When a heart breaks...

When you're nursing a broken heart it's hard to do anything properly or tackle anything head on. It's a strange feeling which doesn't really burn you up like the flames which engulfed you when you first realised that you were in love with said heartbreaker, but still crushes you with un-requited pain just the same. It's as if some parasite is slowly sucking the oxygen from your breath until all that remains is ice and a feeble attempt at sarcasm. In fact, the more I compare the two states the more I see that they are not actually so different. If I lay the two situations out, one on top of each other like a sheet of tracing paper (which tears very easily) on top of a shiny neatly unfolded map (on which the directions and the place names keep fading and changing) I can actually see the striking difference between the two.

The difference between falling in love and being totally and demonstrably heart broken? When all the kisses lay smashed like cut crystal and the promises made, now belong to the heart of a stranger? The difference my friends, is HOPE. Right now HOPE seems only as far away as death. A lonely death, surrounded by pillars of salt and drowning in the frozen blood of a broken heart.

Paris

So today I find myself in a small rock and roll bar in a back street of Paris. I am alone again. I spent the last week or so in England travelling from London to Stockton and then onwards to Scunthorpe and then finally up to Edinburgh. From the closeness of the tour bus I find myself isolated in one of the busiest cities of the world. I seem to be an expert at seeking out solitude in the busiest of hubs. Paris is undoubtedly a little more forgiving than London, this is probably due to its hidden streets of dive bars with their unisex toilets and their darkly lit lounges. I can see why many famous writers and artists made Paris their home for the twilight of their existence.

Through the dirty window I can see an open air coin operated launderette. 

There are groups of people sitting around waiting for their past lives to be washed out of their clothes ready to take on the stains of another week's work. There is an old lady shaking a rug out of her first floor window directly onto the blissfully ignorant inhabitants of the laundry who are mesmerised by the spinning and tumbling of their smalls.

Diagonally across the room sit two beautiful French girls engrossed in a heart to heart. The one with her back to me appears to be heaping advice onto the frail beauty facing me. She is clutching a full pint of beer whilst still managing to appear so French and ladylike as only the French ladies can. 

Meanwhile Bill Hailey and the Comets thrash out another of their tunes, pulling the ghosts of this bar from the walls and for a split second taking me back to a post-war Paris of the fifties. This time however the two girls are being thrown around the room by the two twenty something French gentlemen engrossed in a lively conversation on the table to my right.  I am guessing that Paris hasn't changed so much. 

This is an announcement for the transcendental line.

Getting all Michael Palin about the amazing train journey accross the desert.

Are we there yet?

A sampler of what is to come in the next week.
We arrived at our final destination at the South Eastern corner of Saudi Arabia not too far from the Indian ocean and across 4 hours of desert ......more to follow...

By the way.. I am totally addicted to Dates now...

A public Beheading

The other day I witnessed, totally by accident a beheading. I haven't written for a few days on here because I really didn't feel like it. My head has been in a bit of a spin as I have tried to come to terms with what I witnessed. Though due to my past career choices I have actually seen and dissected former living persons I have never actually seen somebody cease to function  before my very eyes...let alone at the hands of somebody else still living.

I was out shopping for bits and pieces (including the sim card) when I saw a group of people mingling around the entrance to the huge mosque in the old town. I decided t go over and try to get some photographs. The next few moments I will not describe as I certainly don't feel ready to go into huge detail about it. Suffice to say that as a result of the former 2 minutes I vomited and passed out. I came round surrounded by well meaning people offering me water and taxis. I ended up sharing a taxi back to my hotel with an Australian chap who works for The Guardian and had been following the story of the young man who had just had his head cleaved cleanly from his body and then stitched back on by a waiting doctor before being neatly carted away by two small Chinese looking chaps in Yellow boiler suits. He had been accused of rape, drug trafficking and taking drugs and found guilty without a formal open trial. He was allowed no form of legal defense and his consular was not informed of his execution until after he had been dispatched.


Now, for me the first two crimes on the list would satisfy me that they deserve the death sentence. After all, the way in which the prisoner was deleted was with very little fuss and ceremony. I find the American gas chamber, the electric chair or lethal injection even more barbaric in some ways. (Especially as America claims to have supreme dibs on civilization and democracy (and yet is still infected with religious hypocrisy)). An American death row tenant is normally wheeled out whenever some adulterous crooked ponce requires votes and the sick twisted legal process is played out and the Christians begin to rub their hands together in glee at the prospect of sending another non-believer to hell.

The part that doesn't sit well with me is that he had no defense and his court was made up of religious zealots, who basically work under the guise that they shouldn't think too deeply about the case or they may be perceived as taking the judgment side of things away from God and therefore putting themselves at the gates of Hell. That's a particularly wise move and is all 'fair and well'..if..if...if there really is a God and if there IS one. that he is a JUST and FAIR one. (after all isnt that the American way too? Kill them all and let God sort them out?

I will refrain from giving my own opinion on the matter, suffice to say that after a few days mediation on the matter, I feel no more uncomfortable about capital punishment here than I do in the USA. There were no jeering crowds here or placards written by nasty Christians, just solemn observance and the fear of other people's Gods and their followers. I was reminded that that the most powerful nation on the planet and the richest one both claim to represent (albeit a different) God, but both have the power to take life based on their personal beliefs and therefore make life appear very cheap indeed. (Not something that either of their Gods appear to endorse in either of their scriptures).

There's nothing left but faith?

It suddenly occurred to me that I have an album coming out in three weeks time. All of a sudden the process has started of completing endless interview questions that go along with a new release. Last night was a refreshing change. A set of questions arrived from a very well known German publication it was obvious from the questions that the journalist had not only actually listened to the record more than once but had also bothered to research my background and the history of the band. I actually found myself being very open and honest in replying to her well thought out inquiries.

I have also started working on a huge international goth project for next summer.

Have a look at my shiney pole...

 Today I ventured out to actually take a look at the tower I took a picture of the other day. It is an amazingly striking as you reach it. I was really lucky and the sun had started setting as I got to it. It's literally 10 minutes walk from my hotel.
The picture above is actually the entrance to the super mall which sits underneath it.

This is not a huge building this is a palm tree and a lamp post.

This is actually a palm tree and some topery and a multi billion pound building.

This is a reflection of the shopping mall below the multi million dollar building in the multi million dollar building.

This is a picture of the sun reflecting off a multi million dollar building and some palm trees.

This is a skinny, feeling sorry for itself, palm tree in between two really lush  fat palm trees who are saying 'how dare you stand here in front of this multi million dollar phallic building with a big gold bollock in it's 'spire' in those clothes' and the little one is saying 'it's not my fault, some bloke put me here'

This is the Dunkin Donuts where I had a really good coffee this afternoon.

 Blah blah blah blah

Is it just me or does this crane look really lonely? It doesn't have anything to lift maybe....no I didn't find a sim card....

Deal or No Deal?

I seem to spend an awful lot of time waiting in Saudi. For example today I waited over an hour in the bank to cash a cheque because the guy in front of me decided to bank what looked like a cubic meter of cash.
I don't think I have ever seen so many notes in any denomination anywhere. It made me suppose for a second that he had just won some gameshow fronted by the Arabic Noel Edmonds. In fact Noel really wouldn't look out of place here with his perma-tan and regulation goatie beard. just add a White smock and a dish dash and off he would toddle like an Ewok on amphetamine.

I eventually left the bank and took a cab downtown in search of a laptop.

Downtown is totally dead. I discover why after 10 minutes of walking on a sidewalk in the mid day eastern sun. My sunglasses even get so hot they are burning the bridge of my nose. I decide to cross the road and walk in the shade and still my ears burn from the heat. Mad dogs and Englishmen eh? A completely accurate description in this case, except that I haven't seen a dog since I arrived.
I eventually found the sanctuary of an air conditioned super mall and skulked past the shops which will not open until 4 pm after the afternoon prayer session. I found the food hall where I am now sitting and ordered some chicken noodles from the suspect looking Chinese fast food stall and waited again patiently 40 minutes for my food to arrive.


It's now 3:15 and I am killing time writing this right now.
There is a table of Saudi kid rockers sat at the next table. They are wearing T-shirts of their favourite bands including Pink Floyd, Guns and Roses and Alice Cooper. They all have regulation long rock hair, bleached rock jeans and beards. They could easily be sitting in a cafe in Box Hill with their Harley outside or sitting under the smoking tarp in The Rainbow on sunset....well with one notable exception they are all wearing rolexes and have iPhones and probably are twice as rich as the members of any of the above aforementioned bands. Fair play to them though for expressing themselves and breaking through their social and financial restraints.....hold on a minute these guys are actually more punk than Johnny Rotten and Joey Ramone put together....;)
I wish I wasn't too polite to take a picture.

Smoking seems to be permitted in most places but for some reason I don't seem to be able to smell it at all in the big shopping malls. As I write there are three people nearby all smoking and I cannot smell smoke at all.
Whilst on the subject of smells there are many to experience in Saudi. All of them are not half as bad as the smells in Turkey.
Kebab here though doesn't smell half as good as back in Turkey. It just doesn't have that BBQ taste either.
One absolute gift though. I have become accustomed (after three years of living in Turkey) to resorting to mouth breathing whenever I walk past a group of males. Deodorant for the male genre hasn't exactly caught on in Turkey. In Saudi that cannot be said of the Local male population. At the risk of sounding metro sexual Saudi men smell absolutely amazing. Not in the Essex chav dripping with Jean Paul Gaultier way but in a totally Subtle understated fresh way. In fact in the way that any man would like to smell to the opposite (or indeed favourite) sex.

The international sign for stop

I tried again today to get a sim card. I arrived at the shopping Mall 2 minutes before a call to prayer and the guy I had started dealing with looked into his drawer to see if he had any micro sims left. I turned away for what must have been 30 seconds and he was gone....off to the mosque without a further word.
I waited around for 20 minutes until he returned and told me he did not have any micro sim cards (for the iphone) and that I should go to the next mall up the road (3k away). I jumped in a cab and went to said mall.

I entered the huge modern mall and the phone shop was right by the door. The guy started to explain every tarrif to me and when I agreed on one (15 mins later) he informed me that they had no sim cards and I should go back to the mall I had just come from as he was sure that they had some there. (I smiled and retreated in the direction he had pointed and then once outside, secretly doubled back (hoping he did not see me) to return to the hotel...enough).

So, I decided that if I were going to make it to pay day without an advance I would have to stop taking taxis everywhere and brave the local bus service that somebody had told me was only half a rhyal. 2 mins later a bus came and I got on. It was actually 2 rhyal (about 30p).....it was clean and didnt smell too bad considering it was 45 degrees outside....it was well air-conditioned and comfortable. I have been told by other ex-pats that Arabs are terrible drivers. (they have obviously never been to Turkey, where a professional driver will happily drink an ayran (a disgustingly salty yoghurt drink not dissimilar in taste and texture to semen (one would guess) with one hand and speak on the telephone he is holding with the other whilst  driving a bus full of people at 70mph with his knees). This driver never went over 40 mph and it was a rather pleasant journey. Until.....

...I got almost to where I was going.... I suddenly realised that there were no official bus stops..people were just waving from the side of the street and the bus was stopping. I looked worriedly around me and up at the ceiling. I could see no way of informing the driver that I wished to get off the bus. As I got nearer and nearer to my destination the panic set in. I started looking around at other people and willing them to get off at my stop, therefore demonstrating correct form and function.

Eventually I stood up and looked around in despair...a Chinese looking guy seemed to sense my fear and gesticulated toward the front of the bus. I did not have a clue what he meant so I just went.

As I got near to the driver I began to worry about what I would say to him..should I use English? or just motion with my arms the international sign for 'stop' (what is that by the way?).

Then suddenly to my relief he began to slow down.(maybe I could jump)..then he cut-in toward the pavement. There were two guys signaling from the road-side for the bus to pick them up....with a huge sigh of relief I jumped off and crossed the road back to the hotel.....still none the wiser about how to stop a bus in Saudi.

Out in Saudi for an Indian

Tonight I went in search of food and found this beautiful Indian eatery. It was hidden at the end of a street filled with Chillis, Nandos, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Pizza Hut and a Toni Romero's rib house (with no pig).

The Wrong Door

I sauntered in after opening the door for a horrified looking lady who was in the middle of putting on her face veil. I realized straight away that I had entered through the wrong door...(the family door). Red faced I was ushered out of the door around to the other side of the building and shown in through the rear door marked in Arabic and below it in English 'Singles'.

The Green Door (The right door)

I had the most amazing chicken Biriani alone at my 'singles table'

Then I took a longer than expected walk to the 'western supermarket. where I 'scored' some marmite (a 5 year supply in a 50g jar), some vanilla cola, a coffee mug (as the tea cups here are like egg cups) and a six pack of non alcoholic malt flavoured beverage (in Becks bottles)...you never know they could stave off the withdrawal shakes at 3am (after a whole summer of touring with the band).

TV in Saudi.

I have spent the last two days pretty much in my hotel room. It would seem that most Arabs are pretty much nocturnal staying up in the cool night and sleeping most of the day.

There is a hot wind outside which is almost like a blow heater that they have in the huge London department store entrances during the winter. So you go from being uncomfortably hot in the blazing (42 degree) daytime sun to absolutely frazzled and unable to breathe in a (45 degree wind) which is the absolute opposite to wind chill factor. I am very envious of the immaculate Saudi men in their pristinely white cotton dresses. As well as looking like it allows circulation it also appears to give some protection from the blistering thermal wind.

The wonderful tower & viewing platform

Saudi television is interesting in that its very western influenced. There are several Arab speaking channels which cover news, local news and international and local domestic football games. You can tell from the coverage that they are extremely knowledgeable and passionate about football. Unlike the Turkish commentators who only give the name of each international player as he taps the ball, these Arab guys give a little bit of spiel on each player (you can hear his regular team and some gossip being mentioned).

The western channels seem to consist of various incarnations of NBC (including NBC action, NBC Comedy, NBC Movie) so you can catch lots of movies back to back. There are very few commercial breaks (unlike Turkey- The stupid crass Show TV has longer commercial breaks than show segments) and the commercial breaks are very short. One of the nicest channels plays very nice ambient images over the call to prayer or recitals from the Quoran.

The call to prayer here is made several times a day and is actually taken up by most Saudis (unlike Turkey). The actual voices of the callers are far better and easier on the ear than in Turkey. It really does sound beautiful in the evening as the sun is going down. I was shopping last night and the prayer call went off and the lights went out in the shop and I was locked in until the staff came back from their prayers.

I still haven't gotten around to sorting out a sim card for my mobile phone. Tomorrow I hope.

Last night I ventured out to go shopping and put some food into the fridge. I have never in my life seen such big supermarkets. The selection of food stuffs Was far superior to any available in Turkey. I found myself getting stupidly over excited at the Sight of Heinz baked beans and needed to stop myself from filling my trolley with them. I also found real Irish mature cheddar and Marmalade. My life is complete.

Some more local rules I discovered:

• It's quite difficult to go shopping as a single man As they will not let you in if you are alone. 
• You also have to go into a different line at the tills.
• All of the till operators are men which seems very strange. 
• Oh and you definitely can't drink the tap water here. 

I am about to embark on today's mission which is to get a sim card But apparently shops don't open until 3pm.

So after 3 years in Istanbul (to the day) I finally decided to branch out into the world of 'The Saudi Ex-Pat'. I really didn't know what to expect. I had done a little scouting around Google to see what exactly I was getting into. Most of the info seemed to be a bit out of date. Some people told me not to trust the Arabs others told me not to trust the other ex-pats. Here begins the story of my experience as 'Garrence Of Arabia.' I will try to write something every day if not simply as a living memoir of my trip, then as a help to anyone else that may be considering the move here.

I boarded the plane from Istanbul at 21:30 and left everything I know about middle eastern culture in the departure lounge of Atatürk International. The plane was a little older than I had experienced in using Turkish Airlines over the last 3 years. I didn't actually notice how old the 737 was until three hours into the flight and after 2 hours of iPhone gaming I decided I'd better recharge said mobile device in case I needed it, should my driver not appear at the arrivals gate. Was there a USB socket next to the headrest entertainment centre? What entertainment centre? The in-flight entertainment (outside of iPhone land) was (what I would guess from odd grabbed images as I looked up from my detective game which was greedily guzzling battery power) a highly inappropriate sexually charged romantic comedy.

After a panicked scan of the cabin I had decided earlier when the first flash of semi nudity caught my eye on the drop-down screens, that there were no Saudi present on the flight as everybody was dressed in western dress and were as equally engrossed in their various Apple devices as I. I took this picture of the city as we came in to land on my iPhone.

After landing and a short taxi to the air bridge everyone stood up. To my surprise the plane was now full of ladies covered head to foot in beautifully embroidered black silk and cotton dresses. Faces were covered and the men were in immaculate white cotton gowns and were wearing the familiar red-check head dresses. We had arrived.

There was a very short walk to immigration and an immaculately dressed young soldier politely answered my concerns about not having been given a landing card on the aeroplane, 'It is absolutely no problem sir..no problem sir..welcome!'
I had read horror stories on google about people being chastised for not filling in said card. I can confirm that there (at this precise moment) no longer a landing card. It would seem that Saudi is far more advanced technologically than the UK. (The USA has also re-moved the landing card for those on visa waiver who have previously registered online).

The next hurdle I had been warned of was getting through customs with my books and electronic devices in-tact. I have a full collection of Penguin classics in my case and was particularly worried about the Marx and Trotsky volumes maybe being on the 'throw in the bin list' as I haven't gotten around to reading any of them. I was the first passenger from my flight to go through the x-ray machines and all of my bags passed through with no problem. Just as I was thinking 'people do exaggerate on the Internet' I passed an office where a rather fat American man was stood in his boxer shorts holding two computer magazines covered in black marker pen and almost crying whilst being shouted at by some equally large bearded gentleman in a pristine navy blue suit and hush puppies who was temporarily my comedy hero. Surreal moment one!

I walked out of the gate and was met by.....nobody. No problem... I have my iPhone and will just call my new boss. 'No battery!'...... 600 offers of Taxi (but I don't know where I am going) later... I found a business center hidden away in the terminal and managed to bang out some emails about how unhappy I was at being left at the airport in a dangerous country for 3 hours without message or hope. The second I stepped out of the internet area I saw my name printed on a board and my driver appeared with apologies about forgetting his ID card. Its amazing how easy it is to totally forgive somebody that you wanted to skin 5 minutes earlier once they become a sentient being with the directions toward your bed.

We drove through Riyadh and I was blown away by the huge size of it and how clean it looked compared to the filthy streets and crumbling badly built houses of Turkey. We passed several cars being power-drifted/ slid around the city centre roads expertly by who I was informed, were the children of the mega rich, just as an Audi TT slides inches away from us at 70 MPH and ends up on the other side of the immaculate high street facing the opposite direction as it was a split second ago.

30 minutes later I was in my accommodation for the next two and a half weeks of seminars, a serviced apartment with all mod cons which is a little like a bed-sit with posh curtains and furniture. After a 7 hour sleep I am now thinking about venturing out and seeking food. Its the sabbath today (Friday) so will anything actually be open? Can I drink the tap water? Are any of my colleagues
staying in the same building? Can I walk safely down the street? The answer to all these questions and more....later.. I'm Hungry.