Asleep On A Motorcycle
Steve Harrison tells of sleeping on a most uncomfortable "bed''.
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Steve Harrison tells of sleeping on a most uncomfortable "bed''.
Steve Harrison tells of an unruly incident at the Riverside Bar.
To read more of Steve's entertaining biography please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/around_the_sun/
Steve Harrison tells of an all-round "battle-scarred'' good guy.
Steve Harrison tells of another risk to life and limb while running a hotel in Cambodia.
Steve Harrison tells of an unwelcomed customer in the Temple bar.
Steve Harrison tells if a man who paid a heavy price for being foolish.
Steve Harrison tells of a Jekyll and Hyde character.
Steve Harrison tells of the man who promised the Earth.
Continue reading "The Biggest Bullshit Artist Of Them All" »
It's amazing what a man can be fined for by a policeman intent on pocketing soem cash, as Steve Harrison reveals.
Steve Harrison tells of a DJ who managed to turn his life around.
Steve Harrison tells of a job he wished he had never undertaken.
Steve Harrison tells of staff problems in Phnom Penh.
Continue reading "My Mother Says I Should Continue To Work Here" »
Steve Harrison recalls the day he was involved in a scene which brought back memories of England's grumpiest hotel manager.
Alan Pack was searching for the music of 'Swing me in the moonlight' when I came across an Open Writing page (April, 2007) concerning the song. This was the only reference he could find to the song on the Net.
Gill Besant was asking if anyone had come across the song which she learnt from her father.
"I also got it from my father but the words that I knew were slightly different from the ones she quoted,'' says Alan.
Steve Harrison tells of an ill-fated kebab business in Phnom Penh.
Steve Harrison tells of the effect that Phnom Penh had on a couple of university students.
Steve Harrison tells how Willie the Hulk avoided a ride to nowhere.
To read earlier chapters of Steve's astonishing life story please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/around_the_sun/
Steve Harrison comes off second best in a confontation with a former employee.
Steve Harrison pays tribute to his perfect doctor.
To read earlier chapters of Steve's life story please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/around_the_sun/
Steve Harrison tells of almost unbearable pain.
Steve Harrison tells of a scary encounter in his Phnom Phen bar.
...Our security guard was kicking and punching the younger guy, who was crawling on all-fours. The violence was extraordinary. And all this was taking place outside our front door....
But why was the younger guy getting kicked?
Steve Harrison recalls another extraordinary incident from his time in Camboia.
Steve Harrison tells of a hefty barman who could almost drink his own weight in alcohol.
Steve Harrison tells of an Englishmen who threw his money away in Cambodia.
Steve Harrison tells of the horrible Nigel, whose "marriage'' was not what it was reported to be.
Steve Harrison tells of a lesson in how to fire a gun.
Steve Harrison recalls a night of acute pain.
Listening to the Rolling Stones brings Steve Harrison to metaphysical thought.
Steve Harrison tells a modern parable.
Steve Harrison points to the best way to live a life.
Steve Harrison tells the cautionary tale of a man who set a drinking record.
Continue reading "The Liver Is Evil And Has To Be Punished" »
Steve Harrison counts himself lucky in the richness of his experiences.
Steve Harrison has his hotel purified by Buddhist monks.
Steve Harrison tells of the sorry conclusion to a reported robbery.
Following an alleged robbery, Steve Harrison and his security man Declan carry out a night-time search of a Cambodian hotel.
Steve Harrison tells of a hot and hectic night in a Cambodian hotel.
Steve Harrison is overwhelmed by the temples at Angkor Wat.
Steve Harrison found that Cambodia was no match for Vietnam.
Steve Harrison tells of a violent night in a Cambodian hotel.
Steve Harrison has a violent encounter with a Cambodian street.
A father threating to kill his son, an AK47 rifle, oceans of Gold whisky... Steve Harrison tells of just another day in old Cambodia.
Steve Harrison became involved in a mad venture in Cambodia.
Steve Harrison compares attitudes to life in the East and the West.
Steve Harrison makes a detailed case as to why he should rule the world.
Steve Harrison muses on the best kind of fame.
Steve Harrison tells of a nigbhtmare taxi journey.
Steve Harrison falls in love with Vietnam.
Sreve Harrison tells of the most honest man in the world.
Success and happiness are all in the mind, says Steve Harrison.
Steve Harrison has a vision of the end day.
Steve Harrison tells of hours of stress and apprehension at Manchester Airport the month after the Twin Towers attack.
Steve Harrison soon finds that long distance flights are one long bore.
Steve Harrison goes flying through the air with the greatest of unease.
Steve Harrison goes flying through the air with the greatest of unease.
Steve Harrison finds himself living in a campter van.
Steve Harrison goes flying on the high trapeze.
Steve Harrison begins to recover from his traumatic divorce.
Newly-divorced Steve Harrison learns a shocking truth.
Steve Harrison goes through the pain of a marriage break-up.
Steve Harrison faces up to a day of humiliation and mental anguish.
Steve Harrison rues the day he turned down the opportunity to become a millionaire.
Steve Harrison's marriage reaches a dramatic crisis point.
Steve Harrison decides to say goodbye to modern medicine.
Steve Harrison finds married life far from satisfactory.
Steve Harrison meets with great success on his return to Australia.
After a seemingly endless bureaucratic delay, Steve Harrison manages to return to Australia.
Steve Harrison falls in love with an Apple Mac.
Stephen Harrison tells of a day of shame.
Steve Harrison faces up to Hell's Angels on a lonely Texas road.
Steve Harrison takes over a church in the quiet little Texas town of Valley Mills.
Steve Harrison meets an angel - then encounters an insoluble and life-changing dilema.
...There I was, sitting in a park in Delhi, enjoying the day, when a man wearing a fishing hat approached me. In the hat band were metal probes and implements. I had no idea what I was about to experience...
Steve Harrison went into the park to relax - and ended up on tenterhooks.
Steve Harrison tells of the day he arrived in India - a day that still makes him glad to be alive.
Steve Harrison and his team head off to India to do missionary work for six weeks - but there is a disasterous stop-over in London.
Steve Harrison never expected hard manual labour when he enrolled in a preaching school.
Steve Harrison arrives in Lubbock, Texas, to begin his studies at a preaching school - and he is in for a surprise.
Steve Harrison decides to leave Australia to study at a preaching school in Texas.
Steve Harrison is baptised in the midnight hour.
Steve Harrison tells how he found another soul mate on his lonely Christian path.
Steve Harrison pays the saddest of sad return visits to his homeland.
Steve Harrison begins to read the Bible and is soon faced with a huge conflict between his work and his growing belief.
A knife was brandished when Steve Harrison finally got around to telling his girlfriend Jacquie that he was going to leave her.
...I travelled to work every day by ferry across the emerald green waters of Sydney harbour. Work was a breeze. At weekends I lounged by the seaside on Balmoral beach. Naturally I attended the compulsory barbeques...
Steve Harrison arrives in Australia.
Steve Harrison goes swimming in the sea off Bali and encounteres his worst nightmare.
Steve Harrison recalls a traumatic walk with his father.
Continue reading "Say Goodbye You May Never See Them Again" »
Steve Harrison sees the light and turns his back on the deadly weed.
Steve Harrison and his girlfriend Jacquie find themselves caught up in a fight to end all fights.
Steve Harrison heads north to Sonoma, California.
Steve Harrison tells of escaping from the clutches of the Scientologists and the Moonies.
Steve Harrison's arrival in the United States heralded experiences in the first 48 hours which were more bizarre than a fiction writer could have invented.
Steve Harrison does a spot of grape picking in southern France.
Steve Harrison is dragooned into duty as a street artist.
Steve Harrison sets out to drive from England to South Africa in a van which should not have been used for a journey to the local supermarket.
...I was alone. I spoke aloud. "If you are real, show me a sign. Show me you exist.''
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than there was a huge flash of lightning, the biggest I had ever seen...
Steve Harrison tells of a night to remember.
Steve Harrison signs on the dole and meets the girl who was to be his companion for seven years.
Steve Harrison eats magic mushrooms, and survives a nightmare.
Steve Harrison turns into a new evangelist on visits to a pub.
Steve Harrison tells of a dream that has haunted him for years.
Steve Harrison, having been abandoned by the girl he loved, went through a turbulent and frightening time.
Steve Harrison falls in love for the first time - and hitches his way to Portugal to be with the girl of his dreams.
Steve Harrison spends a night in jail after a madcap drinking bout.
Steve Harrison goes hitch-hiking in France, his first trip broad.
Steve Harrison buys his first car - and his life becomes even more hectic.
Steve Harrison, while still in his teens, managed to get a job as a barman at England's leading entertainment club.
Steve Harrison tells of mad days when he and two friends became regular drug takers.
Steve Harrison, in his wilder days, sampled LSD.
Continue reading "LSD - Just Which Hole Did That Rabbit Run Down" »
Steve Harrison recalls beery, fun-filled nights at the local hop.
Steve Harrison is stirred to the depths of his being by the words of a North American Indian chief.
Steve Harrison discovers the cloudy world of alcohol.
...So there I was at twelve thousand feet, and it was my turn to jump...
Steve Harrison swallows his nerves to attempt a parachute jump.
Steve Harrison "sneaks in by the side door'' to begin a career as an artist, designing adverts.
Steve Harrison finds that he is not considered to be grammar school material.
Steve Harrison recalls the day a two-letter word brought his dreams crashing down.
Steve Harrison tells in glorious style of a father-son relationship.
For more of Steve's vivid life story please click on Around The Sun in the menu on this page.
...Mum stood by the window, gazing upwards. "Come see the spacemen land on the Moon,'' we said. "I can see the Moon,'' she replied "and nothing is happening. I don't believe a word they're saying.''
One day I peeked over her shoulder as she was trying to complete a crossword puzzle. The clue was "extinct animal''. Mum had written Elephant...
Steve Harrison pays tribute to his wonderful mum.
Steve Harrison recalls the day he learned to ride a motorbike and had a close encounter with a hedge.
Steve Harrison tells a tale that may make you wince.
Steve Harrison recalls a winter's eve when he was taught a painful lesson.
Steve Harrison joins the stern 5 am world of work.
For earlier episodes of Steve's story please click on Around The Sun in the menu on this page.
Steve Harrison recalls the simple life-enhancing joy of bath nights when he was a boy.
Steve Harrison tells of growing up in austere times.
Steve Harrison dreams of a peaceful place.
Steve Harrison confesses that it doesn’t pay to be too cocky when you’re out on those ski slopes.
Steve Harrison shares some of his childhood memories - not all of them happy ones.
Steve Harrison tells of a nervous day at Manchester airport in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist acts which destroyed the New York Trade Centre.
Steve Harrison questions his own watery reality.
Continue reading "Either This Life Is Very Dreamlike Or This Dream Is very Lifelike" »
Steve Harrison learns a beautiful truth.
Steve Harrison glimpses Heaven in the innocence and scent of his baby daughter.
Steve Harrison tells a sad tale about a heavy-handed farmer.
Has it ever occurred to you that common sense isn’t all that common. Steve Harrison tells a cautionary tale.
In the best tradition of Jonathan Swift, the satirist who wrote Gulliver’s Travels, Steve Harrison suggests a shocking solution to a terrible problem that is afflicting Cambodia.
Continue reading "The Perfect Landmine Clearance Solution" »
Steve Harrison tells a parable for all time.
Steve Harrison tells how he kicked the smoking habit with the very best help available.
Steve Harrison tells of a somber days when he lost the two guiding lights of his life.
Steve Harrison writes of deep and significant matters.
So if you had to choose a staple food to feed the world would it be potatoes or rice? Steve Harrison considers an important question.
Steve Harrison recalls the day when his family started to regard him as a brain box.
Steve Harrison finds peace and self-awareness in the harsh reality of a market in Vietnam.
In straight-from-the-heart words Steve Harrison expresses the total joy of being the father of a beautiful infant – even when sleep becomes a distant memory during the long night watches.
Are computers servants, or would-be dictators? Steve Harrison considers the issue.
Steve Harrison proved to himself that sometimes fire lighting can be too successful.
Steve Harrison presents the philosophical thoughts of a running man.
For more of Steve’s columns please click on Around The Sun in the menu on this page.
Steve Harrison envies those who instantly fall aslep to enjoy sweet dreams.
An imaginary walk across Sydney harbour bridge brings a clear and contended perspective on life to Steve Harrison.
For more of Steve’s heart-felt columns please click on Around The Sun in the menu on this page.
Steve Harrison says that if you do go home again you will never find what you are looking for.
Steve Harrison chats to a man with horns.
The arrival of a baby daughter has convinced Steve Harrison that he may regain Peter Pan’s secret of eternal youth.
New dad Steve Harrison wrestles with the smelly problem of nappy changing before coming up with the ideal solution.
Steve Harrison recalls a morning when he was lost in wonderment while waiting for the ferry boat to Sydney.
Steve Harrison is enchantedby a very special baby with fair skin, straight nose, double eyelids, cupid lips, fair hair, bright blue eyes - and a Vietnamese mother.
Steve Harrison, writing with gusto and bubbling humour, concludes his four-part guide to the roads, and their users, in Vietnam and Cambodia.
Steve Harrison takes us on another hair-raising journey into the psyche of Vietnamese drivers and motorcycle riders.
Just remember, the aim when negotiating Eastern roads is to increase your heart rate. That’s good exercise!
Driving and crossing the road in Vietnam require nerves of steel and a sharp awareness of the odds, as Steve Harrison reveals in the second of his seriously humorous article about the rules of the road in the East.
Westerners who risk life and limb in Asia need to understand a whole new attitude to life, as Steve Harrison reveals.
This is the first of four choice articles by Steve on the dangers of travelling around in Asia.
Steve Harrison contemplates the nature and reality of Heaven.
Steve Harrison recalls a family tragedy and muses on the way things have worked out in his life.
If you ever drink Vietnamese snake wine it’s best not to look inside the bottle, as Steve Harrison reveals.
Steve Harrison’s baby daughter was born at the tale-end of a typhoon which devastated Vietnam this month. Read his account of the night Rachel arrived – and be deeply moved.
Steve, no newcomer to Open Writing, will now be writing a regular column which will appear on Mondays in Open Writing. These will be filed under the title Around The Sun.