Well it's 7.30am on the 22nd of Sep and on opening the curtains this morning for the last time for a while I notice the cars on the road have had their first taste of frost and like this blistering summer the prologue is over and the journey starts. I have a vivid if not accurate idea of the first stage of the journey. I've always had a vivid imagination but never in any sense accurate. But as a friend would say "Smithy don't let the truth spoil a good story" but then I think it was Keats who said "Truth is beauty, beauty truth. Perhaps I'll try and steer a middle ground. So what follows may not be accurate both factually or grammatically but to quote this time an old work colleague who use to say 'you've got to have something to say before you can learn to write'. Perhaps my lesson is just starting.
The following impression is how I see the first part of the trip and I'd like to try and present it as a ballad in the tradition of Raglan Road or The Ballad of Reading Gaol, however, the outcome may be more McGonagall. Hope you enjoy it and I find the reality of the road not too dissimilar or disappointing.
The Road to Oz
Chorus
It's farewell to Sheffield and England
As we head for new vistas abroad
Foresaking the work and the wages
For our dreams down that long winding road
We're bound for Sydney Australia
With conviction, no pomp nor a band
Just the strains on the chains from the hammer
As we strike out for Van Deaman's land
Chorus
From the west, celtic shores of the channel
To the lands of the Magyars and Huns
Past that cold, cruel road Sarajevo
To Islam, the east and the sun
Chorus
See the delights of old Constantinople
The city of the minaret and Dome
To the place of the face and the Trojans
And the far flung reaches of Rome
Chorus
To the exotic world of the Persians
And the ancient capital Esfahan
Take a magical trip care of Sinbad
Down the silk route from Shiraz to Bam
Chorus
Travel on to the land of the Indus
Through the desert of Balochistan
Like the Mughal lords and their armies
Raising the pillars of Islam
Leave the men of silly walking
Into Sikhdom and a temple of gold
Through Delhi onto Agra and romance
Varanasi the Ganges, sacred home for the old
That's it folks! Let the journey begin.
Saturday 22 September 2007
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6 comments:
Great song Pete - what tune shall I hum it to?
Hi Pete and Anne, thanks for the link to your blog. We're just back from Glasgow!
Nice bit in Sheffield Telegraph - hope you saw it.
We shall be following your journey with interest!
All the best to you both.
Pete and Annie left Sheffield on the 12:50 train on Saturday in their own particular style. A moment to be captured for posterity. "I know we'll try the new camera".
Pete had spent months looking at every digital camera he could find details on. He had compared size, weight, battery life etc and had bored the a*se off every body who had a digital camera and would sit still long enough to listen. Finally he bought the most up to date panasonic camera that he could find (it's the dog's do-whotsits). It was so new that when he placed his order on the internet it had only been released in Canada and when it arrived the manual was in French, Merde!
No problem for such a superb IT wizard as Pete. He went onto the internet to download the manual but alas the camera was so new that the manual had not yet been made available as a download. He tinkered with the camera and worked out some functions by trial and error, no problems!
So it came as no surprise to anyone who knows Pete that when he came to take the photograph at the Station, the whole of platform 6 heard that well known phrase "Annie where's me camera". This might be an appropriate name for your next song Pete.
Or an extra verse for the last one:
It's farewell to Sheffield and me camera
Our John has not slept at all
Foresaking his car he'll drive Enid's
6 points on his license an all
Good luck Mike
Don't worry about the name Robert Carlisle it is me Dave Eyre.
All last week I was spending some time in internet cafes doing bits and pieces and thinking Smithy'll love this. So here are some rules for internet cafes.
1. Learn to point at a machine and raise an eyebrow at the same time.
2. You will always sit at the machine that doesn't work.
3. When the person running the cafe comes to the machine - it works.
4. The icon you are looking for is never there. When the person running the cafe comes to help - it is there.
4. There are always hundreds of games on the screen - none of which are any use to you. Google is never there. When the person running the cafe comes to help it is there.
5.Now you have found Google you will notice it comes up in the language of the country your are in.
6. When you change it to www.google.com it changes back again.
7. You try this at all the internet cafes you go in. It never works - it always stays in the language of the country you are in.
8.So you go to www.bbc.co.uk. That comes up in a foreign version too.
9. There are no cookies installed relating to you - so all the things you do automatically at home you have to do manually when in an internet cafe.
10. It always costs less than you think.
Love the song
You could sing a few others
On the Road Again
The Long and Winding Road
Hit the Road, Jack
or for those dull moments to get the team together
The wheels on the bus go round and round
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They're under starter's orders - and they're off
Come on The Smiths! Where are you? Your public are waiting for an update!
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