h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... gathers no moss.

And moss now seems to be lovely stuff. A stone that is covered with moss has a textured feel, a character.

I have been on the move - rolling - for upwards of 20 years now and I am begining to wonder what damage it has done to me as a person.

I left the U.K. for a job in Saudia Arabia in '83. I wanted to see some more of the world. Get the cheap veneer of 'character' that comes with being a foreigner. Initially I wanted the States, but grabbed at the first thing that came along.

It was an easy thing. In the past people who emigrated had to put a lot of energy into the move. I just got on a plane, slipped moorings and started rolling away, tearing up roots...

This is where one metaphor breaks down because it is trees that have roots and not stones....

But I think that is what best described what happened to me when I moved. I tore up invisible psychological roots that exist in a dimesion other than the phyisical world.

Lets call it the cultural dimension. If I could see 'myself' in this cultural dimension, I would see tendrils - thousands of them - shooting out from me and wrapping themselves around.... well what..

When I was in the UK, it was theatre, comedy, the spoken word, the BBC, Radio 4, the Today program, NME, football, hating Thatcher the Sun and the Daily Mail, desperately wanting to be other than 'typically english', following the guidelines laid out by the likes of the Guardian and New Statesman, Educating Rita, Asimov and the "Boys from the Blackstuff" and the Greenham common protesters.

When I was living in the U.K. my cultural psyche was happily anchored. I knew that the U.K. was a messed up place and I knew and understood why.

To be continued....