Tom Fogg Returns - Ecce Romano 1 - Andalucia Diaries

Four and a half years on  from Netribution's Big Sleep  and a good six years since we quit Tony Grisoni's screenwriting class at  Westminster to run Netribution full time, Tom Fogg, one of the three co-founders of this site, with myself and Wendy Bevan-Mogg (the Sarah Radcliffe of the operation) has finally made a post. And as the world's longest film festival gets into its second week (I will post soon!) - it marks a good point to stop and say hello. It's been a long time. We started work on Netribution: The Return (sometimes they come back) early this year, and it's been close to six moonths of slow building and redevelopment. Editorial guidelines have been evened out. Some mistakes have undoubtedly been made, to which i apologise to any so affected by tech gremlins or my own fumbling as getting to grips with this all.

But the point is it's up, and tho it's gone better, cost less money (ie none) and been more popular than I could have imagined (44,000 people visited us last month - looking at 500,000 pages; more than screendaily by a long shot), it hasn't quite felt right. I haven't quite felt ready to go, the confidence I suppose to be myself, in this whole thing. Netribution was a personal odyssey for me and Tom as we lived in each others pockets through the best and worst times in our lives, in film and in our love lives. And the great beast spat us out the other side like idealistic fools to live in the angry marching world of London after the brief mirage of giddy Silicon Valley investment that had appeared over the city was burst. And so starting this thing without him just seemed a little wrong. Of course the same was true when Wendy left, it shifted in a way that I probably didn't acknowledge at the time. Before then we idolised Martha Lane Fox and planned to have full staff icecream eating days for making decisions.But it was his encouragement last year that really set me off again after three years of talking about it. During long talks last autumn  we started to picture it as a kind of online Granta, publishing four issues a year, if that - the very antitheses of the webs instant 24 hour news on the second style. There would be guest editors, who each would collect content for a period of time, before collating it together into some kind of narrative.

So maybe now he's back, writing something in some form at least, then perhaps it is worth publishing issue 1. We'll see how the week pans out.  But for now, enough of me, over to Tom.

it's only been a month but it feels like another life, something to do with not setting a return date. I fear though  that I may have to return sooner rather than later. My luck on this trip has been ´particular´and I have not managed my funds well. What´s more, I do not trust my sickly motorbike to take me any further than I am now (Granada) for it has already cost me a lot of time, money and grey hair. Still, that´s why I bought the damn thing, to cause me trouble, enough that I may begin to accept, even enjoy it.

Needless to mention, I have learnt a great deal about mi moto, in greasy detail and in Spanish. But when I return it will be in the sweet luxury of economy class. Mi moto will remain here until I can afford (and learn to ask) to have it serviced here, at which point I shall fly back and carry on with this ludicrous excursion to nowhere in particular.

It has been travel for travel´s sake and I dare not attempt to look further than my daily routine of eating, drinking, writing, reading and sleeping. It is enough (is it though, Tom?) to deprive myself of a common tongue, friends at hand and, obscurely, electricity. This last has been a quirk of fate that has persisted since driving into el pais basco over three weeks ago. It seems to be a fateful, necessary privation, or so I tell myself, and learning how to manage without has been fun. It has. I promise.

Learning.... Hm.

I have learnt (apart from Spanish moto jargon) a fair amount of spanish, a little arabic (more later) how to sew, live without hashish... what else? Mainly, how I handle fear.... oh dear, I was always going to end up on this point. I spend a lot of time in fear, (I am a fearful person) but I enjoy the little battles in this great war. I have learnt a lot about the Englishman in me, what petty issues annoy me. Understand that I am not (whoah! not nearly!) as English or even as foreign as many of my fellow tourists here. I blend quite well and if it wasn´t for my blue eyes and blond hair (yup, all blond again, esp eyebrows and forearms) I think I might evn blend in absolutely. But no, generally they gawp at me (in the small towns and villages this is constant), like one would gawp at a 300 pound bespectacled orang utan playing solitaire, in the master´s own pipe and slippers, at ones kitchen table in the nightime. How they gawp! I am used to it now and simply stick out my tongue, perhaps only to express comprehension....

My spanish is still poor. Stuck (as though in some nightmare) in the present tense and without any understadning of reflexive verbs (DAMN THEM!!) I cannot seem to escape the firm grip of Tener. In conversation, mainly with Syrians and Maroccans in Granada (the spanish youth here epitomise 21st century disenchantment... tattoes, hashish, dreadlocks, dogs on ropes, anti everything clean -clothes, hair, nails, teeth etc... in fact it is really depressing in a way, what will they do when they´ve succeeded in dropping out? Where does one end up? Must they drop back in? Is that allowed?) I have to let them talk and try to grab a gist, then roll out a ´si´or ´verdad´ or, worse, hide behind the parental leg (with thumb in mouth...is this working?) of Tener once more. I am though to be found studying over coffee each morning. At present it is the general structure of past and future tenses (esp conoscer, decir, estar and yes, tener) in the hope of contributing more than, for example, ´I work in restaurants in London, I like to write, Granada is good, Another coffee please, I have a problem with my motorbike.´

For those of you with little or no Spanish, it is easy to hide behind Tener (to have) because it seems to apply to everything, or can be made to, mas o menos.

Yes, no surprise that I have befriended Arab speakers, Syrians and Jordanians mostly. I find them cultured, conversational, generous and keen to learn. Only today I met (with copious ´salam uleikums´ and ´wa uleikum salams´) yet another Mohammed, introduced to me by Mohammed whilst in the company of Maharan (meaning learned, kind etc) and Mohammed, nicknamed Jesus (?). In no order whatsoever these young, handsome Damascenes are studying: Orthodontics, Archeology, Chemical Engineering, Medicine. Among them, welcome though I am and the object of some interest as a tourist with accurate pronunciation and a lack of sandals, white socks, expensive sunglasses etc, I feel slightly guilty that I squandered my once promising intellect bowing and scraping before rich, cosmetically rejuvinated American tourists. Especially given that they were always going to order the chicken salad and a glass of impossibly oaked chardonnay.

Not very good at relating what I have seen and done am I? Well, I have written it all down so somehow, God Willing, it will be free to view. However, those of you with tastes for Lonely Planets and Rough Guides will be disappointed. No, my descriptions concern the shitty side streets with their metallic tones of two-stroke fumes and stale urine. I am a true flaneur (a la Proust, seulement Proust) of cafe life, their petty dramas and photogenic proprietors. There are the dusty misadventures on mi moto, various scattered (doubtless incorrect) etimologies and some worthless but very personal meditations and philosophies in the style, perhaps, of the late Hunter Thompson after rehab.

No, when it comes to locales of historical importance, indeed any thing or place with a debauched and/or violently Royal tale attached I will be found facing the other way, taking a blurred photograph of a ferral dog in a shaft of waning light. I have though read Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving and have not only enjoyed its sentimental myths but have even dreamt of a spell of rare peace and utter obscurity in those exquisite palaces, once the verdant jewel of the Moorish kingdom. But to contribute to their spiritual decay, to bemerd those halls with the squeak of clean traning shoes, to flash bulbs therein, and all for some exhorbitant tariff paid to some swarthy crook among the drifiting hum of Chanel and hotdogs and the comments of COULDN´T THEY HAVE MADE IT A BIT BIGGER? and THE ONE IN VEGAS IS WAY BETTER!.... no, please stop that. I feel ill.

Can you believe that I truly miss London? I do. After all that crap about wanting to live elsewhere I miss being able to communicate freely. That is huge, I suppose, and perhaps I needed and still need to deprive myself of that very basic ability, to force myself to learn other languages in order to accept that my feelings are mine and that, actually, people don´t really want to know a lot of the time. This has been a bit of a blow to be honest.

Yes, the learning is constant. I feel like I daydreamed through all the important lessons at school.

I love and miss you all very much. Good to love.

Tom