Classic Road Trips, Part One :: Whitstable '94

I have hitched before, but a long, long time ago, and it wasn't enormously momentous. I was with NotKeith. I think we were 17 at the time, but we may have been a little older.

Keith’s dad dropped us off on the other side of the M25 out of Dartford. It was early. Slightly too early. I’d overslept, keelhauled into consciousness with a shrill summons from the kerb. I hadn’t even had time to perform my morning purification ritual (poo). So much so that no sooner had Keith’s dad wished us luck and rejoined the traffic, I realised I really had to go.

The junction we were at backed onto woods which rose steeply from the hard shoulder on the other side of a shallow dry trench, if I remember correctly. I jumped over the trench and scrambled up and away into half-arsed thickets. As soon as I was hidden from traffic, I pulled down my trousers and pants. I crouched. I felt like Stig of the Dump.

I don’t know if you’ve ever done a poo in a bit of woodland down the side of a motorway, but if you have, you’ll know it’s not something you'll ever want to recount in ghastly, practically palpable detail, particularly if at the time you'd neglected to avail yourself of anything with which to wipe the horrified walnut shell of your bleeding, freakishly distended rectum which sobbed and throbbed from exertion so that it was almost breathing, its odious breath a heady cocktail of rotting dog, ammonia and chips; its lips aghast, gaping, like a messy eater who’s just seen a ghost.

I shouted down to Keith. ‘Keith!’ I shouted. ‘Have you got any toilet roll?’ He didn’t have any.

Reader, I had no choice. Foul as it was, I grabbed dead leaves from the cold earth and tore the living from the branches of my bowel-friendly bower, pushing them against my poor dirty bottom, old before its time, and rubbed away the leftovers.

With the terrible tools at my disposal, I did the best I could and, apart from a slither of stool beneath a couple of fingernails, I think I pretty much got away with it.

So I did myself up, scrambled out of the thicket, down the bank, over the trench and joined Keith at the roadside. I remember thinking he looked rather silly standing there with his thumb out. I was just about to tell him what a terrible time I’d just had when a car pulled up ahead of us. Our faces lit up. We grabbed our bags and ran.

‘Where you going, lads?’

We didn’t have a sign. That was stupid.

‘Whitstable!’ we replied in unison.

‘I can take you as far as Rochester,’ said the driver.

We hopped in.

Keith got in the back before I could, so I got in the passenger seat. The driver was a middle-aged man with a moustache. He was on his way to work. I don’t think he said what he did but his car suggested it was something manual. He was perfectly nice and everything but he didn’t seem to want to talk. After a bare minimum, a mere smattering of superficials, he switched on Radio One and we became silent.

Which was when I noticed the smell of excrement.

At first it was more like the mere threat of a smell, or maybe just a memory. I assumed it was my fingernails and surreptitiously hid them away in the folds of my coat.

Then it became stronger, and I realised that when he had turned on the radio, the driver had also fiddled with his heater, flicking the switch that made hot air come through the footwell. This in turn led me to the realisation that when I had left the thicket, I must have inadvertently trodden in my own poo.

God knows what the driver thought had happened. He probably assumed that I’d shat myself and was too polite to say anything. Or else he had no sense of smell.

The rest of the trip passed without incident, unless you count the stench, which persisted.

And that, for better or for worse, is pretty much all I can remember of the classic Dartford-Whitstable road trip of the spring of ’94. We did make it to Whitstable as I recall. And we had a bag of cockles each and caught the train home.

I know. It’s not the greatest story in the history of hitching. There was no poetry, no jazz. I didn't even find myself on the road, for God's sake! Hopefully that'll happen next week.

In the meantime, have you ever hitched? Yes, you. Was it any good? Did you find yourself? Did you get where you were going to? Did you like the things that life was showing you? Tell me your tales. Go on, inspire me. Or frighten me if you must...

Feedback Friday :: Paint Me A Lake and I’ll Drown In It

hours on bike :: 12
hours of Wii Fit :: 7
pictures of Jackson :: 2
photographs taken :: 106
decent photographs taken :: maybe 10
festivals attended :: 0
days remaining till return to London :: 23

A little over a week ago I found myself at the very excellent Draw Serge, where illustrator Jonathan Edwards invites artists the internet over to send in their visual interpretations of ‘louche, turtle-eyed genius’ Serge Gainsbourg. I thought this was a wonderful idea, but I didn’t really understand why Serge Gainsbourg was the inspiration. Apart from his song about ladybirds fucking, the only thing I really know him for is his hilarious harassment of a pre-crack-ravaged Whitney Houston on French TV. So, spurred on by my gargantuan ignorance, I thought I’d like to do something similar but with a subject I could more readily relate to. Ideally it would be someone renowned for their many different looks. Hmmm. I thought for a while. Then it hit me. Ow!

And so Draw Jackson was born.

Not being an artist myself, I turned to my friend NotKeith to help me get started, and over the last week, we both knocked up a couple of efforts. Obviously, Keith's are somewhat better than mine...



Now I’m going to try and get the internet involved.

Being realistic, I know that like so many others, this project will probably fall flat on its bleached face at the first hurdle, but you know what? I do not care. It’s a bit of fun, innit? And a fitting tribute to a fascinating man.

So whether you have bags of artistic talent or you can barely draw breath; whether you adored Michael Jackson and agreed with Uri Geller that he was basically Jesus, but whiter, or you despised him and considered him the concentrated OJ of child abuse, do the internet a favour and make a pictorial tribute to the troubled king of moonwalking and Jesus Juice. Your work will be briefly critiqued and your blog, if you have one, linked.

In other visual news, the sun was out yesterday in the North for pretty much the first time this year, so I went to the sea and took some photos. I’d like if I may, to share them with you. And I know I may.

This says it all really…



This is the reason I cycled for four hours yesterday and the reason I’m having another crack at fasting over the next few days. I refuse to end up like one of these pregnant old men…



And this is a windmill…



And this has nothing whatsoever to do with Michael Jackson – just one letter out though…



There are lots more here, should you be of a mind to peruse them.

Now I must return to the saddle, before the clouds crack.

Have a good weekend.

Doing anything nice?

Your Children Aren’t Special. Mine Are.

There’s nothing worse than those ghastly parents always wittering on about their kids and how amazing they are when really they’re not that amazing at all, they’re just ordinary little blobs of meat learning how to be humans.

‘Oh, little Steve is so talented! Look at this picture he did with crayons. He’s only seven!’

‘No, he’s not talented. That picture is crap. An untalented four-year-old could do better. Stop it now. Steve is a moron.’

The reason I mention all this is because I find myself about to come over like a deluded parent, the only difference being, I’m not a parent, and I’m not deluded.

My friend Keith – who may well be the closest I ever get to a son – has ditched his old blog and started a new one. He’s taken with him the best of the art he’s done over the last five months and put it into one post at his new place, and I - for one - think it’s amazing. So I’m clucking over him like a proud parent and telling everyone about it. Awww. Little Keith is so talented! And I remember when he was wiping his own faeces on the wall. Actually that was only last week. Awww.

So. Look at this and tell me it’s not astonishing: NotKeith’s Greatest Hits April ’08 – September ’08.

Thank God for MS and aneurysms.