A novel by Gregory David Roberts, an Australian armed robber, heroin addict and prison escapee. The story is about his life on the run, beginning when he lands in Bombay as a stranger and working through extraordinary adventures living in the slums, joining the mafia, acting in Bollywood and standing with the Mujahideen, living, loving, fighting, healing.

It is an exceptionally powerful story of life in Bombay’s underbelly, with a richness and truthfulness about it that is lyrical. The portrayal of characters is nothing but genius with a true love for India shining through.

Very few books come close to this.

I’ve started a new List of Things I’d Like to Do before I Meet the Great Tortoise in the Sky. It is a work in progress and I thought it would be nice to throw it open to suggestions from my wonderfully wise and well-wandered readers. And you.

Just leave a comment to this post and I will update the list if your dumb idea makes the cut.

No suggestion is too vague or precise. It could be something you have done or something you can comfortably lie about having done. It could be something you heard someone else doing or something you aspire to do in the future. We might even do it together!

I entertain the vague hope that this list will galvanise me into action and it might possibly even convince you to do something about your lazy-ass life!

I believe such a list is called a ‘Kick-The-Bucket List’.

Facts and figures.

Sights seen: British Museum, Kew Gardens. St. Paul’s Cathedral (in time for Sunday Mass). Hyde Park. Royal Albert Hall. Tate Modern. Hammersmith Apollo. Southbank. Regents Park. Covent Garden. Holland Park. Tower of London. Trafalgar Square. Big Ben. Marble Arch. The Burroughs. Piccadilly Circus. Leicester Square. Spitalfields. The Golden Hinde. Stag Beetles.

Distance covered: approx 60 miles.

Bridges crossed: Hammersmith, Putney, Westminster, Millennium, London, Tower.

Food and Drink: The Coach and Horses, Kew. Fuel, Covent Gardens. The Crispy Duck, Chinatown. The Slug and Lettuce, Soho. Nando’s, Southwark. The Pastry Shop, Euston Station. Various hot dogs, delicious and otherwise.

Celebrities spotted: Graham Norton, Johnny Vegas.

Highlights.

Has to be the Stag Beetle display at Kew Gardens. A bunch of tree trunks. Nothing else.

The Fuel balcony in Covent Garden is one heck of a cool place to be. Especially with pitchers of Long Islands.

And the Best-Burger-Ever Award goes to the Coach and Horses Hotel for a succcccculent burger and secret recipe mayo that was very memorable.

The celebs were like bookends to our visit; Graham Norton with two dogs at a Hyde Park hot dog stand by The Serpentine as we set out on a fine Saturday morning, and Johnny Vegas coming the opposite way in Euston Station as we were dashing with our bikes to get the train home to Manc.

p.s. we may have been in the presence of more celebs over the course of the weekend, but it’s fitting that I only recognised comedians.

For the first time in the UK an incumbent Prime Minister joined in live televised debate with the leaders of opposing parties.

Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg was always going to fare better than the other two as he was going in with nothing to lose and all to gain. With Labour’s Brown and Conservative Cameron pandering to him on the night (I suppose they were instructed not to publicly pick on the new kid) he grew a set of cojones and came out trumps. With the publicity he’s gained the Lib Dems have gone from long-standing laughing stock and also-rans to serious contenders. Betcha my Grannie to your old shoes they’ll try to shred him in the next two debates.

The performance of the other two? Brown looked stolid but tired and Cameron was patronisingly slimy as ever.

I guess what annoys me most about these so-called debates is that I, conceivably prematurely, foresee an inevitable decline of British politics towards the kind of show-boating and back-stabbing one-upmanship that will denigrate the almost faultless lives that our leading politicians lead.

Hah!

What really bothers me actually is the fact that we’ve now agreed, nay, demanded! as ‘The Public’, to be impressed by the person who’s most well-turned-out. Because that’s (pretty much) all that the televised debates will be able to highlight.

With record viewing figures (average 9.4 million, peak 9.9, which “beat even Coronation Street”) being quoted in the papers, it almost seemed as if they were competing against the other “talent” shows that abound nowadays.

Fair enough to say, the media is having its predictable field day with the ‘who-looked-at-whom, who-wore-what’ inane chatter.

I despair.

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly.

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansions
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.

You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins.

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do.

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand over your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead.

-Dylan

Tragedy in Moscow. I remember when a bomb went off in the underground floor of the Okhotniyy Ryad shopping mall next to the Kremlin. This is going to have serious repercussions, with Medvedev speaking in emotive terms.

Blair joins the Fray. Blair praises Brown. Desperate times with desperate measures indeed.

Rooney Injured. Munich pay back for 1999 with 2 late goals to finish 2-1 up in the first leg against Man U. But England fans will be more concerned about Rooney limping off at the end.

Ricky Martin is Gay. Whod’ve known?

I got this film through the post (via LoveFilm) and was disappointed at seeing the title. I didn’t remember choosing it and worse, it was rated 15 (I swore to myself as a child that as soon as I could legally watch 18 Certificate films I wouldn’t bother with any other type. I mean, what’s the point?) so I expected I had added it to my list while having a fit of “Culture Guilt”. This obviously meant the film would be “arty”, which in the world of DVDs mostly equates to ‘boring’.

But I was wrong. This was indeed a rather slow-paced movie, with the one lead actor on screen 95% of the time. But this wasn’t art, it was sci-fi at its simple, emotive best. Sam Rockwell is Sam Bell, an employee of a large organisation working alone on a 3-year contract on a far-side lunar base helping extract helium for use on Earth. He has an accident and then discovers a chilling truth about his existence on the moon. The film is a great example of what can be done with a good storyline. It stays firmly in classic sci-fi territory, but manages not to feel dated at all. I was quite moved by the film and delighted I saw it.

Apparently it’s won Best British Independent Film 2009 (2 wins, 7 nominations), and was nominated for 2 BAFTAs in 2010. Well done Duncan Jones for his directorial debut. All on a budget of $5 mill.

Sam Rockwell is really convincing in his role. And casting Kevin Spacey for the voice of the robotic-servant module GERTY 3000 was sheer brilliance.

Spotted: Best newspaper story headline of the current year (so far) in the free Metro.

Regarding the England Cricket team to line up against Bangladesh –

“Cook copes without Onions”

Captain Alastair Cook was left without bowler Graham Onions after an injury.

“Mesdames et Messieurs, j’ai l’honneur de vais vous presenter le soir de African Soul Rebel.”

Only the greatest night! Like, what, forever!

It was Sunday night at the Bridgewater Hall. As ever, the moment of walking into Manchester’s Crown Jewel of Musical Experiences was one to be savoured. I had Ioan and Jessy for company, and as we sat at our Circle seats I wondered whether the artists I’d suggested we see would be met with approval.

It opened with a bang. The Orchestre de Cotonou, strongly reminiscent of Buena Vista SC and Orchestra Baobab yet memorable in their own right, were groovy and more suited to a open air beach bar where gorgeously honeyed people sip cocktails into the night, swaying along with the palm trees. The horns, the bass, the drums, the big band sound, yeah man. They’ve been going for almost 50 years, and listening to them really felt like a bit of a time-warp. The guys from Benin were over much too soon for my liking.

I’d like to stay positive about the second act, the Kalahari Surfers. I’m assured they played and continue to play a not insignificant role in the political arena of South Africa with regards to the anti-Apartheid movement. However, while listening to them the thought kept occuring to me that three people were jerking off on the stage and expecting me to clap. Perhaps all music doesn’t sound good in the Bridgewater, as I previously thought. I can tell you that their electro-funk / kindergarten-poetry-recital effort certainly didn’t. And talk about stage presence! I was bored so numb I actually closed my eyes and recalled with no small delight a memorable rainy day spent indoors watching paint dry. But the organisers are surely to blame for buying a bull and asking it to give milk.

But perhaps it was a well-engineered pause, before the total immersion ahead.

As we sat down for the third time, we saw musicians enter with the tamalane, flute, djembe and guitar. As they took their places, two lithe girls entered stage left with calabash in hand and walked to the right, the strings started plucking and they opened with the choral ‘Kayi ne Wura’ (Good evening to all).

How would I describe her music? The rythms are mesmerising and primal. And when she, not too often, just opens the throttle and lets rip there’s almost an audible rustle of everyone’s goosebumps across the hall. And the subject is very homely; women and their lot, love and respect. She has always been critical of the treatment given to women in her home-town Bamako, Mali. There is castigation, but there’s also hope. And not understanding a word only made it better.

The time just flew by.

I first heard Oumou from a CD I picked up at Manchester’s Central library. It was a BBC World Music compilation with the soulful ‘Ne Bi Fe’ (I love you), which I shamelessly ripped. It led me to finding the 2-disc compilation album ‘Oumou’, which I treasure. I’ve now bought her new ‘Seya’ album.

Merci beaucoup pour tout.