“…can I see the original..?”

The whole world is living in interesting times. 

For millions that ‘interest’ has led to sickness, misery and death. It has resulted in running out of oxygen, pressure on critical care beds and nurses in tears after a long hard shift helping people merely to breathe. Doctors and nurses in direct contact with patients have fallen ill, many have died. Never in my own clinical experience and in health care did I ever foresee that asking staff to care for patients could put themselves at high risk. Bear in mind we have had infectious diseases ever since Eve offered Adam a dodgy apple, resulting in catching the disease of knowledge, which in God’s infinite wisdom was also a sin. A tragic consequence of that story is that women have taken the blame for men’s fuckwittery ever since. 

Families have been separated and even old married couples have had to die alone. Who knows how many people are still experiencing the long term symptoms of fatigue and brain fog, making a return to their normality a long and arduous journey. Others are angry and nearly riotous as their freedoms have been curtailed. Some of those freedoms include being able to carry on with their business, others are about being able to party in large groups and get totally pissed. My freedom to sit upon the ground and think of many things has not been affected. I am still able to take 15 minutes to make a coffee while I check to see if my investments have taken a nose dive on the international money markets. If anything, I have  become enormously richer because I own shares in companies making PPE, vaccines and Conspiracy theories. I’ve personally no need to text the Prime Minister to facilitate access to cash breaks. 

Things could be worse. 

I could be in Redruth without access to baby wipes. I could be in charge of ensuring the conduct of certain politicians, whose dirty hands are matched only by their dirty minds, is deemed to be ethical and above board. I could be polishing turds. I could be in charge of Michael Gove’s Public Relations Department with the remit of making him seem charming, kind and warm, you know, the sort you’d be happy to see your daughter engaged to. 

Instead, I’m up at a six in the morning, to get to King Abdulaziz International Airport, Jeddah, to catch a flight to London. 

At the hotel, a member of staff asks if I’ve booked a taxi. My plan was to book an Uber straight after checkout. 

The more perspicacious of you might have an inkling of what is about to happen.

I am reliably informed that as it is Ramadan, so getting an Uber might be tricky. You see, Ramadan involves daytime fasting and night time feasting. Many Saudis are up until the wee small hours and thus still asleep until midday. This includes many Uber drivers. So my chances of getting to the airport quickly, began to diminish. After the fourth attempt, my helpful hotel staff member called Imranaa, gets a taxi for me. Marvellous. I ask if the taxi driver takes card or cash….

A prize to to those who can correctly guess the answer, bear in mind you have a 50/50 chance of success boosted by any foreknowledge you may have of Middle Eastern taxi driver competencies. As a clue, in  Jeddah you also have a 50/50 chance of being driven by a Louis Hamilton with anger issues.

My usual morning Uber to the office costs about 21-24 Riyals depending upon which way the camel farts. The airport is just a few miles further and I have paid 50 Riyals before when catching a flight to Medina. That price included a generous tip. Today, I part with 100 Riyals. Why? Ramadan? Because I look like a stupid white man in need of assistance with the parting of cash? Has Allah requested that all infidels get charged double? 

And what do I get in return? The chance not to catch an airborne infectious disease that results in willy rot? Who knows. I’m being churlish, because I’m on my way home. I’ve not been involved in one of Jeddah’s infamous road accidents and the driver appeared to want to stay alive as much as I did. I did not have to sit next to a crying baby named Damian. As things stand currently, parting with 100 Riyals to get to an airport is a first world luxury not open to the myriad migrant workers earning a sheep’s testicle per hour to keep the lights on, the floors cleaned and the sewers flowing. You are probably wondering what 100 Riyals looks like in money you’d recognise…so, that would be about £20.  In the grand scheme of the Universe hurtling towards its ultimate implosion, in a shower of black holes and quantum singularities resulting in the annihilation of everything, including the conscious thoughts of all of the world’s geniuses who have ever lived, and Brian, £20 is not going to make much difference. I have spent more than that on a night out in Camborne between the hours of six and Kebab. 

Interesting times means complying with regulations which have been added to all the other airport security measures we all know and love. I have had to get a PCR test in Jeddah which has to be done within 72 hours of flying, then pre book two PCR tests upon return in the U.K., fill out a Passenger Location Form which can only be filled in within 48 hours of take off, before self isolating for 10 days. I have printed copies of the Jeddah pre flight PCR test and the PLF which records that I’ve booked PCRs in the U.K.

Proper job. Sorted. Easy. Relax. I can present all relevant papers upon request. 

Currently, as I sit upon the plane waiting for take off, I’m listening to two male middle aged, middle class Brits loudly sounding off on Covid tests and ethnic minorities. You’ve met the sort. Done well for themselves, used to bossing the little people, “don’t like darkies” Home Counties types. In fact they are suspicious of any ethnic group who failed to build an empire. They share the persecution complex of many older, white wealthy men who run countries, corporations and car shows who think women, gays and brown people are taking over the world. In the US they’d be calling Biden a communist. Back home, they’d be texting tame politicians offering to refurbish their flats in return for access to cock sucking special advisors who’ll recommend policies to facilitate the turning of blind eyes towards stealing the futures of gig economy workers while offering them the opportunity to die before they receive the state pension age.

Oh,  and so I’m now playing PC bingo. 

And there it is…. “…everything is so politically correct now….and minorities are running things…”

Boom. 

These two are health, security, and social policy ‘experts’ but their knowledge of public health, epidemiology, medicine and virology is in inverse proportion to their sense of self importance. They no doubt get their information from authoritative sources of medical and public health knowledge such as that offered by Jeremy Clarkson, the Patron saint of Bombast. They have worked in senior positions here in Saudi Arabia, paid off their mortgages, bought boats and now are geopolitical, sociological and cultural experts as well. They are confidently stating that planes ‘never leave on time’, said in that confident tone of voice reserved for those who know just enough to instil a measure of gobshitery unmerited by actual knowledge, so as to inform anyone unable not to listen that they are airline operating experts as well. 

This is another first world problem, having to listen to c*nts in Business class. 

I’m surprised they’ve not been banged up in a small room at the airport for demanding to be fed dates as they show their passports and PCR documentation.

Back at check in, I await my turn patiently. There are several check in desks open and several queues formed. I ask a passing smartly uniformed official in a grey suit if I’m in the right line, as some are marked ‘Saudi Priority’ and others are not. My pre printed boarding pass says I’m ‘Saudi Priority’ which does not mean much to me as we all seem to waiting in similar length queues. He of course informs me that indeed I am, inshallah, with that air of obsequious confidence that I have experienced before. It’s that sort of confidence you feel just before a minor operation only to wake up three weeks later in intensive care minus a body part, bladder control and the ability to reason. He also asks to where I’m flying. “London” I answer more in hope than expectation as I wonder if the pilot is an ex taxi driver. 

In the queue next to me is another male, middle aged, hefty middle class Brit, with four very big, very heavy, suitcases to the good, being told by the charming check in Assistant that he is ‘in the wrong queue’ after telling her he is flying to London. I’m spotting a pattern.  He begins to remonstrate with all the authority of a toppled dictator being shown the door by the leader of the Coup D’Etat, not realising that non compliance with the check in assistant’s request could result in an uncalled for (by him) meeting of his bollocks and an electrical power source. I’m not sure if his status as ‘priority’ counts for much. I learn he is Business class, like me, flying to London, like me, and “was told this was the correct check in desk”, like me.

 I look at my own queue. I’m next in line to a family of four. Mrs is dressed in colourful abiya and head scarf and is in charge of two trolleys, umpteen heavy cases and bags, and two glued to the screen teenagers, a boy and a girl. Mrs humps the bags onto the conveyor belt while teenagers helpfully assist by getting in the way while watching some scum bag influencer making a YouTube video selling hope in Dubai. Sir, dressed in Primark quality polo shirt and jeans,  stands to one side also engaged in something interesting on his screen. It might be a horse race, his bank account or an interesting situation on Porn Hub*.

I’m in a dilemma because I’ve been told this is the “right queue” when next door things look set to escalate to full on red faced entitled vein popping. A supervisor intervenes and smooths things over so that he indeed can check in where he is. Meanwhile my family have eventually checked in the bags, but proceed to linger around the check in desk oblivious to the fact that other people (me) might want to do the same. As I stand patiently, I am aware that on my left has arrived two uniformed bag handlers and a trolley stacked to the roof with suitcases. They are non Saudi migrant workers resplendent in baggy grey fleece tops and jogging bottoms, yellow baseball hat and ‘Baggage Team’ emblazoned on their backs. I think of offering them two sheep’s testicles as a tip to “f*ck off to another queue” as they appear to be pushing in front. My British hackles nearly rise, as you all understand our attitudes to queuing. 

As the Red Sea of the screen absorbed family finally parted, I take my opportunity to nip to the desk and present my credentials. This is going to be fine.

My passport is perfect. All correct. In date and bearing my likeness and as passports go it is the gold standard. I could not find fault with it and neither could the check in assistant. I suggest that passports such as mine would have no trouble in gaining access to the fabled stables of Hercules, should the need arise. 

I spent several hours in the previous few days checking and rechecking regulations for entry back into the U.K. I am more familiar with the covid and travel gov.uk website than most civil servants and Dominic Cummings. I know how officialdom can work. It is no use trying to refer to policy as written by head office if the official in front of you takes a different view. A female Saudi journalist was turned away from a shopping mall by a male security guard because she was not dressed in the full black abiya, despite having printed a copy of the Crown Prince’s statement on the acceptability of female dress.

“…but, but the Crown Prince said…”

“…I don’t care if Allah himself said, you’re not coming in here dressed like the whore of Babylon and that’s my final word…now fuck off and take your obscenely arousing, if off limits, tits with you…” 

That’s how it works. 

So, when I was asked for my Jeddah PCR test certificate I proudly handed over my printed version which has all the details one could possibly want and more so. Everything was in order. Date, test result, laboratory, doctors signature, contact details. 

“This doesn’t have a stamp”.

I instantly recognise officialdom rearing its authoritarian head resting upon its ‘no discretion’ shoulders. Many front line staff are given strict orders about rules with absolutely no authority to make on the spot rationally assessed decisions. It makes no difference if a terrorist never ever shows up wearing a chicken costume with a back pack with ‘Bomb’ written in pink fluffy letters on it, but if you do that then be prepared for a intimate bout of fisting from Security. 

“What?” 

A cold chill runs down my spine. I instantly try to calculate how long it would take me to get a taxi…bastards….to the PCR test lab, get it stamped and then return. I can’t make that calculation because the adrenaline begins to flow in the flight or fight response. Fighting is not an option at an airport and there is nowhere to run to. A supervisor is called over when she asks,

“Have you got the original certificate as this is just a printed version” said to  someone who actually did the printing and should know. 

The U.K. gov.uk site clearly stated that a PCR test certificate should be presented, and could be translated into Spanish or French and written with the blood of the lamb, it could be a copy printed or email. Nowhere does it say the original has to be presented. Yesterday my colleague flew from this very terminal with a printed certificate such as mine and did so without let or hindrance.

“No, I don’t have the original”. 

The supervisor checks my copy and something in Arabic, which contains the words “PCR” and “Twat”, was said. Meanwhile my innards are turning to jelly. The clock is ticking. In another queue, some people are being turned away for not having a PCR certificate. 

“Did they send you an email?” 

Yes, they did send me an email, that’s how I got the copy printed off! I frantically search my phone’s email inbox for the lab’s message, praying that while I did so that the phone retained enough power. That was irrational because I had charged it overnight, and I had a power bank. But then, being confronted with official authoritarianism, which has the power to make your life as miserable as a Cornishman who has dropped his pasty into the red river, makes one irrational. 

I brandished the email aloft as much as the lady of the lake held up Excalibur to anoint Arthur as King. She stared at the screen. He stared at the screen, they both stared at the paper certificate. Time stood still. The testicles of destiny were being held in the steely grip of the hands of fate. Would I be boarding or would I cut my wrists and bleed out right there and then at the check in desk.

“Ok”

May Allah be praised. Passport checked, PCR test certificate accepted…hurrah, I’m off.

“Have you booked PCR in the U.K.?” 

“Yes”

May I see your PCR booking in the U.K.?” 

Suffice to say, I have to again check my phone’s email in box for the invoice that was sent to me. The printed passenger location form which states I have booked PCR and has the invoice number to prove it, was not good enough evidence. The email on the phone thankfully was. 

I wondered what other unknown hoop I was going to have to jump through. 

Did I have to prove I had eaten breakfast, was wearing clean underwear, that although I had once seen a reefer I was not now a drug addict and that listening to Gary Glitter in the 1970s does not make me a kiddy fiddler?

Bags checked, adrenaline levels returning to normal, I made my way towards the security checks. I passed several more check in desks which had a sign saying “U.K. and US passengers check in here”. Now they tell me. 

Sitting on .the plane, nursing a coffee, I reflected upon just how many staff and checks I had just passed through . After the initial check in micro trauma, I had to show the PCR test certificate another three times and waited for the “have you got the original….” which thankfully never came. At the security scanner I stood alone, shoe and belt less as my carry on bags were scanned. I counted eight dark blue uniformed, gold badged, security guards hanging around my one scanner. At the departure gate itself was another scanner with another eight dark blue uniformed, gold badged, security guards. 

“…careful with that bag” I said to one of them, “I don’t want the cocaine bag breaking open all over my ipad”.

The downside of all of this security is the panic one feels if breaches of the rules have been seen to have occurred resulting in one’s sorry arse being frogmarched to the nearest rat infested dungeon while the Crown Prince decides in which decade you might be considered for parole.The upside is that I hope that those who actually should be caught being twats have been caught being twats thus leaving the rest of us  sure in the knowledge that we are existing in a low twat zone while at 40,000 feet. 

Meanwhile, migrant workers in Jeddah are street cleaning in 37 degrees of  humidity, disinfecting a thousand curry stained hotel toilets and being unseen by rich Westerners. They do so for a sheep’s testicle an hour, while they worry about their families back home in India dying for the lack of a vaccine or oxygen. 

* This is an offering on the internet for those who take a lively interest in the amazing capacity of human beings to prostrate themselves in unusual positions and locations.

One of the many benefits of travel is meeting new people. One of the many drawbacks of travel is meeting new people. 

I’m on a day trip to the mountain city of Taif, some 80 kms south of Jeddah and 6,000 feet higher, which as I have already mentioned makes this a far more pleasant climate. Jeddah at sea level is a hot and humid city. At this time of year, March, it is bearable but as each week progresses it is getting hotter which is ok, but it is also getting a little more humid, which is not. We all know humid. It’s that sticky sweaty feeling that engulfs you as soon as you set foot into the sun. In really hot countries, even your sweat perspires. Little trickles flow down your back to nestle uncomfortably in between your butt cheeks. Hot air gets trapped within any clothing thats tighter than a flimsy piece of cotton. It is probably better for men to let the beef and two veg swing free than to be nestled tightly into one’s Y fronts. It is better if, when doing this, you also wear some very loose trousers as the sight of the two bells of the pink belfry swinging in unison as one walks is too much information, and in Saudi Arabia probably contravenes the laws of modesty. Well, at least that’s what I think the policeman was saying.  

The heat sink that is Jeddah traps the air, mixes it with traffic fumes and the exhaust vents from a hundred thousand air conditioning units so that every breath you take is an admixture of oxygen, diesel particulates and the sweat infused water vapour from a million bodies, some of whom have dubious personal hygiene habits so that in reality you might as well be sticking your nose into someone’s festering arm pits. The airborne bacterial, viral and particulate count is enough to blot out the sun, if you have the imagination to think of it. As with many situations we find ourselves, being immersed in it renders one insensitive to its oppression. The only clue to the poor quality of the air you might encounter is when you sneeze into a tissue, only to discover that your nasal passages have been home to a billion bacteria which by now have taken on the hue of a slag heap of coal with the viscosity of crude oil. Billions of folk live in cities like this around the globe, millions die prematurely because of it. So, if you live on Dartmoor, the West of Cornwall or on the top of Ben Nevis, take a good long lungful and thank whatever god you use that you are lucky enough to still be alive. 

Anyway, Taif is not Jeddah. And we are now off to see the Rose oil factory.

The ‘we’ in question, in addition to Catherine my colleague from work, includes the small party gathered for breakfast. The “Saudipinos” as they call themselves, two very sweet and charming filipino ladies from Riyadh, Anastasia the English nurse from Dammam whose smile is one of life’s joys and should be in everyones’ lives, and about 6 others I have not had the chance to talk to.  Three of them are distinctive, each for a very different reason. They appear to have come together as a group, two chaps and woman, all in their thirties I would guess. By their body language two are a couple. I’ll let you decide which two. 

The factory is short drive away and so we go in a little convoy. When I say factory, don’t think of a huge industrial estate the size of Wales. This turns out to be a small estate with tin roofed distillery sheds and a rose garden. When we park, there is no obvious factory to be seen. Instead a high white perimeter wall greets us. There are grand villas surrounding us on three sides, a cat sleeping in a skip and a scattering of plastic bottles and litter gently blowing in the dust. It is very warm rather than stupidly hot, literally a breath of fresh air. The streets are empty, devoid of traffic and of people, and so we can hear the constant chatter of mynah birds and the slow brewing of cardamom infused arabic coffee. A door opens out onto the street and a black haired black bearded old gentleman who has seen the best part of six decades steps out into the sunshine. He is traditionally dressed in his white thobe, but did not bother with the head covering. He half walks, half shuffles, down the street kicking up little clouds of dust in between his sandled toes. If this was England, he would be going for his morning paper but they don’t seem to have newsagents or corner shops close by in this little part of town. I would bet he will find a coffee shop and sit with his old friends to talk the Arabian version of bollocks about the state of the world, the price of oil and how they “bleddy emmets are spoiling the town”. 

The entrance into the factory is through two large arched wooden doors, the sort you’d expect to find guarding the entrance to a baronial hall or a small welsh castle. The doors open out into a rose garden, the distillery itself is a small collection of sheds to our left. Here, though we are out in the open in the middle of row upon row of the pink Damascus Rose.  These roses are supposedly a close relative of the Bulgarian Kazanlik rose, likely transplanted by the Ottoman Turks who conquered this area in the 16th century. The flower’s origin trails its roots to Persia, where it grows in plantations around Shiraz and Kashan. Enough history! The aroma is powerful enough to make one think of romance if that is at all possible. The garden is bedecked, festooned, with rose decorations over a series of arches leading down to where rose petal pickers sit in small circles around a sack. They are sitting out of the shade while they work quietly plucking petals which will go into the sheds behind them for distillation into rose oil and rose water. The factory owner puts on a little display for us. This consists of sitting on cushions while a bucket of rose petals are dropped over one’s head, confetti like. Anastasia and I watch as the two saudipinos take delight in being covered with pink petals, when she suddenly says “oh thats lovely, like a golden shower”. I’m terribly sorry but this is just too funny, especially as she bursts into laughter at what she had just said.  She creases her face with laughter and her broad smile beams joy out into the world. I think it takes a British sense of humour to pick up on this faux pas. 

This reminds me of something I have sorely missed, something that does not travel unless carried by its host: British humour. And when I hear it again, its absence generally is forcefully brought home. I’m not saying foreigners don’t laugh, of course they do…but they often laugh at different things, in different ways, in reference to their own cultures and histories. 

I mentioned earlier a threesome, two chaps and woman in their thirties. This is where things get a bit….weird. At the breakfast carpet, one of the chaps sits just the other side of the two Saudipinos. He is wearing red trousers and a white polo shirt. I am wearing red trousers and a white shirt. I remark on the colour coordination, trying to make light of it. His face barely cracks. In fact it doesn’t crack at all. His lack of facial expression says…nothing. I can’t read it. Perhaps he is German and does not understand what I said in jest.  I go for the obvious ‘he must be German’ because of the lack of humour and the fair hair. That’s not enough for a jury to convict, I grant, but it is good enough for my prejudices. 

So then at the factory, we of course keep bumping into each other being in the same tour group. His companions are jolly and chatty. And American. Well, she is. You can tell by the loudness of voice and complete and utter lack of self awareness. I love country stereotypes because they are so often correct. ‘Fritz’ as I shall now refer to him, walks around the tour with an expressionless face. I once or twice foolishly try to engage in a little light banter, but quickly give up. I’d get more feedback and expression from a marble bust. He kind of just lopes around looking into space. At one point Catherine catches him sitting and staring straight ahead of him, eyes fixed open, unblinking, and wide like an owl on the hunt with an expression that says ‘I will kill you”. I’m not sure if he was capable of enjoying himself. What he made of rose bushes god only knows. Perhaps he was thinking of the many ways he could kill and eat a cat. Some people have an aura about them, this chap’s was icy cold, the sort of atmosphere a paranoid psychopath might generate. Then to my horror, the American woman thinks it would be a great idea to have a picture of Omar Sherif, our guide, flanked by the two red and white evil twins. I half expected his stare into the camera to release the hounds of hell. However, he merely stands…expressionless. 

He doesn’t buy anything at the gift shop. I don’t think he is capable of empathy. He probably squeezes hamsters to death just to pass the time of day. 

The rose tour over, we part company with Fritz to head to the next venue. 

“There’s nowt so queer as folk”. 

Having got out of bed at 0430, driven for 2 hours across the desert, and survived the festering concrete block toilet at the edge of the little town of Al Hadr, Catherine and I were ready for breakfast. The toilet had been an apocalyptic experience almost certain to be brought up in future therapy sessions or remembered as ‘the horror’ creakily spoken ‘sotto voce’ in the ear of the nurse who is charged with keeping my dilapidated body clean. We had seen the sun rise over an hour and half ago and with it our need to eat had increased with every passing roadside camel. We stood beside the car, taking in the morning breeze and recovered our senses. I made a mental note to write to the Crown Prince requesting that he fire bomb the offending at his earliest convenience. Failing that, he could turn it into a prison. 

Safely back in the car and slightly traumatised we were ready to go. Faisal, our driver, set off through the outskirts of the small town of Al Hadr to our first stop. No one else was on the road save for the few eddies of dust and a pigeon. Being at nearly 6,000 feet, the outside temperature was perfect under a blue sky. The houses reminded me of those featured in the white stucco pueblos of films such as a “Fist Full of Dollars” – enclosed walls, small windows, interior courtyards…all very private. Occasionally the red of bougainvillea erupted and spilled over a garden wall, while cacti dotted the grassy verges where the road edge just crumbled and cracked to merge into dust and rocks. No dogs roamed the streets as they are dirty animals in Saudi culture. 

Suddenly, Faisal turned off the road and onto a rock strewn dirt track. Bear in mind we are not in a Land Rover. I half expected the exhaust to be ripped off or the suspension to come loose from its mounting. We left houses behind us as this track weaved its slow meandering way through shrub and small stunted trees on either side. 

After about 5 mins of slow bumping along we pulled in to a small car park, which in reality was merely a patch of flattened rock strewn ground surrounded on three sides by dry twigged shrubbery. There was no sign indicating where we had arrived or why. But evidently this was our first destination. 

We followed a narrow path between more shrubbery hiding the views until suddenly we arrived and the panorama opened up. This was a rose and fruit farm. Small dry fields of rose bushes, others of apricots, were laid out before us. The hills rose a few miles away as a protective shield for the fields. The owner was already hard at work picking fruit from the trees. Another worker was picking the pink rose flowers from the bushes. This was a scene out of a film, a national geographic about old agricultural methods, wicker baskets being the height of technology. Dressed in a very loosely wound white turban, a floppy blue shirt and trousers, the owner continued his work, the lines on his sun cracked skin as testament to the hours and years tending his crops. He turned and flashed a smile, happy to see us, while continuing his picking. I wonder what time he had got out of bed?

The field structure, each bordered by tall shrubs, gave the feel of being in a maze as we followed a winding path, but we knew breakfast was here somewhere. Suddenly out from between the trees stepped our guide for the day, dressed immaculately in his white thobe and red and white shemagh. He looked like Omar Sharif and spoke impeccably in English and Italian. He was followed by a small group of visitors who had arrived from various destinations, some as far away as the capital Riyadh and from Damman in the East. I think the ladies were rather taken with the tall handsome guide and were rather looking forward to the day. None of them were Saudi nationals, so this was a trip for foreigners. 

• 

He welcomed us in the poetical style of language so common here, and explained that were were in one of the farms that supplied the roses for the local factory in Taif, and that we were ‘most welcome’ and must enjoy our breakfast. He led us down another short path again bordered by high shrubs until we stepped out into a glade whereupon a magical mystical sight greeted us. The trees provided shade but let in enough sunlight to provide warmth. A large red carpet was laid out on the grass. I’m no expert on patterns but I likened it to the Persian style patterns familiar everywhere. It was wide enough for three people to sit in comfort and long enough to accommodate eight. There were cushions placed around the four sides. Cushions, not chairs. We were to sit upon the ground on the carpet propped up by the cushions, to help ourselves to the huge variety of delicious food in front of us. At the far end a tent like arrangement provided decor, while on the other three sides the small trees provided the canopy. 

The food was served in small ceramic bowls rather than plastic tupperware, classy. Fresh Arabian flat bread had just been baked, brought to the ‘table’ and laid out. The smell of any fresh baked warm bread is heavenly and this was no exception. This, being Saudi Arabia, was a breakfast for Kings, or Sheikhs. Olives, vine leaves, hummus, cheese in never ending supply. Fresh honey with ‘yoghurt’ does not do it justice, coffee served in elegant sliver and gold pots poured out from the distinctive shaped bird like spout only seen here. Arabic coffee beans are roasted with cardamom and ground down. This must be done fresh to honour the guests drinking it. Oh, and dates, delicious sweet bombs of soft tender taste. We ate slowly, leisurely and at peace. Our host spoke from time to time to explain the importance of food and hospitality, and ensured that we had enough of everything. Refusing food is poor manners while leaving a little on the plate is a sign to the host that they have provided enough. They will keep feeding you until you have to leave something. 

I turned to my new companions sat on my right. Two women, perhaps in their late twenties, or thirties who worked in Riyadh. Turns out they were both from Philipino families, but have lived in Saudi Arabia all their lives. They were two of the few Catholics in a Muslim country and of course spoke lovely English. My Arabian, like my Philipino, is non existent apart from ‘thank you’ (shukran), ‘fantastic’ (mumtaz) and ‘I wouldn’t if I were you’ (ln ‘afeal law kunt makanak). They were both very happy to chat. I wondered about being Catholic in a Muslim country and the fact they were not dressed in the traditional Saudi ‘abiya’ – the full body covering. Neither had a hair covering. Saudi Arabia is transforming rapidly, including its strictures about what women can do and wear. These women were very comfortable in the country and were very clear that the modernisation process was happening at speed. 

To my left were two other women talking with Catherine. There is a concept called six degrees of separation and the premise is that any two people on Earth are six or fewer acquaintance links apart. I am reminded of this idea of being connected as we talk. Catherine has worked in Brighton and London, Hounslow. So did the other two, who’re English, and it turns out they both knew the same places…and yet here they are sitting under the trees enjoying breakfast in a small farm near the little known town of Taif in Saudi Arabia. 

Overhead the leaves on the trees rustled in the slight warm breeze, mynah birds chattered and swifts cut across the sky. Coffee aromas drifted across the carpet and every now and then the waft of rose meandered in the air. I could have sat there all day.

• 

 

Sometimes an alarm ‘clock’ is unnecessary. Notwithstanding the fact that many of these clocks have been replaced by a mobile phone, it is the case that with the gathering of dust and years, one’s anatomy and slowing failing physiology does the job of jolting oneself awake, perfectly adequately. 

It is with a regularity normally associated with the rising of the sun, or of the bitter disappointment that follows every attempt at cutting out chocolate from the diet, that around 0330 the laconic bladder gives up and asks the brain to stir awake to prevent the nocturnal pissing of one’s bed. In this task it is usually 100% successful, bar those nights following the copious ingestion of curry, Guinness and tequila slammers. Prostate tickling, by an enthusiastic practitioner of this ancient art earlier in the night, probably doesn’t help either. 

I had ordered coffee, croissant and bananas to be delivered as room service at 0430 as well as setting my iPhone to 0420. Eschewing the prostate tickling, saving it for a night in Bangkok at a later date, I tried to get an early night in preparation for a road trip to the mountain city of Taif, 85 kms south west of Jeddah across a litter strewn and sand blasted desert in southern Saudi Arabia. 

Standing at the porcelain throne at 0330 meant that I needn’t have bothered with an alarm. I was awake and in charge of a lethal weapon aimed precariously in the required direction. The gentle tinkling vied with the silence as my neurones slowly fired up. Then at 0420 and 0430, as planned, both alarm went off and coffee arrived.  

Today’s early start was necessary get a full day in on the road trip. I was meeting a work colleague, Catherine, at 0530 at her hotel across town. We had booked a driver and a full itinerary planned which involved breakfast upon arrival. Catherine is from the UK and brings with her a barrel of good British humour which she needs in her role on the same Transformation project I’m working on. 

Taif is known as the ‘City of Roses’ and produces rose water and rose oil for perfume. Due to its elevation, it is cooler than the rest of Saudi Arabia and thus a popular summer destination. Jeddah is of course sea level but Taif climbs to very nearly 1900 meters, that’s over 6000 feet. Ben Nevis is 1345 meters high by comparison. 

We climb into the back of car at night, while Faisal the driver gets us going into the soon to be rising sun. Jeddah is busy at this hour, god knows why, as we head out of town on the motorway. It does not take very long to leave the tall glass and steel towers of the city behind and then to hit a two lane highway across a landscape strewn with sand, barren rocks and low craggy hills. Just about nothing grows. An alien moonscape stretches out towards the very distant Hejaz mountains. The sun rises from behind the hills as we motor onwards. A perfect circle of orange pokes above the blue distant jagged ridges of the mountain tops. At one point we spot a camel train loping slowly in the same direction. They are about half a kilometre, and just over half a century away. This could be scene familiar to any desert tribesman over a millennium.  It is a reminder that Saudi Arabia is a very young country in its present political form. We stop and get out to feel the warm desert breeze, to feel the gentle warming of the sun on our backs and to take in this ancient panorama of camel, wind and desert. 

Standing beside the car, suddenly the oppressive weight and heat of the city of Jeddah is lifted from our shoulders. Like the slowly boiling frog, we don’t notice how cities can bear down on one’s psyche. I feel lighter, happier and more optimistic about the world. The warm air slowly rises taking with it the dense energy of Jeddah that sits inside us. Out here on our own is total peace. No noise of traffic, no rush of people, no deadlines or the fuckwittery of taxi drivers who you would not put in charge of buttering your toast, let alone a speeding ton of death. 

This would be great place for a rave. Wide open spaces, perfectly warm temperature and the only things to have their peace disturbed would be the snakes. The lack of a beer and electricity might be a problem though, let alone the half naked dancing should the police turn up. 

I’ll not mention the half finished construction sites along the highway or the rubber tyres that appear to be a roadside feature every 100 meters or so. Ok, I’ve mentioned them. The reason for both totally escapes me. One development running out of cash is to be expected, but the sheer number of what look like abandoned sites is baffling. As for the tyres, how many blow outs actually occur? 

After about 90 minutes the Hejaz mountains suddenly rise up as an impenetrable wall in front of us. Sheer crags of sand coloured sharp ridges and cliff faces that send a message that means you have better be serious if you think you are going to get over them. It reminds me of the Alpe D’Huez in France which similarly confronts you as a barrier that from a few miles away seems just impossible, given the way it rises from the valley floor. On the map the road clearly zig zags up this face. It is going to take 15 minutes or more to climb over 5000 feet. Ears will pop. How this was done 100 years ago was a miracle. The new road we are now on is a duel carriageway all the way up offering a race track experience for the drivers. This is a challenge they duly take up. Bits of the old single carriage road can still be seen. Faisel helpfully describes how dangerous the road used to be and he needs no exaggeration. There are bits of skull and ribcage at various intervals, the bones bleached white in the sun and the organic flesh long ago eaten away by the crows, worms and bacteria. Some of the bones belong to donkeys, some to over enthusiastic drivers who it appears that God willed that they should drive over the edge of a hairpin to smash into rocks forcing jaw bones back into the cervical vertebrae with a snap like a rich tea biscuit. Half way up is a lay-by for spectacular views back down the mountain. The road snakes winding black along contours, dipping and diving its way down into the valley that then opens wide into a desert plain back towards Jeddah.  

Cresting the ridge, we finally reach the Al Hadr road towards Taif. Suddenly a town appears with green trees and green lawns. Date palms are in abundance but it being now only 0730 there are no people. Time for a wee break but with all shops and cafes shut we have to use a ‘public convenience’. These two words are a euphemism. Well, the little toilet block we find is certainly for the use of the ‘public’ and it is ‘convenient’ being right beside the road. There, the similarities to facilities anyone else would recognise as fit to be described as such, ends. Who this public is that it is convenient for is a mystery. It must be a public with very low expectations and very high levels of desperation and a terrible ability to aim straight. The only saving grace is that there were no toilet seats, only ceramic holes in the ground with two spaces for one’s feet. The smell was indescribable as was the detritus left behind by members of the public who obviously had totally lost control of their minds, their dignity and their sphincters. The holes in the ground were big enough to accommodate an elephant’s doings, but for a reason known only to God, the ability to position oneself to undertake what should have been straight drop must have eluded previous users. To add to the scene. The wind or carelessness had brought in litter, mostly plastic bottles, crisp packets and what I hoped to god was writing paper. There are no handles on the walls for ensuring balance would be maintained. Satan himself could not have dreamt of a more God forsaken set of holes for which to torture sinners. I only needed a wee, allowing me to step back and take aim from quite some distance whole holding my breath before gasping for air outside. This toilet block was the manifestation of squalor, disease, infection and festering pollution. It should be bombed with napalm. In a country with several trillion dollars in oil wealth alone, this abomination should not abide. It was biblical in its depravity and plague ridden horror. I’ve seen cleaner bedpans in the dysentery wards and I would rather offer my ring piece to dildo waving lunatics than ever to be forced to use it again. 

In just a few hours, we had experienced both ecstasy and its nadir. We had been taken up in enlightenment and then been shown the black heart of hell. Human beings have built the Taj Mahal, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and more recently the Burj Kalifa in Dubai. We have also built the shittiest shitting shit hole in modern civilisation. The mayor of the little town of Al Hadr should hang his head in shame and at the very least petition the Crown Prince for a few shekels for some dynamite and a JCB. 

People say the funniest things, we say stupid things, and we say things we are not even aware of. We say this stuff most of the time, and we do so while bypassing our brains. 

The English language has a vocabulary containing more words than the grains of sand on a beach, more than there are stars in the milky way and just enough to keep a hen party in talk for a whole wine soaked weekend. And if we should run out of words, we just make them up. Additions to the Oxford dictionary in 2019 include ‘whatevs’, ‘chillax’ and ‘freegan’. The Cornish, especially in Tolskithy, make up words as often as the wind changes direction. And its amazing what you can do with ‘tre’ ‘pol’ and ‘pen’ and the odd ’s’ovvun’. Denzil Penberthy and ‘Boy’ Trevaskis (who is eighty if he is a day) make shit up all of the time and even they have no idea what they’ve just said. And now, the UK has a Prime Minister who does this live on air, but in latin and without the slightest hint of embarrassment or self knowledge. He has given the street lexicographers of Millwall, Motherwell and Mousehole the opportunity to refashion Anglo Saxon epithets into glorious new combinations of the C and F word. But, sometimes only the simple C word will do. 

Words have a literal meaning, as in ‘leave my pasty alone or I’ll literally kill you’. If you hear this in Camborne, rest assured it literally means you will be actually killed should you so much as sniff the gravy infused steam from someone else’s newly cut pasty. In Hartlepool, this phrase would be taken as a joke, as good natured banter, but mention ‘monkey hanging’ and you will find out they literally hanged a monkey thinking it was a French spy during the Napoleonic wars.  Monkeys to this day are afraid to set paw in the North East. Baboons however are quite happy to show off their red arses everywhere.

 A bit like a mate of mine after a few bevvies in the back bar of Tyacks in Camborne. 

Words also mean whatever you want them to mean, nothing more, nothing less. Wittgenstein, the philosopher, argued language is not a fixed structure imposed upon the world by us. Important men like to think they define what words mean. That is clearly bollocks as my use of the word ‘bollocks’ just then, clearly shows. Words do not represent something real in the world. Take the word ‘dog’, without a context it is meaningless. Words and their meaning are intimately bound up with our everyday practices such as when drinking spingo, Brazilian waxing and dogging. Wittgenstein argued that creating meaningful statements is a matter of using conventionally defined words within ‘language games’ that we play out in the course of everyday life. ‘In most cases, the meaning of a word is its use’, Wittgenstein claimed. It ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it, and the context in which you say it. Words are how you use them.

The word ‘Spingo’ means nothing until you walk into the bar of the Blue Anchor in Helston. To the uneducated redneck in Texas it could mean a cross between a ‘spick and a gringo’ rather than a pint of amber ale that transports one to heaven and a packet of pork scratchings. Young ladies who could not point to Rio on a map are otherwise happy to metaphorically visit South America in an unending quest for the perfectly shiny vulva. I’ve no idea what ‘dogging’ means as I have never been to the lay by just off the A39 outside of Truro after dark. 

So, words are very often used in a way to mean the opposite, or something totally unrelated to what the dictionary definition says they mean. The British are excellent at this. In fact, we go out of our way to do precisely this. It’s why we love euphemism, understatement and the passive voice. We don’t get ‘intoxicated’; we get ‘ring bolted’, ‘pissed’ or ‘shitfaced’. If you have ever seen a ring bolt, the resemblance to one’s antics at a party are hard to see. The word ‘ring’ is dangerously fraught with meaning and perhaps that is why we use that phrase in the context of drunken reverie. ‘Kissing the Ring’ means something very different in the Vatican than it does in the back bar of the Tyacks in Camborne after midnight on Saturday. Just ask my mate. ‘Pissed’?  Well, at least that has a passing reference to what happens when one loses bladder control after ten pints of Guinness, six shots of tequila and a Doner kebab, but it by no means literally describes the behaviour of wedding guests at the evening ’piss up’. The bride does not literally squat on the dance floor, haul her dress around her waist while aiming unsuccessfully at a poorly placed and obviously inadequately sized container, do they (you know who you are)?

As for ‘shitfaced’, apart from a particular raucous evening in Magaluf involving several bottles of cheap white wine, a  gone off oyster and dysentery, the absence of excrement is usually one of the unspoken ambitions for the well oiled evening’s shenanigans. 

Men in drinking and sports groups like to use words in an ironic manner indicating the very opposite of the literal meaning. Here, and excuse me ladies, the use of the C word comes in very handy. It serves as simile, adverb, verb, noun, pronoun and adjective often in the same sentence. The F word does similarly sterling work in this regard. Context is everything, absolutely everything, and foreigners often get it wrong no matter how well they speak the language. Putting your arm around an old uncle who was once in the Royal Navy and knows his way around a bottle of rum, and calling him a ‘c’ is one thing. Doing the same to your dowager great aunt, whose only exposure to the word was an unfortunate incident behind the bike sheds in 1956, is quite another. 

Context. 

The C word steps up to be used often by men as a substitute for an affectionate word to indicate deep love or friendship that is beyond words, and beer, to convey. Calling your mate the c word is a substitute for, “You know what, after some due consideration and after a long association with your good self engaged in projects and experiences of a various nature, I have come to realise that you are a man of impeccable ethics, skills and creativity who is kind to both kittens and daffodils and in my estimation you are a gentleman and a scholar of whose acquaintance I have had the honour to know for quite some time.”. All of this, and much much more in just one word.

‘Wanker’ sometimes will do, but nothing beats a ‘cunt’ in the right context. Just ask my mate in the back bar of the Tyacks in Camborne on a Saturday night. 

I was prompted to think upon this by the frequent use of the word ‘inshallah’ here in Jeddah. It crops up in almost every sentence, especially in those phrases indicating hoped for, or actually planned, action. Its literally meaning is “If Allah wills it” or in English, “God Willing”. We have long since abandoned using that phrase in Bodmin, as God long ago abandoned Bodmin to the dogs and the doggers. 

Again context is everything here, and as I am an outsider I have no idea what the word really means every time I hear it. Do they mean it literally, metaphorically or merely as a verbal tic? In English some people punctuate their sentences with ‘you know’ when you clearly do not, and they have no idea if you do. It is a substitute for breathing in, or for the hard work of thinking, or coming up with a sentence that conveys any meaning meaning beyond the simplistic… you know? So it probably is with ‘inshallah’. No doubt some literally mean it, that their lives are governed by a God who wills absolutely everything and thus nothing they do can come to fruition unless God allows it. I suspect they don’t take it literally though. I suspect it is just a phrase they use instead of a full stop at the end of a sentence. 

They never say “I’m going to buy a camel, inshallah” as they are clearly going to buy a camel come what may. Nor do they say “I’m going to wear those pink silk panties, the ones with the little daisy decoration and more importantly does not ride up the crack of my arse, inshallah”. The wives never say this either. Neither do they they say “I’m going for a dump, inshallah” because clearly over millennia God not only wills it, but has clearly designed it in. But they will say, “ I’ll be in the meeting next week, inshallah” and “I’ll deliver that life saving piece of equipment upon which your hope, dreams and prosperity depends, inshallah”. Well, God had better will it, or better still you, the promisee, should just get on with doing your job and stop blaming imaginary beings in the sky for your fuck ups. You don’t want your doctor saying, “You will be getting adequate pain relief following your bowel resection, inshallah”. No. You want nothing left to chance or God’s will when it comes to having your guts slashed open and a barely trained doctor rummaging around your pancreas with a spoon. 

And if you don’t like the meaning of a word, just change it. I’ll not be offended.

Right, I’m off to get a coffee, inshallah. 

(Warning: there might be a really rude word in this)

Once upon a time there lived a faerie.

Rosemary Dingleberry Fattarse lived under a rock near the red capped white spotted toadstool, sheltered by the fallen oak, riddled with the bore holes of wood lice and beetles, in a green fern shaded glade in the woods in Penponds, near a pixie tribe headed by a matriarch called ‘Joan of the Wad’. Life in the glade was as peachy as a barrel full of soft ripe fruit. Dragonflies danced translucent in the rays of the sun, cobwebs shone in the morning dew and the scent of flowers in season wafted through the treetops. Owls hooted their nighttime symphonies, nightingales greeted the dawn while jackdaws cackled their endless stream of gossip. Rosemary loved the woodland and its inhabitants, be they of fur or flower, and being a ‘faerie’ meant an especial intuitive knowledge of the rolling of the seasons, of where all the creatures lived and where the bears crapped. She loved it all. Except for having to put up with the pixie folk and their wise ass jokes.

The pixies often called Rosemary a ‘fairy’ in passing greeting, which although the two words sound the same, Rosemary could tell they meant ‘fairy’ instead of ‘faerie’. When out of earshot, they called her by another F word. 

This irked Rosemary somewhat because she knew that the pixies knew that ‘fairies’ existed only in the Big People’s little people’s bedtime books and were a class of creature a bit too fey for her liking. Everyone knows a fairy supposedly dies when a kitten is killed, or when one of the Big People taking time out for a bit of ‘me love’. Rosemary had very little time for this level of sensitivity. 

“Flitting about in their tiny gossamer skirts, waving their little wands as if they could make magic out of mere wishes, and taking offence if they see a kitten die or one of the Big People indulging in a little secretive self pleasure……..wankers”. 

…thought Rosemary. Being likened to a bunch of non existent wankers was not to her liking. Mind, there are worse things to be likened to, as Rosemary oft reminded the pixie folk with her choice of colourful epithet for them. 

It had long been established, in Rosemary’s mind at least, that faeries like her were the magical, ass busting, in your face folk-in-the-woods who notably could not care less not only if a kitten dies but would actively gather friends around to eat popcorn to watch it happening, then take pictures to sell the story to the trolls of the Old Oak Forest caves to comment upon on Twitter. As for the self pleasuring activities of the Big People, who did the pixies think were doing the magic whispering in their big wax encrusted earholes in the first place encouraging the act? The Gods had allowed the Big People to evolve without the requirement to indulge in genital self titillation but the Faeries were not be denied a bit of fun. They knew one whisper from them in a receptive ear, then the bashing of bishops, bean flicking and Crafty Shermans would break out from Barnstable to Barnsley. For centuries the faeries had been secretly encouraging this form of distraction and this was the real reason for the fall of the Roman Empire. Nero was too busy choking his chicken to notice the city was on fire. Historians used the euphemism ‘fiddling while Rome burned’ for good reason, they merely omitted what was being fiddled with. Faerie magic was given a boost with the coming of the mobile phone as they now had the new sport of encouraging sexting and sending dick pics. This was proper faerie, not fairy, magic. 

“So, don’t call me a fairy again or I’ll punch your lights out” Rosemary snarked at any pixie who just happened to wander by her Rock. 

Rosemary liked to wear hobnail boots, striped red and white socks and blue denim dungarees. Her hat was made of dried out nettle leaves and oft resembled the remains of a rotting frog sat upon her head. Some of the pixies swore blind that it was actually a rotting frog such was the misshapen appearance of the thing. Dingleberry was not her actual name, merely a nickname picked up at faerie school following an unfortunate incident during the viral pandemic that ripped through the woodland community resulting in the shortage of loo rolls, chocolate and good sense. ‘Dingers’ bore the epithet with pride. Rosemary only shaved on Wednesdays and nurtured her left buttock wart like it was her only child. 

Otherwise, life in the woods was harmonious.

So harmonious that it eventually became boring for Rosemary, or ‘Dingers’ as she was known to her friends. The pixies referred to her merely as Fat Arse, with the emphasise on the two words in a hilarious and very clever play on words, as they saw it, of her surname.

Sat upon the bank of the little stream that tinkled its way under the woodland canopy, Rosemary was dipping her toes in the clear water while trying to spear the minnows with a bramble prick and flicking fag ash onto the head of a nearby daisy.

“Morning, Mrs Fairy” said a passing pixie on his way to buy a pasty. 

“Fuck off, you spotty little cunt” thought Rosemary, but merely nodded in his direction with a barely concealed grimace. 

“….and its Mrs Faerie to you, you little shit” she said. 

Thus was a modicum of discord sown in the woodland. 

“Christ, this is boring…I’m going to have to do something to stir things up around here or else my nipples will shrivel and my crotch runs dry”. 

The thing is, a woodland may be a beautiful place, but not much excitement occurs. Bluebells come and go, primroses bloom, leaves fall off trees and rabbits do what rabbits do. Once you’ve watched a of few them doing it a few times,  the gloss wears thin. The closest thing a faerie gets to an exciting adventure is when a bear enters the wood to do what bears are renowned for doing and does it on a faerie’s sleeping head. That was how Rupert “Dumphead” Twicepringle got his nickname. 

“Right” Rosemary said, “I’m off to find a dying kitten” and with that she stood up and stanked out of the wood in the direction of the wind. No need for a map or a compass because faeries use the clouds to navigate by, even when they can’t see them for the leaves above their heads. They can smell a cumulus from about 2000 feet away, which is just as well because that’s how far away they often were. 

Now, you may think that Rosemary’s hunt for pussy adventure was a rather heartless aim to have in life, and that there is enough misery on the planet without the need to make feline demise a spectator sport for the faeries. You might think that life has many other beautiful things to enjoy – a waterfall in a glade, the fresh fallen snow on a crisp winter’s morn, the smell of a pasty fresh out of the oven. For ‘all things bright and beautiful’ Rosemary cared not a toss. She had run out of tosses to give, moved through the big box of fucks till it was empty and had long ago exhausted the store of the tinker’s cuss. 

Just as she rounded the 300 year old oak which stood sentinel at the entrance to the woodland, Rosemary came across the old granite style which led to a path across a meadow towards the village of Thrustbottom-cum-Erly, when her WhatsApp pinged a message. 

“Don’t forget to visit Old Scrotewrinkle”. 

Old Scrotewrinkle was one of the Big People, the village accountant who liked to cook curries and chillis as well as the books. Rosemary had him down as a regular who needed the magic whisper in his ear to prevent his sanity from slipping its boots on and throwing itself down the village well due in no small measure to a severe lack of female attention. Unable to see a faerie, all he knew was that from time to time (every day) he heard a wee small voice that said “time to crack one off”. That would be Rosemary, knowing full well that the fairies would find it distasteful if they ever found out. Which they never did. Because they don’t exist, except in…‘fairy stories’.

Anyway. ‘Old Scrotewrinkle’ or Thomas Jefferson Muffnuzzle to give him his real name, was busy in the kitchen when Rosemary walked through the wall. He was a well built man who was as wide as he was tall, the sort to be found in the middle of a rugby scrum. Weary of age and demeanour he was nonetheless throwing himself into chopping onions and garlic for tonight’s bum burner of a vindaloo. A unopened bottle of cold lager at hand, he threw the knife about with the skill of a Jihadi executioner. He hummed a little song to himself such was his current state of contentment. Little did he know what Rosemary was going to suggest in his ear. Mind, he should have suspected for it would not have been the first time. 

She settled on his left shoulder and was about to whisper her magic spell when she heard,

“Fancy a beer with that curry…go on, you know you do”. 

It was none other than Joan of the Wad, the pixie Queen on his right shoulder. 

“What the f…?’ cried Rosemary, “I know that voice!” 

Looking right through Scrotewrinkle’s left ear she spotted Joan on the other side through his right ear. She could do this because there is a straight tube connecting the left and right ears of the Big People so that faeries and pixies can look inside the heads and mess them up a little. This does not appear in any anatomy book because faeries do not write, or publish for that matter, anatomy books. Nor do pixies and they are the only ones, along with the faeries, who know this tube is there. They call it the Central Line as it runs through the centre of the Big People’s heads. 

“What do you think you are doing, I was here first!” cried Rosemary, and to reinforce her point she shouted into his left ear “Bugger the beer, bash the bishop instead!” 

Thomas nearly dropped his knife at this and was momentarily quite confused for both suggestions were spot on even if it did set up a degree of cognitive dissonance. He wisely thought that strangling the monkey was probably not a good idea while wielding a rather sharp knife. 

“Bring on the Beer” whispered Joan.

“Bash the Bishop” Rosemary replied. 

“Beer!”

“Bishop!”

This went on for a for a full five minutes.

Thomas had difficulty knowing what to do but had no understanding of what was going on. Being an accountant he rarely read medical text books but knew that inside his head was a lumpy gooey mess called a brain.  He thought it looked like a bunch of uncooked Cumberland sausages all squished and filled in together, and he believed this is where his inner voices came from. 

What he had no idea of was the magical reality of two semi mythological creatures yelling at each other through a semi permeable tube running through a a colourful kaleidoscopic but empty cavern. The words entered the tube and bits of them by osmosis floated through the walls of the tube and entered the cavernous emptiness taking on a mystical form of many colours as they bounced around in a quantum dance for dominance. They took on surreal forms of fighting creatures locked in a war of attrition to decide which word would win out to pull the decision handle which sits right at the centre. I say ‘sits’ but really it floats in the ether. It is pink and fluffy and can be blown by the gentlest breeze at times, while also at other times it could not be bent by a tornado’s blast. Its molecular structure had yet to be discovered and no one in the universe knew exactly how it worked but somehow the words had some effect. In the fight for supremacy, the words would access the pool of emotions that sat in bowl to the left of the decision handle and whoever could stir this bowl first often won out as he decision handle often turned in the same direction as the emotion bowl. The problem currently was that both the words ‘beer’ and ‘bishop’ had previously agitated this bowl quite vigorously, and thus were equally adept at stirring the emotions but in equal but opposite directions.

The emotion bowl was fed by external substances that could enhance or disturb its contents. These substances included memories as well as the more mundane coffee and cocaine. Flooding the bowl was always an option but then one risked the decision handle flying off into the maelstrom of quantum singularities of which, ironically, there was more than one. We intuitively know this happens because when emotions gets disturbed in this manner we actually talk about ‘flying off the handle’. 

The effect on Thomas made him wonder if his sanity had left home leaving it in the charge of a basket of idiots. 

Joan and Rosemary, blissfully unaware of what was going on, just kept shouting at each other from ether side of Thomas’ head. 

Later, back in the woodland, Joan and Rosemary were sat on the banks of the little stream smoking weed and munching magic mushrooms while flicking blackberry seeds at  the midges. 

“That was fun, we should do that more often”said Joan.

“Oh yes, fucked him up good and proper” said Rosemary. 

They were now bezzie mates after what they had just witnessed.

Thomas’s case was due before the magistrate the next morning after he was found wandering the high street pissed as a tank upped newt on new years’s eve and butt naked with turmeric coloured testicles. The police doctor duly noted he was hearing voices and called for a psychiatric assessment. 

And thats the truth about mental illness. The voices are very real, and there is nothing in your head but a fluffy decision handle that can be pulled in any direction as emotion wills. 

What do you do when the temperature reaches 36 on average, so that an ordinary walk to the shops results in rapid dehydration, electrolyte imbalance and heat stroke? Walking at a pace that is above what we would call ‘ambling’ creates the conditions for sweating like a half-naked stoker feeding the coal fired boiler of a steam ship in the Tropics. I’d have lost less water building Pharoah’s tomb, weeding the hanging Gardens of Bablyon, or on day three hanging from the middle cross of a particularly nasty crucifixion at midsummer with only a couple of mozzie bitten thieves as company. So, yes, it is hot here and it is going to get worse. 

The view from the air-conditioned hotel is misleading. It looks beautiful outside. Well-watered lawns and green shrubs, palm trees waving in the onshore breeze, the clearest of clear blue skies and a sea that encourages toe dipping, if not full-on skinny dipping at the full moon midnight. The latter is frowned upon which is a good thing. There are sea snakes in the Red Sea who would no doubt try to mate with your willy in the water if you got too close. A sign at the sea’s edge clearly states: ‘NO SWIMMING’ and then underneath it ‘violators will be punished’. I love it when non-native speakers translate what is clearly a second tongue. I know I mash up French and Spanish, and translating Arabic into English must be tricky, but violators? This word conjures up visions of transgressions so heinous it would make the Devil blush with embarrassment. And ‘Punished’ prefaced by ‘will be’. So, no trial then to establish guilt, no chance to plead mitigation, ask for a lawyer or go to confession. Punished. And in a country which will cut a hand off for masturbation and buggery is a stoning offence (how they catch you is anybody’s guess), ‘punish’ means an experience involving regret, anticipation and a good deal of pain. They are going to get medieval on your ass. 

“Apologies, officer, but I was just dipping my toes in the water’s edge”.

“I understand that, sir, but you were also butt naked and pissed as a parrot…Ahmed, fetch me my favourite baton, the one with the thickest end…and don’t bother with the lubricant, this one’s going in dry, inshallah”. 

“I’m going to enjoy this” he thinks.

Saudi justice can be swift and saves the courts millions of Riyals every day. 

So, what do you do when it gets too hot, and you can’t go swimming?

Eat. 

I have heard about the ‘Saudi Stone’ which is a contagious disease easily caught by visitors to the country. Bear in mind that for the best part of nine months of the year, outdoor pursuits is for the professionally backed up athletes with a van supplying ice cold water and first aid equipment that includes defibrillators, endotracheal tubes and cotton buds. This means any calories consumed have to be used in activities such as thinking, sleeping and breathing rather than the running of 10ks and walking to the shops. As I look across the water from the hotel there are no dinghies, canoes, paddle boarders or wind surfers. No one is expending calories in any great rate of knots either on or off the water. There are no peletons of cyclists, no joggers, no brisk walkers with or without dogs, which in any case are ‘haram’ in Saudi culture. Apparently, they consider any animal that habitually licks its own bollocks, routinely seeks out an arsehole to sniff, shits at will anywhere, and which returns to its own vomit, as ‘unclean’. Fancy. That will be why I have seen one dog in 6 weeks here. 

Opportunities for exercise outside are limited. Add to that the fact that petrol is about 40 pence a litre, making not only driving cheap but actively encourages driving everywhere in air-conditioned comfort. 

Opportunities to eat are legion.  England is of course a great example of the obesogenic environment, but here it takes the sport of weight gain to Olympic standards. Saudi Arabia has joined other developed nations as a viable contender for being the land of fat bastards.

Sweet tea, coffee and dates. Now this is a standard offering when visiting a friend’s house, or the office or a meeting, or when coming back from the loo, or anywhere. The dates are small bombs of sugary energy exploding in your mouth providing enough oomph in calories to launch a space shuttle. Of course, they are delicious, absolutely delicious. And ubiquitous. In the foyer of the hotel there is a chap in an embroidered black and gold waistcoat over his long white thawb, a fez like gold and white silk hat, standing with a small trolley serving small cups of sweet Arabic coffee and dates. For free. You have to walk right past him and there is no avoiding the morning greeting of ‘Salaam Alaikum’ and the offer of a coffee and date. The shining golden coffee pot sits upon a silver stand warmed by a tea light. The waft of coffee steam out of its spout calls one forward. I suspect if you rub the pot, a genie will pop out and grant you three wishes, the first of which would be ‘can you make the dates zero calories?’

When I do venture outside, in the relative cool of an early evening, I have to pass what are euphemistically called ‘restaurants.’  I’d call them ‘cardiovascular and type 2 diabetes risk factors.’ They are in reality, biohazards, and should be signposted as such. Instead, they are allowed to flaunt their wares in a brazen display of braggadocio only matched by a ‘pussied up’ Trump high on the approval of a hooting stadium of bourbon drunk rednecks just back from a lynching. The levels of toxicity contained within each ‘restaurant’ makes Chernobyl seem like a Butlins Holiday Camp. They hide the poison in oodles of processed carbs, sugar and fat, and they have pulled off the trick that every successful virus uses – don’t kill the host (immediately). We have to admit that this shit tastes really good, and over here they don’t even need booze to encourage consumption. The kebab shops seem to be doing a roaring trade even without hordes of lager lads pouring out of pubs at midnight hell bent on food, fighting and fisting*. 

On the road into the mountain town of Taif one comes across monkeys. They are to be found on the section of road that climbs 5000 feet in about 5 miles, not unlike Alpe D’Huez or Mont Ventoux. Humans like monkeys. Perhaps it is because they remind us of ourselves shorn of a shame that holds us back from behaving as they do. Perhaps we secretly wish to be as free as a monkey whose sole concern appears to be about finding food, and humping anything that remotely looks or smells like a female monkey even if that turns out to be a tourist’s leg.  A delicacy here is monkey meat. Only in upscale restaurants in Taif can you get it. They serve the brains in a broth and deep fry the big male’s testicles. They do it is such a way that the crisp batter is juxtaposed with the soft jelly inside which explodes as a salty gush of liquid upon the palette in a manner recognised no doubt by the members of a hen party at midnight in Magaluf. 

Just around the corner from the hotel is a Japanese restaurant. Its quality is such that I call it a destination restaurant, you know…a place worth driving across town for. An appetiser of Dynamite Prawns, followed by the sweetest, most succulent raw scallops and a lobster cooked to perfection served with wok fried vegetables in Tonkatsu sauce. The only missing ingredients, apart from my wife of course, is a beer or a decent saki. The scallops are flown in from Japan every day. How is that even possible? Back home Cornish fishermen are going out of business because they can’t sell their catch just across the channel? 

My contract ends at the end of January next year, if I’m still alive. To get there I’ll have to avoid the attentions of the local fuzz, hit the hotel’s gym and suck on a lettuce leaf while dreaming of a pasty and a pint of spingo. 

*fisting: a euphemism for a private ritual carried out in secret between two adults not of a nervous disposition but with a deviant sense of adventure.