May 12, 2018August 11, 2018 Andrew Chapman The Other Stuff

10 Amazing Coincidences From History

Introduction

The First World War wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for one fatal coincidence involving a sandwich and a botched assassination. Had a car not stalled in just the right place, at just the right time, maybe the entire 20^th century would have been completely different.

Not all coincidences from history carry the same weight but they sure are interesting. Whether it’s a curse bringing forth Hitler’s attack on the USSR, or a crossword accidentally leaking British Secrets, or the many things John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln have in common, there is something fascinating about the symmetry of a good coincidence.

A coincidence is described in the dictionary as, “A remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.” However some people might begin to wonder if fate has something to do with it. After you’ve survived your third ship sinking disaster (each of the three sister ships that the Titanic belonged too) you might start to wonder if a higher power was trying to send you a message.

Fate or not, one thing is for sure, history is riddled with coincidence.

Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy

Lincoln Kennedy

Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy, may have lived 100 years apart, but they had a lot in common.

Both presidents were elected in ’60 and were both succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Both died after being shot in the head on a Friday, while seated next to their wives.

Both presidents had four children and both lost a son during their presidencies.

Lincoln was shot in Ford’s Theatre. Kennedy was shot in a Ford Lincoln.

Lincoln sat in box number seven at Ford’s theatre. Kennedy sat in car number seven in the motorcade.

After Lincoln’s assignation, John Wilkes Booth (the killer), ran from the theatre to a warehouse. After Kennedy was shot his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, ran from a warehouse to a theatre.

Titanic Coincidence

The Titanic was one of three sister ships built by Harland and Wolff for the White Star Line. The three ships were, RMS Titanic, RMS Britannic, and RMS Olympic. Violet Jessop was on both the Titanic, and the Britannic when they sank, and was on board the Olympic when it crashed into a warship.

In 1910, Violet Jessop started working as a stewardess on RMS Olympic. On 20 September 1911 the luxury liner left Southampton and collided with the British warship HMS Hawke. Nobod Violet_jessop_titanic y died and they managed to get the ship back to port before it sank.

Violet boarded the RMS Titanic on 10 April 1912. She worked as a stewardess for four days and then the Titanic crashed into an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank. As an interesting aside, she was ordered onto lifeboat 16 and handed a baby. When Violet and the rest of the survivors were picked up by the RMS Carpathia a woman grabbed the baby she was holding and ran off without saying a word. She never found out what became of the baby or if the woman was the child’s mother.

The First World War started and Violet served as a stewardess for the British Red Cross on the Britannic, which had been converted into a hospital ship. An unexplained explosion caused the ship to sink in the Aegean Sea. 30 people died. Violet Jessop survived.

Undeterred by these events Violet returned to the White Star Line in 1920.

Tamerlane’s Curse

Tamerlane was a 14^th Century Turko-Mongol military leader. He followed in the footsteps of Ghengis Khan, who reigned a century earlier. Tamerlane idolized Genghis Khan and used similar methods to build his empire. His wife, Saray Mulk Khanum was a Chagatai princes and direct descendant of Genghis.

During his reign, Tamerlane’s armies killed seventeen million people, about 5% of the entire population of the globe.

In 1941, Russian archaeologists escavated Tamerlane’s tomb and found inscribed within were the words, “When I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble.” Another inscription on his coffin read, “Whoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I.”

Within two days Hitler invaded the USSR.

King Umberto I Of Italy And His Doppelganger

On 28 July 1900, King Umberto I of Italy was having dinner in a restaurant. The owner came over to take the King’s order they quickly realised they had a lot in common.

For a start they were both called Umberto and were almost perfect doppelgangers of one another. They got to talking and discovered some more unusual coincidences. They were both born on 14 March 1844 in the same town of Turin, and were both married to women named Margherita, who they married on the same day, and the both had a son named Vittorio.

The restaurant owner opened his restaurant on the same day that King Umberto was crowned King of Italy.

The following day the restaurateur was shot dead. Later that same day, while out in a public street, King Umberto learned his death from his aide. While expressing his regret a rogue anarchist in the crowd pulled out a gun and assassinated him.

Franz Ferdinand And The Sandwich

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the catalyst that kicked off the First World War. But it almost didn’t happen. Ferdinand’s assassin was 19 year-old Gavrilo Princip. He was part of the freedom-fighting Black Hand Gang.

While waiting in the street for the Archduke to pass in his open-top car, so that he could shoot him, another member of the Black Hand Gang, further up the street, threw a bomb at the car. The bomb hit Franz Ferdinand’s car and bounced off. It rolled under the car behind and exploded, injuring an officer and several bystanders.

The car carrying the Archduke sped off towards the town hall to escape. Gavrilo Princip, feeling dejected that the assassination had failed, walked around the corner and entered a delicatessen for a sandwich.

Having calmed down a bit, Franz Ferdinand decided to go to the hospital to visit the victims of the attack. Unfortunately the driver took a wrong turn and while trying to reverse to turn around stalled the car. They had stalled directly outside the delicatessen that Princip was now exiting with his sandwich.

He saw, to his utter astonishment, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, right there in front of him. He pulled out his gun and shot them both dead.

Robert Lincoln, Presidential Angel Of Death

Robert Todd Lincoln was the son of President Abraham Lincoln. His life was riddled with coincidence. In the history of America there have been four presidential assassinations. Robert was present for three of them.

Robert wasn’t at Ford’s Theatre during his father’s assassination but he was rushed to his bedside and was present when the President succumbed to his injuries.

16 years later, in 1881, Robert was working as Secretary of War for President James Garfield. A few months after he started the job, Robert was accompanying President Garfield to the train station in Washington. A man named Charles Guiteau jumped out with a pistol and shot the president twice.

In 1901 President William McKinley invited Robert Lincoln to join the Presidents entourage at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. An anarchist named Leon Czolgosz ambushed the President. Leon shook President Garfield’s hand, pulled out a gun, and shot him twice.

After this event Robert Lincoln refused any invites to events involving Presidents. After one such invite he said, “No, I’m not going, and they’d better not ask me, because there is a certain fatality about Presidential functions when I am present.”

There is one more coincidence in Robert Lincoln’s life that is worth mentioning. When he was still a student at Harvard he fell onto the tracks at a train station between the carriage and the platform. A man reached down and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him to safety and saving his life. That man was Edwin Booth, one of the most famous actors of the 19^th century and the brother of John Wilkes Booth, the man who would one day assassinate Robert’s father.

Russian Coin

During the Cold War soviet spies used to use hollow coins to hide secret messages in. A delivery boy named Jimmy Bozart, who worked for the Brooklyn Eagle, was collecting payments on his round when something odd about one of the coins caught his attention. He examined it briefly and then threw it to the ground where it spit in half and revealed a small piece of paper inside.

Jimmy showed his friend at school who then told his dad, who was an NYPD officer, who passed the coin up the chain of command until it ended up in the hands of the FBI.

The piece of paper found inside the coin turned out to be a tiny photograph that consisted of columns of numbers. It was a code. There was no key for the code and cryptologists and code-cracking machines were unable to decipher it.

Four years later a Russian KGB officer named, Reino Hayhanen, was called back to the USSR. Not wanting to return he stopped on his way from America to the USSR in Paris and gave himself in. From there he called the U.S. embassy and soon found himself back on US soil.

Someone involved remembered the coin from four years previous and asked Reino if he would be able to decode it. He could. It turned out the message was meant for him and was simply welcoming him to Amercia from Moscow.

Mark Twain and Halley’s Comet

Mark Twain, author of Huckleberry Finn, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, was born 30 November 1835. Halley’s Comet, which passes Earth every 75 years, also made an appearance in 1835.

74 years later Mark Twain gave a prediction. He said, “It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together’.”

On 20 April 1910, Halley’s Comet came by again. The following day Mark Twain died of a heart attack.

Crossword Secrets

In 1944, D-Day codenames started to appear as solutions in the Daily Telegraph’s crosswords.

The crosswords were created by Leonard Dawe. When not creating puzzles Dawe was the headmaster at Strand School in Leatherhead. Next to the school was a large camp of US and Canadian troops getting ready for D-Day. The security at the camp was so lax that school boys were able to enter the camp and hang around with the soldiers. The boys overheard codenames for D-Day landing sites and spoke about them at school.

Looking for new words for the crossword, Leonard Dawe, put some of these codenames the boys were unknowingly sharing into the crossword.

For a few months leading up to the D-Day landings the words, Gold, Sword, and Juno, all appeared. Those words were codenames for landing sites. The British Secret Service put these down to coincidence but a full investigation was launched when things got more specific. Overlord, Utah, Neptune, Mulberry, Omaha, and Dieppe, all appeared as solutions in the puzzle, and all were codenames for different aspects of the attack.

The War Office called for an investigation and Leonard Dawe was interrogated by MI5. They concluded that Leonard had no idea he was leaking British secrets and the whole thing was put down to coincidence.

Hoover Dam

The building of the hoover dam was bookended by two related deaths. On 20 December 1921, John Gregory Tierney died in a flash flood while surveying locations for the dam along the Colorado River.

96 people died during the construction of the dam but John Tierney was the first.

Fourteen years later to the day, on 20 December 1935, the last person to die while working on the dam was Patrick William Tierney; John Tierney’s only son.

April 24, 2018April 24, 2018 Andrew Chapman The Other Stuff

10 Bizarre Cases Of Mass Hysteria

Hysteria

Introduction

From meowing nuns to an imagined monkey-man, mass hysteria is a bizarre and little understood aspect of the human condition.

It can be caused by religious extremism, cultural superstition, isolationism, and even the accidental intake of LSD.

The only cure is the passing of time and, on at least one occasion, a good old whipping.

The Laughing Plague (1962)

Laughing Plague

In a classroom in the African country of Tanganyika (now Tanzania), on 20 January 1962, three girls began to giggle. By the time the hysteria ended more than a thousand people had been infected by their laughter.

The hysteria spread through the school. One girl would laugh, and then another, and then another, until 95 of the 159 pupils were laughing uncontrollably. The symptoms lasted anywhere between a few hours and 16 days. By 18 March the school was forced to shut down.

The girls were sent home and the madness spread to a local village, Nshamba, where some of the girls lived. 217 people had laughing attacks in the village.

It wasn’t a good laughter either. It was not a laughter of joy or amusement. It was born out of stress. In 1962 Tanganyika won its independence and new ideas were being taught in school that clashed with their beliefs. The girls couldn’t reconcile their beliefs with reality and they just snapped.

The laughter was accompanied by bouts of screaming, flatulence, and crying.

As the hysteria spread 14 schools were shut down. It took between 6 and 18 months for the phenomenon to wear off by which time more than a thousand people had been effected.

The Dancing Plague (1518)

DTR114681

It was summer in eastern France. A place called Strasbourg, then a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Mrs. Troffea wandered out into the street and began to dance. Six days later thirty four others had joined her.

A month later four hundred more had joined in. This was not a festival or a celebration, it was an uncontrollable urge. The dancing crowd was mostly made up of women and many of them died of stokes, heart attacks, and exhaustion. Some reports say around fifteen people died every day during the dancing plague.

Nobles and physicians didn’t know how to treat the hysteria and believed if they could keep the dancers moving maybe they would get it out of their systems. To that end they built a stage and had musicians play for the crowd.

It is now believed a fungi (ergot fungi) that grows on grain in the region caused the event. The fungi contains ergotamine; a psychoactive product that is structurally similar to lysergic acid diethylamide; otherwise known as LSD. The Dancing Plague of 1518 was essentially the first ever rave.

Meowing Nuns (Middle Ages)

Meowing Nuns

Not much is known about the meowing nuns. It happened in the Middle Ages and records from then are hard to come by.

In a secluded convent somewhere in France a nun began to meow like a cat. It spread. Other nuns in the convent began to meow, sometimes for hours. As the hysteria progressed the nuns began to sync up and would meow together for a period of time every day.

The surrounding community were bemused. The meowing only stopped when the nuns were threatened with whips.

Mad Gasser of Mattoon (1944)

Mad Gasser of Masttoon

The Mad Gasser of Mattoon was a tall thin man. He dressed in black and wore a tight fitting cap. He carried a flit gun; an agricultural tool used for spraying pesticide. He crept up to peoples bedroom windows at night. People claimed to see his ghastly figure at the window. Gas silently spraying out of his flit gun into their rooms.

The papers reported the story. People got sick. The only problem with the whole thing is that The Mad Gasser of Mattoon did not exist.

On 31 August 1944. Mr. Raef was awakened by a strange odour. He felt week and nauseous. His wife, suspecting gas poisoning, got up to check to pilot light on the stove but found that she couldn’t. She was partially paralyzed and unable to move.

The following day a young mother, having heard the sound of her daughter coughing, tried to get up to check on her but found that she too was paralysed.

More reports started coming in. People were complaining of a mysterious sweet smell and then losing feeling in their legs.

A taxi driver coming home reported seeing a tall thin man dressed in black, wearing a cap, hiding close to one of the houses windows. This is where the main description of the Mad Gasser comes from.

Over the course of a week 26 people reported being gassed.

There was never any evidence of a prowler going around gassing people and it is general believed to be an example of mass hysteria encouraged by lively reporting in the newspapers.

The Shrinking Penis Epidemic (1967)

Shrinking Penis

A rumour spread in Singapore that if you eat vaccinated pork your penis will shrink, retract into your body, and you will die.

In July of 1967, 55,000 pigs were vaccinated. The men of Singapore reacted badly.

Despite official announcements and constant assurances that your penis will not shrink and kill you the sale of pork in markets and restaurants dropped to almost zero.

Government hospitals and dispensaries were crowded with over 80 men a day over the course of the outbreak, all convinced their penises were disappearing. Some men tied blocks of wood to their penis to stop them from retracting into the body.

The Halifax Slasher (1938)

The Haalifax Slasher

A few people show up with little cuts on them and before you know it all the businesses in town have shut down and a vigilante group of locals are hunting down an imaginary killer.

It all started on 16 November 1938, in a town called Halifax in England. Two women, Mary Gledhill, and Gertrude Watts, claimed to be attacked by a mysterious man with a mallet and bright buckles on his shoes.

Less than a week later Mary Sutcliffe reported that she was attacked by a mysterious man with a knife or a razor.

Three women in one week, the papers had a story. They gave him the nickname, “The Halifax Slasher” and a myth was born.

Vigilante groups hit the streets and several people, thought to be the attacker, were mistakenly beaten up. In fact, more people were attacked by the vigilante mobs than the (imaginary) Halifax Slasher had attacked. Things got out of hand and Scotland Yard got involved.

More reports of attacks by the Halifax Slasher came from nearby cities.

A man named Clifford Edwards was accused of being the slasher when he tried to stop a group of vigilantes from beating up another innocent person named Hilda Lodge.

A mob gathered and started chanting for Clifford Edward’s death. Luckily the police were able to escort him home.

On 29 November, Percy Waddington, who had reported one of the attacks admitted that he had injured himself and blamed The Halifax Slasher. Others soon made similar admissions.

Scotland Yard concluded that there had been no “Slasher” attacks and the whole episode was an example of mass hysteria.

Monkey-man of Delhi (2001)

Monkey-man of Delhi

A dangerous monkey-like creature was scaring the crap out of people on the streets of Delhi, India.

Eyewitness accounts describe the creature as being about 4 feet tall, having thin black hair, metal claws, a metal helmet, glowing red eyes and buttons on its chest.

Some people claimed to see something bigger. A huge ape-man, maybe eight feet tall, jumping from roof to roof in India’s capital.

On 13 May 2001, 15 people were attacked by the monkey-man, suffering bruises, bites, and scratches. Three people died trying to escape the strange beast by jumping off roofs and falling down stairwells in an attempt to get away from it.

More sightings in 2002 describe the monkey-man as being a monkey-like machine that sparked with red and blue lights.

Nobody knows what really went on in Delhi in 2001/2002 but the incident has been described as a slightly odd example of mass hysteria.

Strawberries with Sugar Virus (2006)

Strawberries with sugar virus

A popular TV show in Portugal called Morangos com Açúcar (Strawberries with Sugar) aired an episode of the show in which a life-threatening virus affected the fictional school.

The following day 300 or more students across 14 schools reported similar symptoms to those experienced by characters in their favourite TV show.

Their symptoms included rashes, difficulty breathing, and dizziness. Before anyone made the connection between the over dramatic teenage girls and the TV show, many schools were forced to shut down fearing there was a serious medical outbreak.

The illness was eventually dismissed by The Portuguese National Institute for Medical Emergency as mass hysteria, once the connection between the TV show and the epidemic were made.

Irish Fright (1688)

Irish Fright

England was reaching the end of “The Glorious Revolution”. King James II of England was about to be overthrown. King James tried to flee to France to live in exile but his plans were thwarted.

Troops of the Jacobite Irish Army were stationed in England to prop up James II’s authority.

The protestant Brits hated them.

In December of 1688 rumours spread that the Irish soldiers were planning to massacre and pillage the English population in revenge for King James II’s overthrow.

False reports began to filter around the country of the Irish burning down towns and massacring the inhabitants. Panic spread.

At least nineteen counties around England formed armed militias to guard their towns. But the Irish never came. The Irish knew nothing of it. There was no massacre. No towns were burned.

After a few days the panic subsided. Nobody ever found out where the rumours originated.

Salem Witch Trials (1692)

Salem Witch Trials

Some kind of madness had infected the people of Salem, Massachusetts. In the space of a year, between 1692 and 1693 more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft. 20 were executed.

It all started when Betty Parris, Ann Putman. Jr, Abigail Williams, and Elizabeth Hubbard began having fits. A minister described the fits as being, “beyond the power of epileptic fits or natural disease to effect.” These supernatural seizures is what kicked the whole thing off.

The Salem Witch Trials are a notorious case of mass hysteria. There are few people who haven’t heard of it. It has been blamed on religious extremism, false accusations, and isolationism; there are many theories.

It is interesting to note that the same fungus that was thought to cause the Dancing Plague mentioned earlier in this article was also implicated in the Salem Witch Trials. Maybe the whole thing was just a bad LSD trip.

March 9, 2018March 14, 2018 Andrew Chapman Writers on Video, YouTube

A collection of short and funny videos about books (SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube Channel!)

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHANNEL! – AndyChapWriter on YouTube

March 4, 2018 Andrew Chapman Podcast, Uncategorized

Episode 2 – Coraline (Kassidy’s Nerd Box)

Kassidy delves into her nerd box to talk about the history of Riverdale and Archie Comics and shares some interesting facts about the show.

https://audioboom.com/posts/6705515-episode-2-coraline 

Transcript of the “Brief History” section of the podcast.

The history of the stop motion animated film, Coraline, starts 20 years before the movie hit the cinemas. Way back in 1989 when Neil Gaiman was 29 and his first daughter was 4 years old. Her name was Holly. She would go off to kindergarten and come back to see her dad writing. Holly would climb up on her dad’s lap and dictate stories to him that Neil Gaiman would type out for her. They were all about young girls, like Holly, who would normally have witches pretending to be their mothers and the kids would have to escape from them.

Neil thought to himself, “This is so cool, she loves stories like this, I know; I’ll buy her some.” So Neil went to the bookshop to find really good scary books for four year olds. Alas, he failed. Such a book did not exist. So Neil Gaiman did what any good writer would do and wrote it himself.

10 years later the book was finished. It was never meant to take 10 years. Life got in the way. The book got abandoned. Holly got older. By now Holly was too old for the book but Neil’s second daughter, Maddie, was not. Neil decided he had to get the book done before she was too old. He finished it when Maddie was 6.

After the first draft of the book was complete Neil sent it to his film agent, John Leven, and said, “John, there are only two people who I would ever want touching this. One would be Tim Burton, and the other would be Henry Selick.”

Henry Selick had already directed Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas (in fact Tim Burton had little to do with the movie) and Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach.

Neil never heard back from Tim Burton but a week later Henry Selick called up Neil and said, “I’ve read Coraline, I want to make it a movie.”

That was in 2001. It took Selick 7 years to make his movie. The film was released on the 8th May 2009.

Facts from the podcast.

1

At the beginning of the film the two movers, unloading the lorry with all their belongings, were caricatures of Jerome and Joe Ranft. Jerome was a sculptor for Pixar and Joe was a story man. I’ll list some of credits in a minute but Joe sadly died at the age of 45 while directing Cars for Pixar. Ironically he died in a car accident. As homage to Raft, who Henry Selick called “the story giant of our generation”, the removals van had a logo on the side which read, “Raft Moving Inc.” Both caricatures of Joe and Jerome Raft were voiced by Jerome. A little add-on to this fact; the money used to pay the moving men had a picture of Henry Selick on it, instead of an American president. Selick worked with Joe on The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Monkeybone.

Just to give an idea of why Raft was so important here is a short filmography. (This part wasn’t in the podcast).

He was a story artist on Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Beauty and the Beast; he did the story and provided several cartoon screams.

Aladdin (dad’s favourite animated film); story and more cartoon screams.

The Nightmare before Christmas; Storyboard Supervisor and the voice of Igor.

The Lion King; story.

Toy Story; story and voice of Lenny the Binoculars.

A Bug’s Life; story and voice of Hemlich.

Toy Story 2; story and voice of Wheezy.

Monsters Inc; voice of Pete “Claws” Ward.

Finding Nemo; voice of Jacques the Shrimp.

Cars; Co-Director and voice of Red and Peterbilt.

And many more things that would take too long to list.

2

The Cherry Blossom was made of popcorn.

3

The layout of the house, in the book at least, was based on Neil Gaiman’s actual home at the time.

4

The production made 500 dogs to populate the theatre in Spink and Forcible’s Other Flat.

5

5 miles of gold thread for a 5-inch wig. (Miss Forcible).

6

They used a record breaking 130 sets across 52 stages to record different scenes at the same time, over 183,000 square feet.

7

Wybie is not in the book. This means no nan, which means no doll.

8

It was the first animated film to use stereoscopic 3D. Which means that each frame of animation was photographed twice. Once for the left eye and once for the right.

9

Coraline is left handed.

10

Coraline is a spelling mistake. Neil accidentally spelled the name wrong but liked it so kept it that way.

11

And finally, in the scene where the other Father sings a song at the piano he is wearing Monkeybone slippers. Monkeybone is the film Henry Selick made after Coraline.

***

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March 1, 2018March 1, 2018 Andrew Chapman Podcast, The Other Stuff

No Such Thing as a Frozen Girlfriend

It’s hard to write when your girlfriend is turning blue on the sofa. Shit, do I stop writing and get gas, or carry on and let her freeze to death? It’s a tough one. Fuck it, I’ll de-thaw her when I’m done.

I’m lucky, the cold doesn’t worry me too much. Shit, her lips are actually blue. But her teeth have stopped chattering. Either she’s warming up naturally or her jaw has frozen shut. Either way, at least I can concentrate on what I was writing without all that noise from her teeth snapping together.

It’s a snow day. The kids are off school. I went outside to see what dramatic weather event had caused this entire shutdown of the education system and found the snow, where there was snow, barely reached passed the souls of my shoes.

We are weak, us Brits.

I think the reason the schools are shut is because of the snow they think is coming. They are predicting 10cm – 20cm of snow. That’s a hell of a guess. If you asked me how big my cock was and I said between 10” and 20” you would probably think the higher number was unlikely. You would probably doubt the lower number too. 20cm of snow is unlikely.

Having said that, me and the icicle, if I can unfreeze her, are off to Brighton tonight to see No Such Thing as a Fish live. The power steering in my mini bus has gone (can power steering fluid freeze?) so I’ll be driving her Land Rover. Things are already conspiring to fuck up my plans. Snow, a broken car, and a frozen girlfriend. But then, if things always went smoothly, there would be no good stories to tell.

Man, No Such Thing as a Fish! I can’t wait to go see them. If you don’t know what that is, I will enlighten you. No Such Thing as a Fish is a podcast hosted by the QI elves. Every week they sit around a microphone and share their four favourite facts of the week. In the live show they do the same thing, just with more beer and wine in them.

Anyway, I have things I should be doing. I’m off now to prepare a manuscript and cover letter to be sent off to 42 literary agents. My deadline, imposed by the frozen one, is World Book Day. That day is today so I have much work to do. Off I go. Wish me luck.

February 23, 2018February 23, 2018 Andrew Chapman Kassidy's Nerd Box, Podcast

Ep.1 Riverdale and Archie Comics

Kassidy’s Nerd Box is a podcast researched, written, and performed, by my 12 year old daughter and me (Andy, her dad). If you have kids with a nerdy edge to them (who also like a bit of humour in their geekiness) I think they will enjoy it. I think you will too.

Kassidy delves into her nerd box to talk about the history of Riverdale and Archie Comics and shares some interesting facts about the show.

https://audioboom.com/posts/6680862-episode-1-riverdale-and-archie-comics

Transcript of the “Brief History” section of the podcast.

Riverdale is a Netflix Original series based on the Archie Comics. The comics weren’t well known in England but were massive in America. It is as much of America’s cultural identity as The Beano is to England.

Archie Comics started nearly 80 years ago in 1939. It wasn’t always called Archie Comics. It started off as MLJ Magazines and mostly featured super hero characters. Archie’s first appearance wasn’t until 1941 in Pep Comics number 22.

The youth of America loved Archie and he soon started appearing alongside the super hero on the front page of the magazine. That super hero being The Shield. Interesting fact about The Shield quickly; The Shield is the reason Marvel’s Captain America has a round shield. When Captain America first appeared he had a triangular one but it was too similar to the shield used by MLJ’s The Shield so Marvel were forced to change Captain America’s shield to the now iconic circular shield. Did that make sense? I feel like I used to word “shield” too many times.

It wasn’t long before Archie’s popularity so overshadowed the hero that he was given the full front page and the company changed its name to Archie Comics.

In 2015 Archie Comics re-launched Archie for today’s generation. It was so successful they had to do a second print of the comics to keep up with demand.

The modern incarnation of Archie Comics has moved away slightly from the safe family friendly tone of its past. Including a Zombie comic called Afterlife with Archie and the very bloody Archie vs Predator crossover.

In 2017 Netflix released a TV adaptation of Archie called Riverdale. Riverdale being the name of the town where Archie lives.

Facts from the podcast.

1

So, Jughead has a famous hat. He wears it for most of the TV show, apart from when he’s in bed. Or naked. In the show it’s a woollen beanie that’s been cut up around the edges to look like a crown. Originally it was not a beanie. Or it was. Something got lost in translation along the way. It’s actually a fedora. Also known as a Whoopee Cap when worn the way Jughead wears it. Back in the 1920s it was common in America for all men to wear hats. Teenagers, and other people who think they are cool and unique, would turn the fedoras inside out and cut the brim into a jagged edge. They would then personalise them with badges and pints and whatnot. They called it the beanie. The trend to do this got forgotten to history but Jughead kept his on.

2

Riverdale and Pretty Little Liars were shot on the same set.

When we were watching Riverdale yesterday Kassidy noticed the school, Riverdale High, looked a lot like Rosewood High from Pretty Little Liars. She Googled it. Turns out I’m right. The shots from above the town are identical in both shows. Even the school looks like it was shot from the same angle.

3

A fact about the show creator, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Roberto is the Chief Creative Officer at Archie Comics and he’s the guy who adapted Archie for television. So, long before Roberto worked for Archie comics, back in 2003, he wrote a play called Archie’s Weird Fantasy, in which Archie comes out as gay. Archie Comics found about the play and issued a Cease and Desist order threating litigation. Meaning they would sue them if they went ahead with the show. The show did happen a few days later but under the name Weird Comic Book Fantasy with the characters’ names changed.

In 2012 Roberto Aguire-Sacasa went to a book signing for Archie Meets KISS where he met the current owner of Archie Comics, John Goldwater, and pitched the idea of an Archie/Glee crossover. Goldwater loved the idea and made it happen. By 2014 Roberto was Chief Creative Officer or Archie Comics having also pitched the Afterlife with Archie zombie comic.

4

The actor who plays Archie, K J Apa (his full name is Keneti James Fitzgerald Apa but he’s known as K J Apa), is from New Zealand and is half Samoan. His dad is a Matai (chief) of his village in Samoa. KJ has part of a sleeve tattoo to commemorate his father and his heritage and would like to get his whole body tattooed in Polynesian and Samoan designs.

5

Finally. Do you remember Sabrina the Teenage witch? Did you know that she is also an Archie Comics character?

She’s getting her very own spin-off show called The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

And she’s from Greendale which is a fictional town somewhere near to Riverdale.

***

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February 19, 2018February 19, 2018 Andrew Chapman Podcast

Kassidy’s Nerd Box

Kassidy’s Nerd Box is a 10 minute weekly podcast in which we delve into Kassidy’s nerd box and see what TV show, film, comic, game, or random thing from history is currently obsessing her.

Kassidy gives a brief history of the episode’s subject. We share some interesting facts about it, and then end the podcast with a curious and random science fact (and maybe the odd Shakespearian insult thrown in for good measure).

Kassidy is a 12 year old geek with a passion for nerding out on all things. I am Andy, her dad, and this is our podcast.

What is in Kassidy’s Nerd Box this week?

https://audioboom.com/posts/6680862-episode-1-riverdale-and-archie-comics

This week Kassidy delves into her nerd box to talk about the history of Riverdale and Archie Comics and shares some interesting facts about the show.

Subscribe to the podcast via Audioboom at – https://audioboom.com/channels/4947025

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Email us at kassidysnerdbox@gmail.com

February 13, 2018February 13, 2018 Andrew Chapman Drowning in the Land of Madness

Drowning in the Land of Madness (Day 4)

This morning we had breakfast and then caught a bus into Flagstaff. Currently we are wandering the empty streets in search of a famous road. So far we have only found a gun shop and a petrol station. No sign yet of the Historic Route 66. For that famous road is the reason we are here.

A road with a no doubt glorious history that I have yet failed to come across in my admittedly lacklustre attempts at research. The first road to be built in England was in 46AD by the Romans. 1,880 years later, in 1926, Route 66 came into being. 59 years after that, in 1985, it was decommissioned. We have castles, they have tarmac. America is, to be fair, a young country. And of course, we mustn’t forget, our history is also theirs. Most Americans did after all hail from Europe. A point they often forget, especially when expounding ignorant slurs towards immigrants in the never ending political debate pushed by the too often right wing televisual slop that is USA broadcasting.

We come across a 10ft statue of what seems to be something of a mascot for this town; Louie the Lumberjack. He wears a yellow t-shirt and a red woollen hat. His hands rest on the end of an axe handle with the head of the axe between his feet. I’ve never seen a statue look so sad. I step up onto the raised platform and put my hand on his arm sympathetically, “What’s getting you down buddy?”

I mimic his pose while David takes a picture. Louie has a seriously glum expression. It’s like he has the world on his shoulders and he just doesn’t give a shit about it. All he wants to do is have a nice cup of hot chocolate and a good cry.

It turns out that poor Louie the Lumberjack has a good reason to be sad. In 2004 Louie was the victim of vandalism. According to azdailysun.com he was, “knocked down, broken at the ankles, decapitated and had his axe head broken off.” Thankfully, after $3,000 of repair, the poor fella was back on his feet.

We find Route 66 and are mostly underwhelmed by it.

***

“Where are they all?” I say, removing a chocolate covered curiosity out of a small pink paper bag and eying it suspiciously.

“Where are what?” says David.

“All the women?”

“I don’t think there are supposed to be any women on your chocolate.”

“No, I mean everywhere. I’m just worried about eating this. Want to try a bit?”

“No. I’m good with my fudge.”

“Mum?” I say, offering her a bit. I shake the bag temptingly.

“I’ll try it.”

She takes a piece out of the bag and puts it in her mouth. She chews thoughtfully. I have a piece as well and join her in thoughtful contemplation of the curious taste event that is happening on my tongue. “I don’t know. What do you think?” I say.

“Not sure. It’s not really bad, and it’s not really good either.”

I swallow. “Why did they make this?”

“America,” she says, “They seem to think it’s a desert thing. They eat it with strawberry jam for breakfast.”

What are we eating? Could this be what the Christians have been talking about? The Immaculate Confection? Let me enlighten you. We went into a sweet shop called The Sweet Shoppe and Nut House. In that shop they sold strips of bacon that were covered in chocolate. How could I resist? Meaty chocolate. Surely this is heaven on earth. By Jove (feel free to ignore this parentheses clause, but, you might be interested to know that “Jove” in this use is the Roman God of the bright sky, and not the Christian Jove, which would be very blasphemous in this country. And, God damn it, I am not that guy! Again, this bears no relevance to this conversation, hence the original clause to ignore it) it is good… but then not so good. After that bacon taste is adrift with the saliva what is left but a slightly meaty cocoa? You put a piece in your mouth and are treated to some very nice chocolate. And then you bite into it and the smoky taste of bacon fills your mouth. I like the taste of both things. God bless the diabolical and unashamed pursuit of being a fat-ass in this country. I assume the Nut House part of the shop name refers to the insane candy maker I imagine lives in a dark cave somewhere under the shop maniacally designing unnecessary candy, like an evil Willy Wonka.

“What’s that got to do with women?” says David, returning to my original comment.

“Not a great deal. But we still haven’t come across any.”

“What about the singing waitress?”

“Yes, I forgot about her. So that’s a total of one? We have so far come across one young female. I reckon they’re being harvested for something.”

“I still think they’re hiding from us.”

The rest of the shops in this small town aren’t worth mentioning. Except for a new-age shop called Crystal Magic that had an endearing dog that slept in the entrance and sold a very curious object (the shop I mean. The dog wasn’t selling anything as far as I’m aware). It was a globe of the earth that spun continuously and claimed to be powered by perpetual motion. I’m not sure what gimmick lies at the heart of its spinning but if it is perpetual motion someone should really tell a scientist about it. We will have to change everything we now about Thermodynamics and all the world’s problems regarding energy and fuel will be solved immediately.

We cross the railroad tracks to the other side of town to a bar called Lumberjacks for a drink.

“IDs please gents,” says the waiter to me and David. We reach into our wallets and produce our UK Drivers Licences. The waiter looks at them scornfully. “I can’t accept them. I won’t be able to serve you drinks.”

“Are you fucking kidding?” I say. Good god, you should see the look on his face, I think it might be the first time he’s heard a swear word.

“Rules are rules,” he says, snapping out of his bewilderment.

“We are both past 30.”

“Do you have any other form of ID?”

“No. Unless you accept facial hair?”

And so it is that we end our little day trip to the town of Flagstaff being forced to order soft drinks and coffee. The horror! The horror!

You cannot truly relax on holiday unless you are in some way inebriated. If you find yourself taken by a whim to moisten your parched lips with a cold pint, or to dive blindly into the abyss of madness that is total obliteration, you should, at the very least, be in the position to prove to a stranger that you are not a child. When we get back to the RV my passport is going directly into my pocket where it shall stay should the situation arise again. But still, for now the drinking can wait. Is there really any point to it anyway? Christ! What am I saying?

Undeterred by our sobriety we catch another bus to the Flagstaff Mall on the outskirts of town.

We are on a bus sitting all in a row. The people occupying the seats facing us are all strangers to each other but it took me a while to work this out. I saw them all get on at different stops but they interact in a way that, in England, would seem improper. They were talking to each other… on public transport. The innate friendliness that makes this brand of human seem so fake, or shallow, to the likes of us unsentimental and cold bastards from England, extends way beyond what I thought was just good customer service. They do it in private too. In trying to deduce the reasons for the dissimilarities between Americans and Brits I sometimes wish I had the inductive (and not deductive as people are mistaken to believe) capabilities of that famous autistic sociopath Sherlock Holmes. But I don’t. I can only assume they were raised better than us.

A man gets on the bus. He has tattoos, baggy jeans, a pierced eyebrow, and frown lines that are shadows of many a scornful scowl. Here we go, I think, this guy will bring back some hostile normality. He takes a seat at the back of the bus, and smiles at the old guy next to him. They immediately begin to share pleasant and idle chit-chat.

Having come to no real conclusions as to the reason for their friendliness (again, not a bad thing) the man in front of me (who is white, in his 40s, and looks like a bit of a hiker) does something that must surely even be strange to Americans. He reaches into his rucksack and takes out a half empty bottle of water. He takes a sip and offers it to the Mexican woman next to him. She takes it without a word, gladly drinks about a quarter, and hands it back. She doesn’t say thank you. He puts it back in his rucksack. The exchange happens as if it is as common as a hand shake. Perhaps the hot climate here has made water a necessity that has become an openly shared thing in the community. Or maybe this is all very normal and I am a very sheltered and miserly individual that has, by ignorance of the true nature of humanity, been perpetuating a very selfish and rude persona of myself. Especially when it comes to sharing fluids. And there I was thinking I was one of the good guys.

The bus arrives at its final stop at the Flagstaff Mal. The mall is an uneventful shapeless building that is notable for only two things –

1: Meat sauce.

2: Evil automatons.

Since my parents arrived in this fine country they have been on the hunt for pâté. In England pâté on toast was one of Dad’s favourite things to have for breakfast (coming a close second I expect to a good old fashioned full English fry up. Good god I could eat one of those right now). They simply don’t have pâté here. Try to explain to a shop assistant what pâté is and they will imagine it with a grimace. “Meat that you can spread?”

“Yes. Are you sure you don’t have any?”

It does sound kind of gross now I think about it. But you’d think they would lap it up over here, they have meat every other way imaginable. Even in chocolate a we discovered earlier.

We enter the mall and find ourselves in the food court. On the right is a burger takeaway, and just past that a pizza one. On the left is a Chinese buffet takeaway and then a curry place. American, Italian, Chinese, and Indian, and all of them staffed by Mexicans. Yet, sadly, there is no Mexican food to be found anywhere. In the centre is a field of chairs and tables that are used by all the food outlets.

I order the most American thing I can find; a double cheeseburger with meat sauce. Meat sauce is sauce that is made out of meat. Need it be said? Is it nice? Kind of. Having tried a spoonful before properly tucking in I can tell you that it is like drinking a burger.

We devour and conquer our food and go for a wander. We enter the first shop and it’s as if I have entered some kind of nightmare. All around me, as I walk down the aisles, fucked-up robots jump out at me. It’s a Halloween shop. In England Halloween is a chance for kids to dress up like princesses and get some free candy. It is a sadly uneventful holiday that is getting sadder by the year. But not here. In America Halloween is a holiday with a chip on its shoulder.

The automatons react to sensors and scare the shit out of me every chance they get. Freaky dead kids with their spines arched backwards and awkwardly shaking and screeching like a demented human/crab hybrid. I step on a sensor and a horrifying monster wails to my right and I lurch out of its way in time to see a dead baby scurry up the wall. We make our way around the shop hesitantly, ready to fight back if we have to. At the back of the store I come across two halves of two babies that have been stitched together at the waist. It looks like a cat with arms for legs and a face at each end. I kick it experimentally to see if it’s programed to jump and scare the pants off me. This one at least does not spring forth and attack. The dead child on a swing next to it however does. I nearly punch the creepy little fucker in the face and run for the door. Goddamn these crazy fucking toys. My daughter would have had nightmares for the rest of her life had she been here to see this. The crappy automated witches and skeletons we get back in England are enough to terrify her. But dead babies and screaming girls in night dresses? That’s another level.

There is nothing else to tell you about Flagstaff. I can only suggest you never visit it yourself. Unless you crave the abys of boredom.

***

We have a BBQ when we get back to the RV. David opens the blue cheese sauce and half of it squirts out of the bottle in one fierce eruption.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I say.

He laughs and a dollop of blue cheese falls from his chin. “I didn’t do anything. It just sprayed out by itself.”

“Sure it did,” says Mum.

I crack open a beer and move the sauce away from his vicinity. “Nobody let him near the rest of the condiments.” I say, “He can’t be trusted.”

He has strong builder’s hands, my brother, and doesn’t realise the strength of his own grip. Now the silly bastard has a paddling pool of blue cheese covering his gammon and nobody to blame but himself.

I will not bore you with the rest of the day. I will only tell you that we ate, drank, and went to bed. I will however tell you about the vision that currently has me in its grasp.

You will have to trust me that what you are about to read is an honest account of what I see before me. I am hallucinating. You shouldn’t be concerned about this, it happens from time to time, normally when I’m sleeping in a strange place and occasionally at home. It’s just never been this odd before. Normally I see bugs, or birds nesting in my curtain rail, or the walls and ceiling covered in vines, or hundreds of spiders (the usual stuff) but this, this is something different. (It is happening more often recently at home for reasons I haven’t been able to determine. Maybe because I live on my own now and my subconscious gets a kick out of messing with me. Normally I switch on the light on my bedside table and whatever I’m seeing vanishes. The weekend before I flew out here the table light wouldn’t work and I had to get out of bed and navigate around two weird fucking monsters that had taken residency in my room. One was on the swivel chair at my desk, looking over the back of it at me with a small sad face lit by the moon. The other stood still at the corner of my bed with a head like a giant elastic band ball. These hallucinations don’t scare me anymore. They used to. But now I know they are only a hangover from a dream I can’t quite shake off, or wake up from, and never has one of these visions ever tried to hurt or talk to me. I have become used to them. I watch them with curiosity now. I take note of how vividly real they are. I walk around them without taking my eyes off them until I turn on the light and when I do they always vanish. It’s the trigger that finally wakes me from my conscious slumber. But one day they won’t vanish with the light. That is when the fear will come. This kind of madness is called Hypnopompia. It’s harmless fun. I have other sleeping issues too; Hypnogogia, Sleep Paralysis, lucid dreams. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to have a lucid dream you’ll know just how fun this particular kind of problem can be).

But anyway, back to the current. Here I am. In the RV. Enjoying my slumber when something stirs me from my sleep. I sit up slightly. My eyes adjust to the dark and I see a figure standing in the kitchen area looking down at my sleeping brother. It, or he, I think it’s a he, is wearing a velvet suit and has the head of a cat. It puts the revolver it is holding in its paw down on the kitchen worktop and then reaches up and places his paws on his cheeks. He pauses for a moment and looks quietly down at my brother. Then he tenses his arms and lifts his head off his shoulders. He drops his head silently in the bin, takes a step back, and disappears into the shadows.

Seeing a cat remove its head serves no purpose that I can think of. There is no use in trying to find meaning here. We all have odd dreams. It’s just that sometimes they stick around after you wake up. I lie back down and close my eyes.

February 13, 2018February 13, 2018 Andrew Chapman The Other Stuff

God and Pasta

It’s Wednesday. There’s a full moon. God is throwing up in the corner. He normally is. He has no reason to be sober these days. Last time I saw him he was threatening a stripper because the coke she brought to the party wasn’t pure enough.

“Don’t milk down my shit,” he was saying. “Do you know how much time I spent creating it?”

I’m living in places right now. Sometimes I’m at my sisters’, sometimes I’m in a hotel with a woman who seems willing enough to put up with my weird shit, sometimes I’m crashing at my ex’s when she isn’t there. Its’ a fine mess. Or a mess I’m fine with. It’s no way to be an adult. Plans for a mortgage are on the horizon. Then I can be a normal.

I’ve spent too much of my life as the guy crashing on your couch.

God slumped on the sofa. He wiped some bile from his lips and turned to me. “It really doesn’t matter, Andy, as long as you have your mind together your abode is unimportant. Life is more interesting when you’re close to its broken edge.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, God,” I said, “You’re a mess.”

“You ever seen Rick and Morty?” said God, picking up the X-Box remote. “You want to watch it with me?”

“Sure.”

“It’s one of my favourite creations.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to say it but, man, he takes too much credit.

He put Netflix on and started it from episode one. He fell asleep before the opening titles ended. The guy’s a real dick. It’s no wonder so many people have it so bad.

I wasn’t planning on talking about God. I don’t know why he keeps coming up.

One of the cats, Calcifier, has just jumped up on my lap. He’s purring and rubbing his face on mine. The cat is a fool. Last week I paid a vet to cut his testicles off. If only he knew. Maybe his opinion of me would be less favourable. Maybe this is how God feels. Maybe we don’t realise he’s clutching our bollocks in one hand and has a knife in the other. Telling us he loves us and laughing into his sleeve when we turn away.

Fucking hell. I’m not even religious. It’s not my place to say bad things about the giant insane monkey in the clouds.

Did I ever tell you I’m a Pastafarian? That’s the one true religion. I’m a registered minister. I can legally marry you if you’re willing to wear a colander on your head. I’m just talking nonsense now. All hail The Flying Spaghetti Monster! May his noodly appendage reach down and touch you somewhere wholly inappropriate.

One day I’ll write a proper post about The Flying Spaghetti Monster. For now though I urge you to click on the picture below and spend some time lost down that hilarious rabbit hole.

January 18, 2018 Andrew Chapman Drowning in the Land of Madness

Drowning in the Land of Madness (Day 3)

A bed has one function. To be comfortable enough for you to fall asleep on. Any bed that fails at this important and basic function is not in my eyes a bed at all, but some kind of mystery furniture. Whoever invented the pull-out sofa bed that I am lying on now surely did not have the words bed or sleep in mind when they made it. So then, what is this machine that I have been doomed to spend two weeks on? It looks to me like a giant cigarette rolling machine. I imagine the bed popping back into its sofa shape in the middle of the night and me getting wrapped in the bed sheet and dispensed out of the bottom like a giant cigarette.

This evil device of impractical chiropody has twisted me almost in half during the night and now I feel like a rung towel. I stretch to ease some of the tension and feel my spine crack into place with the pleasing sound of falling dominoes.

David has already put the coffee on and a fresh cup appears on the table in front of me.

“Cheers. Jerky,” I say.

“In your coffee?”

“No. Jerky is what is needed. That is what I want.” My head is hanging heavy, looking down into my coffee I can see a circular distorted reflection of my face in the brew and realise that I am clearly not a human. Not yet at least. And I realise, if I intend to have any hope of making sense, I need to concentrate on what I am saying. “Today, wherever we go, I want some jerky. Proper American jerky. I need to start understanding this country. But I know I never will. Jerky will help me along my path. I have seen jerky in every store we have been in so far. It must be important. It must be.”

“Don’t you eat it all the time in England?”

“No. That’s the biltong. It’s more or less the same. Just more misshapen and softer. And I think it’s made of deer instead of cow. And from South Africa maybe. Or not. I don’t know. Maybe. Who knows? It has a different name but is the same but also different in some way I can’t recall. You know? No? Well, never mind that. But it must be better here. They say all the food is better here. Not that that’s been proven so far.”

David takes the seat opposite me. “I just want to find some normal fucking beer.”

“Here, here.” I drink my coffee and then a thought strikes me. “Where are all the girls?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you seen any? Anywhere? I haven’t seen a single woman under the age of forty five since we got to this country? I thought these lands were bountiful when it came to perfect beautiful women. Where the fuck are they all?”

“I don’t know. Hiding from us probably.”

“I want one. The States should be bursting at the seams with beautiful Hollywood-moulded immigrants (for all Americans are immigrants except the famously moody Natives). I know they’re around here somewhere. I’ve seen them in the movies. I want jerky, a gorgeous woman, and a decent pint. These things are not hard to come by in England. My ex was a beautiful American. And I met her in a pensioner’s clothes shop in Bournemouth. Why can’t I find any here?”

On Venus (the planet) all of the landmarks have female names except one mountain which was named before the idea to give everything feminine names came about. Imagine being the only man on an entire planet of women. Being in an RV park is kind of like the opposite of that. The only women you see are, what people in the know call, Snow Birds. Grey haired women who travel south for the winter. We are awash in a silver sea unable to get to shore, where, in our delusions, a kingdom of beautiful women lies just beyond sight.

After breakfast it’s time to leave the RV Park and drive to Flagstaff; a place we hear to be an interesting stop on Route 66. We put away anything that could move and break or become a lethal projectile should we crash or break suddenly. When an RV of this size starts to move at speed any sudden stop can cause a normally harmless toaster (or cup, or shoe, or frying pan, or souvenir cactus etc.) to become weaponised. Being kicked in the face by a shoe is embarrassing enough. Being kicked in the face by a shoe that doesn’t have a foot in it is an embarrassment one finds hard to live down.

The sun-blinds that shield the windscreen when parked are taken down. The dining area and double bedroom are retracted back into the RV. The hydraulic feet that are used to level the floor are withdrawn. Sewage pipe, water supply, and electric hook-up are unplugged and put away. The beer cooler is stored safely in one of the luggage compartments. Dad takes the driver’s seat. Mum programs the destination into the sat-nav. Me and David lounge in the two double seats in back and we are set to go. The engine starts with a rumble. The CD player turns on automatically and plays Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits. We leave this worn out RV Park in search for greener pastures.

BANG!

“What the fuck was that?” says David.

Less than three minutes into our journey we are forced to pull over to investigate an enormous boom that had resonated around the RV from above. To me it is obvious what has happened. Someone has jumped to their death from a tall building and landed on us. Or perhaps an angel has been cast out of heaven and burned up on entering the atmosphere and is now smouldering on top of the RV, blackened and charred. Some people in the RV seem to have different ideas.

“I left the damn antenna up!” says Dad, coming to a more reasonable conclusion than my own mind tends to allow. “David, get up there and have a look will you? I always bloody forget to wind it down.”

David is not the kind of person that needs persuading to climb up on top of an RV and fix something. He is by trade a shop fitter and is a natural master at fixing all things (this normally involves merely the application of force. It seems there are few problems that can’t be rectified with a good hard wallop. It never works for me. I am always dumbfounded and amazed when he does hit something that was previously broken only for it to spark back into life. I can only conclude that appliances fear him).

“How’s it looking?” says Mum, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looks up at him from the pavement.

“It’s fucked.”

“Can you be more specific?” says Dad.

“The bracket at the bottom is fucked.”

“Can you fix it?”

“I think I can help.” I say (although it’s no secret that I am only capable of making things worse), and make my way around the back to climb up the ladder and join him.

“Yeah, it’s fucked.” I say, when I get to the top.

“Great. Thanks for your help,” says David.

“It’s fun up here. I feel like we’re in one of those old cowboy films where they run around on top of trains.”

“You are a child,” says David, without turning to look at me.

“So now we can’t watch TV?” says Dad. “Wonderful.”

David tapes the areal down so it doesn’t come lose and we get back in the RV and carry on with our journey to a place called Black Bart’s in Flagstaff.

The scenery is scenic as, by definition, all scenery is. We roll down endless roads flanked by mountains that are dotted with cacti. So much cacti that if you were to recreate the scene with CGI, or paint it, people would accuse you of exaggeration. Every square foot for miles around contains at least one hostile green plant. It looks fake. Like the land has green stubble.

After driving for a bit we stop at a place called Black Canyon for petrol. Not much is going on here. There are signs on most of the shops that say they are closed on Mondays. I was hoping to poke around the Navajo shop to see if they sell knives. A knife is the only thing I intend to buy over here. Lock knives are illegal in England, though I’m not sure why. I think it has something to do with not being allowed to stab people in the UK. In America you can do what you like so long as you let the police shoot you afterwards.

You can buy knives in petrol stations. They seem to sell them everywhere and they’re always brightly coloured or in novelty shapes. They are either marketed to children or the adults over here have a particularly juvenile mind-set. But I’m not after a toy. I want something to replace a knife I brought in Mont Saint-Michel in France when I was 14. I’ve always found it useful, you’d be amazed how often I used the thing, and I’ve almost never stabbed anyone with it. One day, after making a Galileo Galilei Pendulum Wave Machine with my daughter it vanished. I used it to cut the strings that held the weights after we were done, put the knife down, and never saw it again. I am lost without my handy sharp implement. Kitchen knives just aren’t the same and the kind of knives that don’t lock are lethal, especially if you intend to keep your fingers. There is an idea in England that the only reason you could possibly want to own a knife is if you want to murder someone. However, if you’re the kind of person who likes sitting around a fire, or camping, or hiking, then owning a decent knife is no different to owning a tent or hiking boots. I was hoping the Navajo shop would sell something a bit more authentic than the brightly coloured laughing stock of shitty knives I’ve seen so far but I guess I’ll never know. Still, I have two weeks to find something.

I buy some chilli jerky and David buys a 6-pack of some kind of cherry drink from a convenient store and we climb back into the RV. Before we are all the way in we are startled by a strange sound. A bellowing noise. I couldn’t quite place it. I go back outside to see what the commotion is. It turns out to be something you don’t hear much in England; loud affectionate geniality. A fat American wearing a cowboy hat is impressed by the size of the bus and is practically “Ye-Hawing” in astonishment. What’s with the overt kindness and whooping at strangers that is so common over here? I’m more comfortable with the cynical miserable bastards back home. You don’t have to try and work out if someone is actually happy to see you or just putting on a façade. People are either happy or they are not. They like you or they don’t. They are impressed or they couldn’t give a shit. There’s no guessing in the UK. Although, as the American culture continues to penetrate ours, I’m sure with each passing generation we too will become fake shills. But this man seems genuine in his astonishment. He probably yells in genuine astonishment at everything he comes across.

The weighty cowboy wishes us a good day and safe journey and runs down the street with the bright sun high above him, whooping and firing a gun into the air. So I imagine anyway. I’m in the RV now escaping from his unwarranted kind words. I’m just assuming he’s whooping and shooting his gun. He probably is.

“Well, that’s one goal knocked off my list.” I say to Mum, opening the giant bag of jerky as we pull out onto the interstate.

“I’ve never tried Jerky before. It doesn’t look very appealing,” says Mum.

“No, it’s delicious, try some.” I proffer the bag and she peers in dubiously.

“Are you sure it’s not going to kill me?”

“I can’t promise anything, but it is tasty. It’s kind of like meaty chewing gum.”

She takes a piece out of the bag and puts it in her mouth. She chews, frowns, and then nods. “It’s ok. A bit chewy.”

People who are new to jerky will not know about that one piece of rogue jerky you sometimes come across. For whatever reason that particular piece of jerky is utterly uneatable. You can chew it and chew it for hours and the meat will never separate in your mouth. It seems to be fixed together by an unbreakable bond. The best thing to do when you get one of these pieces is to discard it immediately and pick out another piece. Otherwise it won’t be long before your jaw is aching and you find you can’t eat or speak for the rest of the day due to mouth fatigue.

I am on my sixth piece and I offer Mum another one. To my surprise she is still chewing.

“I don’t know how you can eat them so fast,” she says.

“I think you got a dud one. They normally fall apart in your mouth.”

“I think I’ll take your word for it.”

I think she should too. More for me. I offer David one but he’s happy enough with his bottle of cherry soda.

It was hot in Phoenix, as has been established, but things are set to improve. We are traveling upwards, from 2000ft to 6790ft. As you rise in elevation the air gets thinner and the weather gets milder. The closer to the sun you get the colder you will be. Go figure. Flagstaff is up a mountain surrounded by volcanoes.

We finally drive past a sign that says 6000ft elevation and arrive soon after at Black Bart’s RV Park. This park is essentially a restaurant car park. The only difference that separates this from any other restaurant carpark is that the parking bays are huge and each contain a picnic table and a pine tree. The weather is fantastic. It is hot but not so hot it would melt your skin like it was in Phoenix.

We book in at reception and I buy two large bags of ice for $6 and David haplessly pours them into the cooler from standing height. I open the second bag but the ice is stuck together in one giant ice clump.

“We’ll have to get a hammer or something”, says David, passing a practical eye over the block of rock hard water.

I hold the block of ice up above my head and prepare to let it drop.

“Don’t be so fucking stupid,” says David, trying to stop me.

But it’s too late. The ice is already falling through the air. It hits the edge of the cooler and breaks into a hundred pieces. By some miracle most of them land in the cooler. “Problem solved.” I say.

David reaches down and picks up a can. A thin spray of beer is emanating from a tiny hole in the side of the can. “But at what cost?” says David.

Shit. How many cans have I sacrificed for this labour saving ice drop? I dig through but it seems only one of the cans has been hurt.

“Boys, can you give us a hand getting the RV set up?” comes Dad’s voice from inside the RV.

“Yea,” says David, dropping the broken can back into the cooler, where it continues to spray.

I help mum put the blinds over the windscreen while David sorts out the sewage, electricity, and water. We finish quickly and wander down to the restaurant to have a poke around but it’s closed. It looks cool though, from the outside. It’s an old fashioned western place with a wooden porch. There’s a decrepit horse cart by the entrance and the walls are decorated with rusted stirrups and saddles.

“It’s not open till five,” I say, pointing at a board with the opening times. “Shall we cross the interstate and see what’s around?”

“Sounds like a plan,” says Dad. “How do we get there?”

Mum notices a gate in the fence and we make our way towards it but we stop when we see something move. “What are they?” says Mum.

“A gofer, or are they called Prairie Dogs. Or are they the same thing?” I say. “I want one. Let’s see if we can catch one.”

“Andy, don’t be an idiot,” says Dad.

David takes out his camera to take a picture but they all scarper down their burrows before he has a chance.

We cross the interstate without getting killed, stopping at a petrol station on the way to see if they sell fridge magnets (mum is collecting fridge magnets from every state/town she visits as a souvenir. She is also collecting pins that she attaches to a cowboy hat that hangs on the wall beside the passenger seat in the RV). I ask the guy behind the counter if there is a bar nearby and he recommends a place called Porky’s Pub.

Porky’s is just across the road. We enter and hover for a while. A British person in an American pub will always be confused at first. What are the rules? Our natural instinct wants us to go to the bar and buy a round of beers that we’ll take to a table of our choice by ourselves. But they do it differently here don’t they? Or do they? Is it table service everywhere or just in some places? Maybe there’s a sign. If you find yourself in a table service pub in England you’ll know about it without question. There will be a small lectern as you walk in the entrance with a book of reservations on it and a big sign that says, “Please Wait To Be Seated.” If you try and make your way to the bar by yourself you will be grabbed by the scruff of the neck by a mean looking waitress with thick arms and be led to a table where she will then leave you for an unreasonable amount of time before returning to scornfully take your order. But not here. Not in America. The people here are kind and good at customer service. They are the best at it.

Porky’s seems to be run by one man. A thin bald guy, about my age, is standing behind the counter. He sees us looking unsure of ourselves and recognises us for what we are; simple British folk. “Take a seat,” he says, “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

We take a seat and a few moments later he is with us. He doesn’t stand next to us waiting for commands like one of our guys would, instead he pulls a chair from table and sits down. “So, what can I get you?”

“Have you got any Blue Moon?” says Dad.

“Sure.”

“Three pints of those I think.”

“What’s that?” I say, having never heard of the beer and being dubious of American lager.

“It’s nice trust me,” says Dad.

“It’s cheaper if you get a pitcher,” says the barman.

Dad looks at me and David for affirmation and we nod in agreement. “Pitcher it is,” says Dad.

“And for the lady?” he says, looking at mum with a smile.

“I think I’ll have a gin and tonic.”

“No problem. Can I get you guys any food?”

“I am a bit peckish,” says Mum.

“Ok,” says the man getting up, “You have a look through the menu while I get your drinks.”

“Cheers,” we say.

“So what is this beer you’ve ordered?” says David.

“Trust me, it tastes like oranges.”

“Oranges? I want it to taste like beer,” I say.

“It does. It just also tastes of oranges. I drink it all the time.”

“Right. I’m choosing the next beer,” I say, picking up the drinks menu.

The barman comes back with the drinks and mum orders a basket of Teriyaki chicken wings with blue cheese sauce for us to share. “Sure thing, they’re on their way,” he says, and disappears into a back room.

The beer really does taste like oranges. It’s drinkable but faintly sickening. I fear more than one pint of the stuff would cause an organised revolt from my stomach. A mutiny of bile.

The barman returns with the chicken wings. “Can I get you anything else?” he says, putting the chicken wings down in the middle of the table. They smell fantastic!

“We’ll have a pitcher of Padst Blue Ribbon,” I say, our beers already finished.

“Ok, anything else?”

“I’ll have another G and T,” says Mum.

“On its way.”

“What’s Blue Ribbon?” says Dad.

“It’s the beer the Hipsters are drinking. I’ve been wanting to see what all the fuss is about for some time.”

The barman returns with the pitcher and mum’s drink. We thank him but by now all the chicken wings are gone so we order more. Those chicken wings, my god, I wish you could taste them. I must remember to Google teriyaki sauce when I get home. I don’t know what it is but spread it on chicken and dunk it in blue cheese sauce and you will create, in your mouth, a kind of heaven.

Sadly with the new beer comes more disappointment. The regretful taste of Padst Blue Ribbon splashes over my tongue and down into my gullet, destroying any taste recollection of the delicious chicken that came before it.

David frowns at his glass. “Great choice,” he says.

“What is that?” says Dad, trying to place the flavour. (Note the “u” in the word “flavor”. Americans, take note, it might not make any sense but it is a well-loved language the quirks of which should be embraced. These random letters that are not needed are relics, a small reminder of the languages origins. You wouldn’t burn all the fossils because we no longer have dinosaurs would you? Wait. We do do that don’t we? Isn’t that what petrol is? Never mind, you know what I mean. Sadly, your version of English makes a lot more sense, is easier to teach, and much more economic. The spell check on my laptop was automatically set to American when I bought it in England, and with the flood of American culture that whispers in the ears of our teens, soon the American way will be the only way. Your power and charm will overwhelm our pointless holdfast on a beloved yet outdated tongue. I must try and stop going off on these tangents, it distracts from the scene).

I have another sip of my beer and the taste brings on a feeling of nostalgia and then a clear memory. “I know what it is. Do you remember those milk bottle sweets we used to get when we were kids?”

“Yes! That’s what it is! It has an aftertaste of milk bottles,” says David.

“It’s not bad,” says Dad (who will admitted drink anything), “A bit strange but quite drinkable.”

“One of these days I will find a normal pint,” I say.

“We could just get a Bud?” says David.

“No! We must persevere and find a beer you can’t get in England that doesn’t taste like fruit, candy, or furniture polish! Once we have found it we can give up and just drink Bud. But not until we find it.”

“Ok.”

We’re back at the RV. We left Porky’s, looked in a few shops, and since then we’ve mostly been milling around. David managed to take a picture of a gofer. Other than that it has been relaxing and uneventful. We sat around the RV, enjoying the sun, smoking cigarettes (I was anyway, the others don’t smoke). Now we are heading over to the restaurant for dinner.

We enter and are shown to a table a row back from the stage. The back wall of the stage is a book shelf loaded to the brim with music books. There is a piano and next to it, at the front of the stage; a microphone.

The waitress appears at our table and asks if she can get us any drinks. She’s kneeling, looking up at us with wide welcoming eyes. They really have nailed the customer service over here. If a British waitress knelt down at a customer’s table in the UK she would be fired for public indecency. She would probably get a good tip though.

“Do you have a beer menu?” I say.

“Yes, sir, right here,” she leans forward and takes a meu from a small stand on the table. She opens it and hands it to me.

“Bloody hell, quite a few.”

“Yes, and they are all brewed locally.”

Here we go again, I think, and David flashes me a look that suggests he’s thinking the same thing.

“Get me a drink, I’ll be back in a minute,” says Dad, excusing himself to use the restroom.

Me and David look through the menu and settle on two different ales. For me and him we get an ale called Left Hand into the Dark Side. Not a promising name but its description makes it out to be a light and refreshing ale. For Dad we order what is called Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale and is described as a Scottish IPA but is actually made locally and the reference to its Scottish-ness is ungraspable and probably non-existent.

Dad comes back and the waitress joins us again to take our food order. “Have you decided?” she says.

“Yes, could I-“

We are interrupted by a sudden tinkering of keys from the piano on the stage.

“Could you excuse me for a moment?” says our waitress.

“Sure.”

“Thank you,” she says, and then puts her order pad down, walks up on to the stage, up to the microphone, and sings Sweet Virginia. The song ends, she thanks the audience, we clap vaguely, and she comes back to finish taking our order.

“What was that about?” I say, as she picks up her order pad.

“This is a live music restaurant. When we don’t have a band the waiters and waitresses take turns doing Vaudeville songs.”

“Got it,” I say.

“I’ll have a 9oz steak,” says David, presumably finding nothing noteworthy or unusual about our singing waitress.

“Me too,” says Dad.

“And me,” says Mum.

“And you sir,” says the waitress to me.

“I think I’ll also have the 9oz steak. But can I have peppercorn sauce with mine?”

“Sure.”

“Pepper what? Where’d you see that?” says Dad.

“On the menu.”

“Add that to mine as well please,” says Dad.

David and Mum also add the sauce, for what is steak without peppercorn sauce? Nothing but a bit of dead cow, that’s what.

The ale, as you will be expecting by now, is another disaster. The worst yet in fact. It has the consistency and hue of dirty toilet water after a bad night on the curry. It is just unpleasant. I can’t understand why anyone would consider this a drink? Not one to be beaten by a drink I force mine down. I have a taste of Dad’s but it is just as bad, not that he seems to mind it. He acknowledges that it is indeed disgusting but drinks it without issue regardless. David gives up on his and calls the waitress over. What is left of David’s beer dad uses to top up his own, creating a combo that would, I suppose, now be called Dirty Bastard Left Hand into the Scottish Dark Side (which is a hideous yet apt description).

“Any chance we can get a few tasters of the rest of your ales?” says David, to the waitress.

“Sure,” she says, “Back in a mo.”

She returns with a wooden rack of shot glasses each filled with liquid that goes from amber, to burgundy, to brown, to black. After tasting them all we order two pints of the amber coloured ale, the name of which I never discover. Dad pours the undrunk shots of ale into his pint glass creating a mixture David and Me are both unwilling to try. Dad continues to drink it like water but grimaces when he finally polishes the thing off.

The streak is good but the Vaudeville tunes are sung with the gusto and brevity of a dying breeze. They inspire boredom and a deep overwhelming sense of loneliness. As they sing you can see the emptiness in the eyes of the waiters and waitresses as they are forced to perform every day for a weirdly delighted, and easily pleased, gaggle of Snow Birds.

The moderate food, iffy ale, and terrible live music has finally taken its toll. As I’m watching the big finale (where all the waitresses and waiters gather on stage and sing something very proud and patriotic about America and how great all of its citizens are), someone taps me on the shoulder.

I turn in my chair and there, at the table next to us, is a young and very excitable Chinese guy. “Yes?” I say.

“I’m sorry to bother you.”

“That’s ok. What do you want?”

“I was just wondering, that guy, is he your dad?”

I look over at the man in question and am quick to surmise an answer, “Indeed he is.”

“Is he famous?”

“That depends. Who do you think he is?”

“Is he the guy that played the doctor in Back to the Future?”

“Great scot!” I shout, “We’ve been rumbled!” David starts laughing, but Dad, in his curiously vacant way, hasn’t seemed to have noticed the interaction. “Let’s get out of here,” I say to the table at large. (Dad is not, by the way, Dr. Emmett Brown.)

Dad calls for the bill and I chuck some money on the table for my bit. David and I wait outside while the rest of the bill is paid so I can have a cigarette.

The evening at this elevation is chilly (a welcome break from the sweaty night that preceded). Luckily David brought a spare jacket with him so we are able to sit outside and have a few cans before we shoot off to bed. I, stupidly, did not think I would have the opportunity to get cold enough on our journey between Arizona and the Mojave Desert in Nevada to need a jacket. David, on the other hand, has enough scepticism (when it comes to weather) to bring two jackets.

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