 |
| SEE
ALSO |
|
|
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 |
|
| PRINT
THIS PAGE |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| FACTS |
|
|
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 – |
|
|
|
Communicate
with Morris via the - or look back through the archive
to find out what happened in previous weeks.
|
I
used to work with a lady called Eunice who resembled a young Bette
Midler and would only eat things that began with the first 13 letters
of the alphabet. Anything after 'M' was in her eyes, inedible and
disgusting.
She was oddly obsessive about it, but never really thought it through
and had her own special rules for what was and was not acceptable.
For
example, she used to have chips for lunch (without the salt or
vinegar of course) until someone pointed out that they were made
from potatoes, so instead she starting bringing in bread and cheese.
She would never put the cheese inside the bread, because then
it would be a sandwich.
She was quite happy to have a Tupperware container full of apple,
bread, cheese, and coleslaw. Quite happy, that is, until someone
else pointed out that apple, bread, cheese, and coleslaw was practically
a ploughman's lunch and therefore beyond the boundary of "M".
I
think people kept finding fault in her eating logic in a well-meaning
attempt to break the cycle and stop her compulsive behaviour,
but it wasn't long before she realised that all vegetables were
over the alphabetical limit and she went off sick with scurvy
and we didn't hear of her again.
The
reason I bring this up is that I met Kuroda again today and he
was sitting on a bench eating some bread and cheese from a Tupperware
container. Kuroda is a small Japanese man with a pleasant, friendly
manner and a leg full of drawing pins.
He
claims to use these pins to predict earthquakes - they sing to
him as a special warning that only he can hear.
After a previous false alarm, I was sceptical as to the accuracy
of his predictions. So when he started the high-pitched humming
again and insisted I climb into a large metal refuse container
I was initially hesitant. I do think it's important to show you
believe in people, no matter how odd they may seem, or how sceptical
you may actually be.
I hopped into the container full of damp cardboard as both an
act of solidarity and a way to prove to myself that people often
need to be trusted before they can trust you.
As
it turned out, I was glad I did jump in with Kuroda. After less
than a minute sat next to him, among the out-of-date sushi, Tokyo
suffered it's biggest quake for ages. Kuroda and myself were shaken
around in the metal bin like a refuse cocktail as it rained roof
tiles and the ground split open.
Kuroda
shrugged off my profuse thanks and swaggered off down the broken
road with that air of smug self-satisfaction you get when you've
spent the last few years living on the edge of society and then
finally you predict an earthquake with pinpoint accuracy.
There's
been a lot on the news about an unmanned mission to mars getting cancelled.
I've been watching a lot of news on my hotel television, and it never
ceases to amaze me how blinkered and biased the world-view of the
media is.
The channel I was watching devoted a full twenty minutes to the story
about the mars mission and not once did they mention Shropshire's
manned flight to Mars in 1978.
In
fact noteworthy things happen all the time that never make the news.
You
can't buy a paper without a lengthy article giving the minutiae
of some celebrity's love life; but you rarely (if ever) hear of
Samuel Longhorn, the famous eighties womaniser of Skyborry Green,
who fathered 817 children between 1987 and 1999.
He wrote extensive diaries that were only ever serialised in the
Skyborry Green Reporter, a photocopied local publication with a
circulation of 72.
You
hear all about the royal butler writing a book; but no one mentions
the Windsor-Gibbons family who live in a mobile home just outside
Babbinswood. They are an offshoot of the Royal family, disowned
during Queen Victoria's reign and all mention of them removed from
official record.
But if you buy a toasted teacake at the truckers' sandwich van on
the road into Babbinswood, chances are that it's a princess that
gives you your change. You can't miss it, it's the van with the
fried egg painted on the side, and dead centre of the yolk is a
royal crest.
Yes, you
only hear what they want you to hear.
Which is why I must soldier on and tell people of a place where wonders
happen that they could only dream about (and then only if they ate
particularly indigestible cheese shortly before bedtime)...
A place where the sunlight is brighter, the grass is greener, the
sandwiches are nicer and everyone is terribly pleasant to each other,
especially Samuel Longhorn... a place called Shropshire.
I'm a
bit bored today.
Not having much luck in getting Japan on my side.
I tried dressing up as a gingerbread man and going to a Japanese bakery
convention to tell them about Market Drayton and it's superior cakes
and pastries, but security wouldn't let me in.
After trying several different ways to enter the venue, a particularly
large security guard threatened to bite my head off and pulled off
one of my eyes; so I gave in.
Not before I sellotaped the recipe for a particularly succulent gingerbread
to the fire exit though - that'll show them!
The people
in Japan always seem to be concentrating on something.
If you sit on a bench and watch the populous pass you by, they all
have that pondering expression, that betrayal of internal activity
that your face displays when you are trying to retrieve a bit of information
you know you know, but can't quite put your finger on the right synapse.
In
a bid to understand this apparent preoccupation, I tried stopping
a few people and asking them "What are you thinking about?".
The first six either didn't understand me or chose not to; but the
seventh person I stopped looked me square in the eye and said "Shropshire".
Aha I
thought. At last, my suspicions are confirmed, the spirit of Shropshire
lies dormant in every culture. If you catch them at the right moment,
the motherland is actually never that far away from anyone's mind.
As it turned out, the person I stopped was called Terrance Smith and
was on his way to the airport, about to return to the gleaming spires
of Telford and his bedsit on Victoria Road.
I followed
a man from Shropshire to the airport yesterday and on an impulse I
got a last minute seat on a flight to Alaska.
On reflection this might not have been such a wise move, partly because
I don't really know much about Alaska; partly because there is still
much to do to convince the people of Japan to adopt a more Salopian
mindset... but mostly because my luggage is still at the hotel in
Tokyo.
I'm
on the plane now. It's a long flight and we stop off at a few places
on the way. They won't let me get off the plane though, so I just
have to sit here and look out the window. It's a bit like being
back at my old job in the office, sitting here knowing I can't go
anywhere yet; except at the office I could at least make little
men out of paperclips.
Paperclips
have a myriad of interesting uses. In fact I read somewhere (it
might have been the West Country Office Consumables Monthly) that
only 1 in 10 paperclips is ever actually used for clipping paper.
The other 90 percent get up to all sorts of fascinating things -
they are useful as toothpicks, tiny coat-hangers, fuses, stress
relievers *(either by flicking them across the office or bending
them into interesting shapes), hooks; you can spend hours making
them into chains like some high-tech modern, metal equivalent to
the daisy and you can bend them into small purpose-built tools for
all manner of jobs from unblocking staplers to indelibly etching
your name on the photocopier.
I love
paperclips. I wish I had some on me now. I asked the flight attendant
if she had any but all she could offer were peanuts or a hot towel.
Still
on the plane.
We had some delays due to bad weather. The plane had to stay on the
runway of an airport somewhere between Japan and Alaska. It was very
white outside, like the plane had landed in a glass of milk.
There
isn't much in the way of literature on the plane that might tell
me about what to expect in Alaska, so I ended up watching something
on the plane about Britney Spears.
There was this musical video with Madonna where Britney seemed to
be wearing more than one pair of braces and kept taking them on
and off.
It baffled me - braces are a perfectly reasonable way for a gentleman
to keep his trousers up and a viable alternative to the belt or
elasticated waist. But why would a teenage pop princess need more
than one pair, and why did she keep taking them off and on and crossing
them back and forth over her shoulders?
I composed
a brief letter to Ms Spears' management, suggesting she buy a belt
and while she was at it, concentrate less on the collaborations with
music industry legends and more on the sort of folk music so popular
in Shropshire during the 1970s.
I'm in
Alaska.
It's
cold, and dark, and the people all seem quite large. It reminds
me a bit like Ludlow in November.
I'm
staying at a boarding house run by an old lady called Miriam who
looks like a really, really old waxwork model of Queen Victoria,
only with a moustache.
Miriam has given me the attic room; the only rule she stipulates
is that I must not under any circumstances open the window in my
room. I asked her why not and she said "Isn't it obvious?"
Having
spent four hours sitting on my bed looking at the window, I still
have no idea why I can't open it. It looks like quite a new window
and the handle looks normal, except for the little sticker above
the catch that says, "Do not open this window".
I didn't
open the window.
Maybe
tomorrow.
|
