Danny Wallace: Yes Man
When he met a man on the bus that told him to say ‘yes’ more, Danny Wallace decided to embark on a project. If you’ve read Are You Dave Gorman? or Join Me then you will be well acquainted with the obsessive extent that Danny applies himself to such projects as well as his excellent ability to tell a good tale. Yes Man is no different: one hell of an inspirational tale of a remarkably silly yet brilliant idea.
He had been stuck in a rut, his girlfriend had left him and he was becoming a recluse. Persistent nay-saying had started to impact on his health, happiness and friendships; his life fast becoming a cycle or work, television and tea. The man on the bus had sparked a change and had inspired Danny to write The Yes Manifesto: say ‘yes’ to every suggestion, proposal and invitation until the end of the year. That’s yes to everything, no matter how ridiculous a yes may be.
With only a single friend holding knowledge of his plans, and a cruel forfeit looming should he fail, a farcical tale ensues to the point where the reader knows not whether to laugh, cringe or cry. Ranging from the innocent extra pints in the pub to a rather sinister trip to Amsterdam to meet a Nigerian bank scammer; Danny’s life soon becomes consumed by the lack of power over his decisions.
One dimensional this tale is not. Like every good story, there is a bad guy on the scene. A third-party who becomes aware of his tactics and, in the guise of The Challenger, sets him on quests which he must say ‘yes’ to. Unrelenting, Danny sticks to the manifesto and aims to see his task through several months until the stroke of midnight at New Year.
This is a hugely inspirational read and, despite being written from a comic angle, makes a serious point about the decisions that we take in our lives day in and day out. The thesis being that saying ‘yes’ more will enrich our lives, a thesis that proved by Danny time and time again. Unfortunately for him however, saying ‘yes’ without exception is predictably going to get you in trouble sooner or later.
It is impossible to read this and not admire Danny’s resolve. As with the majority of elaborate plans, his endeavours are initially exciting but soon appear pointless and destructive. Whilst his life benefits from some of his yeses, not giving himself the opportunity to say ‘no’ soon begins to impact on his personal relationships and also seriously on his finances. It is hilarious to observe Danny awkwardly share dinner with his ex-girlfriend and her new lover or to watch him say ‘yes’ to an angry bloke in a club who poses the question, “are you looking at my girlfriend?” It is however equally despairing, car-crash stuff. At the point where he should really be saying to himself that enough is enough, he just keeps on saying ‘yes’.
The story sells itself and propelled in whichever direction the yeses take it but the fact that it comes from Danny Wallace gives it that extra edge. The abandon with which he throws himself into his task creates the extra drama that would no-way exist had another person come up with this idea. There is also the fact that Danny is eminently likeable. Not only is the story told in the simple and jovial way as though it could be a tale told down the pub, the reader is likely to end up wanting to buy him a beer if they ever bump into him down the pub. Danny throws his wit and character into this book in a remarkably honest way that is wholly endearing.
The emotion in this tale runs so high in the closing stages that hairs stand up on the back of the neck. Remember, this is a true story about one man’s life and a word that changes his life in more ways than he could ever have imagined. Take from it what you will, be that inspiration, a light laugh of the opportunity to shake your head and tut. I guarantee you that you’ll be glad that you read this however and that you learned about the crazy life owned by Danny Wallace.
An Ode To The Kings & Queens of Procrastination
I finished work nice and early today, 3pm is golden to a nine-to-fiver. And what great plans I had: a quick trip to the supermarket followed by an afternoon of writing. Following an unsuccessful round of submissions and a drive to go it alone, I’m giving my novel a final polish and edit but I’m way behind the deadlines I set myself.
Four and a half hours later and I’ve dedicated precisely zero minutes to my task.
I walked through the door, picked up the laptop and thought, -”okay, I’ll just have a quick squizz on Twitter.” Four new followers, I list them, send a courtesy welcome message and then get down to my work. Okay, maybe not. Facebook calling. A few photo albums pop up, a friend has posted about his trip to the footy at the weekend. Ah, and of course I need to check out my fan page. Three new connects, an interesting post to read on another’s page. Another hour dead.
Just before I finally set about my task I need to check my emails. Private hotmail, nice message from my Uncle. Great, quick note sent back his way. Okay, just time to peruse my Gmail. Perfect, invitation to a new writers’ group and some new friends on GoodReads. Time to check them out at least, time to see what they’re reading and if they’re on Twitter or Facebook. Oh great, one of them blogs. Time to read an interesting post which includes a link to another and then another.
6pm arrives, it’s the weekend tomorrow. The last day of the English football season and I need to put in a late effort to ensure I finish in the third spot of my fantasy football. Couple of transfers, reassign my captain. Then I’ve got to check my twitter, hotmail, gmail and facebook one more time. Nothing’s happened, its pure compulsion.
And then, my dear readers, I feel the need to procrastinate a touch further. Write a post about procrastination. Share my frustration with the world, a feeble act to put off the editing that little but more.
Okay, time to get down to it. 90 minutes left of my “free afternoon” until I have places to be. But I need to cook dinner… then I’ve got to feed the cat, shower, get changed… Maybe I’ll get round to some editing tomorrow?
To give some context to this prologue, the text below is an event that occurs 18 years prior to the opening chapter of Lost Souls of the Midnight Drinking Club. The character is not named because the events in this prologue have a significant impact on the mindset on one of the principal characters yet this does not become clear until later in the tale.
I welcome feedback on this prologue (no matter how constructive or cutting). The image to the left was taken in Berlin by myself in 2009, it will not appear in the novel when published.
Thanks for reading… Andy
He hated it here; this city, this country. He despised the hopelessness, drawn as it was on a steely grey canvas that reflected in defeated faces. He missed his family and he missed his home. He cursed the circumstances that had delivered him here.
Eleven days. Eleven days unemployed and broke. Eleven days homeless. Eleven days alone. It was friends that had drawn him here yet the concept of friendship had not stood up to the challenge. Those whom he had worked alongside for years had failed to reciprocate his good nature. He had helped fix their houses, backed them up in times of need and played basketball with their sons yet not a single one of them had stepped forward with a helping hand. These men with roofs over their heads, work to fill their days and cash to send home to their families. Each and every one of them with sorry excuses, all of them with tied hands.
And so he took his chances in solitude, chances that did not exist. There were East Germans, Turks, Yugoslavs, Czechs, Poles, Russians and Hungarians, all of them looking for money to feed their families, all of them dogs looking to eat their fellow dogs for the smallest pittance. He was a gentile puppy with milk teeth and grim prospects.
What would he tell them? What would his family think? Too shamed to send word back home of his failure, it was clear that he could not procrastinate on the issue forever. Soon, he would need to reveal that he was a bad husband and a worse father.
He felt something wet fall on him. The cruel sky above this cruel city was offering the prelude to a tremendous storm. He ducked into a doorway as a roar ripped through the night. A deluge battered the pavement, he shivered and sulked.
Why did Germany hate him so? He had spent every waking moment beating down the doors of factories, warehouses, hotels, cleaning companies, building sites and haulage firms. He would do anything, he would clean toilets, he would sweep litter, he would spend twenty hours a day down a mine shaft and he would happily spend seventy or eighty hours a week bent over breaking his back. Yet Germany stuck two fingers up in his face. It was clear that he was not welcome here.
He saw how the other Russians lived, how they treated this as a holiday from their responsibilities. They would drink, fuck and squander their cash. They were here for themselves. He wanted only to work, work, sleep, work, save money then work some more. Then he would return home as a hero with a manifesto to make their lives good again. He would build them a new house, send his children to University and maybe they would form fruitful careers and look after him in his old age. He would, if only given the chance.
This world was shit, this new world. He longed for his comfortable life of old, a life that he knew that this was painfully impossible. He told himself that this would pass and that he would prevail. He did not however believe it.
He needed the toilet. He was freezing and halfconsidered urinating where he sat in order to keep himself warm. He knew however that it would be a false economy and that any comfort achieved would last only a fleeting moment. He trundled a few metres down the street and took a wee against a rubbish bin. He observed the steam rising from the hot fluid and zipped up his trousers. He turned and noted three some teenagers approach.
They looked happy; he wanted to be happy like them.
One of them had said something to him. He didn’t understand German, he couldn’t decipher it, he didn’t respond. He heard them laugh. Then they stopped, looking down at the spot which he had just soiled. Their heads turned towards one another with saccharine smiles.
The trio’s orator issued a statement but he could not decipher the foreign tongue. He smiled. He explained in Russian that he could not understand their language.
“Russland?”
“Ja, Russland.”
He extended his hand to greet them but nobody took it.
The boys repeated to one another, “Russland, Russland.”
More German words thrown in his direction; the boys looked menacing. They stepped towards him and bared their teeth. The change in mood scared him. He offered a smile and the palms of his hand in return. The boys snarled. The boys bore through him with their eyes. The boys dipped their shaven heads.
He felt afraid of these children, these sinister and aggressive teens who wore their anger on their sleeves. They spoke to one another in German. They stepped closer.
He did not see them come at him. Neither did he feel any pain. At first he was aware that he had been hit due only to the ringing in his ears. His head smacked against the damp concrete, a distant thud registered and the world turned abstract. He could see the kicks and punches but his pain was somewhere else. He could hear shouting, he knew they were spitting on him. He was aware their boots were crashing down on his skull.
There were brief respites in the onslaught during which he idly wondered if it would start again, and then it did and he curled up his body a little more, not caring how much longer the assault would continue. He had arrived at a point of apathy. His jumbled mind presented the scenario that he deserved this. He smiled. He had empathy for his aggressors.
He did not know how many minutes had passed until it stopped, time had departed hand-in-hand with the pain. He did not know that he had been stabbed several times either, his injuries moulded into one. He did know however that he would not stand up again. It was his destiny to die here.
He pressed his hands over his body but felt nothing. He looked up and down and left and right but he could see only in fuzzy monochrome. Were his eyes open or closed? He did not know.
He mumbled an incomprehensible payer for his loved ones and prepared himself to depart. He was peaceful in his final thoughts until a final moment of lucidity alerted him to the absence of something. He passed quivering hands over his body once more. His pockets were empty, his passport was gone. He knew that his death would be that of a vagrant with no name.
His Excellency’s Playground
The glare of the midday sun bounced off a sea of white marble. I squinted and placed my hands over the brick of cash in my pocket. A solitary hundred dollar bill had bought me over 200 bank notes from an old lady with a rack of gold teeth and a carrier bag full of currency. My pasty skin eyed curiously by those wrinkled faces buying sweets and vegetables in the crumbling Russian bazaar. I felt at once rich and vulnerable
Outside of this bubble there was little else to suggest that this was once the Russian Empire; perhaps only a few specks of Soviet Dust on this surrealist canvas. Staggeringly wide avenues charging into the desert, flanked by golden statues, lavish ministries and shamelessly overstated monuments. The streets pedantically maintained, preserved in shrink-wrap. Barely a soul treading the slabs and, with the exception of a few thoroughfares, only as much traffic as could be seen as on a Sunday morning in a remote English village. And countless audacious palaces, erected with the untold riches of the Turkmen desert.
Somewhere else, away from this central district and tucked along a highway or by a neglected concrete fountain, hid collections of panelak blocks. Stacks or decaying shacks in all their towering misery concealing those that called themselves citizens of this endlessly obscure, wholly intimidating yet remarkably welcoming nation…Turkmenistan.
*
We’d landed in the small hours at Ashgabat airport; flawless and sinister in the James Bond baddie’s evil lair sense. Escorted by an armed teenager, we negotiated a sparkling complex of concrete walkways with a handful of others that had disembarked the Amritsar bound plane. Confusion featured high on the agenda. An army of old ladies cleaned the paving stones with wet mops as taxi drivers clamored for our tourist dollars. Our guide was nowhere to be seen and there was little else to do but politely try to avoid the torrent of men vying for our attention. An hour passed, or more, and our guide reared her head.
We drove through the city, the bastard step-nephew to Las Vegas, to a pseudo-palace named the Hotel Arkach in a district developed for the sole purpose of hotels. Eight rooms or so and double that number in staff. The thin veil of grandeur unmasked by part-painted walls , a used condom on the floor and fetid tap water. A façade of elegance as feeble as the country’s own.
*
In Turkmenistan there are two omnipresent images. The first is that of president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov whose portrait hangs in aeroplanes, on buildings, in cafes, on taxi dashboards, behind restaurant bars, at hotel receptions and any place else you may think of. Yet the personality cult of the leader is watery at best when compared to that of that other image one sees. The face adorning golden statues, billboards and mosques the country over, that of, to give him his full title, His Excellency Sapuramurat Atayevich Niyazov, Leader of the Turkmens, President of Turkmenistan, Chairman of the Cabinet of the Ministers and Founder and President of the Association of Turkmens of the World. Turkmenbashi (for short) shaped this independent Turkmenistan around his own ego.
Formerly a provincial backwater, Ashgabat had been bulldozed to erect a city of immense scale and exuberance that fits into the Central Asian aesthetic about as comfortably as a striptease club in Saudi Arabia. Turkmenbashi’s masterpiece stands proud in the middle of the desert, pristinely maintained by the droves of weather-beaten pensioners who relentlessly sweep, scrub and polish.
No structure is so representative of Turkmenbashi as The Arch of Neutrality, a monument to celebrate Turkmenistan’s non-involvement in international affairs. A gleaming tower topped by a golden statue of the man himself, mechanically rotating so that his face may always be drenched in sunlight. The summit offers a vista of marble clad madness and tactless demonstrations of wealth. Exuberant squares and palaces. In the square below a globe rests on the horns of a bull from which an angel holds in her hands a baby, golden, Turkmenbashi; a testament to His Excellency’s survival from the devastating 1940s earthquake that killed his mother and levelled the city. As appears typical of post-Soviet billionaires, Turkmenbashi was an orphan.
To think that Turkmenbashi’s ego stopped at golden statues and countless palaces would be foolhardy, his track record reads like a badly scripted satire. His Presidency was to run indefinitely and ended only at his death in 2006. He wrote Rukhnama, a somewhat dubious history of the Turkmen nation which each citizen must study at school. You’d be hard pressed to find a copy of The Quran in a Turkmen mosque yet Rukhnama has its own prayer room where the faithful worshipper could come and read amidst portraits of their leader. The book stands proudly on billboards and posters, on TV and hotel receptions. Even that is not enough, a giant statue of the book has been constructed in the capital, illuminated in pink and opened ceremoniously on special occasions to reveal a video image of a page of the book to a stunned crowd.
But why stop at re-writing The Bible? Turkmenbashi renamed the days of the week and months of the year after famous Turkmen heroes and poets and, of course, himself. There had been many other decrees rumoured to have been made during his tenure, from renaming the moon after his mother, attempting to build an ice palace in the desert and closing down all libraries in the countryside using the logic that rural folk should be working not reading. Some people we met swore blind that all of the above was true whilst our government tour guide seemed to find such accusations laughable. Who could tell? But one thing remained true and that was that one man, a man who was alleged to have a personal fortune of £3bn at the time of his death, had somehow risen from a Turkmen orphanage to run a country as his own personal toy.
Outside of Ashgabat lies Kipchak Mosque, the biggest in Central Asia and home to Turkmenbashi’s tomb. Constructed from $100,000,00 of marble, it boasts 91metre high minarets to mark the year of Turkmen independence. This mosque’s exterior is adorned in golden lettering not from The Quran but from Rukhnama. Our guide, a Christian female, could walk around in sunglasses with her hair on display. Outside, 20 or more people tended to the crystal clear fountains, the polished steps and the perfect grass. Was this really a Mosque or just another palace? As with so many things in Turkmenistan, the answer was elusive.
Turkmenistan is a police state. Foreigners are rarely allowed to roam alone outside of Ashgabat. The country has an appallingly difficult system of obtaining a travel visa, requiring ministry escorts, vetting and gross extortion of hard earned funds. For the citizens of this country, the rules are inflexible and persistent. Walking the streets of the capital is prohibited after 11pm and having a dirty car is a criminal offence. A military education is compulsory for children and on the sides of the roads outside of Ashgabat camouflaged police hide in the bushes a kilometre apart, acting as human speed cameras. The internet was illegal until recently and even in 2008 less than 1% of the population had access; social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace were still banned. When we used an internet café and attempted to access our emails on a painfully slow connection we had to submit our passports to the café staff. Meanwhile, two policemen stood over us watching the computer screens.
Yet such oppression is not evident on a human level. The border police are polite and efficient. We were stopped by a policeman in Ashgabat for trying to take a photo in the wrong place but he was nice about it, at another time we were out on a stroll and spoke with a policeman who was supervising a cleaning crew up by the national museum. He posed with us for photos.
Our hotel had policemen too, seemingly just for us. The first was Nazar, a friendly figure who only once became agitated when I stayed out until dawn drinking one night with a friend and he impatiently questioned the other members of our party regarding our whereabouts. Nazar was then replaced by Ali. We half joked that he had ‘been disappeared’ for allowing us to stay out so late and hoped that he was really on his days off. Ali liked the USA and dog fighting, he offered us his philosophies on life as we drank vodka. This was not a police state as we imagined it.
*
Our taxi driver was steaming drunk and ranting. “Fuck you Rukhnama! Fuck you Turkmenistan!” These were the words that poured out of his vodka based soul as he grinned inanely and steered his Lada through empty streets with its headlights off. We’d come to party in Florida Nightclub where a bottle of vodka at the table cost a negligible amount and we were the only men in the room. It was not exactly what we had expected. Ever since arriving here my preconceptions of this Islamic nation, a police state-run with military precision, had been blown apart. This did not appear to be a depressingly malcontented post-Soviet state teetering on the brink of either Islamic Fundamentalism or wholesale, dog eat dog capitalism. In Ashgabat at least, it was a relatively cosmopolitan, relaxed and peaceable. A remarkable number of ethnic Russians had stayed on since the break up of the USSR and lived seemingly contentedly amongst the native Turkmens.
Despite all the stupidness from the government and the omnipresence of the police, it was impossible to deny that people here seemed genuinely happy and Ashgabat had a satisfied vibe which was wholly absent in other cities I had visited across the Former Soviet Union. From smiling waitresses to chatty taxi drivers, we had been constantly spoiled. As I sat drinking a beer in the sun with my friend Steve one afternoon we found ourselves discussing how much we loved the city and how easy it would be to live there; at least our sentiments seemed genuine at the time. On another day, stood at a kvas stand debating if we should drink some of the awful mead juice, we were approached by a couple of men who insisted on buying the foreigners some drinks. It was impossible not to be touched by such generosity from strangers.
We also found time to visit Turkmen Disneyland, plagiarism in the name of course. A ratty collection of amusements which would be more at home on Brighton Pier and state subsidies bringing the entrance fee to a matter of pennies. More encounters with friendly strangers appeared in the shape of Oksana and Zurina, young women so excited to meet us that they stuck to us like glue for a couple of hours as we exhausted ourselves attempting to match their enthusiasm for such a poor selection of amusements. This was yet another bizarre encounter in a strange land which we struggled to decipher. We were not entirely sure how to interpret our experiences. Ashgabat is a city plays with your mind.
As a pampered and deluded British traveller, I had expected to come to a place like Turkmenistan and see backwards, autocratic rule over a sedate and broken population. It’s almost as if I felt hard done by upon seeing smiling, contented faces and an atmosphere of peace and prosperity. I doubt that anybody could argue that this was a better place to live than England and that the freedoms and luxuries that we enjoy should ever be traded for such a restrictive and controlled existence as Turkmenistan’s. However, at one point I couldn’t help but ask myself the daunting question of why in the capital of a corrupt, authoritarian police state the general atmosphere was notably more contented than the gloomy and irritable aura that exists around my own West London home, in the capital of a free and prosperous democracy.
*
The Turkmen Ministry of Tourism and Sport had given us Maria, our guide, and the travel agency had given us Aleksandr, our driver and the world’s most stereotypical Russian. We were bound for Mary, a city in Turkmenistan’s east near to the ancient Silk Road oasis of Merv. We drove aside the Kopet Dag Mountains that separate Turkmenistan with Iran. Aleksandr, with red polo shirt tucked into shapeless jeans, chain smoked whilst Maria rolled off her tourist mantra. They asked us what we wanted to do, we were paying for their services and could dictate the scene; we wanted to visit a Turkmen family and see a village.
We stopped for lunch at a roadside café, which we later learned was not a good idea as our stomachs would fall foul of their grub. We pressed on to the town of Tejen, this was Aleksandr’s home and upon our request that we meet a Turkmen family he was quick to get on the phone to a friend. We rolled through the streets of nasty shacks and stray dogs that could have been any town from Mongolia to Ukraine; it was a million miles from the exuberance of Ashgabat.
A pot of tea had been laid out amongst the flies and shit in the back-yard chicken farm as we sat cross legged and politely observed the scene of a Turkmen family. A fat man, a successful businessman, sat next to his phone and a notebook as he told us about his chickens and his newly built house. Inside, there were all the modern appliances, labels left on in a display of crass wealth. The man’s compliant daughter went running off at his request and returned clasping a jug of translucent white liquid topped by a heady, curdled cheese. This was fermented camel’s milk, a treat here. I took a sip, to be polite, and resisted the gag reflex as my body screamed at me, asking what the hell I was doing trying to feed it such an awful poison. Maria saved my life as she drank my glass and my travelling companion Nick bravely yet foolhardily downed his drink.
I’ve never tasted anything so foul in my life.
*
Mary is everything that the capital city isn’t: a ratty and horrible conurbation in the image of pre-independence Ashgabat. Garish Soviet-era structures lining pot-holed, gravel roads. Ladies in dirty orange jackets thanklessly sweeping away at the rubble. Litter strewn fields standing afore corrugated metal shacks and ad hoc, concrete homesteads intersected by dusty, narrow lanes. Down at heel and broke looking, the populous mill about as if defeated and ignored. Maria had excitedly proclaimed earlier in the day, “you will see in Mary there are living many successful people, it is a very rich city.” We searched for a drop of sarcasm as she repeated her bullshit propaganda sentiment. There was none.
We pulled into the Hotel Rahat, a barren building with hard beds housed in spartan rooms. Good for nothing and fatigued by a day of driving, we headed out for dinner. Grimly eating my way through some Shashlik, I observed overweight hookers stroll past towards a lorry park next to the hotel; lumpy, girthy and sporting gaudy red leggings. Shockingly ugly women for $10 a pop, the drunk and downbeat Iranian lorry drivers sat lusting after them as they sucked on super-strength Baltikas. The world can be one hell of a depressing place at times.
We sat and listened as Aleksandr spoke about his life, married to a doctor and with two young children he was desperately poor even with a relatively well paid job. The economy is suffering here, inflation ridiculous and, despite the billions in gas revenue and the affluence of the elite, the average Turkmen citizen barely sees the crumbs of such riches. We asked if he would go to live in Russia, he answered with a firm no. His parents had been deported here under Stalin’s regime and Turkmenistan was in his soul. Born on the other side of the continent from Moscow, he was Russian only by name. Before bed, we had only one more question for him: we wanted to know if life was better under the Soviet Union or the present rule. He thought long and hard about it, sucking on his cigarette. “Under the Soviets people were happy but now people are free. It is more important for a man to be free than to be happy.”
*
Russian General Mikhail Skobelev marched towards the sand and mud citadel of Geok Depe with 6,000 men behind him. Belligerent and determined to make headway in the land that had proved so difficult to break, he set about his mission of bringing this city to its knees.
25,000 Turkmens defended. Days passed.
The Russians, cleverer and more tactically aware than the natives, built themselves a tunnel. It was the beginning of the end. A mine lain underneath the citadel walls blew it to pieces. Carnage ensued. 398 Russians died in the close fought conflict, 660 picked up injuries. 6,500 Turkmen soldiers perished in exchange. The battle had been won.
Ever since first reading about Stalin’s reign of terror and Tsar Ivan the Terrible’s penchant for frying Priests alive, there has always been one thing that has both fascinated me and disgusted me about Russian history, something about its horrible cruelty of impossible proportions. Here lay the bones of yet another sickening tale. The people of Geok Depe, some 40,000 civilians, fled the scene along with the surviving soldiers. Not satisfied with victory, Skobelev sent his cavalry in pursuit with the order to rape and kill at will. As they fled the scene, 8,000 were butchered, Men, women and children alike.
That was December 1880. In May 2008, four sickly tourists sat at the same spot eating greasy pastries and chatting about nothing inparticular. We stared, unimpressed, at the solitary mound of dirt that was the last remnants of Geok Depe’s once great citadel. Not one of us even close to comprehending the sheer terror of the lives that ended here. We hopped back in the van and continued to float through our vacation from the comfortable little bubble that we’d left behind a few thousand miles away.
We took a long and straight road west as we headed towards the Caspian Sea port of Turkmenbashi. Our spirits initially high yet, compounded by our still damaged stomachs, the bumps of the potholed road soon started to bite. Irritability hung in the air, the edge taken off a little by a bottle of warm Jameson’s that passed freely amongst us. Now and again, the highs would permeate this mood and remind us how fortunate we were to be here. The Turkmen desert was once amongst the most hostile places on earth thanks to the once notorious Turcoman bandits that would likely sell you into slavery after they’d stolen every item you owned. We stopped at a police checkpoint where a smiling copper stood alone by an enormous portrait of Berdymukhamedov afront some beautiful hills. We took photos with him as he posed in front of his leader, my preconceptions nipped at me again and I laughed.
It was dusk when he arrived in Turkmenbashi. We passed a giant oil refinery that fronted the small city on the sea. We checked into a hotel. After all the shitty holes we’d slept in the past week we’d found ourselves in lavish surroundings. A beautiful room with a sanitation seal on the toilet, Russian MTV, mood lighting, soft towels, power shower and blissfully comfortable beds. Our moods were officially lifted.
We headed out for dinner, a fish restaurant where, despite the extensive menu, we were given pretty much one option. This was a nice place on the waterfront where, as with most establishments in Turkmenistan, the staff outnumbered the customers two to one and each time I took a sip from by beer a waitress was there to top up my glass. We dined on a microwaved fish delicately drowned in cheese and ketchup as the staff poured Maria another whisky from the bottle of Jameson’s we’d brought in with us.
Then the phone rang and took the jam out of our doughnuts…
We’d been up in the air about our travel across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan. There were no scheduled services so we had to jump on a boat as it came, there was one leaving the next morning, it could be days until the next. Yet the voice on the other end of the phone had told Maria that it would leave any time soon and we should get organised. I watched my good night’s sleep disappear before my eyes.
Slightly jaded, we returned to the hotel and Maria said she would call us when we needed to leave, I told myself it would be 6am at the earliest. I stood under the beautiful shower for some time, enjoying a rare luxury in this part of the world, and looked forward to my bed. Tucked up under the sheets, I felt myself dozing off into a heavenly slumber.
Then the phone rang. It was Maria. We had to leave immediately. I’d been in bed less than 20 minutes. Nick was raging, I simply wanted to cry. Dave and Steve looked devastated.
At the port, the other 10 or so people travelling on the cargo ship had already boarded. . A fat man with a bad comb-over and NHS style spectacles looked over our documents with a fine tooth comb and asked countless questions.
And then, there was a moment of realisation that we’d fucked up a little.
We’d all organised visas for Azerbaijan separately and Nick had been issued one that wasn’t valid until 6 hours after the boat was due to arrive. Maria spoke with the Captain, he wanted $100 to let us on board, we kicked up a fuss, this was on top of the $100 we had to pay for our tickets and it seemed ludicrous as surely we’d would still have to argue our case to the border police on arrival in Baku. But we were aware there was no alternative, we haggled a little and paid up $50 to the captain.
We hugged Maria goodbye, she seemed to genuinely be in fear of our wellbeing and this unsettled us. The $50 richer captain led us on board. At the boat’s entrance sat a man of considerable girth, “passports please.” We hand them over and watched in horror as he pocketed them, “I give you back in Baku.” No way, I wasn’t having this and as the tensions boiled over at last the four of us stood there in utter disbelief as we seemed to be getting fleeced left right and centre by the Azeri crew; I hated Azerbaijan before I’d even got there. Steely faced, we stood our ground for a few feeble moments and then backed down; the man was smiling and friendly but slippery as hell. Either way we had no choice, we’d passed the border now and couldn’t leave the ship, this guy wasn’t giving us back our passports. We had to leave things to blind faith chance and that was all we could do.
Dejected and still dreaming of that idyllic hotel, we filed into our cabins. A nasty bathroom, no flush on the toilet and a wretched smell. Wallpaper hanging off the walls, dirty, wafer thin mattresses and pillows, cabins bathed in the glory of shite. Misery.
A Little Bit Of The Old Travel Writing…
What is this? Travel Writing? Aye… indeed.
I may well be attempting to tout myself as a fiction maestro but they say that a man should never neglect his roots. For me, these roots lie in travel writing. Fair enough, a pretentious arse gloating about their worldly wanderings is not to everybody’s taste but this is where writing began for me. Before I even attempted to jot down my meandering daydreams as fiction, I was scribbling notes about my adventures on the road.
And so, I shall share some of them with the loyal followers of this ‘ere blog. For starters, I will serialise over the next few weeks a trip I made in 2008 from Central Asia to The Balkans.
Part 1: Turkmenistan
The names of most of the people mentioned in the following articles have been changed so as to respect their anonymity.
How Not To Write Your First Draft
October 2006 – May 2009
I sat myself down in a dark corner of Caffe Nero and opened up a blank page of Microsoft Word. I felt audacious and rude. Who the hell am I to call myself a writer? What do I think I’m doing sat pretentiously with a Grande Americano (no milk or sugar) tapping out senseless rubbish in a South London coffee shop?
I started with the final chapter. Unconventional and disorganised, it was highly uncharacteristic of me. I am a man who loves plans, dossiers, brainstorms and spreadsheets. But this was a highly disorganised period in my life. I was in a temporary bar job between backpacking trips. Camped out at my mother’s house, reeling from a recent relationship break-up. I slept little, drank lots and procrastinated not a minute of the day lest the demons creep into my mind. I was haphazard, busy and motivated. I just threw myself into it with a disjointed outline in my fuzzy mind.
I had been working the past few months in Edinburgh, tending a dreary bar and accepting jovial yet hate-tinged abuse for being English. My company was with broken men and wine-soaked women; my solace in day-dreaming. I conjured up my entire novel in that bar but a story is no use locked in a mind.
I’d been threatening to write a book for a while. Friends and family had muttered moderately approving noises to my short stories. I had kept up a blog during my backpacking trip and they were rather more impressed. More to the point, random strangers were reading with vigour. I had a following – people I didn’t know where emailing me to say they loved what I wrote. It fed my ego and it fed my desire. I loved writing and it seemed to love me back. Lack of confidence had always been my glass ceiling but self-belief was beginning to form.
My last chapter done: a book with a killer ending but no beginning or a middle. I worked hard in a Wimbledon wine bar by night and I worked harder on the laptop by day. December came and I had a story; a wordy and rough story but a story nonetheless.
Then there was disruption to my life again, I was back on the road. A week in Scotland getting wasted then a week in Turkey getting awed; Australia & New Zealand followed complete with weddings, friends and sightseeing. No time to think, less time to write. It was another two months until I could breathe again. I travelled rural Australia, I worked in the morning and wrote in the afternoon. I was forming a novel. At last, my dreams were on paper.
But then… tragedy.
Broken Hill, New South Wales: broken laptop. Three months left on the road and no cash for repairs. My story went to sleep.
2008 brought a new year and a new direction. I had been back in the UK eight months but it took time to find a place to live, time to re-accept a career and time to settle. I had spent time on other project, my grand plan for a novel was nothing but a forgotten file on my computer. This was the upon me to look at my book once more.
It was rubbish. I had been once been duped into thinking that it was fantastic but no, it wasn’t. Pedestrian plot, toothless characters and inane dialogue. My great “novel” was lacking both credibility and sense. I ripped it to shreds, tore out its belly and savaged its core. I sat in a pub with a beer and a pad of paper as I drafted an outline, put together a timeline and brainstormed a little. I had started again where I should have started 15 months earlier. I ripped off the skin to leave only skeletal bones. It was time to build again.
But I lost faith. It was too difficult. I had too much to do and no inclination to do it. I stared at the screen and hated what I wrote. Yes, this was too audacious. No, I am not a writer. Other activities prevailed.
It wasn’t until the summer of 2008 that I opened up the laptop again, I looked at my plans and I read what I had. The very same words that I hated early in the year did not seem so awful. I was overly self-critical before. I applied myself, my laptop and I became such regulars at the West Ealing branch of Costa Coffee that I no longer had to specify my order on arrival and the staff knew me by name.
(How pathetic)
For some months I felt like I was on fire. I churned out entire chapters in short afternoons, I tweaked and I rewrote but I was happy with my output. My book made me feel, the story shocked me even though I knew what was coming. My lack of self-belief had morphed into pseudo-arrogance. Who cared? I loved what I had written and I loved writing it even more. This was golden.
Some weeks I owned barely a moment to fit writing into my life, others I was up with the birds to crack out a few hundred words before work. Inspiration hit me at the strangest moments, I rushed home from work to tweak chapter 14, I woke up in the middle of the night and refused to settle back to sleep as chapter 9 played on my mind. Writers’ block for me is a symptom of not writing. When I am churning out words with regularity then the ideas just flow.
I crossed the finish line in May 2009. A spiral-bound first draft sat on my coffee table, ready for a massive overhaul in the not too distant future. I knew that my first effort needed a lot of improvement but the story was there. The prototype fully formed.
It had taken almost 3 years to get to only the first milestone but that mattered not. The idea that was in my brain three summers earlier was now a physical object. Very little compares with that feeling of immense satisfaction.
Read my previous post in Writing Lost Souls of the midnight Drinking Club: The Ramblings of a Relentless Daydreamer
Like this:
Martin Knight: Barry Desmond is a Wanker
It’s the kind of title that jumps out at you and slaps you in the face: brash, matter of fact and the prelude to an original story. It is true that you should never judge a book by its cover, nor its title, but it’s equally true that we all do.
Barry Desmond is an awkward pariah raised as the only child to emotionally inept parents. Growing up in the South-West London suburb of Worcester Park, Barry makes few friends and understands very little about life. His only solace is in masturbation, a guilt-edged activity which he considers illicit and abnormal.
The story is an examination of an existence shrouded in loneliness, naïvety and ineptitude. Barry is a perennial non-achiever and terrified of life. A closeted mummy’s boy stuck in a dead-end job, further down the ladder at the bank where his father and grandfather had both worked. He has few friends, fewer prospects… and he is a middle-aged virgin.
In his early fifties, Barry faces the death of his parents as well as redundancy which compels him to broaden his horizons. Yet his amazing inability to understand human relations causes him to struggle immensely in his attempts to carve some happiness out of life.
The character of Barry Desmond is beautifully written. Martin Knight successfully paints the human equivalent of a retarded pigeon with a broken wing; you know the kind of guy in your office that everybody pokes fun at but you feel bad because he’s a decent guy whose only crime is that he doesn’t comprehend the world? As the story develops it gives rise to feelings of frustration and anger towards Barry for his sheer inability to demonstrate basic life skills. It is clear however that he is a thoroughly decent and thoughtful bloke with childlike innocence and the belief that human beings are inherently good animals. In creating a simultaneously likeable and unlikeable protagonist, Knight has triumphed.
I also feel the need to applaud Knight’s sadism towards his protagonist. As bum luck goes, Barry has it all and the cruel chime of life’s constant heckle is ever-present in his ears. There are times in the story where you feel that there may be some light at the end of the tunnel for poor old Barry but, oh-no, all is predestined to go horribly and spectacularly wrong. Whilst the tone of the story may be discreet and quiet, there is a fierce cruelty bubbling away underneath.
The other characters in this book are largely peripheral. The main antagonist, Barry’s wooden and old-school father, may well be present in Barry’s mind throughout but it is principally a tale about an individual. Knight has done a splendid job in keeping things interesting. To maintain a dynamic narrative on a narrow subject is not the easiest thing on earth to achieve and this is another success by the author.
I do have small criticisms, yet I have had to search hard for these and they do not detract from the overall quality. Firstly, the story is not the most exciting one you’ll read this year. As noted above, Knight does maintain the reader’s interest yet the narrative is at times slow and uneventful. Knight’s skill in characterisation is brilliant and if you happen to like character driven tales then this will be an easier read. If you’re waiting for the plot to grip you however you may find your attention waning at times. As a male reader, and being from the same suburb of London as the tale is set, I found myself fascinated on a personal level. This propelled me through the slower pages but I wonder if it would be the same for others.
My other critical note is wholly subjective: masturbation features heavily in the story. I admire Knight’s originality and enjoyed the message, which I understand to be that Barry is so bad at life that he is only really happy when masturbating. It also underlines Barry’s tendency to fantasize which is typical of his nature and a symptom of not having the life he wants. I can’t help but think however that the story would have been just as strong without the rather frequent tangents into self-pleasure. Knight manages to eloquently portray Barry’s characteristics in many subtle ways throughout the book and this is a rather un-subtle way of getting the same points across.
These are small criticisms indeed and, overall, I gained immense enjoyment from BDIAW. I strongly recommend this great feat of dark and witty British fiction. Despite the belligerent tone set by the title, it is a skilfully penned novel which evokes pangs of pity and despair and offers a wry yet warming twist at its end.
