I just wanted to let you all know I leave New York tonight at 2am (technically tomorrow morning but tomato, tomatoe) so I’ve probably written my last blog post about a dopey Englishman living in New York. Although my Mum wants’ me to do one about when she came to visit so if I want a home to go to I might have to do one more.
I’m flying to straight to Vegas then providing I don’t lose all my money (didn’t think this through), we’re travelling through California for two weeks before heading to Central America for six weeks by which time I’ll probably be living in the jungle and hunting Toucans (googled that).
I’m sure I’ll embarrass myself every step of the way so will look forward to writing about it when I return home to the UK on May 13th.
Despite swimming with a floater, getting hustled by an eternally pregnant tramp and a few other little hiccups, I’m going to really, really miss New York and the land of the brave and the free. As some famous fella once said; ‘when you’re bored of New York, you’re bored of life’. Write that down (next to ‘listening kills’).
One thing I won’t miss about the land of opportunity is everyone greeting me by saying:
‘What’s happening dude?’ Or ‘Hey dude, what’s going on?’
I’ve never understood what I’m meant to say back? Do they really want me to tell them what’s happening?…
‘Personally not a lot, I’m pretending to look busy but my mates just emailed he’s been arrested for weeing on the street whilst dressed as a chicken, we’re all having a right laugh. Oh yeah and my Mums called, the dogs pooed on the carpet again and Tesco have got Jaffa Cakes two for one’.
Judging by the looks I got, I quickly worked out they probably didn’t so I normally just say;
‘Yeeaaah erm, I’m errr good thanks, you?’
Which doesn’t appear to be the answer they’re looking for either.
So far as I can work out people just say it to each other and no one really answers. When observing two real Americans in a lift last Monday it went summit like this:
‘What’s happening dude?’
‘Yeah, what’s going on man?’
‘Oohhh riiiggghhhht’
Being English I’ve got more chance of looking good in a baseball cap (and with my ears any type of headwear is strictly prohibited), than I have of pulling that off.
I thought they talked English over here, I was wrong.
See y’all soon! Laterz innit.
P.S. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my blog; I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it!
Word to your mothers and big up yaself. I’ll let my boy Jay take it from here…
Queuing in America is a con. I’ve heard them call it ‘waiting in line’ but its all part of the trick; there’s no waiting and there’s definitely no line. The line is just a decoy for the ‘charge’. People pretend to wait patiently in line then as soon as the doors open and you’re allowed on everyone charges, pushing as many people out the way as possible. It’s a dog eat dog world and looking at some of the dogs I think they probably have eaten several dogs or small animals so having been referred to as ‘monkey or chimp-like’ most of my life, I’m getting out the way. This is particularly so when trying to board the $1 Megabus. Some of them guys haven’t eaten for a while.
Essentially it’s a ‘snooze you lose’ attitude. This principle also applies to the trains where if you fall asleep you get fined. I’ve never seen it happen but me and my mates used to pretend to be asleep, then open our eyes every time the guard approached. He hated us.
Apparently the rule is in place to deter tramps from sleeping on the train. Think about it. How do they plan to enforce that? Can’t exactly send them a letter, then send the bailiffs round. If you want to stop them, confiscate their sign or take away their coat. Zero tolerance. Or, just let the poor beggars sleep on the train, no pun intended.
Also if you’re going to fine someone, probably best not to go for a tramp. Nothing against tramps, I think they’re great. There’s one by my work who has a go at me every day for not giving her any money and then last Friday I walked past her and she had a perm and colour. Make matters worse, she’d tried to go blonde and it’d gone ginger and perms are well out of fashion. That’s why I don’t give you money. Ridiculous.
Anyway being unfit and enjoying a kip means I struggle in this survival of the fittest society and can’t wait to get in a queue for something when I get home and then say ‘after you’ when the doors open while some pikey in a hood picks my pocket.
UK 3 – 2 USA
Community Spirit
Community spirit in the US is great. Yeah they’ll trip up a pregnant lady or pushover a disabled kid to get on the bus before ya but when it comes to a summer festival you can’t beat them.
In Basingstoke we have a summer festival which attracts nothing but teenagers smoking, drinking, burping and mugging. At summer festivals here families are having BBQ’s, Dad’s are playing catch (baseball) with their sons and moms and daughters are making freshly squeezed lemonade for half time refreshments, whilst Nan and her pals do the cheerleading in the background. Admittedly at that stage I’m sure some people wish the English hoodies were there. Never the less it’s a lovely scene that can be found in every New York park in the summer time (maybe not the village green in the Bronx) and when the family activities are up, every one tidies away their rubbish and leaves the park looking as beautiful as before.
Admittedly the line for the half-time lemonades is a shambles and in our defense at least our hoodies will queue up to mug ya.
UK 3 – 3 USA
Architecture
There’s no doubt New York has some of the most iconic buildings and attractions in the world. The Empire State Building, The Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, The Rockefeller Center, Times Square and Central Park to name a few.
You might think even with London’s great attractions of Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament and St. Paul’s Cathedral we’d struggle to compete. Not so. In my hometown of Basingstoke, we have a magnificent statue that even any of the seven wonders of the world would struggle against. Known as the Wote Street Willy, Basingstoke homes the worlds greatest statue of a penis. No I don’t mean there is a statue of a bloke that everyone thinks is a bit of a nobber, I mean there is a statue of a penis.
New York think Lady Liberty says freedom but in my eyes nothing says freedom more than exhibiting a big todger in the middle of the town center. In New York people pay $20 to go to the Top of the Rock, in Basingstoke if your mate gives you a bunk, without paying a penny you’re at the top of the cock. Admittedly the only views are McDonalds (if you’re tall) and Office Angels, who incidentally I believe to be misleading the public, as if they were that angelic I don’t think they would locate their office right in front of the worlds largest cock statue. Liars.
I digress but essentially the point I’m making is that Wall street have a statue of a Bull to represent the power of the stock market and we’re in a recession. I can’t help but think if they’d shown a bit more balls, literally and gone for a 12ft winkle they might not be in the mess they’re in.
As you all know I had a fairly embarrassing incident with a toilet in Brooklyn which we won’t go into. I’ll never go into it again. If only the other fella didn’t go into it, I would have never needed to go into it in the first place but anyway after a short spell wearing nappies, I’ve moved on.
However a lack of doors isn’t where the problems end for New York ‘restrooms’. First of all the water level is ridiculous. Luckily I’m well proportioned or I could be getting wet. I’d imagine in Brooklyn you could do a roaring trade on willy waterproofs. Nothing flash, keep them simple, avoid zips and you’d do well. Anyway this isn’t a business blog.
Going to the bathroom in New York is a fine art which took me months to master. Having overcome both the aforementioned hurdles I started to grow in confidence. Until; the other day I went to the bathroom, door, check, water level, we’re OK, I get the perfect amount of toilet paper (excuse the graphic details but it’s important) reach round and BAM. The flush goes off. That’s strange I thought, the memories of my previous toilet incidents came flooding back but I knew I was stronger now so I shrugged it off and went for take two, BAM, it happened again. I’ve turned round and the toilet has an automatic hand censored flush. By the end of my session I was soaked.
Willy waterproofs will be available in all good ‘Games Workshop’ stores soon. I didn’t know where to stock them but figured you get a lot of nobs in there.
UK 2 – 1 USA
Flatulance
Farting at work has always been frowned upon. In the UK in general it’s socially unacceptable. Although at school, college and uni it was often celebrated amongst friends, amongst authority figures and females it was always a faux pas.
Once in Junior school I was sent out of silent reading, just for trumping and when I was first dating Luce, if she was around mine watching DVD’s, I’d turn the heater on whenever I was a bit windy. She still thinks that heater stinks. Keep that between us.
When working in a team at work you can sometimes get away with sly ones and no one will ever know it was you. Stare straight ahead and pretend you’re none of the wiser. We’ve all been there. Unfortunately for me I spent three months of my internship sitting completely alone which put me in a tricky situation.
If I l’d let one go just before someone came around everyone would know it was me. Leaving me with the dilemma of do I keep quiet which doesn’t really help anyone or tell them to give it a minute, which is fairly embarrassing for both parties? The other day being very English I opted for saying:
‘Sorry about that, Betty’s just been over.’
Here they seem to have a more mixed attitude. I had a colleague who was constantly burping and farting openly in the office. It was so bad people threatened to go to HR about it. He said ‘I hope they don’t follow through with it’. I said that’s what they’re worried about.
Then the other day I was in a restroom cubicle and the gentleman and I use that word loosely, using the urinal let an almighty fart go, then said:
‘Daaaaam bitch!’
There was a moment silence whilst I tried my best not to laugh, then he let another whopper go and followed that one up with:
‘Sweet Jesus, motherf4cker!’
I’m not sure if he thought he was alone but there’s a clear and valuable lesson to be learnt from this. When entering all toilets always check under each cubicle door before commenting on your farts.
Ultimately I don’t think people embrace blowing-off with the same enthusiasm in the UK as they do here but if we did I would have saved a fortune on heating and would be able to read in my head.
With seven weeks to go and a permanent trip home back on the cards I’ve decided to pitch the USA versus the UK in a battle of the U’s. Which United is the greatest…
The Lingo
Every time I go on holiday abroad, for some reason people struggle to understand me. I thought it would be fine here as we speak the same language but no, I may as well be speaking Chinese.
We went skiing for Lucy’s birthday and everyone was jumping aboard the bus giving their surname to the organiser. I jumped up:
‘Hi mate, O’Brien’
‘No I’m Steve’
*confused look* ‘Cool, Hi Steve…O’Brien’
‘No I’m not Brian, I’m Steve, what’s your name?’
*looked at Luce*
‘His surnames O’Brien Steve’
‘Ooohhh, ha ha ha, I thought you said ‘are you Brian?’ That accents thick!’
‘OK Steve, no need for insults’.
That’s the kind of thing I have to live with every day. Just because no-one understands me Luce is constantly teasing me for being uncultured. Granted I’m not the most well spoken, sometimes I drop the odd h and forget the occasional t, I’m not a big fan of Broadway and shouted ‘oh no he didn’t’ during West Side Story. I think the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) is the biggest load of twaddle (good word) in the whole of New York. It’s full of people standing around saying ‘oh yaaaa, I totally see what he’s done there’, whilst looking at a massive blank canvas with one line down it. Whats he’s done there is mug everyone off. The museum probably brought that for 200k and now 1000’s of people pay the museum $20 a go to walk past it and pretend we totally know what he’s done there when in reality we’re all thinking ‘it’s just a line on a bit of paper’ but because everyone’s too scared of being called uncultured we all pretend we totally see what he’s done there. The problem is if you read the little captions next to the ‘art’ they add fuel to this nonsense with things like; ‘This delightful drawing of a circle, known simply as ‘the circle’ represents the artists feelings that through his artwork he could live an eternal life, the red ink he’s used represents his feelings of anger that he himself couldn’t live forever’. When really it should have read; ‘This sh1t drawing of a circle, is a drawing of a circle because the artist struggled with squares, the red biro he’s used represents he was skint and couldn’t find a blue one’.
Then there’s the fact I enjoy a burger, yes I enjoy a burger, I like the way they taste and I can get two for the price of a ticket to look at a line, if I go to Burger King I can get 18 and diarrhea. I may have ordered one in a Thai restaurant once but how was I to know they didn’t eat burgers and everything was to share. With Luce around you don’t want to share anything. I got up and went to McDonalds.
Anyway last week we went to Il Bastardo, despite the name it’s a really nice restaurant. It’s got signs outside saying it been in ‘The City’ so most people in there have come straight from the MOMA and have totally seen what was done there. It was a three course pre-fixe menu so I’ve had the mussels, Luce went for Soup (take note), I’ve had the lamb Shank and tucked away my suet no problems, Luce copied me on the Shank and spat her suet out. Then for after’s the menu simply read ‘dessert of the day’, me and Luce, Luce and I, sorry, had discussed what we fancied at great length; Luce wanted cheesecake, I wanted chocolate fudge. On tenterhooks the Italian waiters come over and said in his beautiful Italian accent:
‘Weller, the er dessert er of the day er is a passion fruit sssoooorbet’
Luce looked gutted, puffed her cheeks and said ‘Does it come with a wafer?’
Who’s uncultured now? Even me shouting ‘it’s behind you’ in Phantom of the Opera wasn’t as embarrassing as that. It didn’t come with a wafer and Luce was distraught. Afterwards she tried telling me, ‘I meant one of those posh tubey ones’.
Back to the original point, at least he understood Lucy’s request for a wafer and gave her an answer that made sense; ‘No’. If you don’t ask you don’t get. Whereas if I ask how the weather is, they tell me they had pancakes for breakfast.
UK 1 – 0 USA
Beer Pong
Beer Pong has been a big part of my year. For those that don’t know, lots of bars in NY, mainly the divey ones, have beer pong tables, many sacrifice doors’ on their loo’s to do so. Each team has ten plastic cups set up in a triangle formation (like bowling), all cups are full with beer and the aim of the game is to throw the ping pong ball into the opposing teams cups. If you land a ball in their cup they have to down that cup, the winner is the team that eliminates all the other teams’ cups before their own are eliminated.
It’s genius and seen some magnificent moments. Lucy having to down one in a girls v boys game and ‘sharing’ it with Olivia, Cat, Flo and Lynne. Apparently she felt bad she hadn’t chipped in for the pitcher. Me and my mate Tidzy facing up against two Americans who refused to play until they’d gone through a full ten minute hand stretching routine. Jamie and I getting criticized on our ‘wooing’ after beating a very large American, who then proceeded to give us a demonstration on corrent ‘wooing’ technique and Craigy throwing two in against the reigning champs, whilst looking the opposite way making sure I wasn’t about to be sick on his jacket.
Despite all them glorious moments perhaps the best moment of all was when my older sister Emily came over and her first reaction was, ‘eeeeeeewwwwwweeee that ball goes on the floor’, then she asked if we could leave the dive bar. So I took her to the MOMA; she couldn’t wait to get back to the dive bar.
My only criticism of this undoubtedly great game is they’ve failed to take it to the next level. In the UK there is no doubt that within a week of beer pong hitting pubs, it would be called Jager Bomb pong and beer pong would be socially unacceptable and brandished ‘queer pong’ by wafer eating skinheads.
Another obvious flaw is you’re expected to go to bars and partake in several rounds of queer pong, I mean beer pong, downing numerous pitchers of beer but aren’t allowed to have a wee in a bush on the way home.
Talking of weeing in New York bushes, there’s not any, so much less concealing lamp posts inadequately take their place. In my first couple of weeks in New York I was heading to a roller disco (dunno why) in Brooklyn with Nav and Jon Fox. The journey from New Jersey is over an hour and having each necked three cans of dragon juice (real drink, don’t ever buy it) on the train, we were all desperate for a wee by the time we got there. With even less bushes adorning the delightful streets of Brooklyn we started searching for the nearest lamp post.
What I’ve failed to mention thus far is as it was a roller disco the dress code was ‘tight and bright’, so I’ve got a pair of Lucy’s hot pants on, my gay room-mate, Christians t-shirt, a pair of football socks and a headband. Jon’s gone all lycra and Nav had kinda just gone for 80’s cool; he looked a right twat. Anyway in essence what I’m saying is there’s three blokes dressed in luminous lycra in the ghetto streets of Brooklyn looking for a lamp-post to have an illegal wee against.
In hindsight if you’re going to have a sneaky wee; under a massive light whilst wearing luminous clothing probably isn’t the best time, or place, but we’ve had 3 dragon juices so we’ve gone for it, I’m sure it’ll be fine.
Suddenly in one of the most heart stopping moments of my life a Police cars lights have lit up, the sirens gone on and it’s heading straight for us. We’ve tucked ourselves back in our woman’s leg-wear; tight and bright not such a good idea now and ran for our lives. At the cross roads, someone’s shouted split up, so we did. You guessed it, the car chased me. I’m running as fast as I could, slightly restricted by Lucys hotpants not being the perfect fit and the car’s making ground on me fast. I’m honestly thinking I’m heading home in shame after two weeks. What would my Nan say? Jokes about nookie would be off the agenda and gay friends might be very much on it.
Anyway as it gets closer and closer, I decide to stop and try to sprint back in the other direction, I’m thinking the car might be quicker than me but it can’t turn as quickly so I’ve dropped my shoulder Gazza-esque (in more ways than one) and darted back the opposite way.
The car went flying straight past me, for a second I thought I was a genius, then in that moment whilst lost, out of breath, alone and wearing woman’s clothing which may have had a wet patch on my hotpants I realised they weren’t chasing me at all.
Now I can look back and laugh but all I can say is thank god they weren’t chasing me that night or I could have been locked up and staring at an indecent encounter with a queer schlong.
Queer pong; kids play. USA gets a point for the initial idea but they could advance it with ideas from abroad. Although as I found out standing still’s not always a bad thing!
Ever since I was a little boy grown ups have always said to me, ‘listen and you’ll learn’. Often saying ‘less of this (pointing to their mouth) and more of this’ (grabbing their ears) which I always thought was silly seeing as I’ve always had substantial ears, I definitely didn’t need more.
Anyway listen and you’ll learn is quite a watertight philosophy, I think you’ll agree, hence when the STA advisor told us to get off the beaten track and head to Maine in New England we heeded his advice.
For economic purposes (because we’re skint) we decided to take a Megabus to Boston after work then pick up a hire car from there and drive the 7 hours through the night to Maine. It was double the cost to get two drivers put on the insurance so I was ‘Des’. I won’t lie, considering my track record with cars, that was a worry.
My driving instructor used to phone his wife and kids before every lesson. At first I just thought he was a nice guy. Then he started praying, I just thought he’d found God. Then he turned up wearing a crash helmet, that’s when I knew I was pants. After 175 lessons my Dad sold his house and started teaching me himself. I was finally ready for my test. Clearly I wasn’t because four tests later I was such a regular down the test centre that I had my own car parking space (double the size of the others) and they always had my favourite biscuits in. They weren’t all nice though. On my third test I was flying; mirror, manoeuvre, signal, I couldn’t put a foot wrong. Then the Instructor and supposed expert told me to take the next left. So I did, it was a one way street, which would have been fine, except all the cars were going the opposite way to me.
My problems with cars didn’t stop there. I passed and was the proud owner of a new Rover Metro. In general that car was good to me. It had a few problems with the speed dial, if I turned right I always seemed to speed up and if I turned left I always slowed down; I never understood that but it meant I rarely had to brake so it worked in my favour. The only other problem I ever had with it was the roof leaked. My Dad was always telling me to fix it but being a student I had plenty of hoodies so I never got round to it and it never really bothered me. Until I asked Lucy out on our first date. I asked her what she was planning to wear (praying for a hoody) she said a dress so I checked the forecast and told her to bring an umbrella.
My car problems weren’t confined to me driving either. One of my best mates Olly Espinasse used to give me lifts to and from college when I was going through my two year test phase. I finished half an hour earlier than him one day, so he told me where his car was and told me to go and wait by it for him to finish.
When I got to the car it was open so I jumped straight in the passengers side stuck a CD on, started playing with his rubix cube and waited. I was sitting there, feet on the dashboard, humming away, bamboozled by the rubix cube when a stranger came and got in the drivers seat. I jumped up and demanded to know what he was doing in Olly’s car!?
He claimed it was his car and after a short argument he was proved right, when I realised Olly didn’t have a rubix cube. I jumped out a tad embarrassed and off he drove. Then I remembered I’d put my satchel in his boot. So there I am chasing him down the road waving my arms around and screaming stop. God only knows what he must have thought when he looked in his rear view mirror and saw me chasing him. Anyway he kindly stopped and gave me my bag back. Later Olly told me if I’d done less talking and more listening I would have heard him tell me he had his Mums car because his was in for repair.
In conclusion, me driving to Maine was a gamble. I’m no Lewis Hamilton when driving on the right side of the road in broad day light, let alone the wrong side of the road in the pitch black. Pretty much all cars out here are automatic which was new to me but all my friends had re-assured me that it’s just like go-karting, what they forgot is I’m crap at go-karting.
Anyway after taking half an hour to get out the car park, we finally made it to Maine, there were a few near-death experiences on the way and Luce wet herself twice but other than that we were fine. It’s when we got there the real troubles began.
An early indication we were in hillbilly land was when we couldn’t find our the hills have eyes style motel. I saw a lady walking a bear so pulled over and jumped out to ask her.
‘Excuse me’
‘GO AWAY!’ she screamed whilst running away; actually running. Nice place I thought.
We had a real adventure weekend planned so first up was hiking the tallest mountain in Maine. It was estimated to take 2 hours to get to the top. We took 4 and a half but we had to battle past the feminists who weren’t impressed by me pulling my shirt over my head when my Dad texted me to say we’d gone 1 up v West Ham. In fact they seemed generally unimpressed with me full stop. Past the snakes, well snake. I stepped on one when I stupidly went off the beaten track of the hiking track which was in Maine which was off the beaten track.
I know what you’re thinking; what was I doing climbing a mountain when Spurs were on!? Well that morning I’d been to every bar in the town (both of them) looking for the game but it soon became apparent that cable was merely a vicious rumour in Maine. They don’t like change.
We finally got to the top, amazed by some of the sights but exhausted. Evening was drawing in and we decided to grab a drink at the gift shop; worst gift shop in the world, hardly worth the 4 and half hour trek. I asked the till lady where the bus stop back down was?
‘Bus stop!?’ she said. ‘There’s no bus stop’.
Luckily (kinda) a couple close by saw the pain on Lucy’s face and offered us a lift back to our car at the bottom. Before we could confer Luce jumped at the chance. I pulled her to one side and said ‘have you never heard of stranger danger!?’ She said ‘they’ve got a kid’, I said ‘it might not be theirs’.
Anyway we accepted the lift, they were alright, the kid wasn’t, kept staring me out. She clearly didn’t know I was the three balloons playgroup staring out champion. Luce said she probably thought I was the Haribo Kid.
Either way we got back safe, ordered a take-away pushed the closet up against the door, bolted the windows and went to bed.
Next up was white water rafting. Driving there we saw the weirdest man in the world walking around in his underpants and open shirt, possibly just murdered someone, were nearly attacked by a dog when I pulled into the wrong place and all they played on the radio was ‘My Big Green Tractor’ (straight up).
The journey there aside, it was one of the best things I’ve ever done except for the ex-con instructor who was the sort of bloke that if you’d climbed Kilimanjaro, he’d hopped up it backwards whilst piggy-backing an elephant and being chased by a herd of dragons. I’m not sure if herd is the correct terminology for a group of dragons but there was more than one. He told us of his numerous fights with moose’s, tales from his prison days and if we wanted a good night out the Maine strippers, ‘would do things you didn’t think were possible’, which went down as well as me staring out the 5 year old daughter of the kind couple who’d just given us a lift, with the 3 young girls and elderly, very well spoken couple we were rafting with.
Another night sleeping clutching the bible in one hand and a coffee maker in the other passed (I don’t like coffee but it was the only weapon I could find) and our final day was upon us.
Lined up was, kayaking and a helicopter ride.
The helicopter ride was uneventful and the people were lovely so for the purposes of generalizing the whole of Maine as a bunch of murdering mentalists we’ll skip past that bit.
Kayaking was awesome, again except for the instructor who referred to himself as the ‘Kayak King’ on his website, his voicemail and most amazingly in person.
‘Hi, I’m Sam’
‘Hi Sam, I’m the Kayak King’,
‘Cool, I’ll just call you that then’.
He had three kayaks to bring down to the water from his 4×4 at the top of the hill, so I offered to help. He refused then spent the next hour dragging each one down one by one on his own; strange, strange man. I can only assume he’s got trust issues since he found out his Dad was his brother.
By this time I was busting for a wee so I asked the instructor if there was anywhere I could go before we started.
‘Go to the top of the hill and there’s a hotel, people sometimes go there but you shouldn’t’,
‘OK KK, so can I go there?’
‘Who’s KK?’
‘Kayak King, that’s you’,
‘Well I’m not saying you can’
‘OK but can I?’
‘Well yeah but what ever you do don’t get caught and don’t tell them I told you’.
I sprinted there and back as fast as I could which isn’t very fast. When I got back the Kayak King looked really worried and asked me if it was all OK?
‘Well I got caught but I told them you didn’t tell me to go there’.
He didn’t see the funny side.
In fact he didn’t see the funny side of anything especially if it was during his 45 minutes health and safety talk.
‘Any Questions?’ he finished with,
‘Can I go to the toilet?’
By this point the man responsible for my safety definitely wanted to kill me.
To summarise, when I haven’t listened I’ve ended up asking my date to put her brolly up whilst inside the car and chasing a stranger down the road because my backpack was in his boot. Both admittedly fairly embarrassing.
BUT when I did listen I was nearly hit by oncoming traffic on a one way road, then when I went off the beaten track I was nearly murdered by moose man, the Kayak King and a 5 year old girl.
Listening kills. Write that down.
When I grow up I’m going to tell my kids:
‘Listen and you’ll learn. Don’t listen and you’ll live’.
The choice is yours.
P.S. For anyone interested this is ‘My Big Green Tractor’
I’ve always loved Christmas. So much so I was mentally and physically bullied until I was 13 when my Mum broke my heart and told me Santa wasn’t real. I’m not even joking, to be fair when I was ten I went to Lapland and saw the real one so I took some persuading. Deep down I still believe. I saw him with my own eyes and pulled his beard, it was real so explain that one.
Anyway being a huge fan I was really looking forward to Christmas in New York. It was everything I imagined.
There were elf’s everywhere in Manhattan, mainly giving out flyers for discounts in shops and bars. Not sure whose big idea that was but I’d probably sack him. Nothing against dwarfs but surely the first rule of marketing is ‘get noticed’. A 3ft dwarf (sorry elf) standing in the middle of the busiest city in the world (don’t quote me on that one, China are taking over everything these days) probably isn’t the best way to stand out. I would have loved to have been in the meeting when that decision was made;
‘Right team, sales are down we need a big idea, shoot!’
‘Online advertising’
‘Too expensive’
‘Radio?’
‘No one listens to the radio anymore’
‘I know lets dress a dwarf as an elf and stand him in the middle of the city giving out flyers’
‘Now we’re thinking outside the box, good work Brad!’
If you’re going for the flyer approach, at least go for a man on stilts, a giant, a naked cowboy or a polar bear. Animal rights might have something to say about it but you’ll stand out, mission accomplished. Stepping away from its business merits I can’t fault it.
Then there was Santa, he was everywhere too. Bit confusing for kids but I think my Mum always told me Santa had lots of helpers around Christmas time. Once my Dad was Santa at the Junior school Christmas fete, I thought it was wicked my Dad was one of Santa’s helpers; coolest Dad in the world. That explained why when I was 11 I caught him putting my stocking at the end of my bed. What a Dad!
I love a Santa’s helper but was a bit concerned at the impact the rapping beardless CD selling black Santa’s could have on his image amongst kids.
‘Mummy black Santa sold me a blank CD’
‘Lucky that son, the ones with words on are worse’.
Not exactly ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’.
On my last night in New York before heading home for Christmas Luce and I went to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular which is a famous Christmas show that has been running for 5,000 years in New York. It was mainly 36 girls kicking their legs in the air but what really caught my eye (bit gay) was the real life sheep, donkeys and camels they used for the nativity. I read in the program (borrowed somebody’s, didn’t buy one) that they keep the ‘animal stars’ in one big stable back stage. No wonder the camels looked a bit sheepish.
Unless you’re Claus-trophobic (you can have that one) Christmas in New York is amazing but to me Christmas will always be a family time so I waved goodbye to the marketing elf’s, black Santa’s and real life nativity stars and flew home on the 23rd.
My Nan and Grampy (Kit and Percy, great names); yes I do still call him Grampy, probably should have switched to Grandad in my teens but after my Mum breaking the Santa news there was no way I was giving up Grampy. Anyway as I was saying they always come over and stay at Christmas.
I love them to bits; my Mum got a text on Christmas day and said:
Mum – ‘I’ve just got a text from my friend Dan, wishes us all Merry Christmas, that’s nice of him’
Nan – ‘Is that the gay one?’
Mum – ‘Yeah, he’s lovely’
Nan – ‘oooooo it’s nice to have a gay friend.’
Mum – ‘Why?’
Nan – ‘well it just is; what’s his name again?’
Mum – ‘Dan’
Nan – ‘oooooo little gay Dan’.
He’s not little.
Then later I’m explaining to my Nan about how our apartments are set up in New York. I explained that I have a room-mate but Lucy has her own room.
Nan – ‘oooooo that’s good’
Me – ‘Why Nan?’
Nan – ‘you know’
Me – ‘No Nan, what?’
Nan – ‘weeeeellll, you know’
Me – ‘what Nan?’
Nan – ‘well you can have a bit of nookie!’
Me – ‘Nan!!!’
Nan – *slapping her own wrist* ‘oooooo I am a naughty Nan’.
Gramps spends all day cracking one liners, trying to distract you so he can steal your dinner and eating all the pudding. Literally cuts himself a slice of pavlova then eats the rest. Nan tries every single bit of food we have even though she’d never dream of eating it at home; she’s got to try it because it’s Christmas. She’s been ‘trying’ Walkers ready salted, mince pies, Quality Streets, After Eights and Pringles for the last twenty years.
My Mum spends most the day hula hooping on the Wii Fit (badly); this year she got Wii Fit Plus and spent half the day flapping her arms, pretending to be a bird; who needs HD TV when you’ve got that kind of entertainment. When she’s not doing that she’s crying about how lovely it is that we’re all together again and generally getting more and more like my Nan.
At tea time I’ll make my Nan a sandwich with nothing in and she won’t notice till halfway through, often saying what a nice sarnie; works every year. Then we’ll watch Noel Edmonds make the whole worlds dreams come true, The Royle Family, Gavin and Stacey and go to bed.
As far as I’m concerned you can keep your Gavin and Stacey, Laurel and Hardy, Robson and Jerome, Bodger and Badger and even Delboy and Rodney, the greatest double act of all time are Kit and Percy!
S’up peeps! As there’s only two sleeps to go until the bigman pays us all a visit I’ve turned my hand to song writing and re-mixed the Fairytale of New York to reflect my time in NYC so far. To get the full Christmas extravaganza experience please listen to the original below whilst reading the new improved words (to be honest it’s rubbish without the music). Admittedly it’s a classic in it’s own right but change must be embraced.
It was in Brooklyn babe
In the dive bar
An old man said to me: you’ve got a little one
And then they sang a song
The rare old double loo
I turned my face away but my bum was still in view
Got an unlucky one
Came in as I showed my bum
I´ve got a feeling
This year´s got more moments like that to come
So happy Christmas
I love you everyone
I can see a better time
Where all my blogs aren’t about poo
They got pools big as malls
They’re so fat they break stalls
But the wind goes right through you
It’s no place for the old
When you first took my hand as we boarded the plane
You promised me Broadway was waiting for me
I was handsome now I’m hairy
I looked pretty scary, when the tramp took my money he gave it me back
Sinatra was swinging Luce and I were singing
I pissed on a corner
Then danced through the night.
And the phantom NY pool pooer is still pooing away
And the lifeguards are shouting out
get out the pool
I’m a bum I’m a gimp
I’m a chimp with a limp
what is that on your head, you look a twat they all said
You scumbag you jerk
You regularly get murked
Happy Christmas your arse I pray god it´s our last.
And the blank NY CD salesman are still selling away
And the pregnant hobo’s
lose weight every day
Gerry could have been someone
if it wasn’t for you, you plum
You took his dreams from him
when he first met you
You lost some children babe
that wasn’t in new york
u left them all alone
that’s not entire-ly true…
But the boys a complete an utter ass, still smiling away
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day.
With the misunderstandings that arose from modern ‘down with the kids’ speak such as ‘sick’ I started to think about older sayings and realised in many ways our parents, grand parents, great grandparents, great, great grandparents, great, great, great, (you get the picture) are just as daft if not dafter than us. I’ve listed a few examples below:
You can’t have your cake and eat it. What? Imagine that in a shop:
Customer – ‘I’ll have the special chocolate fudge cake please’
Baker – ‘great, that’s 10 pounds please
Customer – ‘thanks very much, looks lovely’
Baker – ‘you can’t eat that’
Customer – ‘why not, I’ve just paid for it’
Baker – ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it’
Customer – ‘why not?’
Baker – ‘don’t ask me, you just can’t, everyone knows that’
Customer – ‘I don’t want it then’
Baker – ‘it’s yours now’
The cake industry would be creamed and it would spoil lots of kid’s birthday parties.
I slept like a baby last night. You slept in a cot, woke up several times crying your eyes out and your mum and dad came and rocked you back to sleep whilst you played with your squeaky toy duck? Each to their own; I slept like a very tired adult if you’re asking.
If I’ve told you once I’ve told you 1000 times. That’s a lie. If you’ve told me once you’ve told me once. What sort of example is that setting to kids?
Imagine that in a children’s classroom.
Teacher – ‘what’s 2 plus 2?’
6 year old – ‘5’
Teacher – ‘no it’s 4, I’ve told you that 1000 times’
6 year old – ‘no you haven’t, you’ve told me once and I forgot’
Teacher – ‘well if I’ve told you once I’ve told u 1000 times’.
That’s not going to get anyone anywhere.
The other one I’ve heard is:
Teacher – ‘quiet please’
*kids keep talking*
Teacher – ‘quiet please’
*kids keep talking*
Teacher – QUIET!!!!!! I’ll tell you until I’m blue in the face!
Don’t do that. The last thing that is going to make kids be quiet is the teacher turning blue. They’ll be uproar; it’ll b the biggest thing that’s happened all year.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Firstly, what’s a gift horse? And secondly, why not? What’s in a gift horse’s mouth that I can’t look at? To be honest with you I’ve checked Wikipedia and I don’t think gift horses exist.
You can give me all the ‘sick’s’, ‘heavy’s’ and ‘bad’s’ you like but these are just stupid.
Having coached football to kids since I was 17 I’ve always been interested in silly sayings and what you should and shouldn’t say to kids.
I was coaching a U6’s session back home in England once and the kids were all getting ready in the hall. Most of them couldn’t do their shoe’s up yet so I told them to line up against the wall and I’d come along and tie anyone’s laces that needed doing. Having always struggled with laces myself I was secretly hoping most of them had Velcro’s.
Anyway I’m going along and stop at one little lad (George) and start doing his laces for him. Whilst I’m doing them he looks at me and says:
George – ‘I’ve noticed something about you’
Me – ‘Have you buddy, what’s that?’
George – ‘Your ears are funny!’
Georges mate – ‘I’ve noticed that too!’
So I tied their laces together and walked off.
Recently missing being murked by two 5 year olds, Luce and I volunteered through NYCares to coach homeless kids sports in Brooklyn. I’d previously done IT with kids and running with the blind and both times got more out of it than them so thought we’d get a lot out of it. It was more about the taking than giving for me.
One lad, probably about 8 who had told me he had;
‘12 girlfriends’
‘are you sure?’
‘well it might be ten or eleven’.
Walked past a poster promoting a hip hop party, that had a girl on in nothing but a thong. He pointed at it and said:
‘that’s nasty!’
‘sick aint it’
‘nah it’s naaaasty!’
‘I’m confused; stop looking at it or you’ll go blind’.
More lying to kids but he bamboozled me with his language and I didn’t know what I was saying.
Anyway after getting my butt kicked at basketball by a bunch of 8 year olds, spending ten minutes untangling myself from two skipping ropes after attempting the double rope when in reality my single skipping rope skills were limited at best (don’t run before you can walk), teaching all the kids to say alright mate and watching Lucy run around the climbing frame chasing kids whilst pretending to be a monster for half an hour, we headed back to their home, got pizza takeaway, played table football and messed about on t’internet. The lads taught me how to jerk (not what it sounds like) and the girls taught Lucy how to colour in.
It was a great day that made me believe two sayings do make sense ‘kids say the funniest things’ and ‘you get out, what you put in’.
Although as I’ve highlighted you should always challenge these sayings that appear to be widely accepted regardless of how much sense they do or do not make.
When I was about 18 I was coaching football back home with one of my best mates Adam Di Mambro. We’d finished a stormer of a session, signed all the kids out and strolled out the school like Barry and Paul chuckle, happy as Larry (who’s Larry and why’s he so happy?). As we’ve walked out the main school doors we look up and there are three mums not looking anywhere near as happy as Larry standing there.
‘How are you doing guys?’
‘Where’s our kids?’
‘What kids?’
‘Jack, Michael and Sarah, we left them with you an hour ago, where are they?’
*Adam puffs cheeks*
*I twiddle thumbs*
‘eeeerrrm they must be inside’
Sensing this was fairly major we hurried back inside and put our heads together.
Me – ‘What have you done with them?’
Adam – ‘I dunno I didn’t lose them’
Me – ‘Stop there, don’t use that word, misplaced, no-ones lost anyone’
After checking under every table, every chair, in the sandpit and under all the plant pots (it’s always in the last place you look), we headed back outside and nervously explained to the three wicked witches of the west that we temporarily don’t know where there kids are.
‘Your telling me you’ve lost our kids?’
‘Misplaced’
‘I want my money back!’
‘Me too’
‘Me an all’
The session cost ten quid, we’ve misplaced three kids and all the parents attitude is ‘if you’ve lost my kid I’m not paying’. As the customers always right we looked into it and got them a discount and some vouchers for future sessions, they seemed appeased.
Despite the happy resolution that day proved two things to me 1. You don’t always get out what you put in and 2. Parents, not kids, say the funniest things.
For anyone that’s worried; we had just misplaced them, they turned up, they were fine, bit shaken but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. You can’t wrap kids in cotton wool, they’d just look silly.
Also for anyone that’s interested this is what 8 year olds in Brooklyn are rolling to these days (they’re not rolling, they’d get their clothes dirty). My mates said they might have been trying to tell me something…
I’ve never understood why ‘designers’ insist on messing about with doors. Who ever looked at the door and said ‘that needs work’.
Unfortunately a lot of people. We’ve got the revolving door which unless timed to perfection can go horribly wrong, normally used in big offices, I think it’s only purpose is to set the men from the boys at interviews. I normally get sent packing after taking five attempts to enter the revolving door of death whilst a big queue forms behind.
Then you’ve got the automatic door, designed by people who thought pushing a door was too much effort and results in people walking into windows. Not me but I’ve seen it happen. Unnecessary embarrassment.
Don’t even get me started on the automatic revolving door which quite frankly is a booby trap.
The worst of all is the spaceship door installed in trains in the UK. I was on the train once and some poor slightly obese lady forgot to lock it by pressing those stupid buttons. The light showed vacant and a man has pressed open. The poor woman is sat there for everyone to see. The man couldn’t apologise enough but really just once and then walking away would have been fine. He pressed the close button, then the woman went through the agonsing 15minute time period the automatic space door takes to close. She sat their motionless as some people turned away and others laughed. One man waved goodbye as it finally shut.
I’m sure she would echo me in my sentiments to ‘designers’ that the door is fine as it is, push it, pull it, focus your genius on global warming or celotape that never gets twisted which is really annoying at Christmas and leave doors alone!
Anyway moving on Luce and I decided to go and see a band called the Maccabees a few weeks ago. It was in Williamsburg (edgy, think Shoreditch) in Brooklyn so we decided to go over early and check out a few bars with the cool kids.
We’ve nipped in the first bar we saw. There’s bars in New York that are known as dive bars and are seen as cool, in England they’d be seen as sh1tholes. Anyway $3 for a double lemonade and vodka, not complaining.
So we’ve knocked back a couple of glasses of paint-stripper and nature calls.
I’ve got in the restroom (where American people go to poo) and now lets make this clear; I’m no interior designer, Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen I am not but I’ve instantly noticed the design fault. There’s a urinal and a toilet right next to it, pretty standard, that’s fine but there’s no door, shield, curtain, not even a sign saying ‘whilst weeing please don’t look at the person pooing’, which to be honest would have been nice.
To be fair to me I’m used to Americans pooing in unorthodox places, central park swimming pool for one but I’ll be honest I was uneasy. I’ve weighed up my options and decided against it, gone back to our table, told Luce, who loved it and had a couple more glasses of white spirit. By now my stomachs in turmoil and I’ve got that stupid over confidence we all get when drunk, when u think you’re much better looking, much funnier, have achieved much more in your life than u actually have and u can poo much quicker than is humanly possible. I’ve eyed up the toilet and looked back at Luce;
‘No-one gone in there for a while have they?’
‘Not since we’ve been here, you’ll be fine’
‘You reckon?’
‘Yeah go for it’
‘I dunno?’
‘Go on, I’ll keep an eye on the door’
‘OK, not sure what that’s gona do but thanks’.
So I’ve got up and made a bee line for the loo, looking back at Luce a few times for re-assurance, she’s nodding me on, I’m going in, I can do this!
I wont go into details but I’m doing well, safe in the knowledge Luce has got her eyes on the door (from the other side of the bar) I’m pretty confident. Then BAM, the door flies open. There I am mid-wipe in full view of the whole bar. Normally I adopt the sitting down approach but for speed I’d gone for the standing up position, you couldn’t make it up.
Already humiliated, ashamed and violated in many ways I thought the exposer would at least let me finish off in peace and come back later. No. He walks in and starts having a wee right next to me, I could have held it. I didn’t, but I could have done, in terms of distance I mean, he didn’t make any offers; anyway, moving on. The silence was deafening apart from the obvious, we’re both staring straight ahead at least I hope he was, I didn’t look and the feeling of discomfort was incredible. I thought I’ve got to do something to break the ice here. So I’ve gone for a winner in all uncomfortable situations and simply said;
‘Well this is awkward’
The man started laughing and suddenly I felt much more comfortable pooing next to a man who was weeing, amazing what a few well chosen words can do.
Despite our new found bond, I expected him to head out as soon as he was done, no. He goes to the sink which is directly in front of me and starts washing his hands, I’ve still not moved from the second he walked in. I’m all for hygiene but there’s a time and a place, this wasn’t it.
After what seemed like an eternity he walked out, didn’t say bye (which I felt was rude) and I had my privacy back, my dignity was gone forever, my pride dented, but my privacy was back. I finished off as quickly as possible and headed sheepishly back through the bar to where we were sitting.
‘You took your time, you OK, you look red?’
I’ve looked up and the exposer is only sitting opposite us (sitting, not shitting, that was me).
In the famous words of Delboy I looked at Luce (similar to trigger in many ways) and said;
‘Drink up Luce, drink up we’re leaving.’
After this day I will never moan about a door of any shape, size or form again. On that cold night in Brooklyn I would have taken any form of door, even an automatic revolving door admittedly not ideal for a toilet but it would have meant only one person saw me at a time rather than an entire bar.
God bless the door in all its guises, you are a close and trusted friend, please never leave me again.
Now since I’ve been in the U.S. I’ve been introduced to lots of new words, one of them is ‘sick’, as in ‘dude, that’s sick dude’. The other day an American said to me ‘dude you should go to the pink elephant (a nightclub) on a Monday night, its sick dude’.
My initial reaction was ‘well why would I want to go there then, each to their own but I’m not that type of person’ or ‘should I be looking to get a get well card, maybe send some grapes?’
Sensing I was concerned for the pink elephants welfare they quickly explained to me that it means good and isn’t meant literally. Lesson learned.
Anyway moving on a few weeks ago back in the summer Luce and I (proper English, I’m quite impressed even if your not) decided to go to the free swimming pool in Central park.
My images of a beautiful pool surrounded by sun lounges and people sipping champers being given out by supermodels were instantly dispelled when we turned up, there was a massive queue and we realized a lot of the queue occupants were sweating heavily.
We got to the front and the pool warden informed us the lockers had no locks, (which I’ve always felt was a drawback in any good locker) so we’d be well advised to buy a padlock. He pointed us in the direction of where we could buy one and said it would only be $3, which the lady behind us in line confirmed, clutching her new padlock proudly. We decided although we’d lose 20mins pool-time with the sweaty’s, it would be better than getting out to find someone’s nicked my best socks which handily tell me it’s Saturday. I struggle at the best of times but without them I literally wouldn’t know what day of the week it was.
We got to the shop and the shop assistant threw the lock on the counter;
‘$10’
‘The guard at the pool said they were $3’
‘That’s a different one’
‘Can we have the $3 one please?’
*Puts that one back, reaches under the counter and throws another 1 on the surface*
‘$3’
‘That’s the same one’
‘$3’
‘Bargain’
I walked out singing his praises, thinking we’d got a right steal until Luce explained to me he was overcharging us in the first place. So essentially I nearly brought a lock and still got robbed. At least my socks would be safe.
We finally got in the pool and were having a great time when the twenty or so lifeguards suddenly started blowing their whistles and waving their arms around frantically, which it soon become apparent meant, ‘get out the pool’.
We jumped out and I approached the nearest lifeguard,
‘What’s the problem mate?’
‘There’s a poo in the pool’
Now admittedly that’s not the answer I was looking for but that’s not the worst bit, before I could get my head round the fact I had just been squirting water at luce out my mouth, pretending to be an elephant he followed up with…
‘Give it 30minutes and you can get back in’.
‘Eeeerrrrr, errrrmmmm I’ll probably just head off mate, if it’s all the same to you’.
‘It takes 30minutes for us to filter the pool then it’ll be fine’.
‘I’m ok, I’ll pass, I’m a sh1t swimmer anyway…’
Unfortunately now in more ways than one. Never had that sentence been so true.
To our amazement Luce and I were the only two people who headed to the changing rooms. The other 3,000 swimmers sat there covered in poo water waiting to dive head first back into the poo pool.
Still hoping it was a horrible misunderstanding I listened as another man approached a different lifeguard to verify what the problem was, the same response came back which although upsetting wasn’t shocking, what was shocking though was the lady next to him who chimed up with…
‘Oh yeah I saw that floating over there’ pointing to a corner of the pool.
I mean I’ve used the phrase drop the kids (number 2’s) off at the pool (toilet) many times but I’ve never got confused and actually dropped them off at the Olympic sized shared public pool in one of the world’s most famous parks. As easy mistakes go, its not one.
Personally I blame all these cool kids messing with the English language and confusing people. If they just kept sick meaning someone’s not very well, left bad meaning bad instead of good, and left heavy meaning something weighs a lot then we might not get these misunderstandings that result in people pooing in pools.
I thought they talked english over here 