Proust and the Facebook

I've been dreaming a lot lately. A lot more than normal. Dreams where the past distorts and melds and churns out strangely logical combinations of seemingly random memories. My time in Asia comes up a lot - the last one was where I was back in school (which was now a hotel for reasons I cannot fathom) but set in Singapore where I was studying for the job I once had there at Disney/Buena Vista.

It's Facebook of course that has done this. Like the thousands of others that sign up each day, I'm back in touch with old friends and colleagues with their attending memories of things past. Therefore I too have been trawling through old letters, photos and broken verse and clearly my imaginative subconscious has picked it up and run with it.

One of things I came across was this piece I wrote for the British Council magazine a few months after arriving in Singapore. March 1999 I reckon. I'm pleased to say the affliction described below has long since passed.....


Nose No Bounds
My sister wrote to me last week complaining that following my visit to her in South Africa, Ben had swapped ‘mum’ for the name ‘caz’ and the spare room had the lingering odour of my feet.

She’s right of course. Ben, her son, is now calling her Caz - a name given to her in school and one I’m still carrying the torch for. But she’s also right about my feet. They stink. They really stink. I have no doubt she’s cleaned every tile, board, mat and bed linen they’ve nakedly infected. Everything they touch is condemned and I bear no grudge for her reminding me of this. I am the King Midas of cheese.

Such an affliction was a by product of puberty and one that has unreservedly stuck around long after it’s sister pubescent symptoms of acne, hormones and rebellion etc. have passed into unfond memories. Not a lot I can do. I’ve tried every potion, lotion, treatment, consultation, wives tale, homeopathy, aromatherapy, and even surgery on offer. Useless. I am living consumer report that nothing works.

Even a reflexologist here in Singapore, who’s profession exposes him to every species of foot odour imaginable, couldn’t surpress a flinch on removing my shoes. If he’s retired since it will be perfectly understandable.

I’m embarrassed and I’m sorry. I am tactful and careful and I am proud to say that few others, intimately or not, are subjected to it.

Socks help, of which I go through plenty (at Christmas I’m probably the only one who’s overjoyed at receiving them) and shoes are suitably contained and quarantined accordingly. Leather soles mask it and trainers are the devil. Fortunately, in Singapore and I suspect the whole of Asia, this is made easier since it is customary to remove shoes before entering a home. Thus the first thing I bought when moving in to my apartment was a little wooden Ikea bench. It sits outside and is piled high with rancid pumps, trainers, plimsoles and sandals in the foolish hope that air and a light breeze might cure them. Every self respecting home has such a bench and not a shred of concern is wasted on theft, Patrick Cox’s or not.

Yet two weeks after moving in, a pair of black Chuck Taylor All Stars disappears. It took me a few days to notice since I’m careful to wear each piece of footwear I have in strict rotation, yet despite searching, they had unexplainably, gone. I don’t tell anybody for fear of being subjected to a pun about them sprouting legs and walking and I certainly don’t report it. How do you describe them to a copper? They’re black, they stink and if you see them, shoot to kill.

They’ve gone, no big deal. Yet if it was possible to have sentimental attachment to shoes, trainers even, then I had them for these. I bought them in Mexico, holidaying with an old girlfriend, and yes, I’m afraid to say, they reminded me of the good times.

So I was upset. Nay, I was pissed.

The Lonely Planet Guides describe the three extensively studied stages of Culture Shock - Enrapture, Disillusionment and Adaptation. The symptoms of ‘stage two’, disillusionment, are quoted as irritation, superiority and complaining bitterly about every petty thing. Having recently arrived in Singapore I was deep, very deep, in ‘stage two’. The missing trainers were, for me, a microcosm of this indescribable, aggravating, goddam illogical city. I cursed the trainers, the town, the population, and as usual, the cab drivers. It was a grudge that in one way or another was brought to bear on the odd Singaporean that had the misfortune to cross me.

So last weekend I’m in Hong Kong and over breakfast come across the following article, page 11, in the South China Morning Post, which I quote here verbatim:

Old Shoes Stolen for Sniffing
Barry Porter, Singapore.

A lorry driver has been jailed for 25 weeks because of his uncontrollable fetish for smelly shoes.

Zainal Mohamed Esa, 43, steals old, worn shoes from people’s doorsteps because of a “burning desire, akin to that of a drug addict, to sniff used pairs of shoes”, said his lawyer Rai Ratan Kumar.

Mr. Rai told the court Zainal kept the shoes until the smell ran out, and then either tried to return them or donated them to the Salvation Army.

Zainal pleaded guilty to two counts of theft and two counts of fraudulent possession.

Mr. Rai described Zainal’s obsession as a “psychological need” and appealed for leniency.

However, in handing down a jail sentence, Judge F.G. Remedios said he had taken into account two previous similar charges.

Last November, police found Zainal with 40 pairs of other people’s shoes when they raided his flat after someone reported a shoe theft. In January this year, he was found with another 28 pairs and a shopping trolley.

Just the mere thought of prosecuting counsel holding up as evidence, article 42, my reeking Chuck Taylor All Stars, made it all worth while. In one swift imperceptible moment I was over the trainers, the anger and ‘stage two’. Better - someone, somewhere, loved my feet.