Shantaram - Gregory Roberts

I read Shantaram by Gregory Roberts over Christmas, its long, 950+ pages but it was so compelling that I got through it in 6 days.

It tells the true story of an Australian bank robber and ex junky who escapes from jail and ends up in Bombay. The story follows him from his arrival in the city, through his time in a rural village and back to the city where he ends up living in one of the slums, and starting a medical clinic. From there he gets arrested for no obvious reason and with no trail or chance of escape he is locked up, brutally beaten and almost dies. He is liberated from the jail by a mafia boss and goes to work for the local crime syndicate, ultimately ending up fighting with the Mujahidin against the Russians in Afghanistan before returning to Bombay.

The story is excellently crafted and written. He brings the people of Bombay to life and his love for them, from the poorest slum dweller, through the ex-pats and rich locals right up to the crime lord is clear. What only becomes apparent towards the end is how he is manipulated by a bigger power. His story is that of the bishop on the chess set. He is not the simple pawn, he is more useful, with a power to slide between the various lines, but at the same time he is certainly not the master of his destiny and he is used and scarified along the way.

It is a stunning book, I can not recommend it strongly enough, excellently written, and an amazing story of daring do, unrequented love and life in one of the poorest parts of the World. He is a truly great story teller and if even a half of it are true, a pretty amazing person.

HP Compaq 8510w - Review

HP Compaq 8510w

I have one of these, I didn't buy it, it was given to me by work, so I have no axe to grind and no hidden agenda. This review is based soley on my experience with said machine over the last year...

This computer is an utter pile of steaming, useless horse poo!!!

To be work specific
1. Battery - Computer is about a year old, battery lasts less than 20 minutes. My colleague who has the same model is down to 15.
2. It takes about 10 minutes for the boot up routine - I have no idea what it is actually doing during this time but it is very frustrating to sit their waiting and waiting
3. The consequence of 1 and 2 is that once its finished booting up I have about 10 minutes within which to do my work...
4. It perdioically greenscreens, this usually happens when it is plugged into an external monitor or data projector and I am running something that is graphics heavy, but beyond that I have not been able to narrow down the cause. New graphics drivers etc have not helped
5. Even though this is a university computer its full of junk freeware - I hate this crap, Katharine bought a machine in the States that was so full of shitte that was deeply buried we had to reinstall the OS from scratch - its like spam and junk mail it should just be illegal - no discussion

On the plus side it has nice keyboard and a clear screen

Recommendation - Buy something (almost anything) else...

Rant over, I feel much better now.

Runnin down the road trying to loosen my load...

I am not the biggest Eagles fan but I grew up listening to "One of these Nights" and "Hotel California" and they were definitely a part of my teenage years. When you live in North Wales it's easy to try and imagine that being a beach bum in Rhyl is just like being in California (it isn't!).

So I was pretty keen to see them live when I heard they were coming to the big B. Seeing bands in Bergen is always a treat because you get to see stadium bands in a small castle with a few thousand people, rather than at the back of some huge arena. There are some downsides, which include -
The atmosphere - open air, broad daylight, doesn't really create an intermit environment, feels more like some festival warm up
The weather - this time it was great - it can be very grim, standing in the rain for 4 hours
The people - or at least some of them! There is a special kind of person who goes to concerts in Bergen, typically middle aged women with perma-tans and awful dress sense, who just stands with their back to the stage and talk endlessly at their friends. Why the fuck are they there? They should have just saved the money and gone to the pub or a restaurant and left the people who want to see the band enjoy the show.

Anyway it’s still great to see big bands, pretty close up and its fantastic that the likes of the Foo Fighters, Metallica, the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen etc all come to a small town, population 250 thousand.

So back to the Eagles. They played for just under 3 hours (with a smoke break at half time). Very professional show, sound was great, visuals were also really impressive and entertaining. Very polite and gracious with a hint of humour thrown in. It must be shitte to know that all the crowd really wants to hear are the old favorites and you have played them a billion times! But it didn’t stop them, they played all the songs I wanted to hear including Hotel Calif., Long Run, Take it Easy, Life in the Fast Lane, finishing up with Desparado just for Katharine. They also played Don Henlys "Boys of Summer" which so reminds me of being 17, I could almost taste the summer of 1985 in North Wales!

Overall, very glad we went, another great band ticked off.

Holiday Reads

Read a fair bit while on holiday including:
"Snowball in Hell" by Christopher Brookmyre - I love his stuff, this one saw the return of my hero Simon Darcourt. I knew he wasn't dead!
"Call me Elizabeth" by Dawn Annandale - Middle class women with 6 kids becomes an escort to keep her brood in public school. More about middle class poverty than working in the sex industry
"Chance - a guide to gambling, love..." by Amir Aczel - summary of probability theory, well written but fairly basic. Does what it says on the tin.
"Touch wood" very amusing tale of an accidental pornographer. Has some very funny moments, I was laughing out loud in several places, highly recommended.
“The Time Traveler’s wife” by Audrey Niffenegger - definitely the best of the bunch. A really beautiful and haunting book. About the relationship between a couple where he is periodically and involentarily shunted back and forth through time. They keep meeting at differnt stages in their respective lives. Sounds fairly far fetched but it really works and its very cleverly done. Probably the best book I read in 2008.

Recent readings

Finished three books recently, all of which have been excellent in their own way.

"The life of Pi" by Yann Martel is a book that I have often looked at and even started twice before and never got in to. Katharine read it and then urged me to do the same, so I did. Found the first quarter really hard going, somewhat tedious and all the religous stuff rather annoying. But then, once the boy ends up in a life boat with a 450 pound bengal tiger it gets interesting. The story is not so far fetched that you think it is ridiculous but it is far enough out there to keep you interested. The twist at the end is brutal! Highly recommended although claims that "it will make you believe in god" are obviously bollox and actually do no justice to the book at all.

"Cityboy, Beer and loathing in the square mile" by Geraint Anderson was not what I expected. I was ready for a drug and booze filled romp through the life of typical suited, City of London, finance wanker. And while that's what it was in part, the guy was also smart enough to see why the whole system is totally screwed and why most of the people are utter scumbags. From that perspective he offers some very interesting insight into the lives of people who earn more in an afternoon than the average teacher earns in a year. But are they happy? Interestingly the book was published in early 2008 and towards the end he was predicting a fairly catastrophic crash - so I guess he was right then!

Continuing the drug fuelled, bacchalian theme, "Young men on fire" by Howard Hunt follows a bunch of dot.com hedonists on a night out in New York. Again it's interesting to note that the hero, turns out to be the quiet guy, sipping a beer in the corner. What ever happened to Irivine Welsh, Niall Griffith and Ian Banks, where the main characters are the most wasted? Maybe the world has become a more sober place in the last ten years. The book is an amusing romp regardless.

Long Way Down

Our favorite whinging thespians get another 5 million quid to go on a bike tour and feel sorry for themselves. Then they write a book to cash in even more...

This one was actually much better than the last (longway round). If one were cynical (perish the thought) you might suggest that their agents have said "look boys, most people would kill to have the opportunity to ride around the world so your continued moaning and self pity doesn't come across as "honesty" it just makes you look stupid and a bit pathetic".

Well whatever the reason they spend a lot of the book telling us how lucky they are and saying how much they are enjoying themselves - regardless of whether they are riding through a hellish sandstorm in Libya or squabbling about their itinerary. So in that sense its a significant improvement on the last one.

The good bits -
Taken at face value, its a boys own adventure of travelling through Europe and Africa on BMWs. As such it is infinately better TV entertainment than the inane cretins on Big Smoother, shit soaps or Gorden fuckin Ramsey and it also makes for a good read
They are pretty good at describing the countries they pass through and giving a feeling for it all.
They charity stuff is genuinely moving and they are doing an excellent job of raising awareness.

The annoying bits -
They keep talking about how its just the two of them on this great adventure - we all know that Claudio the camera is there the whole time, he must get pretty pissed off with them both.
The pay little heed to the real adventures they meet along the way, people without a massive budget and no support crew doing exactly the same journey.
Ewan Macgregor’s wife
If they wanted to start at the top of Europe why didn't they go Nord Kapp?

Anyway better than expected and worth a couple of hours to read... I think it will be interesting when Claudio or even Russ Makin publish their version of the trips - now that would be worth reading.

Ghost Rider by Neil Peart

Just finished Neil Peart's book Ghostrider.

Peart is the drummer and lyricist with Rush and in the mid 90's his life was pretty much perfect, international rock star, great house by a lake, place in the Caribean, nice family etc. Then suddenly, it all went to shit and he lost is daughter in a car crash and then, 9 months later, his wife to cancer.

So, to deal with the pain he got on to his trusty GS1150 and rode and then rode some more. And he just kept riding, all around North America, from Canada, up to Alaska, down the west coast, through the Rockies down into Baja and across to the rest of Mexico. This book deals with his travels and the healing process he went through.

As a motorcycle travelog it is pretty good, although he comes across as a bit of a wimp at times he covers some long miles and is a good observer of the countryside he passes through. He fell in love with some of my favorite places in the western US, Moab, Canyonlands etc and his writing on Baja is pretty inspiring.

But the book is not just a a story about a bloke on a BM and much of the story is written as letters and extracts from letters to friends, especially his pal Brutus who has just been busted with a lorry load of dope - opps! To be honest I found these pretty tedious to read and actually quite repetitive, I caught myself sighing and having to force myself on when I turned a page and saw another "dear Brutus" sub heading.

The other place at which the book failed for me was at the end. He basically just stops riding and then in an epilog we are told that he feel in love again, got married, started back with the band and basically got himself sorted. It would have been great to follow that journey through, that is the real uplift to the story and it felt, at least to me like he just got bored of writing and did the last 2 years in 5 pages.

So I am really split on this one. Part of my enjoyed the book and would say it was essential reading if you love western North America, bikes and have any interest in Rush, other part of me feels its drawn out, indulgent and only half a story.

I guess you need to make up your own mind, I am just about to embark on Long Way Down, which if it is anything like its predessor will involve huge vats of self indulgant whinning and self pity from a couple of thespian tossers who only have a 5 million quid budget and 20 person support crew to ease the sufferring they endure when they miss their families while completing another once in life time, epic, trip.

Why do I feel compelled to ride books about people on bikes. I blame it on Jupiters Travels - the orginal and by far and away still the best.

Foo Fighters – Bergen

Not much to say apart from “total fuckin awesome”

This is a song about a red car - Rush at the Woodlands

Roy Fitzs sent me an email a couple of weeks back saying "if you want to skip the first evening of AAPG, a certain Canadian 3 piece beat-combo are playing a few tunes Sunday night". I was very very tempted! For as long as I have listened to serious music I have loved Rush, I bought "Moving Pictures" from a kid in school in 1982 and have wanted to see them live ever since, but just never got the chance.

Then on friday, while I am still undecided about missing part of the conefernce, Roy calls and tells me that the gig is moved to saturday - seems like they really wanted me to see them after all. How could I say no now?

So Roy and his mate Andy picked me up in his jeep and we rattled around the beltway to the Woodlands in north Houston. Got a ticket from a tout at a reduced price (it gets better) and we headed in. The Woodlands is a smallish revenue with seating around the stage and a big grass bowl behind. We found a spot on the grass and settled down to wait with a beer. I love seeing bands in small venues and there can't have been more that 7000 folk, mostly sitting out on the grass chilling and waiting for the show to start. Some of them were even smoking it...

The band came on to some very weird little sketches on the big screens and then kicked off with “limelight” - it was awesome I could feel the hairs standing on the back of my neck. This was worth the 25 year wait… and it got better The next three hours (yes 3 hours) went by in a trance, they played some stuff we didn't know off the newest albums but loads of old stuff, Freewill, Spirit of the Radio, Red Barchetta, Witch Hunt, Tom Sawyer etc etc . Geddy Lee's voice isn't quite what it used to be on those high notes - but fuck he must be 60 so you can't complain. Despite his slight vocal limitations the playing was tight and they were super entertaining – just what I had hoped for, a great show and as the moon rose behind the stage it was cut by the laser show.

After the show it was off for a few beers which degenerated into a few more, overall an excellent evening and another dream fulfilled.

Hayseed Dixie at Ricks - Awesome!

Couple of years ago while climbing in Spain, I was introduced to a blue-grass band doing AC/DC covers called Hayseed Dixie – I loved it, they were awesome. Tore, the same guy who introduced me to the music sent me a message a while ago to say that they were coming to Bergen, all the way from Tennessee - chance of a lifetime.

One of the many good things about Bergen is that when bands go on tour the often visit Norway’s second city. The fact that said second city is very small (by European standards) means that you can go and see the Levellers with only 100 other people (as opposed to 10,000 in the UK) and even the Foo Fighters or David Bowie with only 5,000 rather than 100,000.

Anyway was very excited to get to see them, especially since I hadn’t seen any bands for a while. I got the tickets and dragged Lepard, Steve Corfield and Mark Scott along with me. Had a funny day down in Oslo, got back late and headed straight to meet the boys in Finnegans. We were having a good evening waiting for the doors to open next door when I got told I couldn’t eat outside despite the fact that everyone else was allowed to smoke, Tossers! It was a good time to leave anyway and we head to Ricks – Bergens cheesiest cattlemarket type night club, where the band came on at 10.30.

There was a good mix of people and the place was pretty busy but not rammed. The band came on and they looked pretty much you’d expect, dungarees and denim – big beards. They opened up with a few old favorites and then played a few new songs. They were awesome, great music and really entertaining little snippets and stories. The crowd loved it and that includes us.

They played a pretty full set, about 2 hours and then came out into the crowd and had a beer with us. Top bunch of guys. They were fantastic – if you get a chance to see to them, jump at it. Best band I have seen in ages.

The photos are from my phone so they are a bit crappy, but you get the idea...