Quatsch - Rubbish

It’s difficult to comprehend the vast amount of rubbish we dispose of when we‘re faced with an estimate of our annual total. Even with the massive push to be greener, we still produce a staggering amount of refuse. Once more turning to my all-knowing spiritual mentor, Google, I’ve found we throw out an average of 374kg every twelve months. That’s almost an entire Rick Waller. Given, I gleaned this from a blog related to The Sun newspaper, so it’s probably totally inaccurate, but really we don’t need figures to know we’re stupidly wasteful. I never understand exactly where it all goes. There can only be so much land to fill before it starts poking up through the middle of golf courses, a la The Simpsons. So it’s not so much an environmental concern for me, rather a physics based puzzle - how does it all fit? It’s a difficult question to ponder at the moment though, because I’m off on holiday tomorrow, so this is definitely one of the most rubbish writings I’ve committed to word processor. I’ll just take as much of my waste as possible and deposit in various bins in different countries - that should reduce our landfill burden by a good ten to fifteen percent… of 0.00000000000000000000006 percent of our total. Every little helps.

[There were no entries for the month of September as I spent most of it swanning around the Baltics. Fear not, I did a lot of writing in my notebook, on tour guides (mostly paper, not human) and on newspapers. Perhaps they’ll get transcribed someday. Perhaps]

Mandarine - Mandarin, Tangerine

A mandarin, along with any other relation to the common orange, is on the list of foods I truly cannot ever be bothered eating. Actually, I don’t have such a list, but if I could ever be bothered writing one, it’d be on there. They’re a messy fruit. I hate when people eat them on trains and leave their massacred peel strewn across the table, along with the associated juices that so effectively bind to it the magazines and paperbacks of innocent bysitters. Even if you’re a responsible orange-and their diminutive cousins-consumer and you want to clean up your mess, you have to make sure, in advance, you’ve got a bag for the remains. Foods that requires any sort of post-eating planning are just not worth the effort. At least with an apple core, you can carry it around easily enough till a bin is found, or even eat the entire thing if you’re feeling brave. But imagine getting off a train after scooping up a handful of peel, clenching it in your fist while trying not to look like a cocky shit cruising for a fight, or any other fist-heavy activity. Then you’re attempting to open doors by carefully unfurling a finger, only to find your fist immediately starts to excrete a mandarin-skin turd. There’s no way of getting out of that situation without looking like an idiot, a litter bug, or a struggling palsy sufferer. It’s just a nightmare scenario I’d sooner avoid. So what about mandarins in the home? You can be civilised and get a plate or bowl to put your peel in and catch all the drips and squirts, scooping the mess straight into the bin. Well, that still seems like an awful lot of effort just for one of your five-a-day. It’s far easier to buy a multi-pack of orange Kitkats - you can shove five of those in your mouth in the time it takes to peel a single mandarin and you get the same great taste, but chocolaty too! Also, the only rubbish you’ve got is foil and paper, which can easily be screwed up and chucked in the bin or even thrown on the floor if you‘re a scruffy shit, in any case leaving no sticky fingers or juicy mess. Who needs real fruit when you have pre-packaged biscuity-snacks? Nobody. That’s who. Now I’m off to work on that list to see which other irritating foodstuffs can be critiqued to such inept effect.

Tanzlehrer - Dance Instructor

Not all men who are really into their dancing are necessarily gay. Many heterosexual guys find that being a good dancer is a great way to pick up the ladies - mostly fag-hags, but women nonetheless. I have to go completely off topic for a second to mention the brilliance of my auto-correct spellchecker. When I typed in faghags without a the hyphen, it transformed into Afghans. The image of a bunch of cocky metrosexuals pulling some crazy moves on the dance floor to impress a shy, huddled group of hijab-clad fundamentalist Muslim women just won‘t leave my head. But anyway, I’ll try and at least push into a small box in the corner of my mind’s eye, like a Blind Date contestant’s reaction headshot as their horribly scripted holiday video is played to the unduly gleeful audience. But getting back on point, or at least trying to, Bill Hicks said it best: ‘Real men don’t dance. They sit, sweat and curse.’ Unfortunately, as much as I’d like to adhere to this, I always seem to have enough drinks to get on the dance floor and make a complete tit out of myself. My moves have been described as spastic chic (or was it like a spastic chick? Neither is particularly flattering) and like you’ve got Parkinsons, only shitter. Whereas you look at these guys who are wasted but can still dance like an extra in Step Up 2. I’d never want to be anywhere near that accomplished, lest I get talent-spotted and have to quit my job as a projectionist to tour the world’s craziest suburban middle-class ghettos for oodles of cash. That would be awful. But if I could improve just a little to progress beyond being compared to sufferers of chronic degenerative motor conditions, I’d be a tiny bit happier.

Kurznachrichten - News Summary

Has there ever been a news summary hasn’t featured single gloomy, depressing or fear-mongering story? Of course local news doesn’t count - especially if you live in Norfolk. An Anglia News summary generally consists of heart-warming tales of skateboarding pensioners, genius toddler musical maestros and courageous cat rescues. There is an occasional worrying traffic forecast but any delays are often caused by motorists slowing to observe a seventy-six year old lady in her skate gear showing off her supernatural dexterity. National news just isn’t anywhere near as fun. War, death, destruction and every other conceivable source of human misery, pain and suffering are kicking and punching each other to get to that headline top-spot. Who’ll get the gold? Warmongering Russia? Inflation crazy, election-rigging Zimbabwe? Or maybe even Famine-hungry central Africa? Who knows. Whichever way, it makes for exhaustively depressing viewing. I‘ll choose the agile aged over that business every time.

Mittelfinger - Middle Finger

I’ve never quite understood why giving somebody the middle finger is deemed to be offensive. Same with two fingers. Everyone just takes for granted that they are rude gestures and apply them to situations where a verbal outburst is either inappropriate or insufficiently insulting on its own. I’d be interested to find out where it came from and why it’s so powerful. It could have all come about from a simple misunderstanding thousands of years back. An out-of-work archer was stretching his digits one by one, sitting patiently outside the Job Centre. As he extends his middle finger, someone calls him a dole-dossing prick, to which he snappily replies Get stuffed, or something equally offensive, unwittingly flipping him off at the same time. Someone sees it and mimics the motion, exposing it to obscene-hand-gesture-craving public at large, who lap it up and use it as frequently and inappropriately as possible. I just find it odd that it’s only considered rude because we’re told it’s rude. Why is it perfectly fine when accompanied by its four smaller friends? He’s the life and soul of the party. Without him, all the other fingers look lame - some can’t even stand up straight! There’s nothing offensive-looking about him, except that maybe he makes Mr Thumb look like a midget. At a massive stretch it looks vaguely like a penis. But at any rate, getting the finger is considerably less offensive than someone shouting expletives and waving his cock at you. I’d absolutely take an up-yours over an awkward indecent exposure incident on almost any occasion. In fact, I’m certain.

Hygienisch - Hygienic

Gone are the days I’d only ever open a pub toilet door with a loo paper barrier separating my freshly cleansed hands and the pissed-up handle. I’ve grown up just a little bit since then. Now I use my little finger and attempt to select the least likely touched section, then after a successful exit, wipe it vigorously on the lower part of my trousers to remove as much trace bacteria as possible. Okay, so perhaps this does sound somewhat obsessive-compulsive, but if you’re a girl, you have no idea how disgustingly unhygienic guys are when they visit the bogs. Probably one in every five will wash their hands, and of them maybe twenty percent will bother with soap. Therefore, the door handle is just a massive piss-germ orgy that’s going straight onto your hands and into that double burger you’ve ordered - that’s assuming it hasn’t already been pissed in by the cheery kitchen staff. I understand that living ridiculously hygienically isn’t a great idea because we need to be exposed to at least some germs in order to build up our immune system. But of all the potential bacterial sources out there, I’d rather avoid anything relating to other men’s cocks and asses and their associated secretions.

Person - Person

Person: the same in English as in German. I wonder, would I have become the same person were I to have grown up in Germany instead of England? Of course this is a ridiculous hypothetical, but I’m stuck for ideas and only have ten minutes until my oven relentlessly bleeps at me to indicate my healthy fish and chips supper is fully cooked. But say I had the exact same family conditions, would being German have made me a stronger, more determined person? More authoritative? Less cynical? More evil? I’d almost certainly be bilingual which would be a bonus - I’d take that for extra evilness. I don’t like to think I’ve been influenced too dramatically by growing up in the UK as opposed to any other wealthy western country, but I suppose that’s stupidly naïve. Everything from the school curriculum to the books I read and the TV shows I ogled day after day will have shaped my character in some way. There is a chance I’d still have an interest in travel and writing, and not necessarily David Hasselhoff and punctuality, but it seems less likely. I’d love to investigate this further, but alas, my oven is incessantly telling me my fish and chips, not bratwurst and sauerkraut, are ready to be devoured!

Danke - Thank You

Nothing says thank you better than a box of Cadbury’s Roses. If you’ve guilt-tripped your neighbour into looking after your dog for two weeks while you’re living it up in a Spanish resort, a box of assorted toffees and biscuity chocolates are all it takes to repay them. For a longer holiday, or more demanding favour, the box can be upgraded in size accordingly up to the highest denomination - the tin. If you’re buying them more than a tin, it indicates you’ve really taken the piss with your favour demands. Just because Mr Nerdy Geek next door has a degree in computer science doesn’t mean he can solve all of your PC problems for free! An IT expert would charge something like eighty quid an hour to diagnose and solve whatever it is that’s messing your computer up, but some people think a three pounds box of chocolates is payment enough! It’s more a fuck you than a thank you. Now a tin would be a little better, but probably not enough. If we must make payment through the chocolaty-treat channel, I think we need some sort of formula for working out the exact amount of Roses required based on the monetary value of the favour. A tin, I’m theorising, should be equal to roughly one hundred pounds, a large box about fifty, a medium box - thirty, and a small box around fifteen to twenty. Kennel costs for two weeks are approximately 250 pounds, that’s two tins and a large box. Two hours fixing your computer, around 150 pounds, so one tin and one large box. Simple. Now far bigger favours that have no strict cash value would be harder to work out. Getting someone to help dispose of a corpse might require in excess of ten or twelve tins with an extra few packs of hazelnut whirls to boot. Someone smuggling several kilos of uncut heroin through Heathrow for you, perhaps twenty tins. An assassination: thirty or forty. Now it’s important to remember that while people appreciate gifts as thanks, actually expressing gratitude verbally is gratefully received. Sure, you may have given Mr Gunman of number 35 a large amount of sweets for removing to the top half of your ex-partner‘s face, but to look him directly in the eye and saying the words, ‘Thank You’ would probably mean a lot more to him. The chocolates alone are meaningless, but couple with a heart-felled danke, everyone is much happier.

Weinglas - Wine Glass

Is it awful to drink wine from a vessel other than a wine glass? Due to my heavy-handed washing up tactics, I don’t own a single one, just the scars of glasses smashed on my fingers. Last time I drank wine, there were thirty seconds of indecision as to whether or not to drink it straight from the bottle, but my delusional snobbery claimed victory and forced me to grab a tumbler from the cupboard, which really is only the fewest of rungs above necking it on the social acceptance ladder. To make matters worse, it wasn’t even a real glass - it was an old Nutella jar with a Simpsons motif on the side. So, filling up to Homer’s head (about three quarters), I brought the bottle into the living room and plonked it next to my chair and hit the Virgin On Demand button. And no, unfortunately it didn’t magically teleport several unsullied maidens onto my lap - I’ll have to become an Islamic martyr for that. Instead, it gave me a substantial list of TV shows I could watch right away, and perhaps aptly for that last dire joke, I chose Sleeper Cell. It’s a series following a muslim FBI agent who’s infiltrated a terrorist cell operating in Los Angeles. The dialogue is ridiculously forced at times, and just hilarious at others - one terrorist says to the undercover agent, “Yeah, Farik doesn’t trust anyone, except maybe Osama!”, and an all-American jock, the least convincing Islamic fundamentalist convert, remarks to another “Dude, We’re terrorists!”. In addition to the American, there’s an ex-skinhead Frenchman and perhaps a little more credible Bosnian whose family were murdered by Serbs in the Balkans War. Because I’m getting off Wine Glass topic, I’ll just say it’s both shit and good - the story is vaguely compelling and Darwin, the FBI agent is very likeable. The point of the show is clearly to illustrate that not all muslims are terrorists, and the struggles of a good, devout man doing the right thing in a prejudicial society, but I get the feeling that will missed by a large proportion of the audience who’ll just see its conclusion as America wins, the Islamic terrorists lose, USA, USA, USA! As I say, it’s not great, it’s not terrible, but should be enjoyed with a tumbler - or even a glass if you’re feeling classy - of cheap Sommerfield wine.

A Note About My Current Writings....

Unfortunately I seem to have strayed from my original brief: I gave myself ten minutes to write one of these pieces, but find myself spending an increasing amount of time. The average is now about forty minutes, which does render their spontaneity little less impressive, but hopefully the quality has improved to some degree. They are still essentially unedited - I tend to read through them once, make a few changes, then read through one more time. My entries are still entirely random, I haven’t got to the stage where I can find my own inspiration - that would be crazy! Anyways, I’ve written at least one every day for nine days now, so that’s something of a running record! I’ll attempt to keep it up till I leave for my holiday next week, and using the advanced technology of notepad and pen, I’ll try and write every day during that too. It may even turn into Improvised Estonian to English Dictionary Writings on my return!

Pauschaireise - Package Tour

It’s so easy, isn’t it? Leaf through a glossy magazine in your local travel agent, gawp at people having air-brushed fun in southern Spain or on an overcrowded Greek island, put your money down and shuffle onto a plane a few months later, safe in the knowledge everything will be organised for you. Why not spend two weeks being whisked around at someone else’s pleasure, stopping when they stop, eating when they tell you to and being stuck with the same group of people for the entire trip. I’m not saying all package tours are a bad idea, it just seems like a massive gamble for an entire holiday that will probably be, for most people, their sole getaway of the year . Sure, if you want to see five or six major cities in Europe over ten days, a coach tour is likely to be the most convenient and cost-effective method, but you don’t have to be complete misanthrope for other people irritate you. An annoying person forcing you into conversation on a train or plane journey - as nauseating as that is - can be walked away from, guilt-free, when you reach your destination. But on a coach tour, they’re right there, and will continue to be there, in your face, for days and days to come. Perhaps there is an equal chance of there being a really great group of like-minded people, with whom fantastic conversation can be had and deep, meaningful friendships could be forged - a coach-tour bond that will never be broken. But I’m a cynic and a pessimist, so I’d never chance it. I’ll continue to book my holidays in small, manageable segments, so I can be my own boss and of course shake off any undesirables who start awkward conversations along the way!

Tageszeitung - Daily Newspaper

I read an awfully small amount for someone who wants one day to make it as a writer. Getting a daily newspaper should be the solution to increasing my textual intake, but I always seem to avoid it. I’ll pick up a copy of The Guardian if a long train journey beckons, but end up reading only the front and back covers as it‘s still folded over, as there just isn’t enough space to open out fully - doing so would just irritate my fellow sardines and I’d feel like a prick. I’m also not a very fast reader, which is probably the main reason I don’t actively look forward to sitting down with a magazine or novel. Somebody once bought me a speed-reading book, which, as bogus and contrived as this sounds, I gave up on because it was taking too long! Is it possible to be a good writer without a huge literary knowledge bank to call upon? I could argue my writing is less tainted by the works of others and is therefore far purer in nature than that of my peers. But that would sound like pretentious, arrogant twatty-twaddle, so I won’t be doing that. Reading should be far easier than writing, but for me it’s just such a chore.

Augentrophen - Eye Drops

How many eye drops does the average glass eye owner achieve in a given year? Images of artificial eyes dropping on the floor and rolling around comically, a la Pirates of the Caribbean, fill my head. I’d guess the reality is actually not nearly as funny. It’s more likely that someone’s aged great grandfather is going through his morning ritual of attaching his synthetic body parts when disaster strikes. He’s going well, having already glued in his teeth, re-attached his hearing aid and arranged his toupee to stunningly dapper effect. All that remains is this eye, which has been bobbing in a concentrate saline solution all night. He takes it out of the old jam jar he’s kept it in since the Korean War, gives a quick spit-shine, gets it within millimetres of his face and fumbles it! Bouncing off the sink, it ricochets around the bathroom and ends up in the most dank and soggiest of all places: under the U-bend. After cursing like a sailor, despite being an ex-airman, he bends down only for his hair to slide off into the unemptied bathtub, and horribly, as he cranes his neck in time to watch it semi-submerge, his hearing aid works its way loose and plops into the toilet. So deaf, half blind, and hairless, he scrambles around behind the crapper, his knees now almost as damp as the toupee, until he finally clasps his arthritic hand around it and pops it straight in. He’ll gamble on the risk of infection because he’s sick of getting called Jack Sparrow’s Dad whenever he wears his black eye patch to the shops. The hearing aid is just flushed and another is taken from his unexplained and convenient massive stockpile. As for the hair piece, it’ll be wrung out put straight back atop his shiny dome, as he hopes to achieve a just showered look, to somehow prove he’s not in fact a bald man. So in retrospect, maybe eye drops in real life are just as hilarious as Jerry Bruckheimer portrays them on the big screen. Short of befriending a one-eyed person and poking them till they drop it, I’ll probably never know.

Rucksicht - Consideration

In my experience, most people on public transport have very little consideration for their fellow passengers. Or at least that’s how it seems when almost every journey I take, idiots shout at other idiots over the phone, music is played out loud on phones or just spills out of terribly insulated earbuds. And nine times out of five, it’s the very worst in big room club chunes or ‘S’ Club-cocking-Seven, whose name I’m certain doesn’t look anywhere near as grammatically correct as the way I just wrote it, even with my cheeky comic addition. It’s not just the young-uns acting up in front of their friends on local bus journeys - I often travel reasonably long distances by train with some very unreasonable people. Not only do most people horde the table space with their laptops and massive piles of paperwork or brag about huge deals they’ve just closed, they’ll give an incredulous stare any time your feet edge even a centimetre over that invisible demilitarised zone under the table, exactly halfway between our seats. I’m only moving for three seconds to ward off the thrombosis! In all honesty though, I’m actually sure that at least half the people on any given train are very kind and considerate, it’s just when some arse decides to let the entire carriage in on his side of the relentless slash-your-wrists-depressing phone conversation he‘s having, it sours your mood and somehow makes you certain everyone else is a prick too.

Knipsen - To Punch

When, late one evening, a group of friends and I ended up at somebody’s house - one of the friends’ that is, we weren’t burglarising that night - post-pub drinks were hastily organised and drank, mostly being an arbitrary mixture of anything even vaguely alcoholic from the backs of cupboards and underneath sinks. Most of us were reasonably drunk, and while some were passing out, others were beginning to exhibit a playful longing for violence. There was never any chance of an actual fight, or any malice whatsoever, but nonetheless pain was caused and laughter followed. My Japanese friend said, ‘Let’s punch each other in the leg!’ Of course I agreed, it sounded like the right thing to do. We’d had some drinks, I was starting to drift off, so why not make some bruises for the amusement of others? It’s just a massively toned down gladiatorial bout, where there’s no death, persecution of minorities or honour code to worry about. Within ten seconds, my leg was dead, I’d called him a Japanese bastard and had chickened out of further punchings, hanging my head in shame. I should have been the bigger man and walked away, but instead became cowardly boy who limped home.

Fruhzeitig - Early

It can’t be long before this country’s annual obsession with the early display Christmas decorations and advertising takes hold once more, filling our supermarkets with gaudy, worthless sparkly shit, and our television screens with a constant salvo of Buy This NOW Even If You Can’t Afford Your Gas Bill and Nag Your Single Parent For This Over-Priced Plastic Shit With Wheels And A Machine Gun. It was barely past August last year when my local supermarket started their dedicated festive isle, selling everything from tinsel and baubles to 8ft tall inflatable Santas. I almost considered buying one as a burglar deterrent - nobody’s going to break into a house with eight feet of St Nicholas swaying back and forth through the window. Any thief in their right mind would know that an occupant willing to buy something so ludicrously tacky will surely have a house-full of awful presents not worth nicking. Smearing faeces on the window would have a similar effect, but it starts to go off after a few days, and there’s nothing worse than poo gone bad. But anyway, the Santa was priced at eighty pounds, or to me and any other reasonably sane person, at £No-Fucking-Way. It’s mad though how there’d be Christmas cakes and mince pies on sale in October that would expire well before December 25th. See Ed Byrns’ set on reasons for early Christmases for numerous inspired jokes I can’t in good conscience steal. I’m sure they push it further and further back every year, so eventually they’ll be selling stuff for Christmas two years in the future in early March. It would be so much easier if everyone was either totally mean spirited, giving nothing to anyone ever, or the complete opposite. If everyone gave gifts to everyone else all year round, we wouldn’t have the redemption of our annual lack-of-gift-giving-guilt culminating on one sodding day in December.

An|Wenden - To Use

To use hard drugs would be an awful experience. Or so we are told. It’s a non-stop ride to social depravity that would render any regular, hard-working guy utterly hopeless within a very short timeframe. But then what about the ridiculously rich who use cocaine and heroin on a regular basis, paid for out of their millions obtained from idiots buying their completely shite music, movies and hair products. Technically, they’re not doing anyone any harm except themselves. Some upperty cocksure fuckend spending five hundred quid a day on a crack habit must surely benefit the economy from their dealers spending massive amounts on diamond jewellery and Louis-Fucking-Vuitton bags and wallets. The sales tax on the purchases made from one single celebrity habit would probably be enough to fund several inner city drug rehab programmes. It’s not the drugs that are the problem - heroin is probably fantastic - but the inability to support a stupidly massive habit on a minimum-wage job. The only reason they want to make an example of the Amy Winehouses and Pete Dohertys of the world is so they can send a message to the lowlifes on the street that they’ll catch anyone for drugs, regardless of stature, so just look out! You could be next! But that’s just a ludicrously cynical approach to get addicts to quit so the government won’t have to pay for their prison or rehab sessions. Drugs are probably great, but I don’t really want to find myself performing shameful sex acts or robbing old ladies to maintain a great big habit. I‘d rather stick to my Chocolate Fingers and Tesco’s Finest Triple Chocolate Cookies addiction - marginally cheaper and slightly more socially acceptable.

Geschlechtskrankheit - Sexually Transmitted Disease

Quite a mouthful! That’s what she said. I love German linguistic logic - why bother separating a single concept into individual words when you can have one that’s gigantic and really intimidating for foreigners to learn. Of course, sexually transmitted disease is a phrase definitely up there on many a traveller’s essential vocabulary list. Well, it’s on mine anyway. It can be tagged clumsily onto Wo ist die… to mean Where is the sexually transmitted disease? Or, Wie viel kostet diese… meaning How much is this sexually transmitted disease? Lot’s of fun to be had, and yet I’d bet the locals wouldn’t get in the slightest bit offended, because at least you’re trying to speak their language rather than adopting the classic British holidaymaker tactic of shouting English words louder and gesticulating more violently, despite their obvious bewilderment. I do however find sexually transmitted diseases themselves terrifying, with a hint of hilarity. They do some very scary things to scary places - or rather make certain places very scary and frankly just not worth visiting anymore. It’s just shocking that so many people haven’t got a clue that the sticking of intimate bodily extremities into another person’s intimate bodily crevices without any sort of protection might help them acquire something as whore-inspiring as Gonnherria or Clamidia. As chilling as this is, I can’t help but laugh. If people can be that stupid and you can’t laugh AND you don’t already have the crabs, you’d tear your hair out.

Stier - Bull

I’m tempted to quote the Kubrick classic, Full Metal Jacket, and the homophobic, yet thoroughly entertaining rant of drill sergeant Hartman. Think queers, steers and Texas. If that still isn’t ringing any cow bells, then firstly shame on you for not seeing one of the top three Vietnam, if not all war, movies ever made. Secondly, double that shame, and march quickly to your nearest video store or computer and either rent or illegally download as swiftly as possible. It’s brilliant. Anyway, I’ll attempt to steer this piece away from blatant film humping to something more civilised: artificial insemination. Not only do prize-winning bulls get denied actual sex with hot cows, but they’re forced into an inter-special, second base liaison with a bearded man called Jeff. Or Bryan. Other names could be used, but those are the two most popular, according to my imagination. It can’t be much more fun for the she-bull receiving the freshly churned calf-batter. They could at least make the turkey baster -come- splooge-spurter vibrate a little, or at least be topped by a picture of Bully from the popular 80’s TV darts show. Still, as dreadfully unsexy as the whole business sounds, it can’t be any worse than being eaten by Jeff or Bryan.

Napt - Bowl, Dish

This morning I awoke to that lovely sore-throat tingle and runny nose. It has been around six months since I was last ill, so I suppose I had it coming. A nice breakfast would sort me out, I thought, and after the obligatory ten minutes of Olympic highlight-watching from bed I got downstairs and started setting up a bowl of wheat biscuits. Sommerfield’s own brand, not those swanky Weetabix, with their fancy TV adverts and website. I laid out three cheapabix in a bowl, using a classic two-side-by-side-with-another-perpendicular-across-the-top formation, added a generous spoon of sugar, taking care to smooth it out evenly. I opened the fridge door, ready to splash a healthy serving of milk over the wheaty sponges that would lovingly soak it up, only to find there wasn’t any! Just a piddly piss-take thimbleful, which would be about as much use to my cereal as a choir of vagrants singing at it. There really is nothing more depressing than shaking sugar off your wheat biscuits and putting them back in the packet, thoroughly defeated. I considered substituting the milk for water, but thought that would just be horrid. So instead, I ate a yoghurt, followed by a Twix once I got to work, and a Bounty for dessert. Starving a cold really isn‘t much fun, so I instead chose to shove chocolaty junk down its stupid face. That’ll teach it. Eventually. Twelve hours later my nose is running faster than ever - bring on London 2012!

Oliv - Olive-Green

Olives - green or black - I can’t stand. There’s nothing nice about them, they make me feel sick. Especially when Subway put them in your sandwich by mistake, then vaguely apologise, merely scrape them off and leave the black olive residue and offensive flavour all over your lunch. I know, because I’ve done just that when I was a Sandwich Artist while living in Cairns. But only to people who were rude or clearly complete idiots. Also, after you’ve witnessed an obese, mentally unstable, violent alcoholic man masturbating and putting a chair leg up between his rear cheeks while you’re working at Subway, it tends to leave a lasting, jaded impression. Furthermore, when the police nonchalantly bundle him into their car and say he’ll be out tomorrow after he’s dried up - despite wanking in public - the cynicism for society almost hits breaking point, where not only would everyone get black olives in their sandwich, but an additional rusty nail recently-picked scab. That’s Eating Fresh, motherfucker.

Brauen - to Brew

If you want to brew your own beer you have to invest quite a sizeable amount of cash. Unless you want to brew shit beer, in which case you can head to your nearest supermarket and pick up a tin of ‘100 Pints of Best Bitter’ for about ten quid. Now ten pence per pint may sound like a great deal, but you have to be at least a little dubious: if it was anywhere near as good, say Tesco Value Best Bitter at approximately 25p per can (which frankly tastes like watered-down cholera), surely everybody would be doing it. But to the great unpicky, the men and women who don’t have a fixed address and spend their days begging/mugging to buy a four-pack of super brew or some high class white cider, this would seem like the perfect solution. Sure, it may take up to a week per batch, but if they all chipped in, they could probably afford two or three kits and have brews ready every couple of days. I suppose the only problem they’d have is keeping the brew safe from theft or vandalism by outsiders for the week it takes to ferment. But I’ve seen the way they guard their shit-stained sleeping bags and used syringes, so anything as valuable as their very own magic booze portal will have them in fulltime sentry mode, guaranteed. Trust issues may also be something of a factor when dealing with degenerate drug and alcohol users: after you’ve all invested a few hard-begged pounds, what’s to say one of the brewing partners won’t just nick the lot and set up for himself or even sell it for a bag of skag? But then he who dares, wins, and they’ll never get themselves out of their situation if they don’t take the occasional risk, besides sharing needles and eating out of bins.

Bundnis - Alliance

In the massively popular, massively multiple online role-playing game World of Warcraft, you can choose to fight for the Alliance, the Horde or the forces of obsessive nerdom. Although to qualify for the latter, the player will have to make a choice between the preceding factions, and devote at least one hundred percent of their spare time to game - more than that is preferred, less is sourly frowned upon. Now, the fact I have a World of Warcraft account should not instant make me a ridiculously geeky social outcast. I have logged in for literally five hours in the last month, yet I am tarred with the same brush as those who’ve clocked several hundred. The one’s who at work incessantly harp on about it in front of everyone else who neither understands, nor cares to understand what the hell their talking about. I don’t get how someone can have such a supreme lack of tact to not shut up when people are clearly thinking of increasingly violent methods of stepping in and doing just that. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not embarrassed that I play it, just sad that so many annoyingly outspoken (as well as just plain annoying) people also do and spread its reputation as game for recluses and Billy-No-Mates across the globe.

Klopfen - To Knock

Postpeople, that is my non-gender-specific and therefore non-sexist term for the people who deliver our letters and parcels, are very cold and calculated individuals. In my experience anyway. They seem to know the exact amount of time it takes someone to be woken up, to hastily throw on some clothes or a dressing gown and scuttle fuzzily downstairs to answer their aggressive I’ve been awake since 4am so fuck you knock-come-bang on your door. Then deduct twenty seconds from that time and bugger off, leaving one of those ‘We called and you were out’, cards that can ruin anybody’s morning. I’m sure they fill out one for every parcel before they even leave the depot just to make executed their sadistic plan even easier. Now I understand they’ve got a job to do, and probably have hundreds of houses to get around on any given shift, but it severely takes the piss when they give you next to no time to answer the door. You’d think they’d be happy to lighten their load! One less package to lug around. Unless they get bonuses for high numbers of undelivered parcels for reasons need-to-know reasons non-Royal Mail employees need not know. The icing on the cake of shitness (made up of fatigue, disappointment and anger) is you can’t get whatever it is redelivered until the day after tomorrow. A whole extra 48 hours, which, if you’re waiting for that season of Curb Your Enthusiasm or Big Brother 5’s Diary Room Uncut (if you’re a prick), is complete torture. Just save yourself the trouble and spend an extra few quid buying it over the counter.

Kommenlassen - To Send For

I’ve genuinely drawn a blank on this one. I can’t think of anything to write. I considered musing about a time when you had to send off tokens from cereal boxes to receive worthless Kelloggs-branded tat, but I got about as far as the first half of this sentence before running out of steam. Plus that would be sending off for stuff, and therefore quite inaccurate. If I was going to get away with that, it would open the floodgates to topics as clearly imprecise as reminiscing over times when TV shows required viewers to send up to four stamped addressed envelopes in to get instructions on how to build the latest Blue Peter papier mache project. I suppose the Internet is the common killer forcing each of these topics well and truly into the past. Instead of sending tokens in the post, you just input a unique code on web site. Similarly, to get a booklet on how to make the modern-day equivalent of whats-her-face’s Tracy Island, you just head to the relevant internet page. While it obviously makes both far less hassle, there was always something about the anticipation, that wait of up to two weeks before you got your hands on that plastic Cornflakes rooster or how-to-make-a-volcano instructions that’s lost with the instant gratification of the Internet age. The problem is I, like most people, have been spoilt by the web to the point where I can’t bear to wait more than a few days for something I’ve ordered, making talking in weeks absolutely unthinkable!

Wer Kommt Zuerst - Who’s First?

When a single man and a single woman are having a good time in each other’s company, must it always be the guy who’s first to suggest taking things to a higher level? Society says yes, and all too often, a self-assured idiot will swoop in with the big talk bullshit, to which the female will respond because she loves complements regardless of how blatantly fraudulent they are. I’m not saying the girl isn’t really pretty, or her shoes aren’t really cool or whatever, just that the over-confident dickend doesn’t care one way or the other. There’s no real conviction in his words, he’s just running through the conceited cock playbook. If girl-number-one doesn’t respond to his massively complementary and touchy-feely conduct within fifteen minutes, he’ll just move right on to girl-number-two with the same moves. I’m almost as far from being a girl-expert as you could possibly get, but I’m quite certain that most would settle with Mr fucking confident, despite how much of an insufferably boorish twat he is, purely because they feel wanted. That this person fancied her so much he’s willing to bound up to her in a club wielding a smutty chat-up line alluding to some highly charged penetrative act. Meanwhile, the guys who aren’t complete phoneys are sitting or dancing alone, perhaps getting the odd female’s smile or nod before another idiot clone cuts in and smothers her in superficial or odious compliments. You can’t win in that situation. You either become a cock like one of them or stay miserable and alone.

Bewusstlos - Unconscious

This one is a quickie as I must be unconscious within fifteen minutes to get my seven hours of sleep. It’s odd that we measure the adequacy of our sleep in precise hour blocks, and that by falling short of our preferred number by even a few minutes spells disaster. Seven hours, for example seems like an alright night‘s sleep, but six hours and fifty minutes is just woefully insufficient. The problem is that the fear of lack of sleep and the subsequent dozy, yawn-filled day at work is so ingrained that it actually works. I genuinely find that the extra ten minutes, against all logic, makes a difference. It is however far too late to speculate further about this phenomenon, and as I check the clock it’s a very coincidently apt six hours and fifty minutes before my alarm will gently irritate me awake. If only I’d have written this faster, I’d have got seven hour block and avoided a lethargic day at the office.

Ursprung - Origin

I’m surrounded by Asians. Before anyone gets uppity thinking this is a piece about growing up in inner city Bradford, its not. Although to be fair, that is true - there is a very large Pakistani and Indian population in the jewel of West Yorkshire. No, the Asians to which I’m referring are all around me - almost every item in my bedroom. From the lamp on my desk, the camera, hole punch, to my guitar and this very computer, they’re all made in China or some other southeast Asian nation. Even the Tazmanian Devil moneybox filled with my copper coins of the last year: Chinese. My watch, TV, speakers, signal booster, Risk Express, Ipod - my room’s just a hotbed of multiculturality. If I read the Daily Mail I’d be outraged. But I don’t really care. The origin of any given product doesn’t bother me in the slightest, so long as it does the job it’s supposed to and it doesn’t break ridiculously prematurely.

Absurd - Absurd

I’m not sure how absurd it is that I’m on my twenty-ninth entry and it’s the first time I’ve stumbled upon a word with the exact same meaning and spelling in both English and German. Of course, pronunciation-wise, it’s not precisely the same - the letter ‘s’ in English becomes a ‘z’ in German, and I can’t quite remember if the ‘Ab’ would sound different, but essentially they’re equal. It being past midnight and me being past the legal limit (for driving that is, not writing), I’m also beginning to question whether this entire project is completely absurd. The point is not so much the produced material as the actual process of writing something - anything - on a regular basis. What I’m writing my well be utterly irrelevant, nonsensical bullshit, but the fact I am writing something, in my opinion makes it a valid exercise. Perhaps I’ll come to judge this in a few years time as the biggest waste of time since the Millennium Dome, or it may well have been my ticket to bigger and better things, and therefore be cherished and given some vastly higher status than it truly deserves. It’s also possible it may never be looked at again by anyone, thus rendering a massive waste of bytes that could better be used for cached internet sites or World of Warcraft screen shots. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see

Ein|sturzen - to Collapse

I have been first-aid trained on three separate occasions, and in each case after less than a week, I’ve felt entirely unqualified and shamefully inadequate should an emergency occur. At the time it seems so easy and all makes perfect sense, but as the memory fades, so the paranoia builds. It’s the same with any training course. Around six months ago I was trained to use a Genie cherry picker to basically reach high stuff. Our instructor was intent on filling our heads with his numbingly irrelevant stories of ladders and steps. He also spent several minutes stroking a ladder, acknowledging its brand and informing us repeatedly how it was ‘a fairly substantial piece of kit’, how it was ‘the European gold standard of ladders’ and, well, I’m losing consciousness just thinking about it. However, despite the appalling dullness of the whole occasion, I felt reasonably learned, and quite confident about operating safely at height. Now, six months down the line, I’m convinced either I’ll die, or I’ll kill someone else, or both when I miss a blindingly obvious safety precaution and topple into crumpled bone-heap. I feel the same way about applying first aid. Do you give a diabetic a teaspoon of sugar if they‘re on the verge of collapse? Or was that something you definitely don’t do? Anaphylaxis? Can you administer adrenaline without their consent? Or could you get sued? So many things I could probably find out with a quick Google search, but I’ll probably just bury my head in the sand and hope I never have to do anything.

Leuchtstift - Highlighter

For homework both in sixth form and at university, I was often asked to take away a poorly photocopied article or two and told to highlight the key points. I never got the hang of this, so generally ended up with a bright yellow paragraph with one or two words thrown out of the relevant-words gang. It was same with taking notes from an article too: I’d pretty much just adapt every sentence and stick it as a new bullet point. As this very piece will probably provide ample supporting evidence, concise language use is not a massive strength of mine! The problem is I savour writing, and just enjoy stringing together sentences that offer little to the piece as a whole. Well, perhaps it’s time to change. I’ll italicise the key point of this article: Andrew is not linguistically succinct enough to make concise notes, but enjoys adding mostly superfluous flowery language to hide his obvious ineptitude. There.

Bohren - To Drill

If you’re wanting to drill the day’s most important news stories well and truly into your head, in a reasonably unbiased and professionally presented manner, just put the BBC News channel on for an hour or two. If, however, you’re seriously considering driving an actual drill into your face on suicidal or just cry-for-help grounds, and you need that final push, I suggest turning to Sky News. It always amazes me how they constantly seem to win News Channel of the Year, and then boastfully mention it between every advert break. They hire all the pretty blonde presenters who look as vacant as a public toilet with shit all over the seat, and their resident weatherman is shiftier than a man with a TV-shaped bulge under his coat in Dixons. He swaggers around the weather map, one hand in his pocket, the other vaguely gesturing while he mentions a few major cities that might be wet, might be dry, he just isn’t that sure. I’m certainly not saying BBC News is the greatest, it, like Sky has somehow thought it was a good idea to have a Your News, or Your Stories segment where members of the public send in their utterly dreary ’news’ issues in glorious shaky MiniDV. Their aim is something like to offer more news that’s relevant to you. Now, a two minute story about hooded youths vandalising the garden shed belonging to Mr Smith, 67, from a Birmingham council estate is very relevant to Mr Smith and maybe a few of his neighbours, but for the other sixty million of us, it couldn’t be more jarringly irrelevant. The fact the production values are so diminished just makes watching it even more of a chore. Until they develop the technology to know exactly what we want to know, when we want to know it, news is always going to be broadly irrelevant to most people. In the meantime, I’ll just stick with the BBC because somehow I trust receiving the headlines from a dumpy, middle-aged woman, over a pair of large, mindless tits.

An|drohen - To Indicate

I’m a member of a minority group. Sure, I’m a white, sort-of upwardly mobile, meat eating non-smoker, so I’m firmly within the general majority, and of course this also implies I’m quite normal. I’m not persecuted for anything - especially now I’ve got rid of my long hair I don’t get abuse from passing Vauxhall Novas with Floor Fillers 4 bursting out of a ridiculous stereo system. My minority group is those of us who haven’t yet passed their driving test. It just gets more and more expensive with each passing year, and seemingly more and more difficult too. All my friends who passed back when they were seventeen are laughing. Literally laughing in my face. Back then, a two hour lesson would cost you 25 quid, as opposed to 40 now. When all you had was the theory and the practical test, not all the extra hazard-awareness and maintenance bollocks you get now. The only plus side of doing it when I’m in my mid-20’s is that the picture on my licence won’t look like I’m a small child. Although that said, with my new haircut I’ve lost about five years so that basically cancels that out. So I either pass my test soon, or risk never being able to afford it, ever.

While I didn’t use the words ‘to indicate’ in this, I felt the driving theme was a suitably relevant cop-out.

Sortiment - Assortment

There is a bizarre assortment of items currently strewn across my desk. I have the usual supply of pens, a hole punch, a stapler, a lamp and various notepads. They’re all normal enough. In addition, however, I have my Virgin Atlantic Flyer’s Club card (on which I’m going to have to spend at least another fifteen grand on flights to get any sort of reward), a Tazmanian Devil piggy bank, currently full of pennies, foreign coins and bacteria. There’s also a small arrangement in one corner consisting of a fridge magnet featuring an awful theme park ride photograph, a tube of sunscreen acquired in Kuala Lumpar, a worn-out plectrum and a contact lens case. Then on the other side is Risk Express, a compact version of perhaps the greatest board game ever. Of course I’ve never played Express, but I’m sure it’s super. Finally, I have my phone charger, TV remote, guitar capo and a Bill Hicks CD. Oh, and this computer too. And its mouse. I think the problem is once something that doesn’t belong in on your desk is left there for more than a day or so, it takes root and becomes almost literally part of the furniture. You get used to it, and the thought of removing it, regardless of how utterly out of place it is, never occurs. Even now I’ve drawn attention to this issue and how useless in a desk-environment the bulk of the aforementioned items are, I feel no compulsion to move them as they just look right. Plus I’m terribly lazy. In fact, its mostly the fact I’m terribly lazy.