The Electric Goose

Christmas books

2011-12-28T11:07:00.002Z

My top 75 tracks of 2011

2011-12-18T21:40:00.006Z

Despite the fact that I completed LA Noire on the PS3 this year, I don't really get that Lana Del Rey song. Although I have been a passenger in a car on numerous motorways, I don't really get M83. And even though I thnk vwls r 4 dckhds, I don't really get Sbtrkt. I'M SORRY. And with that very negative introduction out of the way, we at The Electric Goose are delighted to present our top 75 tracks of 2011, as always, in no particular order. Enjoy!

Click here for the Spotify goodness

Joan As Police Woman – The Magic
Killer Mike – God In The Building II
Tune-Yards – Powa
Ben Folds Five – Stumblin' Home Winter Blue
Battles – Ice Cream (Featuring Matias Aguayo)
Wild Flag – Romance
Cocknbullkid – Hold On To Your Misery
Cornershop – Topknot
The Decemberists – Calamity Song
Half Man Half Biscuit – Fix It So She Dreams Of Me
TV On The Radio – Will Do
The Vaccines – Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)
Camille – My Man Is Married But Not To Me
Dark Dark Dark – In Your Dreams
Ezra Furman & The Harpoons – Teenage Wasteland
The Feelies – When You Know
Elbow – lippy kids
Lady Gaga – Born This Way
Jay Z – Otis
Dirty Projectors + Björk – On and Ever Onward
Guided By Voices – One, Two, Three, Four
Ghostpoet – Survive It
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Belong
Anna Calvi – Desire
Sons And Daughters – Rose Red
Glee Cast – I Love New York / New York, New York
Tune-Yards – Gangsta
Dutch Uncles – The Ink
The Vaccines – Norgaard
Ezra Furman & The Harpoons – Hard Time in a Terrible Land
The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow
The Drums – Days
Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo – Pause
Akira The Don – Video Highway
Nicki Minaj – Roman's Revenge
Wild Flag – Endless Talk
The Strokes – Taken For A Fool
The Horrors – Still Life
Camille – Ilo Veyou
PJ Harvey – The Glorious Land
Half Man Half Biscuit – RSVP
Killer Mike – Burn
Lady Gaga – You And I
The Electric Soft Parade – If I Can Dream
Hannah Peel – Don't Kiss The Broken One
Generationals – Ten-Twenty-Ten
Foo Fighters – White Limo
Friends – I'm His Girl
Azealia Banks – 212
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Ketamine And Ecstasy
Arctic Monkeys – Black Treacle
Metronomy – Everything Goes My Way
Feist – How Come You Never Go There
Nicola Roberts – Beat Of My Drum
Florence + The Machine – Lover To Lover
The Streets – Going Through Hell
Brett Anderson – Brittle Heart
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Fall Away
Sweet Baboo – Bounce
Hugh Laurie – Let Them Talk
Timber Timbre – Black Water
Laura Marling – Sophia
Wilco – Born Alone
Martin Solveig ft Dragonette – Hello
Wiley – Wise Man and his Words
Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou – A Hill Far, Far Away
The Indelicates – The Road From Houston To Waco
Tyler, The Creator – Yonkers
My Morning Jacket – Outta My System
EMA – California
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – All Over Gently
Aloe Blacc – I Need A Dollar
Stooshe – Betty Woz Gone - Original
Camille – La France
Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler – Marshmallow World

See also...
Last year's top 50
Top 20 tracks of 2009
Top 25 tracks of 2007 (didn't do one in 2008, for some reason)
Top 25 tracks of 2006
Top 25 tracks of 2005

Red chairs

2011-12-05T14:35:00.000Z

Killing time

2011-11-29T15:30:00.000Z

Look, I love it as much as you do, but if The Killing has one flaw, it's surely this:

Stuck inside with Playmobil and the Fenton blues again

2011-11-28T19:54:00.001Z

Unbelievable. Just when I thought I could take a well-earned break from all the Benton / Fenton memes by going offline and indulging heartily at a friend's wedding, the cheeky pup turns up on my table. Playmobil Benton! PLAYMOBIL FENTON! PLAAAYMOBIIIILL BEEENTTOOOONNNN! Jesus Christ.

From 1990...

2011-10-25T13:12:00.002+01:00

The holy trinity: Theroux, Buxton, Cornish.

Top comment: "It's like they knew YouTube was going to be invented one day!"

A surprisingly rambling post about shelving and tennis

2011-10-15T14:43:00.000+01:00

Sarah and I will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary in a week and a day. It may qualify as the strangest, happiest and most unsettled year of my life (ask me again in 50 years. Set an Outlook reminder so you don't forget). We spent every day together in India for nearly six months, we got back and kept on moving (from Oval to Shannon to Cheadle to Ealing to Salisbury), slowed down for a few months in the Cheshire countryside (courtesy of generous family members, shout out), got a hefty chunk of freelance work, and took Megabuses between Manchester and London. I played a little Xbox, before the E74 error put a stop to that.

I can't be bothered to do a tortured drawn-out metaphor about striding boldly through the furrowed fields of the present towards the horizon of the future (see photo), because really we're just feeling our way in the dark. We got to go through our old possessions a few months back and realised that not much of the stash is really worth hauling down from the loft. You'd have to be pretty hard-minded not to concede after a few months of backpacking that unless you own a house with extensive shelving, you can forget the removal van and get by with a hard drive and a Kindle. Not that a house with extensive shelving is on the agenda anyway - instead, we're back in south London in a flat-share with a couple of old friends. Not your average post-marriage set-up, it's true, but it's turning out to be immensely fun. I haven't been this sociable since 2002. And in the last month I've played more hours of tennis than I did throughout my 20s, thanks to this.

The Landlord and I (after some drinks, admittedly) were inspired and set about it. Disaster struck, but slowly. It chipped away, really. After 13 consecutive days we caved in (literally, almost) and rested due to a combination of wristy RSI, back pain and all-round massive exhaustion. Shame. I would say this, though: getting to the office at 9am having already played a set of tennis is an amazing thing, and you walk round energised, smiling at the secret in your head. Going down the escalator at Vauxhall on my way to work after a 7am knockabout, my eye was caught by the sight of a woman handing her young son a tennis ball. I looked again; it was an apple. Tennis on the brain.

A friend saw this picture on Facebook and said later, "Oh! You're living somewhere gritty and urban now, aren't you?" - and the snap was supposed to have something of the Original Pirate Material about it. But actually this is the view looking out. Sarah was originally wary about the transition from the rolling hills of Bollington, identifying one of our new local London landmarks, a massive painted wooden board with the legend "PLEASE LEAVE ROOM FOR ACCESS :-)" as a downer, an unwelcoming symbol of city life. I think for her it was like a passive-aggressive post-it note scaled up 500% and evidence that the capital is snarling at innocent passers-by. I was like, "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE SMILEY?" That did the trick. It's a pretty persuasive argument.

YOU'RE SO UNFAIR I HATE YOU

2011-10-11T15:33:00.000+01:00

We need someone who's handy at video editing to create a feature-length We Need to Talk About Kevin mash-up so this important joke can be fully realised in time for Oscar season, but I've made a start below, so it wouldn't really be that much work.

Smoke and mirrors

2011-08-25T15:11:00.011+01:00

A strong whiff of media beef wafted through Electric Goose Towers this morning, as we noticed that page 11 of the Daily Mirror featured a story (which isn't online and doesn't seem to have been picked up by any other papers or websites) about an allegedly sexist Ryanair advert which appeared in The Guardian at some unspecified moment in time.

According to the Mirror article, the ad, which was promoting cheap flights to Germany and featured "a large-breasted blonde clutching a huge beer glass" alongside the tagline "See The Frauleins With The Big Jugs", upset many of the "ailing" Guardian's "right-on" readers. It continues, in hilariously sarcastic vein:

Even their own staff were up in arms, some phoning in from their rustic Tuscan holidays to complain.

One said: 'I nearly choked on my gluten-free organic muesli when I saw it.

'We are keepers of the nation's morals, and we let the nation down.'

Of course, only a paranoid and crazy person would suggest the snarky tone of this piece had anything to do with articles like this, this or this…

My most-listened song of 2011 so far...

2011-08-10T20:55:00.002+01:00

...is 'Powa' by tUnE-yArDs. I can remember the first time this came on my iPod: I was walking through the small Cheshire village I seem to have temporarily found myself living in, just coming up to the canal which for some reason is suspended overhead like a watery monorail track - and it made me grin like a local cat. (A similar thing happened when I heard Gablé, incidentally, but that's a different post.) From the pictures I've briefly seen of Merrill Garbus - for it is she, and that name really is hers - I imagine she wakes up with astonishing splashes of colourful paint daubed on her face, with white feathers slowly falling to the floor around her bed, which is quite possibly held off the ground thanks to a delicate framework of twigs and pipecleaners. Here's 'Powa' live: amazing in every way.*

* unless you think her voice sounds a bit silly.

Apples. Lots of apples.

2011-08-05T21:09:00.000+01:00

Despite its wrenching pain

2011-08-04T22:45:00.002+01:00

Horse and pigs

2011-07-31T16:59:00.000+01:00

Snowdon

2011-07-26T17:47:00.002+01:00

On my 30th birthday back in April, we sat by the pool and went on a leisurely stroll to a bookshop. On my wife's 30th birthday, we climbed a mountain. It was insanely hard work, particularly because we didn't have enough change for the car park and so in theory had to be there and back in under four hours, a challenge which would have stretched even Tenzing Norgay to the limits. Actually, you can get a train to the top of Snowdon, but as you can see from the pictures I took, the locomotives aren't actually big enough to carry real human beings, so you're better off walking.

Pics were remixed using this site.

Torchwood v The Day Today

2011-07-11T16:36:00.004+01:00

The Apprentice v Inception

2011-06-30T18:57:00.000+01:00

This sums up The Apprentice boardroom squabbling for me

2011-06-15T23:17:00.004+01:00

What's a riff between friends?

2011-06-05T20:21:00.002+01:00

Photos from Ireland

2011-06-03T17:19:00.000+01:00

All taken during our April trip to Bunratty and Limerick. When did I become so obsessed with signs? Damn you, M. Night Shyamalan!

India: the end

2011-04-12T12:29:00.002+01:00

View India 2010-2011 in a larger map

Beds slept in: 62
Books read: 43
Films watched: 37
Wedding rings lost: 1
Haircuts: 2
Curries eaten: infinite

That's that, then. I'll be back in the UK by the time this post is published, freaking out from reverse culture shock - "Where are all the people? This country is so sparsely populated! Where did all the smells go? Why is no one asking me my name, profession and salary in order to gauge my social standing?" etc. Normal Electric Goose service - i.e. infrequent posting and embedded YouTube videos you've probably seen already - will be resumed in a few days. Namaste!

India part 32: Vagator

2011-04-11T09:31:00.002+01:00

Aside from our last night in Mumbai, Vagator was where our trip ended, with a week of luxury that came by accident about after I cleverly mucked up the honeymoon bookings back in October. I was in my 20s, then, young and foolish.

Frankly, it's too late in the day to start boring you with well-worn travelogue dialogue about how India is a land of contradictions and all that, written from the poolside, so (assuming nothing very exciting happens during the 24 hours we'll be spending in Mumbai) we'll finish with a typically Indian scene, in the form of a photograph of one of the unusual lifeguards to be found along this beautiful stretch of coast.

Signs I have seen #424-430

2011-04-10T13:49:00.001+01:00

Signs advertising businesses in India can go one of two ways. There's the example above - self-effacing - and the below - nicely bashful.

But sometimes the modesty goes a bit too far.

Things can go completely the other way, however, with tons more swagger and own-trumpet blowing. I mean, this is all right, I guess...

And this is more cheeky than boastful...

But this is getting a bit up itself...

And this is just ridiculous...

India part 31: Arambol

2011-04-10T10:33:00.000+01:00

We experienced the festival of Holi in Arambol, Goa, because Hindu celebrations are always the best when you're in a majority Christian area *ahem*. You know those amazing glossy pictures you see, grinning purple urchins and so on? Not representative: a lot of the folks just look like they've had an accident with a fluorescent marker, and some Westerners, hipsters undoubtedly, seemed to end up with nothing but bright red beards or green cheek streaks that reminded me of the kids at last year's Latitude festival. So, in feeble protest (also at the fact that Sarah's colour attack actually sounded quite unpleasant), all I got was a picture of a cow. On Holi. Hmmm, cow, Holi... Can anyone think of a decent two-word caption I can use for this one?

Also this:

And this.

Can you tell we're winding down a little, now?

India part 30b: Hampi and Viru - ten pics

2011-04-09T21:54:00.000+01:00

India part 30a: Hampi and Viru

2011-04-09T09:13:00.003+01:00

In Hampi, with a tear in my eye, I said goodbye to my battered and torn Ganesh manbag, which, in a strange twist of fate, I had actually originally bought eight years ago in Hampi. They don't make 'em like this any more - they genuinely don't, I checked. Goodnight sweet prince.

After a couple of nights in Hampi, we decided to move across the river to Virupapuragadda, something we hadn't been able to do on our November visit, because the river had been too high to cross. Leaving our guest house, a shack huddle called Garden Paradise, some people on the street shouted an offer of a room. We said no; they asked if we were going to "Other Side of River". Yes. A woman tutted and said, with foreboding: "Danger place."

Well, you can get beer and meat in Viru, and frequent wafts of smoke while you're eating indicate that not everyone is taking those "NO DRUGS" signs seriously - but it is also taking a good chunk of business away from the cluttered Hampi bazaar area, so for the people who work on that side, yes, it must seem like Danger Place. And to be fair, some of the restaurants - they all have floor cushions and shin-high tables - do have the atmosphere of opium dens.

Or perhaps she was referring to the nearby reservoir at Sholapur. Hippy types had told us it was a great place to swim, but it took us ages to find it - we nearly ended up walking down this road...

When we eventually did locate it, however, any thoughts of a dip were abruptly aborted: Sarah in particular seemed put off by the sign about crocodiles, for some reason. "I was told they're friendly crocodiles," an Irish woman who wanted directions informed us the next day.

On another occasion, we took an epic walk to the town of Anegundi, doing 5km before breakfast, which turned out to be couscous with pickle and peanut powder. I didn't think they'd even heard of couscous in India, but there it was. An hour later, we were squelching through mud towards a surreal river-edge temple complex and lying silently on the stone floor like bits of rubble.

The oddest thing about Anegundi, though, was how incredibly well-signposted it was, with brightly-painted directions to everything everywhere (though fortunately not Everything Everywhere). It made getting lost a real challenge. On the way home, some guys gave us a lift in the back of their truck. "That's one way to do it," said a man passing on a bicycle.

The rest of our two weeks passed in a slow motion whirlwind of writing, yoga, evening movies, long long walks in the baking heat, rocky sunsets, World Cup cricket games and numerous glasses of milk tea. I also spent quite a lot of time being distracted by a paving stone that stood next to the patio staring at me menacingly while I was trying to write.

Looking the other way, though, there were the paddy fields and I spent long periods staring at them. Mmmmmm, green.

Speaking of green, on the way out of Hampi to Hospet, where we stayed overnight, we stopped for lunch. Here's what you get if you order a cucumber salad in India.

And in case you're wowed by the chef's garnishing efforts, I should point out that Sarah added the pepper herself.

India part 29: Chennai

2011-04-08T11:52:00.000+01:00

Little of interest to report from our one night back in Chennai, but a long journey there - 20 hours from Bhubaneswar (which we referred to throughout as "boobs"), then a a walk round the block to St Andrews' Church, a sleep in a crappy hotel, and an early morning train to Guntakal Junction, followed by a rickshaw across town to the bus stand, a local bus to Bellary (on which I chatted animatedly to two very friendly gents, one of whom was the bus conductor, pictured below) another bus to Hospet, and another bus to Hampi. That was interesting for you.

Signs I have seen #413

2011-04-07T11:39:00.001+01:00

When there is no Blu-Tack...

India part 28c: Puri and Bhubaneswar

2011-04-06T13:38:00.000+01:00

Pictorial highlights from these three places.

India part 28b: Konark

2011-04-05T11:10:00.005+01:00

To the famous Sun Temple at Konark, which is inevitably spelt with an extra 'a' ("Konarak") if you say it out loud to a local. It puts Mamallapuram's Shore Temple to shame, frankly. Our bus from Puri broke down on the way, which was quite a relief, because it was incredibly cramped and hot, and I felt a bit weird listening to Nicki Minaj cussing in my headphones while standing next to a demure Indian lady holding a baby. We managed to jump in a taxi - the bus was never going to be fixed in under two hours, whatever was wrong with it - with an American couple who liked rock-climbing and an English woman whose next stop was South America - she said she'd been offered a job as a weathergirl there.

Just a warning, before you scroll down: some of the temple's carvings are enough to make a Premiership footballer blush. Or, as the Rough Guide puts it:

Konark, like Khajuraho, is plastered with loving couples locked in ingenious amatory postures drawn from the Kama Sutra - a feature that may well explain the comment made by one of Akbar's emissaries, Abul Fazl, in the sixteenth century: "Even those who are difficult to please," he enthused, "stand astonished at its sight."

Or am I seeing an innuendo that isn't there? Here's what it all looked like, anyway.

India part 28a: Puri, Konark, Bhubaneswar

2011-04-03T13:28:00.002+01:00

The overnight train from Calcutta exhausted us both; I hardly slept, even though my fellow passengers were relatively quiet. Having said that, a noisy chai-wallah did come round at around midnight - not an ideal time to take tea, imo - and half an hour later, a man was hocking up phlegm so noisily it sounded like he was vomiting a shoe.

Within three hours of arriving in Puri, Orissa - east coast, yo - we wandered to the garden lushness of Golden Green Restaurant, where the menu temptingly dangled the offer of a "jam burger" in front of us for just 15 Rupees. We walked in to Arcade Fire's 'Keep the Car Running', the title of which could have been code for "get out, quick", I suppose, but is also a Good Song, so I took this as a Good Sign. And it was: both the restaurant, which we returned to several times, and Puri were lovely. Each traveller ghetto has its own peculiarities, and this one's was the abundance of restaurants and cafes with amazing leafy gardens.

Puri's other quiddity is that everyone here is obsessed with this strange little god called Jagannath. Here's what he looks like:

Not really your average Hindu god, right? Cute, though. He has his own eponymous temple, in town, and an enormous festival dedicated to him; also, his big round eyes stare out from every other wall.

In Puri, we met Paul, a Scot with a voice like Ivor Cutler and a face like Iggy Pop. We asked him how long he'd been travelling for: "Twenty years." He declared himself disappointed with the "smoking scene" in Puri and suggested we stay "out" for another year, citing the recession as a good reason not to go home. I suspected his suggestion was less out of concern for our well-being than to add two more drifters to the world's pile to keep him company. He said he'd advise any young person these days to take out a loan "from anyone stupid enough to give them one", spend it all, and declare bankrupcy. I'd just read the much-shared BBC article Twenty reasons why it's kicking off everywhere and I guess what he was saying tallied with point one: "At the heart if it all is a new sociological type: the graduate with no future." Interesting fellow.

There were other interesting fellows in the same restaurant; the next day, while I scoffed the biggest pile of fruit, muesli and curd ever seen by human eyes, I tried to block out the voices of an American, an Italian and an Australian talking about bloody Shantaram, the American's "like"s getting more and more noticeable, reaching an insane level when he started talking about people who, like, like Shantaram and those who, like, don't like it... Later he went a bit nuts, apparently suggesting the Aussie was comparable to those who commit genocide because he made a few observations about "Indian people"; this guy seemed to be suggesting, with classic rising inflections, that just to use the word "Indian" was racist, because India is, like, so diverse? And grouping people together like that is really narrow-minded? The Aussie fairly reasonably explained that what he understood by the fairly well-recognised term "Indian" was "people who live here in the country of India". The American, who didn't really respond to this defense, did a "Jerry Springer's final thought" type thing at the end, sounding very superior: "You're just saying this is your perception and not necessarily the ultimate reality? And that's fine, I'm sure you mean no harm by it, but for so many people it is the only truth..." Blatantly a Eng. Lit. student (with modules in structuralism and post-colonial studies).

India part 27: Siliguri

2011-04-02T13:28:00.000+01:00

We spent a tragic six days in Siliguri, an utterly unremarkable city, waiting to see if the strike would end. It didn't. At first we stayed in a hotel where they'd forgotten to take the cellophane off the ceiling decoration.

After two nights, we downgraded to somewhere that didn't have ceiling decorations. Sarah went on a secret assignment and I stayed inside and did some writing. Then at some stage - the chronology of it all has defeated me - we saw some kids in a parade, and thought it might be Holi, one of India's most famous festivals (the one where everyone throws powder at each other). But it wasn't - this was some kind of big-up to Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of wisdom. Word.

If you ever get stuck in this city, though, I'd strongly recommend eating all your meals in the Vinayak Hotel, where we had two of the best feasts of our whole trip. Here's the most joyous picture of all, though. So long, suckers!

Signs I have seen #401

2011-04-02T08:45:00.000+01:00

At least you're honest.

India part 26b: Darjeeling

2011-04-01T16:51:00.004+01:00

The next day we bought a paper - pretty much the only cash transaction on offer, apart from buying bandages and mineral water - and found out that two protestors had been killed by the police in Sibchu. Pondering this, we went on a long walk up to the northern end of the town passing, on the way back, a smouldering building, which we soon found out was the charred remains of the tourist office. Okay, then.

Within a couple of hours of arriving back at the hotel, we got word that the police were evacuating all foreign tourists from Darjeeling. With the good wishes of our worried hotel manager ringing in our ears, we checked out and joined about 10 other backpacked foreigners outside, where we were marched down to the police lines a kilometre and a half off, passing on the way a woman burning a shoe, presumably in homage to the Charlie Chaplin movie The Gold Rush. On arrival, we found a sizable gathering of cops in camouflage gear. Many had rifles, but some just had wooden lathis and charming wicker riot shields. It was amusing, amid the helmets and berets to see the odd police wearing one of those woollen Tibetan hats, usually seen on old women and stoned Westerners.

For some reason, given the apparent seriousness of the situation, I thought we'd be on the move quickly. But we were still working to Indian time and sat around for an hour until a police van drove us back up the hill we'd just walked down. We then sat in the van outside the Foreigners' Registration Office for over two hours, apparently waiting for more transports for the other tourists so we could drive in convoy (there were about 30 or 40 of us by this stage). And Sarah and I had thought we were the only ones left in town.

Passing the time, an Australian girl related to us how she and her friend had gone for a walk the day of the protests and, heading past the Magistrate's residence, she had taken a picture of a car, a White Ambassador. "For no reason," she said. "It was just a random photo, really." She showed us the snap on her digital camera. "And the next day," she said, "This was in the paper." She pulled out a clipping from the Times of India. It was the exact same photograph - same car, same angle, same size - except in this picture, the car was on fire, having been torched by protestors. We were all flabbergasted and wondered whether her camera had magic powers. I asked her not to take any more pictures of the van we were sitting in.

Just before we left, the man who'd taken our passport numbers for the embassies popped his head through the back door of the van and asked, "Finished?" This question was greeted with no small degree of hilarity, since we'd been sitting there doing nothing for two hours. "I think the question is, are you finished?" quipped the hairy Australian sitting next to me. After a long, bumpy drive, we got to the city of Siliguri at about 11.30pm, the police dropping us all at the roadside.

Although the afternoon's events had implied a certain gravity in the situation, the atmosphere in the town hadn't seemed that edgy. There were lots of people strolling around (usually in the opposite direction to me and Sarah), kids playing cricket and badminton in the empty streets, teens opting for hacky sack using what looked like rolled-up pan scourers, the benches of Chowrasta (the central square) filled with the usual bunch of old men, perhaps reading their newspapers more intently than usual, and the shutters down absolutely everywhere. Even the protestors' gathering point, which we'd visited the previous day, hadn't exactly been animated, with lots of people staring up wistfully at the Gorkhaland sign and a small line of women holding up the movement's distinctive green, white and yellow flag.

The next morning, we'd peeked out the window to see a hundred or so protestors filing past, though we had been warned not to do this by our anxious hotel manager. "They get very emotional," he said, shaking his head.

India part 26a: Darjeeling

2011-03-31T11:31:00.005+01:00

Or do I? The plan was to spend a few days in the hill station of Darjeeling, then head on east to the obscure village of Mungpu, where Sarah was set to do some teaching. The plan was thwarted by the echoing repercussions of history and race, as usual.

The views in Darjeeling are breathtaking, though we couldn't actually see any of them, due to clouds. Instead, we saw St Andrew's Church, which could've done with a scrub...

...and visited the two-in-one zoo and mountaineering institute:

Then, on the evening of the third day of our stay, things got interesting, and we were forced to begin preparations for a siege. It was announced the town would be shutting down to show their solidarity in favour of the creation of the independent state of Gorkhaland. I shouldn't have made that joke about 127 Hours in Calcutta.

"When you said Darjeeling was a striking place, I didn't think you meant this!!11!!1!" As a result of the action, everything and everyone was closed, with pharmacies and hotels the only exceptions (and even they started locking the doors behind you).

As it became clear that the strike would be indefinite, the tourists started fleeing and we watched from our hotel room window as a long line of jeeps headed down the mountain. Sarah and I thought on it, and decided to sit it out. I felt like the guy in the movies who passes up his place on the last chopper out of the embassy to stay behind and help the people - although our plan was actually to eat biscuits and watch Burn Notice on TV. Our reasons for staying were fairly prosaic and practical: Mungpu is only 35km away, and the trip back down to the plains long and sick-inducing.

To be continued...

Signs I have seen #394

2011-03-30T16:56:00.002+01:00

Hmmm, bit vague, I think you're making this up.

That was at Darjeeling zoo, by the way. I do wonder if this bear-fighting dog might have taken its inspiration from Star Wars bad guy Jabba the Hut, and Han Solo-ed this poor grizzly:

India part 25d: back in Calcutta

2011-03-29T15:45:00.009+01:00

After attempting and failing to go to a Botanical Gardens in a variety of cities, and also managing to not get a decent picture of a butterfly a number of times - the fiends kept flying off - in Calcutta, fresh from our Sundarbans trip, I managed to achieve both.

The gardens also featured the delights of India's biggest Banyan tree. So massive, I couldn't fit it all in.

Banyan trees are a pretty scary idea as it is - this one had spread its 2800-odd offshoots over a ridiculously large area and looked like something out of HR Geiger.

Some of the roots are thick enough to resemble trees in their own right; some are spindly and propped up by wooden crutches, as if Salvador Dali had done a turn as a park ranger. The only drawback of the gardens was that the ticket people confiscated our bottles of mineral water on the way in, which meant we could only stay as long as thirst allowed. As I noted in my diary, this turn of events was startlingly reminiscent of the protagonist's predicament in 127 Hours, which we'd seen at the cinema the previous day. Thankfully no arms were sawn off during our frolicking amongst the foliage.

The other memorable thing about Calcutta was that it was the city in which I finally finished reading Roberto Bolano's monster masterwork 2666. Let us celebrate with one of my favourite quotes from the book:

That night Reiter wasn't tired and the full moon filtered through the fabric of the tent like boiling coffee through a sock.

India part 25c: The Sundarbans

2011-03-28T13:15:00.016+01:00

On day two, it was all aboard the boat, which appeared to be named after a blunderbuss-toting red moustache-wearing cartoon character (unless you spoke Spanish, of course).

In summary: no tigers, but plenty of saltwater crocodiles, wild boar, deer, Brahmin kites, Kingfishers, curfews and egrets. I wish we hadn't seen any of the latter, so I could write: "Oh well, no egrets," - but never mind. There were also tons of Indian tourists ignoring the wildlife and instead taking pictures of the three of us, many without asking first, which is rare. Say cheese, guys!

Ajay, Mowgli's young cousin who was looking after us for the day was very disdainful of them. He turned out to be a delightful raconteur, telling us a good anecdote about being ambushed by his family on Holi, and a more worrying one about a British-Gujurati girl who was, to all intents and purposes, stalking him from afar. He did have occasional moments when he seemed sullen, as if Sarah and I were his parents who he has embarrassed to be seen with, but then this impression would vanish and he'd start on another enthusiastic story. Later in the evening we walked a few kilometres with him to a cafe for chai and sweets, getting another bicycle cart back, with the road flickeringly illuminated by the naked flame the driver was using in lieu if a headlight, and the stars seemed brighter than ever.

The next day we wended our way back, via a number of tea shops, before getting a lift to Calcutta with Mowgli, getting to experience his pimped stereo. It cost a sixth of the price of the car itself, he told us proudly. Unfortunately he had a fondness for substandard house music and skipped over any promising-sounding hip hop, presumably in case P was offended by the language. More irony, since when we arrived back in Calcutta, she made a comment about Jews which made me wonder if my verdict on her - "Daily Mail reader" - had been a bit mild. Oh dear.

India part 25b: The Sundarbans

2011-03-27T11:29:00.021+01:00

We decided to dip into our wedding gift money and pay for an organised trip to the Sundarbans - pronounced "underpants" - since it's rather complicated to get to without help from someone who knows what the hell they're doing. Also, if you want a meal in that neck of the woods, you have to go and ask a villager in Bengali.

I vaguely remembered hearing about the Sundarbans from reading Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide (my edition had a rather similar cover to the boat's painting above, a coincidence, I'm sure), which had baffled me in parts; I think I must have drifted off during the bit when he explained what a mangrove was. The Sundarbans are a set of ever-changing islands set amid a load of tidal mud deltas. It has lots of mangroves, which, it turns out, are sort of muddy orchards. The thing everyone asks you when you get back from a boat ride through the Sundarbans is "Did you see a tiger?" to which you reply "No" and pretend not to be disappointed, perhaps listing other wildlife you did see.

After a few hours in the car out of Calcutta, we boarded a ferry, which was actually more reminiscent of a wooden longboat with a motor, then, in one of the coolest bits of our whole India trip, had a half-hour ride across the peaceful and remote island of Gosaba on the back of a bicycle-powered cart.

We arrived at our hotel, which truly had the hardest beds we'd ever experienced - "like sleeping on a table," was Sarah's verdict. In an Indian trope we'd encountered before, the immaculate garden was a thousand times more impressive than the inside, decorated as it was with luscious white, pink and purple Cosmos.

At this stage, my diary says this:

A goat just farted.

In the afternoon, we went for a walk through the village with the other person on the tour, an adventurous older lady from Devon, who I assumed would be called Margaret or Alison, but wasn't, and here will be referred to as P - and our guide, who was nicknamed Mowgli after a run-in a few years ago with a French girl who had dubious levels of political correctness. He seemed quite a serious young man, although he was perhaps disgruntled at P's earlier unsubtle suggestions that his father was a slave-owning pimp (I'm actually serious, though she didn't use those exact words).

After our stroll through the village, which was disrupted by two mad dogs, one of whom got its teeth round my calf, thankfully not tearing the skin or my trousers, we got on a small wooden boat...

...and an iron-armed gondolier rowed us up the silent river.

The waterways here are about three billion percent cleaner than the Ganges at Varanasi, and as we gazed at the birds, the grey swampy riverbanks like sludgy concrete and the passing fishermen, all you could hear was the creak of the boat and the water sloshing gently. Then Mowgli's mobile rang. Though he has the trappings of a city boy - haircut, goatee, souped-up soundsystem in car - when we asked, he professed a love of the countryside. "The more technologies and options, the more puzzle," he said of urban life. Too true, though this prompted P to tell him about the British phenomenon of happy-slapping, calling it "very common"; Mowgli's eyes widened. She then threw an anecdote about a man (black, of course) who stabbed someone after they objected to him throwing chips at them and rounded off with a quick dig at benefit cheats. Littlejohn alert! Ironically, she referred to the happy-slappers as "feral children" - a phrase Mowgli should certainly have recognised given his moniker!

Later that night, we ate at one of the villagers' houses and saw a concert by local Baul musicians. It would've been interesting to find out what they were singing about - "life and culture", according to Mowgli, so it could've been Bengali translations of Coldplay singles for all I know. Between songs, the vocalist, whose voice was hypnotic, and strangely feminine, had the look of a man being stalked by a tiger. During songs, he looked like an Indian Hugh Dennis with bad teeth.

India part 25a: Calcutta

2011-03-26T11:29:00.009Z

We arrived into Calcutta on the Vibhuti Express, which was lacking in both the vegetable biryani I'd ordered on board and punctual ticket inspectors (the guy turned up in the middle of the night, while everyone was sleeping, and promptly switched the light on). The train made up for these shortcomings in grime and mice, which were in abundance, the latter making cameo appearances dashing between the areas under the seats and the former liberally coating our beds higher up. I cleaned mine by dripping mineral water onto the bed's plastic surface and scrubbing away with already-read pages of Private Eye. These then went out the window, as subcontinental litter rules dictate. While I was trying to sleep, I pictured a villager chancing on the filthy pages while performing his trackside excretions in the morning: figurative dirt on British politicians and literal dirt from the passing Vibhuti Express.

Compulsory Calcutta touristy pictures, then:

Six things that have happened while we've been away

2011-03-25T14:56:00.000Z

1. Egypt
2. Tuition fees
3. Japan
4. Wikileaks
5. Libya
6. The Only Way Is Essex

India part 24c: Sarnath

2011-03-25T12:46:00.002Z

This bit is a sort of sideways subsectional branch of Varanasi (it was a day trip, courtesy of a very uncomfortable rickshaw). Sarnath was where Buddhism was invented. 'Nuff said.

Dudes hanging in front of the Dhamekh Stupa near where the
Buddha gave his first sermon. He ain't coming back, boys!

A bit of a Jain temple nearby: gaudy but great.

Nice use of increasing exclamation marks.

Paging Indian Jones.

I'd love to know what this conversation's about.

As my dad remarked: "How many Buddhist monks does it take to..." Here, the gang try
to get a very heavy generator onto a wooden cart amid much mutual hilarity. Some hipster
in East London is in the middle of turning this tableau into a six-part sitcom for BBC Three.

India part 24b: Varanasi

2011-03-24T12:35:00.007Z

Here they are: the Varanasi highlights. Steps feature heavily (not the band). Drying clothes, too.

India part 24a: Varanasi

2011-03-23T12:54:00.003Z

Leaving Lucknow (coincidentally, this is also the name of the made-for-TV sequel to Nicolas Cage boozeathon Leaving Las Vegas) was more stressful than it should've been, because I left the train ticket printout at the hotel and made the mistake of asking the railway staff to help me out instead of just dashing to an internet cafe to print another one - which I ended doing anyway. The culmination of the railwaymen's frenzied attempts to help me find out which train we were on and which carriage we were supposed to be in was being marched to the tourist office - despite the fact that we were in danger of missing the train - to sign the visitors' book and record in writing how helpful they'd been.

The journey was peaceful, though, and I made a sizeable dent in Gregory David Roberts' absolute rainforest of a novel, Shantaram, which is required reading for any India travelling cliche - we've encountered it at every turn - alongside Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger. It's a page-turner, even if there are 936 of the blighters, but physically painful when he starts banging on about the mysteries of fate or talks about a woman's eyes - "the colour of sunsets peppered with the fragrant yellow pollen that floats past the smiles of innocent children playing in apple orchards, the pupils daubed with the specks that spoke of the grief of the recently bereaved" (NB this is not an actual quote, but you get the picture).

Before my mum and dad arrived in Varanasi - parents in India, I know! - Sarah and I did a huge investigative traipse along the river to see the ghats and, inevitably, ended up at a few overlapping funerals. It's a 24-hour business, and walking through the backstreets of Godaulia, you're bound to have to stand aside to let stretchered corpses past. We saw a couple of bodies covered in shawls; our Australian friends Jacob and Laura, who we'd met in Dharamsala and bumped into along the ghats, said they'd seen a pair of feet sticking out of one of the pyres as it burnt. The feet were unceremoniously shoved back in with a stick by one of the attendants. "It was intense," said Jacob.

In many obvious ways, Varanasi's incredible, as you might expect from a place old people go to die. The similarities with Bournemouth end there - it's also a bit of a Lonely Planet theme park and easy to get a full house on the traveller bingo card: one Englishman getting annoyed by urchins trying to sell him candles, two Westerners chatting to a saddhu and hoping people will notice, three boatmen bidding, five Japanese tourists off in their own world, ten pairs of fishermen's trousers, 20 SLRs, HOUSE! But of course, there's lots of stuff you won't see anywhere else, and you will - pictures to appear in tomorrow's post.

Signs I have seen #365

2011-03-19T12:36:00.001Z

It's just a baffling place sometimes.

India part 23: Lucknow

2011-03-18T09:12:00.000Z

Our afternoon stop in Chandigarh was short and sweet. Our journey to Lucknow was long and painful. A bitter wind swept through the carriage and under my ultra-thin sheet, while an unruly bunch of men on our bunks kept striking up conversations in the night, listening to music out loud on their phones, and cracking jokes like they were 12-year-olds at a sleepover. One was even smoking beedis in bed.

Still, Lucknow had its moments. It was here that I realised I had come to love gulab jamun, a sort of Indian sticky toffee pudding with added sweetness, although at the sweetshop/restaurant where we ate, the waiter initially thought I'd ordered soundalike veg chow mein, an entirely different proposition.

After food, we went to see the Shah Najaf Imambara, the tomb of one Ghazi-ud-din-Haidar, who doesn't get a very good write-up in the Rough Guide: "decadent and profligate", apparently. He had a good taste in tombs, though.

In stark contrast, we then tried to go and see The Green Hornet at the cinema, but we'd missed the start, so got a rickshaw back to our hotel. Generally Sarah and I are all about the walking - our stroll in Amritsar led us to a great little tea stand, this place, plus what we thought was a man weaving turbans, but which we later realised were kites. But when your feet can't take it any more, there's nothing like a good autorickshaw ride through a busy city, and our trip back provided a feast for the eyes: two men having a surreptitious conversation by the roadside; a pair of white donkeys sharing a meal of garbage with a dog; a cyclist in a pink shirt and woolly orange tank top; lone women looking stately in the back of cycle rickshaws; fed-up fruit and veg vendors; carts loaded up with freight ten times their realistic capacity... Lists like this could go on for pages, the stolen moments stack up until there are too many for your memory to hold. 'Feast for the eyes' is wrong, actually - it's more like speed-eating tapas.

India part 22: Chandigarh

2011-03-17T16:03:00.002Z

Thought Antony Joseph (he of Ooty Thread Garden fame) was a nutty maverick? Meet Nek Chand.

Okay, that isn't actually Nek Chand, it's a sculpture built by Nek Chand and his team, one of hundreds housed (or gardened) in the famous Chandigarh Rock Garden. Our guide book told us it's "said to be India's second most visited tourist site, after the Taj Mahal", to which I say: "Who 'said' that? Because it sounds like bollocks to me." Not that it isn't massively awesome, though.

Here's the story. In 1957, government worker Nek Chand sneaks onto some private land, and using discarded junk, industrial waste, broken plates and ROCKS, starts building bridges, castles, courtyards and weird statues, creating the kind of rock garden mainly seen in the post-cheese dreams of madmen. He continues this illegal secret activity in his spare time. For 13 years.

One day in 1976, Chandigarh's city government find out about this surreal art-installation-cum-gardening project, possibly due to the fact that it now covers 12 acres of land - 12 acres! Nowadays, they would've burnt it down, seized his Twitter account details and sent him to rot in prison, but this was the '70s; the authorities realised they had an amazing, weird, unique piece of outsider art on their hands, so they gave him some money and workers, and told him to keep going. For the win.

An influence on Gary Larson, perhaps? The exit is funny, because you walk through one of the archways (it looks like any other), and you're suddenly outside and it's all over. We weren't the only ones who made a little disappointed noise when we realised this sad truth. Someone should stand by the exit taking photos of people's faces as they appear, and put them all on a blog, captioning each picture with the word: "Oh."

Still, you can always grab a cup of chai to drown your sorrows. Unbelievably, the tea place is not called the Hard Rock Cafe. Disgraceful.

India part 21: Shimla

2011-03-09T11:28:00.000Z

*Searches diary for stuff about Shimla, finds nothing.*

The Viceregal Lodge, so-called because it houses the Indian branch of Vice magazine.

More Viceregal Lodge action. Probably the setting for at least one Sarah Waters novel.

Indira Gandhi statue, looking a bit Airfix.

Christ Church at sundown...

Christ Church not at sundown.

Finishing with a couple of ker-classic Shimla buildings. The first one reminds me of Cheshire.

Manali afterthought

2011-03-08T08:55:00.000Z

It wasn't until we got to Varanasi a week or so later that I came across this wonderful line in Che Guevara's The Motorcycle Diaries, but it reminded me of our spell in Manali, so here it is:

"Alberto, unmoveable, was resisting the morning sun's attempt to disturb his deep sleep, while I dressed slowly, a task we didn't find particularly difficult because the difference between our night wear and day wear was made up, generally, of shoes."

India part 20: Manali

2011-03-07T08:26:00.001Z

Eleven hours on a state bus wrapped in blankets. Facing a blizzard in sandals. Falling over in the snow and losing my wedding ring. Wet clothes, no coat. Not finding the ring. Returning to a freezing bedroom without a heater. A very upset stomach. Wife getting her face cut by a falling coathanger...

These were just some of the highlights of our visit to Manali. Okay, so it probably wasn't very bright to turn up in January without any warm clothes, but still. "Whole town is close," the bus conductor kindly told us as we rocked up after the mammoth journey, with the snow falling and the dark rising. Thankfully, we'd misheard him: "Old Town" was closed, which is the traveller enclave further up the hill - Model Town and New Manali were fine, and probably a hell of a lot more picturesque than they are without their winter coat.

On the plus side - and we did eventually see the plus side - SNOW YAY. I hadn't really imagined such a thing in India (hence the inappropriate clothes).

On the second day, having shivered through the night with my head wrapped in a scarf, things improved with the purchase of a cheap pair of trainers which I later found out to be Japanese-made badminton shoes and, with my dark blue jeans, made me look like Craig David. Also a coat, which we judged "UK-acceptable", i.e. an item that can be worn or used back home without looking like a dick, unlike much of the produce sold in traveller bazaars and markets (talking to you, man sitting in his lounge wearing fishermen's trousers and playing bongos).

A bit more snug, we made it up to the Hadimba Temple, where the enthusiasm of the Indian tourists, engaged, as usual, in numerous silly photoshoots, started to get a bit more infectious. And there was no denying the existence of a bit of a Narnia vibe.

The sun came out the following day and the snow began to thaw, causing mini-snowfalls as the warmer temperature scattered it from the eaves and ledges. We finally made it up to Old Manali, and lo, everything was closed.

(It was January.) Who needs restaurants and cafes, anyway? Instead, there were loads of kids skiing, sledging and skidding down the streets, some at alarming speeds. Alarming to us, not them, it seemed. By the time we turned round to walk back into town, the thaw was in full swing, and it was as if the trees were throwing snowballs at us. Then, in an unsually un-Indian like act of aggression, a person threw a snowball at us, more specifically at Sarah, so I defended her honour by chucking one back, like that bit in Groundhog Day, as he whimpered, "Sorry! Sorry!" and hid in a doorway.

In summary, then: one million off-season bonus points.

Signs I have seen #327

2011-03-07T07:39:00.000Z

"Actually, I am, you didn't give me time to answer."

Made-up Indian jokes #12

2011-03-03T15:35:00.000Z

And finally...

Q: What was the Buddhist Monk's favourite Seattle-based '90s grunge band?
A: Soundgarden.

Made-up Indian joke #11

2011-03-02T22:22:00.000Z

Q: How do you get a good price when you're buying sandals?
A: Bata.

Signs I have seen #314

2011-03-02T09:47:00.000Z

I think I read about this place in the Daily Mail. Run by green-skinned paedo immigrants, apparently.

Made-up Indian jokes #10

2011-03-01T14:35:00.002Z

Q: Which Star Wars villain has a fondness for south Indian doughnut-shaped lentil cakes?
A: Darth Vada.

Signs I have seen #292

2011-03-01T09:45:00.001Z

It's the place to take your broken stationery...

Made-up Indian jokes #9

2011-02-28T14:33:00.002Z

Q: If the cherry goes on the cake, where do the Jamaican sprinkles go?
A: Pondicherry.

India part 19b: Ten pics from Dharamsala

2011-02-28T13:09:00.001Z

More pics from Dharamsala, McLeod Ganj, Bagsu.

Made-up Indian jokes #8

2011-02-27T14:32:00.000Z

Q: What bread is most likely to repeat on you?
A: Parotta.

India part 19a: Dharamsala

2011-02-27T11:27:00.018Z

We loved Dharamsala. We stayed at the Kasheri Lodge - much recommended. Here's the view from the bed in our room (well, as long as you got up and opened the curtains first).

Again, it felt like we'd entered another country, although our cooking teacher Tashi told us only 10% of the people living there were Tibetan. My previous knowledge of China's occupation of Tibet extended to vaguely remembering that the Beastie Boys once did a concert to try and free it - and to presumably also fight for its right to party. I don't think I'd even seen a prayer flag before and wasn't really conscious of the Dalai Lama's situation and back story, so it was fascinating and shocking to find out the strength of feeling that lay behind signs like this:

While he showed us how to make bread, Tashi, now 35, told us he'd come to Dharamsala in 1997. How did he get here, someone asked. "I walked." He didn't elaborate, apart from to say that it took 28 days. He also told us he was the man responsible for introducing the chocolate momo to the menus of the town's eateries. "No one made chocolate momos when I arrived here!" he said. By this stage, I had gone off them, chocolate or otherwise, after overdosing on mutton momos on the first night. I had eight and I could feel the congealing fat blocking up my pipes.

A series of exhausting early morning yoga sessions helped, though. Our bendy instructor had an immaculate centre parting, gleaming eyes and some wonderful verbal tics, announcing the end of each posture by saying: "Closing time." Another frequently used classic was: "Happy feel, good feel, enjoy feeeeel." And I will never fail to think of him whenever I hear someone say: "Enjoy the all differentdifferent postures."

Made-up Indian jokes #7

2011-02-26T14:31:00.002Z

Q: Why did no one believe in the Sikh ghost?
A: Because it was just a turban legend.

Signs I have seen #257

2011-02-26T11:50:00.000Z

Good advice, this. Now where's my gun?

Made-up Indian jokes #6

2011-02-25T14:28:00.003Z

Q: What did the Indian cop do after catching the minced meat lady thief?
A: Kofta.

THINK ABOUT IT.

India part 18b: Wagah

2011-02-25T11:02:00.003Z

Arriving at Wagah, where India borders Pakistan, you feel like you're part of a line of refugees, with the presence of stern police on horseback ensuring it's the only queue in the whole of India that's actually single file. The Rough Guide to India got there first in describing Wagah's daily face-off "Pythonesque", but there isn't another word for it as far as I can tell: Indian border guards with massive handlebar moustaches and gaudy uniforms high-kick marching like their lives depended on it, the crowd cheering like crazy, and their Pakastani counterparts across the border apparently doing the same. It's two nuclear powers facing off in the silliest way possible every day - I'm not sure whether it's comforting or terrifying.

I found out afterwards that we would have got a better view if we'd flashed our passports, which gets you admitted to the VIP stand. A shame, but then again, the Indian men-only stand was were the atmosphere was at and where all the chants were coming from ("Bharat Mataji!"). As long as you don't mind some dude with a distinctly un-Western concept of personal space using your shoulder to rest his arm on, what's not to love?

I first heard about this place on John Sergeant's BBC documentary about the Indian railways, but it seems this is a bit of a rite of passage for Beeb correspondents making programmes about the subcontinent...

Made-up Indian jokes #5

2011-02-24T14:27:00.003Z

Q: Why did Mr Schuester put clarified butter in his hair?
A: He wanted to join Ghee club.

Signs I have seen #231

2011-02-24T11:50:00.000Z

"Especially you, with your gammy leg and everything."

Made-up Indian jokes #4

2011-02-23T14:25:00.003Z

Q: What's the best hair-of-the-dog Indian beverage?
A: Lassi.

Look, I warned you, all right?

India part 18a: Amritsar

2011-02-23T11:26:00.001Z

Oops. Sikhs holy city Amritsar seemed like a foreign country, perhaps because the combination of cold and fog had everyone shuffling around draped in blankets like turbaned Clint Eastwoods. I'm slightly concerned the thing I'll remember about this part of the trip will be a minibus journey during which I sat in the front between Sarah and the dead-behind-the-eyes driver, with one leg either side of the gearstick, hoping the latter wasn't feeling frisky. Hopefully these pictures of the Golden Temple will crush that particular memory.

Incredible place, sincere respect to the Sikhs.

[More Amritsar pics here.]

Made-up Indian joke #3

2011-02-22T14:24:00.002Z

Q: Where's the best place to vomit up potato curry?
A: Aloo.

India part 17: Delhi

2011-02-22T10:26:00.005Z

I do like my doors.

It was cold in Delhi, which was a bit of a shock for me because I had one pair of socks, no trainers and no coat. Keen to avoid the hotels of Paharganj, which we both remembered as awful and overpriced, we instead stayed at Ringo's Guest House near Connaught Place, which was awful and overpriced. On one hand, our room didn't have any beetles, but it did have holes in the wall, what looked like blood on Sarah's bedsheet, a deeply weird poster of a Thai boy wishing us happy birthday, and a dirty bathroom floor. We asked to have it cleaned, and the man who obliged also kindly dragged the wet, dirty rag across the floor of the room on his way out, smiling at us as he did it, and I'm sure genuinely thinking he was doing us a favour.

Going to visit our friends Eleanor and Charlie at their hotel possibly didn't help matters: they were staying at Claridges. Still, we had beer and fun on two consecutive nights, even if illness from both teams prevented us staying out until the clock struck 2011. Connaught Place was not exactly the party place to be, in fact it was completely empty save for the hundreds of cold, bored policemen hanging about, apparently expecting millions of people to turn up and overthrow the government, as often happens these days.

I don't remember much about how we spent the first day of the new year, but we did pay a visit to the Sikh temple, Bangla Sahib.

Oh, and apparently we also went to the grotty but charming India Coffee House. Says my diary:

I just had a plate of chips. Twelve, to be precise.

And that's it. You ain't shit, Pepys. The next day, though, we went to Humayan's Tomb, where I saw lots of people clearly wondering: "Are you Humayan, or are you dancer?"

Splendid stuff. On the way there - we walked - we were forced to cross a very busy road. There was a man standing next to it doing absolutely nothing and holding a "Delhi traffic safety week" sign. We asked him if he could help us cross, or if there was a subway or bridge or something. He muttered just one word: "Tip?" So we ran across seven lanes of traffic as he watched. What an absolute benchod. Please look at this picture of Paharganj while I fume inwardly for a bit.

Made-up Indian joke #2

2011-02-21T14:23:00.006Z

"Waiter, waiter, why has this sweet bread put me in a daze?"
"You must be having kulcha shock, sir."

DO YOU SEE.

Signs I have seen #192

2011-02-21T12:46:00.000Z

"The food was delicious, but the presentation was poor."

Made-up Indian joke #1

2011-02-20T14:22:00.002Z

Here's the first in a daily series of genuinely groan-worthy gags I've been "working on". I hope you're ready. At this rate, I reckon I could get a high-paid job as a cracker joke writer. I don't think they have crackers in the Subcontinent, so I may just jump off a cliff instead. Anyway, here you go.

Q: What was the name of the Hindu god's Star Wars-related one-man show?
A: Hanuman Solo.

India part 16: Navsari

2011-02-16T11:23:00.002Z

In summary, Navsari was all amazing hospitality, children's birthday parties, weddings, and strange beaches that your feet sank into. The Mahatma, who trod some of these beaches during his salt march, probably had more important things on his mind than weird sand.

And it wasn't a very Christmassy Boxing Day, but it was a very Indian Boxing Day.

India part 15: Mumbai

2011-02-15T12:35:00.007Z

The good thing about flying, apart from the substantial carbon emissions of course, was that it gave us the chance to meet a very strange man on the way. He was American, a Vietnam veteran who seemed to be having flashbacks while he regaled us with self-regarding stories and told us about his battle with cancer. He worked for General Motors and, it seemed, had been on more flights than we'd had hot curries.

Despite getting the Chennai-Mumbai hurdle out the way, we still had to sort out the train to Navsari in Gujurat, because we were planning on spending the festive season with our friend Rakesh and his family. This meant a few more early starts spent hunting for internet cafes. On the plus side, it also meant I got some fine early-morning photos of pigeons hanging out next to the Gateway to India, which lay just a few blocks from our hotel.

The place we were staying had the most genial manager of all time. It was almost painful how genial he was. He also loved to use your name and did so as frequently as possible. When Sarah complimented the Indian railways: "Thank you for saying that, Sarah, because some tourists say they are dirty, Sarah." The other great thing about the our hotel was its proximity to my favourite restaurant in Mumbai, the brilliantly-named Food Inn.

Visiting here gave me the perfect excuse to tell Sarah the joke I made up about the place eight years ago, though she'd heard it many times before.

Q: What does the sign above the toilets in the Food Inn say?
A: 'Food out.'

HAHA. On our last day in the city, as is tradition, we appeared in "a Bollywood movie". The Bollywood movie in this case was actually an Aids awareness advert for Unicef. Normally I don't like to talk about my work for charidee, but since I feature so prominently at 0.25 (one of the hands), 0.27 (the only one wearing a stupid stripey shirt), 0.28 (standing behind the Nigerian "I know" girl) and 0.34 (running a stall), I thought I'd better own up before I start getting recognised in the street.

I spent the wages I most certainly didn't receive what with being on a tourist visa and all that on a few books. Here's what I bought.

Just kidding.

India part 14: Chennai

2011-02-14T09:23:00.001Z

"Beach is Marina Beach, M-A-R-I-N-A," the guide told us, as the tour bus made its way through Chennai. "Is biggest beach in the world, is number two ranking," he added confusingly. The man had more than one odd habit when doing his voiceovers, despite appearing normal in casual conversation (we also spoke informally about cricket, of course). He peppered his utterances with the word "sir", even when addressing a large group of both sexes: "On the left is old secretariat, sir..." And he'd pause in odd places, like a teacher who wants the class to chant the answer: "Secretariat is now using for the purpose of..." Pause, then firmly and clearly: "Library. Is now using for the purpose of library."

The tour stopped at this rather wondrous thing, which shall remain nameless because, um, I've forgotten its name.

And we dropped by the bustling Kapaleeshwarar Temple to leer at some more gopuras.

We also met a man from Mumbai with the most extraordinary toupee - the hair at the back was barely even touching his scalp - and a younger gentleman from North India who was very quiet and who wore a Bluetooth headset over his right ear for the five-hour duration, without receiving a single call. At his request, we both had our pictures taken with him.

We arrived at Marina Beach as the sun was setting, and strolling along, he promised to show us "something beautiful" and marched us across the sand. I wasn't holding out much hope; his claim was belied by the guidebook's description of the beach: "Its location just a little downstream from the port which belches out waste and smelly fumes, combined with its function as the toilet of the fishing community detracts somewhat from its natural beauty."

We walked anyway for at least 15 minutes, but the scenery remained similar and unremarkable: happy families frolicking, nagging beach urchin children each with their own monkey, a consistent trail of rubbish, and so on. We eventually got out of him that he was taking us to a fish market, but we couldn't really see it, even in the distance, though he insisted we were nearly there. I was worried the coach would leave without us, and then more worried when it crossed my mind that he was probably the kind of quiet guy who always minded his own business, kept himself to himself, and then turns out to be a serial killer, and furthermore that the pictures he'd taken of us would end up in some macabre basement collection. In his favour, however, he did seem genuinely surprised when we pointed out there was only 10 minutes left to return to the bus. As we hurried back, I saw a woman on the sand weeping into her hands, while the man she was with tried to comfort her, muttering under his breath.

Mad Men's Peggy Olson spotted in India

2011-02-13T10:40:00.002Z

Below: a photo of a photo I spotted at the Viceregal Lodge in Shimla, where many of the discussions about Indian independence took place. What's remarkable about it is that it appears to show India's first Prime Minister, Jawarharlal Nehru (in office between 1947 and 1964), absolutely cracking up at a joke made by none other than... Mad Men's Peggy Olson! A new direction for season five, perhaps?

India part 13: Mamallapuram

2011-02-12T12:23:00.003Z

Back in 2003, I made up a terrible joke about this place, despite not even paying it the courtesy of a visit. It went something like: Idiot 1: "Excuse me, which member of your family will be doling out our drinks?" Idiot 2: "Mamallapuram." If the captive audience weren't utterly incapacitated by laughter at that, Idiot 1 would then add (referencing a slightly more obscure Indian town): "Yes, but Kanchipuram?" I had a lot of spare time in 2003. Of course, now it's officially called Mahabalipuram, which renders this joke as arcane as this paragraph is pointless.

Our arrival at the fabled place was amusing, since the state bus we were riding on didn't appear to stop there - so they dropped us and our backpacks off at the side of the road on the highway. Luckily it wasn't too far, and it felt cool strutting into town like we'd walked all the walk from Pondicherry.

But on to more important matters. If you wanted to start a mobile ironing business, you'd want to use the coolest, edgiest font possible, right?

The main reason to visit Mamallapuram - apart from getting your ironing done by a hipster - is the Shore Temple, which is sadly not in a great state, thanks to wind and sand and sea erosion. Here it is.

Much better are the Panch Rathas, named after the famous Ramones song 'Sheena is a Panch Ratha'. We visited on a Saturday, so the place was filled with Indian tourists posing in front of the monuments in increasingly hilarious ways. Here are a rare couple of pictures which doesn't feature any of them, for better or worse.

Which is best? The elephant on the Arjuna's Penance carving (c.600-700 AD), or a reclining Ganesha from Mamallapuram's Le Yogi restaurant (c. probably about 2005 AD)? There's only one way to find out...

Mmmm, my most memorable moment in Mamallapuram was hiring bicycles and cycling along the Kovalam Road towards Chennai, where you can see (and hear) the stone-workers chipping and shaving their sculptures by the side of the road. After nearly giving up about 10 times, we eventually reached the Tiger Cave, where there were some more Indian tourists pulling wacky poses. But you don't want to see the Tiger Cave - it looks more like a dragon, anyway. Here's a Shivalingam and Shiva's vehicle, Nandi, the bull, instead.

But it wasn't all frolicking about on bikes gazing in wonder at temples. Says my diary:

Imagine getting up early and exhausted to book Glastonbury tickets, but finding all the internet cafes in town are closed, then there being a power-cut just as they open, and then treading in a cowpat. Oh, and now imagine the reward for all this perseverance isn't actually to get to go to Glastonbury, but instead getting a ticket for a 25-hour train journey. WELCOME TO MY WORLD.

We never did get the tickets I was after; it was nearly Christmas, and the waiting lists were so huge, even the usual Tatkal option (an emergency quota of tickets held back and released at 9am two days before the travel date) was out of the question. We ended up having to shell out to get a plane from Chennai (our next destination) to Mumbai anyway. This saved us a day of travel, but made rather a nonsense of the Rs250-a-night hotel room (approx GBP 3.50) we stayed in when we arrived in Tamil Nadu's capital. Budgeting in India is quite a mindfrog: you can easily find yourself spending twice as much on a meal as you do on a night's accommodation, if you're hungry but don't care about sleeping on old sheets.

India part 12: Pondicherry and Auroville

2011-02-11T07:46:00.000Z

After a lurching four-hour bus journey from Ooty, during which I saw a hotel called "Hotel Cheap and Best" - say what you mean, guys! - we stopped in Coimbatore for some food in a disastrous restaurant where they didn't have any steamed rice (only egg fried rice - in India!), Sarah was accidentally served a meat dish (some of which she unknowingly ate) and the air conditioning was so freezing, I was worried we'd wake up in the year 2195 with only Michael Jackson and Walt Disney for company. The waiter actually asked for a tip at the end. "Not this time, I'm afraid," I chortled.

The food wasn't all that bad, though, and once that business was over with, we hopped on a local bus for about half an hour to get to an obscure railway station nearby called Podanur Junction. You really prove yourself as a Proper Traveller taking local buses in India: the best technique for locating your ride is to stomp around the bus stand ignoring the stench of piss and repeating the name of your destination with a rising inflection to as many people as possible until you're so sick of the sound of the place you're trying to get to you want to give up and go home. And if one of the people you ask happens to be a drunk or a simpleton, you just have to make sure you ask enough sober or sane-looking people to redress the balance. Often the temptation is to give up and get an autorickshaw instead - but if you succeed on finding the right bus, you're rewarded by incredibly cheap fares, half a buttock's seat room, and long, meandering conversations with the locals. On this one, Sarah met a sweet young guy who worked in a clothing factory and dreamed of becoming an Oscar-winning film director. Awww.

Referring to my diary, it seems I wrote nary a thing about Pondicherry and Auroville, but I remember eating lots of quite pricey food and enjoying walks along la tres belle promenade (the town is a former French colony) while small children tried to get Sarah to buy purses. I also had a couple of conversations in very bad French with two old locals, one of whom called me a liar when I told him I didn't speak the language and then dropped in an au revoir at the end (bit harsh, non?). The other guy was blind and told me a story about "la guerre" which I didn't understand.

Ah, yes, and how could I forget this? We saw a Mollywood film star! Mollywood - not to be confused with US journalist Molly Wood - is what they call films in Malayalam, the language spoken in Kerala. Fact fans, prepare yourself for a treat: Malayalam is also the only language named with a palindrome. I once tried to explain this incredibly interesting titbit to a friend and clearly didn't do a very good job, because they initially thought I meant every word in the language was a palindrome. This is most certainly not the case, and would be utterly barmy. Anyway, here he is: Mammooty!

And this is him on Wikipedia, if you don't believe. Arguably just as cool was this guy:

And this guy:

We also dropped by the utopian town of Auroville, which is best known as "the place with the giant gold golf ball", no disrespect intended. [Subs, please copy-paste some paras about Auroville from Wikipedia, thnx.]

Equally remarkable for me was this amazingly green moss. Probably just an alien lifeform plotting to take over the Earth, though.

Then we were, in the words of Jay-Z featuring Swizz Beatz, on to the next one, heading to the local bus stand to try our luck again, and making sure we didn't drop any crisp packets on the way out, because this rather fatalistic sign was already very angry at us.

India part 11d: Ooty finale

2011-02-10T06:36:00.001Z

Not sure why I have so much to say about Ooty, but there you go. We finished up with a day trek up into the tea plantations, with a guide who also had some beef with the Lonely Planet, although this time, it was more to do with vanity - I think they'd just omitted to mention him by name in the latest edition. Still, a nice fellow. We were promised scenery which "looked like the English countryside" and actually, that turned out to be not such an outrageous claim.

But things quickly changed to this:

and this:

For several kilometres of the hike, we were followed by four friendly dogs. "They are here to protect foreigners," said the guide, although the huge quantities of bisuits he fed them might also have been an incentive. Here's one of them admiring the view from the top, which would probably have been stupendous had it not been for thick, thick clouds obscuring absolutely everything.

And, to conclude, I am legally obliged to post the following picture as a kind of obligatory offering to the internet godz.

India part 11c: Ooty - Willy's

2011-02-07T12:40:00.001Z

"I looked at willies on the internet," announced Sarah. It took me a good few seconds before I realised she was referring to an elusive cafe - Willy's - we'd been searching for a few days before. The previous night, realising there was plenty of life in this joke yet - or realising there wasn't but pressing ahead anyway - Dave had enthusiastically told our uncomprehending rickshaw driver: "We're hunting for Willy's!"

Anyway, we found the damn place in the end, and it was a bit of a triumph, with chicken 65 burgers (never had I heard of such a combination) and full of student types who looked like they were plotting their own separate revolutions. It also had a library which contained many Enid Blyton books, perhaps left behind by the Raj as a companion to the railways. I spent our first afternoon in Willy's reading the first half of Mrs B's The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage, which features the Five Find-Outers and Dog, not to be confused with the more famous Famous Five. Sarah asked what the difference between the two was, and I struggled to explain, eventually coming up with: "The Five Find-Outers and Dog are more... parochial." (Although Blyton definitely shows a lack of consistency in her categorisations here, since one of the Famous Five was actually a dog.) For me, FF-OaD's main selling point is the presence of Frederick Algernon Trotteville whose unfortunate initials and substantial girth earn him the inevitable nickname 'Fatty'.

India part 11b: Ooty - being there

2011-02-06T13:29:00.012Z

*Warning: this post contains flowers. Loads of them.*

Although the Lonely Planet's India 2009 edition says otherwise, there are only two things wrong with Ooty's excellent Reflections guest house. One is that hot water is only available between 7 and 9am; the other is that the proprietors are obsessed with their bad write-up in the Lonely Planet's India 2009 edition and won't stop going on about it. Because of the water issue (fair enough really, it is a budget place), Sarah and I got up early - early for two weary nomads, that is - and wandered down to the communal sitting room area where I broke my 'do not socialise with travellers' rule by speaking to some other English people, who unfortunately turned out to be very nice. Most of them were just about to leave for warmer climes, but we befriended a guy called Dave, who bore a striking resemblence to Coldplay singer Chris Martin, though we didn't hold that against him, and the three of us set off for a walk down to the lake.

Along with a dam made of lifebelts, we found a dilapidated but nevertheless popular amusement park and immediately headed to the ghost house, which was mainly scary because they seemed to be playing the sounds of people being tortured at full volume from the PA.

There was also a "Freaky Jungle", which was in a similar vein but with plastic animals instead of wig-wearing skeletons, a flight simulator, which induced an unpleasant combination of nostalgia and nausea, boating on the smelly lake, a games arcade which intermittently switched itself off due to powercuts, and various deserted fairground rides.

But all this was nothing compared to the wonders of Thread Garden.

The brainchild of one Antony Joseph, this one-off attraction consists of flowers made entirely from, you guessed it, thread. Sewn by a team of 50 Keralan women (we never did find out why they didn't use local ladies), it took 12 years to create. The whole thing looked very old and faded, but perhaps this was just a result of bad lighting, for Thread Garden certainly had an exceedingly high opinion of itself. "In all respects thread garden can be rated as the highest art creation of manual effort, that ever brought about successfully in the world," proclaimed one sign. Another declared: "An artistic creation par-excellence challenging the human imagination, it occupies the position of unique and innovative miracle in this era." See its semi-divine majesty for yourself, reader.

The hotel restaurant where we had lunch shortly afterwards was filled with young men in '80s garb - one fellow wore mirror shades and a bandana, and seemed convinced he was the coolest thing in Ooty. Maybe he was, although I'm sure Antony Joseph would have something to say about that. Full up, but apparently still in search of floral thrills, we found ourselves accidentally trespassing in a strange and empty set of horticultural offices, escaping unchastised to the Rose Garden, where we were greeted by another sign distinctly lacking in modesty.

After a poor start during which we began to wonder whether this might in fact be only the sixth or seventh best rose park in the world, we reached the lower levels, which yielded some prettier rosy delights. In a startlingly original bit of symbolism, I photographed some of them against a less-than-glamorous backdrop to give you a mindblowing epiphany about, like, beauty amid poverty and that.

Each variety of rose had a sign next to it bearing the name of its species, or a dedication, or something, and these quickly got weirder and weirder, encompassing sentimental and obvious ("Perfect Moment" and so on), strangely out of place -

- inappropriate -

- and downright bizarre:

After a siesta (or "bit of a lie down" if you're old and decrepit like me) back at the guest house, we decided to head out for some dinner, for some reason setting our hearts upon a hotel-restaurant called Sherlock, which we'd heard had an Arthur Conan Doyle theme. We autorickshawed up to Charing Cross (Ooty is an old British colonial haunt, so you get touches like that here and there), but it was only after we'd started stomping up a giant of a hill in the dark that we realised our destination was quite a trek (3km, we discovered later). Luckily a man in a huge truck stopped and gave us a lift just as we were about to fall down and expire. The three of us squashed into the front as he swerved around potholes and powered around corners, with a deranged and murderous look in his eye.

And then, there we were: a pristine lawn right at the top of the hill, with the stars above clear and many. "Is this Sherlock?" asked Dave to the man who opened the door, adding: "Are you Sherlock?" To our relief, the man nodded, smiling. "Do you do food?" I wondered. Yes, he said, still blocking the doorway. "Well, can we come in?" we laughed. It was a charming and immaculate place, with a log fire and the best Christmas tree we'd seen in India so far (also only the second). As our meal cooked, Sarah and Dave played a game of chess, while I sat in an armchair reading a Sherlock Holmes story.

Fully fed, we took a chilly rickshaw ride back to Charing Cross, dashed to a bar seconds before it closed and bought some Kingfishers. As we carried them back to Reflections, clinking our way along the empty streets, we saw a man interrupt his stroll briefly to vomit onto the pavement before nonchalantly carrying on as if nothing had happened. We drank the beers on the terrace, with the stars brighter than ever, whispering so as not to wake anyone.

India part 11a: Ooty - getting there

2011-02-04T12:24:00.009Z

Forty-five percent of the fun of Ooty - apart from the pleasing name, short for Ootacamund - is getting there, which is achieved by hopping aboard a narrow gauge steam train known as the Blue Nilgiri Mountain Express.

As any fule kno, the train uses the Abt rack and pinion system to wind its way up to the hill station, which basically means it uses cogs and ting, like an oversized bit of Lego.

What do you get for your ticket? Well, there's a Docklands Light Railway-like view if you book a first class ticket...

... which we're glad we did, to be honest - because second class was rammed to the rafters (NB the Blue Nilgiri Mountain Express train does not actually have rafters, this is what is known as a metaphor) with hooting schoolchildren, who would have chorused, "You are from?" repeatedly had they sighted us. Here's our very civilised carriage.

And there are some great views as you make your way up the mountain, too. The kid below wasn't the only one to come over all dreamy.

It's not only very slow, but there are approximately one million and one stops, with some stations consisting of a bit of tarmac and a sign, and very unconventional-looking guards, who look on disapprovingly.

I think this final picture was taken at the end of the line, but I may be wrong. It can happen, you know.

So there we are. Getting on at Mettupalayam, as we did, means you've travelled 41km in four and a half hours, which is twice as long as Paula Radcliffe used to take to run the same distance. They don't make 'em like this any more (except in the UK, of course, hahaha).

Oh, and here's Shahrukh Khan and Malaika Arora heading to Ooty in style...

This just in: Taj Mahal outshone by splendour of this toilet

2011-02-04T12:03:00.000Z

India part 10: Madurai

2011-01-25T16:01:00.003Z

Couldn't find all that much to photograph in Madurai - oh, unless you count the Meenakshi temple. And we do.

This last picture was taken from a hole in the wall at our hotel. Sree Devi was very well located, but our room was not: we slept right next to the noisiest elevator in history. Well, stayed awake next to it, anyway.

India observation #47

2011-01-24T12:02:00.002Z

If there's one thing I've learnt from the subcontinent, it's that you'll never see an Indian whistling a tune. If that's what you've come here to see, forget it. Go home.

*EDIT 3/2/11 7.43pm *
Omg, saw this happening live two days ago, I REPENT.

India part 9: Kanyakumari

2011-01-13T08:33:00.001Z

Kayakumari, which lies at the southern tip of India, where the three oceans meet, seemed to be on fast-forward when we arrived. We were ushered into a rickshaw, promised a rate of Rs.30 (pretty much as low as it gets if you're a gora), and whisked to our chosen hotel. We didn't even get a chance to open our mouths to request room 408 - listed in our guidebook as the one with the best view - we found ourselves standing on its balcony and nodding a 'yes' to the porter within seconds of walking into the hotel.

As well as these lovely ladies in saris, there were busloads (literally) of shirtless young male pilgrims dressed all in black, dashing around at high speed, larking about, and making lots of noise. Kanyakkers is clearly the choice location for the Hindu acolyte's equivalent of a stag weekend.

^ WAHEEEYYYY THE LADS ^

Beach conversation
Sarah: That word, 'God' - it just makes me think of an old man with a bird sitting in a cloud in the sky.
Will: Me too, but without the bird.
Sarah: Beard. Beard. [Sighs.]

Signs I have seen #147

2011-01-08T13:27:00.001Z

Just say no, kids.

India part 8: Neyyar Dam

2011-01-07T13:06:00.002Z

A discovery, courtesy of our four-day stay at the above ashram: I really like yoga. Hurrah! Chanting mantras: not so much. Sitting cross-legged for hours and hours every day: about as enjoyable as sandpapering your own ankles. Anyway, here's an extract from the diary:

My limbs ache. At 2pm we have a lecture. Yesterday's was given by a man who looked quite like the actor Zachary Quinto.

He really did, you know. What's that? More? Okay.

Every morning, we have to do Karma Yoga, jobs around the ashram to help out. This consisted of a rather forlorn-looking man with a beard showing me and a Finnish girl "bin locations". He pronounced these two words with perhaps more gravity than they deserved. We're supposed to pick up full bins and haul them to a spot in the woods where two rough-and-ready Indian men sort through the rubbish, selecting items for compost, reuse, and so on. I suspect they just burn the lot. Still, there isn't that much waste - although there are 250 people living here, there's very little trash generated on-site. Sarah got toilet-cleaning duty lol.

Before you get me wrong, as you so often do, I should reluctantly concede that the whole thing was a really positive and enjoyable experience, and the ashramifications of this are that we are thinking of paying another visit, maybe to one of the Sivananda joints up north. However, the negative stuff is far more fun to type up.

Last night we were shown a short documentary about water. It was dreadful bollocks. This quack in Japan had apparently discovered that you could make water produce "beautiful crystals" if you said nice things to it, or more blobby crystals ("ugly shapes") if you said things like (and I'm quoting): "You fool", "You make me sick" or "I will kill you". I wonder if he got this hypothesis soon after watching Ghostbusters 2, with its psychoreactive pink ectoplasm. Brilliantly, the doctor's experiment even works if you write a few words on a piece of paper and sellotape them to a jar of water - and the scientists in the documentary demonstrated that water understands both French and Japanese! I kept expecting Ben Goldacre to come Tarzanning into the hall. The reason for all this, by the way, was to show that chanting mantras can have an effect on the outside world and therefore mantras are the best thing ever. I shouted, "YOU FOOL" at my water bottle on the way to bed and the liquid within has now turned the colour of Satan's piss, SO IT MUST BE TRUE.

But it wasn't all snarkiness:

There have been some quite special moments. In the mornings, you close your eyes to meditate, and when you open them, the light of day has crept in. In the evenings, you sit with hundreds of people in a completely silent room, and all that's audible are the crickets and the roaring of lions from across the lake.

Lions? Yes, really - there was a wildlife sanctuary nearby. One girl told us she'd visited it and that although there were real lions there, the noise wasn't from them, but was in fact the sound of a tape being played over a loudspeaker. We soon realised this was absolute drivel, since you'd need a PA the size of Portsmouth to achieve such a pointless effect. We left her before she got started on the water crystals.

Signs I have seen #121

2011-01-05T13:45:00.002Z

Back to India stuff... This would work well in an X Factor ad break, I reckon.

My top 50 tracks of 2010

2011-01-04T13:33:00.002Z

Late as usual, but it's occasionally hard finding a computer with a USB port over in India from which to run certain software not available in India, and in the brave new technological world of 2010, a list of songs not accompanied by a Spotify playlist basically amounted to a big slap in God's face. Click here to see and hopefully listen to my festive 50, plus check out three slabs of marvellousness below that had the audacity to not appear on Spotify.

Wait, so 46 songs on the Spotify playlist, three YouTubed above... That leaves one, right? Yup - it's Prince's 'Untitled', the only great track from his album 20Ten, given away with the Daily Mirror, and totally unavailable anywhere.

So instead, here's a brief message from the self-proclaimed Purple Yoda ("straight outta Minnesota!"): "The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it... Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." Um, if numbers are so bad, why call your LP 20Ten? Huh? ANSWER ME, PRINCE.

If you hate Glasvegas this quote will probably not help matters

2011-01-02T15:56:00.001Z

"Somebody was saying, 'What's your problem with the album?' I said the problem is that it sounds like a band. They said, 'What's your problem with that? What do you want it to sound like?' I said, 'A dream.'"

Glasvegas singer James Allan in NME's Christmas edition

On the train to Kanyakumari

2010-12-23T12:39:00.000Z

Sarah: "Listen to this: more water is used to make a hamburger than to shower for seven minutes a day for six months."
Will: "Wow. Hamburgers must have a lot of water in them."
Sarah: [Sighs]

Only in India etc etc

2010-12-22T15:30:00.000Z

"Today, when the prescriptive frame of caste is loosening, and many Brahmins are doing very well in business and management, it is tempting to speculate that their success is only a continuation of the commercial acumen of their more traditional predecessors. In the holy city of Pushkar, the hereditary priests of the Savitri Devi temple have gone to court to compel the guardians of the nearby Brahma temple to share the offerings received from devotees. Their argument is that Brahma, the creator of the world, had 'divorced' his wife Savitri because she did not arrive in time to participate in his yagna (ritual sacrifice) to create the world. As such - so lawyers were arguing in the local court in the year 2001 - the Creator should be made to pay alimony to the Goddess! This attempt to marry mythology to alimony in the quest to raise income must certainly have very few parallels in the world!"

Pavan K Varma, Being Indian (London: Penguin, 2005), p69.

India part 7: Trivandrum

2010-12-21T15:56:00.001Z

How could I have forgotten the Indian Coffee House in Trivandrum? Also known as "that weird red spiral staircase restaurant near the station", their menu offers "liquid coffee", "oval tea" and the not-so-nice-sounding "milk water". It's a filthy place, but when you can flag down a waiter, you can get your mitts on delicious paratha and friend chicken ("chicken fry") with red onion and a hot sauce. "A Trivandrum institution" sayeth the Rough Guide.

We only spent a day in the Keralan capital, but we did manage to pay a visit to the Napier Museum and zoo, where we saw some disturbing and utterly unmoving birds, and crocodiles, who seemed even more motionless.

As a treat, we also went to see the new Harry Potter film at a packed-out cinema, with a quintessentially Indian audience. There was much cheering when the boy wizard appeared onscreen and excited applause followed each hi-octane set piece. Plus the obligatory man in the cheap seats who spends much of the movie barking like a rabid dog. The film itself was a bit disappointing, very uneven, and Radcliffe, Watson and Grint - all decent enough actors on their own - are awfully stilted whenever they're together, visibly waiting for cues and (Hermione particularly) frequently pulling tortured, worried faces.

Afterwards, we went back to our hotel and watched I Love You, Man on the telly, which is far better, and bizarrely, featured a running joke about the high quality of HBO's Sunday night programming (it was on HBO, and it was a Sunday night).

Then we went to an ashram, where there was very little HBO, Harry Potter or fried chicken.

A Keralan haiku

2010-12-20T15:33:00.001Z

Varkala sunset,
Wedded with the hawker's cry:
"Please sir, see my shop."

India part 6: Varkala

2010-12-19T12:32:00.002Z

Signs I have seen #94

2010-12-18T09:33:00.003Z

Um, excuse me, it's spelt... Oh, never mind.

India part 5.5: The Backwaters

2010-12-18T07:14:00.009Z

India part 5: Kochi

2010-12-17T08:23:00.002Z

I think I ran out of steam camera-wise in Kochi... Don't worry, there will be words of unsurpassed lyricism soon, the pictures are nearly up to date. In the meantime, here's an elephant we overtook as we left, a rickshaw rank, a boat under a tree, and a crow. There are loads of crows in India. I was here in 2003, and I don't remember there being crows.

Signs I have seen #73

2010-12-16T14:22:00.000Z

You were mesmerised by CSI: Miami. You were enthralled by CSI: New York. Now, prepare to be thrilled by...