Life, linguistics and Laphroaig - Home thoughts from Hungary

2007-09-02T10:39:00.000+02:00

ISTEN VELETEK

Goodbye, everyone.

It's been...virtual.

2007-05-29T01:53:00.000+02:00

SHIFT

I remember reading once, maybe it was a haiku or a Chinese proverb, I don't know. Anyway, the gist of it was that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive. Hmmmm...unless we can replace distance with time and therefore speak of a metaphorical journey towards Christmas and the usual childhood anti-climax involving socks and selection boxes, I think we can safely say our oriental chappy was a few grains short of a full bowl or had travelled to some pretty gruesome places in his time.

For myself, unless I am actually driving or journeying on water, the travel holds little fascination and arriving is all. Moreover, I have never, ever travelled without hope and this time will be no exception. And yet, this will be such a weird journey and each emotion I feel will be balanced by one which, if not exactly equal, is most certainly opposite. Paradox whichever which way.

In a very real sense, I'm going home. Where I belong and where I was destined to be. There will be an ease, a comfort and a familiarity yet at the same time a sense of dislocation. Not immense, no. Maybe just as if everything has suddenly moved one molecule's width to the right. Subtle, but a change all the same. I shall be full of hope, yes...and my doubts will soon subside. I shall be me and yet more and less than me. I shall be filled and yet will have emptied myself of all I have. I shall regret not doing this sooner and still know that this is the only time it could have happened. I shall recognise the language and yet some of the message will be hard to interpret. Nothing will change and yet nothing will ever be the same again.

Knowing all this, I shall place one foot in front of the other tomorrow morning. Deliberately. With forethought. I go because I desire it. I go because I must. And I go because this is where my life has led me. And I travel with hope, yes. How could I not?

There will be much laughter and a few tears. And that which has been apart for too long will be together again. And I shall use many names. Each shall have its own power. And its own weight. Its own magic. And they will issue from my lips. In my voice. With my love.

I am an extremely lucky man. And I am very content.

PLUG

RogerB seems awfully concerned that, at my current rate of weight loss, there is some danger of my disappearing along with the bath water and he would appreciate an up-date. So, ever sensitive to the requirements of my readers, here you go, Rog.

No danger at all...14 1/2 kilos (32 lbs) so far and, along with the loss, some redistribution of inches from the abdomen to the upper torso.

I think I would wedge, dear heart.

2007-05-09T19:12:00.001+02:00

DAY 17

Not much when weighed against 30 odd years of nicotine abuse, 't is true but a fair chunk viewed from where I'm sitting and, as the biggest battle so far would seem to be trying to prevent myself from fitting a similar description, maybe sitting is not the best option right now.

It has been borne upon me quite forcibly over the past days that the body's immense capacity for self-repair and regeneration is matched only by the mind's power to cajole, persuade, delude and otherwise wheedle the nicotine free brain into believing that all its requirements would best be met as a result of ingesting a whole heap of pasta balanced precariously on a steaming ciabatta and washing it all down with a bottle or three of Belgium's finest. A carbo-hydrate induced sugar rush in other words.

I feel a little history might be in order here. For a long time and leading up to March of this year there was a certain, shall we say, strain in my life of which it might surprise you to know, I was largely unaware. If I were to transcribe my state into current psycho-babble, it would probably best be rendered as 'in denial'...and yes, without so much as a paddle and certainly no felucca. Keeping the lid on. Keeping up appearances. However you wish to term it, the result was, not to put too fine a point on it, fucking horrendous. Suicide by spoon, glass and cigarette lighter basically. I was over in England for the Everton match in March and I would let this photograph of that day stand as much more eloquent testimony than anything I can write.

Aye, the blob I saw here was not the man I saw in the mirror every morning...another demonstration of the mind's powers of delusion if ever there was. And I was not the only one to see it either, a fact for which I shall be eternally grateful. Anyway, pretences were discarded and certain truths long hidden were faced and finally admitted. And suddenly everything changed. And if it took my attempting to turn myself into a grosser version of Mr Blobby, then I can only be thankful the felucca sailed into view when it did and hauled me aboard, puffing and panting, for some kind of refit.

And yes...that was the key. Fit. What I most decidedly was not. Suddenly discovering that life had a point again rather demanded that I be in such a condition as to be able to live it. And the only way I had ever been able to do that before was by working out. I found the multi-gym again, buried under bags and boxes of empty beer bottles in the conservatory and, one Thursday morning, I set to. And on the same day, through no kind of planning or tactical decision whatsoever, I cut the crap out of my diet. I lost over 22lbs in five weeks. Still technically overweight but no longer obese. Surprisingly easy it was too. And then, during the course of a late night conversation with the Shoe a decision was made to give up smoking on the following Monday. Just like that. I rather thought I would cut down over the few, maybe four or five, days of smoking I had left and thus make the actual moment of quitting easier. I should have known better. Sometimes my self awareness can best be described as shaky. Anyway, by the time 4 o'clock on Monday morning rolled around, I had done my best to smoke myself into a stupor and I didn't enjoy my very last cigarette at all.

And since that last gasper...I have lost not another ounce of weight nor had a moment's peace from the yearnings of my brain for carbo-bloody-hydrates. I think over the entire 17 days, I've only actually craved a cigarette maybe twice as I momentarily lost perspective driving over life's speed bumps as it were and that hollow feeling in the pit of the stomach just cried out for a blue Rizla wrapped around a good pinch of Drum mild. I doubt I will ever smoke again now. But most of the time, it's the call of chocolate...of a cheese and onion sandwich...of a bowl of Nestlé's Clusters...of fruit absolutely clarted in natural yoghurt and honey. I am told that mammals are not meant to feel full as we have to be ready for flight at a moment's notice...and that my body is not designed for the intake of the carbs I crave. I am also reliably informed that if I wish to continue with the weight loss, I shall have to shock my body with an even stiffer regimen. As this would seem to involve the intake of only a half litre of non-sparkling mineral water and a stick of asparagus six times a day, there is a pretty fucking good chance of your correspondent deciding he can get used to his present shape for a wee while anyway. And hey...I even went swimming today. One hour. Non-stop. Now all I have to do is figure out how not to become completely obsessive about it. Well, that and how not to so easily give in to my daughter's desire to photograph her 'new daddy'...

...especially when I'm wearing those bloody boxers.

2007-04-27T12:21:00.000+02:00

WORMIN' MY WAY BACK

Thanks to the Marvin Gaye Day over at the Shoe yesterday, I've been kinda thrust back into my teenage years and also a bit of a, well...not reappraisal exactly but at least a new awareness.

These were my rock years, you understand...before John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra just blew the fuck out of any attempts at categorisation and opened up new avenues for me to explore.

And yes...they may have been the rock years but there were also what I might call radio days...a soundtrack I would have preferred to think I was too studiously cynical to enjoy. From this distance it amuses me to recognise I was just too much of a prat.

And it also surprises me just how fresh the memories are and how deeply these songs have burrowed...the Drifters, Sam Cooke...the lyrics just there, at my recall. Under the Boardwalk, Saturday Night at the Movies, for Sentimental Reasons, Wonderful World...all there.

And then, just when I think I've remembered everything and there is nowhere else to go...I find this. And am speechless.

2007-04-25T10:54:00.000+02:00

DAY 3

I woke up at 07:32 this morning. Got up, had a piss, said hi to the family, realised that this was me under advisement and, as me never gets up at 07:32, promptly returned to bed for what seemed like a wonderfully long and nicotine craving free doze. Oh...eight...fucking...thirty...four. Well, sod it. It's 09:14 and two coffees later now. And maybe I'm a little the wiser and perhaps just a shade alarmed.

I remember much of yesterday being taken up with the thought of just what non-smokers do to pass the time. I mean, they must do something, right? Compulsive nose-picking? Arse scratching? Nobody can possibly be content with this...er, doing fucking nothing...can they?

Anyway, I began to wonder just what it was I had done when I didn't smoke and well...just what is it that 14 year old boys do? So what then did I use to do when I didn't smoke so much? The only thing I could come up with here was, "I had classes". Either that or I'd run out of money. No...more accurately, that should read, "we'd run out"...smoking was very much a collective endeavour in those days. Me...Stephen Feather...John Harrison...names which, even today, have as a major part of their associations for me, the red and gold of a packet of Gold Leaf (Virginia) cigarettes.

And so, my dear, you might say I've had Virginia in my blood for quite some time.

And, in the balance, my age of innocence + 3 days weighed against just how many pounds of tobacco product? There's no fucking wonder I don't know what to do with myself.

And yet, 3 days in and I guess I'm surprised. Not at how easy it seems, no. But maybe at the fact that right now, it doesn't seem as impossible as I'd thought.

I haven't lost control. I have remained, reasonably, equable.
I haven't had any headaches, yet.
I can still sleep and even nap.
And I have the distinct feeling that, "Aye. I am driving this fucking bus." which is pretty neat.

Okay, there is a restlessness and yes, I do have to get up from time to time and go unscrew the cap off a bottle of mineral water and yes, there is a sense that something is missing and yes, there is a general...craving.

But I am surprised at the non-specific nature of this craving. I have no conception whatsoever that it will only be satisfied and assuaged by an inhalation of tobacco smoke. I guess my brain has registered the sudden lack of direct nicotine hit but the signals it is sending tell me only of a need...maybe I could shut them up with chocolate...or one of those yummy pizzas.

I can see how people associate stopping smoking with weight gain...give in to these, well...what can I call them? Substitutes? Anyway, give into them and I will be a blob and I'm not going back there again. No, my dear. Not there.

And why is it that I am mostly underwhelmed at the size and difficulty of the challenge so far? Well, it might well be true that the worst is indeed to come and what I have felt up to now are just the preliminary skirmishes of a much greater battle. Yes, it could be. But I doubt it.

I started working out again after much longer than I care to remember. I cut out all the crap from my diet and, as a result of both, have lost a stone and a half in five weeks. These two things alone constitute something of a minor miracle so why should stopping smoking be any the harder? In all of this there has been a focus and a sure knowledge that I am not now and never will be, alone. Thank you.

And now...well, I’ve given my body long enough to adjust to this new reality. I’m going to pump some fucking iron.

2007-04-23T04:19:00.000+02:00

STUBBED

I would just like to take this opportunity to place on record the fact that I have just now, at this very minute, smoked my last cigarette.

And may the gods have mercy on us all.

2007-04-21T14:24:00.000+02:00

BOING

Yup, it's that time of year again when the apple tree just explodes into bloom and, at least here anyway, I get my first hint of the hot and humid summer days to come. But right now...it's perfect. All that's missing is a snirk and a mint julep or three.

And, whatever it is that is causing the collapse of bee colonies all over Europe and the States, it hasn't made it over here yet. Pollination continues apace and, come the Autumn, we will have another bumper crop. There's nothing quite like walking out of your own door, plucking an apple off the tree and crunching into it as you walk along the path to your gate.

Altogether now...don't sit under the apple tree...

2007-04-20T10:55:00.000+02:00

ROCKING HORSE

When people ask me why it is that I value football above all other sports I usually mumble something about possibilities and poetry, vainly trying to pin down and put into words that sense of infinite potentiality a player has with the ball at his feet and the sheer beauty and rightness of a well worked move. Rugby can sometimes come close but the ball is less mobile and its distribution more restricted. There is a grace and athleticism inherent in football that simply cannot be matched by any other sporting discipline.

Now, you may rejoinder that watching Crewe against Gillingham on a wet Tuesday night in November is highly unlikely to result in your witnessing anything remotely approaching the poetic or indeed the graceful and you would probably be entirely correct. And yet, it is that...possibility again, no matter how remote, that you might just witness something like this which draws you back again and again. And you'll be able to tell your grandchildren that, "Yes. I was there".

2007-04-15T00:33:00.000+02:00

JOY

There are days, whole weeks even...no that’s not right...I don’t tend to measure time quite like that. Especially when I think about my life. I have the year of my birth and then everything after that is recalled as a period, referenced maybe by its contents or perhaps as a before or as an after...after I left school...just before my father died. And sometimes by a mood. A general undercurrent of melancholy perchance...me in my blue period.

So let’s just say that there are times, periods when one feels in some very elemental way, attuned. When you resonate with the world and your waves synchronise and amplify.

You’ll be driving and suddenly realise that the traffic is flowing for you alone. You’ll pull up to park and the woman just pulling away beside you will wind down her window and hand over her only partly used ticket. You’ll walk into the post office with such natural timing that the only person at the counter moves away as you arrive.

You might even walk into a garden full of strangers and within seconds find yourself completely at ease and at the centre of everything. It is also perfectly possible that you will leap up onto the raised patio with a grace and fluidity you thought yourself long incapable of and find yourself in flirty conversation with the grandmother of the house, refusing all her offers of scones and cakes with the easy assurance that comes from having teased the laughter out of her.

Maybe it’s just a perception...some kind of projection of an inner...attunement and yes, I can live with that. My own pieces and puzzles and some of the...bumps in my life have fallen into place or been placed in a truer perspective and I feel happier in my own skin at this point than I have ever felt in any other...period. An after period for sure. But also a before. And maybe it is the simple fact that I know that which has brought me so much joy. That and feeling whole for the first time.

Hell, I can’t help it if it shows. And maybe it is indeed, contagious.

2007-04-07T22:46:00.000+02:00

YOURS AYE

Along with so much else you gave me was a gentle reminder to sweep the cobwebs away from this blog. I think I can be trusted with the duster now. We'll see.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. So many tomorrows. But only one that counts.

Anyway, this is for *You*. From *Me*.

2007-03-28T10:02:00.000+02:00

IS A BANKER!...IS A BANKER!

"Thank you for calling international card services at this busy time. Be assured your call will be answered as soon as an agent becomes available."

I am assured alright but only of two things; the first being that this call is going to cost me a fortune and the second, that I will now have time to make that first coffee, roll a cigarette and maybe even meditate upon such imponderables as why men have nipples for a sufficient enough time to finally come up with a satisfactory explanation.

Unfortunately, and probably just as I was about to have an Archimedes moment regarding the male mammary papilla...

"You're through to ****** ******, could you give me the last three digits of your debit card please?"

"Well, I could but this is about a credit card."

"Oh...well, if you could give me the number of the card and then I'll put you through." There is a rising intonation and I realise I'm talking to Australia. I accept the fact that I'm in for the long haul and make another coffee.

"You're through to ****** ******," I'm in Scotland this time, "Could you give me the day and the month of your birth, please?"

"A Sunday in January, my dear."

We clear up this little misunderstanding and proceed.

"On the 26th of March, there was an attempted payment of around 600 pounds..."

"Actually, there were several attempted payments. All to the same place and none of them successful."

"And could you confirm that this was, in fact, you?"

At this point, the only thing I felt like confirming was the fact that this girl was just not listening.

"Yes. Well, there was in fact a security flag on your card."

"Again? That's the third time this year!"

"Yes. The computer, you see, didn't recognise the attempted payment as conforming to your usual spending pattern."

"It never lets me use the fucking thing often enough to create one is probably why. Is there anything I can do to ensure that when I want to use the card, I can? How much prior notice would you like?"

"Unfortunately not, sir." I make a note to introduce swearage sooner next time. "It's all done on computer you see, which builds up a pattern of your spending and flags anything not conforming to it."

"I am beginning to understand, yes. Your computer won't allow me to use the card and yet, if I don't use it often enough, your bank is introducing an annual charge of over 30 quid to cover what you describe as administration costs. Just how much juice does this computer use?"

"I'm sorry, sir. But there is absolutely nothing I can do...it's all this fraud, you see. Anyway, I've lifted the block on the card so you can make the payment now."

"Actually I can't. You see, I had to find another way to pay which incurred a 30 pound charge...I don't suppose you could reimburse me for that, could you?"

"Unfortunately not, sir. There is a verification charge of one pound, sir but that won't be coming out of the account."

"I'm sorry, could you run that one by me again, please?"

"There is a verification charge of one pound but it won't be deducted from the account."

"So, what I think you are saying is that there will be no verification charge in this case."

"That's right, sir."

I am sooooooooooo grateful.

2007-03-20T22:13:00.000+01:00

TAGGED AND BAGGED

Eve of War

Well, thanks to The UK Today for passing on Bloggerheads' original guided missive, I would seem to be obliged to at least attempt some kind of coherent answer to the question, "Daddy. What did you post when the war started?" Well, unfortunately my archives don't reach back that far into the dim and distant so I shall borrow The UK Today's admirable paraphrase of, "Daddy, what did you do when the war started?"

Fiendish. Such an uncompromising choice of tense.

I could tell him what I had done up to that point although the story would be too long or the list of achievements too damned short for this space.

I could even inform him of that which I had yet to do but the story of being presented with myself, sliced and diced and yet loved beyond measure is one which I am not sure I am quite ready to write.

Would that he had used the past continuous and I were able to relate just how, like so many others, I was sitting wide-eyed in front of CNN watching shocked and awed as several thousands of tons of exported democracy fell upon central Baghdad. I should have known better; after all, we had been here before but there was still that sense of disbelief, the feeling that after so many fuck-ups and failures, the bastards are at it again. And at it again they certainly were, that fucking chimp getting his strings pulled by those whose belief in geo-politics had survived even Afghanistan and our Tone on some kind of touchy feely crusade to rid the international community of nasty tyrants with silent movie moustaches. And as the lies were found out one by one and the lack of even a basic post-baboom plan became abundantly clear, all that was left was some kind of deranged repetition of the mantra, nine eleven, nine eleven, nine eleven...

And you know what the really sickening thing is for me to admit? It is that I can actually understand the motives behind the one and yet when I consider the other, I have no way to rationalise it nor even to lever it into some kind of accommodation with that part of me that finds such state sponsored throwing your fucking weight about just because you can absolutely abhorrent.

And yet I should turn myself to the matter in hand and a realisation infinitely more depressing than anything above. It does not help in the slightest that I am not alone, that I am probably representative of the majority in that when my daughter raises her eyes to me and asks, "Daddy. What did you do when the war started?", I shall have no alternative but to answer, "Absolutely nothing."

Now to tag some more willing (more or less) bloggers.

Roy
Jess
Roger
Alfie

2007-03-15T14:02:00.000+01:00

BONES

Yes, sometimes it really is this simple.

And yet, at other times, you simply have to set phasers to stun.

2007-03-08T12:05:00.000+01:00

BE SEEING YOU

Ferihegy. Terminal 1.

"No liquids are allowed on board, including gels, pastes and lotions."

Now, let me get this straight, okay. You say that all the above itemries could shield ingredients which, when mixed together, could cause quite a serious loss of aerodynamic performance, right?

But you are going to allow me to take up to 100ml of each forbidden substance providing the whole lot doesn't add up to more than a litre and will fit into a re-sealable plastic bag, yeah?

You do realise this is completely barking, don't you?

And just how come you decided to let those two girls through with their 300ml soft drink bottles and yet have no choice but to bin my shaving foam and cigarette lighter?

London. Luton. (Yeah, right.)

Christ, it's cold.

So, off to passport control, customs and immigration and, once again, evidence of the quite clearly deranged. There are two policemen in flak jackets, one flanking the hall and the other behind the booths. They are each armed with a semi-automatic (and very plastic looking) rifle and a holstered pistol. The rifle is held in the Port position and the trigger finger, across the trigger guard.

I tried...honest. I really tried to find an even half-way rational explanation for this and came up with absolutely nothing. A couple of beat cops would have been sufficient to deal with any disturbance at what I imagine must be just about the safest place in the entire airport. The only warning signs visible in the whole area were those banning smoking and mobile phones and sure enough, the flanker busied himself with the seriously telecomically challenged and I was left wondering whether or not he operated a three strikes and you're out policy. Even I could learn to love that.

England. (Oooops, sorry...the Regions of the UK.)

Oh dear, oh dear.

What a race of whinging, spineless, helpless and dependent nancies we have become. The land of the sheep and the home of the cowed. You generally get what you deserve and the nanny state is what we've got. Is there any area of our lives into which we will not allow the government control freaks? Any limit to the amount of shoddy service we will accept? A point at which we will say, "No mas" to the spin and downright falsehoods of our elected representatives at Westminster?

Just what the fuck is going on with this much vaunted and imminent ban on smoking? An entirely legal activity, harming only the smokers themselves and one which nets the government a fair whack in revenue, will only be possible in the comfort of one's own home or in one's car. Now I am of an age which allows me to recall when theatres and cinemas were all smoking areas and yet nary a cough or minor protestation was evident during the entire performance. These days, an actor lights a cigarette on stage and half the audience breaks out in sympathetic bronchial expectorations. Bollocks. Conditioning is all.

You may deduce from the above that one, I am a smoker and two, that I hold no truck with all the passive smoking twaddle either and you would be right on both counts. The issue seems to me to be about unpleasantness and lack of consideration which I am, most definitely against and consider them both to be evils of our time. Now we have designated smoking areas, smoking rooms in offices and groups of smokers gathered outside buildings feeding their addiction or just revelling in the pleasure that only tobacco can provide. And just what the fuck is wrong with that? Nothing as far as I can see. And yet even these are to go when the legislation comes into force. Where is it going to stop? When will talking too loudly on a mobile phone be punishable by a fine? Or personal hygiene problems? Farting in an enclosed space? Car stereos at excessive decibel levels? It's bollocks. It's discrimination. And it needs to go.

Green. Green. Green. The colour of the moment it would appear. The colour of both a healthy spring meadow and a decidedly unhealthy globule of snot. Everybody is stressing their green credentials, making the right environmental noises and yet really, actually, in fact, doing absolutely bugger all about it. The government is already some 30% behind its interim targets to allow it to meet its treaty obligations by 2020 or whatever and yet Blair is interviewed about his frequent flying and is allowed to waffle on about new fuels and new aircraft design being the answer. The only problem with this is that there are at the moment and well into the foreseeable future no alternative fuels available and the new designs he mentions have so many inherent stability problems that they would have all the airworthiness of a not particularly streamlined breeze block. Gordon Brown is allowed to get away with breaking his promise to freeze duty on LPG fuel and, with oil and gas reserves approaching worryingly low levels is not at all interested in providing any funding whatsoever for research into alternative energy technologies. I heard, so don't quote me, that some English developments in nuclear fusion were as usual, ignored and not funded and they are now being investigated by the French. And talking of the bloody government, just whose brilliant idea was it to make the need for EU qualifications for NHS doctors retrospective by 10 years? I'm sure all the Indians who were invited over here and welcomed in order to keep our health service going in the face of almost overwhelming odds weren't expecting any form of gratitude. Surely not.

And then there's Lincolnshire county council. Selective waste collection or somesuch. Every household now needs three bins into which must be deposited only that which the waste collection service instructs people to so do. A very worthy initiative, I'm sure and yet...

Okay, there's the investment in three outside dustbins and, if you are too lazy to go outside every time you need to throw something away, three indoor ones as well. They do not collect from the driveway anymore so every senior citizen has to struggle to get them to the kerbside. And last but not least, there is one material missing from the list of those of which they will dispose. Glass. That's right, bottles, mustard and jam jars, pots of face cream, the lot. Any glass. Right out.

Now, where I was staying, in a little village just on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, the nearest bottle banks were a drive away either to Spilsby (about 3 miles) or to Horncastle (about 15). These have now disappeared, no doubt due to the impossibility of emptying them frequently enough to keep up with the demand. All thoroughly thought through as you can see. I have visions of old auntie Ethel gradually being shunted out of her own house by the sheer weight of empty glass containers.

It's all getting too much. Identity cards, road charges, ASBOs, surveillance cameras, the lot. Maybe we should just have a chip implanted at birth and give up completely. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

London. Luton.

Christ, it's cold.

"Do you have any forbidden, dangerous items on you at all, sir?"

"Only my lighter and I'll bin that before going through to departures."

"No need at all, sir. There's even a smoking area now, attached to the bar in the departures building. You can take it on the plane as well."

"But..."

"It depends on the airline, sir."

"I flew with you on the way here and I lost my Zippo."

"Ah. You do know you're three kilos over your baggage allowance, don't you? That'll be 15 pounds."

"I was 5 kilos under on the way here. Do I get a discount?"

"That'll be 15 pounds."

Ferihegy. Terminal 1.

Lights on, nobody home. No passport control, no customs, nothing.

Ferihegy. Terminal 2. Guarded parking.

"6 days then, sir. 18 000 forints."

"6 days? I brought it in at 5 o' clock on Thursday afternoon and it's now 20:30 on Tuesday. That's a whole day for three and a half hours' parking?"

"That'll be 18 000 forints please, sir."

Fuckery. But at least I can smoke.

2007-03-01T11:23:00.000+01:00

BLOG OFF

Right, off to Budapest for a flight back home and the Everton match on Saturday with a whole bunch of exiled and ex-pat Blades. Anyone wandering past the Devonshire Cat at 12 o'clock on the day is very welcome to drop in and buy me a drink.

I've just had an e-mail from my brother informing me that a T-shirt is awaiting my arrival. A T-shirt?

Only this season's replica home kit is all. Twenty quid...cheap as chips...but a T-shirt? Jesus.

Anyway, back on Wednesday.

If I'm not up on a charge of fratricide, that is.

2007-02-25T16:32:00.000+01:00

ON THE SHELF

Yes, there is such a thing as the Continental Shelf and it is a fundamental component of the Great White Telephone through which we all converse with our god in times of severe distress.

However, when faced with a view such as this and despite the urgency and desperation involved in making such a sight a necessity, one cannot help but wonder at some of its more obvious design features. One’s first and quite natural assumption that it was designed for human use by a human with at least some experience of evacuatory functions is rapidly replaced by the conviction that the designer or, more probably the designers...a sub-committee consisting of two three-year-olds, a sub-atomic particle physicist and a continental equivalent of a Sun leader writer...never actually had to use the bloody thing.

I mean, no matter what the excretion or evacuation involved in its use, the design mitigates against facility in every respect.

If one considers the technicolour yawn, for example, one must concede that the diced carrots, proceeding at quite a lick under the influence of gravity and the acceleration generated by a heaving stomach, will hit the porcelain after having been decelerated by at most, 1cm of standing water. Now, I am sure that some kind of physical formula obtains to calculate to a nicety the resulting flow patterns but, I think you will agree, it would not take the combined processing power of too many computers to conclude that the splatter factor of such an event would be of too high a magnitude for it to be entirely contained within the bowl provided.

This is doubly unfortunate as, under normal circumstances, such use is accompanied by an almost blissful inability to care and a complete lack of cognisance both of which mitigate against the user leaving the scene in a state even remotely approximating that in which they found it. It is my experience that this will result in one’s having to make one’s own coffee the following morning and a rigorously enforced period of being ‘off games’.

If we move on to the urinary function, one is faced with the identical problem of splash-back. As porcelain is not noted for its ability to absorb impact, the wearing of both shoes and trousers is the only way one can remain in non-theoretical ignorance of the golden shower effect taking place below the level of the knees.

The only way of avoiding this entirely is to attempt to direct one’s stream into the deep water at the front edge of the bowl. This can be attempted in two ways, neither of which is in any way practicable. The first is a sideways on stance which is fine in mid-stream as it were but completely useless at both extremes due to the decrease in front to back target area. At commencement, most men will admit to not having the slightest knowledge of the exact point of impact until, in this case, it is far too late to adjust one’s initial aim. At cessation, it is impossible to guess the strength of the muscular contractions we employ to squeeze out any recalcitrant liquid and this too, will result in either over- or under-shooting.

The second is to develop such a technique that one can piss vertically downwards without losing one’s balance and whatever control one has over the stream. This is impossible.

And what of the unloading bay’s most pleasurable activity, the longed for and much anticipated dump? Well, this is problematic on so many levels it beggars belief.

The first is again, the problem of splash-back. Whereas in a perfectly designed British contrivance, the evacuate is funnelled downwards into a sufficient depth of water and never has to impact at right angles anywhere, the Shelf, on the other hand, appears designed to maximise ricochet. Now, I am sure that your diets ensure your stools are of a pleasing firmness and regularity and that it is only my insistence on the highly spiced that results in what a certain wombat of my acquaint has termed a ‘Bangalore Arse Rocket’ but, on occasions like these it is only the presence of my ample buttocks which prevents my making major alterations to the colour schemes of the floor and wall tiles and a resultant spatter pattern which would not look out of place at even the most frenzied crime scene.

Your advice at this point would probably be to increase my fibre intake and very sound advice it would be too. And yet a firm and log-like stool would incur another penalty.

One has only to consider the inability of the average turd to curl regularly around itself like one of those German sausages or maybe even a brioche together with the distance between one’s puckered sphincter and ground zero to realise that any anal extrusion longer than say about 12 - 15 cms is going to require a direction other than down in which to go. Now, I realise that no stool is firm enough to retain vertical integrity under even the lightest peristaltic strain so what one might gleefully term a logjam, in which equal and opposite forces achieve perfect balance is, to all intents and purposes, impossible but, the problem remains. Where does it go?

Well, depending on density and distribution of mass, to any point of the compass is where. At some point along its length it will begin to sag and, upon exit, the upper end of the log will tend to follow the direction of sag. Now, if one considers the topography of the arse with the coccyx as South and one’s gender specific attributes as North, one can immediately see that both West and East are, when thusly seated, at a lower elevation than one’s anal orifice and that the chances of suffering buttock smear in such a situation are reasonable to high. And even given the possibility of it travelling exactly along the North – South axis, those possessant of a scrotum are at an even higher risk of discomfiture.

And then there is the question of what (seeing as we’re on the subject of all things anal) kitchen chemist Heston Blumenthal would undoubtedly call the flavour molecules. With any sensibly designed apparatus, the solid olfactory evidence remains satisfactorily submerged and it is only that of gaseous provenance which provides the nasal accompaniment to one’s enjoyment of the sports pages or, my own particular preference, the latest Elmore Leonard. With the shelf however, one is not only sitting in one’s shit but on it giving free escape to all said molecules throughout the whole process.

Even if one manages a smear and spatter free evacuation, the perils of the shelf are not yet over. When one reaches down to wipe, it is advisable to make sure one’s knuckles do not, under any circumstances, come into contact with the top of the pile.

All in all, the lack of the possibility of a diving turd causing an entry splash resulting in a few drops of lightly scented lavatorial water to attach themselves to one’s cheeks and the ease with which one can examine one’s stool for colour, consistency, texture, worms and the like are hardly ample compensation for the drawbacks of this particular shelf-life which does not represent too much of a technological advance from the pole and a hole in the ground.

Now please excuse me. I have to go water my socks.

2007-02-23T12:17:00.000+01:00

WIBBLE WIBBLE

Further proof that there are absolutely no limits.

Cheney warns on Chinese build-up

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has expressed concern over China's military policies, saying they were at odds with the country's stated peaceful aims.
BBC

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

2007-02-22T22:35:00.000+01:00

MINIMUM

Hot news here at the minute is that the population of Hungary is (no, that's not quite right as the stress is definitely on the Magyar part of it so I guess that rules out all the Roma, Jews, Croats etc whose breeding programmes are carrying on as apace as ever) continuing its rapid decline, decrease or plummet and voices are being raised to the effect that the government should jolly well do something about it.

If this trend continues, it will not surprise me if, by the year 2015, the largest concentration of Hungarians anywhere in the world is in Chicago.

Mwahahahahaha.

2007-02-20T23:11:00.000+01:00

LEAPFROG

Purely in the interests of scientific study you understand, I decided to sample the Chivas again after many a long year.

What a waste of good Laphroaig.

2007-02-19T23:07:00.000+01:00

BALLS 2

Well, it's over, we're still talking and the only blot on the horizon is that I've just discovered that the boiler is on the fritz again.

Anyway, the souk was a great success as you can see here, complete with oriental ghosts in the machine.

The fault of my camera, I'm afraid. Nikon COOLPIX 4110 is reasonable for well lighted shots but indoors, the indoors/party mode needs too long an exposure and a tripod and the basic flash mode leaves me staring at something akin to a black cat in an unilluminated wine cellar.

Anyway, half the floorshow and the contents of the trench later and Idris slips into something a little more comfortable for the snake charming act.

A very simple routine involving absolutely no snakes whatsoever and yours truly on north African drum (the Doumbek for those of you who are interested). We bundle Idris into a basket off in the wings and I leave to take centre stage. I play and they drag the basket on from stage right. Sanyi, for it is he, enters stage left playing a very arabic theme on the oboe and begins to circle the basket. Nothing happens. He plays more vigorously. Still nothing happens. He kicks the basket. Nothing happens. He plays on. He kicks the basket again. Idris emerges and begins dancing. Loud cheers. A few twirls later and Sanyi deliberately fucks up the oboe line causing me to lose the rhythm. Idris feigns inordinate anger and whips the oboe off Sanyi. She proceeds to demonstrate to him how it should be played and I regain the rhythm. Sanyi takes over the dancing part of the act to even louder cheers and the whole thing ends when Sanyi climbs into the basket. Star turn. They loved us. Photos to follow if any fucker bothered taking any. Which they did, it must be said. Whether or not they included me in the frame is another question entirely. Watch this space.

And then came the belly dancing. Oh boy. Only two of them and one had to resort to tricks...hopping quickly around on alternate legs to generate the required fluidity of the hips but the other more than made up for it.

A bloody awful photo it is true and one that, although it looked fine in the screen of my Nikon when I took it, had to be digitally enhanced in order for it to achieve the admittedly sorry state you see it in here. But christ, can she move. She is an incredibly intelligent and hardworking single mother of Romany descent and who therefore, should have more than a rudimentary knowledge of these things and yet she was so taken with my playing of the Doumbek that she enquired of the possibility of my accompanying her on future gigs. I am decidedly self deprecatory when it comes to my ability on percussion, African or otherwise but even that would not lead to my turning her down, and I have yet to make up my mind by the way. No, what would really do it is that I am sure I would make a fool of myself, lose the rhythm due to a certain abdominal virtuosity and may even begin to drool and dribble. Kegels? I've shat 'em.

Anyway, Here's the band.

This is included only because I would like to place on record the fact that Csaba, one of the finest jazz drummers it has ever been my pleasure to hear perform, managed to stay awake throughout the entire performance. That's him at the back, behind the drum kit, in auto pilot mode. He also retrieved my congas from out at the vineyard jazz club and tells me, as have so many other percussionists (Danny Cummings for one, whose work on George Michael's 'Careless Whisper' still brings me out in goosebumps) that my Natal instruments have the most unbelievably excellent sound (except when I play them of course) and thus earned my undying admiration as an arbiter of good taste.

I bought 15 raffle tickets for 3000 forints (about 7 pounds 50, left the choice of numbers up to the delightful piano teacher I have lusted after for years and won...one bottle of Chivas Regal 12 years old, base note Laphroaig, one multi media stereo headset, and one Galimard Parfum en 1747. Result.

I also managed to drink 7 litres (roughly 13 pints and, before you scoff, we were there at 18:30 and didn't leave till 04:00) of St Miguel draught beer, 6 honey pálinkas and 2 Johnny Walker Red Labels and remained disgustingly sober. Which only goes to show that, even when it's for charity, Hungarian landlords still water down the draught. Not only that but our 30% cut of the bar takings worked out at just 60 000 Hungarian forints. A hundred and ninety guests with beer at 500 forints a korsó? Yeah right. Wanker.

Anyway, despite his best efforts, we still made half a million forints which is half a million up on last year. We rule.

Ah, yes...and at about 02:00, we were approached by the Director of the music school who, after a few brief skirmishes around various and sundry bushes, asked Idris if she would be so kind as to organise next year's event, too.

Oh well, hey ho!

2007-02-16T10:48:00.000+01:00

NOT JUST ONLY, BUT ALSO

"CHINESE PUPILS ECLIPSE ALL OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS IN ENGLISH TESTS

Chinese pupils are best-performing ethnic group with 86% passing national curriculum tests

Schoolchildren of Indian origin come second with 85% achieving the same standard

But only 80% of white British pupils manage to reach a similar level in the assessment"

The Independent.

Well, strap me to a tree and call me Brenda. Again.

Somewhat on a par with the revelations that the Earth isn't in fact flat and that water has been found to be jolly well wet and, if one isn't awfully careful, has the capacity to shrink little Johnny's undergarments.

The fact that Asians out-perform whites in just about any kind of test of academic achievement and intelligence has been abundantly clear ever since such testing was introduced and I suppose I would be relieved to see the fact acknowledged on a front page were it not for the absolute failure on the part of the Education Editor to entirely throw off his PC conceptions and at least consider the role genetics may or may not play in intellectual ability.

His choice of lexis in the heading rather gives it away. The 'but', the 'only' and the 'manage' indicate to me his belief that something should and indeed can be done about it.

The zeitgeist insists we look for a failure whether it be the schools themselves or, as suggested by the main body of the article, parental attitudes and culture. He states that "Parents in families of Chinese origin stress the value of homework", a quite meaningless statement when one considers it as he entirely fails to place it in any comparative context whatsoever and we are left to infer that it is somehow the fault of white parents for undervaluing time spent studying. Indian parents however, obviously need just to give that little extra one per-cent.

The fact that this rather flies in the face of a recent government sponsored study showing that the amount of homework and greater academic ability increase in indirect proportion in that the more homework you get, the less effective it is, is conveniently ignored.

And I know I'm on dangerous ground yet will go there nevertheless, but isn't there a bit of unconscious racism at work here? An idea that the Chinese and Indians can't be better than us, surely. It's the schools. The parents. The tests are skewed. Anything but consider the possibility that they just might be genetically predisposed to outperform us. That bloody PC insistence that we are all the same and 'equal but different' can take a powder.

He also states that girls consistently out-perform boys...another zeitgeist phenomenon that seems to insist that all things female are to be promoted over all things male and much to be preferred but I'll skip that...without actually delving too much into the details.

As an average, mean or whatever you want to call it, what he says is no doubt true but, if the results of these tests follow those of many, many others particularly in mathematics and the sciences, both the extreme percentiles, the very high and the very low, will be dominated by males. To an overwhelming extent. But, seeing as this contradicts the propoganda that a glass ceiling does in fact exist and is the only reason females are under-represented in research fellowships and the like, this too will be conveniently ignored.

Still, I guess it's a start. But I fear that it will be used as a stick with which yet again to browbeat the government into taking measures to do something about that over which they really have no control.

Apart from massaging the figures, that is.

2007-02-14T00:29:00.000+01:00

GO FIGURE

This is why I always get out of the bath in a more colourful state than that in which I get into it.

And, as transient as it may be, it still accords with my pre-conception that children's art is usually figurative. Apparently, I was wrong.

Okay, I may be her father. But...just how good is that!

2007-02-11T21:45:00.000+01:00

BALLS

Yes, it's that season of the year again, round about carnival time, when fundraising balls dominate the social calendar and some poor fucker gets roped in to do the organising.

That the noose of the Nagykanizsa School of Music and the Performing Arts should have fallen around the neck of my partner, light of my life and mother of my child has led to my becoming a poor fucker by default and, as I am desirous of avoiding atmospheres and unpleasant scenes and would rather prefer everything tickerty boo and my lunch on the table, I have been unable to kick up much of a fuss about it. Coward that I am.

Well, just how difficult can it be? Book a venue, sort the music and food. Job done.

Hmmm. Not quite, professor.

Having chosen to accept the mission, Idris decided quite rightly that, if 't were worth doing...etc and, taking a quick glance back at the history of the event (maximum attendees 90, last year's profit, zilch), made the decision to drag the whole thing, kicking and screaming, into some sort of relevance.

She chose a theme. The East. The Orient and beyond as opposed to Bulgaria and the Carpathians. I ask you. Just what on Earth was she thinking about? We live in a small town backwater in the west of Hungary with about as much connection to the exoticism of the East as Bradford railway sidings.

I think it was the idea of forever having to wash my own socks that finally brought me round or maybe it was the fear of having to arrange quality time with my daughter over the phone but anyway, I succumbed.

She wanted the entrance to the venue to resemble a bazaar. The two trestle tables were easily enough arranged and, bizarrely enough, she was supremely confident of her ability to turn these into a reasonable approximation of a middle eastern souk.

You see, I had reckoned without the Hungarian equivalent of the old boy network. Idris is a music teacher. She also runs her own private music nursery school with which she tours kindergartens in the area giving music 'lessons' to the pre-schoolers. She is also one of the members of Vabababa Társulat, a travelling theatre group of musicians who write their own stories with musical effects and accompaniment and tour nurseries and schools in the county, giving performances to kids. She does, as a consequence, know more young children in this town than just about anybody else and they, not to put too fine a point on it, absolutely adore her. This, as I have since discovered, gives her enormous sway with parents.

One visit to our local carpet emporium and a swift chat with the father/owner later and we left with a selection of the finest silk carpets and wall hangings from all points east. A visit to a furniture store and the mother/proprietor pressed about 6 Indian reed baskets upon us and it only needed a quick dash into the ethnic gift shop and a slight twisting of the arms of the parents/shopholders and we had our bazaar. Hookah pipes, jewellery, ceramics...the lot.

We also found a wonderful oil-burning lamp which every guest will have to rub on entry. A genie will then apparate (or so I am told) and present them with a small welcome gift.

As for the music. Well, much more problematic and has certainly led to the most inventive swearage thus far. I mean, this is a charity ball to raise funds for a music school right? I'll say that slowly. A. Music. School. With more competent musicians per hectare than anwhere else this side of Heiligenkreuz and every single fucking one of them wanted paying for their performance. Fuck 'em. It did rather give me an insight into why it has never made much profit before as it seemed everybody was intent on creaming as much out of it as they could. Bastards. Well, I say every single one...with the honourable exceptions of Angéla, of whom more later, and Laci, a double bass player of Romany descent who has his own band and agreed to play for the dancing for a very much reduced rate. I like Laci. For a dirty, thieving, job-shy, gipsy whorecunt, he's not at all bad.*

We also did a tour of nearly all the shops and businesses in town and most have donated something that we can offer as prizes in the raffle.

And so, on to the show.

You're not going to believe this but, this small town on an old trading route between the Alps and the Adriatic has as part of its cultural possessions a rather nifty and decidedly attractive troupe of belly dancers. They said yes. I said yes, please.

Now, back to Angéla. She runs an after hours percussion orchestra for the kids at the music school...a lot of xylophone work mostly but other percussion, too. She has agreed to arrange a kind of Taiko or Japanese drum performance for us. It's looking up.

Idris' contacts in the theatre world led to us being able to procure the services of the 'Fireflower Moving Theatre' who will perform traditional eastern tales with music and dance accompaniment.

Our Frog attends the local ballet school and they have agreed to send a group of modern dancers along, too. Although quite how this will tie in with the oriental theme is anyone's guess.

Idris and a fellow oboist from a nearby town are going to perform a comedy snake charming act and that just about wraps it up.

The only thing that bothers me is the food. We chose a restaurant as the venue and they will take half of the 4000ft ticket price for food and hire of the large banquetting hall.

I give you the contents of the trench for your perusal.

On arrival: Glass of honeyed pálinka

On arrival at table: Cheese sticks with lentil dip.

Served at table: Meat and vegetable balls with curry sauce.

Buffet:

Indian chicken breast marinated in spicy yoghurt in a ginger, honey and fruit sauce.
Char-grilled turkey kebab.
Stove cooked pork steaks.

Red onion chutney with figs.
Chili sauce.
Jacket potatoes.
Jasmine rice.
Mixed salad.

Apple and almond strudel with cinnamon sauce.

Doesn't look too bad but I wonder what a Hungarian chef will do with it.

We also did a deal whereby we get a discount on the 50-50 ticket price split which kicks in should the alcohol bought exceed a certain level. Pepe and I are both going. This is guaranteed.

So, we get tickets, posters and invitations printed (see above graphic) and, so far, have sold 184 of the buggers with one week still to go. We are on course for both record attendance and profit and, quite remarkably, are still talking to each other.

Better not be too much of a success or they'll ask her to do it next year an' all.

*Irony alert, folks. (Just in case, you understand. One can't be too careful.)

2007-02-09T12:45:00.000+01:00

PENGUIN

Yes, I know. One of my more tenuous titles I'll admit, but nothing else would quite do.

As your innate perspicacity and powers of detailed observation will no doubt already have registered the fact that Amstelladagain has been Shoe-horned into a long overdue re-fit, my actual posting about it would, at first glance, appear superfluous in the extreme. However, some rumours are best quelled at source lest matters swiftly get out of hand.

There has been an insidious sussuration of snide whispers that Amstelladagain was a mere spectator in the process and that the photoshopping and html manipulation involved was entirely the work of the woman who does. I would just like to take the opportunity of stating that any further perpetuation of these scurrilous rumours* will leave me no choice but to place the entire matter in the hands of our legal representatives.

You have been warned.

*(Edit) The Amstelladagain legal team would like it clearly understood that they are in no way responsible for the veracity of this statement.

2007-02-04T13:21:00.000+01:00

STICK AND CARAT

Once again I must express my indebtedness to the Shoe for bringing to my attention the latest in a long line of contrivances designed to prevent the young girls and gentlewomen of the United States from ever having to confront or even question the patriarchal attitudes to their burgeoning sexuality. Purity rings.

I mean, what!

There is so much that is deeply troubling and worrisome about this that it is difficult to know where to start, never mind how to best organise one's thoughts on the subject. Jess covers most points admirably and yet I feel that insufficient stress is given to the root cause underlying all her arguments. A denial borne out of fear.

It is not the sole preserve of the religious to seek to deny the basic truth that we are, in the final analysis, what one might term linnéally part of the animal kingdom yet it is the conservative right which seeks to apply this logic in such self-serving and hypocritical a fashion. We, all of us, in western societies far removed from the 'natural' harbour within ourselves an aversion to anything which reminds us of our animalistic heritage. How many of us feel entirely comfortable using the purely descriptive words 'shit', 'piss' and 'fuck' rather than the myriad twee euphemisms with which we attempt to gloss over the 'coarse' reality?

I am not suggesting for a moment that we should all succumb to our animal urges and instincts. We are about as far removed as possible from a natural environment wherein such behaviour would be a reasonable survival strategy and, as we have shaped our environment, so must we adjust our actions and attitudes to suit. The problem lies in the fact that our society today has been shaped by men and, as a logical consequence, largely for them as well.

And what of men? What, to use a theatrical term, is their motivation? The acquisition of power? Maybe. A desire to control? A possibility. Jesus...look at those answers. Any of you who were in any doubt of my gender have just been enlightened. In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I have only allowed myself to admit of the possibility rather than accept a blunt affirmative as the only reasonable response. But even this misses the point. Both these desires stem from something deeper, something much more primal and, by even referring to it, I am probably forfeiting all rights I may have had to membership of the man club and laying myself wide open to charges of heresy, treason and betrayal or, more likely, that my views are totally unrepresentative of the sex as a whole and the product of a sadly deranged and probably latently homosexual mind. Such are the defences we employ.

At base, the problem is fear. And it is the fear of female sexuality. What else would prompt us to explain away our own transgressions as a succumbing to our basic animal urges, a problem solely of weakness of will in other words, and yet view the possession of the same by the female as the problem itself?

Catch most men in a moment of unguarded honesty and they will admit to a desire to basically fuck anything with a pulse, Anne Widdicombe excepted of course; a celebration and affirmation of their masculinity, each convinced of their own inate alpha maleness.

And yet, in the same moment of unguarded honesty, they would have to admit to entertaining the idea that this is delusion of the highest degree. And one which strikes at the heart of our self definition as males, our cocks.

I don't think I am taking too much for granted when I say that women just do not possess an organ so intrinsic to their sexuality nor one as capable of wreaking such havoc to their ego. I mean, they may worry about the size of their tits but I have never experienced a situation where non-performance of mammary glands has precluded an act of fornication. Is clitoris size an issue in self-image? I doubt it. Inadequate lubrication is a problem that can be overcome. A failure to erect on the other hand will lead to despair and a possible desire to invade small, lightly armed middle-eastern countries. There is, and I apologise in advance for the imagery, just so much riding on it.

And even given a full and totally reliable erectile function we are still screwed when it comes to performance. Only once in my entire sexual life have I encountered the situation where my partner in the horizontal dance was, in the total sense of the word, fucked and I in a condition for further activity. Once. Penis envy? A trifle compared to our longing for an organ as capable of multiple orgasms as a vagina. The disparity in capacity between a cunt and a cock is surely a further proof of the non-existence of god or, at the very least, that he or she was intent on fucking with us.

The point being that, taken on average and on a purely physical level, no man is capable of entirely satisfying a woman sexually and this really pisses us off. We who control so much find this one basic function over which we have none. Something. Must. Be. Done. Limp dickery is not an option.

And so we take the easy way out. We deny our own inadequate sexuality and attempt to prevent the female from ever finding a full expression of hers. We exaggerate and praise our performance and seek to express our virility in other ways while at the same time attaching the label of immorality to female sexuality. Job done. Or at least it is as long as the (male) Church holds sway over issues of morality and it is this perception that the religious right seeks to perpetuate with these fucking purity rings. A patronising pat on their little heads and instructions not to worry their pretty little selves at all about that insistent itch which demands scratching. It's just the devil at work, dear. Just say no.

On the whole, I think I prefer the 'What would Jesus do?' bands.

He would forgive you, my dear. And ask his old man to get the balance right next time.

2007-02-01T10:08:00.000+01:00

CTRL. ALT. DELETE

Whilst hardly coming as a shock of a magnitude capable of causing even the most negligible twitch of the seismograph, it was nonetheless quite sobering to discover upon rousing oneself from the deep and dream-filled that an idea first mooted in the ethereal world of late night chat had evolved into a form altogether more substantial, the upshot of which is that Amstelladagain has been decreed Social Secretary to the Shoe, a position which, in this case, is more akin to that of a firewall than personal organiser.

Our main duty, it would appear, is to facilitate the avoidance of any unpleasant scenes and/or the kind of thwarted expectations that would lead to the hasty and most likely fumbled attempts to stuff the agreed upon buttonhole of choice as far down into the breast pocket as possible without drawing unwanted attention to the deed.

Now, acknowledging the fact that with great responsibility comes great power, it would seem incumbent upon us to adopt a policy of impartiality, considered judgement, objectivity and honesty but, as the priest was heard to mutter on his way to the choir stalls, "Bugger that." It is well to know one's limitations, after all.

So, first things first. Physical attributes. Hmmmmm.

Whilst those of dangly genitalia are undoubtedly in prime position to avail themselves of any dating opportunities, previous experience has been such that any application from the differently gendered will be looked upon favourably on the understanding that representatives from Amstelladagain reserve the right to show up at any time during the date to observe that events are proceeding smoothly and to offer any assistance that may be required.

I feel pretty confident in making the assertion that, if you are able to rest your nose atop any bar of standard height without having to stoop or bend at the knee, your application would fall at the first hurdle. EC is no Amazon yet is shown to her best advantage alongside the reasonably tall and broad shouldered.

Six pack stomachs offer no real head start here as the self absorption and narcissism needed to acquire such would probably manifest themselves in other areas as well and lead to conflict and unpleasant scenes. Besides, such muscles are akin to speed bumps and unnecessarily hamper progress in either an upwards or downwards direction and rather tend to spoil the quite pleasing curvature of the slightly convex belly.

Facial hair. Eyebrows a must for both sexes here. Beards? Not at all high on the list of must have features although they are acceptable for the male only if they are of the...er...shall we say, nautical variety and do not depend for their maintenance upon several hours in front of the mirror and a post graduate diploma in topiary.

A propensity towards maintaining equilibrium and co-ordination even during the most severe of alcoholic broadsides will be looked upon extremely favourably. Clumsiness, whilst not grounds for automatic exclusion, will not likely be tolerated in outdoor situations and most definitely not if demonstrated indoors and while already, or on the way towards being, horizontally engaged.

One will not be expected to be overly fastidious in one's choice of apparel. One should aim for appropriacy, casual elegance and comfort above all. Natural fibres are recommended for all occasions and brownie points will be gained by expressing a preference for the hand knitted. Any leanings towards the leather, rubber, PVC or any dressing which could in any way be described as 'cross' would better be suppressed until at least the fifth date.

A little personal hygiene goes a long way. EC is relatively low maintenance in that personal grooming products essential for creating a good impression are limited to a good soap and essence of rum and cigar smoke.

Right. Time to delve a little below the surface, I feel.

Character. All applicants should have one with no exceptions.

Manners. Old school Southern. Again, no exceptions although the Yorkshire variant has proved efficacious. Producing an authentic rendition of, "After thee, lass" will however, require the production of one's credentials, a birth certificate being the only true guarantee of success. And, even then, on no account should one ever refer to Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane as, "a dashed fine spot, don't you know?"

Honesty. Advisable at all times except when it isn't. These times may vary and be subject to whim, situation and bourbon content. The phrase, "You don't sweat much for a fat lass" is best left until at least the second carnal encounter and care must still be taken over tone and intonation to avoid the possiblity of one's being measured for prosthetics a little earlier than one might reasonably have anticipated. Amstelladagain has no advice whatsoever concerning the correct answer to questions such as, "Does this make me look fat?" other than to say that, "No, dear. That's the cookies." is probably not one's best option at this point.

Taste. A veritable minefield and one which will lead to the removal of all but the fittest from the EC dating pool. A falling by the wayside of almost mythical proportion will occur as the lack of an ability to discriminate between the genuinely excellent and the merely well advertised in any field takes its toll. Received wisdom here will help not a whit. One must at all times be prepared to justify one's choices and preferences although be warned that any justification one might have for preferring Jim Beam or Jack Daniel's to small batch sipping bourbon will be dismissed peremptorily and out of hand. There are no second chances here.

Sexuality. Worth having. Definitely.

High maintenance submissives. Need. Not. Apply.

Accessories. Mobile phones should on no account be used for sending pictures of one's gender specific attributes whether in a state of advanced arousal or no. This is in no way a symptom of a Victorian prurience but is rather borne out of the inarguable logic which states that such an act does automatically disqualify one from any claim one might have had to be, even barely, human.

Miscellaneous. Any queries answered on request for a nominal fee.

EC. A tall order? That's as maybe and not for the faint of heart but a reward well worth aspiring to nevertheless.

All applications will be treated in the strictest confidence and will not, never, no how be made public on Amstelladagain without prior permission.*

*This may not be entirely accurate.

2007-01-31T23:06:00.000+01:00

BLIND

And to think I'd believed them all these years. Sheesh.

2007-01-25T11:58:00.000+01:00

CUBIT

When I first received this, for want of a better description, calendar, I couldn't figure out how it could possibly work. I left it wrapped in its transparent packaging and sat down to work out all the possible combinations of the two numbered cubes that would allow me to display every date between the first and the thirty-first and not one would do the trick.

And then it hit me.

No prizes on offer. Just curious you understand. Hopefully it will drive you as crazy trying to work it out as it did me.

2007-01-24T00:32:00.000+01:00

CHOCOLATE FRYING PAN

Mincing, fucking elitist, snobby bastards.

Quite why such a trivial event has caused me such apoplexy, fury and venom is beyond my meagre powers of explanation. But if have managed to convey the extent of my in-a-bateness by means of my opening line, then I have succeeded in my objective and can safely move on without the possibility of your in any way lagging behind.

I think it was the Independent online I was perusing the back issues of when I came across some work by a rising food writer and, believe me, had I been there when he wrote the piece, he would have risen a good foot and a half further.

I mean, just what is the fucking point of an article purporting to present some funky breakfast dishes the recipes for which, to stretch the point somewhat, absolutely depend upon the procurement of six and a half grammes of the finest Peruvian smoked llama cheese or somesuch?

Stroll on.

This twat, and I do use the term advisedly, despite my somewhat overcooked blood, was extolling the virtues of kedgeree and not once, nor even twice but thrice in the same short paragraph managed to set my pulse to racing, my ire to rising and engender within my normally placid breast a desire to do such physical harm that I had not felt since I devoutly wished to severely, and probably anally, incapacitate Norman bloody Tebbit with a bicycle pump.

I don't think I really needed him to parade his knowledge of culinary trivia so blatantly as to inform us that the dish derives its name from the Indian khichri and nor did I welcome with a loud hussah the news that any kedgeree worth actually cooking has as its prime requirement only the finest and the freshest smoked haddock. These would obviously, in and of themselves, have led any right thinking individual to reach for the mashie-niblick with a view to inflicting some form of cranial rehabilitation therapy but what really got my goat was his insistence that we, on no account whatsoever, should even contemplate for the merest slice of a nanosecond using that godawful, yellow dyed smoked haddock available in most supermarket emporia near you as I type.

This is babble. Who the fuck does he think he is? Or, much more to the point, who does he think we are? Does he really think his readers are the type to now examine the contents of their fridges and ditch any yellow haddock the possession of which, beyond calling napkins serviettes and holding one's knife as one would a pencil, so obviously and beyond all doubt delineates one as of the lumpen proletariat? Those who know no better? 'Kinell.

Mind you, this is from the same newspaper which published an article which appended the adjective pikey to the compound soft play centre, producing within me a similar urge to explore soft flesh with various sharp and abrasive objects and, one would assume, innuring me against further occurences. Wrong.

I will never learn.

2007-01-20T01:14:00.000+01:00

BOXING CLEVER

Reading Jess, on the Shoe, as I do, I was reminded of our very intense conversation on the subject of...naah, such a wide ranging kitchen conversation was never limited to just the one subject but, all the same, the nub, crux or kernel of the matter was our shared penchant for what might reasonably and psycho-analytically be termed compartmentalisation.

Shultz had Linus remark that, “Happiness is a drawer full of warm socks” but I would add a codicil to that along the lines of, “if warm socks were all it contained”.

When one compartmentalises to the extent we do, happiness may well be defined by the knowledge that when one opens a drawer one knows exactly the contents thereof. Take the lid off a box...no surprises there.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. Remove yourselves, as I have urged you before, as far as possible from the possibility of misconstruing what has preceded this beseechment and denude yourselves from the delusion of our being some tight arsed labellers intent on stuffing our experiences into some alphabetically arranged compartments in our mental Dewey Decimal catologued memory banks. This is NOT, as Wittgenstein was so fond of calling, the case.

We are open and, dare I suggest, more than most, to the full panoply of stimuli this mortal coil can offer and retain the ability to absorb, digest and agglutinate same (Okay, agglutinate sucks but I have held forth before on the difficulties encountered by dint of the simple fact that English is no longer my first language) into our respective world views. And please excuse me at this point as I erode a further micrometer from the trail between my terminal and the fridge for another bottle of inspiration.

We do not attempt to shoehorn realities into previously annotated files. We have, as far as is ever possible, no conceptions that are in any way pre. We absorb, we cogitate and we adjust. We also fail quite spectacularly to realign our expectations of others. We, totally unrealistically, expect them to react to any given as we would, with the same considered intelligence. In this, we are naive in the extreme. We can see it, why the fuck can’t you?

And yet. Our lives are boxed, filed and tramelled into entirely discreet and separate areas. Thus far, I have, rather presumptuously, used the ‘we’ and yet from here on in, the first person singular will have to suffice with emphasis on the singular.

The whole question revolves around the query, “Who the fuck are we?” and, given the fact that our cells regenerate every seven years, we are hardly the person we thought we were in that not one of our cells extant at the time of our seventh birthday is with us today. Fuck. That’s a biggie.

So, who are we? Or, more to the point of this rumination, who am I? Am I the same 5 year old who developed an acute stammer as a result of an infant school teacher exercising her prerogative over the children in her care? The same junior school boy whose cap was nicked by the resident bully Wednesdayite? No fucking way. And yet we seem to expect that we are somehow a progression...a result of all that has occurred up to now and that the whole is a kind of totality. Bollocks.

And so it is. Bollocks. Those of us who do not have recourse to boxes are condemned. Doomed to be the same person at all times to everybody. Absolutely impossible. Or at least it would be to anybody who desired to remain sane and relatively likeable.

We who box, box most ourselves. We recognise that the totality of who we are is so completely inexplicable that to attempt to rationalise our selves is rather akin to pissing into the wind.

But we also have a freedom and an ability to mix, to be equally at home in the pub and the cocktail lounge. If you have no need of boxes, you have attained the unattainable, the ability to move within circles without ever having to adjust yourself. I couldn't do that. I am made up of so many contrasting and conflicting parts that to fully explore them all, I have to keep them separate to a very large extent. Few ever get to see all of them. Those who do are valued beyond measure and, perhaps unsurprisingly, tend to have boxes of their own.

But I am drunk and have long since begun to ramble. I shall probably delete most of this in the morning anyway. Put it down to the Stella.

And file accordingly.

2007-01-02T13:35:00.000+01:00

SHAVINGS

Just to prove that if it isn't underarms, legs or bikini line, women just haven't a clue.

"Wow! It must have taken you ages to grow it like that."

"Was it an accident or did you do it on purpose?"

"You've done something to your beard, haven't you?"

"There's something different about you. No, don't tell me...er..."

"What happened to the other half?"

I had, I thought, anticipated just about every other reaction but these left me, for once, absolutely speechless.

2006-12-30T21:16:00.000+01:00

TODAY'S A DAY TO CELEBRATE

...the foe have met their fate. And, in tribute to the mighty Blades and, in particular, messrs Morgan and Jagielka, so has my facial hair.

Altogether now...

"We all agree,
Jags is better than Lehmann.
Monty is better than Cesc Fabregas,
And Arsenal got what was coming."

I'm off to a New Year's Eve party tomorrow. And I am going like this.

2006-12-30T09:32:00.000+01:00

THERE IS NO NUMBER THREE

There is no cause for either a rejoicing at a death or a celebration of a life this morning. All I can feel right now is a kind of despair. Both Margaret Beckett and Bush minor have added their wisdom on the event of early morning; a holding to account and an important milestone towards democracy apparently.

A serendipitous conjunction of opinion there certainly. It would appear that the more democratic one's system of governance, the less likely it is that anyone, anywhere will ever be held to account.

I feel sick.

2006-12-26T09:55:00.000+01:00

LICENSED FOR DANCING

No 2

I'm sure he wouldn't have it any other way.

Papa's definitely got a brand new bag.

2006-12-11T01:54:00.000+01:00

LICENSED FOR DANCING

No 1...in what hopefully, will be a very long series.

2006-12-07T10:52:00.000+01:00

TRIBUTE

You may have noticed, have you ever been of a mind to explore my sidebar, links to both Byker Sink and Wor Man in Hanoi, blogs produced by the one individual.

I very nearly wrote 'one and the same person' there but, always a stickler for factual accuracy, decided that although he might well still be one, he most definitely is not the same.

For the past two and a half years he has been a part of the KOTO (Know One, Teach One) project in Hanoi, Vietnam, a volunteer in an organisation dedicated to providing street kids with education and work skills. A future in other words.

For the same period he has blogged of his experiences. With honesty, humility, wit, humour, an inexplicable devotion to Newcastle United and an overwhelming sense of love. In this short time, he has probably achieved more than most of us will manage in a lifetime. A lot of us can talk the talk, as they say. He not only walked but took us with him every step of the way. And it was quite a journey. Tears and laughter. Always love. Love of the country and its people. And especially for the KOTO kids. Many of us hope to find our reward in heaven. He has only to look at this photo.

Thank you, Steve.

I am indeed, not worthy.

2006-12-05T11:28:00.000+01:00

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

or

Bugger This for a Lark

Or perhaps that should be SCREW YOUR COURAGE TO THE STICKING PLACE or Pull Thissen Together. Maybe STAND NOT UPON THE ORDER OF YOUR GOING or Fuck Off.

And maybe this marvellous passage of Aeschylus'...

Near the heart the pointed sword
Waits; when Justice gives the word,
Through and through, sour edged and strong,
Strikes the blade. For none can long
Scorn regard of right and wrong,
Break the holy laws of heaven,
And hope to find his deed forgiven.

Justice plants her anvil; Fate
Forges keen the brazen knife.
Murder still will propogate
Murder; life must fall for life,
So the avenging Fiend, renowned
For long resolve and guile profound,
Now the wheel has turned with time,
Pays in blood the ancient crime.

...could be rendered as 'what goes around, comes around'.

And certainly would, if various publishers have their way. I remember being jolted out of a P G Wodehouse inspired Blandings reverie or it may have been a wistful idling away in the world of Mike and Psmith...but anyway, the start might not have been enough to send the bathwater swishing over the sides of the porcelain, yet my rhapsody was rudely truncated by a sudden reference to the cricketers Truman and Compton.

I mean, what!

No doubt that in the most recent editions even these names will have been replaced by those of Harmison and Flintoff which, given this morning's abject performance, just goes to show that any attempt to add relevancy is almost bound to detract from the intended meaning.

Just what were these fellows thinking? That the world of aunts, personal gentlemen's gentlemen, the Drones club and country house breakfasts would be made more relevant and palatable to a modern audience simply by updating the sporting references? It would appear that Krispin and Jocanta have forsaken advertising for the world of publishing.

We've had the abominable Disneyfication of Winnie the Pooh, a computer generated Noddy and now it would appear that even the books of Enid Blyton are to be brought kicking and screaming into 21st century relevance.

"The current publishers, Hodder, made a number of changes to the text this year to reflect changed uses of language. "I say" was replaced by "hey", "queer" with "odd" and "biscuits" with "cookies" - the latter to appeal to American readers."
The Independent

Now, although as a child I read Blyton, I always found her the literary equivalent to the aural wallpaper of easy listening. An unchallenging way of passing the hours of a long car journey for example. I was more a Richmael Crompton and Kipling boy myself. I recently picked up a copy of Five Go off in a Caravan for 50p from Save the Children and, having read it, am content in the knowledge that I have saved at least one child from the bother.

But I stray from my point.

In our ratings driven world there is a desire to make the world of 'the Arts' accessible to a wider audience. So we have this random 'up-dating' of literature, the New English Bible as opposed to the wondrous prose of the King James' Version and classical symphonies recorded and arranged with a 'modern' drum beat.

Bollocks the lot of it. Every book, piece of music, painting...in fact, any work of art is of its time and place, a reflection of its creator and his or her environment. Wherein lies the magic of Shakespeare? In his insight into the human condition? In his story telling? No. It is in the language, purely and simply.

They have it, as so often, completely arse about tit. Instead of modifying the Arts to make them more accessible to a wider audience, here's a radical thought. Why not make a wider audience more succeptible to the Arts through education?

Even then, there are always going to be people for whom the Arts will remain, as it were, a closed book. So what? They will rarely be brought to a greater appreciation by adding a rock beat to a symphony, re-writing Shakespeare in the modern vernacular or by any other kind of dilution. Are their lives any the poorer for it? Who can say? The question would not even arise were the subject say, sport for example.

Oh, well.

Good night, good night; parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night, till it be morrow.

Ah'll sithee.

2006-11-20T11:47:00.000+01:00

PATRIOT MISSILES

Now it is not my intention to turn this blog into some kind of YouTube Lite but, as I had never seen this before and was reduced to tears by the 'Surprise Deposit', I thought I'd share it with you.

No wonder Gilliam took up directing. He never could have made it as a straightman.

2006-11-17T09:36:00.000+01:00

ISTEN VELED ÖCSI

Puskás Ferenc (1927 - 2006)

Okay, so you did score 357 goals in 354 appearances for Kispest Honvéd and even 154 in 179 for Real Madrid. You might also have been the best inside left the world has ever seen. But, Öcsi, why the fuck did you have to leave Billy Wright sat on his arse in that 6-3 demolition of England at Wembley in 1953? Not only were you responsible for endless black and white re-runs of the exploits of your 'Golden Team' (running at least monthly up to this point and not including 'specials' whenever one of them was selected for the celestial XI) but you also gave the networks a perfect excuse for flying our Billy over whenever England ventured into Hungary to provide what should have been expert analysis. I shall never forgive you.

2006-11-15T17:33:00.000+01:00

BITING THE BULLET

Anybody gone for it yet?

Your new version of Blogger is ready!
The new version of Blogger now has all the original features you're used to, plus new post labels, drag-and-drop template editing, and privacy controls. And, it's a lot more reliable.

After you switch you'll need to sign in with your Google Account, but your blogs will stay the same. Their content and layout will not change.

Opinions?

2006-11-10T02:41:00.000+01:00

THREE BAGS FULL

There was a parents' evening at the Frog's nursery school yesterday and, as Idris was working, I was the designated responsible adult. So, I picked up Froggy, hared her off to her pre-school lesson and dashed back just in time to catch the start. There were upwards of 30 parents in the room, most shifting awkwardly on chairs made for the support of 5 year old bottoms. I, on the other hand, was advantageously and comfortably perched on a table at the back of the room. I had been here before and knew that comfort was all.

The headmistress(?) began proceedings by expressing the hope that we had all read the notice on the notice board.

I read it today. It invites parents who would like their children assessed/tested to make a prior appointment, in writing, with the Rainbow Foundation who are in town expressly for said purpose.

She continued by informing us that there was a foundation grant which nursery schools in the area had been invited to apply for and indeed that hers had made such an application. In order to comply with the terms and conditions of said application, children in their last year of nursery school had been subjected to approximately half an hour of assessment and testing.

Whoa. Run that one by me again would you? You had my child tested without my permission? By an outside organisation? Not government/Dept. of Education run?

So, with little consequent ado, she handed us over to the Foundation representative/soon to become a colleague, who would further elucidate.

She (a total female hegemony here, I briefly notice. Myself and Zoli are the only males in the room) began by stating that her foundation was set up in the interests of, blah, blah ,blah...development...blah, blah, blah...standards...blah, blah, blah...preparation for elementary school...blah, blah, fucking blah...and that she had tested/assessed all the 3rd year children the previous day.

"Did you know about this, Zoli?"
"No, but..."

She went on to explain that they had been tested under four main categories; knowledge of personal information (date of birth, address, names and occupations of parents etc.), motor skills (following physical instructions, left hand on right shoulder, thumb and four fingers into contact in sequence, hand/eye co-ordination etc.), intelligence and memory (symbolically, numerically and alphabetically, even though counting and letter recognition form no part of the nursery school syllabus) and finally, attentivity and understanding (knocking on the desk whenever a certain word is spoken, concept questions etc.)

Concept questions, eh? I know all about those from language teaching and would readily attest to their being wide open to interpretation

Anyway, points out of a hundred are given according to performance.

She continued by stating that she would personally come into the school twice a week for an hour to give remedial attention to those children that needed it. She adds, in response to a question, that the remedial work can be carried on in elementary school should the child 'need' improvement in their hand/eye co-ordination for example, and even in secondary school if need be.

"What the fuck?"
"Ssssshhhhhhhh!"

It is at this point that the red mist descends and I can feel a full blooded, assegai wielding, rampant fucking slaughter coming on.

"How's your memory, Zoli?"
"God knows."
"Shall we test it?"

I mean, what the fuck? Hand/eye co-ordination, for fuck's sake? Motor skills? What the hell is this any preparation for, visits to a china shop?

So, presentation over, we are led into seperate rooms where the nursery school teachers will consult with the parents of children of their own particular classes. Now, seeing as my own especial frog was born in July, we had the choice of starting her in elementary scholl (a form of pedicentric training, archly recommended) this September or keeping her in nursery school for another year. Inordinately fond of our childish adult, we decided on the latter. Christ, childhood is all too short and the Hungarian education system is such that attendance at any school beyond nursery signals the end of same. Anyway, this meant that the three 'sisters', Lorna, Laura and Izabella, mouseketeers all, were represented by father, father and mother in intimate congress with their two primary carers.

They began by stating that the marking of the tests was so strict that a failure to answer any one question correctly, or perform any exercise to the representative's satisfaction in any section, resulted in a zero mark for the whole section and, as a result, they would not be telling us, the parents, the mark achieved. Heaven help that we would become competitive and resent each others' child on the basis of some abitrarily awarded point.

*Huh?*

They proceeded to go through the entire test in some detail, stage by stage. The questions asked..."Can you tell me the days of the week?" Do they understand that yesterday is past, today is present and tomorrow is yet to come, etc. etc. etc? Do they know their own telephone number?

*Fucked if I know my mobile number, I never use the fucker.*

Can they follow a simple 'Simon says' sequence, rapping on the table in front of five symbols in the order in which they were rapped by the assessor/tester?

"Er...excuse me. You said that you don't want to tell us the results, yeah? But just who will have access to these results?"

Cue great sniggering on the part of Laura and Izabella's parental representatives whose brains are obviously not fully engaged at this point.

"No. Wait a minute. Will elementary schools have access to these results and be able to refuse to accept a child simply because their hand/eye co-ordination isn't up to scratch?"

"And just who decides what is an acceptable level of performance in each section?"

"Oh, well, it's obviously an average." states father Laura although mother Izabella pricked up her ears noticably at the first question.

First answer is in the negative.

"But representative stated that the remedial work would/could/should (the exact modality escapes me) continue in elementary and secondary schools."

"Well, yes. But they wouldn't know the exact results."

*These guys should run for office.*

The second query remains unanswered.

They inform us that part of the test involved determining which part of the brain was the dominant. Left hemisphere, right handed and all that. They then went on to state that they, as nursery scholl tweachers (see above but with a tweak in their sobriety), would have to perform exercises designed to strengthen the weaker hemisphere; close strong eye and view the world through a toilet roll attached to the other etc.

*You are fucking kidding, right?*

I had to leave at this point as I had to go and collect the Frog from her pre-school class. As I was leaving, the primary carer informed me that Lorna was an entirely normal child.

*Fuck. Let me down again, the bitch.*

I came home and ranted profusely about the whole fucking rigmarole of such an assessment to Idris and her friend Kati. It transpired that Kati's son, Boti, a 5 year old turbo charged, charming bundle of sugar fuelled aggression is, and I quote, "catastrophic" according to his speech therapist/logopediatrician and was thusly informed in front of every parent of every child in his speech therapy class. He lisps and is lazy in his enunciation. Fucking charming to me. I understand him.

I go and pick the frog up today and am buttonheld by her primary carer.

"I didn't want to tell you yesterday in front of the others but Lorna was way ahead of the rest of her age group...wiped the floor with them, in fact. First in every category. Out of the whole year. 3rds and 4ths."

*You just don't fucking get it, do you?*

On the other hand..."Who's your daddy?"

2006-11-07T03:53:00.000+01:00

DAMP SQUIB

Jamming on the brakes does have the rather wondrous effect of waking one up to one's surroundings even if the shopping in the boot does remain vertical and leak free, a state I often have trouble in attaining but that is by the by.

I was heading home post supermarket trip and decided to hit the main road route as opposed to the shorter in distance, through town trip. Leave town, over the flyover...screeeeeech. Zero forward mobility in a very short time indeed.

I ignore lane discipline in an attempt to ascertain the problem and espy a squad car some 500 metres away, an accident thinks I. Wrong. I approach the obstruction and it becomes all too clear that there is a tractor parked/abandoned on the oncoming lane. It is the work of but a moment for me to espy the rather large Hungarian flag flying from a pole inserted into its vertical exhaust system and my reactionary circuits hit overdrive.

The tractor is hauling, or would be if it wasn't parked, two trailers. They are both festooned with more Hungarian flaggage than I have seen wielded by a victorious water polo team and several and sundry cars are parked behind them. All of the cars bear banners. One reads, and I translate, "Gyurcsány, resign!" and another, I do not translate, "Justice for Hungary".

Now, being one of the very few who could possibly understand that last message and, in reaction to the waves of the demonstrators and the sounded horns of their supporters, I did only what I could in the circumstances.

I electronically wound down my window, mechanically raised my middle finger, left hand and mouthed, "Fuck off!"

Thuswise are the politics of the UK introduced into Hungary.

One likes to think one does one's bit.

2006-11-02T19:54:00.000+01:00

DER, DER, DER, DER BRAIN

Frank Lampard said: "I knew things were raining down but none of them hit me. There was a bit of banter with the Spanish fans and that was good."

Banter? Hmmmm. With? That would imply some sort of dialogue, Frank. And even if the Catalans were speaking Spanish entirely for your benefit, I wonder if you know what 'Concha tu madre, chanchito de mierda' means.

2006-10-29T22:34:00.000+01:00

ARSE. ARSE. ARSE.

I’ve been thinking. Not, on the face of it, an unusually demanding activity you might surmise but if one pauses for a moment to consider, one would have to concede that, for most of us, it remains an ability almost entirely self taught and, though it pains me to admit it, tragically under utilised.

Now I do not concern myself here with the processes involved in making the admittedly important and mood defining decision of, “I think I’ll go with the Bunnahabhain tonight” or even in reaching the conclusion that, “I think you’d look rather fetching with your knees somewhere in the vicinity of your ears” and nor that which would allow me to explain such important consequentialities as why men have nipples and quite how American Foreign Policy can best be meditated upon only with a thorough understanding of the theory of entropy. No. For these I give not a fruit of the ficus carica or wouldn’t even if I had one, which I don’t but I digress.

No, what concerns me mightily at the moment, has set the synapses abuzzing in an optimistic attempt to jump start cells either pickled or too long dormant is the ability for the kind of thought which would allow one to attain a state of true individuality and certainly not that long considered to have allowed us to attach the species sapiens , to our genus, homo . That after all is far too closely associated with knowledge and knowing which is a biscuit of an altogether different provenance. No. In short, the nub, kernel, central point or even G-spot of my cogitations is education.

Now maybe it’s the malt soaked old buffer in me coming to the fore but it would seem to me, even in my more sober moments, that the whole purpose of education is to teach one to think for oneself. To see through the assorted fripperies of advertising, received wisdom, newspaper editorials, state of the nation addresses and serving suggestions and actually reach informed conclusions and opinions of one’s own. A triumph over ovine ignorance in other words.

And it is in this respect that the education system of the UK certainly failed me and is quite demonstrably failing others even yet. I was told. I absorbed. I regurgitated. It was only after the passage of some fifteen or so years, during which I read widely and took far too many drugs, that when I returned to university as a mature(r) student, I was finally able to exchange the intellectual currency I possessed for anything more than face value.

We do not educate any longer. We train. We trammel. Like a vine trained along wires we are pruned and led. And to what? Our own little cubicle if we’re lucky but most will end up as wage slaves, mortgaged to the hilt and running the wheel ever faster and with increasing desperation.

Education, if it means anything, must surely mean freedom. Freedom from the ignorance and prejudices of our elders and yet freedom hardly informs the thinking of our governments today. Oh yes, the freedom to buy shares, to buy one’s council house...freedom to buy, to consume and be afraid. Afraid that one might somehow fall behind, catch bird flu or be rendered into one’s constituent molecules by terrace. Freedom to do all of this but the freedom to think, to challenge, to question, to change?

God help me, I am not perfect. I know nothing. I am hopelessly ignorant and prejudiced to the nth degree. All I would ask is that my daughter has at least a chance, however small, of being better than I am.

I know that if I leave it up to the education system here in Hungary, her knowledge will certainly exceed that of the average Brit but she will be programmed and inculcated all the same. There is so much to do and I am not sure if I am the man to do it.

And should I think about my motives? Am I looking for redemption through my child? Oh, fuck it. I think I’ll have another drink.

2006-09-22T12:42:00.000+02:00

AGENT PROVOCATEUR

Having stirred Hungary into a couple of nights unrest by suggesting that their 6-3 win at Wembley was entirely down to the ideas of Jimmy Hogan, the English coach working with them at the time, and as it would appear to have settled down somewhat, I'm off to Croatia to see if I can't nick a few more of their vowels.

Back in a week. Play nicely now.

2006-09-19T13:06:00.000+02:00

WHAT'S GOIN' ON?

BBC report on violent demonstrations in Hungary.

Basically, what the report describes. The whole truth is a little more complicated.

Gyurcsány, the current socialist PM as a result of an election a couple months back, was addressing MPs in his party at a private meeting and made the basic political error of telling the truth in a situation where he could be surreptitiously recorded.

The background is that the election took place at a time when Hungary is basically up to its nostrils in the effluent...huge debts, no longer able to afford to subsidise gas and electricity prices etc...and, as people seemed to be of the opinion that 10 years since the change of regime was long enough to get the country and economy on track and end the years of austerity and belt tightening, there appeared to be an unspoken pact between all the parties contesting the election to not make waves. The political reality was such that any party who actually told the truth about the economy would not stand an Unsworth at left back's chance of being elected.

Also, two of the major reasons why 10 years has not been long enough are the usual post regime change corruption whereby state industries are sold and contracts awarded to cronies for respectively nominal and extortionate fees in exchange for bungs and backhanders to politicians and the fact that the black market here is larger than the legal one. In other words, every single person in Hungary is corrupt to some extent whether it be the housewife who accepts the plumber's offer of not issuing a bill for the work done and thus gets a cash discount, the teacher giving private lessons after school, the manager diverting company concrete to his patio or the politician abusing his position to stuff his back pocket. Fact is they're all at it. The only difference is in the amounts involved. And people being what they are, they do not equate their own, small financial scale corruption with that of the politicians and bureaucrats.

So, tax base therefore very small or at least smaller than it should be given the extent of the black economy and therefore, taxes themselves on a par with those of Scandinavia...very high.

Result of all this? A population not at all receptive to any notions of further belt-tightening and cuts in government expenditure. A simple political formula that telling the truth equals electoral suicide. Plus the fact that the sheer scale of the corruption makes it almost impossible to deal with. How is the guy with a small allotment style vineyard going to be persuaded to declare his earnings on a few litres of illicitly sold wine which will help him pay the increase in his utility bills when he is aware that people in higher positions have made billions at the same game?

Gyurcsány understands all this and attempted to tell his party a few home truths. The two most quoted parts of his speech, both in the BBC report, sound pretty damning but, without either the context of the whole speech or knowledge of the political situation here in Hungary, are succeptible to being used to manipulate those bears of little brain that make up the target audience of huckstering politicos.

The first, "Of course we lied to win the election" breaks the unspoken contract between any electorate and its politicians that 'we know you lie but we will accept this as long as you do not say so to our faces'. Hypocritical? Of course but a fact nonetheless. Home truth number 1 anyway.

The second refers to the Socialist's 4 years in office before the latest election. "We did nothing for four years. Nothing." Again, out of context, pretty damning.

But, if we take both in the context of an intelligent man talking privately to the members of his party doing what all voters profess they want their politicians to do, that is to tell it how it is and attempting to hold up a mirror to the MPs and shake them up enough to at least attempt to change the status quo, to say that this is how it has been and I am heartily sick of it, then they become something else entirely. That which should be a kick start for real political change, an acceptance of responsibility and a new contract with the electorate.

The cassette containing this speech was broadcast on Hungarian radio on the 18th of September. Gyurcsány himself published his entire speech on his blog on the 17th. Okay, he knew of the existence of the tape by then either, and here is the interesting bit, because he had been told of it or because the whole thing happened with his knowledge and approval. Either way, he is standing by his speech and will not apologise for nor retract one single word of it.

I have read this and, although my Hungarian is not up to understanding it in its entirity, the gist of it seems to be that 'the country is fucked, we have been content simply to be in power and in denial of the real situation and we have to try to break the culture of lies and actually do something to try and fix the problems'.

So, the tape is broadcast on the 18th. On the 19th, demonstrations break out simultaneously in all the major towns and cities in the country, including Nagykanizsa. The focus is on the 2 quotes above and there is a lot of Hungarian flaggage in evidence.

Spontaneous eruption of public feeling? My arse. Just further evidence that the right is more organised than the left is all. They hardly needed their political antennae set to maximum sensitivity to recognise this as a perfect opportunity to make political capital. Firstly, just how many people would take the trouble to actually read the whole speech and not rely on the selected soundbites? Secondly, what party could resist such a golden opportunity to brand the opposition as congenital liars thereby keeping their part of the contract whereby we know they lie but they have not told us so to our faces and can therefore, be trusted?

It's the flaggage on display that gives it away really. I mean, what normal Hungarian voter would think, "In a whore's life! The PM lied to us. Now, where's my flag?"?

Again, a bit of background. Before the election, the main opposition party, FIDESZ, was running a tad short of policy ideas and, as afraid of telling the truth as the ruling socialists, decided that their best chance of victory was by playing the nationalist card. Thus, whenever they held rallies the faithful were instructed to turn up not with their party flags and colours but with Hungary's red, white and green.

Anyway, as demonstrations do, some turned pretty nasty, particularly the ones in the capital. Finding the parliament building closed and/or too well defended, they turned their attention to the State TV headquarters where they overpowered some 100 riot police and stormed the building. To what end? Ostensibly to have a petition read live on air but I doubt the majority were even aware of this. Most of the participants seemed to be the Hungarian equivalent of our own dearly beloved BNP supporters and were probably acting on some genetic memory from 1956 that storming the TV building is what one does on these occasions.

As ever with the really important political events, this one will play itself out on an emotive rather than rational level especially since the election was only narrowly won and the country split almost 50/50 between the Socialists, a kind of New Labour/Third Way lite and the right wing, nationalist FIDESZ. I can't help feeling that, despite his best intentions, Gyurcsány has handed the opposition a lethal weapon and that his days are probably numbered.

Which, for a lifelong socialist (champagne or otherwise) and rabid anti-nationalist such as myself is definitely...Not. Good. News.

2006-09-18T23:38:00.000+02:00

ALLONS LES ENFANTS

The current prime minister of Hungary has been secretly recorded during what we might call an unguarded moment admitting that, "Of course we lied before the election" and an even more illuminating, "We did nothing during our previous 4 year administration, nothing."

Well, strap me to a tree and call me Brenda, says I. You were expecting something else, maybe?

Apparently they were.

There are increasingly violent demonstrations taking place in all the major cities and towns in Hungary including this one, as I type. A mob gathered outside the Hungarian TV building in Budapest momentarily overpowered 100 odd riot police to gain entry before being repelled with water cannon and tear gas. Watch this space.

It would seem we live in interesting times.

2006-09-18T13:18:00.000+02:00

TOP OF THE POP-UPS

Roger is right, one could have hours of fun with this.

Well, maybe not hours exactly. That may have been a slight exaggeration. Okay, if I'm honest, five minutes tops. Unless, like me, one is desperately bored and looking for something to take the edge off a Blades induced mild weekend depression. Naah, it's back already. Plan B it is then.

Your very good health.

2006-09-15T02:38:00.000+02:00

THIS ONE GOES OUT TO...

Okay, I've tried everything. Short of prostituting myself or mortgaging my future sperm count...a dodgy proposition given the general dissipation of the X chromosome in the human gene pool but fuck it (or not, as the case may well be), there are some things worth selling one's soul for.

Namely Mike Leigh's Naked and Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books.

Anyone with a more than negligible opportunity of putting either of these into my exceedingly grateful possession is encouraged to get in touch via the comments.

I love you all.

2006-09-14T22:02:00.000+02:00

LIFE UNDER HEADPHONES

I always tune in to FM4 out of Vienna in the car to tickle the stamens of my musical curiosity but the chances of me ever getting any work done now I've found a live internet feed are minimal to totally non-existent.

Carlsberg don't do radio, but if they did...

clicky

Stompin'

2006-09-14T13:38:00.000+02:00

COLD SWEAT

I had the strangest dream last night.

I was having a deathbed revelation during which it was revealed to me that everything I had ever believed up to that point had been wrong.

It was then that I woke up.

Before I'd even had the chance to enquire about Piers Morgan.

2006-09-08T13:43:00.000+02:00

TRAVEL TIPS: No. 1

If ever you should suffer a, shall we say, agricultural diversion when attempting to steer with your knee while rolling a cigarette, it would be wise to ensure that you are driving a Trabant at the time.

I was just performing said manouevre when a sudden jolt and the sight of tobacco parting company with paper caused me to look up and witness the perfect point perspective of a ploughed field which, on a closer inspection, I discovered to be some metre and a half below the level of and, on the other side of the road from, the lane from which I began said escapade.

Trabant...chassis like a tank and with limited moving parts, none of which could remotely be described as fragile...completely undamaged, an assumption at the time but confirmed on later inspection. I just rammed it into first...bumpity bumpity bump...tractor exit, back onto the blacktop and...now, where did I put those cigarette papers?

The moral of the story is...next time I'll take the Octavia. Much less of a tendency to veer.

2006-07-27T10:51:00.000+02:00

TEARS ARE NOT ENOUGH

2006-07-27T09:58:00.000+02:00

SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE...

I have a feeling I might regret this but there is bile in the Amstelladagain liver which no amount of single Islay malt can flush away.

Wasn't it Spitting Image who first accused Israel of attempting to rewrite the Old Testament and improve on it a bit with respect to the smiting? Whoever it was, they got it pretty much spot on.

So, where shall I start? Talking about the who, why and what of the birth of the state of Israel will do me little good here...although it might be worth reminding the Israelis that, were it not for their own acts of terrorism, it would not have come into being at all.

Should I deal with the facts on the ground? Shit, there aren't any. If truth is indeed the first casualty, then it was stretchered off on a drip to the field hospital before I was even born.

Sod it then, I'll add my own take on events and the hell with it. If you think me ill-informed, I can only say that of course I am. Along with the rest of the world.

So, as I see it, the biggest problem is that you have a whole shedload of people, the Palestinians, who were kicked orf their land and are;

1. almost totally without any form of what we would recognise as representation and independence. Israel is in almost complete control over their water supply in the West Bank and Gaza, for example.

2. because of their lack of a viable state and their diaspora, subject to being used as pawns in other States' political machinations...most other Arab states look down on the Palestinians and yet this does not stop their using them as an emotive issue at home to demonstrate Arab solidarity and divert attention from other, more potentially dangerous domestic issues.

Hamas and particularly, Hezbollah arose in an attempt to solve these problems. The latter runs schools and hospitals in southern Lebanon and provides an infrastructure which includes social services, student grants, help with medical expenses...all those things which no state can provide for them. Hearts and minds? Maybe, but for a poor Palestinian refugee family it's manna from heaven. Even now, who is it that is ensuring a supply of food and bottled water to those suffering as a result of Israel's bombardment? Who is it that funds rebuilding programmes after the dust has settled? You got it. Hezbollah.

There are all the elements of statehood in the above and yet this exists within other states outside of the control of the host government...another problem but I'll skip that for now...so why is it that we are surprised when such a state, demonstrably existing to serve its constituency, decides it needs a military to protect it?

And, by God, did it need protection. Just who else was going to look after their interests? The US? Britain? Syria? Who was Israel going to sit up and take notice of? The UN? Israel does what it damn well pleases and always has done and is still the subject of more ignored UN resolutions than all other countries combined. Who else was going to respond to Israel's acts of aggression?

Were any other country in the world to have followed the same actions as Israel's over the years, the Marines would have been sent in ages ago. So why haven't they?

Is it the Jewish lobby in the US? The fear of being thought anti-Semitic? A post WWII sympathy? Is it that we just hate/fear the fucking arabs? The fact that Israel's got the 'bomb'? Probably all the above, I don't know.

What I do know is that, if one were to look for examples of rank hypocrisy anywhere in the world, the ones of stupendous, off-the-scale magnitude will be found here and I, for one, am heartily sick of it.

You commit acts of terrorism. We wage war.
You commit atrocities. We talk about collateral damage.
Your actions are wanton. We merely defend ourselves.
You fire one rocket. We drop 20 tons of ordnance.
You are non-people, refugees at best. We suffered a diaspora.
Your democratic government is illegitimate. We are exporting democracy.
You abduct and kidnap. We capture and arrest.
You are unlawful combatants. We are prisoners of war.
You can rot without trial in Guantanamo. We expect the Geneva convention.

Our state has the right to exist. Yours? Who gives a fuck?
We enter your territories with armour and uniforms and are therefore, within our rights to do so. You enter ours with explosive clothing and are therefore, not.
We have the right to protect ourselves. You can just get on your knees and assume the position.

And then you've got that fucking chimp, Georgie boy stating for the record on prime time Republican TV that he cannot in all conscience sanction stem cell research because of his regard for the sanctity of innocent life. 'Kinell.

And then all the political media machinery in the US oiling its cogs over the prospect of WWIII. Give me strength.

I realise that all this seems pretty one sided but hey, whaddaya know? Bush and Blair are hardly balancing the arguments, are they?

We're fucked. Absolutely and totally.

A patriarchal world, eh? I'm lovin' it.

2006-07-09T23:36:00.000+02:00

THERE IS NO EFFIN FIFA

The referee didn't see it, the assistant referee didn't see it, so how can FIFA's insistence that video evidence is inadmissable stand up after tonight?

I am in no way condoning the action of Zinedine Zidane, although I would love to know just what Materazzi said to him; there just remains a suspicion that the fourth official (whose verdict has so far in these championships been restricted to timekeeping) only decided to radio his opinion to the referee after Zidane's marvellously aggressive headbutt was relayed to the entire audience via the video screens in place at the stadium. (Whoops, according to eye-witness reports, the replay was not shown in the stadium but you're not telling me that the official did not have access to TV monitor replays).

Now, were similar evidence to have been admissible during the rest of the championships, Italy would probably not have progressed beyond Australia, whose fortune at this World Cup was determined by a decidedly dodgy penalty decision which would not, under any reasonably fair video scrutiny have stood up to even the most cursory examination.

I'm agog at the possibilities for FIFA to explain away this one, but I'm sure they'll find a politically acceptable press release, one which absolves Materazzi, as a World Cup winner, and the referee, as a FIFA appointment, of any wrong doing whatsoever.

But I have this nagging suspicion that Materazzi was extremely well briefed. Any lip readers aware of Algerian insults?

2006-07-09T11:01:00.000+02:00

ALLITERATIVELY SPEAKING

I guess advertising agencies have known for some time that there is nothing like alliteration when it comes to embedding marketing slogans into a consumer's psyche (P-p-p-pick up a Penguin) but it would appear that in the quest for fantastically effective fricatives...the 'voiceless' and 'labio-dental' both sacrificed here for their assonance...consonantal consonance has begun to take precedence over any semantic considerations to the extent that a manufacturer of bath and shower gel will accept a marketing presentation containing the words 'Family Friendly Formula' without instantly dismissing it as mere babble from the sick bed.

Given that even the less sentient among the populace would probably have among their expectations of such a gel the assumption that it would not corrode their epidermal layer to the extent of necessitating a visit to their local NHS provider, one wonders just how this formula can demonstrate its acclaimed chumminess.

This aside, what really grates is the ubiquitous shorthand of 'family'. The use of the word by advertisers, politicians and apostrophe unaware signboard writers has rendered it absolutely meaningless or, more accurately, to a state of such vagueness that it can safely be used by such masters of the art of saying absolutely nothing while sounding deeply profound as huckstering political candidates in the sure and certain knowledge that heads will nod among the electorate at any mention of the phrase, 'family values'.

Family holiday, family meal, family fun, family butcher...now there's an image for you...family car, family shampoo and family bloody values; all intent on conjuring an image as unreal as that of a nostalgic reminiscence of the supposedly halcyon days of the 1950s where fratricide, incest, spousal abuse and child battering all, no doubt, took place without the confines of the family and idyllic Sunday afternoon picnics formed the focus of a fun family weekend.

Would it were just a laziness abroad in the land but I fear it is but a symptom of a deeper malaise; a desire, especially on the part of politicians and the media, to reduce even the most complicated issues to an easily remembered soundbite using enough emotive language to trigger an emotional response among the intended audience in an attempt to stifle any rational debate on the subject. The word 'family' has already been hijacked, 'democracy' would appear to be going the same way. We are indeed, a civilisation in decline.

All I can say is that any family containing Warren Terrism and Laura Norder is not one among which I would wish to spread my genes, that's for sure.

I must go now. I think my family pizza is just about done.

2006-07-07T12:50:00.000+02:00

MADE FOR TV

"...and we'll be covering that two minutes silence live, as it happens, here on CNN."

I'll probably be joining in. Words fail me.

2006-06-24T10:56:00.000+02:00

STRAW POLL

"He should be put on the first plane back home" said Clive Thomas, a former referee. "They gave him two easy games to start with and the third was a tougher one. And, as ever, when the chips are down, he loses control - he goes berserk, he totally loses it. I could see something like this coming and the incident with the three yellow cards was a disaster for him - that was pathetic refereeing."
From the Independent

As wonderful an example of sticking the knife into a fellow professional as you're ever likely to see and, as I'm sure every Blade who witnessed his performance in our FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal will agree, absolutely on the button.

2006-06-12T00:32:00.000+02:00

USXL

Just when you begin to think that, quite possibly, official statements have reached a zenith of ineptitude and that there is no more room in any major facial orifice for even the most dainty of feet, along comes evidence that things can, and probably will, get a whole sight worse.

A top US official has described the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a "good PR move to draw attention".

Mind you, there could be an upside. Both Bush and Blair have been doing rather badly in the polls recently...

2006-05-05T09:47:00.000+02:00

DOOLEY DOOLEY DOO

It was a fairly uneventful trip although I have yet to experience what might be termed a perfect landing when flying EasyJet and the pilot was in fact sufficiently skilled to at least find the right airport, the wannabe London Luton...the name a triumph of marketing over any geographical factors that's for sure.

So, off to find the courtesy bus to the carhire centre and encounter the first evidence of the unease and incapability with which your average Brit deals with airports, the first staging post on the way to 'abroad'.

"Is this the bus for the Station?"

"Er...no. That would be the one over there waiting next to the sign that says, 'Station'"

There were at least six variants on the above before the bus drew away which did give me the opportunity of tanking up the depleted nicotine levels. Step out of any airport these days or indeed, out of any building and your first intake of breath is no longer fresh air but rather a fug of cigarette smoke. Strange when in the quest for something decent to breathe, you have to open a window and stick your head inside.

Anyway, off to Avis...sorry, no interestingly buttocked Mégane and have to settle for a brand new silver VW Golf instead which took no time at all to remind me that there is nothing like automotive equipment to force one into taking several steps back along the evolutionary ladder. I was just glancing around for something with which to twat it one when I finally discovered that the switch to open the boot was operated by the VW logo itself...the badge being fitted with a dampened spring system that must have put at least 100 of the folding on the list price. So...load 'er up and climb in.

It was a little like 10 steps forward and 5 back. I was, it is true, feeling slightly less neanderthal after figuring out the boot mechanism but, faced with the array of bright lights and cabin controls, I morphed effortlessly into Dee-Dee mode.

"Oooooooooooooooo. What does this button do?"

There was even one marked 'ESP'. I mean, what? Of course I pressed it, concentrated very hard on sparking up the ignition...fuck all. So much for German engineering.

I eventually got out of the car park having resolved, for safety reasons, not to even look at any of the LCDs...I mean, adept as I am at rolling cigarettes on the roll as it were, trying to decipher and understand merely half of what the thing was trying to tell me would have involved severe lane indiscipline at best and several pedestrian fatalities at worst.

Whoever decided that six fucking gears might just be a whizzo idea had obviously never driven through Luton on the A505 to Hitchin and Letchworth. Used, as I am, to changing gear both with the right hand and rarely, and once I had given up trying to change gear with the seat adjuster lever, it took me precisely not very long to develop RSI in the left arm. Obviously a marketing ploy to encourage up-grading to the automatic version and parting with even more of the folding.

Onto the A1 and a chance to play with the cruise control, something I had often wished for on my journeys across Europe back to the UK. Complete waste of time. Two questions naturally occur almost immediately on return to Blighty. The first, 'Where did all the drop-dead gorgeous women go?' is irrelevant here but the second, 'Where did all these fucking cars come from?' is germane to our discussion. I mean, I defy anyone to find a stretch of road anywhere in England where a constant speed is attainable and/or advisable and just what is the use of a cruise control that is de-activated not only by use of the clutch and brake but also the bleeding accelerator?

Oh well...home and the first Stella session catching up with my brother. We had both had the same idea and arrived home at different times, I with 8 Stellas and he with 8 Tesco bitters that I wouldn't brush my teeth with. Very much a case of each to his own that evening I can tell you.

Captain Blade

I got to Sheffield about 11 o'clock on the Saturday and headed down to BDTBL and the Blades' Superstore, the name again an attempt to market-morph reality I'm afaid. I was under orders to purchase two Captain Blade dolls for two Frogs of my acqaint but was informed that they had sold out yet they might have some left at Streetwise on the Moor. Half way there and it occured to me that I had walked further this day than on the previous god knows how many but I soldiered on anyway. Past several open pubs it must be said but I was a man on a mission. Streetwise was happy to impart the news that the dolls were such slow movers that the line had been discontinued and none were to be had for love nor money. Bollocks. I was in such a bad mood that I completely forgot about the proposed ram-raid on Tongey's opticians and headed back to Shoreham Street where I consoled myself with a greasy chip butty before heading off for the hotel. Check in and tootle off out immediately for a trip to Tesco. Henderson's, only three bottles, sheeyit...check, Colman's...check, malt vinegar...check, Cheddar cheese...check, giant fuck-off block of Cadbury's Dairy Milk...only mildly amused to note the Made in France label...check, fajitas for lunch on the morrow...check. On the way back I stopped at a newsagent's on Wostenholme Road for more bottles of Henderson's, climbed back into the car and pulled away. There was a loud metallic clang from somewhere under the car and an almost complete lack of power. Stall. Bugger. By keeping the revs up at extraordinary levels, I managed to limp back to the hotel where I called Avis. The RAC chappie arrived promptly and we went for a wee drive. Naturally, everything was fine and we parted company. Hmmm.

Sheaf, Sheaf, Sheaf

Sunday began well. I woke up early, had a shower, a short walk for a paper and first into the dining room for breakfast...indeed a first, this will probably never happen again as long as I live. I made off with the entire stock of bacon before any other guests arrived...after all, this was going to be a very liquid day and I needed all the fat I could get. Then, "TAXI!" over to the Sheaf View which turned out to be closer than I remembered it being and led to my arriving there 10 minutes before it was due to open at 11. A white minivan pulled up and several and sundry Blades disembarked. One walked over to the pub door and read the opening hours, was bereft to read the 12:30 Sundays and turned back to impart the bad news. Having had the foresight to actually phone from Hungary before I left, it was for me the work of but a moment to pour oil on troubled waters and receive a cold can of Stella for my trouble. A contingent of Welsh Blades they were and it transpired that we had a common acqaintance, none other than the only man I have ever kissed full on the lips...no tongues though...Weggie himself. Small world. Anyway, first into the pub...not, as you will no doubt have supposed, a first in any way this time...and, being faced with as fine an array of strange and wonderful beers as you could wish for, asked the disturbingly young looking barmen for a recommendation. Quetzlcoatl it was then. They did rather venture out of their own particular field of expertise when they attempted to enlighten me about the differences of language and geography between the Aztecs and the Incas but I am sure they were grateful for the information that the Incas did in fact speak Cechua, a language quite unrelated to some of the 'click' languages found on another continent entirely. One always tries to help out, don't you know?

Anyroad, out to the beer garden and wait for the rest of the Euro-Blades. Hamburg actually arrived on the button at 11:30 but it was another half hour before we recognised each other...he going on the basis of my blogger profile picture, which he insisted was misleading in the extreme...obviously, I'm much better looking in the flesh...and I relying entirely on a rather grainy, hand held video of him performing the Greasy Chip Butty on a German train back from a St Pauli match. So, an eventual hail and well met to Mrs Hamburg, Ams, Mrs Ams, Ams Jr, Trigger, Hague, Mrs Hague, Barca, Froggy and, quite possibly several others who have unfortunately been Quetzlcoatled out of the memory banks. A meeting spoiled only by my half hour wait to get served at the bar. Despicably understaffed if I may say so.

BDTBL

Off to t'match and a pleasant surprise to see just how splendid the Lane is looking these days with the new corner stand...shame about the different cambers but an improvement nevertheless. Only a little out of place...I had inexplicably quite neglected to pack my Burberry baseball cap...I enjoyed the match immensely, the highlight for me being Kozzy's Robert Pires swan dive impersonation near the end and the chance to abuse Király Gábor in his native language did not go unwasted. Quite an optimistic attempt from the back of the kop but there you go.

This is not Derek Dooley

The retirement of the Chairman of the Football Club whose duties would seem to have been doddering and wittering on to an almost embarrassing degree was marked by a post match presentation during which said retiree was persuaded by that bastard son of a bastard 70s DJ, Gary Bastard Sinclair to regale those present with a rendition of Sinatra's 'New York, New York'. We will swiftly skim over this episode only pausing to remark that one wishing to perform in front of nigh on 28,000 people could at least have taken the trouble to learn the lyrics if not actually rehearse.

Coke adds...

A promotional (in both senses) afterthought, the Blades were awarded a silver salver and medals by Coca Cola representatives which admittedly did provide some sort of logical conclusion to the celebrations which would otherwise have been unfocussed and maybe more anti-climactic than they already were. Warnock took the mic and once again just wouldn't let it lie, would he? Yet another reference to the doubters and glass half empty brigade and this on a day when all Blades were in a forgive and forget celebratory mood. Just deal with it, Neil. Okay?

Nellyocracy

A short walk to the Nelly and copious quantities of Chav Juice in the company of the clique or should that be the BOM squad? I shall name no names here but preserve internet alias anonymity to protect the guilty. Here's Raul looking inordinately pleased with himself at having found someone even shorter than he and the powers of Stones' bitter are best demonstrated by Keef's beaming grin even in the face of an impending triumph of hope over experience second marriage.

Big Mart was looking as Top Shop as ever which rather goes against reputation...one has great difficulty in imagining anything other than distance, projectile warfare when considering the tiresome bother of trying to remove blood spatter patterns from Stone Island threads. He did have a lovely cardy on though. Shame I didn't get a picture. Now then, Ped. There are several words that spring to mind when thinking of Ped, 'bollox' and 'bladdered' being two of the most common but I am always struck by how such a model of lugubriousness as he can be so much fun to be with. Imagine a six foot version of Droopy Dog with a ready wink, an awesome thirst and...naah, not even close.

There was a rather dimly remembered arm wrestling debate as both for and against Akinbiye massives squared off against each other. My opponent was Big Rods who, I can only assume, has a collection of oversized American custom cars, and I am sorry to say...on the basis of eye-witness evidence only as my memory tells me the opposite...I lost. To Rods, I can only say that thou art a short-arsed little runt and I'll get thee next time, ya bugger. Brownie...fount of some of the ropiest celebratory cigars I have ever tasted. In fact, if I relax my concentration for but a moment, I can still taste 'em. Yodelmeister. How anyone with such an above average liquid content can have a humour so dry is beyond my powers to explain. All I can say here is that he who drinks with the Sponge cannot expect to have more than a partial memory of the journey back to the hotel.

In fact, now that I come to think about it, there were among our number two company chairmen and a sales director. One can only hope that we're all thoroughly ashamed of ourselves.

Oh, and by the way, the Golf switched into Limp Home Mode on the way back from Sheffield which involved a trip to Lincoln in a tow truck and a brand spanking new Peugeot 407. Yummy.

I also set a new record of 2 hours exactly from Budapest to Nagykanizsa which represents an average speed of over 100 kph. Hire cars. Who needs 'em?

We are Premier League, say...

2006-04-28T03:16:00.000+02:00

*GRUNT*

It's 3:15 in the morning here and, as somewhat of a departure for me I must admit, I have already been to bed.

The road to Budapest awaits...the first port of call on the journey to BDTBL and the last match of the season on Sunday.

A pre-match EuroBlades convention in the Sheaf View...a post-match BOM shindig in the Lord Nelson with a possible detour into the Sportsman and a ram raid on Sam's opticians.

Bloody long way to go for a party. And this really is an ungodly hour to be getting out of, as opposed to into, bed.

Now, what was the plan again? Oh yes...throw up on Hamburg, goose Barca and run off with Ams' wife. Now there's a bit of reverse psychology for you. One can only pray it works.

Hey ho and off we go.

2006-04-15T12:11:00.000+02:00

FOR RAUL

It's hard to say what it's really like, this thread that runs through my life. It was anchored there by my father and has spooled out behind me ever since, one of only a very few constants.

I could maybe liken it to a hunger, a thirst but then it is one that can never be fully assuaged. One feeds off scraps for the most part with only the occasional feast to remind one of the delights of the high table. And am I the consumer or the consumed? The gnawing inside reminds me of who I am and where I came from, the tug on the thread recalls a father's hand.

As it plays out horizontally into my past, the vertical movements trace highs and lows, more troughs than peaks it must be said and only rarely constant.

A love affair, then? Of a kind, maybe. But there is a certain lack of sudden intensity, of infatuation, it is certainly more comfy, old slippers than fuck me shoes. They share a lack of perspective even though, in this respect, they are polar opposites. One looks at a lover and is blind to their faults or, measuring them in the balance, finds they are out-weighed. This thread though is more a fault line, limned with disappointment, treachery and betrayal. Drawn with mostly honest endeavour and on a shoe-string budget.

Do the highs and lows follow my mood or do they define it? More the latter I would suspect. Even though my life is to a large extent independent of it, the thread forms a backdrop, an undercurrent, the base from which all other peaks and troughs must be measured.

A sad indictment maybe but right now, I find I do not care in the slightest. My senses are filled and today I shall dine on greasy chip butties.

The Blades are back.

2006-04-08T03:28:00.000+02:00

CRYSTAL CLEAR

Flight EJ2582 will, no doubt, be inordinately pleased to whisk me away from home and hearth and I am sure the hired car with the dodgy bottom (apologies to Soapy but this is one Leopard who has indeed changed his spots)...that is, the cross between a VW Beetle and a Ford Anglia, the splendidly callipygian Renault Megane will quite spectacularly fail to breakdown as it transports me back oop to t'grim and I am equally confident that seat 116 on row WW of the Shoreham Street end of beautiful downtown Bramall Lane will be graced with a gift wrapped complimentary chocolate (and, quite possibly, an intimate wipe for my personal convenience and enjoyment), but...it is with a heavy heart that I have to impart the grave and, it must be said, quite stupefyingly depressing news that my favourite hotel in Sheffield, the quite splendidly named Lindrick, has obviously been taken over by some absolutely hideous cohort of Bush, Rumsfeldt and Kinda Leezer and is henceforth to be known as 'Globe Line'.

And may the Lord have mercy on us all.

2006-03-31T19:35:00.000+02:00

GREEK

It has been brought home to me today, rather forcibly impinging itself upon my consciousness in fact, that Friday afternoon is not the most opportune time to be teaching teachers.

I am afraid I lost it.

Twice.

We were 'doing' prices, to which end I had given them a café style menu with which to practice.

The menu had pictures of all the items on offer and the first task was to match the pictures to the words. One wouldn't have thought that Hamburger & Chips would have caused too much concern but I had reckoned without the headmaster.

"Simon, what does 'chips' mean?"

Oh. My. God.

"Well, how do you say 'hamburger' in Hungarian?"

"Er...hamburger."

"And can you see a picture of a hamburger on your menu?"

"Yes."

"And that pile of potatoey things next to it?"

"Hasáburgonya."

"Okay then. So what's the problem?"

"What does 'chips' mean?"

I had also, to save time and add a touch of verisimilitude, used the ampersand (&) on the menu. I had not gone so far as to use the aberrant apostrophe but even this small touch of shall we say, expediency on my part proved too much for the headmaster's henchman who wanted to know whether or not the '&' was universally interchangeable with 'and'.

Anyway, onwards and upwards.

I gave them 10 minutes to ask each other how much any combination of menu items was and was pleasantly surprised to hear there were very few problems. Minor errors of pronunciation maybe, but this was not the focus so I let them go. I brought the activity to a halt and, rather foolishly I must admit, asked if there were any questions. Cue the Head of Textile Technology.

"Simon, what does 'pound' mean?"

At this point I must confess that it was rather difficult for me to restrain from demonstrating its alternative meaning by repeatedly bringing into close conjunction a hard-back book and the top of her skull but...what?

What is it about a foreign language that drives normally rational and intelligent people to lose all sense of reason and logic? To fail to apply their intelligence to arrive at a reasonable interpretation of a text?

Why is it that when the focus of the next lesson was the Present Simple and they knew the following words, "Bob...doctor...English...now lives...Australia...small town...Alice Springs...not ordinary doctor...flying doctor", that they couldn't be satisfied with what might be termed a global understanding and had to spend at least 10 minutes in fervent Hungarian discussion of just what the phrase 'in the small town of Alice Springs' might mean? Lack of comprehension? Hardly.

"Where does Bob live?"

"In Australia."

"Where in Australia?"

"In Alice Springs."

"What is Alice Springs?"

"It's a small town."

"So, what's the problem?"

"What does 'in the small town of Alice Springs' mean?"

They crunch me on Fridays.

2006-03-06T20:40:00.000+01:00

IMPAT/EXPAT

A Balance of Payments

"Why?"

A question I am still asked with alarming frequency and one to which I am still tempted to respond with a sharp left hook and an instep to the groin. It is as if I have broken some natural law, removing myself from my native environment and replanting in alien soil. The fact is that all I was really doing was pedalling my bicycle a little further than that nice Mr Tebbit had in mind when giving his awfully considerate 'Words of Advice for Unemployed People' some many moons and no few blindingly boisterous benders ago. That would not, in itself have been enough. What really tipped it for me was the fact that I realised with absolute certainty that I was among those whom he would personally have escorted to the airport. Shipped out. Passage paid. Chattering class.

Well, not actually of that coterie of playwrights, dons, television producers et al so derided by the tories of the time but certainly among an audience prepared to give as much time to them as to that other gang of playwrights, dons, television producers et al, not a chatterer among them obviously, who never earned the wrath of the grammar school classless by the simple expedient of agreeing with them. I doubt Roger Scruton, Alan Walters, Roger Ordish or Sir Alec Guinness would have made it onto the passenger list but I digress.

Anyway, the country had somehow survived the eighties but had emerged divided and quite suddenly, it didn't feel like home anymore. It wasn't that I was on the wrong side of the chasm, more that trying to straddle it while retaining my balance was becoming almost impossible.

Personally and professionally, my life had stalled and I was in need of a fresh start. England had little appeal at the time, the country was going to hell and there was bugger all I could do about it. Being there only involved me in its decline due to the simple fact that it was impossible to ignore. Can't beat 'em, leave 'em.

Now, it's a spectator sport only. I can watch the ovine being led by the bovine and all I feel is amusement and relief. Not that any of you would fall into either of those two categories, I'm sure...but viewed from afar and en masse? Leave. Abandon ship. I'm an intelligent, get me out of here.

I am now twice removed. From the blight of my native land and from my country of domicile...I will never truly belong here or be affected by it in the same way as the natives. I am indeed an island and I find I enjoy it. I have pruned my responsibilities down to the bare minimum of family and friends and have removed myself as far as possible from any...what?...systems, I suppose. Whatever anyone, anywhere is doing, I can quite honestly and categorically state that it is not being done in my name. Whatever happens to me is almost entirely down to me and me alone.

I have a daughter now. Five and a half years old. Intelligent, generous of spirit and equally at home with the en point and the forearm smash. Do you honestly think I'd entrust her to the English education system? Naah, I ain't coming home.

Maybe not quite what you had in mind, Doc...I might be able to come up with something a little more...er...flighty if you give me a day or two but for now my advice is of the Nike variety.

Just do it, girl.

2006-02-19T00:10:00.000+01:00

FRABJOUS DAY

reproduced with permission www.sufc.co.uk

2006-02-04T12:52:00.000+01:00

FROM THE SON TO THE FATHER

or

Back and Here Again

He was walking now. Head bent back and tilted to one side. Whether or not he had volunteered or had been lifted out and set down is not clear.

They had been shopping. A short walk down the hill to the grocer's. Inside, as in any building that was not home, he had watched that other world, the one which existed just a few feet above his head and which occasionally dipped down for a brief moment of inclusion.

They were approaching the old farm and he could hear the chatter of the chickens above the noise of the cars changing up a gear as they crested the steepest section of the hill.

They stopped. She stooped slightly over the handles of the pram, her breathing shallow and urgent. She placed one hand on her swollen belly and with the other, reached down for his.

**********

He was walking again. Head down. Watching the early morning sun catch the shine on each alternate new shoe and concentrating on the cadence of their fall.

Her grip was tight and the pull, forward. He wondered what the badge on his jacket pocket meant and tried his best, at first, to keep up. He knew instinctively that the tempo was not born out of any excited anticipation but out of a need to be on the other side of something, to be beyond and the event, behind.

The gravity of home was stronger the further away it became and yet the rubber of his new shoes could not slow their progress towards the gates. There, a woman was waiting, both stern of face and of dress. Hard edged. No solace to be found in her cold embrace.

The woman took his other hand and, for a moment, he had a hand in both worlds. He looked up at the old, familiar one and saw heartbreak over-ridden by a grim determination. She let go his hand and turned away.

**********

He was sat on the bed. Her hand was in his. It had been a long time now since she had last walked and her physical frailty seemed to him somehow to be unfair. A poor reward. He saw the same heartbreak and determination as she asked him not to drag it out. He kissed her. Let go her hand and turned away.

**********

He was walking again. Head bent down and tilted to one side.

"Daddy, you know that cartoon, 'the Magic Pencil'? The one where everything you draw comes to life?"

He said that he did.

"If you had one of those, what would you draw?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. Lots of ice-creams, I guess. How about you? What would you draw?"

"Your family."

He reached down and took her hand.

2006-01-29T21:30:00.000+01:00

MADE IT

For those of you who may be interested, we arrived okay. Easyjet rocks.

2006-01-28T11:55:00.000+01:00

CHANNEL HOPPING

Off to England. Back Thursday.

2006-01-15T02:37:00.000+01:00

FOR A FRIEND

Word of the day: Furkle (v) intrans. Part. about/around: That which hands should be getting up to under the covers during the watches of the night.

Drink of the day: Lagavulin

You remind me, gently prompt me even. You nudge me towards the inescapable truth that this blog has been in cryogenic suspension for far too long.

You are respectfully hesitant and choose your register with care. You retreat when my written response is terse to the point at which, were I to be charitable to myself, it could be interpreted as rudeness, an impolitesse to which I should, in all honesty, admit.

So. Wherefore was I thus stung? I draw the toxin ere it has time to burrow deep and realise that it came not from your arrows but from mine own. I am, therefore, doubly wounded; once by the mirror and again by the ice cold stab of consequent self judgement.

Don't you just love it when you can work a semi-colon into the narrative?

Now, where were we? Oh, yes. The hiatus. The pause. The blank page which has been my life since the first snowfall. And that, my dear, is a serious underestimation if ever there was. I could plead the mitigating circumstances of the dearth of gainful employment that has led to my spending the majority of my time at home which, were I to take David Byrne's definition of 'a place where nothing ever happens' could accurately be described as Heaven, and the attendant minutae of everyday life being insufficient to provide enough material for bloggage but I am not so sure.

When I started this blog, it was as an opportunity for me to communicate with an English speaking audience, to use my language freely and with abandon, released from the constraints of the classroom and the knowledge of my Hungarian interlocutors. In short, it was as unfocussed as the attention of a lecher in a whorehouse. To rant, to entertain, to focus my thoughts and explore my feelings, my life, my adoption, my daughter, my creed. The fact that it hasn't led to the revelation of Jeeves' recipe for the mid-morning restorative is neither here nor there. But that very lack of focus seems to have dissipated my energies somewhat.

And then, with time, all these options became exhausted and I was forced into the acceptance of that which I had known all along. That my character and all my creative abilities are, in essence, reactive. Kan does not do creation. Or, that which he is capable of has, by now, been done and done to death. Psychologists among you may note at this point, the shift into the third person but I care not a jot. Yah boo and sucks to you.

Even as a musician, I react to others' creative input. I can refine, improve and extrapolate in an infinite number of ways but to ask me to create that spark, that flash of inspiration, would be a fruitless endeavour.

My mind works quickly. Be my straight man, or woman, and I will give you the gags. Just don't ask me to write the script. I am drawn more to forums, chat rooms and comments these days than to this blog. The immediacy and opportunity for a witty riposte attract and yet fail to completely satisfy due to their transient nature. Here today, gone today. Posterity? I've sat it.

As a writer, I am a fraud. Yes, I can sling words together with a certain rythmn and cadence and I realise that I am at my most effective when I choose to forget my influences. I could tell a story, maybe. Invent one? Well, not for you lot anyway. My daughter remains the sole recipient of Kan the Man Storylines Inc. and, as yet, she isn't telling. Although the tale of the wedding of Miss Fartpants and Mr Burpalot may well last as long as my lineage and be among the most requested at bedtime, I doubt I shall be mortaring the publishers at my gate.

And my life in comparison to yours, my friend? A breeze, I believe, is the expression, although whether or not it could be described as being in any way current is debatable to say the least.

But, then again, I am approaching senility and will soon begin to dribble.

Bugger.

2005-12-30T13:36:00.000+01:00

SHOVELLY JUBBLY

A winter wonderland? Maybe. If you're dressed for it.

On the other hand, shorts and a T-shirt might just prove sufficient should you ever be required by law to shovel the stuff off your pavement frontage.

Or even, out of necessity, dig out your car prior to a shopping expedition.

I'm not at all sure that this is doing it any kind of good whatsoever.

2005-12-26T20:08:00.000+01:00

THE FEAST OF STEPHEN

Today is St Stephen's day and, being fortunate enough to have a next door neighbour who answers to the call, "István!", we popped round this evening to wish him all the best on his nameday.

I had bought him a bottle of the finest 2000 Tokaj Fürmint and for this, and our sincerest congratulations, we were rewarded with roast stuffed chicken, fried chicken thighs in breadcrumbs, Wiener Schnitzel, roast spare ribs and rabbit stew with garlic and chillis followed by a rich and varied assortment of cakes and confectionery, all washed down with copious quantities of brandy and home made Tramini wine.

All that was missing was the roast canary on a spit. Trust the Blades to fuck up my Christmas.

Anyway, as we were leaving, he pressed upon me a plastic coke bottle containing 2 litres of aforementioned Tramini and also a goody bag of cakes.

Every day is somebody's nameday here in Hungary.

I think I might just have stumbled upon a whole new lifestyle.

2005-12-24T17:28:00.000+01:00

SLEIGHED

Just done the rounds of neighbourly present delivery and have sampled the hospitality at each and every one. 11:30 in the morning here and I'm presently pleasantly plastered.

Now I've got to go and cut the tree down, trim it to size and somehow get it indoors and upright.

I have a feeling it isn't going to be easy.

Uncy asks, "Why don't you just take the house outside?"

INTERMISSION

I guess it's my neanderthal genetic inheritance telling me that real men chop down trees, wear high hee...oops.

Anyway, job done. Only minor injuries, flesh wounds, a pine sap rash up to my biceps and an entire string of now defunct fairy lights draped haphazardly over the dog's kennel which interrupted their freefall after they had been precipitately defenestrated in frustration.

I only hope that the firestarter, upon returning from watching Narnia at the cinema this afternoon, demonstrates the requisite inordinate levels of appreciation otherwise she'll be sleeping under aforementioned lights tonight.

Thank God for beer and home distilled pálinka.

Your very good health, one and all.

2005-12-18T12:09:00.000+01:00

ARACHNAPHILIA

"Even the paddle-shift gear change works well, allowing for the full PlayStation driving experience. The F430 also has an F1-style manettino switch on the steering wheel that allows you to adjust the suspension, traction control and gear shift depending on your mood. This means that if it's icy the car will take care of everything; then there is a normal driving setting where you can pretend that you are a good driver, safe in the knowledge that the car is holding your hand; a sport mode where, like a boxing referee, the traction control will only kick in if someone is going to get hurt; and a race mode where everything is switched off and it's just a matter of time before you kill yourself." Michael Booth - The Independent

Yeah, but what a way to go, eh?

2005-12-08T01:11:00.000+01:00

VENUS IN WHOSE GENES?

As the sabbatical enters its fourth month and Kan the Man Enterprises Inc. is still operating at roughly 20% of maximum output, I have been forced into a reconsideration.

Even when the chimneys were belching out under full steam, Idris was also gainfully employed and yet, beyond cooking the (very) occasional meal and making sure that the socks (mostly) went into the laundry basket, I did very little in the way of domestic maintenance and I now wonder why this was so.

Did I expect her to somehow make up the massive difference in our salaries by putting in all those extra hours?

Was it because I was the child of a housewife who stayed at home while my father ventured forth in search of provisions?

Or was it because I have dangly genitalia and am therefore, genetically indisposed to perform household chores?

Maybe all of the above are responsible, at least at a sub-conscious level, but there is an inescapable and undeniable suspicion that the major factor in my dereliction might just have been sheer bloody laziness. After all, if someone else was prepared to do all the work, who was I to interfere with the natural order?

The present situation however, is such that even I cannot justify my continuing to do bugger all now that I am at home on 4 out of 5 working days although the demands of the internet and televisual media outlets are more exacting (and time consuming) than you might think.

I have found it strange and yet logical that one of the first symptoms of unemployment is serious and serial sloth. One stays abed until the forenoon and neglects both blog and facial hair alike. One's consumption of comfort food cranks up the cholesterol levels and tobacco intake assumes alarming proportions. One walks briskly past the beers temptingly arrayed on supermarket shelves and yet has a weekly blowout courtesy of the stockpiled Islays.

So, will a new squeaky clean, freshly shaved and pinafored Kan arise phoenix-like from this slough of stagnation?

Not for a couple of days at least. Froggy has the sniffles and will be off nursery school starting tomor...oops, today. She's promised to teach me some magic tricks later.

An au pair out of a hat might be a good start.

2005-12-07T20:25:00.000+01:00

DOUBLE TROUBLE

You have Santa Claus. We have Mikulás. For you, he's yet to come. For us, he's been and gone.

The custom here is that, as in most of mainland Europe, Santa arrives on December the 5th and is usually accompanied by Krampusz, a devil like figure whose role seems to be to reinforce the underlying message that Santa's gifts are conditional upon good behaviour.

There is also gift giving on the evening of the 24th when, in sure and certain proof of the resurrection, it is the 'baby' Jesus who dispenses the largesse. Not wishing to inculcate such twaddle into the impressionable software of my spawn, I tell her that the English Santa has been delayed and will probably arrive in the dark watches of Christmas Eve. I fear I am fighting a battle I cannot win.

I am prepared to participate in the collusion required to perpetuate the myths of Santa, the Tooth Fairy et al because I believe that deep down, where it really matters, most kids are aware of the games we adults play and are generous enough of spirit to humour us in our folly. Or if not, then we assume that the trauma of discovery is fair preparation for an adult life of similar disillusionments and revelations.

But the legend of the baby Jesus? Notwithstanding the fact that he was supposedly resurrected at the age of...what was it...32, how is it that all good Catholics have sufficient faith in the discriminatory powers of their offspring that they can expect them to accept that one mythical figure is just that and that the resurrection of another is a reality?

It's all very strange.

2005-11-24T21:59:00.000+01:00

NAKED BRUNCH

The first in a series of 'Words of Advice for Young People'.

Anything you can unscrew the cap off isn't worth drinking.

2005-11-24T20:56:00.000+01:00

MILCH

An annual $24.95 for a referrer service?

I believe the phrase I'm searching for is, "Fuck off."

Right now.

2005-11-13T15:10:00.000+01:00

WAGONS HO!

I tasted a spot of enforced sobriety last night and I'm not at all sure I like it. Get this. I volunteered...yup, you heard right...to be the designated driver for an evening out at a nearby hotel and restaurant complex where we were lustily entertained by a thirteen piece retro rock 'n' roll/R & B band.

Four forty-five minute sets and only one trombone solo. Shocking. Anyway, a lot of mineral water under the bridge later and my mate's wife finally lets rip with a two minute tirade during which I was invited to "go in a cunt" for committing the heinous crime of failing to ask her to dance. I had to forgive her of course. She had obviously failed to understand the direct relationship that exists between consumption of alcohol and my stepping the light.

Picked up Froggy from the babysitters' this morning and discovered that she had been regaling them with repeated choruses of that Ian Dury classic, 'Fuck Off, Noddy'. I have no idea where she gets it from.

Now you must excuse me. Megyek a picsába.

2005-11-07T11:34:00.000+01:00

YOU DON'T SAY

It would appear that the practice of stating the bleedin' obvious on product packaging has finally reached Hungary. To whit, one milk carton. Itt nyílik...open here.

Phew. Nearly had me foxed, that one.

I find it a wee bit surprising, given their obviously low estimation of consumer intelligence, that there is no indication whatsoever of in which direction the cap should be unscrewed.

No milk for me today, then.

And please don't get me started on 'serving suggestion'.

2005-11-04T21:20:00.000+01:00

GRIN AND BEAR IT

It's so good to see the Shoe back up and running after a hiatus seemingly filled with sex and violence and brought to an end by drugs. It would seem that some people have all the luck.

It was interesting to read Jess's take on that old Stoic, the Marcomanniacal Marcus Aurelius Antonius.

I would be much more interested however, in the story of Faustina, his wife. However did she put up with him?

Or did she, in fact, grin and bare it all to Avidius Cassius?

I think we should be told.

Edit: Er...I've been told. Here.

2005-11-04T10:22:00.000+01:00

HALOTTAK NAPJA

The Day of the Dead. The non-digital dearly departed were nearly joined by the trampled remains of my Nikon Coolpix 4100 as none of the 15 easy to use scene modes proved capable of dealing with the conditions obtaining at the time which were, pitch black bar the candlelight. Setting it to 'night landscape' met with a virtual slap round the chops from the flashing red hand, halt icon as did, strangely enough, setting it to 'fireworks display'. Or maybe I should have taken a tripod.

Steadying the camera atop sturdy tombstones was a bit of a no-no given the rather reverential nature of the occasion but I did find one grave unspectated and managed to surreptitiously squeeze one off without disturbing anyone's sense of propriety. Well, all except Idris that is, who gave a very good impression of not being in any way with me as long as I had camera in hand.

Of course, Froggy's firestarting propensities meant that candles would have to be lit but where? Idris hails from another town so we have no interred family here. The fact that we only had one common acquaintance led to us ending up at the grave of my ex-girlfriend's mother and lighting a candle or two to her memory. Rest in peace, Hugi.

I had never given much thought to what I would like to happen to me after my demise, reckoning that whichever way I was disposed of, I would hardly be in any position to object. Even my square foot on Islay is only a lifetime lease and any desire I might harbour to have my ashes placed on the shelves of The Whisky Shop in Lincoln is surely destined to be unfulfilled. But the idea of burial? A return from whence we all came? I don't know. Notwithstanding the problem of finding anywhere to bury me that wouldn't involve my being a fully paid up and practising member of one of a select few religious organisations, the idea of having a focus for remembrance is quite appealing. Well, if I were the one left behind, it would be anyway. My father was cremated and, although I remember him, often and everywhere, I sometimes feel the lack of the focus a grave would provide.

On the way home, Froggy was unable to resist a quick pose with these bronze ballerinas and, as you can see, her favourite colour is now blue. She hasn't wholly abandoned pink however, as evinced by the boots and I have a suspicion that it will be a while yet before I can consign all things princess to the attic, an outcome devoutly to be wished for. Bye-bye Barbie, parting would be such sweet...

2005-10-31T10:29:00.000+01:00

INVASION

From time to time Kan Towers is invaded by creatures the provenance of which is a complete mystery to me. One of the joys of living in England is that the indiginous insect population never exceeds the size of say, a daddy-long-legs and although, as in the case of those tiny black flies which alight on anything white in Lincolnshire during the summer months and are known locally as 'thrips', their sheer numbers can be overwhelming, one is rarely faced with anything which may force one to accept the existence of that which could not be described in any way as normal. Take this little beggar for example, which found itself on the wrong side of the mosquito netting this morning, a fact that would probably account for the rather itchy protruberances on the back of my thigh at the moment. After all, if something this size can breach my defences, just how many skeeters have snuck through undetected? A thing of wondrous form and strange beauty though, is it not? Diaphanously winged and provided with limbs far too long and interestingly jointed to be in any way aerodynamic, it would appear to be some kind of mutant grasshopper, a cicada maybe? I consulted my neighbour, whose closeness to what we may call nature is somewhat less distant than my own, by some considerable margin I might add, and he informed me it was a sáska. My joy at finally discovering tangible evidence of the existence of the creature after which all inhabitants of this village are nicknamed, myself included, although in my case the appellation is usually prefixed by 'trainee', was tempered by the fact that I was no closer to an identification I could actually understand.

A quick reference to the dictionary, usually a last resort the reason for which will be all too clear to any ex-pats reading, revealed sáska to be locust. Now you may call me sceptical if you like but I do have a vague memory of the locusts kept in our biology lab at school and, although sharing some characteristics with this specimen, were sufficiently different so as to provide me with no reason whatsoever to revise my opinion of multi-lingual dictionaries. A quick inspection of the grounds was all it took to reassure me that its sudden appearance was not as a scout for some invading army although were frogs to fall from the sky and rivers turn red at anytime in the near future, I should be forced into a reconsideration.

I suppose I could have gone the route of the Bush Tucker Man and deep fried it whole in breadcrumbs...mmmmm, crunchy, tastes just like chicken...but I am far too squeamish for that. I enabled it to escape and watched it fly away. I say fly, but it would seem that wings were an evolutionary afterthought and it still hadn't quite got used to them yet. (I know - still and yet in the same sentence. Tear me for my tautologies.)

So, 'tis Hallowe'en this day. Not, as yet, celebrated here but should trick or treating ever catch on amongst the scabby kneed and snotty nosed, I may have to make a slight adjustment to the wiring of the bell push. I would prefer to go for a kind of tazer effect, enough to disable but just this side of lethal. I'm a bit strapped for cash at the moment and would have to dispose of the charred and partly cooked remains myself.

I did make one concession however, and carve a pumpkin. I know I wasn't aiming for a scary, snarling rictus effect but I am not quite sure I was intent on producing an inane grin, either. Oh well, it's the Day of the Dead tomorrow which, while not quite being of the same festival nature as it is in Mexico, does produce some wonderful candlelit scenes in the cemetery of an evening. If I can lay off the malt for long enough into the hours of darkness and can actually be arsed, I shall post photos.

Don't hold your breath.

2005-10-27T10:28:00.000+02:00

I'M GONNA STAY AT THE RSPCA

A bit of old news maybe but a petition worth signing all the same.

http://www.rspca.org.uk/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RSPCACampaigns/Campaign/sharkbaitpetition

It's interesting that they refer to the animals used as bait as 'pets' though, wouldn't you say? Definitely an appeal to English cultural sensibilities there. And the fact that it is directed against the French also adds a certain spice, non?

But it does highlight just what it takes to interest the public in animal rights issues. Do I think animals have rights, by the way? Well, no, I don't actually. Rather that there are some rights over animals that we do not have but that's pure pedantry.

It did set me to thinking however, about the whole animal 'rights' debate and what a can of maggots it always turns out to open. Is agreement possible given the fact that whichever way you choose to look at it, the issue always raises more problems than it can ever hope to solve?

Most people, a staggering majority in fact, will find a kind of half-way position on the issue, neither wholly for nor wholly against and their standpoint will usually coincide with their own individual lifestyles.

If we start with the RSPCA name itself, there are two immediate problems of semantics...define 'cruelty' and also 'animal' please.

Let's take cruelty. Some would have it that it means the unnecessary inflicting of pain. Again, what is necessary? I need to fish, ergo spearing this larval insect is okay. The testing of some drugs and medication can still only be carried out on live animals...necessary for the greater good, justified solely by our need as a species? You cannot use this argument without elevating ourselves above all other life. Where you draw the line after this is pure sophistry. Most would draw it below standard abbatoir practice, that's for sure and tuck into their Fray Bentos pies with nary a thought.

Is it the ability, as some suggest, to anticipate pain that renders an animal capable of receiving cruelty? I'm not altogether sure of that. A baseball bat to the back of the head might be unexpected, but would it be any the less cruel for that?

And we really are stuck aren't we? Some also suggest that further research into the pain sensitivity of maggots etc is 'necessary' and yet, how can we do that without causing their wired up little bodies some degree of pain and measuring their responses?

You might well say that my banging on about larval insects and such seems to serve a rhetorical purpose only and you'd be right. But it does lead me on to the second problem definition, that of 'animal'.

Unless you are of the biblical view that man has dominion over all living things and also that this gives us the right to exploit anything which falls outside of the species sapiens in the genus Homo, you will probably have your own ideas as to which living things may be squished and which may not. And you would probably be surprised to find that on this point, there is a general consensus among the population of the UK.

Just ask yourselves this. What is the biggest animal onto which it would not be altogether kosher to inflict cruelty?

And the smallest?

Now think awhile and figure out what those two animals have in common.

If they both belong to the class mammalia, then you are representative of the great majority.

And why should this be? Look no further than Disney, I would suggest. All mammals are highly succeptible to anthropomorhism whereas it is extremely difficult for even the best animators to invest their renderings of reptiles and/or insects with any degree of cute.

In the same way as most evil villians in Hollywood speak with English accents (all the Romans in the Last Temptation of Christ being the best example of this), nearly all the villians in the cartoon world, the really evil ones mind, the pantomime baddies if you like...snakes nearly all.

We have a natural sympathy for animals like us...with warm blood, live birthing, cute little blinking eyes. I think one of the reasons that Alien was so successful was that the creature was just that, alien, unlike, other.

All else is culture. How anyone who eats meat can decry the asians for eating dog is beyond me...well, from a purely logical point of view, that is. Seen from a cultural perspective, ours places a much higher (more human?) value on dogs than pigs and it becomes understandable that there should be an almost visceral disgust at the very idea. Culture is deep and very self-reverential. At this level, logic flies out the window and the belief that our way is the right way takes over.

Where am I going with this?

I honestly don't know. As one quite capable of holding several equally strong and contradictory opinions simultaneously, I am much more interested in the arguments and points raised than I am in reaching any conclusions. As I see it, the two extremes are that we all turn vegan or act as something at the top of the food chain should...eat 'em all.

As neither of these are practical, or even desirable, a compromise is called for. Unfortunately, this is impractical due to the impossibility of ever getting more than two individuals to reach one.

Apart from agreeing that three points on Saturday would be absolutely aces that is. We’re playing Cardiff, I believe.

Altogether now.

“You only sing when you’re mining...”

2005-10-25T19:06:00.000+02:00

HE'S GOT AN 'OLOGY?

Tautology alert. Overheard on BBC radio news.

"...current relief effort that's on-going at the moment."

Standards, eh?

2005-10-25T09:30:00.000+02:00

WELL, BUGGER ME

Absolute proof that dogs just do not care.

A drunk who claimed he had been raped by a dog was yesterday jailed for 12 months by a judge. Martin Hoyle, 45, was arrested by police after a passing motorist and his girlfriend found a Staffordshire bull terrier, called Badger, having sex with him at the side of a road in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
Yorkshire Evening Post

Don't you just love that little detail, 'called Badger'? Rather untypical of an English paper not to give his age though, wouldn't you say? I am curious as to whether the whole sordid episode could be explained by either adolescent compulsion or middle aged desperation.

One has to assume that the motivation of the buggeree in question will forever be unknown to us. After all, just how drunk would you have to be? Or maybe he had drunk himself into such a state that he saw with perfect clarity that, when faced with a Staffordshire Bull in attack mode, the only option available to him was to drop his kecks and assume the position. Surely he would have been wiser to have gone for a plea of self defence.

And I cannot help but wonder at whatever spirit it was in which said passing motorist and his girlfriend alerted the local constabulary. They could hardly argue that the act was non-consensual and breached their ideas of animal rights. I am left with the conclusion that they acted as they did out of a sense of moral outrage or, to put it in a more old-fashioned term, disgust.

It may indeed be the case that the poor dears are even now suffering post traumatic stress disorder and are in need of a lengthy course of counselling before applying for a guest spot on Oprah or some such ("We can't ever do it doggy style again and he'd never even asked me about the possibility of anal before...") but it seems to me, in this case, symptomatic of a wider malaise in our society, an inability to take the random blows of life on the chin, to get up, dust oneself down and stagger onwards.

I mean, just whose interests have been served by that 12 month sentence? Staffordshire Bull Terriers'? Society's? The man was absolutely arseholed (forgive me) for chrissake and possibly beyond all reason. Would it have been such a travesty of justice had the dibble hauled off the dog, made the necessary sartorial adjustments and taken him home to sleep it off?

Oh well, at least it was a bloke otherwise we might have had the problem of what to do with the heir of the dog.

Down boy.

2005-10-17T15:22:00.000+02:00

REALITY TV

"...it emerged that Downing Street was studying measures to combat antisocial behaviour - including 'baby Asbos' for children under 10 and forcing hardcore antisocial neighbours to live in 'sin-bin' units guarded by security staff and monitored by CCTV."
The Independent.

I wonder how long it will be before that coverage is syndicated. Asbo olympics, maybe? Hubcap discus...car wreck derby...back garden hedge hurdles...have it away on your toes pursuit...

New England under New Labour...some Jerusalem.

2005-10-13T18:51:00.000+02:00

FILLING THE VACCUUM

The soundtrack to a day's autumn cleaning.

Billie Holiday - Rain or Shine
Boozoo Bayou - Night over Manaus
Capt. Beefheart - Semi-multicoloured Caucasian
Charlie Parker - All of Me
Clash - London Calling
Cream - Badge
Depeche Mode - Goodnight Lovers
Elvis Costello - Veronica
Frank Zappa - Zomby Woof
Happy Mondays - WFL
Jefferson Airplane - Somebody to Love
Jimi Hendrix - Hey Joe
J J Cale - Call Me the Breeze
John Martyn - Excuse Me Mister
Joy Division - Isolation
Limp Bizkit - Get Your Groove on
Mando Diao - Down in the Past
Manu Dibango & Salif Keita - Emma
New Order - Touched by the Hand of God
Nina Simone - to Love Somebody
Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey
Quantum Jump - Captain Boogaloo
Radiohead - Ladytron
Roberta Flack - Tenderly
Roni Size - Brown Paper Bag
Talking Heads - Girlfriend Is Better
The Smiths - Sweetness

Trust me. You really do not want to think about the image of me dancing with the vaccuum cleaner.

Hi hoooooooooo.

2005-10-12T12:24:00.000+02:00

KICKING A GIFT HORSE

Hungary's gradual descent into western style democracy continues apace and has recently resulted in a revision of the local bus timetables in order that they may resemble those of the various and multitudinous companies feeding off the mummified remains of the public teat which I believe was once known as British Rail.

I can well understand and, to some extent, sympathise with cosmopolitan urbanites regarding their desire to keep the rural peasantry out of their soon to be gated city enclaves but when their exclusion zone shrinks to include the suburbs wherein I have staked out my own particular corner of a foreign field, then sympathy morphs into indignation at quite a phenomenal rate of knots.

It used to be that I could arrive at the shelter in the sure and certain knowledge that there would be a maximum wait of one and a half to two cigarettes before my transportation would arrive and I would be whisked thence from the ploughed, plotted and pieced towards the bright lights, devilry and temptation of the metropolis, remembering to reset my watch from 1950's time along the way.

At the bus stop on Saturday evening however, a quick perusal of the timetable was all it took for me to realise that although I desired the company of the teeming sophisticates, the feeling was in no way reciprocated. I had missed the 1830 by some several minutes and the next municipal tardis was not due to arrive until 2000. The intent was all too apparent. "Come if you must," went the sub-text "but you can either arrive an hour early or a quarter of an hour too late."

The fact that I was silk shirted, Italian suited and rather expensively shod mitigated against my talking myself aboard any of the passing haywains (I kid you not) so there was little recourse other than to walk. After all, 7kms can't be all that far, can it?

The least said about the actual journey the better. I arrived at about the same time the later bus would have done with a raging thirst and neither in the mood nor the physical condition for dancing. At least the first set had started and the bar was almost empty. I drained the first beer as mine host was pouring the second and it was this I took to a table to listen to the jazz being piped in over the PA system. Barbara Thompson derivatives...next!

It was at this point that I had the first of a whole series of similar conversations which were to cause the gyp my feet were giving me to gradually recede from my consciousness over the course of the evening.

"Good God! It can't be Simon, can it?"

I had to go through a quick checklist before even considering a reply. Whyever the hell not? I'm not drunk? I'm well dressed? You're used to maybe finding me in some roadside ditch somewhere? All very pertinent questions as it happens but I don't think I'll go down that road, it would lead to far too much self-knowledge than is good for me.

"Where have you been hiding? Can I buy you a drink?"

You will, no doubt, have intuited that here was a question the affirmative answer to which was for me, the work of but a moment to supply. And so it went. It transpired that the only strategy necessary, free drinks for the acquisition of, was simply to have turned up at all. It certainly helped that the Culture House had, for the night, assumed an admittedly upmarket version of the role of Conan-Doyle's Picadilly Circus, a sink into which all those of my acquaintance drained.

A word about the music on offer. Risible. I gave Ravi up until the beginning of the third number to impress and then back to the bar hied me. Socially, an unqualified success. Musically, a non-event.

Only one contretemps the entire evening, somewhat of a record for me I freely admit. I fell into conversation with a quite spectacularly drunk Kenyan chappie who accused me of being a crazy Englishman.

Well, I couldn't stand for that, could I?

"No, no, no, dear boy. Crazy, OLD Englishman."

Oh well. If you have been, be sure to wash your hands.

2005-10-06T10:36:00.000+02:00

MONEY-GO-ROUND

I've managed to persuade Idris to transfer her accounts to the bank which has my custom.

First class service, Gold credit card, interest free overdraft, personal financial advisor...

Of course, the fact that they're giving away two free tickets to the Jazz Festival to each new customer who transfers has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it at all.

Honest.

2005-10-04T22:20:00.000+02:00

CRUNCH

The first real contest of desire against necessity is upon me.

Ravi Coltrane is plying his trade on Saturday night at the annual Nagykanizsa Jazz Festival and I am in a quandary.

It's not the admission price of 2000ft which worries me, after all it's only about a fiver; nor is it the likelihood of my not being able to stay out of the bar for the whole evening, that's a given; it's more that, having succumbed to the bar, how many drinks do you think I'll be able to cadge before being forced into a round myself?

Any tips on strategy would be most welcome.

2005-10-03T23:02:00.000+02:00

BLAM!

I'm not quite sure what sound a balloon makes when it bursts. No, that's not right at all. The sound, I am all too familiar with; my ability to accurately transcribe it is in doubt. The effect, as ever, is the same. Hands full of razor sharp cuts and a face which feels like it has been forcibly stuffed into a nest of mosquitoes. Please forgive the biologically inaccurate simile, I guess I should have said fire ants but I didn't want to overstate my case.

When I began this, what shall I call it...annual sabbatical? Anyway, whatever label I choose to append to it, it was in the sure and certain knowledge that it would, as it has done for years now, end with a sigh of resignation and an acceptance of the reality that duty calls and that I must do that which I must do, mark the fucking scripts and teach the courses.

Only now, there are no scripts (fucking or otherwise) to mark and no courses to teach. And now that the twin pillars of my financial security have been removed, I find myself looking up at the roof and wondering, "How long?"

The Hungarian education system has recently undergone a complete overhaul with the result that, for the moment anyway, independent international language qualifications are not as necessary as they once were. Once the system settles down, this situation may well change, in fact I think it will but the upshot for the independent language schools is that, as long as kids are forced into a study of English and/or German alongside their preferred subjects at A-level, one, their lives will be more difficult and two, the demand for out of school tuition will fall.

So, it is time again to put my tried and trusted maxim of, "Worry not, something'll turn up" to the test. In the past it has proved infallible but that, as I am sure you are aware, is no guarantee of future success.

I find it interesting how the mindset changes. Suddenly, everything has a price tag. After years of casually tossing everything I fancied into the shopping trolley with nary a thought, there is now a reconsideration, a balancing of desire and necessity. I have, tonight, drunk all of the beer that was in the fridge (this post comes to you by courtesy of Beck's, in direct contradiction to the Amstel and Stella in the title of this blog, by the way) and have thuswise drawn a line under that part of my weekly shopping bill. The fact that I have now started in on my stocks of Islay causes me not one twinge nor pang of guilt. I have supported this family for more than ten years now and in some style so I reckon I have more than a little credit in the bank as far as that goes.

And it is to her credit that Idris recognises this and has gone around all the nursery schools in town promoting her music nursery service and ensuring at least a minimum fiscal stability until such time as...as what, exactly? As my savings run out?

Three months due today on the life insurance/pension policy...at least that's running at 38%...call me when I'm 60, I'll be fine.

So, from hence, whither? Bugadifino. I'll pour myself another cut price Finlaggan and remind myself of the mantra, "It'll be alright, you know it will".

Oh, fuck.

2005-09-29T12:27:00.000+02:00

HIGHLIGHTS

Not being in possession of a laptop abroad can be a problem when combined with the dearth of internet cafés in small Croatian coastal towns and an impatient desire to know the result of the Watford match; not to mention a somewhat niggling suspicion that the video sections of some of the less puritanical sites I have been known to peruse may have been updated during my absence.

This situation, perforce, entailed a daily post-breakfast constitutional into the centre of Vodice and it wasn't until Wednesday morning that the Sunday papers hit the kiosks and I was able, at last, to learn of the fightback to victory from 2-0 down at Vicarage Road.

Such is the depth (in this case, probably more an indication of shallowness than anything else) of my emotion regarding the team, the elemental connection to which I inherited from my father, that there was, throughout the jollity of the previous evening's rather raucous bevy-up, a recurring, albeit brief, synaptic flash of anxiety combined with guilt in equal measure that I might just be celebrating when all manner of misfortune had befallen and that our unbeaten start to the season had gone, as some say, tits up.

A rather odd little phrase that one, wouldn't you say? I'd be interested, from a purely liguistic point of view, in any explanations as to its etymology but it occurs to me that, and please correct me if I'm wrong, in the case of tits being up, there is an unavoidable collocation with such wonderful little adjectives as 'pert' and 'perky' which, if dwelt on for any longer than, let's say, three tenths of a second, will also conjure up images of rowdy young buttocks punching against seams of jeans. All in all, quite a deliciously positive mental picture in fact.

I realise it is rather difficult not to be tittist about the whole thing, but from a purely aesthetic consideration, I am sure that most tits themselves, if asked, would express a preference for the ever so slightly upward over those which have already begun the long and somewhat inevitable, great journey south.

Anyway, my fears having been proven happily to be unfounded, I returned to the hotel with a much lightened conscience and was pleasantly surprised to find how remarkably easy it was to persuade all those whose wish it was not to spend the day rotating themselves on the beach barbie, that is to say all those over 18 and possessant of dangly genitalia, to join me in the bar for a wee celebration.

And so it was that the consumption of the previous evening, prodigious by any standards, was exceeded nay, dwarfed by that which was to follow.

I guess we were fortunate in that the circumstances were perfect. The weather was hot and the proximity of the bar to both restaurant and swimming pool meant that meals were taken and cold plunges endured throughout the day with the result that come the evening, we had drunk ourselves into a state that can probably best be described as fully functioning intoxication.

Shortly after the evening meal, when we were joined by those of far less dangly genitalia than our own, we actually worked out that all things considered, our holiday venture was now in profit which brought smiles all round and another pile of rounds with which to celebrate our joint investment. There was an easy clarity, a rarely achieved state, sober or otherwise, of being totally who you are and where you are in the moment when you are. Our consortium was such that there were groups within the group which knew other groups but there was no communality as a whole until this night. All our natural social reticence seemed to disappear and the dynamic was such that everyone was swept along on a wave the riding of which brought out all which was the best in each of us; without thought, without analysis or any self-consciousness, we were carried beyond ourselves to a place which seemed outside of time itself and where the sound of the gently lapping waves on the shore was punctuated with that of joyous laughter.

Someone had had the foresight to bring with them several bottles of home distilled pálinka which enabled us to continue the party on the beach long after last orders and, lying flat out on the pebbles below a vast and starry night sky, not even the mosquitoes could pierce my mood.

Perfect.

2005-09-25T23:45:00.001+02:00

HRVATSKA

Considering we were a convoy of five cars for over 6 hours of mainly motorway driving, it was a reasonably relaxed journey. We arrived at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon of a dismally grey Croatian day, unpacked and strolled down to the sea front which was almost deserted...except for us and these two that is.

We had a pretty restrained evening in the bar that night and, as the weather had not improved much the next morning, we drove into Sibenik where I caught Froggy explaining to her minder that the ice-cream shop is over there.

It is a wonderful town, a delightfully random collection of buildings typical of a small and thriving port. I spotted this chap and his dog in the main square and, lacking the cojones to approach closer, had to take this shot with digitally enhanced zoom. Still my favourite picture of the entire week, though.

The weather cleared up later in the day and the sunset seemed to promise better things for the morrow.

As we were in a more celebratory mood, that night in the bar was considerably less restrained than the previous one had been and we were beginning to entertain thoughts of actually finishing this holiday in profit, which had been but a dream while we were under the impression that anything other than beer and soft drinks would have to be paid for.

The first glance out of the window that morning did indeed look promising...

...as did the sight of a rainbow over Vodice.

And it did in fact turn out to be a quite wondrous morning, a fact which must have been responsible for the flotilla of small boats pouring out of the harbour.

Feeling rather...what's the word, nautical...yes, that'll do, we decided to venture out onto the open ocean ourselves in a glass-bottomed boat...

...where we engaged in a spot of lung assisted only diving, fetching up for Froggy's wonder and delight the following oceanic swag. All unharmed and returned back from whence, of course.

Another obligatory sunset shot...

...and then things get rather hazy. Here's me after about 0.001 beers too many. Photo by courtesy of Froggy Fotography.

I'm afraid I can't blame Froggy for the quality of this one but I really like it. You know that feeling you have when things begin to get shall we say, fuzzy and you are in need of 'woman, when with fevered brow'? Well, a ministering angel flew out of the night.

There was only one bar available for the use of all-inclusive guests and we soon realised that, it being waiter service and that there were far too many tables to too few waiters to ever be able to guarantee an adequate supply line, we would have to order in bulk at every opportunity. The reason why the waiter on the right is such a blur is that he was hoping to get past our tables without being collared for another order of, "Molim...decet piva...nein...better make that zwanzig biers...twenty cognacs...eight camparis...zehn grappas és dva cola...hvala."

At least I finally got to find out who ate all the pies...

...while Idris got to discover the joys of grappa assisted dancing. Grappling?

Four people with but a single aim...to catch that bloody waiter's eye.

And just what is it with Hungarians and facial topiary? Anyway, Idris recovered from the grappling with a brandy and a small cigar.

I am reliably informed by sources far more sober than I was at this point that Pepe and myself made this little lot disappear in the half hour immediately following last orders.

Oh, and Jess. On the scale of our monumental bender of last July, this one was so good I'm gonna have to give it a five.

At least this time, we were able to sweat off the hangovers by the pool.

And, seeing as how Blogger's photo service is on the frazz and I've had to post these one at a time with Hello and then edit them all into one whole, that is all you're gettin' fer now.

Bowmores all round then?

2005-09-24T21:38:00.000+02:00

O, SWEET MISCOMPREHENSION

Remember my saying that our 'all inclusive' Croatian adventure would only cover beers at the bar and not spirits?

Wrong.

I think we were in profit by around lunchtime on day three.

2005-09-17T06:15:00.000+02:00

HOTEL IMPERIAL VODICE

I am now well into my third month of unpaid holiday and beginning to entertain the merest suggestion of an idea of a suspicion that I could get used to this.

Oh well, if anyone wants me, I'll be in the bar.

2005-09-15T13:46:00.000+02:00

FLASHING

There are those who get it and those that do not. Even those who would consider themselves inbetweenies, allowing themselves to become caught up in the excitement of a rugby world cup, an Ashes series or the trillery of Henman hill, are naught but delusionary and their natural place is among the latter group together with those who would scoff at my ability to name the Blades' promotion winning side of 70/71.

And yet even amongst those with the sensibility to appreciate a sporting contest in its entirity; to see in it, at its best, a metaphor for most of that which is contained in life itself, there exists a similar schism, often within the same person, between the connoisseur and the fan.

I enjoyed the Ashes series immensely, being able to watch two tests and catching the others, including the last at the Oval, on t'internet and was as trouser squirmingly pleased as pleased can be at the eventual result but here's the rub. Had England lost, my long-haired German Shepherd would have approached me and not sensed any need for the avoidance strategy she so successfully employed after our loss to QPR earlier in the season.

And it is this inability to over-ride emotional response to sporting outcome that discriminates the fan from the connoisseur. I can thrill to Federer's glorious cross-court backhand, exult in a nonchalant Flintoff lofted on-drive over the ropes and admire the practice-honed mastery of the art of fast bowling demonstrated by Glen McGrath but give a George Best the ball against the Blades and all I will be able to feel is fear. The sight of Trevor Hockey homing in on his lower legs with murderous intent in his eyes would not have filled me with anxiety over the possibility of the greatest talent in the football league being in traction for the rest of the season. On the contrary, my voice would have been raised along with 30 000 others in a cheer of heartfelt relief.

And out of all the sports in the world (and for my purposes here, I include as sport that which we could call games, where the contest is mano a mano and not against the clock or the tape measure), there are maybe only two which, in England anyway, can inspire this kind of reaction and create the true fan...football and rugby league, the White Lightning of sport intoxication, the rest is wine appreciation society.

What sets these sports apart from the others? Fans from connoisseurs? Well, I guess the facts that generally, they are predominantly northern, working class and tribal. Go back some eighty odd years and you will find much the same attitudes at work in the rivalry between Yorkshire and Lancashire in the Roses matches. Now I do not suggest for a minute that there is no spirit of rivalry between Portsmouth and Southampton say, but I'm sure it is less intense, less visceral. The exceptions would be some of the London clubs but even here it would come down to reinforcement of an identity within a larger mass of population.

And it is visceral, you know. You can take the boy out of the working class...

Hate is probably far too intense a word to employ in this context but spending my childhood in S11 surrounded by arrogant, gloating, glory seeking Wednesday fans resulted in shall we say, a certain antipathy towards them that has not lessened in magnitude to this day. Scratch any seemingly rational Wendy fan and you'll find the grunter underneath, the one convinced that our TC was an effete homosexual and that theirs was a gift from the gods.

My schadenfreude at the recent history of Leeds United can only reasonably be explained by their ransacking of our club and pilfering our best players over the years. I can never quite forgive Chelsea for buying Alan Birchenall either.

Are my family aware of this negative trait in my otherwise exemplary character? Well, Idris will always wait to see my expression when I come out of the study after having listened to the commentary before initiating conversation or not and my daughter?

There will shortly be a sports day at her nursery school, one of the events of which will be a football match between the fathers of the girls and those of the boys. After telling me this news, she seemed to consider for a while before asking,

"Does this mean you're going to be able to kick Zoli then, daddy?"

I could have answered, of course. But I am her father and have responsibilities.

2005-09-12T17:05:00.000+02:00

DING DONG

A comparative study of the relative merits of Islay malts kept me up until the wee small hours this morning so it was with some degree of annoyance that I was awoken while the forenoon was still in single figures by a persistent ringing of the doorbell.

The obstinate nature of the endeavour convinced me that it was the collector for either the water board or the refuse collection service and, despite my state of less than total awareness, I was reminded of the Yorkshire chinese rentman joke...she ent in.

Trying to return to slumber under this aural assault proved fruitless so I did in fact, get up and clumsily set to bringing to a concurrence the ingredients of several strong coffees all the while fervently hoping that she was bruising her finger on the bell button.

Anyway, she came back this afternoon and, notwithstanding the fact that England were 199 for 8 and more or less guaranteed the Ashes, I was not well disposed to receive her favourably. I grabbed my wallet and headed for the gate.

"So you knew you'd have to pay then?" said she, on espying the wallet.

"Yup"

"I came this morning, you know."

"Yes, I heard."

"So?" She asked accusingly.

"So. I was in bed and if someone chooses to disturb me at that ungodly hour by leaning on the doorbell for half an hour, I'm buggered if I'm going to answer it."

"I didn't know you were in bed. I saw the cars (autók) in the drive and thought..."

"Thought? You saw the doors (ajtók) in the drive and..."

"Cars, not doors..." in a helpful spirit, correcting my Hungarian.

"Shall we speak English then? Here's your money, now piss off."

It's at times like this that I realise I will never quite be able to shake off my innate Englishness.

I've been feeling guilty about it ever since.

2005-09-09T12:33:00.000+02:00

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Lothar Matthaus being interviewed in English after the Hungary v Sweden game.

"...we dominate possession, play really well and get hit by that fucking goal..."

And the translation?

"...and I'd like to congratulate the Swedish team."

It happens quite regularly here. Hungarian commentators like to pretend to some knowledge of foreign languages and their simultaneous interpreting is often, not to put too fine a point on it, pure invention. I did enjoy this one though.

2005-09-08T23:48:00.000+02:00

BEG, BORROW OR...

I've just listened to Beck's 'Where it's at' on VH1. A more plagiaristic reworking of the Doors' 'Riders on the Storm' I have yet to hear. Sheesh.

What goes around...