I realise that there is blood and Guinness swilling around the table in front of me. I notice that there is a lump of flesh missing from my little finger. I don't care. I shout again. I jump again.

22:12
I realise that I am crying. I can't take the stress. There is too much of me invested in this. I wipe the tears away and swig some Guinness.

23:11
There's another tsunami. This one is in such stark contrast to the other that no-one believes it has actually hit. We bellow again, but this time not with joy or pride or relief.

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The goal that made me a football fan for life (please excuse the disgraceful American commentator saying England instead of Ireland):

The goal that justified my becoming a football fan for life:

The goal that made me burst out crying with pure, unadulterated joy:

Tonight, we need another magic, magic moment.

Come on Ireland.

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A young man, unable to stand still, approaches me unsteadily.

He speaks. I pause tersely, half interested in what he's about to say, half irritated at myself for stopping in the cold for a drunk when I am (arguably) not one myself.

"Where are the hot girls?", he slurs in German.

"Right down there", I say, without a moment's hesitation, pointing down a cul-de-sac.

"How far away are they?", he mumbles, his body already focussing itself for the effort required to haul its worthless self down Imaginary Hot Girl Alley.

"Oh, five minutes at most" I reply, my shitty day well and truly made.

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I had toyed with the idea deleting my account altogether, and would have, were it not for the fact that my social life would disintegrate as quickly as it takes to click 'create an event' and 'invite all except Stephen because he's dead, or deleted'. And, of course, having to explain to real-life friends that removing the virtual proof of our friendship is by no means any sort of slight on them would just be too much to have to go through. Over one hundred and fifty times.

So we ticked along together, That Other Social Networking Site and I, without really seeing the point of each other. After all, I have neither a mafia mob nor farm, am not a huge photo uploader or quiz-taker. I'm a lurker, a status-reader, occasional liker and infrequent commenter. I resent having to block some irrelevant people, simply because I don't want to have to delete them, but I also don't want them knowing about my life.

Well, after last night, all these complaints have been forgiven, That Other Social Networking Site. Because last night I was on my way home on the tram when I realised I was sitting across from a guy I worked with for a week over two years ago. A nice guy, no doubt, we got on very well, but never enough to become actual real friends. That Other Social Networking Site friends, luckily, has a much lower standard of friendship than real life.

So, after we covered the usual, 'so what are you doing now?', 'oh, much the same, what about you', 'yeah, pretty much the same too', we didn't have that awful, awful silence. Not the one where you just can't be arsed with the person. No, its kindly but inept little brother, the one where you are genuinely happy to see the person, but have just been out of touch for so long that you simply can't think of a single interesting or coherent thing to say. You blibber for a while, before resorting to the conversational death sentence that forces one or other of the mortified participants to get off at a stop much, much earlier than intended and walk home in the freezing cold, simply to avoid having to talk about THE WEATHER.

But, That Other Social Networking Site to the rescue! Over the last two years, it has allowed me to see my tram buddy's interesting photos from a variety of trips to Africa, Asia and South America and allowed me to know, from his status updates, that he is a fellow Europhile with a freakish knowledge of world geography, and even that a mutual friend has invited us both to a thanksgiving gathering at the end of the month.

Take that, awkward silence! Hurrah for That Other Social Networking Site!

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And, as the blank screen in front of me for the last half hour verifies, I can't think of a single thing to say about it.

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On November 9th, 1989, the four of them, all resident in the East, simply didn't believe the stories that the Wall had opened, even after seeing the press conference by Günter Schabowski that triggered the thousands of East Germans descending on the Wall, asking to be let through.

Two even went to work as normal the next day and really only began to believe the stories due to the fact that most of their colleagues simply hadn't shown up for work. One of the others, a dedicated traveller who has visited over one hundred different countries, went straight to the West's main airport, Tegel, to check it out, believing that it must be much better than the eastern airport. He was disappointed by how small it was, and noted that the West was just as dirty as the East. The fourth, a lady who worked as a graphic designer, went straight across to the West the next day to visit friends.

I found it surprising that none of them seem to have seen it as momentous an occasion as the rest of the world. After all, most of them had popped over to West Berlin at least once over the previous years on tourist visas. All of them had known West Berlin before the Wall had been erected, and felt that nothing had really changed in the twenty-eight years of isolation. All were comfortably employed with families and did not want for anything, aside from perhaps tropical fruits like bananas and pineapples. Since they were only available at Christmas, if at all, they were the biggest treat an East German child could imagine. Cuban oranges, however, were plentiful despite the fact that they were green and'tasted like straw'.

Only one, the graphic designer, ever thought of attempting to flee to the West. By the eighties, however, she was already in her fifties and didn't consider it to be worth the risk. In her younger years, she had got into trouble because of her 'big mouth', and initially was refused entry to university because of her criticism of the regime. When the Wall came down, she realised that graphic design in the West was far ahead that of the East - they used computers. She bought her first computer, a Macintosh, for a small fortune soon after.

The other three suffered initially after the Wall fell. Two of them lost their jobs and the third, the head of a railway station before die Wende, was soon relegated to selling tickets. Pragmatically, none of them minded very much, seeing how close they all were to retirement age anyway.

All four agreed that the major change brought about by the fall of the Wall is the amount of money that normal people these days have at their disposal. On a personal level, most felt that life was safer in the GDR - every neighborhood was constantly patrolled by a variety of police services and mugging and other crimes against the individual were practically unknown. None ever felt personally threatened by the regime, realising that it wasn't a bad system provided you were happy to say what the government wanted to hear. They even went as far as to suggest that it would have worked, if only someone in power had been willing to listen to their unvoiced criticisms.

Before the class, I had been worried that asking them questions about Germany's difficult past might dredge up bad memories. The horror stories are plentiful, but none of my four students had any of their own. They seemed to have been, and indeed still are, model GDR citizens, with no overt criticism crossing their lips over the ninety-minute conversation. Praise, interestingly, was in equally short supply. Born just before World War Two, their generation is one that learned to accept the status quo through being shunted from one flawed ideology to another. They left the revolution to their sons and daughters, who were all too aware of the injustice they had been born into.

In the end, however, all it took was one ill-informed spokesman to take down the Wall.

Here's to twenty years of a united Germany, for better or for worse.

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Here is a cleaning schedule made by my ex-housemate, who, at best, can be described as determinedly Teutonic.

Here is the new cleaning schedule, made by my new francophile and francophone housemate.

The difference, as you can see, is quite startling. I love it.

So who fancies trying to guess which picture represents me?

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This time, however, I feel aggrieved. My ticket was expired by about seven minutes, which I had not noticed. I tried to appeal to the decent, kind side of the fucking asshole, also explaining that I had validated it long before the train arrived, thus wasting a few valuable minutes of its validity. No deal though. He was simply a fucking asshole, and wouldn't give in. So, of course, I started being rude to him as soon as I realised that he was never going to budge, and called him the asshole that he very clearly is.

But it just got me thinking about the huge number of occasions since I moved here in which I have not been seen as a human being, but rather as some sort of disobedient robot who needs to be taught to obey without question, something which is very much not in my nature. It's not as though I am any sort of anarchist, not by any stretch of the imagination. I know that rules are there for a reason, and it certainly is not for them to be broken. But why not look on people as (mostly) cognisant individuals on occasion, ones who sometimes deserve a break and a bit of kindness?

I would just love it if that guy had appreciated that I was not trying to get a free ride, and that my impassioned pleas for leniency did not come easily to me.

I would love it if the woman in the post office would accept my old student ID, my bank card, my credit card, my health insurance card and my Hertha season ticket as clear proof that I am who I say I am, without insisting I walk home in the rain and bring back my passport in order to get my package.

I wish the German Catholic Church would appreciate that I am not Catholic and should not have to pay tax to them simply because I was baptised twenty-six years ago and was not aware of their ridiculous rules that require people to specifically withdraw from the German Church even though they never actually joined in the first place.

I would love it if my doctor could see that charging me €20 for a thirty-second consultation every three days while my finger was busted is profiteering at best, outright greed at worst.

It's no secret that Berliners can be rude, obnoxious, unfriendly and unpleasant, but today (and I am not ruling out the possibility that the dreary November rain and the fact that I had to walk to work in it is having a very negative effect on me) they just seemed a little heartless too.

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- no more shouting in my ear
- no more dealing with individuals who have no appreciation of the potential benefits of spending time with me in a classroom
- no more sand in my ears
- no more tiny little safety scissors cramping my hands
- no more betting with my colleagues about how many little people are going to cry today
- no more stodgy kid's food
- no more having to repeat myself
- no more having to repeat myself
- no more having to repeat myself
- no more having to repeat myself
- no more having to repeat myself
- no more sweeping up the incredible amounts of dirt that the little people manage to drag in (although I admit that I really quite enjoy sweeping up)
- no more having to watch my fucking language
- no more having to share a toilet with people who have not yet learned the concepts fundamental to basic personal hygiene
- no more of that odd fusty feet smell that seems to follow little kids around
- no more having to hide the sugar from grasping little fingers at lunchtime in the interests of making the afternoon a little less hyperactive
- no more conflict resolutions
- no more conflict
- no more pretending to big people that their little people are anything other than little angels

Wow, the idea of sitting in an office deleting spam never seemed so attractive.

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I hope I never have to pronounce that - climbing it was easier

At the top of, er, that mountain I can't pronounce - 2,172m

On the way up Rysy, Poland's highest

Getting steeper

Hurrah! At the top! 2,499m

The view from Slovakia

Scariest ladder ever ever ever

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So I was crossing the road in front of my house on my way home from the u-bahn. As most of you know, in Germany there are snipers in the buildings around most major intersections, instructed to snipe any pedestrian who attempts to cross the road when the man isn't green. Having lived here for almost four years, German civic obedience is well ingrained into my psyche and the thought of crossing before the green man didn't even enter my head.

It's also important to note that there are often cars coming even when the man is green (cars that are turning on to the street you are crossing, rather than cars that are already on it and driving straight on), but the pedestrian still has the absolute right of way.

So I stepped happily onto the road when the green man appeared, and a car whizzed past me, going far too fast and ignoring my right of way. I irritably pointed to the green man, he held up his hand in apology and slowed down. So out I stepped again, and got hit by the car coming behind him. I've blogged before about how quickly one can think when an accident is taking place, and this time was no different.

I thought about how the driver was clearly looking over to his left and not at me.
I thought about how shit it was that I was going to be hit by a car.
I felt happy that he wasn't going all that fast, and that it probably wouldn't hurt very much.

And then I was getting up off the ground and looking for my glasses, feeling very much like I had escaped lightly and feeling that I should try to look more confused and hurt to make the idiot feel bad. My cheekbone hurt a bit, as did my elbow, and my glasses were a little bent. I don't know whether I hit them off the car or the ground.

There was a crowd of people around me within seconds, one of whom called an ambulance and the police despite my protestations that I really was absolutely OK. I think it must have looked quite spectacular, as one onlooker alleged 'you flew!'

It all became quickly quite embarrassing as we all stood around waiting for the police and ambulance, with the driver standing sheepishly beside me as the onlookers berated him on my behalf. He was, without any doubt, 100% at fault, which he accepted when the police arrived. The ambulance people gave me a quick check-up and the all-clear.

So here I am, alive and well. My housemates and houseguest are supervising me intimately so I am in good hands.

What an exciting day.

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I agree to go along, mostly because I didn't want to go the other, less terrifying way on my own. A broad grin cracks across his face as he tells me how happy that makes him - apparently it is 'strongly advised' to not take this route alone, due to the amount of people who fall to their death on it. My loudly-voiced second thoughts fall on deaf ears as Vitek is already bounding happily over the loose rocks, declaring what fun he's having.

He's right though - it is incredibly fun. There are chains embedded into the rock on the particularly difficult parts, and at one point there is a ladder that allows you to descend down a sheer cliff face. Vitek points down into the cloudy gloom and says "down there, you vould be fallink for a long time". We move swiftly on.

Three hours and a couple of heart-in-mouth moments later, we are back in the hut, having crossed over three other peaks; got a tiny bit lost on the way down; nearly caused an avalanche; got terribly drenched, and slipping and falling on my bum, which luckily happened well away from the scary ridge that was just waiting to punish such clumsiness.

It's the perfect end to three wonderful days in the mountains. We had aimed to get three peaks in three days, including Rysy, Poland's highest, but ended up with five. I ate goulash every single day, drank a nice amount of Tyskie, Zywiec and Okocim, and took an insane amount of beautiful photos. True, I did get woken up from my uncomfortable slumber on the train home by the man in front of me - I have never in my life experienced such a rancid body odour, which is saying something, coming from someone who occasionally gets a little whiffy too.

All in all though, a marvellous trip. I love the Tatra mountains.

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It's called Rysy and, at 2,501m, is Poland's highest mountain.

I'll be staying on the shores of this little lake:

It's called Morskie Oko and lies at a pleasant 1,395m above sea level.

I also intend to drink quite a lot of this once I have achieved my goal:

It's called Tyskie and it's my current favourite beer.

However, being a firm believer in equalising pleasure and pain, tomorrow morning I will get on a crowded train in Berlin Hauptbahnhof and stay on it for ten cramped hours, before getting on a crowded bus in Krakow and staying on it for two homicidal hours, a process that will be carried out in reverse next Monday.

It'll most definitely be worth it though. Poland's highest will fall to the Irish invaders!

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On a personal level, this will mean that I have to spend a lot less time defending the nation of my birth to people who know nothing more about it than it's a wartorn, anti-European but pretty little island on the Western edges of the continent, that also just happens to produce some tasty butter. Yes, Kerrygold and stereotypes based on nationality are available over here too.

As most of you know, I am staunchly pro-Europe, and consider my European identity much more important to me than my Irish one. This is a stance that is generally greeted with a significant amount of distrust whenever I am back on the island, as though my appreciation of the bigger picture is some sort of subversion or rejection of my Irishness.

This is entirely not that case.

Every single person is made up of many, many different identities. We're like onions - peel away one level and there's another one lying just beneath it. It's up to the individual to decide which one is more important.

I, for example, am a European, an Irishman, a Westmeathman, a Mullingarman, a Rathcolmaner and a Glennon. First and foremost, I am my father's son, a Glennon. This is the only aspect of my identity that is completely sacred and will never be compromised.

At the moment, I value my European identity the highest of the others, however this is not to say that this will always be the case. I agree very strongly with the concept that the European Union is based upon - a borderless union of states that agree to help each other out economically, politically, culturally and militarily (if necessary) through international co-operation, shared values and above all, free movement of their citizens. There's no doubt that every member of the EU benefits from this. It's the biggest and most widespread session of backscratching that the world has ever seen, and I am inordinately proud to be taking part.

So, who's itchy?

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Ireland affirms its commitment to the European Union within which the member states of that Union work together to promote peace, shared values and the well-being of their peoples.

Or does it?

Tomorrow we'll know.

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I also did something that I have vowed never to do again on at least four occasions - I did the Double Mustafa - two kebabs in a row. Being entirely sober this time, it actually made the experience much more pleasant, as the kebabular joy did not have to jostle for position with litres of beer in my (probably) limited-capacity belly.

If the Double Mustafa sounds like a bad idea to you, I have but one thing to say - the following morning, I ran a half-marathon in well under two hours, something I had never even attempted before. However, I will wait and carry out further research before suggesting Mustafa kebabs as a replacement for the world's ever-dwindling fossil fuels. For the good of humanity, of course.

Anyway, while I was consuming the wedge of meaty joy at the tables beside the kebab stand, something seemed wrong. I stopped for a moment (please try to imagine the willpower that that required) to take stock. My three companions were completely immersed in their respective feasts, seemingly unaware of anything else. The queue was, as per usual, about twenty-strong, and the kebab-givers, as per usual, working flat out with shouts of "Salat komplett?" renting the air.

And then it struck me. The people beside us were TALKING! They were talking to each other, despite holding Mustafa kebabs in their hands! How could this be? Were these people performing exercises of restraint so elaborate and twisted that they would send Buddhist monks running screaming to the nearest brothel while swigging vast mouthfuls of cheap vodka? Or had they lost their taste buds in a horrific accident involving less appetizing kebabs with spicy sauce made by the devil himself? Or (and this must be considered the least likely of all) did they simply not appreciate the gift from the gods above that they were holding in their hands? I was so shocked that I simply had no choice but to get a second to verify the tastiness.

...but the good news is that this afternoon, I will have yet another visitor arriving, one who already knows of the joys of Mustafas, to stand in complete silence with beside that Temple of Perfect Kebabs.

EDIT: Landers has had one, and it loved him as much as he loved it.

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Most of them have to do with eating, both of huge amounts of food and really unpleasant things. Whole chilis, acorns and probably many many other nasty and barely edible substances have all be dropped down the hatch in the interests of scientific research, or cheap laughs.

But, either signaling that I am either growing up or becoming a coward, the last two challenges presented to me have been turned down. True, they would have involved the destruction of private property, something that I have a little more respect for than my own digestive system (if only for the fact that I'd have to pay to replace it).

So, since I won't be accepting these challenges, I will pass them over to blogland in the hope that some brave and reckless soul will take them over and answer the following two burning questions:

1). Would a hard-boiled egg be hard enough to break a single pane of glass if projected with a human arm from a distance of, say, five metres?

2). Are bowling lanes oiled so much that a human being performing a Klinsmann dive would be able to slide all the way down and knock over the pins?

Happy researching!

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It is definitely still a little bent, and quite a lot bigger and bluer than a finger should be. I am also a little sad about losing the bandage, as it made me look somewhat threatening. I saw some rough-looking types checking it out while walking down the street a while back, and I know they were thinking that I got it in a fight and were imagining what the other poor sucker looked like.

Instead, I am now also carrying a cylindrical roll of soft cloth around with me to squeeze to get the strength back. Not nearly as threatening.

Either way, it is definitely pleasing to have got my this year's annual summer injury out of the way. I wonder what Summer 2010 holds in store for my poor ravaged body. Broken neck? Squished brain? Ingrown ball sac? Time will tell.

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He was frank, brutally so. In an effort to convey how his feelings had grown from the day of the young one's birth to what they are now, he compared his initial emotions towards the infant to those that he has for a plate. I was left in no doubt that the feelings of love that a father has for his offspring need to develop over time and can by no means be presumed right from the off.

Last week, my eagerly-anticipated MacBook Pro and iPod Touch arrived. I had spend a knee-tremblingly enormous amount of money on them, notwithstanding the various discounts and special offers I had managed to somehow take advantage of.

Having been a Windows user all my life, for the first few days I thought I had made a hideously expensive mistake. Now, however, the feelings of love have had a week to develop. No, not develop. Flourish, flower, blossom, shout messages of heartfelt affection from the rooftops.

I can't get enough of the beautiful, beautiful design, the fabulously efficient interface, they way it seems like everything was designed by someone who wants to use it themselves and therefore makes it as good as it could possibly be.

Beautiful, just beautiful.

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Fishies!

They don't have names yet, apart from 'the kinda dead one' and 'the hyperactive one'. They are my first pets of my very own and even though I probably won't be able to teach them any tricks, I am excited about trying my best not to kill them.

It's been difficult finding a place to put the little guys - on the desk was too wobbly, beside the window was too bright, on one shelf they were too close to the speakers, so some books have been shunted aside to give them pride of place in the centre of everything.

I'm sure we're going to have lots of exciting adventures together, my little fishies and I.

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If drinking alcohol did not produce a nasty hangover the next morning, would it be as fun?

I had this discussion with a friend last week, and he took the logical stance of saying it would not only be as fun, it would be a hell of a lot more fun. The reasons for his argument are, of course, obvious to the majority of us.

I disagree though. I think drinking would be significantly less fun if there were no negative consequence to be endured afterwards. Here's why.

So in this hangoverless world, there are no more Sundays spent lounging fuzzily around the house drinking lots of tea, eating pizza/kebabs/Chinese takeaway and watching every single episode of Peep Show/Red Dwarf/Father Ted. No, instead you can spring happily out of bed just like any other day, and start being all productive and proactive. Where's the fun in that? Boring, boring, boring.

And what about the fact that last night you made the decision to have that extra drink, knowing that you would feel all the more miserable for it the next day? That's what made you enjoy it even more, get the last little drop of pleasure from it. It was the last shag before a break-up, the last day of a holiday, the last piece of birthday cake, made so much better solely because of the trial that was about to come. If you remove the hangover, you're removing the joy.

Let's not forget the pleasure of spending a hungover day with someone. You're connected by an invisible bond, one that can bring you closer to that person than you have ever been before. You are twins feeling sympathy pains. When you pop out and get a kebab for that person, despite your throbbing head, fusty mouth, inability to speak and allergy to sunlight, it is the ultimate act of true friendship. A world without hangovers is a world without love.

So you're lying there with your kebab in front of the telly when suddenly that memory of dancing on the table with the fat smelly guy to The Birdie Song comes back and assaults you. You want to sink into the sofa, you groan, you cringe, but secretly, you're pretty pleased. You know you've done something silly, wrong and embarrassing, but it's done now. You could redeem yourself by going out for a run, doing some charity work, rescuing some puppies from viciously drooling Dobermans, but YOU JUST CAN'T BE ARSED. It's your guilty pleasure, that debauchery. If it weren't embarrassing and awful, it wouldn't be a funny story to tell down the pub later, now would it?

...leading me on nicely to the next point. The Hair Of The Dog. The first one's pretty nasty, but the second makes you feel like a new person. Couple this with the slight feeling that you're doing something naughty by drinking again and you're got one of life's greatest Simple Pleasures.

But what if you go out on a weekday and are expected to work the following day? Naughty naughty! But really, does anyone expect a poor, sensitive hungover soul to do very much? I know that my colleagues would cover for me as much as they could - after all, they have been in your position too, and will be again. Again, hangovers show the true goodness in people.

So vote YES to hangovers, and retain the joy and love in life. It's an indulgence that we deserve.

Vote YES and keep those memorable boozy nights just that - memorable because of their rarity.

Vote YES!

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Being the sensible and rational person that I am, I took this as proof that proactivity, like getting up early and personal hygiene, is a fruitless pursuit and should be completely given up.

So gave it up I did, and settled back into my boring and slightly unfulfilling routine once more.

Until I got a mail from that very company two days ago, telling me they had work for me. Hurrah! I thought, proactivity rocks!, before hitting snooze and going back to sleep.

So this morning I woke up bright and early, put on some non-smelly non-football jersey clothes, determined to create the illusion that I am a dapper and refined individual, and definitely one who should be given lots and lots of money for very little work.

I was expecting an office much like blog HQ - quiet, efficient, everyone working hard, or at least doing a convincing impression of it. I also expected to be grilled about why on earth I think I could be a good translator when I don't have very much experience and don't know a single thing about any form of translating software.

Instead I got a scruffy and unshaven man, who reeked of stale booze, plonking me down in a chair and explaining how to use a seemingly infinite number of new pieces of software at very high speed. In came another scruffy and unshaven chap, asked me if I played table tennis, barely waited for an answer before starting a game with another very scruffy guy on an office table with a net stretched across it. Their levels of ability with the paddles indicated that the table had been a fixture in the office for quite some time.

After a half hour of the most brain-melting crash course I have ever experienced, I was given a computer and told to get going, with the reassurance that there are no such things as stupid questions, just stupid answers.

As I sat down, another scruffy man walked in and wished me all the best staving off the suicidal thoughts.

He had a point. The text was unspeakably difficult, so it was just as well that I had managed to retain most of the knowledge dump that had been thrown at me - the software remembered how others had translated certain phrases and suggested them. Semi-retirement compulsory contribution-based payment? Yep, that'll do.

My desperation was increasing with the rhythm of the spectacular game of table-tennis that was reaching a climax a few metres away - so riveting that it had even attracted an audience of people who had left their desks to join the fun.

I leaned back to the guy behind me to ask for help with some ridiculous German word that had far too many letters in it and looked more like the regurgitated remains of a bowl of alphabet soup than any sort of linguistic entity.

I called his name. No response.

I called his name again. Still no response. I noticed that he was engrossed in a game of online chess.

I decided one to try one more time. He wheeled around as if he had just been shot, before telling me that he is very busy. He was very scruffy too, but did help me out in the end.

After two hours, I had had enough of the tsak, plop, tsak of the table tennis, the fearsomely difficult texts and the stink of stale booze.

I will be back on Monday though, and I will complete the project. And I will also never complain about certain other offices being boring ever again.

(and I will keep it to myself that I found the place to actually be rather charming.)

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He's got two beers in his bag and a kebab in his hand. Bits of the kebab are scattering on the street as he mashes the thing into his mouth, smearing sauce all over his face. The guy's not a complete pig though, he wipes it clumsily off with his sleeve. He belches loudly, and although there is no evidence to support the fact, he probably farts loudly too.

This guy is me, and he's very, very drunk. It's the happy-go-lucky intoxication that comes from several days hours of relaxed but focussed drinking with good friends rather than the frantic, determined drinking of someone bent on self-destruction. The evening had seen him eat a chili just because someone dared him to, and try, unsuccessfully, to prove his hastily-assembled theory that you can't burst a balloon by biting.

Suddenly, he realises that all is not well. He's got beer, he's got a kebab, but he doesn't have his iPod. It's always either in his right jeans pocket, or the rear pocket of his bag. There's a system, you see, so that you don't lose things when you are stumbling happily around the city on any given evening.

He gets to the party and anxiously asks around to see if anyone had somehow borrowed it without his knowledge. Of course not, the unconcerned drinkers reply.

The guy decides it must still be in the pub where he had previously been. Some frantic calls are made. The first few people he reaches are no longer at the bar. They receive requests to look for the iPod, because someone, somewhere must have seen it.

Finally, someone still at the bar is reached.

"I dunno where I couldda left it. Just have a look around, willya?"

"No sign of it? Shite. Ask the bar staff there, willya?"

(his Irish accent comes out a lot more at this stage of the evening)

"Of course I don't feckin' have it here, why the feck would I be callin' ya if I had it here?"

"Feckit. I never lose things, this is very unlike me altogedder."

"Alright, thanks fer lookin' anyway, g'luck".

At which point, as if working entirely of its own accord, his left hand moves to his left rear pocket and detects a familiar object.

He gropes confusedly at it for a moment, as if trying to hinder the iPod-shaped wave of horror and embarrassment sweeping irresistibly in his direction, swallowing the brief feelings of relief as though they never existed.

Still though, all's well that ends with almost every person you know having been informed, completely accidentally by you, that you are a complete and utter TWAT.

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For encouraging me to suspend my cynicism. I did it because I wanted everything to be as perfect as it could have been. It's going to stay suspended, simply because there are people like you in the world.

For showing such faith in me, right from day one. For still showing that faith, even though it is clear that it is misplaced.

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I wrote some haikus while waiting for my x-ray this morning. If you can't be bothered clicking the link, they are short non-rhyming Japanese poems, consisting of three lines. The first line has five syllables, the second seven and the third five again.

THE FINGER
An innocent fall
Punished without a crack, but
Shit! now it's gone blue

LANGUAGE
Rasping in the throat
Difficult simplicity
Humbling every day

UNTITLED
Sick, the lot of you
Expectant and demanding
Doctor's waiting room

Here's one a kid wrote about me on camp last week:
Stephen has brown hair
That's cool oh yeah yeah yeah yeah
He's an Irish man.

I'm planning on writing one for every year if my life, so watch this space. It's going to be amazing. Give it a try, it's fun!

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However, when stuck on a tiny boat with a group of horny and noisy and dirty teenagers last week, I simply had no chance to disguise the sides of my personality that no-one needs or wants to see. Maybe this was a good thing, and the transparency forced by the cramped living quarters was responsible for how well I got on with my colleagues - either that, or they humoured the neurotic grumpy guy for a week so that he wouldn't flip out.

Anyway. I'm here to talk about my little quirks.

1). I don't like it when people stand over me when I am sitting down.
The solution (standing up) is a pretty easy one, except when the bench you are sitting on and the table you are sitting at are all bolted down so they don't fly around the room every time the boat his a wave. Hence me telling kids to sit down or go away quite a lot.

2). I don't like it when I can't suspend the sounds of normal life for a couple of hours every day.
This is very easy to do when not on a boat full of kids - throw in my earphones and suddenly I am as alone as I need to be. Add kids into the fray and you'll have to tell every single one of them what you are listening to and why, who that band is, if they are good and why, whether I play any instruments and why not, etc, etc, etc. And probably not even in English.

3). I don't like it when I can't shower and wash my hair at least once a day.
It makes me feel nasty and yuk, and I will whinge about it. Relentlessly.

4). I don't like it when I can't get rid of the vast amounts of energy that built up within me. I need to run and jump and frolick.
Which you can't really do on a boat.

5). I HATE having to repeat myself.
What's wrong with your finger, Stephen?
What's for dinner?
When will dinner be ready?
When do we have English?
When are we docking?
All x239472365089246508247 per day.

I think there are more, but I can't write about them because I have to hop seventeen times on my right foot and thirty-eight times on the left because someone just rang the doorbell more than twice. I hope they get to the door within fifteen seconds, otherwise I'll have to spend the day with a pink sock sellotaped to my nose.

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Since I came back late yesterday afternoon, I have barely spoken to anyone. It's been wonderful. Silence was in very, very short supply all last week, as you might expect if you cram the aforementioned thirty-one kids, my two colleagues and I, as well as the five crew members into an area smaller than blog HQ. Privacy was also completely suspended, as only a very thin piece of wood separated my bunk from the kids, with two tiny and showerless toilets (cleaned most unwillingly by the youthful ones) to provide for all of us.

I also bust my finger five minutes into the only bit of physical exercise I had all week - an ill-advised game of football on a very rough patch of triangular field. It looked pretty broken despite not hurting very much, not even when a grizzly Danish doctor pushed and pulled it for a few moments, seemingly delighted to have the chance to practice his charming English. Delighted enough, in fact, to treat me for free.

So, all in all, a marvellous week. I say that while trying my best to repress the memories of hours of constantly harassing kids, trying to get them to wash up after dinner, before just giving in and doing it myself along with my equally-stressed colleagues; pining for an hour to myself, not to mention feeling nasty and dirty after far too many showerless days.

No, instead I am thinking of the boat's gentle to-and-fro motion rocking me to sleep even during the daytime (motion that still assaults me when standing still on solid ground - nearly fell over when brushing my teeth this morning); the fresh wind ruffling my almost-curly-again hair, the sun massaging colour into my pale skin; the crew, who were the friendliest and most laid-back Germans I have met in my four years here; my colleagues, with whom I got on famously because they are wonderful, and of course the kids, who, now that I have had a few hours of quiet time away from them, were challenging yet adaptable, raucous yet respectful, annoying yet somehow still charming.

I threw some photos on that other social networking site, feel free to have a look.

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The trip had a grand total of three punctures, something that would normally have frustrated me greatly were it not for the fact that the repair breaks allowed for beer breaks for those of us with fully functioning vehicles. I am on a pseudo-holiday after all, at least until school starts again at the end of August.

So, eventually we arrived in the forest, and found a small lake to go for a little swim/paddle/flounder (the latter being by far the most accurate, for yours truly at least...), armed with more than adequate supplies of beer, crisps and cake. With the sun finally making an appearance and a football bursting to get out of my bag for a kickaround, what could possibly go wrong?

Not much, you'd imagine.

But then again, we were in Germany, and there were fat elderly people walking around COMPLETELY NAKED. And skinny elderly people. And fat young people. And mildly attractive young people. All shapes and sizes, all naked as the day that they were born. Some seemed even more naked than that, but that was probably down to how indecent the whole thing was, especially with other clothies like us around, as well as little kids and doggies and cyclists and even wild boars.

My friends and I were all a little shocked and a lot repulsed. We're not by any means a prudish bunch - Irish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Swiss, French and Swedish, (for the most part all forward-thinking nations), mid-twenties, liberal, adventurous, energetic, fully clothed with no intention of changing.

So what has happened? How can it be that our parents, heck, even our grandparents are less prudish than us? Is it simply because we have spend our formative years watching them gleefully releasing their globs of blubber from the constraints of clothing, bouncing around our public lakes with little regard for the extreme aesthetic tragedy they are inflicting upon us, and have therefore, in an admirably sensible move, decided to learn from the mistakes of our forebears?

How remarkably European of us.

Please excuse me, I have some eyeballs to scrub.

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If you have further questions, please direct them here.

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This is what I scribbled down.

THE HUNTER

The grass moved so imperceptibly that it could have been the wind.

The briefest glimpse of pale speckled skin set the hunter's instincts running wild. His shoulders tensed, his eyes narrowed. He readjusted his grip on his weapon, and then relaxed slightly.

A clean shot was absolutely imperative. Anything less would waste already-depleted ammunition and inflict vast amounts of unnecessary pain on his prey. Not that a certain amount of unnecessary pain would make any real difference, he thought grimly, considering how much absolutely necessary pain would be dealt out once things got going.

The hunter barely noticed night falling. He never did. He had been in this position too many times and enjoyed the vegetables of his labours too often to bother with such trivialities. The rustling in the grass had grown more frequent over the last hours, but not enough to make him take any action beyond tense and anticipatory readiness.

After so many hours perceiving the barely perceptible, his quarry's sudden and violent rush out of the undergrowth in his direction seemed like an apocalyptic event. Unfazed, he readjusted his aim minutely and pulled the trigger, catapulting a platoon of tiny blades horizontally from his weapon. As they made contact, shrieks of pain reverberated through the forest, causing a group of colourful birds in the nearby trees to flee with indignant squawks. The hunter had already smoothly switched weapons, and now sent a jet of clear fluid directly at the lacerated creature. The screams of pain increased, anguished and tortured, before dying out completely, leaving only ominous sounds of crackling and sizzling. It had all happened so quickly that a shocked silence was only beginning to emerge from the shadows.

The potato hunter extracted himself from his hiding place, strode forward and picked up an impeccably sliced, deliciously greasy potato chip, popping it into his mouth with a sigh so satisfied that it chilled the other observing potatoes to the depths of their soon-to-be cooked souls.

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