Places I have visitedMake yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

 

European countries I have visited

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Parts of the U.S.A. I have visited, i.e. every state except Kansas, North Dakota and Nebraska

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India:visited 19 states (54.2%)Create your own visited map of India

 

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Interests:

 

Playing viola da gamba, otherwise known as the viol (what's that? See www.vdgsa.org/pgs/the_viol.html en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viol

 

World travel, hiking, scuba diving

 

It's difficult to square the circle of my two main interests, music and travel, because in order to be a good viol player some practice is recommended, which you can't do if you are backpacking around the world, although I have attended courses/workshops in USA, Japan, Germany and Australia. I am hoping to form a quartet with the three existing viola da gamba players in South Africa, when I visit there in December 2009.

 

I hate all games and sports and maintain that I owe my robust good health partly to heredity, partly to not smoking and partly to avoiding all sports. I shall plan my 2012 travel with avoidance of any exposure to the Olympics in mind. In 2008, this worked a treat. I spent the wretched Olympic period in the Californian Sierra, where the Olympics were never mentioned in my presence. I don't know who won what and don't care.

 

Favourite books and authors:

 

I recently read Kafka's Das Schloß (The Castle) and Die Verwandlung (Metamorphosis) in German. I don't read a great deal these days apart from newspapers and web pages. In my time I've read most of Dickens and a variety of other classic English authors from Jane Austin to Somerset Maugham. I started reading Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses on a 4-day train journey from Moscow to Uzbekistan in 1992 and subsequently while staying with an Uzbeki family. I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. I found the first 200 pages really hard going but it was the least disagreeable alternative to looking out of the window at the boring scenery and trying to make conversation with a particularly annoying Russian. After that, the book got good and I began to enjoy it immensely. I used to read French authors like Victor Hugo, Zola and Maupassant (the latter's complete works) in French and started reading Anne Frank's diary in Dutch but gave up due to my restlessnes. I want to start again. With Spanish literary works I need a dictionary. I haven't read a great deal of German fiction other than people like Droste-Hülshoff and various short story writers.

 

Favourite movies, stars and directors:

 

Woody Allen springs to mind. Play it again, Sam is one movie which most closely reflects my situation as a man who cannot form relationships with women. It's perhaps the one area where intelligence, education etc. are of no use. So many things: becoming a property owner, getting a degree etc. are so much easier. Apart from Woody Allen, anything which isn't trash can sometimes hold my attention (matter of opinion), although I'm anything but a movie buff.

 

Favourite music and artists:

 

A large range of Western preclassical and classical works. Artists include all sorts of people: Fretwork www.fretwork.co.uk/who/ Jordi Savall en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordi_Savall to name but two.

 

 

You may look at my blog if you like, but don't take it too seriously: rickshaw-waller.blogspot.com/2010/03/arent-you-glad-youre...