A PASSIONFRUIT AS BIG AS THE RITZ by BILL POWELL
Bill Powell
The title hints at Scott Fizgerald’s short story collection- the content is pure Clive James. This ingenious volumne should come with a safety warning - I’ve already courted eviction from the newly opened Jesus Green Lido as I first plunged into Bill Powell’s work at the chilly poolside. Unlike Keats - or Cortez- I was far from silent on a peak in Darien but snorting whoops of irrepressible laughter as the great canvas of this writer’s work shimmered before me , mined as it is with incongruous observations, brilliantly blended literary allusions to pique the reader and that genius ablity to hook together the ordinary and the absurd.
And what a range of stories. Mostly set in the nineties, so little has changed in say the contumely of 4-wheel drivers for cyclists A Good Day Out, finds Bill on his Holdsworth Mistral with 45 fellow cyclists off to explore the Suffolk countryside on a balmy summer day. To a man, as I reckon, they all are, they display the kind of minutiae of knowledge born of a life lived largely in sheds honing the micro details of their enthusiasms. “In those days, gone with the grey woollen shorts, cold lino and the admiration, Britishers didn’t mind being regarded as dull footlers by foreigners. Didn’t we assume that other nations had failed to develop cash and character to the neglect of The Shed? Shed talk, with nitpicking and shameless coveting of other people’s equipment gives our ride an abrasive buzz’: this is a boozeless cocktail part on wheels’
Dead and Never Called Me Quetzalcoatl features Harry the gloriously plumed parrot Bill is sold for a peso in the Merida Market of the Yucatan “What a find” To him I was Lord of all the Parrots, a cross between his Mum and Quetzalcoatl, the Rainbringer, so we got on just fine. There’s nothing like being adored’. ‘Years go by until ‘Ari” ( his only word) a parrot who ‘never shat on his friends’ ‘‘finally disappeared into a New Jersey snowstorm.” The life we humble readers construe from this shortest of short stories simply sharpens our curiosity about our storyteller the more. But there is little time to ponder as we whisk off to Jakarta to meet a cast of hilarious laconic Australians among the sweating Legong dancers in the title story,”where a big volcano, Mount Agung ‘ which is hanging over the crowded motorway King Kong’s toothbrush like a stupendous watercolour.’
Facing the Flood Gates a story from the Narmada River in remote Gujarat is serious and heart-breaking story of the Medha a militant environmentalist determined to defy the building got a multimillion-pound dam which incidentally ‘calls for the inundation of 119 settlements by a 500-kilometre-long lake deep enough to cover Cologne Cathedral. We meet the threatened villagers in their homes, with their families close up. Packed with details, closely observed from the millet bread and cane sugar Jaggery. Bill and Medha eat in the peaceful villages only miles from the bulldozers who threaten their centuries long culture, their livelihood and their traditions..
Allan Baldry ,sadly late of this parish, Professor of Engineering at King’s and passionate cycling fiend had his own system of traveling light.. “ No need for more than one pair of shoes ever plus three socks, and as far the flummeries of finance , he decreed “a credit card with an elastic band over it” was all you need about your person. ( Elastic band to prevent its slipping out of your pocket.) ” Allan would have loved Over the Andes in a Bin Liner. It features the Manly family who have pared their own equipment down to the absolute minimum,They took off for Ecuador with only bin bags for protection - mother Veronica , “is a great believer in honey and super-glue honey for restoring flagging energy and for apply as an antiseptic. “You can stick things back on the bikes with the glue” and if you come off and cut yourself “you can put some honey on first and then a nice tough layer of glue for protection.” She also saws the handles off toothbrushes.. Cross reference this mightily informative feature , with the hysterically funny “ Going Loco with the Gricers’ where attention to engine parts hits dizzying heights of true life absurdity as the group plough through Ukraine with a fixed glazed attention to map reading that will have you honking with hilarity.
This book might be the best ten quid you’ve punted in a literary direction for a long time, but beware - you are destined to become an Ancient Mariner of vicarious tale telling, stopping more than one in three, to make them listen to Bill’s wit, his humour his delight at the diversity of the world. ‘ Just hear this bit” you will call to departing guests - it is all so very funny a joy and a delight.
