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Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven | | | PRINT THIS PAGE | | | | | FACTS | | Name: Morris Telford
Age: 33
DOB: 18/04/70
Occupation:Unemployed
Hobbies: Enlightenment, Philosophy, Bingo Favourite book – Ordnance Survey Map of Shropshire 1999 edition Favourite foods – Pickled Eggs Favourite film – Late For Dinner
Favourite colour – The delicate cyan of the dinnertime sky in Moreton Say.
Favourite British County – Shropshire
Favourite Place – Moreton Say
Favourite Postal Code Area – TF9
Favourite radio
frequency - 96FM
Favourite sound – The gentle breeze rustling through the leafy glades of Moreton Say
Favourite Clive – Clive of India
Favourite Iron Bridge - Ironbridge
Favourite adhesive note size – 75 x 75mm
Favourite Vegetable – Anything grown in the fertile soils of Shropshire
Favourite band – Men From Earth *(shameless plug)
Biggest inspiration – Marlowe Bidforth | | MESSAGES | | | Is Morris a madman, a genius - or both? Have your say on our Morris Telford Message Board - and see what other people are saying about him. | |
| | Now that Lang is showing me some basic moves, I have to call him "Sensei Pin".
This in itself didn’t bother me, but after several hours of grinding my knuckles in a bucket of sand to harden them and then being made to sleep at the foot of Lang’s bed in a small cage, I feel the employer/employee relationship has changed somewhat.
I only wanted to learn how to look threatening and then run away but Lang seems intent on turning me into his prodigy.
When I find the appropriate moment I’ll explain to him that I am a man of peace and I don’t see how hitting and kicking people will convince them to move to Shropshire.
Violence is never the answer. Unless of course the question is "Think of a word that rhymes with fence and starts with ‘V’, or "What is Vinnie Jones famous for?", or "What is Ecneloiv spelled backwards?".
Violence is hardly ever the answer. I’m on a 24 hour a day training schedule. I haven’t worked this hard since Aunt Felicity sprained her ankle on the top of the Wrekin and I had to carry her home.
Lang is a harsh master. Every time I try to tell him that I want to stop doing the Pouncing Leopard and start doing the Sleeping Morris he prods me with a stick and shouts at me in Mandarin.
I am bruised, tired and sore, but I must admit I do feel fitter and stronger than I ever have before. My muscles are firm and my head is clear.
I’ve been put on a strict diet of water and rice, though I have been able to supplement this with some gingerbread I had hidden in my bag, and by sucking on a copy of "War Poems of Wilfred Owen" that I spilled Ribena over while I was in Holland. It still retains a blackcurrenty flavour and hopefully some vitamin C content . Sensei Pin has an extensive library of books on the martial arts.
I am permitted three hours at night to study these texts. They are really quite fascinating. I’m looking through them to see if I can find anything to support my theory that martial arts originated in Shropshire.I’m actually getting quite interested in this whole martial arts thing.
In much the same way Bruce Lee took aspects of different martial arts to create Jeet Kune Do, I want to meld judo , kendo, karate, wing chun, arnis, silat, kung-fu throw in a bit of Japanese Bujitsu, and the Kalaripayattu of India and develop a new Shropshire-inspired martial art based on a hybrid of all these teachings, but concentrating more on the running away bit.
I shall call it "The Way Of The Badger". I had a phone call from Julie today. She was incredibly apologetic for the way she acted before.
Apparently the advertising campaign that features my photo and something about me smelling like a dead animal has become a massive hit. She wants me to feature in a series of television adverts.
I told her that there were two very good reasons why I could not feature in a series of television adverts.
Firstly, I explained to her again that it would be against my principles to endorse a product I did not think highly of. If people see me as someone who supports an inferior product for personal gain, they may mistake my championing of Shropshire as insincere, and that would be terrible.
Secondly, I’m currently chained to a cage while an aging, overweight master of the martial arts tries to turn me into Shropshire’s answer to Jon Claude Van Damme.
The Fists of Clay from Moreton Say . I tried yet again today to tell Sensei Pin that I don’t want to be a one man death machine.
H he just smiled peacefully and went on and on about how his teachings are not about death; they are about life, inner peace, tranquillity that sort of thing.
If it’s all so tranquil, why do I spend all day hitting and kicking things? Today I am permitted a 12 hour respite from my training schedule.
I shall be using this time to contemplate the things I have learned, rest a little and then to escape over the fence and run like the wind.
I’ve left Lang a note telling him he is fired. I gave him a months salary and an open invitation to Moreton Say, no hard feelings.
China is, I’ve decided, a difficult place to spread my particular Salopian message. The natives are not only suspicious generally of anything Western, they are doubly suspicious of the man from the "smells like a dead animal" advertisements trying to convince them about lifestyle changes.
However, Shropshire comes with me wherever I go, both literally and figuratively. I carry some of my homeland's soil (from my Mother’s garden in Moreton Say) in my pocket and I carry the intangible hopes and ideals distilled by the generations who have lived in Shropshire.
I still see a lot of potential here in China and I’m travelling north to see if I have more success in rural China.
I no longer have a guide to help me speak the language and show me around, but I have bought a phrasebook, some new trousers and I am in better shape physically than I’ve ever been, so I’m optimistic I can do some good somewhere.
I just hope Lang doesn’t follow me. |
