Island in the Sun: Grenada, the spicy one.

As jealous laser eyes slowly bored holes in the back of my head, the little clock in the bottom right corner of my screen clicked over to 17.30

I stood up, smile beaming "see ya in a few weeks guys". My work mates muted responses were understandable; they weren't the ones leaving the gloomy confines of London, they weren't the ones who in about 20 hours time would be sipping the Caribbeans finest on a beautiful white sandy beach. No, they were the ones that would be getting up at some ungodly hour to commute to work in an overcrowded tube shoved up under some guys smelly arm pit...

Yes, its good to be me.

I arrived in Grenada halted only slightly by immigration to a rousing display of affection from eternal good mates Guy and Tony, a beer later and the sweat and jet lag kicked in.
The cricket was pretty run of the mill to be honest, but Grenada more than made up for that. Try to imagine a morning swim in the ocean followed by the Grenadian fresh fish breakfast, a Carib (beer), and sitting at a bar so close to the water you had sand at your feet.

A memorable afternoon was spent wandering the markets and knocking back a few bottles of Carib and having a good old yarn with Guy and the infamous one (new-found friend Lance). Grenada is a place with the kind of heat that made you thristy, really thirsty, this had the uncommon effect of making each cold beer just as refreshing as the last, needless to say, but we had many refreshing beers that afternoon.

Between swimming, beer drinking, and cricket we found time to have an evening out at a resturant followed by a night out at a club called Fantasia. Tony and I cut up the dance floor as only we can. Around 3am that night, Tony's snoring reached 747 levels and Guy and I decided to have yet another beer on the beach. Waking up hours later I prodded Guy awake, we dusted off the sand and headed back, assuming the spoon formation and slept like babies.

Grenada, you spicy Island you. I will return...

The hot girl from work...

The weather has been rather cold and miserable lately, so it was with a nice surprise that I sat down on the loo at work in the morning, paper in hand, to discover that the seat was pleasantly warm. It was only near the end of my turgid visit that I pondered who it was that took the time to part with their hard earned body heat to increase my comfort? I smiled as I imagined the taut bottom of the hot girl from upstairs...

As I dried my hands meticulously using the fancy yet ecologically unsound paper towels, three things sprung to mind; this is a toilet, and a male toilet at that, AND I passed the office fat-guy on the way in... Watching the mirror curiously, I saw a young man's smile fade...

I hope all is well in Hammersmith...

...said a friend of mine

My life is like playing poker and always getting the "Ace Of Spades". Drinking alcohol, trying to "Stay Clean" in the "Metropolis" that is "The Hammer". Fell off but got back up on the "Iron Horse / Born To Lose". Living in a middle class area but I got "No Class" because I don't wannabe "Overkill". Fortunately "(We Are) The Road Crew" are cool though one is a "Capricorn". Paranoid like everyone about tube suicide "Bomber"[s]. Just wish I could go to the Apollo for "Motorhead (live)"...

Laughing my ass off...

"You know what's getting really tedious? All these time travelers. It seems like two weeks don't go by without some jerk with a time belt and a bad attitude blinking into my living room and trying to zap me into molecules, usually right in the middle of House."

Rest of article here.

It's my country's party and I'll drink if I want to...

In a fantastic return to form, I've started drinking heavily again and the world has become a better place.

So begins the famous Waitangi day circle line pub crawl. It was a mission to end all missions and it would be undertaken by approximately nine thousand cold and home sick expatriate Kiwis, and I was one of them.

I arrived among throngs of silver fern clad Kiwis at Paddington tube station to the sight of the Kiwi, the sound of the Maori strum, the taste and smell of beer, and the feel of fellow Kiwi's up close and personal in the cramped but festive circle line tube. Simply put, All five senses were buzzing.

Due to thebeereffect motor control steadily declined among us all and the "no sitting and no holding on while riding the tube" rule became steadily more fun. Akin to the concept of antipodean dating, i.e excessive beer equals chatting up which in turn equals score; add a moving train to the mix and everyone has ample excuse for the odd tender caress.

The circle line tube, notorious for its unreliability, subsequently shut down. Fortunately yet uncharacteristically for the UK, the weather matched our sunny dispostion. As we merrily wandered along in the sunshine through a rather affluent area of London, the locals looked on confused as to why thousands upon thousands of singing silver fern-clad revellers wandered through their usually quiet streets.



[English accent] "Erm you're all off to a sporting event are ya?"

"uh yeah"

[English accent] "oh who's playing"

"um we all are"

[English accent] "eh?"

Ahh the English, don't they know that a pub crawl IS a sporting event?

As the Big Ben clock struck 4pm the Haka shook the halls of Westminster and the Kiwis dispersed back to their usual hang outs in and around west London.

Quite a day really... here is what I was up to last year and here are some photos.

It's kinda cold over here...

So here is the view from my bedroom window of the light dusting of snow we received...



Also here is some views from inside the house:

Some more photos taken in Jan can be found here:

Stupidity etc.

I don't normally bother to comment on such things here because its not really in the fun loving nature of this website but this made me scared and laugh at the same time:

"FEDERAL WAY, Wash. — The school board in this suburb south of Seattle has restricted showings of Al Gore's movie on global warming, including requiring that it be balanced with an adequate opposing viewpoint".

"The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is," Hardison told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

The rest of the article can be found here:

All I can manage is to shake my head and wonder what's the damn point...

As a side note, I have noticed that the fun loving nature of this website has been lacking a bit perhaps living and working in the UK has made me more cynical?

Working is like... so uncool man...

Void of positivity and enthusiasm lately, I decided to do some cliched soul searching. After going in to a zen like trance for what seemed like seconds I was able to extract myself from the lotus position and make lunch. While dipping my toast in to a particularly spicy bowl of vegetable soup possibly cooked by Chef from South Park; I found myself on a chilli induced "time travelling" dream sequence with a kind of "Ghost of Christmas past character". This character gave me the impression that I was conversing with the naked Indian and Jim Morrison from Wayne's World and for some reason there was a touch of the Grim Reaper from the 'Bill and Ted' movies thrown in to the mix

After wandering aimlessly over sand dunes for what seemed like seconds, I came across a water cooler and drank deeply. From behind me a voice told me that usually the answers I seek could easily be found by looking within myself and examining the root causes of my lack of enthusiasm and positivity using a series of Hollywood produced dream sequences. Only problem was that the voice was really busy lately with double bass lessons.

The voice paused for what seemed like seconds allowing me to ponder how a mere voice could play the double bass without fingers, before I could come to a conclusion the voice simply said, "If you book them, they will come." I explained that this didn't really didn't help my situation so I asked the voice to clarify "God damn woman, I'll stop bein' all cryptic an' shit and tell you the god damn answer, didn't I just give you sweet lovin' five minutes ago?"

Confused, I continued to listen, and then in a loud and serious tone the following words of wisdom were issued from the lip less voice "If you quit your job, you will be happy". Genius!

I woke up lighted by the kindly glow of my old friend patiently and gently force feeding me pop culture full of characters and tag lines stronger and more poignant than anything the "real world" ever gave me. Pausing for what seemed like seconds, I hugged the TV.

So after a rather hectic, stressful, and ultimately depressing two and a half months in a job I didn't really like, I decided to cut my losses and re-join the hordes of anti-establishment TV-hugging hippies. My only complaint was that I didn't get to play twister with my movie-like dream sequence guy... but I guess that only happens in the movies.

Screw the stiff upper lip...

Its pessimism that will get you a long way in London...

I arrived in London, it was raining, my holiday was over and like an incontinent relative my bank account was experiencing serious leakage at a surprising rate. I needed money and I needed it fast.

I didn’t immediately discount selling my soul and or body until I realised that from the customers perspective, they would be getting what they payed for and I as far as I was concerned the only part of me for sale was my toe nails. After extensive market research the best price I could get was a pat on the back and a concerned look thrown in for free, they didn’t even want the toe nails.

As the toe nail business just wasn’t working out I decided that it was time to dust off the old CV and eminently adaptable cover letter or as I like to think of them “those trusty, ingenious, well constructed, adeptly presented, half truths on three bits of A4”. In my opinion CV’s are simply a whimsical art form, they have no realistic reflection on a persons skill, experience or ultimately what they are like to employ.

Either way, armed with my incredible and whimsical piece of art I was unstoppable and the phone was ringing off the hook. I had job interviews galore. I prefer to liken a job interview to a first date. Both parties make ego-centric conversation about themselves before deciding if they want to jump in to bed with each other but in this case there is no food and wine to occupy yourself during the awkward silences.

Within a week I had started working for “the man” and had ended up selling my body and soul after all, of course that depends on if you consider the soul anatomical or intangible which is a whole other conversation that I as an agnostic don’t want to get in to with the caped crusaders. Yes you, you know who you are you lewd naughty dirty devout belief in the absolute little so and so’s. Oh sorry did I question the validity of something you hold dear and make you feel guilty? I feel like masturbation, in the noun and verb senses of the word, oh my god quick hand me The Cloth.

I think I’m going to... sooo get fucked by Catholicism for that.

Swiss army knives/watches/chocolate etc...

It was time to cash in on another generous offer of free lodgings, this time I was off to Switzerland to visit the lovely Amanda.

As it turns out, even the efficiency of the German trains couldn't’t help the fact that the journey from Copenhagen took an entire day and cost a shitload. Still it was totally worth it.

Incidentally I met quite possibly the nicest German guy in the world on the train. No honestly! It turned out that my ticket was wrong and I had to pay extra, having no cash I was pretty much fucked until the aforementioned ‘nicest German guy in the world’ offered to pay it for me. Now it was no measly sum, a full 30 Euros had to be coughed up. I was incredibly grateful. I arrived in Zurich where again ‘nicest German guy in the world’ proceeded to buy me a beer and a sandwich while I waited for my train change.

As I left there was handshakes aplenty and promises to spread the goodwill of the Germans, because around that part of the world, God knows they need it ;-)

After a first class journey between Zurich and Lausanne (no really it was first class, oh dear, wrong seat again Ben, tut tut tut) I arrived late at night and met up with Amanda and her friend Laura who makes a great Thai green curry by the way.

Amanda and I undertook many adventures in and around Lausanne, the first of which was a hilarious bike ride to Morges. Mainly hilarious for the fact that Amanda could hardly reach the pedals, and the ‘Amanda versus hedge’ incident which I’m sure the nation of Switzerland will be talking about for some time.

A short train ride to Montreux, town of the rich and famous was made especially interesting by the fact that it had an official Freddy Mercury celebration day, on discovering this I of course was immediately sold on the place.



In between times Amanda, Laura and I proceeded to drink cheap wine, eat well, and generally be merry.

Eventually I made it to Geneva to see the UN headquarters, but as usual due to being subject to veto by the powerful few it was closed to the weak and helpless masses that day so we just went to a Thai restaurant instead which was equally as satisfying.

With a large block of Swiss choolate under my arm it was off to London to search for a house/job/wife/life etc. Wish me luck!

Swiss photos here:

Amandas blog here: