Men Together Today

Dr. B. Michael Jackson, MD

In case you have been on the moon, the King of Pop is dead! No not H from Steps, but Michael Jackson! Insert grief here. Facebook statuses are fluttering, twitter couldn't handle the strain and tabloids who loved to ridicule him are now dedicating half their paper to him. Even though I'm not a Michael Jackson fan I couldn't help shocked and felt the need to tell someone. I couldn't allow this serious media outlet to pass without commenting, after all as I type Tim 'Nicey McNice' Henman and Sue 'Apple of Ally McCoist's Eye' Barker have stopped talking about how have many centuries have passed without a Brit winning Wimbledon to talk about him; I didn't think Armageddon could stop that.

Tennis is actually taking up a lot of my life. Unemployment is becoming a real drag, finding part time work is also a pain, being messed around by a golf club is probably a new low for me. Thus there is plenty of time for tennis. I have warmed to the game after years of apathy to a game that I thought was essentially grunting, strawberries and whimpering feebly 'come on Tim' as you witnessed the expectations of a nation crush a man. I have picked players to support which always helps. Djokovic the crazy Serb as he appeared in my dissertation and Murray mainly to annoy my Dad, who hates him. My Dad hates a lot of sports people (the entire premier league and most of the championship, the Williams sisters, Ricky Ponting, Paula Radcliffe, to name a few) but Andy Murray does invoke more than most. It stems from a comment Murray made about not supporting the England football team. Its fair enough as he is Scottish and Scotland have their own team, but Dad treats him as if he burnt the St Georges Cross while dancing on the Queen Mothers grave and singing Nazi war anthems. It fills the days until real sport starts again the form of the eternal struggle that is the Ashes. Wimbledon and the Ashes, I don't think I can handle the disappointment.

Other than that things continue as normal. There was a reet good trip down t'yorkshire. As you can see, impersonating isn't one of my strongest suits and strangely I was more aware of sounding different in Leeds than I was in Romania. It was in all in the name of Patrick's birthday. I think he had fun, he spent most of it in charge of a bbq. Within a few hours I had managed to kick his football in a beautiful curving ark over a fence. It was like Kevin Lisbie, I panicked when the ball actually came to me.

Other than that people have appeared briefly. John is back home as a warning to what my hair will look like in the not too distant future. Matt returned from Wales which was great other than Transformers 2, Brave Heart the space robot can piss off back where he came from. Cat was back to feed her itbox addiction. I helped put up a marque for a fete which should have been fun. The whole process is insert, screw, slot, jiggle, there was plenty of chances to giggle like a primary school child but the presence of a priest put pay to that.

My Spanish is improving but thats not much of a claim. The CD continues to be strange, the guy now brags about drinking 8 beers in five minutes and when the woman reacts in horror his only justification is that he likes beer. The woman's vice however is cold sandwiches, she can't get enough of them. It does make me respect how well Senor Bloomfield, a fellow CELTA-rite has managed to pick up the lingo.

Sorry about the quality of these recent posts, but stick with it Spain isn't far and hopefully then can write something about a more interesting place than New Ash Green. love love love x

Ulster Uber Alles

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8104287.stm

Terrorizing a pregnant woman, truly the behavior of the master race. It goes without saying my welcome in Romania was a lot kinder x

Spanish Handshake

As promised I'm about to hit you with Spanish right between the eyes. I was given a one of those CD series things by a family friend. He has quite a collection of language CDs, including Arabic, Russian, Mandarin, virtually all European languages and even Hindi. He doesn't actually speak any of these languages so either these CDs are a waste of time or he has more money than sense. So far I have found the CD's to be useful but it is intended for Americans. This is not a huge problem but it does assume that you will be speaking Spanish to Latin Americans rather than European Spaniard types. For example, it turns out that in South America they call Spanish, Castilian, rather than the European, espanyol. Castilian comes from Castile which is effectively Madrid, so it may not be a wise word to use in the Basque country. I only noticed that as espanyol was one of the few words I knew before starting but other than that I wouldn't know so I hope I haven't been wasting my time learning things that I will need to relearn. As its American I have also learnt how to say I'm from virtually every major American city, it sounds less impressive when you substitute the city with New Ash Green. They also speak Basque in Pamplona so if I get there and Spanish is the second language, so help me.

The CD is short twenty five minute lessons based around a conversation which changes a little each time to include new words. Theres a Mr Smith from America and Mrs Gomes who is from all over South America. Her marital status is also subject to change, and the two do change often in the same conversation. So far their conversations revolve around where things are (the Bolivia Hotel and Colombus Restaurant to be exact) , greeting each an excessive amount and complimenting Mr Smith's Spanish. Unlike Romanian there are people who could correct my Spanish (don't even think of correcting any English mistakes), so hopefully the mistakes I make will only be small. The spelling will be terrible as instead of the book I got the workbook from the guy I borrowed the CDs from. What is right and what he got wrong are indistinguishable. It may not be perfect but if you saw how many attempts it took for me to spell indistinguishable just now you would know my English spelling should be a greater priority.

So they start
Buenos Dias - Good day/morning
Buenas Tardes - Good afternoon
Buenas Noches - Good evening

Smarty pants among you may have noticed the different spellings, buenOs and buenAs. Buenos is male, things which are male use el, for example, el otel. Buenas is female which uses la. Here is the sort of conversation that follows. Pronunciation in the square brackets.

Mr Smith: como stou sted? (how are you?)
Mrs Gomes: muy bien, gracias. e usted? (very good thanks. and you?)
Mr Smith: soy el senor Smith (I'm Mr. Smith) she didn't ask but why let that stop you
Mrs Gomes: encantada (glad to meet you, for a woman, for men it would be encantado)
Mr Smith: tiene [t-n-a] pesos? (do you have pesos?) the truth of the conversation comes out
Mrs Gomes: tengo un peso (I have one peso) times are hard for Mrs Gomes
Mr Smith: Sabe [sah-vey] donde stou el hotel Bolivar? (do you know where the Bolivia hotel is?)
Mrs Gomes: Se [say] donde esta (I know where it is)
Mr Smith: Aidos Senora (goodbye to a married woman, for an unmarried woman use senorita)

That is the sort of conversation they have. Both have cause to be confused and a little annoyed. Mr Smith comes a little close to politely mugging Mrs Gomes and Mrs Gomes, the wise arse, could have been a little more helpful when he asked where the hotel is.

The conversations are mostly pretty inane but through the ramblings of two possibly drunk people I have learnt some useful stuff. General small talk, giving and receiving directions, word order and the early stages of masculine and feminine words; so maybe I should be nicer about both of them.

I remember reading a French phrase book and being surprised to find a whole chapter on French for the bedroom. I'm not sure why I was that surprised as it was a French phrasebook. It included phrases such as "do you have condoms?" and "slower, you are hurting me" Unless you learn it by heart in advance, which is presumptuous and a little slaggy, I thought that sex is not the best time to whip out your phrase book, surely there is an easier way of getting your point across. I'm just hoping that none of the lessons go down that path. The last thing anyone needs is to hear Mr Smith and Mrs Gomes giving in to each other having some six out of ten sex while having two completely separate conversations.

However, they have not been my only teachers, oh no. Kaylie taught me -quiero un bocadillo queso por favor? Which is "can I have a cheese sandwich please?" Bound to need that one. Sam also chipped in with, "soy profesor de Inglés" - I'm an English teacher. "Una caña, por favor" - A cold beer please. And - "no gracias, creo que tu es un hombre" - No thanks, I think you are a man. Rather know that and not need it than need it and don't know it.

word to your mothers x

Touching Down in N-Town

The blog lives!

I've been wracking up the miles in the last two weeks in order to celebrate three, thats THREE, birthdays. Sophie, Alice and Mel all held the 22nd annual celebrations of their birth. A happy birthday to Hannah as well! So the weekend before last I forced my through all manner of engineering works to Norwich for Sophies birthday. Ended up slightly worse for wear and that was followed by having to flee a room (a living room) as staying a little longer may have resulted in me in being labelled a voyeur. The next day I was taken out for dinner by Sophies lovely family. My trivia was tested and found sadly lacking.

The next weekend I re-forced my way back through the engineering works to be back in Norwich again for Alice and Mels joint birthday. There was bbq, of which I contributed a manly nothing. I was warned that the Spanish are not forgiving with foreigners Spanish (please not be true) and was told in detail about the problems a guy was having with his jacket. It just doesn't look like it did in H&M, I think we all understand that pain. It was followed by a day in Yarmouth, oh the glorious British seaside. There was fish and chips, arcades and mini golf. There were some good shots (well one) and a lot more terrible, terrible ones. Any frustration that would have risen to the surface was calmed by the course's pirate theme.

The train journeys didn't stop there. It took three journeys to get to Liverpool Street to see Alex. There was virtual gardening, turkish food and pear cider. I also held my own at xbox karaoke, with the exception of Beyonce's hit "Irreplaceable" in which I was given a sound beating. Alex spent a lot of time emailing his mate, George Alligiah. The way home was made more complicated by a guy on the track trying to rip up the wood with another piece of wood, the mob has won.

I have also taken my first tentative steps to learn Spanish. I have acquired a CD which I'm hoping will reveal the secrets of the lingo. What I've got so far will follow so prepare yourselves for some more confusion and jumbled attempts to learn to introduce myself in a language that isn't English.

love love love x