Toilet Humour II

These things only happen to me, of this I am certain.

I walked into my hotel bathroom earlier this evening, intent on freshening up before heading out to dinner for one in gai Paris. 'Hmmm, veal or beef, I wonder...', raged the carnivorous debate inside my mind as I absent-mindedly reached for the after shave up on my toiletry shelf.

Now it is a well-known fact that I have the coordination of a one-handed raccoon attempting to peel an apple with a blunt chisel, so it was no great surprise to me when my brain mistakenly sent the 'knock after shave off shelf' command to my hand, rather than the 'pick up and spray on neck area' impulse it had intended. Again, knowing myself, it was with even less surprise that I watched the bottle of after shave leap from its lofty perch with the grace of an Acapulco cliff diver...

... straight into the toilet bowl.

Just as a hearty 'Woops-a-daisies!' was about to escape my angry mouth, I was overcome with a realisation so blindingly brilliant that my knees nearly buckled beneath me. I stumbled into my room and collapsed onto the bed, exploding with silent laughter. Before long, I was struggling to contain a gushing torrent of tears and my sides ached as though felled by the lusty blows of many rusty axes.

It took me a full two minutes to recover my composure and rescue the aptly-named Aqua by Carolina Herrera from its porcelain paddling pool. It would be a while before I would stop grinning from ear to ear as I came to terms with the fact that my after shave had undergone the most severe gender change the world of perfume has to offer.

For after shave it no longer was, it had become

eau de toilette...

Book And A Cover

It is 8:29am, I have a suitcase and laptop case and I am catching the train to Waterloo, the opposite direction to my usual routine. This is new territory for me. No longer the fresh salmon leaping freely against the flow of this raging commuters' torrent, I am now a common sardine waiting to be packed into an oily tin heading for the big smoke. I am not in my element as shoals of umbrella-laden piranhas patrol the platform, I am uneasy. That I have not been torn to shreds as the train pulls in is remarkable in itself.

Having fatally misjudged the positioning of the train doors, I entered the carriage in 23,682nd position out of a possible 23,682 and earned myself pride of place: half wrapped around the central holding pole, with the dulcet tones of some 78 kazillion decibel hard house sounds inches from my right ear and a luxurious leather briefcase engaging in unsolicited flirtatious activity with my posterior. Only 32 years to go until I can draw my pension, woot woot...

By 8:38am, as the train drew into Queenstown Road station, I was preparing my insanity plea for my projected defence against 23,681 counts of Mass Homicide With Nokia E65. Just as I was concluding my case with an emphatic 'Wot-evah, dem all deserved it, innit?', the doors opened and a ray of sunshine pierced through the storm clouds as an angel squeezed past the peasant hordes and took her 17 square inches of commuter allocation opposite me.

She was pretty in a simple and understated manner, with looks that attract a second glance a full ten seconds after the first, and a good many thereafter, but with neither lust nor leer. As she too sought shelter from the early morning madness, she gripped the orange pole just above my hand, looked at me, smiled sweetly and opened her Lonely Planet to Berlin.

As I half closed my eyes, her delicate floral perfume and wispy golden locks transported me momentarily to a safe haven of peace and calm, a beautiful oasis of tranquility.

Then, the unthinkable. Delicately balancing her book in her left hand, she slowly extended the exquisitely manicured index finger of her other hand and plunged it without hesitation deep into her right nostril. Trying not to think of hot knives and butter, I stood stunned, transfixed and very nearly tearful as I watched this raw commuter wildlife documentary unfold. My oasis of calm was battered to the ground by the wildest of desert storms.

Foraging for an eternity with the wild abandon of an award-winning truffle-hunting pig, the hungry digit eventually emerged triumphantly with a fragrant trophy delicately perched on its tip. With the same distracted expression she had worn throughout the excavation, the prize was cruelly discarded to the floor with a deft flick of her thumb. Just like that.

The mining operation having duly been conducted and completed with the military precision it required, she re-entered the land of the living and looked up. Straight into my eyes.

It is hard to say which of our faces achieved a deeper pantone of red, so fleeting was the moment of mutual realisation, shock and, ultimately, horror. As our eyes developed an instant and quite possibly fatal allergy to each other, one final unspoken conversation played itself out in that last parting glance. 'I'm sorry...', her anguished eyelashes fluttered in a silent apology to my heartbroken 'Why?'.

We are not always what we seem.

In Sickness And In Health

It all started this morning, at precisely 10:34am. The sound came from the other side of the building, possibly from one of those footloose and fancy-free creative types in the Design Department, or likelier still, from the devious stock-pinching rascals in UK Sales. It wasn't loud, but there was no mistaking its impact and the resulting shockwave that would be felt by every single joyous employee of this fine company.

It was a sneeze, and a mild sneeze at that. But this seemingly innocent shattering of the early-morning office torpor meant more than a sore throat and blocked hooter for one poor administration urchin. No, this sneeze represented doom and gloom for all of humankind for it signalled the opening of the dreaded Office Sickness Season.

All activity ceased at once as surprise, shock and fear etched their unwelcome features on the faces of office and warehouse workers alike. So it had begun.

The initial stunned silence rapidly gave way to the loud rumble of angry thunder and the building reverberated to the sound of desk drawers being violently rattled as each and every employee frantically searched for the leftovers of the previous year's medicine supplies. 'Nooooooo...' howls the front desk receptionist as she realises that her last Lemsip Cold & Flu sachet has split and is now neatly layered around her box of multicoloured paper-clips.

There is no escaping the spread of the contagion either. As our antibodies prepare themselves for interdepartmental biological warfare, the hallways echo with the dulcet tones of hacking coughs, sinus-imploding catarrh inhalations and the violent trumpetings of red raw noses. Those with more robust constitutions will be ground down into sick submission by the alternating blasts of hot and cold air emanating from scalding heaters and open windows as the feverish strive to cool down and the frozen attempt to thaw out.

On this day, Tuesday October 21st, the 2008/9 Office Sickness Season has started early. There will be many casualties as strong and weak fall like toy soldiers and the surviving few struggle to breathe and function in this cursed and impure air. As in times of plague, the desks of the diseased are marked with a yellow Post-It note, their occupants dismissed as office pariahs until they have passed their ailments on to the next sufferer-in-waiting. Once the circle is complete, the merry-go-round starts anew, and a-tishoo, a-tishoo, we all fall down...

It will be a long winter.

Where Is My Mind?

I have long given up trying to understand and unravel the big ball of yarn that passes off as my mind. No, nowadays I find it much easier to go with the flow, to accept the sheer random and incoherent nature of the thoughts bouncing around the inside of my skull. I smile and nod as I recall last night's dream that saw me running up ramps leaping over barrels thrown at me by a giant spasm-muscled gorilla, even though I have not played or even thought about Donkey Kong since 1989. In the middle of a presentation to the board of directors of a department store group, I pause to think about what life would be like as a penguin. Nope, this nut is best left uncracked. I have learnt to live with it, but sometimes, every now and then, even I have to pause and think 'Where the hell did that come from?'.

I was killing time flicking through magazines at the supermarket during my Tuesday lunch break - the highlight of my working week - when an article headline on the cover of a magazine caught my eye and stopped me dead in my tracks.

MULES, ASSES, DONKEYS: YOU CAN TRAIN ANY EQUINE!

Having never previously purchased Horse & Rider magazine, I was totally unprepared for such a bold statement. The provocative nature of the italic 'CAN' added highly-combustible fuel to the fire that had instantly ignited in my mind and immediately prompted me to wonder angrily why the world had been misled for so long that a bad ass and a stubborn mule could not change their ways. My mind began to visually portray the ground-breaking session when the horse whisperer became the donkey shouter in one final attempt to break the beast's resolve...

A bruising encounter between my calf and a supermarket trolley tore me from my equine reverie and nearly earnt a frail old lady a reverse slap from my left hand. She apologised, I smiled sweetly at her, assuring her that the gaping flesh wound would heal rapidly as I mentally wished her a particularly nasty bout of arthritis that evening. I continued with my shopping, returned to work, finished work, went home, went to the gym, had dinner and went to bed.

On Wednesday, midway through an afternoon of boundary-pushing office tedium, a curious but scrambled thought popped into my head and nibbled gently on my brain, arousing my curiosity. It disappeared almost instantly, leaving me in a state of slight bewilderment, as though my mind had been subjected to a bungled attempted robbery. The following morning, just before lunch, it happened again. This time the thought was a little clearer, but still I could not decipher it. I let it drift away again, if it wanted to make itself known, it would do so.

At precisely 12:53 on Friday, with motivation at an all-time low and my mind already in weekend mode, the mysterious impulse thought returned. There was no subtlety or subconscious approach on this occasion. No, it announced itself with a full marching band, tubas and trombones blaring the brassiest of questions inside the hollow cavern of my mind: can one really train any equine? I had to know.

Displaying a streak of rebellion worthy of James Dean, I left my desk a full THREE minutes before the official start of my lunch break and set off for Tesco's once again at a brisk pace, like a man possessed. I have no idea what I was hoping to gain from this little escapade, but the urge to read that article was stronger than me. I raced into the store and headed straight to the magazine section, pausing briefly to look around me in case my chariot-racing nemesis was in the vicinity, but she was nowhere to be seen. Her lucky day, you don't come between a man and his Horse & Rider magazine twice in one week...

As I began to read the article that had been taunting my subconscious for three days, I realised that I was venturing into a world about which I knew NOTHING and the facts were hitting me hard and fast.

Unlike canids - think dogs, wolves, jackals, coyotes - equids (the family to which horses, asses, donkeys and zebras all belong, not an electronic pound) often look beyond their immediate species for extra-curricular fun and frolics. In fact, research has shown that equids are so sexually driven that they are known to try to play a quick game of 'How's Your Father?' with pretty much anything that has a pulse. This is undoubtedly the reason dogs stick to dry-humping your leg, they haven't got the genetic make-up to go all the way.

Having scribbled a mental note never to stand with my back to a horse again, I continued my equine education. Hands up all those who knew that a mule is in fact the result of a horse interbreeding with a donkey. I did not, although had I been entrusted with the honour of naming this new animal, I know that it would now be referred to as a honkey rather than a mule.*

The title of the article - 'Who's A Smart Ass?' - ought to have prepared me for the worst but the opening sentence of the second paragraph blew even me and my love of casual innuendo and cheap puns right out of the sky. 'And a chance encounter with a special ass proved uplifting...' induced a snort so powerful that the security guard and two nearby shoppers turned to look at me with a puzzled look. Upon noticing my reading material and instantly labelling me as a deviant, they hurried away. The security guard kept an eye on me however, I may have to shop elsewhere.

After re-reading the article three times, I reluctantly tore myself away from the magazine, my thirst for equine education having been well and truly quenched.

My mind can now rest in peace. I now know that mules are not stubborn when they refuse to move, they are simply assessing the situation for any danger. And the Himalayan Mountain Ass can be trained with the right combination of love and patience but will not trust any human it has not met before it is three years old.

The only question that remains is that of my own sanity, welcome to my world...

* I have since discovered that I am apparently the ONLY person in the world who did not know this. So much for the private school education...

I Am *gulp* Not Always Right

'Oh my Achilles...' is an expression one might reasonably expect to hear at a Greek play depicting the fall of Troy, the poignant wailing cry of Hippodameia as she realises that her master and lover has been brutally slain, leaving her to fend for herself in a world ravaged by war. Instead, it is the expletive of suffering that echoes around every stairwell at work and at home as I wallow in the pain and misery of my first sporting injury.

'Remember to stretch, and don't overdo it at the beginning.' advised the fitness trainer during my gym induction, as did my flatmates, one of my work colleagues, two good friends, my mother, the homeless man who sleeps outside the newsagent at the corner of our street and the ticket inspector on the 08:19 to Kingston.

Being famed across the land for always listening to good advice and not thinking that I know better than everyone, I decided to stretch, nay, hyperextend my index finger to increase the speed of the treadmill to 11km/h before even setting foot on it. As I observed the well-toned athletes and gym class regulars on the machines to the front, back, left and right of me, I can even remember my sense of overwhelming superiority as I mentally castigated them for wasting such precious calorie-burning time warming up and down. Stretch? Pah!

Similarly, a running sequence of 10km, 5km, 10km, 10km, 5km and 5km on consecutive days one week after joining the gym and doing exercise for the first time in 7 years might also be regarded in cardiovascular circles as 'overdoing it'. Pride before a fall indeed...

The result is a cute little chipmunk-blowing-bubblegum popping sound in my left ankle every time I go up or down stairs, the limp of a freshly-castrated snow leopard and a no longer reluctant admission that I am a Grade A tool of the highest calibre.

My lofty perch is now riddled with woodworm as everyone at work seems to recall long-forgotten tales of tendinitis and tendinisis, 'Did you stretch before running? No? Well that explains it.' becomes the office mantra and the canteen has a fixed menu of humble pie for the rest of the week.

I can only be grateful that my parents are on holiday and cannot impart the most bruising 'I told you so'. Until next week...

Toilet Humour

The Colosseum in Rome, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the majestic Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the Mayan temples at Tikal in Guatemala, the Sydney Opera House, the Great Wall of China: all magnificent examples of man's constructive creativity.

To these masterpieces of ancient and contemporary design can now be added the Toilet of Room 552 at the Hôtel des Bains in Paris, a slightly less illustrious but no less worthy addition to an international Who's Who of architectural genius.

I could easily express my anguish as my predicament dawned on me. I could bluntly convey in several poignant phrases the pain as I incurred three trapped nerves, two pulled muscles and a short but electric bolt of sciatica in my upper back in my futile attempt to grasp my Holy Grail. But on this occasion, words cannot do the situation justice and I shall let a picture do the talking.



Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the world's most ridiculously located toilet roll dispenser.

Daylight Robbery

'Hmmm...', I pondered to myself in the small computer shop last Saturday, as my mother completed her purchase of a brand new laptop (finally...). '£29.99 for 80gb or £39.99 for 160gb. Which one shall I go for? Ah, never mind, I'll get a hard drive and back up all my stuff next week.'.

That fateful thought process promptly retreated to the Filing Cabinet of Bad Decisions (F.C.B.D.) deep inside my brain, where it lay dormant for exactly four days, six hours and twenty-five minutes. Last night, under the cover of darkness, it quietly opened the middle drawer, jumped out, tiptoed its way out of my head, shuffled down my back until, clinging onto my belt with one straining hand, it bit me in the ass hard and good.

I was sitting in Caffè Nero near Covent Garden yesterday evening, about to submit my friend and French language pupil to her first test. My mood was buoyant, sadistic even, as I uncapped my red pen in gleeful (and misplaced) anticipation of carrying out some swashbuckling corrections. The test began, our expressions earnest and thoughtful, the concentration intense.

At 20:00, the test successfully completed and marked, we got ready to leave for the second half of Holy Wednesday, dinner at the bar in our local French bistro, our oasis of calm in this troubled world. I looked down from my stool and was pole-axed by what I saw, or rather did not see.

Had a photo of our table been taken at both 19:00 and 20:00, a short but easy game of Spot The Difference would have cruelly revealed the most ironic twist of fate since Alanis Morissette found herself owning ten thousand spoons when all she wanted was a knife (and some good medication for her terminal case of cutlery fetish): I had had my laptop stolen at some point during our French lesson, a mere four days after deciding against buying a hard drive in order to back up all my files.

In. My. Face.

Thus vanished into the ether approximately six years of memories, photos, video clips, short stories, personal notes and other assorted mementoes of my past. From the 2002 World Cup in Korea to wearing a Mongolian warrior's costume in Ulaan-Bataar, from the wild nights of Amelia House to the D-Day beaches of Normandy, me holding a Geiger counter fifty metres from the decomposed reactor core at Chernobyl, me in Red Square, inside the Grand Canyon, sailing a boat in Croatia or watching cricket at the MCG. Gone. All gone.

The one comforting factor in this short tale of treachery and misery is that I can at least find solace in the fact that the £20 obtained from the immediate street corner resale of my laptop was undoubtedly given to charity or contributed towards a programme of sustainable agriculture in northern Sudan, and not used to buy a two-litre bottle of White Lightning (9,4%, try it with muesli at breakfast to kickstart your day), 20 filterless Benson & Hedges and a dirty wrap of heroin cut with washing powder.

I am trying hard to stay true to my very simple life philosophy - as soon as something happens, be it good or bad, it is in the past and cannot be changed: understand, learn and move on. But the bitter truth is that I feel more deflated than an International Hot Air Balloon Race Meeting flying over the Great Britain National Archery Centre on 'Free Arrows Day'...

I am hurting.

The Running Man

I have joined a gym.

*** Canned Laughter ***

As I walked through the doors of the Putney branch of Virgin Active (the gravest example of a product not matching the expectations of the name), I was most surprised to see that I did not break out into a horrendous rash or even hives, and neither did I vanish into a puff of smoke. Evidently I am not allergic to the gym.

I started my induction with a few warm-ups before progressing on to the Power Plates, which were easy and fun, although I could not help but think that their primary function was as an accessory in a sex shop for blue whales.

Everything was progressing smoothly until I met what will surely be my nemesis, the Swiss Ball. I am not the most coordinated person at the best of times, but if you ask me to lie on my back and keep a large green inflatable ball the size of Greenland wedged firmly between my Ukrainian shot-putter thighs, before thrusting it away repeatedly, then you are simply asking for ridicule to happen. I promptly delivered, by releasing the ball mid-thrust and practically launching it at an unsuspecting girl working out on the other side of the room. That it shares its name with my nationality further adds insult to physical injury.

Having now rediscovered the forgotten joys of quantum physics, I was soon reacquainted with another bête noire from my school days: biology. There are certain parts of the Guyanese rainforest that remain undiscovered and untouched, with an abundance of crystalline waterfalls cascading handsomely into ragged rock pools within the lushest greenery known to man. Closer to home, however, I was proud and honoured to be able to reveal to the world a supremely fascinating and unique new ecosystem: the treadmill.

Overcoming my initial reluctance to indulge in the seemingly tedious and unimaginative act of running on the spot for an extended period of time, I soon settled into a steady rhythm and actually found myself thoroughly enjoying the experience.

Halfway between kilometres two and three, however, disaster struck. My lower intestine performed some cardiovascular exercise of its own and unkindly generated an uncontrollable and unavoidable urge to expel air from the southern ventilation unit. Fully conscious that the consequence of my actions might lead to a full-blown military evacuation and enforced quarantine zone for the whole of South-West London, yet at the same time unwilling to interrupt my triumphant march into the kingdom of exercise, I let rip.

What followed next was not for the faint-hearted, let alone the faint-nostrilled. In what can only be described as the cruellest coalition of evil forces since Hitler and Mussolini met at summer band camp, the circular motion of the rubber treadmill belt and the bulky frame of the machine conspired to keep the repugnant odour within my immediate airspace for longer than it takes to walk from Rome to Naples. I felt myself being teleported to the trenches of the Somme in July 1917, crawling through the cold mud in No Man's Land with nothing but a broken gasmask to protect me from the incessant shelling of Zyklon B and mustard gas. Senseless horror...

It is a simple fact that I would not have been able to run 5 metres, let alone the 5 kilometres I managed before breakfast this morning without the assistance of music. I owe every single second spent pounding the oversized elastic band into sweaty submission to cheerful ditties such as Cannibal Corpse's 'Meathook Sodomy', Slayer's 'Dead Skin Mask' or Immortal's 'Impale The Virgin'. This surely must be the reason thrash metal was created.

My other self-motivational tactic involved mentally removing from my stomach any food consumed during the day using the machine's calorie counter reading. Thus, yesterday's lunch of king prawns was being despatched from my metabolism at a rate of one every 24 seconds, as explained by the following scientific formula:

Total Pack Calorie Count 102 / Total Prawns 34 = 3 Calories / Prawn, or Calprawns.

Since I ran for a total of 156 prawns, but only ate 34, I can now consider myself 122 prawns to the good. Equally, I will still be running into the 27th century if I ever have a kebab for lunch.

It is only the beginning, and the road ahead is indeed fraught with lazy danger, but for now, a new day has dawned...

Word Up

There is bad news for all those regularly exasperated by my convoluted contortion of the English language within these garrulous musings of epic and infinite wisdom (*). The mellifluously meandering river that is my muddled mind is about to break its banks and flood the plains of verbosity.

Responsible for further fuelling the vagaries of my undernourished pseudo-intellect is the magnificent www.dictionary.com and its Word Of The Day.

No longer is my early morning mood dictated by the whimsical timekeeping of SouthWestTrains' third world wheelbarrows-on-rails. It is with a sense of palpable excitement that I momentarily abandon my glass-selling duties in eager anticipation of discovering the word that will shape my fortunes for the next 24 hours. Being informed by this fountain of linguistic knowledge that my nature is in fact 'perfervid', that I am often prone to 'logorrhea' and that I ought to be living in 'Cockaigne' rather than Putney send me into the wildest throes of verbal ecstasy.

That Microsoft Word is showing the loquacity of a newborn Lower-Andean pigmy llama by incorrectly underlining in red all these marvellous additions to my vocabulary only serves to swell my newly-inflated linguistic ego. Not so smart now Mr. Gates, are you?

I am as yet uncertain as to when the time and place might arise for me to sprinkle such sparkling etymological masterpieces as 'sesquipedalian', 'vexillology', 'tatterdemalion' or 'emolument' over this pompous smorgasbord of a blog that I find so enthralling.

But Pandora's Box has just been opened.


(*) 'On the constructive side try not to use those big words and stuff, also try and put in pictures of boobs and cars on the blog, people like boobs and cars.' - Darcy Curnow (Wagga Wagga, NSW), May 22nd 2008.

Roll With It

In the dead of the night, when the witching hour has long gone and black is the only colour, They come. Knowing no fear and advancing in numbers from their hiding hole, their den, their nest, They come. For all the defenceless rolls and unguarded paper, They come.

Of the menace there is no trace, only a gaping void remains where previously salvation awaited. But there can be no accurate description of these beasts with no soul, they have never been seen. The monstrosity remains unnamed and untamed, only the legend, the dark unforgiving legend lends shape and substance to the myth. The black and bloodied razor-sharp teeth get ready to tear, shred and pulverize. No-one is safe. 2-ply, 4-ply and aloe vera, all are but mere fodder for this most voracious of cannons.

Every single day our sacrificial lamb is prepared, and every single day the lamb is slaughtered. My breath runs shallow and stutters as I consider the fate of the next offering. We must accept destiny and open the purse strings once more. We must accept life and death, we must rear our new virgin.

Let the ceremony unfold, let the new roll out of its plastic sarcophagus. Release the new sheets.

Thus disappear four new rolls of toilet paper, unseen, unheard, unmourned. We will never understand how a whole family pack of Andrex peach-coloured toilet paper can be brought into the pristine world of our upstairs bathroom on a Saturday morning, yet be consigned to a lifetime of vanishing luxury loo-paper limbo before the downing of the evening sun. Their perforation will never live to see the following dawn, nor shall they ever cleanse the new day buttock.

The silent killers have struck again. The paperlust has been satisfied. The burning question there for our brave and foolish household of three men to answer: which of us will be caught short this time?

Thank You For The Days...

Yesterday I went back in time.

I had returned to Bristol only once in the previous eleven years, but a promise to visit a new CouchSurfing acquaintance and the ideal opportunity to resurrect an old and precious friendship presented me with all the reasons I needed, and so I decided to dust the cobwebs of my past and revisit the city that I called home during my four years of further education.

Like a spring-heeled koala on a massive eucalyptus rush, I jumped off the train and bounded down and up the stairs leading to the exit, more excited than an only child at Christmas at the prospect of seeing my old flatmate Marc and his girlfriend Tracey. The fact that I was also meeting a new friend from CouchSurfing, Lucy, lent a nice symmetry to the occasion, the equivalent of my life coming full circle, mixing the old with the new, a meeting of past, present and future.

The pretext for this visit was to recreate a venerable old institution that we had worshipped as students: the Bristol Ale Trail. Every year, for a period of six weeks, twelve Bristolian pubs showcased and promoted one real ale a week and offered a t-shirt stating 'I conquered the Bristol Ale Trail' to whoever managed to get a stamp from each pub over the duration of the campaign. Being students (i.e. borderline alcoholic slackers with too much time on our hands), we decided to take the challenge one step further by completing the full set on the first day of the campaign. Every third Sunday in April for 5 years in the mid-1990s, the good folk of Bristol could therefore look forward to seven students more hammered than Hammy the Happy Hammer from Hammertown stumbling down the Gloucester Road just after pub closing time, all wearing the same t-shirt and cap.

With this in mind, I had booked a train ticket to get me into Bristol at 11:15am. Marc, Tracey and Lucy were to meet me at the station and we would head to the pub for our first beer at 11:30am. A minimum of seven pubs were to be visited and our numbers were expected to swell as more CouchSurfers joined our merry throng as the afternoon progressed. The final event of the day was to be a visit to Klub Kute, an indie nightclub playing old school Britpop from the 1990s, the very soundtrack of my university years.

A simple equation really: nostalgic tour of old stomping ground + all day pub crawl + CouchSurfing meeting = a fantastic (and very long) day.

As we wandered lazily from pub to pub (to pub to pub to pub...), I found myself rediscovering this fascinating city that was my home for four years. The beautiful Georgian terraces, trademark steep Bristolian hills, the canals and waterfront, all the memories started to flood back from the moment we left the train station. Every street name, every sign, every building reminded me of a long-forgotten time, of the period of my life that shaped me into the person I am today. Nostalgia was thick in the air as I saw the cultural and historical landmarks that were part of my everyday life all those years ago. Particularly pleasing to my eyes was the discovery that Flames Kebab House, responsible for at least 35% of my nutritional intake, had stood the test of time and was still bringing e.coli burgers and ebola kebabs to the masses.

The Station, The Shakespeare, The Llandoger Trow, The King William, The Drawbridge, The White Lion, The Bay Horse, Colston Yard, Micawber's and The Highbury Vaults. No fewer than ten pubs were put to the sword by our now ten-strong party, boosted by the regular arrival of new CouchSurfers. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day spent in particularly pleasant company.

In fact, it was a perfect day. And one that could only be finished in style with a good old-fashioned boogie to some old indie favourites. I was ready to rock, I was ready to roll. I was in dance mode.

What happened next should not be committed to paper, indeed the most eloquent writer would struggle to find the words that best describe the devastation and carnage that was about to hit the dance floor. After threatening all and sundry with visionary dance moves that would not be out of place in a Jane Fonda Keep Fit DVD, I decided to take centre stage.

Holding the railing between the dance floor and the bar at arm's length, I squatted and stuck out my un-J-Lo-esque backside backwards before unleashing further misery upon a clearly unsuspecting audience by displaying some wild posterior gyrations that the most limber of Russian pole-dancers would have been proud of. With my centre of gravity some kilometres beneath the earth's crust, I was moving as though my butt and the floor were two equally charged ends of a magnet pushing up against and away from each other. People were stopping in mid-dance to marvel at this circus-worthy aesthetical prowess. My own memories of this 'dancing' interlude are somewhat hazy, but I reportedly built on this solid foundation by doing the can-can and the twist at the same time. And the jive. And tapdancing.

Oh yes, I hit the dancefloor, and I hit it hard. Unfortunately, I also hit at least 7 other dancers with my flailing arms à la octopus-on-crack. Although the nightclub manager declined to call in the paramedics, several people who witnessed my dancing did have to receive treatment for shock and will undoubtedly be consulting a hypnotist in the not too distant future in order to repress these scarring memories. Needless to say, I will not be requested to audition for the Royal Ballet Society anytime soon.

It may be another eleven years before I am allowed back in the city.

Swing The Mood

It is commonly accepted that the universal answer to 'What kind of music do you like?' is 'A bit of everything.', swiftly followed by an immediate self-contradiction along the lines of 'Mainly rock actually, I don't like hip-hop, or dance music. Or techno.'. Every so often, however, your curiosity will be rewarded with a simple yet mind-numbingly depressing 'I don't listen to music.'.

I do not understand this.

At the risk of sending the entire universe into a deep slumber with this flattest of platitudes, I hereby boldly declare that music is a source of immense power that can instantly inspire intense, sublime or harrowing waves of emotion. It can invigorate, amuse, energise or motivate. It can bring closer a loved one far overseas or swell the heart with the memory of a childhood moment. But it is also a two-edged sword. For every intimate and precious moment that can be revisited at will, there is also a reminder of pain gone but not forgotten, of extreme sorrow and grief. Music shapes a moment, defines a memory, twists a mood.

Take this morning, for example. A minor conflict was raging inside my head as I sat in my seat, my very own seat in the same carriage of the same train that I catch every single dreary day of every single dreary week. As I drifted in and out of the subconscious plane known and inhabited only by commuters, I sensed that the mood power struggle within me was drifting ominously in favour of an all-day stinker, and this on a Friday! Putting it down to the soul-destroying rainbow of greys filling this most British of skies, I somberly resigned myself to spending the day in the doldrums of drudgery.

Somewhere between Twickenham and Strawberry Hill, however, my little universe was picked up and shaken into the frenzied action of a demented snowglobe tumbling down a Swiss mountain. A blizzard of joy had entered my body and manifested itself through near-imperceptible motion in my left hand. Index finger up, middle finger down, index finger up, middle finger down. A remarkable feat of dexterity for a man without a musical bone, muscle or ligament in his body. This bold digital activity was even being mirrored by my equally talentless right foot. Tap tap taperoo. In the space of thirty short seconds, the existential funk that was threatening to engulf me for the day had surrendered faster than the entire French army facing a troupe of Albanian goat-herders at the gates of Paris.

As realisation slowly dawned on me, I looked down at the source of this miraculous change of fortune. I am certain that my iPod winked at me as I saw the name of the track that had surreptitiously invaded my mind and violently battered the burgeoning black mood into bleak submission.

I play the song again and the day is safe.

Kokomo

Once every seventeen months and four seconds, the celestial beings that control the cosmos unleash a bolt of astral brilliance destined to bring wisdom, power and everlasting glory to its intended recipient. Today, at approximately 22:17 GMT, Sister Juanta Maria de Salvador de los Marientos of the Order of the Holy Cool Dorito Convent School in Choluteca (Honduras) felt an all-consuming radiance as she was filled with the magnitude of her life-fulfilling prophecy. She was to revolutionalise the printing of wax-embossed long-sleeve t-shirts in Central American sweatshops and make a name for herself alongside Messrs. Fitch, Abercrombie and Banana Republic in the world of designer fashion.

Meanwhile, in The Fox pub opposite Putney Railway Station in South West London, at the Monday quiz night, Tim and Marc were about to feel the brute force of the tail end of this comet and its little known side effect of provoking what would go down in history as POTENTIALLY THE DUMBEST QUIZ ANSWER. EVER. SERIOUSLY.

Having had less success in the first round than a three-legged leprous chihuahua at the Cruft's Dog Show, we had managed to claw our way back into contention with a sizzlingly hot streak of 21 correct answers out of 24. With the pressure and tension of success suddenly within reach, we found ourselves confronted with question 36, a picture round question depicting five fresh-faced young whippersnappers and the question: name their first UK Number 1 hit

We pondered and cogitated, debated and speculated, until a flash of inspiration entered my soul and took my hand reassuringly.

Marc: hey, doesn't that look like Matthew Broderick?
Tim: yes, but a chubby Matthew Broderick.
Marc: hmmm, but he wasn't even in a band, can't be him.

*** Cogs grinding and whirring ***

Marc: that looks like Mark Wahlberg!
Tim: then that must be the Funky Bunch!
Marc: hold on, they weren't famous, it was just him. They wouldn't be in the picture.
Tim: and he only had one song, can't be him.
Marc: then it must be Donnie, it must be his brother, it must be...
Tim: NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK!!!
Marc: yes! Got it! Then it must be...
Tim: Hanging Tough!
Marc: *sings* Oh-oh-oh-ho, oh-oh-oh-ho, the right stuff, shit that's the wrong one...
Tim: never mind, at least we got it!

FFWD 24 MINUTES

Quizmaster: OK guys, that was a toughie, well done to those who got it. Next, Question 36, the first UK Number 1 Hit of the Beach Boys was...

Ouch.

How To Spin A Good Yarn

'Be outside the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park at 1pm sharp. Follow the instructions.' reads the enigmatic text message that has just landed in my inbox.

I walk into the gallery at 1pm sharp, although I am certain that I am not meant to be inside. 'I really hope it doesn't rain, that would spoil everything...' I remember her saying last night. I can be pretty bright at times. A perfunctory glance around the small exhibition reveals brushstrokes of lazy pretension and inspired intensity in equal proportions. Hooray for contemporary art. But this is clearly not why I am here, it is outside that this mystery shall be unravelled.

It catches my eye as I exit the building. Fluttering in the wind and tied to the wrought iron railing by what appears to be red knitting wool is a paper note. I walk over and kneel to untie the message, very conscious that several people are now watching me closely. Nutterwatch has begun in Hyde Park. The message says 'Follow me JMRK' in French. I smile at the inclusion of my hidden initial and start to follow the trail.

It IS bright red yarn, and 20 metres of it leads me to and around a small conifer and forces me into an abrupt change of direction. I move up several gears and begin to reel it in eagerly, revelling in the originality and sheer fun of the occasion. So eagerly, in fact, that I soon manage to wind half the captured yarn around my jacket buttons as well as design near-symmetrical 8-shapes between and around my legs. A small crowd has now gathered to watch my amateur Mr. Messy impression as I attempt to disentangle myself from this red scourge.


I feel like Theseus in the Labyrinth, using the beautiful Ariadne's red fleece thread to find my way out after having slain the mighty Minotaur, thus delivering Athens from its sacrificial bond to Minos. In reality I look more like a demented escapee from the local mental asylum zigzagging around Hyde Park attempting to gather one large ball of red wool in broad daylight. You win some, you lose some...

Several trees later and I am brutally stopped in my tracks. The red line ends up above my head, wrapped around the high branches of a large holly bush, like some diet tinsel on a prickly Christmas tree. Surely this cannot be the end of the line? There is nothing in the tree and I see no trace of the mastermind behind this skillful plan.

I pause to decide my next move. There were no needles provided with the note, so I can only assume that I am not expected to crochet a pair of baby booties. My suspicion of foul play is confirmed by the gallery receptionist, who has been watching me from afar on her cigarette break. She walks over to me, smiling from ear to ear and informs me that 'Some bastard must have snapped it, that's well out of order! I'll give you a hint, there's more, look around for the other end.'.

Like a pointer that has just regained the scent of its prey, I set off again and conduct an FBI-inspired grid search of the surrounding areas. After five minutes of frustration, I finally do see red and pounce on my new lead.

I am close, I can feel it. One last tree turns me 90 degrees and I finally see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Or to be more accurate, a pot of gold hair underneath a classy red beret. My best friend greets me with a big smile and signals for me to seat myself down in preparation for our al fresco lunch. As each utensil and victual is carefully placed on our lime green picnic blanket, so too is its corresponding French translation flag. 'Le fromage', 'Le pain' and 'L'eau' sit proudly on the cheese, bread and water, and the blueberries and smoked almonds also look mutlilingually appetising. At this very moment in time, I would fancy my chances in a 1-on-1 against the Cheshire Cat as my grin threatens to acquire permanent residency. This is why I love teaching French, and this is why she is my star pupil.

I am genuinely touched, this is one of the nicest and most fun things anyone has ever done for me. A delightful open air banquet in the most genteel of surroundings is the perfect start to a beautiful day so thoughtfully organised by my dearest of friends. I want to freeze this moment in time forever.

The Revelation

A seemingly innocent stroll to the shops on Saturday afternoon inched me one step closer to completing my lifetime mission of self-humiliation for the entertainment and benefit of the general public.

I was walking home from the supermarket carrying a multitude of bags containing victuals for the evening's barbeque, when an uneasy feeling came over me. With no belt on, my hands full and gravity working against my cause, I began to feel my shorts slipping ever so slightly downwards.

A quick stop to buy some lemonade from the local convenience store sealed my fate as I was returned my £18.53 change in coins only. Weighed down by the loose change equivalent of Russia's annual iron ore output, my shorts were getting bolder in their attempt to enrol in a rapid and thoroughly undesired southbound relocation programme.

My house was just around the corner, but so was disaster.

I can do this, I thought to myself as I closed the distance from the safe haven of my home to a mere 200 yards. And so I wriggled on, with enough clench in my posterior to render the biggest prune-consuming rhinoceros constipated for eternity. The concentration and determination this gargantuan effort required was making my perspiring forehead displace more water than the Mekong Delta two weeks into monsoon season.

It is commonly known that Shakira's hips do not lie, less so that mine do not grip shorts well. With a delicate slide into eternal damnation and two fingers thrust at my dignity, they finally decided to set sail for warmer climes, smoothly vacating my waistline in favour of my ankles.

Which in turn casually revealed the forgotten yet crucial fact that I had inadvertently gone shopping commando-style, au naturel, or to put it more plainly, without any underwear on.

Oh dear.

The last thing that the couple behind me were expecting to see on a relaxing walk in the Saturday afternoon sunshine was the unsolicited appearance of my two plump lily-white buttocks in their immediate field of vision. A sharp intake of breath was swiftly followed by the bray of laughter of a wild donkey as the man raised his hands to slow-clap my impromptu freestyle stripping act. His companion was doubled up, no sound managing to escape her still-shocked mouth. 'Nice one mate!, he managed to congratulate me in between peals of laughter, 'That's the funniest thing I have ever seen.'.

With a face bearing striking resemblance to an uncooked Polish beetroot, I quietly put my bags down in order to reclothe myself, affording the lucky couple one final unforgettable viewing of my fleshy double full moon impression.

JMK = 50% Swiss, 50% British, 100% class...

Hidden Treasures

As I draw my unfortunately imaginary KillAllTourists3000 and vaporise an entire tour group of Italian adolescents outside Leicester Square Tube Station ('Butta werra izza Trafalgar??? Whya you shoota me???), I begin to slow-release the permanently festering hatred that I have for the West End. A spaghetti carbonara made from offcuts of Shellys shoeboxes and discarded polystyrene BigMac containers from Burundi maybe? Perhaps Steak & Kidney Pie rehashed from reprocessed lambs' umbilical cords and 14-day old chip-fat gravy? What shall we have for dinner tonight?

But tonight is different. I have a glint in my eye. I am in classy company. It is time to take a risk. No Aberdeen Steak House for us tonight (sorry Erik, you gotta convince me it ain't from your home town), not even the Angus. The corner of my eye has seen something, and it knows best. A hidden gem of a bistro may have just entered my field of vision.

We walk into 'Beaujolais' and get the customary French greeting:

'Hrrmnnn?'

Two please.

'Hrrmnnn?'

Two please, can we sit at the bar?

'Hrrrrmnyesh. Grmmmnfgd.'

As the spoils of the war of our fromage platter are divided (blue cheese for she, smelly for me), we start to take in our surroundings. Or rather our surroundings start to take us in. A stout, portly and one suspects JackDanielsy Frenchman barges into my left shoulder, the bar, and probably an oil rig in the North Sea at the same time; he curses from afar an unfortunate customer who has taken lawful advantage of his bladder-induced absence to rob him of his barstool. 'I'l m'a niqué ma chaise, je vais le niquer!' he bellows, in the absolute certainty that his neighbour - yours truly - would not understand his bold assertion that 'He fucked my chair, I will fuck him!'. As I share this beautiful linguistic nuance with my companion, the owner comes over and shares some of the wondrous history behind this magical venue we have discovered par hasard.

We are sitting at the bar, au zinc if we were in France, and in front of us lies a discrete brass plaque commemorating the life of Tony Hogan. We are told in a very reverential and respectful manner that Tony, local patron of more than 20 years, was THE archetypal English gentleman, favourite guest, and that he had passed away recently. Up on the wall, we are shown a members' board, complete with each local's In/Out sliding marker. Tony's is at the very top, set to Always In. We understand immediately how much this person means to everyone here, all four barmen stop to describe Tony as a local legend never to be forgotten. It is a very touching moment.

We are but new people in this bar full of past, present and future. That the owners take a shine to us and care to explain the significance of the place we are lucky to be in is more of a crowning glory than a mountain of chantilly crème topping on a rich chocolate mousse. Which makes part-owner Jean-Yves' words all the more special after we have enjoyed a fantastically entertaining soirée of cross-Channel banter. He waves regally at his clientèle and turns towards me. 'This wine bar has been here for 30 years and there are only locals here.' he whispers, his salt and pepper (avec hint of Brie) beard rustling and bustling nervously as he leans towards me and continues 'You will be locals, I know it...'.

He is truly not mistaken. My friend and I had entered this Narnian enclave within the infernal chaos of Soho with the innocent hope of escaping reality for but a short while. Ethan, you would be proud of me...

When Doves Cry

3:30am - two more gunshots echo. I am lying on the floor of a hotel room, flattening myself against the wall beneath the window in order to offer as small a target as possible to the psychopath shooting at me from a nearby rooftop. There is glass everywhere and I realise distractedly that I have a deep gash on the palm of my left hand. It is the least of my current worries. Where am I and what the hell am I doing here? I have no recollection of the previous five hours. "Shit man, that was too close, let's get the hell outta here!" a voice behind me says, somewhat too excitedly. I am not alone. "Get up bitch! They're coming". The stranger opens the door, motions impatiently for me to follow him. Unable to think clearly, I do so.

5:30am - My right leg seizes up. Every muscle, tendon and joint in my body is aching and my lungs are burning with the very fires of hell itself. We have been running for days, it seems. I pause for breath and lean exhausted against a rusting locomotive engine. I want to scream, to release this rage that is in me, but more than anything I want to cry. "Move it NOW asshole, or you're dead!" the stranger hisses at me as he shoves me to one side before setting off at pace again. I hear the dogs barking in the distance and quickly follow this man I know nothing about.

As we weave a ragged course towards a thick copse beyond the railway yard, I can barely make out the minefield of obstacles waiting to put an abrupt end to the death chase. Rails, sleepers and boulders, I dodge them all panting and sweating like a rabid animal. The dogs are gaining on me, aware that their quarry is tiring and excited that there will be fresh meat for breakfast. A shot rings out. As I turn my head in time to see the stranger felled by a bullet in the back of his neck, my foot catches a root and I fall hard, knocking myself out on a flat rock.

6:30am - I wake up, although not in the local morgue but under a blue polka-dot duvet in my bedroom in Putney, London. Not quite under actually, half of it is on the floor and the pillows are nowhere to be seen. The dogs are not in my room, neither is the dead body of a stranger.

Another night, another crazy dream...

That bright old doyen of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud believed dreams to be a disguised fulfilment of a repressed wish. Whilst much of his research is rightly revered to this day, I nevertheless have to question the validity of his statement. There are many achievements and wishes I hope to fulfil in this lifetime, but finding myself in a seedy hotel room with a random bloke is not one of them, and neither is running like a rabid lunatic for TWO HOURS with said random bloke before being chased by a pack of bloodthirsty hounds in a disused railway yard.

My curiosity piqued, I decide to trawl the internet for possible interpretations of my dream and stumble upon the inspiration that is Dream Central at www.sleeps.com. Confidence in the website's powers of interpretation courses through me as I spot the advertising on the homepage ('We deliver compatible singles to you!'). A biblical reference confirms my worst fears and my seconds of hard toil are rewarded as I open the magical portal that is the.......... [drum roll].......... Dream Dictionary and its universe of platitudes, banalities and life's-what-you-make-of-itisms.

Example:

Doves: The symbol of peace and love herald the end of disagreements. Dreaming of white doves foretell a happy domestic life filled with peace and tranquility. A flock of doves means that you will soon welcome home an old friend, and if you hear doves cooing, your love will be returned, but, if you hear turtle doves, you will soon hear some disheartening news.

Now I am quite prepared to admit that there is a frustrated ornithologist inside each and every single one of us but '... if you hear doves, you will soon hear some disheartening news'??? If I cannot tell the difference between an American and a Canadian, quite how I am expected to spot the single turtle dove in a line-up of regular doves I do not know. No, the only disheartening news I will hear will be a) the soft rumble of the turtle dove's bowels as it releases breakfast, lunch and dinner onto me from a great height and b) the 'Ker-ching!' of the dry-cleaner's cash register, nothing more, nothing less...

As for the interpretation of my dream? I will stick to my trusted self-analysis: I am just weird...

WARNING: READ ON AT YOUR OWN PERIL

PS How does a dove get into power? Thanks to a military coo...
JMK 2008 (TM)

Midnight Callers...

January 26th was a fateful day in history. By sailing the First Fleet into Botany Bay, Captain Arthur Philip not only doomed this Albion nation to the better part of a century's heartache at cricket and an eternal locust-like Antipodean infestation of West London, but also pretty much guaranteed yours truly monthly mobile phone bills larger than the Gross Domestic Product of Antigua & Barbuda.*

Let us paint this portrait with vivid brushstrokes. It is 11:35pm on a Thursday night. Your stomach is playing happy landlord to six of the establishment's finest tipples, you are still wondering how you managed to tsunami yourself when washing your hands in the toilets and there is a momentary lull in your thrilling conversation about the faux-chintz décor of the velvet curtains. It begins as a gentle whisper, trickles into a rumbling murmur before exploding into an almighty roar of inspiration: let's call friends in Australia on our work phone!

Why? Just why?

My mother is English. My father is Swiss. My grandmother was Italian. I went to school in France and studied in Germany. Why by the Beard of Zeus, Odin's Great Raven AND the Knights of Columbus could I not befriend and pester telephonically the kind folk of these countries? Short of joining the London Club for Fijians About to Return Home (LCFARH), I could not possibly pick a longer-destinationer long-destination country to call after a few cheeky ales (until New Zealand gets telephone masts).

The not-so-lucky beneficiaries of last night's philosophical ponderings were Ash and Erin, two of my nearest and dearest friends. Before I continue, please consider the following point: not once during their far too brief stay in our fair and wet country did I contemplate calling them late at night when slightly intoxicated (by 'slightly' I in fact mean 'absolutely' and by 'intoxicated' I mean 'battered' - Editor's Note). Now that they are back in the land of sunshine, marsupials and VB however, they have become what is known as 'fair game' and are henceforth strongly advised to use the silent feature on their mobile phones between the hours of 6:00am and 10:00am. Not together? No problemo, I'll just call both of them! What made last night's ramblings even more amusing (i.e. just above zero on the international scale of hilarity) was that my partner in crime Tim decided to get in on the act by calling Ash's brother AT THE SAME TIME! Ha! How funny are we?**

Thankfully, the figurative blood, sweat and tears that went into my passionate conversation with one of my closest friends were justified when I received the following message in my inbox this morning:

Hey mate,

I just spoke to you on the phone, and I wanted to give you a run down on how you are going to feel tomorrow:

- after waking up: breath smells like death and want to go back to bed
- after shower: thought the shower would make you feel better, but no go
- waiting at tube stop: wondering why the fuck you drink
- waiting at overland stop: wondering why the fuck you work on overland
- on train: hoping no-one can smell the beer burps you are doing
- sitting down at your computer at work: devastated when you realise you have 8 hours of work left!

Enjoy your day at work today!!!

He is right every single step of the way of course. Spoken from experience no doubt...



* £117.85 - 2005 figures
** Not at all

Intervention

I want to write. My hands hover impatiently and my fingers are anxious to type, yet they remain cruelly suspended in mid-air, frozen in a barren wasteland of uncertainty four inches above the black keyboard that is rapidly becoming a symbol of my failure. After a raft of recent ponderings from the murky depths of my deranged mind, including offering to the world my transcendental observations on decapitated pigeons, all cerebral activity appears to have ceased. Like the hollow shell of a discarded frozen lemon sorbet in the bin of a backstreet Chinese restaurant, my brain is empty, totally and utterly devoid of creative thought.

I. Have. Nothing.

As if to twist the knife and scrape the bone in this already deep mental wound, dear old Microsoft Word has just autocorrected my harrowing 'I. Have. Nothing.' cry for literary help into a Roman numeral paragraph header. I am seconds away from creating an indentation of my own on my keyboard before realising that my work colleagues can hear the grinding of my teeth and are gently but purposefully pushing their chairs backwards towards towards the exit. I attempt a soothing count to ten, but do so in German by mistake, further fanning the flames of frustration and arousing in me an uncontrollable urge to invade and conquer the neighbouring offices without warning. Scheisse!

Calming myself down by thinking of Ron Burgundy's many leather-bound books, I briefly consider a light-footed hop, skip and jump to the nearest 'Razorblades R Us' superstore in order to put an end to this literary flatline that has turned the contents of my head into twice-pickled Polish cabbage. But I don't. I am stronger than this.

Literary Flatline

Can it be that nothing of any significance whatsoever has happened in my life over the past two weeks? Having experienced a phenomenal football trip to Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland as well as a superb CouchSurfing weekend in Brighton with a crew of eight under one roof, can it be that the one paltry idea for a blog entry that I have had is about a song that has blown me away by its haunting poignancy. Yes folks, a song. Most of the people who know me think I am a reincarnated crack whore as it is without having to have my review of the Top 40 drop into their inbox on a Wednesday morning. What next? Jean-Marc Knoll speaks to the world about the mating patterns of the Arctic Tern [Part 2 - Foreplay], puhlease...

Next I'll be writing about writer's block...

Monday Bloody Monday

Monday 8:41am: my train from Putney pulls into Teddington Station one minute late and I mutter under my breath "This would never happen in Switzerland, heads would roll...".

Unaware of how eerily accurate my thoughts are about to become, I hasten my step so as to be at my rightful spot in front and slightly to the left of the back doors of the first carriage on the 8:45 to Shepperton. I notice that it has taken me 28 steps from the footbridge rather than the usual 32 and put it down to the increased tempo. I am perturbed however, there have just been two changes from The Routine in the space of two minutes. This is going to be a tough week.

As I briefly consider whether to triple salto or double pirouette into the path of the oncoming train in anticipation of another week of 9 to 5 drudgery, my attention is caught by some movement down on the tracks and I realise one poor soul has unwittingly beaten me to it.

There is a pigeon on one of the sleepers. Or rather 7/8ths of a pigeon since its head lies a full six inches from its body. Wait, three inches. No, one foot. A monstrous crow - black as the night and easily the largest I have ever seen - is tossing the lifeless head in the air like a bloody rag doll. Next to it, another raven is pecking at the pigeon's neck with great gusto, scattering random pieces of red flesh across sleeper and rail alike. I am standing no more than one metre from this scene of carnage and can clearly see the dead bird's spine protruding from its torso. A gruesome sight.

I wonder briefly whether it is an omen for the week that is ahead of me. Although there is little chance of any of my work colleagues meeting the same fate, I attempt a minor curse on the accounts department and put my faith in the spirit of the pigeon. One thing is clear though: I do not trust the Benjys food van's offerings at the best of times , but this railway station is too close to their catering centre for comfort and I will not be opting for the chicken and mushroom pie today.

The 13th Month

Every second year, the Gregorian calendar upon which the very fabric of our society has been based for centuries undergoes a subtle and temporary change. An additional month is added to the twelve we are already familiar with.

The 13th month does not challenge or even bend the rules of time and space, it simply functions as a parallel universe sewn onto the hem of the sleeves of chronology. It contains its own units of time measurement and is generally referred to as the "Euro Month" every leap year and "World Cup Month" every non-leap even year.

The Units Of Time (UOT) of The 13th Month are as follows:

- The 'Group Stage' UOT is split into three separate units, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Group Games. Each Group Game lasts the equivalent of 4 Gregorian Calendar days and contains 8 'Football Matches' (also known as 'Soccer Matches' in developing countries). Cholesterol levels increase by 862%, salsa becomes an integral part of the daily nutrition plan and the next 16 generations of the Dorito Family are guaranteed private schooling as The 13th Month gets underway.

- The 'QF' or 'Quarter-Final' UOT follows the 3rd Group Game without interruption. The 'QF' lasts the equivalent of 4 Gregorian Calendar days and contains 4 'Football Matches'. The dilution of the matches/day ratio is compensated by the increased significance of the 'Football Matches'. This is a direct symptom of the 'Knock-Out Phase' effect. Hundreds of cases of partial rigor mortis are reported as supporters lose mobility in both hands from holding beer cans permanently, also known as Playmobilitis.

- The 'No Game Days' UOT occurs between the 'QF' and 'SF' UOT as well as between the 'SF' and 'F' UOT. It lasts the equivalent of 2 Gregorian Calendar days and contains NO 'Football Matches'. Essentially a matrimony-saving period of time and also known as 'Vacuum' or 'Black Hole', the 'No Game Days' UOT induces acute feelings of disorientation, confusion and paranoia. Viewed as a curse by supporters and a blessing by phillistines, the only known remedies to 'No Game Days' fever are 'Goal Of The Tournament' competitions and 'Highlights Clips With Trendy Indie Music'.

- The 'SF' or 'Semi-Final' UOT lasts the equivalent of 2 Gregorian Calendar days and contains 2 'Football Matches'. Generally recognised as the most dramatic period of The 13th Month, the 'SF' UOT is also known as 'The Business End' of The 13th Month. Requests abound for players to be counted after standing up. Several European trade agreements are annulled, and during the half-time commercial break of the second 'Football Match', 162 million fans across the continent recite in unison the words to the Adidas, Canon, Castrol, JVC AND MasterCard adverts.

- The 'F' or 'Final' UOT follows the 2nd 'No Game Days' UOT and is the climax and anti-climax of The 13th Month. The anticipation and excitement inevitably end in disappointment as a 90-minute snoozefest ends in a 0-0 draw and tame penalty shootout. Images of jubilant Germans and crying French children are beamed across the world. Alcoholics Anonymous hire 17 new administration assistants to cope with increased membership applications.

This morning, I very nearly beat the long jump world record as I leapt out of my bed. I sang an entire music festival's material under the shower. I am more energized than the Duracell bunny after 32 cans of Red Bull, 7 double espressos and a good hit of Colombian grade A primo.

I am about to become intimate with 368 players in a footballing orgy of leather, studs and swerving balls. The father/son bond will reach its biennial peak as "Why have you not started a pension plan yet?" becomes "Are you blind? He was never offside!". I will agree wholeheartedly with my mother when she tells me that Romanian winger is tasty.

Today, my hometown of Basel is the centre of the universe and my chest is about to burst with pride.

COME ON SWITZERLAND!!!

Chernobyl

At precisely 01:23am on 26 April 1986, Reactor #4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the former Soviet Union exploded, causing the worst nuclear disaster in the history of the world. Large areas of current-day Ukraine, Russia and Belarus were severely contaminated by the intense radiation and nuclear fallout, leading to the evacuation and resettlement of over 300,000 people. Twenty-two years on, the world has largely forgotten the largest man-made environmental disaster of the 20th century, but in the Ukraine neither the mental nor physical scars have fully healed.

Yesterday I stood not 50 metres from Reactor #4, the needle of my Geiger counter shrieking and leaping like a maniacal leprechaun with an angry rattlesnake down his green velours dungarees. The burning question: what was I doing there?

The self-styled 'Weirdest Tour in the World' had started off with the usual backpacker recipe,

*** Open Culinary Interlude ***

Eastern European Tour Group
Preparation: 8 - 10 hours
Serves 9 people, not including driver and tour guide

Ingredients:

4 x Brits - three Lahndahners & one Mancunian with chip on shoulder about life Up Norf, the older gentleman bearing a strong resemblance to Hannibal from The A-Team.
3 x Canadians - preferably Québecois, each with symmetrically positioned maple leaf patch on backpack.
1 x Australian - effing and blinding for first hour while describing Great Barrier Reef and home town, then snoring rhythmically in haze of vodka fumes.
1 x Irishman - quiet and mysterious, attracting immediate interest from Canadian girls, probably gay.

Pour into one minivan, shake and bounce about on potholed Ukrainian road for two hours, creating heavenly aroma of hangover halitosis and Bacon & Egg McMuffin breakfast odours oozing through sweaty pores.

Serve irritably as group discovers road time is double that stated in brochure at hostel.

*** Close Culinary Interlude ***

and as we sped (for literary effect only, plodded would be more accurate) through the lush Ukrainian forest, blue skies and blazing sunshine above our heads, the mood was more Paddington's Grand Day Out than Thyroid Cancer Exclusion Zone. To answer my own burning question, I was curious to test my usual moral ambivalence by going on a tour described by guidebooks and fellow travellers alike as moving, distressing, disturbing and a further Thesaurus-truckload of similar adjectives. Would I, the heartless one, feel any of the above emotions?

Truth be told, it was impossible to feel anything more than voyeuristic curiosity in the now miltary-populated town of Chernobyl and at the plant iteself. Our interpreter's liberal use of the word 'stuff' (eg. "The fallout was 30 to 40 times more serious than Horoshima and stuff..." or "They added stuff to the Uranium-235 and that made it melt..." - what did they add, a slice of Kraft processed cheddar?), the aforementioned good weather and the fact that the Red Forest (so -called because of the ginger-brown colour of the 10km radius of pine trees that died from absorbing high levels of radiation) had been replaced by lush green vegetation all detracted from the tragic events that had occurred here. That each and every single one of us was more obssessed with obtaining the highest reading on the Geiger counter lent an even more jokey element to what ought to have been a sombre and serious affair (and yes, of course it was only-child-me-me-me with a whopping 729 micro-roentgens).

It was only when a book released to commemorate the 10 year anniversary in 1996 was passed around that we began to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe and its repercussions. As I flicked through photos showing firefighters equipped with fire aprons only (aprons!!!) to fight the chemical fires in the immediate aftermath of the explosion or of radiation burns victims with their skins flayed and torn to shreds, I felt a tightening in my chest. Incidentally of the 56 deaths attributed directly to the accident, 47 were firefighters and accident workers and 9 children with thyroid cancer, although, in a textbook display of the ills of the soviet propaganda machine, doctors were forbidden from recording "Death by Radiation" as a death verdict in order to keep the number of 'real' casualties down. Truly sickening. I bought the book to serve as a reminder of the bravery of the emergency services and the true horrors now disguised by new trees and abundant flora and fauna.

If the book showed us a side of the events that few people know of, then the next part of our tour conveyed a message blunter than the billboards of Times Square. The city of Pripyat, not Chernobyl, was the closest to the reactor and therefore the worst affected. The whole city was evacuated in 72 hours, with a 40km long caravan of buses carrying all 50,000 inhabitants to pastures and lives new. Schoolbooks and a teddy bear at the school, a broken projector with filmreel in the cultural centre, all artifacts showing the panic and urgency of this forced migration. In the centre of the ghost city stands the rusting hulk of a large ferris wheel, visible from miles around, all the more poignant since it did not manage to complete one single rotation, its public opening due three days after the accident.


This was not moving, this was not distressing, this was not even destruction, this was sheer postapocalyptic desolation. I felt unsettled and even obscene standing on the roof of the abandoned hotel looking down at what had once been a thriving community living in the shadow of its employer and executioner. I held my breath irrationally, radiation was minimal but I did not even want to breathe the air in this place truly forsaken by God, Buddha, Allah and all their furry friends. I felt like an extra in 28 Days Later (the zombie movie set in London, not 28 Days, the crap Sandra Bullock rehab romance schmaltzfest I hired by mistake the first time around).

There was a lot more to the tour, but this just about covers its mental impact on me. The physical aspect is another matter altogether. The level of radiation we were exposed to was high enough to cause concern, but only over an extended period of time. Many Ukrainians we met assured us that we would sprout a third leg within the week and that we were madder than an army of March Hares on crystal meth for going into the exclusion zone. It certainly plays on your mind though, and we duly followed the base commander's advice in drinking alcohol in order to accelerate our metabolism and flush the radiation out of our bodies. I am not sure that he had 2 litres of vodka over 3 hours of playing Shithead in mind, but hey ho, better safe than sorry...

For further information on the Chernobyl Disaster, Wikipedia has a thorough account of the event and how it has affected the Ukrainian psyche and identity. I have come away from what I had initially seen as a form of extreme tourism with a greater understanding of one of the most important events to happen in my lifetime. I now also have an easy answer to the "What is the strangest place you have ever had a beer?" question. It gave me a warm glow ;-)

Dish of the Day...

One immensely rewarding aspect of roaming this wonderful planet is the sheer unbridled joy derived from discovering a randomly surreal translation on an English food menu abroad. If travelling is food for the soul, then English menu translations must surely be its dessert. My previous championship contenders, 'Gordon Blue' in Krakow and the rustic-sounding 'Village Style Shop' in Moscow, had remained unchallenged for over one year but they have been consigned to history books as also-rans by the sheer creativity and subtle syntax of Ukrainian cuisine. There must surely be an undergraduate course in Menu Mistranslation at Kiev University for the talent and excellence of these plainly ridiculous entries are unlike any I have ever seen on my travels.

The following are genuine culinary selections taken from several English translation menus across the Ukraine, followed by my very own linguistic interpretation:

Squids in rings Orly style: a performing troupe of circus cephalopods swinging gleefully from ring to ring mid-air high above the check-in desks at Paris' second airport.

Frying Pan Happy Pork: a low-IQ pig unaware of the severity of the situation, grinning inanely as the butcher comes to bludgeon it to its bloody death with a Tefal non-stick griddle pan.

Mother's in law tongue: a cheap thrill, but I liked the positioning of the apostrophe. Enjoyment is presumably derived more from silencing an unliked non-blood relative than actual taste.

Fried grey mullet: I have had to shackle my fertile and vivid imagination on this one, the potential is too immense. From the high price (125 Ukrainian Grivnas versus 95 for the lacklustre and clearly inferior Black Mullet), I am assuming that the greyness signifies a more mature and stylishly reared beast. It comes with the bold assertion that it is "... as good as grilled and fried...". Popular in Australia, particularly in Outback Queensland.

Salted hunchback salmon: swims with a stoop, but very tender underbelly. Served with Notre-Dame sauce.

Butterfly chop: for the light hunger.

And finally, my all-time favourite, a new entry straight to the top of the charts, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...

Caesar with a Hen.

Picture the Emperor himself in an ancient Roman chair, one eunuch playing the lute and another fanning him with arabian palm fronds. One plump fluffy chicken lies (or possibly lays) despondently across his toga, miniature laurel wreath resting on its head. He strokes its rich plumage absent-mindedly à la Blofeld as he plots the downfall of Carthage. It sits content, aware of its privileged status across all of poultrykind. It is... Caesar with a Hen.

Little things do indeed please little minds...

A modern-day Greek Tragedy in one very long Act...

Had Sophocles and Euripides still been plying their trade today, I have no doubt that their concept of tragedy would have been dramatically altered after sitting in on one of my company's world famous mailout meetings.

The fact that my venerable employer has been sending catalogues of its new collection twice a year for the past 36 years would lead the rational mind to deduce that a mailout meeting (feel my shivering spine as I write these mere words) would be a smooth and rapid decision-making process. Not so. Truly not so.

Today's biannual festival of dullness saw me achieve a lifetime PB, or Personal Best for those of you not acquainted with strenuous fitness regimes. I managed to record three R.D. and one D.O., or in layman's terms three Rumbled Daydreams (the eyes are open and staring in approximately the right area, but you miss a simple question aimed in your direction, a situation salvageable only by BAFTA-winning amateur dramatics recovery skills) and one actual Doze-Off, the pinnacle of office meeting embarrassments that all wannabe Dilberts strive to attain.

The conditions were perfect. Eight people in one small windowless meeting room immediately after lunch; fragrant body odour mingling intimately with prawn cocktail crisp and ham & cheese breath; the cash and carry checkout promotion clock on the wall taunting the room on a Friday afternoon by ticking back one second for every seven forward. I knew I was doomed the moment I walked into the room. Most non-hibernating mammals would have succumbed within half an hour but I lasted forty-five minutes of herculean proportions before making the fatal mistake of allowing my eyelids a short rest. The four centuries of sleep that I so richly deserved were brutally taken away by a poke between my third and fourth ribs by my UK Sales counterpart, fortunately sparing me from total humiliation in front of three of the company's six directors.

For the record, the meeting lasted one hour and twenty-seven minutes and concluded with the revolutionary concept of repeating the previous year's procedure. Such is the fulfilling and stimulating life that I lead. Had Archimedes been taking a bath in the meeting room, he would have drowned long before the seeds of Eureka had even germinated in his head.

Slaying the Beast...

[Author's Note: all names have been changed in order to protect the identity of those concerned.]

Tying in nicely with the 12 Labours I have set myself in 2008 is this little mythological anecdote recounting the unexpected fall from grace of a fearsome warrior. This is...

The slaying of the mythical beast known as........... Mimon Saguire.

To put the man's propensity for mayhem and destruction into context, I will boldly declare that Mimon is to the artistic field of wanton debauchery what the Wright brothers were to aeronautics or Alexander Fleming to medicine: innovative, groundbreaking and light-years ahead of anyone else.

Plenty are the people privileged enough to have watched - in blind fascination - Simon, er Mimon brutally bulldoze many a weekend into more carnage and devastation than the trench warfare of World War I, razing entire cities to the ground on his renowned three day rampages. He could go many months without sleep and eat nothing but the foil from bottlecaps to fuel his burning engine of destruction. Nothing could stop this last man standing amongst hedonists.

Or so we thought...

As Achilles was brought down by his humble heel, so too did Mimon buckle and fall, slain by a much fiercer adversary than the sword: the mighty absinthe.

Any form of liquid alcohol banned across 19 European countries for over ninety years for having "psychoactive and hallucinogenic properties - © Wikipedia" is probably not recommended for a Sunday afternoon picnic in the Hammersmith sunshine. And certainly not four large shots in twenty minutes. Yet that is what our hero did, and the price that was paid was neither headache nor hangover, but his aura of invincibility.

Within a mere half-hour of the final herbal drop descending into his gullet, our hero was babbling incoherent groups of random words with his head lolling about like Churchill on crack (the insurance advertisement dog, not Winston) and eyes looping in opposite directions like inversely magnetized ball bearings. Battered into instant submission, he slowly dragged his failing body into the lounge and onto the sofa, where into a deep coma he fell.

The glory of any such psychoactive and hallucinogenic properties is that their grip on the mind continues even beyond the portal of sleep. Within ten minutes of having lost consciousness (for sleep it was not), Mimon began to recite a string of telephone numbers to the great delight of his bemused audience. Thus "0-2-0-8-7-1-4-9-6-3-3" followed swiftly after "0-2-0-7-4-1-1-8-5-2-5" before giving way to several short yet profound philosophical ramblings along the lines of "I must have more self-respect...".

The whole borough was then subjected to a snoring sonata of such violently epic proportions that all lumberjacks in Canada and Russia united in putting down their chainsaws as a mark of respect.

So there you have it folks. Let this be a marker in time of this memorable moment. More efficient than any silver bullet or wreath of garlic, I officially proclaim the distilled form of a common mountain herb to be the most effective slayer of this fine beast we have the pleasure of knowing.

The beast is dead. Long live the beast.

Sunset in Hammersmith

There are relatively few moments in my hectic life that can be described as having been utterly peaceful. Tonight, I was fortunate to experience one.

As my back rested against the brick wall overlooking the River Thames, holding a glass of Sauvignon Blanc in one hand and an ever-so-pretentious collection of Chekhov plays in the other, I attempted to cajole my body and soul into some semblance of normality after yet another mind-numbingly destructive day at the office.

Instead, I looked up and felt myself and my self-important universe melt into insignificance as I witnessed as delicate and touching a sunset as one could possibly hope to see in one lifetime.

The sun, eerily pale for the fifth month of the year, began its downward course as a faded and jaded lemon casting a hazy aura over the Thames before transcending the most intense rainbow of peachy hues, eventually skewering itself on a yacht mast and vanishing gracefully behind some distant Chiswick vegetation. So simple, yet so breathtaking.

A privileged and inspirational moment...

Test

Test, only for Silkylein...

Flip-Flop Butchery...

I had never considered myself the type of human being that wears flip-flops. For a multitude of reasons - each and every one of which so depressingly dull that it would lose me my one blog subscriber if I aired them here (you know who you are...) - I have never strayed from the safe haven provided by sandals. There is something immensely comforting and reassuring in having your foot strapped snugly within a sandal. Not for me this crazy foot-half-off-edge-of-flip-flop flying by the seat of your pants attitude to life. I used to positively shiver at the boldness of these sartorial buccaneers whenever I encountered them (ie any Australian on the Fulham Palace Road in mid-December). Brrr.

Until now.

My previous sandals having self-destructed in Tijuana (RIP dear friends, may your soles rest in heaven) and the sands of time having trickled too fast between holidays (it's a hard life I lead), I found myself on a sandy beach in Monterosso on the Italian Riviera sporting Converse trainers and socks in 26c heat. A social faux pas in any self-respecting country, I was committing this heinous crime in the very home of fashion! With conditions within my shoes rapidly approaching heating levels of vegetable-steaming proportions, this was a moment for boldness, for grasping the bull by the horns. Influenced by the plastic staccato sound of my three travel buddies' footfall and faced with no justifiable alternatives (anyone for Crocs?), I finally gave in. For the princely sum of 8,00€, I became the proud owner of a pair of black dragon red Diadora flip-flops, rapidly becoming the proud owner of a pair of black dragon-less faded pink Diadora flip-flops (lawsuit in progress, stay tuned for details).

Beaming with unbridled happiness, I opened with much enthusiasm and very little panache this new chapter in my life. To say I had a certain swagger about me would be misleading, it was more of an awkward stagger as I struggled to replicate the near-perfect sound of my friends' echoing footwear. But I was happy.

The word 'shortlived' regrettably follows 'my happiness was' on a relatively frequent basis and this was to be no exception. It rapidly became clear to me that my glorious zenith would mirror that of the sun in its daily brevity. The blazing sunshine, crystal-clear waters and stunning scenery could not distract me from the fact that my new footwear was achieving an all-too-swift transition from the world of looking-tsss-hot-in-new-funky-beach-accessory to the world of incessant-agonizing-pain. Inevitably, the stubborn streak that has possessed me since I entered this world would not accept that my feet were being butchered to bloody stumps and within six hours I felt as though I was locked up in a medieval torture chamber, having one-inch thick wooden wedges hammered gleefully between my first and big toes by the Marquis de Sade himself. AND having the sides of my feet being shredded by a hedgehog being viciously and violently rubbed against my poor soft untreated skin.

I am hoping to lose the freshly-sodomized-by-a-rhinoceros look that the brutal wounds between my toes have given my walk, regain some dignity and will use the flip-flops as a door wedge from now on...

Next week, on "Life on the edge", we see what happens when Tesco runs out of Strawberry yoghurt. The drama, the tension, the raw emotion. All on this blog... Wow...

PS: I apologize for the 'sole' joke in paragraph 2, I truly do. That was abysmal, even by my usually low standards.

The 12 Labours...

Blink and you may have missed it. No, not the only ray of sunshine in an English summer or the forward advance of a French army but the flash of inspiration that led me to challenge myself into *** shock! horror! *** doing something new every single month of this glorious year 2008, my very own 12 Labours. With neither the Cretan Bull nor the Erymanthian Boar being available for re-capture, my tasks have had to be rather more mundane.

April 2008: discover and conquer a new borough of London, this month and every month until the end of the year...

Me new mucker Sazzo - whose fantastic description of her home borough "a place-name crossed between a cliched expression and the charming sound of pleghm" so accurately describes it - suggested going to a politically supercharged free carnival, Love Music Hate Racism. In Hackney. Not Hackney-upon-Thames, a name that might suggest lollipops and balloons, but Hackney, the name presumably coming from ancient pirate dialect, "Arrrrrr, you be 'anding over 'at doubloon Cap'n, or we be playin' a game of Hack-Knee", as the swinging cutlass swooshing through the air turned a two-player game into a one-winner game.

And so I set off for the Wild East, iPod in pocket and supersized dose of apprehension in my mind. Five years of West London snobbery have instilled a deep-seated belief that the rails of the District Line bend downwards at Aldgate East into the deepest pits of Hell itself, or worse still, Essex. Apparently this is not the case.

Getting on the Tube at Hammersmith, I found myself sitting opposite two girls - clearly sisters - with acutely emotive expressions on their faces as they talked to each other. Poignant looks such as I had never seen before, they fascinated me. I was so moved yet curious at the same time at what seemed like such raw emotion, what terrible news could they possibly be discussing? I felt like an intruder even looking at them and so decided to take things one step further. As I took out my earphones to eavesdrop more effectively, I was truly surprised as the first words I was able to make out were "Shall we get off here or at the next one?" in the most beautiful London accent one could possibly hope to hear. Aaahh, the joys of a fertile imagination. No prizes who would be at the other end of the line if you dialled 1-800-DULLANECDOTE...

To be totally fair to Hackney, there was more chance of being killed by a paper cut from the neverending stream of anti-BNP flyers being handed out than anything else (during the hours of daylight anyway). It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. The fascinating political undercurrent mixed with the palpable appreciation of a free event of this magnitude being organised made it a trip well worth making. Predictably, the loudest cheer of the afternoon went to the sun, as he peaked a hesitant, then confident look from behind his cloud and warmed our souls for the last hour...