Wednesday 5 August 2015

Farewell Liverpool

A couple of weeks ago, I graduated in an incredible city. A ruthless, chaotic and beautiful place called Liverpool. The 48-hour celebratory stint was marked with conflicting emotions: relief, anxiety about the future, pride and most of all nostalgia. Yes, I had dodged a Desmond and could now turn my back on deadlines and the dreaded dissertation - the conclusion of which I seem to have already forgotten, much to my bewilderment. Academic grievances aside, saying goodbye to Liverpool itself was not something I had contemplated…

The city’s most memorable quality is one that hits you, turbulent and unforgiving like the baltic wind on arrival at Lime Street train station. The first and last people you’re likely to encounter there, Scouse taxi drivers could be anything from your new best mate to your worst nightmare. There is no way of telling, and the suspense this creates is only the beginning of the fun. On some journeys I’ve grown so fond of a cabbie, and so involved in their absurd stories about the city that I’m reluctant to get out of the car, obviously goodbyes are not my strong point.

In fact, the immediate closeness you feel to Scousers is a phenomenon much farther reaching than the safe confines of a taxi. The idea of “stranger danger”, a concept taken so painfully seriously in the South of England, seems to lose some of its significance up North. The warmth and humour of Liverpudlians and their welcoming demeanour is but a distant dream to “posh twats” on the London underground. Thinking about it, it’s probably for the best that there is no tube in Liverpool, or no one would ever make it to work for all the socialising and/or orgies bound to take place in the carriage.

But of course, Liverpool cabbies are much like the poet Longfellow’s little girl: “When she was good, she was very good indeed, but when she was bad she was horrid.” One Liverpudlian taxi driver who always springs to mind is a devout Everton fan who, terribly pleased with himself, told me that “in me life yer, it goes number one Everton, number 2 me wife, number 3 me kids. I’m not even messin’”. I’ll just jump out here please, keep the change.

That brings me onto football, a defining feature of Liverpool. The pub atmosphere it creates is unparalleled. I admit, my loyalty to the Reds is borne out of a desire to maintain a good relationship with my father, and therefore doesn’t quite qualify as a zealous following. However, when you’re in a sweaty pub, surrounded by men who would probably give their left bollock to see Liverpool win – whilst some of us are absent-mindedly admiring the gentle curve of Sterling’s buttocks – you can’t help but get caught up in it all.

Speaking of pubs, err ma gerrrd so cheap. The notorious Raz is so tremendously inexpensive that a friend, when visiting from London, put £20 on the bar and asked for as many pints as he could get with that note. He turned away, momentarily distracted and assuming that he’d be met with four or five beers, only to discover twenty pints of non-descript lager on the bar. Ye wha? TWENTY. My god we were spoilt rotten there.

Has Liverpool changed me? I reckon so. In my first few weeks there, I remember marvelling at the sheer depth of foundation on the faces of the McDonald’s girls. They were more dolled up for a shift at Maccie’s than I had ever been. So on my last day as a student there, I succumbed. In a Scouse salon on the morning of graduation, I adopted what can only be described as a “bouffant” hairstyle which made me look nothing short of extra-terrestrial, honestly I was less mad than impressed. Thankfully, it relaxed as the day went on because as the hairdresser kindly pointed out, “you’ve got limp hair, love.” Liverpool taught me not only to embrace hair spray and cheap bevvies, but also to take it on the chin, to talk to strangers (controversial though it may be), to laugh when things aren’t going so smoothly, to always pack a brolly and how to make a strong cup of tea.


On leaving Liverpool, a wave of nostalgia came over me… I was proper devoed, like. I was already pining for its beaches and sand dunes, rich history and architecture, art and music scene. I knew I would miss the people too: from my waxer the (self-proclaimed) Hairy Godmother, to the commuters and the cabbies. Alas it is time to bid farewell to Liverpool, whose grit and charm I will miss the most. Ta-ra for now. 


Tuesday 9 June 2015

Red Eye

Imagine being constantly followed, watched, exhibited. Every minute detail of your life laid out bare for the world to see. The impossibility of forgetting, of removing all trace. Sound familiar? It is.

Increasingly, we are documented through the power of the image, succumbing to selfie sticks, under surveillance – but should this picture of modern Western society be embraced or rejected? Framed or deleted? Liked or untagged? I could go on…

Universal access to photography could be resisted and labelled as the death of an art form, if only for the association of “selfie” with words such as “narcissism” and “exhibitionism.” With the dual power of images and social media, we are at risk of an invasion of privacy and a complete loss of mystery evoking George Orwell’s 1984. Living in the context of Snowden’s revelations of mass-surveillance and the phone hacking scandal, this dystopian fiction is not so far from reality. However, didn’t Orwell once write that “he who controls the past controls the future”? And isn’t the will of the populace to capture their lives on camera – albeit tiresome – an indicator of happiness?

Surely, then, our eyes can afford to be reddened. At least for art history’s sake. Somerset House recently exhibited photography pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot’s early works of the 19th Century, and his “Veronica Bloom” was valued at £300,000. Reportedly a bargain. This figure illustrates the rarity of photographs in 1840, compared with the prolific output of William Eggleston, Joel Meyerowitz and Bill Brandt in the 20th Century, who all exhibited in the same space this May as part of Photo London. Brandt’s beach series, in particular, is an example of the potential intimacy of photography, and the unique perspective it can offer.

Photography is pertinent not solely in the art world, but also in politics and current affairs. Looking back to the Vietnam War, also known as the “television war,” the impact that visual media has had on public consciousness is clear. This war was the first to be televised, and therefore politicised the American youth, leading to the anti-war movement. This in turn led partially to the defeat of the American army. Fast forward almost half a century, to now, and John Moore wins L’Iris d’Or for his photo series “Ebola Crisis Overwhelms Liberian Capital,” a collection of photographs which help to communicate the extent of the tragedy. Photography past and present, therefore, is a vital part of human expression. It is becoming more and more accessible in the digital age, and gone are the days when only the elite could afford self-portraits.

Red Eye is something to be celebrated if it means photography is prospering. Never again will we have to resort to a handful of clumsily captured photographs on a Kodak Fun Saver circa 1993. We can look at the past and use it to shape our future, even if that sometimes comes at the price of sharing every intimate personal detail, and hence every goddamn meal containing an avocado on Instagram. So long visual amnesia.
Talbot
Eggleston
Meyerowitz
Brandt
Moore

Tuesday 5 May 2015

Scouse Perseverance

Ambrose Reynolds, the curator of Liverpool’s Bombed Out Church, is pensive, his eyes twinkling over a Scouse brew. “This space is an oasis. Here, stillness can be found amongst the chaos,” he says.
The Bombed Out Church stands tall if a little unsteadily over Liverpool’s city centre. It adopted its title after the Blitz in 1941, and its survival has hung by a thread ever since. Roofless, consumed by nature and possessing a “micro-climate” of its own, the church is symbolic of the city’s proud history.
Though protected by covenant, the crumbling building was on the verge of being abandoned when Reynolds came along in 2003; since then things seem to have, sometimes physically, “fallen into place”.
An attempt by Signature Living, a hotel operator, to buy the space last year was met with public outrage. The council rejected its plans and a £19,000 Crowdfunder gave the church a new lease of life. Today, it is conserved by English Heritage.
Home to film screenings, Shakespeare plays, craft fairs, live music events, and public forums attended by the local community despite “Siberian weather”, the church’s popularity is soaring, Reynolds smiles. Last Sunday he welcomed Bonobo and Gilles Peterson to its grounds, a show that sold out in ten minutes. Gilles’ show was infallible, and a Brazilian bucket hat was rather aptly doing the rounds as he played jazz, electro, and new releases from Romare. Bonobo put on an eye-wateringly beautiful set which matched the surroundings perfectly.
Scouse perseverance is to thank for the revitalisation of this Liverpool landmark. That and a stubborn stand against commercial gentrification, or “poncifying” as Reynolds calls it. What next for the Bombed Out Church? Well, the sky is quite literally the limit.

Sunday 27 July 2014

The Daily Grind

This summer, I have undertaken two internships in our beloved capital. One I will refer to as The Music Job, the other as The Press Job. 
The former all started with me sending one of those ‘omg I love you let me come and see you and work at least in smelling distance of you’ emails. Can I just say it was well worth the risk. People love having their egos stroked, try it: just send an email… one of the greatest things about the internet is that cold hard rejection can just be dragged into the trash can at the bottom of your desktop. And no one can see you cry. While you’re at it, why not be inventive? I once worked in a shop where the manager received a hand written, Dickens-style CV in the post on lavender scented paper, no less. Anyway what I’m trying to say is… there’s no harm in putting yourself out there with a bit of flamboyancy. 
So, Day 1 at The Music Job. I’m on the tube, it’s 30 degrees in London, I can’t tell if I’m sweaty from the nerves of working for a record label which I admire or because the London Underground refuses to install air-con, a basic human right. After disembarking the train and trundling along in the humid, London smog I finally find the office. Google Maps, I am eternally grateful. I knocked on the door and that’s where it all began. Everyone was lovely. I looked around the room. Everyone had a Macbook Pro. Sheepishly pulling my 8-tonne Dell, the width of my shoulders, from its case (when I say case I mean old, crum-ridden Sainsbury’s bag I’d fashioned as a rain shield), I made a mental note: surrender to Apple. It’s time.

I am now on Day 37, and the internship is going great. Music industry veterans are human too. In terms of meeting like minded people and learning how to use industry websites such as Fatdrop and Wordpress, the experience has been a great extension of my skill set. That sentence is going in my CV. I have encountered, though, some slight obstacles during my time at The Music Job. Can someone answer me this: How to write an album review without sounding like a pretentious twat? Or in my case, how to write ANYTHING without sounding like a pretentious twat. The strangest thing about music journalism is the inclination to use crazy imagery to personify sound, e.g: “Check out this dreamily hallucinogenic yet naughty mind-fuck of a choon with tremors of spice running through it.” Am I describing the effects of LSD or a chicken korma? I don’t know anymore!

Another issue I have is placing names and faces. I walked in on Four Tet in the loo the other day and it was only after I giddily described the incident to my manager as ‘oops I just stumbled upon a tall dark stranger in the toilet!’ that she informed me it was Him.

Feeling a little overwhelmed, I took a week off so that I could take part in The Press Job.

Interning at a national newspaper requires me to buy several publications every morning. I read these on the tube, where I spend most of my life. The tube, as mentioned earlier, is warm and moist. Therefore the newspaper ink is warm and moist. Consequently by the end of my morning commute I am left with fingers covered in warm, moist ink which has leaked, like tears, from the miserable coverage of the day’s events. The ramifications of this whole predicament are endless: inky hands, inky face (looks I have moustache after wiping away my SULA* and a beard after scratching my chin in deep thought) and profound embarrassment at not being able to fold a broadsheet without elbowing an elderly person in the ribs. 

And if this wasn’t emotional enough for 8 o’clock on a Monday morning, the latest events from around the world are so depressing and the images of despair are so moving that I am reduced to weeping in public. Ok, mornings are challenging anyway. At least there’s usually an over-sympathetic yet slightly handsy fellow commuter on your carriage to dry your tears… or rub your thigh.

The excitement, however, of working in the media and breaking news stories, interviewing inspirational people and probably pissing a lot of them off is worth a bit of harmless flirting on the tube. It’s an addictive industry for which I may have sacrificed some of my values, albeit after 5 days.

If you can get over the constant sense of drowning/feeling out of your depth for the first couple of days, then I’d recommend interning to everybody. Students with long summers especially. Forget tanning (and by tanning I mean sleeping 'til sunset/contracting chlamydia/getting a tattoo you’ll regret) in Thailand and, in the words of André 3000, ‘Git Up, Git Out”! There’s nothing more satisfying than a hard day’s work. Except perhaps a nice long slice of salami with crumbled feta and fresh rocket on a bed of sea salt and rosemary focaccia. I’ll end on that note as I’ve just remembered that there’s a gourmet sandwich in the Italian Delhi across the road with my name on it.



*SULA = Sweaty Upper Lip Alert

Sunday 4 May 2014

India

Last summer, the four of us embarked on a trip to bright, colourful, intoxicating India. For anyone who has not yet been, this country is captivating in that it conquers every sense. The tastes and smells are rich and undeniably potent. The feel of the heat on your skin is staggering. The sights are moving and unforgettable and the sounds are, well, constant.

On our first night in Delhi, I had the pleasure of sharing my, um, very reasonably priced bedroom-type space with a thousand mosquitos and the delightful Kaitlyn. At first, I was being difficult. I refused to have the ceiling fan on because it was dangling by a thread and I did not want decapitation to be the death of me. Please note that it was early July and 40° C+ outside in a city so populated that there are twelve Delhiites per square meter. Several hours before, our emotional mothers had hugged us (squeezed the breath out of us) whilst choking back the tears at Heathrow, stuffing miniature electric fans into each of our rucksacks just in case. Due to my stubborn refusal to turn on the ceiling fan, Kaitlyn drained the batteries of both of our mini fans within ten hours of being in India’s capital, insisting on sleeping with them practically glued to her perspiring forehead.



The following morning, feeling surprisingly spritely, we managed to hire a driver for the remaining three weeks of our trip. His name is Aineul, a gentle, timid man with very limited yet endearing English and no idea what was coming to him. We, (Kaitlyn, Lizzie, Mairead and I) piled into the back of his car and began our adventure. Mairead was particularly keen to be in an enclosed area as she was terrified that somebody would cut off her astonishingly long and silky hair and sell it at the market for a million rupees. I sat in the front, and was therefore referred to from that point on as “Ellie boss”. The front of Aineul’s car was spacious, I recall smugly, and embellished with religious décor including a shrine to Sikhism on the dashboard. The first place he took us to was the Red Fort. It took us a week of visiting various forts and temples in various cities in Rajasthan to realise that it was just too hot to do endless sight-seeing, so we channelled our concentration into getting to know the locals, eating A LOT of curry and playing chase with children in the street. In the end, we felt that we saw more of the true India this way. I think Aineul will always remember us as being the four sweaty blonde girls who came to India and refused to see any temples.




When I said a lot of curry, what I meant was Aloo Gobi for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We made the mistake of trying western food in India once. Lizzie, who will usually eat anything, couldn’t even look at her pasta again. It was thick with a tomato sauce which tasted sweeter than angel delight. When in Rome… eat Indian food.

Getting a driver was definitely a good idea for us. Aineul was fantastic (after he understood that no, we didn’t want to be taken to his cousin’s, uncle’s, brother’s “mall” with beautiful scarves made out of something pretending to be bamboo) he took us to the most incredible places. After Delhi, we went to Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Pushkar, Jaipur and Agra. Jaisalmer was our favourite; the people were so welcoming and high-spirited. It was not far from Jaisalmer where the four of us took a camel ride into the desert. Here, accompanied by the camel and his guard, we played drinking games and listened, agog, whilst Manuel the camel guard told us about his despair at having to marry a woman he didn’t love in the coming months. After this, our minds contemplating the vast difference between our world and his, we fell asleep under the stars. We also saw a bug. Not just any bug, a glow in the dark, skeletal, futuristic looking creature the size of my hand which looked like it could kill a man.


Udaipur, the city of lakes, was another highlight. We all have fond memories of sitting at the edge of a pool, drinking Kingfishers…stronger than you think… and playing endless card games with some Scottish boys we adopted for a few days – one of whom saved me from being trampled by a large cow on one occasion.



Later, we visited Jaipur, where everything and everyone moves so fast and so erratically that it’s a blur. This is a huge city for industry in India and we found refuge in its cinema. Going to the movies in India is an experience. Men and women queue separately, the seat tariffs range from “Pearl” to “Platinum” depending on where you’re placed. Decoration inside is nothing less than extravagant. The cinema was showing the latest Bollywood blockbuster, “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag”, a film about an Indian sportsman whose life was tragically complicated by the India-Pakistan partition. Despite none of us speaking a word of Hindi, we were all in floods of tears by the closing credits, moved as we were by Farhan Akhtar’s ripped torso and the incredibly catchy soundtrack.



Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, quite deservedly one of the wonders of the world, is where we parted with Aineul. It was the only part of India where we experienced the full extent of the monsoon; I saw more rain in 2 minutes than I have whilst living in France during a whole year. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see much of the city itself as we arrived very late and awoke at 4am in order to see the palace at sunrise. So, as promised, at 4am, Aineul knocked on the door. Sleepy-eyed and with a mouth as dry as Gandhi’s flip flop, I opened it. Aineul informed me that we needed to leave in the next 30 minutes in order to be on time. It was at this ungodly hour that I had one of the most bizarre conversations of my life:

Me: …Yawn… “Good morning Aineul”
A: “Ellie Boss! Good morning!”
Me: “Could you please bring us some water?”
A:“Samosa?!”

I cannot for the life of me understand why he thought I would want a samosa at that time. This encounter pretty much sums up the language barrier between us. I miss Aineul.




Although we were sad to leave Aineul and his lovely ways, we were relieved to be out of that car. In India, the motorways are havoc. Massive craters cover the concrete, cows weave in and out of beeping cars and the drivers all play a game of chicken. On one occasion, Aineul was driving head on towards a lorry coming in the opposite direction at 70 miles an hour only to dodge out of the way at the last minute. So, to put it mildly, we were looking forward to train travel from Agra to Calcutta via Varanasi. One slight problem: our train tickets said platform 23, there are only about 10 platforms at Agra train station…  We did make it to Calcutta and then on to Thailand, eventually! India was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. The food was out of this world, the people were enchanting and the wildlife was... wild. I’m just glad I lived to tell the tale.




Thursday 26 September 2013

Perdue en Provence

Apologies in advance for how sickeningly smug this article is. As I stepped off my sleazy-jet flight and onto French soil I took in a deep breath and said to myself: this is it. A year in France. Toute seule. Stay calm – just think of the cheese. A month in, I can say with certainty that I had nothing to be afraid of and hyperventilating on my plane over to Aix-en-Provence was a wasted effort and hardly a glamorous entrance.

This trip has been seamless since the first day, my French colocataire , Charlotte, who drives a small red Peugot, of course - how French - was waiting for me in the arrivals lounge with a smile that stretched from ear to ear and a never ending supply of ice breakers and anecdotes for the short journey to our apartment. Ok, I admit it, I didn’t get everything she was saying (understanding French whilst appearing totally blasé is quite a feat) but I nodded and smiled in the right places and that’s the basis of a long and prosperous friendship, no?  

Thirty minutes later, Charlotte flings open the door of our apartment in Aix. “Welcome to France!” She grins, reaching for a bottle of Bergerac’s finest vin rouge out of the cupboard. I let out a sigh of relief. To my delight I see that my room is even better than it looked on appartager.fr and certainly a step up from my student house in Liverpool last year, in which the living conditions were barely at a legal standard. My room has plenty of space for activities and my window (clad with shutters!) leads out onto the roof terrace, prime location for sitting with a copy of French Elle, sipping on an espresso and other similarly pretentious things.

Our landlady, Mme Gaufrès (Mrs Waffles in English) is there to meet us with an inventory the length of my leg which I have to pretend I understand, sign and return in one hand and a petit camembert in the other. Kidding, my mind just drifted to cheese related thoughts mid-sentence, really not socially acceptable. I spend the rest of the afternoon taking generic snaps of fountains in Aix – of which there are a lot – and then share a dinner in town with Charlotte during which we discover our mutual love of food and charming French waiters.

And so student life in Aix-en-Provence begins. The bad news is French paperwork is endless and soul destroying, toilets are unisex and the building is falling apart. (There are literally debris nets on every wall of the faculté to stop unsuspecting students being flattened by falling chunks of cement.) The good news is that Erasmus students have very little contact hours, receive a pretty generous grant and most of us just have to pass the year without worrying about it contributing to our final grade. One of my teachers is a tiny yet impressively muscly (she definitely does lift bro) femme du sud. She is typically Aixois: she oozes elegance and has leathery golden skin from years of sun exposure beautifully contrasted by a white linen ensemble, the unspoken dress code of Aix. One of my classmates succinctly described her as a MILF. I refuse to elaborate.

Erasmus students, myself included, are comparable to sheep, following the infamous “Organisator” to and from clubs with names like the Wohoo – true, Aix isn’t renowned for its buzzing nightlife but Marseille, host to music festival Marsatac, is just down the road. The “Organisator” prowls the Erasmus page on Facebook and as intimidating and robotic as he may sound, I had the good fortune of learning that he really has a heart of gold: on our first meeting he declared his undying love for me “you make my heartbeat fast ma belle let me take you to breakfast!”

The big question: will this year improve my French language? It’s safe to say it can’t get much worse: since being here I have realised, a little too late, that no one has said sacre bleu since the early 20th century and that “je joue au foot avec mes copains” is both untrue and unsophisticated.

So far, it’s like a holiday and I feel like I am about to embark on one of the best adventures of my life: C’est la vie has never rang so true… I have a roof terrace, St Tropez is a short ride away on the TGV and I can buy a wheel of brie the size of my face for less than 2euro at the local fromagerie. If everything continues to go perfectly, I will acquire an amour francais, a blue Vespa to take me to the fromagerie and back quicker than you can say Jacques' your uncle, utter fluency in French and bo-bo (Bourgeois bohème) status.  However, there’s a little voice in the back of my head saying that in reality, I will probably finish this year with a mediocre level of franglais and a larger jean size courtesy of fromage indulgence. Either way, as Edith Piaf would have said: Je ne regrette rien.


Tuesday 24 September 2013

Clutch Control

I don't know whether Paul has ever listened to "The Driving Instructor", the hilarious radio sketch by the American comedian Bob Newhart, but he ought to. Particularly the bit where the instructor throws himself from the car as Mrs Webb travels down her driveway at 75mph - in reverse. Paul is my driving instructor and once a week he puts his life in my hands.

Learning to drive in Liverpool is …different. The good news is it’s inexpensive, the roads are wide, and it’s yet another excuse to delay handing in that overdue essay. Procrastination at its best. The bad news is that the only available slots seem to be at 9am – I’m expecting Ashton to jump out of a bush at any moment and shout “You’ve been Punk’d!” Honestly. 9am?! – and my fellow drivers on Smithdown Road are unforgiving to put it mildly.

My first driving lesson in Liverpool was less like mid-town suburban America and more like a scene from Grand Theft Auto.

In Toxteth, the sun don’t shine and the birds don’t tweet. In other words, rising early is a challenge. As if scheduling my lessons at the crack of dawn was not punishment enough, Paul insists on sending reminder texts before each lesson at an hour which should be made illegal.

Rival road users on Smithdown, and I use the phrase deliberately, will happily add insult to injury and should under no circumstances be confronted before breakfast. They refuse to recognise the learner sign on my bonnet and show no pity when I stall, which is often. It is not unknown for Paul's car to remain immobile through several traffic light changes much to the frustration of the men in white vans getting uncomfortably close to my rear. No pun intended.

Bus drivers and taxi drivers are, no exaggeration, engaged in guerrilla warfare with each other. I am prone to road rage, yes, but never have I seen deeper hatred than when the eyes of delta cabbies meet those of a bus conductor.

Nor do I need these external distractions from the main task of learning to drive. I am quite capable of those myself. Tootling along Edge Lane one bright morning, I spotted some friends on the pavement and got so excited at the prospect of them seeing me drive that I took both hands off the wheel to wave ecstatically. Alas, they were oblivious to my hand manoeuvres – unlike Paul who almost went into cardiac arrest in his efforts to try and stop the car from knocking down an innocent pedestrian. He’s a real gem.

Sometimes I wonder why he puts up with me. Paul is a stand-up guy with infinite patience, enthusiasm and an unusual taste in music for someone comfortably old enough to be my Dad. On our first encounter, he rapped and rhymed his way through the lesson: “Step down on the clutch, now feel the engine bite-ite-ite.....accelerate!” Jesus.

On our second outing, he turned to me whilst I was cruising along Mossley Hill Drive and said: “Ellie, guess what my favourite genre of music is?” After a tedious 2 or 3 minutes of sifting through every genre that I could imagine a 64 year old Top Gear fanatic listening to, Paul couldn’t hold it in anymore: “House music!” he declared, whipping out Ministry of Sound’s “Deep House” compilation and cranking it up to full volume in case I didn’t believe him. To Paul’s dismay, I ejected the CD and explained to him that I really felt I could concentrate better on clutch control without the beloved beats of Miguel Campbell blaring through the car. Little did he know, I didn’t want to let Chamillionaire down.

Despite my reluctance, I do relish the thrills of motoring - especially when I get to race over the Runcorn bridge at 70mph screaming with delight, only for Paul to note dryly that it’s  “just an A road” and to “get some perspective”. Spoil sport.

I am still a long way from trusting myself behind the wheel alone but who cares if it means I can spend another 20 or so hours listening to Paul's house music and his endless backlog of anecdotes about past clients and his, how can I put it, imaginative ways of making sure they always pay up. I have made sure to pay for my lessons in advance. After all, my body is a temple as you have probably gleaned from my previous articles.


As Bob Newhart observed, Paul belongs to a special group of (mostly) men, who go out to work each morning facing death in a hundred different ways and never quite knowing whether they will return in the evening. I want him to know he is safe with me. But I must confess, the dual controls in his little Honda are a big comfort to the both of us.