Right on. You saw it! It breaks one’s heart. In a sense, nothing has changed. We exchanged exploitation and destruction for illusions and tourism. Thank you Hanif!
I once recited a poem by Derek Walcott to an agency nurse named Mercy, one afternoon when we were working together on the Stroke and Neurological Rehabilitation Ward. The poem – I can't recall which one – was from his collection 'White Egrets.' Mercy saw me with the book when I returned from lunch – those striking Faber & Faber designs that are bold tonal swatches, with the title and the name of the author in different colour letters, as large as the cover designer can make them. She asked me if it was any good. My response, which seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, but now strikes me as unfathomable and maybe also inappropriate, was to read her one of the poems, out loud. I wasn't putting the moves on her. I liked the book. When I like something I want to share it with people. Maybe some of my social filters are out of whack. Two sets of girlfriends parents have, independently of each other, delicately enquired if I might be on the spectrum. I don't care to know.
I am not a good public reader, but the acoustics of the old building were very much in my favour. I don't think that I disgraced myself, or did Mr Walcott too much of a disservice. A year before, I had done some temp work, delivering and collecting medical records from around the hospital – a job that broke me physically and mentally in around six weeks. I recall one really snowy day when the hospital was practically deserted. I was on the second floor, which was mostly administrative, wheeling an enormous cage, that was filled with crated medical notes, the length of a spinal corridor that stretched along the front of the building,' all the while bellowing 'Powerslave' by Iron Maiden, and a bit of 'Alexander the Great' by the same band. Any building that can make you sound like Bruce Dickinson, is worthy of preservation.
I will never know whether my potted Walcott recital increased the sales of 'White Egrets,' or earned its author a new fan. Mercy was an agency nurse – an emergency member of staff who is drafted in when the hospital can't meet its own staffing quotas, either by shuffling around its permanent nursing cohort, or by calling on its own bank of in-house temps. I never saw her again. At worst she went away with the story of a lunatic ward clerk who read her poetry.
Walcott was only on my radar because a couple of years before he had been – we would now call it 'cancelled'. I can't weigh-in on the accusations that were made. What I did not like was the circle of anonymous assassins (some of whom I imagine were known to him personally) slipping in the knife. My thinking is that, if you are going to accuse someone of a thing that might ruin them, you should forgo all disguise and have the decency to own it. Reading about that drama made me seek out his poetry, which I might otherwise not have discovered.
I am naturally indolent and have worked hard to develop a work ethic. I think I have been quite self-destructive in the past. But I have also come to realise that if I give myself things to do, then I will naturally lean in that more positive direction. It is sometimes hard now that I am unwell. There are days when I wake up exhausted, as if I have run a double marathon, while also working at the vanguard of quantum physics. There are moments that are becoming more and more common, when it feels like I am straining to catch a glimpse of myself and my own thoughts in a thickening fog. I can entertain the notion that I will eventually disappear into myself, like Mahershala Ali in the third season of True Detective, vanishing into the Vietnamese jungle – a symbol of his permanent exit into dementia.
It feels good to end the day, knowing that I have accomplished something; when I have worked on some writing, even if it hasn't gone well; when I have written to friend, even if it is only to continue an ontological argument concerning the hard rock band, Manowar, and their outrageous and unsupported claim that they perform “true metal”. Something that I regard as a Platonic impossibility.
Reading is good, as I often feel oafish and ignorant and hope to eventually remedy that. I could never get to grips with Kindles and their brethren. The supporting beams of my parent's loft are the subject of a long running stress test I am conducting, using books I have accumulated. I tolerate what I must in the digital world. I write on a second-hand tower PC, on what a friend once described as the most disgusting keyboard they have ever laid eyes on. I have worked in a hospital and so have seen worse – one keyboard that was swabbed by infection control (not one that I ever knowingly used) was found to contain a dry cocktail of faecal matter, kebab meat, and Christmas tinsel. I had once had a mobile phone with a three-colour screen. When it was turned off, a crude rendering of a spinning globe would rotate above the open hands of a rather disturbing clown, before the screen jumped abruptly to grey. I put it in a drawer 20 years ago. It is probably still there.
An age ago, when I was a very different man, I was walking through the town of Crater, in Aden. There were all these archaic English school text books scattered across the road. It was not long after the anniversary of Independence Day. I was amused by the thought of someone finding this legacy of the English in a cupboard, years after the colonists had departed, and tossing them out on the street: “...And take your books with you!”
A few years later, I had boots on the ground in Eritrea. I had obtained an archaeology permit (I am not an archaeologist; you need permits just to visit archaeological sites in the country). I had been given the name of what I assumed was a village, a few miles away from a set of ruins I wanted to visit, but which turned out to be an arbitrary spot along the road, in the middle of nowhere.
I asked a goatherd for directions. He pointed across an arid landscape that was combed with crumbling ravines. I took a compass bearing off his finger. As I zigzagged up and down in that direction, I happened across a young soldier who was idly manning a checkpoint. He did not see me until I had gone past. He ran behind me, while pulling his trousers on, calling out for me to stop. Before military service he had been a flight technician at the airport in Assab. He hoped to migrate to the UK and find work in a similar position there. It didn't seem likely. The dial of his wristwatch was a tiny photograph of him and his girlfriend with their heads pressed together. He readjusted the hands so that I could get a better look at her. That's a keeper; a man who is willing to bend time to make you look good.
You said it! My mother came back from a cruise around the Caribbean horrified by what she saw on the fringes atand unable to feel remotely ‘vacation-like’ about the experience. I’ve never been outside of some of Europe and the US, but am not hurrying to go either. I think it’s important to know about things, but I think I don’t need to be a vacationer in certain places. It’s tough, you are both supporting the economy and participating in exploitation. Who knows the correct answer to that one?
Gracias por este articulo en estos días tan especiales para los humildes del mundo entero. La liberación de la opresión une a todos los pueblos sin distinción
I encountered the same rage from the natives in Tahiti. At the resorts all seemed peaceful but once in the capital of Papeete, one could feel the resentment towards tourists. A vicious circle of need and resentment.
That is why I’ve always felt embarrassed and somewhat guilty with any display of affluence.
Regarding ‘being’ vs. doing, that is a teaching. I am a doer and working hard on just being. Is doing an escape from the angst of the human condition ? Perhaps.
Ah yes, "I have come to believe that doing nothing is a difficult art that should usefully be taught in schools"--Yes, true, but not the school part.
When my children were little we'd go to beach with them (no fancy resort, but that would have been nice I guess) for two weeks and it took the first week to relax enough to enjoy the second.
My husband and I got together by flirting about how good we were at the “L’arte del dolce far niente” … 13 years later it turns out that we are both terrible at it, and work way too much. It is indeed an art that needs to be cultivated and appreciated!
Very apposite for me as I’m just back hours ago from Dominica a sister isle, looking at a project with young entrepreneurs provided by IOM. The entrepreneurs I met were inspiring to say the least living life close to the edge of their dreams as they struggle to realise them.
Thank you for that vivid story. Did you get to see White Lotus, which another comment mentioned? At first that series horrified me, but further in, I understood it. Thanks also for the Beautiful Laundrette script. It's wonderful how close the film stays to the script.
Right on. You saw it! It breaks one’s heart. In a sense, nothing has changed. We exchanged exploitation and destruction for illusions and tourism. Thank you Hanif!
I once recited a poem by Derek Walcott to an agency nurse named Mercy, one afternoon when we were working together on the Stroke and Neurological Rehabilitation Ward. The poem – I can't recall which one – was from his collection 'White Egrets.' Mercy saw me with the book when I returned from lunch – those striking Faber & Faber designs that are bold tonal swatches, with the title and the name of the author in different colour letters, as large as the cover designer can make them. She asked me if it was any good. My response, which seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, but now strikes me as unfathomable and maybe also inappropriate, was to read her one of the poems, out loud. I wasn't putting the moves on her. I liked the book. When I like something I want to share it with people. Maybe some of my social filters are out of whack. Two sets of girlfriends parents have, independently of each other, delicately enquired if I might be on the spectrum. I don't care to know.
I am not a good public reader, but the acoustics of the old building were very much in my favour. I don't think that I disgraced myself, or did Mr Walcott too much of a disservice. A year before, I had done some temp work, delivering and collecting medical records from around the hospital – a job that broke me physically and mentally in around six weeks. I recall one really snowy day when the hospital was practically deserted. I was on the second floor, which was mostly administrative, wheeling an enormous cage, that was filled with crated medical notes, the length of a spinal corridor that stretched along the front of the building,' all the while bellowing 'Powerslave' by Iron Maiden, and a bit of 'Alexander the Great' by the same band. Any building that can make you sound like Bruce Dickinson, is worthy of preservation.
I will never know whether my potted Walcott recital increased the sales of 'White Egrets,' or earned its author a new fan. Mercy was an agency nurse – an emergency member of staff who is drafted in when the hospital can't meet its own staffing quotas, either by shuffling around its permanent nursing cohort, or by calling on its own bank of in-house temps. I never saw her again. At worst she went away with the story of a lunatic ward clerk who read her poetry.
Walcott was only on my radar because a couple of years before he had been – we would now call it 'cancelled'. I can't weigh-in on the accusations that were made. What I did not like was the circle of anonymous assassins (some of whom I imagine were known to him personally) slipping in the knife. My thinking is that, if you are going to accuse someone of a thing that might ruin them, you should forgo all disguise and have the decency to own it. Reading about that drama made me seek out his poetry, which I might otherwise not have discovered.
I am naturally indolent and have worked hard to develop a work ethic. I think I have been quite self-destructive in the past. But I have also come to realise that if I give myself things to do, then I will naturally lean in that more positive direction. It is sometimes hard now that I am unwell. There are days when I wake up exhausted, as if I have run a double marathon, while also working at the vanguard of quantum physics. There are moments that are becoming more and more common, when it feels like I am straining to catch a glimpse of myself and my own thoughts in a thickening fog. I can entertain the notion that I will eventually disappear into myself, like Mahershala Ali in the third season of True Detective, vanishing into the Vietnamese jungle – a symbol of his permanent exit into dementia.
It feels good to end the day, knowing that I have accomplished something; when I have worked on some writing, even if it hasn't gone well; when I have written to friend, even if it is only to continue an ontological argument concerning the hard rock band, Manowar, and their outrageous and unsupported claim that they perform “true metal”. Something that I regard as a Platonic impossibility.
Reading is good, as I often feel oafish and ignorant and hope to eventually remedy that. I could never get to grips with Kindles and their brethren. The supporting beams of my parent's loft are the subject of a long running stress test I am conducting, using books I have accumulated. I tolerate what I must in the digital world. I write on a second-hand tower PC, on what a friend once described as the most disgusting keyboard they have ever laid eyes on. I have worked in a hospital and so have seen worse – one keyboard that was swabbed by infection control (not one that I ever knowingly used) was found to contain a dry cocktail of faecal matter, kebab meat, and Christmas tinsel. I had once had a mobile phone with a three-colour screen. When it was turned off, a crude rendering of a spinning globe would rotate above the open hands of a rather disturbing clown, before the screen jumped abruptly to grey. I put it in a drawer 20 years ago. It is probably still there.
An age ago, when I was a very different man, I was walking through the town of Crater, in Aden. There were all these archaic English school text books scattered across the road. It was not long after the anniversary of Independence Day. I was amused by the thought of someone finding this legacy of the English in a cupboard, years after the colonists had departed, and tossing them out on the street: “...And take your books with you!”
A few years later, I had boots on the ground in Eritrea. I had obtained an archaeology permit (I am not an archaeologist; you need permits just to visit archaeological sites in the country). I had been given the name of what I assumed was a village, a few miles away from a set of ruins I wanted to visit, but which turned out to be an arbitrary spot along the road, in the middle of nowhere.
I asked a goatherd for directions. He pointed across an arid landscape that was combed with crumbling ravines. I took a compass bearing off his finger. As I zigzagged up and down in that direction, I happened across a young soldier who was idly manning a checkpoint. He did not see me until I had gone past. He ran behind me, while pulling his trousers on, calling out for me to stop. Before military service he had been a flight technician at the airport in Assab. He hoped to migrate to the UK and find work in a similar position there. It didn't seem likely. The dial of his wristwatch was a tiny photograph of him and his girlfriend with their heads pressed together. He readjusted the hands so that I could get a better look at her. That's a keeper; a man who is willing to bend time to make you look good.
You said it! My mother came back from a cruise around the Caribbean horrified by what she saw on the fringes atand unable to feel remotely ‘vacation-like’ about the experience. I’ve never been outside of some of Europe and the US, but am not hurrying to go either. I think it’s important to know about things, but I think I don’t need to be a vacationer in certain places. It’s tough, you are both supporting the economy and participating in exploitation. Who knows the correct answer to that one?
Gracias por este articulo en estos días tan especiales para los humildes del mundo entero. La liberación de la opresión une a todos los pueblos sin distinción
You captured well the neo-colonial experience of much modern tourism: your article is an incisive precursor of White Lotus, season 1.
So funny until you show us how unfunny it is. You are such a beautiful writer, Hanif. Thank you.
That was brilliant. I hope you got some sort of writers credit for admirably setting the scene for Mike White's hit TV series 'White Lotus' !
I encountered the same rage from the natives in Tahiti. At the resorts all seemed peaceful but once in the capital of Papeete, one could feel the resentment towards tourists. A vicious circle of need and resentment.
That is why I’ve always felt embarrassed and somewhat guilty with any display of affluence.
Regarding ‘being’ vs. doing, that is a teaching. I am a doer and working hard on just being. Is doing an escape from the angst of the human condition ? Perhaps.
Thank you for introducing me to the word, "rumbustious."
It is a good word.
"Rumbustious, glutinous.." Oh, Hanif, I do love your writing.
"Rumbustious, glutinous.." Oh, Hanif, I do love your writing.
Ah yes, "I have come to believe that doing nothing is a difficult art that should usefully be taught in schools"--Yes, true, but not the school part.
When my children were little we'd go to beach with them (no fancy resort, but that would have been nice I guess) for two weeks and it took the first week to relax enough to enjoy the second.
My husband and I got together by flirting about how good we were at the “L’arte del dolce far niente” … 13 years later it turns out that we are both terrible at it, and work way too much. It is indeed an art that needs to be cultivated and appreciated!
Very apposite for me as I’m just back hours ago from Dominica a sister isle, looking at a project with young entrepreneurs provided by IOM. The entrepreneurs I met were inspiring to say the least living life close to the edge of their dreams as they struggle to realise them.
Thank you for that vivid story. Did you get to see White Lotus, which another comment mentioned? At first that series horrified me, but further in, I understood it. Thanks also for the Beautiful Laundrette script. It's wonderful how close the film stays to the script.
🔥