Unblocked

Lots to write about. I guess I was spurred to write having read the manc?s live journal (hint) which is very interesting at the moment.
Irish Pubs
Well The Manc seems to be having a mixed time in Bermuda, it seems there are some similarities between Bermuda and Germany, a shutdown on bank holidays, deep seated racism (and therefore intolerance of outsiders) and Irish bars.
Thank fuck for the Irish. Where would the world be without them? In every bolthole throughout the world there is an irish pub where you can forget how far from home you are, and I don?t mean to say that Ireland is home, but Irish bars feel like home now. Its kind of like a cultural decompression chamber (no disprespect intended). It doesn?t matter how weird life is outside, once you have a green carpet under your feet, wood-panelled walls around you, a pint of Guinness in hand and the irish rover (or whatever) in your ears, you are suitably desensitised, and can breathe easily, despite the old bike hanging from the roof, the black and white photos of a Donegal noone remembers, etc. I have been to Irish pubs in quite a few interesting places on most continents, and they seem to occupy a space outside of normal spacetime, maybe this is the next dimension!
I imagine that as human kind spreads through the solar system / galaxy / universe Irish pubs will materialise at each milestone (or lightyear marker). I am not sure the mechanics of pouring the perfect pint of Guinness in zero gravity, but I am sure that someone in Dublin is working on it.

Fish/Duck Boy
I saw this guy on the train tonight that looked like a cross between a duck and a fish, what should I therefore call him a dish? Or a fuck? Anyway dish/fuck-boy gave me the most dispproving look, through his dreads (well I say dreads but infact I guess in about six years they will be dreads, at the moment he has the hear of his head divided into sections with tiny coloured little clips just like a little girl would wear), and an unlit fag was hanging from his lip, since we were on the train, and no matter how rebellious you are here, you are a german and therefore law abiding first and foremost. So I had a laugh at dish/fuck-boy?s expense, and got evils back in return. So I left the train at my stop, and noticed that the only person to get off with me was? Yes dish/fuck-boy. Now I was a little worried, because its one thing to exchange hostile glances down the length of a U-bahn and another to be the only two people on a station platform at 23:30. So I made my way up to ground level at a brisk but steady pace, he was hot on my heels the whole way, I broke into the sodium lit night and glanced behind me only to confirm he was right there and now he knew I knew he was there. Then I saw my escape route, I headed straight towards the road. He was by now dogging (NO) my every step, and just as he expected to grab me I did the last thing he would have thought of,?. I crossed the empty road on a red light. Ha ha, what genius, I attained the far side of the road laughed at him and quickly disappeared into the night. A narrow escape!!!

I had intended to write about
Irritating Germans
Irritating England
Locke

But since I am tired and lazy, or lazy and tired (you decide) I will just report on tonight?s match:
England v Azerbyjian Venue: Tir Na Nog KO: 20:45
Lots of chances, pretty entertaining, pretty disappointing, so all in all a normal England game, Can?t think that any player was exceptionally good or bad. Though I do get sick of England playing like some kind of boy?s club and passing to the player who is going to make their landmark goal etc. Last time out it was Shaun Wright Phillips, today Owen, and god knows Owen doesn?t need help in scoring.
Also irritating, the Azers falling over at every tackle, like they had been shot, for fuck?s sake it?s a contact sport, not ballet. And booking Beckham for playing with one shoe, I mean come on.

So I?ll save the irritating Germans and Locke for another time.

Music not to listen to whilst reading this anything by Mr Robbie Williams ? I just heard three back to back tracks by the man and that?s more than anyone should be expected to withstand.
Better to listen to: Death in Vegas

Back to Mine

Well after a couple of hours sleep, a tortuous coach ride with a womansmelling of onions (not ellie), sitting in a shed in lyon and a pleasantcouple of days in london, including navigating hampton court maze in recordtime. I am back in the sprawl of Düsseldorf.

I seem to have contracted some illness which manifested itself only once I was re-installed in my apartment, and is now making me feel very sorry formyself. As seems to be the way of things everyone else is also ill, so Iwill spend the day writing emails and doing generally useful (if notproductive) stuff.

Will probably post some ski related stuff retrospectively, fi anyone's interested.

Listen to Suzuki - Tosca, or Flu Season from Some of my best friends are DJs - Kid Koala

Lonely Sunday Afternoon

Another week grinds to it?s conclusion and a new one is about to start, This next week looks very very very busy, with lots of important things to accomplish, and then my holiday, Aaaaaaaaaaaah.
The weekend has been very quiet, no real idiocy to report, but a couple of frustrations.
I) the rude kaufhof woman. Whilst buying some provisions at the celebrated department store, I attempted to ask the cashier for a carrier bag, she objected to my interruption to her conversation with another checkout jockey, and ignored me until her conversation then turned to me and spat out ?Was hast Du gesagt??* as if I had insulted her mother. Anyway I replied ?Gar nichts!? and left leaving her with all my shopping. I felt very remorseful at being such an inconvenience to the poor woman.
II) broken Tomb Raider. Lara has been entertaining me with her adventures through Angel of Darkness, and especially since I have some dodgy german version in which the dialogue is not only not synchronised with the cutscenes, the voices are speeded up by a factor of at least two, so the suspense is ruined by lara and fellows sounding more like morph (from tony hart programme fame). This isn?t so bad, but increasingly I was finding that Lara was getting stuck, eg. Gravity stops working when she was jumping from one place to another, so she is left hanging in mid air!!! Finally I got to one point (in the warehouse in Prague) where she has to jump down an air conditioning duct, and the whole thing crashed, with a ?Structure Game Exception? error. Well thank god it was a structured I would have hated to have wasted hours getting to this point to have it end with an unstructured game exception!

I started writing this listening to Thievery Corporation Lebanese Blonde, and ended it listening to BT (featuring Kirsty Hawkshank) Dreaming. No Hyperlinks today as I am offline today.

More soon, but beware, it?s a busy week coming up and then mercifully holiday so?..

* For those non-german speaking readers Du is the informal mode of address, something I am not bothered with, but I think her use of it was intended as an insult.

"I like thinkin' me"

I heard from a long and hitherto lost friend* today and it made me sit up and think. I was of course sat down at my desk when this happened, so sitting up was no great effort and I accomplished it easily, but I am getting somewhat off topic. My physical disposition is immaterial; it was my thought process that was important. So I thought from my lofty (9th floor) perch how far we have come, by that I don?t mean mankind, or since we lived in caves, but thinking much more locally. From humble-ish beginnings how far spread we are, how successful and influential we are.
I know that as you sit (up or down) at your desk this doesn?t seem to be the case, but take a moment now to stop, think, reward yourself and say (in the words of Jeb Barltlett) ?What?s Next?

Listen to BFBS Radio 1 whilst you read this and think of our boys overseas.

*I am trying to be a bit clever, but anyone half as pedantic as me will notice that it should be long lost and not long and lost, but for the purposes of this prose I will leave it in. Disclaimer: this does not reflect on any physical dimension of the person in question, who I haven?t seen for quite some years and even when we did know each other well we never had a tape measure handy.