Interview with John Bills
“A vaguely handsome four eyes with a shit beard and worryingly grey hair" at a wedding. Is it his wedding? You'll have to read on to find out! [Spoiler alert: At no point in this interview do you find out.] © Stephanie & Nicole Photography
Our 2022 got off to a great (and surprisingly productive) start in Bogotá, seeing the launch of this very site after a solid eight years of dithering and procrastination, and we had nothing but the best intentions to continue regularly adding original, groundbreaking travel content for our tens of readers. However, old habits die hard and apparently one's creative motivations can take quite a hit from a dog bite, even if the dog in question isn't rabid.
Which is all a long way of saying that we thought it'd be cool to do some interviews and thereby foist the bulk of the work and effort onto others when it comes to content. Luckily, when you've got tens and tens of readers like we do, even the likes of peak recluse Marlon Brando or nadir sanity Howard Hughes would agree to an interview request without giving it a second. But we were still happy when prolific ambler and author John Bills agreed to sit down with us. These are the results.
It makes sense to start right at the beginning, which for us was when we met you about a decade ago, and you described yourself as 'a dishevelled Harry Potter', so we'd know who to look for. If you're meeting someone for the first time today, how do you describe yourself?
I'd go with something along the lines of “a vaguely handsome four eyes with a shit beard and worryingly grey hair”.
What do our readers need to know about Wales, other than it's where one John Bills was presumably conceived and most definitely born?
Overachieving sport, beautiful countryside, some seriously quaint villages, an incomprehensible language and often incomprehensible accent. Friendly nationalists, if such a thing can exist.
In the negotiations for this interview, your PR team told us that this topic was strictly off limits, but since the human civilization could literally end in a Dr Strangelove-type yeehaw scenario at any moment, we're going to ask anyway: Your god given Christian name is the incredible John William Bills VI, yet you refuse to use those history-bearing Roman numerals. WTF?
No comment.
While Mr Bills didn't mention the glorious Welsh flag in his answer above, that's only because it's obviously amongst the best the world has to offer and virtually everyone already knows that © David Peterson / Pixabay
How did you first become fascinated with Eastern Europe and more specifically the Balkan and Ex-Yugoslavian countries?
Through travel, predominantly. I had a vague interest in continental football as a kid, but the Balkans didn’t really come into it too much. It wasn’t really until I went to Slovenia that I was slapped in the face by it all, really. Went to Ljubljana and Bled, realised that there was something about it, went home and started learning. Came back, went to Mostar and it clicked. I don’t know what clicked, but something clicked.
And what's kept you returning to the region again and again and again and again over the years?
A few things, really. I’ve made some wonderful friends around the region, and I don’t get to see them enough as it is. For me personally, I very much like the travel approach of getting to know a place properly as opposed to ticking off a bazillion countries. I don’t know why, but the whole ‘I’ve been everywhere in the world’ thing just strikes me as immature. I’ve been lucky enough to travel around this region plenty over the last 15 years, and there’s still so much to learn. At this point, I’d rather go to Gornji Vakuf than, I don’t know, Brazil.
Specific to the region, there’s a human quality to the countries that really appeals, especially with Bosnia and Herzegovina. All the excitement, optimism, pessimism, anxiety and whatnot that we feel as people also exists in the country. It is quite infectious.
Just a handful of the illustrated Slavs who make up An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery. How many can you name? If your answer is anything other than “All of them, of course!" then you need to get your filthy mitts on a copy of the book asap
We're not sure if you'd agree with the assessment or not, but to date we'd consider your magnum opus to be the equally informative, entertaining and physically heavy An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery. How did the idea for this arise?
Xenophobia in the UK. I had a vague idea that the Slavs had given the world heaps of incredible people over the centuries, but the prevailing attitude in the UK was (and probably still is) along the ‘stealing our jobs’ sort of line. I wanted to write a few blogs to celebrate the Slavs of history, and it all snowballed from there.
And if possible, who are some of your favourite real life characters from the book?
There are a few that always stick out. I find the story of Šćepan Mali particularly amazing. He was a dude who turned up in Montenegro in the 18th century, claimed to be a dead Russian Tsar and proceeded to run Montenegro for a few years before being murdered by his barber. He did a pretty good job too (both Šćepan and the barber). I also really like Martin Strel and his big river swims, it is just preposterous.
Another fine tome from the prolific Mr Bills, Via the Left Bank of the ‘90s is a tour to Prague using the underground network as a guide. Now only available as an ebook, if you'd like to own a printed first edition, you'll have to shell out $1000s at an auction or on the dark web or wherever (presumably, we've honestly got no clue how these things work)
Your biggest undertaking after gleefully rejoicing in Slavic misery is a series of books covering each of the former ex-Yugoslav republics in turn. How did you decide the order in which they'd be written?
Honestly, there was no order initially. I knew that BiH was going to be first, but from there it was a bit of a mish-mash. I was going to do Kosovo second but made a balls-up of my itinerary, so ended up doing Macedonia second. Montenegro was third because I hadn’t been there in a while and wanted to get the train from Belgrade to Bar. As for the rest, we’ll see. I imagine Serbia will be next, but I might change my mind after I’ve had a nap.
When do you expect the series to be finished?
Lord knows. If I can do one every 18 months or so, that means they’ll be done by 2028. That sounds really far away.
Which has been (or do you think will be) the most difficult to write?
I’m not sure. You could say the BiH, Serbia or Slovenia ones, as I’ve spent the most time in those three countries and have a lot of personal memories and all that jazz. The opposite is true as well, as my general lack of concrete Kosovo knowledge will make that tough. We’ll see.
And which the easiest?
Montenegro, Montenegro, Montenegro. The history of the place is fantastically fascinating, the juxtaposition between the mountains and the coast offered heaps of starting points, and it is generally a fairly easy place to explore anyway. Big fan.
According to Lord Byron, Kotor Bay is “the most beautiful encounter between land and sea” on the planet, which of course leaves lots of options for far superior encounters between land and sea on other planets, but Byron died in 1824, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was meant to be taken as face value and not some underhanded compliment © pixelRaw / Pixabay
What's next on the horizon for the prodigious independent publishing house known as John Bills Inc?
The NHL book! I’d like to do a massive trip around the 31 cities that make up the NHL, write a big book about hockey, history and culture in the US and Canada. I’ve never actually been to North America so who knows how that’ll go, but I love the idea. It sure would be nice to watch a game without having to be awake in the middle of the night.
We heard a rumour that you're not only a writer, but also one of those reader types. What are some of the best books you've read over the past couple years?
Let me consult my spreadsheet! Top of the tree this year is a book that was actually recommended by Travelling Curmudgeon, the fabulous Humankind. I did read a book about walruses that I gave a score of 12/10, but that might be somewhat hyperbolic. I finally got round to reading The Jungle last year and that blew me away, albeit in an immensely grim sort of fashion. I also read a book about the siege of Mecca (creatively titled The Siege of Mecca) that was brilliant, from start to finish. I just finished Bryan Danielson’s (pro wrestler) autobiography, and I still contend that writers can learn more from music, sports and history than they can from other writers.
And since Slavs are your bread and butter, we have to ask for you opinion on what's currently happening in Ukraine (even if the answer is responsibly diplomatic)?
War is horrific, and there are no acceptable arguments for it.
We were honestly just trying to find a clip of that scene from the end of Dr Strangelove that was referenced at the beginning of the interview, but this glitch in the Matrix came up instead and we'd be remiss not to include it
[We don't want to lose any more readers than we surely already have at this point, so let's just save the rest of the clever, insightful longform questions we had planned for our followup interview that's already booked for 2028, and just move along to the quick hit portion of this sitdown]
Favourite football club?
Waterloo Rovers and Bohemians 1905
Favourite contemporary athlete?
Sidney Crosby, Taulupe Faletau, Chris Proctor
Favourite historical athlete?
Brian Charles Lara
Here's Mr Bills exploring the underground wonder that is the Bizeljsko region of Slovenia's repnice wine cellars (our first choice of photo here was one of a potentially inebriated Mr Bills attempting (and failing) to climb a dinosaur at a tourism fair in Belgrade, but we'd like to think we're more mature than that - just to be clear, we are most certainly not more mature than that, but we'd at least like to think it from time to time) © TravellingCurmudgeon.com
Favourite pivo?
I’m not sure! Let’s go with the Human Fish Brewery's Combat Wombat
Favourite Balkan dish?
Mućkalica
Favourite Welsh dish?
Half and half
Favourite animal?
Walrus first, donkey second, penguin third
Unfortunately our YouTube channel is currently sans walrus videos, but here are some donkey's doing their thing, accompanied by a live soundtrack, at the top of Monserrate Mountain in Bogotá
Favourite band?
Highest darts score?
180, obviously. Highest checkout in a game was 157. Treble 20, treble 19, double top.
You have to give up either darts or beer for a year, which is it?
I’d give up beer, because that should really happen at some point
Any phobias?
Frogs. Hideous beasts.
Hideous beasts indeed! No shame, no will power, no functioning livers. What a waste of natural god-given talent frogs are…. © Alexas Fotos / Pixabay
Any new place you'd love to visit outside of Europe (assuming the world keeps chugging along for another few years)?
Canada and the US for some hockey, Japan at some point, Greenland.
And finally, it might just be the glasses and British accent, but you seem like a smart chap, so we'll end by asking you for your best general life advice?
Life advice! Read, read, read, read. 6/10 is better than you think. Early to bed, early to rise. Always use the toilet before going anywhere. Polako, polako. Zauvijek, polako.