Some Other Stuff Happened

So what about the rest of the week? To be honest, it felt rather like the gap year I never had, crammed into three days: I lay on my bed listening to the minarets, waiting for the immodium to kick in and watching a solitary cockroach scuttle up my wall, and I thought: wow - this is all rather exciting. Aside from Bethlehem, we went everywhere - Masada, the Dead Sea, Nazareth, Caeserea, Tiberius...

Geographically, Israel is the most amazing country I've ever visited. Roughly the size of that universal unit of measurement that is the Wales, Israel neverthless manages to cram into itself just about every type of scenery possible. Head towards the North, and you could be forgoven for thinking you've stumbled into North Yorkshire, with huge, rough moor-like hills liberally covered with sheep for as far as you can see. Head west a little way and you're on the Med, and could easily mistake your surroundings for Sicily, or the Greek islands. Turn around and head south, and you could be in the middle of the Grand Canyon; mosey into Jericho, and you're in the middle of a desert. you simply don't get this in the South East - frankly a hillock constitutes news in South Camden.

So when we weren't hopping around being Pilgrims we were hopping around being tourists, and the first obvious stop was the Dead Sea. At -418 metres below sea level, the Dead Sea boasts, amongst its more famous accolades, the Lowest Bar in the World, where you can buy coca cola, Budweiser and other products imported from the USA. Admittedly this fades into insignificance alongside the Sea itself, famously full of salt to the extent that nothing can live in it, and shrinking at an alarming rate each year to such an extent that within 100 years it will probably have gone altogether. It's claimed that its waters, 8.6 times saltier than the ocean, apparently, and mud have healing properties, a fact that makes a lot of money for their gift shops where bottles of the stuff are sold by the thousand. I don't know about that, all I know is the water flippin' hurts on mouth ulcers. There is nevertheless something rather exhilirating at being able to fall backwards and then bob up and down with absolutely no effort, and I like the Dead Sea.

Next stop Masada, about which I had strangely mixed feelings. On the one hand I felt a sort of spine-tingling exhilaration gaping out of the bus window at the vast and awesome scenery, complete with the occasional camel; on the other three of us, me included, spent much of the trip retching into Tesco bags, which did mar the mood slightly. Probably fortunately for me and everyone else on the bus I eventually emptied my stomach in the toilets at Masada and happily moseyed up to Herod's fort to some of the most stunning views I've ever seen. Masada must have been the most impressive of palaces, though it's famous mainly for the mass suicide of all of its 960 citizens while under siege my Romans, which frankly strikes me as a bit over the top, not to say daft.

Another seriously odd place is Jericho. For a start we're told that, if we're asked at the checkpoint later on if we've been there, we have to say no. This is something to do with the Intifada. Jericho is in many places a depressing place. Once rich in tourism not only due to its historical and Biblical fame, but also because it was home to Israel's only casino (gambling is banned in the State of Israel, but the Palestinian Authority's control of Jericho resulted in a nice loophole which meant that visitors and their cash came from afar for several years). Since the Intifada, though, tourism has unsurprisingly dropped massively. The casino has gone; the houses look tired and the whole town is in need of a bit of a face-life - it's a bit like Blackpool out of season, only uprooted and plonked in the middle of a desert. We do however visit a fabulous foodstore and leave with arms full of succulent Jericho oranges, dates (which are of less interest to those of us still on the immodium) and Turkish Delight to die for. Jericho also affords us one of the more interesting photo opportunities of the trip, in the shape of PLO-founded Al Quds Open University, its titled daubed in chalk above what looks like one of the body piercing salons in Camden Town, flanked with posters of Che Guevara and Yasser Arafat.

Tearing through the Jordan Valley, gazing into a whole other country on one side of us, Morrissey aptly singing "I will see you in far off places" on my iPod, I am, for a moment, utterly content. We pass by nomads, the children playing outside makeshift, ramshackle, corrugated iron dwellings, camels teathered outside and, anachronistically, satellite dishes on the roof. Maybe they can't cope without the cricket (which incidentally was going rather well this morning... less so now...)

Primal Typing Therapy

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!


EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!


HEUIYR5NCYDNCPUZNYA8O;WYCBZY;DCHA;HCBO'VECFUOBLUICYTXOY;RGIBYR!


* * * *


[and breathe]

In general I agree that one should never meet one idols - invariably they turn out to be dickheads. This isn't always the case - I met Ian McShane once and he was very sweet (and very short); I also met Dean Windass, whose goal against Yeovil had won me some cash, and despite the fact the mighty City had just won all thanks to him and here was a young woman offering to buy him a drink with her windfall, he still glared and grunted then stomped off. I wouldn't necessarily rate either as an "idol", but, well, it's all good practice.

Then a few weeks ago, purely by chance, I met Alan Bennett! I can't even begin to to sum up in normal language how amazing this is. I have a sort of vague hierarchy of people I admire, which is a somewhat eclectic mix featuring the likes of Michael Palin, Desmond Tutu and Morrissey. But Alan Bennett would probably be right at the top.

I've loved Alan Bennett since I was a very small child. Being a good Northerner and the daughter of one good Northerner (and one good Southerner with very well honed literary tastes) one of the things I remember as a very small child is listening to Alan Bennett reading the Winnie the Pooh stories in that perfect and unique voice of his. Thus begun a sort of addiction.


Anyhow, having devoured everything of his I could the older I got, I eventually wrote to him a few years ago after my grandmother died. This sounds perhaps a little odd, but I'd just read "Untold Stories" and a lot of the things he wrote about his mum and her dementia rang true, so I wrote to say thank you, and to share a little piece of quintessentially Northern humour (when we drew up to meet the hearse on the day of the funeral my dad somewhat bizarrely asked the undertaker "How's business?" and he replied "Oh great! We've had two new ones come in last night!" Then we buried by granny.) It never occurred to me he'd write back, but he did - a little postcard thanking me for the letter, and including a brief anecdote about Thora Hird. Apparently he does this, and I think that's lovely. Anyway, I was coming home from work unusually early - about 4.30 - and was on the tube - also unusual. I was plugged into my iPod and happily dousing myself in a spot of Morrissey when I glanced down the carriage and most probably physically jumped in my seat when I saw him sitting a few seats away. I agonised very brielfy about leaping up and saying hello, because he was engrossed in the Guardian (I was relieved to see he reads the Guardian) and didn't give the air of someone who wanted to be disturbed. Rightly or wrongly, I decided I couldn't pass up on the opportunity to say hello, so I sidled up to him and apologetically said that he'd written to me a few years ago and that I wanted to say thank you.

"What did you write to me about?"

I told him and he smiled politely - I suspect he didn't remember. So I elaborated, told him my grandma was from Bradford, and that his stories rang nostaglic bells with our family.

"Are you from Bradford?"

Sort of, I said, but I'd moved. I wasn't really from anywhere...

He sympathised, and we talked a little bit about accents, because both our accents were considerably more Northern by this part of the conversation than they had been at the beginning. We don't fit anywhere - Southerners think we're Northern, and Northerners think we're Dead Posh.

I got off at Goodge Street, which wasn't my stop but I didn't want to disturb him any longer, but I hope the conversation didn't irritate him. He came across as a truly lovely, quiet and self-effacing sort of person who liked anonymity, but I hope, in this instance, being recognised was a pleasure and not a trial, and that he understood how appreciated and admired as he is by an awful lot of people, it's just I happened to be the person with few enough inhibitions to toddle up and say so.

If It's Wednesday It Must Be Jerusalem

I've never been on an organised tour holiday before, and I have to say I'd think twice before going again. First of all, we have a schedule, and woe betide anyone who messes with it. Now I'm all for having a brief idea of what you want to see, and, as a result, an outline of when you intend to see it, but when this starts to interfere with the experience you start to wonder if it's all worthwhile. Take the Holy Sepulchre, for example. We are marched into this grand building, given a brief talk about what it is, then, as we gaze in awe at our surroundings and try to digest that fact that here we are, in the middle of Jerusalem, in possibly our holiest site, our guide interrupts ou reverie with a shout of "Fifteen minutes back on bus, chop chop, shake a leg." We then have mere seconds to decide which bit we want to look at most, which is normally determined by the length of the queue, i.e. if there is one (and there usually is) we need to rule that out. Queues normally form in front of objects of veneration. Our guide tells us that the stone at the entrance is the stone that Jesus's body was laid on after death, except that it probably isn't. We can't get to the stone to make up our own minds, because it's covered with weeping Polish women. Later on in the week we visit another site which seems far more likely to be the place where Jesus was actually crucified, and where the weathering of the rocks carved out what is unmistakedly a skull in the cliff face.

So here's a typical day in the life of a Pilgrim on an organised trip:

- Get an alarm call at 5am, even though breakfast isn't until six and you need all of 15 minutes to get ready

- Have breakfast in the hotel. This consists of 15 minutes repeatedly putting the toast through the toaster (I found 8 revolutions gave you something approaching toast) and 5 minutes eating it.

- Put in your drugs order with Fr Angus, who has morphed into Dr Angus and is doing a roaring trade in immodium in particular. This is probably because we were told not to drink the water before being told "And here's some lovely salad for dinner. Would you like ice in your drink?"

- Clamber onto the bus and ignore the arguments over seats. The bus is a bit like a year 7 classroom, in that wherever you found yourself sitting yesterday, this shall be your seat for evermore. Tough luck if you're sitting next to someone who eats their own snot, or, in our case, in front of the happiest man on the planet, who even once referred to himself a "Happy Colin", and who rises at 4.30am daily to sing praises to the Lord before breakfast. Throughout the day, Happy Colin treats us to outbursts of joyous wisdom, including "This is the day that the Lord has made!" to "Blessed is the day when Jesus conquered Satan."

- Arrive at agreed destination and are promptly shown the "Coffee-Out" (the somewhat imaginative euphemism our guide uses for the toilet. Apparently he'll burn if he says "toilet".) If we're lucky there's also a Coffee-In to help us recover from our early start.

- Finally assemble outside whatever it is we're meant to be looking at. Obligatory group photo follows while the guide looks at his fake rolex and tuts. Thus gathered we are given a brief talk as to what it is we're supposed to be looking at, which usually goes something like this "Welcome to the Pater Noster. This is where Jesus is said to have taught his disciples the Our Father. Except he probably didn't. We don't know. Anyway, here's a nice church built on top of it by an Italian bloke in the 1920s, only you can't go in because there are some Poles sobbing on the doorstep. Enjoy! Ten minutes, back on bus, chop chop, shake a leg."

- Get mobbed on the way back to the bus by peddlars that could have stepped straight out of a pantomime trying to flog all manner of jewellery, postcards, wooden shepherds, water - you name it. We are forbidden from buying from these people: "They cheat you. I take you to nice place where you do lots of shopping."

- Arrive at "nice place" to do lots of shopping. This nice place is run by a Palestinian chap called George who claims we are receiving a 50% discount. Baskets are thrust into our hands as we walk through the doors, and free shot glasses of mind-blowingly strong coffee is liberally handed out as we pile ourselves high with olice wood nativity sets, "I Love Jerusalem" plastic snowglobes (oh yes - with pink glitter in place of snow!) and bottles of holy water and oil ("for annointing only") on which there is a three-for-two offer. As we leave we see our guide getting his cut, in the shape of handfuls of American dollar bills.
- Return to the bus, and it's onwards to the next place on the list, where, invariably, there's another church built by an Italian, a garden tended by Franciscan monks and a couvenir shop run by Johnny, "the greatest woodcarver not only in Bethlehem, but in the whole world." In Cana we are told categorically that this was not the same Cana where water was turned into wine - that Cana was destroyed was destroyed centuries ago by an earthquake. But you can still buy wine by the gallon in its many gift shops. We sampled some of their pomegranate wine - I'm afraid I cannot recommend it.

Anyway, chop chop, shake a leg, we pilgrims are becoming tourists for a day.