One day in early September 1981, my dad dropped me and my Berghouse backpack off at a scummy B&B at No. 14 Nightingale Road, Southsea, what was then the red-light district of Portsmouth.
Bye. He said, climbing back into our blue Chevette. See you at Christmas.
Righty ho. I replied stuffing the tenner he’d given me into my empty wallet.
And with that, I tumbled headfirst into a brave new world of post-secondary education, pubs, field schools, and student poverty.
Mrs. Smart
“Mrs. Smart’s B&B: No Vacancies” read the tired, unwelcoming sign in the window of the 3-story terrace house. Nicotine-stained lace curtains added a touch of brothel chic to the look.
I know. I hear you. I’ve been so preoccupied dredging up old mining stories from the caved-in stopes of my aging brain, I’d clean forgotten that I used to post musical curios on the urbancrows blog. So, as a brief diversion from earth moving, I want to highlight a new guitar discovery for me. Not strictly classical this time around -it’s more contemporary guitar, but with a huge dash of Latin flavour.
My new friend.
For some obscure algorithmic reason, Australian musicians have muscled their way to the top of my youtube page recently. The Ozzie genius, Tommy Emmanuel, stands out as perhaps the best of the lot; a self taught master of finger style guitar. I had tickets to see him at the end of April at Vancouver’s QE Theatre but- guess what?- the gig was cancelled. Funny that. I live in hope that it’ll be back on next year.
Emmanuel’s total technical mastery of the steel string is on display as he turns House of the Rising Sun into a walking blues. And here he is in a fun recording of an old Django Reinhardt gipsy jazz tune with the great German jazz guitarist, Joscho Stephan.
It’s funny how certain blog posts seem to bring back fond memories for some readers. And it’s not always the stories you expect that end up resonating with the audience. To my surprise, this story turned out to be one of them. Many thanks for all the kind comments.
A Biographical Interlude
Tell me Ralph, how did you end up in Africa working down a mine? How did a middle class boy from southeast Kent, of distinctly average intelligence, end up in exotic places smashing rocks, and getting paid to do it?
Glad you asked. See.. I was lucky. Somewhere, sometime back in the 1980s there was a golden horseshoe flying about with my name written on it.
There I am. Yup. That’s Me 1984.
I graduated from a second-rate college which had a first-rate geology program in June 198…8…oh alright, if you must know, 1984. To my surprise, I landed a decent degree which gave me a few more career options than I might otherwise have had.
Mines are amazing places. I’ve made no secret on the blog for my love of underground. The smells, the sounds. It’s visceral shit that gets deeply ingrained. It grabs hold of your innards and won’t let go. To this day, if someone invites me on an underground trip, the excitement builds the moment I hit the change house. Overalls, hat lamp, boots, gloves, hard hat…
Me. Luvvin’ it.Iran.
Luckily, I’ve never suffered from claustrophobia -if I did, I’d never have taken my first job in South Africa and would probably still be stacking shelves in Waitrose supermarket. More Heinz beans on aisle 6 please.
What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever licked- something that you’re happy to talk about in polite company which isn’t a body part?
When I was very small, I licked a slug and some squashed caterpillars I’d collected in a bucket and then pulped with a potato masher (I think I relived that episode as a student on a particularly depraved University field trip but my memory is hazy.)
Then, in my twenties, when I really should’ve known better, I managed to get my tongue stuck on a deep-frozen door key in the middle of an Albertan winter. Sad to say, I was sober, so I can’t claim student inebriation as mitigation for that brainless chapter in The Life Of Ralph.
I regard geophysics as a necessary evil -something proper geologists use to find out useful things about rocks but should otherwise avoid if they know what’s good for them. Some people understand geophysics -they design clever equipment with wires and buttons and dials that geologists pay a lot of money to rent- but I don’t, never will, and never really wanted to.
“The 4 stages of addiction: Experimentation, Regular Use, Problem Use, Addiction / Dependency”
My name’s Ralph. I write the urbancrows blog and I’m an addict. I’m years in to my addiction and I now embrace it. It’s an integral part of me, so I’ve stopped looking for help. I’m way past that.
Now that I’m older and a little more affluent, I can pay dealers to satisfy my cravings. Sure, it costs me more than before to scratch the itch, but my suppliers are reliable and I can get the best quality stuff so I don’t have to hit as often as I used to.
Yes, I collect mineral samples.(PS: the mineral photos are at the end)
The Self-Isolation-Round-The-World-In-14-Days Tour
I flew in from Santiago a week ago with a plane load of worried Canadians heading home from their business trips, or cancelled cruises or their we-had-a-bit-too-much-adventure holidays.
The road in Chile goes on and on and on and on
The handy leaflet I was given at Toronto airport that passes for Canadian government COVID-19 screening tells me that I have to self isolate for 14 days, so now I’m effectively stuck in the house until March 30th.
Well, screw that. I’m an experienced world traveller with the constitution of an ox on steroids, and I’m simply not prepared to sit around, thumb up my bum, while the wonders of the world pass me by. So, the Urbancrows blog has embarked on an all expenses paid (funding source to be determined) virtual world tour to take in some of the sights I’ve always wanted to see. Madagascar, Mongolia, Chad – I’ve crossed them all off my bucket list already.
Regular readers will be pleased to hear (I hope) that I’ve been keeping an illustrated travel diary to while away the time spent on my virtual plane, sipping virtual bubbly in my virtual fully-reclinable First Class seat. I’ll be updating the diary everyday, so let’s dive in and see where I’ve been…
Day 9: The Lord Of The Rings
Today I visited the set of the Lord of The Rings in New Zealand -I read the book over and over as a kid & it’s one of my favourite films. I went dressed as Bilbo & they let me climb Sauron’s tower, which was only 12 ft high and wobbled alarmingly; something of a let down! A pathetic looking rubber “Smaug” flew over on the end of fishing line & grilled one of the extras but that’s why they call them extras I guess! Gandalf was smoking his wand (wtf?) & a bit out of it. His tobacco smelled funny.
The endless Chilean desert has claimed me this week. Five days tooling around the Atacama with 2 fellow geologists is a great way to avoid the zombie-market-COVID-19-toilet-paper apocalypse.
Indeed there is after last week’s meltdown.
The three of us have been self isolating in a Toyota 4×4, well stocked with pringles, sun screen, rancid boots and single-use water bottles. We’ve been looking at 2 silver mining projects between the Chilean towns of Taltal in the south, and Iquique in the north. The projects are roughly 400km apart as a hugely overworked crow flies, with nothing but desert and dust between them.
Isn’t Toronto lovely this time of year? Parks, the lake, pretty girls in outdoor cafes…the early spring sun breaking through. A sense of rebirth lurking just around the corner. Just lovely. And total horseshit, as anyone unlucky enough to be in downtown TO last Friday can testify. True, it was warmish yesterday and raining; a fairly typical Vancouver type day, a tad better than the weekend. But if you ask me, Toronto is still a frigid fucking concrete wasteland populated by thinsulate-clad half frozen people running for the PATH tunnels. And I bloody hate it. Give me Skegness. Give me Milton Keynes. Fuck give me Red Deer; anywhere but downtown TO in the cold.
