Ian and Hamish
Had some bad news today. The skipper of the boat I sailed on in the Cape to Bahia in 2006, and his youngest son, Hamish were killed in a motorbike accident a few days in Cape Town. I owe them, and Ian's older son Charles, so much. As a result of sailing with them, I made the decision to buy my own boat.

I have the most amazing memories of that trip: Ian doing hand-stands in the cockpit during a calm, Hamish building and launching a mini-trimaran called Wilson made of tin cans, Charles and I having a conversation about being eaten by a shark while swimming in three miles of water, holding onto but a fender 30m behind the boat.

The last night before hitting Brazil was particularly entertaining - we seemed to be going so fast (only Charles and Alex will understand this now!)

Ian and Hamish, thank you so much for the experiences you gave me. I have always planned at some point to sail my own boat down to South Africa and you were on my list of people to visit. I would have been so proud to have been able to do that.

Charles, if you end up reading this, my thoughts are with you. Maybe I can still sail Melanthe down to you at some point.

Being unemployed, day 95
On a lighter note, today is my last day of unemployment. I didn't quite make the big 100. I'm starting work at West Middlesex University Hospital tomorrow.

Being afloat
I'm now living on a converted Dutch Barge in Kew on the Thames. If anyone wants to pop by, it's moored in the river just off Watermans Park, and is called Libra. Charles, you are most especially welcome, Kew, Huddersfield or Melanthe (Lancaster at the moment).

Drugs
My mother offers to take us out for a meal at Jumbo's. That's me, Ben, Harriet and the afore-mentioned fem-parent. Jumbo's doesn't sell elephant steak or anything like that, unfortunately, rather it is a Chinese, eat-as-much-as-you-can, buffet thing. So we go. We sit there under the bright lights stuffing ourselves with sweet and sour stuff and finally go home, particularly stuffed.

When we get home, there is a skip lorry with an unloaded skip parked outside the house, and also a police riot van, void of policemen. We park and wander over confused. Being a terraced back-to-back house, mine is not the only one in the vicinity, so we're not entirely sure that it is to do with us.

In the skip are a large number of conical plastic buckets, and those funny pseudo-soil pebbles they use for plants in shopping centres to stop people remembering that nature exists and to buy things. The plastic buckets have attachments near the bottom for piping to connect them together somehow. Perhaps some form of irrigation system. We look for a moment, bemused, then Ben notices a single five-fingered leaf lying amongst them.

"It's a dope factory, dude!"
"Sweet! Why's it in a skip?"
"The police have busted someone, dude! I thought your hallway smelt funny."
"It's not mine, dude, I'm crap with plants!"

A policeman comes out of the passageway next to my house that leads to the back part of the back-to-backs.

"Hullo," I say, "what's all this then?" I realise after I've said it, I sound very slightly as thought I'm taking the mickey. He doesn't seem to notice.
"The guy living behind you was growing marijuana plans in his bedroom. A neighbour reported a funny smell. He had about fourteen plants in there!" he replies, being the helpful bobby that he is.
"How exciting!" my mother ejaculates, rather out of character, "I must go and phone Don and tell him. Oh! Oh!"

And it is a strange feeling. For the rest of the evening, we have a sense of excitement. We wonder what has happened to our neighbour. At one point, a bobby knocks on the door asking if a Mrs Cohen still lives here, but she doesn't. I tell him I sometimes get post for her and he looks disappointed and goes away.

After a while, the skip gets loaded onto a lorry and it departs. As do the police, and the evening returns to normal, like a pebble sinking into mud.

Booze
I start working in a pub. It's a quiet, old man's pub in Huddersfield. My first shift is very quiet. It takes about an hour and a half to learn the ropes and then it's mostly boring. I'd rather it was manic, but long periods pass without anyone buying anything. It's kind of fun when people do; it's like playing shop.

The next day, my second shift is more exciting. There is a fight. I keep well out of the way and the two gentlemen involved take it outside anyway. The landlady Anna, a petit woman, comes down and instructs the whole group to leave and pours their drinks away. Then it's not interesting anymore.

Later, when there is just one man in the pub (and this is a Satuday evening in the town centre - yes, a quiet pub), with slurred speach, he tells me how he is in a bread making competition. He has made sweet loaves with raisins in and is in the final. His wife will phone at 9pm to tell him if he's won a trip to California where the raisins are made. He is hard to understand because his speach is slurred, and wobbles off just before nine to catch the phone call at home. Before he goes, he gives me a loaf. It looks very good.

The last group in are eight men who are buying rounds. Six Copper Dragons (mmm...) and two Carlings (Yuk!). £19.50. They buy about 5 rounds in all and the landlord, Jay, a 6'7 semi-giant, who has to perform human origami to get into the cellar, tells us to stay open until they choose to leave. My comrade is itching to go. I'm not really fussed myself, but my feet ache, having severely bruised (broken?) my little toe last week.

Eventually they leave and I earn £30 for the evening. Joy. I go home and eat toasted raisin bread for supper, drink some milk and go to bed with a copy of the Reader.

Turtle

Being unemployed - day 1
Today I once again achieved the blissful state of unemployment. Having spend the last four and a half months working (in IT) for a security company, who are feeling the pinch of the recession, I once again am back, well, not out on the street, but no longer in a contract.

I actually finished on Friday, but went to London on Friday evening and got back yesterday. Went to the Tate modern yesterday morning. It had a giant spider in it, and I watched with great pleasure a small child on wheelies slide down the turbine hall in a giant S shape.

So today, my first day of unemployment. What have I done?
Saw my mother off on the train back towards the Isle of Man. I haven't banished her. She lives there now.
Uploaded Sandland onto the mobipocket website, after some tweaking for sale at only €1.99, here.
Spent the afternoon discussing with Ben the merits of starting our own company. We're thinking of starting a sandwich making company and selling them to local businesses, of which there seem to be plenty around here.

Writing about writing
I started doing a final edit of Sandland while I was working for HSBC. I worked on it on an Asus EEE PC at lunchtimes. Other people in the restaurant thought I was a bit nuts. Perhaps I'm am. Perhaps I'm not. Having finished the edit, it sat on the EPC for a few months until I brought it back onto my laptop, and only then did I find out that Open Office isn't as MS Word compatible as it initially seems.

A couple of months ago, I finally got around to working through it on the train in the mornings and evenings, changing the style back to Normal. Then a couple of nights ago I formatted it in paperback form and uploaded it to lulu.com, here. It's not expensive. Imagine my surprise, then, when I order five copies and the delivery turns out to be £44.57! For 5 x 200 page paperbacks! Holy guacamole! That can't be right:



Feel free to order it, but I suggest you wait until I've tried to make the delivery cheaper.

Music in the shower
I take a radio into the bathroom after running this evening. It's not waterproof. I bought it for £5 from Amazon and it's not waterproof. I was listening to classic FM, and the most beautiful piece of music comes on, that I recognise, but cannot name (this seems to happen with people more and more now, as well). It's the fourth movement of Mahler's fifth symphony. I can't hear it well enough and so turn the shower off and listen. Ten minutes later, I'm freezing cold, but I have to hea every note. It's not often you get a piece of music like that.

Calling Neeraj
Neeraj (who sat next to me at HSBC), if you're out there, would you mind contacting me. I've got a friend who needs to ask a few questions about Mumbai for her MA. I'd really appreciate it. You should be able to get to me through my profile. Failing that, leave a comment with an email address and I'll email you. Thanks.

The Bravery of Being Out of Range
Well, I'm not any more. Be'er Sheva is now within range of the Kassams. Apparently Hamas now have more sherbet to put in their dips. The sirens went last night, and sound for a minute and a half. You're supposed to take cover for about five minutes, which for us is on the sofa in the living room, because it is away from the windows and puts as many walls between us and the outside of the building as possible. Kassams don't go through two walls.

Last night, the sirens went off went when I was in the shower. I didn't hear it, but Adi came and told me and we sat on the sofa watching the news being broadcast (in wormy language). Two rockets landed, one in a field, and one in a kindergarden (no children inside it at the time). As we are at the limit of the range, the missile will have to be launched at a near 45 degree angle to get here, and assuming that we're at roughly the same altitude as the launch area, will land at a 45 degree angle. It will come from the west and have to go through Idan's room first, poor chap.

This morning we were woken at about eight in the morning by the sirens, and went to sit on the sofa again. Five kassam landed this morning, three in open fields, one in a school and one in the city. The home defence, fortunately, had instructed that there would be no school today and all the kids were at home.

They are showing video of the classroom which was hit. There is a hole in the ceiling/wall about four foot wide and chunks of concrete have been blasted across most of the room.

Dead Sea
Yesterday afternoon, I fulfilled a life-long dream and went swimming in the Dead Sea. I've wanted to do this since I was a little boy, and still have many of the qualities I had then, now. And so, it was the most amusing thing and delighted me immensely. I became the man in the geography book.

The Dead Sea is about 400m below sea level and the water is 25% more dense than fresh water. It wasn't that warm, but it was late in the afternoon when we got there and the sun was setting beind the mountains. I changed into my swimming trunks under a towel. There were some Americans splashing around, doing doggy paddle.

I waded in. At the edge, it is mostly grit, but after a few feet it turns to what looks like clear white sand. It is, in fact, salt. The bottom is covered in salt, and lots of it. Loads and loads and loads. I never knew that. I waded out further.

Swirling my hands around in it, I found that it is oily. When I ran my fingers through it, I could see swirls that look similar to the inteference that appears between hot and cold water, or between salt and fresh at river mouths. It is almost as if fine lines of silk trail from your fingers.

Further out, when the water got up to my nipples, I started floating. That was very very cool. You can float in a sitting position, or on your back. I tried to dip underwater, but thrusting up and pretending to be a pole, but the water rejects your when you get neck deep and you pop up again. I managed to keep my head dry throughout.

Rolling on my front, I found out why the Americans were doing doggy paddle. It is because your legs become buoyant, and so your feet stick out of the water. Cool. I have been geography-book-man.







Apparently now, in Gaza, the Hamas are now hiding in hospitals dressed as doctors. I had a brief read of the wikipedia page of the Hamas which contains some of their (rather scarey) anti-Semetic ideology. It's here. Have a look. I also learnt today that Hamas have been firing kassam over the border at Israel since 2000 because they believe that there should be no state of Israel and that they should own it.