#flashbacks #London #Toulouse #New York #Madrid #Hartlepool #Warsaw: 2001 … an odyssey,of sorts

And so it came to pass … I moved to London, from Hartlepool, in 1991 and left in 2001. It was an experiment, for sure, and at least a handful of adventures ensued, but it wasn’t quit the smorgasbord of earthly delights that were cluttered in the back of my mind- and the back of my mind always was, and still is, very cluttered indeed. So, I arrived in the very lovely Chiswick in West London, unemployed. Thanks to the kindness of friends and near- strangers I just about got by, but this codswallop carried on? until 2001 when- thanks to a very sensible person’s very sensible decision- I was given the option to go. But what to do? To paraphrase The Lurkers, I dint ‘ave a bloody clue.

So, I went to Toulouse in the south of France for a couple of weeks- I been there before- to get my head together and I had a really nice time, but returned to Blighty with no more of an idea about my next step than I had before. Then, I had another genius idea- since the only way up after London would be New York, that’s where I’d go until the money ran out, I’d write a great novel and be some sort of literary legend, and maybe die on Broadway. Not that I’d written a novel before of even had enough money to live for more than a couple of weeks but so it went anyway, after seeing Ennio Morricone perfprm at the Barbican I had a sort of pilgrimage itinerary set out- CBGS, The Algonquin, The Cheslea Hotel, Myers of Keswick- and didn’t go to any of them. I met Eric Idle on a traffic island near Times Square, and? I did, spend a lot of time in The Collins Bar- a pub with a great jukebox that played LPs- playing 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon with the barman. Yea, I got drunk between the moon and Mew York City, I know it’s crazy but it’s true. Oh, and a friend even offered me to chance to stay at her Atlantic City home. but of course I chickened out and returned to England with my dwindling tadger between my legs…

Now, I was on sabbatical from work and really only needed to find somewhere to live but my booze addled mind wouldn’t accept such a sensible solution, so I hot-tailed it back to Hartlepool. This was actually a nice time but I was itching for something and it was suggested that I take a TEFL (Teaching English as A Foreign Language) course and blag a job abroad.

It seemed a mental idea, but I tried it. I tried to get on a course in Prague but it was full so I accepted Madrid in Spain. This proved to be a great idea and a great summer- except for the 42c heat- and I even, passed the course. I returned to Hartlepool full of vom and vinegar.

Now was that hard part, finding a bloody job in somewhere I wanted to go to. Slumming it in a disease ridden third-world county seemed horrible. Anway, I’d been told in Madrid that ‘Thailand is for perverts and Poland is for drunks’. Sooooo …. it seemed clear to me … I did turn down a job in Bratislava( ‘Fly to Vienna and take the tight train across th Danube …) and it really was appealing However in September 2002 I landed in Warsaw airport – via Amsterdam- and that, of course, is another story …

(c)Paul D. Brazill