Robin Hood

Spoiler alert. If you have not watched the latest version of Robin Hood I am about to reveal a central and key point of the film. It is a reeking pile of fecal matter. Had I not needed to use the cinema’s toilet, the entire affair would have been a gratuitous waste of time that I’d have still been lamenting on my death bed.

The first words Russell Crowe spoke as Robin Hood genuinely made me laugh loudly from my seat at the back of the cinema. His take on the midlands accent makes him sound like a mixture of Sean Bean with throat cancer and a broken food disposal unit.

There’s really no redeemable feature to be found anywhere. The plot is a fresh take on the story, but only in the way that dropping a bag of saucepans is a fresh take on a Mozart piano concerto. The new angle serves only to provide an agonisingly slower plot route which bypasses most opportunities to provide some form of relief in the form of brutal battle scenes. Those that survive are almost spoof like in the way they disappoint, with slow motion screamed ‘noooooo’s’ producing troubling volumes of spittle and dissatisfyingly little blood.

Asides from a comically bad plot, poor acting and terrible direction, the editing stands out as a monument to awfulness, having been performed, it appears, by an autistic chimp with a chainsaw. Characters appear at seemingly random points in equally random places and previously unmentioned points take on sudden significance, leaving you with the impression that someone has sat on the remote.

All in all, I would recommend that you avoid the biting frustration I felt at having wasted two hours of my precious weekend, and do something more likely to offer a satisfying evening, like pouring lemon juice into open wounds.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is a strange place. Part of my weekend was spent there, in a cloudy haze from which, two days later, I am yet to fully emerge. Dispatching forward planning and foresight with contemptful disdain, I was left a week before the trip with the option of remortgaging or taking a 9 hour train journey. Not having a mortgage, I went with the train. It shouldn’t have been that bad as in a masterstroke of adaptability that would have shamed the bastard love child of Ray Mears and Bear Grylls, I loaded up the laptop with films and programmes and prepared to nest myself in for the journey. Which would have been fine, had I not forgotten the goddamn train was European and the goddamn laptop has a goddamn Swiss power cable. What’s the point really? One additional little prong was standing between me and 9 hours being pleasantly tucked into my carriage, watching films and being brought tea. Now I faced 9 hours of looking out of the window and waiting until I needed to go to the loo again to break the monotony. I hated that prong. The prong was worse than any Nazi peadophile at that moment. In my mind I tried playing out all the political explanations which have kept the Swiss from joining the EU and thus adapting to the uniform plug socket convention, so that I could nurture and dwell on the hate, but realised I knew nothing of the subject so instead looked at my watch, which indicated it was midday, and resignedly headed for the train’s bar.

Once I arrived and joined up with an assorted group of reprobates and degenerates the rest of the weekend took a predictable turn. Perhaps the most interesting point to be made is the astounding difference between a weekend spent drinking and one spent smoking heroic quantities of cannabis and, as a direct result, treating alcohol with the well earned suspicion and caution that 3 years of university ensured I was aware it deserved at that point. I woke after the first night having slept like a corpse, as fresh as a heavily drugged daisy. The rest of the time was spent wandering from one coffee shop to the next, with a wait of at least a few minutes at each junction or cross road as we stood, utterly confounded by this sudden choice in directions, in a futile wait for someone in the group to make a decision on everyone’s behalf. The fact that much of Amsterdam looks the same, combined with the availability of high grade concentrated weed makes the place a perfect storm for getting lost and we ended up covering every inch of the city.

One of the highlights of the apartment we stayed in, other than the proximity to a store full of crisps, cakes and other munchies, was the guest book in which hundreds of the previous guests had left messages. These messages perfectly illustrated the vast spectrum of madness, brilliance and retardedness of people in general, but especially after a weekend in the Dutch capital. I have copied some highlights below:

The philosophers:




This made me sit down and ponder the question for half an hour, before being distracted for the subsequent 45 minutes by a small crack in the ceiling.

The jokers



In case you can't tell, that yellow area which the reader is being encouarged to lick is some form of powder stuck to the page. There is a good chance that this was a small quantity of MDMA or similar drug, but a better chance that at least one person had subsequently rubbed their penis over the area.

The group of 'lads'





I have never been more certain about anything. Whoever wrote this buys Zoo and / or Nuts magazines on a regular basis.

The artist



Smoking, bearded, semi-robot man. You have to love the Finnish.

Sick sick sick

Just as I suspected, spending 8 hours sealed into an aircraft with hundreds of others people’s germs, farts and opinions does you absolutely no good. I am now spewing bile like a high pressure hose from my nose, mouth, ears and tear ducts. I’ve spent the last two days slouched like a paraplegic on the sofa begging to be euthanised in the quickest manner available. Each passing moment feels like I’m being orally raped with a sandpaper covered chainsaw.

To add an additional layer of cack to this shit sandwich, the universal law of chance has bummed me once more by requiring me to fly again tomorrow morning, with no chance of reprieve. At some unearthly hour of the morning I must drag myself to the airport, no doubt leaving a slug like trail of mucus behind me as I go. This time I’m destined for Mumbai, home to the Gateway to India, the famous Juhu beach and one of the highest cholera rates in the world. I was there in January and spent roughly 98% of the time stuck in traffic, the sheer volume of which seemed to be the only thing keeping anyone in a vehicle alive. At any moment when actual movement was possible, at least ten motorbikes, cars or motorised vegetable trays would make a suicidal leap for the available space. Traffic lights, road signs and other desperate measures to control drivers were openly mocked.

What struck me most about Mumbai though was the sheer, ball shrinking poverty. You could absolutely be forgiven for assuming that the national sport is lying by the side of the road and starving to death. They could challenge anyone at this, the kids there are all into it.

Anyway, back to my problems. The hideousness of this 9 hour journey by itself is enough to turn the stomach, but combine it with the chronic sickness I’m so cowardly suffering through and I can genuinely not trust myself to repeatedly crush my head between the back of the seat and the dinner tray until either unconsciousness or death. The only option was to go to the doctors, something I normally avoid at all costs, fearing both mandated man on man touching and the potential for having my allotted whining time cut short with medicine.

So this was my first trip to a doctor in Switzerland and it turned out to be a productive one. I had forgotten of course, that over here everything is paid for by the insurance companies, so it is within the interests of the people treating you to offer as much treatment as possible.

The blood test for a throat infection seemed over the top, but I was instantly appeased when he began to fill out the prescription form for drug after drug after sweet, pain relieving drug. I decided to push my luck.


“Did I mention I’m taking a long flight tomorrow?”, I nonchalantly enquired.

“Oh really, Herr Cook?”.

“Yes, and I am just terrified of flying. I think I might need a little something to, err, help me 'relax'”.

I didn’t go so far as to use air commas but I reckon I definitely could have gotten away with it.

“Well why didn’t you say so Sir. I’ll go get you the good shit”.


So tomorrow I shall be blissfully flying in more than one sense on my way to Asia, no doubt sensing profound messages being conveyed by whatever shitty chick flick they are showing and asking overly personal questions to the poor bastard who has to sit next to me.

American wet dream

I write this from a business park in the mid-south of America, having achieved a long held ambition in defeating an erupting volcano. I’m not getting too cocky though as it might yet trip me up on the return leg, the horrific consequences of which would be a weekend in New York paid for by my company. Those African kids just don’t know what they are bitching about.

I arrived in the States last Friday, with the intention of being looked after by a group that are friends of a friend. I wasn’t sure what to expect, not having travelled here since a trip to Disneyland when I was kid, my most prevailing memory of which is agonising crotch chaffing after a day spent running around in wet shorts at a water park. I had no expectations in so far as what this group would be like, but from my vast experience of American sit-coms I thought there was certain to be witty jibes, whacky misadventures culminating in a moral life lesson, and at least one member of the group would be semi-retarded.

What I got, as I walked into their flat at around 10.30am, was the sound of one girl vomiting in the bathroom, and a beer cheerfully offered to me by a hung-over Australian with visible teeth marks on his shoulder. I knew at this moment that these were my kind of people.

The rest of the day was spent visiting museums, going to various tourist spots and seeing some splendid examples American architecture. No, just kidding, we went to a load of bars and got wasted. Of the blurred memories that have stuck to me, I recall on several occasions breaking the promise to myself to not discuss politics, aware as I was of the deep dividing lines over here, and the fact that the standard punch I’d receive in Europe would most likely be upgraded to a bullet in the face. I can however report that Republicans, as I have witnessed them, do not all have hideously oversized foreheads, nor do they seem to feast on the children of brown people while reciting Nazi literature. That said, I’ve only been here a few days.

The group holding my hand through the NY experience were all fantastically open and friendly. There are Swiss people I’ve known for two years whose marital status I have no idea about. Within literally minutes of being introduced to the Americans I was aware of the fact that one of them is currently seeking via the internet a small slave boy for the purposes of sadomasochistic domination.

Anyway, I was extremely sorry to leave New York to head to my office in Princeton. Not nearly as sorry, however, as the driver of the car who picked me up on Sunday morning and had to scrape me into the back of car, a quivering mess on the precipice of a vomit session which would have filled his massive SUV to the brink.

Election madness

Like a Dickensian nightmare on acid, any trip to High Wycombe is one to be endured, suffered and squirmed through until the agony subsides in the form of a taxi journey sped by screamed encouragement at the driver. Shopping trolleys in canals is an urban cliché, but there they’ve made it a trademark. Unfortunately it’s where my UK office is based so occasionally I’m forced to visit it, with all the enthusiasm of a teenager breaking from a weekend of masturbation and Xbox to return to a particularly strict military school.

This was the last of my trips in the UK and it was with some relief that I landed back in Zurich, met as ever by the cold, dead eyes of the immigration official. In the UK at least they show a degree of hopeful enthusiasm that they might get to turn away some desperate asylum seeker fleeing certain death, break up a family or two or even better, witness the armed police riddle the skull of a terrorist with blunt ammunition. I get the impression that I could walk up to their Swiss equivalents with frankfurters strapped round my waist, dripping blood from a freshly cut palm onto a copy of the Koran and they wouldn’t give one solitary shit. Still, at least you get out quickly.

I was glad to be back in the UK while the election was announced. It reminded me what a horrible time all those people left behind are in for until May 6th. I’m not politically apathetic, but the squealed posturing and vacant, half begged promises are enough to make you want to vomit up your own lungs. Prime Minister’s questions, the weekly event in the House of Commons where the parties are supposed to discuss matters of importance to the country, are normally akin to a rowdy inner city school on the last day of term, but the nearer you get to an election the more they start to bear a startling resemblance to the gang rapes you see performed by packs of chimps on nature programmes. It would not surprise me if we eventually see the leader of the opposition start openly defecating and smearing his bare chest while the Prime Minister stands on the benches screaming encouragement for his party to set fire to the Houses of Parliament and attack with their teeth and hands all who stand in their way.

Of course whenever you have the degree of tribalism that you find in politics, things are going to get ugly at points, but it’s the childish, snideyness that will eventually drive me to walking into a voting booth and publicly using my vote as a suppository. At the last break of parliament, after the date of the election had been announced, there were hundreds of shouts of ‘goodbye’, said in a mocked threat that was supposed to suggest the other side had no chance of winning (which they don’t, but it’s not really the point). They probably followed this with giggles and shrill screams of delight as they skipped back to their playgrounds. These are the people who are supposed to lead and shape the country, the social elite. They act like a bunch of hyperactive schoolboys with severe learning disabilities.

I prefer the Australian parliament, where it is not uncommon to hear things like:

“He’s a Grade A arsehole”
“Fucking animals”
“He will be lucky to get a job cleaning shithouses if I ever become Prime Minister.”

I’m not making this up, these are actual quotes.

http://www.ausculture.com/2004/08/30/paul_j_keatings/

This is after all, from a country whose current Prime Minister got caught going into a strip club, and his approval rating went up. Now that’s the sort of politics I want to be involved with.

Barbarous

The experience of going to a hairdressers is normally an uncomfortable one, the event is so unbearably intimate that you feel you almost have to speak to them, much like, say, visiting a cancer patient, or a prostitute perhaps.

Eventually though, when I grow sick enough of people offering me spare change and church goers trying to take me in, I will relent and prepare to visit one of the ghastly places of inane, pointless chat about holidays and weekends. Such, unfortunately, was the case today.

Taking a seat in one of those surprisingly comfortable swivel chairs, I made a note of a) the possibility of trying to drag it out of the door unnoticed and b) the throngs of stunningly attractive hairdressers that filled the place. Things were looking up. Luckily I had the protective cover sheet hanging down to my knees already.

So, waiting with the giddy anticipation of a man in need of a transplant witnessing a multiple pile-up, my heart plummeted to my shoes to see a thunderous land-beast chaffing her rolling thighs in a wheezing effort to reach me. Like the scene from Jurassic Park, the bottles of mousse and hair gel rippled in uneasy anticipation of her arrival. Looking back, the safest thing to do would have been to run screaming immediately, but it was too late as she hacked up a phlegmy cough into her arm and rasped, “what’ll it be then love”, in a voice deeper than Brian Blessed could ever hope for.

Smile frozen to my face with a fear tinged with traces of morbid fascination, I gently thrusted a twenty pound note at her and whispered, “err, one haircut please..……love”.

I could see I’d cocked up the etiquette of proceedings immediately from the look on face, which gave the very distinct impression that I’d just asked if I could mutilate her first born for some sort of corporate event.

“How Do You Want Your Hair Cut?” was the reply, said in the manner one might speak to a particularly despised and disabled step child. And it was at this moment I realised, ‘Shit! I’m back in the UK!’. Where service providers have to pretend to take your view into account. If I tried to direct a Swiss hairdresser in how my hair should look once they’d finished, they would have no hesitation in disemboweling me with the scissors and dragging me to the gutter by my entrails.

I had no idea what to say. Eventually I stammered out, “well, err, mostly I guess, like, shorter?”.

At least this meant the rest of the experience took place in stony, beautiful silence. Next time, I’ll simply walk in wearing Batman pyjamas.

Easter weekend: assualt of the liver

Emerging from the bank holiday weekend like a survivor of a nuclear attack, dazed, confused and fairly sure that my body has been poisoned, I am hereby swearing off even being in the same room as an alcoholic beverage for the rest of my existence. From now on I shall consume nothing but wheatgrass and vegetables handpicked by Jesus.

Trying to piece together what happened seems to be a fruitless exercise, but rummaging through the pockets of my torn, shit-stained jeans I can surmise from the comically lengthy receipts that I have spent this year’s bonus on lager, shots of sambuca and enough rum to kill a bull elephant.

One fuzzy memory to emerge from the whole debacle, like a wounded soldier from a jungle of pain, is stumbling into a bar in Soho that appeared to be run entirely by vampires. The tables were, I shit you not, fashioned from coffins, everything was painted dirty black and the toilets were an unspeakable horror. This hell hole of depravity was called Garlic and Shots, and was populated by Goths and various other sub-cultures who choose to make a statement to society about avoiding the mainstream and individuality by all dressing exactly the same and pushing lumps of metal through their face. So my falling into the establishment and, shouting over the death metal, ordering a glass on chardonnay in a posh, Surrey accent went down like a fart in a space suit. I can say with a degree of confidence that nobody had ever ordered anything close to wine in the place before. The look of the face of the bar maid was so confused it clinked.

At some point in the evening, one of our group bought a round of something called ‘blood shots’. This was a mistake of significant magnitude. Consisting of tabasco, chilli, garlic and alcohol, I am still struggling to comprehend how anyone could believe this would ever be purchased for consumption, as opposed to, say, military use. The thing tasted like a thousand poisonous ants had mistaken my throat, lips and stomach for a very serious threat. The burning was accompanied by an intense wave of nausea as lumps of garlic hit the congealed contents of my stomach, that had by this stage not received any form of sustenance beyond pork scratchings and cigarettes for days. How I managed to prevent myself from projectile vomiting over the table is a miracle to rival a resurrection.

So having learnt from this unholy episode and the chronic agony that has resulted from it, I begin a new chapter of innocence and purity. I will set my alarm for an early morning jog tomorrow and shall start injecting pureed super foods directly into my veins. This can’t possibly go wrong.