THE ONE DISC

I was outside, on the phone to Rory, when I saw it, glistening with rain drops and lying on the cobbled stones by the car park - a compact disc - a Maxell CD-R with 700MB/80 mins of memory that would spin up to 52X. It was in a plastic sleeve, and someone had written the words: "SHORT STORIES 1" on it, with a Sharpie.

I didn't say anything to Rory. I just crouched down and picked it up, intrigued.

This is like one of those situations they dream up for those cyber-security training surveys:

You find a CD in the car park. It seems to contain short stories, written by someone who works in your building. You don't know who. Do you...

a) Hand it in at reception?
b) Take it home and open it?
c) Go back to your desk and open it on your work computer so you can figure out who it belongs to?

Well. What would you do? In the end I emailed reception:

--

Hi.

I found a compact disc today in the car park, in a plastic sleeve. Someone has written: “Short Stories 1” on it, so I assume it’s somebody’s creative output (there is no way I’m opening it!)

In the unlikely event that anyone here is looking for it, the disc is with me, on my desk.

Thanks,

Matt

--

They haven't forwarded it to anyone, so I'm assuming that unless the secret author asks by chance, this disc will remain in my possession, tantalisingly on my desk.

What if it contains some brilliant undiscovered work? What if 'Short Stories 1' is packed with tales of adventure, romance, danger, and plucky battles, or sci-fi on an HG Wells level of epic imagination?

What if it's malware in a plastic sleeve that could take down our network? What if it's just packed with viruses and trojans and ransomware?

And so 'Short Stories 1' remains undiscovered on my desk - the great enigma of not-ever-being-able-to-know. My best bet is to find an old machine that's isolated from any network and no-one would miss if it blue-screened forever. Unplugged from the internet with wireless and bluetooth disabled, it should make a suitable sandbox.

Lot of effort though, isn't it, just for someone's lost creative writing? I wonder what the story really is, how it came to be lost in the car park, and who might be looking for it, and why. There is a part of me that thinks I should just put the disc back where I found it, but now that I've emailed reception... I don't think that's a good idea either.

Maybe I'll just keep using it as a coaster, caught forever in the chasm of the unknown writer. Oh, I wish it had never come to me...

But then, "so do all who live to see such times."

Time for a cuppa, I reckon.

THE RETURN OF RADIO SILENCE

It’s been a while since I did a radio silence. I texted my thoughts to my pal Winners this morning.

“I’ve been thinking of maybe shelving all social media and not blogging for the whole of Lent - just to get my heart-space right.”

I said.

He was enthusiastic, though I agreed with his assertion that it would be tough to include WhatsApp in that, as it’s useful for a lot of stuff.

But, it’s been a while since I took out 40 days from writing blogs or posting on Instagram or Twitter. In fact, I seem to write a blog post every 1.3 days or so, on average, so a whole Lent’s worth seems an enormous amount of time. It’ll mess up my stats.

Nonetheless, ‘heart-space’ is the thing. And by that I mean room to breathe, room to dream, and find songs and cartoons and fun again. I really do need that.

It’s worth pointing out that I’m not catholic. Lent is an arbitrary construct for me, even if Easter isn’t. Actually the idea of a ‘radio silence’ came to me before I realised how close we are to Pancake Day (next Tuesday). So in this instance, Lent is a convenience, but a useful one. And I do like pancakes.

Happily though, that’s not until next week, so there’s plenty of time to tell you about my theory - how each of us get stuck inside ‘bubbles’ that look very serious and important from the inside and very silly from the out. I can go into great lengths about the acrobatic way (and I mean it) I charged up my phone today, and you’ll definitely want to hear about the improbable wackiness of one of the meeting rooms at work now having a windbreak, and a bucket and spade in it!

All in good time though, eh.

OCCAM'S PENCIL

I had the idea for 'Occam's Pencil' today. I don't know if it's quite right yet, but it seems like a good principle:

"If you can say something as simply as possible, you should always do so."

I saw something that sounded very grand and philosophical today, but it made no sense. It was worded so strangely, and with such convolution, that I realised I had no idea what it meant at all - making me feel a bit thick - and I'm certain that that wasn't this person's intention.

True, Occam's Pencil doesn't work well for poetry or descriptive language. And applying it strictly, removes the diplomatic nuances that might protect you from a black eye. We all like simple honesty, but too simple and too honest and it can really hurt.

But Occam's Pencil does work for technical writing! Like a dream! You find yourself taking out all the words that don't add anything to the sentence and your writing takes on a clear, translucent simplicity. Every word does its job without any nonsense.

The other thing that Occam's Pencil makes you do is organise your thoughts. I realised I needed it while trying to pin down the difference between 'that' and 'which' with Erica this afternoon. I heard myself say something like:

"Yes so I think 'comma which' is for those moments when you're talking about a thing that's from a selection of other similar things and you want to refer to the one thing from the selection, like 'the apple, which I picked from the basket' instead of the apple 'that' I picked from the basket, which is different.'

She looked at me blankly. I'll be honest, I looked at myself blankly. I still have no idea what I was on about or why it was different. Applying Occam's Pencil might have helped me.

Emails are another place for using it. I write wordy emails all the time - mostly in some vain attempt to combat the terseness of some of the messages I receive! I could remove some of those flowery adverbs that creep in, like 'unfortunately' or 'appropriately' and 'categorically' - Occam's Pencil crosses out those blighters, that's for sure - and often for the best!

So, perhaps in the quest for 'Clear Information' (as part of my 'Good Communication' thinking) I'll write out Occam's Pencil on a post-it and stick it to my desk. It's definitely worth thinking through, even if I haven't quite nailed it yet.

And next time I write an email, I'll definitely, totally, absolutely, be on the lookout for those pesky unnecessary adverbs. 

VEGGIE MINCE

I keep forgetting that veggie mince tastes like cardboard. It’s so dry! I put boiling water in it tonight, added some tomatoes and cooked it in gravy. Out it came, still like crumbly bits of paper. It has clearly absorbed all the juices and then re-evaporated them, or something.

It wasn’t like that when I bought it: the strange young lady ahead of me in the queue made a point of commenting on the packet.

“Ooh, any good?” she asked, beaming. I said I hoped so. She nodded and smiled as though she’d known me for ages and saw right through me. Perhaps she’d heard the packet rattle and knew that wasn’t a good sign.

“I’ve only been eating this kind of thing for a year,” I said, by way of explanation, “So I’m still kind of figuring out what I like.” And that is true - it’s a very flexible science experiment, not cooking or buying meat. She smiled and paid and disappeared, leaving me with the checkout lady who scans too fast.

Well I’ll remember next time. I’ll remember that the veggie mince is expensive pulp, wrapped up in single-use plastic packaging. 

RETURNING TO TIMELINES

I’ve been contemplating time, and its breathtaking ability to change everything without you knowing.

You leave someone’s timeline at a point along their path (A), and you’re pretty sure you know what happens next. In fact you’re so sure that you freeze the memory in your mind, ready for next time.

Then time messes up the path without you looking.

One day, you suddenly slip back into their timeline and it becomes obvious that everything is very different at B. Time has changed. Or perhaps you have, without realising, or they have, or the universe has, or we all have.

Figuring out what happened between points A and B without seeing it unfold yourself, can be really overwhelming. Within seconds you have to calculate how you feel about this weird new universe, and how you’re going to react to, or process the things that they have had (B-A) time-units to get used to. Your old frozen memory thaws our pretty quickly.

In addition, time is different in different frames - Einstein postulated it. It flows more slowly in the traveller’s experience than it does for the observer. Or in more confusing language, (B’ - A’)<(B-A) where B’ and A’ are the same events witnessed by the person leaving the timeline. Or, in other words, the glorious summer of the London 2012 Olympics feels like it happened about four years ago... and not seven.

Breathtaking is right. Children grow up, relationships blossom and fall, and families unite and divide; the world spins on its carousel of happy and sad, hopeful and lost. It’s a struggle to keep the pace, especially without social media giving you clues along the way.

And if, I wonder (while still catching my breath) their timeline has changed so severely for me, then how has mine changed for them? Hair’s a little greyer, face a little older, fresh sadness, hidden joys. Those are adventure lines, not wrinkles! Yet what adventure gave them to me? What story lies behind this old face since point A when last we parted?

I conclude that life is short; it seems like the only thing to say - we have time between the points, and mountains to climb and oceans to sail, but not a lot of it. 

So whatever we do have, we should learn to use very well - otherwise, perhaps when we face Point C together, the only thing that takes our breath is that we didn’t live out the Best Story we could have. And that would be a shame.

A SHORT STORY ABOUT TRAINS

I arrived at the train station, just twenty minutes’ walk from my house. I had ambled down the hill with time to spare, thinking about something distracting like words and labels, or how to define racism in order to tackle it, I can’t quite remember the details...

It was foggy and cold though - I remember that. The zebra crossing had loomed out of the mist with its flashing Belisha beacons, floating in the early morning air. At the station, the orange letters glowed as I approached.

07:23.

My train would be two minutes late, and I had thirteen whole minutes to wait for it.

And for some reason, all of a sudden, like a pale ghost, I thought about my oven, which I could not remember switching off. 

Was it off? I couldn’t say! Could I have left it on when I cooked my toast? Should I just trust it would all be alright? Why couldn’t I remember?

I bit my lip. My tickets were non-refundable. If I missed this train I’d miss my connection. Thirteen minutes. A twenty minute walk.

Should I leave it? It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d normally do. But then, I’d be out of town for the next two days and I knew, I just knew I’d be worried the whole time. Could I risk it? Could I still make it? What should I do?

Every second was deafening, and I was annoyed with myself.

I don’t know what you would have done. Perhaps you live with other people and you could have solved this problem with a simple text message? Perhaps you’re organised enough not to do this kind of thing at all, nor to let Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or Anxiety, or whatever it is, get the better of you.

Well.

It was the wrong side of 7:15am on a foggy Saturday morning - no-one was going to help me. There was nothing for it.

I set a timer for six minutes, threw my rucksack over both shoulders and I pelted up the hill like Linford Christie. (I figured I needed to know when to turn around and run back again, so as not to miss that train.)

I’ve never felt so dead. This wasn’t a typical fun sprint on the treadmill in the gym; this was rucksack-laden SAS training for the overweight, and before long I was panting and spluttering up the hill with adrenaline coursing through me, and my chest pounding in my ears.

The alarm went off before I reached my front door. I went in anyway, leapt up the stairs and into the kitchen.

I expect you already know what I found.

“Oh why didn’t I just trust you!” I half-prayed, half-exclaimed. The cooker was off. It was very off.

I leapt down the stairs, locked the door behind me and glanced at my phone. Four minutes left. It was still a twenty minute walk - I’d have to fly down the hill.

“I should have just trusted,” I repeated to myself as my trainers hit the concrete, one heavy foot after the other. I was running so fast that my teeth were jarring and my heart was bursting. The rucksack bounced uncomfortably on my back. It was most unpleasant.

The timer vibrated in my pocket, and in the distance, above the station wall still shrouded in fog, I saw the roof a train move gently away from Platform 4. A tiny puff of black diesel fume evaporated into the cold air.

EITHER SIDE OF THE WALL

Other than their curious house-parties, there are three kinds of noise I often hear through my neighbours’ wall.

One is mystery-movie-night - you know, where I try and guess what movie they’re watching from the muffled soundtrack. I’m  terrible at that game because they seem to prefer awful films with both bouncy soundtracks and the Hans Zimmer Inception boom, if you can believe it.

Two is the resonant click of their pull-cord bathroom light. It sounds exactly like mine, and is weirdly loud. It clicks twice (ca-lick) and reverbs. You know the kind of thing.

And three is the sound of a phone vibrating. Not ringing - just buzzing. I hear it in the mornings and imagine it’s my own alarm, then remember that it’ll be a miracle if mine has charged up overnight. It’s next door. How am I hearing that through the wall?

I never hear them talking, or putting toast in. There’s no sound of a vacuum cleaner, or running water or a kettle or a washing machine. They don’t seem to argue, or sing, or recite the Presidents and Capitals in order like normal people. And weirdly they don’t ever seem to rush round their flat going, “Well where do you think I would have put them?” or “They’ve just got to be here somewhere; how did I unlock to get in?”

I wonder if it’s possible that only certain sounds get through - like the wall is acting as a sort of filter, absorbing all the frequencies except for buzzing phones, movie noises, and the bathroom light switch.

I kind of hope the filter works better the other way around. I could cope if all they heard was my phone (when it works), my bathroom light, and YouTube! The other day I was pulling faces at my reflection and putting on the voices of cartoon villains; I scared myself with the whites of my eyes (“Perhaps you’d like to sssee how sssnake-like I can be...”) and had one of those laughing fits and went for a lie down. I’d be mortified if anyone beyond these walls knew that.

Anyway, the chances are they’ve heard me playing the Star Wars theme (blues remix) on the piano. They’ve probably heard me muttering about punctuation, or listening to BBC Radio 4, and they may well have listened in to me rehearsing my recent presentation: ‘creating a functional documentation portal’ which is exactly as Earth-shattering as it sounds. I hope they enjoyed it, with or without the Disney voices.

Tonight I’ve been deliberately quiet, and so have they, I think. I listened to Just a Minute (it’s a radio show), they watched an episode of Friends. It occurred to me that as humans, we all laugh, regardless of culture or tradition - we don’t need to be taught how to do it.

It’s nice to know that we’re all different on each side of most walls, divided, and yet, really, very similar in lots of ways. A lot of people could stand to learn that lesson.

ON THE BREEZE

End of the week, and, as I’ve missed the last couple of ends of the week, I’m back in Starbucks, with a tea and a cinnamon swirl.

It’s been a deep-thinking week. I feel as though I’ve calculated, or at least tried to calculate, a lot of stuff. And other things have silently processed through my head and my heart, which can’t yet be expressed.

I think I might have started an avalanche today. I just kicked up a little snow. It might rumble into an unstoppable wall of change, it might not! But I think it’s okay to shake things up a bit when you’re fed up with winter. Time will tell.

Actually, it feels like it’s getting to be time for Spring. I guess I cheated a bit by having a week of Aprilish sunshine in Israel last week - here, it’s coats and hats and chilly nights still, and it’s been tough to come back to it. I’d like to feel some warmth out here in the UK - little hints of summer, pleasant days for carrying your coat or seeing the river sparkle and the sunlight dance.

Patience then. It is coming. The avalanche might be the beginning of the thaw, the loud, unruly, last ghasp of winter. But even if I made no difference, then perhaps I should be confident that Spring is just as relentless, that the cherry blossom, the new life, and the blue skies are inevitable, and that change, good change, is on the breeze.

SOME THOUGHTS ON GOOD COMMUNICATION

I'm not pretending to be an expert on communication, but I think I've figured out that it always consists of five things:

some Information
a Voice
a Channel
an Audience
a Record

In today's fractured world, there are lots of Channels, millions of Voices, and billions of Audiences. I do wonder though, whether there's roughly the same amount of Information as always there was, and we've just invented fancy ways to say it. Anway...

Here's my theory:

Good communication only happens when a Suitable Voice matches Clear Information to a Receptive Audience, through an Appropriate Channel.

What do you reckon? Can I take this show on the road?

A Suitable Voice is usually one that carries the right level of clout (or presence, or knowledge) to distribute the information. For example, it wouldn't be good communication if the office cleaning staff announced wide-sweeping redundancies. It wouldn't even be funny. But if the CEO did it, that's another story... though it er, it still wouldn’t be funny.

By Clear Information, I think I mean well-thought-through and (usually) concise. Sometimes complex information is harder to distribute, but if someone needs to know it, there has to be a good way to tell them. And clear information covers that, I think.

Receptive Audience. Confucius once said, 'nothing is taught until it has been learned'. I like this - it means the main skill of a good communicator is probably understanding whether the point has carried across to the audience. Again, there's a tangible correlation between a Suitable Voice and a Receptive Audience, as sometimes these things are symmetries of each other - and the skill of a Suitable Voice is adapting it to the Audience.

And then Appropriate Channels is about the method. Some things are emails, some are texts, some are whatsapps, some are letters, some are conversations, some are phone calls, some are coffee-shop chats, some are nudges and winks at boring parties - you get the drift. There's an emerging skill in this idea of communicating through an appropriate channel, and frankly, it's getting more difficult with technology. It's important though, especially if you want to be absolutely sure that the Audience has been receptive enough to receive it.

That's why good communication needs a Record - especially true if you're a verbal processor who enjoys using conversation as a Channel. It gets frighteningly difficult to figure out who knows what and to whom you've said it or not said it. Write it down.

So, that's my theory:

Suitable Voice
Clear Information
Receptive Audience
Appropriate Channel
Well Recorded

What do you reckon? Naive? Not well thought-through? Just about right? I'd like to say I've got it sorted, but of course, I am currently a man who has to jam his thumb into his phone to stop it from hurtling towards 0%. Limited comms at best, eh.

FIFTY THREE SECONDS

"In retrospect," said my brain, pulsing furiously inside my head, "Would you say you regret sticking a propelling pencil in your phone's charging port to clear away the fluff?"

It knew the answer. I of course regret that - because now, it's arguably even more difficult to charge my phone, presumably because I've accidentally covered the fluff-covered pins in fresh carbon from the end of the pencil. In fact, I can't find a way to charge it at all now, without firmly pushing the charger right into the port at just exactly the right angle.

And that, by the way, is how I discovered that it takes around 53 seconds for an iPhone 7 to increase its battery life by 1% while plugged in. Push as hard as you can with your thumbnail for just under a minute and you end up with a single percentage point increase in charge.

I can't live like this all the time! A full charge would take an hour and twenty eight minutes - and that's an hour and twenty eight minutes of painful pushing with the thumb. The worst thing is when you push the charger and it slips right out. That is frustrating. And I can't really live one-handed.

Nope. There's only one solution: another happy trip to the geniuses in the Apple store - which due to my diary, I won't be able to do any time soon. Certainly not before my 8% runs out anyway.

So, if you text me and hear nothing back, or call me and hear the answerphone, or whatsapp me and wonder why there's only one grey tick, you'll know that my phone chugged through its remaining 8%, my thumb hurts, and I'm incommunicado for a while. It is amazing, how much of our lives is channelled through these pocket organisers. In theory, the last thing they ought to be doing is gathering dust.

"Maybe a little screen-free time'll do you good," says my brain. Yeah thanks a lot brain.

SUGAR PACKED INTO A FANCY WRAPPER

"No Mars Bar today?" asked Nathalie behind the counter. I smiled and said no, while she scanned my card.

"Ah well," she said, "Maybe you'll be back later."

"There's no telling!" I laughed.

Yesterday, we'd headed over there at 3:30pm. You might remember that I was using Mars Bars to practice self-control: buy one (from Nathalie in the café), leave it on my desk for a while, and try not to eat it.

It occurs to me now though, that so far, I've eaten every single one. And yesterday's had disappeared by 4pm! Nathalie seems to have me clocked.

So today, I decided to look up how much exercise I need, to burn off the calories from a single Mars Bar. This is the post-holiday thing now isn't it? Take the stairs instead of the lift, step away from the cake, get back to the gym, stop eating Mars Bars, etc.

Well. I did get back to the gym. It was bone-creakingly difficult. And I did follow the posters and use the stairs instead of the lift. And I did work out how much cardio you need to burn off a 45g chocolate bar...

25 minutes on the rowing machine.

Maybe more actually - but at least that! A minimum! Twenty five whole minutes! That seems like a lot of rowing for something that's so easy to eat. At my speed, that's about 4km. 4,000 metres, puffing and stretching and feeling sick, for 40 seconds of chocolatey, gooey, sticky, melty-in-the-mouthy caramel goodness.

Why can't life be the other way around? Why can't burning off the calories be easy, and putting them back on, super-difficult? Why can't we enjoy the delicious things in life without having to make ourselves ache and sweat for an hour to pay for them?

Actually, the more I think it through, the more I think I know the reason: it's because if that were the case, we'd all give ourselves licence to stuff ourselves with more; it's human nature. And then we'd be in exactly the same situation anyway (bigger input than output) and actually, given that a lot of processed food is just sugar packed into a fancy wrapper, it's possible that we've already done exactly that! It's possible that Mars Bars are already the super-indulgent waistline time-bomb of the First World. Capitalism eh?

I'd have been craving bananas probably, if I didn't quite know what a Mars Bar was.

So, cardio it is. And fewer Mars Bars! It might have occurred to you (as it's only today occurred to me) that buying one in the first place was the real bit where my lack-of-self-control let me down. Wisdom can be a tiny course correction, long before you have to yank the wheel round.

I really am slow at recognising some things.

LIFT ECONOMICS

I spent quite a long time today, trying to work out the cost of a single trip in the elevator.

In fact, I screwed my face up so tight with calculation that my colleagues had to ask me if I was feeling alright. It would have been great if I could have said 'no' but it would also not have been true; so I told them - I said I was working out the cost of a trip in the lift. Sometimes my face gets me into trouble.

The reason for my curiosity about interior-vertical-transport-expenditure is this:

While I was away, they put up some laminated plaques in the lobby, to remind us all that we burn ‘seven times as many calories when we take the stairs’. It's not my place to question the science of that (though, admittedly, I am dubious) but nonetheless, it did occur to me that using the stairs is free, while taking the elevator is not.

"I'm not trying to be cynical about it," I explained carefully to Erica, "but it's interesting, don't you think?"

I still don't know for sure whether she thought it was.

Then, for the next twenty minutes I was looking up how much it would cost to install a lift, maintain a lift, how many times a lift might get used in a month, and how long lift equipment lasts.

In our building of course, the cost is subsumed into the rent, so it isn't a thing I could know for sure. Nonetheless, if my calculations are correct, it would (probably) cost about 30p per person per trip.

I wonder if that would make people take the stairs? Posters about how lifts cause obesity might not cut the mustard, but a porter with a fancy pair of gloves and a 30p-please type cough-cough on Level 2 might? Though, he'd need paying too, and that would surely put the price up.

Just think - this time last week I was at the 'Centre of the World', feeling all kinds of deep emotions in Jerusalem. Today, I'm working out how expensive it is to use a lift. I'm all about the big questions.

TEL AVIV AND HOME

We’re in the air. Cumulus clouds hang beneath the plane, and below them, the great, deep Mediterranean, wide and blue. We’re heading home.

It’s strange how the second half of any holiday goes more quickly than the first. Before you know it, it’s the final day, or the day before the final day, and you’re just getting used to it, when you have to think about the journey back, to packing the suitcase, to going home, to reality, to life. Not that I’m complaining about that - it’ll be nice to be back. It’s just interesting how time works, depending on the thing you’re looking forward to.

We spent our last full day yesterday in Tel Aviv, our base for the week. I think, having driven over 1,000km, we probably needed more of a rest day, so we thought we’d spend some time downtown in the Dizengoff area, which (we were told) was where the real city comes to life. It’s about an hour’s walk from where we were staying, so naturally, we took the bus.

I might be misunderstanding it, but I think that the system for using public transport in Israel could be easier. As far as we could make out, the simplified cash-free travel system is based around the use of a card called a Rav-Kav. With the Rav-Kav, you can just climb on a bus or train, swipe your card, and away you go. The only problems are that there are three different types of Rav-Kav, the instructions for using them are all in Hebrew, you can’t load them up on the bus, you can load them up using machines (Hebrew, again) which are hard to find, and certain shops (which seem even more difficult to locate). You can only use one anonymous Rav-Kav (ideal for travellers like us) per person (less than ideal for travellers like us), and in shops they can only load one journey at a time. Sometimes, you have to agree (as we did after trying to understand all this in conversation with a bus driver while the vehicle was in motion), cash is the simplest money system of them all.

But of course, the bus drivers won’t take it.

We figured something out, and, after a nice walk through the overgrown park, we found ourselves at a curious-looking museum, celebrating something called the Palmach, which is a thing neither of us had heard of before. Google Maps (if anything, our third companion this week) showed us the way there, but in offline mode couldn’t really help us any further with what there was.

If you know anything about the Palmach however, you might not be surprised to know that the ‘museum’ was guarded by real soldiers with actual machine guns. It wouldn’t be a shock either that we had to show our passports on entry.  Less museum, it turns out, more trainee army barracks. The Palmach were a fighting force of young people who played a key role in Israel’s struggles during the 1940s. Independence in 1948 of course, came at a huge cost, both before and after that extraordinary May day when the people became a nation. And in some ways, it still does.

We joined in with a school group to see the audio and visual presentation, all about the Palmach. I’ve been to many exhibits, but this one really was one of the best I’ve ever seen. An hour of rooms with rotating scenes, film-quality storylines and acting, impressive effects, lighting that sets you in the scenery as you walk through it, and a deeply emotive narrative. One room, I noted, was built to resemble the inside of a ship headed for Israel, blockaded by the British Navy. As we stepped into it, I could smell the sea air and feel the pulse of the waves. There were portholes and pipes, crates and ropes, and a sense of great anxiety as the video showed us the black and white footage of a huge Navy ship colliding with our own.

“How can it be illegal for us to enter our own land?” asked a recorded Jewish voice. A deeper question would be hard to find, as would a better way to experience it.

Tel Aviv itself is Israel’s second city. We’ve really enjoyed staying there, figuring out the driving, the etiquette and a little of the rhythm of the place. It’s the forward-thinking, secular metropolis to Jerusalem’s religious eternity, and you really feel the vibrancy of its young adults wherever you go. Electric scooters are everywhere - in England, I’ve only seen one (belonging to a colleague of mine who’s trying to prove they’re not just for children). In Tel Aviv, they are the must-have item, and quite probably, the only way to get around. Paul and I debated them at length - I still maintain that an electric scooter wouldn’t make it up Pincent’s Lane, back home.

Quite unlike Tiberias, it’s really easy to forget that you’re near the sea in between the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv. Yet, just a few blocks from Dizengoff Square (a roundabout with a circular fountain in it), the sea rolls in, and that yellowy-white strip of sand we saw from the air a week ago arrives underfoot as fine white sand. We took some photos in the golden hour of sunset, then when the wind became too strong for that ( I got sprayed by the waves taking a picture by the rocks) we went into a café for a couple of minty teas and a read.

The sun had set by the time we’d visited the bakery for baklava and pasties. There was rain in the air too, which, knowing Israel a bit better at this end of the week, we assumed would mean we had a couple of minutes before the ‘former rains’ became the ‘latter rains’ and we’d be better drenched than Noah’s umbrella. We made a run for it, then spent the evening playing Bananagrams and eating the tasty goodies from the bakery.

And suddenly, that was it. We packed our things this morning, went one last time to the bakery, and headed for the airport. Home. And I didn’t mess it up.

It’s been a packed week, full of some very different days. We’ve been boiling, we’ve been soaked, we’ve been immersed in history and fascinated by culture. We’ve been to the centre of the world and felt the pull of the greatest of stories - and we’ve eaten well, and, much to my surprise, given the way we packed it, we’ve rested even better. It’s been fun, funny, interesting and emotive, and reaffirming and relaxing, in so many ways. I feel as though I’ve loved every minute.

Those cumulus clouds are shrouded in darkness now. Only a blinking starboard light is visible on the wing outside the window - it seems as though it’s suspended in mid-air, like a lantern, flying in parallel to this old plane. Perhaps it is - fittingly, a tiny spark of hope to light the way home.

MY FAVOURITE REGION

It was suddenly afternoon. That seems to happen in Israel: morning becomes afternoon becomes evening becomes night, quickly. And on this lovely late afternoon, we had made our way up from Tiberias toward Capernaum and the Mount of Beatitudes.

I’ve rarely been in a lovelier place. The chapel at the top of the Mount is a delightful building, crafted in dark stone with a bold cupola and colonnades of sweeping arches covering the cloisters. Surrounding it are the most wonderful trees, shrubs, plants and flowers - I wish I could tell you what they were - but there were of course palm trees, and those ferns that grow with fans of leaves; there were gnarled and twisted olives and the deep green leaves that hang from them, as well as what looked like beeches and elms of some kind, forming a spring-time canopy for the sun to flicker through.

And of course it did. Whether it was the angle due to the time of day, I don’t know, but the sun poured through the leaves and the light breeze from the Sea of Galilee ruffled through them, making the mottled shadows dance across the paving stones of the courtyard. There’s no other way to say it - it was a place that had been (appropriately) blessed.

Paul wondered whether it was simply due to the amount of prayer that had been said there over the years. It appears that the chapel on the Mount of Beatitudes is run by Catholic nuns. Certainly, they were there, faithfully escorting tourists through the delicious smelling gardens. There was a quietness to that place in a way that I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced. If ever I need a moment of peace, I thought, I shall close my eyes and take myself back to the Mount of Beatitudes, overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

Our next stop was Capernaum, just a little way around the edge of the Sea. I hadn’t realised how high up it was! I’d assumed, quite naturally I think, that the home of Peter the fisherman, would be right next to the water. Capernaum actually sits on a sort of cliff, once again looking South along the lake. I’d pictured white walls of limestone, sand and straw, perhaps fishing nets drying in the sun, or a place where boats were tied to wooden jetties for the day. It can’t have really been that kind of place.

We took a lot of photos in Capernaum, and had a quick look round, listening in to all the English tour guides as closely as we could. There were lots of groups there, as you might imagine: coach parties of travellers wearing t-shirts and hats with things like ‘Holy Land Tours’ on them - and each with their own explainer. It’s fun to eavesdrop, and even more fun to work out whether or not you agree with them.

There is of course, a gigantic modern church, built like a spider, over what they think is the remains of Peter’s house.

What struck me most though was the old ruined synagogue - a typical Roman ruin, with rooms marked out by knee high walls of stone. You have to use your imagination.

Paul and I stared at it in the golden sunshine. We could hear the waves, and the rustling of wind through the trees. Could this have been the place where Jesus unravelled the scroll and read Isaiah 61? No church or monument had been built over it; the synagogue was open to the sky with its walls long since crumbled. And yet, in many ways that audacious moment is a lot more significant than others - it was the start of something radical, new, and outrageous. And for the briefest time, my friend Paul and I were the only people looking at the place where it happened.

Galilee has probably been my favourite region on this trip. I’d love to spend more time there, perhaps walking through the hills, watching the sun dip below the mountains, and seeing the moon shimmer across the water. It’s all been very real and natural - a place I’m sure that outdoor-Jesus (and let’s face it, he was mostly outdoors I think) really loved.

SEA OF TIBERIAS

Tiberias, the seaside town

The second thing on my list of things I would regret if I hadn’t done them this week, was to visit, and perhaps to sail on, the Sea of Galilee.

That whole area is the backdrop for so many stories - feeding the 5,000, miraculous catches of fish, the storm, the walking on the water, the breakfast by the sea. In my mind that place has always looked a certain way, carried a certain freshness, and held a special significance.

And so it was we found ourselves North again, driving through the green valleys, past the glittering minarets and crumbling villages, through the olive groves and fields to Nazareth, and then beyond, to the little town of Tiberias, on the the Western side of the Lake.

Tiberias reminded me, almost instantly of a typical seaside town. It might be the way the road wound down from the hills and through the sunlit high street; it could have been the brilliant blue of the lake behind it, or the welcoming sight of seagulls swooping over its white-tipped waves - were it not for the tall palms and the low-rise buildings that line the shore, Tiberias could have been any happy little coastal town in England! The effect of course is that before you’ve even parked and got out of the car, you feel right at home.

It’s a beautiful place, the Sea of Galilee. On the far side, about eight miles away, the mountains were catching the morning sunlight in that way that artists like - as though you’d have great fun painting the shading. Tiny boats bobbed about on the water, almost out of pure delight it seemed, and away to the South, the sun sparkled like jewels, and silhouetted the rocks where fishermen were loading up. It could have been exactly the same for two thousand years.

We had a restroom break. What I mean by that is that Paul found the loos and I got lost. It’s a common thing this week. Eventually he found me, and waved at me at the other end of a shady street by St Peter’s Catholic Church.

“I’ve got us a boat ride!” he beamed behind his sunglasses. I gave him a thumbs up, and started imagining being out on the lake, perhaps being given the guided tour by a sea-captain with a loud-hailer, reading the Bible, lazily peering over the side and taking lots of happy photographs. I’ve been on boat trips before - they’re always a holiday highlight, and I imagined that this would be the same.

“Thirty minutes, two hundred shekels,” said a man who looked like he was selling ice-cream. Paul eventually haggled him down to 40 for 150, at which point he gave him a firm handshake and said okay. And that was the point when I realised, with a gulp, that it wasn’t an organised boat trip; we were actually hiring a boat from a man behind a desk with a clipboard and a parasol.

I promise you, it was choppier than it looks

I very nervously said okay. The man gave a gesture to someone on the jetty below, and we saw for the first time, a fleet of tiny, rusting boats with outboard motors. They looked like they’d come from the action films of the 1970s - and had either seen not enough, or far too much action. I gave a second gulp. A third and a fourth were on the way.

Paul and I had been chatting earlier about the story where Jesus calms the storm. That happened on this bit of water. A storm whips up out of nowhere while Jesus (asleep) and the disciples make their way across. The disciples are terrified and wake Jesus up. He rebukes the wind and the waves; the storm calms down, then he rebukes them for not having enough faith.

“What do you think, Matt, they were supposed to do?” asked Paul, “Wake Jesus up sooner? Calm the storm themselves? It’s an interesting one, isn’t it?”

My mind was on it as we climbed awkwardly into the boat. It was also occurring to me that only half my life-jacket had any buoyancy as the inside had been ripped out some time ago; the left half of it would be as inflatable as a tuxedo. The engine started, we puffed out from the jetty and within moments, we were out, on the actual Sea of Galilee.

I immediately understood why the disciples might have been terrified. Our forty minutes on the water took place on a sunny day, with a pleasant breeze and some very modern safety precautions. And I was petrified.

Men of faith and courage make faces like this

The choppy water rocked us from side to side when the boat was parallel to the waves. When we powered into the oncoming waves, it threw us up and down, and submerged the bow in a dramatic fountain of spray. I was gripping on to the tiny boat with white knuckles, and all the while the engine was coughing behind us.

The lake was a rich green colour, swirling and rising and falling around us, rolling the boat about almost uncontrollably between mountains and sea, splash, mountains and sea. I was starting to regret wanting to do it.

In a storm, in a wooden fishing boat, with the wind and waves against them, it must have been terrible. I think I’d have woken Jesus up right away - or perhaps, I too would have tried to save myself in my own way, just as I was clasping the side of the boat on a warm afternoon. But that of course, is the point, isnt it? Where is your faith? Where is it?

After a while, we got used to the undulating waves, and we started to enjoy the lake a bit more. It really is a beautiful place, and I was right to have it in my list of top two things I couldn’t go home without doing.

Paul looped around and pushed the outboard motor to its limit while I grabbed a Bible and read out some of the stories. Somehow, that made the experience feel a lot better - the words, words that have been there since Sunday School, were more alive than ever: there was Jesus, up the mountainside, just maybe like that one over there, praying and watching in the fourth watch of the night. There were the disciples, frightened of the storm and then frightened again as a ghost-like figure came walking over the waves as though they were hills. There was Jesus, best of all, cooking fish just a hundred yards away on the beach, the columns of smoke rising from the fire into the early morning sky. On the air, the sound of pure astonished laughter as the net pulled heavy, dripping from the lake and bulging with wriggling fish.

We spent a bit of time by the lake, taking photos and thinking and watching, before we headed out for our next stop. There is something indefinably pure about Galilee: far from the hills of Nazareth or the waiting trials of Jerusalem; hours from the Dead Sea, which, by comparison could easily have been on another planet.

“That was awesome,” I said as we left. Paul agreed. 

THE HOPE OF A LIFELESS OCEAN

It seems everywhere we go in this country, we run into Herod and his building projects. Wining and dining in Caeserea, impressing the Romans with the temple complex, and yesterday, we discovered, building a fort in the desert near the Dead Sea.

Two strange things happen beyond Jerusalem. If you’re heading South, as we were, the countryside changes: one minute it’s kind of green scrubland, full of olive trees, clustered villages and vineyards; the next, it’s desert. Suddenly, the scenery either side of the road was the hot, treeless, rolling rock of the sun-scorched land. The shadows fell across the rounded yellow dunes and banks - not sand, but hard rock, baked by the sun and virtually uninhabited. The change was remarkable.

“It’s like being in another country,” I said. Again.

The second thing that happens is that the road starts descending, very steeply, and carries on for a long time. Your ears and water bottles start popping, and no wonder: the end of that road, the Dead Sea, is 400m below sea level, and that country, beyond the Jericho road, takes you there quickly.

What do you picture when you think of the Dead Sea? I was taken with how blue it is. In its own way, it’s huge and beautiful, stretching, just like an ocean to the mountains of Jordan. We’d chosen a warm day to go to, just above 20 degrees, which made it all the nicer. For miles, we drove around its basin, following the road through the desert with barely a car the other way. I think, had we found somewhere, we’d have stopped to go in, but that of course had to be later. We had Herod to catch up with.

Masada is a hill-fortress, built on the top of a naturally formed flat-topped mountain in the desert. As we rumbled up in the cable car, and the shadow flicked over the gradually diminishing desert, we realised that there was virtually no way a fort like that could be penetrated. The salt flats spread for miles around, with no shade, no cover, and only the silent sea behind them. Anyone approaching would have been seen miles away.

I found Masada really interesting, but also quite evocative - it’s a preserved ruin now of course, but it still displays remarkable fragments of the past - sections of coloured floor tile in the bath house, the great storage pits for supplies, a watchtower, gates, the walls of palaces and houses, and Herod’s best-to-impress layouts. But at the end of its ancient story, once Rome had destroyed Jerusalem, Jewish rebels were forced to commit suicide at Masada, besieged by the Romans and clutching only a lifeless hope. It brought to an end the period of the time of the Jews in the land of Israel for almost 1,900 years, and started the great exile that would only end with the events of the Twentieth Century. From Masada onwards, the Jews had only hope that they’d one day return.

We decided to come back down in the cable car too. Looking back on the climbers, sweating their way with rucksacks under the afternoon sun, it was probably the right decision.

The sun had fallen behind the Israel-side mountains by the time we left Masada, giving the place a kind of cool air. There was still no breeze - even the Israel flag on top of had hung breathlessly by the watchtower. It was interesting to see the way the shadows fell across the craggy rocks as we headed back.

There was time though, for a stroll down to the sea itself. We pulled the car up, and walked down. It was just like a summer’s evening by that point - crisp light, warm shadows, the air still alive, and the sea gently shimmering with the last of the day. We had to remind ourselves that it was actually February.

The water foamed towards our feet - thick, sluggish waves; no tide, no rhythm, just rolling in forever. There was a line of perfectly-formed salt crystals at the water’s edge. I rubbed some of them into my hands. Paul cupped some water from the waves and washed his own hands in it. It was instantly sticky; greasy like moist fat. Apparently, it’s very good for you. I just wanted to wash my hands.

So that was the Dead Sea, the lifeless ocean at the bottom of the world. There’s a prophecy in Ezekiel that one day, fishermen will stand between Eglaim and En-Gedi casting nets into the water as it teems with life. That will take some doing: the only life there yesterday was the likes of us rubbing salt into our fingers.

Yet as lifeless as it was, there was a quiet beauty about the Dead Sea - a sort of silent stillness, first in the brilliant blue of the afternoon sky, and then in the wonderful light of the evening, when the last of the sun gently caught the chopping water and lit it silver with hope.

Nothing is beyond hope.

LET THE SKY IN

It was late in the afternoon when we got to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. A nun in the Swedish Christian Bible Centre had very confidently told us that archaeologically there was no question, no question at all, that this would be the site where Jesus died, where his body was prepared, and finally he was buried and rose again. Our tour guide backed her up later by encouraging us to visit, once the guided tour of the walls was done.

So we did.

I hope it isn’t the place. I’ve never been in a more infuriating, gloomy, awful setting in my life. Nothing about the Church of the Holy Sepulchre speaks of the resurrected life at all. I wanted to tear it all down, break free of the walls and let the sky come pouring in all its brilliant glory. I apologise if this seems disrespectful, but honestly, that place is dreadful.

The heaviness was back. Crowds of us surged up the steep steps to the ornate gold glinting regalia surrounding ‘Golgotha’. The air was choking (and I assume it always is) with the sickly smell of incense. And it was dark - dingy, windowless, oppressively dim. A huge line of people were queuing up to kiss the image of Jesus above the altar. I just felt ill up there - claustrophobic and so so weary of the religious obsession that paints the humble things with gold and entombs them in silver.

The church, we understood, seems to be managed by an old agreement between six different Christian traditions (it’s literally called the Status Quo) - none of them have overall control, and even the keys have to be entrusted to Muslims to stop one group changing the locks. Our tour guide told us that passions run high between the Christians in these matters.

The Rotunda and the Aedicule

We came down the steps, just in time to join a very short queue of people waiting to visit the Aedicule in the rotunda. The Aedicule is a Nineteenth Century shrine, surrounding the small slab of limestone and the cave they believe Jesus was buried in. It’s ridiculous - a huge candlelit box, ornately decorated with an entrance that must be five-foot high, through which only two people can pass at a time.

Paul and I got swept into that queue and before we knew it, we were yards away from the entrance with a swarming mass of people pushing us forward. I’ve never been in such a thing - momentum squeezed us toward the tiny entrance while people of all shapes and sizes were attempting to get out. It was dark, crowded and there was no other choice really than to go inside, even though I already knew I didn’t really want to.

A man with a beard and a hat started singing something and waving what looked like a holy book in the air. Out of nowhere, some burly priests (presumably from a different tradition) tried to pull him aside at which point, he started shouting: “Don’t touch me! I’m a bishop. You can’t touch me.”

I felt sick to my stomach.

This isn’t what the resurrection is about! It’s the opposite. Death is broken, the tomb has no real meaning, that’s the point: light, life and love have splintered the curse and shattered the teeth of our separation forever! Yet there we were, queuing and barging and arguing our way into a tiny restricted room with a slab of rock, some old paintings, ornate Latin and a collection of gilt-edged candles.

 Let the sky in.

-

“Where are you guys from?” asked the friendly guy in the booth. He was in his early thirties, olive-coloured skin and sparkling eyes above a thick but neatly groomed black beard. We told him that we were from England, and we’d been hoping to visit the garden tomb before it closed. Evening was already setting in, and we could see the garden illuminated by gentle lamps, angled across the flower beds and olive trees.

He let us in. This, this had been in my list of two things I really wanted to see - the Garden Tomb, just beyond the Damascus Gate.

I don’t know that this is the place either. In a way, it just doesn’t matter - what mattered right then and there was the peace. We were the last visitors of the day, strolling around while the sky faded into night. Birds sang in the trees - almost as though they knew we were there.

The Garden Tomb is a small, well-kept Garden near the bus station in Old Jerusalem. It was a short walk from the Damascus Gate on the North side of the city, outside the walls of course. There is a tomb in it, and its entrance leads right out into the open space of the garden, to the sky.

Where the sepulchre had been oppressive, this place was free. Where crowds of strangers jostled in to a relic, the garden was empty of everyone - other than Paul, myself, and another couple who’d arrived at the end of the day. It was a beautiful end to a long day - my birthday still of course - and it reminded me that faith in God is much more about breathing in the fresh air, than it was ever about fighting your way into a darkened room; He just isn’t there. And that’s why it doesn’t matter.

The friendly guy gave us directions to get back to the tram, and so we made our way back to the park and ride, and eventually, the drive back to Tel Aviv.

It has been hard to describe everything I felt in Jerusalem: it’s an extraordinary place - and it really isn’t like any other city at all. What I do know is, that for my forty-first birthday, I was there at the very centre of the world, seeing first-hand the time-piece of history at this remarkable point, where three continents and three religions collide. And while I waited for Paul, just outside the Garden Tomb before we went back, it occurred to me that now, it’s part of my history too. And I really love that.