1 - 10 "Travel & Holidays"

1. New York City

The Chrysler Building, yellow cabs, bright lights, cocktails at the top of the Woolworth Building, walking around a park with Zadie Smith discussing the launch of my first novel, bridges between pale streets... New York is, I don't know why, the location for a good third of all my dreams. Especially dreams in which I am a writer.

Perhaps it is the architecture. The Chrysler. The Woolworth. The Flatiron. All that beauty. All that up. A climbing to the clouds. A city both in the sky and on the earth, it lends itself to imagination. It is strange that the magic realists all came from South and not North America. Or perhaps not: perhaps when the reality is as large as the New York skyline is, one doesn't need magic?

I speak almost as if I have already been there, which in a way I have. It is where my imagination lives. Where my creativity refuels. My dreams play out. In my head the city is a crumpled map and where the paper touches the streets bend to meet as well. It is where museums open out onto monkey houses. Where restaurants are frequented by talking rhinoceros. Where I walk from one mythical encounter to the next, across five or six dimensions, with only the limit of my thoughts as my boundaries...

So I want to see the reality. To see what the city really is. To climb its skyscrapers. To breath its air. To taste it. To lose myself in its bookshops. Its poetry. Its words.

2. Belgium

A more straight forward travel this one.

Belgium: Excellent beer, fine chocolate, mussels, chips, mayonnaise.

There are destinations that want, beg, us to see as much as possible. I defy anyone with a healthy interest in the world to even scrape the surface of Vienna in a long weekend. The dumbest thing I have ever heard was upon telling someone that Jo and I were, for our honeymoon, spending three weeks in New Zealand their reply of "yeah, any longer than that and you would run out of things to do." You could live in New Zealand for a century and not run out of things to do.

Belgium however, lends itself to that other sort of holiday. The type where we learn to slow our pace and take things more gently. To learn to sit back and observe. That isn't to imply that there is nothing to do in Belgium but to accept the fact that after a hearty lunch and a few cherry beers there is only so far one is prepared to move.

Second on the list then is a short break in Belgium. Drinking, eating, sitting. Doing a lot of not doing a lot.

Beer, chips and chocolate.

Maybe read a Tintin or two.

3. Dublin

I am perhaps the only person in the world who hasn't been to Dublin. Seeing as one of my friends lives there and another is in the process of joining him, and seeing as I have never met anyone with a bad word to say about the place, and seeing as how I really like Ireland, I feel I really should make the ridiculously short journey across the sea and visit the place at some point in the next decade.

Sooner rather than later really.

Ireland produces some good cheeses too. Very, very good cheeses.

4. Machu Picchu

The big, expensive holiday.

I have tried to make the majority of things on my list 'do-able' even going so far as to put most of the more outlandish ideas in their own seperate section at the end. However if I am to pick one really big holiday in the next ten years it will be this one. Machu Picchu.

I have done a little research. You can go on a holiday which inolves walking up part of the way to the top which means you get to spend the next morning there before all the other tourists turn up on the train. You can also extend your holiday with a trip to the amazon jungle.

I don't really need to go into a 'why' I want to go. It is an Inca city 8000ft in the sky. I think almost everyone would like to go.

5. The Aran Islands

When we went to Galway we didn't have time to get to the Aran Islands. In a nutshell I would quite like to spend a little time pootling about on the islands on a bicycle looking at old stones and that.

In our delicious postmodern world the Aran Islands are sold as being a taste of what Ireland was. The ferries that pour with tourists I'm sure put pay to that. However a bike and a notepad, a packed lunch and a search for solitude... Nothing is impossible.

The islands are all but littered with iron-age bits and pieces and they are as West as you can go without swimming to the Americas.

I would also like to go back to the area round Galway. Jo and I had a really nice time there a couple of years ago. Good food too. I remember fondly a perfectly cooked steak delicately garnished with about half a pound of garlic butter. mmmm soooo good.

6. The Pointless Pilgrimage

It was going to be Boltzman. It was always going to be Boltzman. I have always loved the idea of a man who died so committed to his theory that he had his equation, and nothing else, on his headstone. However. The truth is slightly less romantic. It seems that his rich and powerful friends put his equation on there. And it is on a huge headstone. And it has a bust. And it is in Vienna which is a little too mainstream a destination for a pointless pilgrimage.

But though the specific example is flawed the principle, the theory remains. The idea of a group of people going on a ridiculous journey to see one thing and then coming back, not necessarily feeling any better about themselves for doing it. The pointless pilgrimage.

Maybe it should still be Boltzman. Maybe I should read a biography and check my facts (I have read somewhere about a 'first' graveyard?) Maybe there is more to life than travelling half way across to Europe to visit the grave of a relatively obscure scientist anyway.

A pointless pilgrimage. Neal: any thoughts?

7. La Rochelle

Specifically the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in La Rochelle. The resting place of Zarafa, a Masai giraffe, the first to ever step foot on French soil when, in 1826, she arrived as a present for Charles X.

I first read about Zarafa in Michael Allin's book - Zarafa. I love giraffes, and I am not sure how I will feel about a stuffed one, but Zarafa is an interesting link between the unknown and the known. Zoos used to be better than cinema is now. A parade of wonders; of the previously impossible. Each shipment brought creatures new to most people, or only glimpsed in wildly inaccurate sketches.

On her travels across France from the south coast to Paris Zarafa drew whole towns of people desperate to see her. Nothing short of little green men could draw a similar crowd today.

So to see Zarafa, and to think about what she means now, now she has transformed from the new and the alien to the old, the dusty and the over familiar, is number seven on my list.

8. Edinburgh

It looks nice. I've never been.

9. Wild Camping - Scotland

Wild camping is all but illegal in England. In Scotland things are a little different.

Wild camping, for those of you who are not aware of it, is essentially what you have already guessed it is. Camping in the wild - without the 'luxuries' of the campsite. It is not, however, the silliness of 'survival' done by people like Ray Mears.

A simple definitive difference being that wild camping would be man with nature while survival is man versus nature. (I accept that using the word man and not person could be deemed as being sexist but I am quietly confident that when I go wild camping it won't be with Jo but with men - Jo would consider camping in the middle of nowhere, without showers, as being, well, a bit bloody stupid. She is right of course.)

So. Myself and a few other idiots, in tents, in a field, in Scotland, without showers.

10. Living Like A Moomin For A Little While

My last holiday choice is a bit vague. It is also difficult to explain to someone unfamiliar with the books. Moomins tend to just please themselves doing things.

A house, on the coast, or even better on an island. Things washed up on the shore. Small occupations such as collecting interesting stones and tiny adventures like getting slightly lost in a nearby wood or walking to a big stone on the horizon to see what is there.

Biscuits for breakfast, a picnic at lunchtime, an over-elaborate party in the evenings now and again.

11 - 20 "Nature & The Countryside"

11. See Ruffs Lekking

Ruffs are quite nondescript brown things in winter but come the summer the males produce enormously elaborate feathers around their heads and necks including the huge 'ruffs' from which they get their names. Not only are they large they are also almost infinitely variable, brown, black, white, orange, plain or banded, all one colour or a mixture, these birds are a perfect example of selection based on sexual preference taken to extreme. Most birds that grow feathers for display are competing to grow the best of a particular type. With Ruff almost anything goes.

Lekking is the word given to some birds displaying to prospective mates. The Ruff lek silently, a strange dance of hops and droops, wing fluttering and crouching, with the odd interlude for attacking their rivals. To see a large group of lekking males probably involves a trip to Sweden or somewhere similar.

12. See A Common Crane

I wanted to find video for this for those of you unfamiliar with common cranes. Unfortunately the only one I could find which gives some idea of their size is one in which they get down to business in - although the cameraman's reaction is pretty funny.

Crane are big bastards. Even the normally reserved Collins Bird Guide describes them as 'huge'. They have a wingspan that can be well in excess of two metres. They are also, just about, a British species, having been reintroduced a little while ago. They have managed a couple of successful attempts at breeding and their future looks reasonably bright.

They are though, despite their size, quite difficult to see. They are shy and surprisingly good at hiding. They also spend a fair amount of the year flying all over the place. It is not impossible that one will find me before I find them. We will have to see.

13. See Giraffes In The Wild

Oh no! I'm spending money again!

Giraffes are the most beautiful creatures in the world. With their little horns and their deep blue tongues they are other-wordly. Nothing else I have ever seen fills me with wonder in quite the same way. Even in captivity they are infinitely captivating. To see them in the wild, to see them free to run around, would be truly amazing.

14. St Bees Head, Bempton Cliffs

St Bees Head is an RSPB nature reserve on the coast near Whitehaven. In actuality the cliffs below a cliff top walk. On these cliffs nest thousands of birds. On the opposite side of the country lie Bempton Cliffs, a slightly more family friendly version with slightly different birds (gannets instead of black guillemots in case you are interested)


So spring, sun, sea and puffins. And maybe an ice cream.

15. See a Nightjar

Again a video for those unfamiliar with the bird in question. It is quite a long video so you might just want to go to the last minute or so to see the nightjar's huge mouth and watch it fly off, changing itself from a brown bird to a spectral flicker.

The nightjar. Nocturnal. Increasingly rare. Both unnaturally ugly and stunningly beautiful at the same time. A special treat for a moonlit walk at the edge of some of Britain's woods in summer.

16. "Everybody knows, Badger loves..." - See badgers in the wild

I am led to believe that badgers in the wild do not eat mashed potato. Nor do they disrupt the smooth running of a bed and breakfast in Brighton with their own peculiar brand of mashed potato humour. Apparently even my belief that you can find badgers by listening for their distinctive call of "allo mousy" is largely unfounded.

Real badgers are still pretty cool mind you and like so many of us I have only ever seen them as a surprisingly big lump at the side of the road. I would like to see a live one.

And If I can persuade one to live in my house, with hilarious mashed potato consequences, so much the better.

17. Be Slightly Underwhelmed by the Llangeryw Yew

Trees so very rarely give satisfaction. More accurately trees that are supposed to be amazing are so often not the ones that you connect with. Nevertheless, in the interests of fairness, I have included a tree in my list. The Llangeryw Yew (I'm no Welsh speaker but from the place name I would imagine the yew outdates the village) Actually even if I couldn't work that out from the name I already know that it is true, because not only does the tree outdate the church it outdates the church; it is older than Christianity.

So a day trip to see a tree. Maybe a picnic. A local sheep's cheese perhaps.

18. One Hundred Birds In A Day

This one is a bit geeky I'm afraid. Well. Its quantification is but perhaps not its motive.

It is far from impossible to see a hundred different bird species in one day. A fast car, a few different habitats and Bob's your uncle. This is NOT what I mean by a hundred birds in a day.

Rather the idea is to have a day in the country when the world is seemingly alive with wildlife. I don't go to the birds, the birds come to me.
I want to experience the variety and wonder of British birdlife in one magnificent day. A day when every tree seems to be alive with birds, where every pool is squeezed full of ducks, where every minute brings new and different sights.

So how do I achieve that? By luck I suppose. That and getting out in the countryside a bit more.

19. Visit The Worlds First Bumblebee Sanctuary

I like bumblebees. I am a member of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. They have a Bumblebee Sanctuary. I would like to go. It is that simple.

It is a twenty acre meadow beside Loch Leven. A place where bees can bumble to their hearts content.

20. Zoo Parc de Beauval

I am a bit of a sucker for zoos. I have dragged Jo round Madrid, Vienna, Knowsley, South Lakes, etc... I will happily admit that zoos are in no way perfect, and in an ideal world they would be giant sprawling things the size of cities, but we don't live in an ideal world. They are an essential tool in conservation. Good zoos are also the coolest places in the world. Look at the animals! Look at the animals!

So it is no surprise that I have got a zoo on my list. I have picked Zoo Parc de Beauval because they have a family of manatee. The manatee and dugong are amongst my very favourite animals and ones that I will almost certainly not see in the wild. Sea cows are so wonderfully melancholy in their movement and so gentle. I honestly got a bit teary at the Steller's Sea Cow display at the Natural History Museum. Those poor dumb trusting things. Perhaps the greatest creature to ever breath and we wiped them out within a decade of finding them.

I cannot bring back the long dead but I can see what remains of their genetic cousins before we kill them all as well. So I'll get to see the manatee. Remind me to pack tissues for if I get a bit maudlin.

21 - 30 "Adventures/Big Days Out"

21. Deep Sea Fishing

Hypocrite that I am I follow up ten must-see animals with a must-kill.

Yes, I am a moron.

I have though, always been rather taken with the idea of deep sea fishing. You know the sort of thing where you are strapped to a boat and you end up with a fish so big you have your photo next to it as it hangs from a big comedy set of scales. A fish roughly the size of Andre the Giant. And everyone is wearing shorts and baseball caps.

22. Hot Air Balloon

This is already booked. It was on Rob's 'things to do before he was thirty' list. Unfortunately bad weather meant he couldn't do it in time. I on the otherhand have ten years.

23 Cycle the Pennine Bridleway

The Pennine Bridleway isn't finished yet. When it is it will stretch from Derbyshire to Northumberland and be approximately 350 miles long.

A cycle holiday down the 'backbone of England', a gastro pub or two, some fine cheeses, one or two local real ales...

Any questions?

24. A Day At The Zoo

London Zoo has a scheme where you can be a zookeeper for a day. You get to do things like feeding the giraffes, cleaning the penguin pool, and going behind the scenes in the big cat houses. I would like to spend a day doing that.

25. Norfolk by Canoe

There is a lot of water in Norfolk, with a lot of animals on it. Unfortunately boats make quite a bit of noise and tend to scare all the birds and otters away. Canoes don't make noise so floating one down the broads gives you a much closer encounter with the areas wildlife. There is also a nice element of the 'boys adventure' in being out in the wilds on a canoe with your binoculars and your packed lunch.

26. Go on a Rollercoaster

I was a frightened lamb of a child. I was scared of lots of things. Consequently I have never been on a rollercoaster. I hear they are a lot of fun so I really should rectify things.


They all have silly names don't they? Apparently Thorpe Park has one called X:No Way Out. You do get up to 5.5Gs mind you, which may well wipe the condescending smile off my face.

27. Dark Sky Park - Galloway

When Jo and I were in New Zealand, one evening we walked along the edge of a vinyard to a restaurant. On the way home there was almost no light pollution and for the first time in my life I understood how the Milky Way got its name. There were so many stars the sky did look milky. It was incredible, truly stunning, and made you wonder what we gave up in order to get street lighting.

I have never seen the stars of the Northern Hemisphere so clearly. The place I would like to do so is Galloway Forest Park, which has just been granted Dark Sky Park status due to its almost non-existant light pollution.

The visit would, I think, be best during a meteorite shower.

28. A Summer Solstice Adventure

On the hills near where I live there is what remains of what appears to be an old shepherds dwelling. Whether it was used overnight or more permanently I'm not sure. It is very small, essentially one room with a fire place and a stone table, or possibly small bed.

I would like to walk up to the 'house' with a few friends on the night before the solstice and stay there overnight. Watching the sun go down, sharing some food, chatting the night away, and then, finally watching the sun rise for the solstice.

It goes without saying that there is no mystical reason for picking the summer solstice. I picked it for the more practical reason of having a short night and an early sunrise. I am quite happy to do it a day earlier or later for better weather.

The moors are a very different place at sunrise than they are in the day. They seem wilder. I have been up there early but never seen them go to sleep or come to life the next morning. It should be a good experience.

29. Walk the Jurassic Coast

Fossils!

The Jurassic coast stretches from Exmouth to just past Swanage. It is a world heritage site. It has that honour due to its enormous geological interest.

I'm sorry, did I ever say I wasn't a geek? May we continue?

It includes ninety five miles of unspoilt cliffs and beaches and the South West Coast Path National Trail spans it. I fancy walking along that path with some friendly companions, stopping off now and again to eat an ice cream and look for fossils, and just to bask in the geological glory of it all.

30. Paragliding

"They're floaty light."

This has always seemed to me to be a particularly sophisticated way to get back down a hill you have walked up. Just float back down. I'll give that a go.

31 - 40 "Food & Drink"

31. The Fat Duck, Bray

I won't be the only person to put The Fat Duck on a list of things to do this year. It is all but a cliché of a thing to do. It is the swimming-with-dolphins of the food world.

That doesn't alter the fact that I want to go though.

32. St John

Fergus Henderson is a chef's chef. He is the man that almost single-handedly put offal back on the British menu. His restaurant is St. John in London. He does things with trotters and marrow bones. I want to eat his food.

33. Northcote

Northcote is both one of Britain's best restaurants and a beautiful hotel. It is also one of the treasures of Lancashire (my home county).

I want to spend a romantic weekend there with Jo, eating delicious food and exploring the local countryside.

If you want to know why, just click on the link, all will become clear very quickly.

34. Ultimate Picnic!

OK so you don't often see the word picnic garnished with an exclamation mark but that is sort of the point of this choice. To plan, create, execute, eat and enjoy the perfect picnic.

I love a picnic. One the year before last in Norfolk with very good friends springs immediately to mind. Now I want to take the picnic to the next level, to the last level, the ultimate level, the ultimate picnic!

The danger of course is to over-complicate. You don't, for example, want courses at a picnic. It has to be a collection of food randomly placed to be grazed at. There must be both quality and quantity. There must be variety but not eccentricity. It's a minefield! (actually minefields and picnics rarely mix well)

So how to measure a 'tick' for this one? What makes an ultimate picnic? I think it is probably one of those things that when it happens, you'll know. You'll just know.

35. Make Beech Leaf Noyau

The recipe comes from Richard Mabey's Food For Free and is a "thickish, sweet spirit, mild and slightly oily to taste, like sake, but devastating in its effects!" It all starts with steeping young beech leaves in gin.

I have fancied making it for a while now. It is unusual and I can source it ridiculously close to home. I'll save you a bottle if you like...

36. Cheese Festival

The renaissance in British food has seen the rise of the cheese festival. I think I would like to go to one of those.

37. A Day Mushrooming

What could improve a walk in the woods more than picking up bits of the forest and eating them?

In France every pharmacy can, and happily will, go through the mushrooms you have picked and check that they are safe to eat. How much better a country they have in some respects! In Britain almost nobody has any expertise in mushrooms, and the majority of those who do have moved here from mainland Europe. Luckily some of those few experts run mushrooming days - a healthy mix of country walk and culinary afternoon.

So, with Boots not prepared to do its fair share, I will go on a day course and pick some mushrooms.

38. One Hundred Ice Creams

I own an ice cream machine.

I love eating ice cream.

So why does the machine hide at the back of a cupboard?

That's life eh?

Well not in the Glorious Decade it isn't. The next ten years will see me make one hundred, different, ice creams. Not a massive target being as it is slightly less than one a month, but a nice total - 100 ice creams - to aim for.

So it is liberation for the ice cream machine. Viva la revolution!

39. The Devil's Toast

The last time we went to Oxford, Rob took us to a Slovakian restaurant called Moya. One of their starters - The Devil's Toast - would, he assured me, give me a 'boner' it was so good.

The Devils Toast is sour dough bread topped with smoked sausage, onions, tomatoes, peppers, fresh chillies, and grilled goats milk cheese. It sounded good but there were specials and traditional bits and bobs and Jo was having it so I could try hers and...

Big mistake. The Devil's Toast is so much more than the sum of its parts. I tried Jo's and immediately started plotting how I could get more. I want more. I will have to go back.

40. Caviar (and fine wine)

How much better is proper caviar? How much better is expensive wine? I suppose there is only one way to find out. By spending lots of money.

Lots of money...

Lucky I have ten years to save up isn't it.

If we say, what, £2 a week, every week, for ten years, that would make... £1040. Sod it, we'll say £3 a week. That makes £1560 at the end of the decade. To be spent, frittered if you like, on caviar and fine wine.

A glass of very expensive wine in one hand and a mother-of-pearl spoon laced with glistening beluga eggs in the other. A fitting end to a glorious decade, and a nice way to start planning the next one.

41 - 50 "Life"

41. Breed

Baby Cynical! Hooray! Hooray!

If I am to pass my genes on then sooner is the better of later. I don't want to be too old when my child scores the winning goal in the World Cup. (Of course I know that might not happen. She might not like playing football. I know that. I know that.)

I have none of those liberal "I couldn't bring a child into this terrible world" hang-ups. This world is mint! Have you seen the choice of second hand books on Amazon Marketplace? Have you been to the seaside? Have you tried Gorgonzola? Have you heard Roxy Music's first two albums? This world is quality.

And so, this decade, barring biological hiccups, I would like to become a dad. Too be honest I have been getting increasingly clucky since Jo and I tied the knot and I don't think it will be long now before we see the pitter patter of tiny, cynical feet.

42. Lose Weight

I have started on this one already.

I am not a massive man but I have a bit of a belly. It needs to go.

As I say I have started already, 9lbs down and about a stone to go (I think, once the belly has gone I don't need to lose any more weight for the sake of it do I?)

Once it has gone I need to make sure it stays gone. Some cycling, some walking, a little less chocolate...that should do it.

43. A Nice Wardrobe

So if I'm no longer a fatty I can wear nice clothes again.

Number 43: To open my wardrobe and not see any loose, baggy T-shirts that cover up my beer belly. No jeans that the knee is about to go in. No odd socks. No crap old pants. No coats that no one could love. Just clothes that I love and that I look good in. Not necessarily anything expensive or particularly trendy but things that I feel good about wearing.

44. The 'Last' Move

I love our little house but it only has room for a child or my books. Short of giving up the idea of being parents I can only see one solution; moving.

I do not however want to spend the rest of my life moving house. The next move has to be the 'last' move. The move to the big family house. Putting to one side for a moment matters of cost it would be a big topsy-turvy, chaotic farmhouse with a library and a giant kitchen. Putting cost back into the equation... well, we will have to wait and see won't we.