Empire of the Sun.

Nothing much happening here in Soper’s Hole. I got the carburetor cleaned out OK. Works fine. I’ve been reading ‘Empire of the Sun’….rereading it I should say. It’s one of my favorite books. Ballard used a pretty straightforward narrative style and of course it’s basically autobiographical unlike some of his more experimental pieces.

I’m not a big Spielberg fan to be honest but I think he did a good job on the movie.

That is a picture of the house in Shanghai where J.G.Ballard used to live and behind which young Jim found the wrecked Zero which came to symbolize his ambivalence about war.

The house is now a Chinese restaurant. And it isn't the one Spielberg used in the movie. That one is on a golf course near Shepperton studios. How come you know all this stuff Dick you may be emboldened to ask? Because I often go to Simon Sellars excellent web site that's how.

And if you want to learn more about J.G.you can't do better than read Ballard's 'The Kindness of Women'

Kenwood House.

Today I will be cleaning a carburetor. It’s not too hard. Make sure you have some thin wire for clearing the jets. Also make sure you don’t drop any pieces overboard or you will be making a trip to Marine Depot in Road Town for replacements. Half the fun of doing mundane tasks is letting your mind wander.

Thinking about Simon for instance and his life. Does he feel like a success? Does he read this blog? And Samantha of course. I have this recurring dream where I’m back in England, walking across Hampstead Heath. I pass a pond with some anglers sitting around. Catching anything are we? I ask. They laugh. Bloody great carp down there, says one bloke. In German. No one’s ever seen it though. 

Next I’m wandering through Kenwood House looking at all the big paintings. They've got some nice stuff there. Reubens, a Rembrandt or two. All from the Iveagh Bequest. Guinness family. And then I’m in the cafeteria and there’s Sam sitting with a pot of tea. She looks up at me like I’ve just come back from the men’s and says, “So Dick...who are you fucking these days? Still enjoying the little Thai girls are we?” That’s exactly the way her lot talk these days. They like to use the F word a lot. Not sure why. Makes them feel more liberated perhaps. Anyway there’s no point in trying to explain. Anything you say is sexist. And the way she said it was very clear. Tired she looked. Wasted. Lines on her face underneath the expensive make up.
“Oh I keep going luv. There’s worse places than Thailand.” I say.
“Still a male chauvinist paradise is it? You don’t have to be patronizing Dick.”
“Patronizing? In what way luv?”
“Just the way you talk to women Dick. Even to me. It gets tiresome.”
“Can’t help it sweetheart.”
“That’s what I mean. Why do you have to stick ‘luv’ or ‘sweetheart’ on the end of every bloody sentence?”
“Don’t know darlin’”. Two blokes walk past carrying a painting. “That’s strange.”
“What?”
“Didn’t know they had any Chagalls here.”
“They don’t. Aren’t you going to ask me about Jane?”
“How’s Jane?”
“You make it sound as if you care.”
“Course I bloody care.”
“Well you know how young people are Dick. She’s been better since she left the clinic. Still on ecstasy I think but nothing serious. She’s living with some friends. Put on weight. Works part time in a tattoo parlour. She could do much better. I’m trying to get something at the Beeb for her. But of course she thinks I’m interfering.”

Who’s Jane? Jane is my daughter. Our daughter. I haven’t mentioned  her before. It’s hard. I can talk about Samantha no problem, she it was who taught me how to speak proper. I have trouble talking about Jane. But I’m obviously expected to say something.

“Has Simon put two and  two together yet?”
“He never mentions it but I’m sure he’s figured it out. Not that he’d ever ask for a DNA test or anything. What would be the point? And anyway it’s not the kind of publicity he wants.”
‘Well he can’t talk. Everybody was bonking everybody else in them days.”
“Those days.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re right though Dick. It was the Sixties. Nothing to get hung up about. Don’t worry. You’re not responsible.”

Meaning what exactly? That I’m irresponsible? Can’t argue with that either.

Two more blokes walk past carrying a painting. Another Chagall I think but I wouldn’t swear to it.

“I’ve been in BVI.” I say.
“And?”
“Thought of sending you a postcard.”
“But?”
“I was worried it might be misunderstood.”
“So?”
“Didn’t send one.”
“Shit.” Says Samantha. She’s looking at her cellphone and her mood has suddenly changed.
“What?”
“Just remembered. Tonight’s Salman’s launch. Hugh Grant will be there. And Amis.”
”Kingsley?”
“Kingsley’s been dead for years Dick. Martin. Look, can you pay for this darling? Oh almost forgot. Jane would love to see you. I’ve got to fly…. ” 

And that’s exactly what she does. First she hovers over her chair for a few moments then she flies...out through the French windows and away across the heath. And that’s it. She’s gone and I’m looking at a carburetor. 

 .

Chuck, Tony and Mr. Nice.

Been thinking about Manila. Here's a few more titbits ...

Mustn’t forget some of the folk that hung around Ermita. Shifty bunch. Some of us used to meet in a place called the Exotic Garden. Next door to Thriller. It was a restaurant popular with the bar owners so lots of colourful characters used to rendezvous there of an evening. You never knew who you might run into. When Oscar got into organizing porn conventions he’d take the restaurant over for a week or two. I actually met some very cultured people in Ermita. There was always a few Australian bank robbers and perhaps an axe-murderer or two passing through. Some of them decided to stay.

I was also lucky enough to meet the great thespian, Chuck Norris. He was screwing Filipinas and making thought-provoking movies about Vietnam at the time. Missing in Action was one. A German called Dieter was the bloke to see if you wanted a job as an extra. I went out on location once and helped them trash a helicopter.  We got it cheap from the PR Airforce with lots of bits missing.

                                        

His brother Aaron wasn’t really star material. He just didn’t have the same charisma and delivery as Chuck so he looked after the business side.

Oh yes, those were the days all right. A laugh a minute. Another bloke who used to dine in the Exotic Garden was Tony Moynihan. What a card he was. He told everybody he had a seat in the House of Lords but I don’t think he spent much time passing bills. Passing bad checks was more like it. He never seemed to have any money. Even tried to flog me a Victoria Cross once. Said it belonged to his granddad. I think he had a box full of the bloody things. He also tried to flog Howard Marks an island in Luzon for growing pot.

I’ve noticed whoever it is writes the obituaries at The Telegraph enjoys a little chuckle now and then. I was skimming through it one day when I found this…"The 3rd Lord Moynihan, who has died in Manila, aged 55, provided, through his character and career, ample ammunition for critics of the hereditary principle."

Novel ideas.

Let’s check up on Arthur. He’s still in the Golden Bar, Soi 4, Sukhumvit, Bangkok and he’s starting on his sixth bottle of beer. He’s getting into the mood for a bit of writing. 

I probably mentioned this before. Like just about every other expat in Thailand Arthur is working on a novel. That involves a lot of thinking punctuated by occasional bursts of actual writing. It mainly means overcoming inertia. Sometimes  he feels like the only expat in Bangkok who hasn’t written a book. The bookstores are awash with them. The central character is invariably a retired CIA agent/ ESL teacher, seedy flat, exotic Thai girlfriend, who gets caught up in a predictable series of events, drug smuggling, gun running etc. His best friend is a crooked Thai cop who offers tedious insights into the Thai underworld. The genre needs a complete overhaul thinks Arthur.

But is he the one to do it? Ideas have been percolating at the back of his mind for some time. About thirty years give or take. There’s the one about the old English expat in Thailand who talks to ghosts… perhaps an old school friend shows up and they look back on their lives.  He’d even written a few things that might qualify as literature whatever that means these days. There’s still time before Simon’s arrival to knock something together out of all the bits and pieces. He’s got a lot of bits and pieces, some of them more or less complete in themselves, stuff he’s scribbled down over the years…but there’s no structure to hang them on. Perhaps he can even come up with some kind of synopsis. Then what? Should he show it to Simon or not? He’ll probably just say it’s crap. He’ll probably be right.

It’s not that Arthur doesn’t have a lot to say. He just doesn’t know where to start.  What kind of novel should it be? It could be one of those books where nothing much happens for instance. Something along the lines of ‘Dubliners’, or ‘Notes from Underground’, or ‘Catcher in the Rye’. Some bloke just droning on about his life and sharing his deepest thoughts with anyone who’s interested. That might work. There’s enough bored people around these days, surfing the internet for free entertainment. They’ll read anything. 

It certainly won’t be one of those post-modern books where all the characters are versions of themselves. Arthur has read enough of those. It might jump around in time and space a bit but the story will be fairly straightforward. He’s got nothing against non-linear fiction but there’s a limit. It’s easy to get too clever and leave any potential readers wondering what’s going on. Where are we? Who’s speaking? What day is it? Sort of an inconclusive whodunwat. 

On the other hand he wants it to make some kind of sense. Post-modern but linear. He wants to put everything in. All the ups and downs, all the people and places, all the memories and sidetrips. Why?  To entertain himself? To watch the words appear in some sort of order? To pass the time? 

Keep it simple that’s the trick. There can’t be much to this writing lark. Colourful characters that’s what you need. Get them doing interesting things. Lively dialogue. Interesting locations. Just a question of getting started.

Arthur imagines himself with a laptop somewhere…typing words in, moving blocks of text around. It would be a lot of work. And pretty futile when you think about it. Why would anyone commit himself to something like that? More to the point why would anyone want to read it? They’ll probably just skim through it looking for the rude bits. 

So many things to consider. Should there be sex and violence? Will anyone be offended? Should he even care what readers think or should he try to shock them? Should he try to appeal to younger readers? Those who missed out on the Sixties and Seventies for instance, but aren’t too bitter about it? Maybe throw in a few vampires and zombies.

Probably the biggest decision has to do with person. Should there be a narrator or is Arthur doing all this himself? Proper writers seem to glide straight into it but obviously things like person and tense have to be settled early on otherwise nobody knows who’s talking or when. Very difficult business this writing. Invisible narrator that’s the way to go. Invisible reader should just shut up and get on with it.

And then there’s the question of style. Beckett, Burroughs, Nabokov, Amis, Le Carre….Arthur absorbs aspects of them all. He reads too much.

What Arthur doesn’t mention for some reason is that he’s already posted a few of his literary efforts on a website for aspiring writers. The reaction has been quite encouraging. He uses the short story form but the hardest part is always coming up with a clever twist.

The strange thing about writing is that sometimes he just can’t be bothered. He has to force himself to do it. And there are times when he can’t get the words down fast enough. At least until the doubts appear. Words, words, words….slippery little things that always seem to be just out of reach, hovering on the edge of his cerebrum, never quite falling neatly into place. Hasn’t the world got enough of them? As for the bloody internet, it’s a Tower of Babel. 

You can’t beat old Arthur when it comes to procrastination. He’s no Stephen King that’s for sure. But hang on…..he’s just had a novel idea!!

Why not write it from the point of view of some old alcoholic living on a yacht in the Caribbean? He could be looking back on his life and some of the people he’s met along the way. Arthur being one. It doesn’t solve all the problems but it would provide a narrator and set the tone. 

That thought deserves another beer.

Walkabout.

Cynthia lives with her husband Norm in a suburb of Melbourne. They have a rather unattractive baby. Cynthia puts the baby in Arthur’s arms and says. ‘Look at you with Grandad!’  

The baby starts to cry. 

'No worries,' says Norm. Norm is a jolly swagman. All his mates are jolly swagmen too. At Christmas they camp out by the swimming pools drinking beer and cooking chunks of meat on barbies. Sometimes they sing drunken songs. Arthur tries hard but he can’t get into the swing of things. Sensing his discomfort Cynthia suggests a trip to the outback.

‘Have a look at Ayers Rock,’ says Norm, ‘you can climb it but the abos don’t like it.’

‘You’ll be right Arthur.’ say Norm’s mates in chorus. ‘Watch out for roos,’

McCafferty’s take him on a bus ride through seemingly endless red desert and grey bush. Arthur spots the occasional kangaroo hopping off to nowhere. A hard country to love he thinks but there is something attractive about its very strangeness. He gets off at a town somewhere in the middle and thanks the big beefy driver, ‘No worries mite,’ she says, and he wanders out of the bus station into a shopping mall where he buys an ice cream, sits down on a bench and tries to remember who he is supposed to be. All around him Australians in shorts are wandering in and out of shops. Except for some black ones who are sitting on patches of grass. Those must be aboriginal people thinks Arthur. A strange sort of cultural collision is going on here.

Arthur walks through the town until the buildings stop. There is nothing but red desert and scrub, a hazy distant mountain range. Arthur keeps walking. He doesn’t know why. It just seems like the thing to do. It is very hot. The sun is blinding.
Arthur wanders in circles until he comes to an area of broken glass and old beer cans. There are abandoned vehicles everywhere. Flies by the swarm. Scraps of cloth hanging limply in no breeze. By this point Arthur is delirious. Then he spots what looks like a small oasis, blue gums round a billabong, a Toyota minivan with no wheels. Arthur collapses on the ground in front of a fridge with no door. Hard to say how long he’s out of it. When he eventually recovers the first thing he sees is a somewhat unkempt woman with matted frizzy hair. A vision of loveliness.
‘G’day.’ Says Arthur (he picked up a bit of Strine in Melbourne).
‘Merry Christmas,’ says the dream person. She is wearing half a tracksuit and a large bra. ‘Going walkabout?’
‘Yes I suppose I am.’ Says Arthur.
‘I’m Alice. Fancy a beer?’
Alice? That’s odd. His head is still spinning and the warm beer doesn’t help much. Alice has a broad flat nose and a lovely smile. She seems like a kindly soul thinks Arthur.
‘There’s no ice.’ Says Alice.
‘That’s alright.’ Says Arthur.
‘And no TV neither. The power’s off.’
‘Really it’s OK,’ says Arthur, ‘don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. Just need to sit down for a bit.’
‘Take your time luv.’ Says Alice.
‘Will you marry me Alice?’
‘Alright.’

This is madness thinks Arthur. I must get a grip. What about my promise to Duan? He struggles to collect his thoughts.

‘Look Alice, I’m sorry. I just remembered something. I can’t marry you after all.’

‘That’s alright luv,’ says Alice. ‘Have another beer anyway.’