Eyes shut and ears open

When a friend recommended substituting soundtracks on my ipod for audiobooks and podcasts, I dismissed the notion almost immediately, considering anything verbal when walking or exercising to be a dangerous distraction that would inevitably lead to clumsy injury.

However, I recently had to review an audiobook as part of a job application and so was forced to abandon my prejudices and plug in. Despite my resentment at spending a Saturday doing something job-related, I was pleasantly surprised when the morning slipped by being soothed by the suave tones of Jeremy Irons. Curled up in a hazy half-snooze, eyes-shut and ears-open, I was whisked away to the world of the novelist without even having to open the book. In a room without TV and with frustratingly temperamental internet, it provided effortless escapism.

Though it will take some time before I have the confidence to swap driving basslines for a topical podcast when out running, there is something oddly satisfying about having someone read to you when in the safety of your flat. Is that because it’s a comforting allusion to the days when someone read you a bedtime story? Or is it simply an idle indulgence for those reluctant to read for themselves? Or, maybe it’s so satisfying because the style of narration actually adds something to the text…

To help justify my lazy eyes, I’ve decided to go with the latter.

Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh. Narrated by Jeremy Irons

Described by the author as “a novel about the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters”, I was fairly apprehensive about starting Brideshead Revisited, anticipating a weighty novel laden with complex, religious themes. However, my reservations dissolved within the opening minutes of the narration. A far cry from a moralizing religious sermon, Waugh guides us through the delicious decadence of pre-war English aristocracy, as seen through the eyes of his protagonist Charles Ryder.

A man who “sails through the world riding on his creamy English charm,” Ryder’s story is an  ambling account of carefree merriment, hedonistic weekend jaunts and indulgent lunches, through which Waugh deftly touches on the murky themes surrounding Atheism and Catholicism. One of the finest British writers of the 20^th century, his lyrical literary style is ideally suited for an audio book, and as I listened to his meandering tale, I felt as if Charles Ryder was actually sat opposite me idly chatting over a cup of tea. 

The novel is narrated by the quintessentially English Jeremy Irons, who was catapulted to stardom following his interpretation of Ryder in the award-winning TV adaptation of Brideshead in 1981. Irons explained his identification with Ryder by describing him as “the man who I was educated to be”, and has since referred to the TV series as, “the swan song to that side of my life”. He was undoubtedly the ideal choice for the audio book, and his connection with the protagonist is evident in his narration. He speaks with expressive ease, his suave tones emphasising the subtle snobberies of English elegance that underlie the text.

An engrossing immersion into the flamboyance and extravagance of the early 20^th century, Brideshead is considered Waugh’s magnum opus, and Irons’ eloquent narration of the audiobook adds yet another dimension to the text.

A must-read that is now a must-listen, the Brideshead Revisited audiobook is not to be missed.

87 days and counting...

"So, you´ll soon be running a half-marathon every week, building up to at least 5 runs a week and a weekly mileage of about 45 miles per week. This should culminate in a 22-mile run about 3 weeks before the big one..."

After this speech by a seasoned marathon runner at a London 2012 training day, I conceded that my vague fitness strategy would need substantial revision if I am to make it through the marathon. Though the talk was intended to motivate runners, with legs still twitching uncomfortably from the 11-mile group run and a head stuffy from a birthday-night-out in Shoreditch, I felt more intimidated than inspired. However, fortunately it only took a Sunday roast and an afternoon meticulously colour-coding a training plan to make me feel much more positive. In fact, as my job is still distinctly shaky, I’m actually quite glad to have something as uncompromising and all-consuming as a marathon to keep me focused.　

Even so, only 2 weeks in, two major problems (other than strength of willpower) have already become apparent. For one, maintaining a normal work and social life will be a feat requiring military precision. Squeezing miles in after work and still having the enthusiasm to walk to the pub is certainly something I will have to get used to. I will also need to perfect my technique when running in the morning. On Thursday I got up at an unearthly hour (blissfully unaware of the monsoon-like conditions outside) to clock up some mileage before work. However, blinded by sheets of rain and gloomy light, I ended up adding an unintentional mile and a half to my route and arrived back at my flat bedraggled and exhausted with only 45 minutes before work. Needless to say, despite the early start, I arrived late and looking even more disheveled than usual. Similarly, post-run productivity is proving to be a problem. Last week, optimistic hopes for an efficient Sunday finishing off some freelance work evaporated after 12 miles around Westminster. The morning's efforts consigned me to a duvet-clad afternoon watching a dubious Lord of the Rings imitation starring Jason Statham. I’ve absolutely no idea how I’ll manage increasingly long weekend endurance runs when the diary is rapidly filling with hen dos, weekends away and weddings.

The other major challenge for me will be remaining injury-free. Despite having spent nearly half my weekly wages on gait assessment and new trainers, 　I’ve already had my first Oyster-card-moment: I found myself half way to Battersea (typically without my Oyster or any money) when my ankle became too painful to run on and I had to hobble home to an ice-pack and some ibuprofen. I suppose it’s inevitable that spending disproportionate amounts of time pounding the pavements is not conducive to healthy bones, but no matter how much core-strength training I do, my body seems to have an unfortunate propensity for injury. As such, I can regretfully predict that managing injuries and forking out for physio will be an unfortunate characteristic of the next few month. (I suppose that - in the case of disaster - I can always defer for a year.)

However, though for now I am resigned to the fact that any spare time will be spent either napping or horizontal with a bag of frozen peas, I am hoping that I will gradually learn when to take-it-easy and when to push-through niggling pains. Similarly, I'm assuming that I’ll become an expert at juggling running with weekends away and evenings out. In fact, injury frustrations and social calendar aside, I am actually looking forward to the intense few months ahead. Of course, another task I feel slightly apprehensive about is raising sponsorship for my chosen charity,
Children with Cancer. Being part of the London Marathon Mr Men team, and therefore responsible for raising over a quarter of the charity's income, I will need to get stuck into the fund-raising sooner　 rather than later…

So, if you do want to contribute to a good cause, or give me a bit of added incentive and a head-start up the hill, you can sponsor me at www.virginmoneygiving.com/Lotts.　

Steamy sessions with a French baker

I didn´t quite realise what I´d let myself in for when I paid for a 25-day membership of a yoga studio in Clapham. Though well aware that the studio only offers classes of Hot Yoga (yoga practiced at a steamy 38°C), being hypersensitive to the cold, I found the prospect of some sub-tropical heat – even if it was to be artificial – fairly alluring. Similarly, given my back-catalogue of disastrous yoga classes (ranging from hours of meditative chanting to impossible acrobatics), I reasoned that it couldn´t be worse than previous experiences. However, I started to feel dubious as soon as the teacher entered on the first class of my 25-day stint. A squat Frenchman, his physique can only be described as slack: a soft, squashy torso with podgy bulges rounding over the elastic band of his very-short shorts. Though as the class progressed I warmed to his softly accented instructions, because he was unable to demonstrate lots of the positions I remained suspicious of his coaching abilities. My doubts were confirmed when I later discovered that this supposed yoga guru is also a professional pastry chef – a somewhat ironic dual identity.

Even if you put the French baker to one side, the actual yoga – consisting of short, basic sequences loosely linked to your breathing - wasn’t that challenging. Though by the end my body was pulsating, this was due to heat exhaustion rather than muscle weariness (I suppose an inevitable side-effect of a temperature gage that is pushing 40˚C). At one point, I was sweating so much I thought I was actually melting. It is certainly a purifying, cleansing experience, and far more effective than a sauna and a face pack. Similarly, for those who are particularly tight, yoga in a muscle-loosening 38˚C must be ideal for a bit of added elasticity. However, for those who are already fairly bendy, it seems a bit pointless. It even felt slightly sordid at times: lots of half-naked bodies packed like sardines into a small space, sweating profusely in a series of grunts and lunges. Within half an hour, your mat is flecked with splashes of your neighbour’s sweat, a periodic spray that continues throughout the class and which, when upside down in a Downward Dog, you are powerless to prevent. Furthermore, after an hour, even deep breathing - elemental in yoga - becomes increasingly unappetizing as sticky aromas start to overpower the incense. In fact, the inevitable pong seems to vary in pungency depending on the person next to you (and whether or not they are sweating out last night’s curry). In the most recent class I went to, I was squashed so uncomfortably close to the man next to me (alcohol sweats if I’m not mistaken) that I repeatedly hit him on the bum every time I did a forward bend… I snuck out of that one early.

I still (regrettably) have 15 days left of free classes, and so I’m not going to completely reject Hot Yoga.With the London Marathon looming ahead of me, the growing pressure to clock up some mileage and a body that feels particularly wobbly and brittle, I have resigned myself to some intensive yoga in a bid to build up a bit of strength. However, I can’t help but question if it is ever good for you to perspire that much: there is a reason why there are time restrictions on saunas and steam rooms. Ideally I would prefer to work up a sweat from challenging, muscle-shaking yoga sequences instead of radiators and dumbed-down imitations. Similarly, if paying through the nose for a class, I expect to hear hard-earned yoga wisdom from some spiritual quasi-Buddhist who has spent half their life in India… not a pastry-chef.

Back in the day when I still had an NUS card, I frequented the £1.20 yoga class at the Student Union in Cardiff. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian called Yulia – criminally bendy with the appearance of never having ingested a single toxin – led a demanding Ashtanga class that left your muscles throbbing and your limbs heavy. It certainly felt more organic. Then again, maybe I’m just a yoga snob... A fellow yoga-goon recently joked that if you put a bench press in a steam room and marketed it in the right way, you could charge £15 for a half-hour session - a prediction I can easily believe. Could Hot Yoga just be a fad? Another fitness craze with a little bit more staying power than most? A trend designed for those simply too lazy to work up a sweat on their own?

I’m yet to decide…

The ´there and then´ or the ´here and now´...

Although I tried to keep an open mind when I went to my first Kundalini Yoga session at the Brixton Rec last Saturday, I was instantly dubious when the teacher pitched up wearing a hemp shirt, a cotton flat cap and an armful of wooden bangles. I was tempted to make a quick getaway before the class started, but before I could roll up the mat and slip out he had carelessly flicked on a CD of Enya, assumed a meditative position and begun preaching about Ying and Yang. When, after near on an hour of spiritual babble, uncomfortable ´fire breathing´ and several inexplicable references to the ´love nerves´ we still hadn’t done one basic yoga sequence, I decided to abandon ship: hood up and head down I snuck out the back door mid-chant.

  The early exit turned out to be a blessing: stepping out of the sports centre, I stumbled straight into the foot-tapping rhythms of Rock Around The Clock Tonight and the buzz of an impromptu dance floor. A twirl of swirly skirts, tapping of patterned winkle-pickers and rolling of padded shoulder pads, four couples were spinning and smiling arm-in-arm in a lively jive. A toothy-grinned scruff with a can of Red Stripe bounced enthusiastically on the balls of his feet in their midst and a teacher stood by the music decks directing the steps with a cheesy smile and an American twang. Stockwell Swing Patrol had commandeered a corner of the street as part of Brixton’s Vintage Market and Atlantic Road had been transformed into a colourful jumble of low-hung bunting and stands of antique furniture; the street bubbling with head-bobbing spectators, oversized cardigans and tweed suit jackets, loud retro patterns, random knick-knacks and antique trinkets.

I felt as if I had morphed straight into the 1950s: my yoga-fuelled huff lifted instantly. A fan of rummaging around the clutter of second hand shops, I find that there is something instantly appealing about things from the past and am instantly drawn to anything with a story behind it. In fact, I spend a disproportionate amount of time imagining life as it was generations ago, dreaming of discovering a time-travelling DeLorean to zoom me through the ages Marty McFly style… I recently went to see Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, a slightly off-the-wall tale about a man who discovers he can teleport through time to the 1920s. No question about it, I would leap at the chance for a night of 1920s revelry. As much as I love the 80s (headbands and comfy fashion), just imagine swooning about in a Europe where everyone is an artist: the roaring twenties, the golden age, the crazy years…

However, as a wide-eyed and innocent Owen Wilson shows us in Woody´s latest romp, is it simply a case of ´the grass is always greener´? In every era Wilson visits the contemporaries he encounters are pining for a generation-past: the previous Golden Age. Is it that, no matter where – or when - you are, the past is always perceived to have been better than the present? Looking back wistfully on school days or university years as the best time of your life certainly seems to be a habit inherent in society. I often smile back on my schooldays and reminisce about fumbling together coloured maps for geography posters or messing about with Bunsen Burners… Warm and fuzzy reflections. That however is certainly a case of selective forgetfulness. I don´t have to strain my mind much for memories of missing the train every morning and doing battle with balanced equations to sharpen up those rose-tinted lenses.

Perhaps perspectives of ages-past are similarly forgetful. Put the 1920s in context as a decade sandwiched between two world wars and it’s instantly clear that it can’t have been all cultural dynamism and hedonism; economic collapse and the rise of fascism must have featured somewhere. But who wants to read about unemployment and social misery when you can get lost in the glitz and glamour of the artist (even if it is superficial)? It certainly makes it easy to be sentimental about an era you never lived through - simply because you´ve not experienced the cold, hard reality of it. Similarly, when bogged down by pessimistic press and mundane day-to-day monotonies, it’s easy to overlook the present.

Last Saturday, moving on from the 1950s time warp of Atlantic Road, I walked home through Brixton Village. Spread through the maze of arched tunnels under Brixton Station, it’s just as good as the nostalgia of vintage markets. A rabbit warren of restaurants and shops, it’s squashed full of everything and anything: from boutique fashions to deluxe sweets, cheap home ware to specialist Indian spices. On one corner you might pass a display of exquisite cupcakes, at the next a counter-top of iced pigs heads placed. You can dine on the greasy slap-up Chinese served from a mobile counter or share a tapas platter of pinchos from the Spanish taverna, sample freshly prepared noodles or experience the best pizza in London. I doubt they had that sort of a selection in the 1920s.

Even so, as much as I can appreciate the perks and quirks of the hear and now, I’m still dreaming about the DeLorean…

Brain Blank

I have now been back in the UK for a couple of months. Returning home in September after a four-week-walk, I had high hopes of being on the cusp of a creative burst. I expected that, following a few weeks of home comforts, I would be writing reams and reams of inspired, pilgrim-themed prose...

Sadly, the pending novel is still non-existent and even short-stories or artistic articles are proving elusive. It seems that any imaginative impulses have been bludgeoned by the unwelcoming reality of working full-time: spending eight hours a day writing web-optimised content is certainly an effective way to numb the brain into blankness. However, before the memories recede too far into the distant past, I have cobbled together some words about the pilgrimage for Spanish company Letango Tours.

Though a fairly disappointing yield considering that when walking I scribbled my way through two journals, at least it is a start - if a little tentative... You can read it here: El Camino

El Camino...

Now sitting in an internet café in the South of Spain, it is hard to believe that less than 2 days ago I was standing on a craggy cliff on the edge of rugged Galician mountains, gazing out at an Atlantic that stretched onwards endlessly and merged with the sky in a blurry line on the horizon. I was in Fisterra, an idyllic, unspoilt stretch of coastline in the North West corner of Spain. Also known as the "Coast of Death", it is more or less the final destination on the ancient Jacobean pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela - El Camino de Santiago. Though the route culminates officially at the cathedral in the city, some pilgrims continued until they reached the coast in order to bathe in the sea be cleansed of their sins. For me, the simple prospect of reaching a beach was ample encouragement to pause only briefly in Santiago and continue for a further 3 days until I reached the coast. It was certainly worth it: finally arriving at the ocean, dumping my pack on the beach and running (or hobbling) into the water, was quite a powerful moment.

 However, over the 28 days that I was walking, I came to realise that meaningful moments are almost Camino-fashion. I met no end of people keen to share their life-changing camino experience: some had found spiritual enlightenment, others (often men) described how when walking on their own they suddenly found themselves sobbing uncontrollably. Sadly, as far as I know, I´ve had no such experience. Granted, the Baywatch-beach-entry was a special moment, but on a physical rather than emotional level - after 800km my weary, aching muscles and blistered feet were in dire need of attention and a bracing ice-bath in the Atlantic was the ideal remedy. I can´t help but feel slightly short-changed: despite walking at least double the distance of some I wasn´t met by any dramatic bout of self-realisation. If I did find my inner-self, it´s not had much of an impact: I´m still vegetarian and enjoy gin and tonics...

To be fair, I didn´t embark on the pilgrimage with any spiritual goals. In fact, one of my main motivations was the hope that I would be struck by creative genius and return with all the ingredients for a bestseller in my head. The unquestioning simplicity of the day certainly allowed for thinking and writing time- get up when you wake up (unfortunately often pre-dawn), walk in time to the sunrise, stop whenever you find a shop, talk to whoever you meet, sleep whenever you feel tired, stay wherever you end up. The unthinking routine set the mind free to reflect on anything, everything and nothing. However, I seem to have fallen short of that aim as well: though I have filled a diary (and overflow notebook) with scrambled descriptions, any coherent prose remains elusive. In fact, the only comprehensive sentences I have written were disappointingly mundane - the result of a frustrating, sleepless night...

I was staying in a particularly grotty government hostel - a dingy, damp room with white-washed walls and bunks squashed in as if it was a battery farm. Despite my surroundings, after a 36km day my exhausted limbs felt as if they were literally dissolving into the bed and I was asleep almost as soon as I lay down. However, shortly after the lights-out curfew, an elephant-like snotty rasp dragged me from my dreams and in the space of minutes, the hostel was filled with a cacophany of room-shaking snorts coming from two or three chronic snorers. By no means can I claim to have never snored, but this snorting-chorus, puncuated periodically by an offensively persistant trumpet ring tone that someone decided not to mute, must have been scraping the top of the decibel register, and the combined efforts of Nick Cave, Tom Baxter and Enya on high volume on my ipod all failed against the onslaught.

I spent a painfully long night smarting with the injustice that some troll-like beings behind me dreamt soundly while their incompetent breathing denied others some much-needed shut-eye and when I stopped for an extra strong coffee the next morning, a tirade of abuse simply flowed from my pen. Unfortunately, cutting through line upon line of uniformed vineyards in La Rioja, stomping across the stark, barren plains of Castilla y Leon and climbing through the luscious valleys of Galicia has failed to unleash similar verbosity from my pen... An indignant rant about a bad nights sleep is a fairly disappointing yield from a 28 day plod across the breadth of Spain. I can only hope that my current weariness and raggedeness is temporarily inhibiting the inevitable creative burst and that it is just a question of digestion time before the erratic scribbles in my diary become legible paragraphs.

Spiritual enlightenment may have eluded me but perhaps a few duvet-clad nights and PG Tips mornings will tease out something mildly creative...

Dropping off the radar

I often feel tied to my laptop. I´m not sure when I started checking my e-mails two or three times a day, and when it became seemingly imperative to do so, yet rarely a day goes by when I don´t. Though free from mobile internet access (using a reliable if slightly antique Nokia handset) I still instinctively switch on my laptop every morning.

When I was living in Spain, the need to be connected was clear - frequent facebook perusals, daily e-mail checks and skype chats staved off pangs of homesickness. However, now back in the UK, it is harder for me to justify - particularly as I´m unemployed and thus free (thankfully) from the barage of work e-mails that greets most of my friends every morning.

I suppose that in the age of blackberries and iphones, romantic notions about being completely disconnected - of “dropping off the radar” - are unrealistic. Even so, I often ask myself why I log onto my laptop every morning. To confirm that my job applications remain unanswered? To delete the circulars from vouchercodes.com? To gossip needlessly with a friend who I´m meeting that evening?

Returning to Spain for a month today, this time to walk the Camino de Santiago (a route that runs from one side of Spain to the other) I´m anticipating that disconnecting will be easier – mainly because it will be largely enforced: I´m not taking a phone charger (minimalist packing given added inccentive by the prospect of having to carry everything I take) and doubt that the church halls where I´ll be staying and the sleepy pueblos that I pass through will have internet.

However, as much as I´m looking forward to being lost and unreachable for a month, and plan to embrace “dropping off the radar”, I predict, perhaps pessimistically, that within a week of walking I will have rang, texted or e-mailed my family. I´ll tell myself that it is simply to reassure them that I have arrived and am surviving, but I know deep-down that I´m expecting a reply and will be disappointed not to get one.

Perhaps I´m not cut-out for detachment... Only time will tell!

MADRID SNAPSHOTS: The route without a trail

I was stood on the doorstep of Cercedilla train station, peering up and down the road bemusedly and hoping to spot the waymarked trail. According to the internet blog I had read over breakfast that morning, there was a clear off-road route from the station to the mountains. Predictably, the supposed stone archway meant to mark the start of said route was notable only by its absence, and I soon resigned to chance my luck just walking up the road in the general direction of the mountains. However, on spotting a slender figure waiting at the bus stop while looking thoughtfully at a map, I paused.

Wearing a latex sports T-shirt, Gore-Tex walking boots and a chunky, digital stopwatch, he looked every ounce the proficient, professional hiker. From first impressions, his appearance wasn´t deceiving: on asking him directions, he nodded authoritatively and traced an elaborate route with his finger. Unfortunately, the muddled patchwork of greens, browns, thin blue stripes and swirly contours, and the squiggly line he drew with his finger across it, left me none the wiser. I set off apprehensively in the general direction of his gestures, and was already 30m away when I heard him call me back. Running to catch up with me, he explained that the bus wasn´t for another two hours and so he too would be starting out from the train station. He drew another maze of invisible lines across the map to indicate his plans, a route equally confused as the one he had initially shown me, and asked if I wanted to follow him. A quick glance at the altitude counter attached to his belt and the walking poles fastened in a cross on his backpack washed away my doubts: I promptly decided to abandon my hazy, blog-led explorations and follow the expert.

As it turned out, he was something of a professional - a mountain guide preparing a route for a group of tourists he was to take out the following day - and for the next 6 or so hours I felt like I was on some kind of freebie guided excursion. He described the trails through the national park, named every hillock on the mountain crest and identified just about every tree we passed. In fact, as we walked it soon became clear that he nursed a passion for trees. He was bilingual in tree types – trilingual in some cases – and would stop sporadically to tenderly embrace the knarled trunk of a pathside Pine or Beech. At other times, he would fall dramatically to the floor and seize a stone to carve a small trench at the edge of a puddle, allowing the water to trickle away from the path and “feed” the trees lower down. We occasionally passed knotted tangles of branches, where trees had collapsed into each other and grown intertwining. On passing them, he would marvel at their form and stroke the branches lovingly with his fingers. “It looks so peaceful, but there´s a f**ing battle going on here. It´s a brutal fight - they´re locked in nature´s battle.”

I have to confess that after the third or fourth tree-hug I was starting to doubt his sanity and question whether my snap decision to follow him was perhaps somewhat foolhardy. My apprehensions were not eased when, on pausing for a snack, he rolled up a fat, herby spliff to puff on while I ate a banana. Unfortunately, being half-way up a mountain with little idea of how to return, I had little choice but to quash my misgivings and plough hopelessly after him in blind faith. Whether a result of this herby roll-up or not, I couldn´t help but notice that he stumbled with worrying regularity. Though exuberantly enthusiastic, bounding along with bouncy strides, he tripped clumsily over his own feet even on the best laid paths. Similarly, though reassured by his regular authoritative glances at the altitude counter and map, it soon became apparent that despite his orienteering equipment and credentials, he had little idea of where his pre-planned route lay and was simply inventing his own. “No problem, its a route without a trail,” he reassured me, amid the head-scratching and doubling back.

To be just, we did eventually reach the crest we were aiming for - albeit after wading through endless expanses of scratchy knee-high heather, scrambling over rocks and boulders wedged into the curve of the mountainside and sinking into swampy marshes and bogs. Similarly, though he tripped dopily with alarming frequency, he proved surprisingly footsure over difficult terrain and more than once he had to grab me to stop me slipping off one of the sharply sloping slabs of rock, or offer a hand to pull me across the widely spaced stones in a mountain stream. He even gave me a quick tutorial on the best technique to descend steep gradients.

Eccentricities and unplanned diversions aside, he was undoubtedly mountain savvy, and I´m certainly pleased I ran into him. Even so, if I had paid for an excursion that turned out to be an improvised “route without a trail”, led by a passionate, partially stoned tree-hugger, I´m not sure I´d be too happy.

Location Location Location

I have now been back from Madrid on unofficial summer holidays for three weeks. Despite romantic visions of spending long summer days reading, the time has slipped by in a slightly blurry haze of gin and tonics, glasses of wine and mugs of tea. Preoccupied with dog walks, lie-ins and lengthy trips on London´s creaking public transport system, the pile of Spanish books lugged back from Madrid have remained undisturbed in a pile on my bedroom floor. Unfortunately, any spare time - potential reading time - has been swallowed by increasingly panicked investigations into what to do and where to go come September - a question that seems to have boiled down to a London versus Madrid conundrum.

Having spent the past few weeks commuting to town in reverse, spending evenings at friends´ houses and nights on their sofas, I can´t help but feel that if it came to sink or swim in London, I´d struggle to keep my head above the water. Even if you push aside the exorbitant prices and astronomic size of the city, London is stressful. For one, evenings out in London become a stressful test requiring military organisation. Though I was undoubtedly spoilt in Madrid, living on the same road as several laid-back, late-night terraced bars, I think that it is justified to feel indignant when turfed out of a bar pre-midnight. I was booted out of a pub last Friday. My glass of wine sloshed unceremoniously into a plastic pint cup and the door closed and locked abruptly behind me, I was left standing listlessly on the street outside. Unwilling to commit to a boozy night in a noisy nightclub, but equally reluctant to return home, I wandered around aimlessly for a while (plastic pint cup in hand) hoping somewhat optimistically to stumble across a pub with a late licence. It didn´t take long before I conceded defeat and made for the nearest bus stop. Unfortunately, although the night had been bought to a premature end, the wearying wait for an overcrowed night bus and the painfully convoluted route that it took meant that it wasn´t until the early hours that I flaked into bed.

For another, unless late evening or very early morning, strolling seems to be something of an impossibility in London. In Madrid, I came to love the custom of “dar una vuelta” or “taking a turn”. Though the English translation sounds distinctly 19th century aristocracy, I have come to love the practice of simply walking without purpose or direction. However, in London, the legions of people that invade every corner turn a leisurely ramble around the city into an exasperating challenge. Vision blocked by an unbroken sea of heads, seeing where you´re going is an impossibilty and the congestion is such that any attempts to sidestep the crowd are hopeless. All you can do is fall into step and shuffle along blindly behind the mass. By no means is Madrid free from crowds: the central semi-circle of Sol is always a crush after 7pm, the latin quarter heaves and swells on a Sunday and the park is rammed every weekend. However, not only are the crowds less dense, but they are confined to certain hotspots leaving nearby streets refreshingly clear to amble along. Of course, if you´re keen to stretch your legs in London, you can always make for a tubeline. Londoners are reknowned for their speedy gait and nowhere is it more apparent than when they are rushing to wait on a platform. On the Waterloo & City line in particular, shifting up a gear is essential if you want to avoid being jostled by suits jockeying for position on the escalator.

On the flip side, last weekend I remembered why I love the Big Smoke. London had its sun hat on: bathed in soft sunshine and enjoying balmy temperatures, the city was smiling. By actively avoiding the centre, targeting green spaces large enough for frisbee and the arty markets and second hand vintage shops of East London, I found the London where I could happily live. Spending a fuzzy-headed Sunday morning perusing the flower markets of Colombia Road proved to be the perfect antidote to the congestion of Piccadilly. Meandering between wide flower stalls, all crammed with leafy greenery and vibrant, multi-coloured blossoms, it was hard to believe I was in central London. Only the incessant hollers of “Come ooon gals, five roses fer five pound. Y´er not buyin´ today y´er stealin”, reminded me that I was in London. The market was sandwiched between two neat lines of small, two-storey terraces - a collection of tiny boutiques. Some sold customised homeware, others handmade clothing or antiques. A few had thrown open downstairs windows to sell cups of nibbles for a pound or had hung quirky advertisements for their shop from upstairs balconies - on one terrace I noticed a fox sitting on the windowsill sewing a tapestry. Lively trios serenaded the street with energetic, foot-tapping jigs, adding to the buzz. One such group – composed of an enthusiastic clarinettist in a tweed jacket, an accordion player with a flat cap and a barefoot double bassist - attracted a semi-circle of spectators, some perched on the kerb with a take away coffee or - the braver of the crowd - circling in the middle arm-in-arm in a bouncy two-step.

As you can tell, in the throes of a love-hate relationship with London, I am no further forward in solving my September quandary. However, given the growing pile of unanswered cover letters for jobs in London, I can´t help but feel that the decision will be taken out of my hands. The option of a bohemian lifestyle and easy employment as an English teacher certainly trumps months of rejected applications and failed interviews!

Gotham City

It was only after I had booked a four-day stint in Naples and bought the guide book that a friend forewarned me it was a city infamous for its filth and notoriously dangerous. Told that it was alive with rats, stagnant garbage and organised crime I was quickly made aware that, though the city is a World Heritage Site, I wouldn´t be sight-seeing my way around a series of polished and picturesque monuments. As such, I arrived with mild curiosity about what a Mafia stronghold looked like and fairly low expectations about the city´s urban facade. To be honest, I couldn´t think much beyond a Peroni and a plate of pasta.

Fortunately, my food and drink cravings were satisfied almost immediately - within an hour of landing from Madrid I found myself in a local trattoria that was brimming with rowdy rabbles of local Italians. In fact, though I had booked a full four days in Italy´s third city, the lure of spending a few days beach-side on an island meant that my Napolese experience was squashed into this one evening - a jam-packed night kicked off with generous servings of Peroni and red wine sloshed into plastic cups, a succession of antipasto and spaghetti and a family of big-bellied, broad-smiling waitors who sporadically cranked up the volume of the music and plucked girls from their table for a two minute salsa-style spin. It was the perfect introduction to the other half of Latino Europe (which also confirmed that shouting to the person next to you is a trait shared by Italians and Spaniards alike).

Perhaps fittingly, the bubbling trattoria where I ate was in the Spanish quarter of the city. A vast, chaotic jumble of criss-crossing streets that, unsurpisingly, echoed the old quarter of Madrid. However, compared to the sleepiness of Madrid´s narrow lanes, where cars are an infrequent occurrence, the ongoing assault of Vespas zipping along the streets of Naples was overwhelming. Luckily, the general rule seemed to be that if you walked, motorists waited – or at least swerved easily around you. Notably,when exploring this labyrinth of narrow lanes, it was actually quite difficult to find a bar. Instead of the array of small locals that are scattered across Madrid, the doors and windows of downstairs flats were simply thrown open, revealing families lounging in the kitchen, sipping bottles of beer or preparing the food, occasionally shouting across the street to their neighbours. Though probably the result of an over-active imagination fuelled by mafia stories, it was all too easy to imagine that the whole district was linked in some kind of Godfather-esque extended family.

Walking home that night provided a taster of the different districts in Naples, revealing just how big and sprawling the city is. On route, we stopped for a coffee (in a classy, late-night cafeteria) and a cocktail (on a bustling street overflowing with drinkers), passed through an enormously grand, indoor market and along streets awaft with the mouldy, sweet stench that emanates from decaying garbage. On the way to the bay, we passed several small mountains of said garbage. Apparently a hangover from a 15-year-old problem with the binmen, such mounds, which are slowly but surely devouring the pavements, are commonplace in the city. Interestingly, in some areas it seems to be randomly categorized – the bus station looked like a recycling depot for old shoes. The sheer size of the city became even more evident when, after following the distinctive curve of the Napolese coastlines for over half an hour, we still had to hitch a lift to the station to catch the once-hourly bus (albeit it was a 50 minute wait until an antique model rattled into the station).

As much as I´d like to contradict the fairly negative press about Naples, from first appearances, the city certainly fitted the briefing I´d been given- un undeniably dirty, sprawling mess. However, though a far cry from the picture-perfect elegance of Rome or Paris, Naples had an appealing charm. It was raw and gritty, and free from touristy pomp and pretension. It wasn´t necessary to visit one of the 448 historical and cultural monuments to appreciate Naples as a historical centre - it was so steeped in its past that it was literally crumbling into memory as I walked around it. Completely unsanitised by even the slightest efforts at conservation, it was a dilapidated muddle of crumbling buildings and rubbish-strewn passages.

As such, it was fertile ground for the imagination: throughout the evening I spent there I found myself repeatedly envisaging a shadowy, smokey underworld more reminiscent of Gotham City than one of Italy´s Big 3. Indeed, far from feeling disappointed that I hadn´t spent a weekend perusing the Southern equivalent of Florence, I left hungry for more.