Working in a factory - like Germany in 1987, except for the naked showers

I started work in a factory yesterday.  Making frozen desserts.  Yesterday I peeled about a thousand bananas and helped in other ways to make a job lot of banoffee pies.  I did most of the tasks in the production line, although I never got to feed bananas into the banana slicer, but that at least means I've got some goals left for the next time I'm in.

I have worked in a factory before, in Germany in 1987, although that one was packing powdered paint into sacks, and this was making frozen desserts.  Despite the different products, there were similarities.

The shifts are virtually the same.  6 till 2.  2 till 10, and 10 till 6.  Yesterday I was on a 6 till 2, so arriving at the work in the dark, and leaving in the heat of mid-afternoon.  Very like Germany.

I had to wear a white uniform, and standard issues boots.  Same as Germany.  I had to clock in, and out.  Same as Germany.  A large proportion of the factory staff are from countries other than the host nation, same as Germany.

The main differences were that I was working in a production line with others yesterday, so if I didn't keep up, it would affect the whole line, whereas in Germany it was just me and a machine, so as long as I'd emptied the machine by the end of the shift I could go at my own pace.

The other big difference was the absence of naked communal showers at the end of the shift.  In Germany these were necessary because you would be so completely covered in paint dust by the end of the shift that you had to go into a big shower and wash it all off.  And not just with a regular sponge, you had to scour it off.  You got so much paint inside your clothing as well that it was necessary to get someone else to scrub your back clean.  I am not joking.  So, a big communal shower, no clothes on, scrubbing each others' backs with the equivalent of a pan scourer.  And from experience I have to tell you, the thing you do not want in this situation, the thing you absolutely must not get, is an involuntary erection.  Anyway, enough about that.

So, thankfully, the cake factory, no communal showers.  Your feet get cold, especially if you're working near the freezers, and you do get some cake on you, but it mostly washes off quite easily, without the aid of stripping down to your birthday suit.

There are lots of rules, but these all make sense, as they are all to do with not getting food poisoning into the pies, and not letting foreign objects fall into the mix.  I have to say, from a lifetime's experience of eating pies, I consider both these things to be very good ideas.

Everybody has to wear a hairnet, but there is a very sensible colour coding system in operation.  Most people wear white ones, but supervisors wear red ones, first aiders wear green, and the people who come along to clean up and empty the bins wear yellow, so you know who's who, without having to know exactly who everyone is.

I didn't mind that the tasks were repetitive, and this was helped by the fact that you are rotated onto a different task about every half an hour.  I got a half hour break in the middle so I only had to get through 4 hours in one stretch.  There isn't a lot of time to talk, especially on some of the tasks, like the spreading cream around with the back of a spoon task, but the people I did speak to seemed friendly and helpful.  There's a quiet efficiency about the place, which I hope to emulate in due course.  I think I've got the quiet part right, I just need to work on the efficiency.

The main problem I had were that my feet were like blocks of ice.  The temperature at floor level is around 5 degrees C, because of the cold air coming out from the freezers.  This is especially noticeable when you're working near the end of the line, doing the finishing touches.  By then I felt like the liquid metal guy out of Terminator 2 after he'd fallen into a lorry load of liquid nitrogen.  When I started walking again afterwards, my  legs didn't exactly snap off, but I did have trouble getting them going again.  Thermal socks needed, I think.

Anyhoo, there it is.  I've done a day, and it was fine, and I'm going back to do some more on Friday.  I'd like to have warmer feet next time, and I'd like to be better at using the back of a spoon, but apart from that I have no complaints.  Especially not about the lack of showers....

CSI Rudby - I haven't seen a hanging chad since the year 2000

I've ridden nearly 1000 miles by bike this year.  All on the same bike.  200 miles of it was in India.  Until today that is, when I got on a different bike.  And that was my first mistake.

Apart from losing one or two non essential parts which were literally shaken off the bike in India I haven't had any serious mechanicals all year.  I got through the entire Winter, some of it riding around Asia, without a single problem.  And then we passed the Spring Equinox, and things started to unravel.

I never should have changed bikes.  But it's the Spring I thought, so today I got my Spring and Summer bike out.  By the same logic I also wore shorts.  I can't be bothered looking out the window every time I go out, so I have a basic rule with shorts.  If it's Spring or Summer, I wear shorts.  If it's Autumn or Winter I wear longs.  Last weekend it was Winter, so I was out in the blazing sun wearing more lagging than an elderly boiler, today it's the Spring so I was out in the freezing fog in shorts.  Simples!

Anyway, I finished putting my Spring bike back together this morning, after I'd dismantled it in January during a pre-India panic attack.  It all looked fine.

I set off around 8.15 this morning, with Stephen and Adam for company.  It should have been at 8, but I was late.  Partly because of all the things I had to adjust once I'd set off that I thought I'd put together properly before I left, and partly because I had quite a long conversation with my 2 year old friend George once I got to Stephen's house.  His vocabulary has expanded somewhat since a few months ago, when I managed to keep him amused solely by  using combinations of  the words Cheese, Pie and No, so it took me a while to get through his new words before I could leave.

Once we eventually got going, I led out the ride from Stephen's house and I kept up a good pace for about 8 miles until we reached Rudby.  I stopped at the give way line just before the sharp up and down into Hutton Rudby and as I came to a standstill my back tyre exploded.

The three of us decamped to the small triangle of grass next to the road, and began our investigations.  Stephen and Adam kindly agreed not to help, so as not to spoil the broth, and thankfully they had their i-Phones with them to keep themselves amused while I investigated what had gone wrong.

A very strange puncture it was.  It was not unlike a hanging chad.  About six inches from the valve.  I couldn't find any sharp objects in the tyre or in the wheel so I put a new tube in and off we went.  About 10 yards later another identical explosion.  The plot thickens.

Again I took the tyre off and found an even more prominent hanging chad in almost the same place as before.  It was a big hole, but it looked like it had been made from the inside out rather than vice versa.  Like a window smashed from the inside after a murder that's been contrived to look like a burglary gone wrong, this set the minds of CSI Rudby thinking.  There were no sharp objects lodged in the tyre, but as we manipulated the tyre a bit we noticed that the actual tyre wall was split, and although the split was a couple of inches long, there was one point in particular that looking more hole shaped than slit shaped.  Was it possible the puncture had been caused by the tube pushing out through the tyre, ie by air pushing out rather than a foreign object pushing in.  It was not 100% conclusive but the consensus amongst the CSI Rudby team was that it looked plausible.

At this point Stephen offered to lend me his bike so I could ride and get a new tyre from the nearest bike shop.  'Why don't I just get a new bike', I asked?

'Don't you think that buying an entire new bike is an over-reaction, and also a quite expensive solution to the situation?', the guys asked, 'a new tyre would definitely be enough'.  There was clearly a misunderstanding going on.  Although I am not famed for my willingness to spend time maintaining bikes, things have not got so bad, nor am so I flush with funds, to be just throwing faulty bikes down at the roadside, and going off and buying a new one.  Besides, they never have them ready in the bike shop anyway, you always need to leave it with them a couple of days, for them to tighten things up and lube the chain etc, so that was never going to work.

'No, I mean, I could ring Ruth and ask her to bring me another bike', I said.  The one drawback with this, of course was that she would have to lift the replacement bike onto the roof, which since I sent her skidding down the wrong road on a patch of oil, she hasn't been able to do.  So I decided to just bail out.  It's good practice for the Coast to Coast to Coast in the summer, I thought.

I knew Ruth was at home, at least that's where I left her, so I thought.  It'll be simple.  I'll give her a ring.  I wasn't too concerned when her mobile was switched off, I just rang the home phone.  But no answer.  This is where having two companions with i-Phones came in handy.  She's been on Facebook this morning, Stephen said, she's commented on a photo I put on.  At this point Adam was also uploading a fresh photo of me not being able to fix the bike.

Well, the phone isn't working, I said, can you Facebook her or send her an e-mail and tell her I need picking up.  So that's what we did.  We sent her a Facebook message and an e-mail to tell her that the home phone was ringing and she needed to answer it.  And I thought, being rescued in the 21st Century, it's so easy!  Adam had even managed to get on somebody's unsecured wireless network whose house was near the triangle of grass, so we didn't even need mobile phone coverage.

And it worked, eventually after being badgered by social network, Ruth picked up the phone.  The guys kindly waited with me, and when she arrived she looked at me like I was an idiot, and then I took my shorts, and my Spring and Summer bike, and my tyre wall with the big hole in, and I went home, and I thought to myself, why oh why didn't I just wear long trousers and an eiderdown and why didn't I just stick to the Winter bike, that I've done a thousand miles on, and that hasn't gone wrong at all, and why didn't I just leave the Spring bike where it's been for 6 months, leaning up against the garage wall?.

Although sometimes it feels like it's a skill I have, Stephen pointed out with impeccable logic that it isn't by touching the bike that I've broken it.  It's because the tyre is worn out.  After nearly 5000 miles on that tyre, it's not surprising, and if it was worn, no doubt the six months in the garage won't have helped the integrity of the tyre wall, so there it is.

The 8 miles or so we did was fun, and I was really enjoying myself, until my bike blew up.  But if you're going to spend a foggy Saturday morning standing around on a triangular piece of grass hacking into unsecured wireless networks and analysing hanging chads, I can't think of nicer people to do it with.

And if you're going to have to interrupt your wife while she's relaxing, having a nice cup of coffee and enjoying your absence, I can't think of a better way to do it than via a Social Networking Site.  It seems to work so much better than the phone.

I don't need facial recognition software - I've already got some, in my head

I keep getting disappointed at the cinema.  Not necessarily by the films either, although some of the tosh I've seen at the Arc would come into that category.

I keep seeing adverts containing young, vibrant, happy people, and they're all over the world, and they're obviously having an amazing time, and I catch myself thinking, I wouldn't mind a piece of that, and then it turns out that the advert is for a mobile phone, and so then I think, no thanks, I've already got one.  Or it might be an advert for a car that can recognise your mobile phone, and get all your music off it, and Facebook, and in-built satnav and all that jazz.

And it just leaves me thinking.  I don't really like travelling by car, but mostly when I get in the car, it's because I want to go somewhere.  So can't I just go there?  Do I have to be riding in a mobile disco / social networking site / atlas type thing.  All I want is to go round to the chippy.

One of the mobile phone adverts I saw.  I may not have understood it correctly, but it seemed to be about taking a picture of someone else's head, and then using the phone to remember what their head looked like for next time you saw them.  But I don't need one of those.  I usually just use my own head for that.  There's people I haven't seen for years, but if I saw them, I would probably just say 'Hey, I remember you!'.  I doubt they'd say.  'Wow, how do you do it?', but if they did I might say 'Well, I've got this pile of mush inside my skull called a brain, and one of the things it can do is remember what things look like'.

And all the phones are called Galaxy or some other space agey bollocksy name.  If you want to see a galaxy, try looking at the sky with the eyes in your head, not through the hand held device you're carrying.  Your phone might be able to augment reality, and tell you what you're looking at, but have you ever considered just looking at regular reality, without any augmentation?  I mean, does augmentation really make things look better?  It doesn't seem to work on women's boobs, I'm not sure it works with the stars either.

I was out cycling the other day, and when we stopped for a breather, the Chief was checking his work emails while we waited.  My own view about going for a bike ride is that I'd like to get away from stuff, I don't want it following me round.  It's easy for me to say, since I don't have any work to follow me, but hey ho.

I think the message these mobile ads are trying to send me, is that there's a better life out there for me, if only  I had a smart phone, that could do loads of stuff.  Like if I was walking round a city, and I wanted to eat something, I could Google the nearest eating place, and ring them up, and pay for it all over the phone, and just go and collect it.  Which I'm sure for some people would be very handy, but where's the adventure in that?  Where's the pleasure that comes from just wandering about, looking at stuff?  From getting lost?

I didn't even have a mobile phone till I was 37, and I said I wouldn't get one, and I thought texting was absolutely ridiculous, but now I've got one, and I send texts, and I've got music on my phone, so I have embraced technology to some degree, but I'm quite happy to continue to have separate things for separate things.

Like a phone for ringing people up, a car for driving places, a computer for doing email.  I don't need an emailphonecar that does everything.  And I'm quite happy to keep looking at people's faces, for the purposes of finding out who they are.  Sometimes I can remember them, sometimes I can't.  And if I need facial recognition software on my phone to remember who you are, chances are you're not all that important to me, sorry and all that.  To borrow a phrase from Graeme, I don't want to have to start an electronic 'Who the fuck are you'? register.  Life's complicated enough.  

There's a time for cycling across the country - and this isn't it

According to that famous bit of Ecclesiastes, there's a time for everything, a time for every activity under the sun.

I'm sure there's a time for cycling from Teesside to Arnside in a day.  Well, yesterday wasn't it.  The wind was crippling, Wensleydale was like a wind tunnel.  I had feet like blocks of ice, and if I'd wrung my trousers out I could have watered a few plants.  I stopped for two hot meals, but I never really warmed up.  I came out of a public toilet after not having dried my hands throughly and the water nearly froze to my hands.

It's not like I didn't wear enough layers.  I had 5 layers on up top.  If I'd worn any more layers, I wouldn't have been able to bend my arms and legs.

It took me 8 hours to do 48 miles.  Only 6 of those were cycling hours, but at the rate I was slowing down I'd still be going now if I hadn't given up.  Greater people than me have turned round before they got where they were going.  That Shackleton guy was a pragmatist in this regard.  I'm nowhere near in his league, but I can relate to his decision to abandon his goal in favour of not killing himself and his men.  I didn't have any men with me, but I'm quite fond of myself.

Anyway, I spent today thinking about having another go at it this week.  Because I don't like to leave goals unaccomplished.  But then I remembered something.  This was supposed to be a practice ride for a ride I'm doing in the summer.  In the summer!  And this is the winter!  Even in the summer it can be windy, and the hilltops can be bleak, but the wind's not likely to freeze my face off, and I shouldn't need to keep stopping to top up on hot tea and sausages, and I'll have about 5 hours more daylight.

So I decided that I will have another go at this ride, but not yet.  The thing about yesterday was.  I was fit enough to do it, I had the legs, I went the right way, I didn't take any wrong turns, I had plenty to eat and drink, but it just wasn't the right time.  And neither is tomorrow.  But my time will come.

This is York Minster - It's not the Italian Job

The last two times I've been to York I haven't enjoyed it.  But it wasn't York's fault.  The first time I was on my way to Birmingham to get the Indian visa and the second time I was being given the runaround by those YHA jokers.  Both times York was only a stopping off point, it wasn't the point itself.

A few weeks ago I went to the Taj Mahal.  I wrote about it here.  Sometimes, when I was trying to get my head round things in India, it helped me to try and think of a parallel situation in England.  When I was at the Taj Mahal, I thought about York Minster quite a bit.  I thought about what York Minster would be like if it was given the Taj Mahal treatment.  Well, there would be a massive fence round it for a start, with metal detectors, and armed police, and you'd have to leave your handbags, packed lunches, sugar cubes and mints outside.  And you wouldn't be offered a guide.  You'd get carjacked by one about a mile outside York.  And he'd tell you 'Trust No-one, speak only to me'.  Well, in the light of the Taj Mahal experience, I went back to York today, specifically to have a look at the Minster.  I've been going there for over 30 years, but after India I had a look it with some fresh eyes today.

I parked in Thornaby, I caught the train to York, and once off the train I headed straight for the Minster.  I took a rucksack with me, but I didn't pack a guidebook for York, as I figure I don't need one.  I didn't pack any lunch either and I'd forgotten it was pancake day, so I nipped into Baileys and had some pancakes with chocolate and cream for the bargain price of £1.95.  All the staff were friendly, and the place had a nice buzz about it.  It's an unpretentious place, and it was full of fairly ordinary English people making small talk and generally talking crap about their recent purchases, and what type of cake they like.

Once I was full of pancakes, I headed for the Minster.  I decided not to go inside.  I've been in loads of times, and I didn't want to pay the entrance fee to see stuff I've seen before.  Unlike the Taj Mahal, where you have to pay to even get near it, with the Minster you can see the outside of it for free.

Mostly I walked round at the Taj Mahal, but I did sit down on part of it at one point, to try and soak up the atmosphere and to get some sun.  After approximately 7 minutes I got whistled at by a stroppy PE teacher type, and told to move on.  I'd read the chart with the 40 things I wasn't allowed to do before I went in, it was on display in the pointless golf cart, but I'd obviously missed the picture of my arse with a line through it.

So I just walked up to York Minster, with a rucksack, past the security that wasn't there and I went up to the entrance and sat down next to it.  I don't know much about architecture, but one thing I noticed when I sat down is that the Minster seems to be made out of rock whereas the Taj Mahal is made of marble.  My arse that I was allowed to sit on could tell the difference.  Marble is smoother.

I sat down with the intention of staying there for at least 8 minutes.  I wanted to beat my Taj record.  After 10 minutes I was still there.  No-one was whistling at me, and I felt quite peaceful, a feeling that was helped by being able to hear schoolchildren playing in the schoolyard nearby.

After 15 minutes some Geordies came out, complaining about the entrance fee.  You should try the Taj Mahal, I didn't say.  I saw some Chinese people taking photographs, and then some people from the Middle East.  And I wondered how far people had travelled to be there.  And I thought of my bike ride here last year.  Today I came on the train, but this is somewhere I can ride my bike to in a day.  And I felt grateful for that.  Much as I did, when I was stood outside here last April with Stephen, Mark, Dick and Ruth.  This is on my doorstep I thought.  It's not a tortuous 5 hour taxi ride away, past men with monkeys on sticks and horrible service stations.  It takes me less time than that to ride here.  Brilliant  And it's in the middle of York, not Agra.  Even better.

20 minutes.  More people coming out.  Lots of people discussing not only the weather but the weather forecasts.  Some guy from Yorkshire coming out laughing about how his wife had nearly put some bloke's eye out with a brolly, some Welsh people going in.  No children approached me trying to sell me miniature York Minsters.  There's a shop over there selling tourist stuff, but the shopkeeper appears to be staying in the shop there.  She's not shoving York Minsters up my nose.

25 minutes.  People keep coming out, mostly very quietly, as if they got something out of it.  Not talking much, zipping up coats and taking a few more photos.  Cyclists going past all the time, some with panniers so big they might be full of semtex, but then again probably not.  The risk must be low.  I just walked up here with a rucksack.  It could have been full of polos.  No-one cared.

30 minutes.  I have a look around.  I'm having trouble finding any rules.  It appears I could have brought a torch or a packed lunch.  It occurs to me, that there aren't many things as English as the term packed lunch.

35 minutes.  I'm feeling pretty numb from the cold.  I take some photographs of my own head next to the Minster.  I've got loads of photos of me and York Minster, but I want some more to compare with the ones from the Taj.  I'm pleased to discover these are still on my camera, so I look at one and then the other.  I want to show someone the pictures of me at the Taj, but I'm not sure anyone would care.

The next thing I see.  A beautiful Indian family wearing duffle coats and woolly hats are stood shivering on the steps while the dad takes some photos.  A mum and dad with a young girl in a pushchair, and two grandparents.  The grandmother has a limp and is walking with some difficulty, but like Indians do she just gets on with it, placidly and without making a fuss  On the way in to the Minster, the mother tells her daughter to be quiet inside, because it's a church.  They don't come straight back out, so I guess they must have paid the entrance fee.  And I remember what I loved about India.  It wasn't the buildings.  It was the people.  As for me, I went to the Taj Mahal, I stood in the sun and took some photos, and now I'm back home sitting next to an Indian family freezing outside York Minster and they're taking photos.  The circle is complete.

40 minutes.  By now I've got an ice cream headache, but no-one has tried to move me on.  Just like yesterday and my aborted bike ride across the country, it's only the bloody English weather that's causing me any problems.

After 45 minutes I figure I've proved my point.  I go and buy hot coffee at Starbucks and look out the window at the Minster some more, and not for the first time since I got back from India, I love England and I love being English.  After a while someone calls me by name.  At first I don't recognise her as she's wearing a hat but then I realise it's Louise Amende, and for half an hour or so we have a very pleasant and unexpected chat, about lots of things including India, China, the church youth hostel weekends and pancake races.  She'd seen me in the window.

After she's gone I go back to a shop I'd seen called One and buy Ruth an ethically sourced purse with hearts on as a late Valentine's present.  I photographed the shopfront earlier.  After being in a country where I couldn't even tell where the shops were, in York you can see them from miles away.  And a lot of them have not only beautiful shopfronts, but beautiful handwritten signs and blackboards telling you what's on offer today.  Shopping has never been easier.

I do another couple of laps of the Minster, and out the side door pops the same Indian family I saw earlier.  The mother opens a bag of sweets and they all take one.  I can't resist.  I cross the road and ask them if they're from India.  Yes, they say, from Chennai in the south.  I tell them I've just been to Delhi, and that I enjoyed it.  They have that wary look of people who can't tell if the person in front of them is a nutter with an agenda or just a benign someone wanting to wish them well.  It's a look I'm familiar with, because I recently wore it myself every day for a couple of weeks.  I tell them I don't want to disturb their day, I just wanted to say hello.  Somehow I feel connected to them, but I'm not sure they feel it too.  The mother thanks me for my good wishes, and I leave them to it.  I don't ask to have my photo taken with them.  The last time I tried that with an Indian family was at the parliament buildings in Delhi, and today was too cold for those kind of protracted negotiations.

So that was my day at York Minster.  It took me an hour each way to get there.  And I can go back whenever I want.  Apart from being a world famous historical building which people from all over the world come to see, it wasn't at all like the Taj Mahal.  It's York Minster, it's not the Italian Job.

On reflection, I'm sure there are good reasons why security is tight at the Taj Mahal.  Or at least, I'm open to the possibility that there might be good reasons.  At the very least I hope that behind all the nonsense there are at least some good intentions at work.  As with all things Indian, I never did really get the hang of the reasons for things.  

And maybe the goings on at the Taj Mahal only look farcical to me because I can walk up to York Minster whenever I want, with a rucksack full of anything, and people can cycle past it with panniers full of anything, and no-one even notices.  There's not a fence round it, I don't need someone to buy a ticket for me and take me for a ride in a golf buggy to get there and no-one searches me on the way in.  When I get there, I can sit down for as long as I want without getting whistled at, and no-one tries to sell me anything.

And today that meant more to me than ever.

I used to be a genius - not any more

When I was younger one of my favourite quotations was from Mark Twain.

it went like this:  'When I was 14 my father was such an idiot that I could barely stand to have the man around, but by the time I was 21 I was amazed at what he'd learned in seven years'.

The height of my own genius was 18.  Probably on the bus on the way back from having 3 months in Germany.  Hey, I'd lived and worked abroad, mastered a new language, and now I'm off to University.  What a genius.

I used to think that courage was a thing you needed to be able to do stuff.  But I realised on that Germany trip that courage is not having the courage to do things, but doing them anyway.  After 25 years I'd forgotten that but I've been remembering it recently, and I think that was what got me on a plane to India.

Another thing that happened to me when I was younger was that I used to play football, and in the long days of the summer holidays I used to play football all day.  And sometimes early in the day I'd feel tired and my legs would feel heavy, but after a while I got beyond tired and I could just run and run.  And sometimes I'd still be out after dark, although playing football at that time of night could be dangerous because you couldn't always see the ball until it smacked you in the face.

The reason I remembered feeling like that, is because that's pretty much how I felt when I was cycling on Thursday.  For the first 30 miles or so I felt pretty weary and didn't think I'd be able to go the distance, but then I got into that magic place that's beyond tired, where your legs feel like they could go on for ever.  And even when I got to the pub at 8.30 at night I felt like I could keep going.

This week I've been feeling pretty down, indecisive about my future and some of the time when I've been alone I've been a bit despondent.  Worrying about what job to get, where to work, how to spend my free time, worrying about my home, and about my eyes.  All the usual crap.  But when I was out on my bike none of it mattered.  It didn't matter where I lived, or whether I had a job, or what I was going to do in the future.  Because I was out on my bike, and it was great.  It was almost Spring, and my winter hibernation was nearly over.  It was still cold, but inside the cold was the promise of better things to come.

And it was the same when I used to run around kicking a ball aged 14. Nothing else mattered.  Not exams, not my crazy stepdad, not the kids who lived in my street who wanted to chase me because I went to a school where I wore a blazer.  None of it.

That's what exercise with a purpose can do for you.  Some people think kicking a football or riding a bike is pointless.  What do they know?

So what happened to me for 25 years?  Since I was a genius.  I think for some of that time I lost my way.  But I'm getting better again.  I don't know as much now as I used to, but that's because I found out about a load of stuff I don't know.  A bit like Donald Rumsfeld, I now know more about the stuff I know I don't know.  I've still not caught up with the stuff I don't know I don't know, but I'm sure that'll come later.

In those 25 years what happened was that I did some stuff.  I succeeded at some things, and I failed at some things, although often it's hard to tell the difference, because it's just a matter of perspective.

Judging by the standards of the outside world, I've been failing at a lot more stuff in the last few years.  Especially getting jobs.  Before 40 I'd hardly ever been turned down for anything.  Now it happens to me almost every week.  But filling in job applications is getting easier.  Because I don't write what I think they want to hear anymore.  I write what I want.  I don't try to pretend I'm something I'm not, because I figure if they don't want me as I am, they probably wouldn't want me trying to be somebody else either.  As John Vernon famously says in the film Airplane.  I don't do impressions.

It's possible to get better at failing I think.  And I think I am.  Now I laugh when I get turned down for stuff, whether it's a job, or whether it's just a bowl of porridge.  It doesn't work to take myself too seriously.  And although I've had a meltdown in the last few months, I did find a couple of things out.

One is that you don't need courage to do things.  You just have to do them.  And the other is that getting out there and exercising, whether it's running around with a pointless football or riding a pointless bicycle, is the best way to help you feel better on the inside.  Of course it helps that it's nearly Spring, although I'm not going to use my new found energy to do myself in, as some depressed people do.  I'm going to get better.

Calling India - Can we have your votes please?

Before I went to India, I described myself as feeling like a contestant on a gameshow.  And things just got more unreal after I arrived there.  It was part gameshow, part videogame, part role play, Candid Camera, Trigger Happy TV, Beadle's About, and the Truman Show all rolled into one.

Anyway, I felt so often that there were little guys hiding in the kitchens, and the hotel receptions, and airports marking my every move, that I decided to award myself marks for my performance while I was there.

In the spirit of a videogame, I've split the game into levels.  Apart from Level One which took me days to complete, each of the other levels took me about 24 hours to get through, give or take.

Level One.  Spending 7 hours filling the online visa form in, going to Birmingham to hand it in, borrowing a bike bag, having some jabs, packing and getting to the airport.  I lost marks for pratting about for days being indecisive about which bike to take.  Other than that I did pretty well.  6 out of 10

Level Two.  Catching the plane to Delhi.  This was pretty easy.  Apart from getting on the plane, this level consisted mostly of necking as much complementary British Airways food and drink as possible, and the only difficulty was not having a pen to fill in the immigration form, but I managed to borrow one off an Indian.  9 out of 10.  .

Level Three -  Found my guide Guruvinder at the airport, found my bike in the mysteriouus OG2 section of the airport.  Changed some currency, got a taxi to the hotel, filled about 4 forms in to check in, went for a walk, and managed to fend off the attentions of an overzealous tuktuk driver who wanted me to believe I wasn't in a safe area.  Found Dean and Elsa.  Had beer on the roof, got a really good meal at the Legend of Connaught and had some cocktails.  9 out of 10.

Level Four - Fended off a Bangladeshi woman trying to get money for orphans who followed me calling me a bastard.  Stood around for an hour while Dean bought an Indian Sim Card.  Managed to hire a very pleasant tuktuk driver who let us take photos with him.  Cried at the Gandhi Museum.   Almost chilled out on the steps of the Jami Masjid mosque but then lost my bottle after we got refused entry by a small boy for refusing to pay an entrance fee.  I got totally freaked out at the prospect of having to kneel in a urinal, and then got taken for a ride (in more ways than one) by an Oscar winning rickshaw driver.  The saving grace of the last part was that despite his mantra of 'You happy, I'm happy' we managed in the spirit of the word compromise to leave everyone disappointed and to leave him looking totally deflated after we refused to stump up what he was asking for.  On the whole, I did pretty well on this level, but had a devastating loss of form after the toilet kneeling down and rickshaw incidents.  Took some quiet time in the hotel for me to bounce back.  6 out of 10.

Level Five - Managed to fend off two students allegedly trying to practise their English but who were selling weed amongst God knows what else.  Also, managed to ignore a small girl begging for food and holding my hand.  This was all good practice for a day spent bouncing tuktuk drivers off us as if it was Gladiators.  Thankfully the really persistent guy eventually got moved on by the army.  Had some tea at a roadside stall, caused an Indian family from Calcutta to descend into utter confusion by offering to take their picture.  Took back a modicum of control toward the end of the day by hiring a Sikh tuktuk driver who was having a nap and looking the other way, much to the dismay of two of his rivals.  Needed a lie down and a cup of coffee made by Dean back in the hotel to help me come round after feeling battered from all the people I'd had to say no to.   6 out of 10.

Level Six - Passed bike building task.  Managed to check out of hotel although I had to do it in instalments.  Managed to negotiate storage of bike bag for 10 days.  Passed cycling in Delhi challenge.  Rode to Pahar Ganj, met Dean, and cycled to Meerut after a few hair raising lane changing incidents on the main highway.  Only downside was failing to notice that the initially inviting Big Bite Food Resort at Meerut was actually a massive pile of shite, expensive and with waiter service that makes Fawlty Towers look like the height of sophistication.  Retained some dignity by giving the less rude of the two waiters a tip, and getting a smile out of the sucker.  Ate something which may or may not have been chicken.  Spoke to Ruth and Stephen back at home, and hopefully managed to convince them that I was capable of leaving the hotel.  8 out of 10.

Level Seven  - Ordered a coffee which took ages, met Sunny the racing cyclist from Meerut, but managed to avoid going back to his house.  We'd a long way to go.  71 miles in the day.  Found a pretty good hotel for half the price of the day before.  Seemed to really please the locals by appreciating the Paneer Butter Massala.  I liked the goofy waiter and his boss who spoke English, and also the guy who was hammering the doorframe while we were ordering.  Gave them a sizeable tip, and started to relax into the bonkersness.  9 out of 10.  

Level Eight - After 40 miles of single carriageway craziness, including going through the elephant corridor, found our way to Rishikesh.  Managed to be quite rude to someone who wanted to clean our ears out on the riverbank.  After an hour of going round in circles we found English Lorna, and 20 minutes of talking to her helped the stress melt away.  After two days of just booking into the first place we could find, our decision to persevere in finding Bhandari Swiss Cottages really paid off.  Cheap rooms, relaxing views, birdsong and monkeys stealing your garbage.  Had a good laugh at India Guy over his Chicken Sizzler meltdown.  9 out of 10.

Level Nine - More fending off tuktuk drivers.  Found an ATM and then went for a late breakfast.  The jedi waiter was at pains to convince us that the breakfasts we were trying to order were not the breakfasts we were looking for.  No porridge.  Buttered toast yes.  Laughing was definitely the right response.  Gave the man a tip.  Tried to go to yoga but were turned back by a Tibetan boy with some Lego.  Ordered the sizzler to see what India Guy was moaning about.  It was good.  8 out of 10.

Level Ten - Instead of following the tourist trail and booking a bungee jump or a day's white water rafting we took our bikes up into the Shivalek mountains and made our own amusement by having bikes and talking about movies.  In the evening met the Greek Stereotype Spiros, Irish Ashley, Australian Audrey, Phoebe Ponsington-Smythe from somewhere posh in England and Mr India, the most nervous, ill at ease Indian I've ever met, sat around the not very warm fire, and generally felt like the two most interesting people there.  After a couple of hours we realised nothing interesting was about to happen, so we went back to our room and laughed a lot.  Well done us.  9 out of 10.

Level Eleven -  Once again, didn't plump for one of the ready made tourist experiences, but went and found a waterfalll that was off the beaten track, and managed to find some of the peace that people spend so much time looking for round here,  Spent some time in the afternoon listening to 'Ready, Steady, Goa' and other Half Man Half Biscuit favourites whilst feeling incongruous and laughing to myself as I watched the miserable purple couple down below drinking orange tea, wearing clothes cut from curtains and never smiling.  Had a slightly better time round the bonfire this night, thanks mostly to Tim from Australia and Teddy from Chicago, who were at least interesting, unlike Spiros the Greek whose idea of a party was to try and charge people for sharing his drink with him.  By the time we went to bed, the infantile looking dreadlocked German, the Tibetan looking dudes and the giant Portuguese Chewbacca lookalike were passing round joints and the ones who'd joined in on Spiros whip-round party were getting merrily hammered on beer and whisky, totally missing the point that it's supposed to be an alcohol free zone.  Nothing screams foreigner quite so much as the blatant disregard of local rules and customs.  Didn't miss much I think.  8 out of 10.

Level Twelve.  Found the bus station, which wasn't easy.  Got our bikes on board the bus, which wasn't easy either.  Barely survived 7 hours of Bollywood Blockbusters, mobile waiters flogging 'Wally wally Wallay', managed to fend off the Fantasy Island waiters in maroon waistcoats at the service station that had nothing but signs, and was supposed to be a respite from the bus.  It was almost worse.  On the approach to Delhi I totally failed to get my point across to the bus driver about where we wanted to be dropped, and ended up 10 miles from the hotel.  Got our own back on him though, by leaving him a bag of sick hanging on the back of the chair in front.  Thanks to Dean's sense of direction, and owing nothing whatsoever to me, who had no clue where we were, we rode through back alleys, under washing lines, nearly ran some children over, nearly got spiked on some metal rods, got wedged in an alley as wide as my head against a man dragging bricks on a trailer coming the other way, but ended with a grand welcome at the Ajanta, as if we were conquering heroes, and finished my cycling in India by soaking up the joyous feeling of being back on Arakashan Road again, which felt like coming home, only 11 days after first arriving there when it felt anything but.  8 out of 10.

Level Thirteen - The Taj Mahal.  Survived 10 hours in a car, fired our tour guide, fended off an overzealous toilet attendant, resisted the pleadings of a guy with the most miserable looking monkey in the universe, avoided buying snowglobes off some street urchins, got my polos confiscated by the army, got to have a look at the Taj Mahal in between being whistled at by some frustrated PE teacher types, and did very well on the whole not to go absolutely berzerk.  It's probably why they don't let you take anything dangerous in, just being in Agra could sent you into the kind of mental spiral that results in going postal.  We did well to survive.  7 out of 10.

Level Fourteen - A totally confusing breakfast experience, the inverse buffet.  Were brought loads of things we didn't want, and nothing we did.  Dean started operating the coffee machine himself, to the dismay of the waiters, who seemed to want to take 20 minutes over each cup, whereas Dean could get his own in 10 seconds.  Despite being full up, we were both brought curry, and nan bread.  After the breakfast challenge, we had to negotiate with three separate Indians not to be thrown out of our room that we'd booked 10 days previously.  I think in the end we did the requisite amount of pleading, and they let us stay.  If being in the hotel was testing, going out wasn't much easier.  Went to Connaught place, and doing some basic tasks like buying stamps and postcards, and topping up on talktime turned into the work of an entire day.  Dean managed to confuse an ear cleaning man, by telling him he was from India.  Even using the toilet in the coffee bar was a challenge.  The first time I went they let me have the light on, the second time I had to make to with a tiny amount of natural light coming from a vent.  Needless to say when I found the toilet I adopted a sitting position to wee, otherwise it could have gone everywhere.  Went to Rajghat, which was a different side of India.  Full of well dressed schoolchildren, and teenagers in Western type clothing.  Seemed a long way from the rags and poverty on show in other part of Delhi.  For once we wanted to hire a tuktuk, but we had trouble hiring one.  At one point we got refused outright.  But I started to feel like I belonged.  I had a vacant stare and I had dusty clothes.  Even Bangladeshi woman didn't try too hard.  7 out of 10.

Level Fifteen - After yesterday's circus we had breakfast in the room.  Got my bike bag back, dismantled the bike, checked out, paid the minibar.  Went for another walk to Connaught Place.  Got refused entry to an ATM, which made me laugh.  Spent most of the afternoon and evening sitting on the roof terrace drinking beer, using the internet and eating curry.  An easy day to finish, or maybe I was just getting the hang of it.  8 out of 10.

Level Sixteen -  As on the way in, the same on the way out.  A pointless customs form to fill in, confirming I'm not carrying ornamental fish or ICBMs, or millions in bullion.  Same as the way in, I had to borrow a pen off an Indian.  I then had to queue up for hours in a funnel with some Germans and Chinese to eventually face a staring man who could make time stand still.  The Germans were freaking out.  They couldn't handle the seeming getting nowhereness of it all. I'd been there two weeks.  It wasn't a big deal.  Eventually after having my boarding pass stamped to pieces I managed to get on board the British Airways flight.  The flight crew weren't as attentive this time, so I didn't get as many drinks as on the way over, and the breakfast wasn't as good, and then we bloody ended up in Glasgow, and not London.  I had some trouble persuading the Spanish guy next to me on the plane, who was dressed in orange robes and seemed to be having an ecstatic religious experience, that he was in fact in Scotland.  Emboldened by the ease of getting through passport control at the Scottish end, and having had a bath in my Holiday Inn room that I decided I didn't need, I took advantage of knowing how things work in the UK, dragged my bike around Glasgow for a bit, and then got the train home.  I took control.  It was a good way to finish.  It reminded me I can do stuff, and having had a brush with India, it made Glasgow seem like a long lost friend.  10 out of 10.

So that was it for me.  Game Over.  Dean carried on.  My credit was all used up.  I only completed the first 16 levels of India the Game.  I'm led to believe that there are infinite number of levels, so I didn't even reach the End of the Beginning.  Anyway, my score.  126 out of a possible 160.  That's 78%.  That's a pass in anyone's language.  In most exams that's enough to get an A.  I'd settle for a B though, and I probably should since I marked my own paper.  Also, that way it leaves room for improvement for when I go back.......