*door opens*
Hi. You’re the editor? You deal with signing up bold new writers? Yeah, my name’s Mike, I’ve come to discuss some of my ideas with you.
Yes, my receptionist said you were unstoppable. What exactly do you want?
I want to rock your world!
And how do you intend to do that? Perhaps you could meet security halfway down the corridor as they come for you – that would certainly serve a purpose.
Travel-writing!
What about it?
Name me some really good travel-writers.
No.
Bill Bryson. Pico Iyer. Monty Python. Need I go on?
No, you really needn’t.
These guys are the best of the best. Well, I say guys, but let’s not be sexist here: women are capable of travel as well.
Your powers of social observation stagger me.
So when men go travelling (with their women, of course) they need a guide book. Am I right?
Not necessarily – in fact we often encourage people to experience a place free of…
…and that guide book should tell you everything you need to know about a place, yes?
No.
It can show you pictures. It can tell you things. It can even let you hear things, if it was recorded onto cassette.
Cassette?
Or VHS!
You didn’t grow up in the Dharma Initiative, by any chance? Big white flash?
But you can’t smell it.
What?
Picture this, or rather, smell-imagine this: a book in which every page refers to a different spot in a city, and has the right smell. Yeah. You’re outside a Paris boulangerie, and there’s the smell of fresh bread. Or you’re on a mountainside in Scotland, and you can smell peat, cooked haggis and the angel’s share. You’re outside a public toilet in Hull, and…..
Yes, I get the picture.
Smell the picture.
Look, as joyfully efferversent as this conversation is…
I know, I know. Don’t say a word more. I can’t believe it hasn’t been done either. But it hasn’t!
And what does that tell you?
That there’s a gap in the market!
Which exists because…?
I know! It seems such an obvious approach when you think about it. But sometimes the simplest ideas are invisible until the right person comes along and thinks them through.
The simplest mind, you could say.
Yes!
I believe you’re confusing “idiot savant” with “idiot”.
But I’m no one-hit pony! I have other ideas.
Oh God. Really?
Get this: a post-travel book.
Post-travel.
Yeah, you’re coming back from your holiday, you’re waiting for 20 hours in some filthy foreign airport, you’ve still got Delhi Belly and you’re in and out of the toilets, dehydrated, you just want it to end…..you want to be rescued. Mentally, I mean.
And how exactly does this miracle occur? No, don’t tell me: a book of nice smells.
Hah! Now you’re getting into the swing! Let’s blue-sky that later.
There will be no later.
My second idea is…..a normal-life guide!
Oh dear. I think I see where you’re going with…..
You’re sick of travel, you want to be home. The last thing you want to read about is more travel! So what do you turn to? A normal-life guide that tells you about life at home. Washing the dishes. Going to work. Putting the bin-bags out on a Thursday. Walking the dog. What’s on telly. Agonising over the bills.
You don’t think it would be a little depressing?
No no no, it’s reassuring. You want to get back to all the things at home, you actually want to be stuck in a traffic jam on a Monday morning, or be given the wrong change. It’s home! We all love a bit of home.
It’s funny you should say that. I’m pining for it right now.
Then as a man of the world, you understand, my friend!
Specifically, the glass case where I keep my hunting rifle.
So where do I sign? When can we light the touchpaper and get the ball rolling? Point the way, Ed!
Well – ah, hello Ross – this is Ross, my…Special Travel Writing Contract Signing Overseer. Yes, both his arms are very big, he signs a lot of contracts. And he’s ambidextrous. So. If you go with him, he’ll set you straight, although I strongly suggest you don’t make any sudden movements on the way. We’ll also need to take your photo, so we recognise you if, I mean when you turn up in future. Goodbye – and I really, really do mean that.
*door closes*
Images: Vermin Inc and Baboon(TM).
This is wonderful, just wonderful!
In the sense that it’s complete nonsense (although maybe one day I’ll be this desperate in front of an editor, who know)….then yes, it’s 100% wonderful.
(Thanks!).
Superb! I’m getting to work on a guide to normal life right away. Luckily, Mike, our definitions of normal probably vary, so I suppose you can do one too. Mine could even include a small anecdote about quaffing a headbutt. Hell, we could even make a series. Whadda ya reckon?
I think it’s a fantastic idea! I’ll get to work on the same (although as a counterpoint, I’ll describe how to headbutt a quaff. Which is actually easier than it sounds, depending on the type of pub you choose).
Yes, your version of Normal probably involves Egyptians, sand, sunshine hot enough to fry an egg, minarets, shai, couscous and football being played anywhere there’s a surface at less than 45 degrees to the horizontal. Mine involves coffee, rain, existential dread, more rain, green wellies, mud, yorkshire puddings, kebab vans and shouting.
However, the Great Geographically Universal Truths of Everyday Life are always to be agreed upon:
1) Bills always arrive at the least convenient time to pay them.
2) You always find you’re missing a key ingredient for dinner 10 minutes before the shop that’s a 9-minute frantic run down the road shuts.
3) There’s always a mobile phone ringtone worse than the one you’ve decided is the Worst Possible Noise Ever Made In History, and you always discover it on the bus or in a queue.
4) Baseball cap + sandals = idiot.
5) All of these.
…and so on.
Hilarious. A scratch and sniff travel guide … it has to exist already, but the guide to normal life… well, some people’s tweets could serve that purpose.
Thanks to Twitter, I know feel I have my ear to the stomachs of millions of people. I’ll never get used to the obsessive food-tweetery. “I’ve just had an olive!”, “I’ve just had another olive. That’s two today now, LOL”, “Third olive coming up, I reckon” etc.
Yes, Twitter is fast becoming the Doomsday Book of Normal Life. And now that Twitter is getting archived in the Library of Congress, future generations will be able to squander their time picking through the evidence of how we squandered ours.
Progress. It rocks. Fact.
If successful you could wind up like this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZoJ5OKmEJY courtesy of George RR Martin’s blog.
Every writer’s nightmare.
Hilariously, he’s a real bestselling and widely respected author. So I shudder to think what it’s like for new novelists.
If it ever happens to me, I’m going to perform sections of the book in mime. Or naked. Or naked miming. Or while waving a loaded gun, nakedly miming. Anything to get a crowd, really. It’s about getting attention, not about doing right or wrong. Fame forgives any stunt.
(I’ve learnt this technique on Twitter).
Yes, I googled him and realised. I must read some of his books – in which case his stunt’s worked!
As for attracting a crowd – I thought that a small crowd of street urchins and stray dogs followed you everywhere anyway.
Not true!
The perpetual miasma of insects and airborne pestilence tends to keep most of the hangers-on at a distance.
(The rest tend to do a runner when I start with the naked miming thing).
Yes, he was the original script-writer of the fascinatingly daft C.H.U.D. (“Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller”). Although the director didn’t like his script (it probably made too much sense, or required acting) and changed it heavily.
No wonder his hair is white.
You do have a deep well of ideas that nobody else in the universe would admit to. A definite one-off you are.
A poisoned well, perhaps. You can drink from it and it tastes okayish, but given time there may be vomiting.
In a not entirely unrelated way, I read this today.
I knew some of that, because when working as a designer I had an extraordinary period of creativity. It was just beyond any understanding, day in and day out. But I also kept losing consciousness for a second or so here and there, so I was tested and found to have a small brain lesion. Once healed I went back to being a good designer who produced a normal amount of creativity. I wonder if I should have fixed it? (Except I could barely sleep my mind was so busy.)
Good grief, Judith.
Well, yes. An extreme example that proves it.
And in my very humble opinion….healed brain lesion beats the occasional burst of manic genius. Genius doesn’t tend to end well or end happily, and often ends sooner.
I’m with Woody Allen: “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work… I want to achieve it through not dying.”
Dear Sir,
I wish to inform you that you have stolen my travel book premise. Almost verbatim. I am perturbed in the extreme, and put succinctly, in the verbiage of the day, pissed. I shall not take this affront lying down. I shall be contacting my solicitors immediately. Soon. Eventually. When I get out of bed.
Sincerely Holding Ribs,
Randolph Eustace-Walden (Esq.)
Wanderism.com
Dear Sir,
Since our lawyers are currently deep in discussion about how to rectify this regrettable situation without mutually catastrophic legal damages ensuing, let us discuss a more amicable settlement.
Firstly, I have a large number of legal fees that need paying before I can afford to settle any damages- mainly those payable to the Canadian Mounted Police (http://www.mikesowden.org/feveredmutterings/guide-to-canadians) and, well, pretty much every other country in the world (http://www.mikesowden.org/feveredmutterings/breaking-the-ice-sinker).
The solution is simple. I can’t afford to pay you until you lend me some money.
So if you lend me the money you need to be paid (accepting, of course, that while I’m good for the debt, I won’t be paying up in the immediate future), then I can give it straight back to you and we’re all square for the forseeable.
I trust this makes perfect sense to someone of your inestimable qualities, sir. (I mean, it makes perfect sense to me, and I’m a complete idiot).
Yours Awaitingly
Michael H. Sowden BSC, SSC, (Gold Swimming Certificate Pending).
This made my day. And no matter how crappy things are while traveling, I really never want to read about washing dishes
You’re too kind.
And…
>>”And no matter how crappy things are while traveling, I really never want to read about washing dishes.”
Then you’d miss out on a treat….
http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Get-Things-Really-Flat/dp/1906021465
One of the funniest things I’ve read this year. (Also, very useful).
Smell the picture; there’s a gap in the market. Love it !
If you like the idea, I’m quite happy to stand back and let you try to fill it.
I’ll watch what happens, from over here. *gets comfortable*.
Lol – this was funny. When traveling, I often get the urge to want to write down my experiences before my everyday Alzheimer catches up with me and I forget the funny details, but funnily enough, I never really get to it once I get home. Guess washing the dishes and reading about other peoples travel experiences take up way too much time
http://tip2top.co.za
Thanks for reading.
And I reckon it’s always better to write on the road. Not only do you put down more details, you’re writing them in contact, without the reinvention of hindsight. Travel notebooks capture the angst, joy and horror in a way memories never can.
Great story! I actually think I like the idea of a travel guide for being at home. I’m sure I could learn something from it!
You’re not the only one, Adam. A guide to re-appreciating your own home, perhaps. That would be fun.
I originally wrote this post (it’s a tweaked oldie) after reading Alain de Botton’s The Art Of Travel (and here’s what it’s all about). One chapter concerns a famous author who wrote a “travel” book about oneroom in his house. My dog-eared copy is on loan to someone, so I can’t check the details – so I’ll just suggest picking up a copy. You won’t regret it.
Yes…I highly recommend Alain de Botton’s book The Art of Travel. The part about the “travels around my bedroom” was the first thing I thought of when reading this post.
That’s a lot of the inspiration behind this, yep.
I wrote the above a few years ago. But de Botton continues to poke and prod my mind, as in this one: http://www.mikesowden.org/feveredmutterings/how-to-see-airports