Breathless Machu Picchu

Today marks the centenary of Hiram Bingham’s discovery of Machu Picchu, an Inca citadel in Peru, now one of the world’s most famous tourist sites. The anniversary gives me another chance to revisit my own diaries since, almost exactly 35 years ago, I was there, a youthful round-the-world traveller, ‘breathless’ but, nevertheless, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t really impressed.

Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian 15th-century Inca site located, somewhat precariously, over 2,000 metres above sea level on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru. Most archaeologists believe it dates from the 15th century, but was abandoned at the time of the Spanish conquest. Although known locally, it was unknown in the West until ‘discovered’ on 24 July 1911 by Hiram Bingham, an American academic, leading a Yale University expedition.

Bingham soon started archaeological studies and completed a survey of the area, calling the complex ‘The Lost City of the Incas’, which was also the title of his first book. He continued studying the site until 1915, collecting various artifacts - ceramic vessels, silver statues, jewellery, and human bones - which he took back to Yale. Recently, Yale and Peru have reached agreement for the artefacts to be returned to their original home. See Wikipedia for more.

Today Machu Picchu is one of the most famous tourist sites in the world. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983, and, in 2007, it was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide internet poll. It was certainly a key destination for me on my travels around the world in the mid-1970s.

I had been held up in Lima for a month by a bout of hepatitis, but, by mid-July 1976, I was on my way again, with Cuzco and Machu Picchu waiting for me further south. I found three companions on the road: Didier, a delightfully gentle Frenchman; Jim, a bearded Canadian with spiritual tendencies and an empathy for nature; and Annabelle, a beautiful Englishwoman with long dark curls.

Here is an entry from my diary, almost exactly 35 years ago to the day - (taken from my journal entries on the Pikle website).

21 July 1976
‘BREATHLESS MACHU PICCHU
The river fjords, peaks and pikes, moss-covered cliffs. A hawk glides a spiral upwards, upwards, 1,000ft above the meandering Urubamba. Once people lived here in the sky, carving building bricks, hiding from the ground, from the river. Once people toiled here in the sky and worshiped the sun. A sun that came sometimes to warm, to grow, to live. A sun that came through the mists. And a myth that grew with gold. A myth grew and crumbled. And now is grass. A pasture for hungry tourists, for ego-hunting travellers. A pasture for writers and artists to see the mountains, the river, the sky. Few walls of interlocking stone are left, few Inca building bricks, but more a crumbling cottage stone of a poor man built, the Inca slave, the Inca beggar. Some flowers grow, and Peruvian government llamas or alpacas graze. A yellow pipeline sprints upon another mountain. Specks of colour dawdle from wall to stone from hut to rock from step to step.

And I am unimpressed. I am here but I am unimpressed. Sitting on a rock, watching the play of every day: red-helmetted grass cutters, drifting wind-carried chatter, people strolling, like in a park. I was talking a while with Didier just now - as we watched the tourist train pull in - about the Buddhist ruins I investigated near Peshawar. It was a very hazy memory. Didier is not interested in the old stone but likes the green mountains and green river. Jim sits on the other side of the saddle meditating. Annabelle takes photographs for a granny. The wind is smiling. Machu Picchu.

Have you seen this old old city
Have you seen, have you seen
This old old city, have you seen

CUZCO - AN OLD LADY

What is Cuzco? It is situated in a mild valley, a patchwork of red tiles, cobbled streets, hybrid Inca walls, churches, squares, parades of modern arches. It’s a cool city with beggars, ice-cream sellers and blind harp players. The Spanish added some churches to the place after removing the Inca civilisation. But giving the people Catholicism was sinful.

We arrived on the Saturday (in time to dress up for dinner and mingle with the swarms of French and German bees). Initial impressions were of bustling markets, lots of gringos and old churches. For two days we did a lot of sitting in cafes drinking teas and milk and leches, or eating doughnut and honey in the main market in San Francisco square. The cathedral (a hideous place with galleries of ancient Spanish bishop portraits and alcoves of broken christs in ghastly glitter) and museums were empty. Our hotel, Roma, had falling down shacks for toilets. Our room was large with four beds brightly coloured and patterned walls and a roof that sagged several feet in the middle.

One very amusing evening started with Jim painting and me being very speedy - lying on the floor breathing heavy to cool down. I noticed little beads in the cracks of the floorboards and started picking them out. Derek and Eric, the comic due, joined in the bead searching party. Didier was rolling joints, Annabelle wrote endless letters. Jim’s painting got progressively darker, and my bead chain got progressively longer, and more colourful. Finally, I’d made a whole bracelet from the beads in the floorboards of Hotel Roma.

Another evening we went to see Zardoz and then played blow football in a late night cafe (the Canadian Rollocks beat the English Whizzers by three goals to one).

There was a strange moment watching a very old lady standing in the doorway of a trinket shop, looking at a display case of cheap ear-rings. She pointed with her finger from one ring to another putting a whole lot of feeling into the pointing process. I stood watching her and felt almost impelled to buy her one pair. After an extra emphatic point at one particular pair, she walked away. I thought that she hadn’t noticed me watching her, but when she’d walked 100 metres or so up the road, she turned and looked straight at me. There was anger in her eyes which spoke saying: ‘Why haven’t you bought me those ear-rings?’ A very odd feeling.’

Sabara on my wall

In the mid-1980s, I was living in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, and exactly a quarter of a century ago today, I had travelled to a small pretty colonial town in Minas Gerais state called Sabara. There, I chanced on a festival, which included a brass band contest and a running event. A month or so later, back in Rio, I went to my first auction, and, experienced an astonishing coincidence, one which led me to buy a painting of a Sabara church - it has hung on a wall of wherever I’ve been living ever since.

I have indulged The Diary Review twice before with entries from my own diaries, one about The Demolition Decorators and one about Love in Pyrghos. Here is a third indulgence from my Pikle website: one entry written on that day in Sabara 25 years ago, and another written later about the aucton.

Sunday 14 July 1985, Sabara
‘Have escaped from the bustle of the city to Sabara where there is a different form of bustle - a festive jollity. A few dozen people gather in groups around two bands. One - wearing light green denim suits with even lighter green shirts beneath - consists of youths , and the other - in darker green military suits - wears blue ties with white shirts and hats. Now, though, in the distance we hear a third band marching towards us. The sun shines but is threatened by grey and dense clouds approaching. Several people, clearly organisers, carry papers and refer to them occasionally. Now the band is loud, just around the corner, a car is diverted from driving through the street. Here they are - blue suits and caps with blue ties. All three bands are similarly sized and similarly configured. Some of the younger women are tapping their feet to the melody. And yes, here comes a fourth band - light blue shirts and grey trousers. This one is half women (hence the absence of jackets).

It’s a band competition, of course. To see all the musicians file under the newly-painted grey and bright red arches wearing their clean and pressed uniforms, carrying their gleaming silver instruments, is a rare picture.

Why do I sometimes want to cry when I look into the faces of these people. It’s been happening a lot in the last few days, few weeks - a face at a window, a waiter in a restaurant, a shop assistant. I am sensitive to something without or within me - I don’t know what. Looking at these faces perhaps I’m aware in myself a lack of a sense of belonging or place, and, yes, for a framework in which I don’t have to struggle for emotional acceptance. But I don’t think it is so clearly my own yearning, or only my own yearning because I am also keenly sensible to the dramatic monotony of people’s lives - but, as an outsider, a voyeur, an escaper from the monotony, I have no right to engage in elements of pity.

Praca Rita. It is here, I suppose, the competition will take place. There is an air of preparation. It is an extraordinarily pretty square. Its centrepiece is a round wooden bandstand painted blue and white and built on a wall of slate, encircled by cobbles. There are several lawns and flowerbeds and mosaic pavement areas with white benches. Seven flat-topped trees have rowan style leaves and giant seed pods; the base of the trunks and the bulging root formations are painted white. In the bandstand are loudspeakers and two small tables holding various trophies. Food, jewellery and gift stalls are being laid out in the square, but in a quiet way, hardly disturbing the tranquil preparations of the organisers or the growing level of chatter among the arriving crowds.

A banner in Praca Melo Viana tells me that a marathon will take place, with 3m cruzeiros in prizes, and 34 trophies and 70 medals. This square is not so pretty, its various elements resting uncomfortably next to each other. At the narrow end is Dan Pedro II with its shops while at the broader end, some remaining walls of the church Nossa Senhora do Rosario dos Pretos stand as a focus for the centre of the village. The tourist info says this church is no more than a monument to the work and talent of slaves: its building was interrupted when slavery was abolished. To the left of the walls is an old baroque public fountain - the Chafariz do Rosario. A brass tap emerges out of the mouth of the two ugly pouting faces. Some women scrub their pots here regardless of the tourists or the festivities.

It’s around 10:00 and I’m back in Praca Rita. It’s full of people. The six or seven bands have been marching through the village, and now they’re back. It’s a stirring sound hearing them all play together. I asked the name of one appealing tune - Cisne Branco, meaning white swan.

My mind is fertile today, and I want to make an observation about taking advantage of the fun, the novelty, the optimism of fairs and festivals. When I travelled I was always grateful for help given me by people met here and there. I was aware that I was taking from the world, and never giving back. I was, thus, determined to pay my debt back in terms of giving lifts and hospitality. I believe I have gone some way towards doing that. But now I realise that I owe a sort of festival debt. All the celebrations, fetes, festivals, fairs I’ve attended leave me in the red. When, if, I settle down I will owe the world, time and effort towards making the monotony of life more colourful.

The crowd is milling. One band has moved to the stand and begins the competition. After the first piece, a luxurious deep and rich voice joins the band, the words she sings are full of hope and nationalism. I wanted her to go on forever.

I found some public toilets with toilet paper. I was most grateful for I haven’t defaecated in three days, and it was the first time I’d used toilet paper in months - it’s a much less clean method than water.

Within the confines of the thick and roofless walls of the ruined Rosana is another, smaller church. It is modest by comparison, but the inside is charming, painted white with strips of blue (like Praca Rita). A sizeable platform has been erected in the square for a dance, presumably tonight, with seats all around.

Praca Rita 1:15. The bands still continue to play taking turns on the blue and white bandstand. The marathon runners, now exhausted, are scattered round the village; some alone are taking off their shoes; others are exercising their limbs; others stand casually around, their faces streaked with salt, talking to admiring friends or relations. I slept for a while in Praca Melo Viana, comfortably on my back with the sun on my face. Now I sit in a blue and white restaurant waiting for the inevitable rice and beef. (After yesterday’s rice and beef at the university canteen, I desperately wanted a toothpick or dental floss to clean the unnatural crack between my lower left molars - all day it nagged, and yet all day, as it happens, I’d carried my bag around and it held both floss and toothpicks!).

Museo de Ouro 2:30. This must be one of my top ten of small museums (I remember another wonderful one in Arles). Gold panning and mining instruments are displayed in the cellar rooms, along with scales of various types. 17th and 18th century furniture fills the upstairs rooms.

I should have known the bus station would have a queue a mile long. I walked and walked along the river seeing truck drivers bucket water over their dusty vehicles, children flying kites, boys sitting reading or dreaming on rarely used railway tracks, women carrying burdens on their heads making their ways along well-worn paths. Fortunately, a coach stopped for me. I ran up its steps full of gratitude and virtually fell into a wall of tracksuited smiles and gleaming gold and silver trophies.’

Friday 16 August 1985, Rio
‘I also treated myself to an auction. Here is the sequence of events, the synchronous events. I was interested in buying a windsurfer (that will be a real treat if I ever get round to it) so I bought Rio’s equivalent of Exchange & Mart - Balcao. Of course, my eye wondered to the book and antique section where I found an auction advertised for that very evening. How could I resist. I found the auction room near the old tunnel. It was a long narrow room with perhaps 30 rows of six chairs. The auctioneer looked like a business shark - in one hand he held a miniature wooden hammer, and in the other a small microphone. A few pictures were hung on the walls and I could see a few paintings piled on the floor. Only one painting caught my eye - a glass-framed rough-coloured sketch of a church. I sat as close to the front as I could. Middle class, young-to-middle-aged painting lovers filled the room to bursting. A waiter idled up and down the corridor offering glasses of wine (good idea that). I flicked through a catalogue and only one item attracted my eye - Igreja da Sabara - and this was because I’ve been to Sabara very recently, and loved it. Lot 44. I decided to wait patiently for lot 44 before leaving. As the sale progressed I did not see one painting brought to the front and auctioned that I would ever consider hanging on my wall. Prices varied between 200,000 and 5m. I was surprised, but pleased, to be able to understand the auctioneer’s figures. Honest to the laws of mathematics, it never occurred to me for a minute that lot 44 would turn out to be the same painting as I’d noticed and liked on the wall. The synchronicity was pure, and - as a consequence I’m sure - a spell fell over the entire audience of maybe 200 people allowing me to buy lot 44 for the minimum price of 200,000. I slipped away thoroughly pleased with myself.’

Two days in Alicante

Today is the 30th anniversary of the day I met Manu in an Ibiza cafe, a lovely man with whom I am still in touch today. But that encounter only happened because, after a fated bus ride from Madrid, I’d missed a boat by minutes and been stranded in Alicante for two days. Here is how I wrote the story in my diary all those 30 years ago.

3 April 1980
‘At first I didn’t even know if I wanted to go to Ibiza, I thought I might go to Barcelona and thence to Menorca. So, right at the beginning, I was full of indecision. As the weekend turned itself over slowly, though, I began to make plans to go to Ibiza.

Pepe rings a friend who works for the shipping company. Although the boat is already booked up, she says she will get me a ticket. On Monday I go to collect it - leaving at midnight Wednesday 2 April.

In the afternoon, I go to the Corte Ingles travel agency where I’m told there is no place on the Wednesday afternoon train to Alicante, I swear under my breath, and let her book me on the morning train. I am not happy because this means I lose the Wednesday but I still have work to do. Back at the flat, I talk with Pepe and Pia, who suggest I go by bus. It takes some effort, but eventually I get the number for Estacion Sur and am told there is a bus leaving at 2pm on Wednesday. I run to Estacion Sur, but, on arriving, my heart sinks at the sight of the long queues. I suffer two hours of waiting. Fights and arguments break out everywhere, tempers are high. I finish a novel before arriving at the ticket office. Once at the buying window I discover there is an even later bus at 3:30pm (arriving at 9pm) as well as at 2:00, so I buy a ticket for that bus and head back for the apartment. I am pleased with myself that I’ve managed to sort out an itinerary.

The following morning between work appointments I squeeze a visit to the Corte Ingles to cash in my train ticket. I lose £2.50 on the refund, but at least everything is organised. I begin to look forward to Ibiza. I spend Wednesday on the telephone working, but none of the work proves useful, and I could so easily have taken the 2:00 bus.

On the 3:30 bus - all the way there are long queues of holiday traffic, and long, long waits, and the bus is three hours late. A taxi speeds me through the streets, clocking up pesetas, faster, faster, down to the port, along the quay, but by the time I get to the quay, the boat has left - 10 minutes earlier! Now there isn’t another boat for two days.

I am by the stone columns of a church that is now three-quarters cinema and one quarter cafe. . . I walk around the old city of Alicante, looking for a smile, a meeting, a hand to touch. One area seems very alive with hip youth. They move about from group to group, bar to bar, stand around drinking wine and rolling cigarettes fuelled with grass. Not far away another mass of people - the old, the mourning, the middle-aged, the regimented young, the crippled and the scarred - are pouring out of mass.’

5 April 1980
‘I made it. Ibiza. I managed to use the wrongly-dated ticket, but only just. My adrenalin was on its racing track. There was some confusion as I was checked against the cabin list but the official failed to notice the wrong date.

In the queue to get on the boat I befriended Ronny, a guitarist, who says he can live from playing, but is not good enough to get rich. He has blond hair curling all over his brown-tanned face. He has just spent two weeks on a boat skippered by his brother. It’s a half-a-million job and its owner hasn’t been near it in 18 months. He tells stories of contracts with ATV and MAM and the guitar centre in Palma where he hopes to work. When he has money he spends it, first class all the way. He doesn’t believe in guarding it at all, and explains why: he had a girlfriend who had used all her savings to start a hairdressing business, then, after a year or so when it was going very well, she was riding her bicycle and was killed by a lorry. He tells me that he also knew the daughter of the pilot that was flying a Trident in which a hundred people were killed near Heathrow ten years ago. Apparently, the pilot had a heart condition and put the wrong signals into the computer!

Although it started to rain on arriving, I was not unlucky. Within half an hour, I met a man called Manu. He happens to be at the Lecoq school in Paris and knows my friend Harold, and has a house on the other side of the island. Manu’s father, a German painter, lives half in Berlin and half in Ibiza. Manu himself speaks at least five languages, and is an accomplished musician. Right now, though, he’s into theatre. We drink yierba at Ibecenco and wine at Pepi’s with home cured sausage and baked bread.

Alicante, as it happens, only got better and better. I discovered El Castillo de Santa Barbara and some beautiful terraced houses. I watched Easter processions with all those shiny satin clothes and dunce hats. I wrote my business report. I ate a meal, I talked to some English people. I took lots of photos. The two days weren’t so bad after all.’

The Demolition Decorators

Thirty years ago today I attended the start of a trial against several members of a band of performers called the Demolition Decorators, and then wrote about the event in my diary. This seems, thus, a perfectly good excuse to revisit all my other diary entries in 1978 and 1979 concerning the DDs, as well as one five years later.

The Demolition Decorators say they were ‘an extraordinary collective of musicians and comedians’ based in London in the latter part of the 1970s. This retro-publicity can be found as part of the promotion for Don’t say baloney, a CD put together, in 2005, by Arif Usmani, one of the DD leaders, and available from various websites, including CD Baby. It also reveals that the DDs ‘chalked up 24 arrests for performing in the street, had a kamikaze suicide squad and squatted the main stage at the Bath Festival to hold a ‘people’s event’ complete with laundry service’.

The DDs called themselves ‘incidentalists’, it seems, because many performances comprised confrontations: ‘Audiences could not be neutral and many outdoor performances involved an appearance by the police. At one gig, some of the audience were so incensed, they firebombed the hall. Although very political, they were never fanatical or bitter. There was a mystical quality about them.’ They also claim to have ‘single-handedly‘ won buskers the right to play in the London Underground system.

A dozen names are listed on the credits of Don’t say baloney, but I’m certainly not one of them. My involvement with the DDs was fairly short-lived, and very non-committal. I think I found the whole thing vaguely amusing or entertaining, and failed to absorb how seriously others in the group felt about certain issues. In any case, although I did indulge in occasional and indulgent acts of performance art, they were without political focus. Moreover, I was much happier with a pen in my hand than with an audience in front of me.

Here are all the diary entries I made concerning the Demolition Decorators - they can also be found on my Pikle website. At the time, they and other alternative organisations were squatting in a Covent Garden building on Tower Street I think. The diary entries lead up to the fire, in December 1978, that started during a party and gutted the building, and to February 1979 - exactly 30 years ago - when I attended the trial of four DD members. There is also an entry from five years later, one that brings fresh enjoyment every time I read it! (BIT refers to the BIT Information Service, and IT to International Times - see Wikipedia for more information.)

2 October 1978
‘Tommy has his eyes wide open; his eyeballs roll around and up high as he tries to formulate exactly what he wants to say. George and Bill yawn. A frizzy black student expounds ideas on politics and theatre, and is supported by a hard-nosed, determined kid (from the slums?). They are here to ask for the services of the Demolition Decorators; they have patiently waited their turn on the agenda. I yawn. The Demolition Decorators’ cause for the month. We are to picket shops that sell South African goods. Yes, folks, every small tin of South African pilchards that you buy supports APARTHEID. This is what happened: these people found out their local health food shop was selling South African goods. The shop was informed that it might lose customers in future, but it didn’t listen. So they organised a small picket, and it succeeded almost immediately - all South African goods were removed from the shelves. So, now they want to organise a bigger picket, and they want the DDs to help.’

6 November 1978
‘Surely, a whole play, or a novel, could be written entitled ‘The rise and fall of the Demolition Decorators’. Another Monday meeting passed by. The group and its members are more interesting than the actual gigs they peform. Tonight, for example, we had a sharp-but-dulled-by-drugs couple from BIT who took up our time and space. They wanted to hold their tenth anniversary in our squat. The mob, our mob were patient with them. I find myself willing and practical but often defeated by the criss-cross mutterings that cut under and fly over me. I walk out into the street to collect some boxes. I am in bare feet. I return and crush them beneath my feet and feel the fire of my impatience. I tramp around avoiding eyes, the quick and supple. I catch the crossfires but have no effect on them.’

11 November 1978
‘Pete and Paul organised a gig last night, a Demolition Decorators gig. It was explosive. Beryl and the Peryls were booked to perform at 8:30, according to ‘Time Out’, but they didn’t start until 11 or finish till midnight. And the power blew, so the show’s finale only came with the help of everyone’s matches. Two bands and Ruff Theatre had also been due to play at the event, but the whole thing was a cock-up. Since this is the alternative scene, though, people are supposed to keep cool, not get mad. It was chaos - four bands and two and a half theatre groups hanging around all squabbling about the running order. Pete did keep his cool, and Paul calmly tried to organise the performers but they eventually took things into their own hands. Two of the DDs were chanting to some seventh heaven and calling it peace and prosperity.’

15 November 1978
‘The Demolition Decorators Monday meeting. Notes twang through the cold buildings from a solo electric guitar. The ex-coach seat that I sit upon is held upright by breeze blocks; others sit on bottle crates; a board covers a hole in the floor caused by the fire in the grate spreading too far. Mary wanders around, sober calm. She’s pretty tonight, hoping to do something, anything. There is a rumour that the police are going to raid us because of the wood fire, so Mary has been cleaning out the ashes. ‘Upstairs at Ronnies’ is scribbled on the wall with orange paint behind a makeshift counter. Next door Willy shows the visitors from BIT his cubbyhole, the IT office. Pages and articles and photos are still strewn across the table. The magazine was due at the printers on Friday, but one person’s perfection is cauterised by another’s ideals, and the pages get changed and cut, cut and changed. Meanwhile, revenue from advertising is awaited to pay the printing costs. Single notes still twang. A lady has been and gone with the electricity money, but a small donation from BIT has upped our finances slightly. It’s nine o’ clock, still no-one else has arrived, so the Monday meeting finally starts - and my gut rumbles.’

3 December 1978
‘Poor old IT was gutted; poor old BIT was definitely unlucky. They invited guests from everywhere, and from anywhere they came. A 10th anniversary and all that. How many bands were to come? 9 or 10, 20 or 30. It was all friends and grooves, smokers and abortion campaigners, squatters and the rest. What a shame. Poor old IT, its thousand files, its million prints, its two typewriters, its five cabinets, its three desks - who was to blame after all? Those two friends, the best of friends, too keen, too overworked, who let the paint dry, and the wallpaper dry, and then catch fire, with flames licking up the wall, up the wall, out the window, the side of the house. I hear Paul went squeak at 2am and saved a life or two, but neither an office nor a bed was saved. Malcolm stumbled in with lips that almost hold a smile. He has soft hairs on his face, a twitch in his eye, and finds a flick of the eyeball when he needs attention, and then a slight twisting of the head down and to the side before he lifts it and takes it into the direction he will speak. And he uses such gentle speech, such insistent gentleness. He talks of plans for a coffee bar. He is keen. He has ideas. But the time comes to talk of something else. Arif proposes tubal theatre. Sara jumps with glee, with her bright and ebullient cheeks, her shiny ponytails. Conversation somehow returns to the coffee bar. Duncan is an old timer - is it his eyebrows I remember? Is he osteoporotic? He certainly isn’t very tall and tends to crouch, chin tucked well into shoulders, almost tortosic (i.e. like a tortoise). He is very quiet, and can only talk in paragraphs. He’s an antique book runner, i.e. he goes to jumble sales and sells to the trade. He is not far removed from a tramp - but then are any of us I wonder. When he is asked to speak, he talks not of policies or future gigs or special nights but of his kinship with the squatters. He is too old. I interrupt to say we really don’t want to listen to such well-rehearsed trite but am beaten down, brow-beaten down by the rest who are enthroned on benches of respect for the holy papa. In any case, the conversation reverts to coffee bars.’

6 February 1979
‘Today is the trial of four defendants - Jisimi, Tony Allan, Jonathan Graham and Alan Boyd. They were arrested and charged with causing an obstruction to the highway. Court Four at the Wells St. Magistrate’s Court is a fountain of wood panelling. The judge has a built-in desk raised above the rest. The scribe and secretary sit below him, silent and powerless, seemingly content with their lot. And there, in dark seats, are the Leicester Square Four, young eccentric and fearless challengers of the law. The judge is firm and fair with a sense of humour. He makes all this clear to the court by making fun of both the police and the defendants. The young, almost adolescent, policeman and woman are tense and alert in their starched uniforms. They have prepared well and corroborated their stories. A good defence, though, would have had them both in tears. Jisimi is out to upset. He plays with his proud hair, and tells the court how he dislikes NOT being talked about. Jonathan is a goat, he prances and prattles around. His confusion is obvious. Only Tony, I feel, is on top of the situation, and is able to challenge the prosecution. The prosecution proves to be cool and generous, but the judge wins the day by, not only, keeping the court under excellent control without being condescending, by being funny without being carefree, and fair without pretentions. At 4:30, he gave the defendants a five minute lecture, advising them very strongly to get a lawyer. The case continues on 15 May.’

10 August 1984
‘I was at R’s last night, talking to a girl called Sara about my clownish past. She mentioned a house full of parties in Covent Garden, five or six years ago, so I tried the name ‘Demolition Decorators’ on her. She recognised it immediately. She said she had thought we were all magic, being only 14 at the time. I told her about the evening I mimed and clowned building of a room with rubble and rubbish, oblivious to the party going on around me, and she actually and vividly remembered me and my act. Amazing. What is more - I have to say this to someone - I remember that I impressed myself that Friday evening. It was an improvisation lasting a couple of hours and I really acted, really built a room and really possessed it, despite the party. But I felt at the time nobody had appreciated my invention, my playing, my art. And when Sara remembered me, it was as though I’d been waiting all these years for the applause I felt I deserved.’

Love in Pyrghos

I am in Greece, on holiday, until the 14th. By coincidence, exactly 30 years ago this week, I was also in Greece on holiday. I’d gone to visit a friend, Marielle, who had moved to a place named Pyrghos (at least that’s how I spelled it) with friends to build and live in a large communal house. So, for a change, I thought I’d simply reproduce a few paragraphs from my own diary (more of it is available on the Pikle website).

7-14 October 1978
‘The only flies I feel are flies, and the mosquitoes are the only mosquitoes, and a firefly is too hot to hold, too red to stare at, too proud to ignore. My body moves slowly, treading along pathways that maze around the village, along pathways that become doorways, houseway entrances, entrance halls; crumbling steps lead to crumbling arches lead to crumbling walls and rooves. My foot will (I know it will) disturb the grasshopper on the path that will spread its wings and reveal to a crimson fright, a crimson flight. My eyes will dart with it (I know they will, I feel them ready) to the stone or bush the other side of where I walk.

After a night of long white love, the acute essence of morning is a kaleidoscope of pure colours and sounds. Sea and sky blue, mountains with mysterious greens. Houses old and cold stone. Birds - the twitter tunes. The sun slowly rises and melts my perception or my imagination that might have come in the night. I am a receptacle for the slight sensations that will pass. The horn of the bus, for instance, becomes a sound for to fill the oceans and the lands as far as I can see. The swaying of a tree or the wind itself diverts at least three senses from the sea-wizards that dance in my head. My forehead furrows to capture, to catch a thought, my eyelids would prefer to fall and to let each lash be caressed by the grandeur of the weathers. My love is a momentary dance of tortoises, or is.

Nudity on the rocks, more than nudity, a bareness to the waves and their impressive depths, their heights and depths, the tunnels of rocks that frighten and leave you gasping with a little sense of magnificence.

Robert Crisp is blunter and more like a child this noon-time. He was a foreign correspondent, writer, journalist. He wears shorts and a bright yellow t-shirt; a napkin is tied around his neck. He sits, placed at a table for one, in front of a television; his head bent back, eyes enthralled. His hands play with a knife, fork, chips, a glass and a bottle of retsina. Here is age and freedom and the wrinkles that were moulded, hardened and set by fear. Any trembles he shows now are in the shake of the folds in his skin, not in his voice or eyes. He is fascinated by Marielle’s group, curious. He tempts the members of the group a little with his stories, or the promise of white beard wisdom.

It is four on Monday afternoon. I know it is Monday because two days ago it was Saturday, Friedl told me, and I know it is four in the afternoon because the clock in this cafe says so (even though the post office isn’t supposed to open until five, but it seems to be open now).

I am too high, too infatuated to realise the glory of this all. My stomach still flutters when I think of Marielle walking around the corner and the smile of a thousand nights missed in our separate flights, our different travels.

Morning in Pyrghos, sun shines low under the mass of grey clouds that appear so low. Contrasting against the white stone walls of the streets. Wind is expectant in gusts. A rainstorm is probable.

I awake slowly from a night of howls by sipping coffee. Above me rises a cobbled street; below, another runs to the church, and to the side another to the plaza. From the latter, a small woman comes, dressed in a black blouse, black skirt, black slippers and carrying a bundle of firewood on her back; it is twice as large as she. Away up the central alley a younger woman carries a similar bundle, but of hay this time. The wind threatens, the vines tremble, leaves form small whirlpools on the concrete.'