It feels like ages since i’ve written anything so i might be a little rusty. Sort of like Basketball at the moment. I’d love to see the German’s i play with, play a game with a full referee – it would be hilarious. It’s not a foul if you lose the ball people…these are called steals and turnovers. I’ve also read an incredible piece of tedium from Squires which may have dulled my creative abilities in telling a tale so apologies up front…it’s all on your shoulders mate.

I’m still contemplating whether or not to give my parents the address for this page. My emailing has become infrequent at best with everyone it has to be said so maybe this would fill the gaps…though i’m not the most regular poster either. I think the deciding factor would be my frequent dropping of the c-bomb. I’ve toned most of my swearing down i feel but i do like a good c-bomb…pun may or may not be intended.

Well just in case i do let them in on it, here are the highlights i guess of my xmas adventure.

So what was technically my last week at work, kicked off with several Christmas parties – my work’s, pimp’s etc – resulting in too much alcohol and not enough sleep. Bring on Saturday…Squires doesn’t drink much…before 8am…

So i get up at silly o’clock to get out to Hahn, the cheap tin shed in another state masquerading as Frankfurt’s second airport. I am notoriously late for flights so i plan to get there ridiculously early to break with tradition. Phong hung out at mine the night before so i just went straight to bed without packing. Again, this is a feature of my holidays – the morning pack session. I get down to the u-bahn and have a 20 minute wait for a train…my bus to the airport leaves in 22mins…After pushing down an old lady, several feeble women and some cripples to get off the train i make the mad dash through the hauptbahnhof and through the middle of the street to stop the bus from leaving. He tried to pull away but my suicide run defeated him and he relinquished. End up getting to the airport like a day before my flight thanks to good weather – i had been banking on snow – so t’was a little boring but my holiday had begun.

Texting Squires that my plane is 20 mins late i board in reasonable spirits. Like i said before i’m not the best flyer. For some reason i cannot joke or speak during turbulence…obviously as i don’t want my voice to interfere with the pilot’s concentration…what accent is that?? I also need to look out the window at the wing during turbulence, as if my Jedi mind powers have developed sufficiently enough to stop the engines from falling off.

I had been told that the approach is quite breathtaking so i was following along admiring the view when all of a sudden we were out over water again…my geography of Italy is not brilliant but i couldn’t figure out why we would be leaving land for water. So on comes the captain to tell us – in three languages – that Pisa airport has been closed mid-flight due to snow. I check out the window again and we have bright sunshine here. How fucking far away am i? I’m not really bothered at this point…not much i can do. Maybe i could talk a bit more and the pilot might get distracted and take us somewhere else, but generally it’s out of my hands. It didn’t stop the hot chick next to me wailing her arms about firstly to the German announcement that Pisa had been closed and we were re-routing to Genoa, then again to the Italian announcement, her native tongue, and finally to the English announcement. Bout as predictable as a Tom Cruise movie that one love. Silly cow. You’ve lost your chance with me.

A lot of gesturing at the airport and i figure out that Ryanair have actually footed the bill for some buses back to Pisa. I was sure i would have to train it in. 1000 text messages later and i’m able to meet up with Squires in Pisa and we nab one of the few trains running back to Massa or somewhere near to it. He puts me in a cab and gives the name of his local Irish to the cabbie on paper. Squires sets off on a bike to meet me there. I had been getting a few looks at my Man United beanie along the way but i think Mr Cab Driver and his son were football fans as they began to have a conversation with each other in Italian about all the Italian managers in the premier league. I was going to contribute Zola to the conversation until i heard him say “blah blah blah blah Mancini blah blah blah blah Manchester United”. Well you’re about as useful as tits on a bull aren’t you…so i left them to it. I didn’t know at this stage Mancini had just signed for the massive club city. Still, an unforgiveable mistake.

We make it to the pub eventually and navigate our way through the menu, proceeding to get reasonably drunk on beers, and later Guinness with creatively-priced Port chasers. Class. After agreeing on heading back to watch a movie i saw a bit of the credits and then was out like a light.

The next day we walked around a bit to see the beach and the square and stuff before eventually rejoining the savagely hot waitress at the pub for more Guinness & Port combo’s. Said waitress kept making passes at me while Squires was in the bathroom [citation necessary] but i figured it was better if i left her to a local, long distance relationships and all that. I’m just that kind of guy really.

Unfortunately it was only a short visit this time round so will have to venture back down soon, had a great time – and i agree, i haven’t laughed that much in a long time either mate!

Going our separate ways in Pisa, Squires was off to Rome with Luca for Christmas and i was on my way to Sunny York, via Sunny London. Planes, Tubes and Trains later and i’m in a cab in York, almost on schedule, playing one of my favourite games – where the fuck are you from? I have no problem talking about Manchester United and calling the team ‘we’ as in ‘We played well’ on the weekend, and can do the same for Australia – except for some reason after i have been talking about another country. Then inexplicably i become Switzerland and don’t commit to anything. Country after country we talked about, me critiquing them objectively, until finally the cabbie utters the immortal words…so where exactly are you from, cause your accent is neither here nor there? I’m a child of the UN…me, Kyle Minogue and Elle MacPherson.

I’ve always enjoyed York and particularly seeing Lynda and Gordy. It’s always relaxing and indulgent to say the least! A few more days of solid eating and drinking and a white Christmas to boot and i was off to London.

Back down sowf of the river and my heart was at ease. I always felt more at home in sowf London than nawf London. KFC for lunch and Raclette for dinner as i felt the gut getting bigger. Only another week or so of debauchery left to endure. Reminiscent of Dad’s 50th in Cowra, we proceed to drink all of the beer on Christmas Eve leaving only a few bottles for Christmas itself. Sang and Shaun’s kid Aiden is pretty cool. I don’t really deal with kids. I’m not bad with kids, in fact they mostly get along with me, but i wouldn’t be described as a traditional caregiver. Children are just little people to me, susceptible to the same frailties and motivations that we all are, so i don’t treat them very differently. I don’t make faces at them or speak to them in an incomprehensible language – how that is helpful i’ll never know. I don’t really get anything from seeing them smile or do something ‘adult-like’. I find it amusing when they throw a fit for no apparent reason, the child equivalent of a voiced rant… Their attraction lies in their unique reactions to stimuli, just as any other grown persons.

Shaun’s present for christmas – The Beatles Rockband for Xbox! Unfortunately we didn’t get to play it but i have to say it looked wicked, particularly the guitar. It also caused Shaun to coin a phrase which would be used for the rest of the week….”Hey….” Admittedly this does not really work in printed format, but just imagine the beginning ‘Hey’ of ‘Hey Jude’ not immediately followed by the ‘Jude’. Almost like the quickie round of a musical quiz where they play the opening half second of a song and just kill it cold, and you have to guess it. Perfect pitch and tempo for ‘Hey Jude’ but just never completed. Priceless.

Waiting until the day after boxing day when trains would be running…(awful, awful system) we decided to nick down to Redhill in Surrey to see my mates Craig and Ana from the old Duke of Devonshire who have also recently popped out a couple of kids – i’m going to avoid euphemisms here as my previous attempt led me to write ‘rug-munchers’ instead of ‘rug-rats’….totally different kettle of fish there.

The original plan was to pop down for the afternoon, maybe catch a bit of the premiership and then head back to Phong’s cousin’s place in nawf London. But something happened. We’d managed to buy return tickets to sowf London and so had to arrange extensions to get back nawf. We managed that. We also managed to find out when the last train back was. What we didn’t manage was to get on it. Several pints later and about 20 quid each in the trivia machine and we were still at the pub to see the staff go home for the evening. Thanks once again to Craig and Ana for putting us up for the night :o)

Back into central London for a cheeky pint at the real Waxy’s, followed by a few more at a random O’neills for the footy. Lunch with Phong’s Dad, Sang, Shaun and Aiden and then back to O’neills for the rest of the footy. This was followed by a roadie somewhere else for a loo break and we finally made it to Phong’s cousin’s place…some 26 hours late. Not bad.

The following day we had arranged for a few of the London folk to meet up for lunch. I had suggested S&M Cafe as had been meaning to go there ever since i lived in London. Sadly it would win that round as well as it was closing as we arrived. We decided to wait in a drink-selling establishment on the corner. Boychild arrived just in time as we witnessed an altercation between the landlord and a couple eating their food. We’re still not really sure what happened but the landlord asked them to leave and the couple asked for their money back. Neither party looked too keen on the argument at first but the landlord was up for it alright. 10 minutes later and we had two cop cars and a paddywagon…hate to see how many coppers they send for an actual punch-up.

We settle for Nando’s for tea and afters at some random bar described by Shaun as “There’s a decent pub around the corner with a tranny landlord”. Good enough for this motley crew. We all gathered around the world’s smallest pool table, me guzzling a pint of scrumpy which was truly awful. The alcohol was beginning to kick in however. I had to work hard not to piss my pants when the aforementioned landlord came by and asked Boychild not to sit on the pool table and proceeded on to the ladies room, to which boychild hopped off the table and said “Sure, no worries…..number 1’s or number 2’s? It was not the last time this question was posed to patrons that night…

We headed up the road to yet another pub around Spitalfields. I vaguely remember being in this pub once before. Strange crowd, but then again we bring our own entertainment these days. We posed for several boy band promo shots – i was apparently tuning some chick with purple teeth and then it was back up nawf to the cousins….via Fried chicken for dinner number 2 :o)

In the morning i awoke to find my shoes and trousers covered with suspicious mud/poo-like stains all over them. Your guess is as good as mine but after careful consideration i have determined the only plausible explanation was that the neighbours further up the road, pissed off after having their garden ‘watered’ by Phong the night before had scrupulously hand painted their shrubbery with this mud/poo-like substance to catch this little black duck completely unawares on the encore performance. Mission accomplished.

Sammy’s sister was kind enough to give us a lift up to Stowmarket for Phong’s 30th. I just prayed that she could not smell the substance all over my trousers and shoes. The ride provided some great banter along the way with such highlights as J-Lo being a musical sorbet to cleanse the palette, and my personal favourite, in response to women being released from jail for being pregnant, that surely now instead of people sneaking in files in cakes etc, that people were sneaking in turkey basters of goo. Lads just throwing handfuls of the stuff over the prison walls and the inmates doing cartwheels across the yard to catch it….think about it…think about it…there you go!

But whatever banter we had managed there, it was nothing for what was to come that night.

Unfortunately out of the two cab companies in ‘One House’ where Sammy originates from, only one had a taxi running – go figure – and apparently they were not prepared to shuttle all 12 something of us to and from the pub. Never mind we had some board games and ourselves to keep us entertained.

Due to some mischievous misinformation Sammy’s girlfriend Lila began questioning Tyler (Sammy’s sister’s Canadian husband) why he felt it necessary to club seals? Well played to Tyler who reasonably justified it while keeping a straight face. Not entirely convinced either way, the table chat dried up in anticipation to how Lila would receive the explanation. Enter Spike (Sammy’s sister’s friend) to take some of the heat off Tyler with an amusing tale of running over a cat, and then to check if it was still alive he poked it in the eye with a stick. Phong then came to Spike’s aid with an amusing tail revolving the catching of a fish and releasing it back into the water…via the underside of a bridge. Thud!

The banter continued spiralling out of control until Spike labelled Sienna Miller a vacuous husk of a woman at which point we lost the battle to hilarity and descended into mayhem.

I still can’t believe we had fake blue wkd’s and Port and did not make cheeky vimto’s…

A few hours sleep in the morning and we were dropped off at the train station complete with visible aura’s of alcohol. A jaunt back into London, a quick skip across town and we were on another train headed North for Wigan to meet Adam and the boys in the Brocket – the Wetherspoons pub we stay at when going to old Trafford. Feeling very rough i could feel it in my bones – we only had two more days to go and there sobriety was waiting for us.

We make it in time for a shower and a few drinks at the Brocket before hopping in the cab for Manchester, and Sam Platt’s, the united only pub just round the corner from the theatre of dreams. At this point in time my body ceased to recognise alcohol as alcohol and merely treated it as liquid…something it was in dire need of. Drinking pints of cider to the others’ bottles of bud – pronounced “like having sex in a canoe….it’s fucking close to water!” – we quickly caught up and indeed surpassed the others in merriment.

Into the ground and i think Adam was more shocked than we were to find out our tickets were in the nosebleeds. About 5 rows in from the very top of the East stand it was like watching some red ants run around…run around and destroy some blue ants 5-0! In my three visits to Old Trafford we are yet to concede a goal. 2 wins and 1 draw with 8 goals for and none against. It could easily have been more. We weren’t that good, but Wigan were poor. Still, proved quite the night and hopefully a good present for Phong’s 30th.

Back in to Sam Platt’s after the match for some more chat with the lads and some more cider. Turns out we had been drinking with a Sir as well. I had forgotten that in between this and my last visit, Anthony had become Sir Anthony after being knighted by the Pope in Rome, complete with a papal seal-looking signet ring. The more i hang around Adam the more surreal life becomes. Chatting to Andy who provides us with extra tickets when needed, the topic changed to Aussie sport and he asks if me and Phong know of a Rugby League player called Amos Roberts, as he has just transferred to Wigan and now lives next door to him. I said sure! My sister used to knock about with him.

Ok, now it must be said a lot of alcohol had been consumed at this point Carly if you read this. I may have got my facts intertwined but as far as i can remember i thought my sister knocked about with an Aboriginal rugby league player at some club in Sydney until the infamous ‘cousin’ incident put an end to it. Was that Amos Roberts? I had a feeling that the he played for the Dragons at the time, so Amos fits the bill?

Anyways if you happen to be travelling through Wigan at any point in time Carly and run into a bloke called Andy you might have a few questions to answer ;)

Cab back to Wigan and we decline the search for food on icy streets and head to bed WITHOUT hurling abuse willy nilly at the bar staff for refusing to serve us after hours…

The trip back to Manchester and Frankfurt was on complete autopilot. I knew we had to make it through just one more night and then it was sweet, sweet sobriety. I’d given up going to the toilet, i had no liquid to spare.

A quick visit home, long enough to throw some laundry on and we were off to Sammy’s for more drinking and some €370 worth of Fireworks. I’m not really into the destruction and blowing shit up sort of game so i just acted as cameraman. The night kind of fizzled in the wee hours of the morning as our holidays were catching up on all of us…Strom had just flown long haul from Australia and me and Phong had been pickled for weeks so it was with no trepidation that we shelled out for a cab back to Bornheim. A bit of tv to wind down fully and i was done. It was over.

It’s a good thing i am ironman and probably have to give these shenanigans up soon enough…

Another from the old Xanga days. It’s funny to read this actually to see that i once liked Tevez. That was before he tried to be bigger than our team. You can try to go against Fergie if you’re stupid enough Carlito, but don’t think for one second the fans will follow you down that road.

After watching my side struggle again today i remembered i haven’t told the tale of my visit to Old Trafford last weekend…the most surreal weekend i’ve had in my life.

I also must apologise to my future wife as i have probably already had the best day in my life.

So my day started off on the Friday, a half day at work to get out for an afternoon flight. Originally the game was on Saturday but the powers that be obviously decided they could make more money off us on the Sunday. So we had a few days to kill in sunny Wigan.

So out at the airport a little earlier than necessary i retire to the bar for a bit of pre-flight courage. You’d think i’d be used to flying by now.

Irish Girl at bar (loud enough so that the whole restaurant/bar stops their conversations and turns around to look): Ha! I can speak German…. Spaghetti Bolognaise….

Time to take a dip in the gene pool i think, you seem to be a little low…

Walking through security i had my headphones on and took them out to try to hear what the German Airport security chick was saying to the little child she was accosting.

Airport chick: Deutsch oder English?
Scared child’s father: ah English Definitely. (Some sort of Scandinavian…German was probably not yet amongst the 18 fucking languages that kid will know shortly)
Airport Chick: Are you a boy or a girl?

Now i know German’s are a bit direct at times but little Sven from Scandinavia probably didn’t appreciate that..

Now as i said i have flown a lot in recent years, and i’m now at the point where i’m not too nervous, except for when things happen that seem out of the ordinary. So i’m on my way back from the toilet onboard when there is this horrible thumping noise underneath our feet. Not good. Two big Manc lads behind be seem a bit perturbed also.

Mancs: Was that normal?
Steward Guy: Ahh i’ll just check with the captain – and goes back and makes a phonecall.
Steward on return: Yep everything’s ok. The captain will make an announcement shortly. So was that a tomato juice you wanted?
Mancs: ahh yep thanks.
Steward: Ice and Lemon?
Manc: Oh you’re spoling me now…
Steward: Could be your last…

…Fuck me!

So we made it to Manchester, very bumpily, and already i found myself using a lot more words than necessary when talking with people…just cause i could. My German is not what you would call conversational, rather functional.

Passing Bolton on the train i decide that is about as close as i want to go to it. I had not seen so many freaks since my jaunt through Swindon.

Jumping in a cab in Wigan, the lady at the hotel had told me it would be about £3. Of course i had left my printouts on my desk at work so was merely guessing the name of the pub – which to a cabbie is like bending over and telling him not to bother spitting…

Cabbie: So you up for the football then?
Me: ahh yep.
Cabbie: Tottenham fan are you?
Me: ahhh no.
Cabbie: Wigan fan then?
me: ahhh no.
Cabbie: ?
me (still having not got over my lessons from the past when declaring your football side in the UK): ahh United?
Cabbie: Cool so am i! Let’s just make it £7 then.

Mates rates is that? Cunt!

So i walk into the luxurious Wetherspoons lodge. Two big lads in front of me tell me to go grab a magazine off the desk when he’s not looking cause of a half price room voucher in there. Grand! Beers for you two!

Check-in guy: You up for the football then?
Me: ahh yep.
Check-in guy: Heskey is looking pretty dangerous at the moment.
Me: is he behind me? …..oooh he thinks i’m a Tottenham fan as well. Now i know my accent is pretty fucked up but i’ve never ever been confused with a North Londoner…no tip for you my good man.

So i make my way to the bar for a pint to wait for the others. Run into the two large lads and get in a round with them. Nice blokes but the sort who will interrupt their own conversation to unsubtly gawk at some passing ‘talent’. And my word, Wiagn seemed to have it’s fair share. I was later to see the most stunning girl i have ever seen in person…she knocked Kryptonite off top spot i think.

So my mate arrives and introduces me to all his mates. I am awful with introductions so play heavily on an Australian’s ability to use mate instead of real names for everybody. The drinks are flowing and i’m introduced to another person where above the background hum all i managed to here was “this is something something something father something something something”. So i figure it to be my mates dad, though i couldnt pick why he had an American accent.

Drinks continue, i mean £2.99 Magners, are you shitting me? I’m effing and blinding my way through conversations with all these people i’ve only just met…I’m Australian, it’s allowed. Turns out the aforementioned ‘father’ was actually a father..as in a priest. Christ, i’ve got to try to curtail my language in front of him. Prolly shouldn’t blaspheme whilst making a mental note either.

Random girl: I like coldplay
Me: Coldplay? Are you shitting me? To be honest i don’t think i’ve liked anything coming out of the UK in at least the last ten years. Wait, is Muse from the UK?
Random girl: My God I can’t believe you like Muse.
Me: Coldplay? Are you shitting me? I don’t think you can weigh into this bout…

So i retire to my room to watch the rest of some old movie i remember from when i was a kid starring Bette Midler, Danny DeVito and Judge Reinhold when Bette Midler gets kidnapped and Danny DeVito won’t pay the ransom. Seriously, what ever happened to Judge Reinhold? Make a mental note to write a punk song with Phil about Judge Reinhold, and ensure it goes for 1 minute and 47 seconds. What kind of a name is Judge? Are his brothers and sisters called President, Astronaut and Rockstar?

Go to sleep musing over this and trying to remember not to make jokes with religious conotations or swear in front of the priest.

Wake up and go to breakfast.

Lad: How you feeling today Matt?
me: Dry as a fucking nun’s nasty…

…shit….

So Saturday we spent the day visiting people and blessing things. Sadly never ran in to the new Kryptonite again…though currently i need about 3-6 weeks before i talk to someone so it would probably never have worked ;) The two heavy set guys tell me they have fallen in love 17 times tonight. Forgetting to eat dinner was not the best idea i’ve ever had so subsequently never remembered walking upstairs to my room, nor taking three quarters of a pint of cider with me to keep next to my bed.

This is my only photo of the night. I reckon it is a fair shout that with two and a half pints of cider in front of me i probably didn’t need the neat whiskey as well…Quadruple parking!

Sunday – Game day.

Wake up in an absolutely awful state. Miss check out time. Reception guy wishes me luck for the Tottenham match. Gone too far now, going to have to keep up this charade. Meet the others in the pub, they have started on the pints. It’s half 10. Fuck. Yesterday was a bad idea. So we hire an 8 seater van to take us all to Manchester early. At this point we still are short two tickets as the group has expanded. These two tickets are mine and my mates but i’m told not to worry. It was being taken care of. We find a pub to watch the Wigan Tottenham match. Dire. I’m glad i don’t actually have to support that team. With thirty minutes to go we head back towards the ground. We stop to buy some cans at an offlicence. 6 Lagers, 1 cider and Father was abstaining. So we head down the famed Sir Matt Busby Way and i can see the ground and it’s all sinking in…i’m back home. All of a sudden we’re whisked into a doorway and heading up some stairs – “Shut the door!”. I shut the door wondering what is going on. It is then whispered back down to me that we are in the office of the head of the Red Army – the Man United Hooligans. This fella had been banned from football for 5 years. One minute i’m drinking with a priest and the next with a skinhead rioter. What the hell is going on. So ‘business’ was taken care of, and we were soon on our way to the ground again, the troupe now down to three.

Then the call came and we had tickets. We just had to go and meet some guy. Walking past the Chelski dressing rooms to the tune of:

Viva John Terry! Viva John Terry!
Could have won the cup, but he fucked it up!
Viva John Terry!

So we’re told to wait while the lad goes and meets the guy for our tickets. He swiftly returns and gives us our tickets in an under the table fashion had we been seated at a table. “You might want to hold on to those tickets after the match…” Glancing down at the tickets to see they are in the name of one R.Ferdinand…we’re sitting in Fucking Rio Ferdninands seats!!

Rio’s seats! The lads to my right never spoke a word of English…i would take a stab at Serbian..it’s wuite possible these were the seats of our back four…

What on earth is going on today?? Could this day get any better?

Could it what!

3 fucking nil! And a demoralised Chelski squad making us look a lot better than we actually were. Evergreen Giggsy turning back the clock for a vintage display. Vidic making coffin nails look weak, and Didhefallover Drogba look somewhat pathetic. Rooney covering more ground and more positions than i have ever seen anyone do in my life. Kissing the emblem on the flag, one to remember. But the hairs on the back of the neck truly stood up, along with the other 79,000 people when Tevez came out to warm up, soluting the crowd’s reaction with his hand on his heart. The talk around was that their hasn’t been a reception like that for somoene warming up since Cantona. I hope Fergie was listening!

Are you watching Merseyside? I’m sure they can wheel a plastic tele into the psych ward where they keep Rafa.