This was written in the 1950s! Kerouac prophesied 9/11!
Dazed by this news, then dozing just under 3 hours to reach Canalandwindmillland, the sandy escape concluded with a 15 minute, excitement-laden train trip into town.
It's that time of the year when feet are seriously itching, the sand is tedious, the atlas comes out and soon I'm off and away with Masood the driver down the highway of death (Saudi has the highest number of vehicle-related deaths and accidents in the world) to the airport, shiny and empty at midnight. Every one of the 9 million expats and dependents in the Kingdom has to get an exit visa stamped when leaving the country. This duty is carried out by the police and they make every conceivable effort to piss you off. But if that cop doesn't stamp your passport, you don't have a leg to stand on, you stay put in the sand and if you resort to stealing they'll chop your hands off too. The visa police are a sorry troupe of the insanely arrogant tribe; cherry-picked; routinely getting up to go to the toilet, walk about, pray, make a phone call, and, in my case today, kiss a colleague half a dozen times in a manner that became uncomfortable for those of us in the queue. Perhaps the cops should stick to upholding these laws (photo left), while the bottom one is surely the long lost 11th Commandment. We got going at 01.55 and landed in Istanbul 4 hours later. Then it was a mad rush to the caged-in smoking terrace before reboarding and hopefully reaching Amsterdam for brunch. Waiting on the tarmac I was enjoying Kerouac's On The Road and, despite the time of day, sat bolt upright in my seat when, on page 106, I read the following: 'Dean had a sweater wrapped around his ears to keep warm. He said we were a band of Arabs coming in to blow up New York. We swished through the Lincoln Tunnel and cut over to Times Square; Marylou wanted to see it.' This was written in the 1950s! Kerouac prophesied 9/11! Dazed by this news, then dozing just under 3 hours to reach Canalandwindmillland, the sandy escape concluded with a 15 minute, excitement-laden train trip into town. It must have been jet-lag because everything started to take on a blurry, blissfull, blase aura and I turned round in the window seat from the view above right and came across the following scene perhaps painted by Picasso when he was pissed up on the Damrak one time and fell in the drink. Below are the first three steps before the fourth above.
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FOTO BEDSIDE TABLERussell Shorto FOOD FOR THOUGHT
‘I don’t understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress.’ Ed Begley Jr. * "The more I see of Humans the more I like my dog." Mark Twain * Only when the Last Tree Is Cut Down, The Last Fish Eaten, And the Last Stream Poisoned, Will Man Realize That Money Cannot be Eaten Cree Indian proverb Nb. Doesn't work in Google Chrome, no idea why not...
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January 2016
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