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The
Morris Telford archive. Read about Morris's previous
exploits, and find out how the adventure has unfolded.
Follow
Morris's journey
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven |
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| FACTS |
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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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Communicate
with Morris via the - or look back through the archive
to find out what happened in previous weeks.
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I
was talking to a group of elderly people in downtown Tokyo today.
They were worried that Japan is struggling to support it’s rapidly
ageing population.
According to a newspaper one of them showed me, the Japanese have
the longest life expectancy in the world. It’s attributed to their
diet of mainly fish and vegetables; apparently 17,394 people in
Japan are over the age of 100.
Apparently there has been a sharp rise in "grey on grey " crime
recently here in Japan. That is, elderly people robbing other elderly
people. I read a news article where a knife-wielding octogenarian
man robbed an 84-year-old lady by breaking into her home via her
bathroom window and saying "I am 80. Give me your money".
This sort of thing happened in Moreton Say once. A wiry, white-haired
burglar was seen escaping from windows - leaping from roofs, and
fleeing from crime scenes over a period of three months in the summer
of 1992.
Only rare antique items of value were taken, no damage was done
and no one heard the intruder until it was too late. One old lady
who had her diamond-encrusted Peruvian eggcups stolen was quoted
in the local paper as saying "He was in and out like a digestive
in a cup of tea".
It was shortly after the crime wave that the "Twilight Hours" Retirement
Home in Marchamley Wood got their new conservatory, sixty seater
cinema, swimming pool and solarium installed. Nothing was ever proved
but they have an inscribed breezeblock saying "Donated by Ronnie
‘The Drainpipe’ Thomas 1992" on the new buildings.
It doesn’t take a mathematician to add the cinema, the conservatory,
the pool and multiply it by the solarium to come up with Ronnie
the Drainpipe. The gentleman thief was famous for once stealing
the Seven Jeweled Star of Oswestry, Shropshire’s answer to the Pink
Panther.
The 93-year-old Ronnie could sometimes be seen in Market Drayton
driving his golden mobility scooter, with his eye-patch, his wooden
hand and a young nurse perched on the back. It always struck me
as an excellent way to spend your final years.
I told the group of elderly people all about 'The Drainpipe'. They
didn’t seem to see the correlation between their situation and my
story, there’s just no helping some people .
IÂ’ve
been thinking about all the old people in Japan. There are so many
of them and they have so much free time. They seem like an ideal target
audience.
IÂ’m hiring a conference hall to do an "Introduction to Shropshire
for Old People" talk. IÂ’ve got a suitcase full of Yen and
IÂ’m going to make lots of old people very happy by offering them
what every elderly Japanese person really wants, IÂ’m going to
offer them a happy retirement in Shropshire. The hall is booked for
tomorrow.
Still
lots to see in Tokyo. There are a surprising number of golden arches
here, the big yellow M. I suppose it might be that the only culinary
alternative is cold fish, but fast food seems incredibly popular.
The places are always stuffed full of burger devouring, milkshake
sucking, fry spilling lost souls. Even the staff here seem happy,
which can only be a result of the peculiar brand of brainwashing
employed on fast food service employees.
For purely
research purposes, I tried a burger, some fries and a thick chocolate
shake. It was quite uncanny, they tasted exactly the same as they
did when I last had a meal like this, the texture, the consistency,
the flavour, the look, they were all exactly as they had been in Birmingham
many months ago.
Terrible!
For some
reason, I’ve not been able to work out why people in Japan give each
other melons as gifts.
You can buy them with little bows tied around them and a message tag
so your special gift melon can be personalised.
Now I can understand buying someone a nice little pottery cottage,
or a new bingo marker, or a calendar, or a snowstorm, or a novelty
rubber, or one of those lovely personalised key rings with the meaning
of your name on, or a regionally appropriate fridge magnet; but a
large, round fruit is the last thing I’d expect as a pressie.
Anyway, I turned up at the conference hall with a van full of melons
as a gift to all the old people before they sat through my 4-hour
"Introduction to Shropshire for Old People" talk that I spent all
last night preparing.
I’d bought some stationary early this morning to add an air of professionalism
to the proceedings. I had a flip chart, a pointer, four different
colours of marker, props and everything.
Before I’d even finished unloading the melons, a group of quite burly
old people rushed me. I’m not saying "a group" when there were only
one or two, there really was a large hunting pack of OAPs.
I’m not saying "burly" when really they had Zimmer frames, arthritis
and an average weight of 6 stone. These were beefed up, muscular old
people, probably on steroids or something.
I’m not saying "rushed me" out of some retrospective attempt to save
face and exaggerate the speed of the assault; they really did leap
from nowhere like a swarm of angry bees. Angry, elderly, burly bees.
They stole all my yen, they stole my van and to add insult to injury,
a particularly large old person took one of the melons between his
hands, twisted it into two halves and threw it to the ground. He shouted
something at me in Japanese and hopped into the back of the van as
it sped away.
I was most upset.
After that, I went into the conference hall that I had so lovingly
prepared. Three little old ladies were sat waiting at the front. Behind
them were several hundred empty seats.
I was quite prepared to give my talk without the aid of flip-charts,
pointers, markers or melons, but the three remaining old people were
apparently just waiting for a game of Bingo that was due to start
in the adjoining hall.
When I asked if I could join in with the Bingo, they told me I had
to be a member. I asked how I could join and they said that I was
quite welcome to join then and there, but that I had to be over 60,
Japanese and pay the entrance fee. I told them I’d think about it
and walked back to the hotel.
Today was not one of my most successful days .
Sat in
my hotel room all morning and looked out the window.
Feeling a bit deflated about yesterday.
This afternoon I reported the van to the hire company and went to
the bank to fill another suitcase full of Yen.
I’m not going to let one isolated incident stop my resolve. People
need to know about Shropshire, and who else is there to tell the people
of Japan?
You might think it’s unwise of me to keep filling suitcases full of
Japanese currency and walking around with them, but I believe in the
basic goodness of all people and I intend to use this money to promote
Shropshire. Who would want to steal from such a worthy cause?
I’m sure yesterdays melon-jacking was an isolated incident .
Tried
to see if they had the Shropshire-based classic 'Gone To Earth' on
the hotel pay-per-view film catalogue.
They didn’t.
They just had lots of Japanese films. Most of them seem to include
monsters (generally giant reptiles) or schoolgirls or in one case
schoolgirls that mutated into giant reptiles.
I’ve arranged to give a slightly lower key talk today to a group of
elderly Japanese people just outside Tokyo in a place called Kumagaya.
I’m not going to be giving melons this time.
I’m standing in the porch of the building that is supposed to be hosting
my talk on "An Introduction to Shropshire for Old People". No one
is answering the door.
This is terrible. I was just typing that last entry on my palmtop
when an old lady, possibly eighty or ninety, she looked a bit like
an older Dewi Sukarno, pushed past me, grabbed my case full of yen
and locked the outer door. She jumped in a van that looked suspiciously
like the one I hired a few days ago and left at speed.
I’m stuck in the porch now. No one seems to be around. It’s quite
cold.
I just rang my Mother, I haven’t heard from her for a while. Apparently
she had been down in London with Toby, Sophia and Aunt Felicity to
see David Blaine.
She’s never been to London before so they stayed on for a few days.
She says that Sophia is now visibly pregnant and her and Toby are
doing really well. meanwhile, Aunt Felicity got thrown out of Madame
Tussauds for trying to pull the head off David Jason.
Mother told me they were there when David Blaine was released. Apparently
he’d been sealed in a plastic box for 44 days and survived on only
water. When he was released he said it was a life changing experience
and it helped him appreciate the simple things.
I told Mother I was trapped in a Japanese porch; she didn’t believe
me.
I’ve been in this porch for three hours now. An old man walked past
about an hour ago, he said something to me in Japanese and walked
away. He didn’t come back. I’m settling down to sleep the night here
now, I’m sure someone will come along in the morning .
ItÂ’s
morning. IÂ’m still trapped in the porch. I tried to break the
glass, but I just bounced off it. It must be some sort of safety,
anti-theft glass or something.
It
was a cold night, the letterbox let in a terrible draft.
ItÂ’s
noon now, the sun is high in the sky. I managed to attract the attention
of a young man that was walking past by shouting through the letterbox,
he came over and talked to me for a while, but his English was about
as good as my Japanese. The young man returned about an hour later
with a few of his friends and they are sat on a wall watching me
now.
A few
more people have gathered. IÂ’m trying to get the message across
to them that IÂ’m thirsty and hungry and trapped, but none of
my mimes seem to get the message across. I tried to express through
the medium of charade that I needed someone to unlock the door,
but they just applauded.
I
notice some of them have brought flasks and sandwiches. They are
eating them only a few feet away from the porch. ItÂ’s very
annoying.
David
Blaine at least had a constant supply of water, all IÂ’ve had
since yesterday are the few drops of rainwater I managed to drink
by putting my tongue through the letterbox. IÂ’m not doing that
again, itÂ’s one of those letterboxes with the brown brush fixture
in the opening, itÂ’s fine on the way out, but it really hurts
your tongue when you pull it back.
ItÂ’s
getting dark now and IÂ’m weak from thirst and hunger. I took
off my shoe and starting banging it on the glass of the porch. The
crowd seemed to like this and started to sing some Japanese songs
to the beat of my shoe, so I stopped. Unfortunately they kept on
singing anyway.
IÂ’ve
noticed from watching Japanese television that the culture seems
to encourage suffering as a form of entertainment. Perhaps they
think that IÂ’m part of some sort of game show.
Most of
the onlookers have dispersed now, only two hardcore watchers are staying.
They have brought a little tent and a stove. None came near enough
today for me to grab them, no one tried to open the porch or give
me any food or water.
IÂ’m tired now and IÂ’m going to try and sleep.
In the
night some people started poking sticks through the letterbox. They
prodded me awake and then ran off. I hate it when people do things
like that.
At 8.00am this morning an old man came with a big set of keys and
opened the porch, he shouted something at me (I really wish people
here would make more of an effort to learn a little elementary English),
and pushed me out of the porch. I was glad to leave.
The
couple in the tent waved, cheered and clapped as I left for my hotel.
I gave them my notes from the "Introduction to Shropshire for
Old People" talk. I donÂ’t feel the time or the place is
right for giving that particular lecture.
Despite
recent events, I still believe in the inherent goodness present
in most people. When you get down to it, people only do bad things
because they feel they have to. They do good things because they
want to.
No matter how terrible a person's crimes may be, how abhorrent their
personality, how devoid of moral fibre they might appear to be,
if you appeal to their better nature and give them an opportunity
to do the right thing, then redemption is always possible.
With this in mind I intend to continue my journey unsullied by past
unpleasantness.
I will strive to spread the creamy paste of Shropshire goodness
on the sliced loaf of humanity and see if anyone bites.
Everyone, everywhere, whoever they are, deserves to know about the
joys of Salopian living and has within them a potential citizen
of Shropshire.
With the
exceptions, of course, being Camilla Edwards and whoever decided to
change CountdownÂ’s broadcast time to 3.15 p.m.
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