Dyslexia and Pork Stuff in Holland

So I like going to different countries. It's pretty cool, because you get to see a ton of different cultures and languages and meet interesting people who aren't British every now and then. I ultimately feel sorry for Americans, due to the whole less than most people owning a passport thingy because that sucks. My life has been shaped by the different countries I've visited, or lived in, and I can't imagine never leaving one, no matter how diverse it is.

So it's a kind of unofficial challenge thingy for me to visit as many countries as I can in my lifetime, and it's going pretty well so far.

And the future's Orange bright.


My Brother's a trucker. He drives trucks. It doesn't make him a millionaire, granted, but it's pretty damn cool, because he's good at driving, and despite his constant complaining, that's all he's ever wanted to do in life - and it doesn't get much better than that.

So recently, he's been offered jobs driving abroad, delivering big boxes of stuff to places, and on Sunday, just casually, he passed me in the hallway and said 'How'd you like to go to Holland?'.
'Well gee-withers!' I exclaimed 'I've never been to Holland before! When might this momentous trip occur?'
'Uh... tomorrow.'

And so, I packed for the land of nether. And at ten o'clock bluntish, we got in a seven and a half ton truck and left for Holland.


Now, Peter hadn't left the country since he came to England at fourteen, so he was an ickle bit nervous about the whole border-crossing-language-speaking-wrong-side-of-the-road-driving bit, which I found adorable, having not left the country for a year.

We arrived in Dover, which was helpful, it being a location in my novel, and saw two hitchhikers stood outside the terminal, with a large sign saying 'PRAGUE, OR BUST'. I don't know where this Bust place is, but it seems like a nice alternative to travelers. Nevertheless I said 'That reminds me of my time in Prague', but Pete didn't get the reference and just gave me a weird look.

We got on the ferry, where we ogled duty-frees and planned what we were going to bring back, I looked at books, scoffed haughtily at some lost Northern folk, and Peter complained that he forgot to watch the complimentary Tom and Jerry DVD.

We then drove through France for half an hour, which was hilarious, as Pete doesn't speak a word of French.
'Parlay-voo une receipt, bitte?'
We saw some fields, which was a nice alternative to buildings, and some funky bits of bridge that looked as if they came off the side of a pair of Niké trackies.

Then we went through Belgium, or the country of wars, chocolate, and incomprehensible language, as my Dad has previously handled it. It was boring, so after not being able to find a service station in the entire freaking country, I took a s**t in a field as revenge.

Then we went through a big tunnel, where we turned up the D&B and pretended we were at a rave. After a while we popped out in a place we assumed was Holland, as there didn't seem to be a sign, not that we could read anyway, as Holland is the land of dyslexia, but I'll get to that in a bit.

We stopped in a service station where a well-spoken Dutch chap asked my brother if he was the Stig, or whether his shirt was lying, almost spoiled the previous nights episode of Top Gear for us, and then condescended us for not being able to use the internet to watch it. He then disappeared to 'save stupid ladies from bad driving', whilst I ogled the bottom shelf porn magazines, next to the Donald Duck comics.

Oh Holland, you so crazy.


We asked the well spoken Dutch chap if he could point us towards a hotel, whereupon he pointed over our shoulders to a large neon sign that read 'HOTEL'.

After conversing and checking in with a Chinese-Dutch lady who couldn't comprehend what cider was, even after we had gotten the entire bar into a tri-lingual discussion about it (There was a German Dr. Kelso lookalike). We then ate what was described by the menu as 'Pork stuff', downed some cheap lager (Legal drinking age in Holland is 16) and then went to our room to watch some television.

Now you can tell a lot about a country by what it shows on television. Unless you're in Holland. What they showed on Dutch television, bar the pornographic, fast moving and incomprehensible adverts, was pretty much just English TV with nonsense subtitles. We watched Coast, University Challenge, and Master of Antiques. Seriously.

Then I came to my conclusion about Holland. It is, to an Englishman, the equivalent of being horribly dyslexic. Everybody spoke English when you spoke to them, all the TV was in English, and everything was pretty much England (But cleaner and generally more polite). The only thing different was the signage. I couldn't even pronounce half of the words. It was horrible.


The next morning we delivered our load, a portable kitchen, to an Irish bloke in the shipping yard where strange orange men in blue jumpsuits cycled around on little bicycles. And they looked at us funny.

Then we did the trip there in reverse, this time buying some crispy M&M's, some Ice Tea, having a conversation in German with a Belgian woman, buying a can of go-faster which was actually called 'Go Fast!' and purchasing a book (An awesome story called 'Narrow Dog to Carcassonne' which is by far the funniest book I've ever read) and a litre of vodka in the duty-frees.

When we arrived home, Brownbear came over, and my brother received another job to drive to Scotland and back over three days (Strangely twice as long as going to Holland?!) but I opted out because:
a) I was tired.
b) It involved me doing some work.
and c) I wanted to start on my vodka/the book.

- Lewis

Beat Poetry of the Unbeaten

Evening, I'm in the garden,
Looking up at the sun,
I feel like life is slowly ending,
When it's only just begun,
I left school, left life,
Just the pen and the paper,
The occasional friend who'll say:
'I'll see you later' but they won't,
For I bore them, strangely deranged,
Reading back through the book,
So I can write another page, but better,

Learn from mistakes, get wise,
For this time I'll rise,
From those others, two-faced,
I'm telling you-
Watch this space.

The Mother of all Cancellations

So anybody who knows me quite well will know what I do for a living, that being that I write books, run a leaflet distribution business, and work in the family bouncy castle business. Working with inflatables, to put it briefly, is as fun as it sounds. However heavy a giant piece of plastic, its blower, and industrial petrol generator are, it's totally worth having to lug them around and deal with the stupidest of the British public, just so you can bounce around for a bit.

Call me childish.


But the majority of the money made from the business is from rentals. Renting a bouncy castle entails lugging all the equipment out to a strangers house/business, setting it up for them, taking their money, and for insurances sake begging them not to blow themselves up in the process.

Recently, we took a booking from a pub in the contender-for-quaintest-town-of-the-year village Stoke Poges (Not pronounced like the Irish folk band, but literally P-O-JES.). With barely a thousand houses in the village, the idea was that we give them a bouncy castle, they say to all the people in the vicinity that they have a bouncy castle, people flock to the pub, and in the process the pub sell a ton of drinks.

It's not revolutionary, but it's business.


Now, if you've ever had the awkward yet enjoyable moment of trying to be serious, but absolutely pissing yourself laughing down the phone at someone, you'll probably have a pretty accurate idea of what the following part went like.

We got a call from the pub, them notifying us that the booking was to be cancelled, all nice and polite so that we wouldn't have to waste our time going there. Fair play, that wasn't the funny part. The laugh came when we asked them why the booking was cancelled, and the grave and deadly serious reply came down the phone-line:

"The village, is closed today."

Now whether you're a fan of 'The League of Gentlemen' or not, you'll probably recognize this bout of British quaintness to be rather hilarious - but they were deadly serious.

The village closure had come with news that there was a gypsy wedding happening the same day of rental, and to any American's reading this, or people who aren't familiar with gypsy traveler ways, this will seem like a bit of a strange reason.

The village, having barely a thousand houses and being inhabited mainly by elderly couples probably only has about two and a half thousand people living in it. The town, also being the home of the now deceased traveler,  was being closed off as a no go area due to it being the destination, for over five thousand people. Now I'm not against gypsy folk, but the fact is that they are a group of people, Nazi input or not, who steal, fight, and generally tend to clash with society.

I have nothing against gypsies, but do take this as a lesson learnt. 


They closed a village for this.


You've been warned.


-Lewis


(P.S. Please don't kill me. My Dad's a conservative it's not my fault.)

Full House (Part one of a fictional all-nighter.)

The names James and you're joining me at the brink, the start of the end at the edge of the world, it's 6.30 on a Friday night and we've been freed from the relentless shackles of employment to wreak havoc upon our surroundings, to walk the town high as kites to release the build up of five days hard work, and all in the name of alcohol consumption. Anything can happen in the next 72 hours and its likely to be messy, but first:

Bingo.

However much the myth of bingo makes it out to be the domain of old savage women and soft-core gamblers, it's a vital spot for those of us more experienced than the average pisshead. I mean, whoever expected to find oil in the driest place on earth? Same logic really.

The pack this evening is made up of Keith and Eric, both of whom work at the same place I do, not that I'll mention that. Its just not the time. The fourth item in the fantastic four is Ben, a bit of an outsider but a funny bloke, and the one who gets the first round in - such is the attractive nature of the bingo hall. The man who runs the bar seems to have no concept of an economy or profit, and hence sells cold pints for two quid, making Lady Lucks the ultimate place for pre-drinks, not to mention the chance to win a couple quid.

Three and a half rounds in we make the ever so diplomatic decision to leave, subsequent to being asked to leave, due to something in between the yelling 'bingo' three numbers in and flicking crisps at the ugliest people we can see.

And so we jumped into Eric's four-door saloon (Fiona) clocks-a-ticking, and tipsily made our way to the closest service station to get all the supplies we needed for the warm-up, a game learnt from Keith's american friend called 'Edward 40' Hands'. A fifteen pack of Carling and two rolls of duct tape was the order of the hour, and after receiving the goods from the frankly confused and slightly intimidated shop attendant we made our way to the Sports Centre car-park, a dingy flat of tarmac with three or four cars parked up.

Once there, we taped a can of Carling to each hand (Opening them first) and set about the task of drinking them both, unable to do anything apart from dance to the radio and continue the banter from the bingo hall.

Having finished the can taped to my left hand, I was halfway through my right when - somewhere between the macarena and drunkenly attempting to take a leak - I passed out for the first time that night.