Blunderers all

This trip Hertz gave me a Mazda 3. This is a weird car that has a dual personality – functioning either as an automatic or a stick shift. I’m sorry, but people who can’t decide whether they want automatic or stick shift in the comfort of their living rooms shouldn’t be allowed to make split-second potentially life-threatening decisions on the road. If the automotive engineers wanted to come up with something really useful, they’d invent a transmission that changed gears at random, for people who can’t decide what gear they ought to be in. This is how most people seem to drive anyway, so they’d be catering for a larger market segment.

Anyway, enough of all that …

Bush, Longhorns and Columbus: blunderers all.

Last night I watched the second presidential debate between George Dubya and John Kerry. I honestly don’t know who to believe. “Spin” has become such a way of life for these people that I think they’ve really convinced themselves they’re being truthful. The audience dutifully asked their questions, and then sat looking thoroughly bored as the same old answers (and evasions of answers) rolled glibly from the politicians’ mouths. At least a two-party system has advantages: the nation is so polarized that whoever gets in (and sadly, I think it will be Bush again), the gridlock will be sufficient to prevent either side from doing anything. In England, the also-rans will steal so many votes from the only party that could provide an effective opposition that Tony Blair will once again be handed carte blanche to pursue his misguided policies. The fact remains that George W. Bush committed one of the biggest blunders of modern history by invading Iraq.

Today is the “Red River Shootout” – Oklahoma University (OU, or the Sooners) are playing the University of Texas (UT, or the Longhorns) at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. This is an annual, highly-charged college football game that OU have won for the last four years. The Red River, by the way, is the river that separates Texas and Oklahoma. Watching the Longhorns blunder about on the field, they did well to lose by only 12 points to 0.

And Monday is Columbus Day. According to the book that Lucy gave me (“1421 – The Year China Discovered the World”, by Gavin Menzies), Columbus’ blundering voyages around the world were probably not quite so heroic as was previously supposed. Far from venturing into the unknown, fearful of sailing off the edge of the world, he was following maps produced decades earlier by the Chinese. And “discovering” lands that he well knew had been discovered before.

Blunderers. A coincidence? I don’t think so.

Life is too important to take seriously. Seriously.

Mesquite, TX

I just got back from a truly American experience – the Rodeo at Mesquite (about 25 miles from here). It started at 8pm, but it was suggested to me that I should get there when the doors opened at 6:30pm, so I could look around first. “Looking around” took at least 15 minutes, but I did get a good parking space.

One thing that hits you as you walk in is an unmistakable smell – I suppose you get used to it if you go often enough, or if you spend your life around horses. If you’ve ever been to a hockey game, you’ll have seen the Zamboni going round, turning the churned up ice into a mirror-smooth playing surface; the rodeo equivalent is a tractor with a contraption on the back that chops up and blends the horse and cattle dung into the underlying sand and clay. I now know why the riders stay on the bucking broncos so long – not so much to win as to avoid being dumped unceremoniously into the cunningly disguised faeces beneath them.

Rodeo action

And, you know, the really odd thing is that they have a strict no-smoking policy. I think they ought to work a little harder on training the horses and cattle to crap before they come to work (I could easily get side-tracked here on why dog-owners are expected to clear up after their pets when nobody takes responsibility for clearing up after foxes, badgers, ducks, geese, seagulls, etc. – but I won’t).

You’ll never hear an announcement that begins “Will the owner of a white Mercedes, license plate … “ at a rodeo. Those aren’t the sort of people that go. The sort of people that do are all good Americans, but they’re all, shall we say … “cowboys” (or “cowgirls”) at heart. Nothing wrong with that, but you should be prepared to eat hot dogs, drink Jack Daniels (the sponsored drink of the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association)), and wear a Stetson to really fit in.

I was really annoyed by the country band that started the proceedings. My musical tastes are pretty diverse, but one instrument I can’t stand is the slide guitar, and this band featured it, big time. It’s lucky for them I’m naïve with firearms, otherwise they’d have been looking for a new band member. He was a big guy too, right up front – easy target.

You might think I didn’t have fun, but I did – bull riding, steer wrestling, bronco riding, chuck wagon racing. And the thing that Americans do much better than Brits: involve the kids. They had all the under-8s line up in the arena (goodness knows what their shoes smelt like in the car on the journey home) while a young calf, with a blue ribbon tied to its tail, ran from one end to the other. The winner was the first to get the ribbon. The kids had fun, and I suspect the calf wasn’t too upset by the attention, either.

Cowboy Church

Val would be proud of me. I just got back from church. Cowboy church. If you think I’m kidding, check out http://www.cowboychurchofelliscounty.org.

The service is a little more, shall we say, unstructured, than I’m used to. First a little background. Cowboy churches are springing up all over Texas (though when I say “springing up”, there are currently only a dozen or so). Their premise is simple (as stated by the pastor of the church I went to):

"Most people only know two ways to do church. They know the traditional style with the hymnal, organ, piano, carpeting and padded pews and stained glass and lots of committees and the contemporary music churches with drum sets on the pulpit and folks in white shirts. Our floor is the same dirt-brown as the sand out here, so you can come to church straight from riding or feeding your stock. We don't pass an offering plate because a lot of people think churches are just out for their money. There's a little wooden church on a table in the back where they can leave an offering. We don't ask people to come down in front of a crowd and accept Jesus; we let them drop a note in a box in the back and tell us if they want us to call. We get people who will not go to church anywhere else, people who haven't been in 30 or 50 years. They've got issues. They may have a divorce, a child in jail, a drinking or a drug problem. That's why a cowboy church sermon is different. We preach about love. Our people already know their lives are screwed up. They need me to tell them there's a God who knows this and cares and wants to help them get back on track."

Cowboy church is a spirit, not a place, and they often attract people from “buck-out” sessions, where they’ll put on a rodeo (every Thursday out back at this church), and then feed everybody afterwards.

The cowboy version of the Ten Commandments, by the way, are these:

Just one God.
Honor yer Ma & Pa.
No telling tales or gossipin'.
Git yourself to Sunday meeting.
Put nothin' before God.
No foolin' around with another fellow's gal.
No killin'.
Watch yer mouth
Don't take what ain't yers.
Don't be hankerin' for yer buddy's stuff.

The service I attended started with a bluegrass band playing religiously-themed songs (nothing I recognized, so none of the usual hymns). Then followed a PowerPoint presentation of the recent Youth Mission trip to Arkansas. Then a prayer, followed by more country-religious songs. Then the sermon. I would say it was fairly typical TV-evangelical style, except that the pastor was amusing: not bible-thumping, not too erudite, but easy to listen to. There was a playroom for children right at the back of the church, and parents could drop them off there or bring them into the service at any time before or during the service. They served coffee and doughnuts before and after the service, which finished with everyone singing “Happy Trails”.

Corny? Maybe. I’d have no hesitation going back another day. It doesn’t fit completely with my idea of religion, but then I’m not sure I’ve found anything yet that does. It’s about people, about fellowship, about love and respect for each other, about simplicity, and not about money or pomp and ceremony or putting your beliefs above anyone else’s. And this comes pretty close.

... a poem

Star, clown and bivouac

Susie takes her clothes off for strangers in a bar;

Carl waits hopelessly for a ride under the hot sun at the edge of town;

Brenda’s beaten up by the man she loves, but still goes back.

Each of them would say they never meant to go this far;

That they’ve been dragged, not kicking and screaming, but quietly, down;

That we, too, would be powerless when fate attacks.

They’re not completely lost – the door is still ajar;

Time is not running out, but merely runs around;

Knowing this is easy, but getting back on-track

Is not.

Sky Captain

“I’m in a world of my own, but that’s ok – they know me here.”

At the beginning of the week, I didn’t realize that Darfur (one of the places where genocide is occurring, even if the international community chooses not to use the word) is the size of France; nor that the Sudan, as a whole, is a third the size of the continental United States. Even in Texas, those kind of sizes are difficult to comprehend, and it’s not so surprising that the area is almost impossible to police.

I’ve just got back to the hotel after going to see “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” at the movies. I had the misfortune to sit next to a loud guy with a mental age in single digits who laughed, hooted and slapped his thigh at anything that might be considered even remotely amusing – even the trailer for the SpongeBob SquarePants movie. And while we’re on the subject, why do they ask you to turn off mobile phones, but still serve nachos and popcorn at the concession stand? Isn’t there some kind of “quiet” food they could serve instead? Frankly, most of the people you see with “jumbo” portions of this kind of food shouldn’t even be eating “micro” portions.

So, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie. Flimsy plot, lots of loud bangs, and not a glimpse of Angelina’s naughty bits (let’s be honest here – guys don’t go to Angelina Jolie movies for her acting ability, unlike, say, movies featuring Johnny Depp or Jodie Foster). I wouldn’t even bother renting this one.

And, if there really was a Sky Captain out to save the world, I feel sure he’d be concentrating on places like Darfur. It’s a pity that our imaginations are more active than our deeds, and even more so that that’s where we choose to spend our money.

School

The school I went to, Sir William Turner’s School for Boys, in Redcar, was what I call a “semi-public” school. We had boarders and “day-boys”. I was a day-boy. The old school had a tremendous sense of history and tradition: cloisters between the main school and the “Great Hall”; creaking wooden staircases in curious locations throughout the building; oak panels naming all the past headmasters and head boys in the Great Hall; masters and prefects in black academic cloaks; masters able to administer the cane, and prefects to issue “sides” for infractions of discipline – say, 6 sides (sheets of paper) to be submitted as an essay on a topic of their choice by a specified date; walking, in all weathers, between school and Red Barns (the boarders quarters, some half-a-mile distance) for lunch in almost complete silence (where, incidentally, I learned to love the skin on custard, because, if you did, the jug was passed to you first; if you were last, there was hardly any left). The old school was demolished to make way for a new library, and a new school was built; it was all downhill from there. Fortunately, I spent only one year in the new school.

The choice of University course was largely up to the masters. At the appointed time, we each entered the library alone, and sat on a chair surrounded by the masters, arranged in a horseshoe. The exchange was supposed to be two-way, but it was only minimally so. Mr. Barker, the headmaster, scanned my report. He noticed that, in the third form, I had switched from Geography to Greek, and asked me why.

“Because I came bottom in Geography, Sir.”

This seemed to me to be a perfectly reasonable response; I was obviously not good at Geography, and had decided to try my luck at a subject that I could certainly do no worse in (as it turned out, I performed as badly in Greek as I had in Geography, but, in later life, I appreciate how much of Greek actually stuck in my mind; I blame the Pelopponesian wars). Mr. Barker saw it somewhat differently.

“Mr. Elliott, note that down for the school magazine.” (Aquila, in which it duly appeared)

He guffawed. And this is where I have to express my love of the English language. They say that the Eskimos have 37 different words for snow – it isn’t true, of course, but they do have significantly more words then we do to describe cold weather conditions, because they need them. England is blessed (although it wasn’t immediately obvious at the time) with having being invaded and overrun by foreigners on numerous occasions. And what was our response? Not to resist as you might expect, except superficially, but rather to embrace, to the extent that we gladly assimilated foreign language vocabulary and idioms into English. Loving them to death, in a way. Such is British history; we have hardly ever opposed, at least not vigorously, but rather happily absorbed. I like to think this is a strength of our character.

And so Mr. Barker guffawed, loud and long. That idiotic upper-class expression of amusement. And afterwards, he glanced again at my report.

“Electrical Engineering, don’t you think, Mr. Elliott? Yes, Meekings, Electrical Engineering. Next.”

And so my university fate was decided. My parents objected, knowing how much I loved Mathematics, but to no avail.

I was in the Senior Scouts, having come up through the ranks of Cubs and Scouts. In the upper sixth form, before moving on to University, we undertook a trip to an uninhabited Outer Hebridean island – Mingulay. There was only one island beyond Mingulay before you hit Newfoundland; it had been inhabited at one time, but all that was left was a ruined schoolhouse and the surrounding abodes. I mention this only because it made the local papers, and resulted in all the members of the expedition being introduced to the Duke of Something-or-Other. We stood in a line as he walked down, shaking hands with each of us in turn.

“And what will you be reading at university?”

“Classics at Oxford, Sir.”

“Mathematics at Durham, Sir.”

“Philosophy at Liverpool, Sir.”

“Electrical Engineering at Battersea College, Sir.”

The last one, of course, was me. Battersea College was to receive its Charter and become the University of Surrey while I was there, but that wasn’t important at the time. Any “pure” subject (Classics, Philosophy, Physics, English, History, …) was acceptable. Engineering, of any kind, was the sort of thing you did if you weren’t considered good enough for the purely academic subjects. And it wasn’t a subject you “read”.

So that was how I came to study Electrical Engineering, a subject in which I had no interest, and which seemed to have even less interest in me. And also how I came to be thrown out in the middle of my second year for writing poetry on my exam papers. I don’t remember the subject matter of the poems, but it probably related to the pointlessness of existence, or the impoverished human condition – at that age, we are all idealistic.

But I enjoyed my time at university at the government’s expense …

Pirate's Gold

Although it hasn’t cooled off too much during the day just yet, the humidity is low, and it’s cool-ish at night. So I can sleep at night with the balcony door open, and drive during the day with the windows rolled down (at least, until mid-afternoon; 5pm is about the hottest part of the day, and by then, you could cook on the concrete).

So I dug out the RayBans (still the best!) and set off this morning. First to the Galleria shopping mall in North Dallas, to pick up two tomato presses from Williams-Sonoma for Lara. She’s ambidextrous. The Galleria is the plush mall that has an ice-rink in the middle – 90 degrees plus outside, and a skating rink in the mall.

I wasn’t sure which way to go when I came out, so I headed west. This takes me past the “Caribbean Grill”, where I could pick up lunch – two Jamaican patties and a Ting. The patties weren’t quite ready when I got there, so I browsed. I’m glad I did, because I found cans of coconut water. This may not sound like a startling discovery, but it is, for two reasons. The first is that I love coconut water (this is the watery fluid inside an unripe coconut, not to be confused with coconut milk), and I’ve never previously seen it anything other than fresh. The second is that I can now indulge in the cocktail that I invented while in Cayman – dark rum, ginger beer and coconut water. I know it’s similar to a Dark and Stormy, but the coconut water makes all the difference. I call it Pirate’s Gold.

I carried on west on to Route 114. I hadn’t come this way before (as the nun said when she rode over the cobblestones on her bicycle), so decided to just keep going. Past the Texas Motor Speedway, where I paused briefly because there was a Viper owners’ meet. As you know, I’m not into fast cars, but the sight of a parking lot full of Vipers was something to behold. Past a buffalo ranch – I think I’d prefer to seem them on the range, which is probably where they’d prefer me to see them, too.

Inspecting the grapes

And then to the Brushy Creek Vineyards. I didn’t think Texas was all that big on wine, but their Merlot was very respectable. The entire wine-making process takes place on the premises, unlike many wineries that send out their juice to be fermented and bottled elsewhere. In fact, they were crushing grapes at that very moment, and welcomed me to take a look. Of course, it’s done by machine these days, and not by foot, which I think is probably progress of a good sort. It was definitely a family affair – young children hosing clean the empty grape baskets, the adults feeding the grapes into the machine. I peered through the window to watch, and was beckoned inside by someone I took to be (judging from his deficiency in the dental department) the eldest member of the family. They happily allowed me to watch and take pictures while 3 men and 3 women emptied the baskets of grapes (alright, they were plastic trays – I’m only trying to paint a lyrical image here) into the machine.

Driving back, I stopped at a fruit stand and bought fresh peaches and “Arkansas Black” apples. The apples are a variety I hadn’t heard of before – they’re tart and crisp, like a cross between a Granny Smith and a Cox’s. It’s at this time of year that I miss being able to cook (my hotel room has no cooking facilities) – the fresh fruit and vegetables are so abundant, but there’s no point in me buying them.

As you read this, spare a thought for our friends Chris and Eric, who have, by now, battened down the hatches, and are waiting for the full force of Hurricane Ivan to do its worst to Grand Cayman.