Being that Pisshead (pros and cons)

There are some people that find the best way to start their day is to pour themselves a nice tall glass of whiskey or a nice cold beer. Some of them in fact, carry a little travelling device in order to help them continue doing this throughout the day which in English is called a “flask”. Now I personally hate starting the day with a drink because it just makes me fall asleep but some people love it, maybe they even find it a way to express themselves. Who knows? Well I have had the pleasue of working in many bars when I was young in order to pay my tuition fees, so I have met many “lovers” of the sauce in my life. In this Bob the Meerkat blog I would like to take a look at the pros and cons of being, well you know, that “drunk guy”. I know this is a serious issue and many people may find this article offensive. So please, if you have a relative that is affected and your feel sorry for alcoholics, stop reading now. 

Honestly, if you live in Great Britain or a handful of other countries and have a love of the drink there are many advantages. Firstly, the government treats “alcoholism” as a serious disease even to the point that the “pissheads” get a payed-for place to live and a monthly salary. What I witnessed was the contrary to the assumed sad depressive life they live, sure there were some, but they took pride in waking up at 8, putting on a suit, and started a day with a nice cold pint. In fact, if it wasn´t for the fact that they were destroying their body from the inside, they seemed quite pleased to talk about football all day, harass the bartenders, and stumble home. Sometimes, one would pass away and they would hold something similar to an Irish“wake" and find another reason to raise their glass... Their mate's death!

Now, since a drug addiction is not a funny thing, I would like to talk about the cons of being an alcoholic. First of all, it destroys families. Whereas, some of the pissheads were alone and their loved ones had all passed away so their best source of company was other lonely football viewers, there was the type who had families, wives and children. Sometimes I witnessed wives or husbands of the alcoholics coming in to let go of a little steam and rant and rave at them for missing an important event. In fact, there was many who told stories about their loved ones who refused to speak to them on the grounds that they gave preference to the bottle, understandable really. Furthermore, what the drink does to someone´s body and mind is unbelievable. Now I have met some smackheads and pot-smokers in my time, but I don´t think there is anything that does such damage as excessive amounts of booze. They seem to lose all track of time, age, reality and tend to repeat themselves… everyday. At least a pothead brings a new story or two.

In conclusion, I guess it depends on the person and your perception of the situation. I know although alcoholism is not something to take lightly, I have met some fully functional happy drunks in my life. And in spite of the horrible damage it does to the body, is happiness not the important thing? Ask the old guy in the queue for a John Smiths and you´ll get your answer.  

Stupid Parents

I am absolutely sick of having students (I teach children) who are considered "low level" or just plain "stupid". This infuriates me because once you meet the parents you realize that the parents are the stupid ones, not the children. It´s a crime and it´s getting worse since parents seem to take less responsibility for their actions and pass the buck onto teachers and entertainment advices.

I see three main problems with current parenting and would like to address them and present some solutions. First of all, parents nowadays are buying tablets or video-consoles for their children instead of traditional things like books.  The result is that children can´t read or spell and develop a very short attention span. Furthermore, they make their children read as a form of punishment so children now see reading as something very negative. My solution for the problem is to implement a legal age for electronic devices and promote reading. However, people may see this as an attack against their freedom. Furthermore, they might not understand that tablets (etc) are dangerous to a child´s development and buy them electronic gizmos anyway. Secondly, it seems that parents are not fully educated on child development. My solution is to make a compulsory course for parents to inform them on the best way to raise a child. Unfortunately, parents might not take it seriously so one would have to think about the way to fine/punish the parents who don´t attend. Lastly, parents are always blaming teachers for the education of their child. I for one accept the responsibility of teaching vocab/tenses, etc. But there is only one/two people who can turn off the “idiot box” and make the kids do their homework. The parents.

Description of a Place

The best place that I have every visited was Innsbruck in the south of Austria. It is a city situated in the mountains in a region called Tyrol, which has a history of trying to separate. It has a large alpine zoo in the mountains which is reachable by walking up a trail or using the railcar. The zoo has a large variety of animals which can be found in the region, such as the great eagle and the groundhog.

Honestly, most likely because it is smack in the middle of Germany and Italy, it is the best city where I have ever eaten. One has the advantage of eating top quality steaks and fresh bread or trying fresh pasta, Käsespätzle being the typical dish of the region. Austria is not only famous for its coffee but its desserts are at a level that no other country can match. The assortment of Strudels, a backed pastry made with an egg dough filled with fruits (normally apples), is incredible and you can’t leave with out checking out the Sachertorte, a double chocolate cake with an rum/apricot marmalade in the middle.

The city has a lot of history and therefore it is easy to make your way around the museums and the sights. Probably the most incredible thing I saw was a light and sound history on King Maximilian in the historical church in the center.   

  

Rich Twats

Yesterday I went with my wife to a recently renovated restaurant not far from “El Corte Inglés” in Murcia. I don´t remember it´s name but it´s atmosphere and design was absolutely fantastic. Moreover, the seafood was the highlight on the menu and it was not to disappoint. They changed the name so unfortunately I don´t remember what it is called. Surprisingly enough, I will never go back. This may sound like a contradiction to the review I gave the food and the atmosphere, but I have a good reason. Next to us was a table of full of drunken twats making complete assholes of themselves.  First, they decided to talk about their pubic hairs that even resulted in the man talking about how hairy his 16 year daughter was. I almost threw up at that point. Then they moved on to giving the waiter a hard time in what they thought was English and German. Knowing the two languages, I almost wanted to turn around and tell them to “verpiss dich”/”fuck off” and leave the poor waiter to do his job. The funny thing was, the waiter spoke fluent in English because he lived in England and Canada. Finally, they started harassing a poor African who was selling stuff on the street. What almost made me turn around and smack the bitch in the teeth was when they started asking the poor black guy if he had Ebola. At that point, my wife went to talk with the waiter about their behavior. The waiter responded with a look of defeat in his eyes. “They´re my bosses”, he said. Needless to say, I left the poor waiter a huge tip and told him, “You deserve this for having to put up with these assholes”. At least we finally saw him smile.

Opinion: Learn to Park

This may start off as a delicately-said opinion paragraph but will probably end up in me blowing a fuse and writing a load of bad words and going in to a rant. It´s really something I hate and think that the police should do something about it, but unfortunately do as well. In Spain, it seems to be completely acceptable to park in the middle of the road (leaving the indicators on as a sign of being civilized) and then going for a coffee, to the supermarket or just have a nice lovely chat with your third-cousin six times removed. From my point of view, this is not only dangerous but the laziest thing I have ever seen. Seriously, there is normally a parking space 2 minutes away! The way this method of parking is approached is very interesting as well. Apparently, you just randomly stop the car without any sort of warning so that the car behind you plays a game of life-and-death and has to swerve into the corresponding lane without killing other drivers. In many other parts of the world this would be a massive ticket and you just wouldn´t do it in principal because someone might get out of their car, grab a baseball bat, and smash your car to bits just for being a twat (I have this urge daily in Spain). Furthermore, it can get right out of hand to a ridiculous degree. For instance, last week I went to the shop and noticed a car parked hysterically in the middle of the road. The reason it was so ridiculous was that ALL the parking spaces on the street were empty and she had actually parked beside three empty parking spaces! I decided to wait to see what kind of degenerate owned this car, and lo and behold, a mother with a baby… buying empanadas. If there ever was a ticket worth writing up for being a complete waste-of-space and bad role-model, this was the time. In conclusion, I believe the police should start giving out tickets for this kind of behavior and the general Spanish population should start looking for an actual “PARKING SPACE” when they park. If not, I just might kill someone.

Interesting places in the world: Cuba "The Revolutionary Hotel"

One of the most interesting places I have been in the world was Cuba, in particular (a definite 0 star hotel) “The Revolutionary Hotel”. Billed as one of the most historic hotels you can find in Cuba (as I remember it was near Havana), even to the point of enjoying at first glance the bullet holes they refuse to take out of some of the glass constructed walls. I must say it was probably the most interesting entrances I have ever had in my life. As I sat down on my “rustic” bed and try to rest my back against the old springs, my friend came running in shouting madly about something that he encountered in his room. “What is it?” I asked, trying to calm him down. “There was a she-male prostitute waiting for me in my room” he said. As I stared at him blankly and asked what he did. “Well I ran” he responded, with a look of death in his eyes. So I had to go over to his room to kick the tranny out, but that was just the beginning. Later, I discovered that in order to get into the shower I had to climb over a giant toilette and after shutting off the lights you could hear the mountain of cockroaches under the bed scurrying out. But the cream on the cake was the breakfast…Ever had more eggshells than eggs in your scrambled eggs? Well I have.    

Fear

Fear of coming home late at night to find Peppa Pig eating cookies and getting crumbs all over my mattress.

Fear of the colour orange.

Fear of those tiny waving gold cats that you find in Chinos and Thai restaurants.

Fear of writing lists about my fears.

Fear of renting a film and it stops suddenly to reveal that short film from "The Ring" and I die the following week.

Someone I hate: That personal-trainer wannabe at the gym

I really can´t stand that type of guy (who can range anywhere from a giant freak to an old obese bastard) at the gym who thinks he is a “personal trainer” but in reality is just a billy-no-mates who annoys the crap out of the other gym members. Honestly, I didn´t really know where to begin my rant with this brand of a%&hole. Normally, he makes his rounds trying to flirt with one of the girls doing squats or giving advice to someone in mid-lift shouting”2 MORE”. When I, for example, have a lot of weight above my head and this type of good-for-nothing reject starts telling me to move my right hand 3 inches to the left, I get the urge to stuff a 20 kilo weight down his f$%king throat. I don´t know how this complete waste of space gets off driving people nuts but I wish he (and his clones in EVERY gym in the world) would just go and call 1-800-GO-F$%K-YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!  

The Teaching Diaries: Part 1.1 The Ukraine

Day One: As Good As It Gets

Well, after waking up at 6am and catching a flight from Milan and making a stop-over in Budapest, I finally landed in Kiev. It was about 3:30 when I found myself thinking I would have to convince the Ukraine authorities that I was here for pleasure not business, but after showing them my German passport and being waved through, I breathed a small sigh of relief.
I was supposed to be met by someone from the school but I walked through the gate and realised that this was not true. After being met by thugs with taxi cabs trying to usher me in their “upper-class” vehicles for over inflated “English” fees, I slightly panicked. I called the school, no answer. Fuck. 15 minutes went by when I noticed from the corner of my eye a man, who looked like he was fired from the KGB, approached the terminal with my named scribbled on a piece of paper. I shouldn’t have felt so relieved. “Hello” I said, “No English” was simply the reply. Quickly he put me in his car and rolled up the tinted windows that protected him from whatever the fuck he needed protection from. I was soon astounded by the sites and sounds of what a true ruin of the cold war is: old cars, run-down roads, buildings in ruins, and Cyndi Lauper blasting from the gangster’s radio. Still not a word.
After 30 minutes of driving in this maniacs car, we approached the city of Kiev. It was astonishing. As you drive up to the bridge you can’t help but notice the Soviet symbols that are powerfully engulfing it, nor can you imagine the mere size of the statue that is gaping like a giant shadow over the decayed city. Unbelievable. “They could afford to build fucking churches with gold roofs but not feed and shelter their own people” I thought, shocking that the system collapsed.
We arrived at what looked like a train station, and he quickly guided me toward the train, stopping only to buy me the worst sandwich on the planet (I thought they harvest grain here) and a giant sprite for 120 whatever currency. Anyway, he guided me on the train and followed me on my journey for a seat. I went to sit down only to hear a voice firmly say “no”. “Ok” I thought, and continued to walk through the train until I felt a hand grasp my shoulder and sit me down next to a group of semi-friendly looking people. He then told them something, which translated in my head as “He’s fucking retarded and can’t read a fucking sign, so can you make sure this idiot gets off at the right stop”, they nodded in understanding.
The train was quaint and charming for a train that felt like it would run off the tracks at any given second, I even had to sit on the toilet because of the large possibilities of being threwn around and pissing on my shoes. Wouldn’t want to show up looking unprofessional at my new job, would I? The most memerable thing was the TV playing a Ukrainian series about the Cold War that actually would have been quite good if I understood a fucking word. After 4hrs on the train I arrived in the town of Poltava, I couldn’t read it of course because of the alphabet, and thankfully the group of people said “your stop” and I got off the train.
This was the smoothest part of the trip. I was picked up by another maniac driver and a girl who could speak moderately good English and driven to the camp to meet the staff.