I’m gonna be on stage, baby,
I’m gonna squint in those bright lights,
I’ll do what I do, ‘cause I know
What you do, when it’s dark outside,
On a weekday night, I’m in front
Of an audience, beating my crank,
Letting the audience see
How I yank, I make your lap sing
With artful ministrations, you make
My tip shoot warm and wet libations,
Thanks for coming out, tell your
Friends, drive safe and goodnight.

Klappentext:

Die burschikose Micki ist bis über beide Ohren in den Teamchef der Renegades verschossen. Kaum ist der lebenslustige und charmante Damian in der Nähe, kann sie keinen klaren Gedanken mehr fassen. Allerdings scheint der Baseball-Profi sie bisher noch nicht einmal wahrgenommen zu haben. Also nimmt sie all ihren Mut zusammen und beschließt, den stadtbekannten Casanova zu verführen – mit turbulenten Folgen für ihr Herz.

Erste Meinung:

Der zweite Teil der Hot-Zone-Reihe von Carly Phillips finde ich bisher großartig, er ist witzig und es einfach zu lesen. Ein richtig gutes Buch für zwischendurch. Vor allem Yank und sein Verhältnis zu Lola und seinen drei Nichten finde ich sehr lustig beschrieben.

Erster Satz: “Als Yank Morgan zwei Jahre zuvor seine Schwester und seinen Schwager bei einem Flugzeugunglück in den Anden verloren hatte, war er über Nacht zum Ersatzvater ihrer Kinder geworden.”

OBITUARY: Don Lane. Entertainer. Born New York City, November 13, 1933. Died Sydney, October 22, age 75…. From The Australian. Full story

This site may contain information about: cities city. The blog is also related to: city populations.

Has anyone noticed the jolly American tube conductor at Waterloo?

Twice now I’ve been waiting for my Northbound Jubilee line when he has been on shift. He merrily sings out, ‘all of you work hard and be well and have a lovely, jubely day’. I reckon this results in 50% of commuters cracking a smile. One in two is pretty good for a London commuter.

Waterloo yank, whoever you are, you make my day. Keep up the good work

“U.S. vs Us”

“Hello old boy” he said to the chap
Wearing the baseball cap.
“Well howdy” replied the yank
Disembarking from his armoured tank.

“Fancy a pint?” asked the dapper gent
Seller of oil from far off Brent.
“I’d rather a lager” opined the man
As between his ass-cheeks he crushed a beer-can.

“Shall we do lunch?” the wag then said
Considering his guest to be white-bred.
“A fine steak and fries” was his reply
“And lots of BBQ sauce, don’t be shy!”

“Are you an educated man” the Brit enquired
To the Yank who was looking quite tired.
“Only in matters of propane and death,
And finding a cure for your awful British breath!”

“Well really!” our chap stood up and left
Saville Row bound for a suit with new weft.
The Yank sat in silence considering and
Jumped back in his tank, Middle-East bound!

[Recipe at the end of this post - by request.]

They’re here.

The rest of the band showed up to spend the night at the B&B. My original arrangement was to be gone by Monday (because of the band’s arrival) but I agreed to share my room. I ended up with Thunk, the bass player. He’s a hulking bear of an Australian stereotype. And he brought along his asshole dog, Tipper. Tipper is a smallish, half dingo, half Chihuahua. (OK, try to imagine that moment of intimacy if you can.)

Thunk is pretty quiet. I’m not sure if he doesn’t care for me because I’m a Yank, or if the fact that the dog yaps at me continuously makes any other conversation moot. Here’s Tipper, the dingo-rodent mix:

Taken in the micro-second pause between yips.

I’ve made up nick-names for the other band members, Weasel, who plays guitar and maybe sings, and Gayboy, who plays drums and other oddments.

Tomorrow, they are all going back to London to pick up gear and a covered lorry (what we in the States call a box truck) to haul their stuff around. I guess it all has to clear customs.

They don’t actually play anywhere until this coming weekend, but Clare tells me they will be setting up in an empty garage-barn in Odstock to practice up a bit. I have the pleasure of taking care of Tipper while the band collects their gear and meets with their agent. With any luck, I’ll get the little jerk to run out in the road and get a quick ticket to heaven.

Molly’s recipe for Devil’s arse coffee:

First, you make coffee syrup. Coffee syrup, if you haven’t heard of it, is the stuff they use in Rhode Island to make coffee milk. Basically, it’s a concentrated coffee and sugar mixture. Here’s how she makes it -

In a percolator, make a pot of triple strong coffee. This is done with any freshly ground french roast beans. You make one normal pot and then use the same liquid twice more, replacing with new coffee grounds each time. If that isn’t clear, it works like this: Make a pot of coffee. Replace the grounds with new grounds, but keep the coffee you just made in place. Percolate that. Do it once more, for a total of three times.

Next, however much liquid you now have, add half that volume of sugar. So, for 6 cups of the super-strong coffee, you’d add 3 cups of sugar. This is the syrup. You can use this in cream to make a latte sort of drink or as a topping on ice cream. To use it for Devil’s arse coffee -

Make a pot of coffee with the best, freshly ground, 100% Colombian beans you can get. This doesn’t have to be really strong; you are shooting for flavor here. Now, when you serve your coffee, add about 1/4 of the volume of the syrup to each cup. Molly says this is just a ‘by eye’ sort of thing.

That’s it. Devil’s arse coffee.

CLOUDS DO NOT ONLY BEAUTIFIES OUR SKY but also our speech.

There are several “cloud idioms” that we can use to our talk that may make it more pleasing.

Here’s a roll of clouds:

in the clouds; with one’s head in the clouds – out of touch with reality; daydreaming

on cloud nine (or seven) – extremely happy

under a cloud - under suspicion or discredited

i.e.

I believe that they will all agree that the current bill is in the clouds.

You may want to yank back to the earth those in the congress because they have been in the clouds for quite some time now.

Edward was on cloud seven when Avril became her girlfriend last May 26.

The manager is under a cloud on the money laundering issue in the company but those in the executive committee do not want to hear about it.  And that makes the staff believe that something fishy is going on.

just because this place flies the american flag, it doesn’t mean all people here speak english. we have a sizeable spanish population, some arabic, jewish, greek, other european, and a handful of asians. local people call themselves crucians and speak their own bastardization of the english language — crucian.

take note that even though you and your families’ taxes are ALL paying for our abused welfare, bloated government spending, and just about anything, people from the states are not quickly and easily taken into the community as one of us. we are crucians, and you are a continental, talking yank shit.

learn it so you can be one of the locals and joke your way out of tourist prices. it pays to learn more about the language.

examples are:

maaahnin – good morning
barna – ass
kyar – car
gyul – girl
yankin’ – crucian talking like a continental

(From Chapter 7, “Kosher Hooks” by S.I. Fishgal, http://stores.lulu.com/fishgal)

…Roma’s radio skills failed to subdue the jamming of The Voice of America. Maybe, in Munich where the Voice came from, it was the voice, but the jamming generator on the nearby hilltop converted The Voice of America to The Noise of Kiev. Besides, the Rednecks (probably from Texas) stubbornly used 13-, 16- and 19-meter waves, while the Soviet radio sets started from twenty-five. Luckily, the Yanks changed the frequencies within the ranges, and Roma had a few minutes while the jamming generators tuned in.
“Don’t cry,” a militiaman comforted a small boy that lost his parents in an exhibition. “We’ll broadcast for your parents to get you.”
“If you want them to listen, do it on BBC (British Broadcasting Corp.).”
Roma did not know how those anecdotal personages did that. Bloody imperialists could save a buck or two by diverting some petty cash from the nuclear bombs to the radio, was Roma’s juvenile thought.
…”Satellite TV threatens totalitarian regimes everywhere,” said Rupert Murdoch, an international media magnate. Was that the reason that in 2002, the Canadian Supreme Court outlawed all foreign satellite TV providers, in favor of local ones? Seventy percent of Toronto population was born outside Canada and subscribed American, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Greek, and the devil knows what other programs.

(From Chapter 21, “Piddler on the Hoof” by S.I. Fishgal, http://stores.lulu.com/fishgal)

In April of 1945, impatient Czechs rose in arms against German SS troops in Prague and desperately asked for help from a certain S.K. Bunyachenko – a commanding general of pro-Nazi Russian Liberation Army – twenty thousand ex-prisoners of war. They defeated the SS on May 7 but left the city presumably to the Yank defenders of democracy. However, just before his death, their wheelchair driver had sold the country to the mustached liberator. The Red Army peacefully entered Prague on May 9 and marked that day as the end of the war.
The democratic Yanks were the devotees of Stalin’s totalitarian regime. They extradited Prague’s ex-Russian true liberators to him. He promised not to shoot his subjects; he kept his word and hanged them. Next time, nobody will deprive the Red Army of the Prague liberators’ laurels.

Sometimes the best way to fix something is with a good smack. Or in the case of the Hubble Space Telescope, a yank. While attempting to remove a rail from the telescope, Dr. Michael Massimo ran into trouble with a stripped bolt. Unable to get it off, even after using a sharper bit, was presented with the option of either rocking it back and forth to fatigue the bolts, or just yanking it off. Shortly after they were out of TV range, his voice came over the radio, “it’s off.” From the NYTimes:

Adam Riess, a heavy Hubble user at the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University who was watching on NASA TV, wrote in an e-mail message: “We always joke that they wait until they are out of TV view to use the hammers and crowbars.” He added, “I guess they really do!”

The astronauts struggled to get back to their script, and they finally completed the repair about two hours behind schedule. Informed that the spectrograph had passed an initial “aliveness test,” whoops and cheers could be heard from the Atlantis crew.

After a Yank, ‘Surgery’ on Hubble Optics [NYTimes]

(From Chapter 16, “Piddler on the Hoof” by S.I. Fishgal, http://stores.lulu.com/fishgal)

In 1988, Mr. Roman Karpfengal worked at a British chemical company in Toronto, founded by a certain Nobel – yes, the same gentleman! Roma and his Canadian boss had a business trip to Belgium.
“Let’s do some tourism,” the latter said and drove Roma somewhere in a rented car. They passed many German buses, and Roma asked:
“Is that some tourist trap?”
“More than that.”
“Let’s not get killed in the Fascist’s traffic. We won’t have a chance to take them with us to the grave.”
“Don’t offend the Germans,” the boss ordered.
“I certainly do not. Twice in one generation, those nuts themselves destroyed their own country.”
“I’ve been in Canada for years, married a Canadian, have two children with her, but I still find more in common with Europeans, than with my neighbors in a Toronto suburb,” the boss confessed.
Roma swallowed his blade (as his used-to-be wife considered his modest tongue when it did not lick her body parts). In the west, he stopped arguing with bosses, idiots, armed bandits, and the drivers at the steering wheel. So he did with war veterans – his boss was one in the (British) Royal Air Force during the war.
Soon, the Nazi military regalia on a thick brick wall fence flabbergasted Roma – a German war cemetery in Belgium!
The uniform white stone crosses stood in strict geometrical uniformity. Even American blacks saw fewer crosses during the Ku-Klux-Klan years. Probably only Arabs encountered as many crusaders’ crosses once. The enormous size of that very impressive but not somber place gave Roma great satisfaction. The crosses were not what Herr Hitler expected:
“Either a Christian or a German. One can’t be the sum of both at the same time.”
Roma walked row after row. Nameless sites were marked “Ein gute Deutsche Soldat.” The dead were boys of the same age, who experienced no love, left no children, and were killed in 1942-1943 on the Russian front, in whatever way Yanks inflate the D-day.
“Was that loot in Russia worth to rot beneath a cross here?” Roma said. “Germans got plenty at home in comparison with us, could enjoy, and live it up.”
“They wanted more,” the boss reasoned.
“And brought their own and our mishaps – the total blitz putz.”
“They died for something else too.”
“Was really I – a small Jew-fry – one of those for whose sake they went so far there and then back here? Only because they have their crosses and Jews have their stars?”
“Every faith amuses and deceives peoples in its own way.”
“Now I can tell them everything they did was in vain. Even their death was a lesson for not as long as hoped. Perhaps, all of us could live happily…”
“In a beer hall,” the boss finished Roma’s phrase. “Let’s drink to the Almighty to save our lives from our lifesavers wanting to make us happier.”
“Those philanthropists borrowed or adapted pet theories.”
“I don’t. I’ve got only beer in the car,” the boss comforted Roma. “An ideologist requires oceans of blood, not necessarily his own. I offer you beer.”
They returned to the car.
“Let’s drink in the cemetery,” Roma suggested. “The piddler wants to do it between the dead.”
“You’re primitive.”
“Was a primitive man happier? He was only afraid of animals, maybe of some natural phenomena too. That’s nothing compared with what one expects from a fellow-humanoid in the Miami or Los Angeles jungles.”
They drank beer and walked between the crosses again. Roma could not contain himself:
“I led a primitive life a few times and loved it (and was loved there too!). Nature and animals did not scare me off. Only beasts did. The two-legged ones. Otherwise, I had all the peace of mind and happy existence.”
An hour passed.
“La comedia e finita,” Roma cited “I Pagliacci.” “The comedy is over. Here, in the cemetery. I’ve run out of urine.”
Actually, it was not a comedy, but statistics. As Comrade Stalin said, the death of an individual is a tragedy, but the death of a million is statistics.
“How could you do such an unexpected thing to a Jew who was on the receiving end of those ‘gute Soldaten’?” Roma asked his boss. “To honor our enemies’ war dead is to dishonor our own.”
“After so many years, you could forgive them.”
“The man of the future is one with the longest memory,” Roma cited F. Nietzsche. “I exist and don’t have the right to forgive, only the obligation to not forget. Is there any Allies’ war cemetery in the area to make up for not urinating enough here?”
“A small British one – nothing to look at.”
“Did you want it to be larger than the German one?”
The British cemetery was a tiny plot, and Roma the Jewish Apostate placed pebbles on the gravestones according to the Jewish tradition.
“My shameful step-motherland put her defenders only into common graves,” he said. “No crosses, no Jewish stars, no names, no personalities, no sobbing widows, and children. No respect for the dead, no respect for the alive.”

Mixing the last of Cissis songs. We´ll have an evaluation day on Thursday or Friday on what changes need to be made. Then mastering.

Got inspired and wrote a song yesterday. By the way, did you know that the song with the longest title is ‘I’m a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin’ Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues’ written by Hoagy Carmichael in 1943. He later claimed the song title ended with “Yank” and the rest was a joke.

All hail to the Internet…

I was not supposed to write about visiting the new Yankee Stadium, on my list of things-to-do-before-I-leave-New York City, until AFTER I attended this Sunday’s game. But two days ago, I was invited to stop by tonight to sip cocktails made with Tommy Bahama Rum at Tommy Bahama’s Bar at the new Yankee Stadium then take a private stadium tour. I didn’t let the fact that I already had tickets for an upcoming game and had a Mets’ game that afternoon stop me from saying yes. Complimentary cocktails (I write about cocktail trends and research is a must) and a private tour don’t come along often.

But by this afternoon I was tired and in desperate need of a nap after the Mets’ game and my Empire State Building visit. I figured the sugar from the cocktails would temporarily wake me up. I took the D train to 161st Street and, for the first time, went up the stairs that said “Exit.  No transfer.” I never went to the old Yankee Stadium but for the  past 11 months saw it when I changed trains at 161 Street or when I walked my dog north. Now it was time to go inside the spanking new ballpark that I had watched being built.

While I was dazzled by the Mets’ new Citi Field just hours before, I can’t say the same about the new Yankee Stadium. I found it too sterile and cold with all of the concrete and steel. But I did love Monument Park, where former Yankee greats such as Babe Ruth, Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson, Lou Gehrig and Mickey Mantle are remembered. I love that the Yankees honored Jackie Robinson here since his number 42 is retired throughout baseball. There’s even a plaque to remember those whose lives were lost in 9/11. And there’s a pretty cool shrine that pays homage to Don Larsen’s perfect game, has trophies and other phenomenal memorabilia in it as well. From a historical standpoint, it’s fantastic. But there is no charm like at Citi Field.

I’m sure I’ll have a better take on Yankee Stadium once I go back on Sunday for the game against the (gulp) Los Angeles Angels. (What was wrong with calling them the California Angels???) Maybe the stadium will appear warmer with bodies in it. Still, visiting it with just a handful of people was pretty cool. And it made for a great ending to my trifecta countdown: the Empire State Building, Citi Field and Yankee Stadium all in one day.

Jackie Robinson is one of the many players honored in Monument Park

Yogi Berra

No one wins like the Yankees.

(From Chapter 6, “Kosher Hooks” by S.I. Fishgal, http://stores.lulu.com/fishgal)

   Strangely enough, in spite of the unbearable fact that Roma absorbed the communist propaganda with his mother’s milk, to become a member of the children’s Communist league was not his priority. If, Comrade God forbid, Roma were born in Germany as a pureblooded Aryan, would he become a Nazi? The history does not know.

   Quite possible, others had more luck, but during his Soviet life, citizens, including the Communist party members, totally unsold on the communist ideology, surrounded Roma (and then Comrade R. Karpfengal). He met only one true Red fella, the proud son of a proper Red too.

   “Your father lived not long enough to die as the enemy of the people,” Roma wanted to say, but did not. The person looked as an uncertified idiot.

To get rid of insects, naturalists release sterile male insects. After a few generations, the insect population is down to a handful. Unwittingly, the Communist party bosses did the same to their own party.

   Comrade R. Karpfengal had a Ukrainian subordinate named Pilchuk. He toiled before in a so-called Communist Labor Brigade (a regular team of workers, not necessarily the party members). Yet, a communist brigade without a communist is like a slave without a slave driver. During Pilchuk’s two-month business trip, his brigade-leader got an order to put forward someone to the party membership.

   The poor chap came back and boiled like Titanic’s steam boiler. The personal data standard questionnaire, one might not get a job without, had a key line: have you been a member of the Communist party before? Thus, there was no way out from the life sentence of paying the membership dues (2% yearnings), and for a yearly subscription to a party newspaper or magazine. In return, the member got the privilege to attend the party’s mandatory meetings and weekly lessons on the Communist ideology. Nobody hated the regime so much as he did. Nobody had so much patience to get through Kiev’s jamming generators to the Voice of America, BBC, Deutsche Welle and the like as he had.

   Even a Spanish bull dies for a communist banner (of a red color – for the benefit of those Yanks who guess that the USA is a part of Texas). Papa Abrasha got into the party too. Let him to rest in peace and in one piece. Let the rest to be indebted that they have never had to confront the ordeal he did.

   Actually, the Communist Party joined Abrasha to itself. When the World War II started, as a university graduate, he became a lieutenant. Being not a climber, he was even somber at the night, when his regiment’s commissar called for the officers.

   “Our soldiers look at you,” the political leader’s arduous speech inflamed the fellows-officers. “It isn’t the right time to talk much. The enemy is in a hurry. Just sign these small sheets and go to sleep.”

   A wick in a flattened cartridge case hardly lighted the dugout, and the commissar read the paper himself:

   “APPLICATION

   “Going to the tomorrow battle, I’m ready to die for our motherland and dear, beloved leader Comrade Stalin. In case I’m killed, consider me as a communist.”

   It was a good deal. If Germans orphaned Roma, it would be one official communist fewer.

   “It’s dark. I’ll sign tomorrow,” Abrasha promised.

   “Putz!” the leader diagnosed him. “Tomorrow all of you will die. Who will wipe his arse with these feces?”

Watch this…

“When the Turtles entered my life, they taught me..to be self aware.”

HUH???!!?!?!??!?!!

Well “BULL…SSSSSHIT Mr Hanman, you come right out of a comic book!” Obviously this bird wasnt listening to those gay lizards too closely when they said ‘be self aware’.  Fuck, if she had even the slightest idea of how spasticated she looks, she’d be pulling the trigger before I have time to finish this sentence.

And what was that other pearl of wisdom she knocked out …”never hide behind a wall of who you really are.” But who are you, bitch? I can tell you if you like? You’re some sad pathetic misguided heffer who lives her life through the imaginings of two desperate artists, who themselves were parodying the genre of popular comic books in the first place. “Never hide behind…” Oh shut the fuck up you mentalist. You should hide behind something…..like a reversing lorry or a fighter jets afterburner.  Take a look in the mirror for one second, you fucking ‘tard! This shit isnt real. Don’t you understand? ITS MADE UP…total fiction…not real…fake….get it? Just cos you have a prosthetic head from some shitty kids movie doesn’t mean you are any bit less of the arse wipe you were before you bought it. ‘Hey, Im sorry, didnt recognise you there Leonardo…haha…I thought you were just another fat Yank bint from disturbia till you put your head back on…fancy some pizza, dude?’

And whats the deal with those crazy pizza toppings anyway? ‘Hey here’s one I prepared earlier..its one of my own personal adaptations- the dog shit and wasp deep pan supreme. MMMMmmm delicious. Save me a slice of that, Donatello…follow your heart, man.’

You ever watch a WWII movie?  Well, I grew up on a steady diet of these films so let me tell you how it goes:

German soldiers have parachuted behind American lines and they’re impersonating Yanks.  They’re posing as MP and Grunts, and they’re bent on destroying the Yank march on Berlin.   It’s not that they love the Fuhrer, but those uniforms are so fucking stylish that they just know if Paris has it’s way they’ll be wearing silk jumpers and patent leather mary janes.  You just can’t win a war in capri pants and Jackie O glasses, dahlings!

Anyway…at some point, the Americans get wise to this and suddenly US soldiers are sizing each other up, wondering if this good ole’ boy is really a Kraut bastard.  And so the order of the day is to question any suspicious activity.  Stop me when this sounds familiar….

In almost every movie, some Yank stumbles into a Kraut impersonator and they strike up a conversation.  At some pint, the Kraut does something wrong – maybe he calls the Sergeant “Private” or fondles livestock, maybe he forgets Patton’s name or forgets what a Royal Flush is.   You know, something really slight.  Krauts are like that, they have horrible memories and can’t play poker for schiesse.  Then, invariably, the Yank will offer the Kraut a smoke and ask him a sports-related question.  Something every Yank should know, like “What’s the middle name of the right-handed, third-string first baseman from the 23rd state?” The Kraut doesn’t know and so the Yank blasts him with his Tommy gun.

Of course all of the other Yanks are freaked out, because only the wise grizzled Sergeant knew.  That’s how Sarge has stayed alive so long.  You greenhorns pay attention, Sarge will get you through this…until twenty minutes before the show ends and he dives on a grenade, as we Yanks love to do.   It’s a reflex that comes from epic games of Duck Duck Goose during recess.  Cue the spontaneous eulogy given by the farm boy who is then so enraged that he takes out all of Germany with his canteen and wins a dozen Medals of Honor and is named Emperor of the Universe.

Jeez, I can’t believe you guys don’t know this stuff.

Anyway, here’s my thing: I don’t know ANYTHING about sports.  So when Sarge offers me a smoke and asks me who I think’ll win the World Series when it’s actually Tennis season….

BLAMO! I’m toast.

Have you noticed how the Yanks dominate the expat forums? In the interest of getting and giving help on matters concerning expat life, my wife and I joined an expat forum for our country. It was a busy group with lots of questions and answers being posted daily. Unfortunately when we tried to get involved, we were basically cold-shouldered by the American contingent which had formed cliques with their own indecipherable code.

The only questions which were answered were those put by the US members who all seemed obsessed with finding the latest ‘cool’ places to meet up in. Most of the drivelly conversation consisted of partying and who was seen drunk with whom and there was a self-appointed arbiter of ‘good taste’ who would rubbish anyone whose views differed from hers.

In the end I butted into a conversation and was asked which state I was from. That finished me off. I pointed out that while the Great American Unwashed (and a lot of the ‘Washed’ too) might consider Britain to be a small island off of the coast of Uncle Sam Land where unwanted missiles could be conveniently be located to fend off perceived attacks from the Communist hordes, it was actually an independent monarchy. I wasn’t quite sure why we should be fearing an attack from behind the former Iron Curtain – perhaps these infidels wanted to get their red hands on the apple pie and turkey crops. I also said that I had a degree in advanced flag-burning. That got me drummed off the forum – something which I don’t regret.

What is it with them that they have to invade wherever they go?

Two anecdotes from when I was in my twenties that, perhaps, illustrate my comments.

The first was when I was in Germany. I’d just landed at Frankfurt airport and was desperately trying to find the tube train to the main railway station. Unfortunately there must have been a dozen different tube trains sitting in the underground terminus, none of them displaying where they were going and no platform signs either. An American woman asked me if I knew which train went to the main station – she was going there too. I said I had no idea but would ask a guard. She replied that she would get on ‘this one – it’s bound to be going my way’. Why should she think that the train would go where she wanted to go and ignore the other passengers who ‘must have got it wrong’. I later found out that she headed off in exactly the wrong direction.

The other thing that springs to mind is when I was going to do Voluntary Service in Africa. Our course leader was at great pains to tell us that there were three good ways of ending up in the proverbial missionary’s stewpot. One – get involved with a native lady (AIDS), two – tell the village elders that you don’t approve of women doing all the work and that they should get off of their collective rear ends and help out or, three, associate with members of the Peace Corps. The last of the three being the most dangerous.

I fully expect some xenophobic accusations from this but I stand behind it. My wife is half-American and she agrees with me.

Yeah, but no video games for a whole weekend …is it really worth it?