According to the Mayan calendar, the world
was supposed to have come to an end on 21 December. Fortunately, it didn't and,
on the morning of Saturday 22 December, I wake up feeling relaxed and glad to
have a day off work. Breakfast with my wife Sue and some good music playing in
the background. My iPod shuffles and offers up some jazzy flamenco.
‘Is this the guitarist we went to see in Worcester?’
asks Sue, meaning Eduardo Niebla.
'No, this is Paco de Lucía,' I say, and
marvel at the speed of his playing.
After breakfast we go to Bridgnorth, a
quaint little town just over the border into Shropshire. We wander round a few
charity shops and I pick up a couple of paperbacks that I've always meant to read
-- Jack Kerouac's On the Road (I lent
my son Dan my other unread copy) and a nice clean copy of Gabriel García Márquez’s
One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Later, I treat myself to the latest issue
of Songlines magazine. I've never
bought this before but I do like a bit of world music and I can't resist a
bargain of three free gifts with the magazine -- a free CD, a free calendar and a free book.
When I get home, I have time to relish my
horde of goodies. The free book is a beautifully-designed paperback by a
publisher called Route publishing, The Train
of Ice and Fire. From the blurb, it sounds right up my street:
'Columbia, November, 1993; a reconstructed
old passenger train is carrying one hundred musicians, acrobats and artists on
a daring adventure through the heart of a country soaked in violence. Leading
this crusade of hope is Manu Chao with his band Mano Negra. Manu's father, Ramón
Chao is on board to chronicle the journey... '
And I read on to discover that
the train journey ends up in Aracataca which, the blurb explains, is 'the
real-life Macondo of One Hundred Years of
Solitude.’ So the free book I’ve just acquired makes reference to one of
the other books I've just bought from a charity shop.
After that surprising coincidence, I take a
look at the free Songlines calendar
and wonder who it is pictured playing the guitar. It turns out to be Paco de
Lucía, the very same who had serenaded us at breakfast-time. With such synchronicities I can't help
thinking the Maya have got it all wrong. If this isn’t the end of the world perhaps it’s
the beginning of a promising new era. It
turns out that, over in the heartland of the ancient Maya civilisation, the Yucatan
governor Rolando Zapata, agrees with me:
‘We believe that the beginning of a new baktun’ - a cycle of the calendar - ‘means the beginning of a new
era, and we're receiving it with great optimism,’ said Zapata. With my free
Songlines 2013 calendar, my family and friends, my books, my music and my coincidences, who am I to dismiss
these auguries? So have a Merry
Christmas and a very Happy New Year.
