Meeting Paul Simonon...

It's hardly been a week since I was last here, but I'm back, it's 0511hrs and I'm sitting at a beautiful, old-fashioned wooden desk in room 213 of the Mutterhaus Hotel in the Kaiserswerth district of Dusseldorf. The day is dawning outside of my window and I am surrounded – or so it seems – by the greenery of tall trees, although at present they are in the black and white of the waning night.

A mystic portal at St Pancras station

The Mutterhaus is a fantastic hotel, it's a huge, old, red-bricked building and there is a history that I will tell you about just as soon as find out more about it. The room is wonderful. Wooden floors, two small, upturned shield-shaped windows, the aforementioned desk and bags of room, this is not in anyway cramped and, to make things that little bit better, it's a four-star hotel. Make no mistake, this ain't a corporate-looking hotel, it's set in its own grounds, a bit like the Villa Dragoni in Buttrio, Italy, and it's no more than around 350 yards from some of the quaintest shops and streets that I know... and a tram stop that will whisk me (in around 10 minutes) to my place of work for the next few days. In other words, I couldn't ask for more.

The last time I was here I decided to take the train from London rather than fly. It's a little more civilised and there's not much in it in terms of cost. I was booked on the 0901 train from St. Pancras International and from the moment I woke up yesterday morning (it's now Monday 12 June as I write this) I wished that I hadn't booked such an early train. But ultimately, I'm glad that I did as later complications with trains would have put me on a considerable back foot. I say 'complications', it wasn't that bad. In essence, when I reached Brussels Midi I was informed that the train to Dusseldorf that I would normally take was basically full and that to wait around for the next available InterCity service – here it's not called that, it's either an ICE train or a service run by Thalys – would have meant an arrival time of gone 2300hrs. The last thing I wanted was to arrive late at night and miss dinner so I opted for local trains (two changes) that got me in around 4pm, which was just perfect and no hassle whatsoever. In fact, everything was smooth-running for which I am grateful.

Eurostar breakfast...on the 0901 to Brussels Midi

I was offered a much-needed lift to East Croydon station from where I jumped aboard a train to Victoria, took the Underground to King's Cross and then, as has been the practice of late, joined the huge queues at the international terminal to go through the arduous process of security followed by passport control. It's far less arduous, I hasten to add, than flying. For a start, you're advised to be at the terminal just one hour before 'take off' and the very thought of not flying makes everything a little less fraught. It helps (in all circumstances to be honest) if you have a decent book 'on the go' and for this trip, I had Stuart Maconie's The Full English which, I must say, is absolutely wonderful, the sort of travel book that I like as the author puts in the travelling, it's not just him writing about places, he's actually visited them, following, in this instance, the route of JB Priestley in his book English Journey. 

Liege station

Getting through security and passport control at St Pancras is far less stress-inducing than being at London Heathrow airport where the regimen is slightly more strained (and officious) as people have the hassle of knowing they have to fly off somewhere; and while yesterday was what British Airways pilots often refer to as 'great flying weather' there's always a bit of me that worries, so to be on the train, travelling on terra firma is just perfect and, as I've said before, no need for taxis to the airport and the grief of having to listen to a racist taxi driver moaning about the Mayor of "Londonistan".

Welkenraedt station

Today was special for another reason. I first noticed the figure of Paul Simonon, erstwhile bassist of punk supergroup the Clash, at the security conveyor where, like me, he was awaiting his suitcase to appear on the other side of the scanner. I didn't twig immediately that it was him, although I did notice he was wearing a brown pinstripe suit and some interesting-looking polished brown boots, which set him apart from your average traveller. In short, he looked good and then suddenly I twigged, it's Paul Simonon from the Clash. I wasn't planning on asking him for a selfie or anything naff of that sort, but I realised that I'd have to ask him it he was really who I thought he was and when I did he said yes and we stopped for an amiable chat. Naturally, I remained calm and collected, although it would be fair to say that I was meeting one of my heroes, something we are always advised against doing. 'Never meet your heroes' they say, but on this occasion it was fine, mainly because Paul Simonon is a decent chap. I began to wonder whether he was impressed that I had recognised him. He's not a 'frontman', a lead singer or lead guitarist so I would like to think he was a little chuffed that I'd strolled over to introduce myself having spotted him a few moments earlier. Remember, Simonon was the bassist of a huge band with an international following and he's still hard at it, working with other cutting edge bands like Gorillaz and engaged with his own important projects. It's hard to work out how rockstars of his standing are going to react when somebody like me, 'from off the street', approaches and identifies them as if they're Chalkey White from the Daily Mirror and I was there to collect my £200. Simonon was as polite as can be, we shook hands and engaged in a shortish, possibly 10-minute, chat in which he told me that he used to live in my home town of Carshalton up until the age of five when he moved to Brixton. He was now on his way to Paris to play a gig. Turns out (I discovered later) that we are both Sagittarians. I was born 10 December, he was born 15 December, but two years earlier. Sadly, I had to run to catch a train, but the meeting with such a punk icon as Paul Simonon remained with me all day and is still glowing brightly as I write this blogpost the following day. In fact, everything pales into insignificance, even the trip here which, all things considered, was pretty uneventful apart from the meeting with Paul Simonon.

Catching the 1522 to Dusseldorf from Aachen

So how did I get here? Well, I jumped aboard the first of two local trains and had to change at Welkenraedt where I waited a short while for a train to Aachen and from there I picked up a train to Dusseldorf. The longest journey was Brussels Midi to Welkenraedt, but Welkenraedt to Aachen was no more than 10 minutes and the journey to Dusseldorf was fairly short. 

Room 213, Mutterhaus Hotel, Dusseldorf...

What really pisses me off about Europe, or certainly Belgium and Germany, is that you have to pay to go to the toilet. This really isn't cricket especially if, like me, you don't carry cash. I was in urgent need (as we all are occasionally) and found myself diving into the Starbucks on Dusseldorf station only to discover that there were no toilets other than those on the platform. To reach the hotel I was told to take the U79 tram, but when I reached the platform there was nothing doing for at least half an hour so I broke the habit of a life time and took a cab, a cream-coloured Merc from outside the station, and was whisked to the Mutterhaus in around 15 minutes. I was abroad so there was no taxi driver racism. In fact, I made a decision not to strike up a conversation, mainly because there would clearly be a language barrier, but also because I wasn't in the mood to make small talk.

Cake at Schuster – really good!

I checked in and then raced to room 213 in order to relieve myself (I just made it!) and then I took a stroll as directed towards the nearest tram stop (Klemensplatz) and the most amazing little café, Schuster, which offered some equally amazing (and I mean amazing) cakes. Naturally, I ordered one. I watched as a young woman ahead of me ordered around half a dozen and had to resist making a wisecrack that would clearly have been lost in translation so I didn't bother. She waltzed off in her sequinned miniskirt with her cakes (surely not all for her) and then it was my turn. I ordered the cake you can see in the photograph above and it was fantastic. The sun was shining and I sat there with the cake and a cappuccino reading Maconie's The Full English in the heat. This, I thought, was the life, and decided on the spur of the moment to suggest to my wife that she and my daughter join me, "just jump on a flight to Dusseldorf on Friday and I'll meet you at the airport" said I impulsively in a text, having thought it through for all of five minutes, but of course we are short of cash (I'm not an international rockstar like Paul Simonon) and eventually the idea was scrapped and we talked instead of a 'proper holiday' meaning Spain or elsewhere, somewhere hot with a swimming pool. Not that the cash situation will be improving any time soon. Unfortunately, we just don't have the money and I'm now considering freelance work. Whilst in Detroit I found a hotel industry magazine in the lobby of the Doubletree in Windsor, Ontario. I 'stole' it and have it on my person now so I'm planning to drop the editor an email over the next couple of days to see if he fancies a UK correspondent. I used to write a lot about hotels and I'm still writing reviews for Trip Advisor – which pays Jack Shit – so perhaps there's some extra money to be made.

View from room 213, Mutterhaus

I dined in an Italian restaurant, Massimo's, along the cobbled streets close to the Rhine – mozzarella and tomato, spaghetti bolognaise, a large bottle of Pellegrino mineral water and a no-alcohol beer, all very civilised as the heat continued into the evening. Then I strolled back, not really wanting to return to the hotel, so I looked in closed shop windows and slowly made my way back, resigning myself to a lonely evening in front of the television. I found the BBC (channel 98) and watched the news about Boris Johnson stepping down as an MP (good riddance, I can't stand the fat cunt) and the other MPs who have stepped down too, like the menopausal munter and others, none of whom deserve to be politicians. There were other stories, but I can't remember them, one was about a boat crash in the Red Sea, but then I switched channels and watched Avengers: End Game, which was dubbed over in German but still understandable.

After faffing around with the lighting and discovering that I could dim the desk light, I switched off every other light and lie on top of the bed in the continuing heat thinking about nothing in particular and simply staring at the ceiling, looking out at the trees through one of my two upturned-shield windows. Eventually I nodded off but would awake occasionally through the night only to find myself staring at the ceiling again until I fell asleep. At around 0430hrs I was fully awake but I left it until 0500hrs before I jumped out of bed and started to write this blogpost. It's now 0635hrs and my thoughts have turned to breakfast. I'll probably go down there before I shower and then come back and prepare myself for the day ahead.

Schuster – a great café selling excellent cakes

The sun is already out. The trees that were monochrome in the early morning light are now green and vibrant, I can hear the sound of crows and other birds as they go about their business and I'm starting to wonder about the breakfast offering. As I've said before, you can tell a lot about a hotel from the standard of its breakfast.

I started to wonder what Paul Simonon was doing. He's probably awake in a hotel room in Paris somewhere having played a gig last night; or perhaps his first gig is tonight, who knows? He might not be in a hotel, he might have pals in the French capital putting him up for a couple of days. Either way he's experiencing the heat of the early morning and hopefully looking forward to the day ahead.

A stroll before dinner in Pittsburgh...

After writing up a Trip Advisor review of the hotel I'm staying in - a risky practice when you consider that I still haven't checked out - and then penning another review of the restaurant Eleven, where my colleague Paul and I have been dining most of the week (it's across the road so why waste money on cabs?) I decided to take a stroll before dinner.

It was an interesting stroll around town that took me along Liberty Avenue and into the bustling centre of town, which wasn't really that bustling as it was after 5pm and I'm assuming most of the people I saw were making their way home from work. I ended up on Penn Avenue where yesterday I'd enjoyed a quick drink in Lefty's Bar with Paul and ended up in a Mexican restaurant where I ordered a paella and a beer. I can't say I really enjoyed the beer, but the food was alright.

I wandered about with the river on my right hand side and eventually I headed straight for it only to find that, for some reason, the bridge was closed. Not that I was going over it, but it's intriguing, isn't it, when a bridge is closed and you start to wonder why. "There's a match on," said a woman, pointing to the stadium on the far bank. "Oh," I replied, but I wasn't really interested. I couldn't tell you what kind of match it was, football, baseball, I just don't know, so I headed back towards the David L Lawrence Convention Centre, followed the road round and eventually decided that I ought to eat before it gets too late.

Eleven on Smallman Street – the best restaurant in Pittsburgh?

I knew I'd go back to Eleven because it's so good and on so many different levels. The service, the ambience, the food, everything, not least the convenience. I know that I can just cross the road and walk to the hotel where, incidentally, I am now, having just made that walk. It's just gone 9pm.

Having enjoyed dining with Paul all week, I found it hard going back to dining alone, but dine alone I did. A table for one. I knew the menu inside out. But sometimes it's good to 'people watch' and that's just what I did, but without them knowing I was watching. The last thing I wanted was somebody asking me, "What are you staring at?"

Earlier, as I walked up Penn Avenue I stumbled across the geekiest of geeky shops, a comic book emporium called Eide's Entertainment, billed as 'the world's greatest comic shop'. It was certainly that. Not only was the place crammed from head to foot with comic books, over three floors, it also stocked old vinyl records. A truly amazing place. I picked up a copy of the Clash's first album and their second (Give Em Enough Rope) not forgetting the triple album Sandinista, and found myself inwardly humming along to Hitsville UK, one of many great tracks on the album, although Sandinista was not the best Clash album.

When I picked up the Give Em Enough Rope album - and, indeed, the band's first album simply called The Clash - I was transported back to the late seventies when I was just a little bit older than my daughter is now. I have mixed feelings about those times and some strange memories, some of which sadden me. One of the latter memories involved my 21st birthday and a watch my parents gave me as a present. It was a gold Timex digital watch that I truly wished I still owned now, but I don't, and I feel particularly bad about that and the fact that I never really appreciated, at the time, the thought that went into the purchase of that watch. I was too tied up in being an angst-ridden young man to care about most things. Those days haunted me as I thumbed through the vinyl albums, particularly those first two Clash albums. While unemployed and down on my luck, working as an evening shelf stacker in Sainsbury's, I taught myself to type and I distinctly remember typing out the back cover of that first Clash album. As I looked at it, the memories flooded back. And now, of course, dad is no more. He passed away in 2011, in fact his fifth anniversary was last Sunday.

As I walked back towards the convention centre I thought of the moment when mum saw dad in the chapel of rest back in 2011. It was a sad moment for her, of course, but seeing her upset like that has stayed with me and came back to me as I walked along the street. 

When I reached Eleven I considered not going in just at that moment, but doing a little more walking before 'pulling up a chair' and tucking in, but I'd had a good walk already and I figured it best to get in there and eat something before it was too late. They sandwiched me in between a party of bankers, or businessmen, I can't figure out what they were, but one man was particularly annoying. He shouted rather than talked. "I'm 65 and my wife is just 39!" he boasted to a man who was so old I figured he'd never make it through the meal. "Give me another shot at president and I'll sort those Chinese out!". He was a real cock of the highest order and I wasn't that keen on his dinner companions. They all looked like greedy, money-grabbing sorts, the kind of people Michael Douglas might have targetted had they been characters in the movie Falling Down.

Whenever I drew back my hotel room curtains...

On my right was a young couple. I'm not sure if they were together or not, but they were fairly pleasant. She was from Tokyo, he was born and bred Pittsburgh. We eventually chatted (how else would I know that she was from Tokyo and he lived on the outskirts of town?) and they were great, wishing me well and hoping I'm treated right while in town. I told them that I had been treated perfectly well and that all was good on that score, but that was at the end of my meal. The chicken dish was fine: breast of chicken, greens and a risotto accompaniment. The banana cake was light and delicate, that's why I ordered it, and besides, I knew it would be good because I'd ordered it only a couple of days ago. The beers were pleasant enough too, although I'm going off of beer and I don't particularly like the new-fangled American 'real' ales, they're too syrupy and gassy. Give me a pint of Young's Ordinary Bitter any day.

When I wasn't talking to the couple or eavesdropping on the ruddy-faced business nob head, I played with my mobile phone, in particular the Roger's Profanisauras App where I learnt some excellent phrases, like 'clear the custard' - meaning to have a long overdue moment of gentlemanly relaxation. "I've got 10 minutes before I have to take mass. I'll just nip upstairs and clear the custard."

I had to be very careful not to suddenly burst out laughing as when you're dining alone there are certain things you simply don't do, one of them being laughing out load, seemingly for no reason. Here's another good entry: 'atomic mutton' - a mature woman trying to look younger than she obviously is and ending up looking like a tart in the process. An example being Liz McDonald out of Coronation Street.

I like Dangermouse too - a slim fanatella. But on that note I must hit the sack.

Ramblings from Düsseldorf...

View from room 407, Friends Hotel...

Wherever I go in the world everything, bar virtually nothing, is the same. Now, don't for one minute think that I'm talking about 'globalisation'. Globalisation is all to do with branding and big business and the fact that, wherever you go, you might encounter a Tesco or a Claire's Accessories or a Zara and so on. There's nothing worse than flying thousands of miles to the other side of the globe only to discover that the first thing you see is a McDonald's or a Tesco Express. I flew to Calgary once and saw a Claire's Accessories.

Earlier this evening I was sitting in Da Bruno, an Italian restaurant a short walk from my hotel here in Dusseldorf, Germany, where there was a leaving party of sorts going on. It was just the same as any other leaving party the world over; I could have been anywhere on the planet and possibly even in the middle of the Sahara desert, who knows? But I was in Düsseldorf, it was getting dark outside as we are now into September and the days are closing in, but the scene was just the same in London, Madrid, Paris, Warsaw, Montreal, New York, Mexico City, Brasilia, you name it. People were making self-conscious speeches or accepting gifts from their work colleagues, the usual stuff. And really that's it, there's not much else to say other than everybody's the same the world over – we're all so samey and predictable and we all experience the same phobias, the same desires, the same ambitions and the same failures. As my dad used to tell me, "You're not unique."

When you equate such thinking with the atrocities going on around the world, in places like Syria, you realise that most of those atrocities are caused by religion and governments and that most of the people caught up in conflicts would, I'm guessing, rather be sitting in a restaurant wishing good luck to their work colleagues who might be moving on to pastures new. Syria's refugees want safety and normality and so they're heading to Europe to live in what the Clash once called a 'safe European home'.

Room 407's telephone, Friends Hotel

I find myself thinking about those refugees and wondering when they last found themselves in a restaurant celebrating the fact that somebody had just turned 21 or was getting married or leaving one job to start another. If they have any memories at all I'm guessing that they're distant or long forgotten.

It seems to me that if you look at the root causes of a lot of the upheavals affecting the world today, it's always got something to do with religion. Frankly, I find it all a little crazy when you consider that 'religion' is just a belief system, nothing more, nothing less – in the same way that some people think Elvis is still alive – and why should anybody be forced to believe in something they don't want to believe in? I know. It all sounds like a very simplistic argument, but when you consider that belief systems  – in their various forms – are just that, 'beliefs', then surely we all need to get a grip and cast magic aside for the sake of reality.

I'm not sure where I stand on the big pillars of religious thinking, the main one being the afterlife, but I'm pretty sure that if we can't get a man to Mars or find a cure for cancer, Alzheimer's and the like, then there can't really be an afterlife. If there is such a thing, then I'd like to know why my dad hasn't been in touch (surely the dead are allowed ONE phone call). And how are they existing? In houses? Apartments? Hotels? And what age are they? The age they were when they died? Imagine finding yourself in the afterlife with all those virgins waiting to offer you a good time and having to admit that you're 84 and would have trouble raising a smile, not to mention anything else. The frustration of the real world would be carried forward to the afterlife and you'd be standing around wondering if there was another afterlife after the afterlife in which you had a choice of what age you'd want to be. Perhaps in the afterlife there are religious groups some of which put forward the argument that there is no afterlife after the afterlife; and conflicting groups arguing the opposite point of view. Perhaps there's a certain animosity between the two opposing camps and they're trying to blow each other up. Who knows?

Where conflict in Syria and Iraq are concerned, Tony Blair and George Bush have a lot to answer for and, in the eyes of many, are the real villains of the piece. Together they have destabilised the Middle East and enabled organisations like ISIS to exist and expand and it all falls back on the highly suspicious invasion of Iraq some 12 years ago – remember the spurious claim, made by Tony Blair, that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that could hit the UK within 45 minutes? It was all a lie. Remember the suspicious and still unexplained death of David Kelly? Well, there were no weapons of mass destruction, but not because of faulty intelligence as the government would like us all to believe. The intelligence was fine it was just that, faced with outrage from the public at large, 'faulty intelligence' was the best excuse on offer at the time – and what an easy excuse! "If you can't trust the intelligence services, who CAN you trust?" Nobody if the truth be known, but then again, the truth will never be revealed, not with Lord Chilcott in charge. Let's not forget that Lord C is a very close friend of Tony Blair and a member of the establishment (LORD Chilcott) – so don't expect any kind of prosecution; it's not going to happen.

Friends Hotel, Düsseldorf after dark...

Today we are suffering for what Bush and Blair inflicted on the world and to what end? Back in the early noughties it was all about winning contracts for companies like Halliburton, but now it's more about how the West caused the problem and then sat back and did nothing, bowing to pressure to 'bring our boys home' and allowing disparate groups, like ISIS, to form unfettered. In short, it's a real 'can of worms' but in many ways that phrase 'you reap what you sow' springs to mind. Today we're having to deal with the consequences – lone wolf terrorist atrocities like Tunisia, the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris and so on. 

In fact, terrorism aside, have you noticed how nobody within the establishment ever gets prosecuted? If there's a problem, say, with the police and it goes to the IPCC, the police always get off. And now, with historical child abuse allegations hitting the political establishment, isn't it amazing how it's all been left until they're dead or suffering from dementia and for those still in the firing line there's plenty of delaying tactics in place to stop or hinder any investigations going forward – possibly in the hope that those being accused will die off before an inquiry gets underway. All very, very suspicious if you ask me.

This morning there was a particularly disturbing image on the front page of the Independent of a very young boy washed up on a Turkish beach in Bodrum. The image brought into focus the problem facing Europe over its policy towards migrants coming from war-torn regions of the Middle East and Africa. The UK, apparently, has only taken in 216 refugees from Turkey, which is piss poor when you consider that we could operate more like a multi-storey car park: when it is discovered that a family from Britain has mysteriously left the country en route to a better life in Syria with ISIS, the spaces vacated could be filled by those wanting to enter the UK. We could put up one of those signs at Dover saying "Full" or "Spaces". However, with something like 330,000 people arriving on these shores from all over Europe – people living in Europe and moving to England to claim benefits – then perhaps it's not that good an idea.

I wandered back along Karlstrasse towards my hotel in the dark, but it's easy to spot as there's a green light illuminating a white building, which is the Friends Hotel. Avid readers will know that I've stayed here before. It's a pleasant and unassuming place on the outside and this time I was staying in room 407 on the fourth floor where there is a framed image of Kylie Minogue on the wall over the bed. When I was last here I stayed in room 207 and had a framed photograph of Twiggy on the bathroom wall. Room 407's phone is a bling skull made to resemble Damien Hirst's 'Diamond Geezer', although it took me a while to work out that it was a phone.

After a reasonable night's sleep – I was awoken around 0330hrs by noises from the street – I went in search of a Netto supermarket in order to buy some toothpaste and stumbled upon a decent-looking bike shop selling Koga bicycles. I would love to buy a Koga bicycle. The shop was closed so I couldn't go in, but I wandered back to the hotel and prepared to check out. I ordered a cab and then spent the morning in a meeting. After a very pleasant lunch in a Chinese restaurant I walked across town – it took me one hour to reach the hotel using the iphone's GPS. While it threatened to rain, the weather was fine – there have been temperatures as high as 39 degrees C here in Düsseldorf.

Back on the tarmac at Gatwick airport...

I ordered a cab to the airport, but arrived miles too early, so I ordered a beer and some peanuts plus a cake and some tea. The flight was delayed, but eventually it arrived and off we went. I love it when the pilot says "excellent flying conditions" and they were, although en route I discovered that it was against aviation rules – apparently – to bring your own wine aboard a plane. "So if you'll finish that glass and then drink our wine instead, I'd be grateful," said a rather terse member of the cabin crew. To be totally honest, their wine was better than mine so I conformed with their wishes and enjoyed the short flight back to London Gatwick. On both the outward and inward flights I had virtually the same meal: a croque monsieur with red wine, a packet of peanuts and a bottle of mineral water.

What I find really odd about easyJet is the speedy boarding system. While it worked fine back in the day when there was basically a scrum for the seats, now that they've initiated allocated seating like proper airlines, there doesn't seem to be much point. Standing at the gate, those with speedy boarding were called to jump on the bus that would take them to the plane ahead of everybody else by about five minutes – and then we all piled on. When we reached the plane, therefore, we, those who hadn't paid for 'speedy boarding', were the first off the bus and the first on the plane. But even if those with speedy boarding had their own bus, which ferried them to the plane before the proletariat, they would end up having to stand in the aisle waiting for whoever had the window and middle seat, so what's the point?

The flight time from Düsseldorf to London was 60 minutes, probably less. Normally I have enough time to eat a snack and one of those small bottles of wine before we land. Once back on terra firma I made my way towards passport control and decided to use the automated exit using my new passport. I was chatting to a friend on the phone about David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries when a man in front of me, from Holland, agreed that it was an excellent book. He had been eavesdropping on my conversation. Once through baggage reclaim and then customs – where I always feel guilty for some reason as I waltz through the 'nothing to declare' section – I made my way to the train station and the familiar but gloomy surroundings of the cold platform, which was full of holiday makers back from sunnier climates (like Düsseldorf) and clearly not happy about being back in the UK.

The train was delayed and then it was delayed some more so I had to get a 'stopping train' to East Croydon, via Horley, Salfords, Earlswood, Redhill, Merstham, Coulsdon South and Purley. I drew some cash from the 'hole in the wall' at East Croydon station and took a black cab home, arriving around 2100hrs.

That wine I wasn't allowed to drink on the plane? I drank it at home and then, after a bit of television, I went to bed.