I got shat on twice by albatrosses. You've seen the picture of the first one but I got dive bombed again in Red Lion Square. This one was reasonably solid with a "miniscus" of calcified slime that landed with an audible thump on my right shoulder, up there near where it joins the neck. Once I'd cleared the solid debris I left the dried miniscus up there as a sort of lucky poo-brooch. I will undoubtedly win the lotto today (10 million big ones my friends. Friend. Rollover.). I haven't got a picture of this new poo. Frankly, for all but the keenest bird shit fancier, once you've seen one bird shit on someone's shoulder, you've seen one more than you wanted to see in the first place.
Anyway I tell a lie. I have been up to something. Me and two mates went to Normandy to visit the invasion beaches. I think it's something men do when they reach a certain age and they start to wonder if sitting at a desk, a'tapping away at a computer laptop, going to meetings with shitheads, fuckos and bellends and dealing with the day to day inconsequential bullshit that is advertising (and let's face it most of what passes for "work" these days) is, in any way at all, a noble way of living. You reach an age where the glamour of sitting on your fat arse thinking up stupid stuff, getting drunk all the time, having meaningless sex and playing with crayons, starts to pall and for once in your life you start to think of something other than your own hedonistic, solipsistic pleasures.
So we seek to empathise with brave men who did something corageous, noteworthy and terrible. While we test ourselves against nothing more dangerous than a moron in a suit armed with nothing more deadly than a fucking stupid opinion, they tested themselves against the terrible fear of violent, painful and imminent death.
And, not unsurprisingly, we find ourselves lacking. Just my opinion of course. Oh and Samuel Johnson's (who wrote English Literature's most emminent work, namely the first ever Dictionary of the English language) who wrote "Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."
In the thankfully fleeting moments I have been able to get even close to putting myself, albeit only mentally, in the boots of these men; boys really, I have been terrified.
Bit serious wasn't it? Back to the fooling about.
Dan and Giles are both married with children and I have no concept of taking responsibility for anything. A heady mix of potential stupidity when we are released from the day to day grind of talking bollocks, trying to sound like you know what you're talking about and dealing with "life."
That's right my one reader, we got completely pissed on the first night. The whole night got off to a weird start when the waitress at our chosen restaurant was cross-eyed. Normally you can deal with this by gazing intently at the eyeball that is gazing at you. She, however kept swapping which one she was looking at you with. Sometimes in mid sentence. I think she was doing it on purpose. Needless to say I quite fancied her. Of course we got terrifically over excited (not about her, about freedom) and the scores were thus.
We each had 7 pints of pissy French biere and an equal share of two bottles of vin rouge. We got back to the hotel at 3AM. A good 5 hours past our bedtime. Here's pic of me the next day with one of the hotel's early residents.
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| He looks a lot happier than I do. I am so hungover here, that my hair was hurting. |
