8 Cities, 4 Countries, 2 Weeks and 1 Unfortunate Incident With A German Flag

So, as the title suggests, this is the first of hopefully many travel blogs to document my time on the road. I started two weeks ago today on Tuesday 10th June and since then all manner of things have been happening. The most recent of which happened in Germany and involved a German flag...I'll come to this later on in the post.

First I need to go back to my first couple of days, I think it was my first full day in Bruges and I was walking around in the sunshine when I entered a small arcade of shops. It was quite a narrow arcade so when a man stood in my way, I wasn't able to get past him. This was the first part of his sales technique because he was, of course, a shop owner who was trying to get me to enter his shop to buy things inside...at least that was what I thought would be the case. This man was not a normal man, not that I'm saying he was abnormal but for starters he was dressed in a full cavalier outfit making him look like the lost musketeer. Instantly he knew I was English before I spoke, I guess the shorts, t shirt and sunglasses inside was a bit of a give away...or it might have been the pasty white legs but either way he knew. He asked where I was from and when I said Cambridgeshire he stood staring at me blank for 5 seconds, it was as if he hadn't understood what I said. Then all of a sudden he burst into life again but started reeling off various facts about Cambridgeshire saying it was part of East Anglia and was bordered by Suffolk and Norfolk and that one of the big cities was called Ely. While I was confirming what he said to be true he was gesturing into his shop and said that he had postcards from all around the world in his shop and pointed out ones from different places from the UK, I guess because he thought I would be impressed to hear places I knew...I wasn't but anyway he then asked what football team I support and so I replied Newcastle United. As before he stood staring blank for 5 seconds, I thought he hadn't understood me so I repeated myself but then he sprang into life once again. He was throwing various facts about the team and the city, it was at this point I realised he had some form of photographic memory and could probably reel off facts about almost every city in the world. A very clever sales trick to have, I thought. Once he finished talking about Newcastle he started telling me he was an artist and this was when I realised there was a patch of wall without any postcards on it, an area he told me to stand in front of but only after I took my bag and sunglasses off. He kept repeating the phrase 'I am an artist' as he shut the door to his box room of a shop and while he put a piece of white cloth across my chest. He then told me to smile and relax as he pointed what can only be described as a make shift camera in my direction. I felt like I was being prepared for the firing squad, that it was only a matter of time before the white cloth across my chest was put over my eyes. Well in a way he did 'shoot' me but with the camera instead of a gun. In the picture he took, I had the most uncomfortable smile, I really don't have a good poker face! He brought the image up on a computer that was so old, the pixels had started to run because there was brown strips coming out of my face on the screen. Then he pressed print, alarms bells were really starting to ring now. He printed off two A3 sheets of paper, the first contained a historic picture of Bruges and had a calender on it, the second was my uncomfortable looking face, this time without the brown lines. When he started to roll it up I was waiting for the price he was going to charge me, I had no intention of buying this thing off him but he wasn't listening to anything I was saying. He charged 7euro50 to which I gave a resounding no to, he tried to drop the price to 5euro but again I declined telling him that 5euro could buy my dinner for that evening. With that he let me go but it got me thinking about how good his act was, at every stage he acted with confidence and was able to talk his way through most things...well, dressed in a cavalier outfit in the middle of Bruges and I guess you have to have some confidence.

From Bruges I headed to the Netherlands and during my time there I had a 100m race against a walking tour guide and I won (for anyone who knows my sporting prowess will know how unlikely that is!!). I was also witness to an emergency situation in the house next to my hostel. It was 2:30 in the morning and we were about to play our last hand of cards when we saw flashing lights stop just outside from two fire engines and an ambulance. When we went outside it appeared somebody had collapsed on the first floor of a house and the only way to get them to the ambulance was to use the cherry picker of the fire engine, the speed of everything was the most impressive thing because I know how vital speed is in those situations. Also during my time in the Netherlands I was able to watch some beach volley ball as two courts were set up in the middle of Amsterdam.

After the Netherlands, Germany was next port of call and this is where the unfortunate incident involving the German flag comes into things. I have been in three German cities over the past week, all very different but the one thing they all had in common was how patriotic everyone seemed to be, although this might have had something to do with the World Cup being on. Almost everywhere you turned in Germany you could find a television playing the world cup or a re-run of one of the matches or you would find a German flag. Basically the whole country (well the cities I was in) seemed to have gone football crazy especially when it came to Germany playing.

So, I was in Berlin, in the middle of the Hyundai Fan Park, which is basically a long road that leads down from the Brandenburg gate and is full of massive TV screens and various eating outlets set up just for the World Cup. It is quite an impressive sight even if it is full of mass commercialisation. Anyway, I was quite hungry so I decided to get some bratwurst and chips, the vendor didn't seem too impressed with having to cook chips because all of the bratwurst was ready to go but he did it anyway. After a few minutes it was ready and the question was put to me 'Do you want mayo?' Now I should have answered no simply because I wouldn't have said I'm overly clumsy but I have my moments...this was no different. I get my food and stand next to the stall and put my food on the little stand off the side. Before I know it the wind picks up and starts blowing a flag that was tied to the bottom of this stand about; it goes near my chips but I manage to block it...on the first time. The second time it happens the flag completely covered my chips and subsequently the massive dollop of mayonnaise that was proudly protruding off the top. By the time I'd managed to wrestle the flag off the chips (the wind was very strong...honest), the red part of the flag was fairly covered in a massive white mayonnaise stain. At that point I quickly picked up my food and walked away as fast as I could without looking back, I thought that if the vendor was grumpy about cooking the chips he would be absolutely livid by the state of his once pristine flag.

That is pretty much it for now, I'm in Poland for the next few days, although the train ride from Berlin was quite interesting when the brakes under my carriage started to smoke and burn but after twenty minutes of men looking and poking the side of a train with a walkie talkie we got on our way again and here I am. I head to Krakow tomorrow and then to Prague on Saturday. I'm sure they'll be just as full of stories as the last two weeks have been, hopefully I won't be disgracing too many other national flags...

Now just wait your turn!

So I work in a shop, a petrol station to be precise, and within that shop we sell pretty much everything under the sun and that includes newspapers, as you would expect from a convenience shop. Now I have spoken about these papers, or more the customers who refuse to take the top copy, before and once again they are the basis of this blog post and once again it is the customers who annoy me. I'll set the scene, it's early in the morning, still dark outside, I am serving a customer with fuel, shop goods, whatever they're coming in to buy and I'm probably half way through the transaction when I see him. He's a queue jumper but one of those that is so blatantly obvious that other customers will get annoyed. He'll come in, pick up his paper and because he does this every morning he has the correct change and for some reason he thinks this grants him permission to leave the money on the counter and walk out of the shop. This would be fine if he was at the front of the queue but he isn't, I'm already serving a customer, a transaction that if left to it's own devices would be over within a matter of seconds. It's the same if a customer has put in say £10 worth of fuel, they think that having the correct money in their hand constitutes them the right to jump to the front of the queue and these people are more daring; they'll normally do it two maybe three people in a queue already. And more often than not they've gone over by a penny, so not only do they think they have the right to jump the queue but they think they can short change me, I don't think this is very on but of course I won't say anything in the actual situation because it's just easier to let it go. But do not despair, I've worked out a solution to this problem and so far it seems to be working, it is very simple really, you just don't look at them. For some reason by not looking at the person, this queue jumping correct changer, they don't feel as though they can just jump the queue. Almost as if looking at them is an acknowledgement from me that I'm condoning their actions and wanting them to do it. I can see them there hovering, correct change in one hand, paper in the other (held in such a way they think they're helping by thrusting the price in my face) and at times quite literally shifting their weight from one foot to the other. Well once my peripheral vision picks this up, that's when I start to get some payback, this is when I slow down, especially if I have to fill a bag with shopping. If they want to be ignorant and rude to the other customers and quite frankly to me then when I have a bit of power they will have to wait longer. Now I know what you're probably thinking, why have I just wasted about a minute of your day where you could have been doing other things, reading a proper news story for example, and they only answer I have for you is that I wanted to get this off my chest. It was also an opportunity to get back into blogging, for too long this page has been dormant and some of you may be thinking that is a good thing especially if they only thing I'm entreating you to is a small story (essay) about getting annoyed by customers who let's face it are just trying to spend as little time in the petrol station as possible. But my argument to that is this, I have to be there so you're just gonna have to wait there too, even if it is just for twenty seconds longer than you originally intended.

What is wrong with the top copy...

So while I was at work on Sunday just after we'd opened up and I'd spent the last hour filling all the Sunday papers with all their magazines (that's right, if you buy a Sunday paper with a shed load of magazines then some poor sod has had to fill each and everyone of them...in this case me) and left them looking very presentable I was slightly perplexed and annoyed when customer came and messed up my display. This may seem petty to you and it probably is but this was 8am on a Sunday morning so I was still in sleep/grumpy mode but I was getting quite annoyed at the apparent disregard for all my hard work. It wasn't the fact they were buying the papers, I mean that's what they're there for, it's why I spend so much time filling them; so they can be bought. No the thing that was really grating on me was the way in which they were being ruined. I make sure that when I put the papers out I put the crumpled copy (there's generally always one misfit in the bunch) towards the back of the pile so you only get that one if you're late in the day or more often than not so it doesn't get bought at all. Basically so if you're an early riser and you come for your morning paper there's a nice uncrumpled copy for you to choose from so I don't expect customers to rifle through the papers and pull out one from the middle of the pile or five back. Or if you are going to do that then I definitely don't expect you to leave them looking shoddy. I mean what is wrong with the top copy...why do so many people choose to ignore that top copy, it's not going to bite them, it's exactly the same as the half crushed one they are so adamant to have. Someone hasn't come along and urinated all over the first copy of every paper, it's exactly the same. Surely common sense suggests it's easier and less effort to just take the top copy? Surely? I can understand it to an extent if you were buying something like milk and you wanted the longest date possible, fine there I will accept if you're going to get the milk right at the back (unless someone has failed to rotate the stock properly in which case the joke is on those riflers who will go to all that effort for the lesser date) but this isn't milk, these are newspapers we are talking about. Something that is exactly the same no matter where and when during the day you buy it...apart of course from that one copy I found that had a different back page to the others. It was the Sunday morning after the David Hay/Dereck Chisora fight and every page back of this particular paper was covering that apart from the last copy which ran with a story about the Newcastle captain Fabricio Coloccini which was obviously the back up story in case the fight the night before was either a damp squib or ran too late into the night for the presses to run with it. As it happened I took that paper home with me because I was far more interested in the football story than the fight but anyway in normal circumstances every paper will be the same as the last one. So I go back to my original point; what on earth is wrong with the top copy? I was even tempted to leave a note in the top copy for that brave soul who took one for the team and took that dreaded top copy...but by this point I had woken up a bit and my sleep/grumpy attitude had been shrugged off slightly and doing that seemed far too much effort for something so trivial.

This is an issue that I'm sure will have puzzled newspaper retailers for years and may be one of those unanswerable questions (primarily because nobody actually cares) and I am happy for those people to take which ever paper they wish...as long as they leave my display looking nice and tidy...otherwise they will get a glare and maybe...just maybe even a tut. You have been warned!

Just as a side note, the publishing of this blog was delayed slightly due to the phone ringing and it being another bloody cold call causing the internet to be lost momentarily.

So that's it...

It's all over, just over two weeks ago we were all nervous (yes I'm including everyone in this no matter how much you disliked the Olympics) as to how London and Britain would cope with the pressure of hosting the Olympic games. All in all I think it was a rousing success from almost every stand point, the organisation as far I'm aware was well dealt with, the crowds were all enthusiastic especially for the ones who didn't win (although not surprising as we are usually the ones in that position) and the athletes themselves all did very well for Britain.

Right from the word go we marked our intent for these games with the opening ceremony that was brilliantly British right from the way it was performed to the message it sent out to the rest of the world. It basically stuck two fingers up to other opening ceremonies and said this is Britain, if you know our culture you'll understand this, if not then tough to you. Then came the start of the events and we were all talking about certain athletes performing well and then being disappointed when they weren't able to deliver and the obvious shocks and surprises when those who weren't expected to, did deliver. Now I'm fine with the athletes who were expected to win but didn't they obviously tried their hardest but on the day it just wasn't good enough or someone else just performed better but what did annoy me was the amount of times I heard 'Well they've had a disrupted training regime what with the injury they had.' I'm sorry but what athlete hasn't incurred an injury at some point or other, it seemed to be the bog standard excuse for why we didn't win. Sometimes you just have to take your hat off to the opponent and say well done not oh well I would have won but I twisted my ankle three years ago and I missed three days of training which meant you won instead. I'm not blaming this one on the athletes in the slightest this one is aimed at the commentators who couldn't avoid saying it if we didn't win. Yes I'm sure most of them did have an injury that hampered their training but it won't have been the excuse for all of them. Thankfully we did far better than anyone expected us to so this wasn't used half as much as it could have been.

That really is my only grumble at what has been a great couple of weeks for me being able to watch the Olympics from nine in the morning until about midnight and of course within this time slot came the brilliant little show called 'Olympics Tonight' with Gabby Logan. I dunno why but this programme had me hooked from one of the first times it was on. It wasn't the fact that it primarily celebrated British success, it was more the live nature of it and the cheesy links to different features of the show. Even the way they introduced the guests was fantastic, using the old Superstars start theme...you just knew it was going to be a show you didn't want to miss. Then came the interviews with the winning athletes from the day and the delay from the questions to the answer, it was like the interview from Mike Bassett when he's in Rio funnily enough when Gabby was interviewing him...maybe it's just her interviewing technique? Whatever it was about this programme I never wanted to miss is and I think whoever came up with the idea was a genius especially if they suggested to do everything live.

Over the last two weeks there have been highs and there have been lows and unfortunately one of the lows for me was the closing ceremony, maybe we'd set the bar too high but for me and I might be alone in thinking this but it just didn't live up to the success of the rest of the games. It definitely had it's moments of quality but they were just too few and far between. It was as if we'd spent our budget on the three main acts then panicked realising they would take up at most fifteen minutes between them. There are two moments from the closing ceremony that really did make me laugh and neither of them were planned. First was Boris, the illustrious Mayor of London, really jigging away to the Spice Girls and second was probably the best and most unexpected moment. It was during the marathon medal ceremony when Lamine Diack had been tasked with handing out the flowers or posies as one commentator quite rightly named them. Everyone else who has had this job has delicately picked them up by their stems and graciously handed them over but this wasn't the way Lamine was going to do it, oh no. He picked them up like a football or a potato or something, he grabbed them by their heads and practically threw them at the athletes basically saying what we're all thinking: what is the point in this things? When he was told he'd be involved in the medal ceremony I bet his heart jumped at the chance to hand over the medals then this would have been shattered when he was told no you're handing over the flowers. Well he definitely made his feelings very clear about what he thought of that job much to my and sure a lot of other people's amusement.

I'm going to leave you merry people now as I'm sure I've taken up far too much of your time through you reading this but I just couldn't avoid writing at least one blog about the Olympics in London...I mean as so many people have said 'It's a once in a lifetime experience.'

Perfect day!

For some unknown reason I woke up this morning just feeling good and had a real hankering to listen to the song 'Perfect Day' so as I write this that song is blasting (well not quite blasting but hey) out of my laptop. It might be because it's the fourth or fifth sunny day on the trot and summer may well be sticking around for another couple of days before the rain hits again or there might be other reasons, who knows...

Talking of the weather reminds me of how cynical some people are...they complain about the seemingly endless rain and want the sun more than anything then when they actually get it...oh it's too hot...why do people want the middle so much. Going from one extreme to another is one of the joys of living in England, if it was the same weather all day everyday it'd get very boring. I say this more to convince myself of enjoying the varying weather but if you think about it it's true...to an extent. Saying that though I would be more than happy to have boring but very sunny weather all the time...

Going back to listening to songs, I recently took part in a 'retro day' which is basically a day where you play all the games from when you were younger and it's funny how quickly the theme songs or backing tunes for those games make you remember so much about them. You just have to listen the first few bars and you're instantly back in the game as if you'd never stopped playing it. It's the same with the cd I'm listening to in my car, I was listening to it when I first bought the car and I'm automatically transported back to that time (admittedly it was just last year but still).

I feel I should leave you fine people to carry on with your day now and if you're reading this and you have the sun then go out and enjoy it much like I intend to do...

Geronimo....It's arrived...Huzzah!!

I thought it high time I gave everyone an update on what is happening with me right now. I'm sure you're all sat on the edge of your seats waiting with baited breath to see what new clap trap I can bore you all with and if you're not then I commend you on your patience and sanity. 

I don't really have anything major to update you on really although I would like to make a slight perception from what I've heard about my last posting. I don't hate charities, I was merely pointing out that the charity in question could have been putting their money to better use. Now that is out of the way we can carry on with this new and fresh post...again I still have nothing major in mind to tell you all about...or do I?

Well in fact I do because this Saturday I am performing once again, I will be stood in the middle of a field pretending to be a witch (in an awesome cape...seriously the best item of fashion available to buy), Romeo (in a green shirt that makes me look like I'm attempting to play Peter Pan a few months early) and Theseus (in a woman's shirt size 18 that apparently reveals too much of my chest...must work on my cleavage!). For those of you that are astute and down with the works of the Bard I am performing extracts of Shakespeare's plays with The Offord Players (TOPS). They are taking a big risk with this performance...not least because they have entrusted me to be in it but mainly because we are attempting to do it outside in this the worst British Summer since records began (n.b. the records I am referring to are my own personal ones, I do not know whether this weather is officially the worst on record, it may well be but I don't want the met office ringing me up to say 'Oi, the worst official summer was the summer of 1931, there was extra 3cms of rainfall that year'...mainly because that would be a bit pointless and a massive waste of time on their part). So anyway this Saturday head down to Offord Primary School at 6pm for a night of joyous celebrations ending with a luxury BBQ...that's right you heard a luxury BBQ...not just some old bod crouching over a disposable BBQ. For the princely sum of just £5 plus £5 for the BBQ you can have a greatly enjoyable evening.

I know what a few of you may be thinking at this point...what on earth does my plug for people to come and watch 'Walk with the Bard' this Saturday from 6 at Offord Primary School before moving onto the millennium green and then back to the school for the luxury BBQ for the sum of just £5 have to do with the title of this blog? Well...isn't it obvious? It has absolutely nothing to do with anything, it was literally just a collection of words I decided to put together, partly because I like them and partly to sate your interest slightly. Talking of which, the luxury BBQ after 'Walk with the Bard' this Saturday will be made all the more luxurious by the little acronym BYOB which for those of you are only down with the Bard and not down with the lingo (Language for those same people) BYOB means bring your own bottles (and I mean plural) to enable you to drink the night away into merriment and drunkenness. It's what I shall be doing.

Anyway I feel I have wasted enough of your time now so I shall bid you adieu, adieu, adieu and leave moonshine and lion to bury the dead (references that will become clear if you come this Saturday at 6 to Offord Primary School to watch 'Walk with the Bard'). Enjoy the rest of your week and if you are free to come this Saturday I can guarantee you shall not be disappointed and if you are then just bring more bottles to forget about it.

I'm all for promotion but this is too much...surely.

So, probably about nine months to a year ago we get a knock at the door and I answer it to a man stood there with a clipboard. All I can really remember about him was how confident he was stood on our doorstep trying his hardest to get us to give a donation to a well known charity organisation. He did everything to convince us and in the end we said we'd donate online just because you can never be too sure who is actually stood on your doorstep. Not that for one second we thought he had come for any other reason than to raise money for the well known charity organisation but it's just a bit safer if you go to them to donate as opposed to the other way round. So we put in a donation and it asks for home address etc for any further correspondence from the well known charity organisation which we were happy to supply. Well putting down our address for correspondence was just the start of it.

For the last nine months to a year roughly once a month we have received a letter from them and in every single one of them they have given us at least one free gift per letter. These gifts range from pens to personalised return address stickers to greetings cards to stickers to badges to seeds for the garden...I think the only thing they've forgotten to send us is the kitchen sink. I can see why they are doing it to an extent; they are trying to raise awareness of themselves and get other people to donate to them as well but surely their money would be better spent elsewhere. I know they will have a marketing budget and I'm sure they won't be using any of the money donated for advertising and marketing but surely if they sent half as many free gifts they would be able to spend more money where it was really needed. I'm sure it doesn't cost much to say chuck in a free sheet of personalised address labels lets say 10p a sheet? But they've sent about five to us now so that's 50p to us and if they're sending these letters out to everyone who's ever donated to them...don't forget we've only donated the once and I'd have thought they have at least two hundred thousand people who have ever donated to them so if you work it out the numbers start to add up. And that's just on the personalised address labels, let's not forget everything else they've sent out...Like I said I'm happy for them to try and promote themselves but there has to be a point where you think wouldn't this money be better spent elsewhere? It might be working very well for them and if their promoting brings in lots of extra charity money then great but from personal experience it hasn't brought them anything extra by sending the free gifts here. That might just be that we are heartless people and we're not proactive enough to take advantage of the free gifts and use them to spread the word of this well known charity organisation...maybe sending the free gifts is saving the cost of paying people to go door to door to try and persuade others to donate? I don't know but what I do know is that the free gifts haven't done anything to persuade me to donate again...if anything it's put me off donating to them again because it just puts a slight doubt in the mind as to where the money actually goes.

I'm sure the donations do go where they are supposed to and I have no doubts over the work and effort put in by this organisation but I think they have gone slightly over the top with the amount of freebies they send through. Just think of the amount they could save if they sent an email instead of a letter...but then would anyone pay attention to an email...perhaps about as much attention to what they pay to a letter...