Thanks for everything, 2010. Which wasn't a whole lot but whevs.

 

Around this time last year, I (along with probably half of the internet) posted a link to this song. Because along with half of humanity, I had had a pretty rubbish 2010. A year later, 2011 is over (duh) and I find that, against all odds, I did indeed make it through this year. Congratulations to me and everyone else who did it. Yay! Now, was 2011 any better than 2010? If so, not by much. Here's a rough summary of what happened:

- I fucked up my knee. Again.
- I finally saw The Arcade Fire, Eels and The National (all three were great)
- I developed a Tabasco addiction.
- I saw 'Psycho' for the first time ever (it was very good).
- I lost all three remaining grandparents.
- I went to my first funeral (it was weird).
- I interned at NME (it was terrible, but that was entirely my fault).
- I went to Munich and interned at on3 Radio (it was awesome).
- I went to Vienna for the first time ever (it was slightly bizarre but fun).
- I got a fairly useless degree.
- I wrote not nearly as much or as well as I should have done.
- I sang, mimed and danced along to "Rollin'" by Limp Bizkit.
- I moved back home (it's been OK - so far).
- I did not find/meet/acquire a girlfriend (I know, like you even care, right?).


So there you go. A slightly depressing list, now that I look at it, but what can you do. I hope your year was successful/eventful/interesting/inspiring or just not as much of a fucking trainwreck as 2010. It's the little things, right?

See you next year, suckas.


Photo credit: Demotivator

New Jay Electronica track - with added Jigga

Ever since the incomparable David Cano, via one of his rants about how I don't know anything about music, introduced me to Jay Electronica, it's fair to say I've become a bit of a fanboy. As with many rappers, following him on Twitter is often a bit hit and miss, but his music is seriously incredible - his style is literate, melliflous and punchy, and the sampling is impeccable. There hasn't been an album yet, but supposedly there's one coming out next year - I just hope it's better than the new song he leaked yesterday. It's called "Shiny Suit Theory" and has features a verse from Jay-Z. The beat is part classic 90s-jazz-sample, part half-baked show tune, and when J-Hova comes in with his bit I immediately kind of lost interest. Jay's on better form though, his lyrics as thoughtful and inspired as always ("I pack all my sins and I wear em to the show and let'em go, let'em go, let'em go"). It's not spectacular or anything, but it might well grow on me (especially Jay-Z's verse which has got some decent lines). Have a listen.

EDIT: According to his Jay's Twitter, this is a segment of a 7-minute long song that also features Charlotte Gainsbourg. Really bringing out the big guns, huh? 

Jay Electronica - Shiny Suit Theory feat. Jay Z & The Dream by GlobalGrind

Things not to do on Facebook - A code of conduct

 Disclaimer: Tongue was firmly in cheek while this was written. I did not want to rub anyone up the wrong way, but if you're genuinely offended by any of the following, I might have to rethink my relationship to you anyway. This is meant to be a light-hearted post with no insults intended. I'm fully aware I am guilty of violating most of these points.

So I saw The Social Network the other day. Finally. And while I enjoyed it (Andrew Garfield is really, really great as Eduardo Whatshisface) I got a little sad at how little time has passed since I didn't even know Facebook existed until today, where I'm on it to a worrying and life-impeding degree. In those four years (only four years! I've had skin conditions that lasted longer!) I have marvelled at the ease with which I can now stalk the girls I fall for on a daily basis, look at awesome football videos and look intelligent by posting links to Guardian articles. But I have also learned that there is a whole new toolbox for people to reduce me to a sobbing wreck at the lack of internet etiquette still prevalent in so many circles.

As a kind of social service, I have summed up some of them for you. Consider them a loose foundation for cringe-free Facebooking.

1. Do not like your own posts/status updates
Now this should be obvious, but sadly there are still some of you dudes out there likin' like there's no tomorrow. C'mon y'all. You can do better than that. I know the 'Like' button is tempting, but don't get sucked in - you'll end up liking EVERYTHING. And nobody likes an overenthusiastic suck-up. There's a reason this group exists, you know.  

2. Do not use posts made by friends you haven't spoken to in ages as an excuse to "catch up"
While looking at new photos of friends from your primary school years is one of the main perks of Facebook, it is not its sole purpose. Posting "Hey Soandso, how are u these days. Remember that time u pissed on someone's bike in the bike shed? Good times lol" as a comment to a normal, completely unrelated status update is NOT the proper way to reminisce. Private message, yo (<--- that goes pretty much all the time anyway).


3. Do not clog up people's Friday afternoon feeds with weekend-related posts
Yes, we know it's the weekend. By the time we've read your "I'm outta here for some post-work white wine spritzers, whoop whoop", we've already had at least two boring conversations about people's weekends and could care less about what you're doing unless it directly involves us. Have a good one though!

4. Please, please, PLEASE do not use that bloody heart ("<3") symbol
The heart symbol has the opposite effect to the one it's meant to convey. It does not make me feel love. It makes me feel hatred. Everytime I see one or more of those bastards, my face gets all itchy, like I've just licked a Croissant (got a pretty bad egg allergy). What's wrong with writing "this is awesome" next to the link/photo/video you're posting? Are your feelings for the content you're sharing so strong that you feel you have to resort to this seemingly idiotproof shorthand? I doubt it. It's not cute and it's not clever. Instead, it makes my newsfeed look like a 10-year-old girl's pencil case. I am not a 10-year-old girl, and neither are any of my Facebook friends.

5. Do not post a link to your blog
Oh wait. 






Photo credits: Lamebook, Friedman Archives

Trip Fontaine

On Friday, I managed to go back to one of my favourite ever venues after a 2-year abscence. Kafe Kult is an allround awesome place - cheap beer, slightly off decoration and DIY through and through. The fact that it's a bit of a mission to get to only adds to the community feel - you have to care enough to venture out there, but the few times I've been it was packed anyway.

I was mainly there for Trip Fontaine, and fuck, they were well worth falling asleep on the bus home for. They play a really well-balanced and well-informed mix of classic Emo, 90s Alternative and Post-Rock. That reads like a really dull and conservative combination, but Trip Fontaine (yes, named after a character in that film I still can't decide whether I like it or not) are aware that those genres are often beset by a lack of humour and melody, and infuse it with plenty of both. As a massive fanboy of Mario Basler, hearing a song named after him is pretty sweet - especially when it sounds like a more mellow Dismemberment Plan.




Live, they do that thing of switching instruments around between the members, which again I can't decide whether it's showing off or kinda cool, but I guess it helps to illustrate that they all know their shit. They're on a fairly extensive tour of Germany right now, but alas no UK dates. For shame.

Photo credit: Redfield Records

Shattered Glass

Earlier this year, there was a bit of a kerfuffle when an editor at the German mag NEON was fired after it became clear that some of his articles were based on interviews that had either taken place in a different way to which they were used in the articles, or had not taken place at all. Shit got real for Ingo Mocek when an interview he had done with Beyonce, via message boards, found its way to her US management, who smelled a wolf-sized rat and got in touch with NEON. 

I remember reading that interview in this year's January edition and thinking that this was possibly the most interesting and fun Beyonce interview that I'll ever read (partly due to the fact that while she's an incredible artist and woman, she's got to be one of the dullest interviewees ever). And when the story came out about Mocek having made the whole thing up, I had to wonder whether I actually cared that much that the interview had never happened - I was entertained for a good 10 minutes (which I wouldn't have been had actual quotes been used) and issues of "accurate reporting" are surely more important when it comes to actual newsworthy and significant topics.

"Shattered Glass" deals with the similar true story of Stephen Glass, who got fired from The New Republic after making up whole stories - quotes, interviews, people, places, everything. It's got two of my favourite actors in it (Chloe Sevigny and Peter Saarsgard) and is a pretty gripping account of what happens in a newsroom full of young, ambitious (and, usually, dickish - although almost every journalist in the film is played as a perfectly nice person) hacks. There's a scene I loved where two of Glass's colleagues talk about how he's schmoozing every important editor in Washington. "Is that what you want? Editors blowing smoke up your ass?" asks Sevigny's character. "Yes. Yes, it is." replies her mate.

But it's really all about Glass (played excrutiatingly angelic - but well - by Hayden Christensen) and his step-by-step breakdown in the face of an online publicaction (another nice lil' subplot there) picking apart a story about hackers and his editor (Saarsgard, who really does look like Ed Balls) getting increasingly furious at what he considers treason of the magazine.

Glass, who we're made to believe was well-liked by almost all of his colleagues and had a maddening tendency to apologise for everything (it made me realise how annoying I must be most of the time), first tries to deflect people's suspicion by saying that he was "misled" by the hackers he spoke to for the article (there is, at one point, talk of a "National Assembly of Hackers" or something equally ridiculous). This apparently happens often and has certainly happened to me once. A year ago, I was writing an article on the Babycakes craze, and got in touch with a dude who was posting pretty nasty stuff on some kids' myspace profiles and on YouTube. I got as far as interviewing him via e-mail before realising that he was trolling me like a n00b. Roflcopter etc.

But anyway, the film. It's really very good and not just for journo geeks. I had a bit of a Google craze afterwards, looking for other stories about journalists making up stories (apparently Glass even worked for the incredibly awesome This American Life). It's an interesting topic, and I couldn't help but thinking that there might be a place for fiction in journalism. I'll go think about that some more now.

 Photo credit: Infinity Ranch

Tamara Drewe

I'm afraid I noticed that this film existed for the obvious reason - Gemma Arterton in those hot pants, photos  which conveniently made the rounds during Cannes festival earlier this year. I'd never seen any of the films she's been in (James Bond - yawn. Clash of the Titans - groan. Prince of Persia - snore. RocknRolla - vomit) until yesterday night, but I'm guessing that Tamara Drewe is Arterton's career highlight by a long shot. Because it's great.

The poster and the plot synopsis (young journalist returns to hometown of her childhood and wreaks havoc among locals) is actually misleading, because it distracts from the fact that it is actually Tamsin Greig's character Beth, and Jessica Barden's mouthy 14-year-old, lovestruck Jody (on the left), who drive the film along and cause all the havoc. Arterton's character, I have to say, I pretty much hated. Young, beautiful, successful, with a massive house in the country and the obligatory Apple work station, all the while complaining how tough it is to be beautiful AND smart. Because nobody takes you seriously. Why yes, shit, I can't believe you make it out of bed in the morning. Anyway, that isn't to say that Arterton is putting in a bad performance - she's very good. As is almost everyone, in fact.

Dominic Cooper's Ben Sergeant is blatantly modelled on Yannis from Foals (although when I asked him about it he wouldn't directly admit to it, just said that he knows a few people in bands), and I found him a bit too overdrawn at the beginning. But during the Q&A afterwards, him and the other actors said how much they'd enjoyed playing people who were comic book characters, i.e. characters who were (over)drawn.

Beth and Jody, the long-suffering wife of a successful, lecherous author and a teenager bored to death by life in the village, provide most of the laughs. We see Beth wearing an impressive number of aprons, and making and fixing things. When she says, after an argument with her husband, that "it's all falling apart", we get a first glimmer of the unhappiness she's lived with and which could erupt any minute.

Jody, on the other hand, has her life in front of her, but is already scared that "nothing will ever happen" to her. So she tries to make stuff happen - throwing eggs, breaking into houses, fantasising about sleeping with rock stars. It doesn't sound like a huge character, but she's by far the most lovable and funny figure in this film.

What I also enjoyed were details like the skull & crossbones dog tag on Ben's beloved dog 'Boss', and the awful/amazing 'surfer dog' T-shirt worn by the hapless American author Glen, who seems unable to view the writing process via a metaphor other than digestion. I could go on about how much I liked the way writers are portrayed in the film (not very sympathetically), but I'll make do with saying that this was, as a straight up film (not qualified to comment on the adaption of the respective comic books), better than Scott Boring vs The World. Peace out.


Photo credit: Empire Movies

Sauna Youth

Yesterday, I ordered the new Sauna Youth tape. Today, I got in the post. This is how I like my oders to be processed. In addition to not fucking around when it comes to mailing things, Sauna Youth are also one of the best and most interesting new (ish) UK bands I've heard this year. They kind of mix RAW POWER-era Stooges and a punk rock ethics (and, in places, 60s girl groups) into a retro garage punk that sounds like it's the most fun to play ever. All of the dudes in the band have played in other bands for hundreds of years - there's two guys that used to be in The Steal, one of them was in Twofold, one in Captain Everything... you get the picture. All great bands, but Sauna Youth for me is the best of the bunch (well, maybe close second to The Steal). They've already released a couple of tapes and a 7" (which is ace too). Check their myspace for availability - they only made 50 of these particular bad boys and I've already got one so it's get one while they're hot (they've put a download link on their blog, which I hope they don't mind me reposting - if you do, let me know guyz).


SAUNA YOUTH - NEGATIVE OBSESSIONS from lindsay on Vimeo.


Another reason for you to get one is the B side, which doesn't have any songs but an awesome short story by Jennifer Calleja, read by (I think) the singer and accompanied by a kind of ambient electro track. Not what you'd get from your average hardcore band, and it works perfectly. The story's about a university professor with a serious masturbation issue, but it's not garish or crude in any way - it's really sharply observed and beautifully written. She's got some more of her writing here, and most of what I've read so far is pretty good, too.

Photo credit: Sauna Youth

Weezer at Reading: Piss-take or phenomenal?

This weekend, Weezer played the Reading/Leeds festivals. They hadn't played in the UK since 2005, when Make Believe came out, and because Weezer are one of those bands who have a fan base so rabid I checked my vaccinations before heading to Reading yesterday, the potential for a total and utter let-down was worrying. Sure, the Red Album and (sigh) Raditude were both more useful as paperweights than as records, and expectations of the band's festival shows had probably lowered overall, but the faith in River's genius is still strong in a lot of people, and his band's first three and a half albums (that's right - Maladroit's singles are awesome) constitute a ridiculously good back catalogue. Theoretically, that is. Because someone who sees fit to write and record something as turgid as "In The Mall" might just be capable of leaving "Buddy Holly" off of a festival set list.

In that last respect, we needn't have worried. They played it as their last song and it sounded awesome. It was what came before that was less of a straight-forward affair. Rivers stage persona these days looks like the Woody-Allen-esque nerd he is, but behaves like 8-year-old trying to impress a family gathering. There was a silly wolf hat, a mudbath, high-fives for everyone in the first 3 rows, and some covers. Ah, the covers. Many fans will fume at the fact that they thought it more appropriate to play cover songs and not a single track off of Pinkerton, but my guess is that most of these people will not have been at Reading yesterday - when they started doodling the intro to "Teenage Dirtbag", I thought it was a lovely little joke about how people used to confuse the two bands back in the day, but as it became clear they'd play the whole song, everyone around us just embraced it and sang along like it was a Weezer classic.

"Kids" was played in the same straight-faced way, and you could tell Rivers (like lots of others) just appreciates MGMT and wanted to create a fun moment at a festival. I'd rather watch that than a deadly serious, arty-angsty Foals set, ta very much*.

Sure, "The Good Life" or "Don't let go" would have been nice, but we got "Surf Wax America", "My Name is Jonas" and fucking "Undone"! (New single "Memories" sounded a bit pants though - catchy enough but rather Rivers-by-numbers) And if the rumours are true, we'll get all the "proper" Weezer songs in their full glory anyway. In the mean-time, I'll keep trawling Youtube for some decent footage of Rivers falling over in the mud and the bit where everyone hopped up and down for the 'hip, hip's in "Island in the Sun".

*being slightly facetious here - they probably played a banging set, but my point is that I'd rather see a band like Weezer play a big festival slot than a band like Foals play a small festival slot, if that makes sense.

Oye mi cumbia

Last night at the Hackney Empire, Barbican's Blaze Festival kicked off with more venom than Mark Van Bommel the other day. I'd heard of the first act, Céu, but not much of her music. Turns out that while she's fucking beautiful, her music is exactly the kind of inoffensive, Starbucks-endorsed mix of jazz and samba that caters to a demographic that I'd rather die of dysentery than become a part of. Her vocals were gorgeous -  "throaty" yet smooth, expressive but without any of the melismatic warbling you sometimes get with overeager singers - but while people seemed to dig her (did  I mention she was insanely beautiful?), the songs just weren't up to much. That said, there was a killer accordion (!) solo at some point and the DJ managed to fill the gaps left by the sparse set-up (vocals, bass, drums, keys) with some nice loops and vocal samples. 

But I was mainly there to see fellow Bogotános Bomba Estéreo, and man, if  I had needed any more incentive to leave England and go to Colombia, I got it. They were incredible. There were some almost shoegaze-y feedback orgies early on which had me a bit worried, but after three songs they got into their groove and down to business. Liliana Saumet, dressed a bit like an ethnic Skins extra, wasn't half the dancer Céu was, but a lot more fun to watch once she'd shaken off initial nerves. I didn't know any of their music before last night, and having listened to their last album, "Blow Up" a few times, I have to say it doesn't come close to conveying just how fucking punchy and fiery they are live. The drummer was an absolute beast, building crescendos up for what seemed like ages, then dropped a beat bigger than the steaks on the Uruguayan national team's BBQ. On record, the fusion of cumbia and champeta, laptop beats, clean, angular guitar lines and Liliana's rhymes about consumerism and racial politics sounds somewhat more sterile, but last night every bass line hit the spot. The crowd were a pretty even mix of expat Colombians and Brazilians, hipsters asserting their cosmopolitan credentials (it was  East London after all) and middle-aged white dudes in horrific flower shirts from Surrey, but by the end of the set they were all dancing down the front, animating their friends to join them, fellating each other (ok, maybe not the last bit, but there was some pretty heavy petting going on). 

Now to get that teaching job in Bogotá and emigrate... I wish.

Good band alert - Young Legionnaire

So I've been listening to the great and greatly missed I Was A Cub Scout a bit recently, and wondered what had become of them. Then I remembered that the drummer had, apart from playing drums for La Roux, played a gig with Friendship at the Old Blue Last a couple of months back, with his new band. I also remembered that new band being very good that night (definitely better than Friendship), despite it being their first or second show or something, and that they didn't even have a Myspace at a time. So today, I had a browse and a click and, sha-zam, not only do they have a Myspace, they've also got a 7" coming out next month. Back of the net.

The A-side, "Colossus", is a lovely, grungey bit of alternative rock that's emo in a manly, Rival Schools kinda way. The guitars are meaty and you can sort of guess it's the 100% sick William Bowerman (who's also in the awesome instrumental math-rock-with-testicles band Brontide) on drums - not because it's showy, double-bass-y drumming, but because it's interesting, misleading and off-message in all the right places.

But for me it's the B-side, "Iron Dream", that makes this release. It starts with a great tricky riff, and is more straightforward and driving than "Colossus". The vocals kind of remind me of The Thermals, and the whole thing has the tone and feel of the recent batch of more-than-solid bands who listen to stuff like Mclusky and Superchunk rather than Black Tambourine. I never really got Yourcodenameis:Milo, but considering it was this lot's singer and bassist's old project, I might have to check them out again. But only after I've played these two songs to death.

World Cup dread

So, the FIFA World Cup kicks off tomorrow. Yay. Don't want to rub it in too much for those who have actual, real jobs that require them to leave the house in the morning, but I have no intention of spending the next month doing much else other than drink beer, eat (preferably grilled meat) and watch the beautiful game.

Ah, but there is a catch. Apart from the fact that I really should be getting on with finding a job, there is the much bigger concern of whom to support over the next couple of excitement- and alcohol-fuelled weeks. This isn't as straightforward a choice as I'd like it to be. Roughly 65% of the whole fun about watching football is rooting for one of the two competing teams and investing some emotional capital in their achievements. 30% consists of "analysing" what happens on the pitch - y'know, the positions people take up, the amount and directions of the runs they make, the body language of the managers, etc (this, by the way, is done at almost unbearable - but still admirable - length and detail at nerd-spots like Zonal Marking). The remaining 5% is taken up by cheering whenever Chelsea/Bayern Munich/United/France/Juventus lose.

As I have said before, I find it very difficult to muster up any support for the German team. I mean, I do still get the odd goosebumps when I hear the national anthem, but that's mainly because it's one of the most bitching national anthems around and less because of any kind of national pride. They have a young team, some awesome players (Mueller, Oezil, Lahm) and will inevitably end up in the semi-finals. And yet, and yet. England has become my home, and I really believe that you can get attached to a national team that isn't the country of your birth if you feel a strong connection to it and its people. That is, excluding the bulk of their football supporters. Fans of national football teams, put together into close proximity to each other, to me resemble an ugly, unpredictable human version of the rat king, spewing shit beer and casual racism.

When I mention to other Germans that I've liked the look of every Dutch team at the last couple of tournaments, they look at me like I've got a wart the size of a beer mat on my forehead, and England fans to whom I confide that I want their team to do well probably assume I'm trying to suck up to them, but I'm not.

All of this means that I'll watch a lot of games either alone or in an awkward kind of emotional limbo, not wanting to appear like a traitor or gloryhunter, but at the same time trying not to give in to the (in my opinion) blind optimism/rage of "patriotic" supporters.

Tim Dowling got to the point I'm trying to make a lot quicker and more succinctly in yesterday's G2: "As someone who was not born in Britain, who remains suspicious of collective experience of any kind and who finds the soft line between patriotism and hooliganism as fuzy as the distinction between a legitimate tackle and aggrevated assault, I'm going to offer a piece of advice: give in."

I'll go and buy a Holland shirt with van Bronckhorst on the back now. This will be a long month

Don't believe the hype machine

Listening to Christopher Weingarten is less fun than reading his writing. Not because he often comes across as that kind of whiney nerd who swears too much for effect, but because he's right. His speech at last year's 140 Characters Conference kind of summed up my thoughts about music writing and re-inforced the fear that there is little to no chance of making any money from it. He recently gave another speech at this year's conference, (below), and, what can I say, dude's got more points than Michael Jordan has won MVP's. For someone who is still trying/pretending to be/become a music writer, it's depressing viewing.


What he calls "wet spitballs of non-news" being lobbed around Twitter is a phenomenon visible to anyone who logs on to the wretched thing whenever there's a gig of a certain importance going on. Every music magazine or webzine will have someone at the gig "covering" it - but not just, as you might expect, in the form of a knowledgeable review, but in a kind of verbally constipated, stuttering "live-feed" that reads like a collection of haikus written by a drunk 5-year-old. Some of these writers actually do this voluntarily, which makes it even worse. It's like if you didn't tweet about how Courtney Love just dropped her guitar onto her roadie's head, you weren't there.

The bit about "exclusive content" is spot on, too - although I have to say the Guardian's new(ish) way of streaming soon-to-be-released albums (The Hold Steady, The Fall, Hole) and letting a critic in in an actual dialogue with those who comment (rather than just let them pile up into an unreadable mess) is an idea worth mulling over - until you think about just how quickly these streams will end up on What.CD and Mininova.

But yeah, right on, Chris. Thanks for getting my hopes up. Oh, and the new Broken Social Scene doesn't suck.

Drive like you stole it

On Wednesday, my housemate and me went to the rather brilliant True Stories Told Live night. We were probably the youngest and poorest in the audience, but we still enjoyed it. The standard wasn't quite as high as the last time I went (but then, last time I had a seat and a bit more to drink, so I might've been biased), but the standout story still made me laugh, like, lots. It was about how the protagonist and storyteller had, after reversing the family car into his parents' kitchen extension when he was 17, never learnt to drive and, as a result, had to ride his bicycle to work. In Los Angeles. On a highway. Summarised, it doesn't sound all that interesting, but he made it very funny and engaging.

It made me think about my relationship with driving, and with a more-than-average cringe I remembered how I failed not one, not two but three practical driving tests before finally passing. My instructor was a no-nonsense Spaniard who had lived in London all his life but still talked like Rafa Benitez on Ritalin. I don't know how it happened, but somehow he ended up teaching pretty much everyone from the German School who was over 17. Anyway, I didn't make it easy for him (quote: "Wow. You've done it. You're actually on the pavement.") and, to my shame, haven't really driven since I passed. I once picked up a friend from the airport, and after getting back safely, she said I drive "like a butcher". Don't think that was a compliment.

Theoretically, I should be an awesome driver - Germans make the best cars in the world, and my dad is a great driver. He grew up on a farm and drove one of these bad boys at the age of 14. He's never had an accident in his life and, when my mum gave him a race car driving course for his birthday, he won the "Driver of the day" award. That's how good he is. So why am I so fucking useless behind the wheel? It might have something to do with the fact that I know nothing about cars (I was once asked in a mock interview: "If you were a car, which one would you be?" I said: "A red one"). I vaguely remembered my dad telling me about the clutch and the accelerator and stuff, he literally drew me a picture and explained it well - but if you asked me right now how to check the oil level, I'd have to pass.

I think I'd enjoy driving if I did it more, but as it is, I sometimes have actual nightmares about driving. The main scenario is that I'm stuck behind the wheel of a car that, for whatever reason, doesn't have working breaks, resulting in a kind of murderous rampage reminiscent of GTA, where I bump into water hydrants, walls, other cars and people, while trying to estimate how much this is gonna cost me in damages (I can't seem to switch off my paranoia even in a dream).

In the story I mentioned at the beginning, the guy made the point that you should do things like learning to drive as soon as you get the chance, because you never know if you ever get round to doing them, which is a fair point. But I feel in no way qualified to, say, take my (hypothetical) wife and kids for a spin or even on a camping holiday. And I know there will come a time when I won't be able to cop out of driving a car, but for now, I think I'll cross that particular bridge when I get to it.

Eight years ago...

...my family and I drove from Germany through Belgium and France to England, where my father had been transferred to a year earlier. I know this isn't as much of a milestone as five years or ten years would have been, but I needed some kind of inspiration to get this going again, and this was something that I thought I could milk for the first update in a while. And the format in which this will go down is the old favourite, the list. I was going to do a list of "8 things I love about living in England", but in my unimaginative and jaded frame of mind, I could only come up with 4. Might do "4 things I hate about living in England" soon. Uninspired and obvious is apparently how I roll these days. Anyhow, here it goes.

1. The language
Apparently English was the first language I ever spoke, back in kindergarten in upstate NY. I don't remember this, but I do remember watching the US version  of Cartoon Network with my brother when we were about six or seven. Every Friday and Saturday, we were allowed an hour and a half of TV, and although we didn't have a clue what all those weirdly coloured cats were saying, it was better than the shit that passed for entertainment on German television. At school, I thought English was the coolest language ever. I read Lord of the Flies without understanding the main plot element but felt so cool it almost made up for the fact I didn't have any friends. I envied Americans and Brits their language, their writers, and their books. I still do - my favourite writers are almost exclusively American and British - and even though I'm OK at speaking and writing in English (WAY better than I was when I first moved here), I'll never be able to command words and sentences the way good native speakers and writers can.You lucky bastards. 


2. The girls
Now, that is a difficult point. Because girls - I think that much we can all agree on - are pretty mental, regardless of their nationality. However. While British girls have a bit of a rep for being easy like Sunday morning, drinking like camels and generally being a bit rowdy, most of them are also polite in that inherently British way. You get the feeling they'd rather eat glass than embarass you or make you feel uncomfortable. And since I'm very easily embarassed and pretty much live in a bubble of inadequacy, this makes me warm to them a lot. Obviously there are many irritating exceptions, but the female friends I've made here in the last few years are gobby, loud, smart, funny, good drinkers and lovely people.No British girlfriend so far though. Fucking racists.

3. The football
This point obviously refers to the English Premier League, the only one that matters for a football tourist like me. I'll watch a scrappy lower division match once a year, but why put up with that when you can watch the ridiculous, overblown, obscene and awesome blockbuster that is the Premier League? I know that in Italy and Germany you can still smoke and drink (both of which I fully approve of) inside the grounds, and the tickets are cheaper, and that every successful English team is owned by Americans or Russians or Arabs, but the way the whole country goes mental about every single detail of the game still gets me. Plus, have you watched any games in Italy or Germany recently? No offence, but it's bloody boring 80% of the time. People complain about 'the big four' over here, but Inter, Bayern and Barca in Spain pretty much stroll through every season without a serious challenge. Incidentally, some of my favourite Premier League players are Robbie Fowler, Dennis Bergkamp, Steven Gerrard, Gianfranco Zola and Danny Murphy.

4. Nando's
Never mind the ever-rising prices, the awful salsa cover compilations playing in every outlet, the Rose that tastes like a rusting car, the massive variance of the amount of chips that are served, the pitch-dark, cavernous restaurants, the rage-inducing script the staff have to go through ("Table number? How spicy? Double or single? Cheese or pinapple? Nuts or olives?" etc.), the fact that no matter how often you've ordered extra Halloumi cheese INSIDE THE BURGER at the same branch, they insist on serving it on a seperate plate and the frankly tiny ketchup bottles, this fine food institution has served me well in the last couple of years. Every other visit, my friends and I try to estimate how much money we've spunked up the walls in the various branches, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was approaching the £1000 mark (when I was 15/16, every Friday AND Saturday night involved a visit to the Richmond restaurant). Comfort food at it's finest, and no Kebab from Berlin, no Pizza from Milan and no Leberkaessemmel from Munich could measure up to the sensation of sinking your teeth into a Hot Chicken Burger with extra Garlic Sauce. Fuck, I really want one now.