Editor's Letter - January '07

In 1879, a young Robert Louis Stevenson, short of funds and wanting to visit a girl he fancied in California, left Scotland (against the advice of his father) and spent 12 days hiking through Les Cevennes in southern France with a donkey called Modestine. He ate where he could, drank from streams and slept where he thought he wouldn’t get robbed. The plan was to publish a book about the trip and with the proceeds travel to the US (and said valley girl - beats spending the summer working in a supermarket). The book, ‘Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes’ influenced Hemingway, inspired Steinbeck and was the first piece of travel writing to discuss the construction of sleeping bags. I’m sitting by a river about 10kms south of where his journey finished and when I asked if I could drink the water I was met with a resounding, “Non!”

It may have taken the local industry 128 years to render the Herault river non potable but the pace of change in our tourist destinations is far faster today. Last October’s Stern Review into the environment (commissioned by the British government) stated that, “The scientific evidence points to increasing risks of serious, irreversible impacts from climate change associated with business-as-usual paths for emissions.” Chancellor Gordon Brown’s reaction for one of the fastest growing polluters, the aviation industry, was to double Air Passenger Duty (APD) from £5 to £10 on a plane ticket. An extra fiver is unlikely to make anyone cancel that weekend in Barcelona but then, none of the £2bn raised annually by APD is spent on environmental initiatives anyway. From where I’m sitting that looks very much like ‘business-as-usual’.

2007 is the year in which Tony Blair finally resigns and Gordon Brown becomes Britain’s Prime Minister. In his ten years in charge of the economy Brown has paid a great deal of lip-service to environmental issues but has so far failed to translate our hopeful votes into any positive political action (by imposing tax on aviation fuel, for example). But what can we do about it? As backpackers we can make more informed personal decisions about how we travel (see Nick Clarke’s current article on greening your skiing holiday), but we also need to make our politicians understand that (in the absence of any discernable difference in the economic policies of the political parties) the environment is a key priority when we cast our vote. You can write to your local politician (in the UK at http://www.writetothem.com/, in the US at www.house.gov/writerep) and ask them how they intend to win your vote through positive environmental policies.

Not being able to drink the river water in Les Cevennes is unfortunately only a minor environmental irritation for the modern traveller. In 1999, two of Kiribati’s islands, Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea, disappeared under the rising Pacific Ocean. If Gordon Brown would like us to keep flying, it would be nice to know there will still be places to land.

The Day12 Project

The Zoom Room

"What?! They're just like any holiday photographs. There's a bunch of people stood around squinting, who didn't realise they were that fat!"
- Bernard Black

Hello! ...and welcome to Monday morning!

Yes, it is the beginning of another glorious week and we at Your Life Inc. have laid on an absolute corker of a start to it. Did you know that there are people out there who, rather than saying 'What shall I do with the next five days of my rapidly shortening existence?' actually think, 'Fuck I can't wait 'til Friday.'? This means that, Monday to Friday, all over the world, people are wishing their lives were 5/7ths shorter so they could get on with really 'living' their lives. That's 263 days a year, 263 out of a possible 365, where people are just waiting for Saturday morning so they can pack the family into the car and head off to the mall to buy all the things they don't need but which seem to justify working in the first place!

We at Your Life Inc., however, are of the opinion that your working week ought to be more rewarding. We think that those hours you spend at your desk ought to be less of a chore. Your Life Inc. has produced a programme which will make your working week not just bearable, but enjoyable! Each package contains a wide range of ideas designed to put a spring in your step and a smile on your face such as whistling on the way to work, asking the guy in the paper shop how his weekend was, offering to make a colleague a cup of coffee, and lots more. If you think going home to see your family is the reward for a days work then just consider the mood you're usually in when you open the front door and see if your family are as pleased to see you!

Whichever of the Your Life Inc. packages you wish to buy into (with our 'no money down', 'no money ever', 'no guarantee', 'frankly, what you want to believe in is your own business' seal of quality), you will be assured that this particular plane will be trouble-free and filled with joy and laughter.

Email us now on info@day12.com for more information on our 'How to have a complete disregard for authority' and 'Always remember to quit your job' packages.

Disclaimer: Our 'no guarantee' policies are only good if you really try to make the effort. If you don't feel that you will be able to stay a whole course, you could always go to our 'Skip breakfast and go straight to the gun shop' package, which will have them 'literally' rolling in the aisles.

If you dream of sand-dunes...

I’m sitting here in a restaurant looking out over the South China Sea beyond. There’s a game of volleyball going on in front of me and the Americans, muscular six-footers to a man (one of whom bears more than a passing resemblance to Ben Affleck), are providing more than enough eye-candy for the group of Italian bikinis who, in the time-honoured tradition of all Latin beachwear are managing to look both gorgeous and disinterested. The latter being important because of the group of American girlfriends sitting next to me in the restaurant.

It’s monsoon season in Thailand and whilst it’s not raining right now the clouds hang heavy over Chaweng beach. There’s a few guys throwing a frisby around down by the water’s edge. The players aren’t as tall nor as muscular as the Americans on the volleyball court. Their clothes are baggier and their hair’s longer and the guy in the red shorts looks like Kurt Cobain after a few weeks in the gym. This fact has not gone unnoticed by the two coconut oil, Israeli bikinis who just walked past them.

The sun doesn’t set on Chaweng beach (this is no allusion to the 24-hour party life here, merely an observation. It sets on the other side of the island). There’s a girl in a red bikini playing Frisbee with Kurt and his friends. She can’t throw it very well, but then, they don’t seem to care.

The body of the restaurant I’m sitting in contains the usual chairs and tables but there are a few recliners laid out where the restaurant meets the beach. It’s nice to spend an afternoon in one of these watching the world go by. There’s a girl lying on the beach in a sky-blue bikini. She’s got shoulder-length brown hair and is reading intently from a book which doesn’t have embossed gold lettering on the cover. Her sarong is yellow and compliments her bikini and honey-brown skin perfectly. She’s sitting in front, and slightly to the left of the restaurant and I can’t see her because there’s a tree in the way.

(altogether now) Coo, isn’t it hot!

Never fear! Like Guinness in the nineties we’ve lowered the serving temperature of The Day12 Project and installed air-conditioning throughout. Step inside and enjoy a long cool glass of Aug/Sept News and see our selection of upcoming festivals. Relax in the shade of the Notice Board and vote for your favourite road movies. Join Stephanie Smith (USA) in footnotes for backpackers magazine and hear her latest story from Ecuador (just don’t offer her flowers).
All excellent good ways to prevent summer chaffing…but if it gets a bit chilly, can we recommend you visit the all-new Student Gumball Rally section! Meet John Buni, the organiser; find out who Rule8!, Team Dwoozle and The Elite are, and read all about the Day12 Journal-ista who’s going to be joining them on September’s drive to Croatia!
But if the Day12 hammock gets too comfy, you’ll really need to check out the film that, against all the odds, is called The Day12 Guide to…Driving on the Right!
Just make sure you fasten your seatbelt…

What REALLY happened on that Texas morning...

(captured by Whitehouse bugging devices in Dick Cheney's hacking jacket. Voice of Harry Wittington)

"...and you know, it's on mornings like these, Dick, mornings like these with the mist rising off the fields and that life-affirming chill in the air that you begin to wonder...begin to wonder if we might not have misunderstood those Ayrabs out there. You know what I mean, Dick? That maybe those Islamists, well, maybe they might just be looking for the same thing as us. A beautiful wife, a good cigar, a multinational we can be proud to call our own, a nice scotch at the end of a hard day's shooting. Maybe we've got it all wrong. Now, don't look at me like that, Dick, I know we've both made a pretty penny out of Rummy's crusade and far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth but maybe it's time, maybe it's time to start winding down the war...pulling out the troops, demobilizing the insurgents, training the Iraqi police. Maybe we could even step up our diplomatic efforts with Iran. Try and find a peaceful solution? Stop publishing cartoons and stuff...stirring up trouble? I mean, they're just guys, you know? At the end of the day they're not all that different from you and BLAM!

BLAM BLAM!!

Berlin Basket Case

England supporters in Berlin. That can’t be a good idea, can it? Berlin is one of my favourite cities. I spent most of last summer there and there’s a lot I miss about it. The sausages for starters. Then there’s the price of the beer (which here in Paris is criminal), the architecture, the museums, the parks and the people, who ride bicycles and clean up after their dogs (Parisians take note). I even like the sound of the German language. It’s not often you hear an Englishman say that but I do miss that rolled ‘G’. For all Berlin has to offer though, I’ll still be staying away while the football’s on.

I’ve never really been a fan of football. Before I swapped Cambridge for Paris, Marcus, flat-mate and, being Australian, Chelsea supporter, managed to tweak my interest; even to the point where I cared about the result against Uruguay, but not to the point where I might head down to the Abbey Stadium for anything other than directions back to the Flying Pig. It’s not even football in particular; just team sports generally. At school I never got the hang of hockey or rugby (or, for that matter, standing in the snow in the middle of winter being shouted at) but for one game in the fourth year, and only one, I was in the basketball team.

There was the local school league but our school didn’t have a squad so England’s least imaginative PE teacher called the year’s tallest boys into his office and told us we were the Sawston Village College basketball team. I swear there was at least one taller girl in the school but the decision had been made and he put us under the expert leadership of Derwyn Hardwick, who, despite being 4-feet tall was the school sports star and captain of everything except the Cutty Sark. The PE teacher also told us we had a game the following evening. He told us who we were playing (Linton Village College) and what time we were playing them (7pm), but in an unfortunate oversight he forgot to tell us what positions we were playing (though Derwyn played them all as I remember), what to wear (11th hour shirts were found) or, indeed, the rules of basketball.

In basketball, as I now know, if you advance into your opponents half with the ball, you can’t then cross back into your own half. Simple, if you’ve been told, but our team spent
the whole game dribbling for all we were worth (our only skill); not running toward Linton’s basket so much as away from Linton’s players and on the rare occasions we’d gain a few metres in a misplaced burst of optimism the Linton boys would close in and suddenly we’d be retreating like it was worth points, the referees would be blowing their whistles like they’d joined a Samba band and we’d be standing back in our own halves shouting “WHAT NOW?!” The first time a Sawston player was fouled we didn’t even know how to restart the game. One of us had to be led by the hand to the sideline and told to throw the ball in – which I did. Robert, our least coordinated player, almost caught it too. We gave him a little round of applause.

The rest of the game was spent running in ever decreasing circles; invariably losing the ball, occasionally firing on our own basket, and generally looking like what we were; lanky teenagers who hadn’t got used to their growth spurts. By the end of the match, the size of the Linton players, their ability and – let’s face it – ‘knowledge’ of the game, meant we were picked up by our mums; battered, bruised and humiliated (as if being picked up by your mum isn’t humiliation enough when you’re fifteen). On reflection the PE teacher decided it was best if I wasn’t in the team, the first time we’d ever agreed about anything. On further reflection I decided I was buggered if I was ever going to join another bloody team in my life.

But PE-related trauma should be left at the gate when you leave school (which I did at a sprint). Maybe it’s not even football I dislike, maybe it’s just PE teachers. Or Derwyn Hardwick. Whatever. For two weeks next summer, if you need me, I’ll be anywhere but Germany. Which is probably dumb because Berlin is a fantastic city; from the quirky little bars of Prenzlauer Berg to the grand classicism of Unter den Linden, from Norman Foster’s glass dome on the parliament building to the communist horror of the apartment blocks on Karl Marx Allee. If you are heading to Germany next summer you’ll find Berlin is big enough to keep you occupied but small enough to make getting around easy. It has parks, museums, wonderfully friendly people, and a nightlife which could put you at serious risk of missing the following day’s matches. On top of all that it has cheap accommodation, cheaper food and beer gardens the size of, well, football pitches.

Martin Stevenson, Paris, France

This entry first appeared on the BBC here 02.01.06
photo: B-boy, Tacheles, Berlin, Germany (Goatboy)

A Very Social Model

Not having fought at Trafalgar I've never felt any of the animosity which is supposed to exist between the English and the French (we fought a much more recent war in Iraq and I don’t hear anyone making jokes about what they eat) and apart from the Brit in Berlin who finished his email, "Punch a Frenchman for me. Love, Giles." I don’t know anyone else who has either. After I failed in my attempt to describe the Parisians without using the word 'sophisticated' in my last entry, I thought I'd open up the floor to find a few more impressions about the French, and see if there was a word the French use to describe the British – there is, but more of that later.

Since The Day12 Project is all about promoting sustainable tourism, we have a fair few travellers on the staff, both in Cambridge and scattered around the world, and I asked them what they thought about my new neighbours. Anna, from Coleridge, reckons they're, "Cool and unapproachable, like us, but better dressed." Nick, currently in the Czech Republic, but who used to chef in Bastille, says they’re, "sophisticated, bohemian, independent, wild, stylish and moody" I think Nick liked it here. And Howard, just back from Barcelona, thinks Parisians go through life "in a world of sophisticated mirrors that blind them to what the world looks like beyond their decadent borders!" (Thank you, Che).

Kate Coles, a Kiwi who’s been living here for the last three and a half years says that for all our opinions on what a Parisian is, we’d actually be hard pushed to find one. "You need to be a third generation arrondissement-dweller," she says, "to qualify as a card-carrying Parisian." Given that in 1927 only 17% of the population of the city was found to have been born in Paris, Kate says very few Parisians today can claim to have the requisite 4 grandparents, born on the banks of the Seine that real Parisians are so proud of.

But how do these Parisians feel about les anglais? It seems that when something we do in the UK is mentioned, their reaction is generally one of disbelief. When news arrived in the summer that Kate Moss had been caught on camera doing coke, that the British press had gone ballistic and that she’d been sacked by fashion houses across the country, the initial French reaction was incredulity that anyone was surprised that those involved in the fashion industry took drugs. Their second reaction, courtesy of Parfum Yves Saint Laurent, was to plaster a fresh new poster campaign featuring Ms Moss all over Paris, for Opium.

When I asked my French friends what word they would use to describe the English they said 'flegmatique'. "COLD AND UNDEMONSTRATIVE?!" I laughed, slamming my fist on the table, which, because it was rather affected looked rather silly. Returning to the room with a French/English dictionary I discovered that, in the eyes of my friends at least, the British are a foppish combination of Louis 14th and Blackadder’s Prince George; cold, distant, well-dressed (which came as something of a shock), a bit silly but with a lot of class. Goodness knows where they get that idea from. Not me certainly (apart from the class bit, obviously).

Over a summer of EU summits and Olympic bids, we heard a lot about the differences between our two systems; of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ economics and the French 'Social Model' and as I discussed these ideas, comparisons with other countries inevitably crept into the conversations. Parisians are very proud of the way they drive France’s economy and they have the firmly held view that no-one else in the country does any work at all. "You go shopping in Toulouse at 4pm and they’re all still having lunch!" says Albane Hugé. Albane is a typical young Parisienne; 25, professional, 40sq metres in the 15th arrondissement, born in the suburbs. When the subject of French taxes arose she said they were too high but at least they had free education and healthcare as a result. As more people mentioned that fact it began to sound like they were making a direct comparison with the UK. I asked them whether they thought we had to pay for our schools and hospitals. Amazingly, most thought our system was identical to that of the US. Only Albane wasn’t sure. "I don’t know." she said, "I imagine it’s free. It’s a democracy after all, no?"

England was French for about 250 years. France was English for about eight. Maybe that's the problem, if we dislike them it’s because they got a higher score than us - that's how it works when we play the Germans at football, after all.

Martin Stevenson, Paris, France

This entry first appeared on the BBC here 22.11.05

Aloof Moi?

If you’ve read ‘A Year in the Merde’, or walked anywhere in Paris, you’ll be familiar with the dilemma tourists are faced with here. Sometimes it’s piled high like the Magic Mountain at Euro Disney and ends in a little spiky flourish (this is the city of art after all). Sometimes, if the dog’s been getting a lot of roughage and the rain lets off for a few days, it’ll break off into greenish chunks resembling an aerial view of Thailand’s Koh Phi-Phi islands (if you imagined a bit of sand and some turquoise waters you could shoot a little poo-ey remake of ‘The Beach’), but with so much beautiful stuff to see as you walk around the city you have to decide whether to look up, at the way the pot plants have been arranged on one of Hausmann’s first floor balconies, or down, at that rather heavy-looking poodle.

Before I came here I had the usual notions of what Parisians were like; towards foreigners generally, the English especially, and English people who didn’t have a Proust-ian command of the French language in particular, i.e. me. But rather than the expected distain, I’ve been treated, rather surprisingly, with an alarming amount of kindness. This wasn’t what I’d been led to expect at all. Another cliché I can dispel for you right now is the whole fashion thing. As you traverse Paris, look a bit more closely at the most well-dressed people - not the most sophisticated, or the most stylish, or the ones who carry it off with the greatest nonchalance, they’re the Parisians – look, or rather listen, to the most fashionably-dressed people in Paris. They’re foreign! Every single one! Such is Paris’s reputation; such is the level of terror it incites in a fashion-conscious visitor that they do all their shopping BEFORE they arrive so as to fit in!

The welcome hasn’t been universal, of course - this is a capital city after all - but maybe Parisians could be forgiven a slight aloofness. Paris is the world’s most popular tourist destination. Imagine you lived anywhere in the vicinity of Montmartre. You would be surrounded by tourists. All the time. American students; little knots of loud, nasal optimism, the British; country cousins trying desperately not to appear unsophisticated, and the East Asian tour groups; giant waves of digital photography which break on the steps of the Sacre Coeur and recede as the next tour bus arrives. Passing through a group of Korean tourists with their diminutive, umbrella-wielding Fuhrers is like falling into a vat of plastercine. You can’t move. Every exit is blocked. You just have to hope their heading for the same Metro station as you. Given this horrific, international swarm of YSL wearing inconvenience - the ‘Are-we-there-yet?’-set - badly dressed, lost, in the way - how could the Parisians FAIL to feel superior?

Martin Stevenson, Paris, France

This entry first appeared on the BBC here 01.11.05