FOOTNOTES Howard Scott says that if you visit Ghana do not, whatever else you do, do not, even if you plan never to leave the house, DO NOT forget to take your malaria tablets.

Chapter 1 - Knock, knock!

I was talking to another version of myself sitting at the side of my bed and trying to keep an eye on a film I'd been watching for several hours on a dead TV screen when the Ginger Alien-God arrived. He told me everything I'd always known but could never understand because my mind was not powerful enough to comprehend the universal laws of control and then...

Hang on. there's a beginning and I suppose I should start at it.

It's probably when I was having a beer sitting on a paint peeled balcony, overlooking the dusty backyards of Busua, a small town on Ghana's coast. The sun was setting and I was chatting to a group of gap-year girls who were telling me how one of their friends had got ill with malaria. The girls were huddled together, watching out for each other in the tropics and they collectively shuddered as they described to me the details of the illness. I was half-listening, trying to watch the sky turn red, the scared words of a teenager rippled in the air: "diarrohea, fever, sweating" Sounds like one of my hangovers, I heard my voice straying out of my mouth, another beer please "cramps, vomit, dehydration" yeah, definitely so.

That night I got bitten to pieces. Cursed gap-year girls with their horror stories, mosquito nets and ultra-powerful deet sprays, I thought. Why feast on my old blood?

A week later I was down in Sodom and Gomorrah (I kid you not), a skanky suburb of Accra where a friend lived. I bumped into Mikey, a local I'd met a few times. "Hey Mikey, what's up? Haven't seen you in a while?"
"I was sick. In hospital. Malaria."
"Shit man, sorry about that."
His eyes brimmed with a fear that manifest itself as a scared smile on his face and an expressive shaking of the head. Man, you do not want that. Do not catch malaria. Do. Not. Catch. Malaria. You don't want that."
Sheesh, I thought. Sounds pretty damn harsh. "No worries man, they don't dare get me - Hey Mikey: knock, knock?"
"What?"
"Knock, knock? It's a joke. Knock, knock."
"Ahh, a joke. very funny Howie."
"No, I….Knock, knock…who’s there?"
"What?"
"I say, ‘knock, knock’, you say, ‘who’s there?"
"Oh. OK. Who’s there?"
" No, wait for it….knock, knock?"
“Who’s there?”
“Amos.”
“Oh ha ha, Howie that’s very good my friend. I like that a lot.”
“No, Mikey. Then you say, ‘who’s there’..."
“..."
"no, wait! After amos, you say ‘Amos Who?’ So, knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
"Amos."
"Amos…who?"
“Amos-quito just bit me on the nose.”
There was a long silence. “Oh. I’m sorry. Are you ok? Maybe you should see a doctor.”
“Erm, Mikey, it’s a joke. I didn’t really get bitten. Amos, a mosquito…?”
“Oh.” He said. “I don’t understand.”
“OK, cos you had malaria. It’s a joke. You laugh, then I say ‘Knock, knock, who’s there, Andy…And-he bit me again…”
Mikey looked at me quietly for a second. “I have to go.” He said. “I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah, see ya.” We went our separate ways. Bloody loonies, these Ghanaians, I thought.

A few days later I was watching a film at Video Nuts. It was part of my weekly routine to go there and watch a film. It was a bungalow in Labone, in the wealthy suburb of Accra, with lots of rooms. You went in, chose your film, got a room and watched it with a group of your friends. You could order Chinese, which we did, and half-way into Stuart Little I went to the bathroom and heaved badly. Dodgy meat with the noodles, sure, or was it that little mouse who takes on New York?

Before the end of the film I was retching and hurling down the porcelain like there was no tomorrow. I'd been ill with gripe in countries all over the world, I knew the familiar signs of a stomach bug that turns you inside out with the sweats and has rusty coloured water coming out of both ends. I knew I was in for a rough 24 hours. I pushed the spring rolls away and tried to drink some water. It too came up. Quickly. On the walk home, my knees were buckling and I started sweating. Bloody noodles I swore, throwing up some nasty yellow bile into the nearest drainage ditch. I got along the road a bit and had to sit down. My legs weren't responding to my brain. I felt incredibly weak and started shivering, but sweat continued pissing down my face. It was probably a 200 metre walk to my house and I couldn't stand. I tried to ask my friends for a hand up but keeled over and lay on the grass panting, my brain throwing demented thoughts this way and that. I remember thinking that it was like being a teenage drunk who can't stand and is violently sick and as soon as I'd thought it I squirmed with nausea at the thought of alcohol, blessed alcohol. That was enough to ratify me a little. There's no way on this earth a dodgy plate of noodles is going to betray my thinking against my one true love. I fortified myself enough to stand, wobbling in a dizzy fashion and found my friends had hailed a cab and were looking at me as if I were a bit of a case. I slumped onto the back seat and mangled out the words ‘I'll be ok once I've had a lie down.'

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