News from Ted
We are all conditioned to jump to to the tune of the news. As you perhaps know I am buying a house in France and am about to go there to sign the first papers. My flight to Paris is booked for next Monday, and of course when I first heard what had happened there I wondered how it would affect me. But my decision to move back to France is no better or worse now than it was two weeks ago, despite all the horror.
Statistically, in France I will be 15 times less likely to be murdered by gunfire than where I am now (though five times more likely than in the UK), but I also know that these figures are meaningless. I have a huge amount of control over my circumstances and the infinitesimal risk of my being shot to death or blown up is probably no different here in Covelo than it will be in Aspiran.
Somebody recently posted a protest in Facebook – which migrated onto my page – that we are only deeply moved by terrible events that affect us closely, and not by far larger human disasters that occur far away. I’m afraid it’s human nature, and reflected as always in the media. I wrote about it in Dreaming of Jupiter, because I was in Brazil when the planes hit the World Trade Centre. From that distance – cultural as well as geographical – it seemed at first more a spectacle than a tragedy. I knew very well, from my days as a newspaperman, the rough rule of thumb the media used to decide the importance of a disaster; its proportional to the number of dead, and inversely proportional to the distance away.
So Parisians are in profound shock. The people of France, one step removed, in general feel violated. Normally, thousands of miles away here in the States, people would have said “How sad, how terrible,” and gone on with their lives. But this time it’s different because the perpetrators (ISIS, ISIL Daesh, whatever) are on everyone’s radar screen, and so, of course, is the fate of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Most Americans, left to their own opinions, would feel nothing but pity for the torrent of families driven out of Syria by the violence of warfare, but the attack on Paris has become fodder for the spin doctors on the Republican campaign trail.
Nothing could be more repugnant than the way it has been used to pander to the xenophobes among us. Defying all logic, whipping up all the paranoia that is all too latent here, 30 or more Republican governors cry, “Not a single Syrian will cross my threshold.”
Regardless of the fact that this is a futile boast in itself – States don’t have defensible borders – they completely ignore the fact that these were not Syrians who smashed up Paris; these were Belgian citizens who were perfectly entitled, if they wished, to fly to the USA without a visa. Syrian refugees, on the other hand, having gone through who knows what kind of hell to get to Europe, then have to endure yet another year or two of investigation before they even catch sight of the statue of Liberty, a bureaucratic nightmare which is in itself a travesty.
I m not the first to point out what a ridiculous notion it is that ISIS would send it’s murderers on that bitter, dangerous and uncertain trail through Eastern Europe to get to America. ISIS have plenty of money. They clearly have connections. They could as easily fly to Alabama tomorrow.
But no, these sinister Syrian families and orphaned children must be kept out at all cost. Hysteria and paranoia are ugly phenomena in themselves but not nearly so repulsive as the men who manipulate them for their own purposes.
The excitement mounts. Twenty more people have chipped in with another 1560 Euros.
What makes this project so extraordinary – so different from most crowd-funding – is that I know personally almost half the 43 people on that Paypal list of contributors. It reminds me of just how many people I have built some kind of relationship with during the years that I have been travelling around. It also makes me all the more determined to bring this thing off as I intended.
Already I feel I have one foot in Aspiran, and I must admit that at times it is hard to imagine that I will no longer be living in this house which I built with my own hands, looking down on the vegetable garden that I planned and created, and have tended over so many years.
It will be a wrench, no doubt, and I’m sure I’ll be writing much more about it. Yet I am quite certain that this is the right thing for me to do. So thank you all, for helping me to make the move in a way that will allow me to be useful to other writers.
I’m hoping that there may still be some heavy hitters waiting in the wings, but I am sure now that, one way or another, we will get the brass up on the door.
So today’s total stands at:
Go to Jupitalia.com/Aspiran for the full story.
The road to Aspiran got shorter last night, thanks to a hefty wad of euros from a mate in the Antipodes. So now the total stands at
3,503 Euros
But for those who don’t know what’s going on, please click here
I know, I know, I said I’d keep a daily score, but I suddenly ran into huge IT problems and it’s taken all week to clear it up.
Anyway, here’s the great news. The week started with a flurry of donors and well-wishers, enough to convince me that you like what I am trying to achieve.
So here’s the tally to date.
Since last weekend
20 people have put 2,995 euros into the pot.
And plenty more have told me they wished they could.
It’s exciting to know that there are people out there who share my vision.
More tomorrow. I promise.
This is a rather special week for me.
For many years now people have been telling me how Jupiter’s Travels has changed their lives, and of course I am very proud of that.
On my website I am offering you a chance to change MY life and at the same time help returning Jupiter’s Travellers to tell us the truth about what the world is really like.
Click here to read all about it…
I hope you will take time to look it over. Even if you can’t help I would really appreciate some feedback from you and perhaps you’d be kind enough to share it on Facebook and elsewhere.
Thanks.
I forgot to mention last time that I was going to France for a month to look for a house, although I did talk about it on Facebook.
Well, I’ve been and I’m back.
The search did not start well.
I’d booked and paid for two weeks in a rural place in the area where I thought I wanted the house to be, on the edge of the Cevennes. This is a beautiful mountainous region, but I soon realised that it was really much too far north.
The place I’d booked turned out to be a lot more rural than I’d bargained for. It was hidden in the middle of a forest, with no service to my phone, and no internet. And to top it all, I arrived at night, in pelting rain, at the beginning of an incredible thunderstorm which immediately knocked out the power and lasted three days.
Virtually immobilised I felt pretty stupid, until I woke up to the fact that there are millions of over-stressed office workers who would like nothing more than to be totally cut off from the world with nothing better to do than eat, drink and sleep.
Well, the clouds lifted, my friends Angel and Teresa arrived to keep me company, we drove all over the place together, and eventually I did find the house I wanted.
It’s in a lovely village called Aspiran, which has a suitably inspiring sound to it. Of course you might be more inclined to go to Aspirin, but I don’t think it’s guaranteed to be a headache-free zone.
Anyway, the house is big enough for all the great plans I have for it, and in the garage there’s a WC in a vertical box that they say also functions as a Tardis for Dr. Who.
Buying the house is not without its problems, but more of that later. For the moment, Ta-Da:
I promised you more inventions, so here’s another one. Office workers, I’m told, should get up and walk around every two hours, so this is a cushion that vibrates every two hours with enough of a kick to thrust them to their feet. I’m expecting a McArthur Genius grant at any moment.
Cheers.
It’s Sunday and for the moment the smoke has cleared from the valley, thanks to those 3,500 amazing fire-fighters struggling with the Rocky Fire just fifty or so miles away.
But this morning it’s more about smoke and mirrors. I’m in the grip of a dilemma. I have an email list I use to send snippets of information, but it’s too long to send as a normal email, so I’m trying to use a commercial service called MailChimp. Now they say too many people on my list chose to unsubscribe. But I have had emails from people saying that they unsubscribed by accident and don’t know who to get back on again.
So can I ask you, if you read this message and want to be on my list, please send me an email to say so. Then I can put you on it. I only use it to tip you off that there’s something to read here, on this site, or maybe on FB. It’s totally non-commercial, just like me. tsimon@mcn.org
Thanks.
Other stuff? Well, it’s not all about motorcycles, you know. I was thinking, as I sipped my margarita and watched my garden grow, that I have had a lot of ideas that will probably never come to anything, So I thought I would share them with you, one at a time.
Today’s brilliant idea: How about Yellow Shaving Foam – then when you look in the mirror, your teeth will look white. Who likes that one? I’ll take five per cent.
Cheers, and watch out for new earthshaking innovations.
Almost forty years ago, on the plains of northern India, I watched in amazement as four bare-foot Indians in pale blue gowns trotted past me on a long, dusty road carrying on their shoulders the two poles of a litter. On the litter sat a young man, cross-legged, dressed in blazer and slacks, wearing an old school tie, smoking a cigarette, and gazing languidly over the landscape (which probably belonged to him).
That memory came back to me at the beginning of June when I went to a literary festive in Ireland. I couldn’t command a litter but I did have a very comfortable chair and a bearer, Jacqui Furneaux, who carried it around the festival grounds at my whim. Unfortunately she was not strong enough to carry me in it, and I had to hobble painfully behind her.
Two days earlier I had had the worst fall of my life – nothing glamorous or motorcycle related, just a stupid slip over some stone steps by the side of a pool in London. Two stone treads smote me on the coccyx and the middle of my spine and drove the life out of me. After a minute or so I began to breathe again, and slowly reassembled my various parts.
The pain was heroic, the bruises were glorious, and I went on a massive diet of ibuprofen and paracetamol but nothing was apparently broken. The tickets for the ferry and the festival were for the next day and Jacqui, who was also going, volunteered to drive me to the ferry.
The weather was wonderful, the festival was most rewarding. I met Ian McEwan, one of my heroes, and sat in state all over the place, listening to great voices say marvellous things and, in particular, watching an extraordinary young actress called Aoife Duffin (I can’t pronounce it either) doing an incredible one-woman production of a searing coming-of-age drama involving several family members one of whom I would gladly have ripped apart.
The day before the accident, Margaret Driscoll interviewed me for the Sunday Times, and in her piece she described me as a “magnificent relic.” Ensconced in my peripatetic throne on the lovely grounds of Borris House that was probably a fair description.
Certainly something separated us from the crowd. A passing artist, John Sullivan, decided to paint us in oils. It took him half an hour and here’s the result.
So that was the start of a month over there, which was crowded with events.
Naxos Audio Books had me recording an introduction to their version of Jupiter’s Travels – which was the reason for the Sunday Times interview. Naxos is a prestigious and discriminating house, and most of my fellow authors are classic and dead. I hope Jupiter’s Travels will be released soon, before I join them.
I spent a weekend in Germany visiting old friends and as a guest at the Touratech Travel Event in the Black Forest. Many thousands turn up abd at night everything happens under the most stupendous canopy
After that came a night at the Coventry Museum where I believe I entertained a roomful of the faithful with pictures and stories. We were right next to XRW964M, my beautiful and ever-more appreciated Triumph Tiger that carried me around the world in the seventies. As a result of that visit it now seems likely that the BMW R80GS which I rode on the second go-round will soon also be alongside it at the museum.
And a couple of days later I enjoyed the hospitality of Paddy Tyson whose Overland Magazine held a hugely successful meeting just outside Great Missenden, which is not great at all, but rather small and picturesque. I was almost there decades ago visiting my other hero, Roald Dahl, in his garden kiosk where he wrote his books, but I missed Great Missenden altogether.
Paddy had the genial idea of plonking me into another comfortable armchair in a large tent and just telling me to say whatever came to mind. It seemed to work wonderfully well. The tent was full of people, and I didn’t see anyone leave.
I’m home again now. It’s five weeks since the accident and my back has almost stopped hurting. I have a fair amount of physical work to do on my place, but there are more wonderful things to look forward to, mostly to do with France, my other spiritual home. One of them will, I hope, add something new and exciting to the Foundations’s ability to promote and expand the powerful role of independent travellers. I hope to have something to tell you soon, but I can’t count my chickens, because the bobcat ate them all.
Thanks for staying with me.
PS: Uber and Out. A poignant message from Charing Cross Railway station
A season of meetings and rallies and reunions with old friends. The Overland Expo starts on Friday in the upper reaches of Arizona and I’m working overtime to finish a film that I hope to show. Well that’s a lie – I’m not working overtime, it’s my friend Mark Ordway who’s thrashing away at the Final Cut Pro machine while I look helplessly on.
May 31st will see me at Open Day at the Adventure Bike shop at Acton, in Suffolk, where we had such a good time last September.
I also have a return ticket to Stuttgart, because Herbert Schwartz – the tycoon of Touratech – has asked me to his adventure rally in the Black Forest.
But wait – there’s more. I’ve got the Coventry Transport Museum for a night of pictures and stories on the 17th of June and only two days after that there’s Paddy Tyson’s Big Bash at Great Missenden – (www.overlandevent.com) which is going to be AMAZING. Please come. He says if you do he’ll buy me a beer.
Another thing: I now have The Gypsy in Me as an electronic file. I haven’t had time to put it in the shop yet, but it costs $7.99, so email me if you’d like it, and tell me which version you want. I’ll get it all sorted out sometime soon
We’re off to Rio on Sunday – Lida and me, just like proper tourists, and not a motorcycle in sight. We’ll be there for Carnival and, to tell the truth, I’m pretty damned excited. I’ve only been to one carnival before, in Bahia thirty years ago, and it was wonderful, but the Rio Carnival they say is beyond description.
We’re very lucky. We have somewhere to stay. Lovely Lulu, ballet dancer and teacher, has lent us her apartment. She and I shared wonderful times in 1974, and again in ’82 and ’01. You can see what a joyful person she is if you look at page 121 in my picture book, Jupiter’s Travels in Camera. If you haven’t got it already please do yourself a favour. It really is a fine book.
I have lots of other things happening this year, In America, in the UK and in Europe. I hope you’ll stay in touch. I’ll be writing more about them soon.
Cheers to all, and a very enthusiastic, if belated Happy New Year.
