JANUARY 2002

Du gibst alles, wenn Du gibst

Gwendolyn - I've updated the page with the lyrics and translation of "So bist Du". It's here. Yeah, I know, I should mail or AIM you this, but I can never get mail through to you and unlike ICQ, AIM doesn't let you send messages to offline users.

January 31, 2002

And then there was one...

As if losing Gus scarcely seven weeks ago wasn't bad enough I've now lost Jacques too, and at almost exactly the same age as well.

The symptoms were almost identical to what happened with Gus, except that when I got in from the Sunderland match at 5.45am and found he didn't look right, it was nothing like when I found Gus in that state. Jacques was a bit hunched and his eyes looked tired - like little guinea pig-sized bags under his eyes - and worryingly, he'd lost weight. Now, unlike Gus, Jacques must have lost this weight in no more than 10 or 11 days because he was perfectly normal before I went to Austria last week and all the time I was away Jon kept an eye on him and fed him every day. I was in the house briefly Friday night before heading up to my parents' for the Manchester United and Sunderland games and he was very much his normal self, though I didn't get him out so I don't know if he'd lost weight. But he was running around and wheeping as normal. Because he looked not right but not bad I didn't phone the vet this morning and try to get an emergency appointment, but just made a normal one for the evening surgery. However when I got home he was much worse, lying on his side, and when I picked him to take him to the vet I knew immediately that it was hopeless. He was cold, just as Gus had been by the morning, so I realised the vet would undoubtedly have her work cut out because just warming him up would be a struggle.

And so it proved. The prognosis was very poor but she kept him in and gave him some drugs to try to revive him. However she phoned me a couple of hours later to tell me he'd died while she was trying to keep him going. So it seems he went downhill even faster than Gus. The vet didn't even have to ask me to confirm that she should give up and put him down, he died anyway.

It's all very sad indeed. Of course he and Edward were great friends. So he's on his own now, as is Carly, my remaining guinea pig. I'm hoping they will make friends now that they are both on their own. Jacques was such a lively little soul, always running around his cage, bright-eyed and with his coat in great condition, always at the bars when you went near, hoping for a piece of broccoli or a carrot, very vocal in classic wheep-wheep guinea pig style. And he was so cute. RIP, little fella, January 30, 2002.

January 31, 2002

Cheer Up Peter Reid

Well, that was a sweet three points! One chance, one goal. Absolutely superb defending from the back five and sterling support from the middle three. Especially in the second half after Gianluca Festa was sent off. Steve McClaren must be dead chuffed - I know we all were in the away section! An excellent resolute team performance and a deserved win. It was also nice that the Mackems were generous in their solidarity with Colin Cooper over the appalling death of his son at the weekend.

January 30, 2002

Two-NIL to the mighty reds!

Thirteen years I've waited to see my boys beat the Evil Empire and very sweet it was too. Andy Campbell may just have scored my all-time favourite Boro goal. I'd say Dean Windass was pretty happy about it too...

January 28, 2002

The things people put in hand luggage....

So the Evil Taskmaster and I had boarded our luxury Tyrolean Airlines rubber-band operated toy plane for the short hop from Klagenfurt to Vienna this afternoon, when along comes your woman occupying the seat across the aisle from Mogsy carrying a Yorkshire Terrier in a small sports holdall. Cue cartoon double-take in duplicate. It's as well she (for it was a she) was only ickle and didn't weigh much otherwise she'd probably have ended up in checked baggage. And, admirably well-behaved as she was, I'm here to tell you that that was not a happy pooch. Which is hardly surprising, having been zipped up in a small holdall and stuck under the seat in front.

January 26, 2002

Mogsy spricht Deutsch!

The Evil Taskmaster Mogsy has just learned another German word. He just asked me the meaning of "genau", a word he heard Gerald, the network manager here, saying on the phone. His curiousity was piqued because apparently, Miriam, our hyper-efficient, hyper-helpful, hyper-nice PA, says it all the time too. It means "exactly", as I'm sure you were dying to know. This level of fluency in a managerial type is quite impressive. That means he now knows two German words. The other is "Quittung" (pronounced "Kvittung"). It means "receipt", which we all know is the most important word in a manager's vocabulary, no matter what the language is.

January 22, 2002

All the small things

You gotta love this. A paean to small stuff. It even has an entry for Little Ted - how cool? Please note the domain has the correct spelling of "ickle" - this means you, Catherine Marie!

January 22, 2002

The hills are alive with the sound of....

....people pissed off about the lack of snow.

I'm working in Austria this week. Villach, to be precise. It's a small town in the Alps and is, naturally, a winter sports resort too, there being seven ski slopes within half an hour of the town. In fact it's good for water-skiing too, because there are 20 lakes nearby. It's also home to one of our operating companies and requires a monitoring system rollout, hence my five-night stand here on the on-going Hunger Moon 2001/02 European Tour. There would be pictures too - I brought my shiny new digital camera - but naturally I left the USB cable at home, so they'll have to wait until the weekend.

Needless to say the office is very nice, very airy with loads of room and good facilities, as in every single European office I've been to and none of the UK offices. Why does this not surprise me? Oh yes, because the abject quality of life in Britain compared with Europe extends to the workplace, where providing an environment conducive to happy and productive workers is considered a risible luxury. Sigh.

But I digress, as usual. Some observations....

Vienna Airport

Strange how differently people view the same place. The Evil Taskmaster Mogsy thought Vienna Airport was a hole. I liked it. Nice clean building, easy to find your way around, didn't require a hike of Lyke Wake Walk proportions to get to the gate for my connexion to Klagenfurt, liked the round design. Plus there was the little al fresco bit with a few plants. And pissing rocks, too. Fantastic, just as Meg mentions here.

Taxi for Ljubljana, guv?

What a miserable git the taxi driver was. In Germany the taxi drivers will talk to you. This guy looked about as happy to get my custom as if I'd asked his daughter for a blow job. Still, the road signs were interesting. When in Germany I'm used to seeing the occasional sign for, say, Basel, or Pilsen, the first major town inside the Czech Republic when heading for Prague a year ago. This time I was treated to signs marking destinations in three different countries: Villach, Udine in northern Italy and Ljubljana which lies in Slovenia. I also saw a sign for both Italy and Germany. By which I mean Italy and Germany on the same sign. How can that be? They are in opposite directions. Like geometrically opposite. Strange. But this is one of the little things I love about being in central Europe. I love the idea that you can just decide to keep going on the same road and the next major town you hit will be in Slovenia or Italy. All you need is your passport and enough gas to get you over the border. You can just keep going through country after country until you reach the Mediterranean or Adriatic Seas. What have we we got to match that on our small island? Wales. Hard to think a better reason to stay home, really.

What do you mean, "there's no snow"?

Goddammit, it's cold here. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there's snow in an Austrian winter resort in January, but still.... I left my fleece at home. Because I am a moron, before you ask. Well, actually it's because Tasha told me there was no snow in Austria at the moment and I was stupid enough to believe her without checking for myself. What she meant was there was no snow on the ski slopes, hence the wailing and gnashing of teeth belonging to people up the mountains. That does not, however, mean there's no snow in the towns, as I discovered upon arrival. I was going to have a wander around the town centre in Villach on Sunday night but it was just too damn cold, so I went and got a pizza and some beers in a place attached to the hotel instead. I have to report that to my mild surprise, the local piss is pretty good.

Mind I could have done without the sight of a Bayer Leverkusen sticker on the beer pumps when I walked in. Fucking Leverkusen of all teams. Jesus wept. I was a bit surprised. I figured supporting German teams here would be like supporting English teams in Scotland, especially as Villach is about as far south as you can go in Austria without stepping into Italy. Especially a plastic works team with a plastic stadium, a plastic atmosphere and about two dozen real fans. Still, no accounting for taste (or lack thereof).

The Euro in my pocket

<rant>

Sunday was the first time I've used the Euro in anger. What's the big deal? Why do so many people get their panties in a bunch about it? Gee, I pay for stuff in Euros which provides a ready calculation for the cost - divide it in two thirds and you've got the Sterling price. I'm used to using German Marks which involved dividing by three. Just as simple. If we'd come to Austria two months ago when we were originally scheduled to do so, I'd have a wallet full of Austrian Schillings and I'd have had to divide everything by 23. Sounds like progress to me.

Of course I know why people get hot under the collar about it. Because the last Tory government were so mindlessly little-England and anti-European in the conduct of their government that they managed to completely subvert the real issue about joining the single currency, which is whether it's good for the UK on an economic basis. On that basis, though I am decidedly pro-Euro, I accept that Gordon Brown may be doing the right thing in exercising caution and waiting to see if makes economic sense. Instead of which the fucking Tories managed to make the whole thing a sovereignty issue - don't let those snail-eating Belgian bastards govern Britain from Brussels! - instead of an economic decision. For God's sake, grow up! Nobody's being governed from Brussels except the Belgians.

OK, the notes look a bit funny for now, but that's just unfamiliarity. It's only money. It performs that same function. What the F.U.C.K. does it matter whether it's got the Queen's boat race on the freaking notes, for Christ's sake, or an etching of some bridge in Italy? No one even respects the bloody monarchy any more! What's so precious about the pound? What matters is the country's ability to compete on a level economic playing field which soon or later it won't with a minority currency. And anything which helps to highlight how much more than the going rate anywhere else in Europe we have to pay for every damn thing we spend money on in this country is extremely welcome. I am sick to the back teeth of being embarrassed to be British every time I set foot on mainland Europe because I come from a country which persiste with the risible fiction that we know so much better than everyone how to do everything and that we have nothing to learn from the rest of Europe. The standard of living in the UK is crap compared with France, Austria, Holland and particularly Germany. It wouldn't be if we pulled out heads out of our arses and joined the rest of the world instead of maintaing this idiotic and self-defeating isolationism. Jesus.

</rant>

January 22, 2002

Reason #1 not to give your kid a magic marker

I was forwarded this in an email today. I figure if you have kids it either horrifies you or you about pee yourself laughing. Gwen, with three young kids, including two extremely mischievous little blonde girls, confirms the former. Speaking of Gwen, check out her shiny new makeover. Mistah Terry has been very creative on her behalf.

January 11, 2002

Bah humbug

January 3, 2002

awake

insomnia

candle-burning

contact

caffeine