Thursday 12 June 2008

Germany 1 - Croatia 2

Heh!



And boy, was Ballack useless... :-P

Tomorrow, Holland vs France!

Friday 6 June 2008

Orange Madness

Since my mate K, in an uncharacteristic expression of EXTREMELY BAD TASTE, decided to praise the German national squad, I feel forced to retaliate.

OK, what's wrong with Germany?

The country itself, nothing much. They're a bit keen on authority and uniforms and fat female customs officials... but I digress. They're a comical bunch abroad, hesitant to speak a foreign language and dead insecure. On the upside, a lot of them mistook me for a native New Yorker even though I did not have a clue where "ze muzeum of ze modern arts" was. God bless them.

There is another battlefield though. And that means it's war! World war 32 or something by now, but anyway, we don't care. As long as they lose.

The dispiriting thing is, they don't really do that. They have no style, hardly any qualities, maybe only one or two star players and a truly frightening goal keeper who recently decided to retire, but they more than make up for that in fighting spirit.

And Germany losing bravely in a squeaker is not really satisfying either. We want to see total humiliation. The Dutch and our friends from across the channel are in total agreement on this. But the facts are horrid: the Germans qualified easily, whereas the four UK nations are sadly missing...

So I'll put this in terms K will understand and dread: the Germans are the Hillary Clintons of international football. Totally dedicated, and they'll never give up. And it usually works, though at Euro 2000 and 2004 they didn't make it past the group phase, partly because no-one can stand losing to them even if winning doesn't really matter.

Problem is, I see no Obama among the other 15 squads. But the Italians, with an average age of about 250, are credible candidates to do a John McCain and take the trophy home. ;-)

I need to finish this in style, so I think I'll need some non-German Euro 2008 eye candy. Shouldn't be too difficult. ;-)





My darling Klaas Jan Huntelaar, who'll probably be spending a lot of time on the bench... :-( Move over, Van Nistelrooy!



An acquired taste, Liverpool's Fernando Torres... but he might become Spain's much-needed powerhouse.



Switzerland's Degen brothers, David and Philipp.

Oranje boven!

Saturday 26 April 2008

Pollution of the Mind

Sorry for the hiatus, guys.

Here's what I've been up to lately.

Change in style, change in attitude, less random sluttiness, more focus on personality.

1. Maastricht Boy

Love or hate this town, best known as the site where the 1992 EU treaty was drawn up, I do both. It's the capital of camp and OTT, but somehow me and it's inhabitants don't get along. I'm not one of them, but from a village nearby; I don't belong, and never will. It's a weird enclave of fierce self-centeredness that is somehow isolated from the rest of the world. Anyway, I got the place out of my system, moved North to play on bigger fields ;-) and Maastricht remained, well, it's crazy ol' self. And me? I've been known to shout: "No-one from Maastricht! Never."

So when, during a night on the town, a hot young boy approached me and asked my opinion on a relationship, alarm bells should have gone off but he was trying to hide his distinctive accent. Eventually the truth came out, but I was already smitten. Silly old me.

We met up the next night, and things were good. Conversation turned more and more to the list of things he demanded from a boyfriend, but he was good company and we went out for a drink at the local gay hangout. This, like most things Maastricht, was an anachronism: an old, tiny little bar, with pink triangles and rainbow flags, an empty dancefloor and a stereotypical patron, who was actually born in my village (yikes!). The boy too, made me feel strangely young and modern: he was into VW Beetles, and had no computer.

Heads turned as I walked in: I felt like fresh meat. This was the entire local scene. I felt a bout of claustrophobia coming on, but after all, the boy was hot, the town is weird and an occasional change of scenery is cool.

At one stage he asked me if I liked going out in drag - he did.

After the second date, we had sex at his place. He expressed his desire for a relationship. A few days later, he came up with a weird story about having to go to Belgium, and eventually declined to pick up the phone. Oh well, such is life.

But Maastricht? No thanks.

2. Male nurse jinx

Two weird weeks followed - I was wondering where to take things from here. I was introduced to a male nurse, had an online chat with another male nurse and ended up one Friday night kissing and fondling yet another male nurse on the Strip. That was just a bit of fun, but I was left wondering out of which woodwork these nurses had suddenly crawled.

3. Suburb boy

For want of a better word - he lives in a village nearby. He ended the male nurse jinx, even though I somehow expected him to be one too - it's the queer way he dresses.

We met last Saturday, spent all our spare time chatting and texting, and we had an OK date last night. OK, because there was nothing much to do in town, even though it's usually packed on a Thursday night, with all the students out. But conversation flowed easily and we had a nice, grown-up sort of date.

He's a bit young for my taste (19) but looks significantly older. We're probably meeting up tomorrow night for what promises to be a boozy night out. He seems to have some acceptance issues but in public looks and behaves like the gay he really is. He appears to be a pretty direct sort of guy so we'll see where this goes. My level of comfort talking about everything in the straight pub we eventually ended up in was amazing. I'm focusing on the person, not the body, even though there's nothing wrong with the way he looks, it's not the primary cause of my interest in him.

Now I've written off part of my smallish country, I should make the most out of the parts I have left...

Wednesday 19 March 2008

The butchest Lesbian I ever saw

Well, there's a new addition to the freak show also known as "work". And she's instantly become the talk of the town, well site.

First time I saw her, I just thought: weird guy. Second time: surprisingly little facial hair. Third time: sort-of gay swagger. Fourth time: fat ass.

Then it hit me: the "guy", tattoos, Adidas, G-Star Che-style army cap and voice deeper than Rod Stewart's, is a woman. *Shock* *Awe*

A few days later. I overheard one of the managers gossip from a distance. The only phrase that was sufficiently clearly articulated was "hot new bull dyke". My co-worker and I just couldn't contain our laughter.

A few days later, the following story hits the internal news cycle.

Close to the end of the shift, she apparently placed her butt on a desk, started scratching her privates, and remarked, once she noticed quite a few people were staring:

My pussy's itching!


This simple statement has become the scandal of the year so far, and I guess she's quite capable of improving on it. Yes, there's more than a whiff of trailer park about her.

When told to work harder, she apparently answered:

Hey, I still need to have energy to finger tonight!


We're not quite used to this kind of in-your-face female sexuality, I guess.

But the best remark of all was made by closeted freak, when the subject of lesbians came up:

[Bull dyke co-worker] is also a lesbian, and she has no problem admitting it!


This weekend: Dr Lektroluv!

Sunday 16 March 2008

You know what to expect...

While I'm suffering through a boring phase in my life, and a terrible writer's block to boot, I just have to share the tune that I have been obsessing about since the album was released in, well October:



It's kind of cheesy, very Eighties somehow, but I love it, and I can't wait for the mixes. The video is kind of disappointing and schizophrenic, but I can live with that.

Next weekend will be mega party time...

Friday 22 February 2008

Do you think you're immune to cheating girlfriends?

She walked up to me and asked me this question. I pondered this for a while, and a multitude of answers went through my head, from truthful to non-committal to downright rude. I looked up, noticed the stiff, wooden swaying on the dancefloor again and decided to go for non-committal.

No, why are you asking?


It turned out to be an informal survey, with almost 100% of respondents going for "no". I had probably appeared arrogant, aloof and overdressed.

All this highlighted the fact that this night was the end of student life as I knew it, and that I wasn't going to be missing out on anything much.

First of all, only beer was served. The clothing was cheap, generic straight-boy-without-style stuff. The hair was often longish and unwashed, no bonus points in my book. Once in a while, an attempt at fashion sense would be spotted, in the form of outdated pink shirts and Chasin' longsleeves. The DJ was awful, working without order or flow and being aided by a yuppie type who would emit saxophone frenzies whenever he felt like it, completely spoiling the tunes he was attempting to improve. I stood out and knew it, wishing I was somewhere else.

Rewind to the morning. The day had started out better, but not much. I had arrived early, as the conference location was close to my house, picked up all the necessary materials and attended the first lecture, by a Dutch bank. Friends who had promised to go, failed to show up. I moved on to the next lecture, which, thankfully, was a lot more interesting.

I somehow knew I was going to bump into someone I knew from the "scene", which happened during the cocktail hour. The waiters for the dinner party walked in, the way an army platoon captures a bridge. Queens galore, and of course I knew one of them... boy was I enjoying this... not.

Just after the cocktail hour, a lecturer from the London School of Economics would talk about "the history of economics in the workplace". This turned out not to be the case. It was much better, a half-hour diatribe combining jabs at the Dutch railways ("NS stands for No Service"), the French, the Germans, Charlemagne (don't ask) and women ("I prefer my pc to my girlfriend: I can add more memory and take the sound card out"). It was hilarious, just what everyone needed after drinks and he got a standing ovation. The Germans in the audience were, of course, miffed.

So, after the politically incorrect Brit, dinner, as a guest of the Dutch central bank. I was hoping to be served by the guy I knew, but he had been allotted the next table.

Dinner was cool: the food was wonderful, wine flowed copiously and conversation was cool, considering none of us knew each other. It consisted mostly of the Southerners in the group, being me, the kid next to me and the recruiter of the bank convincing the Northerners at the table of the merits of carnival. This was followed by a hilarious anecdote about a sober, early twenties first-timer being propositioned by a woman in her fifties during the first five minutes. This story matches some of my own experiences. ;-)

Anyway, as I went back home to change for the party I bumped into the serving queen. I said hi, but if looks could kill, I wouldn't be sitting here typing this...

Tuesday 19 February 2008

Don't blog from the bog!

A Flushed Tory Candidate is Incommunicado
Iain Dale 2:16 PM

Blogging Tory candidate Tracey Crouch has been "off line" for the last 18 hours having dropped her Blackberry down the lavatory. What is worse - she heard the "splash" but unaware what caused the noise (stop it!), she then flushed the loo, only realising far too late as her precious Blackberry disappeared around the u-bend. She is now back on-line having spent £250 on new machine. Lesson to us all: don't blog from the bog!


LOL. I guess it's a little too addictive.

Hat tip: Iain Dale.

Back with an update later.