My head is swimming with Chris Moyle's irritating jingles.

Is there such thing as a Black Goth. The Beastie Boys were invented for the middle class whiteys - where is Marilyn Manson's Black equivalent?


- posted by Daniel @ Tuesday, September 28, 2004 0 comments

 
Probst Gets Married

Dickie instructed me to be at the hotel lobby at 3pm. Which meant that I had the morning to zip around Zagreb in the day and discover the place. Things that surprised me as a Londoner included:
Old woman falls over and 3 people rush to help her - not steal her pension.
Food was sold in a civilized open market that looked organic and hygienic.
This is knee bender territory. The Pope is infallible.
Vegetarians are as welcome as a pacifist at an NRA meeting.
People smoke a lot.

Walking about, you will see some grand, cool old buildings, notice that it is not hideously crowded and most people speak good English. Other than that, I could be anywhere in Europe. Which translated to lumps of meat and litres of fantastic beer from a micro-brewery for lunch. Head back to hotel and shave away the Osama image and get suited. Two minibuses are loaded up with Dickie's people, and we head over to Sandra's parent's flat. Croatian tradition dictates that the suitor must stand outside and barter for the daughter, and receive abuse from her family. The bartering process usually kicks off with a few Kuna, thus insulting the parents who would ordinarily retort that he can have the dog or the mother-in-law instead. After reaching a suitable price, the groom proves his ability to Keep the bride, and he is let into the apartment.
Probst did things differently. There was no bartering, merely whining and subservient begging, followed by scratching at the door in the manner of a pet locked out on a rainy night. This after a few minutes pleased (sceptics read: distressed) Sandra's family enough to invite us all in for finger food and wine.
Chewing gum was a mistake; after a few minutes, I normally feel sick. Couldn't find a bin in the flat, and didn't have any tissues. Rashly improvising meant taking finger food item and shoving the gum on it. I then realised I was stuck with food and gum, and headed to the kitchen to dispose of it before I got caught. Sandra's mum discovered me trying to throw out her lovingly prepared buffet in the bin. Curses are now set to plague generations of Souza.
Sandra's father almost had me convinced that I was at an Indian wedding, when he declared that he was now ready for death, having witnessed the marriage of both his daughters.





Speed me to the church on time. James Borman, bestman and holder of a Kenyan driving licence, gets into a fast looking unsafe automobile and drops Dickie at the church. An hour of a Roman Man telling me how to live my life put me to sleep.
Then the reception. The Organisers, specified who sits where, plastered up on a board in an impossibly small italic font. Table 12. I take whisky. And another. Bloke sits down to the left of me "Hello, my name is Tom, and I haven't placed a bet since Tuesday". Oh my god. The life of Tom appears to be sitting in a flat in Maida Vale, flicking between betting terminals and watching nags race. Sitting next to Tom is arrogant kid who thinks he is 40. Turn right, talk to Croatian mathematician drunken, and then some other drunken Croatian. I have no idea what we talked about, as the wine was freeflowing. A couple of hours later I seem to remember swearing in the most serious and definite manner that I was going to quit my job to live in Berlin. And then setting fire to my drinks. Other points to remember were various people crossdressing, me offending sister of Probst by telling her that she was insecure about her shoes in the queue for food, the gift being a Sandra and Richard deck of cards, and the security guards watching in disbelief at the inebriated chaos.
At 5am, when we were all finally ejected from the hall, there remained only 2 hours in Zagreb. Then [hotel pack checkout minibus ZAG LHR Tube Home]. Feeling scabby.


- posted by Daniel @ Sunday, September 26, 2004 0 comments

 
Zagreb

Quit work early on the Friday and commuted Sony.M3.M25.M4.LHR.ZRG.Minibus.HotelOperaZagreb.
Conversation with British expat living in Washington DC for the last 18 years. "We went out for a year, and I don't know what happened. We're going to retire in Skip." Croatia had a booming tourist industry in the 70's, akin to Spain. But Spain did not dissolve into a war-zone, and became the retirement Country for Europe. Now the Germans and the British are heading out to Croatia to enjoy Spain-for-less, without the Benidorm crowd. Stories of working in London, Munich, Washington and Kuala Lumpur made me think that my next job as
Croatian customs didn't bother using ink to stamp my passport. Probst was on form, meeting us at the airport wearing socks but no shoes in the rain. The only person I knew at the wedding was the groom, who was a parttime gambler and whose friends were mostly a collection of eccentric professional gamblers. Got to the hotel, checkin, get camera+wallet+coat and head downstairs to hobnob. Bloke whose name I still do not know speaks to me with extreme familiarity, and appears to know me from Bristol. Then another. These people probably knew me from the days when I was *sometimes* around whilst duty free cigarettes were traded hands. Too many people, too long ago, can't remember. Before the third engagement I head out to rainy Zagreb at 1am to take photos of the deserted city. Home, bed. Zagreb is not as picturesque as Prague or Stockholm. I liked it nonetheless, but the graffiti was rubbish. They need lessons from the Berliners.



- posted by Daniel @ Saturday, September 25, 2004 0 comments

 
IRA
The Republican army were the source of my irritation yesterday, as I hovered on a train station platform for 20 minutes with a banana skin in hand. London is filthy enough, and it does not require any further contributions on my part. Damn the IRA, who forced Whitehall to remove all the bins.

- posted by Daniel @ Friday, September 24, 2004 0 comments

 
Maund complains about fat people today. Sure, we can examine the situation through the usual avenues of kettle and pot, but in this case, despite the story source lacking honour, we still have a story.

I WISH TO TELL the clinically obese riveta eating women (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE FATSO) that the crumbs on the top are crunched up riveta that fell on the floor, infused with a wealth of ingredients from unwashed factory worked well trodden shoe sole. Canine excrement to be expected. This story, like all urban legends is the result of a "when i used to work in a factory as a student". Doubtless this has been exaggerated, but the essence of truth remains.

In fact, all factory processed food is going to be mank, and disgusts even someone as far from hygiene as myself. the one exception that does break the rule is chocolate. Since factory workers get to eat unlimited quantities of chocolate, they actually take small steps towards the great act of cleanliness even when the Health Inspector is absent.

The moral is that FATSOs should accept their fate, and eat chocolate.


- posted by Daniel @ Friday, September 24, 2004 0 comments

 
Objects, not women

A colleague at work (SWB) is in the process of convincing me to buy an IPod mini. Being a geek magnet for overpriced useless items of technology, little persuasion is necessary. However, his story on the growing popularity of Apple's music player is worth remembering, as it explains a shift in the attention focus in The Modern Male.
Over the weekend, SWB was cycling away at the gym, and noticed a (what he in hingsight admits to being a good looking) girl with white earbud headphones. Ordinarily, white earbuds are a dead giveaway for an IPod owner - SWB was intrigued. He proceeded to visually follow the cable and maintain a prolonged stare at the poor girl, who must have been appalled at the shameless lech.
He was trying to work out, from the size of her pocket, whether or not it was a 3rd or 4th Generation Ipod. Distinguisable only by a reduction in thickness, the assesment required extended glares toward the trouser pocket of the owner.


- posted by Daniel @ Wednesday, September 22, 2004 0 comments

 
Victor Meldrew step aside - here is my "i can't believe it" story. Cleaned up the desk today, looking for my headphones. Not under the jumper, books, notepad, chair. Hmm, not fallen at the back of the desk either. Right, i'll following the cable from the back of the computer, and see -huh? what? it's been cut! some guy has cut my headphones, and left the cable in the back of the PC. either an office joker gone too far, or a freak who collects headphones without sockets, or a overzealous cleaner with an overpowered hoover.

Avoided a social faux pas today, by shouting at some bloke for not recycling, after witnessing a stack of papers in the bin next to him. Defensively pointing out that it wasn't his bin, it was the boss'. Fortunately for me, the boss was in a meeting and did not witness by self righteous outburst.

- posted by Daniel @ Thursday, September 16, 2004 0 comments

 
Sloans, Rahs, Yahs and Toffs.

the weekend, not unusually began after work on Friday. Expectations of rum, bananas and giant feasts were running high - Palmer was in town. Pulling into Edghill's flat in the evening straight from work, after spending some time coaxing the security guard to let me (scruff) and my car (old) past the enormous iron gates of the compound defending untold luxury apartments within. Smith recanted the last time we met -several years ago, when I wanted to leave London, not for Edinburgh, but for Costa Rica. To open a shrimp farm. The idea seems marginally more insane now than it did then, which conceded him the right to remind or enlighten everyone we met throughout the evening about Souza's Shrimps. Still a non-entity, and the dream now further away than Santa Claus is to the average thirty year old.

Mexican restaurant, a well deserved meal, following several hours of driving in circles following the poor directions of an ex-white-van-man Palmer. You can feel the ire in the car when I refused to use the bus lane. The job never leaves your blood. Fed, watered and now tired, we head back to Wimbledon by means of the longest route possible, which of course was another result of using bus lanes without thinking carefully. Stockwell and Brixton are not pleasant, especially after midnight. The bar at Casa Edgehill remained open until 4am, before the patrons passed out on the sofa. It felt comfortable to be a student again.

The next day was baking day. Scouring all the small fruit and veg stalls for semi rotten bananas, then buying the flour, butter and eggs needed for banana bread. Scoot down to Palace Of Edgehill, only to find out that Palmer has been evacuated, as sister of Edgehill has work and doesn't require distractions. Jump into some a car with random bloke-called-Will and head down to Tennant's flat for dinner in rah-rah-yah-Fulham. This is where things got interesting. At university, Tennant was granted the status a full-blown sloan. That considered, I was apprehensive about turning up at the flat for a dinner party because a) i have never been to a dinner party before. God only knows what goes on at these things, except conversations regarding patio extensions b) I have never seen Tennant in about 4 years c) Most importantly of all, I perceived myself to be in a social class below Tennant.

With this in mind, I was glad we were at least the only ones in the flat, with an hour or so to acclimatize to the surroundings (read: drink copious amounts of rum, become delirious and start declaring that all lawyers are blood sucking shysters who protect their profession through nepotism). Meanwhile, received a text from Pearson, declaring me to be a YAH. Which got me thinking. Again. To cut a long story short, as thoughts were only concluded on Monday afternoon following an email debate with Fong, I have two points.

1. Self - Perception, once again, is all that matters. In this instance, Tennant, Wilson et al neither had a problem with me in the past, nor have a problem with me now. I was the only one who bothered to wear a shirt for this affair (albeit creased and shortsleeved) entirely as a result of the fear stemming from the belief that I would and could not fit the clique. The myth has evaporated. There is no clique. Nobody cared, masqueraded or judged. There was no palpable reason to refrain from socializing with these people, let alone despise them. And, being mere animals - animals of the same species as me - I had stuff in common with them. There was no talk of patio extensions.

2. It appears that today, hating the class above you is socially acceptable. Class hatred, like any hatred, can in its most simplistic form be largely derived from fear or superiority complexes. Eg "I hate cats, they are lazy" "I hate dogs, I am scared of them". In this case, I would argue that most class hatred stems from fear of inacceptance. At Sky, half the CRM team consisted of a bunch of fresh grads who had just jumped out of daddy's wallet and into KPMG's. Equally spoilt in both environments, the permanent staff felt alienated from these people who led a different lifestyle to themselves, and yet worked side-by-side.

Famous Disraeli quote with regard to class divide : "two nations, between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets."

Sunday. Removal day. Palmer left London with haste 18months ago, placing items of sentimental (read rubbish) value in a garage. The mission was to move as much stuff as possible to an enormous house (pool, tennis court, stables) somewhere up North. What I witnessed for much of the afternoon was ire and grief resultant of the vagrant lifestyle. By having no fixed abode, you are left at the mercy of People. People you are related to, People you know, People you met a couple of times and even People who you kinda know indirectly through someone else. And, if you've been on this planet for anything more than a couple of months, you will know that people are a Pain. They change their mind, act selfishly, irrationally. Across the board, they are consistent only on one point - letting you down. Palmer had to shift his stuff out of this garage, which gave me 10minutes to blast the Z3 caged inside around the block. Me feeling happy, him feeling sad, we headed of to Chorelywood. Quite easily the largest property I have ever seen, and the owners were not around. Unload junk into stables. Palmer still depressed, and now feeling coerced into throwing most of his possessions of sentiment the way of the bin.
6 months ago, as I left Edinburgh, I had a similar sentiment. The world I enjoyed so much was disappearing, and it felt bad to know I had to move on. Basingstoke wasn't quite the improvement I was hoping for, to say the least. Stuff happens, and the faster you get to nonchalant the faster your life feels good again. (read: grow up).

Still, the lessons from the story are clear - the vagrant lifestyle must end. But with the price of property in London 20x the average annual income, it may not end in my twenties. There are so many more couches to pass out on...


- posted by Daniel @ Thursday, September 16, 2004 0 comments