Brown is my colour

Went on a flying visit to Innsbruk on the back of Alfonse's motorbike - we went to visit a chic post modern artist in a top floor attic apartment - she is called Barbetta and smears hings almost excrement like over canvases walls and installations. Jenny knows her and says she is particularly clued up on clothes and I certainly know what she means. We arrived in her massive loft studio in Brixner Strasse after eating two huge Macdonalds Meals - not happy ones , they are for kids, we had unhappy meals and enjoyed every last drop of it. Barbetta had just finished smearing her last masterpiece and poured us huge Gin and Tonics in oversized medieval tumblers - once the conversation got off smearing and onto fashion I felt better and I asked her straigh if she felt comfortable in her plastic dress with Horse Head hat and she replied " I feel happy in my clothes because they are an integral part of me, when I wake up in the morning I do not think what shall I have for breakfast -I think what can I wear to give me a fulfilled feeling today that will last right through to lunch. Clothes are my nutrition". I sked her what I should wear and she walked slowly around me and studied me carefully and debated with herself in German - then she finally announced that we have another Gin and she would tell me. I lit a Benson and she clucked admiringly - "I do so like a man who still smoked" - "I know now what you should be wearing !" She got out a brown jumper and shirt and brown jeans, a brown Trilby - Brown is your colour its the new beige and so rock and roll . I gulped my drink and stripped down to my stripy undies - "Oh darling, these too must be brown" - and she rummaged for what seemed ages in her chest and found some brown pants. I went down naked and then stumbled leaving my arse in the air momentarily and blamed the Gin. Before long though I was in all nrown gear and I loved it - she was so right - I will never wear another colour ! I love Brown Clothing

Crisis

Crisis - oh yess crisis - oh no its a crisis, oh no its a crisis, hippy crisis, two tone crisis, punk crisis, mod crisis. Jenny the sewer extraordinaire has suggested a suggested a revamp and as you all now I ended up like a happy trippy Charles Manson in Austrian villages and it felt good - until the leiderhausen brigade took the piss and I hit the bottle harder than I normally do , about 2.3 times harder in sheer quantity of units of alcohol and about 4.7 times faster than I normally drink with 3 more Bensons per hour - So i have now got a decision to make in terms of which direction I take fashion wise - because I may as well take up Jenny and her offer to clothe me in any style I like - so I will be thinking hard - hard oh harder than hard - it dont come easy babe - oh no it dont come easy - watch this space - what will I transform myself into here in the beautiful Tyrol where the summer mountains are such a treat and the air smells so sweet. So will it be mod, punk, two tone, indir grunge or EMO, I'm no straight edge but may be I could be filled and planed. Gracious me I feel the need for a decision tomorrow ....

Running on Empty

The world goes round, and I spin on my arse axis - crossing in to the hippy divide you hairy monsters, I'm coming to get ya. That about sums up my dream last night. I woke up in a cold sweat next to Jenny the Indie Clothing magnet and she sang me to sleep with a mournful Handsome Family song about a women who drives her car and kids into a lake. I must fear hippies or do I want to be one - can I take the Ganja ? or will it make me a victim like all the paranoids filling the psychiatric wards ? can I sit in the circle with the peace pipe or can I do it with my trusty bottle of Vodka and 20 Bensons - or roll ups. Talking of which I hear that the UK is going smoke free - well sod that for a lark - I want to be able to light up in a pub, that is where I do my most dedicated smoking, what am I going to do when (and if ) I return to England ?. Austria is nice, green and pleasant land, but I feel out of place with the beads that are round my neck and the peace love and affection vibe that Jenny wants me to adopt. Notice I am now blaming her for all this, but well, it was her fault, she sewed these clothes. I have sat here at the InterBlinking Cafe and downed a tasty red and now I am going to put my feet up and ponder on my hippiedom, am I the guru doing the hippy hippy shake ? or am I Morrisey in Austria dressed as a hippy with no past pop career ? I will allow the neurins to coagulate and swarm to the opinion that will dominate over the next few hours.... optimist or pessimist ? Glass half empty or half full - well, its always fully empty fo me, but there is always another bottle to swig - BYPASS THE GLASS and then you do not have to be categorised !!

Dressing up in Austria

Desperate to be independently clothed and out of these rags I have been wearing for the last few months. Alfonse says that my blue cordueroy trousers are looking grey and tattered - I need a new look - so I have teamed up with Jenny from the Hotel and she is here for rest and recuperation following the break up of her marriage - she runs a little clothes shop in Hampstead and has the kind of knowledge that I need to really get on in this world in a more suave and sophisticatedly indie way - straight edge I be not seeing as I resort to the tequila slammer once too many times especially last night, and a smoker joker midnight toker albeit Bensons and not skunk. So anyway Jenny has a horsey laugh and a nice nature and drags me round the Austrian shops looking for something but gets despairing, all white shirst, stripy jumpers and ties. So she says why not repair tpo her room - nice and join her for a sewing fest. I suggest we buy a couple of bottles of Brandy and invite Alfonse - she says yes, and before I know it we are creating our own indie fashion form the spirit of Corvoisier and Jenny's clothing skilss which are predigious. Soon (3 hours) I have a hippy smock and flared cotton trouses, a headband and a post modern ironic take on the hippy culture. I like - oh yes man I like and I can strut around the small village and wipe the pants off all comers. I will ascend hills feeling at one with nature and with my trusty hip flask drink a toast to Jenny the Queen of indie fashion - she recommends this indie clothing site for a good started list of indie clothing and that should whet your appetite you crazy dressing up hogs.

Away from the rat race for a change

Lying in the grass today on an Austrian Hillside many kilometers away from traffic or noise and life seems barable again and I held my Glass of Vodka and Triple Sec high up to the sun and wished the world a toast of keep on keeping on. I have gone solo today since Alfonse has gone into a local town to buy shoes and I have had enough of humans anyway - so I have been walking quite intrepidly and I have seem a few of these bizarre Nordic Walkers with their ski poles but no skis - better than walking sticks for some I suppose but then again a mighty stout but slightly gnarled and varnished walking stick must win hands down in the Ski stick, walking stick competitions that go on somewhere in this known universe or beyond. So I have actually slept quite a bit, on perfumed meadow grass, and smoked these fine Bensons, drunk champagne and vodka and Triple Sec, and stuck a natural nasal spray up both nostrils to stop congestion and bad breath. I do not want to risk making a young woman's stomach turn when I try to get near if I can help it. and there is no sign of romance. The hotel s full of people on some kind of bloody mission to be fitter than me and fitter than most of the people around the same age and younger than themselves within reason. But sometimes that reason goes right out of the window and I am left to pick up the pieces, like this morning when a jogger bumped into the breakfast trolley sending crissants flying and the odd spec of coffee landed on my new green trousers.

Boiled Eggs

Dipped my feet in blue waters of Lake Vernago and wistfully went the way of the world and crashed myself full tilt into the beautiful waters and gorged my innards on the spike of bliss. Had another fine bottle of German White and smoked a fine reefer with Alfonse - a French tripper over here in Austria syaing at my fine hotel and a FOOT WAGGER !!. If you do not know what that means the let me tell you they STINK!!. Anyways up and sidewaysdown I have travelled the many highways an byways and now I am weary and i could sleep for a thousand years - so I have been very glad to be here in the Tyrol and mixing with he sporty people I find. I remember when me and Alfonse first met - up the hill with flowers. He said to me do you like fire light ? and I gave him a light - he said would I like to be with him in bar for drinking Yes ? I said sure and folled him - we havent looked back and we are now good chums, lashings of strong lager beer and boiled eggs.

Tyrol here I come

Now I have a wad in my pocket and I am strutting around like I own the whole of Austria, strange how things can turn upside down. One minute I am missing the BIG LADY from Wigan nee Bianca Whatserface in a Cairo hotel drinking what I must bloody well admit is a fine drink, Ricard, in copious quantities just to keep my liver tickled, and smoking the fines Benson and Hedges this side of the Antarctic, then the next minute I am rescued by my knight in shining armour and jammy so and so BOB the rich git. Now I can start my swanning around the world all over again and take a straighter course to ultimate happiness, and where better to begin that than the Tyrol in summer. I intend to take up Archery, and will be bringing down the sheep from the mountains, canoeing and canoodling with the busty beauties I intend to befriend around Lake Vernago, enjoy culinary delights (stuff my face) and local specialities of the sensual kind – with some candlelit moments and some with the light off, glacier tours, if still applicable – see this space for my Global Warming Update if I can get energised to think in these terms , hiking in Val Senales, horse riding if my bum can tae the rough treatment – I do not want to end up chaffed, Juval Castle and Reinhold Messner (I’ve read the brochure, they look good , Nordic walking strutting and talking with the Nordic type people who do a lot of this kind of ting man , rafting, rock climbing, summer skiing I am turning as you now realize BOB (are you listening ! or still too drunk to care ! into a man of Austran action. The list of things to do during in the summer in South Tyrol is apparently huge according to Jan at the SparKen Travel in downtown Viennawhen. I have now settled in a cat like way in the the Berghotel Tyrol in Val Senales and after a couple of incidents involving me dropping a fine bottle of scotch on the foyer floor I have managed a bit of shuteye and later intend to do a bit of roving for fun. I’ll be looking for sporty people, nature-lovers and culture enthusiasts in particular. This looks like the best decision I have made for a few weeks. And I cannot wait for the fresh green mountain meadows, imposing mountain tops to invite me to be active in the mountains before I relax and spend hours in good company with the mighty power of the vino and I might even sing !!.

Back Home They'll Be Thinking About Yer

Can You Believe it - I was in Barking last night - I flew back in a Tizz because Bob contacted me in my Cairo stupour Biancaless and moribund and told me he had just won £250,000 on the lottery and would I like to come back for the party of a lifetime and he'd see me right for 5K . I said thanyou very much and got the next flight home - and we partied like it was 1999, Sharon was with the kid and me and Bob went to a restaurant then a pub and then a club and then back to his mates Nigel with the Goofy teeth - I like him, and he is getting 5K also and we started necking into the corvoisier brandy and getting a bit tearful about the womenfolk in or out of our lives and I got Bob to sign the cheque. I'm noe in Austria - Vienna to be precise and I have just had a slap up load of vegetarian nonsense with french wine a slap happy waitress - my smile has been from ear toear and back ! Thing are on an upward spiral into the next plateau of luck and anti futility. So tomorrow, sample some summer fresh air in the mountains - find a mountain lodge and shack up - preferably with a few cases of vino and a country frauline or two.

Rack and Ruin without the big woman

Reality check - Whoaa slow down - Bianca has left me in Cairo on my own - I hadnt realised she had gone for over a day - because I had been enjoing some relaxing Ricard moments in the room for a few hours on Wednesday and lost the narrative for a while. She left a note I read some 23 hours ago now and it stirred a bit of emotion in me for half an hour and I had to settle myself down with a Rum and Coke and 5 Bensons. This is her short note.

Esten Dear

Cannot take the constant drinking, and when you are comatose you always go on about my big butt - cannot effing take it anymore LOSER !

Love
Bianca

Nice - I have go over the big bum lady and I am now just resting

I'll have to get a plane outta here soon - its driving me to rack and ruin

Global Warming Guilt

Feeling incredibly guilty having seen Al Gore's film on Global Warming on an Egyptian pirated DVD and realing I have a carbon footprint the size of a Yeti's because of all my flying and I may personally be implicated for half of Greenland dropping off and switching off the gulf stream and making my home town of Barking UK like northern norway - nil points for me. Bianca does not really understand and has not allowed herself to feel guilty and points out that actually I dont get off my arse much except to find the lighter or open a beer or twist the lid on a new single malt, so how can I be chipping Greenland ? We have the Carbon Footprints of herons she says - we do not fly much and when we do we tend to find a hotel room and then relax with a bottle or two. But what about the manufacturing of all these bottles - ad have we been recycling and does smoking add to the carbon layer ? perhaps I should cut down from 25 a day to 15 and that might help. By the way Cairo is chilling us - we dont do much just pop in and out of the hotel and meander occasionally - we dont have exciting sessions like with Pete coz he has gone home.