Yuka

That’s me, flued up to the eyeballs. About an hours worth of energy everyday and the bloody thing won’t go away… grrrrrrr…

What else? I did remember the other day that when I came through Heathrow, I got asked to go through one of the new full body scanners that takes pictures of you through your clothes. You have to stand in various ridiculous poses designed to humiliate you while a man presses a button. It’s a bit like vogueing actually. Anyway, the point of this is that after they take the pictures they show you what they’ve done with their clever machine. What I saw wasn’t pretty. I am officially getting a middle aged spread and I’m not keen. As soon as this flu buggers off, I’m getting fit.

Talking of fit, I’ve still given up smoking. I am sooooo good! Not much else to report here due to disabling virus. I have passed my time learning how to use film editing software. Unfortunately I’ve run out of film so I have to go do some more of that for my new hobby. It’s nice to keep oneself busy through this unemployment… or ones gnome…

After that rant I thought I might need to brighten the place up a bit. Maybe a few soft lights, a little music, and a couple of well chosen throws over the old suite to give it a new lease of life.

Actually what I’ve got is a list of search phrases that people have used which have punted them in the direction of Yuka.co.uk in the last week. All of them obviously ending initially in disappointment, then turning to joy as they discover my ramblings.

Let me know your favourite

(p.s. I’m a big fan of number 6)

1. hot granny
2. old french christmas postcard
3. pictures of tomato soup
4. the laughing gnome david bowie
5. poem en francais
6. alun deodorant danger
7. gay asshole pictures
8. American Airlines in flight video Welcome to london
9. blood brothers pics
10. get your paws off me you dirty ape
11. Interactive. Decorate a house
12. desperate housewives – pics
13. laptop rucksack military
14. colour flame candles
15. monster truck video
16. hiring a jazz band in france
17. wrong name on flight ticket
18. dark weapons caution
19. What do you get when you fall in love
20. Polruan school archives

So I got to Ann Arbor, which is nice except it’s suffering from a flu epidemic. Inevitably after a few days of holding out heroically, including the giving up of smoking which I had slipped back into since New Years, (Prize for anyone who can tell me how many times I’ve given up smoking since starting this blog thing last July!) I caught it, so the last couple of days have involved sitting around the apartment feeling a little hot and confused and sleeping an alarming amount. What has also happened is that I have watched an even more alarming amount of Fox News Channel. If you get Sky through a dish in the UK then you are lucky enough to be able to watch this too.

Since I have been typing this the following 2 phrases have caught my ear as they talk about Europeans attitude to their war on terror;

1. “Pervasive anti-americanism”, you all hate Americans, yes you do, you’re just in denial.

2. “Two faced, lying, weaselness on the subject of Iraq”, that’s the trait that you have. I’m not convinced “weaselness” is a word but you show it.

48 hours in the company of Fox News Channel is scary. Scarier still is the fact that it’s the US’s most watched news channel. Yeah I know I could turn over to another channel, but being here I feel a kind of responsibility to soak up the populist media to get a feel of the place I’m in. Ted Turner, the guy who invented CNN isn’t keen. He said the network is the propaganda tool for the Bush Administration. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy. Particularly when the news is dumbed down, leaving voters without critical information on politics and world events and overloaded with fluff,” he added.

Why do you care?

Because Fox News is the biggest news channel in the US.

Because Fox News viewers are more likely to believe the following ;

* That evidence of a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq had been found;

* That weapons of mass destruction had been discovered in Iraq; and

* That the U.S. had received wide international support in its decision to go to war.

(all of which were labelled as “misperceptions” by the Program on International Policy Attitudes).

Because those self same viewers with “misconceptions” are the people that voted Republican last year.

Because the Republicans run the largest most powerful country in the world.

See what happens when I get ill? I rant.

Someone get me some flu drugs fer fox ache.

cold, Cold, COOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!

The day after I arrived in Detroit it hit minus thirteen degrees in proper British temperature, which is 21 pixies and half a flagon in old fashioned US speak. Seriously, when I was a kid I thought that the US was the most futuristic, modern place on the planet. They had the Six Million Dollar Man fergawdsache. But the reality is slightly off kilter. It’s all a bit olde worlde here in some ways frankly, which is odd when they consider Europe-land to be backwards. I suggest we step outside and have a fight to sort it all out… when it gets warmer.

So yeah, talking of attitudes, I was listening to a guy on a local Christian Radio Station the other day for I have found God… ahem… yeah right. No offence intended obviously but, no, that didn’t happen. I was listening because I’m always interested in what these guys will come up with. This guy was a dream. A walking, talking advert for the love, peace and forgiveness that Jesus Christ can bring to your life. You see he was talking about the Tsunami’s (Did the Manics play their song “Tsunami” at the benefit gig on Saturday in Wales? Please tell me they did…) and his point was basically this… “Have you noticed that the tidal wave happened the day after Christmas which is Christ’s birthday and that the majority of those killed were Muslim or Hindu? Can you see what God’s saying here?” really, he did, I checked.

Alvie thinks the man on the radio was a little harsh.

Other things? well yesterday it was minus fifteen celsius which is nearly as cold as a Christian DJ’s heart.

So if you’’ve read the important historical documents below, you may remember from an earlier time that I said I was less than impressed with BA. Don’t remember? Well, I can either make a revision timetable for you, or you can take responsibility for these exams, after all it is the rest of YOUR life we’re talking about not mine… Fine, have it your way… Go sit with your mates in the park having a laugh and looking at girls, but don’t expect me to be there to support you when you fail these exams and end up having to get a job as a dustman, or a traveling salesman. If you’’re not careful you’’ll end up a market researcher the rate you’re going. Anyway I did, and I was. “Say” and “be less than impressed”, that is. With me? Good. What about you at the back? What’’s so funny? Well, if it’’s “nothing” perhaps you’d like to share that “nothing” with the rest of the class? See me after.

Anyway, here’’s being less than impressed with BA part 2.

I get an email telling me that I should log onto the BA website and fill in some important personal information for security before catching my flight today and saying to me “hey! why don’t you do our new online check in thingy at the same time saving yourself from all the hassle of queuing behind the smelly no-internet access masses? And hey, go crazy and change your in-flight meal to a vegetarian one too”. (I’’m on a plane to Detroit now by the way). The security information has to be filled in before flying. It’s the American law (and as we all know, that’’s gun law, so best to get the stuff filled out to avoid any unpleasantness or bleeding.). The online check-in thingy can only be done within 24 hours of the flight time. All clear with the timings here?

So any road up, just less than 24 hours before (let’s say 23 for the sake of argument shall we?) off I toddle to the website, key in me handy 6 digit code, only to get a response in red from website goblin saying that the website was a bit broken and would I mind awfully trying to log in again. Which I did, getting a message in red saying that the website was a bit broken and would I mind awfully trying to log in again. Which I did, getting a message in red saying that the website was a bit broken and would I mind awfully trying to log in again. Which I did, getting a message in red saying that the website was a bit broken and would I mind awfully trying to log in again. You get the idea… I gave up and thought maybe normal service would be resumed later.

At this point imagine one of those bits in a film where you see a clocks hands going round quickly to indicate the concept of “several hours later…”. Thanks.

Several hours later I return to said website to give the whole process another go. I key in my handy 6 digit code and this time get a new message from the red message pixie in the machine to say that because I had tried to log in more than 3 times unsuccessfully that day, access to my booking details had been barred for 24 hours, but that I was welcome to try to do this again after those 24 hours had elapsed… You see what’s happening here? If I wait 24 hours, it’’s after the time of the flight departure, but this has to be done BEFORE departure. Time to phone someone I think. I look on website for contact numbers, find one for people who have made internet bookings like me, but then notice that it says that it closes at 5:15. It’s now 8 o’’clock so that won’’t work will it? Oh look, here’’s another number for general bookings and help and they’’re open til 9. How ideal.

15 minutes of listening to The Flower Duet by Delibes punctuated by a recording of someone smugly telling me that I may want to go on to BA.com where I can give my special security information and check-in conveniently and easy without queuing for an operator, I was still calm. Poor BA have got a broken website so they must have many people phoning in same position as me. Bound to take a little time. I eventually get woman on the phone and explain my plight and that I had to call the general number because the Internet Bookings number is closed and it’s all going lovely, until she says “”I’’ll just transfer you”.” and suddenly I’’m listening to recorded message on the Internet Bookings line telling me it closed at 5.15 and would I mind awfully calling back on Monday. That’s the day after I’m supposed to fly.

Less happy now.

Phone back.

Hold 15 minutes listening to Delibes and BA.com ad.

Explain again.

Get told that it’s the Internet Booking line I want.

Explain that it’s closed.

Get told I’ll have to call back Monday.

Oh ferfoxache…

Anyway, you’re bored now, I can tell, your eyes have glazed over. Hey, I’ve been on a plane for 5 and a half hours, how do you think I feel?

Guy next to me asked for a vegetarian meal once he got on the plane and couldn’t get one. I didn’t fancy my vegetarian lasagne and so offered it to him unopened and untouched. He looked at me steadily for about 15 seconds and then said ““If I wish to avail myself of that option, I shall ask you.””

I’m at 39,000 feet and he’s an arsehole.

Onwards and upwards, further up and further in. What’s the phrase that Aslan keeps using at the end of the Narnia books after everyone’s died and Narnia’s reinvented even more real than it was before? Anyway, Cornwall’s a lot like Narnia. Full of Fauns and Dryads.

Actually that’s Mark and Carla, 2 of the people I was down in Polruan (tell me that’s not the name of a place in Narnia!) in Cornwall with, at, to. Grammar huh? We stayed with the lovely Jo and lovely John in their lovely holiday cottage on the lovely waterfront. Shades of Bergerac there, but lovely it all was. Saw the New Year in first in a pub, then down on the beach with champagne and candles for midnight, then a bit more pub for the watching of some very rocking guitar music played by local band. Then things go a little more hazy but possibly involved going back to the cottage for some more wine and then bed. Or being abducted by aliens and being shown new and wonderful technologies which would end war and human suffering on this planet forever and allow us to take our place alongside the rest of the peaceful species on the Galactic Council having been shown how to instantly travel to anywhere in the universe at will.

I forget.

Anyway, a few days pottering about in Polruan, catching up on entire series’s’s’s of Spaced and Black Books, both works of comedic bliss. A few trips across the estuary…

…on the ferry…

Look I’m sorry but try telling me that this place wasn’t invented by C. S. Lewis. Christmas trees on gaily painted ferry boats? I ask ya!

Driven back ably by John via a lovely pub somewhere in the middle of nowhere that made the best gnocchi dish I’ve tasted so far ever. Kind of normal Gnocchi then pan fried a bit so it had a slight crunch to it then put with some roasted peppers, pesto and rocket with some shaved parmesan. If you want me to love you, cook me that. Follow it up with the lemon tart I had for desert and I will be your slave…

What else? Back in Epsom again for a week or so am I now. What the hell’s happened to my sentence structure? Too much lager poured on it in Islington last night I suspect. You think lager turns you into Yoda?

Back in ’83 I laughed at my Uncle (Hi Geoff!) one Christmas for betting me that Boy George was a girl when we saw him on TV. What’s that got to do with the price of Turkish delight you may ask… Well I found out the other night through the medium of watching television that the singer of The Delays (rather fabulous pop music purveyors) is actually a bloke rather than the feisty woman type person I had envisaged from hearing him. That was a little bit of a surprise and now makes listening to the album that I listened to a lot last year a bit of an odd experience. Anyway Geoff, you can now laugh at me for being uncool.

It’s Christmas time pretty baby, and the snow is falling on the ground. Ahh the Elvis Christmas Album. Gotta love it. Beers with old mates .Much food. Some moose socks from the lovely Andy and Jess and Oscar who appear to have memories like elephants, (although I’m guessing Oscar had a minor role in the gift giving, he having a memory like a Golden Retriever which is more based around being surprised and amazed and incredibly pleased that every day the sun comes up, and the people he loves still live in the same house as him and then, wow! They’re taking me for a walk! Is that a ball? Yes it is! You know the only thing that could make this day any better? If they threw it and I could chase it! Arrrgh! He threw it! I’m gonna explode with happiness! I got it! I got it!).

Anyway, Christmas Day all lovely and mellow with great food and good presents.

Then Boxing Day and the really, really bad thing happened. Not going to talk about it on here but if you keep meaning to donate and haven’t got round to it yet, here’s the link.

Hello…

OK I’m sorry. What can I say? Christmas got in the way. I lacked an internet connection. I was lazy. The dog ate it. I left it on the bus. I’ll hand it in tomorrow if that’s OK?

All of those things contributed to a lack of ego fuelled ramblings on here. I caught myself reading my blog earlier and wondering what happened next so being as since no one else is going to write it, I suppose it’s down to me to get on with it. Gawd it’s just work, work, work innit? So, as I always say, where was I?

Right, Bergerac. This is all a little hazy but Bergerac continued to be lovely and a little drink sodden for the next few days. A trip back to the Sherwood pub with Geoff and Michael ended drunkenly again with Geoff and I nattering animatedly to some locals in bizarre French-English. I spoke French, they spoke English, Geoff looked on confused and as though he was about to get one of his heads. Not long after that we went home and watched a bit of an odd French movie which was animated which took the pressure off us to be animated as we weren’t and shortly after that I went to sleep. The next day, we possibly came up with a plan which will mean we never have to do any proper work again. I’m quite sure absolutely nothing can go wrong. We even had a meeting with minutes taken and everything and on paper it all looks good. Nice formatting. Good choice of font. The works. Watch this space. Or even, watch Spaced, which I saw for the first time the other day. You could actually watch a little film I made of it if you really want to kill 30 seconds… Click the pic below for a Spielberg-esque piece of nonsense.

As virile young men, we also had a tense game of domino’s while Michael looked on horrified. I won by a matchstick. We then made the smallest Record Breakers style domino run ever made (Norris McWhirter said) and videoed ourselves knocking it over. All good clean innocent fun in an absolutely-no-responsibility type way. Clickety-Click the pic below for a frankly pointless exercise in futility.

I’m guessing you’ve noticed that there’s more films on here now recorded on my nice little digicam that Fab and Clau bought me a couple of years ago (Thanks lovelies). You don’t have to watch them OK?

Talking of virile young men of Bergerac…

Any road up, a trip in lovely Michael and lovely Andre’s Smart car back to the airport, Geoff and I hungover again but I can’t remember why it was this time. Possibly drink related, then the trip from Stansted to Epsom via tubes and trains with, of course, a delay at Victoria. Ahh it’s good to be back in Berlighty where trains run even more randomly than French ones.

So Alun, there we were you and I, on Christmas Eve, trying to get to a pub on the north side of the river at Westminster Bridge. As we were stuck in traffic crossing said bridge, in a National Express coach all of a sudden for no apparent reason, we looked at the Parliament buildings and saw that some very low, dark, fast moving clouds were obscuring the top of Tower of St Stephens containing Big Ben. As we watched, those clouds slowly pushed the tower from its rightful vertical state, until it toppled flat on to the roof of the House of Commons below. As we continued to watch, the base of the tower overwhelmed the structure of the roof and crashed through on to the MP’s below who were fortunately sitting in high backed wooden chairs so the tower rested on the top of the backs of their seats giving them a lucky escape. Betty Boothroyd in her former, elevated position as Speaker however was not so lucky, and what remained of her was taken away in an ambulance. We, no longer in a coach, continued to watch the spectacle for a bit until I said that we better get a shift on as they were likely to close the bridge soon and we’d be stuck on the wrong side and wouldn’t be able to get to the pub.

That was last night’s entertainment in my head.

As far as I can make out, Bergerac has no gym. Shame really as that would amuse me in an 80’s British crime drama kind of way. Unless of course Cyrano is French for gym, in which case there’s a film about it. Who nose?

I may have pointed out before that Bergerac is lovely and it continues to be. Been back here for 3 days now and had a marvellously relaxed time courtesy of my host Geoff, his friends Ian and Karen, and the fabulous resident restaurant owners, Michael and Andre. On arrival in this old, old town on Friday night, after a train ride made all the better for not featuring the word “couchette”, I was whisked like an Angel Delight straight to L’Enfance Du Lard for a night of fantastic food, great company and a very funny plaster goose dressed up in 12 different outfits, one for each month of the year. A Turner Prize winning installation if ever I saw one. Much laughter was had as well as much gorgeous red wine and some pretty lively Eau De Vie (A lot like Grappa which I think is Italian for “fire water”) before retiring in a very wobbly state back to Chez Geoff to polish off a couple of restorative lagers (Ian’s somewhat faulty idea of a hangover avoidance trick) and to the delights of watching Geoff and Karen, half miming, half dancing to David Bowie’s early classic, The Chingaling Song. When I say “early classic”, of course I mean “absolute drivel”. It makes The Laughing Gnome sound positively meaningful.

Drunkenly to bed.

Next day, Geoff left heroically early to pick up his very, very heavy Christmas Tree from the local market and drag it back to his place before leaving to have lunch with Michael and Andre, leaving 3 very hungover casualties on the sofa’s, talking gently about how we could string out this life of leisure for as long as possible. A plan is required. Given the state of us, it wasn’t surprising that a plan was not forthcoming, so instead we drank a lot of tea and had a nice time anyway.

That evening, after Karen and Ian had left, Geoff and I ignored doctors advice and headed off for a quick beer before going to find a pizza. We never found the pizza, but we did find the Sherwood Pub which was full to the brim of young funky Bergeracians with more bizarre facial hair than me (and that was just the girls) all grooving to a Kraut Metal soundtrack. We drank really quite a lot of beer and left when the barman Sebastiane made us as it was way past our bedtime. There’s every possibility we will return. You really have to go back to a bar that has a full working bath and shower in the toilets don’t you?

Yesterday, absolutely nothing was done apart from some gentle trimming of a Christmas tree and the making of Blue Peter style tree decorations. I directed, Geoff got out the round ended scissors, glue pot and sticky back plastic.

Jacques Brel. If ever there were a reason to learn French (other than to be able to talk to lovely French people which is good enough reason in itself) then giving yourself the ability to enjoy the songs of Jacques Brel is that reason. He’s not just a bit good, he’s really very good, or was at least prior to his death. I went to Toulon to buy (achète – that’s French for buy) my host a present (un cadeau – see now you know another French word. Easy isn’t it?) of a DVD box set containing about 7 hours of Brel’s TV performances and have spent a couple of very good (très bon – that’s two more) evenings drinking some bottles of red wine (des bouteilles de vin rouge – that’s some very good ones) and watching the genius at work. Britain, or in fact the English language, really doesn’t have anything to compare with the kind of troubadour type songs that he did covering life, death, drinking and love with excellent lyrics and that’s a shame because we’re really missing out on something extraordinary. Don’t just listen to me (moi) listen to some for (pour) yourself.

Now let’s practice what we’ve learnt so far…

Achète moi des très bon bouteilles de vin rouge pour un cadeau.

See how you’ve progressed?

That’s either the biggest fox I ever saw or a weird looking dog. He was very friendly though…

So yeah… errrm… oh yes, didn’t sleep much last night so I got up early and watched the sun come up across the Mediterranean (not a bad thing to do and worth losing sleep for) and am now sitting with the sun streaming in through the window, a smell of burnt toast on the air (oops) with the roar of French Navy jets flying low over the house doing some sort of practicing I guess. Did I mention that there’s a bloody great big naval base that takes up half of the island of St Mandrier? Well there is and a fair few of the people stationed here long term actually have properties in the village. Now when you think of your average British military type, certainly the lower ranked ones, I don’t know about you but I tend to think “Oh dear, here comes a big fight in some poor little home counties town which just happens to have the misfortune to have a base nearby. I’ll be off in the opposite direction if you don’t mind.” On the contrary (or Au Contraire as we all learnt from Blackadder) French Navy blokes tend, in my experience, to be very mellow people, certainly up for a chat and generally with pretty liberal views about the world in general. This still surprises me. How many British Navy people do you know who are paid up members of Greenpeace for instance? I’ve met two French ones which is a little ironic since the French Navy blew up the Greenpeace flagship in New Zealand a few years back.

Anyway I digress. The combination of no sleep and military jets flying about noisily took me back to my never-to-be-repeated couchette experience a few days back and the fact that one of the people who shared my taste of Hell turned out to be a naval submariner (The toughest of the tough. Calm yourselves ladies.) . He couldn’t sleep either, so, at about 4 am we both gave up on the couchette and went and had a natter and a fag in the trains corridor, nice fella, offered me a lift to St Mandrier too which beat the hell out of the idea of hefting my rucksack (for now I am a proper traveller type) through Toulon to get the early boat over to the island (It would have been a very nice thing to do without the luggage.) The point being, I’m pretty sure that submarines are not well known for their comfortable living conditions, in fact the word “basic” springs to mind, closely flowed by the words “cramped” and, after a few minutes of cold sweats, the words “get”, “me”, “out”, “of” and “here.”, so if a submariner can’t sleep on a couchette, that kind of gives you an idea of how bleedin’ uncomfortable they are and why I’ll never use one again. That was my point but I got a bit lost on the way.

Talking of lost on the way, I’ve noticed my posts are getting a little longer and more rambling. Is that a good thing or do you prefer short, snappy and just bare info? This is all for you, you know… Vote, why don’cha? (Oh yeah, and the beard is coming along nicely…)