Fleapit Fun and a Day In Lahndon Taaahn...

Well, it would appear that my starting a whole new blog has not banished my tendency to updated it infrequently and describe events some considerable time after they've actually happened. Still, I do have a life to lead as well as write about, you know...

Anyhoo, we begin with the performance I witnessed from longstanding pal Luke and his band The Lugers at Colchester's premier fleapit venue The Twist last Thursday. A place I once actually played in a previous life, it's almost gratifying to see how little it's changed in the four or so years since I was last there. It's still small, appallingly lit and the rather intense acoustics continue to make it impossible to communicate verbally with anyone standing more than six inches away from you. The latter of which was something of a shame, seeing as there were several people in attendance that I hadn't had the pleasure of seeing for quite some time, years in most cases. In any event, it was nice to briefly catch up again with various people, the band - Luke, Pete, Bub and Ewan – played well enough considering how easy they were taking this particular public engagement, and fellow Japan survivor Mark even managed to make it up to Colchester for that evening and the day after too, which was nice. Video footage used without band permission, as all the photos I took turned out to be rubbish.

The other notable event of the past week was the journey I undertook to London last Saturday, there to meet up with ex-colleague, erstwhile supervisor and all round legend Miyata Sensei (Aiko to her friends, though it didn't half feel weird addressing her as such) at the end of her two-week visit to Blighty. Following a lengthy amount of time hanging around Euston, she appeared courtesy of a Virgin train from Windemere, from whence we swung past her hotel to dump her baggage and hit the famously grimy underground of London's capital to get ourselves to St James' Park and Buckingham palace. After loitering outside the main gates with hundreds of other tourists, we considered lining up for tickets to see the interior, but getting past the horrifically long queue would have taken more time than either of us had.

Alas, this set something of a pattern for the rest of the day, at both the Houses of Parliament (Parliament itself of course being in recess) and Westminster Abbey (closed an hour before we got there). There was the London Eye, though, which was good. I'd never been on it before, and was strangely excited at the prospect of being able to make out the barren fields of Essex from the top, but clouds obscured the view, alas. Aside from the publicity, tickets and smug-sounding announcer misleadingly referring to the ride as a 'flight' however, the Eye is great, compelling anyone inside with even a passing acquaintance with London to go “Ooh, look, there's over there.” In traditional rollercoaster style, they even take a photo of you and your fellow passengers on your way back down, which Aiko was good enough to by two copies of for us. There it is, up there, complete with me sporting a shockingly ill-advised 'Man at C&A male model pose' and jiggering it up completely for those others inside who may have wanted one for themselves.

After dinner, we said our goodbyes, leaving things with one of those 'Maybe I'll see you again' kind of partings which I'd had so often in the last few weeks of Japan. It was great to her see on my home territory though, and was happy to hear that she got away all right the following day despite the security scares at Heathrow, her only compromises being a one hour delay and not being able to bring her glasses case aboard.

On the subject of which, I should mention that my dad made a very good point about the whole airport fiasco. Commenting on John 'Bruiser' Reid's typically stubborn reaction to journalists enquiring as to whether the Israel / Hisbullah hostilities and the larger mess in the Middle East generally could have any bearing on the extent of extremist Islamic terrorist activity over the past few years, he was recorded as saying that “Government policy will not be dictated by the actions of terrorists.” Odd then, that security policy in airports either side of the Atlantic very much has been, and I'd have to agree. Fine, so the plot to destroy nearly a dozen planes in mid air using liquid explosives and simple hand-held gadgetry as rudimentary detonators means that security staff are now thinking twice about letting bottled water and iPods into the aircraft cabin. But bags of any description containing paperbacks, newspapers and reading aids being outlawed? How much damage are they likely to do?

It's a small thing, yes, if being bored senseless on a short-haul flight is the price that has to be paid for dying a fiery death at 10,000 feet above the surface of the Earth (intercontinental passengers can always rely on in-flight entertainment to keep them occupied of course) but really, for the sake of a handful of intolerant, psychopathic fools, some of whom harbour a twisted death wish, air travel for millions is thrown into chaos, airport staff suffer all manner of stress and the nation at large is expected to cower in terror before a critical-level terror alert. And can we call “the terrorists” something else please, because the phrase has become so overused since September 2001 as to have lost virtually all meaning. Whoever the hell they are, the fire-and-brimstone idiots plotting these acts of destruction are winning at what they do, namely changing the way we live our lives. I suggest we start by robbing them of the “ooh, tremble everyone!” connotations that the 'T' word implies. I propose that from now on we call any two-bit moron with a shaky grasp of Qu'ran theology, some home-made explosives and one hell of a grudge a 'Petula', and change all references to 'Al Qaida' in the media to 'Crispy Ambulance'. That would be a start.

“Police in London today arrested 21 suspects allegedly involved in Petula-related activities.3 of the British-born suspects are thought to have attended Crispy Ambulance training camps somewhere on the Pakistani/Afghanistan border. In a press conference earlier this morning President George Bush said that the arrests marked a significant strategic victory in the ongoing war against Petula.”

Well now, after some considerable delay since it was first announced, I'm finally posting my first contribution to this, yet another no doubt deeply inconsequential and little-read blog, one maintained mainly for my entertainment and vanity.

Why Pickled Flex? Well, it's a combination of elements which make no sense whatsoever when placed beside each other and is ultimately meaningless - which is a lot like life. Besides that, it also sounds like the name of an internet startup created by some odious product of Britain's public school system going by the name of Tarquin, with only a media degree, a trust fund and a superiority complex to his name.

As should be clear by now, I could talk rubbish for England. You should probably also know that my life is not especially interesting, but it was not always thus. Alone In Ogura was a blog I kept until very recently which detailed the tremendously good times I had in Japan as a participant on the JET Programme, until I arrived back in England again last week at the end of my two year stint. I now find myself contemplating my career options, which I always find terribly depressing, and otherwise getting on with the comparatively far more enjoyable business of seeing family and friends again after a very long time indeed.

Of course, what one needs in order to to stay in touch with friends in this day and age is a mobile phone (or keitai as the vastly superior Japanese term would have it). Which is my way of awkwardly linking to what will no doubt be the first of many rants, namely, since when did mobile phone companies become so damn chummy? Have I just been out of the country for too long?

It's the enormous amount of literature you have to wade through before you can get the thing working that gets me, and as well as there being lots to read, it's all written in an unbearably patronising way. Examples escape me just at the moment, and laziness prevents me from fetching said articles to check, but anyone who's an O2 customer should know what I'm talking about. It's designed come across as though you're their new best mate that they've got to look out for, rather than the latest mug who's wandered in off the high street for them to fleece. Which only makes commercial sense I suppose.

Interestingly though, nowhere does it mention the potential hazards of owning such a small piece of electronic equipment. Honestly, my Sony Ericsson model is so small and light I'm actually slightly worried about the possibility of getting drunk one night and accidentally swallowing it. I'm starting to miss the nice, solid feel and chunky craftsmanship of my Docomo N900iS dearly, but then we all have to move on. And forming an emotional attachment to an electronic communications device is just plain wrong.

Stay tuned for further scintillating dispatches from the blasted commuter wastelands of Essex coming to you very soon...