That Dutch newspaper article on my dandyism has led to new adventures. The Hague’s Gemeentemuseum has asked if I could lend them one of my suits. It’s to go put on public display as part of an exhibition on male fashion and style, ‘The Ideal Man’, running from late July to October.
http://www.gemeentemuseum.nl/index.php?id=035553&langId=en
I’ll be delivering the suit in person two days before the show opens, staying in town for the opening on July 26th. The museum are covering my travel and hotel costs, so I’m treating it as a small holiday.
Never been to the Hague before. Lots of museums, including one devoted to MC Escher, that DJ of mathematical art (“MC Escher in the house! Make some infinite noise!”).
I do hope his museum has lots of impossible staircases spiralling upon themselves. I want to stand on them and shout Peter Davison’s cliffhanger line from the Doctor Who tale, ‘Castrovalva’. The Doctor and his companions (there’s about 79 of them at this point) become trapped in a real-life version of an Escher town, with all exits leading right back to the entrances. He explains what’s happened to his companions, as the episode ends:
“Recursive Occlusion! Someone’s manipulating Castrovalva! WE’RE CAUGHT IN A SPACE-TIME TRAP!”
On the Castrovalva DVD, there’s an out-take of the director forcing Mr Davison to ham up this line until it rises to a sufficently hysterical pitch. But it’s not hammy acting, he insists in the commentary (with an endearing degree of self-mockery), it’s TV cliffhanger acting. The two are often confused.
The Gemeentemuseum has asked me to make my own travel arrangements. So I’ve been doing a bit of travel research and have plumped for the Harwich ferry, with trains either side. Partly because one’s meant to be more ‘carbon efficient’ and cut back on flying where possible; partly because I’ve flown abroad about eight times in the last two and a half years and want to try the path less travelled. I’ve done Eurostar before, but never the North Sea ferry.
But mostly because I want my own cabin. I want a floating Room Of One’s Own. With its own toilet, shower and bed. A private space to escape to while travelling. Even the smallest possible single room is an oasis to the soul. Whether it’s Easyjet or Eurostar, if you’re travelling alone and can only occupy rows of open seating, you’re at the mercy of other travellers, which might mean loud businessmen on their mobile phones, squealing other people’s children running about, or beered-up football supporters.
Set down like this, such concerns sound downright misanthropic. But I’ve had a run of bad luck with train and plane trips in recent memory, in terms of Sartre-esque ordeals, suffering the noise – or even cannibis smoke – of my less considerate fellow passengers. I can’t be the man who complains or politely asks others to restrain themselves, as I am not part of normal society in the first place. Quiet eccentrics must not tell off noisy straights. That’s the whole eccentric deal.
When away from home, I crave rooms with lockable doors, however small (in the case of Latitude, a tent with a zip). On a ferry you get somewhere to escape, somewhere to sleep without being on display, and somewhere to shower en route. But you also get somewhere to go for a walk, somewhere to take in fresh air, and somewhere to drink and eat and mix with other travellers if you ARE feeling sociable. You get the choice of both worlds.
The only two downsides of ferry travel are the extra hours added to the trip, and the chances of a rough crossing. In the first case, my life isn’t the busiest in the world, so the time away is no problem. And besides, the extra hours are comfortable and private extra hours.
In the event of a rough crossing, I’d just down a few vodkas at the bar and go to bed. I toss in my sleep anyway, and a lone male is in no position to refuse a bit of extra tossing.
Far better to suffer the Cruel Sea than suffer the cruel loudness of other passengers. Frankly, it’s the lesser of two tossers.
