I’m often amused by the situations I find myself in with my job. They have been varied, challenging and positively random to say the least. But this week posed one of the more, interesting, days of late.

I’ve been producing a campaign called Let’s Talk About Sex with a fantastic 18 year old campaigner called Shereece. In a nutshell, she is trying to improve the way sex ed is taught in schools, and last Wednesday was the big climax (no pun intended) of the campaign, where she presented her research to a selection of MP’s, journalists and lobbyists at a reception inside the Houses of Commons. Serious stuff…

But being a teen skewed programme, and realising the need to sex up (sorry…) the day to get interest from the press, we devised a little stunt with the help of the cracking PR firm working with us.

A week before we managed to secure Matt Cardle of X factor fame to come along to lend his support. I was mildly concerned that we had picked the one X Factor contestant who was outed by his ex as a ‘Sex Addict’ to come and promote a sex education campaign, but after further googling I was satisfied by the counter evidence to suggest otherwise.

And so the press stunt was devised. A simple ‘say it in one line’ type idea that would surely capture the attention of the hacks: Matt, with Shereece, standing next to Big Ben, surrounded by hundreds of giant, inflated condoms. “Think of the film ‘UP’”, said the PR person. “Except with condoms”.

And that’s how I came to find myself standing next to Big Ben at 8am last Wednesday morning with a team of 10 people, five helium canisters, one film crew, a dozen journalists, a PR firm, two presenters, one campaigner, and Matt Cardle, desperately inflating 250 condoms, of a variety of colours and flavours, into one big hot air balloon size ball.

Of course the day wasn’t without the odd hitch, the first of which came at 8.05am when the patrolling policeman decided that we didn’t have the right paperwork to be inflating condoms on that particular patch of pavement, and so moved us on. With maybe 25 condoms already blown up and bobbing in the wind, I took charge of moving the ‘instillation’ as I referred to it from Old Palace Yard to the small triangular park next to the Houses of Parliament. This meant walking along the pavement some 200 yards and crossing one of the busiest roads in London, in rush hour, holding a bunch of condoms. Annoyingly, there were too few of them to clump together, so they were all blowing in different directions and at different heights, and more than once I saw a stray one go face first into a passing cyclist.

For the next 2 hours it was frantic blowing all round, with condoms flying all over the shot. Two moments stood out for me, one being when I glanced across the park and saw on old colleague of mine walking through dressed in a trouser suit, obviously heading in to work. About to call out her name, I suddenly remembered that she has recently become a born again Christian, and taking in the current scene I was not convinced that the chat would have flowed too well. The second ‘what am I doing’ moment came when I looked round to see a school of nannies standing and observing the scene, having parked up about a dozen kids in prams in one long line, who were also looking on in awe. I’m no parent, but I’m pretty sure theirs would not be paying expensive Westminster nursery fees for their toddlers to get a front row seat at a helium comdom creation disguised as a campaign art instillation.

Come 10 am and several further police concerns later, we were ready for the shoot to begin, and so headed back to our starting position in eager excited anticipation. I was not in charge of moving the instillation this time, so watched on with a wry smile as two of my colleagues lifted the 250 strong piece out of the park, back across the road, and in to one of London’s busiest squares, and most popular tourist destination. Out of the corner of my eye I spied a bus full of Japanese tourists drive past, who all snapped away at our creation, void of any reaction, almost as if they assumed this was just an every day occurrence for London. Nothing weird at all.

The shoot went remarkably smoothly. Our MP Chris Bryant turned up and got involved, Matt unquestionably smiled and posed, and the photographers got some awesome shots, many of which have made it in to the national Press. It’s what happened after the shoot that then amused me more.

I moved inside Parliament with Matt, Shereece and various other people to get on with the next part of the day, leaving my colleague outside to look after the instillation until the second photo shoot at 12.30 with some more celebs who had come to lend their support, this time Roll Deep, Made In Chelsea’s Francis Boulle, and upcoming band The Young Guns. This meant I was largely unaware of the problems he was now encountering, or the pain he was going through to deal with them.

Despite us having done a photo shoot in the same spot last month, and despite us doing everything by the book and above board, the police decided that we were simply not allowed to keep the condoms stationary anywhere around Westminster, or back in the park, so ordered my colleague to move them on, or pop them. Knowing that we still had two hours until we next needed to use them, he managed to seek refuge in the offices of a charity called dance4life, who have been working with us on the campaign, and are based just round the corner from Parliament Square, opposite Westminster school. I was not there to witness it, but I can image the reactions he got from the pupils as he hurriedly trotted past with the instillation in tow, floating at least two stories high of most buildings. I come back to my earlier point on parenting – one assumes that they pay such extortionate fees so their little ones are NOT exposed to such works of art at such a young age.

Neither was I there to witness the people who work in dance4life, who kindly welcomed the instillation in with open arms, with the only concern being that it didn’t set off the smoke alarm. I’m yet to figure that one out…

With 12.30 fast approaching, my colleague called to explain that we were going to struggle to find a location around Parliament that would not re-ruffle the feathers of the bobbies, and that despite having all the right permission in place we might not be able to go ahead as planned. Not one to let an idea go, I suggested we try and get permission to stand actually on Westminster Bridge, looking back on to the Houses of Parliament, as that would make a good backdrop and would presumably come under a different ‘location’ to Parliament Square and Old Palace Yard.

And so my trustee colleague set about seeking the right person in the right department of the right council office to begin the process of explaining about the campaign, the condoms and the shoot. She duly disappeared for a while to consult the computer and came back, some what surprisingly, with a yes. My favourite bit of their conversation what when she asked my colleague if we intended to release the helium condoms to fly off in to the air, to which he said no. “Good”, she said in all seriousness. “Cos we can’t  have a bunch of flying condoms bringing down a light aircraft now can we.”

Come 12.30, my colleague dragged the instillation back out from the charity offices, back past London’s premier public school, back past Old Palace Yard, back past the policemen, back past the tourists of Parliament Square, and up on to the middle of Westminster Bridge, trailed by a film crew, photographers, and a gaggle of very willing and patient celebs. He said the most depressing thing was hearing the police talk to each other on their radios, about him. “Here he comes again. The condoms are crossing at the lights and moving south towards the bridge…”

I missed the second shoot as I was busy with something else, but did manage to look out of the window in time to catch the ending of it, where I saw my colleague, unable to cope with the shame or responsibility of the instillation any more, manically attacking it with a pair of scissors, popping every single last condom until they lay deflated and limp on the floor, more fitting for the corner of some brothel or dodgy film set than at the foot of the landmark that is Big Ben. 

The rest of the day ran smoothly, and Shereece made an awesome impression on her audience, got loads of coverage, and had a great episode that made it on to T4 this morning. I will look back at campaign, and this day, and always remember the utter ridiculousness of it all, the moments of shame, humiliation and exhasperation, that my colleague and, at times myself, went through to make this all happen.

All in the name of trying to change the world. And all, as they say, in a  day’s work.

Here’s some of the press and photos of the day:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2011/11/16/x-factor-winner-matt-cardle-poses-with-dozens-of-condom-balloons-to-promote-sex-education-115875-23565840/

http://www.3am.co.uk/TeeHee/matt-cardle-helps-promote-the-lets-91040

http://www.heatworld.com/Celeb-News/2011/11/Matt-Cardle-talks-sex-education-And-those-are-not-balloons-in-the-picture/

If you have 10 minutes here is the episode that went out on T4: 

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/battlefront/4od    

And if you like the look of Shereece’s campaign you can follow here on twitter (@_TalkAboutSex), www.facebook.com/TalkAboutSex and www.battlefront.co.uk/sex 

Flicking through Banksy’s coffee table book, Wall and Piece, I came across this image of a group of people in a POW camp, all wearing piercing red lipstick in an otherwise dull scene. It is a striking look, but I didn’t really get the meaning until I read its accompanying text which was an extract from the diary of Lt. Colonel Gonin, one of the first British soldiers to arrive at the Nazi death camp Bergen-Belsen, which was liberated in April 1945 close to the end of the Second World War:

“I can give no adequate description of the horror camp in which my men and ourselves were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singularly or in pairs where they had fallen.  

It took a little time to get used to seeing men and women and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect. It was however, not easy to watch a child choking to death from diptheria when you knew a tracheotomy and nursing would save it, one saw women drowing in their own vomit because they were too weak to turn over, and men eating worms clutching a half loaf of bread purely because they had had to eat worms to live and now could scarcely tell the difference.

Piles of corpses, naked and obscene, with a woman too weak to stand propping herself against them as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching down just anywhere in the open relieving themselves of the dysentery which was scouring their bowels, a woman standing stark naked washing herself with some issue soap in water from a tank in which the remains of a child floated.

It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of red lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genious, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for those internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wondering bout with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.”

So the Yoga is progressing well…

Let me tell you something about India. There are people begging almost everywhere. Old people, young people, people with children, people with disabilites. And it absolutely breaks your heart.

I’ve felt compelled to give something to nearly every begger who approaches me, in the hope that they will be able to buy some food, but also in the hope that it will relieve some of the guilt I feel from being a relatively rich person in a relatively poor country. 

Indian people, on the whole, have shown me a lot of warmth and generosity. I’m often offered free food and chai which I know is down to my novilty, but I’ve noticed that they are not so generous to the people begging, to those who really need their charity. 

I’ve learnt that a lot of this comes down to the caste system and people’s places within it. The beggars are often ‘untouchables’ and therefore people are not compelled to help them, which makes their cases even more tragic. 

When you take a train, at every station or stop beggars jump on board and work the carriages, asking for rupees. I’m always giving them some which often attracts smiles or even laughs from other passengers, as if to say “what did you do that for”, which has annoyingly made me self conscious of donating.  

Also when the train stops, small boys about 8 or 9 years old get on and sweep the carriage floor, working their way round peoples feet on their hands and knees. At the end of this they ask people for a donation, which is rarely fruitful. It seems untouchables are not always worth paying for a service either. 

I was on a train last night when one of these young boys came on baord with his broom in his hand, about to start sweeping, when he heard me talking to an Indian lady next to me. He immediately ran over and started to speak to me in English, with the usual line of questioning: hello, whats your name, where are you from, etc. 

I don’t know why but I suddenly felt really conscious of everyone on the train watching me. They had seen me give money to the last two sweeping boys on the train, and I felt like they were judging me for being a soft touch, or not understanding their culture towards them. So I decided, against my instinct, to do as they were doing and to just ignore this boy and keep chatting to the lady. 

He carried on asking me questions and saying things in very good English. His grammar and pronounciation were perfect which surprised me as he can’t have gone to school. But as more people looked on I felt determined to keep ignoring him, as if I had a point to prove. 

Then the boy suddenly switched to Hindi and started saying a loud and almost aggressive sounding speech, which drew more attention from the carriage, and more than the odd smile and laugh. I asked the lady what he was saying, and she began to translate it for me, laughing as she went:

“All I want to do is talk to you in English. Why won’t you talk to me? I’m not asking you for money. I just wanted to come and speak to you in English, to show you that even a poor boy like me can speak your language. Don’t go back to your country and say that everyone in India begs for money because I don’t, I’m not a beggar. I sweep floors for money and I was never going to ask you for money. All I wanted was just to speak to you in English”. 

And with that he walked off, to a carriage full of people laughing, at him. 

My heart sank. I felt totally ashamed of myself. 

I’ve been here a month now and in that time I suppose I have become hardened to the sights that first hit you, and if I’m honest jaded from the constant stream of people who ask for things from you. I’ve also become aware of the Indian customs, too aware perhaps, as on that train I decided to adhere to custom over giving an 8 year old boy the time of day. And I deeply, deeply regret it. 

Despite being an untouchable who swept around peoples feet on hot, crowded and dirty train carriages, his sense of pride was more than honourable, and if I ever see him again I will talk to him for as long as he will let me. 

Embarassing moment #344.

After enjoying a nice cold beer, whilst watching the sun set over the Ganges, reading a gripping chapter in my book and snacking on a savoury treat, I got up from my table to go take a shower when a man in his 40’s, a white guy, with lots of beads hanging from his neck and prematurely grey hair sprouting on top, stopped me and started talking.

I didn’t quite catch what he said, so apologising I asked him to repeat it.

Once again, I couln’t quite make it out and couldn’t even detect what language it was.

After his third attempt I apoloigiesd once more and slowly told him that I was English.

“And I’m from Liverpool”, he replied, equally as slowly. “Haven’t you ever met a Scouse before?”

I’ve never been one to shy away from talking about my bowels and their movements, but since arriving in India I just can not get over quite how much people talk about shitting.

It seems to be the third question people ask when they meet a fellow traveller: what’s your name? where are you from? have you had the shits yet?

Being a liberal man in most areas of conversation, I of course give an obliging answer, but both the frequency and the timings of the question, and the detailed depths of others answers, was really starting to get to me.

I’ve had one guy tell me over breakfast that his shit the night before came out the same colour and consistency as my chai, whilst pointing at my cup as if to emphasise his point.

I’ve had one girl tell me over lunch how her a* hole is like a whoopie cushion - when she sits on the seat it just explodes out in one violent movement.

And just the other day I had a married couple who are travelling with their 20 month old daughter tell me over dinner that a breast fed baby’s poo smells of yeast mixed with rotting eggs.

Well, I had my own poo incident this week which has added a whole new dimension to the regular conversations on the matter. Since coming to India I have, touch wood, remained pretty well, so had no juicy toilet tales to add to the mix. Then over the last ten days I noticed that quite the opposite was happening with my movements - if anything I was becoming constipated.

By about day four I began to wonder what was up. All around me I was surrounded by tales of diarrheoa and dysentery, whereas I couldn’t even squeeze one out for love nor money.

Thankfully the mystery was solved a few mornings back as I was going though my wash bag taking the numerous supplements and pills that I’ve prescribed myself for the trip. Turns out I’d only bloody mixed my pro biotics up with my herbal immodium, and for the past seven days have been double dropping shit stoppers with breakfast, lunch and tea.

Three days on and the eagle has still not landed. My stomach is in cramps and I have a paunch the size of a large molehill, but at least I now have an answer that will stop even the most hardy shit story traveller in their skid marks.

So I’ve recently checked myself in to rehab a yoga retreat up in a Himilayan town called Rishikesh, and as you can see from the photo things are coming along well. 

I’ve been on it for a week now, living with no booze, following a vegan diet, and getting to bed before the 10pm curfew. Just how I like things, as you might imagine…

The Yoga classes have been going from one extreme to the other. Sometimes I feel like I’m Clarke Kent as I literally am able to hover off the ground and for a very short amount to time stand on my head. Other times I can’t even seem to cross my legs, and more than once I’ve toppled over in a pose and taken down the statue like person next to me. 

The retreat, also known as an Ashram, does meditation classes too, which consists of a 90 year old man teaching you how everything from heart disease to thrush can be prevented by sitting cross legged pinching your fingers together for 20 minutes every morning. Watch out NHS.  

I’m not really taking to meditation. You’re meant to sit and count your breathing and so far my conscious memory is of three breaths before I find myself drifting off thinking about everything from exactly what I would be doing right now at home to the other more conventional ways one could cure thrush. Plus I find that a fly will land on my face approximately once every six seconds, and as you’re not allowed to move your hands from your knees, and can only breath through your nose, I end up frantically twitching my head as if I have tourettes. 

There have been a couple of epic moments, like sitting in a Yoga class led by a man who is 103 years old and has the flexibility of a raggie doll. 103 in Indian terms could be anything from 93 to 113, but I can vouch for the fact that he was the oldest and most flexible person I have ever seen. And there have been a couple of low moments, like hearing India win the World Cup from my cell like room, unable to go and join in the celebrations as it was 10.30 and the gates were locked!

But overall I am saluting the sun and flexing my hips, all in the hope of one day being able to bend over backwards. Here is hoping!

So the other day I decided to go white water rafting, and got paired up in a raft with four young local Uni students who amusingly looked a lot like the Indian Inbetweeners. That’s where their similarities ended though, as I was soon to discover. 

Things started well as we were all bundled in to a Jeep and sped off through the rocky mountain roads of the Himalayas, bouncing around through the most stunning scenery. 

I began to try and chat to them, the usual round of questions, but was met with painfully quiet and non responsive answers. This was not for a language barrier though, they all spoke great English. When they spoke at all.

I figured they might be weirded out by the overly enthusiastic snap happy tourist, so I left them to it while I watched the view. But nope, still they sat in silence not even chatting to each other.

The Jeep pulled over and unloaded the raft on to the river where there were tens of other rafts and loads of groups of Indians all whooping and splashing around in the water in excited anticipation. My lot just got out and stood there.

Attempting to gee them up I tried out some Hindi on them, and as that failed I pretended to pop a raft with a cigarette. But no, still nothing. Not even a snigger.

Thinking that they were just saving themselves until we set sail, I hurried us all on board where we met our guide who ran through a water tight Health and Safety briefing (“if we sink, just swim. OK?”) before launching off in to the crystal blue waters of the Ganges.

I’ve honestly never seen such a stunning backdrop of mountains, trees and villages, and as I “ohhhh’d” and “ahhhh’d” at every rock and every ridge, I couldn’t help but feel awkward at the pin drop silence that plagued the rest of the team.

The guide was clearly unnerved by this as well, so initiated a few morale boasting high fives with our oars, which resulted in a couple of weak “whoops” and one guy dropping his oar overboard.

I shouted across to one asking if he was having fun. “Ohh yes. Too much fun” he replied through his expressionless sullen face. 

And then came the rapids. For anyone who’s been white water rafting before, you’ll know of the adrenaline rush of bashing through the waves, and how that inevitably leads to a noise of some sort. Not so here. For today was the day that I learnt to white water raft in silence.

Numerous other rafts overtook us, cheering and screaming at us, approaching to initiate a water fight then quickly retreating as they realised that our raft would be a too easy victory for them. We may as well have had a neon sign above saying “no fun to be had here, choose a different raft” as they started avoiding us like we were some loner pedalo bobbing amongst a mass of yachts.

I felt myself desperately looking across at the other rafts, trying to communicate a message with my eyes: “I’m not with them”, wishing I could jump ship and join another, any other, just ONE THAT SPOKE!

Lunch came and we pulled over to a rocky beach, full of a number of food carts all weirdly selling the Indian version of super noodles. I am always amused and intrigued at the culinary feasts that they are able to whip up from a wooden trolley and a kerosine stove, but seeing 12 different flavours of knor’s noodle range was not what I was expecting to find on a beach on the side of the Ganges. 

The boys signaled for me to sit with them to eat. At last, I though! Meal times always induce a good chat. But no, still not a word. 

The final straw for me came after lunch, when we all lined up like lemmings and jumped off a 20m cliff in to the river. I went first and obviously screamed for England, then bobbed below as I watched them one by one plop off like silent penguins, as if they were doing nothing more adrenaline fuelled than taking a plop of a different kind. 

I suppose I should be grateful that my day was nice and relaxing, but I couldn’t help wishing that one of them, at one point in the trip, had showed some small hint of an expression or emotion. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!