The venerable Master Hu...
With the sound of Chinese belly laughs from my Guilin wedding day still echoing in my head, I opted for something I hoped would be a little less unsettling, and a little more relaxing.
China had been go go go since I’d arrived, and the events of the day before, performing live in front of my new Asian fan base, had been as manic as ever, despite now being in the countryside. My Yao marriage had been Ross Geller-esque in length, but it had been no less traumatic.
How was I supposed to know it translated as "photos punishable by death"...
A wailing child, a man with the loudest slurp in the world, a woman acrobating between bunks. And a lot of staring. My 13-hour sleeper train from Guangzhou to Guilin had not been without incident. It had been without sleep.
And, let me tell you this; there’s a reason Chinese people don’t step on the train floor with their bare feet, and it’s nowt to do with beliefs or etiquette. It’s because it’s damp, very damp. And if you’re wondering what it’s damp with, read my last blog about what Chinese people do when they have a tickly throat. Sadly, I found out the hard way.
Chinese gadgies employed an effective bicycle forcefield...
HWAAWCHKK! It was the first noise I heard upon arriving in mainland China. In case my attempts at onomatopoeia have fallen short, this was the sound made by the clogged larynx of an old man at Guangzhou bus station, as he mustered all throat-muscle strength to gather up and dispatch every last globule of phlegm he had in his upper body.
Little did I know, as his salivary bullet slapped the pavement only yards in front of my rucksack, that this sound would accompany me throughout China, replicated continually by men and women, young and old, outdoors and indoors.
Flash lights, spot lights, strobe lights, street lights...
A Chinese man walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder.
The barman, perplexed, gives both a doubting glance before asking:
“Where the hell did you get that?”
There’s an awkward pause, before the parrot replies:
“China, there’s bloody millions of them!”
The choking warm air was familiar. The raw smells brought back fond memories. The din – of incessant car horns, eager touts and jabbering locals – was unmistakable. This was Asia, and as I walked out of Hong Kong Airport’s sliding doors, this was its dusty, pongy, noisy way of saying welcome back.
New Zealand: the home of group levitation...
1. They love their PM. In a day and age when politicians are as popular as protest art in China, it makes a change to be in a country that has genuine respect and affection for its head of state. When I arrived in NZ, John Key had just been voted M2 magazine‘s Man of the Year, posing uncomfortably on the cover in a sharp suit. I might have been away for a while now, but something tells me that there’s little danger of David Cameron winning the GQ equivalent any time soon.
The one advantage of kiwi picking: looking and feeling sexy...
I didn’t take no shortcuts. I spent the money that I saved up.
The Strokes, Barely Legal, 2001
There’s no point in being the richest man in the graveyard. It’s a line that has stuck with me for years, ever since one of my best pals Chris Lewis produced it when quoting his grandad. He was probably only using it to persuade me to get a round in, but it’s a mantra that I’ve adopted since, or maybe, given my sheer ineptitude when it comes to saving, it’s adopted me.
The soft leather chair was reclined to offer maximum comfort. Given that it was positioned inside a steel pod tentatively suspended 134 metres off the ground in the middle of an ancient gorge, it seemed something of a wasted feature. I’d have felt more comfortable if this chair was in Texas and there was a hooded bloke to my left holding a huge syringe.
Instead, the cushioned furnishings only served to amplify my thundering heart beat, its deep padding allowing the thuds to reverberate around my body, which was as stiff as a corpse. My mind was alive though; frayed nerves reaped havoc on my concentration levels, which must have rivalled those of a five year old with ADHD.
Before the February quake: Christchurch Cathedral in all its former glory....
There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realise his conception of the beautiful.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde, 1890.
The real story of what has happened in Christchurch is the heroic story at the grass roots level, which is neighbour working with neighbour. It is the people in the west driving to the east to help. It is the communities, right across this city, that have shown a stoicism and courage in the face of the most dreadful situation.
Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker
Summit to talk about: the view from the top of Mount Doom...
So the story goes, that when Kiwi uber-hero Peter Jackson was scouting his native land for locations to set his Lord of the Rings trilogy, he knew instantly when passing through the sleepy country town of Matamata, with its green rolling hills and free-roaming colts, that it would make a perfect English shire.
You take the one on the left, and I'll...make a run for it. Agreed?
He ao, he ao tea, he ao tea roa!
(A cloud, a white cloud, a long white cloud!)
Kupe’s wife Kuramarotini, on first seeing New Zealand
Something is rotten in the state of Rotorua.
Actually, that’s not true. Rotorua isn’t a state for a start, it’s a town in the centre of New Zealand’s north island. And nothing is rotting there, it just smells like it. So shoot me for trying to shoehorn in some Billy Shakes…