I managed to take this picture after throwing myself over a hedge into Green Park, walking to the far corner where the eight-foot security fence turned into an eight-foot piece of wire-mesh and shooting over the heads of about a hundred other gawpers, flag-wavers and security guards.
The picture is of a procession, after it has processed. In the background is Buckingham Palace, from the side and slightly behind. It was sort of like watching a play from the wings: I got to see the actors trooping off and a bit of the stage set. That’s all.
And I wasn’t alone. There were thousands fenced into Green Park with me and thousands more not even being allowed into Green Park (as we weren’t, hence the hedge-jumping). The best view any of us could hope for was in Tesco’s, where they were showing the coverage on TV screens.
Why?
We were a security risk.
The Royal Wedding was sadly not an opportunity for the people of Great Britain and friends from all over the world to come together and have a big party.
It was an opportunity for the police to cordon us, obstruct us and – even – to raid our homes in pre-emptive anti-protest strikes. Several social centres were raided the night before the Royal Wedding, including the Ratstar social centre in Camberwell.
But the people who were hurt most by this clamp-down (I didn’t care) were the very people who Kate and William would have liked to have seen lining the streets.
We saw young families trooping around the perimeter of the Green Park fence, forlornly asking the security guards, ‘when is the gate going to open?’ and getting only a terse shake of the head in response. There were children peering through tiny screw-holes in the fence, looking at the vast expanse of park on the other side – and seeing only a thin ribbon of spectators there to enjoy the show. Even at that patch of wire-mesh fencing we were told, ‘the only thing you can do from here is exit.’
Not even all those who camped overnight managed to get in.
Two and a half weeks ago, on the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, another political activist was assassinated: the founder of the Jenin Freedom Theatre in Palestine, Juliano Mer-Khamis.
Juliano was the son of a Jewish mother and an Arab Israeli father and always declared that he was both 100% Jewish and 100% Palestinian.
His mother, Arna, fought in the Palmach during the first Arab-Israeli war, but turned her back on Zionism and became a peace activist. Juliano himself enlisted as a paratrooper in the IDF, but was thrown out for refusing an order to force a Palestinian man from his car.
In Israel, Juliano identified himself as a Palestinian; in Palestine, as a Jew. This was typical of his brave and confrontational character.
He was a “beautiful and energetic man” who, according to his friend and colleague Stephan, was dancing on the tables the night before his assassination to celebrate the première of his latest project. Juliano had intense passions, exemplified by his love of food: a cup of olive oil for breakfast and a glass of Black Label at night.
The Freedom Theatre
Edward Said urged upon us the importance of narrating the Palestinian story, and that’s exactly what Juliano did through his films, his plays and the Freedom Theatre in Jenin.
Juliano’s ambition for the Freedom Theatre was to “give these children a piece of normality.” The theatre didn’t only tackle political inequality, but also women’s rights and religious intolerance and the theatre quickly became a centre for liberal thought in Jenin. The theatre works on three levels: theory, art and (political) action.
As an example, Juliano’s recent production of Alice in Wonderland managed to tackle women’s liberation, free will and resistance as well as putting on a great show. Juliano made Alice a Palestinian girl who is forced to marry by her family and seeks refuge in Wonderland.
According to Juliano, “art and politics are one,” and his attitude was: “you can’t free the land without freeing the mind.” That made Juliano himself a cultural freedom fighter.
Juliano’s tragedy
The tragedy of Juliano’s life is that he was well aware of his vulnerability, but naïve “to the point of fantasy,” according to his friend Ala. He confided to him: “I will only leave Jenin with a bullet in my head…”
Juliano wouldn’t have wanted to be called a martyr of freedom, but that is what he was.
Juliano was shot down by a Palestinian from Jenin, the very people he was struggling for. Juliano’s colleague at the theatre, Ala, talked about how this betrayal had damaged his unconditional affection for the camp. He said he was like a father who is angry at his eldest son for fighting with his youngest. Nevertheless, he will cover them both with the same blanket at night and give them the same kiss. “I kiss you Juli,” Ala said before breaking down in tears at the memory of his friend.
The ongoing threat
Juliano was shot not because of his failure, but because of his success. The Israeli press might be wallowing in schadenfreude, celebrating the fact that a Palestinian peace activist was killed by a fellow Palestinian, but Juliano’s Israeli friend Uli doesn’t remember that discourse in the press after former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed by a Jew.
However, the Freedom Theatre today is very weak. They have some support in Israel, some support in Palestine and some support abroad, but it is fragmented and threatened on all sides. When Juliano’s body was carried away, students from the theatre lined the streets and applauded – but Jenin refugee camp wasn’t with them. The threat to the theatre remains.
This salsa is ridiculously easy. It won’t take more than about five minutes and will leave your lips tingling, but not your tonsils.
Ingredients
Makes 300g of salsa.
1 400g can of plum tomatoes.
2 green chillies.
1/3 of an onion.
1 handful of fresh coriander.
1 squeeze of a lemon.
The total cost of these ingredients is about a £1*. This is cheaper than supermarket salsa, tastes better and doesn’t have Xanthan Gum in it. Whatever that is.
Tools
Knife.
Bowl.
Sieve or colander (optional).
Blender (optional).
Method
Drain the can of tomatoes. You can use a sieve or a colander or just pour the juice out of the can. It will look like you’re losing a heck of a lot of product. Don’t panic, just drain those plums! Now throw them into the bowl.
Chop the stalks off your chillies. Take out some of the seeds and pith while you’re there. Throw into the bowl.
Chop off a third of an onion. Throw into the bowl.
Grab a handful of fresh coriander. Throw into the bowl.
Chop a lemon in half and squeeze some into the bowl.
Blend the ingredients until they are salsafied! If you don’t have a proper blender then just mash and chop with your hands and your knife. Salsa should be pretty rough anyway – you’re not making a soup here.
EAT.
You can always modify to taste with garlic, salt or chocolate. I won’t shout at you.
* You will have to buy a whole onion and a whole lemon. Save them for next time.
Egypt? It’s near Stoke Poges, a delightful village near Burnham Beeches and a lovely little cycle from London.
It was well worth the pilgrimage too, not only for the beautiful woodland or for the wonderfully displaced North African country, but also for a certain stained glass window in Stoke Poges church. I learnt of this window from Wikipedia when I was researching a talk I gave last year on the history of the bicycle. Apparently, there was a window of an angel, stark naked, riding a bicycle.
So I pedalled to the church, wheeled my respectful way down the winding path through the cemetery, leant my bike up against the porch and, full of anticipation, pushed open the heavy wooden door.
Now, I was expecting to see a huge window with a glorious winged angel dazzling the congregation with his dangling member straddling a Raleigh six-speed. So it was with increasing frustration that I circled the small church two, three times, without seeing anything remotely resembling an angel of heaven on a bike.
Then I found this:
Bicycle window, Stoke Poges (Peter Reed, Flickr)
This is a small inset picture in a window installed to celebrate the lives lost in World War II. And it’s not so much an angel as a cherub, I’d say. Far from being glorious, it seems a little inappropriate. I’d like to know the thought process behind this one.
We want something nice to remember the 450,000 souls who died in the most horrific war in human history…
I know – a cherub on a hobby-horse blowing a trumpet!
Whatever the thinking behind it was, one thing is certain: Wikipedia is wrong.
What?
This is what Wikipedia originally told me about the window:
There are several early but unverifiable claims for the invention of bicycle-like machines. The earliest comes from an illustration found in a church window in Stoke Poges, installed in the 16th century, showing a naked angel on a bicycle-like device…*
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the Second World War was a twentieth century event.
This is a valuable lesson I think.
1. Don’t believe everything you’re told. Sometimes they’re wrong. Sometimes you do know better.
2. Check the facts for yourself. Go there. Verify the angel.
It reminds me of the British in Palestine, 1917-1948. A lot of government policy was set in London by people who had never been to Palestine (which then comprised the current territory of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories). Their policy formation was based on idealistic dreams, unrealistic ambitions and sectarian politics. They often ignored the advice of the people on the ground in Palestine.
The administrators, soldiers and civilians in Palestine itself, faced with the day-to-day troubles, were practical and realistic in their suggestions. But they were ignored by people who thought they knew better – but who knew nothing.
I think this is one of the most important lessons of travel. How can I talk about Iran when I’ve never been there? Any talk that blew out of my mouth would be nothing more than so much hot air. How can I talk about a church window in Stoke Poges when I’ve never been there?
The more I travel, the more wary I become of talking about places I haven’t been – or of listening to other people who haven’t been either, no matter what their professional qualifications are. You can find the inaccurate angel-window story repeated endlessly across the internet, mindlessly regurgitated by people who’ve never been to Stoke Poges.
So I urge you: verify the angel!
* There are a couple of things here. Apparently the glass of the window was recycled (ho ho!) and a part of it has been dated to 1643. Which is the 17th century of course. The internet seems to be in some dispute about whether it is the bicycle part which is from 1643 or not. Either way, Wikipedia is wrong.
The information comes from Stoke Poges Parish Council website. The image is probably not a bicycle either and could be a “one-wheeled contraption that was often associated with cherubims and seraphims in mediaeval iconography” according to Jim Langley’s website.
Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to go on more than 60 holidays, both in the UK and abroad. In the course of all that to-ing and fro-ing I’ve been to 33 different countries. I’ve also taken 77 aeroplane flights.
Fancy flights and holidays graph. Click to enlarge.
But finally – after going through 77 passport controls, 77 customs halls, 77 departure lounges, 77 immigration queues, 77 more customs halls, 77 baggage carousels and 77 arrival halls – I’ve realised one thing: flights aren’t holidays.
You could be forgiving for thinking that they are.
In 2017, UK residents took 46.6 million holidays abroad, up ten-fold from 1971, and we flew for 39.7 million of them, over 85%. The proportion of holiday-makers who fly is rising. Conclusion: everyone wants to holiday abroad and, to get there, nearly everyone flies. But why?
But why does everyone fly to Abroad?
There are some obvious and not-so-obvious answers to that question.
1. It’s quicker to fly.
Obviously. But there are two aspects to the speed:
a. Not everyone has the time to take the leisurely travel option, even if they wanted to. We only get two weeks’ holiday a year and we want to spend as much of that on a beach as possible.
b. Travel is horrible, so the less time spent in transit the better, even if it’s as traumatic as flying.
2. It’s cheaper to fly.
It really is, incredibly. Even if you cycle the whole way and swim the Channel with your bike strapped to your 48″ chest – you’ll still spend way more on food during your Ironman expedition to Magaluf than you would have done on a Ryanair return.
One way to Bordeaux by bike cost me near enough £240 in calorific fuel. The Ryanair flight back was £60.
3. Because everyone flies to Abroad.
Huh? Everyone flies because everyone flies? Yeah. That’s right. I’m saying that we don’t even think about it. Imagination disengages at the point of picking up the Thompson brochure. We think about the destination, not about how to get there.
But…
But, but, but my friends!
1. Flying is only quicker if you are travelling long distances.
And travel is only miserable if you’re cooped up in Ryanair-sized cattle-pens and subjected to intrusive and very dull immigration procedures.
2. Flying is only cheaper if you are travelling long distances.
And, even then, only if you forget that my ten days’ cycling was so much more than transit – it was a wild-eyed sun-blaze of fun.
3. Flights aren’t holidays!
If there’s one thing I learnt while I was slogging over the hills of Normandy on my way to Bordeaux – or while I was standing around on the side of a road in Glasgow trying to get a lift to Ben Nevis – or while I was trudging through the snow, sixteen hours into an eighteen hour walk home for Christmas – it’s that flights aren’t holidays!
In fact, the less flighty the holiday, the better. Less flight means less stress, less queuing, less being treated like cattle – and, therefore, more fun, more unique – and more holiday!
And this should be a cause of optimism for everyone.
If we don’t have to fly to Abroad, then the world of holiday is blown wide open to us. It means that holiday isn’t a two-week stress-ball carbon-guilt flight – it could be a trip down to your local shops. Why can’t that be a holiday?
A holiday for everyday
This morning, for example, I went on a holiday right near my house.
I didn’t mean to go on holiday. I was just on a walk, a fairly standard constitutional walk around the local fields that I do all the time – and then, suddenly, I decided to go on holiday. I climbed through some hawthorn shrubs, over a wall and onto a disused railway. It was hot and sunny, so I took off my shirt and walked down the tracks, basking in the sun.
I was somewhere I’d never been before and tanning. How is that not a holiday?
Rejoice! Forget flying; holiday today!
But there’s more!
(The environmental bit tacked onto the end to make me look ethical.)
My flying CO2 footprint over the years. Click to enlarge.
If we needed any more encouragement to ditch recycled air, carry-on luggage limitations and ear-popping madness, then it’s surely got to be the thought of our carbon footprint. In the last 28 years, I’ve ejaculated 28 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, thanks to my use of aeroplane transportation. And I don’t mind admitting that it was mindless. I flew because I didn’t think twice. If I wanted to go to France, I bought a plane ticket.
That changed in 2009. I wanted to go to France, so I bought a plane ticket. But the flight was cancelled due to heavy snowfall and I couldn’t go. I still wanted to go, but suddenly flying didn’t seem worth it. I wanted more from my travel. So I cycled.
What have you done with your weekends so far this year? Could you do better?
For a lot of people, weekends are sacrosanct. It’s our only chance to sleep late, our only chance to switch off, to meet up with friends for longer than a quick pint.
But it’s also the only chance we get to seize the day for ourselves. The weekend holds no obligations (if you’re lucky…) – no deadlines, no schedules, no timetables. Anything could happen today and tomorrow – anything.
You could find yourself halfway up a mountain by lunchtime.
You could be swimming in that loch in the sunshine.
You could start writing a novel.
You could buy a guitar and sing crazy songs about musical body parts.
You could help your neighbours with their shopping.
You could bake a cake for your nan.
But remember: after this one, you’ve only got another 39 left – and one of those is New Year’s Eve.
Make the most of them. Make the most of this weekend.
Life is what we remember. Most of your life isn’t spent now; it’s spent then – in memories.
To get a bigger life, therefore, you might think we need bigger memories.
But our memories are selective. To use my favourite cycling metaphor, while you will inevitably spend most of your time going uphill – what you remember are the downhills. Our memories cut the boring stuff.
So we don’t need a bigger memory.
We need bigger time.
Time and Travel – or Time Travel?
Consider this: you spend weeks and weeks looking forward to your holiday. Time in the office seems to drag on forever. Finally you get on the plane and shoot off to a beach on Bermuda.
Lying here, with the sand between your toes, the office seems a million years away. Why is that? But your two weeks of cocktails and beaches fly by in the blinking of an eye – and suddenly you’re back in the office.
Now it’s Bermuda that seems a million years away. Did time get mixed up in the Bermuda Triangle?
A physicist might put it thus:
A displacement in space is equal to a displacement in time.*
Or, to put it another way, travel makes time bigger.
Continuity and Happening
Think back to what you were doing ten seconds ago – chances are it was the same thing you are doing now – can you remember how you were feeling then?
Doesn’t it feel weird to think about how you felt just a moment ago? I bet you weren’t really feeling much in particular, at least not until you thought about it.
That’s continuity for you.
The brain seems to have two modes: one for when things are happening and one for continuity. And the more we allow continuity to build up, the less we can pull out of it and remember. It all blends into one.
Our brains don’t bother to make a distinction between this moment reading a blog post and that moment ten seconds ago reading a blog post. In our memories it’s just going to go down as ‘read blog post’ – if that. More likely, it will just get subsumed under ‘just another day at the office’ and none of the specifics will be remembered at all.
For all your brain cares: that moment of your life simply didn’t happen.
Happening and Memory
Happenings, however, break up periods of continuity – and, in doing so, happenings also create a bigger life. Happenings mean that less of our lives get lost in the long tedium of continuity: happenings give us pegs from which to hang the memories of our lives.
For example, how many times have you placed a rogue memory with this kind of dialogue?
‘Oh, that was just before John broke his leg – yes, and not long after Fran won the three-legged race at school – hahaha!’
Travel is a kind of happening. The chronology below shows the effect of continuity and happening on life/memory:
Location A: continuity
Event 1A
Event 2A
Event 3A
Travel to location B: a new continuity
Event 1B
Event 2B
Event 3B
Travel to location A: resumption of continuity
Event 4A
Event 5A
Event 6A
Travel to location C: another new continuity
Event 1C
Event 2C
Event 3C
Travel to location A: resumption of continuity
Event 7A
Event 8A
Event 9A
Events in locations B and C are distinct and separate from the memories made in the other locations. They seem to stand out more due to the unique nature of the location in which the memories were made. It is harder to place event 5A in the logical progression of the year than 2B or 3C, for example. Although the time spent on the activities may be the same, event 5A appears smaller in life, in the memory, than event 2B.
This has serious implications for our lives. Allowing too much continuity to build up makes our lives smaller!
Breaking up this continuity is the secret to remembering more of your life and thus having, not a longer life (who really wants that, wrinkles and all?) – but a bigger life.
Happening + Bigger Time = Travel
Happenings are not always good (poor old John). They are not always desirable.
Travel, however, is a form of happening that is usually (more of less) in our control. It is also (in the form of a holiday at least) designed to make us happy. That seems to make it a particularly good sort of happening.
Furthermore, because travel creates bigger time, the power of memory associated with it is multiplied. Travel is a happening that leaves an impression on your memory disproportionate in size compared to normal life.
Think about this: despite the fact that you spent 230 days in the office last year, the moments you remember best from that year were those 14 days on a beach in Bermuda. It broke the continuity and created big time.
It made yours a bigger life.
*The incredible distances achievable by flight seem to totally fox our poor little brains. It seems literally unbelievable that we could have been at work in Croydon yesterday, when today we are sipping a Piña Colada on Elbow Beech.
You can test this out. How much travel is needed to blow the mind. Walk down the street and look back at the hundred or so metres you’ve travelled and ask yourself if you can remember what it was like to be you back then. What about a longer walk? I think the brain starts to break up its continuity when the distances become unobservable. A trip of twenty miles or more definitely has the ability to make the brain marvel – when you think about it.
