Travel Tales and Cryptic Crosswords: A Weekend Companion

By Peter Waugh

Enjoy a travel tale and a cryptic crossword on each of the 53 weekends possible in a year.
Unconventional, quirky and generally light-hearted, the tales range from circumnavigating the globe by cargo/passenger and migrant ships and driving an ageing car from Paris to Tehran over bad roads in winter and mostly at night, to hitchhiking in kilts around Europe. Selling patent medicine in rural Malaya in the early 1960s, surviving an earthquake and its aftermath in Tehran, and hearing of JFK's assassination from a Chinese gangster in Kuala Lumpur all feature.
There are rants about unsatisfactory toilet blocks in caravan parks and travellers who cap one's stories; raves about Star Bars and Star Stays; essays on Currywurst and the town of Condom; and there are more than 150 photos, a few poems and one recipe.
The cryptic crosswords are modelled on those in The Times, but perhaps slightly easier.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jan 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528962643

Peter Waugh

Scottish-born Peter Waugh, armed with a degree in Maths and Physics, a rucksack and£100, set out with two companions to hitchhike around the world. Seven and a bit years later, he returned with a wife and baby son, having worked as a storekeeper in Tehran, a Maths teacher in Kuala Lumpur and a computer programmer in Canberra and Sydney. Since then, he has probably spent more time travelling than working. He has been solving cryptic crosswords for 60 years. He enjoys playing the piano, cooking, reading, golf and swimming, has been married for 52 years and has 4 children and 11 grandchildren. He and his wife live on the Sunshine Coast in Australia.

Book preview

Crosswords

About the Author

Scottish-born Peter Waugh, armed with a degree in Maths and Physics, a rucksack and £100, set out with two companions to hitchhike around the world. Seven and a bit years later, he returned with a wife and baby son, having worked as a storekeeper in Tehran, a Maths teacher in Kuala Lumpur and a computer programmer in Canberra and Sydney. Since then, he has probably spent more time travelling than working.

He has been solving cryptic crosswords for 60 years. He enjoys playing the piano, cooking, reading, golf and swimming, has been married for 52 years and has 4 children and 11 grandchildren. He and his wife live on the Sunshine Coast in Australia.

Dedication

To my wife, Judy, who has been more enthusiastic about this book than I have been.

Copyright Information

Copyright © Peter Waugh (2020)

The right of Peter Waugh to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528919302 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528962643 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2020)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgements

I thank my wife for her encouragement and sharing her knowledge of books and publishing. She also took some of the photos.

I thank my friends who have allowed me to use their names and likenesses, in particular Irv whose photos of our hitchhiking trip are included in the book.

And I thank the countless people all over the world who have made travelling a joy for me over many years.

Preface

Ever since setting off to hitchhike round the world, I expected to write a book about the journey; however, there was never enough interest or excitement in what happened to fill a book that people would actually bother to read.

When I retired in 1997, I spent some time compiling cryptic crosswords that had an Australian flavour. My intention was to complete a hundred of them and try to find a publisher for a book. I got bored after fifty or so, and shelved the project.

Recently, I came up with the notion of combining the two projects into the present volume. Its subtitle is A Weekend Companion and it has 53 chapters, one for each weekend in the year. Yes, I know there are only 52 weeks in a year, but a leap year that begins on a Saturday has 53 full weekends in it. Each chapter consists of an illustrated travel vignette and a cryptic crossword. I use the word vignette here rather than tale because some of them are not tales at all: there are commentaries, suggestions, bêtes noires, series of photographs, some contain poems and there’s one recipe.

May they provide you with an hour’s entertainment each weekend.

Peregian Beach

July 2018

1. Musical Memories – Should I Know You?

How often memories are triggered by music, and how often music is the essence of a memory.

Wiesbaden 1960. Three backpackers, though that term was yet to be invented, had a night out. Dinner, washed down by sake, was in a Chinese restaurant. The jukebox played Edith Piaf’s ‘Milord’ over and over – we took turns to keep it playing – such a charming song and new to us. Later, outside a rather up-market theatre/restaurant, three shabby backpackers lit cigars. They’ll think we’re rich eccentrics – that was Irv the optimist, though he was right that time – they let us in, and we sat upstairs nursing beers. There was a jazz band on stage. An African-American serviceman in uniform moved from audience to the stage, and sang ‘Ol’ Man River’ so professionally, that the appreciative audience knew he must have been Someone! We felt we ought to have known who!

Hotel L’Approdo – Rapallo

Rapallo May 2005. Touring Europe in a hired Peugeot, I came to Rapallo by accident, and decided to stop at the first hotel on my side of the road – the traffic had been a bit Italian and unforgiving. The reception area had a bar, a very pretty receptionist and a piano, so I bought a beer, asked permission to use the piano and played my party piece – ‘Autumn Leaves’. As I finished with a huge glissando from top to bottom of the keyboard, I became aware of the receptionist leaning over her counter watching me. "Who are you?" she asked.

I relive that moment in times of pianistic doubt.

Cape Margherita – Rapallo

Crossword 1

Across

1. Breakfast food is hot, Scot! (6)

4. The case of a sailor, dead around 4 (8)

10. It’s obvious, at least in motion (7)

11. As well managed as a failure can be (4,3)

12. Almost bitter, cross – moved about birth (10)

13. Against some giant invaders (4)

15. Posterior has no alternative to wobbling, says smarty-pants (7)

17. See! Six-footer is soft inside (7)

19. Changed letter from Athens, thanks to boy (7)

21. Mourned for first lady in city streets (7)

23. Bird dog – no hesitation! (4)

24. Respect for cash held for minor heir (5,5)

27. Bishop is without work but has ear of seller’s market (7)

28. Tiredness from single battledress? (7)

29. Elf-child, deserted by the Spanish, is becoming different (8)

30. Can he count to 20 right? (6)

Down

1. Short Magi interpreted diagram (9)

2. Mother’s boy gets a lot out of work (7)

3. Old players rest – sons tee off, slicing north (6,4)

5. Bring a new church in and cause schism? (9)

6. A direction to be quiet in east end of church (4)

7. Not out called umpire finally (Could be shot) (2,5)

8. The spell of naked French female – sounds like boredom (5)

9. Top movie actor originally sold televisions and radios (4)

14. Wine! Key to degree of involuntary movement, and with problem focusing (10)

16. Swimmer swaps sides after directions to get painkiller (9)

18. Under garment, carry cuddly toy (5,4)

20. Alteration of cat coat needs master touch (7)

22. Australian composer on upbeat music – leaves sour taste (7)

23. Young lion in charge of third degree (5)

25. Thus measure piano (4)

26. Slag Mount Crosby (4)

2. More Musical Memories – Lost and Found

Kuala Lumpur 1963/4. Three songs dominated the Malayan airwaves – or so it seemed – Acker Bilk’s ‘Stranger on the Shore’, a Malay song ‘O Singapura’, and the Chinese romantic ballad ‘Poo Liao Chin’. This last is the one that triggers the memories. Fellow teacher Miss Tan, she of the severe horn-rimmed spectacles and tight cheongsam, translated it for me thus –

I can’t forget, can’t forget your faults,

Can’t forget your goodness,

Can’t forget your walking in the rain with me, and

Can’t forget your embarrasses (sic) on a windy night.

A lonely long alley,

In a bright moonlight night,

With the strong lashing wind

As if it is repeating your advice

To forget, to forget you.

It whispers my heartaches,

Softly and lightly,

Oh my heart, my heart, my aching heart.

For years I tried unsuccessfully to find a record of it. Then came the Internet, and after much struggle, there it was, heavily disguised. The change from the Wade-Giles and Hong Kong Post Office systems of representing Chinese characters to the Pinyin system replaced not only Peiping and Peking with Beijing, but also Poo Liao Chin became Bu Liao Qing. It still sounds the same as in the 60s – evocative, eternal and basically pentatonic, the occasional F natural giving it a slightly Western flavour.

Dryburgh Abbey on a fine day

Dryburgh Abbey 1999. A windless grey day. A group of German tourists descend into one of the bare stone-flagged partly underground cells. A sound like a tuning fork. Is it a Palestrina Motet that’s sung a cappella in a perfect acoustic? It purifies the damp Scottish air. Visitors stop moving, freeze in both senses, and let the ethereal sounds make a one-way passage into their memories.

Bratislava 2008. A showery day, necessitating frequent retreats to hostelries for a soothing Zlaty Bazant 12% beer. I am walking on air after a couple, the victim of the power of suggestion. I discover later that 12% indicates the amount of fermentable material used in the brewing; the alcohol by volume content was 5%. I pass through Michael’s Gate, as have others for more than 700 years. There is a blind busker seated, playing the accordion under the sheltering arch. A passer-by makes a request and suddenly the world stops to wonder at his huge thrilling tenor voice as he immortalises a Slovakian folk song.

Busker at Michael’s Gate, Bratislava

Isla del Sol, Bolivia 2007. Lake Titicaca’s surface is over 3800 metres above sea level, or 12500 feet in the old money, higher than anywhere in Australia or New Zealand. Eat your heart out, Mount Cook! The day starts with a 2 am wake-up call in Puno, then coca tea while waiting for a taxi that takes us to another hotel where we pick up more tourists. We head off at 3.30 am, thus getting out of Puno before the police re-install the barricades and water cannon necessitated by the current demonstrations and riots. At the Bolivian border around 6 am, there is a two-hour wait for the border officials to open up. The delay is worth it – Copacabana (not the Rio beach) is stunningly beautiful. Home for the next 24 hours is a large catamaran. It is forbidden to photograph the Bolivian Navy base. We sail to Isla del Sol and exhaust ourselves touring ruins – one needs to rest every 20 metres or so.

From the cabin after the fiesta

Moored at the northern end of the island, we disembark and enjoy the Ascension Day Fiesta that is in full swing. It involves much drinking and dancing to a rudimentary brass band that has a very loud drum and plays a limited selection of tunes. This selection becomes more limited as the day wears on, and the performances become louder and more random as the band consumes more alcohol and becomes mas borracho, as they say in the barrios.

Ascension Day Fiesta

The band

By 9 pm as I fall asleep in my cabin, they are down to one tune, repeated ever more raggedly, as they march round and round the town. I awake at 4 am, just in time to hear the band strike up anew – same tune, slightly less discordant. I wish I knew what that tune was. It wasn’t the National Anthem. I would recognise it if I heard it again.

Aranjuez and Singapore, 1997. A coincidence. As do most tourists in Aranjuez, I took the Chiquitrén, a little train with rubber tyres and no rails, to tour the extensive palace gardens. The carriages, though open at the sides, play piped music continuously. Predictably the music is the slow movement from Rodrigo’s ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’. I flew home the next day and had to stay the night in Singapore. At 9 am it was too early to use the room, so I was put into a lounge where the background music was the slow movement of the Aranjuez Concerto.

Crossword 2

Across

1. Crazy British drivers reverse around Turkish bigwig’s island (10)

7. Love-stricken animal (4)

9. Less about dependence is more (8)

10. Turn down because broken or aged (3-3)

11. 10’s lost right to black dodgy wine cellar (6)

12. Trite air badly arranged can annoy (8)

13. Some Labor Party MPs attend opening of blast furnace (4)

15. Bury saint near ice crevice (10)

18. Conceal Senior Guides – it sounds like they’re in the garden! (10)

20. Not up! Not North! It’s hard in a boat! (4)

21. Encouraged me to drop changes (8)

24. Capers around and goes over again (6)

26. Woodlouse makes roofs (6)

27. Comes in again about medical specialist – three quarters Irish (8)

28. Employer backs restart without me (4)

29. Sounds like perhaps Chinese rubbish first caused US halt (3-7)

Down

2. Unknown don angry – troubled at being both Arthur and Martha (9)

3. Chemical puzzle when turned over loses its gravity (5)

4. First say thanks to bird about vivacity (9)

5. Study Australian state at time of early inhabitant (7)

6. Free time, without a supplement (5)

7. Five, say, said Change original direction, but lived uneventfully (9)

8. Left each good man the minimum (5)

14. Safe haven for a sheep has a boundary (9)

16. Oddly, green rust is up again (9)

17. Sound of dove right on river in Brisbane area (9)

19. The Spanish and German left yesterday – first over the hill (7)

22. Turns loaves (5)

23. Cast sound complete (5)

25. Copper bird can make the grade (3,2)

3. Yet More Musical Memories – ‘O Sole Mio’

Southern Greece, driving North 1961. Three round-the-world travellers are delighted at their 1951 Citroen’s hugely improved performance. New valves had been fitted in Athens after a slow trip down from Yugoslavia, punctuated frequently by stops to add water to the boiling cooling system. We kept breaking into song – ‘O Sole Mio’ – no words, just Da Da da Da da, as we headed for Thessaloniki and Asia. Whenever I hear that song, I am back there driving through the sunlight, filled with happy anticipation of adventures to come.

Efesus 2005. A young man from a tour bus gives a stirring rendition of ‘O Sole Mio’ while standing at the centre of the Roman amphitheatre – an obvious thing to do if you have any sort of voice – and proves the excellence of the acoustics.

Roman Theatre at Efesus

Aboard the ‘Angelina Lauro’ – Southampton to Sydney 1971. Four couples, us with two kids, are migrating to Australia in Cattle Class – women and children in one cabin, husbands in another. It is agreed that individual privacy will be maintained between the hours of 7 and 9 pm each night in the men’s cabin for the rostered couple – an arrangement unsuited to the easily embarrassed. As the evening’s lucky pair tries to sneak out of the bar at 7.05, someone starts the chant which quickly increases to a mighty chorus worthy of Beethoven’s Ninth – We know where you’re go–ing, we know where you’re go-ing… One evening, we lock the cabin door, and moments later there are scuffles and muffled laughter outside, then a serenade in three-part – I hesitate to say harmony – but a rendition by my cabin-mates of ‘O Sole Mio’.

Angelina Lauro at Tenerife – Canary Islands

Crossword 3

Across

1. Calm stares worried smug people (5,5)

7. Crazy when a donkey loses its tail (4)

9. Zorba ban failed – white elephant flew! (8)

10. Demand is in current month (6)

11. On a regular basis, cell in unfinished nick used as medical centre (6)

12. Indonesian enables one to mix (8)

13. Sailor has it both ways in Swedish group (4)

15. Fat not hidden, but sounds like whey is (10)

18. Players around disease around Queen (10)

20. Good Turkish commander, but senile (4)

21. Obvious if stamen is disturbed (8)

24. Former tax is too much (6)

26. Graduates go quickly to old club (6)

27. Girl is right to steal back to Michigan town (3,5)

28. He’s society Nazi (4)

29. Tense, tired, upset, concerned (10)

Down

2. Rabble mar trouble spot in WA (6,3)

3. Red of breast, it’s not originally a bird (5)

4. Bank account bloke had at Gallipoli (5,4)

5. Elevate, though given no bleeding help from within (7)

6. Sound of pipes expertise changing side (5)

7. Stan, being unconventional, is taking a sickie (9)

8. Crackerback is fertile spot (5)

14. Sound vessel has windows which are very bright (3,6)

16. Comparatively diminutive