Living for Disco

Right, well, I didn’t expect so many questions! I’m delighted, obviously, because it gives me much to work with. I thank you.

Kathleen has two questions (the more the merrier, I say).
Are you going back to England this year? Aren’t you near the end of your two year commitment?

The answer to both is yes. I haven’t been home in almost two years, and I’m starting to wonder what it will be like. Will people be wearing strange clothes, and talking into mobile phones the size of postage stamps? Will they even be speaking the same language, or will it have mutated out of existence? This is how long I feel I have been away. So I’m planning on finishing up in September, popping up to Victoria Falls and Malawi/Zambia with my cousin before being spat shivering onto England’s chilly shores in mid to late October. Fuck knows what happens then. I’ve not exactly been planning.

Honey (Hello lurker!) wants to know what my favourite things are. Hard to say really – there are so many. But for starters:
* Sushi
* Jaffa cakes (more on this later)
* Champagne
* My suede coat with fur round the cuffs, which I left at home, and which I love so much I feel like I’m in a relationship with it. It’s the most expensive item of clothing I have ever bought. I hope it forgives me for leaving it. And that it hasn’t been attacked by moths. Oh, it makes me fret just to think of it.
* Sitting by a fire, under the stars, in the middle of the desert
* Giraffes. They are just too cool.
* A cup of tea first thing in the morning.
* Cheese (but not fake plastic cheese, as immortalised by Radiohead.)
* Beer. It’s the Cambridge Beer Festival this week. They have good cheese there too. I’m going to miss it, goddamn it.
* The sea. Especially in winter when it’s moody and wild.

Is that enough?

Heather A wanted to know about insect muscles. This deserves a post all of its own. She also asked me what Jaffa Cakes are. I think it is a tragedy that people can go through life without having tasted jaffa cakes. I may set up my own charity to rectify the situation –
“Jaffa Aid: Bringing orangey goodness to the afflicted”. Heather, Jaffa Cakes are just about the best biscuit on the face of the planet (with hot competition from McVities Plain Chocolate Homewheats). The anatomy of a jaffa cake is thus:

A spongy, soft base, which allows for the stuffing of the entire biscuit into the mouth, should this be deemed necessary at any time. Laid lovingly atop this base is a sliver of orange jelly, honed to orangey perfection by master biscuit makers, using a recipe passed down from their forefathers, who made Jaffa Cakes for Henry VIII. The whole thing is finished off with a layer of smooth, dark chocolate. Please see this site, and this, for further details.

Bill asked about my forthcoming reality TV show: Leopard Wrestling: Live from Windhoek, and whether it will be broadcast outside Namibia. Bill, the answer is that Namibia simply doesn’t have the media resources to make this project possible. As a result, I have been in contact with Fox TV, and with Channel 5 in the UK, trying to get it off the ground. I sincerely hope they come through soon, because feeding these critters is becoming expensive, and they don’t really like being kept in a box in my kitchen. I worry that they will escape and do Boris some damage. However, I believe we may have persuaded Paris Hilton to present, once she’s out of jail, so I have high hopes, as, I’m sure, does she. Watch this space!

Fearghal wanted to know what anniversary it is after four years. Well, first up, congratulations! Four years is represented by fruit or flowers, so it’s nice and cheap. No gold or diamonds for another twenty five years or so. I’m sure a bag of apples will do nicely.

Claire asked: What would you put into Room 101 and why?
This doesn’t need much consideration, actually. I’d put Snow Patrol in there. I fucking hate Snow Patrol. Talk about turgid, repetitive droning. Does that guy know how to sing anything other than three notes over and over again? And the lyrics. Jesus. ‘The final straw in the roof of my mouth?’ Fuck off. I’m being tortured by them at the moment – they’re everywhere, all over the radio, sounding as if they’re recording their last dirge before they all go off and drown themselves in the first stagnant pond they can find. Do they ever have any fun do you think? Do they know how to laugh? They make me want to throw myself in front of a bus. Chuck ‘em in Room 101 with the rats and give us all a break.

Jennifer Cascadia asked me about the cockroach – which is bigger, me or it? Well, ideally, me. Although in my nightmares, often it’s the cockroach. However, the can of DOOM is bigger than all of us. Thankfully.

Hola Gordon, welcome to the world of Disco. Your question also deserves a post of it’s own. One gig review coming up.

Any more for any more? This is fun.

Steve at Our Man in Granada, gawd love him, has given me a great suggestion for reviving my blogging inspiration (and therefore stopping the great exodus of readers from these shores). It great because it means you have to do all the hard work.

So, ask me anything. You can ask me about me, or Namibia, or about something not at all related to me – if I don’t know the answer, I can always try and make up something entertaining yet plausible.

I realise that I have been promising a review of Windhoek’s nightlife for some time, but that is still in the sidelines – that should give you some idea of how kickin’ it is here. Yeah baby – so much goes on, I don’t have the energy to detail it all.

Please ask me something. I’ll just feel unloved if the comments box remains empty (apart from that dead cockroach in the corner).

As is usual during the onset of winter, this morning I found it extremely difficult to get out of bed. The routine goes like this:

6.30: Alarm
6.39: Alarm
…. repeat until 7.20.
7.20: Swing legs out of bed and shuffle into living room.
7.21: Realise wearing only pants and Mrs Uncle Janni has returned from her month long sojourn in Pretoria, and is doing her Amazing Morning Constitutional outside on the driveway, wearing a housecoat and a showercap.
7.22: Return to living room wearing jumper and socks.
7.23: Drink a cup of Tetley.
7.25 – 7.58: – Faff
7.59: Panic, as now very late for work. Look for keys. Find keys. Look for ipod. Find Ipod. Try to relocate keys. Can’t find keys anywhere. Find keys mysteriously placed on bathroom windowsill. Lock up the million locks required to enter my house. Remember anti-crazy medication. Unlock. Take anti-crazy medication. Lock up.
8.25: Leave house

Then, as I unlocked the gate, even in the midst of my brain-fog I noticed something not quite normal. Sitting next to the wheelie bin, as if waiting to be picked up by the garbage collectors, was a large, heavy looking anvil.

I can only imagine that Uncle Janni purchased it while in Pretoria, because God knows it’s difficult to get a good anvil round these parts. Then, at 10.30 pm last night, when they returned from their long drive home, they decided that the anvil didn’t fit their particular needs and decided to ditch it. Maybe they were using it as ballast for the car. Who knows? Bear in mind that my landlords are in their 70s, and not as robust as they used to be. I don’t even know how between them they would manage to carry that thing up the driveway. I found myself wondering briefly whether it would look good on my coffee table, as they obviously have no further need for it.

I’m quite relieved really, because, as it is, the sound of an enthusiastic buzz saw from his workshop at 7am on a Sunday morning doesn’t really rock my world. If he’d planned on setting up shop shoeing the neighbourhood horses or making swords, I think I would actually have had to move out.

I almost forgot. Steve at Our Man in Granada is covering the Great Turtle Race.

I picked Stephanie Colburtle, and what do you know? She’s winning. Hurrah. Go Steph. However, knowing my luck in these kind of things, she will probably be eaten halfway to the Galapagos, and I will be plagued with terrible guilt for the rest of my life. I should never have got involved. I’ve practically sealed her doom.

Right, I’m off home to eat some cheap tuna.

Like my improving Spanish? I learned that from Pan’s Labyrinth, a film that I wholeheartedly recommend.

Anyway, I haven’t got much to say because I did nothing over the weekend. My friend Marie and I just sat around in our pyjamas for 48 hours, drinking bloody marys and watching DVDs.

So I have nothing of any interest to say. I looked in the paper, and there is a mysterious outbreak of dead pigeons up north which could have been amusing, but somehow my heart wasn’t in it.

I’ll try and remedy this lack of inspiration by tomorrow though.