The Positive Side of: Chat Roulette

I'm back in Derry at the moment visiting the family over easter. 10 days of convivial comfort, heat and laundry, a full fridge and all the cheddar cheese I could ever possibly want.

Work had me really run-down recently, and as such, I'd stopped blogging, was soldered into a god-awful routine, played my usual MIA japes with my friends and did all of the usual things that gets one down in the dumps when they're a bit depressed with life. A wee break is the absolute tonic, and it's really great to see my parents and wee broheim and sister again. This week is rent-free relaxathon.

As you may know, I tend to make strong opinions about things rather quickly, and recently I've been a bit off the mark in terms of judgment. Being negative and cynical is fun most of the time but not if there's no enthusiasm or attempt to take things at face value, then that would make me a bit of a twat.

So in that spirit of infectious enthusiasm, I've diverted my usual boundless energy into finding the bright side of things I've been negative about recently...starting with Chatroulette.

(nb: when I say 'boundless energy'...I am presently pyjama'd, sitting in my bed drinking camomile and spiced apple tea and watching the little broheim play 'Zelda: Ocarina of Time' on the N64 - GUNG HO!!)


Chatroulette

My previous experience of this vidcam-based chat generator involved alcohol, and a seemingly endless supply of perverted fuckwits whacking off for our amusement/mental scalding. It was a bit surreal, and made me want to use a cattle brand to sterilise my eyeballs into scotch egg pub snacks. No matter how many cold ones we threw back, the sight of a sixty year old Belgian man with assless leather chaps and his dick in his hand was oddly sobering. Yuck.

This time, I was sober to begin with, and it was the day time, when only some of the weirdos come out. I finished my coffee, sat upright on the bed and with an ouverture of knuckle-crackery and neck-crickery, I logged in.

The first site that greeted my was a skinny white torso in FUBU boxers, a forlorn dick hanging out. Lovely.

What followed was a detailed lesson on anatomy, specifically that of the serial masturbator. I should have been a fucking urologist, I could have written a thesis on middle-age sag and the likeness between a sixty year old ballsack and free-range scrambled eggs, an epistle on the hiphop-boxer-to-foreskin-ratio of you average internet sexpest. There were more dicks than at a conference of Private Investigators.

Ba Dum Tish.

However, just as I was about to log off, and tell myself to fuck all the way off for setting homework for myself during my holidays, I found myself looking at a purple fringe and a pair of extremely beautiful eyes. Extremely beautiful eyes.

I stalled, this might be a normal human, best not make any sudden movements. Remember, they're more scared of me than I am of them...

I straightened to make my face look as non I-might-whip-my-balls-out-at-any-second as possible and gave a small smile.

Me: Hi
She: Hey!

Okay, all good. We had a conversation afoot.

I'd imagined that we would chat for a few minutes before my new friend would just hit 'next' and I could go and write about how I had done my homework. It lasted a bit longer.

One of the things you learn about yourself from chatroulette is exactly HOW boring you are. I explained that I was studying/training to be a lawyer, was sidetracked in construction recruitment and wanted to be a writer. I bored myself witless writing it, moreso writing it again just now. My conversational partner had manners of steel, if that's even a figure of speech, and didn't stab herself in the hand for distraction once. Not once!

Jule, for she has a name, is a student from Liepzieg, and like I say, she has extremely nice eyes. She studies English studies and loves London, but hates how Londoners can't make eye contact and how they roam through life like insular cattle. She didn't put it like that exactly, but her English was better than mine and I now feel the need to compensate by using overtly florid language. She had a lovely sense of humour, was quick to smile and laugh, and could do that European thing (mainland Europe only I'm afraid) of smoking a cigarette nonchalantly and looking as cool as Lou Reed on a polar ice-cap. When I didn't realise that Liepzeig is in Saxony and not Bavaria as I originally said, she was kind enough to not point out my mistake. She works in a cinema part-time and wants to become a professional film critic. I tried to convice to start blogging, but she said it was too personal, too open. So she was also mysterious.

I was a smidgen away from asking for her hand in wedlock when she had to leave, bloody slightly-younger people with their interesting lives and social circles. We exchanged emails, and I promised I'd send her a link to my blog. This one your reading.


So my verdict?


Chatroulette is a (frankly terrifying) natural development of the way we communicate and interact, a step further in our social evolution to an androgynous species subsisting on the ritualistic one-two of masturbatory reclusion and invasive omniscience. It is a junkie's gallery of quick-fix friendship and instant gratification for some, and a place to show the world how you and your 'boyz' are really adept at drinking low quality lager and being passive aggressive to someone half a world away. It also presents one with an enormous amount of laboured metaphors with which to describe it for future blogs.

The sushi buffet of conversation and friends may be vaccuous and rather soulless, but it IS oddly democratic and like anything in life, if you persist, you can find something that makes the whole experience worthwhile.

So try it out, I urge you. You might just find two beautiful eyes and a new friend, or at least an old Belgian fella wanking himself blind.

It's very cold here

Yes, very cold.

London had snow today, and I've never been more thankful for central heating, or for thermal socks.

I was going through my video file today, and found this little video I made during my Man Adventures in France over the summer. I watched it and remembered the weather being so hot, us being so drunk, and the days being so long, that it very briefly made me forget how ball-numbingly cold it is here.




The glazed look is due to all the beer and wine that we were drinking. Excuse the beer belly.


Also, my Connect-i-cut galpal Spanky has gone on hiatus from her blog in order to finish off reading Breaking Dawn, so why not go over and catch up on her blog so that you're nice and ready by the time she's finished. Luvs it.

(Actually) Back Home

My last post was a bit inaccurate. About three hours after I wrote it I was in a car speeding towards the northwest coast. The islands and coast area up there are like a second home to me, I was more-or-less half-raised there and it's my favourite place in the world. It's a gaeltacht region for the most part, with Irish being the main language spoken. It was a good place to go back to neutral after France, to fish, drink and walk. Actually, apart from the weather difference, it was almost exactly like France. As far as I'm concerned, I've finally returned back to Derry now, and my detox/rehab begins now.

Betcha it doesn't last.

Man Adventures with the Boys

So...France, aye?

I had intended to write a very detailed account of my time in the France, but to be honest, it would take faaaaaar too long. Instead, what I might do is just write down some of the notes that I took during my time of travel. Ah, the travel. Before I left, my friend Ste (whose house we were staying in) and I met at Beckett's in Derry for a pre-departure-to-the-unknown pint. Obviously that turned into four pints. Just an indicator as to how the week began...and continued. There were five of us on the trip: Stephen, Mark (Sparkle), Christy (Crystal), Eoghain (aka -OJ, Crystal's big bro) and I. These are all guys I went to school with, so I've known them since about 1998, and they're like my brothers. The main purpose of the trip was to give Ste and Eoghain a chance to get a lot of rock climbing done.

From my notebook: France Trip 2009 AUG.

Fri 7th: Leaving Derry-Pints in Beckett's with Ste before lift to Belfast-Drunk man on street while smoking - called us 'Lovely Boys' - shudder - Met OJ - drove to Claudy - picked Crystal en route - C has broken elbow "One Wing" - Drive to Belfast - party - mischief - Corona - sofa 4ft long - backache

Sat 8th: Woke up w/ hangover - Tongue like Ghandi's slipper - Hiking gear at Cotswolds - Bought book about Mongolia - fast-food breakfast.

--- --- --- ---

embarrassing story - Whilst hungover in KFC and feeling like I was still a little drunk, the lovely Asian lady behind the counter was short of change. She asked me did I have a 5. I fished in my pocket. Produced a 5 with a flourish and the phrase "I think I can make your dreams come true". She blinked politely. Felt awful, very 'colonial'. Friends looked at me like I was insane. NB: don't try to be swashbuckling with a hangover

--- --- --- ---

cont: car to airport - lots of security - difference between UK cops and NI cops = machine guns/pistols in NI - Burger King meal - hangover flight - awful turbulence - Ste hates flying - turbulence makes me giggle - won't sit together on way home I think. Toulouse - late for train - hotel for the night - area populated by drug dealers and hookers - expensive meal - wine - weird mafia bar - early night - shared a room with one wing - free porn in hotel - dancing girls on channel 8 - bizarre

Sun 9th: Early wake-up call - Breakfast (4 shot coffee) - Train to Perpignan - wait around in the sun - Ste's uncle pick us up - 5 boys, all 6'1'' and taller - Renault Clio - 4 free seats exc. driver - Clown car - 40 minute journey - one-wing in the front seat - lucky cripple - squash - arrive - cops next door to house - next door neighbour dead - balloon body - decomposed - 6 people emerge from the clown car - gun-toting gendarme looks confused - quick climbing session - return to house - 16 litres of wine - drunk - Ste shows climbing skills out window - third floor - pile-on Ste - booze - 1.30 am bed

(NB: Holy Fuck!! 16 litres of wine between 5 people. Not good.)


Mon 10th: Hangover - woke up with a fuzzy head - Ste and OJ went off climbing - Crystal/Sparkle and I stayed by the pool - Lilo wars - Sun Sun Sun - Factor 30 - no colour - C and M burn - me still pale - wasted day - built a BBQ - wood fire - felt manly - big big meal of meat (sausage and beef) - late night glow of BBQ with 10 litres of wine and a crate of beer - found Ste's brother's pellet gun - Sparkle passed out - shot Sparkle several times - sang lots of rebel songs - smell of dead neighbour still about - 3.00 am sleep on sofa

Tues 11th: Hangover - big salad for breakfast - BIG WALK - left St. Paul for Gorges De Galamus - swimming hole 3 miles from town -diving from road into a waterfall pool, 20 ft jump- lost hangover - more walking - took Hemingway-esque mountain track- formerly used by resistance Maquisards during WWII- approx. 6 miles, all uphill - 37 degrees C - scrabbling on rocks - glad of anklesafe boots - got to the Gorge - "vent violent" 100mph - road carved into mountain, gorge far below - walked another 4 miles, found route down to the river - scrambled through the rockpools and streams down the gorge - One-wing did okay for most of it - did a 25ft jump into a cold-pool - made for home - down the dirt path - detour to 'Love Making Spot' - most beautiful place ever - trees/waterfall/small bridge/ swimming - walked home - dead tired - ate grapes from the vine - collapsed into the sofa - went out for a meal "Le Soleil D'Or" - worst fucking meal of my life - boudain antillaise = dogshit in a condom - too expensive - ruined the evening - got drunk in the house - Ste and I did our usual wrestling thing - apparently got out of hand - more singing - late night


Wed 12th - BAD Hangover, Tautavel (for climbing), Crystal and I sat by the water side while OJ and Ste climbed, Sparkle and Ste's family in 2nd car - Me and C drank Heineken, drinking all day - watched OJ/Ste climb - larked about - deep convo - lots of sunbathing/jokes/chat - went hill walking - drunk - met some archeologists - excavation - tautavel = earliest human remains in Europe - caveman nonsense - still drunk. Beautiful views - very very happy with the day - spent the night drinking - last night in St. Paul - had a great time


Thurs 13th - Worst hangover ever - woke at 8 after 4 hours - got bus at 9 to Perpignan - train at 11.20 to Toulouse - Train from Toulouse to Pau - Arrived in Pau at about 3 - went on Funiculaire (olde worlde tram for going uphill) - Pau to Biarritz - arrive Biarritz @ 9.30 pm. Exhausted. Spent day playing 20 questions and trying to sleep off hangover - Annual saint's festival in Biarritz - biggest event of year - no hotel/hostel/beds/gites etc - obvi not booked ahead - sat at cafe until 2 - camped on beach - no camping gear - lit small fire - fantastic summer evening - Biarritz = most beautiful women in world - people having sex all round - bit porny- made a wagon circle with rucksacks on beach, lay in relaxed contemplation as the night fell away - gently nodded to sleep at 3am with balmy seabreeze in the company of my beloved friends


Fri 14th: woke at 5 - freezing cold - no cold weather gear- lunatic with tractor combing beach - tried to kill us - OJ and I decide to camp on a cliff = no seabreeze - sit for two hours - felt frozen - sun rise/morning/SUN - dying for bathroom - 36 degrees - walk about Biarritz for present for Ste's girlf - OJ and I give up and go to airport. Eat/Wash/Change/Bliss - give up smoking because of sketchy post-hobo sickness - look and feel like shit - feeling compounded by arrival of 2 full professional rugby teams - feel a wee bit scrawny. Others catch up - flight - all sitting together - ridiculous turbulence - giggles etc - arrive Ireland - run for bus - miss bus - get other bus to Belfast - get back to Crystal/Ste's/Sparkle's Belfast house - load up OJ's car - say bye to Sparkle - drive home - awful weather - late night driving with friends = amazing - home for midnight - been travelling for 40 hrs - bath - bed - snooze. Fucking great trip.



That's it, that's the holiday, and I think I've given you more than enough of an idea of the type of fun I had. Here's some photos to give you a wee visual:


St. Paul de Fenouillet from the mountain trail


Me sitting at a sheer 300ft drop with 100mph winds lashing me, really beautiful (if terrifying) spot at Gorges de Galamus



Tautavel, where Crystal and I srank beer in the water while the other boys climbed (the fools)


Sparkle having a rest on the floor after some wine.


l-r: me, OJ, Ste, Sparkle, Ste's Uncle, Crystal Mc One-Wing



All in all it was a fucking amazing week away, but for the next wee while, I think I'm happy to stay in Ireland for a while. At least until my liver heals.

The Quiet Season

I've been back in Derry for less than a week, but there's not been much to write about. One or two evenings aside, life has been a torpid, heavy-lidded affair, and I've been itching to do some more travelling. So, I'm going to France at the weekend!

My friend Ste's parents own a lovely little house in the town of St. Paul de Fenouillet, in a vignoble region just outside Perpignan in the south. It's a really sleepy, Stella-Artois-Advert type of burg, with a largely comatose population and a really great little wineshop, aproximately eight metres from the front door of the house. It also has some beautiful scenery and landscape around it, with a great gorge, a huge valley and mountains and a million little swimming holes and mountain paths for exploration.

I have a huge amount of little stories from the last time I was there, and the 'Yearly France Trip' has become somewhat of a tradition.


The last time I was there, I had white blonde hair, and we would spend the day walking tens of miles, with litres of wine, exploring the countryside and swimming and eating when we felt like a break. It was bliss. There were a few crazy moments; like almost being kidnapped by two massive gay guys for a funboy party, or smoking weed with a crazy mountain man in his cave, or chatting over a muscat to the ancient (but vibrant and fascinating) ex-pat Irishman whom we nicknamed Treebeard, for his booming voice and knowledge, and who made us all so very welcome...but those are for another time. Maybe if I write them up I can post them. One reader recently commented that my blog was 'a bit long' (the schmuck) so I dunno if I can post the full story without injuring his fragile sensibilities. But fuck it, why not.


I'm going (with my five travel companions) to Belfast tomorrow, then from Belfast to Toulouse on Saturday. We're going to spend seven days drinking wine, getting some sun and doing a lot of rock-climbing and hill-walking. There's no internet, no computers, barely any phones and I'll be well and truly off the rader. What bliss. I'll have my notebook with me, and will hopefully return with some happy stories, a bit of scandal, a nice tan and a newly inked pocketbook.

Chat to you all soon, fingers crossed for the weather!

xx

My Weekend on the Boat - Too many videos and photos result...

I've been talking quite a lot about how much I was looking forward to my weekend on the high seas. By 'high seas' I really mean the River Maidstone in Kent. After four days of boat fun and frankly ridiculous amounts of alcohol being consumed by a plethora of whacky characters, I'm currently sitting on the leather mega-sofa and watching Hannah Montana with the little cugina and cugino.


The last post I wrote about the boat was the day we took it from Chatham to Maidstone in anticipation of the Maidstone River Festival, but since that day the weather had been a bit 15yr old goth about it, swinging its mood about to the straining beats of Cradle of Filth and scratching 'I hate my parents' into arm with a penknife; sunny to monsoon and back again.

We had a big build up to the festival, enjoying the sun (my back having been burnt to a cinder a few days earlier) and relaxing as best we could, until THIS happened...





we had to wait until Friday evening until we could go down to the Holly Louise and begin drinking...and drink we did. It was quite obscene. We bought a great many cases of budweiser, cider, little dumpy beer and tonnes and tonnes of food. On the first night alone, we drank about a million bottles of suds. Highlights of night 1 include:

1) Being grabbed and kissed (tongues de rigeur for her clearly) by a 45 yr old lady who said my accent "made her want to have sex" and who asked if she could keep me.
2) Her friend telling me that it was the THIRD time she had done that to randomers.
3) Me sitting with a group of (actually) lovely people and then out of the blue being hit on the head by a 15lb chill-box of seafood. Some lady was having a domestic and tried to throw the heavy entirety of her product from a high wall onto her ex-boyfriend. It was heavier than she thought, fell short, and it bounced off my head before bursting open on the quayside. Ouch

and

4) Meeting some nice young hipsters who were dressed up as pirates. One of whom (who had tried, unsuccessfully, to dress like Jack Sparrow) told me it was the greatest outfit he'd worn in his life.


We all eventually passed out, excited to see what the festival day brought.


The Saturday can be summed up as follows:





That's right, it was Hammer Time on the boat, we are all phenomenal dancers, and we were having a great time.


BUT...

Every face in the Aunt and Uncle's friendlist wriggled out of the wood work to come visit. They're the sort of couples who, in their FB messages to the other couples, feel obliged to refer to each other as 'good friends' or 'true mates' etc so that they can convince themselves that they don't spend the entire time bitching each other out horrendously. So when they found out that S&D had a hugely exploitable boat in the River Festival, guess where they went. I'm not saying they are bad people (for they WERE very nice) but just that their idea of friendship is ridiculously out of whack. There are a few of them who are amazing though, the sort who I see in the house most days, or who come to all the events, such as my Aunt's best friend Ola, or Leigh, the wee 18yr old guy who used to practically run their old pub. They're the sort that contrasted so much with these boatmoochers and it was really cool to hang out with them.


The day was beautiful, the sun was splitting the stones and I was ridiculously hungover and slightly sore from the head-fishbox contact. We sat out all day, with interludes where I sat below deck to read my current page-turner (which is excellent, though a bit jingoistic and overtly British for my Hibernian tendancies) and tried to catch up with my correspondences (because nothing is as nice as a handwritten letter is it?) during any lull in the festivities.

Anyway, by the time we had started to rock out to the Hammer Time shuffle, we were (again) more sauced than Mr Tabasco when he thought that his nachos needed a bit of oomph and got his ingredients out, and there were no signs of it stopping any time soon.

At one point, between the Hammer shuffle and the later drunken torpor, we painted a face onto my uncle's belly. That's what we did. It was a lot of fun. We called the little belly-lady Stella, and she became our mascot.




What was also a great deal of fun was when uncle D then went and started chatting to some of the cops who were patrolling the quayside. For about 20 minutes he had a lovely conversation about all things boaty with the bobbies on the beat when I snapped this photo, making him look like a schoolboy being scolded...




For parts of the day, all the kids (of the moochers and the nicers alike) for some reason gathered around me, and treated me like a human climbing frame. As it got dark, we watched from the deck of the boat as loads of people in their tricked-out watermobiles ambled past, it really was nice:



Soon, all the little sprouts jumped up on the fore deck with me and soon we were playing the 'let's scream really loud at all the boats' game:




It actually was a lot of fun. There also was a massive fireworks display. All the couples stood on the boat hugging each other and being all cozy and it was one of the few 'dude, you need a girlfriend' moments I've had in a while. It was very romantic, me and my budweiser.




All in all, it was a really good evening.




Sunday was pretty much a 'we're hungover and don't want to do anything' sorta day, and when we sailed back upriver to Chatham, it was pouring with rain and we were all sorta sick of the sight of everything around us. We moored at Chatham, had some dinner (a massive meal at Nando's that left me feeling positively pregnant) and the whole bunch of us squeezed onto a small berth to watch Twilight. I'm a wee bit in love with Kristen Stewart, so it was all good. The only bad thing about the evening was that the skies opened with a vengeance and at 5am this (Monday) morning, a huge drip of icy rainwater started on my head.


So, as I said, today I am exhausted, drained and (despite my bad storytelling) really happy to have such a great weekend. Life on a boat is a lot of fun, but it was important to try and get some time to myself so that we didn't all end up tearing each other's throats out. I found that a book and some writing stuff went a long way. The pros are obvious; the fun, sense of adventure and the chance to learn a new skill, but there are cons (apart from me haha) it can be a few days between getting showers, most boats are not laptop friendly, and you can get a bit cramped.


Today, we've lazed on the sofa and aunt A just made the most magnificent cottage pie. Now with a cup of tea and a strong case of shiprock (where you can feel the boat moving whilst on dry land) I'm almost ready for a lot more fun...in a few days.
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ps: One of the people I met this weekend, who has known S&D for years because of the river festival is this guy below. Pete, or 'Popeye' as he likes to be called, is a bit like the male lead from a 1970's softcore porno. In the photo below he is as he was the entire time, wearing a pair of short cut-offs with no underwear...tasty. The entire festival he entertained a gaggle of women of varying ages, and his entire day seemed to consist of kissing the cheeks of young maidens and punctuating his speech with words like 'my darling', 'sweetheart', 'lovely little one' etc. Now, I use some of those endearments from time to time, but I really don't want to end up like this guy...a walking STD. Although a lovely man, he was very clearly in the 'sex pest' category of the charming spectrum. Ew. Isn't he gorgeous ladies? What say you to a slice of popeye?

(Yes that is a hoop in his ear)



Anyway, that's what I got up to this weekend. Hope y'all had fun :)

Dealing With Boredom - Everything Is Better On A Boat

I was grumbling the other day that the relaxation of the summer has given me a rather shocking case of writer's block. Whilst this hasn't had the worst effect on my blogging, it has rather naused up the plan I had to finish a novel I'm working on before September. I sent a plea amongst my 20sb friends to give me ideas of short things to write, in the hope that it would spark the old neurons back into life and waited for the replies to, well...not FLOOD in, but, y'know, trickle lethargically.

Luckily, the folks at 20sb, and the occasional chaps who read this wee blog are good sports and I've had a few suggestions for 'homework' that I'm currently working on. I'll be putting those up on a separate blog pretty soon and I'll link it to this one, but treat it like a mistress. A little indulgent treat for me when I can find the time. The posts will probably be a bit wordy, so it's more for me, although there might one or two things that you find a tad interesting.

------------------------

Today, I had one of the best days I've had in absolutely ages. The aunt and uncle (S&D) have a boat and, being the young, cool types that they are, we spent ALL day on it. It was bliss.

We pottered about Maidstone for a while, doing a few chores and having a lovely little lunch in a cool wee café. They picked the kids up from school, and soon we were breezing along in their convertible in the most beautiful weather to Chatham marina. I got a chance to mess about with their car while we waited, which I had a LOT of fun with, mucked about with the wee cousin and after helping th'uncle get all the coverings on the boat, we set off.

(bee-tee-dubs: if you have an aversion to whiter-than-white Casper skin, then the links may have a damaging effect on your poor retina and leave your temporarily blind, there was a lot of glare from the sun bouncing off my rotten hide.)

Chatham docks are really cool. When my dad was 14 he started working there (circa 1973) and it was really cool to jet along with S&D and the little'uns and see the old dockbuildings and gun wharf where he would have worked. There are hundreds of cool little boats; old US navy land-lease cutters from about 1940, little houseboats that look like wrecks and a few hand-made yachts made of Norwegian pine (one of which I will someday own) and glistening with varnish. It was amazing.

There's a few miles of river between Chatham and Maidstone where we were going to moor the boat, but I managed to have a VERY Duran Duran few moments lolling on the stern. Any cobwebs that had acumulated in the past few days were well and truly blown out from between my ears and I had such a cheesy fucking grin on my face. As you can see here, I was clearly awash in a tsunami of joy:





D gave me a chance to drive/pilot/whatever-the-word his beautiful boat all along the sleepy little twisty greenery bits towards Maidstone; through ridiculously pretty little towns, past castles, along horribly quaint hamlets that seemed to be mostly made of tweed and high tea and crumpets. It was jolly good fun and I really enjoyed learning a completely new skill. Usually whenever I am in control of a vehicle, I either panic and start to giggle, or get a bit angry at all other vehicle users and end up calling someone a c*nt. Not this time. It was challenging, sure, but it was as fun as a bucketful of badgers playing the ukelele. I also saw a custom made pirate ship.

When we finally arrived at Maidstone, I was very very tired, very very red (Casper died in the sun) and had thoroughly enjoyed drinking lots of champagne. Just as we had finished buttoning up, the heavens opened and a terrific thunderstorm rent the sky in two, it was so cool.

As I sit here now, chilling out and watching t.v, I am very aware of several things:

1) I was in control of several vehicles today, which was a hoot.
2) I am rather sunburned, which has put me into a sense of shock
3) The thunderstorm outside is the tits.
4) QI repeats are fucking brilliant
5) I'm going to sleep well tonight. Like a Dutch nun (which I imagine is very well)
6) I had an amazing day.


Good Night to you all.
x

Life in the Rat Race...

The time in Kent is stressful. So very, very stressful. I don't know how I'll cope.

I flew in the usual way, collecting the usual share of arsehole molecules in my hair that is so very common with Ryanair. It began earlier than usual this time, the website crashing 24 hours before my flight so that I couldn't print out my booking. Despite my most reasoned and calm attempts to rectify this I was still charged £40 at the airport so that they could print out my muthafucking ticket.

Grrrr

I got the train down from Luton to Maidstone East and since then. It's been work work work.

An example of my horrific workload. My auntie had the fridge full of Jacques Cider, which she INSISTED that I drink, otherwise it would just sit there. I did. We sat and drank loads of cider and smoked a million cigarettes on Tuesday night. As I say; hard work.

I've got a meeting tomorrow with the Firm, to talk about what I'll do during my contract with them. In essence, I'll be organising my life until at least 2013, which is a bit trippy. From 9.30 to 5.30, I'll be attending meetings, listening to presentations about different areas of law, chatting to some partners and having lunch with them. Lots of glad-handing and charming conversation expected. We'll see... Although I had put aside time to meet a special person, I now doubt that I'll be able, unless I stay for a while... (where though?)

I'll be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to get all dolled up (or 'lolled up', from your perspective, because it's so very funny-looking) so that the lawyer types think that I'm respectable. I'll post a photo tomorrow.

The ridiculously tanned Aunt and Uncle (S&D) have been working on their garden and have just finished building a firepit...to compliment the hot tub. After some paperwork, and some humble refreshment (when I could find the time...) I had to see what it was like. I suppose it was okay.

Hopefully I'll be able to chill out tomorrow at the big law thing. Up til now I've been doing too much. If my hectic lifestyle keeps up at this pace I'll probably go mental. Or have a stress-induced heart attack. Good thing that the corporate law gig will be pretty chilled...and fun.

Until I'm besuitted tomorrow...I bid you all a good night. Wish me luck tomorrow (later today)

A Change of Scenery

Flights are booked, suit is being picked up from the dry cleaner in a few hours, going to get a 'smart work haircut', about to start packing and have polished the shoes.

Yes, something is afoot.

The Firm for whom I'll be working are having me over to London for a chit-chat on Friday and as I've been home for three weeks, and have reacted to the boredom of the holidays with ridiculous amounts of alcohol and by becoming a bit of a bon viveur, it is maybe time to take an adventure.

My Dad's family all live in Kent in the south of England, a beautiful area of the world known as 'the garden of England'. As you may be aware, the temperature at the moment there as approximately three degrees cooler than the surface of the sun, and shows no sign of changing. Lovely. I'm the sort of tough safari-man who gets a sunburn by standing too close to the toaster in the morning. I'm gonna be roasted.

This move is an attempt to fulfil several things at once:
1) I'm bored. I always look forward to the holidays, but always get ridiculously bored of them after about a fortnight. I sat a few days ago and stared at a beautifully arranged (but slightly suspicious-smelling) bunch of flowers for the Mother's 50th, for about two hours.

2) Although great fun, I'd like some adventures that don't have the words 'alcohol', 'concussion' or 'Bangkok lady-boys' inherent in their telling, and would like to pursue some wholesome tomfoolery of the sort seen in Midsomer Murders/Kingdom.

3) I'M TOTALLY FUCKING BROKE!! My aunt needs some work done to a nightclub she owns, and also has kids (my little cousins) whom I can look after and babysit. So some form of productive expenditure of time, a chance to flex the handy-man muscle and a chance to catch up with my cousins (one of whom, who has the same birthday as me, but is only 7, I've never met)

4) I have a very limited amount of the world's greatest resource, parental good will, left at my disposal. With a 'job' job lined up, the degree, and my recent attempts to not be a grumpy shite, I have some left. With no summer job, the fact I'm a nite owl and tramp about the house at all hours, and the fact that I'm somewhat gangly and take up a lot of room in our wee house, I don't have forever before the bank runs dry.


So, tomorrow morning I fly from City of Derry Airport to Luton, then spend the day in transit (which I love) ambling down over the iron road to Lahndan, then on to Chatham. It'll hopefully be lovely and sunny, and I'll have a million years worth of groovy tunes and, yes, my TERRIBLE SECRET to listen to. I'll stay with the Aunt, then go up to London on Friday. When I come back, I came dawdle or hurry at returning home, but hell, I have a free month, so why not see what happens?


I'll have my camera and laptop with me, so we can all share in the joy as I blindly stumble through the summer.

Wish me luck!

Untergang Part 3 (Day 3) plus a COMPETITION!!!

Day 3 - Wednesday, 10th June 2009: Prague; Huge Snails, Punchy Barmaids and Racist Texans.

So...when BigBro came back from work on Wednesday noon-time, I was washed, tea'd and packed. Hanna (BigBro's Girlf) came back soon and made the day for me by asking me, in her thick Welsh accent, "Con-or, would you like some roc-ket in your baguette?". That's right! She's that cool that she was making me a sandwich roll for the bus - what a legend.

BigBro and I went down to the bus, and I had my final sight of all the great parts of Karlovy Vary that I hadn't touristed (at all) and the pubs that I vaguely remembered. The bus soon came and we clambered on, with our sandwiches and bottle of coke, like two schoolkids on a trip.

Watching a frankly disturbing film, and listening to the terrible secret, I munched on the fantastically tasty baguette as the Sudentenland sped by; ruminating on what I could remember of the past few days. The shock of having finished the exams sank in, and I watched as the coming-of-age film made the two of us squirm in embarrassment at the story. The hangover from the previous day had finally gone, and by the time that the big yellow fun-bus pulled into the stop, we were both eager for a good ole session.

The Prague underground system is great fun. Combining an overwhelming stench of piss with the steepest escalators in the cosmos, it's the most fun in the world on a Wednesday before happy hour. We sped along, surrounded by the Czech versions of all the hipsters, nuts, fatties and tourists that we all know and love from our separate underground worlds and before long we were coming to ground and walking towards the super-hostel. As we came to the door, a goddess of a young lady opened it from the inside. I whispered "I love you bro" to the BigBro and, yes, she heard me and yes, she had perfect English. I blushed (for the first time in years) and didn't stop til we'd landed our bags and she'd left. Smooth.


We quickly scanned the room; pristine beds, immaculately elegant bathrooms etc. It was perfect, the best hostel I've ever stayed at. Luckily there were no mental psychopaths or visible sex offenders, so we changed, left our stuff and ventured out.


Now...my memories after that are a little muddled. Suffice to say we went to a lot of bars. About 16 or 17 in total I think, including two wine-joints (which, in the bathroom of one I definitely threw up) and a goulash restaurant. There are only a few bars I remember. One was an Irish bar.

Rocky O'Reilly's is quite an odd place. It was the closest bar to our hostel that BigBro had been to, and one about which he will likely someday write. Apart from the usual bar stuff all over the show, the weirdest things about the bar were the webcam (which probably picked up the jist of some of the horrible jokes I was telling) and the fact that the bathrooms had the facade of a children's toyshop. A bit weird when you're breaking the seal. We went to other places too; including a bar where the owners were smoking loads of weed, a bar were we played darts for hours, the aforementioned wine bar (no.1..not the emo one where I was sick), a gothy cavern of a bar that kept a tank of giant snails as pets and a great little bar called O'Che's, which is a Cuban-Irish goldmine of a place. Soon we were a pair of carousing sots, drunk as a bucketful of badgers and flitting between jazz bars and restaurants, we talked a lot of bullshit and had a great night. A few memories of specific events remain from this mad evening. I remember being punched in the back by a barmaid because I had forgotten to pay and left. I told her I would "buy and sell her like she was on ebay" before laughing like a nutcase and trying to play tag with BigBro. In another bar we ordered the drinks and then, realising how shit and cheesy the place was, we ran away. Another bar had a tropical theme. Wine bar 2 was full of middle-age swinger types all gloomily chatting away, and I think we might have been asked to leave. My memories are a bit hazy drawers, but I shall consult with BigBro, and if they return, write a supplementary entry.


Now, the COMPETITION. Near the beginning of the evening, we went to a great wee pub called The Dog's Bollocks, that had an amazing liquor selection and the best music videos ever. Whilst trying to take this lovely photo of me and the brosef, for the mammy to go "Awwww" over, I somehow managed to take a film-shot. Now, I have no idea what was being said, but would like to hear people's theories... I will write a lovely poem/haiku for the person who comes up with the best one. It's been annoying the fuck out of me.

Here's the film...





Now...what are we saying?



The final event of the night, as far as I can remember, was a bit more weird. We were in a goulash bar, eating goulash. BigBro and I were by now very drunk. But, oddly, we were also very lucid. Munching away at my, yep - you guessed it, meat and dumplings, I became very engrossed with the table cloth when I heard a voice. A large, fat man across the room was chatting over to me. I answered that it was indeed a jolly lovely evening and that yes, the goulash was lovely. Before we knew it, there was a conversation and we had been joined by a family from Texas.

We chatted for hours, I think. They quickly realised that I was a conversational liability and focussed the attention to my BigBro. They asked me to convince their daughter into going to law school. It wasn't as fun as it sounds. She was about seven. She was a better conversationalist than her folks though. After a while, BigBro suggested that we return to O'Che's, the great little Irish-Cuban place from earlier. The big fat father needed to go to the ATM and for some reason, BigBro took the girls and I was to take the Dad. Problem was, I got lost.

We spent about 45 minutes walking around the Astronomical Clock, chatting about the differences between the sidearms of the Irish and US armies (apparently the Irish rifle is better, but EVERYTHING else that the US have is better) and talking about how much fun it was to be lost. Well, I was. He wasn't.

When we arrived at O'Che's I bought the father a pint, and we settled to chat. I was slightly more sober now, and the chat turned to politics. It was slightly congenial at first until we started talking about Obama. The Texans didn't like Obama. When I asked why, the father said

"Well, first of all, he wants to limit gun ownership and secondly, he wants to socialise Medicare."

We sat, staring, expressions of 'your point being?' across our faces. BigBro looked how I felt, a sudden realisation of what had been said, and by whom. Silence fell and the wife, as if to explain further to the silly micks pitched in,

"Plus, he's not even THAT black."

Even the daughter pitched in about how necessary it was to have guns. They had that 'you know nothing because you're not American' tone and look and I played along, trying desperately not to take the piss, and watching my Bro look more and more incredulous at the shite that was streaming from their mouths.

The conversation soon deteriorated. BigBro left the table, rather pissed off, as our company took a turn off Rational Street and travelled ever faster down Right-Wing Avenue, all reason long abandoned. I was just about to ask them whether they believed that Palin and her 5000 year old dinosaurs really should have been allowed to bomb China when they left. Thankfully.

Before they went, there were handshakes all round and the Fat Father gave us each a business card. Afterwards, we soon went back to the hostel, too drunk and pissed off to continue, with only a short pub detour on the way. We passed out quickly, absolutely drained with our exertions and the absolutely horrible way our great evening had been squandered by the religious right. The following morning, looking for a coffee shop before I got the bus (there were none - a million pubs - but no coffee shops) to the airport, we were waiting for the light to go green so we could cross when I brought up the arsehole family from the night before. He took the business card from the night before out of his pocket and smiled.

"Somebody's going to be getting a lot of porn subscriptions."


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The journey home was hellish, and I don't remember a lot about it.. One of the worst hangovers of my life and lots of KFC. I waited at the airport for hours, listening to the secret, I barely noticed the flight and by the time I arrived in Derry, having got the bus from Dublin airport, I was dead on my feet.

Thus began the summer holidays.
Lots of tea, sleep-ins and lazy days.