Berlin - a Christmas Fairytale

Someone up there must have dropped a huge bag of icing sugar or flour or Magnesia or cocaine or something. I like to think that it was Saint Peter or a tleast his stupid intern, but the local Newspaper (Der Tagesspiegel) tells me that it was indeed Tiefdruckgebiet Holger! The city looks like one of those lovely gingerbread houses decorated with Gummibärchen and lollipops and what have you, the sort of things WE never had because my mother just couldn't be bothered, but let's not talk about that.

Till deep in the night you can hear the screams of people racing down the hill in Viktoriapark on their sleds and I have to think back to Christmas 1984, when I got a Toboggan, a luvely nice red Toboggan for my birthday, which I loved a lot and which took me on extremely short rides, as we used to live in the valley of the Rhine, respectively extremely long and bold, sometimes almost fatal rides, or so it seemed to me, when I was staying with my granny, who lived on the top of a mountain in the Alpes.

Anyway, that was my Toboggan, my first ever ride (apart from my little blue bike, but that was used when I got it), and I sure wish it was with me now, because I want to go down the Viktoriapark hill screaming and yelling in the middle of the night, too! But there's no sled to be found here, as Jo broke his last year. Darn it. We haven't had that much snow in years and somehow I will get my hands on some go-down-the-snowy-hill-extremely-fast device in order to use it! In some way or other I will!
If you see a girl late at night, going up a hill with a black rubbish-bag in her hand... GO BUY HER A TOBOGGAN!!

Zelebration!!

Having one's birthday at christmas time sucks big time, that's why I again celebrated a couple of days before my actual birthday, as has become the custom, and whoever yells "But that's unlucky" kricht von mir persoenlich direkt inne Fress...!
Anyway, last saturday saw this year's birthday party deluxe. First we had Pancakes Alsaciennes at my place and then we hit the road to the Centraal, next to the Pear Tree, not as hip but with a wider range of beers to choose from. And in order to quote one of Lady Rachel's students: I entirely recommend this experience! We even got a table after only about half an hour of standing arounf at the bar, juhuu!! and in the course of the evening nicked the little shiny party hats off the neighbouring table, where a christmas celebration had taken place and had loads of fun with them. I had my first tequila in ages, in fact I believe the first since I left school and as I happened to have a south american Lady at my side, we did it properly, Herrschaften! Binge drinking in style!
Doch sehen Sie selbst:

In India, the Tiger doesn't go into the tank but comes in a bottle.

The Dave and the I

Ladies with hats (very upper class...we'll go to the horse race next month.)

Ladies Fra and Siets: get moving but don't get up

Hackfressen competition - I win.

Goergens...!

...so still? Wohl die Hosen gestrichen voll, wa?! Wohl Schiss? Jahaa. Zurecht, Junge.

Today's Lesson for Life:

The guy who invented the water flush toilet was called:

Thomas Crapper.

What a wonderful and useful thing he invented, unimaginable what our lives would look like without it. And what kind of appreciation does he get? He gets shite named after him.
I mean the Edisons or the Bells are probably immensely proud of their ancestors. But, let's face it, the Crappers are pooped. (I only say pooped because some excrement of a superviser cencored my little innocent f*****d. Das prangere ich an! But we all know what they really are!)
Zurueck ins Funkhaus und gute Nacht.

Breaking News

Brian Lee Harvey, formerly of East 17 (the short guy with the stupid hats) is currently convalescing after a car accident.
... He run HIMSELF over.
I didn't even know that was physically possible (how can you be IN and UNDER your car at the same time???) but when it comes to stupid things, Brian Harvey can do it.
It's actually not even funny, because he really nearly died, braking his legs and hip and all sort of things.
...Ok, it IS funny...in a way...

The BIIIPB goes on!

Nimm das, Scherge!!!

Frau Fleck: 2
Goergens: 0

Hehe.

My baby is back!

After almost two weeks of absence due to a fixing vacation, the tv finally came back today. Whoever he stayed with, they even cleaned his screen!! And now he's safely back in the kitchen, next to the play sation (who was so lonely without him).



Ten minutes later, that's me. I already forgot how to read and my weekend will mean some serious upcatching on Neighbours and Eastenders!

Run, Santa, Run (zu deutsch: Santa Rennt)

German Santa dancing the Eminem



Now we know what's under the Kilt...



Some folks I don't know



Ist es ein Vogel? Ist es ein Flugzeug? Nein! Es ist Weihnachts-man!



OK, guys, this is a first:
Who'd have thought that one day, I'd put on a Santa dress and run two laps around West Princes Street Gardens? Many of you, I gather, but who'd have only begun to think that I'd even pay TEN QUID for it??? Exactly.

It was a strange sight, hundreds of people dressed as Santa Clause (and who ALL had payed ten pound to be allowed to do so), santa-bagpipers and all, but it made for some good pictures (you know, santa-bagpipers and all). We even got to keep the Santa dresses! Isn't that just grant? Aaaand we got a medal. Aaaaand our ten bucks will help fulfill wishes for terminally ill children, get them to Lapland (where, as we all know, Santa lives (???) in an Igloo (???)), have snowball fights and feed Reindeers (or was it ON Reindeers??).
HOHOHO for charity (ein Hoch auf die Charitee)!

GOERGENS...!!!

I declare the Big International Intercontinental Indiefresse Picture Battle (BIIIPB) officially started!

TAKE THOU THAT!!!

Today's Lesson for Life:

If you're at the bus stop and you feel like dancing and singing with nothing better to do and Elvis in your ear: dance, baby!

Neues Visarecht in Grossbritannien

Kevin hat ein Reiseverbot ... Einreiseverbot! Striktes! Scheckes!

Friendly Pilotes...

... und ich zitiere woertlich:

"Einen schoenen guten Tag, meine wunderschoenen Damen und Herren auf Ihrem Flug nach Edingburg."
...
"Ziehen Sie die Schwimmweste ueber den Kopf und achten Sie dabei natuerlich auf Ihre Frisur."
...
"... wir hoffen Sie haben eine gute Weiterreise; wie haben Sie sehr gerne. (Pause) ... nach Edingburg geflogen. Merry Christmas."

Da sach noch einer was ueber Servicewueste und sowas.

By the way

Meine Schwester hatte uebrigens auch Geburtstag vor kurzem.

Welcome to Britain...

...where people turn on their shower without actually being in it in order to heat up the bathroom, where empty batteries are thrown in the bin and heaters cannot be turned down in public buildings, which leaves you with the one and only possibility to open the windows wide if you don't want to suffocate and stop caring about the heater working on full power.
It only makes sense that it is in a place like this that you have a heater - installation company called... und jetz ratet mal...

"Global Warming"

Frage des Tages

Lebt eigentlich ollen Plappert noch? Ich habe ein Geschunk fur ihm und muss ihn ausserdem des weiteren uberdies noch wissen lassen, dass die Glasgows dachten, ich nennte ihn Fluffy (in echtigkeit sachte ich naturlich Plappi) und wir folgerichtig beschlussen, ihn furderhin offiziellst desgleichen zu betiteln.

Ich glaub, ich muss jetz erstmal was essen, ich fuehl mich unterzuckert.

Oink

Drawing a pig on this frickin' little pad on this frickin' little laptop is frickin' difficult...

Pachty hard in Glesgey

"So", said the Lady. "I've got my tickets for Faithless and the Chemical Brothers next weekend in Glasgow. Now I've got to find somewhere to sleep." And I thought "I know people in Glasgow, I shall ask them." A little later I thought "I like the people in Glasgow. I should just come along and see them". To be honest, it took me quite a while to figure that out, but I didn't want to come along to the concerts (the lady mocking me for saying "sorry, not my cup of tee", here it goes in German, just as true and better in sound: "Des is net mein Ding, Junge, Vadder echt net. Wenn ich ehrlich bin, wa, dann mag ich am liebsten schoene leckere gute Musik, so richtig mit Melodie und richtig schoen gut, Junge, wa. Vadder..." sorry, I'm losing it ... where was I? Oh, yes, first I have to close the brackets:...)Anyway I thought I might as well come along and hang out with the boys while the Rach is bouncing away in the SECC. A little later all was arranged and we were on the bus to Glasgow. We bought some booze on arrival and took it to Renfrew Street, where we were served susage stew by the boys. I was at least, cause the Lady had to be off to the SECC before dinner was ready, muhuhaa-a. Jamie, the Kristian-man, Scottie (the Aussie! isn't that weird), Nick and meself were then chilling to the sweet and gentle sound of beer cans opening and Jamie's band's new record (Uncle John and White Lock, the new recors out on monday!). After the boys had loudly, clearly and repeatedly shunned the bottle of cider we had brought along (to the effect that it now sits in my fridge, haehaehae), I was told what the evening had in store for us. Following the inspiration of the poster in the kitchen we did the Dude, his Dudeness or, if you prefer, il Duderino and went BOWLING!!! It was a horrible place with ninetees Mucke of the rotten kind and lighting in un-be-liiievable colours. Plus I am totally crap at bowling but I had a hell of a time with the boys and their about 20 friends who all had names they didn't hesitate to tell me (I remeber ganze 2!) and welcomed me in their midst as if I had always been there. Maybe they're just on drugs all the time and really did think I had always been there...hm. No, I don't think so. Rachel joined us at about the time the DJ started playing spicegirls and the like, carefully feeling his way up to Duran Duran where he comfortably remained throughout the rest of the evening, which wasn't that long as the place closes at midnight. The whole gang trooped (is that a verb? Well, it is now.) to the Art School, where we listened to drum and base. I wasn't really in the mood to dance, as I couldn't find the cloakroom, thus wearing my turtleneck jumper and skijacket in a crowded club and also this is where the saying with the cup and the tee comes is again. I bereft Kristiano of his key before he had the opportunity to smoke a hundred joints and abuse a large range of chemical drugs and contently went up the street to our residence. As I had promised Kristian to let him in on his arrival there, I couldn't really fall asleep, kept on getting up all the time because I had thought I had heard him coming home (his flat has no buzzer, you see) and only really was in a phase of the deepest sleep hours later...when the boy actually came home and desired to be let in. Rachel had to wake me up, because I really really didn't hear anything and apparently I missed quite a show, starring Kristain Emans outside the door and shouting through the letter box "Scooottie, let me iiiiiiin...the Germans took my keeeeeeey...I can't enter my own flaaaaat..." and so on. I finally woke up and opened the door, and boy, was he glad to get in. He's normally very shy and not a physical contact kind of person, but chemicals and desparation can just screw a man's hugging habits up. I'm glad I didn't suffocate. He also brought the whole gang along, but as he is a very considerate man, drugs or no, he all took them downstairs to his room with him as we were sleeping in the living room. The night started with Rachel in the armchair, me on the couch and our cloths on the short couch and ended with me on my camping mat on the floor, Rachel on the short couch and Nick and his skateboard (!) on what had formerly been MY couch. Deep in the night (or rather early in the morning) I awoke when Nick was shoving his board under my feet and busying around on the couch table. I asked him "what are YOU up to?" and got the reply "I was just about to ask you the same thing". "???", I said, "I'm sleeping here!! At least I'm trying to!". He muttered something incomprehensable and then proceeded to try and lie down on the couch next to me. I tried to convince him not to do so.
Me: "Nick...go away!"
Nick: "You serious?"
Me: "Go away!"
Nick: "Honestly?"
Me: "Go! away!"
Nick: "Go away?"
Me: "Goaway!"
Nick: "Goaway??"
Me: "Goaway!"
(pause)
Nick: "Naaah, I'm not listening..."
Hooraaaaay for the happy pills he must have taken. He can't remember anything and I am actually thinking of blackmailing him. I just have to make up a story...
Anyway I eventually fled the scene and went to sleep on the floor, which was probably better for my back anyway.
We had bacon sandwiches for breakfast (God almighty, what an invaluable piece of information!)and then went on a sightseeing tour. Kelvingrove Park, University building, Huntarian Art Gallery and Macintosh House. But as we were a little tired after the previous night, our higlight was a meal in the local chip shop.
That evening Rach went to see Faithless while Jamie, Nick and I went to the other Nick's place for a poker night (Kristian for some reason being too tired to even get up from his couch). I met Nick on the street coincidentally (Ichso "Hey, mister Nick!" Erso "bloody hell!!!") and he assured me that poker skills were not essential as nobody had any. It was a good poker night with homemade indian food (gee, can that boy cook), lots of people (dougie was there of course and Eoghan the architect came around, too), a fridge full of beer and an episode of "Family guy" on DVD. The only thing missing to make it a perfect poker night was anybody actually playing a card game... but that didn't matter. Chilling and chatting war angesagt and I invited lots of people to both Edinburgh and Berlin. Nick told us the story of the King's dochtir and the Queen's dochtir and the Well at the End of the World in exquisite Highland Scots; me heid is still buzzing! We finally went home to have a good night's sleep. At some point during the weekend I also bought a jumper and we met Sietzke and her sister in the shop next door, but I cannae really remember when that was.
Anyway it was a brilliant weekend and I even did quite a big deal of preparation for tomorrow already.
The sun was shining on our way home, illuminating this beauty of a country in a way I almost had to cry.
Life is geat.
The world is a good place.

Least favourite lines

OK, thus the situation:
imagine you would have to catch up on a lot of sleep, because during the last four nights or so you just couldn't fall asleep and once you did kept on waking up, thus being knackered and feeling ill all the time. But the merciless alarm clock, which you hardly hear for the plugs in your ears you put there before you went to sleep in order to get some kind of a chance to rest, starts yelling at you at six o'clock in the morning after seven hours of sleep that just couldn't make up for the long hours of sleep you desperately needed. You briefly contemplate on just calling in sick, but being a dutiful little fucker and having a responsibility now and having to be a role model and bla-di-blafuckoff you eventually get up at seven, sleepwalk into the bathroom and leave the house about half an hour later, looking like shit and feeling it, too. You manage to stay awake on the bus, but only just, and reach school at eight fifteen, fighting your way up the street and to the entrance through myriads of pupils, unbelievably walking even slower then you do. You reach the staffbase, throw a tired little joke at the french assistant just to piss him off, because of the way he looks and because he's french and just because he's there. Lessons start at 8.40, and at quarter to nine, you finally make your way to this day's first classroom, sighing all the way with tiredness and disbelief you're really hear.

Now, what is the last line you would want to hear?

"Oh, Sabrina, sorry, I forgot to tell you that I will go through the exams with them so I don't need you today."

Aarrggh.
Keep smiling.
No problem.
Aarrrrgh.h.

So, as I was already switched to work mode, I helped above mentioned Damien with the DVD player and the TV, because he's a guy AND french, so he just couldn't do it.
Just joking, Damien.
We watched the first half hour of "la Haine", a film about neds in a small french town and police raids and scheiss bullenstaat.
Someone had had the brilliant idea to add white subtitles to a black and white movie.

On the bus with Irvine Welsh

They're real. ... They're among us! They have real names and beerbreaths and ... grey anoraks. And they ride Lothian Buses (your locally owned buses). The average Irvine Welsh novel character. They're not fictive. Not that I ever assumed so, but yesterday on my way home from Ocean Terminal, reality kicked in like with an empty bottle of lager. I took the bus number 1, the one that goes down Easter Road, passing the Hibs' stadium. It had been a football sunday. And there he was. He was sitting with his two sons in a four people compartment with a table; I took the remaining seat and had a close look at the average working class wasted life loser as they describe them in the books I read. He was sitting opposite me, the two kiddos - they were about five and seven - occupying the seats next to the window, through which they were staring silently out into the night during the whole duration of the ride. They had Hibs scarfs and the one next to his father had a wee golden earring and freckles. The father looked grey and worn, the way you look after too much drink and too much shit in just too short a life, with leathery skin and thin hair. Every now and again he would say something to the kids, mainly asking them wether they wanted him to bring them back to their mother, adressing them as "son" after every sentence, as if to prevent them from forgetting they were his sons. The kids would say nothing, hardly reacting at all to what their father said or did, and just kept on staring out of the window with their sad little faces. And the father would stop saying things and just take another sip of the can of Tennents that he was holding on to.
His whole existence seemed so clear to me: shagged a random girl when he was younger, she got pregnant, so they married, both hardly old enough to do so. They had another kid, after which she couldn't take his drinking habits any more and ran away with another guy who took her to Paris (or any other fancy stereotypical place) and they got divorced, after which he hasn't anybody left, his only remaining pleasure being taking his boys to see the Hibs every now and again to stop them from calling the other guy "Dad".
But maybe I just didn't finish "Glue" long enough ago.

All Blacks on a grey day

First of all: of course I cheered for Scotland, that goes without saying. I even bought eleven pounds worth of fan paraphernalia, namely one fluffy fleece hat with a flag on the forehead and a scarf, displaying both the scottish and the New Zealand colours an flags, with two hands doing a friendly handshake in the middle. Nice.
We arrived at Murrayfield quite early, as it said on the tickets that you would not be let into the stadium if you arrived any later then half an hour before kick off. So I thought, OK, they obviously want people to be there early, no problem, I can do that. But apparently, having to be there before, in this case, two doesn't mean that they actually let you enter the premises until one. So we had plenty of time to literally stroll around the ground and were among the first people to make our way to our seats (which we found, after only very little confusion, after about ten minutes). Now looking around, the seats seemed to be coloured in a strange way, green an white and blue and pink. I only realised half an hour later that they actually all together made a tartan pattern. (What else!? Could have thought of that before!)
The show startet with about seventy Pipe Bands playing together, which was impressive, a salute from a modern Kanone, which was kind of scary, and two jet fighters flying low over the stadium, which was unexpected and crazy. All this was answered by the teams entering the pitch and the All Blacks doing their famous challenge dance, the name of which I keep forgetting. So, all in all, when it comes to showing off to the other nation and challenging it, I think it was a draw.
The match itself was phantastic, too. The Scots really went for it, put up a tough fight and really didn't make it too easy for the Kiwis. The half time score still was Scotland:3 - New Zealand:22. The supporters gave everything, too, from the singing of the national anthem (of which I only know the first and the last line "Oh, Flower of Scotland ... someting something someting ... and sent them home tae think again", meaning of course the English) throughout the game, people were shouting their lungs out, Kenny Campbell, the Craigmount teacher who got us the tickets, being one of the loudest of all. All the same, the general mood was very friendly and there was a bigger sense of hospitality than I have ever witnessed in the Olympiastadion.
In the end, New Zealand won 29 : 10, which isn't too bad, and also in an unattended and unobserved moment I could run on the pitch to take these pictures that you see above.
It was a great day, and I will definitely go see another match, probably Scotland - England next year, which will surely be less friendly (see national anthem). Auf's Maul und zwar big time. Also it was probably the last opportunity to see the Kiwis' famous captain, Tana Umaga, and I'm glad I seized it.
And I'm also glad I'm not in the middle when the two teams smash together. My GOD, the guys are massive!! I sure like rugby!