Check-In

The packing does it for the Hackpacker. My own realisation of imminent travel came with an impromptu purchase of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Its a book that I have long held close to my heart, and one of a very very few that I have read more than once.

The first time was at Uni, natch. The second was when I was doing a week long residential course on 'leadership' as part of a Masters. This basically consisted of a Gulag-style Canberra mind-fuck during which the presenters (who were a couple, incidentally, which made it creepier) seemed to have adopted 'No. of People Made To Cry Per Diem' as their main KPI.

Personally, I did not want to be made to cry. I was heading home from that little jaunt on the Friday to sell my house on the Saturday, under circumstances which had caused quite enough weeping for one year, thank you very much. It was not a time in my life when getting in touch with my Inner Sook was going to do me or my professional reputation any good at all. However, in a moment of all-too-rare genius (if I do say so myself) I took Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with me. At breakfast each day I filled up on caffeine, sugar, and Hunter S. Thompson.

Apart from being a great pleasure in itself, it was magnificent preparation for the days Programming. By the time I made it to the morning's first session, I had already dealt with hallucinatory bats and all manner of other adventures. After that, the rest of it was water off a duck's back. I did find myself imagining the presenter as a giant walking iguana a few times, but I don't think that was a bad thing.

Seeing me through that little trauma is reason enough to love it, but I also think it has one of the best opening paragraphs of any novel ever written. I haven't actually read every novel ever written, but you get my drift. If you have not had the pleasure, I urge you to turn off your computer and rush out and find it, right now.

I left all my books behind when I came North (it still smarts), but I was very pleased to find an edition with the same cover I had in the 80s in Waterstones, though it seems to be rather more 'flouro' than I remember. I stood there in the queue of the Princes street store, watery sunshine bathing the newly-hatched daffodils across the road, wearing only four layers of clothing (it is spring, after all)thinking, in three days, I will be there. I will actually be in Las Vegas. I am in delicious anticipation of fear and loathing ensuing forthwith.

I really wish I still smoked. Etcetera. I will just have to satisfy myself with rolling down the window and screaming:

"Holy Jesus! What are these goddam animals?"

"And then it was quiet again."