Author: Scott Andrews

Do You Like Goats Butts?

I am now on the train heading back to Warsaw feeling sick as a dog.  It is something of a normal feeling on this leg of the journey.  The idea of another bohemian evening makes me want to weep like a little girl.

Goats Butts

Poznan has changed in my absence.  Nowadays it somewhat resembles a building site as it gears up to be one of the host cities next summer.  Still we were delighted have lunch in a little place called Canapca, which is very much like a funky inner city version of Subway except that in Canapca the food is actually edible.  And honestly yesterday I ate a Kur-chuck Norris which is almost certainly the coolest lunch any man can possibly eat.(Kurczak pronounced Kur-chack is the Polish word for chicken.)

We were pleased to note that our favourite restaurant in Poznan is still open.  It’s a small Jewish restaurant called Cymes.  It is a wonderful window into a culture which used to be part of the fabric of Poland, aswell as a treat for the stomach.

The fact is that many bars and restaurants have changed, now its noticeable that a trend is emerging.  A few years ago sushi bars were multiplying like bunny rabbits on Viagra.  Now it seems that Poland has found its own niche.  And that style is what can only be described as a mongrel which embraces both a passion for inebriation and for chasers of the gastronomic variety.  I have christened it Fast-vodka.  Literally bars where people can walk in for a shot of vodka and some pickled herring.  It’s almost a tapas bar for an alcoholic, in other words its simply fucking awesome.

Meskalina was as Meskalina always is.  Full of people having fun.  Benek in the style of any great leader, led the festivities from the front.  He never ceases to amaze me.  As he downed shots and danced the night away on his bar I felt as if I was in the presence of a rock and roll god.  In the meantime Frank Turner and the sleeping souls conducted the party with great aplomb.  The enthusiasm and the energy had everyone in the room singing and dancing and completely succeeded in transforming every person in the audience to one living bouncing singing organism.  And breaking my body in the process.

And I am still picking up the pieces.  Round two starts later this evening, and I for one can’t wait.

Doing The Poznan

I am currently speeding through the countryside on an intercity train(incredibly with a digital air conditioning console and plug sockets)on my way to visit Poznan for the fourth time in my life.  For the first time in seven years travelling from Warsaw has been a stress and stench free experience.  It’s almost like Poland is starting to show the early signs of joining the 21st century.

The reason for my trip is a Frank Turner gig in Meskalina, home of the legendary Benek and the near certainty of a night of epic happiness and severe liver poisoning.  And then the party will move to Warsaw where we will do the exact same thing again.

As a hedonist who firmly believes that the liver is truly evil and that it must be punished at every opportunity, I can honestly say that Poznan is something of a spiritual holiday home.

The most notable fact is that in Warsaw people live to work, whereas in Poznan people work to live.  If I was to compare it to a British city I would probably say Manchester as amongst other things it comes alive at night and has a pretty decent football team.  If I was to compare the people to a nationality I would say Irish.  Laid back is something of an understatement.

Doing the Poznan requires more than celebrating a goal during a football match.  It requires celebrating life for no other reason than because it’s happening now.  And that my friends is something to admire.

Letting The Cat Out Of The Oven

We the English speakers of the world have an unprecedented love for playing with our language.  The reasons why are somewhat unclear, yet we delight in in-jokes and perhaps even enjoy confusing visitors from foreign shores.  The most puzzling fact is that in general, we like to promote our respective nations as liberal places of acceptance and kindness yet linguistically we like to make peculiar comments about cats.

What I am referring to are idioms relating to cats, some are borderline cases of promoting animal abuse, others are just bizarre.  What is an indisputable fact is that idioms differ widely in different languages so in many cases when you use an idiom in conversation with someone from a different nation they may not understand, which leaves you with two choices.  Either you explain the right meaning or…

What’s the matter has the cat got your tongue?  Quite possibly the stupidest of all feline related idioms used when the speaker wishes to highlight the other person’s silence.  Now if the cat had actually got my tongue I would, in all honesty, be rolling around on the floor screaming as the cat hisses and rips tiny morsels of flesh from my tongue with its razor-like claws.

Well, that let the cat out of the bag!  In this case, we are highlighting the fact that someone has publicised a secret.  Now I don’t know if any of my readers have ever put a cat in a bag, however, if any of you have, you will have noted that the cat tends to panic, and makes quite a lot of noise.  So much noise that they are almost impossible to keep secret, especially when you are travelling on the number 12 bus to the river in the early afternoon.

There’s not enough room to swing a cat.  Often we use this in a mock-ironic manner.  As in most cases, there is actually enough room to swing a cat.  I can recall trying to explain to a Bulgarian friend that ‘swinging a cat’ is a traditional British room measurement.  Sometimes I wonder if it perhaps took off in Bulgarian real estate.

There are many ways to skin a cat.  Of course referring to the numerous methods of completing a task, not a fact of science.  It’s clearly disputable.  There are many utensils you can use however there surely aren’t a wide variety of methods.  I remember one student asking me ‘But Scott, why would you want to skin a cat?’  The only correct answer was that British shamans have to look at cats entrails and not chickens entrails to see the future.

I doubt this post will put the cat amongst the pigeons, nor should it as that is blatantly cruel, nor should it encourage people to fight like cat and dog, nor should it encourage curiosity, as we all know it was curiosity that killed the cat and not us putting it in a bag, swinging it or skinning it.

I Enable Therefore I Am

Your alcoholic neighbour knocks on your door sobbing.  He says he is broke, that they have cut off his electricity and that if you don’t lend him some money his house if going to be repossessed.  If you give him money there is a good chance he will piss it up the wall.  If you don’t there is a possibility that his world will fall to pieces.

Your junkie cousin comes to see you.  Apparently he had an unexpectedly large telephone bill and now he says doesn’t have enough money to get to work in the morning.  If you could only lend him some money until Friday he promises he will pay you back.  Of course there is an equal chance that he may go out and get wasted, and not show up for work, and inevitably lose his job.  What do you do?  It’s your choice.

Are we as a race in a perpetual state of fucking denial?  Nine out of ten cats don’t and won’t do these things in fear of enabling these social failures from fucking up again.  In the same way we don’t give bombs to terrorists (only money), teaching jobs to pedophiles,  guns to crazy people (aside from the U.S) or knuckle dusters to wife beaters.  Common sense warns you that you have heard it all before.  That you have been let down so many times in the past.

Why is it we are prepared to let the governments of the west give more money to the banks?  The same banks which have created such a shit storm in the process.  Why is it we are prepared to allow our Politicians to give more powers to the E.U.? The same administrative facility which has overseen this epic-sized fuck up.  Are we blatantly mental?

Where are the stories of the global recession in other parts of the globe?  Where are the stories of unemployed Brazilian foresters?  Or Chinese accordion players?  Or African ice cream manufacturers?  The news lures us into this false sense of security.  The recession has only happened in the U.S and the E.U because of our vastly superior financial apparatus.  So what about the middle-east?  Where are the stories of broke Arabian sheiks having to reduce their harem for 432 to 431 fair bosomed maidens?  Where are the redundancies there?

Sometimes the truth can only be as clear as mud.  We are having an invisible global recession, caused by over reliance on invisible assets, caused by over-investment in fictional currencies, yet we still enable the idiots at the controls to carry on navigating our path to an inevitable meltdown.  It is as if we don’t care, like we are merely along for the ride and we are too fucking lazy to look out the window and take a glance at the iceberg we are heading towards.

My Tram Experience

I am a thirty-one year old immigrant.  I have been abused countless times on public transport.  Never once has the abuse been racial as I am a white man living in a predominantly white country.  It’s been xenophobic(kinda) as I have been abused for being Russian and German.  Once it was anti-semitic despite the fact that I am an atheist.  Its been for speaking English, not speaking polish to my English-speaking partner, for reading a book(in English) and countless times for not giving people money or cigarettes.  What it never has been is intelligent.

As most of you can guess I am indirectly linking my own experiences to the infamous racist British lady most will have already seen on you tube.  Without a doubt the video is horrific viewing.  Not because I am white, or because I am British but because I am human.

Despite the social advancements of the last 100 years racism is still evident in even the most progressive societies.  The fact that we are no closer to being rid of it suggests that it’s either here to stay or that we are clueless on how to deal with it.

The wave of public nausea felt upon the release of the publication of this video is a heartening example of civic action.  Social media is a new tool which people are still learning how to utilise.  However people must be wary how quickly martyrs can be made.

It would foolish to imagine that there are not more people like her.  The fact which troubles me far more than this one woman’s crass stupidity is that from the 6.8 million viewers 66k have been compelled to dislike it and 19k have liked it.  That is a ratio of just under one-third.

It is not an army of one.  Nor is it only a problem of the working classes.  We live in an age where our national football team is led by a man completely devoid of moral fibre.  It is a problem which everyone condemns but few confront.  I sincerely hope that this video may serve to spark the flame of idea which can often result in change.

Tackling a problem often requires first identifying it and then dismantling the root cause.  In my opinion it is not caused by poverty or social background but rather by ignorance.  My suggestion would be to not attack them but to shame them.

Some racists believe that racism is a worthwhile belief.  Using it as a label to attack them with is the linguistic equivalent of beating someone with a feather duster.  It’s much better to berate them for their lack of intellect.

Let’s make them famous for their stupidity, let’s ensure that everywhere they go people know just how oblivious to their retardation they are. Let’s enlist social media, let’s start websites like isyourneighbourracist.com with videos and names.  Let’s make sure that these people know that at every waking moment we are watching.  Let’s do something and let’s not stop until the last one has woken up to the fact that it is stupidity which is the biggest danger to our world and not other human beings.