Armchair travel

I'm well aware that the secret to greatness is the ability to edit oneself, but I mean "I'm well aware" so as to say - I'm "well aware" I should save money, for instance, but I'm yet to develop the skills to actually carry this action out. According to Aristotle, who did not believe one could 'have' ethics - only those you acted upon count - I certainly do not understand the value of editing. So, it is in this spirit I present you, dear reader, with fifteen photographs of these 1960s American Geographical Society 'Around the World' guides I bought at the Regent book sale positively ages ago. I got them for $1 each and they are taking turns being on display in my bedroom. At the moment: Bermuda.

What I love about these covers is the way the basic, stereotypical little drawings, making spots on the map - as if you could go to that place and indeed see a real life cart being pulled by oxen - show you the changing views people have of other places - of overseas.


Aside from that, I love the fantasy of a place, which only exists in our collective or individual imaginations - and which will never stand-up to the reality once you arrive. People always look at me questionably, as I talk-up a place I've never been, and ask if perhaps I'm worried I might be disappointed with the real place. I always feel wildly flattered by the idea that my pitiful imagination could possibly dream up an actual pulsating, spontaneous and utterly 'Other' place - not to mention that I could, within my controlled imagination, actually ever imagine another person. A real place, and real people, will always be infinitely more than a controlled, you-absorbed fantasy place.

But the fantasy has a lightness and silliness about it which I quite adore also. Which is why you'll find me sometimes, in a bar in Bangkok, reading an old novel set in Burma and day-dreaming about 'Burma.'



These ridiculous images and maps are precisely for people like me. Below: good old Austria.

And back to Bermuda ! Cricket and cucumber sandwiches, exotic fragrances, exploring hidden waterfalls, horse-drawn carts and early morning jets back to New York.

Below: a friendly traffic warden in safari get-up helps a couple of blissed-out, slightly drunk tourists on their way.

Steampunk Capital

Oamaru is the the self-proclaimed steampunk headquarters of New Zealand, although I've previously mostly associated it with the famous white Oamaru stone, good cheeses and petrol station stops on the way elsewhere. This is really embarrassing, but I had actually never stopped in the historic Victorian part of town before last week - and as a direct result of my ignorance, never thought of Oamaru as a particularly beautiful or interesting place. Boy was I wrong.



An exceptionally well-dressed and amiable local.

Then we stopped at Annie's Victorian Tea Rooms - a place which would have featured in my fantasies had I ever heard of it before. Just look at that menu! (and those prices)

An elderly woman played equally old music on the piano, without music sheets, and when she got up to leave everyone clapped quietly and thanked her. She didn't work there.



Above: one of the waiters. Below: the best scones of my life. Paradise: Annie's is your name.

Crush on a Tory

While Rory Stewart writes about his "uphill battle against the Afghanistan intervention", I thought I would write about my own frustrating and ethically admirable battle: my battle against having a crush on a tory. Until Rory Stewart came along, I have been like the Berlusconi of the feminist left - claiming that 'left-wing' men (I know, the 'wings' are stupid political terms) are way hotter than those gross conservatives with their spongey skin, soulless eyes and regularly tweeted private parts (I know, Anthony Weiner is a democrat - but your 'centre-left' is my 'centre-right' America).

But then, this:

Fuuuuuuuuccccckkkkkk.

Hats off to any feminist babes out there who look at that, watch his ted talk and read his horrifying curriculum vitae, and still feel unmoved by those beautiful, entirely soulful eyes. This may be one of the biggest celebrity crushes of my adult life and it is on someone who supports David Cameron - i.e. not even a smart conservative. The awful kind. The neo-liberal, slash and burn economics, champagne swilling kind.

p.s. his website actually does put me off slightly. SLIGHTLY (Also, only because I find pictures of grown men holding lambs disgusting, not because of the politics).

Anyway, for those of you who can't be bothered reading the ridiculous life story of my political crush or watching his frankly inspirational ted talk, I've prepared an example of what it would be like if Rory and I were dating:

The scene: winding down after a day motorbiking around Sumatra, a romantic dinner in an obscure little restaurant, where Rory orders in Bahasa (because he speaks it fluently).

Rory: (to me, in English) "Boy, I'm so glad Samoa has finally joined the WTO. Free trade is really the only way forward - I can't believe how protectionist some of these states can be, and for what?! Don't these people want development?"

Me: "Rory, we've talked about this so many times and it makes me really upset. I'm so angry I would throw my glass of red wine on you right now, if I wasn't so fond of that shirt you're wearing..."

Rory: "Oh honey, I love it when you're angry! It reminds me of that time I walked across Afghanistan."

Me: ...

Double Rainbows in Doubtful Sound

I'm not sure I've gotten around to bragging about my job yet, but here it is: my job is looking after American exchange students, planning trips for them and taking them on said trips. It is awesome.

Recently we went on an overnight cruise in Doubtful Sound - an area of Fiordland inaccessible by road. Below you can see an excerpt from my reactions:

Above: 'Blanket Bay Hotel' - a popular place for fishermen to drop in. Below: the scene of many photographs and paintings, by many idiots hopelessly trying to depict the beauty of Fiordland in two dimensions.

Mt Cargill with a Smurfette

Most people walk up Mt. Cargill for the spectacular views of Dunedin and the surrounding beaches and peninsula. To break with tradition, my beautiful friend Dr. Gi and I decided to bundle up there on an exceptionally misty day - so the surrounding landscape was nothing but bright white.


To celebrate, Dr. Gi turned up dressed entirely in blue. I loved it.

Ominous foggy scenes.

"This is the part where the Zombies come out..."


Below: the famous radio tower. Squint hard.



Our picnic, courtesy of Crusty Corner (orzo, feta and spinach salad!), Pierre (happy to finally be on a trip again, no matter how small) and below: when the sun came out on our stumble down the hill, during which the smurfette dished out copious gossip I cannot repeat here !

Regent book sale haul

I went to the famous 24 Hour Regent Book Sale this year with the intention of not buying anything. What a joke. The books pictured above are not even all the books I purchased, but perhaps those I am most proud of (no one needs to know about my trashy penchant for collecting copious travel guides*).

* In fact, those thin, pastel-coloured books in the pile above, but not featured in this post, are all 1967 National Geographic Country Guides and I will be doing an entire post on them next. Because really, everyone needs to know about them.


Philip Roth is one of my all-time favourite authors, so I was very excited to find this hardcover for only $3. This was in the expensive part of the book sale, because, at the Regent, $3 is a pretty astronomical price for a book.

The first sentence is: "I hadn't been in New York in eleven years."

Some people consider Philip Roth a misogynist. Some people are wrong idiots who don't understand complexity. Well, too bad for them. Lucky for me, I'm the kind of raving feminist who likes a bit of Roth with my de Beauvoir (certain feminists would call me a 'Roth apologist'; there's a term, truly). Here's what the Guardian has to say about The Mandarins: "The characters, especially the women, are uninhibited and sometimes predatory. The dialogues are salty, frank and realistic. The characters' amorous adventures are set down with microscopic exactitude."

1. I want to have 'salty' conversations. 2. I love lurid sex scenes in books, for example right now I am reading "Fear of Flying" by Erica Jong - a famous feminist book where the (lady) protagonist goes in search of the mythical 'zipless fuck.' 3. I love writers who are brave enough to write predatory women, for example the geniuses behind Battlestar Galactica. Swoon.


Speaking of predatory women, just look at that portrait of Ethel Mannin, taken in approx 1930. It's pretty much the whole reason I bought her autobiography, and was also my first acquaintance with Ethel. Actually, it wasn't the whole reason, because also this:

"I did not want to born, and like that unhappy heroine Susan Lennox, even when born had to be galvanised into some sign of life. My mother wanted me called "Stella," which I should have much preferred to their final choice, but my father objected to it because of Stella Maris - who was an incubator baby, I understand - and he found the association of ideas unpleasant."

Also, if you want some early 20th century gossip, read her wikipedia entry for goodness sake. It made my jaw drop.

"Death in Midsummer: and other stories" by Yukio Mishima already seemed fairly irresistible, largely due to it's cover (contrary to popular knowledge, you often can judge books by them).

Then I read the back: "Violence, homosexuality and the spiritual emptiness of post-war Japan: these were Mishima's key themes." It also says he has wry and ironic humour. And finally "Here is Mishima. Here is Japan."

Hey book, consider my expectations: raised ! ... (it'll be fine, it's a Penguin).


I love travel. I love reading. I hate most travel writing. Most of it is so, so shit. It's like reading about your aunty taking her bored (and boring) husband to southern France to buy a vineyard, at which point they will spend months complaining about how the French don't know how to make tea and talking about how 'rustic' everything is. Ok, it isn't like that. It is literally just that.

But then, like in any genre, there are some gems. I am cautiously optimistic about "The Fruit Palace" - it's recommended by respectable institutions, it's set in Colombia (so I'll probably love it even just for nostalgia's sake) and it grew from the author being given an assignment to write an 'exposé' of the cocaine trade, at which point he got way too involved in the lives of the urban poor of Colombia and the project instead turned into this massive book. Cool. Promising, anyway.

Oh Nancy, Nancy Nancy Nancy. I'm always in the mood for Nancy Mitford, even if I am slightly dubious about taking on this novel - the first of her non-fiction books I am attempting to read. I just love her fiction so much anything would seem a step down, especially a biography about some famous royal of the day ?!

In any case, here is a glorious quote from her fiction as a fittingly non sequitur end to this post:

“The worst of being a Communist is the parties you may go to are - well - awfully funny and touching but not very gay...I don't see the point of sad parties, do you? And Left-wing people are always sad because they mind dreadfully about their causes, and the causes are always going so badly.”

- The Pursuit of Love (I think).

xoxo

Cute Pictures juxtaposed with Disgusting Tale

Now, I am decidedly not a dog person. As evidenced by the fact I spent a long morning with that brown-haired golden retriever in the pictures, and actually really liked her, but can't for the life of me remember her name. The small, white spoodle (apparently called a 'cockapoo' in the states, jesus h.) is called Skye and belongs to my beautiful red-haired Australian flatmate Claire, pictured above and belong being suffocated by dogs while trying to drive.


The little idiot Skye has been growing on me, like a tumour, to the point where I even let her sleep in my bed while Claire was away filming nature documentaries a la David Attenborough. The first night was great, Skye stayed at my feet (rule #1) and didn't wake me too early (rule #2). She even kept me warm and gave me the false sense of security that if there should be an intruder, she would do something (just what a 'cockapoo' would be capable of doing takes quite a wild stretch of the imagination). I was thinking, oh, I see where these 'dog-people' are coming from!


Well, then she woke me on a Friday morning, at the cheerful hour of just after six a.m., by unceremoniously puking on my bed. I felt like I had gone against all good judgement and taken a drunk first-year home, and was looking at the all-too-predictable results. One of my neighbours, on hearing the tale, responded "God, I can't even handle birds singing at six in the morning, you poor thing!" Indeed. I had to 'deal with' the grossness, while holding back violent gags, while half asleep, before I even had a coffee. POOR POOR ME.


So, I'm well back to being a cat person. I said this to my sister, triumphantly. My sister, who thinks all pets are disgusting, costly wastes of space replied: "cats puke too"

me: "yes, true, but they're smaller right? it isn't as bad?"

Hm.

Great story?

Epilogue: I still love Skye, but she is banned from my room until further notice. I know it wasn't her fault, but - in a way - that makes it worse.