Too Much To Declare

I'm beginning to regret agreeing to spend the whole weekend at my mother's, staying Saturday night with a neighbour.

Last week it felt a fine idea - meaning my sister would feel free not to go there for the whole weekend.

Of course my mother has a carer. But she doesn't want care. She wants company. The company of one of her two "children".

Why should the prospect of this simple two day stay upset me so much? I am still so screwed up. I want to scream.

Andy Murray isn't the first Brit to be a Wimbledon Finalist since the Coronation of George VI, he the first semi finalist since Tin Henman.

Unlike Henman, he will probably win a Grand Slam, here on abroad before long. And his oponent, Andy Roddick, will be thrashed by Federer on Sunday.

It's quite unreasonable, and grandiose, and means nothing because I will never get near the guy. And he seems all nicey-nicey in interview. But I have loathed Andy Roddick since the first time I saw him play. To me, on the court he comes over as such and arrogant bastard - but then he's a pretty good player so why shouldn't he?

What is with public figures - in sport or politics or show biz - why do we often feel so passionate about them, when we know so little? We feel we have a right to judge them?

Mind you, the BBC commentators told us he saw a photo of a young model in a swimwear catalogue, got his people to get in touch with her people - and the rest is a celebrity love story.... Elton John played at their wedding, blah, blah.

Phew! Thank goodness, I have got a proper reason to despise Andy Roddick now.

As of now, Michael Jackson has only 112,000,000 results showing on Google, compared to 415 million for God and 716,000,000 for sex.

And imagine what would happen if either of those had a sudden death!

I have been thinking about the two or three months after I was expelled from school - on the last day of my last term.

Usually - including elsewhere here http://alphamin.blog.co.uk/2007/02/16/making_a_man_of_me_perhaps_a_monkey~1753638/ - I have presented the episode with wry amusement. I was never given a specific reason for being thrown out, except that the Headmaster feared I would ring-lead a last minute, spectacular rebellion - along the lines of the film If, which - in fact - was made several years later.

There were no such plans. We were bored with school, and longing to leave it.

On the other hand, I wanted to say good-bye to all my friends, and exchange home addresses and phone numbers. I had only made a substantial number of friends in my last year.

But, because I had to leave in a hurry (my father was summoned) there were no good-byes, and I only stayed in touch with one or two.

I cannot explain how devastated I felt, or why.

For months afterwards, I felt depressed, rootless, morose. It's the only time I ever remember considering suicide - staring the third, electric rail alongside Platform 3 on Surbiton station in August that year.

At the time, I was still very close to my father and I told him about wanting to throw myself on to the track. "Don't be silly" he said dismissively. I never let myself be silly again.

I saw a new Aryurvedic doctor on Monday and he is keen I go on a heavily restrictive diet.

It's daunting. To begin with I am meant to spend three days eating - or drinking nothing more than soup made from Mung beans. (This is to be followed by 36 hours on water only, but we'll go into that at the moment).

Mung beans. Frankly, I didn't feel excited at the prospect.

But then I read today that the British Army in Afghanistan had announced a massive seizure of opium poppy seeds - only to discover a week later (thanks to the UN's FAO) that the "seeds" were in fact Mung beans, being grown in large quantities by farmers in Helmand Province as a opium substitution crop.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/30/kabul-opium-haul-british-military

So this afternoon, preparing for my diet, I bought some Afghan Mung, more in hope than expectation

So that's 50% of 2009 gone, then.

And I haven't even...

Who's up for half-time Resolutions?

After all this time blogging here I've learnt that my posts on tennis don't get much attention, so I've been holding off writing about Wimbledon.

But spare a thought for the world Number 1 tennis player, lying beside his swimming pool in Majorca. Rapha Nadal (my favourite player of all time) is nursing a knee injury and unable to defend the Wimbledon singles title he won last year. Some reporters (probably to get headlines) have speculated that it's possible he will never to be able to play again.

Nadal has, though, had one huge, but hitherto unremarked, impact on professional tennis - that is on the post match Press Conference. He has abolished the adverb.

Tennis is one of the most international of sports, but it seems to be a requirement that you can answer interview questions in English - which must be Rapha's third language. Understandably he cuts some linguistic corners. "I played very aggressive, but he returned great."

And there's something catching about his style.

This Wimbledon I've noticed every single male player/interviewee - native English speaker or not and very much including Andy Murray - has abandoned adverbs for adjectives. "He played good." "He served phenomenol".

So English becomes slow but sure a world language.

Following my previous post, about people's reaction to Michael Jackson's (apparent) death, I've been wondering which public figures' deaths I would/will find shocking, sad, or even devastating?

Absurdly in a way, the first person that comes to my mind is Fidel Castro. I have never been a Communist Party member and have long had criticisms of his rule in Cuba - as well as great admiration. He has been in power (okay, now self-sidelined) since before JFK was US President. The "end of an era" cliche will never be truer. It will feel - for a few weeks only, maybe - as the end of socialism.

Other public figures - well, sudden deaths of anyone young always feel tragic... But someone else have a go and suggest someone.

Like at the time of the sudden death of the People's Princess, I have felt alienated, even hostile, to the mourning of the death of the King of Pop. But maybe not for the same reasons.

The day Diana died in 1997, I was in the Isle of Wight for my aunt's funeral. I had been very close to my aunt, especially for a few well-remembered months of my childhood when she brought me up. The flags at half-mast, the flowers, the emotional crowds ... it all felt so secondhand, vicarious, superficial, false... compared to my own, private grief at my aunt's death.

So part of my resistance to Jackomania has been memories of the Diana Moment - which a lot of people felt embarrassed about some time afterwards.

Also, he wasn't Prince! He was about as "alternative" as Pepsi! And he hung his child out of the Berlin Hotel window! And none of them may have been his children! The Allegations! The Bleaching! The blah, the blah.

Yes, yes. But, for me - slightly uncomfortably - there is more to my resistance to the hysteria than that.

Basically, he was not John Lennon.

Nothing should ever surpass the grief I felt the days after John Lennon was murdered. (Certainly not the death of Elvis a few years earlier, which I barely noticed.)

Lennon was great. His best songs have a brazen honesty which....

Okay. (I've turned on my hyperbole limiter) But, more importantly, Lennon was my generation.

So, I come to the annoying truth - Michael Jackson was after my time.

Lets not exaggerate. I thrilled a bit to Thriller. FGS, I made a pop video of Bad which got discussed in Media Studies seminars. And, btw, Lennon seldom features on my present playlist; at the moment I'm listening to Massive Attack - no longer cutting edge maybe, but hardly antique.

But Pop... I no longer listen to, identify with Pop.

So, a have a frisson of a feeling that I'm old, that I am losing touch.

- claims the Brighton Argus, as ever keen on relevant comparisons.

In fact, the whole *****post deleted.

Just need to scream.

1. When, in an exchange trip, aged 12, I stayed with a family in France, the only complete sentence I spoke in French was "Je suis fou." TRUE

2. One of the boys I had sex with at boarding school is now a High Court Judge in the Family Division. LIE

3. In the 1964 General Election, I was the youngest political agent in the country, agent to the Liberal candidate in Guildford. TRUE

No one got it right.
I'm mortified.
What kind of guy do you think I am!?!

I am about to have my first therapy/cranial massage session since I came back from holiday.

Don't ask me why, but I don't think I've often felt as nervous as this in my entire life... excepy perhaps when I was sent to boarding school, aged 9.

1. When, in an exchange trip, aged 12, I stayed with a family in France, the only complete sentence I spoke in French was "Je suis fou."

2. One of the boys I had sex with at boarding school is now a High Court Judge in the Family Division.

3. In the 1964 General Election, I was the youngest political agent in the country, agent to the Liberal candidate in Guildford.

It's a bit elephant-in-the-roomish isn't it? The BCUK Featured Blog page. We don't talk about it much in public.

"Featuring" seems to go in phases.

I first noticed my new featured phase while on holiday. I had to "sign in" on the BCUK Home page - and low and behold I was being featured there. This list-of-four changes a bit during the day and allegedly bares no relation to the 18 featured blogs on the next page.

But the next time I logged in I was featured there.

Why? Had I really had more hits or made or got more Comments than on dozens of previous occasions when - as far as I know - I had not been listed?

Dunno. Haven't many clues how it is calculated - perhaps they only count hits from BCUK members. Perhaps it's based an arbitary and varying 24 hour period. Or it's cumulative in some way. No theory seems to fit. The seems to be a sort of Zen Factor.

Two things I have noticed. Once my blog is there, it seems to stay there for a bit, however few comments or pageviews I get. Then I disappear and its ages, despie a brilliant number of hits, before Too Much to Declare is featured again. Subjectively, I seemed happens with other blogs, too.

Secondly, if my blog is featured, it almost always seems to come up in the middle of the list - between places 7 and 12. Seldom in the top or bottom six. Others seem to be stuck elsewhere.

Anyway, that's all I have got to say on the subject. In a way I wish I had never discovered the silly list. Being on it doesn't increase the sum of my happiness. But being off it for a long time makes me feel vaguely aggrieved - and annoyed with myself for taking the slightest bit of notice of a thoroughly bizaare, apparently random system.

Of course the post below shouldn't be taken too seriously.

It merely indicates a new attitude, a slight change of mood.

I am perfect in every way. (Mmmm! I even smell good!)

Up until today I have not acknowledged my own perfection. I've been too modest. Too ready to please others.

And so there was an element of my perfection missing.

No longer.

Now I am a perfect narcissist. Worship or piss off.

Is it ever all right to generalise?

I don't mean 'politically correct', but accurate.

Of course, 'it's never all right to generalise' is a joke, a contradiction in terms.

"In the end, everybody dies." You can't really quibble with that.

But
"All Yorkshiremen are mean" (we usually exclude women) ?
"All Germans get up early"?
"Essex girls are blonde and stupid"?
"All middle-aged Poles are mononoglots"?
"Scientists do not need to use their imagination"?
"No one has ever gone into politics except to make money"?

Forget the abuse issue - is it ever useful to make generalisations like these?

And is it funny?

Often, this time on a Friday evening, I am expending a lot of energy searching for something significant to say.

How sad.

I've remembered at last!

In 1987, as head of an Audio Visual department in a Scottish University, I dressed up as a Catholic Cardinal for a Christmas pop video cover of Michael Jackson's Bad. We even used a deconsecrated cathedral for me to "preach" from a pulpit, and rise from a grave. To be honest, I hoped to offend the pious Presbytarians who worked for the department, but they loved it.

I've still got it on VHS, but it's too much hassle to put it on YouTube. And maybe illegal.

Conservative MPs have been ordered to give up their 'second', extra parliamentary, jobs by David Cameron - a millionaire who desn't need to work.

Most of the MPs who earn money do so by being non-executive directors. In other words, they are generously rewarded to attending monthly Board meetings and occasionally pontificating.

This is a job I could do well.

I can easily switch to a plummy accent. I can do pompous if required. Turning a blind eye to corporate corruption and excess would come naturally to me if I were well-rewarded. And - bending my usually rigid sartorial rules - I would agree, on big occasions, to wear a suit and tie.

If you are a CEO or Company Secretary in need of paying a non-executive vast sums of money for doing very little, but doing it with style, please send me a Personal Message.

I am getting on much better with my sister at the moment.

Twitter, twitter?

"I would trade my body for Michael's tomorrow, he's in fantastic shape," said AEG Live's president, Randy Phillips, a few weeks ago.

It's four days since I got back from my holiday and it's beginning to look as if I'm not going to get round to writing two long posts about my stay in Vienna, which are still lurking in my head.

I really liked Vienna. There seemed to be a lifestyle there that I could really enjoy - given a little money, and the language. But the moment has passed when I could have written about my experiences in the present tense.

On the other hand, I still don't feel quite back, quite here, home. I feel restless, full of resolve and ambition one minute - or half day - and consumed by panic the next.

So... so what? I don't know what. Lots of unkown unknowns.

I need somebody with more HTML experience than I have.

I am trying to paste in a Paypal button to this blog, so I can at last offer copies of my novel Low Life Games for sale.

But whenever I try to past the button into a post I get the following messages in red.

* Tag input is not allowed within tag input
* Tag input is not allowed within tag input
* Tag input may not have attribute border
* Tag img is not allowed within tag input

What can I do? How can I stop a tag unput being within a tag input? What does it mean?

I have seen several posts in the last week or so suggesting that blogging isn't as interesting or as as popular as it used to be.

That's a subject addressed in this article in the Technology Guardian today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/24/charles-arthur-blogging-twitter

Stay with it - it gets more interesting towards the end.

The basic argument is that people prefer Facebook or Twitter.

I don't - but there you go.

One fact quoted from 2008. Out of 133 million blogs tracked by Technorati (which includes this one) only 7.4 million had been updated in the last 120 days. I wonder what the figure would be for this year?

Fellow bloggers, are we a dying breed?

Or is that "dieing bread"? Every day that passes, my spelling is becoming more imaginative.

What is the most frightening thing you can imagine?

For some unaccountable reason, finally unpacking from my holiday, I found tucked away in the zip pocket of my two-year-old suitcase the Essay Question for an exam which I (apparently) took in Cambridge on Thursday June 3rd 1965 between 1.30 and 4.30 in the afternoon.

I had three hours to discuss one of the following (which did I choose? I haven't a clue. I do remember that my wife had miscarried at five months two weeks earlier.)

1. Democtritus

2. Plato's Republic.

3. Aristotle's Criticism of Plato.

4. Necessity.

5. Intention.

6. Existentialism.

7. Locke and Hume on personal identity.

8. Spinoza is Descartes made consistent.

9. Kant and causation.

10 Rules and Ideals.

11. Truth.

12. Falsibility.

Save all the jokes about three days of sunshine and two more to come. Sometimes, this week - the first of Wimbledon - is the rainiest of the year.

But how come today is labelled, in diaries and on the radio, Midsummer's Day?

The Summer solstice - which I understand to be the longest day - was as usual celebrated on June 21st. So what does the phrase Midsummer's Day actually mean?

Is it a weird example of a corporate branding exercise? Or like the Queen's Official Birthday, nothing to do with reality?

Has anyone got an explanation?

My mother tells me she met the new House of Commons Speaker, John Bercow a few years back. He is not very tall. "I don't like men to be so short," she added. At least he is now married with three children. At the time I think she imagined he was gay.

I imagined I'd be full of energy today, doing this, that and plenty else. Plus write at least two substantive blogs wrapping up my holiday with accounts of my stay in Vienna.

But, of course, I have run out of energy. If fact, if I hadn't drunk too much coffee waking up this morning, I might have slept all afternoon.

Lets face it. Holidays are pretty exhausting.

My shower's better than their showers.

My bed's much nicer than their beds.

And, er, my curtains are no worse.

When the Grand Vizier, Kara Mustafa, besieged Vienna in 1683 (the Rough Guide tells me) he brought with him 100,000 infantry, 50,000 cavalary, a harem of over 1500 concubines guarded by 700 black eunuchs, a contingent of clowns and numerous poets trained in bawdy songs.

He didn't manage to capture the city, though.

Got back from my holiday about an hour ago. Lots to write about Vienna... maybe. Probably later... tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'm going to check out the sea.

So, for me it is good bye to Slovakia and the Tantra mountains. In a couple of hours I will catch a train to Vienna. On Sunday I fly back to Blighty Gatwick.

I will miss the moutains. I will miss the hills opposite the mountains, which look like the Platonic ideal of those drawings and paintings of hills I attempted as a teenager.

I will miss the clinic and its partly incompehensible procedures - turf on my back, for instance, which I have learnt to appreciate. Just as I leave, thez seem to have started doing good.

I will miss the Slovakians bewildered goodwill towards me. Only the rip-off Bank, and the Church yesterday get my omata. Spelling?

I will not miss the terrible, over elabourate food. I have learnt to negotiate a reasonable compromise diet, but next week I will be preparing my own spartan recovery plan.

I will not miss the radio. I have already hear Moonshadow twice today.

And I will not miss this keyboard, with the y and z transposed, and no brackets or hzphens. But thats life.

What I will miss most of all is the pure mountain air.

Yesterday, a coach trip to a medieval town, lively, with a coffee museum - my favourite - a lively cafe which served me scrambled egg, four other museums - two interesting, one full of sicklz-painted medieval statues by somebody called Master Paul.

The fourth museum was closed for lunch from 11 to 12. The cathedral church was closed, too. A uberpompous priest padlocked in front of me, recocgnising, no doubt - clever chap - un an Unbeliever. The whole town stank of Catholic Fascism, with some nice people suffering it. Feminists, I will tell you about the cage when I can download the photo.

We also visited one of the largest ruined castles anywhere in Europe. It says here. Brilliant weather. Brilliant to explore.

The coach itself was full of middle aged Slovakians - plus me and a guy from Montreal who spoke very little English and prefered practicing his Slovakian to chatting in his nasal French to me. I - for reasons you may remember - or not, whatever - dont have even a phrase book with me, so the non stop commentary was pretty incomprehensible.

Still, I did gather that there is a grass court tennis tournament going on somehere in the country at the moment, presumablz a preparation for Wimbledon. We all applauded when reminded that a Slovakian woman has just won the French Open.

Also - although ignored by our tour guide - I saw a poster for the visit for a magnificently bearded Maharishi explaining the joys of meditation. And, just by the poster - on the outskirts of the very same town which had smelt so Catholic Churchy - hundreds of local citizesn were surging into the hall where the Marahishi would be speaking over an hour later.

Now I am no practioner of oriental religion, but the sight brought as smile to my face.

Have ads started appearing on Too Much to Declare?

I dont have a webmail account. I think BCUK must have spent me a message demanding money during my holiday absence.

If there are ads arround this text, every one is a lie.

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Tolz. Brilliant, erratic, sometimes annoying, compelling, very long. One of the few novels I have ever read where the last 100 - out of 700 - pages are the strongest.

Vinters Luck by Elizabeth Knox. Annoying, overpraised story about angels and making wine. Last few chapters worst.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Brilliant first half, but he does seem to get lost in the end about his attitude to Kurtz. What does anyone else think?

The Spare Room by Helen Garner. Havent finished it yet. If I read it too fast I will have nothing left for the last days of the holiday - back Sunday.

One thing these books have in common is that all have a majoz character dieing. Oh, dear. Is this why I chose them? Even though dieing isnt made explicit in 3 of the 4 blurbs.

How many grasshoppers die of natural causes?

About one in ten Polish men look like Freddie Mercury. Bedraggled moustache, poppy eyed - but the uncles look scared, too. Shoulder and upper arms with muscles gone to seed.

Then on Saturday, in the lift, I met a Slovakian uncle. The sight of him reminded me I wanted to write a post about Freddie)s Slavic relatives.

As soon as I got into breakfast, the radio played "We are the Champions". Unnerving. During the rest of the day thez played at least more Queen tracks. Was it an anniversary? Was it - or me being sznchronisitous?

I know what the one, clearly AM, station plays because you cant get away from it. Sting is singing to me through a tinz speaker as I type this. He would be singing to me in every shop in town, in every treatment room in the Clinic, in the restuarant, in the station... Two thirds of the playlist seems to be a direct copy of Radio 1 circa 1980. Or as they say in Slovakian, +íáé. The sound quality competes with the best "your call is importnat to us" call centre music.

Anyhow, talking of Queens...

I went up a furnicular railway yesterday, and began a walk in the mountains. Just before I left the cafe area I passed a group of Americans and realised I hadnt heard "native" Enlglish spoken for a week. I felt almost miffed that I had I had heard some now. Still, I thought, I bet Brits tend to be so unadventurous. I bet no UK passport holder has been up here for some time.

Oh, hubris.

Perhaps no passport holder. But on the very next wall I passed there was a plaque, celebrating tthe visit to the High Tatras, in October 2008, of her maj Queen Elizabeth 2.

I am at a disadvantage here.

This kezboard, different from the last one, is also biyaare. This time round, the y is actuallz labelled z, and vica versa. And I am used to Mac controls, so pasting a link is at present proving insummountable.

Whats more, I am out of the country, so I do not check this site every day.

So I do resent being ha ha teasingly attacked by two so called "Friends" on one of their sites. Time Killing Kid and Grrrl seem to have had a great time going for me in a "funny" way, knowing full well that I might not catch what they said. And, no, I dont lack a sense of humour, but the same weak joke endlessly repeated does not make it funny.

Check out TKKs site, because I cant find a way of giving you the link.

TKK and Grrrl. I wonder what they will call their love child.

Should I close Comments to this post, seeing that I maz not be able to sign in for a few days? Nah, do your idiot worst.

Getting used to the altitude.

It would be just what the doctor ordered, if I had TB.

It§s brilliantly beautiful here in the Slovakian Tantras, and - though I havent checked, we are abpu as high up as Mexico City, or Davros in Switzerland, where heroines go in old fashioned novels to clear their lungs. Zesterday I visited somewhere higher than anz point in the UK - and there was still a mountain to climb. Er, I didnt.

At first walking, or rather hiking, is a lot more effort. But now my hay fever is clearing, mz brain too, and it feels as if the last vestiges of dope smoking and what I might call sentimental vagueness are disappearing in vapour upwards through the clear sky.

However, I came here on this health-kick holiday to clear up my digestive problems by going on a heavy diet. Thats proving impossible. Basically the food served in restuarants is terrible, and the nearest place to buy fresh food is - Tesco = a thirty minute train ride, plus taxi away. Or a market in a non tourist village unreachable without a car.

Still, life is not onlz about following plans. And right now, my spirits are almost as high as the altitude

False alarm. The Tourist Office was closing (see previous post) but someone has volunteered to keep it open for me. Slovakia appears to have wonderful examples of a phrase I coined to myself in Vienna last week (I might blog about my Viennese experiences later, on a slack day when I get home) - It-s less than my jobs worth. People keep doing me off-the-rule-book good turns.

The Polish taxi driver who took me 20 kilometres across the frontier when it turned out that the train that was timetabled to take me there only ran for 10 days in July had a similar generosity, reducing his quite reasonable price when he saw how few Polish zloties I had left.

Anywhere, I have found a Slovakian Health Resort beneath some spectacular mountains (and itself 1000 metres high) where there is very little English spoken, but a huge willingness to communicate and be helpful. My hotel is big, but not that smart. The doctor here too has very little English, but he immediately sent for his daughter who was home for the week to revise for University exams and she translated. I am having some really weird treatments,which I may write about later. As I wasnt expecting to spend much time in Slovakia, I have no phrase book, but for the moment it doesnt seem to matter.

A lot more to say, but this keyboard - with the Z and Y keys transposed and the numbers requiring Caps Lock is beginning to wear me down.

So, Greetings from Vysoké Tatry!

The Headlines
The spa town I was booked to stay in southern Poland is slow to get to by any means of transport. It is in a beautiful setting, surrounded by wooded hills - the location for the story of the allegedly absurd recent film Angels and Demons, although I do not think it was shot there.

However, the hotel/sanatorium I was booked into was a nightmare for me. Despite assurances given to my Polish friend on the phone, no one spoke - or was interested in speaking - a word of English. My friend had recently stayed in a similar resort with her mum and she thought it would be good to help with my digestive problems.

But how could it help when the Hattie-Jakes-alike doctor flipped through my lavishly illustrated Polish phrase book as if were a catalogue for undersized bras, and grinned with self-satisfaction at her owned unwillingness to meet me, linguistically a tenth of the way? How could I go on a diet when meals were fixed menu - including piles of grated carrots which do me no good and mashed potato in tonne sized bowls - and at fixed times, at fixed place sittings. Yes, it was like being back at boarding school, except with hundreds of middle-aged, overweight monoglot Poles!

After London, Brighton and indeed Vienna and Krakow on the way, I had forgotten that anywhere touristic could be totally of one language, with a hostility to all others. Even the Tourist Information Person resented making the effort...

Compare and contrast where I am now, in Slovakia, in a similar tourist info office. True this keyboard has keys in al the wrong places, and I have got to sign off now because its closing -excuse no apostaphes.

HELP!!

Looks as if, though it is/will be a near thing, I was wrong. Brown may well stay on as PM, stuck in the mud.

Never underestimate the incompetence of Labour rebel MPs.

Still, the fat lady hasn't sung yet (whoever she is in the context I haven't a clue) There's still a chance he will burst into tiny fragments on the steps of No 10.

PS As I wrote the above, another story had broken, about a secret ballot of Labour MPs. Hell, I can't keep up with this. I'm going back on holiday.

(another post from Krakow)
I love travelling. I hate being a tourist. It's those guides I feel I have to buy, free maps to pore over, churches musuems battle sights palaces gardens expensive restaurants trendy cafes you SIMPLY MUST VISIT.

Very soon, I'm suffering from Tourist Performance Anxiety or TPA.

But this trip, after a few anxious hours, epiphany time. I've overcome the syndrome. I bought a "Krakow Card" but haven't used it. Chilling out and people watching is the order of the day. And I've had my hair cut. Life's too short for fulfilling site-seeing quotas.

Tomorrow I'm travelling to a Health Spa that may not even have an Internet Cafe or mobile phone coverage. There's nothing to see, according to the Guide Book, but snow and ski slopes. Presumably that's in winter.

Well, I'm in Krakow, and every single word in this post is being underlined (even Krakow)because the spellceck is set to Polish.

I arrived by train from Vienna yesterday. The train was near empty, which is sad because it was a great journey and there was a proper restaurant car with a cheap menau and the chef knocking up brilliant omelettes. There is something magical about being whisked across entire countries, without knowing for sure where the frontiers are (no passport controls).

Before leaving I had found a hotel here in Krakow on the internrt, which - I last night discovered, arriving in the rain at past 10pm, had fraudulently described itself as four star, central and near the station.  I had to take a taxi and overpay with euro because - well, I didn't have any zlotis.  My room was cramped but made a feature of plastic flowers.  To use the kettle you had to crawl under a table on the floor.

(Someone is skyping in the nest booth and I am finding it hard to concentrate.  Excuse me while I kill him)

Unfortunately I had prepaid for the room.  Never mind.  With my best icy sarcasm, I asked them to move half the furniture.  Soon I was promoted to a double room on the third floor.  Both singles and doubles have double beds, but apparently doubles also have air conditioning.

Er.

It was only when I handed my original key in did I realise I had been originally allocated Room 101

I have voted. Judging by emptyness of the Polling Station, I may be the only person in my local area voting all day.

Lots of you, I know, abstain on principle. In most circumstances I think that's a cop out.

Anyhow, no time to listen to your counter-arguments. I've got a plane to catch.

Most nights, I wake up after three or four hours deep sleep and struggle to drop off again.

I woke an hour ago. The alarm is set for just after six. Frankly I'm too excited about my holiday for me to have much chance of any morning sleeping, so I'm enjoying my awakeness instead. And reading a good book.

Already, there are faint signs of dawn.

I never discovered if my father could swim well.

Every time he got into the water - swimming pool or sea, it was just the same - he would take a couple of strokes and then shout "Cramp! I've got cramp."