Totally lost in Budapest; or Buda to be more precise. Went for a stormy, windswept walk there the other day and totally lost my way - ended up scrambling down from Várhegy into Víziváros and, despite thinking I knew at all times where the Danube was flowing (to my right, to my right) I ended up losing my bearings completely - creating along the way a far longer, more tiring walk than I had intended. But a pleasant one regardless. Here's a photo taken somewhere along the way.
If the grandeur and status of the Houses of Parliament has anything at all to do with encouraging our elected politicians in the UK to feel it was legitimate to fiddle their expenses, surely the problem is, if anything, worse in Hungary?
Rather than soak an experience in and then think about it, analyse it, write about it later, I'm going to have a go at transcribing my thoughts about the latest chapter in my Budapest adventure as I experience it, so consequently I'm crouched over my iPhone while I should be drinking in my surroundings. On the other hand, I am sitting in the pitch black.
A couple of people have mentioned Budapest's ruin pubs to me since I arrived, but it took my friend Laura recommending Szimpla Kert to me to get me in the door of one of them. The ruin pubs are essentially ad-hoc bars created in the space of one of the city's many ruined buildings. In Szimpla's case, it is housed inside a crumbling mansion, a haphazard sequence of rooms, some without proper ceilings, and a huge courtyard in the centre of District VII, the pock-marked, culturally rich part of the city that proved to be first a haven and then a prison for the Jews of Hungary during the thirties and forties.
Everything inside the pub is delapidated and decaying, but the extent to which the space, and the objects within it, have been repurposed is absolutely staggering. Each room has it's own character and is as cosy as the last, even if some are filled with broken chairs, upturned bathtubs and old televisions. The space I'm sat in the at the moment contains 13 of the latter, suspended from the ceiling, each showing a gradually evolving psychedelic image. Apart from the TV's, there is no lighting. So until one's eyes adjust, one is basically sitting in the dark. The room opposite, by way of contrast, is just a few seats and a wall, upon which films are projected. To my left, dimly visible through the archway, a room with ivy snaking across the mesh roof.
I've really never been anywhere quite like this before - it is the comfiest, richest, most dramatic and at the same time most basic pub I've ever frequented.
It's absolutely wonderful, in short.
Just arrived in Budapest and, so far, I'm not sure what to think of it. My plane landed this evening, meaning I've had that strange, slightly disorientating feeling of arriving in the city at night, where everything is obscured from view, or else at best lit artificially. The early signs were almost completely useless; watching the lights of the city from the window as the plane swooped down towards the airport - my first reference point, the first thing I could see clearly in the black was a shopping mall on the outskirts of the city. I strained my eyesight and caught sight of a logo - it read 'TESCO'. I long to visit somewhere where the imprint of British and American commerce is not so all-pervading.
In the taxi from the airport, unable to read the road signs or adverts, and listening to the cabbie's radio, I mused that in many ways Budapest is as far out of my comfort zone as I've been. I'm well travelled through the well-signposted cities of Western Europe. London, Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon. I've extended my reach to a smattering of coastal cities in North America. But this is my first city with a history of Soviet occupation, my first city with a dialect that completely baffles me. It is also, I realise, the first time in my life I have ever been in a landlocked country. Culturally, linguistically, gastronomically, architecturally; my frame of reference is distant and uncertain.
Then, checked in to my hotel, I tried to get my bearings - walking down to Belváros, the city's downtown, its hub. I know it's the tourist district, so I don't expect too much. And so I enjoy my stroll and work up an appetite. But I feel like I'm in any European city, and the expected wave of strangeness never arrives. Instead, I muse, I'm experiencing a city typical - rather than atypical - of Western Europe: Benetton, Burger King, Subway and Tesco. So I decide that I'm probably just in the wrong frame of mind and return to my hotel. Tomorrow morning I will locate the heart of Budapest - and I'm still optimistic I'll be blown away.
This is the place to be if you like Golf. Vilamoura, down on the Algarve, Portugal's number one tourist destination, is a kind of vast, cultivated mecca for the sport. The hotels and the roads dot and skirt at the edges of the enormous golf courses - and people like me (wearing my businessman hat) come here to pretend we're on holiday when in fact we're working. No one has played any golf. Instead I've just spent four days in meetings and bars, discussing education publishing and, actually, rather enjoying myself. Have managed to avoid overdosing on alcohol, have eaten some good fish - and am off out shortly to enjoy my final evening here before I return to Brighton. Went out earlier and took some photographs of the surrounding area; they're below - it's a strange environment. No-one around. Thick, unyielding grass, professionally manicured. And lots of plush villas and half-built hotels. This is not my holiday destination of choice. But it's kind of fascinating anyway.
I spent a couple of days in Rotterdam last week. It’s a funny, eccentric, ugly little city – a million miles from Amsterdam, even if it’s only a matters of kilometres away.
Where Amsterdam’s waterways are romantic, evocative, Rotterdam’s, as you might expect – it being Europe’s largest port – are purely functional; murky waters impeded by tugs and cranes. Similarly, it’s architecture, built from the ground up after the city was flattened in the war, is constructed for practical purposes. It’s as if the buildings of the city sprang back from desolation simultaneously, without conferring. Nothing matches, nothing is complimentary. It is a higgledy-piggledy, matter-of-fact city. Ossip Zadkine called it a city without a heart, for its historical centre is absent. There’s another centre there now, but it’s not altogether convincing. Still the ships pass through its river, of course – so it’s a city with an artery.
It’s the Netherlands’ workers city. At the conference I was attending we were told a lovely story, apocryphal or not. It’s a tradition in Rotterdam, we were informed, that when one buys a shirt in one of the city’s boutiques, it is sold with the sleeves already rolled up, so that one can begin work immediately. Perhaps because it’s a city where people work, rather than play, it has a much more multicultural feel than I had expected – with women in headscarves visible on every street. Indeed the current mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, is a practising Muslim. Almost half of the population are not native to the Netherlands or have at least one parent born outside the country. On the plane back to London, I noted, the landscape is barely visible – instead one hovers above an endless sea of warehouses and petrochemical industries. There are no landmarks, just endless, featureless industry.
In the city itself, it’s rather different – especially late at night. By day it’s not quite right to say that Rotterdam works. It also shops. At night, it’s not true to say it sleeps. As well, it parties. Not in the same way that Amsterdam parties, however. There are no coffee-shops, no hip bars. Instead there’s a succession of outdoor cafes, blaring out Euro trance music. The clientele drink late. As well as a working city, a multicultural city, it’s a young city, too. When me and Sam called it a night on Tuesday – at 3am – the revellers surrounding us were showing no signs of stopping. One girl managed a monumental, drunken tumble on the street in front of our table. A hop, skip and a jump, trying to right herself. Eventually she lost her footing, her head colliding gently with a nearby chair. Her friends crowded around her, concerned. Because they were pretty, men crowded around them, faking concern.
The next evening we took a river taxi across the Nieuwe Maas to the Hotel New York, where we drank cool beer and ate dinner. The night before we had ordered a kind of Amstel we’d never seen before – three quarters of a bottle before we realised it was alcohol free. From the river Rotterdam is transformed, because although it remains ugly, there’s something wonderful about a river through a city, just as there is a shoreline. We stumbled after the last Metro of the night, and the staff showed us another Rotterdam characteristic – they were welcoming and generous of nature. Smiling at our uncertainty, a guide hastily gave us three free tickets and ushered us onto the train.
I went out for a few drinks today, starting out in Greenwich Village before wandering West to the banks of the Hudson. I've still got some rather lovely shots of Boston to post, so I should really do those first - but I can't resist publishing tonight's photos. The first shot is the very first glimpse I had of the sunset, reflected in a glass doorway as I turned a corner towards the water. The second is the sun setting over Hoboken. Both were sighted as the cool wind both woke and sobered me up, to a soundtrack consisting of the marvellous first album by Blue Roses; a record I suspect I shall forever associate with the West Village and the Hudson River.
Given that I'm a Brit, it shouldn't be a surprise that I find it rather heartwarming that I encounter so many Anglophiles abroad. I'm in a pub in Greenwich Village (I in turn feel a bit too self consciously British to just call it The Village - I'm still in formal mode) and a guy sat beside me is explaining his enthusiasm for all things English. As we talk, the waitress comes over and takes his order. He very deliberately makes sure he's getting cheddar on his cheeseburger, and muses over what he'll have to drink.
"I tell you what", he says. "The Newcastle looks pretty good right now". He nods to the waitress. "Yeah, I'll take a Newcastle".
I know that he isn't actually wrong. When I order a San Miguel in Brighton I don't ask for a 'San Miguel Continental Lager', so there's no reason he should have to ask for a Newcastle Brown Ale.
To my right are two guys much more comfortable in their American skin. Granted, they both order Stella, but they both belch proudly after their first gulp. One cries "Yeah baby. Let's get this party started!". They start talking about bitches.
I start to drink up.
It's too easy to assume that when you go away the weather will be wonderful, and getting it wrong - especially when you're on holiday - can be really hard to get over. A few years ago I went to Cyprus on holiday and the weather was just so much cooler than I'd expected, the sun up less, the water colder than anticipated. It was a real downer, and I had to concentrate on forgetting the disappointment in order to enjoy myself (which I eventually did, but it took a while).
Work trips tend to be a bit less make or break, because at least half of the time you're stuck in a dreary conference centre or an office, so the bad weather - like I experienced in Portugal last year - should only be an irritant. It still takes practice to be so reasonable, however, and I've lost track of business trips where I've had to gee myself up after the initial disappointment of poor weather.
Boston is hardly the Bahamas, of course, and I knew I'd be arriving in late Spring, but the weather has recently really improved in the UK, so I was a bit underwhelmed by the torrential rain which greeted me on Friday and the blustery wind which blew me from pillar to post yesterday. I'd looked forward to visiting the Boston Public Gardens, having heard them described as the epicentre of the city. So when I found them yesterday, desolate and bleak, I quickly moved on and explored Downtown instead.
Here's what the gardens looked like yesterday.
And here they were this afternoon. It's no understatement to say that they simply burst into life overnight.
This won't look very good in the narrow confines of my blog template, but below is a set of photographs I've stitched together; the subject is a long wall in Manhattan's East Village, culminating in a little pub (shown above) called The Mars Bar. Click on the long image and it should show you a close up.
I check out of my apartment today, so I should really be jumping up and packing so that I can get out early and spend as much time in NY as possible, but actually I'm lying in bed watching Fox News; a channel which has provoked much horror and fury over the week, but right now just laughter, as they had some idiot on just now promoting his new book, called 'How To Raise a Happy Child'.
Here's the first question he was asked. "So, how would you react if you're child came to you and said, Daddy, I'm bored?"
I take a look at the guy. He looks like a lawyer, not a father. He thinks about it for a moment. I look in vain for a glimpse of human kindness in his eyes. He replies.
"I'd say, son, it's time to take responsibility for your life".
Thanks, Dad, that'll work.
Of course everyone has a story about a New York cab driver, so I'm offering nothing new here; but my journey from Newark Liberty into Manhattan earlier this week was a journey which lived up to the billing. The stereotype of NYC cabbies – or hacks – is that they talk fast and furious, negotiate the roads with psychotic abandon, and are, basically, nuts. The other stereotype, probably the truer one, is that in the yellow cabs of New York City you see immigration in action; wave after wave of economic migrants working the roads, united by their ambition for something better on the one hand and the depth of the story which led them there on the other. Somewhere between the two stereotypes is the fact, probably, and my hack was located exactly there. He was friendly, jovial, welcoming, and also hard to follow, disconcerting, intimidating – each in turn and all at once.
I climbed in the cab at the end of the afternoon, but having flown across the Atlantic I was shattered and at the tail end of a long day, my body telling me it was coming up to midnight. But when the driver – a tall, lean guy with a five o’clock shadow - welcomed me warmly I tried to engage him in conversation, and when I explained my job was treated to a loud and familiar story; that one day he would write a book and everyone would read it. It would be a life-changing book. We talked about the importance of reading, the importance of stories, and I believed him when he said that his life would be a story worth reading of – colourful because of where he came from and where he ended up, and important because it was true. At the same time, of course, I shrank back a bit – when I tell people I’m a publisher they often tell me that one day they'll write a book. I live in fear of them asking for a business card. And I spotted quickly that residing amongst the good humour there was a good deal of frustration. The book would tell it how it is, he told me, would talk of mis-justice and poverty, and the moral worth of the city he worked.
Where do you come from originally, I ask him, because he’s telling me about coming to the US. He tells me he is from Morocco, and so I tell him of the time, just the other week, when I ate at a restaurant in Southern Spain, and could see the North African coast on the horizon. As I say it, I speculate that I may be making a mistake. I’m right.
"What did you see between Spain and Morocco", he asks, and my heart sinks.
"Gibraltar", I tell him.
"And do you think that it is fair", he asks me, "that Gibraltar is considered the property of Britain".
I tell him that I don't know a lot about it, but that it doesn't seem fair to me, no – a response he scarcely notices as he launches into a long, protracted and hard-to-follow rant about imperialism, about the way the rich always fuck over the poor. Because I suspect I'm broadly in agreement with this, feeling that there’s a terrific unevenness in the world, I nod and provide the odd uncertain endorsement, which he occasionally acknowledges, but not always warmly – often I find I've either misunderstood a poorly explained point, or he suspects me of being a hypocrite or a rich-boy, and glances back sternly, repeating, "you understand what I’m saying?", again and again, to which I can only answer, falsely, "yes".
In Morocco, he tells me, everyone is happy. "But in Manhattan everyone goes to a psychiatrist. Why is that?"
He expects me to answer, but I'm growing weary and irritated now, refusing to provide him with responses. "There is no morality here", he says. He waves across the Hudson, which I'm getting an especially good look at, as he has completely missed a turning and is now having to take me in over the George Washington Bridge, doubling the length of the journey.
He's wistful for a moment. "It's beautiful. Do you have a camera?".
I shake my head.
"Over there, it is fun, yes?" He asks. I say yes. "Drink. Eat nice food. Go shopping. Nice girls?".
I realise that he's not talking up Manhattan at all, he's talking it down. Drink, food, girls – these things are not enough. I don’t tell him that they sound exactly like enough to me.
"And they all end up in psychiatrist!", he shouts. "Normal man, comes to New York, drinks, eats, fucks girls, gets to sixty and now he sees the psychiatrist. And then – pffft – all of a sudden, shits himself. And he is dressed in diapers. Diapers!".
I'm frankly a bit surprised that the conversation has taken this turn, so elect to stay quiet for a bit.
"In Morocco, no-one sees psychiatrist. No one wears diapers, shits himself. So what is it about this place that makes people like that?".
I don't answer so he repeats the question. I have a half-hearted go at trying to answer – mumbling something about economics and leisure time, but he cuts me off with another question. "Who decides that it costs sixty dollars to take this cab into Manhattan?", he demands. "Do I decide?". Before I can answer, he tells me no, he doesn't decide, someone else does. And he hammers the steering wheel with his fist – not angry, but vexed. "And it’s fucked up, man", he tells me. "Fu-ucked up".
After a bit more of this, his mood turns a bit sunnier. "This is what my book will be like!", he tells me. "You see, it will deal with big subjects! New York Taxi Driver, oh yes. I have lived in Spain. I have lived in Africa. Now. America. Is this not a good story?".
I tell him he should write his book, wishing I could append write it and shut the fuck up, to the suggestion.
"This is a good conversation", he declares, all smiles. He turns round – without slowing down – and shouts "high five".
In the most embarrassing, British way, I flap my palm against his. Despite everything, I'm sort of enjoying myself – it's impossible not to enjoy being driven across the Hudson, watching New York shimmering in the sun ahead of me. And this is, I keep reasoning to myself, an experience.
We've crossed into Harlem now, and I'm pleased for a moment that the journey has taken this wayward route, for it's a part of the city that I mightn't otherwise had time to see. It's amazingly vibrant, full of people, kids, old men sat in the sun. Everyone looks happy, I think.
"Here", the hack tells me, "everyone is happy. No psychiatrist. Because family is strong, you see – parents know where there children are, what they doing. Good place. I lived in Harlem. And where I lived in Morocco was like this too. Good community. No diapers".
Before long, however, we're heading downtown and the change of scenery effects another change in his temperament. He's back to cursing Manhattan morality, cross because he saw two kids skateboarding through lower Harlem, one Hispanic and one African-American. "What do you think happens when these different cultures mix?", he asks me. It's the latest in a series of questions I don’t want to answer, so I decide to stay silent, and let him rant while I sink into the back seat. By the time we finally reach the Upper West Side, where I'm staying, I shake myself awake to find him calm again, describing the contents of his book once more. "All the psychiatrists", he says, "they will be out of business when this book arrives. Do you know what it will be called?".
I can see my apartment block now, and the cab is stationary. I fumble for my money and pass him a wad of notes. I suddenly want to hear the answer.
"What will you call it?", I ask.
He makes me give him one last high five.
"No More Diapers", he tells me.
One thing I have noticed about New York is the way in which the city, by which I mean both the local government and the populace, confers an image upon public servants (policemen, firefighters, even roadworkers) which really emphasisies physical strength. In everything from information signs to commercial toys, NYC workers are physically brawny, tight-clothed, bursting with testosterone.
How different this is from the police officer or roadworker who inhabits the popular imagination of the Brit, who seems to see them primarily as irritants or beurocrats. If I had to imagine a young police officer back in the UK I'd probably picture an officious youth, a touch on the scrawny side, with a wispy upper lip.
But it's certainly hard to spot a cop over here who isn't barrel chested, muscles climbing up from his shoulder blades into his neck. Obviously, particularly since 9/11, it's been natural for firefighters to be - deservedly - stereotyped as heroes; but it's interesting how physical strength, toughness, manliness clearly permeates through NYC society. It doesn't take a genius to work out that this image resonates with the mythology of the American Dream; the American, after all, started with nothing and pulled himself up; he aquired not only a nation, but serious muscle definition, along the way.
Travellers, I am about to dispense to you - for absolutely no charge at all - the two most useful tips you will ever be given about the art of exploring cities anew. They won't let you down. By all means do your other research first - I spent an eight hour flight over the Atlantic learning about New York City's boutiques, record shops and drinking dens - but attend to these basic, essential tasks, too.
When you look up places to go, look up some really dull things too. Look up supermarkets.
In my first four hours in NY I had a really, genuinely wonderful time drifting through Greenwich Village - of which more later - and quite marvelled at the fact that I was walking through an area which has captured my imagination for most of my life; even if my mental image of the area was utterly misleading. Once there, of course, I simply couldn't tear myself away from the area until I reached absolute dropping point, at which point only two clear priorities for the evening remained: getting to the subway, and picking up a bottle of beer and some groceries to see me through the evening. So I boarded the subway - a deliciously exciting experience, sorry - and travelled up to 73rd and Broadway, where my apartment is, and, drawing on the last remnants of my energy, strolled around looking for a supermarket where I could grab some food.
Cue an hour of directionless, listless, indecisive walking. Conclusion one: there are no supermarkets in the Upper West Side. Conclusion two: there almost certainly are, but I walked down all the wrong streets. After a while, a kind of grim, determined pessimism set in and I started actively walking past potential vendors simply because I had kind of accepted the idea that I was destined to spend the night walking and yearning. And the sad truth is that this happens to me every time I stay somewhere new.
Lesson two is related to lesson one. It is that early on, inevitably, during your search for a supermarket, you will pass a burrito house and briefly consider going in. No matter what happens that evening, no matter how long it takes, you will - equally inevitably, with absolute certainty - end up going back an hour later and ordering the meal you earlier rejected.
So just get it the first time, seriously.
Here, after all that, is my first meal in New York. It may not look like much, but it tasted fucking unbelievable.
Work trip or not, it would be pretty hard not to enjoy the food here in Southern Spain, where I'm spending a few days for a work conference. Last night we ate in a beach-fronted restaurant just outside Marbella, which offered a curious, delicately spiced combination of Spanish fish dishes and, oddly, Japanese cuisine. Most important of all - apart from the fact that the Rioja was excellent - we had a panoramic view of the Mediterranean, with Gibraltar clearly visible before us, a long, high rock like a stepping stone. Some way behind it was a faint but mysterious coastline, sat further back, nestling in the mist; the North Coast of Africa. And propped delicately above it was a pencil thin sliver of moon, dyed orange from the reflection of coastal lights. It was, as I hope the above implies, very beautiful indeed. The urge to escape the confines of work and take a boat to Morocco is impossibly strong.
More details on this song to follow; but here's a new one for you to try. This song was written over the last few weeks in a rare combination of locations: Lisbon, Somerset and the train from Bristol to Brighton last week. Once again, it's ukulele driven - I might as well just sell my guitar.
Assistant - Standards (demo) [2.13 mins, 3.5mb]
Before my two days of indulgence in Lisbon last weekend, I actually spent several days working in Cascais, an enormously picturesque coastal town just outside Portugal's capital. It's a lovely place, a small settlement which arches around a plush marina, a picturesque seafront and some charming cobbled streets in the town centre. It's an ideal work conference venue, somewhere lovely, cosmopolitan and temperate, just diverting enough to provide a much needed counter-balance to work duties, but not so fascinating as to be actually distracting. Except...
Except it rained all week. Still, here are a couple of nice pictures, taken in moments of calm.
Florence is a pretty beautiful place. You probably know that, as I did before I arrived; the birthplace of the renaissance, the original centre of Italian fashion, an architectural jewel to rival Venice. You'll hardly find anyone who disputes these assertions, so expectations are naturally high. And yet. Knowledge, information, familiarity with photographed vistas, none of this really compares to the first corner turned in a place of bewildering beauty. Turning that first corner, seeing that first glorious basilica or stretch of river, is a dazzling, unexpected privilege.
Arriving in Florence I meet one of my authors, Matt, at the airport and we share a cab into the city. We try to hold a conversation, one about events in Zimbabwe and another about quite why it is that town planners of European cities so regularly allow their suburbs to be defaced by dreadful architecture, but fail on both counts and are reduced to giggles as we watch our impossibly Italian driver bang his hands on the steering wheel, shout furiously at other drivers and exhibit a frankly amazing portfolio of hand-gestures, ranging from the exasperated to the profane. It's impossible to ignore, on our way in, despite the afore-mentioned ugliness of much that we pass, the incredible alteration of perspective which the Mediterranean colour palate induces; it is as if wearing tinted contact lenses, all the normal hues transformed into a sunny, dusty coalition of faded pinks, yolk yellows and lobster reds.
We arrive at our respective hotels and say cheerio, parting to check in and prepare for the first exploration into town. I'm impatient so once I've found my room and set aside my belongings, I grab my camera and dash back out onto Via Della Scala, which is a narrow street lined with hotels and restaurants. I have a map, but I ignore it and take a right turn, led by intuition, heading out under a brilliant blue sky. I can't have walked more than forty or fifty yards before I round my first corner, encountering with shock the vast and impressive geometric facade of the internally severe Santa Maria Novella church. Not knowing quite how much better it gets than this, I stand awed for a few moments, before heading further into town, following the crowds.
I quickly surmise a few things; firstly, that the stereotype of Italian sophistication is grounded firmly in fact; it's fairly easy to swiftly identify the locals and differentiate them from the many tourists. They are dressed to perfection, innately stylish and amusingly affected. Men plant themselves mid-pavement to chat, scarves loped carefully around their necks. Women sashay slowly along, dressed in expensive boots and fashionable leather jackets. Accordingly, the streets are lined with expensive boutiques.
Secondly, I quickly realise that the Santa Maria Novella was a red herring. Despite its impressive facade, it is a mere aperitif. Looming ahead is Brunelleschi's dome, belonging to the famous Duomo. Although the building surrounding it is obscured, I grow increasingly excited as I approach, until at last I veer round another corner and am faced with the glory of Florence's stunning cathedral. Extraordinarily ornate, carved in white Carrara, green Prato and red Maremma marble, the cathedral boasts stunning detail, from reliefs depicting the history of mankind to marvellous busts of Florentine artists and merchants, along with - of course - sculptures of Christ, Mary and John the Baptist. The bronze doors to the main building are impressive, yet serve only to highlight the magnificence of the facing "gates of paradise", magnificent, glowing reproductions of the original Baptistry doors (the real things are housed nearby in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, preserved in containers filled with nitrogen).
The square bustles with activity. The locals, predictably, are studied and impassive. But everyone else simply stands agog, eyeballing this magnificent creation. I do likewise. Little do I know I haven't yet seen Florence at its very, very best.
I'm in Cardiff for a few days and, sick of pounding the streets of Britain's university towns looking for decent pubs, I decide that instead of hunting for hours, I will call in at the first pub I see, buy a drink, sit down, and read my book. I am prepared for it to be dank and dark, or louty and lousy. I don't mind at all. I pick a pub at random and stroll to the bar.
"Hurray", a gang of middle aged man shout, as I approach. "Hurray".
One of the men is dressed like Richard O'Brien in The Crystal Maze. He rushes forward and shakes my hand. "Welcome", he cries.
Actually, I don't know what he cries. For nearly a minute my linguistic adaptability, in the face of this heavily accented Welsh tirade, absents me entirely. My genial host babbles incoherently. Slowly, I begin to pick up the rhythm.
He turns me around and presents me to his friends, six or seven men at the bar. "Hurray", they shout. I go red, probably. "Have a drink with us", one of them, cries. I kind of shake my head in terror, trying to be polite. Rattled, I order a pint of something called Reverend James Best Bitter, smiling in a slightly insane fashion.
My hosts want to know my name. I stammer an introduction. Where are you from, they ask. Brighton, I tell them. At this point they all pretend to have never heard of Brighton, which throws me for a bit, then inform me that it's "an awful long way to have come for a bit of shopping".
"I'm here on business", I tell them, sounding like a prat. "I'm a publisher".
"Oh, a publisher", Richard O'Brien nods, pointing to his friend. "He's a publisher, too, you know".
The friend comes over, nodding, and tells me he works in a distillery.
"You're Geoff", one of them cries. "Yes, Geoff!!", the others chorus. I start to wonder where my pint is. To my immense relief, it arrives, and I retreat nervously to a table and begin to read. When the party leaves ten minutes or so later each comes past my table and shakes my hand, telling me I'm "a good lad".
I end up smiling, squirming, and wondering if I have just been heartily welcomed to Cardiff or just been royally taken the piss out of. I'm glad they've gone, and glad I met them.
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