Intoxificated

Last week I filled in for the usual (dull) fare in the booze column, and spiced it up with this:

Before you even arrive at uni, films, television and the media all instil in you that ‘real men’ only drink beer, if not ale, if not Guinness. After bartending at a recent 18th birthday party, we can verify that the few lads who chose a nice glass of Grenache over the far more popular Corona Extra were faced with reactions that ranged from confusion to aggression at their refusal to conform. Even more tellingly, only one boy asked for a Bacardi Breezer all night, and this was only for the hilarious jape of drinking it in front of his incredulous mates – ‘Guys, have you seen Gary?! He’s got a breezer mate! What is he, gay? Nah, course not; what a joker!’ Comedy gold.

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Jelly, Baby?

Feature on Bompas and Parr is now up!

Molecular gastronomy, avant-garde dining and the deconstruction of food as we know it – the world of cooking has never been so experimental, and the public has a new found appetite for both the food and the exhibitionism that comes with it. At the world leading Fat Duck restaurant, Heston Blumenthal created a new culinary paradigm with such cutting-edge dishes as snail porridge, bacon and egg ice cream, and licorice salmon. Since the restaurant’s inception in 1995, experimental cuisine has enjoyed a rapid return to popularity. Ferran Adriá’s elBulli in Spain has been overwhelmed with bookings since overtaking the Fat Duck as The Best Restaurant In The World in 2002. Meanwhile, back in the UK, up and coming experimentalist kitchen Casamia from Bristol was recently featured on Ramsay’s Best Restaurant. And then there’s Bompas and Parr...

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Carry on Jimmy

Interview with Jimmy Carr is now online!

'I’m pretty free to do what I want right now – I’m essentially a child’. Jimmy Carr doesn’t mince his words, which is to be expected from a comedian who has built his career on word play and one-liners. Needless to say, yours truly was appropriately flustered when the phone rang, and made clumsy small talk about uni before remembering to turn on the dictaphone and ask some of the pre-prepared questions. I needn’t have worried; the comedy giant turned out to be affable and eager to chat, in contrast to the expectations created by his dry and often condescending on--screen demeanour...

Read the rest at http://bit.ly/a0pviU

SDWI - Week 2: Spinning and Sun Cream

Getting a job at a well-known watersports centre in a hot, sunny and windy holiday destination? No problem. Surviving shit banter, predatory female clients and an endless onslaught of mosquitoes? More difficult – this is the Secret Diary of a Windsurfing Instructor.

Right. So it turns out my skin doesn’t much like absorbing sun cream. It’s not as if it comes off easily – it just sits there, resisting my best efforts to rub it in, resulting in me strolling down to the beach plastered in swathes of streaky white goodness… ok, that sounded better in my head.

Anyway, no big deal you might think – everyone has to wear the stuff and we all look a little silly when it isn’t rubbed in properly. Unfortunately I also happen to be naturally olive skinned, which has only ever been an advantage, until now. From the very first day I’ve found that leaving a residual layer of cream on top of the nicely tanned base leaves my legs a decidedly unattractive shade of purple, much to the amusement of my colleagues. Cue beach hut banter, from the initially tentative, ‘What is wrong with your legs?!’ to ‘Mate your legs look like they’re going to fall off,’ to the unashamedly straight, ‘Your legs are bloody purple. I mean really, they are.’ (To which of course I replied, ‘Your Mum’s purple.’ Classic.) All credit to them, it was several days before they unanimously agreed upon the both witty and relevant nickname of ‘Avatar’. Great. I was being compared to a Disney-born CGI cash cow, and was I proud of it?

Of course I was. It turns out that acquiring a nickname is a rite of passage on the beach – to be new and nicknameless is to be invisible, and any name, good or bad, is the ultimate form of welcoming into the fray, acceptance, and above all recognition. Besides, it could be worse – I could be the guy they called Two Pumps because, well, I’ll let you use your imagination. Answers on a postcard (or in the comments section if you’re keen.)

Out here there’s only really one bar-cum-club that serves as the only the place to go for both clients and instructors, and with the monotonous drone of repetitive dance music and even more repetitive chat ringing in my ears after just a couple of weeks, it was pretty clear that something had to be done to spice up the nightlife. During one particularly stale night, myself and my roommate approached the revered spot that was the DJ booth in a rush of spontaneity, and relived the regulars from their duties, and soon we were spending entire nights out manning the decks.

Whenever I mention this to folk back at home the typical response is, ‘What, so they’re letting you choose the songs that come on?’ as if we were on some kind of glorified jukebox. The idea that it’s just a case of ‘picking a few club songs’ pretty much disintegrates after a five hour stint in the booth, but its not even trying to fill several hours with banging tunes without repetition, hesitation or deviation that’s the challenge.

Admittedly when we first started we were pretty happy-go-lucky in our approach, but all too soon we became aware of the constant pressure on the DJ to come up with the goods every night. Any proper DJ (i.e. not us) will tell you that the audience is a highly sensitive and needy beast which requires a great deal of care and attention – before you can start cranking the real bangers the atmosphere needs to be gradually built up with less aggressive tunes. It’s a very delicate procedure that I started to visualise as an extended form of foreplay between us and the rest of the club, although this may have something to do with the fact that the potential for schmoozing is very limited when you’re cramped up in some tiny box with a computer, miles from the dancefloor, and if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that if you don’t schmooze, you lose. But anyway. So when some loud mouth Yank rolls up to the booth with a request for some god-awful generic US hip-hop, it was never going to go down well. Despite my insistence that it would (might) get played later at a more suitable time, the douche didn’t quite seem to grasp the concept of ‘waiting’ and persisted,

‘Man, people are gonna love this one, I promise you!’ Really?

‘Nah nah dude, it’ll totally go well after this one!’ (Some chilled out Popof beats). Really?

If you ever find yourself in this situation with someone in the future, I urge you to stop at this juncture. Regrettably the joker in question didn’t seem to pick up on the warning signs, and on his fourth successive visit in as many songs, I snapped. ‘Request this,’ I shouted over the massive tune I’d just dropped (Take Me B – Cap’n Harry), and dropped trou. Fully.

‘Ahh dude, the fuck!’

‘Are you jealous? I’d understand – I’m jealous and it’s mine…’

‘Brah, I don’t know about you but I’m not into that gay shit. Like I’m sure you love to get bent over but that’s not for me man (leaves).’

For some reason he didn’t come back, which was a shame as I was literally just about to play his song. Maybe.

SDWI - Week 1: Front loops and Frappés

Getting a job at a well-known watersports centre in a hot, sunny and windy holiday destination? No problem. Surviving shit banter, predatory female clients and an endless onslaught of mosquitoes? More difficult – this is the Secret Diary of a Windsurfing Instructor.

After only a couple of days on the job it’s become pretty clear that a very limited and specialised skill-set is required to survive out here. My morning’s schedule has developed into something like this:

0915: Alarm goes off, leaving plenty of time for healthy and substantial breakfast of muesli, yoghurt and local honey before work at ten.

0945: Wake up. Shit. Everyone in the house is either hanging so hard they can only grunt and point, or are still hammered and are wandering round in a drunken stupor. A quick brush of the teeth and a splash of cold water on my face will have to do, as there’s no way I’m having another arctic shower – I had one at least the day before yesterday.

0947: Jump on broken bike to cycle to work. (Optional: Large amounts of swearing at the discovery that my bike has been stolen. Blame everyone in the immediate vicinity then proceed to beg a backy off of anyone who’ll take me.

0948: Pitstop for a chocolate croissant and chocolate milk from the bakery – breakfast of champions. Cycling whilst eating, drinking, and avoiding certain death by Greek drivers has already become second nature.

0959: Made it, just, leaving time to flirt with the girls serving behind the beach bar befor-

1000: Beach opens. Game face. Ugh. Make that game face with sunglasses on.

Before lessons started on the first day, I met the instructor who I would be shadowing for my first week on the job; a blond, gangly looking teen who, despite being younger than me, was on his fourth season abroad. While he was a nice enough kid, I soon found out that he liked the sound of his own voice, and didn’t hold back in letting our beginners know that he could land front loops before we even got to lunch on the first day. Front loops? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that said kid is actually pretty handy on the water. More’s the pity. But I digress.

The rest of the teaching day gets split between actual teaching (bleugh), taking time to debrief/mince/tan on the water (better), and encouraging frequent rehydration breaks, i.e. excuses both not to work, and for your clients to buy you a well earned frappé. If I could only incorporate ice-cream into the programming, then this might just be the perfect job.

Luckily for those teaching beginners, lessons only run in the mornings, and the afternoons are spent working on the beach. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the secrets to good relations with the beach team are rapid-fire wit and banter. However, late nights on the razz, long hours in the sun and work that requires the IQ of a geography student have reduced the verbal capacity of most beach bums to the extent that anyone can be taught to talk like someone from Brookes – just follow three simple rules for the fast-track to beach bum cred.

Rule Numero Uno: Look for anything, and I mean anything, that could be construed as a sexual innuendo (in your endo). For example:

Oakley shades: I think that mast is too big for that beginners’ sail.

Animal shades: Whey, you said big mast!

(actual conversation – brands of sunglasses changed for anonymity)

Rule Numero … Two: An appropriate response to any comment can be created by prefixing the original phrase with ‘your mum’, even when it makes no sense at all, e.g.

‘Ugh, it’s all mangy and swollen.’ ‘Your mum’s all mangy and swollen.’

‘My fan won’t stop squeaking.’ ‘Your mum won’t stop squeaking.’

‘What’s the wind like?’ ‘Dude, it’s sick out there!’ ‘Your mum’s sick.’ (my personal favourite)

Rule Number Three: Always refer to the Beach Hut over the radio as ‘Beach Slut’. With guaranteed lad points for being rude over official channels, and the additional benefit that both clients and management will fail to notice the slight variation in pronunciation, it’s a win-win route to acceptance on the beach.

Despite my clear strategy to win over the beach boys, I fear it may be a while before I’m fully accepted into their ranks. I don’t know what it could be, but somewhere between throwing on the ubiquitous wifebeater (varsity stash, naturally), slipping on some flipflops (Prada, all leather, very nice) and cruising down to work in my chinos, I must have done something to give the game away. Hmm.