Of course 95% of these ‘travellers’ never stray from a very well-beaten path across Australasia and the Far East created over the last 20-30 years. They return home with tales of beach parties, lady-boys, treacherous boat and train journeys and filled with depression at the prospect of now finding themselves jobless and back in their ‘real’ world. They start dressing in cheap, badly-made cotton clothes and constantly speak of their new found spiritual home in some corner of Asia or South America as though life in paradise was snatched from their grasp by the evils of scheduled air flight. They scoff at any trip you make that doesn’t involve a long-haul flight and a bout of dysentry.

Most of them could experience the same radical shift in culture that has changed their life so dramatically by visiting northern England, but of course they wouldn’t get a suntan there.

Which brings me to India. I’ve met people that have always wanted to go to India, usually to see the Taj Mahal. I’ve met people that have been to India, usually to Goa. I’ve met people from India, but they all live in the UK now. Most of these people have spoken of India’s various charms. The wonderful people, the amazing architecture, the incredible colours, the fantastic food and above all, the spirituality of the place.

I quickly realised that I had fallen into a trap set by the mainstream. I was left exposed to the realities that I would have normally approached with an educated mind and a healthy cynicism. Thankfully these qualities slammed back into place quickly after my first contact with the rude people, the unimpressive architecture, the dirty colours and the bland food. I’d been had, but this was my opportunity to confirm my suspicions about travelling and my understanding of the workings of the world.

I understand that part of the appeal for travellers is experiencing the ‘different’, but to speak to many ‘travellers’, by visiting India you experience something better than we have here. A way of life and a culture that should be embraced and admired. I experienced much that was different, but nothing that made the advances of Western civilisation seem like the ‘wrong path’. I saw a people crippled by their devotion to ridiculous and prehistoric religions. A country crippled by overpopulation encouraged by archaic views on family. Forts, mosques and temples fashioned from local materials, all in the same tried and tested Mughal style and stripped of their original grandeur and opulence many decades before.

I constantly worried that I was missing something. That I’d somehow been distracted from all that is great about India. Yes, I was part of a tour party rather than being an individual traveller, but the only obvious difference for us was that we stayed in nicer hotels. In theory we would be shielded from the less salubrious elements of the country, not denied it’s treasures.

Upon returning home the jealous masses are left incredulous when you regale them with tales of apathy and disappointment. But worse than that is being told that I ‘just don’t get it’ by seasoned India fanatics. Why is my opinion of the place any less valid than that of someone that returned with a new found interest in Hinduism, or a new distrust of commercialism and wealth. Can we not have different experiences?

Am I supposed to feel privileged to witness first hand the suffering of millions of people caused by centuries of political turmoil and devotion to ridiculous religions and doctrines? Is the advance of civilisation in the West somehow less impressive than the ability of a nation of thousands of millions to remain in a primitive state? Should I be bowled over by a 300 year-old marble edifice, when there are myriad more exciting buildings in the UK with much more history and variety? Must I feel guilty that I come from a part of the world where people, on the whole, are happy to help each other and to work together for the greater good? Where poverty is not merely shrugged off as a person’s ‘destiny’?

Yes, India is the third world. It’s a landscape open to drought and flood and earthquake, and yes, it has been exposed to abuse by more advanced civilisations repeatedly over the centuries, but being a spectator to the aftermath is not a comfortable or enjoyable experience.

As with anything I highly recommend you experience it first hand before forming an opinion, but don’t take for granted the tales of paradise that you will hear from some quarters. And don’t expect to return with some sort of spiritual awakening unless you are the sort of person gullible enough to fall for that sort of thing. Remember that most of what you experience as a tourist (or traveller) is there because you are. Either for your benefit, or because of your influence. Religion, spirituality and the dignity of the poor are as readily available for sale as wooden elephants and Taj Mahal fridge magnets.

Back in 1998 (Yikes, ten years!) when I first moved to London and was working for a hip, young noo media agency in Shoreditch, we couldn’t have dress-down Friday as we all wore whatever we found on the floor that morning anyway. We found a different way to make Friday special, which basically involved eating really fattening and unhealthy food for lunch. We christened it Bad Food Friday.

BFF continued for me in various forms throughout the rest of my design career, at various different places of work, but the golden age was during my time at Tonic when we used to visit the local greasy spoon café, Parma. During my last stint of employment in Bermondsey Street I came close to recreating these halcyon days by attending Al’s Café. Cooked breakfast to die for, as well as curry, rice and chips.

Since going self-employed, group activities is one of the things I have missed the most. It is a solitary existence, and moving 50-odd miles from London hasn’t really helped! But I am clinging to my day of bad food by persuading the missus to join me at a greasy spoon in town for bad food on a Wednesday (Jess works at a different campus on Fridays). Not quite up to the standard or atmosphere of Parma or Al’s, but near enough.

The distant sound of the occasional passing Eurostar train is far preferable to the all too regular and alarming sound of planes beginning their approach to Heathrow.

Obviously, with double-glazing I barely hear the trains either, but when out and about the gentle woosh is quite pleasant. In London you get used to the very unnatural sound of constant planes, but since moving down here I haven’t actually seen one.

When waiting at the station it’s a whole different ball game. The Eurostar trains are like a tornado ripping through the place, especially if on the platform next to the tunnel they come flying out of. But it’s exciting more than annoying.

Not all milk has to be purchased from the supermarket, or from the all-night corner shop. There are still milkmen out there. You can still wake up to a bottle on your doorstep, without fear of someone stealing it. The only difference from my previous experience of milkmen (BL - Before London) is that the ‘Use By’ date is embossed on the little foil lid now.

Of course in the old days we had full-fat milk in tall bottles. Now we’re getting skimmed milk, which the milkman scoffed at and called ‘dishwater’.

So against all the odds 2007 eventually ended happily with a move to Kent. We’re still settling in to our new space. Still getting used to all the extra rooms. Still figuring out that we can’t get away with spillages on carpet the same as we could on wooden floors.

I have an office, which since Christmas Day also includes a water cooler. This along with the big desk, new printer, phone, in/out tray, big clock, etc. makes it feel like a proper workplace, which I think is what I need to make me knuckle down as if I was in someone else’s office.

Obviously a plumber is coming in 5 days to rip up the floor and make an unholy mess in the name of a new boiler, but at least it is the quiet period in my working year. Just one Christmas wedding to finish off and then it’s time to take stock and get ready for the summer.

But I do intend to post again before then. Honest.

The sign says ‘Sold’, but right now nothing could be further from the truth. A crack, an observant surveyor, and an even more observant structural engineer have conspired together to take a spanner to our dream of escaping London. Dodgy drains appear to have unsettled a corner of our house, and with unsettling comes insurance hell and buyer disinterest and possibly saying goodbye to our lovely cottage in the country for the foreseeable future.

Depressed doesn’t even begin to describe our current state of mind.

Is it really mid-April?! Blimey. What changes have remained undocumented here in my blog? Not much really. Just a complete change in my lifestyle, an imminent change in my location and untold other little things along the way. Lets start with the main one.

The Plan™ has been achieved. Not the way I intended it, but I’m not complaining. After spending the last 6 years trying to escape the unfair pigeonhole of new media and be recognised as a print designer, in February I found myself on the receiving end of a redundancy as the company I worked for closed it’s print department.

Downheartened? Yes. Disappointed? Not really. My interest in my design career fizzled out almost two years ago and this was the kick in the arse I needed to take my burgeoning photography business seriously. I considered getting another design job for about 30 minutes. I considered throwing myself into a serious freelance design career for about a day. In the end I know what I have to do to achieve my dream and those things would just get in the way.

So, some careful financial restructuring, a bit of helping/freelancing for previous employers to top up the coffers, and away we go. Ignoring the naysayers. Not worrying too much about the risks. Not looking down.

Plumbers. It’s been said before, and it will be said again, but plumbers (and builders) are the most unreliable, work-shy, useless bunch of overpaid scumbags known to man. Why they can’t keep an appointment is beyond me. Yes, work can take longer than you expect, or things can go wrong, but why when Mark from ProPlumb said he would be with us at 9am on Thursday did we get a call at 10am saying his first job that day(!) had over-run and that he would be a bit late? Why then did we have to contact him ourselves at 2pm to find out where he was only to be told he would come Friday morning instead? Why at 1.30pm was there still no sign of him forcing us to call him again, only to be told he had passed the job to someone else who would come Friday evening when we will not be in?!

I wouldn’t mind if this was a one off, but it seems that every, single, bloody time we try to employ the services of one of these characters the same thing happens. ‘Yes, we’ll be there at X o’clock on Xday.’ ‘Sorry, unexpected delays.’ ‘Sorry, we can’t make it until next week now.’ It’s not like plumbing is even chuffing difficult!!

I fitted a bath, sink and toilet myself this summer just to avoid having to deal with these charlatans, and it was easier than tiling the wall! I even rerouted the plumbing to do it!! If I thought I could figure out the boiler by reading a few websites I’d do it myself. As it is I now need to find another plumber who can come in an evening or a weekend as the wife has wasted the last two days of her holiday waiting in for this guy.

I”M AS MAD AS HELL!

In the dark days at the end of 2006 I promised Jay a compilation CD of music that had graced my ears recently. We used to work together, and I guess I used to introduce her to a bit of new music occasionally. I have a tendency to be a bit of a music fascist, so I thought I’d update her.

The actual music was the easy bit. I got that all sorted (2 CDs worth) back in December, but since then I have been trying to find time to produce the cover art. This is a common problem for me. I get hung up on pointless details, leading to procrastination on a grand scale, and eventually the scrapping of whatever it was I was doing.

This is a particular problem with a compilation of recent music as it’s out of date already. I’m just going to sit down and do it tonight. No farting around. No slaving over details. Just get it in the post so I can begin work on the next one. I’ll post the track listing once she has it. Don’t want to ruin the surprise now.

I love my SLRs. My 20D has been a faithful companion on my daily trips to design studios for a couple of years now. But recently I have been considering the merits of owning a compact camera again.

My old IXUS 400 is now in my Jess’ possession, but I borrowed it for the day. The ability to have a smaller bag, that isn’t a heavy load swinging off my shoulder has great appeal and I even managed to take it out and grab a few shots that weren’t as bad as I expected. The focussing and start-up are painfully slow, but I imagine these and other issues will have been ironed out in the Canon G7.

Yes, the lens isn’t as fast as the G6, and no, it can’t capture RAW images, but it looks great and will be a worthy addition to my arsenal. And I might be more inclined to carry it around with me more often and actually post to Flickr and Blipfoto daily. Shock horror.

Just the issue of the money to buy it with then.