Month: April 2024

11 hours is barely enough to scratch the surface in seeing most cities, Shanghai included, although the place has one major advantage for the layover visitor – The Maglev. Super quick transfer into town. But I’m gonna go through this piece by piece and break it down for price to help future layover humans. Now I’m in the land of Tiktok I should try and raise my hits. For new visitors finding this for the layover info, I do this blog every day in some form or other. Often it’s just a contemplation of my own armpit, something a bit pretentious, or a drunken rant about nothing. Other times I make something I’m proud of. Imagine a tombola at a church fête and the donated prizes. “A Top of the Pops CASSETTE!” “A can of BEANS!” “A Ming VASE!” One day I’ll feed it all into an AI and go toe to toe with it. Today though it’s whistle stop Shanghai-time and I’ll miss the posting deadline because internet is virtually impossible here.

I did some planning in advance. It is important to do so considering the culture shock and lack of internet. Even if you download Google maps for the city in advance, the GPS might well be off if it finds you at all. US big sites are all blocked including this one. No wonder my right wing techgeriatric brother wants us all to believe by numbers that TikTok is evil as its how the youth are being Chinificated by Iran or somesuch I stopped listening bless his hard heart.

I made my layover work out without quite enough prep, but found myself thanking my stars for my strangely good direction instinct – “You’ve got a bump of locality,” dad would say. Haven’t used it much lately. I’ve been cursing myself for quite how much I’ve come to rely on my phone to tell me things, including where I am. Also I knew the shape of the city and there are distinct tall buildings to navigate by.

Also If I hadn’t been quick and lucky it might have worked out very badly for me so there’s a warning in my day too. Shanghai has never been known as a safe place. Tintin, Phileas Fogg and any number of unwilling midshipmen had trouble. So did I.

We landed in Pudong at 5.55am local time. My flight to Osaka wasn’t until 17:25. I had come from the UK so had been trying to trick my body into being ready to stay up long enough to see the sights. I was a little woozy leaving the plane though. Less than an hour of actual sleep. The rest was just sitting with my eyes closed.

The blue landing form I was served on the plane turned out to be the wrong one, but I filled it in anyway and then brandished it as I made my way out. My bag is checked to Japan but I’ve got my iPad and Kindle with me in hand luggage. I have no Chinese language. Not a sausage. I’ve made no effort to learn any words at all. I’ve been thinking about my Japanese which was almost as bad a week ago.

I make do with numbers and gesticulating.

What you need to do is head through immigration, oh fellow layoverite. Don’t go into transit. If anyone tries to make you – (and they probably will) – I found the words “Transit Visa” are useless, but they use the same symbols for numbers so “24 hour transit visa” usually elicited the response “24!” and a wave in the right direction. I didn’t have any correct form though until I got to the immigration security desk. He was very helpful though, and basically got out the right one and filled it in with me. It’s free. In exchange for your skin.

Having never activated facial recognition on my Samsung device, nor fingerprint recognition, the price of entry into Shanghai was all of that information – all fingers and thumbs – “information acquired” as it says on the screen. My career as an international masterthief is over before it began. Who knows where that biometric info will all go, but the guy at the desk waves me through and I walk out into actual China for the first time – Hong Kong doesn’t count. I guess I’ll have to make the experience worth the information expense, and at least now I am not so concerned about switching facial or fingers on on my phone. They’ve got me now. Although thankfully I’ve got a big thick beard which means I might be able to go rogue if I shave. There are cameras EVERYWHERE. Every inch of ground is covered. Every molecule scrutinised.

First stop left luggage so I’m not having to carry all my devices around with me. The surveillance isn’t for our safety anyway. They don’t have to pretend it is like we do in the UK. She wants cash payment at left luggage as it is only 20 Yuan. At the time of writing, convert Yuan to pounds by shifting it up one decimal place. 20Y = £2. 100Y = £10. It’s not exact but it’s a good enough benchmark if you remember that it’s actually a bit more pounds in the end.

I go to the cash point. I’m tired. I’m in a very unfamiliar place, weird cash machine, working out the maths to convert currency, literally just got off the plane, using my Starling Card and can’t remember the PIN. I get it right but I’m still worrying when the machine chunters and opens a low drawer showing a load of pink notes. My alarm system is switched off at a time it should be on high. As the notes come out unfamiliarly, suddenly slamming into me to my left a guy in a suit, looking directly at the notes revealed, shouting something in Chinese. This is a practiced act. Could be anything. “Do you want your Starling Card?” I reflexively shake my head”No” to whatever he’s said, and won’t let him push me. I’ve already been conditioned to saying “no” here as the place is full of taxi drivers and most of us know how it is leaving the airport when you can’t pass as a native. I like to say I’m pretty on it with scams. I’ve done plenty of 360° spins over the years to see the person sneaking up on me and let them know the jig’s up, but this team is practiced on this particular cashpoint, looking for exactly me, and I only ever see one of them. I don’t pirouette when I should. It’s a theft team. Well oiled. The guy in the suit could be called “The Face”. He looks respectable. His job is to take all of my attention for a moment or two while “The Hand” steals what they are set up to steal, and usually immediately sends it to a third player, I dunno, “The Feet”? I’m kinda extrapolating from how I’ve seen it work or read it in all those books.

Smart distraction though. My instinct immediately was to protect the cash, which I of course did. But over here your card comes out AFTER the cash. And I didn’t notice they had it until they were all out of sight and I was still coming down from the shock of the shoutbarge. I had been in quiet contemplation. Prickles of cold sweat now. They have my card. I can’t get on the internet as it’s fucking China, but thankfully there’s a WiFi point more or less exactly behind me. You stick your passport on it and it gives you access to about 3 websites with a code for your phone, so long as your passport in the system. I’m in the system. One of the websites it allows happens to be my Starling app. Phew. Phew. Phew.

I freeze the card, still a bit freaked out. Literally ten seconds later, while the app is still open, it flashes that they’ve tried to make a contactless payment but it has been declined cos the card is frozen. Lucky lucky boy. Just in time for the tester charge somewhere nearby. I have two other cards, and in this modern world can likely bring my Monzo up on my phone once I’m in Japan. No harm done but a minor inconvenience and maybe they’ll try and steal my identity. So many cameras around though. Not here to do anything practical really. Just to remind everyone who’s in charge. I don’t involve the cops. That will end up wasting my whole layover just to fuck up some desperate people. Yeah sure desperate people who have decided that robbing those gaijin is the best way of making money but, you don’t save people with Chinese prison.

I give the left-luggage lady my bag and she takes a 15 yuan cash deposit. I very nearly put my passport in left luggage for safety. Don’t do that everyone!! This is an identity card culture. You have to carry the thing. Another near miss. I was asked a few times for it and might have hit trouble had I stashed it.

In some ways it is good to have an early reminder that I’m nothing like as streetwise as I like to think. London you’ll pick up a tail from time to time, or someone will come at you with a big loud need and you have to spin. But I have to harden. In general as well, I can be too trusting. Another lesson of the trip and I’m not even in Japan.

Annoying though it is to have lost my card, it’s totally ok. I tie my jumper around my waist for extra pocket cover plus it’s humid. I’m going to spend the rest of the day on high alert. It’s probably unnecessary mostly as these people are rarely blind opportunists – they have patches and routines. But that’s as maybe.

Then it’s the Maglev. On a short layover I see absolutely no reason not to take it. It’s just a few minutes into Longyang, at 301 kilometres an hour. Y80 return. That’s £8. Worth it just to experience the tech. I was on the second of the day. Virtually empty. Everyone in one section but me.

I exit Longyang briefly looking for coffee. It’s pretty Kings Cross around there, but there’s a chain called “luckin coffee” and they give me a Flat White. Y32. Back in and Metro 2 to East Nanjing Road – just Y4 for a single – about six stops and it is intuitively organised to a city dweller, with English on the signs. I had no issues buying a ticket or finding the right train. The shopping street is empty and it’s not my bag either, it’s basically Oxford Street with kanji. Good perhaps if you’re after a specific bit of tech at Jersey prices and you happen to be on a layover.

I wandered towards Yu Garden. I like to pound the streets in a new town, even if I now feel I have to watch every shadow. It’s exhausting keeping an eye out but I don’t pick up any negative attention and I’m not gonna lose the rest of my cards / my phone just for tourism.

I got to the garden just as it was about to open. I joined a queue and on the dot of nine we all went in. It was Y40 entry. It’s someone’s old garden. Rocks and old things but absolutely swamped in local tourism.

People EVERYWHERE.

This is China. If there are spirits they hide from the carnage in the day. Right at the heart of it there was a smidge of something other. An ancient theatre, a space a little calmer than the rock gardens, stage and tiers both roped off so you can just stand in the pit, but just as I arrived there, a cat sloped out into the stage and eyed us all in the way that only cats can.  I felt a little shift in the air. Power here after all. Follow the cats, they know.

I left. That was the best the place was gonna muster.

Streets again, back through the harangue of the old town “Copy watch? Want a copy watch?” to The Bund – (were the Germans busy here?) No idea how much these copy watches are. Unless I’m gift shopping on purpose I try and avoid anyone who is actively trying to sell to me.

I spend a short time by the river among all the people the people the people. There aren’t many bridges over the Huangpu, so I go under it instead, and find a way to avoid the crowds at the same time via The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, a French style ghost train sound and light railway type nonsense that gets you where you’re going for Y50. It pops up in Pudong right by the TV tower after a bit of this and that. No locals on it. Suddenly absolutely still. Nevertheless with an empty carriage in front of me and another one behind me, they stacked me into the same one as two Russians just to make sure I couldn’t even have peace and quiet at 50 yuan.

Time is already ticking. I wander South, quite a long way, following my nose down the river. It’s twenty to twelve when I stumble on the JW Marriott Marquis Hotel, and wander in. I’m hungry, I find myself reasoning, and I’ve got yuan to spend. They direct me to the second floor Merchant Kitchen where, starting at noon, there’s an all you can eat cold buffet. I think with loads more time I would have eaten pretty much anywhere else, but I was starting to feel the pull of the airport and it was easy there so I went for it.

Unlimited booze and food for Y338. I gave them 400. Forty quid. Pricey but if I don’t spend these yuan they’ll just turn into paper when I leave. And it was a decent spread in a pleasant surrounding. Unidentifiable bits of fish and cuts of meat. Lovely big prawns in abundance. Crab claws, all a bit dry, and a selection of sushi – much of which I’ve never tried.

I only notice the pudding when I’m heading out the door and down in order to ask the concierge for a cab back to East Nanjing Road. At my request he shows me on his phone how much the cab should cost. In my pre trip research I get the feeling the cabbies like to take the piss with gaijin, so I prepare the right ballpark plus a few yuan, and sit silent until we get there, looking out the window. I hand him the notes with finality and am pleased when he does the pantomime for “Oh I should find some change for you,” which I wave away. Satisfactory on both sides. I’m back at Nanjing. Y40. Might have been cheaper but to be fair it was a long ride.

Busier than it was, but no time for shopping. I take the metro back, and then the maglev. It almost certainly would have been cheaper and quicker to cab from the Marriott to Longyang but with the damn internet and GPS blocked it just feels the logical and correct safety procedure retracing my steps. I wandered off piste when I wasn’t hungry on reaching the TV Tower:

By and large the interactions I’ve had in Shanghai have been positive. There’s a direct and stern character to the people in general, but this is a very crowded authoritarian society. Rules matter here. I was nervous crossing the road in the wrong place as my research didn’t go as far as determining if there’s jaywalking laws. Thankfully the green man system is well organised – it’s a much better city for walking than many of the American ones. I covered plenty of ground. I’ve got a snapshot now of the smells and sounds.

Rice and spit. Birds still, sometimes caged but often free – sparrows in the trees. Electric mopeds tooting their horns to be heard. Crowds. I saw one butterfly…

By the time I get back to left luggage I’m tired. Y5 to get the bag back making just 20 in total and it’s all still there. I cast around for the cash point shoutythief. Now he’s had it declined I’m thinking I’ll tell him I dropped my card near here this morning and will pay Y100 if anyone can find it, then wait ten minutes. But he’s not there, and it’s not at lost property. So, back through security and it’s Japan time coming right up.

Y670 plus £5 to replace my Starling card when I’m home. A day in Shanghai without counting the cost, less than seventy quid by my imperfect currency conversion system. Either way less than £100. I’m fine with that. I can’t imagine I’ll be back any time soon, but I guess you never know with life, right?

Thank the lord I spent ages with the map and thinking yesterday or that would have been a confusing and frustrating day in a confusing and frustrating place.

I’ve been putting things into bags all day. The clothes were easy, it was the random trinkets that caused the most thought. What am I bringing to leave as offerings etc. I almost went to Shikoku instead of Kumano Kodo and there was an earthquake there just recently. Not a huge one but enough to remind me that I’m off to a place where tsunamis happen. I’ll be doing my best to appease the spirits of the land and sea out there with my trinkets and woowoo.

Next stop Shanghai for my 11 hour layover. I’m not sure how best to make sure I get there full of beans but I think it involves going to bed early today. The last thing I want is to miss an opportunity to see Shanghai because I’m too tired. So I’m running a bath and I’ll be asleep by 8, which is 3 in the morning Japan time. If I set my alarm for 3am and get up then all I have to do is get some Actifed once I’ve cleared security and send myself to byebyes on the plane. It’s almost twelve hours flight to Shanghai.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten loads of really basic things but it feels like I’m pretty well packed now. I wish I could find my travel pillow as that’ll be an expense again if I’m gonna sleep on the flight. Hark at be trying to be organised for once in my life.

My first few days in Japan are slow, to acclimatise. I’m mostly going to be checking out Osaka, tuning in and shopping. I’m gonna have to get to know the buses as I’ve decided not to rent a car, partly to make it cheaper and partly as it isn’t going to be about luxury solutions, this trip.

But it’s five past seven and I’m intending to be dead to the world in an hour. So I’m signing off and who knows what time the next blog will land, I’ll be somewhere very different.

It’s always about the right tool for the right job, and these days there’s a tool for virtually anything if you can afford it.

Yesterday we were in a Bricolage and Jeremy picked up a hacksaw and three blades. “I’m not gonna sit there and cut my fingers off,” I objected. It’s awkward at the cave entrance with rubble and some bits that might just be asbestos. I did’t want to sit on a pile of rubble trying to see through a chain. I got a metal cutting blade and sized up the battery powered angle grinder. It’s the sort of thing that always comes in handy, but in the end I thought better of it. For such a useful tool, I would rather it had UK sockets. Also it isn’t the top of my priorities as life is currently pointing elsewhere in terms of turning tools into money. Then the guy suggested a €20 set of Stanley bolt cutters. I knew it would be a lot less effort so encouraged the purchase.

Last night Jeremy and I slept on the same bed. Airbnb miscalculation by Rupert who thought one of us could go on the sofa. We both make weird gurgling snores. Better than dad who was chopping down trees, but it’s a wakesome habit. I was feeling pretty tired as we arrived back at the caves, despite a diversion via the Mairie for Jeremy to lodge some strong words about the rubble and a cafe creme at the bakery.

Position was awkward but I still got through the chain in less than 2 minutes. No wonder all the dodgy geezers in London have shelled out for one. A pair of them and most bike locks will be gone in thirty seconds, leaving you with a means of escape. I’ve had enough bikes nicked in this city that now I’m jaded. There was a period when I rode everywhere. It would certainly help with my “get fit for summer” drive. But the lock costs more than the bike and it still won’t last long against a good grinder with the right blade.

A quick trip to the supermarket to load up on grub. I bought a reblochon which will be expired before I get back from Japan. The brothers three drove long hours through the wilds of France, back at last to the familiarity if home. I dropped in on my downstairs neighbour and probably made more sense with my hacked together French than usual. I gave her the cheese.

Now I’m trying to turn everything around in time for the flight. I’ve scheduled a few days down after I land the other side so I’m not freaking out. But it’d be nice to bring the right things in my pack.

First though, I’m having a bath.

Now here we are, the road trip circus, up in the Val du Loire now. Jeremy bought a cave, decades ago. Just a hole tunneled into a hill. He paid way too much for it and we all just threw our hands up with incomprehension and acknowledgement of our powerlessness. It was a weird investment. It really hasn’t stood the test of time. But you have to let people make their own mistakes, and it was done before we knew.

Then he bought another when my uncle died. That was the decision that caused us all to take stock. We were all hopeful he might be able to make his extremely haphazard existence a bit less troublesome. Bricks and mortar traditionally gain value. It turns out that caves don’t. You can buy a ruined house with land for what he paid twenty years ago.

There’s a lot that doesn’t quite work. First up, it’s on a main road. It’s not peaceful. It’s in an industrial area. Construction sites. Mess. Noise. You can’t sell it as a peaceful rural retreat. There’s nothing going on for light years in all directions.

When I first heard about it I imagined a natural cave, interesting and organic rock whittled by time and water into curious shapes. No. It’s a perfect rectangle, bored into the side of a hill by some sort of machine. There’s nothing natural about it.

You might be able to plumb it and connect it to the grid. You might be able to make it run off grid. Both have merit and both have complications but neither appeal when it is in such an unpeaceful area. Still, the neighbour has started to try. He’s paid a builder. They’ve started making their ones shipshape. Put in a kitchen, little bathrooms, clever lighting. Plumbed it, connected it. They’re having a go. They’ll be on Airbnb as a special cave stay type bollocks.

We went up today and met the builder. They’ve dumped all their dross outside Jeremy’s place. We will be back there tomorrow with some bolt cutters because of course Jeremy has a million keys that fit the lock and doesn’t know which is the right one, and the lock is rusted.

We went to the store for a pair of chain cutters. I’ll be using them tomorrow. Of the three of us it won’t be anyone else. We might be able to get the door open. He might be able to dig some stuff out to take back with him to blighty. Both Rupert and I are aware that this is now just sunk cost fallacy. Jeremy will never recoup what he spent. Someone saw him coming, twice. But we are hoping that somehow we can steer things to a better result than entropy. We shall see.

I’m in bed now. Early still but all this good food and high quality wine takes it out of a man. I’m gonna sleep deep.

“That guy … he’s destroyed it from a picturesque point of view.” All around Jeremy’s now, caves full of IKEA tut. We are gonna look back at the IKEA decades and wonder what the actual fuck people were thinking.

Tristan has been dry stone walling and generally working hard building things in the south of France. He’s extremely good at this. And he has been working very close to our destination this evening.

We are in Nérac tonight. The brothers drove to Condom. We found a monastery full of art. We looked at it. Here’s a photo of the three of us, plus Jamie. Jamie is only present as a ghost, and his widow. The house was falling in when he got it. He fixed it.

Currently it doesn’t matter how much you spend doing up these ruins all over the south of France, the value of them remains low. Which is good for people buying, but sad when it has been someone’s life’s work. But he didn’t do it for profit. He built a palace for his love before Parkinson’s took him. She’s a friend and bonkers and I adore her and want to see more of her.

Jeremy is the one on the right. His first wife was the person we saw today. She’s in Condom. We arrived at her place and almost immediately three pilgrims walked past the window in her kitchen. “You’re on the St Jacques?”

So yes. You know me and how I love banging on about energy. This path – (zoom in and you’ll see the pilgrims) – this was seminal. So I picked up some stones and other signifiers. This is why I went on this jaunt. I didn’t really know why at first, and connecting with family is part of it. That generation – I’m closer in age to Mia, Jeremy’s daughter than I am to Jeremy. But I’ve always called him brother and that’s what we all are to each other. Dad was powerful in his obsession with family.

I’ll be taking the stones out to Japan. There are kami out there, just as there are with different names in Greece and in England and everywhere else too with lost names. But the walk I’m doing next is the last heart of Shinto so they have power. Animism, but absolutely eaten by commercialism to the extent that I could have walked easily in a straight line if the accommodation hadn’t been booked to resell to American tourists. Nevertheless, animism is nice. Nature positive. Pisses off the Christians. Mischief related. Helping us remember that we are just noisy yark things. “Amma galumba spoot spoot” we all shout as we gumberflate through their burlgams. Irrelevant noises given significance by consensus. Gibble wink?

So I’ll be bringing offerings that I asked the Camino about. “Tell me what needs to go to Japan”. Stone. Bark. Water? “What about disease?” says Donna. Ugh. I guess she’s right though. Maybe no water, maybe water. So maybe when I’m back in London I’ll boil a load of bark and stones in water from a local river. Or will I? Or freeze. How to kill microbes and not arrive with angry kami? Either way things are coming over with me. Lourdes water, desert sand, ancient stones, bits of the Way. I’m not interested in spreading pests. I had to make sure there are dandelions in Japan as I might take a head from the Camino. I’ll have to be forensic and careful though and really look into consequence. I’m not gonna be the Shakespeare idiot who brought starlings to the USA. But I have some communicating to do with some kami. And I’m sure they are fed up of these weird metal discs and paper things that the shoutyface BAmNooise blobs value so much.

What joy though to orient that way once more. Once on Camino the journey never stops. Ultreya et Suseya.

It’s like the Marx Brothers. It’s not clear who is who. We are bouncing around the south of France, the brothers Barclay, minus Maxwell, minus Jamie God rest his soul, occasionally squabbling, bumping into things, eating good food.

So yesterday I found out where the Societé de St Jacques was and walked there in the evening. Picked up a new scallop for the back of my pack. Also a length of yellow twine. There’s an ourobouros I am moved to wear for this next leg of my conscious walking aspect of being alive. On Camino it was a malachite I had round my neck and I hammered it into a wooden post halfway when it was “full”. Replaced it with a cross of St James as I wanted to be less obviously multitheist given the context. But I like to carry signifiers of various things.

Bordeaux is very much part of the pilgrim route, although nothing like as travelled as the factory that starts at SJPdP. There are scallop markers all over the place. This morning I snuck into mass in the cathedral. Got my holy bread from the bishop. You aren’t allowed wine now, pretty much anywhere. You just have to watch the guy in the hat drink it for you. He was the actual bishop this time, and came with his army escort. I’ve got more God in me now than I had this morning.

Then we all had lots of coffee and pinged around town. A gorgeous Italian meal for lunch. Then we all peeled off a while and I went to The Wine Museum. Of course. The City of Wine.

How do you make wine interesting enough for a museum? The French solved it in one of their favourite ways. Sound and light. They’ve always been ahead in that game. Jean-Michel Jarre blew the doors off in the nineties by accompanying his synth noodling with really involved laser light and sound. Since then they’ve kept the skill up. At Chartres last time I was in France they had an incredible display projection-mapped onto the outside of the cathedral. Today I had an ASMR and sound styled journey through the seasons accompanied by tastes of the seasons in wine. Lots of soft clicking noises. Soothing music. Mandalas and HD videos of natural things. It felt like I was about to be euthanised although the wine was the definition of nothing special, and surprisingly international to catch the tourists, like me. “This one is from home,” you could say from 3 wine producing countries. I was expecting French wines only but when our sommelier popped a cork and started talking about how protected the Prosecco region was in Italy I realised I’d been sold a pony. One of the couples pointedly left all their glasses untouched after sniffing the contents with angry french noses. They left loudly as soon as they had sniffed the last one, before our poor “sommelier” remembered her last bit of script. I enjoyed it for what it was – an experience. Unfamiliar. There’s always joy to be found.

Off to Condom next. This’ll be over before it has begun. Perfect weather has really added to a lovely opportunity for “we three” to come together.

Did you ever see a picture of us?

End with an obscure Twelfth Night reference Al. That’ll definitely grow your audience.

Bordeaux is an excellent town. Mia is there, my mother’s god-daughter, Jeremy’s first child. You need to be paying attention at the moment if you’re mad enough to try and make sense of my extended family. We can’t do it so you definitely can’t. “How do you feel about having another nephew or niece on the way?” , Rupert asks Mia. Rupert is as much of a gobshite as me, but he has learned from a book that asking open questions is the correct way of connecterising with the other humanpeoples. “I haven’t got any nephews or nieces.” “What about Ramsey?” “Ramsey is my son, Rupert. I’m his mother.” “oh. oh yes.”

We three awkward boys on a road trip have continued to develop our interpersonal dynamic. I had my first squabble with Rupert today and he with me. But the end result will be a deeper connection. I think it’ll turn out to be worth the time we spent, but I have it so hard wired into me by dad that “family is important”. There’s something powerful about the fact we don’t get to choose.

I got pissed off with Rupert for unevolved and simplistic views about computer games, of all things. Someone made him aware of the fact that in open world games you can do anything you like. His example was that someone his son observed who was eight was allowed to play a Grand Theft Auto game by stupid parents. Sasha used to sneak into my room to play exactly that game at exactly that age, and he’s a hedge fund analyst now. But that’s as maybe.

The son of Rupert doing the observation is in the arts. In game, If you pull up in certain bad areas and honk your horn, a scantily clad man or woman might get in the car. You can then drive into an alley and the car will start rocking while the voice actor makes some generic noises expressing false pleasure. Then some of your money goes away and the person leaves the car. It’s an open world game so there’s nothing stopping you from running the person over although it’ll likely lead to a police chase. If you run them over your money can be picked up again. His take: “An eight year old bought a prostitute, and then ran her over while my son watched.” Sure he should have been prevented from accessing the game. But don’t try to convert that into some idea that games are bad. That’s the definition of ignorance.

Computer games cover so much ground now. It is unbelievable how deep they go, how much thought and time has been spent. Sometimes asking deep questions, sometimes just doing ridiculous rubbish.

There’s a computer game where you drive through a straight road in the desert for hours in real time and nothing happens. There are so many games doing so many things. The whole point of loads of games is to shoot people in the head. I don’t like those games. But GTA is art. It is trying to see what it can make possible. An old mate put on Hamlet in game. When people are gaming, the fact that some games let your character do transgressive things is joyful. But the game doesn’t encourage you to do that. It wouldn’t be authentic if it didn’t allow it. But it doesn’t encourage it. This is why there are hardly ever NPC children in these games, or if there are they are weirdly immortal like the ones in Skyrim running around after dragon attacks like nothing has happened. Sandbox, yes. But never underestimate the ability of people who don’t know what the hell they are talking about to get indignant about things out of context.

I forgot though, that Rupert is ALMOST SEVENTY. He’s 67. He comes across much younger.

I couldn’t really explain the joy of an open world game to Lou, even. Barely to Tristan. But Max knows them. I was gaming with him for recreation when they first came into being, and now they are, to me, a huge storytelling medium. We need a course for beginners to understand. Some early games that changed the landscape and are still playable and understandable for non gamers…? Journey springs to mind of course. But there are many. Rather than getting pissed off perhaps we could try to educate. I will never forget my first time through Journey, largely because of a stranger who joined me. We could only communicate through jumping and odd sounds. The game is no longer than an hour and a half to play and we had a lifetime within that. A simple game, but games are art now. As with all art, it can be simplified by idiots. “Look at that naked body by Chagall. What a pervert.” We simplify what we don’t understand to fit our existing agenda. I was disappointed with Rupert and more disappointed with his artistic son who is younger than me and looking at this incredible medium of games through a cracked lens.

I’m playing Mass Effect for the first time, slowly, at the moment – just the first three – and it is a fiercely dense moral maze of a game where your actions have consequence but you can act pretty freely. I made a decision that caused me to shoot a childhood friend in the head in a public place. I’m sure there’ll be repercussions down the line. But the guy that my character (John) shot was from my character’s youthful murderous earth gang. They were blackmailing the adult John because he attained intergalactic public office. At the time, being John, I needed to show a ruthless streak to a particular alien nation in order to assure them that mankind were not a weak species. Their representative witnessed the blackmail and they are a tricky race, higher up in the federation by far than humanity, valuing ruthlessness. The character I’m playing was in a gang on earth that hated aliens, but through his military prowess he has got to be an ambassador in a wild west space type situation. I’m role playing, and he is mostly a paragon of virtue, but I’m playing a game. For my John Shepard, I felt it was correct to fatally shoot this old “friend” in the bar. The alien approved. “I’m surprised. Perhaps mankind isn’t so indecisive as we feared.” I still don’t like the decision but I made it. It’ll come back to bite me for sure. Likely in Mass Effect 3, which was over a decade later on release, and it’s deep enough that it remembers everything you did for the first two games and there’s loads of stuff you’ll never see depending on what you did.

Games now are so much deeper and more complicated than it would have been possible to appreciate in the nineties really, if you are pushing seventy or if you write for The Daily Mail etc you can’t be expected to get them.

The open worlds are losing their edge though, for the exact reason that Rupert is scared of GTA: Show a player being a psychopath in isolation, and Cecilia Montague-Janus tells the weekly column how “GAMES MAKES US WANT TO SHOOT FRIENDS” Still. A gorgeous sunny day in France. I got a scallop and went to a pilgrim mass.

It’s a rarity for me to spend time with family. I fought with my mum but damn we loved each other so much and knew it. We had each other for my twenties at least before the booze claimed her. My dad was a very different fish.

“You probably spent more time with him than the rest of us,” Rupert tells me. This baffles me. Maybe though.

I used to have a jacket reminding me that he was “World Champion Powerboat Racer” in multiple years including the year I was born and the next year. That was in the Bahamas and I was definitely in Jersey. But actually, maybe… maybe. He started to slow down in his mid sixties and I was a teenager. Formative years. And I was gasping for a male role model.

Three very different boys have been sharing memories. We have all imitated the fucker, whether consciously or unconsciously. Faddy diets, career decisions, adrenaline addiction. We all remember what an arse he could be. Mealtimes were a minefield. His grandfather would beat him up after supper I think as a matter of course. If he’d been punished at school the punishment would be repeated double at home. Somehow as a result, meals were a tense time – for the rest of his life. He would take it out on people. He never learned to drop the rage, but the principles of self knowledge were never put to the front for that generation. Arguably it was the rage that fueled his astonishing success.

I’d forgotten how horrible he could be to waiters, because my mother’s mother could be worse. But Good God I remember the atmosphere around the table at Eyreton (in the IOM). The constant possibility of explosion. It was a minefield, breaking bread with him. Things could get very horrible very suddenly and very profoundly. I was afraid to ask for condiments. I just wanted to eat and go. Porridge is a complicated food for me, although Lou has been helping me recalibrate that. I still hoover up my food generally, but without elbows on the table, rarely asking for condiments, usually trying to use my knife and fork correctly and sit up straight and be discreet with the napkin…  trying to eat as fast as I can but without doing anything too noticeable in case it draws the eye of his memory. He wasn’t a propriety nut. He was just looking for an excuse.

I haven’t really thought about it until I write this. He’s not watching, in any pernicious way, anymore. Maybe his spirit is bemused at these creatures he had a hand in making…

Memories like that resurface when we are together. We don’t do it much. Jeremy carries many of his childhood bruises to this day. He’s much older than me. Sometimes listening to him talk about things that happened before I was born it feels like I’m in a Museum of Spent Matches. I know I’ve lived in the present too long and I need to get much better at planning. That’s my thing for this year. But I’m glad that these dredges like sitting at the table eating too fast – I haven’t carried them with me on purpose. Our past informs our present but it shouldn’t shape our future. “When did you finally leave that trauma behind as a thing that was holding you back?” I asked tonight as he told us all again of a particular beating from my uncle. “Oh I told him x when I got to x stage in life” “And that is how you finally let go of it? How did it feel to not be held back by it anymore?” I think the thought around “D’ya know, Al, I think I’m still being held back by it” was what I was hoping for. I’m not a therapist but I’ll always try and shift a stuck record. What am I still carrying? Is it helping me? If not, how to shift it?

We went to the beach and lollygagged in the sun. It was glory. We found summer. And we are finding each other. It’s good to know we can do it despite opposing worldviews and piles and piles of baggage. Sad we don’t have Jamie anymore – he was the one who woke up magic in me, and Parkinson’s took his body and eventually his ever youthful spirit.

I’m happy to sleep here again, deep in peaceful France, surrounded by his things. Joy.

Half six prompt I walked out of my flat door, bleary eyed. In the growing light, Rupert and Jeremy had just pulled up outside. Both my remaining half brothers. We are going on a road trip. So much of my thinking has been towards Japan that it barely registered.

I got in the back, knowing Rupert was gonna take the wheel to Folkestone. He’s a morning bird. I’m not. He’s caught his fair share of worms over the years. I don’t have as many worms.

Rupert catalysed this road trip. A chance for three out of five of us to get to know each other as adults. Maxwell is at work and family. Jamie’s ashes are across the corridor from me as I write. Rupert’s birds have flown and his wife is with family. Jeremy is back from extended work abroad and has never been a homebody despite kids. I’m just some usually unpredictable louche actor who suddenly knows exactly where he’s going to be from late August, and thus has a sense of possibility and freedom brought on by not having to freak out about where the next job is coming from where the next job is coming from where

I’m in a big room in a quiet place, on a little sofa bed. Last time I was here Tristan and I improvised a studio and he filmed a fantastic self tape as Putin. No traction.

I’m in Néré. We got to the eurotunnel and Rupert and I swapped drivers for the first leg in France. Then we shared a long drive south and talk flowed freely. Three Barclay males with wildly different life experiences. No topic is safe if you think people who don’t share your exact worldview are idiots. Thankfully none of us think that. We all interpret everything very differently, but can all try and dig into big issues without being didactic, patronising or stubborn. I enjoyed it more than I expected. I think we are going to be able to get by without killing each other. Hopefully.

Tonight and tomorrow we are here with Danuta, Jamie’s widow, in the home he built for her. Then further south a bit.

It is Spring here. We drove through cloud and grey until we passed Paris and then the light opened. Wildlife. Birds. Light. France is yellow right now, all the rapeseed ripe for the reaping. And the sun exists. I’m starting to believe we may not have to live in darkness forever.

Damn I’m up at crack of dawn tomorrow but still I’ve ended up awake far too late. I went to Bridge Command in Vauxhall. I was supposed to get an early bed.

I ended up in command of a starship. A battle class frigate. My gunners were ruthless and my pilot was exact. My engineers and science team were on it. None of us had the slightest clue what was happening. The fact I ended up in charge was literally because nobody wanted it and someone had to.

I sat on the bridge of a starship and things happened around me. People did their jobs. Apparently we were supposed to protect some vessels or something but our comms officer was Brian and he’s a gamer. Protect missions are the ones that all veteran gamers ignore, so he ignored them and we went after the baddies instead. Brian spent most of the show insulting the pirates while Amber, Abi, Sara and Lily blew them out of the sky. Sometimes the pirates (run by the backstage team) tried to send us messages and then found out they were already dead. We neither saved nor knew about any of the civilians, I discovered later. We did, however, destroy all the space pirates including the bosses. “You’ll save more people in the long run if you gun for the pirates in front of you. Leave them and they’ll take more civilians over time.” Ruthless pragmatism from Brian, mixed with well worn distaste for an “escort mission” where something brittle flies directly at enemy guns shouting “protect us!”

Brian and I were trying to do the morals. Ish. Our crew were bloodthirsty maniacs. As the human who had to try and run the bridge, it was an incredible journey of just trying to work out what was going on and making occasional fast calls. And yes, I ended up giving clearance for two nukes, and even ended up micromanaging how the second one was deployed when the first one missed. Ugh. But we had to get through those shields somehow and the vessel we were gunning for was huge.

It would be bedtime now, I’m out tomorrow at half six. It’s not two yet. And I’ve ordered pizza. Sleep will be unusual and short. Hence rushed blog. I’m still packing for France. oh yeah, coz I’m off to France at dawn. First though, a slice of pizza and fill a bag with pants.