A quicky

Starting to get active again, trying to lose some of those accumulated pounds. I look at myself and I don't like the way I look, I think 'what do the women think?' It's superficial I know I know I know but that's the way men and women think. The genuine girls, well they are all taken up, well most are anyway, or they don't like me, so there...there there, take comfort.

In Khulna

Tuesday, our second day in Bangladesh. We flew from Dhaka Domestic to Jessore. A small flight in an even smaller plane, but we passed over the mighty Padma river, which turns into the Ganges when you get into India.

A few hours later and i'm sitting, with fans blowing furiously in our room, a mosquito net trapping most of the cool wind and leaving me with heat and sweat and humidity.

Our bathroom doesn't work. There is a urinal with a leak in it, the shower is on but no water comes out. I washed myself with a potty jug, pleading with the tap to let me have some water. It wreaks too, of egg. Best just washing, don't smell it. I couldn't write my diary that night. The pen scrawls are reminscent of the huge spider that got its muddy leg prints all over the bathroom floor in the morning. I lay awake for most of the night, starkers, insect repellant in between my toes.

There are these little sandy coloured lizards running up the sky blue walls. They frighten me a bit...."what about the fucking cockraoches and rats" i think. The compound here is a lot more rural, and birds that sound like they're having it off squark around us. It's magical but i'm too hot and tired to appreciate it. Only when I get back to rainy grey Ilkeston can I appreciate it!

Lines composed on Day 1 of Dhaka traffic:

Bangladesh, with its colours, sights and sounds. Dhaka, never far from a car horn, whistle or bells, a shout, scream, curse. The city's life blood is its many inhabitants, travelling through the hundreds of veins that make up the hectic and dangerous roads.

The hoards of people pressed against the iron gates of the airport, waiting for brothers, sons, fathers to come out with bags of chocolates from the Middle East. They work there and come back home now and again to see their family.

We leave the airport and pass by hundreds of people lining the streets where they make their living. Shops selling all sorts, an old man feeds sugar cane through a mangle collecting the juice to sell, small children are bullied by the bigger ones scouring the rubbish for bits to sell.

Stopped on the road, surrounded by cars, the heat rising. You hear a light tap on the window from a fingernail, then a hand, then a fist thumps, getting your attention. A lonely mother surrounded by her children, she carries a limp babe in her arms. Tured, the baby has been carried around the streets as an object of sympathy so her mother can feed them, or just feed her, or take drugs. No one knows. Then the eye contact, they have you, every thing

STOPS

Returning to the war zone

"The reason the house smells of shit is because of the chip wrapper in your room from last night."
No-one said my Dad didn't over-react. God I wish I was back in the Desh right now, but, alas, I have endured and enjoyed, reflected then refracted onto the bed. Home is moribund compared to the vibrancy of Bangladeshi life, the colourful driving conditions and equally colourful array of new people, new friends that stared for hours at our white new western faces.

I commandeered a diary whilst on my small travels (in duration, but big on experiences) and I am currently in the process of selecting various entries to put here.

In other news there's a lot coming out about poetry and it makes me wish I was writing the bloody stuff, it's frustrating as I know that as soon as I get something on the page i'll be able to perform it. I hope more venues in Notts start bridging the poetry gap!

Bangladesh

It's getting closer and closer. A week today I will be in Bangladesh; Dhaka to be precise. Over the next 6 days I am going to be getting more and more stressed and more and more anxious. I have been reading some of the internal reports on Bangladesh, interviews with people who survived the cyclone that hit in 2007 - Sidr. It caused country-wide damage and ripped apart homes both psychologically and materially. Hearing stories of people with nothing but a sheet of thin metal over their heads, no fishing nets to feed their family with.

People can see the tides are rising but mention Climate Change out there and you would get a blank face. They don't know what it is, they haven't caused it. People liken Bangladesh to India, but they've never set foot in either. India is developing all the time, Bangladesh is not, well, not as fast anyway. Micro-credit is enabling people to buy things to live, but the number of loans they are paying off means they probably will not know a life without paying them. It's sad but, many believe, a necessary evil.

I'm moaning and stressing because I haven't done certain things for the trip; silly things like take photos of my house and family. I don't think I could bare to pass them over to a Bangladeshi person...'why are you showing me this?'

I like the sound

of snooker. The white hitting the red, the swish of the pocket, the ball sliding down the metal frame. It's comforting, it's home, just as well I'm at home too!

Well there have been a few moments over the last two days or so that I wish for you goodly peoples to read about then COMMENT on.

My good friend of many years is leaving for lands far and wide in a few days. I will be away on my own not-so-jolly Jaunt when he goes so I wanted to spend the next few days doing the things we have been used to doing - drinking, playing pool, having a laugh etc etc.

However my radio co-host has started 'seeing' him. All through the kind orchestration of myself, and I regret it now, as they have started to really annoy and take the piss out of me!

Am I an object of ridicule? Do I deserve it?

Last night, at the radio show I was practically doing the show by myself. Next week they are off to Skegness for the weekend and I shall be going to London on Saturday so I am not so bothered...but last night, even though they were there in the studio they spent the most part taking the mick and going on the internet whilst I did the show. My co-host was intentionally loud and I had to turn her mic off. The radio for me isn't a joke; I enjoy it!

On Wednesday and Thursday I wanted t go to the pub with my mate and have good times...a pub quiz, lots of pints, 'wacky bingo' and all sorts of other things. But I don't think I will enjoy my last few days with him if she's there. I am not sure if I even like the girl.

Anyway, dear blog, I thought I would let you know of feelings so true and honest.

Written yesterday

There's a smell of yeast on this train,

a ginger ticket inspector gets on, stretched out from kissing her 6ft boyfriend on tip toes,
before we leave,
A grey haired blue jeans wearing lady sips at her herbal tea and casually takes notes from her copy of the Guardian and the New Statesman.

Maybe she's taking notes on me - how does it feel?


Wow - that ticket lady was fit! Her wrists adorned with silver and beads, she sounded sweet, smiled too.

It's her job to smile, deal with it!


Our train fills up and up with all sorts - it's Summer now though, and, as in winter my mind was on capturing the moment and keeping warm, now i'm focussed on other core subjects; fucking and getting fucked (for those not of the youthful minset; shagging and drinking.)

I wonder how couples who live together 'do' sex. Do they ever spice it up, or just splice the urge?...Business Time Business Time...

Do they have a special night, a time? My mate's neighbours in Leeds - every Sunday at 10:45 a.m, yeah Dave? He fell out with them on the day they moved in so I doubt he's losing sleep about the fact i've just 'revealed' them. And thence from that time, the two be-spectacled did elope, and it was good, for at least two minutes.

Hahaha - I love laughing - that was a laugh then. What about when people are on MSN or Facebook or texting, and they go 'lol.' I doubt many are laughing out loud. Do people actually 'lol' on the train? I've done it once and once only - actually laugh out loud! Lol will become so ingested into consciousness, will lose meaning, our children won't know what it stands for. Will 'lol'ing replace laughing?