The Decline of British Sea Power

These are just a few of the many historic events that have occurred since England last beat Australia at Lords 75 years ago. I have course not been waiting for that long but it hasn't stopped me enjoying it nonetheless. Everyone, including myself, did give themselves a little freak out. Looking back it was ridiculous to panic, thinking that we were going to lose, when we still had a lead of over 200; but such is the paranoia of an ashes series.

Since the next game isn't for a few days I have been forced out, blinking and shielding my eyes, into the daylight. We spent a lovely day on Tuesday destroying some of John's dearest child hood memories. Catherine has a new car and wanted to play with it so John suggested a trip to the seaside town of Broadstairs. John remembers playing with great glee and childish abandon on the glistening white sands of the Kentish Riveria but within ten minutes everyone came to the conclusion that it was shit. I think the problem was that it was too nice, it was small and lacked the usual tat and urban decay of the English seaside. This was soon rectified by the short drive to Margate, the very definition of decay. It's one of those towns that would just benefit from being knocked down and just starting again. The place seriously needs some love. It's sad to see everything boarded up, even the big arcades have closed, and right in the middle is Dreamland. Dreamland was a theme park that was closed for being unsafe which came as a surprise to no one. The fear was generated not from the rides but from wondering if this was the ride when those rusty supports would finally give up.

Other than that I have been trying to sort out getting to Pamplona. So far the plan is to fly to Bilbao and get the bus as flying to Pamplona direct is far too expensive. I've been told its easy but the Spanish bus website seems to be on a permanent siesta, much like myself. Once I have negotiated that I will feel a lot better. I have filled out a questionnaire about what sort of my housemate I am. Lie is a strong word, I prefer vague and selective. Fortunately there was no box "lazy twat".

Who is not a lazy twat is Gok Wan, or as we affectionately knew him at uni, Cock Wank. Real mature. I saw him in Bluewater where he was working it in an inflatable studio. It wouldn't happen on the BBC. He is absurdly thin, like a babies arm. Simmer on that.

love love love x

Jerusalem

As a man who always invests large amounts of emotion in the sporting exploits of other people over which he has no control, the Ashes has always been a particularly dangerous affair. One Ashes win that led to frankly inappropriate amounts of happiness punctuating twenty years of disappointment not seen since the Godfather III, which is to say pretty fucking disappointing. Over the past week and a bit I have drawn into my Ashes shell with few interruptions. I've pushed the 5-0 drubbing we took last time around out of my mind and convinced myself that there is not one single scenario in which we cannot win this time around. That belief was shaken pretty badly during the first test to be restored be the unlikely figure of Monty Panesar with his bat in hand.

After celebrating a draw like a win, only in England, the second test has been a lot more enjoyable. Theres been a healthy dose of schadenfreude in the Peirson house today. Watching Ricky Ponting's face today has been an absolute joy. Dad has spent the day claiming, West Indian, Michael Holding is putting on his accent and was furious at the end claiming that England have never been offered the light, ermmmm. Sure there is plenty of time for England to fuck it up but like fleeting lovers, we'll always have today.

It literally baffles me why anyone wouldn't like test cricket. It is after all what separates us from the animals. Anyone who disagrees runs the risk of being on the end of a rant from me about why they are wrong and how they represent everything that is wrong with modern Britain. Any game with lunch and tea inbuilt is a damn fine game. Yes it takes five days, thats how long it takes for the theater to unfold.

Now lets enjoy the limited success before we are chewed up and spat out to wait for another twenty years to win an Ashes series. The wait will make it all worth it. Ask a Charlton fan, we've been waiting for years for ... something, anything! It'll be good though.

love love love x

Raging Bull

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8143744.stm

Just when you thought it was safe to take to the streets. My dad's remains confident and enthusiastic. I need to be careful, I've already somehow stumbled into agreeing to throw myself out of a plane. "Extreme" sports indeed. I need to stop putting myself into what the guys who classify films would describe as, mild peril. The article does include the quite wonderful phrase 'rogue bull'. Rogue is one of those words that needs to be brought back in wider use. Other such words include scoundrel, rapscallion, harlot, jezzabell, and of course peril. People in them days knew how to insult a person.

Much love x

Glitter and Trauma

Hello! Since we last fluttered our eye lashes at each other via the medium of blogging, I have celebrated the 22nd anniversary of my birth. Oh yes, the big double 2. Though I have warmed to birthdays I am still not a huge celebrator for a mixture of reasons mainly, hating having my photograph taken, a complete inability to organise anything and years of people saying "oh July the 3rd, did you know that is the day before American independence day?" Why yes I did, thanks for asking. More interesting historic events that actually happened on the third include one of my top 5 battles (any history student should have such a list and many others) the Battle of Koniggratz, Minsk was liberated from the Nazis, Idaho became the 43rd state (and what a state) and the 3rd July 1994 was the deadliest day in Texas traffic history. It is also the birthday of Franz Kafka, Tom Cruise, Sebastian Vettel and Sian Lloyd. Illustrious company indeed.

Speaking of illustrious company a rag tag group of us headed to London for the big 22. We went for a night out which was a lot of fun. I met a Canadian man from whom I demanded to know which hockey team he supports only to be disgusted when he said the Ottawa Senators rather than the Montreal Canadiens. I know nothing of hockey but Emily told me to support Montreal and I now do, to the hilt, even against people who are one hundred percent more knowledgeable on the subject. The only thing worse than my singstar performance was my table football one. Thanks to everyone.

On Sunday, Sarah 'Wings' Gilbert kept her feet on the ground long enough to be kind enough to drive Hannah and myself down to Brighton. After an epic trawl for a parking space it was a proper day by the seaside. Walking on the pier, paddling, 99s and watching some rogue threaten to beat the hell out of someone on the beach. It had it all. Annoyingly, some little girls have been watching too much Sweet Valley High leading to Brighton resorting to hold "Future Cheer", a national cheerleading competition. They were everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. Ranging from 7 year olds, who shouldn't be dressed like that, to 18/19 year olds who really should know better. I know what I am, a former student of a Gravesend comprehensive. All the glitter in the world can't cover that shame.

After such a nice weekend it was a come down to have a day on Monday so crushingly dull I ended up wandering around New Ash Green at 10 at night. I don't know what I was hoping for, maybe to witness something that would require me to spend a night giving police statements. Now I know what reading this blog must feel like

My level of Spanish continues to fluctuate wildly. Some days I think I am getting to grips with it, others I descend into a pit of verb ending related despair. On the brighter side I have learnt a fairly impressive way of being bashfully dismissive of my Spanish. If I was trapped in a corner in Romania I would weep and mutter that I couldn't speak Romanian. In Spain, however, I can say "nu muy bien, pero hablo espanyol un poco". Which is "not very well, but I speak Spanish a little", which is more impressive, which is lucky as it will get frequent use. I imagine the person I'm talking too and I throwing back our heads laughing at my bashful modesty, before they get pissed off when they realise just how little Spanish I meant. My prediction of Mr Smith and Ms Gomes getting 'funky', which I believe is the parlance the kids are using, has become a little closer to reality. Mr Smith strutted into a shop in Venezuela in which Ms Gomes was working (she does get around), boasted about how much he wanted to buy and then asked her to dinner when she tried to get rid of him.

love love love x


ps In case you were wondering:

1. The Republican Defence of Madrid
2. The Defence of Sarajevo
3. The Battle of Britain
4. The Battle of Stalingrad
5. The Battle of Koniggratz

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