I resent the fact that most people will say “don’t run” in mildly perilous situations involving slippery surfaces or gravel slopes, that it’s generally accepted that you shouldn’t jump fences to take obvious shortcuts out of courtyards and compounds, swing yourself under the railing next to the entrance instead of walking the long way around, or jump across the gap to the other side rather than take a tediously sensible meander to reach it whole seconds later than is possible, thus wasting tiny potential portions of your day to perform other such only very-slightly-manly timesaving maneuvers .
However in a very Darwinian sense these people are quite correct, more generally correct and sensible than I, anyway, because I just now legged it out into a tropical shower here in Kochi for the hell of it (as you do) and I ran back, suitably elated and universally soggy, but as I did so my feet, like the unfaithful bastards they apparently are, went right out from under me and I fell straight onto my back.
I wouldn’t mind at all because I generally throw myself about a bit and take the knocks and bumps in an amused, even slightly self-satisfied way at my ability to take such knocks, and would have laughed it off happily and heartily even despite the large crowd of witnesses, who had sensibly gathered themselves by the lobby because of the rainstorm no intelligent person would subject themselves to, but unfortunately I broke the fall with the back of my skull and, although I was still impressed at the speed my brain still worked (and that it was still switched on) when I got up to a crowd of gasps upon thinking that what I should do, right, is I should rub my head quickly as Jackie Chan does after a stunt goes wrong, yeah that’ll look suitably man-of-the-world won’t it, and also I’ll immediately go and pick up my inadvertently catapulted drinks bottle, smile sheepishly yet clearly coherently at the first face that comes back into focus, and say something self-deprecatingly charming to the locals and tourists left looking at me variously with worried faces and slight smirks, some possibly even taking sly looks at the point of impact to see if I might have left some more of my blood there.
Or maybe a modest, but appreciably gruesome, section of skull.
Perhaps India is trying to make me distribute my fluids, tissues and calcareous structures across it in a thin yet even layer before I flee the land.
Maybe India thinks it will miss me more than I’ll probably miss it, and wants something to remember me by. Such as my entire mortal remains, piecemeal.
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I just met two girls from the Southampton area in the hotel lobby, one of them went to Romsey school only year above me. I’m sure this actually did happen and isn’t just a result of the concussion but just thought I’d mention it.
If anyone reading from my hometown knows a Lucy Dovey (of the farming Doveys from all around Sherfield English and Romsey – I actually know her uncle Perman myself, through work) and/or a Jody Rowles who is reading from back home, then I just met them. I’ll hunt them down and add them on the old Facebook thing so, if anyone happens to want to get in touch with them, then they’ll soon be masquerading as Friends of mine on that wonderful social networking construct of digital lies and spam that we know and love – actually I do like FB but I can’t get my fucking pictures on there without sweating blood, and it just pisses me off.
They are both lovely people, but I am totally nonplussed that they are here, if they’ll pardon th flippant dismissal if they ever happen to read this - I met the guy who moved into one of my best mate’s houses right after he left just a few months ago, and a whole bunch of other startling coincidences have eventuated at me, it is just not even remarkable, this sort of thing – I expect to meet my best friend from primary school in every restaurant I go into now, so frequent are these things.
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Funny thing though. They just came into the lobby (where I live, of course) and I heard them ask about TVs and asked about them having a certain sports channel; being Indians, of course, the staff immediately asked what was on, and they said a Portsmouth/Birmingham game was their target viewing.
I had to ask who they were gunning for; it would have been cruel if they had been Pompey fans for me not to have offered them some piss-taking entertainment by telling them that the ailing Southampton FC was, technically, the team I should be supporting, if I actually supported anything other than the notion that people should be free to run, jump and climb trees, and fall on their own heads if they wanted to. Thus did we discover the whole coincidence of our common ground.
After we had finished laughing at me though, they told me a remarkable thing though; this match they were after was the FA cup semi final – Portsmouth (spit! 
) versus Birmingham, and they then told me that the other semi final was between, wait for it, Cardiff and Barnsley.
Now I don’t follow football. I usually wouldn’t have a clue what goes on with what sport, to which country, in what decade, but a few things have broken through this shell of ignorance in the recent past.
Strange things have happened in sports, especially with England not even qualifying for this year’s European championship, an event I couldn’t believed I could give a shit about, but it seems that I actually do.
I was present when they were cruelly thrown into footballing purgatory for 4 years by Croatia (2:1 to Johnny foreigner 
) at a bar in Arambol back in November: the central European majority in the bar cheered most cruelly as it happened and, even though I don’t support any teams or care much for football at all, so I thought, my national pride was, I am amazed to say, quite stung.
I think I retired to my room in an actual state of sadness – who would have though that possible? I suppose the fact I made the effort to watch the match could have told you something, but as it happened it was the bar I’d hardly left ina week and all my friends were going anyway, especially Kristian the Danish polymath who, as well as being brilliant as everything else, managed to follow every single league of every single sport in England, probably in every single country, and knew more about English football club players, history, management and politics than all the English footie fans in the town.
Jody and Lucy here would have loved the man.
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Now strange things seem to be abroad, or afoot, or something, when the possible winners of the FA Cup could be Cardiff City or Birmingham. Or for that matter, Barnsley. Apparently Barnsley kicked Liverpool’s and Chelsea’s arses this season and previously their only entry into my stream of consciousness was a dreadful sketch in the equally dreadful Russ Abbott show, that steadily and mercilessly took the piss out of the town for 4 solid minutes.
Now they could be lifting the FA Cup – as could Birmingham, a city which I unconventionally love (it’s actually great! Go visit! They’ve taken all the shit away and made the city centre sparkle, I promise!) myself, but could never have imagined being any good at kicking a leather ball between wooden sticks.
I suspect some kind of Dark Hand of Justice is extending itself over the country at the moment, righting wrongs, undoing and unseating the mighty and giving the humble something of a gigantic leg-up, in order to redress the cosmic balance sheet somehow.
Either way, it’s all a bit weird, but writing this little entry has at least kept me awake for an hour or more since smashing my head in, so if I do go to sleep soon, the chances of a coma are vastly and reassuringly reduced.
Now isn’t that nice 
) and basically you can eliminate a whole bunch of the creature comforts you may have been thinking of taking. They weigh a lot, and every item you bring brings with it a small amount of inherent worry ("will it work? Have I lost it? Will it get stolen? Why does it weigh so fucking much?")
) keep it to a minimum - and basically enjoy the fact you'll be getting hot, or at least warm water everywhere, probably room service if you want it, and the daily cleansing and changing of your bed linen which is something I find such a luxury in some of these nicer places that I'm practically hanging from the doorman's leg when I check out screaming "Can I live here Can I live here Can I live here PLLLEEEEEAAAASSSSE????" 
