Age of Nero the Hero

These posts have been a bit quiet over this weekend as I have been a bit quiet myself. After last weekend's non-stop drink fuelled orgy that turned ugly and spilled out onto the streets of York, I decided that this weekend wouldn't be a repeat performance. Instead I took shelter and hid from the outside world. This left me in the company of the Ukrainians as they never seem to go anywhere at weekends. In fact they seem to arise at the crack of sparrows every day and make as much noise as humanely possible at stupid o'clock in the morning. I'm sure one of them has a road drill in their room they are using to prospect for oil or mine their way back to the Ukraine. At least that's how it sounds to me at 6.00am... They are either drilling or bellowing into their mobile phones in Russian outside my bedroom door. They speak so loud on them that they could really cut out the phone bills and just shout at their relatives in Kiev. They'd still hear them.

Sergei! I think I can hear Fydor calling! Quickly, go get Babushka!

Having slagged them off, I do have to tell you, they are still some of the nicest people I've met. I just get a little tired whilst when making my dinner I have to answer questions about Crystal Skulls and Carpathian Dragons ('No, they are fakes, mostly made in the 19th century, no the dragons don't exist, it was for a TV show.') or I have to fake complicity when they show me Ukrainian metal detecting sites where the spoils of war graves are displayed. Relics ripped out of the ground with no contextual information. I get tired of being asked to watch YouTube videos of Metallica playing in Moscow (what! Metallica played Moscow! When did that happen? I've NEVER seen that footage a million times since when it was released back in 1991!). Having said all that, they made me dinner on Saturday night, some Kazakhstani dish containing some mystery meat (Johnny told me it was dog, whilst making meowing noises...) and fed me beer. I like them, I help them buy their plane tickets and uninsured cars, but I just wish they'd be a little quieter...

At least on Saturday and Sunday mornings...

This is my last week in York for some time, I'm back up on Heslington East for this week and then a week later I'm off on an African adventure out to Tanzania. I'm off to find the cradle of civilisation, or at least the cot of culture, and to do some big game hunting. I hear they have tigers and penguins and kangaroos and pumas out there, so, I'm going to take my rifle and wipe the smiles off their stupid smug faces. However, this week at Heslington East I am teaching school kids the amazing aspects of archaeology. Of all the University workers I am the only one with a CRB check that covers this job. There you go, there's fuel enough for comments. Whilst on site I was contemplating nipping behind the spoil heap for a piss this afternoon but got too nervous about it. I wasn't sure of the implications of pissing out of sight of, but near kids. It's a fucking minefield, all compounded by the fact the local press had just come on site to take photos (of the kids doing archaeology, not me pissing...). I can imagine the headlines in York's Evening Press: 'Slipped Through The Net! CRB Sicko Exposes Himself To York Kids!' They'd drag me to Clifford's Tower and fire me up brighter than Christmas!

I only wanted a piss!!