Before 2011 I had not played much milsim, now… well I recently laid in a puddle from 1am, freezing cold and surrounded by poisonous mushrooms, for 8 hours to spring an ambush!

I fell asleep and started snoring.

Moments later I was awoken by a wet weight crashing down on my back. Team commander Trip had thrown a log at me, missed, hit a tree and it had collapsed a rotten limb across my sprawled form. Had the opposition walked past at that particular moment then they would have heard the rest of the concealed team completely failing to stop laughing.

At 6 am a stag deer came into the forest, only yards from me. It nibbled the leaves and then it sensed something was wrong. It couldn’t see us, but it could now smell us. Then someone moved and I saw its face as it realised that it was standing amongst 15 humans disguised as forest floor, buried under leaves and mud. With two hurried bounds it was gone.

Milsim is great fun, I recommend it. If you are worried if you can “hack” it, don’t be. You can, physically – it’s mentally you have to be ready for. After 24 hours in game (with 12 to go) you will be tired, frayed, frazzled and still in combat.

And it will be raining.

It’s at this point you will be ready to curse everyone around you. Your teammate with the better kit, your team leader sending YOU out on stag, the world for putting you in this place and especially the opposition who WILL attack you during the night… sometime during the night. So no sleeping without your eye protection on and a firearm to hand.

Photo’s taken during milsim show tough men turning to jelly. That is your challenge, can you stay mentally strong? Enough to work as a team? After all team play means sacrifice…

So why do it? Because, the harder the game and the more realistic the mission then all the more rewards are there to enjoy. Sure, the lows in milsim can be tough, but the highs… the highs are simply the best airsoft in the world.

It was our side who attacked the enemy camp in the dark. Unleashing a battle of epic proportions as we had surprise but, like cornered rats, the enemy had nowhere to go and so turned and fought. This was followed the next day with a counter ambush on our troops that led to a 2.5 hour long contact.

2.5 hours of unrelenting, balls-deep airsoft action.

So much can be done with 2 hours, tactics… hell, strategy as the teams probe each other. flank, flank back, rush, fall back and lay up. It’s incredible. Players acting together as a team in ways never seen in airsoft, all commanded smoothly and everyone gets their oats. Eventually one side withdraws after running out of troops, this was my side and the opposition followed us only to walk straight into our IED’s laid behind us by our pyro expert (an army EOD).

Milsim is worth the cold, the wet and the mentally brutal. It’s one of the best ways to release stress and tension I know. It is also the best way to meet new and interesting people (and shoot them) that I can imagine.

You will look back at your weekend, you will see your moment of glory in a film (of mine perhaps?) and you will smile as you remember the feeling of achievement that only comes from playing at this level.

We call it Tier 1. It’s the way I play airsoft.

Happy Christmas,

Basho

Tier 1 – Year 1 from Basho Matsuo on Vimeo.

I have put this together at the request of a friend, this isn’t the official film — I am doing an “end of year special” — this is just to wet your appetites!

Rolling Thunder was a 36 hour combat mission created and run by Tier One Military Simulations. They are the cutting edge of airsoft in the UK and for two select teams on the US side this included a dawn assault from the air!

Their objective? To capture the Taliban leader known as “Panther” hiding in an Afghan village.

Did they succeed?

You will have to wait to find out!

Comments welcome!

Regards,

Basho

On the road, and neatly tucked into our bus seats, we were also well placed for scamming. A guy came up to Wendy and handed her a phone. She took it and the voice on the other end claimed to be from the “hotel” we just left. Apparently, she had departed without paying the final bill. The voice said that she should give the missing amount to the “agent” on the bus (the man with the phone).

All lies.

I had been there when all accounts were settled and I know that our friend had not “failed to pay”. She got very angry and the guy got insistent. This was his mistake, because our friend was a British GP (a doctor) and in my experience doctors don’t take shit from anyone. She shouted at him for a few moments and he shrugged and took his leave.

Worse was to come when we arrived into the desert.

The sun was very hot and of course the desert was as exposed as countryside can get. Over the endless heat waves we espied the fortified city of Jaisalmer. Cesca described it as,

“A giant sandcastle”

And indeed it looked the part, being raised high above the desert, and presumably dust winds, by what must be a huge pile of sand. It looked like it was sitting onto a dune. The only thing I have seen that comes close for the view was Uluru in Australia. It was striking in the extreme and exciting.

The bus entered the vicinity of this old city and stopped by the side of the road next to a swarm of touts. Immediately these started opening the bus storage doors and taking out our bags. I was up, out of my seat and off the bus in seconds. I pushed my way through the throng and grabbed my bag off the tout trying to make away with it.

“Put my bag down!” I screamed.

He did so. I was much bigger than him. I quickly took it and collected the girls’ bags too.

Another tout tried a different tact, producing a “licence” he claimed to be from the tourist board here to take us to our hotel. I put on my sunglasses and ignored him. I guarded the bags and they stood slightly back. That was until the girls got off.

Clearly white women getting off busses here make a “Ca’Ching” sound. Cesca and Wendy were instantly swamped with touts all pushing against each other to get the business. Pushing the girls too, who had their Lonely Planets out and were thumbing a map of the city. Upon seeing this, the touts as one craned their necks to see the page and “assist”. Arms were thrust onto the page and attempts to take the books to “show madam” aplenty.

As soon as I had seen all this start, I started counting to ten in my head. I reckoned that, what with the bus con fresh in their minds, the girls would explode after ten seconds.

9, 10…

Boom!

“Look!” shouted Wendy, “all of you just BACK OFF, RIGHT NOW!”

It was like kryptonite on these guys. Wendy was bigger than most of them to start with and she really shouted at the top of her not inconsiderate lungs.

This prompted a policeman to come over. He had a sub machine gun at his hip and it was loaded. The touts backed away and he very casually suggested that the tout that had spoken to me was actually “official”. Of course, this may be a clever bit of the play we were in, but it worked. I heaved all the bags into his tuk tuk and he sped us through the outskirts of the old city, just at the base of the sand mound it sits on, towards a hotel he swore blind was excellent.

When we got there, I defended the bags again and the girls went in. Immediately they came back out with the hotel owner, a 30 something Indian man with a professional manner. He handed the tuk tuk driver a note and he left. He then welcomed me to his hotel.

As it happens it was a brilliant hotel.

We got a quite expensive room (by our standards of the time, I probably spend more on coffee now) and met up on the roof top bar. All the hotels around this area had similar bar restaurants and we ordered some very nice food and drank out the night. Soon we had met others on their holidays and formed a little pride of travellers. There was an Asian lady from Canada on a life changing trip, a couple of very attractive Sweeds as well as a British couple who were good fun. We all decided to go on a Camel safari together.

The next morning, we set off early for the desert proper in jeeps. After a couple of hours of riding into the desert, putting us not too far from the border with Pakistan by my reckoning, we came to a small dusty village and met our camels.

I never thought I would like camels, they are shaggy with rough fur that catches dust and sand, their farts endlessly serenade the desert and their spitting is legendary in its ruthless laid back efficiency. However, one look at the smiling face of my mount for the next two days and I was in love. She was lovely.

Clambering aboard I immediately noticed that we were not riding in high Berber style on a mound of cushions – clearly the organisers were worried about us falling off (camels are very tall) – so instead we had to use horse style saddles only without stirrups.

About 5 or 6 seconds of the jerking, jolting, off-timed and frankly horrendous bouncing was enough for all of our crew to realise that is was not going to be pleasant experience. My inner thighs complained almost immediately.

We bounded off; each led by our camel tied to the one in front and headed into the desert. Soon the dunes swallowed the village behind us and the amazing spirit of emptiness started to pervade. The desert here is very quiet, only occasional tracks, desert roads and some power lines crossed our path which was otherwise endless scrub bushes and sand.

We plodded for about 10 miles or so, taking most of the day, and then our hosts announced we were stopping to make camp. Camp sat upon two very clean looking sand dunes that were empty apart from hundreds of 4 inch long dung beetles. I like beetles and these little scurriers skittered all around us as we setup the mats and the guides started a campfire.

They then taught us how to make chapatti, which we all had great fun doing before feasting upon the tiffin pots of food the guides had brought.

As we ate, talked and laughed together I sat back and wondered at the guides, for whom this was probably their primary business. By this point in our adventures Cesca and I had been on 20 or so “local tours” and I could recognise the signs of a well organised trip very quickly. This one, I decided, was definitely above average for, while we were missing a few home comforts out here, the guides were good and trying hard to please, the food was the pleasant Indian fare I had come to appreciate and the group atmosphere was friendly.

Then it rained.

In the desert.

Huge sheets of rain suddenly thundered down on us and we were all wet through. I couldn’t quite believe that so much water was available to fall in the desert, and neither could the guides. Gone was the chance to sleep outside and they scurried to the back of a camels for some small tents they had brought. Unfortunately there were not enough tents to go around and we would have to share, I quickly claimed a tent for Cesca and me and since we were the only married couple on the trip no one argued to join us. We all helped put up the tents and dived in. Listening to the rain, we huggled down and slept.

The next morning the rain had passed on and to look at the desert you would not know it had rained at all. To look at the group however… Several of the tents had flooded and eventually the poor junior guide had slept under a camel. Many people were seriously wet.

I stretched and walked up the dune to see the sunrise. There is definitely something primal and wonderful about the morning here. Soon Cesca joined with her camera and then the entire group rushed up to capture the moment on film. We all ate a hearty breakfast and then it was back on the camels.

Our route back took us via a couple of small villages, and had cleverly been designed to be shorter as the guides must have worked out that long camel rides play havoc with western soft legs. Soon, the vast majority of our group had abandoned camel and were walking alongside.

We arrived in our final village stop way after lunch and the camels all went for a drink. All around us the villagers came out and greeted our visit. An hour later I said goodbye to my mount as the jeeps arrived and we jumped on board for the trip back to the city.

On the way back we all discussed the rain we had experienced, surely a rare event in the desert? I should have realised that it was a portent of what was to come, but my thighs were burning too much to care.

On our arrival back we headed to the roof bar and drank our success in surviving the trip. I don’t remember going back to the room to sleep, but what happened next will always be in my mind.

I was awoken from a dream by a unique sound. I have thought long and hard about how to describe it, and I have settled on the following:

It was the sound of the entire Golden Horde, all 60 thousand horses; men and carts, galloping towards us over the desert.

The sound was loud at first, but soon it was huge and all around us. The walls shook, the paintings shook with them, the bed moved with the vibration. I heard screams outside and then the sound was with us in total and the entire world shook. Cesca and I jumped up in the bed,

“Earthquake!” I shouted.

“Oh my god! The city!” Cesca said, and we shared a vision of the city sand flowing down towards us burying us in a landslide of ancient walls, camels and palaces.

“Quick!” I shouted to her, “Get under the door frame!” I pointed to the entrance to the bathroom and we rushed under it and held each other.

Ten seconds later it passed on, but the screams outside continued. These were joined by the sounds of feet on the nearby stairs as screaming, jabbering tourists fled the building.

Seconds passed and no further roaring approached. The building remained standing. Clearly the city wasn’t going to engulf us in a landslide today.

“That was an earthquake!” Cesca exclaimed.

“Either that or war with Pakistan has started and we just got nuked!” I replied. “I’m going back to bed” I said.

“What!?” Cesca said, “Shouldn’t we go outside?”

“Out to panic? No thanks.” I jumped back in the bed and pulled up the covers.

Cesca made no move to follow me, “I’m heading outside”

“Baby” I called from the bed, “if it is Pakistan, try not to get any on you…”

She stuck out her tongue and went off.

Sure enough it had been a quake, measuring nearly 6 on the scale. The local area had suffered some damage, but we had been lucky. Quakes are on a logarithmic scale, so while a 6 is high, it’s not in the same league as a 7 and not even the same sport as an 8. All the same, it was one hell of a thing to be woken up by.

For the rest of the day the only chat was of the quake and I eventually logged onto the UN Quake watch web site to record my eye witness account in their database. No further incidents happened and the next day it was forgotten.

We use our final day in Jaisalmer to visit the old city. It was very beautiful.

The ancient buildings all have facia carved from stone and thin alleys wind all around the centre. The hotel owner took us on a tour to the tumble down palace and we spent a good few hours talking to the man whose job it is to rebuild it.

He was part of a family who had worked for the Rajput for generations and it had fallen to his generation to try and get the palace back in order. It was very old and open to the elements, and I remember thinking that he had one hell of a job on his hands.

As we shopped I considered buying a camel skin leather bag, which all looked wonderful (I am a sucker for bags) but didn’t. I regretted that for days until I read on the web that they are often not properly treated and consequently rot with a smell that is impossible to mask and will definitely get picked up when going through an airport.

That evening we all checked out together as one group. We took a bus to the nearest train station and had berths near each other. That night we all chatted and enjoyed each other’s company for one last time before Cesca and I left the train in the early morning and wended our way to our final stop in Rajasthan; Jaipur.

Kind regards,

Basho

The city is blue, blue of the Brahmin caste we were told, but I can’t help wondering if there is another reason for its popular -nay ubiquitous-shade. I heard one rumour that it was due to the blue paint putting off the mosquitos. However, I am more inclined to believe it is to challenge the other brightly-coloured-city it is most often confused with (Jaipur, which is bright pink!) I leaned back on the bed and spied out of the window at the huge cliff-wall behind the hotel, and then up, up and eventually to the turrets of the Mehrangarh Fort high above.

It towered over the entire city of a million people, ever watching like a sleeping dragon turned to stone by some mighty magic, frozen with one eye open and brooding over its faded dominance.

The city’s name? Where else but Jodhpur: the blue city of India set amongst the stark landscape of the Thar Desert.

Actually, as nice as post cuddle snoozes are, I could have murdered a beer and so I dressed and headed out to sit with her. I found her sitting on the roof with the owner and a clearly English woman of about our age. They greeted me and I joined them. The owner waved me up a beer from a passing staff member and continued telling us about the city.

“The city is known as the “Sun City” because of the fine weather,” he said, “It was the capital of the Marwar Kingdom founded by Rao Jodha. The wall goes all the way around.”

I remembered our arrival a few hours before, Jodhpur is indeed a walled city with a tight maze of very narrow streets full of wandering cows and tiny stores of all descriptions.

Travelling through it in a tuk tuk, one cannot help but feel that westerners stand out a little too much amongst the backdrop of a city whose sheer cramped size and ancient structure is hugely resistant to modernisation. Not that this is stopping the tuk tuk driver attempting to break the speed of light.

I turned to Cesca, the wind buffeting her hair, “If we travel any faster, we will go back in time!”

She grinned a response.

Eventually we made it to the large haveli or converted palace that you will find all over Rajasthan. It had enormous doors in a giant wall upon which we knocked mightily and were greeted by a staff member who directed us to the young owner. He was the same man holding court with us now and part of the family that had converted the old edifice of residence into the magnificent guesthouse before us.

Suddenly I realised that the reason he was paying us all such attention was that he fancied the English girl speaking with Cesca. At least I hoped it was she and not my baby as this was a very high roof from which to be flung…

Anyway, we espied the city and he told us of the sights to be had in its investigation. He then offered us himself as a guide. We agreed and he took us through the streets and temples showing us the sights. It was all quite excellent really.

That night we stayed up quite late, eating the great food prepared at a moment’s notice by our host, and chatting to the English girl. She was a Doctor by trade, on her travels and heading further into Rajasthan until reaching the desert city of Jaisilmere. We very quickly hit it off and decided we should all go together. Indeed, like all the incredible people we met, it was my darling wife they immediately took too – she just has a very impressive skill of putting people at their ease, which is formed of her intense innocence and classy way.

The next day we walked up to the castle-like Mehrangarh Fort and took a long look around.

Like the palace in Udaipur this was very impressively preserved and indeed still in use by the ruling family. We enjoyed another exquisite audio tour and visits to armouries, ballrooms and private antechamber of the Princes found in this part of India.

It never failed to impress. Outside I filmed the city and animals living on the walls and Cesca, dressed in her traditional and bright orange Indian clothing (bought way back in Mumbai), made friends with locals who were soon chatting to her in excited and animated conversation.

Later we realised that we wanted to stay a few more days here and so we made to find a cash machine. This required a long walk through the city until coming across only two working international choices. The first was out of money, which worried us mightily. Rushing to the other, we found that it was not working properly and took 20 minutes to count our money, but it eventually spat out enough funds to cover our adventures for the next few days.

Now we could go shopping!

The Handicrafts industry has in recent years eclipsed all other industries in the city. By some estimates, the furniture export segment is a $200 million industry, directly or indirectly employing as many as 200,000 people. Other items manufactured include textiles, metal utensils, bicycles, ink and sporting goods. A flourishing cottage industry exists for the manufacture of such items as glass bangles, cutlery, carpets and marble products.

WIKIPEDIA

We asked around for where to buy fine silks in the city (something that it is famous for) and were directed to a slightly tattered looking shop with enormous piles of silks of every conceivable type. There we spent the best part of half a day ordering up bed coverings as presents for our families.

This was an experience that was at one moment highly pleasurable; full of “ohh’s and ahh’s as they laid out the wares for us and claimed everyone from London boutiques to Richard Gere himself bought from this store; and the next moment was sheer pain; as we were pressured to make decisions (something Cesca hates doing) and agree a price. Eventually we bargained down to a fair price, but as always you know that you are being fleeced somewhere and somehow. Still the silks are lovely.

“How can I decide which goes to which person?” Cesca asked me.

“You can’t really baby, people will always like a different one than the one you picked out for them. Just let them do the fighting.”

Therefore, I paid the (massive) bill and the company posted the entire lot home. I remember at the time wondering if it would actually arrive back in the UK, but it did and quickly.

Then we went tea hunting. Jodhpur is also justly famous for its spices and high quality teas. We had a fantastic couple of hours trying all sorts of brews and listening to the happy proprietor explain their many health benefits.

We bought some spices (which I only got half way through after a year) and teas (which Cesca has never opened!).

This bounty, plus a few other gifts we posted back to the UK through the torturous Indian postal system, which requires you to wrap all you items in cloth and seal them with wax. Or rather it requires someone to do this, just not you. No, in another gouge, you must have someone trained in the required technique do it or your package will go missing.

It’s not the cost that prickles, but the time wasted trying to find a suitable merchant to do this for you.

After another fun night talking to Wendy, we decided to move onto the next town together. We found a suitable bus and headed out into the long road into the desert and the sand mountain that is Jaislemere.

Regards,

Basho

Here is the YouTube description for the film:

At TIER 1 we are totally and entirely dedicated to providing you the player with a 100% “as real as it gets outside the military” experience.
There follows a declassified film about our SUB OPERATION – BLADERUNNER.

EVENT OUTLINE:
These events encompass the highest level of Military Simulation and Attendees were tested to a level unprecedented in airsoft, sustaining — hardship, duress, a lack of sleep and a lack of food for 36hours.
Attendees received initial orders prior to the operation and were required to begin the event outside of an airsoft environment. Tasks included professional training in surveillance, followed by going to a designated place and identifying a group of Targets. Surveillance of those Targets then commenced using covert communication equipment and vehicles, following on foot when required.

But then something they didn’t expect happened!

Late at night the Target’s turned the tables and captured two of the Attendees in a well-planned road stop. They were taken to the Target’s compound and tested for resistance to interrogation. Upon the discovery of this the Attendees then planned, practiced and executed a rescue operation in the early hours of the morning calling on all they had learned in the training and previous day’s play. Could they rescue their teammates alive and capture the Target leader?

ABOUT US:
TIER 1 MILITARY SIMULATION Ltd is a military simulation training company owned and managed by former-Royal Marine Commando Non-Commissioned Officers and a former UKSF 22 SAS Regiment Operator with over 57 years regular service between them.

ABOUT THE FILM:
Tier 1 partnered with the well known airsoft filmmaker and blogger, Basho (www.outsidecontext.com), in making this film. Basho followed the day’s events as a silent observer capturing the main events of the event on camera.

When Ed from Tier 1 asked me to attend the event as a filmmaker I was not ready for what I was about to witness. Tier 1 is about as far from a normal airsoft skirmish that you could get and the “Sub Operations” take this even further. The entire event had a story through which the clients were playing. The idea was that a “terrorist” cell had been discovered and that their leader was coming in to Heathrow. The clients mission was to follow these targets and intercept them in the morning. However, unknown to them Ed had other ideas and one of the squads vehicles was stopped and the clients captured, which involved me hiding in a bush with a load of masked gunmen waiting for the right car to pass! There followed a couple of hours of interrogation followed by a rescue by the other, remaining, players.

It all felt so real, so very real. Nothing was forgotten, nothing was not part of the story unfolding.

It was very clever.

It did have challenges for the filmmaker however. I was not “in” on the story so I was forced to film everything and ended up with 60Gb of footage! I had to improvise filming ideas at short notice and tag along with the teams as they played out their different missions. I also had to go without much sleep for 36 hours! the tired faces you see in the film are really tired. It was incredible how everyone was able to keep going through the event at all.

After the filming the long process began of making the film. I had the idea of a voice over “interview” with Ed as a sort of debrief, which we would use to pull the sections of the film together. eventually the film went up to the limit (on YouTube) of 15 minutes and I realised we had no chance of fitting this in. So I replaced that idea with a “text” over”. Building this so it looked typed was quite a challenge. I achieved it in the following way:

1. Have one 3 second clip of a Green Bar on the far left side of the screen.
2. Use the “Push” transition to move the green line from left to right.
3. This reveals the text clip next in line.
4. Use a “digital typing” noise to make it sound like it is being typed.

All in all the film has the following effects:

• Split screen: vertically, horizontally and “3 screen”.

• Digital matting.
• Pixilation of certain faces.
• Digital stabilisation.
• Slow motion.
• Professional Colour balancing software applied (which almost killed my computer!)

And the following special effect shots:

• The “wake them up” scene where I had to build the idea that the GCHQ was searching out and waking up the players via text message.

• The “matching” shot where the “terrorist” was “face mapped” and identified (during the briefing).

• The Flashbang, which didn’t go off so I had to create it.

Taking number 3, this one I was very happy with. I doubled the scene layer and matted out a grenade  exploding. I then filled that layer with an explosion and set the transition to be a “Sony Flash”. In order to make it sound convincing I went and found a sound of a real US Military Grenade going off and a sound of “ringing in the ears” to simulate the tinnitus one gets when around explosions.

That leads us to sound and music.

For sounds I raided Freesound.org for suitable sounds and ended up using something like 20 in places such as the tires screeching during “The Grab” scene (they did screech but my camera mike didn’t make enough of it) and “clanking” noises during “The Question” interrogation scene. I can’t recommend this site enough. Good sound effects makes a huge difference. For music I went to my friends at Audionetwork.com. They are truly fantastic, enabling the small filmmaker to use music created by seriously high-end orchestra for a mere pittance. Wonderful.

It has been a very long road to get this film finished, but it feels great to have been involved with the Tier 1 team who are all consummate professionals. Their product is a little different from what people may be used to, but it is excellently run and great fun to watch.

Here is the film:

**WARNING** This film is rated 15 and NOT SAFE FOR WORK due to swearing and violence

If you are on an iPad or iPhone try the Vimeo version:

Tier 1 Military Simulation – Operation BladeRunner from Basho Matsuo on Vimeo.

Regards,

Basho

It just has always been my position that Philosophy and Science are not in competition to uncover the secret of reality, and that the attempts by Physicists to paint this dichotomy was self-destructive and not worthy of their time. It is almost as if they are leaving their old enemy of “Religion” alone and picking on a group they don’t think will fight back.

Well we will Physicists, we will. It starts here.

To the physicist reality is explained in terms of a mathematical framework, chosen for its ability to reproduce results. Calculations are seen to be of two types. Those regarding billiard balls (as it was said of Newton’s laws that his rules for the actions of billiard balls were so right, so settled, that any argument over the matter is futile) and those regarding the mysteries of the universe at large (of which we are unsure).

It seems to me that the physicist has invested in an attractive conceit that they cannot bare to face: the presumption that the rules for one are the same as the rules for another. It must necessarily be a presumption because human theories, human understandings, account for 3% or less of the Universe (i.e. the bit light reflects off).

Moreover, the physicist’s theory of reality also includes a presumption, or series of presumptions, regarding the nature of dimensions. That is, how many do we have and how do they work? work on these questions are not separate from the general question (that we call “what is reality?”) that we are trying to answer. This may yet actually completely change the entire question so that any answer not taking dimensions into account is meaningless. To put this in perspective, consider this masterpiece from the great Carl Sagan:

Imagine that Flatland is where we live and our drawings (theories) about flatland are mathematically perfect. Indeed, we could eventually understand that this flatland is huge, millions of miles along each side, and our drawings equally apply all the way from one end of the paper to the other. Even with all this confidence, even with all this mathematical explanation, we are still in Flatland. Our explanation does not explain the nature of reality correctly, or even well, it just works from our perspective.

So, to announce that theories are almost complete and that they have something approaching a grand theory of everything is surely an outlandish exaggeration, as if the missing matter in the universe is a simple, solid and singular unknown. Like the missing matter was all one block of the same stuff, simply explained by the label we give it, “dark matter”. Like, one day, they will find it like a discarded lump of black coal in the bottom of a sack. That it only needs pulling into the light.

Dark matter may yet prove to be something, that is a tangible “thing”, but such a definite label could well be very misleading. Indeed dark matter may not actually be any “thing” at all, merely an aberration and the result of faulty calculations, faulty premises and faulty reasoning from the very ground up.

I used to say to people that any understanding involving the idea of “infinity” was the result of faulty premises. It could equally apply to sentence with “dark matter” in it. If it does exist, and for some reason is exactly what we expected, can we seriously say that the search for the meaning of the order in the Universe is over? What does any of that stuff mean anyway? It has no point to it. The explanation is all the “how”, but what about the real question; that of the “why”?

I have also often remarked that philosophy is not so much to do with having all the answers, but rather about having a better understanding of the questions. For the question is all to the Philosopher, the question means all. With the right question the answer becomes simple and the real answer means something. “Dark matter” is not an answer it is only a cool name for a mystery pretending to be a question. With such a mystery on the table, and in the equation, one cannot but agree that the question is lacking in encompassing the necessary values needed for a correct answer. Such an answer will remain ever beyond our reach as long as the question is “how?” and not “why?”.

Higgs or no Higgs

While that label exists, it fools us into thinking it is a “thing”. “Dark matter” could be a new and different operation of the Universe, a new force, and could suggest the necessity for a paradigm shift in science.

Given such quicksand as the ground under our scientific feet, it is really a bit rich to point at Philosophy and call it “worthless” and “dead”.

Such claims ignore the simple world around us. I listened to a physicist being challenged regarding whether he thought that this damming applied to all branches of Philosophy. Surely, Political Philosophy isn’t dead? Economic Philosophy? Ethical Philosophy? Surely, no one could claim that Religious Philosophy has no relevance in today’s world? Or the Philosophy of Art?

Well no, admitted the scientist, those are still relevant.

It soon turned into a Monty python sketch entitled, “What has Philosophy ever done for us? Well, apart from ethics, morals, politics, economics and the arts?”

What has philosophy ever done for us?

What is left?

I almost felt sorry for that Physicist, but I knew exactly which Philosophy he meant, he was talking about “metaphysics”. Again, we immediately find another Physicist conceit: The philosophical study of the nature of reality can go two ways, we are told:

Firstly, one can look out at the world. There one counts and measures, weighs and tallies by type. From this weighing and measuring, the Philosopher involved comes up with a neat theory to explain the results. This he forms into an experiment with a testable hypothesis. He repeats a number of such experiments and the results either fit his hypothesis (and he rejoices) or doesn’t (and he changes the theory and tests again). That is the scientific method and these Philosophers are called Scientists.

Secondly, the searcher for the nature of reality can look within. He can say to himself that reality is a matter of perspective in his mind; indeed all our realities exist only in this mind. He will then try to deduce from introspection, observation and logical analysis if there is something that can be known about this reality. That is metaphysics. From that a theory of knowledge will be created and tested.

Both are very similar, only one is written in the precise language of mathematics and the other in written in English. This is for good reasons as English (or whatever word-based language) is the way that the results are able to mean something. Writing in English is imprecise, precisely because reality itself is imprecise.

Of course, the conceit is that people only work in one of the above two ways without crossing over. Like there is some sort of wall separating them. Could it be a large part of the problem that philosophers ignore those fake boundaries and work in any way that they want? Is the Philosopher stepping on toes?

Our Physicist wants to prevent that as for him it is his understanding of math that he holds up the highest. Physicists honestly think they are better placed to find the nature of the universe because of their superior understanding of math. Philosophers, they say, cannot do this math anymore; it is too hard. Let us leave aside that math is not the sole property of one group of scientists, and consider that it too is grounded in what we call reality. It has been, for a long time now, correct in its predictions. Indeed, for most people the idea is that math is intrinsically correct (an idea invented by Philosophy called “a priori”). I.E. if humankind was to die out 2 + 2 would still equal 4.

However, would it really?

Math is an abstract; it models reality: it doesn’t direct it.

When the math doesn’t fit with the reality, we say that “we lack the math to describe” such and such event or happening. That’s commonly taken to be the humans fault, but really it’s the fact that new mathematical methods have to be invented to explain the occurrence. In other words, to be able to explain new occurrences into mathematical terms we are forced to invent new math. This simply means that math is entirely a human invention. It is “meta” and detached from the reality it is describing, not built into it. Math may explain the turning of the stars (from here in Flatland), but it doesn’t control that turning.

It is, I am sure, a sterling achievement to be able to predict the stars but it is not separate from the minds of the men that formulated it and for that very reason it is not a part of the universe that exists were it not for humans.

By way of example. Science created the iPad I am writing on. It built its plastics, put together its processors and worked out (using math) how to get the screen to light. What it didn’t do is create the reason for it. Apple did. One guy at apple had an idea, a cool idea, a vision and the science enabled that vision by converting it into this device. I am sure you can see that these two things, the idea (the philosophy) and the components (the science) worked hand in hand. They are in fact inseparable.

Remove one and the entire experience is removed. No idea = no iPad.

So said Steve Jobs:

It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing — and nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices.

But what if we removed the math?

Consider this:

We often say that if/when we meet alien life that math will be our common language. However, there is no reason that this will be so. I’m not suggesting that they will speak English like Star Trek characters, but I am suggesting that there is no reason that they will have math like ours.

I’ll give you an example to highlight what I mean. Our DNA splits, grows, and copies itself without conscious thought. There is something seemingly intrinsically built into DNA, into life, that gives rise to it having these powers. Nothing in our understanding explains why this works, we can only observe, record, predict and theorise. Imagine an alien species that do math like that. In other words, they don’t have a formularised language of math that requires theories, conscious attention and men with beards. Instead, it just happens. In the same way, our power to live just happens. We don’t try to explain it, we can’t control it: it just “happens”.

So, we meet these aliens…

We can’t even say “beings” or “race” as such concepts are entirely human centric. I mean, we will no doubt try to label them a “race” because that is how we think of our (so-called) “races”. This in itself may cause all sorts of problems as they may not see us in these terms, but I digress.

We meet these aliens and try to communicate in the form of maths. To them we are appearing as though we are doing something so natural so common, so inbuilt into their “being” that they don’t even recognise it.

They just are.

Our entire, confident, intellectual edifice is worthless in this case. The aliens can’t explain why they can do what they do as to them it is an unconscious and natural as DNA splitting is to us. They don’t use math as a language, they don’t speak in math. Math doesn’t exist to them.

We are pretty buggered then without philosophers! Wouldn’t the scientist simply say that the aliens weren’t alive at all? Would they recognise the life in these aliens?

Is this happening all the time already?

Being good at math is not going to unlock the heavens for us. We must be able to go beyond, to sublime this human built language, which for all its elegance, is no better than those of the poets.

Unlike the Physicist, The Philosopher can be a specialist or a generalist. Philosophers have developed an ability to be able to step back and ask “why?” Not in the way scientists ask “why?” which is actually, “how did that happen?” Philosophers ask, “Why do I ask why?” Philosophers take a concept or collection of concepts, pick them up and look at them from the outside not the inside. Philosophers ask what went into the question to which this “thing” is the answer. Philosophers are concerned with paradigm shifts and complete changes of presumptions. This is a skill set trained in philosophy to a very high level. Higher than in other subjects and it is a key skill in inventing new things and new ways of seeing.

It is part of humanity that makes us restless. Sure Philosophers are dreamers in a way, but then so are scientists. Sure Philosophers are not so good at math to be able to keep up with high-end Physics (again a presumption, some person may be able to who identifies himself as a philosopher), but math is not ever going to answer “why” only “how” and “when”.

Philosophy is human in every way, all-encompassing to all thoughts and theories and passionately in love with wisdom. History’s greatest accomplishments have all been tied to such innovative thinking from the dawn of time. Science uses these skills, uses this language developed by the Philosophers and so does politics, military theory and even maths. Philosophers know that they are on the outside asking the difficult questions and we understand that this frustrates some scientists, especially Physicists, but that doesn’t mean our contribution is lesser.

Indeed, scientists sometimes come out with the stupidest pronouncements, obvious to Philosophers, and we can’t help but stick our head in our hands in exasperation.

Philosophy is a part of science, part of math, part of politics, part of religion and a part of living on this planet. It is the question “why?” asked of our assumptions, asked of ourselves. It requires no evidential peer-reviewed papers to be considered right, it has no governing body and it is open to all. Indeed speculation over “why?” is practiced by everyone every day. Since it is so ingrained and ubiquitous to living, society and life, it is perhaps best that we have some experts in it? Some dedicated philosophers coming up with new tools, new skills and new ways to thinking?

Physicists want to be right and in their desperation, they have setup a dichotomy that doesn’t exist. Physics is not opposite to Philosophy, in the same way that the work of surgeons is not opposite to the work of GP’s. They are complementary and equally important. Physicists borrow from Philosophy to do their job, and visa versa. They are not in competition to find the nature of reality they are together- a team. I hope that one day a discovery will be made that requires the powers of both parties to understand, to comprehend, and we may then find that Philosophy and Physics together can come up with an answer truly worthy of inclusion in the list of humanities greatest achievements.

Regards

Basho

I realised upon seeing the chaos on our streets that we were dealing with many different groups of people with different agendas. The following is my take on those who casually looted during the riots. Particularly these two idiots I heard on the radio:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424

The mechanisms used by such people to loot during the recent sequence of UK riots are not well understood. Normal analysis of the behaviour of people has one enormous presumption: that the person was rational at the moment they made their choice to loot. But, to me, this doesn’t tally with their actions. I say they were irrational choices, but they must have had some mechanisms to assist them in making their decisions and in later justifying them (so drunken and stupidly) on the radio.

The behaviour of those casually looting elicits a number of different reactions and comments from “normal” people. Most respond with a large slice of “they’re just wrong’ns” vindictive spleen. It is as if once someone has committed a crime they somehow stop being human altogether and are instantly transfigured into Martians. While I too have very little sympathy for the fate of people committing crimes like this, I do feel it is very important to understand what was going on in their minds in order to be able to prevent such happenings from occurring again. This is not just important in terms of stopping future crimes, but also important in terms of preventing ill thought out, knee-jerk reactions such as, for example, blaming social media.

In general, there are two worlds of behaviour:

The first is the “Social” world and this is the world of our friends and families. It is also a world in which money is very rarely mentioned. After all I don’t ask my friends to “pay” money for favours and I only hazily keep track of the balance of such favours between us. In this world I often work quite hard (as there is little I would not do for a friend) and the work is in my own time and at my own expense. This is a common enough concept that I am sure you recognise it.

In contrast to this friendly world, there is another. When payment is involved it puts us firmly in the “money” world that has different rules. There my time is valued according to my sense of self-worth and career. There I don’t do favours or work late and demand a significant reward for my time. For example I would always offer to buy my mate a pint at the bar and forget the cost, but I would immediately query the barkeep if he screwed up the bill.

This is also why your boss refers to the company team as a “family”. He wants you to work as if you are in the “social” world because you will work harder, longer and for less. However, he also clearly only wants to pay you from the “money” world. As the saying goes, “management is getting the maximum milk for the minimum amount of moo”.

Anyway, put simply, the looters are making their decisions in the money world. For example while most people wouldn’t steal directly from a friend or even a stranger (a social world rule), a faceless high street company is considered fair game. These corporations may be legally “people”, but in the terms of the looting, they have no human “face”.

The following mechanisms represent a slippery slope from simple looting to the sorts of muggings we (tragically) saw on the news. As social norms are eroded by the continual bad decision-making, eventually all sense of right and wrong (as dictated by society) is gone.

The first mechanism is to do with the price the people pay for the things they buy. Normally, buying things in London shops are relatively expensive. The cost of something, a Sony PlayStation for example, is a known thing. However, during the riot, the potential becomes for that price to fall to zero. “Zero” isn’t actually a price. “Zero” is in a whole world of its own. Temptation increases to the point where some people will loot PlayStations and justify it because it’s a faceless crime with no “real” victim. Indeed the looter thinks in terms of being the victim. In other words the price “zero” is the bridge between the “money” and “social” worlds, and is so alluring that even normal people will act against perceived social norms in its presence.

Why is this? Because of the second mechanism:

The second mechanism is to do with herding. When deciding what to do, the sensible thing is to balance the risk and the reward. The risk is arrest and imprisonment, the reward is the ability to have “something for nothing”. However, this is not actually the way we make decisions at all. It is quite hard to stop and make decisions based on sensible logical calculations, instead we simply base our decision on two things:

1. What we see others doing.

If we see others doing the thing we are considering, and crucially having a positive experience (in a crime example: such as they get away with it). Then we will be far more likely to take that choice ourselves. If we come across a $10 note, would we hand it into the police? Yes, perhaps. But, if we came across a millions pounds in the street, and hundreds of people were taking them as they blew away in the wind, would we be so inclined to hand the note it? Possibly not.

2. What we have previously done.

Once a choice has been made for the first time, and if the experience was positive, then we are very likely to take that choice a second time even, and this is the important part, if others are no longer doing it. We effectively use our memory of the prior event as the quick and easy shortcut to the future decision.

So, in a non-criminal example, if we see others buying coffee at Starbucks and enjoying it and we have bought coffee from there before and enjoyed it, then we are much more likely to repeat the experience. Now imagine that there was a sign saying “free coffee today!” outside and that temptation would be massive.

This is one of the reasons that crowds behave the way they do during a riot. They are full of people making all sorts of short-term decisions using the above mechanisms while all the time they are in a terrible place to make “right” choices. This is why people claim in court that they “went too far” or had a moment of “insanity”. In fact, they have behaved in a (unfortunately) automatic manner.

To combat this it is the behavioural conditioning of childhood, which is supposed to contain examples of the benefits of making socially accepted decisions. A person with these memories will have plenty of experience of the positive outcome being when they did not steal.
Finally, there is the related matter of those we look up to. If a person looks up to a particular person or group, then they are likely to act in accordance with how they (think) that group would act. This is doubly strong if it this is the person from the examples above.

So what does this tell us? Firstly that the people looting and fighting against the police are letting off rage against the (perceived) negative influence of the law on their decisions. The law, enforced by the police, is uncaring to their lack of satisfaction with their lives and struggles, and has no cares at all that they don’t have a footballer’s salary or a banker’s bonus. This uncaring has probably been there from all sorts of perceived authority figures all their lives; parents who say one thing and do another, brothers that steal, teachers who cower and a society seemingly having it all. After all this person has little and so all that stuff in the shops must be being enjoyed by others, right?

The second thing it tells us, is that many of these people have very little in their lives in the form of memories of people doing the “right” thing. Nothing that can be used to balance their decisions the way that society wants. This is usually a part of that person’s “tragic” story of drug abuse, parental violence, etc.

Thirdly, the looters are very aware of what others are doing in similar situations to they. This is the root of the whole “BBM” and “Facebook” social messaging issue. The net, the phone and their friends are all communicating a positive reinforcement of the looting action. As is the press in highlighting it on the news.

It seems clear to me that the government is missing a trick with threatening to shut such services down. A messaging system that works for one will also work for another and the police and government should be sending out the message over these mediums, not turning them off. The message should be a reinforcement of the negative outcomes that await looting and the positive outcomes that comes from being “good”.

So, to stop these sorts of crimes, these looters need to live lives full of positive reinforcement of “good” choices and negative reinforcement of “bad” choices.

Whose job is that?

This isn’t just the job of parents, but also of police, government and indeed the entire society as a whole. This is the larger and more difficult issue to deal with. Since their “wretched” lives don’t “naturally” contain these memory forming influences then society could “gift” them by opening lots of social programs in these areas. These can create these positive messages at all levels.

This of course requires us to care about these people and about society in general. Since most of us are not these people, why should we care?

That this is even a question highlights those greater problems that exist in our society. The job of fixing that is the governments. The government is a massive influence in all our lives whether we want it or not, but the social contract is two-way. On a grander stage, our treatment of other countries and even our way of making war should reflect our values we want our people to have, but all too often it is itself a “grab and loot” on a larger scale and therefore a message that reinforces the wrong decision in the mind of our potential looter. Unfortunately, our society rewards aggressive, self-serving and violent behaviour only as long as it is done by companies and in boardrooms. Alternatively, as long as it is performed by “famous” people (who are of course then role models for the negative reinforcement).

Nevertheless, these are larger aims, designed to change society slowly and will take a long time to implement. What can we do right now?

Ethical Training.

Yes, right now every single person convicted of looting, rioting and violence on our streets should (after their term in prison) be sent for training in what would basically amount to “how to make good decisions”. I have often remarked that the first step in avoiding a trap is knowing of its existence. To that end, training people to recognise the situation they were in and how to avoid making the wrong decisions (i.e. they committed the crime and got arrested) will be the most effective way of giving them the memories needed to react correctly when facing the same decisions in the future. This is generally known as rehabilitation.

For some this probably sounds too “liberal” and even that I am suggesting that society should “go easy” on crime, but on the contrary: the complete pillaring of the looters is a vital mechanism in changing behaviour. Indeed these measures will only work if the negative “down side” punishment is harsh enough to enable the lesson.

Only by understanding a thing can we stop a thing. Ignoring the fact that the usual incentive (prison) is not working and blaming the communication technology is worthless in the extreme. If we understand how someone makes the “wrong” decisions and appreciate that the mechanism this person used is essentially the same as ours then we highlight what is missing. These looters can be understood and by this understanding can they and the next generation be prevented from making the same mistakes.

Regards,

Basho

If you have any comments on this article please keep in mind two things:

1. This blog is set to moderate comments. I wont post abusive commentary. I respect the opinions of others and I ask that you do the same.

2. Please leave comments that are a little more constructive than one line or one-word answers. If you want to debate this article, feel free, but keep in mind that this is not /b/ and childish bullshit simply won’t be published.

Those are the known unknown things that you decide to do only when faced with the opportunity. You know you might do them, but you perhaps only have the haziest plan about them. What this story highlights are the complete unknowns; those strange twists of fate and chance that dog everyone’s lives from one end to the other. Perhaps that is being unfair to them as they are the same class of occurrence that led to me meeting my wife, my friends and finding my job.

But, they can also lead to what is to follow…

My tale begins just before we travelled to the (now closing) park of Bandhavgar in India and starts with us trying to go the train station in Varanasi.

Leaving Varanasi is not something I am soon to forget.

Just getting to the station that night was one hell of challenge. I have written before about how Cesca and I played good cop, bad cop with the local Tuk-Tuk drivers to make sure that we were not gouged by excessive charges, facilitated by the driver and friends taking us for a “marks” or as we in the UK call them “mugs”. Our double act, of Cesca walking away in huff followed by myself after sharing an exasperated look with the offending driver, had wowed and convinced all over the east. Indeed, I remember thinking that it was so effective that it must be a simple part of the “play” or “act” of hiring a taxi, Tuk-Tuk or Songthaew anywhere else in the world apart from the bit I came from. I also remember remarking that it would always work…

Cesca and I stopped, our backs to the small group of Tuk-Tuk drivers, and we leaned into each other conspiratorially.

“How many steps have we gone?” I asked, and we both computed the answer in our heads.

“6” we agreed.

“Bugger,” said Cesca, “they’re not going to go for it are they?”

I sneaked a look around at the drivers, coolly watching us walk away. They looked uncaring and if it was acting, it was good acting.

“Thing is darling,” I said, “We don’t have long until our train… Is this time for humble pie?”

Ceca’s eyes met mine and I saw fire in them.

“Never!” She spun to face the group and strode towards them raising an indignant finger.

The trouble was simple. The Tuk-Tuk to the hotel from the train station had been one hell of a journey, but at least it had been a fixed fare set by the government rates system. However, trying to get back to the train station from the hotel was to pick a Tuk-Tuk off the street nearby and this was ungoverned… and five times the price. When the man had first suggested the fare we simply knew it had to be a haggler’s bluff. But, I was now forming the notion that the Tuk-Tuk drivers here are in some sort of price-fixing union or cartel (or mafia!) and won’t haggle at all- they want the foreign visitor to pay a high price!

Cesca took to arguing with the men. I don’t know how good their English was beyond how to simply perform their job, but I could tell that Cesca’s body language was translating perfectly; she was pissed off. I hung back. A big guy standing over her shoulder could illicit the wrong reaction.

After only a few minutes another man, leaning against a wall, detached himself and walked over and offered to take Cesca for the original price on the condition that she stopped shouting and also that he happened to live near the station anyway.

She grinned in triumph all the way to the station forecourt. What a girl!

As we were dropped off I took a look at the station forecourt in the darkness. Surrounding it were tall lampposts throwing out a dirty orangey light that illuminated the dusty ground in pools of colour crossed endlessly with the flashing of insects mistaking the bulbs for the moon.

We put on our backpacks and made our way towards the entrance. Walking under the lamps there was a buzzing of activity and I noticed from the corner of my eye a large moth break formation with the group and dive down to take a closer look. It was a wild winged creature of significant size and my first instinct upon seeing it, heading straight down at my face from the corner of my eye, was to flinch aside Bruce Lee’like.

Unfortunately, the moth also changed direction and I remember hearing its wings buzzing loudly like a dive-bombing Stuka.

Then nothing.

I looked around, but couldn’t see it and I thought to myself “where did that go?”

Then I realised the horrifying truth. In a million to one shot the massive Indian flying creature had managed to wedge itself right into my ear canal. I slapped my hand to my ear in shock and the moth responded by buzzing its wings, which inside my ear canal sounded like a recording of 400 cymbals falling down a flight of stairs played through a speaker turned up to 11.

I screamed in pain. Cesca flashed around and for a good few moments couldn’t work out what was wrong.

“Darling?” she asked.

“There’s a bloody great moth in my ear!” I cried. “Help!”

She ran over to help and took a look in my ear, to which the moth responded with the ending of The William Tell overture as heard from 2 inches away from the explosions.

I screamed some more.

“Get it out!”

Now it was at this moment, had this been a film, that the Benny Hill music would have started and everything would have been slightly sped up. We tore off our backpacks and flung everything out on the floor in increasingly desperate attempts to remove said insect from my ear. Each attempt, ear buds; wipes; sticks, was met with desperate struggles from the moth and more screaming from myself. It was wedged in there good and proper and (Cesca told me later) took up the entire ear.

By this time we had drawn the attention of a couple of policemen, who spoke no English and merely stood bemused at Cesca attempts to explain, so I decided that we should get on the train and deal with it there. Cesca told me later that this was the point at which she would have headed to an A&E.

In aural-agony I walked to the train, my hearing on both sides shot to bits and my heart racing as I tried to think of something that would get this bastard out of my ear.

On the train, we took up our little bed area and pulled the curtains across. Cesca then set about thinking hard. The increasingly desperate moth had been seriously battered by my attempts to dig it out with earbuds and my ear canal was now very sore, as was my eardrum against which the moth had been push and squashed. I realised, just as the train pulled out, that this was much worse than we thought.

Cesca hit upon an idea. Ear wax remover.

“Ear wax remover!?” I exclaimed, “You have carried ear wax remover all this way around the world?”

“Yes, for clearing my ears before diving” she said pulling out a small bag from which she took out the tiny dropper-topped bottle. We lay me on my side and she put in a couple of drops.

It smelt very menthol.

The moth, I am ashamed to say, drowned in this stuff and after a few exhausted buzzes that sounded like nuclear explosions passed away from its life. We turned me up the other way and the fluid drained onto a tissue.

But the moth, dead as it was, was still in my ear.

Cesca took a closer look with a torch and gasped slightly.

“What?” I asked, “Is it huge? Can you grab it?”

“Erm, no it’s not huge” she said.

She was clearly lying, the moth was enormous, and it must be to fill my ears. I always had to use the large rubber ear grommets on headphones, I am a big guy, and I have large ear canals. This beast invading my body, probably covered in all sorts of Indian crap, dust, mites, and shit, was the size of a bloody bus! I suddenly thought that I might get an infection if we weren’t careful and that made my skin go into a cold sweat and my brain beat with blood and worry.

Cesca tried to think of something. Then…

“Ah!” she exclaimed, “I have tweezers somewhere, we should pull it out!”

“Tweezers too? What type?”

“They are tick ones, for pulling out ticks” she replied

“Aren’t they sharp at the ends?” I enquired

“A little, yes”

I motioned to the train carriage which was bouncing around us – Indian trains are anything but a smooth ride.

“Forget it!”

“Well what then?” she asked.

I racked my brain,

“Call your sister”.

I don’t know why calling a vet back in England was supposed to help, she would probably be more concerned for the moth than I, but I wanted to do something and get someone else thinking as well. Arabella tried her best over the line, but her only advice was to sleep on that side of my body and the moth would “pop out”.

“Oh yes,” she said to Cesca down the mobile line from the UK, “Sebastian had a moth in his ear, slipped over-night no problem…”

Cesca latched onto the good news and smiled to me but she wasn’t fooling me for a second. I knew from her face that there was no way this thing was simply going to “pop out” without the application of high explosive.

So I had no choice, I slept the 8 hour journey on my right-side awaiting the moth to extricate itself from my ear canal. I didn’t sleep a moment of that 8 hour journey, not one second.

Eventually we arrived at our stop in the middle of nowhere and then I really did start to worry. What if there were no doctors out here? We were visiting the deep wilds of India; perhaps they wouldn’t have the equipment needed for sorting out ears. You know that bendy thing like a clothes hanger with a camera on the end that doctors jam into children’s ears?

We got off the train and were met by a driver, booked to take us to the safari park we were staying at for the next four days.

“How long is the journey?” I asked.

“Oh quick sir,” he said smilingly, “only 2 hours or so”

I didn’t say anything, but my expression said simply, “!”

I went into that strange mode that people go into when they know their mission. A sort of calm and almost detached view of the world that speaks only in a gentile but swift voice answering all questions exactly and quickly with no elaboration whatsoever.

“I have a moth in my ear” I said to myself, “for at least two more hours,” I continued, “and then we shall remove it”.

Zen monks couldn’t have put it calmer.

We finally arrived at the park as the sun rose over the trees. It was beautiful in the extreme, but I wasn’t really watching it. We quickly checked in and got to our room. Bags were flung into the bed and I grabbed our extensive medical bag and strode purposely into the bathroom.

“Cesca,” I said smartly, handing her the bag, “in there is a syringe.” I bent over the sink. “Please use that with some water to flush this obstacle from my ear”.

Cesca tried, but it didn’t work. The moth was crushed against the ear and the water couldn’t get under it to lift it.

It was time for desperate measures.

“Ok,” I said, “go for the tweezers”

Cesca lifted the large chisel ended tweezers out of the medical kit and approached my ear. She reached out and in.

“Slower!” I said.

“I am going slowly” she protested.

“Then go slower, go glacially”.

The tweezers entering my ear disturbed the moth’s corpse and set off more endless cymbals in my head. I felt her grab hold of the end of the moth and that really hurt. She later told me that her greatest fear at this point was that the moth would come apart and have to be removed in bits.

“I have it,” she said, “ready?”

“Go,” I said.

She pulled and for a moment I too thought the moth wasn’t moving, then suddenly its entire bulk shifted and my hearing returned. It was off the ear drum! The pain stopped and then with the most satisfying, crashing, screaming, noise-filled moment of my life there was an audible, slimy pop and the moth came out.

Intact.

Cesca immediately flung it into the basin. I stood up and then we did that thing that always happens in the movies, we learned in to take a closer look and both, in unison, cried “urrrg!”

It was huge and slimy and crushed and all legs and wings and, well, “urrrg!”

We looked at each other and then I gave Cesca the biggest hug of her life, lifting her clean off her feet and against the wall.

“THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!” I exclaimed over and over again, tears coming to my eyes.

The nightmare of the last 10 hours was over, my ear was sore but safe, and Cesca- she was as ever my hero.

So, there you have it. We went on in the next few days to see 9 tigers in their wild habitat and this certainly helped redress that painful journey. My ear did hurt all that time, but I didn’t care since we were having such a great time.
It’s often said that it is the bullet with your name on it that you don’t hear. Well, I went through a long journey to reach the moth with my name on it and I heard it all right. That was got me to flinch. It’s natural to do so, to protect the eyes, but very few people consider their ears!

I sure do now!

Since then I have come to realise that this story highlights perfectly the difference between Courage and Bravery. I had the moth in my ear; there was nothing I could do to get it out. Staying calm was brave. Cesca was in charge of a very sharp set of medical implements which she needed to put into my deepest ear canals. Staying steady at such moments takes courage.

Something she has in spades.

Regards,

Basho

Nope, nothing else, not today.

I was hoping for a “crowd goes wild”, which means a personal best, or “great finish” which means that the last km was the fastest.

Oh well.

I stop looking at it and enter my house.

Running is a funny business. It is the most simple and easy of sports to take up; all you need is a pair of shoes (and these days there is a whole barefoot running clique who claim you don’t need even those) and yet, and yet, never in my life have I run more than 100 meters. Not that I was shy of sports; fencing, martial arts, marital arts – you name it. However, my first day’s attempt to run down to the gym was a disaster once those 100 had passed. My body simply stopped me flat and demanded to know what I thought I was doing, was I being chased by a hungry lion? Or avoiding an imminent meteor strike? No? Then why the hell are you doing this to us? It asked, gasping.

In the past such stern questioning, not to mention the following sensation of aching lungs, were enough to stop me. But, not today because I had caught a bug.

A Nike bug.

I have always been a fan of the colourful US brand. When I was a child, Nike was the coolest thing in the world; both ridiculously expensive and stylish. Unobtainable. Since then they have gone through a bit of a sea change themselves, upping the quality levels, creating some great equipment and yet keeping that cool label, that newness. Even when they come late to the party and a little underpowered in the features department even then they make a splash with their style and their enthusiasm.
It is that enthusiasm that is the key feature of this watch.

My early morning conversation in the “pro-running” shop near London Bridge highlights what “proper” running people think of that fact. (Imagine the scene in Point-Break where Keanu Reeves buys his first surfboard…)

“Good morning, sir,” said the thin and fit looking shop girl from behind her achingly cool piercings.

I guess I did look like a fish a bit out of water, in a running shop at this time in the morning; she looked like a 20 mile run was a daily occurrence before breakfast. Dressed for work, I guess I have the look of a geek with a love of good quality gadgets.

“I’m looking for a running watch with a heart strap,” I said.

“The Garmin” she said, pointing into a small glass fronted cabinet next to me.

I looked at the watch in question; it was a phenomenally ugly and boxy device like one of those stop-watches PE teachers carry that had been welded to a watch strap. Next to it stood the Nike GPS. To say that the Nike looked better is an understatement. I realised that I could wear that watch all day, even at work.

“The Nike’s nice,” I said hopefully.

The girl gave me an appraising look, followed by a pause as she mentally switched records in her head.

“Yes, sir, they are very popular, they have similar features to the Garmin but they are not as good.”

Even I know that’s code for, “she wouldn’t be seen dead in one”. However, Given that she has trouble walking through metal detectors or passing large magnets, I wasn’t swayed by the opinion her expression was trying oh so hard to hide. I realised that I was entering a new world with two groups, the sort of people who run every day for miles and miles and miles, and the sort of people who run a couple of times a week for around 30k total.

Journeymen and Beginners.

Experts and hobbyists.

The élite and the, well, not so élite.

I knew which group I was in, so I decided to change the metric the girl and I were using to judge the value of watches,

“how much is the Garmin?” I asked.

“£350” she answered, clearly of the opinion that mere price was an irrelevant point.

“And the Nike?”

“£170 and £50 for the belt”

I looked again at the choice. There was nothing more to say. If I turned up at home with a £350 watch I would be strung up by Cesca and rightly so. I did a mental calculation in my head as I was going to have to sell a beloved Christopher Ward watch to pay for it.

“I’ll take the Nike please”

Unwrapping.

Apple has indelibly changed the definition of what is cool in packaging when it released the iPhone. Since then many manufacturers have copied their approach. For example, my Samsung phone came in a box almost identical to the iPhone (and the phone is so similar that Apple is suing). Nike, who is surely BFF with Apple, has also followed Apple’s philosophy. The box containing the Nike watch is small and very well designed while at the same time evoking the spirit of the sort of boxes high-end watches come in. Everything is compactly slotted in. Compared to the competitions simple blister packs this speaks volumes. Once its secrets are open the following items are found within.

Another thing Nike has learned from Apple is to have no truck with anything but complete brand loyalty in a passive aggressive way. This is displayed perfectly with the lack of any way to attach the Shoe Pod to anything but a Nike shoe (which has a special hole for the nugget like device in the sole). I would have despaired had I not expected it and ordered a small pouch from amazon that attached to my laces. This little fella is cleverly designed and extremely snug – so it holds the Pod perfectly.

I followed the simple instructions and charged the watch up while signing up to download the sync software from Nike’s web site. (We will come to the website in-depth in a moment).

The watch has a thin USB adaptor hidden under the flap at the end of the strap. This clicks open and can go straight into a computer USB socket or via the short and branded extension cable given away in the box (presumably since some people still have under desk computers and not laptops). Once socketed the watch displays a charging message.

One of the most interesting features of this watch is its display. The LCD is in negative mode meaning that the screen is dark and the numbers and lettering are in blocks of “turned off” colour.

It has a large-size font choice meaning that the time display is split over two lines, which looks great and a close-up of the LCD shows it to be of very high “resolution”, the fonts curving smoothly and not blocky at all. There is no doubt that this display could show graphics with ease if it wanted to. The boldness of that display puts it firmly in the extroverted cool realm and the bright yellow on the reverse of the band (visible only in flashes and glimpses when on the wrist) follows this.

Next to the time, at a 90 degree angle, sits the day and date information along with the battery meter. This is the battery meter for the running part of the watch not the clock part. Once charged, which took about an hour (so it must be part-charged out of the box) the watch is ready to go. An “up down” rocker is on the left hand side above a bright yellow button. The rocker moves the watch through its menu system and the yellow button acts as an “enter” selector.

After using some serious gym watches in the past I was very presently surprised with the purposeful simplicity of the Nike. Some watches have a mind mangling choice of menus and settings for every sport. Nike has opted to throw most of these out and focus on the core experience, again following Apple’s lead. The watch menu has only four options, all visible on the first menu:

“Clock” This returns you to the clock mode.

“Run” Start a new activity.

“History” The last 50 activities.

“Records” This shows a rotating display of:

Total distance
Fastest mile
Fastest km
Fastest 5k
Fastest 10k

Notice there are no settings to be configured. Rather all the settings, apart from the registering of new sensors, is performed in the computer software upon attaching the watch via USB. This configuration software enables you to change lots of features, such as the default screen display while running; settings for laps, whether the watch will bug you to go for a run or even what your weight is for the calorie calculations.

On the wrist the watch stands quite tall and with its nice curved glass screen is just waiting to get smashed. Never the less I wear it every day. It goes well with my work clothes in that it is in a way a totem. Wearing a running watch to work, especially this running watch, is making a statement. That statement says that you are a member of the “club”. Not a geek member totally obsessed with statistics; no you are a “cool” member. This is a watch design for enthusiasts to meet other enthusiasts. I get a lot of interested questions regarding it, as many as I got for my other watches and this is all to the good as it provides motivation. Balancing the design of something is nearly as hard as wearing it if it makes a statement. All too often that statement is perhaps not the one intended. Consider the 50+ guy with his Jag car, or oversized Tag watch. Most of the time such a person’s statement is “I’m a berk with too much money and a lack of inner success”.

This watch simply sidesteps that. Anyone who challenges your “right” to wear it can be simply provided with the “Records” section to check your bonafides in seconds.

As long as you have them that is. When all is said and done, you must run the miles yourself; the watch will not do that for you!

It is not heavy at all and doesn’t bother me on the wrist. One thing to note is that the strap is integrated and therefore cannot be changed in any way. This may not be an issue unless the watch doesn’t fit. I have heard of people with very small wrists not managing to get the watch flush to their skin. For me, I run the risk of the opposite problem; my wrists are too big! I have the watch on the largest setting and it is snug and not loose. Of course having a watch this tight sometime means I can accidentally press a button. This has only happened in the gym once when lifting a 55kg bar weight above my head; my hand was pushed back enough that the back of it pushed a button. After stopping and pulling the watch up my arm the problem was solved.

Running in the watch.

The first thing one has to do when running for the first time is pair the sensors with the watch. I have the heart belt and shoe pod and I found that on first attempt at pairing (standing in the gym) the watch picked up too many sensors in range. Standing, briefly, outside solved this issue and I have not had it happen again as the watch remembers the pods, etc. it knows.

When deciding to do some recorded exercise you select the “run” menu and then turn on or off the sensors. So, if you are working out in the gym on weights, you turn off all but the heart rate belt and it will record your time, heart and calories. On the other hand, running outside (the watch’s primary use) will involve all the sensors and after turning their options to on, and selecting “continue”, the watch will announce that it is “linking sensors”. If you have wetted the Heart belt and moved the shoe pod within the last minute then it will pick these up in a few seconds. However, I have had the GPS take up to a minute (which feels longer when you are staring at the screen). Nike claim that the watch gets better at pinpointing the satellites in each use, and indeed I have seen the text “Updating satellite data” in the computer GUI as I sync it with Nike website. However, the watch also features the ability to start your run before the satellite has a fix, known as “quickstart”. This option is clearly there because the GPS lock takes so long (sometimes!). Of course, you wait. Eventually the link works and you get a little set of beeps that you are ready to go. A touch of the “start” menu option and you can head off!

While running the watch displays your selected options and occasionally beeps if you have turned on to have laps. During a lap moment the watch displays some quick data on the lap. You can have automatic laps or manual ones, which requires a tap on the case here:

Not a touch of the screen mind, you have to tap the top of the case front. Coincidentally, tapping this while in “clock” mode turns on the backlight for a brief moment. You can also have intervals as programmed again by the computer GUI. This means your speed work training will benefit from the watch telling you the splits and assisting you in not cheating.

Using the up and down rocker buttons you can switch the upper part of the screens display to show various metrics such as km, time, km average, heart rate, etc. All are easy to read when on the move. Tapping the yellow button pauses the action, something I use only when crossing a busy road or my phone rings or I come across a giant queen bumble bee (all of which has happened on my runs). Once you have finished your run, the watch displays a little congratulations message dependent on your performance and plays a little tune on a personal best time.

This is very cute in action and I find myself quite looking forwards to it. Then the watch displays the stats for the run all on one screen.

You can also use the watch to only record workouts on the HRM. In this mode the watch turns off the GPS and foot pod. I use the watch in like this every other day and it performs its functions well. The BPM is the useful metric when lifting as it enables you to properly manage your between sets and recovery times. So, while the watch doesn’t offer and specialist mode for lifting, it is just as good as any other HRM.

On the elliptical and other machines the HRM is often compatible and the machine will show that rate rather than that of the “grip” sensors. I often note that the watch is one or two calories different from the elliptical machine, something that is probably to do with the method of calculation.

Uploading

The Nike watch is designed to synchronise with the Nike Running website and is one of the largest features of the system.

Upon placing the watch in the USB it uploads to Nike and then boots their website.

Nike present a very high end website built in flash. However, the flash programming is terrible. I often find that the flash fails to load in sections of the site. For example, I have logged in to the “home” screen and selected “goals”. Blank. Nadda. So I select “home”. Now that’s blank. So I log out and back in. Now my profile is missing. So I select “all runs”. Blank. This isn’t my version of flash or my browser choice; this is simply a bad website. The choice of flash is bizarre, as Apple mobile devices cannot display flash and so you have the situation where your iPhone can upload a run, but can’t show the run in Safari mobile.

It’s not as if Nike can’t program great websites. Consider this one, which invented a completely new method of coding using parallax techniques and is written in fantastically quick and smooth HTML5.

When the site works, it is very good indeed. But, it is a very inconsistent experience. I emailed Nike regarding this and got a slightly glib reply. Hopefully, they are going to ditch it, but until then it is an issue. This is what I sometimes see:

Some of the features provided in the website are excellent. There is the runs themselves and each will show a map of the distance covered on a mapping system. This system is improving all the time and now you can use it to plan a run as well as review one. This is very helpful if you need to find a 5 or 10km route around your town.

Also great is the “goals” section that assists you in tracking progress. I find that having a goal that is within a few weeks’ reach is much more motivating than the long term goal of “getting fit”. Humans as a species tend to be terrible in focussing on longer term goals compared with immediate sensations (hunger for example). When you upload runs (and only runs – it doesn’t count workouts) they are automatically counted towards your targets. I have found that this has motivated me much better than I thought it would. It is the feature I love the most.

Above all this there are also “challenges”, which are like goals mixed with online clubs. Anyone can create a challenge and have people sign up to join you in it. Some are silly, some are charity based, some are mega hard and the website helps filter them based on your “Nike Level”.

This simple metric grades your progress as a runner using colours. Upon going up a level you get a small movie of some runner congratulating you and a new set of challenges to run against. It’s clever and motivational. I am now half way to the third category and I find myself considering running more often to speed up my progress. That’s a great design influencing my motivation. Nike certainly has that aspect of the experience nailed. The site also links in to Facebook and Twitter and when you upload a run it posts it to the social networks as well as when you set a new goal. This enables your friends to comment on it and motivate you even more. I have even found that friends have read my constant Facebook posts and taken up gym’ing themselves. However, for some stupid reason the system only posts your last run, so if you upload them in batches like me (as I run to the gym, gym, and run back) then the others are not Facebooked. This is slightly annoying as the final run of my routine is always the slowest as I am tired from lifting.

Are there any other problems with the watch and experience?

Nikes forums are full of people complaining about problems with their watches. The main one seems to be that the GPS is not super accurate. I have not found this myself. Reviewing my runs on the maps shows that the system has correctly picked up my journey. Perhaps it is to do with the satellites overhead?

I have noticed the system downloading GPS data:

Others have complained that the website doesn’t show enough detail of the runs for post analysis. I think this is an issue for those in the “elite” group. Nike hasn’t got all the detail recorded in the run on the site, but I understand they are considering it. Recently I received a questionnaire about the Nike site and it asked my preference for detail. I said that I always wanted as a much as possible.

Hopefully they are listening to the criticisms of those shouting. As is often the case on the web, the loud, angry minority make much more noise than those happy with their product and experience. I personally am very happy with the watch itself and unhappy with the website. However, I am content to give Nike a chance to repair or replace the online portion of the system. Such an action would not hurt their brand in the slightest, as flash is dead. No one in their right mind programs flash anymore and to block out Apple device users is a stupid direction given their popularity.

Key Features & Benefits

• GPS by TomTom + Shoe Sensor: GPS functions in tandem with the Nike+ Sensor to optimize seamless data tracking during runs (e.g. when running through an urban canyon, where GPS connection may not be available).
• Tap Interface: Users simply tap the display to activate the backlight and to mark laps during their run.
• Direct Connect: USB contacts are molded into the watch strap allowing the user to plug the watch directly into a USB port to upload run data and recharge the battery.
• Run Reminders: Users get automatic reminders from the watch when a run has not been logged in the past five days.
• Attaboys: Users receive recognition for achieving personal records, such as fastest mile, longest run, fastest 10K and fastest marathon.
• Nikeplus.com: Run data is saved to Nikeplus.com where runners can map their runs, find new routes, track their goals, receive coaching tips, challenge their friends, share their progress through Facebook and Twitter and more.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Ease of use
• Great Design
• Waterproof
• Nike+ website is great for motivation
• Easy to configure and install

Cons:

• Glass screen can be knocked
• HRM only workouts dont count towards your “goals” grrr
• Nike centric – no data coming out to other websites
• Problems with Nike Running Website – Flash (yuk!)

Final Verdict

For its motivational components, great design, high end experience I give the watch an 9/10. It is a simple and well-made device that I have a great affinity for. I am wearing it now on the train into London.

For the online portion of the experience I can only award Nike 7/10 with a note that when the site works well its potential is manifest. However, this is not all the time and so they “must try harder”!

Regards

Basho

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Udaipur was the first stop for us into Rajasthan. We had heard so much about this part of India and were looking forwards to our visit with relish. The historic capital of the former kingdom of Mewar in Rajputana Agency, Udaipur’s fierce independence had successfully led it into the modern world almost untouched. This is in part due to its mountainous region being unsuitable for heavily armoured Mughal horses; Udaipur remained unmolested from Mughal influence in spite of much pressure.

We had already experienced a “preview” of what we could expect while in the colourful southern city of Mysore, with its grand palace covered in bulbs, culture revolving around the charismatic power base of the Raja’s and incredible local markets.

We arrived, as ever, by train. It remained the quintessential method of transport across India, but its routes into Rajasthan were not all going to where we wanted and so we were soon going to abandon the train for buses and other methods of transport. But, for now, we caught a tuk tuk to the “travellers” centre. The city is built up around lakes and almost everywhere we went overlooked them somewhat.

 For Indian cities, Udaipur is fairly well off and the buildings are all brightly painted and shining in the vast amount of sunlight. In the distance, over the almost endless roof-top gardens and restaurants, are the majestic rolling Aravali foothills.

The huge visible distance lends an ambiance to the city. However, when we arrived it was very early and still dark. We had called ahead and booked our room at Anjani hotel, an old royal Haveli Anjani Ji converted to hotel which is situated near to the Pichola-Lake. It’s bright White frontage and views over the lake made it a great choice and not too expensive. We walked up a steep alley to the hotel front and entered the foyer.

There was no-one in sight and the lights were all off. Cesca called out into the dim room and three men, obviously sleeping behind the counter rose and bid us welcome. They certainly went from sleeping to working quicker than I can manage, however they made the mistake of trying on a little room gouging with Cesca first thing in the morning. After twenty minutes she had not only got us the original rate back, but also double upgraded to an incredible suite overlooking the lake. It had a four-poster bed and was quite wonderful. We then went to the rooftop restaurant for breakfast.

The hotel floating in the center had originally been a palace for the local Rana of course, but now was a playground for the western rich. Those that don’t stay at the other great hotel locally: the Oberoi. That hotel was outside of town and hidden from view around the lake edge. It was even more exclusive. I wondered how much it cost to stay there.

We spent the next day exploring Udaipur and considering the purchase of silk bed covers as gifts for those back home. We also perused the local cafes and partook of the local foodstuffs, or at least the tourist versions of same. The best place we found was a German style bakery serving up all sorts of wonderful delicacies.

Then we decided to visit the great City Palace built in 1559 and overlooking the lake from atop a nearby hill. Walking up to the grand ‘Bara Pol’ (Great Gate) entrance was to experience the brilliant architecture of India.

We were learning that Rajasthan had not lost any of its classic beauty compared to the, obviously, war-torn southern cities. How could this be? The story goes that the invading Marathas tormented the Udaipur rulers for years until the British came to their rescue in exchange for becoming a British territory. A wise choice as the southern states that fought against the empire suffered greatly against the most formidable army of that time. Indeed it would only be the great peacemaker Gandhi (a hero of mine) who could break the British will, well that and WWII having bankrupted it. After independence, the “princes” here lost those rights in the change to democracy, but kept their palaces which are now run as trusts.

 Like all Maharanas palaces this one was a monument to pure familial power and a building to inspire a cultural influence. Gleaming white buildings with gigantic doors, designed to defend against elephant attack, protect the entrances to the palace proper. Clearly this was more of a castle than just palace. It had the winding corridors and courtyards, the guard rooms and barracks of a major civic administrative centre.

Interestingly the title of “Maharana” is that given to a military warrior ruler not a king (“raja”). Hence they are “princes” of their domains.

Inside the giant doors was the armoury and guard-room. This was a highlight for me and I stood amazed at the superlative inventiveness of the Indian’s methods of waging war. Swords and spears were only the beginning. Almost all the beautifully inlaid weapons also had a hidden pistol somewhere in the structure. I saw axes with pistols in the top, swords with pistols in the handles, even pens that could fire a bullet.

These were not even the most incredible weapons, for the Indian’s also used arms I had never seen before. Such as a very long sword built into a gauntlet so that the four-foot blade protruded from the fist like a giant punch dagger. It was stiff and with the gauntlet coming quite far down the arm meant that the warrior would not be able to use his wrist to “roll” or turn the blade and would have to swing his whole arm using his elbow as the main joint. It must take an amazing amount of training to use effectively not to mention a lot of space on the battlefield.

Once through the armoury we entered the maze of rooms, hidden gardens, jewelled chambers and throne rooms of the palace proper. These were all still intact and had not been looted. Stained glass and brightly coloured artworks adorned all the Walls. One motif I noticed regularly was the visage of a Rajasthani man, all round-faced and with the traditional moustache of the region.

I realised that the Ranas had built up quite a cult of personality here in their power base. This revolved around their ability to “protect” the local population from the assignations of invading hordes from the north. Much was made of the Ranas personal prowess in battle – not surprising if he had so many hidden pistols to fire – and how this leant itself to the divine right of warriors to rule.

 There is a lot of is sort of thing in all monarchies, but it is only when seeing it not directed at oneself that you can see it for what it really is: a method of keeping a family line in power. As the Patrician of Ankh Morpork says, “people mostly want tomorrow to be just like today”.

That is not to say I didn’t find it alluring and beautiful, quite to the contrary; I thought it magnificent and a stunning artistic marvel. I wondered how anything I would go on to see in Rajasthan could compete. Little did I know that this palace was the standard of this area of India, and each city-state had an equally or better edifice to the past.

One thing I do remember well was the very high quality audio tour that spoke at length about the legends and history of the building, something that would be difficult to discern without local assistance.

After a few hours we returned to our hotel and met the owner. She and Cesca got on very well and we were presently surprised when she offered Cesca a job renovating the hotel. We seriously considered it and I wonder now what would have become of us had we relented to the temptation.

That night we ate out in a roof top restaurant and spoke with the waiter who, as it turned out, used to work in the mysterious Oberoi.

“How much is a room for a night?” I asked.

“$2000 a night,” he said, “but it doesn’t really have rooms”.

“What do you mean?”

“The hotel is like nothing else. You get your own wing, your own cook, your own staff and your own pool. You basically get your own hotel”.

“Wow!” Cesca exclaimed.

The waiter smiled and filled our glasses.

We had a few days until the festival we had come to see, and I would like to say we spent it exploring the countryside and many temples, but the room was so nice and the heat so high that we mostly spent it exploring each other. Not to say I didn’t learn new things!

In the mornings Cesca would go and do some yoga at the local school, and then we would explore the cafe’s (of which there were many, usually filled with too-loud Americans yelling into their phones and sipping lattes). After that it would be some shopping and then back to the room.

It was great to relax and Udaipur was just the place.

Eventually the night arrived and we had the opportunity to see one of the strangest festivals in all of India. Down by the steps to the Gangaur Ghat a large crowd of very brightly dressed Indians all milled around as though waiting for something.

They were mostly middle-aged women and children. They didn’t have long to wait. Amidst much fanfare the first younger girl came into view. She was dressed in very fine and colourful garments and on her head was a large pointed puppet. There were two types, one male and one female.

They were made to look like they were dressed up for something as well. The girls’ numbers swelled to a dozen full casts for Punch and Judy. They all seemed happy, but ever so slightly embarrassed.

I learned that they were all unmarried women and that this ceremonial procession was to ask the Gods for aid in finding them a partner. Cesca and I decided that it was all very sweet really.

We spent a couple of hours paying with the hordes of local kids who had come for the colourful spectacle being played out by their sisters and aunts, but found the two Westerners an unexpected bonus.

We had quite a flock demanding money, photos and school-pens following us until the festival ended and we went for a drink.

As we sat on yet another rooftop bar, ruminating on the night’s brightly lit strangeness and the phenomenon of unmarried sisters; I noticed something on the hills in the distance:

They were on fire.

A large fire was burning over the brow of the hill. Judging by the distance to the glow it was a dangerous size and I briefly wondered about it coming down to threaten the city itself. Over the next hour i watched it out of the corner of my eye as it swept along the hill-side.

Eventually we turned in. The next day we booked a hire car to take us to Jodhpur and we left Udaipur behind. It had been a very relaxing and pleasant city area to visit with some incredible architecture and that amazing palace. I still remember it very fondly.

Our hire car drove us through the countryside towards the great city of Jodhpur and we watched the beauty pass us by in happy, if warm, contemplation.

About half way through our journey we stopped at the enormous Jain temple of Ranakpur, near Sadri town, in the Pali district of Rajasthan.

It is acclaimed world-wide for its intricate and architectural style and one of the five major pilgrimage sites for the Jain faith. 

The sign outside asked menstruating women to refrain from entering and so I went in alone. Inside, the temple’s complex chambers with carved pillars the interesting geometry threw me for a moment; it was incredible. I heard later that it was seriously considered as one of the new “wonders of the world”.

The Jain cult is not well known outside of India, but it is as ancient as Buddhism and not dissimilar. Certainly much ink has been spilt in claim and counter claim of who came first between them. Suffice to say, they are both of importance. Both are concerned with spiritual release through discovery of the nature of the “self” and the veneration of those who have achieved this release in the past. Given that Buddhism has splintered into such variant churches, the fact that Jainism remains almost unchanged after 2000 years is quite an achievement.

Then a smiling man in a robe approached and introduced himself as the High Priest and would I care to make a donation? I should have known what was coming next as I had been in umpteen Indian temples by this point: he was going to “spot” me.

In India, the spot of paint on the forehead means that one has attended temple that day. They come in all colours and guises, but Cesca and I had decided to avoid them. It seemed to me that it’s unfair to appropriate beliefs you don’t hold or to “fake” as such. For example I hate it when politicians claim affiliation to a cause they don’t actually support, such Tony Blair wearing a “Drop the Debt” wrist band at the G8; as if he really cared for that.

As I leant in to pass the note into the man’s proffered pot I suddenly felt the unmistakable strike of a fingertip just above my eyes. He had got me!

“Oh!” I said startled, “You got me!”

He just smiled the smile of the believer and moved on. His job done.

I took some photos and left to show Cesca, who informed me that the bright blue mark was very becoming while trying not to laugh out loud at my unimpressed expression!

We got back in the car and returned to the road.

“Are you not going to wipe that off?” Cesca asked.

“No,” I replied, “it was a very relaxing and impressive temple so I think that the priest earned a little blue spot from me today.”

We huggled up and as the car drove into a valley we watched as the countryside slew past and the sun started to dip over the horizon.