If this sucks I apologise I’m moving out in 10mins and I’m lacking in prooof reading time….I wrote this on the plane, on the way back to Germany.
Before this trip i’d of told you the only thing I miss about england is prepacked sandwiches. Sure it feels a little wrong that after 23yrs the country of my birth hasn’t seeped deeper into my psyche than a sandwich, but only the english it seems understand the fundamental importance of a good sandwich. So I was at peace with it. But I think after this trip i’ve realized that there is more than that, so i’ll try and give england a little break for a while. I think maybe its a little like picking on the fat kid at school. Its an easy option, but its hardly an intellectual workout in mockery. So lets throw England in a special category along with the disabled, and the USA and make them exempt for today.
Why this sudden england love-in? Well I think it was the 2 days I spent in Nottingham with Fraser my roomie of 3 years at Uni. Its actually a pretty great place. The best bars anywhere (even beating Leipzig), the best music scene bar London. Its actually a pretty great place to spend your twenties. There are a few downsides of course like the overabundance of english people (sorry couldnt resist that cheeky one) and its not easy to find a job that pays more than 15k. I think I under-estimated how many good memories I have from there and just how well I know the city. Its a close to home as I’Ve felt in a city in England which makes sense as actually I spent a fair amount of time there, and it was the first place I moved out from home to.
Friday night saw me playing wingman to Frasers tried and tested Napoleon Dynamite persona. It had been so long that I enjoyed the friday night moron show that takes place in its city centre, the scantily clad women, men that makes those strange primal noises which i’m pretty sure we outevolved just before we discovered the “poke” as a communicative tool. But these drunkmonkeys seem somehow to get the complex messages they are trying to convey across with a simple
“ooooaaayh”
translation:
“you are a level of attractiveness or I’m a level of drunkeness that would allow me to have sex with you. Right here in the street if you like? Or perhaps in the alley? Anyway let me know i’ll be over here crushing a beer can on my head and pissing on my shoes”.
I wouldn’t reccomend it for every weekend, but once in a while its a nice mini-break from civilisation. We first hit the Ropewalk and played two gruelling scrabble deathmatches (in which Fraser cruelly shat upon the space I had reserved for my seven letter “repented”, with a strategically placed time waster and won by 2 points). If theres a better way to spend your Friday evening patent it, quick. Then off to the indiegoodness of the Rescue Rooms (even played a Ryan Adams track) saw people drinking shots from a teapot, narrowly avoided an annoying evacuation as someone made a fire in the toilets and then moved on to the Cookie Club another valut of indie goodness. To say we started the party would be an understatement, only two people beat us in there. I guess you know what happened in the next few hours, we drank danced like buffoons to the beastie boys, walked home narrowly avoiding an expensive run-in with the casino.
What happened next was a master stroke as we both managed to mangle my instruction of “I have to take a train at 7:30am, can you set an alarm at 6:30″. Instead both setting it at 4:30am. Beautiful time of the morning, populated only be the dead and new parents, the difference mere technicalities.
Anyway the planes beginning its decent now, so far i’ve not been called in to pilot it. So i’ll knock this one on the head. You know what England, your alright duck, go away and work on your cost of living and come back and see me in a few years and we’ll talk again.
Growing up adults (parents, teachers etc) often utter phrases like “you can never be the best, there’s always someone else in the world who’s better”. I assume this is to help prepare us for the soul crushing dis-appointment we will face in the adult world. I always laughed at this type of comment. I can say without any doubt that i’m the best in the world at one particular thing. That thing is believing that I could be the best in the world at anything, but mostly things i’ve never done and have no idea of. Even though some-days I can barely manage getting showered. I’m confident that should the pilot and co-pilot of the plane I’m about to board both slipped into tedium induced coma (in my head flying consists mainly of spinning around on your chair and cracking “houston we have” gags), I would be able to glide us down from the sky and land on a shiny penny. After all I’ve seen that movie with Nicholas Cage that involved a plane.
So its with this mindset that I’m writing from the pleasure of stansted waiting lounge, humbled. I’m humbled by the book “things i’ve argued with my girlfriend about”. Its exactly the sort of book I want to write, with one crucial difference its better than anything I could write. It reads like a biography but its fiction. It follows a guy who is as funny as i’d like to be, but am not. He works in IT. Or at least pretends to have a vague idea about IT but still gets paid for it. I actually do work, so again he has a fortuitous position over me. He has a German girlfriend!? I thought I was the only english person stupid lucky enough to have taken on the charitable task of making a German girl internationally date-able (Pete doesn’t count he’s “british” or some other technicality like that). The German disease is not like flu, at least I’m aware of no pills that can cure brutal sledgehammer honesty and obsessive planning?
The book follows their life as a couple (they also have two children). Not sure what else yet i’m only 1/3 of the way through, but looks like it will involved triads (can’t say fairer than triads). But sometimes the likeness between Annett and I and the couple in this book is scary. The way they interact is so reminiscent of our unique blend of dysfunctional function and her mannerisms and saying are so Annett. They’ve spent a lot of the book arguing so far. His weapon is deathly sharpened sarcasm, her’s blunt violence or at least the threat of blunt violence. Annett and I argue more in one hour than I’ve ever argued with any of my previous girlfriend’s in the whole of our relationships, combined. But I’m okay with that, its part of our style. I’m in no doubt that if Annetts Mastermind subject would be “the stupidity of men”. I have a role to play, so i’m okay with reaching for the dunce hat every once in a while. Especially as being annoyed is Annett’s biggest talent, to deny her further practice could seriously damage her world title challenge.
Below is a brief If I-had-to-sum-up-the-first-few-months-of-our-relationship-it-would-be:
Annett:
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“3 legged bastards.”
“If you hate me you could just say so”
“that’s mean/that’s not fair”
“you inbred island monkey”
Me:
“your a freakin’ nutjob”
“Not all men are evil. Some men are even “not that bad”, we employ the satanic ones to create a very achievable benchmark for ourselves”
“are you sure your not a lesbian?”
I’ve wandered off my original point, which I guess is that now I need a new book idea since the anglo-german relationship has been covered at great, much funnier length than I could do justice. So my best in the world theory is blown yet again, I guess the solution is to pretend that all my ideas are completely unique and never try to find those that have already done them, better.
I’m back from hols now, great to back in the ‘zig. Nice to have some downtime, more to come hopefully,
Now I await the fun of the argument this post will produce 
Lovely stuff. Courtesy of the man in the dutch hat florian
http://www.flabber.nl/archief/022143.php
I’m bored in Berlin, in a hotel, in Berlin, bored, I’m in.
I heard somewhere of a story someone had made using only cat in hat sayings. If I had my way i’d shut him in the hat, seal it nice and tight and lob it off a bridge into the river onto the highway. It seems children’s stories are taking the brunt of my boredom today, stay tuned as I work my through the whole rhyme’osphere. Oh no wait this is also a book idea Pete told me about, story book characters getting killed one by one in toon town or something. Let me try and think of something that isn’t a book idea:
Once there was a samurai and he fell in love with a chicken. They eloped to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, the chicken died of scurvy. The samurai had a rocky few years battling alcohol and a nasty toblerone addiction. He eventually found love with a nun and opened an umbrella shop.
Fletchycorp copyright on that bad boy, thats an amazon wishlist filler right there.
I’ve been a strange/bad/stressy mood for weeks so many changes coming up but right now i’m just sort of sitting in front of the oncoming train, waiting to act until the last moment where I narrowly avoid disaster in true hollywood adrenaline soaked edge of seat style. Or I splatter, we’ll see I guess.
I’ve spent the last 45mins looking up all the people i’ve ever cared about on Facebook. I tried to avoid that site for a loooong looong time but the urge (read boredom) of this evening was too strong. My favourite facebook feature is “sphere” (where you currently are). According to Facebook 98% of all the people i’ve ever met live in London. Either someone “declared a reclaim london for the english” campaign and no-one told me, or east anglia got seized by the capital or Facebook doesn’t think very much of the rest of the England. Sort of reminds me of Austria or little Rome as I call it. One road, totally straight to and from Vienna. Only Cows live outside of Vienna in Austria it seems, presumably because they can’t find reasonable priced grazing accommodation.
What am I chatting about? Did I mention i’m bored? In Berlin? I am indeed a cat, and this indeed is a hat…..
I’ve had some sort of melancholic writers block (we’ll i’m writing all the time over on OLP and corp blog but nothing good). I think its lifting so hopefully they’ll be some more zig updates coming up soon.
