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Well, well, well.
Finally the skipstar HAS COME BACK to blogging (I miss the Rock)
IF my memory serves me correctly it has been about six weeks, ha you thought you’d got rid of me didn’t you. The world really is quite strange so many funny things have happened during that time, but when ya working 80 hours a week there just isn’t time for blogging.
I had decided to make my return this week as my jobs have slowed down (to about 30 hours) so I’ve got a little more time on my hands, however I decided to wait a few days to let my hatred of women settle a little, and so this blog doesn’t turn into too much of a bitch session (que the bitching)

Well it all started before Christmas sometime if I remember correctly, I was stopped by some random pretty girl, and she asked me some stupid question, I thought nothing of this, later in the night Derek told me my admirer Catherine was feeling sad, and he was going home, begrudgingly I said I’d cheer her up. Fortunately Catherine turned out to be the Girl with the stupid questions, not the Dawn French girl As I’d previously thought, although I still see Dawn French girl, and she smiles at me (shutter) Anyways I gave her some patented Skippy lame comedy, and cheered her up (oh I am such a tool) Lots of boring stuff happened in between which concluded in us going Ice skating last week, well actually I was going Ice skating, and she invited herself. I must say Ice-skating was a good experience, I don’t think I’ll ever do it again, but a nice time all the same. If there’s one thing I hate in life it’s losing, especially to a woman, actually there are many things I hate, but losing is definitely one of them. I think I was on the ice about 3 seconds before falling, and then about another minute in a half before almost rendering myself unconscious I had just started moving forward when I somersaulted, and landed on my neck, my hat went flying off, and the next thing I remember is a guy in yellow vest asking me if I was dizzy, I said with a very slurred speech “No I’m not dizzy” (I was lying and as I looked at him I wondered why he had three heads) I was a little dazed for the rest of the day, but after an hour and a half was actually ok on the ice, mediocre I guess, which I think best describes me in general.
This surprise date went fairly well, and we had already scheduled a proper date for Friday, but it turned out Marks and Spencer were in a shity with me for not applying for there lame ass job offer of 19 hours a week working on Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays (my bar nights) so they rosted me on Friday with out telling me. When I turned up for work on Wednesday the told me I wasn’t meant to be here, and that they had rosted me on Friday instead. I told them I was “Sick of them pissing me around” and that I couldn’t work Friday, they said they would let me know.
They rang the next day, and said that they needed me, and I was required to work. I told them I wasn’t happy, but agreed to work. I figured Catherine would understand (actually I figured she wouldn’t she is female after all) but it really was an issue of integrity for me I said I would show up, and for me my word is good. I have never pulled a fake sickie, nor have I ever just not showed up for work. This was a moral issue for me, and I am glad I didn’t sacrifice my integrity for a hot date, something I will be proud of in the long run. Anyway Catherine was not impressed, and hasn’t really spoken to me since other than to say we will not be going on another date, and if I’m honest she wasn’t really interested in me anyway. I have watched enough episodes of Dr Phil to know a girl with abandonment issues when I see one, but she was pretty hot, so I thought I’d run with it.
Now if I’m honest with myself I knew it would end like this, and maybe I was conducting a wee social experiment into the mind of a pretty girl, but my feelings were still hurt, I think. I am just going to have to agree to disagree with pretty girls there is so much I like about them, but we just can’t coexist. My sister told me I need to find a ‘Plain Jane’ I don’t think I’m even capable of pulling an Ugly Betty’.

I think claiming I was lead on is a fairly lame excuse as, and I am not usually the sharpest tool in the picnic basket to catching on to when a girl is interested, but she just kept hounding me until I gave in, and then cast me aside. I guess these types of girls are the female equivalent of men going around slamming chicks, and then not returning their calls, this is certainly not I though, and I feel like a innocent bystander in a twisted game who’s the stupidest sex.
I am officially taking myself off the love market indefinitely. I like who I am, and am quite obviously no women’s first choice for a mate, and I don’t like second (or third or forth, and so on). There is a survey in the (highly reputable) Metro on what Women want. The results are as follows. The perfect male Should be more than 1.78m (5ft 10), earn in excess of 30 thousand pounds, lives in a home worth more than 300 hundred thousand pounds, drive a silver Mercedes, and love pets.
Skippy’s bio. 1.68m (5ft 7in) earns 7 Thousands pounds, lives in a house with bullet holes in the ranch slider, drives a Honda civic (well use to) and hates pets, basically I’m f***ed.
I can’t help, but notice the results are little shallow, and superficial, but hell it was the Metro. The point is I am not really in a position to attract the probably very few nice ladies that are left out there. A wise man once said trying is the first step towards failure, so the very few good women can go find the very few good men that left, and live happily ever after for all I care.

I have befriended a lonely old alcoholic man who comes into the bar, he always tells me how lonely he is, and that he drinks because he has nothing else to do, and comes to the pub for company (sucks to be him) I will most probably end up becoming that man, however I think I will get myself some false teeth at least.

I guess being rejected by females is nothing new to me, although this one has lead me to retire completely I think really the bigger picture is my annoyance with society in general. And although I always try to see the good in people sometimes it is very hard. I work with two completely different English people Rose on one hand is a bitch, she moans about everything is a terrible worker, and not very enjoyable to be around. Shawn on the hand is a great guy a pleasure to work with, and much a better person to be around. Now you often see really nice girls/guys with absolute f***wits for partners I believe this is the worlds way of keeping its self average, if we had two really good people breeding heaven forbid the world might be a little bit better, what angers me is that when two stupid people get together they start recreating like there is a shortage of stupid people out there. Which leads me into my idiot 17year old second cousin apparently knocking up a 15-year-old girl, can you say statutory rape? The guy is a dickhead early last year he was arrested by police for wrapping his grandmothers car around a power pole while he had been drinking, and carrying passengers on a restricted license, then he tried to talk all gangster like to the fuzz, then he asked to speak my first cousin, who is a cop, and asked him to take him home which he refused so my second cousin cried (oh yes very gangsterish). Not to mention that very same second cousin tried to smash my very favourite Sesame street mug across my skull while I was harmlessly sitting on the couch watching an episode of playschool, fortunately I saw him coming at the last second, and managed to block the shot which probably would have put busted me open in the process though he managed to snap the handle off, and my auntie said she would get me a new one. She never did. Just another example of the world smiting me.

My question is why the hell of all the people in the world is that guy breeding hasn’t the world suffered enough?
I think the only thing that was probably keeping me in the love game was to maybe have children one day, the way technology moves these days I will probably be able to buy myself some ovaries on ebay soon, but I don’t think even I am sadistic enough to release a child into this twisted world, especially if he/she would have to grow up in the same world with a miniature mug wielding second cousin of mine.

Not to mention two days before Christmas being tackled from behind on my way home from work by an enraged psycho cause I asked a random crying girl if she was ok (I can only assume it was his girlfriend of some description) The subsequent tackle/push broke my lighter which I landed on in the fall, he proceeded to try, and kick the crap out of me after the third lame ass kick I started laughing, at his lameness, and the Irony of the situation, and he took off. The girl got away, but I imagine she will go back to him, but what did my lighter ever do to anyone? Nothing I hear you say, that is right all it did was love, and it got smashed into a thousand pieces thanks a bunch society!

I guess the real hurt is not being rejected by women, but really a hurt of not being accepted I think that was all I was really looking for was a girlfriend/wife/partner/ so when the chips are down you’ve got some one to fall back on, and go you know what things aren’t going great please just listen to my problems for a bit, I guess we all need avenues to vent our frustrations, I guess these problems are magnified by being away from friends, and family, In reality though there’s not really anyone in my family who I would go to, and say I have got this problem, how can I solve it? Well there is my mother, but she generally comes to me with her problems, and it doesn’t always work in reverse. And I don’t mean to offend, but I don’t think there’s any of my friends who I could/would go to, and say hey this bothering me. As I’ve grown up I seem to have always had friends who were either a couple of years older or a couple of years younger than me, which I think has probably created a looking up to/leading the way effect but no middle ground, as a wise man once sung ‘I don’t want clever conversation, I just want someone to talk to’.

I think writing is the avenue for me to express myself I certainly feel a lot better after writing this dribble, and am ready to go face another week kicking ass, and taking names, but not phone numbers J

All right now on with show!

Skip.

The title of this blog really has nothing to do with anything I am going to write about, however apparently to be a journalist in England all you have to do is a think of headline with princess Diana in it slap a picture of Madeline McCann on it, and if you really want to sell copies a snippet of Britney spears wanting to kill herself.

Right, now that I’ve got that of my chest. There have been so many amusing things that have happened to me lately, which I laugh about at the time, and then completely forget about, I think someone should get me a Dictaphone for Christmas.
One Ironic moment I do recall is of my Muslim buddy from M&S giving me a Christmas card. What the? Are they aloud to do that? Are we aloud to take good parts from different religions, and mould them into ours? If so I want the 40 virgins thing.

Another couple of bizarre M&S moments include Derek asking me if it was true that New Zealand has the highest Prostitute per population rate in the world apparently he learnt this off Pop up video, oh well it must be true then who am I to argue with Pop up video, and least Wikipedia wasn’t his source of critical information unlike the English press who after some semi famous guy died printed in all the newspapers that he wrote one of the Sclub 7 songs, there source was indeed Wikipedia turns out it wasn’t true . Nice one England.

One of the scariest things I have ever seen took place at M&S as well, you have not lived until you witness a tall lanky Indian man perform the Girls aloud number ‘Jump’ at 2am through the food hall. I still have nightmares.

I am sorry, but a large percentage of the English are retarded I had to convince one such case the other day that both NZ, and Australia were part of the commonwealth, and that infact she is our Queen too. Before Christmas I caught the end of the Royal variety show in which Bon Jovi performed, seriously whatever that guy is on I want some he has looked the same for the last thirty years, kudos for that brother!
At the end old sweet mumma Liz came out, and shook everyone’s hand, I mean is that necessary; imagine how many hands she has shook over the years does it even mean anything anymore I mean at least if you shook my hand you would be special as I don’t go around shaking everyone’s hand I am just saying maybe lizzie should think about quality over quantity, although she did use protection (in the form of a glove) at least she is safe about it.

Speaking of gloves I was outside today in my plastic gloves cleaning the ashtrays, when a (I am speculating here) Homosexual guy walked out of the bar and said to me “are you in love” I confirmed that I was not, and added that I hated the entire female race he then informed me that there are ‘other lifestyles you know’ and asked me if I got any sexual pleasures out of wearing the rubber gloves. I told him there was definitely no pleasure for me in picking up cigarette buts, but would be happy to shove my glove up his arse, and pull it out his mouth if he so desired, he left promptly. Also while I was out there a smoker asked if there were any ashtrays around I said yes, and pointed to one, which was about 6feet away from him. He replied ‘No! By me’, and suggested I go inside, and get one. What are you so riddled with lung cancer from smoking that you can’t move 6 feet to your left to put your cigarette out? What a cock! I just rolled my eyes at him. I have become very good at rolling my eyes, and using annoyed tones much like women do, because yelling abuse is frowned upon in customer service, apparently.

After five, and half months I am sick to death of being called an Australian, sick to mother f***ing death you hear me, but I can understand that most of the English are uneducated, and we do sound a lot like Australians to the untrained ear, however I will never except any excuse for being called a South African, What the hell? Kiwis or Aussies for that matter do not sound like Saffas. No one does. They are a whole stupid bred of their own!

Tax! Grrr! I do feel sorry for the English when it comes to taxes though these guys get it bad Mr Brown, and his little buddies take over 30% of my wages in tax, and I’m the poor I hate to think what they take off the rich, they have this stupid think called national insurance, which is probably what our Kiwisaver scheme will turn into, basically they rape 10 quid a week off me, which after some investigation, and quite frankly I think the people I talked to had no idea where the money went either. However apparently, this money goes towards my British pension, which I won’t be here to claim, to healthcare, which I am not entitled to, and for unemployed/child benefits, which, wait for it I am not entitled to. Wow I pay ten quid a week into scheme, and can’t claim a single penny back under anything. It’s highway robbery, at least if it went to street lights or roads or something at least next time I get attacked on the street I could say well at least my National insurance pays for this road I am currently lying on.

Speaking of people attacking me I had a rather bizarre man threaten to beat me up the other day because (wait for it) there wasn’t enough head on his beer. What? I found this quite amusing, although he was quite serious about it. Now I’ve had numerous people whinge about too much head, but never not enough… Wait I am aloud to say that?

Moving on swiftly.
Now I must say when I first got here I thought they were incredibly unnecessary, but now that I’ve lived with the English for 5 months I see why. You see up near the Bullring in town they have white lines painted on the footpath so that retarded people know, which side of the footpath to walk on I being a somewhat logical person thought this was over the top, but living in city with a couple of Million English people who lack common sense I can now see why, and there is always at least one person who’s going against the grain, I hate to think what would happen if there were no lines, these are exactly the type of people we need less of.

Another annoying thing about living in a city with millions of pedestrians is slow walkers, oh I hate them with a passion, and it’s so hard to pass these clowns in traffic, they always seem oblivious to the line of 65 people trying to get passed them.

There are some positive things though. Random shit like one busker who was wearing a suit, and singing opera, I mean come on how poor could that guy be he’s wearing a freakin suit?
And one time before Christmas there was a quartet of guys wearing suits, and playing Christmas Carols on trombones, it was pretty sweet; ya don’t get Trombones in Hamilton New Zealand.

The latest induction into the Birmingham Walk of Stars had me stumped though, (drum roll please) Noddy Holder. Who the F**k is Noddy Holder I hear you ask? Good question. Now I knew it wasn’t going to last very long before the hit the bottom of the barrel. I mean how many
Famous people could possibly come from Birmingham England, but Ozzy Osbourne, Jasper Carrot then Noddy Holder. That’s it? Surely you can do better than that Birmingham, two actual famous people before you start making up funny sounding names, come on.
Now my first guess was that they were inducting Noddy the cartoon, you know with the red car, and all, but after consulting my guru of knowledge (YD) apparently he is some sort of musician possibly in a band of some description or danced in George Michael video it’s hard to say.
Just quietly though, I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, but it’s between me, and the guy who plays a salad bowl as musical instrument on new street, for the forth star, fingers crossed.

So with my Marks and Spencer contract ending in early January the new hours in the loading bay clashed with my bar work so I switched over to the foods section, which sadly means no more sorting lingerie, and know more lingerie girls. There is something strange about the lingerie department, and it would seem that the higher in rank the more attractive they are, coincidence I think not.
I met the lingerie manager one night when we were moving the entire lingerie section around, I’ll tell you that was a great night. So much lingerie, so many pretty girls what more could you ask for. Anyway the manager is quite possibly the most attractive women in Britain, she is smoking, and she has a Scottish accent, which is hard to understand, but adds flavour, although she did have a lisp, which was quite amusing, I think it best she not speak, I wasn’t listening to her anyway.

Man I thought the loading bay was strange, well Foods has its fare share of kooks as well. I was chatting with one of the Irish ladies, who told me she came from the ‘south of the north part of Ireland, naturally when someone makes such a stupid statement I started to chuckle, and replied “so you mean the middle then? She got most offended, and stormed off, crazy Irish, she was probably drunk at the time anyway.

There is also this guy who only communicates through song, like when you say ‘good morning’ he will sing back ‘good morningggggg’ it’s something that needs to be seen to be believed, it’s very very odd. Now I’m not sure if the guy is nuts, and I mean like Charles Manson nuts, or if he’s a comic genius, I guess time will tell.

There is also this bitch that keeps smiling at me, and asking to borrow my pen, what a whore! I think I might sucker punch her tomorrow that should give her the message of my new found celibate life. Why can’t these evil soulless women leave me in peace, the sooner they take the vote back of women the better!

Speaking of whores (wait, who said that) there was a great letter to the editor in the Metro the other day. I believed the article that sparked the letter was about young British girls having underage sex, the article featured a female who, god bless her had waited until she was 16 before slamming everything in sight, she was now 18, and had bedded over 50 something men (maybe I’m a touch envious), but was such a good girl for waiting until the legal age, Thank you Metro for enlightening me with such a positive story, I think this girl maybe a hero of this generation the way she shares her love around is very generous, god bless her.
The more alarming story was not the Metro glorifying this Wench, but another article they ran which stated 30% of young people didn’t know how you caught Aids. Are you shitting me? How do these people dress themselves in the morning? I am here by calling for ‘Testing of sexual appropriateness’ Or TOSA, as they will be known. Much like the current driving licence tests you will be required to complete a scratch card questionnaire, and if you pass you will be issued with a giant S you will to attach to your forehead for 1 year, and will only be able to have sex before 10pm, and as a long as your parent or guardian is in the front seat. If you fail you will be chemically castrated.

Following up on my perfect man rant, there was also a letter to the editor from some lady claiming she had the perfect man, but he didn’t have a job, couldn’t drive, and lived with his father. Ha, nope he’s a Loser!

The Marks and Spencer message board read this morning ‘David Cameron (Leader of the Torries) will be in Lingerie today’ Now I’m assuming we have some general manager who bears the same name as the leader of the Torries, and was visiting, otherwise, that’s just weird. I wouldn’t put it past him though, you know he does have a chequered past.

One final thought while I was waiting in the 10 items or less queue behind a lady (read Bitch) who obviously had more than ten items. First off what sort of horrible despicable human being are you messing with the 10 items or less philosophy, this line was born out of love to try, and help people who only have a few items get out quicker. This is the equivalent of overtaking me, and then driving at 85kms an hour on a narrow road. I hate you. You hear me; I hate you!
Now I think they should employ people, no thugs to stand at the front of the line, and count to ten for people, because if they can’t read the giant freakin signs that read 10 items or less the probably can’t count either.
And lastly, why don’t supermarkets enforce the rule?
Just say no f**k off you idiot, you know the rules. What’s the point of a rule if you don’t enforce it? See that’s what’s wrong with society we have got all these stupid rules, and we don’t even stick to them. What’s the point? Either you have a rule, and enforce it, or you get rid of the f****n rule.

Now why aren’t I in charge of a country? Or at least a supermarket?

Skipstar.

My hunger for frozen treats got the better of me today, and I did the unthinkable, something I vowed never to do again, Return to Erdington.

It was actually fairly straight forward, and nothing over the top exciting took place, except for answering one of life’s many mysteries’s, the question being, where is milli vanili these days? I can now confirm after my brave walk down Erdington’s main street that they are residing in Erdington. And yes they still have those same nifty outfits. Seeing all the inbred Erdington locals brought back memories of mine, and WW’s time there, and I left fairly hastily after purchasing my Iceland goodies.

It has been pretty mad lately as I imagine it is everywhere with Christmas coming up. Birmingham is getting into the full swing of things by constructing an ice rink in the of the square, and after watching Blades of glory 8 times on the plane on the way over here I am determined to give it a crack. I have never been very good at skateboarding or roller skating which is a little worrying, but I am not going to let little things like skill or common sense get in my way, and now that I have a national insurance number I can go to the doctors without being deported.

I had my credit card limit raised the other day which has helped with Christmas, it is a rather long winded story as I was just trying to pay my rent, but my payments hadn’t cleared, and my card wouldn’t let me have any money. So I got on the phone to one of those annoying call centre persons, I think she was new as it sounded like she was reading the terms, and conditions off her computer screen after a elongated spiel she finished with, ‘and it could take up to Six years to clear sir’. Six years for my payment to clear are you serious? After I had finished laughing hysterically I asked her to confirm that she had indeed said six years. She had. This call wasn’t like any other annoying call centre call I had made before. She said the only other thing I could do beyond waiting up to six years for my payment to clear was to in crease my limit. I suggested my landlord would probably not be willing to wait up to six years for the rent so we should go ahead with the increase. This girl had an American accent, which was a little strange. I was only 30 pounds short without my payment clearing so I rounded up, and said lets increase it by 100. She started asking the usual question about jobs, income, outgoings etc.. She asked if I was still Surveying, and then proceeded to tell me her life story about how she had studied civil engineering at uni, it was very very bizarre, she ended up increasing my limit by 500 pounds as they do, and I got the feeling she didn’t want to hang the phone up I guess that’s just the impression I have on women over here, it is the DAWNING of a new era after all.

Work has been chugging along nicely, and on Sunday after a 12-hour shift, which brought back memories of before I left New Zealand I still managed to cook dinner, and to do some laundry. I am still enjoying cooking a lot, it’s fair to say some of my M & S work buddies don’t like to cook Michael said “I don’t like how food smells when it’s cooking so I just microwave”, Right! Jay on the other hand confessed tonight to eating 2-minute noodles for the last 23 days straight.

I had a job interview with the Royal Mail last Tuesday which, and I quote was ‘Very successful’. The interview was ok, now being that I already have two jobs I was a little unsure of whether or not I wanted this job, but it paid more so greed was the contributing factor. I had thought about pulling out of the interview the week before, and giving someone else an opportunity at the job, but I couldn’t find the correct phone number to ring so I decided to go to the interview, besides I probably wasn’t going to get the job, and I could always say no if I did. They gave me a link to some information they suggested I read before the interview about the services they provide, but being that I wasn’t sure I was going to attend I didn’t bother reading it. Now I had also come to the realization that I had never failed a face-to-face interview, and I was hoping I might not get the job to break the high expectation. It turns out I probably should have read that information as the interview involved a role play scenario of selling a credit card I had a quick look over a leaflet, and winged. It went ok. Then the interviewer asked me to sell him a bag of balloons, and finally an apple, now fortunately for me the crazier the stuff he brought out the more I thrived, and began to take the piss. Finally he asked me if I would be ok wearing a uniform, now their purple uniforms are pretty lame looking, and the guy was wearing a bow tie, but I love bow ties, I hope I get one. I am not sure the moral of this story, because I really didn’t prepare for this interview at all, I shot from the hip, and talked the biggest load of bullshit ever, using clichés, and catchy phases, and still got the job, and my record stays intact now I’m going to be even more nervous for my next interview.

So it looks like I have three jobs now, and I don’t think I’ll give up my bar job after working with the lovely Nena the other Friday. I was meant to be working in the upstairs bar, but it was pretty slow, and they needed some help downstairs, we had two new kids starting Nena, and Michael like a good senior I let them do most of the work they would ask me question now, and again strangely I actually knew the answers to some of their question although most of Nena’s questions I didn’t understand due to her Polish accent. Halfway through serving a customer, and for no apparent reason to me Nena grabs me, puts a cube of ice down my shirt, and rubs it into my chest. I still have no idea why this took place, but I enjoyed it, it was very porn movieish. I considered returning the favour, but I probably would have ended up in prison, so instead I took the less arrestable option of throwing ice on the floor where she had just swept, but I hadn’t wagered in the fact women are stronger, and more violent than me, now I know the Polish are still probably a little angry after the whole Hitler trying to erase them from the face of the earth (did I mention she was a brunette) she then proceed to jump on my feet, and assaulted me with the broom (not in a perverted New Plymouth way either before anyone starts thinking that) I was beginning to like this girl, but before she could lock on the scorpion death lock I was asked to restock some bottles, which took me away from the lovely Nena, and outback with some really nice bloke, we were chatting away, and I was stacking the fridge just behind the door when Nena came charging though the door to get some lemon cracking me on the back of the skull. She came past again swore at me, and told me to get out of her way. So in the space of about twenty minutes I had two bruised kneecaps, a couple of squashed toes, an icy cold chest, and a mild concussion, thankfully for my health’s sake I was sent back upstairs, until I finished. As I was leaving she was at the bottom of the stairs I winked at her, and she smiled, I’m so in! The DAWN of a new day.
To follow up this story I haven’t seen her since.

The people at Lloyds are pretty cool in a work environment sort of way, at M & S on the other hand though….

Michael is one of the most useless people I have ever worked with, and he constantly ads the word ‘innit’ to the end of every god forsaking sentence It amazes me how the English don’t know how to use their own freaking language I brought this up with Mo the other night when he asked me ‘how was the outback treating you’ I looked at him sideways, and thought for second about if I plunged my marks and Spencer pen into his chest whether it would spear his heart. He continues ‘you’re a bit slow on the uptake tonight’ I replied, “don’t you mean how is the outback treating you?” Then he looked at me strangely, at that point tumbleweed rolled past, and I walked away.
I did however have an interesting conversation about dog fighting in Pakistan. Mo went to visit his brother over there a few months back apparently it’s really cheap to live over there because everyone has stitched up their power, and gas meters which leaves them plenty of money to train fighting dogs, of course. He told me how great it was over there, and how they had everything, yeah except a little thing called freedom. His brother had been training his dog for a few months, and apparently it was treated like a king, well the day came, and the dog had its first fight, which it lost. Mo’s brother was a little disappointed so he pulled out a pistol, and shot it in the ring. Wouldn’t that be cool if every time something didn’t go to plan you just pulled out your PP7, and shot it, maybe Pakistan is the place to be? Mo was a little confused after his brother had poured all this money into the dog, and then just shot it, he asked ‘why didn’t you sell it’ his brother replied ‘it lost we’ll get a new one’. After telling me how great Pakistan was I asked if Mo wanted to move there he said no, well there’s just no pleasing some people.

Another British saying which really grinds me is instead of saying hello you get ‘you alright’ which I have had trouble adapting to as I am use to hearing this when some is crying, or has hurt themselves, and am always looking for someone in distress when I hear this, but alas it’s just another retarded English person.

I decided after carting a pair of long johns half way around the world I was going to wear them this week, now I have never had the privilege of donning a pair of long johns before, but figured I would buy some for my trip as it would be a lot colder over here. I am going on the record right now as saying long johns are the most useless piece of clothing in the universe, except maybe in Antarctica, surely no ones legs ever get this cold, if my legs are cold I put pants on. This is the equivalent of putting a jumper on a chicken, and then putting it in the oven, I am standing to be corrected, but I don’t think this kind of warmth is necessary.

When I first started at M & S people kept telling me of this girl named Katherine (who after all this time I still haven’t actually met) who apparently said I had a sexy voice, I have received a bit of stick over this from the boys, and I think they think I’m a bit of a ladies man. Tony is always asking me questions about New Zealand girls (as if I know anything about them) Tony is married to a Ukrainian which he purchased off Ebay I believe, and Michael keeps asking about the Polish which I have only mention once to him about. (Maybe he reads my blogs. Oh crap….) I think I remember talking to a girl about something around the time this all starting happening, and she bared a striking resemblance to a certain well rounded celebrity…. DAWN FRENCH.
Now this girl looked even more like Dawn French than the Erdington girl, and I was sober when I spoke to M & S Dawn. There must be something in the water over here or that Dawn French has a lot of illegitimate daughters.
So the Dawn of a new day doesn’t mean the sun will be shinning, and I can’t help but point out the fickleness of girls with my newfound sex appeal even if they do all look like Dawn French as It seems the accent plays a major role which is a little shallow if you ask me, I could be an absolute prick, but I have an accent so I must be cool. I think the same applies to my interview success I have the stereotypical small white male look, which sells although I do have the gift of the gab.

In summary the world is full of a bunch of shallow fickle Bastards, F**k you and F**kin merry Christmas I hope you all choke, just a little bit!!!

Skip.

It has been a very full on, and adventurous week for me with the whole starting two new jobs on the same day thing, but before I get into that mess there is something strange that has been going on, and I haven’t mentioned it until now because it involves me in a very homosexual situation which I didn’t want to have to bring up, but now he has gone to far. I know what you’re thinking who is this man Skip has just made reference to, and why are you sounding all crazy like, well I will tell you why, I believe that a man is stalking me, and that mans name is….. Patrick Swayze.

That’s right I believe Patrick Swayze is stalking me, and here is my case.
Now I would like the world to bear in mind, that I was off work for a long time, and was beginning to become delusional, so one night when the rest of the crew were in Greece, and I assure you there was not much on TV, I decided to watch Dirty Dancing, as it was the 20th anniversary of it coming out, and they showed the movie, and followed it up with a documentary about Dirty Dancing. You know what, I am a 21 century male who is in touch with his feminine side, and I admit the movie was quite enjoyable, now I had never seen Dirty Dancing before, but had heard my sister talking about it as she is quite a fan, and I had always wondered who put ‘Baby in the corner’ It turns it was a fairly off the cuff remark, and I am not sure how that phase became so popular. Another silly thing about the British is they replay every show at least twenty times so there is never a good excuse to miss any show. So for the next few days Patrick was everywhere that was fine, the 2oth anniversary came, and went, and that was the last I thought I would see of him, but then the next week I walked into the lounge, and what was on TV…. Ghost.

Now this Swayze movie I had seen before, so had no interest in watching it again, but while I’m on the subject, why did the Ghost people cast Whoopi Goldberg to make out with Demi Moore, I think that is bad casting, and quite frankly Gross, couldn’t they have got someone young, and attractive? So I was a little confused why England was playing all this Swayze on TV, but thought it would pass, then I turned on the TV, and Patrick Swayze was singing. That’s bullshit Swayze doesn’t sing, and what was worse was he was singing a song he had written, around the time of Dirty Dancing he released some shit song called, ‘Whistle in the wind’ or ‘The Wind blows out my arse’, I could be wrong with those guesses, but I’m sure the title of the song has wind in it. Apart from my ears hurting a lot, I thought it was all over until….

Me, YD, and Trudes went to the video store the other night, I was browsing, I turned to my left, and there it was the ‘Patrick Swayze Collection’ I mean come on the guy was big for like five minutes in the eighties does he really deserve a ‘collection’ He only had TWO movies. I have had enough of Swayze, and am taking out a restraining order on Patrick on Monday.

So I started my new jobs this week, on Monday at Marks and Spencer department store, and Tuesday at Lloyds No1 bar. The inductions were polar opposites. Marks & Spencer’s induction was extremely professional, and well organised, Lloyds No1 induction consisted of watching videos on a 14in TV in a corner of the bar, and when it came to signing my contract the ‘Team leader suggested I not read it to save time, and get home quicker.
Back at Marks & Spencer the lady who introduced me to the idea of selling lingerie on the internet, confessed to suing the last four companies she has worked with, me, and my buddy Steven quickly moved away from her as not to get a sexual harassment charge.

I have been At Marks & Spencer 5 days now, and am beginning to know my way around the place. I work in the loading bay, and my role consists of sorting, and transporting, stock, mainly clothes, shoes, homewares, and gifts to the appropriate floors, using these crazy old fashioned elevators. It’s not rocket science, and there are only 3 floors so I have got a 33% chance of getting it right with my eyes closed. When my father heard of this news he asked me if working at Marks & Spencer was like that crappy old show ‘Are you being served’, and unfortunately it is. He has been referring to me as ‘Mr Humphries ever since, which if my mind serves me correctly was the extremely gay character on that show, which is very worrying.

It was on my second day that I heard the single best sentence I will probably ever here in my life “Can you take this lingerie to the first floor for me” Ah, yeah. Not only is it great that I get to be this close to lingerie, which will probably be the closest I will ever get to a women’s lingerie I also get to visit the lingerie girls which I have noticed in my one visit to the lingerie section (everyone else always seems to snake that job) are quite possibly the hottest Marks & Spencer employees. One girl stopped me tonight, and asked me if I knew where Martin was I said I thought he was downstairs, I didn’t even know who Martin was, but met him later that evening, he seemed like a bit of a f***wit, and was probably her boyfriend, I think she just wanted to hear me speak though as girls over here seem quite obsessed with my accent, I find it strange as I had never considered a NZ accent sexy, which I hear alarmingly often.

The British working environment is a little different to NZ I have had very little on the job training in either of my jobs, both of them have just chucked me in there, and said go for your life, find something to do. On my second night they let me collect all the money from the tills. I know CCTV is everywhere over here, but is it really wise to let the new guy collect the days takings, I could be a psychopath. There is one guy I was fortunate enough to work with on Tuesday, and Wednesday named John, who would just give me stuff, and tell me which floor to take it to, that worked very well, and then there is Mushie.

I can’t remember his actual name so for racial reasons I will name him after former Pakistan leg spin bowler Mushtaq Amhed who was affectionately known as ‘Mushie’. Anyway Mushie kind of thinks he is the boss, which he isn’t, but decided he would make it his job to help train me, fortunately his, and my shifts only overlap in my first half hour so I don’t have to put up with him for too long. One very memorable conversation was as follows Mushie “ Ok I’ve got some stuff here to go level two” Skippy “ Yip, sure” Mushie “Ok take this to level two, here I will show you” Skippy I’ll be fine Mushie I was just on level two 5 minutes ago” Mushie “Here I’ll show you (then asks the most excellent question I have ever heard, and he asked this question like it was a reasonable, normal question) Do you know what the number two looks like” Now I need to point out he wasn’t being a smartass, or making joke, or even trying to imply I was stupid he asked this question in a very sincere way. He then proceeded to point at the number two just in case I had never seen one before I guess. He had stumped me I was not sure how to answer that question without stabbing him, but because it was a genuine question I couldn’t really just make fun of him to his face, (I will do in writing) I just smiled at him, said I would be fine, and slammed the door to my lift. I think Marks & Spencer should have put that question in their inductions to stop confusion later. How the hell could I get through life without knowing what the number two looked like? How would I have got the job without knowing the number two? I wouldn’t have been able to fill in my date of birth without it? The mind boggles.

Last night for some reason we had six people on shift, which was quite odd considering usually, we have two. So we finished very early, and just stood around for a bit, unfortunately this meant I got to hear outrageous stories from my fellow work colleagues, including from everyone’s favourite comedian Derek, about why he didn’t take heavy drugs anymore, and frighteningly about the time he turned up to work at Marks & Spencer on speed, he thought it would make the shift go quicker, I guess it makes sense to a crackhead. It was shortly after this story that Jay arrived for the night shift carrying a six pack of beer he intended to drink on his smoko break, Martin suggested he shouldn’t as CCTV would catch him, so they concluded he better drink it outside. When the beer situation was finally sorted, Jay joined the other conversation, and reminisced about the good old days when they used to have lines of coke lined up next to the radio, and would cover their A class drugs with a napkin so the supervisors wouldn’t see. I think it is best that I not socialize with these people.

Just as I was getting a free hot chocolate from the vending machine Michael came into the smoko room “Damn it! It’s snowing,” he moaned. I thought he was bullshitting me, so I looked outside, and sure enough it was snowing. I was so excited. The British were all moaning, and complaining, and I wanted to play in the snow, it was great fun walking home in the snow, it was just like in the movies, except when the snow gets in your eyes that never seems to happen in the movies. Michael (a small Asian lad) walked some of they way home with me, but was not amused by the snow, he asked if there was anyone else at the flat, I think he was hitting on me, and is getting on my nerves a little with his constant video game talk, the way he does mathematical equations in his break, and the final straw was when he tried to tell me George Lazenby was the best bond. Are you freakin kidding me George Lazenby I mean really!

My bar job on the other hand is a completely different story, which I started on Friday night, now I thought this sounded like a bad idea, being that I had never worked in a bar before, however I figured they would have something meaningless planned for me like collecting glasses.
Nope. They didn’t, when I arrived I was whisked away by a lovely Polish girl by the name of Julita, she was a team leader, and would be looking after me tonight, she issued me with a black Weatherspoons women’s shirt, and a are you 21 badge, then some guy in the staff room said I could have his apron which was very generous. Julita then started talking to another girl who was starting that night in the kitchen; she seemed to be explaining what was going to happen the only problem for me was I didn’t speak Polish. Eventually Julita went back to English, and said “Come on” We went behind the bar, and she explained a few basic things, and that was it. I was now a barman, or according to my shirt a barwomen. It was a Baptism by fire, but an hour or two into I had the basics down sweet JD, and Pepsi, pints, and coronas, then people started ordering Martinis, Quattro, and Cognac, And unfortunately Quattro, and Cognac, aren’t in the Polish dictionary, but the guy ordering knew what he wanted, and pointed it out to me. It was a crazy, start to my bar work career, but all the staff were extremely helpful, and helped me out a lot. Julita had other stuff to do as well, but was great too, and she gets bonus points, for being extremely attractive, did I mention I am a big fan of the Polish. And then there are the Germans…

Now I must admit I have never really liked the Germans solely for the reason they have tried to take over the world a couple of times, but upon visiting their wonderful country twice, they seem very sorry about that, and a generally very pleasant people. Now when Gail told me the other night that the Germans were coming I thought she was having flashbacks to the war, as it turns out she was not, and the Germans were indeed coming. The Germans have invaded Birmingham more specifically New street where the have set up their German village, complete with their very own Glockenspiel. Basically they are selling a whole bunch of Christmas crap, and crap in general, normally this wouldn’t bother me, hey we all need to make a dollar, and I too love their schnitzel, but they have blocked my route to Marks & Spencer with their Crap, and now it takes me ten minutes longer to get to work. World war 1, World War 2, and now this I don’t think I have any more forgiveness for the Germans.

Skip.

It’s been a while since my last illogical rant about young women so this is probably overdue.

The other day the young Skipstar got himself into a bit of trouble with a young lady. We were chatting away pleasantly, when she asked me what my address was, so she could sent me a Christmas card, I found this a little odd, besides I didn’t realize young people did that, I thought only my Mother sent Christmas cards to her old high school buddies. I replied, “Ok, sure. You are a mysterious girl,” (mainly to lead into a Peter Andre joke, but also this seemed politer than ‘Are you retarded’) She snapped back “I don’t see how I am strange (humph) (this is the sound an angry girl makes, I should know), but, whatever”. I am pretty sure I didn’t call her strange as you can reread my above quote just to be sure if you please, although I was most probably thinking she was strange at the time. Fearing for my life as Caligynephobia set it in (I feel I should mention that I didn’t know what the correct word for fear of women was it turns out it is Gynophobia, or Gynephobia, god bless you google, not Skipsaphobia as I had first guessed, anywho I went with Caligynephobia which I am lead to believe is more specifically a fear of beautiful women, but it sounds cooler so I am going with it) I quickly resorted to my last line of defence, random compliments followed by assuming the foetal position, fortunately just like in the movies when the bomb is counting down, and am about to explode into a thousand pieces the bomb stopped with one second left, who’d see that coming?
She was calm again. She replied to my random compliment “oh thank you, your so nice” Phew! Death avoided, but it lead my thinking in a different direction.

The two meanings of nice.

Now in my 22 years on this planet I haven’t learnt a lot about most things, especially women, but one of the things I have learnt about women (and there is only two, the other is not to refer to them as whores or slappers) is that if you are referred to as nice by a young female this is not a good thing, unless you enjoy hearing all their crappy stories about, how their boyfriend cheated on them with their best friend, but he is 6ft, and plays the guitar so he must be a stand up bloke, give him another chance I’m sure he has learnt his lesson.
The only other group of people who usually refer to me as nice are middle aged women (do you notice how I refer to them as middle aged or young women, I think I have come along way from whore, slapper, and wench, speaking of wench I think this one should be aloud, I think insults from at least two centuries ago should be permitted)
I cottoned on to this mystery at my recent job interviews, now I haven’t been to that many job interviews in my life 5 or 6, but I have a 100% success rate at the interview stage, now I had put this down to charisma, and a calm, and confident approach, but I was way off, I’m not even charismatic, I had overlooked a very important connection in all these interviews. Middle aged women.
Yes they were the reason I am very successful at interviews, how could I have missed this. It all started making sense, ‘would you like a biscuit Skip’, ‘Oh you have such a lovely accent’, ‘oh you are such a polite young man’, ‘oh you are such a NICE young man’

I think I am on to a winner here, am officially applying to my Beer Tuesday brethren to be awarded at the beer Tuesday awards of 2007 most likely to be Anna Nicole Smith, without the whole baby, and dying of coke thing, but that’s still an option.

If you think about it though, mature ladies (my goodness I’m even evolving during this blog) have a lot going for them, they are polite, helpful, grateful, when I speak to them, full of knowledge, and they have the ability to lift cars if their children become trapped, as opposed to rude, eye rolling, ungrateful, think they are stronger than me, and don’t have the ability to lift cars, young women

So there we have it the two meanings of nice.
In conclusion being short, and nice, like most things has positives, and negatives, it’s not going to get me a wife or girlfriend anytime soon, but will most probably keep me in a job with plenty of biscuits in my belly. Maybe I will start replying to wanted ads like this one ‘sincere, 60 has a pink car and three small dogs. Seeks kind man gentle man to tick all her boxes & hopefully more’ Hmmm, or maybe I should just get those collagen injections in my ankles I’ve been thinking about, and learn to play the guitar??

Skipsy.

Ps: While I was looking up fear of women I also discovered fear of long words which is apparently ‘Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia’ that can’t be right how would you describe your fear? Maybe I shouldn’t get my phobia clarifications off porn websites.

I thought I would start with two quotes I was particularly fond of this week.
Quote one “Or more up. Yellow Dragon. In response to me proclaiming “there’s only one way to go now, down”

Quote two. “Gee, I’m sorry for sassing you Joker” Suzie the cheerleader (from old school Batman) Talking to the Joker who she apparently ‘sassed’ earlier in show.

It has been a very interesting week. Which started for me on Monday, and my first British interview, I thought at the time that my British existence hung on this job as it turns out it probably didn’t. I was quite eager to do well, and even showed up early for the interview, there was meant to be around 25 people coming for interviews, and they said it would take around an hour. Unfortunately around 80 people turned up. I’m not quite sure how or why over 50 people turned up to this interview uninvited, but due to everything being equal opportunities you can’t discriminate against little things like people who haven’t even applied for the job. So because there were so many people there they decided just to give everyone an interview. We sat in tables of six; at my table there was a representative from the following backgrounds, Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, British, Kiwi, and a Cognomina. I was beginning to wonder if this was a job interview at all, or maybe the floods were coming, and Noah was infact recruiting. The fighting nations didn’t talk much at first, so I chatted mainly with the Brit, and Indian, time was flying by, but Ramjin was getting a little restless, we had already been waiting over an hour, and the line was still huge, he kept asking people how much longer it would be, I didn’t care that much, I just didn’t want to rock the boat, or in this case rock the ark, he decided he would come back in the morning, and as fate would have he was gone not two minutes, before they called his name.

I declared at the start that if I was going to be here a while, and possibly not even get a job, I wanted free tea & biscuits, at the hour, and a half mark free drinks were given I was half way there. Once we reached the two hour mark the smokers in the group, were beginning to become delusional, and that’s when the good stories came out the best being our good friend Nicola telling us a group of strangers the best way to make money was by selling used underwear over the internet, apparently you can buy musk from the bodyshop so you don’t actually have to wear them, if you don’t want to, of course. The line was still large, and wearing women’s underwear, and selling it on the net for 15 pounds a pop was beginning to sound not so crazy. I started to try, and scare people by telling them I worked for Marks and Spencer, and had been recording everything they had said. After three, and a half hours my name was finally called, I was taken to a room, in the room were my instructions, and 35 plastic cards with pictures of food I was going to have to sell to the customer, they were in groups, I quickly moved the tomatoes from the vegetables to the fruit section in case that was my first test. The test goes well, and the man says to me ‘you have passed’, I say thanks, but don’t want to sound stupid so I don’t asked what I’ve passed he gives me a hot chocolate, and tells me Julie will see me in a minute. I enter and apparently I have the job. WHAT! It takes me six weeks to get an interview, and that’s it, point at some plastic cards, and I’ve got a job THAT IS RIDICULOUS! I was excepting like an obstacle course or at very least some sort of text elimination. My day was soon fulfilled when Julie offered me a biscuit; I knew they’d have biscuits!
So I finally got a job, but it was only 20 hours, and working in Ops whatever that means? I gave myself the next morning off, and headed out in the afternoon, I went to my favourite hang out, the job centre. I feel I should explain the process as Michelle was confused why I was on the phone at the job centre all the time. So what they have at the job centre is these touch computer screens with current jobs where you can search, for jobs you might want. When you find one that suits you hit the print button, and it prints out a little piece of paper which tells you what to do next, for example send your CV to such, and such, or just call in, but usually it says ring our Job centre phone line for more information. So I rang this number on one of the job centre phones, a man with a thick Indian accent answers the phone. Indian man “Can you make it here today?” Skippy “Hello. Ah where” Indian man “Wait have you been here before?” Skippy “Ah.. No Where’s here?” Indian man “Ok where are you now?” Skippy “At the Job centre (then I tell him my postcode)” He then proceeds to read off over the next few minutes the most accurate, and elongated series of directions I have ever heard, this guy made the guy at council office seem like a deft mute. After agreeing with all his pedantic directions he finishes with ‘now can you be here today at two’ I have no idea who I’m talking to, what we are talking about, or where I am supposed to be going, although I do remember him saying go left when you see Aston Villa Park, and what is also bothering me is that my piece of paper has a ladies name on it, I finally reply “Ah.. Just wait there a second”, and hang up on him. I’m gunna miss that place.

I headed up town to get some photocopies of my CV, now you see I have a very bad habit of answering peoples questions when they ask me something, and these scallywags are all over Birmingham trying to sell you insurance in the street, or get you to donate the money for whatever cause. It really is best to ignore these people, but I don’t like to be rude. WW was very good at snubbing them when he was here with his Vercase on. I have tried to counteract them by listening to my Ipod so I can’t hear them, and it had been working well, until..

A lady starts looking at me, and she is saying something, but I can’t hear her because of my Ipod, I foolishly take off my ear phones, she asks what type job I would like, I tell her I would like to play cricket for a living, she then asks what I would like to change about myself, I tell her procrastination, but lets talk about it later. (There’s a joke in there somewhere) She quickly whisks me off into a strange building I don’t really have anything else to do so don’t put up to much of a fight. She tells me I will be talking a free personality test. I look to my left, and see a pile of books I check the Authors name L. Ron Hubbard. Noooooooo the Scientologists have got me.
I am willing to humour them, and complete the test. They bring me my results, and we move to another office, they ask if I’ve heard of Mr Hubbard I say yes, he is the ex mayor of Auckland, and makes tasty cereal, nobody laughs, I think to myself you’re an idiot Skip. No one over here will know Dick Hubbard, try a more universal joke; in I go “no wait he’s the guy who played Ritchie Cunningham on happy days right? Again no laughter. They tell me he invented Dianetics, and ask if I have heard of Scientology. I tell them of course, and ask “hey Tom Cruise invented that didn’t he, by jumping on couches, isn’t he locked up in a nut house now?” In a very serious voice the lady tells me Tom Cruise is not crazy that’s just what the media want me to believe, and that it’s all about money, because the pharmaceutical companies would go out of business if everyone did Scientology I thought about disagreeing, and suggesting that everyone would need drugs to stay fit enough to jump on couches, but I had just realized I did not know how to get out of the building, and may need this lady to help. She gave me my results. You are to nervous, far too critical, are Withdrawn, and have a lack of accord. I told her I was afraid, it was all her fault, that I felt compelled to do nothing about it, and that I was going to sit in the corner now.

She bargained with me for what seemed like eternity, she tried to change my life, get me to go on some course, and sell me one off dicky boys books, after about an hour I asked to leave. She pointed at the lift, and I bolted.

She talked a good game, but I really couldn’t afford to change my life this week, I’ll do it next week, ah Procrastination my one true friend.

Speaking of Ipods earlier, I went down to the Bullring yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, and Apple was launching the new Iphone. I have never ever seen I bigger line of nerds in all my life, it was all roped off, and the nerds had their laptops, sleeping bags, flasks of coffee, and magic cards. It seemed a little over the top, there was maybe 30 or 40 people, there and the shop was opening in about one hour, surely they could have just walking around a bit, and come back.

Thursday was another important day for me as I had another job interview, and my appointment for a NINO, again I took the morning off, and was just reading my letter, one more time to be sure I had everything for the interview, when I realized this was actually the first time I had read the letter properly, and that I actually needed to be some where entirely different than where I was going, It was then that Karma (Sutra) bit me on the Arse, and I got out the three maps that bitch from my phone call the other week had sent me. What worried me a lot was I had searched (apparently not very well) for this same street a few weeks back as there was some bar jobs going, and my sense of direction in Birmingham is absolute crap. Anyway I think for the first time since I left New Zealand I took the maps, and didn’t get lost once. A very happy moment. The guy doing interview was a prick, he did however enlighten me to the fact that Minis were once made here in Birmingham, as well as the now extinct Rovers. He said my application was shit, cause I didn’t have a letterhead on my job offer for Marks and Spencer, I’m not sure what he was on about, as you don’t even need a job to get a National Insurance Number. Anywho He said they would let me know, within 12 weeks, and I may have to start the process again, Hopefully he was just a cock, and it all goes well, I will have to wait, and see.

As I was walking home in the rain my umbrella snapped in half, well actually it was WW one he got in Florence, but he left it behind, I could see it was going to be one of those days. Next I went to the library to ask why, My phonecard would not work in the stupid BT phoneboxes, That’s British Telecom, not Beer Tuesday for those of you playing at home, As the Beer Tuesday phone boxes would be way cooler.

I get interrupted by a lady who asks if the library has a prayer room, apparently, politeness, or waiting in line were not part of her particular religion, the man informs her she can use the sixth or seventh floor, and will not be disturbed, she demands an official prayer room that has been blessed, he informs the lady that this is after all a library where books are kept, and unfortunately, all the blessed rooms are booked out at the moment, but will be returned in a month. Apart from this opportunity to make fun of this very rude lady my trip to the library was not very helpful, and I wander around waiting for my job interview at the Lloyds no1 bar, which the lady said to show up after four.

Or at least that was what I thought she said; she actually said your interview is at four.
I arrived at around quarter to five as not to seem to eager, I smile at Tammy she asks why I am 45 minutes late. I cannot see this going to well. She tells me to wait there as the five o’clock is here now, and takes her for an interview. This gives me an opportunity to watch the final moments of a one dayer between India and Pakistan, which was quite enjoyable. Around half five Tammy comes back, and takes me for my interview, it goes surprisingly well, and she tells me she’ll give me a call. And she does, and I start on Tuesday, amazingly I know nothing about bar work, and didn’t even show up for the interview, and now I have two jobs hooray! In the near future I may be able to do travel things again Yus! It has certainly been a boost to my confidence, hooray for charisma my one gift in life. Unfortunately now the hard work begins, no more deal or no deal, and I’ve gotta go to work everyday, but will hopefully mean more travel, and after a hard days work I can always come home, and jump on some couches.

Skip

Hmm. Well I must say this has been quite a trip so much learned, so much knowledge gained on a whole the trip of a life time. I guess sitting around with not much to do gives me a lot of time to think about what’s important to me. I am extremely excited about returning home, and although Birmingham job hunting has been super frustrating, and ego deflating it has certainly made me appreciate NZ more, even my old jobs. This week has really got me thinking about how long you flog a dead horse (according to my dummies guide to flogging a dead horse the standard flogging is about 6 weeks) I really only have two shots left the one job interview I have acquired which is on Monday (which I have a bad gut feeling about it) and, convincing the British to give me a National Insurance number or NINO, (which is proving trickier than I had envisioned) and then convincing another set of Muppets that I am long term unemployed (which is technically true as of today I have been in the Uk three months without a job) And although I will consider it a failure to leave England I have to weigh up how long I leave it before pulling the plug, and cutting my losses. I have had a super time, and it has been a nice break after seven years of hard labour. I think I’m ready for another seven. I believe in creating opportunities, and then seizing them, and I haven’t been able to create opportunities for myself over here most probably due to procrastination it’s my one (ok maybe I have more than one) flaw. In hindsight I probably would have done things a little differently, but that’s life I guess.

The majority of this week has been again spent trying to communicate with the British again unfortunately in my quest for a job I spent a lot time at the Job Centre. This week there was only two fights started with the security guard, the first time I was a little surprised, but now I just can’t help but stare. I’m not sure why, but the place smelt a lot like Wacky backy this week, and I eaves dropped in on a conversation between two obviously distinguished gentlemen about them getting their lives back on track after being drug lords.
While waiting for a free phone to become available earlier in the week I snuck across the road to Tesco to look see how much some washing powder was, now I really wanted to get Persil which comes with a free Mr happy or Mr strong (giveaways always work on me), but it was quite expensive, and a no no on my budget, I then came across the most intimidating washing powder I’d ever seen ‘Tesco’s Automatic Biological washing powder’ in what seemed like a Twenty Kg box I was beginning to feel claustrophobic the detergents knew I was out of my depth. I looked at some other products to pretend I was a regular, I picked up some Cif which comes in exactly the same bottle, and has the same picture as NZ’s Jif I just don’t understand it could the British not afford the J? I was beginning to panic, I lunged for another product ‘Dosmestos’ I threw it down, and bolted for the door I didn’t want to get ‘Dosmestos’ in my lungs.

Today I went searching for a phone box as I don’t have any money left on my phone, upon finding a group of three I tried the first one it smelt strongly of urine, so I tried the second to my surprise a huge pile of spew, lucky number three I’m thinking, fortunately no excrement in this one just a business card next to the receiver which reads ‘Stephano a fine Italian gentleman for all your escort needs’ Not that strange really this is Birmingham after all, I just wondered if it was Stephano who threw up, and urinated in the other two booths so you’d see his card?

Really the first three paragraphs were just stalling tactics to lengthen out quite possibly the greatest moment of the whole trip which took place on Saturday night the evening started out with a strange voice mail from the Candyman about going to watch league somewhere unfortunately I had my Candyman blocker on so I missed the call, and had no money to ring him back, meanwhile YD also had a missed call from Simon the Australian Neighbour (the one who caught me assaulting the Vacuum cleaner) some of his rugby playing mates were down at the sports bar drinking, and he invited YD down so I tagged along the evening started well with quite a few beers downed I remember having a conversation (well I say conversation, but really I was the only one talking so it was more of a lecture) with one of the guys about the English rugby team I think the gist of what I was saying was that the English should really be happy for having such a has been side, and getting so far in the competition the numbers started to dwindle so we headed for the dance floor I figured I probably wouldn’t be able to afford to drink in England ever again, so might as well make the most of it. I believe YD, and Simon left when I was dancing with some blonde chicks, I moved around quite a bit, and was having a good time when I started dancing with this girl who when I came in to the light looked a lot Dawn French infact I’m going so far as to say it was Dawn French if not she should enter some sort of look alike contest. And I trust you all know who Dawn French is? The Vicar of Dibley, French & Saunders, married to Lenny Henry, I only point this out cause when told YD, Trudes, Michelle, they didn’t know who she was, even Sunny didn’t know her. Speaking of Sunny he got punked tonight when the rest of us were all hiding from trick or treaters in the lounge with the lights out, he opened the door, what don’t they get trick or treaters in Japan everyone knows you turn the lights out, and hide.
Halloween almost got called off in Ladywood after a slight domestic occurred which I think may have had something to do with who had the rights to Stephano, anyway the police, and riot squad turned up for a friendly chat I just hoped someone stabbed someone apparently there is a stabbing every 24 minutes in England least it will buy me another 24 minutes.

Anyway I’ve been sidetracked so I was being thrown around the dancefloor when I decided to strike up a conversation with Dawn’s far more attractive friend, and I think here is where my success lay I couldn’t hear most of what she was saying, so I probably looked like I was interested in what she was saying when really I wasn’t. Infact I didn’t even hear her name, but I think she said was 26, she bought me a couple of drinks which I had little of before Dawn took them, and drank them (she probably ate the glasses too) she showed me some pictures on her phone, but because I couldn’t understand a word she was saying I don’t know why? She told me how handsome I was (I think) and that I reminded her of Richard Hammond, again I cant remember why, but she tricked me into giving her my number which she saved as Studly in her phone. It was getting late and was I thinking about getting out of there, and slowly making my way to the exit. Saunders asks “are you going to buy me a drink”, Skippy pauses I was smashed, but even I could work out I had 55p in my wallet, she continues “Are you big” Skippy looking a little puzzled “Not really only 5ft 6in” she gestures towards to my pelvis Skippy “So how about that drink” I turn towards the bar tender, and order Soco I hand over a card not sure which one It wouldn’t have mattered there’s probably more money on my drivers licence than my eftpos card at the moment so I just empty out all my pence on the bar which came to around two pounds a pound of which the girl gave me earlier in the evening for reasons I forget I don’t think it was enough, but the bar the man took it. After Dawn downed the soco my mystery friend asks “do you want to come back to our place for some ‘Ménage twa” Skippy (trying not to giggle like a girl school girl) “ahhh where do you live?” Girl “Erdington” Skippy “Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” actually I didn’t scream, well on the inside I screamed I knew I had to think fast there was know way in hell I was going back to Erdington under any circumstances (but if I ever do I won’t be staying more than 23 and half minutes) Dawn mutters something about boy or boyfriend I don’t know she probably said I want pork, and like Dawn in a bakery I smelt an opportunity Skippy” What you have a boyfriend I don’t swing that way” Saunders “no I don’t have a boyfriend. Where do you live? We can go back to your place if you want” Skippy (Talking over the top of her still talking) I’m sorry you have a boyfriend Dawn said you did, I can’t partake in this” Then I made a dash for the door she was still pleading with me, and on my way to the exit I picked up 1 pound 22p off the floor in quite a hurry to because she was following me. I flew out the door and burst into laughter, It was then my mistakes came back to haunt me she had my number, and my phone started to ring, and ring again so I turned it off, and continued my childish laughter, who would of thought little Skippy, and the Ménage twa offer, I’ve had ‘oh little Skip he’s so cute’, ‘oh little Skip he’s adorable’, and other patronizing things, but never Studly, certainly never ménage twa in Erdington. It was a very pleasing outcome, thanks to Richard Hammond females may actually take me seriously in England (ok, maybe just in Erdington) take that Jason Gunn, take that Rove McManus, maybe I could get a job as an escort, look out Stephano I’m coming for you, and God bless Richard Hammond.

The Studster, ah I mean Skipster

YD, Trudes, and Michelle arrived back from Greece yesterday, I encourage you all to check out YD on the donkey very, very funny infact it’s a little cruel really he should have gave the donkey a ride on his back. Before to long things were back to normal Trudy cooking lovely food, and YD reeling off puns.

It has been very quiet while they were away there was just me, and our other flatmate Sunny. Once Trudy forced him to say hello to me he did, and then scampered off, this is the only conversation I have had with him. I did not see him the entire time the clan were away I was beginning to wonder if he existed, maybe YD was playing an elaborate practical joke on me. We are best friends in Wales only after all. Although I never saw Sunny I heard him a lot, Apparently he plays poker, you can hear him counting his chips (if you put a glass on his door, and listen closely) I figured he was just a quiet guy who liked his poker, little did I know he was a racist that’s right I’m calling him out. A racist I tells ya. Every day after work he would head straight to his room. YD, Trudes, and Michelle are back in town for 5 seconds, and he arrives home from work “oh Harro Michelle, How are you? How was your trip? You’re looking great! Great to see you back in town. Come up for a game of poker later if ya want. Admittedly he may not of actually said those exact words (although he definitely said harro) It was more than he had said to me, I believe this happened because I am not female that’s right I am playing the reverse sexism card (Yeah I went there). Strangely I didn’t actually see him I just heard him talking to Michelle, maybe he is a figment of my imagination I think I will make a movie about this, I will call it fight club it’s catchy don’t ya think. Michelle claims every night she hears a banging noise coming from his room, but we won’t go there, however last night I heard what sounded like die rolling, now there are two schools of thought on this. One he also plays Craps, maybe, but I think that he is actually playing three man, but with whom? Brad Pitt? Edward Norton? Graham Norton? Nawton Mall? It could be anyone I will get to the bottom of this before I leave!

Today was the first day I lost faith in Britain. I spent most of the day talking to stupid English people about work. First off I went to the Information place for I what I assumed would be information, it turns out Information in England translates into “place where no one knows anything”. I was looking for the Tax department as I assumed I would need some sort of Tax number to start work. First off I tried speaking English “Say good fellow do you chaps have a tax department in Birmingham” Info retard “?????” Skippy “Well in New Zealand we have the IRD what do you have here” Info retard “?????” Skippy (getting a little angry now) Ok who do you (pointing at him) pay your tax to?” Info retard “?????” Skippy (in full blown ginger rage) “Ok. Ok. When you get paid for working here, and I’m assuming they pay you for this. You know with money, where does the tax go?” Info retard “oh the tax department oh sure I know where that is” I almost burst into tears thinking he understands me, and follow his directions.

I arrive at the Council tax building where you pay your Council tax or rates if you will. I am a little angry, but try to stay calm. I Question a security guard, and another painstaking conversation begins, fortunately this guy may have been the smartest person in England as it didn’t take him long to point me in the right direction, but for some reason he gave me the most thorough list of directions I’ve ever been given after, about three or four minutes (I stopped listening after he said walk out the door and turn right) I thanked him, and headed for the door to his credit he was right on the money, maybe he should get a job at the Information centre.

Next I went to an employment agency they had mail sorting jobs advertised in their window, they said you need 5 years experience in mail, I said how about seven, they said they had had over 200 applications sounds like bullshit to me, and I think the lady just wanted to go lunch, she said try again in two weeks, I will probably be deported by then so left unimpressed. I went next door to another agency the guy was super helpful, but said I needed a National Insurance Number or NINO (It probably took the British quite a while to come up with that abbreviation), and to go to the job centre to get one.

Ah the Job Centre or WINZ to those of you playing at home. It’s a special place. I have been to this place many times to look at the job screens. I headed up the ramp I knew the ins, and outs by now if you go up the ramp you can avoid the pregnant mothers smoking on the steps. Right, past the mothers, sidestep the crackheads; big fend on the guy who smells like petrol, and in the door couldn’t be simpler. I ask the security guard about NINO, and he gives me a number to call I head to the phones, and dial the number, but the guy on the end can’t hear me so I hang up, and look for another phone. The other phones are busy so I wait patiently. I look around the room. I spot a sign on a broken phone that reads “Due to a technical failure this phone is out of order” I look at the phone I can’t help, but notice that the phone is missing it’s receiver, at a guess I would say a crackhead ripped it of the wall in a fit of rage, but It’s hardly a technical failure, somebody smashed it. My attention turn back to phones when a strange bearded man in a trench coat, and flares starts yelling down the phone “ I am an intelligent man, but I don’t understand this, GIVE ME MY BENEFIT” I am definitely not the judge of who is intelligent, and who isn’t, but I think he may have been overestimating his intelligence. Admittedly that’s a harsh call from the man waiting behind him in the cue, and who can’t even get a job at the supermarket.

Eventually a phone came available, and I got on the line, little did I realize I was about to become apart of one of the stupidest phone calls ever made. (This would have never happened if Tammy were Polish. Now don’t say I never teach you anything did you know that in the year 2006 a little over 220,000 Polish people migrated to the UK the next highest was Indians at a pitiful 37,000, so there’s a few of them over here Embrace the Polish, embrace) The conversation starts well Hello. How can I help you? She spelt my last name back to me Vera. She tries again verca, third try Vercae, The forth time when I spelt it I said “ You know O for Orange” she remained silent I would bet a quiet penny when that letter turns up there’s an F****** A in there somewhere. She asks for my first name this time I take no chances Skippy S.K.I.P.P.Y. As far as I’m aware you can only spell it one way, but I bet that bitch will find away to mess it up. Now the hard part is out of the way, she informs I will need to have an interview, but she doesn’t tell what day or what time it is. (For arguments sake I will name this weirdo Tammy) Tammy starts “Right your interview will be at the Job centre 100 broad st. (In a very patronising voice) do you know where this is? Skippy “Yes” Tammy “Ok I will send you a map, so you know where to go” Skippy “ Thank you, but that won’t be necessary” We talk briefly about what I need to bring. Tammy “ Now is there anything else I can help you with” Skippy “Ah. Yes. How about what day is my interview?” Tammy “ Ah (long pause) the 8 of Nov” Skippy “ And what time should I show up” Tammy “ ah (long pause) 1.15, I tell you what I’ll send you a map out” Skippy “I don’t need a map, I am calling you from your Job Centre phone inside the Job Centre, if I couldn’t find the place I wouldn’t be able to talk to you right now would I?” Tammy (silence) Skippy “ That will be all thank you” (slam). On the way home I called into the Tesco supermarket to she if they had any jobs going, they did not. My confidence is a little (lot) down. How the hell can Tammy keep a job, and I can’t even get a job at Tesco. Even the man in the trench coat gets a benefit (sometimes) I can’t believe I am lower on world scale than Tammy, and trench coat man. It had been a demoralizing day, I came home (to make things worse I had missed deal or no deal) and looked at flights home £400 quid is pretty reasonable, I’m giving it one last shot tomorrow before I make my final decision, The British may have defeated me, Tomorrow may be my Waterloo.

Skipoleon.

Before I begin my rant on the English, I would like to give the Scarlett Avenger a honourable mention for his rant on imaginary friends well done SA very amusing.

It all started yesterday when I went for a walk to the local Tesco it looked a little gloomy out so I took the raincoat WW left behind with me, soon enough it began to rain usually I would be annoyed, but I’m just so damn upbeat at the moment I didn’t care, and besides it’s only rained like three times since I’ve been over here.

As I made my way to the supermarket I passed numerous sad looking British people, they all looked so depressed. They started huddling under anything they could. I’m not sure what is the problem with the British they’re always in such bad moods when really they’ve got nothing to moan about. I’m voting England the country with the worst demeanour in the world, right up there is the Italians as well for no apparent reason I just hate the Italians. The other thing that is strange about the English is their over the top hatred of the Polish. Now I’m willing to admit right now I don’t really hate the Italians in general, or the French for that matter I just use racial hated for comical effect, infact I even graciously congratulated the Frenchman who was sitting in front of me at the quarterfinal in Cardiff (Mainly because I had been yelling abuse at him, and his friend/lover most of the game), and then (how stereotypical is this) I kid you not that bloody Frenchman kissed me, not only did I suffer the embarrassment of abusing the French for 68 minutes, and losing, on top of having my national team choke unceremoniously for the forth straight world cup, I also get the thrill of being kissed by two Frenchies. Later on I saw them again down by the dock, eating snails, and throw rocks at passing peace ships. My point is that the English genuinely seem to hate the Polish, my only insight as to why they hate them came the other night during my favourite British current affairs show Question Time when someone from the audience asked “Can we stop the Polish from coming into our country, and stealing all our jobs?” What? Oh gee I feel so bad for the English, look at all the horrible Polish people coming into Britain, and taking all the jobs at the 99p store, whatever will they do?
Admittedly I’m a little biased, I love the 99p store, and the lovely young attractive Polish girls who work there.

Another thing which has been bothering me lately is queuing I just seem to be having really bad luck lately picking cash registers, all the other lines seem to move twice as fast as mine. Last time I was in the 99p store I got stuck behind this guy who purchased 46 blank videotapes, what the hell is he doing with 46 blank 3-hour videotapes? That’s a hundred and thirty eight hours worth of recording, assuming that loser has only one VCR that’s almost six solid days of taping home and away, Ugly betty or whatever else that retard needs that many tapes for.

It really is time I got a job. I’ve been watching so much British TV in particular British game shows. I’m actually staring to care how much money people win, you see over here deal or no deal is a bit different for reasons unbeknown to me they make the contestants live together in I’m assuming a hotel, each night one contestant plays, and the rest of them open the boxes, I don’t know why they don’t have models opening the boxes, I guess this makes it more personal. On tonight’s show after opening the first box, and knocking out the 250,000 the lady contestant proclaimed “well There is still plenty of money on the board”. Yeah because you’ve only opened one box you stupid cow, the only thing stupider than that is the fact I’m watching the show. The real secret to the shows success is because Noel Edmonds is the host, and MR Blobby is the banker.

They are quite big on their dancing with stars over here too, It’s on every night of the week after the news, the only positive thing about this show is once again the host Brucie ”It’s nice to see you to see you NICE” Forsyth still looking as young as ever, however there is no sign “What’s on the board” Miss Ford.
Another thing they like to do over here is replay every show ten thousand times. I’m not sure if we get it in NZ, but there’s this new show that’s just started called Californacation I had been refusing to watch it because every second ad is for it, here’s how British Adverts go, Car insurance, Female only car insurance, loans then a promo for Calafornacation, every time. Anyway the other night I gave in I think it was the 12th replay, and there was nothing else on I’d already watched three CSI’s in a row. It’s a fairly crap show about sex in California I think, to be honest I’m not really sure What the point of the show is other than to gross me out, It stars has been actor David Duchovny who just seemed to keep jumping into bed with random women, normally this wouldn’t bother me, but he bedded some 14 year old girl who looked familiar, (I know what your thinking, and no it wasn’t the Candyman) but I couldn’t put my finger on it, then on the way to Tesco it hit me that 14 year old girl was the small girl off another terrible show with the lady who’s so annoying she could be British Fran Drescher. In The Nanny I think the small girls name was Maggie or maybe it was Gracie. The point is it was weird I don’t want see David Duchovny having sex with Gracie infact I don’t want to watch David Duchovny at all, and the show should be cancelled, Overall though I think the real solution is to create a potion which keeps child actors children forever. Child actors are not real people, and should not be seen in roles which weird me out. They should all be like Gary Coleman See that guy never got any bigger.

Today was a strange day as I was heading into the bank A skinny black man came running out the other door carrying a backpack followed by the cops he dropped the backpack, and the fuzz keep chasing him down the road. I’m not sure the outcome of this, but it sure was strange, then a random man stopped by a homeless man, and his homeless dog, and started playing with the dog, which proceeded to lick the stranger’s face. Gross who would do that? Why out of all the dogs would you stop, and play with a homeless dog that can’t be sanitary, and while I’m on the subject, how can a homeless person have a dog? That’s a bit extravagant isn’t it, If you need to beg for money shouldn’t you eat the dog first, or least train the dog to do tricks, and make money that way, there’s a guy who plays a salad bowl like a musical instrument on new st at least that guy is trying.

I decided to clean the flat today, now admittedly I have a mother in NZ so cooking, and cleaning have never been high on my agenda, I went on a hunt for cleaning products, but no Jif, no Janola, No not even Handy Andy, I was looking for some toilet cleaner I had to read the back of these mysterious bottles to establish what the hell they were, I learnt there’s lot of crap on the back of these bottles. I’m still not entirely sure what Febreze is. I was seriously considering using Tesco Lemonade the way that stuff tastes I’m pretty confident it would give most disinfectants a run for it’s money. I did manage to find the toilet cleaner appropriately named W5 toilet cleaner, not the catchiest name in the world, but at least I knew what to do with it. Next I moved on to the vacuuming the bag was really full, so I emptied it finding 3p in the process yus! I couldn’t the get to vacuum to close again though, and starting swearing at it. After finishing my rant at the vacuum cleaner I looked up to see our Australian neighbour waving out to me I believe now he thinks I’m crazy.

In closing I would like to thank Argentina for beating the French again very enjoyable, It amazing how God (or in this case Paul Honiss) smiles upon you when aren’t responsible for bombing NZ peace ships.

Skip.

At time of writing this amazing piece of literature I am on a bus back to Birmingham from Manchester. I have been humming, and harring about whether to write about the flat me, and WW have moved into, not because I’m lost for material, but because I fear I cannot do the story justice. The comedy, and chaos, we have been witness to is beyond written form. Only myself, WW, and Amy can truly appreciate what it means to live in South Road, Erdington, Birmingham. No imaginative fabrication is required in this blog; this is one hundred percent genuine English retarded ness.

The story begins shortly after returning from Marseille, we have nowhere to live, and really should stop bludgging off YD, and Trudes. WW uses his magical fingers, and hits the interweb, he finds a little something in our price range, and calls the number. Tez (our landlord) tells WW we can have a look see after 4.30, and to head out to Erdington, little did we know our lives would never be the same.

We are a touch anxious, we’re running out of money fast, need somewhere cheap to stay, at 40 quid a week this should stop the bleeding a little. I wasn’t expecting anything great; I mean at 40 quid I wasn’t even sure we’d have walls.
4.30 arrives. WW calls Tez. He says he’ll pick us up on the main street, and to start walking towards “Big Johns”. We don’t know what Big Johns is, and figure we have two options, left or right, now it’s fair to say at this point mine, and WW’s luck has been a little bit out lately, nothing to bad just broken Laptops, missing buses a few minor things. We go left. We should have gone right. It’s a nice walk, just the wrong way that’s all during this leisurely detour I say to WW “Hey this quite a nice area around here” (life enjoys setting me up like that). It turns out we weren’t anywhere near South Road. After backing tracking a wee bit we meet Tez, and he drives us to South Road. I don’t know how to do South Road any justice other than to say it’s the “Bronx”. Just across the road from our place there is three houses with no one living in them, and by no one I mean no person although I’m pretty sure I saw a rat open the door yesterday check the mail box, and then go back inside, and turn on it’s stereo. While I’m on the subject these things shouldn’t be called rats they’re closer to the size of donkeys. WW has been having fun though, and taken a particular shining to one ratdonkey which he has named Roseanne cause she’s the biggest.

Tez has two places so he shows us the first one, we are meet by two Hungarian lads raving on in some jibirish, Tez tells us they are moving out today. He tells us this would be the better choice as we are all minorities living here, and the other place is full of English. Well it’s cheap, but I’m not really digging thing one, and thing two, meanwhile our other soon to be flatmate a scary Croatian man has been following us around the entire time, but hasn’t said anything. I’m thinking the English can’t be so bad right… Right.

We arrive at the second place, which is 4 houses down the street “Scary Goran” is still following us, and he invites himself into this place as well. Tez gives us the run down on the flat, there is Michael, his partner Kerry, Nick, and Martin. Tez warns us Martin likes drink, and that the other place will be much quieter. We take the room on the top floor, which is huge. WW asks a valid question “ so, um, how safe is this neighbourhood” Tez replies, “Two streets down is pretty bad, that’s where all the scum are. Around here is not too bad, just a few crack heads, but I know who they are, and they’ll leave you alone”. WW, and I are not sure what to make of this. It turns out Tez is a cop, and this is his beat, now I’m not one to question the fine arms of the law, but I’m fairly sure there is only one law around here, and Tez makes it up as he goes. He is a nice enough chap though, and offers me a lob working for his friend building cabinets “ Ring this number, just tell Imran you’ve made cabinets before, and wing it”. Skippy “ Righhht, I’ll think about it.

We go, and get some money. When we get back, we are informed Michael, and Kerry want to move upstairs; we don’t really care, and agree to take the room below (mistake number one). We head back to central Birmingham for the night as we had already booked in the ETAP hotel for the night. Our last night of comfort I didn’t sleep well that night; I had a gut feeling something bad was about to happen.

The next morning we head back to Erdington, and settle in we meet our new roommates.
The Low-down
Michael. Doesn’t have a job, is a bit of a dropkick, and bludges of his missus, nice, pleasant to talk to and very helpful. He has suspect homosexual tendencies, and is most probably a wife beater.
Kerry. “The missus” Doesn’t say much probably because she has been beaten into submission. Every time I see her I say “ Hi how ya doing” she smiles. That’s it.
Martin. (Who as it turns out wouldn’t be around for very long) likes to drink, and from what I could make out he works in construction as something? He has no front teeth, and at a guess I’d say drinking had something to do with it. He’s about twenty years old by the way. WW “Hi my name is (insert WW real name here)” Martin “That’s my name”. Skippy “What are the odds! Hi my name is Skippy” Martin “That’s my name”. I should point out we didn’t know his actual name at this stage. We could see he was a little past drunk, I mean hell it was 4 in the afternoon, we should have known. Which brings me to Nick, Nick doesn’t need much of an introduction all we be explained soon enough.
We’re thinking, hey sure they’re weird, they are English after all, but we’ll just stick to ourselves, It’s only a month. Oh how long one night can be.

Before we head off to our room for the night Nick asks WW “What sort of music you into” WW “Rock. That type of stuff”. Meanwhile Martin is cranking up the Techno music. We decide we’ve had our share of socializing for the night.
As we prepare for bed, we hear out first police siren of the evening. There would be more to come.

We get to sleep around 10. At 1am we are awoken by shouting coming from upstairs for the next four sleepless hours Kerry shouts “Your are spoilt brat” at least nine thousand times, the fight may or may not (it’s hard to say with the English) have involved something about Kerry had to be at work at 5am, but she went, and got drunk instead, and it may have involved another man of some description. Anyway there were a lot of expletives thrown around, and a lot of banging, and crashing. It ended around 5am, great, sleep time. I awake at 8am to the sound of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” Hey I like that song as much as the next guy but was more than a little peeved to hear it then.

Ok so it was rough first night with little sleep, but I’m thinking, maybe we struck them at a bad time, couldn’t get any worse right … Right. Wrong.

The next day is quite busy for us plus we figure the less time spent in Erdington the better. We don’t get in until after ten. We have been at the pub watching South Africa spank the hell out of a has been English side. It is also here I tell an Englishman that Michael Owen is the worst football player I have ever seen, and they might as well play Emellie Heskey with a retarded kid as he would be of same value. Anyway I digress we have to get up early as we need to be in London at 11am to meet Amy at the airport. It is fairly quiet when we get to the flat, and to bed not for long though as beers start flowing at the dance music starts pumping, I drift in, and out of consciousness, and am out to it when the real excitement starts.
WW wakes up to a bang; crash, smash followed by “OH FUCK! Oh shit.. Oh fuck.. She’s bleeding”. Soon after I awake to WW looking out the window at the flashing lights of an ambulance. My god what have we got ourselves into.

About an hour later we get up, and head downstairs for some breakfast before heading to London. It was like crime scene down there I was half expecting to see Gill Grisham out back swabbing cigarette butts. As I came down the stairs there were patches of blood leading into the kitchen, I cautiously opened the kitchen door, Michael had passed out on the couch no one else is around I figure they’re all in the ambulance. The place is a mess there is blood, and empty cans galore, I almost fall on my face when slipping in some sort of fluid I tell myself it’s just beer (It probably wasn’t) I make it to the cupboard, and pull out our doughnuts, I can’t help, but notice the broken bottles all over the floor, not to mention the set of four glasses we had purchased the day before were no longer capable of holding water. I assume someone has been murdered, and leave as little DNA as possible, and we get the hell out of there.

We are in London for the weekend, and return late Sunday with Amy. The next morning I get up, and head downstairs for breakfast. Michael, and Kerry are in the kitchen. Keeping my head down I walk straight past them, I politely utter “Good morning”, and go straight for the stove. I hear a voice coming from behind me. Skippy “Sorry” Michael “ I didn’t hit her” pronounced in Erdington English I did int it er. (At this stage I look over at Kerry who’s face is very bruised, and lip is swollen, real bad, like Candyman doing a Haka bad). Skippy “What?” Michael “I didn’t hit her she fell down the stairs” Skippy “Oh… Yeah. That looks a little sore” Michael “I didn’t hit her she fell down the stairs, I guess it looks like I hit her, but I didn’t she fell down the stairs” (At this point I’m thinking why the hell is this guy so defensive I’ve said like two words to the guy, and I didn’t even bring up the subject. I start to be believe that he may have in fact pushed her down the stairs. The conversation continues) Skippy (Laughs awkwardly to ease the tension) Ha.Yeah I saw the blood at the bottom of the stairs, and heard the ambulance arrive, and when I was getting breakfast I saw all the broken glass on the floor” Michael “There was no broken glass on the floor!” Skippy (Not wanting him to attack me) “Ohhh. Ok”. Michael “Wait was that Friday night or Saturday night” (I hate to think what went on Saturday night) Skippy “Friday night” Michael “Nope. Definitely no glass on Friday night, I cleaned up myself” Skippy (Fearing for my life now) “Oh, ok maybe it was sugar” (It was all I had at short notice). I forget about whatever it was I came into the room for, head back upstairs, an inform WW we live with crazy forgetful people.
The next day I run into Nick again, I begin a little small talk with him, during which I ask where Martin is. He tells me Martin has been thrown for not paying his rent, he tells me Martin had the money, but they went out drinking on Friday night, and blew it all on booze, culminating in Kerry being taken away in the ambulance. After the small talk Nick leads into a conversation with a bizarre subject. Circumcision. I’m not sure how he led the conversation down that path; I certainly made no reference to his penis. By this stage it’s all to bizarre for me, and I just burst into laughter, my laughter soon turns to horror as he rein acts the operation in great detail. I think quickly, and change subject first chance I get. Which leads to him telling me about his 64-year-old grandfather who had just cheated on his grandmother (he goes on, and on about how he wants to be like that when he’s 64) anyway the grandmother found out about his little indiscretion. So what do you do? Divorce maybe? Counselling? Nope, you do it Erdington style, and hire a hit man of course. She hired a dude who beat the living snot out of grandpape; a lesson well learned I think, who said Erdington doesn’t teach you values.

We head up to Manchester, and return Thursday. That evening me, Grant, and Amy, sat down for dinner. There is no crazy ass flatmates around. It’s peaceful. Until…

There is a knock at the door, we ignore it we figure nothing good can come of it, besides we don’t know anyone around here so it can’t be for us. The shouting starts, being that I am closest to the door, and the fact the Nolan’s outnumber me two to one, I am chosen to answer the door. Skippy “Hello” Random whore “Is Ash home? Skippy “Ash? No one by that name lives here” Random whore “Ash lives here. Can I come in? Skippy “Well I don’t know anyone by that name, but I’ll check upstairs”. She seems keen to get inside so I shut the door in her face, and knock on Nick’s door. No answer, so I head upstairs, to Michael, and Kerry’s room, meanwhile the crazy bitch is still yelling out for Ashley or Ashton. I knock on Michael’s door, and explain to him there’s a crazy person at the door; he comes back downstairs with me to see if he knows her. Michael “Oh it’s you, he’s in there” Random whore “can I come in then”. She comes in and sits down on the couch. Skippy “Sorry about the confusion from before” Random whore “fine thanks” Skippy “????” Nick comes into the room, and they head off onto his room. WW, and Amy finish their dinner quickly, and smartly head to our room; unfortunately for me I’m a slow eater, and a little behind with the whole door incident. After a minute or two Nick comes flying out of his room in a rage holding an alarm clock, he mutters “stupid bitch” apologises walks out the back door, and smashes it on the concrete. (He later tells me this was because the alarm kept going off at six pm instead of 6am????) At this point this is not unusual for Erdington life so it doesn’t really faze me, I however feel beer it is necessary, and head to fridge for one. The random whore heads upstairs, takes a shower, and dyes her hair you know the usual things you do when your visiting someone. Nick is in quite a rage still walking around in a huff, cursing about his lady friend. The whore starts smoking on the back step. She questions me “Can I have a beer” Skippy “Sure, I guess” I get the lady a beer from the fridge, and crack the top on it for her” Random Whore (Rather seductively) “Oh your quite the gentlemen aren’t you” Skippy “ Ahhhh Thanks” Random whore “Do you have a girlfriend?” Skippy (Pauses) “Um.. Not so much. Fortunately Nick comes back into the room, he still looks stressed so I offer him a beer, Soon after the whore leaves. He tells me he’s not very happy with her, and is heading to the STI clinic on Monday, and “If that bitch has given me something I’ll Fuckin knife her” Turns out our friend is quite a busy girl Apparently she was getting jiggy with Martin (our old flatmate) on Thursday, with Nick Friday, and Saturday, And some guy called Ashley on Sunday. So I guess she confused Saturdays shag with Sundays shag at the door.

We are away in Scotland over the weekend. And there’s only three days until we are off to Germany. Over the weekend A French girl has moved in, and as we are cooking tea one night Nick decides to hit on her, he uses an interesting technique by telling her all the rude words in English he can think of, this goes on for quite some time, and it seemed to work as the were up until well after I went to bed.

Ever since Kerry falling down the stairs Michael has been trying to get the landlord to fix the banister, I think the banister is the least of this places problems the toilet doesn’t have a flusher, the drains are blocked, and if you stand up in the shower the roof leaks, anyway today he has found the remains of the old railing in the garden out back, and is trying to screw it on backwards with a knife, I decide to help him, now don’t get me wrong I’m probably the least likely person on the planet to be fixing banisters, but manage to turn it around and hammer it on the right way. God bless me.

The next week I went back to get my bond, and drop the keys back to Tez he told me if I ever need another place to live give him a buzz, nice offer, but I don’t think I’ll be calling him anytime soon. Michael was there when I dropped the keys off he shook my hand three times, and kept on saying goodbye to me. He was drunk, a fitting end to my time in Erdington I think.

In summary I believe I learnt a lot of things in Erdington, and there were a lot of laughs it’s fair to say I’m pleased Erdington is behind me, I will miss however the fact that opening a bottle of beer makes you a gentleman, and swearing at girls is a mating ritual. Hey I wonder if that Random whore has Tuesday booked, I‘ve got bottle I can open?