We Sent Them To Dig In This?

I'm just going to tell you about Belgium before I continue with East Africa, if you don't like it, use your telephone to call someone that fucking cares. Cos I certainly don't. The Belgian archaeologists of the Institute for the Archaeological Heritage of the Flemish Community (IAP) are working on various sites throughout Belgium in order to assess the preservation of the underground archaeology of the Western Front. The areas affected during the war are under scrutiny to be put on the World Heritage List by 2014. This being the one hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Great War, you thick cunt. Do try to keep up. Marc Dewilde of the IAP asked Dr David Kenyon to assemble a highly professional team of some of the most experienced Great War archaeologists that Britain has to offer. He did, but they were busy, so instead he had to ask Danny Boy (Douche) and me to help him dig out rusty German beastliness. It mainly comes down to the fact that Douche and I have pissed away every opportunity for any kind of proper career and at any one time either of us are not working or are in such vocational circumstances that we can take time off at the drop of a hat. I got the call whilst languishing like a sweating sun burnt sow in Zanzibar and this is how I found myself on Friday night lost on the outskirts of Hitchen ringing Douche to find out where he lived.

You wanted the best, you got us instead...

We had the usual car swapping leap frogging journey to the ferry (I drive to Luton then Douche drives us both to Sevenoaks then Kaptain Kenyon drives us all to Belgium with Kenny Loggins, Survivor and Cher as a soundtrack) and ended up at the accommodation in Ypres. We really landed on our feet with the place where we were staying (It was called Le Chat Noir which we anglicised to the Black Shit) it was clean, comfortable, two seconds away from the main square in Ypres, had satellite TV, a barbecue, a fully working kitchen, swimming pool, ball room, aga, space rocket launch pad, discotheque, firing range and tank proving ground with a fully stocked garage of armoured fighting vehicles. OK, fair enough, it had every thing up to the kitchen, but it was a really good place. The only problem was we had to sleep Das Boot style in the same room but at least we didn't have to share beds.

The Black Shit, what a great place!

Douche was up to his usual tricks, he had forgotten to bring his toothpaste and tooth brush from home. Whilst on the ferry the fucking idiot could only afford to buy one or the other, so in his glorious ignorance he chose the paste. Rather than buying a brush and using someone else's toothpaste he ended up not cleaning his teeth for three days until we went to a Belgian supermarket where he could buy a brush. His forgetfulness didn't end there, on Monday at work he forgot his lunch, on Tuesday he forgot his coffee. He'd finally got it right by Wednesday. Not only did I have that to put up with, but Kaptain Kenyon continually droned on about his working as historical advisor on the new Steven Spielberg movie 'Warhorse'. He made it sound like he was rewriting the script as he went along. It was either luvvie talk about lunching with 'Steve' (as his friends call him) or he was wittering on about his ideas for a time travelling movie involving Roman Dodecahedrons. The idea is that a mad scientist in the future has sent an object back in time in order to prove time travel can exist, an object so ambiguous and puzzling its purpose cannot be fathomed by modern archaeologists, but would be known by the mad scientist to be from their time. The whole idea was a load of shit and didn't even involve a single Delorian.

Dr. Kenyon, archaeologist, film writer and wanna-be-time traveller

So I had to put up with this crap for a week, not only that but I had relentless abuse about my beard. I'd not had chance to trim it since getting back from Africa and admittedly it's got a little out of hand. I think there may be as of yet undiscovered rain forest tribes living in there and it's strong enough to hold a spoon in place, but there was no need for the continual torrent of psychological torment that I had to put up with. It was an abuse of KK's position of power and jealousy on both of their parts as they can only grow wispy bum fluff.

The beard is big, but the beard is pissed...

Apart from that, we had some great trenches, we were looking at mostly German front line systems. We worked on two sites, Palingbeek and later, Sanctuary Wood. As ever in Belgium, the wood preservation was excellent. Douche had a brilliant little slot across a communication trench with wooden planking on the base at Palingbeek. Also at Palingbeek we found in situ wooden hurdling (the Germans used a lot of wood in the trench wall constructions), something we've all seen in photographs but never in the ground.

I've got wood, BOOM BOOM!

Sanctuary Wood was also excellent from an archaeological point of view. There was a certain amount of difficulty in actually seeing the features in the ground, but we cleaned up and I located two trenches of sizable depth. Absolutely packed full with cartridges and a sock. Santuary Wood had a further touch. We were digging within spitting distance of the Canadian Memorial on Hill 62 and every so often we would hear, drifting through the woods, the sounds of bagpipes at various ceremonies being held on the memorial. There is something haunting about the thought of the violence that the place had witnessed compared to the tranquility that it currently holds.

Then...

...now

But as ever, as soon as it had started it was all over and before I knew it I was standing in the square in Ypres eating Belgian waffles waiting for Franky and his van so we could sign off the sites and return to the UK. I don't know when I'll be back in Belgium again and the time between jobs is never short enough.

 

Belgium = Om Nom Nom

TIA BABY!! PART TWO (Pt1)

I kept a diary each day whilst I was in East Africa, the entry dated 17/18th July says: 'laid on a bed in a room in a 'hotel' in Nairobi with walls so thin I may as well be sitting in the bar outside attempting to sleep, I'm also listening to what sounds like the world falling out of Kirk's arse in the next room [turns out I was mistaken about this and it must have been the dodgy plumbing...]. Already been electrocuted by the shower, the light bulb is dimming and brightening and the plug for the TV doesn't fit the socket. Welcome to Africa...' Welcome indeed, to Africa and welcome to TIA BABY!! PART TWO. This is the first of several parts (I don't know how many yet, I haven't written the fucking thing have I?) of my blog on my latest trip to Africa. I'll try to make these entries short so you don't get too bored reading them, but they will also be interrupted by a trip to Belgium I will be taking this coming Saturday, so that will give you a bit of time to recover...

TIA BABY!!

So what was I doing in Africa? Well, I'd heard on the grapevine of a job supervising a research excavation on some olden days stuff in Tasmania. After further inquiry I found out it was actually TANZANIA in East Africa and not a island off the south coast of Australia. Naivety on the leader of the project, Dr Daryl's part allowed me to worm myself onto the caper. I thought to myself, well, I've been to Morocco in North Africa, I've been to South Africa and Swaziland in, er, South Africa, but I've never been East or West in Africa. Since East Africa only carries the dangers of Malaria and AIDS and the West carries the dangers of your vehicle being stopped by armed insurgents in Technicals and having your arms being macheted off by drugged up teenage boy soldiers, the East seems to be a much nicer prospect.

No drugs and machetes here...

The project was dealing with a 'lost' village at a place called Engaruka in Northern Tanzania. This village consisted of several field systems of complex furrows and water channels along with mysterious stone circles and a mountainside terraced with house platforms. This whole thing had gone out of use about three hundred years ago, but they was little evidence of who the people were who had lived there. The Masai who lived in the area now only moved in around two hundred years ago and their oral histories had no recollection of the people of the village. It's not as Scooby Doo and mysterious as it sounds, given that these people were farmers it was probably a climate change that brought around their disappearance and they just fucked off to a wetter area. We were there not to discover who these people were, that would be almost impossible anyway, but to work out the sequences of construction between the house platforms and field systems. Whew, that's the boring archaeology out of the way, come on, wake up, I'll try not to mention it again too often.

Yawn...

We (the supervisors were myself, Kirk and Ted. The project was led by that Posh Bastard Daryl) flew into Nairobi as that is where the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) is located. It's in a lovely leafy suburb of Nairobi and it gave one the impression that Nairobi was a idyllic place, an oasis of green in the dusty desert. It was only an impression. Nairobi isn't called Nairobbery for nothing and a walk through the park could result in either getting raped, robbed, injected with a syringe full of AIDS or all of the above*. The opening account was written sitting in a hotel called NIBS (Nairobi Institute of Business Studies, the students ran the hotel as a project) which was just around the corner from the BIEA and despite Ted's protests was cheaper than the YMCA. Despite this saving, I was electrocuted by the shower. I hadn't been wearing the plastic slippers provided and the TV had a two pronged plug for a three holed socket.

'Has this shower had a HSE inspection?'

Having said that, NIBS did the best Nyama Choma that I'd ever had. Well, it was the only Nyama Choma that I'd had until that point, but that hardly matters does it? Nyama Choma is an East African speciality, basically it's a load of cooked meat served with some chilies, sometimes some grilled bananas. You order it by the kilo and Ted, Kirk, Sarah (an American woman who came along despite having A MASSIVE FUCKING INFECTED HOLE in her leg from an insect bite...) and I ordered two kilos of unspecified meat. This brought on the first of many fevered meat dreams.

'What animal is this?'

'Who cares, just keep eating!'

The BIEA was where the expedition was to be launched from as the site was in Northern Tanzania and was easier and closer to reach than from Dar Es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania. Besides, all the equipment was located at the BIEA, what were you expecting us to do? Dig the site out with our fucking teeth? The few days spent in Nairobbery were busy with meeting some of the students who we would be working with and packing the two Landrovers that we would be taking with us. These first students were from the University of Nairobbery and had just completed their anthropology degrees. I'll tell you more about these in a later post, but we were also working with students from Dar Es Salaam University and they were to arrive at a later date. After quick introductions during which I promptly forgot every one's name, myself, Daryl, Ted, Kirk, Sarah, Johnpius (another graduated Student from Dar Es Salaam) and Benson (our site surveyor) set off for the long journey south to the wilds of Tanzania in the Landys. What was waiting for us there? Would we be mauled by tigers? Eaten by Polar Bears? Assaulted by boxing kangaroos? Find out in the next part of TIA BABY!! PART TWO... (Don't hold your breath though, I'll be away for a week...)

On the road motherfuckers!! 

* For Mary's sake, all of this is a joke.

One last time before Africa

I leave for Africa later today for two months, but before I do I'm going to leave you with one last post. I'm going to copy Logan Josh and a post he did a while back. Basically I went to my blog's home page and clicked on the 'next blog' link at the top to find out what Blogs are being paired to mine... I tired it three times and the results are frightening...

If you're not wearing a teal headband, what's the point really? I think this was inspired by Julie's sexy 80's high school tennis pic. Anyhow, this was done straight up in Photoshoppe, but who the hell cares??? I'll keep drawing until our new Xbox 360 arrives later this week. . . As per this recent run of figure drawings. . . Robert Conrad.

From: http://milesinada.blogspot.com/

“Change of plans,” Bolan snapped. “Follow me.”

The Executioner turned and raced with the hostage
toward a line of vehicles. A shot rang out behind
them, followed instantly by a dozen volleys.

Turning, Bolan raked the compound with a long
burst from his Steyr AUG. Mandy fumbled with her
pistol, getting off several shots, yelping as a round
stung her palm.

Reaching the motor pool, Bolan chose a jeep at
random, slid behind the wheel and gunned its
engine into snarling life as Mandy scrambled into
the shotgun seat.

“Hang on!” he said, flooring the gas pedal,
barreling through the middle of the camp to reach
the access road—and freedom.

From:  http://readgoldeagle.blogspot.com/

So I still have my two teddy bears from my childhood, Big Ted and Little Ted, and since we had G they've been in his room. The other week we changed out some furniture and Big Ted moved to our dresser during the rearranging. Today, G was extra fussy at nap time so Tammy put him in our bed with her. She was downstairs when he woke up crying. When he calmed down enough to use words he wouldn't move off the bed and kept saying, "Bad bear get me!" and pointing at Big Ted. I'm a bit crushed, as that bear had to be next to me every night for me to go to sleep when I was a child. I blame Toy Story 3 with the evil bear for this... Now I have to convince G that this one is a good bear...

From: http://jtdalton.blogspot.com/

I dispair of humanity, I really do. To cheer myself up I'm going to post a load of pictures of Japanese girls:

And what could be more beautiful than that lot? Well, this:

Suit you sir?

I hate clothes shopping. I hate it more than I hate you, which is saying something. It fills me with fear, just the thought of having to go shopping for more ill fitting, badly made clobber. I can't understand how some people revel in it. It appears to be a hobby for most people, spending hours trawling through shopping mauls looking for that perfect party dress or t-shirt with a Japanese baseball team's emblazoned across the chest. Most of the slavering cunts that wear this kind of shit wouldn't even be able to point to Japan on a map, I'll guarantee most of the mindless shitbags don't even know Japan exists or if it does that baseball is the most popular sport there (mainly through American occupation after the Second World War (who says you never learn anything from the shit I dribble out?)): 'Do you like my new t-shirt, it's got loads of Chinese writing all over it. It says Hanshin Tigers, they must be a footy team or summat...'

Goallllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes these are kind of bottom feeders that spend their free time clothes shopping. I, on the other hand, am able to breathe without having to think about it, so I hate clothes shopping with a passion. Don't get me wrong, I like buying trinkets, I like looking in record or book shops, I can browse like the best in these places, but clothing leaves me cold. Even the shops themselves frighten the bejesus out of me. They are all full of flashing lights and loud banging music, enough to disorientate you so you'll end up buying any old shit in a techno induced miasma. I hate looking at the rows and rows of similar looking clothes trying to find a difference between the ghastly fashion items that are on display. And every shop, nay every line of clothing, seems to have it's own take on sizes. What is espoused as large in one place is medium in another. I don't spend my time taking measurements of my chest, waist, inside leg or arm pit length, so I have no idea how S, M, L, XL, XXL, ELEPHANT, match up to my present body shape. It would be nice to be able to grab a couple of medium shirts and know that they will be the same fucking size when you get them home. This happened to me the other day. Two shirts, both labeled as Medium, both completely different sizes. I had tried them on in the fitting rooms before buying them, thankfully, but it just goes to show that you can't trust clothes shops as far as you can throw them, which wouldn't be very far given the vast size of most of them.

Alright, you got me, this has nothing to do with the content and I'm just using it as an excuse to fill this post with pictures of beautiful Japanese girls, but at least she's wearing clothes. What more do you want?

This brings me to the fitting rooms. What kind of evil mind came up with these booths of horror? What fevered brain brought forth the monstrosity of the changing rotunda? Stepping into that booth is like a medical inspection from Dr Crippen. After grunting and struggling to get out of your own clothes in a space that is purposely designed to be smaller than the average human form, the massive mirror makes you inspect your own shapeless form in intimate and depressing detail. You stand in front of it, sweat pouring down you and your hair askance, trying to make a vaguely human shape. Then you get to try on the clothes you want to buy. Half of them don't even attempt at being the size they are described as in the label, the other half are too short on the legs and arms or too tight on the neck hole. Again more struggling and grunting ensues all to the ambient noise of knuckle draggers complimenting each other on the garments they are also struggling to get into in the next booth. Brow beaten and disorientated by the whole experience I grab what remains of my dignity and pay for the ill fitting outfits, just to get out of the place asap. I hate clothes shopping...

I've no excuse for this one...

Back from the Underground

I finally left York yesterday, but not before couple of fair-ye-well sessions. The first with Claire, Helen and Cath (and Cath's son and girlfriend, who respectively kept their distance. Actually, it was probably more to do with us cramping their style than anything else...). I was hoping Ray, Claire's other half would have come out, but he told Claire 'tell them, I hate everyone except you.' Fair point, I thought. It was a rather sedate affair held at Oscar's bar. The most notable thing about the place, besides the vast mountain of food that they placed in front of us, was the amount of BEAUTIFUL women in there. Holy crap, if I'd known about that aspect of the place I would have spent my Yorkian evenings propping up their bar and leching for all I was worth. But the amount of food we had got me thinking, remember back in the eighties when everyone was eating Haute Cuisine, which basically translates as: No Food. A plate-full of nothing was served up in every posh restaurant across the country. Mind you, with the amount of coke everyone was doing people had no appetite to eat anyway. But all that has changed, nowadays we are served mountains of grub. It's quite obviously an American influence; back in 2004 when I drove across the States with some chums we would go to a restaurant, buy a starter and because it was so big, eat half of it and take the rest home for breakfast! But it now seems to be a competition to see who can serve the most amount of food. Generally I end up defeated by it an leave loads, which is something I hate doing.

Err... I asked for the small portion...

I digress, as usual. The second food related leaving do was in the company of Mr and Mrs Logan Josh. Again, I was cordially invited to their pile on the outskirts of York. Josh had put his nimble fingers to good use and whipped up a delightful curry. Chock full of roast potatoes. It sounds absurd, but it worked. From what I could work out all he'd done was buy a load of McCain's potato wedges, deep fry them then pour a jar of Tesco Value Curry Sauce over them. But you wouldn't know as it tasted delicious! The evening ended in the usual way a trip to Logan's does, ie: drunken Greco-Roman Wrastlin' while Motorhead DVDs played in the background...

You're hurting my face...

I bid my fair-ye-wells to the Ukrainians and drove back to the bosom of my youth and spent Saturday night in the company of Dave and Linzie, where Dave showed me a new song he was working on for Abwehrschlacht. It sounded fucking great, it's just a slight shame that I'll be off to Afrikakakaka for two months this Saturday, so we won't get to record it. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get over it when I go on Safari to shoot Tigers in their faces and wrastle Penguins.

You're dead, you little motherfucker!

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!!

I ain't drunk, I'm just drinking...

Apparently according to Alejandro from Facefuck I have been a little slow with my Blog posting of late. Fuck off, it was only three days ago that I last posted. I was going to write a new one last night but tiredness overcame me and I was unable to lift my head, never mind write anything of note. And what brings on this bout of torpidity? Drink, pure and simple, drink. I'm an old man now, I can't drink as much as I could ten years ago and my body tells me that every time I try to drink as much as I did ten years ago. Which is pretty much what I have been doing for the past four days. I'm sure you will recall I spent Friday and Saturday both on the batter. I was going to have a wee rest for myself on Sunday until Vin texted me at about five o'clock to tell me he was engineering sounds at a METAL gig at Stereo. York and Metal are two things that don't always mix so I thought I'd take the very rare chance to check out some of the local bands.

York's attitude to Metal...

The main band Cairngorm, were OK, the lead singer had a fucking amazing growl on her. She just needed to drop the clean vocals and they would be a million times better. The other two support bands were very mediocre, so much so that I can't even recall what they were called. Mind you, I was already against one of them when Vin told me their guitarist had stolen his missus years back. I told him he should mess his guitar sound up as recompense. But he's a professional and refused. So I offered to fill my bottle with piss and sling it at him instead. I digress. The best band by far were the second on the bill, Fortress, total black thrash attack. They were fucking great with their battle armour and spikes. They cleared the room as well, which gave them points in my book. Afterwards Vin invited me to the open mic night at Dusk. It made quite a change, listening to white man's Delta blues. It was like being locked up in a cell in an Alabama prison. Except we could leave when we wanted and wouldn't get raped in the showers. This evening finished at three o'clock when I finally crashed out in my bed, pissed as a newt...

Who's house is this?

With the taste of a dead cat in my mouth the next morning I walked over to King's Manor for the First Year Exhibition of the excavation that I had been supervising on. I was there mainly for the free wine. As I arrived I saw steams of students walking out. I asked why they were leaving and they told me that the wine was disgusting. Fucking trust fund babies. In my student days we would have drunk bleach if it was free. Anyway, after the wine had gone I went along with the remaining students to various pubs, where they all got drunker and drunker and clumsily flirted with one another. This seemed to involve punching one another or bellowing in each others ears. Who said romance was dead, ay? I found myself in the pit of Hell, also known as the Willow Restaurant, the maddest ex-Chinese resteraunt (they lost their food license) in the North of England. Taking my leave, I don't remember how, I ended the night at Alia's house saying goodbye to her for the 67,927th time this week and stumbling into a taxi after twelve hours on the sauce. There was meant to be one final drinking session last night at the end of year King's Manor party, but my body reacted against me and I couldn't even move out of the house.

Taxi for one!

And finally. I posted John's Satnav back to him on Tuesday at about two o'clock. I texted him to let him know that I had and to tell me when it arrived. He thanked me in the reply and I asked him if it had arrived yet. The conversation then went as follows:

He: No, I'm stood at the front window waiting for it. I saw a parcelforce van go past but he didn't stop. He might have just got lost, I'll tell you if he comes back

Me: Keep me updated, I'm gasping to know what's happeneing.

He: I saw a black man outside on the street! You have no idea how rare that is here. He looked lost too. Still no parcel.

Me: Fucking Post Wankers, I sent it two hours ago, what are they playing at?

Then I heard nothing until 11:54pm when I got the following text:

He: I don't think he's coming today. I might go to bed in a bit.

Me: Hmmm, I'm not sure you should. There may have been a crash on the motorway that delayed the van. Give it a couple more hours.

At 07:44 the next morning I receive this:

He: I'm really tired. It must have been a bad accident because he still isn't here yet.

Then at 10:28 the final text comes through:

He: OMG it finally came, the man looked okay I don't think the accident was all that bad, I'm going to sleep now, thanks alex.

You really can't make this shit up.