Warning: may contain traces of organic nuts

Leon Jacobs alerted me to the hilarious story of a delusional nut named Mark Boyle.

Boyle used to run an organic food company, until he sampled too much of his own merchandise and decided the world should do away with money. Presumably, the owners of the organic food company disagreed. So now Boyle is on a pilgrimage.

Travelling under the name “Saoirse”, which means “freedom” in Gaelic, Boyle won’t stoop to dirtying his hands with grubby money. Instead, he decided to travel the world on foot, subsisting only on peace and love. (And, presumably, a way to blog about it.) His intended destination was Mahatma Ghandi’s birthplace, in India.

Tushar Kanna, an Indian who commented on his blog was rather skeptical of this pilgrimage: “I really dunno what kind of haloed idea of India you have. … I feel if you want to explore India, board onto the next flight to take an enriching experience back home. The country as such is fantastic — a treasure trove of cultures bound to create a single nation. But if you just want to experience poverty, I’d recommend you to rather serve in the slums of Kolkata or Mumbai. Man, you’re really wasting two precious years of your life. … when I told my friends about you in school they passed it off as a story of a crazy foreigner with nothing else to do.”

You can see where this is going, can’t you? Hint: it’s not India. He got as far as Calais before the universe, in which he had placed his trust, told him not to be so daft. That’s where he discovered not only that the French have the audacity of speaking French, but that they don’t particularly like jobless, homeless backpackers, freeloading in their country. Oh, sorry. Calling him a “freeloader” is “harmful to the cause“, it’s unfair, and it’s the exact opposite of “accepting the gifts of the universe”. (By which he means getting some sap to buy him a ferry ticket, and giving him her daughter.)

Not only did the French speak French, but they didn’t much care to trade food for his valuable friendship. Worse, his offers of labour didn’t sell very well in a socialist republic where employment has been curtailed by decades of dirigisme and rigueur, which regulated and protected the unemployment rate until… well, let’s just say France stopped publishing an official unemployment rate.

So Boyle and his buddies made “a really brave decision — to go home”. What poor Britain doesn’t have to put up with. Boyle will now walk around his native country, learning French. Not that I can see why, if the French didn’t like him speaking English (and sleeping in their toilets), the average resident of English seaside towns will love him speaking French. Besides, they don’t speak French in Italy, Turkey, Iran and India, so this is going to be one long tour.

Illustrating the depth of this idiot’s delusion is his comment on a group of Ethiopian refugees he found in France. Apparently, his message about the moneyless life doesn’t apply to people who don’t have money. Especially not when they’re Ethiopians escaping “from Iraq and Afghanistan”. This level of geographic confusion doesn’t bode well for his hope that the next time he hits the road he’ll be more attuned to local culture. Let alone being more attuned to human nature.

Moral of the story? Lay off the organic nuts, lest you become one.