The trip to the spice market and the pointless box

The spice market was a must-visit destination, even though no spices could realistically be bought. Just imagine the state of the suitcase after being tossed about in the holds of two planes and the attendant baggage trolleys and belts.

The aroma of the place was wonderfully exotic. In fact, the whole of Istanbul smelt good - spicy cooking smells, raw spices, sea air. Given all the cats it could have been different, but then given all the cats there probably weren't any rodents.

I couldn't buy spices but I could buy a pointless box. 

In fact, I bought some small glass bowls, key rings, fridge magnets as well as the pointless box. They all survived the trip home and were dispersed to relevant family members.

(Istanbul blog 4 of 9) << previous : –: next >>

Istanbul – Military museum with cats

A reception at a military museum in Istanbul. Instead of hitching a ride on the buses provided to convey delegates to the venue, we walked. Other than a handful of hair-raising road crossings we arrived in good time, but at the back of the building.

An armed guard directed us round to the other side, which turned out to be quite a trek. The city is fascinating for all sorts of reasons, the cats only one small part of the general fascination. There are cats all over Istanbul in the way that some cities sport dogs. But not scrawny fearful streaks of fur glimpsed diving for cover, these are sleek shiny well-fed beasts that look like family pets, except that there are so many of them.

A grass verge followed the path of the metal bars keeping us out of the museum site as we made our way round the perimeter, the grass sometimes spilling across to the civilian side. And there in a corner sat a tray of dry cat food, a dozen or so felines strolling around it, casting narrow-eyed glances at each other but showing no concern about the tramp of pedestrians within inches of their noses or the racing traffic. I even saw one of them cross the road, with far more aplomb than I'd managed.

In the growing dusk pools of fur dotted the grassy expanse. Cats asleep, catching up on their 18 hours. No wailing and spitting, just an occasional raised hackle. I was to find out at a later event that these cats are as friendly as any family pet and tolerate no liberties.

Given the unpredictability of Istanbul's traffic, the buses had allowed an hour but made it in half that time, leaving stacks of thirsty delegates waiting for the bar to open. We arrived bang on time and were offered drinks as we stepped over the threshold.

The venue was chosen so we had a grandstand view of the city's firework display which was spectacular. The lights were dimmed so we could get the full effect. Alas my camera isn't up to nighttime photography, but the blurry splashes of light hide an incredible show.

(Istanbul blog 3 of 9) << previous : –: next >>

The Istanbul Taksi

...probably a far more logical spelling than our Taxi... The Istanbul taksi is a resilient and fast-moving beast. You know how it is when you're on a 2-lane highway that's jammed with traffic and you wish you could just surge forward and carve out a third lane all for yourself? Well, the Istanbul taksi can do just that.

And you know that thing where you've had the seats down in the back to make the boot bigger and you stand them up again and the seat belts get lost behind them so the car appears to have no seat belts at all. Well, that, too. Being magical beasts, the Taksi needs no seat belts. Certainly no one wears them.

And you know The Knowledge that London taxi drivers do? Well, not that. Istanbul is HUGE with thousands of taksis and they say 'Yeah, no problem' when you give them an address or show them a map, but after they've driven a few miles very fast and carved out a few of their own traffic lanes, they wind down their windows and discuss destinations with other taksi drivers. They sometimes show each other the tourist map that you gave them in the first place, but that's for entertainment between them, because the tourist map is, as one colleague put it, 'spectacularly useless, more of an artist's impression than a map.'

As you can see, I fell into the trap of assuming the taksi to have magic properties - all that carving out of lanes where none exist, of flying from one end of this vast city to the other, always getting there, never landing in a heap to be shovelled up by the emergency services... so I felt supremely safe and confident even in the taksi where he stopped in the sinister (4-lane, busy) underpass and briefly opened the passenger door as though about to throw someone out. We assumed it would be M landing on the tarmac. M had been misdirecting the taksi round and round this underground maze asking to be thrown out really. Taksi drivers should be left to discuss directions amongst themselves.

But then we took a taksi back to the airport. We raced along the motorway. Three lanes all full of traffic. Saw a taksi ahead take a dive at the hard shoulder and then pull back into line with the other cars as though it were an ordinary vehicle and not a magic transport machine. Then we saw the magic breaker. Big van labelled Trafic Polis, understandable in any language. They had their grappling hooks into another taksi. And sure enough, the magic dissipated. We passed any number of cars - taksis and ordinary ones with their sides stoven in, just as one would imagine the sides of cars would routinely become concave if a swarm of yellow vehicles raced about at speed carving out their own traffic lanes.

Maybe magic doesn’t work on motorways. Maybe we were just lucky.

(Istanbul blog 2 of 9) << previous : –: next;

Locked up for being a writer

In Istanbul we were asked if we would represent the International Authors’ Forum at a press conference at which Ola Wallin (Chair of the International Publishers Association Freedom to Publish Committee) read a statement in support of writers in Turkey, calling specifically for the release of translator Deniz Zarakolu who has been held in prison for over two years without charge, and calling also for dropping of charges against publisher Ragip Zarakolu.

Writers in Turkey under the current regime can be imprisoned for months or years without any charges being laid. 'Evidence' against them can come from anonymous sources and be too woolly to counter: someone claims to have heard an unspecified something at an unspecified date/place that is claimed as 'proof' of an unspecified offence. Punishment by way of jail ‘awaiting charge/trial’ follows.

The official press release is below. On behalf of the International Authors Forum we gave it our support.

In an unfortunate coincidence of a footnote, a journalist who had been at the press conference was prevented from boarding a plane out of Turkey later that day. It turned out to be nothing more than an overbooked plane but Turkish writers are routinely jailed for far lesser 'offences' than attending press conferences and giving interviews. The incident provided further pause for thought for those of us who attended and were vocal in our support.

It is great that we can take our own freedoms for granted, but must guard against becoming so blasé that we lose them.

(Istanbul blog 1 of 9)  Next >>

And All The Fun Of The Fair

#hullfair On the way to the Big Wheel

All the old favourites like Hook a Duck

From the top of the Big Wheel

Food colouring and additives, extra sticky, deep-fried with chips

On the way home

What can you do with a lot of grapes?

For five years we tried to grow grapes. The vines grew 6 inches then keeled over. Then a few years ago this happened. The vine grew all the way up the wall and invited itself in.

We prune it to an inch of the ground every year. Clearly it doesn't mind.

It's a glass-roofed room, so too cold to sit in most of the winter. In the summer it’s great, but...

... although the vine leaves keep the glare of the sun out, the vine leaks sap. The sap makes newsprint run so it’s an unpredictable business sitting in there with a cuppa reading a newspaper. 

Splat! Half the article is indecipherable. Splash! Direct hit in the tea. 

I suppose grape sap isn't poisonous.

Now they're just starting to ripen. And what can you do with all those grapes but convert them into bottles of red wine?

Hearing voices outside my head @livingaudio247

It has never occurred to me before to link voices with a rabbit’s ears and Belgium. I've lived with a lot of people’s voices inside my head but never heard them through my ears. Living Audio is turning The Doll Makers into an audio book and I'm going to hear Annie’s voice for the first time. Not only her, also Pieternel, Aunt Marian, Dean, Mike and all the cast.

listen to ‘Studiocast 1: James is getting prepared to record #TheDollMakers by @PennyGrubb’ on Audioboo

So wherefore the rabbit’s ears? It’s a weirder feeling than it should be, knowing that the audio project is going ahead and I’m going to hear the voices of these characters. It can hardly have come as a surprise, so why does it feel so odd?

I think it’s because I've never taken these ideas out and looked at them properly, they've just been there as background. And it reminds me of the 21st birthday party and the family reminiscences that turned to pets in general and a particular rabbit. ‘Do you remember,’ said the birthday girl, ‘the time Flopsy got ill and the vet made her better but the medicine turned her ears black.’ Sudden pregnant silence. One of those old memories, sitting there as background for years, is taken out and considered intellectually. Oops.

And Belgium? Same principle. My father had a trip to Belgium when I was 4. It went down in the family annals for all manner of reasons (tractor having to be called to pull a car out of a ditch and so on) but the thing I took from it at the time was that my father was flying there. Ergo, Belgium was in the sky.

I didn't make my first trip to Belgium until I was in my 30s. I went by plane. I was forced to think in a non-abstract way about where Belgium actually is. And what a surprise. My mental image still saw it in the sky and it genuinely astonished me to find it terrestrially located (bit of a relief though).

So it’s that but without the rabbity trauma. I knew once the book was going to be audioed that I’d hear the characters’ voices. But hey, I’m REALLY going to hear the characters’ voices.