Farewell Pt 3 (Back to the UK and Beyond)

It was after six months of office work (I'm not cut out for inside work. I was like a caged animal..) I moved back to the UK for a job with Cotswold Archaeology. I was supposed to go to Worcester, but instead they threw me into Wales unaware of my Anti-Wales stance. To Four Crosses I was bound for Cedric's Guesthouse;

You can see the site which was under the houses on the right of the picture, the road that runs through the middle of the picture was on the edge of Offa's Dyke. Unfortunately I was on the Welsh side of it, Cedric was a bastard, The faulty kettle he gave me nearly burnt my house down and I couldn't get to Birmingham for a party and ended up getting stuck in Welshpool one weekend, this again probably points towards why I hate Wales so much. Besides that, the crew were brilliant and we cleaned the local pub out of beer every week at the pub quiz. Then Cotswold sent myself and the crew out to Worcester, to this place;

This was in the middle of nowhere and each weekend my housemates would leave to go back to their real lives and leave me alone there. With a twenty minute walk up the drive to the bus stop where there was only two buses to Worcester on Saturday it was almost true isolation. I remember one Saturday morning walking up the driveway to catch the only bus in the morning to Worcester City for the day. There still a five minute or so walk to the top of the drive when I saw the bus go past. It was heartbreaking. Then in an even smarter move Cotswold Archaeology moved me back to Wales, to Trimsaran, near Llanelli

You will note how fucking far away from the main road this place was. I know how far it was cos I had to walk it every time I wanted to get a bus out to the bright lights of Llanelli or Carmarthen. There was a bit of a theme developing with Cotswold Archaeology putting me in places with really long drives. God I hated that place. The only good thing about it was Sam, which turned out to be a bad thing after all. This place definitely tipped me over the edge of unbridled Welsh Hate if nothing else did.

This job was the straw that broke the camels back, I left Cotswold and moved back up north to York, where I spent six glorious months in what I still think was the best place I ever lived, Osbaldwick Village;

Yes, this house was lovely, my housemates were the best and York is where I am generally happiest. It was also in this house that the concept of Ninja Metal was born. The only black spot on this other wise halcyon existence was the couple of months I worked for Network Archaeology on the the big pipeline project that finally broke me as a field archaeologist, and here is where we were housed in Ingleton;

I know what you're thinking "That's just another field. Were you living in tents again?" No, we were living in houses which obviously were not built at the time this photograph was taken.

I went back to Osbaldwick but the joy was not to last however and I was forced to move back to Whiston due to circumstances beyond my control. I was always planning to move out again and then I got a job in Singapore, we all know how that ended, but my time there was spent in Yishun in this block of flats;

The Singapore adventure came to an end and I moved back to my parent's house again, I soon picked up work at the Barbican in York and removed myself to Sarah's bedsit on Holgate road;

I was only there for a short while until I took Craig's room at Precentor's Court;

You will see from this picture, how fucking close the house was to York Minister. The bells woke me up every Saturday morning. I used to hang out of the window screaming 'Shut up you Bastards!!' They never did. Craig was moving out and I moved in with the Violent Alcoholic John Clay. He had this practise he called the 'thirty minute Hate' where would beat me with a broomhandle every evening until he broke it over my head one night. He would then use his fists to pummel me into a bloody mess. He has a different account of it and it can be found here.

I escaped the brutal regime of Clay to Lichfield for an away job for Onsite Archaeology;

This was Pauline's Bed and Breakfast. I never knew madness until I had a breakfast time conversation with Pauline. She would tell us about the ghost cat that haunted the place, you could tell it was a ghost because it's tail 'bent the other way'. I still suffer from sleepless nights trying to figure out what this even means. She once introduced one of the other guests to us as 'Ahmed, he's a dentist.' When she was out of earshot 'Ahmed' told us his name was Daniel and he worked in the Prison Service. Utter, unadulterated madness.

There was another place we staying in Lichfield, but it was only for a short period of time and I couldn't find it on Google Maps so it will have to fade into obscurity. After Lichfield wrapped up I was back up North again to York to help finish off at the Barbican. I moved into Ross's place which he had got after moving out of Precentor's Court;

It was on Broadway in Fulford (Ross always said he was destined to be on Broadway). It was above the Thresher Wine Shop and I was awoken every Saturday morning by the delivery of thousands of bottles of booze for the thirsty denizens of York. It was like the ringing of the Minister bells, but more alcohol related. Ross also had an aversion to putting the heating on and it was a constant battle to get him to turn the hot water on. He used to tell me it would make me a stronger man. I used to tell him to fuck off and turn the radiators on. Sneakily I would put the hot water on when he was out.

Work came up in France for three months on the Finding the Fallen TV series, so I moved back to Whiston in between bouts of filming and again I fell into the easy trap of staying put at my parents house. Picking up work locally made it all too easy to stay there until this present job came up in Iceland, which I took, for better or for worse and ended up living here;

Where I am presently writing this post. Over the next couple of weeks, I shall be moving into this place here;

Which, you may or may not notice is about two minutes down the road from the previous address. Well, there you have it, my life in three posts. I found writing this post pretty interesting and looking for the old houses also stirred up a lot of old memories, good and bad. Maybe you could do it to. Write in and let me know how you got on!

Farewell Pt2 (Ireland)

The first place I lived in Ireland was the Wicklow Youth Hostel, for one awful night, then we (Lindsay, Stuart and I) quickly got a place at the Bel Air Hotel in one of their Holiday Homes they had built to accommodate more tourists than the decrepit Hotel ever could. God, that place really stank of death. They ended up giving all the houses over to archaeologists, who are not the nicest of tenants and at least one household was evicted for leaving body paint smeared all over the walls after a particularly messy fancy dress party that was filled with Spanish Transvestites...

The three of us decided to move out for some fucking reason or other, into Wicklow town. Now, I looked and I couldn't find a decent image of Wicklow with high enough resolution, which I guess, speaks volumes about Wicklow Town. You'd know what I'm talking about if you'd ever been. This is the best I could do, with an approximation of the location of the house...

After Christ's Mass we moved back to the Bel Air Housing estate with Angelos and I lived there quite comfortably for six months as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air (OK, OK, I had to say it...), even with the alcoholic presence of American John until Stuart and Lindsay both moved back to the UK and I moved up to Dublin, to Sunbury Gardens;

My God, how I lasted in that shithole for all that time, I will never know. Cheap rents go a long way when it comes to being able to put up with a lack of sunlight and oxygen. I don't think I ever saw natural light in that place and I was lucky not to have got rickets. I ended up taking a job in County Meath and moved over to Trim, to a really nice house in Hamilton Court. Made all the funnier by the fact I was housemates with the notorious Barry Hamilton (Or Harry Bamilton as he disliked to be called...). Again, it speaks volumes about Trim that the best picture I could find of it was this;

We ended up being thrown out of that house after another rather messy Fancy Dress party. I think a fifteen minute eviction is probably a record. I think the landlord had a point, I mean, it got a little out of hand what with one of the guests trying to kick his way into one of the houses over the road, Belgian Paul pissing on the corner wall of the kitchen and Sian and about ten others still partying away at ten the next morning in one of the bedrooms.

So I found myself homeless for a while, luckily Neil offered me a place to stay on his floor at Carman's Hall in Dublin City;

This place overlooked the local abattoir. We knew it was an abattoir because of the massive sign on it's roof that said 'Pig Sticking Plant, Destruction of Life on an Industrial Scale' or words to that effect. I think the Abattoir and the Developers of Neil's block of flats had had a falling out and this was how the Abattoir owner was paying them back. I wasn't sure if I should have mentioned this one, but as I was there for a couple of months then I guess it counts.

I then moved back to Sunbury Gardens, but this time next door, which turned out to be the longest relationship I've had with a house. I was there for nearly two years annoying the Hell out of Mark upstairs with my guitar playing, the Friday nights spent with a bag of a cans, a good Lesbian Vampire movie and the Bombay Pantry on speed dial. The day we discovered there was a rat living under the stairs, Neil and I opening the cupboard doors armed with broomhandle and a hurl to see the trap had gone off and the place covered in blood, but mysteriously.... No Rat! The crazy parties with Kim, Sheelagh, Sian and Gerry upstairs. The three months Aaron spent on my front room floor, after assuring me he would only be there for two weeks. The crazy layout of the place that had the bathroom (which resembled the showers at Auswitchz) joined onto my bedroom. Aaron, again, waking me at six every morning going through my bedroom for his daily crap. Those two years were a whirlwind ride on the circus train that was Sunbury Gardens. There's more to come in Part Three!!

Farewell Pt 1 (Humble Beginnings)

This one and the subsequent postings (I was going to post it as one, but it got too big too quickly...) are going to be a bit of a departure from the previous postings, I'll update about this weekend down the week at some point. I was just thinking today that it would be interesting to see all the places I've lived. For the better part of the past ten years I've been moving from one location to the next following jobs. I started looking for the places I lived in on Google Earth, but because it wouldn't work on this computer (Thanks for nothing, Ace!) I did it with Google maps instead. All the images belong to Google, I just thought I'd put that out there before people start bleating about lawsuits and such. I had a bit of trouble with finding some of the places, memories get fuddled, especially when viewed from above. I also decided only to include places I stayed for an extended period, not on holiday but for work purposes, otherwise these entries would be blocked up with pictures of Ranoake, Tennessee or Fort Stockton, Texas. I haven't included places that I work in France or Belgium as they were only for short periods at a time, neither did I add the place we stayed in in Japan, because it was such a small place I couldn't find it. Enough explaining. I'll get on with it, as I can see some of you at the back getting restless.

I'll start at the beginning, this is the family home in Whiston, Rotherham, I spent about twenty years here. Some of you will know it, some of you won't. Not my problem.

There's a whole lifetime of stories here, but I won't bore you with them, I'll just move onto the first place I moved out to 'The Flat'

The Flat was still in Whiston and was a hotbed for all kinds of illicit goings on. I think the Police raid kind of put a cap on it all though... I moved back home for a short period after the Flat but soon moved out again and off the York to University to get my smarts. The first place was a big shared student accommodation building on Fulford Road;

You'll notice the school at the top of the picture, I remember there being a Summer Fete there one weekend and it pissing it down and I was looking out of the window at it. The PA was blaring 'Hi Ho Silver Lining' and everyone had left the playground to seek shelter inside. I was filled with an immense feeling of sadness. Just like at the end of 'The Catcher in the Rye'. Aahh, The fun we had in this place, Tony setting the Fire Extinguisher off all over me, Rob going at Russell with the bread knife, Bible John smashing the front room up. Great days...

For a period in the summer I spent some time in this field in a tent;

It's Foremark Hall in Derbyshire, where I did my first proper Excavation. Viking Burial mounds, I'd never see their like again... Then it was back to York and into the Stables on Ambrose street;

I don't know about fitting a horse in the so-called 'Stables', but it was a very difficult job fitting humans in there. Student accommodation, you'll settle for anything when it means saving money for BOOZE. That summer was spent back in the field you've already seen and another move in York to Brunswick Street, Brunsvick Strasse as we affectionately called it;

Good house, great location for the horse racing tracks, especially for Jaime as she was addicted to gambling. The following summer I was again recumbent in a tent in Wales, at Castell Henllys.

I'm not sure if this is the exact field we stayed in, but it was close to the Iron Age Hill Fort you can see the entrance to on the left of the picture. Who cares? It's a field in Wales. Actually this probably where my intense hatred for Wales began. More on this later... Then it was back to what turned out to be my final house in York for a while, five years to be exact... Bishopthorpe Road.

This was a great house, but we really took the piss out of the super nice landlords. Mind you, they never insulated the bathroom or kitchen for the winter so I suppose that's Karma. I was only there a few months until I left for Ireland for what was supposed to be three months but ended up being nearly four years. More to come in Part Two...

Homeward Shore

Here is the post I was missing last week, the one about Sarah and Mark's visit. Obviously they chose to take a holiday here in the middle of the madness, so that kind of overtook my weblog a little. Their fault, not mine.

It seems they had a pretty enjoyable time of it, although the only trips they took were around the Golden Circle and a horse ride through lava fields (I say 'only', but I bet the lava fields sure beats the Hell out of Whiston meadows for a pony trip...). The rest of their time was spent tramping around Reykjavik taking photographs of graffiti, eating Vegan soup and sitting in the hot tubs at my local swimming baths, seemingly.

I was unable to join them in these 'excursions' as I need to work all this month to make up money lost by time off at Christ's Mass and before when Justin and Lucy were visiting (they were much more adventurous and it was worthwhile taking time off to see parts of Iceland that I haven't seen before). But having said that, I was fully catered for each and every night. In lieu of paying for accommodation they decided to cook for me (and wash up afterwards). Knowing Mark is an excellent cook I obviously jumped at the chance. I wasn't disappointed either. It wasn't just hyperbole on his part. My only complaint is that they are both such procrastinators that most of the dinners arrived at my table cold. I generally like my food to burn my mouth like a flamethrower, so this was a minus point, a very minor one though as I would have had to cook for myself otherwise.

...The Ardent Awaited Land

The I re-read my last post and it wasn't that funny really, so I'll try to make this one better.

On Friday, I forgot to mention, Atli and I were standing on the site, gossiping, when Bjarki stuck his head out of the basement and shouted us over. 'Come and look at this cat!' he said. 'Ooooh' I thought 'I like cats, maybe one has got on to site and it's a friendly little mog that needs some love.' Atli and I hurried over to the basement excitedly to pet the little kitty. Imagine my disappointment when we were confronted with the sight of the Fish Bone Expert (or whatever she's called) cutting up the recently deceased corpse of a cat she'd found somewhere. It wasn't really what I was expecting. In fact I have no idea why a Fish Bone Expert was cutting up a cat, maybe to find fish bones in its stomach. Yesterday Igor told me she was cutting up the bodies of a duck and a swan, she'd procured from the pond. As far as I was aware killing Swans was illegal. At least I think it is in England, unless you're the Queen and you need their necks to wipe your arse on, or whatever it is she does with them.

Iceland has descended into anarchy, with the Government being dissolved, the protesters have won. Instead of going home they were all still out yesterday banging drums in celebration this time! Of course Björgvin was there, banging the lampposts like there was no tomorrow. This time without his scarf disguise, no need for disguises when Big Brother is no longer watching you.

I mentioned that I saw Elephant over the weekend (the film, not the animal, do try to keep up at the back.), it's excellent. I recommend it to everyone. If you don't know it's based on the Colombine Killings and has a largely unknown cast of kids. The direction is amazing especially the final tracking shot that goes on for maybe five minutes.

Duncan is back today so I handed over the reigns of frustration to him. It's now his job to tell people not to walk on cleaned areas, no matter how long ago they were cleaned. I can go back to listening to my MP3 player and trowelling endless layers of shit...

Bowling for Columbine

OK, so I haven't said what the protests were about. Well, here we go. The Icelandic government that were at the centre of the economic crisis have refused culpability for the disaster that has left many people out of work and destroyed peoples savings. In the UK ministers would have been fired or even resigned should such a thing occurred. Here in Iceland it is not so, no one has accepted blame or been made an example of. The main reason for this is, because Iceland is such a small country everyone knows each other and everything is interconnected. The Ministers are related to the bankers and so no one wants to fire each others relatives. It is totally corrupt and the public are just coming round to the idea that demonstration is a good way to show the anger they feel.

In my news, we had a site outing to go bowling on Friday, organised by Lilja and Margret. My first time bowling and I don't really have a clear memory of it, but I guess I won. Afterwards I kept Mark up til two in the morning drinking and talking shit. The poor fucker had to get up at four for his plane...

I spent Saturday in town watching more demonstrations until the evening where I watched three DVDs, Elephant, The Wickerman and Twelve Monkeys. I went out with Angelos and did a pub crawl, so Sunday was spent recovering from that until Roz and Duncan came back from the UK. It was Roz´s birthday so we all went out for a meal at the Geyser Bistro, which was very nice indeed.

I am still computer-less so I have to write this at work which means the posts will be a bit shorter.

Burn the Althingi!

Yesterday things hotted up, Angelos and I went over to the protests after work. There must have been over a thousand people there, banging drums and various noise making objects. Later in the evening, it got violent, people began stoning the Police line and two officers were seriously hurt. Their blood is on the hands of the politicians, as Hranfkell said. The Police reacted with tear gas and pepper spray but the protests carried on until the early hours again. This morning there are maybe thirty or so people gathered in front of the Althingi, with a Police line in full riot gear.

The Prime Minister of Iceland, Geir Haarde, appeared on TV last night and was defending his government's position on the whole crisis. He was of the impression that the people had voted him in, so therefore the people were still behind his party. Take a look out of the fucking window, Geir!!

Reykjavik is Burning!!

as promised here is the latest post from the front line of the Reykjavik protests. It all kicked off yesterday about one o'clock, where we heard chanting outside the Althingi, yesterday was the opening of parliament after the Christ's Mass break. Gathering our hats a few of us made for the parliament building, where the police had cordoned off the front of the place with barrier tape. Just like Iceland, a jogger ran through the Police cordon and in front of all the protesters who had gathered banging various pots and pans. It didn't take long for the barrier tape to be ripped down and the crowd to converge on the building front. The egg throwing and snowballing started pretty soon after that.

Presently a woman jumped up on a bollard and told everyone to go around the back of the building. We all did and found that there were no police at all round there. Everyone was banging on the glass windows and I was caught up in the moment and joined in along with Angelos. It was great to be part of something so big. The Police arrived in riot gear and forced the crowds back with pepper spray and heavy handed brutality. Fucking fascists. But there were still people in the garden throwing snowballs at the building and banging on the windows at the back. Everybody seemed to have an implement for banging on and some guy even brought a drum kit in order to disrupt the parliament session.

It went on all afternoon and into the early morning by all accounts. The whole thing was organised by a new group of protesters, who go around in ski masks or with their faces covered by scarves. They are a lot more 'direct action' than the earlier protesters. I think this is great, the time for peaceful protest is over. The Government haven't listened to the voice of the people, no matter how loud they shout.

I was watching the news report later in the evening and who should pop up in the report, banging on the windows? Yours truly! I've now been on TV in at least four countries; Iceland, the UK, Japan and Canada! Maybe that's my new calling.

Donar's Oak

My computer died on Thursday, I brought it into work so Igor could have a look at it and he took it home for the weekend to test if it was just fucked or really fucked. Turns out it's fucked, so Hrappi took it into his local Computer repair shop Koporvogur, the cheapest one in Iceland, apparently. They didn't seem to understand the concept of the word cheap and told him (who told me) that it would cost approximately one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds to repair. I think my response was somewhere along the lines of 'Fuck that shit...', so now I don't have a computer to while away my evenings with. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Roz and Duncan left for a week so I had the house to myself and I spent Friday evening in the company of General Atli (As he now wants to be known) playing Axis and Allies D-Day and eating Pitsa. I played the Germans and held the American forces at Omaha Beach, just like in real life, but eventually, airstrikes and lack of reinforcements led to an Allied victory with St Lo falling in the last turn to the Yanks. again Atli was the victor and I am beginning to think I am losing my touch. It's like the last days of the Reich all over again.

I drowned my misery with several cans of booze after Atli left and watched the rest of Seinfeld Series Eight. I awoke quite late on Saturday morning and headed into town to pick up some booze for Mark and Sarah's arrival. They were coming to stay for the week and the house was dryer than it was when the Jesus Freak ex-alcoholic lived there. I bought some booze and a Johnny Cash CD and a DVD in the sales at a record shop.

Mark and Sarah appeared Saturday evening and I showed them the local swimming pool; mainly the hot pots. Then we went out for a meal at the Indian place Margret had recommended before. Again, a great meal. A few drinks later we headed back to the house where Mark and I sat up drinking and talking shit about shit.

On Sunday I took the two of them round Reykjavik, I dropped them off at a Vegan Cafe, where we all had Vegan soup with bananas in it. Make your own mind up about this... I didn't really want to spend my Sunday afternoon tramping round Reykjavik, so I headed back home. Sunday evening was spent in the cold comfort of Icelandic TV. Mainly Britain's Next Top Model.

At work on Monday we found a Whale skull, the first I have ever seen, excited? I nearly shit. Today we found another one!! Holy crap. What is weird is that both are in association with dog skulls. I'll leave you to ponder on the meaning of all this....

STOP PRESS!! The opening of the Althingi today was interrupted with protests all round the building. The Icelanders took to the streets and made their voices heard!! It´s been going on since one today and is still showing no signs of stopping! Brilliant I say! get the people out on the streets, everyone is out making noise! I´ll post more on this tomorrow!

Aduatuza

What can be said about this week? What can I tell you? well let's start at the beginning. Monday is a good place to begin I guess. We had a site meeting that lasted for two and a half hours and the main achievement of it was that we sorted out who would be washing up the cups at the end of each day. We then carried on with the work in Area C, i.e. cleaning off more dumping layers. We also had a new addition to the team in the shape of a fish bone expert. I can't remember what the real name for fish bone experts is or be bothered to look it up. Do it yourself if you're that way inclined. It's your life that you're wasting, not mine. Anyhoo, she now wants the entire tent sampling for fish bone. I told Vala I'd do the fish bone report;

'Small Fish: 134678 fragments.
Medium Fish: 467890 Fragments
Big Fish: 123314 Fragments.

Conclusion: People in the old days ate fish in Reykjavik.'

That'll be 50,000 Kroner please. Can I have it in Dollars though, it's a much more stable currency? Thanks.

Atli came over on Monday night for a game or two of Memoir 44, the game I bought a while back. I told him 'It's easy to learn, any idiot will be able to play it, so you should have no problem.' My over confidence was my weakness, he was such an idiot he beat me three times to nothing.

Tuesday passed with no incident to speak of. Actually it was so incidental that I don't remember anything that happened at all. No, a complete blank. Wednesday evening was passed with me cooking a Mexican meal for Roz and Duncan as they had cooked for me on Sunday evening (A lovely vegetable stew. Om nom nom.)

I awoke this morning with my back locked up, I must have slept funny on it as I could hardly move at all. I took the day off work to get the back back in order [sic]. It happened before when I was living in Dublin, it passes soon, but is another symptom of this fucking job that I call a career.

...As Long As Winds Will Blow...

Jo left on Saturday morning for a month. She's gone back to Auld Landan town, innit? We all spent Friday night watching Batman 'Dark Knight'. An excellent film, that I was wanting to watch again. I like Batman more than any of the other Superheroes. He seems more real than, say, Superman. Superman is just up his own arse. 'Oooh look at me, I've got all these powers. I can burn through steel with my eyes. Yeah, that's right my fucking eyes!' Batman seems far more human. It's not just him doing the crime fighting. He has a back up team. OK, so it mainly consists of the old fart Alfred, but at least he has help. I also like the Joker as a character and not just in the film. I used to have this old collection of the greatest Joker stories ever told. Right back from some of the first Batman comics in 1940 he was a crazy fucking murderer. No rhyme or reason to him. This is what Heath Ledger portrays much better than Jack Nicholson did. Obviously in the 1960's when Comics came under the crushing influence of the Comics Code Authority, Joker was stripped of all this menace, as was Batman and he became as ludicrous as the TV show of the same time. It was only after Watchmen that Batman and the Joker by proxy recovered. Arkham Asylum, Year One, The Killing Joke are all worth checking out from this period. Also any of the Legends of the Dark Knight comics series. Mind you, all this was made possible with the brain drain of British talent to the States, mainly from writers of 2000AD.

Enough about comics. I spent Saturday in town buying board games expansion packs and tidying my room and the bathroom. The bathroom needed it. No one had touched it for about two months and I'm sure there were things living in between the tiles. I could feel tentacles reaching out for my whilst shaving, like some Lovecraftian dank horror had bred in the filth. I headed out to TÞM to see Gone Postal play a gig for the release of their new album. There was three bands supporting them, I missed the first two, but managed to see Severed Crotch. I've seen these lads play before and I've a real soft spot for them. Ball crushing Death Metal, their singer is pretty amazing with his vocals. Both bands put on a really good show, but I can't help but laugh at badly translated songs. One of Gone Postal's tracks is called Void of Torment.I mean just think about that for a second. Void of Torment. What the fuck does that even mean? You are not being tormented? Surely that's a good thing? Why is a Death Metal band promoting good things? Or does it mean you're in a void, where you will be tormented? I'm confused, if anyone can help me on this one, I'd love to know...

After the gig, which was what appeared to be a youth club (No bar and full of teenagers... dear God help me...) I met Angelos for drinks in Dillon. I can't remember much else about Saturday night except I know some shots were involved, as was a chicken burger and a taxi ride. I woke up about two in the afternoon, so I'm assuming I had a good time. I spent Sunday recovering and fannying about all day.

Vanadis

I've been wondering why no one is commenting on this blog anymore. I know you're reading it, I've got stalker software installed on it so I can see exactly who (almost) is coming on and reading it. Please leave comments. It only takes an minute. You can even tell me this is a pile of shit and I should stop. Whatever.

This has been the first week back after Christ's Mass, James went back home on Tuesday after a meal at the East India Company restaurant which was fantastic. I promised myself a return journey to this place at some point. I like Indian food, very much and this was good stuff.

The rest of the week was dominated by work, as boring as this is. Trowelling off piles of dumping layers is not the most stimulating work I have ever done and I am dreaming of the days I can buy a fuck load of military books off Colin and start selling them. Mind you I made myself a little more comfortable on Wednesday by setting up a painting table and prepping some WW1 British Infantry. I may as well fill my evenings with something more rewarding than watching America's Next Top Model.

I bought Series 8 of Seinfeld yesterday, I bought it from the music shop up Laugarvegur, instead of Elko as I was advised by Margret and Lilja. Infact all week they have been on at me to buy all my products at Elko.

'I need new Headphones' I idly mused

'You'll get them at Elko' Cried Lilja and Marget

After I'd bought (from the same shop as the Seinfeld DVDs) them they asked how much they were and was told they would have been cheaper at Elko. I then went on to mention I was thinking of buying the last two series of Seinfeld that I didn't own. Where do you think I was advised to buy them? That's right... Elko. It's like they have second jobs working on the sales committee at Elko. I'm surprised they don't have Elko tattoos.

In other news, my so-called 'friends' have been writing a blog together (they are so dumb they couldn't do it on their own...). Yesterday the latest piece of shit was published and lo and behold who is in it as a minor character. Yes that's right, it's me. Here is the address if you wish to read this shit, but I wouldn't bother. You'd only be wasting your valuable time.

Midgards Eldar

After a good long sleep James and I headed into town to grad something to eat and then ended up in Dillon where we met Duncan and Roz. I also got chatting to a guy called Atli, who had set up the Fuck Christmas festival that I attended before going home. We started chatting due to mutual t-shirt approval. Mine for his Autopsy shirt and him for my Gorgoroth shirt.The next morning we headed out earlyish to get to Akureyri to meet Hrafnkell and Iris. There was little to tell about the journey except that we passed through several beautiful mountain ranges on the way. We me H-bomb outside Akureyri at a local hardware shop and followed him to the house we'd be staying in for the next night at least. The place was a homage to the seventies and was well received by all of us. We all headed out to the local Akureyri fire, which I can say without a shadow of doubt, was the biggest fire I have ever seen in my life. Then we were treated to the firework display which was pretty amazing. Especially the final ones which went off like Tall Boy Bombs...
Hrafnkell's family very generously opened their house to us and we were served cakes and coffee and listened to Hrappi's younger brother tell us about his Lego Town. It's a pity we never go to see it... After this we left the family to watch the Icelandic end of year show and headed back to the house. About 11.30 it started to sound like downtown Baghdad outside. The town folk had started their own fireworks displays and by gum, it beat the local council one into the ground. It was so intense I was having flash backs to 'Nam. Tottenham, mainly. after this amazing display we set off into town for drinkies. Lilja and her other half joined us, as did Stefan and his other half. Finally crashed out about six am.The next day Jo, James and I headed up the fjords to see Ginavik and some turf houses there. Very nice little buildings in a beautiful setting. The rest of the day was spent recovering and heading out to Dalvik to Iris' father's house were we would be staying for the night. Iris showed us around the Museum her father curates, and I tried on the tallest man in the world ever's shoes. In the morning we headed out to Mývatn and Dimmuborgir, the eerie lava formations the band take their name from. The path was a frozen solid and it took a while to get around without slipping on our arses. Which most of us did anyway. With the light against us, as usual we headed to a crater with a lake in the bottom, overlooking some power stations that harnessed geothermal energy. Clever people these Icelanders... Then forging on we headed to Námafjall to see the billowing fumeroles. Again this country never ceases to amaze. After the light had fallen we headed to the spa baths at Mývatn and spent an enjoyable two hours and one pint in the healing waters. We headed back to Hrappi's and played on the Wii all night.

The following morning we were treated to the unmitigated horror of the Christmas shop outside Akureyri. The less said about this horror the better... The light was dropping out of the day as we hit the road back to Reykjavik were Duncan, Roz, James and I painted the town red. Another six AM finish... A lazy Sunday was what I got today. Relaxation in the local pool's hotpots and a kebab in town then home to a nice sit down.