A letter from San francisco....N

N....notices.

When I arrived in San Francisco I took a taxi to the apartment that would be home for the next two months and, being a European and untutored in American ways, I was surprised to read the following notice on the front door.

“No Smoking. Attention, Video Surveillance. Warning. This area contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects and other reproductive illness.” - No welcome to your new home then.

Now I have, I believe completed my responsibilities of procreation but this was no temporary, written-on-paper notice. This was engraved into the glass door and thus a seemingly permanent as well as alarming warning.

I looked around and saw that as a rough calculation there were hundreds of people living in the apartment block and I saw a couple of them walking healthily out for the evening as I entered, so I had to assume that the locals were not too concerned.

Still I had trouble sleeping and it wasn’t just jet lag.

The next day I drove the hired car to the garage to fill up and as I stood there I noticed a clearly posted warning; “Prolonged, Long term exposure to vapours has caused cancer in laboratory animals”. What does long term mean? It was a big car and the nozzle didn’t seem to be high pressure. And after all this wasn’t the first or last time I was going to be doing this.

Now it seems to me, naïve as I am, that if you have an apartment building that is toxic or a fuel that is unsafe you have a greater responsibility to ensure that you don’t sell them, than to cover your ass by posting a disclaimer.

Friends explained that this was the reason for the notices as there is a mentality of litigation in America that basically means that everyone is on the defensive. It also, maybe, partly explains why America is often seen as a frightened place.

Anyway, I bought some petrol and slept in the apartment a second night.

The next day I decided to buy a bicycle and I went around the thrift shops trying to find an appropriate cancer free, zero emission mount. In a shop in the Mission district I found someone who had all bikes on special offer. 100 dollars. I asked the owner why, as they seemed to be in good condition and he sighed and explained; “I’ve got too many and no one wants them at the moment.” Then, almost as an afterthought he added,” At the end of August everyone will want them but I can’t wait”

I asked him why and he replied, mysteriously “Burning Man”

Well, I don’t know where I’ve been the last 21 years but it obviously wasn’t in California because I had never heard of Burning Man before so I asked him what it was. He explained that it was a big event or festival or party that takes place in the Nevada desert at the end of August and is over 20 years old.

Seems a bike is the best way to get around the event, festival, party.

The first Burning Man event took place on Baker Beach in the city after someone separated from his girlfriend and decided to build an effigy so that he could burn his past. Apparently about 20 people witnessed the event, which he repeated the following year for fun.

The event got bigger and bigger and eventually moved to the Nevada Desert, became an event where you could only attend if you contributed something, then somewhere along the line got commercialised and now you have to buy a ticket.

It is a sort of Mad Max Glastonbury in the middle of the Desert and according to one participant surrounded by a dusty smell of death. Thousand s flock there, many from here.

I decided though that a trip North over the Golden Gate Bridge, and an hour up Highway 1 to Stinson Beach would be more fun.

Stinson Beach is a long curving beach where Pacific rollers crash in and people surf and jump in the waves. There is a small picturesque settlement of the same name where you can visit one of the Chaplin daughter's gallery or an almost perfect bookshop that used to be a restaurant that specialised in fried chicken served to the long gone ship builders of Sausalito or even buy coffee from one of the cafes and stay in a motel.

If you have between 1 and 3 million dollars you could even buy a house.

At the entrance to the beach, a small sandy climb through the dunes, you pass a large notice that is titled Swimmers and Waders Caution, and since I was planning to possibly do both I stopped and read it.

Included with the dire warnings about dangerous currents there was a graphic description of a Great White Shark attack that had happened in shallow water on this beach and the strong advice never to turn your back on the ocean.

I wasn’t sure that I would be able to swim all the way to Japan so envisaging a possible turn towards shore at sometime in the afternoon I continued onto the acres of sand.

I had a great time, the water was glacial but the sun volcanic and so the bathing was idyllic. I didn’t get eaten and I didn’t see anyone else being snapped up.

However, Lee who I met on the beach who has started a new form of body building class using weights and rubber bands and was the source of much of my information about Burning man, informed me that a triangular section of ocean, apexing exactly where I stood, contained the highest concentration of White Sharks in the world.

There was a moment when I was gaily frolicking in the crashing waves when all of a sudden the three surfers who were further out than me simultaneously rode a wave beach-ward and I found myself alone in empty ocean. I couldn’t see any fins but the picture on the warning notice flashed into my mind and I found that though I was happy to sleep in the apartment and fill up my car, I needed a body Japan side of me to feel safe in the Pacific.

So I turned my back to the immenseness of Pacific Ocean and swam to shore.

Fast.