brrrrr

If it's blurry, it's only because my hands were shaking and my legs were numb. Does anyone know if they make flannel-lined jeans?

J., who is visiting from warmer climes, is looking rather chilled, but bearing up well, and appreciating the excuse to drink warming grog, warming hot honey liqueur, warming hot cider, warming hot wine and eat warming hot trdlo, warming assorted cookies and warming fried cheese. Now we're looking forward to the pre-Christmas Open Air Slaughter of the Carp.

Czech informants have also confirmed that some families still take home said carp and keep them in the bath for a few days as an alternative (something to do with filtering out the muddy water). Fortunately, we only have a shower, and I have laid down strict rules about the acceptable use of the washing machine after Ye Grate Fludes, I II and III, and Ye Majorre Delyuge IV.

CleaR! Bzzzp! Bzzzp!

"Hey, so have you got done your Christmas present shopping yet?"
"No."
"Oh."
"And it's already too late for some. Unless I order online locally."
"That's okay. Look, you can order the Philips HeartStart Home Defibrillator with Slim Carrying Case from Amazon.com. only $1,275.00. Free shipping within the contiguous US."
"Not bad. They were saying the paper the other week how the exchange rate was getting more favorable."
"Yeah. You could probably get the storage cabinet as well."
"Nice. It's very clearly labelled."
"Only 4 in stock, mind you. Better get one soon."
"But if I order the HeartStart Defibrillator without the Slim Carrying Case for only $1,249.00 I can get the Free Philips HeartStart Home Automated External Defibrillator Adult Training Pads Kit instead."
"What a dilemma."
"Yeah. Maybe I'll just send those biscuits instead. The ones with vanilla filling."

Updates

Flatmate update:

She came, she collected, she went.

Have a new one now and am focussed on lowering my expectations mightily. I'm anticipating achieving suspicious serial killer behaviour by Wednesday (insert joke about muesli here).

Weather update:

Snooooolluussshh. But cold. The hat with the earflaps has come out of storage, and I am monitoring the incremental plummet of the temperature on the way into work via the digital display in front of the pet supplies store.

Edited to add: except for today, when it went up again. But there's snow in the mountains this year, and people keep sneaking off for mid-week skiing sessions

24 hours in Berlin update:

The only thing that it is possible to obtain in the big shopping mall atop Berlin Hauptbahnhof (I now call it Hbf for that air of Teutonic coolness) that I cannot buy here are fist-sized Dunkin' Doughnuts and fragments of The Wall. Instead, enterprising urchins supply the souvenir-hungry tourist with historic cobbles "from the streets of Old Prague", and we have endless variations on the twisty-sweet-bread theme, but while many are filled, none are fried.

Weird to think that only twenty years ago the sight of a Coke bottle was a novelty, and that a lot of the people I know here can still vividly remember the arrival of the first MacDonald's in Prague. But they did have little brown plastic hand-held video games of a fox/wolf and a duck. It seems a little like a parallel universe where the playmobil figures were machinists and miners, rather than doctors and firemen.

Back in Berlin, luckily for me, B. showed stunning resourcefulness in eventually locating me so I didn't have to take the last train back on Saturday and instead got my 24 hours in Kreuzberg.

DVD addiction update:

Six Feet Under. Blimey it's good. And I think I have a whole 6 seasons to catch up on. Woohoo.

Blogger language update:

It's gone back to Czech.

Mrs. Jana update:

It seems a second Mrs. Jana is hoving into view on the horizon. I will know more the weekend after this one.

Date update

I ate dates in Berlin. Also a persimmon.

SpiegelimspiegellegeipsmilegeipS

Might be better to pretend that I published this about two days ago - it will be easier all round, and make me appear organised and consistent. Ahem

The Athenian Murders - Jose Carlos Somoza

I find it hard to believe that I have never unleashed the chains on my abiding and unspeakable desire for this book here before. But that's what the mighty power of the search engine shows. Shock. Horror. Smothered yawn. Be afraid. However, I re-read it recently, which makes it count in this mini festival of bookstravaganzic delights, allowing it (the mini-fest, that is) to live another day.

But enough of this introductory flimflam, I hear my inner monkey editor cry, speak more of this unspeakable love. For yes, this book contains innumerable shades of the love that dare not speak its name. Inter-textual love. Academic twistiness and japery of the driest kind. Philosophical shadow puppetry. Flagrant abuse of literary meta-jiggery. Tricksiness a go-go. I love it all with the unholy passion of a thousand geeky monkeys. The ones that are otherwise busily making rude shadow animals, sun-bathing and short-sheeting the Platonic bed.

For verily, these are Ancient Greeks of whom I write, or rather of whom the author writes and from whom I steal jokes. Smart koulourakia to a man, right down to their dusty ankles (except the one in the bath).

Well, actually, it is more that these are Ancient Greeks upon whom the author uses the character of the Translator to write or comment. Or their ideas. Except these might be copies of the original copy of the ideal first idea. And anyhow, what about those lions? See what I mean? This is book which defies anyone, least of all a lowly blogger armed only with the dubious merits of the English relative clause to shove its translated-from-the-original-Spanish-self into a halfway decent summary. It's a tricksy book about Ideas, lightly glazed with a few corpses, a sinister subplot (or is it?) and finished off with an anti-sleuth. I think the Salon article explained it best, and the Guardian review is more entertaining, which leaves me to only do my worst.

Basically it features:
Death
Murder
Poison
Bodies
Wolves (or lions)
Greeks (ancient)
Academics (ancient and modern)
Philosophy (mostly Greek and ancient)
Ideas-with-a-big-I. Bigger I. No, a really big I.
Texts. (not the SMS kind)
Budding insanity
Reality. (Jim)
Footnotes. Le sigh. Les bambi eyes. Le sigh.

A quick scan of the Amazon and Salon reviews, which are proper reviews with plot synopses and everything a prospective reader could desire, indicates that this book is of the love-it-or-hate-it Marmite type. I'd agree, although I'd add to my review overview that despite the inclusion of footnotes and such it's closer to Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next (not Nursery Crimes) books than Terry Pratchett, but not at all as cheerfully bonkers and far more menacing and introverted. Thursday Next's rather disturbing great-uncle professor who lost tenure under the darkest of clouds as written by Borges (he comes back later), perhaps.

A scan of the the reviews of the "urrggh, Marmite, blech"-type shows that this isn't the book for readers who just can't abide Umberto Eco and writers of his ilk. But I think that if it's just Eco's prose style that puts you off, rather than his content, it's worth looking at this book, purely on the grounds that Eco can leave the unwary reader feeling trapped in the coils of his rococco prose. Somoza's style (and oh, how I long to write Samosa's style) is less elaborated than Eco's and more lucid. The disorientating, clever twistiness remains, but I didn't feel as if I were also being showered with the shredded contents of a gilded thesaurus by a million pudgy putti.

The other thing to add to the review overview is that I wouldn't read this book looking for the next historical whodunnit à la grecque. Thither lies disappointment. There's a murder, but that's not really the whole point, and the ending isn't exactly Christie.

On the other hand if deep-down, you secretly rather enjoy following digs and snide asides as academics wrangle over obscure points and interpretations via cross-references and footnotes, even though you know this means you are turning into your father (hairy ears and all) you will probably enjoy this. Besides, it's a book about books, playing with other books.* If you like it when an author constantly pulls the rug out from under your feet, even if it's technically cheating (or at least, making up the rules as he goes along) read on.

For me, the best part of the book is sitting back, relaxing and letting the the author, or narrator, or translator or whoever mess with my mind. He or she or it or whoever might make things up. He might even take the piss a few times. But even though I've read it a few times now, this book invariably leaves me with the oddest combination of two very distinct, and yet long-winded feelings:

1.I get the buzz that normally happens when the stars align and somehow I'm able to work out a series of clues for a cryptic crossword.
2.But at the same time, it leaves me genuinely unsettled. Not in the the "AAa! Whatwasthatnoise? AAAaa!" way, though. Instead, it's in the "But what if I go to sleep and it turns out that this life is really something/one dreaming and then who/whatever is dreaming wakes up while I'm asleep and what happens then????aaaahhhh!!! No wait! What about what we see in the mirrors!!! aaah!!!!" kind of way.

Best to put it like this - it's one of the few books that actually made me think it might be a good idea to read some more Borges. One of these days. As long as there's enough coffee.

*Except they didn't really have books in those days. Or novels, as Salon points out. Probably they didn't have philosopher-detectives too, but at least there were libraries and monkeys. There were no monk-how do you know? you were too busy contemplating the exercise non-outfits of those ancient greek athletes. I WAS NO-- And anyhow, My mind was SO COMPLETELY on higher thin- do you know what people think when you stick a footnote like this at the end of this kind of review? Especially one where you name-drop Borges, TWICE. I'll tell you what they think. They think, "What a pretentious tw--"

Bishbashbosh

…aka brief impressionist sketches of some recent (in the last year) book encounters. Still not reviewing them properly, I might add, and will likely be annoyingly nonspecific or focus on minutiae to the exclusion of all else.

The Privilege of the Sword - Ellen Kushner

I almost don't want to write anything about this book and why I love it with the unholy passion of thousand raging monkeys. Partly because I'd never heard of the writer or the book, and picked it up at random, unhyped, undusted and lonely off a "recent releases" bookshelf in a sci-fi/fantasy bookstore. Then I forgot about it completely for 6 months. So I started it with no expectations.

The course of true love went something along these lines: p.1, "ehh?" p.2, "er… not…so...su..." p.3 "re?...about thisoneohmygodmustkeepreadingohwowohwowAndAMadDuke!ooohwowohwowiloovveeyooouuboookyoulovelyboookdon'tennddmustn'tfinishnevereverenddddoohnnooopleeeaaassse! Swoon."

In other (real) words, it's the sort of YA fantasy novel that gets it somehow perfect. Perfect in that impossible, magical way that adult books simply cannot manage. I just want to hug it to myself and read it over and over. Talking might spoil it. The thought of breaking up the magic into digestible chunks of detail and peeling away at plot and character analysis makes me want to cry. That's how my Grade 5 English teacher killed My Family and Other Animals.

So I don't want to hype or vaunt or trumpet the praises of this book at all. I just want to leave it lying battered and well-loved in the corner of a bookcase at a friend's house so that you can pick it up at random on a rainy day. So that you can curl up with it in a warm, quiet corner at the top of the house. So that your flannel-clad and fuzzy-socked self can look out the window and see the rain-washed day outside when the world taking shape in your head becomes too bright to bear. So that you end up eating all the stale nuts and the squashed half-packet of digestives that were left out from yesterday's tea because absolutely the last thing you want to do is stop reading, get up, prepare and eat a proper meal. So that you can fall in love, too.

If you want to know what it's really about, there are proper reviews to read at Amazon, and also chez ames. As for me, I've managed to track down and acquire two other books by the same author. The only problem is that I can't yet bring myself to read them because I'm so worried that they won't have the same effect as this one.

Too embarrassed to call it anything but number seven

The thing is, someone else recently told me about one of their former flatmates, the pinnacle of whose appalling behaviour was his attempt to drive out P. from his council-provided splendour with twin offensives in the form of poor personal hygiene and flamboyantly noisy live-in lovers squatting on the sofa. This was followed up by a pathetic attempt to steal P.'s identity and thereby claim his benefits.

The plot was foiled by the aforementioned vociferous and as it turned out, spurned and vengeful lover Revealing All, and I mean All in the menswear department of Dickens and Jones. But it was the seventies, it might have worked.

I am now a little embarrassed at my previous description of my erstwhile flatmate's behaviour as "appalling". A trifle annoying perhaps. A mild social solecism. And of course, now that my own level of righteous anger has faded to mildly pissed off, I feel guilt and ashamedly petty about my own actions.

To sum up, I returned home after a week away to find a message that read, "I have decided I hate it here. I have left work and moved back home. I need to know what to do with the keys. Don't worry about paying me back for the rest of this month's rent."

This would be the person who had agreed that because of her lack of deposit and general uncertainty about life, the universe and tram times she would give me a definite 4 weeks notice of her plans to vacate or pay the difference. The one who had organised her entire life here (including a fall-back career and alternative Friday job) in advance from the other side of the world before arriving. The one who had never lifted a finger to do any cleaning and kept her own store of toilet paper in her room, since it seems that short lets do not dust or have a communal attitude to personal hygiene products (although other people's DVDs are another matter). The one who left only three days before next month's rent was due, which would make it a three days rent-but-no-tenant-bonus. Ice creams are on me.

A few weeks later, no sign of the keys in the post, but a further message, "My friends are coming to stay in Hotel XYZ for the weekend. Please take the things I left behind around to their hotel for me so they can bring them back for me. Don't bother about the food or anything, just the clothes, shoes and bags."

These would be the clothes that had been left in dirty piles on the floor (now laundered) or mildewing gently in the washing machine on my return. With shoes and everything, the enormous canvas holdall allocated to the task weighed about 20 kilos (44 lbs.) and would have required a taxi to deliver.

Gentle readers, I said no.

Today falls on the last day of the weekend of the visitation and I have not taken the items around. The weather is bad, the taxi drivers are angry, the hotel has steps. Twenty navy-blue, canvas kilos of guilt are weighing on my conscience with fraying straps.

Im Not Dedd Yet.

But I'm in some kind of doldrums, where I'm paddling furiously but don't seem to be getting anywhere fast.

Anyhow, in my "to blog" list appears the following:
1. Extended posting extravaganza on "The Colour Purple", including why I spell it wrong.
2. Some really good series books I've read lately (like, in the past year).
3. Spreading book love to a bunch of standalones too.
4. Kyrse of the Whamphyre Pt. 3278, rev.7a, or "If I skim read the LKH releases in hardback in Borders instead of buying them, it's a) not tight and mean, and b) doesn't count in the rotting of grey matter stakes (like calories from food you don't like, or eat standing up. Pun unintentional.).
5. Sausages.
6. Things that people miss in the Czech Rep. with a very long digression by a French person on seafood.
7. The Appalling Behaviour Of My New Ex-Flatmate Who Has Done A Runner. And she seemed so normal, too.
8. Should I get flying lessons?
9. Does anyone else always look to see who's listed in the copyright of a book?
10. House. Better in small chunks as otherwise, you see the joins.
11. Hair. Tralalala.
12. Greetings (not Hallmark).
13. Burčak. Drink it before it brews. It's cultural.

14. I'm hungry.

Problem is of course, that the more I don't write about them, the more I don't want to write about them. So I think I might jettison some of the trivia, and when someone takes this bloody grindstone off my neck (nose has slipped) I'll just do number 1.

Oooohhhh, ye'll take the high road...

Warning: This post is also going to be another one of those definitely-not-a-book-review-picky-harridan-spouting-bad-puns rants. Not a review, 'cos then I'd be adding my 2p/80 hellers to Amazon instead, and talking about characterisation and plot and whatnot, but 42 others have done this, with the average rating coming out pretty… average. Which would be my opinion, except for, well, what follows. Bear (hurhur) with me.

There's an episode in one of the Paddington Bear books (and I googled until I was getting very red-faced from some of the sites that did appear, but couldn't find the name) where the marmalade-munching bundle of good-yet-furry intentions goes to Scotland Yard to report a crime. Confusion, mishaps and hard stares ensue, followed by a swift resolution and a warming mug of hot cocoa. Awww...

But there's a clue to my dismay at my latest commute book here, because Paddington Bear lives with the Greens at 32 Windsor Gardens. This is located in Notting Hill. That would be Notting Hill, London, England. Like the film and the carnival. It's quite posh, actually. But the key point? Is the "England" bit. Note how it's not "Scotland". Scotland is a long way on paws (although not as far as Peru).

But of course, Paddington is anthropomorphosized bear, so perhaps we shouldn't rely on his sense of orientation. After all, who knows what kind of funny practices he might have picked up in Darkest Peru? That supra-cranial stash marmalade sandwiches is definitely suspicious.

So take the case of the most famous dope-addled detective of them all, Sherlock Holmes, who famously puffed on his pipe at 221b Baker Street. Again, in London, England. Where he would periodically show up his rival in detecting, Inspector Lestrade, who worked for Scotland Yard. Presumably also in London unless he had a very fast horse.

But shockingly (perhaps it's a cunning ruse to lull local criminal masterminds into a false sense of security by convincing them that the police have moved and are busy looking for nefarious deeds elsewhere) the Metropolitan Police Force, who police Greater London, have an HQ called, "New Scotland Yard". In England. Not Scotland. There's a big triangular sign in front that goes round and round and round and round... I've gone past it on the bus (yes, a red double-decker one).

Or perhaps it's just that 180 years ago, the public entrance of the police HQ was in Great Scotland Yard, and London being London, the name stuck, even after it moved few times (but only within London). What this says about Londoners, I'm not sure. It's probably not flattering. At least they stuck the "New" on at the beginning. Anyhow, keeping the name wasn't so much about foiling dastardly villains, but dastardly villainous filing. (oh help)

So if, say, a writer of contemporary romantic suspense were to feature a psychotic serial killer going on a mad rampage through the modern-day Highlands, I'm pretty damn sure that the local laird (uuurrgggh) wouldn't be calling for and/or dodging the attention of Inspector MacTypecast from Scotland Yard. There's that whole 12-plus hours journey on a very dull motorway with nothing but boiled sweets and local radio for sustenance for one.

Instead, Laird MacTitebreeks o' Leathern (uuuurrggh) would be enjoying a visit by representatives of the Northern Constabulary CID. Probably a whole bunch of them with forensic investigators and everything. Maybe a task force in fluorescent vests. Maybe even a secret subdivision of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency staffed by a brotherhood of vampires. Ian Rankin probably knows best.

Someone, somewhere is very glad I dumped that business about UK police ranks and how they're referred to in the vernacular.

In case anyone was looking to for the terrifyingly-long first draft mentioned elsewhere...

I have to apologise because I did promise elsewhere that I would attempt to tame the unfeasibly long first draft of my commentary-thing on The Color Purple and present it, nicely trimmed (possibly with lavender ribbons) in manageable chunks here this weekend. And I really did mean to. Had it all planned in my head and everything.

Problem is that I'm over HERE. And the laptop is over THERE. And the back-up server with all these personal doodads and mumblings is JUST A BIT TO THE RIGHT, NO WAIT, UP A BIT… LEFT… LEFT… NO! RIGHT! RIGHT! But the whole thing was just too huge for me to reconstruct over the weekend, so guess what this week's filling-in-the-gaps project will be? By next Sunday, there will be something along these lines, 'kay?

Pause.

Then I started an entirely different rant, but that's another post for another time. Probably about 5 minutes from now.

Crrrracked.

So last weekend, still in the grip of my emotional maelstrom, and made reckless by a clutch of last month's unused food vouchers* I went a little wild and experimental in the bio-food emporium owned by the 7th Day Adventists (closed on Saturdays - it's very disconcerting. No trading on Sundays is still the norm here for smaller shops).

I should probably add that as a tree-hugging, muesli-crunching, hemp-sandal-wearing herbivore I am a regular patron of this and other bio-shops. It's just that I normally confine my purchases to things I recognise and know how to cook. You know where you are with tofu - it's not usually going to do anything more vicious than wobble alarmingly and take on lurid hues when it's past the sell-by date. And green leafy stuff is pretty much universally manageable.

But all those little bags of dried things can be a little intimidating, and most of the powdered stuff comes hand-labelled with vocabulary that doesn't feature in my "Czech Step-by-Step". They frown on the sniff test in there, too.

However, novelty is a many-splendoured thing, and last Sunday the "novinky" section was filled to the bursting with little (recycled) plastic pots of crackery-biscuitty type things. So after much deliberation I picked up box of "orange-lemon-ginger flax rolls". Sounds yummy. Mmmmm…

Luckily, as a small child I used to eat paper, so the principal texture and flavour didn't come as a total shock. And then, the flax seeds added a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole chewing experience which can only be described as "mucilage". (Is that a word? I have done that thing with soaked flaxseeds as a substitute for egg whites but was never very convinced by it.)

But I did learn the Czech for "Slowly dehydrated at 48 degrees centigrade for several hours to preserve health and vitality." And this made me realise that rather than delighting in biscuitty-goodness itself, I was basically eating the mummified husks of biscuits. The only thing is that I'm not sure if they're meant to reincarnate of their own accord or if I need to stand under a pyramid holding a razor and a dead mouse first. Pass the natron.

*Is this a Czech thing? Because pretty much every company here seems to pay a small fraction of your salary in food vouchers. Just like luncheon vouchers, but they're far more widely accepted, and you can use them in most restaurants, cafés and even supermarkets… Rules and checkout ladies permitting

Gone through the wringer have I...yes...

So... as of ten o'clock this morning, I am a real, genuine Evil Auntie. Words cannot describe (although I'm sure I'll recover shortly).

I've also just finished re-reading The Color Purple for banned books week at Smart Bitches'.

I have snot down my face and my favorite bookshop just gave me free promotional mug.

All in all, I'm an emotional yo-yo. Or is that Yoda? Yogurt?

There's a theme here... if I can just put my finger on it...

Obviously, I would be the one with wings.

I suppose it's one of those millenial things, but like a lot of people I know, the title used to describe what I do to keep the weresturgeon from the door doesn't really convey the vivid actuality my day-to-day existence.


Luckily, I've found a photo.

Afterthought: Is it just me, or does horror seem more horrible when spelled "horor"?

Have now reached chapter 13

In the below?

I was wrong. First of all, I've worked out that it's not a book. It's a character spec and storyboard for an RPG.

Secondly, my comparison with Boney M was a terrible injustice to one of the most notable jangly-pop-reggae collectives of the last century. They rhymed better, and had fewer annoying hobbies.

Finally, in a last-ditch attempt to lift the cloud of vwamphyrric gloom that was yesterday's post, and in the interests of fairness, some points of sweetness and light.:
1.The words are generally spelled correctly.
2.None of the character's names or hair colours (apart from a certain vagueness about the eyes) have changed midstream. I am very clear on the details of their physique. Man, big. Lady, small. Got it.
3.Same for the horses. Except there aren't any yet (werelynx, yes. horses, no) which is probably a relief.

Dilemma

Once again, I have fallen for the Kyrse of the Vwampyr (mwhahaha)™. Alas, all down to Robin McKinley's Sunshine, which I finally got around to reading. Hooray! A book that lived up to the hype that I have been oh-so-studiously avoiding. For once, the Buffy comparison was not unwarranted. It filled me with yeasty confidence in the possibility of other interesting-yet-unlikely-sounding books from the sub-genre in question.

Oh how wrong I was.

How wrong.

How very very very wrong.

Dufdufdufdufdufduf. Duf.

Mr. Lestat and J-C, (famed artistic creations of the vwamphyrrically bonkers kind, somewhat long-in-the-tooth, but that's muses for you) have a hell of a lot to answer for. Oh those… Carpathians, to paraphrase Boney M.

In fact, this latest book (for want of a better word, I mean, there are pages and a cover and actual printed words and such) reads to me like a Boney M version of "The Funky History of Drakula with lots of Russky-type-boinking and guns", sometimes set in Romania. Only with Italian subtitles. Featuring a nubile chorus of Egyptian gods wearing sparkly eyeliner and a ghostly, well let's call it a "tambourine", although that would be the wrong shape.

The only problem with that comparison is that I don't think Boney M took themselves quite as seriously as this book (or its heroine) does. No campy fun for us in our flowing pantaloons, oh no.

Still, there is hope. I'm only on chapter 7 (pages are turning quite slowly) and it's entirely possible that the heroine may smack her head against a convenient low-hanging tree branch, get amnesia and forget all the info she must dump along the way. Not sure what to do about every other character's single-minded determination to adore and worship every single fibre of her being, though.

Inadequately-researched digression into Romanian taste in popular music.

It was the chorus of happy Romanian peasants singing Peter, Paul and Mary songs in the pub, accompanied by the heroine on the guitar that pushed me to my current underpants-on-the-head level of despair and befuddlement. Actually, I asked the Romanians in the other office how they felt about Peter, Paul and Mary, or possibly, Petru, Pawel and Maria songs. But apparently, they like Shakira better. Hips don't lie.

End digression.

Since I'm now adament that I will finish this bloody book, I can only hope that there may be a cunning twist in the tail. Perhaps the heroine will whip out (maybe skip the whipping, though, because my imagination has enough to cope with, thankyouverymuch) the trusty, "main-character-as-evil-machinator" plot device (thank you, Dame Aggie).

She can then reveal that the entire preceding storyline is the result of a nefarious plot on her part to lobotomise every character with whom she comes into contact, turning them into brainless lumps of hunky man-jelly, who will be hers… (assume Truman Capote voice here) hers... to toy with... (a loony hand-washing gesture would not go amiss at this point).

Sigh.

Anyone else notice the dearth of decent female secondary characters when a heroine like this flounces, bitches and sweats perspires ahem, glows, her way across a few hundred pages of print?

Ddduf.

Lazy list

Ten things you can see/do in Prague that aren't mentioned in my very extensive collection of guidebooks (even the one that has reviews of, erm, houses of ill-repute).

1. Eat dumplings filled with smoked meat and served from a small brass cannon onto a wooden cheeseboard piled high with sauerkraut. (I've mentioned this before, but it's worth mentioning again).

2. See six German ladies of a certain age touring Prague in a seventy-seven year old, bright yellow, open-topped car with six wheels.

3. Have an excellent Thai massage.

4. Visit a museum dedicated to the most famous Czech who never lived, Jara Cimrman, including replicas of his most famous inventions, such as the triple-headed hammer, ladies' mugger-defense glove with retractable claws, or the gentleman's travelling chamberpot.

5. Drink an excellent cappuccino accompanied by a carrot "sandwich" (a slice of loaf that tastes a lot like a nutty carrot cake).

6. Not admire the statue of Jan Hus in Old Town Square because it's completely surrounded by hoardings for Skoda cars which are paying for its repairs, and beds of seasonal flowers, which aren't but make it look nicer.

7. Cruise the Vltava in pedalos (tide permitting).

8. Go roller-blading in one of the big parks outside the centre and play spot-the-most-obscure-yet-obscene piece of graffiti.

9. Wonder at the seemingly unstoppable flood of "Herna Non-Stop", 24 hour gambling shops (places too small and croupier-free to be called casinos) filled with flashing, ringing slot machines, a perpetual cloud of cigarette smoke and free drinks and snacks to playing punters.

10. Go(-)karting in Radotín, Europe's largest indoor karting track and finally understand where all the airport taxi drivers get their training.

(i can has breef postz)

The short version of the post below?

Escalators in the Prague metro are rather long and slow.

The end.

Moving stairway to nefilim

Somehow, while I have had enough time to stumble across ideas for blog posts and even managed to worry them around enough to find some of the rough edges, I haven't really had the time to bash them into shape. Consequently, when I do sit down at a keyboard for bloggish purposes, I don't even know where to start. It feels as if all these whirling fragments of posts have clogged up my back brain and it takes enormous concentration to get anything down - even a hopeful list of topics.

Personally, I blame the escalators. Escalator-based differences are one of those things that I noticed when I first arrived here, but which rapidly became part of the day-to-day pattern of my life. When I was first getting to know the glories of the Prague metro system, my thoughts when escalator-bound would go something like this:

"Ticket stamping machine… where's my ticket? Oh yes, here. No that's used, okay, yes, here it is."

Silent squishing noise (yes, it is possible) as ticket collapses in ticket stamping machine. Squish again. Squish again.

"Okay… not the ticket. Different machine."

Whirrrrr. Bzzpp. (electronic date-stamping noise). Walk to escalator. Stand. Stare at the back of people's heads, trapped by the lack of appropriate Czech verbiage. Stand some more. Brain flips into the same semi-meditative trance of resigned boredom that causes me to read the ingredients listing on cereal boxes at breakfast and starts looking for escalator equivalent of a nutrition label.

"Ohhhh. Strange-looking Czech words on posters. I recognise that brand. And that one too. But not that one. Hey, I know that word. I think that one is advertising a language school. Yes, "jazyky". I know that word. And "anglic-with-a-hacek-tina" too. Wow. I can read some Czech. So I wonder what that is? Oh "divadlo". That's theatre. So maybe a play? Or seasons? It's a black and white picture of two people with angst in their eyes. With an owl. Must be a play. What's the owl for? How far? What? I'm not even half-way down this thing yet. Bloody hell, this is taking for-ee-vaaahh. Borrreeed.

"What play has an owl? This is a long escalator. I wish that man would move to the right. I wonder what Czech for "please stand on the right is?" Hmmmm… trees of the year. The June one is nice. In London, there are signs and announcements. Very leafy, that May tree. Tree of May. Whatever. Why aren't there signs and announcements? Or is it moving very slowly? In London, heavy breathing makes people move. Don't Praguers understand the meaning of heavy-breathing-at-the-neck? Damn. I think that was my train.

"Yes, look, people are getting on the escalator from that side of the platform. Isn't this light a strange yellowy colour? And the ticket machines are yellow too. This is a really long escalator. I wish I could walk. Or speak enough Czech to ask them to move. Maybe they're tourists. Tourists in London don't always understand the heavy-breathing-at-the-neck thing. Even though they have pictures with big red "X"s. And announcements. But the announcements are only in English. Which is pretty idiotic.

"And there's that whole slow time thing too. Maybe they don't get the need to rush. That's nice. It probably means fewer heart attacks. I'm sure I read somewhere that the faster people walked in cities, the unhealthier they were. These people are probably keeping me healthy. Which is good. Really. But also annoying. Hey, so that's what Bourne Ultimatum is in Czech. Could I get a tree of the year? I would probably feel healthier about the not rushing if I wasn’t breathing in this incredibly unpleasant smell. Especially through warm air. How do people do things like that in ventilation?" Ad nauseam (ahem, big klew about smell there).

Three hours later (okay, actually 2 and a half minutes. E timed one once. But it's a veeerrryy sloooowwwww 2 and a half minutes), I am at last able to admire the unique platform architecture and dulcet tones of the (occasionally) trilingual announcements, where the Czech takes twice as long as the German or English versions, leaving me in a permanent state of anxiety about what important travel-related information I might be missing.

"Bing-bing. Dear passengers, for your safety, you are please asked to remain standing behind the white line." Well, it's white and black. And more grey than white, actually. "Bing-bing. Dear passengers. Already this Saturday Prague will become the venue of the Mattoni Night Grand Prix. The night run in the streets of Prague will affect the city transportation in the centre of Prague between nineteen thirty hours and twenty-two thirty hours. There will be tram service disruption in the section…"

But these days, everything just blurs into the getting-to-another-place zone of empty-headedness. It takes something spectacular along the lines of battling clowns to shake me out of auto-pilot. Familiarity breeds contemptplation (hurhur). So as my daily two to four escalators become the only point in the day where I can actually go into slow time, they give me just enough time to get irritated by a bit of mental grit, but no more. Actual coherent structures would require a bit more of, well, everything.

Fancy a brew?

There's plunder, and there's, well, I don't quite know what to call it now.

Naïve fool that I am, I had always assumed that the reason I was hauling back crates of Brand Y. Tea for myself and assorted other expats was one of those home-away-from-home things. Some adjustments are harder to make than others, especially bleary-eyed, early morning ones.

While good coffee is possible to achieve by dint of much banging of the supersonic coffee machine and the stealthy substitution of some Lavazza or other decent beans (kept under lock & key), the concept of a nice brew is light years away from the paper bags of fruit-flavoured wood shavings that usually appear under the the label here. Then there's the whole issue of preparation. The boiling of water first and the right sort of milk.

And I love tea. Proper tea I mean. Thick builder's tea that turns the milk a robust shade of mahogany. Tea you can stand spoon up in. Coffee just doesn't quite have the same effect in the mornings, it's too edgy, too acid. I need a big mug of tea that's almost a meal on its own to strip the flannel from my tastebuds. And then I need a few more to fuel me through the day. Somehow, I always thought that my fellow-drinkers out here needed their imports for the same sort of reason. It's what we're used to, and things don't feel quite the same without it.

Except I was wrong. It's not just that.

The other day, the undercover musician (80 bags, hard water blend) revealed that his particular brand is more than just a pick-me-up. It's a pick-them-up too. "Them" being his series of outstandingly attractive girlfriends. Nothing to do with the jazz cool, the sunglasses, the ability to riff for 2 hours solid and jam with gypsy punk trumpeters from the former Yugoslavia until his fingers bleed. Apparently it's all in the tea. Drop-dead gorgeous supermodel-types from the Czech Rep., Serbia and points east love it. Having never encountered a good cuppa (strong, milky and a good slug of sugar) they think it tastes amazing. And more importantly, because he drinks tea rather than beer, wine or slivovice for refreshment during the day, he's considered more stable and less likely to be plagued by an over-fondness for adult beverages, instantly moving him several points above his peers in the dating stakes.

Never the twains

…and then the wireless vanished, and we were left alone with nothing to do as night fell but sing to the sea and the sheep.

Unfortunately, we couldn't remember the words of many trad. songs about the sea, or sheep for that matter, so our choice of ditties was perhaps a little light. We stood with our trousers rolled up to our knees in the surf and ended up bellowing out a few choruses of Drunken Sailor and Yellow Submarine before we stubbed our gritty toes back up the beach. It was nice.

But the best bit was getting there.

Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I love trains. Not overwhelmingly or obsessively, you understand, but I think they are about my favorite means of transport. Somehow, going on holiday by train feels right. Going off for a weekend at the seaside by train is even more right.

This weekend, after the hard-core commuter line from Euston, followed by the usual hideous bank holiday mess around the Midlands there was the utter glory of a local service that ambled through North Wales, lurching between scenic splendours and industrial car parks. Periodically, after a flurry of engine shunting and frantic racing by confused passengers to the front or back two cars (as appropriate), carriage segments would break off to escape along branch lines to the sea.

My own fun-filled journey went something like this:

Euston. Fellow traveller missed train. Angry commuter line in shiny, yet souless Pendolino service to Wolverhampton. Had seat. Meanwhile, fellow traveller gets on another train. Goes wrong way.

Hellish bank holiday confusion/cancellation/delays at Birmingham New St. information desk. No seat, much waving of small pieces of paper.

Depressed local commuter line from Birmingham to Liverpool Lime St., descending at Wolverhampton. Had seat. Pieces of paper jettisoned.

Sit on Wolverhampton platform, looking anxiously at delay updates for train from Birmingham New St. that might-or-might-not be cancelled. Check clock. Fellow traveller has turned around and arrived in Telford by mysterious means. Check clock. An hour passes.

Train for Aberystwyth. It's the only one going anywhere Welsh-wards. Everyone else in Wolverhampton agrees and gets on the train. No seat. No carriage. Stand in loo. DUE TO THE CANCELLATION OF THE 18:42 SERVICE FROM BIRMINGHAM NEW STREET, PASSENGERS FOR ALL STATION**FRSTZZ** TO LL**-DDY*-*AOWFRSPZZ**DR SHOULD NOT CHANGE AT DOVEY JUNCTION BUT REMAIN ON THE SAME TRAIN AND F**PSS*8RR**--**RSTZ UP THE PLATFORM.

Move to behind the buffet car for the line to Pwllheli. PASSENGERS FOR ALL DESTINATIONS ON THE 19:27 TRAIN TO YSF*--ZZST--** SHOULD IMMEDIATELY BR::RSF**ARRGGHH--YZSZ--SZT***ting*** FOR THE LAST TRAIN TO LLF**R--SZZ_SHUN*GGK.

Train pulls out of the station the same way it came in. Seat is now backwards and disconcerts me. Night falls. Man from Birmingham with tent and beer produces map of North Wales and attempts to chart the course of his journey. THERE IS A TROLLEY SERVICE ON THIS TRAIN UNTIL BZZZST** Pencil line drawn by man from Birmingham with tent and beer falls into the Irish sea.

PASSENGERS ARE NOT PERMITTED TO MOVE BETWEEN CARRIAGES WHILE THEY ARE BEING DETATCHED. Run up the platform to the front two carriages at Machynlleth. Curse book-buying spree. Crash into fellow commuter, who has lost phone. Train turns around.THE TROLLEY SERVICE HAS NOW ENDED.

Train carriage is now devoid of life apart from selves, sleeping man from Birmingham with tent and no beer, and a family all speaking in Welsh. They wear shirts saying, "I support Wales and everyone playing the English." I hide behind book and fellow traveller tries to look Australian.

PASSENGERS ARE REQUESTED TO ADVISE THE CONDUCTOR IMMEDIATELY OF THEIR REQUIRED DESTINATION. THIS IS A REQUEST STOP SERVICE CALLING AT STATIONS TO F%RSZ*-*KKZT-WYD. THERE IS NO TROLLEY SERVICE ON THIS TRAIN. I advise conductor of our requested destination and she writes it on a little notepad.

Phone rings. Friend with car who is picking us up asks that we get off at another station, which is the second-stop-with-the-same-name-on-the-line. Tells us this three times. I advise conductor of our revised destination only once.

Once is enough. She sniffs. "You'll need to get off from the middle doors here." THERE IS NO TROLLEY SERV-- I am too afraid to confirm if she has decided to drop us at the first or second-station-with-the-same-name-on-the-line.

The platform is the size of a bus shelter, and we have to go through a cattle gate to leave the station. According to the rail timetable footnotes, at request stops marked with "x" , passengers desiring to join the train are advised to make themselves clearly visible to the train driver from the platform. Shades of "The Railway Children", methinks.

Noswaith dda

So here I am on the official edge of nowhere, very far in the remotest bit of North Wales, behind a mountain and two miles from the nearest village, Ll--y-aedw-ch--dd-w-w-ll-dd or something like that. And yet, inexplicably I have better and faster wireless internet than I did in the centre of freaking London all week.

Gotta love the wonders of the modern age...

Alas, I still have no time for anything in depth, but getting here I realised that the Welsh and the Czech languages both share an extreme antipathy for anything that looks like a vowel. And the "ch" noise too.