Day 95 Birthday tongue twisters.

So today I turn 44, which is a nightmare age for me.i am not a big worrier about age - 30 passed without fanfare, I was not too perturbed to be moving out of my twenties, after all I was healthy and happy and doing fine. Then people said ooh forty getting old, it's all down hill from here, but again I survived. Despite the fact I was in a weird place in my life, I managed to enter my 40s healthy and wise, (wealthy has never been my thing). So why is 44 such a problem for me? Well it is mainly because I live in the Czech Republic. That means sometimes I have to answer questions in Czech and they are often personal info questions, like name, age etc. the word for 44 in Czech is čtyřicet čtyři. Now if that looks like a nightmare to say it is because it is. Any word with a ř is a tongue twister for me, an insurmountable tongue twister that my poor mouth can't get around. Trying to say it can lead to jaw dislocation as I try to contort my mouth around the alien sounds. That or suffocation as I swallow my tongue trying to roll my rs. So please Czechs don't ask me my age for at least another year. 

Day 94 budget airline New York.

I've come to the conclusion that New York is like a budget airline. To start off with there are far more people here than is comfortable, everyone wants that little bit more leg room but only the priority boarders have it in their penthouse suites.

On top of this when you book a ticket for Brian Air or Greedy Jet you are quoted a price and you think that's a bargain. But then comes the extras, the tax, the luggage allowance, the return ticket premium. And that's the same in New York, you see something on the menu or in a shop but then you have to add on sales tax and tip meaning you need to add nearly 30% on to the price. For dumb foreigners like me it is very confusing and for the locals I can see them standing behind me thinking idiot Englishman. Finally they don't charge you for using public restrooms.

P.s. They are thinking idiot Englishman because even when I tell them I am welsh they stil call my English. 

Day 93 - the land of the free

America - the land of the free or so it claims to be. Strange then that there are so many rules and regulations that ensure the free do as they are told. 

Now I am not grumpy about this, I think it is right to keep dogs off the sand, to keep cars in lane and to keep hands clean. This is health and safety keeping us safe and healthy. No what annoys me is the Daily Mail brigade hold the USA up as a shining example of a place where there is no red tape, where health and safety is kept sane, of small government not interfering in our day to day lives. Yet actually in reality this country would have those who claim health and safety has gone mad apoplectic with rage. 

Day 92 - lifts

My hotel has the slowest lifts in the world. A no73 bus in London has come quicker than the lift in this hotel. I wonder if it is a way to save money, slow the lift down and save electricity. Anyway it's a pain because the are 14 floors in the hotel so if the lift is on floor 11, 12, 13 or 14, and it often seems to be you are guaranteed a nice long wait for the lift to arrive. Today I realised when I got to the ground floor, or level 1 as they call it here, that I went out with out my travel card. So I turned around and called the lift. Now somehow in the  split second that elapsed between me exiting the lift and realising I needed to get back into it, the lift had turned into the Usain Bolt of lifts, racing up to floor 14. But that must have tired the poor thing out as it meandered its way back down like a pensioner on Cowbridge Road in Canton. (Walking slowly, stopping every 3 steps to chat to a friend or coo over a baby and then wetting themselves.) 
Sorry I realise I should have called it the elevator but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. 

Day 91 Manhatten taxis

Close your eyes, go on close them,  I'm not going to do anything bad. Picture New York City, an Avenue lined with skyscrapers, crowded pavements, busy roads, the noise of the horns and the sirens, police whistles and people. What colour are most of the cars? And what do they look like? You probably answered yellow and they look like the cabs in the sitcom Taxi; old cumbersome vehicles with big steering wheels. That's how they were in my mind too but in reality they are not. They are all new cars, all shapes all sizes, all yellow but they are not the iconic New York taxi that lives in my imagination. What's more inside there are touch screens so you can choose your payment type. How dare the whole of New York ruin my holiday by secretly replacing all the taxis in the run up to my trip. bastards! Don't it always seem to go they you don't know what you got till it's gone. 

Day 90 - My poor feet.

God my feet hurt, they ache. They are as tired as a mother of a colic-y baby that's been up all night with colic. My left leg aches but my right one is throbbing with pain. Why did I walk so far? What is wrong with me? I am in a city with a perfectly good transportation system, with a subway, buses and taxis that will take me anywhere I want to go, and what do I do? I explore the bloody place by foot;  Chelsea Market!,the High Line, 5th Avenue, Central Park, zigzagging this way and that, watching the people, smelling the smells, enjoying the sounds. I reckon I walked 10 bloody miles. My poor feet. 

Day 89 - Alarm Call

My alarm rang this morning at 4.15. Four bloody fifteen, that's earlier than the practical joker in Krakow set the alarm for. I've climbed into bed later than that once or twice in my life. It's certainly no time to be climbing out of bed. They say it is 4.15 in the morning but I looked out of my window and it was certainly still very much night time. If night trams are still running then it is night time. I watched the street below bleary eyed as late night revellers competed with hedgehogs for pavement space. Why on earth am I getting up at this ungodly hour? Is anything worth being ripped from a sweet dream and having to leave a warm cosy bed stepping into a cold flat that feels miles away from the land of nod? It's utter madness, nobody should be subjected to this cruel and unusual punishment. It's inhumane. And to make matters worse when I got to the airport MacDonald’s wasn't even open for breakfast :-( 

Day 88 Pointless Memes

One of the things that simmers below the surface of my grumpiness is facebook memes. Barely an hour goes by without a post appearing on my timeline with the tagline ‘what happened next will amaze you / bring tears to your eyes/ flabbergast you / shock you / have you in hysterics / make you want to gouge your own eyes out with a blunt spoon.’* (*Delete as appropriate) Either that or there are the ‘posters’ the things that say. 'Happiness is a happy state of mind. Click share if you agree.’

Now I have tried not to rant about this, or about baby photos or kids in school uniform photos. After all, it is a free world and not every post that people put on facebook is aimed at me. (I am sure my pics of Czech Rugby don’t please all of you.) 

But I am sorry this one has taken the biscuit, it’s brought the simmer ire to the surface and made my saucepan of grumpy boil over.

I mean what a monumental waste of space this is. For a start it is not even November yet but that is by the by. Who is going to look at this and think, no actually I don’t agree. I don’t want my family and friends to be healthy and especially not at Christmas? 

But in many ways what is more worrying is the quandary it puts you in. By sharing it you look like a brainless loon with who just follows the sheep. But by not sharing it you are basically saying that you don’t agree with this statement, if you don’t share this meme then you are stating clearly to your loved ones that you hope they get Ebola or choke on a carp bone this Christmas. Neither option is particularly pleasing. God I need a holiday. 

Day 87 Bono’s deception.

Have you ever wondered how Bono from U2 is still alive?

Now I don’t mean that I think thousands of people want to kill him due to his terrible offences against music, or his pompous posturing, or his general arrogance. But come to think of it you do wonder how he has survived the assassin’s bullet for this long. (I don’t want to put ideas into your head, but if you have a gun and the inclination I am sure there are many, many people who would thank you. Maybe you could crowdsource it.)

Anyway I’ve digressed. Today I heard U2’s 1987 hit With or Without you on the radio. Now in this song Bono declares that he is unable to exist either with or without an unnamed person. I can’t live, with or without you he croons with enough self-importance to sink a battleship. (No I have no idea where that analogy came from either.) Now surely there is no third option. He is either with the person which makes his life untenable or without the person which makes his life untenable, so the logical conclusion is that he should be dead. However, despite this logic Bono seems to be very much alive and kicking, much to my chagrin.

Enjoyed this? Check out my novels and short stories