Getting pissy

Right , I'm really starting to get really pissy!

I've been back from my trip for over a week now and I've only been able to go rollerblading twice - and that was in the first 2 days after my return. Ever since then it has been bloody raining, or, at the least, it has been wet enough for there to be moisture on the ground, thereby, making skating a serious health risk.

This picture (somewhat enhanced) shows my hallway carpet which, as you may notice, is starting to look like a rollerskating rink. And this is because some 90KG monkey keeps whizzing up & down it in his shiny new 'Salomon 3V Dominator X-1 Widowmaker' Rollerblades - all because he can't go outside and play.

Although, it has to be said, in the interim, he has been mastering 'advanced toilet operations' on inline skates.

There is, I guess, some hope in the air though. Last weekend the TV weather report proudly declared that 'Spring had started' and by comparing Wednesday's (before & after), a real difference can be seen. Last Wednesday it was snowing and since things have warmed up somewhat, this Wednesday it just rained all day. Brilliant..

toilet chic

There's a bar up the road from me that used to have some very funny logos on the toilet doors. When i had first seen the guy's one I just about pissed myself (bad pun) and, consequently, just had to head down the hall to see what they had put on the woman's door - which, I thought, was even funnier than the guys.



The next time I went to the bar, a few months later, the signs were gone and I couldn't help wondering if, perhaps, this was because of complaints from patrons. I seriously hope not because they were great and, frankly speaking, they captured one's intent perfectly.

Note: On a Gonzo aside, I don't know if you've ever stood outside of a toilet taking photos of the door, but it is not a very cool feeling - especially, as a bloke, when you're taking photos of the door outside the 'ladies'.

All in the pursuit of artistic integrity..!

a LION RED, please!

I bought a beer at a race-track once...

This statement is not so surprising in itself except, to say that, I was 12 at the time...

For some unknown reason we, as a family, went to the horse races (never had before, never did after). In addition to my sister S in attendance, there was also my good mate McGoo. As we wombled aimlessly around the interior of the race track Pavilion, completely bored out of our little skulls, we went past the entrance to the members bar (there ain't much to do at a race track if you're 12 years old, can't bet and have less than a passing interest in horses).

As we peered anxiously into this mystical place of adult ritual, we were intrigued by what was going on. We all wanted to go in there, but, as became readily apparent, my younger sister and the ever-practical McGoo were reticent to do so. Captain Fargon, on the other hand, has always been pretty keen to run headlong into walls, so, with a gust of bravado, I declared that i was going in for a beer! As McGoo & S watched on anxiously, I strided manfully up to the bar, head held high - or as high a 4 foot kid can get it anyway!

As I got to the bar, the first thing I noticed was that the height of the bar was a lot higher than I imagined it would be, which did nothing to bolster my confidence. The barmaid seemed in no particular rush to get to my end of the bar, which also helped slow time to a painful, almost impreceptible, crawl.

Finally, she came over to my end of the bar and, with a slightly bemused look on her face, looked me up and down for loooong a minute - well, from nose to forehead which is all that could probably be seen. I held my cool, maintaining her gaze with a steady eye and, eventually, she said "...wadda ya want?"

"A beer!" I firmly declared.

"What sort?" she replied

...and, then, at that very moment in time - I knew I was fucked! I didn't know the name of any beers.

I stood there looking verrry dumb for another eternal period of time, desperately trying to think of the name of a brand of beer. How frustrating - to be this close the goal and, now, the whole charade is torpedoed due to my limited beer knowledge. Breaking her gaze for a moment I looked along the bar to my right and there, a few feet awy, was a bottle of beer with its label pointing my way.

Quickly reading the label I said "a LION RED, please!" (my parents brought me up well, always making me pay my courtesies - even when buying illegal, underage beer).

So, off she went and returned with an ice-cool quart bottle of Lion Red (2 pints or 745ml in modern speak) - which is a lot of drinking for a kid, especially a kid who does not like beer and who, now, really wanted to get the hell out of there. Looking over my shoulder I could still see S & McGoo looking back with a mixture of surprise & pride.

Necking the beer as fast as I could, I got the hell out of there before I got completely busted...

Hmmm, hope my parents don't read this...

Idiot on wheels...

Ahhh, an old friend has returned to my life - good ol' fashioned fear...!

While I was away down south on my wee venture last week - I finally, after about 10 years of 'wanting', bought myself some rollerblades. I have, actually, been ice-skating since I was 7 (when I ended up on the side of the rink crying, because 'I could not do it like the big kids') and by my mid-teens, was skating every night of the week - if not 10 times a week with the multiple public weekend sessions that were available. Late in my teens, I had taken up Ice Hockey where I played for the North Shore Vikings.

During those public sessions I used to say to myself - if I hadn't fallen over once per session, then I wasn't trying hard enough!

Due to my semi-religious devotion to that mantra, I spent a lot of my teens with moderately serious water on the knee & elbow. Notably, it was always my left knee & elbow, since that was the way I would spin or jump things - whether that be the rink walls, cones, people, high bars or anything else that got in my way.

Like most young skaters as the years passed on by, I moved onto bigger & better things (drinking & girls), but always held a secret desire to go to the Netherlands (thanks to some naff 60's Disney film) and be able to go skating from village to village - whizzing along the frozen canals. Unfortunately, ol' Walt and I never figured on global warming and it has been a looong time since the Dutch canals have frozen over - or been frozen enough to safely go skating on anyway (not since the early 80's, I believe).

So, finally, I have invested in some Salomon Crossmax V3's, on which the front & back wheels can be adjusted to go up or down. Thereby, giving you a multi-purpose skate which can be used for distance / speed skating (in the down position) or as a highly manoeuvrable street skate (in the up position).

A week into it and I have discovered a couple of key factors which are very relevant to my refreshed 21st century skating:

(1) I'm used to skating on flat surfaces.
(2) Rollerblades don't work in the wet.
(3) The road is harder than ice - not absolutely true (rock hard, overly cooled, ice can cut you up pretty badly too - but in crowded rink sessions it gets very wet, thereby 'dampening' your fall. {har-har, nice accidental pun}), but obstacles like cars & bollards do add a complete new survival factor to this mobile circus.

The first skate I went for, post-purchase, was in Wiltshire, along some country roads, which can truly be described as adventureous and dumb, dumb, dumb brother - real dumb! Not only was the road surface pretty rough, it was way more undulating than I expected and there was no run-off from the road - only a high bank on either side. Ultimately, I only had one major wipeout during which, luckily, no cars, trucks or tractors came around the corner!

Upon arrival back home, I went skating around a local park (the top picture, above, was taken just before setting off) and then, on the next day, I was all set to go for a long daytime skate, i.e. fully kitted up, when I looked out the window and realised it was bloody snowing (in late March - nice one). A couple of hours later and it had stopped snowing / raining and I tried again, which is when I discovered that inline skates don't work in the wet.

Yesterday, I finally got to go for a long day-skate and went to a reputable bike shop to look at some 'body armour' (I only have wrist & knee guards at the moment, but am keen to get a body-sized airbag). It was on the return from this shop, empty-handed I should add, that I contributed my first bit of skin to the road surface (again, see the photo above of my left hip).

All in all, it's been a jolly good hoot - hope I live through it! Busy medieval cities that lie on the same latitude as Moscow, are not really the place to go skating, I'm slowly being forced to realise...

So, if you see some Gallah flailing down the road while you're driving by, make sure to beep your horn and I'll tell you to 'fark off', like I did to all the other cars...

Bruce, Dave & Willy

I've just returned from a week around the south of England which included a whirlwind tour of Cambridge, London, Wiltshire & Bristol.. You'd think after such a cultural fix that I'd be bursting with great anecdotes and tales of yore...

Actually, my week was intriguingly influenced by 3 blokes called Bruce, Dave & Willy. Each, unique in character and all with an alarming party trick of licking their balls in public - nice, that'll always impress the chicks!

You probably won't be surprised to hear that they were cats - and black ones at that. In the normal course of my life, I don't really have a lot of association with cats, but during this week I was surrounded by the little buggers, each one somewhat more bizarre than the previous.

The first wee fella was called Bruce and he lived in Clapham, London, and was, upon due reflection, a fairly tame little wee bloke who just enjoyed a good cuddle and a nice meal (who doesn't).

My next port of call was a pub in Wiltshire where I was greeted, upon arrival, by Dave. Dave had somewhat more of a robust personality and, effectively, ruled the bar. Importantly, he liked sitting on a bar stool right in the middle of the bar that was pretty well exactly where you needed to be, if you wanted to order a drink - not much chance of that then.

That was, of course, when he wasn't walking along the bar. The owners continually tried to stop him and were constantly telling him off, but Dave had it sussed - he just didn't give a shit. He, as a feline, wasn't in such a rush for a cuddle since everyone patted him all day long anyway. So, he had one of those annoying habits of looking and acting as if he wanted to be patted, but would actually stay just out of arms reach as he passed by - walking along the bar.

In my final port of call, Bristol, I stayed with some friends (T&J), there was a psychopath called Willy (or William). I don't know what his game was, but it involved a lot of squarking and feeding. The little bugger was able to let himself in and out at will, via a wee window in the kitchen, which stood at head height (or 5 foot 11 3/4). It wasn't much of a window and the funny thing is, at his present feeding regime, he ain't going to be able to fit out of it for very much longer.

He was only 18 months old and at one point I had politely asked (as you do) "if he'd had his balls removed?" - because the cat was in some serious need of some pretty heavy life adjustments. On an hourly rotation, he would come in the window and then proceed to start squarking, manically, in desperate need of food for the next 1/2 hour, prior to departing on another nocturnal adventure. Seriously, he would do this like 10 times a night and, frankly, it really was getting on everyone's tits - especially T's who had had a complete sense of humour failure with regard to this farkin' cat.

Of course, Willy would spend all day sleeping (when he wasn't in the kitchen squarking for food) since he was knacked from being up all night - squarking for food.

My final suggestion to T was to buy some soft slippers - slippers with a good trajectory & flight aerodynamics!

Competition improvements

I was just watching the 'Super Heavyweight' weightlifting competition at the Commonwealth Games and it has to be said these fellas lift some pretty spectacular weights. The Gold & Silver medals were won by a couple of Aussie students and the Bronze went to a teenager from Niue. A new Commonwealth record was set by the Silver medalist at 217KG in the Clean & Jerk (it was a combined weight competition, hence his 2nd placing) and, then, the Gold winning Aussie failed to set a new record at 225KG - which is somewhat short of the World Record at 263KG (set back in 1978 - in the good ol' hey-day of drug-fuelled sports).

Watching these behemoths in action I couldn't help wondering how a Gorilla would get on in the competition?

Not your typical 'monkey on a barstool' kinda guy, but a full-on shitkicking Silverback! Naturally, they would be pretty strong, but you would have to assume that their technique would be fairly poor (you try teaching a fully grown Silverback Gorilla the required technique for Clean & Jerk).

Another key point is that Monkeys, Apes & Gorillas can not lock their knees in as we do. Our closest relatives can walk on their hind legs, but this is only achieved by supporting their entire body weight on their muscles, which they are generally reticient to do (fair enough). We, on the other hand, can use the locking system of the knee joint & the integral strength of bone to support us, which helps to make walking a realistic option for us.

Presumably, they would also get disqualified for not locking in their knees as mentioned above which, I think, off the top of my head, is a key requirement for completing a successful Clean & Jerk lift. Additionally, I don't know how these competitions run with regard to etiquette - but can't help thinking that doing a poo on the stage would probably not endear one to the judges either.

Oh well - it would have made for an interesting tournament...

I kissed a girl once...

... sadly, nothing ever became of it...

... This is not a picture of her...


... although, interestingly, it is her brother...

...and he just won 2 Golds & a Bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games...

hoo-har!

I'd probably give him a kiss at the moment - if he asked nicely...

My living hell..!

Well, I've been to some shit things in my life, but Saturday afternoon took the cake...

I had headed over by train to a distant 'big city' for a business meeting, in the city's huge exhibition hall. At the time in this big hall was the annual 'Baby Show', where I was going to meet the prospective new client and do the typical 'song and dance' that comes with such a tenative new business relationship. So, here we are at the Baby Show which, as one would naturally anticipate on a Saturday afternoon, was absolutely heaving!

There were babies as far as your eyes could see, you've never seen so many babies. Not only babies, but each one came complete with its own SUV. I mean, seriously, these wee tykes all had their own little battle cruisers. Naturally, between the thronging crowd all trying to look at the display stalls, all wheeling these minature SUV's - it was a nightmare of uncontrollable traffic & congestion. Being a Baby Show it was not the place to pull faces at bad parking or inefficient driving which, I must admit, I found a wee bit difficult to temper.

The thing that really struck me and it's not that surprising really, is that I have never seen so many pregnant women, in one place, in my life (I don't remember e-mailing all these women). Really, about 2 out of every 3 women of breeding age, was like 6 months+ pregnant. So now make it a huge crowd, a massive collection of badly parked & driven minature SUV's and a clutch of women with their belly buttons sticking out.

I, like all around me, did at one stage VERY respectfully pull aside for one slightly deranged looking couple as they weaved their way through the chaos. They were pushing in front of them, and it nearly filled the aisle, a 3-person people mover. Yup, and in it were 3 little pumpkins that looked like they were each about 24 minutes old. I swear, everyone they passed with their triplets went ever so slightly quiet as they neared, dropped their eyes with due revernce to the SUV as it passed and, then, respectfully looked at these folks with a weak smile. The look in the parents eyes said it all "we know, we know - oh my God, how we know..." and, loosely translated, that look in everyone's eyes as they passed was 'thank fuck that it is not me!'.

So, the meeting went well and I have a new client but 'mental note 2b', I think I need to check the expiry date on some condoms that I've got floating about.

Later that day, I thought I'd go to a bar (not called 'Cheers') where there is 'always someone I know'. Naturally enough, there was 'no-one there I knew' although, ultimately, I did end up talking to a chap who looked like a greasy street urchin and a woman who runs a local B&B. She was turning 50 - I knew this because she had a balloon that said so - and knowing her from a past life I would have expected her to be VERY, VERY, DRUNK (in a complete loss of bladder control type of way).

Unusually, for her, she wasn't (although she was dropping them pretty quickly, I did note) and I couldn't help wondering if, perhaps, her birthday was actually in 8 days time and she was 'just' getting a head start i.e. come and see her next week, after she has been on the lash for 7 days...

Later, that evening, there was one notable quip which was the phrase of the day... In conversation to a girl, I said to her (whilst still not giving out my blog address to any folk that I know, which I still don't do at the moment - so if you're reading this and know me, you shouldn't be - somebody has loose lips):

"I've got a blog"

to which she immediately replied, completely unplanned, I think:

"you should get some cream for that..."


touche!