Drunken Travels

I made a whistle stop tour of Lisbon last week.  I was only there for 3 days and most of it, to be honest, is a drunken blur.

After landing in our hotel (not literally, we had to get a taxi from the airport…) to torrential downpour we found our way into the Bairro Alto – which is the nightlife area.  This was only after getting dropped off, at the wrong bar, in the middle of nowhere.  Brilliant. 

Within 2 minutes, we were greeted by Mr Portuguese man in the street asking if we wanted drugs (nice welcome).  We politely declined and took shelter in a nearby bar. 

A few more bar visits through the long and winding streets followed; including gate crashing some family karaoke party and belting out the hits.  Pissed Englishmen…on Portuguese karaoke…yep it was as good as you can imagine. 

A friendly cab man then found us a bar/cafe which was open all night after we found out the bars by the docks were all closed.  We somehow managed to get back the hotel at 7.30am – most of it was a blur, it seemed like we were only in there for an hour. Total wrongness.  Again I’m sure the proprietor loved us, they did keep serving us Super Bock all night anyway..

Thursday was a total blur again, I literally have no recollection of most of the day/night.  Only two minutes ago did that Portuguese karaoke thing come back to me.  I’m sure I was alive through adrenaline and alcohol alone.  But again we managed to find our way to the open all night bar/cafe and got back the hotel at a similar ungodly hour.  Not good when we have an 11am flight.  I was woken after a 30 minute “snooze”, in good comic book fashion, by my mate showering me with water. Grreeeeaaaatt!

Although having made the airport in good time, and the obvious long gaze into space, wondering why I’d punished myself with alcohol and little sleep did me no good.  I was about to go to the bar again only to hear my name get announced over the tannoy “last call for Mr C Sribble your flight is now closing” or something like that.  When the fuck was the first call?

I’d always wanted airport fame and now I had it, but fuck me it was a bad time to get it. 

“haha there’s them two knobheads who are about to miss their flight”

…is what I always say when I see people running through a airport terminal.  I was now that knobhead. 

Luckily, we made it onto the flight after the air stewardess search party greeting us half way round telling us we had to leg it because we had about 30 seconds to get on the plane. 

I was informed that “you fucking stink” on the plane – luckily only by my mate, but I’m sure I wasn’t in the best of states to others either.  Ho hum (literally), I’ll never see them again. 

Lisbon, it was a pleasure – or at least I think it was.

Shower Gel Snobbery

Far be it from me to turn my nose up at a person’s choice in washing products. However I’ve had recent suspicions of one of my housemates’ choice of product lately.

Ages ago, due the joys of house/bathroom sharing, I stopped keeping my ‘bathroom stuff’ in the bathroom. Mainly because I suspected my housemate was using my stuff:  He’s too much of a tight bastard to buy his own/ensure he didn’t run out. Yes, it’s a bit precious of me, but I’d only use other peoples stuff as a last resort (if I’d accidently ran out of stuff without realising I was low or something).

I get through a bottle of shower gel every few weeks. He, however, can seemingly make one last for about 2/3 months – this is with having daily showers…I have no idea how he rations it to last that long? Maybe I’m liberal with the shower gel. I’m shower gel rich? Who knows…

Anyway, he hasn’t had any kind of shower gel/shampoo/soap in there lately. Three weeks have passed with a bare bathroom so I asked him how he’s washing himself:

“..using the Carex Handwash”

Agog. I wondered if he’s using the same stuff to wash his hair…

“yes, it’s just soap isn’t it. What’s the problem?”

It might just be me, but that has all kinds of wrongness written all over it.

It is just soap in a differently labelled bottle, he’s right, and I’d probably use it myself in emergencies, but to use it everyday in the shower…as a matter of fact?  It gets a big fat "HMMMMMMMM…" from me.

We should start using Fairy Washing Up Liquid in the shower, just re-label the bottle “3-in-1” (dishes, bodywash and shampoo).  After all, according to the Fairy Liquid website: it ‘cuts through grease better than any other washing up liquid and lasts a lot longer’.

You wouldn’t even need a daily shower according to that tag-line.

Why, I might even just curl myself up into the dishwasher this evening, put myself onto a hot wash then, when it’s finished, nonchalantly throw myself into the tumble dryer to dry off. 

Fucking tramp.  Him.  Not you.

Repeating Repeating

I’m not the most prolific reader in the world, but I do like to keep a book at hand to read when the fancy takes me. One thing I’ve never done though, is read a book twice (unless looking through lingerie sections in a catalogue as a rampant teenager counts…).

I’ve just started reading The Stand by Stephen King again. I first read it about 10 years ago and even though it took me literally 6 months to wade through the 1400 pages, it still ranks as one of the best books I’ve read. I kept telling myself I’d re-read it again, you know, just to check that it still ranks up there, but I was put off because I’d know what would happen and remember bits of the story.

A bit like re-watching films or TV shows I’ve seen, I hardly ever sit through them again – mainly because the element of the unknown has gone. I’d never be able to recapture the “fucking hell, I didn’t see that coming” moment such as the last few minutes in The Usual Suspects when Kevin Spacey stopped being a gimp (although that is one of the few films I’ve managed to sit through more than once). Similarly, as fantastic as they are/were, I can’t re-watch The Sopranos, The Wire or The West Wing (does all good stuff start with The?). Likewise there are also only so many times that guy in Anchorman can say “I love lamp” until it stops being funny.  I’ve seen it; I know what happens…it’s never as good.

So, anyway, back to the book.  I’m 300 pages in so far and even though I know the outline of the story, I don’t feel like I’m repeating myself yet.  I don’t feel like I’m repeating myself yet.  So I’ll let you know if re-reading something is any good and *does that wanky speech marks thing with fingers that them people do.  You know, THAT thing that makes you want to smash their face in* “gives me a greater understanding of the book”.  Or something.

Given the speed I read and my attention span, I probably won’t finish it until March 2010 anyway, by which point I’ll have forgotten all about this post and why I started re-reading the book in the first place.

I had a better ending to this in my head 10 minutes ago, but I can’t remember what it was now. See what I mean about the attention span?

Don’t worry it wasn’t anything profound or life changing. You’ll live without my wisdom.

Chop chop, move along, nothing to see here…put your chairs on the desks before you leave and NO running inside the building…

Ideas and Plans

My little warped mind is a mish-mash of plans for visits to far flung places and world domination lately.  In short, I have absolutely no idea what I want to do.  My latest ditty is:

Instead of planning a mad lengthy (and expensive) Australian visit, then why not just do a short one….soon.  Yes, I am an impatient bastard.  I could treat it as a scouting mission, ib dib dib and all that.

I’m thinking Chrimbo/New Year time.  Can I raise the necessary cash to go before then?  Probably… at a very a big push (i.e. not leaving the house, ‘forgetting’ to pay some bills and eating just beans for a month) but then I’d be pushed for spending money and have to count the pennies.  In all honesty I can’t go, but it hasn’t stopped me checking out flights/hostels etc.  Although it would satisfy my itchy feet, the money I’d spend would be better spent on a superior visit next year.  A man can but dream.

My next, currently in progress plan, which is more realistic (and cheaper):  is a visit to the Big Apple for Christmas or New Year.  I don’t like Christmas/New Year, but if I was in New York I could pretend I was in Santa Claus: The Movie.  How brilliant would that be?

I have a friend who moved there a year or so ago and none of us have been for a visit yet.  I’ve never been over there before so I suggested it to a couple of mates last month and they’ve said they’ll go, but we’re yet to confirm/book anything.  I’m kicking people’s arses as I type because the longer we go without booking anything, the less time this penniless gimp has to save/beg for cash.

So many ideas and plans.

Oh, and even though I can’t afford it, I had a “fuck it, why not…yes, I’ll go”’ moment last week…and I’m going to Lisbon for a few days in a couple of weeks.

So little money.

I’ll be outside the train station (with a dog tied to a piece of string), selling The Big Issue before I know it:

“Big Issue….thanks anyway, have a nice day.”

I’m sure I can pull that off with some panache.  It never fails to make me feel a bit guilty.

Continuing on the ‘let’s go to Oz theme…’

On Sunday I went to an emigration exhibition to have a little mooch around and maybe see if I would qualify for an Australian Visa – or if I would just get laughed at (given I don’t have any ‘trade’ skills).

After sitting in on a talk by an immigration expert and then speaking to him later on, it seems that I may qualify for a Regional State Sponsored Visa.  Which would mean me living and working in whatever Australian State my ‘skills’ were needed for 2 years – which turns out it could be in South Australia (major city is Adelaide) – after the 2 years I’d be free to move out of the state and live/work/slouch/die wherever I wanted to.

Now, I’m not being naive, I know this immigration gimp may just be telling me this because he wants me to give him loads of wonga to process an initial application.  However, they do seem like a reputable company and they are emailing me more detailed information (free of charge) later this week/next week.  So I’ll know more then. It’s all at the ‘it’ll do me no harm just to find out’ stage at the minute.

However I’ve since been wondering if I’m being totally stupid or not.  I mean, I’ve never set foot outside of Europe, nevermind visited Australia.  Yet here I am putting feelers out for a permanent visa to go and live there.  On the other hand though, if I got a working holiday visa, I’d be doing basically the same thing anyway (albeit with a bit more freedom to become a nomad), but just knowing  it’s only for 12 months or whatever.

So, where do things stand now?  I’m not sure:

Short term:  Possibly apply for a Working Holiday Visa by Feb/early March (I’m 31 in March, they don’t give working visa to old gits over 30) which would let me go to/stay in Oz until feb/mar 2011 and become a travelling gypo until then.  Which would require me to save like I’ve never saved before, but then at least I have that option to piss off over there mid next year-ish.

Long term (the all or nothing option): All depends on information the immigration wonga thief gives me.  I mean, if he says “Yep, you’ll qualify for a visa, it’ll take 12 months and the visa costs £1500/2000” what do I do?  Would it be totally stupid/short sighted of me to do it without having never been to Australia?  If I went down this route, given I have NO savings and next to no possibility of getting a loan, it would therefore make the short term option a no go.

My ‘sensible / shit myself at the unknown/never being spontaneous’ head tells me that I can’t possible do something like this.

My ‘what the fuck is holding you back’ head tells me to be the first person I/family know to move to another country.  Stop plodding on, accepting second best, and to actually do something with myself.

I keep telling myself that loads of other people do shit like this…so why can’t I?  (This is how I’m currently selling it to myself).  I’d rather not get to ten years down the line and think ‘what if’.

Update

I want to write a post but I can’t put one together so here’s one in bullet form:

• I’ve caught up on some much needed sleep (even if it has been aided by a few pints before bedtime)
• I’ve promised myself to get out of the house everyday, even if its only to go for a walk
• ‘Going for a walk’ ends up with me going the pub (especially when it starts pissing down)
• My sister didn’t realise how bad I felt. She cried.
• Said sister wants me to sign up to internet dating sites (think of the blog fodder there)
• I’m still not eating much – the knot in stomach/dry mouth is still there, but not as bad as last week.
• I know I’ve got some form of anxiety/stress
• If it’s not anxiety/stress then I have bad aids
• Whilst driving over the hills/valleys/country roads getting to friends house in Leeds, I sang the Postman Pat theme tune to myself
• Ocean Colour Scene, The Zutons and Doves, on the same bill, for £18 last Saturday in Leeds was a bargain
• I sang the Postman Pat theme tune again to myself on the way home
• It was like winter on Sunday.  It’s summer again today
• My brother has text me to go for a pint tonight
• I probably make myself sound like an alcoholic on this here blog.
• I’m not an alcoholic
• Denial is the first stage to acceptance *cough*
• Nobody has put any money on the gas meter yet
• and we’ve ran out of bread

Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Going radio rental

I haven’t been too sure if I wanted to write about this or not, I nearly wrote it last week but decided against it. But now I might as well do one of them ‘fuck it, just type’ posts.

For the past few weeks, maybe a bit longer (probably since I returned from Spain), I’ve not been feeling right in myself.  But over the past 2 weeks this has just been ramped up 10 fold and I’m now feeling as weird and as fed up as I’ve felt in a while.

There’s no real trigger that has set me off. It’s a mixture of things (normal run of the mill things). I’m fed up with my home/social life: Even though lately I seem to be getting out on a weekend, Monday to Thursday the only people I speak to are colleagues in work. Once I get home there’s no one to speak to, that’s it in the main. Unless I make the effort to go see a mate or family (and with it always being me making that effort, it gets tiresome).

Which then leads onto singledom.  Although I’m quite happy being single, I’m just bored of the monotony of it all. I’m not an attention seeker or anything, but I get no attention from anyone (there’s a contradiction for you).  No one seeing how I am or, seemingly caring.   It’s just hard at the minute muddling on.  Having too much thinking time isn’t helping and having no distraction there.

Money is a problem but not a real worry.  I have some spare cash (not enough, but who ever has enough?) to do things so I’m not housebound.  I’ve just got no real distractions other than work which is just boring as fuck lately.

My sleeping levels have dropped off to next to none.   If I’m sleeping at all I’m getting 2/3 hours of disturbed sleep as a maximum (I got no sleep whatsoever on Wednesday night).  Unless I go and get drunk, when I slept like a baby last weekend.

I’m also not eating properly – not helped by the fact we’ve put no gas money on the meter (since we didn’t pay the gas bill) so the oven is out of use.  I’ve since been eating mainly salads, but just not enough.  I know I’m not eating properly, I’ve got a constant ‘knot’ in my stomach.  A  few people in work have remarked that I’m noticeable losing weight over the past 2/3 weeks.

Which brings me back to work, the only people who see me regular are my work colleagues. To put it slightly my boss is worried as fuck about me.  He’s called me into his office a few times the past few weeks to see what’s wrong (he’s never ever done that before in 10 years so I must look like shit).   When I try and tell him ‘nothing’ I feel myself getting upset and struggle to get my words out ‘just fed up in general’ and then try and make a joke out of it.  Then I start feeling tears trying to come out and struggle speaking without making a show of myself.   I’d love to just blabber, but I can’t, not to my boss!

I know its anxiety (I think), but it’s over nothing.  I don’t feel like there is anything wrong.  Nobody has upset me; I’m not particularly worried about anything.  I’m just fed up and bored of ‘this’.  I start thinking about going to Australia and then even that just sets me off again with the ‘is this it?’ type thoughts.

I’ve tried talking to some family and a mate but they shrug it off a bit: “go the quacks”, “you’ll be alright, come and have a pint”.

But I’m not alright, I know I’m not me, even now the lump in the throat is there, the knot in the stomach and I can feel the water behind the eyes…

…I don’t know how to fix it.

Still anonymous

Mate: “I’ve been messing around with blogging sites and software in work, for a site I’m working on.  Do you know anything about it?”

Me: “Err, no.  What do you mean, like that blog Google thing…Blog? Blogger? or something is it called?”

Mate: “Yeh, that’s it”

Me: “Nah, no idea about all that blog stuff”

Mate: “I’ve found something called WordPress.”

Shit.  He’s found it I thought. 

Within a split second I had the next 5 years of piss taking and endless jokes run through my head.  I wanted to find a dark corner and curl up into the foetal position.  I raised my eyebrows and gave my best non-interested “oh right” whilst keeping my eyes on the cricket on the tv.

“It’s brilliant, the templates are dead smart and it’s easy for people to update and do all kinds of nonsense.  They’re building a site around one in work”

Me: (giving my best ‘you’re boring me shitless look’) “Ah right.  Nice one.  So you’re going to start “blogging” or whatever it is now are you?” 

Mate: “No, fuck that…joking aren’t you?  I’m just setting it up for work.  Wankers.

“Pint?”

And with that, he floated off to the bar non the wiser but proud of his technological achievements.  Meanwhile my heart went back to beating it’s normal rhythm and I gulped down the remains of my pint.

Thankfully, he was just chatting shite and not asking probing questions.  It was all over in about a minute, but I’d just played my best mentally challenged role yet.  Awarding myself an Oscar whilst he was at the bar and giving myself a virtual tap on the back in the process.

You Two

On Thursday I ambled along to Sheffield to see U2.  I’m not their biggest fan, I think Bono is a bit of a tool, but their music (especially the older stuff) is mighty fine to my ears. 

I went to see them in Manchester a few years ago and they know how to put on a show, so thought I’d give them another go.

Just before a gig is about to start, that 5-10 minutes just before the band come on stage, the anticipation and excitement of what awaits turns me into a 5 year old on Christmas day.  Even more so on Thursday when I was just coming up on different concoctions of drugs and alcohol.

Ten minutes later and 3 songs into the set – I think they were singing ‘Beautiful Day’ – I had a drug and alcohol fuelled “moment” and decided it would be a fantastic time to phone some family and friends. 

Yes, I know.  Not the greatest plan I’ve ever had.

The worst thing anyone can do to me is phone me when they are at a gig, apart from anything else I just think they are a knobhead.  On Thursday I was that knobhead.

I’ve no idea what I said, if they heard me, or even if they could tell I was off my tits.  Thankfully, whatever I said will have been drowned out by Bono…I hope.  Four days have past and I’ve had no complaints, so it was more than likely just a mumble of noise.  Phew.

In the cold light of day though, I’d have to say that the show ranks up there as one of the best gigs I’ve seen.  I know they aren’t everyone’s cup of tea but the stage, the music, the lights…the whole shebang was brilliant. 

The only thing that put me off was the preachy ‘let’s save the world’, 5 minute speech from Bono near the end.  Ok, he has a point – and they can reach however thousands/millions of people over the course of a tour with their ‘message’ – but it’s still fucking wanky. 

A post about wanting to go to Australia

Nearly a month ago I walked onto a beach in Spain and said to myself “what the fuck am I doing living in England?”

I haven’t been able to get that sentence out of my head since.

For about the past 10 years I’ve always had it in my head that I want to go to Australia.  I’m not totally sure where my obsession with it came from.  Was it the many hours spent watching Neighbours or Home & Away when I was younger?  Maybe it was the late night influence of Bea Smith in Prisoner Cell Block H?  Either way I want to go, otherwise I don’t think ever I’ll shake off my ‘go to Oz’ mindset.

Looking at where I am now, there isn’t much stopping me.  I don’t have kids, I’m not in a relationship with anyone, and I’m not tied down to a mortgage (although I do have some credit card debt).

What I do have here is family, friends (even though they can’t bring themselves to go out!) and a half decent paid job.  I can’t move my family and if I moved I’d make new friends.  I don’t really want to still be sat behind this desk in another 10 years having done nothing apart from plod on with the daily grind.

So, what do I do?  Apply for an Australian working visa before I reach the grand age of 31 in March and go at some point next year.  Or do I go the whole hog and try and get accepted on an emigration visa?

Underneath the rose-tinted specs, I know that it can’t be all fantastic out there, but I also know it can’t be any worse than it is in England.  One thing it will be though is different and I think that’s what I need, I need change and I need to try it before I get old and wrinkly or before I find, and get attached, to some silly female.

I’m not sure why I haven’t done much about it in the past, but now more than ever, the little voice in the back of my head won’t go away.  There is a emigration expo next month not far from me, so I’m going to along to that and see what my options are and we’ll take it from there.

What have I got to lose?