Johnny Bermuda: Weblog

Ok, ok…. there’s only so much apologising one can do sometimes. Everyone knows what it’s like to start off enthusiastically and then drift off after ages. We’re all adults here (at least most of us are. Unless you’re some random child who’s just reading my blog out of boredom. Heh, you think you’re bored now, just wait till you’ve read all the way to the end!), no need for phony excuses, all I ask is for some understanding and forgiveness.

Well now all that gushing is out of the way, I’ll give you guys a bit of a catch-up on what’s been happening.

I’ll start with May, as that’s where I left off. Of course that’s a while ago now, long enough ago for all the stuff I usually ramble about to have been long forgotten.

I’m pretty sure not much of interest happened in May actually. At the end of April I had (what I considered to be) a fantastic job interview with a pretty good language school. Well… it ended with the guy saying they’d be in touch about contracts bla, bla… and guess what? Nothing. So I emailed him back and got told someone better came along. That was a let down.

Also in May, I ‘bought’ an apartment out here with Looksorn. One of those female impulse buy things I think. It was a pretty nice place, reasonably priced, and in a sortof up-and-coming area of the city. Hasn’t actually been built yet. It’s on the BTS route as well… only that hasn’t been built either. So global catastrophes and political meltdowns withstanding it should be completed in October next year. Where me n her will be then goodness knows.

And finally for May, I went to see Joey Negro just before coming back to the UK, that was really cool actually. First time I’ve got off my arse to see a DJ that I liked in a very long time, and well worth running myself into financial ruin. He played ‘Ride the Rhythm’ near the end of the night which rocked.

Incidentally that was also the night of my ‘leaving do’ at work which was nightmarish by comparison (to anything). I didn’t get a say in what happened, we ended up going to the local Karaoke place in Central (despite me hating karaoke and not being able to sing). It was the girls from work, who I vaguely get on with, and Vincent, my headteacher, who I… don’t. Forty minutes of chewing my way through the toughest steak ever listening to some er… singing (I guess you could call it that) while Vincent engaged me in ‘conversation’, i.e., him complaining about Thailand, Thai people, Thai politics, karaoke, China, Chinese people, Thai music, Thai food, western food cooked by Thai people, teaching, ECC, the girls from work, girls in general, his students, my students, students in general, Bangkok, Australia…. I was so fucking glad to get out of there. To be honest I think it just made going to see Joey Negro afterwards even better.

June was a bit different, since I came back to the UK for the month. The journey back was much better than in December, nobody had the misfortune to die this time round which was very considerate. When I did come back I was a fair bit poorer than the last time too, which was a bugger. Still, can’t complain, it was nice to see England in the summer for the first time in 3 years.

Looksorn came over for the first couple of weeks too, but having done the whole tourist thing the last time she was less bothered about going anywhere this time around, so we spent the time just chilling, she got to see England in the sunshine for about 2 days as well. Met up with Ed and Kate, and spent an incredible amount of time looking at flowers in various places. Well, she enjoyed it which is the most important thing I guess, not to say I didn’t like. We did also make it to Chessington World of Adventures which was a pretty awesome day out, has to be said.

As for me, I was just glad to be back for a bit, take in the surroundings as it were, see my folks again, and of course see my beautiful, gorgeous turntables. Spending time away from them is having a pretty negative effect as you’d guess. I can still beatmatch, but stringing a couple of tunes together is painful. I’ve made the decision the future will have to be digital, it’s the only way, but money for CDJ’s or even an MP3 mixing programme for the laptop is scarce now more than ever before. Fucking hate money. Its a pissing shitting cunt of a bitch. Sorry. Just how I feel right now.

After Looksorn went home, I spent the time doing incredibly little for the first time in a very long time. I admit I was appalling at staying in touch with just about anyone and I’m really sorry for that. If I’m honest though, I really needed that downtime. Arguably I didn’t need to get hooked on Oblivion quite as much as I did…. but that’s neither here nor there.

And then of course there was Manchester. Having finally gotten back in contact with the rest of humanity, Tom even managed to quite impressively organise a weekend up in Manc with the er ‘nacent’ Team Handsome - Tommy, Johnny, Bobby and Teddy (honestly. Could it sound any gayer? lol) Obligatory drinking, partying, deep reaching existential discussions and so forth were the order of the day, and much fun was had by all in boho Chorlton. Even a random phone call from Mike, fancy that… (though I don’t think he was aware of our presence). something along the lines of fights with bouncers and being arrested for possession… some people never change eh? Anyway, good weekend and great to see everyone again.

After all that nonsense it was time to head back to Thailand. My transition back to the Kingdom was not a smooth one. 2 days prior some smart bastard decided that it was clearly the will of Allah to set a car on fire and drive into Glasgow airport. As if Allah doesn’t have bigger things to worry about… But to cut a long ramble medium-length, this royally screwed things for me trying to use an airport to get somewhere. Plans were then made to get to Gatwick via the train. That was cool, you can do that from St.Albans, not too far away. It seemed the obvious answer.

Although after getting to St.Albans station, no train showed up. 3 minutes after it was supposed to get there, apparently it was announced it wasn’t coming. For a developed nation, the UK’s rail services sure are on the ball aren’t they? So instead I had to get the next train into London. Having got that far I needed to get to London Victoria. I dragged all my bags towards the exit, used all my English teaching skills to explain yes, I know it says Gatwick on my ticket, and I know this isn’t Gatwick airport, but I’m actually trying to get there. I then got guided to a shuttle bus outside the station, only to be told I needed to take the underground. So I hauled everything down to the underground, got on the train, only for it to stop after about 2 minutes because someone on the next train was sick and had pressed the emergency stop button.

Now in any other country in the world, what would have happened next is said next train would have got to the nearest station asap, offloaded sick passenger and the whole system would have been up and running as fast as possible. Of course being Britain, the emergency stop had to be confirmed by the driver, relayed to central control, the whole line shut down while the problem was verified, then the passenger got taken to the nearest station, very carefully and slowly taken off, and then the whole of the Victoria line had to be shut down again for a further 15 minutes. Britain, Britain, Britain, don’t do anything quickly, especially if it’s an emergency, or people might think you were rushing, and then goodness only knows! Think of what might happen! Think of all the undue worrying that might be incurred!

Fair to say I was pissed off. I had to drag all my stuff off the train, mission across to the other line, and change 2 more times before I finally made it to Victoria station, where nobody was around to help me, and no timetables gave any indication of when the next train was. If it was Thailand I would have been swamped by people giving me information. Finally found the train, and despite being terrified of missing the flight I didn’t, everything went smoothly and I was back in Thailand after a fairly breezy 18 hours.

Right, times up, I’m hungry, and I’m off to get some dinner. I’ll do July and August tomorrow. Honest. Tomorrow, I mean it this time.

Mat