Aussies, Pig’s Ears and David Attenborough.

When foreigners come to visit they often mention that they have heard about binge drinking in Britain on their international news. Male visitors and especially Australian ones are generally intrigued by this strange phenomenon and are keen find out more.

Who am I to culturally impoverish their visit? So as soon as my brother rang up to say he has a couple of Australian friends over from Melbourne the consequences were inevitable.

Cut to 4 am and 4 very very drunk people staggering down the road, having a very very drunk conversation concluding that we were in fact all very very drunk.

“I am very very drunk” someone said. We all concurred repeatedly...

My misty recollections of Friday evening mostly consist of drinking, lots of drinking - all kinds of drinks, in all kinds of drinky places. We did get some eating done at some point going to The St John’s restaurant which I hugely recommend as the best restaurant in London that has nothing on the menu you actually want to eat, all made up from parts of animals you wouldn’t want to eat. All surprising delicious.

Here are some examples:

Jellied Pig's Ear & Watercress
Roast Bone Marrow & Parsley Salad
Lambs Tongues & Butterbeans
Crispy Pigs Cheek & Dandelion
Pan Fried Veal Heart
Baked Mashed Fish Brains & Roast Garlic
Pig’s Trotters & Fennel.
Ox Tongue Pie.

.. and so on. Mmm…

We ended up in a nightclub filled with teenage chavs as no where else would let us in because we were all very very drunk.

“These are chavs” I explained to our Aussie guests pointing at the baseball capped ensemble. But I don’t think they understood.

Anyway the point is since then I having been feeling a bit ropey and my being has been sucked down a black hole in the corner of living room.

Its mild Nurofen like effects means you don’t have to think which yesterday would have been painfully unwelcome.

It is David Attenborough’s 80th birthday and to celebrate the UK Documentary channel is showing every single one of his documentaries back to back. They all have words like and “Life” and “Planet” and “Earth” in their titles.

Surprisingly such a valid, worthy and middle class TV documentaryathon was less satisfying than I thought it would be

Being paradoxical and complex when I was little when I grew up I wanted to either make Natural History documentaries and hence help save parts of endangered rain forest. Or build huge dams in the Amazon hence destroy huge parts of endangered rain forest.

Watching hour after hour of Natural History documentaries about the destruction of the rain forest made me realise that so far in my life I have miserably failed to either save or destroy any major parts of the natural world.

Oh well…

I have just about recovered from Friday now and am about to head off to a barbeque with loads of people I don't know and probably more boozing...

Bank Hoilday weekends eh?

The grot

Broken swollen soaring feat, searing feet souring fate, trying yet dying to neither the less or to forever remain never.

When I was about 11 I found an acorn on the side of the road. I picked it up and took it home. I planted it an inch down in a pot of moist peat to germinate it as my recently dead grandfather had taught me.

When it sprouted I moved it to a bigger pot. I had a little note book and measured its height and leaf growth. After a month or so it was a sapling – I had nurtured to life an incredible living thing, something that could last a thousand years.

After 2 months it was 4 ½ inches tall and had 6 perfectly formed, light green, trembling oak leaves.

Then I stopped watering it.

One by one the leaves curled up to a crisp brown. The embryo trunk dried to a kindling stick. I left the dead tree in its pot for a month. Then I pulled it out and threw it out of the window. It hit the ground not too distant from where I had found the acorn.

Looking back I only remember one thing about my grandfather’s funeral.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t even feel like it – everyone was weeping. I was in a world of my own, distant away from everyone else’s misery.

Apparently I was too young to understand. Apparently not caring about death means you don’t understand it.

Sometimes good is not enough

About a year ago, after a few months working at the company I work for, I changed seats in an office reorganisation and sat next to a guy I didn’t know very well. One Monday I asked the usual Monday office questions:

“How was your weekend – what did you get up to?
“I ran the London Marathon” he said un-enthusiastically
“Wow great! Did you finish?”
“Yeah I finished” he said despondently
“Well… well done! Did you raise some money for charity” I said trying to think of some London marathon type things to say
“No – I didn’t do that this time”
“Right, right so err... what time did you do?” I said thinking that is the kind of thing you say to marathon runners.
“2:24”

My brain starts spinning – I know that the winning time is normally about 2:09 or something and 2:24 doesn’t sound too far off it.

“Hmm – well... err... I don’t really know, like, a lot about marathons but isn’t that really really fucking fast?”
“It is not bad – it the time I got last time and the time before. The time 2:24 has become my nemesis”
“So where did that place you - it must be pretty high up?”
“Top 50”
“Top 50 what?”
“Runners”
“Wow!”
“Paula Radcliffe beat me” he said miserably
“Well Paula… she is a bit special plus she lost some weight crapping herself half way through – so that doesn’t really count” I said helpfully
“It wouldn’t have been so bad but 2 other women beat me too”
“Sign of the times my friend – but still, top 50 – if you were a football player you would be a millionaire by now.”

This didn’t seem to cheer him up. In fact it just added to his disillusionment.

“I guess I am just not good enough – even with full-time training I could only scrap another 5 minutes off and you need be under 2:15 regularly to make career out of it.”

“Lucky you got this place then…”

Since then his marathon running has taken a back seat but it turns out he is a highly skilled financial mathematician too.

“Hi, I am in a meeting talking about how we risk inflation swaps – can I conference you in?” I asked him once
“I’ll come over”
“Wait - we are on the other side of the building...” but before I finished the sentence he was knocking on the door.

I guess all skills are transferable.

There is a down side - there is a regular inter investment bank 6 mile “fun” run in the City which he wins every time and all the unopened boxes of engraved crystals are starting clog up our shared post in-box.

Landan - Culture, Prosperity - init.

“Stand behind the white line while the train goes though a security check!” a voice bellowed from the big brother (well big sister really as it was a woman’s voice) speaker system and eerily echoed across the train station platform.

I dutifully did my bit for the war on terror and stood behind the line. But my bleary eyed, sleep deprived, long haul fight weary Canadian companion failed to comply. Maybe it was a rebellious reaction to the hour wait in immigration trying to explain to a faceless non-understanding official that although she really was coming to see her boyfriend, she hadn’t met him in either Canada or England but in blogosphere. Maybe she was just tired.

“Err... babe! You have to stand behind the line!”
“Why?” she asked defiantly
“Hmm not sure – something about terrorists”
“You crazy Brits”

Later after being told by a recording on the train not to put her luggage in obviously stupid places and not to stand in even more obviously stupid places; to sit in the seats obviously provided; being told by signs not be the victim of crime; to queue here, queue there; look right, look left; that the toilets were obviously over here; the way out was over there; to stop here, keep left there, keep right over there; to mind the step and mind the gap. She finally cracked.

“What is wrong with you Brits? – Would your society collapse into anarchic barbarism if you weren’t told exactly what to do every minute of the day?”
“Hmm… “I looked around for a sign or speaker system to tell me the answer.
“What do they mean “Mind the gap” anyway?”
“Well “gaps” are a species of giant bat that live in the underground. When the trains come they wake up in an understandably bad mood. So it is best to mind them.”
She wasn’t convinced.

Admittedly she is from Montreal where the few road sign they do have are more suggestions than actual rules.

After she got used the signs and the ugly money I think she had a great time – all the things about London that annoy me, she seemed to love. And seeing London through tourist’s eyes makes you realise how lovely it really is.

So if you live in London and haven’t been on an open top bus tour or gone to the Globe or any of that other stuff – next time someone from out of town comes to visit - just do it. It is great.

Why and Bye

I always wondered why I started this blog or what it was for. Was it for the glory? Was it for the prestige? Was it to find a hidden talent that I never knew I had - one that I have but in meager proportions. “Occasionally funny” will be my epitaph. Did I want women to desire me and men want to be me – well a bit. Did I want to be part of a culture changing phenomena that is sweeping the world or just join in a load of people prattle on about themselves and stuff?

Nah!

Today I found out why I have been doing it?

It was so I could become *the* number one result for google searches for stupid stormtroopers. How fucking great is that?

I am number one… why try harder?

So it is on this joyful occasion I choose to be the moment I vanish from cyberspace back up in to the real world.

I may be back I may not. I may even get around to telling you what happened in Egypt part II.

In the mean time I will be spending some time with the biggest change that blogging has brought to my life. A change so strange and magical it is hard to believe it is real.

It has been emotional.

Cock and Bull

Everybody loves genitals. The first cave painting was probably a picture of big hairy cock. As is most pubescent school boys’ first attempts at graffiti. So it is with proud primeval pleasure that I can announce that because of Google’s self promoting ranking system my blog comes up number 3, yes that is right - a mighty number 3, for searches for “giant testicles”.

Now I am not one to judge but I have the feeling these googlers don’t really want to read my witterings. They want pictures of giant testicles. Let’s face it - we all do.

And who am I to disappoint

Giant Testicles.

I also get a lot of hits from people looking for “my cock” which is odd because you would think they could just undo their trousers. Unless they have got themselves into a nightmare Bobbitt scenario but even then I would have thought eBay would be a better place to start.

I regretted it at the time and I regret it now but what is done is done. So if you really have to know about my cock…