I'm back in Blighty

Yes back home now and I've got to spend my time sorting my life out. I had to leave for Amsterdam in such a hurry back in November, that I couldn't organise all my life admin and it's all unravelled while I've been away. It doesn't help that I can't remember any of my passwords or PINs either. And I have to find a place to live. 47 is no age to be living with my mother. Anyway things might go a bit quiet while I sort it all out.
Laters duder (as the young people say - the twats).

Crikey

This was outside the restaurant we went to for our leaving dinner. Not sure I'll be partaking in their signature dish.

And so we say farewell.

Yes, my one reader, I'm coming home. After three months in the Paris of the East, it's time for Andy B to go home again to the land of pubs, warm, flat beer and quite a lot of bastards (in my worldwide travels I've noticed that they're everywhere).
But hold fast (I'm Edwardian) I still have four days left. Four days to say goodbye to all the friend I've made over here (the barman at The Kangaroo). Ha ha ha ha ha. Only joking. There's lots of nice people at work and I'm hoping to bid them all fond farewell in time honoured fashion. Yes, a traditional Chinese tea drinking ceremony in the Yuyuan Gardens followed by floating traditional Cherry Blossom  Xiangyuas (a sort of small boat) onto the Huangpu to symbolise moving on and then we all sing a traditional Chinese Song of the Double Happiness Return.
Actually sod that. I'm off to the Kangaroo to drink traditional beer, play traditional pool and start to believe that , over the time it's taken to drink three pints, I have somehow become charming, hilariously funny and Brad Pitt. Then polish the whole splendid evening off by traditionally getting run down by a 9ft pile of carboard on a tricycle. With a man somewhere in it.
It literally does not get better than that.
Fact.

Me wistfully contemplating the busy metropolis that is is Shanghai, whilst simultaneously balancing one end of the Lupu bridge atop my big fat head.

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The Great Shanghai Boat Race

I was taking a stroll down by the Huangpu River last weekend and accidentally found the Shanghai equivalent of the Croisette in Cannes. It's an 8.5km stretch of uninterrupted riverside walk that, unlike the Croisette, is refreshingly empty of French people. Indeed at one end of it, it was empty of people entirely save for one handsome chap revelling in the rare solitude. Yes. Me.
Shanghai is notable for many things (The Helicopter Blow Job for one) but emptiness is not one of them. There's not a square inch of the city that doesn't contain someone else or isn't being swept, or spat on, having a fish descaled on or driven over with a tricycle.So you can imagine my surprise when I found this oasis of calm.
So I walked along for about half of it and was lucky enough to witness the annual Shanghai Shitty Boat Race. This race is open to every salty seadog, pirate and jolly jack tar with a shitty old tub in Shanghai to hurtle downriver to the sea. Here's some pictures of this year's race.

The Peleton

This was first, second and third until....

....the one in the middle started taking on a lot of water, flooded her bilges, swamped her gunwhales and sunk. These are her final moments.

Winner of the crappiest boat competition.HMS Xziazhouchanglelu.  Which is Mandarin for HMS Lotus Blossom Flower.

I'm getting there.

Been a bit busy at work. Here's a nice picture while we all wait for me to get my arse into goddam gear. It's me but I accidentally cut my head off (self portrait). But somehow, I think, it still works. Might be a bit better for not having the old Brittain conk taking up half the frame.
Your thoughts?

China. The most mopped country in the world.

Mops, mops, mops. Today you discover me investigatively reporting on China's long-established mop making industry that dates back to the Ming dynasty. A little known fact is that Ming vases aren't actually vases at all, they are early pottery mop buckets (we know this because an ancient Ming bucket unearthed in a recent archeological dig contained remains of a liquid which turned out to be coffee, which the ancient Chinese used as bleach - ironic when you consider that they are now using bleach as coffee).
The Chinese peoples take mopping very seriously and the mop industry is the 3rd largest industry in China, behind bicycle maintenance and security-guard uniform manufacture. China is at the forefront of mopping technology and most of the mopping innovations that we currently enjoy in the West, made their debut right here in Shanghai, the centre of mop innovation. Indeed, Shanghai is known throughout China as Mop Valley - Home of the Mop.
So much a part of the Chinese way of life is the mop, that proud owners of impressive models will display their mops outside their houses. I present to you here just a small selection of the best examples I saw during just one 14 minute stroll to work.

The Hazeldene S1000

Known as the Lazy Hazy, this beauty hit the bucket in 2009. She's  aluminium-shafted like her predecessor, the S100, but that's where the similarities end. Look at the business end (or "head"). Those cloth "flaps" are a breakthrough in absorbtion technology. She'll suck up 3 times the amount of liquid than the S100, making short work of your mop-based chores. It's from this astonishing absorbtion ratio that she gets the nick name "Lazy Hazy" because you're hitting the sofa 3 times faster then if you'd used her predecessor. This fine example is finished in an eye-catching yellow and has been displayed "head up" next to a road crossing for all to admire
In the background you can see a purple shiny helmet which I wouldn't be surprised to discover has been burnished to a high sheen by this very mop.

 A Simpson 14 (M Series) and a Fitzwilliam.

I know. I couldn't believe my eyes. It's a treat to see a working Fitzwilliam but to spot one head to head with a Simpson 14 is something that any mop spotter (or mopotter) would give their mopping arm to see. No wonder the proud owner had these on display. Balance issues discovered when test-piloting the Fitzwilliam (or Fitzy as she is known throughout the world) were swiftly solved when engineers incorporated a vulcanized rubber flange at the base of the shaft and the rest is history. The Fitzy became THE classic mop. The perfect combination of form and function she is the go-to mop for novices and experts alike. And to see her next to the futuristic M series "Simpo" 14, the mop she inspired, is a real treat. We all know the teething troubles with the L series (or the "Bloody L" as it became known), so it's no surprise to see that this one is an "M." No more words. Just absorb (pardon the pun) the view.

The Xiajiangchangshu Kenlu

You won't see many of these babies outside China. She's the Communist Party's People's Mop. She's a high flap-count, no frills, back-to-basics mop. Yes she's got a good action and yes she's got absorbant flaps. I put my hands up. She's good. But where's the balance? Even the similarly wooden shafted (and cheaper!) Beaujolais L/1200 had a more pleasing centre of gravity for goodness' sake. And the L/1200 came out of the aptly named but  notoriously badly managed (and now unsurprisingly defunct) Shanghai Mop Factory. I suspect this example is being displayed using the trendy "Window Ledge" mount, more to impress the local Party members than anyone else. I know, I know, I'm being very disparaging about a mop not designed to be aesthetically pleasing and it does incorporate  innovative shaft loop technology (from which it hangs) but, to me anyway, she promises more than she delivers. Mopwise.

The Dirt-be-gone.
 Ha ha ha ha. I couldn't resist putting up this picture. It will be no surprise to see this ill-fated mop sitting in a tree beneath a block of flats. Undoubtedly hurled over the balcony by a furious would be mopper. As you'll remember her appearance astounded the mop community when she appeared last year. Had she lived up to her designer's bold aspirations, no doubt she could have taken the coveted title of "World's Best Mop" from The Fitzy. But as we all know, far from absorbing dirty water, the ludicrously complicated head arrangement merely spread it about a bit.
 So there we have it. There are precisely 9 more pictures of mops that I took on this one 14 minute journey. Many of them design classics but I'll save them for another post.  In the meantime, please enjoy this last picture. That's right lady or gentleman, I present to you......the dazzling, the beautiful, the exotic, the one and only.... Flamenco 3300ZZ.

What will they think of next?

The hotel I'm staying in has installed an "Age Guessing" pod. It's a pretty cool piece of technology that examines your face, skin tone, blood pressure and heart rate and tells you what your "Body age" is. I filmed the procedure and I present it to you here. Have a look in awe and wonder. Good old the Chinese.

Pizzas and prostitutes

I was out until 2AM on Friday night a’drinking beer and a’laughing and a’messing about. Anyway that resulted, as it so often does, in a big old hangover. Spent most of Saturday either in Wagas (my favourite café in Shanghai) drinking coffee and stuffing egg and bacon sandwiches in my big fat face or on the sofa watching the World Cup cricket final.

Any old hoo, there was the offer of a drink on Saturday night but I was too knackered so I resolved to stay in and watch a film and eat a pizza. Soabout 8:15, I left the building and walked over the road to that famous Shanghaiese restaurant “Pizza Hut” to get a takeaway pizza. The service, as ever, was swift, polite and efficient and before long I was ushered  out the door with a 12 inch Hawaiin (a pizza, not a euphemism). On my return to the apartment complex I was accosted by a polite young Chinese bloke who asked me if I wanted a massage in my room and showed me a picture of some naked women. He was quite insistent that I would enjoy the massage and promised a “happy ending.” As he followed me along brandishing this picture of, admittedly quite saucy looking birds, it dawned on me that he was a pimp offering me the services of what amounted to nothing more health giving than a shag with a Shanghai hooker! Fuck me! Or in this case don’t fuck me. Anyway I turned him down with a polite,

“No thanks, mate.”

But he was insistent and kept following and kept brandishing, so I waved my pizza at him and said

“Pizza.”

And that was that. He gave up and buggered off.

What I like about this lengthy story is that, despite the massive difference in culture and understanding, he instantly appreciated that the prospect of eating a pizza was a perfectly reasonable excuse for not wanting a shag.

And it warmed my heart. Truly the yawning chasm in Anglo-Sino cultures is gradually disappearing. A welcome rapproachment with pizzas and prostitutes in the vanguard.

PS. This post doesn’t count in the poll. The next one does. Oooh what’s it going to be about? Exciting isn’t it.