Cruel Runnings

Day One

“The last Ice Age moved quicker…” That’s the verdict of Scott Allaway, an overly-honest bobsleigh brakeman, having witnessed my sluggish 30m sprint. Bobsleigh training starts with an assessment of speed and though I have some excuses (cruciate ligament surgery for one; never having had an ounce of pace being another) there’s no ignoring the uselessness of my time. I’m being tested at Bath University, home of Britain’s only bobsleigh training facility, to determine the load order for our sled and, by some distance, I am the slowest in our four-man team. 

Scott will help us to stop, but 22-year Royal Marine Commando, three-time Olympian and full-time psychopath Lee Johnston will be our driver. A mass of testosterone, his self-preservation mechanism was presumably disabled long ago. A guy like Lee barely seems to belong to my namby-pamby world – easier to imagine him on some far flung battlefield, eviscerating a battalion of Sumerians before breakfast. Having retired from elite competition four years ago, these days he settles for coaching.

“Lee is probably still the best driver in Britain,” says Scott. The big man considers this with a De Niro frown, then says: “It’s true, I probably am… And I want a medal.”

For our first day of training, we simply run alongside a rickety training cart and practise swinging in, stopping at the top of a hill. This is essentially our theory test, and a chance to ask about some of the eventualities on race day. Inevitably the conversation turns to crashing and Cool Runnings. “Always remember, your bones will not break in a bobsled,” says John Candy to his Jamaican athletes. “No, no, no – they shatter.”

“I haven’t had a crash in 8 years,” says Lee (I had been hoping for “ever”). “I’ll stake my professional reputation on us not crashing – if we do I’ll never get in a competitive bobsleigh again.” I want to point out that as he’s already technically retired, this isn’t much of a promise, but my balls aren’t anywhere near big enough.

Day Two

There’s plenty of unsubtle product-placement in Cool Runnings, and there is here too: Volvo sponsor British Bobsleigh and I’ll be in their sled with Lee, Scott and our fourth man Jeremy Taylor, another journalist and bobsleigh novice who's writing for the FT. Today we find out that the most unnatural part of the sport comes as the bobsleigh passes over the crest of the hill; when running downhill the natural instinct is to temper the speed, but now the only option is to speed up, always trying to “add value” as Scott puts it. Then, when the world falls away and your legs can’t keep up any more, you must instantly jump on – don’t make it and you’ll be exerting negative energy, mostly likely as your useless body is dragged along the ice.

In short, it’s terrifying, and no less so when I take a heavy fall, unable to keep up with the careering cart. Bloodied and bruised, it’s not long before I fall for the second time. This is as Christ-like as I will ever be: tormented in stages towards my violent, gory demise. Another hour of practise later, we’ve ditched the rickety cart and started using something much more like a real bobsleigh. Now Lee has joined in with the push and things get faster still, even more manic. Yet, perhaps because this thundering rhinoceros is running right in front of me, failure no longer seems like an option.

The Training Montage

I fall asleep and awake thinking of nothing but bobsleigh, fretting about how to improve. On Twitter, I ask Tesco to loan me a trolley to practise my pushing, but they’re not up for it, even when I promise not to make any horsepower puns. Thankfully the good people at Keynsham Town Football Club give me free access to their all-weather pitch for sprint training. Almost every morning, I’m out in the cold, stretching my hamstrings, working on my acceleration and trying to improve what intolerable gym-types call my “explosive power.” At home I lift weights, squat and lunge as much as I can and, following a bit of research online, buy some resistance bands to strengthen my hip flexors. I run up and down the stairs in my house until I feel sick and dizzy then, when I get my breath back, start a programme of weighted spread-eagle sit ups. I eat incessantly, doing two workouts a day, knowing that it won’t be enough to transform me into an Olympian, but hoping it might be enough to make some kind of difference.

Practise Runs

The bobsleigh facility at Igls, Austria, was built for the 1976 Innsbruck WinterOlympics. Since its construction there have been two fatalities, though none in the last 30 years. Scott insists this is the most gentle bobsleigh run in the world. Even so, by the time we arrive for the British Championships, following a fitful, anxiety-ridden night, the confidence and new-found strength I’ve built over the last fortnight have drained away.

We get there early so Lee can give us a track walk and we can get a feel for the speed of the run. His frequent refrain is: "Come on, if fucking Ant and Dec can do it..."

Today there’s also an inter-service championship between various members from the RAF, Army and Navy. Pre-race these furious warriors bellow and butt each other, then have at their bobsleighs like howling orcs. After three or four teams disappear down the ice, an emotionless Austrian voice comes over the tanoy: “Track is closed, ve have a crash.”

Photo: Wee Mo

This is my first time seeing bobsleigh live and it scares the shit out of me. Scott tells me that on certain tracks that can literally happen, so strong are the downward G-forces exerted on some of the bends. Here that’s unlikely (we’re still advised to go to the toilet before racing) but we’ll get up to 75mph and around the signature Kriesel turn, a 270 degree loop that holds the bobsleigh high on a 3m wall of ice, we’ll pull four Gs.

Jeremy and I, shiting it. Photo: Wee Mo

After five hours of hanging around, a fear creeping up my spine like mercury up a thermometer, it’s our turn to race. As it will be my first time on ice (bobsleighers have specially adapted, ultra-spiky shoes for grip) we’ve agreed on a jogging start, and that I’ll keep my head up to take in the run.

But standing on the start line, some important part of my brain disconnects from the situation – this all seems so unlikely that I become a barely-involved observer of my own doom. When the bobsleigh moves off it almost gets away from me completely. I then over compensate, running on the ice for far longer than we’d agreed, and by the time I’ve swung into position, we’re almost at the first bend. The moment we hit that, I’m instantly snapped back to reality.

Photo: Wee Mo

The run is like the start of a Marvel movie: a series of loosely connected images flickering through my mind, barely time to identify each before something else happens. My ears are quickly overwhelmed by the roar of the run, my feet are crushed somewhere underneath Lee. My head is slammed left and right against the bobsleigh as we fly round the bends. It’s a long time before I remember to breathe. The only point I know where we are is when we hit Kriesel and the G-force buries my chin in my navel.

Nothing really compares to bobsleigh, but I can only guess that this is what being born must have felt like: a relentless, dark assault on the senses, violent and traumatic.

Photo: Mat Laroche

On our second run, I jump on the bail (a small step on the side of the bobsleigh) with the wrong foot and sit down too quickly, meaning Jeremy has to jam his ice spikes into my back to get into position. I spend the rest of the run unknowingly headbutting Lee in front of me. When we get out at the bottom, he bluntly lets me know that I’ll need to sit back tomorrow.

I think perhaps I don’t really like bobsleigh.

The British Championships

“Did you enjoy it?” That’s a frequent question asked of novice bobsleighers. For me it’s not about enjoying – not letting my team down is my first and only goal. But my bombastic, battle-hardened driver won’t accept Team Volvo not being on the podium. Lee probably isn’t the kind of guy you’d want to introduce to your nan, or your boss, but take this bull out of the china shop and I can think of no one else I’d rather have in charge of my bobsleigh.

Photo: Wee Mo

This being the British Championships, the nation’s best team is also in town. Currently ranked fifth in the world, next January GB One will carry Britain’s hopes to Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Today they have to contend with us. Watching them warm-up is something like watching the start of the 2000 Guineas; something like an eruption, followed by a rush as though the gates of hell have opened. On the world stage they are renowned as some of the sport’s fastest starters, but just in case they were suffering from nerves, I give them a confidence boost by nervously warming-up nearby in my lycra race suit.

Photo: Wee Mo

It’s a genuine honour to watch these athletes perform. They are the first team down when the competition starts, pushing a lightning quick 5.15s at the start, completing the course in 52.21s. We go next, but rather than feeling intimidated by GB One, following them down is - and I'm choking on my own vomit as I write this - inspirational. Our push time is 6.02s, but Lee’s superb drive puts us in third place, the RAF’s four-man team separating us from the Olympians.

Photo: Dilys Richardson

Photo: Wee Mo

It strikes me as fairly obscene that we are in a medal position with so little training and only one run to go, but now that we’re there, I’m determined not to let it slip. I’ve never trained for any sport as hard as I have for this and it’s unlikely I’ll compete in a British Championship in any discipline ever again. So when the last run comes and Lee tells us, just as John Candy told his Jamaicans, that he wants a sub six-second start, that’s what I want to give him.

Standing on the starting block, staring down the long, white decline, knowing it leads to a minute of raw madness, I don’t feel afraid. I don’t feel small. I feel pride, I feel power, and when the roar goes up, I push like Atlas, driving with every stride, contributing, adding value and jumping in before I lose control. Then I hold on in the brace position and let the pandemonium consume me.

Photo: Dilys Richardson

Photo: Dilys Richardson

Photo: Dilys Richardson

When we reach the bottom it feels as though the fabric of my soul has been ripped apart and reassembled, quivering and electrified. We’ve won a bronze medal in the British Bobsleigh Championships – and we pushed a 5.93s start. 

Photo: Wee Mo

A version of this piece was published in Shortlist on 28/03/13.

The entire trip was made possible by Volvo.

Some Stories From Oman - Number Three

Over the last couple of years, travelling hither and yon, I’ve lied to a great many people. Or, if not lied, then exaggerated my position. When asked if Wee Mo and I would be going back to Dubai after we put down our backpacks, our response was always the same: no, wouldn’t go back, not even for a holiday. Not curious about it, not in love with it, could name 100 places we’d rather see for the first time; could name another 50 we’d like to revisit before going back there.

A caveat, which I failed to add to this position of alleged non-negotiation, is that I will always be willing to go back if someone literally pays me to do so. And so you find me on commission, hurtling along Oman’s eastern coast, about to turn in-land to cross the mountains and desert near Hatta, all the way over to Dubai.

Not my picture

But having worked 10 days without break, and with some shifts stretching grotesquely past the 17-hour mark, I’m fucking exhausted. There’s a kind of unhealthy, cumulative fatigue inside me and my edges are fraying badly. The story I’m on the way to write is about visiting Dubai on a budget, which is entirely possible and is something I know quite a bit about – Wee Mo and I spent a year scrimping as hard as we could to save up for our big backpacking adventure. We saved for so hard for so long that I could, theoretically, write this piece without setting foot in Dubai.

But the commission is from a Big Publication, and the editor has insisted that I actually get myself back to Dubai to see what’s new. So here I am, tightly gripping the wheel, singing and moshing like a fool in a bid to stay awake.

As compensation to myself, I’ve organised a half-decent hotel in Dubai, which stretches the concept of budget accommodation the piece is supposed to feature, but which will hopefully offer me a decent night’s sleep for the first time since getting back to the Middle East. Outside my grotty apartment in Muscat there roams a pack of feral dogs which spends the nights fighting and fucking with abandon. It’s a gruesome, noisy business which, added to two mosques’ dawn call to prayer, has left me on the edge of some hysterical, sleep-deprived cliff.

I won’t have the dogs or the mosques to contend with in Dubai, that much is certain, and so I while I drive, I think of the bed that will greet me at Jumeirah Emirates Towers, but not so much that my lids start to drop. To fend this off, I stop at a petrol station, top up the petrol (19p per litre) and grab a dinner of a Galaxy Caramel and a can of filthy Power Horse (33% extra free!).

When I get to the border at Hatta, it’s gone 11pm and I have degenerated into a feral beast, ready for confrontation with anyone who queries my Omani rental car. I have a fistful of documents in Arabic that purportedly explain that the rental company say it’s OK for me to be here and that I’m insured. But the pretty Emirati girl with the round, yellowy eyes at the border doesn’t care about that, she just wants to see my passport and flirt a little, which, demented by my internal battle between exhaustion and Power Horse, I find absolutely hilarious.

Back on the road, it’s almost two hours before I final get to the hotel. The Emirates Towers are two of the most elegant buildings in the city. One is a hotel and the other is a financial centre. They’re said to represent a male and a female dancing, and that makes them a little lovelier than most of their neighbours. We came here a few times when we lived in Dubai, mostly to disgrace ourselves Harry Ghatto’s, a Japanese karaoke bar. Once we came as part of a group of journalists after about 10 hours of drinking and tried to cajole some Emiratis into joining us in a sing-song. Presumably in there hoping for a quiet night, they put down their red wines and left.

Not my picture.

Because of these boozy memories, and in spite of the fact my some-time employers Jumeirah built the towers, I had always expected the rooms to be a little bit shit. Jangling mess though I may be on arrival, I’m extremely happy to be proved wrong.

They needlessly upgrade me to a suite, so I’m still not sure how it is in the cheap seats, but the room is classy, with refined, understated décor and all the other shit someone like me wrote in the brochure. There’s a bowl full of fruit (it gets replaced every day), and satisfyingly branded Molton Brown toiletries. There’s complimentary, password-free Wi-Fi. The towels are insanely fluffy. The air-con system is logical ad subtle. The curtains are electronic and can be operated easily from a prone position in bed. There’s a strange, yogic mattress cut into the corner of the room, and an espresso maker just next to the business desk. In short, this is absolutely a five-star room in a five-star hotel, and when I collapse onto the bed, I am glad, glad, glad that this fat city has stretched to such gluttonous luxury.

The next morning, I have to set about compiling the infernal guide, but not before I’ve put the finishing touches to a story about some crooked doctors hoping set up a stem cell treatment clinic in Muscat. They plan to feast on the misery and desperation of the unwell and, if possible, I’d very much like to stop that from happening. 

So I write and write and before too long I’m exhausted again even though I’ve yet to leave the hotel room. But leave I must, so I drag myself downstairs, head out to the metro system and buy a ticket for the Dubai Mall.

As a holiday destination, Dubai seems to just about seems work these days. Assuming you can be bothered to leave your hotel’s grounds (a lot of people don’t) then getting from Tourist Attraction A to Tourist Attraction B is a fairly easy business. The metro, which had only just about opened when we left in 2010, is almost complete, cutting down the need to jump in taxis with mad, geographically retarded Pakistani drivers. A lot of the buildings, skeletal and half-finished in our time, are now open for business too. Perhaps most encouragingly of all, Indian labourers – the slaves who built this town – are now said to have a much fairer deal, with some vaguely enforced laws.

So long as you’re not interested in going off the beaten track, Dubai is now something approaching a real city, albeit one with multiple, disconnected cores, populated by a legion of fucking arseholes.

Not my picture.

Walking around the Mall, the vapidity and hypocrisy of it all starts to creep back up my spine. Emirati husbands stride out in front of their wives, with their Filipina nannies trailing their children behind. Elsewhere smug looking western pricks in too-tight polo-shirts honk and guffaw and boast about being how smashed they were last night. Meanwhile, their female counterparts grip shopping bags tightly, their jaws locked when not checking and double-checking with their girlfriends that they’ve bought the right pair of shoes.

Somewhere in the middle of these bastards, there’s a sign warning against holding hands or showing overt affection, and yet in the excellent Kinokuniya book shop 50 Shades of Grey – fisting, jobbie-jabbing, vaginal clamps and all – is on promotion. Just round the corner from that, purveyors of kinky pants Victoria’s Secret has just opened a superstore. BUT DON’T HOLD HANDS.

It’s all bollocks, in other words - I suspect it always will be. And as I drive out of town the next day, work done, the strange skyline fading to beige in my rear-view mirror, I’m really glad I don't have to worry about it. 

Some Stories from Oman - Number Two

“Call me Ishmael,” he says, shaking my hand, smiling. We’re in a bar in the Ramee Dream Resort in Seeb, a functional neighbourhood at the western edge of Muscat. The bar is in the heart of this big, low-roofed room, surrounded by half a dozen pool tables. The floor is hard, dark and sticky in places. It’s the kind of bar that would be improved if the smoking ban was lifted. Who dreams of this kind of place? Maybe the Omanis propping up the bar, but probably not the Filipinas on their laps. It’s hard to tell who's working and who’s working, but the girls filter through the room, some standing around, some delivering drinks. Others sit at tables with two or three local guys, resplendent in national dress, beers in their thick hands. The majority of Omani men (there are no woman) haven’t come for a piece of strange though – no, most of them are here to play pool. For his part, Ishmael seems intent on doing both.

Not the Ramee Dream

He’s one of those impossibly cocky, talented bastards who can simultaneously drink (he’s hammered), flirt with the working girls, and still find time to beat virtually anyone who’s idiotic enough to challenge him. He has long eschewed national dress in favour of a tight-fitting black t-shirt and a pair of skinny jeans. Ishmael is the kind of guy who’ll ask you a nonchalant question, looking you in the eye, while he pots the winning black. “Where are you from?” Pop! You lose.

Here, on this table, in this squalid little bar, Ishmael is king. He has a wicked-looking face, with a wildly hooked nose, a beak so kinked it looks like a cheap Halloween prosthetic. Above that, thin, black eyebrows arch over his glowering eyes. There’s not a scrap of meat on him that doesn’t need to be – he’s wiry and crooked, a metal skeleton that’s been covered with hard putty. Ishmael would make an excellent movie villain.

He’s got the charisma too – bombastic, but not quite confrontational. As he wins his 17^th game in a row, he proclaims himself invincible, but he still comes around the table to shake his opponent’s hand. I don’t think he does it just to take the piss, either.

I’m in the Dream Ramee with another writer, James, who I’ll replace as editor of an Omani magazine for a few weeks. James has been coming to play pool in this dive on and off for the month he’s been in the job. He’s on first name terms with a few people, including Ishmael, and there’s no way we’ll be able avoid playing. So we put ourselves on the list, volunteering to be savaged by this little Herod, and get some drinks.

Not the Ramee Dream

I find it strangely comforting to be surrounded by so many drunk locals. The lasciviousness aside, there’s a nice vibe here – a boys club conviviality that feels genuine and warm. When a fat Turk with an outlandish moustache hears I’m Scottish, he promptly buys a half-bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label from behind the bar. I make a face as though I’m impressed. Some of the Omanis genuinely are.

Over in the neighbouring UAE, the Emiratis drink too, but ordinarily in private or nervously at the end of the bar, aware that they’re breaking the law, only so certain they’ll get away with it. More commonly, like the Saudis, they wait until they’re abroad before completely dissolving into hedonism. At least the Omanis aren’t pretending: they like drinking, whoring and shooting pool and they don’t give a half-baked Islamic fuck who knows it. Good for them – they’re honest.

Not my picture

It’s Tuesday night and this is the start of a long weekend for the locals – their weekend is Thursday-Friday, which takes some getting used to. Having Wednesday off too, but knowing that you’ll be back to work on Saturday…. Well shit, that just blows my tiny little mind.

Anyway, as a result of this holiday the Omanis are going for it. Even if they go to mosque on Friday, the hangover will, along with their Filipina-induced boners, likely have faded by then. But illegal as all this may be, at least they look like they know have a good time. And Ishmael, in particular, is having a goddamn ball.

The Turk waddles up to take on the king and is duly swatted away. Next it’s James’s turn, so he dutifully steps up too, pots a few and is then beaten from a long way out. Ishmael consoles him in the same way a prize fighter might when handing his opponent’s teeth to him, arm around the shoulder, tone simultaneously conciliatory and condescending. Before too long, it’s my turn. 

It’s been well over a year since I picked up a pool cue and even when I played semi-regularly, I was totally pish. Before a ball is struck I am utterly resigned to defeat.

Not my picture

There’s a clap of thunder when Ishmael breaks, scuttling the balls around the table. To everyone’s surprise, none of them quite drop. When I get to the table I miss badly. Ishmael walks up and pots, but then, uncharacteristically misses.

The table seems quite open now, and perhaps because I’ve already accepted the inevitability of defeat, I don’t feel too much pressure. The beer probably helps with this. Yet, to my mild astonishment I pot three in a row. And then I see it: how to clear up. I make the first one, but though my mind is willing, some crucial part of my coordination is incapable. Dizzied by the potential for victory, I promptly miscue, sending the white ball lamely to the middle of the table, simultaneously missing the pot by a good foot.

“Jimeeee,” says Ishmael, “What you doing Jimeeee?” He pots four on the bounce before getting a bad kick and missing. In return I hit and hope on a long one… It goes in.

“What a shot, Jimeeee! Nice one!”

Not the Ramee Dream

Naturally I follow that up with a miss, but I think my ineptitude is wearing off on Ishmael, who does the same. Then I do it again and so does he. After a few more of these impotent exchanges he pots some more and gets down to the black, only to miss again. I pot my last two, but find myself with no shot on the black, so play safe. It’s impossible for Ishmael, but he tries something outrageous anyway.

When it doesn’t come off, I’ve got a shot at victory – a real chance to put this wee smartarse in his place. I settle down to the table, stand up again, check the angle, then settle down again. This for the match…

“Aw Jimeeee, why you kill yourself Jimeee? I like your game but why you give me chance?” Disaster. As I almost missed the black completely, Ishmael now has the entire table to work as he chooses – there are at least three pockets available to him.

He fixes me with those black eyes, like a dolls eyes: “Jimeeee, why?”

Not my picture (unfortunately)

Some Stories from Oman - Number One

When I took a short-term contract to come out and edit a magazine in Muscat, I was told simply: "Don't let the mag sink." So I decided to just write about what I knew, hoping for a relatively calm, easy tenure before handing over to a new, permanent staff.

But instead of that, I found myself stumbling into a real, grown up story and the more threads I pulled, the more it unravelled. 

By clicking the images below, you can (hopefully) read the final piece:

The United Nations

The World Travel Market is an enormous convention at which parts of the planet attempt to sell themselves to other parts of the planet. Journalists moan about having to attend every year – and they should. The decks of business cards, the seething, snearing salesmanship, the awful catch phrases that sound like they’re from a shit Chanel No 5 ad (Turkey: Unlimited)... all of it is a reminder of how corrupted travel writing has become. Everything says: you need us, because we need you; if you say the things you want us to say, we’ll buy adverts from you and you’ll keep your job for a while longer. Few people will admit it, but the spirit of travel, exploration and adventure have little place at this kind of thing.

When I arrive to the Excel Centre, it’s a crisp, clear autumnal morning, muddied only by 200 or so little plumes rising from smokers standing outside. Long before a national dress is spotted, this artificial fog is a sign of the cosmopolitan crowd, as are the ruined toilets, already squalid by 10am.

Inside the cavernous building, the nations are grouped by continent. For the first hour or so, I wander aimlessly, marvelling that the Bahrainis and Iraqis have turned up, and trying to find the stand of every country I’ve visited. Few of them promote the things Wee Mo and I found great when there, but like I say – this is about sales and angles. Still, I swipe a free coffee from the Colombians, and a bit of zesty quinoa from the Bolivians, and stand staring for too long at one obscenely glamorous Argentinian woman, always ready to run away should she meet my gaze.

This is the WTM at its best – part perving session, part anthropological study. Go to the vast Indian section and listen to men snort and cough as though they’re trying to inhale a snooker ball; go to the African section and feel your soul lift when watching a Ghanaian smile; slink past the Scottish stand and watch the bamboozlement of Japanese visitors on seeing a Scottish-Indian in full Highland dress. Or watch the Thai girls titter with embarrassment when a 6’4” German with electric blue eyes catches them looking at him; and try to ignore the bloated Turk as he makes up lascivious questions for a French beauty.

But, generally, people-watching is fun. Talking can be too, especially you find someone who speaks the truth, whether it’s one of the pretty Scandinavian girls, or one of the passionate Greeks, and especially when it’s a bubbly (!) happy (!) Russian (!!!). In fact, I think the only person I don’t enjoy talking to is one particular American.

Generally, the attitude towards journalists at the WTM is one of patient acceptance. Those manning the booths won’t sign any six-figure contracts with us; we may even end up costing them money. Any benefits we bring to their companies will be difficult to measure, but somehow there’s still a vague belief that we could review them negatively – smash them down and eviscerate them in print (even though in reality, because of the reliance on advertising and PR schmoozing, that would never, ever happen). So they placate us, smile, give us cards, tell our people to talk to their people and warn that a rock-solid commission will have to be in place before anything will happen.

I meet this particular American on a Floridian stand, and we spend the first couple of minutes shooting the shit in that slightly distrusting, disinterested way. He starts telling me about a cliff somewhere in the Deep South where, at nights, they project faces of Civil War heroes of the Confederacy – the southern side, y’know, the racist one. General Lee and all the good old boys go up there, because who doesn’t want to commemorate pro-slavery martyrs once in a while?

(None of them are the American in question)

Nicholson Baker wrote in The Mezzanine that there are two ways to get out of a piece of small talk – a joke or a piece of useful information. It’s a couple of days before the US Presidential election, so I opt for the former. “Well, depending on how the vote goes, there could be another civil war brewing by the end of the week,” I say, turning on my heel to leave.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me straight away, but someone who extols the virtues of watching a pro-slavery laser show isn’t all that keen on having a black president for another four years. And so I find myself locked in a Republican Thunderdome for the best part of 15 minutes, occasionally asking questions of his illogical views. Troubling though it might be, at least the crazy bastard is being honest. I toy with the idea of telling him: you’re here to promote America, but you can have no better salesman than Barack Obama, the world fucking loves him and is desperate for him to be re-elected; if the man with the magic pants gets in, people will like your country less and you will earn less money. But I have neither the balls nor the patience for it, so I slope off as soon as I can in the hopes of doing a bit of Actual Work.

In the not too distant future, there may or may not come a time when I start writing about European city breaks. Given how much I’ve travelled over the last four years, it’s a subject about which I know embarrassingly little. To clue myself up, I decide to hit the European section with a simple question: what is the best thing about your city?

As soon as the words leave my mouth, you can see the poor dears’ brains being torn assunder. On one hand, they want to make a genuine recommendation – to speak up for what they love. On the other, they’re under strict instructions from their superiors to push this or that. Some people seem to act honestly: a rep from Madrid says “food markets” before I’ve even finished the question; the cheery Russian recommends Muscovite battle re-enactments which sound wonderfully insane and not in the least profitable.

But others, well, they just can’t stop doing their job. A fat-necked Croat piously lists everything there is to do in Zagreb; a Swiss lady with expensive glasses delivers a sales-pitch with all the passion and flair of a cash machine; a nerdy, dark-haired Dutch girl thinks hard for a second, seemingly on the brink of saying something worthwhile, something true, before capitulating and telling me about a new museum.

Around the Excel centre, hands are shaken, business cards exchanged and secret smiles elicited. Deals are done, others cancelled; an overwhelming number of false promises are tossed around like confetti. As the afternoon drags on, so the madness increases along with my desire to leave. A couple of Arabs leave their stand to have a wild, gesticulating argument in the main foyer. A Spaniard, apparently important in some way, is trailed by film crew, his path bulldozed by a frantic PA. Once in a while someone – I never quite know who – walks past, trailed closely by the soup-thick stench of booze.

“Finally,” I think to myself, “Some honesty.”

The Winds Of Change - Part Two

El Gouna by the sea was created by a billionaire to make more money. His daddy became a billionaire under the regime of now-deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak and his two brothers are also billionaires, so you can understand why he’d feel under pressure to keep raking it in. This purpose-built resort is less than 25 years old and, from what I can tell, has been manufactured with low-costs and little love. The five-star hotels can only be regarded as such when compared to other parts of the resort – internationally they wouldn’t get a rating anywhere near that.

Every part of El Gouna is owned by the Orascom Group – the restaurants, the beaches, the hotels. Sure, they may have big, recognisable branding on the outside (Movenpick, Sheraton) but like the banks in Dubai, those are merely façades. No, in El Gouna everything essentially belongs to one man – it’s all microscopic parts in his catastrophic plan, designed and directed by his red right hand.

At least it doesn’t suffer the indignity of pretending to have any history. It’s a resort for people who prefer to travel without thinking too much. It’s also popular with retirees who want to live out their days in the year-round sunshine, drinking too much and crying to strangers in bars that they’d like to have had all this in their home country, but it just wasn’t possible. I imagine the wrong parts of Spain are just like El Gouna.

I hope there never comes a day when I find this kind of place an acceptable holidaying/dying location, but it seems fine for a group press trip. Without any history, culture or interesting architecture, it makes the focus of the piece fairly simple: kitesurfing.

Presumably created by a maniac who wasn’t satisfied by surfing, kiting or wakeboarding, it’s a combination of all three which, when done properly, looks pretty fucking cool. That coolness, added to its supreme difficulty, has convinced the Olympic committee to install at it as a new sport for Rio 2016, which will be like London 2012, only less jingoistic and more violent. 

They say it takes 10,000 hours of practise to achieve expertise in a sport or a pastime, so unless I spend nine hours a day between now and Rio, it’s safe to say I won’t be competing. Unsurprisingly for someone with a larger-than-average head and smaller-than-average feet, I’m quite unbalanced for most of the three days I spend being pulled hither and yon by the unruly kites. Towards the end of the final session I do, technically, manage to stand up, but it’s a fleeting, graceless moment that ends with a heavy crash.

In between these humiliation sessions, our group is led from one restaurant to another, all of which seem to have more or less the same menu. Again, though, if you’re not too fussy, the food here is OK – it’s not fine dining, and it doesn’t pretend to be, nor is it total slop. It’s middle of the road, safe and salty. Our wee group gets on well, too, and no one gets sick from Egypt’s notoriously poisonous water. In other words, from our point of view, it could all be much worse – especially when compared with the nightmare start we all endured.

The night before we fly back to the UK, I realise I’ve not done any of the interviews I meant to. Unfortunately, by this stage in the game, the only chance to catch up is in a beach bar, at 10pm, half drunk, shouting over the top of the brontosaurean bass coming from the DJ booth.This is where the kite-surfing community comes to have real fun, away from the phony unreality of the rest of the resort. We’ve been invited along with a couple of people from the kite-station that hosted us. I’d like to think it’s because we made some kind of connection over the past three days, but I accept it’s most likely due to our group comprising largely of 20-something girls.

I apologise to Huey and Dewie, two local Egyptian kitesurfers, for having to pull them away from the action for the interview. “I should have done it at the beach – I’m sorry,” I say.

“No man, it’s fine, but I’m really drunk and stoned just now, so please go easy on me,” says Huey.

I say I will and together with Dewie, we slink off, as far away from the speakers as we can get.

Huey and Dewie have been in El Gouna for seven years. Huey has been kitesurfing for most of that; Dewie only for the last two. Huey actually taught Dewie. “Dewie was a good student,” says Huey. “He learned very fast.”

We shoot the shit about kitesurfing for a while. Unsurprisingly, with equipment costing as much as £5000, it’s not popular with Egyptians, though once in a while they’ll get one of their countrymen down here on holiday. For Huey and Dewie, it’s a fun way to make money – much more so than the poor bastards who live on a glorified labour camp on the edge of town. Most of those desperados have come from poor parts of Cairo to sweat it out, adding to the fakery of El Gouna. By comparison Huey and Dewie are paid to frolic in the surf and flirt with European girls.

I point out that I find El Gouna a strange place.

“Yeah, it’s like a fake life,” says Huey. “Lots of people say that.”

“Hurghada [home of the airport] and El Gouna are not in Egypt,” says Dewie, more forcibly. “During the revolution, the guys down in Hurghada were standing at the airport complaining, fighting for new flats. People were dying in Tahrir Square; those guys were fighting for new flats and shops.” He shakes his head in disgust.

For his part, Dewie was in Cairo. He was recovering from knee surgery and, as he put it, “running around Tahrir Square with my crutches in the air.” 

I wrap up the interview and head to the bar, where I bump into Louie. Originally from Cairo, he’s also been down here for the best part of seven years. He learned kitesurfing the hard way: shattering ankles, breaking ribs in the deep water, nearly drowning… All that pain taught him to be better – he’s now the best in the country and will almost certainly be going to Rio. He is small, bald and powerful looking – there isn’t a bit of excess weight on him.  Perhaps that’s partly down to the amount he smokes. I ask if he’ll give that up in time for the Games.

“Yeah, I think so,” he says. “Besides, I only really do it when I’m drinking.”

I ask if he’ll give up the drinking in that case. Louie looks at me and smiles.

As someone from Cairo, I assume he was back home for Mubarak’s demise. “Well, it was complicated man,” he says, and initially I think he was understandably too afraid to get involved. “We were down here and we watched and watched and first we thought ‘Oh it’s just another protest’ – there had been many before. But then it kept going and we thought, ‘OK it’s getting serious’ so we packed our bags and went to leave.”

(I imagine the kite-surfing community radicalising; putting down the board and taking up the sword…)

“But then they closed El Gouna. Turned off the internet, turned off the satellites. We didn’t know what was going on. They closed the gates [El Gouna is essentially one enormous gated community] and stopped the busses. The tourists were diverted straight to the airport in Hurghada. So we were…” Stranded? “Exactly.” Dewie was only able to get involved because he was already in the north, convalescing after his knee injury.

“You should have taken the kite and surfed up there,” I say lamely. He smiles and I smile, and I suspect we both wish it had been as simple and jolly as all that.

From the Guardian

The Winds Of Change - Part One

Through the fatigue and the madness, through the mania and the melancholy, through the delirium and the hatred, through the tedium and the awe… Through all that, the Central Asia Rally taught me many things, but above all it taught me patience.

It taught me that if no one has been injured, arrested or killed, by simply being patient, you can overcome. No matter the disaster, you can simply wait it out, so long as you can muster the will to do so.

It may sound like a pathetic bit of self-help, but I’m glad I learned that lesson because what should be a fairly rudimentary group press trip to learn to kitesurf in the manufactured Egyptian resort of El Gouna is rapidly descending into farce.

I arrived in London to begin this little adventure 24 hours ago, only to receive a text message from the PR who’d organised the whole thing to say that staff in Egypt had called a strike, delaying our flight. By the time I got into the airport it was quickly obvious that our flight wouldn’t be going anywhere that day, so I made a few phone calls, went into London and got drunk.

Earlier today, after the hangover and some plodding around the city (and after I’d checked to see that another of the Egypt Air flights had actually taken off, albeit more than four hours late), I decided to head back out to Heathrow to meet up with the PR and the other four journalists on the trip. 

Initially the airline indicate that our flight will go through the night, leaving at 1am and arriving in Cairo around 5, before we make a connection down to Hurghada, the large airport near El Gouna.

By this point, we’re supposed to have been in the resort, but instead we’re in a queue for check-in, listening to rumours that we might not fly at all, as told to us by a fat lady who looks like she’s about to lose her shit with the staff. In the middle of all this, one of the other journalists loses her phone – or at least thinks she does. Ten minutes of panic later, she’s found it in the bottom of her bag. “Hah!” I think, “What an amateur…”

(Not our picture)

An uneasy half-hour passes and we get to the head of the queue. We’re told our plane hasn’t even arrived in London yet and, as the fat lady predicted, we won’t be leaving tonight. Instead the airline decides to put us up in a hotel, which seems like a fairly logical decision to all of us – especially as it means we’ll all get a bit of sleep.

So we raid our big bags, take out some overnight essentials, and check-in everything else. I fill my pockets with deodorant and my tooth brush. There’s not a square centimetre of extra room in my camera bag, which won’t be checked in, and my pockets feel fat and full.

We head out to the bus stop where we are greeted by a stramash of Egyptian maniacs trying to shove their way onto the first bus that’ll head out to the hotel. I know it’s tough to believe that humans from the MENA region would be going radge en masse, but I swear it’s true: they shout and push, while we stand back and survey the ugly scene.

It reminds me of something else from the Rally, when we were at the border of Turkey and Georgia and moustachioed men shouted and screamed at one another, and the only response to that particular brand of madness was to do the same. My co-driver at the time, Gabor, turned to me and said morosely: “We came here as men; we leave as baboons.”

(Not our picture)

This time, we, the noble British, opt out of the babooning. And by the time the second bus comes, we’ve heard-tell that they're having to drive 45 minutes to a hotel near Luton. Of course, they’ll have to do the same to get back tomorrow. By now it’s almost midnight and, given that extra distance and the time it’ll take to check in, it seems we’d be going all that way for a total of three hours’ sleep at the very most.

We make a group decision to tough it out in Heathrow. Again, I probably agree that it’s the best course of action.

So we all trudge up to Costa to wait out the night. Some people try to sleep, but perhaps because I’ve spent most of the last month alone, freelancing without any colleagues, I find I can’t stop talking to literally anyone who enters my Thunderdome of conversation. On and on I rabbit, popping out stories like a burping baby, all the way through til 4.30am, when security opens and we can all shamble through to departures.

I get onto the plane, dump everything out my pockets and into the back of the seat in front, and immediately fall asleep, missing take-off and not waking for three hours.

Then the wheel of misfortune spins again and I’m woken by searing pain in my gums – having had a temporary filling installed in a broken tooth a few days previously, the trapped air is trying to expand, pushing on the dentine, like a sharp thumbnail into my naked nerves. I can’t sleep any more, so I have a flick through the (largely dreadful) entertainment system. I watch three American sit-coms, each more terrible than the last, then it’s time to land, so I grab my stuff, pat my pockets with satisfaction that they are again fat and full, and get off the plane. I walk into Cairo airport exhausted but happy that the worst of my problems are behind me.

It takes 15 minutes to remember to text Wee Mo to let her know of our safe arrival, and it’s then that I realise I don’t have my phone, that I’ve left it on the plane, and that the deodorant gave my pocket the false impression of being as full as it should have been. I've only just got the fucking thing and owing to the increasingly onerous contracts issued by the faceless telecom corporations, it'll be 22 months before I can get an upgrade. In other words, I'm their dream punter.

(Not our photo)

The day after a massive debilitating strike, Cairo Airport is not a tranquil place. “But,” I say to myself, “be patient; worse than this happened on the Rally”. Even so, it’s hard not to feel a little, y’know, infuriated when a comically casual man with a radio, his face a ruin of acne scars, has the responsibility of trying to get my phone back. It’s especially delicate as there are only 25 minutes before the must-catch connection leaves for Hurghada, and I’ve only had three hours sleep, and it’s hot, and no one given a pharaoh’s fuck about me or my phone.

So we have to just leave it and wait until we get to the next airport, where I tell someone else who seems a little more interested (but not really, not enough) in my problem. Even the people in my own party, affable though they are, don’t seem bothered about my phone now. I should feel indignant about it, but then the word comes that our bags haven’t made it here from Cairo. No one has anything other than the festering clothes on their backs. No sleep, no phone, no luggage…

“Thank god for the Rally,” I say to myself, “Thank all holy fuck.”