Monday, December 19, 2005

Party victim


After a rather so-so party held in the Green Man in Euston on Saturday, a few of us travelled back from central London to Daggers for a little drink and a post-party chat about shite all. We found this specimen having a well-deserved post-party snoozette on the Central Line.

Sadly, he was removed by a (very pleasant, I have to say) member of the British Transport Police who asked him where he was going. “Walthamstow” he said, somewhat blearily. Despite the train pulling into Liverpool Street where he could have picked up an overground connection, he insisted on going back to Oxford Circus. The copper asked him if he had been with anyone earlier.

“Well”, he said, “my wife was here when I fell asleep”.

So…the question – what on earth happened to his wife? Gave us something to speculate on while we travelled the long and well-worn path to the burbs.

Friday, December 16, 2005

The meaning of 'scundered'

I just realise that I used a word in my last entry, 'scundered', which most people won't have heard of.

Simple: its from Northern Ireland, and according to the BBC's "Voices" website, specifically from Belfast, where coinidentally, my wife hales from before her family moved to Craigavon in the late 60s (my mum-in-law has an old proddy "Shankill" accent).

It simply means 'embarrassed'.

You can have a look at other Northern Irishisms here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/voices/atilazed/a.shtml

Chav versus opera singer


The picture was blatantly swiped from Sha Crawford’s blog and illustrates to the uninitiated what a female chav looks like. Go and have a look at her site, it’s a fun read.

http://sha-crawford.blogspot.com/2005/05/chav-for-night-sleezy-men-free-drinks.html

A little story that warmed my heart:

Three or four chavs were gathered round a phone on the train back to Dover from Charing Cross. The phone was blaring some undoubtedly “lush” music. Annoyed at having her journey interrupted by this musical equivilant of shit, she put herself next to these fools and burst into song. These chavs found it very amusising indeed, giving her abuse for her efforts. But the good lady was neither intimidated, nor an amateur, in fact she was a pro opera singer on her night off. She delivered a full aria to the carriage, which then gave her a standing ovation.

The chavs, truly scundered, sulked off.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

The world's saddest place


During our trip to Krakow, we visited Auschwitz 1 and 2, also known as Birkenau.

I can’t do this topic justice so I won’t try. Everything, which can be said, has been about the concentration camps of Germany, Poland, etc. There is no need to say any more. Plenty of information, should you want it, on www.wikipedia.org.

In my opinion, like I guess many others’, these camps are some of the saddest places on earth. The day, as you can see, was not the warmest – heaven knows what I must have felt like without the luxury of winter clothing, and for Krakow, this was not a freezing winter’s day. Credit due to the country of Poland for keeping the three camps in fairly good shape, for generations such as my own, to pay our respects to the slain and mutilated of the Hitler era. More importantly, for neither glorifying it by giving the “Experience” treatment, though tourism is inevitable. And for leaving them, as much as possible, in their bleak and mostly undisturbed state.

This is a photo I took from the watchtower overlooking the camp. The quality isn’t great, with reflections from the windows behind the camera, but the second part of the tour was rather rushed and, therefore, so were my pictures. It gives an idea of camp's scale - this was one quarter of the "accommodation" - the gas chambers were demolished two days before the Allies took over the camp and many of the buildings were demolished or have rotted.

Despite the necessary herding, I was more disturbed than I though I’d be, as were the rest of the coach. The journey back to Krakow was almost silent. That night, I contemplated on the atmosphere of the camps when everyone had gone home and the place remained bleak and silent. If you were a ghost-hunter, then surely this would be the ideal spot to detect the spirits of the painfully departed.

The word I think I'd describe my experience here is "awestruck", pure and simple. Here, in your face, is the evidence of death - not a death to a statistical body of people in a history book but real flesh and blood humans. In the main concentration camp, there were displays of belongings taken from the inmates as they arrived - hair, shoes, clothing. The dolls' clothes were somehow the most disturbing.

My great grandfather, Philip Jacobs, was a Jewish exile who moved to London in the 1920s, so I don’t think I can start to contemplate on what might have been if he’d stayed. You'd not be reading this, because I would undoubtedly not be here to write it.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Secret Santa

Nearly finished Christmas!

Bought the final Christmas present, for our Secret Santa do at work. Its for a guy I don't know at all, and since its secret, though a copy of "You Are What You Shite", a book I bought in Books Etc on the way home, appropriate.

For myself I bought a book about Lifestyle Envy by Alain de Botton and Merde Actually, the follow-up to A Year In The Merde.

Too tired to knock up a curry, so had turkey drummers (the adult version of Turkey Twizzlers I suspect) in macaroni cheese.
Yum.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Job interview

Four weeks ago I took an interview for a job at the civil service - name of dept etc withheld until I know more.

Why has it taken four weeks...and counting....for them to answer? I know I'm still a prospect as I get an email from them once a week asking me nicely to keep waiting and apologising for same. But I'd really like a firm reply, the waiting is doing me in.

The job is centred around two things I'm passionate about and so I'd almost eat my right testicle to get this job - which makes waiting twice as hard. Come one guys at the Department of Tr... oops, tell me I've got it. The interview was a two hour grilling, I think I answered the questions fairly robustly and even though I'm not a snivil servant, you know I deserve it.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Discovered!

Unrelated to the previous post - hence the entirely new entry - my blog has been discovered! Not by one of my many anonymous fans, but by a person at work, in fact one of my immediate work collegues. Frig me, I'll have to be VERY careful what I say now. This person informed me at the office Chrismas party (not bad as office xmas parties go) and the revelation thoroughly whacked me.

This has been an entirely private affair up till now, written for the entertainment and illumination of my good self in future years, and for any other unfortunate soul who stumbles into it via Google.

My sis Natasha came across a diary she'd written when we were flat-sharing in 1987 in Harlington, near Heathrow and it reminded her that her life then was interestingly shit. Its this kind of rose-tinted remindering I want to do. In fact, looking at his blog, I probably give the false impression that my life is far shitter than it actually is - mostly I go around with a sense of bewildered amusement mixed up with doses of boredom which unless you live the life an A list sleb is inevitable. So for the record, life ain't too bad, but I want to remind myself of the particularly good, bad or merely funny parts of it. So this dmn blog will just to reflect the bias of what I consider interesting. There are moments of sadness and regret and I include them too when I think its appropriate though often they are too personal for me or others for me to comfortable revealing all.

As to whether you find my Rants & Burblings interesting dear readerkj....well if you don't there are 10 squllion other diaries to find on the net, so find them and enjoy.

Piers Morgan's political commentary

We've just returned from Krakow, and there will be a few blog entries relating to this trip. More on that later, when I get the pictures from the camera.

I am reading "The Insider" by Piers Morgan and oddly enough he has just shown up on Question Time. I found his diary informative and it really gives you an insight, in a rather tabloid way, what is going on behind the scenes in civil and political society. For a £3.73 Tesco cheapo bestseller, a good read and one that cuts through a lot of the media bullshit. I'm increasingly looking for the news behind the news, and hisi diary is a pretty interesting glimpse into that hidden world.

He may be out of an editing job, but watch this space - a commentator who I think we'll be seeing a lot more of in future months, especially as the Tories, under Cameron, look like they might be almost worth of taking on Blair. He knows Blair better than most, and unlike politicians in the Labour party, don't have the same very skewed points to make. He's a sort of working man's Paxman I'd say.

Mood: Pretty mellow - the mellowest I've been in ages
Book: The Insider by Piers Morgan
Sounds: Madonna's new one and Stephen 'TinTin' Duffy's Greatest Hits which is an excellent slab of 80s nostagia which has aged well. And how could I forget, re-discovered Scritti Politti's commerical successese. Nicely aged too.