Sea Venture.

I keep most of my money in Bermuda.  It’s a pleasant place. Very respectable. I prefer it to the Caymans. Bunch of chancers they are in the Caymans. You could wake up one morning and find your account’s been frozen. 

And it gives me an excuse to sail up there once in a while. That means going through the Bermuda Triangle. It’s a fairly long haul and I always think I’m going to disappear into some mysterious dimension but no luck so far.

When I’m there I usually tie up in St George’s.  It’s a quiet place and the site of the first settlement. There’s a small park there which contains the grave of a most remarkable man.  One of my heroes in fact.  Admiral George Somers.  George was in charge of a small fleet sent by the Virginia Company in 1609 to relieve the settlers in Jamestown. Unfortunately they ran into a storm and became separated from each other. George managed to keep his own vessel, Sea Venture, afloat for 3 days and nights but she was a new ship and her caulking couldn’t take the beating. With nine feet of water in the hold he ran her onto a reef off an island that became known as Bermuda. There were 150 souls and a dog on board. Not one life was lost.

The survivors built two new ships from the wreckage and set sail for Virginia. Not everybody wanted to go but they had signed Company contracts.

It was all documented by William Strachey an aspiring writer who sailed on the Sea Venture and went on to Jamestown. Shakespeare used the story as the basis of ‘The Tempest.’

There is also an excellent book on the subject called ‘Brave Vessel’ by Hobson Woodward. 

John Lennon sailed to Bermuda in 1980 from  Long Island. It did him good. He weathered a storm and got a few songs written. The Double Fantasy album.  He finished it just before that clown shot him in New York.

George’s heart is buried in Somers Gardens. The rest of him was taken back to England. 

Rest in peace George. You too John.

FIFA

I don’t normally do this but the FIFA thing is getting on my tits.

I’m particularly tickled by all the talk about corruption. It’s professional sport for Godsake!! What do you expect? The rewards are huge. The potential TV viewing audience is in the millions. Tourism, advertising and media rights would be massive. Professional sport is corrupt from top to bottom. Doesn't stop people watching.

Course that doesn’t explain why the USA should suddenly be interested. Couldn’t be because they missed out on the 2018 World Cup could it? Or maybe they just want to do something nice for all the Soccer mums and Hispanics.

Ermita part 2.

I’m sitting here in Soper’s Hole on my boat wondering what to put on my blog. Ning and Nong are off shopping in Road Town so it's just me and a bottle of Pussers. All kinds of things going on in the world. Earthquakes. SNP win in Scotland. Beheadings. Global warming. Same-sex marriage. Hillary Clinton... on and on it goes. But to be perfectly frank it's all water off my back. My mind goes back to those heady days with Oscar in Manila.

Oscar was well set up by the time I got there. He’s got one bar in Ermita running nicely and he’s in the process of opening a couple more in Angeles City. It doesn’t take me long to realize where I fit in. Manager, co-owner, I don’t know what the technical term was for keeping the girls happy and counting the money. There was lots of perks. I had an office above the bar with a bedroom attached, handy for interviewing prospective dancers.

The Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos was a paradise for blokes like us. There was no AIDs to worry about and no NGOs running around taking pictures. Thanks Ferdinand.

The coppers were honest in them days too. None of this ‘planting shaboo in your bathroom’ nonsense or picking your girlfriend up and telling you she’s been kidnapped. All you had to do back then was slip the police chief a few thousand pesos every month and they’d leave you alone.

Accommodation? No problem. There was loads of good deals in the Ermita area. Once I decided to stay I got a nice apartment but at first I stayed at Mabini Mansions. Bloody alright it was. 300 pesos a night for TV, fridge, stove the lot. There was a charge for extra pillows though. Limit of five.

I soon got the hang of riding jeepneys. The best seat is in front with the driver. OK so you get the full blast of the diesel fumes from other jeepneys when you’re stuck in traffic but you also get the full Manila experience. Bayad. The money gets passed up to the front and the driver sits there sorting out his change. Then suddenly he’s working up through the gears and you’re off! Nothing like the thrill of charging full tilt across an open intersection with other jeepneys left and right, belching black smoke, all aiming for the same breaks in the traffic. It’s exhilarating I tell you. Goes great with a few San Miguels. I still get sentimental when I see a bottle of that stuff.

As for Ferdinand……well times change.

Watch with mother.

Some of you may remember this...

Simon grew up with programs like that.  It’s difficult to specify precisely what formative influence the Woodentops and the Flowerpot Men may have had on young middle-class English minds but television evolved rapidly. Black and white to colour. One channel to two. By the 70s Simon had his own TV chat show.  A new kind of television it was, daring, provocative, pushing the envelope. Simon was the Russell Brand of his day you could say.

Mind you we’re not talking total revolution here. More of a minor cultural readjustment. Simon did deal with topical subjects and he could be confrontational with politicians but there was no nudity and no swearing. Well not at first. Not until Kenneth Tynan said the F word thereby guaranteeing himself a place in broadcasting history. After that it was a free for all. Mary Whitehouse raised a question in the House. The BBC was forced to issue a formal apology. The affair was much discussed in pubs. Celebrities were lining up to say naughty words.

William Burroughs turned down an invitation. So fuck him.

Simon was at the forefront of the new trend.  Being a rock writer was better than being a star in some ways. He got all the fringe benefits without having to deal with the fame. Not that Simon was averse to fame. In fact he enjoyed it.  TV gigs were in addition to doing books and record reviews and now he was doing live interviews with leading figures from the cultural world. Brendan Behan, John Osborne, Joe Orton, Francis Bacon etc. Pop stars and various other easy targets all took their place in the hot seat. Love him or hate him everybody watched Simon’s TV show. He played the audience like a fiddle. 

Samantha was the mother of two children by then and living in the Cotswolds. She was happy enough. She got involved in village life and she still did some proofreading for London publishers. If she had any suspicions about what Simon got up to in the Chelsea mews house she kept them to herself. She was biding her time.

Postcard from Olongapo.

Well today is the day I sail over to Oscar’s island. Oscar de Borcceri to give him his full name. I believe I mentioned how we met at Altamont. We had the internet porn business together in LA. Oscar's main star at the time was Johnny Wadd who had his penis insured by Lloyd’s of London for $14 million. Thirteen inches in repose. Like a bloody firehose it was.

I remember the first time I saw it. I'd been watching Johnny perform in Oscar's basement studio. Oscar introduced me and Johnny wandered over and stood in front of me. It just hung there. What was I supposed to do? Shake it? But I digress.

Anyway I didn’t hear from Oscar for a few years. Which didn't bother me at all. I was living in Spain and I got a tacky postcard from a place called Olongapo. ‘Get your ass over here.’ It said.

Why not I thought. So next thing I know I’m in the Philippines. Turns out Oscar had opened a bar in Ermita which was an area of clubs and bars in Manila. It got shut down in 1992 by Mayor Lim. Anyway for a few years it was, how shall I put this, a remarkable place.

The year was 1984. I had put myaffairs in order and flown from Spain to Manila to manage a bar for my friend Oscar. Oscar has half a dozen bars by the time I get there.

My first impressions of Manila? Bloody horrible place. A run down American city surrounded by Asian slums. But perhaps my judgment was coloured by circumstances. I'd emerged from the airport into an oven and got attacked by taxi drivers, the streets were flooded, the taxi broke down. I hopped in and out of a few crowded jeepneys, somebody nicked my suitcase, I arrived soaked at a hotel with no electricity, the toilet was blocked and the phone didn’t work. The security guard carried a sawn off shotgun. 'Welcome to the Philippines sir.' he said. I thought bugger this for a lark. But in some strange way I liked it.

Next day I  had a walk round Ermita. It was just a couple of streets really, hotels, bars, jeepneys, garbage and exhaust fumes.

I found Oscar easily enough. He was having his breakfast in Rosie's Diner.

To really appreciate the Ermita bar business you had to see one in daytime. Assuming somebody was good enough to open the door you came in off the street into a dark space of indeterminate dimensions. You could just make out a bar, chrome poles, empty bottles. The floor was covered with tissues, cigarette butts and broken glass. Figures were sleeping on vinyl banquettes. And there was always a sleepy girl with a towel on her head telling you to come back later.

It all looked quite different when the sun went down. With the neon buzzing and the music blaring Ermita was transformed into something wonderful to behold. There was magic and the smell of frangipani in the air...an exciting mixture of sleaze and anticipation (or shock and disgust depending on your point of view). Needless to say Oscar had no moral qualms about it.

And of course the ladies came out to dance.