Posted 9:32 PM by Gobbler
today i did some extraordinarily marvellous things which i will here relate in haste:
1) did some washing in a washing machine and it got clean and not lost.
2) had three meals. one for breakfast, one for lunch, one for dinner.
3) only paid for one of them. (how splendid)
4) travelled less than 100 miles.
5) went out for dinner in a civilised fashion.
6) woke up in a bed.
7) experimented with pottery. i did not wear special shoes, however i feel confident in asserting that my pottering skills are marvellus, undoubtedly due to miss de maunay and her special teaching aids, which simon edwards callously destroyed one day during a clay fight at school.

oh yay oh yay i dont know at all why i just wrote oh yay oh yay.

Posted 11:44 PM by Gobbler
now in olympia washington with my old school chum. quite done over so linguisticalisation cells not operating at full capacity. chilling here for a couple of weeks or so. got loads of e's to reply to but cant be bothered.

met some special punters on the greyhound, or at least around it. some guy at san fran bus station calling himself Buddy flogging weed sporting a rather fetching blue shell suit telling me i should be in the movies and telling my friend that 'hey, you look all right. wanna by some weed, i got it real cheap. hey, buddy, i can sell you my weed but i cant sell you my jack (daniels) thats mine, you know what i'm sayin? gets me through my ride...'

then there was the strange guy on the bus who looked a bit like he ahd jst been let out of a secure institution who was unwilling to allow a man to sit next to him. the man was not too ahppy with this state of affairs and after asking vaguely politely a couple of times, raised his voice saying 'are you gonna move your bag and let me sit there, or am i gonna have to bust your fuckin' nut, sir.'

another special guy at san fran shook and incoherently muttered his way over to us, paused a while possibly trying to ask us something. we werent paying much attention so after a few seconds he shook away. he may have started mumblimg something different as he went.

special people all. also, i had forgotten (well of course i knew, but it always takes a bit of gettng used to) just how fat americans are. not all of them of course, but there are some absolute whoppers out there. thankfully, however, not the person i'm staying with, who ahs so far proved to be fairly normal.

Brandon, the guy who got in trouble with the mafia in hong kong, is alive and well. well, not totally well as he has fled the country back to canada, abandoning his trans siberian railway plans. got his embassy invaolved and they helped him retrieve his passport. full story permission pending.

no further signs of doctor octagon... he appears tobe in hiding. perhaps he was unable to get his blunderbuss through american customs.

mum: good luck to the popester on the rain-dance front. a pain if in vain it desnt rain like a train. sorry to hear that becky's finishing early - no problems i hope? i would not have got to bolivia in time anyway, however, but i trust she had a good time. its definitely mateys not maties. the obvious reasons for this are lost in the depths of time but the mateymeister guru no.1 (mike) might be able to explain these mysteries. got to usa as you see, not in tip top form, but not too bad. Tom: the tenth sounds spot on old bean. i'll be ready with tea and scones. thought we could head down to portland oregon for the first leg of our journey and stop there for the night. its not far and i ahve a couple of contacts there. also i'm looking into the possibility of buying a car. should be able to pick one up for say 600 bucks and we can sell it on after, so should be pretty cheap if we dont get fleeced. dont suppose you know anything about cars? Evil Uncle: well my evil uncular friend scandinavian tarts you may well have snubbed but spies reprt you chomping on danish pastires regularly. killing is not right good or proper and what are you talking about you insane crazy man (or beast or bird) i dont have a ha'penny they went out years ago so get with the times. all the rst of you: I've got no time for you.

Posted 9:11 PM by Gobbler
oh, i pity the fool.

irritatingly ive just discovered free internet at the airport. so after all that trapsing round kowloon i could have just saved my dolar and stayed put. how annoying. but in fairness they dont serve guinness here. thats all i wanted to say really. damn annoying but who would have thought an airport to provide free internet? its normally about three ties the preice as everywhere else.

obviously i'm now at teh airport. cruised back on the night bus to the airport last night and spent a charming evening on one of thoe dodgy chairs they splash around airports. not too comfortable and bloody freezing. all my clothes are in transit and they really love to crank up the air con in here. thats all right for a few hours but after a while one begins to lose feeling in ones hands and other outer regions. nothing has thus far fallen off or turned blue and a stiff coffee or two has revived me, but its not an ideal sleeping environment. for the first time this trip i copuld have done with my fleece, but its in my rucksack, which is in transit.

so anyway, this girl crystal-ann platt who i got in touch withn to hitch a lift with to seattle has not responded to my latest e so she's pretty much been bearded. on the subject of beards, by brother and i have concocted (well, he concocted and i concurred) a theory on the nature of bearded fellows. its quite enlightening, but not quite ready for publication just yet. it will be, watch this space. on the subject of beards again, (oh how smoothly the story rolls) my mate brandon is still out of contact. as there is a good chance that he is now dead, or at least being worked that way in a sweatshop/ S&M centre, i will publish the e's he sent me about what he got up to and hope he doesnt get too upset. lets have it.

Full permission granted to publish these bad boys has just been received, althougha s amatter of fact i published them by accident the other day. anyhow, hes still alive and back in canada. i'll let the man hiself tell the story...

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'don't panic people!i'm too busy panicking!' By Brandon R. Flumerfelt.

Okay so shortly after being motivated to get off my arse and see the town by karly, i hopped on a ferry to the main big island called kowloon and looked into getting some harbour night boat tour that includes no food only free drinks, cocktails, beer red and\or white wine,and as much as customer needs to turn all those pretty night lights into a mishmash blur of color that can be seen on the cover of southeastasialonelyplanet. or in the toilet bowl after a good party. well i fouund out about details and we will be going next thursday so mission acomplished now what trouble can i get myself into for the rest of the day, right?

SO what do you do when your life turns into a movie!? TELL ME!What do you do when you are led into a shady district, and into a rented room under false pretence of something like enlightening some people about canada?kick yourself for being stupid right! I was treated well inthis room and before i know it am being taught how to read all sorts of signals by a sneaky dealer that wants me and my white skin as his partner to rip off rich people on the cruise ship that he works on as a corrupt casino dealer. The thought of actually doing this humors me, but no more than that and i intend to never talk to this man again once i leave the room. But before i know it this girl is plopped beside me and i am told she is my girlfriend and will help me if i hestate too long 'wink ''wink' they actaully winked.. I'm like "what!?" and all of a sudden real chips a brought to the table and some men enter with, from what i can tell, real money, and lots of it we are talking tens of thousands of dollars here. So we play and with the dealers help and some nudging from the girlfriend as for how much to bet or raise i have won every hand and in short time have turned the $200 american i started with to close to 10 thousand! i want to leave! not with any of the money of which i am appearently entitled to 25%. i just want out now, cause i can easily see that the other men are actors of some sort and nothing makes any sence in my head as to what is actually happening. i say "this is my last hand".and drink some more of my warming coke a cola. so at this, the game by the way is poker 21 (blackjack) and i am dealt a five and a six. i know that the bank has an 8 i can see and the other card ,via signals from the dealer is a ten, so he has to stay. i raise a thousand and ask for another card, knowing the dealer will be generous. and i get it a ten so that makes twenty one and i know i have one but since it is the last hand the rich bastard raises it to 40 thousand and before we flip the cards to see who one we need to prove we have 40 grand to lose. i say "my '"girlfriend"' has it don't look at me!"she brings out 200 dollars but thats all she has and then i sayadding to everyone elses bad acting "my driver is cashing a big cheque and the dealer saw it so its all kosher now lets show."(so i can win and get the fuck out of there!)

I am still shaking from all this as i type but this actually happened, no bullshitting. this is just unbeleiveably mind blowing that this happens in real life and not just the movies.shit i can't beleive it!i'm all quesy, hey karly this isn't imaginary scary like at the seedy tailor shop in bangkok this is real scary as seedy things are actually happening!

The dealer says oh yeah the driver and takes me aside for a moment and says he can get 27 thousand together from here and there and with the money on the table i only need like ten thousand to show the man as he has shown me his 40thousand in a huge massive wad of american bills. I say "there is no way a kid like me has that money! and you know it! after a bit of me not putting up with any of this bullshit, the sharades go on, he then gets desperate and trys to convince me that the guy will basically look at anything i have in my wallet even plastic as to show i have brought something to the table and "it won't matter cause your a sure win and should be saying merry christmas!" .I was gunna get to keep like 17thousand or some horseshit. we return to the table, and i am greatful they continue this whole act instead of strong arming me but i did tell them i had no wallet on me to show them and they were in hopes i could get money from elsewhere for this highstakes game. we agreed that we would put are hands in seperate envelopes and sighn it and everything and put it into a safe with the 40 grand in it and that i had 2 hours to get the money from the bank this was all agreed on with friendly smiles except i had an escort to the bank of course. so i'm there shitting myself walking into the sunlight again with my shades on and thinking what to do next. the bank we went to at first i say is no good we need to go to this other one in the area, which i know, is next to a seven eleven. Although i could puke at any moment my actions and words are unusually cool, although it sounds like i am a story writer now this actually happened aswell as me thinking that i am being cool! i only realize it now but they have cops in all the banks so i coulda gone to them. but instead i stepped into the 711 with my escort right behind me and thank goodness the said cop was filling out something in the store! i bought a coke and stood behinf the cop and then told my escort to 'piss orf' and told hime "to tell the rest that i was tired of this stupid game! all is forgotten, it was only a game.nothing more" he says his brother will be disappointed, but as he doen't know what business i have with him he will go. i stood shaking thinking why get invovled with police now if i can walk away. i joined the crowed of people on the street phoned alex told him what happened and then he said "don't let them follow you home!" PARANOIA!!!!!!!

i walked to the boardwalk from where i will catch a ferry back to hong kong island and went to the nearly empty upper platform and looked down into the plaza where i first met the philipino with the small hands that wanted to know about canada. then out of the corner of my eye i see a rather large indian in a black turbin and beard and a blue shirt comming right at me. i side stepped from the railing and around him and started walking down the stairs and into the saftey of the crowd as i hear him say "you are VERY LUCKY" i stopped turned around and replied "WHAT... DID... you say?" he then went on about eyes in my head and i turned and left into the crowd and noticed and identically dressed man comming towards where i was just standing.

Now i don't know whether the man was following me and telling me to forget what i saw in some wierd fashon. Or if the man was a real fortune teller telling me something i already know I AM VERY LUCKY! Or if he was a fake fortune teller trying to sell me something this would most likely br the answer but its such a coincedence plus there is always only sight see'ers on the second level i think the sellers have to stay on the ground. and when they sell stuff or give you pamphlets its from a spot they stay at they don't come find you, not normally. so i dunno if i was actually followed.

to be safe i bought a ticket onto the ferry and right before it left i stepped off and waited for the next. then i did the same thing about 3 more times and when i got to the other side i went to a payphone and phoned the dealer to tell him i wasn't comming back and everything is finnished i think he understood but as he was talking the time ran out on the phone. i then ripped up a portion of the peper that had his number on it and threw that out so if 'they were watching' they would get the message. then i hightailed it in and around the maze of buildings and malls and bought groceryies andsome vcd's, ffinally after changing directions many tiomes came here to the saftey of the apartment whcih i will never again leave well at least not leave tonight. Should i tell some one, i don't wanna go through any fuss and plus i only have theguys number but i also know the name of the cruise ship he appearently works on. he was a good dealer this is just like the book tommo and hawk and the mongrels are out to get me. another coincedence is that i named alex's new fish sparrow fart and he is the character in the book that is a shady card dealer that has similar scames going on in card games just like the one i escaped from today. sorry for the long email i am rambling now as the adrenaline flows out of my nervous finger tips and the shaking subsides.


Cranked from the mind of Brandon. R .Flumerfelt

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The next e is not much more encouraging.

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'still panic-ing!!!!!' Written by Brandon R. Flumerfelt



So i wake up this morning and feel better already about yesterday afternoon. I convience myself i wasn't being followed and they were just push-over type con artists that failed, alex reassured me that evrything will be fine and brought home, my favorite sushi and sashimi for diner lastnight, as i was to frightened to go out. i had a shower ,dressed up, left the apartment and walked onto the sunshinefilled streets. My plan was to walk up to the victoria peak tram and go on a big hike along the peaks of hong kong island. After about nearly 3 blocks of walking i notice an indian walking towards me quite far away though and i think to myself "you paranoid bastard, are you gunna be suspicious of everyone now cause of their race".
hold on.......phew, i just got an email form a weird name and actually though it could have somhow been from 'them' but ofcourse it was just junkmail. silly me. and how would they have my email there shouldn't be anyway for them to get that.calm down brandon.
on with the story. so i am walking down the street, the sun is bright so of course the shades are on, the dark man is approaching walking the opposite dierction as me, we get closer and my stomach jumps up to my throat as the sunglasses conceal the terror in my eyes as i completely recognize the man is the same man that was talking gibberish about eyes in my head form yesterday afternnoon. he slows and i walk past him staring right into his face and i stop and turn as he again says to me "you are very lucky" I am in shock this can't be happening. i say "what?" and he then asked me several times if i know why i am so lucky. i manage to say " i dunno you, or what your talking about" as i turn and walk into the mall entrance that is a few paces away. i can hear him calling to me"sir! sir!" but i ignore him and keep walking. i went to the supermarket in the mall bought a bunch of coke and beer and meat pies and came straight back to the apartment and threw on the many locks the door has.
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!SO WHAT DO I DO??!?!?!?!
I'm not leaving the flat again today i am thinking about phoning the cops. but what can they do for me i got nothing really except the ability to pick someone out of a line up. I didn't want to phone the fuzz....they didn't want me to contact the cops either. But now after scaring me the next day,and probobly going to threaten me if i had given him the chance, what option do i have? now i know they know what building i am staying at. And iknow they have someone watching the building,as it wasn't a coinceadence i bumped in to that man minutes after leaving the apartment. What kind of con artist have big scary turbin wearing stalkers that have the time to follow punks like me?! all that money i saw couldn't have been real, but if it was this guy could hire anyone he wants. if he actually lives on that cruise ship he could go anywhere.
well i'm not leaving the house anymore unless alex and a one of his work bodys escorts me. we area supposed to go see terminator 3 tomorrow night, his buddy got us cheap tickets threw a cell phone promotion and they came with neato fridge magnets.
i don't know if i mentioned this, but this could be the worst part. I have given my passport to moonsky star ltd a well known and legit business that deals in trans siberian travel. he is getting me the russian visa i need and i can pick it up anytime after 2pm on the 29th. the thing is this business is unfortunately located in the same area actually the same complex where this whole shady thing went down. And they know this, they know i have to go back as i let that info slip before things kicked off. i hope they don't get my itenerary from that agency. i hope they aren't watching me when i have to leave to go get my passport. this building would be a perfect place to properly confront me. i think i'll phone moonsky star and ask them to meet me somewhere else i hope they agree other wise what do i do?

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at least he acknowledges that he is a punk...

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'Major Brandon to ground control!'

Hey nick i'm sorry we couldn't meet up but the shit was really hitting the fan. its cut my trip short as i had to leave hong kong early because some goddamn indian crime syndicate was stalking and threatening me. and my familly was really freaking out, not to mention i was quite shaken. i'm writing you from my home now i'm pretty bummed i didn't get to go on my damn trans siberian ride but i gotto look on the bright side, at least i'm home and safe and i can have summer fun with my friends cause i still have a bunch of money i had intended to use for travelling. i'm going on a road trip to california in a week the mission should i choose to accept is ride as many roller coasters as possible! Plus i just made an appointment to brew a couple batches of beer which i'm really looking forward for when there ready i can take them up camping of the coast here. It really sucked we didn't meet up, there was so much i had planed to do but everything got all fucked up. My friend actually moved and his familly told him to break all contact with me. then his familly phoned my mum and thanked her foe letting them know what was going on as she had most likely saved their sons life. that really got my mum and familly stressed out as they didn't know what would become of me. but i got things in order and played things extra safe and with the help of my consulate made a great excape just like when indiana jones fled shaingia in the temple of doom only i got on a plane that the pilots didn't abaondon over the mountains of india. well i'll keep in touch keep safe and have fun!

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Posted 10:23 AM by Gobbler
this ones going to be short as its getting on.

second night in bali a resounding success, especially after the night before. due to excessive time on the internet i did not get down to the bounty ship til about half 12. party only just in full swing, how marvellous. however, because of the raucous dance atmosphere i again struggled, as i ahd the night befoer, to meet people. always preferred the banter have i (yoda i am). eventually got talking to some sketchy german/ italian type who appeared to be wearing a blue wetsuit top. mmmm.

he offered to by me a drink, i said i was ok and he then recovered well by assuring me that he was not gay. he did this several more times over the next hour or so. we started moaning about the lack of lady-company, and, wandering around the dancefloor/bar area, came to the conclusin that we outnumbered the fairer sex by about 4:1. eventually spotted an enclave, but they looked quite engrossed with tehmselves. my aquatically geared friend was not discouraged, however, and went over to say hello. i sheepishly followed.

turnedout to be a group of norwegian girls with a smattering of other male scandinavian denominations. and jolly interesting they were too. ended up going back for a pool party with the lot of them (strangely mr wetsuit disappeared; one would have thought he wuold be in his element poolside). i was skint by this time having been forced to ration my funds after losing dosh the night before under unfortunate circumstances, but the guys with us bought a couple of rounds for everyone - jolly nice of them. i was the only person there who couldnt understand any of their incoherent foreign gobbledegook but was continually able to convince one or other of them to sample english, which theyre all blinking good at.

went back to a palace of a hotel. knocked my cheapo crudhole for six even before the bat had struck home. massive pool, beautiful temple-like decor, right on the beach, special. In my eagerness i nearly killed myself getting to the pool; those tiles were slippy, that hole should not have been there and ive got the bruises to prove it) the party (well, let us cal it a gathering, we had to keep quiet for the benefit of the other guests (there place had other guests!)) went on til after dawn and ended in heated discussions about the meaning of life and the price of eggs, and so on. marvellous, those scandinavian types are quite a splendid.

cant remember any of their names except for Lauren and someone who i referred to as 'babe'. but i told her my name was bob after she had said 'hey you the english man whats your name?' damn funny night, like a, like a train.

next day was slow, but thats exactly what i came to bali for - dearth of speed. that night was similarly calm, ended up reading a book for most of the night (anyone read 'Dead Famous' by ben elton?) went back to bounty ship for a short while to see if previous nights p-ersons were around, but no joy.

day after, today, did a bit of a shop and then went to airport ad back to hong kong. now in same bar as i was before, the only place i know to have internet, and i read a few more brochures on the subject to see about other places. worryingly, still no word from brandon, the guy who got mixed up in the gambling scam. hope hes ok. more on that soon, but now its time to go.

brandon: if youre out there mate, say something will you? tom: theres always www.driveaway.com, where we deliver a car somewhere and get to drive it for free. investigations continue, but we'll do it one way or another. Evil Uncle: well you bundle of foulness, i reckopn they did try it; however my 'barrier against crazy kanoodlers: intelligent nearly nuclear anal mat' (B.A.C.K. I.N. N.A.M.) undoubtedly protected me from that sad fate. Benjita: well mate, if you cant speak the Bush's english (distinctly different from the Queens) then youve really got no hope. how comes youre retreating to madrid? dont let the (korean) b****rds grind you down.