Saturday, September 24, 2005

Wassssuppp, internet? Sorry, I've been away for a while.


I feel like the king of kings at the moment. I've just cycled down Unlikelihood Rd, and all the lights were green and there was no dog shit or idiot pedestrians ambling about in the cycle lane. Today, I phoned up BT, and got them to remove a charge from my account. Yes, thank you, thank you. Through supreme use of logic, pertinent repetition, speaking loudly and clearly, and not getting pissed of and swearing, I managed to wear down the steely defence of the poor call-centre infinite-monkey-on-type-writer who had the misfortune to answer my call. Even the solid defence,'but Sir, it is BT policy to charge a reconnection fee of £10' fell before my steely sword of jusitice. And so, in conclusion: I'm the best.
I went to Berlin with L, which was fun. Germany is better than Britain for these following reasons:
  • Germans cycle everywhere, on the cute old-fashioned bikes, which makes everyone look sexy.
  • Germans patiently wait at traffic lights until they have turned green even if there is no traffic coming.
  • (and this is the clincher) When you are confronted by someone walking directly towards you, instead of doing that embarrassed shuffle where you both look like Allblacks doing that crazy war-dance before the stupid rugby match as you try and avoid each other, Germans always go to the right. Always. There hasn't been a collision on German pavements since, er, a certain difficult period in German history that perhaps I'd best not go into in this light-hearted page of frivolity. Ahem. Anyway, it's great.
Anyway, I'd best go. Stupid London.

Friday, September 16, 2005

Black Gold

I've been wondering, amidst this Crisis of Crises at the petrol pumps, how one purchases petrol without being one of the dreaded panic buyers of petrol that you hear so much about these days. Do you saunter casually, whistling, perhaps wearing carpet-slippers, fill your tank only half full, stop and glance at the newspapers, pick up some wilted roses and charcoal, pop your pasty in the microwave, and engage the attendant in conversation at the weather? I think THE GOVERNMENT should issue advice.


I've been on holiday. Berlin, if you didn't know already, is great. And that's that.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Out of Office

I'm going on holiday at the end of the week to Berlin. This is a good thing, and it will be fun going round the tourist attractions (The Stasi museum, the Holocaust memorial, the Berlin Wall, the bonfire of puppies, the hundred foot high Benny Hill statue, etc.), but as they insist on being foreign, this means that I've got to get some funny money. Being ever the sensible one, I'm getting Travellers Cheques (it's American Express who have omitted the apostrophe, the sods) to pay for the hostel. They're insured, they're accepted by my hostel, I thought, they sound so useful, convenient, why haven't I bought them every time I've been abroad? What an idiot I've been.

I discovered why I've never bought them before. It's because it's a task that is matched only in its difficulty to complete by the amount of time that it took. I would have thought that the fact that recently I've taken to dressing like a postman (sky-blue short-sleeved shirt, shorts, sandals, satchel, thousand-yard stare) would have meant that they'd've been more willing to help me as a fellow post-facilitator, but did they buggery.


In preparation for going on holiday I have removed my swiss army knife from my key-ring and left it at home. This means that now I won't get delayed, arrested or otherwise interfered with. More importantly, I won't lose my precious precisious knife, like I do every time I go on a plane. The down side is that I've not been able to open boxes at will, and have had to go to my desk to get a pair of scissors to do the job. Also, I will have increased difficulty with those nylon tags on new clothes, I'm quite sure.
The hostel we're staying in, and includes a handy guide to Berlin, also handily in English for us dumkopfs. It's even funny:

"GAY AND LESBIAN SECTION; well, that speaks for itself."

"Gay and no into house? That´s what we call a minority. Visit the alternative night at the Schwuz – www.schwuz.de"

Well, it displays a tolerant sense of humour to gays, at least. I sense that all german humour is the kind that were it British would be punctuated always by an exclamation mark! But it's nice to see the effort.