well, farg me

Checking my e-mail this morning, I got a nice surprise message from my brother R who is now firmly back on the other side of the planet. We had recently caught up for the first time in a couple of years, in Germany. The reunion being the main purpose of the short-notice Deutsch reise...

I'd arrived the day before from the UK and he'd caught an overnight train from Austria, arriving early on a Sunday morning. Having made his way to the hotel in the north of the city, he had come up to the room knocked on the door and so 'it' had began.

Interestingly, in that first blast of conversation (not very well digested since I was still half asleep) he mentioned that he'd "just seen Bert & Ernie driving a beer truck outside the hotel" (Zum Zeppelin). I said "you mean, like Bert & Ernie off Seasame Street", "uh-huh!" he replied...

I didn't really respond since there is not much you can say to that sort of a statement at 8am on a Sunday morning. If he was older I'd have thought he was having some sort of weird 70's flashback.

So, a few months later and he just sent me a few snaps from the trip and low & behold there it is, in all of its reality or, more appropriately, surreality (is that a word?)...

Bert & Ernie driving a beertruck.

Funny how an odd conversation can be resolved 2 months later. Looking at the picture, I was pleased to see that in a 'true Teutonic law-abiding fashion' Bert had his seatbelt on (he always was a bit of a stickler for the rules).

a whinge, 8,000 women in bra's & an 'adios amigo'...

Well there goes the blog award, eh - unless there is a category for 'flying start with a dribbly middle and a complete & utter collapse by the end...'.

Things are normally kinda hectic for me around this time of the year, but this period of work has really eclipsed all former years. It's a pity because the weather in the UK has been absolutely fabulous recently and for the whole bloody time, I've had my face glued to a computer screen and my, ever-widening, arse stuck in this chair. My engagement with summer thus far, has have included a few trips to the bank and a weekly trip to take out the rubbish!

A couple of weeks ago I had to do 38 hours work between the Friday night & following Monday morning. Tiring stuff indeed, felt like I had the hangover without going to the party. But there are good times ahead - in a fit of organisation I pre-ordered some tickets for an upcoming festival in this neck of the woods. In my enthusiasm, I booked tickets for (no clues to my age here):
- Demetri Martin
- Bill Bailey
- Dylan Moran
- an acoustic evening with Howard Jones
- & an evening chat by Tony Robinson

Last Saturday night I'd been to a friends place watching some footy when, on the return route home, I decided to come through the heart of town (which I never normally do). I'm glad I did because as I turned the corner onto a main thoroughfare, at half past midnight or something, I was greeted by the sight of 8,000 women walking towards me in the bra's (or quasi-bra's)!

I actually had my camera with me but all of the pictures are rubbish. It was quite dark and trying to hand hold a camera for 0.5sec shosts in the middle of a 'heaving' crowd (that pun must be worth an award alone), was never going to work - and it didn't...

Finally, to cap this brief update, there is a very good friend who is leaving the country in a few days... for good - so it goes. It is jolly sad that he is going and the gravity of it all has not really sunk in yet. He has been a bloody good mate and on behalf of us all I wish him well with his future endeavours. Good luck & strap it on Biggles, see you on Saturday!

The Otters and the Scientist...

Idly bumming around the Internet, there have been a couple of things that have caught my fancy recently...

Those who know me will have heard me bleat on about Otters at some time or other. I do kinda like the little fellas - even managing to have got bitten by one at a zoo once (who hasn't).

A friend of mine sent me the following link to the Otter section at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (I think he was inspired by my 'hen-cam' post the other day). Otters are highly intelligent animals and, in a broad sense, come in 2 varieties - one large & one small (with the small ones being the smarter ones). They are quite liked by humans because they're playful, intelligent, have an ability to learn, use their thumbs like we do and, astonishingly, seem to have a sense of humor.

One good example that I heard once was of an otter who had, over time, come to appreciate its owner's life pattern. It noticed how the owner always left the house in a rush at 8am, taking some shiny metal objects with them. In due course, it developed a great game where it would hide the shiny objects and, then, take quite obvious pleasure from watching the human being run around in a complete flap, trying to find the missing car keys. Cool - let's see a cat do that!

In another work-avoiding, procrastination-fuelled, hour-of-life-wasted amble around the Internet, I stumbled across the site of this retired scientist. Now, I've done a fair bit of travelling, but, after seeing this guy's list of countries that he's been too over his life, I realised I ain't seen nothing yet - check this out for a well-travelled American.

Not surprisingly, his world views are rather judicious and his personal dislike of Bush is pretty easy to see.

Wunderbar...

Staggering around a Supermarket last weekend, due to a teensy-weensy bit of over-indulgence on the previous day ('nuff said - my lawyers are dealing with all enquiries "you can't believe everything you read in the paper"), I found myself in all sorts of interesting aisles...

With a vacant stare, bad breath and a throbbing head, one is in the right state of mind to womble around a great big store to see what capitalist delights await. Admittedly, when I found myself in the dog food section staring at the truly staggering range of doggie delights, I had to ask myself a few questions - "why am I here?", "what am I looking for?" and "which dog food looks the best?". In all reality though, I could have saved myself a lot of mental effort if I'd just remembered that I don't actually have a dog, and... perhaps... I should just move on.

When I finally got the departure lounge - well it might have been a checkout, but it felt like a departure lounge to me, I was uncompromisingly reminded that World Cup fever is upon us (or those of 'us' who care anyway). Standing tall by the counters were big pallets of beer - not only beer, but beer with German writing on it.Now my phone camera doesn't do the display justice (with its 0.000000000000003 MB lens), but it was handsome pile of beer indeed (even to someone with a hangover). I had to laugh at the German text which proudly stated "Das Tennents Lager is WUNDERBAR".

A hearty sentiment indeed except, if you ask me, it should have said "Das Tennents lager tastes like a subtle blend of detergent water, perservatives and other gut-wrenching chemicals, but, on a slightly more positive note... it is bloody cheap"