"I'm a Val, I know." The record that exploded in my ears

Tonight I was listening to the excellent Round Table on Steve Lamacq’s show (Six Music) and I immediately turned it off. Why? Because I suddenly had a powerful memory of listening to the Radio One version of the show in 1982 and hearing something that moved me and has influenced me from that moment when Richard Skinner spun it on his record player. So tonight I located it on Spotify and listened again.

Back in 1982, the song exploded into my ears on 275/285 MW and I just had to hear a quality version, so I immediately went out and bought ‘Valley Girl’ by Moon Unit Zappa. Please have a listen now. It’s the most bizarre record I’ve ever heard. It still is, 33 years after that monumental moment on Round Table in ‘82. It’s a pastiche on a certain type of teenager who lived in the San Fernando Valley in California. “Gag me with a spoon. Gross. Grody. Grody to the max. Barf out. I am sure. Totally.”

The thing is, it opened up something in me. It was summer time and I was off to university in the autumn. I was open to anything that socked it to the man and I was very impressed with everything that Vivian Stanshall did. The wackier and more bizarre, the better. It was us eccentrics against the world. And I knew that when I turned up on campus, people would flock to me because I owned this ridiculous record.

Life is different to expectations though, isn’t it? I’m not sure I ever played it to anyone. But I’ve listened to it so, so many times. And Frank Zappa’s daughter, Moon Unit, apparently only sang the song so that she could get onto her dad’s tour and thus spend some time with her father. Moon Unit didn’t share my enthusiasm for bizarre things, after all.

But, listening on the bus just now, it sounds just as fresh, ridiculous and beautifully bizarre as it did in 1982.

The life of an expatriate child

A bumpy ride in childhood on the ground and in the air

(c) Steve Palmer 2015

Singapore in 1971

Wikipedia describes the ‘Jennings and Darbishire’ series as a collection of humorous novels of children's literature concerning the escapades of J.C.T. Jennings and C.E.J. Darbishire; schoolboys at Linbury Court preparatory school. 

But to me, they were evil.

When we were kids, my sister Chris and I went to boarding school. From 1971 to 1975 our parents lived in Singapore. Chris and I were in different schools in the UK and we only saw each other in the holidays. Not good. And I was encouraged, by the school, to read about Jennings and Darbishire, who were also in boarding school, but who featured in stories from the 1950s. So, it was even more draconian and depressing than the real thing.

And it was a strange childhood. We were a family of ‘expats’. Expatriates. Those that have gone to live abroad. As expats, we were members of the Tanglin Club. Opened in October 1865, its website says that for many years the Tanglin was one of the “pillars of social life in Singapore, for successful members of the European community.” This is embarrassing to think about now because in the 1970s we were segregated from Asian people. Not that any Chinese people wanted to go to the Tanglin Club, I’m sure.

These days we shop in Aldi and fly on Ryanair, but when I was eight until I was 12, I was a member of a club that wouldn’t have felt out-of-place in the British Empire. I’m sure there was even one of those hessian fans that gently wafted warm air around. Not that Chris and I cared. We were there for (a) the swimming pool and (b) the tuck shop.

But actually getting to Singapore. Well, that was another thing…

Wobbly journey

I still think it was challenging to expect your kids to get on a plane and fly out to Singapore when they were aged ten (Chris) and in my case, eight. But as an adult, I’ve had therapy. No; it was a challenge. Especially when no one had told me what airplane turbulence is. No one. Nobody. Not a jot of pre-flight information on that one. Nada.

The first time I ever went on a plane had a big effect on my future airline travel experiences.

So it was 1971. We flew to Singapore and the first leg was from London to Rome; and there was bad turbulence. I thought the plane was going to crash and shouted, really loudly, words to that effect. My sister was with me on that occasion and I think was so totally embarrassed about my reaction that she’s blocked it out of her memory. She says she can’t recall the incident. I can. “We’re going to crash and we’re all going to die!” A bit dramatic. I was eight. Oh; I’ve already said that.

Even now, I’m no good with turbulence. My brother-in-law Andrew has explained about different types of clouds and how turbulence doesn’t just happen when it is, per se, cloudy. But that incident prepared me for a life of what the family like to describe as me possessing ‘sweaty palms’, because my hands do get clammy for take-off.

There are some YouTube videos that can help - but they don’t help me. Although, Mrs Steve and I had a very frightening incident flying from Costa Rica to Houston – the plane was sent careering off course, twice, during ‘clear air turbulence’ – there were no clouds. People in front of me were all propelled towards the ceiling in one big Mexican wave. And, afterwards, part of me felt it was actually quite comforting. For all the times that I’d had irrational fears of turbulence, here was the occasion when my fears were correct. A stewardess broke her arm. It was the real deal. I felt justifiably terrified.

Isn’t it amazing what an incident at an early age can do to someone? And how it can mess with them forever and ever and ever…

Horror ship

Alton Towers. 1985. The day I discovered that I’m terrified of – no, scrub that – allergic to, pleasure rides. A day out with Girlfriend Steve (as was), plus her sister Ruth and Ruth’s then boyfriend (now husband) Andrew. Soon I was on a big dipper, being carried upside down and around and feeling my heart leave my mouth - and then getting suspended in the air. However, the thing about a big dipper is that you can at least have some concept of when the ride’s going to end. So in a way, the big dipper was nothing.

Because then we got on a ship. Yes; a ship that was a ‘pleasure ride’. This ship went back and forth, leaving you with a feeling of horrifying whole-body discombobulation. And not an end in sight. This time, my heart was hovering above this pirate ship, as if the evil spirit of a treasure island character was about to snatch it away. And I turned into an eight-year-old boy, screaming for my life at the enforced and totally unnecessary turbulence.

And Andrew thought it would be hilarious to turn round and tickle me under the neck and to, you know, keep reminding me of how terrifying it all was. This made it 100 times worse. I screamed and screamed – the ship went back and forth, back and forth – and then I screamed again. Actually, it was worse than turbulence. That pirate ship was a silly, stupid, ridiculous terror machine.

Anyway, after it stopped I felt particularly relieved, but then I felt queasy and then I had to have two weeks in bed; with vertigo. Never again. I’m shaking now thinking about it. The others had a lovely time and bought some candy floss.

I think I'd better leave right now...

In the summer of 1982 the Headmistress from my sister's school retired. The family were invited to the leaving do and it was chance to look back on our rather strange childhood of expatriate living and bumpy rides. 

But the do wasn’t our ‘thing’. There was a stage. Another dais if you like. It had potted plants, classic drapes and frilly lampshades. It was as if my Grandmother had kitted it out. I quite expected to see her 78 record player there. And there were three instruments: A cello; a piano; and a violin. My sister really hated one thing about her childhood: Her cello. She had to lug it everywhere. Mind you, it meant that she always got a lift everywhere from our parents, whereas Muggins here had to always get the bus.

So my sister hated the Headmistress’s event because it reminded her of a life and a cello she thought she’d left behind; and my Mum hated it because it was like an afternoon in my Grandmother’s flat, where the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to tick very loudly because we’d run out of things to say. Personally, I was just bored. And, anyway, this recital was only set to last an hour and a half.

Then, some perfectly charming and nice older ladies came onto the stage to play their instruments, with the Headmistress appreciatively sitting in the front row. It must have been members of the music department who were providing the entertainment.

Anyway, it started. All went well. But it reminded me of Hinge and Brackett. Hinge and Brackett, for those too young or too disinterested, were female impersonators. Wikipedia describes them as follows: “Dr. Evadne Hinge and Dame Hilda Bracket were the stage personae of the musical performance and female impersonation artists, George Logan and Patrick Fyffe. Active in theatre, radio and television between 1972 and Fyffe's death in 2002, this comedic partnership entertained the public in the guise of two elderly eccentric spinsters, living genteel lives in the village of Stackton Tressel; and seemingly celebrating their former ‘careers’ on the provincial operatic stage.” Just Google them. Or don’t.

And then it happened. I leant over to my Mum and whispered: “They remind me of Hinge and Brackett.”

Mum giggled.

Chris laughed.

I giggled. It was infectious. Before we knew it we were stifling laughter, bodies shaking, tears running down our faces. All at the Headmistress’s leaving do. The woman who had given so much to this school and who was presumably appreciating the style and manner of her send-off, had, a few yards away from where she was sitting, a family of extremely ungrateful Palmers, by now shaking their shoulders and desperate for the show to end so that they could go outside and get the laughter out. And then we laughed more. And more. We laughed for most of the 90 minutes.

Have you ever been placed in a situation where, to laugh would be the most inappropriate thing? It was excruciating and funny. Excrutiatingly funny. And pretty awkward. So many emotions; so much value-for-money. We were waiting for it to end so we could go outside and laugh properly. But, of course, by the time we did, we couldn’t laugh any more.

Penny drops on the Tube

But, writing this in 2015, I’m on the Piccadilly Line and it’s hit me like a bolt from the blue what was really going on in that room. As a family, we were split asunder in the 1970s. I lived in the same country as my Sis but only got to see her on holidays in Singapore. We were placed in boarding schools and in many ways they were formative years. Example: I go to gigs and other events on my own. Why? Because, from an early age, I had to learn that the person who I could most rely on……was me. No one’s blaming anyone. I’ve had therapy. 

Mum still feels terrible about leaving us, but Dad’s job prospects were worse in the UK than the great offer he had to work overseas. And it’s made my bond with my sister strong.

But, I’ve just realised on the Tube, and wow, what a moment (welling up – slightly awkward) that what happened at Chris’s school was a moment when the three of us had a good laugh at the whole boarding school experiment and yes, stuck two fingers up at it. I’ve now realised it was a moment when the tension broke and, quite frankly, we didn’t care what anyone thought. It was a golden moment with my Mum and Chris.   

Don’t you want me baby

So I blame my parents. Oh, get over it Palmer. My family was unbelievably close once we’ve survived the Singapore experiment. I even got to actually live with my sister from 1975-1980. And then she went to University. And I was there at her 21st birthday party in Oxford.

It was 1982 and Human League were in the charts (although my sister thought their hit was about unwanted pregnancy: “Don’t you want my baby?”). Chris’s coming-of-age party saw Mum and Dad do that thing where they came along to say hello for the first half hour. We were all desperate for them to leave. These days, our kids wouldn’t allow us to be there. Too embarrassing. So, in a way, my parents were lucky to be present.

My sister’s friend Mark was on the DJ decks, pretty impressed with his own selection of music, including cool bands like Scritti Politti. And Dad said something disparaging about the music. Mark should have put two and two together and realised who this middle-aged couple were, and then realised that they were my Mum and Dad. Instead, he shouted: “Well, you come over here if you think you can do any fucking better, mate.”

To my Dad. To. My. Dad. Let’s not talk of this incident again.  

Although, let’s keep it activity in the early eighties and move from Oxford, to Rugeley in Staffordshire. Let’s talk about Mrs Steve.

Midlands mayhem

Mrs Steve was at a dinner / dance. They were all the rage as Soft Cell’s Tainted Love topped the charts. Mrs Steve and her sister Ruth grew up in Rugeley.

Rugeley isn't well known. The town probably doesn't see the producers of property programmes turn up and do up people's houses. There was always Dr Palmer (no relation), the Rugeley poisoner. Or, as Wikipedia describes him: ‘William Palmer (murderer)’. Anyway, he was hanged and it sort of put Rugeley on the map; in 1856. It's been pretty sleepy ever since. So, we were watching the comedy 'Raised by Wolves' recently; set it Wolverhampton, the single Mum goes out on a less-than-glamourous date and, on her return, says rather ironically: "He took me to Tesco in Rugeley - and back."

These days the town hosts a massive Amazon depot; across the road from the power station. A sort of old days / new days snapshot of modern Britain. Mrs Steve freely admits that until her sister - Ruth’s - husband Andrew turned up and started to take them to clubs and gigs in Birmingham and Stoke, her social life was pretty mundane; it was either house parties, the social club at the power station or a conference suite at a nearby hotel. Edgy stuff.

This hotel’s function room had to have a shiny parkay floor.  It was mandatory. Or should have been. It was the eighties, after all. At a sixth form party in the function room, in front of her peers, Ruth went to the loo and returned to the table, only to turn on a heel and go arse over tit on the heavily-polished floor. Everyone laughed. The entire sixth form. Then Mrs Steve went to the loo and, on her return, did exactly the same thing. Arse. Over. Tit. Everyone laughed. Again. It’s the sort of déjà vu development that sisters don’t ever want repeated. They were forever remembered as the sprawling pissed sisters. But they weren’t pissed. They were just unable to negotiate that slippery floor in heels. 

How dare I write about my wife embarrassing herself? Well, for the record, she saved me. Have you read the book (or seen the film) One Day, by David Nicholls? I was Dexter. I was in danger of turning into a right royal wanker. And this book would have been five times bigger; it would have been an encyclopaedia. To stop this happening, all Mrs Steve had to do was commit to spending the rest of her life with me.  In return, I’ve embarrassed her on a daily basis. X.

Rich world, poor me

Around the same time as the Staffordshire slip-up, down in Hertfordshire, I was becoming increasingly upset and frustrated by what was happening in the Third World. I was idealistic and determined to do something about how the rich world was worried about petty things…when people were dying in developing countries. So I did something very radical and joined the Welwyn-Hatfield branch of the World Development Movement. I know. Edgy stuff. Except when I arrived for the first meeting, at someone’s house, with people who were all probably at least 20 years older than me, I said the wrong thing.

Instead of saying: “I’ll take my coat off”, I mistakenly said: “I’ll take my clothes off.” Well, it wasn’t that kind of meeting, in a house full of people that, I would, at the time, have described as ‘middle aged’. It was, though, like a premonition of events at the massage parlour thirty years later. I’m not sure I went back to another meeting. And I didn’t save the world.

Also circa 1981, I went around with a condom in the pocket of my jean jacket. Looking back, that’s a really embarrassing memory. I mean, really: jean jackets? Well, it was 1981 after all. It got worse. I tried to buy an album at J and J Records, Hatfield and could only recoil in horror as, instead of a five pound note, I produced that (still unused) condom out of my jean jacket pocket by mistake. I think the shop assistant, who was aged perhaps five years older than me, laughed mainly because the condom looked like it had passed its sell-by date. I think the outer wrapping had worn down to the rubber. Which Hatfield girl would pass up a chance for some action with me? I wanted a girlfriend. I didn’t get one.

Going swimmingly

Back to family life. I’ll finish this chapter with a story from around the time that I was writing the draft of my book about my son Stan, ‘Down’s with the kids’. I like to go for a run at lunchtime once a week. Occasionally though, I pick up a sports injury and I have to go for a swim. This one time, I was determined to get from my desk at work to the pool and back within an hour. I hopped on a Boris Bike (one of the shared cycles you can rent that are scattered over London).

To succeed, the mission involved running from the cycle drop-off point to the pool and changing in double-quick time. All so I could prove a point. The trunks, I have to say, felt a bit tight. I swam up and down, had a shower, got dressed, ran to the bike rack and was back at my desk. In 59 minutes. Result.

When I got home Mrs Steve quizzed me on the trunks. They weren’t mine. They had to be my eldest’s. Harry was fifteen at the time, and it was slightly inappropriate for me to wear them. Yes? But no; it turns out they were actually my youngest’s trunks. Stan was twelve. And they had hardly covered me – anywhere. I was in such a rush that I didn’t notice.

The pool I go to has historically been one where quite a few of the clientele are very fit - and good-looking - gay men. Now; I’d put on a few pounds due to my injury and subsequent lack of activity. I must have looked like a desperate fat old man in a mock g-string, on the pull.  Of course, my family made me re-enact the event, a number of times, with Stan’s trunks on, much to their mirth. I’d imagine the masseuse from chapter one would have whipped them off in a second, although she may have had to use a can opener.

My uncle, my Nana, John Noakes and Eddie Waring. Attitudes to dementia have changed

 "You're looking at one ton of rugby – meat, brawn, muscle, brain, the lot of it!"

Eddie Waring 

In February 1991, my grandmother wrote on a piece of paper that "Cecil died" and then lay on the floor and froze to death. She had dementia and nobody around her understood the condition. My grandfather had died a few months before and at least Nana Concon was able to write down her thoughts in some way before she died in that cold snap, almost 25 years ago. My grandparents were of the generation whereby they often didn't have the heating on - they'd lived through the war and were cost-conscious - she probably didn't stand a chance. 

Let's skip to 2015. My uncle has dementia. Hearing about the types of support he gets, you realise that we've come a long way as a society in 25 years. Back then our collective knowledge about dementia seemed to amount to jokes about people always forgetting things and being a bit dopey and 'senile'. That didn't help anyone. Nowadays, the support for my uncle is miles away from the support my Nana had. Or indeed the shameful way that Eddie Waring was treated. 

I got into rugby league when I watched a documentary on Eddie Waring in 2010. And it did mention that he had dementia. Reading the cold language of this Wikipedia page, though, you'd worry that we've really learnt nothing:

"Waring's overall health declined very quickly after his retirement from the commentary box. He was diagnosed with dementia and died at High Royds Hospital in Menston, West Yorkshire in 1986." 

That's right. A mental hospital. That phrase is so out-dated and people with mental health issues look at those old buildings like High Royds (and there's one near me in Friern Barnet) as places that needed to stop doing what they were doing. But also, it was so inappropriate to place Eddie Waring in High Royds. This, despite the fact that a rugby league fan has read this blog and told me that he's heard that the care in High Royds could be very caring and compassionate. 

I quoted Eddie at the start of this blog because he had so many memorable one-liners that made his commentary an essential complement to the action on the field. And he ended his days in High Royds. Despite what I say above about compassionate care, the very mention of the institution brings up horrifying thoughts, not least because it's the title of a song by the Kaiser Chiefs. Some of the band grew up nearby and it had a terrible reputation. My heart breaks when I think what support my uncle gets now and how the rug was pulled out under Eddie Waring; and my Nana. 

A couple of months ago, former Blue Peter presenter John Noakes went missing. John has Alzheimer's and I bet his support is so much better than what was offered to Eddie Waring. And quite right too. 

So my uncle has better support than my Nana did, and John Noakes has a better prospect than Eddie Waring did. I think that’s something to celebrate. But it’s also worth spending some time wondering whether a lack of care about dementia 25 and thirty years ago, is something we should all feel more than uncomfortable about. 

On our travels

Broad-minded house-hunting in Sydney and broad bottoms in Sudan

© Steve Palmer 2015

Kenya, December 1990

BTK – Before the kids – Mrs Steve and I travelled. A lot. As soon as we finished uni, we were off. We spent a year in Australia and then travelled back through Asia. I then spent eight years in a travel agency. We climbed Ayers Rock, ate grasshoppers in Mexico and stayed in a hotel in China where the cockroaches staged a sit-in to complain about conditions. Yes. We weren’t tourists. We were proper travellers.

Take the issue of going on safari.

Not for us some unnecessary and pompous luxury camping trip with fine dining. In Nairobi in 1990 we signed up to go with a company called SAVUKA, who offered a discount tour of the Kenyan game parks. I seem to remember it cost about £150 for both of us for a week. This was doing things properly. This was how you get about if you’re after an authentic experience. On the first day we saw the same animals in the Maasai Mara game reserve as those posh people who’d spent £1,000 for their all-inclusive plastic experience. They were wasting their money and we had it sussed.

And then we got to the first night’s campsite. Well, I say ‘campsite’ but that’s perhaps an exaggeration, especially given the state of the toilet. Well; I say ‘toilet’ but it was a massive hole in the ground. Well, I say ‘ground’. And that’s what it was.

Lion eyes

Within minutes of arrival I’d christened the tour company SAVUKA ‘Such A Very Uncomfortable Kamping Arrangement’. Actually, the tents were permanent and pretty good. No; it was probably unfair that I gave the tour company this acronym. There was nothing they could do about the hole in that ground that constituted ‘facilities’…a few yards from the campsite’s kitchen. Slop-out in the mess?

We weren’t the only ones to suffer. I remember seeing a Japanese tourist, obviously at her wit’s end, running into an open field, dropping her jeans and parking a large one then and there in front of me, twenty yards away. People have asked how I could have possibly have watched, but, Your Honour, it all happened so quickly.

The problem for Mrs Steve is that she too wanted to ‘go’. At night. You know, that time when your fears - that hungry lions may be roaming around - are that much more accentuated. So we left the tent, clutching a rudimentary torch, and then Mrs Steve had to make like our Japanese friend and basically let go a few yards away from the canvas. It was practically touching cloth.

And I couldn’t resist shouting, just as things were coming to a nice conclusion: “Lion!” The result was that Mrs Steve panicked and trod in it. She was wearing flip-flops and poo squelched up her leg. I told her that she had to stick the leg out of the flap of the tent all night. I said it might even give the lion something to gnaw on.

Here in 2015 I’ve just searched ‘luxury Kenya safari’. It’s ridiculously expensive. And it looks gorgeous. Damn.  

Well, I can dream can’t I? Because on the same trip we had to wash in the sea for three days. The reason? We were told by our hotel owner that an elephant had cut through an essential cable with its tusk and cut off the water supply to the city of Mombasa. I love the way that a hardship can be dressed up in such a dramatic way by a local trying to give travellers an authentic experience of their country. We stank of seawater.

OK, the Mombasa hygiene situation did actually force us to upgrade. We went for some luxury. In nearby Malindi, we took refuge from the backpack circuit and booked a few nights in a good hotel. By which I mean there was a pool. The thing was, the hotel really existed for package tours. So the people holidaying there were having a totally different experience to us. We’d been walking around with back-breaking backpacks; the tourists expected mosquito nets to be draped from ceiling to floor…and a buffet breakfast. But we deserved this. We were experienced travellers who had, in fact, really earnt this temporary holiday lifestyle. Well, that little fantasy didn’t last long.

We headed straight for the pool and a couple of British families were there. I did that thing where you duck under water and just before your body disappears, you kick a football to show off your skill. This bloke was standing by the side of the pool and the ball I’d kicked smacked him right in the face.

As I surfaced, he was shouting: “You fucking bastard! I can’t fucking believe it! What the fuck do you thing you were doing, you fucking wanker?” I said: “I’m so sorry.” He said: “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” And a kid from the other family asked me: “Is that your Dad?”

Now, our friend Simon wouldn’t entertain the idea of slumming it. He likes a degree of comfort on his travels. Oh, what am I saying? He craves - and gets - luxury.

Do disturb

A few years ago, Simon was in a hotel in Lagos, Nigeria, enjoying room service. Simon’s job has meant that he’s travelled the world for the last twenty-five years. He’s always emailing updates from North Korea, Albania or New York. But it’s the African continent that he most loves. We met in the travel agency but he didn’t stay long. He’d rather live it than talk about it.

On this occasion in Lagos, Simon was immersed in the full room service experience. Somehow, as human beings, if we arrive in a hotel room, the most decadent thing to do is to have our dinner with a towel draped around us, fresh from the shower. We wouldn’t perhaps do that at home. I gather that the towel in question was just about ample to drape around Simon, but he was all alone, so who cared if a bit of flesh was showing? We’re none of us getting any younger.

Then he decided to put the tray outside the door. He reckoned he could do this in his towel. Simon was a seasoned luxury hotel guest who knew all the tricks. He opened the door and put the tray down, with its contents sloshing around. He tried to manoeuvre the tensile strength of the towel and the tray-sloshing at the very same time, in one swooping downwards movement.

It involved Simon bending down to an acute angle to place the tray on the floor - and at the same time trying to hold onto the towel. He managed this rather successfully, but men can be bad at multi-tasking, and he soon realised that although the job was indeed performed copiously, the room door had slammed shut. But that was OK. He had a towel on and could call for help. No such luck.

The towel was jammed in the door.

Now, I’ve told you that the towel was adequately fit-for-purpose in the room, but in the corridor it now became a millstone around Simon’s neck; or should I say – a loose garment that didn’t quite cover everything around Simon’s body.

So, he was standing in the corridor in the all-together; and this was all together a tricky situation (a) to get out of and (b) to explain. Then the good news. The lift door went ‘ping’ and surely his rescuer was on the way. Again; no such luck. The person coming out of the lift was one of the prostitutes that frequented the lobby of the hotel. It was a very long shot, but Simon asked her, politely, if she’d be kind enough to go down to the front desk. You know, and speak to the people that she’d rather avoid talking to, because that would draw attention to her presence (and her profession). But she misunderstood Simon and offered him the best rate that day.

I can understand why. Simon was standing in what looked like a ‘come on’ position. “Yeah, yeah. The old ‘towel in the door’ routine. Why didn’t you just say?” However, he did then manage to explain the situation meaningfully and, not surprisingly, the prostitute politely declined his request to report the incident. She didn’t want to be embarrassed. That was Simon’s job.

I know how he feels. I was accosted by a lady wanting money for services in Nairobi. The thing was, Mrs Steve was standing with me when it happened.

But this isn’t about me. Simon’s still in the hall, nearly-nude. This is where the story could become embellished; he could have been made out he was standing there starkers for hours but I’ve pressed him heavily on this and he maintains it was only twenty minutes. But, really. That is a very long time to be naked, in a hallway, with only a smallish towel rammed in a doorway for modesty-covering.

Eventually Simon was saved. When he checked out, he tried not to engage in any conversation with the reception staff (who surely had to have known what happened). He felt paranoid. Quite rightly. “Did you have room service? Anything from the mini bar? Did someone come along and save you when your towel was jammed in a door?”

Now, perhaps it’s because he moves about the world a lot, but Simon seems to get into more scrapes than most. And, apart from the above example, those scrapes seem to usually involve bodily functions. OK; I’m going to say it. Excreta. Plops. Jumbo jobbies. Shit. That’s better.

Let the train take the strain

Simon’s love of Africa in general is only eclipsed by his love of Sudan in particular. He just adores the place. Here are some facts that I looked up on the internet for you: Sudan was home to numerous ancient civilizations, has recently seen rampant ethnic strife and has been plagued by internal conflicts, including two civil wars and fighting in the Darfur region. Thousands of years ago, the area of north Sudan was extremely volcanic. And Simon was, one day, feeling pretty volcanic himself.

As I’m writing this I’m smiling because I saw Simon last night. Good timing because he was in London on a rare trip and we had a great catch-up with friends. He was in high spirits as he’d just been to his beloved Sudan. Of course we all reminded him of his story about the train…

Sudan has 4,725 kilometres of narrow-gauge, single-track railroads that serve the northern and central portions of the country. But, to put it frankly, travelling by train in Sudan can be erratic. And quite uncomfortable.

Now, personally, I’ve never been one of those people who can hold onto a poo. When I have to go, I have to go.

Mrs Steve’s the same. We’ve had our moments of embarrassment, from Indonesia to India, where the need to take a dump pretty sharpish, has become increasingly pressing as the minutes tick by. I remember trotting rather quickly around a museum in Cairo, searching for a serviceable toilet. In the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Mrs Steve made it to the loo, again just in time, only to then got locked in that bog. The guy with the screwdriver was very pleasant. When you’ve got to go, who cares if the lock’s working or not. 

Simon, however, can hold on for days. Maybe it’s his history of international travel, mainly in developing countries. He knows that it’s always worth the wait, to finally let it all out in the luxury of a five-star hotel.

But on this one occasion, maybe he held on, well, just too long.

On a Sudanese train, he opened the door to the loo on a speculative visit. A family was living in there. He really didn’t want to interrupt or ask them to move out - so that he could move his bowels. So he held on. Finally the train arrived in a station, where it was to remain for an indeterminate amount of time. That happens in Sudan.

It sat beside another train in the searing East African heat. That other train – a freight locomotive - had apparently been there for days. Days and days and days. With no toilet on the station, Simon was by now dancing around in agony and he had to grab this opportunity. He ran around the back of the second train, out of site; and pulled down his trousers. And just as relief started washing over his body, that second train started pulling out of the station, rather too astonishingly quickly for Sudanese rolling stock that had just been rusting on the rails for so long.

And so the passengers on Simon’s train got an eyeful. He now had the dilemma about whether to finish his ablutions and get back on the train; or not to finish and get back on the train. I don’t know about you but I like to linger, when possible, with a book or magazine. Simon had no choice. He had to ‘squeeze, release and say please’… “Please let me back on the train”. I bet even the family in the toilet turned their eyes away when they saw him perform the walk of shame across the tracks.  

But Simon tells me that he loves an article by fellow Sudanophile Iain Marshall, written in 1990. So, about 15 years before the rest of the world started blogging.  Iain says: "The concept of transport is based on the principle of moving from A to B in Sudan. The comfort of the journey is of little importance. People overcome the hardships of such travel by a wonderful act of will. They simply ignore all the signs of pain and irritation. During the course of that journey I was treated regally by my fellow travellers. A handful of dates extended from the press of bodies; a house in a tiny Nubian village providing tea; countless offers of water from roadside houses.”

Iain also goes on to say: “The Sudanese proverb ‘Ar raffig gabl at tarig’ - travelling companions are more important than the journey itself - has rung resoundingly true on every trip I have ever made in Sudan.” That’s lovely, but Simon’s travelling companions got a radical re-interpretation of this saying. And I’m not sure Simon should have accepted any dates. Iain’s now made that 1990 essay into a blog. tinyurl.com/pxwyypq.

And Simon only let me write all about him if I included this YouTube tribute to Sudan. No Third World disaster here. A lovely film with a strong message. bit.ly/1GPVsPy.

Tassle hassle

In 1983 our friend Judy was with us at Pickwick’s nightclub, Bradford. She was, on this occasion, particularly pleased with herself. She’d done her make-up in the loo and then couldn’t believe it as she hit the dance floor, as guys and women seemed to be staring at her. She tells me she thought she’d really nailed it as U2 thrashed out ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’. She’d arrived. She was young, beautiful and an undergraduate in charge of her own destiny.

Then Bert, the doorman who’d seen generations of students make fools of themselves, tapped Judy on the shoulder and said in his Yorkshire accent: “Sorry love, but you’ve got your skirt tucked into your knickers.”

Mind you. It’s not just Judy. I was at a disco in Freshers’ Week, 1982. I was wearing my red corduroys - they were very tight - with white baseball boots. Jeanette Robinson asked me to dance and well, with Junior / ‘Mama used to say’ on the decks, a new student couldn't go wrong. I really went for it. Sure enough, after the song finished, Jeanette took my hand, escorted me off the dancefloor and said: "Can I ask you a question?" I thought: "This is it. This is what I came to university for." She then said: "Will you promise never to dance with me again?"

Judy’s like Simon in that they’re both sort of drawn to embarrassing situations. When she was a teenager, Judy’s family lived in Mexico and one day she was making her way back to the UK. Alone. She was at Guadalajara airport.

Breaking off for a moment; there’s a great Audioboom clip from a recent radio show where sports reporter Ian Ramsdale just can’t pronounce the word Guadalajara, when talking about a Mexican football story. The clip has him attempting the word several times and I think it’s very funny. He tries: “Gwajalahara’. The following hour, during the next sports bulletin, he says: “Gwala……Oh, I’m rubbish at this.”

And then, later: “Gwalahara.” However, he does get the pronunciation of German side, Borussia Mönchengladbach, faultlessly correct. He just can’t pronounce Guadalajara. They even play in a bit of a Steely Dan song, My Old School, which is a tribute to the Mexican city.

Presenter Danny Kelly describes it as a “legendary night’s broadcasting”; and forces poor Ian to try it again. And again. And again. But, in the end, Ian gets it spectacularly right. Wonderful and at bit.ly/1AzVFZM. So, back to Guadalajara airport.

It was the late 70s so young women were obliged to wear tassled suede jackets. The internet says that there are two spellings (tassled / tasselled). But no one’s sure because the jackets have been so decidedly uncool for so long. They’re also called ‘fringed’ jackets and basically have bits of suede material hanging down. Think of the two cool bikers in Easy Rider (1969). Man. A colleague tells me that they are now, in fact, back in fashion, so this actually really really matters.

You read about the knickers incident in the introduction - that particular elastic embarrassment happened a few years after Judy was sitting at Guadalajara airport. But, just like in the Bradford disco a few years later, Judy realised that lots of people were staring at her. At Guadalajara airport. Judy believed that she was a stunning, attractive and clever eighteen year-old young woman with her life ahead of her.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the only thing (or things) that were ahead of her, poking out of the tassles. Before she left for the airport, she’d neglected to button up her blouse. Excess baggage. The tassled effect only added to the airport-themed soft-core porn surroundings of potted plants and artificial light. Poor Judy. She was blissfully unaware that the admiring looks she was getting were because she was expressing herself in more than just a couple of languages.

Until someone approached her to tell her about her teenage wardrobe malfunction. Somehow it’s funnier when the news is conveyed, as in the Bradford incident, with a broad West Yorkshire accent. I don’t know what the Spanish for ‘exposed’ is (OK; a quick search suggests it’s ‘expuesto’) but I’m sure it’s hilarious in Mexico. Pablo and Miguel are probably sitting around in the Hacienda right now saying: “Almost 40 years ago, the poor British girl in the tassly jacket flashed more than just a cheery smile.”

The airline phoned ahead and there were packs of teenage boys waiting to great Judy back to Heathrow, shouting her name. OK. That didn’t happen. But, these days, before landing, it would have been all over the internet and news crews would be waiting at the airport to see who all the fuss was about.

I can hear Judy telling this story and LOL’ing, even though it was totes awks. OK, that’s the sort of language that she would have used if she was a teenager in 2015. She’d have tweeted: OMG just showed off my best side GDL airport #totesawks #totesembarrass #wardrobemalfunction #buttonitbaby !!!

Embarrassing bonbons

More Judy in a moment, but here’s another quick humiliation for me, some years before Judy was bearing all in Mexico. I was on a day trip to France with school when I was about thirteen and I was really embarrassed by everything in…well, in life really. Why do French people need to say that they ‘have’ hunger; why can’t they say that they are hungry? Because I went into a sweet shop in Calais and said the latter. I am hungry. Je suis faim. The assistant started laughing and, as a teenager, I found it excruciating as she eventually composed herself enough to tell me that I’d just proclaimed that: “I am a woman.”

Here comes the sun

We spent a lovely holiday with Judy when she was, once again, living in Mexico, in 1995. She did all the talking in Spanish and took us to places off the tourist map. She knew all the local tips on how to have a great holiday. She called us wimps for staying by the pool; she went to the beach knowing full well that the coastline at Puerto Escondido has the most volatile rip tides. But she was practically a local. She knew Mexico. She could tame those tides.  

Then, poolside, I suddenly heard this: “Steve! Steve!” This phantom-like figure came into the pool area with her hands out in front of her in what looked like a bad impression of the ghost from Scooby-Doo. A ghost called Judy.

It turns out that she had layered on too much sunblock and a freak wave had come in-shore and washed over her whole body. The seawater had done its business and mixed with the sun-cream to produce a nasty concoction that temporarily blinded Judy, like a melting action figure that’s been got at by a naughty boy with a magnifying glass.

Do you know what? Judy’s decision, to ask me to make a speech at her wedding, was a terrible idea. Because, guess what? All the stories got mentioned. The knickers, the tassles and the sunblock. Oh, and also the time she burnt down a beefburger van that she was working at. I want to tell you more but she won’t let me. The wedding was in Madrid. Half the guests were Spanish, though, and so didn’t understand me - and consequently have no idea that Judy’s such a fart. Love her.  

And I’ve had my own fair share of overseas awkwardness.

Sticking out a mile

Between 1986 and 1987, Girlfriend Steve (later Mrs Steve) and I spent a year in Australia. And when we arrived in Sydney we met up with Norman, a guy we’d first met in Bali. He was so welcoming and introduced us to all his friends from the local gay scene. We were at Norman’s flat and we met his mates, who were all very charming, but secretly, Norman told us later, they were writing notes to each other as we sat chatting. These days they’d be texting or private messaging as we sat there.

What had happened is that the December heat down-under had got to me personally ‘down-under’ and I’d acquired a sweaty infection in a difficult place, having never had a simple childhood operation that would have avoided it happening in the first place. So I put on the cream and kept my underpants off. But this was 1986 and of course I had very, very short shorts on. Norman later confided that the note said: “Flashing an uncut nasty.”

Just after the foreskin faux-pas we were flat-hunting and answered a promising ad in the Sydney Morning Herald, which mentioned that 'broad-minded people' were encouraged to apply. When we got to the house it was like the Rocky Horror Show, with lots of good-looking young men in shorts dancing around. On one such resident, just below his belly-button, the words 'virgin's delight’ were tattooed with a downward arrow.

Then we were ushered upstairs to meet the boss man. This large – and larger-than-life - guy checked our 'broad-minded' credentials and apparently we passed with flying colours. We were gay-scene-ready. But he also said he needed to read our tarot cards, because he had to be 100% positive. After all, he said that we had to be prepared for him to burst into our room at any time if he wanted to chat, have a party of anything. Even at three in the morning. The chemistry just had to work.

We went along with it because this was a cultural experience. He rang us a couple of days later to say he really liked us but that the tarot readings just weren't right. After that, there was nothing at Mardi Gras in Sydney that would ever shock us.

But two friends of mine do truly have a shocking travelling tale to tell.

Someone left the cake out at the bottom of the bed

This wonderful couple have given permission for me to use this story, but only if their names aren’t used. I mean, you can understand why: deeply in love, and, quite frankly naked in an Amsterdam hotel room, there was much confusion as a cake was delivered. It was Queen’s Day in Holland and that’s a big deal in the Netherlands; it was also the woman’s birthday. So the hotel wanted to show its generosity by delivering a cake to my friends, via room service.

Except, the cake arrived as they lay asleep – and starkers after a particularly robust session of lovemaking - on top of the covers. Awake, no cake. Wake up again: a sodding great cake at the end of the bed. Whoever delivered it didn’t get a tip. I mean, they probably wanted to give a tip: “Don’t lie asleep on your bed, naked, on Queen’s Day, when quite naturally there’s a big chance of a cake being delivered.”

But my friends aren’t the only people to sew confusion whilst travelling. I used to do it for a living.

International fateline

Working in the same travel agency, Simon and I conspired, out of ineptitude rather than malice, to put the long-term health and wellbeing of an eighty-year-old woman in danger.

Let’s talk about computer systems 25 years ago. There’s no doubt that with advances in technology by 1989, more people were able to get booked in more quickly and to travel to more places than ever before. But systems weren’t without their disadvantages. If a flight took off at 23:00 and arrived at 06:00, the computer system defaulted to +1, as in, the plane was due to arrive the next calendar day. It worked well for a flight from New York to London, for instance. Dep: 23:00. Arr: 06:00+1.

But when someone flew from Los Angeles to Auckland in New Zealand, you had to manually change this setting to +2, because on that flight route, you cross the International Dateline and time goes a bit weird. You arrive two calendar days after you took off.

Simon hit it off well with this one woman, who’d booked a trip-of-a-lifetime to see the true Kiwi countryside and to catch up with some distant family members.  And she was set to arrive, with a night in a hotel, before taking off on her ten day tour of both North and South islands. Lovely.

When it was being booked, I was charged with the task of checking the reservation over, a procedure that acted as a backstop to make sure that mistakes were avoided. Um…Simon and I both missed the +1 / +2 thing. It was booked as +1 and it should have been +2. The tour was booked in a day too early. And this perfectly charming woman arrived at Auckland airport half an hour before her excursion was about to start. No hotel time.

Anyway, she showed a great deal of guile, got her bags in a Kiwi taxi and, effectively got to shout: “Follow that tour bus”. The taxi driver apparently grasped the gravity, and the excitement, of the situation and took on his new responsibility with relish. They caught up with the bus just after its first North Island place-of-interest stop. And, as the coach left the car park, the taxi driver straddled his vehicle in front of the bus, forcing it into an emergency stop.

She had a lovely time.

Even in my 30s, I would not have enjoyed the feeling of starting a tour with horrendous post-dateline jetlag. But this woman was made of sterner stuff. On her return to the UK, she sent Simon a thank-you card with a present of a book voucher. She brushed off the incident - which could have led to a multi-million pound lawsuit with Simon and me standing in the dock in our suits - as a mild and quite exciting deviation. What a woman.

Hatchet job

Simon’s got a whole series of stories about his travels. For instance, when he had to remain in a plane on the runway during a sandstorm. When the storm had abated and the passengers got off, his Sudan Airways 737 had been stripped of its livery and was a perfect, beautiful, silver, the paint ripped off by the swirling sands of East Africa.

Or when the cabin crew couldn’t get into the cockpit and had to smash the door down with a hatchet. Or plenty of flights where there’s been standing room only.

All I know is that Simon carries with him, wherever he goes, things that bung you up. He apparently used some this February in the north of Sudan. Although the communal loo had a great view of an ancient temple, Simon says: “I popped two Imodium to avoid ever having to go in that bog whilst staying there!”

If you want to feel embarrassed, then go travelling, because it can throw up the most bizarre and awkward situations. And you get to remember them fondly.