Its 9.45 on a Sunday Morning, which is uncivilisedly early even for a week-day and my Mother, The Gulag and I are on a train to Bristol, to go and say good bye to my sister and her boyfriend Jimmy, Jimmie, Jimi, Jimminy, who is in fact one person, it is just i am not sure the proper way to spell his name.
Now i like Bristol, in fact i like Bristol quite a lot, I don't know it that well, which might be one of the reasons i like it so much at the moment, like the girl you never kissed when you were a teenager but wanted to kiss, the fact that you never kissed kept the relationship immaculate, never to spoil.mainly because there was no relationship just a spotty teenage boys fantasy. Anyway this is the current status between me and Bristol. You see, you have to say relationship status these days as we are living in the Facebook status age.
Back to my point about Bristol, it is getting rarer and rarer theses days for me to find a place that I like, as i approach my 35th birthday the only thing that seems to be increasing is my general misanthropy and it is not soley reserved for people, places and objects are regular targets as well, i am hoping to get a call back from grumpy old men soon. The reason we have gone to bid farewell to my sister is because the Gulag and I are about to embark on a new life in Wroclaw, wroswaaaaaaavvv, or Breslau to people who still look at maps of Europe with Prussia on it.Incidentally if you are one of those people, may i suggest investing in a new map purely for diplomatic reasons of course.The day has started off with a magical journey up 9 flights of piss stained stairs in the car park to finally arrive at Reading station a shining monument to the shortcomings of twentieth century architecture. An espresso at the station has done little to improve affairs apart from starting an anxious internal dialogue in my mind for the entire journey to Bristol on the error of judgement by me to decide not to have a poo before leaving this morning. By eleven we are at Bristol station, a far more pleasing station than Reading and with the Great bowel debate of Bath Spa having returned to the darker recesses of my mind everything is looking ok. Then i meet the puppy!!
You see Jessica and Jimmmi are flat sitting, or rather puppy sitting in fact for some friends of theirs. The flat is one of those places that makes you feel older than you are. It brashly reminds you that when you were the tennants age, you were never that good looking, never that cool and unlike one half of this golden couple you were never in a band signed to a record label, Come to think of it I was never in a band, unless you count that one night in Ladbroke grove, very stoned when someone let me play the triangle. and just to ram home their youthful beauty their flat is plastered with images of them being young, cool and sooo in love. After the shock to my system of this, i see the tiny puppy hove into view, all cute and inviting.The puppys name is Lennon, after John Lennon and it quickly becomes apparent that rather than being sweet his behaviour is like an out of control pop star, he is on the lookout for a hotel room to trash but he will start with my mothers handbag just to warm up. After ten minutes of playing with Lennon who turns out to have more in common with a velociraptor than a dog, I am starting to feel more and motre like the egg theif from Jurassic park my flesh ripped by the canine equivalent of those tiny dinosaurs in the movie. Lennon is more Ozzy Ozbourne than our John from Liverpool. I quickly double check with my sister the spelling of Lennon, just in case they meant Lenin, because he is certainly more Stalin than Lenin, more Pol Pot than pop, I could go on.
My sister tell us she has booked us a table at The Pump House, the name conjurs up images of sewage in my mind but i decide not to share that with my sister and anyway after being mauled by the tiny beast, sewage would be a step up.
Jessica suggests we drive, the consesus is that we are all bang up for this idea, that is until Jimmmi cheerily tells us it is only a 10 minute walk, a debate then ensues between the two Js of the validity of this claim.
(Couples wildly differing views of distances is a phenomena i first encountered recently in Poland. It requires either half of the couple to have wildly differing views on a distance to a destination they both know equally well. In Poland whilst staying at the Gulags headquarters, a decision to walk into to town was met by a stern warning from waldy that taking the car would be essential as it takes over an hour to get there, this opinion was met with derision by The Gulags mother Monica, who told us it was a lovely walk about 10 minutes maximum and she was right ten minutes later we foiund ourselves in the center of Mielec.)
After an hours walking we arrive at the Pump house and once again the female species has prevailed as we all shoot Jimmi questioning looks.
Why is it myself included that men feel the need to wildly over or under estimate everything, whereas women are happy to base their estimations on accurate data. Then the man tries to pull rank only always to end up with egg on his face.
I feel this would be a good moment to advocate a female chancellor of the Exchequer, as far as I am aware we have yet to have one, which might go a long way to explaining our current deficit. As it seems that all men from the small boy to the upper echelons of government just cant help guessing the answer and hoping for the best.
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