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...

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