but addressing audiences is the same as addressing political rallies and meetings, so what’s the problem ?
The rest I’ll fit around it, and leave out most of the ‘greatest hits’ stuff.
I’m on third with a duo from Primal Device first, Smige (pronounced Smidge) second, and Silent Smiles, a young rock band from Harpenden way, topping the bill…
What’s more I’ve managed to persuade Mark to give me a thirty minute set.
Now the thing is, I’ve booked Silent Smiles and Smige for ‘Rhythm’s already, but they’re sworn to secrecy because the bill isn’t yet finalised, so I know what I’m on with…
They, on the other hand, haven’t got a clue about me.
Joe from the Device duo has seen me before, but he’s the only one.
Right… Let battle commence…

Pheeeew !
That was a scorcher…
According to Silent Smiles’ parents, who drove all their gear there, and Smige’s girlie posse, and Bob who runs the place, I was either, ‘the best thing on the bill’, or ‘the best I’ve ever seen you…’
So that’s alright then…
Cheers Mark, for sticking me on… And thank you so much to my darling wife for making the difference and conquering her fear.
Jonny T and Jo from Lika Sharps who were both in the audience concurred with the above, as did Jon Falconer, another local poet who we’d worked with last year at Twist of Fete.

Sometimes the Gods smile…

The following week we’re back to normal with another collapse from my Father…
I really don’t think I can survive much more of this ?
Still, I’m halfway through booking Rhythms of the World but it’s beginning to get difficult to get artists with the right outlook.
I can get artists…
We’re over subscribed in artists and bands, but Jesus…
Some of them seem to think that it’s just a question of them asking to be on and they’ll be put on.
Try again, people…
Try somebody else because you haven’t a prayer of getting on the Arcadeclectic Stage unless you’ve got the right attitude.
It’s difficult to put into words but I want artists who are happy in their skin.
I don’t care how many fans they have, don’t care what style of music they play, and I certainly don’t care if they are commercial or not…
I want artists who are prepared to stand out from the norm by dint of what they do on that stage…
And that’s difficult because they are becoming harder to find.
Every time I find one, they tend to get nicked the following year for one of the bigger stages anyway, so I seem to be consistently hunting for new blood.
This year I’ve got the biggest of all the local bands ever to reform, and when it hits the grapevine and the publicity machine I know I’m going to get some feedback on that, but again, we’re currently keeping it under wraps and only Steve, the Performance Director, and Bob, know for now.
I’d like to get some Gambian musicians but we can’t get them from The Gambia because of the government bond we have to put up of £5000 per musician if they don’t have a British or European agent, and very few have.
The problem we have with the Gambian musicians that are already here is also one of attitude…
They seem to have imported an attitude that I’ll refer to as ‘Let’s screw the toubab…’ wherein the only thing they are interested in whatsoever is money, and as much of it as is humanly possible, heading their way.
It’s not a game I play when I’m in The Gambia where anybody even attempting to try it on with me will be told to fuck off in no uncertain terms, but those who have moved here have brought it with them and it’s a constant in any dealings with Gambian ex-pats.
I don’t mind paying for a quality outfit, but trying to tell me that a bloke from Manchester, another from Bristol and a couple from London ‘could’ constitute a band to play the festival when they’ve never even met before, is an insult to every musician playing it.
Oh well… It’ll change one day when they actually take a little pride in their culture and traditions rather than trying to flog off a third rate imitation for money.
So for the third year running I won’t be booking any, and for exactly the same reasons each time.
The fact that a couple of them might get together to play a naming ceremony does not, in my book, constitute a band that can entertain a crowd at a festival, and besides, I don’t like being told that it’s going to cost me another eighty quid to get one bloke down from Manchester.
I know the price of fuel has gone up, but the price of taking the piss has definitely gone up with it…
Enough !
Sod it ! We’re going to The Gambia whether we can afford it or not, and my mobile is going to be turned off for the duration…
I know it sounds harsh, but I need a rest and if it’s impossible to get one here, then I’ll take one somewhere else.
Besides, it’ll be nice to see the kids again, and see how they are coping without their Mum, and so we booked the flight for the first week of March and left everything and everybody else to it…
Sanity was beckoning…
Which just goes to show how little I knew.
Of course back in the real world, my Mother is now having second thoughts about having my Dad at home because she is just about at the end of her tether and beginning to get just a teensy-weensy little bit hysterical over having to cope with him on a daily basis…
(For teensy-weensy read ‘a hell of a lot…’ I’m being sarcastic)
And my ‘For Christ’s sake get him in a home and we might not lose you, too…’ is being echoed by my brother.
So…
Care homes are now being looked at, and Brother Pat is coming back over here in March…
Personally I don’t give a damn when he comes over… I’m past caring.
Besides… We’ve booked, and there’s no way we’re changing, cancelling or deviating from OUR script.
I’ve had to put my whole life on hold for over a year and I’m not prepared to do that anymore, but until Pat got involved, nothing I’ve ever said has been taken seriously, but now he’s saying the same things, people are listening…
And you wonder why I feel as I do ?
He’s coming in March but we’ll be back for a couple of days before he flies in…
All we have to do is find room in our twenty kilogram each allowance for all the stuff that we’re supposed to take out there, which is certainly easier said than done.
We’re being sent stuff on a daily basis from Fatou, and so in the end Haddy has to tell her ‘NO MORE !’
We’re about twelve kilos overweight, so we’re definitely going to need a re-think and a re-pack.
But finally, only five kilo’s over by the bathroom scales, which is going to cost me fifty quid if I can’t sweet-talk somebody at the check-in desk, we are ready to go…

DEPARTURE...

2011-06-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

Ebrima was not a good Muslim.
Well, as far as Islam the religion was concerned, he wasn’t.
He drank alcohol if he could get it, gin being a particular favourite, but brandy, whiskey, beer, Guinness, palm wine… Anything would do, and he smoked as much weed or ganja as he could get hold of.
He used to sell it too, which didn’t endear him to the elders of the village too much.
They thought him too wild, too argumentative, too stoned, and so they never seemed to take him seriously unless he got violent.
Then they took him seriously.
They had to.
They really hadn’t too much choice in the matter as somebody could have got seriously hurt if they hadn’t.
A slight rangy man in his late thirties, standing about five feet ten or eleven inches in his bare feet without an ounce of fat on him.
You could look at him sometimes and think that a slight gust of wind would have blown him over, but what there was of him was solid muscle.
The sort of guy who, if he’d indulged in arm wrestling, would have won any bout that he entered just by dint of his size, for nobody would have believed the strength in that slight body.
He’d never finished the basic Gambian school system with the result that he could neither read nor write.
Despairing of Ebrima ever amounting to anything, his family decided the lad should learn to fend for himself and so had apprenticed him to a builder.
That was about the only schooling that Ebrima had been given.
The strange thing was, he discovered that he had an aptitude for building, and since he’d learned his lessons well, in time he started working for himself, earning his own money.
That suited Ebrima.
He may have been totally illiterate but he was beholden to no man, and he liked building.
It seemed to stir something inside him.
I tried to sing him a song once, while over at his compound.
An old reggae tune by The Heptones called Book of Rules.
I told him it was his song and I always thought of him when it got played on the radio which happened rarely, but that I’d got a pretty good version by Bobby and The Midnites, and if I managed to get a cd version, I’d burn him a copy.
The chorus goes something like this…
‘Poor people like you and me will be builders for eternity
Each is given a bag of tools…
Shapeless lives… And a book of rules’
He dug it.
He was a Muslim, remember ?
He could see where it was coming from, even though the original had been Christian in context.
Makes just as much sense if it’s the Koran, so why not ?
He liked building although it was definitely backbreaking labour in The Gambia.
Health and safety isn’t exactly top of the agenda when you’re half way up a wooden scaffold around a two or three storey building, and he’d already lost the use of one eye when a small chip of stone had flown up from one of his hammer blows.
But buildings are something to be proud of, and he took pride in his job.
He was good at it.
He hated having to build on the cheap, and he always counselled against it.
Over in The Gambia the building regulations are quite different to Europe.
You can build something with no foundations.
You can also build using mud bricks as opposed to breeze-block and cement.
But the likelihood is that any building so constructed will come crashing down after a couple of years as the Gambian rainy season which lasts from June through to the end of October is pretty unforgiving, and when it rains it rains, and you better believe it…
He hated building with no foundations.
He hated building with mud bricks, but it’s a poor country and when people need a roof over their heads then needs must, so he swallowed his pride and took the money.
If he hadn’t then somebody else would, but it always rankled.
There had to be a better way…
As for payment, well if it was a government job then he’d get paid…
He didn’t know when, nobody ever does in that game, and he might have to wait a year even, but eventually the money would come and he’d usually spread it around his friends, then buy a bit more weed, take a few days off and then start all over again.

Sometimes people wouldn’t pay for his time and labour.
That wasn’t the best idea they ever had in their lives.
There is a story still told in Fagikunda and it’s not apocryphal…
Ebrima built a two storey house for a businessman who lived about nine miles away.
To save money, he’d get up before anybody else, before the mosque’s first calling to prayer even, to walk the nine miles to start work.
The house was built and the businessman moved in with his family…
But he wouldn’t pay Ebrima for building it.
There was always some excuse.
You know what I’m talking about here ?
We all do, because I’m quite sure we’ve all done it ?
The money is at the bank.
Wait until my wife gets back with the money…
My brother is looking after the money for me…
Come on… We’ve all done it, but out in The Gambia that could be the difference between a family living or starving.
After three months of constant excuses he decided that this guy taking the piss was not an ok option…
So he told his family that he’d be bringing the money back tomorrow.
The following morning he got up before anybody else, stuck his cutlass (They still use cutlasses in The Gambia... The Kankurang has two…) in his belt and walked the nine miles to the guy’s house.
He gets there, and waits quietly outside the compound for the family to wake up.
First one to awaken is the wife who asks him why he has come and tells him that their house is lovely and they are all so pleased with it.
Ebrima tells the guy’s wife that he has come to see her husband on this appointed day to collect his payment for building the house, so she invites him inside to wait until her husband is up.
Ebrima says no thank you, he is dusty after his journey and it would be more fitting for him to wait outside.
So the wife tells the guy that Ebrima is outside, and has come on this appointed day to collect his money, and the guy goes outside to ask Ebrima why he is there, because he made no appointment ?
Of course when he gets outside, the first thing he sees is Ebrima holding his cutlass, and the conversation went something like this…
‘Salaam Aleikum… Why are you here ?’
‘Malikum Salaam… I have come for my money, that is all…’
‘Please come in and I can offer you refreshment’
‘No thank you, I would not like to put you or your family out…’
He runs his fingers over the edge of the cutlass blade…
‘Please wait and I will fetch the money from my house’
‘Thank you’
Within two minutes Ebrima has the money in his pocket paid in full and is off walking the nine miles back to his home.
That was Ebrima.
He had a way of doing things…
Not necessarily the way other people did things, but reasonably effective nevertheless.

I first met him in January 2008 on my first trip out to see Haddy.
I hadn’t been in the country more than forty eight hours when I got the invitation to go and hang with Ebrima and the guys over the road.
Ostensibly for a chat, but as Haddy said…
‘Be careful… They all smoke over there, and they will try and make you stupid…’
Well that was an understatement for a start.
I figured what the hell ?
It had been a while since I’d indulged, but I’d always had a reasonable tolerance of that stuff.
When in Rome, and all that…
First they invite me to sit with them, then they stick a three paper doob’ in my mouth, and then they start offering the sweet green Chinese tea that they make over there…
The main topic of conversation was this Christian vs Muslim thing that all the newspapers were talking about since 9/11, and the wars that Tony B’liar and Georgie W. Bush had started, which seemed to be interminable at that moment in time…
That bastard Blair… He’s done so much damage to the image of Britain abroad.
One day he’s going to get called to account for it…
But first things first…
‘All Christians are the same’
‘All toubabs are Christians’
‘All Christians are crusaders’
‘All toubabs are crusaders’
All… etc, etc, etc, ad-infinitim.
ENOUGH !
‘One. I might be a fuckin’ toubab but I’ve certainly never claimed to be a Christian.
Two. I’m just a guy who writes a bit and performs on stage and that’s it. During the day I just work for a local council.
Three. I’m definitely not a fuckin’ crusader, so if all you want to do is insult my colour, which I, like you, can do fuck all about, then this conversation is fucking pointless…’
Silence…
Some things piss me off, and pig-ignorant insults are one of them.
If you are going to insult somebody then don’t generalise as that really is the pits, and only an ignorant arsehole would do that…
And Ebrima said…
‘You are right Chris’ (pronounced Chrees) ‘They are getting a little stupid…’
And he said something in Wollof and the whole confrontational thing just stopped dead in its tracks.
Then I got passed the second joint…
African weed is definitely different to European… It makes me cough for a start.
So after the second coughing fit I passed it along the line, even though they’d already got two going the rounds…
Then Haddy came over to ‘rescue’ me.
I said I’d be over in half an hour because I wanted to finish the conversation and she said ok and left me to it…
The following day I got invited again, but this time it would just be me and Ebrima…
And slowly, and sometimes with the aid of one of his brothers as a translator, we got to know each other…
I dunno…
There was something about the guy.
He had a code of ethics that would shame some people over here, and yet he dealt dope on the side ?
Here’s an example…
One of his friends asked me once, while I was over in his compound, to see if I could bring him a mobile ‘phone next time I came over ? And Ebrima heard him.
Next thing I know, there’s a furious row going on and Ebrima was frogmarching this poor guy to the front gate and tossing him out into the street…
I asked him when he got back what that was about, and was told that ‘Asking one of his (Ebrima’s) friends (me) whilst in his compound for favours, was very rude and you don’t do that sort of thing, and so he had to go…
Easy isn’t it ?
Now when would that ever occur over here ?
Face it…
Never !
But there it’s regarded as very impolite and you don’t do it…
Even if the bloke concerned IS a toubab, you don’t do it.
Hospitality is sacrosanct, and you do not abuse it.

The more I got to know Ebrima, the more the paradoxes showed up.
Finally, one night I called him a radical revolutionary and he laughed and told me that I mustn’t call him a radical as that was not something that was nice.
I asked why not, because sometimes I was ?
He just said that he wasn’t a radical, but he wanted better…
He wanted a better system to live within.
He saw where things were going wrong, yet was powerless to effect any change so he ignored most of the conventions that his society expected of him and became, in effect, an outlaw in the proper sense of the word (and we ain’t talking Billy the Kid stuff here…)
I chipped in with the old Bob Dylan quote ‘To live outside the law you must be honest…’ and he asked me to repeat it, and so I did…
He smiled, and said that whoever said that knew what they were talking about, and I could only agree.
He thought deeply about what changes were going to be necessary and where and what they could lead to, and yet he was also the one who told me that ‘Women are not conducive to the art of conversation between friends…’
I understood where he was coming from in a Muslim sense, but I said I could never go along with that, although when I got up onstage I could play devil’s advocate and occasionally do take that position, just to wind some people up…
Then I told him that when I was back home in England I had been thinking about some of the things that he and I were talking about while I was here, and that I wanted to write something…
I’d got ideas but I needed a kind of hook to hang them on if it were to be worthwhile ?
So we talked about it for a bit and I had a few ideas, most of which I discounted as soon as I got back home.
The damn thing seemed to be taking forever until I thought of the one tangible thing that really defines that little country…
Oh for Christ’s sake !
Why not use the river ?
The thing is over two hundred miles long, it’s twelve miles wide at the mouth and because of that you can see it from space, so why not ?
I’d forgotten Steven Spielberg’s film Amistad, where they show the escaped slaves the map of Africa and one of them suddenly realises that the big river that he sees on the map is the area where he and some of his companions come from.
So I used the river, and suddenly the whole thing seemed to work…
Mission accomplished.
Well, not quite, because Ebou’ hadn’t heard it, and I wanted some of it in Wollof to reflect his input, but hell… Haddy could do the translation.
And so Ebou’s Song was born.
The first time I think I actually succeeded in marrying what I do here in the U.K. to a totally African, and specifically Gambian, concept ?

EBOU’S SONG

We’ll sing our simple folk song while remembering the past
We’ll sing it for the mysteries of life both deep and vast
We’ll sing it with our family and sing it with our friends
Sing it with a happy heart then sing it once again

Dinyn woy pour sunu magie sen jamano bi passey
Teh nu woy pour halle yi ak sen bugal bi warra nyoo
Nyu woy pour sunu janga lehkat yi ak sen hamham bu nui johai
Woy sunu woy pour nyep teh nyu woy ak sunu hol yep

Let our message be of hope and peace that all may understand
Let it resonate from all our hearts ‘till it reaches other lands
Our simple song of freedom
Our song of dignity
Let it roll on like a river as it flows into the sea

So sing it for the black man and sing it for the white
Sing it until everyman has turned toward the light
We’ll sing for Mama Africa and sing for east and West
Sing it loud for everyone who ever felt oppressed

Woy sunu woy nekal sunu bopa ak woy pour am sunu bopa
Woy ko chikou beh nyep muna doh ak orma
Nu woy ko beh chikou nagibi ak nu woy ko chi run tau bi
Woy… Ndah bo yekate bena hol, dor nya ka dara
A simple song of freedom
A song of dignity
Let it roll on like the river as it flows into the sea
Let it roll on like a river as it flows into the sea
Let it roll on like a river until all mankind stands free

He had a lot of time for Haddy, recognising that she was a figure of constant change for the better in local people’s lives, but they used to argue like cat and dog.
At one point she even banned him from her compound for coming over with a lit spliff, and she wasn’t joking either.
So he said he’ll kill her if she goes to his, and he’ll throw out anybody who talks to her, and at that point his wife and his mother say that if that’s the case then they will pack now…
He really was a man of paradox but because of the drinking and the smoking, his own family were ashamed of him.
His attitude was totally alien to their sensibilities and yet he loved them all, although you’d never know it the way he spoke to them, sometimes ?
His stepfather was the local Imam but that obviously just made matters worse.
He knew unerringly where things were wrong and yet if he voiced any of it then people thought him mad or stoned and so they ridiculed him.
Who knows where he got those ideas from ?
Certainly not whilst in the village, that’s for sure.
Haddy thinks that maybe the three years he spent with the mainly Catholic Christian community when he was younger, down in Helol in Cassamance may have had something to do with it, but nobody really knows and Ebrima never said ?
Then I turn up of all people…
The one guy around who can understand the deeper Ebrima.
Why me ?
I don’t know…
Haven’t a clue ?
How one argumentative white Englishman who believes in God(s) but not necessarily any of the Christian dogma and the bullshit that has been attached to it, and who flatly refuses to take things too seriously, and one argumentative black African Muslim who doesn’t give a rats arse about anybody and anything, and who won’t take crap from anyone, could get along like they did is beyond any normal comprehension.
But it’s what happened, so it must have been God’s will…
Ha ha ha…

He married Fatou Manta Jarra against all advice.
She was as illiterate as he was, and came from one of the outlying villages but it was definitely love (or lust) at first sight, as Fatou Manta is a very strikingly beautiful woman.
Then their arguments started…
And they never stopped.
Their first child was a daughter, Ami.
She’s a sweet little thing with two faces.
A big happy smiling one, and a very serious looking one…
Then the troubles really began…
Ebrima wanted a son but his wife just couldn’t seem to conceive again.
He told me once that he was thinking of taking another wife as his was now barren,
so I asked him if he’d ever thought of cutting down on the smoking, as that definitely reduces a man’s sperm count ?
He’d never heard of that and thought I was making it up.
I told him to seek medical advice before he did something he might regret, and I was sure that he would be told by the medical profession that I was not making that up and that it was actually a fact…
So he did.
Next thing I hear is that Ebrima has given up smoking…
Not just the weed but cigarettes as well.
His first son, Samsidine, was born at the end of August 2010.
Three weeks before Haddy took her flight to England.
I sent him twenty five pounds towards Samsidine’s naming ceremony knowing that he’d have next to nothing in his own pot, and got the message back through Haddy’s eldest daughter, Fatou, that he was always thinking of me, and that I was truly his friend.
When Haddy flew in she told me the things that were happening that he’d kept back…
Ebrima was ill.
Nobody knew what it was, but his mother would not let him go to the hospital to find out.
She was convinced that he would get better with God’s intervention and so had arranged for the local marabouts to come and read verses from the Koran over her son while getting him to drink some herbal concoction.
Even Haddy had swallowed her pride and gone over there and begged him to get himself or get one of his friends to take him to the local hospital, or at the very least to the local pharmacy, as the guy who runs that is definitely the next best thing to a consultant locally, and even I would trust his diagnosis, but it was not to be…
Ebrima just got weaker and weaker until in the end I think even he knew he was going to die.
I rang the girls two weeks before it occurred, and they took the ‘phone to him in his compound, holding it to his ear so that he could hear me.
He himself was too weak to speak, but he broke down in tears as he heard me and Haddy begging him to get himself to the hospital.
It didn’t happen.
We received the news at 8.05am our time, on October 31st…
All Hallowes Eve…
Hallowe’en.
You know what ?
If God is going to take Ebrima on Hallowe’en then he’s got himself a serious problem, because that guy will give him as good as he gets…
And Ebrima wasn’t known for taking prisoners.
He was my friend whatever else he may have been, and I was going to miss him.
And besides…
If what Leon Trotsky said was true, and that there are no small revolutions, only one big one that rolls inexorably onward, then that revolution was definitely going to be a little harder to fight, as now there is one less of us…

What killed him ?
Mostly ignorance.
Poverty.
Sticking to the local native and religious customs.
All of these played their part.
Maybe blood poisoning from the symptoms we were told about ?
Nobody will ever really know.
Ebrima finally had his son, and he knew him for just over two months.
Whether Muslim or Christian or Pagan or any other for that matter, God certainly does work in mysterious ways…
But sometimes he can be a right cunt !

A couple of things before I sign out...

One.

The translation of the Wollof in Ebou's song to English is as follows:

We'll sing it for our elders whose race is almost run
And sing it for the children and their wisdom yet to come
Sing it for our teachers and the knowledge they impart
Sing our song for everyone and sing it from the heart

Sing the song for freedom and sing for liberty
Sing it loud 'till everyone can walk with dignity
Sing the song up to the sun and sing it to the rain
Sing... For if you lift one heart it will not be in vain

And two... And this is probably a little more important...

If you are caught with drugs in The Gambia it is an automatic four year sentence and that's just for one wrap, so it's not a good idea especially if you are a tourist...

You have been warned !

ARRIVAL...

2011-06-26T03:30:00.000-07:00

So here I am… Sitting on my arse on the floor of the arrivals terminal at Gatwick and the interminable wait just goes on… And on… And on… And on…
The flight arrived on time but there’s still no sign of her.
Finally… At half past midnight she comes walking through, pulling her case.
I don’t know who made the first move but we’re just hugging kissing in the middle of the floor and I can see and feel the tears in her eyes on my cheek.
“Any problems ?”
“A few…”
Hung up at immigration because she has a refusal note on her file for a visa caused by me not taking six months worth of my original bank statements on holiday for a previous visit when we applied for a visitors visa…
I’m all for tightening up the system but this is ridiculous.
She’s here because she’s entitled to be, but still they find ways to make things difficult.
It’s beyond any reasonable form of comprehension, but she’s here now, and that’s what really matters.
I’ve been here so long that it takes a tenner just to get me out of their short-term car park opposite the terminal.
Now if only Thames Valley plod have switched off the variable speed limit signs we can cruise straight home… Well, we can up until the coned off sections anyway.

There were tears back home in The Gambia when she left, as it will be the start of a new era for the kids.
Housai’ and Hassa’ are splitting up and going their own ways.
Sainabou will be stopping work and becoming the ‘mum’ of the compound and Mariama’s guardian when Fatou gets her visa to join her husband Vincent in Glasgow.
Fatou does have a small problem though…
She’s trying to make a deal with her father to rent the beach bar from her.
He wants it, but is not prepared to come up with the money as he’s ‘family’ but Fatou is holding out knowing she can get the price elsewhere.
Good for her.
I know what sort of ‘family’ he is… I had to go through the worries with Haddy when Fatou was taken ill and the tight-fisted sod wouldn’t pay for her hospital stay…
We’ve also got another little ‘un in the family.
Fatou has become the guardian of little Jalika, whose Mother was her best friend at school.
Unfortunately Jalika’s Mum died when giving birth and her Father now cannot cope with a six year old child, so Fatou said she’d take her on and this was acceptable to her Father, so now we’ve got another little one to look after.
I know her because she comes round the compound sometimes to play, she’s tiny for her age and quite shy, but that will soon change…

Ebrima’s wife, Fatou Manta Jarra, has just given birth to Ebrima’s first son Samsidine, and he’s overjoyed about that because they’ve been trying for so long.
Now little Ami’s got a younger brother.
Maybe the anti-smoking lecture helped ?
I’ll find out later.
He’s not that well at the moment apparently, and is having to take time off from work and as a former self-employed bloke myself, I know how difficult that can be sometimes.
Oi ! Darling… Enough.
I’ve been awake since six this morning and it’s now half past four the following morning… Any chance we can get some kip ?

Waking up the following morning not having to go to work is great, but waking up next to Haddy is even better…
Now all we have to do is find her a job.
Wasn’t that an easy sentence to read ?
I have to admit it was pretty easy to write, too…
The reality of her first month back over here was something else however…

I’m going to try and stay as matter of fact as possible when writing this.
If by chance you find any humour or sarcasm or cynicism in the writing then I’m afraid that’s just the way of the world and if you think there are any hints of criticism or that I’m excoriating (nice word that) a completely useless system you might also have a point, but hey ?

So Haddy’s been in the country two weeks now and we visit one of the local agencies to get her registered on their books so that she can get a job…
Passport ? Check.
Visa clearance for work ? Check.
I.D. card ? Check.
National Insurance number ?
Errr… Not yet, but hopefully this afternoon ?
So off we traipse to the local tax office to apply for one but they tell us that it’s now Job Centre Plus who supply them.
Ok… Walk down the road to Job Centre Plus.
The guard on the door asks us why we’re there ?
Guard ?
Yep !
The local Job Centre Plus needs a guard at the door…
Apparently people get irate and go for the staff in Job Centre Plus’s…
So…
Stand in that queue.
Her turn.
“I need a national insurance number so that I can get a job”
“Passport ?”
It’s proffered…
“Ok, go home and ring this number”
So we go back home and ring the number…
“Job Centre Plus… How can we help ?”
“I need a National Insurance number…”
“Ok… Let me take a few details…”
These are then given and taken over the telephone.
“Here’s a temporary number, you can use this number if the agency find you any work…”
Apparently the form she needs to fill in will be with her in two weeks and all she will then need to do is fill it in and return it, and she’ll be sent a National Insurance number.
Ok… Are you with us ?
Is it clear so far ?
So Job Centre Plus sent us home so that we could ring Job Centre Plus ?
Yep ! You got that bit right.
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it ?
Maybe it’s to keep as many people employed in Job Centre Plus as is humanly possible ?
It’s not as if people aren’t going to ask for the form that will enable their employers to pay them for doing a job, is it ?
You can’t get a job (officially) without one so why not cut out the two week wait for the form to arrive ?
Well, I’ll tell you…
Your guess is as good as mine ?
Now she needs a bank account.
My bank, Barclays, don’t want to know…
See… I told you I’d publicise your helpfulness… Not !
She has no official credit history so they can’t make any checks so basically she can get stuffed…
It wasn’t actually put like that, but that’s what they meant in so many words.
What about a joint account ?
Only if I change all my utility bills and accounts… Like gas, water, electric etc to include her name, then they’d be happy to open a joint account, but not before…
This of course could take months and that’s only if it’s done successfully without any of the foul-ups which the afore-mentioned utilities are renowned for ?
Hmmm ?
Is it me, or is all this shit just designed to stop people getting a job ?
I can basically falsify my details to get her on the system (shit-stem… thank you Bob Marley…) and the bank will then accept this, but it won’t let her have an account unless I tell lies ?
Yes… I think that’s basically it ?
I refused…
Told him to stick it actually, and so we were then escorted to the door…
Jesus Fucking Christ !
How fucking mental is that ?
Oi ! Barclays directors and shareholders…
Here it is for the record…
And I quote…
“Are you fucking wankers on the same fucking planet ?
Any of you cunts ever heard of the word ‘integrity’ ?”
Because quite frankly I have my doubts ?
So we’ve hit a snag…
No bank account unless I falsify information.
Try a building society… And it’s exactly the same deal…
I have to pretend that she’s been here for ages and get all my bills and standing orders changed to include her name, and then and only then, can she have a bank account ?
Fuck ‘em !
It ain’t gonna happen.
Now I’m at war and if they don’t like it, then it’s just tough shit !
There is no way I’m going for that, so let’s meet these cunts head on and see what occurs…
‘No I won’t back down… You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down…’
And thank you Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for the appropriate quote from the song…
Just on the off-chance we tried H.S.B.C…
“We do have an account that we can open for your wife but she will have to pay to use it for the first year and then it will revert to a normal current account…”
And otherwise ?
“Otherwise we’d have to ask you to do the same as Barclays did…”
Ok…
I object in principle but I’ll pay for it because she needs a bank account.
(It’s called a ‘passport account’ if you’re interested, and it costs a tenner a month for them to ‘administer’ it)
But it’s hers, and nothing to do with me.
She gives the guy her details, shows her passport (get it ?) and the account is opened with fifty quid of my money…
Ho hum…
Does anybody else get the idea that banks are the most usurious and unhelpful institutions on the planet ?
I’m not knocking H.S.B.C. because they actually opened an account for her, but come on…
How long have I been a customer at Barclays for Christ’s sake ?
Sorry Barclays, but I’m not going to forget your unhelpfulness…

The agency are now calling with offers of jobs…
And finally the official form turns up for the National Insurance number…
Get this…
‘Thank you for attending the interview… Here is your new National Insurance number. Please give it to your employer etc…’
Hang on…
Interview ?
Did I miss something ?
She answered a couple of questions over the ‘phone like ‘full name’ and ‘permanent address’ but an interview ?
No… There was no interview.
Anyway, we fill out some of the form but I’m thinking that there is one huge glitch somewhere ?
Shouldn’t she get a National Insurance number AFTER she’s filled out the form and not beforehand ?
Then I notice the bits on the form that apply to me…
Hang on…
I’m not the one applying for a National Insurance number…
I’ve had the same one since 1969.
Haddy asks me for the details they want, and I tell her to leave it blank.
I don’t believe they have the right to my personal data on her form so they can get stuffed, too…
Or in other words…
FUCK OFF !
It’s just more officious bureaucratic bullshit to put in their unsafe computer system.
I’m not applying for a number, my wife is… So leave me out of it, please…
I never did find out what the ‘Plus’ meant in Job Centre Plus but I believe they left out the word ‘incompetence’ at the end ?
Job Centre Plus incompetence…
That certainly has a ring to it…
Sounds right, too.
Needless to say we hear nothing back from Job Centre Plus about the lack of my details, so the reality is it’s a ruse to get your private information that they don’t need onto another governmental computer system…
Big Brother is definitely alive and well.
But we knew that all along, didn’t we ?
We just didn’t really want to admit it to ourselves…

You ever get that feeling that everything is broken and just doesn't work anymore ?

Why's ? Lies and Crucifies...

2011-02-10T15:55:00.000-08:00

Back home I’m just going through the motions.
If there is one thing I hate it’s an enforced separation, but within a couple of weeks Haddy has applied to the British High Commission with all the documentation and the six hundred and forty four quid needed to process the visa application…
And so we wait in a form of limbo for anything resembling news or contact from their august highnesses whose hands (or in-trays) are holding our lives in their hands.
And we wait…
And we wait…
And we wait…
After another dispiriting phone call I suggested to Haddy that she asks a couple of people she knows whether the High Commission are actually processing visas at the moment ?
Apparently they are…
But only visitors visas.
Leave it another week and try again.
Same answer.
You know…
I don’t have a lot of time for bureaucracy as some people are aware.
It gets nowhere and breeds more resentment and contempt for those who enforce it than even I could put into words.
There is no need for it and it’s just an egomaniac’s misuse of authority at best and a total pillock’s at worst.

Finally, I get the call…
They are talking to her tomorrow.
Oh shit !
You know when you agree to do something for somebody and the day is put off and put off and finally you’re both in the same place and time frame ?
Well that was me.
I’d agreed to be an artists model, nudeish no less, for my mate Jo Taylor who I’d done the
Twist of Fete gig for, and that was the same day that Haddy would be getting her interview…
Oh bum !
Jo had actually asked me to be Jesus in one of her artworks and like a twat, I’d said yes I’d do it…

And here's Jo and me in a practice pose for our new photo' book,
Kinky Poses Volume 5...

The idea was to show the humiliation and degradation of the poor bloke being crucified and so I was nude apart from a strategically placed bandana on my head and a pair of enormous white Y-fronts.
Honestly, you had to see it to believe it ?
So there I was…

Stark bollock naked except for the afore mentioned clothing when my mobile rang…
It was Haddy, and she was having problems.

The following are rough but accurate resumes of some of the conversations…

Haddy. “Darling, they want to know if you are going to sponsor the children ?
Me. Ask them what they mean by sponsor in the context they are using the word
and I’ll answer it ?
Haddy. He says the answer is either yes or no

Me. Tell him to define the word ‘sponsor’. How the hell can I answer otherwise ?
Put him on, let me speak to him…
Haddy. He says the answer is either yes or no…
Me. No ! The answer is, he’s playing games… I can’t possibly answer it unless I understand the question. Is he refusing to answer it ?
Haddy. He says it’s either yes or no ?

Well, we got nowhere with that, so try this one…

Haddy. They want to know how much you spend on bills per month ?
Me. Between £500 and £1000 approximately, depending on the month.
Haddy. They want an amount, dear…
Me. That’s ridiculous… No two months are the same… Why are they asking ?
Anyway, they’ve got six months of my bank account details sitting in front
of them, let them do the adding up and take a percentage…
Haddy. Darling, they say you have to give an amount…
Me. That is impossible… Ask him why he won’t speak to me ?
Haddy. He isn’t saying anything…
Me. Tell me something I don’t know… It’s an impossible question, no two months
are the same.

So we got nowhere with that either… Now try this one…

Haddy. They don’t believe I worked for the council…
Me. This is getting stupid… Tell them to e-mail L** M**** He’s the bloody manager
for God’s sake ! We both worked for him. You’ve got the photographs, for
God’s sake ?
Haddy. They don’t believe me, dear…
Me. Just tell him to check the facts and stop playing games, or better still, put
the Phone on loudspeaker ‘cos I’m going to explode in a minute and I want
that unhelpful bastard to hear every word…

Needless to say, she didn’t…

Haddy. They want to know how you intend to fit me into your flat ?
Me. I don’t have a flat. I have a four bedroomed house and what is more they know
that, they’ve got the house deeds sitting in front of them. Otherwise why did
I shell out for a certified copy of them down the solicitor’s ?
They’re just trying to get you to make a mistake in what you are telling them
and it’s beginning to piss me off, but that’s what our wonderful government
has told them to do, love…
Tell ‘em to read the bloody documents instead of implying, inferring and
twisting everything you say…

And so we went on, and on, and on, and on… A phone call approximately every seven minutes for about an hour.

What I didn’t realise at the time is that she’s having to do the whole thing by
e-mail so it makes it even more difficult.
Pissed off ?
Yeah… You could say that.
You could also say what the fuck do these bastards think they are playing at ?
I appreciate that the Tories had won the recent election by promising to cut the tide of illegal freeloaders coming into the country, but this was absolutely fucking offensive…
Haddy rang back to say she had finished and she was now at home…
Now we could only wait.

It’s going to be fun at work tomorrow !!!!

Rhythms of the World came and went in July.
I had a good if busy time and everybody who played the Arcadeclectic Stage managed to either equal or exceed expectations.
Along with my old mate Grant Meaby from Parnassus performance

who just casually went into a great poetry set...

Mention must be made of Mr Glen Matlock

Who's a nice bloke and very underrated as a songwriter, and... Does a great acoustic set which as a former Sex Pistol, he isn't actually known for.
Entertaining, witty, fun and talented... The man is a natural.
Get to see him when you can.

The Astronauts...

Who were playing the complete 'Peter Pan Hits The Suburbs' album for the very first time in their thirty year existence.

Jon Falconer...

Who we’d met at Twist of Fete and who’d replaced a missing poet at very short notice.

The Ballachulish Hellhounds who’d come all the way down from Glasgae...

And who by the end of their set would be quite at home as Hitchin Hellhounds...
They would definitely be invited back.

Miss Saxy lady...

Sandra Grant, who graces any stage she's on quite naturally...

Spandex Ballet, who quite honestly stole the show over the two days...

and Zounds...

Who had re-formed earlier in the year and were playing their only British festival date of the year for us.
For me those were the standouts but the rest were equally as good in their own niches and lets face it, it’s only personal taste on the day, anyway.

After about a month of waiting a very furious me contacted his M.P. to demand to know what was happening ?
I never did get to talk to him but his assistant did say that immigration was causing the most amount of complaints and I’d just have to be patient…
Well, that’s not surprising is it ?

Now it’s August and we’re off to Cropredy to see Fairport Convention except there is still no Haddy…

Note the t-shirt...
That's about as close as the family are going to get this year.

Christ did it rain ?
It pissed down in buckets as Ruth, Joseph and Steve will definitely attest...

I know ‘Croppers’ is famous for it especially if Richard Thompson is playing, but he wasn’t there this year so we all vainly hoped…
Alas, it was not to be.
We got soaked.

Honourable mentions must be made of ahab who are a great little folkie band, Leatherat, who are a great rock band that sound a bit like The Levellers but without the crusty political shit and are definitely on my must see again list...
And the amazingly talented...

and wonderfully professional... Little Feat...

Who really did steal the show this year I think ?

Despite having to make the announcement to the crowd that Richie Hayward, their original drummer from day one, had died the previous day.
It was a sad announcement for us fans who had seen the band previously, but they played on... For Brother Ritchie...
He'll be missed.

Aw shit !
Haddy would have loved them.
She would have known most of the stuff they played because we were always playing them in the van when we were travelling between woods.
Mind you… she’d have been a bit put out by the rain…
Bloody stuff was incessant.

Another month passes, Now it’s September… And finally I get the phone call…
Can I please ring the High Commission by twelve noon tomorrow ?
Well, I thought I could but the system went down at half past eight and didn’t recover so now I’m frantically trying to e-mail…
Help !
Who can fix the computer ?
Josh.
I’ll tell you what, that guy is a lifesaver.
Within half an hour I’ve got through and I asked what the problem had been ?

'Oh, we’ve got a new system, didn’t anybody tell you ?
They should have done because instead of taking five weeks (and no checks) like it did under Blair and Brown’s Labour Government, it now takes a minimum of ninety days because everything is being checked thoroughly…
I’m surprised nobody told you… They should have done'
Hmmm ?
Makes you wonder why Steven McPartland my new Tory M.P. didn’t, doesn’t it ?
We’d just got rid of Barbara Follett for ripping us off for over forty thousand quid in dishonest expense claims…
So now I want to know why McPartland couldn’t have been a little more honest with me ?
Only two possibilities spring to mind…
Either he didn’t know in which case he’s incompetent, or he’d been told not to...
In which case he’s an unhelpful self-serving git ?
Ain’t that just like an M.P.
Only interested in themselves and furthering their career ?
Fuck the constituents.
They don’t count for shit at the end of the day.
No real change there, then.

Three days later Haddy is on the line…
She’s been granted the visa she needs but the downside is that she won’t be able to claim for anything.
Not a fucking thing…
Every freeloading jihadist, every freeloader from Europe, every freeloading cunt from Britain… All can claim for everything going, but because my wife is African she can’t claim for anything…
And you know what the sickest thing is ?
It was the Labour government that ensured it.
So much for Labour being the people’s party.
A more corrupt bunch of self serving cunts hadn’t been seen in parliament since the days of the rotten boroughs.
They’d brought the price up from about thirty quid to a couple of hundred just for a visitors visa from the most poverty stricken continent on the planet when they realised the B.N.P. had been getting more support than they used to, because they wanted immigrants to be grateful to them and so they would vote for them.
Because of the treaty in Europe all the Europeans flocked in to claim their free houses and since most of those were white, then the B.N.P. wouldn’t notice the amounts…
And by and large, it had worked.
Unless you had a large immigrant ghetto on your doorstep, then the B.N.P. would stay quieter because they were unable to notice the immigrants…
Not black or brown, you see ?
And it had worked perfectly as the vote for the B.N.P had tailed off when it had mattered to them.
If you don't believe me then try looking up the prices of visas to the U.K. from other countries.
Europeans don't count, but what about from the U.S.A, Australia, Japan and China ?
I've already looked them up, now it's your turn.
Why are their citizens charged next to nothing compared to the African countries ?

We'd encountered problems with Rhythms of The World this year.
We'd booked Daniel 'Dante' Bello, a South African poet with family over here already so staying wouldn't be a problem, and who had a British publisher of his work...
The application was refused.

Now after the influx from Europe, this country is left with a huge welfare bill and no council housing…
And because of that my wife will never be part of David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ because being unable to claim a thing, she is officially a second class citizen…
Every freeloading cunt in this country has more rights than she does.
How sad is that ?
Do I despise this country and those who caused this state of affairs ?
Is the Pope a Catholic ?
Do bears shit in the woods ?
What a fucking stupid question ?
Although the word despise doesn’t even come close to how I feel.

She’s got a couple of things to sort out but she’ll be flying into Gatwick in about a week…
It drains you, you know ?
Drains you totally.
I just felt numb.
Christ !
What have those bastards done to us ?

What A Short Strange Trip It's Been...

2011-02-01T14:43:00.000-08:00

Well, you know what they say ?
All good things have got to come to an end, and this trip was ending much too rapidly.
We'd spent a few days lounging at Ocean bay, a few days lounging at Leybato Sunrise and a few days lounging around the compound.

We'd had sun and we'd had rain...

and believe me, when I say we'd had rain we'd had it !
I’d shot out there to bring Haddy the documents that she needed.
She’d collected hers together, and now was the time to do it.
The kids had decided what they were going to do in their lives and a further college course and studying was going to be required for Husainatou and Hassanatou who were actually splitting up for the first time in their lives.
It was going to make a huge difference to both of them as one could not now cover for the other.
Neither of them had ever got into trouble at school because they were always posing as each other to get the other one out of any jam.
Now they were both off in different directions, one into banking and the other into the travel industry
Amadou was still struggling to join the army as the intake had been restricted after the recent alleged coup attempt on the President and since neither of us had the money to pay for a pilot’s course, he knew he was going to have to be a pretty astounding student and was seriously going to have to study to make the top five students in the country so as to get a government scholarship, but he was prepared to give it a go and we were both prepared to support that.
Mariama had just changed her school and was doing a lot better than she had previously.
Well, that’s the way WE were thinking, anyway…

So the last full day dawns and we spend it reasonably productively at Bakau playing at ‘Tourista’s’, and buying a couple of bits and bobs (So long as I got them at the right price… And I did) and West Africa Tours in the afternoon, picking up a couple of cheques for Leybato Sunrise, plus I get a couple of shots of the local sea vulture population…
They just sat there on the roof of the building on the other side of the road as we went for a taxi.
Truth to tell, this was the closest I’d ever come to one of them, apart from a couple of visits ago at Leybato and Paradise Beach where they circled overhead while Mariama was taking me for a walk up the beach past all the local fishermen who were cleaning out their boats.
Hence the interest of the vultures...
They are seriously ‘Ugly as Fuck’ to use a vulgar English term but there is something about them. You see them up that close and there’s something strange about them…
It’s like they are just checking you out for dinner.
Always aware… Always looking…
I got the feeling I was being spoken about.
Yes, I know… Dozy old twat !
But… That’s what I felt and it was bloody eerie to feel like that in the middle of the afternoon.
The real life versions of something that escaped from the film ‘The Dark Crystal’.
Remember that film ?
It was made by a Muppet or two ?
Messrs Jim Henson and Frank Oz.

And those puppets are creepy.
I don’t care what anyone else says or thinks ?
They’re creepy.
Vultures are the same.

We gave out a couple of the bits and bobs when we got back…
Here’s Mariama with a few friends and something that was so underpriced I was amazed ?
I’d have liked to buy her the bigger one but this was a gift at the price, so…

Anyway, she’d been doing very well at her new school and had gone from about fortieth in a class of fifty five-ish to top ten.
Which in my book at least deserves a bit of recognition, and so…
One small ballaphon which for all them as don’t know, is the forerunner of the xylophone and marimba.
It’s obviously not a full size one, but hey ! She can always progress ?
One small intstrument for girlkind and one loud noise for mankind...
If you get the drift ?

The following morning was so sad.
I finally terminated my swimming plimsoles that I’d had since I was fifteen…
They’d been in as many seas and oceans as I had so it was soul destroying to get rid of them but they were more painful to wear now than actually treading on either broken glass, a jagged tin, a rock or a sea-urchin (It’s the last one that hurts the most…) whilst in the sea.
Maybe a comfortable new pair might make up for them ?
I took them to the rubbish bag myself.

Well, you wouldn’t get somebody else to shoot your bloody horse if it had a broken leg, would you ?
That afternoon it’s the usual sad goodbye at Banjul airport but we’ve tried to put it at bay by meeting Anna from the previously mentioned West Africa Tours who buys the goodbye coffees, and then the flight is called and I’m off through security to Luigi’s outside the departure lounge where I will buy a hideously overpriced cheese baguette with another black coffee.
Yes, the cheese baguette is overpriced, but I’ll give them one thing…
It actually tastes like it should taste.
This is no pre-packed airport food.
This is made freshly when you ask for it.
Ok, I’ll shut up about the price…
But it’s BLOODY USURY…!
A noisy flight owing to screaming and crying babies…
And they banned smoking ?
What’s worse ?
A yelling and screaming infant, or a cigarette ?
If you have to get rid of one then surely you could have got rid of the other ?
Looks like a fair trade-off to me ?
I’m tequila’d and tobacco’d up and so it’s the red zone for me…
Hi guy’s…

What a short strange trip it’s been ?
Certainly the strangest yet.
Now all either of us can do is await the outcome.
It’s not as if I haven’t got anything to be getting on with ?
Rhythms Of The World is next month.
Please God let it be soon…
Please.

Sorry about the delay in the photo's but it would seem perseverance pays off ?
Still takes about ten minutes to upload one shot tho'

(Un)happy slapping in The Gambia

2010-09-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

So there we were in one of the local banks, Haddy, Fatou and me…
We’re just sitting quietly waiting for our turn in the queue to see one of the advisors.
There’s no real difference between Gambian banks and British banks…
You still have to queue, but at least the Gambian ones provide seats for more than four people (Barclays please take note).
So finally it gets to the girls turn, and they are happily seated with one of the advisors with me still in one of the ‘queue’ seats when this guy walks in, opens his briefcase and throws five thousand dalasi on to the desk of the nearest advisor to me and tells the girl advisor to look after it…
He then walks into the office of the assistant manager without knocking and tells her that he is ready to be served…
She politely asks him to leave as she is with a customer and he must wait his turn, so he turns back and walks back into the main area of the bank without closing her door,
causing her to have to leave her desk to do it herself…
The advisor whose desk he’s thrown the money on asks him again to please take it back as she is with a customer also, but he just leaves it there and tells her that ‘It’s just chicken feed to you… You look after it…’
I’m just sitting there, gobsmacked.
Actually, not just gobsmacked… I was totally appalled by his attitude and his rudeness toward the staff.
By now, this guy has just pushed in front of a guy doing his business at the counter and is trying to engage the cashier in a conversation…
Haddy turns around in her chair, looks across at me and smiles…
I smile back and say loud enough for her to hear ‘Tedious tit, isn’t he ?’
Haddy giggles, knowing my propensity for summing up situations and things in a phrase or two, but this guy is so impolite that his behaviour is beginning to grate, and not just on me either…
If other customers looks are anything to go by, then this bloke has transgressed big time ?
I really don’t know why the staff don’t ask him either to shut the fuck up or leave the bank, Christ knows, I would have ?
Looking around at the staff it is quite obvious that they want to, but they are all biting their tongues.
You can see the exasperation on their faces.
Nobody in any business should have to put up with the crap that this bloke is dishing out, and he’s getting nowhere with his attitude which seems to be exasperating the bank’s customers now, as well as the staff.
Haddy and Fatou meanwhile are deep in conversation with their advisor when matey boy walks over to their desk…
I’m following him with my eyes, as I of all people know that Haddy’s tolerance level for that sort of rudeness is set at quite a low level…
That girl just does not accept it in any way.
He says something to the advisor who politely tells him to go away and wait his turn.
Then he tries again…
At that point Haddy turns around and tells him to go away and she’ll be finished when she is finished and not before.
The next moment he slaps her face with a handful of paying in slips.
She got out one word… ‘Oi’ !
It’s funny you know… I’d never really believed in the expression time stood still, probably because I never had any reason to, but time definitely stood still for at least a microsecond until everybody in the bank heard the sound of my right hand hitting his left cheek…
He couldn’t have fallen down because my left hand was wrapped around his throat, and right then I was probably as angrily suicidal as anybody else in that situation ?
To be honest I was way past caring about myself, all I knew was the old Native American expression they used before a fight…
Today is a good day to die.
‘You piece of shit ! If you ever touch my wife again in any way, shape or form, I will teach you some manners that your parents obviously didn’t…
Fatou, please tell this sonofabitch in words he can understand and I want an accurate translation of every word, that if he ever touches or disrespects my wife again in any way, I will unscrew his fucking head and use it as a football all the way to Banjul…
The rest of him I will leave for the carrion but I fear they will probably vomit…’
Fatou translated, although what the Wolof is for the expressions I used, God only knows ?
He’s trying to pull away but apart from a slackening of the left hand to let him breathe, he wasn’t going anywhere.
I needed to let him loosen because he was taller than me, and I’d figured that if he even raised one hand toward me I’d have nutted him full on, but now he’s blustering…
‘Come outside and we will wrestle…’
‘If we wrestle, then we do it here in the bank in front of the witnesses who saw you assault my wife…’
‘I was only joking with my sister…’
‘One. She is not your sister, I have met all the members of her family and you are not part of it, Allah be praised…
Two. She is my wife, so if you were joking then bring your wife here and I will slap her and we can all laugh together…
I have warned you what will occur should you ever touch her again, now leave my sight, you offend me and everybody here with your rudeness and arrogance…’
Fuck me !
He stalked over to the table he’d left his money on, stuffed it back into his briefcase and promptly walked out…
‘Are you ok, love ?’
Haddy just looked at me…
‘I’m fine, are you alright ?’
‘Yeah… I’m ok… What an arrogant pig ?’
It’s funny… The whole bank has gone totally silent and all their staff’s jaws are on the floor…
Maybe they’d been silent all the time ? Truth to tell, I couldn’t say as I hadn’t been aware of anything or anybody else while the events transpired.
I’ve also just realised that I’m in a Muslim country and I’ve just called one of their citizens, admittedly an obnoxious one, an arrogant pig…
Whoops !
Suddenly the whole place erupts with noise, so I just walked back to my seat and sat myself down to wait for Haddy and Fatou to finish, which seemed to take seconds but was probably minutes, but as soon as they had done I got up, and the three of us walked toward the door…
The thing I’m now conscious of is of everybody’s eyes following us as we leave.
Babuca (Hope I’ve spelt his name right ?) the doorman, rushes to open the door for us as we exit.
When we get outside I just say ‘That was weird… I’ll probably have to go back to apologise to the staff for my language, but who the fuck does that prick think he is ?’
Well there’s a thing…
It turns out that he’s a moneylender who lives a couple of streets away from us in Fagikunda, and in Gambian terms he’s as rich as Croesus…
He is also probably the most disliked person in the village ?
That last bit I can certainly understand.
Fatou says that it’s about time somebody stood up for the women…
I understand where she’s coming from, but in all honesty I hadn’t…
My wife and family yes, but anything else was unintentional.
As soon as we get back to the compound Fatou wastes no time in telling everybody what happened in the bank and everybody, and I mean everybody, gets all excited…
Within about two minutes everybody in the surrounding locale is aware of what occurred, and some of the things the women are saying about this bloke and some of the expressions they are using to express their absolute contempt for him, leave me, who can curse a bit, feeling more than a little strange.
Apparently, this bloke used to have a government job until the President relieved him of his post.
I don’t know why that occurred, but if his attitude was anything to go by then the President definitely made the right decision when he sacked him.
That guy is definitely a liability.
I don’t know what The Prophet says about moneylenders, but from what I’ve read about him he seems to have been a reasonable bloke, and Jesus was definitely not enamoured of the profession, so I reckon we can take it that the old biblical adage of rich men, camels and eyes of needles would probably apply ?
Within an hour we’ve got a constant stream of people in and out of the compound and it would seem that every woman in the village is aware of what took place…
The word has definitely got around and I’ve said absolutely nothing.
‘Tufa says that he deserves to feel small because his behaviour was appalling, and as for touching somebody else’s wife, that is just not done in Gambian society.
Little Mariama is equally forthright, and she’s only ten.
She wants me to go round to his compound and unscrew the bloke’s head so that she and her friends can play football with it because he is a ‘horrible man’.
It does make me wonder what this bloke has done previously if a ten year old child can be so emphatic about wanting his head, but the family’s feelings and the women of the village are pretty much mutual ?
They really do despise this bloke and his attitude towards people.
After I’ve been referred to as ‘Rambo’ a couple of times, I realise that maybe I was the first to stand up against him ?
Rambo ? Nine and a half stone soaking wet and under five foot seven inches…
They’re having a laugh… I hope ?
A couple of days later we have to go back to the bank and as soon as Babuca sees us coming a big smile lights up his face and he shakes my hand before opening the door…
‘Good morning Chris, how are you ?’
‘Hi Babuca… Look mate, my apologies for my…’
‘No, no, no, you need say nothing for there is nothing to be said…’
‘Are you sure ?’
‘There is nothing to be said’.
‘Ok…’
All the bank staff smiled at me when I’d gone in, so maybe I did the right thing by doing it wrong or maybe the wrong thing by doing it right ?
Who knows ?
All I know is, if you hurt or assault my wife, either in the U.K. or The Gambia, then you WILL deal with me.
Ain’t no escaping that.
Besides, should it ever occur again then I’d happily call the police and press charges…
But that will be after I’ve unscrewed his fucking head.

It occurs to me that writing about this particular event sets me up as a target, so I’m going to ask you, if you are reading this, what would you have done in the same circumstances ?
It doesn’t matter where ?
As far as I’m concerned the same deal applies whether I’m in the U.K. or The Gambia or any other nation on this earth, and the deal is… Don’t assault my wife/partner/girlfriend/family whatever ?
If you do, then beware the consequences, so come on… You’re reading about it and I’m setting the question.
What would you have done in the same circumstances ?
I’ll be quite honest, I didn’t even think of any possible consequences when I let him have it, so come on, your thoughts on the matter might affect my behaviour pattern should it happen again ?
I doubt it, but common sense ought to prevail regardless ?

Thinking about it now, a couple of months after the event, all I can say is that I know enough about the psychology of bullies to realise that he is one seriously damaged
sad person.
His behaviour pattern alone showed that to be true.
Maybe he’s been getting away with it for a long time (probable) or maybe it was just a temporary aberration (doubtful) but either way I wouldn’t have liked to be in his house when he got home, because that sort of attitude ALWAYS gets taken out upon the innocent…

The Sixth Gambian Experience (Brought On by A Simple Twist Of Fete)

2010-08-20T02:26:00.000-07:00

You know what ?
I’ve spent nearly four months looking for my house deeds and when I went through all my papers for the fourth time I actually found a letter from the solicitors who originally did the conveyancing asking me did I want them left in their safe storage facility ?
See, that’s the problem when you have or had your own business.
You can close it down but you’ve got to keep the records for at least ten years after the event, and when you deal with invoices then you end up with thousands of them along with letters and all the rest so there’s a good twenty carrier bags full of crap to go through, but…
One ‘phone call later and I finally know where they are.
Thank Christ for that.
Now we can move along.

There’s a Parnassus Performance event for Digswell Arts Trust at The Farmhouse in Fairlands Valley Park before anything else, and we’re all going along to support it.
Jo Taylor from Lika Sharps (a band) is one of the artists in residence and had asked if any of us wanted to support their open day and so I’d punted the idea around the group of us and came up trumps.
We’re nearly all of us up for it.
Joy’s coming up from North London, Sarah’s putting together a poetry workshop for the youngsters and we’re working with another of their artists in residence, Jon Falconer so it’s going to be poetry all Saturday afternoon (whether people like it or not ?).
The following Tuesday I’m off to The Gambia to deliver the documents that Haddy needs to get here and I’ve covered everything.
There’s certified copies of everything I need here like my driving licence, which they haven’t actually asked for, but I’m leaving nothing to chance otherwise they’ll query it and it’ll go on for ever.
Everything else is as original as they want it.
Bank statements, pay slips, e-mail addresses of bosses at the council…
They’re going to end up knowing more about me than I do, but at least that’s better than having them refuse the application because there’s something missing…
Like when they charged me twice for Haddy’s visa last year knowing that it takes over twenty eight days for post to get there…
Who takes bank statements on holiday after all ?
You ?
Me ?
No.
None of us do that so we got charged twice because they could get away with it.
The fact that we were refused on the grounds that I wasn’t who I said I was is unbelievable…
Well, it would be if they’d actually carried out any checks on me, but they didn’t.
What an easy way to con money out of people ?
Don’t do a check and just send them a standard letter refusing them…
Thankfully we’ve got a new government.
Hopefully it’s going to be less corrupt than the last one but I’m not holding my
breath ?
But I’m off again in three days and I can’t wait to see her and the kids again.
I’ve really missed them.

But we’ll do the gig first, shall we ?
Get there at half past nine with the p.a. and set it up in the garden for eleven o’clock when proceedings are supposed to start.
Everything seemed to go ok on the day so I won’t go on about it, I’ll let somebody else do that for a change.
We’d got our ‘orders’ not to upset people, as there were likely to be councillors present, and all the artists wanted to stay in residence there, so we were a nice genteel Parnassus and suitable for children of all ages.
If you want to know what occurred then please click this link to Grant’s Page and you can look at more photo’s too…

http://www.grantsmusings.blogspot.com

It was a most enjoyable day on the whole, and probably benefited from us not going all out.
It was only my fourth gig all year, and I’m only compereing the stage at Rhythms of the World this year, but that means one less thing to worry about.
It would be nice if Haddy’s visa arrived in time for ‘Rhythms’ as it’s only six weeks away.
That should be long enough, though… Even for The British High Commission ?

It’s the usual early morning flight but on Viking instead of Monarch this time so we’re off an hour later than usual.
Blimey !
Haddy’s daughter Fatou is on the same ‘plane.
I hadn’t seen her at the airport and while I knew she was travelling the same day, I was expecting her to fly from Glasgow where her husband, Vincent, is based.
Oh yeah… That got forgotten about in all the excitement.
Fatou had got married about two months before Haddy and I did.
She and Vincent had met in the U.K. and had got married.
Vincent is Ghanaian and works in Scotland.
I’ve not met him yet, but he’s a nice guy on the telephone.
But no, she’d come down a day earlier and stayed over in London so we’re sharing a ‘plane, her at the front and me at the back which means that once the trolleys are going back and forth we’ve no chance of a real chat…
Anyway, I digress.
That probably has something to do with British Summer Time, but the cruddy 20kg limit at Gatwick is still the same and the searches are still going on and on…
The aircraft is different, too.
There’s even less room than usual but I’ve got my aisle seat so I can at least stretch my legs when there isn’t a trolley stuck in front of them.
For the first time ever I was able to write ‘family’ on the Gambian arrivals card, which raised an eyebrow or two when we’d got to immigration at Banjul, but hey, it’s true so what the hell ?
The lass processing my passport had a giggle anyway, after asking me when I’d got married ?
November 26th… I remember it well.
But I’m through, and there she is and there’s ‘Tufa, and bloody hell ! He’s got his own taxi…
Now that’s new.
Nobody told me about that.
I’ll tell you what, though ?
It feels good to be back.
All I need now is a quick trip to the supermarket to buy some tobacco for Ebrima and Lamin.
Prices are going up everywhere… Especially in duty free shops.

It’s share out time on the clothing that I’ve brought over, hoping that it’s all going to fit ?
Little Mariama isn’t so little anymore.
She’s grown like a weed in the time I’ve been away and is probably a good three or four inches taller which means those three quarter length white jeans that I was a bit worried about fit her like a glove, as do all the jeans I bought for Sainabou and the twins…
T-shirts and tops are no problem, but jeans are guesswork every time I come over.
I mean I know their sizes but it depends on the cut and these Chinese made things are different every time…
If I could afford it, I’d stick to Levi’s and Lee Cooper’s.
At least they’re consistent and they don’t start falling apart after five washes.

I’ve managed to forget to bring all the photo’s we were going to give out after the wedding. They are all still at home where I left them in the bedroom.
I did manage to remember the computer stick with all the fire station and lifeboat pictures that my brother wanted to give to Ngagne at Bakau fire station, but that’s all. The shots of the mosque at Bakau, Pat’s footballing shots, they are all back in the U.K. where I left them so I’ll have to give them out next trip or maybe give them to someone I know who’s going out there.
Actually I’ll probably end up doing it all myself.
Pillock !
I spent so much time checking and re-checking the official visa documentation that I forgot the personal…

Here’s a list of what they want from me, if you’re interested ?
Certified copy of passport
Certified copies of all pages of passport appertaining to trips to the country.
Certified copy of all mortgage agreements or rental arrangements or housing deeds.
Certified copy or original end of year P.60.
Original copy of marriage certificate.
Wedding photographs.
Original copies of any previous divorce certificates
Original copies of the last six months worth of all bank statements
Original payslips.
Original copies of all utility bills for previous six months (Gas, electric, water etc)
Children’s birth certificates if school or Uni’ age.
Copies of any photographs that support any and all of this.
E-mail address, telephone number and postal address of employer or manager of department worked in.
I’m sure I’ve forgotten a couple of things, but I added a certified copy of my driving licence plus a copy of the American newspaper that covered the wedding.
Of course they want exactly the same plus more besides from Haddy…
But the thing is… It’s all there exactly as they’ve asked for it.
Oh yes… Nearly forgot… They want six hundred and forty four pounds for processing the application, and it will help if you’ve got five thousand quid sitting in one of your bank accounts, but they don’t tell you that bit.
That’s there because we don’t want any more freeloading paupers turning up on our shores, do we ?
Like the majority of Eastern Europeans, Afghan’s, Iraquis, and Asians that we’re all now having to pay for…
Typically, the bloody price had gone up the week prior to me flying out.
Trust me to miss it by a week ?
Bummer !
But hey… That’s our wonderful new Tory/ Lib Dem coalition policy for you.
Yeah, I know… I’m being sarcastic.
But the question is, could it ever be worse than the previous Labour government’s non-policy on immigration ?
Or worse still, could it be as racist a policy as the last Labour government’s ?
You don’t know what I’m on about, do you ?
Well it’s a funny thing…
If you go back a few years to when the bar was put in place to stop Africans getting visas to the U.K...
Guess which European directive it coincided with ?
Now guess which political party started getting very popular in the U.K. at exactly the same time ?
Conjecture ?
Maybe ?
Or maybe not, but we’ll come to that in time, and believe me, there’s a lot more to it if you follow the timeline backwards into the Labour years…

It’s the beginning of the Gambian rainy season.
They’ve only had two storms so far, so we’re not too far into it.
I’d done a July trip out and that was definitely WET.
Hopefully the last ten days of June would be better because we were going out to the beach bar for a few days ?
We weren’t staying, more like a few days relaxing in the sun and on the beach for me, while Haddy and Fatou go through what’s happened since Haddy’s been running it while Fatou was in Scotland.
Apparently my darling wife had brought in extra business with another firm running tourists out there for a day on the beach, so that’s a plus.
So I’m going to lay in a hammock or swim in the sea and then lay in a hammock and I might even have an occasional beer while the girls talk business…
Who knows ?
Apparently there’s a heatwave in England ?
If that doesn’t show that my Gods have a sense of humour, then what does ?
The World Cup, perhaps ?
Bloody hell !

So there I was, out in Africa with the World Cup starting, six African nations represented in the group stage, South Africa as host nation and a whole continent of football crazy nutters let alone the Gambian ones, to watch the games with…
I’ll tell you what…
Passions were definitely running a bit high.
So let’s talk a bit about the World Cup, shall we ?
Sorry darling, it’s about football for a bit… Pop out and make us a cuppa’, there’s a good girl…
Go on, I dare you…
Challenge the reader…
That’s what you have to do to get them to think.
I think it’s probably safer not to go down the tea route, though ?
So the next bit is about football and you can take it or leave it as you will ?

Well…
I’m not really sure where to start ?
It’s probably fair to say that the whole of The Gambia was supporting all the African teams as choice one.
England, Spain, Holland Italy or Brazil as choice two, depending on who your favourite players were ?
So we’ll start with the first game, which obviously featured South Africa.
You know what ?
When that first goal went in I was as stunned as anyone…
What a goal to score for your own nation in front of the World’s camera’s ?
I can’t even remember the guy’s name, but he can be proud of that one for the rest of his life.
Brilliantly taken strike and absolutely World class.
One of the goals of the decade if not the century ?
Beautiful.
Then there was England vs U.S.A.
Not good.
We were quite honestly… CRAP.
My brother had already said from across the water that the Americans had the confidence to beat us…
He wasn’t too far out, was he ?
We played at a fraction of the talent (if you could call it that ?) on show.
Appalling !
Crap !
Shite !
What else do you want me to say ?
Disappointed ?
The Gambian public were, and that’s a fact.
They expected a lot better from our team.
Nobody could understand that ?
And then we played Algeria…
You know what impressed me ?
The Algerian team.
They came on with a little bit of trepidation against our stars and suddenly realised that we were all hype and no substance…
They matched us pass for pass and kick for kick and they got away with a nil-nil draw.
That was impressive because Algeria is not really thought of in the West as a major footballing nation, but out in Africa they know better.
They’re a bloody hard team to beat and we took them lightly…
Dumb… Dumb… Dumb…
So now it’s all to play for, and here we go into our third game which I didn’t see because we were watching one of the African teams instead.
Apparently we won but it wasn’t too impressive.
This means we haven’t won the group stage and means we meet West Germany in the knock-out stages…
Oh what fun that’s going to be…
Oh God !
What can I say that hasn’t already been said ?
In a masterclass of football they took us to pieces.
Yes, we were unlucky with the disallowed goal but then football is a game of ‘what if’s’ ?
What if he hadn’t missed a penalty, missed a sitter, been tripped, been sent off,
scored ?
There’s too many imponderables down that road so we’ll have none of that.
How about ‘What if they were a better team than us ?’
It’s probably a little more honest ?

This is what they said in the 28/29th June edition of Foroyaa

The following morning after every ‘Salaam Aleikum… Good morning how are you ?’ came ‘What happened in the football ?’
I’m not kidding you, it was embarrassing…
What could I say ?
4-1 ?
We were put to the sword by a couple of old timers and, compared to us, a bunch of kids.
It was a great game to watch… But…
Don’t worry, I hadn’t forgotten them…
Vincent would probably have a few choice names to call me if I did ?
Cameroon hadn’t even been worthy of their reputation.
South Africa hadn’t made it.
Nigeria seemed to give up after Cameroon did.
The Ivory Coast and Algeria had battled and tried but had got nowhere…
And then there was Ghana…
And the night they went through to the knock-out stages was amazing.

Every seat in the house was full.

You have to realise that being the only African club left in the competition with a chance of qualifying for the knock-out stage brought immense, and I really do mean immense, pressure on those poor eleven blokes on that pitch.
How they did it, I’m still really not sure, but win they did and the whole house erupted…

That’s not strictly true, the whole compound erupted…
Ok, the whole village erupted…
Well make it the whole of Africa erupted then, because that is closer to the whole truth.
Within a minute of the game finishing at ten pm Gambian time the drums had started in the compounds and within a couple more minutes the streets were full of partying villagers.
What a night !
We had to drag Mariama off the street with her drum at about half past one in the morning because she had school in about six hours…
It was definitely a party.
A whole of Fagikunda, Serrakunda, Gambian, Sennagambian, African party and it’s probably fair to say that the whole footballing world joined in, somewhere,
anywhere ?
Joyous does not even come close to describing the atmosphere.
I’ve no idea how much Vincent and Fatou spent on phone calls but it was probably a lot ?
It was a lot more than joyous, and what is more, it meant more than that and it went a lot deeper, too.
I actually felt total pride in what they had done.
It was a totally emotional moment and don’t forget, I’m an English and England patriot.
There’s nothing wrong with England…
Just some of the people in it.
And being out there for that particular match brought it home that you can take a lot of pride in a game well played, even when it’s not your team playing in it.
It brought a smile back to my face after watching England, anyway.
It was a special moment.
Now think of how those poor eleven players felt after the game ?
Think of what they must have felt ?
I couldn’t do what they must have been feeling, justice.
Heroes, each and every one of them.
It really was a special moment.
As for the next game, well they faced Uruguay with Diego Forlan in player of the tournament form.
Uruguay had impressed.
Seriously impressed, and Forlan had been what can only be described as magnificent…
Sadly, Ghana managed to make the penalty shoot out, but just when they needed confidence it seemed to desert them and they lost on penalties.
Ah well, the dream may be over for four years but they know what it’s about at that level now, and believe me they have nothing to fear from any other international side on the planet.
Africa put on a great world cup.
I hope it really did and does do something for some of those African sides ?
They should all know now that they have the abilities to play at this level and the only thing lacking is confidence.
Don’t believe the hype, believe in yourselves and you’ll go further.
At some time in the future it will happen and there will be an African winner, I have no doubt of that.
Hopefully, I’ll be out there when it happens because I can’t think of a better place to be, and that’s a fact ?
Ok, footballing bit’s over…
You can let the missus read it again, now.
(Hope you enjoyed your cup of tea ?)

Little Omar is now a mischievous toddler and wants to be involved with everything.

He gets under your feet more than the late and sadly lamented Pussy ever did.
Poor old Pussy had been killed in the early morning by a taxi in the street outside about a month before I flew.
To put it mildly the whole family was devastated.
She’s now resting peacefully at the back of the compound under the banana tree.
It’s Pussy’s place, and I’m ok with that.
There’s a ring of flowers around her grave and I’m not sure if the family will be getting another cat ?
The strange thing is that her ‘boyfriend’, a ragged and quite wild Tomcat visits the site in the evening and just sits on the window ledge above her, and not just sheltering from the rain either.
It’s like he comes, pays his respects, and then leaves to do what tomcats do.
Cats are strange creatures sometimes.
I should know, I’ve had three of them.
My last one, Stella, had passed away about eight weeks after Cozmic had to be put down.
It’s probably fair to say that she died of a broken heart.
They used to argue and fight all the time but when Cozmic went, Stella was bereft and there was no way of pulling her back.
God knows I tried, friends tried, but it was all in vain.
She’s now buried under the apple espalier in the back garden.
Animals get to you, and there’s no doubt that Pussy was part and parcel of the family.
She could be a vicious little sod at times, but after she’d got to know you, she was fine…
Especially if she knew there was cat food about.
I miss her, and I know the family does.

We have decided to give Mariama swimming lessons in the pool at Ocean Bay.
The problem is the weather.
Everytime we make plans, it clouds over.
It’s still very hot, though.
Definitely in the nineties and that’s quite warm for me, but finally we get a day when she’s not at school, the sun is shining, and we can go first thing.
It had taken us ages to find her some blow up armbands because it was the end of the proper holiday season and the shops hadn’t re-stocked but we’d finally got a couple of pairs.
Talk about taking to it like a duck takes to water…
Once she was in the pool we couldn’t get her out.

She’d been in for about an hour when she decided to doggy paddle and/or swim
from the shallow end to the deep end which scared the living daylights out of Haddy, but she had the confidence to do it with her armbands, and the last hour was spent trying without them but she’s not there, yet.
Another couple of lessons to get her breathing right and she’ll be fine.
That was definitely six hours well spent.

Poetry Festivals, Poems And Things...

2010-08-08T03:18:00.000-07:00

God… I miss her.
I’ve still got most of the house to tidy up after the carpet was laid.
Got to get rid of loads of stuff but that’s difficult because I don’t know what she wants out there, so that bit’s going to have to be postponed until we’re together
again, and we can ship a trunk ?

My parents are not in the best of health, either.
The old man’s pushing ninety next month and seems to be in and out of hospital every other month, so I made a decision to cut the gigs down to those already booked.
Hopefully this will calm me down somewhat ?
There’s a nice one coming up at The Elephant & Castle, tho’…

It’s a weekend poetry festival and I was asked if I was interested after last year’s Rhythms of the World, as was my mate and stage colleague, Grant Meaby.
They’ve got different guest poets either day and we’ve both been booked on the same day along with John Hegley, Chris Bowsher and Al Damidge among others.

Now I have to admit, because of something that occurred when I was a lot younger (mid teens if you need that info’ ?) I’m no fan of ‘The Elephant…’ and to be honest I’ve never been back since, but hey ! Everything changes in time, so like the tart I am (we are… Sorry Grant) we joined up to train and tube it down…
Actually we’re up against some stiff opposition ‘cos Chris and Al ain’t bad, and programmes on poetry on Radio 4 aren’t just given away to slouches so Mr H. will definitely be a force to be reckoned with, so quite independently of each other we’d both decided to just ‘Go for it’ and to hell with the ‘Grauniadista’s’ that tend to infest the audiences of these things.
I have no time for their political correct attitudes, telling us what we can’t say or write or think, so I tend to treat them with utter contempt.
Grant on the other hand, just rips the piss out of them when they get on his goat (Notice a bit of bestiality creeping in there, did you ? Oh well, fuck off to the R.S.P.C.A. and report it then… There’s a good little narc’…)
Seriously tho’… They get on my tits so I ignore them… Even at poetry festivals.
John Hegley however, is the real deal and so we spend the train journey sorting out set lists.
I have to say it’s a nice little venue.
Unfortunately, a couple of the others who were supposed to appear, pulled out at the last moment and so apart from an open mic’ slot for anyone in the audience, it’s down to the five of us.
Ok… One, two, three… Go !
Grant, me, John Hegley, Al Damidge and Chris Bowsher…
John was working with his brass accompanist, Al with his guitar and Chris with a backing track and so Grant and I were the only ‘solo verbal’s’.
How did we do ?
We did ok.
Held our end up without any problems.
I overran on my twenty minutes…

Time flies when you’re having fun, and I was sailing…
I have to say, thinking about it after the event, that it was probably one of my best ever London gigs ?
There was an old George Robey one that I remember with affection from the nineties, but this one was up there with the good ones.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and the audience seemed to as well, so that’s the bonus.
I’d never met John Hegley before that night, seen him a couple of times but never met, and he’s a nice bloke… Funny too, and with a great audience rapport.
I mean, I just attack ‘em, John just takes the piss but he does it in such a way that you couldn’t take offence.
All in all, for a couple of ‘Shire’ poets hitting the city with serious ‘opposition’ we did ok… maybe good even ?
The audience seemed to think so if all their comments after the event were to be believed ?
So we trained it back with big smiles on our faces.
If you are ever asked to do a Pullens Poetry & Spoken Word Festival at the Elephant & Castle, then do it.
Can’t be fairer than that.
I can’t speak for Grant but I suspect he’d jump at being asked back, as would I ?
Nice gig, guys…

Now all I have to do is find my bloody house deeds for the documentation that Haddy needs to get her visa and that is proving somewhat difficult.
I’ve got papers strewn everywhere all over the house, but buggered if I can find
them ?
The bank statements arrive sometime in the next six weeks along with a current P.60 so I’ll have to wait until then at least, but the shops are finished except for the electrics…
We’re getting there slowly.

Now I’ve just got to finalise my stage for this year’s ‘Rhythms of the World’ festival and I’m up to date.
Nearly there, though.
We eagerly await news from our South African poet, but I have the feeling his visa application will be refused… Dunno why ?
I just have that feeling.
Maybe after the shit we had to go through last year to get Tatyana Lar from Russia ?
We managed to get her visa’d up with about four days to go, but the visa situation has got a lot worse since then, and with an election looming to vote out the worst and most venal bunch of crooks Parliament has seen since the days of the ‘Rotten Boroughs’, it ain’t gonna get much better…

Here's a thing that just 'occurred' one night...
(If you are old enough then you know the rhyming structure ?)

NADINE (DORRIES IS THAT YOU ?)

AS I GOT HOME ONE EVENING AND TURNED ON MY TV
I SAW THE NEWS REPORTER INTERVIEWING AN M.P.
THE M.P. SQUIRMED AND WRIGGLED LIKE A FISH UPON A HOOK
AS THE INTERVIEWER ASKED WHY THEY SHOULD NOT BE BROUGHT TO BOOK ?

NADINE… DORRIES IS THAT YOU ?
OH NADINE… DORRIES WAS THAT YOU ?
SEEMS LIKE EVERY TIME WE CATCH THEM DOING THINGS THEY SHOULDN’T OUGHT TO DO ?

THE NEWS REPORTS GOT FUNNIER AS M.P’S CHANGED THEIR TACK
SAID THAT THEY WERE HONEST AND THEY’D GIVE THE MONEY BACK
OTHERS START PROTESTING, SAID THAT THEY’D DONE NOTHING WRONG
LIKE WIPING DOGSHIT OFF A SHOE, IT REALLY STARTS TO PONG

NADINE… DORRIES IS THAT YOU ?
OH NADINE… DORRIES WHERE ARE YOU ?
SEEMS LIKE EVERYTIME WE CATCH ONE DOING THINGS THEY SHOULDN’T OUGHT TO DO ?

CAMERON MAKES A STATEMENT… AND SO DOES GORDON BROWN
BUT NO-ONE MAKES DECISIONS AND THE CRAP SWIRLS ROUND AND ROUND
GET RID OF THE SPEAKER SO IT’S GOODBYE GORBALS MICK
CALLS HIMSELF A SOCIALIST THE GREEDY HYPOCRITE

NADINE… DORRIES IS THAT YOU ?
AH NADINE… DORRIES WAS THAT YOU ?
SEEMS LIKE EVERYTIME THEY CATCH ONE DOING THINGS THEY SHOULDN’T OUGHT TO DO ?

DRY ROT, MOATS AND BOOKCASES, SECOND HOMES AND TAX RETURNS
PAID FOR BY OUR TAXES NOT FROM ANYTHING THEY’D EARNED
NOW NADINE’S ON THE TELE’ ‘WHY’S THE PUBLIC ACTING ROUGH ?’
‘CAUSE YOUR SNOUT’S BEEN CAUGHT MID GOBBLE AND WE’VE ALL HAD QUITE ENOUGH…

NADINE… DORRIES IS THAT YOU ?
AH NADINE… DORRIES WAS THAT YOU ?
SEEMS LIKE THEY CAUGHT ANOTHER DOING THINGS THEY
SHOULDN’T OUGHT TO DO ?

Dunno' why I wrote it in capitals but I did, and cut and paste is so much easier, isn't it ?
And then there was something that occurred while I was watching a dvd of The Long Riders, Walter Hill's Jesse James story with all the acting brothers in, Carradine's, Keach's, Quaid's, Guest's et al playing the related gang members, and as they got to the scene in the bar when they argue about which songs the musicians are going to play...(great soundtrack by Ry Cooder...)

REBEL WITHOUT A PAUSE (Originally 'I'm a Good ol' Rebel')

Political correctness
is a plague upon this land
Add control freaks in our government
Those things go hand in hand
They want us to stay uniform
to their eternal shame
It’s easier to control us
if we all think the same ?

Don’t talk of immigration
‘cos that will get them mad
They’ll refer to you as racist
(And other things twice as bad)
But what they keep forgetting
And why people make a fuss
Too many are fuckin’ scroungers
paid for by all of us

We were born with brains to think with
and a sense of humour, too
But it’s now a crime to use them
It might cause a to-do
We beat the bloody Nazi’s
so that people could speak free
Not for another tyrant
to gag both you and me

Listen to Harriet Harman
Or then again, p’raps not ?
She’s the best recruiting sergeant
that the B.N.P. has got
Fill jobs with bloody quotas
either ethnic or woman
And we’ll flush the ‘Great’ in Britain
directly down the pan

and here's a golden oldie and the one that John Hegley really liked at the festival...

ROCK’N’ROLL ZERO’S (A TALKING BLUES)

I left school feeling lonely and blue
Got all my exams but I didn’t have a clue
‘till I thought of an idea that sounded grand
I’d get me mates together and we’d form a band
and make it really big in the music business…

But starting at the bottom, no-one cared
We played all the covers and the money got shared
and in a couple of years we’d got a few fans
then the singer buggered off… He’d got marriage plans
So we had to start all over again…

So we all pulled together… got a new front man
and a new direction… Well, that was the plan
But one day the bassist didn’t show
and that’s down to the whiz’ or maybe the blow
Didn’t matter, ‘cos he was a loser anyway…

So we hired another and the years went by
We thought we’d make a recording… Give it a try
But it cost a few quid and we hadn’t got it
and we did have a chance, but we just shot it
arguing over who spends what ?

So we drifted along ‘till the band fell apart
The others blamed me but they had no heart
It wasn’t my fault, I wasn’t to blame
We all did our best and I thought it a shame
that we never had a chance of making it big…

Then one night I was down the pub
Talking to this bloke about some new club
And he said ‘Man, if you picked up your guitar
and got yourself a band, then you could go far…’
And I thought ‘Been there… Done that… What a tosser…’

But the more I thought, the more it appealed
I’d been straight for too long… My fate had been sealed
So I rang up me mates, we rehearsed a bit
Even found a drummer who had his own kit
and believe me… That is a miracle in itself…

So we hit the pubs and the clubs and we strutted our stuff
Put the money in the kitty so we all had enough
And we started building up a real fan base
With guys buying us drinks and groupies to chase…
You know… Just your average rock’n’roll sycophants really

But we kept on playing ‘till the shit hit the fan
While driving back from a gig in our clapped out van
For our lead guitar, who’s the mildest guy you could meet
Said ‘It’s a shame we’ve got a drummer who can’t keep a beat’
which was definitely the wrong thing to say…

Because the drummer got mad instead of mellowing out
he rose to the bait and gave the guitarist a clout
and before you knew it the fists were swinging
I got punched in the face and my ears were ringing
And we all ended up in a ditch at the side of the road…

And when I finally got home that night
My girlfriend met me at the door, asked if we’d done alright ?
I was covered in bruises from head to foot
but so were the others ‘cos I’d put in the boot
and steel toecaps and human bones don’t really mix… Do they ?

So I gave them a day to piss them all off
I rang ‘em all up but they just said ‘Fuck Off’ !
They’d decided I was at fault and they hadn’t a prayer
with me in the band, but that was unfair
‘cos I was writing all the material…

So a few years passed… I’d put down the guitar
I had a straight job and I’d gone quite far
But escaping one night from the T.V. cops
I channel surfed straight into Top Of The Pops
And Jesus Christ Almighty ! I used to play with them…

And my tears flowed down as the memories came back
When we were out there doing it just for the craic
Me, rocking on rhythm… Lead guitar screaming
Singer out front either posing or queening
The bass player trying to turn up the heat
and the drummer… who never could stay on the beat
And my son turned to me and he said with a frown
‘I dunno why you’re upset and it’s bringing you down ?
They’re crap !'

Yes, it's taken from experience... Not necessarily mine, however...
I actually started off as a drum roadie and I can't play guitar to save my life but travelling, rehearsals, gigs and the attitude that keeps you going... Yeah, I know all about that stuff.
The rest is just what happened to others we knew in the early '70's...

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE CARTOONS...

2010-08-06T09:36:00.000-07:00

I just love this cartoon...
It comes from a book by Mick Farren and Edward Barker entitled
WATCH OUT KIDS...
which was published in the early '70s.

It just seems to sum up something that is sadly lacking in this current decade of
sleaze, corruption and conveniently looking the other way...

Try and find a copy of the book somewhere... Anywhere ?
But try...

TRUCKIN'... WE'RE A'GOIN' HOME...

2010-08-04T09:18:00.000-07:00

It’s time to go back to The Gambia and I’ve managed to lose my Nicorette Inhalitor somewhere along the way.
This is a total bummer as what with patches and inhalitor I’d made a brave attempt at stopping smoking.
I’d only had two the previous day, which for me is near miracle status.
We’re joined on the trip by Haddy’s Uncle’s wine merchant, Sam, who runs a bar off the Serrakunda market and who has just delivered six bottles of the most gorgeous rioja, one of which we’d put to bed the night before.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like a drop of wine and a good red at an affordable price is a good find these days, but Spanish reds used to leave me cold. I never did like them.
Probably because I was buying rubbish as opposed to the good stuff, but who can afford the good stuff nowadays ?
The rioja that Sam brought was wonderful.
He most definitely recommended it, and Sam seems to know a fair bit about a good red wine, so that’s something to explore when I get back to England.

The taxis are rapidly filling up as we get to the rank, but there are three of us now and with Sam as elder statesman as it were, we manage to grab four seats.
Sam is in the front passenger seat, and Haddy, the luggage and me are in the middle. It’s cramped, but not half as bad as it was on the way here.
I must admit I dozed through the outskirts of Dakar and began to take a bit of notice of my surroundings when the driver stopped to fill his water bottles.
We passed small villages with large churches, villages where the only dwellings were traditional grass huts, scrubland, salt flats… It’s all here if you look ?

The closer you get to The Gambia on the way back, the worse the road gets.
Potholes, bits washed out, bits being laid by heavy machinery…
Basically, whatever problem you can envisage driving through, you have to traverse ?
But finally we’re at the rank and getting out.
A quick stretch of the legs and we’re hailing a taxi to the border where we sail through customs and immigration for the ferry crossing.
When we took the ferry first thing in the morning it was chaos trying to get off it, but I’m a seasoned pro’ now… I know what’s coming…
What I wasn’t prepared for, was another Brit’, female this time, shoving me along on the narrow gangway toward the ticket collector.
After the second overbalancing act I knew it was deliberate so I just stopped, turned back and said ‘Don’t do it again, darlin’, I don’t push…’
Why did I waste my bloody time ?
She shoved me forward again, not that I was going anywhere in that crush, with the result that the heel of my para’ boot somehow managed to rake her leg from shin to foot…
I really don’t know how that occurred…
It must have been one of those unfortunate accidents you read about ?
But she ain’t pushing now.
Hmmm… Funny that ? We didn’t get charged extra for the suitcase, either.
It’s been a bit of a whirlwind trip, but at least when we go back I’ll know the score for next time.

Back in The Gambia we are working out what we have to do in the few days we have left.
A trip to The British High Commission to register the wedding as it says to do on their website is the priority, but that involves a trip to Banjul to pick up our completed wedding documents which Pa has picked up for us, so we combine it with a trip to the market to give Hadim his present, which is now on it’s third continent as I’d imported a couple of copies of it.
Boy ! Was he surprised or what ?
One of the books I’d got Mariama was Planet Drum by Mickey Hart, the Grateful Dead drummer whose own interest in these things had turned into a couple of books and Planet Drum was the culmination of a lot of journeys into ‘sound’ from his own spiritual perspective and then asking other drummers around the world for their own feelings about it, and then doing a little detective work in museum’s archives, of his own.
Hence the mysticality and the spiritual quest to see if there was a link to all the drummers ?
Actually, I think he proves there is without a doubt.

Anyway, it fascinates Mariama, who still needs bits of it read to her at the moment, but is quite happy to look through it as a drum reference book at the same time.
Hadim had seen it at the compound and had gone through it from cover to cover, amazed that such a book had been written, and even more amazed that an American could have written the book in the first place, but glad that somebody had finally written down something that he already knew was true from within himself.
So Hadim was getting a copy of Planet Drum of his own.
You know what ?
It’s the little things, isn’t it ?
I just thought that of all the people I knew out in The Gambia, Hadim and Lamin out of all the people I knew, would understand why the book had been written and would understand why I wanted them to have their own copies of it, and so it proved.
Lamin would get his copy when we got back, but in the meantime, Hadim, and Badu his younger brother, have managed to invite themselves to the ‘spag’ bog’ that I’d be cooking that night…
It was OUR first ‘dinner party’.

The first time WE had ever invited anyone back to share our meal in The Gambia.
I mean, people had stayed with us, people had popped round and we’d fed them, but this really was a historic first.
When we finally saw them off it was nearly midnight and all the food had been eaten, all the ginger beer had been drunk… and all the neighbours were probably fed up with the sound of drums…
We’re going to get a pool ticket and relax at Ocean Bay tomorrow.

Famous last words… Relax at Ocean Bay tomorrow…
Our photographer, Batch, had popped the wedding photo’s round that morning so we could go through them in peace and quiet.
Unfortunately, wedding photo’s seemed to bring out laughter and shrieks in the compound, but having said that, at least seventy five per-cent of them are excellent and could hang in the wedding photographer’s hall of fame which is a huge relief to me as all we seem to get in the U.K. are stories of wedding photo’ disasters, so we were doing quite well on the relaxing front at Ocean Bay

and I’d even managed to get Haddy in the pool (which was another first) until about half past three, when her ‘phone went…
Fatou had collapsed at the beach bar and had been taken to hospital in Fagikunda by her Father…
It turns out when we get there that it’s malaria and it’s a pretty heavy dose.
Haddy cannot understand why she’s in hospital at Fagikunda, which is only a small building with very few facilities, when there are two more modern ones on the way from Sanyang that have been passed on the way ?
Fatou is on a drip when we arrive, and there are no mosquito nets whatsoever.
The room that she’s in, however, is infested with them.
I stayed for a couple of hours and then walked back to the compound with Mariama…
I couldn’t take any more of the mozzies that were dive-bombing all of us.
There is something going on… I can feel it.
Since all the hospital stays and drugs have to be paid for, Fatou’s father has put her in the cheapest one, expecting Haddy to drop everything and nurse her daughter, but Haddy is having none of that and something which reminds you of Vesuvius at Pompeii has just erupted… Followed by threats of court action if anything should happen to her daughter, and the upshot is, Fatou is being moved to a hospital WITH facilities, that afternoon.
I’d never seen malaria up close until then, but the shivering, vomiting and sweating scare the crap out of me.
That girl is seriously ill, and I mean serious.
Haddy sends the rest of the family home and will stay with her until later.
She finally gets home at nearly midnight… Exhausted.
The following morning we’re all off to visit her.
She’s slightly better, but it is only slight.
This one is going to take its toll.
They say they might discharge her in the afternoon, but I think she’ll have to get a lot better, first ?
Back at the compound, we are being besieged by visitors enquiring about Fatou’s health.
Lamin pops in, and that gives me a chance to give him his copy of the book also, and just like Hadim, he is really pleased with it and I’m glad I made the effort and paid the excess on Gatwick’s sodding baggage allowance (it’s still an insulting 20kg to every other main airport’s 30kg) to get them here.
These guys miss out on stuff like this, and apart from poverty there is no reason why they should ?
Both of them are drummers, both of them understand the mysticism and spirituality surrounding the drum and now both of them have a book which goes a fair old way toward explaining the thing that rules or governs the ‘Rhythm’ of their (and our) lives throughout the world.
It really is a ‘Planet Drum’ when you think about it ?
Fatou is being discharged this evening which pleases Haddy, unfortunately it is probably a couple of days too soon because as soon as she gets home the vomiting starts and the fever starts burning her up, again.
There is nothing we can do to help her until tomorrow and so Haddy, ‘Tufa and I hit the Chinese restaurant at Bakau for a last meal together before I have to go.

You know when they write restaurant menus and it’s not done in the native language but an approximate translation ?
‘Tufa orders (a) roasted chicken Chinese style which comes with fried rice on the side and with that he orders Gambian rice…

I’m a bit worried about the order as the waitress just keeps asking ‘You want
chicken ?’
Sure enough, when the orders turn up he’s got one whole roasted chicken with two huge portions of rice. One Chinese style and fried and the other Gambian style and bright red…
You couldn’t make that up, could you ?

He did manage to eat half of it, but the rest is going to have to come back with us so he can boast of having so much money he can afford to give food away to his friends…

I guess that’s the trouble when you’ve got three ‘wind up’s’ out together… One rubs off on the other…
Having said that, their food is quite good and reasonably priced, so that was a bonus.

It’s my last day and we shoot off to the High Commission with the marriage documents, where we are told we don’t have to register the wedding after all.
It says we do on their website, but the staff say we don’t and cannot understand why they have had so many enquiries recently ?
Then we are signed in and taken around the back to a small office to ask about Haddy staying on in The Gambia to get her two shops finished, and are told ‘No problem. Just apply for the visa when you are ready…’
When we return, we take Fatou to the local clinic for some injections of something that should stop the vomiting…
I hate to leave Haddy like this, but I have to catch a late afternoon flight back to the U.K. so I miss the twins and Sainabou, but the little monster is home as soon as school finishes if not sooner, and she comes with her mum to hug me goodbye…
Needless to say, there are tears.
Now it’s overpriced food at Luigi’s in the departure lounge at Banjul where the duty free has run out of tobacco, but I can get a good but way overpriced cheese and onion baguette…
I wonder if they’ve got any tequila ?

Being sat near the back of the aircraft, I got all four of the tobacco boxes from their duty free plus two bottles of tequila from the airport, so that’s me red-lighting it at Gatwick.
Hmmm… Did you know that passengers from The Gambia are now being classed as passengers from Jamaica, in that we are all suspected ‘drug mules’ until proven innocent ?
No ?
Neither did I until we’d landed.
The customs guys seemed to think it odd that a bloke dressed as I was, would actually go through red and declare overages.
I just told them while I was being prodded and scanned and all the rest and watching my poor suitcase being subjected to a severe unpacking, that it was immaterial where I went through, I was going to be stopped anyway.
I always am regardless of how I am dressed, so what’s the point in getting caught up in a queue in which, to be honest, I can’t be arsed, when I can have them all to myself in the red zone… and besides… Listen to that lot the other side of the barrier…
(Loud protestations of innocence or ignorance of regulations…)
Honestly… I just can’t be arsed…
They seemed to find it amusing and/or refreshing anyway, and I was waved off without any further ado.
I like the red-zone at Gatwick. You meet a much nicer breed of customs officer there.
Look… I am going to say this regardless…
If there is ever an airport authority worker or customs officer reading this ?
I (and I’m quite sure a lot of other people in this world, too) do not like being treated as arrogantly as some of you treat us…
Just remember it’s us who pay your wages when it comes to it, as without passengers you wouldn’t have your fucking job in the first place.
So if you cannot treat me as a human being, then you get no help whatsoever from me, and I will rip the piss unmercifully…
A female Asian officer tried it once in the green zone… Needless to say, she couldn’t win because I hadn’t brought anything whatsoever through, so what was the point of the exercise apart from showing herself up as a pig-ignorant arsehole ?
The guys in the red-zone are, to my experience, given that I always do it when I’m over, the most polite people in the whole airport complex.
I don’t know why that is, it just is ?
So thank you to those who do actually talk to me as if I were a human being.
It’s appreciated, guys.
(I bet that surprises ‘em)
But still… Why the hell do we put up with it ?
The rudeness and the arrogance of a lowly little worker in a uniform ?
Talking at us instead of to us ?
God knows I won’t.
Politeness costs nothing and is much more civilised, so if you can’t give me that then I suggest you just F*** O** !
(There you go… I’m being polite).

When First Into This Country A Stranger I Came...

2010-07-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

It’s five o’clock and the local mosque is calling…
And I’m just dozing back off to sleep when…
Omigod !
It’s another one… And it’s right in my ear and it sounds awful.
This guy’s speaker system cannot cope with what he’s putting through it and is distorting like crazy.
He’s got it turned up to the max, which causes maximum distortion so you cannot actually hear anything resembling a word let alone a call to prayer.
All you can hear is distorted noise.
I wish he’d learn something about sound dynamics and turn down slightly, then we wouldn’t be suffering the distorted racket that he’s inflicting upon all and sundry.
Please use a bit of common sense and then the calling would be clearer and I wouldn’t be writing this and if anybody wishes to take it as a criticism ?
It is !

A speaker system which copes with amplification would suit a lot better than a couple of tannoy speakers and a cheap microphone, believe me.
When I mentioned it later I’m told it is the building opposite…
Ouch !

Oh well, we’re awake now, so hit the shower and get dressed for breakfast.
One full length French stick and a few Kraft Dairylea cheese triangles with black coffee for me, and chocolate for Haddy and we’re off for a walk along the beach which is less than a quarter of a mile away.

Wow !
What a beach !
Golden sands stretching out to the sea.

It’s a bit like the beach at Frinton in the U.K. but a hell of a lot bigger, and with a lot more flies.

You know what lets it down ?
The litter.
Some of it has obviously been collected and is piled high in mounds, giving off the overripe aroma of the local town dump, and it really is such a shame.
It’s a wonderful natural resource to attract tourist investment and litter is dropped all over it…

That, of course, attracts even more of the flies.
I’d wondered, because wherever we went, either in the house or out of the house, we were always fighting them off.
They look like Bluebottles with bright red heads, and are absolutely revolting.
I reckon Beelzebub lives in Dakar, and I kid you not.

We walked for about half a mile through the haze along the sand dodging the litter and then we saw something that made both of us angry…
An adult male has caught a seagull which he’s tied a piece of fishing line to…
Every time he lets the bird fly off, it comes crashing down on the sand when the line tightens.
What a bastard !
You know what ?
If there is a God and that sonofabitch meets him, then I only hope God does the same to him as he’s doing to that bird.
That would really be justice.
You could understand it if it were kids doing it.
It still wouldn’t be nice, but you could understand them doing it.
But an adult about thirty years old ?
No !
That’s just nastiness personified.
It spoils the walk for both of us, so we returned to the house where all the lads are on their computers logged on to the internet.
I showed them my myspace page and they clicked on one of the local band links…
Now that IS strange.
Here I am in French speaking Senegal in West Africa and the C.C. Smugglers are blasting out of the computer’s speakers…
Not only that, but the guys are totally enjoying the music that they’re listening to, which according to one of them is nothing whatsoever like the music in Senegal (True) but it’s certainly being enjoyed, as feet are tapping and fingers and hands are drumming on tables and they go through the songs on the widget at least three times…
I’ll have to tell them they made a hit in Senegal when I get back.
Trouble is, knowing Richie he’ll want to come out and play a gig for them the following week and I’m not really sure that Senegal is quite ready for that lot, yet ?
Still… Stranger things have happened so it’s something to ponder.
They’ve certainly made a hit with Aunt Rose’s sons.
Here’s a link if you want to check them out ?
http://ccsmugglers.co.uk/

We spend the rest of the day hanging around the house (or maybe it’s a villa, I’m not quite sure ?) checking out the garden in the central courtyard and me getting to know the family and the local area and shops.

The weather is very humid and although the sun comes out occasionally the weather feels oppressive.
Maybe a good storm will clear the air ?

The following day we’re up and ready to go to the market in the centre of the city to buy a few bits and pieces like clothes for me, maybe ?
Well, that’s the idea.
However, first things first…
I need to change some travellers cheques so we head for the banks…
We seem to have hit a problem ?
None of the banks want to change the cheques as they are in pounds sterling and they’re only prepared to change dollars and euros…
So much for Gordon Brown rescuing the economy !!!
Did my bank warn me ?
No it did not, but it’s possible that it doesn’t know ?
Believe me, it will when I get back…
Eight well known world wide banks refused point blank to change up sterling travellers cheques until finally, just on the off chance, we tried the Bank of Senegal…
Ninth time lucky ?
Well I have to admit I wasn’t confident but the guy behind the counter asks for my passport, checks the amount on his computer and I’ve got money…
Thank you, thank you, thank you to the Bank of Senegal.
If I lived here I’d bank with you guys, no sweat.
As for the rest and their multi-national global connections ?
Fuck ‘em !
They’re useless.

Now I’ve managed to get the money out of the bank I’ve got to hold onto it, and the ‘Opportunistas’ are following us all through the market…
They might as well call ‘fresh fish’ as I stick out like a sore thumb down there, so thank the Lord we’ve got Jeano with us.
One persistent sod is shadowing me everywhere and making signals to one of his mates who is shadowing us on the other side of the street and he’s making signals to another guy behind the one shadowing me…
Confused ?
Don’t be.
They’re after ripping us off.
It gets to the point where I stop suddenly and turn and ask if I can help him ?
He says he can help me, but ‘non merci’ is not having any effect whatsoever, and after about five of those I’m getting seriously pissed off.
He’s still making signals to his mates though, and now even Haddy can see what is occurring.
Right ! Politeness goes out the window from here on in.
If he does it again I’m just going to have to tell him loudly to fuck off and eat ‘merde’.
Jeano stops at a t-shirt stall and asks the guy if he knows where so and so is ?
Turns out that the guy he’s asked about has gone for a break but he’s due back anytime, so I start perusing the stock and pick out an African motif black job for my stage partner, Joy, back in the U.K.
When Jeano’s mate appears, Jeano lays out the problem and the guy just points at five of these pests and motions them away.
Five ?
Christ ! I’m losing my touch. I only clocked three of them.
It doesn’t work though because they are still following us, albeit at more of a distance and so Jeano takes us into a small indoor shopping mall…
That cures it.
They’re not allowed in.
There’s a little unit upstairs though…

I’ve just spent about £60 on a shirt, and believe me I’ve never done that before but it’s beautiful.
It’s a black number with white piping round the edges and it’s going to look great on stage. An Italian designer job that the guy wanted £75 for, but we managed to get him to come down a bit.
I tried on a couple of t-shirts too, but he didn’t have my size which was a shame.
Right… Back to the t-shirt stall to ask his mate about African clothes for me.
The shadows are still hanging about outside but it looks like they’ve got another mark in their sights right now, so we shoot off quickly and thankfully they miss us in the crowd.
Jeano’s mate says he thinks he knows a place that might help and so he’ll come with us this time.
It’s off the main drag and quite murky inside but the clothes look great.
This time I let Haddy do the talking but they’re having trouble with ‘Noir’ and ‘Bleu’.
I have to go through every colour imaginable until finally I get a black and white off the peg African suit and a really beautiful linen shirt which Haddy insists I buy, even though it costs as much as the suit.
Mind you, she does seem to know what suits style wise and I really do like it, so that’s me spent up but pleased as punch by what I’ve bought.
The tension in that market, though ?
Knowing you are a ‘mark’ for every cheapskate con artist and bag snatcher is a palpable, physical thing and it’s exhausting.
Time for a taxi back home, methinks…

When we get back Aunt Rose has cooked creamed mashed potatoes with roasted lamb and it’s delicious, and then her husband brings out the red wine…
I’m told I woke up for the evening meal and then went to bed again waking at 4.00am totally slept out, but it has obviously done me some good because I cannot feel any tension inside whatsoever…
For a guy who’s had one heart attack and who lives on nervous energy, it feels great.

The next morning I left Haddy nattering to Aunt Rose and went shopping with Ngani, one of the girls, who is taking me to the fruit and veg’ market as none of the local shops stock what I need.
I’m short of mint and yoghurt for the dip I’m going to make.
The problem is, West Africa seems to have a sweet tooth and I can only get sweetened yoghurt. Nobody has any plain so I’m going to have to improvise on a home made Riata with lots of lemon or lime juice to cut the sweetness and hope it all approximates out ?
If I’d had the time I’d have made my own, but unfortunately the time is creeping on.
We finally get the sprigs of mint at the far end of the market…
Now all I need is access to the kitchen, but what with Aunt Rose and Celestine, the maid and cook, I’m not having a lot of luck.
Now the thing is… Aunt Rose can cook.
I can cook, but not like Aunt Rose can cook.
Like me she’s completely self taught, but unlike me, she has the confidence to just cook for the sake of it and she’s brilliant.
She completely took over Fatou’s kitchen for the wedding reception and so why she needs a cook like Celestine, who can also cook a lot better than I can, is beyond me ?
So the kitchen is their turf and me wanting access, even if it’s just to make a simple dip, is causing some grief.
Finally though, I get access to the chopping board and knife for half an hour.
Success of a kind, though…
It’s a bit sweeter than it ought to be, but Aunt Rose pronounces it ‘Tres Bon’ and Celestine sticks her finger in it, licks it clean and then does it again.
She’s smiling now.
Ok, leave it in the refrigerator for a few hours topped with black pepper and it’ll be ready for those watching the football tonight for a Pringle dip-athon…

That afternoon I went swimming with another of Aunt Rose’ sons…
Now it’s a nice enough beach and the sea looks good.
The waves are only about eighteen inches high but you don’t see too many people swimming in it…
I was about to find out why ?
There I was, happily swimming away, when a big wave shot me shoreward…
And the suction took me back out.
Farther out than I’d started from.
Then it happened again…
Then I got hit by the cross currents… Left… Right…
I was getting hit from all over, so I arrowed in toward the shore…
And promptly got sucked back out again.
This ain’t good.
Ok… Sideways… Pull and kick.
And again.
Turn the other way and do the same again…
I’m moving forward but it’s very slow.
Look at the ring on my finger and keep on pulling…
Turn on the other side and do it again…
And again…
And again…
And again…
Finally I got to a place where I could stand up so I literally threw myself forward toward the shore…
Pull…
Kick…
Pull…
Kick…
I’m now waist deep but I’ve no strength left and I can’t even walk through the suction…
Move…
Move…
One foot and then the other…
Keep moving…
Just get out of this bloody water…
I made it, although how I don’t really know, and collapsed onto my towel with my heart pounding, every muscle in my body screaming for mercy and shaking like a leaf in the wind…
No fucking way am I ever going out there again.
I’ve never been so scared of water in my life as at that moment.
I’ve been in rough stuff and I’ve been in currents but this one takes the biscuit for the complete all in one bastard.
It was playing with me, and the logical outcome would have been my carcass being dragged from the water somewhere up the coast if I hadn’t come straight in, and I nearly didn’t manage that.
All that got me through was me thinking that I’d just got married to a wonderful lady who I love like crazy and we haven’t even started a life together yet…
Listen God, if that was a test then you win mate, no contest.
How I walked back I don’t know ?
I was ready to collapse at any second.
So there’s a warning for you…
The beach at Dakar looks good and the sea looks like fun…
It ain’t.
It’s psychotic and it could kill you.
That’s me cured from swimming at Dakar, folks…
It’s knee high paddling or nothing from here on in.

Watching the football that night and stuffing Pringles and dip revived me somewhat which was nice… As was the meal Aunt Rose had prepared...

And when Manchester City had finally stuck four past Chelsea I was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat.
Sorry ‘Tufa but when I get back I just might remind you of tonight’s scoreline ?
Unfortunately I’d decided to go with beer that night and Senegalese beer is as close to watery piss as watery piss is…

Quite honestly I’d have shot the horse !

Travel broadens the mind (and loosens the wallet...)

2010-07-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow our honeymoon starts officially in Dakar, Senegal, at Haddy’s Aunt and Uncle’s place and we have to catch the early morning ferry at 7.00am to take us from Banjul to Barra and then walk over the border where we’ll either be getting a bus (if we’re lucky) or a taxi to Dakar.
It’s a five hour journey by road so I’m not exactly looking forward to it.

After a maximum of three hours sleep we’re up again, showered, dressed and ringing ‘Tufa to take us to Banjul…
God I’m tired...
So there we are, happily driving down the dual carriageway heading toward Banjul when we’re stopped at an army checkpoint and we all have to vacate the vehicle…
Oh, look… A suitcase… It must be full of… clothes ?
Sorry to disappoint you guys, but it wasn’t us you were after.
As Haddy is going through the case with the guy in charge, the other one asks me why we are on the road at that time in the morning ?
I just tell him it’s the start of our honeymoon and we got married two days ago which causes him to grin and ask where we are going, so I tell him Senegal… We’re going to stay with Haddy’s Aunt Rose and her Uncle.
He smiles, and says that is a good thing as I am acting like a proper Gambian man by visiting family…
Then he calls to the other one who is still going through the case and they apologise for stopping us and hope we understand, and then say we can go.
As we get back in the car I ask the friendly one what they have been searching for ?
Drugs or money.
It’s always drugs or money, or illegals or guns, or a variation of the four and apparently early morning is a good time to do a stop and search…
More people are caught.
I wish him luck and goodbye, and we’re off again.
It’s taken just under twenty minutes so there’s going to be a queue for the ferry and we’re going to be stuck in it, and that’s only if they have tickets left ?
As soon as we arrive at the docks ‘Tufa barges into the queue for tickets and returns ten minutes later with two…
Nice one, ‘Tuf’.

Now… I was under the impression that Moslems prided themselves on being polite…
I dunno where I got that idea from ?
If you take a ferry ride from Banjul to Barra, then you are going to find and experience the exact opposite…
In fact, I’d like to warn any reader thinking that they might like to take that journey one day…
Get your elbows sharpened by a professional before you even attempt it.
Never wear sandals. Stick to boots and preferably those with steel toe-caps…
That’s a word or two to the wise.
There will be those who think I’m exaggerating ?
But they are idiots, so we’ll discount them immediately and just concentrate on those with a small modicum of common sense.
Look… You don’t believe me ?
Do what you like. It’s immaterial to me but don’t say I didn’t try to warn you…

Getting on was bad enough.
Staying on was cramped and uncomfortable…
But getting off ?
That’s when you need a few things that you’ll probably have forgotten to bring otherwise…
Like a cattle prod or a Taser ?
I mean I’ve been in queue’s trying to get off or out of places and things, but even I was not prepared for this…
All stampede together and the Devil take the hindmost.
Absolute mayhem !
A moving juggernaut of people stepping, pushing and trampling on anyone who might be impeding their progress or who might actually be in front of them.
Bloody Hell !
That was an eye opener… And there’s me, the obvious foreigner trying to remain polite…
That lasted until the gouging bastard who collected the tickets told us we had to pay for the suitcase…
(We’d already checked that we didn’t)
But it made no difference to that thieving bastard… He was going to gouge us because I was white and so obviously had money…
It wouldn't be so bad if he'd gone for everybody else who carried one but he didn't...
Just us.
I don’t know what Haddy called him, but I hope it insulted his parentage right back to the dog that bore him ?
We paid the thieving cunt just so we could get off but it really fucking rankled.
People talk about the corruption in Africa, but it’s so ingrained into the psyche that any and every chance is taken to do it.
Trouble is, most of the people you meet are scrupulously honest and pride themselves on it, but where you have someone in a position of lowly authority that's where you find that the main chance is going to be taken... and we were.
One day an honest man will step up and unfortunately will probably be silenced by the mob that will hound him for even suggesting that the practice is stopped…
Either that, or he’ll be ‘silenced’.
Make of that what you will…
I really don’t think I’ve got to draw you a picture ?

Finally, we’re off to the taxi rank to get us to the border crossing which we make in good time, passports stamped on both sides and we’re in Senegal where we’ve managed to miss all the buses, so it’s a taxi ride to Dakar…
Seven of us plus luggage crammed into what we Brit’s once called a station wagon along with the dust and the flies for the next five hours.
Let me say this for the record…
When I was younger I did some crazy things when trying to get from A to B when travelling, but this was the craziest of all…
Never again.
Never, ever again.
If we have to do the return trip the same way then we pay for an invisible man to share our seating and pay for three instead of two but I will NEVER travel like that again.
Ever.
So let it be written, so let it be done.

We are only stopped once on the journey at a police checkpoint to make sure everything is as it should be ?
The poor guy who’s moving a television hasn’t got the right documentation or maybe he hasn’t paid the duty ?
Either way, it’s a forty minute stop which is a relief (in more ways than one) to all the other travellers and not just me.
It gives us a chance to shake off the muscle cramps and stretch out legs at least, and sample the soft drinks of Senegal which as far as Fanta is concerned, is uniformly foul.
It certainly doesn’t taste like Fanta does in the U.K. or even in The Gambia.
It’s just soda water with E-numbers in it and no fruit taste whatsoever.
It’s horrible.
Finally we get to Dakar, which is probably as big as London from N.W. whatever to S.E whatever… Dakar is BIG.
Now we have to get a taxi to Aunt Rose’s which we accomplish in about fifteen minutes plus a journey time of maybe another twenty five ?
And we’re there…
Finally we’re there.
It’s totally different to The Gambia.
The architecture is more Arabic or maybe I should call it French Colonial ?
Anybody wanting to make a film about Beirut or Algeria or the middle east of twenty years ago, could film here without too much trouble.
As soon as we’ve unpacked our suitcases we are presented with plates of garlic- cooked lamb with fries and salad followed by watermelon that doesn’t taste like watery pulp, and bananas.
Truth to tell, all we both want to do is sleep.
Either the innocent or the damned isn’t going to matter one iota right now, so as soon as is polite, we make our excuses and…
Collapse.

Eid Al Adha or The Tobaski Festival

2010-07-19T13:10:00.000-07:00

We wake up to Eid Al Adha…
The Tobaski Festival.
For those who have never experienced one, it is one of the Muslim celebratory days and is a public holiday apart from essential workers needed to keep the infrastructure going.
Ok… Tobaski…
Tobaski is a sacrificial feast day to commemorate God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son, Ismail.
All married men and/or heads of households are expected to buy a sheep (or goat, cow, chicken, or whatever they can afford) and sacrifice it, cook it and give most of it away to those less fortunate than themselves, and then feed their family with the remainder.

It is literally a day for sharing whatever you have been able to afford and the whole country turns into one gi-normous barbecue.
All normal people can enjoy Tobaski...
Notice I said normal.
If there are a bunch of you holidaying in the country and some are vegetarian or vegan, then it's probably a good idea to have them locked in their hotel rooms so you don't hear their whineing...

Everybody, male and female alike dresses up in their finest clothes and that includes all the children who run around begging small coins from every adult they see to buy ice creams and sweets with so make sure you have lots of small denomination coins in your pockets because you are definitely going to need them.

Parents and extended family are visited and I’m quite surprised it can all be fitted into one day.
It really is one countrywide party.

All the hotel workers seem to know about us now, as the word seems to have got round that we got married yesterday, so we are literally inundated with congratulations and kind words by the few staff that have had to come in.
The gardeners, the maids, the cleaners, the kitchen girls and the chef, the desk guys… Even the lad in the hotel shop closes for three minutes to come round and offer us his congratulations…
Know what ?
When something like that occurs, it completely chokes you up.
It choked me up, anyway.
Even Ousman, our head of security, who is having to work all through the day offers his dalasi worth, and I’m going to repeat his, because I think it is worth repeating…
Actually he says I didn’t do too badly if I had to pick a Jola to marry…
But he’s smiling when he says it behind those ubiquitous shades, which is probably just as well because Haddy will never let him get away with saying anything like that, but then he says, addressing me…
‘If you find a woman… A good woman… One with love in her heart… Then you hold onto her as they are worth more than riches or money…’
I know the quote is accurate because I asked him to repeat it and I had my ‘phone on record…
Aaaahhh Ousman… You big softie, you…
But you know what ?
He’s right.
Sage advice from my Serer friend, and I intend to do just that…
In fact he’s so right that I gave him a big hug after he’d said it.
Ok, we’re both big softies…

Looking around at that moment, it strikes me that most of the staff are out of uniform…
Ousman for instance is in a dark yellow outfit with gold piping.
Even in his uniform he has a certain élan with his shades on, but in this outfit, shades included, he’s something else.
The waitresses, the maids, they all look absolutely stunning, and the whole hotel is an absolute riot of colour.
There will be absolutely nothing open today so we lounge around the hotel totally relaxed until the evening.
Pat decides to go out to give us some time together.
He’s taken his cameras but he’s a big boy now and hopefully he doesn’t need his big brother to hold his hand ?
Apparently, the sheep has been bought on my behalf for the compound and is being cooked while we wait.
I don’t know how many of the hotel staff cannot get back to their families on this day so between us we work out that we can feed at least four including Ousman, who is having to work all day, and the old man who looks after the gardens, so we make a couple of ‘phone calls…
‘Tufa will be doing the delivery run, later.
Ousman has a wife and son, and the old man is on his own, so that’s four portions going to good homes.
I have no idea how it’s going to be served up, but Haddy tells me that tin foil is fine and it will include rice and vegetables too.
When it comes to it, Ousman is amazed that we’d done it, but as Haddy said…
‘Even beggars and Serer’s have to eat…’ at which he laughs because he knows she’s just got him back for his ‘Jola’ jibe earlier.
Honestly… The pair of them never stop winding each other up.
The old gardener is a lovely man and he definitely knows his way around a garden, so when Haddy tells him that since he is working, we know he will not have been able to get anything for himself, so please accept this small offering from us for Tobaski, he is quite overcome and has to sit down.

He definitely wasn’t expecting that…
Small offering ? It was in a cardboard box the size of a shoebox !
But he’s worth it.
He really is a lovely old guy, and when I first met him and asked about some of the plants that I didn’t know, he took me literally all around the hotel showing me loads of things I’d never come across before.
His English is very basic, and my Wolof was non-existent at that time and is not that much better now, but somehow we conversed about the plants and he was surprised when at the end of my first trip out I told him he had taught me so much that I would have to put it into practice when I got back to the U.K.

Pat gets back in the early afternoon after nearly walking to the other end of Bakau.
Apparently he was stopped and greeted all the way by those who recognised him from the hotel and loads more besides, who are amazed that he kept asking questions about the country, about Tobaski, about everything he thought he might get an answer to, actually…
They all wanted to know about the wedding so it seemed like an information swap to him, but he also got invited back to a couple of compounds for Tobaski.
He turned them down with regret (thankfully) but thanked everybody for their kindness in such a way that it totally disarmed any questions about his American(Mid Atlantic) accent.
(Please remember that Muslims and Americans are not actually getting on too well around the world at this point… They keep killing each other…)

He’s a newspaper editor in real life and so with that journalistic background it comes easily to him but they didn’t know that, and he says he got some great pictures…

Late afternoon and we’re ready to go, so we say our goodbyes to the staff still there, and ‘Tufa collects us to take us home.
This is so strange because officially I’m now head of the household…
But the kids are the kids and so we’re not really aware of any difference, as there really isn’t any.

In the Gambia in the vast majority of things I will always defer to Haddy.

Mariama has got friends round already,

and we start to receive our first guests officially…

I also have to take a picture of my first (cooked) sheep’s head to commemorate it…
Yeeeeuuuk !

Sainabou and the twins have all been invited out,

so they are seriously dressed up, and when we finally get back to the hotel it is past midnight.
I could definitely do this again.

A White Wedding Reception

2010-07-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

As soon as we’re all out of the car we get the confetti thrown over us by the welcoming committee…

Except it’s not confetti as we know it in the West, it’s sweets.
Bombarded with toffees…
What a great idea ?
There’s certainly less litter because everybody picks them up and eats them…
Fatou, Sainabou and the others have done an amazing job of decorating the tables under the canopies outside, but before we are allowed to sit we pose for more photo’s with the complete family, or as many as we can get that aren’t cutting chips and filleting fish or sticking chickens in ovens.

There is one obvious place in the middle for the bride and groom and thankfully there are no toasts or speeches.
The sun is out, the beach is nearly deserted, and all in all it looks like being a lovely day…
Apparently, because everybody was up early, we’re all getting a light repast before the party starts in earnest and that is fine by me because for some reason I’ve got hunger pangs… and I’m not the only one.
So there we are… It’s about eleven in the morning and I’ve just demolished the first two bottles of Julbrew, the local beer, which isn’t at all bad by the way, Haddy’s got her tonic water, Mariama and Ida are on the Vimto, and brother Pat is sticking to Fanta.
The new drink that the twins have discovered is one of those Malt things that we can buy at any corner shop or supermarket, but it’s new to The Gambia and it seems to have caught on in a big way amongst the youth.
‘Tufa sticks to Cocktail, which I find undrinkable but which he drinks all the time.
Apart from that there are a few more beers and a few Coca-Cola’s scattered around the guest’s tables.

Looking around it’s an amazingly colourful affair and we’ve got four different countries represented also.

Aunt Rose and a couple of the others from Senegal, Pat from the U.S.A. me from the U.K. and the rest from The Gambia.

I clocked a look at one of our driver’s t-shirts.
You know what it said ?
NON Alamigration Clandestine…
Which works out pretty much as No Illegal Immigration.
I’d probably get arrested for incitement to something or other if I wore that in the
U.K. but it says something that even here they are suffering from it.
There are a few women there whose job is to bless the bride and groom and the wedding.

They sing and chant and play a curious percussion instrument that actually sounds like a muted triangle and every time they do this, the bride and groom have to give them money for the blessing…
I get through the first of them with what I have in my pockets but Haddy warns me that it’s probably going to happen again later, so just as a joke I suggest to Haddy that if she got the girls to do it outside Banjul Justice Registry they’d make an absolute fortune…
A couple of them can carry a tune, too.
Badu is there from Banjul Craft Market and he’s made us a special carving… Of a couple making love.

When it’s unwrapped from the bag it provokes shrieks of laughter from most of the women and Haddy is in absolute hysterics.
Hassanatou and Husainatou have got changed from their wedding outfits to help out in the kitchen and more guests keep appearing having managed the four taxi ride’s they need to get here, and I certainly recognise some of Mariama’s friends from the compound among the smaller ones.
The only things missing that I can see are the bumster dogs, so I ask Fatou where they went ?
Apparently the mother dog had puppies and a snake had gone for them while they were being nursed.
The mother dog and two out of three of her larger previous litter had fought off the snake but all had been bitten and died.
So when they heard the tiny puppies crying they had to call the vet in and he took away the little ones.
I know the tourist brochures say don’t pet the wild dogs but that family were part and parcel of the bar from day one, so it’s a bit sad.
They were always so friendly, to me at least, and I’m going to miss them being around.
There are two dogs hanging about, but I don’t recognise the black one and the brown one doesn’t recognise me, so maybe they are new arrivals, too ?

Right… I’ve now abandoned Haddy and got my kit off and gone swimming with at least four or five of the little ones before dinner is served.
What a wonderful feeling in that water…
It’s absolutely chaotic with four or five children hanging off me when the surf and the waves break but they love it so I don’t begrudge them their fun.
Very few people in The Gambia can actually swim, most of them are taught to stay well away from water when they are young in case they drown, so trying to give these little ones a bit of confidence in the water, especially when they get a face full of wave is something that I think is quite worthwhile.
Respect the water.
Respect its power.
It will let you play, but never take it for granted, as that is when you find you have difficulties.
You know that saying ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’ ?
I actually felt like that.
It is the first day of the rest of my life… and it’s a pretty good day, too.

When it’s time for food, Haddy gets to pass the platefuls out to the guests.

We’ve got Fish Benechin or Chicken Benechin or a mixture of both and there are mountains of it.

I bet it all gets eaten, though.

Pat gets the family lecture from the old man about his obligations to the family now that his brother is part and parcel of it, and thankfully takes it all in seriously,

and after we’ve finished eating I collect all the leftover meat bones, pile them all up on a paper plate, and take them over to the dogs but the older brown one isn’t in sight and the black one is very suspicious, so I just move off into the dunes and put down the plate.
They’ll come eventually.
They get left to forage by their owners if they manage to survive the beatings or the stones thrown at them, which doesn’t sit too well with me, so guidebooks be damned, I won’t be party to starving them.
Besides, they keep the place free from rats.
Hey ! Look at that… It’s cake time…

And we’ve got cards too…

And we’re being blessed again… and we have to keep paying until they think we’ve paid enough…
Awa has just arrived.

She’s had to work the early shift at the hotel, but she’s finally here and thoughtfully has changed up two or three hundred dalasi into five dalasi notes…
What a little darling that lass is ?
We were blessed four times in all and that can be an expensive business.

Finally it all comes to an end, and we’re back in the cars for our return trip to the hotel and the village.
When we get let out at the hotel we get a serious ribbing from the guys outside who have all waited around to see the English bloke in African dress and the bride who they never caught sight of this morning, so I just think ‘Sod it ! I’m not changing.
Why bother ? I’m in The Gambia’
So we just sit in the bar area by the pool in our wedding outfits, turning the tourist’s heads and watching the evening’s cabaret by a group of musicians and dancers from Guinea who I thought were one of the best things I’d seen at the hotel.
I finally asked Haddy about the reasons for her choice in venue and guests and she explains that if we’d held the reception at the compound then it would have cost about ten times the amount, and I have to remember that for an occasion like that, the whole village would have come through the compound gates at some time during the day and politeness dictates that you offer them food…
I think maybe you’d have to be a Lebanese supermarket owner to afford that out here, so now I know, I think she definitely made the right decisions ?
She got as many as she could within the budget we’d allocated.
It was enough.

A White Wedding 26th November 2009

2010-07-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

It must be six o’clock because the bloody alarm has just gone off…
I didn’t sleep that well and I’m knackered.
I think I’ve had about eight hours in the last forty eight and it’s not doing me any favours…
The butterflies in my stomach have just turned into a longing for it all to be over and done with.
Still… that’s probably a bit unfair ?
Please let it all go off without a hitch.
‘Tufa is supposed to be picking us up outside the hotel at eight which means a seriously early breakfast before showering and climbing into my suit.
Thirty minutes later there is still no sign of him but the traffic is appallingly heavy so I ring Haddy just in case, but she assures me he’s on his way…
Guess we’ll just have to wait then ?
We spend the time outside with the hotel’s security guys and a few of the locals who have small shop type outlets in the vicinity.
Ousman’s not about as he’s got the later shift, and all the guys say he’s got to see this, so please wear it when we come back to the hotel tonight.
They all seem to be impressed with the suits so that’s a plus until one guy asks if it’s a Muslim wedding, and am I here to convert because I’m wearing Muslim clothes ?
S’funny… Everybody in the country wears this type of get up apart from the obvious tourists, including Pa and he’s a Christian, so I just tell him my wife picked them and in that I’ll defer to her, but no, it isn’t a Muslim wedding and whilst I’m happy to believe, it isn’t a Christian one either.
He seems to think I should be one or the other and I suppose I could have told him I was a Buddhist or a Pagan or any damn thing but I just tell him that fundamentalists in any religion let everybody down and if Tony Blair and George W. Bush consider themselves Christians then to please leave me out ‘cause I’m definitely not one of them, and thankfully that seems to do the trick and he leaves us to it.
Finally, after what seems an eternity of butterflies in my stomach and chain smoking like a good’un, ‘Tufa turns up and we’re off.
I realise that I didn’t remind Haddy about the rings because they are safer at her place and then realised I can’t do anything about it anyway.
If she forgets them we’ll have to borrow a couple, it’s as easy as that.
Finally we’ve arrived back at the Justice Registry and I’m rolling cigarettes like mad now.
A five minute wait and she’s here… and she looks absolutely stunning.

A simple white top with purple braiding on the front, a pretty headdress and trousers that definitely fit her… and she’s remembered the rings…
Which I immediately pass over to Pat for safe keeping.
Mariama and Ida look absolutely beautiful in their matching cream bridesmaids outfits with their small headdresses.

Can I relax now ?
Can I hell !
It’s never going to happen. Well it might ? But not necessarily today.
We wait upstairs for the affair to begin.

Pat is taking pictures of all and sundry with three different cameras, we’ve got the official Justice Registry guy doing it too, plus a lad who’s videoing proceedings for Batch, our official photographer, who has to wait downstairs as he’s on the official guy’s patch as it were.
One of the things I do notice is that I’m the only white guy marrying a black girl.
All the others are black guys marrying white women.
I wonder what the percentage is ?
I’ll ask somebody later.
The service is short and we all get our lines right (Aren’t cue cards a good idea ?)

so nobody makes a mistake, and after our vows and the rings and witnessing and kissing the bride (I really liked that bit) we’re off downstairs for more pictures and to wait for the cars that are taking us all out to Fatou at Leybato Sunrise, Sanyang.
Oh wow ! There’s loads of women downstairs that I recognise from the village and only one twin. The other must be with Sainabou and Fatou out at Leybato doing women’s stuff… like food…

There are a few outside that I didn’t expect.
Jally from the village and Badu from the market and quite a few that I recognise but can’t put names to, but they are all happy for Haddy and me, and that’s the main thing.
We are all family here.
Ebrima’s stepfather, who has three wives himself, has forsaken the mosque to be with us today but then he was one I expected.

I’m going to have to ask Haddy how she made the cut as far as those who are coming to the reception or wedding breakfast or whatever it’s called in The Gambia, because I haven’t the faintest idea ?
We’ve managed to cram everybody into two cars and an enormous people carrier and we only have one stop to make on the way to pick up Haddy’s son Amadou who couldn’t make it to the ceremony.
It’s a fair old ride to Sanyang from Banjul but there is method in the madness as you’ll find out later.

A White Wedding Minus Two 24th November 2009

2010-07-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

Strange…
You’d think the closer I got to the wedding the more tense and stressed I’d be, but after the last eight months it’s all going away, dissipating in the sun and the friends I’d made in The Gambia ?

The journey out was uneventful.
The usual drive down to Gatwick in the early hours followed by the interminable wait for the flight to be called and all the while drinking enough Costa black coffee, which is horrible by the way and also Costa fortune, especially at airports, to try and keep the caffeine levels up to keep me awake.
Trouble is, it just makes me want to piss.
Brother Pat turned up after the flight had been called, after staying in the Hilton across the road so we did actually manage to get seats together on the flight.
He tried a couple of times to stick the barbs in but thankfully packed it in after one warning shot.
Shit !
I’m tense enough before a flight that slapping down my younger brother seemed a reasonable solution to stress busting.
Thankfully he heeded the warning and from that moment the needling stopped.
I really don’t know why he bothers ?
Maybe he thinks he has to compete…
Who knows ?
But it’s puerile, facile and all the rest, so hopefully it will stay hidden away ?
Haddy won’t put up with it anyway, and she knows I have a short fuse when it comes to that sort of thing so it’s best it goes.
The flight was ok.
Six hours of shite on the flight’s entertainment system so I didn’t bother.
I needed sleep, but try as I might it didn’t happen.
I got close but then they brought round dinner, so go figure ?
We finally got in and through customs and immigration and I tapped some dickhead on the shoulder as we went through and told him to do up the zips on his backpack or he was going to lose his wallet which was hanging out of it but as usual I just got told to mind my own…
Suit yourself sunshine… Fucked if I care what happens to it ?
There she is…
And ‘Tufa, and the bloke who lives in the village and works at the airport…
Jeez… A real welcoming committee…
Well, it’s finally happening.
Bring it on !

We spend the next three hours eating and trying on clothes.
My wedding suit is white and Pat has also got one the same which I had no knowledge of as he’s packed a thin polyester number for the wedding, but no, we’re both going African apparently for the ceremony.
The other bits we need we can pick up from Banjul market tomorrow.
Finally, hours later than everybody else, we check into the hotel…
And all the staff seem to know why we’re there, too…
The word has definitely gone around.

I have a nine o’clock appointment with Haddy at the Justice Registry in Banjul on the following day to go through some forms and then on to see Pa whose car we are borrowing, and then we’re just going to mooch around looking for the things we need.

So get this…
There we are, the four of us, me, Haddy, Brother Pat and ‘Tufa walking down the main drag of Banjul which is absolutely teeming with people, and one of ‘Tufa’s mates taps him up and asks him if that idiot is with us ?
What idiot ?

The complete fucking moron who is walking gaily along taking pictures of all and sundry with an unzipped backpack on his back…
My idiot brother.
Nice one !

Here we are in the middle of what can only be described as Bandit Country and the stupid sod hasn’t taken in anything I’ve previously said.
Doh !
Listening with your ears shut and your mouth open is not something I’d recommend in a country, no, scotch that, in a continent that you’ve never taken a single step in before yesterday.
God help us !
At least when ‘Tufa pointed it out to him he was suitably chastened and moved it to his front, but honestly…
Why do I bother ?
We saw Hadim and Badu in the market, and the lady who sold me my blue elephant shirt back in March, and blow me, she recognises me, as does little ‘Messi’s dad.
Apparently his little lad is still listening to the music and songs playing in his head and still dancing everywhere.
I reckon he’ll grow up wanting to be a musician ?
Aaaaahhhh… Truth to tell I’m glad to be back.
We bought hats to complete our wedding outfits from the main market and that did us,
although trying to explain why I will not wear anything with red piping on it seemed to flummox the guy until I spat on the ground and made the ‘evil eye’ sign and said Manchester United…
He got it then.
Rummaged for a couple of minutes and came out with a pack with light blue piping...
Now you’re talking.
So now it’s back to the hotel for a bit of relaxation by the pool before we're picked up by 'Tufa for a meal at Haddy's later in the evening before the big day tomorrow.
Guess what ?
Hey Pat... Look at the food in the pot.
That's sweet potato, that's cassava, that's cabbage, the snot coloured thing is bitter tomato and don't touch that red thing 'cos it's a chilli and it'll be hotter than the fires of hell...
So without taking a blind bit of notice of anything I said, Mr Know-it-all forks up the red one and happily sticks it in his mouth...
What a dickhead !
He'll learn... The hard way perhaps, but he'll learn...
Oh what fun.

The More We Walk Together Love, The Better We'll Agree (Cropredy 2009 Part Two)

2010-07-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

The Buzzcocks were playing before Steve Winwood on the Thursday night.
Haddy and I had leisurely unpacked everything and sorted out the tent's innards, stuck some food on and eaten it and then hit the festival with Annie, whose other half Shakey, had opted for the pub along with the vast majority of our lot.

The three of us finally get in to the site for the act before The Buzzcocks and head for our usual spot, which is already occupied so we re-site a little further back than normal but it’s no problem really.

The whole crowd are wondering about The Buzzcocks as this is the first time ever that anything remotely resembling a punk band excepting maybe 3 Daft Monkeys who are more punk folk and who were on last year, and who I’ve actually put on myself and supported, have ever played Cropredy, so everybody is looking forward to it…
Some with expectations of brilliance (They have been getting good reviews for their gigs recently) and some with total trepidation as punk is and was definitely not their scene, but I’m here to say that Messrs Diggle and Co blew a storming set which was definitely just what the doctor ordered.
I will freely admit that they were never my favourite band back then, but bloody hell ! Did they go for it or what ?
Haddy’s out of her chair and bouncing up and down with the rest of the fifteen thousand odd bodies…
Definitely a bracing start to our festival and midway through the set we get ‘phone calls to say the majority of the rest of our gang are at the top of the crowd and in deference to James who is only five, will stay there and meet us back at the tents when the night is over.

The Buzzcocks finally hit their last number and they are off and gone to resounding applause from the crowd.
Definitely a left field booking success for the predominantly folkie bunch from Fairport.
I’m seriously impressed.
Annie quite liked them anyway, but it’s my first time seeing them live.
They came, they played and they conquered and they definitely made a few friends that night.
Good on ‘em.
Now it’s time for Steve Winwood…
Now this is no secret but I’m actually old enough to remember him from the days of The Spencer Davis Group, let alone Traffic, Blind Faith and the solo years.
He’s always been someone that as a musician I’ve admired, but more from a distance.
I own a couple of Spencer Davis albums, about six Traffic albums, Blind Faith and a couple of solo’s and even an oddball outfit named ‘Go’ with Japanese percussion maestro Stomu Yamash’ta is in the old vinyl collection somewhere, and I have the distinct feeling that he’s going to do a form of Winwood’s hits from here, there and everywhere tonight ?
He’s finishing the night so there’s no point in doing all new stuff as most of the crowd would just walk as it’s getting distinctly chilly round about now.

Hey !
What can you say ?
He’s bloody majestic !
All the well known tracks are included, but not ‘Hole In My Shoe’ and thank the Lord for that.
Forty Thousand Headmen, Can’t Find My Way Home, Keep On Running and a great cover of the Blues Brothers Gimme Some Lovin’
(Only joking… I know it’s a Spencer Davis Track sung by Stevie… But everybody seems to know The Blues Brothers version… Is there anybody who hasn’t seen that film ?)
A couple of tracks from his solo years and a couple of new ones and as he hits his encore we decide to move to avoid the crush when he finishes…
Annie thinks he’s a bit jazzy, but it’s just that basic Hammond sound that he gets from his organ and so it’s me and Haddy for Winwood, and Annie for the Buzzcocks as far as favourites from Thursday night are concerned.
We’re on field seven at the back of the stage and it’s a bit of a trek over the canal and round the bend to the field, but we’re all buzzing from the Buzzcocks and Steve Winwood so it’s not a problem.
Get back, have a snack and a warm drink and get your head down for the following day…
Hmmm… The look on Haddy’s face as she crawls into the tent for her first night under canvas is a right picture…

It’s cold and it’s damp (well it would be, we’re in the middle of a field in Oxfordshire) and we’re both awake and she’s freezing and it’s three o’clock in the morning…
Snuggle up closer, change positions, get up and make a cup of tea, leg it to the loo’s and back, snuggle down again…
I’m going to get her a ‘hoodie’ of some description tomorrow, as warm ears and head usually equals warmer body.
It worked for me a couple of years ago when I forgot my leather jacket.
When I wake it’s morning and past eight o’clock which is unusual for me as I usually wake there at about six when the church bells chime, but at least I feel I’ve had a rest so I crawl out and attempt to start breakfast…
Cook tomatoes, veggie bacon rashers and fried egg on two doorsteps with steaming cup of tea…
That’ll set us up.
Miss Grumpy sticks her head out of the tent…

The smell of fried food has got to her and she’s definitely happier with that in her stomach, and the sky is looking good, too…
It could be warming up ?
I bloody hope so.
It was quite damp and chilly last night.
First things first after breakfast…
Hit the queue (and I mean queue) for the showers…
She’s nicked my t-shirt that my brother sent me from the U.S.A. but I don’t mind because she looks better in it than I do.

The only two acts I’m really interested in today are John Jorgenson who used to be in The Hellecasters with Jerry Donahue and obviously Richard Thompson who’s topping the bill and ending the night, so as soon as we can, we dump our stuff on site in our usual spot and leave Annie to guard them as she’s happy doing her knitting (Totally Rock’n’Roll is our Annie) and listening to all the folkie acts.
Seeing as it’s Haddy’s first time here, we are going walkabout around the village so that she can get some photographs of the places that she’s seen on some of the cd sleeves.
We’ll be back for John Jorgenson though… I definitely want to catch him.

We had a lovely walk round without any pressure or rush, taking pictures left, right and centre.
The weather held quite well, and it seems to be getting warmer by the hour so that’s a bonus.
We bought the hoodie so now she should be ok for tonight, and a couple more bits and bobs besides, and then it was time to make our way back for another pit stop before we hit the site for Jorgenson.
It’s definitely getting warmer.
Because he’s predominantly instrumental I think I was the only one out of our bunch who appreciated J.J. ?

He was a bit ‘jazzy’ for everybody else, but then as Haddy pointed out, he is definitely a master of his instrument.
Sod it ! Lets go shopping on site.
I want that Richard Thompson box set and let’s see what other music there is going cheap ?
A couple of Tim Buckley’s, a Beach Boys and a Box set ain’t a bad add to the collection, and Haddy hit the t-shirt tent for a Fairport Cropredy 2009 top and a child’s size Cropredy 2009 sleeveless for Mariama back in The Gambia…
Yep… We are definitely doing ok.
Now I’m going to enjoy a Guinness… Or maybe two or three ?
I rarely drink these days because I always need the car, so being safe on site is a definite bonus and I can have a couple of beers.
Haddy doesn’t drink anything stronger than brandy ??????
In fact apart from the occasional brandy, I’ve never known her to drink alcohol, although she did taste a drop of my Bushmills when I took a bottle to The Gambia and pronounced it ‘alright’, so she’s on the tonic water which she enjoys anyway and although I couldn’t find it last night, I know I’ve a flask full of tequila somewhere in the boot of the car just in case it gets chilly tonight ?
I’ll find it when I nip back to make up some rolls for later.

Right. Flask found and rolls made and back to the site to stuff them and then wait for Mr Thompson.
We’re all looking forward to his set and he certainly doesn’t disappoint.

He’s playing acoustic and solo and his very dry humoured introductions and songs completely captivate Haddy who pronounces him the best thing she’s ever heard…
That’s a bonus.

Then he brings on his daughter Kami, and they duet for a while before he storms the final few numbers.
If Stevie Winwood was majestic what’s the adjective to describe Richard Thompson ?
Absolutely fucking brilliant might come close but it’s not close enough ?
Knockout !
Maybe ?
The best I’ve seen him in years and how can anything top that ?
Right… Let’s get back to the tent and warm up with those bowls of chilli that I’d prepared earlier before settling down for the night…

It’s Saturday… Fairport day… and it didn’t rain in Richard’s set as it traditionally does…
Hmmm…
Showers or boot fair ?
Showers win out so it’s back to queueing I’m afraid, but we’re closer to the front this time…

Hit the site as soon as they open it at half past ten and get comfortable…
It’s Richard Digance time and now we’ve got a whole bunch of nutters doing the Digance Bog-Roll Morris…

You have to see it to believe it !
Haddy is in absolute hysterics at this point.

Well… She’s never been to an English Folk Music Festival before, so what do you expect ?

We’re all wondering what Nik Kershaw is going to be like as he’s on soon but the next highlight is definitely Dreadzone.
Reggae and rap and a bit political and definitely danceable to the max…
Nice one guys, and perfect for the middle of the afternoon.
Nik Kershaw is a surprise… Albeit a pleasant one.

I wasn’t looking forward to him but a couple of our younger members were, and he’s got a nice line in self-deprecating humour.
I actually enjoyed him, so that was a bonus.

Fairport Convention hit the stage at nine and they’re going to play us out to the end and they hit the stage running.
This isn’t a band that’s feeling tired, this is a band that’s still got something relevant to say.

Haddy’s finally seeing a band that has given her and her family out in The Gambia a lot of pleasure musically, and they don’t disappoint her (or anyone else for that matter) but at round about ten after they’ve been on an hour, they wind down their set and make an introduction…
Now I did say at the beginning of this piece that I’m writing, that there was a special guest and we, and by that I mean pretty much the whole crowd, are on tenterhooks, because we just don’t know what is going to happen ?
The guy is virtually coming out of a self-imposed musical exile that he sent himself into and while it is fair to say that pretty much everybody here is on his side, world events have a nasty habit of informing opinion and world events have definitely interfered with this guy’s life, but they introduce him anyway…
Ladies and gentlemen please give a warm Cropredy welcome to Mr Yusuf Islam…
And the first thing he gets is a five minute standing ovation.
The former Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam is playing his first festival date in thirty odd, years.
They’ve got Pat Donaldson back too, so the usual suspects are all on stage from the time of his classic hits.
Everybody is screaming for the hits but he has no intention of playing them as that part of his life is over. Two new numbers, one from his first Islamic release and one from his new one and two oldie album tracks.
He ended with Peace Train.

It was a perfect mini-set and the crowd rises as one to cheer him…
Amazing !
You just had to be there, I guess ?
Haddy, although not a Muslim herself but coming from a Muslim country is virtually moved to tears, but I have to say the majority of the crowd, even this old cynic, felt it too…
Amazing !
And then we’re back with Fairport who storm into the next portion of the set finally hitting Matty Groves and then encoring with Meet On The Ledge and Haddy is singing along with all the rest, but then she knows these songs…
Now she’s seen them performed and she wants more.

Fairport have a habit of doing that.
It’s disarming, but you always want to come back.
We’ve bounced and danced our socks off…
We’re all going to sleep well tonight, before the journey home tomorrow.
In Haddy’s opinion Richard Thompson is a musician who obviously sits at God’s right hand…
You can tell she was reasonably impressed, can’t you ?
And Fairport ?
Well, they were Fairport and she wants to come back next year to see them again.
As for Mr Islam ?
Well she’s got something to tell ‘Lamin the Drum’ when she finally returns, as Lamin is the Cat Stevens fan back in Fagikunda, and the fact that she’s seen him perform and the obvious love from the crowd toward a Muslim performer is something that Lamin is going to relish.
He’s always said that musicians are different to ordinary people and a different set of rules apply, so that this Muslim vs Christian (Or America) war that seems to have erupted around the world would never have occurred if people learned that music is more important and can inform politics and not the other way round.
I like Lamin, he’s a cool dude… smart too (and an absolutely amazing drummer).

When we return home we’ve got things to do…
The house needs new carpets throughout, and a lot of stuff needs throwing out that has accumulated over the years because things are going to change in November…
Unfortunately while we are waiting for the carpets to be delivered, Haddy trips while going upstairs and manages to twist her ankle and scald her leg at the same time…
Her break is going to have to be cut short, but it can’t be helped…
I’ll be seeing her again in November when we’re finally tying the knot and getting married…

Walk Awhile, Walk Awhile, Walk Awhile With Me... (Cropredy 2009 Part One)

2010-07-12T15:25:00.000-07:00

Photo's from the top:-

Outside Jo's studio.
Haddy and Jo.
Jim, Vicki and Haddy
outside the Hare and
Hounds at Wardington.
Me and Madame at same.
From the left-Annie,
Mickey Windows, Jim,
Vicki in distance in
white hat, Liz and Haddy.
Haddy queueing for armbands
with James in stripey shirt
(the others had all nipped
off to the loo...)

She made it !
Finally… After having to pay our government twice because the bastards refused point blank to actually carry out any checks on me which they could and should quite easily have done to see if I was the person I think I am, or even say I am ?
Or am I somebody else ?
I dunno… But I’ve had to pay twice to get her the visa to get here so referring to that bunch of corrupt and grasping slimeballs without swearing or calling them names is probably going to be impossible ?
She’s managed to miss Rhythms of the World (which is all over on the myspace site or will be when I finish it) because of it, but Cropredy falls just right and she’s here with two weeks to spare and I’m literally over the moon…
This is going to be one really happy time for the pair of us, and to be honest it couldn’t come soon enough.

The last time we’d seen each other there were tears at the airport in Banjul when I left The Gambia, and now we’ve got tears at Gatwick when she’d finally got through immigration control and now we’ve got just under a two hour drive but it’s after midnight as J.J.Cale once wrote, and so we might just let it all hang out and make it home through the cones in maybe an hour and a bit ?
Not that I’m admitting to breaking the speed limit but if those bloody variable speed signs are still working at this time of night then somebody at Thames Valley Plod needs their bloody head examining.
I reckon they just leave them on because they can’t be arsed to turn them off ?

Acclimatising… That’s what we call it.
Getting used to being in a different place and hopefully having the time to just settle in slowly without any pressure.
It’s great !
A meet the parents trip and a couple of do’s at weekends including a trip to my friend Jo’s art studio just to get into the swing of things and a couple of weeks later we’re off together to Haddy’s first ever British folk festival date.
See… The thing is, I’ve been going for years and have rung her near the end of the festival for three years running, and she, being the music lover that she is, has even imported a few Fairport Convention albums into The Gambia where her youngest daughter has taken on their version of Brilliancy Medley/Cherokee Shuffle and actually folk danced it from start to finish.
Ok, it’s more like an African version of Riverdance(ing) but when Mariama and her friend Ida get into it with a couple of their young friends it is fast, furious and frenetic with no holds barred and no quarter given.
You either keep up until the end, or drop exhausted under foot ?
Those are the only two options.

And so here we are, ready to go…
It’s eight o’clock on Thursday morning and the M25 and A41 are beckoning.
It’s going to be her first ever time sleeping in a tent, too…
That’s going to be interesting.
But everything has been checked over and packed and hopefully we’ve left nothing to chance.
She has always wondered why I go to these things ?
Working at them and performing at them she understands, but actually going as a punter is something else again.
These sorts of thing don’t tend to occur in The Gambia but to be honest, they have the talent so there is really no reason why they couldn’t ?
The plan is we all, and there are a few of us, meet up at The Hare and Hounds at Wardington which is the next village to Cropredy at 10.30, but that’s never going to happen as the traffic is going to get worse the closer we get, and if the A361 is jammed as usual then we’ve got no chance.
We text Annie and Shakey as soon as we get on the M40 but they’re about to come off it so we’re about 20 miles behind them and we’re ok for time, until they send a text back to say the 361 is jammed…
No change there, then.
So we’re stuck on the A361 for about three quarters of an hour but finally we’re through and there’s the pub…
And there’s Jim and Vicki, and Annie and Shakey, and Liz, James and Mickey Windows… and then there’s us...
Only another dozen or so to go, then ?
At just past midday we’ve all arrived and have been suitably watered and our cars are now numbered to try and keep us together through the festival traffic.
It’s a good idea which we’ve used for years, and sometimes the Banbury police actually let us stay in convoy rather than splitting us in the middle.
I’m not criticising them, they try their best, which is in complete contrast to most forces throughout the country who seem not to care one iota, but it’s nice to know that they do try.
Maybe it’s because most of them seem to enjoy the weekend as much as most of the punters, and I’m not even going to mention the overtime ?
Who knows ?
They are probably the most helpful police I have ever come across at any festival anywhere, and that is worth a fair bit, believe me.
Another two and a half hours and we’re on site and the tents are up…
Yay !
We’re only four rows of cars from the toilets and showers…
That is a serious bonus.
Karen isn’t here this year as she’s been feeling ill recently and didn’t want to chance it, but Rob’ is, and so the lagers and hot dogs are doing the rounds as soon as is convenient and the general plan is…
Alcohol…
More alcohol…
And probably even more alcohol…
And there’s always the festival ?
Looks like it’s the Cricket Club after we’ve all got our armbands, and then we’ll start pairing off between alcohol and festival.
Buzzcocks, Steve Winwood, John Jorgenson, Richard Thompson, Fairport, and a very special guest who shall remain nameless for the moment, here we come…
The weekend starts here…
And the queueing starts now.

The Girl With The English Hair

2010-07-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

Ida with the drum and Mariama with the shakers having a workout
after school in the compound.

You never know how things are going to be received or perceived when you do stuff on stage ?
After all, My most requested item dates back to 1994 and is a totally irresponsible
take on MacDonalds and drugs straight from the newspaper headlines.
So you can imagine my surprise when I started doing this thing about Mariama and her drum and finding out I'd got a 'hit' poem ?
Pleased ? Definitely.
Gobsmacked ? Totally.

So if you're in the vicinity and I'm doing a gig, you might get to hear this one done live ?

The Girl With The English Hair

Her homework is done so it’s now time to play
Another drum and percussion workout today
But the magazine’s picture just won’t go away
She undoes her braids as if she hadn’t a care
And says ‘Look… It’s turned into English hair…’

Punks with Mohican’s… A book illustration
A nineteen seventies fashion hardly a new innovation
Here in the village it’s somewhat of a sensation
A nine year old child causing people to stare
And say ‘Look… It’s the girl with the English hair’

She dares to be different she follows her star
A nine year old girl with no problems so far
But the problems are coming and they’ll put up the bar
Her society is structured some would call it unfair
It means nothing to the girl with the English hair

“I’ll be a musician… I know I’m a girl
The best drummer in Africa or maybe the World ?”
The odds are against her and life can be cruel
But one thing I know and I have to be fair
Don’t bet against the girl with the English hair

Chris Ripple. April 20th 2009.

The Fourth Gambian Experience Part Two (It's Stranger Than Known...)

2010-07-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

Apparently there are two nursing mothers now ?
Apart from Ida with Omar, Pussy has had another four kittens that live on a cushion in the kitchen area with the result that she is always underfoot because she is always hungry unless she’s nursing them.
Mariama has already started causing problems with the drum she received for her birthday and has had it taken from her because otherwise nothing will ever get done at home including the washing up and her homework.
It now resides in Haddy’s bedroom and Mariama can only play it after her homework has been completed.
Apart from that she’s doing ok with it, but she really has to learn that she must do her homework first and that seven o’clock in the morning is certainly not the time to start playing it.
She’ll learn, I’m sure.
I’ve also given her a couple of books on drums and music.
The music one has pictures of musicians in, and mid 1970’s punks with Mohican styled hairdo’s are the thing that catches her eye.
‘What’s that ?’ she’d asked me, referring to the haircut, and so I’d told her…
The following day she’d undone all her braids much to her sisters disgust, as one of them has to put them in again and it takes hours, and given herself a Mohican which certainly got her noticed outside the compound.
The problem is, she’s revelling in it and now she’s become ‘the girl with the English hair…’
I can definitely foresee problems ahead.

It’s now Friday morning…
Haddy is seeing relatives off back to Senegal which involves an early morning trip to Banjul to catch the ferry over the water to Barra and then over the border, which means I’m having a late breakfast with the girls, who won’t be going to school this Friday because of examinations, so it’s beans in baguette for breakfast from the roadside market down the road as opposed to making anything myself and so when I’ve eaten and had that most important second cup of tea, I’ve just picked up the notebooks and gone outside to lean against the wall and write, leaving the twins and Sainabou in the compound…
They are already busy sorting out dinner for later.
I’m told it’s ‘Tou’, but I’m none the wiser as that’s a totally new one on me ?
Mariama’s year is not involved in school examinations and so, much to her annoyance, she’s had to go to school.

I’ve been there about five minutes and not really had anything specific to write, just confining it to ramblings and doodles when there is an almighty great clanging sound from the street to my right and shouts and screams and cries and yells, none of which I understand…
I understand what happened though.
Turns out one of the little ones from two compounds away had decided to cross the road without looking properly and had been sideswiped by a taxi.
I hope she’s ok as she’s a happy and friendly little soul, but she’s been picked up in another taxi and is off to hospital immediately with her Mum so there’s no hanging about waiting for an ambulance.
All anybody else can do now is wait for news.

To use a figure of speech, this is a ‘Cool place to sit’, here on the roadside, even though it’s bloody hot and if I even move a muscle I’m going to be in direct sunlight and get burnt to a crisp, but where I currently am is in the only bit of shade that side of the road possesses and I’m totally sunscreened up, which is the best I can do topside and my jeans are covering my legs…
The problem is feet.
If you spray them with sunscreen then it gets all over the inside of your sandal/slipper or whatever footwear you are using, and as soon as you walk a pace then you wipe off the top layer anyway but I’ll keep spraying every time I move…
It just seems safer that way ?
Getting burnt is painful anyway but burnt feet hurt like hell, so I’m being seriously careful.
The beauty of sitting here is the fact that anyone who wants to come up and greet me can do so without disturbing what is going on in the compound.
The two little’uns from over the road are coming over every five minutes to shake my hand and wish me good morning, so I’m quite aware that a bit of peace and quiet to write in is more than likely beyond me ?
I’ve tried, but it’s been sporadic.
The thing is, time when you are not really doing anything, seems to shoot past and it seems it’s only minutes later when the infants start coming home from school.
Some singly, but most in groups of twos, threes or fours ?
Some hold hands and some hold waists but they are a happy bunch and the vast majority of lads stop on their way past to shake hands or high five it with the toubab who is trying his best to write, while all the girls stop and shake hands and curtsey with their ‘Hi, how are you’s ?’ and the reply ‘I’m good, how are you’ ?
‘Fine’, and it is done.
These kids are so polite.
It’s like going back into another age.
It certainly doesn’t happen in the UK.
It couldn’t anyway…
You only have to speak to a child over there and some interfering social worker will have you charged with any amount of bullshit...
And as for taking a child’s picture ?
You could go to prison for that…
Even if it’s your own ?
The lunatics have definitely taken over the asylum.

Mariama and Ida have just appeared, so that means the juniors are now out and it’s past two o’clock.
One little girl has just enquired if I’m having to do homework for school too, because she always sees me writing ?
I guess it must look like that to some of the youngsters, especially as notebooks and pens and pencils are at a premium over here ?
It’s late afternoon when Haddy returns.
I’ve had a lazy day doing pretty much nothing and it looks like I might have a few more of those coming up ?
The little lass from down the road is back home with a couple of plasters and she’s ok…
A little bit battered and bruised, but no real harm done, which is certainly a relief.
Mariama has just discovered after doing her homework that Fatou has taken her drum out to the beach bar and so she can’t play it.
This has definitely not gone down too well, and words have been exchanged over the ‘phone including Mariama calling her eldest sister a thief…
As soon as Fatou returns Mariama goes for her, but it’s like an elephant swatting a gnat and she gets slapped from pillar to post all the while screaming that her sister is a thief, but she won’t back off or back down, she just stands there while Fatou batters her.
Finally, Haddy stops it and takes the drum.
A tearful Mariama is told never to call her sister a thief and an angry Fatou is told that she has to ask Mariama’s permission before she touches the drum in future, and she is certainly not allowed to take it to the beach any more without permission.
Neither of them seem overly happy with the decision but Haddy is in no mood for arguing, and so the decision is final and a form of peace breaks out.
I’m not sure it will last ?
I think the outcome is right, though…
It is Mariama’s drum and not the family’s drum.
I think Fatou should have asked.

The following day there is a women’s meeting in the compound.
It’s all to do with women’s general health and because Haddy is diabetic, she feels a responsibility of trying to keep her friends and neighbours completely checked out for all manner of ailments.
This involves a small monetary collection every week to enable them all to be checked over for all manner of things at the local clinic and as far as I can see, is a damn fine idea.
Tomorrow we’re back visiting bereaved relatives…
I’m not actually sure how much more visiting bereaved relatives I can take ?
Nothing seems to get resolved and we just sit there, although there is something going on which Haddy is getting annoyed about.
The problem is, she says there isn’t.
Trouble is… I know her better than that.
There is, but she doesn’t want to tell me or else she’s worried about telling me…
It’s one or the other ?
She has to go back again in the evening for a supposedly three hour visit which I’ve managed to beg off, but finally gets back in the early hours…
Exhausted.
So I put my foot down…
No more visits, they’ll have to do without her or she’s going to be off sick with stress and all manner of complications…
Tomorrow she’s not going, and that’s bloody that !
They can do without her for a day or two, and if they can’t then they’d best think of what happens if she’s taken ill because they couldn’t have her then ?

It’s taken a week but I’ve finally got her to myself for a day, so hopefully I’ll find out what’s going on, but the best laid plans of mice and men and all that…
It just doesn’t work as expected and we get caught up in the bank for an hour and three quarters trying to change some travellers cheques.
Sod’s law says that the day I finally get her to myself is the only day during the week when I’m fifth in the queue to change them at an average time of fifteen minutes per person and to make matters worse we’re seen by a trainee who forgets to deduct the bank’s commission and so more frantic telephone calls between the bank and me to get me back there so they can rectify their mistake, and this is after we’ve ‘escaped’ to Ocean Bay out at Cape Point for a relaxing day by the pool…
OH… BOLLOCKS !
It’s never ending…
If it’s not her being rung by relatives every five minutes then it’s me being rung by the bank…
Whatever happened to chilling out ?
Whatever happened to a holiday ?
A seriously pissed off me returns from the bank (again) and forgets to spray on any sunscreen…
See ?
That is what stress can do to you…
Sunburn fucking hurts.
Stupid stupid stupid…
We see Awa, Haddy’s daughter, and Mr Kamara the manager, who tells me that I’m looking a lot better, healthier and much more relaxed than I was in November…
I dunno about that, but it is nice to know ?
I don’t feel it though.
I feel decidedly rough.
This time I decide to change what I usually eat and go for the grilled Ladyfish with a mild salsa served with courgettes and green beans which is absolutely delicious…
Certainly up there with the prawns in citrus salsa which I usually eat when I’m at Ocean Bay.
That was the last thing I was actually going to be tasting for a little while.
When we got back to the compound I was feeling decidedly ill so I went to bed with Aftersun all over my back and soon began feeling worse with a sore throat and the usual runny nose…
This is not funny.
Summer colds are usually an absolute pain but summer colds when you have nothing much of your own to occupy yourself between nose blows are even worse…
The following day we’re due at Banjul to see Uncle Pa and some of the Afro Manding’ guys in the craft market and ‘Tufa has to try and sort out his driving licence so I try and make an effort…
Pilled up to the rafters with cold remedies and lemony Beechams sachets with extra vitamin C.
If it works then all well and good ?

Another day gone pear shaped…
The guy ‘Tufa has to see about his licence is out, as is Pa, and so we just hit the market where I order a Tama…
Ok… A Dun Dun then…
No ?
You’re going to have to get up to date with these things if you’re going to read this stuff, you know ?
A Talking Drum.
That’s the one where you hang it off your arm, beating it with the fingers of the arm it’s hanging off and a beater held in the other hand.
It’s where Tama (who make drum kits) got their name from, and it will be delivered to the compound tomorrow.
But I don’t know whether to give it to Mariama or to keep it for myself ?

Next day we’re back at Leybato with Fatou…
I’ve managed to piece together what is going on and I’m not a happy bunny, so Haddy and I are deep in conversation until a couple of lads from the next bar challenge us to a game of football.
That will have to wait as The Gambian under 17’s football squad is playing Algeria at lunchtime in the play offs for the semi-final of the Under 17’s African Nations Cup and from what I’ve seen of them so far, the ‘Young Scorpions’ have a reasonable chance of winning it.
These lads actually play as a team and have a fair bit of skill, so supporting them in their endeavour is actually a pleasure.
Getting any food out of the kitchen while the match is on though, is an impossibility…
Some things are much more important.
But finally The Young Scorpions beat Algeria 2-0 so they’re now through to the semi-finals and we can finally eat…
Football on the sand is something that you see other idiots doing, and which you immediately think ‘I can do better than that…’
Forget it !
It is one of the most strenuous tasks I’ve ever attempted… And I was trying to be the goalkeeper…
One. The sand slows you down all the time, and
Two. The sand is actually red hot and so burns your feet if you’re not used to it, and
Three. After five minutes you are totally knackered and tackling anybody for the ball
is more like an attempt on their lives rather than anything remotely related to sportsmanship or a game…
We all ended up screaming hysterically with laughter and I ended up buying both teams drinks…
Which I didn’t mind because it had been a bit of a laugh.
We got stopped by the ‘Immigration Patrol’ on the way back.
That was a first…
For me anyway.
Apparently there are a few people coming into the country who are not wanted…
It’s amazing really isn’t it ?
All that way to one of the poorest countries in Africa and they are suffering the same problems as the U.K…
Illegal immigrants and drugs.
Funny old world, isn’t it ?

I’d also finally unlocked the Haddy problem.
All the relatives had made their decision (without involving Haddy) that she was going to be the one to look after her Mum’s bereaved sister.
This has gone down like the proverbial bucket of cold sick at a birthday party and now she’s gone off on one…
Big time.
Absolutely not !
That was her answer.
People seem to forget when it’s convenient that she has already had to farm out her son to his stepmother’s family, the twins need money for university and courses as their schooling is now over, but Mariama’s still has to be paid for.
The shops she’s having built are only half finished as her money ran out, and there’s not enough room to swing a mouse in the compound, let alone poor old Pussy and they reckon they are foisting another one on Haddy ?
Where’s the money coming from to support that ?
No chance !
She’s having none of it.
The woman has a son in the U.S.A. and nobody has spoken to him yet, but Haddy is emphatic…
Regardless of what anybody else says, it’s not going to happen and as far as she’s concerned, that is that.
Needless to say, that decision has not gone down too well with the rest of the family who have just expected their youngest member (as opposed to the eldest) to put up and shut up…
Now it’s all out in the open I can understand her reticence, but she’s off again to another family meeting and she’s booked a taxi for the return journey in advance.
She will definitely not be staying to argue the point.

I’m finally getting to cook a meal this time out and have chosen to do an easy one…
I’m doing a Spaghetti Bolognese for about a dozen people.
Now the thing is…
Men don’t cook in The Gambia.
Cooking is a function that is done by women and so my attempts to co-opt the family in my attempt to make it are causing some incredulousness in the local male population and some laughter in the female…
Buggered if I care ?
I’ve got the bits, three platefuls of minced cow meat from the supermarket, enough tins of tomatoes to support an ordinary family for a week, tomato puree, basil, oregano, olive oil, onions and garlic…
Oh yes… I’ve got what I need…
The only thing now remaining is a crash course on how to cook it on a charcoal burner ?
I’ll let Haddy, and Sainabou, who is watching me like a hawk, do the onions and garlic chopping as they have a natural ability with the stuff that I can only dream of, and as for cooking the spaghetti over charcoal ?
That becomes their province as well, as Sainabou promises me it won’t stick to the pan while we await the thickening of the Bolognese sauce…
That girl certainly knows her onions… and a fair bit more besides when it comes to cookery.
Spaghetti is hard enough to cook right when you know your cooker, but when you don’t it is always quite hard to avoid a soggy mass…
It came out perfectly.
And the Bolognese didn’t turn out too badly, either.
Ho hum… What was that about male cooks ?
Family, neighbours who’d smelt it cooking, they all turned up and stuffed themselves to the gills…
I was gobsmacked, but the word had got around that I was ‘attempting to cook’ and so there was a lot of good natured ribbing about men’s abilities on that score…
Final result: Chris one and doubter’s nil and that’ll do nicely for me.
We even had to muscle in and get a small plate for Pussy who’d been looking forward to it as eagerly as any other gannet in the family or she’d have missed out totally.
There wasn’t even enough left for her to lick out the bowl before it got washed…
Now that must be regarded as a success ?
The electrics and the water have both gone off so there’s no television, it’s down to a battery operated computer to keep the sounds going.

First thing in the morning we’re off to Banjul to see if we can find some suitable material for a handmade shirt for me.
I’m looking for black which seems to be in short supply for what I want it for, but we do find a great black, white and faun piece which I’m quite pleased with, so we go for that.
Unfortunately we also get news that one of Pa’s sons has been killed in a car crash the previous evening and another is in intensive care…
This is now getting serious so we return to the compound feeling quite crushed and when we get there, I find my camera which I wear on my hip, has also been crushed whilst we were on the bus and is now broken…
One of the twins is going to take the Friday afternoon health meeting as I’m just staying at Haddy’s side and there is no way I’m leaving it.
That night we’re back with the family but Haddy’s Mum’s sister has heard from her son in the U.S.A. and he’s told her she’s not going anywhere, she’s staying where she is and he’ll send her money monthly, so there’s no pressure on Haddy anymore…
Just an innate sadness right now.

The following day is The President’s clean up day so we’re hanging around the compound, not that any of us want to do anything…
We all seem to be suffering right now, but tomorrow we’re going back to Leybato with Fatou.
Maybe a day on the beach will bring a few smiles, who knows ?
That evening we take the material for the shirt to the tailors, who promise me the finished article in 24 hours.
Blimey ! That quick.
Well, we tried… The family hit the beach and the kids hit the sea and we had a happy but muted day.
When we returned I had a brand new shirt waiting for me.
Brilliant !
I love it.
I’m definitely going to have to get hand made shirts in the future.
So much had happened in the two weeks I’d been there, and I’d certainly seen a different part of The Gambia.
Mariama is going to look after my Tama for me while I’m not there, and has my permission to play it or give it to one of her friends to play, but it is not to be taken out of the compound without my express permission.
I’m going to miss them all when I return…
Haddy is supposed to be coming to stay with me this summer.
Hopefully it will be a little happier than this trip to The Gambia ?

The Fourth Gambian Experience Part One. (Eight Miles High... And When You Touchdown...)

2009-05-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

Photo's from the top:-

Haddy.

Omar and Mum Ida.

Pussy's new family (again).

Pussy.

2x Omar

So…
It’s the middle of February and I’m literally freezing my tits off at work because it’s so cold and I’ve got no protection against it apart from yet another layer of clothing which is beginning to cause me grief as moving is becoming difficult.
Everything I can buy thermal wise, I’ve got.
Socks, underwear, shirts, plus thick sweaters and when I say I’ve got everything, I mean everything.
But… According to my erstwhile and so called manager I have to wear the Council’s sodding green uniform jacket over the top of everything topside and it won’t fit over a fleece lined leather jacket which is definitely the warmest thing I possess and which he, in his undoubted wisdom, has decreed I cannot wear over the green jacket.
Of course if it fitted me the other way round I would have done it but it doesn’t and because my job involves walking and not driving about on a quadbike or somesuch vehicle, I apparently, do not qualify for any of the Council’s cold weather clothing.
It is apparently ok for me to keel over with hypothermia which I’ve managed to do twice previously and which he knows about, but actually taking serious notice of what is a life or death problem for me would seem to be beyond him.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they actually implemented their own Council’s rules and regulations regarding staff health as supplied to all members of staff in the handbook we are all given when we join as opposed to just paying lip service to it, but that is only done when it is convenient for them…
Fuck everyone else !
You know what their reason was for not allowing me the clothing ?
If they give it to me then everyone might want some ?
Yep !
That was it… The official reason.
I’ve had fifty two years of getting used to what I could do, and three years since the heart attack to get used to what I now can’t do, and despite me telling them about it (as I am supposed to do according to their own staff handbook) when anything affects my health, their idea of my health and safety is to ignore it totally because it is not convenient for them…
Health and safety ?
Yeah, right !
And that’s not even including the fact that they’ve decided that I’ve got to start work a half hour before anyone else because somebody else made a mistake and when I complained about it as the job I’d already done had to be repeated for a second day running, the whole thing got dumped on me because a colleague had recently been promoted and decided NOT to back me up.
Colleague…
I use the word loosely.
Telling the truth wouldn’t have hurt him and it might even have done the bloody department some good, but it’s so much easier to dump on someone else… Isn’t it ?
Now the pills I have to take to survive are kicking back.
One is fighting another in the early hours and is causing me serious aggravation.
You can fool them for maybe a couple of days if you can shovel food in at the right times but the constancy of having to do it on a weekly basis is making me ill with cramps and knots that seem to twist your stomach into agonies that those uncaring bastards couldn’t even dream about.
Oh well… What goes around comes around, as they say…
But I do have eleven days holiday to come which has to be taken before the end of March, and so with that in mind I wandered into the local travel agents thinking maybe I can afford another week away with Haddy in The Gambia ?

Maria, the blonde girl behind the counter, immediately looks up while she’s serving another customer, excuses herself, and asks me if I’ve come in about The Gambia again and when I say yes, asks me to ‘Hang on until she’s finished with her customer because she thinks she’s got some very good news for me…?’
Sounds ok to me so I’ll hang on…
It was definitely worth the fifteen minute wait.
As soon as she’s finished packing them off to Mexico or the Dominican Republic or wherever it was they ended up going to she’s on the ‘phone to check prices, asks if it’s the usual flight only ? and then tells me that she can get me over there for three hundred and twenty four quid for fourteen days…
HOW MUCH ?
It was six hundred and something for seven days in November when we went out to do the gigs.
We check the calendar…
What with weekends and all, if I fly out on the seventeenth of March I can fit the fourteen day break into my eleven days.
Great !
Step outside to ring Haddy who immediately says yes.
Now all I have to do is book the time off at work.
The following day they let me take an early lunch break and I shoot off down the town to book it. Done.
I’m going.

When Joy and I flew out back in November she had been in touch with a guy named Mark who runs a charity organisation named Roots Nursery thinking that it might have something to do with the Roots Nursery School at Fajikunda ?
It doesn’t.
There are a lot of Roots Nursery charities apparently, most of whom are capitalising on the book by Alex Haley, and let’s face it, it did put The Gambia on the map, but the one Mark looks after is in Albreda and Juffreh where Alex Haley’s Kunta Kinte ancestor is reckoned to have come from, and I’d visited it with Haddy on my first trip out.
There are some photo’s attached further back in the blog in 2008 if you want to go back that far ?
So I rang Mark and found out that he was flying on the same day as me but his team of three were only going to be out there for seven days.
We can however, meet up at Gatwick before the flight which is the usual 7.50am-ish job.
It’s a horrible time to fly in one respect, as having to get to Gatwick for that time in the morning with the earlier check in times, means leaving home at about 2.30am if you want a clear run on the M.25 ?
If you leave it until later and the early morning work traffic has started then one accident on the M.25 could blow out your holiday so it’s a good idea to get there and hang about for the extra hour rather than rush it.
Oh well, at least there were no problems at Gatwick apart from me being two kilos over the baggage limit…
To be honest I’d cut down and cut down but I’d got all Mariama’s drumming cd’s, a couple of bits for Haddy and some clothes for the girls and Amadou and I couldn’t cut anymore so I paid the excess but I did manage to blag myself an aisle seat on the flight.
20 kilos is a very light allowance anyway and damn near every other airport has a 30 kilo baggage allowance, but not our wonderful Gatwick however.
They’re still stuck in the dark ages.
I’m stopped at the passport control stop and search as usual, and as usual they go through the electrics in the luggage…
Yes, it’s a laptop… That’s a minidisk recorder… They’re the extension speakers for the minidisk or the computer… That wire connects to this, that wire connects to that, I’ll fire the mutha’ up so you can listen if you like ?
No ? Ok, thank you…
I only had to take my boots off twice this time so that was a plus but finally I’m in departures and buying the usual duty free.
Some tobacco for Ebrima and Lamin and a bottle of brandy for Haddy and that’s it…
Find a strong black coffee to help keep me awake for the next crucial couple of hours until I’m on the plane, and text Mark to say that I’m here.
Thirty minutes later he rings and says they’re in MacDonalds, second table to the left and we meet and greet…
The more I do this stuff, the more I realise that there really are some selfless people in this world who will put themselves out to help others if they can, and Mark and his two companions all fit the bill.
They raise money in England to help a small community of people a couple of thousand miles away and they do it because they want to and they have the abilities to do so.
My mate Bernie http://www.morewriting.co.uk/user/306 who writes a pretty nifty set of words himself, and who has been an aid worker in Africa reckons that Africa’s problems can only be solved by the Africans.
I would agree with that but sometimes people only need a sort of leg-up to the next rung on the ladder and that is what Mark and his team are supplying.
The leg-up… and whichever set of Gods you believe in, thank him or them for those who get off their arses and actually do something worthwhile to help.
And all this from one holiday and a paid trip to the village on a package holiday ?
You’ve got to have some sort of admiration for somebody as selfless as that.
It’s just a shame that governments of countries don’t feel the same way about it.
Oh yeah, they’ll donate money in aid to poorer countries if they think they might get something out of it, but in general terms the real work is done by people like Mark who do actually make a difference by going into a community and finding out what they actually need as opposed to the money going into some scheme that might benefit somebody if you’re lucky but looks really good on paper.
The village of Albreda is on the river and is in a severe malarial zone and so apart from anything else, they are supplying one thousand mosquito nets for all the schoolchildren of the village.
Anybody who hasn’t visited anywhere where Malaria is a serious problem wouldn’t have a clue as to why that is so important but Malaria is a killer disease and it could be eradicated, but only if people start with the basics and the basics are literally a mosquito net costing about two and a half to three pounds, English.
Less than twenty cigarettes.
So I’m asking… Is it not worth that to save a child’s life or to save them from what can be a terribly debilitating disease ?
I know what my answer is, but you’ll all have to think about your own ?
Anyway, let’s cut the sermon because I’m sure you really don’t want to read it ?
We get our seats on the plane, I’m in the middle and they’re right at the back so that’s a good excuse for a walkabout for all four of us.
The batteries on the computer died before I had a chance to show them the photo’s and there was a really crap movie starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman titled ‘Australia’ which couldn’t decide if it wanted to be ‘Red River’ (Or ‘Lonesome Dove’ for those in their twenties and thirties) or ‘Pearl Harbour’ and all set in the land of Oz…
(That’s Oz as in Oz-tralia, mate).
Christ ! You could have made three good films for what they must have spent on
that one…
Or even sponsored a few of the starving kids around the world for a few
years ?
Face it, if they’d done that then the makers might have ended up with a better return on their investment ?
I got pulled over at Banjul for the first time and they went through the luggage.
I think they were looking for mobile phones if I got the gist of the woman being searched next to me ?
But I’m clean, I’ve got the two allowed only and that’s that.
Which meant I managed to miss saying goodbye to Mark and his crew, but I can text him later on when we get in…
Except there isn’t a we…
‘Tufa is there to greet me as usual, but there’s no Haddy.
‘Tufa tells me what’s going on while we’re driving back to the compound.
Apparently, Haddy’s elder sister’s husband had just died of cancer earlier that morning and so she was with the family and she will see me later on, but closer to tonight.
I was told about six pm but she finally turned up at eleven looking completely exhausted.
Had I been looked after ?
Of course…
I’d turned up at the gate and the guys had grabbed my case to take in and that was it, hugs from Mariama, the twins, Sainabou, Little Ida, Neighbour Ida, Ida’s Mum… The works.
Oh yes, I’d been looked after, fed, the lot.
Eldest daughter Fatou who I’d known in England had returned from her new beach bar at about eight…
What new beach bar ?
Things were definitely happening around the compound, and then finally Haddy had got back and started to explain to me the workings of a family vigil.
It’s not with the body but with the bereaved, and the whole extended family turn up and eat and drink them out of house and home.
That’s a brutally frank way of putting it because whatever money the family have left after a breadwinner (In this case) has died, is frittered away on food and drink leaving the poor bereaved soul worse off money wise than before, and then the extended immediate family decide who is to take in the bereaved or are they to stay in their own compound or house, whatever ?
After having it explained, I have to admit that it’s a system that doesn’t sit too well with me.
What a waste.
But here in The Gambia it is the tradition in both Muslim and Christian households, the only difference being that the Muslims end it in twenty five days and the Christians in forty.
Forty days ?
Believe it.
Haddy explains that she has other people staying as well for some of the family’s relatives were in Senegal and they’ve come over to be here at this sad time.
Hey… Slow down… Go To Bed… I was up all night last night, had a six hour flight and I’m not sure I can manage another all-nighter ?
Come on, love… I’m exhausted, you’re exhausted, try and get some sleep and I’ll see you in the morning…

Cozmic the cat's Obit.

2009-04-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

Cozmic Cat.
Born:- Spring-Summer 1993 – Died:- March 16th 2009. R. I. P.

Cozmic the Cat, or to give him his full given name, Really Cozmic, or just Coz’ to those who knew him, died today aged about fifteen and a half years in human terms.

Cozmic was about three to six months old on the morning of 30th October 1993 when he walked into my shop, looked around, walked up the stairs and ‘crashed’ under a record browser.
I, of course, was none too happy with this turn of events so I closed the shop, picked him up and took him down to the other end of the High Street where I left him…
Needless to say, he beat me back to the shop and was waiting outside the front door when I’d walked back, so I unlocked again and he immediately charged in, shot up the stairs and went to ground in the same place as he’d done previously.
I got him a saucer of water and left him to it, business being business after all and anyway, apart from the fact that we had an old listed building from the 1600’s, we’d already cleared the mice so he was going to be superfluous to requirements whether he liked it or not ?

The fourth or fifth person through the door that day was a guy who is really no stranger to those who read this blog or his own outpourings in his own wonderfully musical Kombat Blog http://nuzzprowlinwolf.blogspot.com/ and that was a certain Nuzz Prowling Wolf, who, when told of the aforesaid intruder, shot up the stairs to go and look for himself…
“Wow, man… A black cat the night before Hallowe’en ? That’s really cosmic !”
And a name was born and Cozmic he became and Cozmic he stayed.

Two days later and he still hadn’t moved, despite me leaving him there all night so I sent out for cat food and a litter tray and left him to it…
The problem being that Kocaine (the band I was in at the time... So named because we got up people's noses...) were gigging around Hertfordshire and we had quite a lot of gigs so there didn’t seem any point in taking him home.
On the third day at Emma’s (one of our two guitarists) insistence, I finally take home the cat…
I tried so hard to give him away to all and sundry but for various reasons it never happened, I even put up a notice in the local Vet’s but both families who turned up to look said he wasn’t theirs.
Well, to put it in a nutshell the longhaired black furball stayed.
He was an awkward little pest when I first got him, never wanting to go out, so we’d find lumps of fur that he’d regurgitated all over the house.

You’d think over fifteen years he would have managed to break the habit, but no… He kept hawking them up despite my blandishments and entreaties and telling him off every time I heard him start up… It seemed to be his favourite occupation for a while until once when loading the car with a p.a. I arrived at a gig I’d been booked to play to find I’d also brought a four legged hairy black furball with me.
Would you believe he loved it ?

Loud music was never a worry to him and when he’d sussed the audience was sitting on chairs he just cased them until he spotted an ample lap and without asking just jumped up upon it, settled himself down and watched me along with the rest…
Ok, the man or woman whose lap he jumped on was a usually a little surprised to find a few kilos of cat on it for the duration but usually a call of ‘Don’t mind him, he’s with me…’ or ‘Sorry darlin’… He’s my security…’ and no worries.
He was a strange cat in other ways also…
He’d perch himself in front of the television, usually sat upright where you’d want to step, for any nature, vet rescue, or Western film that involved horses…
No other animal fascinated him so much as horses.
Or else he’d drape himself over the Bass cabinet in the corner and wait for Sharon, my girlfriend of the time, who he absolutely adored.
You could never leave a full cooling cup of tea on the carpet or you’d hear slurping sounds within seconds of doing so.
He did like his cups of tea.
Chicken, whether leg or curry was immaterial to him.
Spaghetti Bolognese, tins of Tesco value tuna and prawns.
Any of the above in any configuration and he was in gastronomic heaven.
He’d greet guests at the front door and usually escort them through to the lounge before waiting for them to sit so that he could find a nice warm seat.

Over the years he was joined by Jodie and later on by Stella both of whom were left with me by ex-girlfriends although in Stella’s case it was at least by mutual agreement as Marina found she was totally allergic to cat fur, but finally the years caught up with him like they do all things and over the last year he managed to get cat diabetes, arthritis in both back legs and blind in one eye but he just carried on and despite the obvious discomfort of descending and climbing the stairs every time he wanted food or to use the litter tray, he still would not move downstairs to stay.
As far as he was concerned his bedroom was at the front of the house so he could peer out of the window and decide which visitors to come and greet and may God help any interloper who decided to sit on his chair…
If they didn’t have red stripes (no, not the lager) when they sat in it, then they more likely would have after he’d complained to them about it and that only took two miaow’s.. If they hadn’t moved after the second one then he must have figured that it was either him or them, and it was his chair so he wasn’t in any mood to back down.

It was recommended that he be put down last November when they discovered the diabetes and gave him a ‘couple of weeks at the most’ but as usual the stubborn little so and so defied all expectations and continued with his normal life style and there was no way I wasn’t going to give him a major pig-out at Christmas, so I held off…

On March 16th prior to flying out to see Haddy in The Gambia for two weeks, I made the decision.
He was definitely unwell and despite it all he would always mope when I took a break and so I made the final decision…
He went as soon as the liquid went in.
He’s now reunited with Jodie again, and I’m quite sure the Great Cat God is going to have his paws full when those two start arguing…

He wasn’t just a cat, he was my mate and I’m gonna miss him.

There's a true story that I turned into something I do onstage on
http://www.morewriting.co.uk/work/20374
and his last pictures (in the snow this year, are posted above)

Rock on, Puss Cat !

The Dick Tators at myspace

2009-02-07T17:07:00.000-08:00

Hey guess what ?
myspace have disabled my link to this blog ?????

It really does make you wonder when the same blog on my myspace page carried a link to a petition about Form 696 which all musicians and stage performers should be aware of...
Punch it into your search engine and look it up for yourselves...
It's a real bastard, that one.
and a link to no. 10 Downing Street.

Strange as it may seem, those two links were not touched...
Just MINE !

Hey !
Were in 2009 now not 1984... although our government are doing their best to take us to Orwell Land and so, it would seem, are myspace too.

I reckon they're just jealous of this site 'cos most of the writing is done on it...

Anyway, stick Form 696 into your search engine and prove to yourself something that some of us already knew... That the Police ARE a racist organisation and are now using 'type of music' liked, to stop gigs and to get your names, addresses and phone numbers on their 'shitstem'
(Bob Marley definitely had the right pronunciation and spelling for System, didn't he ?)
Oh yeah, and sign the petition on my (or anyone else's) myspace because it WILL affect all of us if it's not smashed and brought out into the open.

Well, I reckon it was reported by a copper and myspace did it automatically.
We'll find out soon enough when all the links are taken out of this one...

SMASH FORM 696...

and keep censorship off the web, too.