The Irish Tales

Second Life (19)
　
I have spent the last 5 weeks in solitary splendour, whilst my dear wife has frolicked around in Malaysia, Japan and Brazil, staying in luxury hotels, dining off the finest of local cuisine and waited on hand, foot and toes by lithe, semi-naked natives.
(I know, I know – I’ll pay heavily for that sentence.)
Over these weeks, I have had ample time to reflect on the joys of one’s own company and I’ve come to the following conclusions :
1. There are none.
2. I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near an oven or anything that burns.
3. All washing machines are controlled by Microsoft and they absolutely will not stop until they have mangled most of your bed linen, shirts and coloureds.
4. Ocado is God’s gift to the single man.
In my First Life, I was often away on such jaunts and I won’t deny that I had some wondrous times and some gloriously esoteric experiences. But the simple truth about my opening paragraph is that it’s a lie.
(And I’m not just saying that to save my bacon when she reads it.)
There is nothing glamorous about air travel any more. Or five star hotels when you only get to use your room for 5 hours a day.
Or having to go out to dinner sometimes with people you can’t stand after spending a whole day in their company. Night after bloody night.
Nothing glamorous about getting up at 5am, to "catch the early light, love" and standing around watching the latest petulant flouncing-off about to happen.
Or getting back to your room at midnight, where thanks to the time differences, you spend another two hours trying to catch up with emails and making phone calls to London, only to have your mobile and laptop both go down at once.
This is a producer’s lot. As a writer, I had it slightly better, but not by much.
Tokyo is a fascinating place. I got to see my hotel bed and a busy road junction. I hope Kate was luckier.
Brazil is a fascinating place, too. But not viewed from a cramped people carrier with no air-con and a crazed driver who played Take That throughout a seven hour drive which left me needing orthopaedic surgery.
And then there’s the sheer boredom. And the dysentry. And the goddamn flies.
(I swear the same swarm followed me all around Northern Argentina.)
Does 35 degrees centigrade sound like heaven to you ? Try standing in it for eight hours, with nothing more than a parasol and Factor 100 to protect you.
I think you’re beginning to get my drift.
The first time I turned left on boarding the plane, I hugged myself with joy. (One could smoke in those days.)
It seemed as if I had entered a magical world where my every need was anticipated and met.
The last time I landed at Heathrow after a long-haul flight, desperate for a smoke, only to find my car was no-smoking, (Thank you Tony Blair. Thank you so fucking much.) I vowed never to do it again.
Travel like this does not broaden the mind. It batters it into a numbed state where all you care about is going home again.
On a shoot I did in the Gulf of Mexico, my only memory of it now is the film itself.
Did I really see the Flower Gardens, the most beautiful underwater coral reef in the world ?
Did I really watch as we filmed a giant manta ray, practically holding hands with our cameraman ?
Was that really me, clinging to a tractor tyre, a thousand feet above a raging sea ?
I was so drugged with sea-sickness pills and sedatives, it seems now as if it happened to someone else entirely.
Aye, it’s a funny old world.
Where was I ?
Oh yes. My dear Kate flies in to Heathrow tomorrow afternoon and it won’t be a minute too soon.
The bachelor life is fine and dandy. But only if you’re a bachelor.