Happy birthday to me!!

Tomorrow as some of you may know is my birthday, and this time I’m going to be 22, yay! If you consider yourself my friend, family member, or don’t know me but still read this blog, you need to wish me happy birthday by posting a comment, as most of my friends back home (I do have some, I promise) don’t comment.

Don’t be shy no-one cares what you say, they won’t judge you, I promise. Ha ha
I just want to see how many people actually read this. You can comment without registering, just read a bit further.

Im going to miss Cape Town tomorrow. De kelder... lions head... and all that booze, actually I'm probably safer over here, no hangover on Christmas morning this year.

Free beer gets the better of me

Logic is something I have always had difficulty accepting. It should be fairly simple, but for some reason the things that have the most influence over our lives have absolutely no logic. If a computer malfunctions, and you fix it then the next time it happens you should know what to do, but the exact same problem may require a different method to fix next time (Oliver knows what I’m talking about but for some reason doesn’t get too bothered by it). Another example is that a program may work on one pc and not on another that is identical in every single way. Anyways all I’m saying is that for many years I have suffered through a love-hate relationship with my silicone friend due to its lack of logic, and partly due to my impatience.

This brings me to the point I am trying to make. Last week was the work Christmas party and after drinking as much beer (free) as I could, I still wasn’t near what some would call drunk. Tuesday night however involved more free beer, and this time it didn’t go quite as well as the previous week. I had told myself last week that I would avoid the free beer as it would most likely lead to me doing something ‘not clever’ in front of work colleagues. Because last week went so well I didn’t see why Tuesday would be any different, so after a couple of Kronenberg’s (and not Carlsberg) I was feeling rather light headed, a few more later and my feet developed a mind of their own and seemed to pull my legs in every direction except where I wanted them to go (walking like a drunk). Luckily there were no embarrassing situations, although this is largely due to the fact that most of my office colleagues had gone home, and only those from other offices remained. :)

A comparison:

15/12- lotsa free beer, lotsa food, no drunkenness
21/12- less free beer, lotsa food, much drunkenness

Where’s the logic? If anyone has any answers or wise-ass comments (i.e. Chris & Dayne) please feel free to comment.

The Penny drops

So far my stay in London hasnt been too cold, before coming over I was expecting near blizzard conditions the way every one was carrying on (I may regret these words pretty soon though). Everyone moans about the weather and how cold it is, but to be honest I've only had 2 or 3 cold days over here, but this morning I left the house and the first thing I noticed were the ice caked cars lining the pavement. Its almost as if the frost was smiling at me, saying yes I'm here, a bit late but I'm here, damn it was cold!

The frost was pretty thick, and as tempting as it was to see how long it would take for my finger to stick to the ice, I decided against it. It's so cold that the 10 minute walk to the tube station results in my nose running uncontrollably (this happens every morning without fail to a large number of the population), so as you enter the warmth of the underground, everyone is pulling out these tissues and hankys (uggh). I'm amazed that the whole of London doesnt get sick at the same time, those tubes are like germ incubators.

Bottom line: even though theres frost, its still bearable.

And the beat goes on..

Although this title refers to last nights Xmas party, could anybody please tell me who that song title is by? It used to be played on MTV ads. Oliver and I used to think it was Fetish, but I don’t think it is anymore.

Back to last night, the party started off really well. I wore my £80 shirt (and no I'm not stupid enough to spend that amount of money on a shirt, it was a gift), which looked really good, my good pinstripe suit, forgot to polish my shoes and had to wear cufflinks (which I kept looking at like in the way that a baby is amused with a ballon) for the first time in my life, the damn shirt doesnt have buttons on the sleeve!

I went with two self proclaimed “Glamour Grannies”, and I cant really disagree with them, they looked quite posh, and I had no say in the matter of posing as their ‘toy boy’ for the night. This was however quickly forgotten by them when we got to the party and I disappeared into the vast masses of unfamiliar faces. I managed to find some people I knew quite quickly, one of the advantages of working in the 'post room'.

Upon walking in all I could see were waiters with champagne on their trays, not quite me I was thinking, and after asking around I noticed that one of the HOD’s was holding a Carlsberg ,you can imagine how my face lit up. Without delay the words ‘Where’d that come from?’ jumped out of my mouth, and from that moment on there was always a cold beer in my hand for the rest of night. Kronenberg would have been better, but when the beer is free who can complain?

Now even though yesterdays blog said that I wouldn’t be indulging in the free booze, my hands were to strong to fight off, and I ‘reluctantly’ (please note sarcasm) gave in.
It was a good thing that I didn’t pass the opportunity up as after a good few beers I was still standing, and not near the drunken state that I would normally get into at my ‘braais’ as we so fondly called them.

I think Carlsberg have managed to produce low alcohol or alcohol free beer especially for office Christmas parties. Although there was one man running around with gold ribbon wrapped around himself doing ‘Freddie Mercury live’ impersonations, maybe he was drinking the champagne though.

Halfway through the night, someone pointed out that there were ‘dodgems’ upstairs, now I know them as bumper cars, but who cares when they’re there and grown up office professionals are running around like little kids at a funfair. It was brilliant, I havent been on those things in ages and they were even more fun than I remembered.

Bottom line, food was good, band was ok, beer was brilliant, dodgems were fun, lots of pretty woman to look at, and no drunken/embarrassing moments on my part, so the night was really really fun.

Free Beer = Possible embarrassing situation

Today seems to be a day of blogging and I don’t want to be left out, everyone wrote new posts so here’s mine.

Tonight is the Mercer Christmas party, and there is something I never thought I would hear myself saying (so I’m writing it instead) ‘Free beer is not always a good thing’, now many would disagree and say ‘pace yourself’, but if anyone knows me they would know that the words ‘pace yourself’ don’t feature in my vocabulary and even if they did, it doesn’t take that much too get me drunk. Even though my beer stomach can handle a pint or two more since being in London, it still isn’t capable of handling ‘free beer’.

So after that rather unnecessary passage explaining that I cant handle my drink, I've come up with a solution, avoid the golden nectar altogether! (by tomorrow you will know if that solution worked!)

How to find a bin in London

Finding a bin in London isnt the easiest task as has been pointed out by my friend Chris on many occasions. Lucky for you I have come up with some advice:

When in London and you're looking for a bin, my advice is to
a) walk around for about 3 or 4 hours until you see one, or
b) dont find the need to use one, alternatively
c) drop whatever it is you need to throw away on the floor as street cleaners do their job on a daily basis, and Londoners just keep paying more tax for a service that shouldnt be needed as much

This is as serious as the advice can get as finding a bin inLondon really is a joke. I think bins were removed after the whole 9/11 terrorism attack happened.

They call Wales 'Cymru'

When planning to go away for the weekend I strongly suggest not drinking heavily on the night before you leave, as it generally leads to less sleep than what you may be used to and can lead to a general feeling of fatigue the next day. Playing X-box at 2:00 in the morning with another drunken friend is also not a very clever idea (not that I did these things J

Chris said that we had to get up at 6 AM as his brother wanted to leave early to get more out of the day, so at 6 we were up, showered, dressed and bags packed by 7, but no Nico. At 7:10 Chris phoned his brother and was answered with ‘O Donder! wat is die tyd? Jammer ek sal nou daar wees’ it wasn’t too serious, as Nico lives quite close by we just walked over there.

30 minutes out of London I asked if they were sure we were going in the right direction? About 5 minutes later we pulled over and they realised that we had been travelling on the wrong motorway, luckily it wasn’t too much of a detour. We got there in good time, and it was a nice surprise to see that the hotel we were staying in was about a stones throw away (from someone with a strong arm) from the famous millennium stadium. We were right on the river overlooking the stadium on the other side. The room was nice enough, nothing fancy but more than what we were expecting.

We had just sat down when Nico came and said we they were going to Cardiff Castle, so up we were again. The castle was really cool, filled with a truly interesting history that I will probably never remember.

Cardiff is a lot smaller than one might expect, to put it in a nutshell: public transport is not needed in the city centre. We walked around the whole city and found a market which ended up having an African section with curios exactly the same as what you would find at ‘Green Market Square’, but at ten times the price!

Had a really nice dinner at a Spanish restaurant with sangria and the English version of Spanish food, it wasn’t that bad.

By the time we got back to the room after walking around, eating dinner and watching a movie, we were way too tired to go out again, so the second my head hit the pillow it was lights out, only to be woken up repeatedly by quite possibly the noisest beds in the whole of Wales if not the world.

Before I forget, they speak a different language in Wales, and they call Wales 'Cymru' however I forgot to find out how to pronounce it.

Who needs to be a Millionaire?

I was watching ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’ the other night and one of the contestants said something that reminded me just how much I appreciate my parents and how much they’ve done for my brother and I. He said that if he won enough money he was going to take his family on a safari in South Africa as that was his biggest dream in life. I tried to count the different game reserves and national parks that my parents have taken my brother and I to, but I honestly couldn’t count them, its probably about 5, including the Kruger National Park and the Pilansberg Game Reserve (near Sun City). I’ve seen the big 5, and so many other animals in so many game parks, and I had already done what this guy had dreamed of his whole life, sometimes I forget how lucky I am. The sad part about all of this is that he only won £1000 and it wasn’t enough to take his family to South Africa.

I’m going to Cardiff in Wales this weekend with Chris, Nico (Chris’s Brother) and his girlfriend. Should be good, will write about it next week.

The Merchant of Venice

It was the premiere for the 'Merchant of Venice' at leicester square last night, and I got to see Al Pacino! He’s not as short as everyone makes out to be, he’s pretty average (in height). Seeing the godfather in the flesh is probably one of the coolest things I've seen in London so far.

Unlike some actors, he’s really cool with the public, signing autographs, taking photographs etc. Before Al Pacino arrived, Chris asked me if I had ever heard a couple of hundred people shout ‘al’ before? I didn’t click at first (for some reason i thought he meant the letter 'L' ) but very soon I understood what he meant. Having to listen to 100’s of brits shouting ‘Al, Al, Al, Al’, was driving me mad, I felt quite sorry for the man. Saw a few other celebs but none worth mentioning here.