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.