News from Ted
If you read my book Jupiter’s Travels you might remember that as I was riding south through Africa in 1974 I became disheartened about the effect the human race was having on the environment. I compared us to a cancerous growth. I knew nothing then about climate change – I was concerned about our effect on wild life and the environment in general. That was almost fifty years ago.
Two years later, in 1976, coming down from Ootacamund, in southern India, I met a younger German also on a bike. His name was Hans Bohle. He had been a volunteer working to help Indians grow better vegetables. He told me the hilarious story of how successful they had been– they had been able to grow cabbages three, four, five times the normal size. But nobody wanted to buy cabbages that size. They had to be thrown away. It was a commentary on misguided efforts to impose foreign standards.
Although much younger than me he was already on the way to becoming an important scientist studying global human vulnerability to food and water shortage, climate change and so on. He became a Professor and the Chair of the geography department of Heidelberg University but he died too young in 2014. We stayed in touch all those years. Like all such scientists he met frequently with his peers at conferences across the globe. About ten years ago I asked him how long he and his colleagues had known for sure that climate change was a threat, and he said they’d known for fifteen years, at least. That’s twenty-five years ago.
So like many others, thousands, maybe millions, I have been living with this knowledge for a long time now. I have always wanted to do something about it. I have hoped that my books would in some way help to pass on the message, but clearly that was not enough. Now we are at a point where something MUST happen, and I ask myself what must I do. At least a million – maybe more – have read my books. How many of them feel as I do? Is there something I could do to bring our combined sense of urgency to bear.
Very soon, in Glasgow, national leaders will meet, either to save the planet or to trash it. What are the odds? Not great.
A little while back we had the heart-warming story of Captain Tom who, at the age of a ninety-nine walked around his garden a 100 times to raise money for NHS workers. His success was astonishing.
What could a 90-year–old biker do to the same effect? Any ideas are welcome.
I haven’t forgotten you. Some kind people are worried that I might have fallen off my bike or succumbed to the virus. Not at all. I have simply joined the French masses in their delightful habit of taking August off – well, sort of. I have been working at the book, but it’s been hot, and people have been having parties in the streets, and now that we can go back to restaurants again – well, you know how it is.
As I put all those chapters together I find there’s a lot that needs doing, and a lot of stuff to add. Every memory evokes another.
I hope to have all the text finished and proof-read before the end of September and then it will be up to my friends at Interlibros to turn it into a beautiful book.
I am enormously encouraged by the hundreds among you who have promised to buy the book. It makes the work so much easier and more enjoyable to know where it’s going and that it will be appreciated. You can expect it to be finished in November, but I’ll keep you posted.
The news, of course, is terrible and just keeps getting worse, but I haven’t been able to think of anything to do about it, so for now I’ll just concentrate on putting something nice out into the world.
Cheers to all.
Ted
It’s five weeks now since I was knocked flat on my back in the street. There’s no question that this ninety-year-old carcass got severely shaken up. A fractured spine, a bruised rib, and a sprained wrist were just the recognisable consequences. I’ve been X-rayed and scanned, I’ve opioided myself for aches and pains, and I’ve wondered whether I would ever feel whole again, whether this was the beginning of the slow slide to oblivion that obviously has to start some time. So you can imagine my feelings when I got out of bed this morning and stood straight up without a twinge anywhere.
I hope this is good news for others. The body can still take care of itself. Admittedly it was only a tiny fracture – I am not claiming super-human powers – but even little ones hurt a lot. OMG, I might even have taken to drink.
I haven’t felt much like working so my book is slightly delayed, but I’m on to it now. I hope I have something for you to read before they lock us all down again. I’m enjoying the freedom. I’ve already been on a short ride. I’ll go further soon.
Here it is in my garage, raring to go.
I wish you all temperate weather, wherever you are.
Aspiran, where I live now, is an old wine-growing village in the south-west of France. Estate agents call it quaint and some visitors call it Aspirin as a joke or by mistake. It’s beautiful in the way that everything down here is beautiful because it’s made of stone, with terra cotta roof tiles. Some of the buildings were intended to be beautiful, but most are just houses that can’t help it. The streets are narrow – cars can’t pass each other and I wonder how they managed with horses and carts. I live on the Grand Rue, which was the village High Street once and has several abandoned shops along it. It runs right through the old village from one porch to another, half a kilometre or so with kinks in it. The porches were under the old ramparts because the village was fortified. The houses are three storeys or more, and because the street is so narrow it’s a bit of a canyon – like a New York street shrunk down to model-size – and noise reverberates along it.
The whole of France has recently been menaced by gangs of youngsters on scooters. I was unaware that it was a nationwide issue. I only knew that for weeks now some kids have been using my street as a racecourse, and that they were riding their scooters fast and revving them up to make the loudest possible noise, day and night. Some bigger villages have municipal police. Ours doesn’t. We have a town hall and a mayor, but he can only issue fines. I found it extraordinary that nobody could do anything to stop the little bastards.
A week ago my partner and I went for an afternoon walk down the road when something unpleasant happened under the porch, and it’s taken me until now to write about it. Two scooters came surging up hill towards us. Neither of us felt like stepping aside, and they were forced to stop, revving their engines as they manoeuvered around us.
“You’re making too much noise,” I shouted.
“We don’t give a fuck,” (on s’en fout) said one of them.
The other one raised his rear wheel and spun it at full throttle – How do you like that then?
I suppose I forgot I was a ninety-year-old gent, and put my hand on his saddle in protest.
He got off the scooter, put his face up against mine, and shoved me hard with both hands. I could do nothing to save myself. I fell downhill on my back and they rode off into the sunset.
It took the wind out of my sails, hit me for six rearranged my bones, put me out for a duck, threw me a curve ball, punched me below the belt, knocked the starch out of me, shivered my timbers and left me bushwhacked, prostrate, impotent, floored, flummoxed and forlorn.
HOWEVER
Hope springs eternal, there’s a silver lining at the end of the tunnel, I rose again, Ted Simon Redux (with the help of ibuprofen), back on the horse, Carpe Diem, alive to fight another day and fly the flag – no, not that one, the other one; let no scoundrel claim me as a patriot.
I was the first physical casualty of the new terrorism, and with a medical certificate I could go to the Gendarmerie (which is the police force although it’s actually part of the army) and make a complaint. Now at last something is happening. A police car came with a whirling blue light. People are being shown pictures – Was it him? Or him? – There’s a petition up in the Café de la Poste and the owner, Hervé, gave me a free drink “for medicine.” People are talking about it and maybe something is being done.
My body still feels terrible in the morning but I believe it’s getting better and I don’t think there’s any way to hurry it along. I’m glad it served a purpose. The street is noticeably quieter. I just wish it didn’t have to be me.
I have come at last to the end of “An Interrupted Life” – my life before Jupiter. It has taken me three years and I hope I haven’t taxed your patience too much. The work has been quite absorbing as I rediscovered so much I had forgotten. I also understand much better what happened and why. I am not at the end of this process, and perhaps never will be, but for those of you old enough to have a past to untangle I truly recommend the process. Not only for your childrens’ sake, but for your own peace of mind.
My job now is to turn this into a book, and I know it will take a while. I am sure the book will be longer, but I shall get it done as quickly as I can. I hope you will want to buy it. Be sure to let me know. Thank you for all your encouragement. It has been invaluable.
I will get to the audio version as soon as I possibly can.
A hundred or so people celebrating a birthday across five continents with a cake made in France and an edible decoration made in England . . . . what could possibly go wrong?
Well, the people arrived on Zoom. The amazing edible motorcycle XRW 964M commissioned and, for all I know, tasted by Tiffany Coates in the West country arrived at my house on the appointed day, by special motorcycle courier and world traveller Rolf Lange . . . BUT the CAKE . . . Oh My God . . . where was the cake?
Missing In Action. Tiffany wept. DHL was running around with my cake and didn’t know where to send it. But all was not lost . . . the cake was found 2 days later . . . and we had a second birthday celebration.
Today, it’s just a fabulous memory.
Well, tomorrow’s the day when your favourite anti-hero turns ninety. I know, it’s only a number, but for some reason we have to measure out the remorseless flow of time.
Seven years ago, in California, I had to go to a hospital in Stanford for s diagnosis of some small thing, although I was generally in rude good health, and while there I passed through the hands of a youngish doctor – around forty and a bit supercilious I thought.
He said, “You seem to be in good shape. You’ll probably make it to ninety.”
I remember how shocked I was. “Only seven more years?” I said to myself. And, “Make it?”
Did he think that I would come crawling, encumbered by innumerable illnesses, and collapse across the finish line.
That was just one of the tone-deaf remarks doctors are famous for. Anyway, here I am, as rudely healthy as ever. And I have good news for all of you back down there in the peloton (it’s a bicycle racing term – this year the Tour de France passes through my village).
Things don’t just get worse. They can actually get better. Even physical things.
The only structural defect I have suffered from so far is a bad hip (or gammy leg, as it used to be called.) It’s supposed to go on getting worse until they put a new one in. But mine has suddenly started getting better. And exercise – which I’m not good at – helps.
My current doctor, a very nice woman, smiles sceptically because she knows that only pills can help. She’s wrong, but she won’t listen. They don’t . So I’m telling you instead. And I have previous experience. A few years back I ruptured a tendon at my shoulder. It hurt badly for a long time. She said they don’t repair themselves, but I could have it sewn together again. That would mean months of immobility during which I’d lose whatever strength I have left in my arm. I declined.
Today my arm is as strong as it ever was. I don’t know what happened in there, but the body has a way of dealing with it.
I’ve just come back from three weeks in California, during which I got closer to an ever-growing family, and met a tiny grandson for the first time. Wyatt, he’s called, and he is an amazing bundle of energy and good humour. Everybody seemed to be doing well, in spite of the virus, and without Trump looming above my head the air seemed clearer and sweeter.
I know a number of people have ordered books from me and had to wait for my return. I’m sorry for the delay, but I will get them off today. And I’d like everyone to know that I have now sold enough copies of the picture book to cover the cost of printing and storing them. Thank you all so much, but do go on buying them. Nobody has yet had anything but good things to say about it.
Wyatt
Happy New Year to you. I hope you enjoyed the festive season and that you’re optimistic about 2021 bringing with it a positive change in our collective fortunes.
Here in France, I said bon voyage to 2020 under rather unfortunate circumstances. While celebrating New Year’s Eve with a neighbour, a fire broke out in the kitchen of my partner’s beautiful place next door. We discovered it in time to save half the house, but the damage is extensive. We’re both entirely unharmed and that’s all that really matters.
The aftermath of the New Year’s Eve fire in the kitchen
We’ll be taking sanctuary at my home in Aspiran, and I’ll get back to the next chapter of An Interrupted Life as soon as I’ve replaced my laptop.
In the meantime, my very best wishes to you all.
It’s been ten weeks since I asked the existential question which afflicts all of us from time to time: Is it me or the bike? Is it my state of mind that is making my bike behave badly, or is it my bike’ s bad behaviour that’s giving me the willies? Today I am happy to announce that it was the bike all along.
If you remember, I had a BMW 650, which I brought from Germany to my house in France three years ago, when I was 86. It was a long ride and I celebrated the fact that I felt really good, and the years fell off me. The bike also ran perfectly well except that every now and again it stopped. To get it going again I had to pull the fuel line off the tap, spill a bit of petrol, shove it back on again and ride until it stopped again. Nobody could figure out why. Then for one reason or another the bike had to sit in the garage for a very long time, and when I got it out again I was 89.
It was still mysteriously stopping and more often, but worse than that it felt really bad, like I could never find the right gear. So that’s when I put the existential question. Was it me or the bike? Maybe I’m just too old to ride a proper motorcycle. Many people had suggestions about the fuel problem. But it wasn’t a vacuum in the tank, and it wasn’t crap in the tap.
Simon de Burton, visiting me, said he thought the fuel filter might be overheating and vapourising the fuel, so the string was to hold it away from the block. But that didn’t help either.
Well I thought of giving it all up, but I’ve become sentimental in my old age. This bike and I have been through some stuff together, and among other things it was seriously twisted up front, so my right hand always arrived at the destination a little before my left hand. I was quite used to riding it like that, but I thought, as a last tribute I’d get it straightened out. Maybe at the same time the shop will figure out what made it keep stopping.
So. I got it back this week. It’s straightened out and there’s a new front disc. I rode it sixty miles to Bedarieux and back and it felt wonderful. And now that I look at that picture above again, it’s obvious what was wrong, because the filter is empty. Before I brought it from Germany I had never had an inline filter. I didn’t know that it was supposed to be full. The mechanic knew exactly what to do. There was a blockage in the carburetor and he sucked it out with a vacuum. Job done. No charge. If you ever get stuck in my area go to Moto Activ in Clermont l’Herault.
So here, looking rather dorky, is yours truly, on the road again for another year, with nothing to worry about except next Tuesday.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MY NEIGHBOUR M. ARNAL
More interruptions next week. Cheers.
It came as a terrible shock to hear last Wednesday that Harry Evans had died. I suppose it seems odd to be surprised when a 92-year-old leaves the premises, but I honesty felt he would live for ever. Apart from being the greatest newspaper editor in living memory, Sir Harold Evans (to give him his full monicker) was also a good friend. Without his support my “Jupiter” journey could never have been the same. I worked for him briefly just before he left The Times, and he later published two of my books when he was the boss of Random House.
He was 89 when we had lunch together in New York three years ago and I wrote to him early this year hoping to hear that he was well. I told him that I had now reached the age he was then. He replied:
TED
Firmly in my memory is our pic of what [was] needed for a prodigous Journey.
I HAVE already scouted the territory ahead of you….a stripling of 89 indeed.
Keep going!
Harry
Here’s the pic that was firmly in his memory. In black and white, on newsprint, it was often as good as a passport. It’s comforting to know it stayed with him almost to the end. Thanks Harry. I’ll keep going.
