I'm a lazy lazy man

Ciao tutti!

I can't believe that it's been so long since I've posted something here! For some reason I thought I'd posted something after New Year, but clearly not, so I'll endeavour to fill you in on all of my hi and lojinx from the past 2 months in the following trickle of drivel, coming all the way to you, live, from Genova, Italy! (drumroll, fanfare, dancing girls, canned applause, lights fade)

So, yeah, it's been a while. The big question on all of your lips is "what the devil have you been up to Michael?" The short answer is not a great deal. The slightly longer answer elaborates on this theme, but adds that I've generally been getting by, and living the life of someone who is a bit on the forgetful side, so probably not the most informative post here. There's been some stuff going on that I can't really tell you about (Insert Artificial Intrigue here), other stuff that's not really worth mentioning, and of course, the obligatory football chat.

But, starting at the beginning seems the most logical place, so I spent Christmas and New Year at home. I was only there for 10 days, which combined with my relatively giddy blood/alcohol level of the time, meant that it was nice to once again stay with the parental unit. Britain was a bit of a travel nightmare at Christmas if you remember, as the whole country ground to a halt to stop and marvel, then frown, then grumble, and then finally despair at the magical white crystals falling from the sky. Seriously, almost every year it snows in Britain. And almost every year, it seems to surprise people. I don't know why, but our country seems to be completely unprepared for this phenomenon (too lazy to check how to spell that. I trust that I'm right, and if I'm not, I refer you to the posts' title). Granted, it was pretty heavy and generally cold this year, and gave me a chance to make a rather special alien/snowman hybrid, but still, come on!

I managed, through acts of cunning skill and arbitary date-picking, to avoid of all of the travel problems that the weather caused, so was back 'home' in Genova on the 28th December. I wanted to be here for New Years' Eve, because: A) I'm sick to the back teeth of Hogmanay in Edinburgh (ironically/coincidentally, the guys had a good time by all accounts), and B) I don't know where I'll be this time next year, such is the hedonistic jet-set lifestyle that I lead. I had two days of the flat to myself, so I made a conscious effort to not wear any clothes and sit on every available surface while smiling knowingly to myself. This job done, I then waited the next one and three-quarter days 'til Katarina arrived on NYE. We didn't have big plans, so went in to town for a beer with a friend, but this proved to be quite a harrowing ordeal. As some of you may know, despite being a big brave boy, I'm not particularly comfortable around fireworks, or idiots setting fireworks off anywhere near my beautiful face. Imagine my delight then, when I discovered that Genova let all of the idiot children out of the asylum, gave them a bag of sugar or some such thing, and a bag of bangers and fireworks! It's only about a 15-minute walk down to the Port from my flat, but it was like walking through Baghdad! Unfortunately it isn't though, because there's still a crazy old man in charge here.
It was really terrible, and Katarina's old ears are getting a bit fragile now, bless her, so we had a quick pint then ducked and ran our way back to the flat to watch the fireworks go off at midnight. These were pretty cool on the most part, and totally acceptable when I'm some distance away with a pane of glass between me and the fast-moving explosives. And that was NYE. For the second year in a row, I woke up on January 1st knowing that something was wrong, as I was disturbingly lucid, and had none of the tell tale signs of alcohol abuse. I'm getting old and hating it.

January was a sad month, as Katarina left to go and live in Messina, a city so unpleasant the locals actually want to build a bridge to the mainland to escape. Or maybe it's the other way around? Or maybe it's just a ruse to legitamise some mafia types by laundering their cash in a large-scale construction project? I don't know. But yes, Katarina left, much to Genova's loss. I miss her quite a lot, and will be going downn to Sicilly in March to visit, so looking forward to that.

I must say hello in case they're reading this to a shout out regular, Patrick and also a for a first time to Giampy. Hello, and thanks for reading guys. Also, of course, if you're reading this and your name isn't either Patrick or Giampy, then hello. If you want your name mentioned like theirs, please send money to: Me. Giampy is a trainee physiotherapist and he said last weekend that he's really enjoying the placement part of his course because he gets to touch people. But hey, we all like touching people, that's the only reason I take the bus at rush hour.

In other news, I saw some scrote snatch a womans' bag the other day. It could be argued that as I did nothing but gawp that I'm equally guilty, but to that I say yo' crazy! In all seriousness though, I saw an old woman talking to an old guy at the bus stop on the other side of the street near my house, and some young punk (probably Sampdoriano) zipped past on his scooter and grabbed her tartan shopping bag! I was really surprised, hence my complete inaction, and so was the lady apparently, because she just stood and stared. What was even stranger was a couple of minutes later, as I was getting on the bus, he drove back again and went back up the hill. Belin! I would expect that kind of thing in the city centre maybe, or in Naples or something, but not just outside my house! Needless to say, my wallet has now migrated north into the safe bosom of my inside jacket pocket. I hope the tea-leaf isn't reading this.

Said jacket by the way, is leather, and infinitely cool. Quite literally one person said it looked good, so I couldn't not buy it off her after that, and one of my colleagues made a sound that I took for an impressed noise. She could have just developed a puncture, but I prefer not to think so.

I've also decided to start writing a comic, which will be amazing in both its plotting and design. I defecate ye not. Amazing. I already have the story in my head, now I just need to stop procrastinating and practise drawing in a superhero style.

As promised, now the obligatory football chat. After a promising start to the season, it got a bit crappy before Christmas, so we brought in a much needed central defender from Fiorentina, Dainelli, who has looked pretty rock-like, and as a result, we've not conceded a goal in the last 3 games. Before this we had the 2nd worst defense in the league. Still, we're 8th, still gunning for Europe, and play Juve tomorrow, who're on a bit of a downer, so hopefully when you read this we'll already have won! Or maybe not.
Rather brilliantly some students took me out for pizza last night, to a pizzeria owned by one of the Genoa players, and there were 5 of them in the pizzeria! I was thoroughly excited to be so close to such heroes, and I'm sure they felt the same about me. It was emotional, I tells ya. I almost passed out when my students told me I didn't need to pay.

Ok, that's enough for me for now, will try not to wait quite so long til the next one.

Ciao!