In Batting on the Bosphorus, a hilarious and eccentric traveler’s tale, Scotsman Angus Bell leaves Montreal and sets off in his Škoda to discover a hidden cricketing world across central and Eastern Europe. From Estonia to Crimea, Bell learns that Slavs are playing the Englishman’s game.
Between games, Bell is pursued by the KGB, becomes embroiled in a drug bust on the Midnight Express and seeks emergency treatment from a Romanian dentist. His travel companions include a Guatemalan anarchist, a Ukrainian chicken and a tobacco farmer who played cricket and rugby for Rhodesia.
I recently had a chat with Angus where I wasn’t the only skirt!
A Ukranian chicken is among your travel companions in Batting on the Bosphorus. What was her name? Did she travel light? What was the nature of your relationship -- did she provide you with breakfast?
mmm I think her name was Nadya, which means 'hope.' I don't know the names of her twenty chicks. Nadya travelled inside a Hugo Boss bag, with her children in a shoe box. Our relationship was strictly professional. She was a chick in need of a ride; I had a Skoda.
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What's so surprising about Slavs playing the Englishman's game?
mmm Like syphilis, cricket spread around the world thanks to British soldiers, but Eastern Europe wasn't one of their hot spots. It's like finding hockey in Congo.
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What is a "beer-drinking, armchair wannabe?" Name names, please!
mmm Sounds like my old man.
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Canadian Club? (One-word response, please.)
mmm Ginger ale.
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Sortilege?
mmm Criminal.
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You said that back in Montreal you are "continuing to build the life of a MEDIA SLUT (without the cocaine)." Is chocolate the new cocaine?
mmm I think chocolate is older than cocaine. Cricket is the new crack – it is all consuming, tears families apart, makes it near impossible to hold a job and is financially ruinous.
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What does your Romanian dentist think about the chocolate addiction?
mmm She recommends a box before bed.
The following is reprinted from Angus's fabulous website: www.angusjjbell.com
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A Scotsman in Quebec
by Angus Bell
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As a 23-year-old Scotsman, I can’t imagine there were many like me who migrated to Quebec at the start of winter with their cricket bat. I'm here because, while gardening in Romania last summer, I met Candy, a Quebecoise whose family owns a chocolate factory. After securing a one-year work visa at great expense, I pursued this dangerous woman to begin a new life in Montreal.
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The move has demanded adjustments on all sides. Two weeks ago, I noticed Candy’s mum reading the romance novel, Taming the Scotsman. Meanwhile, I've had to forsake wearing my kilt, for fear of losing a limb. In Scotland, it never dips below minus sixteen. Here, it takes me twenty minutes to dress up like a tartan ninja just to check the mailbox in the lobby. I see people going to the shop – sorry, store – on skis. In Canada, I walk down something called a sidewalk, not a pavement. When two inches of snow fall in Britain, the motorways become car parks and the headlines scream, “Country In Crisis!” In Montreal, people can lose their cars and cats until spring melt. When it began to thaw I found myself sweating at four degrees.
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When I say I’m going on a two-hour drive in the UK, people normally respond with, “Wow! Will you be stopping overnight? Do you need me to feed the cat?” But in this big continent, people drive an hour for cheaper petrol. I mean gas.
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When I think of the buildings in Europe, it seems they were fashioned in an era of dwarves. Till I came to Canada, I’d never seen anything the size of the CN Tower, let alone our refrigerator. It’s like the gateway to Narnia. And restaurant portions are calorific. I’m used to leaving restaurants in Scotland with hunger, not doggy bags.
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Candy and I have undergone transition in the home, too. She recently purchased an apartment on the Plateau, which smelled like old lady and 20 years' cigarettes. We spent a fortnight washing cat hair from the walls and painting over the pink. The next task was finding a flatmate. After turning down a family of four from Mexico, an illegal immigrant from Burundi, and being abandoned by a seven-foot German exiled from the US, we settled with Eriko, a Japanese student; female, non-smoker. Always safe.
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So, all in all, the transition has been a success, and as soon as Candy gets Taming the Scotsman off her mum, life might settle down a little bit.
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Batting on the Bosphorus:
A Liquor-Fueled Cricket Tour through Eastern Europe
by Angus Bell
Greystone Books
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