Good night Warsaw

Seeing as I left Poland around a month ago, I thought I'd set up a new, less Polish blog.

The Newquay Times

Hope to see you there. It's been fun writing this one. Time for a new challenge!

Back to it

It's been quite a busy week. Easter usually is. The first real mass movement of cattle down to my fair land to graze on beer, fry ups and each other. It's really quite a sight.

Since my last writings (too long ago) I have found myself receiving a promotion from lowly, but loveable glass collector, to all round waiter, barista and bartender. Once I wanted to be a barrister, I'm almost there. The difference of the work to that I did in Poland is pretty much polar. Teaching English involved standing in a room and talking. Now I'm standing in a room talking and so much more. In Warsaw, half my time was spent traversing the city in the desperate hope of finding and attending my classes on time, with the constant panic of the repercussions of lateness. The Chy is literally a minute from my house. It's downhill. And no one gives a shit if you're five, ten or fifteen minutes late. I love it.

Not

Doesn't the guy in the first one look just like Jake Gyllenhaal? And John Cleese making a return appearance to my blog.

This weekend that's just gone has been pretty manic. On Friday I worked the day shift and was on call in the evening. When I was told not to come in (via a text message I received in Belushi's) it seemed only right to make the most of a free night. Around half midnight, me and my drinking companion saw the reason why I was not required at work. The Chy was practically dead. We headed to Red Square. Around five hours of sleep later I was back in The Chy. Work was busy, but not quite as bad as the day before. The sun was shining and people came out to drink in the beer garden. It's as simple as that really. A few hours off and I was back in to do my first night shift behind the bar. A nice short one because I had worked earlier. Everything went sweet except a few shouting fits about vodka. I made enough tips to get a few drinks afterwards to go on top of the awesome 'double' Maker's Mark and Coke my mate Sean bought me. They helped in the dancing like a twat I did to Mr Brightside (both the Rich Cheese and Killers' versions). Whilst in Red Square, Sean and I discussed making a decent vodka martini and the need for my bar to stock some Kina Lillet to make a proper Bond style one. Five more hours sleep later and it was Sunday. I don't remember much from yesterday except the excruciating pain I felt in my feet and my legs. My muscles were tighter than the proverbial nun's, I could barely stand up. I hit the sack at around 11pm after an episode of Lost and a bath. I was done.

A good night's sleep can do you the world of good. Unless you've been drinking heavily for the past few days, in which case you'll probably feel a bit better, but still at the mercy of the results of excess. I got through today's shift with a sore throat and sore back. Thankfully the weather at the moment is fucking miserable, so hardly anybody came in today. I've got a few hours off before returning at 10pm for a full length night shift. I'll have done 11 hours there today by the time it's all done.

Which is why I don't really find myself that concerned about looking on eBay for some work gear. The bar seems to be my new home and for once it's on the side that receives money instead of spending money. Might help me get out of the mineshaft of debt that I'm stuck down. Another graduate joins the work force, behind the bar.

Day tripper

Only being back home for week, I've allowed myself to get back into the weekly (ish) trips to Falmouth.

The last few days have been a welcome change of pace. Back for a few minutes and I have something to smoke. A bar which provides ample measures of Sailor Jerry's, lime and lemonade. A nice place to relax.

Unfortunately there was only one guitar at hand. Music took a back seat in the proceedings. Banter and episodes of Screenwipe were aptly at hand.

Right now I'm feeling pretty beat. I'm in a three table tournament on Full Tilt. Should keep me busy before jumping in either the tub or the sack. Need to be feeling up to speed tomorrow as the drinking session with my uni buddies kicks off Duncan's birthday weekend in Woking.

Ah, the life of the social-ist.

Back to the grind

It's quite disheartening that the only thing I have to write about after being home for about a week is my new job. Previously I've been able to report on the crazy life I was living in Warsaw, teaching English and being caught up in crazy situations.

Now I'm glass collecting. Hoo-fucking-ray!

The biggest problem I've found adjusting to normal, home town life, is that everything seems so normal. The minuscule events in the world that pass through my existence seem pretty straight forward. No longer am I brought face to face with strange habits or customs. It's all a bit boring.

I guess I'm using this as a reminder to myself, to not get caught up in the simple life for too long. Too many people I meet talk about how long they've been stuck in this town. You wouldn't say that if it was a good place to dwell.

I might get something like that tattooed on the back of my hand. "Get the fuck out of here!" Although that might get confusing in the future, when hopefully I'll find somewhere I'll want to stay.

Homecoming Part 2

Now that I've had a decent night's sleep, a few more cups of tea and some scraps that I found in my top draw to smoke, I'm definitely feeling in a better state to write about the last few days.

In a last effort ditch to get my hands on as much Polish money as I could before I left, I foolishly organised a conversation on Monday morning. My last day in the country. I arose at 6.45am to head into town when I was met by the clusterfuck that is Warsaw's public transport system. The Metro wasn't running properly between two stations, one alternative to squeezing into a train was to squeeze onto a tram, the other was to wait for non-existent replacement buses. They're not too great at organisation over there. Anyhoo, it fucked up my being able to get to the lesson at all thing. That'll teach me for being a money grabbing capitalist whore.

Approximately 23¾ hours without any sleep later I took off from Warsaw. Somewhere over Europe I got my eyes shut for all of half an hour. The day continued as I landed in Luton and got a bus to London, where my eyes dipped up and down for another 30 minutes. From there, with my eyes looking similar to how they would after an evening smoking with the Wu Tang Clan, I caught the train to Newquay. During this trip I again snuck in a sneaky 30 or 40 minutes shut eye. Not proper sleep, just traveling kip, where the slightest nudge stirs the senses into bewilderment.

The change at Par allowed me to get in a cigarette, to which I received a telling off from a First Great Western employee. On the train I met a chap who was going to Newquay from Falmouth. In a rather non English way, we started up quite a conversation that included loads of things that I actually know about. Teaching English abroad, Falmouth, traveling around Australia, Newquay, blogging. It's quite handy when you have a full round of ammunition for a chat. Not just crap you know, but crap that you're really interested in. Nice one Will. His blog Alternative Current isn't bad either.

At around 5.00 we got into town. Within minutes of arriving I realised not a lot had changed. Abandoned and half completed building sites everywhere, my folks complaining about it and numerous other injustices in the world, my house that is colder in an unseasonably warm March day than my digs in Warsaw on a seasonably cold (-25°c) winter's day. Boy, it's good to be back.

As it was St Patrick's Day, I wasn't going to let 38 hours without sleep stop me from catching up with some friends and having a few pints. The few pints turned into 6 or 7 - my tiredness got in the way of drinking more, but didn't stop me from playing a few tunes at the open mic. Back five minutes and I'm pissed, playing someone else's songs in front of a pub full of people. I've got to work on these bad habits. By that I mean the someone else's songs thing.

Just after 3.00am I finally got myself horizontal and out of the 44¼ hours of consciousness that started two days earlier. For a trip that only took 11 hours of actual traveling, that was a bloody long day.

Homecoming Part 1

The Teenagers sang about fucking some American cunt. I can't say I paid any attention to what Kanye West and Chris Martin were banging on about.

I've been back in my home town for about three hours. Having been up since 6.45am yesterdy morning, not a lot makes sense. The broken phone and laptop aren't helping either. All I know is I need to go for a few pints of the black stuff.

Perhaps tomorrow will hold the answers to the Kanye West-ions I have about the last 38 hours.

Tune in for Homecoming Part 2 tomorrow...

Getting further entangled in the web

Sorry for the pun. I know the term 'web' hasn't been used since about 1997 (or the last mention of some cyber crime in the Daily Mail), but it's late. My concentration is slowly sinking (as is the plan to send me to sleep) but not to such a degree to stop me from joining the latest online trend.

Tonight I got me a Twitter. Fucking hell, a hillbilly with a lisp, I'm really missing writing at three o'clock in the morning aided by a bottle of wine or an eighth of green.

Where was I?

Oh yes, Twitter. I've heard it being mentioned quite a bit recently and what with being a total geek that has a tendency to get into things just as they stop being cool, I thought I'd get on it ahead of the rush. If I'm being honest about the degree of my geek claims, I went on it after reading something that Stephen Fry said on the BBC here.

It's been almost two years since I opened a Facebook account. My thirst for knowledge of my friends' activities and whereabouts vastly outweighs my need to get away from my computer screen and have a chat face to face with them. This seems to be the next big move in permanently gluing our faces to our computer screens or mobile handsets. By getting in now I can offset the (damn I hate to use it again, spiders should have got a copyright on that years ago, alas) web trendsetting against my awfully uncool @hotmail email addresses.

I haven't been on it long enough to tell what it's really like (what with having about nine contacts), but I think the idea is pretty cool. In 160 odd characters, you write what you're up to. It seems to be that simple. It also seems to be vaguely (exactly) similar to Facebook's status updates, which is my favourite bit of it. Meh, photos of your holidays, your favourite commodities, what school you went to, adverts coming at you from all angles... I could live without it. I'm pretty sure, I did for the first 23 years of my life. Obviously the old businesses have got in on the Twitter action (the second of third screen asks you if you would like to add any of these members: Britney Spears - No, Ryan Seacrest - No, Coca-Cola - No... for example), but at least they only have 160 characters to sell you their shit. That is, if you add them.

So I'm going to stare blankly at my screen awaiting news from eight mates, Stephen Fry and The Onion. I don't think I'd get that done in a room full of friends.