Fevered Mutterings

Breaking The Ice With Strangers: Line

Mikeachim — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:40:09 +0000

We’re midway into my ten ways to break the ice with strangers when you’re travelling – and now it’s time to play the fool.

HOOK

1. Let Them In

2. Act American

3. Best Foot Forward

LINE

4. Invite, Don’t Drag

5. Channel Your Inner Numpty

6. Assume Nothing Except Your Own Ignorance

7. Tickle Them

SINKER

8. Represent Your Country

9. It’s Not About You

10. It’s Not About What We Do

LINE

4. Invite, Don’t Drag

The best way to start a conversation with someone is to make them think it’s their idea.

When people are on the defensive, they clam up. This is a major problem for stalwart ice-breakers because by necessity, they’re on the attack. Their job is to wade into someone’s personal space, storming the walls of their aloofness and fencing wildly across the drawbridge of their confusion until a connection is made. It’s a siege. It’s brutal.

Think on it. You’re striding along minding your own business, and suddenly some neon-fleeced, backpack-laden Foreigner fires a question at you. You’re probably unfamiliar with the cadence, tone and speed with which they’ve spoken, especially if they’re inexpertly had a stab at your own language. It’s like being accosted by a Wookie speaking Latin with a Jamaican accent.

(Apologies to these three linguistic groups – you were picked at random, so don’t write in).

You need a few seconds to sort it all out in your head….but you’re flustered, entirely WTF’d out of your predictable day – and your first reaction is to tear a strip off the person who did it. They’re right there, standing patiently as if what they’ve just said made any sense. As if you’re going to reply with anything but a verbal asskicking. Grrrr.

Most of us get over this pugilistic urge very quickly, but emotionally, the damage is done. The body remembers. Shoulders are hunched, perspiration is beading, the voice is tight. Your mind says Friend but your body still says Enemy.

Except this time, you’re the one breaking the ice. You’re the enemy.

Sometimes this is simply unavoidable. Sometimes you have to grit your teeth, charge straight at them (metaphorically speaking, because actually charging at people is really rude) and spend the next ten minutes soothing their ruffled feathers.

But there’s a better way.

Some people look like they could benefit from a little advice.

Let’s say our ex-pat Jamaican Roman Wookie is standing blinking in the street, looking confused. Analysis? He’s no clue where he is. His clothes are outlandish enough to label him out on a limb, but now he’s acting lost – broadcasting it in all directions. Out comes a map (you can’t see what’s on it, so you edge closer) and after a few seconds, he turns it the other way round with a self-disgusted grimace. Body language: halp. And so…

“Excuse me, can I assist?”

By making yourself look confused and vulnerable, you’re inviting conversation. But that’s not the only way. Look for context-specific opportunities. Do they have a dog? “Hello little fella, good doggie – what’s his name? Oh, he’s a she?” Or make friendly eye contact. Or share an unspoken wry moment. (Waiting for a train in Bologna, I heard a tannoy announcer struggling to drown out a drunken singer in the background. All of us on the platform exchanged glances that became giggly – and if I’d spoken a word of Italian at the time, I’d have had my pick of a dozen conversations).

However, it’s entirely possible that all your best efforts will be in vain. It’s possible they just won’t bite. And this is where it gets tricky – because launching yourself at them in the traditional sense is now going to make you look desperate and clingy, amplifying their defensive reaction tenfold.

So it’s your call. Play it carefully.

5. Channel Your Inner Numpty

and

7. Tickle Them

Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.

- Bill Bryson, “I’m A Stranger Here Myself“.

Bill Bryson is one of the world’s foremost travel-writers. His travelogues are witty, insightful, fiercely researched prose slyly arranged to feel like a beery afternoon ramble until, with a blink, you find there are no pages left to read. He’s a gift for readers and writers alike. He’s a pro.

He’s also a buffoon.

Buffoon is a term for someone who provides amusement through inappropriate appearance and/or behavior.

Strictly, a buffoon describes a “ridiculous, but nevertheless amusing person.” In broader terms, a buffoon is a clown-like, publicly amusing person, such as a court jester. In the more modern sense, the term is frequently used in a derogatory sense to describe someone considered a public fool, or someone displaying inappropriately vulgar, bumbling or ridiculous behavior that is a source of general amusement.

The term may originate from the old Italian “buffare”, meaning to puff out one’s cheeks.

- Wikipedia

Obviously I’m not suggesting that one of the world’s most popular and respected travel writers is “someone considered a public fool”?

Well, yes, I am.

If there’s such a thing as a formula for a Bryson book, it looks something like this.

Bill undertakes an expedition into the great unknown or the invisibly familar, embarking on an epic foray around/through some geographical challenge – and in the first chapter he makes clear that he’s probably not the man for the job and may even die before the end. (You’re allowed to giggle here).

Bill illustrates how fundamentally ill-fitted he is to the life of a gregarious globetrotter by expanding on a personal habit that makes him dreadful to be around, such as falling asleep in a way that suggests death (In a Sunburned Country). Threaded around this protracted self-assassination is a lot of keenly-observed travel writing and a lots of statistics, but the core of the book is Bill himself, seemingly to his own chagrin.

Occasionally you shoot what you’re drinking out through your nostrils. This is a sure sign that you’re reading a Bill Bryson book. Or that novel by Martine McCutcheon.

But it makes no sense. Why go out of your way to make yourself look foolish? Why spending pages and pages wallowing in it, telling people how you drool as you snooze or spray food when you eat? Does the man not understand the modern self-marketing method? You big yourself up until you’re smacked out of your head on your own ego. This is how to impress people with your personality. I mean, 100,000 Personal Development gurus on Twitter can’t be wrong, can they?

The bottom line is: sound like a buffoon, and you engineer your own failure. Nobody will remember you except as a cautionary tale.

You’re finished.

You know, just like the multi-award-winning and internationally renowned bestselling author Bill Bryson.

I’ve learned so much from my mistakes that I’m thinking of making some more.

- Anon

Two things are infinite: the Universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the Universe.

- Albert Einstein

It’s a fact that has marketing divisions tearing their hair out in frustration – buffoonery has charisma, and failure is a winner. It explains a little of Bryson’s universal appeal. Failure is why Eric Newby’s Short Walk In The Hindu Kush is a joyous, poignant classic. It explains the unstoppable rise of Despair Inc. It’s the only possible reason for Jedward, period. Again and again we’re drawn to the mishappers, klutzes and fools. As cringeworthy as they are to watch, we’re transfixed by them.

Because…

…(those of a nervous disposition should look away now)…

…they’re us.

(It’s safe to look again).

But a prime requirement of true buffoonery (voluntary or otherwise) is that it has to be funny.

There’s two ways to manage this: you can either have people laugh with you, or have people laugh at you. The former requires wit: the latter requires a dizzying mixture of incompetencies that become more than the dreadful sum of their parts. (It’s without a shred of modesty that I put myself firmly in the second category. I attract misadventure. I’m sure some of my past travelling companions – the ones who survived – will be quick to bless us with suitable anecdotes in the comments below).

Either way, if there’s laughter, you’ve connected. Words aren’t important here. Laughter is the only true universal human language. You’ve just taken the quickest route between two different human beings. More than any other method in this list, that’s the way to break the ice.

6. Assume Nothing Except Your Own Ignorance

Come with me on a short thought-exercise.

I’m going to ask some questions, to which I’ll add my answers – but if you’re willing, try covering them up and answering the questions yourself.

Q: Why do you want to talk to strangers when you’re abroad?

…..

A: To learn about the rest of the world and the people in it, and my place in it, and therefore myself.

…..

Q: When you’re travelling, you’re in search of what you don’t know?
…..

A: What, is there an echo in here? That’s what I just said.

…..

Q: How do you find out stuff you don’t know?

…..

A: Google it. Oh, right, more basic. Well…I ask questions.

…..

Q: When you meet someone for the first time, how do you impress them?

…..

A: With my sensuous and godlike mad dancing skillz. You know, like Matt.

…..

Q: I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.

…..

A: You know, for a Socratic dialogue component your sense of humour really sucks. Fine, whatever. I would…hmm. I would probably show off.

…..

Q: How?

…..

A: By showing how knowledgeable and worldly I was……ahhh. Okay. I think I see a paradox.

…..

Q: Quack – quack.

…..

A: Oh so now you develop a sense of humour.

…..

So your natural instinct when meeting someone new is to impress them with your worldliness. (Double that if you’re a travel writer). And since that involves introducing what you already know into the conversation…you’re getting in the way of learning something new. But it’s difficult to fight. Every time your newfound friend says something you know a little bit about, your Inner Child has their hand up, “oooh oooh I know the answer pick me pick ME”.

The easiest way to fight this is to ask questions all the time.

I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.

- Bill Bryson

Questions are how you learn things about people, but they’re also how to get those people in the right frame of mind to help. Questions make equal conversation-partners. They say “OK, your turn”. Without questions, conversations wilt. It’s a nice coincidence that without questions, knowledge wilts as well.

Assume you know nothing, ask questions and listen to the answers, and you’ll make friends quicker than you’d believe.

Images: victoriapeckham, Elphi Pelephi, Whistling In The Dark, Gregory Bastien, amanky, e-magic.

(Sinker to follow soon).

The Big List Of Fevered Mutterings (2009-2010)

Mikeachim — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:09:39 +0000

It’s been nearly a year since I accidentally deleted my blog and had to start all over again.

Here’s everything that’s happened at Fevered Mutterings (v4.0) since that glorious day of rampant stupidity for which I am rightly proud. A year’s worth: most of it original, some stolen from my archives; some of it carefully considered, some written wildly from the hip; and some of it incomprehensible, even to me.

If you decide to read on…well, best of luck.

The World Out There: Practice (or “Where I’ve travelled”)

A Poignancy Of Owls
2 Staircases, One Stairwell (my most popular post)
An Afternoon At Josie’s
The Appeal Of Fallen Buildings
Brisk

**The World Out There: Theory (or “How I’ve Travelled”)**

Soft and Prickly: Our Fickle Love of the Countryside
The Human Scale of Cold: How We Freeze (And How We Thaw) - my second most popular post
How To See Airports And Other Bad Places
Breaking The Ice: Hook – ‘Line’ coming this weekend next up

A Writer’s / Blogger’s Life

Q10: Fitting A Door In My Brain
Twitter: I Really Don’t Know
Dude, I Killed My Blog
There’s a Voice, Keeps On Calling Me (although I’m back there again, on and off)
TV Is What Films Will Be When They Grow Up
Reader’s Digest: Read and Digest
What Lonely Planet?

**Creative Nonsense (or “What Were You Thinking?”)**

That’ll do for starters.

Images: StuffEyeSee, Jason Tavares, audioeric, jcolman, Steve Webel, artolog and Mike Sowden.

Olympus

Mikeachim — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:17:37 +0000

I’m leant against the car, gasping, giggling, sucker-punched by the cold. Around me, the landscape is motionless and brittle. The tops of trees have exploded as the wind tried to bend them. Overhead, dirty clouds boil past like timelapse photography. The rock-strewn ground is so hard you expect it to ring. Take the trees and ice-rimed telephone lines away, and you’re left with the surface of Mars.

I’m on the same latitude as Algeria and Morocco, and the temperature is 15 below freezing.

We’ve been driving up the Troodos mountains for a good hour now, and the car’s thermometer has enthralled us, falling away from the balmy warmth you’d expect from a typical November day in Cyprus, down, degree by degree until I can feel the difference against a hand held near a side-window, not quite touching it. The cold puffs and hisses against my skin as the land falls away below us.

I remember none of this. What’s wrong with me?

Mile by mile, the scenery became more stunted and bewildered-looking. But – Cyprus! Sun-tan lotion that’s never a high enough Factor, azure seas, dripping ice-creams, kebabs on the beach at midnight. Kalamari, chewy and lemony. Where’s this?

We drive through a scrappy outcrop of buildings, a boarded-up cafe, the skeleton of a ski lift. There’s wind enough to blow litter, but the trees don’t move. We pass a car – the driver has rubbed a hole in the condensation-fogged windscreen so he can see out. Things glitter unexpectedly.

And now we’re out, and I’m leaning against the car. Every breath stings.

At 1952 metres above sea level, the summit of Mount Olympus is the highest and most exposed point in Cyprus. It doesn’t dominate the surrounded landscape, being nestled amidst terrain of similar height…but on its upper slopes, the blanketing of dark pine frays and diminishes, the trees visible shrinking before the wind. At its top perches a golf ball, as if waiting for Zeus to pick a club. (It’s a British radar installation).

And the view never stops changing.

We scramble up a rubble-strewn slope, following a line of steel pillars supporting a ski-lift. Passing a tree, I bang my gloved fist against it, then a minute later against a metal column. They feel just the same. By standing directly under the taller trees we can feel the gentle patter of falling ice flecks, barely heard – and sometimes the trees creak, a ludicrous sound like a door in a bad horror movie.

It’s bitterly cold – the air not much below freezing but with a windchill that drags the temperature down to painful levels, numbing fingers within seconds when gloves are dragged off, searing lungs and making our lips tingle. I don’t remember it being this cold when I was growing up.

As a Royal Air Force child living in Nicosia in the ’70s, I was regularly brought up here by my parents. We’d wander up onto these slopes (I don’t remember this part), my dad would take photos and then we’d descend to nearby Platres for a slap-up meal ending with ice-cream (my memory regains its strength here).

Twenty years later, my friends and I are here, driving down into Platres in search of calories to replace the ones we’ve been breathing out for the last half-hour…and I recognise the restaurant. The chairs are packed away and the tables are pooled with rainwater, but it’s unmistakeably in operation when the weather’s right. There’s a past here I can try to reclaim, a personal archaeology I can dig up. And that’s why I’ll have to go back.

(When it’s a bit warmer).

All photos: Mike Sowden, 2006.

‘Caprica’ and ‘SGU’: Who Gets To ‘Galactica’ First?

Mikeachim — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:22:15 +0000

I have two new favourite TV shows.

One of them caught me completely by surprise.

The unsurprising one is Caprica. That was never going to surprise me. They had me, all the way, by the fact that it was the prequel to my favourite television show of all time. Caprica could have been Eastenders in space (”yor a cyclon? You’re ‘avin a larf, inchyer?”) and I would have found a place in my heart for it. Thankfully, it’s edgy, uncompromising and bleak, and very endearingly it doesn’t feel like a graceless knock-off of Galactica. In short, it has personality. Nothing more important for a spin-off.

It’s also a different story. Galactica’s focus was clinging to the tattered remnants of civilization and making a run for the stars. Caprica is that civilization in full swing – a society struggling to adjust to the moral, political and religious implications of colossal leaps in artificial intelligence technology. As we know, it fails.

The acting is solid, often outstanding (Eric Stoltz is terrific). It feels grounded, and what kinks there were in the pilot seem to be the kind that time will iron out on its own.

In short – I feel unembarassed at being a fan before I ever saw it.

Now here’s something I am a little embarassed about.

A new Stargate show, you say?

Riiiight.

Oh, sure, absolutely. Hit me with more. Give me it, fresh and steaming. Because what we need is yet another branch of the franchise that refuses to grow old. As in “grow up“. Yes yes yes, I know, it’s adventure-scifi, it’s meant to be a bit of fun. Space-Egyptians flying around in big laser-shooting pyramids – MacGyver in well-tailored uniforms padding out his gruff-but-twinkly orders with lame quips that rival the worst excesses of Fringe’s Peter Bishop – lots of alien names with eccentric uses of apostrophes – bucketloads of generic plotting (”grizzled enemy warrior turns traitor on his own kind and sacrifices himself so SG-1/Atlantis can escape; unconvincing historical-analogue community on planet welcomes SG-1/Atlantis but has Dark Secret; one of team has Alien Menace attached to his/her face/back/arse /other” etc.). Yes. Because if there’s one thing that the last decade of that kind of nonsense has taught us, it’s that we need more of it.

I’ll…I’ll be ok. Just give me a minute.

Right.

Stargate has always been part of the unholy trinity of superpopular science fiction: Star Wars, Star Trek and Stargate. As a lover of scifi I have deep, deep issues with them all. No, really. Don’t make me go there. I get ugly.

So, a TV show with Stargate in the title? Me, watch it on a regular basis? Don’t make me laugh. Never gonna happen. Deal with it, move on, because we’re done here.

It’s got who in it?

So here’s why Stargate Universe is worth watching, and showing signs that somewhere down the line, it could give Galactica a run for its money. (There, I said it).

1) It’s got Hamish Macbeth in it. And he’s still allowed to be Scottish.

2) Furthermore, he’s playing a gem of a character – the show’s mad professor, Dr Rush. This is someone you probably don’t want around, but probably need around. He’s dangerous for everyone, and also part of the reason everyone is still alive. He’s one part savior to two parts bastard, and he’s usually right in what he suggests, even when it’s unpalatable. He’s ruthless and manipulative and tortured and obsessive. He’s a problem, and he has his own agenda (hence the problem thing).

3) He’s not the only actor that impresses. Far from. Take his foil, Colonel Young, played by Louis Ferreira in a beautifully balanced performance that suggests a man clinging to appearances to hide his inner turmoil resulting from…ooh, you name it – a mad Scotsman heading the scientific team, severe marital issues back on Earth, a bunch of trigger-happy soldiers facing down increasingly desperate civilians, and so on. Midway through season 1 (that’s where we are – the show is on hiatus until April), Colonel Young snaps and does something ruthless, unexpected and absolutely right for such an internally conflicted character. And Ferreira nails it. (His enthusiasm for the role is on display here).

4) The writers are taking time to flesh out the characters. Things are left unexplained until later. There are plot threads winding right through the season. It’s complex and dense. They’ve thrown the Stargate plotting stylesheet out the window, and about time too. (This stylesheet, by the way, reads “bad Star Trek with more sand”).

5) They’re working hard to get a Galactica vibe – from the shakycam effects to the lack of “good” or “bad” characters. They’re learned lessons, and they’re applying. It’s dark and edgy and not a lttle claustrophobic.

6) MacGyver’s back – except this O’Neill is an unsympathetic bureaucrat. This is similar to what they did with Captain Picard in the pilot of ST:Deep Space Nine. It worked then, and it works now.

7) It’s the anti ST:Voyager. In that show, a group of wildly disparate people was stranded far from home in an untested spacecraft. They immediately cracked open a few beers and got chummy – a kind of Cheers in space. SGU starts with exactly the same premise, and is wise enough to realise that everything will immediately turn to shit. These people struggle to even survive, let alone have a good old interstellar knees-up. The first few episodes consist of a fairly desperate struggle to find the basic supplies to ensure short-term survival: air, food, water, power. Barring an underwhelming jaunt through a desert in episode 2 (enough with the sand, ‘kay?), it’s excitingly different territory for the franchise. Even the inevitable standalone episodes are riddled with the ongoing character and plot arcs.

So I’m watching Stargate. (Yes, I know. Stargate!).

The future’s bright this year.

Disclaimer: as much as I’ve dissed Stargates SG-1 and Atlantis, I’ve now watched and enjoyed a fair bit of both. It’s fun, very occasionally brilliant (when they take risks, which it doesn’t do often enough). But generally it’s an old-school format that has contributed to TV scifi being labelled as socially marginalising guff. That’s why I’m being unfair: because I feel that as a scifi fan, Stargate was unfair to me first.

Images: fanpop, MGM, SyFy.

Cities: Exciting But Guilty

Mikeachim — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:01:17 +0000

I’m over here this evening, flying the flag for cities and wondering where they’ll take us.

I’ve have only one major issue with cities: they inspired these excruciatingly awful lyrics. Guilty as hell. “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of?” Say again?

(No, actually don’t say again. Thanks).

Shhh! (A Writer’s Guide To Destroying The World)

Mikeachim — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:08:16 +0000

Modern writers have a problem, and it’s called The World. It’s noisy and distracting.

The solution is simple…destroy it.

HOW TO DESTROY THE WORLD

Problem: My Computer is Really Great At Doing Stuff

Modern computers are incredible.

I’m sat here in a room aromatic with overstrong coffee, in front of my battered-looking Fujitsu Siemens Amilo A1650 laptop. Open Office, Photoshop Elements, The Complete National Geographic, Sid Meier’s Civilization III, Google Picasa, Spotify, Skype, e-books (like this one), PDF’d magazines, photos, old emulated Commodore Amiga games, digital photography tutorials, Wordpress manuals and heaps more. There’s easily enough here to keep me busy for a year.

And I’m connected to the Internet. So multiply that by a sizeable fraction of infinity.

Modern PCs and Macs can do near as dammit anything – even the ageing workhorses like my one. But when you can do near as dammit anything, you do n.a.d.a.

Solution: My Computer Is “Junk”

I have an old (positively ancient in computing terms) Sony Vaio, a low-end Pentium III. It runs Windows XP, but only just. It has USB ports so I can move files back and forth, but it doesn’t have an internet connection and would only be able to limp online if it did. It doesn’t have enough memory to run much but the most basic software. I know this because last year I experimentally installed Photoshop on it, and it took 8 minutes to boot the program up. (This isn’t terribly fast, even for a PC). I giggled for a while, wiped my eyes and then emtpied the hard-drive. There’s nothing on there now except a particular word processor (see later).

That’s all that machine does now. Finis. That’s it.

So now I have a computer, and I also have a glorified typewriter. I use one to get on the Internet, check my e-mail, goof off, chat to people, surf around for things to write about or just for the hell of it, and to do professional or fun blogging, like this post. And on the other – I’m writing a play and working on a book.

When I’m on the latter machine, I’m not on the former. It’s one or the other. That’s the line, right there.

If you want to write, try getting something that through technological limits or installational choice does nothing but write. Buy a laptop that has the connectivity to transfer files back and forth, but can do bugger-all else. The great news is that it’ll be really, really cheap because in a computer hardware sense, it’s verging on junk. (Less so with Macs – you’ll have to hunt a bit harder for the cheapest models).

(Oh, and don’t be tempted to get an actual typewriter. That’s just daft).

What you’re after, in the literal sense, is an electronic notebook.

And nothing more.

Problem: My Screen Is Too Busy

For many people – maybe even for most people – having a dedicated word processor isn’t a practical option. That’s particularly true for digitally nomadic travel writers or anyone else who works on the move. They need it all in one box.

So if you’re one of these folk, you need to destroy the world with software.

Solution: Turn It Into A Blackboard (or Whiteboard or Greenboard or…)

Q10 (PC only).

Alternatives:

Darkroom (PC).

CreaWriter (PC).

Writeroom (Mac / iPhone).

OmmWriter (Mac).

Problem: I’m Not In The Mood

Once you’ve got your minimal-distraction environment arranged just so, well, there’s the sitting down part.

Solution: Oh Go On – Just A Little Bit…

No need to flinch. Writing is only difficult in large doses. So take small ones. Learn to accustom your mind to be as quiet and undistractable as your surroundings, and do it patiently, bit by bit.

Unfortunately, this is tantamount to asking a small mischievous child to sit quietly in the corner of a sweet shop. Pretty soon, your brain is running about covered in sugar and your thoughts are all sticky. That’s probably when you need to stop for the day – even if just ten minutes have elapsed.

Just make sure that for those ten minutes, you’re dashing.

Solution: …or Okay, So What Are You In The Mood For?

And if you find yourself procrastinating. So what? Just point it in a more useful direction, like towards the housework (I’m with Lifehacker on this one).

Procrastinate with a focus, and you’ve got it beat.

*****

http://writetodone.com/2008/01/09/how-to-write-without-distractions/

http://zenhabits.net/2007/10/ugly-productivity-5-steps-to-a-distraction-free-workspace/

Images: Grant Neufeld, notashamed, Katie Tegtmeyer, badboy69, Mickie Quick, blakie, Giorgio Montersino and Mike Sowden.

Cobweb 2.0: How Spiders Catch The Rain

Mikeachim — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:47:19 +0000

So that’s how.

Image: Mike Sowden.

Breaking The Ice With Strangers: Hook

Mikeachim — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:39:55 +0000

The road is a lonely place.

Everyone’s a stranger. You long to connect with someone, anyone, but the odds are stacked against you. You’re in too much of a hurry to engage in social bonding rituals like feasting and hanging out. There’s the natural coolness in the air. And hey, you’re not your normal self right now – flung outside your comfort zone, living on your nerves and at the mercy of thoughts and whims born of sleep deprivation, addled body chemistry and sensory overload. Capping all that – you’re the outsider, with everything to prove.

The common reaction (if you’re like me) is to give up. To hide yourself away. Stiff upper lip, a sledgehammer air of authority you don’t feel and the kind of fixed expression you normally only see on Terminators and the acutely constipated. Lonely traveller, coming through.

But there are ways to improve your chances – and some of those vulnerabilities weighing heavy on your confidence are just the tools you need to make new friends.

Here’s how I reckon it works.

HOOK

1. Let Them In

2. Act American

3. Best Foot Forward

LINE

4. Invite, Don’t Drag

5. Channel Your Inner Numpty

6. Assume Nothing Except Your Own Ignorance

7. Tickle Them

SINKER

8. Represent Your Country

9. It’s Not About You

10. It’s Not About What We Do

HOOK

1. Let Them In

Thanks to our astonishing ability to thin-slice the world around us, first impressions count for a lot – so it’s unfortunate that as a traveller, you have a limited opportunity to show you’re worth talking to. No dilly-dallying. You need some trust, and you need it quick. There’s so many things you have to quickly convey – you’re not unapproachably eccentric, you’re not deranged, you’re not a globe-trotting serial killer, you’re not selling encyclopedias. (Top tip – don’t lug encyclopedias around on your travels. Sends the wrong message).

The most efficient way you can bridge this trust gap is to expose yourself to them.

Remember the painfully poignant Roger Sanchez video with the girl lugging her heart around the city streets? You’re that girl. There’s nothing more powerful than opening up to strangers because socially, there’s nothing more dangerous. You’re allowing the other person to see past the multitude of masks that protect you in the modern world – and you’re entrusting them with a tiny piece of you, up front. What if they take advantage? There’s the risk.

But honesty pays off. If you’re being yourself, it manifests physically in hundreds of ways. Your body language alters. Your expressions speak volumes. Your voice loses the constricted tone than comes with guarded nervousness and gains a very appealing hint of wry panic. You’re clearly not faking it because you’re not faking it. And when that’s evident to strangers, their heart goes out to you. You’ve earned your chance to know them.

Good:

“I’ll be honest, I’m always a bit embarassed when I’m here in Athens and speaking English, because my Greek is…kinda terrible. Nai? *grin* And your English is great, if you don’t mind me saying so. And, well, that’s not exactly fair on you, is it? Tell you what, if I ever bump into you in London, we’re not allowed to speak English, okay? It’ll all be in Greek. Do we have a deal?”

Bad:

“So, let’s share. I’ll go first! Well, you should proably know that I’ve always had a really terrible flatulence problem. It’s driven everyone away. Even my dog ran away – chewed through the wall in the end. What with that and the fact that I’m incredibly unlucky, jeez, I’m cursed. “Evil Eye” they call me. Especially after what happened to that bus I was in, in Crete – you hear about that? I was that guy, yes. Still not allowed back to Crete. So frankly I’m desperate to make friends, any friends. No offence, just being honest. And the crazy thing is, here I am with all my inheritance money too, you’d think I’d be inundated with offers! Say, what is there to do round here?”

2. Act American

Americans are not just friendly and polite — they are also charming. And the most charming thing of all is that it rarely looks like charm.

- Geoff Dyer

America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair.

- Arnold Toynbee

I live in a country where American-bashing is a way of life.

It’s not malicious. It’s usually undertaken with a grin – the same way us Brits are fabulously rude about the French whenever we can get away with it (because that’s always funny). It’s a thin, acceptable veneer on a reservoir of pompous distrust of anything not done the British way. And it’s ingrained. Of course, we have a Special Relationship with the Americans – they’re the loudmouthed tearaways who ran away from home and then had the affrontery to become the Superpower we should be by now (were it not for a few, ah, understandable foreign policy blunders). The Americans have more money than they know what to do with, and maybe this is why they’re always so damned happy. They should try standing in a queue at Tesco for a few hours, or watching a repeat of Oh Doctor Beeching. That’ll wipe the grin from their faces.

And on and on, in that sort of vein. Tedious but inevitable – and yes, some of it is jealousy. Particularly when it comes to Americans abroad.

Generalisms are generally nonsense. (Except that one, of course). And stereotypes always fall short of reality with even a cursory glance. But in my experience, when I’m abroad, it’s the American tourists who are the first to break the ice. I’ve seen it happen so many times that I’ve even begun to develop a little cultural insecurity about it. What’s wrong with my attitude? Why did the hot Greek girl talk to Brad from Long Beach instead of me, dammit? (Brad – one day, I’m coming for you. “Dude”).

The Americans I’ve had the good fortune to hang around with have been blessed with an easygoing geniality towards the world in general that I’ve both admired and aspired towards. They were the first to spark up conversation for the sheer hell of it, the first to ask the obvious questions (while I hung back, worried about sounding clueless) and seemed inbued with an inexhaustible ability to see the bright side in every situation, which us Brits sometimes interpret as an inability to fully comprehend it.

It’s not just Americans who are like this. But they’re most famous for it.

A positive outlook oozes charisma. Approach strangers with a smile, and you’ve a better chance of being rewarded with their time.

3. Best Foot Forward

It’s either Alan Whicker or David Attenborough. I can’t narrow it down any further at present. But one of these world-class adventurers told a story of stepping off a train in a remote corner of Africa and being faced with a line of terrifying-looking warriors rushing down a hill towards him, waving a variety of traveller-puncturing tools.

David (or Alan) was convinced that his time had come. This was it. End of the innings.

So he set his jaw, stuck out his hand and strode to meet them with a loud “Good morning!”.

Since both of these gentlemen are still with us, you’ll know how this story ends. And it demonstrates magnificently the power of rushing in where angels fear to tread, with a handshake at the ready. If you’re acting without guile and you’ve got a friendly twinkle in your eye, you’ve leeway for a lot of cheek. Whether wangling a good deal on a hotel room, haggling the price of a taxi ride or charming your way through bureacratic red tape, it’s a fact that good-natured confidence triumphs where domineering arrogance fails miserably. (It’s easy to see how if you plonk yourself in their shoes for a moment).

To break the ice, you have to apply a little force.

Images: chuckp, Susanica, VictoriaPeckham and mythic moonlight.

(Line and Sinker to follow soon).

How To Make Athens Punch You In The Stomach

Mikeachim — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:18:57 +0000

It’s easy.

Simply climb that hill on the right.

All photos M. Sowden, June 2007.

The final photo (Flickr page here) is currently being used by Lonely Planet.

What Are Blog Comments For?

Mikeachim — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:00:53 +0000

It’s all in the comments, folks.