July 28, 2006

Instinct - every Mother F****ing time…..

Wake at 7.20am to Razorlights Stumble and Fall stagger my way through the getting my shit together process - think I can get away with shaving a day later to save time - piece of toast for brekkie - no orange left, damn it, water will do - shirt for work- shirt for work - damn it - get the iron.
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Half heartedly working away I turned to flick the morning news on from across the room - as I did I brushed the side of the iron against the right side of my chest - just a second - always seems such a long time in situations such as this - when your body figures out that molten hot ‘aint ice cold - initially it’s all the same kind of spark - that sting - that moment of instintcive thought that ponders so - that second - that second was enough:
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MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!
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Instant reaction was to shout the above - as it always is when ever I end up adding another scar to the collection - skidding across the road on my arm and knee after the scooter incident in Thailand - falling off the bonnet of my friends car pretending to be Teen-Wolf - car door slamming on my shin - jumping up the stairs and ripping my stitches after appendicitis - grinding my right side on the gravel falling off my BMX Raleigh Stylus - stabbing myself in the hand using a knife to make a coke can bong - all the many times I’ve forgotten I was sun burnt and then have been painfully reminded - even burning my hand on the steam from a kettle while making a cup of tea… -Motherfucker!!!!
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Every sprained ankle, every stubbed toe, every door I’ve walked into, every bed I’ve fallen out of, every surface I’ve touched to find out if it was hot or not, every stripper that has dug her heels in too hard..... ”Mothefucker!!!!
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An instant reactionary phrase that has enough satisfying syllables to allow you to truly spell out your pain - you can drag the words out as the fire slowly ignites and you realise how bad you’ve actually hurt yourself, you can spit them out faster than a machine gun for that jumping short sharp shock and you can satisfyingly roar it at full volume when you’ve gone and seriously stacked it - ”Motherfucker!!!!” is the ultimate swear-word for every type of disastrously self inflicted injury....
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(I wonder what I said when I hadn’t learned to swear??)

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When my numbers up, It’s fair to say we all know what my last words will be.
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Having said that, I don’t want it written on my gravestone.

Spo | July 28, 2006 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Holland | Kaneheads Kompanion | Personal

July 26, 2006

Wake up thinking of the girl in Hanoi…..

She'd never seen Pulp Fiction - she'd never seen a lot of things - ET, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, the Godfather, Jaws - those movies that you can't easily grow up on this earth and avoid - but Pulp Fiction....Damn - that situation needed to be recitfied - Imediatefuckingly.
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She laughed when Vincent accidentally shot Marvin in the face.
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Game over man - we have a winner.
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Movie finished and we both wanted the same thing.
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A $5 dollar shake.
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God damn I miss that girl.

Spo | July 26, 2006 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Holland | Daily Life - Vietnam | Film / TV / Music | Kaneheads Kompanion

July 25, 2006

Haunted….

Got a haircut today
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Beautiful Dutch lady doing the honours.

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God damn she was fine.
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But halfway through the cut

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It happened.
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I bestowed my special brand of wind upon the world
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I had done my best to wince, flinch and inch that bad boy out with as little announcement as possible - it was no good though - it was out there.
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God damn it smelled.
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Like a 2 week old bag of vegetables baked in the sun.
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Nowhere to look, nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.
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What do you say? She knows - you know.
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Nothing you can do but let the silence hang in the air
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Along with my heinous crime.
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After the event had came to pass wind...

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....That was easily the longest ten minutes of my life sitting in that God damned chair.
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Awkward doesn’t even begin to describe it.
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I’ll not be going back.
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Worst farting experience since the time I was wearing headphones on the running machine at the Gym in Jakarta - I never knew how loud it was - still haunts me.

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That was for brother Eric - mild comparison to his bowel movement adventures.

Spo | July 25, 2006 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Holland | Kaneheads Kompanion

July 24, 2006

This is what Amsterdam felt like…..

This is what Amsterdam felt like... (click play a couple of times and stick with it - trust me)[Toy Story 2: Requiem]

Spo | July 24, 2006 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Holland | Film / TV / Music | Kaneheads Kompanion | Personal | Videos & Links

July 23, 2006

Amsterdamned……..

Two good brothers of mine rolled up here on Friday after a weeks worth of getting wasted round France - 7pm Saturday we arrived In Amsterdam - 7am Sunday we were on our way back to Rotterdam and the promise of sleep.
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Penniless, exhausted, broken, wide eyed and wasted - we were well and truly Amsterdamned.
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I'll write more tomorrow once all my flashbacks are in order and I can open my eyes properly again.

Spo | July 23, 2006 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Holland | Kaneheads Kompanion

July 20, 2006

“I got’s me a wok amigo - Don’t be stickin nor nuttin”

Back in the day Barnes always did cook an evil-born-in-the-fires-of-Hades Spag Bol - better than any family member makes - even challenges the famous Cass Bubba Joyce Chilli.
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Attempting to add my mark on the culinary world I needed a signature move of my own - an E Honda hundred hand slap - a Chun Li Helicopter - a Blanka Death Roll - I rang the man for advice - the wise words he bestowed upon me ran around the low heat, keep up the stirring, mushroom mix veg in the mix once the meat starts moving, drain the juice at regular intervals, blast it with the gas every so often - add the sauce - get busy with the herbs and spices - easy on the Chilli’s - keep it bubbling like magma and go get a drink or three.
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Nearly hung up on me when I asked if it’d be alright using Ketchup.
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-what you cooking it in?-

-I dunno - a big ol sauce pan-
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-how big a sauce pan?-
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-I can get my head in it-
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-nice - Ok… if you don’t have a wok-
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-Wok? I got’s me a wok amigo - it’s bad ass - don’t be stickin nor nuttin-
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Spo, get the wok on the case - greatest invention since the wheel.
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Yeah- Barnes knows Spag Bol alright.
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Spo | July 20, 2006 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Holland | Kaneheads Kompanion | Personal

July 19, 2006

The Kid Stays In The Picture…..

36 degrees and the flat was a sauna when I got back - headed straight out to get bags of ice for the loafing with JD and cokes on the balcony evening ahead.

Kid in the supermarket queue was making fart noises using his hand over his mouth - pretty good quality - good volume - not too long - good dose of realism - fine work.

You didn’t need to speak Dutch to know what his mother was telling him - you could see it all in the hand gestures -That’s disgusting! Stop that! who do you think is laughing at you? who are you impressing? Look around! Do you see anyone laughing at you?!

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The Kid pointed at me.

Spo | July 19, 2006 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Holland | Kaneheads Kompanion | Personal

July 18, 2006

Through the Keyhole and the Looking glass……..

Yeah - rent a new place fully furnished and you gotta expect that the tastes of the owner are going to be evident in a lot of what you see around the joint - but this was a little much - this was a kind of through the looking glass experience - I don’t think I’m being a reserved stuffy Englishman when I say that the woman that owns this place has got some god damned freaky assed artistic sensibilities and may indeed have taken a lot of LSD at one point or another.... and she really likes horses...... an awful lot.
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Yeah - there was a lot of Horse/Human cross-over porn around the house
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“Hello!
I’m a freaky Dali-esque trumpet creature made of clay
about the size of a small child!
Welcome to my den of strange!”

....and here we have what every house needs:
a large clay creation depicting Siamese woodpecker lesbian twins

Alright - I did kind of like the disembodied monster hand candle holder

Weird, yes - but also:

Shit

.....and finally - a human-lily-lizard crature with a big fuck off beak - of course!

...and maybe there are a few of you thinking all this gubbins looks kind of cool and off the wall - sure it’s not exactly everyday stuff - interesting - weird freaky and a bit mental - but yeah, interesting - but would you want to live in a house FULL of this crap?? coz this is the tip of the iceberg - the place was filled with smaller clay mental projects dotting around the gaff - took me ages to hunt it all down - now the place is looking a little bit more like I live here - and not some nutty bag lady with a penchant for the Island of Dr.Moreau and a little bit of bestiality.

Spo | July 18, 2006 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Holland | Kaneheads Kompanion | Ojeni

July 17, 2006

Whisky inspires…..

It’s so damn hot at the moment I keep filling glasses of water up and leaving them in the freezer for a constant supply of ice cold drinks close to hand - got wasted on Saturday drinking wine and JD and woke up at 3am in the lazyboy chair - I just found the remnants of that nights last JD and coke in the freezer and no ice left - nice.
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The whisky doesn’t freeze so I just added more and now have the perfect alcoholic beverage to accompany this foray into posting again - and now Interpol’s Hands Away is playing - splendid.
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I always imagine my own movies when listening to good music and this track would definitely play over some kind of definitive stirrring-staring-off-into-the-skyline build up to some kind of Michael Mann Heat style gun play. Cliched yes - but as Heat proved - do it with class, style and substance......
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next up on random lackadaisical list number 4 -

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Thievery Corporation the time we lost our way saucer eyed coming of age come down, walking back with the girl through the wheat-fields as the noise from festival behind them draws to a close and the sun rises round 6am.



Snow Patrol How to be Dead - not seen her for years and it’s the turn of the century - crowded room and our hero is just coming round from a fierce trip to the drugged up dark side of the moon - she’s lost and just found her way to the gathering due to n only in the movies trail of co-incidence - eyes meet - crescendo of the song kicks in.
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Editors Munich - As the femme fatale smokes cigarettes watching from the balcony overlooking the dance floor, she watches as our hero pushes through the club crowd looking delighted to see her after all he’s been through that night - all he’s been through for her - and then he bumps into the cops and he looks up at her in dis-belief - she smiles a wry smile, stubs out the cigarette and turns back into the shadows. He’s fucked.
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Ocean Colour Scene Hundred Mile High City- Bank Robbery Get away. Probably been done by some very bad Brit flick gangster movie somewhere though - actually, I think this starts off the intro scene to Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels which was quite good to be fair. Especially due to the repeated appropriate use of the word Muppet - one of my most used phrases.
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The Charlatons Telling stories - end of the film final walk off as our hero turns his back on the job and the money waiting back in the world and instead walks back up the beach to his hut in the hills and a beautiful girl in a hammock.
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Zero 7 In the waiting line well, Zach Braff did this to perfection with that drugged up party scene in Garden State.
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Right enough of that.
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The last month or so does seem to have gone at a hundred miles an hour or so I’ve been over to Holland, back to UK, over to Holland, over to Germany, back to UK I’ve started a new job, moved all my stuff across, sorted out the mortgage on the flat in back in Winchester and am now more or less settled - especially after I finally get a bank account tomorrow after a visit to the tax office.
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As an expat when you move to somewhere like Africa or Indonesia there is an awful lot of the settling in gubbins that happens for you - due to the fact there was someone before you and a system of introduction in place you don’t have to do all the little things - they sort of say this is where you live, here’s who cleans and cooks, this is what you drive, this is your phone, sign this that and the other and we’ll pay your house bills - here are the keys - bars are here, here and here - enjoy.
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Even in Vietnam, where I was the first there from my company, there was a fair amount of support to get you set up - plus if you are a foreigner then there are folk who make a living off getting you used to the place and making things easy - you have money out of proportion to the average earnings of the country you are working in, so therefore - if you want the comforts of life made easy and accessible - there will be some ingenious secret service to allow that to happen - English Fry-Up’s cooked and delivered to your door first thing in the morning in Hanoi for example.
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In this instant though, I’m still living and working in the Western world they don’t usually employ foreigners to work at this office I’m being hired in the same way a local would be - so all the odds and ends of life are up to me to set up - the bills, TV, rent, house, phone, bank, tax, getting around, tying off the knots to the open ends of all you left behind - the lingo isn’t the problem - it’s just knowing where to go, who to ask, when and where - which isn’t a particularly difficult thing - just very time consuming and trial and error type of thing - and something that isn’t usually all taken care of in the space of a month.
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But it’s nearly all done now.
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So I deserve another Whisky coke.
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Fuck it.
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A White Russian.
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(Note to self - must remember to get travel Insurance tomorrow - At the moment, if I get hit by a tram or something and I am in deep shit - no more national health - no questions asked)

Spo | July 17, 2006 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Holland | Film / TV / Music

July 15, 2006

Back in the game….-

AHA!
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So in the end I couldn’t be done with waiting around for someone to come look at the laptop or spend any more time talking to Indian Call centres - I flashed the credit card, said a prayer to the bank account karma gremlin and a new computer was mine - and with it the second to last piece of the settling in puzzle was complete - I am online and back in the game - after a bit of tinkering, downloading, cut and pasting and burning I’ve got things looking like home in here.

A bit drastic - laptop refuses to play ball so I go out and buy new computer - but I figure that I’ve not been wasting moola on wasting myself in the bars of the UK over the last month or so and that means the cash saved can be converted into something much more useful - and so once again I can surf around to my hearts content and catch up on all what has been going on in the lands of those listed in the side bar up there on the right - first stop catching up with the grandmaster flash
Eric Elsewhere - and read the greatest post since the dawn of the internet.

I shit you not.

And that phrase really applies in this circumstance.

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Man Diapers.
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Seriously.

Spo | July 15, 2006 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Holland | Videos & Links

July 12, 2006

I saw 38 attractive women on the way to work this morning….

..... and walking to work takes 35 minutes.
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You. Do. The. Math.
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Ahem.
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I still have no way of accessing the net at home and after a month or so you start to appreciate how much of every day life revolves around this internet super dooper highway communication device of ours.
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Keeping in contact with everyone, reading the news, daily site surfing, checking what’s going on in and around the area, accessing new and old music, sorting pictures online - writing suffers as a result as well - as if you are out of the habit of sitting down at a computer and all is not set up as you would normally have it, you have difficulty getting into the right frame of mind - I’m one of those folks that has routines to such things - I get my whiskey coke made up, wear the loafing shorts and shirt, get comfy in the lazy-boy chair, set the I-pod via the Bose speakers to playlist of choice and off I go round 7pmish - at the moment I need my connection to get back into the everyday.
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Anyways, one way or the other either the laptop gets fixed up correctly with the help of Dutch folk or something is a amiss and I need to go out and get it sorted by professional techno-bob type chap - I may indeed have tried some DIY and mangled up internal modem type stuff - I am puter savvy for most things but on this occasion may have overstepped the mark - well, I may have deleted the mark to be exact.
-

Spo | July 12, 2006 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Holland

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Monkey Photo

Spo
Location:Gecko Lounge, Cape Maclear, Malawi.

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