Breaking Bad, or Break Like the Wind? An adventure with a vanload of resources for training, with help from The Incredible String Band, Morrissey, Bonnie Raitt, Heisenberg and 20 bags of coffee grounds from Starbucks!
Date posted: Friday 10th October 2014
Werner Heisenberg?
Now you may have observed if you walk into a wall
You get a certain sensation of reality
The Incredible String Band: Puppet Song
When I’m ‘on tour’ across the UK I have two main fears: that I’m going to get a flat tyre or get searched by Customs. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing to hide. It’s just that my van is always stuffed to the gills with resources to use on my training courses, and when I lead activities with staff and children in nurseries as part of my ‘on the job training’. It takes me the best part of a day at home in France to get everything ready, and to make sure that all my kit fits in. I’ve got a Citroen Berlingo, and the spare tyre is in a totally inaccessible place under the floor, so if I get a flat then most of the resources end up on the side of the hard shoulder while I scrabble around trying to work out how to release the spare wheel.
On my trip this September, the weather was still glorious, and as I’m going a bit thin on top, I needed a hat. Usually I wear a baseball cap, but I fancied a change and remembered that The Edge from U2 looked really cool wearing a black pork pie hat on the cover of The Joshua Tree. Maybe I’m going through some kind of midlife phase, because on that same morning I decided to change my appearance completely by trimming my beard into a goatee.
The Edge: Where the hats have no shame?
I was up in County Durham and, as luck would have it, I found just the hat I was looking for. As soon as I left the shop a strange thing happened. A guy across the street waved at me and shouted, “Hey! Heisenberg! Have you been cooking?” I didn’t do so well in physics at school, but I did learn that Werner Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist and one of the creators of quantum mechanics. I didn’t know that he sported a goatee and a black pork pie hat though. So I waved back and tried to look like a German professor who had shot to fame in the 1930s.
As bad luck would have it, just as I was heading out of County Durham I got a puncture. Normally I’d fix it myself, but I’m in the RAC so gave them a call. No sooner had I dumped all my kit onto the verge when an orange RAC van appeared. “Hi Heisenberg!” was my saviour’s opening gambit, “Have you been breaking bad and cooking today?” I had no idea what he was talking about, but as he was a Scotsman I assumed it was some kind of reference to breaking down. After he’d fixed the puncture he gave me a hand to put all my gear back in the van. A bag split and six baby dolls, a set of baby clothes, jars of baby food and bottles of baby milk crashed onto the road. Orange Van Man had already seen the large bag full of balls, crates with children’s TV- related toys and books and puppets, but had said nothing. I guess these guys get to see pretty much all of life when they are locating spare tyres.
But the baby dolls had clearly spooked him. He asked me what I did for a living and I explained that I lead training for people working with young children, and I use a lot of resources to make the sessions as lively and as interesting as possible. My knight in orange armour looked puzzled: “Why don’t you just use PowerPoint?” I explained that I do use PowerPoint, but if you want delegates to really take on board practical ways to talk effectively with children, then they need to experience some of the activities at first hand. This includes changing the babies’ nappies, then dressing and feeding them, so they can feel for themselves just how much language this activity generates.
Agent Orange was pretty impressed, and launched into a lengthy explanation about why Scotland could easily survive as an independent nation because of its massive industrial output. “Not a lot of people know this,” he opined, “but Scots people eat as many Tunnock’s Caramel Logs per day as the English eat packets of crisps.” (Tunnock’s is a big family firm based in Uddingston, Lanarkshire.) With that parting shot he fished a Caramel Log out of his pocket, shouted’ “Try that for size, Mr White!” and tossed it in my direction. I fumbled his pass and the calorie-filled delight landed somewhere in the back of the van.
I’m a vegetarian and don’t believe in harming living creatures. But what do you do with slugs? If you let them live, they pretty much eat up all the young veggies growing in your garden. One solution is to only grow veg that you know they won’t go near, but that will limit you to leeks, garlic and onions. Thankfully, Starbucks have the answer. Every outlet has a basket containing 1kilo silver bags of used coffee grounds, for you to take away for free and put on your garden. Spreading the brown powder round your young plants will give the slugs such a blast of caffeine, that they’ll spend the rest of the day talking 10 to the dozen and feeling totally light-headed.
Starbucks coffee grounds: a present for the slugs
What started out as another day on the road was becoming decidedly strange. I needed a coffee, so I pulled into a service station and headed for Starbucks. Half an hour later I was back in the van, with 20 silver bags of coffee grounds for the garden. I had stashed them behind a big bag of TV-related toys, so they wouldn’t fall out when the Customs officers at the ferry terminal opened the back door to have a quick peek.
The rest of the trip down to the south coast went without a hitch. Except that every time I stopped for a break or to get petrol people kept looking at me and calling out, ‘hey, Heisenberg!’ or ‘Mr White, have you got any blue crystal?’ That was becoming a bit annoying and slightly unsettling.
I have a bit of a guilty secret which, incidentally, I share with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Neil off ‘The Young Ones’; i.e. I get pleasure from listening to The Incredible String Band. I’d been able to download a load of their classics from iTunes and was sitting in the van as I queued for the ferry, wearing my new hat and listening to a load of late 1960s psychedelic twaddle at full blast. With a big grin on my face I was transported back to a small Surrey town, thinking about the first girl I loved in October, when I was 17 and was glad because the song had no ending… My reverie was shattered by two customs officers rapping rather assertively on my window. “Excuse me sir”, said a tall woman in her mid- to- late 50s with stunning wavy red hair, looking surprisingly like Bonnie Raitt. “Can you come with us please?”
‘Us’ referred to Bonnie and a middle-aged colleague with a look of bored detachment and sporting the remains of what could once upon a time have been described as a quiff. Was this Morrissey’s body double? Or even his doppelganger?
Bonnie Raitt in concert: how does she find time to work down at the docks?
 Bonnie |
 Steven Patrick Morrissey |
Before you could say, ‘Trudging slowly over wet sand’, I was trudging quickly towards a large hangar, escorted by Bonnie and Morrissey. Why were they picking on me? Usually when I arrive at the port it’s a quick, ‘Hello sir, what have you got in the van? / Do you mind if we have a quick look? / What do you do for a living? / That must be very rewarding.’ This time I was getting the complete works.
I wasn’t worried. They were only doing their job. My van was already in the hangar, with the back doors open. Bonnie did all the talking, while her partner looked on with more bored detachment. I suppose that every day at the terminal was like a Sunday to him. I noticed that he had a dog by his side.
Morrissey: a strange dust on his hands and face?
Events unfolded something like this:
Bonnie: We’re going to take everything out of the van, and please explain what everything is for.
(I remove the bag of TV-related toys. I tell her how very young children talk best about what they are already familiar with. And how the toys help them to get involved in meaningful conversations in early years settings, because they will have seen the characters on TV… Suddenly the sniffer dog springs into action. He’s got Ernie from The Muppets by the nose.)
Bonnie: It seems our dog is very interested in your toys. (To her colleague) Put that bag to one side will you Steven? (The dog keeps sniffing at the bag, while Bonnie’s eyes light on my silver bags full of coffee grounds) I’m afraid we’re going to have to do a full search.
Steven (Frisking me with what I felt was significantly less detachment): I’ll need to take all your clothes off, but you can leave your underpants on… if you like.
I’m going to cut this long story short here, by quickly outlining what happened next and leaving the rest to your imagination. I’m standing shivering in my M&S undies, while Bonnie and Morrissey inspect the entire contents of the van, with the cuddly toys and silver bags carefully placed to one side, while doggy is sniffing and barking furiously at ‘Ernie’. I ask Bonnie, politely I thought, if I could put my clothes back on, as I‘m freezing. (Fear and the cold can do things to a man, as you may know.) I try and make a joke out of it; “It’s not as if I’ve got half a kilo of cocaine stuffed in my pants!” Bonnie looks me up and down and a smile crosses her lips: “I see what you mean. But you may have a few milligrams of crystal meth stashed down there. After all, you do look very much like a drug dealer, Mr. Jones… Or should I call you Mr White? And why is our dog so interested in Ernie?”
Suddenly the truth dawns on me: “I’ve got a caramel log!”
Bonnie shoots me a look: “Are you frightened? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“No! No! It’s a Tunnock’s Log. It must have melted and that’s what your dog is after!”
Sure enough, a close inspection reveals a smear of melted chocolate all down Ernie’s back. The unseasonably hot weather has taken its toll on my chocolate bar and our doggie is busy licking it all up.
It’s not often you see Morrissey laugh, but that’s what he did as I hurriedly grabbed my clothes from a bench (checking that nothing had been stolen), and threw everything as quickly as I could back in the van. There were only a few minutes until the ferry was due to leave. Morrissey shook my hand. I was shaking with fear and relief. The first thing I did when I finally got on board the ferry was to head towards the toilet. As I looked in the mirror I could see a strange dust on my hands on my face.
I’ve since discovered that ‘Heisenberg’ is the name given to Walter White, the main character in Breaking Bad, the massively successful US TV series about a chemistry teacher ‘breaks bad’ and who gives up education for a career manufacturing (or ‘cooking’) the highly addictive drug, crystal amphetamine (‘crystal meth’ ). From Series Two onwards he takes to sporting a goatee beard and wearing a black pork pie hat.
In case you are worried, I’ve learned my lesson and now have a full beard and have gone back to wearing a baseball cap. From now on the slugs can eat all the veg they want.
Next time I’m doing training in the UK I’m flying over and only taking a laptop, so all I’ll need to do is show PowerPoints.
Take care out there
Michael
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4xoxFrRA2Q
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Haa!! An interesting read & joining your eventful journey in my mind!
I attended 1 of your training days in County Durham, it was a great day,
Great training & was good to meet you!
Hi Clare!
Thank you for the nice comments and I enjoyed the day and meeting you too!! I have a soft spot for the North East (people are so ‘real’ up there).
Which picture card did you choose, that appealed to you most?
It’s great to hear from you
Best wishes
Michael
Loved the journey! I can just see you motoring around in your packed van – makes me realise I still miss my van
Hi Trevor! That’s rock n’ roll baby!
What do you think of Bonnie Raitt’s technique? On YouTube there is a clip of Stevie Ray Vaughan doing a 13-minute sound check that is quite something.
Very best wishes
Michael