6/27/2003

Working Nine To (Nine o') Five :  I left work and took photos of drunk people.
posted by Garreth at 3:25 AM

6/26/2003

Special Agent Austin :  When vacating their flat to be rented out by an agency, the would-be landlord has a few choices to make:
1. How to best clean the flat
2. Where to store valuables and items that you don't want the Antipodean tenants to destroy

My advice in these matters, after some serious considerations in the lager filled days before my departure from my own flat, is as follows:

Professional cleaning companies, while good, will not turn up after your leaving party at short notice and remove all of the vomit and twiglets from everywhere without a hefty financial incentive. Estimates between 100 - 200 GBP were mentioned for my residence. I saved a fortune by shovelling a load of cheap and nasty amphetamines up the hooters of a friend and myself. There ensued much running around with vacuum cleaners and bits of cloth covered in cleaning fluid attached to our extremities. The wobbly picture that we got from our spangled eyes as we staggered from the front door at the end of a five hour cleaning frenzy was quite passable. The flat looked clean.

Instead of paying a monthly king's ransome for a storage company to keep your possessions and valuables, try these two ideas: first, invite as many people as possible to your flat in your last weekend. Urge them to take things away, and prepare goodie boxes / bags of 'gifts' for each attendee for difficult to shift belongings. I found that African face masks, and firearms were easy to shift, but coffee tables and broken televisions slightly harder. People will think you're generous, and you never know when you'll need to sleep on their sofas. Second, go to the shops and buy three times as many binliners as you think you could possibly fill. Return home and stuff all of those things that you don't really want into the liners and leave them outside your door. I got rid of about 50 sacks full of cack in the month leading up to my departure. Heaven knows what it all was and where it came from.

Don't make the mistake that I made with some of the larger items, such as lamps, tables, chairs and duvets. I gave them to charity shops, and had some of them disposed of. In retrospect, I could have made a nice living space in the street for our friendly neighbourhood wino. He could have had a really nice hamster's nest of duvets and he could have sat at a table watching a broken television. That way everyone would feel that he fitted into society better, and wouldn't find him threatening.

My last tip is to get a good letting agent, or if not possible, as in my case, get one with a good name. Insist on calling them titles like 'Special Agent', even if they are having no joy shifting your flat. It keeps them motivated. Special Agent Austin has persevered and managed to find an assortment of Australians and Kiwis to squat in my flat, starting on Saturday. Being as he now thinks he's a 'special' agent, he will hopefully feel empowered to get them evicted when they start burning the carpet for heat in winter, and refusing to pay any rent.
posted by Garreth at 12:43 PM

The ride is not sublime :  It seemed perfect - a free 48 hour test drive of a car. I happened upon the offer two weeks ago. Ideal, I thought, for getting me from London to and from Glastonbury festival, picking up a few random hitch-hikers on the way.
But the picky gits at Vauxhall are still catching up with their paperwork, and can't get me a 2 litre turbo car to test drive by Saturday. Oh, the inconvenience. Apparently it might take three weeks to organise. If you see a man in a carpark in Scotland at the end of July, trying to get out his frustration on a Vauxhall Vectra, that'll be me. If there's plumes of white smoke gushing from the tyres, and the whine of a new car's engine bouncing off the rev-limiter, then I'll probably be close by. Arse.
posted by Garreth at 8:21 AM

Midsummer's Tenga lo :  "Mas buenas chicas," said Auntie M, our sprightly septuagenarian hostess in Spain, "playa...fuego grande..."
My conversational Spanish is limited to picking out the odd word from conversation, and maybe adding an, "Oiyoiyoi! Que calor?"
I gathered from the words 'fire', 'beach','nice young girls', and a few translations from Ramon, that the Spaniards in Punta were going to celebrate on the beach all night. Even if midsummer's night is short, they would party hard, and as if there were to be no tomorrow. The night before this in Punta, a relatively small fishing port and beach destination, there had been running battles between stilt walkers and firework jugglers throughout the streets to advertise clubs like 'Mad Cow' and 'Cocobongo'. A big night out promised to be fun.

A few beers and vodkas into the night, we looked out onto the beach and saw no fires, no dancing pagans celebrating any equinox. It was around midnight, so we figured there was no fun to be had through other people's flames. Being practical people, and having some primitive desire to burn things, we set off into the night with a box of matches and a newspaper I had conveniently stuffed down my trousers earlier.

After some speed trudging, we rounded some dunes and could see lights and hear sounds of music above the crash of the waves. In the way that only happens when you set off with no plan, we had happened upon a beach party. Or so we thought until we arrived at the beach bar. A young muscular man in very tight and very short shorts was tending to proceedings, and most of the clientele were wealthy looking men. These men proceeded to eye up the newcomers from the dunes, and then eye us down. The only decent thing to do was to have a beer, and then run off into the night. A perfectly executed plan, although Ramon's running was slightly hampered by the wicker chair he had picked up for firewood, and the mad cackling which accompanied his departure.

Eventually we came to more dunes, and decided a pleasant campfire on our own would be a sensible idea. Twigs were collected, flame was applied and heat was released from wood. In comparison to the 35 degree days, the night was cool, so using unparalleled good thinking, I decided to stay up until 5:30am tending and feeding the fire. Folklore says that dreams from midsummer's night will come true. Personally, I forgot to sleep or to have any dreams. So far nothing has come true, but I don't think this proves anything in particular.

We decided to walk home at about 6am. After a half hour of slightly sober, and not-quite-as-much-fun-as-the-outward-journey trudging, we came to what Auntie M had possibly meant. Mas buenas chicas were still wandering in and out of a vast nightclub on a different part of the beach as the sun came up. They didn't look like they were hunched alcoholics wedged shivering between dunes, occasionally foraging for dead wood.
posted by Garreth at 7:48 AM

6/21/2003

Mental note :  If I ever work for a marketing company, I will check out what our campaigns might mean in foreign languages. I spotted this in a Tampax advert while watching game shows to learn Spanish. (Helps if you read the URL in a Mike Gerrard Loughborough voice. In which I read most things, after the Special Brew defeat at his gullet last Saturday.)
posted by Garreth at 2:00 PM

Shameless Plug :  I´m doing well by my own admission: I have thus far taken up two kind offers of free accomodation since resigning from my London job. A lovely house in Venice and a great flat in Andalucia. Please feel free to keep the offers coming. Pads with their own pools, yachts, garages full of expenisve cars preffered, though no serious offer refused.

Testimonials:
"He even helped with the washing up."
"Eggy-peggy on toast - top idea."
posted by Garreth at 1:41 PM

Midsummer Worm Torture :  Fishing in Punta Umbria is a struggle. There is the battle between the pescador´s skin and the fierce sun. There are hoots and hollers from adjacent pescadors as you cast over their lines by mistake. The fish probably put up a fair fight too - I wouldn´t know - I´ve never hooked one. Lastly, there is the scuffle between the pescador and the worm as you try to skewer the little bleeder before it bites you. Yes, Spanish worms do have teeth, as the shreiks and snarls from my fellow pescador, Senor Ramon, have bourne witness.

Yesterday evening, Senor Ramon and I were reminiscing on a hard day´s ´fishing´ as we gently sipped a few Cruzcampo shandies on the second floor balcony of our borrowed flat. We exchanged theories about hook size, fish hunger, and the possibility that there are teams of scuba divers collecting worms from our hooks with pliers. (Someone has to save the fish after all). I pondered that rod fishing is a strange ´sport´to learn. You have to rely on senses and a vague idea about what a fish eating a worm feels like through the line, and what it looks like as the nibble bends the tip of your rod. There is a huge amount of interpretation between what you see, hear, and feel and what is actually going on in the water. What would be ideal would be underwater cameras by your bait for the novice fisherman. That way you could tally the feelings with the hooking. And not spend so much time fishing where there are no fish.

A few more cervezas passed after these musings last night. We went out for some food - our best guesses at the Spanish menu delivered us teeny tiny weeny fried fishes. Fish that I personally would not have dared put on a plate if I had caught them. They were rank. But I kept a few and took them back to the balcony, overlooking a courtyard. Where there must surely be cats patrolling the bins of fish restaurants. And it was there that the new sport was invented - cating.

We loaded the fried fish onto the line. We spread a few other bits of fish on the courtyard - groundbaiting to attract cats. Several bottles of cava and cerveza later, we took it in turns to cast for cats. The misguided theory being that we would learn about the habits of a food forager when it sees bait. Actually, the last part isn´t remotely true. We just wanted to catch cats and try to reel them in across the courtyard. (No hooks were used, animal lovers). Other people´s balconies turned out to be the biggest headache for the over-exuberant cast. That and people on mopeds.

We haven´t caught any thus far. It´s midsummer´s night (when Andalucian Spring controversially becomes Summer) now, so I´m sure we can throw more Cruzcampo into the mix, and resume our new found sport later. Lock up your cats, punters.
posted by Garreth at 12:59 PM

6/20/2003

Snippets from the morning after :  I woke for no apparent reason, and sat upright as I tried to figure out who I was, where I was, who had shat in my mouth. I was in a bed, my bed. I was me. It was Sunday, a day before I had to vacate my flat in a pristene condition for the incoming tenants. It was Sunday, the day after my leaving London party. The door opened, Raz drank in my nudity,
"Mornin."
"Mornin."
"Don´t people normally knock before they enter people´s bedrooms?" I asked.
"People who have full control over their mental faculties and can think straight might do," said Raz.
"Ah. Fair enough."
"They´re baying for blood downstairs."
"Okay. Are you as shocked as I am about you seeing my winkie?" I asked.
"Hmm. Not really. It just makes me feel very adequate."

I hastily dressed, and went downstairs to be met by a sea of twiglets and bodies in what used to be my lounge. I had a flashback of a kebab explosion and vodka jelly being thrown out of the window. And a jelly shaped like a brain. After a few "Mornin."s, Mike chirped up,

"Sorry about your toilet..."
"Er. Why?"
"Well I was drinking that Director´s Special stuff, but I couldn´t keep it down," said Mike, without a trace of sheepishness.
"Man, didn´t you smell it first? It´s like petrol - that´s why no-ones touched it since a mad Scot left it here as a gift from Goa about 18 months ago."
"Yeah well Nick kept his down. I just kind of sprayed it all over your bathroom."
"Cheers. What was in that pint that Ramon got me last night that smelt of Gin?"
"Cider. Gin. I think it was amaretto. Some whisky. Some other stuff. It was Mike G´s idea," said Ramon.
"Goddammit, I hate whisky. And it was Mike´s idea to shotgun that can of Special Brew, wasn´t it? I managed to avoid him by playing rounders for a good while. But he cornered me. Yuk."
"The boy done good. But he had to go home shortly afterwards."
"True, he missed out on the shopping trolley incident. That guy in the car was really insistent, wasn´t he. It wasn´t like we hit the car or anything. I mean there was a screech of tyres, but..."
"No, actually, the car did hit Ramon," said Jimmy.
"Shit, are you alright Ramon?"
"Yeah, didn´t hurt much."
"And I think Ramon putting his body between me in the shopping trolley and the car probably saved my life. If people will leave shopping trollies in the road, what do they expect?" said Jimmy.
"I think the wheels were wonky. That´s probably why it veered into the road so much. Jimmy?"
"Yeah?"
"What were you singing last night in the trolley?" I asked.
"We are accidents waiting to happen," he replied.

At this point I noticed Nick asleep. A state of existence I had never entertained that Nick could be in, with the amount of filth he shovels up his nose on a daily basis.
"Bloody Hell! Nick´s asleep! How did that happen?" I said in shock.
"Maybe it was the Director´s Special," mused Mike.
"How many of you slept in here?"
"Er. Six," said Raz, "and it was very strange waking up with a spotlight on my face. Thinking ´what am I doing sleeping next to Ramon?´"
"A question many have pondered."

A round of tea was produced, and the groaning started to quell, when Raz remembered his taxi mission to return a broken Carol home.

"Blimey! Remember that taxi driver that I bought to the pub?" said Raz, "He was called Kunta Kinte. I had a conversation with him for 45 minutes about him being called Kunta Kinte. I couldn´t believe it."
"Who´s Kunta Kinte?"
"Here we go again."
"That guy out of Roots. Grandfather of Chicken George."
"Odd to be called Kunta Kinte."
"That´s why I bought him into the pub. Don´t you remember? I made Jimmy buy him a drink."

Saturday was a great day for me. My brother and sister and I were in the same place at the same time, which is extremely rare. It meant that I could shout "Nice one bruvva!" all the time after watching Human Traffic. We played rounders in a park that was far too small and far too full of people sitting around peacefully. We got to play baseball with a big bag of tomatoes. I got given a book by Mick Foley. Before it has been released. I hugged lots of people. I orchestrated some arm-wrestling. I made teetotal people go to the pub and hayfever sufferers sit in the park. A splendid way to leave London I would say.
posted by Garreth at 4:05 AM

Retox :  Flying from Gatwick after a particularly toxic weekend in London, I happened upon a detox diet article in the inflight magazine. Between snoozes with my head pressed against the window, drooling all over my chin, I absorbed a bit of information about the seven day regime. It was designed to overcome many of the problems of overindulgence typical in a modern western lifestyle - toxins, hectic, clogging, and retention were words employed to paint a picture of ill-health. In my semi-conscious state, I dreamt of the toxins going crazy in my lymphatic system, riding my body like it was some kind of theme park for undesirable chemicals. There were the shouting chemicals that they add to Stella pushing rowdily to the front of the queue to the thoracic duct. Nicotine was lurking in the fat cells in my spleen. I was toxic and I needed cleansing.

My lust for life and overindulgence meant that I pooh-poohed the idea of taking seven days to detox - as a Londoner, I could do it in a single day. I couldn´t really remember the details of the article, so I decided not to drink booze all day, and to only ingest water and carrots. Unfortunately, I didn´t notice anything about taking it easy on the detox day, so ended up marching about in the blazing sun, fishing, being second-in-command in sandcastle building activities and generally running around like an idiot. Fuelled by a grand total of one and a half carrots, and a gallon of water.

I spent most of the day feeling very peculiar. When not active, I lapsed into delirium and a semi-conscious state. It may have been psychosomatic, but I swear I was feeling drunk, high, and generally off my face. The phrase ´light-headed´ could have been invented specifically for the feeling I experienced, as I saw patterns in front of my eyes. I woke up trying to climb into the wardrobe in my room. I hallucinated. I had a brain-splitting headache. I fantasized about food. Violent moodswings and confusion featured heavily. I drifted around the supermarket with no feeling in my legs, staring wide-eyed at the foodstuffs. In short, I was getting more value for money from the chemicals that were already in my body.

I heartily recommend a day of carrot and water to anyone feeling toxic. If for nothing else, then for the taste of the chilled cervezas on the beach the morning after. Turning your bowels into a carrot juice producing factory is just an unfortunate side effect.
posted by Garreth at 3:33 AM

6/18/2003

Fishing update :  Current scores on day two of the 35 degree fishing endurance trial currently taking place in Punto Umbria, Southern Spain:

Ramon: 1 (poco)
Ron: 0
Little shellfish we find on the beach to use as bait: -93
Sunstroke: 4 (for example, I just forgot the name of the town we are in)
Flying fish laughing at our fishing attempts: 2
posted by Garreth at 1:07 PM

6/13/2003

Vodka Luge :  Making an ice luge for dispensing drinks was a popular pastime on a tropical island I lived on. Especially popular since there was no refridgeration on the lump of sand we called home, and every week, we would take a boat to get a block of ice from a nearby island which had such facilities. We weren't very sophisticated in our tequila luges - a block of ice on an angle with a carved channel for the flow of tequila into our waiting cakeholes was as far as we got. This was not an expensive form of intoxication, but the thrill was in the chill.

On seeing a section on Ice Delivery in the Yellow Pages for the North and West London area, I felt thrilled to find an advert for a vodka luge. I excitedly phoned up for a quotation for a luge. Surely a block of ice couldn't cost more than 20 quid. I put a reserve price of 30 quid on it including delivery. The nice antipodean who answered my call informed me that the prices started at 180 GBP, going up to around 330. Everyone will be drinking Stella at my leaving bash. Possibly warm Stella.
posted by Garreth at 7:20 AM

6/11/2003

Space and Choice :  Top tip for the full english breakfast lover on Uxbridge Road: unless you are a member of the BNP, have a soft spot for QPR posters, or are staggering out of the Queen Victoria pub opposite, don't eat at the Adelaide Cafe on Adelaide Grove. Firstly, there are no chips on the premises. Secondly the food isn't quite up to scratch - the fried eggs paddle in grease rather than swim, the large sausage is spiced more than usual to disguise the origins of the feculent beast rind, and the bacon is undercooked. Thirdly, the ogre-like monster on the next table sporting a silver ring depicting seven skulls looks at you kind of funny as you try to prize your cutlery from the curiously sticky table. Go to Mar Mar Cafe.
posted by Garreth at 7:06 AM

People n tings :  When asked what he wasn't keen on, a chum of mine replied, "People 'n' tings."
Personally, I quite like people nowadays, but 'tings' are another matter. For example. I am leaving my flat in London. In it are lots of tings. I don't need many tings - as much as I can carry is all that I can take. So I have to dispose of tings - the accumulations of seven years living in London. In Mick Foley's (first) autobiography, he talks of his father collecting newspapers for 20 years, declaring that he'd read them all later. On finally being delivered an ultimatum to dispose of this garage full of yester-year's news, Foley Sr. tries to read something from each as he throws them away - fighting to the last as his son puts it.

I'm very much the same - trying to extract value from the things I jettison - sticking stickers that have not yet been stuck. Sticking them to things that I'm about to put in the bin. Chewing whole packets of four year old gum briefly before spitting them out. Listening to audio books for the last time as I hoof ten year old t-shirts into the trash. If I am what I consume, then this week I have mainly been bits of wire, old aftershave, and compact discs from the late eighties. Normally, I am what I recycle - an inspection of the orange Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council recycling bags outside my flat shows I am wine, beer and high spirits.

Getting rid of possessions does set you free. My CD collection set me free a little this morning. Fifteen years of quality music bought for around 1800 GBP collected into a bulging rucksack and peddled on my bicycle to Notting Hill, where I peddled the discs to a second hand music emporium for the princely sum of 55 GBP. So now I am free of the voluminous baggage of that outdated music format, free to spend the paltry sum on fry-ups and champagne.
posted by Garreth at 6:59 AM

6/10/2003

Scottish Hardcore :  Does anyone know any good walking / camping routes in the Highlands? Let me know if you do...
posted by Garreth at 11:35 AM

Grind :  Through taking my time walking in the local environs of the beautific Shepherds Bush, i have spotted two more greasy spoons to review. Life since I left work is such a bind - now I have to have two more hangovers in my remaining six days here. I need hangovers of sufficient magnitude that I can stomach the biggest breakfast each cafe has to offer. I need a furry tongue to gauge the slipperyness of the fried egg. I need an uncertain stomach to judge the settling effect of the chips. The thing is, there's no sense of mischief in having hangovers on your own time. They were somehow far more satisfying when they were on someone else's time...
posted by Garreth at 11:34 AM

6/09/2003

Un-baptized :  White wine spritzer? I'm not sure what happened to me in Venice, but a party on Saturday saw me drink only a few white wine spritzers. A drink as alien to me as a pint of onion and tripe. My faithful companion had left me, my thirst had gone - my lust for booze had evaporated - maybe the nuns in Venice had put some kind of spell on me the previous week. Come to think of it, I ended up carrying beer back from Venice as I couldn't stomach it in the convent I had slept in. Maybe I was ill.

The Saturday party conversation turned to the human body and its lack of regenerative capacity after the age of 35. At this pronunciation, all eyes turned inwardly, as people figured out how much more abuse they could subject themselves to. How many days they had left to enjoy. Luckily I had a liquid Sunday planned with a robust and unsinkable drinking partner who was sure to get me back off the straight and narrow in Camden.

But it was not meant to be. Another sign - she lost her phone - we could not meet, and Sunday too was dry. Maybe my liver had ganged up with god, and had made some anti-faustian pact with its maker to keep me from alcohol. Remorseful at a lost Sunday's drinking, one of only two hundred before my body was due to really start to rot, I tried to make some vodka jelly. Always comes in useful - one thing you should always carry in your freezer - something to slip down the throat like an unromantic oyster. Again, I was denied - this time I was burnt by superheated jelly fresh from the microwave, before the vodka bottle was even uncorked. The shock sent molten jelly all over the kitchen - the project had to be abandoned, the vodka was left unswallowed.

I have til the fourteenth of this month to regain my booze-drive. People will travel from all over the UK to see me drink at my "farewell to London" party. I've even got a best man for the wedding to the rest of my life. This is a crisis. I'm getting jittery before I even get to the alter. I have some soul searching to do, and only five days to do it...
posted by Garreth at 5:11 AM

6/07/2003

Ferret amongst the pigeons :  Venice is quite an expensive place to stay. After drinking a few bottles of Tennants Super (which appears to be some special beer in Venice - at the expensive end of the station bar menu) I did the decent thing and passed out on a bench in the sun. On regaining dehydrated sun-baked consciousness, I toyed with the idea of spending the night in a park to conserve funds, but thought better of it on seeing the number of over-epauletted police patrolling the area.

After a series of phonecalls, I managed to track down the cheapest available bed in Venice. Shouldering my pack in the blazing sun, I laboured through the maze-like streets, sweating treacle-like Scottish lager through every pore onto my t-shirt. The t-shirt emblazoned with the label "Crap", my face unshaved in five days, and the pungent aroma of toxicity. A shambling mess by all accounts, I arrived at the Instituto Canossiano. Which turned out to be some sort of nunnery. Indeed I was greeted in Italian by a shrivelled old lady in a white habit. Feeling a little out of place would be putting it mildly. Trying to touch my genitals discretely to ward off bad luck, I rummaged through my dirty pants to find my passport, as a softly spoken English speaker arrived to help me register. I must have looked like some kind of anti-pope, come to desecrate their temple of god. They were charitable and let me stay - a dishevelled tramp. Possibly due to my frequent genital prodding (for luck) I survived the experience, and escaped back to Blighty. Maybe it's not time for me to discover religion yet.
posted by Garreth at 3:50 PM

6/06/2003

Won't you believe it, it's just my luck :  Superstitious Italians believe that seeing a nun is bad luck. To combat any potential misfortune, they stick out the second and fifth digits of one hand and touch their genitals with the outstretched fingertips. This I tried on seeing a nun approach. No-one told me that Italian people do it with their hands in their pockets...
posted by Garreth at 5:42 AM

6/04/2003

Quagmire :  Venice is built on a swamp. Those ingenious Italians decided to ram wooden piles into the swamp, and construct ornate buildings on top of them. Unsurprisingly, some of them fell over after a thousand years of leaning. They're doing cunning things now to stop the rest of the buildings collapsing too, but Venice still retains the swampy character of old. Not just in the camp gondoliers with their straw hats, waggling their curved boats through green slime. Today's swamp is more about the mushy romantic air that hangs in the piazzas. A thick fog of hormonal soup hanging over an inescapable bog of pheromones. Couples sucking each others' faces left and right - in front of ice creameries, against statues of long dead people, on the steps of the holiest churches. Quite sickening really. Just like a big glass of Campari without the soda that the bemused bar tender will try to insist you mix with it. Bleurgh. Phut.
posted by Garreth at 6:41 AM

6/02/2003

Top air travel tip of the week :  Kosher meals - they have to be delivered to your seat on the plane still wrapped, so unless the head chef on your plane decides to microwave the whole lot - water, butter, cake and food, you'll probably get a cold meal. Which means that you might get it delivered to your seat before everyone else. So you can fall asleep, drooling on the shoulder of your fellow passengers while they're still hungry.
posted by Garreth at 5:25 AM

Vito Corleone meets Annie Wilkes :  It's good to get out of London, and Venice is not the open sewer that I was warned about. It's a unique place, and this is a unique experience. I was made "an offer I can't refuse" by a southern Italian reader - being hosted in a house next to the famous Piazza San Marco in Venice. I could take a nice decompression stop with my number one fan. It was a stormy night as I landed in Venice - and as I met my host, the charming Monica, lightning lit up the ancient skyline. Peels of thunder resounded in the piazza as we walked to the house. It would have made a good film scene.

I lay awake at night on my bed in a room with no door. Every few minutes, a flash of light from the storm outside would illuminate the room through small gaps in the shutters on the upstairs windows. The downstairs windows were caged with hefty iron bars. The front door was a thick wooden affair, with a lock that would be appropriate to crush any hope of escape that a prisoner in a 15th Century dungeon might have had. The shutters on the upstairs windows were firmly padlocked. At any moment, I expected the silhouette of Monica carrying a sledgehammer to be framed against the storm, as she made her way to smash my ankles. I would be imprisoned and helpless then, with no-one knowing where I was. Totally at the mercy of my number one fan, forced to write love stories under heavy sedation.

This isn't Stevie King's "Misery" though. I can still walk after 36 hours, and have even been given freedom to walk outside. It's quite pleasant. I haven't found any dingy drinking holes yet though so I may have to recourse to an airport purchase - "Vladivar's Vacation Vodka". Who calls their vodka "vacation vodka"? That's about as warped as "cooking lager" being an actual brand at the local supermarket, or buying smack as a "lifestyle drug.", ecstacy as a "long-term personality disorder drug." Regardless, this free-loading is quite good fun, so if you want me to turn up and look after your house, or the house of a family friend, drop me a line, and I'll being some vacation vodka.
posted by Garreth at 5:09 AM

Gold watches and speeches :  Sharon - "I need a word?"
Ron - "OK, what's up?"
Sharon - "I need to get you a leaving present from work - do you need anything for your travels?"
Ron - "Er. How about a few books about Honduras? Some sun cream?"
Sharon - "Think bigger. I spent all day intimidating money out of people in the office." (Independent witnesses in the office later concurred that Sharon can be quite intimidating.)
Ron - "Hepatitis B injections?" (Personally I used to think that getting vaccinated would be the best retirement present you could get. Maybe send people a few photos of you being syringed, and lose all ability to shake people's hands as you said goodbye.)
Sharon - "Bigger."

I ended up getting the worlds most fly diving watch which can repel sharks at five metres and tell you your sperm count at seven atms. My leaving speech was an inspired four words - "Thanks, all the best."', and then the drinking began, at one of the finest pubs in London, conveniently located on a busy road opposite the office. Only fragments of what followed remain - any corroborating evidence would be much appreciated:

• a free tab at the bar
• aftershock, turbo-shandy, tequila (lemon is for schoolgirls)
• a park, some chips, and a tantrum (not mine - I was too busy grinning and slurring)
• telling everyone I loved them and getting sweaty and physical and trying to hug people, cars, trees, the moon
• a roof, some mattresses. Thinking I had been asleep but actually having been in conversation with someone who looked strangely familiar, but who I'd never met
• cravings for toffee crunch biscuits
• passing out while being walked home, by a kind colleague, but regaining consciousness while still walking - a tribute to my brain's capacity to turn off its higher functions which might lead to embibing more liquor while keeping alive the motor functions responsible for ferrying me home. A life support machine in action.

Remarkably, I woke up the next day. Even more remarkably, I still had the use of half of my faculties, or at least the ones responsible for getting me out of bed and into the cafe and ordering the crime against arteries called "Mega Breakfast". And I still have a very flash watch, which I still can't get to tell me the time in the country I'm in.

posted by Garreth at 4:35 AM