I've gone on holiday by mistake

I’m on a yoga retreat in Turkey and it’s the most stressful holiday I’ve ever had. I’m not doing any yoga, of course, unless saluting the rising sun with a stretch, a scratch, a yawn and a fart counts. I say it does; my wife (the reason we’re here) and her fellow practitioners are trying to persuade me to loosen up and get bendy with them, or at least do the scratching and farting thing somewhere else.

Other things I’m not doing are drinking alcohol or coffee, and eating meat. These are discouraged at the Waco-style compound we’re in. Deprived of three of my five a day, the other two being chips and chocolate which come to think of it I haven’t seen around here either, I am becoming increasingly tetchy and distracted. It’s cold turkey in Turkey with no turkey. So while the others will be attaining liberation from all worldly suffering and moving beyond the cycle of birth and death, my task for today is to try and smuggle a couple of keys of Columbian Blend past the guards and maybe see if I can distil some hooch from the chlorine in the pool house.

I’ve nothing against yoga. As a physical and mental discipline, as a contribution to personal well-being and harmony, I think it’s right up there with going for a run or having some friends. The problem is that the people here are Seekers, and I’m not. I’m exceptionally shallow: dive into me and you’ll crack your head on my bottom. These people are leading the search for enlightenment, out there with the torches and the dogs, trawling the muddy ditches of philosophy for traces of truth. I’m just vaguely sentient organic matter which needs no more motivation to get out of bed in the mornings than a full bladder and the promise of a double espresso.

I’m trying not to feel any resentment towards the spiritually curious and their distain for perfectly natural stimulants like coffee and booze. I admire anyone who looks beyond their gaze, I just don’t see why I can’t have a gin and tonic while they’re doing it. Last night after dinner someone said “The Chi was good today” and I replied “Was that the cauliflower thing?” which should have got at least a giggle or two. Nothing. Just pitying glances. No one likes a cynic, especially a shallow one.

Life is suffering, said The Buddha. I bet he was at yoga camp when he came up with that.

When Keyboards Roamed The Earth

It's not widely known that Billy Preston's chiropractor came very close to destroying rock music as we know it.

Like many of his calling, the unnamed spinal cracker had the moral compass of algae, which is, of course, the only professional qualification a chiropractor needs. Eager to hold on to his celebrity client as long as possible, he suggested that Billy should strap a Fender Rhodes around his shoulders and stagger with gritted teeth to the front of the stage, where he could noodle out solos to the percussive popping of compacting vertebrae.

Before you could say 'osteoarthritis' hundreds of imitators were lugging a hundredweight of Vox Continental towards the footlights, where, like the first lifeforms to emerge from the primordial ocean, they would briefly gulp in the sweet air of freedom before collapsing in sciatic spasm and being dragged back to their riser by roadies. Unlike the evolutionary fish, they never again stood upright, but things were changing, and yesterday's rooted Hammond humpers suddenly looked prehistoric. The keys were on the move.

The Eighties dawned. New synthesisers were light and portable. Electronics ruled; guitars were obsolete, strings were on the ropes. Surely now the piano was in its forte? But no. The new generation of keyboardists, now mysteriously all called Roland, bottled it. Given the chance to seize centre stage they instead bought stainless steel 'X' stands for their D-70 Super LA's and stood like embarrassed housewives doing a spot of ironing while their transvestite husbands moaned and contorted. It took a seismic shift to throw off their mental chains - the aptly named Moog Liberator leading the emancipation. Suddenly there were Key-tars everywhere, and the tinklers burst their banks and flowed forward, yelling, leaping and dancing, dancing, dancing.

That was the problem. There is a natural order to band dynamics. Drummers go at the back, a rule only ever inverted on Top of the Pops, and even then never since Kenney Jones spontaneously combusted with embarrassment during Maggie May in 1971. Bass players, a feral, Morlock breed, instinctively seek the shadows. And the peacock guitarists have spent every waking hour since birth in front of a mirror, or watching Keith and Pete in endless replay, to look so effortless and cocksure. Here, however, came the ingenue keyboarders, still dressed in the classic backline uniform of headband, sweatbands, yellow shell suit and legwarmers, excitedly claiming their share of the spotlight.

And oh, how they danced. Vamping approximately with one hand, bashing the bendy button with the other, they pranced, pirouetted and pliéd. Audiences stood aghast. This was the single most embarrassing thing anyone had ever seen. The keys had opened a door to all horrors, and for all its twists and turns, the long road to freedom led only to ridicule. The rock community took one look at the ivoried oafs and decided this could not stand. So the revolution never came; the keys went back to the riser, and there they have stayed, hidden, shamed and nameless. Once again, their solos soundtrack the mid-set wee break. They walk on, stand still, and walk off.

Somewhere the chiropractor stirs, but his powers are weak now.

An Easter tale

On this day twenty-five years ago I was climbing Mount Cameroon which is, keep up now, in Cameroon. It was about 5.00am and I was on my own, having left my companions behind in the thick mist of morning. The air was chill, the atmosphere was thin, the climb was steep and I was struggling.

Something moved above me on the path, a dark shape which resolved itself into a Belgian nun in flip-flops. Of course I didn't know she was Belgian till later, but her nun-ness was beyond dispute. She had a wimple and everything. I suspected I was in the later stages on altitude sickness, but she seemed real enough. She smiled down at me and said "Good morning! He is risen!"

I had absolutely no idea who she was talking about. People never said things like that to you where I came from. I looked around. "Is he?" I replied.

I sensed from her silence this was not the response she'd anticipated. I felt I should add more. "He's up early," I said.