Der Himmel über Berlin

I've just had a wonderful idea. And it came to me as I was reading back through my blog, which I believe to be one of the most wonderful pieces of literature ever to be written. After seven Guinnesses.

How about we all pick out our top three posts from our own blog(s) over the last year?

In doing so, we can all revel in our respective wonderfulness while appearing to be a little modest. Logical arrogance, is, I feel, one of the qualities that is most severely lacking in today's world. Far too many of us fail to recognise our own amazing fantasticness, and I think this should change. Especially since a large number of today's fantastic people are right here, right now on BCUK.

So. Choose your top three favourite posts, in order, in no order, whatever you want, and post us the links.

Just show them to us. Please. Because, although we are probably familiar with them, we would like to see them again.

*starts planning*

So I just caught the end of my first ever episode of Dr Who, and was left really rather confused about the whole thing.

So who is Dr Who? Is he human? And what does he do? Just fly around in that phone box and fight fake-looking monsters?

Does he have a first name? Is it Doctor? So if he got a doctorate, would he be Dr Doctor Who? Or was he just given an awful first name by parents with a twisted sense of humour and therefore invented this persona for himself? Ralph Who? That would lead into a whole new world of stupid jokes.

And why the phone box? Why not a swimming pool cubicle? Or a minibus? Or a toilet under the stairs?

Or, perhaps the most pertinent question of all, why the heck do the BBC make this plop?

*No offence intended to Dr Who fans, but the 15 minutes I saw looked like utter shite.*

idontknowwhy - do you?

Forgot all about this until today.

Soy was trying to prove that she is not, in fact, from Emmerdale.

I think she failed.

With thanks to lyndlj for arranging this.

So, I always had a feeling that 23 was my lucky number and was therefore delighted that no-one had chosen it before I snuck in. Now, however, I know it to be my lucky number, because it awarded me the wonderful, the amazing, the adjectives-need-to-be-reinvented-to-describe-her-properly RunDontWalk as my Secret Santa post.

What should I write about? I feel that I have a rather unfair advantage, having had the pleasure of making her acquaintance just a few short weeks ago. We were barely acquainted as blog buddies when I displayed a small amount of tentative interest in coming to Liverpool for the blog meet. To me, at that point in my life having only met people with the normal amounts of openness, friendliness, sociability and genuineness, her encouragement was a lot more enthusiastic than I could have ever imagined. So I decided to covince other people to pay for me to go to Liverpool.

It seems rather predictable to go on about the efforts that she made to get to the UK to meet everyone. I think it is more important to focus on her motivations for making those efforts, as they epitomise the very reasons that all of us are here.

We are here because we feel that the people we meet here and share our highs and lows with are capable of, in some way, filling the various voids that we all have in our lives. That someone could believe in us as fully as RunDontWalk does justifies our presence here, shows us that we do make a difference to people, that what we are doing is truly worthwhile.

There is another way in which she is a very admirable women. She can drink. A person who can appreciate Guinness is, to me, a pretty good person. If that person can manage to stay up all night long after a week of thunderous boozing and almost accidentally going to Scotland (the horror!), that makes that person a great person. If, however, that person can let out a sly little fart at 6 a.m., look unblinkingly over at the nearest person and accuse them of the fart, then that person is truly a wonderful person.

Kelly, you are fantastic. And I know I am speaking for everyone on BCUK when I say that.

As part of the blog.de advent calendar (which mostly auf Deutsch unfortunately, apart from a few which include cYzzie, nittygritty, damdam, sarwaz and philippe1978), each day one of the 24-strong team is posting their year in review. Today is my day...

* 2007 -->

1). I turned older than 18 years...
I'm turning 24 in four days...

2). I registered with blog.co.uk
Nope, I did that on May 17th 2006.

3). I went to a concert.
Aye, quite a few.

4). I rocked out at a concert.
Actually, I didn't. I'm rather quiet and usually just listen...

5). I cried.
Probably more than any other year. And, for the first time in my adult life, not in connection with football.

6.) I laughed at lot.
Of course! But then again, I always do.

7.) I was in hospital
Nope, I'm indestructable.

8). I moved to another house/apartment.
Yup, three times. I'm a nomad. Finally got a place I'm happy to be in relatively long-term though.

9). I got wasted.
Nearly every day.

10). I wore a costume on carneval.
I think this is a question aimed towards Germans...no, I didn't.

11). I was in London/Berlin/Paris/Rome/Tokyo
Only the second one.

12). I had sex.
Yes, quite a lot actually.

13). I fell in love.
Wildly, uncontrollably, deeply.

14). Someone broke my heart.
Yes. It was the first time though, so that's the hardest one out of the way.

15). I lost someone special.
In terms of death, no, thank goodness.

16). I travelled abroad.
Quite a good year for that too: Ireland, Germany, Italy, Czech Rep, Poland, Slovakia, Scotland, England. Does Germany count as abroad? Or does Ireland for that matter?

17). I had an argument with my best friend.
Nothing unusual there, we argue all the time. It only serves to strengthen our friendship.

18). I had a big birthday party.
Nope, big birthday parties aren't much fun, unless they're not mine.

19). I met someone really interesting.
Quite a few. *cough November 30th cough*

20). I was really angry because of someone.
Yup, it had a lot to do with the effect of number 14 on number 13.

21). I wrote a poem, painted a picture.
Neither, I'm not very creative.

22). I went to a festival.
Not this year.

23). I broke my arm/leg/anything.
See 14 above.

24). I got an addition to my family.
No, and hopefully not for many more years.

25). I went swimming naked in a lake.
No, I can't swim. But I didn't do anything naked in a lake. Not even flounder. I did flounder in a lake almost fully clad, so that must count for something.

26). I slept outside during summer.
Nope. Too many mozzies.

27). I built a snowman.
No, but the year's not over yet...

28). I bought a new mobile/computer/TV.
New mobile and I got a free TV, does that count?

29). I moved from my parent’s home.
Did that quite some time ago.

30). I set a trend.
I think so, I make new German words every day for nittygritty to pick up!

31). I had an affair with a member of a band.
Affair demeans it somewhat.

32). I used hair extensions.
Of course not! Although I did get a rather brutal haircut a couple of weeks ago that provoked Blaubeerina to encourage me to sue my hairdresser. I think it's ok though...

33). I was insulted.
I'm a teacher, of course I was insulted by the unfailing determination of some people not to learn.

34). I made new friends.
Some rather special ones too.

35). I hurt a good friend.
Yeah, I think so.

36). I thought I was going crazy.
Very much so. I feel that that time is behind me now though.

37). I made "insider jokes".
Who the hell made this survey? That's a stupid question. I don't even know what it means!

38). I was on a boat.
A canoe, and hated every moment of it. It was with an idiotic 12 year old on camp, who thought it would be hilarious to rock it as much as possible. As a non-swimmer, I did not like it.
Oh, and the blog staff party was on a big boat that went all around Berlin. Much fun.

39). I wanted to scream.
Quite often. Usually caused by late or crowded trains.

40). I threw up.
Yes, because of this.

41). I spent more than 500 Euros on clothes.
I think I spent a maximum of €20 on clothes. Oh feck, unless football jerseys count as clothes...in which case I don't want to think about it. Probably not though.

42). I spent more than 100 Euros on cosmetics.
No, my beauty is all natural.

43). I got a piercing.
Nope, hate them.

44). I changed my life completely.
Hmm. I suppose I did, without really noticing. In lots of tiny little ways. That's normal though, I suppose.

45). I flunked out of school/I left school.
No, but I may have caused others to...

46). I took a lot of pictures of myself.
No more than usual.

47). I create a new recipe.
Mmmm, I made some pretty original sandwiches, if that counts.

48). I went by plane.
Lost track of how many times.

49). I slept in many times and was late.
I'm usually pretty punctual, but hangovers sometimes challenge my punctuality.

50). I got asked a lot of stupid questions.
I'm the English Support, I got more stupid questions than you could possibly imagine. Erm...but of course, all of them are very important to us here at BCUK!

Happy Christmas!

Google Earth has finally mapped my rural midlands home in Ireland. I'm so excited by that that I'm going to share it with blogland.

The house in the middle of the three is the one where I grew up. At that time, the house directly to the south-west wasn't there, neither were the one further away west-south-west or the ones directly south. It was just us and the small cottage to the north-east where my two uncles lived and my dad was born (explaining occasional discontent at my wanderlust - 50m is not a very long distance to move and therefore makes 1,400km away seem like another universe) .

The long thing under the 'e' of 'Rampage's House' is where our dogs live. They have a nice big area to run around in, and at night we put them into the adjoining kennels, which is an old train wagon from around the early 1900s. Sounds luxurious, but I have never been tempted to spent a night with them.

In the field almost directly west from my house you can see an unusual ring-thingy. This is a prehistoric ring-fort which me and my sister called the 'Fairy Fort' when we used to play there as kids. There are many of these peppered around the countryside, with the result that details of the history of specific ones are very hard to come by.

Between the Fairy Fort and my house is a river which runs under our little road, and several others. It forms the eastern border of the Fairy Fort field. It was the bane of my mother's existence - it was responsible for more wet shoes, socks and trousers than you could imagine, as I found any river-based challenge nigh on impossible to resist. There wasn't a bank I hadn't jumped (or stubbornly attemped but bravely failed to jump), not a bridge I hadn't walked under, or a log I hadn't crossed. That river really was my kingdom, and luckily there weren't any other kids within a few kilometres to challenge that. Cos they would have been challenged. Fiercely.

The field directly beside us, the one with the three new houses, used to be full of buttercups and presented a wonderful, almost epileptic fit-inducing crescendo of, well, yellow, every spring. There also used to be horses there, as there's a large and actually quite well-known equestrian centre nearby. Of course, my sister loved the horses and, as a result, I didn't. Can't have a little boy agreeing with his big sister, now can we?

So that's it. My childhood in a nutshell. It was wonderful. I feel that I don't give my hometown or country much praise, and justifiably so, but this little corner of a little county on a little island means the world to me.

This is marvellous.

I'm sitting at my parent's kitchen table, listening to lots of new music, spending a lot more time on BCUK just reading blogs, drinking lashings of delicious tea, hanging out with my mother (who, I am convinced, is the most wonderful person humanity has ever had the privilege of creating), looking forward to Christmas...just doing stuff that I haven't been able to do for some time.

Just relaxing. Even though I am officially working.

Finally feeling like the two month nightmare might be coming to an end.

This is really marvellous.

...til this.

And this.

And, most importantly, this.

I can't wait.

It's that time again.

Christmas presents. The one thing in the world that can stress me out more than anything else. What the hell should I get them all?

I'm far too easy to buy presents for. Due to my perenially skint state, I see things on an almost daily basis that I want but can't afford. So I add it to the 'Things I Want For Xmas List' which is presented to family members around this time. Currently number one on the list (Warning: EXTREME nerd alert) is Michael Swan's Practical English Usage, invaluable for all grammar nerds. Also featuring on the list: new curtains, a few rugs, a new housemate, football talent, removal of porno ads from BCUK , Berlin to grow mountains, a zombie etc. I realise that most of these won't happen, but I still have a damn list and my damn family and friends have a damn duty to provide.

My mother, on the other hand, makes a list of thing I'm NOT to get her. That list last year comprised of booze and sweets, and this year tea has been added to it. Funnily enough, my Christmas present to her last year was a selection of rather fine German teas. The year before? Some swanky German chocolates. The temptation to get her really sweet alcoholic tea was rather high, but then my infinitely more creative sister stepped in with a voucher for some sort of fancy heath spa, or something.

So for the sister? Usually she gets the shittest present of all, since she always assures me that she doesn't really care what she gets. To her eternal credit, either she really doesn't, or she is really good at hiding the disappointment in her voice when I she sees the crappy book, or socks, or nothing, that I got her.

My dad? He just called me the other day asking me to bring him home cheap European tobacco for Christmas, for which he would pay me handsomely for. Naturally it was tempting to give a present that would result in me making a profit, but, being a militant anti-smoker, I refused on the grounds that I didn't want him to die a slow and painful death. So, socks again, dear daddy.

It probably seems that I'm a nasty old scrooge who hates giving presents. Actually the opposite is true, provided I have a good idea that the person I'm giving the present to will like it. And, unlike most males, I am bloody good at taking hints.

So. Any tips for good dad and sister presents would be very much appreciated.

This arrived in my inbox, full of festive cheer:

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau).

At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 378 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks.

This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second--3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them--Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance--this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

Merry Christmas.

So I moved into a new place two months ago and things were looking rosy for Rampage's New Life As A Responsible Independent Individual.

Little did I realised how damn stressful the whole thing is, and mostly because my landlord seems to be the shadiest epitome of shadiness that you could possibly imagine.

Evidence #1: A week after moving in, the heating for the entire building went off for a full day and night. They turned their phones off and didn't respond to any messages, leaving everyone in the building angrily shivering until the heat clunked back into action the next day.

Evidence #2: On Friday, a big hole appeared in my roof, and, being the rooftop apartment, shipped rather a lot of water in on top of my lodger that I had to take in since I can't afford the rent. Rang angrily, left an angry message, no response. Decided to spend the weekend drunk in order to forget about it and other woes.

Evidence #3: A couple of minutes ago, I called again, expecting to deal out some punishment (provided 1. they answer the phone and 2. I don't stutter and stammer as arguing in German is a rather stressful experience). They actually picked up the phone, but only to inform me that the whole building has been sold and they are not my landlords any more.

Shady? Yes. Exactly what I don't need at the moment? Most definitely.

It all adds up to me looking forward to my newly brought-forward flight home to Ireland. Let the place bloody flood while I'm away. Then I can go back to being irresponsible and reckless, much less stressful.

So my main football buddy here in Berlin has a footy blog, and as loath as I am to link to a nasty WordPress, or blogspot, or whatever, blog, it's here.

But I stole his 'Upcoming Live Matches' blogroll idea, because I think it's the coolest thing ever. I didn't even ask. I just stole it. Blatently.

But now you can all see what live football I'll be attending! Hurrah! And if you hover over the link (which links to the team I'll be supporting), you can also see the date and location. Hurrah! And there's a little star rating to show how much I'm looking forward to it. Hurrah!

Hurrah!

My ex just recommended this book to me, saying the main character reminded her of me. Now I usually avoid million copy-selling fiction like the plague, but I was just too intruiged by this not to read it. Of course I had seen the film, and liked it. Not hugely, but definitely liked it.

He's a lying, cheating, best friend's girlfriend-stealing asshole, suffering from amazing amouts of self-pity, seemingly unwilling to haul himself out of the rut his life has somehow ended up in. He has no friends, is disloyal and mean to the ones he does have, is defensive, sarcastic, self-righteous, sour and bitter.

After getting over the initial disgust of being compared to such a person, I began to really enjoy the book. It's very charmingly written - despite his misdemeanours, he really is a Johnny Everyman. After a couple of pages, I wasn't picturing John Cusack any more, just an average, faceless guy. Medium height, medium build, short hair, nothing remarkable bar an overdose of bitterness and a smattering of charm. He's every boyfriend that has existed in the last twenty years. No girlfriend in the world could read this without seeing at least a little bit of hers in there (and if she doesn't, bloody well hold on to him!). And I'm pretty sure no man in the world could read it without seeing a little bit of himself.

We've all felt comfort and pleasure in monogamous domesticity, while still pining for rampant polygamy. The self pity, the insecurity (especially when dealing with the idea of other men being sexually better or more desirable than us), the sourness, the petulance that we, ourselves, hate but can't stop, the resentment at the superior achievements of others, the list goes on and on.

Still, I'm hoping that the fact that he was funny and occasionally charming is what reminded her of me. And in the book, he gets his girl back in the end. I probably shouldn't read too much into that though.

Anyone got a copy of Fever Pitch?

I had amazing amounts of fun tonight. I met so many people who were astoundingly charming, open, welcoming, friendly and warm to me, the silly monkey with his fingers in his eyes.

My mind is quite blank. I could attribute this to tiredness, but I think it's more likely to do with the fact that I am blown away by the power of the medium that is at my fingertips right at this moment.

I am so very, very honoured to have met you all.