Monthly Archives: November 2006
dandelion and burdoch
ok, i realise it has been the best part of a week and that may dissapoiint one of my most avid readers here in mallorca – everyone please say hello to gail!
so, why is it that you can only find dandelion and burdoch in england? when i was a kid , it was the only thing to be drinking.
So let me fill you in on what has been happening.
Last night i went to paddys place again. great place he has, an absolute kids heaven, which is why i had so much fun last night. I went to look at his car again but ended up chasing his kids around his `garden`on their quad bikes. bloody excellent. what was really cool was test driving his car and having the dogs chase me all the way to the main road and back again. its just like in those old american films with the opening scene of the truck driving up to the homestead and the dogs barking and chasing, just one of those moments when you had to be there. All that was missing was a voice over shouting `shane – shane` that would have made it!
once more, he cooked an absolute stonking dinner for us and afterwards, i headed to santa catalina to meet with mason ( the cock) and lexa who left today.
I met them at a restaurant called `go east`just as they were ready to leave. as we walked out, mason started scratching his head, he couldnt remember where he had parked his car – TWAT!!!!!
so the three of us walked around for what must have been half an hour looking for it until eventually we all split up and searched seperately. Eventually we found it and headed off to another bar for a whiskey as i was feeling sick with flu or something like that.
last week something great happened, totally unprovoked of course. I got a pay rise. Yep, after landing here and having mike tell me he wasnt going to pay me as we agreed earlier in the year, i headed off in search of work for myself. As you may have read, i bagged some cool work on a big sailing boat called nariida ( www.nariida.com ). well, last week , much to my disbelief, mike appeared on nariida and started talking to craig, the engineer and also the guy who employs me. He was asking craig how long he would be keeping me on the boat blah blah blah. Ok, on its own, it could have been an innocent inquiry but, and this really does take the piss, this happened while i was there crouched between mike and craig. mike decided to talk to craig about me, over my head without asking me, or even aknowledging my presence.
Ok, so the best thing i could do was walk away. Obviously i was raging at his complete lack of everything humane. i sometimes wonder if he is still suffering from the shock of the white south african movement loosing the fight for apartheid.
anyway, getting back to the good stuff, i was concerned as to what he was trying to achieve so i spoke with craig later in the day and explained everything as i saw it, voiced my concerns and supported this with a couple of stark comments, one being that i would never work for mike again, if you cant trust someones word , then you just gotta say fuckèm, and secondly, i supported this by telling craig i was earning 100 bucks a week less working on nariida but i was happy to swallow that loss. then would you believe it, the next day, craig made up the difference. bonus!
Other things this week – i watched a young mom and her two kids crossing the road. Yep, i guess you are saying `so what` but look at it from another point of view. the mom was obviously bored off her tits and going about her day, the kids, once on the crossing, saw a great opportunity to play the game, only walk on the white bits. of course, they only had little legs so they had to jump from one band to the next. their little legs couldnt muster enough spring to make it all the way so the latter part of the jump was supported by their mums arms. they were loving it and the mum wasn`t but i laughed.
work is looking very healthy as i come toward the end of the year. i do have one superb trick up my sleeve that will make you all drool with envy but i really have to keep that up my sleeve for now, needless to say, if i pull it off, you will hear my sister from anywhere in the uk saying those famous, many times uttered words –
wayne can fall in shit and get up smelling of roses!
so on that note
i think it is time to leave but not befor eyou all do me one small favour. on 1st december at 11am GMT, could you all shout for me – `mason – you`re a cock`i wonder if we will here it over here?
is my spanish really so bad?
tonight i walked into one of my many local bars and asked for a guinness. of course, i spoke spanish with my best accent. When the girl asked me if i wanted something else, i must have looked really confused because she then asked in english if i wanted peanuts. ah.
turns out she is from sweden and a little scary if i say so myself. ok , there is a very fine line between friendly and scary and she was teetering right on the edge. not that she was visually scary but i always get a little worried when a perfect stranger is over friendly to me, i always seem to attract the nutters.
so anyway, we conversed for some time until i had to contemplate leaving or ordering another pint. By this time, we had established that she had a boyfriend (from dublin as it happens) so i figured i was safe to stay on a while and sink another pint of the black stuff. we talked about sweden and of course england, london and manchester to be specific. why does everyone want to go to london? beyond me, i worked there for long enough and know its true colours.
And another blindingly obvious question emerges. here in mallorca, when people find out i live in portugal, why do they always ask if i speak portuguese???? every time without fail. óh, you live in portugal, do you speak portuguese?´i guess it would be kinda hard not to after being there for two years.
so eventually i got to learn that her boyfriend hassles her for not dressing like a girl girl. she looked like a girl to me, infact cute i would say without hesitation. i tried to explain that the latin spirit means that women always look elegant and faultless and maybe this wasnt the place for her to be looking ´different´. it was good to hear her say that she told her boyfriend that if he didnt like the way she dressed then he should find another girl. of course, he is still with her.
anyway – enough of that crap, after two pints of guinness, i was a little pissed !
last night i had an awesome dream. I was back at leaseplan in sunny slough. for some reason , i was just visiting to see my old friends when i ended up in a ´team meeting´headed by all of the old dial contracts crew. the management team were trying to quell the unrest in the troops when i started laughing. One of the dial crew spotted me sitting on the floor laughing and pointed to me saying that i had something to add.
as i started to speak, a young fella by the name of christian started shouting at one of his colleagues. i put my hand on his shoulder and asked him to be quiet. again he started shouting and again i put my hand on his shoulder and asked him to be quiet so that i could speak. again, he started shouting , at which point i landed my hand on his shoulder and told him to shut up. finally , i had the rooms attention and i was about to start telling the ´management´team where they were going wrong with how they were talking to people and being evasive, secretive and being out and out liars when all of a sudden, my bloody alarm clock rang to wake me up.
shit i hate it when that happens, i was just about to share my expertise with them all when it went belly up.
now add to that, me waking up with what i thought was a splinter in my little finger. turns out it was a short and fat thorn that was hurting something similar to a paper cut at the edge of my fingernail and you begin to see my confusion…….i hadnt been garden hopping or knicker pinching so where did it come from?
And i hadn´t even been eating cheese!!
but you think that is wierd? well, some dude landed on my site yesterday after searching for ´jo whiley naked´.OK , if you dont know who jo whiley is, you are probably flashing your bus pass at the driver as you board the bus, but let me tell you, she is the goddess of all that is radio. i have no doubt that she has far too much class to pose naked. anyway, seems he picked up on an old blog about jo whiley saving my life, crossed over with the new name of my page, ´the naked surfer´. and you know what? he never even looked at my photos – perverted tosser!
anyway, you have just read a passage that was written under the influence of two pints of guinness. i told you i was a crap drinker.
come back soon
loving life
its hard to explain but i just love palma. OK, so it´s a city and i am no city fan thats for sure but this place is just different.
Imagine this, i leave the house at 8am, more or less. i walk into and through palma and stop at one of many cafes for a sandwich, a coffee and to read my book. At 8am, they are rammed too, full up. I usually go to whichever has the best looking chicks, i always find that the best way to start the day is with something good looking on the other side of the counter.
i can sit and read for around 40 minutes before i need to leave again and finish my walk. just think, taking an hour to get to work when i can do it in 20 minutes if i go direct, so leisurely.
Then, there is the whole scooter culture here. OK i guess that is something to do with the weather but it is so good to see mums taking their kids to school on the footplate of a scooter rather than in the 4×4 whose total annual off roading comes to nothing more than bumping up the kirb on the school run
then there are the streets. meticulously cleaned every day by a whole army of workers, from dawn until dusk. one downside is that dog owners let their dogs shit everywhere and never pick it up. my next photo shoot will be of the dog poos of palma, look out for that one.
Of course there is also a small bet with mason that i have to fulfil. mason bet me 100 bucks that i wouldnt rollerblade along the front in palma wearing only a leopard skin thong! what a fool he is. of course i will do it, the bet will pay for my rollerblades, something i was too tight to buy last year. I even thought about a slogan on my back, something like
CATCH THE PIDGEON
there will of course be photos in due course.
so this weekend i have a full weekend of work planned. fitting a kitchen with mason tomorrow ( he is still a complete cock) and then on sunday, head gasket on a shite old citroen AX. life is fun in mallorca.
I have been retained by nariida for another two weeks which will keep the pennies rolling in unless i hit the jackpot on tonights lottery. in which case , i wont be doing much more in the way of work – ever! i did have a funny feeling in the pit of my stomache when i bought the ticket, and no, it wasnt wind. maybe my luck is about to change?
so tomorrow, mor ework. i am so tired at the moment. there are 34 steps to deck level of nariida and this morning in the first hour i counted 5 times that i went up and down. my legs ache like a marathon runner.
until sunday
is life like a good book?
imagine,
you pick up a book and start to read. at the beginning of the book, you have no idea what is in front of you nor do you know anything about the characters in the book but you feel compelled to keep reading. something has grabbed your interest, your attention. you plod on into the unknown.
about a quarter of the way through the book, scenes have been set and you start to become slighty aware of where the story might lead, but you cannot be sure what lies ahead, what twists and turns will spoil the theories that you have built based on how you interpreted the text.
at half way, the theories and expectations you had have already been changed by the author and his writing skills. what you thought you might read has now been re-written in your mind. you are completely in the power of someone else, that someone else is leading you into the latter half of the book at their will. they will play with your mind and torture you so that you cannot stop reading (unless you are reading the davinci code of course)
at two thirds distance, the book has you gripped, you just can´t stop reading, you want to keep reading at every moment, the story has you completely engrossed but you still dont have the answers. you want this section to last for ever, it`s fast and punchy and has your feet twitching but you still want to know the ending and have its answers, confusing eh? but this is the section in the book where you are becoming almost fully aware of what is happening. you think about all of the possibilities of the book while you are not reading it until
it builds to a close. the life that raced in the last third is exhausted and dries up to an almost tiresome pace. the book is finally giving up its secrets, the solutions that you eagerly sought at the beginning of the last third are coming to you now bu tyou lack the enthusiasm now that you have the knowledge that you so eagerly desired.
then the epilogue – death itself, the end of the book, the last few pages, boring as hell and you just want to finish it, to get that final chapter complete so that you can say you read it. – then its all over!
integrity
so, on friday morning at 11am, i got paid. completely unprompted, it took me by surprise. ok , not quite as much as last season but a 20€ drop per day isnt gonna kill me, especially if i am working one hour less per day. I have at least one more week of work on nariida too. maybe , as i impress them with my skills and knowledge they might keep me on longer.
so my original job was discarded. I was offered around 600€ a month less than last time, the reason being that having a contract means the employer paying your tax and insurance, only this time it wasnt going to be quite like that. mike had told me that i had to earn him at least 600€ a month before he would start paying me. that means effectively working one week out of four for free. would also mean i would save around 3.5k less during my stay here, and of course, i would have been begging to be paid each time, on time and in full. Think about that for a minute, would you take a job that was paying 7k a year less than it paid you six months earlier? if you answer yes to that one, you are a twat
I did find another private yacht that is also looking for an engineer. they will be heading off to the pacific early next year and i would really like to go. would be a minimum 12 month stretch but i guess that a year would fly by, especially when i am new to the boat and we are cruising the pacific islands in style. The lazarette is huge too so maybe it could hold a couple of surf boards!
a boat that size has gotta be paying 40-50k a year too, and tax free at that. luckily for me, mason used to live with the skipper and is spreading the good word for me. I pass the boat each morning so will keep pushing the skipper.
Russ text me earlier to say that`portugal was gorgeously hot. 28 degrees and swimmers in the ocean at mareta.
Last night , i headed to masons for a BBQ. after we ate, we watched the comedian called Jethro. for those of you that have never seen him, i would put him in the same league as Tommy Cooper. Even if his gags arent funny, his delivery alone will have you peeing in your pants. At the end of the stage show, he sang a song he had written about cornwall. As he sang ´where the red rocks meet the white water´ i was reminded of all of the places i used to go in cornwall. for the first time in over two years, i had serious pangs to be back in england, not in the midlands, but i was seriously missing cornwall. All the places he sang about that i knew, had great memories of 5 years ago or more. That was a little wierd for me. since leaving england, i havent really missed it. returning when i do, for anything more than 2 days drives me insane, but cornwall, is definately the english equivalent of sagres, such a laid back way – shame the water isnt warmer.
Anyway, last night i was so shattered that i just wanted to curl up in my bed and stay there all day but sadly, i woke at 8.30 this morning with no hope of sleeping more. I headed out to paddys farm , i havent seen him in months. he is doing well too, a new website in the pipeline that appears to be a very solid business venture. I am sure it will work.
so for the rest of the day i will wander around the coffee shops and read my book before heading to sleep the evening away once more. work starts at 9am which is perfect, i get to head to a coffee shop or two on the way to work, a perfectly gentle way to start the day.
finally , i leave you with a picture at the bottom of the page, click to enlarge it. this is, what i would call filthy rich. OK the yacht isnt massive, but stick a helicopter on the back and you are talking seriously minted!
Scores some work
ok
so it isnt paying as much as last year, but it is paying more than this years offer. I scored some work on what has to be the best sail boat in the yard, Nariida. Hopefully it will lead to more, she is a beauty. there are some photos to the right, take a look.
so tomorrow, 9am…..BYP
job hunting
well here´s a tale to tell.
this morning i decided that i wouldnt work as planned and left the job i came for. instead, i hope to find more work elsewhere and hopefully with much more money too.
this morning i walked the front at palma and stopped on all the big boats where people were, asking if they need an engineer. so far, no joy although i did dish out a few cards to those that asked.
Thos afternoon i have an interview with a local engineering company and if that doesnt come off, i have another interview on wednesday with a german dude, so i fugure at least one of them would come good.
One boat i stopped at was looking for a third engineer ( a bloody big boat to need three) but as i have no marine tickets, they couldnt take me on. they did have other work next week if i wanted it so i am sure by the end of this week i will again be in full flow.
for now, just weekend and evening work with mason the cock. he decided to record his own ringtone , it goes something like this
COCK – cock cock cock.
one long burst and then 3 short ones. kinda funny when his phone rings, makes you want to call him even if you are sitting next to him.
Oh well, i guess it is time for dinner now, half twelve and i am hungry, have an interview at 2 so wish me luck
horny mallorcans
no, not what you think!
In my time away i had forgotten how quickly they get on their horns when traffic comes to a standstill or a light changes from red to green.
tonight i saw a woman nearly reverse into a guy on a moped behind her. of course, it was his horn that saved him but then he pulled along side and had a few words with her. I dont suppose they were nice words either.
the only thing that saved her was another car in the queue that had built up. he got on his horn immediately and wouldnt let go until the guy moved off.
there´s latin spirit in everyone !!!
the winter fun begins
so yesterday lunchtime i arrived at mikes new workshop where i found mason and ryan ´hard´at work.
Mason decided to show me one of his new tricks, sitting on his belt sander and racing across the workshop floor, even managed to pop a wheelie too – he tells me that he gets more drive when he is on the back wheel. anyway, i added a few shots of his new tricks but always makes me wonder why, within one hour of my arrival, mason starts messing around.
on a lighter note, the ferry company didnt deliver all they promised. as you can see from the picture of my ticket below, i was entitled to one blow job during my voyage but it never materialised. Maybe i will get two on my return leg. click on the photo below to enlarge.
The November Archives 