Hit me with your rhythm stick, part 1

I had a stupid idea. En route for Borneo a lyric kept going round that big bit of my brain that’s used to store pointless stuff: “in the wilds of Borneo”, from Ian Dury and the Blockheads’ track, hit me with your rhythm stick. If this means nothing to you, by the magic of internet, here’s the video –  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WGVgfjnLqc    As the lyrics below demonstrate, it references a series of disconnected locations around the world, some of which I intended to go to anyway and others that seemed perfectly acceptable places to visit. So, why not go to all of them and get hit with a rhythm stick or some other cretinous enactment of the lyrics and have them illustrated in photographic form as evidence of my dementia.

Certainly I needed a rhythm stick and something mundane like a drum stick wouldn’t do, being a travel  based scenario it demanded something cultural. One visit to an antique shop in Samarinda later and I was the proud owner of a Dayak Bahu tribe tuntun, a pig stick, on which pigs or parts thereof are impaled and barbecued. Suitably, entertainingly irrelevant I thought.

The Stick

Next were “the wilds”. A few days, a bus, motorbike and boat journey later I was on a quiet stretch of the Mahakam river, which seemed to qualify as, “in the wilds of Borneo”. Thankfully Rio from the Hotel Anda Dua in Tenggarong, who I had employed to show me around and translate was not short of a sense of humour and entered into the spirit of the event, though God knows what the local boatmen who I put in charge of photographic duties thought of the escapade.

In the wilds of Borneo

So that’s one destination in the bag. Here are the lyrics to give the rest of the itinerary, though not in that order, even if I compete it, but I am certainly going to try over the next couple of years to fit them in. Only finances will present a tangible barrier but it seems a good a reason as any for wasting money on.  Would Ian Dury have approved? I hope so, he certainly was up for a laugh once in a while.

In the deserts of Sudan
And the gardens of Japan
From Milan to Yucatan
Every woman, every man

Hit me with your rhythm stick
Hit me, hit me
Je t’adore, ich liebe dich
Hit me, hit me, hit me
Hit me with your rhythm stick
Hit me slowly, hit me quick
Hit me, hit me, hit me

In the wilds of Borneo
And the vineyards of Bordeaux
Eskimo, Arapaho
Move their body to and fro

Hit me with your rhythm stick
Hit me, hit me
Das ist gut! C’est fantastique
Hit me, hit me, hit me
Hit me with your rhythm stick
It’s nice to be a lunatic
Hit me, hit me, hit me

Hit me, hit me, hit me

In the dock of Tiger Bay
On the road to Mandalay
From Bombay to Santa Fe
Over hills and far away

Hit me with your rhythm stick
Hit me, hit me
C’est si bon, mm? Ist es nicht?
Hit me, hit me, hit me
Hit me with your rhythm stick
Two fat persons, click, click, click
Hit me, hit me, hit me

Hit me, hit me, hit me
Hit me, hit me, hit me, oww
Hit me, hit me, hit me, hit me
Hit me, hit me, hit me, hit me, hit me
Hit me, hit me, hit me, hit me