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...

Blackpool at home

I

I'm a little drunk. Tonight we went away. No. This weekend we went away. Tonight we got free food and drink at the most deluxe of 5* star hotels in Hyderabad, The Taj Krishna. Fundraising event.

Lush.

I cannot write this. Two people have asked me to update it. Surely this only adds to the bumfuckdom? The moment i GET requestsgybkjna./\x,ma\;lxmas;lxm/ then THat should be it. Over.

Nope.

I'm listening to Pulp - "Do You Remember The First Time." I can't remember the worst time.

OH MY GOD

So I guess you're wondering what happened right? (no). When they played Michael Kightly (no)? What Swiss Simon was doing (no)?

WELL Kightly got caught up in the England U21s so couldn't do the interview. I was quite upset but it was no-ones fault really. :'( OK I'm still upset. They might re-schedule.

AND I still don't know what Swiss Simon was doing but my shaving foam was horifically broken when I went into the bathroom after the below. Gauge from that what you will.

This post is shitshitshit.

Ok well so I went away (it really starts here) to the Ellora and Ajanta Caves. No doubt I will put some photos on facebook soon and you will all smile knowingly, as you will know, from this bumfuckdom, that I have been there. Oh clever souls!

I will not harp on about these places. They were quite beautiful, and possibly the best I have been to in India so far. If you come to India, go to them. But sometimes words and hyperbole can do nothing but deceive, albeit unintentionally, and I doubt even my photographs can do anything.

But there were a couple of things that "happened" on my trip. I was listening to The Festive Fifty 1992 on the train to Aurangabad, in the dark and staring at the stars, and quite unbenownst to me at number 40 came Ride - "Leave Them All Behind." This brought a great smile as it took me right back to the last time I'd unexpectedly heard it - Truck 2008 - cover by Maps - with a few of you wonderful people - and it made me quite nostalgic and happy. I miss The Barn, Sunday 20th July 2008 circa 20:00 very much. Come back to me. She never got it though, did she! LOL. Never would.

On the topic of 'she's' - the first (and third, for the record) pretty girl(s) were also on the trip with me. Keeping up? You may have thought my interest, albeit something, is really nothing serious at all, and you would be quite right. It is not like I am in love, or anything, and no doubt she still has a boyfriend. But pretty girl number one has reached a new level. She actually thinks like me about stuff, like things I get ever so frustrated about and can never ever EVER articulate so they rot and rot and rot and rot - anyway she tells me these things that I've been thinking and I'm like "Yeah, that's totally what I was thinking!" in complete awe at her articulateness. She is angry about it then (in a totally cute and pretty way) and then she is OK a bit after because she has articulated it. Whilst there's me letting things fester and infest the inside of me to create trouble. I cannot describe... no. It's almost not fair. I completely cannot describe it. She is the latent enemy of my festering. In another world I would tell her everything and she would solve everything and everything would be OK and I wouldn't have to piss you all off indefinitely.

But I am not in love with her. There is no flying saucer ride inside my head.

(good luck SB tonight. Do you have a new thread? Maybe. There are echoes in our one.)

OH WE WON BY THE WAY :dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Southampton Away

hello.

I want to go to sleep. Swiss Simon is in the bathroom where my shorts are that I want to wear to go to sleep. He's been in there for hours.

GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE BATHROOM SWISS SIMON

I feel I have been quite patient. I checked my social network (die) and gmail (nothing) and DiS Community (die nothing). He is still there. Right. Now. What is he doing?

GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE BATHROOM SWISS SIMON

I don't want to think about what he is doing. But it's taking ages. Seriously. I don't think he's taking a shower because it's 1AM, you know. But I guess the sounds could be mixing with the rain. Yeah, it's raining again! It's winter! People have started wearing coats and jumpers and cardigans and turning fans off. All because it's 20 degrees not 30. I tell them...

GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE BATHROOM SWISS SIMON

I need the toilet too, by the way. Before you say, why don't you just sleep without those shorts. Well fuck you. I need the toilet as well. And the shorts.

GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE BATHROOM SWISS SIMON

Perhaps he has climbed out of the window and is running around Adarsh Nagar naked. Perhaps he slipped on the floor, banged his head against the toilet and is now laying in a pool of his own blood. I once dehydrated one morning at UnI and collapsed next to the toilet. I woke in a pool of my own piss (my penis clearly hadn't thought to cease discharge despite my brain ceasing to do anything to help). No-one knew I think. Maybe that's what happened to Swiss Simon. It took me a while and a lot of tissue to clean up (mental note: never show this to S. or E. or any similiar individuals).

GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE BATHROOM SWISS SIMON

I'm listening to "Arrogance Is My Middle Name Said Will Davies Arrogantly." He's still in the bathroom. What The Fuck. My favourite songs at the moment are this song, giglio's whale rendered and strange signs of life or whatever they are called. Worryingly I love them all without drums. At least I have a part for Davies, I guess. Who cares. I just want my shorts. And the toilet.

We won again this weekend. We never win at St. Ma.... oh who gives a fuck.

GET THE FUCKING FUCKING HELL OUT OF THE BATHROOM SWISS SIMON

Tum

ti

tum.

He could be having a wank. That's what you'd have put in your list earlier, isn't it? Well it did cross my mind too, dear reader, albeit in a purely inquisitive non sexual sense, but it's surely been half an hour now so he must be having an almighty session let me tell you.

I hope he's not having a wank in my shorts.

I can hear the rain through the song.

Get out of the bathroom please swiss simon?

FFS

On Friday we had another party on our roof (I'm going to continue, for in reality I'm a bit scared of what I might find if I actually enquire into the status of Swiss Simon). It was really big and I had a big bottle of McDowell's rum, which is my favourite, before I ambled up the stairs. With (yet) another pretty girl, or perhaps woman, or perhaps girl, I was possibly more charming than usual (or she was more drunk than usual) and I think I got 1% closer to kissing her than the previous pretty girls. Success! But I didn't kiss her which is good probably really because she's a good friend and she's coming travelling with us next week. She ended up in someone elses mouth later on though.

How boring. It is all Swiss Simon's fault you have to read this drivel.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOGM

SWISSSIMONISOUTOFJUHHKTHETOIELT!!!

BYE

Burnley at home

31: Shot by Michael Kightly (Wolverhampton): on target
31: Goal scored by Michael Kightly (Wolverhampton)

Decimated into such lifeless text. Yet still I sit there for 90 minutes.

In other news, Michael Kightly Is Pretty Rad is being played on live radio to Michael Kightly on Monday the 17th November. My whole life is set up to this moment. I have never been so excited. I no longer look at girls. I look at Michael Kightly on the radio listening to our song and telling Daz Hale he'll come to our gig at the Rainbow on the 8th January. He's a closet fan of Mark E Smith's vocals. He'll bring along Jody Craddock. Jody will buy me a pint of cider and say "you must have missed this in India, mate." And I'll go "Yes Jody, I have, very much." And we will clink glasses and I will dribble cider down my chin because when I'm a bit nervous I sometimes miss my mouth. Basith and Emma are talking to Michael Kightly about Radiohead. He is wearing a 1950s vintage Honved replica top. "I wish I was a teenage armchair Honved supporter" he winks. I swoon.

Jody and I will discuss at length defending and I will go over his 3-2 winner at Ninian Park autumn '06, his wonder volley against Bradford and his Steven Gerrard-esque last minute equaliser against Norwich five times at least. "It was easy. Another pint?" OK! I will pretend to be interested in his art and commission him to do a painting of the band. It will be 6.5/10.

We'll play our twenty minute long set. Michael and Jody will stand at the side nodding appreciatively. We'll blast through Michael Kightly Is Pretty Rad at brakeneck speed and Simon will do his usual improv screaming in the Steve Bruce section, probably slagging off amateur football fanzines named after icons in a friendly pop at the man at the back with his Trojan Records sweatshirt. People will clap and our friends will scream to make us feel better.

When we've finished Michael Kightly and Jody Craddock will be gone. They'll have already made their apologies. We'll have forgotten to have taken photographs together. Because they were at the side none of our friend have any. We'll never see them again.

But thereafter I'll always read his praise of Jamie Redknapp's punditry in the match programme with the irony it deserves. When he says "Oh I like to listen to a bit of The Twang" the beauty of the sarcasm will ring true. And we'll never forget that really, truly, Michael Kightly Is Pretty Rad.

Ahem

On a day in the last week I realised most of my birthday money was gone because I set up a direct debit a year ago on the Shall We Set Ben On Fire website. After intial despair I decided to do something with it. So I made a fuckmyself SWSBOF, Ace Bushy Striptease and We Aeronauts *tribute* site that doesn't work properly because I cannot be bothered to find out why. No-one will look at it apart from you people and then you'll be sad you did because it will take 30 minutes to load, then not load properly. You'll have checked your networks four times by then and it will be a forgotten tab next to Drowned In Sound Community with a thread on being cool but uncool.*

It was meant to be a nice collage anyway. www.shallwesetbenonfire.co.uk

I must sound really negative! Well I shouldn't, it's been an ace weekend, albeit a weird one. I went to an amazing palace in Hyderabad and fell in love with a Princess from her black and white photographs. She's incredible. I also want an elephant as a chauffeur. OK! We had a big party on friday as well and I talked to a different pretty girl who I talk to sometimes and is a lot cooler than the other so I mostly probably didn't impress her with my random rum induced mumblings. Something nearly horrible happened on Thursday night that is at once comical and horrible and not really horrible just it was at the time.

*this is actually just a description of my last half an hour

"if I were a linesman. I would execute defenders who applauded my offsides."

Cardiff Away

I am listening to Aphex Twin - Twin Girl Twin Boy. It's amazing and beautiful. Almost as amazing as the last thirty seconds of the Grand Prix I just watched. My four South American companions were all up on their feet celebrating, shouting, laughing. I had my red shirt over my eyes, hiding. But somehow, suddenly, everything changed. Beautiful. I am not a popular figure in my flat right now. It was Karl Henry's last minute winner at Charlton, April '08. But not really. It is only motorsport. It is nothing.

I made a list of things to do today on the back of a brown birthday message from my mother. It went like this:

- buy food
- write back to E.
- email EVERYONE (music loud!)
- go to B. Library
- eat food
- maybe hair cut
- maybe buy t shirt

I bought bread and butter. I did not write or email anyone. I am a wanker. I went to the library and found it was expensive to join the library. And annual. I ate jam sandwiches for dinner and a chicken and egg puff for lunch. I didn't find the hairdresser. I tried on some T shirts. I had to take my red one off and look in a mirror.

I am SO THIN I nearly cried. Seriously when you see me again you'll weep and want to put me in a pram. I am bones. If you see me again. I'll be so thin I'll be like Kate Moss on that Family Guy episode; when I turn horizontal no-one will see me. I'll float away. No girl will ever sleep with me. They will be pierced by my bones and die. It's a good job that both you bands reading have got Terra and Tim, for I will barely manage half a set before I crumble and you have to put me back together.

I saw some photos today. Of people at home. They look like they've grown up. Like really, different, but in a complete time is going on still way. It scared me. Nobody will be in Brighton when I get back. I will sit at the Fiddlers each night alone while all of you watch Arsenal or Tottenham lose from expensive bars 'cause you're fucking cockneys now. I will read the strange magazines there like I do when I arrive early for happy hour and no-one else does. I might vow to join the Brighton Sea Swimming Club after being inspired by an article, like last time. Maybe I will move back to Birmingham at some point. But nothing will be the same. Ever, ever again.

Too much beer. Well done Lewis. Goodnight.

Swansea at home

I won a competition! On my birthday! I don’t know when the last time I won something was. Well, possibly a three a side football match on Hove Lawns last July. But anyway, this made me very excited. Seven years of squalor trying to meet A Load Of Bull copy deadlines and selling myself outside football stadia across the country has been worth it!

It’s all going to my head. I am now going to write reams and reams of irrepressible patronising shit and submit it to every known orifice of the online literary world. I am going to finish the writing I’ve been doing for years and it’s going to get published in the best selling book of all time. I will expose all the girls I write about for monies and the tabloids will rape them. I am going to be invited to dinner parties and banquets and I will sit saying nothing and people will look at me in awe thinking I’m creating an introverted masterpiece, not just being a boring cunt. I will no longer drink rum. I will drink scotch. People will value my opinion on scotch. I am going to make loads of money and buy a thousand crash cymbals. I am going to die at twenty-four attempting to play them all at once. They will collapse over my bass drum against my snare and tear into my throat. And that will be fair.



What actually happened is this:

The lovely people (well, they sound lovely, though having never met them one can never be sure they are actually people) at The Pygmy Giant have published a true story I wrote. It is here:

http://thepygmygiant.wordpress.com/

My birthday was quite eventful as ever. They always end up messy. Always. I drink too early, drink too much, succumb to people making me drink more “because it’s your birthday,” descend into a ridiculous emotional state and end up running away from everyone relentlessly. Another version of this happened last night. That is all you need to know. I certainly missed my usual birthday partner in crime, that's for sure. Happy Birthday sir.

Norwich and Watford Away

Quick quick quick quick quick. Before the Swans. Quick.

I went to Goa. I had a lovely time. One shouldn't have a lovely time in Goa. One should fall in love on ecstacy with a girl with pink eyes. One should live in neon and ultraviolet continuously with their arms in the air. One should fuck on the beach.

But I had a lovely time. I was not there at the right time for the above. Nor with the right people.

Nevertheless I had a lovely time. We drank a lot on the beach. The Arabian Sea washed against our feet. Goan trance hopped happily along continuously. The neon and multi colours gazed on, waiting for December. I wish I'd come in the 60s.

I had missed the sea. A lot. That noise, the washing, is something else, isn't it? And the Arabian Sea is a lot warmer than the good ol' Channel. The sunsets were beautiful and I saw some of the most amazing women I'd ever seen in all my life.

We got back into Diwali. I'm going to a little celebration tonight. It will be fun. Unlike this post. Sorry.

It's my birthday on Thursday. I've done that thing when you don't tell anyone and then it gets all awkard having to tell people so close. It's not really awkard. It's all in my head. It's always all in my head. It shouldn't be awkard. It will be awkward.

"I still, don't, understand. Bob Wilson, anchorman."

PS. It's official. I'm scared of white people in India. By that I mean white people I don't already know. I'm scared they'll talk at me. I'm scared they'll judge me for being a square on business as I'm judging them for being a square on business. I grow my beard and look away, anywhere, anything, and cross the road. I'm naked without it.

Coventry at home

I’m drunk.

Iknow why I am drunk. I am drunk because I have had too much drink. And have been drinking since 5pm. It’s been fun. I am very happy.

I am very happy because Wolves won again. I found this out at circa 12am. It is now 2:51am. I am extra happy because Freddy Eastwood didn’t score. He is a poo. To celebrate this I drank more rum which has now constricted my stomach a bit. I could not possibly drink anymore. Or eat possibly anymore. I nearly spewed just now. It was fun. I triumphjed!

At some point tonight I was in a restaurant on a balcony looking at stars and the moon. I was thinking if you people who read this were looking at these stars and moons. One defo not, I mean, you’re in canadia, right? But maybe you others were. Well probably not. But I’m missing you all a bit yeah? OK. A lot.

I am also very happy because I feel I am one of the house now in my house. This makes me happy.

I have two new roommates. One Swiss one Polish, one male, one female. They are both lovely and very different. But lovely.

My stomach keeps turning. I don’t want to puke because I am scared of puking and because Polaka cleaned the flat today. It hurts.

I am playing Johnny Foreigner. It reminds me of Birmingham and I miss it.

I am still drunk now. I am going to post this and wake up thinking what the fuck did I post and then read this and think ah it’s K really. Then I’m going to watch India cane Australia in the 2nd Test for the WHOLE day on my SOFA whilst finishing my new A Load Of Bull article. And it’s going to rock.

I am very happy. But I miss you all. That is the main from all of this.

“I seen the girls at your shows…”

International Break 2a

Wolves have not played for nearly two weeks. I don't feel quite so scared.

There are ants in my computer. I am scared that one day I will try and squish one on my screen and it will be inside my screen. And then they will all run up from the start button and swarm my desktop and laugh as one at the inevitability of it all.

The sad thing has happened. It saddens me immensley. You will guess it soon, when news breaks out from The Sun on your front pages, when Cameron uses it in his next poll diverting speech and when the FTSE drops accordingly. Excuses will be made and apologies given. Some, integral to the process, will deny the event ever happened, plodding on with new plans and new ideas whilst ignoring the very poison that infected in the first place.

For me, it begs the eternal question, why can't people just fucking get along?

I do realise the hypocrisy of this statement, seeing as I hate everyone.

In other news, I got new headphones today which made me very happy. They are the ones that actually penetrate your ears. And are very, wonderfully loud. The first thing I listened to was "Exploding Head Syndrome" which is a remix by 65daysofstatic of the four most recent Cure singles. They've stuck them all together and it's 21:26 minutes long and probably the best piece of music I've heard in a very long time. This shouldn't be taken as anything, though, for I am no music hoarder or sprintman; i.e. it takes me a long time to finish one album. So listen to someone else about it.

If not, the second thing I listened to was "Global" by the quite wonderful "Feedle." It's off his free to download "Go and get your head fucked" live EP - here - http://www.eckerecords.co.uk/ . I first heard Feedle on Huw Stephen's show a few light years ago and listened to his myspace tracks a hundred times but 'never got round to' buying his album. I'm a wanker. He now has new album. I should buy it but if anyone wants to send it to India for my birthday that would be grand. The final track off the EP, "Dogs," (a mega version of "Song for Dogs") samples Vapour Trail. That'll mean something to one of you maybe and maybe make you download it. The sample isn't great but the rest of the song IS.

:pause:squish:notinside:yet:

This is what happened on the internet today:

Sally had a haircut. Joe fixed his bike. Sam hates work. Fred is in Thailand woo baby. Ariel is swimming. Icarus is falling. Rachel had the best night of her life ever thanx guyzzzzxxx. Rebecca wants to give me a running account of her life every five seconds. Rebecca just ate a sandwich. Rebecca just cut her right toenail. Rebecca just sucked her boyfriend off. Rachel is hungoverrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

None of these things is true. Just fuck off though, yeah?

Now i'm listening to The Sundays - Can't Be Sure. It's astonishingly pretty.

Now I'm listening to The Only Ones - Another Girl Another Planet. Can anyone guess what list I'm listening to?

Of course, of course, you can't talk. Ha!

Well. I found out yesterday, or actually the night before, as I was having a most enjoyable evening at Kavana's 12th birthday party, with whiskey and lemonade in hand, that the pretty girl of the last two posts has got a boyfriend back home. I think that is maybe why I am writing this post. (But it is not the sad thing that has happened. That is sadder). This shook me somewhat, as it was quite a refreshing crush I had got going.

The pain was lessened considerably because before this I was informed she had been wearing a necklace of butt**s that day!!!! Sweet lord!

But on the other hand she was pretty and not a nutcase and very sweet.

Back to square one. Hopefully they won't invade again.

"ఐ hఅటే ది వే వే ఎక్ష్పెక్త్ తో ఫెయిల్

అండ్ తెన్ వే ఫెయిల్

అండ్ తెన్ వే గెట్ బిత్తెర్ బెకాఉసే వే'వె ఫెల్డ్

...

maybe all of this has got nothing to do with anything

ఫర్ అ స్ప్రింగ్బోర్డు, అండ్ అ పైర్ అఫ్ షార్ట్స్, అండ్ అ ప్లైన్ వైట్ త షర్టు, అండ్ అ పెర్ఫెచ్త్ బక్ఫ్లిప్. ఐ'ద గివె ఇట్ అల్ ఫర్ తాత"

International Break # 2

Something sad is about to happen. I cannot do anything to stop it. Not this time. I don’t think it will be quite the same.



In other news, gentle reader, we visited the pilgrim town of Srisailam over the weekend and it was lovely. We hired out a minibus which was actually an elongated four by four, and a driver who was actually a driver. We left Hyderabad at about 12:30AM after some whiskey and rum as it was to take six hours plus.

By some stroke of luck, or whatever, I ended up on the front seat next to the aforementioned pretty girl. I got to know her a bit better and it turns out she is a very sweet as well as pretty girl. We laughed a bit and talked some more and she went to sleep at some point long before I (for, as I will mention later, I was listening to something special, but don’t fear, after she went to sleep). At some point she rested her head on my shoulder, involuntarily of course, but it was quite cute in a not meaning anything ever way.

I don’t think anything will ever happen.

After three hours maybe we suffered a puncture in a tyre in the middle of NOWHERE. We had to wait half an hour for the next car, who were thankfully very helpful with new tyre. Phew. It was that in the middle of nowhere that we saw its lights coming for fifteen minutes. We gazed at the stars (seriously, you have never seen so many) and drank more whiskey and rum. Bizarrely, five local looking people were just sitting in the road 50 yards previous, talking. I guess they are still there now.

On our way again, me listening to the 1996 Festive Fifty with guidance from the great man himself, as the others drifted off to sleep. With the lack of light I could not tell the tracks until he told me as they ended. As such, the 23:16 of Orbital’s Out There Somewhere (#47) spun me out a reasonable degree. I was out there, somewhere, indeed.

Then we reached a Checkpost. It turns out there’s a Tiger Reserve in between Hyderabad and Srisailam that one isn’t allowed to pass through between 21:00 and 6:00. We got there at about 4:30. Quite a few cars, trucks and lorries were all waiting with people everywhere, on this dusty road in the dark in the middle of Andhra Pradesh. There were about six cafes on the left which I imagine must ALWAYS be open, serving Chi (wonderful sugary Indian tea) and other assortments. Hindu music twisted and screeched away. It was great.

The clever people slept. A friend and I finished the rum and whiskey and thought we were very brave when we ventured 10 metres into the Tiger reserve in the dark. We drank two cups of chi and woke some people up. The sun rose. The barrier rose. We went on our way.

At Srisailam we saw many temples and a huge dam and gorgeous landscape and smuggled some alcohol into the holy town, which probably means we’re all going to some kind of Hindu hell.

She didn’t sit next to me on the way home.

Reading at home. Swansea away.

Two in one. That's right. But we fucking LOST them BOTH.

The wolves are losing, the wolves are losing. It’s all falling apart. They are not so invincible. I am not so invincible. The wolves are losing.

Today we painted a school and I created a universe and met a pretty girl.

Yesterday I watched Yuvraj Singh hit two sixes against Australia.

I can’t find my camera lead. I’m going to find a camera lead.




Are you still reading this?! Hahahahahahahahaha.

I must email my parents.

Sometimes I spend a long time in the shower thinking. I’m not saying other people don’t, like I’m somehow superior and intellectual because of this, because we all know these things are not true. But sometimes I catch myself, hot water running down my arse, perhaps nonchalantly scratching an orifice, just gazing into the corner panelling, and find it a bit strange. With the sudden snap out of mind-autopilot sometimes I forget if I’ve washed my hair or not, or washed at all, and walk out with soap everywhere. And worst of all I usually forget what I was thinking about. Some girl, I suppose.

Bristol City at home

Infection. Pills. Hospital. Injection. More Pills. Six a day. This has been my week. At some point we went to party and at some point we played football. They take it much more seriously than Hove Lawns. There was an on pitch altercation and everything. Now I ache all over accordingly.

Happily, however, at some point Wolves won 2-0.

SUCK ON THAT MCINDOE YOU FUCK.

I went back to the hospital today. She gave me more pills and more bandage.

It has not been the best week.

Preston Away

It all started with a hangover on Friday morning. The kind of hangover where nobody can touch you without you wanting to take a knife to their throat. The kind of hangover that makes you stare longingly at the front of the incoming bus, willing it to hit just to see what it would feel like. This would never happen, though. Such a burgeoning headache and foul stomach seem to give one an air of invincibility when wandering around and going places. I imagine most people die when they are fully alert and ready for anything.

I went to work grudgingly, as you do with said hangover. I did some work. We left early, happily. I got the bus home and I didn’t have to hang off it. Wonderful mid-afternoon bus. Back at Adarsh Heights I lay on my bed for too long and time galloped past me and I ended up having to rush a shower and trot to buy some rum and snacks for the journey. As I reached Hyderabad Central Station at Nampally everyone was waiting. But it was OK. Forty minutes to go.

Sleeper trains are fast becoming one of my favourite things in India. It sounds inconsequential and perhaps shows a depressing state of affairs in this writer’s mind, but gazing (forwards, always forwards, always on the way somewhere) through a window whilst travelling is possibly one of my most favourite things in the world. Sleeper trains taken before sunset are perfect for this. On the way to Bangalore two (three?) weeks previous I sat cross legged at 1:30AM, staring out from my window seat, sipping at my rum, as a lightning storm went about its business on the horizon and above the stars gleamed brighter than I had ever seen them. It was truly breathtaking and led to me writing such star based drivel as seen below.

This trip was slightly different. One, we were going somewhere amazing (I’ve still not forgiven Bangalore for my Sugar Kane Juice experience), and Two I didn’t have a window seat. This was completely of my own doing of course. In a sleeper train there are rows of booths in a rectangle, three beds on two sides and two beds on the end (they fold out very cleverly). The lower beds have windows. Stefan asked me very nicely if it was OK if he had the lower bed, after I had set my heart on it without telling anyone (oh how often does this happen). He said it was completely no problem if not. He even asked me specifically (obviously seeing my heartbroken face). “No, of course not, it’s fine!” Yes I would absolutely love it but don’t want to cause trouble or resentment. “You sure?” “Yeah seriously I’ll take the middle bunk.” Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

To compensate I took my mp3 player and went to stand next to the open door of the train. The doors are always open for some reason. One little slip.

It was gorgeous. The sun was setting, not magnificently, but red enough to eerily light up rural Andhra Pradesh and then Karnataka. As the sky darkened lights appeared and disappeared as the sheer size of emptiness in between the cities was wholly emphasised. At some point some skyscrapers appeared on the horizon with huge orange lights. On the map there were no cities or towns. This confused us somewhat, with the conclusion being that it was clearly an alien colony that no-one could really be bothered to deal with because it’s India, and you know, things often don’t get dealt with.

I went back and talked a little and read some of my book. It’s by William Burroughs and is called Naked Lunch and I love the way he addressed me as Gentle Reader before embarking on the most revolting and disturbing scene I’ve ever had the pleasure to imagine from pure text. Brilliant:

“Who can shit on a fallen adversary who, dying, eats the shit and screams with joy?”

Then we all went to sleep. Me on my middle bunk. As it was, if I turned my head at an acute angle I could see out of the top inch of the window. I laid and watched the stars for a while. I sipped some rum in its black plastic bag to help me sleep a bit. I listened to Steralfur and Hjartao Hamast and Olsen Olsen. Then I went to sleep.

We reached Hospet at 6:20AM. We got the Autorickshaw and reached our destination, Hampi, beautiful Hampi, about half an hour later. I won’t harp on about it, apart from the fact that it is my favourite place in India so far. We travelled around the centuries old city by moped (no I had never driven one before). We saw monkeys and elephant (yes singular). At some point I realised I didn’t have any way of getting the Preston Wolves score. I panic. This was the longest period (two days) of not knowing the Wolves score since I was TWELVE YEARS OLD. We sat on top of the world. I hurt my foot on said moped. (It looks sort of funny now. By funny I mean infected. I hope they don’t have to chop it off). Despite it being a ‘dry’ city our nice guest house friend brought us some ‘special juice’ which was very strong. Anything is possible. We laid next to the river gazing at the stars drinking whiskey. We got quite drunk. We drove mopeds with hangover number two. We flew through the jungle. I bought an amazing T shirt and some Goa Trance. I might not ever wear it. We left Hampi at 9PM Sunday.

We got back into Nampally at about 10AM Monday morning. I said my farewells and walked very quickly home, convinced we’d have lost, the spell was broken, confidence gone. No way could we have another victory, let alone away from home at 3rd place Preston. Get back to Adarsh Heights. Turn on internet. The rest is history.

I love you, Chris Iwelumo.

Sidenote: I am close to murdering the Word grammar correction service. Especially the one that suggests I use Fragments (consider revising) all too often. I do. I like Fragments. I will not consider revising. Deal with it or I’ll reprogramme you and send you to Facebook or Messenger to correct people’s grammar there FOREVER. You won’t last a day, paperclip cunt.

CP at home

Hypocrite

I hate the premise of blogging yet I write a blog
I know she’s bad news but am still infatuated
I accuse him of paranoia yet am relentlessly paranoid
I hate patronising cunts yet am a patronising cunt
I hate trickster wanker wingers yet think Michael Kightly is the best player in the world
I miss her but I don’t want her
I don’t miss her but I want her
“I’m scared I’ll get scared”
I hate vanity yet look in the mirror as much as they do
I boycott Coca-Cola yet drink Coca-Cola
I hate buttons yet wear shirts
(I don’t have to touch them) I do have to touch them
I think jealousy is the bane of society yet jealousy reigns free
I hate drummers who judge other drummers yet I judge other drummers
I hate people I love these people
I hate self-importance yet write this as if it is important
(It is not important) It is important (It is NOT important)
I yearn for their approval yet I hate them
She’s infuriating but perfect
She exists she doesn’t exist
Some days she exists some days she is dead
I want people to listen to me yet cannot speak
I matter I don’t matter
I hate people who tell me to chill out yet tell people to chill out
I claim to not care what people think yet always care what people think
I can’t show anyone yet I show anyone
I hate social networking but cannot help it
(It’s good for communication) It’s a gossip mongering killing machine
I want to quit the internet yet would be back within a week
I don’t know why I do this yet I know why I do this
Delete all my passwords, keep all my passwords
Delete all my entries, archive it all
I am robot, I am free
I am free, I am trapped
I hide but I want to be found
I am the wife who cooks for her husband who never comes home.

Charlton Athletic Away

So, I wrote a really long and boring entry. It was really long and boring, so I will instead present a simplified version of my weekend:

-Ganesh
-Ganesh
-Ganesh!
-DRUMS
-PAINT
-SAM VOKES
-GANESH
-Ganesh
-Ganesh
-3-1!!!!
-GANESH
-Imax
-PEOPLE
-SO many people
-terrorist threats
-Pizza Hut
-orange paint
-Ganesh
-Ganesh
-new whiskey
-old rum
-party
-water fight
-Neighbourhood Indian techno
-(for Ganesh)
-(both)
-3 fucking 1!!!
-top the league
-Ganesh
-more whiskey
-trepidation
-patience
-shehasman
-rubbish…
-Ganesh
-Ganesh
-wake me up…
-Ganesh.
-End.


There.

International break ("greetings to the new brunette")

"I never made the first team, just made the first team laugh”

It’s Tuesday evening. I sit rather uncomfortably on my bed, made all the more uncomfortable by my meandering hangover and belly full of Chicken Biryani. Why, I know not, the release, I guess, (writing?).

“Mainstream, to control. But we cannot stop them.”

So last night, after the monsoon subsided to mere lightning and thunder, we went out with work for the fourth time. Our colleagues and now friends are great drinkers. It transpired today that I had forgotten a whole chunk of two hours in which no-one will tell me what I did or said. Sweet familiarity.

Tequila was had. Long Island Iced Tea was had. Kingfisher in vast quantities was had. I maintained my perfect 0% success record of asking a girl to dance (she was Indian, so that’s not really allowed, I guess, will be my excuse I think. Ha! Sweet lies).

I ended the night clinging onto the back of a motorbike flying around Necklace Road, so called because it hangs around the great Hussain Sagar lake as such. We stopped and watched people place their Ganesh figures into the water. It’s his festival, don’t you know. He is the god of well-being and the remover of obstacles I think. Indian festivals are incredible feasts of noise and colour and quite random things. Ganesh has an elephant head and quite a few arms and at the moment EVERY street corner has their own figurine/statue of him. At some point last night I was taken to the largest one in Hyderabad, apparently. Off my face, staring up at this thirty metre high pink elephantine monolith in the middle of the night was a little surreal.

Then I got home and watched Andy Murray until 4:30am. Why, I don’t know. I don’t even like him. If more articulate I could probably argue a pretty strong case for him being an arrogant tosspot. I am not patriotic. He’s Scottish anyway. But something about his performance against Nadal had me hooked. Not usually a huge fan of tennis, it was fascinating to see the tactics of Murray unravel this mighty, seemingly invincible, champion. In the same way, even heavily intoxicated and head drooping, it was painful to watch Murray himself get destroyed by not so much tactics, more sheer ability. It was Wolves 0-5 Chelsea, Autumn 2003. Delicate planning and preparation torn to shreds by a simple gulf in class.

But then it is only tennis. It is nothing.

Apologies for the lack of inspiration in this post. Actually, no. No fucking apologies. I shouldn’t have told anyone anyway (now 5 poor souls. Kill me) so fuck if I’m going to start apologising to ghosts.

Sam Vokes scored the winner for Wales with six minutes left against Azerbaijan.

Wayne Hennessey kept a clean sheet.

Andy Keogh sat on the bench in Georgia for Ireland.

Michael Kightly came on for the England U21s for 5 minutes against Portugal.

Richard Stearman was on the bench.

Sylvain Ebanks-Blake was in the squad.

Revel in monotony. Hangover:end.

“I never really knew the way she lived her life

I tried a couple of numbers and they never called back

I didn’t know her family or friends at all

With no-one to call

Summer turned into fall

I gave up…”

Rotherham away (belated)

How many millions stare at this star?
In shallow berths, through twisted rails
How many millions stare at this star?

Does she stare?
Does she?
“She is the star”
She is the star.

Why this star so bright?
Why?
This star.
So bright.
Is it Venus?
Is she Venus?
Does
She stare
She is the star

“Faith” tell me:
is she the star?
Is she the star?
The window’s closing
The clouds are coming
Is she the star?
Is she the star?

How many millions stare at this star?

NF at home

My Bangalore belly is nearly at an end. The sublime, ridiculous, fantastic 5-1 scoreline certainly kept me going whilst vomming shit and shitting vom over the toilet early Sunday morning in our grimy hotel. Ants climbed out of the shower tap. A cockroach scuttled around my feet. Chicken Biryani was recreated in the sink. But how many wonderful thousands of Kightly, Iwelumo and Jones goals did I recreate in my head. And I’ve seen them. They are wonderful.

Anyway, be careful. Don’t drink sugar kane juice in Bangalore. Or in India*. Or in the world, maybe. You might not always have a 5-1 victory to fall back on.

I have a new flat. It is in a block called Adarsh Heights in Adarsh Nagar and is with maybe twelve other trainees from everywhere who are all lovely but not yet close. I sleep in a room with a Russian and a Pole. My Johnny Foreigner poster and landscape of a sunny Brighton seafront are mixed with an unexplained Turkish flag and the aforementioned countries’ colours. An industrial fan thankfully sits in the middle. It is pleasant, and we have a much better living area (in this flat we have a fridge and a stove and everything) but it is often difficult to get my treasured time alone without which I fear I go slightly insane. Worse still when ill with randomly increasing temperatures.

So it was with some perhaps childish excitement that I decided to climb to the roof of Adarsh Heights this afternoon. I had no idea it existed until that morning when Oskar, my Polish roommate, nonchalantly declared it to be too hot up there. Up where?!

So I took my novel and mp3 player and climbed the five flights. Before me lay the roof, the flat top of all the apartments, a lone arm chair sleeping in the centre and all of Hyderabad laid out beautifully in each direction. A lone child flew a kite from the roof opposite. The kite danced and twisted amongst tens of birds of prey (what species I could not say, but wingspan of 3ft maybe) as the sun dipped behind them. The great Birla Mandir Temple on its hill to the East, the Old City to the south, the Hussain Sagar Lake to the North. It was perfect, and I sat out there for at least an hour and a half, not reading a page, just watching the world and suddenly getting the lovely compilation my cousin had made me before my travels. I was indeed Comfy in Nautica.

Tonight Ace Bushy Striptease ** will continue on their rapid adventure and play their 12th, and arguably most important gig. Not their first without me, mind, yet their first without me within a continent bugging them and more importantly the first ‘real’*** gig with new vocalist (hopefully longerlastingthantheotherswedroveaway), Emma. As I sleep here at 1:45am, a small pub in Birmingham will be standing bemused as ESBA scream into their set. Bas will be off in his own world, guitar swaying, Arj dancing like a maniac like it should be, Emma perhaps nervous, perhaps nerves gone, screaming like she’s not allowed to, and Simon twisting absurdly, probably shouting cunt at his parents unconsciously who are watching us/them for the first time. Rachel, trusty yet tired drum machine, of the 70s and who knows how many stories (a penny for your past, my dear), will spray out some beats I wrote once. I will sleep. And miss them all.


*It has often been known for a lizard to get caught in the sugar kane juice making mechanism and then be promptly crushed and served to unsuspecting customers.

**Hi ESBA when you yr really bored in the future and google our name and find this blog. I predict Simon to win.

***I am still struggling to comprehend the events of the night of the actual first Emma gig as ‘real.’

Ipswich Town Away

Thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away from Mehdipatnam, England is stirring. Friends will hopefully be still asleep, in blissful ignorance before the hangover hits, curled up, perhaps alone, perhaps not, with their intoxicated dreams at least for company.

Meanwhile a small procession of coaches will be hurtling along the A14 to Suffolk, full of quiet optimism and A****n victory re-runs. For the last decade I too would have been heading for Suffolk for Ipswich Town away, but not this day.

The emotional significance of this fixture still confuses the fuck out of me. It means a bit more. Ipswich is a strange and shit old town that holds some old memories that despite their age seem to rear their head this day every year. Last season, whilst selling A Load Of Bull, I spent the customary hour before kick off constantly looking over my shoulder, left towards the Bobby Robson statue, right back towards the station, petrified of seeing F. yet strangely wanting to know how she was getting on. Mostly petrified. She didn’t come. We lost 3-0.

In about three hours a steady procession of royal blue smattered with old gold will start making its way from the station, past the Station Hotel, down Princes Street past the grey retail warehouses and rotting port and into Ipswich centre. The Drum and Monkey, behind Cobbald Street and the away end will be full of gold and black and lager and songs and maybe trouble. F.’s father will probably be gulping a lager in The Manningtree Arms next to the town hall, telling the same stories of Wolves’ games gone by and radical Ipswich triumphs. She will too probably be there, bizarre as ever, probably wanting the win a little bit more for similar reasons to my own.

On a practical level we nearly always lose. It is the away ground I have been to the most; since 1995 and a Don Goodman winner there has only been one other win witnessed, the glorious 4-2 George Ndah inspired victory in 2003.

In many ways I am glad to be four and a half hours in the future. Ipswich and F. are a life gone by, a strange era re-awakened only for one random selected day a year. This day. And I will be completely oblivious, probably roaming around Hyderabad in a rickety auto or flying through traffic and pollution on the back of a bike. I will find out the result by text late at night, when I have the guts to switch my Indian sim card with my UK one. And then closure for another year.

It’s been three weeks away. “1650 new migrants invade UK every day” screams the Daily Express I am told. Invade?!

Do I miss Britain?

I miss the good people. Victories away from home. Last minute winners. Cider. A girl or two. (Inexplicably). Sylvain Ebanks-Blake. A good Pav Tav night. Drumming. 19:55 at Fidds.

But fuck Britain. Fuck patriotism if the above is what it stands for. Everyone here seems to be very proud of their country. For me, no. Maybe the aforementioned hypocrisy of this writer is borne in the utter hypocritical state that is home. Doublethink Orwell called it.

And what of India this week? After the initial white noise of pure crazy it has settled down to a random correlation of highs and lows, almost echoing the huge divide between rich and poor here. Each day provides something different, however much my sub-conscious pretends there is routine. Yesterday we were delayed getting home from work by half an hour because our bus couldn’t find a way around two camels. I am still unable to translate Indian time-keeping into logic, with such feelings of frustration being constantly contradicted by the complete and overwhelming generosity of most Hyderabadis I have met. I have been drinking maybe too much rum. I have definitely told too much people about this blog (one).