American Fez

Sea Fever

I scorn those mindless consumers whose personal tastes are defined by logos and brand names. 

Yet the truth is: I will buy any product called Trade Winds that is decorated with a picture of a clipper ship. Sometimes, as in the case of Pinaud Bay Rum after shave, I just need the clipper ship to be inspired to make a purchase. 

So I'm just as bad as the shopping mall fodder, if not worse.

Instead of insipid fashions and shameless celebrities, my shopping prejudices are formed by a romantic nostalgia for an idealised, colonial West Indies: hibiscus scented evenings on the terrace at Government House, dressed in a crisp white linen suit, sipping gin and tonic while watching the local fishermen bring their catch to shore. There are elements of mid-century Hawaii and South Sea Islands fantasy mixed in there too.  

This melange of pseudo-tropical lifestyle images guides my decisions when buying toiletries, summer clothing, foodstuffs, and drinks. Have you seen the Kraken dark spiced rum bottle? It's a thing of beauty. I actually prefer to drink Gosling but buy Kraken purely for the aesthetic packaging. 

Of course, I know the Kraken is a Scandinavian sea monster rather than a Caribbean beast, but it's always a Dark 'n' Stormy night in this shopaholic's world.

Blake At The Beach

The world in a grain of sand, sure. Heaven in a wildflower, okay. Infinity in the palm of your hand, uh-huh. Eternity in an hour, if you say so. But I prefer to consider the depths of the ocean in a surf bubble quivering on the beach.

Giant squids undulating through the dark. The deep sea diver with his lead boots, brass helmet, and spear-gun. The slowly collapsing sunken galleon relinquishing its horde of Spanish gold to the weeds. The aimless seahorses darting this way and that.

Oh, I could stare at the surf bubbles for hours. Or at least until they and their briny phantasms are reclaimed by the possessive tide.

Summer Job 1985

Considered not knowledgeable enough to be a docent, I was posted to the end of a dreary corridor in the mansion's east wing, where I sat for hours next to an old vase on a plinth. From here, I directed visitors to the toilets or the so-called Peacock Cafe. Most of the time, however, I fantasized about dashing the stupid vase to the ground in a rage and telling the administrators to go stuff themselves. 

Sensing the danger, they exiled me from the house completely and I was sent to the outer limits of the ornamental gardens to stand in front of a tall hedge. "The Faery Grotto is about five minutes back the way you came." was pretty much all I ever said all day, mostly to annoyed looking parents who couldn't read our little map of the grounds. Still, it was a step above "the men's room is on your left and the ladies' on your right." A certain type of maniac would ask me about the hedge. When was it planted? How often was it trimmed?

By the end of June, I began to wonder why I hadn't chosen to spend my summer as a lifeguard at a municipal pool. Far better, surely, to lounge around all day in board shorts and sun tan cream than sweat to death in an ill-fitting polyester jacket telling people they are walking the wrong way. Alas, such are the travails of a bookish youth who thought working at a historic house would be inspiring.

Narcissus Remembers.

The old mill pond water always looked like dark green mud, as if the mill ground heaps of thick cabbage instead of wheat. It seemed bottomless but was probably only about ten feet deep. 

A public path ran along one bank, the other was a swathe of well-cut grass, owned by a large church that dominated the skyline with its empty bell tower, and studded with the ancient, unreadable gravestones of prominent citizens from bygone days.

Fishing was prohibited on the public side, as was swimming and boating, but a blind eye was turned to the elderly and infirm feeding the greedy, ungrateful ducks. Grim-faced nurses wheeled them out from a nearby retirement home with their brown bags full of crumbs saved from lunch and left on the bank for several hours. At dusk, they'd be dragged back to the home for supper.

I'd go to the pond after school, sit on a bench, stare into the dark green water, and seek answers to the unanswerable questions that young men always want the answers to. Sensing a new arrival, the ducks would abandon their aged benefactors and swarm around this youthful thinker. But I had no food for them, just the completely indigestible works of Jean-Paul Sartre.

How better served the ducks and I would have been if only I'd left the Sartre at home and brought along a baguette instead. No doubt the blanket-clad oldsters could have told me that, but I never asked them. For some reason, I thought wisdom could more readily be found in the reflections of a mucky pond.

Traveler Returning From An Antique Land

"The lone and level sands stretch far away ..."

All men are Ozymandias in the ruins of their vacations. How quickly a sun-kissed smile turns into a wrinkled lip and sneer when arriving at airport departures. How soon relaxed shoulders turn into the hunchback of a crippled king at the thought of returning to the daily grind. And how speedily mementoes and souvenirs admired in a carefree moment are condemned to domestic dungeons in the back of a basement drawer, never to be seen again.

Meanwhile, look upon my Trip Advisor reviews ye tourists and despair!