Monday, October 20, 2008

Anger Managing my Manager in Spain


It's that lovely time of the week again, where inside I am slowly dying by degrees. This morning was such a colossal upheaval in my weekend rested constitution, that I felt slightly nauseous. I located my flip flops and managed to struggly out of the seemingly bottomless pits of my bed. I fed the cat, tipping small poo like pellets all over the kitchen floor. Grabbing a towel from the linen closet, I managed to stumble into the shower to find out I had run out of gas. This won't be a normal event for many people back in Britain, as I believe, all houses have gas coming through lovely pipes in the ground. Things just work. I need hot water. Turn tap. Hot water pours forth. Civilisation achieved, hurrah! But not so here in Andalucia. Oh no no no no no!
Andalucia is in southern Spain. It's famous as the heartland of what tourists imagine as traditional Spain: Bullfighting, Flamenco and paella. If you come here, what you will find, mor likely than not, is just under a million ex-pats crowded along the horrendous motorway-cum-seaside corridor that stretches between Malaga and very nearly Gibraltar. The regional emblem seems to be the crane, builders seem to be a race all of their own, and "we speak English" seems to be the most predominant name for shops. British style pubs are everywhere, and sunburn is the most popular fashion accesory.
So if you hate all that, you can head out into old Andalucia - the Spanish Andalucia where you will see men it exceedingly tight trousers manfully avoiding hernia's whilst terrorising an animal for no apparent reason. The Spain where Flamenco is bravely listened too by people who have never heard of hearing imparement. The Spain of food chucked into an enormous vat and laughingly called cooked, dumped onto a plate and given to you under the pseudonym paella. Paella, I am coming to believe, means "leftovers". Andalucia is timeless, so timeless they haven't changed the name since the Moors were chased out of Spain and the Jews persecuted in what looks like the greatest dent of Medieval intellectual barbarity managed.
Andalucia is so timeless it's gas comes in bottles delivered to houses by a man who only turns up when you are at work: who beats an empty gas bottle with a crow bar to alarm everyone into acknowledging the gas man's existence, and who subsequently takes all your money and has no change. Bastards.
I'm sure Andalucia is lovely. Infact, I know in some parts it is. But today is Monday, and Monday is the devil's work!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Love in a Time of Dog's Barking in a Godless Night

As a "new person", I'm quite attracted by the idea of writing something immensly attention grabbing and thoroughly interesting. Unfortunately, I don't have the slightest iota of an inkling of a clue how to go about doing this, and so I'm probably just going to bore your ever so slightly dirty pants off of you.

Perusing this blogsite (or whatever you call it) this morning sat at my desk, in my office, needless to say losing the will to live and trying to end it all with a caffeine overdose, I came across something that has made me join this site purely because of the amount of humour that has been instigated by it. It is, without much further ado, "The Top 100 Right-Wing Blogs" list. Fascinating. "The Top 100 Right-Wing Blogs" list? It's a stupendous idea for a "top of" collection because it begs so many questions, such as how and why? How do you characterise what a good right-wing blog is? Is this blog a little too lenient against immigrants? This blog has plenty of reference to Hitler, I think 3rd place easily. First place would have to go to someone who thought he is the Aryan race and thereby wants to exterminate in finest Dalek tradition, everyone.

I was only slightly dissapointed when I found out that most blogs and top lists thereof are based on amount of viewings. Gutted, to put none too fine a point to it. What would a weak contender's piece have said if it had been judged and not quantified on views? "Lately I have been getting slightly irate with my next door neighbour. Apparently he is not from round these parts and doesn't like football. I most heartily disagree with such people being allowed to live in Stoke-Newington when they should obviously all be somewhere else more horrible, like Liverpool."

I myself am of the right leaning persuasion, and believe in a strong state protecting our heritage and national interests, but I don't believe that anyone should be excluded from being British and residing in this country on grounds of such ridiculous concepts that religion and race have bugger all to do with being British. Because, let's face it, they don't. As Bill Bailey states, when push comes to shove most people, when asked, will put their religion as "Jedi". So unless Gordon Brown has a black plastic suit, cape, mask, and a breathing problem...