Guess who’s back in the southern hemisphere? Me! Guess who’s left his heart in San Fran Soho? Me!
You just want to hear how tall the Petronas Towers are, but I just need to get some stuff off my chest, so if you’re only here for the sight-seeing you should skip the next two paragraphs and look for the tour guide holding up the sign that reads ‘Saccharine-Free Places of Interest Only’.
Newman Newman Newman. What to say about him? Can you draw a curtain over something that never really saw the light of day? I left him a birthday present which he opened when I was in Sweden. A leather-bound note book. In the back of which I had enclosed a copy of some Nick Cave lyrics. Nothing as cliché’d as ‘Are You The One I’ve Been Waiting For?’ or ‘Into My Arms’ and certainly nothing from Mr Cave’s Birthday Party period which I remember involved blood and bonfires and a lot of yelling. Although, now I think about it, maybe that’s what he needs. Or is that what I need? Anyhoo, the lyrics gesture was gothic and romantic and I think it might have scared the b’jehovah out of him. So I leave London on a jet plane for the second time within one month and he quietly closes the door for the second time within one month and once again I want to rip one of Cupid’s arrows from out his quiver and stick it up his hovering arse. I have to do that thing that none of us really like doing. And that is, move on. And I ask myself, is Malaysia far enough?
After what happened last night with one of the chorus boys who is young enough to be my personal trainer, apparently it is. There was no bonfire and no blood but goodness me there was a bit of happy yelling…
And welcome back Sight-Seers! The Petronas Towers are mighty tall but I have to be honest I was expecting a few extra inches. (Please insert your choice of Benny Hill joke here.) The local producers took us there on our first night for a slap-up meal. To the Sky Bridge level, which I think featured in some movie and involved Sean Connery hanging precariously above the Malaysian streets whilst swapping British banter with Catherine Zeta-Jones and simultaneously defending Hollywood’s take on Western freedom and British banter. Either way, it was an amazing view from an amazing restaurant and enough buffet to feed a plane-load of jet-lagged singer-dancers. There was also a smoking section fit for a king with a nicotine-stained sceptre. Plush couches and veneered tables and golden wallpaper and vased orchids and a soft and lonely jazz quintet and of course, most lavishly, indoor ashtrays. Remember them? Three of us sat there enjoying a post-prandial Malboro Light, discussing Malaysian politeness and 42nd floor vertigo. We were instantly transported to an even earlier Connery film where men wore ties and the foreigners were rich and everyone lit up inside because they could. It’s also part of the reason you take a touring job like this because you know that every now and again, you’re going to be able to pretend you’re somewhere near the top of your game and offered some lavish showbiz lifestyling. After the speeches and the food and the indisputability indulgent indoor inhaling, we were all taken to the Sky Bridge itself to look out upon the twinkling lights of KL and realise that we weren’t in Camden anymore Toto.
What is it about looking out over a city from a great height? Is it simply the amount of land we take over? Or is it because, from this height, you can see that the modernity is ultimately surrounded by forests or hills or mountains or all three and that this is a lucky snapshot? A moment of witness to man’s small encroachment upon the planet’s surface which is nowhere near as permanent as perception would pretend? Get a good look, folks, because one day all this will not be yours. Maybe that’s why we build all these tall towers, so we can have a moment of pride and wonder before the vines and the monkeys take it all back. The misanthrope in me is secretly rooting for the monkeys.
In the meantime, I will hypocritically enjoy the modern man-made comforts of the Renaissance Hotel, East Wing, breakfast included, with its Olympic length pool and large gymnasium complete with steam room and sauna and I might even book my body in for a massage if I’m not dining pool-side or napping in my smoking king-size bed which I can lay across without my feet extending beyond the mattress (recently confirmed). No mean feat as I am a long man. Of course, I am required to literally sing for my supper and dance for dessert but it’s a bargain I have knowingly made and the Malaysians are clearly enjoying the fine print, i.e You will wear a very silly costume and sing ‘Waterloo’ 400 times within one Earth year. It’s a really nice way to ‘move on’. I’m a lucky sonofabitch. And so was Newman. Even if he didn’t know it.
Come sail your ships around me.
And burn your bridges down.
You are a little mystery to me
Every time you come around.
Come loose your dogs upon me.
And let you’re your hair hang down.
We make a little history, baby,
Every time you call around…
Hasta Manana ‘til we meet again.
