Sometimes though my gross incompetency in this area does result in well, gross incompetence in this area. Today I wanted to go to Amsterdam to spend some time with Annett. Actually yesterday I wanted to go to Amsterdam to spent some time with Annett. I packed, prepared and was up early for just that reason (7am!). I even announced on Twitter to my tweeple that I was going to be out of town for a week and they shouldn’t inundate with requests for my company, which I’m sure they were going to do after ignoring me for weeks. As I went to leave I picked up the ticket and noticed that it wasn’t for yesterday, but actually for today. Waste of time. False alarm. Back to bed. Waste of excitement (especially for Annett lonely over there in the land of the toastie).

Anyway, I unpacked my ticket and filled the day doing what I do to fill the day everyday. The next day (today, hello there) I got up early again confident this time that I had the right day. I did. As I was packing a blazing row kicked between my two female room-mates. I moved to secure the crockery, then time dictated that I had to leave, the crockery would have to stand on their own porcelain feet, or their version of feet. I made it downstairs and with my big travelling rucksack on my back and my other rucksack wrapped on my front. I unlocked Annett’s bike that I was bringing for her and headed off double quick time for the Train Station. Then my phone rang, it was one of my roommates in hysterics upset after the fight and talking about relocation. Sorry. Bad Time. Can’t support. Barely upright. Many bags. Riding small girls bike. Late for train.

Feeling guilty at  my roommate inadequacies I put the pedal to the concrete and made haste. Slow haste because I’d forgotten to clip Annett’s basket grips and they’d dropped down wrapped round the chain, got very tight, snapped in two, yet stayed tightly wrapped. No problem. I can still make it. Hands were inserted, eventually the clips, cord and the majority of chain grease removed and in/on my hands, let’s go. Small problem, bag on front too big, can’t peddle as legs lift up and knock it. No where else to put it, tram? Can’t, no cash, no time for cash. Pedal. Rotate legs outwards? Yes, works. Just. Not energy efficient. Not the time for efficiency. Pedal. Pedal. Tired. PEDAL. Tired.

I made it. With a cool four minutes to spare, with even enough time remaining for the acquisition of cash. Onto the train.

Are you getting on the train with the bicycle?

Yes.

Do you have a bicycle ticket?

No.

(silence)

………………………

(we stare at each other)

………………………………

(we continue to stare at each other, it’s become a sort of contest to see who will crack first. I give in, we only had four minutes.)

Well can I get one then?

Yes.

(silence)

………………………………….

(we stare at each other)

…………………………………

On the train.

Right….thanks.

I make the train, I get the ticket. Exhausted but with my two bags and a small girls bicycle I sit and relax.

I had a 17min connection window for the one change I had to make, in Hannover. The train runs 14mins later. The announcer helpful announces (well what else would an announcer do) that my next train is leaving from platform 12, ‘opposite us’ when we pull in on platform 11. I get stuck in the door as I hastily alight with the bags and the bicycle. A fat man watches me wriggle, stuck. He doesn’t help, he doesn’t smile, he doesn’t laugh. One of the three would have been a minimum. All was expected. Wanker.

I get off and see my train waiting opposite on platform 12 where it should be. I look for the bicycle carriage, I can’t find it. Whatever I’ll get on and deal with that later, its a 5hr journey, I’ll have time to find it. The doors shut eagerly behind me, I relax. Post relaxing I look up, the screen says the train is for Cologne. While not a whizz in Geography, I know that is not in the Netherlands nor on the way to the Netherlands. Wrong train. Shit. Getting on the wrong train is one of those annoying wrong decisions, as you are faced with your mistake out of the window at 150khr until the next station. Unfortunately this was an express, so the next stop was 120k and 50 minutes in the wrong direction. Shit sticks. Long 50mins.

50mins and a few phone calls to base HQ Netherlands later, I’m on the platform at Bielefeld (the next stop) waiting for the next train back to Hannover. That train arrived but it’s late, like every train so far today. With its late departure it should leave me two minutes in Hannover to get the next Amsterdam train at 2:40, costing me just two hours and a little embarrassment. People on the ICE train keep looking at me funny. Possibly because I’m sitting in the gangway with a small girls bicycle, and ICE trains don’t allow bicycles, and I’ve a ticket to go somewhere else, and I’m an idiot, and I have a stupid beard, and I need a haircut.

The train runs late on its journey back to Hannover. 2 minutes later. I get off with zero minutes to make it to the Amsterdam train, I carry the bike forward, down, around, up to another platform and just in time to wave the 2:40pm on its merry way to the city of the illegal made legal from the chilly comfort of the platform.

While I’m not the most perceptive, I was getting an inkling that someone was trying to tell me its just not supposed to be.  Go back to your attic hibernating bear.

I waste two hours becoming intimate with Hannover train station, every train station in Germany is a clone of every other train station it seems, so don’t make a special trip there if you’ve been to any other one. It’s only remarkable in its unremarkableness.

I get to the platform 30mins early for the 4:40pm. I’ve learnt my lesson. Later than some perhaps, but learnt none the less. I ask 5 different staff members if this is the platform, and exactly where the bicycle carriage will be. 2 can’t understand me (in either language), 3 agree one particular section of platform upon which I should park myself and my bicycle. At 4:38pm I enter the bicycle carriage of the train to Amsterdam and park my small girls bicycle. Exhausted I sit, I could kiss the seat and the fat man who sits next to me as I write this and I hope can’t read English, if you can fat has become an English slang word for perfect proportioned, please stop hogging the arm rest.

I relax, laugh and regret nothing.

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Its been a while since I stole 10 minutes of your employers time. So what have I been up to? Well I’ve had a pretty full calendar but my main project has been growing a beard. Is that really a project you might ask? Yes, I might tell you, okay, I will tell you, actually I just did tell you, pay attention please. You’ve been told.

To help put my achievement in context, lets take a moment to reflect on some of the truly great people who also had beards. The vaults of history are stuffed with outstanding people who like me now, have experienced the joy of having a portable face warmer.

You see growing a beard is much like cultivating a plant, in order to reach its full potential it needs love and attention. You should stroke it like one would stroke a dog, sing to it like one would sing to a baby. Many men try, but few men can succeed in growing something so traffic-stoppingly-ridiculous, so instantly-making-small-children-cry-visually-offensive that its worthy of being called a beard. I am just starting out on my long journey.

The interesting thing about beards is that they grow on you. HA!

I expect you think that’s the worst beard joke you’ve ever heard right? Wrong, I’m also going to throw at you – The funny thing about beards is that you become attached to them. HA! No double HA – HAHA!

I could carry on all day, but you know where I live and sometimes I don’t like that look you have in your eye, you know that ‘lets go to the roof and start shooting’ look, so I’ll stop.

I’ve never had a beard before. There are lots of things I’ve never done before so the fact that I hadn’t done this one didn’t automatically make it a looming priority. However the idea was loitering round at the back of my mind. It wasn’t high on my todo list, certainly not as high as say owning a gold toilet, or kicking an old person in the shin, more at the latter end of my Top 100 you might say. However, my little period of f-unemployment provided the perfect opportunity…

You see when you are in the working world its hard to grow a beard like this. Certain people can grow beards. By certain people I mean – fat people . They soften fat people up a treat, there’s a reason why every chubby Uncle has a beard. On him it says friendly dentist. On thin people like me, with likely but as yet unproven Jewish/Arabian roots beards it says public menace. Need proof? I live high on a mountain of it…..

Beardy Thin Person vs Beardy Fat Person

Now ask yourself, who from that gallery would you rather sit next to on the bus?

Everyone knows that wearing glasses makes you look smarter. It’s a fact and the sole reason I wear mine. Ordinarily I see better than an owl, on a mountain top with a telescope. But wearing glasses is an instant +10 on the perceived IQ scale, and so I wear glasses. This effect is not limited to just glasses though, there are several other items an individual can use to elevate their intellect right up there towards three figures. Here are my suggestions

So the big question is, can beards make you look smarter? No. Well, maybe. Ordinarily, no. But there are certain circumstances when, maybe.

For example twiddling your beard between your fingers, or stroking it attentively can give you an appearance of someone possessing a certain careful curiosity, comfortable and wise in pondering life’s big questions.  However having a beard has had one possibly surprising discovery…women are attracted to beards.

I’ve never been gifted with women, they’ve usually observed me as one might observe gravity, acknowledged and present but not noteworthy. My previous compliment rate from the opposite sex has been

Years lived: 26

Compliments received from Women: 1 (hello again Mum, thanks again for sending me that Valentines card when I was 7, I still sleep with it under my pillow).

Yet in recent weeks a few more complements have rolled in much to my am/bemusement. It has to be the beard. I’m still as sucky as before, so nothing else has changed other than that I got a bit fatter on account of my only leaving the house on second Tuesdays that feature a number in the date considered lucky in at least two western cultures but excluding the number 7. So it could also be that.

But my moneys on the beard as that’s up top loud and proud like a facial flag of wonderous…?…ness. One look at my facial testosterone blanket and those ladies that don’t recoil in fear or run screaming “English Taliban, protect the children” are rendered powerless to resist. This doesn’t work on Annett of course, who looks at the beard like its something she accidentally trod in. In fact she disliked it so much she had to move 691kms away from it. But its her loss, I got something else to keep me warm on the lonely winter nights now. My lovely beard.

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Then when its had its fickle fun, the dust settles again. You can look around, work out what just happened and if its resulted in you being in a better spot than before, or if it was your turn to be the bug instead of the windscreen.

I just came out of one of those periods, and now that the dust is settling I can get back to normal, normal being a routine, this blog, photos, music, books, learning German and la la tedium la la. So what’s new? New also comes in threes it seems:

Well I have a new apartment and two new room mates. Steffi and Susi. They are great – friendly, fun and really into having a nice communal shared flat from joint laundry to marathon movie session in the living room in front of the beamer, Its a fantastic WG. They are, although they dispute this – obsessional about cleaning, but once I learn to accept that feeling of guilt that comes from me doing little to support this obsession (beside providing plenty of mess to clean), it does result in a flat so clean you could perform surgery on any of the major surfaces.

I have my own attic room, its epic. It’s not quite the strange lair of my dreams yet, so there are no photos. But it’s getting close. It’s so great to have space and comfortable seating, the attic is huge so I have what feels likes its own apartment up here to rattle around in and house my t-shirt collection.

The second change is that I started a new fun project (with Ami and Pete). This one is selling products for the first time. I think I underestimated how much work it is to create a brand from scratch. So its been a busy few months, but I’m very happy with the result and it should be launching in the next few days. We’re not revealing who is behind it so I won’t link to it here, so if you want to see it and I didn’t already tell you about it just mail me and I’ll send you the link.

I’m aware this post is not attempting humour, I’m hungry and when I’m hungry pretty useless at trying to be funny, or friendly, or anything but grouchy and hungry really.

The third and most major change is Annett got a job. That was the plan and as the hardest working job hunter in the planet, it was just a matter of time, and I think she got the reward for her hard work, landing a very nice job as Junior Project Manager. Only the bit that wasn’t part of the plan was that the job is 7.5 train hours away in Amsterdam. While I’ve only been there once, its a really great city, as everyone attests when you say that she’s gone there, it seems to be a universally liked place. She moved there straight away and is now looking for apartments. Its pretty strange after two intense years of living and travelling together and seeing each other 99% of the days of the year, with only 7 days warning we’re now in a long distance relationship. But this time I have no fixed job so I can travel and spend time there, so I’m confident that will still work and that its not a bad thing for us both to spend a little energy outside of the relationship and have less quantity but more quality time together. Still I have noticed the presence of an Annett shaped hole here in my daily life but I’m doing my best to fill it with work, friends, flat sorting, movies, chocolate. I also vividly remember the excitement and challenge of turning up in a country where you know no one and building a life for yourself, coming to Leipzig is hands down the best decision I ever made so I’m supportive and proud that she’s having her own adventure, even if I’m not really part of it.

I am still happily unemployed, I guess now an office job is not an option for me as I want to travel to Amsterdam one week a month of something similar. Still the sites are doing fairly well, I’m not getting rich but I can just about get by and TeeDirectory is rocking and although its early days I really believe in it if I keep plugging away for another six months I think and hope it will pay the bills.

Now that’s all the news over with so when I’m not hungry I can get back to writing those stranger posts I like so much…

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I be tired of people being baggin’ on the unemployed. You people need to wake up and smell the special brew! Believe me, it ain’t easy…

Sometime there’s nothing you want less than to get up at midday and sit around the house in your pants watching chat shows. But you do. You do it because that’s your job (and you don’t have the disposable income to be able to do anything else, but that’s incidental). Sure it’s not a well paying job, but sometimes it ain’t about the money, you do that shit for the love of it and because it feels right to be contributing something proper to society. Like last night when I was pilfering from dumpsters I got to thinking – why sure I ain’t got an official uniform or road legal transport but heck, I’m as good as a binman. Don’t get shit all credit for that though do I?

Yeah, yeah yeah, I see you all there looking down at me thinking you got it so easy up there in your big bamboo tower. Well this job ain’t easy! Your world got rules, you know how the game is played, if you want to progress you can:

1. Sleep with your boss

2. Get your colleagues drunk, extract secrets from them and blackmail them.

3. Steal the good ideas of your coworkers and underlings and pass them off as your own.

We don’t have bosses so that’s out, well there is this one guy Bumhead who hangs out with the guys down the park where I’m drinking most days. He’s a little older than the rest of us, real bitchin’ vacant stare and a bushy ginger unkempt beard, we all sort of look up to him, he’s been at this game a long time so I guess he’s sort of a boss, but he’s basically always drunk and he doesn’t seem to have any secrets, he just mumbles vowels most of the time. I remember once although the memory is a little hazy from earlier cider consumption – he climbed up a tree and started to howl like a dog, but I don’t think he was revealing much but an apititude for method acting and arborism.

What can we do to get ahead? Don’t you think we have big dreams as well? I want to take my new career all the way, to the top 1% of unemployment – homelessness. Sure it won’t be easy, but I’ve got a loving family who would support me no matter what I did. So I’ve got to think up some real bad hare-brained scheme to make them give up on me. Look out ma, I’m a coming – hide your jewellery….

Now who feels stupid, wasting all that money on a “Business Studies” degree, fat lot of fucking good that did me, the only economy of scale(s) I see is when fat jim comes round with my pot. There’s no course you can do that prepares you for this job, oh no wait there is – Media Studies. But I didn’t do that, oh no wait I did, but just an AS level. Yeah of course with hindsight I should have carried on with it, got me a fancy PHP but back then I couldn’t see any future in it….

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In seems a few people were a little confused by my Facebook status update announcing that I’m moving out to my own place. I’m sorry potential suitors but I’m not single now, Annett and I are still together and functioning in the usual dysfunctional one big argument from self-destruction state we call relationship normality.

It’s been a hard few months, Annett would probably be the first to admit she’s somewhat of an emotional train wreck at the best of times. Lately shes been completely consumed by job hunting. She has no off switch, so this task and the failure to complete it so far, haunts her every waking moment, and turns her into one irritable little motherfucker. I’m an insensitive arrogant delusional dreamer which can also have an irritating effect, like cheap washing powder.

We’ve always argued a lot, its part of how we work, but this is an example of how easy its been to start an argument lately:

me: whistling

her: are you whistling?

me: yep

her: could you not

me: why not? what could possibly be wrong with whistling

her: I’m trying to concentrate, your whistling is annoying me

me: who ever heard of a person who had a problem with whistling?

her: I have a problem with it, its annoying

me: Oh yeah because being a miserable bastard all the time is absolutely not irritating. I’m a kind of happy sort of person, I like whistling I’m not sure I can just stop.

her: If you don’t stop singing this second I’m going to take a blunt object and I’m going to repeatedly shove it into your eye, then I’m going to open the third floor window and with you hopelessly blinded I’m going to push you out of it. Then I’m going to hire a car and reverse repeatedly over your carcass.

me: singing

her: ARE YOU SINGING?!?!

(and repeat)

The biggest problem is that we are absolute opposites in every way. Yeah I know every couple says that because one person likes cheese and the other person doesn’t and instead likes Carrots, or Abba or something like that. But we actually are polar opposites, the only thing we have in common is that both of us have nothing in common.

Here is graph illustrating the full spectrum of possible personalities and our positioning on them

(click for larger image)

So you can see why we have problems aligning our world views. When times are good those differences are fun, they’re the catalysts for our most interesting conversations which usually end with Annett going “you’re such a filthy capitalist pig” and “I hate the stupid real world” and all those other little sweet nothings she likes to whisper at me before stamping her feet and walking off.

Recent times would not classify as part of those aforementioned “good times”. With no home, no stuff, no plan, no jobs and the fact that the flat we’re temporarily living in now is smaller than the size of your average microwave oven its been a challenge. It’s so small if one person stretches their arms, the other has to duck or they end up with a black eye. In recent weeks we’ve been generating more friction than a sandpaper orgy.

So that is why we’ve decided to ease a little pressure and I’ll move out now rather than waiting for Annett to find a job. This is because I’ve decided to stay in Leipzig, regardless of where Annett finds work which if all goes well will only be Berlin anyway which is just round the corner. It’s very cheap here which suits my sabbatical, my friends are here and I have such few in the rest of the world, the fluke that I found some here is unlikely to be repeated elsewhere and therefore should be cherished. I also have a new mini project starting up with Ami and Pete both of which are in Leipzig (or maybe Berlin in Pete’s case) so I need to stay around here. After five months of travelling together, one year living in a country where you know almost no-one but each other we’ve spent a serious amount of time together and there’s nothing backward or negative about taking a little time to discover yourself again.

I’ll of course split my time between here and wherever Annett is, while I’m self-employed I can pretend to work anyway so that is not really an issue. In the meantime Annett can have the whole microwave oven to herself while she looks for jobs and seeing each other can become something to look forward to again at the end of the day, not something we absolutely can’t avoid and spend the whole day and night doing.

In case you’re wondering I also plan to do shit loads of whistling in my new flat! Oh yeah…

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So time for drastic measures. I’m the sort of person who can only get motivated if I turn things into challenges, which I communicate publicly and knowing that you’re all sitting at home and waiting for me to fail and look silly, I soldier on and get some done before you get bored and stop checking and then I can just quit and look silly privately.

Let’s give that a go.

After four weeks of skipped intensive German class, whilst getting better after the op (I can now sit for a few hours, enough to go back to class I’d say) I’ve missed something like 66hrs of class, which to put in context compares unfavorably to the 33hrs I actually went. As one of the worst in the class at that point, I’ve definitely missed enough to make it not worth going back. I like to pretend the powers that be stopped me learning by striking me down with that nasty cyst thingy, but more likely is that I gave it to myself to get me out of class, which was at the very intense end of intense for a language retard like me.

Now I need to step back up to the language pool and dip my big toe back in the water. I present you the

Sieben Tag Deutsch, Deutsch….um….argh

(shouting) “Annett what’s the German word for Challenge?”

“Herausfirduyniansgujdjfdung”

Me: “Come again?”

“Herausfirsjdhjsdjsdsung”

Me: “No just the word please, not the dictation of your debut novel. Say it s-l-o-w-l-y….”

Her Raus Ford Er Ung

There, in that one word, is why I’ll always be shit at German.

This reminds me of a conversation I had last weekend in Berlin, at the International T-shirt Day event although with who I’ve forgotten, other than that it was a girl.

“What’s this called in English, the thing you hang clothes on?”.

Me:  “Um, a hanger”.

She laughs with a look of disbelief, “Your kidding me? That’s so simple, ah English”.

Me: “Yes while its very nice that you have lots of long complicated words for everything, like when you’ve mis-buttoned your clothes (ferknupfen, if you’re interested), but we like to keep our language very simple so that everyone can speak it. Which I’m sure you’ll agree is very commendable.”

“What is hanger in German by the way?”

Bugel.

Ah great, a new word for me to instantly forget.

So Sieben Tag Deutsch HerRausFordErUng

The rules: No English for 7 days, starting……now. If I break a rule I must put 5cents per word in

At the end I can give it to charity, a beggar or the Casino or something.

Of course there are exceptions:

- Annett gets two twenty minute “Get out of German free cards”. In English I’m a reasonably interesting guy to talk to, I mean if no-one else is around, and your expectations are low. In German I’m a balding, moronic, one year child with no concept of grammar. So this challenge will be as painful for Annett as for me, if there’s something we really have to talk about that’s important, she can play one of her twenty minute “Get out of German free card”.

- I can speak English when speaking to people who can’t speak German. Like most of you, hence this is in English. Or people on Twitter. Or people on email who don’t speak German.

- I can speak English with my Graphic Designer guy, who is German but who may produce a steaming turd rather than the new website of my dreams, if I’m forced to talk to him in German. So he is exempt.

The time is 7pm, the day is Sunday the 28th of June. Hier beginnen meine sieben tag Deutsch HerRausFordErUng.

Update: 7:40pm – First accidental English word spoken, first 5cent coin in cup.

Update: 11:06pm – Broke the rules to say the punchline of a joke (my own and very fantastic I have to say) couldn’t say it in German, cost me 45cents, but worth it.

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Let’s begin.

The last month has been a pretty shitty one, the majority of it I’ve spent in bed, in pain, in hospital or all three. I could write many blog posts about my experiences, which I know from reliving them with friends would be funny, everyone loves misfortune as long as it belongs to someone else and this month I was hogging more than fair share. I probably won’t write those posts because thinking about it all is depressing and I’m a chipper, the glass is not half full, why it’s positively overflowing, look great spurts of (what liquid is supposed to be in the glass in the half full/half empty metaphor? Water/Gin/Mountain Dew?!??! Has that every been clarified?) , great spurts of mystery liquid are spewing out, its become a fountain and now unicorns and small children have come to frolic in it – kind of guy.

My parents dropped by this week, I got a call from Mum saying that UPS were outside with a parcel she’d send and the UPS people didn’t know which flat to ring as our names are not on the bell, could I go down a let them in. When I got down there I opened the door to find my Mum and Dad on the doorstep. My first thought was why are UPS sending two people to the door with the package? That’s not very efficient staff usage. Secondly why have UPS employed my parents? Mum is far too nosey to not open an interesting looking parcel and Dad hates driving on the right-hand side of the road. It turned our there was no package, I had been cheated. However when I tried to close the door on the UPS employee imposters they refused to leave citing parental privileges. I’d been careful to only give my address to select people to stop riff raff like these two arriving at my door, it turned out Annett had given it to them which is hardly a surprise. I get nervous every time we’re at the Airport because Annett is the sort of person who under even the lightest of question would confess us for a crime we haven’t committed. Ironic as being German she’s never actually broken a rule in her whole life, still she cracks under even the slightest questioning, it wouldn’t take the Stasi or anyone for that matter very long to get her secrets:

Man on street: Guten Tag!

Annett: I can’t tell you. He told me not to.

Man on street: Entschuldigung?!

Annett: Oh okay already don’t look at me like that, I can’t be burdened with this anymore. I’ll tell you what you want, I’ll tell you all of it, all the lies the secrets. He owes the NZ library service $4! Phew, it’s better to have that off my chest. Guten Tag.

I got my own back on the visiting riff raff by having had the foresight not to clean the toilet for several weeks (dirt is Mums kryptonite). She acted unphased and only the facial tick on one side of her face gave away the pain she felt inside.

With visitors comes hosting responsibilities, so I started leaving the flat again and being more mobile than I had the last few weeks. It was refreshing to get out of the flat and see what was going on in this inferior real world that everyone keeps banging on about.

It turns out there’s an election going on in Leipzig, and also some bigger Government parliament election thing for something call the “EU”. I don’t know the specifics, I’m English so we leave Europe to the Europeans to worry about.

A long time ago I freed myself from worrying about the trivialities of politics, you know the – issues, ideas, wings, principals, promises of the politicians both in power and vying for it. I think maybe it’s because I never really lived anywhere I had any great affinity for, somewhere that I would really call home and so my interest in future was passing at best, as that was all I was doing. Now with Leipzig being a place that feels warm and homely it’s time for me to make my vote count!

I think I did vote once at my University for some kind of election, I voted for the person with the funniest name in each category, was a good day to be Sarah Koch, one of the few I bet. I understand the importance of voting, I have just sort of ignored it. I’ve always figured that when whatever country I’m in really needs me to vote, they’ll flick on the bat light or something. Only it will be a caricature of my face, and I’ll see it from my secret lair and come out and realize that now I must care. I’ll make a lot to learn about the politicians, understand the problems facing the next government, make an informed decision and head to the polling station where I’ll vote for the person with the funniest name.

Having unburdened myself from actually having to care about the politics of politics, I’m free to focus on what really matters – what the candidate looks like!

Luckily I got a good look at them as they’d thoughtfully put up pictures of themselves all over the city. Presumably so I and like minded fellow citizens could draw moustaches and cheeky goatees on their faces on the way home from the pub.

I really want to pick the right candidate to receive my vote (I’m eligible to vote here), so I’ve spent extensive time studying the faces of the candidates, you might not have that much time so I’ll summarize them down for you:

Dieter Deissler, Now that’s an expression to be proud of, it’s equal parts cocksure and utterly confused, a mixture of “what’s for dinner honey” and “who’s shit on my shoes”?

Franz Taraschka. What’s going on here Franz? Trying to be a big shot? “No mum I can’t talk right now, got to get my photo taken for the paper, yeah I’ll be round for dinner later”.

Do you think you’re a real go to man because your talking on the phone whilst bicycling? Does a bicycle show you a commoner like the rest of us? Well, all it shows me is that you, Sir, are a health and safety violator! Mobile phones should not be used during the operation of a bicycle.

Thomas Zeitler. I know what you’re thinking – I’ve seen this man before. You’re right to think that, you have seen this man before he’s none other than the bastard love child of

Dr Evil & an egg…

Look at his perfect conical dome! I just want to get out a little teaspoon and whack the side of a few times. I’m finding it hard not to do Egg puns here, so I’ll just done one to end my review of Eggy, I wouldn’t vote for him because I’m concerned he might crack under the pressure!

Mathias Weber.

Mathias: Dad, dad can I borrow the car again this weekend?

No son, you remember what happened last time, when you went to a party got high on ‘shrooms drove home and crashed it into the neighbours cow.

Mathias: That was an isolated incident, and like weeks ago now, can’t you just let it go?

I’ll let it go, when you get a haircut and a job you scruffy little delinquent. Why are you holding a notepad?

Mathias: I’m not sure, its just something I’m trying out, I think maybe it makes me look more intelligent.

You look like a work experience waiter. Put it down.

Mathias: Can you lend me a fiver?

Can Chimpanzees fart the national anthem?

Ingo Sasama. Ingo?! I-N-G-O hang on wasn’t that the guy that stole that baby in Australia? Oh no wait that was someone else.

People who have facial hair are 97% more likely to be good people than people without facial hair. This is an established fact. Facial hair = good. People with facial hair = better.

Check out Ingo’s proud maine, full yet groomed like a lovable uncle. Uncle Ingo.  Now we’re getting somewhere.

I’m sure if the whole world just voted for the person with the best facial hair we’d see no war, we’d see no famine – where a beard leads, happiness follows.

Clearly the greatest thing about Manfred is his name – Manfred. It’s genius. Manfred, say it now – M-a-n-f-r-e-d, feels good doesn’t it? I’ve long been searching for a name for my first born son, a search I can now officially call off.

Ulrich took the afternoon off from playing World of Warcraft to come outside for this photo. He found the walk up from his basement tiring. The direct sunlight sharper and more intense on his pasty skin than that found in the MMRPG Runescape Neverwinter Lifenights where he is a level 53 warlock.

Brigitte travelled back from the year 2090 in the DeLorean. Despite being an Android her mimicry of human emotion and expression are almost faultless , thanks to her long study of various Evil Headmistresses from TV and film – the only thing we she can’t get right – the subtle arc of the human eyebrow.

I guess you know who my vote will go to – that nice man (with the beard) Ingo Sasama congratulations you are Germany’s next top political model! Well unless a late entrant called manfred fuchs joins, in which case all bets are off.

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Unemployment, its a full time job too you know!

photo credit: New England Secession

Some people say coolness is a myth, they say its in the eye of the beholder (hang on no, that’s something else), they say the less you try the cooler you are, that coolness is just a state of mind, believe you are cool and you will be cool.

I say that sir, is now total bollocks.

Why? Well because scientists (okay actually a small nerdy bullied boy, which makes him a strong candidate to become a future scientist) has developed the definitive list of how to be cool (this was found somewhere and scanned in and circulated all over the net a few months back, its been sitting in my to blog folder ever since). I’ll present that for you now and then I want you to total up all your cool points (1 point per correct answer) and we’ll see who is the coolest reader of The Zig.

Everyone must comment there score, no exceptions, its like a game or something, only there is no prize except knowing you are cooler than all the people I know who like me enough to still read this blog me and my mum.

To the list then:

Motorcycles – I once tried to drive a moped in Laos, a country with almost no roads. I wobbled about, people laughed I got off went round the corner and rented a bicycle – 0 points

Wear Cologne – I don’t like aftershave, or smells manufactured by designer labels and sold for expensive amounts of money. We should all just smell stinky like the 99.99% monkeys that we are – 0 points

Move to Williamsburg – I’m going to be honest, I don’t even know where Williamsburg is. Shame on me – 0 points

Learn to speak European – Difficult to know where to begin with this gem. His grasps of Geography shows similarly stunted development to my own. I guess as a European, I can do this – 1 point!

Grow Facial Hair – If I were a superhero hair growth would be my superpower, in the time it takes me to write this sentence I can totally grow a handlebar moustache. Maybe I just did. Anyway – 1 point.

Helmets – I have no helmets, but then I don’t work in construction – 0 points

photo credit: saumilshah

Mohawk – Luckily the mohawk goes down the center of the head which is wear I have hair, although I suspect not enough to pull off a mohawk – 0 points

Designer Shades – When I bought my fancy new glasses (okay actually my parents bought them for me as a gift (thanks guys you rock)) I got a few pair of designer sunglasses! – 1 point

Subscribe to Vice – I’m assuming this is the magazine, I have only one subscription and that’s to Procrastinators Monthly it’s not arrived yet but I’m sure they’ll get to sending it tomorrow (Procrastinators monthly ha! See what I’ve done there, epic gag!!!) – 0 points

Psychrock –I hate psych and post rock, anything over 5:30secs is an abomination. Time is money people- 0 points

Leatherjackets – What you think I’m the Fonz? Never owned one, never will, unless I get that Motorbike and Helmet – 0 points.

Abercroombie & Flitch – I’ve seen this brand down the Sunday Market, quite affordable but I’ve yet to invest – 0 points.

Learn to play guitar – I bought a very cheap guitar in NZ, I learnt to play the riff to Smoke on the Water, on one string only, which I’m sure you’ll agree is worth half a point – .5 point

Irony – Like rain on your wedding day? Oh no wait that’s not actually ironic. I of course no all about sarcasm and irony as I’m English, we practically invented that school of humour – 1 point

Become a band photographer – You’ll now from viewing my photostream that while I take many photos I’m not a photographer. I have taken photos of bands, but I have also paid the banner to attend the gig where I took said photo, which I think doesn’t count – 0 points

Wear all black – In summer? Are you crazy? I would never wear black because I’m warm and sunny and as fun as chocolate mousse and birthdays – 0 points.

photo credit: Loren Javier

“Hollywood” – I’m pretty sure he didn’t need to put this in speech marks because I’m pretty sure it exists and is in LA and I’m pretty sure I went there on my first backpacking trip when I was 19 or something. It’s nice if you like gunshots, cockroaches and themed diners. I probably deserve a bonus point because I met Bruce Willis there. Okay I didn’t meet hum exactly but I saw him and I’m sure I could have met him if I had no problem jumping a red rope and getting arrest – 1 point

Online Friendships – You mean people still meet offline? How quaint! I live online, so this one is pretty easy. There are at least 10 people I communicate with on a daily basis that I’ve never met in real life – 1 point

360s – hum, this could be turning around repeatedly in a circle, or a skateboard move, or more likely owning an Xbox 360 which I’ve never done or would do – 0 points

Make your own movie – Now that is a good idea, I’ve been meaning to get into video editing and stuff. But for now I’ve made quite a few video’s so I’m going to give myself half a point for this – .5 points

Exxxtreme Everything – Everything by definition is not very specific, contain after all – everything. So I’m going to treat this as having a go large state of mind. When I go son, I go large I’m an all or nothing kind of guy so here I’ll give myself a point for my ample life gusto – 1 point

photo credit: David Masters

Eat More Meat – If you were to ask Annett for my most said expressions first would be “can you just shut up a minute” followed by “can you just stop being so German for 5 bloody minutes” followed by “A meals not a meal without meat” I truly believe this, there are very few people who eat meat with more frequency than me I would hypothesize. I basically only eat Bread, Meat and Potatoes – 1 point.

That’s Steve and we’re hanging out…

Hang out with Steve – I’m going to assume he is talking about my dear friend Steve Fox, the man the legend. Hanging out with Steve definitely makes you cooler, at any one moment he’ll be catching a fish with one hand (even if there is no water in sight and you have no fishing equipment he’ll just ask it nicely and in it will come), open you a beer with the other hand, while turning over the steaks on the BBQ with his toes and simultaneously telling you a riveting story about an Indian sewer cleaner – 1 point (if you have a friend called Steve who isn’t Steve Fox, you can also have a point and all of my sympathy).

10/23, respectable but with room for improvement. How did you do? Answers in the comments.

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Double Dutch
• 30/30 – Day 3
• The Great Korean Wall of China
• The Zig goes England pt.2
• Do you think you could love me?

So disappointed we read about a place called Gang Gang Snowmans which was in Osaka, near Kyoto where we were going to head anyway so we diverted there to check it out. Apparently it had an old Cadillac on the roof you could hire for the hour, subway car, underwater themed rooms, a dungeon all kinds of awesome weird tacky fetish theming that would have made such a great post/story. So we went to Osaka and walked and walked, and checked the map, and walked, and checked the map, and went back where we had already walked, and asked people, and walked, and went back and asked the same people, who told us to walk, and walk and walk and then I mean hours later, we were so exhausted and we hadn’t found anything cringe worthy just ordinary fancy hotel rooms, maybe with an adult toys vending machine in the room, but not much more risque than that. It turned out that we couldn’t find Gang Gang Snowman because it had closed down a few years before. So instead we checked in to Hotel Love (kudos on the name guys, international, yet also classy with a suggestive underlayer of perversion! two thumbs up). I made a tour of our room that you can watch now if you like, don’t worry its safe for work:

Japanese Love Hotel Room Tour from adam fletcher on Vimeo.

Here are some other videos’ we took while we were there

Annett bashing things in the Arcade:

Annett playing in the arcade from adam fletcher on Vimeo.

I can’t imagine a game being developed that could so perfectly match the personality and skillset of an individual, its like they reached into her brain and plucked the idea for her perfect game, the game she was born to play.

Shinjuku Crossing:

Shinjuku Crossing from adam fletcher on Vimeo.

Apparently the busiest in the world and the one place we saw in Japan that was closest to mental images I had in my head before we arrived.

Annett trying Baseball (batting):

Japan – Baseball batting practice. from adam fletcher on Vimeo.

Um, well, perhaps not a natural. Lets try pitching instead:

Japan – Baseball pitching practice from adam fletcher on Vimeo.

Hum, maybe leave it there huh (I should also confess while I was marginally better at Batting I was no better at Pitching).

One more post on Weird Japan is planned.

Possibly related, hopefully entertaining other posts:

• Trabi City Tour Video
• New Japan post up on tee-junction
• Equal Job Opportunities, China, Bus Rides and High Fives
• The zig goes japan, staying in a capsule hotel
• Test