Disruptive Dreams: A Tour of France with My Brother, Two Mates and Van Morrison

‘If my heart could do my thinking
And my head began to feel,
Would I look upon the world anew,
And know what's truly real?’
Van Morrison, ‘I Forgot that Love Existed’

Some time in the late 1980s I went on a road trip round France with my brother Martin and friends Mike and Thommo. 

Crammed into a small, silver Citroen AX, with our sports bags strapped to the roof and with nothing booked, we disembarked at Calais and plotted a path towards the Loire Valley. 

Since Martin and I were feeling flush, each night we shared a room in a modest hotel, while Mike and Thommo settled for the local campsite. When the four of us reported at the first establishment and requested ‘une chambre a deux lits,’ the proprietor was somewhat challenged. Martin, realising the misunderstanding, gestured towards Mike and Thommo and explained:

‘Non, ils font le camping!’

We started each day with strong coffee, golden croissants, President butter and apricot jam, and each evening we feasted on quite extraordinary food and wine - whether at a smart local restaurant or a truck drivers’ cafe. 

‘Fruits de mer et confit de canard, s’il vous plait.’

Thommo couldn’t cope with the unrelenting richness of the meals, and so we took one night off, settling for local ‘Loveburgers’ washed down by 1664. 

We moved on to the Vendée and the Dordogne, through the Auvergne and up to Burgundy, Alsace and Lorraine. And at each new location I dusted off the remnants of my O-Level French.

‘Pardon, maisonette, je n’ai pas de la monnaie.’

‘Ah, c’est l’année des guêpes!'

We explored lush green landscapes, rugged mountain roads and bleak grey hamlets. We encountered old men playing boules on village squares and young men playing baby-foot in late night bars. We avoided one town because on approach it seemed to be very smelly. Only later did we realise that we’d been following a sewage lorry round a ring road.

We were accompanied on the trip by Van Morrison’s elegiac ‘Poetic Champions Compose’ album, on repeat play. It seemed entirely appropriate.

'You're the queen of the slipstream with eyes that shine.
You have crossed many waters to be here.
You have drunk of the fountain of innocence.
And experienced the long cold wintry years.’
‘The Queen of the Slipstream’

On the long journeys Scouse Mike would amuse himself by hanging his head out of the car window. And when the two campers returned to their site each night, he insisted that Thommo stay up into the early hours drinking cheap warm red wine from plastic bottles.

Inevitably on a holiday of this nature, although we were pretty much aligned in terms of evening adventures, there were some disagreements about how to spend the daytime. Martin and I were interested in churches and chateaux. Thommo leaned towards nature and wildlife. Mike just wanted to have fun. 

To accommodate Mike we took in a terrifying luge trip down a mountainside. And when we visited the tomb of Eleanor of Aquitaine at the magnificent abbey at Fontevrault, he persuaded Thommo to stay outside and play footie. On another occasion he took over the map, and, without conferring, navigated us to a beach crowded with locals in skimpy trunks and bikinis. This was not my natural habitat. In protest I sat on a towel fully clothed with my top button done up. 

'Let go into the mystery.
Let yourself go.
You've got to open up your heart,
That's all I know.
Trust what I say and do what you're told,
Baby, and all your dirt will turn
Into gold.'
‘The Mystery’

We all look back on the holidays of our youth with great fondness. These were simple, carefree, happy times. And perhaps our exploits were all the more special because they were characterised by surprise, serendipity and strangeness. Everything seemed mysterious.

I read recently (The Guardian 14 May ‘Weird Dreams’) about a new theory of dreams.

Dreams have long fascinated scientists and psychoanalysts. Freud believed they were ‘disguised fulfilments of repressed desires.’ And through the years experts have variously hypothesized that they help us process our emotions; consolidate our recollections; make creative connections between memories; and practice our survival skills.

Erik Hoel, a research assistant professor of neuroscience at Tufts University in Massachusetts, has proposed that, by introducing the strange and bizarre to our habituated existence, dreams equip us to cope with the unexpected.

His theory was inspired by the field of machine learning. Artificial intelligence often becomes too familiar with the data with which it’s been coached, assuming that this ‘training set’ is a perfect representation of anything it may subsequently encounter. To remedy this, scientists introduce some chaos into the data in the form of noisy or corrupted inputs.

Hoel suggests that our brains do something similar when we dream.  

‘It is the very strangeness of dreams in their divergence from waking experience that gives them their biological function.’

This suggests to me that we should think seriously about the role of the unusual and unfamiliar in our lives. 

Perhaps we should more actively embrace strange and bizarre events in our personal and professional worlds; not just in our dreams or on holiday, but in our day-to-day experience. Maybe we should use the weird and wonderful to ward off the narrowing perspectives brought on by habit, custom and age. Maybe we would do well to regard disruption, not just as a revolutionary market force; but as a necessary part of our daily regime.

Despite our excellent gastronomic adventures, by the last night of our tour of France I was pining for some familiar food. Spotting ‘fromage blanc’ on the menu, I assumed it was cheddar and ordered it with eager anticipation. When it arrived it was worryingly soft and smelly. 

I ate it nonetheless.

'I've been searching a long time
For someone exactly like you.
I've been travelling all around the world
Waiting for you to come through.
Someone like you,
Makes it all worth while.
Someone like you
Keeps me satisfied.
Someone exactly like you.’
Van Morrison, ‘Someone Like You’

No 328

The Triumph of the Frustrations: Sometimes We Need to Star in Our Own Movie

Walter Richard Sickert - Brighton Pierrots 1915, Tate

Well, yes, since you were asking, I can sing. I have a sweet voice, but it has a narrow range and a tendency to go a-wandering. At school I found my appropriate level as a rank-and-file member of the choir. I appreciated that there was safety in numbers. I knew my place.

Nonetheless, I always hankered after greater things. I yearned for the spotlight, for centre stage, imagining that there was a sensuous soul singer lurking deep within my awkward, apprehensive exterior.

The Pembroke College Talent Competition provided the ideal opportunity to test my mettle. And so I teamed up with my mate Thommo, who could both sing and play guitar. Conscious of my more limited skill-set, I suggested it would be best if he concentrated on the instrumental side of things.

We called ourselves The Frustrations, the idea being that we were ‘the thwarted Temptations.’ But to be honest we didn’t have too much in common with David Ruffin and co.

We put together a concise set of covers that would appeal to a broad range of student tastes. Iggy Pop’s ‘The Passenger’ had a menacing monotone verse and a rousing ‘la-la-la’ chorus. The Smiths’ ‘Please, Please, Please’ signalled a pale-and-interesting, wistful melancholia. And Andy Williams’ ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’ implied a certain supper-club sophistication.

'Guess there's no use in hangin' ‘round.
Guess I'll get dressed and do the town.
I'll find some crowded avenue,
Though it will be empty without you.
I can't get used to losin' you no matter what I try to do,
Gonna live my whole life thorough, loving you.’

Andy Williams, ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’ (J Pomus / M Shuman)

On the big night Thommo and I donned our shiny vintage suits, with pressed shirts and slim silk ties. As usual, I had my hair slicked back with Black & White coconut oil - I think I was channelling Spandau Ballet – and, of course, we both wore white towelling socks. We were from Croydon and Romford, and ours was the true sound of the suburbs.

The College bar was small, smoke-filled, dark and dingy, the only comfort supplied by the tatty orange-brown banquettes. Tonight it was crammed with students in combat jackets, pyjama tops and greasy Docs; with studded belts, ripped jeans and soaped-up hair.

And so it came to our turn at the microphone, and we edged onto the makeshift stage located neatly between the darts board and the jukebox. What we lacked in ability we made up for with youthful brio. And soon we had them swaying on the banquettes and singing along with the chorus. Our friends Rob and Doug enhanced the authentic gig experience by pelting us with plastic glasses.

No surprise perhaps that the Frustrations triumphed at the Pembroke College Talent Competition. The Holsten Pils bottles were cracked open, the jukebox was cranked up, and Thommo and I danced jubilantly into the early hours. ‘The sky was made for us tonight.’

'Get into the car.
We'll be the passenger.
We'll ride through the city tonight.
See the city's ripped backsides.
We'll see the bright and hollow sky
We'll see the stars that shine so bright.
The sky was made for us tonight.’

Iggy Pop, ‘The Passenger’ (J Osterberg / R Gardiner)

Many of us are naturally shy, polite, reserved. We are team players, happy to participate and contribute, without being centre stage. But that’s not always enough to sustain us. Sometimes it seems like we’re just extras or bit-part actors; as if we’re performing a supporting role in someone else’s film.

Just occasionally it serves us well to write our own script, to step into the spotlight, to deliver our own lines, to play the romantic lead – regardless of the constraints of talent. Sometimes we deserve to live life like the star of our own movie.

Subsequent to our success Thommo and I resisted the siren call of a music career and slipped quietly back into our erstwhile roles as geeky Classicists. We were happy enough with this outcome. We had got what we wanted. This time.


'Good time for a change.
See, the luck I've had
Can make a good man
Turn bad.
So please, please, please
Let me, let me, let me,
Let me get what I want
This time.'

The Smiths, ‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want’ (J Marr / S Morrissey)

No. 294

The Freezer in the Garden Shed: An Untidy Life Can Spark Joy Too

Village in Winter. Isaac Levitan

Some time in the late ‘70s my parents decided to invest in a freezer. As they were catering for five kids, they selected a large chest-style model. It was so big that it wouldn’t fit in the kitchen, and our new arrival was installed with some ceremony in the wooden shed in the back garden. There it co-habited with an unruly assortment of paint pots, old curtains and rusty lawnmowers.

Mum bought a book dedicated to cooking for the freezer and embarked on an industrial programme manufacturing spaghetti bolognaise and shepherd’s pie for long-term Tupperware storage. (The shadow of nuclear war still hung over us back then and we needed to prepare for every eventuality.) Dad drove down to Bejam in Romford Town Centre and collected a frozen half-pig, thereby securing a near endless supply of pork chops for family suppers.

One evening the Carrolls sat watching telly, having just polished off that week’s third plate of pork chops, oven chips and garden peas. Contented, Dad placed his tray to one side and announced:

‘With our new freezer we may not eat cheaper, but we do eat better.’

The freezer in the garden shed provided many years of solid service. Indeed it was still performing admirably when I left home for Turnpike Lane in the late ‘80s. I confess I rather liked the fact that the family freezer lived in the shed, and I would have been upset if, in some unlikely fit of rationality and conformity, my parents had upgraded it or transferred it to the house.

In the early hours of one cold, snowy winter’s morning my good friend Thommo, also my flatmate at that time, was struggling to get home. He’d had a few beers in town and fallen asleep on the wrong train heading in the wrong direction. He spotted a train destined for Romford and thought at least it was a place he’d visited before. He jumped on board and, having reached the station, trudged through the thick snow to my parents’ home on Heath Park Road.

When Thommo arrived he saw no lights on, no sign of life, and being a considerate soul, he was uncomfortable waking the whole household. And so he made his way to the back garden, let himself into the shed and organised some makeshift bedding on top of the chest freezer.

Early the next day Mum spotted the evidence of an intruder. There were tracks in the snow and the shed was open. She got Dad out of bed, somewhat grumpy, and pushed him out of the back door to deal with the situation.

‘Oi, you, get out of there!’ Dad cried in a booming voice with a gruff note of intimidation.

A timid Thommo, hung-over and frozen to the bone, poked his head out of the shed door and explained the situation. He was welcomed into the warmth, fed and packed off to work.

This modest incident became a staple of Carroll family folklore. My Mum, a devout Catholic, subsequently made a small wooden sign and hung it above the freezer in the garden shed:

‘Here, on one cold winter’s night, slept Thommo. It might have been Christ.’

We spend a good deal of time nowadays ironing out the rough edges in our lives, smoothing over the contours. We are increasingly obsessed with tidying things up, organising them away, decluttering and streamlining. We want frictionless experiences, seamless journeys, logical order, rational consistency.

But friction creates experiences, and journeys begin at the seams. Life happens in the folds and creases, in the spaces between. Life happens around the freezer in the garden shed.

I have over the years grown comfortable with difference and discrepancy. I no longer demand that everything should conform and make sense. And I feel no compunction to tidy my world into neat compartments that spark joy. I think I may be happier that way. As my Dad might have said:

‘You don’t live cheaper, but you do live better.’

No. 220

‘You’ve Got to Back It Up’: An Encounter with the Tasmanian Devil

Late one winter’s night in the mid-1980s, I was making my way home from Hornchurch Station with Thommo and My-Mate-Andy. Inevitably we were chatting about Lloyd Cole and Laughing Brew, fu shoes and The Face. Thommo and I were wearing the heavy tweed overcoats that marked us out as students. My-Mate-Andy was sporting his sheepskin-lined, Forza 12 bleached denim jacket, collar-up. We were high-spirited and a little the worse for wear.

As we progressed down the High Street, a young lad and his girlfriend passed us going in the opposite direction.

Something about us clearly irritated the bloke. We may have given him the impression that our good humour was directed at them. We may have brushed into them, or not created enough space for them to pass. We may have just looked a bit too studenty for that time and place.

In any case, he was not very happy, and in a thrice he became a mad whirring tornado of punches, pokes and prods; ducking in and out of us, throwing fast and furious fists; jabbing and clouting, slapping and bashing. He had turned into the Tasmanian Devil.

Now I’m somewhat ashamed to tell you this. My-Mate-Andy and I quickly recognised that we had met a superior force. There may only have been one of him, and he wasn’t the tallest lad. But we knew we couldn’t compete with the Tasmanian Devil.

And so, setting aside our masculine pride and the deep bonds of friendship, we scarpered in different directions, past bins and down alleyways, off into the cold, dark night.

Thommo meanwhile stood his ground. He took one blow after another. A lightning-fast jab to the left; a lusty upper-cut to the right. Biff! Bang! Pow! Soon his eye was bruised, his nose was bleeding, and his beloved student coat was ripped from end to end.

Eventually the young lad’s girlfriend pleaded for clemency. The Tasmanian Devil stood over the now prone Thommo, paused, took a breath and said:

‘Look. You and your mates have got to learn a lesson. You’ve got to learn one thing: you’ve got to back it up.’

Whilst we never quite established what we had done to upset the Tasmanian Devil, and what precisely we were supposed to be backing up, these words struck me as rather profound. And they haunted me for a good while after that shameful night had passed.

A few years later I entered the world of advertising. I discovered it was a land of hunch and hypothesis, supposition and speculation. And I was myself somewhat inclined to make sweeping generalisations about cultural change; confident conjectures about strategic and brand truths. And yet every time I made such an assertion, I heard a sinister voice, whispering quietly into my ear: ‘You’ve got to back it up.’

And so I would reluctantly reach for the research surveys and category reports. I’d consider commissioning a poll, staging a demonstration. I’d go in search of illustration and evidence. I’d do my damnedest to verify my claims.

Now I’m not saying I ever really became the most rigorous of strategists. But it is true that there’s too much hollow theorising and empty guesswork in our world. And, despite the ubiquity of data, things seem to be getting worse.

If you really want to succeed in this profession, you’ve got to fall in love with proof and validation. You’ve got to befriend supporting evidence and corroborating facts. The Tasmanian Devil was right: you’ve got to back it up.

I recently came across my old tweed overcoat packed away in a box. I tried it on and, remarkably, it still fits. It’s not in too bad a nick, and, with a new button and lining, it could even merit a few outings. I’m not so sure Thommo will be impressed.

No. 173