Sobering Thoughts

It is Christmas Day 2009 as I bring Part 1 of Amsterdamned, the Blog, to a close. Part 2 will see me incarcerated but before I get to the action that saw me imprisoned I would like to place a few words down here in respect of the Netherlands and its Justice system. On Tuesday in China, a British National Akmal Shaikh will die by lethal injection for importing heroin into China in 2007. He has Bipolar Disorder, the same condition that I was diagnosed with in the Netherlands. It is possible to go undiagnosed for a long time.  I thought my sentencing at the time was harsh but perhaps if I had done it in China I too would have been facing the death sentence. Even though I felt my initial sentence of 90 days to be harsh, the Dutch Justice system needed this time to interview me and assess my mental health condition. The fact that they did it says a lot for their humanity and values as a society. Perhaps we should not be surprsied by China’s hard line attitudes especially as this is the nation that invaded Tibet but to state that Akmal had no history of mental illness and that it is up to him to provide evidence is absurd. I didn’t know that I had this devastating condition. You don’t because you lose touch with so called reality. You have no insight into your condition. 

My actions of the late morning, early afternoon of August 8th 2005 are as follows. I needed money but I had no identification. I shuffled around Centraal Square in Amsterdam. I went into an ABNM Amro Bank and said that I needed money. I had no I.D. I swore and muttered and left. I saw some Community Police Officers. I approached them and said that I had a bomb. They shook their heads and walked on. I saw a policeman on a motorbike who was dealing with two people. I approached him and said. “I would follow me if I were you, I am holding a bomb strapped to me”. The motorcycle policeman dutifully followed from a distance whilst radioing back to base.

I saw two people busking, Romanians playing an accordian. Then I did it. I dropped my trousers and mooned at the policeman on the motorcycle. I looked back and saw him shake his head. I think he smiled, then rode off. I can only surmise that HQ had told him to back off as I was a known ‘bomb threatener’. That would be my last. I looked for a police station and found one and lo and behold it was the woman from the police station at the red Light District, the same night that I went to report the assault by police officers on my person. She was talking to some people giving them directions. I walked up to the counter and told her that I had a bomb and that  I was going into the toilet to explode it. The faces of the tourists said it all but the policewoman looked quite sad really.  Nobody was listening to me. Nobody was taking me seriously. I shuffled out and again reminiscent of Rotterdam I crossed the street and there was a Taxi, a 1950’s Buick, I think . The drivers name was Harry Kroes. I’ll never forget this kind gentleman. Again like the kindly driver in Rotterdam, he believed me when I told him that I would get some money from the Hotel Gooiland in Hilversum and pay him when we arrived. Half way to Hilversum , I said ” take me to Utrecht” but he wouldn’t. I could see doubts flashing across his face but we were chatting and I could tell from his Taxi I.D that he was from the Balkans. A Naturalised Nederlander.

I had come full circle. In 8 days I had traversed the Netherlands in a triangle and now I was back in Hilversum. This was to be my Waterloo. Harry parked the car at the roundabout and I walked up the steps to the reception.

I said to the woman “I purchased some of those little snowglobes here last week and I would like a refund”. I didn’t have the globes, they were at the foot of atree in Forgotten town. The girl shook her head and I shuffled backwards like a wounded fox. I told Harry it was no-go and then I told him I would get some money from the Chinese Herbalists on the roundabout. I asked to borrow 10 euros. The man siad something that sounded like bollocks. The woman looked upset. Harry was standing outside and with utmost compassion he wished me well and said that he hoped that I would be OK. What a guy!

I shuffled up the concrete pedestrianised thoroughfare of Hilversum. Its quite unremarkable and boring. I saw an ABN/Amro Bank.

This was the bank in Hilversum that I had been using when I had credit cards to withdraw funds. I shuffled in. I was bent over, exhausted, in flipflops, stinking like a month old fish out of water, looking like I’d escaped from a mental hospital and I entered and lent on a watercooler. Some guy in front of me was taking ages and I muttered and growled. I approached the desk with six numbers in my mind. Six numbers that I had been given as identification by the angry bank teller in Menai Bridge. Six Numbers that the woman in the Post Office in forgotten Town had said “No” to me. Those six numbers now meant ‘Fuck all’ now anyway because my Driver’s Licence and Passport were lying underneath a cat on a boat in Leiden.

“I would like to withdraw 500 euros please”. said I

“Could I see some identification please” said she  quite correctly.

“I don’t have any”. I replied

“Then I’m afraid that I can’t give youany money”, said she, wrinking her nose at the smell.

“If you don’t give me any money, then I will explode a bomb and if you come back, then you’ll come back as rats”

Those 24 words and me moving my jacket as if to open it were enough to see me charged with attempted bank robbery. I shuffled over exhausted to the waiting area where the manager and assistant walked over and said “We will now have to call the police”.

“Call the fucking police” I replied, got up[ and shuffled out of the bank. I walked up the street. I passed a shop and picked a football magazine off the rack. A police car drove silently up the street without its sirens. I hid behind a tree. I could see a woman in a shop window motioning to the police where I was. I flicked the V’s at her. The newsagent with a pencil thin moustache approached. “This person stole this magazine”. “You’ve got it back now, I replied”. The policeman and policewoman bade me enter the back of the car and they drove me to Hilversum police station. The police here were excellent fairplay. They put me in a cell next to a woman who had been arrested for drink driving and was neurotically screaming the place down. I told her to shut up. Fingerprints and photograph! An Interview with a couple of detectives. A cigarette and the arrival of a prison transport. I was going straight to prison. The Huis Van Bewaring Havenstraat (See picture above)

Let us all pray for Akmal Shaikh in China.

Merry Christmas.

Akmal Shaikh was executed at 2.30am G.M.T on 29th December 2009.

Amsterdamned

So I had left my passport and driving licence on a boat in Leiden. Clever guy! So how did you think you had any chance of getting any money now without I.D! Why did I do it? Was this another symbolic laying down of the old identity? This was it now. Only the clothes I had on. Luckily it was summer because I wasn’t wearing a lot. I found my way back to the train station in Leiden. Even though I was manic, psychotic whatever, I still had a rather ruthless sense of direction. I saw an Albert Hein Concession. A shop at the station and I stole an egg and cress sandwich and a fruit juice drink. I shoplifted, yes. Extradite me back to Holland this minute! I was very choosy about what I wanted. It wasn’t a smash and grab or a supermarket sweep. I was either getting braver or more desperate. I heard a squeal from the counter so I must have been spotted but nobody came after me. Nobody shoplifts in Holland, its unheard of! I must be an illegal immigrant. I sat on the train to Amsterdam eating and drinking the forbidden fruit. Surprisingly my thoughts had turned from Cannabis, I was now just interested in survival. “Anybody got a joint”? Once again I was kicked off the train and this time the conductor was less amused. I thought I was going to get frogmarched to Transport Police Headquarters and given a right good kicking by the manager of Albert Hein.    

Any road up, I alighted at a station on the burbs of Amsterdam and I shoplifted again. This time, the National Geographic Mgazine! The subconscious is a strange beast! Lots of pretty pictures of nature. I had gravitated from porn and football mags. 

I was in a pretty bad way by this time. Exhausted, bent over like quasimodo in designer flipflops and big heavy socks. I couldn’t remember the last time I defecated. I was constipated. I needed a shit. So I saw an office block with a designer garden. I went up to a tree with foliage and took a dump right in the heart of commerce. That was nothing to what I would do approximately four hours later! I walked and I walked and I walked or rather I shuffled, I shuffled and I shuffled. I came into a part of the Dam I did not recognise. I thought I’d seen it all. I’d only seen the smoker’s section. I passed by a few old sites. I had to sit down often as my feet were blistered. I spoke to no-one, just nodded my head and muttered and mumbled. One moment, euphoric, the next so scared and withdrawn. So many people! So many fucking people!

It was rubbish day and the citizens and artisans of the Dam were putting their rubbish out. A better class of rubbish than one gets in the UK. I picked up an old suitcase. I wanted to look important. A police car passed. I stopped and saluted the fuckers inside! They waved back.

I worked out that I was on the reverse side of Central Station, the Golden Tulip side (See previous blog) There was a large green area and a fountain. On the corner of the green area was a police station on stilts.

When you look at the picture, you wonder actually how safe these places are? I tried it out by placing the suitcase on an adjoining structure. The Bomb Metaphor again! I was expecting shouts and screams and smoke. You could place anything under one of these babies! Only in Holland!

I walked across the Green Area and placed my feet in the pool. Another rush of adrenalin and I quickened my pace. I needed money, I needed a joint. I walked through Central Station. The Memories came flooding back. A Drowning man and all that! I shuffled through glancing at the oh so confusing left luggage locker room. I walked down the main drag opposite and was making my way back to Central Square.

Lots and lots of ABN Amro Banks and lots and lots of police stations for me to cause mayhem in!

Off at Leiden!

I had caught the train to Amsterdam but I was kicked off at Leiden by a female ticket collector with a sense of humour. She could see I was not the full ticket (Pardon the Pun) and when I gave my address as a cul de sac in South Wales she burst out laughing. She could tell I wasn’t going to give her any trouble. I think she was scrabbling in her pockets for a clothes peg. I must have been ronking by this stage. It was late at night on the seventh coming into the early hours of the 8th August 2005. The day I was to lose my freedom! Why was I to lose my freedom? Because I had Bipolar Disorder? Because I opened my mouth? Because of the explosions in London? Because I had been assaulted in Amsterdam.

Who was that shadowy figure walking through the streets of Leiden? It was me. Once again I had no idea where I was. It looked nice. I found out afterwards that it was  big University town just south of Amsterdam. I was limping in flipflops and boy was I seething by this stage. I knew the game was up. I had no money. No body would give me any. I wasn’t going to beg. I did however pick up a cigarette dimp off the floor. The first and last time. I shuffled down a street and turned right. I had been given a bike in Amsterdam, this time I decided to borrow one. I borrowed a purple one and I am sorry to the owner but at this time my need was greater than theirs. It had a big ‘Fuck Off you Mad Welshman lock’ on it, so I used my superhuman strength to lift it above my head and walked along a street with it. Luckily the streets were faily deserted but they were very well lit. I placed the bike on one of those quaint little bridges and I tried to burn the lock off. The smell of burning plastic wafted into the night air. I limped, the bike limped. I found a bench on a corner of a canal. It was a peaceful and gentle place. There was a little old boat moored at the side of the canal and I tried to sail off on it. It was too well tethered so I put the bike on the front and climbed into the cabin.

  I could see a cat through the single porthole. It was sniffing, it was looking for one of its own and all of a sudden I realised that I had become feral. I was behaving live a wild animal. I was ‘Primal Scream’. I opened a drawer in the galley (You can tell I’m not a sailor) and there was a candle. I took the candle and lit it with the matches I had left. I placed the candle by the bench on the corner of the canal and I laid down. The cat came over for a sniff but decided I was too wild for her tastes.

I heard a siren piercing the night air and on the other side of the canal a police wagon went wailing by. My times up I thought but apart from a cursory glance, they kept going. They had bigger fish to fry.

I had left my passport and driving licence on the boat.  My identification.

I was now officially Mr Nobody. Even though I had felt like that for most of my life.

Freedom?

So here I was a Free Man. Walking around without any baggage apart from the Mental Baggage! Strangely for a Bipolar as yet undiagnosed, I had not considered jumping into a dyke and ending it all. This was all too exciting, too different and too free. My circumstances had changed now though. I had no money. That oh so essential commodity! I wandered around the Dutch Countryside. I sat down underneath a tree.  I could see an Industrial Estate. Like a moth to a flame.  People driving in cars, very few pedestrians. I rang the police. I needed a lift to the train station and they would provide it. They had assaulted me in Amsterdam when I needed help, now I needed a lift. I rang them and said that I had been assaulted. Well I had but a month previously. Fair play they came out and I let them drive past me a couple of times before they stopped. You’ve been assaulted, correct Mr Holmes. Now would you take me to a train station please! I need to get back to Amsterdam. Finally I had decided that it was about time to visit the British Embassy and file that complaint of assault. I was dropped off at the  train station and caught the night  train to Amsterdam.

Forgotten Town

The words of the song by the Christians are going through my mind. I really wish I could put a name to the Hamlet where I left all my worldly possessions. The bag was heavy, full of a Magpies nest. I was exhausted. Sleep Deprivation, not wanting to sleep, not needing to sleep. So much energy! No Social Skills! People, Fucking People. I walked into the library and asked for a light for a cigarette not a joint. I crossed the road to a record shop. Rock and Role and Blues on offer. It was like the one in Utrecht and the superb one on the Harlemstrasse in Amsterdam which I have forgotten to mention. Kindly figures in every one. Now without a bean to my name. I couldn’t buy anything. Credit cards gone. All I had was my Driving Licence and Passport. It was about 5pm on the 7th August 2005. 24 hours later I would be incarcerated. This bag was so heavy. I dragged it across the street. There was an old tree on the corner of the street. I don’t know if it was dead. It was summer and there was no leaves on it. This tree would become my memorial plaque. A monument to my previous life. Twenty six years of undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder. Highs and Lows. Mood Swings. Depression, bingedrinking, self medicating. They would all be commemorated here in Forgotten Town. I had bought two T shirts in a market in Amsterdam. One Green, One Red, Both with Che Guevara and the Cuban Flag on.  Quality! There were old concrete bollards on the corner to stop car drivers alighting the pavements. I placed the T Shirts on the Bollards. The Russian Dolls with Russian Premieres on were unscrewed and placed in the branches of the tree. In a square of mud surrounding the tree I emptied the jars of buttons that I had bought in yes……a button shop in Amsterdam. Mostly Red Buttons! There were buttons with my initials on DW. I pinned the letter that I had sent to the British Embassy to the tree. I wanted the people of Forgotten Town to read my story and weep. I placed an ashtray, in the shape of an inverted Mexican Sombrero and placed a few cigarettes around the edges. Help yoursleves oh citizens of  Forgotten town. Talk about the world and the state its in! Smoke and talk about this poor unfortunate who was blowing little paper globes up and blowing them down the street. I noticed people coming to shop windows and peering through. Car drivers slowed and mocked, smiled or scowled. I had a white CD Player, very nice state of the art. I put that down. All my clothes in a pile on the floor. My final act of farewell to my old life was going through all the names on my mobile phone and deleting almost every one. Who were these people? People who seemed to want something from me. I was a giver and they were the takers. I left the phone to top of the ashtray little thinking that someone would pick it up and use it and spend £500.00 on it while I was incarcerated. You trusting fool. All I had left was the clothes I was stood up in. A Jacklet, trousers, shirt and flipflops. My green trainers gone, this was the only shoe ware I had left. Flip Flops! Oh the Ignominy!. I left forgotten town with my monument on the corner of the street.

The Windmills of My Mind

I was let out of the Police Station with advice to go and apologise to the Garage Owners. No way Hose! I shuffled across the street in no shoes to a a very smart Taxi Driver in a Blazer with grey hair. I told him that I would like to go to Rotterdam Airport where I had money in a bag in a locker but first I needed to go to two places 1) to retrieve my bumbag and harmonicas and shoes from the Happyland Coffeeshop 2) to get my jacket which had my credit cards in at the Ectomorph/Mesomorph Bar. This Taxi Driver was excellent and to be fair they were all excellent, the ones that accepted me. The ones that rejected me…..well! He was on my side, I could tell and he stood guard by the Taxi when I went into the Happyland Coffeeshop. The little shit behind the counter looked as if he’d seen a ‘Jiin’ or a ghost. He was speechless. I asked for my possessions which they had unceremoniously dumped on the street. He just shook his head. I’m not sure but I think I even said ‘Sorry’. That confused him even more. There was no sign of the other two. I returned to the Taxi Driver and I could tell he didn’t approve of the area and of these people. He was very kind to me though. Next the bar from where I saw the Fat Boy and the Windmill where I had hung up my coat. I entered the bar, the jacket was still on the hook but my wallet and cards were gone. It wasn’t so much the credit cards but the photograph of my parents that I was more upset about. I gave the barman and single customer a withering look and back to the Taxi. The Driver took me to Rotterdam Airport where on entry, an airport policeman asked me if there was a problem. I told him that I had a bag in the locker but I couldn’t open it because my token time had run out. He radioed HQ and in Dutch asked for advice. I remember another two officers arriving and the locker being opened. My bag had my driving licence and passport and mobile phone, 4 to 5 jars of assorted buttons that I had bought in yes…..a button shop in Amsterdam. I had Russian Dolls of the Russian Presidents. Little Paper Globes and clothes but no money. All money Gone. Nothing to pay the Taxi Driver. I was escorted by the police and I saw the Taxi Driver at the entrance being spoken to by the policeman. Poor Bugger. I will apologise if I see him again.

I was interviewed at length at the Airport. I think they knew they had a ‘Madman’ on their hands but as with most Dutch, they were very gracious. If their compatriots had been a tad more gracious in Amsterdam on Sunday 10th July, then perhaps I would not be standing here now on August 7th. I used the mobile phone to ring Natwest Bank in Menai Bridge to transfer £500.00 to me by Western Union but they were taking too long and I started shouting and chwarae teg, the woman on the other end started shouting back. Ihadn’t experienced that before. It was like a verbal slap and did the trick. I calmed down in front of the bemused officers. I explained to them  that I would be picking money up from Western Union and would they be kind enough to take me to a Post Office. The angry lady had given me a set of numbers to present to the Western Union People and I felt sure that I would be back on my travels but I had not banked on my reduced dopamine, serotonin and nora-drenaline levels. I was literally close to exhaustion but yet the Celtic Shaman kept going on his journey to the otherworld. My head was in the clouds but my feet were planted firmly on the floor. I remember seeing the Taxi Driver being escorted from the Police station, scratching his head. “Why do I pick them?” he must have been thinking. I would like to find out the name of the town, well more like a village that the police took me to. I know that it wasn’t far from Rotterdam Airport but it had a Post Office, a Library and a Rock and Roll record Shop.

The two police officers who had been ‘as good as gold’ dropped me at the post office and I made the mistake of telling them that they should leave. “Are you sure?” they replied with genuine concern.

I entered the Post Office and there was a woman, middle aged, unsmiling ready to give me some grief. I handed over my passport and the six numbers. Computer says no! “We do not recognise those numbers”.  I swore, I muttered, I left. Leaving the Post Office I banged my head on a tree outside. Didn’t knock any sense into me. It just made me more angry.

The Walk of Cain Continued. 

 

The Second Arrest

I came to a turning which led back down into the Docks. I turned and ‘Fucking Bubba’ was still coming after me. It should have been me chasing him for not giving me a cup of water. I turned, looked at him, took off my belt and cracked it like a whip and walked slowly down the alleyway. He knew I would strangle him and toss his body into the dock.

The euphoria, the strength, the madness, the freedom I was feeling was soon to be shattered.

Sirens, vans, shouting police officers, dogs.

“Put your hands above your head and lie down on the ground”

“Tell your dogs to shut up” I replied. The barking was incessant and when I turned to see two short  lady police officers chatting it sealed my confirmatory bias. Why did they always send out a brickshithouse and two lady police officers to arrest me? Practice I can only surmise.

I was taken to a police station and the next thing I remember was waking up in a cell. I was noisy and I was loud. I started singing, I started shouting. I was talking to myself incessantly.

I was angry with those guys for refusing me a cup of water.

A black lady police officer opened the door to the cell and gave me a slice of bread and a cup of tea. It was then time for Ring Recreatie. Exercise, well cigarette smoking in the yard. It was cold and I was shivering. I talked to everyone and then to no-one.

I remember being seen by a Doctor who was a real gent and we talked. He empathised with me and I empathised with him. A kindly policeman said that perhaps I should go back and apologise to the Garage Owners. I felt like going back and firebombing them. They had retrieved my cheque shirt. I still had no shoes and they let me leave just like that. I wonder if they had seen my previous escapades on the police computer. Wasn’t it time to be sectioned?

The Texaco Garage From Hell

If any Rotterdamians are by chance reading this they will know that not far from the tunnel to the Pedestrian Crossing under the Maas is a Roundabout. It was on the circumfirence of this roundabout that I laid down prostrate like a corpse. I had run, hobbled, stumbled from the Happy Land and found a grassy knoll and before a sniper’s bullet rang out, I knelt down to pray. I lifted my arms to the heavens in front of the Saturday Traffic. I had spotted a Security guard, a black female who had popped her head out from a cubicle on the underpass when I was having my ’Red Flag Moment’ on the subway. She had nodded her head at me as if this type of thing happened everyday. My anger and rage knew no bounds and my method acting skills were honed enough for me to launch into a Shakespearean Soliloquy.

“Madam I have been stabbed, please call the Police”.

My opinion of the Police Force as Chocolate Teapots was not to change, because even though they came out in a van, and found my prostrate body by the roundabout, when I informed them that I had been stabbed in the Happyland Coffeeshop, I was told “we are not an ambulance”. Carl Reiner’s words in ‘Dead Men don’t wear Plaid’ sprang to mind “I’m a butler not a catcher.” If I had been stabbed I would surely have bled to death, as by now exhausted, I was passed by countless cars and a flock of runners. To be fair one did ask if I was OK. I got up and continued my walk of Cain. This was an intense Manic Psychosis. I wasn’t really enjoying it but by golly, it was proving my confirmatory bias correct. These ‘fuckers’ had flown their planes into the twin towers, they had blown up the trains in Madrid and they had devastated London with their bombs on the transport system. Now they wouldn’t even give me a cup of water. What had happened to the Milk of Human Kindness? I realise now that you cannot tar everyone with the same brush but the emotional scars and confirmatory bias are taking awhile to heal.  I was walking alongside a dual carriageway with no shoes on my feet. Nothing. I was the Barefoot Shaman charging like a headless man into Hades. I found Hadez rather quickly. It was a Texaco Garage.

I was parched. I needed a drink of water or a joint. Either would do. I knew which would be better for me. I entered and told the man who was a fat, not so jolly mesomorph that I had just had a run in at the Happyland Coffeeshop and could I have a cup of water please ? He shook his head. I took a magazine and a flower pot and left.  He came round the counter faster than his frame and grabbed me by the shoulder. I called him Bubba! Bubba had a strong grip and wouldn’t let me go. I had thrown the flowers and magazine to the floor by this stage and Bubba had an advantage because I was exhausted. There was a Family guy filling his car with a wife and daughter in tow and he wanted to thrown in his euros worth. Bubba pushed me to the ground and this guy proceeded to walk up and down in front of me. “It’s people like you who give this country a bad name”. People like me, you fucker, You don’t know me. I got up and gave Bubba the slip. He was hanging on to my Blue Cheque shirt and I ran. Just me, my naked torso, trousers and a belt. I hobbled a while but suddenly a spurt of adrenalin saw me speed up like an extra of f  Chariots of Fire. I couldn’t believe it Bubba was still after me and the guy on the forecourt was till shaking his head.

There is a Happy Land

This is a Rainbow across the Maas river kindly provided by Flickr.com. All the pictures on this blog so far have been downloaded from Flickr.com and I would like to acknowledge that here. Thank you Flickr and its photographers.

The Rainbow goes over the Maas. I went under it playing ’The Red Flag’ on a Green Harmonica. I didn’t find a crock of gold at the end of this rainbow I found a coffeeshop by the name of ‘Happyland’. A name so ridiculous. It certainly was not a Happyland for me but then again those of you of a non empathic nature might think that the following events were well desreved. Anyway less of the preamble! Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. 

I came out of the Maas Pedestrian Tunnel shielding my eyes from the glare. What was the first thing I saw but a sign saying ‘Sauna’.  Monkey Mind engaged I approached forgetting that I had left my credit cards in the Ectomorph/Mesomorph Bar on the North Side. I went down the steps thinking a sauna on a Saturday, how civilised. 

I pressed the buzzer. The first thing the guy said to me was “This is a gay sauna”.

“Ok I replied I’ll just have a coffee then”,

 Me and my coffees! It must have been the stimulant properties working with the dopamine and serotonin. 1 euro down on the coffee.

I needed a joint. I was addicted, there was no point denying it. With my two euros  I walked some more and realised that this was a rough downtime area so to find a gay sauna was unexpected. Or was I just not with it? 

Two blocks away as the Americans say I came across a coffeeshop. The Happyland.

I walked across the threshold and the first thing I said ” Do you know that a bomb has been left in a Novotel in North Rotterdam”. He looked delighted. The guy was Turkish I think and he got on to his mobile straight away and was talking animatedly. I asked for the cheapest joint at a Euro 50 cents. Mistake! I was obviously so high but didn’t realise it that this little bleeder would send me skyrocketing over rainbows. I would be walking on the moon. I reckoned that I had this guy sussed. He was of the same persuasion as the guys who blew up the buses and trains in London. The ones who swore at me and chased me in Amsterdam. As I sat inhaling the fumes at the back of the shop I cultivated a hatred for this horrible guy and his like. I was obviously thinking in extremist terms. Purely black and white thinking! (I obviously don’t think like that today, having read up on my history. Now its wonderful shades of grey)

I had one euro left. I went walkabout again and this time the Bipolar Mania?psychosis took full hold. I walked and walked and walked and I could not stop. In the blazing hot midday sun I was like Beau Gest crossing the desert. I was limping. I was walking around the largest port in Europe,   if not the world,  and I think I must have walked it all. I was walking in a full circle and some events that I remember were engaging an elderly couple in conversation from a hundred yards. He was taking a leak and she was watching him or holding it. I shouted an expletive across and they shouted expleteives back. I then got very angry and shouted a hundred expletives like Captain Haddock from the Tintin Book. They walked away quickly.   

I was walking passed a line of cars and shouting at the drivers “I’m doing this for you, you fuckers. I’m doing this for you”. I must have thought I was Jesus which was pretty normal for a Bipolar Delusion. I had no idea where I left my cross. A little further on and I was in a real Docks area with engineering yards and lorries with Timber on the back.  I jumped on the back of an open wagon with timber and I cried. First time and the last time. It was’nt crying. It was sobbing like Anthony Hopkin’s C.S Lewis in Shadowlands. I was sobbing my soul because there was no way out. Some dockers in blue overalls shouted over but I just got off the truck and limped off into the sunset. Well not exactly, I don’t know how many kilometres I had covered but I found myself back at the Happyland Coffeeshop area. I didn’t want a joint, just a glass of water. I went in again and was so exhausted went to sit down and finished the other half oth e joint which I had purchased there previously. He accepted that fact but he didn’t flinch when I asked him for a cup of water. He refused, shook his head. That was a red rag to a bull. I want some water, not wine, you fucker. I took a drag on my dimp and looked at him cooly and said

“I fought with your lot in Chechnya and do you know what you’re a bunch of lazy fuckers”.

Don’t forget I was wearing my hat full of Soviet Badges. I had flagged myself as a Soldier of fortune.

Next

” Have you seen the way white women look at you?…… they hate you?

He must have been on the mobile because with that a ‘Brick Shithouse’ who lokked like Alexei Sayle came through the door carrying a chair leg. Another guy came out of a side door. Oh shit, me and my big mouth.  I had taken my shoes off hadn’t I!

They move towards me and grab me. “Get off I shouted” and then I started moving my arms like the windmills of Holland. They were pushing me towards a back room and my head went through a curtain to see the dingiest kitchen in Islam. That was it. I screamed like a girl and kicked and punched. I moved forward and gave it the old whirling dervish. With that they pushed me to the front of the shop and threw me out in street. These were angry guys and threw my shoes, my bumbag, my shirt which had been torn off after me. I was thrown on the pavement and the Alexei Sayle character had now morphed into Alfred Molina and was kicking and punching me and giving me a beating with the chairleg. The blows were glancing off me. I remember a black dude walking passed looking concerned but not intervening. Don’t Blame him. I left my possesions on the ground and ran. I looked back and Alfred Molina was sticking his head round the corner. I looked back and laughed and whooped and hollered.

Oh yes, there is a Happyland.

The Maas Pedestrian Tunnel

I found the entrance to the Maas Pedestrian Tunnel. North Side Feyenoord Side leading to the South,the Spartan side or so I presumed. On my walkabout I saw a huge Chinese Pagoda shaped restaraunt which I made a beeline for. I walked up the gangplank. It was about miday and the place was like the Marie Celeste. I thought that the staff would recognise me from ancient Taoist Mythology, the Great Communist and offer to give me a free lunch. No such thing, I was ignored, so I left. I soon came to the entrance of the Maas Pedestrian Tunnel. If you’ve walked down it, across it, you’ll know that the accoustics are amazing. It made my Harmonica playing sound like Larry Adler on Speed. It was like I was on Speed. I only found out recently that much Dutch Cannabis of the stronger skunk variety has the same affect as speed. Out came the Green Harmonica. I favoured the Green over the Blue for some reason.

Oh Tanenbaum on a loop. I had got the first half almost note pefect but it was the tricky middle bit which was confusing me as whether to suck or blow. I was on the march. Well my subconscious was on the march anyway.   I got to the South Side and as I came up the Escalators I stopped by the CCTV cameras to play one last rousing rendition and to stare with intent into the third eye of Big Brother. This was quite some journey for this caterpillar. Unfortunately there was still no Butterfly.