Doctor, No

Six months before I moved to Texas I had a blood test. The results came back confirming my being in possession of so much cholesterol that I could have caught fire at any moment, and that my blood pressure was so high as to facilitate my fighting crime as a sort of blood-gusher-based superhero by opening a vein and blasting criminals with a high-pressure geyser of claret.

'It's winter and everywhere is frozen,' I explained to my doctor, 'I've been sat on my arse for the last six weeks, but okay - I'll make the effort to get out and about a bit more.'

She wasn't having it and prescribed Simvastatin, which struck me as a little premature seeing as I felt fine. I had the feeling she was just really into writing out prescriptions.

After three days of taking the drug, I hadn't slept for so much as five minutes, hadn't even felt drowsy, and I wanted to kill myself. By suggesting that I wanted to kill myself, I don't mean to imply that I felt a little bit glum and went around with a frowny face. I mean that I wanted to kill myself. I therefore stopped taking the pills and immediately felt better.

My doctor told me off, saying that I should have consulted her before quitting the prescribed medication and that I'd been very irresponsible.

'It's because I couldn't sleep and wanted to kill myself,' I explained.

'Of course, there are sometimes minor problems of that nature,' she admitted, 'but side effects usually pass after the first couple of weeks.'

'I would have killed myself by then.'

I refused further medication, instead knuckling down to riding my bike fifteen miles each day regardless of ice and snow. Six months later I underwent another medical examination at a Harley Street practice, as required by the immigration people. My cholesterol was fine and my blood pressure was normal.

Gosh.

More recently I underwent a medical examination at the Oakwell Farms medical center, something required by my medical insurance. I came close to weighing 210lbs before Christmas and had therefore been trying to get my weight down, mainly just through increased exercise and less snacking. It seemed to be working, and I was down to about 194lbs when I went for the medical.

'Shouldn't I take off my clothes or something?' I asked.

'No. Just get on the scale,' said the nurse. 'Do you know how much you weigh?'

'I was 194lbs this morning.'

'Well, you're 205lbs now.'

'That would probably be the boots and the three layers of clothing.'

The examination was over in minutes and struck me as lacking attention to detail. The results came back confirming I had more cholesterol than anyone who had ever lived in the entire history of triglycerides, and my blood pressure was so high that I could have severed my feet at the ankles and blasted myself off into outer space like a human rocket.

The results pissed me off so I ignored them. For one thing, my blood pressure was usually normal when I had it checked at the periodontist's office three or four times a year.

Another couple of months later I decided to have yet another medical examination. It seemed like high time I should have a doctor stick his finger up my arse in search of prostate cancer, and I figured I might as well have a proper check up on the same ticket. I was exercising every day, losing weight and doing well, so I wanted to know just how well because the previous examination had been a bit of a joke.

The nurse weighed me, stood me next to a tape measure, filled five big Cumberland sausage sized test tubes with blood, and asked a string of questions.

Do you smoke?

How much do you drink?

How many fingers am I holding up?

Can you tell me the name of the president?

I pulled a face answering the last one, and so did she.

The doctor came in.

'Are you going to stick a finger up my arse?' I enquired.

'No. No. There's no need. Cancer screening is all part of the blood test these days.'

'Okay.'

'I see that you smoke,' he said happily.

'No.'

'You don't smoke?'

'No, I don't.'

He seemed disappointed. 'Well, your blood pressure is a little high.'

'Is it really?'

'Yes, if I could—'

'I can tell you now, I'm not taking statins.'

'Statins are used to treat cholesterol, not high blood pressure.'

'Oh okay.'

'Well, perhaps we'd better wait until the results of this latest blood test come back.'

We waited, but I'd already knew I didn't like the guy. He was younger and fatter than myself, and I was somehow the wheezing porker in the equation. I could already sense him angling to prescribe something. He seemed to be fishing around in my medical history for anything he could work with. That was the impression I received, and the phone call came a few weeks later.

'The doctor urgently needs to discuss the results of your blood test. You have so much cholesterol that we've had to invent a new number by which to quantify it, and your blood pressure is such that at first we thought it was simply that Hulk Hogan was somehow living inside you.'

'Oh fuck off,' I didn't say, not actually slamming the phone down. I made an appointment, then cancelled it and made another for a day on which my wife would be able to come along, because she works in healthcare and is fairly adept at bullshit detection.

We were bang on time because they charge twenty-five dollars for missed appointments, a fine imposed because they could have spent those minutes curing someone, and healing the sick is the only thing with which they are concerned. Forty minutes later we were at last ushered into the presence of my doctor.

'You have a 13% chance of contracting heart disease before you reach seventy,' he smiled.

'Well, no-one lasts forever,' I said, 'and 13% - aren't those about the same odds as I have of being hit by a meteorite?'

My wife pointed out something statistical regarding the hereditary aspect of heart conditions such as the one which had an alleged 13% chance of killing me. I didn't really understand all of what she was saying, but the doctor did, and didn't really seem to have an answer for it, not directly.

'So, is there any history of heart disease in your family?'

'It isn't really a disease though, is it? I mean you can't have a stroke because you ate a sandwich with heart disease germs on it, or have I failed to understand some aspect of my impending doom?'

'It's a very real condition,' he said, apparently not having grasped my point. 'Do you know if anyone in your family has suffered with heart trouble?'

'No-one whatsoever, although significantly more or less all of them have had cancer, which was the actual reason I came here seeing as that seems a more pressing concern from where I'm sat.'

'Well, you're fine on that score.'

'That's good to know.'

'Everything is looking good aside from the cholesterol and the blood pressure.'

'Well, I'm not taking statins as I already told you.'

'Statins have come a long way and have been greatly improved over the last couple of years.'

'I don't care. I'm still not taking them.' I reiterated the account given in the first nine paragraphs above, mainly because it seemed as though he'd forgotten our having met on the occasion of the examination which had yielded the results now under discussion.

'Yes, I've heard all about your NHS,' - he curled off a wry smile, almost a sneer - 'no diagnosis, just chucking a handful of pills at you and sending you on your—'

'There's nothing wrong with the NHS,' I said, noticing I'd used that tone of voice which expresses openness to the possibility of finishing the conversation outside in the parking lot. I wasn't having this fucking tosser running the NHS down.

'Well, for now we can consider other options, healthier eating and so on.'

'I eat healthy,' I said. 'I suppose you're going to tell me I should cut my McDonald's intake down to just four visits a day, or something of the sort.'

'We eat very healthily,' my wife confirmed. 'He does all the cooking and it's all fresh. We don't eat salty things.'

'You may not think you do, but even when you open up a can of Campbell's soup because it's in the recipe, well, the salt content—'

'That isn't,' I cut him off with just a hint of Margaret Rutherford in my voice, 'the sort of cooking in which I engage.'

My wife has a recipe book typed out by an ageing relative during the great depression. I barely recognise any of the recipes, which truly belong to a culture to which I am alien. Many of them seem to combine ingredients which are already recognisably food, a tin of mushroom soup poured over battered onion rings, then baked as a casserole - and the recipe concluded with a bewildering comment of sooooooo good or similar. It seems like the sort of cooking I tried when I was fifteen, baked beans plus a teaspoon of every herb or spice on the rack because if one is good, then twenty-six will surely be amazing. I like to think I've evolved beyond the culinary level of a bewildered teenager left to his own devices.

'I apologise if it seems like I'm on the defensive,' I said without feeling even remotely sorry, 'but you have to appreciate that I eat pretty well, I don't smoke, hardly drink, and I cycle one hundred miles a week, and you're telling me that it isn't enough. I may as well be sat on my arse scoffing pies and cakes all day for all the difference it makes. That's what you're telling me.'

'Well, I'd like you to imagine the effects of a stroke, being unable to speak, maybe one side of your body paralysed—'

Now he was trying to scare me, somehow imagining I had no idea what a stroke could be or how it might affect a person. 'Sure, but if you don't mind I'll just keep on as I am. I've lost a stone since Christmas and a little bit more drops off every week, so I'm not even sure what I'm doing here.'

'Well, we can see how you're getting on in another six months.'

'Fine.'

We left with no real intention of coming back. It seems I put on weight when I first moved to America, because the government forces us all to eat a cheeseburger whilst saluting the flag every morning; I have about a stone to go before I get back to what is supposedly my ideal weight for my age and height. I will get there, and if my blood pressure and cholesterol remain high then I'll just have to assume that's how it's going to be.

A Gastropsychogeography of England

Philip Best of notorious room clearance outfit Consumer Electronics observed that I was a food pusher. I was visiting him in Austin and making delivery of some of my home made pork pies - because it's easier to make too many than it is to make too few and we can't get them in Texas - and the comment came as I was describing a brief period of the nineties during which Jim Macdougall stayed over at my place every other weekend and I'd make us a chili in the hope of keeping him alive - his strict diet of beer, fags, bar snacks and Temazepam being nutritionally questionable; so Best's observation seemed fair. Thus deciding to embrace the role, I hereby declare my invention of gastropsychgeography, a philosophical discourse in which one gives account of what is eaten, where, and what it means. This follows on from psychogeography, a practice devised by Ivan Chtcheglov which seeks to map the meaning of a place in terms of its history, and psychochronography in which Sandifer ingeniously lists what was at the top of the hit parade when certain episodes of Doctor Who went to air. Gastropsychgeography is therefore, in essence, a travelogue of meals consumed by an author except much more important; and this is where it begins. This time next year you'll be reading Alan Moore's brooding testimony of Northampton's finest chip shops and Sandifer will be self-publishing tallies of previously obscure forms of iconic artisan bread consumed whilst binge watching Who, but it was all my idea. You're welcome.

Fish and chips, Earlsdon.
My mum gave me a tenner and sent me up the road for fish and chips from Gabriel's Fish & Chips in Earlsdon, Coventry. Being fifty-four years of age, I was conscious of this being one of those grand English traditions once immortalised in the likes of Beano and Dandy, so grand in fact that I'm surprised some red-faced gammon has yet to fume over imagined EU rulings preventing English mothers sending their offspring up the chippie with a tenner. We had two portions of battered cod and a single helping of chips between the two of us, because Gabriel's single helping is a shitload of chips in itself. It was pretty great, and we ate while watching Downton Abbey, an episode in which one of the butlers gives in his notice and the other one gets a bit sniffy about it.

Doner kebab, Earlsdon.
This time my mother sent me in the other direction, down the road for doner kebabs which I didn't enjoy quite so much as I thought I would. They were okay but not amazing, the main selling point simply being the pleasure of a doner kebab served in pita bread with chilli sauce, like nature intended - as distinct from a puffy flatbread with no sauce of any description, which seems to be a Greco-Texan thing. We watched The Curse of the Were-Rabbit whilst dining, which I hadn't seen before, so that was nice. Less entertaining was that Motecuhzoma took a small measure of his revenge on the both of us the following morning, so that's a lesson learned until next time.

 

Battered sausage with chips, Foleshill.
I was out with the intention of catching performances by Cristiana Ilie and Hainbach at the Tin, a venue situated in Coventry's new fangled Canal Basin, but I hadn't eaten. I'd called at the City Arms, a Weatherspoon pub, about an hour previous in the hope of ordering their Full English breakfast, discovering that it is only served until noon. With my gastronomic plans having been thus foiled, I therefore had to ask around and was directed to the Sandy Fish Bar in Sandy Lane, which was just around the corner. The expedition impressed upon me how the Tin is but five minutes walk from the home of Martin of Attrition, and I'm surprised he doesn't have some kind of residency there, knocking out a set of handbag house standards every Sunday evening or whatever. He literally lives so close that there wouldn't even be much point getting a taxi for the sake of a cumbersome tuba. Anyway, I ate my sausage in batter and chips on the seating provided at the aforementioned Canal Basin, all the while monitoring the venue for signs of activity seeing as I'd arrived about an hour before even the bar staff. The sausage was, in particular, pretty good.

Sausage sandwich, Coombe Abbey.
I asked for a sausage roll and this was the closest they could manage, although it was decent so I'm not complaining. I was at the Café in the Park with my dad. We were up that way having gone out for a stroll during which he hardly mentioned Brexit at all, although there were several ominous remarks hinting at a sceptical view taken regarding climate science. It didn't seem like there was anything to be gained in rising to the bait, so I didn't. I was a bit surprised by the general youthful bewilderment which greeted my attempts to describe a sausage roll to the café staff, but never mind.

Dinner, Binley.
This was prepared by my dad some hours after the above, and comprised steak pie, roast potatoes, runner beans, carrots and squash. The pie was hand crafted and amazing, and the vegetables were all from his allotment. The squash seemed an initially incongruous addition, but was slightly sweet and went very well with everything else. We manged to avoid talking about Brexit, although on a related note, my dad's wife - or at least the woman who would have been his third wife had they bothered to get married, which they didn't - opined that the good thing about Donald Trump is that he's not afraid to say what he's thinking. I couldn't be bothered to argue. Whatever gets you through the night.

Persian takeaway, Earlsdon.
Grilled lamb, rice, and houmous delivered by the Cyrus Restaurant once the guy on the other end of the phone line grudgingly conceded that yes, they did deliver if we really weren't able to get down there to pick it up. The food was at least as good as anticipated, and the rice in particular was delicious, light and fragrant. We ate while watching an episode of Midsomer Murders during which I realised that I sort of fancy Camille Coduri. I knew I'd seen her on telly somewhere before, but couldn't remember where. Later I looked it up and found out that she once played the mother of Bingo from the Banana Splits in Eccleston era Who, which was a bit disappointing.

 

Cream tea, Coventry Cathedral.
Part of the reason for my visiting England, aside from seeing my parents and other people, was because Lynda would be there. Lynda is my mother's younger sister - my aunt. She moved to Australia in 1973 and none of us had heard from her since. Thankfully the reunion was a delight and not at all awkward as a few of us had feared it might be. Part of Lynda's visit entailed wandering around Coventry like tourists with myself and my dad - who likewise knew her back in the sixties due to his having married my mother. There was a lot to look at in Coventry, and certainly one fuck of a lot more than there had been when I lived there. Our particular favourites were the Doom Painting in the Holy Trinity Church - a recently restored fifteenth century mural depicting what happens to sinners in enthusiastic detail - and the Cathedral. My grandfather - Lynda's dad - was a structural engineer whom they consulted when they were building the thing so as to ensure that it wouldn't simply collapse into the tunnels dug by coalminers from Keresley colliery, so it's all connected somehow. Anyway, we had cream teas in the Rising Café in the basement of the modern cathedral, which was nice. The central axis of a cream tea is a scone, which is like the thing which an American would call a biscuit for no obvious reason, but better. A biscuit in the American sense is usually too salty to be considered a scone and is therefore thematically equivalent to a gammon flavoured ice lolly, at least from where I'm stood.

Pizza, Earlsdon.
My mother and I stayed home and had a Waitrose pizza, which was probably a bit scant between the two of us but then she doesn't eat a whole lot and I was probably still full of scones. Midsomer Murders had inexplicably vanished from the television schedule so we watched Have I Got News for You? because I hadn't seen it in fucking years, and it's one of the few English shows I miss. I had no idea who at least three of those involved were, but Paul Merton is still funny. One of the most amusing exchanges concerned an elephant dentist from Peppa Pig. Sarah Kennedy - whom I know from my art foundation course in Leamington Spa back in the eighties - provides the voice of Nanny Plum from Peppa Pig. I think Sarah also had something to do with The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, so like I said, it's all connected. Alan Moore probably hasn't even heard of Peppa Pig.

Full English breakfast, Earlsdon.
I was vaguely inclined to give Weatherspoon a miss, my enthusiasm for cheap beer past its sell by date having waned since the homeless Thundercat who owns the chain started banging on about Brexit; and my friend Carl pointed out that most Weatherspoon pubs have the atmosphere of a cross-channel ferry due to the surfeit of red-faced gammons on a quest for cheap booze; but a full English breakfast is a full English breakfast. I had mine with a couple of slices of black pudding and it tasted fucking fantastic, just as it always does. I had no reading matter to hand and was dining alone, so reluctantly browsed the Weatherspoon corporate magazine. Naturally there was a special feature on Brexit, lifting opinion columns from publications on both sides of the political divide, because that's how much the homeless Thundercat - whose name is Tim Martin, by the way - loves democracy. Each piece was supplemented with commentary from himself under the byline of Tim Says which, in the case of those pieces in support of the remain argument, tended to kick off with what the author fails to realise is that blah blah blah, reducing the enterprise as a whole to something of a stacked deck. The rest of the magazine was mostly interviews with bar staff, so I watched the telly instead, sound down but with captions. They were showing live footage from the Supreme Court legally proving that Boris Johnson is a massive cunt, which was more interesting than the Weatherspoon corporate magazine.

More fish and chips, Earlsdon.
Once again my mum gave me a tenner and sent me up the road for fish and chips from Gabriel's Fish & Chips in Earlsdon, Coventry. The queue wasn't quite so enormous this time, comprising just three people. As usual, there was some fish left over, so that was saved for next door's cats, Geoff and Pig who are brothers and both ginger with white bits. By the end of my stay in Coventry, Pig had taken to meowing his head off every time I went into the garden in presumed anticipation of my handing a tupperware box of cod over the fence. I think that's how he got the name.

Bread and cheese, Earlsdon.
My aunt Lynda told us that her favourite food is bread and cheese, and specifically sourdough bread because other types of bread tend to give her digestive trouble. My mum therefore gave me a fifteener and sent me up the road for sourdough bread and an assortment of cheeses from the Co-op in Earlsdon, Coventry. I came back with edam, brie, one of the blue mouldy ones, and a fourth cheese I can't remember. Lynda was delighted beyond expectation. It turns out that this love of cheese is apparently a familial trait. Some doctor once told my mum that she might like to think about cutting down on the cheese. She told him that it wasn't going to happen because were she to make such a dietary adjustment there would be no point in being alive.

Curry, Greenwich.
Back when I lived in London, I often went for a curry with my friends Carl and Eddy, their choice because whilst I enjoyed Indian food, there were other things I preferred. We usually went to the Mogul in Greenwich. Since moving to America, my love of curry has increased for reasons I don't fully understand, so I was fairly keen to revisit the Mogul and give it another go. Unfortunately the Mogul experienced some kind of civil war in my absence, resulting in a diaspora which led to the establishment of the Mountain View on the Trafalgar Road, so that's where we went. I recognised the staff, and even shook the hand of Ron, who I believe runs the place and for whom Carl and Eddy seem to be the equivalent of season ticket holders. I had chicken korma with saag paneer, which was gorgeous.

Tunnock's tea cakes, Solihull.
I went to visit my friend Martin who lives in Solihull. I know Martin from the art foundation course we took with the woman who went on to become the voice of Nanny Plum. Martin was in the very first line up of the Cravats, and later played in different bands with both Carl and myself. As we'd scheduled an afternoon of just hanging out rather than alcoholic abandon, we started with a trip to the corner shop for Mr. Kipling's cherry bakewells and Tunnock's tea cakes, following which we drank tea and listened to the Shameful Ca$hin album. Shameful Ca$hin is Martin's current band and they've recorded an album at Woodbine Street Studios in Leamington Spa, soon to be issued on vinyl, all going well. The album reminded me a little of the punkier incarnations of the Cravats with a touch of the Stranglers and a bit of a rockabilly undercurrent. It's possibly the greatest thing Martin has ever recorded. I opted for Tunnock's tea cakes out of curiosity, having no real memory of them whilst being aware of a wave of nostalgia having spread their legend across certain stretches of social media. They're essentially chocolate covered marshmallows, arguably the English equivalent of American snack foods such as Hostess Twinkies and the like. I thought they were okay but nothing special, and Martin didn't seem to like them at all. Also worth noting is that Martin has a ginger cat called Jeff. He really loves that cat.

Thai curry, Earlsdon.
My mother and I stayed home and had a Waitrose Thai curry, which came in a natty little wooden box, and was excellent. Midsomer Murders had once again inexplicably vanished from the television schedule so we watched three episodes of Upstart Crow on DVD as I'd never seen it before. Having grown up in close proximity to Stratford-upon-Avon, I'd pretty much had enough of Shakespeare by the time I was seven, so I didn't know what to expect but nevertheless found it very watchable. I don't actually have anything against either Shakespeare or his works, unlike Martin who is of the considerably stronger opinion that it's all bollocks, but Upstart Crow almost made me wish I'd developed more of an appreciation. My mum on the other hand thinks Shakespeare is the shit, to phrase it in terms with which she is most likely unfamiliar.

Melted cheese sandwich, Shrewsbury.
I went to visit my friend Charlie who lives in Shrewsbury. I know Charlie from the fine art degree we took with Martin who was in the very first line up of the Cravats. Charlie is best known as artist of the Walking Dead comic book and is accordingly now a local celebrity, which was impressed upon me when I noticed that the local art gallery was advertising an exhibition of his work with his name in massive letters. We went for a bite to eat at a small café called, I believe, Ginger & Co. We talked mostly about comic books, superhero movies, comic book publishers assuming that, having finished with the Walking Dead, what Charlie really, really, really wants to draw next is even more zombies, and we talked about Comicsalopia, a comic art convention which was held in Shrewsbury a few months ago. Apparently it hadn't gone so well as hoped due to organisational complications arisen from one of the major sponsors screwing up with the wonga whilst failing to fully understand the genre, expressed as an unusual fixation with Peppa Pig. The sandwich was fancy and involved spinach and possibly mozzarella. It was very tasty.

Another full English breakfast, Coventry.
I had this one at Café 37, Earlsdon, which seems almost like it's just some bloke's front room. I've been there a few times over the years and don't ever recall any other customers, so I'm glad it's somehow managed to stay open. The food was good, sort of like the Weatherspoon version but with a bit more soul. Options for reading material were Coventry Evening Telegraph, Daily Mail, and the Sun. I tried with the Coventry Evening Telegraph but it mostly seemed to be articles on the level of how some local sports club had purchased a new tennis racket. The only piece I read in full was something about the council intending to pull down the swimming baths, which makes me a little sad as they were structurally engineered by my grandfather. I reluctantly switched to the Sun and was pleased to notice that whilst the right-wing bias was such that it actually came off on my fingers, the paper generally wasn't quite so rabid as I remembered, its mania being concentrated in small, evenly distributed flare ups within the wider context of a generally gormless whole. The only article which really caught my attention was an argument against the closing of private schools, at least partially predicated on the notion that if Jeremy Corbyn thinks it's bad then it's actually good. I don't know where the readership stand on the matter, but it's always entertaining to see members of the working class moved to fuming indignation over threats to the well-being of chinless Etonian twits who regard them as, at the very best, a slightly smelly economic resource.

Yet more fish and chips, Earlsdon.

It was my last evening in England, at least for a while, so my mum gave me a tenner and once again sent me up the road for fish and chips from Gabriel's Fish & Chips in Earlsdon, Coventry. This time was a bit later than usual. My mother is an independent benefits advisor, meaning she gives advice to, or even represents in court, those who have been wrongfully denied benefits, which is pretty much everyone who has been denied benefits due to government policies which hold that numismatic hand-outs are the only thing preventing most claimants from becoming high paid executives. Anyway she had two such persons turn up at six in the evening seeking her advice, one of whom had no head and only one leg but had nevertheless been declared fit for work and denied disability benefit. My mother had anticipated that their case would take about fifteen minutes to sort out, so I should go up the road for fish and chips once they were done. Unfortunately their case took about an hour to sort out, and in the meantime Sue from next door, patron of Geoff and Pig, came round. She was trying to separate the two sections of the tubing of a vacuum cleaner which had become stuck. I was unable to pull the two lengths of tubing apart. One of the people who had come to see my mother gave it a go, but he couldn't do it either. Anyway, it was close to seven before everyone left and I was able to go up the road for my final fish and chips from Gabriel's Fish & Chips in Earlsdon, Coventry. Now as I compose this account in a house built on a different continent, I know that even as I write, Geoff and Pig are probably finishing off the bit of cod that we couldn't manage. It's a circle, my friend.

Full English breakfast with Japanese influence, Heathrow.
I'd got up at ten to five in the morning so as to catch the flight back to lovely, lovely Texas, and yet somehow I'd managed to end up with hours to burn, just bumming around the airport; so I figured I may as well eat to pass time. Wagamama caught my eye because I recall having loved their food back in the nineties, and there was a full English on the menu which struck me as weird. I went in thinking about bowls of big fat noodles with crunchy ginger stuff, but somehow just couldn't not order the full English because it would be my last one in a while and its presence at Wagamama, which let us not forget serves primarily Japanese and Asiatic cuisine, seemed improbably incongruous. It came in a bowl and incorporated spinach and shitake mushrooms, but was otherwise the genuine article - sausages, bacon, couple of fried eggs and so on - and yet it had some Japanese quality which seemed to justify its place on the menu and yet was difficult to pinpoint, something in the subtle flavours department stemming from how it was cooked; or it could just be that I was prevented from blobbing the customary dollop of tomato ketchup on the side. Naturally I asked for ketchup, even qualifying the request with sorry to sound like a caveman, but… - but they didn't have it, and I was therefore forced to tackle the flavours unalloyed, which was okay because it was delicious. I read some more of The Face in the Abyss by Abraham Merritt as I ate. It's about four hard boiled blokes who go off in search of lost gold, and who keep having arguments about which one of their party might be considered the dirty double-crossing rat. They talk like James Cagney in a gangster movie, often finishing sentences with an interrogative see. So far I'm enjoying it. I picked the book up at the Oxfam shop on Broadgate in Coventry, which is a fucking great shop and seemingly the closest England comes to having a branch of Half Price Books, albeit a somewhat compact one. I also picked up a Rupert Bear annual and two Hornby Railways catalogues which I had as a kid - which is apparently what my midlife crisis looks like. I only mention these details because I haven't found a way to shoehorn Peppa Pig, Shakespeare, or anyone named Geoff into the account.

Holi

It's Saturday afternoon and we're heading for something called Holi. This was Bess's idea. Holi is a traditional Hindu festival celebrating the arrival of spring, amongst other things. Bess has a number of co-workers from India and Nepal, and one of them told her about it. Having previously lived in Coventry - which enjoys a substantial Asian presence - I'm a little surprised that I myself have never heard of it.

'They throw paint at each other,' Bess explains.

I called my mother earlier in the day, it being her birthday. I told her we would be going to a Holi celebration.

'That's the one where they throw paint at each other,' she said.

We leave around two, taking the kid along because it sounds messy and therefore the sort of thing he will probably enjoy; plus it will be good to scrape him off the screen for a couple of hours.

Bess follows directions on her smartphone, leading us to what resembles a scout hut lost somewhere in the leisurely tangle of San Antonio's suburbs. There is a stall set up next to the hut, although we can't tell what goods are on offer, and there are just three other people here, one of whom is of either Indian or Latino ancestry. Our source seemed to think it would all be kicking off around two, but this was apparently an optimistic estimate.

We go home, then return around four. This time the roads are crammed, and there's a cop waving vehicles on towards the associated parking lot. We're at a crawl, so Bess drives off elsewhere, two, three streets away until we find a place to park. It's outside someone's home but hopefully they won't mind seeing as all their neighbours also have stranger's cars lined up along their stretch of road. We get out and walk.

Figures approach from the other end of the street. The first is a guy covered from head to foot in bright primary colours. It's a peculiar sight and he smiles because it's funny.

Once, as a student, I was on the way to some house party in a neighbouring village with my friend Carl, who began to describe a scenario in which bewildered figures emerge from the fog ahead of us, blackened faces with their clothes still smoking. This, he explained, would indicate that we were about to attend the greatest house party of all time. I've honestly never been wild about house parties, but the image has stayed with me and I am reminded of it right now. Rainbow coloured survivors stagger towards us and we can hear twangy Indian pop music in the distance. This is not what you expect to see in some average urban street. It's like the polychromatic Bollywood version of that zombie apocalypse you always hear about.

'I guess we missed it,' I say, basing this on our being the only people heading towards the noise. When we get there, it's obvious that I was wrong. Things are just beginning to get going.

There's a field behind the building I assumed to be a scout hut. The building is actually the center for the India Association of San Antonio, and the field is packed with people of all colours. By all colours I mean blue, green, purple, yellow, orange, red and so on, and the air is full of similarly hued dust clouds as everyone pelts each other with handfuls of powdered paint. The field is most likely additionally packed with people of all colours in terms of ethnicity, but it's no longer possible to tell with most of them, excepting a few in traditional Hindu dress.

There were many people of Indian descent around the places where I lived in England, and I found that I missed them when I moved to San Antonio. We have people from India in San Antonio, but they don't seem quite such a visible presence. Bess tells me that their numbers tend to be concentrated around the medical center and University of Texas campus in the north-east part of the city. Amongst her former colleagues was one Dr. Ramamurthy, mother of the actor Sendhil Ramamurthy, best known for his role in the television series Heroes.

There are a couple of decent Indian restaurants, notably the wonderful Tandoor Palace on the Wurzbach Road, but outside of such places, I no longer see Indian people in large groups; which is partially why it's so nice to be here at this festival. I'm not sure I even realised I'd missed this sort of thing, although that is perhaps an inevitable reaction for someone living in a different land to the one in which they were born.

Bess wanders off and finds the stall selling the bags of paint. She returns with four or five and hands a couple to the boy. I decline because I think I would feel weird chucking paint at strangers. Strangers, on the other hand, feel less reticent about chucking paint at me. My assailant grins and springs off to bombard someone else, and I'm trying not to laugh because it's funny and stupid, and there's something cheery about it; and I'm aware that my attempts to clear bright purple powder from my face duplicate those of Oliver Hardy as he blinks haplessly from the screen, his hair white with brick dust.

Another couple of minutes and none of us are the same colour as when we arrived, which is apparently the point. The paint sets everyone on an equal footing, and in the end we are all the same, equally ridiculous.

Junior goes off to buy more paint.

I'm tempted to dance, but I'm still a little fearful it will be the white guy dance, like I'm someone's dad at a wedding. The music is mostly what I think of as bhangra, or at least what I associate with Bollywood - modern beats rooted in Indian tradition. There's a group of young people dancing in a circle, some barefoot, and presumably Indian judging by the sandals, a couple of topknots and the raw energy of their moves. This clearly isn't their first rodeo, as we say around these parts and, reminded of just where I am - it's wonderful to be outside at some large celebration without the barbecue smoke or country & autotune wailing away in our ears.

I watch the dancers, envious.

We spend an hour or more, just soaking it all up, gradually changing colour as wave after wave of paint hits us. If the object of the celebration seems unclear, at least to me, it doesn't seem to matter. Eventually a bonfire is set alight  at the center of the field in reference to the burning of Holika, the sister of the demon king, from which comes the name of this part of the festival. We all watch the flames and savour the smoke, and it feels as though we've all come through something important together.

Curry with Martin

I'm calling on my friend, Martin. We're going for a curry. Last time I was in England, he said, we'll have to go for a curry next time you're here. I probably should have written those first lines as Grant Morrison would have written them:

I'm calling on my famous friend, Martin Bowes of Attrition. We're going for a curry.

I know it seems fucking stupid, but that's how it feels.

I stay in Coventry when visiting England because that's where my parents live. I myself lived in Coventry for nine months or so at the end of the nineties, then another eighteen ending in 2011. Both periods of residence were - roughly speaking - just me living somewhere while I sorted myself out in preparation to live somewhere else; so I've never really thought of myself as having lived in Coventry, not properly, much less being from Coventry. I was born and grew up in Warwickshire, but that's another story.

I first knew of Martin back in 1980. His fanzine, Alternative Sounds, had turned up at our local record shop, Discovery in Straftford-upon-Avon. I bought a copy because the Abstracts were featured therein, the Abstracts being a local band for which my friend Graham's brother played bass. Alternative Sounds was quite an eye-opener for me - the first fanzine I ever bought - and a great read even beyond the vague thrill of someone I knew having been mentioned; and sadly, seeing as I'd only just discovered the thing, this was to be its final issue because Martin, the editor, wanted to dedicate more time to his band, Attrition.

Attrition came to wider attention a few years later as part of a wave of experimental musicians championed by Dave Henderson of Sounds music paper, others including Nocturnal Emissions, Konstruktivists, and Test Department. The first tracks I heard by Attrition were Monkey in a Bin and Hang Me, which appeared on a compilation tape called A Sudden Surge of Power. These two were among the best tracks on the tape, so Attrition made a big impression. I bought their records when they started to issue music on vinyl, and Smiling, At the Hypogonder Club, their second album, was pretty much glued to my turntable for the duration of 1985.

So it feels pretty odd when, nearly a quarter century later, I spot Martin Bowes heading up Albany Road in Coventry. I've never met the guy. I never even wrote him a letter asking for a tape, but by this point we seem to have about a million mutual friends, having moved in related circles over the years.

'Oi, Martin!' I shout, aware that it leaves a lot to be desired as an introduction, but I can't think of anything else which would seem natural, and all the while I'm aware that this isn't just some bloke, it's Martin from Attrition and I'm terrified of appearing like some drooling fan.

He's probably used to it, because he doesn't seem particularly puzzled, and even gives the impression of having heard of me somehow. Attrition were on the same bill as Konstruktivists at some event not too long ago, and I used to be in Konstruktivists, plus we both sort of know Alan from Stress and Adventures in Reality; so it all kind of joins up; and Martin is a very personable sort of bloke - reminding me a little of characters written by Alan Bennet - and somehow this isn't like an awkward conversation with a complete stranger.

That was 2011, just before I moved to Texas.

We kept in touch.

At one point I needed someone to rescue material I'd recorded on minidisc, a format for which my computer had apparently lost all respect. Martin was running his own studio by then, and kindly effected the rescue during one of my more recent visits. Just as I left his house, Dill from God's Toys had turned up for a recording session and was eating fish and chips in the front room. God's Toys were another local band who had briefly been on telly when I was a kid, so once again I found myself momentarily starstruck by terms that probably wouldn't make sense to anyone else in the entire universe. Dill seemed like a nice bloke too.

So here I am, back in England, back at the house of Martin from Attrition, knocking on his door to see whether he fancies a curry, which of course he does.

We wander up towards the Foleshill Road, talking about England and America, his work as Attrition and mastering the music of other artists at his studio, notably Coil; we talk about mutual friends and acquaintances, of whom there always seem to be more than I realised - this time adding Carl Howard and David Elliott to the list; and then we arrive at Taste of India and eat the best curry I've had in a number of years.

We talk about goths, Whitby, not particularly liking the Cure, Hawaii, New Zealand, getting old, and fatherhood, or stepfatherhood in my case. Martin's son is a grime artist, one of those details which strikes me as both completely peculiar and yet makes perfect sense.

We finish and make our way back and agree we should go for another one next time I'm over.

These yearly return visits to England can be awkward, even uncomfortable, and sometimes feel as though I'm engaged in a forensic investigation of my own existence, establishing a motive whilst trying to verify all of those memories of living here as actually having happened. At worst, it can feel like a particularly morbid type of time travel, going back to times prior to the death of persons who are yet to die. So much of what I experience in England is now prefixed with this may be the last time…

Curry with Martin feels an even stranger experience on some level, like a sidestep into a reality where I actually lived in Coventry, and I have to remind myself that I did live in Coventry for a while. It's like a reconstruction, something imagined by whoever looks back at my life and decides, yeah, he probably would have known that bloke from Attrition. They would have gone for a curry, and let's face it - that would have been somewhere up the Foleshill Road. I had assumed Coventry would be done with the surprises by this stage.

This is how my brain works, and how it will doubtless continue to work, so there's probably not much point in my apologising for any of it; but the thing that I take from it is that, here in this land which is, for me, mostly memories and things which used to be, new stuff can still happen, for which I am truly thankful.