Back despite a total lack of popular demand
Hello! One and all, I wish you a very Happy New Year, and extend my most heartfelt condolences that you've clicked on this link and are now reading the words that slithered out of what passes as my brain and into my computer. I trust that your Christmas' were Merry, your New Year's Happy, and your Chinese New Year's Chinesey.
I struggle to believe that I've not scrawled a post since September, but that's what the page says, and I'm old enough to know that everything that's written on the internet is the absolute truth, so there you go, I've clearly been a very lazy boy.
Obviously, in the last 4 months so many things have happened that I can't possibly remember all of them, never mind chronicle them in tedious detail, so instead I'll skim over the Biggies, which off the top of my head would be: football, Nature, impending musical stardom and continued frustrations with Italians and their love of strikes.
So, yes, working in reverse order, my first order of business is strikes. Italians love them, almost as much as living with their parents well into their 30's, talking over you, and not having any concept of social manners. I'd maybe even go so far as to say they love them as much as I love wild catch-all generalisations, grouping adjectives and examples in groups of three, and a weak third example or adjective to neatly round off the said group of three. So yeah, they just go bloody crazy for an opportunity to stick it to the man while losing a day's work and pay. The net result of all of this apart from those two mentioned is that the man on the street (on whom I'm humbly projecting my personal opinions - hey, you want the voice of reasoned and researched debate, keep looking elsewhere) loses interest and stops listening to what they're complaining about. Strike once, I stop, I look, I listen, then I cross the road to see what all the kerfuffle's about. Strike once a fortninght and I stop looking and listening to your gripes, no matter how legitimate they may be. This is why I couldn't live in France, and is sometimes a bugbear in the otherwise Bell' Italia. But why have you led us on this merry chase of a bloated paragraph, I hear you grumble? Well, gather round children, as I take us back through the mists of time to the far off date of January 4th, 2012. Having enjoyed a relaxing and thirst-quenching break in the land of my fathers, I was flying back to Genoa. Ah, back home, I thought to myself. And what a joy it'll be to get back home, I continued, slipping in between tenses like a renegade of the English language, or one of my students. So, I arrived in London earlier than most early birds, and waited for my connecting flight to Genoa. I took said flight, and everything was going swimmingly as I dozed off, waking up only when I got a sense that there was complimentary booze and grub being handed out. The next time I woke up it was to hear the captain telling us that Genoa airport was closed because some dock-workers had staged a sit-in strike, and that we'd have to be diverted to Pisa.
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!"
I raged to myself. I promptly got up, stormed the cockpit and landed the plane myself in Genoa to a round of applause and repeated choruses of 'Oh he's a jolly good fellow'.
Or at least that's how I'd imagine it'd go if I had done that. Instead I sat patiently and quietly seething as any good British person would do in my situation. When we landed in Pisa, there was eventually a bus to take us up the road, which took us to Genoa airport, where lo and behold, there was no strike. Assuming the plane had been allowed to land at Genoa, and hadn't burst into flames in its most final of descents, I should have been in my apartment for 1,30. As it was, I didn't get back til 6 pm, which may not sound so bad, but my first flight to London had been at 6.20 am. Points mean prizes, time is money, and I'm still a bit pissed off with the whole charade. I do feel sorry for the workers whose jobs are disappearing, but when they inconvenience me like this, my sympathy recedes like a snowman's private parts on a particularly nippy day.
Breaking from the staid format of reverse order, let me now shake up the establishment with a few lines about the most glorious sport of all, fitba'. Genoa, the oldest and widely-accepted greatest team in Italy, are currently going through quite a schizophrenic patch. Win gloriously at home against good teams one week, then capitulate (and how!) away to teams who frankly couldn't normally score in a brothel. Still, I don't have a tattoo on my chest because I'm a fair-weather supporter (it's cos I'm an idiot, btw), so I'll be there, singing and swaying gently due to the blood coursing through my alcohol, week in, week out. We're currently sitting mid-tableish, which is ok, and although not strictly true I think the only way is up, if we can stop conceding ridiculous goals that make under-15 defending look like vintage-era Milan. In summary then, FORZA GENOA!!!
To the penultimate ramshackle collection of words then: Nature kicks back. In November you may have seen that there was a bit of flooding here, which sadly resulted in 5 people dying. It was all very surreal, and meant that I didn't really need to think of discussion topics for my lessons for about a week. Very serious stuff though, although as you'll have gathered I was unharmed and didn't actually know anything was happening til after it had all happened.
Last week there were also two earthquakes nearby, which I was also totally oblivious too. Didn't know anything about them til well after the events. Thankfully nothing much happened in terms of damage, but some buildings were evacuated and it put the willies up some folk. As has happened before though, the earth moved for some people, but not for me.
And finally cos my dinner looks abaout ready, I'm now mere light years away from becoming an audio recording superstar, akin to Jim Morrison, Neil Young or, more likely but still pretty unlikely, whichever no-mark won X Factor last time. I decided before Christmas that I'd like to create and finish something in my life after the fandangoes that were my book and comic. So, songs are easy enough, yeah? I've now written a few, and have garnered such comments as "an improvement on my song-writing", "a collection of words and music", and "wow, I never thought they'd be like that, but they're really fuckin good, man". Which of these do you think was said by an old friend in a pub late at night? I'll give you one guess. I'll try and figure out how to upload them so you can give a wee listen to one soon.
Right, dinner is well and truly ready now, so until next time
Chow
:)
I struggle to believe that I've not scrawled a post since September, but that's what the page says, and I'm old enough to know that everything that's written on the internet is the absolute truth, so there you go, I've clearly been a very lazy boy.
Obviously, in the last 4 months so many things have happened that I can't possibly remember all of them, never mind chronicle them in tedious detail, so instead I'll skim over the Biggies, which off the top of my head would be: football, Nature, impending musical stardom and continued frustrations with Italians and their love of strikes.
So, yes, working in reverse order, my first order of business is strikes. Italians love them, almost as much as living with their parents well into their 30's, talking over you, and not having any concept of social manners. I'd maybe even go so far as to say they love them as much as I love wild catch-all generalisations, grouping adjectives and examples in groups of three, and a weak third example or adjective to neatly round off the said group of three. So yeah, they just go bloody crazy for an opportunity to stick it to the man while losing a day's work and pay. The net result of all of this apart from those two mentioned is that the man on the street (on whom I'm humbly projecting my personal opinions - hey, you want the voice of reasoned and researched debate, keep looking elsewhere) loses interest and stops listening to what they're complaining about. Strike once, I stop, I look, I listen, then I cross the road to see what all the kerfuffle's about. Strike once a fortninght and I stop looking and listening to your gripes, no matter how legitimate they may be. This is why I couldn't live in France, and is sometimes a bugbear in the otherwise Bell' Italia. But why have you led us on this merry chase of a bloated paragraph, I hear you grumble? Well, gather round children, as I take us back through the mists of time to the far off date of January 4th, 2012. Having enjoyed a relaxing and thirst-quenching break in the land of my fathers, I was flying back to Genoa. Ah, back home, I thought to myself. And what a joy it'll be to get back home, I continued, slipping in between tenses like a renegade of the English language, or one of my students. So, I arrived in London earlier than most early birds, and waited for my connecting flight to Genoa. I took said flight, and everything was going swimmingly as I dozed off, waking up only when I got a sense that there was complimentary booze and grub being handed out. The next time I woke up it was to hear the captain telling us that Genoa airport was closed because some dock-workers had staged a sit-in strike, and that we'd have to be diverted to Pisa.
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!"
I raged to myself. I promptly got up, stormed the cockpit and landed the plane myself in Genoa to a round of applause and repeated choruses of 'Oh he's a jolly good fellow'.
Or at least that's how I'd imagine it'd go if I had done that. Instead I sat patiently and quietly seething as any good British person would do in my situation. When we landed in Pisa, there was eventually a bus to take us up the road, which took us to Genoa airport, where lo and behold, there was no strike. Assuming the plane had been allowed to land at Genoa, and hadn't burst into flames in its most final of descents, I should have been in my apartment for 1,30. As it was, I didn't get back til 6 pm, which may not sound so bad, but my first flight to London had been at 6.20 am. Points mean prizes, time is money, and I'm still a bit pissed off with the whole charade. I do feel sorry for the workers whose jobs are disappearing, but when they inconvenience me like this, my sympathy recedes like a snowman's private parts on a particularly nippy day.
Breaking from the staid format of reverse order, let me now shake up the establishment with a few lines about the most glorious sport of all, fitba'. Genoa, the oldest and widely-accepted greatest team in Italy, are currently going through quite a schizophrenic patch. Win gloriously at home against good teams one week, then capitulate (and how!) away to teams who frankly couldn't normally score in a brothel. Still, I don't have a tattoo on my chest because I'm a fair-weather supporter (it's cos I'm an idiot, btw), so I'll be there, singing and swaying gently due to the blood coursing through my alcohol, week in, week out. We're currently sitting mid-tableish, which is ok, and although not strictly true I think the only way is up, if we can stop conceding ridiculous goals that make under-15 defending look like vintage-era Milan. In summary then, FORZA GENOA!!!
To the penultimate ramshackle collection of words then: Nature kicks back. In November you may have seen that there was a bit of flooding here, which sadly resulted in 5 people dying. It was all very surreal, and meant that I didn't really need to think of discussion topics for my lessons for about a week. Very serious stuff though, although as you'll have gathered I was unharmed and didn't actually know anything was happening til after it had all happened.
Last week there were also two earthquakes nearby, which I was also totally oblivious too. Didn't know anything about them til well after the events. Thankfully nothing much happened in terms of damage, but some buildings were evacuated and it put the willies up some folk. As has happened before though, the earth moved for some people, but not for me.
And finally cos my dinner looks abaout ready, I'm now mere light years away from becoming an audio recording superstar, akin to Jim Morrison, Neil Young or, more likely but still pretty unlikely, whichever no-mark won X Factor last time. I decided before Christmas that I'd like to create and finish something in my life after the fandangoes that were my book and comic. So, songs are easy enough, yeah? I've now written a few, and have garnered such comments as "an improvement on my song-writing", "a collection of words and music", and "wow, I never thought they'd be like that, but they're really fuckin good, man". Which of these do you think was said by an old friend in a pub late at night? I'll give you one guess. I'll try and figure out how to upload them so you can give a wee listen to one soon.
Right, dinner is well and truly ready now, so until next time
Chow
:)
posted by michael | 09:50
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