Bookpacking’s Blog

In ultra-runner Haruki Murakami’s book What I Think About When I’m Running, the author makes a clear connection with running and writing. Running can be a meditation, and while we might switch off on the surface, the subconscious is often whirring away underneath.

Like a diligent PA, while we take 40 winks on our office sofa, it’s busily sorting things and putting together internal presentations to impress us when we wake up. Running can be something to write about itself but it can also be a way to facilitate creativity and to establish the routine that can make the difference between just coming up with an idea, and actually executing it.

As running becomes more and more popular, so we can expect more books on the subject. Tonight at (London) Victoria’s Run and Become, writer Chris McDougall gave us a little insight into a book which is another variation on the ‘quest’ theme. In Born to Run, this injury-prone author was trying to find a way to stay out of the doctor’s surgery. His search brought him into contact with an obscure tribe of Indians in Mexico who run miles and miles every day, never giving it a second thought, yet are party-hard beer monsters.

And did he find what he was looking for? Bookpacking was sorely tempted during the Q&A to ask him to read out the last page. But wisely, he left us wanting more. Hitting the park the next evening for a run, Bookpacking’s own subconscious put a busy week’s input in the mix. Some 40 minutes later, the results spewed forth. And – taking our inspiration from one of those Indian runners we’d heard so much about – we concluded that when we got back home, we too would chug a beer in record time.

Never again during the safety demonstration will Bookpacking sigh internally: “And just when was the last time a plane ditched on water and people actually needed a lifejacket; indeed still had a head  left on their shoulders to pull it over ? Eh?”

A timely reminder that life is precious and can be taken away from us at any time. And, that we should always watch the safety demonstration…

Yours chastened,

Bookpacking

BTW info@bookpacking.com is working now. Apologies for the technical difficulties.

Ever looked at those people strolling about nonchalantly during the daytime and wondered what they get up to? Well today Bookpacking followed a few of them to the most excellent Housmans bookshop in Kings Cross.

Owned since 1959 by Peace News, the shop’s amiable manager Malcolm had organised for host MC5 legend John Sinclair to come in and plug the new book he edited, Headpress 28. If you’re a youngster like (ahem) Bookpacking, your only direct knowledge of MC5 might be the sample on the KLF’s What Time is Love: “…Right now it’s time to bring on the dance ‘Mofos’”. (For anyone not hip to the street, daddy-o, that’s a bad word and not an 18-30 holiday island). The audience was the usual mix: poets like Niall Ferguson (Rimbaud-rhapsodiser extraordinaire), aging radicals and confirmed hippies.

Rocking up proper rock ‘n’ roll late, in a quiet gravelly voice John read from the book. Some Kerouac, a polemic on the radical ethnic restructuring of New Orleans (never let a free-marketeer anywhere a blank canvas, seemed to be the message) and a poem.

As he stopped to chew the Kings Cross rain-sodden fat, the few that had real jobs – albeit with elasticated lunch breaks – went back to work, formulating as they jogged through the puddles. “A dog stole my sandwich? No, er, I had to help an old lady who was mugged? There was a bomb alert at Greggs? Nah. Aw to hell with it. I’ve just been to see a rock and roll star, Boss!”

It was party time last night for London Democrats at a packed-out Texas Embassy Cantina. Guests included Democrats Abroad activists and organisers, jubilant expats, curious Brits, and the odd MP. You’re going to be hearing more about the organisation that went into such a mass mobilisation of new and expat voters; political parties around the world will be looking at the Democrats’ model to see what they can learn. Expect a personal email from David Cameron soon.

The odd note of caution was sounded, with one experienced political animal telling Bookpacking that his Republican friends wanted Obama to win - so that at the next election they could blame the downturn and the war on him. “I know how Republicans think,” he said. “I used to be one!”

“This time must be different…” (Barak Obama)

Ironically, on the day the UK celebrates an attempt to blow up Parliament with firework displays and bonfires across the country, we watch the US elect its first black president. Truly, a red hot slice of history – with a side order of “change” to come.

Giving his reaction, Dr Robert Franklin of Morehouse College in Atlanta talked of an end to the politics of militarism and division. While Europe is certainly ready for a change in the US – particularly in its foreign and environmental policies – and there’s a mood of optimism abroad, it’s tempered by a realisation that things aren’t going to change too much. As one American told Bookpacking on the QT, “Congress makes the laws, the President only enforces them”.

But when a Republic blogger said that her bulletin board was talking of a “dark day” for the US, it kinda made Bookpacking wonder where that person has been for the last few years. And then it hit home that really, anything has to be better than what’s gone before. The US has less than 5% of the world’s population, but when they sneeze, the rest of the globe is covered in snot.

Expectation weighs heavy on the new man’s shoulders. Last week in London, Bookpacking spoke to a lifelong Labour activist who said she now loathed Tony Blair even more than right wing British icon Margaret Thatcher. In 1997 Blair’s victory song – and Bookpacking was there, blagging our way into the press enclosure – was “Things Can Only Get Better”. How much better things can get, in a country with as much potential as the US, remains to be seen.