September in Dorset

 

16,500 miles from the UK to Beijing – on a Bicycle

You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were;

and I say, ‘Why not?’(George Bernard Shaw)

www.cycleuktochina.com

This month I'll be in Dorset to speak about the 16,500-mile bicycle ride from Worcestershire to Beijing, accompanying the talk with a selection of spectacular slides and following it with a book signing.

Saturday 24 September 7.30 pm

The White Room, Salisbury Arts Centre

Tickets £7 (£5 concessions) from

The Box Office, Bedwin Street, Salisbury SP1 3UT

01722 321744 www.salisburyartscentre.co.uk

Wednesday 28 September 7.30 pm

The Verwood Hub, Brock Way, Verwood BH31 7QE

Tickets £7.50 from The Box Office

01202 828740 www.thehubverwood.co.uk

Thursday 29 September 7 pm

The Victorian Hall, Dorset County Museum

High West Street, Dorchester DT1 1XA

Entry Free (Recommended Donation £3)

Part of the Museum's Travellers Tales Programme

www.dorsetcountymuseum.org

Friday 30 September 7.30 pm

The Marine Theatre, Church St,

Lyme Regis DT7 3QA

Tickets £10 from The Box Office

01297 442138 www.marinetheatre.com

Saturday 1 October 7.30 pm

Durweston Village Hall, Church Road, Durweston,

Blandford DT11 0QA 01258 488883

Tickets £6 (£4.50 concessions) from

The Dorset Bookshop, 69 East St,

Blandford Forum DT11 7DX 01258 452266

<><><>; ‘Why don’t you fly?’ a bemused friend asked me when I stated my intention to cycle across the planet. For thirteen months my lungs and legs were to power me into headwinds, across deserts and up to mountain passes (and a wonderfully indomitable, reliable and adaptable source of power they proved to be). How does it feel to trade domestic comfort and security for life as a nomad and to pare one’s life down to the bare necessities? What is it like to push at the frontiers of one’s physical and mental endurance? What is the effect upon the human spirit of struggling against hurricanes in the Gobi Desert by day and shivering alone in culverts at night? How does the agnostic westerner react to the religious fatalism of Islam and Hinduism in encounters with locals? As well as attempting to answer these questions, I speak about the importance of having a dream, about connecting with one’s passions, about recognising and seizing opportunities – and about how I wore out three sets of tyres, three chains, two pairs of boots, and fell off the bike six times. The gruelling journey served to demonstrate that the human body is a powerful, flexible and immensely sophisticated engine that thrives on hard work. Since my return from Asia in September 2001, I have more than trebled the 16,500 miles I covered during the epic ride by cycling between 125 and 150 miles a week to and from work in all weather conditions. ‘Why don’t you drive?’ ask my incredulous colleagues. The power of the ‘human engine’ continues to be underestimated by those who prefer to rely on the internal combustion engine to the detriment of their health and the environment. For more details about journey, author and book, please visit www.cycleuktochina.com. The website includes a sample chapter of my acclaimed book ‘Why Don’t You Fly?’ and over 90 photographs. As none of the slides I show during presentations are displayed on the website there is no need to worry that prior visits to it will reduce the impact of the presentation.

TESTIMONIALS Thank you for coming into school last week for ‘World Book Day’. The assembly, and talks you gave, were an inspiration to all who heard them, and I look forward to reading your book over the Easter Holiday . Allan Gilhooley, Headteacher, Lacon Childe School , Cleobury Mortimer You came to school to talk to our Lower Sixth girls last summer, and I wonder if you would like to do the same again this year? The feedback on your talk was extremely good. Pam Rutter, King Edward VI High School for Girls, Edgbaston Thank you for the very enjoyable, witty and informative lecture you treated us to last week. Barbro Millward (Sutton Coldfield National Trust)

I need hardly say we were all completely in awe of your epic adventure and comments ranged from 'truly inspirational', 'very courageous', 'unbelievable' and 'brave' to 'foolhardy' and 'crazy'! I am currently reading your book and I am halfway through India so still have much excitement and many surprises to come. I wish you the best of luck for the future and at least you will always have the satisfaction of saying that you achieved your dream while the rest of us just thought about it! Thank you once again. Brian Cash (Droitwich 97 Probus Club) A quick note to say thank you for your presentation to MCCC at Ashwood Marina on Tuesday evening. I hope you enjoyed talking to us as much as we all enjoyed hearing about your epic bike ride. As Bob Morgan said in his introduction, you are no mere mortal and your story about your trip was truly inspirational.   (Beryl Heath (Chairman - Midlands Coastal Cruising Club) I really enjoyed the additional touches of very detailed maps and an inspirational maxim accompanying each stunning photograph of your journey to Beijing . Liz Allen-Back (The King's School, Worcester) We met when you gave us Droitwich Probus '97) your ‘ UK to Beijing ’ talk. I am just coming to the end of your marvellous book, which is so much more than a travel book. I have enjoyed it so much – you have so much to say about the countries that you cycled through and the people that you met. My very best regards, and thank you again for giving ME an ‘Incredible Journey’. Terry Peasley (Hon Sec Droitwich Probus ’97) What a great feat of endurance your ride was. You have been an inspiration to myself and many others. Not that you will remember but I was the chap at Crewe library who asked how it was you were able to photogragh yourself on the front cover of the book. You have been an example to us all of what can be achieved. Brilliant. Mark Pountain Chris Smith seems to be a man of considerable talent. I lived every mile of his journey to Beijing , which included a four-month side trip around India . By the end I felt that I’d done the trip with him and enjoyed every inch. Buy this book! It’s a great read. Cycle Magazine Smith’s smart, honest prose is crafted superbly and peppered with wonderful moments of drama, dialogue and real humanity Asia and Away Magazine Every child interested in geography should have the availability to read this book, as much for its excellent descriptive English as the content. Julia Leedham-Green <><><>  Just to say how much I liked your talk at Eastbourne Under Ground Theatre and loved your book. All the best with whatever you decide to do next. Jen Popkin <><><>

Reasons To Be Cheerful?

A few years ago, my sister Poppy (pictured above with daughter Ruby) won £3,000 after selecting five out of the six winning numbers in the National Lottery draw. She described herself as being torn between delight at receiving a £3,000 windfall and bitter disappointment at failing to choose the one extra number that would have made her an overnight millionairess. At least she got a consolation rabbit.

This morning I am experiencing something of the same emotional confusion after learning that 'Why Don't You Fly?' had been shortlisted for the 2011 International Rubery Book Award (http://ruberybookaward.com/the-short-list-and-long-list.html). Like my sister, I have just missed out on the big prize - which, in my case, is being placed first, second or third. The judges describe the book as follows:

'A travel book based on the author's experiences as he cycled from Worcestershire to Beijing, passing through places as diverse as Europe, Iran and India. The rich details about landscape, food and the people the author met during his journey give a penetrating insight into lives and worlds that are unfamiliar to most of us. It is amusing, extremely well-written and very readable. This book could well have been awarded a prize, but the judges felt that there were some problems with the presentation of the text and maps that detracted from the quality of the contents. The smallness of the text made reading challenging.'

So had the book been judged on content alone, there is a distinct possibility that it would have been awarded one of the prizes. So near, yet so far. At least this counts as more evidence (in addition to the positive reviews on Amazon and the ever-growing collection of delightful emails I receive from readers) that agents and mainstream publishers who rejected the manuscript might just have slipped up.

I've been doing talks and slideshows about the Great Bicycle Ride to clubs and societies for around four years now. At the end of last year we decided to approach libraries, museums, village and town halls and small theatres in an effort to take the presentations out to the general public. So far we are averaging audiences of around 50 people and we usually sell about 15 copies of 'Why Don't You Fly?' each time.

I don't think public speaking will ever exactly be 'comfort zone' but my horror of it has diminished considerably. The best thing about giving presentations, both to clubs and societies, and to the general public at theatres and town halls, is that during the interval and afterwards, I meet some truly delightful people who all want to shake my hand, congratulate me, ask questions about the journey and get their copy of 'Why Don't You Fly?' signed.

Naturally we'd like to reach bigger audiences, but we have been left in no doubt that those who do come out for the evening return home satisfied with their evening's entertainment, and sometimes inspired by it. Last month we went to Malvern Theatres to listen to Ed Stafford talk about his two-and-a-half-year trek from the source of the Amazon to the sea. During the interval a heard someone in the row behind say, 'Excuse me, but are you Chris?' Directly behind us was a young couple who'd come to see me speak in April at Malvern's much smaller Coach House Theatre. They informed me that not only had the presentation been 'fantastic' but that it had inspired them to plan a bike-ride to Istanbul. I left the theatre having thoroughly enjoyed Ed Stafford's account of his remarkable adventure, but without any sense that my own presentation was inferior and wishing that I too had the opportunity to inspire audiences of 600 instead of 60.

Human Delusion

Working on Karl Marx and Careful Driving sometimes reminds me of cooking a curry. Take one seasoned travelogue about a journey by truck from the UK to Kazakhstan; marinate in Marxism and add four fluid ounces of Soviet history; garnish liberally with Roman Catholic tyranny and simmer, stirring frequently; serve up with lashings of Plato and Rousseau.

Photograph courtesy of Dan Burn-Forti

I have been hoping that the resulting blend of ideas and insights will lead to a delicious new philosophy but my fellow scribes at the Severn Valley Authors found the latest serving rather indigestible. Linda was concerned that the ideas might be too complex for anyone lacking an academic background. Complicated ideas will have to be expressed and laid out in a way that is lucid and entertaining. For a model I could do worse than refer to Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, a novel written for children about western philosophy from the Ancient Greeks to the present day.

Subconsciously, I think, I have been searching for a single theme to draw all the separate strands together. Last week I experienced a 'Eureka Moment' while cycling into work. The Careful Driving Trilogy will be a demonstration of the incompatibility of Plato's Worlds of Ideas and of the Senses: mankind's inablity to reconcile faith and reason, letter and spirit, and to transform theory into practice, vision into reality and political philosophy into the Ideal State.

Accordingly I've amended the principle themes of the book as follows (an explanation of the colour code can be found in the entry dated December 2009):

From Plato to the Industrial and French Revolutions
Religion (Plato's World of Ideas) dominates feudal Europe (Plato's World of the Senses). Was the transformation of a prescription for human emancipation into a tyranny that enslaved a cast of millions an example of how the noblest of intentions can run aground upon the rocks of ambition and greed?

Or can the Roman Catholic dystopia be blamed upon flaws in Jesus Christ's teachings and his analysis of the essence - distinctive character - of the human species? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The emergence of humanism (World of Ideas) in the fourteenth century begins the decline of religion and culminates in the Industrial and French Revolutions in the eighteenth century.

Plato's World of Ideas: Karl Marx's Solution to the Divorce of Human Essence from Existence
The immediate task is to unmask human alienation in its secular form, now that it has been unmasked in its sacred form. Thus the criticism of heaven transforms itself into the criticism of earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

Just as an expanding merchant class (the bourgeoisie) had overwhelmed the feudal aristocracy following the storming of the Bastille, the expanding urban proletariat sapwned by the Industrial Revolution would overthrow its parasitic oppressors. The elimination of the private ownership of property would end the historical division of society into dominant and subject classes. Governed by workers purged of the avarice conferred by private ownership, communist societies would replace personal gain with collective prosperity.

Plato's World of the Senses: Soviet Communism's Failure to Reconcile Human Essence and Existence
Was the transformation of a prescription for human emancipation into a tyranny that enslaved a cast of millions an example of how the noblest of intentions can run aground upon the rocks of ambition and greed?

Or can the Soviet dystopia be blamed upon flaws in Karl Marx's economic theory and his analysis of the essence - the distinctive character - of the human species? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Twentieth-Century Capitalism: Fransen Transport (UK) Limited
Merchant capitalism has its origins in antiquity but the principle of trade in the late twentieth century remains the same: buy cheap and sell dear.

Photo courtesy of Lenny Coulson

Fransen Transport (UK) Ltd provides a haulage service to modern merchants exporting and importing temperature-sensitive commodities. Purchased cheaply from areas of surplus, these are transported to regions of scarcity where they can be sold at a profit.

A Human Becoming
The author's journey from university graduate to international truck driver is an attempt to unite essence (Plato's World of Ideas) with existence (Plato's World of the Senses). Individuals construct their destinies by using the imagination to invent a Perfect Future. Happiness depends upon the successful reconciliation of that Perfect Future (one's dream, vision or essence) with the imperfect present (existence).

Photo courtesy of Richard Breakwell

The more the dream is rooted in the shifting realities of the sensory world the more likely it is to make the transition from the imagination to reality. We think, therefore we become.

Careful Driving
The Inalienable Right of Way assumes a similarly divisive role on the road as private property in Karl Marx's analysis of capitalist society. Authoritarian traffic lights and road signs constantly divide road users into factions granted Right of Way (bourgeoisie) and deprived of Right of Way (proletariat).

Tyrannical speed limits (World of Ideas) instead of the view through the windscreen (World of the Senses) attempt to dictate how we drive; dictatorial Drivers Hours Regulations (World of Ideas) have replaced actual levels of fatigue (World of the Senses) in determining when we drive. Road users are thoroughly alienated by legislation from their human essence. Drivers who voluntarily alienate their Right of Way for the common good make the road a better place to be, but there aren't enough of them. Perhaps it will take the abolition of the Inalienable Right of Way and the Road Traffic Acts to return humanity to the road.

So Karl Marx and Careful Driving is to be the story of human delusion: the failure to reconcile concept (World of Ideas) and reality (World of the Senses). England's performance in the World Cup provided a perfect example of a vision foundering on reality. The news that we were to play Germany after a thoroughly undistinguished performance in the group stage led to an exchange of emails with Ralf, the German with whom I spent an unforgettable three weeks cycling through Iran and Baluchistan:

Windhorse,

I trust that you are now earning a respectable living as a computer salesman or repair man now that you've done the course. Or did you walk out on it halfway through like when you attempted to learn how to be an architect?

So it has come to today's three o' clock showdown. Will you be at the vicarage to watch it? I can just picture you sitting on your sofa in front of the television, surounded by a pyramid of empty lager cans and three weeks of washing-up still waiting to be done and a fly population outnumbering even Baluchistan's. Remember Munich 2001!

Nothing new to report here. Plenty of talks and slideshows booked - this year's total about 30 already and plenty more booked for next year. Work has been really shitty - just had a final written warning downgraded on appeal to a first written warning. Had a few days off last week and we did some painting, but still loads more to do. I've decided that my next literary masterpiece will consist not of one book but three, entitled

1. Karl Marx and Careful Driving

2. Cold War and Careful Driving

3. Red Sunset and Careful Driving

Hopefully I'll finish it sometime this decade - but publication might be posthumous.

Have you run out of Bombay Mix yet? Let me know and I'll send some more, along with the Sunday Times's report of England's victory against the Krauts.

Yours affectionately,

Uncle Heinrich.

This hopeless bravado was the precursor to a 4-1 thrashing by the old enemy...

and an email from an old friend...

Chris, I'm not saying the ball wasn't behind the line - the linesman of the Wembley final would have seen that (even in his current condition). But: justice works rather slow these days... At least fans in Germany and England have something to talk about for another 30 years, and like all the Africans having adopted Ghana as their team, you guys can root for Germany now (tee-hee). I didn't watch the game in the vicarage (it's 30+ in there now). I went with me mum to my former landlady, where we saw the game over some almond cake and a few cups of herb tea (when playing the English...). Argentina will be more complicated but Maradonna is a clown and some of his players are pretty old, so there is a chance!

Computer course-wise I went the distance (4 weeks) - the consequences of a no-show would have been severe. But it was easy: all I had to do was sit there 7 hours a day and since my seat was one of those facing the wall, I didn't even have to look half-awake (the lector's pace was too slow to follow anyway). About 10 of the other 15 were 35 - 50 year-old shipwerecks of people. Sleeping in and doing nothing for years seems to be most unhealthy on most people. But as far as earning a 'respectable living'... in your dreams, mate!***

3 books instead of one, publication posthumous? That don't sound good. the other day, I bought a copy of 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' - isn't that the book you got the idea for 'Karl Marx and Careful Driving' from? I'll read it within the next 3 months or so, hopefully it's as good as they say.

Later,

'Ners

***Speaking of respectable livings: what did earn you that written warning - did you show up for work with your schlong hanging out? Or worse?

P.S. Do you kknow the slogan of the World Cup 2010? 'Menschheit's coming home!'

P.P.S. More Bombay Mix? Is that a threat?

X

A week before the start of the new football season we went to White Hart Lane with Rick to see how Harry Redknapp's vision might stand up to reality in a friendly against Fiorentina. Tellingly, I knew very little about professional football when I decided to support Spurs. My parents didn't own a television and what I did know came from my friend Rene, who lived next door and liked West Ham. When we played football in the garden, he'd be Geoff Hurst and I'd be Martin Chivers, because I liked the name. I also liked the name Tottenham Hotspur, and when we watched Spurs beat Aston Villa 2-1 I decided I liked the team's white shirts. My mother wouldn't allow me to go to matches on my own because of the hooligan element so I didn't go to White Hart Lane for the first time until 1974. I went with Rick, a family friend. Martin Chivers (I think) scored for Spurs. Abba's 'Money Money Money' was playing on the tannoy at half time, and of course we stood for the entire match.

How things have changed. I'm 49 and Rick is 63. Leicester are no longer in the top division, tickets were £30 each (even for a friendly) and White Hart Lane is an all-seater; virtually the only thing that hadn't changed, as I remarked to Rick, was the pitch.

We had an excellent, birds-eye view, high up in the West Stand. An immobile forward line of Pavlyuchenko and Crouch wasn't helped by a central midfield consisting of Jenas and Palacios, a hard tackling, hard running duo not noted for defence-splitting through balls. Aaron Lennon on the right, apart from a couple of surging runs, was largely peripheral, but Giovanni Dos Santos, on the opposite wing, was the game's revalation: great dribbling skills and an eye for the right pass saw him serve up Tottenham's first goal on a plate for Pavlyuchenko. Despite dominating possession, Spurs went in at half time losing 2-1 because of a couple of defensive lapses.

At the beginning of the second half, Huddlestone, Kranjcar and Keane came on for Jenas, Lennon and Crouch. Huddlestone immediately gave the midfield more purpose and penetration, and Keane looked like the player of two years ago - a constant blur of movement, always demanding the ball and pulling the opposition players out of position with his darting runs. It was hardly a surprise when they combined to score the second equaliser, Huddlestone's precise through ball latched onto by Keane who finished with confidence and precision.

Spurs were completely dominating possession. Kranjcar looked sharp and hit the post with a low shot. Huddlestone's free kick produced a brilliant save from the Fiorentina keeper (I was convinced it was going in) and another goal by Pavlyuchenko was disallowed, presumably for offside. More substitutions gave some of the younger players a chance to impress. Danny Rose produced an impressive cameo on the right, showing a willingness to tackle back and once skinning an opposition defender to the crowd's delight. Jake Livermore was a young midfield player who had the confidence to demand the ball from more senior colleagues, and with one minute left of normal time, he produced an exquisite through ball to set Keane free once again, and Robbie drove the ball through the keeper's legs for a late winner, the perfect finish to an absorbing match. We celebrated in the appropriate way with an excellent Biryani in Hemel Hempstead before driving home.

Harry's vision, shared by legions of deluded fans, is to re-install Spurs as champions of England's top division. They last achieved this feat in 1961 when I was too young to be aware of it. The intervening years have witnessed the indefinite postponement of a vision that has remained stubbornly incompatible with reality. The Soviet postponment of Marx's vision, 'the transitional dictatorship of the proletariat', lasted for 74 years; Tottenham's interminable period of transition or 'rebuilding' has lasted for 49 years... and counting. Against all reason, the deluded cling to their faith. Around 30,000 of us turned up at White Hart Lane to watch a pre-season friendly.

The publication of Karl Marx and Careful Driving and the book's emergence as a best-selling sensation is, of course, another vision. Will I convert concept to reality or am I, like successive Soviet leaders and umpteen Spurs managers, doomed to failure? Faith, they say, can move mountains. My conviction that the idea's potential is massive and its originality beyond question keeps me getting up at 4 every morning to reconcile immaculate concept with an imperfect manuscript. I might be as deluded as all of those Spurs and England fans, but to cling to faith and hope, however illogical, is surely preferable to surrendering to existential despair. Such is the human condition.

Parallel Journeys

We are already almost halfway through 2010. On New Year's Day, Linda and I made a list of our targets for the year. In a spirit of optimism, I wrote:

By the end of 2010, Chris will...

1. ...be ready to send Part One of Karl Marx and Careful Driving to literary agents

It is unlikely that I will be contacting literary agents this year. The more I research the history of the Soviet Union and Marxism, the more I find there is to write, so instead of a single book divided into three sections, I'm now writing a trilogy. The titles will probably be as follows:

1. Karl Marx and Careful Driving
2. Cold War and Careful Driving
3. Red Sunset and Careful Driving

I have been submitting Karl Marx and Careful Driving in 2,000-word chunks for the delectation of my fellow scribes of the Severn Valley Authors. When we convened at The Arches pub on 18 May I read out an extract that resumed the description of the drive across Poland and applied Plato's conflict of the World of Ideas and the World of the Senses to the controversial matter of speeding and the more straightforward arena of vehicle design.

'I found Chris's piece a brilliant melding of high ideas with everyday detail. It seems to me that Chris is close to perfecting his experiment in blending a history of philosophy with a compelling road trip,' Tony reported on the SVA's blog (http://severnvalleyauthors.blogspot.com/).

This is encouraging, but Tony continued: 'Several members of the group felt they would like to hear more from the perspective of the truck driving narrator, and I wouldn't disagree with this suggestion.'

They want more of the personal stuff, such as the practicalities of washing, shaving and going to the loo when a long-distance truck driver. These matters are indeed addressed, but spread out through the book rather than tackled at the beginning. Although Rob loves the concept of a book describing parallel journeys along roads and through history and philosophy, he found the extract 'difficult'. Helen 'struggled' and Annie pronounced it 'too highbrow'. I worry about this because I don't want to exclude less educated readers; I will therefore be devoting some time during editing to simplifying the language used and shortening sentences. I have no intention of 'dumbing down' the ideas, however. Some of the difficulties experienced by Rob, Helen and Annie are bound to arise from the separation of each submission by a period of around ten weeks owing to the fact that we meet only once a fortnight and have five members. The previous extract applied Plato's parallel worlds of ideas and senses to the Drivers' Hours Regulations:

Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast, sang Bob Dylan. The awareness of mortality gives human beings a unique perception of the value of time. For an alternative perspective on the nature of time Dylan might like to spend a few hours waiting here at Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, or at Kukuryi, Waidhaus, Nadlac, or any of the previously insignificant border hamlets that have swiftly attained notoriety among drivers for the infamous bottlenecks with which they have become associated.

Time passes with excruciating slowness. Frustration mounts and tempers become frayed. In March I waited twenty-nine hours to enter Romania at Nadlac, and while waiting to enter Poland at Guben last month I heard rumours of queues over twenty miles long and rioting at Frankfurt-an-der-Oder. According to Thierry a Polish customs officer had been fatally stabbed by a Russian driver.

I drive into Poland at 2.15 a.m. on a fresh tachograph chart having reasoned that ten hours of sleepless queuing on the Oder-Neisse Line is so far beyond the bounds of normality as to justify the temporary suspension of the European Union's Drivers' Hours Regulations.

Plato's observation that the material world was in a state of constant change preceded Hegel's by over two thousand years. It led him to the belief that the senses through which people experienced their environment were an unreliable sourceof truth because the truth was eternal. Everything in the World of the Senses was an imperfect ephemeral version of a perfect and eternal conceept or blueprint that resided in the World of Ideas.

In the World of the Senses living matter grew, withered and eventually reverted to dust, and inanimate objects were transformed over time by sunshine, wind, rain and tides. Absolute, immutable and eternal truths that were unaffected by relativity, time or place inhabited a separate World of Ideas that could be reached by the power of the intellect but were beyond the scope of sight, sound, smell, taste or touch. Specific examples of beauty present in the material world were transient shadowns of the eternal, perfect concept of beauty. Eternal features shared by specific trees, sunsets or people resident in the World of the Senses were combined in a perfect, immortal concept tree, sunset or person exclusive to the World of Ideas. Only the philosopher who had made the intellecutal journey from the World of the Sense to the World of Ideas could claim to possess knowledge; everyone else had to make do with opinions.

Absolute, immutable and eternal truths are confined to the hypothetical realms of mathematics, ideology, religion and the minds of the zealots who draw up the regulations by which we are expected to live.

The square on the hypoteneuse of a right-angled triangle equals the sum of the squares on the other two sides. Hypothetical straight lines and perfect triangles are replicated imperfectly in the real world in Give-Way signs and slices of quiche.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. Marxism was a perfect and eternal hypothesis that failed to make the transition to the imperfect and evolving human becoming.

God separated the light from the darkness and he named the light 'Day' and the darkness 'Night'. Evening passed and morning came - that was the first day. After creating the universe in six days God took a weekly rest period. We are the flawed replicas of a perfect blueprint that resides in a hypothetical world of the eternal and the absolute.

Thou shalt take a minimum daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours. This may be reduced to 9 consecutive hours on 3 days a week but thou shalt compensate for any such reduction by an equivalent period of rest being added to a daily or weekly rest period before the end of the following week. Devised by people who have never driven a truck and whose working day begins at 9 and ends at 5, the Drivers' Hours Regulations are composed of straight lines and right angles, designed for the European Union's perfect and eternal concept-being. Because I'm a flawed replica entirely devoid of straight lines and right angles, my safety depends upon whether I happen to feel tired rather than whether I have taken the statutory minimum daily rest period.

Like ideology and religion, legislation has to be applicable to the shifting realities of the sensory world if it is to be effective. 'We have to be practical about these things,' Henk is wont to remark, but whether the police or the ministry share the boss's definition of 'practicality' is open to debate. Now that I'm no longer in the European Union I doubt that the regulations apply anyway. Experience of the sensory world tells me that a three-hour drive from the border should see me to the secure parking are of the motel outside Wrzesnia, where a three-hour kip under the duvet on the Volvo's bottom bunk ought to recharge my batteries whilst still allowing me sufficient time to reach the motel at Siedlce within the maximum permitted fifteen-hour shift.

There was a good deal more about the drive across Poland, the Drivers' Hours Regulations and Plato's incompatible worlds, but having read the extract ten weeks ago, the others had clearly forgotten the finer details when the next extract applied Plato's dualism to speed limits:

Driving based on observation, experience and common sense will inevitably bring those motorists condemned to the impermanent World of the Senses into conflict with legislation that requries instinctive obedience to permanent, eternal speed limits from the hypothetical World of Ideas.

The fourth item on my list of targets for 2010 was to have at least fifty talks booked for 2011. This seems to be more realistic, although I didn't think so at the time. I have already done 15 this year, with another 14 more booked. Late bookings are bound to increase the amount for 2010. I already have 12 booked for 2011 and intend to send out more mailshots.

The purpose behind the talks is principally to promote 'Why Don't You Fly?' The Amazon ranking for 'WDYF?' on Wednesday 16 June 2010 was 7,416. Today, on 29 June, it is a depressing 107,176. The ranking fluctuates wildly - sometimes from six figures to four figures and back again within a fortnight. Usually the figure remains somewhere between 10,000 and 99,999 but today 'WDYF?' is currently the 107,176th most frequently bought book from Amazon. It sounds terrible but several books by higher profile authors with big publishers have a much lower rating. Some even have ratings of seven figures - which indicates just how much competition there is, and more books are being churned out all the time - good, bad and indifferent. My spirits rise and fall in an inverse relationship with the rising and falling ratings, but after five years on Amazon 'WDYF?'s rating hasn't shown any sign of permanent decline. Sales are steady, if unspectacular.

I can't help speculating about the reason for any sudden surge up the rankings. It might have been through word of mouth following sales of the book at one of my slideshows or the result of visits to the website, or even a belated review by a magazine. Or was it because one or more people saw the advert on the rear windscreen of the car?

Surely, I think to myself, the driver stuck behind me in this traffic jam or following me on the road home after one of my talks would make a mental note of the website and investigate? After all, this is a little different from the usual advertisement for a small business one sees on cars or vans. But people lead busy lives and many don't have time to read books any more. And I'm making the mistake, of course, in taking it for granted that the driver behind me would have similar interests in foreign lands and physical and mental challenges.

'Why Don't You Fly?' has nevertheless built up a small but dedicated fan base. People of all ages, of both sexes and from all walks of life have emailed or written to me to communicate the pleasure the book has given them. Some have even come to Bewdley to meet me. Last year in June I received the following email from Mark Brayne:

'Chris, just loved your book. I was once Beijing correspondent for the BBC (mid-80s) and you might even have read an FOOC or two of mine in that book to which you took recourse in Lanzhou waiting for the tyres. After what for me was a bit of a slow start, I so got into your book that I could scarcely put it down. Your writing, in many parts, is quite beautiful, as well as hilarious, and how you describe the encounter with Gao will stay with me for a long time. Also, my wife Sue is a budding writer and she found your thoughts on Being a Writer inspiring, and sobering. I read her chunks of your book and your website as we were canal boating around the Four Counties last week.

It was meeting a Brit cyclist atop the Khunjerab in 1986 (I so recognised what you described, although we did it in 4x4s from Kashgar to Islamabad) that inspired me, eventually, to tackle long-distance biking myself. I went to Budapest and back last year on a Thorn Raven (Rohloff, coupled) and am planning next year, to mark my 60th, to cycle to Moscow (another old posting), and after the Trans-Siberian, from Beijing to Hanoi, before carrying on around Oz, NZ and the US with my wife on our (also Thorn, coupled) tandem.

In short, it might be fun to meet up, if you were game. (I loved your description of Varkala too, which Sue and I visited last year and loved.) We live in Cirencester and I'm intending to set off at Easter next year. Some trepidation but also excitement. And I look forward to reading your new book.

PS For what it's worth, I blogged the Budapest trip at http://psychlotherapist.wordpress.com/

Mark drove to Bewdley for Sunday lunch last month, having postponed his round-the-world trip until next year. In what was a combined effort, Linda cooked a prawn curry while I occupied myself with the Saag side dish, the pilau rice and the poppadums. It was fascinating to hear Mark talk about his postings in Moscow and Beijing (where he covered the events at Tiananmen square in 1989). His fluency in five languages, including Russian and Hungarian, was instrumental in his appointment as a foreign correspondent, firstly for Reuters, and then for the BBC. He has changed career and is now working as a psychotherapist and is particularly interested in the psychology of Karl Jung. Among his other interests are cycling, navigating the UK's canal network on narrowboats, and ecology. He has fitted solar panels to his house in Cirencester and I'm looking forward next year to hearing about the epic bike ride.

Readers like Mark Brayne have indicated that 'Why Don't You Fly?' is probably a better-than-average and possibly even a very good travel book, but it isn't sufficient for your book to be better-than-average, or even excellent, if you are an unpublished or a self-published author. Rob (http://robertronsson.co.uk/) is currently undergoing the horror of submitting his latest manuscript to the 'closed shop' ruled by the literary agents and publishers. As fellow members of Severn Valley Authors we offered to read it through for him and offer any thoughts on how it might possibly be improved, so for the past couple of weeks I've swapped my customary bedtime research of politics, philosophy or history for 'The Spaniard's Wife', a fact-based-fiction tale of infidelity, socialist politics and industrial unrest set in the Glasgow of the early 1900s. It is (so far) proving to be an interesting and original idea, throroughly researched and expertly recounted by a writer with genuine ability. Rob is nevertheless confronting the problem experienced by all unpublished authors: if you have neither celebrity nor the right background or contacts, you may as well resign yourself to self-publishing - unless of course your work is judged by an editor to have strong potential to make an immediate and strong impact upon the market. It is that hope that keeps us submitting our manuscripts. For all the dissmissiveness and condescension of their rejection slips, agents and publishers depend upon the author's hope or belief; even John Grisham, Fay Weldon and J.K. Rowling started out by submitting manuscripts as unpublished authors. They hoped. They believed. They persisted. They succeeded.

Corporate Procedure and Artistic Expression

Last month I was summoned to a 'formal interview', and two days later a letter informed me that I was to attend a 'disciplinary hearing'.

I sent a text to Linda: A chocolate has mysteriously found its way into my lunch box. I am giving it a 'formal interview' to establish why it hasn't followed 'procedures'. If I discover that the chocolate has a brain and is capable of acting upon its own initiative, it will be given a 'disciplinary hearing' and charged with 'conduct unbecoming of a lemon cream'.

The manager conducting the hearing showed all the humanity and sense of proportion I expect of a speed camera. When I reminded him that I had an exemplary record during my eight years with the company and that no-one had suffered from my 'crimes', he informed me sanctimoniously that a murderer is still a murderer, even if he (or she) has led a previously blameless life.

The night after the hearing I dreamt that I was back in the flat in Colnbrook. Concorde had just been bought by Quantas, painted bright red, and was about to make its first flight since coming out of retirement. We rushed to the windows to watch the beautiful bright red bird ascend smoothly into the stratosphere, but then something went horribly wrong. The plane went into a spin, then plummeted earthwards, disintegrating into flaming pieces. Horrified, I could only think of all those people on board, anticipating the journey of a lifetime and a happy landing on the other side of the world. I woke up at 3.30 wondering whether this dream was symbolic of the crashing and burning of my driving career, or of the more widespread crushing of the human spirit's freedom to soar by the weight of procedure and legislation. Are we in the hands of incompetent pilots or afflicted by a more general social malaise that is eliminating human essence from existence?

The divorce of essence from labour was fundamental to the antagonism Marx felt towards capitalism. In performing the dull and repetitive tasks generated by the division of labour, the factory workers spawned by the Industrial Revolution were no longer making use of the invention and imagination that distinguished human productivity from the instinctive forms of production practised by animals. 'Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, ' declared The Communist Manifesto (published in 1848), 'the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, the most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.' Because such labour separated people from the distinctive qualities that made them human, Marx contended in the mid-nineteenth century that they were scarely identifiable any more as human beings.

In the twenty-first century, management issue 'procedures' like confetti because people cannot be programmed into instinctive obedience like computers. Imposed to eliminate the requirement to think, 'procedures' - never to be questioned, overlooked or disobeyed - are the next best thing. I'd left the hearing with a 'Final Written Warning' (an odd concept considering I've never previously had a 'written warning') and questioning the manager's grip on reality. I hadn't murdered, hurt or maimed anyone. I hadn't been rude or abusive. I hadn't damaged any equipment. I hadn't stolen from anyone or attempted to defraud the company. I had committed the worst heresy of all in failing to follow 'company procedures'.

If this computer malfunctions once more it will be scrapped

For the past eight years the day job has served its purpose admirably. It demands no thought, so I have been able to perform my daily tasks on automatic pilot, pay the bills and get on with what makes me human: creating 'Why Don't You Fly?' and Karl Marx and Careful Driving. An idea is sometimes so good that I have to stop in the next lay-by or service area to write it down in my notebook before continuing, but the disciplinary hearing followed by the dream are the clearest signals that I have reached one of life's T-junctions. I can now hardly bear the prospect of going to the place I call work, where 'procedures' overrule common sense and where for the next twelve months I'll be operating under the threat of dismissal for the smallest misdemeanour or mistake.

Reuniting human essence with existence can only achieved by forging a career as author and inspirational speaker, but if I am to abandon the day job I must write one or more best-sellers and / or build a client base for my talks which means approaching more schools, colleges and universities, places where each year I'll be speaking to a different set of pupils or students.

Neither task will be easy. First of all the writing: I was simultaneously appalled and inspired by an article in the Sunday Times Magazine about the author Stephen Benatar. I had never heard of him.

'No, I never felt downhearted about the failure of any of my books. I have wondered why they haven't been taken up by readers and why does nobody know me? The thing is, I love to write. '

Stephen Benatar writes for exactly the same reason that I do: because he wants to be read. He got his first rejection slip at the age of twelve for a short story. At the age of 19 his first novel was rejected. He wrote 11 novels over the next two decades, but all were rejected by publishers. When The Man on the Bridge was published by Harvester when Benatar was 44, he dared to believe that finally, his literary career was about to take off. Despite good reviews, however, the novel failed to get good sales. Wish Her Safe At Home was then published in 1982 by The Bodley Head. The book received great reviews and was the runner-up for the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize, but like The Man on the Bridge it was unable to generate good sales figures. Bloodied but unbowed, Benatar kept on writing. By the end of the eighties he had written 15 books, only four of which were published. Cosmo Landesman, the Sunday Times interviewer, asked Benatar if he was downhearted during this period. His answer is salutary, proof to me that writing is a vocation, something one simply has to do irrespective of income.

'No, I don't feel any bitterness or envy of successful authors. Honest. People like Ian McEwan, I don't envy him because I don't rate his work. '

In 2007 Benatar attempted to get Wish Her Safe At Home republished as a Penguin Classic, but despite a fantastic review from Professor John Carey, a highly regarded reviewer for the Sunday Times, they rejected him. So did 36 other publishers. He took to republishing his novels under his own imprint - Welbeck Classics - and selling signed copies personally at bookshops. Managers have been astonished by his success - he sells on average around 50 books on each appearance. His record is 128. His secret is to approach browsers in bookshops and chat to them about his book - something that admittedly I'd find very hard to do.

Now, at the age of 73, after decades of obscurity and countless rejection slips, Stephen Benatar is finally on the verge of finding success as a writer. The New York Review of Books, having already published his novel Wish Her Safe At Home in the States, is about to launch a British edition. His lucky break came when he bumped into the managing editor of the publishing section in a bookshop and persuaded him to buy a copy. 'I read the book straight away and was knocked out . It's not every day you find a neglected classic from an Englishman who is still alive. Everyone in the office read it and was just as excited as I was,' said Franks.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article6838975.ece

I hope I get my lucky break before I reach my seventies, but I may never get it at all. Like Benatar, however, I will keep writing. What started out many years ago as Driving Dorabella, a story about one man driving his truck from the United Kingdom to the oil fields in Kazakhstan has metamorphosed into Karl Marx and Careful Driving, a grand opera in three parts about European history and the ideas that shaped it. For centuries the conductor of this great opera was thought to be supernatural but the rise of humanism in the fourteenth century led to an increasing belief that human beings are the directors of their own opera. Because of the role his ideas played in the political history of the land through which the author is travelling, Karl Marx is the star. The validity of his materialist conception of human nature and his critique of nineteenth century working life is tested against the author's personal experience of working life at the end of the twentieth century. Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Rousseau, Aristotle and Plato are co-stars, and Emperor Constantine, St Augustine, Tsar Nicholas II, Ronald Reagan, Bakunin, Feuerbach, Hegel and John Locke are amongst an illustrious supporting cast.

Thinking that watching someone else talk about an epic cycling adventure might give me some ideas of how to improve my own talk, we went to Malvern Theatres on 22 April to see a talk by the record-breaking long-distance cyclist Mark Beaumont. In 2008 Mark took 81 days off the previous record for the time taken to circumnavigate the world by bicycle, covering the 18,300 miles in 194 days and 17 hours, and crossing four continents and 20 countries. 16 months later he cycled 13,000 miles from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego. I would estimate that there would have been perhaps around 800 people who paid £14 each for tickets to see the talk and Mark probably sold around 200 copies of his book in a single evening.

Two years ago the Ludlow Cycle Users Group hired Ludlow Assembly Rooms and opened my own talk and slideshow up to the general public. Over a hundred people paid £5.00 per ticket, and many more were apparently turned away at the doors. The talk was well received and I sold 20 copies of 'Why Don't You Fly?' afterwards. I began to think that as well as approaching groups such as the W.I., Townswomen's Guilds and Probus Groups, I ought to be hiring theatres and directing my talks to the general public. Unlike Mark I haven't broken any world records and my journey hasn't been serialised by the BBC, but the experience in Ludlow indicates that I might reasonably expect audiences of between 100 and 200 people to turn up and pay £7.50 each to hear about another epic ride. Hopefully they might also purchase 20 - 30 copies of 'Why Don't You Fly?'.

On Saturday 24 April we went to the Symphony Hall to see a performance by the Academy of Ancient Music of the Overture to Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, Mozart's Piano Concerto No 25 in C major, and Mozart's Requiem. Two of the soloists in the Requiem interested me a great deal. James Gilchrist, the tenor, used to be a doctor before turning to a full-time career in music in 1996:

'I was once accosted by someone after a concert in Aldeburgh, who told me I wouldn’t remember him (he was not quite right, but I certainly couldn’t place him), and telling me that he used to tell me off for humming during his operations when I was a student of surgery, and now look – he’s having to fork out a fortune to hear me! He was delighted to do so, of course, and it was an important lesson for me about why music is so valuable to us all. I believe the arts are in some profound way essential to all of us. Artistic expression and endeavour are what make us human, and the most visceral and basic of our modes of communication. It’s glib to call music the medicine of the soul, but I think there’s some truth in that. '

(http://www.jamesgilchrist.co.uk/)

Christopher Purves, the bass, began as a performer with the rock and roll group Harvey and the Wallbangers before embarking upon a career singing as a classical soloist:

Purves came to opera late and not by the well-trodden route of young artist programmes, prizes and talent scouts. He didn’t study music (he read English at Cambridge) and sang in a rock band, Harvey and the Wallbangers, until 1987. He also recorded the theme to the Um Bongo soft drink ads (“Um Bongo, Um Bongo, they drink it in the Congo . . .) “Not the prime way of getting into opera,” he notes drily.

(http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/)

I rather like people who don't follow established procedures. James Gilchrist and Christopher Purves are wonderful talents. Artistic expression and endeavour are what make us human.

Nodding donkeys near Atyrau, Kazakhstan (photo courtesy of Lenny Coulson)

May promises to be a busy month. Switching from one line of narrative to another in Karl Marx and Careful Driving must be achieved without derailing the reader, so points will have to be oiled. I must research the oil industry in Kazakhstan and the Crusades, and re-read Rousseau's Social Contract.

In Memoriam

Linda has been worrying about her children. Hannah (31) is battling serious health problems and William (24) has just split up with his French girlfriend after six years. Although I'm not a parent myself, as an author I am able to understand that parents never really stop worrying about their offspring.

My books are my children. The way I see life and choose to express my ideas is as distinctive as my DNA so it might be argued that each of my books contains my genes. My first-born, 'Why Don't You Fly?', will be six years old in June, and I have a second, Karl Marx and Careful Driving, on the way. 'Why Don't You Fly?' is making its way out there in the unforgiving world, competing with its peers for attention on the shelves of bookshops and on the Internet. I am concerned every time the Amazon ranking drops, but the book has never failed to rally and although sales have never been spectacular there hasn't yet been any consistent downward trend. Like any doting parent I am offering as much support as I can - by attempting to attract more traffic to my website and blog, and by publicising my talks and slide shows about the ride to China.

I did four such presentations in March - to Hindlip Ladies and Age Concern Over Sixties (both in Worcester), to an Agricultural Discussion Group (at a pub in Grimley), and to a group of around 25 people at the Village Hall in Heightington. After each presentation I answered questions, sold signed copies of 'Why Don't You Fly?' and sometimes found myself unable to pack up my gear because so many delightful people wanted come up to chat and shake my hand. One member of the audience at Heightington who had read 'Why Don't You Fly?' twice announced that he felt privileged to have met its author.

I am alway thrilled when my presentations are well received but opportunities to speak to a Women's Institute or a Cycling club only occur once. If I am to achieve my ambition of abandoning the day job in the near future I will have to build up a client base conisisting of venues that I can visit year after year, inspiring a different group of people on each occasion. This means approaching more schools, colleges and universities. In the longer term, of course, I hope to achieve my ambition by writing one or more bestsellers.

I also went for a 25-mile walk and attended a performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto (soloist Joshua Bell) and the Eroica Symphony at Symphony Hall last month, but all of these events were overshadowed by the death of my father after a long illness on the 22nd at the age of 80.

On Friday 26 March the following obituary appeared in The Times:

ASTON SMITH Anthony, passed peacefully away on 22nd March 2010, at Michael Sobell House, Oxford. Much loved father of Chris, Piers, Ben and Poppy and loving grandfather. Dear husband of Julia. Good friend to his five stepchildren and their families. A great enabler who asked us to smile in his memory.

'Anthony was a great friend, a loving husband, a kind stepfather and a gentle grandfather. Along with Piers, Ben and Poppy, I am immensely privileged to have been able to call him Dad.

Even after the tragic death of our mother he never failed to find time for us. After coming home from work he’d cook our supper.

I retain fond memories of his delicious curries, never ending supply of rissoles, blackberry ice cream, vast 4-tier alcohol-laden chocolate cakes, and those exploding bottles of home-made ginger-beer. He was always available to help us with homework, and later on we would curl up on his bed and he would read us stories. I remember the different voices he used for Piglet, Roo and Eeyore; and for Gandalf, Gollum and Wormtongue.

He rearranged pieces of Mozart for our family quintet, wrote us ghost stories and built us fabulous scale models of battleships out of cardboard. For Poppy he built a scale model of the house we lived in to serve as a doll’s house.

He chased us around the garden with the watering can and introduced us to the enduring beauty of the Shropshire Hills.

Although he surely questioned the wisdom of some of our decisions he was always supportive of whatever we decided to do. When I told him that I wanted to drive Volvos, Scanias and DAFs all over Europe, he might have told me that university graduates don't become truck drivers.

Instead, he pointed out that I had spent four years studying at university in order to widen my choice of career, not restrict it, and that the very last thing my degree should do was prevent me from following the path of my choice. Those were the words of a great father. They were also the words of a wonderful human being.

It is with a sense of great loss that I refer to him in the past tense. During a short speech at a lunch held in honour of his 80th birthday, he thanked everyone present for having given him so much more than he could ever hope to give back. I speak on behalf of us, his four children, and we want to shout it from the roof tops that he gave us more than he could ever have known, that we loved him more than words can say, and that we are deeply proud to be his children.

We will miss him terribly.'

My father will be immortalised in the memories of his children and grand children and the many others whose lives he has touched and influenced.

I will smile in his memory.