{"id":1163,"date":"2010-10-04T14:14:43","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T13:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?p=1163"},"modified":"2016-04-11T09:04:22","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T08:04:22","slug":"mr-nice-and-mr-nasty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/?p=1163","title":{"rendered":"Mr Nice and Mr Nasty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading Howard Marks\u2019s extraordinary Nr Nice<\/em> about his life and high times as a drug dealer I \u00a0slowly begin to realise that it is among many other things a travel book, albeit\u00a0a very unorthodox one.<\/strong><\/p>\n

.
\n\"howard_marks\"<\/a>Marks loves to travel.\u00a0 He also needs to.\u00a0 And given that he is usually carrying something that could get him into trouble, whether dope, cash or a false passport, his arrival at each airport carries an edge of excitement \u2013 what he describes as \u2018an asexual orgasm of crossing a border illicitly\u2019.\u00a0 Then he wanders, often stoned, through the foreign bright lights of a city, taking it all in, befriending taxi-drivers and ending up in a luxury penthouse suite \u2013 or meeting some Pushtan suppliers in their fortress on the North West Frontier.<\/p>\n

A lot of his business takes him to Thailand and Hong Kong, so there\u2019s a fair amount of nostalgia about the 70s and 80s pleasures of first class Asian airlines and their beautiful hostesses, an age of opulent air travel that may have passed forever, the glamour of which was celebrated in Spielberg\u2019s Catch Me If You Can<\/em> film.<\/p>\n

Certainly travelling Ryanair<\/strong>, as I did last week just after buying Marks\u2019s book at the airport, is enough to make you feel that these days every passenger might as well be suspected of being a drug-dealer.\u00a0 The level of cross-checking \u00a0and intimidation is intense.\u00a0 The slightest deviation of hand baggage allowance will be punished with the full weight of the Michael O’Leary Law (will his autobiography be titled Mr Nasty<\/em>?).\u00a0 Need to change a date or a name on a ticket?\u00a0 Or add a bag?\u00a0 More often than not it will cost you as much as the original ticket.<\/p>\n

The yellow plastic fittings and lack of an adjustable seat make you feel you\u2019re on a banana boat ride at a fairground attraction. Fine for a few minutes but not for a few hours.\u00a0 And for some strange reason they seem to have a policy of keeping the \u2018safety belt sign\u2019 on for as long as possible during the flight, causing some distress to the pregnant lady next to me who needed to use the facilities.<\/p>\n

So on arrival in Morocco, far from causing me the excitement felt by Marks, I felt a bit drained \u2013 as if I had managed to get through a tedious bureaucratic experience like an American visa.\u00a0 They wear you down, do Ryanair.\u00a0 And they really don\u2019t need to.\u00a0 Given a choice between Marks and O\u2019Leary as to who I\u2019d rather have sitting beside me on a flight, I know who I\u2019d go for.<\/p>\n

Note \u2013 anyone doubting Howard\u2019s abilities as a travel writer should check out his account of Colombia<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Howard Marks\u2019s extraordinary Nr Nice about his life and high times as a drug dealer I \u00a0slowly begin to realise that it is among many other things a travel book, albeit\u00a0a very unorthodox one. . Marks loves to travel.\u00a0 He also needs to.\u00a0 And given that he is usually carrying something that could get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,3],"tags":[68,69],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","category-travel","tag-howard-marks","tag-ryanair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1163"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2909,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions\/2909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thewhiterock.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}