The Rage of Islam

Islam is a truly global religion.  It already has a quarter of the world’s population as followers, and is the fastest growing religion in the world.    Wherever I go in the world, I see mosques alongside Christian churches and cathedrals, and even (notably in Almaty) alongside Jewish tabernacles.  I confess to knowing little about the faith, nor ever having read anything from the Koran, but from conversations I’ve had with Muslims on my travels (and a brief read through of Wikipedia’s page on the subject) the central core beliefs of One True God, peaceful co-existence, and helping others less fortunate than yourself, in order to obtain entry into Heaven, Nirvana or (simply) the afterlife do not seem to differ that much from Christianity in all its guises, or Buddhism or pretty much any other faith (I exclude Scientology here).  I understand that in other areas, Muslims are stronger in their insistence that “their” God is the one True God, that Mohammed is the Real Prophet (and that Jesus was merely a prophet rather than the Son of God), and that Sharia Law is the only true law.  There is more fasting in Islam (the Holy Month of Ramadan), women hold a lesser place in society than in Christianity or other faiths, and overall its followers take it much more seriously than any other faith I’ve been exposed too.  I’ve worked in banks in the Middle East where a room on each floor was set aside as a prayer room, and was used each day by people praying to Allah at the designated times – you never get a prayer room at your local NatWest.

I applaud that – there is nothing wrong with taking your religion seriously, even if I don’t do so, and with the followers of Islam that importance seems so much more genuine and of vital importance than the mealy mouthed version of worship that seems common elsewhere.  Whenever I see a US President, whether Bush or Obama, closing a brief tv address with “God Bless you all and God Bless America”, I’m afraid I cringe…..it never seems sincere to me, nothing more than a soundbite to appease the masses.   By contrast, when the Queen makes a similar “Gawd Bless You All” statement at the end of her annual Christmas message, it seems somehow to be sincere and from the heart, in a way that no President in my memory (that unfortunately stretches all the way back to LBJ) seems able to replicate.  I mean no offence to my American friends and readers – it’s just my perception.

There are, of course, many people across the US who take their religion very seriously indeed, particularly in the South – the Bible Belt – and even to extremes.  I watched a program recently on BBC Entertainment where Louis Theroux re-visited “The Most Hated Family in America”.  Now these guys were the classic example of American religious fanatics.  They run their own church, that has only a handful of believers, its tenets based solely on the grandfather’s personal interpretation on the Bible.  Like all fanatics, they are absolutely resolute in their version being the Truth and every other version a lie: we’re right and the rest of the world is wrong.  We’re on a fast train to Heaven and you’all on a one-way ticket to Hell and Damnation……unless you join Our Church, of course – that’ll be fifty thousand dollars.  Hallelujah!  Anyway, these guys actively travel across the US and stage pickets and demonstrations outside various churches – one that had a female minister, another where the pastor was openly gay – and these pickets invariably featured verbal abuse of the most virulent kind directed at anyone and everyone walking by, whether they were attending the targeted church or not.   The guy running the church even kicked his own daughter out of the family home because she danced with a guy who was not a church member at the end of term school dance – she was 17 at the time.  He was unrepentant, and said she deserved to go to hell…..hallelujah.  It was uncomfortable viewing. 

But one thing about Islam troubles and confuses me.  It is that to be a true follower seems to mean a sense of humour bypass.

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Over the years, there have been many situation comedies on tv or in the cinema that gently (more or less) mock Christianity – All Gas and Gaiters, for instance, or the Vicar of Dibley.  Father Ted, with all its politically incorrect parody of Catholic priests is perhaps the most extreme mockery – but some of the characters in it do bear an uncanny likeness to some priests and their housekeepers of my acquaintance.  In the cinema, The Life of Brian is without doubt the classic example and for its pains was banned in many towns and cities across the UK at its release, before more tolerant times allowed for its acceptance.  I remember seeing a studio discussion on the tv at the time, where John Cleese and Michael Palin, two Python stalwarts, defended the film in a live debate with philosopher Malcolm Muggeridge and some Archbishop (I can’t remember which) and succeeded in making them look complete idiots, old fashioned, bigoted and out of touch with late 20^th century reality.  It remains one of my all-time favourite movies, and “He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy” the best line in the history of cinema (but perhaps I’m easily pleased….). 

Judaism too has had its comedy moments on tv, especially in Britain I think – Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width in my youth, about an old Jewish tailor was awful and portrayed a stereotypical Jewish tailor.  More recently, Guy Ritchie’s movie Snatch, another personal favourite, featured a good line up of Jewish villains.  But in both, the mockery was more of national characteristics rather than the Jewish faith.  Even Sikhs and Hindus have had their moments of caricature – the Tea Wallah in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum is probably the best example: an embarrassing impression of a Sikh man-servant played by an English guy in full make-up including turban and waxed moustache, and an excruciating Indian accent (it makes me chuckle still, I’m afraid….).

But the point is, that in each of these cases, everybody recognized the characters for being parody, there to be laughed at as part of the performance and not meant to denigrate in any way the people or faith portrayed.  Even those Catholics or Jews or whatever that were offended, once they had made their feelings known by letters to the newspapers, interviews on tv or whatever, let things go, accepted the joke and moved on, peaceably, with their lives – and in private I’m sure quietly laughed along with the rest of us.  That surely is how it should be.

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Compare and contrast that with any non-serious (or even serious) view of Islam, portrayed in literature, film or whatever, and the furious reaction of Muslims worldwide.

Case 1: The Satanic Verses, a book released getting on for thirty years ago by Anglo-Indian writer Salman Rushdie.  I read the book and found it turgid and dreadfully dull.  I can’t remember the plot, and certainly not the few paragraphs that apparently were offensive towards Mohammed and caused such outrage throughout the Muslim world.  In any case, the Ayatollah Khomeini, then ruler of Iran after the overthrow of the Shah, was so incensed he announced a Fatwa against Rushdie – essentially an instruction to any good Muslim to guarantee his entry to Heaven by killing Rushdie.  The author spent years in hiding, using an assumed identity and under 24-hour armed guard for his own protection at a cost of millions of pounds. 

Case 2: The rise of al Qaeda and Militant Islam.  This has been an on-going problem for twenty or more years, and has led to the most appalling bloodshed and slaughter from the 9/11 tragedy to the current killing fields in Syria via the London and Bali bombings, the insurgency in Iraq after Saddam’s downfall and the Taliban activities blighting Afghanistan and Pakistan for years.  What the root causes for that little lot are I have no clear idea – I don’t think any one event triggered it all – but despite years of bloodshed and tit-for-tat killings there is no sign of it ending any time soon, despite the killing of bin Laden last year by US Navy SEALS in Pakistan.  Whole books have been written attempting to explain it all, and it is without doubt the biggest issue facing world peace today – and one that neither the UN nor any government seems able to come to grips with, never mind resolve.

Case 3: Most recently, The Innocence of Islam.  This is a quite appalling home movie apparently filmed in the US and placed on You Tube that has offended Muslims worldwide.  I’ve looked at It (or at least a ten minute trailer – it was all I could stomach), and it is the most awful pile of trash I’ve ever seen – I have home movies of my kids on my phone that are better quality.  The acting is dreadful, the script a joke, and I cannot understand how anyone in their right mind can take it seriously.  It is grossly offensive, and there are scenes and dialogue that do indeed poke fun at Islam and Mohammed in the most crude and unamusing way possible.  But here is the thing – the offensive bits have clearly been added in post-production, the dialogue dubbed by somebody else – the actor’s voice is totally different.  Really, it’s laughable – but tragically, instead of treating it (and its mysterious Egyptian -American maker) with the contempt it deserves, there has been an explosion of anti-American outrage across the entire Muslim world.  The American Embassy in Tripoli was stormed and the American Ambassador to Libya killed along with three members of his staff (the fact he played a key role in helping the insurgents topple Gaddafi less than a year ago counting for nothing).  There were other protests across North Africa, the Middle East, and as far as Malaysia.  After initial rioting, the Pakistani government declared last Friday a National Holiday to allow people to demonstrate “peacefully in demonstration of their love of Islam”.  More than 30 people died in the subsequent rioting.  Obama and Clinton apologized to the Muslim world, and condemned the film and its maker, but quite rightly condemned too the violence that has followed.  As they rightly pointed out, the film is the work of a single misguided individual and not in any way condoned or supported by the US government – and in any case under the Freedom of Speech laws in the US there is actually nothing illegal about what he has done, no matter how distasteful it might be.  They have clearly wasted their breath, as the protests continue unabated.

I can understand where they’re coming from – freedom of speech is perhaps the most important benefit of a free and democratic society.  Certainly that was a point Rushdie made during his hidden years – he has remained steadfast in his belief that as a writer, it was his duty to write stories about any subject that occurred to him, even if the tale offended people.  It’s a belief I share, else I would not be writing these words now.  The Python crew used a similar view in defending Life of Brian and pointed out that anyway the film was about Brian Cohen not Jesus Christ…..  Many other comedians and writers have equally defended their art by insisting that no individual or institution – whether the Queen or the Catholic Church, Prime Minister or Pope – should be exempt.  It is a consensus not shared by the church of Islam.  To mock Islam is an offence, against Allah and his followers.  But mocking God and the Pope could be considered a sin too, against God and his followers.  The difference is that with Christianity such things are forgiven.

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The problem I, and most people, have is equating a religion that is supposedly a peaceful one, with the most extreme violent reactions that invariably follow any critical (intentional or otherwise) comment or view on Islam.  For a supposedly forgiving faith to preach Fatwa and jihad against non-believers makes no sense at all to this mystified Englishman.  If the idea is for world domination and the scouring of all non-Islamic faiths, then frankly the methods being employed by Islamic fundamentalists make Hitler’s antics seems like a walk in the park – and should make us all fear for the future.

I wrote on here a few months ago a piece about Anders Behring Breivik, who justified his slaughter of 77 young Norwegians last year as being a reaction to what he perceived as an Islamic invasion of Europe and his homeland that needed to be stopped.  I wrote then that, while his actions could in no way be condoned (and he is as guilty as hell and should spend the rest of his miserable life rotting alone in a cell somewhere) he actually had a point to make there.  I cited a number of e-mails and other communications I had received over the previous couple of years that made his claim about the existence of an extreme right wing anti-Islamic group not as far-fetched as it was made to sound in the court case. 

The events of the past couple of weeks make me worry for the future.  Clearly there is a very militant and violent strain of Islam, acknowledged everywhere I think, that has an open anti-Western agenda.  The militant cleric Abu Hamza and four others, held for several years in British prisons on terrorist charges, have this week lost an appeal at the European Court of Human Rights and will soon be extradited to the US to face more charges and potentially life in a maximum security jail – an event that is bound to cause yet more outrage and violence across the world. 

The belief is that Militant Islam is only a very small minority of Muslims.  That may well be true – but what seems unarguable is that the militant minority is extremely well organized, extremely well-armed, and quite willing to die for its perceived cause.   It therefore is extremely dangerous to the rest of us.  Is it not possible that the peaceful majority of Muslims who do not follow this course, could actually do something about it themselves, from within?   Is it perhaps time for Muslims everywhere to reclaim their faith somehow, take it back to a more peaceful path, before it destroys us all? 

I hope that is case – but I fear it’s gone way too far for that to happen now.  I believe that Islamic militancy is something we are all going to have to live with, and take whatever precautions we need to in order to stay safe.  Please don’t think for one minute I am racist or anti-Islamic – I’m not.  It’s not possible really to be racist in my job, and through that job I have many good friends in other countries and societies, including Muslims.  I strongly believe an individual’s religious beliefs are solely the business of that individual, and nothing to do with me at all – but I do not expect that individual to try and force those beliefs on to me (in the same way that I would never consider trying to force my beliefs on someone else).   I certainly would never expect (or respect) anyone who reacted with anger or violence if I disagreed with their opinion. 

I try to be tolerant.  I condemn all violence, but especially that carried out in the name of religion or politics – whether Catholic against Protestant, Jew against Palestinian or Muslim against the World.  I sincerely hope that someone, somehow, can find a solution to these problems, because I worry about what sort of a world my kids are growing up into, or my grandkids are going to be born into.  I have no faith in the UN to do so, and no faith in the current crop of politicians to do so either – by and large, they’re a poor bunch.

It’s a rum old world, as my mum used to say.  And frankly, mum, not getting any better.

The George Cross Island

I sat in the back of the cab and gazed out at the sandstone and whitewashed buildings, wondering when I would recognize one from my previous visit.  We swept round a bend and down a narrow access road, then picked up a dual carriageway and through a tunnel that I had never seen before.  As we came out the other side, we slowed and joined a queue of traffic at a roundabout, and edged round to take our exit.

And there, finally, was a memory.  The building was typical of this area, built apparently from sandstone blocks but painted in pastel colours – in this case a washed out pale yellow.  It had two storeys below a red tiled roof, and the door and windows were both covered with intricate wrought iron grilles painted black.  On the wall facing the road, also in black, was a wrought iron Gothic script sign that read “The Cottage”.   It was a restaurant we had used a couple of times, that I recall served an excellent dish of local rabbit stew, and another of local sausages.

As we passed, I swung round in my seat and looked up the road leading away from the opposite side of the roundabout, trying to spot another familiar building, a hotel,  that I knew was there but I couldn’t see it.   But at least I was comforted, and had seen something familiar after two weeks vainly trying to do so.  I knew already the country had changed – inevitably, after 10 years – but I had been surprised at just how many differences there were.

The one way system here had been confusing back then, but is infinitely more so now.  There are bridges and tunnels that I have no recollection of at all adding to the confusion.  I remember getting in the wrong lane at a roundabout and missing my exit, forcing me to go round the entire system before I could have another go – it took 5 attempts to eventually catch my exit, and even then I had to carve across three lines of cars and buses to do so, narrowly avoiding collisions and setting off a cacophony of angry car horns.  Now, I’m not even sure I would recognize the roundabout, never mind the correct exit.

It’s another example, like Ireland’s Road to Nowhere and farmer’s trick of herding cows back and forth across the border with Northern Ireland to gain import/export subsidies, of just how much can be achieved by becoming a member state in the European Union.

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I’m writing about Malta, where I’ve been working for a couple of weeks now.

Ania and I came here for two weeks’ vacation, in October 2002.  I remember it well, because while we were here, a terrorist attack in Bali left over 200 people, many  of them Australian tourists, dead and another 240 people injured as a series of bomb blasts devastated a couple of popular nightclubs and the US Consular office.

But we had a lovely holiday, I remember.  The hotel was a private one owned by a relative of a work colleague so we got special rates and used BA Airmiles for the flights, via Gatwick.  So we flew Warsaw – Heathrow, hired a cheap car to drive down to Gatwick (visiting some of Ania’s friends in London en route), then flew to Malta early the next morning.  It was also the last holiday for just the two of us, with no kids or in-laws joining us.  I don’t mean that how it sounds: we ALWAYS have terrific holidays, and taking the kids to new places and showing them new things is one of the great joys in my life……but sometimes the romantic in me feels it would be nice to be just the two of us – and I’m sure every couple with kids has the same passing thought sometimes.   It’s human nature.

While we were here, we decided to try scuba diving.  The waters around the islands are among the clearest in the world, so perfect for snorkeling or diving.  There are also a lot of interesting dive sites scattered around – a wealth of sunken warships and airplanes from the furious battles that took place during World War 2 when the island, a long-standing British sea base, was under siege for three years or so (for which Malta was, uniquely, awarded the George Cross, Britain’s highest non-military decoration for bravery), as well as many natural lagoons and underwater caves. Scuba is big business in Malta and there are dive schools everywhere.   We chose one at random and enrolled in the course, three days if I remember correctly, part classroom but mostly practical – in the water - , that led to a PADI Open Water Licence.  There were a couple of other people enrolled, crew from a cruise ship that was visiting the island for a few days.  The guy was so keen he had bought himself a dry-suit, mask and flippers, while the rest of us used the school’s gear.   We had an initial half day or so of classroom stuff, learning all about pressures and how not to contract the Bends by surfacing too quickly, how the dive belts work to maintain your equilibrium under water,  how to breathe properly from the tanks and so forth.  It was all interesting stuff…..but I’ve forgotten most of it.  Then the trainer kitted us all out with wetsuits, flippers, masks, regulators (the breathing hoses) and the weight belts, we piled into the back of an old rusty Transit mini bus and set off for our first dive.

It was at a small harbour along the coast from Sliema, towards Gozo, that enabled us novices to climb down a ladder into the sea, at the bottom of which was a ledge that we were able to stand on, completely submerged (unless you’re more than about 6 foot 6 tall).   From the ledge, you can then step off and sink the remaining six feet or so to the sea bed.  All very simple and straightforward.  The idea on that first dive was to get acclimatized to the equipment, practice breathing, maintaining our buoyancy, and master a couple of important safety manouevres – namely, taking off the mask and putting it back on again, and doing likewise with the air tanks, both under water.    Now I should add at this point that by the time I was 11 years old, I had come very close to drowning on three separate occasions, and been left with a fear of deep water (i.e. deeper than I am tall) that persists to this day.   I hoped that taking this course would help finally conquer that fear – I had complete faith in both the trainer and the equipment, and knew that unless we were unexpectedly attacked by a great white shark or something I was not going to die.  The sea was a flat calm and the water absolutely crystal clear – it was like looking into a swimming pool twelve feet deep with a rocky bottom, and filled with hundreds of fish darting in and out of the rocks and seaweed fronds.  Beautiful.

Only I couldn’t hack it.  I went into the water last, slowly picking my way down the ladder, clutching each rung tightly.  I could feel panic rising as I got deeper into the sea, and by the time I stepped off the ladder onto the shelf, with the top of my head about 6 inches (six inches!!!!  God, this is embarrassing!) under the sea, still clutching the ladder, I was close to panic.  I looked up, briefly, at the surface of the water, gently lapping at the end of my nose, the sun shining brightly overheard – I could even dimly hear the cars driving by.  Then I looked down, beyond the shelf.  I could see the bloke from the cruise ship lying comfortably on his back, maybe a foot above the sea bed, perfectly balanced and arms folded, watching the fish.  I could see his girlfriend swimming clumsily towards him.  I could see Ania watching me, a smile on her face (I could tell from her eyes), loving every minute of it, and the instructor, floating a couple of feet away, clearly aware of my fear, hand held out to help.  And I froze.  I felt sick.  I felt dizzy.  I felt terrified and ashamed, all at once.  I took a deep breath, and stepped off the ledge…..I sank under the influence of the weight belt, panicked, and hit my emergency regulator, flooded the vest with air and shot back to the surface, where I clutched the ladder grimly and tried not to scream.

Believe me, there is no exaggeration there at all.  I have never, ever been so afraid of anything in my entire life, dentists included, either before or since.  Pathetic but true.  I clung to that ladder like life itself while my mask misted up and I breathed canned air instead of the real fresh stuff.  After a moment, Ania and the trainer bobbed up next to me, to see if I was ok.  I couldn’t speak, I just nodded, shook my head, nodded again….I had no bloody idea whether I was ok or not.  Eventually I spat the mouthpiece out, and pantingly told them I was ok, give me a minute and I’ll try again.  Don’t wait for me, you go ahead, I’ll catch you up……  It was all bollocks, of course – I felt terrible, but didn’t want to spoil their fun.

They went back down and continued the lesson.  I spent the next half hour desperately trying to summon the courage to try again.  I put the mask back on, after clearing it, put the mouthpiece back in and once I’d eventually regulated my breathing to something other than terrified panting, went back down the ladder.  I stopped just above the ledge, the top of my head just at surface level, and tried to make myself let go.  But my hands refused absolutely to release their manic grip on the ladder.  I went back up, took another five minutes breathing air, then tried again.  I did that perhaps four or five times before accepting I was never in a million years going to manage this and hauled myself back out onto the harbour.   There I sat miserably, watching everybody having a great time on the seabed.

I quit the course.  Ania carried on, and over the next couple of days mastered all that was needed in another series of dives, each one in water deeper than before, ending with a dive from a boat anchored in the Blue Lagoon at Gozo, one of the best dive sites in the world.  The crystal clear water is deeper here, and an incredible rich blue (giving the place its name), and at the bottom there is a system of caves to swim through.   I sat on the boat, burning in the late summer sun, frankly feeling a bit sorry for myself, while everyone spent the best part of an hour and a half exploring the sea bed and the caves.  Eventually, they came back, and I and the boat’s crew helped them back on board.   I had never seen Ania look so happy before (and rarely since) – she absolutely loved it.  The next day at the school, she and the others sat a written examination.  I was allowed to sit in and act as a translator if needed (since the paper was set in English).  Of course, she passed with flying colours and is now the proud owner of a PADI Open Water Diving Licence, the best qualification of its type.

We hired a car, as usual, and explored the island a little.  It’s very small, only about 40km end to end, and about half that at its widest point, and criss-crossed with a maze of little narrow roads, flanked by low dry stone walls.  There were no motorways, and very few stretches of road that had more than a single carriageway in each direction – notably the airport approach roads, the one way system through Valletta and Sliema (and even then not all of that), and the approach to the port at the island’s northern extremity, called Cirkewwa, from which the Gozo ferries and dive boats sail.  Apart from in the cities and the main east coast road traffic was negligible so we had a good couple of days exploring, getting lost and trying to find a decent sandy beach.  We never did manage that – they are few and far between, a handful of tiny and mostly inaccessible coves.  The islands (Malta, Gozo and the tiny, car-less Comino) are rocky outcrops in the central Mediterranean 80km or so south of Sicily and about 300km north of Libya.  There are plenty of bathing and sunning areas around the island, but invariably they are expanses of rock, mostly sandstone, flattened and smoothed by the waves, and slippery – getting in and out of the water could be interesting.

                                                       This passes for a beach in Malta....

Historically, the islands have been ruled by a succession of powers, going back to Phoenician times, due to their strategic positions, but since 1974 have been an independent state.   St.Paul was shipwrecked here, and the country is constitutionally Catholic.  There are many ancient archaeological sites scattered around, nine of them UNESCO World Heritage sites, including some Megalithic Temples that are among the oldest buildings in the world.  All these different rulers have left their influence on the island’s architecture – there is a rich mixture of building styles from Middle Ages Moorish to modern tower blocks and everything in between.  The place looks very barren, as befits its low rainfall, and relies heavily on tourism and shipping (it’s a major port) in its economy since agriculture is so difficult in this parched earth.   International banking is increasingly important too – which is why I’m back here.

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The island has indeed changed a lot and this is evident on final approach to the much expanded airport. 

When I first came here, there was a very clear rural area between the airport boundary and the edge of the cities – Sliema and St Julians and Valletta and the other urban communities clustered around the bay on the east coast of Malta were all clearly and visibly separate communities.  Now, they all seem to run into each other to form a single urban sprawl that reaches virtually to the airport entrance.   There are new roads and bridges and tunnel systems to help the increased traffic volume get around – and after nearly three weeks I’m no nearer to being able to figure out where I am on our daily commute from hotel to bank and back than I was on the day I arrived.   The driver seems to take a different route every day, and always makes his way through a bewildering succession of narrow and winding back streets to avoid the main traffic arteries.  I’ve given up trying to figure out where I am at any given point. 

                                                              The new urban sprawl

I’ve been staying in some super spa hotels in and around Sliema.  They are being booked and paid for directly by the bank and hence are way above the normal quality my company would use, so it’s made a very pleasant change.  All of them have been minimum four star, and worthy of the rating (unlike some I’ve used before in London and elsewhere), with very comfortable rooms, plenty of food and drink choices (at least four restaurants and bars available at each), super waterfront locations and great facilities like infinity pools on the roof and fitness centres.  Last week’s choice really took the biscuit however – we were placed in a 5 star spa hotel (it has an adjoining 4 star section) that gave me the most ridiculous room.  I had a Jacuzzi in the bathroom, a walk-in shower that doubled as a sauna, a thing like a coffin that is apparently used for all kinds of hydrotherapy treatments (not that I could figure out how to use it…), and another two-person spa bath in an elevated platform immediately behind the glass headboard of the most enormous (and comfortable) bed I’ve ever slept in.  A sliding door led onto a big balcony with seats and a table overlooking the central tropical gardens and pool area.  In one corner it had a wrought iron spiral staircase – I climbed it and came out onto my own private sun terrace, with barbecue and toilet areas and a small swimming pool.  You can order a selection of barbecue foods (steaks, sausages, kebabs and so on) from room service for about EUR40 for two people and cook it yourself – or pay an additional EUR50 and have your own chef do it for you.   Surreal…….after cockroaches in Bucharest and a closet in London (amongst other treats in This Travelling Life), this suite was quite superb.  The hotel is right on Sliema harbour, and a tunnel under the road from the adjoining 4 star annex leads through to a bigger pool and sun terrace right on the sea, with its own bar and snack bar and fabulous views across the bay to Valletta.  I hope to stay there again…..

                                                                            Bedroom......

                                                                           
                                                                        ....bathroom....

                                                           ....and my own little pool. 

There is much more traffic on the roads than previously, so delays are not unheard of on our relatively short journey to and from work.  On Monday last week we had torrential rain, the first for a while it seems, and the drainage systems just couldn’t cope…..there was widespread flooding in and around the towns, and this caused traffic chaos as roads and tunnels were closed off for safety reasons.  Our 15 minute drive back to the hotel took nearly two hours.  By the end of the week, the storm and flood damage was still clearly evident in some parts, but this week all seems to be back to normal.  It reminded me of the tropical storms we had in Trinidad a couple of years ago…..the difference being that in Trinidad it happens every day, and here once in a blue moon – Malta is apparently one of the driest places in the world.

There used to be the most wonderful buses running here.  They were old fashioned things painted a bright yellow and red, with big sun-visors on the outside of the windscreen so they looked a bit like those classic American school buses, and were much loved by locals and tourists alike – all the souvenir shops sold little cast iron models of them (in the same way that in London everywhere sells models of black taxi cabs and red double-decker buses).   They ran all over the island and were a magnet for tourists looking to get around cheaply and efficiently.  Alas, they’ve all been retired now, replaced by no doubt more reliable and bigger, but somehow soulless, modern Arriva buses the same as you would see in Gravesend or Great Yarmouth, or indeed in any British town these days – even the livery is the same.  They even have the bendy buses that caused traffic chaos in London when they were first introduced – and indeed caused traffic chaos here initially, as the operator sent them into roads too small for them.  Apparently the whole timetable and route map had to be re-written to ensure the right sized bus was in the right place at the right time, and using the right-sized road.  This is called progress apparently.

The place does seem more prosperous these days, with a greater number of new cars on the crowded streets than previously.  Our hire car 10 years ago was a little rust-bucket of a Fiat 127, small and ill-equipped, but it got us around just fine.  I haven’t seen any cars in such condition this time, and the hire car fleets at the airport – the usual suspects: Avis and Hertz and EuropCar – look brand new (or at least recent) Toyotas and BMWs and Ford Focus, plus the ubiquitous holiday 4x4 Jeeps.   Drive into town and the air of prosperity dissipates a bit: most of the houses and apartment blocks look tatty and in need of some repair – it reminds me very much of parts of Beirut and Cairo and (especially) Limassol, where the buildings seem made of the same sandstone materials, whitewashed or pastel painted, faded by the dry climate and dusty atmosphere.  The maze of narrow and largely winding streets is similar too.  Here and there new developments have sprung up, including one next to my 5 star hotel of last week that as well as a handful of apartment blocks (that boasting a lovely sea-view are undoubtedly ridiculously expensive) contains “the biggest shopping mall in Malta”.  It’s ok, but small in comparison with say Bluewater in the UK, or Galeria Mokotow back home in Warsaw.  The usual suspects are there, too – Nike, Adidas, Max Mara, Bennetton – plus more local stores and food outlets.  I had a wander round and found a very good bookshop (I bought a spoof autobiography by Alan Partridge…ah-haaah!....that looks hilarious – Steve Coogan’s finest creation in my opinion) and a Marks and Spencer Food Court that sold God’s Biscuits (ummm….custard creams – I bought two packs: no pork pies or scotch eggs, though).

Looks like Limassol....

McDonalds is of course here, and nearby Burger King and Pizza Hut vie with it for the passing junk food trade.  There are plenty of restaurants selling local cuisine, Indian and Chinese restaurants, and many Italian restaurants (I’m talking about outside the hotels now).  I also found an English pub that surprisingly didn’t sell food and was out of English beer, and an Irish pub that was out of Kilkenny and had disappointingly changed its menu the week before and stopped selling cottage pie (mind you, the chilli con carne and Guinness were excellent).   I’ve not gone hungry.

It’s the end of the summer season now, and I’ve noticed a subtle change in the profile of visitors.  The first week I came, there were a majority of young tourists (in their 20s say, and mainly couples) especially on the outbound flights.  Last week seemed to be a mix, with older people in the majority.  This was also true of the guests at my spa hotel – most of them seemed to be old, as in past retirement age.  This week there were hardly any youngsters on the flight down, and of those under about 60 most were carrying laptops like myself, clearly here on business of one form or another.  This fits in with the perception of Malta being a favoured destination for the blue rinse brigade, coming here from northern Europe for some winter sunshine to ease rheumy joints – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that – I’ll do it myself eventually, I’m sure.

 

 

 

 

 

Viva Espana!

Years ago, there used to be an ad on television for Heinz Baked Beans.   It featured a kid gazing at a plate of beans on toast, and then tucking in with a voiceover, in a wonderful Yorkshire kid’s accent, that went:

We’ve just been on our ‘olidays/This year we went to Spain/ They didn’t ‘ave no ‘Einz Baked Beans/ We won’t go there again.

How times change, and how dated that ad now appears, despite being a classic of its type.  The Brit invasion of all the Mediterranean’s prime locations since then has ensured that Heinz’s Finest, not to mention Bird’s Custard powder, pork pies and God’s Biscuit (Jacob’s Custard Creams) are available in all manner of retail outlets – provided, of course, you know where to look.  So our grubby little Tyke need have no worries now about getting his favourite tucker any more, and can safely go to Spain (or anywhere else) for ‘is ‘olidays quite ‘appily.  Globalization, for all the complaints and whinges of the Great Unwashed (a.k.a. the Occupy Movement and other similar groups) definitely has its advantages.  It is a Good Thing.

The reason I’ve rambled on about this piece of sepia-toned tv history is because I’ve just returned from a rather excellent couple of weeks in southern Spain.    I’ve been to the place a few times in the past, and for all its current bankruptcy issues I love it.  Mainland Spain has a rugged beauty (of which more in a minute) that I haven’t seen elsewhere, even in its island, for I’ve been to a couple of them too.  And I’ve never eaten ‘Einz Baked Beans there, not felt any compulsion to do so – the local food is so much more wholesome and tasty.

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My first visit was way back in the early 70s, when the package holiday industry was first gaining some traction.  I and three mates went to Majorca for a fortnight and stayed at the beautifully named Hotel Condessa de la Bahia, which nestled right on this lovely golden-sanded bay in Alcudia in the north  of the island.  We paid something ridiculous like fifty quid each for full-board and including fares from Gatwick, and had an absolute blast.  We spent the time, I remember, trying to get laid (none of us did, although my mate Andy received a blow job from a girl from Stoke-on-Trent who then spat it all out over his brand new cheesecloth shirt – he was not amused), and getting horribly sunburned.  I bought Ambre Solaire Oil before leaving home that had a factor of probably 1 and then proceeded to fry myself – I spent half the holiday sitting in the shade groaning with the pain of perhaps third degree burns over most of my body while my wiser buddies, with their Boots Factor 50 creams, went brown instead of shocking pink and pissed themselves laughing at my expense.   I also had my first (of two) horseback experiences – we went riding (with these birds from Stoke) at a nearby stable, and at first all went well – we plodded along at walking pace for half a mile, then accelerated to a trot.  Except for my horse, an old nag that was clearly reaching the end of its working life, and refused to do more than stroll along, pausing every few paces for another mouthful of scrubby grass from the side of the road.  I was digging my heels into its flanks and yelling “Giddy-app” or something when this old guy (who looked about 80) cycled by, said something in Spanish and slapped the horse’s arse.   That was it: the horse bolted, galloping down the road with me screaming in terror.  It went straight towards a grove of trees, one of which had a branch just about at head-height…..I put my arms up for protection, the branch caught up under my armpits and dragged me back off the horse, one foot still hooked in the stirrup.  I was dragged along for another ten yards or so before I slipped free, and the nag immediately stopped.  My bloody mates found that hilarious too.  As did the old bloke on the bike.    Once, some years later, I decided I should become a writer, and amongst several novels I started writing (but never finished) was one based on that holiday.  I called it “One Peseta, Two Peseta…”, but never got beyond Chapter One.  Ah, well…..maybe one day I’ll got back and have another go at it.    It was still a good holiday though.

Then about 5 years later, I returned to Majorca, this time with my (then) new wife, her sister and her boyfriend.  We stayed at some apartments in Palma Nova, that for the entire two weeks had a non-stop procession of ants walking through the door (or under it if closed), round the kitchen and back out again.  They were tiny little buggers, and no matter what spray or remedy we tried, nothing worked – we poured boiling water on them, and the survivors just made a detour round the puddle while the water cooled and evaporated then carried on as if nothing had happened.    I also learned to swim, finally, that holiday, at the grand old age of 25, by playing Frisbee in the shallow waters of the bay.  The others always threw the thing past me, too far away to catch, forcing me to swim after it before the current shipped it off to Ibiza or somewhere.   Ever since then, over 30 years now, I’ve enjoyed blundering around in the shallows without ever having the courage, after three childhood near-drownings, to stray out of my depth, and it’s only over the last couple of summers that the situation has improved…..I still don’t like being unable to touch bottom but at least I don’t start panicking or screaming if I do find myself a bit far out.

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After that, Spain and I were estranged, until maybe 5 years ago, when we went to Tenerife for a couple of weeks at Playa de los Americas.    The apartment was great, no bugs of any kind (that I can remember anyway), and we used a car to explore a lot of the island, including a long drive up the east coast to a dolphin park that had a great display also featuring a couple of orcas, returning down the west coast in semi-darkness, so that effectively we circumnavigated the island in one day.   It was a good holiday, the October weather was kind, balmy and sunny, but we found the beaches, of hot black volcanic sand, disappointing.  Apparently there are golden sand beaches fairly close to where we were staying, made by shipping several hundred thousand tons of sand from the Sahara desert (which has more than enough to go round), and simply dumping it on top of the black local stuff, but we never found them.

At this point, mainland Spain had still not been visited – apart from one brief business trip to Madrid (quite literally a couple of hours in town, so I don’t really count that) and a weekend’s conference in Barcelona where all I saw was the airport, the hotel and the road between them.   Then a couple of years ago (2009 to be precise) I went back to England for a few days to a family funeral, and met a second cousin I hadn’t seen for several years.   Chatting over a beer afterwards, it came out that his wife’s twin sister, who had passed away the previous year, had owned a two-bedroom apartment in Roquetas de Mar, in Almeria province, right down in the south of mainland Spain, that she had left to his wife in her will.   They offered it to us for a couple of weeks at the end of the season, and of course we accepted. 

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We flew out at the end of September, and used BA Airmiles for the flights so our route was quite a roundabout and time consuming one – Warsaw – Heathrow, Heathrow – Madrid, Madrid- Almeria.  It took a whole day, and by the time we reached the apartment (Roquetas is some 30 kilometers west of Almeria) it was after midnight.  When we awoke next day and looked around we were delighted.  It’s in a small development in the Urbanizacion (basically the newly developed tourist end of the old fishing town of Roquetas) that has a nice little garden with a swimming pool shared with the other residents – a mix of ex-pat early retirees and renters like us – and is about 10 minutes’ walk from the beach.   There is a good selection of restaurants and bars catering for every taste, many of them run by more ex-pats, so there is plenty of English fare on offer: steak and kidney pie, bangers and mash, fish and chips and a traditional Sunday roast with Yorkshire pud are very popular, and there is John Smith’s Yorkshire Bitter, London Pride and Guinness on tap alongside the local Spanish brews like San Miguel.  There are also many local restaurants serving the inevitable paella and other Spanish cuisine, mostly seafood, and even a couple of Chinese restaurants.  Surprisingly, I didn’t spot any curry houses, although I suspect there is one somewhere, in one of the side streets.   There are a few supermarkets for self -caterers, and the produce and prices are very good – the fresh seafood section of the biggest “supermercardo” is particularly good, with three or four varieties of fresh prawns, lobsters and several different kinds of squid and octopus (they make my stomach heave just looking at them!), plus sardines, sole and several other fish that I didn’t recognize.   There are also literally dozens of souvenir shops scattered around.  Most of them sell the same goods – china, jewelry, beach towels and swimwear, tee-shirts, baseball caps and straw hats, replica football kits (typically Spain, Barcelona or Real Madrid of course….) and toys – and the prices are similar too. 

Roquetas beach is shingle, and stretches for several kilometers either side of the port and Urbanizacion.  When we were there the first time, back in 2009, they were quite empty as we were at season’s end, but on our return this year, in August, they were more crowded: July and particularly August are the peak months when not only foreigners but also Spaniards themselves flock to the beaches for their vacations.  That said, there is still plenty of space there.  The sea is clean and warm (at least, more so than the Baltic or English Channel) so we were all in and out of it every day.  Some days it was flat and calm like a millpond, on others rougher, and on our last day this year, Saturday, there was some really big waves coming – great fun.

So all in all Roquetas is great.

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On both visits we hired cars. 

The first time, as we flew to Almeria, a EUR20 cab fare away, we settled for our usual cheap and cheerful budget rental – in this case it was a Fiat Punto – that we arranged for a few days from a local company after we arrived.   It was fine, and we made a number of excursions to different local beaches and one day trip to Granada to visit the Alhambra castle and museum.  The drive was lovely, passing along the coast road for about 60km, then turning inland and passing through the Sierra Nevada mountain range for another 80km or so to Granada.  As a big tourist attraction, the traffic was heavy but the views from the road worth the effort.  It was only on arrival that the trouble started.  The Alhambra is a UNESCO Heritage site, and as such visitor numbers are very strictly controlled.  We had to buy our admission tickets a couple of days in advance, and they specified our admission time.  We arrived there with about half an hour to spare, but because of the crowds had to park nearly a kilometer from the entrance, and an uphill walk in 30C temperatures appealed to none of us.  A small bus pulled up at the stop adjacent to the car park entrance and the driver confirmed he was going to Alhambra so we all piled in with Ally in her pushchair, paid our EUR3 fares (kids going free)  and settled down for the short journey.  Before we pulled away, some more people got on too, so we found ourselves standing cramped half way down the aisle.  We stopped again, some people got off and others got on, and off we went again.  What we hadn’t realized, due to the lack of signs or any other English speaking fellow passengers, was that this stop was the entrance to the monument.    We had gone another couple of kilometers without stopping again before we became aware there was a problem, by which time we were in the narrow winding streets leading into Granada’s beautiful Old Town area and snarled up in traffic that was inching along at not much more than walking pace – and of course completely lost.  We had to stay on the bus until it completed its circuit of the town and returned to Alhambra, a journey of a good two hours.   We eventually arrived at the castle entrance and were immediately turned away because we had missed our scheduled tour time, and no amount of pleading, bluster or tears would change their minds.  We could have a stroll around the grounds outside but on no account would we be allowed inside.  There was equally no question of a refund of our EUR100 admissions – it was not their fault we had missed the tour after all……  After a bit of a row (Travellin Bob playing the role of The Angry Englishman Abroad to perfection) they finally gave us a form to fill in and submit to the Spanish Tourism Board Head Office in Madrid, but could not promise we would ever get a refund.  In the end we settled for a stroll around the grounds – that were very beautiful it must be said – but decided not to bother attempting a refund: it just didn’t seem (then or now) to be worth the effort.  So…..a Travellin Bob Top Travel Tip – if you are visiting Spain and decide to visit the Alhambra in Granada, MAKE SURE YOU DON’T MISS  YOUR SCHEDULED ADMISSION TIME because the authorities there don’t give a monkey’s and are not at all helpful or sympathetic.

This year, we traded up a bit, as we had to fly to Malaga instead of Almeria.  Malaga is over 200km further west along the coast, and a taxi fare came out at in excess of EUR400 in total – not much less than renting.  So I used the favoured method these days, trawled Google for “Cheap Car Hire Malaga Airport” and booked a Focus (now re-branded as C-Max, but it’s the same thing really) for EUR450, including two insured drivers and booster seats for the kids, covering the entire 3 week holiday.  Quite good value I thought.  The trouble was when we got there, it was clear a C-Max would be too small for us all – my mother-in-law came too, so while we could just about squeeze all the passengers in the baggage was just a complete no-no.   So we were forced to upgrade to something bigger, despite an additional EUR200 cost, and ended up with a Nissan Qashqai +2 – a seven seat SUV.  She was a big old bus, with a slightly underpowered 1.6 litre diesel engine, and took a hell of a lot manouevring in some of the less well-designed car parks, but I loved her despite the ridiculous name.   

The drive from Malaga to Almeria (and actually way beyond, all the way to Barcelona) is along the E-15 Autovia de Mediterraneo.  Basically, it’s a motorway (mostly 2 lanes rather than the British 3) that runs alongside the coast, so the views out of the passenger side window as you head east and then north can be spectacular.  The section we drove had the added attraction on the left (driver’s) side of the Sierra Nevada mountains that form a natural barrier here and gives this part of the Spanish coast its own micro climate that more or less guarantees year-round sunshine and hot weather.  So the terrain means the road is a constant succession of hills and twists and turns, through tunnels bored through mountain spurs that drop sheer into the sea, and over viaducts towering two or three hundred meters over river valleys.  The drive is never less than spectacular – there are no long boring, straight sections along its entire length.  At one point, for about 40km you leave the autovia and revert to an A-class (single track) road that winds its way through a succession of small and pretty towns and villages, the road hugging the coast often with only a low brick wall separating you from the beach – or sometimes 100meter cliffs.  But the traffic flow, at least when we travelled, was quite light apart from in the immediate vicinity of Malaga, with no contra flows, traffic jams or other impediments to maintaining a steady 100+kph.   The speed limit here is 120, but most drivers tend to exceed that by a considerable amount.  It’s a lovely drive, and one of my favourites anywhere – the only two I can think of that match it for a mix of scenery and interest and sheer driving pleasure are both on Crete: the north coast road between Chania and Iraklion (that also hugs the sea shore along its entire length) and from Chania winding across the western mountain spine of the island to the beautiful lagoon at Elafonnisi.

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The SUV had good use during our stay, and we used it every day to get our money’s worth.  Although there is a perfectly good beach within walking distance of the apartment, and supermarkets too, we tended to get up late, drive to the big supermarket and pick up fresh bread and rolls to make sandwiches, then at around 1 or 2 (during the traditional daily siesta, when everything closes down and the traffic is lighter until maybe 4) in the afternoon load the car and head off to the beaches at Cabo de Gata.  This area is a national park just east of Almeria that in places looks like the Sahara desert, and in others has a range of high and rugged hills just back from the sea.  It’s dotted with little white stone villages, fruit farms and remote holiday cottages, and along the coast is a wide selection of beaches that in some cases are light sand and shingle (for instance, Playa Salinas that stretches about 6km from and beyond Cabo de Gata village itself), small unnamed and almost inaccessible rocky coves, and huge sweeps of beautiful golden sand and limestone rocks monuments like Playa Monsul, and Playa de los Genoveses.   The latter was used in the Indiana Jones film where Sean Connery, as Indy’s dad, uses his umbrella to frighten a flock of seagulls into the air, causing an attacking Messerschmitt plane to crash into one of the monuments, thus saving his and Indy’s lives – needless to say it’s now a very popular tourist destination.

We tended to go to Playa Salinas, since it’s closest to the motorway, and it’s a nice beach.  We parked on the side of the road, then strolled down one of the many access paths onto the beach – these are every 100m or so along the whole stretch of beach – and settled ourselves down on towels sheltered by our two matching FC Barcelona beach umbrellas.  The beach in some places is perhaps 100m deep (from low wooden fence to sea) and at others no more than 20m, and as with most beaches the closer to town you settle the more crowded it is.  We tried several places along its length, and invariably had a good time.  The sea was warm and clear, on some days quite rough and on most others flat and calm and great for swimming and snorkeling.  One day bathing was a little risky as there was a large number of little jellyfish drifting in on the surf, and they packed a vicious sting for such small creatures.  One caught Kuba on the ankle and it was very painful for the kid – fortunately a Spanish family next to us at the beach was armed with some anti-histamine cream that took the worst out of the sting, but he still had a small red mark.   But by and large we – and especially the kids – had a great time there.

We also visited a small resort there called San Jose.  It’s a lovely little town and has a string of small golden sandy beaches stretched across the enclosing bay that at both extremities has high and sheer  cliffs.  We visited it back in 2009 and in early October it was pretty much deserted.  This year, in the peak season, the beaches were all packed solid, and it was difficult to find a patch of sand big enough to settle.   Personally, I hated it: I find it impossible to relax on a crowded beach, where it’s easy to lose sight of your kids, every conversation and fart of your neighbour’s is clear (as are yours to them), their music choice (that invariably is not to your taste) assails your ears, and their cigarette smoke assails your nose.   Give me an empty beach where I can stretch out and read my book in peace without having people step over me and accidentally kick sand over me any day of the week!  The one great advantage to San Jose, however, is that the crystal clear water in the bay is very shallow, so you can walk out a good 100m on a soft sandy bottom before it reaches your chest, and it’s usually very calm so it is absolutely wonderful for swimming – we couldn’t keep the kids out of it the two days we visited.  Both said it was their favourite beach.  On our last visit, we had another jellyfish encounter.  This time Ania was stung on the hand, so badly it was practically paralyzed for a couple of hours.  This time there was no cream to soothe the pain, and it took a couple of hours for it to subside, and a couple of days before she could move her hand properly again.  She was left with a livid red mark across the back of her hand, around the bases of her little and ring fingers.  Very nasty indeed!

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So all in all, we had a really good holiday, all three weeks of it.  The weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky most days, and a temperature in the mid-30s all the time (and high 20s at night – thank God for the ceiling fans in the apartment!).  We had a lot of laughs, ate well and sampled the local brews.  And relaxed – the perfect build up for the new school term next week, when Kuba goes into Class 2 and Ally finally starts a proper Pre-School. 

I can honestly say that Spain, in all its territories, mainland and island, is becoming one of my favourite places.   Right now, it’s in a difficult place financially, as indeed are all the EU nations, and is close to bankruptcy (indeed, not much better off than Greece) and the evidence of this is clear to see.  Roquetas looked shabbier this visit, with more graffiti on the walls and more unfinished or ill-maintained buildings than I remember from three years ago.  In the centre of town, right next door to the Tourist Information office, is the derelict shell of a new hotel.  I seem to remember it was a new site before, enclosed by a fence as foundations were dug.  Now the building itself is up, 5 floors, a balcony for every room, but is unfinished – the walls are plain unplastered and unpainted concrete, there is no glass in any windows, the doors gape open to reveal the interior breeze block walls that are also unfinished.  There are “For Sale” signs on the wall, but who knows when a buyer will be found?  The building is clearly a victim of Spain’s property market crash that is at the root of all its financial woes.  Elsewhere, on the roads linking Roquetas to the autovia, there are unfinished roadworks in places, and during the whole trip I saw no evidence of any work going on at any of these sites – presumably the state’s infrastructure budget has also run out.  It is a shame, because Spain is a lovely country, with a great climate, a tasty cuisine, and friendly people.

London 2012

So after spending most of this year bench-warming (apart from my little flits to Orlando and Cairo documented on here) I got another trip – this time a return to my roots.  England.  Well, London.  Just before the start of the Olympics.

Although I’ve been back a couple of times over the past couple of years those trips were family visits, so I just passed through or around London on my way to smaller and better places.  I’ve not worked in London for three years or so, and even then it was only for a few days, so spending three weeks there has been a bit of an eye-opener.

    
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I caught the earlybird flight from Warsaw, and arrived at Heathrow about 9:30.   That was my first deja-vu in a trip full of them – the wonderful British summer weather.  I had left home at 5:30, to a sunny morning with Warsaw already basking in 25C.  I landed in London to an overcast and damp morning where the temperature was just about struggling up to the mid-teens.    I wasn’t too surprised, as the tv and newspapers and blogs had been full of the British weather (in time honoured fashion) for weeks.  Wimbledon and the Test Matches had suffered their annual rain delays, and even some of football’s pre-season friendly matches had been in doubt due to waterlogged pitches.  The summer, like most that I can remember, was “officially the wettest since records began”…….   So immediately I felt quite at home.

My baggage came through remarkably quickly, and I was very surprised at an empty Arrivals Hall after seeing stories about 2 hour queues to enter the country here, and didn’t even have to stand in line to show my passport.  I was buying my Heathrow Express ticket before most of the other passengers had come up from the flight, I should think.  Remarkable.

The train into Paddington was more crowded than I remember it, but of course there are record numbers of visitors expected for the Games.  Likewise the Tube, never particularly enjoyable, was hell, especially to a home-coming ex-pat lugging a heavy suitcase and laptop bag up and down stairs.  Not a lift in sight of course – the London Underground must be the most user and family unfriendly network in Europe: baggage and pushchairs serve only to get filthy looks from other passengers, and unfriendly unhelpful and unsympathetic staff make matters worse.  For all the Mayor of London’s much trumpeted improvements to Transport for London (as it’s now re-branded), there is still a lot of work to be done.

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My hotel was terrible.  A small and uncomfortable bedroom more like a prison cell, with an almost unusable (because so small) toilet and shower stall was bad enough, the lack of a bar or room service only added to it, and the final straw was the lift.  Again small, and interminably slow, and with a recorded voice telling you the floor and whether you’re going up or down, in the most irritating sub-Sloane Ranger accent I’ve ever heard.  By the end of day 3 I felt like ripping the speaker out of the wall – only I couldn’t find the damned thing.    There was some profiteering of Olympic proportions going on as well – my cell was setting the client back GBP137 per night, but I would be reluctant to pay half that out of my own pocket.    About the only saving grace was the English Breakfast that was included in my rate – very nice it was, but again I question its value.  If ordered separately (if you’re booked on a room only tariff) the charge was GBP15 – there were at least three locations within a couple of minutes’ walk offering the same meal for half that price.  So a Travellin Bob Top Tip – do NOT stay at the Shaftesbury Notting Hill Hotel.  It’s not even in Notting Hill really, barely on the edge – the nearest Tube station is Bayswater – and its 4 Star AA Rating is exceedingly generous.

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Work was in Savile Row, off Regent Street.  It must be twenty years since I last strolled along it, and apart from the addition of an Ozwald Boateng establishment it hadn’t changed a bit.  Bentleys and high-end Mercs and Range Rover Vogues, most of them with personalized number plates and chauffeurs, lined the street.   Tailors still sat in windows at basement level, carefully cutting and stitching suits that cost the earth, and valets man the shop doors to welcome you, complete with tailcoats and bow-ties.  I’ve never bought anything there and undoubtedly never will…..way out of my league! 

On my first lunch-break I had a stroll around the area, as back in the late 80s I had spent 4 years working in Air Street, just off Piccadilly Circus and next to the Café Royal.   The building is still there, but empty of tenants and undergoing some serious looking renovation work.  The Deep Pan Pizza Parlour opposite is no longer there, replaced by an expensive looking sushi bar, but our local pub, the Glass Blower, was at least outwardly unchanged.   Regent Street was draped from end-to-end with the flags of all nations, huge banners stretched across the width of the street every 10 or 15 yards, three to a mast, but apart from a new (and massive) Apple iStore in place of (from my dim memory) a Habitat furniture store the place was reassuringly familiar – even down to the hordes of tourists ambling along.  Piccadilly Circus was as clogged with traffic as ever, and this was exacerbated by some building work going on in the first building on the south side of Piccadilly that was blocking off one lane.

There were plenty of restaurants, a couple of Starbucks (of course….) and a couple of branches of a new sandwich retailer – EAT! – I had never seen before, so lunch times were good if a little more expensive than I had expected.  Starbucks were doing some very tasty hot meatball and cheese ciabatta that I enjoyed, and EAT! had some really good tuna and cucumber and Thai chicken baguettes that went down a treat.  In the evenings, there were pubs close to the hotel, three of them within a hundred and fifty yards in the same road – all served identical menus and identical beers at identical prices.  I longed for a little originality!

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My first weekend, I did some exploring.  It was a wet Saturday, not at all sightseeing weather, but in the absence of anything remotely welcoming at the hotel I had little choice.  I bought a one day travel card and headed off.  I started in Regents Street, as I wanted to get some pictures of the decorations there, and trudged through the rain, sans parasol, trying to get a decent shot not spoiled by some gurning and braying idiot American or group of Japanese tourists bedecked in identical beige baseball caps and see-through umbrellas.  I got a couple, then cut through Air Street into Piccadilly and emerged next to a Starbucks.  The rain was coming on harder so I ducked in for a latte and a warm up.  Opposite I spotted Waterstone’s, my favourite bookstore in all the world, so after my coffee I wandered across and spent a lovely hour or so strolling through four floors of books.  The fifth, top, floor is wonderfully taken up by a café-cum-bar, where you could quite happily spend all day snugly drinking coffee, eating pastries and reading your purchases.  All big stores should be like this….    I added to my library three books, and then headed off again.

                                                                    Regent Street in the rain

Trafalgar Square was full of people going through a rehearsal for some Olympic ceremony or entertainment in the rain, and by the way the choreographer (or whatever he was) was yelling frantically into his bullhorn it wasn’t going too well.  I watched for a few minutes, took a couple of pictures, but as I could not make sense of what was going on, headed off to Charing Cross and Embankment Tube, to get the Circle line to the City. 

                                                                        A dodgy rehearsal

By the time I got to Cannon Street, the rain had stopped, so my first views of The Shard were not spoiled by drizzle.  I had read of this new building and seen pictures, of course, and had an open mind about it.  There seem to be two schools of thought – the first, that it is a masterpiece, the second that it’s a piece of shit.  I fall between the two, I suppose.  Architecturally and in terms of pure engineering, it is a masterpiece, but does not fit in at all well with its surroundings on the south bank of the Thames, straddling as it does a London Bridge station and Cottons Centre that was itself re-developed in the 80s.  The buildings around there are old, early 20^th century blocks and, across the street, the old Victorian Borough Market.  Apart from Cottons Centre, that was developed reasonably sympathetically with the rest of the neighbourhood, the most modern building is the tower of Guy’s Hospital, but that is dwarfed by The Shard across the street.  For all the skill in its glass sided, open topped, tapering 1000 foot tower, it looks completely out of place in this part of town.  It’s more suited to the Canary Wharf development downstream.

                                                         The Shard - masterpiece or piece of shite?

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Which was my next destination.  Again, it was a trip down memory lane – I had spent a mostly unpleasant three years or so working there in the early 90s, when apart from the 1 Canada Square building (the original tower with a pointy top, once the tallest building in Europe – a title now boasted by The Shard) there wasn’t a lot there apart from building sites, Thatcher’s dreams, and a lot of resentment from poorly-paid or unemployed locals.   So I wandered along the Embankment through Cottons, stopped for a beer in a pub there (I would have eaten too, but it wasn’t serving food – odd for a Saturday lunch time), then past the new and ugly City Hall, across Tower Bridge (photo opportunities abound there, with its arches and, now, decorative Olympic Rings), past the grand old Tower of London and onto the Docklands Light Railway to Canary Wharf. 

When the DLR opened, back in 1990-ish with Canary Wharf, it was the first driverless train system in Britain.  It kept breaking down, so the guards all had to learn to drive the trains too, just in case.  Delays were regular (about every third train broke down, ran late and caused bottlenecks across the entire system) and made it a lottery whether you arrived late or on time for work.  There was only one line – from either Bank Tube station or a new Tower Gateway station (adjacent to Fenchurch Street mainline), through Canary Wharf to Island Gardens, at the loop at the bottom of the Isle of Dogs where you could walk through an old and piss-smelly tunnel to Greenwich.    In the intervening years it has expanded a lot – north to Stratford and the new Olympic Park, east through Beckton and the London City Airport, and under the river to Lewisham in the south.  It’s even stopped breaking down now, apparently. 

                                        Canary Wharf - the essence of greed and evil, apparently

Canary Wharf too had changed immensely.  In my day, the Tower had about 4 tenants occupying perhaps a dozen floors out of 55.  Building work was still going on in the Tower, and the fire alarms would go off at least three times a day – we got so fed up with it that one of our traders went around our floor one evening and wedged an empty fag packet in each one to stop them ringing.   We had a fire drill once – our evacuation from the 25^th floor (via the second level basement) was a complete shambles as half of the people couldn’t be arsed to walk down all those stairs.

Over the three years or so I worked there, a few more buildings were completed and occupied by leading US banks (casinos, they would be called now) – Credit Suisse First Boston had one, Morgan Stanley another, and the late and unlamented Lehman Brothers a third – but none of them were more than eight floors.  Today, those banks are still there (except for Lehman’s of course) and in the same buildings but expansion means they’ve taken additional premises on the site.  The Tower itself is full (but my old company is gone, taken over years ago by a competitor who has also been swallowed up), and there are many more buildings towering into the London skyline.  Citibank has its European headquarters there, as does State Street Bank, another US outfit.  HSBC and Barclays are also headquartered in the development in neighbouring towers of 50 or more floors each.  Barclays Investment Bank, our infamous LIBOR manipulators, are in a separate tower block, with delicious irony right next door to the offices of the Financial Services Authority that was supposed to be monitoring its compliance with the law and market regulations.  I can only assume the DLR station that separates the two buildings must have obscured the view….

                                                         Now - what was that rate again?

The DLR station itself has changed too.  When I worked there, the level below the platforms had a half a dozen shops, including a newsagents and a sandwich bar.  The newsagents has gone, and there is now a twin level underground shopping mall stretching the length of Canada Square, filled with expensive shops, sushi bars, coffee shops and so on.  My son recently visited the place, meeting a client, and posted on Facebook that he was surrounded by “the essence of pure greed and evil”……a slight exaggeration perhaps – he’s not seen Wall Street in New York yet – but I can see where he’s coming from.

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Back into the City, this time via Bank and the Central line, to St. Paul’s Cathedral, scene of last year’s Occupy protest and always worth a look in any case.  I came out of the tube station and was lost……the office block that used to be across the street is now a bloody great hole in the ground, presumably the footings of yet another tower block that will change the London skyline again.   I wandered around for a couple of minutes, circling the station entrance, then spotted the Cathedral through some trees.  Paternoster Square, next to it, has been redeveloped since my last visit, and is now very pleasant, with some good looking bistros and wine bars.  The Cathedral is unchanged and as magnificent as ever, towering above the surrounding offices, and untouched by the events of last summer – as I have always said the Occupy Movement is unlikely to make any impression on the grand scheme of things.  It’s certainly made no impression on St. Paul’s.

                                                   The unchanging face of London

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Over the couple of weeks in London I made other little excursions to meet old friends.  I went to a bar in High Holborn, in a block next to the old Prudential Insurance building, a grand old pile with Gothic towers that dwarfs all its neighbours.  The bar we used was probably there in the old days (I’m talking about 1979 or thereabouts, when I worked about 50 yards away) but I have no recollection of it.   The street market is still there (deserted that evening), and the Italian restaurant we ate at later was good .

Another evening I went back to London Bridge to meet up with some old cronies from that same late 70s – early 80s period, in a pub called The Barrowboy and Banker in an homage to Borough Market and the City of London, facing each other across the river here.  I don’t remember the pub at all, but the beer was good.  The three amigos that turned up were all older than me (it made a really pleasant change to be the youngest person in a group!!) and one of them I would not have recognized in a month of Sundays.  But we had a great time, sank a few beers and for once the conversation was not reminiscing about The Old Days (as it usually is when we meet up) but more about Advancing Age (two of my mates are grandparents now…..) and All That is Wrong In the World Today.   We were as fine a group of Grumpy Old Men as you’re likely to find anywhere.  But it was great to see them, and a highlight of my visit.

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So the City has indeed changed, and I will not pass judgment on whether for the better or not.  It was interesting to see the effect of passing time on old haunts, and good to see a lot of them are still there.   The traffic was definitely worse, despite the introduction of the Congestion Charge Zone designed to reduce the numbers of vehicles using the roads.    An already dire situation has been made worse by the introduction of 30-odd miles of special “Olympics Only” lanes, designed to ensure that athletes and officials can get to venues on time – even if it means no-one else can get anywhere on time.  The restrictions came into full effect just after I arrived, and the effect was noticeable immediately, even in the backwoods of Bayswater.  My laundry, due back at 7 p.m., finally arrived at after 11, the excuse given by both the hotel and the (off-site) laundry service being that the delay had been caused by the “new Olympic traffic regulations.”   What a load of old bollocks!  In the first place, the Notting Hill and Baywater areas, in common with most of West London (the exception being Wimbledon where the tennis is being held), are nowhere near any of the competition venues, and hence not directly affected by road closures.   I saw no evidence in the three weeks I was there that traffic volumes increased as a result…..if anything, there seemed less traffic on the roads immediately around the hotel.  In the second place, London was awarded the Games seven years ago, and the proposed travel restrictions have been in place for some time (even if not used until now) so I would have thought that a four star hotel and its suppliers would have had ample time to find  alternative routings to avoid this type of delay.

But the people remain the same, only there are many more.  I make allowances for the additional influx of tourists in this unique Olympic year, but the overcrowding in the Underground cannot all be put down to the tourist trade, nor can the clear evidence of a multi-cultural Britain – there were far more non Caucasian faces and dress than I can ever remember seeing previously.   In the rush hours, people are still frantically dashing up and down congested escalators, desperately trying to get to work on time or home without delay, and they are as rude and arrogant as ever.  One morning, changing trains at Notting Hill Gate I arrived just in time for the Central Line westbound to be closed and access to the eastbound platform restricted because of an incident two stations along, at Lancaster Gate.   We were told some poor sod had ended up under a westbound train (so I assume he was probably dead).   A harassed young lady was trying to explain to increasingly agitated passengers the best alternative routes if they were not prepared to wait the five or ten minutes for the eastbound (that’s towards the City) services to resume.  One guy, who could have been no more than about 26 or 27, clad in pinstripe suit, white shirt, leather laptop case slung over his shoulders, was getting more and more irate, demanding an immediate resumption of services (as if the poor girl could do anything!) as he had “an important meeting at 9”.  The girl tried to explain again, and he interrupted her.

 “Well, really,” he barked angrily, “This is most inconvenient!” 

I’d had enough.

“Look,” I said, trying to stay polite, “It’s probably most inconvenient for the poor fucker under the train too……get over it.”

The guy gave me a filthy look, and stormed off to find an alternative route, gesturing angrily and muttering curses.  A minute later, we were allowed down onto the platform and boarded the resumed services.  I hope the son-of-a-bitch got a cab and ended up caught in the ever-worsening London traffic, and missed his precious meeting.   Some things are more important than business meetings, life being one of them.