The Buck starts here…

The day never really began because yesterday never really ended. 12 hour overnight bus rides can really mess with your perceptions of time & space. I have vague recollections of waking up in uncomfortable positions & stopping at random truckers’s cafe in the Vietnamese countryside for surreal pseudo-conversations…

And then at about 6.30am, our destination, Hoi An, within frisbee throwing distance, the rain began. We didn’t view this as either unusual or a significant problem. After all, it is the rainy season. The bus pulled over. The road ahead was flooded. How would we cross? Would we all drown in the attempt? Was the baggage compartment waterproof?

Two “no”s and a “slowly”.

So out jumped the driver, down came the window, and in went the bags, displacing the smug git who thought he had the back seat for the entire trip. The bus inched forward. Just to give you some idea of the water depth, people were crossing the street in boats. We passed two trucks parked back to back in waist-high aqua. Bricks were being passed from one to the other. Slow work. We exited the water with our sanity and baggage intact, entered Hoi An, found a hotel & fell asleep.

A few hours passed. A day dominated by water was doused by a new mini-episode. The shower was cold. No worries. Into the beautiful old town we wandered. We drank some water with our lunch. Our lunch was great. The water was wet. We saw some of the beautiful sights that this UNESCO (The cultural wing of the United Nations) protected town has to offer. This inclued a traditional chinese merchants house which floods every day. All the crafts on show have to be rushed upstairs, helped no end by the pulley system/hole in the ceiling.

After getting measured for a pair of jeans & a shirt (Hoi An is the tailoring hotspot of Vietnam) I decided to leave Jane in a world of fabrics, cuts and other fashion stuff on which I am clueless, and meander back to the hotel. I stopped for a mars bar. It was frozen. As a general rule – frozen biscuits & chocolate bars are great. As a specific rule -frozen mars bars are not. As I ripped open the familiar black wrapper (which inspirationally informed me that eating the contents would help me “work rest & play” – all worthy pursuits I might add.) the heavens opened. Someone upstairs had been on the ice tea’s.

I ducked into a bookshop to wait it out. Bookshops in Asia have an endearing habit of wrapping every book in plastic – thus preventing potential customers from reading any part of the book other than blurb & the sickeningly sycophantic 2 line reviews on the cover. (E.G: “This book was absolutely sensational! You absolutely, positively must, must read it! Yay!”) Having circumnavigated the shop twice it felt like time to move on. And still it rained.

I began to consider how soggy a person would have to be before they qualified as a clump of wet spinach. I reasoned somewhere between 37 & Bolivia. And then my saviour appeared. Cycling along – hands waving objects for sale. Those objects were umbrella’s and raincapes. Really, really, funky raincapes in a a variety of colours. I plumped for purple. A purple plastic bag with holes cut in convenient places for hands and neck. Damn did I look hot. I marched on, feeling impenetrable. The road had become a river. Ankle-deep, but a river all the same. The only safe haven was the pavement. I stepped up. Some Vietnamese people laughed at my outfit. I laughed. We all laughed. A truck drove by and drenched us. The truck driver laughed. We all laughed some more. The river kept flowing. The rain kept falling….

So… I was walking through Central London today on a quest for noodles. This story is not about my quest for noodles. I could have been on a quest for sausages, a quest for Slovakian banjo players, or just out for a stroll. It’s incidental to the main thrust of the story. But while I’m off on a tangent I think its only proper to let you know that my quest for noodles was successful & that my plate of noodles was delicious.

But anyway. Central London. As you may have gathered from calendars, newspaper mastheads etc, the month is currently August. And in Britain – August means summer. And in Central London today we had some traditional British summer weather. Yep. It was pissing down with rain.

I like rain. It’s wet. And it creates glimmer effects. And while some people are unfortunate enough to suffer adversity as a result of rain (landslides, flashfloods, dehydration etc) I’ve always been lucky. That’s not to say I haven’t ever got wet. Coz I have. More than once.

So it was raining. I can’t say with any kind of certainty what people in other countries do to shelter themselves from the rain whilst walking in it. I suppose I could guess. Or I could even do a piece of simple research on the internet. But I can’t really be arsed. And once again I appear to be going off on a tangent. This story is not about other countries or the internet. It’s about Central London on a rainy day in August. Actually, this story is really about umbrellas, and specifically umbrellas held by short people.

Ok. So In Britain when it rains people either A use an umbrella, or B wear a hood. Now clearly these are not the only alternatives. Nor are they mutually exclusive. Earlier today I witnessed my dear mother perform the umbrella/hood combo. She called it “double protection”.

So I’m walking in Central London in the rain. Alone. (That’s not particularly relevant – I’m just trying to help you set the scene in your mind) I had opted for option B. If everyone else in London had chosen the same option then this story would never be on your screen, distracting you from your spreadsheets/emails/porn. But they hadn’t. And herein lies the problem. The crux of the matter if you will. I’m about 5 foot and 10 inches. That’s my vertical height before anyone gets too excited. It is with no particular measure of pride that I can tell you that a goodly sized percentage (I have absolutely no idea how goodly sized) of people on this beautiful planet are shorter than me.

Ok. Try & picture short people. You may be one yourself in which case this will be pretty easy for you. There may be one in the room with you. Look at them. If they’re feeling particularly benevolent get them to stand up with an extended umbrellla in one hand. (Forget that utter tosh you were told as a child about this being bad luck. The reason your mother told you not do it is because she was afraid of EXACTLY what I’m gong on about – or will be if I ever get to it) I doubt anybody, anywhere who’s reading this (and has got this far – cheers for sticking with me by the way, you’re clearly a masochist for rambling tales of crap) will actually do the whole benevolent short friend with an umbrella indoors idea. Ok. never mind. I may as well just get to the bloody point.

The bloody point.

Short(er) people carrying umbrellas put taller people at risk. Why?? The damn metal spikes! Whose idea was it to put metal spikes on an implement designed to be held somewhere around eye level??? It’s total insanity!! And does this implement cure cancer or help make hydrogen into a usable energy? Nope. It protects people from the sweet loving rain that waters our gardens, fields & allotments. Now if one had full visibility in a street chock-a-block with short(er) people wielding umbrellas then things might not be so bad. A little dicey perhaps, but I think we could keep the casualty figures down in the low teens if we all stayed alert. But you’ve forgotten option B. The hood. Next time you’re wearing a hood try checking your peripheral vision. it aint exactly 20/20. Now try wearing your hood and walking in a busy city street where metal spikes are constantly coming at you from all directions. It’s not as bad as, say, wheelchair kickboxing. But its a hell of a lot worse than , say, yesterday. When the sun was shining.