Greek journey

I planned to head to Corfu by train and bus, but ended up at the Athens bus station by mistake. So to go with the flow, I bought a bus ticket to Ioannina and leave at 19:30.

The bus station is incredibly outdated. It reminds me a lot of the time when Amanda and I travelled in Greece 23 years ago. The whole thing is worn out. The station is full of little travel offices which have been there forever, interspersed with numerous little shops selling the same stuff – Papadopoulos cookies, sesame seed honey bars, water and beer plus a few sandwiches and chocolate for the journey.

It is chaos. Taxis queuing and battling for the arriving travellers, buses fighting to get past the wandering passengers to their relevant stall out of the 40 dotted around the place. Lots of traders selling packets of tissues and sunglasses, plus a few mothers with babies begging for money. Chaos, but alive and real, the way the real people travel. Bizarrely, amid the madness and grime, a shining Mercedes dealer gleams its expensive models at the cash-strapped bus travellers.

I haven't had this kind of journey for many years. I bought the ticket for the 19:30 bus, and the journey take 6 hours. It means I will arrive in the middle of the night and I have no idea where I will sleep. I think simply that I have a tent, a sleeping bag and money - I'll find a way. It is one of the benefits of travelling alone. That kind of approach doesn't generally work as a couple (unless you find that exceptional partner who says “great, let's try!”).

2 hours before bus departure. I sit and let my mind wander, watching the chaos settle down after rush hour.

The whole time in Greece has been a reminder of that Interrail trip 23 years ago with Amanda. We spent 7 weeks in Greece in total, and in some way every trip back to the country has been an echo of that time. This time the resonance is Ioannina. Amanda and I stayed at Camping Patista in Kalamata, on the Peloponnese mainland, a 7-hour train journey south of Athens. While there, we both read Eleni, a harrowing story about the Greek Civil War from 1940-49 which followed many similar patterns to the Balkan wars in the 1990's – neighbour against neighbour, incited by the politicians to carry out incredible cruelty and violence.

Ioannina was one of the key towns to feature in Eleni's story. She was a Greek woman married to an American, and as such victimised by the Communist powers who took over her town. The American was away and she was left to fend for herself and her children. She arranged for the children, who were being forced to serve in the army, to escape. For this, she was tortured and finally killed.

As we sat on the beach and in the campsite in 1986, we started to get a picture of village life in Greece at that time and looked up at the huge mountain overshadowing the bay of Kalamata. An old mountain village sat on top and thanks to our pensioner benefactors, Kay and Harold, we were introduced to the locals there. K & H (as we named them) had spent 5 months of the year for each of the past 8 years in Kalamata, and it seemed each year they took in a couple of youngsters and showed them sights around the area.

That summer, we were treated to Tiropita (cheese pie) lunch-time parties, local Ouzo and Wine, and various taverna lunches and dinners. Thanks to them, we were able to connect the things we read about with the atmosphere of the old and decrepit town. It was hard to believe a civil war had existed there less than 40 years previous.

As I look back, it is quite amazing to think it is really 23 years since Amanda and I were there. It's a hard concept to grasp. I don't really know why it's so hard. Maybe because I lost contact with Amanda many years ago, despite our pledges that we will always be friends. Or maybe because I just met a beautiful girl who reminds me of Amanda in certain ways (the freshness of spirit, a penchant for Russian wedding rings and the small squeezes of the fingers to say “I am here, I care about you”.) Or maybe simply the wonder of the passing of time and the chance to think about it with no time pressure or objective for the trip. And maybe it's a combination of that and more. I don't know. But I feel nostalgic.

The true meaning of the word Nostalgia comes from Homer's Odyssey. Lost and far from home, Odysseus feels “the longing to be again at the place he has been before”. Kalamata was a place where Amanda and I really started to learn what it was to love. And with the word Ioannina ringing in our ears, we talked about the wonderful Eleni story for hours. Now to see that word stencilled on the front window of the bus, I feel that, although it was a town I only read about, I am going back to that time of happiness and love between us and have a new chance to refresh my life, as we started our adult lives so freshly at the age of 19.

The bus journey is great. I manage to keep awake while it's still light and view the beautiful water and mountains along the way. I get an hour's solid sleep and follow this with half-dozing, half-dreaming to the sound of Greek music keeping the driver amused at the front of the bus. Luckily there is plenty of legroom and I feel very comfortable and happy with the journey. Just as we arrive in Ioannina, 2am, I see big sign saying “CAMPING”. Luckily, the bus station is a few hundred metres away and I head back after getting my huge rucksack.

It's clear that I am not experienced in this kind of travelling – my load is impossibly heavy. Have to jettison some stuff at my Dad's place. It's also clear that my tent is brand new and I haven't got a clue how to put it up. The best part of trying to work it out is the head-light which a friend advised me to buy, making the whole thing so much easier. The 10 minute job takes me an hour, but now I know. Each experience is making me a bit less soft and a bit more knowledgeable.

I awake to find the site is at the side of a beautiful lake and in the shadow of a forbidding mountain. I walk through the town and see how much the locals have tried to make it a modern looking place, with clothes shops and telecom centres everywhere. Still some of the charm of the old town exists, but homage to the past is almost deliberately avoided. It is hard to believe that terrible cruelty happened here just 60 years ago, but time and experience are healing, healing.

Krakow - Part Two

Following the historic tour, we went for a wander in the town. The main square, our guide triumphantly told us, is the second largest in Europe, 2m x 2m smaller than St. Mark’s square in Venice. It really is an amazing place, and I liked the open space of it all. In the main church tower, there is a delightful tradition. Centuries ago, it was a watchtower, with an excellent view in all directions. There was 24-hour guard, and on the hour, the guard would blow a short tune on the trumpet 4 times - once towards each pole of the compass - to let everybody know that all was well. Alas, one day he was not so observant, and legend has it that the unseen Turks sent an arrow through his throat while he was playing. To this day, in memory of this event, a man plays the tune in the four directions, and always stops mid-tune. More on this later!

After all of this, we were pretty hungry, and we went to a typical Polish country food restaurant. Considering the rain and a temperature rarely above 10 degrees, the Borscht soup in a bread outer was really welcome, and you could understand how this was the way to get through the harsh winters. Marek told me that the strength of the winter was a reason why many tulips from Holland start in Poland. I didn’t quite believe this, but he assured me that the genetic strength created by bulbs being planted in such a cold climate meant that the tulips were more durable in bad weather seasons.

In the evening, we went for dinner in a restaurant in a cavern-like room downstairs. The waiter was immaculately dressed, the food was presented attractively, and the company was so warm. From the moment I met all of them, I felt comfortable. Marek and I have worked together for a year now, and I found him very straight and easy to work with. Outside of business, he is equally straightforward and very friendly. During the communist period, he left Poland to live in Sweden, to avoid going in the army, at a time when he spoke no English. It must have been tough, but certainly he is a strong person.

His wife, Magda, has been learning English only for a couple of months, but already understood much. I learned that she had played basketball for Poland in the Moscow Olympics – I was in awe! Then Tomek and Monika had arrived earlier. Monika works for a French Sports retailer, Decathlon, and speaks fluent French. Tomek, originally from Krakow, is also working for Canon, and his English is great – all in all, we found ways to communicate and chat about the way of life in Poland, their own lives, and the differences we see in our personal histories.

Especially the issue of independence keeps coming back to me. The Polish are quietly patriotic, and want to have their individual rights. Yet they also have a very collective spirit. My four companions made me feel very welcome and gave attention to telling me all about the town and what we saw. It was a touching show of friendship, with more warmth than I had ever been led to believe I would find in Poland.

The following morning, I went for a run in the city. After a while, I couldn’t find my way back to the hotel, and a passer-by was delighted to direct me in perfect English. After this, we had a tight schedule. First was to meet Tomek’s friend, Saso. He turned out to be very knowledgeable about Krakow, and he whisked us back to the tower. We found that he knew the trumpeter in the famous tower, and via a side entrance, we got privileged entry into one of the most famous places in Poland.

We climbed hundreds of stairs to get up to the place where he was playing, and found a kind of living quarters. It seems there are three trumpeters, taking 12-hour shifts each, and of course between the 2 minutes of playing every hour, there is not much to do, except wait. So there is a small bunk, a radio, kettle, fridge… all very normal, and yet not what you expect from the outside.

I was like a child as the trumpeter started, with pictures of him playing and me in the background. It was really lovely to hear it close up, and to see him wave to a few devoted fans in the square (or maybe they were Japanese tourists…). It felt like a piece of history before my eyes and ears. Meanwhile, Saso filled me in on what I could see in the four directions, including the 8th century mound in memory of the founder of Krakow, King Krak. I asked why he was so interested in the history of the town. He said he had lived in Krakow all his life, and that “I am part of Krakow’s history, Krakow’s history is a part of me”.

One more big stop was planned – Wieliczka, the salt mine nearby. We drove over to an uncrowded tourist attraction, and I must be honest, I did not expect much. But I was in for another surprise.

As we descended the hundreds of steps (we had been climbing up or down the whole trip by now), our guide explained that there were over 300 km of salt mines in the area. Salt had been precious because it was the only preservative known until more recent years, and this was a great source of wealth – even in pre-historic times, they think men mined for salt. As we walked through the caves, it was amazing. They had made all kinds of statues and displays in the caves that we saw, either showing the work of the people, or famous people from history. Copernicus (who believe it or not was Polish) has his own area, and of course, the Pope is also featured! The statues were made from black salt, and I had no idea that one could make salt-statues.

At various points there were some love themes. Saso sat on a bench at one stage, and our guide explained that if you sit on this bench, it means you are in love. Saso declined to comment. Later, we saw some gnomes, and legend had it that if you wanted to get married, you should kiss one on the cheek. However, it seems if you want to get divorced, you should kiss another part of his anatomy (although I think the guide made that up…). And at another cave, where there was a small pool of water, we were told that if you wanted to find the love of your life, you should throw in a few coins, as our guide added “if you’re desperate, throw in your credit card”. Ha, ha. I would have done it, but the PIN number doesn’t work…

Horses were seen in sculpture and we were told that once the horse came down the mine, it would live there for the rest of its life. I thought this not to be a very cheerful existence, but the guide assured me that with food and water guaranteed, it wasn’t so bad.
The most impressive room was a great chamber, with chandeliers, wall sculptures and shiny, hardened salt floor. As we went to an image of the Last Supper carved in salt, Saso (who by then had achieved “Authority” status for me) told me very seriously that this was the original that the painting had been based on. As my eyes widened, his smile came – of course, this was the dry Polish humour I had been told about.

Finally, we ascended by the same lift the miners would have used. It means, tight, crowded, claustrophobic, fast, and a little bit frightening. I was relieved to get out, but impressed by the experience of seeing this amazing mine.

We headed to Krakow airport, for me to fly back to Vienna. Krakow left a lasting impression on me, both for its beauty and history, and especially the companionship of my new Polish friends was something I could never have imagined.

Krakow 2004 - Part One

(I wrote this piece in 2004 after a visit to Krakow.)

For most people in West Europe, it seems Poland is a bit of a mystery. Relatively, Poland was more connected with other countries than other Communist states – there are 6 Million Poles living in USA – and yet we know little of it. My good friend and colleague Marek summed up most people’s understanding of Poland – Warsaw, communism, poor, Lech Walesa… and that’s about it. Oh, and of course Vodka.

My awareness of Poland comes from 2 incidents in 1982. My mother organized a business conference for herself and 30 colleagues to Warsaw, and at that time, Solidarity was gaining strength, the government was fighting them, and we saw the results on TV – it seemed like a country turning upside down. My mum was adamant – “that’s just stuff on TV, the country is not like that, why shouldn’t we go?” As I waved her goodbye at the airport, for the second time I felt it may be the last I saw of her. The first time had been when she was on a similar trip to Moscow 2 years before. Suffice to say, she returned from both, enriched and enthusiastic.

My other memory of that year was the World Cup in Spain. Poland had a tremendous team then, led by Zbigniew Boniek (how exactly do you pronounce his first name?) They reached the latter stages and were faced with the prospect of a game against the might of Russia – a draw would see them through. The significance of this game against the Big Bear did not strike me until the seconds after the final whistle. A small group of Polish supporters had been able to make the trip to Spain, and they were crying with joy that their team had beaten their oppressors.

In a 2 day trip I learned more about Poland than in the rest of my life. The visit to Krakow has put much in perspective. I came away flooded with the warmth of Polish friendship, and fascinated by the history of a country which has been passed back and forth between big neighbours, disappeared off the map twice, and which was violently abused to the worst degree in the war by the Nazis. Finally, the moment of joining the EU is a triumph, which the Poles do not celebrate overtly, but which gives them the quiet belief that they have returned to rightful status in Europe.

I told Marek that I wanted to stay in Poland for a weekend after a business trip, and he immediately invited me to join him and his wife to go to Krakow, a 4-hour drive from my usual business destination of Warsaw.

Driving from Warsaw, you begin to realize just how large Poland. There are 38 Million people, but we didn’t see many in the journey. On the way, I asked Marek if there was much difference between the Krakow and Warsaw people. He explained to me “they are different – they walk more slowly”. I took this as a kind of national stereotype for the difference between a big and a small city, but it is really true. As we came to the edge of the city, I noticed that everybody was slower than I had seen in Warsaw (or most other cities) and this gave me a good feeling already. The streets were absolutely beautiful – old buildings, cobbled roads, uncrowded and atmospheric. I could feel this would be a good visit.

After checking into the hotel, we went straight to the Wawel, (Polish for a hill), where lay a castle that has been home to various royal families over the centuries, as well as some less savory visitors. Our guide, Katja, explained in excellent English about the history, which I realized was too long and detailed to follow closely. But certain things really struck me. Firstly was how the battle for independence has been at the centre of Polish history. Often, she would mention various renowned heroic characters who “fought for our independence”. Also the royals were not always Polish, even there was a feeling that it was better to have a non-Polish king. Therefore Hungarians and Swedes were among the past nationalities of the rulers. On top of this, there was even once a female King – no, not a queen, in the 14th century, they crowned Jadwiga as the King. How very progressive!


The courtyard of the castle was a mixture of styles, including Italian influenced balconies and details. Many of the rooms had beautiful wall paintings around the top edges, depicting certain battles, and one that showed the whole course of Life, from first breath to funeral. As well as this, there were many heavy tapestries. These numbered 160 originally, although the collection now stands at 134. After the war, they were taken away, and kept in a collection in Canada, only to be returned after the fall of communism (this was a common theme for many of the treasures of the Polish royal history). These tapestries are made of heavy material, as well as silver and gold, and it took one man one year to make a square metre of the pattern. The largest of the tapestries was 40 square metres. A lot of work and skill.

My favourite rooms were the chapel, and the ballroom. The chapel was a little room with echoing acoustics, built next to the King’s bedroom, and even there was a small window for the King to listen to the service. So, no need to get out of bed to be holy! Then the ballroom was beautiful, with a balcony that meant the orchestra was above the audience. Immediately you could imagine the parties and the glamour of it all. However, the feeling in this room was touched by the news that the Nazis had used it for a cinema during the Second World War. The history of Poland is filled with such contradictions, it seems.

There were of course many paintings of the royals too, and also of battles. There was one very distinct depiction of some battles with the Turkish, reminding me of some I had seen at the Doge’s palace in Venice. Sure enough, Katja told us the painter spent much time in Venice. More contradictions, as on the left of the painting, there was a group of monks chanting, in the middle was the scene of terrible cruelty, and on the right was the sight of the Devil in his boat, taking the souls of the Turks away. The religious meaning is obvious. For some reason, I thought of Bush…

Also at the Wawel was the ancient cathedral. This houses the largest altar in Europe, and the whole building was bathed in gold and glory. Again, I liked the chapels, 21 of them lining the side walls, all ornately painted. Although I don’t have any religion myself, there is always a special atmosphere in such a beautiful church. I really sense the devotion and faith (and certainty) which created such impressive buildings. As we passed through, we found all kinds of tombs and altars of the royals, and the crypt downstairs was also very atmospheric.
The cathedral also boasted one of the largest bells in Europe. We climbed up to see it, and heard that 6 people have to pull to get it playing.

(Part Two will be posted on Wednesday 17th June).

Fear and Loathing in London

On arriving at Heathrow airport, 2 things caught my attention – the embarrassment of over-security, and the double embarrassment that corruption even exists in “good old Britain.”

The first is nothing new. Since 9/11 and subsequent bomb attacks in London, the security measures at UK airports have become increasingly tough. My flight was from Amsterdam via Heathrow to Edinburgh, and as we exited at Heathrow, I entered “Domestic Transfers”. They took my picture, stuck a barcode in my passport and pointed me through to Terminal 1. I was bemused to turn the corner and see a great long line of people waiting to go through security again. Hadn't I already done this in Schiphol? What chance was there for me to have acquired bombs, guns or explosive liquids since Holland? Precisely none.

I joined the queue, and watched as various people of ethnic origin had their bags double and triple scrutinised. There is definitely a nasty element to this and I have seen it before. Almost every single person I have seen to be stopped and questioned at English passport control has been of some kind of ethnic background. The semiotics are clear. Non-white = greater chance of being a terrorist.

There is a sign that says “you may be asked to remove your shoes”. Thank goodness, I thought, hopefully I won't have to. This is not just because I am concerned about the smell. There is something very simply humiliating about shoe removal – I've spoken to others about this and they all feel the same. But alas, just as I am about to walk through the archway scanner, a surly guard says “Stop! Take off your shoes!” Great.

Some small details become irritating too. Of course, boarding at Schiphol it was not possible to take water on board (a precaution I will never understand). So in-flight, I bought a bottle which I had not finished when we landed. But despite this potential terror tool being bought on the previous plane, I was not allowed to take it through to the next flight. Bizarre.

Now of course the logic is that the rule-makers have our best interests at heart and the security measures are for our own good. But unfortunately trust in the lawmakers in Britain has just hit an all-time low. On the British Midland flight they give a complimentary copy of the Daily Mail, and the newspaper is full of the latest scandal – members of parliament cheating on their expenses.

Many years ago I was given the stern advice at Canon Audio “if you want to cheat on your expenses, make sure you can retire on it”. It seems a number of British MP's have been trying to do just that. Every possible expense appears to have been stretched so that all kinds of laughable costs have been possible to claim.

Each day there is a new scandal, it seems, and the newspaper I read was simply full from front to back with details, editor's comment and satirical cartoons about the whole issue. Ridiculously, getting big tax benefits from owning a second home and charging all kinds of costs for furnishing it (1000's of pounds for lamps, etc.) are all technically legal, if not exactly ethical. What has developed is a network of knowledge amongst MP's about how to get the best out of the system.

If they are operating within the rules, it is hard not to feel sorry for some of the politicians who are being attacked. Until you remind yourself who makes the rules. And until you read that the entitlement to a second home – somehow understandable if you live 200 miles away from Westminster – has been used to enable a relative to live rent-free. Or you hear about the minister who claimed bills for his second home a year in advance and then reported a different home as his second. In explaining this, the minister apologised for “an inadvertent error”. I leave alone the various stories of a minister saying they looked forward to spending the expenses on “lots of booze” and the smutty story of an adult channel in a hotel being considered business expense.

The amazing thing about it is that British people have finally been faced with real corruption in their own country. The lawmakers have created rules for themselves and elasticated them so much as to gain massive benefits. In their favour, it is crazy how low the salary for a politician is in UK. Nevertheless, there are ethics. Spending taxpayers money on personal benefits is simply not on!

Before this seems like a rant on the defects of UK, I quickly add that as we wandered through Edinburgh, I was reminded what a fantastic city it is. Wherever you go there is something interesting, with monuments, ancient buildings, views of the castle, lovely parks and hidden streets. No doubt about it, there is a real charm about so many places all over the country, and that is a charm which I do miss. London as a city has a huge array of excitement to offer.

But the airport security is definitely prohibitive to visitors, and somehow a myth about British fairplay has been deflated by the recent revelations.

The Writer's World

In my search for inspiration to write, I came across the BBC World Service World Bookclub podcast. What a find it has been.

The monthly series brings in very successful authors to talk about a book they have written, and the guests have included Umberto Eco (Name of the Rose), Michael Ondaatje (English Patient), Kathy Walker (The Colour Purple) and many other writers of similar stature.

The audience raises questions about their books and the motivations behind writing about certain subjects or characters. As an example, Edna O'Brien wrote a book called The Country Girls 48 years ago. Listening to this 79-year old author explaining what writing is about gives a fascinating insight into the process.

She talks about getting the details right. "You cannot write a book without knowing everything - how the carpet looks, what the leg of the table is like, the details of the person in front of the main character. You must have the reality in order to soar." Wow.

Edna continued about how the details and reality cover every kind of emotion. "Everything goes in. The good things, the little cruelties, and the awful things." I am especially fascinated by the phrase "little cruelties" - it's something I realised we regularly face. Our lives are only occasionally touched by real tragedy, but small pieces of meanness are a part of daily life.

Another question asked about the motivation behind her book. She answered "To re-live and, if possible, transmute the experiences of my life into something richer, and better, and funnier".

And she commented on what it is to be a writer. "Happy people don't write. The need to write, the time required for writing at the exclusion of all else, is not the occupation of a normal, sane person. It's not". I personally don't take that as meaning that I, as a writer, am insanely unhappy! But this explanation does touch on the fact that the harder experiences in life are often creative sources which force an outpouring through words, image or sound.

The program is not all serious, though. When Umberto Eco was asked what his motivation was for writing Name of the Rose, he answered "that is a difficult question. Because now I must remember all the other answers I have given to that question. And each time my answer has been different." And another writer, Armistead Maupin, said he felt life was made up of three basic elements. "Great Job, Great Home, Great Lover". He also asserted that to have all three at once, was a constant but impossible search!

I started listening to the program over a year ago, and it has been a major influence to follow my ambition of writing. What a dream it would be to appear on that show! One day...

Figure Skater Fate

At the end of my first year of University, I turned 21, and within weeks my life started to unravel.

A massive problem in the triangle of me, my girlfriend’s mother and my English-rose-like girlfriend Amanda occurred. During that last term of my 1st year, life seemed impossible as I felt the huge pressure of wrecked relationships all around me. So finding Joni Mitchell at that moment was probably not great timing.

Unwittingly, I had heard a song of hers 2 years before, at a London theatre. The main theme of the play - a midlife crisis - was built around a song with these lines;

Richard got married to a figure skater
And he bought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolator
And he drinks at home now most nights with the TV on
And all the house lights left up bright

The main character played it again and again at key moments in the play, and it hit me with a deep kind of impending sadness, which I had no reason to feel at the age of 19. But songs do that sometimes, don’t they? As I wrote recently, are you sad because of the sad song, or is the song sad because you are sad? It’s a worrying thought that music could play its part in Fate, prepare you for tragedy, even bring on tragedy’s possibility. This song, with its reaching voice of whoever sang, caught me irrevocably.

In the days before Internet, a fragment of a song was almost impossible to track down, which meant that the joy at finding the source was so much higher then due to that impossibility. Imagine my happiness, amid the misery of my collapsing life, when a couple of weeks into the University summer term of 1988, I heard the same voice reaching out of a cheap cassette player while visiting a friend. Her moody flatmate was sitting together with us in the run-down kitchen, intently listening to music as we talked. The song began, and hearing it for the first time in two years, I recognised it instantly.

“Who is that singing?” A noise close to a snort came from the friend, followed by a clipped “Joni”. These two syllables were obviously enough for the rest of the world, but not for me.

“Joni who?” I asked, no stranger to credibility loss.

After further uncomfortable revelations – I had never heard of the album Blue, never heard “Woodstock” (wasn’t that some concert?) and did not even know that Joni had gone through a “Jazz phase”… - I was instructed about the source of the song I knew as “that one about the figure skater.” Its full title was “The last Time I saw Richard”, and my emotional fate was wrapped up, sealed, and posted into the future, along with the figure skater and the coffee-maker.

“Richard” is still one of my favourites, despite my conviction that the opening imagery and later sections of the song have powerfully influenced my life. And not positively.

All Romantics meet the same fate, someday,
Cynical and drunken and boring someone in some dark café

Soon after my discovery, I bought the record "Blue"and played it to destruction. As the term went on, I got drunk, bored people with my cynicism, left the lights up or down, I didn’t care. And after much romantic agonising, in my real and imagined pain, finally I pushed away the first true love of my life.

Am I really saying that hearing Joni Mitchell, buying the album Blue, and listening to it again and again during those awful weeks was one of the nails in the coffin of our relationship? Can a piece of music and a set of words really make that much difference? Yes, I am saying exactly that. The influence on my life of the final soaring lines of the song only became apparent after I had left Amanda, but in the last days before I finished our relationship, they played in my head like a record with the needle stuck.

Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away, only a phase, these dark café days

The result is I own 16 Joni albums, mostly populated by misery, and I have no idea where Amanda is or what she is doing now, despite our repeated claims that “we will always be friends”. Easily said at 18.

Would I swap Amanda for “Joni”? Difficult to say.

Amanda and I tried again but we never got over my weakness. Who knows, maybe we would have got our gorgeous wings together without Joni’s melancholy intervention. Then again, Joni’s mum never made me feel guiltily responsible for breaking two lives, and Amanda’s mum did.

The answer to the question, sadly, is “no”. Joni will always be a part of my life, and for better or for worse, Amanda never will be again.

Musical Emotion

Music is a major part of my daily life and a huge influence on how I feel and think. I even wonder if sometimes it has set a pattern for how I feel in the future.

In a book called High Fidelity, Nick Hornby's character asks himself whether he listens to sad music because he is miserable, or if he is miserable because he listens to sad music. I have that feeling often.

As I was growing up, I listened to all kinds of angst-ridden songs. Pink Floyd's The Wall has few laughs in it, and when I was 14 & 15 I lapped up the disillusionment that drips out of that album. Yet it was perhaps one of the happiest times of my life! There was no personal frame of reference for enjoying the misery of the sound and lyrics. But it caught hold of me somewhere deep.

Nostalgic music grips me too, something my hero Tom Robinson is a master at. In War Baby, which I first heard when I was 16, he sang these lines; "Smooth skin and tenderness long ago on a dark night, wish I could see you once again to remember that it was true. I want to be still beside you, quiet and still beside you, listening to your breathing and feeling your warmth again." As time has gone by those words have become my favourite lyrics ever because they now resonate with some events in my own life. Yet at the age when the song first hooked me, I had no experience that linked to these beautiful images. Did those lyrics shape my experience in the future to link with the emotions in the words?

Currently I have a song by Snow Patrol in my head, which has the line "Something was bound to go right sometime today". I can't quite work out whether it is positive or negative - it could be taken as "so many things have gone wrong, something had to go right". Or it could be very positive, "I knew today was going to be good, things were sure to go right". So I guess it is possible to steer the way the song makes you feel depending on how your mindset is.

What I do know is that every now and again, a phrase jumps out at me from a song and stays with me forever. And let's face it, the lines that stick are not normally the happy ones. I conclude that music has certainly shaped parts of my life. These are a few of them.

"Everybody is just a stranger but that's the danger in going my own way". John Mayer, Why Georgia

"If you're looking for somebody you're going to need some help. You know you'll never find her if you're still looking for yourself". Fish, Zoe 25

"Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, and don't put up with people who are reckless with yours". Baz Luhrman, Sunscreen

"Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away". Joni Mitchell - The Last Time I saw Richard. (more on this in the next posting on Sunday.)

"The Stranger we all knew so well, the friend we never will". Tom Robinson, Connecticut.

60's change

In another posting, I wrote how I am beginning to see some of the social change in Amsterdam from mid-60's to early 80's. Now what I am discussing with some new contacts is why people started to stand up and say "No".

In 1961, there was a protest here against the Atom Bomb. 10,000 people walked quietly and in an orderly line, as the police calmly observed. There was almost no noise and just a few placards dotted around the crowd. (A friend suggested "It was like going to church", reflecting the strong influence of the church in daily Dutch life up until the early 60's.) This incredibly peaceful event gave no foresight towards the changes coming during the rest of the decade.

Within 5 years, Amsterdam experienced the Bouwvakkerrellen (construction-worker riots). A protest against a reduction of pay for the workers, and the death of Jan Weggelaar, caused chaos. The national newspaper De Telegraaf reported that he was killed by colleagues, but the people believed he was killed by Police violence. The city erupted and for a day and a half, the police battled to control students and workers who ran riot through the city.

Other major events included protests at Princess Beatrix's wedding to Prince Klaus, with Provo playing a major part, and the recently celebrated Maagdenhuis Bezetting - an occupation by 660 students of a University administration office in 1969. Especially the younger people were not happy to stand for the fixed way of things.

I have been trying to capture that "moment of tension" where things changed. Why such a massive difference in just 5 years between the protests in '61 and '66 and beyond?

One point of view is that children born during or just after World War II had not experienced the extremity of the war. In the late 40's through to the end of the 50's, it was just hard work as adults were occupied with re-building the country and the economy. But by the beginning of the 60's, the post-war generation were becoming students and were more interested in questioning the rigidity that had to be put in place in the period of re-construction.

And there were many key events worldwide, in particular the Vietnam war - the first war to be covered so intensively on TV. It is no co-incidence that Holland was one of the biggest protesters against Vietnam, as the major TV company of the time, Philips, sold huge numbers in the Netherlands. People were seeing the world in their front room, and they didn't like what they saw. The Dutch government was one of the few who actively opposed USA actions in Vietnam, as a result of the ferocity of protest against it from the people.

As my research continues, it is clear there are many threads to the story I want to capture. Gradually the timeline comes together and I get to grips with the connections between events. I am always hunting for the "why" - what caused people to change and start to behave in different ways?

My story is forming as the research continues through those times of change. I learned more about Amsterdam in this last month than in the previous 11 years.