I was taking part in the cocktail world championship in Havana. There are many such competitions so I wouldn’t attach to much importance to it. Cuba won, to no one’s surprise. I think I came in third. The contest was held in a theatre that hadn’t changed an iota since 1957 when the Americans ran for their boats with Che and Fidel on their heels. Even the entertainment hadn’t altered style, long lines of dancing girls with tall ostrich feathers in their hair and spangly corsets around their midriff high kicking to big band tunes. We shared backstage with them during the competition and they were in various stages of undress, which made me feel very sophisticated in a sleazy-impresario kind of way.

The day afterwards our hosts had arranged an outing to a sugar factory. To get there we had to take a train. It was a steam train, well over a hundred years old and it pulled two ancient mahogany carriages of tired bartenders behind it.

The sugar works were from the 1850’s and were originally owned by the Hershey Company, who also had given their name to the train. The factory was in its original state, huge cast iron flywheels and cogs spinning around with no guards or fences, ready to chew up any budding Chaplin that got too close. Smoke and steam poured out of large boilers where the molasses was boiled and crystallised into light brown sugar. It was the afternoon and everything was far too noisy, sticky and hot for my taste and I was not sorry to get back on the train for the return trip to Havana.

My head was splitting and my body was shaking from the hangover. Fortunately our hosts had built a bar in one of the carriages and they were dispensing Mojitos and Bucanero beer. I grabbed one of each and looked out at the barren countryside from my slatted wooden bench. I could have been in a cowboy film. In the sky vultures circled lazily.

After while the alcohol seeped into my system and I calmed down somewhat. I thought about my girlfriend in Norway. We didn’t seem to be moving anywhere and I wasn’t ready to make a go of it, it all seemed very impermanent.

A Cuban band started to play and they danced into my carriage, blaring trumpets and trombones, beating cowbells and marimbas. Torture of the highest sort. Some of the other competitors followed them, clasping drinks and dancing in a Conga line. I hated their energy and carelessness.

I had a couple more drinks and looked at the vultures. Suddenly I was hit by a rush of clarity, and epiphany on the railroad to Havana: I would go back to Oslo, I would talk to my woman and make her mine. I would commit. I have never had such a strong feeling of purpose, it felt as if I had let religion into my heart, discarded all doubt and found security.

When I got back to Oslo we got back together, but it didn’t last and I broke up some time after. Without rum and sun, Norway is just too cold.

It was 1981. John Lennon had just been shot and killed and I was in Miami, listening to The Beatles all day long. I had a cassette player with a copy of The White Album which I played to death. “Happiness is a Warm Gun” indeed. The radio stations were playing Beatles back-to-back and even though I thought I was their biggest fan in the world, there were a couple of songs I hadn’t heard before.

It was my first time in America and I was staying in a small, green enclave called Coconut Grove. Lots of lush tropical leaves and wooden houses with fans in the ceiling.

I was broke, arriving on a one way ticket and no work permit. I’m not sure why they let me in, but I scraped through. The customs man tipped the contents of my one bag onto the floor and poked through my belongings with his boot. I had heard that packing a Bible could improve your chances and it might have worked. As soon as I got out of the airport I tore the visa out of my passport.

I got work as a busboy and graduated to waiting. I was pretty bad, but I made good tips, possibly out of sympathy. At the end of an evening I would have a pile of grubby green notes in my hand and no taxes to pay.

My unstable friend Gavin arrived from London and he stayed with a neighbour. He was broke too but I had enough to tide us both through.

One day we were introduced to some friends of our hosts. They probably wanted us out of the house.

We walked over to the address we had been given and it was a one-storey bungalow, open plan, with a bar in the kitchen. Behind it sat a man in his late thirties. His wife was out and it was the middle of the day.

We sat down on the stools opposite him and started talking. We explained a bit about ourselves and how we were musicians and had plans. The man was German and poured us sodas.

I jabbered away and started to ask about him, his life, his work. He was a photographer. I wondered a little bit abut why he was home in the daytime, but not out loud. He talked about things he had done.

At one point I asked if he didn’t miss doing the things he said he had done?

He went very still and looked at me. Then he swept all the glasses on the counter top at me, drenching me in sticky soda and broken glass.

After that there was not much to do but leave. He didn’t apologise and I didn’t either, not knowing which button I had pushed.

I asked Gavin: “What was that all about?”

“I could see he was getting wound up, I could see it coming. You were getting to him.”

“But what did I say that was wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“Germans are crazy”

“Yes.”

Early January 2025, I flew out of Nice, over the Alpes Maritimes on my way to Oslo. The plane was pretty full and I had a seat in the last row, by the toilets. I asked the stewardess if the plane was full, hoping to move to a better position, but it was pretty packed, so I sat down next to the window. At least I had the row to myself. The row in front of me was full and at the end sat a person who spoke good English with a slight Spanish accent. He was chatting to the guy in the middle who responded in English with a very heavy Norwegian accent.

A woman sat down in the opposite back row, also on her own. At the very last minute a man sat down in my row, at the end. I looked at my ticket and realised that I should be sitting where the woman was. But now boarding was complete and no one seemed to mind. We all had space.

The plane took off and after not too long the Captain came on the speaker and warned that we would be experiencing some turbulence ahead. I wasn’t too concerned, there is often some bumpiness where the ocean wind meets the mountains.

But this time was different. The plane started shaking harder than I have ever experienced before. Being back at the tail didn’t improve things, we were flung about like a paddle ball. And it didn’t stop. I grabbed on to the seat in front of me and tried to control my breathing. I attempted some rudimentary meditation, but the motion was too disturbing to concentrate. However, I was in my little cocoon, doing my best to ignore the awful agitation and coupling out thoughts of death as best I could.

Out of my right eye I noticed that the man next to me had moved next to the woman in the other back row. She was crying, very panicky, her body wracked with small spasms. He sat down next to her, put his arm on her shoulder and started talking calmly. He kept on talking, reassuring and distracting her. I felt an immense admiration for his effort and his humanity. And a stab of embarrassment. I should have done the same, if it had occurred to me. But he was between us and closer by far, so naturally it fell to him to comfort her. Yet still, would I have done the same? I’d like to think so, but you never know.

After an age the plane calmed down. The stewardesses unstrapped themselves and wrangled the drinks cart out into the passageway. As we were closest we got to order first. I asked for two gin and tonics. The man next to me had retaken his seat. He had an aura of kindness about him, a selflessness.

Suddenly a small bottle of red wine appeared on his tray. I hadn’t heard him ordering, so I assumed it was the stewardesses, treating him for being so nice to the scared woman. He looked up, surprised. “What is this for?”

The Spanish guy in the seat ahead of him turned his head.

“That’s because you’re a man.”

Well, was I 14 , 13, somewhere around there? No matter, I got to see my mother every other weekend and that was the only bright point of my childhood. She was married to a new guy, a drinker, as asshole you had to be careful around. Our weekends were pretty similar, always some activities involved, as if we need to be stimulated. Museums and the Commonwealth Centre and such. And as worthy as that sounds, I’m pretty sure my sisters and I would have been just as happy, even more so, I imagine, just lounging on a sofa close to our mum, being the family we weren’t.

I remember one Sunday we went for a trip along the Thames and there were a host of artists along the embankment trying to sell mediocre paintings and macrame and such.

I saw one man selling candles, very artisanal, and a woman wanted one that looked very textural, sort of pockmarked all over. The seller agreed and pulled a bog standard candle out of a box and proceeded to hammer at it with a short plank with a square, galvanised nail struck through one end.

The nail made the required pockmarks and it turned out fine, but it was to my mind watching a magician from behind, seeing the workings and the workings were very cheap. But I remember savouring the apparent disappointment of the buyer who thought they were purchasing a work of art and instead got a candle hammered with a short stick and a nail.

It was about 20 years ago, I don’t remember. About 2020 or thereabouts. New Year’s Eve. I was on my own as usual, no partner, no nothing. I was invited to a dinner at my sister’s brother-in-law. He worked in some government department and was quite the loudmouth, but likeable. His girlfriend was good looking and feisty.

They lived in the West End, very bougie, but of course they were above all of that. A corner flat in an impressive block of flats, built in the boom of the 1890’s, lots of cornices, mouldings and terrazzo stairways.

The dinner was fine, I forget what we ate. We were just those two, my sister and her husband, and me as fifth wheel, the charity case.

We drank, as Norwegians do, fast and regular, wine and bubbles. We all got well-oiled, but nothing untoward. Midnight approached with the light popping of rockets, some people just can’t wait for the clock to strike.

At twelve we moved out onto their top floor balcony, a little eagle’s nest cut into the roof. A good six inches of snow on every surface. We toasted each other with Champagne and basked in the falling embers of a million Chinese fireworks.

The novelty and gunpowder wore off after some minutes and I leaned over the ledge and watched the stragglers on the wide streets making their way home in furs and evening gowns. They irritated me with their carefreelessness, meandering gait and overbearing voices.

I gathered heavy snow form the gables around me and packed it into satisfyingly heavy snowballs. I started pelting the revelers on the boulevard below and hit quite a few. They were angry and surprised, shouting loudly and looking around for the culprit. Their anger was surprising and heartfelt. I ducked away and giggled, a child again, excitement in my veins.

On a neighbouring balcony across the street a party witnessed my misdeeds. They must have been a good 150 meters away but I could tell they weren’t happy. A few of the guys in the group took it upon themselves to vigilantisise and they started making snowballs and chucking them in my direction, shouting all the while.

There was no chance that they’d hit me, no human could at that range, so I paid them no mind.

I got more cocky and lobbed more at the civilians down below.

Suddenly I was hit. A hard ball of snow got me square in the forehead. It couldn’t have been more accurate, right between the eyes, hard and hurtful, an explosion of wetness and cold.

It sobered me up, of course, but it once and forever taught me that randomness is not random and that somewhere out there there is a projectile with my name upon it, homing in, and it will take me out no matter how secure I might feel. The line of fire is way wider than I could ever have imagined.

I was 17, living in London, broke. Playing drums in a band occasionally, working three jobs, one as a dishwasher (no machine, all by hand) and the others were office-cleaning gigs. I loved the dish-washing as the kitchen crew and waiters were top rate, lovely people. The others jobs were just in-and-out, rearrange the dust a bit and skedaddle.

I used to hitch-hike a lot and one evening a Volkswagen minibus stopped to pick me and my pal Gavin up. It was evening time, dark and rainy. I sat on the front bench, ever the conversationalist and diplomat, Gavin snoozed in the back. Noticing the guitar case, the driver started talking music, which I gladly joined in with. He told me that the only way to reliably tune a guitar is by using harmonics, the overtones on the fifth and other frets.

These days I use a phone or box to tune up, but I still double check with the harmonics after all these years.

I asked the driver where he was going and he replied that he was on the way to visit his wife’s grave.

Being young and lacking most social graces I didn’t know what to reply. He put me at my ease and told me that he had planted Marijuana plants by her headstone and it grew very well there.

He seemed melancholy, unsurprisingly, and eventually he dropped us off where we wanted to go. He drove off into the dark and rain and I often think of him, sitting on his wife’s grave, smoking a joint and extending her memory.