Monday 30 August 2010

Published: Alarmed

Fluffy Oakes sits at the side of the enclosure, the glass screen separating him and Pablo, the zoo's koala. Pablo is opening his soul.

Fluffy asks, “have you heard back yet?”

“Nope. Don't know what they're playing at.”

“Sometimes it can take a while, y'know, to process results.”

“Hmm. That guy still interviewing you?”

“Matt Tuckey, yep. Going well. He's actually just had another story accepted in the States. A magazine called The Fabulist picked up something he did. 'Alarmed', it's called. Check it out."

Fluffy brings up the story on the webpage through his phone and presses the screen against the glass.


The two sit in silence as Pablo reads, sitting in the crook of a cut-off tree branch, and mulls the story over.

“Hmm... weird story. Good magazine, though. I like it.”

“Anything else on your mind, Pablo?”

“Well, I've done a bit of scribbling myself actually. Would you like to see my haiku?”

Pablo reaches to the back of his enclosure, grabs a scrap of paper and presses it against the window.

THE CLINIC
Burning sensation
“Don't look so nervous,” nurse says,
Handing me the pot

“Very evocative, Pablo. Just be careful who you show it to. If you know what I mean. I know it happens a lot with koalas, but still, no point making things hard for yourself.”

Pablo sits in silence. Fluffy taps the rubber tip of his pencil against his notepad...

Wednesday 4 August 2010

Selected Magaluf Moments

You want to look like an American
American, American,
But listen to me, who's asking you to?
You want to be fashionable,
But if you drink whisky and soda,
Then you feel queasy!

-Translation of the lyrics to We No Speak Americano by Yolanda Be Cool Featuring D-Cup, a dance song that was played on repeat all week in Magaluf.

Here it is...


Hmm. Here's what I can afford to tell you about my week on the Majorcan resort. The seven days in July were my first lads' holiday.

*

Wellsy boarded the plane dressed as a knight. Just for fun. Metallic fabric covered him head-to-toe, a three-lions emblem covered the chest area, and he carried a very thin tin-foil sword. Amazingly, he made it through the detectors and onto the plane.

*

Destination: Hotel Don Juan.


We had found it online at a bargain price. I recommend the hotel. For what we paid, the rooms were fine and the food was really good.

We went out every night for a week solid. The first thing that hits you is the heat- night and day, it's warm enough to go out in a t-shirt and you still feel like you're in a central-heated room. Albeit a room with loads of women not wearing a great deal.

On the first night, I had a dance-off with a load of black guys, and whupped all their asses.

Wellsy gave me a trilby that he'd bought off one of hundreds of African salesmen, all touting fashion accessories, battery-operated dancing cows, flashing plastic jewellery and other assorted tat. I'm not saying much about women on this blog, but chicks love a man in a trilby. That's one thing I learned.

*

A rumour began to circulate on the main bar strip. Apparently, Cheryl Cole had died of cancer.

*

Two of us were stumbling back to the hotel after losing everyone else in the array of bars on the strip. A young lad walked past us in a very bizzarre outfit.

“That's the biggest bow tie I've ever seen,” said Gaz.

“Thanks,” said the lad. “I robbed it off a clown.”

Gaz and I were both floored, laughing our arses off.

*

One of the team got stuck between two parked cars when trying to cross the road.

*

On the way to a bar we passed a black dreadlocked midget using a public telephone. He looked dangerous.

*

We decided a Speedo Day would be a good laugh. We hit the shops of Magaluf looking for the snidiest, crappest little swimming trunks possible. We found some matching pastel-styled, multicoloured atocities, and then rocked out by the pool at midday when it was busiest, with rolled towels under our arms. After causing a scene poolside (streching, star-jumping and backstroke), we went to the beach to do it all again- including some Top Gun-style volleyball in the sea.

*

We nearly missed the plane on the way back, due to Palma Airport screwing up the screen information. We then had to leg it down the airport corridor for, I dunno, a mile maybe. I still had half a KFC zinger wrap jammed in my mouth during the sprint.

*

On the plane back, a dude sitting across from me tells us that the Cheryl Cole rumour was started by a DJ in a bar. Cole is still alive.

*

I'd love to tell you more, but some of you really don't want to know the rest. Believe me. Were you there? Were you part of the Don Juan Massive? I've shared enough of my memories. Feel free to share your own.