ROB'S BLOG
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What's the name of that ridiculous dance that when you see hippies doing it in the street, it makes you want to abandon science and become a climate-change sceptic? I think they usually claim that "yeah, actually it's a form of martial arts, but yeah, it's a dance, yeah?".

I'm sure when the native peoples of Brazil or wherever do it, they do it properly and it looks good, but I just saw some crusty types having a go in the town square and wished I had the ability to perform proper martial arts on them.

It's like the bongo. Some people can play it, but just hitting it whilst someone plays a broken acoustic guitar, isn't playing it, OK, hippy?

I'm not sure how well I'm going to settle into backpacking.

16.46.

Malaga has no diving opportunities because it's "essentially just a whacking great port. You tit".

16:45.

OK then, I'm off out to explore Malaga's diving opportunities.

After a slightly frantic last couple of weeks, it's been a big relief to get away from the jarring atmosphere of London and get some peace and tranquility (NOT in a hippy way, obviously, in very much a punk-rock, smash the state kind of way).

So, I was sitting outside a bar in the centre last night with a friend, smashing the state with my half pint of beer when an entirely different kind of smashing was to be heard from behind me. It seems that one of the local, regular voyagers into alternative states of conscious [he means "heroin addict" - Ed] had decided that the perfect way to illustrate what was clearly a complex, philosophical point in his debate with another Byronic type, was to break a glass over his fellow debatee's head.

Fortunately for all concerned, I rushed onto the scene yelling "Soy un Emergency First Responder, puedo ayudarte?", stemmed the flow of blood and calmed the whole situation down.

OK, that last paragraph was quite clearly a lie. Instead I just sipped my beer and watched thirty seconds of the crappest, most lacklustre fighting the world has seen to date*, but my nerves were most definitely jangled. When the police turned up, my friend turned to me and said: "Oh yeah, I invited The Chilean Girl along".

Sadly the police refused to stick around.

* Previously, the crappest and most lacklustre fight ever seen was the scrap I had with Jason Price outside the local chippy when he pushed me off my bike. I was 12 years old. He was 11. He won.

I'm in Malaga.

Yeah, well, world tours have to start somewhere, and mine starts here. I could've said it started at the moment I left my doorstep in Brixton, but that would make me an especially punchable type of git, so I won't. Although the more observant amongst will notice that I just have.

I've been here a few times before. I have friends here, so it's not a massive coincidence. I do, however, also have a kind of ex here, hereinunder referred to as The Chilean Girl, so it's a bit different for me from a year ago. Back then it was very much a staying-at-The-Chilean-Girl's-flat kind of vibe, this time it's more of an avoiding-The-Chilean-Girl-at-all-costs-in-order-to-preserve-a-full-collection-of-genitals kind of vibe.

It's a big town, so how hard can that be?

Whilst I'm still at the airport and thus haven't technically left Blighty yet, I've gone through security and am therefore now a non-UK resident. As such, I am entitled to look back on London with nostalgia.

I miss the tubes.

The world tour begins tomorrow, and I have nine days worth of hangover to show for it. As an exciting prelude, I'll focus on what 90% of letters to dive magazines seem to be about: baggage.

Ed claims to have solid scientific evidence that bags on wheels are causing the diving nation to evolve into weedy, narrow-shouldered types and that the only cure is a hold-all. I believe he stumbled across this evidence approximately 32 seconds after spending £50 on a hold-all at the last London Dive Show.

I have a bag on wheels. It is enormous. I also have a backpack. That too, is enormous. I also have a mini-backpack. That is not enormous, but having thought about it at this twelfth hour, it would seem I will need to hang it off my ears in order to carry it.

Fortunately, I have the ears but not, as we have already ascertained, the shoulders.

I'm still here, so on with my obsession.

For some years now, the staff at Clapham North have been daubing a "Thought of the Day" on the noticeboard next to the exit from the escalators. These are usually twee quotes from New Age hippy types like Paul Coelho, but they are, nonetheless, a genuine effort to personalise a station in a pleasant way.

So, they've also started doing them at Stockwell now, except they seem to have a slightly more sinister edge to them, usually starting with phrases like: "You'll never be happy unless..." or "What's wrong with your life is..." Sadly, I'll probably have left by the time they get around to: "Life is slow dying: Philip Larkin", but I'd like to hear any suggestions anyone out there may have, as, I'm sure, will they.

I've been banging on about the London Underground for a bit too long, so I promise I'll stop that now.

Just kidding. Clearly, the great joy in travelling by tube lies in having the same two or three sentences bellowed at you every thirteen seconds by a fat girl with an unconventional number of chromosomes, and the smooth diction of a breaking vase. Either that or having a tube driver with the verbal continence of an amphetimine addict switch the amplification dial up to eleven whilst he mistakes teenage sarcasm for humour. One can't help but wonder, whilst standing on the Southbound platform of Seven Sisters at 7.30am, how many people need to be reminded to stand behind the yellow line every twenty seconds (with accompanying feedback squeal). Perhaps, one speculates, such announcements would be better saved for more central underground stations, such as Leicester Square or Kings Cross, where there might conceivably be gathered tourists who are unused to tube travel, or at least don't use it three or four times EVERY SINGLE DAY of their lives, and hence might have a fairly good idea of what that particular streak of jaundiced paint represents.

Come to think of it, the one time recently when announcements might really have been useful (during the strike), the driver on the tube I was on decided it was best to leave off announcing that we would not be stopping at St John's Wood station until the train had actually come to a standstill at the platform and I and several other people were waiting for the doors to open.

Now, I'm fairly sure that were the above rantings popped into a Transport For London suggestions box, a sixteen or seventeen page response would eventually arrive by return post (diligently written by someone whose sole purpose on this planet is to make your life less fun), citing various legal reasons for having the announcements and etc. and so on and it makes me want to cry just thinking about it. The thing is though, I don't care about the litigation aspect (which they would just be making up anyway because they know no one can stand to actually research the matter further as doing so would inevitably be so convoluted and boring it would kill you): the announcements annoy me and they should stop.

We should, for this (rabidly insane) reason, be legally entitled (nay, obliged) to forget about the fact they're probably nice people, it's hard to find work and they're just doing their job, and punch free-paper distributors in the face as we pass. As they fall beneath our blows, the thing that will hurt them the most is the knowledge that were they just a few metres away, actually inside the tube building, their "safety and security" would have been ensured as "CCTV cameras are in operation in this station".

Has anyone else noticed that the "information" announcer at Green Park station sounds just like an unfunny version of Eric Idle?