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I had only come close to loves many splendours on two occasions. I recall one day in infant school that I actually enjoyed, some kind of dance event was taking place and we had to choose partners. There was a new girl in our class and I had worshipped her from afar, well three desks away. Her name was Rachel I think. She was a beauty. Knew all her times tables and everything. I don’t remember how we ended up together, holding hands going to the hall to dance, but for the hour or so it lasted, I was lost in a world of sweet innocent love. I was so taken with her that I forgot the escape committee was meeting in the cloak room at play time. Instead I sat under the willow tree and composed a poem in my head. The first of many I think. My next brush with the big L came some years later. I was in my late teens, full of angst, rage and self loathing. One night I turned on my TV and the image of American songwriter called Suzanne Vega starred back at me. I listened to her songs and became transfixed by her. I’d never herd music like it before, so poetical and intriguing. She instantly became my musical guru. I worshipped her for many months. Went to see her concerts and dreamed of meeting her. I wrote her ten page letters. She inspired me to pick up a guitar. It was the crush to end of crushes. Love from afar. A love that eventually wore itself out when I realised she was a multi-platinum record selling artist who lived the high life in New York and I was an unemployed lay-about living the low life in downtown Kingstanding. But the promise of love from afar did come in January of 2000…In the form of an e-mail answering a small ad I had posted on the WWW, in an attempt to attract what had so far been un-attractable!! I had many propositions as a result of this ad. A nun in Yugoslavia offered to give up Jesus for me, a mainframe called BOB said I could fill it’s RAM any day and I received several sick photographs from one man doing things to a toaster that made my buttocks clench. The very first response I received however was from a Russian girl called Irina. She told me her hobbies were eating vast amounts of meat, that her sister was a boxer and that her father was head of the Russian Mafia. I was impressed and started corresponding with her. By the time the summer of 2000 rolled around we were getting on just dandy. We spent many a cosy Saturday night cuddled up together on-line, her in Moscow and me in Birmingham, with only thousands of miles separating us. In September we decided to met up in Paris France. I braved Eurostar and she Aeroflop, Russia’s very own airline. Our Anglo-Russian summit was held at the world famous Leo Lagrange Youth Hostel in Paris. It was a great success, surrounded by the Autumnal splendor of Paris, the radiant beauty of Irina and the enormously erect Eiffel Tower, it didn’t take long for romance to blossom. Not only that but we also managed to draw up a sixty page document of new resolutions to present to our respective countries. It was a productive week. Time seemed to slow down and once I got back to old blighty I really began to understand the old adage “Absence makes the heart grows fonder.” I was in LOVE. I was all shook-up. My mind was permanently stuck up the Eiffel Tower. I had drank from the chalice of love and now I was drunk. Suddenly I was back in normality. I had to plan my next move.
In a
deliberate snub of English festivities I took myself off to Moscow for a
real Christmas and New Year, and to see my love in her natural habitat,
oh, and to experience sub zero temperatures as never before. I can sum
up my Winter trip in just four words. Snow, vodka, meat and romance. Not
particularly in that order. I learned much of Russian culture. I visited
places of national importance. Like McDonalds. I gave Putin a few
pointers on leadership when I bumped into him in the toilets of the
Bolshi Ballet. I had many narrow escapes from angry Babushkas who
didn’t take kindly to open snogging in public. And I went head to head
with the head of the Russian mafia, Irina’s
dad. Who impressed me greatly by donning
his swimming trunks and jumping into the nearest frozen lakes. What, I
feared, would he expect from me. |
