Rainbow Daze

'No nay, no no,' said the White Rabbit, 'don't drink the potion! It will make you shrink in size. Follow me, hee hee, follow me this way, it's much more fun. Let me take you to this amazing place, follow me. Follow me!'

Alice hesitated, but quickly gave in and followed the White Rabbit down the tunnel, swayed by his enthusiasm and curious for discovery. 'What can there be? What will I see?' she asked herself, fidgeting with excitement.

Running as fast as her new school shoes would allow her, she pursued him desperately, but he hopped and he skipped very fast indeed, too fast for poor Alice. Before she could call out for him to slow down, he disappeared out of sight. There was very little light in the tunnel, and although not cold, Alice felt a slight shiver run up her spine. Wishing she had taken the potion after all, she reached into her dress pockets to warm her hands and... WHOOSH!

When Alice woke up, of the White Rabbit there was no sign, although she did not notice this, so surprised was she by the sight that greeted her eyes. She was in a city, that much was obvious, but the kind of city Alice had never been to before, or even seen, or heard of. Everywhere, a riot of colours, geometric patterns, whirls and whorls of all shapes and sizes overwhelmed her confused sense of sight. 'What a crazy place this is!' she thought.

Every building she looked at (and she looked at many) was painted a different shade of pink or orange or green or blue or yellow or red or any wonderful combination of primary and secondary colours. Here and there, two-dimensional coloured cubes bounced gayly in the midday sun. The whole place radiated warmth and energy, where none there ought to have been, so desolate and poor was this part of the world.

'What is this place, where am I?' Alice asked herself.

Welcome to Tirana, Albania:









Emerging in 1999 after 45 years of grim communist isolation, the good citizens of the Albanian capital must have shared Alice's confusion as they struggled to come to terms with their new and surreal environment and relative freedom. Finding themselves staring into the dazzling headlights of democracy like a wheelchair-bound deer with two flat tyres, they promptly elected a charismatic former national basketballer with a diploma in fine arts from a prestigious Paris school as their new mayor. As one does.

Within weeks of being elected, 6'7"/1m97 Edi Rama had slam-dunked the ultimate cosmetic make-over in a wave of instant change that rapidly swept over his city. Pothole-ravaged streets were repaved and derelict buildings bulldozed; the environment regained an urban footing as 4,000 trees were planted along the central avenues; but most visibly of all, the majority of Tirana's architectural drabness was dramatically transformed by an army of painters on a psychedelic mission to create an ocean of colour on the world's largest blank canvas.

No other vassal of the former Soviet Union had undergone such a radical and sudden political, structural and psychological change since the collapse of Stalin's totalitarian ideology. Yet all this was unknown to the western world, or at least to me. Rama even achieved the incredible feat of being voted World Mayor of the Year in 2004 and one of Time Magazine's Heroes of 2005.

This being Albania, Rama has already survived two attempts on his life since his election 10 years ago, and his most vocal opponent has vowed to repaint the city in lustrous shades of grey if or when he is invited to power. Still running the city, today's mayor of Tirana is currently campaigning to become the country's Socialist Party leader and is a strong contender for Prime Minister in this year's elections. Europe's 2nd poorest country and its 40% unemployed populace can dream of better times ahead.

But this is not about politics, progress or even hope. I feel like the Cheshire Cat in Wonderland, so wide is my grin, so unexpected is this heart-warming kaleidoscope skyline. This is the purest form of satisfaction that travel can offer: the powerful surprise of discovery that surpasses even the most breathtaking beauty.

That my last evening in this architectural crack alley is spent in a 16-floor high revolving bar that draws my gaze over the crazy stripes and pastel hues for one last time at sunset - and in the company of some equally appreciative travellers - is fitting. It truly is.


Of Alice there is no sign however, maybe she has fallen down one of the few remaining potholes after one too many shots of raki...

Different Strokes

'I believe in a purer form of love, where sincerity of sentiment transcends all aesthetic beauty to create an overwhelming rush of blind understanding', my next-table-neighbour announces cheerily to his fellow diner, before delicately popping a rosy sliver of entrecôte au poivre into his eloquent mouth. Only some supreme in extremis control over my oesophagus prevents me from projecting a minor mountain range of deliciously buttery mashed potato onto the partition wall in surprise at this casual conversation opener. 'YOU WOT?', my mind screams.

Meeting this statement with a look of bored insouciance that betrays his nationality, his compagnon takes a slow, measured and savoured sip of his verre de rouge and remains silent. They can be no older than 20.

I am confused. These are multi-syllabled words being spoken here. Where are the Texa Fried Chicken drumsticks and cans of Tennents Super? What is this love that is being mentioned? Love is Tracy on Monday and Jenny on Tuesday and whatever her name was on Wednesday, who cares anyway?

All of a sudden, I remember that I am in France, and that these people are French. They think. Actually, they think. And they do it very well.

Even as I accept, understand and adjust to my new surroundings, I can feel the inevitable change come over me. I am becoming more introspective with every passing minute, as I always do when I find myself sitting alone at a Parisian bistrot with a glass of red wine within lazy reach. France does this to me: it rekindles a fire that has no right to burn in me.

Eight years of French schooling and a lifelong proximity to all things gallic have made me as close as one can come to being French without routinely pan-frying amphibians and perfecting the complex art of subtle retreat. Until the age of 12, I read the same comics, watched the same cartoons and stole the same 1980s additive-ridden sweets as any Thibaut, Luc or Guillaume from Brest to Biarritz. I know the French, I know them very well and feel myself inexorably drawn to their smooth and cultured ways whenever I set foot on Gaul.

And here I am again, in fair Gaul. Having left the safe haven of Queenie's noble shores, it is not long before vague after vague of existential questions batter my uncouth saxon morality: Am I a good person? Will I ever see the bigger picture? What legacy will I leave to this planet? And more importantly, did I really need that last profiterole?

I love France for doing this to me, for challenging the very core of my system of belief and how I function. I willingly give in to my masochistic urges and strip myself bare: here I am, the real moi. I can look at myself in a way I could not even imagine possible from the safety of my comfortable middle-class life in leafy South West London. I am.

But just then, as I prepare to hang my soul out to dry on the clothes line of purgatory, I am yanked back into the realm of reality and saved from certain think-too-much doom by a fortuitous glance at my briefcase. All thoughts of complicated self-improvement vanish in a genial flash as I see the beacon masthead of the Daily Mail smile at me in all its glory.

What truly matters in my life is not here, it is not introspection or even understanding. There are more important things in life than morality and humanity: it is transfer deadline day in the Premier League and the Villa were about to sign a central defender. There is nowt more existential than a change to your playing formation two weeks before the local derby.

I lean back into my chair and relax, gradually fading out the dull sounds of silent debate to my right. My life status improves from good to perfect as I turn to the games page and realise that I still have two Sudoku puzzles to solve.

Bliss...

Some Random Numbers...

8 - days gone and days to go on this magnificent tour of the Balkans. The third and final day in Montenegro marks the halfway point of our 6 country blitz. With Sarajevo, Mostar, Dubrovnik and Kotor behind us, the next week sees us leave the mainstream popularity of the Adriatic coast and enter the unknown entities that Albania, Macedonia and Kosova present.

0 - hangovers on this trip so far. Has maturity sneaked up on us? Previous vodka-fuelled adventures in the Russian winter and drunken jungle treks in Central America seem a thing of the distant past as we revel in our discovery of mountain hikes, beach laziness and early nights. Unchartered territory.

1504 - steep steps climbed to reach the mountaintop fortress overlooking the Bay of Kotor and marvel at the breathtaking scenery provided by Europe's southernmost fiord.


3,4 - litres of perspiration leaked by yours truly over the local vegetation during the ascent of the aforementioned mountain, producing an Oscar-worthy performance of an exploding fire hydrant.

1.778, 45 and 23 - kilometres of heavenly Adriatic coastline allocated to Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia & Herzegovina respectively in the re-distribution of land following the break-up of Yugoslavia. As my lungs fill with the diesel fumes from a 3rd generation German transport bus hand-me-down at Mostar bus station, memories from my previous holiday exploring the Croatian coast flood my mind and bring a large and knowing smile to my face. Soon enough, the bus inches its painful way around the hairpin bends of the high coastal road, precipitous cliffs dotted with gravity-defying conical pine trees fall down dramatically into crescent bays of crystalline waters. Further splashes of colour catch the eye here and there with a group of magnificent pink oleanders in bloom and pretty whitewashed houses sheltered by warm terracotta rooftiles. In all my travels, I have seen no coastline that can compare to this.

1,454,000 - a conservative estimate of the combined total number of inhabitants currently in their home countries of France, Italy and Russia. The rest are distributed evenly amongst the cities of Sarajevo, Mostar, Dubrovnik and Kotor. If ever there was a time to go and conquer France again, this is it.

17 - number of Australians dining three tables away from us in Dubrovnik, bravely attempting to redress the balance of the previous statistic. No fewer than twelve names overheard during their figurative and literal dissection of their seafood platters ended in the Antipodean nickname suffixes of choice. Thus our own dinner conversation was all but drowned out as Scotty, Julesy, Taylesy, Smithy, Matty, Jimbo, Simmo, Robbo and the rest of the gang performed lengthy crustacean autopsies with the occasional outburst of 'Shit guys, this is real good! I mean it ain't like the shit you get back home, but it's still pretty good shit!'.

93% - my current State Of Relaxation. Five days at the beach and some gentle sightseeing has given me a serenity and peace of mind I have seldom experienced in London. Every single nerve in my body has its own deckchair on a private beach and it is happy hour on Mojitos. The only blot on the spectacular landscapes we have visited was an unsightly, ungodly and quite frankly unwelcome Wednesday afternoon appearance from two horridly sunburnt, long-haired, middle-aged Greek men proving by their unfortunate beach attire that Speedos should be a form of cereal narcotics rather than indecently revelatory swimwear. Brrrr, not a pleasant image.

2 - total number of words learnt and used on this trip, conveniently common to all countries visited. A little slack by my usual linguistic standards perhaps, but for the moment, 'Hvala' and 'Pivo' more than fill my daily needs.

Two Bridges

BREAKING NEWS: 37 Bosnian youths were admitted to the Psychological Trauma ward at Sarajevo General Infirmary in the early hours of this morning. Initial reports are as yet unconfirmed, but this just in from Ana Ivanovičeva, a 21 year old student from Višegrad:

"Horrible. It was horrible, worse than the worst of all war atrocities this country suffered. It was an English man, he was on the dance floor at the Old House discotheque. He was dressed in army shorts and yellow flip-flops. Flip-flops! His moves were terrifying, unlike anything I had ever seen."

A second youth, a 23 year old sociology student from Banja Luka who preferred to remain unnamed, managed just "His gyrating hips, they just...", before passing out, her eyes glazed with fear. Doctors on the scene fear for her sanity.

The fragmentation of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslav Republic may have generated an unexpected upturn in business for cartographers from all corners of the world, but to me it simply means that a new audience of unsuspecting nightclubbing enthusiasts can be subjected to dance moves that would make an arthritic three-legged pregnant water buffalo appear to move as gracefully as Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn performing their legendary Baroque Pas de Trois. As I wreak my path of destruction through the Western Balkans with my Irish travel buddy, I can expect no fewer than 12 new entry and exit stamps from this trip, all in a passport so dog-eared that it may soon require a flea collar and its own miniature kennel.

A last minute pre-trip examination of the Foreign Office's current hotspots left me feeling somewhat cheated as I failed to find a single one of my upcoming destinations rated at more than a moderate level of geopolitical instability. No civil unrest, no rigged elections or seismic activity to report and it would seem as though the keys to the safety of this voyage will be held in the most dangerous hands of all - my own.

So far, so good. On this, Day 3 of 16, we are nearing the end of our discovery of Bosnia, a country known principally for two architectural structures that have been historically significant in shaping the map of Europe over the past 100 years. Two bridges. The first of unimaginable consequence, Sarajevo's Latin Bridge: the site of the assassination that precipitated the start of a century of nationalistic fervour and war. The second, the Old Bridge at Mostar, a symbol of culture, learning and prosperity for 500 years, then of suffering, death and horror during the Bosnian War, and finally of the reparation and attempted cohabitation of two feuding brothers of different faith.

And what a discovery Bosnia has been. Bosnia, the poor neighbour of powerful Serbia, beautiful Croatia and emerging Montenegro, has truly surprised us. Bosnia, the wonderful aroma of grilled čevapčiči in the evening air, everywhere; the surprisingly pleasant sounds of copper being hammered by skilled merchants into coffee cups, reverberating around Sarajevo's enthralling Baščaršija Bazaar; the entrepreneurial psychopaths leaping from the 21m height of the Old Bridge into the Neretva river in Mostar to fleece tourists of their holiday money; the glorious Mediterrannean climate and cheap beer.

I am on the road again, and it feels great.

The Good, The Bid And The Ugly

The small basement room is full this evening, yet I can draw no comfort from the fact that I am not alone in my suffering.

As I walk inside, I notice that my palms are already moist, an instant reaction to the harsh neon lighting and the imminent torture that it represents. I approach the loose circle of chairs in this, my purgatorial antechamber.

The shy young computer technician - Robert, I think - is here, as he always is. He affords me the slightest of nods as my glance sweeps past him. We tried to hold a conversation several weeks ago, but it was so painfully awkward that the relief was mutual when the time came to sit down. we have not spoken since.

I can also see Jason, who is beckoning me over to his side of the room. He pats the empty chair beside him, and although I cannot bear the thought of his incessant whispering and nudging, it is the only available seat and I reluctantly make my way around the outside of the group and sit down.

Now that each and every chair is occupied, the group grows silent in nervous anticipation of the next event to occur.

Mustering uncharacteristic courage, and ignoring the familiar shameful weakness in my knees, I stand up. All eyes are now on me, with a mixture of relief and encouragement. I can do this, I think to myself as I address the room:

'Hi, my name is Jean-Marc and I am addicted to eBay.'

*****

Having lain dormant for two and a half years, my eBay account recently had its e-cobwebs dusted off during my desperate search for a ticket to the reunion concert of Faith No More. With a generous budget of £100 and my fingers hovering expectantly over the keyboard, I approached my mission with the naive confidence of an ex-smoker taking a drunken puff at a party, forgetting how much junk I had purchased on the site many moons ago.

Fast forward 48 hours and I have added several dozen CDs to the online marketplace and am bidding in an equal number of buying auctions. I have rather rapidly come to question my moral integrity as I discover the sadistic satisfaction obtained from driving the price up on items I have no interest in winning. It is a stupid and risky game that appeals to the purest form of my competitive spirit.

But I also play to win. I bide my time and bid at the very last moment, outfoxing my opponents in Manchester, Moscow and Melbourne. And I buy, I buy more items. Most items I have no use for whatsoever. But I have WON these items, I am a winner!

I am hooked again.

Analysed carefully, I am able to distinguish the differing sentiments coursing through me, a trinity of emotions with each success: the instant rush of victory as the auction closes just after my last gasp bid; the crushing low as I instantly question the validity of the contest; and finally the warm glow of anticipation and expectation as I wait for the glorious prize to be delivered to my door.

For almost four weeks during the month of June, I sold, mailed, bid or re-bid from the crack of dawn to the fall of night. It was only my holiday to Portugal that saved me from descending into full-blown addiction as I realise now how much time I actually spent on the website.

By a strange wringing of the wet towel of coincidences, I opened this morning's Metro newspaper to discover that the British arm of eBay was celebrating its 10th anniversary on this very day. I am but one of the 38.4 million people to have made 964 million transactions during the last decade, to have felt the magnetism and experienced the winning rush. I have luckily managed to wean myself off this cybervice, but how many others are logged on right now, buying one of the 3455 handbags sold very day at the rate of one every 25 seconds?

Having felt quite smugly content with the sparkling originality of this post's introductory scene, I watered the seed of my own doubt by Googling 'eBay addiction' and was rewarded with a kick in the creative cojones as I discovered that it really is a recognised form of Internet Addiction. Reading the recollection of a recovering addict ('It was 5am and I couldn't log on, I had a complete breakdown, I started crying. That's when I realised I had a real problem') and remembering the countless hours tucked up in bed with my laptop, I realise how easy it would be to succomb to the siren's call once again.

*****

'Hi, my name is Jean-Marc and I am addicted to eBay. I have been clean for three weeks.'

That Johnny Cash Song

22.11.2008: Swatch Group International HQ - Biel, Switzerland

Catalogue Coordination Manager: The print deadline is this Friday, how are we doing?
Senior Graphic Designer: Well, the images are all prepped and templated, but final text is waiting for your approval and has to go to the printers tomorrow.
CCM: Have you run the new collection names past the translation agency?
SGD: No, we're already over budget for the catalogue, we'll have to do it in-house this time. It's only the duty free magazine in any case, and we used last year's copy for the basic translations.
CCM: That sounds reasonable, leave the text on my desk and I'll proof it and get it back to you by close of business.
SGD: Great, thanks.

01.07.2009: Seat 7A - Flight TP387 from London Heathrow to Porto

I can barely contain my annoyance at having had my holiday enthusiasm deflated by a two-hour delay to our flight. I need a pacifier or there will soon be a hail of toys flying out of my pram, I need to find something to occupy myself fast. But what? Two carefully selected holiday books are gleefully gathering dust, lying forgotten on my office desk, my iPod has taken a vow of uncharged silence and dinner is half an hour away.

Faced with no viable alternative to alleviate my frustration, I reach for the in-flight entertainment world's equivalent of a full frontal lobotomy: the duty free magazine. Indeed, no sooner have I contemptuously flicked the first three pages than my brain commits itself to instant hibernation, pausing just briefly enough to wonder how on earth 102 pages of cosmetics, perfume, chocolate, alcohol and tobacco can be crammed into the narrow trolley that the cabin crew are wheeling down the aisle.

As I flick through the latest products from the houses of haute couture and smelly scents, I gradually sense my cerebral activity beginning to flatline when

WHACK!

It hits me like a sledgehammer, I can barely understand and my eyes nearly pop out of their sockets.

Successive waves of shock, disbelief, surprise and finally elation wash over me. There it is, right before me: the Holy Grail of inter-linguistic double entendres. I am gobsmacked, both figuratively and literally as I clasp my hand to my shocked mouth so fast that I nearly knock my front teeth clean out.

I turn to show Sarah the source of my side-splitting comedy histrionics but can utter no words as I am still in the delicious ecstacy of pure and unexpected laughter. It is all I can do to hand over the magazine and reveal the full glory that is:



Go on! Do it, laugh out loud! Let rip your snorts, guffaws and sniggers. Marvel at the unfortunate shape of this fine piece of jewellry and then read the fine print for further puerile gratification (hint: a 'ç' is pronounced 'ss'). Most of you will have by now closed this window and moved on to more serious business*, but for those of you who appreciate infantile humour as much as I do, please click here for an extra dollop of cheap entertainment.

€55,00 it may well cost, but in reality it is priceless...

* Except for you, Brooks, I know where you are reading this and this one's dedicated to you.

Double Trouble

1 & 2) 05:50 - Heathrow Terminal 2 is dead. There are no shops open and I am shuffling despondently in the zombie procession that is the queue at Caffè Nero. In my determination to explore unchartered depths of sleep during every minute I am airborne, I decide against the coffee that I am craving and select the most obscure mixture of berries to be blended into icy submission at the cost of Nicaragua's gross domestic product.

As the barista turns his back to me in order to prepare the first and last of today's 5-a-day, I cannot help but read the company slogan that signals my downfall. 'THE BEST ESPRESSO THIS SIDE OF MILAN', his t-shirt reads. The never-quite-asleep 9-year old in me wakes up and snorts disdainfully in the face of this potential comparison challenge. 'And a double espresso!' I bellow so loudly that the nearest double chocolate chip cookie turns white.


I love coffee, but I cannot handle it. Within thirty seconds of the hot liquid searing its lightning path down my oesophagus, my pace has increased to the speed of the marching Wehrmacht in late 1939 and it is all I can do to stop myself from banging on the cabin door in my eagerness to board the aircraft. Why did I leave my tin-opener at home?

Once on board, the effect wears off just as suddenly as it first electrified me. I am now so tired that Morpheus claims me almost as soon as I have my seatbelt on, but I am conscious enough of the caffeine hit to know that the dreams will not be good. Soon enough, two spectacularly ugly three-legged leprechaun brothers are cavorting naked with an unnaturally frisky sabre-toothed tiger in the deepest and darkest recesses of my mind. Pretty it ain't.

3) 09:45 - As I walk through the sliding doors into the arrivals area at Milan's Linate airport, my greatest fear is confirmed. There, at the strategically-placed espresso bar opposite baggage reclaim, my sales agent awaits my arrival, elbow on counter and coffee in hand. 'Vuoi un caffè? Come stai?', or do I want a coffee, and how am I, by the way.

He is not alone as every inch of the bar is supporting an amorphous mass of designer fabric and espresso-brandishing arms. The suffering and longing of countless Italian women is extended by a full 95 seconds as their partners choose coffee bean over love unseen. In the parking lot, taximeters tick over happily as the Italian economy is further crippled. And my heart is racing.

4 & 5) 10:40 - The meeting is about to begin. Despite the typically cordial opening exchanges, this will not be pleasant as our turnover in Italy is down 30% and I am here to kick some serious gnocchi-kneading butt*. But I am ambushed before I can take my seat in the boardroom. 'Un doppio, grazie', I tell the secretary, not wanting to appear to be rude as I take another double hit. The meeting begins, but all I want to do is direct traffic manually at a very busy London intersection.

6) 12:00 - We have a break. And a coffee. 'Krrrzzztgrtzzt', my mind thinks as I prepare to submit my environment-saving plans for a new form of renewable energy by connecting my manically-blinking eyelids to a portable wind turbine.

Although usually receptive and understanding, today my business brain seems to have become the reincarnated love child of Josef Stalin and Cruella DeVille. I reluctantly agree to extended payment terms for the third quarter, as long as there are no Dalmatians involved.

7 & 8) 13:30 - FOOD! FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD! I devour my pasta starter and attack my pepper steak with the carnal gusto of an Italian prime minister about to enter a brothel. The wine soothingly coats the surface of my corroded stomach wall and my pupils dilate for the first time since leaving West London. There may yet be cause to cancel the pre-ordered room defibrillator service at my hotel this evening.

I am then handed a loaded gun which I gleefully fire at both my right and left feet. To tell the truth, I just drink the double espresso that somehow materialises in front of me, but it amounts to the same.

9 & 10) 15:30 - At the mid-afternoon break in our meeting, the secretary gives me a strange look as I answer 'Yes, a double please...' to her question about our current delivery times. I am about to smash the porcelain cup on the floor before I remember that I am not in Athens, and this is not Stavros' wedding.

11) 17:20 - We visit a customer. After failing to stabilise my arm long enough to take a decent photograph of a quite stunning retail display of my company's products, the customer suggests we adjourn to the bar next door for a coffee. Who am I to argue? The fact that a the mere sighting of a plastic spoon within a seven metre radius of my right arm is likely to cause the slaughter of a thousand souls is irrelevant. I NEED caffeine.

I am now in the zone and I am dangerous. Bring me the eskimo, for I shall sell blocks of common ice to him; bring me the desert Touareg, for sandcastle property shall he buy from me; bring me the Italian gift shop owner, for he shall buy my wares without question nor quibble. We walk out of the shop with an order for 2,000€ from a customer who already has a stockroom full of glassware and a three-week holiday coming up. I nailed him.

My agent looks at me in a new light. I just look at the light, realise it is the sun and that my retinas have probably been turned into fine slivers of ocular carpaccio.

12 & 13) 20:30 - My body may be in the chain restaurant in the lobby of my hotel, but my mind is definitely floating in a magical wonderland of Tim Burton-esque animation. As my waiter tries to argue that I ought to start with a starter or at least a main course and not a quadruple espresso with a side order of coffee ice cream, a baker's dozen of coffee biscuits and a snifter of coffee liqueur, I wave him away, dreaming of Ecuador, Columbia, Costa Rica and Kenya.

Conscious that I am but one caffeine hit and a couple of elbow jerks away from being diagnosed with Tourrettes, I decide to call it a day. I somehow manage to sign my bill, barely aware of the team of cleaners hurriedly assembling to mop up the ever-expanding lake of drool that my twitching lips are generating.

That was four hours ago. The spasms have slowed down in frequency and I find that I can now focus enough on my keyboard to create random new entries in the Kazakh language section of Wikipedia. I am about to attempt to sleep, knowing I that I am going to plunge head first into a caffeine coma. In four and a half hours, my alarm clock will sound and it will be time to wake up and smell the...

* Not a pleasant image to have in your mind, dismiss instantly or avoid potato dumplings forever.

Bite Me

I have been bitten.

Two puncture marks four centimetres apart on my left ankle testify to the passage of a bloodsucking visitor last night. They don't waste time in Transylvania.

But immortality does not beckon just yet. No, this is not the result of Count Dracula's kinky foot fetish, but rather the nocturnal feasting marks of a coven of bloodthirsty mosquitoes.

Having unwittingly tenderized my own flesh by virtue of last night's chicken kebab and lager marinade, I woke up this morning to find seventeen angry swellings of various shapes and sizes covering my fingers, hands, arms, toes, feet and legs. One bite in particular, on the inside of my right arm, can only have been left by a rabid pterodactyl, or at the very least a mildly miffed bald eagle.

And boy do these buggers itch. As I struggle to contain my frustration, my superhuman efforts to refrain from tearing strips of my own skin off only serve to make me look like a sexual deviant in the delicious throes of an auto-erotic massage.

Sipping my wine on Piata Mica, the smallest and quaintest of Sibiu's holy trinity of medieval town squares, I am all too aware that the sun's slow descent behind the magnificent Saxon cathedral signals the opening of another all-you-can-eat buffet at Chez Jean-Marc.

Sure enough, within minutes I can sense the falsetto vibrations and light tread of the first hungry diner on the back of my neck.

Bon appétit.

Techno Train

The English Channel has served us well. With the insignificant exception of a handful of disoriented Romans, some Norman bastard in a longboat and a few unhealthy rats in the 17th century, it has pretty much kept out most unwanted guests and annoyances.

In recent times, it has even served as a natural barrier against the aural scourge that is Euro Pop, leaving our continental cousins' shameful taste for formulaic disco electronica outside our front door.

Unfortunately for me, I am no longer on the safe side of the sound barrier. I am on the slow train from Timisoara to Sibiu in Romania and all my own past musical sins have come back to haunt me in the shape of my current train carriage companions.

Sitting diagonally opposite me in an 8-seat compartment, two frisky young Romanian girls are canoodling openly. Their hands are roaming and fumbling so wildly that I start to get my wallet out, convinced that this cannot be for free. Very rapidly, though, my surprise turns to annoyance. It is not their sexuality that is disturbing me, however, but rather their taste in music.

They each have an earphone connected to a 1980s Sony Walkman cassette player (!) and the aural distortion (for music this is not) being played at full volume would incite poor Vincent Van Gogh to slice off his other ear. Every single song that I am forced to endure sounds like a handful of medium-sized ball bearings bouncing around a tumble dryer on its highest spin cycle, with the occasional deep rumbling sound of a wild goose passing wind. That this music is clearly putting them in the mood for some jiggery-pokery is beyond comprehension.

I stand up to go to the toilets in order to relieve my poor ears as well as my bladder, only to return thirty short seconds later, with my face ashen. For the sake of public decency, I will refrain from relating in graphic detail the horrors that have just confronted me, suffice to say that Timisoara's only Indian restaurant must have done a roaring trade last night.

With sight, smell and hearing annihilated, I attempt to protect my two remaining senses by simultaneously stroking my moleskin coat and eating a Kinder Bueno. So much for a peaceful scenic train journey through Romania's heartland.

But my luck changes within ten minutes. The train pulls into a station and the girls get off, still joined at the hips, lips and various other body parts. I swear I can see steam rising from their clothes as they jump off the train and head for the nearest barn.

As the immaculately dressed ticket inspector enters the compartment to check my ticket, he spots my guidebook and smiles at me. "You are alone now until Sibiu," he tells me in perfect English "enjoy the beautiful views."

And he is not wrong. Calm has returned to my world, and the scenery is also changing. The monotonous farming countryside dotted with power stations and disused factories has given way to the rugged mountains and lush forests of the Transylvanian Alps.

I am entering Dracula country.

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em...

Wizz Air Flight W6704 to Timisoara
Scheduled - 08:10
Estimated - 12:00

Wondering briefly whether tearing my toenails out with a pair of pliers would be more fun than spending four hours at the departure lounge of Luton Airport, I remind myself that I am still on holiday and decide to indulge in a spot of people-watching.

As I survey my pauper's kingdom, I soon establish that there are two clear breeds of animal in this low-budget human zoo. Dotted around the lounge are pockets of Eastern European migrants dressed in navy 1980s Adidas tracksuits, leather flat caps and mountain goat overcoats. They are taking this delay in their stride, animatedly discussing the soaring cost of cabbage and exchanging the latest mullet-grooming tips. Here and there, a handlebar moustached is twirled distractedly.

An escalating argument to my right draws my attention. The more hirsute members of a group of Romany gypsies appear to be remonstrating with each other for regrettably checking in their violins and accordions, thus missing out on a huge cash cow with such a large audience at their busking mercy.

Also congregated in small groups, but far more noticeable, are the bands of Ibiza-bound Home Counties chavs dressed in clothes so white and so bright that I am forced to pen these words from the sanctuary of the Sunglass Hut stand. A veritable sea of 3/4 khakis, pink polo shirts and dazzling white trainers reminds me why I will never explore Spain's Mediterranean coastline.

These two groups may be polar opposites on the social spectrum, but today they are united in their unquenchable thirst and the beer taps flow uninterrupted at the bar. It is 8:50am.

With my faith in humanity eroding fast and my patience wearing micro-thin, I must do something quickly or perish in this gene pool of mediocrity. Weighing up my limited options, I choose my only path to salvation and make my way to the only person who can help me redress the balance.

'One pint of Kronenbourg, please!', I order cheerfully at the bar. I am on holiday after all...

Perfect Timing

BBC Radio 2 News Report - Wednesday April 8th 2009:

'Security forces have regained control of the presidential palace buildings but tensions remain high in the Moldovan capital Chisinau after mass protests and demonstrations following the victory of the incumbent Communist Party in the recent general elections. The British Foreign Office advises against any immediate travel to the area.'

I am travelling to the area. Fairly immediately.

Even by my supremely chaotic standards, travelling to Europe's poorest and most corrupt country the week after a general election may have merited a little more consideration. With a sense of timing more prone to disaster than a wheelchair-bound lemming about to launch off a 60m alpine ski jump, I must have somehow known that a random group of 10,000 communism-intolerant Moldovan mofos would decide to complain about not being able to get an extra Sweet & Sour Chicken McNugget Dip just before I decided to grace the country with my presence.

With the cherry trees in blossom and its welcoming Mediterranean climate, Malta is a nice place to visit in April, or so I am told. But somehow, the ancient Saxon citadels of Transylvania, the breakaway republic of Transnistria and hordes of rioting Moldovans just sounded more 'happening'.

Hmmm, the news must be overreacting. I pick up my reading material to reassure myself:

'Whether you are a lifelong resident or a fresh-faced visitor, submitting to police shakedowns for bribes is a fact of life in Moldova.', the Lonely Planet guidebook to Romania & Moldova begins, rather promisingly. Having read the two remaining pages in the 'Dangers & Annoyances' section, I am no longer merely concerned with the potential financial extortion that may await me. No, a combination of the rabid packs of wild dogs, urban bears, gypsy bandits or organ thieves should be more than enough to cut me in my prime. No wonder Dracula is a myth in these parts, he plainly bit off more than he could chew...

But the reality of my mission is simple and beautiful: I have a burning desire to explore every square millimetre that this planet has on offer. And on the eve of my trip, I feel so electric that I could boil the kettles of a thousand teas. I have been hiding in the bushes for far too long. I am about to sneak out of the darkness and crawl on my hands and knees, getting my jeans dirty with the soil of curiosity. I will shuffle up to the window, pause for a moment, then open it gently, quietly and unnoticed. And I will look inside, and discover with wonder and awe a new world with the enthusiasm of an innocent child.

I am about to hit the road again, and I can't wait.

Obsession

High up in the azure skies, a prairie falcon unfurls its magnificent wings and glides majestically over the vast plains of South Dakota. In the distance, on the open ground, a sudden flash of movement catches its sharp eye: a pocket gopher has just emerged from its burrow after a mid-afternoon siesta and is now dozily searching for the right location for a spot of al fresco nut nibbling.

A moment is all it takes to turn this graceful bird into a ruthless killing machine. Its wings tucked firmly alongside its now taut body, the prairie falcon commences the velocitous descent that will soon spell the end of one creature's life and the beginning of today's luncheon hour for this skilled hunter.

Only this wildlife scene is not being played out on the sun-drenched plains of South Dakota, but rather in the lounge of our cosy flat in Putney, South-West London. I am the prairie falcon and the poor unsuspecting pocket gopher is an empty glass that my flatmate Phil has just placed on the footstool to my right. It is Thursday night and we are watching a movie, but I have lost all interest in the television screen. I have eyes for the glass and nothing else. I try to resist, but it is stronger than me, so very strong. Giving in to the urge, as I knew I would, I stand up, swoop triumphantly and walk into the kitchen clutching the glass in my talons. Once deposited in the dishwasher, my inner peace is restored and I return to resume watching the movie.

At the grand old age of 34, I have finally come to terms with the fact that I have developed an acutely domestic case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I have long considered myself to be quirky, eccentric and even downright odd, but OCD is the only way to describe the hidden force that drives me to randomly wipe the crumbs from the breadboard, rearrange the contents of our refrigerator* and double check that I have not mistakenly mixed my navy and black socks.

I may have only recently diagnosed myself as a new-born nutcase, but the signs were always there, even in the chaos and disorder of my university years. From the steam-iron shaped burn marks on the synthetic carpet in the lounge to the mould growing on 54% of all kitchen surfaces, our household of seven second-year male slackers was every bit the archetypal student fleapit. But in my room, high above the savage hordes of e.coli bacteria doing battle over the congealed kebab encrusted on my carpet, there, on a bookshelf covered in enough dust to warrant dune appellation, rested a collection of over 600 CDs in precise alphabetical AND chronological order.

As with documenting most emotional or mental deficiencies, recording this here madness onto my humble blog has enabled me to wrestle and defeat one of my most demonic obsessions. Emboldened by the release these writings are giving my soul, I have nipped downstairs in between paragraphs to trim the frayed ends of the rogue doormat that has recently come to threaten my very sanity. Where once inside my head there screeched the sound of yellow ingrowing toenails scraping down a blackboard, there now only echoes the calming sounds of beluga whales and bottlenose dolphins. Aaaahhh...

Screeching nails

The sound of whales

How long until I keep a diary listing sell-by dates for all the food contained in our refrigerator? When will I set my alarm for 23:59 in order to ensure my flatmate's shrivelled cauliflower does not overextend its intended lifespan by even one second? Very soon, my friends, very soon.

With these painfully irritating manic obsessive tendencies only likely to be exacerbated by the cruel sands of time, and with my repertoire of lame jokes already surpassing my father's worst gags, I can only imagine what a cheerful and well balanced chappie I will have become by the ripe old age of 75, and what excellent company I will be.

Good luck Sarah...

* Top Shelf - dairy, sauces & condiments / Middle Shelf - meats & ready meals / Bottom Shelf - fresh produce & alcohol

Stereotypes

Rrrring! Rrring!

It is 11pm on Saturday night and I am sitting in one of Frankfurt's most popular Apfelwirtschafts, or cider pubs. The room is packed to the rafters as students, tourists and locals cosily share communal benches, all equally contributing to the genial atmosphere and consuming the potent local apple brew poured freely from traditional oversized ceramic jugs.

Let's get fruity, Fräulein...

By this stage of the proceedings, my Czech customers and I have consumed the fruit of enough apples' labour to have ditched sales forecasts and credit crunches in favour of football and bad jokes. The business meeting is going well.

Rrrring! Rrrrring!

I am the first to spot the source of the shrill noise, although my mind struggles to compute the strange data relayed by my eyes. A man has just walked into the pub. He is wearing a white cloth cap, baker's apron and a pair of wonderfully snug lederhosen. Perched on his upper lip, a spectacular handlebar moustache with the wingspan of an adult albatross nearly takes out an old lady's eye as he ventures further inside the venue. I suspect this gentleman may be German.

Over his right arm, he is proudly carrying a large wicker basket that is clearly heavy. A pretty white lace tablecloth hides the contents from view, but his vigorous thumbing of the bicycle bell strapped to the handle tells me that this mystery will be short-lived.

Rrring! Rrrrring!

'Warm pretzels, sesame loaves, poppyseed rolls! Fresh bread, get your fresh bread here! Pretzels, fresh pretzels!', he shouts to the room menacingly.

This is truly mindblowing.

The Czechs have never seen anything like this either, and the three of us sit in stunned silence for half a minute before I realise that my jaw appears to have relocated to the floor. The scene is so painfully German that I half expect a band of singing bratwursts to jump onto our table and burst into an almighty rendition of 'Deutschland Überalles'. I pause to think of the reaction this most stereotypical Helmut, Wolfgang or Dietmar would get at the Dog & Pheasant in downtown Scunthorpe, and quicky stop. The images are too painful.

My initial laughter and disbelief swiftly transform into respectful admiration as one eager and hungry customer after another stands up around the room like a family of meerkats in the Kalahari Desert.

Ein Pretzel, bitte schön!

He bounds jauntily from table to table, selling his doughy wares with great enjoyment. One third of his goods is sold in less time than it takes to invade Poland and he makes for the door, departing with a hearty 'Guten Abend!' bellowed at the room. This is both insane and hilarious.

This is Europe.

From the morning espresso rituals taking place in bars across Milan to the so-very-French baguette-wielding mothers walking their children to school in Paris, such wonderful scenes of everyday European life are the very essence of this astonishing continent. Through my much-maligned job, I am lucky to be in a position to witness and appreciate on a regular basis how intricately woven these rich and varied cultures are.

I walk out of the pub with a smile on my face and enough vitamin C in me to ward off scurvy until Judgement Day itself.

This Saturday, my business travels take me to Amsterdam and Utrecht in the Netherlands, where I fully expect clog-wearing prostitutes in bright orange dungarees to offer me a joint and an edam sandwich on every street corner. One can but hope...

Other People's Money

- Hey honey, what say we go down to that nice little gift shop on Church Street? Let's buy that nice glass vase we saw the other day.
- Ooh, you mean the lovely blue vase we both liked? But it cost £75, and we only have £80 to last us until pay day, and that's 5 days away. Oh, you're right, who cares? Let's get it!

Fact 1 - In this credit-crunching, wallet-worrying and penny-pinching climate, the above extract of scintillating conjugal conversation is unlikely to be heard in households across the land.

Fact 2 - I sell glass vases.

These are not vase-selling times, particularly not £75 vases. Today, the board of directors announced that 4 warehouse workers would be made redundant by the end of the month and that several departments would be 'restructured'. Happy New Year!

I am currently in Paris, on the eve of the opening of the season's most important housewares exhibition. Already, tales of insolvency and cash-flow concern abound. Within an hour of being on our exhibition stand today, I had been offered enough sales CVs to construct a papier maché Eiffel Tower, 1:1 scale. As I addressed my sales team this morning in the least inspirational speech since last year's sales meeting, the twisted irony that a fully-salaried person was trying to motivate a commission-only sales team was not lost on me.

This exhibition is a time to assess the economic implications of the global downturn, and how it will impact on our company. This is a time for planning and prudence and sound sales strategies and good marketing. But most importantly, this exhibition means one week of spanking the company credit card to within a micro-sliver of its laminated plastic life. This is the time to discover what the bottles inhabiting the lower reaches of the wine list actually taste like. Dessert? But of course, and send the cheese board and port at the same time, my good man!

There is nothing quite so grotesquely obscene as spending the money of others with neither care nor concern. Yet that is exactly what we are doing, and we are proving rather adept at it. Our eyes adjust automatically to focus on the most expensive dish on the menu and a rota is kept amongst all company credit card holders so that no-one will go home with more than one bill to his name. In the kitchen, another scuffle breaks out as the waiters fight amongst one another to serve us, for there is no better tipper than an expense account tipper.

As a pang of guilt threatens to resuscitate my conscience from its temporary coma, I remember that I am sacrificing another seven weekends this year to the glorious art of vase-selling, and that today is Day 11 out of 19 without a break.

As I open my wallet and lovingly thumb the unsuspecting card in and out of its slot, I let a gentle whisper escape my lips: 'You're in trouble, my flexible friend, you're in big trouble...'

It Takes All Sorts

Every Sunday evening, as I have just sipped the last of my hot chocolate and am about to take my slippers off and retire to bed with my comforting hot water bottle, a rather clever blog-reporting tool called Site Meter discretely delivers its weekly findings into my inbox. This utterlessly pointless yet fascinating statistical factsheet provides me with non-specific information on how 759 websurfers to date have had the shining path to eternal literary salvation pointed out to them.

Most of the esteemed and treasured visitors who have surprisingly chosen to not (yet) subscribe to my blog find their way to this nirvana of online enlightenment via my Facebook or CouchSurfing profiles. Some test the waters with a curious toe via a link on a mutual friend's own website, whilst others still locate me directly using a search engine.

The vast majority of my cyberguests, however, stumble upon my pretentious musings by pure coincidence. They are lured by the pseudo-intellectual references to Greek mythology or modern literature that Google's keen nostrils have sniffed out from within my wild ramblings. Most of these accidental readers disappear within seconds in order to quench their thirst elsewhere; some stay, dazed and confused by the sheer brilliance of these Pulitzer-worthy scribblings. All, however, leave a trace of their passage, including the original search parameters that led them erroneously to me.

It was one such search request in last week's statistical report that very nearly caused me to fall off my chair and swallow my tongue at the same time, so sharp was my intake of breath. Misled by Google combining one word from my post on training donkeys with a Cannibal Corpse song mentioned in another, one poor soul sitting in front of his computer at 10:04pm on a Friday night was quite unwittingly but very wittily redirected to my site, when his search wording hints at another line of entertainment altogether.

Search Engine: verizon.net
Search Words: equine sodomy videos
Visit Entry Page: http://jeanmarcknoll.blogspot.com

There really is everything on the internet.

Blot On The Landscape

Uh-oh.

I have just boarded the evening flight to Milan and am very patiently waiting for the elegant Italian lady blocking the aisle to retrieve her BlackBerry, Prada leather notebook, MontBlanc fountain pen and Gucci make-up bag out of her Louis Vuitton travel case before placing it in the overhead locker.

Upon registering this walking who's who of exhibitionist branding, my casual observational glance plants a worried frown on my brow and sweeps past her, scanning the other occupants of the entire cabin in a matter of seconds. As my poor uneducated senses are instantly and repeatedly battered by an earthy kaleidoscope of olive, brown and beige fabric, opulently fragrant perfumes and bedazzling jewellry, I take one look at myself and realise the severity of my plight.

I stand out.

Converse shoes - CHECK
Dirty blue jeans with frayed ends - CHECK
Grey zip-up fleece cardigan from Primark (£7) - CHECK

Instead of the image of a suave young entrepreneur confidently dashing across Europe for another business meeting that I was hoping to convey, I have instead managed to pull off a remarkably accurate impression of one of the first detainees from Guantanamo Bay returning home after sixteen months in an underground cell without any food, drink or, crucially, clothing allowance.

Yes, I may fancy my tongue to be sharper than a really sharp cocktail stick, and my linguistic ability is lauded by many, but when it comes to sartorial elegance, I clearly have all the class and style of a colour-blind clown with an obsession for sequins. As I sit down, deep in my shame, I allow a sepia-tinted glaze to mist over my eyes as I recall the haute couture simplicity of my heavy metal years. This season's de rigueur colour? Why, it's black again, hurrah! But those days are gone, long gone.

In the meantime, I take a 50 Euro note out of my wallet and slip it inside my passport at the photo page. This will surely be my only hope of avoiding deportation upon landing.

Welcome Back!

1 x short-sleeved t-shirt
1 x long-sleeved t-shirt
1 x wool sweater
1 x fleece jacket
1 x moleskin jacket (R.I.P. 187 brave and very soft moles)
1 x scarf

Unfortunately not my clothes-to-pack list for a weekend break in Stockholm, instead it is what I am having to wear at 9:20am on my first day back at work as I park my no-longer-plump-but-still-something-to-squeeze backside on my office chair and stare blankly at my computer screen for the first time in two weeks.

It is cold. Damn cold. -5c cold outside and not much warmer inside an office that has not seen people for some time. I turn on the electric heater in the vain hope that frostbite or, at the very least, chilblains can be averted, but my heart plummets as the machine murmurs rather than roars into life and I feel less warmth than I would from the dying breath of an ageing fieldmouse. There is further bad news as rumours spread that the food van will not come today. In the distance, gentle sobbing can be heard from behind the photocopier.

The first working day of the new year is invariably a cheerful one in the wonderful world of the office. Two weeks of peace, rest and relaxation, jolly Christmas spirit and goodwill to all mankind have all but evaporated as the harsh reality of the 9-to-5 backhand slaps me across the face with a wet haddock.

My first attempt to log in fails miserably as my gloved finger hits four keys at the same time. 'dfrt' is not the first letter of my password, it would seem. I glance at the clock and barely choke back my howl of despair. It is only 9:24am and I have to endure 486 further minutes until I am freed from this tyranny.

I decide to bite the bullet and get stuck in. I am a responsible person and am being paid and trusted to do my job, after all. The only question that remains is which shall I check first: Facebook or CouchSurfing?