Blogarrhea

I've been pretty irregular with my blog postings this year. I can but blame two serious medical conditions:

Blogarrhea: (n) Excessive and frequent evacuation of blogular faeces, usually indicating an abundance of free time or extreme boredom.

Blogstipation: (n) Difficult, incomplete, or infrequent evacuation of blogular faeces from the mind.

...apologies.

Amateur Dramatics

Firstly, a hearty thanks to Bosco Malarkey for the title of "Operation Cabaiste" in my last post (the post's previous title of "Operation Abhaile" just lacked a certain je ne sais quoi...or even a certain níl a fhios agam).

A few months ago, I tried to get in touch with a teacher who has been frankly the biggest educational influence in my life to date. Ms Cadogan is her name, and she taught me in fourth, fifth and sixth class, roughly between the years 1991 and 1993. I sent an email to the school inbox where she now works in Cabinteely, only to receive no reply. Ouch. Though to be fair, I hadn't spoken to her in about seventeen years, so she probably thought I was in trouble with the law, or wanted her to hide a gun for me or something.

But she was a great teacher, very fond of music and art, and strengthened my love of both. One particular example of Ms Cadogan's work stands out in my mind. It was an annual school play (the plot of which has been possibly mashed together with the various other school plays I did). The play was about a group of orphans and nuns putting on a production of The Mikado, when the bank comes along to close the orphanage due to lack of money. And in the middle of it all, an alien lands in the orphanage and somehow saves the day. So, kind of Annie-meets-Sister Act-meets-E.T, but with an all-male cast. Let's face it, there was definitely a slot in the market for such a production.

Weeks of happy preparation involved designing and painting backgrounds for the orphanage, cobbling together a spaceship for the alien (using the staple primary school materials of tin foil, cardboard and toilet roll holders) and rehearsing various songs for the musical-with-a-musical. And of course, there was the casting process. With understandable reluctance, several of the boys were cast as nuns. I was cast as an orphan with two lines (like a young Bobby DeNiro, the critics said). A kid called John, who had previously spent most of his life in Canada, was controversially cast as 'the alien'. Then there was my mate charlo who with canny foresight was cast as a banker. He now works for RBS.

Ms Cadogan was brilliant in managing the whole process. I still remember her gesturing wildly in the wings for us to put more 'feeling' in our lines. And dancing like a maniac when we forgot any. She generally kept her cool however, despite any obstacles. Of which there were many.

Firstly, being young boys, our attention span wasn't incredibly vast. This made learning lines rather difficult. I remember one of the lads, Simon, who during a live performance forgot his only line ("what are we supposed to do now?"). Another kid rescued him by uttering this line, prompting Simon to pipe up: "oh shit yeah, er...what are we supposed to do now". Cue maniacal dancing in the wings.

I also remember Ms Cadogan wanting to rehearse the song Anything Goes by Cole Porter for the play, before deciding on the The Mikado. However, she didn't have the lyrics to hand and didn't know where to find any back in those pre-internet days. I personally tried to save the day by mentioning that the song appears in the opening credits of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. So Ms Cadogan went and rented out the movie, and indeed, the song does appear in the opening credits of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Albeit sung completely in Mandarin Chinese. As far as I know, the video shop didn't give her a refund. My bad.

I could go on for longer about the various obstacles the play encountered, but I will mention lastly, something which happened on the last night we performed. Ms Cadogan had an idea that we would come out at the end of the play, to our parents' proud applause, and hold up a letter each, spelling out 'MADE IN JAPAN' referring to The Mikado. Unfortunately, one of the kids (a borderline narcoleptic), apparently dozed off at the end, leaving one letter out. Hence our parents were treated to the cryptic message 'MADE IN A PAN', provoking a bemused crescendo of clapping.

Overall, the play was a success, and a great testament to Ms Cadogan's brilliance as a teacher. If you ever read this Ms Cadogan, I salute you.

CB

Operation Cabaiste

A relatively (very relatively) serious post to finish off the year now.

In the closing months of 2010, I felt this almost magnetic pull dragging me home to Dublin. I couldn't really explain the rationale behind this feeling, any more than I knew why I came to London in the first place. Most people thought that it was an insane idea, given all the crazy shit that's been kicking off in Ireland lately: a wallabie died of an overdose in a Dublin nightclub; a radio DJ unconsciously pleasured himself on a Ryanair flight. And then there was the bizarre matter of the Irish Government giving away free cheese to placate the masses, lactose-intolerant bedamned.

I didn't let the press coverage of Ireland's financial woes put me off. If I had believed everything I read, I would have expected to step off the plane to find Ireland reduced to a barren countryside of half-exposed thatched cottages, with whole families huddled together in rags and scrabbling for potatoes in the turf.

But then disaster struck on 22 November 2010. Whilst away on holiday, a friend was perusing the day's news on her iPhone and read out one headline in particular: "Ireland Officially Bankrupt."

Then I began to rethink things. And the move home was ultimately cancelled.

The financial situation couldn't be argued with: the papers couldn't really sensationalise the already sensational, namely €7.5b of spending cuts swelling to €15b, through a teeny tiny miscalculation by the Government. Who knows how that happened? Well, as long as there is polictics, there will be fiscal mischief. It's a sad fact.

But more than the economic situation, I realised that I had seriously rose-tinted Ireland. The Ireland of my mind was more associated with a time, rather than an actual place. It was the place I left as a fresh-faced 23-year old, when things like 'careers' were distant concepts that I didn't have to think about yet and the housing ladder was something I hadn't yet even pondered climbing.

I don't feel incredibly unpatriotic about reneging on my decision to move back. After all, I left Ireland in the Summer of 2004, during the good times. In fact, it was possibly because things were going so well that I left. Back in those days, it had become no longer good enough to own your own property, you had to also own an investment property. It was simply the done thing, darling. In my neighbourhood, people even started building houses literally in their own backgardens. The combination of non-stop property development programmes on television with Ireland's new found wealth was a deadly one. Everybody had become a speculative developer overnight.

And it wasn't just the property market; there were other ripples throughout the culture also. Breakfast baps were slowly replaced with breakfast paninis, humble coffees were slowly replaced with skinny decaf mochas with wings. If you walked into any restaurant in post-nineties Ireland, alien foods such as sun ripened tomatoes and fennel suddenly had crept onto the menu. And soy milk- where the feck did that come from? And don't get me started on the sudden nationwide necessity for bottled water.

I'm not saying we should be ignorant of other cultures and other foods, but I can't remember a point when we unanimously decided 'hey, this normal bread's getting a bit boring...I think we should jazz it up a bit. What do they eat in Italy? Focaccia? Right, bring it on so.'

And so I came to realise that the constant discussions of mortgage rates and Keeping Up With The Joneses, coupled with my own hurtle towards adulthood, may have been a contributing factor in driving me abroad. I incidentally now call London Never-never land, for it is a place where I never seem to grow up. And to quote Thomas Wolfe, it sadly seems that I can't go home again. Not for a while, anyway.

But that is not to say I have turned my back on Ireland. On the contrary: since the financial crisis worsened, I have kept a constant eye on Irish affairs, where before I might have only delved in periodically. I feel confident that the country will survive the current mess; we have historically proved ourselves to be one of the most resilient peoples in the world. And I think it's safe to say that we have all become more conscious of the factors driving the national economy than we were about ten years ago with a pile of cash that we didn't know how to spend. For example, a mate of mine remarked that he recently saw a junkie on Henry Street banging on about the International Monetary Fund and its various shortcomings. Hey, power to the people.

So I guess there's nothing else to say except that what doesn't financially kill you, will hopefully make you financially stronger. As a great Irishman once said about the 1916 Rising, "all changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty is born." Let's just hope Mr Yeats' words can apply to the recession too.

A Yule Blog

Christmas. A time for giving, a time for getting. A time for forgiving and for forgetting. A time for Cliff Richard to once again release a saccharine-infused addition to his canon of cheesey listening crapsodies, preferably with a childrens choir warbling annoyingly in the background.

It's also a time for buying each other presents, all due to the valuable lesson (taught us by an impartial retail industry) that plain emotions will no longer cut the mustard when it comes to expressing how we actually feel about each other. After all, nothing says I love more than an iPhone. With built-in 'love' application.

Now bear with me a moment as I clamber upon my festive soap box.

People just seem to have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas. For all my Catholic...er...ness, I'll admit that I'm not completely clear on the original story, but I think it had something to do with Jesus being visited by three wise ghosts: the ghost of Christmas past, present and future. One of the ghosts then turns out to be the Archangel Clarence, who ultimately stops James Stewart from committing suicide. Meanwhile Jesus sees the error of his ways, hitches a ride with John Candy's jazz band all the way to Nazareth and defends Richard Attenborough in a court case, proving that Dickie is in fact the real Santa Claus. Or something like that.

Christmas is essentially about taking a breather at the end of the year, taking of stock of the past twelve months and steeling yourself for those ahead. It is also, more importantly, about obligatorily spending time with your family. And I mean real, actual time, not false imitations like skypery or facebookism.

And yes, this family-time does mean lots of pointless presents and ill fitting jumpers and unwanted socks and so forth. But my point is that presents should remain secondary to the central festive theme of annual togetherness and friendly bickering, not the driving factor.

True, I will inevitably once again buy my dad a book he's forgotten he's read and he'll add it to the dusty pile of last years such books, along with the mobile phone we bought him about two years ago in the vain hope of dragging him into the 21st century (alas for him, technology peaked at smoke signals and carrier pigeons). And to think, he used to be an engineer.

And yes, I will tease my nieces and nephew with some sort of 'moral gift' such as a goat to feed a family of ten in Bangladesh, before giving them some combination of over-sugared confectionery and short-term-novelty toy. Like a chocolate-chip chocolate bar or a Hannah Montana nerfgun.

But let us all remember that Christmas, regardless of the presents that are bandied around, is about family and togetherness. And watching Grandpa Des getting mullered on sherry and soiling himself in the corner. And shelling about a thousand brussel sprouts that will never get eaten. And watching about ten minutes of The Great Escape before switching channels to something with better special effects.

These are the things to remember. So on that note, sit back, throw another carol singer on the fire, and pour yourself a nice glass of mulled vodka. Christmas is here, so let's enjoy it. Together.

Because let's face it- January is shit.

Rich Smiles and Grilled Reptiles

Apologies in advance on this one, as I am aware that the covert purpose of travel blogs is to piss off the people who are stuck working at home. This is not the case here (I say, croaking from manflu picked up in work).

One of my resolutions earlier this year was to do more travelling. And so, I found myself ringing Trailfinders one gloomy morning in September asking them to sort out a holiday for me which had a tad more culture to it than the usual combination of sun, fun and...er...Heinek-un. So, with the limited time I had available, the guy at Trailfinders advised that a stay in Cambodia would fit the bill, bookended by short stints in Thailand and Vietnam. It all sounded good, but for one element which was new to me in the holiday stakes: namely that I'd be travelling solo.

You see, I've always secretly suspected that travelling was a bit like sex: infinitely less fun if you do it alone. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the other fourteen people in my tour group were all friendly, down to earth and up for a laugh. The group was quite multicultural, with people from France, Germany, New Zealand and Norway as well as Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, and varied nicely in age from 21 to 32. In fact, it was such a great tour group that I was tempted to jack in London life completely and just travel around aimlessly with them for a while.

So to begin. The first leg of my trip saw me fly to Bangkok in Thailand, infamous land of tuk-tuks, same-sames and he-she's. Like Murray Head however, I was fated to only spend one night there. The day I arrived, I spent the afternoon solitarily exploring the city's network of streets and temples (wats). In the evening, I met the group for the first time and we went for some food and drinks down near the Khao San Road. The Khao San Road is a notorious tourist trap, and once there I found myself bombarded with cries of 'PING PONG, PING PONG!' by various street hawkers, who were not, I suspected, merely challenging me to a game of table tennis. And as much as my curiosity would have led me to a ping pong show, I reasoned that it might not have created the best first impression of me to my fellow group members. Next time Bangkok, next time.

Siem Reap was our first stop once we crossed the border to Cambodia, and is home to arguably the country's most famous landmark, the Angkor Wat temple complex. De rigueur for any visitor to the temples is to try to catch Angkor Wat at sunrise. This unfortunately necessitates rising so early in the morning that it's still practically the night before. The group and I therefore dragged our weary carcasses out to the minibus at 4:45am, and grateful we were too, for it is quite a sight to behold. It's possible to spend a significant amount of time exploring the rest of the complex, but we only had the morning free, so went from Angkor Wat to Angkor Thom to Ta Prohm (the 'Jungle' or 'Tomb Raider' Temple). Personally, I was bit 'templed-out' after these three and was happy to leave the complex. But for for visitors who just can't get enough of that Khmer-templey stuff, week-long passes to the complex can be purchased.

After much reflection, one of my personal highlights of the overall tour was a boat trip to Tonlé Sap, which we visted after Angkor Wat. Tonlé Sap is the largest lake, not only in Cambodia, but in South East Asia overall. The lake is home to several floating villages, one of which we were fortunate to visit. The houses in the village are not floating per se, but are raised up above the water on stilts. The main activity carried out by the villagers is, unsurprisingly, fishing, and the villagers also participate in (and usually win) the boat race every year at the Water Festival in Phnom Penh. I think the reason the village made such an impact on me was the pace of life and the simplicity of everything, compared to say, London. The air of contentment emanating from the village was explained by our guide, Dara. "In Cambodia," Dara said, "the people are poor, but have rich smiles." It's amazing to think that, even though we all share the same planet, we live in such different worlds.

The next day we set off for Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh first became the capital of Cambodia in 1432, when the then King moved the capital from Angkor Thom which had been captured by Siam. The City only became the permanent seat of parliament in 1866, such has been Cambodia's turbulent history. When we arrived at Phnom Penh, the city was abuzz with preparations for the upcoming annual Water Festival (Bon Om Thook), which celebrates the strange annual phenomenon whereby the flow of the Tonlé Sap river changes direction. Unfortunately, my memory of Phnom Penh has been tainted with tragedy for two reasons. Firstly, a stampede occurred in the middle of the Water Festival , just a few days after we left the town, in which at least 345 people were killed. A terribly sad event. The second tragic element was the tour of the Killing Fields, which I had only previously heard about from Roland Joffé's 1984 film of the same name. I would try and explain fully what exactly happened there, but frankly there is no logical explanation for such carnage. Suffice to say, it involves Pol Pot and genocide and is a subject which, despite being glossed over in most history books in favour of the grander scale of the Vietnam War, is something that we in the west should definitely know more about.

The next destination on the trip was the beach town of Sihanoukville, a popular domestic holiday destination for Cambodians, which seemed pretty much like any other beach town I'v seen, to be honest. That said, I missed out on a bike tour of the town, which apparently shows that the town has a lot more to offer than mere beaches (I was meanwhile busy on such a beach, getting fried to the point where the only mean of identifying me would be through dental records). Snorkelling and sunbathing were generally the extent of our activities in Sihanoukville, though I did manage to squeeze in a 'Seeing Hands Massage'. These massages are given by the visually impaired, in the belief that their sense of touch has been in some way compensated by the loss of their sense of sight. Cue me, lying face down on a bench, with a small blind man walking up and down my back for thirty minutes. And I must say, it felt absolutely great. The masseur dude was no fool either: he miraculously regained his sight long enough to notice a satisfied customer about to slip away and immediately yelled at her to pay.

The next day we set out for Vietnam. Our first stop inside the border was Chau Doc, just inside the border, and was to prove an altogether calmer contrast to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) the following day. That said, it did seem generally busier than Cambodia, lending creedence to a loosely translated Cambodian adage, imparted to us by Dara: "In Vietnam, the people grow rice; in Cambodia, they watch the people grow rice", implying that the Cambodians are a tad more work-shy than their neighbours. Hey, my kinda country.

In the guise of Frank Drebin- arguably his most famous character- Leslie Nielsen (who sadly passed away last month) once said "you take a chance getting up in the morning, crossing the street or sticking your face in a fan." He was certainly right about crossing the street, and particularly in relation to Ho Chi Minh City. Over the holiday I had suffered sunstroke, chomped on bat, rat and snake , and had my feet nibbled by fish. But none of these experiences were as nerve wracking as trying to cross the road in Ho Chi Minh City: a gazillion motorbikes zooming around you, deceleration is clearly not in their dictionary. There really do not seem to be any rules of the road there, other than the simple law of physics which states that no two objects can occupy the same space at any given time.

To learn more about the Vietnam War, we visited the Cui Chi tunnels on the final day of the trip. This network of tunnels was used by the Viet Cong during the War, to hide and carry out guerilla warfare against the American forces. The most striking aspect of the tour through the tunnels is how the overall tone differs in relation to say the Killing Fields, which was altogether more sombre, despite the overwhelming shadow of death in both locations. At the Cui Chi tunnels in contrast, everything is interactive to a Disneylandesque degree: you can clamber into hiding spots, examine a gallery of death traps, eat what the Viet Cong ate, or even fire an AK47 rifle (which I...er..did). In fact, for a moment I almost forgot about the horror of war, until a trip to the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City set me right. We walked through the museum courtyard and oohed and aahed at the impressive collection of tanks and aircraft, before entering the main hall and seeing photo after photo of atrocities and limbless victims. Then we remembered what havoc such machines can wreak.

That evening, I waved goodbye to the rest of the group, the majority of which were continuing on to explore the rest of Vietnam, Laos and North Thailand. All in all, a memorable, thoroughly enjoyable trip, but one which left me with a tinge of sadness that it had to end at all.

Boo humbug

Ah Halloween. Or Hallowe'en for all you gratuitous-apostrophe fans. For some, it conjures up images of bonfires, bobbing for apples, or harmless trick or treating. For others, it conjures up images of a large man in a jumpsuit stalking nubile babysitters with a large kitchen knife.

For some reason however, I just wasn't feeling Halloween this year. Which is suprising as, for an agnostic such as myself, it's one of the few, major non-religious festivals in the calendar.

When you're a kid, Halloween is great craic. You get to dress up and roam the streets late at night, looking frighteningly garish and trying to get what you can. Which is an unsettlingly appropriate prelude to your twenties.

I remember dressing up at the age of seven as a cross between a farmer, a witch, Dracula, Frankenstein and...Batman. With big woolly gloves. And a sword. Something for everyone there I feel. And that was my most successful year too as I remember, for not only did I come home with a bag full of chocolate, sweets and (regrettably) some fruit, but one of my neighbours had forgotten it was Halloween and gave me the nearest food item to hand. Which happened to be a coconut. Took me weeks to crack the bastard open, but hell, it was worth the effort.

As you get older however, things change: it becomes your duty to buy the sweets and endure the taunts of anonymous little bastards in Frankenstein masks. In my neck of the woods in East London, the little costumed rapscallions are particularly adorable. Trick or treat? Nope- shoot or stab. But at least the little tykes give you a choice once a year.

The alternative is to abandon your house for the night (firstly sellotaping up the letterbox from the inside o' course) and donning fancy dress to go party with kindred spirits (i.e. those who are no longer kids, but not yet parents). House parties are the best suited for this. The drawback however is that you will invariably be greeted by some snooty hostess who has spent about five hundred quid on an adult fairy costume, takes one look at your cape and moans 'oh...you haven't made an effort'. Etiquette then dictates that you look her firmly in the eye and say 'Listen Tinkerbell: I live twenty miles away, it took me two tubes and a bus to get here, and its absolutely pissing down. There's your feckin effort. Now get me a beer.'

Fancy dress parties in nightclubs are generally perilious because they invariably necessitate journeying into or around the city centre. I heard a story about a guy in Dublin who went out one year dressed as a mummy. For some reason this provoked a reaction from some gurriers on the train into town, who then proceeded to beat the crap out of him. It's funny in a way: the guy started the night wrapped up in bandages he didn't need, and ended the night needing to be wrapped up in a shitload of bandages.

So perhaps my Halloween blues will lift next year, and I'll find myself pulling on the familiar Leatherface mask, cranking up that miniature fisher-price chainsaw, and going bobbing for cider. But for now, I'm happy to have let the occassion blissfully pass me by. After all, there's Bonfire Night to look forward to. What's that, London Fire Brigade are on strike for it? Oh...

CB

Nothing Rotten in this State..

Firstly, I'm painfully aware that the title of this post is pretty unimaginative for a blog about my recent trip to Denmark, but I've wracked my brains and the aul' mental punometer is clearly busted. However, hopefullly this fact is overshadowed by the fact that my blog for once has a purpose, in that it is the closest I'll ever get to a Brysonesque travelogue on a country I've visited. Oh, and like the majority of my blog posts so far, this is pretty lengthy, so feel free to dip in and out.

So to Denmark, land of Carlsberg, Lego and moody Shakespearean princes. I was visiting a mate of mine from Dublin, who has been forced to move abroad for work, like so many sons of Ireland in the late eighties. But that's a blog for another day. Thanks to him, I was able to gain a greater insight into the people and their outlook on life, as opposed to merely working my way through the Lonely Planet Guidebook. Which I also did.

Getting from Ä to B
Not unlike Kate Moss, Copenhagen is geometrically well-designed and relatively flat. Therefore, the place is tailor-made for cycling. My mate Ross explained as much and showed me all the spacious cycle lanes, bike-specific road-crossing signs, and the variety hand signals used to communicate with fellow cyclists. Then he told me how he got drunk once and cycled into the wall of a tunnel. Some risks you just can't mitigate I suppose. In summary, if you do want to see as much of the city as possible in a short space of time, rent a bike. Word of warning, don't rent from the same place as I did (a shop halfway down Tagsvej); as they handed me the bike, I observed its lack of crossbar and overly-sized front basket and couldn't help but ask the proprietor if Angela Lansbury knew that he was hiring her bicycle out to tourists.

The Grub
The Danes are fiercely proud of their adherence to a healthy diet. Compared to other European capital cities, there are therefore very few fast food outlets. I counted only about three McDonalds, two Burger Kings, one Subway, a KFC and, that jewel in the crown of high street fast foodery, Burgerlicious (nope, me neither). Not bad for a European capital. For a taste of the local fare, try the danishes, bacon or Danish bacon.

The Culture

The principal cultural concept I learned about Denmark is something called hygge (pronounced, hugglgklklklklklglglggrggle) which is a notion of 'cosiness' that the Danes embrace. It's exemplified by the Danes placing candles in their window at night and gathering together in the warmth. What a charming concept...I'm not even going to make a joke out of it.

The nightlife is also vibrant enough, as you'd expect from a European capital. On my last night in Copenhagen, I headed to a jazz club- suspiciously like any jazz club anywhere else in the world- where the atmosphere was great and the locals very friendly. As the jazz trio finished up their set with stalker's favourite I'll Be Seeing You, I thought of how great a city Copenhagen was. It's just a pity that you have to take out a second mortgage to buy a few rounds of drinks.

The People

The people are very friendly with an very dry sense of humour. They may not be as outwardly warm as say, the Oirish (cocks head and does a little jig) but once you get to know them, they prove themselves incredibly inclusive and welcoming.

The Danish are also an aesthetically-blessed bunch. Most probably a side effect of their healthy diet and tendency to cycle everywhere, the majority of Copenhagen's population are noticeably healthy-looking. This phased me slightly one day: I was standing at the corner of Nørrebrogade when a trio of extremely attractive women cycled by, and in light of their collective beauty I couldn't help but mutter aloud "Jaysis, Mary and Joseph." Unfortunately, they heard me and I had to feign that old staple of the removing-foot-from-mouth canon, the Faked Phone Call. I put the phone to my ear, looked to the ground and spoke to an imaginary person as the women cycled away, no doubt shaking their heads at the ways of leery tourists.

The Lingo
On first hearing it, the Danish language sounds exactly like the English language, only spoken backwards. There's not a great need to learn phrases as the entire country speaks fluent English (primarily through saturation of US television rather than any feat of the education system), but it doesn't hurt to say tag (thank you) every now and again. And try not to giggle when you see signs in shop windows advertising slutspil (sale) or slutspurt (closing-down sale).

Money Money Money

It's no secret that Copenhagen is an expensive place: the first bar we went to, we were charged the equivalent of about £12 for two pints of Tuborg, the local tipple. I politely asked the bartender to put the gun down, take the balaclava off his head and stop feckin ROBBING me. But alas, that's simply the way it is. I just counted my blessings that I wasn't in Stockholm, from where the Swedes make a regular pilgrimage to avail of Denmark's cheaper beer prices.

And the funny thing is, you can currently buy six cans of Tuborg in Dublin for five euro: viva la difference.

The Sights

Here's the touristy bit. Just around Strøget (apparently the largest pedestranised shopping street in the world) is the Round Tower (Rundetarn). I wasn't disappointed: it is certainly a tower, and one that is decidedly cylindrical in shape. However, from speaking with the locals, the best place to see the city is actually from the Church of Our Saviour in Christianshavn. But at four hundred steps to the top of the spire, you might be tempted to take a leaf out of my book and say 'Fook that'.

Given Copenhagen's location, one of the best ways to see the sights and get an idea of the city's history is by taking a boat ride from Nyhavn. This will take you past Christianshavn (largely residential area around the harbour), the impressive Amalienborg (home of the Danish royal family) and Christiansbourg (which houses the Danish parliament). Copenhagen is also home to the world-famous Tivoli Gardens, an amusement park which is ideal for a romantic afternoon, but quite sad if you're all on your lonesome (trust me, I know).

One of the most famous attractions in Copenhagen is of course the Little Mermaid statue. Unfortunately, this has been relocated to China for a nine-month sabbatical. It's been replaced by a giant TV screen which beams a live and continuous image of the statue from Shanghai (I presume the image is continuous to capture the unlikely eventuality of the statue jumping up and doing an impromtu break dance). For such a cultural attraction, it's quite a disappointing replacement; it's the equivalent of going to Paris and finding in place of the Eiffel Tower, a photograph of it sellotaped to a wooden stick. Not to be outdone, I tracked down a nearby statue called the New Mermaid (Den Nye Havfrue), which is an altogether racier interpretation of Hans Christian Anderson's heroine; the statue looks like the bastard lovechild of Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner. A job for Google Images if there ever was one.

And last but not least, no trip to Copenhagen is complete without swinging by the Carlsberg brewery. Even if you're not a fan of beer, the brewery is of extreme cultural economic importance to Denmark since 1847.

Plus you get two free beers at the end. Mmmm (dribble).

The Wrap-up
I've always felt you can tell a lot about a country's inhabitants by their behaviour at pedestrian crossings. In this regard, the Danes are quite an obedient bunch. And this is why Copenhagen's near-Utopian society seems to work so well: nobody appears to take the piss, nobody appears to act out of line, and the crime rate is famously low. In fact, it's a widely acknowledged that the principal duty carried out by the police is penalising those who don't have lights on their bicycles. And that's actually true.

However, there does exist a darker side, one that is covered by few guidebooks. And no, I'm not talking about the usual blights on society like graffiti, binge-drinking or rape of domestic appliances (I observed a man in Christania quite forcibly shagging a washing machine, there's frankly no other explanation). No, the social ill I speak of was brought to my attention by a Norwegian friend of Ross' (Karoline) who told the tale of a young woman who was house-sitting for her parents one winter, not far from Copenhagen. This woman's parents had many weird and wonderful ornaments in their living room, but the woman was particularly creeped out by the lifesize clown doll that was propped up in the corner of the room. The woman rang her mother to ask if she could move it, to which her mother responded: "Get out of the house immediately and ring the police- we don't have a lifesize clown doll". It later transpired that a patient from a nearby mental hospital had recently escaped, donned a clown outfit, climbed in the window of the parents house and just sat there silently in the living room, staring blankly at the young woman.

"I'm completely serious," insisted Karoline at our incredulity. Then she shook her head in resignation and stabbed at the salad on her plate. "I mean, that kind of thing is a real problem in Denmark."

So in summary, Denmark: lovely people, healthy food and a city rich in culture.

It's just a shame about all the psychotic clowns.

You've been warned,

CB

Best Little Shop of Humour

Saw it in New Oxford Street yesterday and made me stop in my tracks and laugh out loud. A wine shop called:

PLANET OF THE GRAPES

O yes.

The Lost Boys

Was getting the tube on Sunday evening, when I noticed a group of punks at Tottenham Court Road, panic-strickenly looking for the Northern Line.

I've never seen such a group of anti-social anarchists so close to tears, all because they were desperately in search of signage or directions.

Where's your precious chaos now, eh?

The Expendables

It will be more than interesting to see what the critics have to say about this one, given that criticising such a blatantly ridiculous movie would be the journalistic equivalent of pilfering confectionery from an infant.

In short, it's the kind of movie that not so much asks you to leave your brain at the door as it does encourage you to send your brain off to the libary to do reading or some gay shit like that.

To say that the plot of the movie is quite simple is...well, an insult to the word simple. Stallone and his group of mercenaries go up against rent-a-villain Eric Roberts, bumping into a few big-name cameos along the way. There are some sub-plots about abusive boyfriends and the fact that Jet-Li is shorter than the rest of the cast (seriously), but fundamentally Plot and Script meekly take a back seat and let Mindless Action take the wheel like some crazy drunk driver: remember, this is a film where pretty much every one of the bad guys is shot multiple times and often additionally stabbed, decapitated and blown up for good measure.

However, notable non-action moments include the penultimate scene, where Stallone's character gives his mercenary salary to the girl he has fallen in love with, so that it may fund the rebuilding of her island and home town. And well he might, as it was him and his men that blew the shit out of it in the first place. An unintentional metaphor for US foreign policy? I like to think so.

There's also a very rare moment in the film of that pesky thing....um...oh yes, that's it: acting. Mickey Rourke's character tells a sad story from his past which culminates in him bursting into tears; the recounting of this tale is interspersed with shots of Stallone lazily leaning against a wall, looking incredibly bored. Presumably his character is wondering when he will next get to shoot someone / blow something up, and thinks that Pathos is actually an island off Greece.

See it, love it, hate it.
CB

PS Interesting fact: Jean Claude Van Damme was offered a role in the movie, but apparently turned it down on the basis that his proposed character 'lacked substance'.

Yep JC, because Cyborg, Timecop, Kickboxer and Street Fighter: The Movie are all obviously deep, painfully observed, multi-layered character studies..

Return to Blogland

It's been a while, but I've gotten back on that writing treadmill. I still have a few drafts to finish, but firstly wanted to comment on world happenings in the last week.

To begin, I draw your attention to the crazy cat-bin-woman (if that is in fact her real name), who has invaded youtube quicker than you can say 'two girls, one cup'. I speak of course of that infamous woman who was caught on CCTV during the week, throwing a cat into bin. As much as I'm not a fan of felines (for proof, see my educational website www.morethanonewaytoskinacat.com), I'm even less of a fan of portly, middle-aged women with short hair. So poor show, I say to her. Poor show.

For those of you who have not yet seen the video clip, it involves an unassuming woman walking down a road, noticing a poor, defenceless creature sitting on a wall; she walks over to pet it and show it a fleeting moment of affection, taking the time to gain its trust. And then cruelly shoves it into a wheelie bin.

Which incidentally, is a pretty accurate analogy of any relationship I've ever had with a woman.

In other news, it was the final of Big Brother last week. Yes, Big Brother: the televisual equivalent of that annoying houseparty guest who, despite your best efforts to steer out the front door at about 4am, refuses to leave. And just when you thought it was over, there follows a 2-week extension whereby 'memorable' housemates (read: those easily enticed by the prospect of easy money) re enter the Big Brother house...for no discernible reason.

In other (or what I like to call, 'grown-up') news:

-- Corpse of MI6 officer found stuffed inside a holdall: Police are treating the death as 'suspicious'.

-- BP miffed at missing out on opportunity to drill in the Arctic: the Greenland Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum say hey, there's no use crying over spilt oil.

-- Pakistani flood danger remains: "yes, yes, yes," says local resident, "But enough about our problems. Tell me this: what are you going to do about that awful cat-bin-lady?"

-- GCSE results higher than ever: YAAAAY. But the UK educational system has recently suffered more cuts than Edward Scissorhand's langer. The future looks equally bleak for both, so BOOOOOOOO.

-- Jordan and Alex Reid decide to....oh seriously, who gives a shite?

Lastly, The Expendables was released on the big screen in the last week. Yes Truffaut, yes Welles, yes Kurosawa- you may have tried to progress cinema as an art form; well I got three words for you homos: in yer FACE. We got explosions, we got mercenaries, we got Charisma Carpenter. what more do you need? After all, cinematic nutrition follows the same rules as any diet, so in the words of Marie Antoinette, let them eat junk food.

I heard a radio spot from The Expendables the other day. No joke, it went as follows (you can almost picture the distributors editing it together):

Opens with big rock track in background (Something by Guns n Roses.... "Paradise City"? Hmmm why not.) Then a growling voiceover:

"EVERYONE's talking about it. The NUMBER ONE UK movie, starring:

STALLONE.
(whooping sound of punch being thrown)
STATHAM.
(crunching sound of bones being broken)
LI.
(blasting sound of machine gun burst)
The EXPENDABLES.

The GREATEST action movie cast EVER assembled.

Cue line of dialogue from the movie which wittily ties in with the radio spot. Statham says:

"that sounds like a statement."

I'll give it this: it's a persuasive radio spot. By the end of it, you'll be half thinking of christening your first-born child 'Stallone Statham Li'. Stallone Statham Li O'Connor. It's got a ring to it.

And, in a cinematic age when a film like Piranha 3D opens at #4 at the US box office and already has a sequel in the works, who can be suprised? A movie, the plot of which surely started out life on the back of a beer mat, as follows:

Despite my cynicism, am I going to see The Expendables myself? You're DAMN right I am!

And if it happens to be sold out, maybe I can fall back on something with a similar level of depth, memorable performances and character development. Like Space Chimps 2.

Peace out

Fraudian Slip

Internet fraud: most of us have been there.

Only last year did I log into online banking to check my account, which now ressembled an apple with a particularly large bite missing: £4,900 had disappeared, referenced 'To Sammi'.

First of all I wondered what the hell had Sammi had done for me that demanded such bulky remuneration. And then it occurred to me that I didn't actually know anyone called Sammi. Then I swore like a sailor. With Tourette's.

The majority of people whom I informed of this fraud were shocked. Mainly due to the revelation that I had the wherewithall to have somehow saved at least £4,900 over the past six years. But also due to the ease with which the crime was perpetrated. It transpires that the culprits had waltzed into a bank branch in Guildford (a place I rarely frequent) and used a fake drivers licence as I.D. Considering as I don't even have a drivers licence, this is serious salt to the wound. The criminals know where to hit me: my bank balance and my embarassing inability to operate an automobile.

Given the fact that the robbing bastards...sorry, the perpetrators, actually physically visited a branch to carry out the transaction, this may not strictly qualify as internet fraud. However, since I had only joined the world of online banking about a month earlier, it's highly feasible that my account details were gleamed through the process of 'phishing'. Phishing is a technical term, whereby various phelons and phraudsters use information-scavenging emails to phind out more about your credit card details et cetera, and subsequently attempt to phuck your out of your life savings.

Of course there are many other stories, and many other victims. I once read of a English businessman who was undone by a familiar scam: a rich Nigerian family were trying to send money to England but needed some cash (in this case ten thousand pounds) to somehow facilitate the transfer, and they were somehow unable to fund this from their end. As reward, they promise whoever helps them a hefty return on their investment. So, the English businessman sends them the ten grand, and inevitably never hears from them again. It's a familiar tale. However, in this instance, the businessman was so aggrieved that he actually travelled to Nigeria to track down the guilty party. Before you can say 'out of your depth', the business man finds himelf trussed up in a warehouse in the back streets of Nigeria with a gasoline-doused car tyre around his neck (this is a method of torture in which the tyre is ultimately set alight...you can imagine the rest). Fortunately, the authorities managed to intervene before any major harm befell the businessman. However, it goes to show that although the scam emails may be infantile in their grammar and scope, and require a high degree of naivety (or greed) on behalf of the potential dupe to succeed, one thing's for sure: the perpetrators are seriously dangerous and organised individuals. With a LOT of car tyres to spare.

On a lighter note, I remember a time when a good friend bounded up to me in the pub, saying that the drinks for the rest of the night were on him. I asked him the reason behind his new-found benevolence, and he explained that he had just won twenty million euro on the Venezuelan Lottery, and the funny thing was that he didn't even remember buying a ticket! I remained skeptical, but he smugly produced an email from a "Professor Miguel Ignacio Sanchez" as proof. I didn't have the heart to point out that Professor Sanchez had spelt the word 'twenty' wrong in the email title.

But on a final note, I guess what I'm trying to say is, in response to an email I received just this morning from Mahmoud Yayale Ahmed (informing me that my "fund was approvved"): it didn't work when you tried to sell me that crateload of viagra Mahmoud, and it aint gonna work this time.

Be safe,

CB

Typo

I have since corrected a pretty glaring error in the Astrocodology blog:

Instead of 'witch doctor' I inadvertently wrote 'which doctor?'

While I am not particularly certain of the identity of the witch doctor I was talking about, I can sincerely assure you I was in no way confused as to which witch doctor was which.

Normal service will now resume..

Astrocodology

It's no secret that I'm occasionally a sceptical soul. Particularly so when it comes to horoscopes and star signs (though I still feel an inexplicable urge to read them from time to time).

Zodiac shmodiac, I just have a problem with anything that gives people false hope, be it faith healers, witch doctors, psychics or whatever. If anyone truly were psychic, wouldn't they be a billionaire by now? I know that if I had such 'powers' I would doubtlessly use them to predict fluctuations in the stock market or read Bill Gates' mind and produce a rival to Microsoft Windows. Doors, from Brendansoft, perhaps?

But I digress. Fed up with it all, I have therefore compiled my own horrorscope listing for this week... See? Anyone can do it.

 

Gemini

Jupiter is moving into opposition with Mars and Saturn, but with Venus coming out of Capricorn expect some major changes ahead.

Cancer

Venus is moving in with Uranus, Jupiter is having an affair with Saturn, and Mars is pissed off that nobody wants to go for a drink with him anymore.

Leo

Beware rusty thumb-tacks and potato waffles, especially on Tuesday.

Virgo

...rhymes with Birgo.

Libra

Your attitude to work lately is being noticed by the powers that be, and it won't be long until your efforts are recognised and, more importantly, rewarded.

On the flipside, your wife is sleeping with that bloke who occasionally comes to prune the hedges in the back garden. Sorry you had to find out this way.

Scorpio

Your GP tried ringing you earlier. Apparently the tests have come back, and that rash on your lower back is actually not as benign as previously diagnosed. Stop using the cream immediately and schedule an appointment at the surgery for sometime early this week.

Sagittarius

The financial landscape is turbulent at the moment. For maximum security and piece of mind, move your entire life savings to the following account immediately: Brendan O'Brendan, Brendanbank (London branch), account number: 21751414. Or else teeeerrrrrible things will happen.

Capricorn

Expect scattered showers of Jupiter in the early part of this week, with occasional spells of Saturn. The latter part of the week will be quite Venus with a front moving up from Uranus by the weekend. Average temperature of Mars degrees Celsius.

Aquarius
You think that 'certain somebody' at work hasn't noticed you yet...
Well you're right. They haven't. You're ugly.
Pisces
This week will involve multiple elements of chance and coincidence. It may be the week that you finally win millions on the Euro-lottery. Or it may be the week that you get crushed by a full-size Steinway grand piano. Who knows?
Aries
That biro you lost yesterday had actually slipped down between the middle two cushions on the sofa in the living room. Look harder next time.
Taurus
The colour mauve is particularly fortunate for you today. However, as you are severely colourblind, this information is pointless.

CB

Primark Fear

Okay: am not incredibly proud of this....but the other week, I actually returned something to Primark.

Why am I ashamed? Well the place is so cheap, it's beyond belief why anyone would go through the rigmarole of returning anything there, as opposed to simply just buying a replacement. But yet, I did it. It's the second lowest point in my life (the first was that time I drank a mug of three-day old coffee for a bet).

In my defence, it wasn't that I had regretted buying the product (a shirt), it was merely a case of the product being too small. Fair enough, I hear you say.

Primark is invariably a terrifying experience. You could be Sir David Attenborough, documenting all aspects of life on the Serengeti, and you would still not witness a fraction of the savagery that ensues at Primark.

I watched the last T-shirt fall out of one of the bargain bins, and four women immediately descended on it like hyenas on a maimed gazelle. Eventually, one of the women snatched the T-shirt up in her mouth, growled at the others, and they slowly backed off.

I would at this point like to point out that I have only recently become aware of Primark's controversial past and accusations of exploitative child labour (is there any other kind?), but as far as I can tell, the company has attempted to make amends for this. I mentioned this to my colleague Alison, who scoffed "Oh yeah? Well why are the clothes still so cheap then?" I replied, presumably because the clothing items change shape, change colour, or completely melt after about three washes. Fair point, she conceded.

However, for reasons of personal safety, I will nevertheless be rarely (if ever) revisiting the shop.

The day I was returning the shirt, I slowly made my way to the sales desk. I say slowly, because my progess was considerably impeded by an extremely large woman who was moving with all the speed of a particularly laconic glacier. Worst of all, she seemed to predict the exact route I was taking to the sales desk and blocked me every step of the way.

I arrived at the sales desk about half an hour after entering the shop, and explained the situation to a rather uninterested teenager sitting behind the counter.

'No bruv,' he advised. 'This is the Sales till, you need the Customer Services counter.'

'Feck. Where's that exactly?'

'Right bruv...well, you go around the corner, follow the curve around to the suit section, then go down past the underwear section. Take a left, then go across and take the second...no, the first, right. Then take a left at the escalators. Then go straight, down past the rest of menswear, take a left and then another right. Follow the path down towards the lifts then take a right. Customers Services counter is on the left.'

I replied that I was merely looking for the Customer Services, not directions to the Land of feckin Mordor. I then hurried off, hoping I'd make it there before the shop closed.

I eventually made it to my destination, only to find the MOTHER of all queues, moving ever so slowly. Somebody could bring John Lennon and George Harrison back to life for a Beatles reunion concert, and the queue for tickets would still be smaller than the queue I faced in Primark that day. There were actually people in the queue who were wearing bell-bottoms- not as a fashion statement, but presumably because bell-bottoms were in style when they started queueing back in 1976.

So what did I do that fateful day?

Well let's just I left the shop without queueing and now occasionaly wear an incredibly small, ill-fitting shirt. C'est la vie,

CB

PS Interesting fact about Primark: it does not sell dressing gowns. Presumably because no one ever actually buys dressing gowns- they just rob them from hotels.

Chinese Tattoos..

Well folks,

It's summertime, girls are wearing less clothing, and far be it from me not to notice.

One thing this means is that their tattoos are now visible. Speaking in complete generalisms here, the majority of girls seem to get tattoos of chinese symbols (usually on their smalls of their back or shoulderblades), meaning things like 'peace' and 'harmony' and so forth.

What I'm wondering is, does this mean girls in China have to get entire English words tattooed on their bodies to achieve the same effect?

Try getting the word 'Equilibrium' tattooed on your arsecheek. Now that's painful.

Gullivers Travels

I only realised the other day, how ludicrously small the seats are on the Victoria Line tube carriages.

They look like they were built long ago by an ancient race, who were evidently much, much smaller than the humans of today.

I felt like a feckin giant sitting there the other morning, the back of the seat barely rising above the small of my back. I looked around at the other other blokes sitting on these miniature seats, oblivious to the incongruity of it all, and couldn't prevent a random laugh escaping (disguised as a cough).

Comment: I actually have no idea what I was thinking with this post.

Thoughts for Food

The other day I saw an advertisment for Marks and Spencers.

Apparently one of their sandwiches was voted both 'Sandwich of the Year 2010' and 'Best Newcomer 2010' by the British Sandwich Association.

The thing I want to know is, what the fuck is the British Sandwich Association and how do I apply for a job there?

Infamy at Last

The IT geeks at work have finally blocked this blogsite, as it breaches the organisation's Internet policy.

Mission accomplished.

CB

www.paininthearse.com

They say that good customer service results in 1 in 5 people spreading positive word of mouth; whereas bad customer service supposedly results in 4 in 5 people spreading negative word of mouth.

And so it comes to pass that I share the following with you: for the past three months, we have been battling with our internet provider (Virgin Media) to get reconnected after our modem suffered an acute bout of alcohol poisoning back in early March.

In short, for the past three months we have being royally screwed by Virgin.

Now there's an ironic sentence.

CB

PS Incidentally, I wouldn't advise plugging this post title into any internet search engine; you're liable to either find a website for hemorrhoid sufferers, or maybe worse: a link to 'Tales from the Prison Showers'.

Frightclubbin'

Parental Warning: The following blog contains many instances of a word beginning with 'c', ending with 't' and with 'n' in the middle. And I don't mean coconut.

So there I was on Sunday morning (many weeks ago), happily strolling through the backroads of Ealing, listening to the birds chirping and savouring the smell of freshly cut grass. Everyone I passed on the street was so happy, pushing prams or clipping hedges, and the sun beat down warmly on my fuzzy head. These are my people, I thought; this is my world now. And a far cry it was too, from the hell I experienced the night before...

I am convinced that the main problem with that Saturday night in Ealing was alcohol. And more specifically, lack thereof. It makes you question the quality of a night on the tiles, when vast quantities of alcohol are needed to numb you to what's actually going on around you.

I, admittedly, have been a bit relaxed on my drinking of late. Every so often I receive an email from my liver, pleading for mercy, and I feel it's only right to grant the little feller an occasional reprieve. So it therefore didn't help that I didn't drink my first beer till about 10pm, while the majority of people at the table had been drinking since 1pm (the most sober had been drinking since 6pm).

We started off in a pub in Ealing, where my friend's father was celebrating his 60th birthday party. My friend's family is Irish, as was the majority of the guests. I was reminded of this fact as I walked through the door, and bumped into two aul lads who were jovially calling each other c*nts. An English guy who was there later asked me what on earth this was all about, as the word 'c*nt' is generally seen as a For-Emergency-Use-Only kind word in the English language. 'The fackin Oy-rish call each other fackin cants all the time!' he exclaimed. I tried to explain that we Irish somehow mean it only in an endearing way, and to paraphrase Tommy Tiernan, that the English language is a wall, and c*nt is an Irishman's chisel.

Two pints down, I thought what better way to liven up proceedings than a few games of pool? The pool table was situated in the main thoroughfare of the pub, a few feet from the toilets; everyone observed a bizarre ritual of standing stock-still whilst a player was taking a shot, regardless of how far away they were from the table or player's line of sight. The whole act had the feeling of an impromptu game of statues. The funny thing is, Irish people generally don't even stand still for the 6 o'clock Angelus any more, but a game of pool? Now that's sacred.

Every now and then surly looking punters would stroll by and slap a quid on the side of the table. Various pool playing duos came and went, mostly consisting of the same archetypes: one good player, and one shite player who nevertheless felt compelled to advise his partner on every single shot.

After the pub closed, we all made our way to a late club down the road (after of course spending the obligatory half hour standing outside the pub, debating where to go next, tossing around suggestions like it was some verbal food-fight).

Jean Paul Sartre once famously said that 'hell is other people'. Jean Paul Sartre had obviously never been to The Redback Tavern in West London. Otherwise he might've said that "hell is a pub-cum-antipodean-nightclub somewhere in Acton".

We ended up in the Redback post-pub, and I swear I wouldn't have been surprised if I had looked up and the DJ had red skin, horns and a tail. The Redback often gets confused with The Backpacker (which used to be in Kings Cross), primarily for the reason that both venues were once upon a time destination boozers for The Church day/night-club (of Kings Cross, then Kentish Town, and now Clapham), but probably equally for the reason that both are packed with gigantic ozzies who have hands the size of snow-shovels that say things like 'g'day ya li'l c*ntie' and slap you genially on the back (oblivious to the fact that their hands are, well, the size of snow-shovels).

The atmosphere of the Redback is probably equivalent to that of a petri dish to which you've applied equal measures of rohipnol and ecstasy. When we stepped inside, I turned to andy and quoted Sean Connery's character from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade by saying "wayell boy, looksh like we're pilgrimsh in an unholy land".

The funny thing is, I used to think the Redback was okay, when I used to go there about three or four years ago. But from the following timeline of events, you'll see why I feel I've outgrown it:

1:30am: enter the place. Make a beeline for the bar and attempt to buy a round.

1:35am: Get frustrated when the guy in front of me at the bar is measuring out a handful of coins as payment for his round: "£7.60....(hic) £7.70....and (hic)....th-there: £7.80". Barman shouts over the music: 'No mate, I said SevenTEEN eighty.'

1:40am: Jagerbombs away.

1:45am: Amidst the crowd of revellers, I swear I spy the barman from the pub we had previously been drinking in that evening. He nods amiably at me, obviously forgetting he had, not sixty minutes earlier, instructed me to 'drink up and get the fuck out.'

1:50am: More jagerbombs.

1:55am: Hit the dance floor with the lads. Bouncer shouts at me and tells me to behave even though I've barely moved. And am by far, the most sober person there.

2:00am: Achtung: Mehr jagerbomben.

2:10am: I realise I'm not so much dancing as continuously moving my feet so they don't get stuck to the floor.

2:11am: Realise I'm actually dancing to failed boyband 5ive, and stop immediately.

2:15am: I pick up the wrong drink and drink some brown stuff by mistake. I still have no idea what it was.

2:20am: On the way to the toilet, need to step to one side as two disgruntled bouncers drag an intoxcated carcass out of the mens toilets, loudly grumbling "bladdy hell, that's the second bladdy week in a row for this goy."

2:25am: Pints of Fosters. Or rather half pints of Foster with liberal dollops of foam.

2:30am: Girl nearby on the dancefloor is clearly hammered and pulls open her shirt, revealing bra and large chest.

2:31am: Same girl is now surrounded by blokes.

2:33am: Two of the surrounding blokes are now essentially snarling at each other like lions over a kill.

2:36am: Same girl snogs at least three of the blokes surrounding her in a space of minutes.

2:40am: Random bloke bumps into me and asks if I want a fight. I graciously decline.

2:50am: The male population of the club realise how late it is and drunkenly lumber around asking the female population if there is 'any chance of a shag'.

2:55am: Everyone on the dancefloor gets whipped into a frenzy by a frenetic dance track.

2:57am: DJ dramatically changes tack and plays a slow song, announcing it is the last.

3:00am: Bouncers tell everyone to GET THE FUCK OUT. And safe home.

4:00am: Crash out on mates sofa.

The next day I woke up, sunlight stinging my eyes, and said aloud, only to myself and in the grizzled words of Danny Glover, "I'm too old for this shit."

CB

Phone Home

Warning: this a brief, but pretty tragic, blog.

The other day I left my phone at home while I was at work. It was an accidental act (as opposed to some bizarre experiment).

Imagine my dismay then when I got home at 8pm, a full 12 hours later, to find no missed calls, and no texts on the phone.

I need a hug.

Tube-a-Palooza

The tube party.

Nope, I am not talking about the infamous Circle Line Party of May 2008, which marked the end of permissible drinking on the London Underground (damn you Boris Johnson, damn you to hell). Nor am I talking about a party involving...just lots of various cylinders. Random as that sounds.

No dear reader (or readers, if my fanbase has indeed expanded): I speak of the long-standing tradition of houseparties within London which use the London tube system as a theme. In fairness, it's not the worst idea in the world: much as I hate fancy dress, the theme and forces people to arrive in imaginative costumes which, if nothing else, provide an easy talking point between guests.

A friend of mine threw one such party last year, and naturally I drew a blank as to what tube station, or aspect of tube life (for many people come as tube drivers, construction workers or...er, suicide bombers), to go as.

Cockfosters immediately springs to mind if you're a bloke, the costume necessitating nothing more than a can of Australian lager and some sellotape. But hey, that's been done. Alternatively, you could go as the entire Northern Line and arrive late. But that's a tired joke.

So I enlisted the help of Al, my imaginative and high-octane friend from Cork.

What should I go dressed as? I asked. The guy exploded with ideas. 'There's soooo much you could go as!' he enthused, eyes wide with possibility. 'Like...like....WAPPING, for instance!'

Wapping? I didn't get it.

'It's simple,' he said, evidently exasperated that I didn't share his vision. 'You just dress up as...as a giant mobile phone....that's WAP enabled!'

Ah yes- how did I not see that one coming?

'Or...or what about Battersea??' he continued.

Battersea? Please explain.

'Yeah you could...you could...' said Al, clearly thinking on the spot. 'You could dress up as a wave (a sea-wave, he added, unnecessarily differentiating it from...a hand-wave perhaps) and...and...walk around, like with a batter sausage in your hand all night!'

And those were just his first two flashes of inspiration.

Funnily enough, I ultimately declined every single one of Al's ideas. So the night of the party arrived, and my mates and I ended up going as the following:

Blackfriar. Yes, one of the boys actually adopted some black facepaint and a monk's habit. Ben Stiller later thanked him for spawning the idea for Robert Downey Jr's character in Tropic Thunder.
Liverpool Street. Two of the lads dressed as the 'scousers' from Harry Enfield and Chums, complete with matching taches, dark curly wigs and cheap tracksuits. They completed the look by circulating the party, saying 'ay ay ay, our terry, alrice alrice, cyalm down' all night. Despite their efforts, countless revellers came up and asked them why they were dressed as the 118 118 twins.
Paddington. Murphy opted for Paddington Bear, by simply wearing the Liam Gallagheresque duffel coat he normally wears and added a veneer of snarling attitude to the usually placid bear: 'Paddington fookin bear yeeeah,' he growled. 'Fookin mad for it,' throwing two fingers up into the air. I lent him an old navy hat which thankfully took the edge off.
Holland Park. I opted for the considerably easy-to-prepare Holland Park look. This consisted of a Holland football jersey, the Dutch flag painted on face and a hastily-prepared mock-spliff. Which ended up looking like a giant tampon.
Grange Hill. Yes, it is a real place, nestled somewhere down the arse end of the Central Line in deepest, darkest, East Laandan. Chris came as Grange Hill by...well...generally wearing what he normally wears: skinny tie, white shirt and all.

The party was a grand success, notable imaginative costumes including: All Saints (guy wearing T-shirt with stickers of the names of about a hundred various saints)- he was technically disqualified however, as All Saints is, in fact, a DLR stop (schoolboy error there) , Oxford Circus (chick dressed as a clown- also handily doubles up as Piccadilly Circus), Tooting Bec (bloke drinking countless bottle of Becks beer, whilst honking a portable car-horn: ingenious) High Barnet (girl with a giant bouffant wig), Shepherds Bush (I had pondered this costume myself, but it would've been a lot more pornographic than what this bloke came as). And of course all the luvverly girls who invariably dressed as Wimbledon (tennis players), Heathrow (air stewardesses) or Angel (er...angels).

The evening was rounded off by several vomiting incidents, which may or may not have been perpetrated by my good self. Though god knows how I supposedly threw up under a couch. Sometimes I amaze myself.

All in all, good fun was had by everyone.

Word of advice though, be sure to clean all remnants of our costume off (in my case, a beer-stained Holland jersey with blue, white and red paint smudged all over my face) if you happen to be making your home from the party on the first tube the morning after.

Otherwise it sure scares the bejesus outta people. Trust me, I know.

CB

Don't Care Much 'Bout Scientology

I was a bit offended the other day.

I was walking down Tottenham Court Road, running the gauntlet of usual chuggers, when I passed by the Scientology shop. The guy standing outside took one glance at me and then looked away, not even bothering to ask me to take the quick survey.

Now, I'm by no means interested in the concept of Scientology, but am still a little aggrieved at the fact that the loony didn't at least try and recruit into his wacky cult.

Perhaps I just didn't look open-minded enough?

CB

Things You Don't Want Shouted Across the Office- No.23

"Oi Conor: When I move office I might give ya me dongle!"

Gary Turner, 2010

Something venTured..

Sometimes you owe it to yourself to give things a try.

As the old saying goes, some people come and go through our lives; others leave little footprints on our heart, and we are never the same again.

CB

Duck-billed Platypuses

I mean, God MUST've been seriously hungover when he made these things.

Joined in Holy Miaowtrimony

The other week I read a story about a guy in Germany who married his cat. Yup.

Outlined in a story that Dutch Daily News imaginatively titled 'Man Marries Cat', thirty nine year-old Uwe Mitzscherlich married his cat, Cecilia, after she was declared terminally ill, in the town of Possendorf in Germany. Postman Mitzshcerlich apparently paid an actress three hundred euros to officiate at the wedding ceremony. He had lived with his feline fiancée for ten years, and described how close they were, and how 'their hearts beat as one'.

Now, most people would find such a story hilarious, or just plain ludricous; I however can't help but see a grain of tragedy within. The only creature on this plaet that this man feels in any way close to, and it's not even another human being. Certainly food for thought about the world we live in.

But it is quite funny too.

CB

Gym'll Fix It

Per my first blog on new year's resolutions, I finally joined the gym in April.

And went for the first time in, er, May.

Going to the gym is a little like starting a new job: you don't really know where things are kept, and how anything works. And with everyone else in the gym red-faced and aggressively puffing away, there tends to be few approachable people around. It is therefore advisable to make your first trip to the gym at a considerably off-peak hour, affording you the time to try out the equipment and familiarise yourself with the settings. And if that means making your maiden gym voyage at 9pm on a Thursday, then so be it.

I made my gym debut (for the first time in about five years anyway) on such a Thursday, a few weeks back. What first, I thought; some cardio perhaps? I started on a machine excitingly labelled the Spinmaster 3000 (or something like that). 'Spinning' is a word that seems to have cemented its place in the fitness world's vernacular over the last decade or so. It is, of course, simply a pimped up way of saying 'cycling'. I climbed onto the machine, and after various saddle and handle bar adjustments, was ready to begin my journey to fitness. The touchscreen offered a multitude of options. Simplicity is the key, thought I. So, shunning options to 'exercise to my preferred playlist' and suchlike, I went straight to 'build your work-out'. Simple.

Or so I thought. I eventually abandonded the Spinmaster 2000 after a near ten-minute long grilling by the machine as to my height, weight, age, heart-rate, eye-colour, star-sign, blood-type, penis-size and so on.

What else could I try? Ah, the rowing machine. A contraption operable even by the most luddite of gym go-ers. I lasted about ten minutes, before dismounting the machine with all the grace of a hippo on rollerskates, and with a face like a ready-to-burst pimple.

Now for the weight-work. Fortunately the gym was completely empty that night, though I was reminded of the various times I had gone to the local gym and being put off this particular sub-domain of the fitness world by those who traditionally inhabited it: no-necked, shaved-headed blokes who would lift ridiculous weights and moan as if they were in the throes of giving birth. I therefore opted for some of the weights machines, as opposed to the barbells.

I did a few reps on various machines, never over-exerting myself, as the safety posters gently advised (and my own muscles screamed in insistence). The bonus of having no one else in the gym was not having to increase the weight settings every time I left a machine, in an immature attempt to dupe the bloke following that I was lifting more than I actually was. Hey, it's a guy thing. Face it: the gym is one big pissing contest.

I left the weight machines; there, that takes care of the upper torso, now for the flabby middle. I briefly considered the ab-roller, but no: no matter how many times I tried, I couldn't get it out of my head that this was a device built expressly for women. So some push-ups and back exercises later, I was ready for a cool-down.

Enter: the treadmill. Doesn't seem too tricky. I press start, it whirrs into life. Hey, that's not too bad. I push a button to increase the speed. A brisk walk: no sweat. I push the button again, and move up to level 10. A light jog: easy. I push the button a few more times and, like Spinal Tap's amplifiers, I go up to 11. Am off to a nice leisurely jog. It's all good. My wrist is sweaty so I take my watch off and put it in my pocket.

Then it all goes wrong.

First, the jogging shakes my ipod player and sets it to random mode: out of nowhere Rocky Robin by the Jackson Five annoyingly comes on (damn, I knew that Jackson Five Greatest Hits compilation would be my undoing some day). I try to switch songs, but with the jogging it's too blurry. Then my watch falls out of my pocket and is carried off the end of the treadmill. My towel is next to go, slipping off the handrail onto the treadmill track. I just manage to skip out of its way. Then I panic that my watch and my towel will somehow get tangled up in the machinery of the treadmill, causing it to explode, leaving nothing more than two smoking Reebok trainers. So, failing to dispell the thought, I press stop and run to a standstill (U2 reference).

I wiped my face with a towel and had a gulp of water. I then attempt to move and am nauseatingly dizzy. This is exercise, and I hate it.

Still, in the immortal words of Yazz and the Plastic Population, the only way is up.

Joggin' on,

CB