I would like to say a few brief words about me, lest any of you who read this column do not know me personally, or have garnered your impressions of my personage from the odd photos around the site and the tales of my, usually ill-advised, diversions and happenings.

I am a shade under 6 feet tall and weigh 102 kilograms. That would make me a fatty, were it not for the satisfying fact that genetics and a long-term job involving dangerously heavy materials have actually made the majority of that large number of kilograms muscle. It is not to say that I am attractive without a shirt on, apart fom the large and diverting tattoo upon my stomach (tactically placed there several years ago as a guard against the less-attractive and all-too noticeable alternative that I would one day have a beer belly) but I'm not too shabby either. I look big enough for most guys not to want to pick a fight, and that is the best thing: not being involved in fights.

At the time of the tattoo I was about 19 or 20 and had no real beer belly - hell I was fairly trim back in those days, 6 or so years ago - but I knew from my ritual consumption of narcotics of many kinds that I would, inevitably, switch to legal means of recreation pretty shortly, and when I moved North indeed I did.

I lived in Yorkshire - it sounds more romantic to say Yorkshire, as I always do, and to hide the truth which is that I lived in Kingston-Upon-Hull, which is itself as romantic as a three-week-dead ferret covered in nitroglycerine with a note attached saying "Strike a match, honey XXX".
I lived there from the age of 21 to the age of 23, more or less, and frankly the best two reasons for me going legitimate when it comes to getting off one's face were the fact I had left all my colourful and interesting contacts and suppliers 211 miles South of me and therefor beyond a reasonable phonecall asking for `a bag of this` or `a gram or three of that`. The second reason was that I was doing pretty well with the drinking until I split up from my first serious girlfriend and sought solace and refuge the multiple investment in a wonderful deal of `8 cans strong lager £5` from the supermarket 2 minutes from my front door.

That's the gritty stuff out of the way - what I cannot say about what I engaged myself upon, and with, in the years from 16 to 21 is just about everything, because almost none of it was in any way legal, often it was dangerous and mostly it was stupid. Also I would be compelled to name names, and the one rule of those environments is that whatever happens, whether you get arrested with everyone's stash and have to take the fall, is that you Do Not Stitch Up Your Mates.
It is an unwritten rule everyone abided by - friends of mine have served time in prison for not giving up their friends, and it was only expected; and when they come out they are shown a great amount of respect, and particularly from those who could have suffered but didn't, a lot of help getting them back on their feet, financially stable where possible and jobs and good housing and suchlike are usually found on their behalf by the rest of the tribe, or whoever is left of it by that time anyway.

In any case it is a dangerous way to live and it was costly, damaging to your health and mentally risky to say the least.
But my gosh, was it fun.

I moved back home from Hull at the age of 23, or it could have been 22 but closing on my birthday, and resumed a position at my previous place of work for a higher salary, better job prospects (there weren't ever really any, but I was in a good position to take over the - very lucrative - company at one point, if only the boss wasn't the kind of man he was, which is to say the kind who never wants to sell up and will work to his dying day) and a nicer comfy desk all of my own, when everyone else had to share the front romm (mwahahaha etc.).
He (the boss) grew up very poor as a pig farmer's son, made a success of himself with a series of intriguing jobs (window cleaner, auctioneer, used car salesman) and ended up, and is still, a millionairre, although you'd have to tie him down and hit him with sticks to make him ever admit it.

The work was good - I was damn good at my job and it involved a lot of varied and difficult tasks - and as an added bonus the physical side of things enabled me to turn a lot of my favourite dish in the whole world; pizza; into actual proper human muscle tissue, rather than just become a big fat ball of mozarella, which is probably what I actually deserved because I ate a LOT of pizza - I used to have one for breakfast for Christ's sake and then have another 3 full meals a day on top.

The problem was that I got, famously, and unexpectedly, the Seven Year Itch, as I had technically been employed - had known the same people; colleagues, suppliers, dealers and many of the customers - for seven years, despite my 2 year break, and although I had previously quit twice as well (and not many people can say they have been employed by the same company 4 times) I just got cabin fever with the whole thing.

At the same time, for 2 years or so since I had returned, I had developed another addiction - to a sport called airsoft, or rather, to the sporting equipment. Airsoft is paintball but with realistic guns: they are precise 1:1 replicas of the real thing, they fire fully automatically and a lot faster than paintball, and thanks to the fact that airsoft is basically Japanese, whereas paintball is basically American, the guns themselves are accurate and very long ranging, making the actual sport itself far more realistic and interesting than running around in a blue jumpsuit behind giant inflatable remnants of bouncy castles, which is what most of paintball is.

Anyway long-story-short I saved and spent all my money (well, all but what was needed to get smashed-drunk every night) for two whole years on airsoft guns and I imported them from Hong Kong, where even despite the shipping costs they are on average 25% cheaper than if bought in the UK. So I spent a lot time looking at pretty sales websites, and an awful lot of money in wire transfers and PayPal payments.

I spent about £20,000 on the equipment and the weapons, in fact, which is what psychologists might call a `pathological interest` but I just acknowledge it as my inner geek manifesting itself more gloriously than most people ever have the guts or gumption to.
By the time it came ot an end, I had 115 `proper` airsoft guns (i.e.not including the dozen or so `BB guns` of the kind that people buy from air-rifle and fishing shops, county fairs and market stalls).
It was the 3rd largest collection of airsoft guns (by my reckoning) in the UK, and the 5th or 6th largest in Europe, and I was by far the youngest of anyone in the top ten of that list, so I had a real dedication (read: obsession) to the `cause`.
These were all the proper thing and I have watched a good many - too many - films to deny the fact that I love guns. I love the mechanics of them and the coolness and power and respect and performance associated with them, and almost no-one understands this bit, but I really loved the feel of a gun in my hand; and these were all perfect replicas to the last tiny detail of the real thing, so if someone were to chuck me a genuine firearm there is a very good chance that I could operate it, as all high-end airsoft weapons work exactly like the real things.

But things change, we grow tired even of those things we hold dearest, and I decided, after another crushing heartbreak, as it happens (bit of a running theme here, what?) to sell everything that I owned and go travelling around the world.

So here I am. I made over £13,000 selling the airsoft guns and equipment, and between the beginnings of the sale and the time I finally left I had only drunk £4,500 of it in my local pub.

I have an amusing tale or three to tell about that, too, but I'm saving it for later.

Anyway with one thing and another, and a lot of help from certain wonderful people, here I am and this is what I now do. This is hardly my life story - but an explanation of immediate events and the few important driving factors behind why, and how, I manage to be here, travelling for several years through dozens of countries, meeting and befriending and insulting a variety of interesting people along the way.
And I hope that maybe some of this has been of interest to some of you; it has done me some good, I think, to say this much to you all.

I did a touristy thing yesterday and went on of these organised sightseeing boat trips. Little did I know our tour guide would be a fun-loving crazy person nor that there would be a Vietnamese ska band for entertainment. Not even could I guess that it would be a boat trip for young people of the 18-30 vibe, so everyone was basically there to get smashed- drunk and jump about in the water.

The day did not start well - I actually prepared a menatl list in answer to the question "Oi what's your bloody problem mate?" anticipating this would be a likely discourse at some point during the day, because I was feeling pretty distressed and generally antsy (the list, for reference, went "Depression, Insomnia, Intestinal Infection, Hepatic dysfunction, Alcoholism, sleep deprivation and a bad fucking attitiude. What's yours?" but thankfully I never had to deploy this less than uplifting diatribe upon anyone I had suitably pissed off, firstly because I didn't piss anyone off, and secondly because the tour guide was instantly funny, the people on the boat great company, and they broke out the beers within half an hour of leaving the dockside so all was well with the world

The `depression` part on the list there isn't like other people's, more serious depression, by the way, it's no cry for help or sympathy, and little more than the normal unhappy thoughts we all have. But it is, as medically defined, depression, and I at least recognise that. It is intrinsically linked to the drinking, the whole cause-effect cycle has done a nasty on me, or rather, I let it do a nasty so it's just something for me to work on. And I'll shut up about it now

Boat trips around the harbour advertise a steady theme along the lines of `stop off on 4 islands, floating bar, swimming, snorkelling` but really you just all sit around on the boat and get drunk, the guide cracks wise and they serve food (very nice, can't recommend the shark though) then use the same central stage area made from the banch seating for a stage, and break out a band, where the drummer has a drumkit made of plastic water barrels, an old metal disk obviously battered flat in someone's garage somewhere, and something that served as a snare drum that was almost certainly homemade, probably from large coffee can and some piano wire.

The guitarist was 113 years old and played a fisher price sort of super-cheap beginner's electric guitar, and there was a second singer who move nothing but his mouth and vocal cords throughout the entire performance, except when pne of us (usuaally me (walked along the outside rails of the boat to get more beer and had to work their way past him to get back off the main deck and onto the outside of the boat, and it's always fun walking along that tiny ledge next to open water carrying 4 cans of beer on a boat slightly rocking and swaying.
Still, I managed to stay dry - for a while.

The thing about the band was, unbelievably, they were actually pretty good. plastic drumkit man really could play the things, albeit fairly basically, and even great-grandaddy guitarro seemed pretty good - surprisingly good in fact.

Best of all was that the tour guide - the main singer in the band too - went around the group asking which country people were from and then dragged someone up on stage to sing a song from that country.
Almost everyone was English though, or Irish, and I was with the Irish lot, drinking like there was no tomorrow and generally have a whale of it, but they got an English guy up first and our national song is, apparently, Yallow Submarine` which I could at least sing along to as I rather like it.

When it got around to the Irish, strangely, no-one was happy with getting up, so I offered to pretend I was Irish in order to get a national song for the guys I was with and, yes, I got up on stage and sung. Or rather I didn't at all because by a cruel twist of fate the one and only Iriosh song I know (The Wild Rover) wasn't on the menu, and the band began a tune that I had literally never heard before, let alone a Vietnamese Ska version therof so I sang my usual `hilarious` version to the same tune where the words go
"I - dont know - the fucking words to this song - but still - I'm fucking here - so I'll fucking swear along like this - and hope it all - ends soon - so verrry soooooon" and whether the tour guide didn't approve of my swearing, or I was just so out of tune (I did dance along as best I could given it was the first time I'd heard the song, and the first I'd heard any folk song performed by a punk band) but he managed to lead me towards the Irish guys at the end of the boat - who bloody well all DID know the words, thank you very much, and we managed to finsh by getting the microphone the hell away from me and towards someone who had a clue to what they were doing.

After a few more stops - we never visited any island at all, we just moored up near them and the beer was dispensed - and all the young guys jumping into the water I thought, well, there IS a floating bar in the water and the booze from there is free, so I thought it was time to join the waterborne young drunkies.
Finally plucking up the courage - this is the best bit - I went upt to the top of the boat, above the main deck and a good 10 feet into the water, and stripped off down to my boxers, gave my glasses to the helpful little man on the top, climbed over the safety rail and just before I jumped was told everyone was coming back in - I hesitated, I could now chicken out with justification - but I was already standing beyond the outer rail of the roof of a boat wearing nothing but underwear and a terrified grimace, so I though I may as well.

Well, I remembere that scene from the first pirates of the Caribbean film, where Johnny Depp (well, his stunt double, anyway) launches into a perfect Swan Dive, and enters the water with the utmost grace and dtyle.
I tried this.

Now a swan dive requires that your starting position puts your arms stretched straight out in a `crocifix` pose, you keep your arms as this while you yourself jump mightily forward and angle yourself towards the oncoming watery territory, and at the lat possible moment you rapidly but gracefully bring your arms together abover your head (except it's now below your head as you'r upside down hurtling towards solid water by this point) and you just enter the water as your hands have met in the safe entry position.

I miscalculated the time and distance completely, started off roughly swan-like, but basically entered the water at about 20 degrees from horizontal with my arms uselessly extended. I performed and almost perfect belly flop, and it was very funny to all on board, I am told - honestly it was funny as hell to me as I know exactly when to laugh at myself, which is most of the time, so yeah, pretty good crack as it happened.
I had a red belly, face and arms for an hour afterwards though.

I had avoided swimming prior to this because of the new tattoo and basically just drank enough not to care - being the consumate thinking drunk, however, I had prepared perfectly, and bought a big bottle of pure mineral water, washed off the tattoo thoroughly and had a good supply of `Tattoo Goo`, an antiseptic and colour preservative made for tattoo aftercare, and persuaded one of the Irish girls to smother the inkwork with it as I could not trust myself to actually get it all, what with it being on the back of my leg and all.

After that, and returning to the mainland, we all headed to a bar and the Irish stepped up their drinking as if all the previous hours of the day had been merely a kind of liquidy respiration, and after going through 4 rounds in 45 minutes I got far too drunk, made my excuses, left enough money to cover the next round as I hadn't got one yet, thanked them all for being Irish and teaching a poor Englishman the folly of trying to keep up with them (they were all very charming about it, about everything in fact) and I fell out of the pub, founf my hotel on the third try and staggered into bed for the best night's sleep I have had in two weeks.

All in all I call it something of a success - and next time I do one of these tours, I'm gonna find out the ages of the rest of the guest list, just so I can be properly prepared