Na Trioblóidí

Day 131 - Buenos Aires

I think I finally put my finger on it in Buenos Aires. An explanation for a malaise grown over recent weeks that niggled and pricked my waking hours. I thought I could shake it, I just needed a bit more sleep. But it was emotional lethargy that saw days pass in this coolest of capitals without the slightest endeavour to sample its 'je ne sais quoi'. There were broad boulevards, architecture redolent of Paris and beautiful public spaces but somehow the city lacked something. It was I that lacked something though I realised. It suddenly struck me that we all form a connection to the place in which we live. We invest something in our home and it in turn invests something in us. The wandering alien severs his connection and loses a certain sense of belonging. I had no door to shut the world behind, no space to claim as my own. I was caught in a river whose course was unknown but whose current was insistent. Despite the new-found clarity and understanding I stood, or rather lay, surprised at this revelation. I hadn't anticipated a form of homesickness and certainly not so soon. It seems the wider world had taught me something about myself, fancy.
The hourglass didn't cease though even as my activity did. Every hour another grain of sand. 17 days left, 3000 miles to Bogota. I couldn't hang around the hostel all day plaguing Leon with music requests and bothering Cecilia with psychoanalysis. Make hay. So I ate fantastic steaks and monotone pizzas. I saw the tombs of San Martín and Eva Peron. Perused quirky antiques and drank endlessly flat beer. And edged inexorably towards a reckoning. A violent putsch and a nearly punch. Spite-laden eyes narrow and black. Desperate remonstration fought chilling logic. A sudden crossroads without traffic lights or speed limits. The great unraveling or an inevitable check? Absolute or absolution? Reality swirled like a stirred cappuccino. It melted like the persistence of memory. Simple streaks of variance contorted into gaping, fanged mouths poised to devour us whole. Gravity slipped Newton's leash and quadrangles twisted like a Rubik's cube. A volcano had erupted and I knew not how long its ash would cover the sky. I followed a faint light in the gloom, it pulsed, it flickered, it dimmed beyond sight at times but I followed. What else could I do?

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The Duke

Pub review They say: "We came for a skittle on a Saturday night and they were very welcoming but you know how you hear about lizards ruling the world, the barstaff had a very lizardy look. Make your own mind up!" --Craig Savage 4/5 I say: 'The place where everybody knows your name' The claim is painted onto the wall and doesn't seem so outlandish on this chilly Tuesday night as there is no-one in the pub to know my name or not. Dry January? I can't imagine that's a thing around these parts. You don't keep over 30 pubs in business with virtuous gestures like that. It might be a Tuesday thing. Per usual I try to find a quiet corner with my beer, surely an easy task in an empty pub? Not so. Speakers hang from every nook and carpet the space in a thick fog of sound. It isn't even the usual autotuned pop/R&B dirge being vomited into my ears. That stuff I can confine to a background hum. Instead it's the pre-match commentary for the Brighto...

Sisyphean Airlines

Day 56 - Panama City We nearly didn't make it into this slip of a country. Cruel fortune had us standing in the queue for the only Panamanian border officer who had read and decided to adhere to the rules. "Return ticket?" bugger. His steely, uncompassionate gaze was unmoved by our desperate explanations of our travel 'plans'. Bribery also failed to move him to endorse our entry so our bus driver, with infinite generosity, offered to relieve us of another $36 to write up a return ticket to San José that we would never use. This finally satisfied the entry requirements and the stamp thumped down. The country is divided by a synonymous strip of water down which floats a not insignificant quantity of the world's goods. Though our initial plan was to dive the canal, renovations kiboshed that idea and we had to settle for the traditional topside view. On initial viewing the city itself seems built on the wealth its transoceanic connection brings. Buildings soa...

Angkor Whaaaaat?

Day 5 - Siem Reap With the water festival finished we has one more place to visit in Cambodia. Angkor Wat is an indisputable wonder of the world and the largest religious monument ever constructed. It sits within a temple complex covering 400km², the scale of which is impossible to adequately describe. Its towers seem to rise organically from the ground, the stone flowering from the earth into wonderfully symmetric form. Only modern capitalism and totalitarian hubris seem to inspire similar architectural endeavour as the gods did in the past. I don't necessarily agree with any of those ideologies and their human cost but religion's diminished power permits me a less coloured appreciation of its monuments. In the stone of Angkor Wat you see reflected the same desire for, and defiant belief in, permanence that runs through our species. I see it in the chiselled signage above the entrance to long dead banks and businesses in the City of London. The owners thought the gilded lobbi...

You don't have to mentally unstable to live here, but it helps...

Day 380 - Margaret River It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. It was a Tuesday, it was like any other. Me and the Cornish lads had slogged through another day on the vineyard and were driving home. I switched on my phone to check messages, my housemate Emily had text. All our stuff's on the street. Martina showdown. It had been building to this but with 3 days left before we left Margaret River she'd actually done it. Perhaps I should recap? The housing situation at Tunbridge Street had been deteriorating since, well, since I moved in really. I'd have to say that this was in spite of rather than because of my presence. I hadn't met the landlady before I took the room so my first contact with Martina was after wo...

Pills, pills, pills

As I reach the end of my course of medication I look back at the variety of pharmaceuticals I swallowed, usually in complete ignorance of their purpose. Having done some 'research' into these colourful little concoctions I present the results below. Top to bottom, left to right. 1, Name : Forte Type : Caplet Size : Very large Colour : Dried blood Purpose : This pill establishes whether there is any constriction of the airway, being sized, as it is, to the average human airway. If it becomes lodged in the throat constriction has occurred. In this way it is a little like Witch dunking in it's functioning. Side effects : Death by asphyxiation 2, Name : Vizylac Type : Caplet Size : Medium Colour : Shocking pink Purpose : This pill is administered when a patient has temporarily lost the use of one leg. It enables the patient to comfortably put all their bodyweight on the other leg for extended periods of time thereby increasing mobility. Contains extract of F...

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