A short play about everyday misunderstanding's, in a pre-modernistic soap-operatic vein.
Man: What?! Divorce papers?? I thought you was kiddin! I was half cut, we dit'un even talk about it
Woman: we don't talk about nuffink, that's the problem, we never talk, you're always pissed
Man: what the fuck's that got to do with anyfink? you're more pissed than me
Woman: don't turn this on me, I wanted to make something out of it, I tried
Man: tried what? that fucking gyppo in The Lion?
Woman: you bastard! that was all lies and filthy rumours and you know it
Man: oh yeah, that's when it's your turn, you weren't so philosophical when they was talkin' about me and Ambalah
Woman: that's 'cos it was fuckin true! they wasn't rumours you cheatin' basterd!
Man: there's no talking to you, you just won't listen to anyfink I've got to say, you'd rather hear it from your skunky mates
Woman: don't bring me mates into this, at least they stand by me, and the word is "skanky" actually
Man: as long you're gettin' the rounds they stick by ya, and whose money is it that your buyin' the rounds wiv? eh?
Woman: you total basterd! I knew you'd bring it down to money, that's all it is wiv you innit? why don't you just pay me by the hour and treat me like one of your littel whore's?
Man: if I wanted to make money into an issue I wouldn't fuckin' give you any at all would I?
Woman: don't then! do you fink I can't make it wivout ya? I don't need you, typical man, you fink you can buy me? well horlicks to you Mr Man!
Man: What? Horlicks? oh Gordon Bennett! 'ave you slipped back into the fifties again?
Woman: Goodness Mr Man, you seem to be awfully perplexed, whatever can I do?
Man: stop talkin shite you cock-eyed bint! It's gunna to get me now, dash it!
Woman: oh dear, we seem to be perspiring, let's sit down and have a frank discussion
Man: Well said "the good lady" you're absolutely right as usual. What about a round of sandwiches and a jolly good cup of tea?
Woman: I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier! you put your feet up Mr Man and I'll busy myself in the kitchen.
Man: Yes, I'll put my feet up, that's what I'll do, I think this is going to work out very well
Mr Man winks at the audience and raises his elbow
Applause
THE END
I enjoyed that,
JJ
Friday, 30 November 2007
Sunday, 25 November 2007
Travel XV, A Twat in a Box
What ho! Just got back from a weekend jaunt to Hamburg. Splendid, maarvellous city. Packed with history and all sorts of life (day and night), this place could easily fill more than a weekend break, as you would expect from a big city.
Yesterday we explored the huge port and a few other bits and pieces (Joahannes Brams Memorial, St Michel church etc) and went for dinner at Nil Restaurant. A very atmospheric little place, we were seated on a balcony, I recommend the Elk Steak, yum. Topped with a drink at a local bar, one of those spacious set-ups with sofa seating, we (girlfriend and I) finished off with a trip to St Pauli (red light district). The Reeperbahn is as much a tourist attraction as Pat Pong of Bangkok, we wandered into a huge marital aids shop (not martial arts, very subtle difference not only in spelling). It was mostly womens toys, I was given a re-assuring "you don't need that" while perusing the stamina increasing potions.
There was a tremendous seletion of gimp outfits and strange hardware in the basement, we left that more bemused than excited. The men's bit was dissapointing to say the least, an 800 euro solid rubber doll, a selection of blow up dolls and a selection of women's genitalia made of rubber in various colours. I thought to myself; I've only brought hand luggage, how will I explain this?, I don't even know what it's called "a twat in a box?". I left it.
Today we did the bus tour, as it was raining most of the day. The British influence on this city is striking, although it's more the case that the place already looked very British so the Brits took it over after the war and rebuilt it. They get credit for Hamburg being the press/media centre of Germany, well done! There was even a fish and chip shop (with vinegar) at the entrance to the railway station. I thought it would make a great picture but the lady working there had a different view. Obviously African, she charged out of the shop and grabbed my camera shouting "no pictures! no pictures!", I didn't expect that. The station was full of police officers as rival football fans arrived chanting and singing for the days game, a bit unnerving we thought. So we finished the tour and had nice (late) lunch back at the hotel before setting off back to Brussels.
We might go back in summer, I would recommend it.
I'll sleep well tonight.
JJ
Yesterday we explored the huge port and a few other bits and pieces (Joahannes Brams Memorial, St Michel church etc) and went for dinner at Nil Restaurant. A very atmospheric little place, we were seated on a balcony, I recommend the Elk Steak, yum. Topped with a drink at a local bar, one of those spacious set-ups with sofa seating, we (girlfriend and I) finished off with a trip to St Pauli (red light district). The Reeperbahn is as much a tourist attraction as Pat Pong of Bangkok, we wandered into a huge marital aids shop (not martial arts, very subtle difference not only in spelling). It was mostly womens toys, I was given a re-assuring "you don't need that" while perusing the stamina increasing potions.
There was a tremendous seletion of gimp outfits and strange hardware in the basement, we left that more bemused than excited. The men's bit was dissapointing to say the least, an 800 euro solid rubber doll, a selection of blow up dolls and a selection of women's genitalia made of rubber in various colours. I thought to myself; I've only brought hand luggage, how will I explain this?, I don't even know what it's called "a twat in a box?". I left it.
Today we did the bus tour, as it was raining most of the day. The British influence on this city is striking, although it's more the case that the place already looked very British so the Brits took it over after the war and rebuilt it. They get credit for Hamburg being the press/media centre of Germany, well done! There was even a fish and chip shop (with vinegar) at the entrance to the railway station. I thought it would make a great picture but the lady working there had a different view. Obviously African, she charged out of the shop and grabbed my camera shouting "no pictures! no pictures!", I didn't expect that. The station was full of police officers as rival football fans arrived chanting and singing for the days game, a bit unnerving we thought. So we finished the tour and had nice (late) lunch back at the hotel before setting off back to Brussels.
We might go back in summer, I would recommend it.
I'll sleep well tonight.
JJ
Monday, 19 November 2007
Travel XIV, Ping Pong Thai Style
Well, here I am sitting in the lobby of the Royal Orchid Sheraton, Bangkok.
Only last week I was shivering in the cold Twickenham mornings wondering what I'd done wrong, when low and behold, my brother conjured up a set of golf clubs and said "here you can have these". Things picked up from there, the French railway workers went on strike so I cancelled the Paris trip and took the time to prepare for Bangkok.
It's 25-30 degrees here, I've been walking around the city in flip flops, that's one of my favourite things about hot countries. I'm going to do it again tonight. Only problem walking around here is the constant offers of strip shows and hookers. I wanted to see the Golden Palace but it closes at 5pm, I'd happily pay someone to sneak me in but that doesn't seem to be happening.
Nevertheless, as research for this bit, I went to see one of the famous shows. I don't know if these shows started out as a sex thing but today it's more of a circus. Tourists come in on buses, at least half of the audience is women (even those with headscarves and long garments - a bit off-putting frankly). There were a lot of "acts" in a one hour show, here's some:
Lady come's onto stage with a handful of ping pong balls and inserts a good few into her "jingle" while dancing in time to a local rip-off of some dance track which I vaguely recognised. Then she ejected the balls into a tall glass filled with water. One missed and bounced off the stage, she asked one of the guests to help retrieve but he refused to touch it, even when she offered a handful of tissue paper. She showed her displeasure before continuing the act.
Next, lady dances around for a bit and suddenly starts pulling a long ribbon out of her jingle. The ribbon has little bells attached to it but the really amazing thing is the length of it, she was wrapping it around four poles on the stage, I estimated it to be about 15 metres long and she was a mere strip of girl.
Similar act, a lady produces a series of dayglo things (about the size of Christmas tree decorations) attached to each other with dayglo string. This was easily as long as the previous one, incredible because of the size of the decorations.
Next lady lay on the floor and fired a "projectile", somebody shouted banana - it would have to be a small one, into the air, caught it and repeated half a dozen times.
This one will make you wince; another string pulling trick but this one had razor blades attached to the string, not just a few, I'd say 30-40. There was a group of women sitting next to the stage on the opposite side (round stage), the expressions on their faces would have made a good picture but cameras aren't allowed. Just to prove the point she then took a piece of paper and shredded it with one of the blades.
The next act was quite impressive, the lady inserted a small "blow pipe" into her jingle while her assistant launched a balloon into the air. She fired something out of the blow pipe and burst the balloon from about 2 metres away. She did that twice and then used the blow pipe to blow out candles on a cake.
Then there was the lady who took the top off a bottle of coke (the jagged metal tops), another one with metres and metres of neon ribbon, then a comedy act. This lady took some water from a small coke bottle and ejected it into another bottle, the trick being that the ejected fluid looked just like cola, it did raise a laugh.
Next, lady rolls up a sheet of A4 and inserts into jingle followed by felt tip marker pen. After much jiggling about she retrieves the paper and proudly displays the writing "welcome to Thailand". That brought a new twist to the art of sign writing and an end to the show, well the closing "act" was an erotic simulation by a couple of young ladies but no one was interested in that, people made their way out and the next bus loads came in. It was bizarrely not-erotic, all I felt was hungry and so I also left.
I wandered around and looked in at some of the street food stalls but I wasn't actually sure which were selling food and which were souvenirs, trays of brightly coloured things everywhere, I could smell food but I didn't recognise any. None of the vendors spoke English. I ended up in a Thai Restaurant (they just call them Restaurants here), sitting outside by the riverside, very nice. I'll tell you what, the chili sauce doesn't leave you wanting! I've got to bring some of that back. The restaurant is called "Sala Thai", joke for Punjabi speakers there.
Other than that there's the weirdo news typical of dictatorships. Today's Bangkok Post headline was that the Princess Royal has released a diary of her photographs of flowers taken in the Palace gardens. The second spot; "Thais Happier than at any time in Past Year", they have an actual Gross Domestic Happiness Index which is at record levels since the military coup two years ago (when they ousted Thaksin Shinawatra whose key foreign policy was to buy Liverpool FC from the proceeds of a Thai National Lottery). The GDHI is now 6.90, the maximum being 10. The reason for this happiness is that the King just came out of hospital after successful treatment for a blood clot.
One of the chaps in the office told me about the military coup. There was a general announcement that no one should go to work that day and military were posted on all street corners. That's it, children were running around and playing on the tanks, and few days later life went back to normal. There'll be an election next month but there's no rush.
I had Pad-Thai for lunch and suddenly realised why I've never liked Thai food before. Here they put heaps of chili sauce and dried spices on it, my host is a German fella and he said he couldn't handle it at first but now he's used to it, it's the only way to eat it. My main experience of Thai food was in Sydney, bland, they don't serve the spices and sauces that are supposed to go with it. I'm happy now I can say I like Thai food, I was a bit uncomfortable with that before because everyone raves about it so much.
And now, off for more Thai food (and Singha beer)
Coule of hours later:
eeeeh! I right enjoyed that, tamarind soup rocks! I had to send the port back though, you can't put ice in a Taylor's! Wait a minute, there's ping pong balls in the soup! no wonder it tastes a bit spicey!
errrmmm... okthengoodnight.
JJ
Only last week I was shivering in the cold Twickenham mornings wondering what I'd done wrong, when low and behold, my brother conjured up a set of golf clubs and said "here you can have these". Things picked up from there, the French railway workers went on strike so I cancelled the Paris trip and took the time to prepare for Bangkok.
It's 25-30 degrees here, I've been walking around the city in flip flops, that's one of my favourite things about hot countries. I'm going to do it again tonight. Only problem walking around here is the constant offers of strip shows and hookers. I wanted to see the Golden Palace but it closes at 5pm, I'd happily pay someone to sneak me in but that doesn't seem to be happening.
Nevertheless, as research for this bit, I went to see one of the famous shows. I don't know if these shows started out as a sex thing but today it's more of a circus. Tourists come in on buses, at least half of the audience is women (even those with headscarves and long garments - a bit off-putting frankly). There were a lot of "acts" in a one hour show, here's some:
Lady come's onto stage with a handful of ping pong balls and inserts a good few into her "jingle" while dancing in time to a local rip-off of some dance track which I vaguely recognised. Then she ejected the balls into a tall glass filled with water. One missed and bounced off the stage, she asked one of the guests to help retrieve but he refused to touch it, even when she offered a handful of tissue paper. She showed her displeasure before continuing the act.
Next, lady dances around for a bit and suddenly starts pulling a long ribbon out of her jingle. The ribbon has little bells attached to it but the really amazing thing is the length of it, she was wrapping it around four poles on the stage, I estimated it to be about 15 metres long and she was a mere strip of girl.
Similar act, a lady produces a series of dayglo things (about the size of Christmas tree decorations) attached to each other with dayglo string. This was easily as long as the previous one, incredible because of the size of the decorations.
Next lady lay on the floor and fired a "projectile", somebody shouted banana - it would have to be a small one, into the air, caught it and repeated half a dozen times.
This one will make you wince; another string pulling trick but this one had razor blades attached to the string, not just a few, I'd say 30-40. There was a group of women sitting next to the stage on the opposite side (round stage), the expressions on their faces would have made a good picture but cameras aren't allowed. Just to prove the point she then took a piece of paper and shredded it with one of the blades.
The next act was quite impressive, the lady inserted a small "blow pipe" into her jingle while her assistant launched a balloon into the air. She fired something out of the blow pipe and burst the balloon from about 2 metres away. She did that twice and then used the blow pipe to blow out candles on a cake.
Then there was the lady who took the top off a bottle of coke (the jagged metal tops), another one with metres and metres of neon ribbon, then a comedy act. This lady took some water from a small coke bottle and ejected it into another bottle, the trick being that the ejected fluid looked just like cola, it did raise a laugh.
Next, lady rolls up a sheet of A4 and inserts into jingle followed by felt tip marker pen. After much jiggling about she retrieves the paper and proudly displays the writing "welcome to Thailand". That brought a new twist to the art of sign writing and an end to the show, well the closing "act" was an erotic simulation by a couple of young ladies but no one was interested in that, people made their way out and the next bus loads came in. It was bizarrely not-erotic, all I felt was hungry and so I also left.
I wandered around and looked in at some of the street food stalls but I wasn't actually sure which were selling food and which were souvenirs, trays of brightly coloured things everywhere, I could smell food but I didn't recognise any. None of the vendors spoke English. I ended up in a Thai Restaurant (they just call them Restaurants here), sitting outside by the riverside, very nice. I'll tell you what, the chili sauce doesn't leave you wanting! I've got to bring some of that back. The restaurant is called "Sala Thai", joke for Punjabi speakers there.
Other than that there's the weirdo news typical of dictatorships. Today's Bangkok Post headline was that the Princess Royal has released a diary of her photographs of flowers taken in the Palace gardens. The second spot; "Thais Happier than at any time in Past Year", they have an actual Gross Domestic Happiness Index which is at record levels since the military coup two years ago (when they ousted Thaksin Shinawatra whose key foreign policy was to buy Liverpool FC from the proceeds of a Thai National Lottery). The GDHI is now 6.90, the maximum being 10. The reason for this happiness is that the King just came out of hospital after successful treatment for a blood clot.
One of the chaps in the office told me about the military coup. There was a general announcement that no one should go to work that day and military were posted on all street corners. That's it, children were running around and playing on the tanks, and few days later life went back to normal. There'll be an election next month but there's no rush.
I had Pad-Thai for lunch and suddenly realised why I've never liked Thai food before. Here they put heaps of chili sauce and dried spices on it, my host is a German fella and he said he couldn't handle it at first but now he's used to it, it's the only way to eat it. My main experience of Thai food was in Sydney, bland, they don't serve the spices and sauces that are supposed to go with it. I'm happy now I can say I like Thai food, I was a bit uncomfortable with that before because everyone raves about it so much.
And now, off for more Thai food (and Singha beer)
Coule of hours later:
eeeeh! I right enjoyed that, tamarind soup rocks! I had to send the port back though, you can't put ice in a Taylor's! Wait a minute, there's ping pong balls in the soup! no wonder it tastes a bit spicey!
errrmmm... okthengoodnight.
JJ
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Indians!
My Great Great Grand Aunt, thrice removed, was a Fusilli in the Crimean War. It was a messy war, the Crime's were a particularly inventive and slippery people, very hard to prosecute in a civil court, almost impossible some would say.
My Great Great Grand Uncle, thrice removed, was a travelling Yogi in North Western Hindustan (India). He didn't care for war but he didn't care for much else either, marijuana grows wild in much of Hindustan so there are many travelling spiritualists and entertainers who didn't seem to get an awful lot done. In the end they had to compromise his pacifism with her buring desire to be a Fusilli.
Hence the family motto "fight pasta with pasta", we think that's it anyway, it was handed down by some chinese fellas, shortly after they invented pasta (yes, I say the Chinese invented pasta, read it again if you don't believe me). Could've been noodles too "fight noodles with noodles" or maybe it was a mistranslation of "stop throwing your noodles at me". In those days it was considered a great insult to throw a noodle at someone, much like today when Japanese people in hotels and restaurants will be offended if you offer them a tip and they will retort "don't throw your noodles at me!" only in Japanese.
When my ex-wife made pasta she usually added Garam Massala and Chillies to it and I like to put chilli sauce on my pizza. We would often reminisce about our ancestors fighting the crimean war whilst lying on a bed of nails and smoking a huge doobry.
How does lying on a bed of nails equate with spiritualisity? fair question. Well, its the masturbatory equivalent of acupunture, as soon as you lie down all your energy points are connected immediately, so of course it's all over very quickly. Not as good as the real thing but it get's you through the long winter nights. For those who are not so culturally aware, that's the difference between the Asian Superpowers, the Chinese way is driven my method and material profit, Indians focus more on the creative and sensual (I started that rumour).
I've gained over 78 kilos in the last 39 years, Gordon Bennett!
JJ
PS. does anyone know a good French teacher in the Brussels area? What about the Etterbeek commune, do they offer anything? Perhaps someone could teach me the lingo in exchange for computer related assistance or some other service?
My Great Great Grand Uncle, thrice removed, was a travelling Yogi in North Western Hindustan (India). He didn't care for war but he didn't care for much else either, marijuana grows wild in much of Hindustan so there are many travelling spiritualists and entertainers who didn't seem to get an awful lot done. In the end they had to compromise his pacifism with her buring desire to be a Fusilli.
Hence the family motto "fight pasta with pasta", we think that's it anyway, it was handed down by some chinese fellas, shortly after they invented pasta (yes, I say the Chinese invented pasta, read it again if you don't believe me). Could've been noodles too "fight noodles with noodles" or maybe it was a mistranslation of "stop throwing your noodles at me". In those days it was considered a great insult to throw a noodle at someone, much like today when Japanese people in hotels and restaurants will be offended if you offer them a tip and they will retort "don't throw your noodles at me!" only in Japanese.
When my ex-wife made pasta she usually added Garam Massala and Chillies to it and I like to put chilli sauce on my pizza. We would often reminisce about our ancestors fighting the crimean war whilst lying on a bed of nails and smoking a huge doobry.
How does lying on a bed of nails equate with spiritualisity? fair question. Well, its the masturbatory equivalent of acupunture, as soon as you lie down all your energy points are connected immediately, so of course it's all over very quickly. Not as good as the real thing but it get's you through the long winter nights. For those who are not so culturally aware, that's the difference between the Asian Superpowers, the Chinese way is driven my method and material profit, Indians focus more on the creative and sensual (I started that rumour).
I've gained over 78 kilos in the last 39 years, Gordon Bennett!
JJ
PS. does anyone know a good French teacher in the Brussels area? What about the Etterbeek commune, do they offer anything? Perhaps someone could teach me the lingo in exchange for computer related assistance or some other service?
Sunday, 11 November 2007
Doncaster Rock City
My old mate Dave built a lawnmower out of motorbike parts and I said to him "you know, if you swap the 'D' and 'v' around in your name and add 'r' it spells Vader" and he said "I've fuckin told you to stay the fuck out of my garden, and stop telling people we're mates". Ungrateful bastard, he didn't complain when I let his mom stay at my place so that he could get his end away with the woman from the post office.
One time he called me in the middle of the bloody night, apparently the woman suddenly came-on while they were at it so they had to wash the sheets afterwards. He wanted to ask his mom where the fabric conditioner was, so I took the message and said "Hang on, I'll see if I can wake her". Wasn't too tricky because she was on her hands and knees at the time chomping away at the old pork sword, I just needed to buy a few seconds to let her get her composure. I was as cool as cucumber of course.
A few days later I bumped into Dave at the pub and he was giving it the usual "how come you haven't got a girlfriend eh? what's the matter with you? you don't bat for the other side do you?" and all that, I just kept saying I was waiting for Miss Right and all that, I was thinking "'cos I'm getting free shags off your mom without all the whiney bitchy crap you have to put up with from that tart at the post office" she wanted to marry him but Dave was his own man, meaning he fancied himself more than he fancied her.
Eventually she ditched him and took up with Shane, the guy who did the karaoke on a Friday. It was shame, he on only knew "Blue Suede Shoes" and he could only do it with so much echo on the mike you couldn't tell if he was singing or having a fit. Dave was gutted but not as much his mom was. Me? I just moved on to the next town and the rock rolled on.
Awesome.
JJ
PS I'm in England again, going to Paris and Bangkok in a few days, I'll tell yer all about it later
One time he called me in the middle of the bloody night, apparently the woman suddenly came-on while they were at it so they had to wash the sheets afterwards. He wanted to ask his mom where the fabric conditioner was, so I took the message and said "Hang on, I'll see if I can wake her". Wasn't too tricky because she was on her hands and knees at the time chomping away at the old pork sword, I just needed to buy a few seconds to let her get her composure. I was as cool as cucumber of course.
A few days later I bumped into Dave at the pub and he was giving it the usual "how come you haven't got a girlfriend eh? what's the matter with you? you don't bat for the other side do you?" and all that, I just kept saying I was waiting for Miss Right and all that, I was thinking "'cos I'm getting free shags off your mom without all the whiney bitchy crap you have to put up with from that tart at the post office" she wanted to marry him but Dave was his own man, meaning he fancied himself more than he fancied her.
Eventually she ditched him and took up with Shane, the guy who did the karaoke on a Friday. It was shame, he on only knew "Blue Suede Shoes" and he could only do it with so much echo on the mike you couldn't tell if he was singing or having a fit. Dave was gutted but not as much his mom was. Me? I just moved on to the next town and the rock rolled on.
Awesome.
JJ
PS I'm in England again, going to Paris and Bangkok in a few days, I'll tell yer all about it later
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