THE LOLA BOYS ABROAD !

The trails and tribulations of a dodgy duo!

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Paul is one half of ‘The Lola Boys’ – an international an almost acclaimed cabaret. Paul writes about ‘The Lola Boys’ experiences whilst working and travelling around the globe – joined by his partner, Andrew, both front of house and way backstage! Sometimes voyaging first class. Yet most often not ! But always going in style! The Lola Boys’ Blog follows the trails and tribulations of a dodgy double act!
  • Trains And Boats And Pains!

    Trains And Boats And Pains!

    Paul and Andrew had eventually found each other in a tatty room, in an old wooden house, in an equally tumbledown town deep in the south of Thailand.

    Their re-connection had been as ordinary as the abode they were renting, but Paul knew that was often the case with couples who’d been together as long as they had.

    Nearly thirty-two twelve month periods.

    Which was equivalent to four hundred and sixty eight in gay years!

    And now absence only seemed to make his hair grow blonder! (But that was another pony-tale!)

    Yet their love was just that and didn’t always need to be proven.

    They shoved their clothing, half of it murky laundry by now, and hit the road, or rather the tracks, and made for the Equator. That great imaginary line that separated the old world from the new.

    Or most of it.

    Paul was always surprised when re-acquainting himself with a map of the world just how little land lay south of this geographical dividing line. The majority of the southern hemisphere was made up of boundless ocean when compared to the land massed in its northern neighbour.

    Down south it really was the blue planet.

    It always gave Paul a frisson of excitement when he crossed the Equator. He imagined it was the explorer in him. And he just adored the way the water swirled in the opposite direction when it went down the plug hole – that must have been the child!

    He and his partner had no real plan, only not to get lost once more!

    Then again, sometimes that was the best way to find something.

    They clambered aboard a busy night train and it being far too late to sample the dubious delights of her buffet car they climbed directly into their respective bunks and hunkered down for the bumpy night ahead.

    Paul was far too long for the berth he’d been assigned, as was usually the case in equatorial climes. He found that the people were generally squatter at the planet’s girdle. Like compact flowers. Perhaps it was unnecessary for them to stretch towards the more distant sunlight as it appeared to be for those nearer the poles.

    He wondered how a six foot six Scandinavian would cope with the childlike coffin of a bunk into which he was now crammed like an unfortunate anchovy. He struggled and writhed around to find some sort of comfortable position and as he did so heard the tutting from the bunks beneath. They were probably Thai, he mused. In Paul’s experience the Thai race tended to travel in utter silence. A railway carriage was normally akin to an undertakers’ waiting room.

    Taciturn and funereal.

    Even the slightest rustle was usually met with approbation.

    He accidentally kicked his plastic water bottle against the train window as he tried to turn over. The minuscule thwack initiated another audible chastisement from the bed below.

    Jesus Christ! Anyone would think he was masturbating!

    These people had obviously never made a journey on an Indian train. On that great sub-continent every rail journey was a cacophony of Chai-sellers, Dhal-dealers, water wallahs and purveyors of anything living or otherwise one could fit into a basket.

    And wankers everywhere!

    There was rarely a quiet moment.

    It was marvellous.

    Thai trains, on the other hand, were full of prefects and goody-goodies ready to dob you in at the flick of an illicit cigarette.

    Paul was always pleased to alight.

    Early next morning the train pulled into Pedang Besar, one of those ordinary border towns which tended to cater for the travellers passing through rather than those who resided there. Paul and Andrew had spent many a week amid such transience and had often enjoyed themselves immensely. The constant chopping and changing of characters made for some colourful and sometimes rather lurid encounters if one stayed for more than the next bus out.

    But not this time, as the border with Malaysia was half way along the platform which seemed too terribly convenient to pass up.

    It ended up just being terrible.

    Of course one could never take anything for granted at a checkpoint and The Lola Boys arrival did not go as smoothly as planned, as a particularly officious Thai border guard noticed that they were both seven hours over the expiry date on their respective visas.

    Seven hours!

    Paul attempted in English and highly rudimentary Thai to blame it on the train, but the jobsworth, wearing a uniform which was more uptight than he was, was having none of it!

    A heavy fine ensued and an even weightier interview, conducted in a stifling office with three more railway staff each got up in a different get-up!

    Paul always marvelled at the Thais love of a uniform. There seemed to be a particular garb for every official occupation and rank within it.

    The man in khaki conducted the interrogation A lady in Navy blue completed the paperwork. And a stout, surly girl in cerise took the cash.

    An older official clad in livery worthy of a Brigadier entered the sauna of an office at the finish of the tortuous process to complete the stamping. His regalia rattled as he applied the ink with an ostentatious flourish.

    It was quite the circus.

    And an expensive one at that.

    After which they were allowed to proceed along the platform and into Malaysia.

    Paul was rather pleased to see the back of Thailand with which he had a love hate relationship. So he knew he’d be thrilled to return when the time came. Plus he didn’t want to blog anything too contentious as the written word had a way of getting one into deep trouble in certain countries. He knew his loyal and intelligent readership was entirely capable of reading between the lines. He didn’t want to be banned. Or worse.

    It had happened to him before.

    He was well aware that the Bangkok Hilton had a notoriously low rating on ‘Booking.Com.’

    And there wasn’t a pool!

    As he and Andrew sped south through Malaysia on a modern commuter train, which had made the last engine on which they’d ridden look like something out of ‘The Railway Children’, Paul couldn’t help but notice the landscape change. The ramshackle huts and semi-aquatic compounds of rural Thailand gave way to much richer looking accommodation. Paul was reminded the country was an oil producing nation and more affluent than the country to her north. Endless palm plantations whizzed by in a verdant blur. Dull monoculture on a vast scale. Impressive yet tedious.

    When the engine reached Butterworth Station, named after John Butterworth, a former governor of the Straits settlements during the British Raj, Paul and Andrew took their leave. They were heading for the island of Penang and planning to stay in Georgetown it’s old colonial capital.

    Paul was astounded that for such a modern station Butterworth had few facilities.

    A cafeteria one would only be seen dead in by the looks of the refreshment on offer and a set of lavatories which could only be described as prime evil.

    There was also no ticket office which even resembled being open and nowhere to get hold of some Ringitt, the local currency, of which they had none as it had been impossible to acquire the stuff in rural Thailand.

    It was hardly the best start to a Malaysian trip for the first time visitor but Paul and Andrew did not qualify as one of those and knew the country to work very effectively in most parts.

    Just not at Butterworth.

    Paul considered it a situation in need to immediate remedy, as first impressions lasted a lifetime on the palate when getting the taste of a place.

    Especially if it was one’s first course.

    He imagined what the old British Governor would have made of such inconvenience. After all, efficient rail travel was one of the very few positives to come out of Great Britain’s plundering of such nations. Paul had no doubt Mr Butterworth would have had all responsible whipped and sent across the water to Georgetown’s infamous prison. Paul felt like doing the same as he wrestled with his rucksack amid the stultifying heat, still riddled with cramp from the box in which he’d spent the night, desperately searching for an A.T.M.

    But he wasn’t the governor.

    Also the aforementioned jail was now closed.

    And he’d mislaid his whip.

    So he put the thought from his mind.

    However appealing it was.

    Eventually he and Andrew found some cash at the ferry terminal, which was much better appointed than her pathetic railway sibling, and were soon bustled aboard the local ferry to cross the straits on the short hop to Penang.

    Andrew and Paul had visited Georgetown some years before but had not stayed long as they’d had other fish to fry on that journey. In the Mekong Delta and far beyond. But Paul had remembered being fond of the town.

    She was a muddle of dilapidated, antiquated Chinese shopfronts and extremely faded, once grand, colonial architecture. There was a smattering of modern architecture thrown in but certainly nothing like her bigger sister further south, Kuala Lumpur, that impressive jungle of futuristic steel and concrete carved out of the jungle.

    Georgetown still possessed that most ineffable of qualities – atmosphere.

    Paul often found this to be lacking in some of the larger cities of south-east Asia where vibrant and thriving local communities had been eschewed for soulless condominiums. These towering monstrosities may come replete with a pool and a gym but no-one had a clue who Paul and Jim were! They were towers of anonymity.

    Paul loathed them!

    His usual response to these skyscraping monoliths of monstrosity was to jump.

    But so far he’d resisted the urge.

    Obviously.

    As he and Andrew checked into the more bijou than boutique hotel on which they’d splashed out, Paul noticed the swimming pool advertised was now filled with Koi carp, so there would certainly be no splashing in! He made a mental note to not be coy and carp about it to reception later.

    But for now there was a bed.

    A four poster at that.

    And after the long and drawn out expedition the boys had just undertaken drawing the shutters and laying out on it was highly appealing.

    Especially as there was no miserable bugger beneath to complain about the bloody noise.

    Bliss.

    Time to unpack.

    And unravel.

    And re-connect …….

  • Avoiding The Shakes!

    Avoiding The Shakes!

    Paul stood in the middle of the rice paddy in Ubud, an overly touristic, yet beautiful town in Bali. Her pavements were as cracked and decrepit as the numerous temples which studded the craggy urbanisation. Ancient jewels gleaming amongst the tacky souvenir shops.

    Gigantic poles of palm and bamboo, known as Panjur, decorated with fruits and flowers lined the streets and every lichen-clad statue had been draped in luscious cloth. Thousands of stone gods wrapped in gold and pink and red silk beckoned one to enter the courtyard beyond with a promise of something other worldly on the other side.

    Small groups of excited boys blowing on wooden flutes and banging tribal drums far too enthusiastically roamed the streets and alleys. All accompanied by a strange creature Paul thought to be a lion but later discovered signified a leopard dancing at the head of each troupe. Bowing to all fours when at the entrance to a temple.

    These kids were usually presented with small donations for their artistic efforts, much like the old British tradition of ‘Penny For The Guy’ which Paul had taken part in as a child.

    Sometimes as the part of the guy!

    Only in Bali there was no stuffed Catholic traitor to parade around town to elicit a a few notes of Rupiah, instead it was a big cat puppet with two of the taller lads stuffed inside. But the premise was the same as the Guy Fawkes tradition if not a touch more spiritual.

    This festival was known as Galungan, a period when the souls of Bali’s ancestors descended from above to spend some quality time amongst the mortals. Paul and Andrew always seemed to arrive to a foreign clime in time for an auspicious occasion.

    Well, either that or a crisis!

    The Covid lockdown in the Philippines sprung to mind!

    And the financial meltdown in Sri Lanka!

    Then there was the coup in Thailand!

    Paul could go on, but it was always either right time, right place. Or wrong time, wrong place. There seemed to be no middle ground.

    Not on one of The Lola Boys’ intineraries.

    Paul exhaled amid the sea of emerald green to which he’d escaped and felt his own soul come back to join the mortals too. A rush of life force currently flooded through him like a Balinese waterfall.

    Or an overflowing Indonesian drain!

    His senses were so alive he felt he could almost hear the rice growing.

    It was an enchanting place Bali.

    Certainly somewhere to re-discover oneself. That was if one could discover some peace and bypass the unending ever wending traffic.

    The fumes were intoxicating but what left him fuming were the westerners on mopeds who rode at one with uneasy abandon. Their sheer recklessness and amateur motoring skills forcing the unsuspecting pedestrian to have to jump wildly from the narrow path, usually bounded by a stream and a vertiginous bank on either side, and cling to a palm tree for dear life.

    And hardly any one of them ever said thank you.

    Not even a curt nod or a ‘speciba’! For the majority of them appeared to be Russian, which was hardly surprising as it seemed rather an opportune moment for them to take a vacation.

    And Crimea was certainly off the bucket and spade list for the moment.

    They seemed to have very little regard for others personal space and invaded whenever and wherever they chose. They were ruthless in their pursuit of the best view or the nicest table.

    Paul charitably put it down to shyness!

    Quite unlike the Balinese bikers who always gave a toothy smile and a cheerful thank you as they passed. Without exception.

    Paul was not racist in the slightest. He’d spent time with some very agreeable Russians over the years so he knew they were not all tarred red with the same broad brush. He and Andrew had shared some great nights with an effusive Siberian they’d met in Thailand one year, sharing stories none of them really understood over much cheap beer and many a dodgy ‘nasdrovia’!

    And there was the charming tearful Irina from St Petersburg, with whom they’d endured a heartbreaking night as her not so dear leader invaded Ukraine. She cried into Paul’s arms despairing at Putin’s wickedness whilst they were lodging in the same Sri Lankan guest house.

    And many other engaging Muscovites too.

    But they didn’t seem to be that way in Bali. Well, not en masse. They were abrasive, entitled and rather common. Much like the Wagner Group on a coach trip Paul imagined.

    But he’d be thrilled to be proved wrong.

    The rice terrace on which he found himself was extraordinarily beguiling and just two minutes from the hurly-Bali of the city centre. Here one could stand in paradisical silence, between the sound of the red army on their scooters, and deal with one’s growing pains.

    He wondered for how long this semi-tranquility would last. There was bamboo scaffolding sprouting between the grass all over the place. Soon there would be nowhere to grow the rice and therefore nothing to see.

    No noiselessness to experience.

    Perhaps a field or two left for the instagrammers to get their one shot before heading back to their organic farms to slurp on their paleo, keto, vegan shakes.

    The thought gave Paul the shakes.

    He doubted anybody could stem the avalanche of avocado smoothies that was gushing green across the land. There was certainly an irony to the purportedly nature-loving tourists crowding out nature herself. Perhaps it was progress and admittedly the poorer inhabitants needed an income, but it appeared the health industry was choking its very source.

    Wringing Mother Nature by the neck under the guise of being holistic.

    Chicken-free burgers joints all over the clucking place.

    It was matricide most fowl!

    Paul shuddered.

    He wondered if the noisy folk visiting from the bustling beaches felt the same. If they heard the desperate calls of the jungle Gods to leave well alone. If they listened to the gentle weeping of the grasses as they were ripped from their sodden womb and replaced with concrete. Paul thought not. For they were too busy undergoing sound-therapy in the trendy ‘Pyramid Of Chi’ to hear Earth’s cry.

    Too intent on venturing within to notice the capital venturing without.

    But Paul did care, and as he stood amongst the grains he wept. He felt rather pretentious and supercilious, much like a geriatric Greta Thunberg. He was lost yet entirely connected. He didn’t care. He’d been called worse than magniloquent – especially by those who didn’t know what the word meant. And he genuinely felt it. Quite passionately. So fuck those who didn’t – they’d get the wake up call sooner or later. The ecological Gods and Goddesses of nature would see to that.

    It had been a long road to Bali. Nothing like the old film with Bob Hope and Dorothy L’amour. It seemed Paul had been lacking both of those virtues before he’d arrived. Certainly very little of the first and even less of the latter. It had taken standing on the edge of a rim of an awesome active volcano in Java to blast away his blockages. Erupting in him a pyroclastic flow of emotion and pent up nonesense that would surely have flattened Pompeii again – were it anywhere near!

    He had cried a lot in Indonesia.

    His lachrymose state had been good for his soul if not for his soulmate.

    Or his complexion!

    He seemed to look red-eyed most of the time, as though he’d toked on the strongest of joints for the longest of times. He was quite sure those around him thought he was a junkie. The truth couldn’t be more different. He hadn’t partaken of any narcotic substance, other than the odd cup of Indonesian sludge which passed for coffee, since being in the country.

    He’d also stopped the booze along with Andrew!

    However, unlike his fresh faced partner, who Paul knew for certain had more than a picture or two decaying in the attic, he was not blooming.

    Just looking blooming awful

    And feeling bloody worse!

    He knew it to be a symptom of abstinence and perhaps, addiction, as he was aware he’d attended far too many committee meetings with comrade Smirnoff of late. Not to mention the many high teas he’d shared with Ms Gordon. And then there were the fiestas hosted by Senor Barcardi when he was invariably the last to bid adios.

    A cocktail of colourful characters who’d led him astray.

    It had got so bad that he’d resorted to a couple of beers to take the proverbial edge off so we wouldn’t fall over it, but he knew that wasn’t the answer. So he was now back on the wagon, whipping the horses to a frenzy so that he didn’t have time to get off!

    But he promised himself he wasn’t going to speak of his gladiatorial battles with el vino. He found those folk who preached to others regarding both their abstinence and the methods which they employed to achieve it both condescending and preachy. He knew their advice could be incredibly helpful for some but he just found their lecturing sanctimonious and irritating. It made him want to reach for the gin bottle.

    To drown their sorrows!

    Suffice to say his creative lava was flowing again.

    For many reasons.

    Not least of which was geological instead of oenological for once!

    He had many strange tales to recount of he and Andrew’s long overland journey south from Thailand, through marvellous Malaysia and onto Java’s time-worn cities and magnificent magma.

    Life was a blast again.

    Practically volcanic thanks to that very landscape.

    But for now he just stood.

    Exhaled.

    Basking Balinese-style in the lush hush of the rice paddy.

    He felt a gentle rumble.

    He waited nervously for a couple of seconds.

    The rumbling came again only this time more urgent.

    To his relief it was his stomach and not the earth which was moving.

    The gastric gods had spoken.

    Time for an avocado smoothie.

    Paul knew he was on shaky ground!

    But he’d not felt so steady in a long, long time!

  • Night Of The Black Dog!

    Night Of The Black Dog!

    Paul alighted the train in southern Thailand and stepped into the coal black night. The heat was still fierce despite the late hour and he struggled with his rucksack across the tracks slipping unsurely on the rocky ballast beneath. There was nobody else and more importantly no platform in sight. He made his way back to the carraiges to make sure he was at his destination and was assured by the irritable guard who’d practically pushed him from the locomotive that it was definitely the town for which he’d been heading. He crossed the sleepers once again and gazed into the sleepy darkness. There was not a soul to ask for directions. The shadowy figure of a mystery animal, probably something canine, scampered away on his approach and then silence. 

    Paul had not contemplated arriving so late and had imagined it would be easy to get his bearings. Unfortunately the Thai train had lived up to its reputation for tardiness and had nearly pulled into the station over three hours late. At least Paul assumed it was the station it was difficult to tell without a landmark – or a torch!

    Suddenly there was a hoarse whistle, as if the engine itself was exhausted by the late schedule, and the train pulled away revealing, to Paul’s relief, a row of yellow lights about two hundred yards in the distance. It must be the platform Paul thought as he embarked on the perilous journey down the track towards civilisation. He only hoped that the Starlight Express wasn’t about to roar out of the darkness. Health and safety in this part of rural Thailand was obviously little considered. 

    Eventually he made it onto the platform but not without a few scrapes and bruises. He thanked Buddha he wasn’t in his usual state after a long rail trip, that being entirely drunk, or he would never have made it! There were some plusses to being on the wagon, especially when being turfed out of one in the depth of night!

    He made his way through the deserted building and onto the main road. Things were looking up. He could now espy two dogs and a crumpled shape which resembled a human attached limpet-like to a bench. It looked like at least someone had survived the apocalypse which evidently must have occurred during Paul’s journey down from Bangkok. He wasn’t entirely alone.

    The semi-conscious vagabond turned out to be of little help. Entirely inebriated and completely free of English, or any other language Paul could decipher. He hoisted his ruck sack higher onto his shoulders and headed down what appeared to be the Main Street. A long straight road of wooden shacks and boarded up shop fronts which looked like the dilapidated set of an old Western many years after the cameras had stopped rolling. It appeared Paul had rode into a no-horse town with two-bit coverage. There wasn’t even the silvery glimmer of an eastern moon to illuminate the action. And certainly no saloon into which he could stroll and shout for a Saspirilla. He was literally in the dark.

    Andrew awoke on the long distance express train and squinted out of the window. The engine had stopped yet they appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. There was certainly no station to be espied through the jet curtain which draped across the tropical night. The train rumbled on. It was taking longer than expected but that was quite normal for inter-city trains in The Land Of Smiles. A Thai train trip quite often wiped the grin from one’s face. He was on his way to meet Paul. They had recently spent some time apart and now they were to rekindle the embers which had smouldered between them for more than thirty years. Despite occasionally missing his partner, Andrew knew himself well enough to know some time alone was essential. They were, after all, two separate entities despite sharing a double act and a double bed. He only wished Paul felt more like he did but he suspected his partner was not so keen on solo time. He was a touch more gregarious and there were moments he needed an audience. This was occasionally wearing, but of course he had his good points too. 

    Andrew glanced at his mobile phone on which he’d been following his interminable journey. To his horror the blue dot signifying the train he was on had jumped to the bottom of the screen and was now steadily moving south towards Malaysia. It was clear he’d missed his stop. It appeared they had not been in the middle of nowhere at all. It had been the somewhere to which he was heading. He jumped from the berth and went in search of some information. After accosting a guard with limited English, he asked in a Thai accent when the train would next pull into a station. He always  adopted the sound of broken English when attempting to communicate with foreigners. It was a habit his partner found most amusing. But Paul wasn’t with him to take the piss. He was probably lounging atop a semi-comfortable mattress by now contemplating the whereabouts of his spouse,  not stuck on a train going in the wrong direction. Three hours later, after the engine had snaked for miles along the Burmese border, the carriages came to a juddery halt and Andrew alighted into the dark. He had no idea where he was, only that he was not supposed to be there. He reached for his phone for guidance but it too had suffered on the extended journey and was now completely powerless. Andrew felt much the same and to worsen matters he realised he was also quite lost.

    Paul was definitely lost. 

    And not just geographically. 

    Ever since he and Andrew had been stranded in the Philippines, due to that damned virus, he had gradually become more and more marooned on his own island. His career, if one could call it that, had careered off course.  He felt his partner venturing off  in another direction and he couldn’t even find the switch for the headlights. He’d settle for a road trip to no-where but having lost the proverbial car keys he couldn’t even start the ignition. 

    His battery was most definitely flat! 

    He was pushing himself further and further into the unknown hoping he’d recognise a sign post but the route was an enigma. A magical mystery tour minus both the magic and the mystery. He was stuck on life’s hard shoulder. It was an uncomfortable position. But he knew t’was only a pit stop. He would have to drive on. Change a tyre. Self pity was the most unflattering of characteristics and needed puncturing, plus he had an ego which ached to be admired. Feeling sorry for oneself was not good for the image he’d cultivated. He was nothing if not honest. Especially with himself. It was a virtue which had got him into trouble in the past. He knew to some he was a complete disappointment but at least he was brave enough to be himself. Almost. Even if he wasn’t completely sure who that self was anymore. Everybody lost their way at some point. Well they did if they were taking the road less travelled and that was the only way Paul was going. Even if he did hit a cul de sac now and then and was forced to use dreadful motoring cliches whilst blogging. He was definitely at a crossroads.

    Literally!

    He looked in every direction and could see nothing but darkness. It was amazing how the night served as a black canvass for one’s depressive expressionism, when at other times she was ablaze with optimism and coloured light. He knew Churchill had suffered the same malaise in his darker moments, labelling the emotion his ‘Black Dog’. Paul only wished he hadn’t agreed to pet sit.  The same ravenous hound had been gnawing at him for some time now and as far as he was concerned Sir Winston could have the mutt back. He wondered in which direction he would find the light. He let go of the lead and attempted to kick the callous cur to the kerb. He was searching for some light. He knew it was out there somewhere.

    Andrew had managed to get himself to the only hotel in town. He’d almost killed himself struggling across a busy highway in the darkness as he dragged his huge  fake designer suitcase behind him. It was a large empty establishment inexplicably guarded by a giant fibre glass kangaroo. The mammoth marsupial was obviously not the only one feeling jumpy as the creature at reception had sent him as far away as possible. All the way to the top floor. Despite the fact there was no elevator or another guest in sight. Quite exhausted from his marathon hike from the station he just about managed the steep ascent to his room. Later, as he lay listening to a dog howling ferociously into the deathly silent night, he suspected Paul’s journey had been somewhat easier. His partner was rather anal when it came to travel, awash with baby wipes and remedies for the road and far more unlikely to end up in the wrong town. Let alone forced to wander the shadowy streets of a steamy night. Not unless he chose to of course. Which had been known.

    Andrew had no idea he was barking up the wrong tree.

    For he and Paul were both ships adrift in that vast inky ocean of the small hours.

    Or rather they were locomotives passing in the night.

    Off track.

    Train-wrecked.

    With one of them so very desperate to be rescued……

  • Sad To Be All Alone In The World!

    Sad To Be All Alone In The World!

    Lamphu House lay secreted down a hot, concrete, flip-flop clad alley.  If one didn’t have a map it might never be found. It was what might be termed as old school. A hippy hideaway in the centre of Bangkok without  the hip prices. 

    The place was certainly authentic.  

    The cackling of the girls and boys and others at reception.  

    The banging and drilling in the early hours rattling the religious-esque courtyard, itself cooly sheltered by some venerable leafy giants quite oblivious to the life kicking beneath them, their shade providing verdant relief from the cruel monsoon heat.

    An assortment of guests abounded – quite worthy of a lesser Agatha Christie novel. 

    A talkative Australian family comprising of two dim-witted, if jolly, parents; an overbearing plaid-clad grandpa and three boisterous and bored kids who swung their legs under the table and tore labels off of condiments.  Paul caught one of them gazing enviously at  his mobile phone one night as the poor teen was forced into yet another hand of ‘Happy Families” by Grandad Bully. The Bully’s son! 

    Paul had got the message the boys were not allowed electronic items. He would have hated that as a child.

    Imagine no hairdryer! 

    One of the kids was a teenager who appeared to have lost some of his hair, the middle child was around ten and numb-looking and the youngest indulged in bouts of solo wrestling amidst the pebbles of the Japanese-ish garden which had once been a feature of the hotel. Until he came along!  Sometimes he’d attempt to play  a frustrated game of ‘British bulldog’ with one of the Banyan trees with his mother looking on.

    It was a strange dynamic. 

    An ancient man, as thin as a chopstick, creaked down the staircase occasionally and made his way to the bookshelf which the establishment had kindly stocked with a few paperbacks bequeathed by former guests.  Paul had spectated as the old gentleman took an aeon to approach the library, book to swap in hand, only to watch him stand for a lengthy cogitation before reading the back of the title he was already holding. He then nodded with approval and started the interminable return journey.  For some reason the poor old pensioner was housed on the third floor.  Being so equatorial there were not enough hours in the Bangkok day for him to make the return journey more than once.  Paul wondered why the crew at reception had thought it a good idea to put such a frail creature in the attic.  Then, one day he heard a bellowing breaking the usually languid and sultry afternoon somnolence which clung heavily to the guest house as the heat rose.  It seemed somebody’s temper was on the rise too, the shouting got stronger and quite blue. 

    ‘What have I fucking told you?” The man’s voice screeched.

    Paul couldn’t help but rubber neck from his seat hidden behind a giant Monstera in the courtyard. He was appalled at such vulgarity, as were the Thais who laughed in an embarrassed way but Paul suspected they’d like to knife the git. He then recognised the rude bastard as the tortoise like humanoid he’d seen at the ‘library’.  Perhaps, thought Paul, the poor old soul hadn’t liked the book after all. Old soul? More like Arsehole! 

    No wonder he roomed at the top. 

    Paul laughed. 

    Served him right!

    His own room was on the second floor on the corner of a landing where three corridors combined to create something from Alice In Wonderland.  Paul invariably went the wrong way every time he left his room.  And this was without ingesting anything interesting like naughty Alice. Sometimes he forced his key into other guests keyholes thinking they were his.  On one occasion he even entered the room of an arguing Israeli couple under the same misapprehension.  He’d actually collapsed sweatily onto their bed before the squabbling pair made an astonished entrance from their balcony. Their row abated for a moment. There was a brief peace as they eyed him, ruddy and sodden atop their sheets.  

    Some awkward laughter. 

    A quick ‘Shalom’ from Paul and the pair parted quicker than the Red Sea to let him pass over. 

    Or rather – get out!

    Well, Lamphu House  was a confusing settlement.

    A ubiquitous cleaner was always lurking in one of the corridors. Squeaky trolleys ferried almost clean towels and clinking mop buckets between rooms.  But, to Paul’s eyes, there seemed to very little cleaning actually done.  Mostly lurking from what he had witnessed.  Sometimes a door would be wedged open with a broom handle and an inscrutable Eastern flurry of excitement would echo along the hallways.  Some tinny pop music could usually be heard and the party could go on for quite a while before anyone exited.  

    He only wished Andrew was there to share it with him.  It had a vibe -Lamphu House – and that wasn’t always the case in Thailand’s brash ‘City Of Angels’. Sometimes the tropical metropolis could feel icy and impersonal. Especially amid the wintry blast of a mega-mall or a ‘Seven-Eleven’ store. 

    At the little hotel there was a warmth.  Something familial.  Unfortunately, Paul’s partner was not with him to experience the comings and goings of the shabby yet amiable establishment. Instead it was a solo trip.. 

    Paul was sad to be all alone in the world!  

    Except he wasn’t!  

    He was rather glad.  

    After nearly three weeks cooped up on the nineteenth floor together he and Andrew were tee’totalling and toe-teetering over the brink.  Paul felt that if he didn’t put some distance between himself and his husband one of them would be moving down to the ground floor. 

    And not via the elevator!  

    There was no-one to blame.  Sometimes it was good to be alone – to re-gain oneself.  

    And NOT drinking together had been a very large measure.  After all, when it came to a Dirty Martini, Paul and Andrew were partners in Brine!

    So Paul was kind of glad to be all alone in the world.  

    Even as he stared unconsciously at the miserable Thai wife, who always seemed to have wet hair, as her Mohican- sporting, grey and grizzled partner eyeballed her – taciturn and stoney- faced.  Paul smiled at them unnecessarily. The unhappy wife swished her dripping locks away abruptly spraying the Aussie family playing cards nearby with a plume of hair product!. Paul felt himself laugh and was glad the swift night had just fallen to cloak his amusement. He needn’t have worried as just at that moment the vivacious couple from Tel Aviv, with whom he’d briefly shared a room, took the spotlight as they swept through the compound. Him ashen faced and downcast- his yamaka leading the way as he made his escape from the viciously charged harridan pursuing him.  

    The volatile couple had obviously packed quite a few dirty items in their rucksacks and it seemed they were more than happy to wash them in front of the other guests. The yelling could be heard even after they were well clear of the flip flops.

    Still, no-one batted an eyelid.  

    It was too hot.  There was no breeze. The residents of Lamphu House had just enough energy to breathe.  

    And exist beneath the emerald arbour. 

    It really was an oasis.  

    Not of complete calm and utter tranquility, yet compared to it’s lurid surroundings and the infamous Khao San Road, it was a semi precious gem.

    Paul noticed the spotty French lad, who always seemed desolate to be all alone ‘dans le monde!’ He had collapsed across a rotten rattan settee in the reading room.  Heavily stoned and reeking of La bier. His trainer-clad foot wedged into the English language section of the bookcase. That, Paul thought, will  piss off the old pipe-cleaner git when he next comes back to not change his reading material.  

    The staff at reception giggled loudly. 

    A Thai soap opera screeched from a TV in the kitchen. A waft of semi- legal Marijuana smoke coiled across the courtyard and danced around Paul’s nostrils. And the evening heat made one soporific and somewhat listless.

    Paul had sat down to attempt to write the story of his long lost sister Caroline. She had been discovered abandoned at a hospital in Tottenham over fifty years previously. Someone who had most definitely been sad to be all alone in the world.  But  he had veered off course and had ended up musing on his surroundings instead. He blamed the second hand smoke! Besides, he thought, his new sister’s story deserved far more concentration.  He would write it another time. When he was far away from Lamphu House and it’s cast of misfits and distractions.

    He was making his way south soon to meet Andrew.  His husband had checked into a guest house on the ground floor, so it was now a much safer option for them to co-exist.

    They were then planning to make their way by train into Malaysia and who knew what.

    But whatever they did and wherever they went they were gonna get through it together.

    Just like the song!

  • Floored By A Seafood Salad!

    Floored By A Seafood Salad!

    They didn’t quite know how but once The Boys had hit the high life and were living it up on the nineteenth floor of their condominium, they were laid quite low!

    Two horribly ill homos in an undersized condo!

    T’was not a pretty sight. Paul and Andrew found it sickening.

    It could have been the mystery ribs at the night market or the seafood salad which had been served with equal opaqueness. Paul knew he should never order dishes he didn’t recognise.

    Especially when that involved the species!

    He had never had a whale of a time when it came to seafood and the bowl in front of him had looked nothing more than an aquarium with dressing. He’d forced a couple of tentacles into his gob and attempted to chew. A wave of revulsion washed through him. He was more No No than Nemo when it came to the ocean. At least – eating it!

    A day or two later and the shit really hit the fan. 

    Worse still the fan was on the ceiling!

    Paul had started it, which was not altogether unusual, and Andrew had picked up the crouton and ran with it. Then ran again. And again. And again. And aga….etc!

    Till there was nothing left to run.

    Thank Buddha they had decided to hole up in the prison-grey tower block in the unfashionable end of town. Even if, unlike Rapunzel, they hadn’t yet been able to let down their hair!

    The building – ‘Baan Kian Fah’ on Hua Hin’s outskirts had been suggested to them by a charming Essex boy called Brendon, whom they’d met on the end of the pier. He was quite the expert on living Thai-style. And so Paul and Andrew had ended up up on the nineteenth floor at the edge of things. That didn’t bother them as they appreciated life on the edge and it was preferable being unwell fanned by air con rather than the drifting scent of, shall we say, ‘life’, which had been ever-present on the pier from whence they’d come. 

    One sometimes feels like jumping!

    Plus there was a pool and ‘Ping Pong’. So when the ponging finally ceased they could ping back into life and enjoy all the facilities rather than just the one in their studio.

    Paul thought he should add that by ‘Ping Pong’ he had meant actual Table Tennis rather than anything salacious. They were in Thailand after all and sometimes that particular sport could take on an entirely different form. He knew the rumour-mongers of old and didn’t want any old balls flying about even though he and Andrew batted in a completely different direction.

    They ventured out one evening after Andrew said he was feeling better and sauntered sweatily along the busy highway to a kerbside eatery. It was excellent as is often the case with establishments that can appear unappetising. It certainly had no kerb-appeal being positioned next to the busy motorway but the ‘little chef’ in his tiny kitchen produced mini miracles. Paul and Andrew wanted to be more adventurous but were only just finding their feet so didn’t want to find any one else’s in their soup! They were keeping it plain – ish! 

    Unfortunately the only miracle that evening had been the fact Andrew did not awaken during a violent episode which proved he was not wholly cured. 

    A duvet washed and dried later and he appeared much brighter. 

    Paul’s complaint was dragging on a bit – much like himself. But he was determined to plough on, even if life felt like trudging through red hot syrup with an angry asp up his ass! 

    He still had guts. 

    He began a blog – moaning on, wittily, or so he thought, about he and Andrew’s recent malaise. He knew them both to be stereotypical men when it came to illness. Everyone needed to know about it.

    When inspiration waned he took a dip in the pool only to be joined by two fat Chinese boys who’d decided freestyle meant splashing each other hard in the face whilst screaming. Paul would have found it charming but these lads were about sixteen.

    In stone and age.

    They looked to have paddles for hands.

    The water was churning and filling Paul’s over-adequate nostrils. He laughed in that horribly polite English way at the two louts who were drowning him. He took several more  gulps of the pool as the human wave-machines were at storm force and then decided to head for dry land. He was feeling somewhat queasy. He still hadn’t found his sea legs and had not been ready for this waterborne Chinese invasion. He collapsed onto his sun-lounger and picked up his phone.

    Made in Taiwan.

    He let the irony wash over him.

    He’d been in trouble before for being too political out east. He’d been nobbled more than once. This time he wanted to be able to get some content out and there was already someone from China on his tail. So when eventually the giant Mermen stopped flapping theirs and clambered from the pool he wrote nothing.

    Just thought it!

    Actually, Paul imagined they had been asked to vacate by a member of the condo staff, who was no doubt unsettled by the displacement of water, but he couldn’t be too sure as his Thai was rudimentary at best. 

    Non-existent at worst.

    Suddenly he felt the serpent awaken in his abdomen once again and only just made it to the highly convenient public convenience poolside. Snaking his way rapidly past the thankfully oblivious cleaners he realised the creature hadn’t been charmed quite yet.

    It was well and truly alive.

    Which was more than could be said for himself.

    Paul felt entirely floored. He only hoped he’d make it back to the nineteenth!

    And that his insides made it with him!

  • Treading The Boards!

    Treading The Boards!

    Paul had played the end of the pier before but had never stayed on one – so he and Andrew’s sojourn on a dilapidated jetty in the rather gaudy Thai Gulf town of Hua Hin was to be a premiere occasion. 

    Andrew had obviously worked a pier or two too.  

    Professionally as well!

    He’d had a high time at sea whilst dressing a couple of superannuated drag queens and a young Letitia Dean. (Pre the inflationary period we are all now suffering.) 

    Paul had also spent many a year admiring Brighton’s mighty erections- so he supposed piers had always been around in his life. He just  adored piers, not of the Morgan kind of course, but he loved that space between sea and shore – at sea – yet grounded.

    Perhaps it was the rhythmic lapping of the slightly murky sea beneath, but some guests apparently found the place unsettling.

    Paul only found it comforting.

    Like going back to the womb.

    If only he and Andrew’s room were as big!

    In fact Paul’s womb would doubtless have housed them both quite easily. After all, his mother had always been so kind and accommodating.

    Instead, Paul and Andrew felt like quadruplets squeezed into posh spice!

    The sea breeze came like gas and air through the antiquated cracks in the wooden walls relieving the claustraphohic feeling for a contraction or two. 

    Paul had hoped for the pier to be more chic than creak. But as the driftwood supports drifted ominously beneath them  it was too late. 

    They were already walking the planks!

    He had once played Gilbert and Sullivann’s Nanki Poo at a charming theatre on the end of the pier in Cromer! The Mikado had been surprisingly popular, despite the gaps one could spot neath the stage; if not in the cast!

    It had certainly not been what Paul had in mind when he’d decided to tread the boards. 

    The exotic North Sea splashing audibly beneath him as he attempted to belt out ‘A Wandering Minstrel I’?! 

    He wasn’t  entirely certain any of the audience were aware from where nor whence he”d even wandered.

    Especially when the ocean beneath was giving it full on Wagner in the key of sea bloody major! 

    But nobody gave a shit – they were on the end of the pier after all!

    The end of the pier in Hua Hin, where the boys were berthing, was what one might call – structurally sound-ish! 

    She had stood for many years as many old British peers have done in this part of Thailand.

    Her rustic poles just about keeping her above the rising tide of capitalism as the locals fought to keep the area afloat and stop the concrete merchants moving hard in.

    The extended family lived at the shore end of the extension – at least four generations in tow with their three and and a half dogs. 

    They were friendly enough. Although they never contemplated cleaning a room or a clearing a dish. The walk up the board walk seemed beyond them.  When they did enter one of the rooms they left the mop, bucket and broom outside and usually took at least half an hour to re-appear.

    Buddha knows what they did!

    But it weren’t sweeping!

    The only room service Paul and Andrew received was from each other, and as the structure was already crumbling that did not seem the best of ideas.

    A trip up the pier incorporated a laundry, a library and libations. Admittedly these facilities resembled a twin tub; a pile of self help manuals left behind by previous guests and a beer fridge.  There was usually the odd bra flying abreast on a line in the torpid breeze and a dodgy mutt, complete with oversized gold chain, giving one ‘evils’ as he decided to excrete where he liked. 

    But the place was friendly and authentic unlike most of the town which seemed to have sold out in comparison. All high rise and low class guests.  

    Those only happy with just a happy ending.

    But the beach was magnificent. 

    And nothing like when they had first visited in high season when it had been a mix of large lilos and lager louts giving it large. It was practically empty.

    Paul and Andrew were starting to enjoy their pier-life.

    They occupied a cell in which one couldn’t swing even the tiniest pussy – yet the young Thai couple next door had evidently managed, if the mewing through the cardboard walls the previous night was anything to go by.

    The ceiling fan threatened to blow Paul and Andrew overboard and the water from the taps was lurid and far too hot.

    Yet the place had charm.

    They decided to extend their stay for an extra couple of nights.

    Treading the boards in Hua Hin seemed the only way to go.

    By far the best show in town!

  • Back In Bangkok!

    Bangkok

    The lady of the night sauntered through the blistering day, her mammoth cleavage sparkling with golden glitter and glinting artfully and quite artificially in the harsh midday sun.  She bounced slowly past the beer sodden balcony, on which Paul and Andrew had just found some respite from that fireball overhead, her stilettoes singing sharply on the concrete as her denim shorts rode higher with each stride. 

    Paul thought she looked marvellous.

    She had poise. 

    Class.

    Had he been born female he had no doubt he would have gone for a similar look. 

    The tart with no heart!  

    Common yet uncommon.

    In fact there had been occasions he’d worn such attire – but he chose not to think about them, for now he was in traveller mode.  Butch and adventurous.  There was no way he’d be slipping into a pair of high heels anytime soon, unless, of course, some high heel paid him an awful lot of money! Anyone could take six inches for the right price!

    A small old woman with just a few teeth approached them.  She offered Paul a green  orange, obviously with some payment in mind.  Paul felt a pang of condescending sympathy as he looked at her threadbare, once pink blouse and worn knees and so offered up what change he had.  He then watched in amazed amusement as the peddlar peeled the fruit very slowly and then ate it piece by piece herself in front of him.  It was the first time he’d ever paid anyone to eat fruit. 

    Well – there had been another occasion but he was saving that for the novel.

    She then hobbled off sated and satisfied.

    Paul certainly knew he and Andrew were back in Bangkok.  

    There really was no city quite like it.  Brash, sophisticated, respectful, rude, reticent and pornographic. T’was an exotic soup into which one had to dive immediately or be put off by the whiff of something unknoweable.

    Paul had warned Andrew that they would be flying into the annual monsoon before they hit Thailand’s capital, but his partner had assured him it was the place to go to find their feet. Paul knew he was probably right – he just hoped they were the type of feet he liked!  There had been some highly mysterious hoofs floating about in some parts of Thailand he’d visited – and not always in the food!

    The Lola Boys had arrived in Bangkok to a temperature of 41C with a real feel of 48C!  Paul had no idea what ‘real feel’ meant.  As a betting man he thought Accuweather were hedging theirs. But they were right about one thing – it certainly really felt bloody hot! Andrew and Paul had never visited the city so late in the season – and were entirely unseasoned to it’s stultifying sultriness.

    After the long- maul flight they took the train and the metro to their hotel.  The public transport had been paul’s big idea. He was thinking of the cost and the coolest way of doing it.  It seemed more adventuresome. As he and Andrew dragged their rucksacks along one of Bangkoks main drags as the heat dessicated them both Paul knew the coolest way would have been in a taxi.  

    With air conditoning. 

    Like Andrew had suggested! 

    But he said nothing.

    They hit the downtown hotel both aching, sweaty and swollen. But not before noticing a ‘Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary’ on the ground floor.  Paul made his way back down the twenty one floors in the lift and inquired if the charming lady who ran the establishment had anything effective for jet lag.  He left with a pre-rolled herbal cigarette which went by the name of ‘Ice Cream Cake’! By the time he and Andrew had made it down to the pool and partaken of a couple of slices they were as chilled as ice cream.  Although not entirely sure of where they were. They could guess the continent; the country, however, proved more elusive.

    This was the first time Paul and Andrew had travelled to the far east and have legal weed available.  They’d obviously sampled the odd puff, usually shared by their hosts, out of sheer politeness of course, but now the grass was so much greener! The herb was available everywhere, and in every form. All done with great panache and intelligence.  Not one of the dispensers Paul had spoken to had been remotely green.  

    They all knew their puff! 

    And sometimes there were two hundred or more strains in the shop.  

    One paid for the experience – but it was worth it.  Paul had made a hash of a dodgy deal a few too many times so walking into somewhere like Boots the chemist and getting something for one’s joints – perfectly rolled – was a luxury. A real reward.

    On the third day, or so Paul thought, he and Andrew met up with Paul’s cousin Harry, who was just finishing an incredibly intrepid journey. Six months through India and Indochina, mostly by bicycle, finsihing in Thailand. The Boys shared a couple of nights with Harry and when they introduced him to ‘Soi cowboy’, the boy who thought he’d seen it all had a couple more surprises. Yeeah Hah! What a night.

    Day something else and lovely Harry had left and Paul and Andrew had moved to a more classless part of town.  Sukhumvit had been ok but it had changed. It was now terribly corporate and one shared the lift with thirty or more of the four hundred Indian food distributors who were attending a conference on something or other.  Very charming.  But there are only so many conversations one can have about dall before it becomes dull!  Especially in such a small elevator!

    The sleazier part of town, which most people are advised to avoid, seemed much better on arrival.  Noise one finds it difficult to sleep through. Decent street food.  And yet more dispensaries ….

    Day – something or other – Paul had just tried ‘Girl Scouts Cookies’!  Not from from some conformist’s juvenile’s basket but from the dispensary.  This girl scout certainly had a talent – he’d never had cookies like it.  Which was why he’d decided to write a blog.  

    He wasn’t sure if it were wise or not.  

    And he’d not checked his spolling. 

    He didn’t really care.  

    He was sure the Girl Scout would take care of all that!

    He sat glazed outside the dispensary as a blind karaoke singer approached him. He had none of Bocelli! His sound as inadequate as his sight. But he had charm. So Paul tipped him. Far too heavily.  Perhaps making up for the time in Laos when he’d handed over a fake twenty dollar bill to a blind masseur, quite accidentally of course.  That had all been Andrew’s fault after he had handed him a wad of dollar-styled confetti he’d picked up from the street! Paul was incredibly apologetic but it wasn’t a pretty sight.

    Day whatever ….. Still in Bangkok waiting for the storm to abate…..

    Day or night.

    Note to self.  Must give up eating that ‘Ice Cream Cake’ with those ‘Girl Scouts’ ….

    Or we’ll never move!

    

    

  • Under The Influence. (And the flightpath!)

    The early morning British Airways flight from London to Brussels shook the victorian sash window and Paul sprouted from his reverie feeling quite green. 

    He wondered what the house’s original occupants would have made of the giant metal bird in the sky disturbing their sleep path. They surely would have bolted from their bed,  bloomers adrift, battling with the bedpan in the process, and berated the noisy blighter for blighting their reverie.

    Perhaps not.  

    They were, after all, rather practical folk in old Blighty during that most industrious of ages. Managing to switch  between the luddite and the modern at the flick of an invention.  

    One day a gassing neath a lamp. The next frollicking neath the flourescense.

    Unlike the supposed bright sparks Paul had been unfortunate enough to switch on to the previous evening during television’s ‘The Apprentice’! Those high-flyers could not even manage to read a map!

    When deprived of their mobile phones they appeared most unenlightened.  

    A viewer being less kind may even have said dim! 

    Paul didn’t want to be unkind to the younger generation. He was most fond of youth after all – attempting relentlessly to cling onto his own for dear life.  But this bunch of televisual fools needed their batteries charging. Or perhaps inserted – it was difficult to tell.  Paul made a mental note not to watch the programme in future for fear it would drain his own battery.  There were only so many hours in the day and spectating on a group of clueless, arrogant gits as they squawked their way around Brighton with Alan Sugar’s shopping list left a bitter taste.  It was certainly low voltage television.

    The fact that none of them knew what a barometer did and insisted on calling it a ‘baramater’  had also got his pressure up.  

    He’d retired in turbulent mood. All twitter and bisted!

    He’d woken in an even stormier one.  

    Gale force even.  

    He blamed British Airways. 

    Did anybody really need to get to bloody Brussels that early?

    He turned to Andrew and inquired as loudly as a jet engine if his partner were awake.  He was given the affirmative – which was no surprise as Andrew was regularly up before the lark, or B.A. ascended.  Paul had always thought he’d have made a good milkman.  Chirpy and unpasteurised. But of course they were a thing of a bygone era too now.  Along with maps! 

    Times had changed.

    Everybody was buying over-sized and over-priced coffees over the counter. Double skinny lattes laced with an oat substance resembling  semen and sprinkled with healthy green dust. Gone were the days of a dollop of gold top to start one’s day.  People  wanted to live forever.  

    Where were the risk takers? 

    The hedonists? 

    The ‘twenties’ of the 21st century seemed very different to those roaring at the start of the last.  Everyone in a flap about their cholesterol and calorie intake instead of just flapping. 

    There were those that could TikTok but not read a clock. 

    Under the influence of anyone with a pumped up mouthpiece and an oversized ego to boot! Quite often the bootie.

    Too much anal bleaching and not enough ancient teaching!

    And who were these bloody influencers?

    Paul had always imagined one of those types to be someone along the lines of Charles Darwin or Emmeline Pankhurst.  Those who made the world think about where they may have come from or to where they were going. Or even change it. Not some wannabe ‘Kar-crashian’ perching in a tasteless hotel suite in Dubai trying to flog an equally banal energy drink the only active ingredient being P.R! The whole modern enterprise was a mock-tail of style over substance.  

    Utter sly in the sky!

    Paul knew he’d got out of the wrong side of the bed. 

    He’d woken in the body of Jeremy Clarkson, which was a horrific thought! 

    Bloody British Airways!

    He took a sip of the Bloody Mary he’d surreptitiously slipped past Andrew on his way back to bed.  Well it was past nine and he’d been up for hours – sort of.  

    And he was on airport time after all. 

    Sort of!

    The early morning sun grazed the emerald playing fields to the back of the house and a burnt orange fox sauntered unhindered across the verdant expanse of grass. Paul spotted two Magpies perched on one of the statuesque Sycamores which stood naked in their winter attire. Leafless, yet alive.  

    He felt much the same. 

    Two birds though. At least that meant joy didn’t it? Perhaps it was going to warm up. A vivid green foreigner swooped swiftly into view promising as much. The parakeets had made a home in south-east London some years back finding a sanctuary in Hither Green cemetery. Maybe they’d fancied a climate change, or just been swept up in one. Although it certainly didn’t feel like it now.  Old Blighty had seen a blighter of a winter. Easily cold enough to freeze the bollocks off of an entire troop of brass monkeys as well as the rest of their genitalia.  

    Paul and Andrew were not remotely accustomed to such bleakness.  Their time on the Mediterranean had dented their resilience to cold weather and Paul huddled under the duvet with only a touch of Tabasco for warmth.  

    The Andalusian sunshine was one of the things he missed about Spain.  There were other factors he certainly did not but he wasn’t about to elucidate on those in his current mood.  That would be far too dangerous! Besides, he was going to use those mischevious musings as premium content in his future blog.  Well – he needed to earn a buck from somewhere and he was well aware their were those who would be willing to subscribe to his juicier ramblings. He’d always kept the gloves on when blogging – the response had been far too cold to do otherwise.  But the proverbial mittens were slipping, and once in warmer climes again he knew a tell-all was the way to go.  

    He’d resisted for far too long.  

    He ached to travel again.  

    To move.  

    He was itinerant by nature.  He blamed that on his mother who was surely eighty percent roamer. Not only did she resemble Cher but she loved a caravan!

    Paul was the same. His best night’s sleep always came in transit.  

    An overnight bus. A night train. An ocean liner. 

    In the still of the night, whilst moving, he felt at his most still.

    Still.  It wasn’t to be. 

    Not quite yet.

    British Airways flight 4462 roared overhead on it’s way to Dublin. Paul wished he were aboard – if only for the craic! But a few thousand feet beneath it’s flight path the only thing cracking was his sanity.  Along with the window pane!

    He slipped ungraciously from the mattress in order to garner some more in-flight refreshment. Being under the influence of Comrade Smirnoff as opposed to the likes of the insidious Andrew Tate and his gallery of idiots seemed the best idea. Numbed to the mind-numbing popularity of such untalented, unsavoury fools. Vodka seemed the only answer. At least until he was next taking flight!

    But not to bloody Brussels!

  • Grey Daze!

    Paul sat on the rented teal sofa and smoothed out the vacant velveteen cushion adjacent to him. He looked across to the grey bucket chair that had never once featured in his grey matter as part of his bucket list, and sighed.  The offensive four legged creature sat glaring at him from the opposite corner of the lounge in the most austere fashion. Even with the faux seventies cushion Paul had pretentiously thrown in to break the psychiatric waiting room look, the seat still appeared disapproving . Daring him to explain why he had rented her instead of purchasing her outright.  

    Hadn’t he worked hard enough?  

    Hadn’t he saved his pennies?  

    I’ve actually done both of those Paul heard himself explaining, astonished he was fashioning hard talk with a soft furnishing. He had no idea why he, or his partner, should be renting furniture which was bullying them.  Even the temporary sideboard had sidled up with a condescending attitude of don’t touch me – all highly veneered and marble topped!  Unfortunately the topping had been cracked on delivery.  Paul had fortunately noticed the damage and so at least there was a discount. There really was absolutely no need for the cabinet to be so uppity – it was after all a second, and due for a re-shuffle. 

    Still – Paul sat unsettled on the rented settee. And mused, whilst muse-less.

    The houseplants, thank God, were borrowed.  As all plants are. Yet these had been provided by Paul’s family.  Not altogether altruistically as the space they’d created afforded more room for the clan as they were currently in the throws of moving home.  Paul’s mother had acquired the small Georgian house adjacent to that of his sisters. She was currently residing with her daughter as the next door property was being whipped into shape. It had taken a lot of whipping, but now, after a long and stifling summer, it was almost time to move in.   Paul was certain his sister Tina would be relieved.  No matter how much one loved one’s family one loved one’s space too.  And this summer had provided precious little of that. At one point, Tina’s abode had  accommodated her mother, daughter and boyfriend George, brother and brother-in – law, her beautiful cat Tommy and an irascible Pomeranian called Lola.  

    They had been quite the menagerie.  

    Yet, had survived.  

    They had managed to negotiate the problems thrown up by one bathroom and a kettle which took to take two days to boil.  They were all still friends. Great ones.  But Paul, and he suspected everyone else felt the same. It was time for a room of one’s own.

    He and Andrew had been suffering from a lack of that luxury since they had managed to escape from The Phillipines on a repatriation flight during the peak of the covid crisis.  Since then they had slept on spare beds, sofas, floors, buses, trains, boats and planes. 

    Across two continents. 

    There had been very little employment.  All their gigs had been cancelled. Corona Virus did little for one’s audience figures.  Unless ‘The Lola Boys’ went online.  It was virtually their only hope – going virtual. They were thinking about how to make the switch. Not to mention a living.

    The boys had performed a few times online whilst stranded in the Pacific.  The shows had gone down very well, however, Paul knew he and Andrew couldn’t always rely on a crisis to to give them inspiration.  Although there were quite enough of them about.  

    No sooner had the pandemic waned when an unhealthy rash of hotspots had broken out.  The madman Putin decided it was time to invade a neighbour, leaving everyone hot under the collar for now at least.   Cold necks were on the agenda though for the coming winter.  And evil Vlad didn’t give a rouble! We were all predicted to freeze or spontaneously combust come December.  Paul had no idea why everyone was so surprised at the short, Russian psychopaths’s despicable behaviour.  He had known the despotic character of the evil fool all along.  The Lola Boys had included a song about Putin in their act for years. Lyrics which included the line – ‘Ukraine, You Saw, You Conquered,’ had always got a big reaction. Perhaps The Lola Boys’ fans were more astute than the average politician. 

    Lord knows it wouldn’t be difficult.  

    Then there was the dictator that ruled China, the one it’s proud people called ‘Winnie the Pooh’ if they were brave enough.  It seemed ‘Pooh Sticks’ were not enough of a diversion for him any longer, and sticking it to Taiwan might be more fun.

    Now that these tyrannical, egotistical and posessed characters posessed far too much power they could now conceivably control everyone else’s. 

    Literally.  

    All one hears these days is the great and the good gassing about the price of energy and how none of us will be able to afford to boil an egg come Christmas. It will certainly be game over when it comes to cooking a turkey. We’re surely all stuffed if one believes the hype.

    And then, just as Vlad the loud hailer threatens nuclear war, and days couldn’t get more depressing, the Queen goes and snuffs it. Well,  Her Majesty always had impeccable timing.

    No sooner had Queen Elizabeth been laid to rest when her former subjects began suggesting the Pound could soon be interred with her. It was certainly taking a pounding!

    Paul was wondering if things could get much worse. Then decided to cease his musings – as they probably could. 

    This loyal subject was changing his!

    He turned his attention instead to the future and began to plan a new adventure.  Once he and Andrew had sold up and hit the road the world was their lobster. They’d both be basket cases if they stayed still for too long. Trussed up! The explorer in them both was ready to map a new way of the world. 

    Paul looked over to the bucket chair.

    It was still grey.

    But he wasn’t. 

    Not when he recalled the irridescent colours of the world he and his partner had been lucky enough to experience.

    The future was bright.

    The future was always bright if one looked through Lola-tinted spectacles.

    Even from a rented settee!

  • Oh – The Greek Life!

    Paul sat in the shade  of a wafting Tamarisk spared from the hot pale sand of the Greek beach and watched the ferries come and leave in the distance.  He found it mesmerising to spectate as travellers came  and went as he sat still.  Not yet having to move.  Having the audacity to stay for longer than an island hopper – or the good sense. Or perhaps the good fortune. Whatever – he felt lucky that his odyssey in the Cyclades Islands did not have to be as fleet as Hermes.  

    He had learnt after years of travel that taking one’s time was essential, for both enjoyment and enlightenment.  

    He and Andrew had arrived on the small island of Sifnos, deep in the Aegean Sea, just two days before, and they were only just beginning to scratch the surface.  Some of the passengers on whom Paul was spying had experienced much less time in the place.  They would leave with only an appetiser – much like a bowl of taramasalata that has been eaten too quickly. 

    Before their arrival they had stayed in Athens for a few days.  Paul had visited the city once before with his sister, more Athenian moons ago than he cared to remember.  At that time he and his younger sibling had been on the run from a dodgy Greek mayor for whom they had run a hotel over one hot and sweaty summer.  Takis, the aforementioned Mayor, had reneged on his bargain and threatened not to pay them their dues if they didn’t stay until the November.  This had been quite impossible as Paul had been due to start Drama School in the October and his sister needed a proper job.  The teenage Paul and Tina had hit the road with many a drachma hidden inside their plimsoles as they fled the island early one morning.  They had hoped to stay below the plimsole line as they made their way overland across Europe with the money they had taken at the hotel bar.  They had made it to Athens without being sunk, but only just, and then had had an adventure worthy of the Greek classics. But that was altogether another tale.  Paul thought he may charge for that one!

    Andrew had, however, not visited the city before, and Paul wanted to make sure that he at least got to see something of the ancients – even though his visit was just as fleeting as his and Tina’s had been.

     

    The boys were residing in a small hotel in a rather dodgy district of the capital.  Or so said the ‘The Lonely Planet’ guidebook. In reality, Paul had been rather disappointed to not see a prostitue or a junky whilst meandering back from their first Greek meal in the dead of night.  The area to him seemed half dead – not deadbeat – for which he had secretly hoped.

    Rather dull in fact. 

    Come the  morning the atmosphere had completely changed.  A colourful market had set up on the street below and the foreign shouts of egg sellers and olive vendors brought more vivacity to the vicinity.  

    Athens was alive.  

    On the second evening in the city he and Andrew met up with an old friend of Paul’s from drama school. They had not met for over thirty years – but as they embraced, at a small seafood restaurant situated down  a small alley close to the Acropolis, the years had disappeared. It was as if Paul had been with Eva just yesterday.  They spoke of the past, the present and the future. Time was meaningless. There were still new lines to learn, as there had been when they were training, yet these were now on their faces and not in their scripts .Although, Paul thought, they both looked fairly remarkable.  After all, they had both spent half a lifetime performing which took it’s toll. But neither of them were a Greek tragedy. Something out of Euripides or Aeschylus.  Thank the Gods!

    Back on Sifnos as Paul chugged back another glass of cheap retsina whilst gazing at the priceless view he was reminded again of his greek salad days.  It had been thirty years since he and Andrew had visited Corfu on their first foreign escapade together.  But the island had had such a remarkable effect on them that neither had forgotten a moment.  It was, of course, that moment when Aphrodite was at her busiest and Eros was shooting arrows into both of them at every juncture – so perhaps that first taste of real romantic love had sharpened the memory. Burning each smashed plate and every taverna onto one’s hard drive.  They had only visited for a week and yet it had remained one of their favourite holidays. An excursion into the  soul. And returning many years later only re-inforced the feeling.  

    Both Paul and Andrew found the Greeks utterly charming.  Other than the git of a taxi driver who had done Andrew out of twenty five quid in the less than glamorous port city of Piraeus.  But that was obviously down to character and not nationality as it always is.  And it had been terribly early so Andrew was not concentrating. Neither of them had been ripped off for years, despite having travelled to some of the world’s riskier cities.  But a meze of morning madness combined with a couple of shots of Ouzo had made them careless when the driver had offered to take them to their ferry in an almost familial manner.  He told them not to worry about the price – almost as if he were taking them for free.  Beware of Greeks bearing gifts Paul had later told Andrew after they had been taken for a ride in the Trojan horse of a a cab.  Still, although Andrew had felt ridiculous for five or ten minutes, Paul knew it would sharpen his instincts and it wouldn’t happen again.  Despite how friendly a place was, Paul was always aware that not everyone was a friend.  The mixture of perceived wealth a tourist exuded along with the naivety they packed proved too much for some shysters.  And the bald, stout cabby with the smoke damaged voice had taken advantage of just that.  As the ferry sailed away from Piraeus, Paul looked back in the direction in which the grifter had sped after completing his con hoping that his Mercedes would be damaged in a collision of some karmic kind.  It wasn’t a nice thought but he knew a brooding Andrew was wishing for something much darker. 

     ‘Don’t worry about it babe. Let it go.  He’ll get his come ‘uppence’ he said soothingly. Although deep down he wasn’t entirely certain. As he knew the ‘what goes around comes around’ philosophy didn’t always work that fast. Not when another jaded and silly tourist came around the corner.  But eventually the underworld would get him. That special hell reserved for dishonest cabbies and Estate Agents.  They couldn’t get away with it forever.  Perhaps Paul imagined this to make himself feel better. But it did. So he didn’t mind if it were true or not.  It was a mythology of his own making and knowing that people always got what they deserved, eventually, certainly made him feel better.

    Eventually. 

    And calmer. 

    Or Karma.

    Perhaps it was all the travelling they did in the East. Buddha had made his point on more than a few occasions.

    The giant catamaran roared out into the Aegean with a noisy confidence and Piraeus was soon a distant memory in the azure distance.  The Cycladic wind blew away any residual bitterness and Paul and his partner melted into the blue day.  

    They sat on the open deck at on the stern of the ship. No longer stern.  They had eschewed the comfortable, reserved seats they had in the cabin below for a hard bench and the sea air.  Paul always enjoyed travelling this way – it was much more ‘Tintin’ in his pretentious mind, and Andrew never argued because it meant he could have a fag.  Especially in Greece, where the rule that meant a cigarette enthusiast had to absent themselves from polite  society was not adhered to as keenly as in some other European states.  There seemed to be an invisible smokescreen between the proprietor and the customer if one lit up in a bar.  Even though Paul rarely smoked it was a loucheness he admired.  He had always been suspicious of rules; they really were there to be bent at on most occasions. And the greeks did it most charmingly. 

    Despite the odd cabbie!

    Paul had fallen for Sifnos at first site. Aphrodite was at it again. The boat chugged her way into the small bay. An almost perfect natural harbour where a volcano had once proudly loomed. Having blown its top a few millennia ago all that was left was a perfect crescent of dull yellow sand and a sea comprising of a multitude of blues. The small town hugged the sides of the mountainside, as if for safety, sheltering itself from the mini hurricanes that blew often in this part of the Mediterranean.  Her cerulean shutters were not just hanging about to look pretty.  

    A few tavernas straddled the shoreline and two mini markets along with maxi pricing provided almost everything that was needed.  There was still a residue of volcanic rock scattered along the beach but other than that the volcano was was a far off memory. It was now only a lava of lobster hued layabouts that trickled down the caldera. Paul being one of them.  He could feel the stress of the recent move he and Andrew had done with his mother – dissipate.  It wasn’t Paul’s mother that was the culprit for the exhaustion,  but rather the move itself. Paul had read several times in several publications that moving house came very high on the anxiety scale.  Along with death of a loved one and going on holiday!  The real challenge had been the two flights of stairs which the boys were required to negotiate to get to the storage facility, along with the the weight of the french furniture Paul’s mother had acquired which needed a temporary home. 

    ‘Jesus Christ!’ Paul had exclaimed when attempting to first lift the wardrobe. 

    ‘I know’ his mother had replied, ‘It’s decent furniture!’  

    Paul had wished it had been indecent, for the sake of he and Andrew’s backs, but he realised why his mum had purchased the stuff. It was certainly decent!

    He only wished he didn’t have to move it. 

    Decent and ascent were two words which rarely went together.

    The two strapping fellas who had packed Paul’s mother’s belongings into the back of the van earlier mysteriously disappeared when the lift wasn’t working at the other end. And they’d had a big tip. Paid up front. Before they had the front to desert them.  Paul was tempted to give them another tip in the form of ‘why don’t get your bloody arses up those stairs with a bit of Gallic woodwork?’ But he resisted, which was probably best for all concerned.

    On Sifnos this was all a distant French memory.  The ocean was crystal clear and the fish danced around him as he melted into her gentle laps. 

    He and Andrew snacked on cheap but wonderful chicken gyros for lunch and hit the restaurants at night for stuffed vine leafs and anything which had once swum.

    It was idyllic.  

    Their jocund and rotund landlady Maria had met him one day in the sea full of the joys of Sifnos.  He had wondered at first who the gargantuan woman in the low cut leopard print swimsuit could be as she bounced towards him, her giant bosoms causing a mini tsunami. But when she smiled and laughed the gap between her two front teeth and mop of bleached blonde curls was familiar and Paul recognised her as their hostess with possibly the mostest he’d ever seen. 

    Maria was joyous.  She loved Sifnos so much.  Her grandparents and parents had been born there. She said she didn’t want Paul and Andrew to leave.  They could stay if they wanted. To Paul this was tempting but there were so many other islands plus they had exhausted the Ouzo supplies in the tiny supermarkets, he knew it was time to go.  Despite Sifnos’s more than ample charms.  

    When he and Andrew next arrived in Syros, another small island in the Cyclades, he was glad they had.  

    Syros oozed authenticity along with it’s Ouzo.  Being the administrative capital of the island chain it had the largest population and was therefore very real.  Syros  had a music festival and a theatre in it’s beautiful, craggy capital of Ermopoulis. The theatre been based on La Scala in Milan, albeit on a different musical scale.  There were fewer tourists and those one did meet tended to be Greek.  It was entirely refreshing. 

    In every way! 

    Paul knew he had to watch it – he’d be oozing Ouzo from his pores if he weren’t more circumspect.  But he did adore the Greek life. Full of fun it seemed to be the ideal.  But he was also aware of the song to which he alluded and knew the ending.  When he and Andrew were given a free shot by yet another amicable waitress he was reminded once again of the adage ‘Beware Greeks bearing gifts’.  He didn’t want to be in the same state as Paris – hiding all the sadness he felt.

    Or worse!

    He decided he would slow down a touch – but after he’d finished that one last glass.

    Oh – The Greek Life!