'Look no one likes coming over here so maybe just dont do quite as good a job checking these fire extinguishers and we'll hope for some luck.''
''Are you calling me a murderer?''
''No.''

Where There's Pain, There's Juice

I quite like my ridiculous life, only I could have a disaster after visiting a post office to collect an envelope, I wish I could make this stuff up and just live off comedy sketches.

So I had to go to Basildon, about an hour from my house to pick up tickets to the Champions League Final in Madrid, which if I even make it to now through the volcanic ash terror and BA cabin crew strikes will be even more of a miracle than winning the tickets in the first place (I haive decided to just ignore the news or any flight information, met office dater or watching the movie ‘Volcano’ Staring James Bond in the hope it will just go away like the responsible man I am).

I don’t like Basildon, it’s a bit like Holland, in that it’s very flat which to be fair is where the similarities end unless Holland has bad dreams. Nothing seems to go anywhere and its just full of roads which go to London, idiots trying to find them and the electricity pylons and tractor factories coupled with petty assault, its awful. I noticed in the Daily Telegraph recently that a new ‘Hollywood-Style’ sign had been erected at a cost of £400,000 shouting BASILDON in eight foot tall letters to the lucky drivers on the A130, presumably to warn them to turn around and get the hell out of there (it was actually built on a roundabout to cater for this use).

Anyway, an hour before leaving work on such a vital mission to the liquidity of my company I had the option to charge either my phone or my ipod for the two hour or so journey. I am sure I might have been able to do both, but I only have one free socket under my desk, the others are taken up by mystery plugs and I dare not pull one out, ever since watching Michael Burke on 999 in the early 1990’s I’ve been terrified of the destructive power of wiring so I choose not to tamper. Also I have no idea what they power and knowing my luck it would be somehow linked to my paycheque . After no consideration at all I chose the ipod, despite heading off to a destination I’d never been before with only hand-drawn directions. It’s not that I am a particularly bad illustrator, my grandfather was a town planner you know, but it left a lot to be desired and I made the basic error of forgetting to include road names hoping that there was in fact only one left turning, my one, in the whole horrid town.

In the end I actually didn’t get that lost and also discovered that my sun visor turns my car slightly when I move it, which is a bit of a worry but a new feature non-the-less, and I eventually arrived at DHL (the parcel place) on one of Basildon’s many bleak industrial estates and despite looking quite abandoned, there was another man waiting at the desk talking to the attendant about needing to wrap something big but not knowing where to buy tape, wrapping or it seemed anything at all needed to accomplish his request. He left to get something from his car, brushing past me as he walked, so I seized my chance handed my fake ID (I was posing as my brother to pick the tickets up as it was his order) to the chap and he left backstage somewhere to process the information.

So right then the other guy comes bounding back up to the front door, which had swung shut with this enormous industrial juicer, it was like something out of a kitchen or bar and he looks so awkward trying to carry this thing, like bloody Kramer from Seinfeld or something! So he’s outside banging on the door panting away trying to get my attention while also attempting to keep hold of the juicer and I walk up and he asks if I can help, so I open the door and wedge it open with the rubber stopper and then without warning he just plonks this massive juicer into my arms and the bloody thing is still FULL OF JUICE!! He just shoves it toward me and It goes ALL over my shirt.

‘Have you got it? Don’t drop it! It’s very valuable!’

So we struggle over to the counter and now I’ve got juice going all over me and he’s bumping into things sloshing it all out more over me. We put it on these scales and he looks at me and like dusts me down like that’s going to make a big difference and says,

‘Well that’s no good’

And I look at him with my now Orange shirt and he is totally dry and cool as day he just says,

‘Thing’s supposed to be empty, hey can you still send this?’ Completely ignoring me!

And I’m standing there just stunned, I think he thought maybe id not noticed as I didn’t say anything, just looked on, outraged, so he just leaves and says he has to get some more parts and would be back in ten minutes, just walks straight out! I had to go home and change, my good white shirt, ruined. Fortunately though I have another one so on returning to work several hours later I managed to avoid being asked ‘why have you changed’ so they don’t have to hear another embarrassing Richard life story which I’m sure are slowly and secretly effecting my career prospects!

''There's little doubt, I probably killed him''

Bees Means Hide!

I hate flying stinging things, i understand that they pollenate our flowers and plants and without them, there would probably be no Richard writing this right now, but we just dont get on and whenever they come near me i am just certain that this particular insect has some sort of vendetta against me. So when i came to be camping undernieth a whole hive of bees in the middle of Africa, it was only going to end one way, badly.

I was camped in the bush in eastern Zambia in a region called South Luangwa National Park. The story in itself is fairly obvious and quite short, but because of factors I have to set the scene a little bit as the consequences of our actions come back to haunt us a little.

We (me and chris, he is my mailman but coincidently also my friend since before I can remember) were staying on a stretch of land owned by a lodge; the lodge had a bar, a pool, several chalet type huts, some basic showers and that was about it, there are many photos in my face book albums. We were actually 2 of only 3 guests, the other being Bob, a photojournalist from Holland, writing an article for a wildlife magazine and being given free lodging by the owner, who was an old friend. We were told on arrival that we could pitch out 2 tents wherever we wanted, so we found a collection of 3 trees where vines and low branches had created a ‘cave’ of twisted wood, so we putched the 2 tents in front of this cave and put our large packs and things in the cave. It was a wonderful spot by the Luangwa river. The river was low so you could sit on the banks with your legs hanging 20 ft above the water, watching the Nile Crocodiles and Hippos below (I actually ventured down onto the riverbed on one occasion with some difficulty, the river was low and several islands had risen though once down there the humidity was so high and the ground boggy with Tsetse flies everywhere and I also did not notice a crocodile approach me from behind, getting within 100ft I took off as I would not dare get any closer, those guys are quicker than any dog). So we had our spot, under shady trees in the middle of the African bush. So naturally that night we ate and we ate well (the food at this place was the best I have ever eaten, anywhere in the world) and also watered it down with a few local Mosi beers.

Shortly after dinner, while taking with Kirsten (the owner) Hans (manager and Nat Geo photographer) and bob, one of the porters informed us to be careful as elephants were on the camp. Now I though that this ment in the river, or on the other bank far away. No, on the camp meant that on the sand marked by our footprints along the path from our tent to the bar, not 50 ft away were elephants, an entire herd. I have never been so awestruck, we had briefly seen an elephant on the way into the camp, far away on the dry riverbank, now there were twenty and if you ran north your would hit one in about 4 seconds!

I wont go into how amazing this was as it does not really need to be said in relation to this story, but this was some sight.

Later that night we went back to the tent, thinking the huge creatures had departed, we were wrong, they actually had no intention of leaving and rather enjoyed the taste of the leaves, directly above our tents! Now when I say our tents were under the trees, I don’t mean that the branches were far from the trunk, like a willow, I mean that these were not huge trees, and if I stood outside my tent, my head would be in the branches! So now we had ten or twelve elephants surrounding our tents, minding their own business pulling branches from the trees and having a midnight feast. I assumed we would be told to sleep with the owner or one of the porters. No, we were simply told to run, as fast as we could when the animals backs were to the tents, get in and whatever we did, did not leave the tents!

When someone says something that ridiculous, something must tell you that its so crazy it must be fine, so you just do it, before I knew it id been to the toilet and was running head on into a heard of African Elephants!

My most vivid memory of that night is chewing, and swallowing. That’s all I could hear, you cannot hear an elephant move, they are too mechanical and precise in their movements, all I could hear was snapping and cracking, leaves and branches landing on my tent and constant crunch crunch crunch as they ate their way through our tree. I can tell you an elephant swallowing sounds a lot like a human but less refined, like the parts of its anatomy are of a previous generation, bigger, less refined. I am not sure how I got to sleep.

I tell you this as its important to think that our tree was the elephants favourite food, they came most days and some nights to our home and it sounds crazy but I almost got used to them. Until one day,

It must have happened in the night, and if it did then we were lucky to be alive. We had spent the morning at the bar with cereal and hot toast, a bottle of sprite as well, chilled to perfection was a treat. We returned to the tents and I put my camera down to fill a bottle of water from a larger bottle we had filled from the local village well, when we both noticed that something was different, our cave looked wrong, its shape was disturbed and the tree looked wrong. Suddenly we noticed. One of the three trees had been snapped in half, falling right on top of the cave. We just had chance to thank our luck it had not fallen a few feet to the left when we first realised another problem, it sounded a little like a helicopter or plane were in trouble above us but in a way it was worse. We had heard the beehive on the first day, it was high at the top of the tree and we paid little attention to it, only now it wasn’t high in a tree, it was on the floor about three feet from out tents! I blame chris for it all, he wanted to take a picture of it, while I was happy just closing our water bottle and leaving them to their own ways. Chris must have disturbed them as all of a sudden the noise got a lot louder and I could see dots in the air around me. Then one got in my hair and I panicked and swatted it. Big mistake, the bee must have released a pheromone into the air as before I knew it my hair and face were just full of bees, and they were stinging! OW!!! I shouted, a real comedy OW!, BEES!! OW!! BAD BEES!!! I shouted, then I fell to the ground and more and more came. African bees do not have barbed stingers, so they can keep stinging, and indeed they did!! I was running like a madman and chris was just laughing! I finally made it to the toilets and ran inside and threw the door open, there stood another man, im not even sure he was really there as I nevr saw him again or before, BEES!!?? I pleaded, but he just gave me a peculiar look and walked off! So I jumped under the shower fully clothed and washed as many bees away as I could before chris came in. He had not been stung once, I must have had 20-30 and the dots of the stings were all over my ears and neck.

Now, as we had had previous bother with Baboons (another fun tale) we decided that we should never leave anything of value in the tents, and nothing at all outside them. I suddenly realised that my $2,000 camera was just on the floor, outside the tents! Now im sure it would have been fine, but I couldn’t risk it. Need I continue! The bees seemed to know we were coming. I just got the camera and the barrage started again! Stupidly I had the same reaction which was to swat them!! Im such a fool, I got destroyed. Chris too, we were jumping and rolling around yelling and shouting, running, sprinting this way and that away from insect no bigger than a dime!! Then the funny thing was, Bob, being a cool calm Dutchman (probably just had a massive joint) just walked through the mayhem like he was wailing in the store! He just looked at us rolling and screaming and sort of shrugged his shoulders, like it was some weird English thing!!

Well we got back to the showers. In the end I got about 100 stings and was feeling distinctly ill ( I did get malaria the day after which may have had something to do with this!!) chris got 2 and as there was blood he was claiming he got it worse! Fortunately they had some anti histamine pills and allergy spray so I patched myself up with a beer and began to talk revenge.
Under the cover of darkness we managed to get sympathy from three local men who agreed to smoke out the bees in return for the hive to make honey from, we saw this as a great trade, so that night the men lit a large fire inside out little cave, beneath the hive and in just an hour, the bees were gone! We had done it!! (pictures of this are on face book!) That night we feasted on the spoils of war, eating honey till we burst indeed thinking we had had the last laugh

We were mistaken for I now know what elephants true favourite food is, and its no plant

There must have been some honey melted on the tree and floor, for that night, no kidding 50 elephants were all over our tents trunking, smelling, tasting, licking the honey from RIGHT next to us, and they were not so silent and dignified this time! They were mad for it, there were several loud trumpets and pushing and shoving, and there is me cowering in the tent hugging my knees to make myself as small a target for being stepped on and needing both toilet functions and I also fate would have it got a nose bleed and felt sick from all the honey and I was stuck here!! And all i could think about was that I would have traded that for more bee stings in a second!

Turn the Lights Off

''Despite the isolation there was a feeling of denseness, of a swarm of people or perhaps time jostling for space and attention from the camera lens''

Bridge Walking, The New Social Passtime

London is big, i was trying to describe it to a friend yesterday who has never been. i think the best i could summerise was that it was 'Like an old jigsaw that you thought you could finish in a day but then never really got around to it', but somehow that didnt really work. How best to describe a city such as london? If i was asked to describe Paris i would find it easy, i have been there countless times and ive 'done Paris' as it were and think i would be in a position to give a pretty good verdict (it's more like a Rubix Cube!) but seriously i dont think i would be as stumped for ideas and it would probably be able to find favor with the guidebook crowd and sound quite impressive at a dinner party full of socialites and people who study 'art and design' at university (who all seem to look and dress the same).

Sadly, when you come to know a place too well, when you actually live in a city you become immune to the tourist ideals andguided walks and the concrete and steel become less of a destination and more part of yourself, so describing it, especially on demand, becomes rather difficult, there is just too much and it becomes a blurry soup of sights, sounds, ideas and emotion that one cannot really put onto paper.

Angry, or perhaps encouraged by my failure to describe the city i love i decided to go for a walk in the over lunch and see if i could find things to talk about, perhaps a monument to describe or some history to re-tell, something to spark off some resemblance of a discussion. I found none of those, despite looking in the right places, everything was just, well just London! From St Pauls i decided to cross the Thames in the hope that visiting the tate modern art gallery could inspire me. I dont really like the tate, its too white and usually makes me feel strangly sea sick, but still, as I could see its loom

ing structure in front of me over the Millenium Bridge I felt drawn enough to take a look, perhaps a shot of 'modern london' would help me in my quest.

Well it didnt, in fact i never made it into the gallery. The old, or rather new 'wobbly bridge' was packed and the hot sun made walkers lethargic as they walked up the narrow incline and out over the thames. There were hundreds of folk out enjoying the walk, tourists with cameras, students discussing political matters far too above my station to understand, women in Hijabs, white people, black people, businessmen, beggers and musicians, even former cabinet minister Micheal Portillo doing an interview in front of an anxious director and pretty film student all the things that are part of the city, happening in one small space. On the other side of the bridge people sat and talked in a thousand languages while a vocal group sat on the grass by Shakespere's globe theatre and practised a song, it really seemed that the whole world had come out for lunch in this small corner on the south bank.

But perhaps that is exactly what i was looking for. As i crossed the bridge back toward the city, St Pauls looming in front of me, tower bridge to my right, parlement deep in the distance to my left, i realised that i wished my friend was here with me, that this was indeed london. Forget the travel guides and countless stories, to experience london was to be here right now, the bridge was a microcosim of the city, all of its emotions and flavor in one ten-minute walk, it was like a 'london lite' a stress-free, bitesize london that told you exactly what the city was about. So i began to think if this might be true of other bridges in the city, other areas whereby you could 'sum up' london. What about other cities, other bridges, would it work for them too?

But then i stopped. It had taken me a lifetime to get this confused about describing my city, decades to see every sight, walk every tunnel and find every secret place, and here i am discovering a way to get that same sense for a place in just ten minutes? It seemed like a cheat, like a quick fix, ruining a fantastic book by revealing the ending to everyone who wanted to know and is that really the right thing to do?

Bridge walking, a new social passtime? Well, yes, but only if you want to know how the story turns out.

Carrying the Weight

''there wasn't a place in the world we couldn't see them..''

Traveling Discs - My Secret is My Silence

I am not sure anyone can ever name 'the best album ever' in much the same way its impossible for some to compile a list of thier top five favourite films or songs. Instead I think it is easier and perhaps more romantic to remember a particular record or song based on where it was first heard, or an event the music is tied to, which then evokes memory every time you listen to it again giving the senses the enjoyment of listening as well as recollection. I have done this many times throughout my life and will be sharing a few of my favourites as well as why they are so special to me.

The first is as close to capturing the 'all time favourite' title as i think a record can get. I have always followed Idlewild, I remember studying for my A-Level exams when I was 18 and thier second album, 100 Broken Windows had just been released. I was mesmorized by the thrashy, yet melodic guitars and the band's unique ability to sound 'wooden' or rather natural and earthy, they could not help but remind you of their Scottish roots with every note, whether implied in sound or directed throgh lyric. Fast forward ten years and Idlewild are still going strong so when I heard that singer/writer Roddy Woomble was to release a solo album I was rather excited to say the least.

Roddy isn't really a songwriter in the traditional sense. He doesnt play a guitar or any other instrument, some say he cannot even, he appears somewhat shy on set, a calm man humbled by the acclaim he gets, when seen live a gentle thankyou after each song is said to no one in particular. Roddy is more a poet, he just happens to have an amazing musical sense and some very talanted friends. These friends join him on My Secret is My Silence and we are treated to a record far away from the hard rock and 'charming anger' of the Idlewild norm and are told stories through the traditional scottish/irish folk medium of string and wind, with idlewild guitarist Rod Jones providing subtle hints of power with electric accompnyment in a handful of tracks.

But I'm not here to write a review, go to any number of music based websites and you will be hard pushed to see anything but positive sounds coming out of the critic camp. I am here because this is one of those special records which now playes out memory as well as sound when I push the CD into my stereo. I took a few records to America with me in 2008 when i drove the appalachian trail down to Atlanta to visit a good friend. They were all copies, expected to get scratched en route, burned onto cds with no identity save for a blue marker pen and occasional scribble to represent the artist. I had planned on driving from New York to Maine, to follow the route all the way down over a week, but on approaching Vermont i noticed roadsigns to canada and seeing the chance to get another stamp in my passport, i decided to go for it.

I must have listened to other records on the journey, but, as the sun began to go down and I climbed up and down hazy hills and over old rivers, looking out for miles into green lands and fertile fileds, all I can remember is Roddy's earthy, natural voice matching the landscape so perfectly, and as i sit here now thinking about those scenes and sights, I am certain I can also hear Roddy begin the haunting introduction to 'I came in from the mountain' in the back of my mind.

New York City Cops

Every time I go to New York City I always play 'who can spot the Empire State Building first' with my fellow travellers on the cab ride from JFK. We usually put a beer on it (who can spot an elephant first proved a suitable alternative in Zambia one year) and it makes the inevitable journey from the airport to whatever hotel or hostel you are staying in a little more fun, as lets face it, unless it's your first time in America, its not the most enjoyable of routes, especially in rush hour. The last two times I have been to the city however have somewhat been tainted though when, in 2006 fog and 2008, night and the lack of anyone to challenge save for a non-enlgish speaking taxi driver, made spotting the tower and any real competition somewhat trying. So the main focus of my last trip was leaving the city, and if I would be compelled to play a similar game to pass the time.

As it would happen I was. I have the daftest habit in that certain things, people or objects need to be 'seen off' in the right manner, I have to leave on a high as it were, a perfect farewell and it seemed as though I also needed to do this for buildings. On setting my rental Chrysler 300c on the Van Wyck Expressway, I managed several glances across to the city, shining in the mid afternoon sun of a June weekend, so I began to think about when the last look across at the city would be. I tried several which all seemed nice enough but with the road turning as it circled Manhattan, there were several opportunities to get a better and better 'last look' and then even more chances as the road meandered this way and that for the last look to be spoiled by an unavoidable glance which just would not serve as a fitting memory.

Before long I decided that all of these last looks were starting to become a strain to the neck (as the city was now behind me) and also quite dangerous as the Sunday traffic was not as quiet as I anticipated and this particular stretch of road probably wasn't suited to hone my left-hand-drive technique so my eyes really needed to be firmly on the road. Before long i came to a queue in traffic at a bridge over one of the rivers that sweeps along the city and as I was mounting the red iron of the road support, I noticed to my left that the whole of new york city was visible and in its centre, pointing toward the sun like a needle shining like a beacon of gold as the sun beamed on its windowed facade, was the empire state building. I immediately thought that yes, this is it! This was the last view I had been looking for and I drove along at the slow speed of the now queuing traffic with my head over my left shoulder, not wanting to miss a second of the tower which shined so bright.

When it finally passed behind me and out of view I was content and turned to face the road again, which was now not a road but a series of cones laid out for cars to go through the approaching toll booth. What i had not realised that in my dreamlike state of city-scaping, I had entered the E-Z Pass lane, an express lane, designated for people without cash who make the commute daily. This I thought was a trifle embarassing, but not the all-out felony which I was about to be accused of. I wont go into detail, let's just say that some new york city cops are a little uptight. After a long argument and eventual agreement I was let through amid horns and shouts from behind, much to my dismay and dent of pride. I was angry for a while, my perfect end to leaving new york ruined by a smart ass cop with an axe to grind, but I soon smiled again, I realised that the city had not intended me to have my last look on that bridge on a warm sunday in June, and that I must return again to earn that privilage; something which fills my heart with excitement again, and something that the new york city cops seem to know all too well..

London Love Affair

London on a hot day is a tiring affair, but there are few cities in the world that can still charm you as much if you make the effort to turn left when others follow the path straight ahead

A Picture Starts A Thousand Words

I have always had cameras; when I was young my mother would always pack me off to the family holiday in France with a fresh roll of film for my old 35mm point and shoot. Most of the pictures ended up being of my thumb or the inside of my pocket rather than the deep pine forests of the south-west of Europe, but the relationship between travel and image was born. Of course at this age just changing the roll of film without catastrophe was a bigger challenge than actually taking the photos and I distinctly remember one 'Holiday '89' roll falling into the Rhone river while i was on a canoe trip and was desperately trying to get a photo of my dad trying not to fall in. He didnt, sadly and so the loss of precious family memories was rather unjustified. But anyway, thats growing up right!?

I never really thought about taking photos as any sort of hobby or career. They were what other people did and all I knew was that I hated being in them! (school photo day was a good day to be sick, sadly I, being the good son and grandson, knew my family obligation was to pose and smile and at least try and make it look like I wanted to be on display in a hallway or above a fireplace for all the family to see). So fast forward to 2006 and a chance meeting on a social networking site with a like-minded soul and my interest in art and photography was ignited once more. I had never been one for inspiration, be it book, art or person. It took me until this time to realise that I had just not met the right people, seen the right places and read the right words, for in a few short months I was hooked, and shooting everything in sight, in love with the possibilities that photography presented. I graduated from my 35mm film to a Casio digital camera before long, knowing nothing of cameras, it was silver and it had a big LCD so I was sold and to be fair it did me proud and i still use it to this day as my pickpocket camera (ie if im going to be robbed ill make this one easy to steal!).

This is not the first picture i ever took, I dont remember what that is and I'm not sure many people do, but this is the first picture that made me realise that phtography wasnt about posing for a school photo or standing perfectly still to wait for the right image. It told me that images were all around us and that people need not be movie stars or renowned faces to make themselves famous in your eyes. A man staring up in awe at new york city, I'm sure everyone who has ever been there has done the same. For me it became the symbol of a trip, a trip about discovery and growth and for that part it encouraged me to take a camera with me wherever I go, as you really can capture a whole nation in an instant.

These Days of Mine

Hello, my name is Richard

Welcome to my random life fuelled with stories from afar.