ON STANDBY…

We all wound up sick to death of the French election, alter seeing the blessed pair everywhere on every TV, radio, newspaper and conversation. Is France really that important? They are the best example of how NOT to do things, the embodiment of a brake to development. Well, now there is the Belgian election. Believe me, it seems that the French was more important in Belgium. I did not hear a thing until today. And they beat the French by zillions of fun. They say Belgium is “the country of the bizarre”. It is: 3 languages, impressive contrast between Wallonia and Flanders, the salad bowl, in parts dirty, overpolluted and noisy and in parts quiet, nice and Flemish of Brussels, and all the expatriates, immigrants and opportunists. Now the elections are also strange: NEE campaign. That´s what happens when voting is not a right but an obligation.

But, wait a second and think. Is it strange or plainly obvious. Three months ago I was chatting with my sister about founding a “Beer & Blowjob” political party. It does not take a marketing genius (well, for me these two words are a misnomer) to think that.

Today I fly to Spain again, Blitz journey, return tomorrow. Reason: yet another concours of the same organisation. I already spoke about the one I did the last months; as foreseen, I passed all the exams (they were not difficult), but the fact of it being a concours-competition means I could not beat the interimaires who had some vital extra points (well I beat some of them, what does not tell anything nice of the people that are inside; it is rather unsettling that a jerk like me scored higher than people who knew what was coming…). So I am on a list somewhere. By and large, unless one scores 100% in all exams, it is impossible; even if one does, then there is an interview so that they can actually take in whomever they wish. Such is life, and I already knew the dice were loaded. However, since it seems I never learn, I applied for another competition of these guys. Somebody confirmed me that the posts are already given beforehand, but I feel I´ve got to try… Nevertheless, I must study a bit. Otherwise all the flying and the efforts will be pointless. O well, I am not even sure if I want it, when one is surrounded by idiots (and they abound in the Spanish Administration), one can easily become an idiot (well, in my case even more easily, I am already halfway there), and that is spooky, is it!

Thursday and Friday I´ve got to go to Maastricht to try and find a flat, I will go and come back the same day. Weekend in Belgium, Brussels or Bruges, just do not know yet. If I am lucky enough as to find a flat this week, I might have to focus on the moving out. Hopefully. Otherwise (the most likely outcome) I will become a real classic of Brussels - Maastricht commuting. On Monday I begin to work in Maastricht (more on this another day).

There is also the contract agent Commission concours, and although I haven´t got the foggiest idea as to how to prepare it, I Will have to study, something, anything. I am totally pessimistic here, the competence is enormous and my chances nonexistent, but I´ve got to try.

And the football translations! We have managed to secure two further numbers. It is really knackering and time-consuming, but is money, the articles are interesting, and I want to do it. Yet, truth be told, it leaves me utterly worn out.

To top it all off, the Stones are on the road again, which will mean another flight to Spain because, more expensive as it is, I want to go to the gig in San Sebastián, with friends, and I´ve already got the ticket.

Summing up, I foresee al least three Blitz flights to Spain (only one will be for pleasure) and countless trains Maastricht-Brussels-Bruges. I´ve got to move again (I´ll finish “La ville des comics”, personal goal, 3rd round here), new city in a different country, alongside its accompanying logistics: flat, banks, new people, finding my bearings and a load of related shite. I must manage with multiemployment, that is, a new job plus my freelance racket as translator. Then throw in exams for two different competitions. It might be honest to say that I am a bit scared with the mountain of things that is coming onto me. And tired of it. I do not feel like doing all the moving, not one bit. It is the way things have come. But, is it all worth it, all the efforts? In theory, things have more or less worked out nicely, and I still think as I did some months ago. Do I really? Is this progress? Or just senseless forward motion? It is not normal, that is for sure; I am an outcast about to have his 4th change of city and country within less than three years, alongside a 4th temporal job contract. One part of me really wants to do it, yet another, tinier part is asking for a bit of stability.

Okay, do not mind me, I´ve got some flair for exaggeration, always conjure up the Worst Case Scenario and besides, there is no way to know how things will develop until I get there. And the Stones are on the road again!

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."

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.

Berliners are far kinder than the Bavarian Authorities when it comes to bears. They have rallied to defend Knut, although an animal rights campaigner said the bear shouldn´t have been kept alive and should be put to sleep. They´ve got their reasons (alongside loads of sangfroid), yet I deem their logic a tad hypocritical and warped. Knut has a right to live. Besides, he is SO CUTE (the dole makes me soft…), who would dare kill him? Third, under a more commercial point of view, Knut is a campaign against global warming in itself, and a bloody effective one at that, for more than one would think of the dainty polar bear before wasting energy. Last, Germany should have learnt the lesson; when they killed Bruno, Germany lost the World Cup Semifinal and the scene of the crime, Rotwand, suffered a tourist boycott. Bruno was young and strong. Knut is just a baby, so the punishment would be terrible terrible…  

Facts. I finished the Commission stage 20 days ago, I’ve got no job, neither have I hunted for one a lot, but I know it is thorny in Brussels (supply much bigger than demand, with nefarious consequences I’ll explain another day); however the last 20 days have been the most stressful since my arrival in the dump of Europe. Having passed the 1^st exam of a concourse in Spain (English exam, scarce challenge there, with flight to Spain to do it in the package, turbulence for my Visa), I had to prepare the 2^nd, that also came with another flight to Spain (direct hit to the Visa). My Visa’s whining is very likely to be in vain, as my performance in the 2^nd exam was not great and, by deconstruction, the results will not be very brilliant. When that was over I had to carry out some freelance racket for a fistful of Euros that kept me busy this week. I enjoyed it, but it hampered my studying for the validation of my master that is taking place next Saturday (in Madrid, I bought the flight 2 days ago, somebody check my visa’s vital signs). No point in commenting on the lovely ideas of the organisation that taught that master, or on the magnificently riveting stuff they chose for this exam.

Consequences. My Visa is trembling. Alongside the studying there came forth another of my old habits, that of Nosferatu, so throughout the last two weeks I ate badly, lived by night, chain-smoked, arrived in French course more dead than alive and turned anything that might resemble a normal rhythm of life upside down. To no avail, I fear. Finally, due to all this, to the great Brussels climate, that has seen its unpredictability enhanced by global warming (whatever), to a quirk of life or, more probably, to every possible combination and permutation of the above, I have caught the second cold plus bronchitis in a month.

Yesterday I had a sleepless, thoughtful night. Knowing me, I suppose it is just normal, I think too much and being jobless enhances my pessimism and musing over decadence. It is easy to feel confused. Yet I shall not be idle this month: I must study (a concours and my master´s revalidation exam), have French intensive course (15 hours week) and then there is a racket for some freelance income that may crystalise. Besides I will try to move a bit and sidestep Diogenes syndrome. I will discover Brussels via strolls. So not much free time, and alongside all this I must begin to jobhunt seriously. My goes at it have been rather timid so far, but as said before, I haven´t got much time.

Leaving the Commission made me sad, it was great to work with people so good, at least in DG Trade. The last week I met the Commissioner for Trade, who´s got the honour of sharing nickname (“Prince of Darkness”) with Satan and also with none other than… Ozzy Osbourne, founding father of heavy metal and genius extraordinaire! It was interesting to hear Mr Mandelson´s opinion on the Doha Round of Trade talks, yet it goes without saying I would have thousandfold preferred to get to know the voice of Black Sabbath!

It was an honour to work for someone worthy of sharing nickname with Ozzy anyway.

It is not the slowdown of the U.S. economy or the unfairness of globalisation. Neither is it the financial markets´ tumbling of last week. China has not devoured the rest of the world and Iran hasn´t officially got Weapons of Mass Destruction. I am not even talking about global warming.

Switzerland… Neutral, are they not? Harmless, are they not? Well, it seems something got loose, they became greedy and decided to send years of peace to kingdom come…

Switzerland has invaded Liechtenstein!

Where is the UN security council? Those Swiss , blast them! Such blatant naked aggression…

… because yesterday I felt asleep at 4.30. I had nothing to read (error) and could not sleep because I am sick (a cold that evolved into bronchitis, bloody cigarettes). So I went in Charlie’s room looking for anything readable (Charlie is my flatmate, who yesterday was at Suequi’s, his Swedish girlfriend; no, I do not know her name, I should but I always forget it). I bumped into a paperback called "A year in the Merde" that looked funny. It narrates the adventures of a 27 year-old Englishman, single and unattached, who is recruited by a French entrepreneur and given a one-year contract to come to Paris. I read about 200 pages and could not stop laughing, I would have kept on reading throughout the night but I know better, so I made the sensible decision of putting it off until today, As soon as I get out of here today I am purchasing it. It will not be awarded a Nobel yet it was downright hilarious, specially for expatriates, And I fully empathise with the protagonists efforts to make himself understood in French and his remarks about the inability of the majority of the French to utter two words in English in a row…

Tomorrow there is the EuroBall and I must admit that I do not bloody feel like going, although I already bought a ticket. A frigging rip-off at that. One would think that, these being events organised by stagiaires for stagiaires (my props to the organisation, and I am not being ironic now), some smart arse would have borne the "solvency" factor in mind. Does not look like it. Not only are the tickets expensive, but we must also dress nicely (tuxedo and bow tie) and grab a mask somewhere… I, for one, shall not dress as recommended. Tuxedo and masked ball…

I’d rather be in Colgne Carnaval, listening to Teutonic hits, having some Weizen and reminding erasmus. I recommend this post to all of you who have lived and partied in Germany. The good old times. And take my word for it, the author knows whay he is talking about, although my number one is "Irgendwie irgendwo irgendwann".

On the brink of tears, I am!