I'm A Fidelista - Where Do I Get My Tracksuit?

I really really want one of Fidel Castro's Adidas tracksuits! Does anyone know where I can buy one?

Since July 2006, the last time the leader of the Granma invasion, was seen in public he seems to have only sported the most astounding array of Adidas Cuban tracksuits the world has ever seen. My suspicion also is that every time he has been seen on camera since then his tracksuits have been getting more modern. This suggests to me that Adidas have been sending him new ones all this time.

Anyway, I want one... people haven't seen me in public (outside of fencing competitions) in a similar length of time... and my rhetoric on the bourgeois Yankee devils is just as relevant!

Who doesn't love the Onion?

Nation Of Andorra Not In Africa, Shocked U.S. State Dept. Reports

A stop-gap solution to a lack of posting

Amusing perhaps, if you play guitar...

Enjoy!

I was nearly that guy...

I arrived on the RER platform at Nation this morning to find a packed train waiting there already unloading passengers. I scurried down the platform a bit in order to try and find a carriage that wasn't so packed. I saw a space and casually squeezed in, my bag trailing behind. What i couldn't hear was that buzzer for the closing door was already sounding as my iPod was up too loud.

The precise moment i stepped on the train i felt the doors closing; my backpack still trailing behind me. I pulled it inside as the doors scraped it's sides.

Phew! I relaxed and let my bag drop down to the side... Only to realise that a rubber tab hanging off my bag was stuck in the door. Even more alarming was that I knew that the doors on that side of the train wouldn't be opening again before i got off. <Queue dramatic music>

...

So, I suppose what I've illustrated with this story is that things have been relatively quiet. Training is back to full speed and work is keeping me busy. It's still on my mind to fully update this blog for all the time I missed from May to August. It was a busy time with the Europeans, Cuba, the universiades and holidays in Thailand.

I certainly might have a different perspective on some of the events of the last 12 months now but I'd like to have a record of them somewhere. So, interesting times ahead, I promise, even if it means dredging up the past.

A+

I Hate Ikea...

...My first experience of the Swedish mega-store leaves a taste of MDF in my mouth.

'I need a set of drawers' I thought to myself. 'Furniture' I thought, 'Where does one buy furniture?'. Four years of being bombarded with case studies about the behemoth of fürni left only one name in my mind. Added to this I happened to be teaching (did I mention I started teaching?) in a centre not far from a modest sized Ikea store (only a couple of square kilometers) - the stars were surely all aligned and pointing me in the direction

Once I finished work at 4 o'clock I got a bus to the Ikea store about ten minutes away. To enter the place is like entering another world - a yellow and blue one. I'm apparently too negative a person but the trouble started nearly straight away. Having headed the warnings about people being lost for days in the place and nearly starving to death before reaching the café, I had the piece of furniture selected well in advance of my visit. Aneboda, or some such, was the name of this modestly priced chest of drawers but where the hell was it?

The showroom section snake on for ever before I came to the sprawling storage space area. All of a sudden there it was - the chest of drawers of my dreams. So this piece of furniture could be collected in the warehouse section of the building; row 25 dock 48.

Another twenty minutes of walking through beds, wardrobes, TV units, wardrobes, kitchen storage, shoe racks, kids bedrooms, kitchen wear, crockery, plastic tress and baskets and I finally found the warehouse section and with a small jaunt through the warehouse I located my chest of drawers.

They were heavier than I though. At 30kgs it was going to be a long hour long metro ride back to my apartment at rush hour but I assumed that a magical solution would present itself; perhaps I could buy this small yellow trolley.

Firstly though I had to deal with the check-out. I'm sure I've posted previously about the speed of service at any french check-outs. This ranges from a man buying a loaf of bread taking 10 minutes to a jar of pickles taking 5 hours. Imagine then French people having to check through hundreds of kilos of furniture. A long wait was in store as my flimsy yellow trolley (with a max load of 30kg) began to buckle. When I eventually paid for the drawers, I was told I could not bring my branded trolley any further. So I had to drag the box to through to the delivery area - stopping to get an ultra cheap bulk produced hot-dog on the way.

It was becoming apparent to me that Ikea did not want people without cars shopping with them as they didn't want people placing small orders and clogging up there delivery system. I was looking that my small set of drawers was going to cost €50 to deliver and that having already paid for it, I had no other option, save for giving myself a coronary trying to carry it on the metro. €100 for a chest of drawers that will probably barely last the rest of my time hear, no matter how short of long that is.

Bah, so there you go... that's how exciting my life is these days apparently. Without being directly exposed to the incompetence of Irish fencing I'm left to get angry at harmless multinational corporations (albeit ones with bizarre tax dodging religious status). I'm sorry Ikea, it's not you... it's me being negative...

No more whiskey after training...