Systema Traincation

The last couple of years I've been going on "Traincations." Where I go off somewhere and immerse myself in something, a facet of awareness/movement, "mad skillz", if you will. Essentially a retreat.¹

Last year, I trained with the wonderful Paul Linden in Columbus, Ohio. For a week I worked on conflict resolution and bodywork, plus some Aikido classes in the evenings, with him, all the while I staying at his dojo. An off-kilter veering from my typical day as an engineer (he says with a hipster's smugness).

This year, I was back in North America, and this time it's personal martial. I came to Toronto, the second home of Systema (also called "Know Thy Self") (from the site):

[...]  the authorities quickly realized how viable and devastating the original combat system was and reserved it just for a few Special Operations Units. 

 The body has to be free of tension, filled with endurance, flexibility, effortless movement and explosive potential.

The spirit or psychological state has to be calm, free of anger, irritation, fear, self-pity, delusion and pride.The combat skill includes movements that are powerful and precise, instant and economical, spontaneous, subtle and diverse, the signature of a true professional. 

So there you have it a martial art, reserved for the Russian military elite. In a word:

Hardcore

In practice a mixture of wrestling, groundwork, strikes, weapons and multiple opponents; the whole shebang. I had gone to a few classes of it since September here in Belgium, but I couldn't go as regularly as I'd like because of the travel time.² It frustrated me quite a bit, and some of the guys at the school here in Kortrijk told me that people often go to Toronto and train for weeks, sometimes even months, at the source as it were. Given my obsessive bend, that piqued my interest...

And off I went. The first week at Systema Fightclub, and then second week at Systema HQ. And you know what? It is the tenderest, most compassionate, heartwarming and honest ass-kicking I have ever experienced!

It struck me more as a personal development course in the guise of a martial art. Sure, we're going to: step on each other... Push and shove... Lock and grab... Hit... Gang up on... Even use sticks, chains, whips and training knives... but it's about building each other up, leaving us greater than we were before. Give no more than the partner can handle; gradually expanding the comfort zone; handle punch with care.

That's the idea.

Working on the edge of the comfort zone, is by no means easy; I was covered in bruises and at times annoyed by the skill difference between me and the guys I trained with... It's particularly confronting since I've been doing martial arts for over 20 years. I mean, I should be better at hitting people for heaven's sake!

Luckily everyone was open to helping me. Giving me tips and pointers.

There is one class for everyone. There are no forms to learn; it's bare bones: principles of alignment and minimal effort, breath control and helping each other.  It doesn't matter if one has been training 1 day, 1 year or 20, the exercises are scalable enough that all benefit from the neophyte to the seasoned,  just a question of how deep/far one can go. In the partner work, we collaborate to get the most out of it, it's not competitive. We're given a great deal of autonomy; the teacher explains and demonstrates. He watches over us, but we investigate and explore, if we're not sure or need more guidance, we can. From the get go, we're encouraged to figure it out for yourself.

There is a wonderful emphasis on ease of motion, investigating different approaches and effects of handicaps (go to and get up from the ground while keeping one leg off of the ground, hands behind the back, etc.). We're invited to notice where tension, anxiety, fear or anger arises and working with it, relaxing using movement and breathing, and feedback/support from your partners.

Contrary to the typical image of martial arts, humanity is acknowledged and embraced in the training, it is not denied, as if we were cold automatons following a program or "real men"; that we get frustrated, have emotional responses to attacks and attacking. The context is martial arts, but the guys you meet and work with strive to integrate it with the rest of their lives.

Every class ends with massage work, some peaceful nurturing contact, balancing out the more violent prior work. The fighter is reminded that he can do more than harm. I found this profoundly special, because generally we, and men even more so, don't get enough caring physical contact. I read two pointed articles on this: Touch as Nutrition, by my good man, John Tuite; and  Touch Isolation: How Homophobia has robbed Men of Touch at the Good Man Project. The former looking at the dirth of touch in general and the latter about impact homophobia has had on how male friends express their friendships, and the consequences of being so starved for contact. For no other reason than allowing people the breadth of types of contact we can experience, these classes are powerful. And of course, who doesn't like being able to massage people well? :)

Manny, head teacher at Systema Fightclub, who spent hours outside of class  generously sharing his thoughts and experiences on the art and its broader scope, talks about Systema the martial art being just 15% of what Systema can do, that there is also the Systema of the family, the workplace, and the world at large, and can we apply the principles there that we cultivate in Systema the art.

I presume this level of integration is because of its military origins, where there is a need for a state of sustained vigilance and emotional resilience, so that neither acts of violence nor fear nor eventual aftermaths get you.

The kung fu I practice touches on this idea of calm and well-being, but I haven't experienced the class structure committing to it so effectively; quite often, training kung fu, I feel like I am carving an intricately fine statuette on a pin, using a microscope. Whereas the handful of days I got to spend in Toronto felt more like painting a mural on a wall in the middle of a city; both are works of art and passion, but one is scope and exposure differ.

Pushing the personal development and well-being lark aside, I'll wax pragmatic about the direct application of the training. As I mentioned the classes are made up pf simple (not easy) exercises to improve suppleness and strength in the body, and breath control. It eschews the more esoteric trappings of martial arts, with even sparing explicit mention of a stance, let alone forms and techniques. There are things that are worked on here, that other martial arts cultivate as well, but what impressed me the most is, the economy and efficiency of the Systema approach to training, where partner collaboration is central. The communication between the partners and the cut-down nature of the exercises means the desired effect is clear and the partner will say if it is off the mark. There are epiphanies fleeting or otherwise, that I have had in my own training in the years gone by, that in my opinion, would have been be more quickly arrived at in these classes. Content-wise, something I find singular is their approach and handling of multiple attackers, in any given class, there are even odds that we'll be worked over by two or more people in some capacity. This builds a comfort and familiarity with extra people and, I think, reduces tunnel vision in fights, because there are few things that discourage tunnel-vision more than trying to hit someone while getting kicked from behind by another. Segueing back into the personal development work... in day to day life, it's rare we have the luxury of focussing and acting on a single thing without other things looming; really isn't there always something kicking us from behind while we are trying to live (Imagine I am a cheesy reporter, finishing up a schlocky human interest piece...)?

At the end of my visit, when I was leaving, Vlad, gave me a warm handshake and hug. His wholehearted gratitude for taking the time to come and train in Toronto was incredibly touching. Ultimately, despite moments of vexation the likes of which I haven't experience in a year or too, this was a fantastic experience, that I hope to revisit many times in the coming years. :)

-----------

¹The typical image of a retreat is going off to nature, camping or staying in a Wigwam or something, but that is just too mainstream for me. Following the idea of Campbell's Hero's journey as a template for what retreats are: the environs thereof, are not critical to the process, but stepping over the threshold into the unknown is; going away from the familiar, from friends and family and diving into something alien.

²I wouldn't have any trouble attending because of the time travel.

New York

I hadn't been to New York before.

My friends that have been have raved about it.  I arrived just before midnight in JFK. I had printed out the travel details to get to my billet in Chelsea Hostel in Chelsea. All I had to do was get onto the E train from Jamaica station by the airport. The city was already winning brownie points for having the underground run all night. It did lose some for me having to talk to a crazy¹ guy for ten minutes while waiting for the train. He shared his experiences during the flooding - the hotel he stayed in and was no longer welcome in, his sugar momma, how his faith was going to save him from the forthcoming rapture and his calls of abuse at an overweight man on the platform.

When I came out of the station, I found myself walking around poorly-lit empty streets, covered in a light fog. It was like being in Vampire in Brooklyn starring Eddie Murphy. I tried to find the street and avenue where my hostel was at, but the street names/numbers didn't make any sense. I gave in and got a cab. Sitting in the back of the taxi - a real NYC taxi cab, guys! - and watched the map on the screen in front of me... Not knowing the train stop sequence, I ended up stepping off early in Queens at Court Sq./23rd st. According to my directions, I had to wait until 23rd in Manhattan island before stepping off.

The whole trip, I was surprised at how accurately so much of America and Americana is portrayed in TV and film. It was very much contrary to how poorly they usually emulate everywhere else. I mention this now, because the Chelsea Hostel, was the platonic ideal of low-rent building; exposed hot water pipes, uneven stairs, aged linoleum flooring and a bare bedroom with a tiny metal-frame squeaky bed. After being spoiled with all you one can eat pancakes, oatmeal and fruit, the choice of a bagel (brown or white), a single fruit (apple or orange) and a bowel Corn Flakes, didn't leave me particularly satisfied. It didn't help that it was 10-15°C colder than in California.(lower temperatures lead to less trustful judgements - I'll take liberties and extend it liking a place)

I made my way off to the Broadway district. walking up 7th avenue. It took 30 minutes, but the time passed by easily; New York is a much denser place than Los Angeles. Outside of Hollywood blvd, the walk between points of note had little to offer. Now, New York cit-ay on the other hand… the streets were full of people. Everyone walking around, going to work, making an audition, coming from yoga, the gym, running or on their way to/from shopping. such an eclectic mix of people to gawp at! One evening two teenagers walked past me, rappin' at each other, one would bust out a rhymes and the other would fire one back at him. Wrapped up in their own little world. I thought it was a pretty cool moment.

When I was walking through Central Park, I got to see an street performing group that I'd give two thumbs up for showmanship and entrepreneurial spirit. These guys were tight.² Near the end of their set, and had gathered up a crowd of 30-50 people. They'd just picked three people from the crowd - two lovely ladies and a hapless man. They flirted with the women, teased the guy. Before the last big trick, they started their money collection.   They called out people that didn't offer much or had just walked away at the mention of a contribution. They celebrated or acted something in harmony whenever someone gave in ten dollars or more. They'd ask them where they were from and in every case, they had a group-piece for the US state or country - either all of them saying something at the same time, or a rapid-fire back and forth between them, or in the case of Brazil, some of them sung and some of them gyrated something that might have been Samba. Then they would call around to the people from NY to represent, or if some big tipper had been already singled out [a guy from Boston in this case], they'd ask him if he was going to take that? I think they toed the line between persistence and entertainment darn near perfectly. If I had any more than the few dollars I had already given, I would have happily have given it over. There wasn't any passive aggression or guilting in how they wheedled the money out, it was all very entertaining. So, to cap it off, their most athletic member jumped over the three volunteers. I still grin thinking about it.

Other than strolling around the streets I did a couple of other things.

I visited the 9/11 memorial centre, which was pretty intense. It's a beautiful place, the foundations of the towers are water fixtures with chest-high walls holding the names of the civilians, fireman, paramedics and police officers that lost their lives.

I decided that I had time for a Broadway show, and went with Wicked!, thanks to the first season of Glee, which had one or two songs from it as well as Kristin Chenoweth, I had a passing familiarity with it.³ It was a great production, the dialogue was funny and there are some nice dance sequences and acrobatics dispersed through-out.

But the highlight of my NYC trip was my physical activities!

I went to Chelsea Piers for three days and followed beginners gymnastics class, parkour class (Parkour!) and breakdancing class. The teachers were all very good, encouraging and praising without coming off as condescending and they gave me a lot of ideas for my training, which has changed my hand balancing work quite a bit in the last 6 months. But, my goodness!, was my body in bits after it.. lying down, getting up, standing up, reaching up, bending over… my back and ass hated it all! Here's the link for it:
http://www.chelseapiers.com/new/fh/drop-in/adult-gymnastics-classes.cfm

The gymnastics and whatnot was a real high-note for me, and if anyone is interested in doing something physical for a day or even a couple of days, while in NYC, I'd highly recommend it, because the classes are drop-in, no appointment necessary and in the beginners class, they cater for the level of who ever turns up. By the end of the session, I was up to doing unspotted forward somersaults (tweaked my ankle on the landing of one :/ ) and spotted backward somersaults.

To literally cap off my trip to NYC, I got up at 05:30 and ran the Central Park circuit. I jogged up from Chelsea in a hoody and tracksuit bottom. Once I got up, switched out to my shorts and t-shirt. I got a few odd looks from runners as I went along, since most of them were carefully wrapped up. After about 30 minutes I started feeling the chill and after about 45 mins it had gotten cold in enough to hurt. Running back towards Broadway, I saw a big data screen with the temperature on it: 23°F or -5°C. So, naturally, for the home stretch, I covered myself up, hoping to rekindle some sensation. It took a few minutes to pull up the zip of my hoody, since my fingers were numb. But I eventually got it done! The run was a big deal since I am a fan of USA's Suits and the main character, Harvey Specter, apparently does the same circuit.

In terms of food, the highlights were: the Glasshouse, which is a popular pre-broadway show restaurant; and the Shakeshack, which does really nice burgers - the shakes aren't too bad either though.


1. Crazy is a bit harsh, but he neither endeared like an eccentric nor amused like a quirk.
2. Am I using that right, guys?… Guys?
3.  I now remember that I read the book it is based on… I should have led with that and not mentioned watching Glee. My street creed is toast now, yo.

Doc [in] Hollywood

The highlights of L.A. and Hollywood were:

1.     The service, breakfast and tours organised by the hostel

2.     The Warner Bros Studio Tour

3.     Salsa dancing in Santa Monica

4.     Craig Ferguson Show living taping

Breakfast in the hostel was all you can eat pancakes (make them yourself), fruit and oatmeal. I thought the pancakes were a wonderful touch, it was the first time that I went to a hostel where there was complimentary hot food for breakfast. The oatmeal (even the “original” flavor) wasn't great; I am used to high-grade, un-cut O, with no additives.

The hostel organised a guided tour of Beverly Hills. The guy that gave us the tour was a local, and a skinny-jeans-flannel-jacket-and-horn-rimmed-glasses-wearing-vegan-bagel-eatin’ dyed in the wool hipster.  True to his kind’s disdain for “mainstreaming”, we went by public bus. On our way to the stop, he pointed out a huge Great Dane sitting in an open-top pink Cadillac. He freaked out, about it as much as a hipster is permitted and "Instagrammed that sh*t". I think his under-expressed enthusiasm about this slice of Americana was representative of why I got a kick out of him; it was like he had taken the 0-11 measure of intense emotional expression and scaled it down to something feasible in the limited range of motion afforded by skinny jeans and knitted caps. He had timed it so that we had a moment to get a coffee before the bus arrived. He came out of the place with a bacon and egg bagel, but a vegan version, which he ate without irony. The tour stops weren't memorable, but I had a great time listening to the guide go on.

Later that day a group of us booked a spot on the Warner Bros Studio tour. The customer service through-out the tour, including buying the tickets was exemplary. When we got there, we ended up paying individually, there were 9 of us and three paid with credit cards. The clerk remained friendly for the 10-15 minutes it took for our payments and worked around problems with two of the credit card, all while the last-minute queue for the tour was snaking out behind us. In Belgium, one would have been told to get the hell out of the shop, since no money was worth hassle. The tour guide, Brad, was fantastic as well, passionate and knowledgeable about TV and film. I saw the sets for the Mentalist, which was a big highlight for me, particularly seeing the couch where Jane sleeps.¹

The dancing highlight of the entire America trip was a salsa party in Santa Monica. The teacher, Cristian Oviedo, is the current world bachata and salsa champion, and an absolute gentleman. The live music, the standard of dancing and the people were wonderful. I was sorry it didn’t go on longer.

I heard about the party via Internations, which I highly recommend becoming a member of, because it has communities in most major cities and the people are generally very social and open to newcomers even if it is just for a short time.

Before I went to the Salsa party, I did some training on the beach near Santa Monica Pier. It was warm and cloudless, but a bit windy. There were lots of people working out in the outdoor gym that was there – some even doing youtube worthy stuff. I trained as the sun set, which took forever. But it felt pretty cool to practice kung fu with an uninterrupted view of the sun setting..² It was also possible to take Trapeze lessons on the pier, which I would have done, if they were cheaper or I had time to do a couple of days of them.

The one thing that I did arrange before getting to the States was a ticket for a live taping of the Craig Ferguson Show. He’s easily my favourite talk-show host. He’s easy going and irreverent, there doesn’t appear to be any rehearsals at all, and the back and forth between him and his assistant Jeffery Peterson the Robot Skeleton has a very natural rhythm to it that sets it apart from the fake, a-bit-too planned feel I get from the other late night talk show hosts. Watching him is like sitting in the pub and havin’ a chat.

His guests were Billy Connolly and the girl playing the ghost in the SyFy version of Being Human. As far as I can recall, we were sat down in the studio about 30-45 minutes before the recording would begin. And we were introduced to Craig’s warm-up act, Chunky Steve – Ostensibly the best warm-up act in the business. As far as I can gather, the warm-up act is there to whip us into hysterics, so that we will laugh at anything. He spent the duration lowering our threshold for what was an acceptable joke. He picked on a couple of audience members, a blonde and a teenage boy in particularly, since they are such easy targets. Any time we didn’t laugh, he would chastise us and saying ”When I bust out the LOLs (the index and thumb of each hand making “L”s), you gotta laugh like what you heard was hilarious. Remember, mediocre comedian here.” He was like that friendly uncle with the dirty sense of humour that was strangely charming. It easily became the habit to laugh loudly at any joke. An example of mass hysteria, if ever I’d heard of it. A phrase he kept coming back to was “being part of TV magic.” The tone and reverence he gave the phrase was downright religious, much like when my Beverly Hills guide had something to say about the obscene wealth, scale, weirdness, or grandeur of celebrities and their lives. Anyway, as I said, we, the audience, dived right into the zealotry. Our laughter was what we left on the altar.³ You can see me below... I think.

Finally, Craig came out it was I expected. The chatting between himself and Billy was warm and familiar, with jokes thrown in all over the place. We laughed when we were supposed to, as hard as we could. I don’t know about the rest, but I was happy to oversell how funny a joke was, because I like Craig Ferguson and his show.

After Hollywood, I made my way by public transport to New Port Beach. Virtually no one uses public transport in California, car travel is so cheap that it is almost exclusively very poor people that use buses. To the point that my contact in Internations for the salsa party didn’t even know if night buses from Santa Monica back to Hollywood existed and my friend in New Port Beach didn’t know even it was possible to get there from LA just with trains and buses. I stayed pretty relaxed on the trains, but the buses made me nervous, since stops are rarely clearly indicated and bus drivers can forget that you’ve asked them for a particular stop. But Google Maps saw me through.  :)

Hanging out with my pal in New Port Beach was excellent. It was our first time seeing each other in 7 years. As it turned out, both of us were a bit worried that it would be an awkward mess. We ate out at a Crow burger (Gourmet burger “joint”), a Mexican restaurant where I ate Quinoa for the first time and had delicious guacamole. During the day, when she was at work, I did some planning for the New York and Boston legs of my trip, very fruitful kung fu training, and went to Road Runner to get fitted for some runners (trainers in American). On the last Friday, we went clubbing, most of the music sucked, but I did hear Thrift Shop by Mackelmore for the first time, which I came back to Belgium declaring the song to watch out for.

That Saturday we drove to San Diego Zoo, which was great fun. We did just one tour – the Animal Man tour, led by an improve comedian who’s done shows on HBO. We got to see pandas and a baby Giraffe (already over 1.8m tall… baby my ass).

1. No, that doesn’t sound weird at all. No sir-eee.
2. I’ve seen a couple of uninterrupted sunsets in Ireland, but either because this was in Santa Monica in California and it would be my only chance to see one this far West for the foreseeable future, or because the sunset is qualitatively better closer to the equator, this one is a special one.
3. I’m trying to sound like the guys from Top Gear, when they say something profound about a class of car being discontinued.

You should see the other guy

Dear Diary

[Edit: The following was mainly written twofour weeks ago... I ain'tain't changing it now]

The words of the day are ultimate and failure... And careened as in: I wrote careened¹ into a post.²

Today was the first day I used my Velo card. I only wanted to go from my apartment to my bus stop and I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those damn kids an unfortunate confluence of events. 

Just before I crossed the tram lines, my pedals lost tension. I froze, thinking I slid on the rails. Then the front tyre did slip into the rail. Naturally, the direction of the rails was contrary to my original course, so over/down I went... Shoulder first into a conveniently placed 5-by-5 soft sturdy wooden post at the edge of the footpath. You know, one of those things that is supposed to protect cars from belligerent pedestrians.

As I carreened into the post, I thought,"only one of us could walk away..."³ My finely sculpted shoulder and its newfound friend, momentum, broke me my first wooden block. And all I got was a 6" red mark along my shoulder.⁴

------

¹According to the Dictionary app on my Mac the definition is:

to move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction : an electric golf cart careened around the corner. [ORIGIN: influenced by the verb careerⁱ.]

²Lock and load...

³OK.. it was more like:"Shi-!"
⁴The crumple zones featured in smaller cars dissipate oodles of kinetic energy, instead of you getting crumpled. As far as I can figure, I wasn't in danger of breaking anything [Click here for the calculations], but the fact that something broke certainly made things easier on me :)

-----

ⁱThe verb career is "to move swiftly and in an uncontrolled way in a specified direction", not to be confused with career the noun,"an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life and with opportunities for progress."

You should see the other guy (Appendix)

I tried, for about 60s, to think of a funny title for this, but, as you all can see, I came up dry and my PhD training kicked in...

So here are my attempts at describing the mechanics of a gormless bogger¹ falling from his bike...

What I am looking to do is calculate my velocity on impact against the post, based on my total energy going into the impact (my Kinetic Energy from forward travel, that I am assuming smoothly segues rotation about a point and my Potential Energy from falling a bit). I can then have a go at the force on my shoulder, when I had bumped against the hitherto upstanding Mr Post.

The first picture below is an artist's [This guy... I'm pointing at myself with both thumbs] impression of the subject (me) on his bike, with the measurements of the rear wheel radius, a guess of the bike's and my centre of gravity and a guess of my shoulder height (0.2, 1.1 and 1.5m respectively)

The centre of gravity is somewhere just over the seat of the bike (arbitrarily taken as 10 cm, giving a total[-ish] height of 1.1m for the centre of gravity.

From the inset: The gears and chain are housed- to protect the poor things from the elements, doncha know- so I couldn't count the teeth on the gears, which would have been far easier.... From some surreptitious eyeballing, I have:

• Pedalling period² (T_F)=1.5s
• Front gear radius (r_F) = 0.08m
• Rear gear radius (r_R) = 0.03m

Let's say the gear ratio is represented by the ratio of the gear radii (which would be valid if they had the same number of teeth per unit of circumference), then the rear wheel's linear velocity is calculated using the steps below:

It is reasonable enough to assume that the velocity of the wheel is the velocity of the bike and me; A point of the wheel doesn't really move when it is in contact with the ground; ergo the bike and I move instead.³

A quick look back at my goals... Velocity ["check"]

Now to the change in height... Of all my ropey assumptions, here is easily the ropiest of them: I'm going to assume that the bike and I were a rigid body.⁴ Which makes things incredibly convenient, since the relative positions between my shoulder, what was a wheel and now a fulcrum, and the centre of gravity don't change.

My shoulder goes from 1.5m to 1.1m in elevation, which is a change in height of 0.4m. However, for potential energy we have to look to the change in height of the centre of gravity. By similar triangles, drop in height of the CoG can be calculated:

The next step is the total energy calculation and the velocity of a point object in the position of my centre of gravity:

Unfortunately, calculations using centre of gravity give lumped answers; I don't know what the velocity of my shoulder was [and frankly I want to finish this post in the next ten minutes]. If I was being correct and rigourous^4.5, I'd do moment calculations with estimates of the distribution of my mass, based on that I can get an expression that will tell me the velocity at my shoulder.

Let's say that my shoulder velocity is 4m/s (more than the CoG velocity, I figured this was reasonable because it is far from the turning point and centre of gravity). That gives an applied force of 800±25%N (mass by change in velocity (4-0) divided by deceleration time [writing on my white board takes time - use your imagination]).

Now, according to the internet a broken clavicle⁵ is a common injury for falling off of your bike onto your shoulder [LINK].⁶ According to this publication peak axial compressive force (compression along the length of the clavicle) is 2.41±0.72kN (listed in abstract). However, the paper itself lists the fracture force as a much lower value: 1.91±0.84kN.

Let's say I am on the frail side, one standard deviation to be exact, then force to do me damage is 1,070N. So the odds of me doing myself damage from this were disappointingly low (unless my head happened to hit instead, but that's another story).

If my straw-house of estimates is anything to go by, I experienced about 8gs on impact and an impact velocity of about 9m/s is needed for an average clavicle to break. This works out as 32km/h, which is reasonable enough, and is inline with statistics on to severe injuries and fatalities in road accidents.

In reality, I am not a rigid body:

• There would be energy losses due to my body's plastic deformation as I fell
• My soft tissues (read: amply muscled shoulder) would have absorbed more of the energy

And also,

• The post broke, so there is no telling how much of the force I actually experienced.

Now, if you will excuse me, it is the 2nd of October and over 25°C outside. I've got some kung fu to do.

----

¹Funny side-note, I grew up on "Bog Road"ⁱ - I saw nothing wrong with that until I went to Summer camp for the first time. [Spoiler alert] They laughed at me... Bad enough my home town is Lisdoonvarna [LINK 1,ⁱⁱ LINK 2ⁱⁱⁱ]
²The time for my right pedal to go through 360°. I estimated this from my nominal pedalling rate in instances after the fact: "it ain't 1s and it's less than 2s."

³Nothing new.
⁴Ooo-er vicar.
^4.5Not that the rest of it is particularly rigorous :/
⁵Am I the only person that finds this word rather lewd?
⁶OK, I am being a sophist here, but it's a convenient bone and it has a reasonable chance of being a common injury because it is such a wuss, in the area of interest and would be put under axial compression. This ain't peer reviewed :P

****

ⁱThe Fresh Prince has got nothing on me.

ⁱⁱI did not expect a Dutch article about Lisdoonvarna :/

ⁱⁱⁱA decided advantage of not being in Ireland is that this song  (heretofore known as my nemesis) is not known where I am.^A

°°°°

^APoint of note: Youtube has a new function that I noticed with this video; It listed Christy playing in Antwerp on the 5th October. How... convenient.

Like that delightful family romp, Sliver

This evening, I got the bejaysus scared out of me.

I've used the same Laundr-O-Mat a couple of times. There are no indications of opening hours anywhere. Anyone I ask in there doesn't have a rashers what time it closes at.

Based on places that actually display closing times, I figured ten o'clock was likely one.

Anyway...

21:15ish

I got in later than usual. I figured that I could plead with the guy who would come to close-up to wait until the clothes were dry.

But when I assume things, I make an "ass" out of "u" me and "me".

About 22:05

The clothes were almost dry.

There I was, minding my own business, reading a paper, and some of the lights went out. Not all of them, just a single line. There was no one else there. I dismissed it as a malfunction of some sort, a happenstance.

But, much like the lone white female in a horror film [I'd look great in a teddy, I just know I would], I wasn't 100% sold on it being just a coincidence. I got up and began clearing out my driers. The rest of the lights started going out. I packed a little bit more furiously.

*Click*

The door had closed.

Bugger.

I finished packing my laundry away (Molly pronounces it,"lingerie"). All the time I was wondering how I was going to get out of this one. I had left my phone in the apartment. There was no pay phone there. For that matter there was no number to call.

Having finished packing up, I walked with trepidation¹ to the closed door - silently cursing the progresses of our time exemplified in this... this automated Laundr-O-Mat.²

I reached out to the door. Pulled down the handle.

It opened. I inspected the door. It had a magnetic doorstop, and no handle on the outside.

There it is. The place never really closes. There are just certain periods, when it is empty, that one cannot get in.

I wanted to juxtapose this discovery with Hotel California. But it is late. And having planted the seed of the idea, I can just walk way [figuratively], and let you do my work for me [literally].

***

¹Word of the day win!

²Or maybe it is haunted.

***

[Editorial note: I would have like to find a link to the quote/time that Mr Burns uses the line that I allude to in the blog title. But I lazily went for the next best thing.]

The "E" word

The Irish have been doing it for a long time - Potato famine, economic recessions, boredom, warrants... any reason will do.

My great granduncle and a friend of his went out to Canada- to the Wild West, Eh- and bought themselves a 256 acre plot of land. Back in those days you got nothing just the land and it was a race against time to have the cabin ready or die of exposure come Winter. They drove 400 mule from Montana up to the plot. The venture didn't really work out; in the first Winter they had to eat a couple of mules.⁰ He packed it in after that, but his mate struck oil shortly thereafter. Literally.

As a young man, my grandfather lived in Canada, working as a mechanic with the Trans-Pacific Rail and for a uranium mine operation. Later, himself and my grandmother lived in the States. Of their children, 8/10 have lived or are currently living abroad.

Emigration isn't such a big deal now.

I am not going into a infrastructure-less wilderness with my life in the balance. The world is a tiny place now; it takes less time for me to get from Antwerp to Dublin than it does from Clare to Dublin. 

These days the biggest change caused by emigrating is who gets your taxes.

Besides, I've seen the worst that moving around in Europe has to offer thanks to Jason F*cking Bourne.

***

⁰I think "woof" is the technical term.

McNamyver: Chemical Burn Notice

My name is Máirtín McNamara. I used to be an undergraduate until...

"We've got a graduation for you. Your postgraded."

When you are postgraded, you've got nothing. No cash, no credit and no job history.¹ You're stuck in whatever lab they decide to dump you in.

You do what ever work comes your way...

"Someone needs your help, Máirtín."

Bottom line: Until you figure out your thesis, you're not going anywhere.

[Cue "glamorous" montage of rain covered UCD: People waiting for buses, campus security chasing skateboarders, nerds highfiving beside a chalkboard, people in lab coats and goggles slowly jumping away from an explosion or some genetic experiment gone wrong², guys with popped collars mispronouncing words with orange-skinned girls]

I was chilling in my lab doing scientificy stuff. My cell rings.

It's an ol' buddy of mine from back in my undergrad' days. He's in a bind. He locked his keys in his car.

My partner-in-problem-solving [and pale Bruce Campbell stand-in], and I coolly walked out to the parking lot, to assess the situation.

If you are going to break into a friend's car, it is important that you don't do any damage. A lot of people are inclined to go for a fast break and grab, but that is going to sour a friendship real fast.

Most cars have a design flaw that can be exploited; this late model blahblah happened to have a slightly flexible door frame. A mistake a lot of people make at this point is trying to get the door open; just because it is how you usually get in to a car doesn't mean that it is the only way to get into one. In many cases the trunk will do just as well...

I strode back inside to get some things. I strode out with a heavy-duty screwdriver, section of 1/6" steel pipe and a spool of electrical wiring.

It's important when you are doing something suspicious, which could draw the attention of security personnel, that you act like you are meant to be there.³ More operations fail because of someone's nerves than effective countermeasures.

I threaded some of the wire, a loop tied in the end, through the steel pipe. I casually used the screwdriver^3.5 to lever a gap between the car and the door frame. All I needed was space to stick the wire-in-pipe. With the pipe wedged in the door frame, the wire was free to move up, down and swing side-to-side.

My eye fixed on the target. Sweat beading on my brow, I smoothly handled the wire-in-pipe to catch the lever. We held back on the celebrations. Now the hard part began.

With infinite care, I pulled back on the wire until...

My ol' buddy dove through the open trunk and grabbed the keys just in time.⁴

_________________________

Stay tuned for the final installment of McNamyver: The Living Skylights.

***

¹Well, not much anyway.

²"Glow in the dark mucus!"

³I'm not saying we were cool as cucumbers, but in the car park, in broad daylight we were standing around and ultimately breaking into a car and campus security didn't come our way at all.

^3.5Ostensibly it was a screwdriver, but that foot-long lump of steel would only fit screws that grew up beside a nuclear power plant in the 1950s.

⁴The narrative laws governing Heists require certain phrases to be included. Continuity be damned.

***

Afterword: For those that aren't fans of Burn Notice, I hope there was still some amusement and basking-in-my-uncanny-skills-of-improvisation to be had. The incident did happen and the only liberties I took in its description were how coolly we went to the "parking lot," how much striding I did and I didn't break a sweat during the incident; that was purely for dramatic effect.

For anyone that is interested, I got the Eye on Springfield clip here and the "click" sound effect here. Of course Blogger does not host audio, so I had to sign-up for a place that did. I went here.

I cut out the Kent Brockman intro to EoS and put that up. And then the wav for "click" format was not playing, and I converted it to mp3. I could almost write a whole entry about the charade; well, I could, if there was any more to it.

McNamyver part 1

[Blogger's note: I had intended to write this series up before I left Dublin, but I forgot about it until I was taking pictures off of my phone.]

Every now and again I get a chance to shine.

Sometimes if a friend of mine (sometimes even a compadre) has a problem, if no one else can help and if they can find them me, maybe you he/she can hire me.^0,1

It all began waaaaay back in autumn 2003....

It was the first day of term, and fresh out of the day's last lecture I get a call from Ro-Ro. Due to circumstance more amusing not to mention, he locked himself out of the apartment with the oven on.² He had just moved in with his girlfriend and it was essentially his first day in the little flat on unsupervised. Even though herself had a key and was only a 10 minute walk away, Ro-Ro felt it best not to involve her.

The apartment is in the basement of a converted Georgian house, and there are two access points: the door and a narrow, narrow window overlooking by the backyard.^2.1 The keys were in a backpack on the bed at the opposite side of the flat (2.5 m from the window).^2.5 Being the strapping examples of human form that we were, neither him nor I could fit through the window.

On my way to his rescue, some friendly carpenters renovating a pub, gave me a discarded switch of timber, which Ro-Ro used as a fing-longer to turn off the oven. His most pressing concern solved, we stood in the garden for a while thinking on how to get to the keys. Eventually, Ro-Ro mentioned there was a roll of stiff tubing under the stairs; I felt that this should have been mentioned earlier.³

It being a dingy garden on the Northside, there was plenty of junk lying around: 5L paint drums, rusty nails, bricks, rusted wheelless bikes, etc. I hammered some nails into one end of the tubing to make a rudimentary hooking device and we fed it through the window.⁴ But it didn't pan out because the bag was too heavy and kept slipping off its perch.

Struck by inspiration,⁵ I jammed the sturdy steel handle of a foreshadowed paint drum down the end of the tube, holding it in place with those nails that were not good for much else. And thus, with my rudimentary hooking device somewhat less rudimentary, we were able to get the bag and our rightful ingress to the premises.

Stay tuned for the next installment of of McNamyver: Chemical Burn Notice.

***

⁰Will work for food.

¹"Talk about poor production values, he references one 80s classic with his title and another in the introductory section; hack."

²If you like, imagine him with a too-small towel clasped around his waist, shampoo still in his hair and a back-scrubber in his free hand.

^2.1It makes sense if you tried looking out the window.

^2.5It does smack of an online game such as this, but that is how it happened to be.

³"Oh, what I wouldn't give for a holocaust cloak."

⁴More accurately: bricked. And on a related note: Real Men Don't Need Swiss Army Knives.

⁵Recently such moments of inspiration have been shown to be detectable by monitoring brain activity. Again, I am reminded how young neuro-psyhcology is in the grand schemes of things. By which I mean they are largely focussed on things filed away under "That's Obvious;"ⁱ you only have to look in someone's eyes to see that light bulb switch on. Or for that matter, one can feel the change in the mind when the solution to a problem crystallizes.

***

ⁱOf course a number of things are incorrectly filed away under this heading so better off checking things thoroughly. As a whole that blog is worth a read [Thanks to Kevin for sending it on to me], if you can stand being told ad multiplicum how bad we are at thinking and remembering.

Roads? Where we are going don't...

Last week, Brian left his car lights on all day, while he was in college. It goes without saying.¹ Shortly after he left the office, he was on the phone begging for a push start. Feeling magnanimous, I recruited a cohort (a silent man of many names) and rushed to our hirsute damsel's aid; Damian remained behind to make sure his pants were so tight it felt like he was wearing nothing at all.

We got Brian's Fiesta out of its spot and lined it up for the exit.

Once did we push it, with such a mighty effort that the car moved, and once did it not start. Twice did we move it, with such a mighty burst of effort that the 3 score birds took flight from the shaking trees and twice did it stay silent. Thrice did we throw ourselves at the sleeping beast, with a such mighty effort that our very feet left a blazing trail in our wake and thrice did it roar to life with much coughing.² And lo' did the Warring Son of the Seahound³ and the Silent Man of Many Names walk back to the engineering building as the Rice-man goeth in his chariot of steel.

Joking aside, the incident reminded me of Back to The Future. Except of course Brian is only a pinch of salt grey, not yet a doctor, his surname is a food and not a colour; it was just pushing a damn-bucket-of-bolts quickly enough to make a spark; ⁴ Finally, instead of 1.21 Giga Watts it was more like, 4 Kilo Watts!⁵

*****

¹The phrase is used far too often and always in-correctly. If it really "went without saying", or if "it was needless to say," then why would one continue? - It casts aspersions of ineptitude on the listener: "What I am about to tell you is fundamental to the matter-at-hand, anyone with a modicum of sense realises or knows this; I do not think you have one."
²I am aware that once, twice and thrice are used in egregious error, but I wanted a Celtic legend feel to it and decided,"F*ck it."
³A chocolate bar to the person that first explains my reasoning here!
⁴ It also kinda reminds me of the time Han couldn't the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive to start and they had to go through the asteroid field to get to Bespin.
⁵Some back of the envelope bill calculations:

Power is work per unit time; Work is force by distance; The force is the car's friction coefficient by its weight; The friction coefficient is the sine of the angle of the incline that the unbraked car begins to move (link). We pushed for about 30-45m and over 15-30 seconds. The Fiesta weighs about 940kg, ±85kg of Rice. I figure the Fiesta would start to roll somewhere between 7 and 15 degree incline.
Not exactly what I wrote down, but it is in the spirit of it. The actual wattage is most likely of that order of magnitude (i.e. 1-10kW); 4kW is a mid-point of sorts.

*****

I apologise for the manifold instances of the semi-colon; I came across a link about its use earlier in the week; I am in the habit of showing-off that I know something even when at best it is tangentially relavent.

The life and death of a Snowmonk

So, snow.

For the first time, since I was a pudgy little boy in my shell overalls and wellies scooping snow around my father's work-van, we got a substantial amount. So much so that UCD ground to a halt and the Sports Centre was closed over the weekend. We had to cancel training as a result. But that doesn't mean we didn't go to UCD. The dedicated, the bored, few gathered in the Sports Centre car park and hatched a cunning plot to create life and then cruelly snuff it out in the form of Snowmonk.^1,2

And so the Lords giveth:

And They taketh away:

... and away:

... and away:

... taketh just a tiny little bit more away:

In summation:

Even considering the glare cast by the rose-tinted past, Best Snow Day Ever.

¹ In our defence, it was going to suffer a painful, attritious death, alone and unloved. We performed a service really. Besides, surely, having created life, we have supreme authority over it? You know, tell it when to go to bed, what school it is going to, etc.

²We went with Snowmonk for obvious reasons. That go without saying.

Mairtin McNamara- Zombie Scientist

Apologies for the looooooooonng delay, folks; I decided on [does quotation gesture with index and middle fingers] me time (in an American accent) over blogging time.

So. Halloween.

Again.

This year I are mostly went as a zombie. Somehow, the idea came to me after a weekend of watching Zombieland and a zombie-themed episode of Smallville.

As some must recall, I used an LED in last year's costume. I latched onto the trope once more, since it was such an easy way to impress.
Long did I ponder on the to shoe-horning of the LEDs into the costume.* Luckily, we have the waxing zombie sub-genre: "Zombie _______."** Can I get a drum-roll please?

...

Two words: Zombie, Scientist, & Awesome.*** I did some sketches of before and after, to get details ironed out (right). While doing the drawrings,**** I developed a backstory for my costume (check it out here).

Initially, I was thinking of putting together LEDs from scratch with a circuit so that it could flash or something. Alas, time ran short. I had to skip out on that and decided on using LED christmas lights.

I found a link that went through modding christmas lights from mains to battery operation. I bought a set of flashing lights in Arnotts. Unfortunately, the circuit arrangement for the LED lights did not allow for a simple cut and splice in to a battery source. This was unusual, as most circuits use a rectifier to convert the A/C to DC and then do all that magical elecltronic stuff. In this case, the A/C must be used in the timing for the whole thing. It being the Friday before Halloween, I did not have the time to it open and see what's what.*****

So, as a hail Mary pass, I went in to town that evening. Some frantic strolling around later, I found what I needed in Debenhams, two 25 red LEDs sets run directly off of battery ["w00t!"]. I used a piece of cardboard to hold the lights in the lettered arrangement. I gathered my lab coat, some thick framed 3-D glasses- polarised type, not red/blue- and I was golden.

Hours to minutes before the kick-off of the Halloween party, Sarah sorted me out with liquid latex****** and oodles of blood for fake wounds . I think it worked out well.

I think next year I will stock up on liquid latex, maybe embed LEDs in it.
________________________________________________________________________
*A zombie better have a damn good reason for having a doneup shirt let alone, working Light Emiting Diodes.
**The list is exhaustive, briefly: Uncle Sam, Nazi, Stripper, bunny, comic book heroes, and other fictional characters. Last week, I heard that Neil Patrick Harris went as an Zombie English Fop and one of the girls in the kung fu club went as a zombie Bavarian maiden.
***Much like water from hydrogen and water, awesome is produced spontaneously when zombies and science are set on fire- so it is a freeby and highly exothermic.
****I also say "liberary" and "nuculear"
*****That and I lack any qualification in looking at circuits beyond putting together PCs, soldering stuff under direction and knowing how a peltier works.
******The latex is dissolved in ammonia xP

Dun Laoghaire World Culture's Festival 2009 part 2

... and later on I did Lion vs Tiger with Kevin [I am the Lion :) ] full screen

Dun Laoghaire World Culture's Festival 2009 part 1

We were in a demo last weekend for the Dun Laoghaire World Culture's Festival, I did Louhan Sanzhan while Barry did something else [full screen]

I wonder did this ever happen to Indie...

Myself and Brian arrived in Zurich without ado. In short order, we were settled into our seats on the train, gazing out the window at sun-kissed locals frolicking in Zurich lake.

To pass the time, I opened my laptop to work on my hitherto incomplete presentation ["very little left to do," he promised].

I plug in my portable hard-drive. Said hard-drive whined like the little buzz-saw that couldn't, ultimately rattling to a halt. My Mac kindly supplied that the drive could not be mounted... even after turning it off and back on again.

In college, I heard many, many, many people emphasise the importance of back-ups of back-ups of back-ups. I am certain, I have pontificated about it too. For reasons unknown,* I neglected to create even the first back-up in the redundancy chain.

I took stock of what I had to work with, since I imagine myself a "cool customer" not given to panic.

Problem Statement

1. I had no presentation or presentation content on my person
   
2. It was Sunday, my presentation due 10am on Wednesday

Solution

1. Mark had a week-old draft
   
2. Unprocessed data were in Ireland and Barbara was a call away
3. The software I needed for processing the data was available at the conference
   

I gave Mark a text to check if he still had it. I called Barbara to apprise her of the situation and her impending role in it. Bless their cotton socks, they came through for me. Particularly Barbara since she had to follow my directions to find files scattered across 4 computers in various folders.

In my free time I was able to complete the presentation. The nicest nuts-and-bolts thing I learned was that Quicktime Pro. can convert a set of images to a movie. I finished the presentation with about 6 hours to spare.** I grabbed some shut-eye. Before going down to breakfast, I did a bit of meditation to ravel my frayed mind.



All in all, I was very pleased with my performance. I consider it my best work since the end of the Fas Science Challenge.

In the past few years, I did not give enough thought to presenting my work, it suffered for my dalliance, I think. But Brian said this one was the first time he understood what was going on in a crystallization slideshow. Boo Yeah!

In summary

1. It is good practice to make back-ups of back-ups of back-ups
2. It is good practice to check if a external hard-drive works after being dropped
3. It is good practice to solve problems instead of worrying about them
   

_______________________________________________________________

*I have no idea whatsoever as to why I did not have copies scattered all over the place. I would idly think,"I better copy that onto my laptop since I will be using it to present" - "yeah, you really should do that." Without result. If the incident were a film, there would have been a dramatic flashback to Saturday night. To the moment the hard-drive fumbled from my grasp after I unplugged it from my computer with the latest slides. At the time I stared at it for a moment, prehaps to allow the audience of the Mairtin Show to appreciate its significance. - Admittedly my cognitive biase weighs heavily on the recollection, and it always sounds good to say,"Deep-down-inside, some part of me knew things were going to get hairy."

**My memory of anything beyond the slides is very fuzzy for closing moments of completing the presentation

Holiday in Morocco: episode 4 The Phantom-green Menace

The Desert

Our last morning in Merrakech, our driver Mustafa collected us to go to the desert. A friendly chap, he was speaking to us with little difficulty for 10-15 minutes before he stated he could not speak English, only French, Berber and Arabic. Disliking being monolingual at the best of times, hearing someone poo-poo his good command of English was salt on the wound.

The drive took us through the High and Low Atlas Mountains to Mhamid. It was hard to decide which was the nicer to look at. We saw some “old skool” Kasbahs. Since they are made with bricks of local soil, they had to be pointed out to us. They were like- like... Ninja Buildings!

The next day we left Mhamid- where the guest house was- by camel to go to an Oasis. Our guide was called Nin. Born and bred in the area. He led us along on the camels like a pair of kids getting pony rides in Blackpool. His English was not as strong as Mustafa's, so while he could talk as well as I could in German for my Leaving Cert, he was not comfortable saying much more than,”Are you OK, my frends? Not tired? Not hot?”

Some authors comment on the rhythm of horse's gait and that it is important to go with it for maximum comfort [minimum discomfort, really]. I think they say it to show off how much they know, not that they are wrong. To being rubbed raw and bruised by the camel's cadence, I pretended I was strutting to “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone, only that I had an ass and hips the size of a large house.

On our way to the oasis, we stopped for mint tea and philsophising with a nomad called Abdu. Around his hut, were lots and lots of stones. They were arranged in a grid. It reminded me of this xkcd strip. He said two great things. The first was about being in the desert, no one for miles, no lights for miles,”Just you, your God and the stars.” That he said your God, spoke well of the man, a real spiritual maturity that almost all Christians lack... one in particular. IMO.

The other thing he said was even better,”Our reality is too small for the world”

It is the most Zen thing I have heard. Abdu and the rest of the nomads we met in the desert have a simple and elegant perspective on life, I am convinced there are on their way to enlightenment.

That evening, we watched the sunset from a sand dune, while wild camels plodded along the blasted flats in front of us. The next day, we ate breakfast in the Sahara, not in a tent or building. A low table, two stools and our food, dune to one side and rising sun to the other. I felt like I was in a music video.

After a few more hours on the camel, we changed to 4x4 again. This time we sped through small dunes and dried out river-beds. It was very exciting, it is the only time I have been interested in being able to drive, feeling the jeep sluice through turns. We reached the dunes of Inshigaga at 3 or so. Some of these over-important piles of dust are 300m tall, the same size as Estonia's highest point! We went for a walk on them. That was rather tiring. On top of that, everywhere we looked was stunning, everything looked like it was photoshopped. Everything looked like a professional photographer had organised it for an Apple desktop background. We labelled the idea “i-Dunes”

After dinner we were treated to a quintet of Nomads beating a drum to traditional chants and songs, again, fantastic stuff... you probably had to be there. I managed to record some of the songs on my mp3 player and on my camera [To follow next week]. I played a recording for one of the nomads. He was so impressed that he asked me to email the recording to him. His email address was xxxxx.nomad@hotmail.mor. It was the Ronseal woodstain of email addresses.

By evening the following day, we were thoroughly jaded by the natural beauty. I gave up taking pictures, to pick one sight was to miss another 10. When we got back to Merrakech, the hotel Sherazade had provided us with a twin room [I opened that door with great trepidation], with an actual wall almost completely splitting the sides of the room.

The Undeparted (imagine it as the white on black writing preceding a scene in Frasier)

[...Somewhere in the depths of rural Ireland, there is a pub. In this proto-irish tavern, poorly lit and inky with shadows, the straight lines of the bar are interrupted by a lump. The lump has tweed jacket and a tweed cap. To its right there is an untouched pint...]

It was an overcast morning when we went to the airport, our first poor weather for the holiday. We had to wait for the check-in desk to open. They were running late. Going through the security screening, Gleb gathers in a breath and says,“Take. That. Murphy!”

[...the lump stirs, as if kicked. It says: “Sin é.”]

We just about made it for boarding of our flight. We sat near our gate waiting 30, 60, 120 minutes passed. Nothing happened.

[... the lump snickers darkly...]

We were told Ryanair cancelled their flights from Merrakech to Luton AND Bristol. 200 people left in the lurch- the next Ryanair flight to those destinations being in 7 days time. 3 hours later, after queuing and going through passport control, we discover no other airline cancelled. Easyjet's flight to London is 230GBP and rising.We opt for the road less travelled by and that made all the difference. We went with Morocco Air, lined up for 20 minutes, spent less money and got a flight to Paris, while the queue at easyjet's booking desk lasted over 5 hours.Considering that the trip included Valentine's day, it is fitting that it would include an overnight stay in gay Paris. And so that is how I ended up spending my first night in Paris sharing a bed [yet again] with Gleb.

[...Murphy leans back on his bar stool, a look of supreme satisfaction painted across his mug, and takes a well deserved draught of his pint...]

Showtime

During the flight we could not escape how marketable our misadventures could be as a movie. The running jokes of inuendo. The odd couple vibe we had for the trip. The stunning photogenic settings. The formulaic progression of it all. Scripted by the Gods, directed by Gremlins. I figure Ben stiller can be play me, and Rowan Atkinson as Gleb.

All in all a successful holiday.

Holiday in Morocco: episode 3

Merrakech is an old city. It has been around in one form or another for nearly 1,000 years. There are miles and miles of stalls, they offer leather bags, jewelry, herbs, spices, perfumes, dyes, crepes, canes, swords, seats and bath tubs [almost everything and the kitchen sink]. Where Assouaria evoked Jason Bourne, this place was very much the remit of Henry Jones Jr. The atmosphere and surroundings would fit seamlessly with himself shooting a scimitar wielding thug. It is known for one other thing.

Before telling you what it is, I shall digress. If you are going to get a laugh out of the same shtick over and over again, there needs to be an element of escalation to it. Take things to their logical extreme. For the first half of the trip Gleb maintained an accelerating stream of innuendo.

For reasons I am not aware of, I became more homophobic with each day.* Gleb took sadistic advantage of this for his own entertainment. The cad!

Merrakech is known as a Pink City.

When we stepped into the room we were sharing, I began looking to the left of the door, peripherally aware of Gleb's laughter. “Hmm.... Large room, seating area, bathroom... where are the beds?... Oh.” Gleb's source of mirth was that there was a double bed.

In the market, we grabbed a fabulous dinner at a place apparently endorsed by Jamie Oliver- at least there is a picture of him with the staff. Afterward, at my insistence we hit a Gelati. He grabbed a mint tea. I ordered ice-cream. I watched the man prepare the ice-cream from my seat. He put a spoon on the saucer with the bowl. He cast a glance at our table. Without missing a beat, he put another spoon on the saucer. Gleb suggested we sit closer together to stay warm. The bastard was enjoying my discomfort immensely, with good reason.

The sleeping arrangements for Merrakech involved what Gleb labelled the “Chastity Pillow” to ensure no undue contact occured in the depths of the night.

*After the fact, Bob observed that by, Gleb being the instigator, I was pigeon-holed in the role of straight man for the skit [The Steve Martin to his John Candy- of Planes, Trains and Automobiles]. Had I... erm... rose to the occasion one-up-manship could have followed. The “Gay Chicken” featured in Scrubs between Dr Cox and the character played by Brendan Frasier springs to mind... As rationales/justifications go, this is a great one. I think I will stick with it.

Holiday in Morocco: episode 2

Essaouira

It is known for its Medina. Orson Welles shot scenes of his version of Othello in and around it. Jimi Hendrix wrote Castles Made of Sand here.

I had no idea how flaccid and lifeless Agadir was until I stepped inside the Medina walls. Stalls, populated by friendly chaps offering their wares at a steal. Narrow, high-walled alley-streets... it feels like there is equal chance of a street rat rushing by one step ahead of the breadline or would-be assassins falling under Jason Bourne's boot.

Since the Lonely Planet Morocco guide planned most of our trip... granted Gleb read it... when we got off of the bus, we could ignore all the people handing out cards for various hotels.

Despite the bustle of the place, it is easy to relax and forget about things “Up North”. The Riad had a rooftop terrace overlooking the sea and a mosque. Gleb felt compelled to point out its romantic ambiance and suggested putting the beds together.
____________________________________________________________
The Real Hustle

Our success with the magic boxes purchase bolstered our confidence in our bartering skill. It is said:”Pride doth come before a fall.”

A Bedouin shopkeeper stops us in the street. A rapid exchange of words outside his stall and [flash & puff of smoke] we are in his back room. He shows us pictures of a Sahara tour his family runs; camels, dunes, the works. We told him we would consider it. He stops us from leaving,“Do you not want tea?” We falter... In the garbled moments that followed Gleb was wrapped in scarves of indigo and I was shown “family made” jewelry.
On a scarf, Gleb got them down to 100Dh. Haggler 1 agreed to it, but insisted it was such a good deal that Gleb should give him the price of cigarettes too- “not profit at all, friend, just for cigarettes. Nothing more.” That was a 20% mark-up.

I got a ring. Haggler 2 insisted on getting Irish money as a souvenier,”I have a big collection. Even a 500Euro note”. 1 Euro coin. A 5% mark-up on the ring.

During the shafting:

• They got home field advantage [“Step into my parlour,” said the spider to the fly]
• They called us friend
• When asked a price they said- “There are only democratic prices here, Friend” forcing us to make the first offer
• They talked about everyone being happy with the deal

And most importantly...

• Changed tactics as soon as one failed

In Going Postal, Terry Pratchett describes hucksters superbly. When Moist Von Lipwig, a conman himself, meets Reacher Gilt, the villain, he marks him instantly as a kindred spirit because of his trustworthy smile and firm handshake. An accurate appraisal, in my humbled opinion.
Afterwards, Gleb and I marvelled at their skill. They had our measure from the moment we ambled gormlessly past their stall. Whether or not the jewelry was made by the family, the selling of the jewelry is certainly a family business. “While you are in the college, I have learned in the school of Life,”smiled Haggler 2.

At this point, further score keeping would be embarrassing...

More to follow after these announcements from out sponsors.