POSTPONED DUE TO FROZEN PITCH

bored?

here.

2009

i hate 2009
i hate two thousand and nine
it's been 2009 for a bit and i hate it
i might like it when i wake up
but wake up to what
to being forced to work 5/7 of your life into something YOU DONT LIKE
for this to be NORMAL
for civilians to be BLOWN APART because other civilians had been BLOWN APART
5/7. normal.
to wake up with no-one.
for cross border tension. for a zealous media to corrupt.
to explain a stain
to endure a spectacular collapse that is inevitable

i have 78 pages of travel journal to write up. i might write it up. i started. it took ages. i started a league on FM09 and lost to Vallodolid at home with Barca. I got upset. It was an upsetting day. Tito couldn't help, however much i showed them onto weaker feet.

when i write it up this will end. but it will take a while. it won't be worth it. dont cross your fingers. your gunna need some luck this year. it's 2009. two thousand and nine. everything is different. everyone is different. i hate 2009.

Barnsley at home

"one blink for yes, two blinks for no, sweet dreams sweetcheeks we leave alone..."


(I started writing a journal on my trip to Chennai (Madras))
(It goes a bit like this)
(And by a bit like this I mean completely word to word like this)
((just had to clarify that))

Friday 12th December 2008

20:46: I am on a train. Oh what timing! My Egg Biryani just came. I will eat it now. I am listening to The Festive Fifty 2000. It is playing a beautiful Sigur Ros song I do not know. We are hurtling through space. Egg. Yum. 30 Rupees - only - Egg. Rice. Yum. Space.

21:00: Wow! Marvel at my pacey gulps! The Egg Biryani was quite good. 6/10. In my experience of sleeper train Egg Biryanis, which stands at 3, it is probably the MIDDLE one.

Anyway, while munching away I came up with quite the mediocre analogy! OH FUCK I JUST MISSED THE TEA MAN, AGAIN! I swear I hear him 5 seconds after he speaks and then I look up and see his back and it's too late and it's the end of the world. ANYWAY, that was not the mediocre analogy (though make of it what you will), THIS IS IT: this journey of 12/12 is like a test flight before the real journey around the universe next week. Chennai is my earth's orbit to check the engines work. I will return to earth (Hyderabad) and gather supplies and such. I will NOT forget toilet paper like I just realised I have. Then I'll depart to stranger worlds than I have ever seen.

I am going to a cricket match. It is a wonderfully poised match. Wonderful things could happen. Space is flying past. The full moon is lighting up the treetops and wilderness of space. I am going now. Come back tea man, come back...

Saturday 13th December 2008

07:32: We appear to be in a strange water world. As far as the eye can see there is water in little squares like a city map. The sun has made a face in the clouds. Quite often there are trees. LOS CAMPESINOS! are heard EVERYWHERE! But that's because they're on my headphones. Imagine if You! Me! Dancing! was blurting from the heavens though! LOL

The Bay of Bengal is over the horizon probably. I forgot my toothbrush too. Did you hear about the boy who spent his weekend touring pharmicists? Yeah that'll be me. I slept well. Best yet. 7/10. Rudely awakened at 7:00AM, though.

I'M EXCITED! :D

18:07: Hello! I am sat on pink chequed sheets in my 250R (£3) hotel room. No cockroaches yet. YES! Indian toilet = semi fail, me buying toilet roll = success. Fail averted.

I've decided I like Chennai quite a lot. Lonely Planet, in all its wisdom, hates it, and I may be bias because of the favourable cricket score (England lead 2nd Innings about 250 with 7 wickets in hand), but I have had a completely lovely day. My plan to use local trains instead of rickshaws to the stadium/hotel worked and I only missed the first 45 minutes of play. Fantastic atmosphere: "Dhoni! Dhoni! ringing round the stadium as I entered sent a shiver down the old spine let me tell you. I also learnt that there is nothing like a silence when the opposition gets an Indian wicket. Suddenly time stands still, for about 10 seconds until normal screaming and horn blowing is resumed. Surreal. I was in the equivalent of the South Bank I think, side view. Maybe tommorow I'll go behind the bowler's arm.

I saw a pretty (white) girl in the morning session as England shot through India's lower order, seemingly alone next to a pillar. For about half an hour I debated whether to go talk to her, whether she too was alone in this big stadium. But then some guildy looking types (****s?) arrived, presumably her friends, so crisis averted!

I had fresh mackerel for lunch on the beach of the Bay of Bengal. I chose the fish, he chucked it in, sizzle sizzle, massala on, gorgeous. Truly.

I think my moustache is confusing people. Indians don't know I'm English. English don't know I'm English. I'm still scared of white people. I'm scared of sitting with the 'Barmy Army.' Maybe I'm just scared of potential guildy interactions. Who knows.

HEROES OF TODAY: Monty Panesar - W of Dhoni!
Andrew Strauss - 72* (when it was all falling apart)
Paul Collingwood - 50+* (safe!)
Ahmed & Prashant (nice people @ cricket)
Nice auto drivers

*CONGRATULATIONS*

21:25: I may never see Sedem again. Sedem, my friend from Togo who recently moved from Hyderabad to Chennai, just took me for beer + dinner. Well, I chose the place and his friend paid but the thought was there. I had fried fish, "1000" beer (6% alc.) + Chicken Tandoori. It was cheap and lush - "Hotel Comfort" - Triplicane - if you're about, ever.

I saw the pretty girl on the lift up to its top floor location and she wasn't so pretty at all. Also, her supposed boyfriend was very small. I win!

I may never see Sedem again. Or his friend. Which is sad because they are both genuinely lovely. GOODBYE SEDEM AND FRIEND.

Sunday 14th December 2008

16:22: I think this book is a Biryani magnet. No sooner did write the date above, my Biryani arrives but 2 minutes after ordering. I am now worried about said Chicken Biryani. I am in the non-veg cafe of Chennai Egmore Station. It is grey and pink. I will now eat.

16:55: I am grey and pink. I am orange and black and blue after being pounded for a 32 ball 50 by Virender Sehwag like Monty Panesar. I am a bit grey because Sehwag's innings might mean England lose despite the fact they should still win. I am pink because I've had a great weekend. The train is moving. Goodbye Chennai/Madras. Fare Thee Well...

19:13: I just had another Egg Biryani. I need to eat as much as possible. I don't want to look like a broom anymore. 6/10, BTW.

Bugger me, I forgot my analogy! (Song title! Nearly as good as "Blades Away, No Way!" of two weeks back. I'll write an album. It will go:

1. Blades Away, No Way!

2. Bugger me, I forgot my analogy!)

ANYWAY we are hurtling through space again (it is dark now so more like space). I am wearing and carrying my England cap with the sort of hurt pride with which I wear my Wolves shirt on the train home after defeat. Like one Tuesday evening on the way back from Highbury, December 2003, we had just lost 5-1 to Arsenal U18s in the League Cup (Fabregas' first Arse goal, for the record). On the train home some fat cockney cunt took my programme without asking, then asked "You Wolves?" I was wearing the shirt. "Score?" "5-1. To them." "Who?" Who the fuck do you think you meandering arsehole! "Arsenal." Cue laughing. I've not forgotten you, cockney cunt. I'll tear you apart. You'll still be laughing.

ANYWAY I shouldn't get so serious because we (England) still have a serious chance of winning! Who knows. I have since been informed by my friend Rishi that Sehwag was out for 80+. I love him really.

HEROES OF TODAY: Strauss = CENTURY!

Collingwood = CENTURY!

All the people who spoke to me at the cricket (5!).

VILLAINS: Virender Sehwag (but god he's good)

Every shop person who wouldn't take my ripped 50R note

The man opposite me now who keeps staring at me. (I just re-read this. He's still staring).

Monday 15th December 2008

06:48: Note to self. Side berths (ie "vertical" along the train compared to "horizontal") do not allow as healthy a sleep as normal ones. While in one of the six normal the train's rhythm rocks you like a baby, in the side berth it rips you up and down and you end up with your heart in your mouth. And I don't fit. I still got a good few hours though, just at staggered intervals. 3/10.

HOWEVER, it is fair to say, nearing the end of this test flight (oh god, you cry!), that the engines work impeccably and the enthusiasm of the crew is ever strong. One hopes the toilet paper and toothbrush will be remembered next time. But it's very exciting.

Someone just touched my foot. It overhangs my U side berth. Eyuk. Please let us have beaten Barnsley!!!

BYE!

(I would just like to add that it is cursed blogger.com formatting the text above so terribly. I have given up, it infuriates me so. This might be the penultimate ever post! Or final! Or none of these. Thanks).

Derby at home

The end is nigh.

I've started to do things for the last time. Today I took maybe my last ever share autorickshaw ('share' basically means cram as many people into the tiny thing as possible. Once we got 10. It was awesome. Don't worry, ladies, you get priority on the back seat. I was swinging off the side, knees grazing motorbikes) to have my last ever 'lonely subway.' Well that is what I would call it if I had ever called it anything. I guess now I have. Lonely Sub.

Anyway this is what happens: I pretend to go to my bus stop like every day as my good friends Claire and sometimes Malika get their own share auto. I walk on a bit and wave them goodbye as they flash past, crammed, and sometimes it's dark but sometimes it's not but in any case the sun sets awfully fast here. Then I get my own share auto (they are very frequent down Road Number Twelve) and trundle off down the hill. At the bottom of the hill is a big mall called the Ashoka Metropolitan. In the mall is a Subway. I leave my tentative anti-globalisation stance at the door and indulge for 45 minutes. And then I go home. Every week. No more. I hope I never eat at Subway again to compensate.

(stop reading now, this isn't going to get anymore interesting)

So... yeah! I was going to tell you about my solo expedition, as mentioned, you will NO DOUBT have noticed, in my previous post. Well now, and this is very exciting, dear reader, I am going on TWO solo expeditions.

1. Tommorow I will go to Chennai to watch day three and four of the first Test match, India vs. England. If you find yourself at a pub at lunchtime of Saturday and Sunday and the television is on and it's showing the cricket then look out for me. I will be wearing my Wolves shirt and if I do not wash it tonight it will be a bit dirty but it is essential I think. I will try to sit above the bowler's arm menacingly. If we're doing shit I might stare at the camera for two days and become a cult hero when the cameraman can't stop looking. Or one of the snipers on the roof will shoot me.

2. On Thursday (my word, a week today) I'm going on an ADVENTURE. Not the biggest adventure in the grand schemes of adventures ever to be fair, bur for this small brain it is quite enough. It goes: Hyderabad > Mumbai > Jodhpur (The blue city) > Agra (Taj Mahal) > Varanasi (dead people on river) > Bhopal (past ecological diaster) > Hyderabad. It is a triangle. Then I fly home the day after. Christmas Day is in there somewhere.

Today I have bought four books for my adventure: Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, We The Living by Ayn Rand, The World In The Evening by Christopher Isherwood and The Agony And The Ecstacy by Irving Stone. I spent about two hours this evening in my favourite bookstore here choosing, and now I want to start them all and read them all and finish them all at once. But first I must finish The Cider House Rules by John Irving, which I am liking very much despite/(because of?) it's penchant to take you swiftly down female genitalia and bloodily smash it all up, literally (it's about abortion and orphans, thus far). Did I buy it because it mentioned cider? Yes. Get ready 19:55 Fiddler's. If you don't exist anymore I'll be on my knees weeping at your doors. But no-one will see because you don't fucking live there anymore do you!!! Fucking hell.

Anyway on topic, my adventure will be swell. Most nights will be spent on sleeper trains. I might not sleep for two nights and then sleep too much and end up in Kathmandu. I am taking my trusty camera. Isn't it funny my little camera will take a photograph of The Taj Mahal! Arguably the most beautiful building in the world! On my little camera! I bet it will faint with a little sighing beep. It will be complete.

"I've been trying to show you over and over...
Look at these my child bearing hips,
Look at these my ruby red ruby lips.
Look at these my workstrong arms and
you've got to see my bottle full of charm"

I never liked PJ Harvey before.

"put money in your idle hole" he said
"wash your breasts, i don't want to be unclean" he said
"please take those dirty pillows away from me"

qpr AWAY

HI WORLD

IM ATILL DRUNK FROM THE NIGHT B4. I was thinking and this reminded me of James Tallant, for he is the one who has sadi this phrase the most I think in my life to me. Maps Maps Mpa.s Pipes Pipes Pipes. "I am still drunk from the night before." OK. Hi James!

We rAISED LOADS of money!

I just got home and found out we lost to QPR. This was OK for some reason. I'm OK. don't worry about me. We're still top. yes.

My plan to sabbotage the party with WA and ABS failed bus it was still fun and the pretty girls wore dresses and went from pretty to BEAUTFILLL. yep.

My new isssue of ALOB came in the post yesterday which is alwAYS CAUSE for celebration. Thank you ppl who send me post - you are awesome. TOTES. There's a new NZ girl trainee here and i find it difficult not to chuckle every time she says "heaps." Heaps.

This blog is nearly over! Hooray! I will get back and keep everything to myself again. This will be a relic. Or maybe i'll keep it. or maybe i'll start a new one called Blackpool at home (my first game back) and not tell ANYONE this tim?ZC?s/e. UNLIKELY.

id I tell you I'm going on a solo expedition

???

i'll be watching dead people float down the GANGEs on christmas day. Meanwhile my dear sister will be suffering sarcasm from her favourite boy. I win.

ok i feel like i might cuck now. ad by cuck i mean chuck. and by chuck i mean spew the contents of my spiralling stomach into your face. maybe i'll finish this later. BYEBYE

Blues at home

It's strange it not being in winter. OK so technically it IS winter here, what with it being only twenty degrees an all, but it's weird it not being an ENGLISH winter, a cold miserable IT'S CHRISTMAS SOON YOU CAN'T ESCAPE IT winter. I was reminded of this as I watched Wolves vs Blues via a shitty internet stream from Arabia (mm hmm) that froze very often and once for the whole first half of the second half, in fact more than that because I missed both goals.

Anyway, at half time (for which it worked perfectly of course) there were adverts of christmas things, and winter clothes, and more christmas deals at Asda and Tesco and all other sorts of detestable places. In India there is NOTHING to tell you of the upcoming day, so this was quite strange. In fact I lie, there is one MASSIVE poster (and I really mean MASSIVE) that says "Extra Christmas!!!" or something in big letters, accompanied by a man with a big moustache and a bigger smile, and lots of Telugu words. Whatever this means, it is being celebrated on the 13th-15th though. Who knows...

I don't know what my point is. I am quite tired and hungover so I don't need a point today. It's OK. The point is to not think, not put oneself to effort, lay down a bit (a lot) and to survive until tommorow. Then all the other points can come back and invade and start troubling again. But not this day.

One such point (see how I'm linking my paragraphs, dear reader. Weep at my ingenuity!) is that I'M COMING BACK IN LESS THAN A MONTH. This is in capitals because I only just counted and it shcoked me a little. How time flashes by without one knowing.

Another point is linked to this point, in that I have NO idea what to do when I get back jobwise, and lifewise really. This, as I have mentioned to some of you lucky souls, is scaring me a bit. A lot. Yes, I have this vague notion of working for a charity or something and not getting holed up in some grad scheme that locks you down for life or whatever, but it's all very well being idealistic now but at the edge of the cliff it is not so easy. Don't trap me world. Please.

Ideal jobs?

1. I would quite like to own a quaint second-hand bookstore. It would have very little order and have huge piles everywhere of quite fantastic 1960s sci-fi ETC books and lo-fi indie would quietly meander away in the background without anyone really noticing. When I'm 28, a beautiful brunette Irish girl will walk in and we will fall in love and she will help me run the shop, along with my slightly camp assistant who will work there for no money despite the fact I repeatedly tell him to leave. But I don't want him to really. When I'm 32 I'll receive a letter from the council to inform me they are knocking it down to make way for a Tesco that is so big it negates the need for any shops in the whole city. I die by wrecking ball when I refuse to move.

2. I will learn to score goals like Steve Bull and offer my services to Wolves for free (well, basic upkeep maybe). I will score hundreds of goals but be a tragic hero because whatever I do we'll never get promoted. I will reject a move to Aston Villa and Coventry because I am loyal. One day we will play Chelsea in the cup and I will end Frank Lampard's career with a double footed slide challenge to the head (he won't die). For good measure, in my interview with Jamie Redknapp at full time, as he asks me how it feels to have lost, I will accidentally tear his mouth off. People will be shocked initially but eventually break out into applause, which will grow to a roar. This will be my greatest career achievement (personal). At 32 I'll get killed by Louise Redknapp, but no-one will know because she'll be a wily old fox. No, actually a fox, as she will have mastered Transformagation. It will be a Midlands Tragedy.

3. You people will get famous and drag me with you. I will die at 32 for drinking too much rum.

4. Be Virender Sehwag. I will never die.

I had more points but I've forgotten them. If anyone has some money and wants to help me run my book shop that'd be swell.

Or find me a nice job.

You won't be surprised to know nothing has happened with any of the pretty girls. We had a party last night with (you guessed it) lots of rum and at one point I discussed at length with my flatmate how I really liked (well, she was pretty) this new pretty girl who was there and we decided I had nothing to lose and I should at least talk to her, and anyway while all this was happening she started dancing in such a way I was actually a little scared to look at her let alone talk to her.

Phew!

Sheffield United Away

Just before I went to sleep last night I remembered to swap back to my English sim card. I put my phone on loud.

I went to sleep. At 3 AM I woke to a beep. It was the text, from Charles, as on every match evening. It simply said:

Blades 1-3 WOLVES! Madness.

That exclamation mark means everything. I don't expect you to understand.

I woke up again at 7 AM for work and it was still true.

I cannot describe this.

***

THEN (and marvel at my ability to span this post over two days, dear reader), I got home after two pitchers of Royal Challenge having watched England get thrashed by India AGAIN, and the television told of 3 people dead in Mumbai in attacks, more being held hostage.

Everyone was pretty silent. We changed the channel to lighten the mood then changed back 'cause that seemed silly. I went to bed.

I woke up and it was still true. 101 people had died.

This world...