Sybil

San Francisco has multiple personalities. Walking through its streets, you never know exactly what to expect,

There's no question that it is extremely pretty. Up in the hilly residential areas the houses all seem to have elegant bay windows and small, carefully tended front gardens. Strolling past them you never know when, as you turn a corner, you might be greeted by a breathtaking view of the city below and the bay beyond it. And down in the financial district, ultramodern office towers look right at home beside classic edifices that pre-date the Second World War.

It all seems very genteel, until you lower your eyes to ground level and see people begging for money. On a Saturday afternoon in downtown Market Street there was one on every block. Not all of them seemed destitute. There was one lady in particular who seemed rather healthy and cheerful as she sat cross-legged on the sidewalk. A passer-by even felt compelled to check with her that she was in fact begging, and only when she smiled and nodded did he hesitantly drop a few coins in the tin in front of her.

They seem to wear their green credentials with pride in SF, even when it makes them seem daft. At the Ti Couz restaurant, in the Mission area, they proudly inform customers that they will only serve you a glass of water if you specifically ask for it. That's their way of conserving water for drought-prone California.

But the pride that this city is really known for is gay, and it is on vivid display on Castro street. Oddly (or perhaps not) everyone there seems to be male. And unshaven. I don't know why, but designer stubble seems to be a badge of sexual orientation in these parts. The only clean-shaven men seemed to be the ones in martial arts uniforms, standing in a small group on one street corner. I had no idea what they were doing there.

And I did not stop to ask either, because I was eager to make my way to the corner of Haight and Ashbury. That was the epicenter of the hippie movement and psychedelic rock in the late 1960s. Janis Joplin lived there, as did the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. And so did many many more young men and women looking for peace, love and a good smoke. Today the area attracts an odd ensemble of tourists and emos. Sadly there were no throwbacks with tie-dyed shirts and flowers in their hair. I would like to think that the hippies did not grow old (or overdose) and die, that they just got haircuts and shirts with collars. If that's the case then I probably saw many of them sitting outside Starbucks cafes, of which there seems to be one next to every fire hydrant.

At about the time that Haight-Ashbury was experiencing its Summer of Love, a young American was starting work as a reporter for a newspaper in Freeport, Bahamas. He did not know it then, but in a matter of weeks he would cover the election of their first ever Prime Minister, a landmark in the journey of that nation to independence. Today, more than forty years later, that same American drives a taxi in San Francisco.

He drove us from Japantown to our hotel. He talked about Bahaman politics, and about teaching English in the Virgin Islands. As he talked, I looked out of the window and watched the people of San Francisco. They had come out to celebrate the weekend, the Sundance Film Festival, spring.

In a city of multiple personalities, it was the happy, flirtatious San Francisco that I saw. And I was glad that she was the one who had come out to wave at us.

Mo' Mash

There's a special joy that comes when an eagerly anticipated travel experience lives up to expectations. I felt that joy yesterday while driving up and down California 1, the Pacific Coast Highway.

The road hugged the edge of the ocean. Yellow and purple wildflowers lined the route. At one end there was a colony of hundreds of elephant seals lying on the beach. The drive was everything that I had hoped it would be, and a little bit more.

Back in San Jose, in the homes of Silicon Valley's elite, the conversation was less idyllic. I sipped on a friendly local wine and listened to my friends deplore interest rates, income taxes, and the bankruptcy (financial and political) of the government of California. Their voices were lowered out of consideration for the children asleep in a room next door. But their tone was unmistakeably worried at the recession of the American Dream.

Years ago they left small towns in India to spend their adult lives as professional nomads. Then California drew them in with a promise of professional challenge and financial reward. They still hear the promise but are wondering whether it's still trustworthy.

But that worry seems insubstantial today in the blaze of a bright spring afternoon. I'm at a playground, watching the children of the digital diaspora. Sunlight slants off their hair while they run around in circles and shriek in delight.

The fragrance of jasmine rides gently in the breeze, but the kids don't notice that; they're too busy living the childhood dream.

California Mashup

There are three wooden bears outside the front office of the Comfort Inn at Oakhurst. Another, much larger wooden bear stands guard over the parking lot. The basket of flowers in its hand softens its otherwise forbidding appearance. All this ursine pageantry is a salute to Yosemite National Park, an hour's drive away.

Inside the park, the real bears are up and about. Their winter hibernation is over, now that the weather has turned cheerfully hot.

This burst of warm weather has been good to the waterfalls and streams. We stood at the foot of Bridalveil Fall, and turned our faces up to catch the spray generated by water crashing down from a height of six hundred feet. (American) Indian legend says that doing this makes you lucky in marriage. It works.

Yosemite Falls is even bigger than Bridalveil, and far too violent for such gentle folklore. By the time the water hits the rocks at its feet, it has fallen fifteen hundred feet. The force of the spray and the gusting wind threaten to push you over into the rapids below.

But the waters in Yosemite Park are not all sound and fury. We ate lunch by a brisk but quiet snow-fed creek; next to us The Kid amused himself by throwing in pebbles to make splashes.

Back in Oakhurst the Jade Gazebo waits to feed Chinese food to hungry naturalists. There is no actual gazebo here. But the walls are painted a bilious green so the name is at least partly appropriate. I want to believe that the family who run the restaurant are descended from the Chinese labourers who came here to work for logging companies a hundred years ago.

Back then the lumber industry was booming. Today big agri-business has moved on to run orchards and vinyards. And now the manual labourers who work for them come from Mexico. There is a 50-mile stretch of farmland running west of Yosemite. And on the edge of this, in a place called Gilroy, hides the El Siete restaurant. Like Jade Gazebo, this is a family run restaurant in a working class neighbourhood. The food they serve is simple and irresistible. I ate more carne asada than I should have, and far more than I thought I could have.

Then I sat back, looked around, and was delighted by what I saw. Against one wall sat a device with one foot on either side of the Pacific Ocean, one that Chinese and Mexicans would both approve of. It was a karaoke machine with Spanish songs.

Watch Out For That Tin Man

Have you heard the joke about how many morons it takes to change a light bulb? Well, that's old news.

The real question is this: how many adjectives does it take to make a cup of coffee? The answer is 6. Or at least it is if your idea of getting coffee is to go into a Starbucks and ask for a cinnamon soy decaf grande non-fat extra-hot latte. By the time you execute all those instructions, it's not even coffee anymore, it's some kind of ghastly mongrel brew for the lactose intolerant.

At least all those adjectives are functional, even if only in way that is dysfunctional for the coffee aficionado. What really turns me off is when people add redundant verbs thinking that it makes them sound powerful. A few days ago I had to suppress a shudder as a colleague stridently told a room full of managers that "When (blank) does happen, you do have to follow the procedure". I might have gotten up and slapped her if I had not been stupefied by the ugliness of her usage.

I don't understand why some people get the idea that the more words they speak, the more important they become. Don't they get a clue from the glazed expressions of the people they are talking to? Does the movement of their mouth cut off blood circulation to their eyes, so they can no longer see that audience has dropped dead from listening fatigue?

What we need are millions of little robots to go walking around, slapping people who talk too much, and screaming at them to shut the f^7% up!

:-) Four! :-(

My son is four years old today. Strictly speaking he turned four yesterday in Singapore. But this is not the time for technicalities.

No, it's a time to stop and stare in amazement at what he is. And what is he, now? Not a baby, that's long past. Not a toddler, that's long past too and it's time we admit it. He's ... a boy. And he's everything that that implies. Loud. Rumbunctious. Wrestles the dog. Wants to climb trees. If trees are not available, will jump up and down on the sofa until the floor shakes. And when he wants to cross the road, he will cross the road. So by golly, you'd best hold on to his hand and follow him.

No, that's not right. He's more than a boy, he's a few different boys rolled into one.

Let's see, there's Monkey Acrobat Boy. That's the one who careens down the stairs, and in one motion swings up onto my back, over my shoulder, and then head first down into my lap. Or at least that's what he does most of the time. Occasionally he overshoots, and with a practiced roll and tuck he recovers from the fall and runs around behind me to try again.

There's Avant Garde Fashion Boy. That's the one who follows the neighbour's daughters and wants pink shoes like the ones they have.

There's Bookworm Boy, who likes nothing better than to have his dad sit with him at night and read. Sometimes he wants me to read one of his books, and sometimes he's happy to let me read one of my own. As long as I'm reading something, he knows it's safe to sleep.

There's the one who loves company. The one who hates staying still for the camera. The one who thinks chicken, yogurt and watermelon make a balanced meal. The one who...

The one who turned four today and I still cannot fathom how it all happened so fast.

This Won't Hurt A Bit

"It's pina colada!" must rank as one of the things you're least likely to hear when you're sitting in a dentist's chair. But truth is stranger than fiction and that is exactly what my dentist's assistant said to me a few hours ago. Sadly she was not referring the contents of a cocktail glass, but to an anaesthetic cream that she was about to administer.

I was not sure whether to be amused, gratified or just a little disturbed that a manufacturer of anaesthetic would choose that precise flavour. Why not peach, for instance, or simply a bland and reassuringly dental mint flavour? In the event it didn't matter because the cream tasted more of cloves than coconuts. So much for truth in advertising,

I was quite curious and apprehensive about what to expect in the dental surgery. Curious, because this would be my first dental procedure ever. This surprises some people; it certainly surprised my dentist. The first time she examined me, she kept muttering "no fillings!" in muted lower-case amazement.

Apprehensive, because I've been reared on a diet of popular culture which makes the dentist out to be the spiritual descendant of the medieval inquisitor. They both uses pointy metallic tools, so the resemblance is real. Though in defense of inquisitors I don't believe that they ever employed chirpy female assistants.

Dentists, on the other hand, seem to only employ people who are excessively cheerful. Or perhaps they become that way. Perhaps their effervescence is an occupational disease, triggered by over-exposure to laughing gas. And isn't that just the most wonderful name, laughing gas? As soon as I hear the words "laughing gas" I find myself giggling a little.

I didn't get any gas, though, only an anaesthetic injection. I'll admit I was a bit uncertain about that. The only previous time I'd had local anaethesia, a nurse said to me "Get ready, I'm going to give you an anaesthetic injection and it'll hurt". Then, as I pondered the irony of those words, she went ahead and proved them to be true. Of course on that occasion I did not have the benefit of numbing cream masquerading as a pina colada. I did have that this afternoon, and so I did not feel a thing.

Instead I listened with a strange sense of disconnection as the dentist, poked, prodded, jimmied and eventually ripped out my wisdom teeth. It's quite odd to be aware of something that should hurt like hell but you don't feel a thing.

Kudos to the dentist of course. If she's half as good at extracting confessions as she is at extracting teeth, she'll be my pick for Imperial Grand Inquisitor any day!