England

I will be honest with you people…I’m not fond of England. I like the people, the music, and the general scene around here; but I hate the government. This place is socialism at its worst. If you want to cut a loud fart out here you need to queue for 20 minutes and fill out 10 forms in triplicate. Its not a fun place to work. You are only allowed to work 10 hours a day and 6 days a week. And the crew always uses the day off to get piss drunk…So that’s what I did. I apologize for to my family for what I’m about to say here, and I don’t condone excessive drinking blah, blah, blah…it’s funny so save your morals for normal people. I use my day off to walk around lovely Southampton and I am dying to taste some food that doesn’t taste like the sweat off a fat man’s back; so I happen upon a Japanese restaurant. OK maybe a little sushi I mean its not cooked by Britians so it might be good…Terrible; and it starts a conversation with a drunkard in the bar as to why the food is so terrible here. And then to a little booze and to a little more and we bring the bartender into this conversation. Cute little thing, 22 max. I abandon the drunkard and I am now focused on the bartender. I’ve had a few so my tact has escaped me and maybe I start to hit on this girl…a tad too strong. Her boyfriend is in the bar and takes notice. He would like to engage in fist-to-cuffs. He’s not the largest lad in the world but he’s going on and on about how he’s in the military and he has to go to Iraq because of me; normal drunk European-American drunk talk. I’m not interested in fighting this little boy so I decide to buy him a drink.

Boy: Ahh so its drink you want then eh? I will drink your ass under the table…

Sounds like a fair challenge to me. For those who have know me for a while you know that my shot taking ability has declined tremendously since my ulcer in college. But I’m feeling patriotic, like it’s the Olympics of drinking and I’ve got honest Abe and GW looking down on me, scolding me…”Now don’t be a pussy Sean”. So I hunker down and accept this challenge. Lucky for me he chooses my strong suit…whiskey. Every possible bottle of whiskey you can think of is in this little Asian bar. Shots are flying all over the place. The whole bar is getting into this, and its getting rowdy.

Boy: Forget this shot shite…I’ll show you how a real man takes his whiskey.

He then takes the bottle out of the bartender’s hand, flips the shot glass upside down, pours the whiskey on the upside down shot glass, grabs a straw from behind the bar,……and snorts the whiskey. Listen; I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my day; far too many I’m not proud of; but snorting alcohol? Yeah so I did it, and it hurt just as bad as you can imagine it would. I can sense that this is going nowhere so I ask the bartender “what’s that fancy looking white bottle with the ribbon up there?” The owner of the restaurant, small little Chinese man, “Oh no, you no want that. Very strong Chinese wine; very strong”…Perfect, it was a 110 proof alcohol. It tasted a little like death with a slight hint betrayal. It does the trick and throws my little British friend over the deep end. At this point he is sobbing on my shoulder telling me he loves me and us English-speaking people need to stick together. No way I’m going to drive on the left side of the road like this. I walked back to the hotel to live another day content in my victory…U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A.

Well its good I got this little Asian experience because it looks like I might be headed to Taiwan.

Eau de Hobo…Blackened

Things are busy in Peterborough I haven’t had much time to chronicle my adventures out here. People have been asking about new posts so I have this quick little anecdote for you…

The pollen out here is driving my allegeries to the brink of madness out here so I have been praying for heavy rain to wash it all away. When the rain does come a very pungent and strange odor comes with it. So I ask the project manager, Mick the Mc, who has been here before what the scoop is.

Me: What is that sewage smell?

Mick: That’s not sewage, you see. That’s a crematorium.

Me: …

Mick: But it’s not a regular crematorium that you would take your Grandparents to; it’s a public one. You know for like dead animals and hobos and shite.

Me: Hobos?

Mick: Aye, you know drifters, gypsies and shite, those poor cunts that can’t afford a proper burial. I mean where you gonna put them all? One of those cunts kicks off in the streets, we just burn the fuckers…”Sniff” Do you smell that filth? Burning rotten hobos, that is.

So if you’re ever in Peterborough UK, every time it rains you can taste the sweet, sweet flavor of burning hobos.


Gyppos, Pikies, Knackers, Tinkers whatever you want to call them they are very real and in full force in Peterborough. And let me tell you Brad Pitt nailed that accent; they sound absolutely ridiculous. They park their caravans (that’s trailer for you Americans) right on the sidewalk. They tie up their horses on the grass by the highway. And nobody does shit about them because they’re fucking mental. Here’s a story I heard from a guy a met on the road that owns a farm in Ireland.

Farmer: Pikies, aye I know all about those cunts. I built a beautiful gate for my farm back home with a 10-foot high steel gate with custom fitting steel swing door. It even had a nice little leather strap to tie the gate together…beautiful. Took me days to get it up there. The morning after it was finished I woke up to find the whole fucking thing gone! And then some pikie has the nerve to lay this number on me.

Pikie: I see you’ve got quite a gap in your fence there
Farmer: aye
Pikie: You know your man has quite a nice fence he could sell ya.
Farmer: really?
Pikie: Aye, beautiful steel frame with a swing gate.
Farmer: How much?
Pikie: 1000 quid should do it… I might as well sell you the leather strap as well.

Farmer: So I bought my own fence back for 1000 pound
Me: Jesus, you can’t do anything to stop them?
Farmer: For fuck’s sake no. You run up on your man there and he’ll bring an army of those cunts with him. Those knackers shag themselves mental. And they’re too cheap to buy condoms so there are millions of fuckers.
Me: What about the police?
Farmer: Fuck no… The police don’t go near the cunts. Every cop knows that the first thing a pikie does when he gets nicked is shit in the cop car.
Me: haha…what?
Farmer: Without fail every time, once a pikie gets nicked he drops his draws and shits on the back seat. I don’t know how they do it. Shitting on command like that…nasty cunts.

…

awesome