Arthur and Simon could sit in Nana Plaza
forever drinking beer and reminiscing …..but I can’t. I’ve got to get my boat
over to Barbados. I’ve been battling the
wind from Grenada all the way across and I’m still not halfway. Ocean all
around me and underneath. Hurricane Irma. I’ll be glad to see Speightstown. There’s a place
there by the fish market does a nice rice and peas and I need to stock up on Mountgay..
If you’ve been reading this blog for a
while you’ll have a basic idea what it’s about. It started as two schoolboy
friends who read ‘On the Road’ and decided to be beatniks. One thing lead to
another. They hitchhiked to India in the Sixties, came back, and went their
separate ways. Arthur got a boring job running a tobacconist shop, Simon got
into writing art reviews and ended up with his own TV show. When Arthur’s wife
died he sold the shop and went to live in Thailand. Simon visited him there. It’s all in the archives.
Me? I’m the narrator. I live on a boat in
the Caribbean. And I’m getting fed up with narrating. So I’m going to skip a
lot of stuff and fast forward. I’m
finding the whole blogging business depressing to be honest so I’m going to
make a few more posts and that’s it.
So here’s the plan.
Bangkok. Simon really doesn’t care that
much about the BBC documentary he’s supposed to make. So he hands it over to
his production team and flies to Chiang Mai with Arthur. They go to stay in
Arthur’s village. Simon wants to see the ‘real Thailand’. Arthur hopes he won’t be bored stiff.
I continue on to Barbados to meet up with my 'friend' Oscar, semi-retired porn magnate, who is still upset about losing his treasure to Blackjack. We may be dropping in on Simon Cowell for some celebrity gossip. Sir Julian will be there on his so-called plantation. I could write a novel.
Things will happen along the way. With luck there will be a thrilling climax and we can all go home. How’s that?
2 comments:
Sorry to hear of your impending retirement from blogging. Not a blogger myself, but I guess it's a bit like sitting in Big Dogs and trying to write letters home. Arthur will be missed; Simon maybe not so much.
Cheers, and keep the Mount Gay flowing,
HB
Ok, I'M ready. I will be sad but I know that all things end. I will miss these characters. All of them. And thanks to you also Philip, for bringing these characters to life for me.
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