Oslonians promo-post two: The Prologue

I left my room for the train station two hours before I had originally intended, my reasons twofold: a) it had been snowing heavily the previous night and although it had now stopped train delays were beyond doubt, and b) for the past half hour I had been taking books of my shelf and putting them into my suitcase, taking them out of my suitcase and putting them on the floor – what would be best to take? What do I want to read now, what will be best for journey-reading? Sartre isn’t good for journeys. The front cover of First as Tragedy, Then as Farce has a plane crash diagram on the cover, could be bad luck. I settled on volume 3 of Proust and Barthes’ Mythologies. Probably not wise choices, but I’d already started reading both of them.

I walked down the hill, treading firmly against the smoothly frozen, slippery snow. Across the road, three guys around the same age as me were walking. I saw them, they saw me. We were parallel, then they were behind me. Snow splattered against the wall. I thought about how embarrassing it would have been if it had hit me in the head, but did not think about why they had decided to through a snowball at me, someone they did not know. It is the kind of thing that has often happened to me since I was a child. I don’t know why. I carried on walking.
At one point I was crossing a road and a man on the other side who was carrying two bags of shopping slid and fell onto his back. I ran across the road as a wine bottle fell out of one of the bags and rolled towards me. I collected the things that had fallen out as the man picked himself back up. I handed the bag back to him. Looks like it hurt, I said. Sorry, he said. Looks like it hurt, I repeated. Just a bit, he said. Thanks. I told him that it was no problem, and already felt good about the good deed I had just done. I walked away thinking to myself about a writing teacher saying how when we see someone fall over in the street we laugh because it is not us. When he told us this I thought to myself, I do not laugh when I see people fall over, I want to help them. A minute later I thought to myself how the more appropriate thing might have been to help him up off the floor. I laughed to myself about this, possibly louder than I realised, over the noise of my headphones.
I felt an air of smugness as I arrived at the station: the next train had been delayed; I was right about leaving early. My train arrived soon enough though and it was a quick, quiet trip without much human interaction.

When I arrived at London Victoria I located the Bureau de Change as I still had some cash to be changed to Kroner. Behind the counter was an east-Asian woman. I asked her if she had any Norwegian Kroner. She replied that they did not. I then asked her if there was another one nearby. She said that there was and pointed behind me. I looked behind me to where W.H. Smiths and a Caffe Nero stand were. Opposite W.H. Smiths, she said. I thought to myself, but we’re opposite W.H. Smiths. I said thank you anyway and walked towards W.H. Smiths to see if what she said made sense. As I walked in that direction it became clear that there was another Bureau de Change, obscured slightly by the Caffe Nero. The counter of the second Bureau de Change was on a raised platform. I walked up some steps and asked the man behind the counter whether or not they had any Norwegian Kroner. He told me that they did not. This meant that I would have to wait until I arrived at the airport to get the rest of my cash changed. I went down to the underground station and got the Victoria line northbound to Tottenham Hale. For the first part of the journey, there were two girls sitting opposite me who talked incessantly at a loud volume about being shit at their boring office jobs, not being allowed to go on facebook at work and getting drunk at bus stops in London. The only time they talked quietly to each other, I heard them mention something about glasses.

At Tottenham Hale, I called my girlfriend. She had just arrived at St. Pancras and I explained the route she needed to take to get to Tottenham Hale. It would be a while before she arrived so I walked out of the station and headed over to an industrial park opposite. I walked around an Asda for a while, not looking for anything in particular. In one section they had info-mercials playing on small screens. Many info-mercials were playing at the same time, all with the same voice over guy; it sounded like some horrible, demented stream of consciousness. I watched one info-mercials for something called a Snuggie, which was like a blanket with sleeves. They made a great deal about the fact that it had sleeves which meant you could do things like talk on the phone. I left Asda and went to the drive-thru Burger King across the road. I ordered a veggie-burger meal. It took a while to come because no one buys veggie-burgers from Burger King. There’s a reason for this, but I was willing to take a chance. I sat down and ate about half of the burger before my girlfriend called me. She was now at Tottenham Hale station. I got up to leave but when I got to the exit it was locked. An Asian guy that worked there came over and told me it was locked. He had keys. He tried opening the door but for about a minute it wasn’t opening. I thought it would be funny to be locked inside a Burger King and made a small nervous laugh. Then the door opened and I left. I still had half of my veggie-burger in my hand when I reached something called a Solar Compressor. A Solar Compressor is a kind of bin, which uses Solar Electricity to crush the objects inside the bin. The Solar Compressor had a heavy mouth, which you had to open in order to put your rubbish in. When I closed the lid I managed to get my pinkie caught in it. It hurt. Walking back to the station I kept on thinking the words “I caught my finger in a Solar Compressor.” When I got to the station I saw my girlfriend and went up to her and we hugged. I told her I went to Burger King because I was hungry. She said sorry for disrupting my meal. I told her it wasn’t very nice and I was more thirsty than hungry, which was true. We then went down to the platform where we needed to catch the train to Stansted. I caught my finger in a Solar Compressor, I said. What’s a Solar Compressor? she said. We both laughed. The board said that there was a train due one minute ago. The board then said that the train was cancelled. Then the board said that the train after that was cancelled. I thought this might continue eternally. We waited half an hour until the next train, saying to each other that it would be cancelled any minute. It had been two weeks since I had last seen my girlfriend and we talked a lot. When we boarded the train, most of the double seats were taken. We found two seats facing backwards in a table booth. Opposite us was a middle-aged man wearing a black woolly hat, which I thought was probably covering a baldhead. During the journey I felt self-conscious of his presence as we spoke and I found it difficult to talk properly to my girlfriend without feeling like I was censoring myself. Before he left, I half expected him to lean across and speak his opinion on something we had been talking about. But as he got up to leave he smiled. You’re both very lucky, he said. My girlfriend and I laughed nervously. He turned into the aisle before turning back around to us. Have a merry Christmas, he said. I thanked him and wished him a merry Christmas as well.

We arrived at Stansted just after eleven p.m. We located a Bureau de Change but it was closed. I said that I would never be able to change my money. We then found one that was still open. I asked the woman behind the counter if I could change my money into Norwegian Kroner. She asked how much. £60? I said. We have a deal on at the moment, she said. If you change over £250 then you don’t have to pay commission. £60 is fine, I said. I had already changed £180 into Kroner. After my money was changed we went to look for food. We still had another seven hours before the flight. We went into a spar and my girlfriend started looking through different kinds of food she could and couldn’t eat. We ended up sitting down next to a photobooth, the gigantic head of the passport photo model looming above us. We curled up on the hard surface of the airport floor. I took off my coat and put it over me like a blanket. What would be good is a blanket, I said. But then I would be restricted by not having sleeves. That’s what makes a Snuggie so great! The warmth of a blanket with the freedom of sleeves. And a Snuggie doesn’t fall off when you get up, because it has sleeves! Soon I could hear my girlfriend snoring. I lay next to her, feeling the bone of my hip press awkwardly against the floor. I waited until one a.m. then sat up and started reading.

At about three a.m. I went and got coffee from an all-night Prêt-a-Manger. I asked the woman serving me for a double shot without milk. I saw her put the cup under the espresso drip and then top the cup up with water. I saw her take a metal jug and pour something into it. I walked back to the photobooth, the giant symmetrical head on the side greeting me. I sat back down next to my girlfriend who was still asleep and put my coffee on the other side – it would still be too hot to drink. I started reading again. I took the lid off my coffee. I looked at it. I wasn’t sure if it just had a crema head so I tried some. It had milk in. I got up and walked back to the Prêt-a-Manger. The woman was asking someone else what they wanted and after the customer told them she turned to me, recognising me from before. Er, I asked for no milk, I said. She acted like this was to be expected, perhaps she had realised while she was doing it but couldn’t be bothered to make another one unless I requested it. She didn’t make a fuss about having to make another. The woman next to me who had just ordered also asked the woman if she could have no milk. If you think you are gaining calcium by putting milk in your coffee you are wrong; caffeine absorbs calcium. This coffee tasted like crap anyway. Behind the counter was another member of staff. He was black and vertically challenged. He was wearing a different colour work shirt, which I thought indicated a higher rank. He was talking loudly on his phone and it was clear it was a personal call. As my coffee was being remade the woman kept on looking over at her manager talking on his phone. She looked like she wanted him to die. She handed me my coffee and I went back to the photobooth.
Going through security, I had to put all of my liquid containers into a clear plastic bag. Any that were over 100ml had to be thrown away. I lost some face wash. I also left a bottle of Eau de Toilette and some deodorant in my hand luggage, which came up on the scanner. This meant a woman searching through my bag as other passengers went past. She started flicking through pages of books like Johnny 5. She picked up my jotter pad, but didn’t look in it. Then she said that they needed to do tests on the bottles I had left in the bag. They took them away for a bit and then brought them back. I wondered what tests they had done and decided they probably just sprayed them to see what they smelt of. Are they okay, I asked. They are okay, she said. I then realised I had forgotten to re-tie my shoelaces, which I had also had to take off when going through security.

We went to Boots. My girlfriend had to buy some Ranitidine, and some other stuff she had prescriptions for. I bought some ‘travel-calm’ tablets and some face wipes. We then bought ‘meal-deal’ sandwiches and drinks and ate these in the foodcourt. I ate half of my sandwich and complained that it tasted ‘clinical’.

We went to the boarding gate. I went to the toilets, going into the furthest cubicle from the entrance. I sat down and opened my bowels. It was long and fulfilling. I washed my hands and went back to the boarding gate. The screen said that they were now boarding for the plane. My girlfriend and I got inline. No one else was moving. Then, after about five minutes people stood up, in front of the boarding desk and we realised that we were in the ‘priority’ queue. We took our hand luggage and went to the back of the normal queue. It was already a long queue so we sat down, defeated by our eager attempt. Then other people joined the queue in front of us. The queue was moving but no one seemed to be going in. I started telling my girlfriend that this was ‘false movement’ and that we shouldn’t be sucked in by such bullshit. It seemed like too much trouble to stand in line for so long, so we stayed where we were conscious that the plane would not leave without us. My girlfriend started telling me about a racist man at a bus stop that she saw when she was going to pick up a friend who had stayed with her recently from the train station. I accused her of never picking me up or dropping me off from the station when I went to visit. She defended herself by saying that her friend had no sense of direction. She seemed upset and distressed by my accusation. I felt bad for my hours of jealousy in which I had thought about her going to pick up another man from the train station while she had never done so with me. She said she would pick me up next time if I wanted, but I told her not to worry about it and I was just being silly, even though I would have liked her to.

It took a good half an hour before we got to the boarding desk again, by which time I was starting to need to piss. Perhaps my bladder forgot to empty itself while I was in the toilet before. We boarded the plane, looking at a boxed number on our tickets, which we presumed was our seat number. We then realised that we could sit anywhere, despite the ‘choose where you sit’ system they had online when we were booking our tickets. Fuck Ryanair. We sat down next to an emergency exit. We put our seatbelts on. I still needed the toilet. I figured I may as well wait until we were in the air, it wouldn’t be too long, surely. Everyone finished boarding the plane and putting their stuff in the overhead space. I still needed the toilet. One of the cabin crew started explaining what to do in an emergency situation; I started pacing my feet backwards and forward. I still needed the toilet. After she finished talking, I kept waiting. There was no way I could go to the toilet now, I thought. I started thinking about what would happen if I pissed myself. I started playing the scenario in my head, taking my luggage out from the overhead compartment and putting my coat over my lap as I changed out of my wet jeans and into a new pair. I thought about walking down the aisle with a massive wet patch around my crotch, being extremely embarrassed. I looked over at my girlfriend. She was asleep. A child in front started yelling, We’re going to Sweden! Sweden? I thought. Were we on the wrong flight? I was confused, anxious and I really needed the toilet. My pulsed quickened and beat in my head. I thought to myself, If I pass out now then no one can blame me for pissing myself. I tried to breath slowly and calm myself down. I told myself how good it would feel to finally be able to go to the toilet after needing to go for so long. A voice came on the overhead speakers. It was the pilot, telling us we would have to wait another twenty minutes before our flight left because of the snow. I grabbed my girlfriend’s arm and told her what was going on. She woke up. I asked her what button I had to press to call a stewardess. She said she didn’t know. I pushed a button above my head and a stewardess came. I asked if we could use the toilets seeing as the plane wasn’t taking off. She looked confused then told me there were toilets at the back of the plane. I undid my belt and jogged down to the back of the plane where there were two toilets. Both of them were locked. There were two stewards and I asked them if I could use the toilets. They said I could, but that other people were using them at the minute. It then seemed that I could have gone to the toilet whenever I wanted to. I needed the toilet less now. I was not as agitated. I felt like an idiot, but I was calm. When I finally got in the cubicle I had the best piss of my entire life. When I got back to my seat I was in a state of near euphoria. I was still convinced we were on the wrong plane but I decided that if we ended up in Sweden we could get a train or coach to Oslo and we would get to see a lot of the country. We took off an hour after we were supposed to. Just before we took off I lent to look out the window and told my girlfriend, If I was like this when we took off my face would be pressed against your face through sheer g-force. The plane lifted up off the ground and my ears popped. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up we were in Norway.

OSLONIANS: A Plea to Scandinavia...

Or anyone visitng Scandinavia, Poland or Estonia:

Could someone send me a bag of Wayne's Coffee's House Blend? I have paypal and can pay you.

Thank you.

In related news a short story I wrote called Oslonians has just been published by the fabulous Pangur Ban Party.

Here are a list of links relevant to Oslonians:
Wayne's Coffee

Kjell Askildsen

Knut Hamsun

Vigeland Museum

Blitz Cafe

Tiger Records

Munch Museum

The library user approached the computer opposite me and at first I paid little attention to him. He then started to shake himself vigorously. I thought he might be having a seizure, when he was taking his backpack off in the most ludicrous fashion possible. He then sat down at the computer and started tapping keys on the keyboard. He hunched and increased the intensity with which he hit the keys on the keyboard. I looked at him. He had a shaved head, with a pair of shaded swimming goggles sitting just on top of his forehead. He had been looking at me every now and then since he had started taking off his backpack, I had noticed. I walked away two minutes before my session finished.

I am now at a computer further away. He is still typing. Maybe he is writing a poem.

The library user has left now.

BLOGGING IS AWESOME

I'm fed up with these histrionics

We touch all the time, so why not be the best at it?

How to enjoy the outdoors

Also been looking at this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aerobie-80R08-AeroPress-Coffee-Maker/dp/B000GXZ2GS/ref=pd_cp_kh_3

I don't know if I understand it.

Thinking about joining clubs. Maybe learn Polish. I have absolutely no friends that I see on a day to day basis.

No golf at Happy Valley

The hilarious life of Knut Hamsun as a young writer

“In the summer of 1884 his doctor diagnosed ‘galloping consumption,’ and in the fall of that year Hamsun returned to Norway, apparently resigned to die. He was twenty-five years old. His illness turned out to be a severe case of bronchitis.”

“In [1891], he travelled from one Norwegian city to another giving a series of lectures in which, among other things, he singled out the leading contemporary Norwegian writers for scathing criticism. Ibsen was present at the lecture he gave in Kristiania in October 1891, sitting impassively in the front row beside Edvard Grieg and his wife, while young Hamsun faulted him and his writer colleagues, Lie, Kielland, and Bjornson, for having produced a literature woefully lacking in imagination and psychological sophistication.”

from an Introduction to 'Pan' by Sverre Lyngstad

A Guide to Armageddon

I once wrote a letter to Kevin Huizenga

On the train home from work I got surrounded by a large group of girls calling me Harry Potter (I wear glasses). My reaction was to get up and just walk away, but when I stood up I hit my head on bag space above. People laughed. I walked away, feeling a bit like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. One girl said "He's fit," when I was walked past. Another one said "Let me lick your dick."

I finished reading 'Light Boxes' by Shane Jones yesterday. I liked it. I think everybody likes it. It's like a fairy tale for grown-ups. I don't know why I said that. Fairy tales are usually quite horrific.

Here's an excerpt from the Pied Piper of Hamlin wikipedia page, about the stories origins:
William Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire suggests that the Pied Piper was a psychopathic paedophile. Manchester asserts (apparently drawing on Robert Burton's 1621 account; see below) that on June 20th, 1484, this criminal kidnapped 130 children from the Saxon village of Hammel and used them in "unspeakable ways." He adds that "some of the children were never seen again. Others were found dismembered and scattered in the forest underbrush or hanging from tree branches."

Today, I drew a picture of a man wearing a beret.

Then I wrote a list of reasons why I might hate you.

Mozart

Thought I'd start this.

If you have any questions about the project I will answer.


I also thought I'd take this opportunity to state that all blog content is copyright protected.



and there I was thinking DP had a completely different meaning.

MONDAY MORNING! FUCK YEAH!!!

Babes of the BNP

Read this recently: http://vice.typepad.com/vice_magazine/2009/07/london-babes-of-the-bnp.html

I know it's ridiculous, but so are BNP supporters.

"I wouldn’t mind them if they actually worked and didn’t take all of our jobs, basically."

This contradiction seems to be the crux of most BNP supporters argument.

I work in the NHS. If everyone that wasn't born in the UK was made to leave the country the NHS would collapse. Many people would die. These people aren't taking jobs, they're filling them.

Here is another view point from the comments section of the article:
"what's happening in the UK is the government has adopted the policy of Canada and 'multiculturalism' and have put forth the view that there is no such thing as British culture, that all the immigrant cultures are just as relevant.

This is conceivable for Canada because it's a brand-new country that really IS made up entirely of immigrants.

This doesn't work for Britain, which has a genuine centuries-old culture. "

I don't need to point out that this person is literally a moron. I'm not even sure if this person went to school, or if they did that their history lessons were the same as mine. During Years 3 to 6 (age 8 to 11) we learnt about the Saxons, VIkings, Romans and Normans - all of whom invaded Britain at some point.

It seems that the BNP's ideal of British culture is based on completely false ground where they're allowed to pick and choose what they consider as "tradition".

We'll take winning two world wars and one world cup, but lets ignore the concentration camps of the Boer War for now. We'll take pride in defeating Hitler but at the same time, lets adopt and reword half his policies to use in our manifesto.

It seems to me that culture is based on progress. The BNP is a party living in the past, unwilling to progress. They are more an island than the country itself. Their idea of British Culture did not exist 200 years ago and it won't exist 200 years from now. What they are fighting for is completely pointless and serves only to increase pain and suffering in the world.

Swim short hot pants

Yesterday
it was a hot day

I went into town and got a sweet tan on my forearms only.

Then it was too hot when i got home so i changed into my swim short hot pants i ordered from cotton trader.

My girlfriend came home from work and laughed at me.

Later, in our kitchen, where you can see the front door, we were making fake meatballs out of wheat gluten (that is not a euphemism).
Our housemate got back from work and my girlfriend said "hi, how was work." he said "good. work." then my girlfriend looked at me cowering in the corner so that my housemate would not see me wearing swim short hot pants. Slowly her face turned from a blank expression to that of realisation and then of amusement.



clothes courtesy of Sarah Reid

Working For Change

It’s autumn. I’m in your bedroom lying on your bed. Looking straightforward all I can see is woodchip wallpaper covering your ceiling. I stare at the woodchip until characters begin to emerge and chatter along with the roadwork hammering away outside.

You come into the room with toast. In an hour and a half I need to be at the job centre for my twice-weekly interview. I go online and look for jobs then begin to fill out my book with these jobs, pretending that I have applied for them. I eat toast.

***

When I get there there’s a security guard at the door. He asks if he can help me and shows me to the reception desk. A man takes my book, looks at it and asks me to take a seat – it’s the same thing every week.

I sit down next to two women that are there together. One of them is showing the other pictures on her mobile phone. From where I am sitting, I can see the pictures as well. She is flicking through the pictures casually and then suddenly a picture of a mans naked crotch appears on the screen, his engorged genitalia pointing at the camera. They both laugh and look embarrassed. She goes to the next picture before going back to the naked crotch and starts laughing again, even more. The other woman is not laughing now, she just looks embarrassed.

My name gets called by a woman sitting behind a desk. She doesn’t ask me any questions or attempt to make eye contact with me. She doesn’t ask me any questions or make eye contact with me. She tells me to sign a piece of paper and says “good luck” or something. I get up and leave the room. The money will go into my account sometime next week.

***

You make pasta for dinner and I look for jobs online. I tell you what I want to do and why I can’t. You tell me I can and what I need to do to do it. I send off a job application for something I’m not too fussed about, then we eat pasta.

Contest Winner

I am a winner! Have a look here. I beat four other people. I feel like Hulk Hogan.

I also got an email today from Twelve Stories. I had sent them a couple of flash fiction pieces that, to be honest weren't very good. One was homework from Creative Writing and I think I knocked the other out in about half an hour. Surprisingly they didn't want them... OH WELL!

But I did help save a patient from chocking to death on a ham sandwich at work.

Ups and downs, ups and downs.

Erika

I have this typewriter that I bought second hand for £15 in a shop in Brighton.

The name of the typewriter is 'Erika.' It's printed on the front.

When I bought it the man behind the counter said to his colleague, 'my new girlfriend is called Erica, but with a C.'

I laughed and said 'did you pay £15 for her second hand?'

He didn't make eye contact with me after that.

"I hate people laughing, it makes such a noise...it goes in my ears."