ON STANDBY…

I am changing town & country within days, unless something unforseen may appear. But my role model will accompany me and keep my feet warm wherever I go. It is a pleasure to have him on my new shocks (a sister´s present, bought at a fleamarket in Burgos).

The most talented man of the XXI Century beyond any shadow of doubt. Hail Homer! 

Yesterday´s flight between Brussels and Madrid was my 8th of this year. The airport overdose is beginning to loose my screws. Scene at the Brussels Airlines check-in desk:

• BAH (Brussels Airlines Hostess): "Good morning Sir."
• TM (Tired Me): "Hi."
• BAH: "Any Luggage?"
• TM: "Just this bag, I´d rather carry it onboard."
• BAH (suspiciosly eyeing my bag and seeing it is not bulky): "Is it heavy?"
• TM (worn out of the ritual): "Well, there is a laptop inside, and I´ve got the whole discography of Black Sabbath stored somewhere within it… So I´d say yes, I´d certainly file that under downright heavy, brinking on obesity."
• BAH (looking around in case she might need help): "Sorry?"
• TM (sighing): "No, it is almost weightless."
• BAH (relieved): "Boarding at 11.35 on gate X43. Have a nice flight."
• TM (smiling wrily): "Sure."

Hard to believe, the original cover of The Stones´ "Sticky Fingers" - the one with the zip, see "Times change" - was banned in Spain. It was 1971 and my guess is the censors deemed it too "sexually explicit". So the album was released with a different cover that, in my opinion, was far more shocking and gorey than the original, but hey! It was Franco´s Spain, and when it came to censorship and control, it seems political violence & killings were peanuts in comparison with the devastation a picture showing a crotch (in jeans) could unleash on public morale.

Years ago I went with a friend to an LP fair, and we bumped on the original Spanish cover. It cost 3.000 pesetas (18€), a fortune for any teenager back then. Knowing it was out of his grasp, my friend spent some minutes lovingly caressing and beholding the LP in awe. I will never forget the sad look on his face. Displaying it here is but a small consolation, but it goes for you mate.

I am not keen on football. Anybody knows that. Well then, right now I am translating a football magazine, having my flatmate answer my technical questions - I just learned what a sweeper system is, though I´ll be damned if I know how to translate it - and we´ve got the Champions League on the telly.

More unsettling still, I find the articles pretty interesting. They´re no match reviews or anything of the kind, they are rather about tactics, history, UEFA projects, and so on. It is a good read, yet a bloody difficult one to translate. My partner in this enterprise helps me with the technical terms. I must thank him for the opportunity to improve my liquidity in these most dismal of times as I widen my horizons of knowledge. Only yesterday I learnt that the Beretta pistol is manufactured in Brescia, or that India’s greatest contribution to football history was its withdrawal from the 1950 World Cup because players weren’t allowed to play in bare feet (everything is culture).

For one that thinks the sole virtue of football is a talent to kill of boredom, the whole thing is rather ironic.