Modern Gadgets V. Old Books.

Just yesterday, after taking my wife to a GP surgery for her monthly anti-cancer jab, as it was raining and we didn't want to get soaked, we took a taxi to South Hill Park, a mansion turned into an Arts Centre that also boasts a pub-restaurant. At the bar, I asked my beloved to find a suitable table in the otherwise deserted eatery whilst I waited at the bar to deal with the orders. At Alex's request, I ordered a bowl of chips (potato wedges) and a coffee each for lunch.

South Hill Park Arts Centre. Stock Photo

As we were the only customers present, the young lass who was taking our orders then asked, perhaps making me feel slightly annoyed, what my table number was.

Does it matter? I responded. We will be easy to find. With that, the male assistant nearby began to laugh as I tried to figure out exactly what was so funny - since I was convinced that the female assistant only wanted to show off her professionalism. It was after leaving the premises that the penny dropped.

As I was snickering to myself, I began to reflect on the impact such an innocent misunderstanding of communication can bring. For instance, going back to my childhood days at our Primary. Around the time I was eight or nine years old, I might have been the more advanced in the class in learning, then again a misspelt word has caused raised eyebrows. The teacher asked us all to think of a common noun, write the word and next to it, draw an outline of the object. For example, Table, and on the same line just after the word, I drew a small sketch of a table. And so it went on, several nouns were written with their corresponding sketches that created a chart that covered the page. The teacher came around to check on our work.

I thought I saw an expression of shock as she pointed to one word on my list, which read Lustic. Next to it was a drawing of an elongated oval. What is this one? she asked.

Lustic, I answered what I thought was the correct pronunciation. With my Italian mother still grappling with the English language herself, it's no surprise that, as her eldest son, I can only pronounce the same way she does, not having seen the written word. I then went on to explain, It's that rubber band that stretches when you pull it. 

With a look of relief, the teacher then exclaimed, Oh, you mean an Elastic Band! She then wrote the correct word next to my crossed-out original. How innocence can turn to drama in a mere exercise book.

At home, now and again my mother bought me an exercise book, although why it was called an exercise book was also a bit of a mystery, as I never took it to the gym, neither was Mum able to explain the proper meaning. Not that I heard of the word gym either, as public gyms that exist at present didn't exist in the late fifties, in which this tale is set. Let alone the full Greek word Gymnasium. But I certainly knew what exercise meant. Not only had I watched my Dad on a home workout with a set of spring chest expanders, but as a boy, I was full of energy. How I loved roller skating up and down our street, laid out grid-style, thus never disappearing around a bend. Or cycling up and down on my little bicycle, still fitted with removable rear balancing wheels.

Another prize possession was the Collins Atlas of the World. The size of an A4 page, this Atlas contained all the countries of the world, each in its own colour. All the colonies of the British Empire were shaded in light red. Thus, I was quick to identify those lands colonised by the British, By contrast, France was in deep purple, Italy was yellow, Spain was green and Portugal might have been orange, as with Germany. From this Atlas, the seeds of curiosity about what other lands overseas were like in real life were sown.

It was in the days when I was able to walk the 1.7 miles to Battersea Park unsupervised, or even the two-mile trek to the Natural History Museum, again on my own. Or play at the swings at a nearby adventure playground that feature a castle with an underground tunnel. Indeed, as I look back on the incident of a misspelt word, I can't help but reminisce on other childhood memories associated with it and compare such times with the present, when the advance of technology had transformed our society into one of zombies, constantly staring at their iPads as they stroll along outside without looking where they're going. Then, not to mention "helicopter parenting" where children play outdoors under constant supervision in fear of a possible abduction.

As for books, good old books. With the exercise book, I could use merely a biro and start writing - no keyboard, no use of power, no need to change batteries, no fear of accidental deleting, no risk of text-save failure, no fear of a power cut, no advert pop-ups, no sudden alerts - just a page of scribbled handwriting interrupted by an occasional inkblot and several misspelt cross-outs. And the many occasions when accidentally missing a letter out whilst writing a word and then heavy-inking the missing letter over the mistake. Ah! the art of old-fashioned writing! What a wonderful privilege to be literate.

I have found a lot of enjoyment in just reading, whether it was the daily newspaper or a book, either fiction or factual. The Dail Mail is one good example. Every Saturday I buy the paper version - the real newspaper where pop-ups never appear, nor the appearance of any 30-second video ads preceding a 15-second soundless video of the news article. Furthermore, if sunbathing on the beach with a book, the book is unlikely to get stolen whilst off to buy ice cream. An iPad or mobile phone is far more likely to disappear.

Adventure Playground, Pimlico.

Sunbathing on the beach. I wonder how many office workers dolled up in a suit and tie secretly wish he could lie there on the beach when the weather outside is warm and sunny? Or dreaming of Paradise Island in the Maldives, where his hotel room is a luxury hut built on stilts and lapped by the calm, turquoise sea within the calmness of a lagoon? 

Dream on. Superb as the location would be, for me, travel is about adventure on a tight budget. And after travel writing on this Blogger page in the recent past, a few people had, over time, asked me why not write a book about my adventures? Even as recent as last week, one dear lady on Facebook expressed her desire for me to write such a book.

Yet, how could I compare my travels with those of Simon Reeve, Bill Bryson, or Geoffrey Morrison? Okay, so I did wade through a 2,700-year-old water tunnel dug into the limestone cliff beneath the ancient city of Jerusalem, attended an Arab wedding reception and watched a sheep being skinned alive, or got caught up in a massive Israeli protest demonstration outside the same hotel I slept in, seventeen years earlier. And soon after booking into that hotel in 1976 and settling down, a loud sound of gunfire vibrated the building. 

Then there is an occasion when approached by a Jewish family whilst standing at the Wailing Wall holding a camera on the Sabbath. And at another time, near Haifa, I found myself shedding tears in the arms of an elderly gentleman. Or the time my wife, 18 weeks pregnant, and I were marooned on the summit of Mt Carmel, and it took the inquisitiveness of a Christian taxi driver to rescue us and even paid us to get us to our destination.

Or became a victim of a pickpocket whilst on the train to Florence from Pisa one Friday afternoon and had to live on the hotelier's charity for the whole of that weekend before applying for a refund at an Italian bank.

Or due to carelessness on my part, going down with hyponatremia near the completion of a Grand Canyon hike. Or at the San Diego backpacker's hostel, feeling that fever was coming on, yet I was saved from having symptoms by buying a packet of Paracetamol at a nearby drugstore and resting for that evening. 

Yet, despite those setbacks, I recall the icy waters of the Colorado River, the brilliant display of stars in the night sky above the Canyon, the dramatic rocky cliffs of the Inner Gorge, and the spectacular view from the South Rim. Also, the palm-fringed Californian coastline is in contrast to the bustling life at Manhatten, standing in a cave underneath the Niagara Falls and almost within touching of the thundering waters that literally shook the ground. Or the moment I sat on a painted line crossing the footpath, with one leg in the USA and the other in Canada.

Or the time I stood on the trembling rim of the Central Crater of Mt. Etna with just one other person and gasped in near fright as steam and sulphur gas rose from within as the ground shook with the hollow thunderous noise. And then, on our way back down, having to chase the outer cover of my camera as it was caught in a strong wind.

And Singapore. How I was spoken to with rudeness by a jealous Dutchman who had to return home the next day after I told him that Singapore was a five-day pit-stop on my journey from Britain to Australia, where I snorkelled the Great Barrier Reef, hiked the Blue Mountains National Park, enjoyed a train journey on the Australian railways and looked up to the Southern Cross Constellation in the night sky overhead. And while I sat in the cafeteria some 10,300 miles, 16,680 km from my home town and thinking that I couldn't get further away from home, someone approached me and called my name...

Therefore, writing a book on my travels? The highs and lows of a lone backpacker? No. I doubt that the readership would be interested. Now, if I was a famous celebrity enjoying a beach holiday at Paradise Island, such a book would sell like hotcakes! According to one YouTube video I watched about the Maldives, one of the islands looked a bit like a dump, with derelict buildings and tons of litter, mainly discarded drink bottles, spoiling the beaches. At Paradise Island, the scene was much better, especially in the sunshine. Yet when the presenter swam underwater with a compatible camera, all I saw was a smooth seafloor with some seagrass - the same I saw whilst snorkelling at the Blue Lagoon in Malta a few years ago.

Another problem I would indeed come across is finding a publisher who would be willing to throw in his lot and publish my book. That's not easy. I once read that so many rejected unsolicited manuscripts wing their way back to their authors, that an agency is often needed to help connect with the publisher. I once knew a fellow churchgoer who graduated to be a historian. He wrote two books on the history of the Middle East, but despite his thorough knowledge, it took a while before his agent managed to find a publisher willing to receive his manuscripts. Furthermore, I was already aware that his speciality will only draw in an audience who is interested in Middle East history, hence imposing limitations, and I cautioned him on it, not to mention competition from established authors. However, he was successful, but not to the point of his books appearing on the shelves of Waterstones.

Paradise Island, Maldives.

However, I do have paperbacks on travel writing by authors such as Simon Reeve and Bill Bryson, the latter containing enough humour to make his reading a special delight, although I'm equally impressed with Simon Reeve and his intense rollercoaster ride of ups and downs that would make my own travel rollercoaster look more like a children's ride.

Finally, let me say that the book that is the bestseller around the world and a must-read for everyone, is the Bible. No other book ever written and published would ever hold a candle to the Bible's uniqueness. And a lot of that uniqueness is in prophecy. For example, if all the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the life and the ministry of Jesus Christ were without divine authorship, then the probability of all these prophecies being fulfilled in the life of the one man purely by chance is one in one, followed by 181 zeroes!* Therefore, unlike all other religious and secular books, the Bible stands unique in its demand for Divine inspiration.

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*Mathematician and Professor Peter Stoner tasked his students to work out the probability of 48 Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ, including the location of his birth, his manner of death, his burial and Resurrection. The figure was recorded by the late Henry M. Morris in his book, The Bible and Modern Science, 1968, Moody Press.