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Name: Morris Telford
Age: 33
DOB: 18/04/70
Occupation:Unemployed
Hobbies: Enlightenment, Philosophy, Bingo
Favourite
book – Ordnance Survey Map of Shropshire 1999 edition
Favourite
foods – Pickled Eggs
Favourite
film – Late For Dinner
Favourite colour – The delicate cyan of the dinnertime sky in
Moreton Say.
Favourite British County – Shropshire
Favourite Place – Moreton Say
Favourite Postal Code Area – TF9
Favourite radio
frequency - 96FM
Favourite sound – The gentle breeze rustling through the leafy
glades of Moreton Say
Favourite Clive – Clive of India
Favourite Iron Bridge - Ironbridge
Favourite adhesive note size – 75 x 75mm
Favourite Vegetable – Anything grown in the fertile soils of
Shropshire
Favourite band – *(shameless plug)
Biggest inspiration – |
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The
poet John Yeovil left for Shropshire today, I have sent him to explore
the sensory delights of Moreton Say. I suspect when the tears of
joy clear from his eyes and he is once again able to write, he will
pen the most beautiful verse England has ever seen.
IÂ’ll
never forget the day; it was early one morning, when the beauty
of Moreton Say first really hit me. I had just finished arranging
some sticklebricks into a dodecahedron and a shaft of Shropshire
sunshine broke through the net curtains. I toddled over to the
window and looked out to see the fields ablaze with joy. The sun
was pushing over the gentle roll of the Shropshire horizon, deep
hues of the morning sunÂ’s golden red mixing with the wildflowers,
the trees and the rusting shell of a caravan that someone had
abandoned at the bottom of our garden in 1959. I remember I felt
so liberated and awakened by this glorious sight I wet myself.
I was only three.
IÂ’m
in a car on my way to Frankfurt airport. IÂ’m getting a lift
from a Swedish poet called Lars Frummax who reminds me of a young
Mel Croucher. Lars drives a Vauxhall Cavalier, but has painted
it with flowers of many colours and written "Love" in
several different languages on the bonnet. I explained to him
that while I appreciate the artistic sentiment, he has significantly
reduced the market value of a perfectly good car. Lars agreed
with me, he was drunk and in love when he did the paint job. Now
he is sober and alone the cold hard facts of the automotive sales
environment have hit him and he longs for the grey metallic sheen
of glory his car once knew.
He calls
his car "Frans Hals". I have no idea why.
Lars
dropped me off this morning, heÂ’s off to another poetry convention
in Chile - The Encuentro Internacional de PoesÃa. I was tempted
to go with him, but IÂ’m afraid I may become distracted with the
jet set world of international poetry and neglect my responsibilities
as ShropshireÂ’s ambassador of love.
Frankfurt
airport looks much the same as all the other airports IÂ’ve
visited. Lots of planes, obviously, people looking sad waiting for
their flight, sleeping stretched across three bucket seats. Why
donÂ’t airports provide bunk beds in the departure area? Why
do families look so miserable when they are about to go on holiday?
Why donÂ’t they organise Bingo games to keep discontented travellers
occupied while they wait for their plane?
Concentrating
on that last question, IÂ’m using the international language
of Bingo to cheer up a group of families that were trying unsuccessfully
to avoid eye contact with me. Using an airport bin as a makeshift
drum, and empty cans of pop with numbers scratched on them as balls
IÂ’ve been able to get quite a decent game going. ItÂ’s
noisy but functional and IÂ’m offering flights to Shropshire
as grand prize for the first person to shout "Haus"
On
the side of the bin IÂ’m using as a drum for the numbered balls
IÂ’ve written Bin-go, which I thought was both funny and clever.
It must have lost something in translation as not one person pointed
out how amusing the pun was. IÂ’m not sure what the German is
for bingo, I do keep hearing people say "Halt's Maul"
whenever I spin the bin full of old cans so perhaps that is it.
My plane
is delayed. It looks like IÂ’m joining the huddled masses in the
airport departure lounge. Looks like a Shropshire style all-night
Bingo session for these lucky people.
I gave
away thirteen flights to Shropshire last night. Little did the bakerÂ’s
dozen of winners know that IÂ’m as much a winner as they are,
thatÂ’s thirteen more people that will, thanks to my machinations,
bask in the radiant glory that is Shropshire.
ItÂ’s
a good feeling helping people. In this heartless, cold world outside
Moreton Say, IÂ’ve seen every side of human nature. From those
that fool themselves into thinking they are happy and fulfilled
even though they have never seen Shropshire, to those that are searching
for Shropshire but donÂ’t know it. IÂ’ve seen people whose
idea of a good time is strapping themselves half-naked to a motor
home wearing a magic hat, people trapped in an insular society of
silly names and caravans, people working in abject misery while
at the same time being contractually obliged to smile at all times
and suggest fries with everything. Not once in all my travels so
far have I met anyone who had the inner peace and joy, the extra
choccy sprinkle of fulfilment on the cappuccino of life, the Pentium
5 smile upgrade installed on the motherboard of existence, the protective
plastic of pure peace that comes with the new three piece suite
of sunshine and serendipity that comes from living in the premiere
English county, Shropshire.
I canÂ’t
wait to bring a little of the old Shropshire magic to China.
My flight
is now rescheduled to leave in two hours. Just time for a couple more
games of airport bingo.
I missed
my flight due to a bit of trouble last night. An American couple called
Kip and Monica took offence at my rousing game of airport Bingo and
complained to airport security. Fortunately one of the winners of
my flights to Shropshire was Jurgen the chief of security so his complaints
were unsuccessful The problem was that Kip had a weak heart and all
the stress made him go a bit giddy and he collapsed while trying to
stop me spinning the Bin-go bin. This not only invalidated an exciting
game that was nearing itÂ’s climax, but made me feel terribly
guilty as I did grapple quite enthusiastically with him at the time.
Monica
tried to stop me, but I felt it my duty to accompany Kip in the
ambulance and see what I could do to help. I offered to pay their
medical bills but Monica got hysterical and they had to sedate her,
leaving me in charge of Kip, I had to say I was their son just to
get admittance to his room. This is where the problems started,
they had just hooked Kip up to a monitor when my phone went off,
it was Mother ringing to tell me the grass needed cutting. The nurse
heard me saying, "Not now Mother" and became suspicious
because I had said Monica was my mother and she was unconscious
on a hospital trolley next to me. Also, mobile phones were not allowed
in the hospital and so I was taken to a small white room and told
to wait.
Then
Kip and MonicaÂ’s real son, Chad, who looked not unlike a young
Trevor Howard, turned up and I had to tell him I was his long-lost
half-brother, he embraced me and we went to see our Father. Kip
woke up, much shouting ensued and I slipped away in the confusion.
By
the time I got back to the airport, my flight had flown. They could
have waited for me.
ThereÂ’s
a lesson to be learned here.
Not sure
what it is though.
IÂ’m
booked on another flight for tomorrow.
My flight is boarding now, IÂ’m sitting next to a lady who looks
a bit like a cross between Kathleen Turner and a Barbary ape. Small,
blonde, slightly masculine and unusually hairy. My macaque-like companion
refused to give me her name and put on one of those eye-masks. I suspect
she does not want to talk to me.
I decided against another session of airport bin-go. I played an arcade
game – "House Of The Dead" at the airport arcade instead.
It might not further my cause, but at least no one gets hurt. Unless
you count the hordes of undead creatures that fell foul of my uncanny
marksmanship.
IÂ’m
full of optimism. Finally, IÂ’m on my way to China, land of
the fortune cookie, the panda, lychees, unusually small trees, Chinese
food, Chinese dragons, Chinese checkers and other things Chinese.
I canÂ’t wait.
According
to my travel leaflet, China is world's fourth-largest country and
considerably bigger than Shropshire with 1,284,303,705 living there.
This worried me a bit, if I do manage to convince everyone in China
to pop over to Shropshire the M54 might not be able to cope. The
Chinese climate is apparently "extremely diverse; tropical
in the south to subarctic in the north", this sounds a bit
like Shropshire too, I should fit right in.
Looking
out the window of the plane, we are above the clouds now. From above,
the clouds look so white and pure, more solid than they should. I
can imagine stepping out of the plane and going for a run in the fluffy
panorama below me, it looks soft and welcoming like virgin snow. We
just passed a bank of clouds that looked just like an ivory replica
of the Wrekin. I told the stewardess my feelings on the cloudscape,
she didnÂ’t seem very interested and just offered me some peanuts.
It was
a long flight and we have just landed in China, at the Shanghai Pudong
International Airport. A lot of the people here are wearing face-masks,
not sure why, perhaps the pollen count is high. The airport is all
blue neon signs and white walls. There are a lot of Oriental people
here.
IÂ’ve
booked into a hotel and want to explore Shanghai.
Shanghai
is big, bigger than Oswestry, bigger even than Telford. IÂ’m
shopping now in a place called the Super Brand Mall, itÂ’s an
amazingly big shopping centre, it makes Market Drayton look like
a small market town. ItÂ’s not what I expected at all here in
China, IÂ’d seen the Chinese television series "Monkey"
at home and itÂ’s nothing like that.
I tried
to speak to 27 different people today, none of them seemed to connect
with me on any significant level or want to listen to things about
Shropshire and how great it is. On the bright side, that still leaves
1,284,303,778 people left who might be interested in speaking to
me. 16 million of them live in Shanghai, I could spend the next
ten years here and only scratch the surface, I need a mass-market
approach.
I went
to the Chinese Communist Party Headquarters to have a word with them
about the Shropshire way of life but the place was just a museum.
IÂ’m not really sure where the real seat of power is here in Shanghai,
itÂ’s probably hidden somewhere but I intend to find it.
I tried
to talk to more people, not much luck. Fortunately IÂ’ve got directions
to a tourist company that arrange help for western visitors.
IÂ’ve
hired a guide, his name is Lang So Pin, he promises to help me bring
Shropshire to the Chinese masses for the equivalent of £1.56
per day, not a bad deal. Lang looks a bit like an overweight Bruce
Lee with bad teeth and possibly a wig. He speaks both Mandarin and
standard Chinese so I hope to be able to communicate via him to
most of the people I meet.
Lang tells me I should drink tea to experience the real China. I
explained to him that IÂ’ve been drinking tea all my life and
showed him the three PG tips bags I had left in my travel pack.
He laughed at me, IÂ’m not sure why.
We
are at the Hu Xin Teahouse, itÂ’s a beautiful place, all twirly
banisters and knobbly roofs. They take absolutely ages making a
cup of tea here. I tried to take over and use one of my last pyramid
bags instead of messing around with all this loose-leaf nonsense,
but they seemed quite offended so I left them to it. The cups were
very small too, especially for the price they cost. I told Land
So Pin that you can have a pot of tea for one at a café in
Market Drayton for 80p and get three cups out of it, he seemed suitably
impressed.
Tomorrow
he promises to show me the real face of Shanghai, I hope it involves
Bingo.
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