ghetto king returns

Ritchie, my 13 year old ghetto king, bad-ass rapper student was on fine form again today. While some students were eating paper or organising shopping trips into the metropolitan hub that is Szerencs, Ritchie explained to the class why girls are always annoying.

"They are menstruating," says Ritchie. I was amazed. This boy cannot tell me where he lives (he jut shouts "sextown!") or why he doesn't like sitting down, but he knows the workings of the woman's menstrual cycle in english. "All the time," he bemoaned, "she's menstruating, she's menstruating, she's menstruating, they are all menstruating. 

"It's menstruation. That is why they are annoying."

Ritchie, ladies and gentlemen. Poet, social critic, P.I.M.P., and now human social theorist.

clinging onto the past

The British haven't got too much to be shouting about. All that made it Great Britain - invention, war, occasional world cup wins - have all slowly seeped into sepia, replaced by binge drinking and X Factor. It's a shame, but history is history and most Brits can go a day without harking back to the good ole' days of stealing Johnny Foreigner's country - we have let go and moved on. Unfortunately the Hungarians are clinging on a little harder to their past glory.

Before 1914, Hungary was part of Austro-Hungary, a grand empire made up of bits of what is now Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Croatia Serbia and Romania. For hundreds of years the Austrian Hapsburgs ruled this massive kingdom from Vienna, sort of telling the Hungarians what's what. Fair enough, Hungary is a little fish in a big pond and needs a friend like the Austrians. All was going swimmingly.

Then all us Europeans got fed up with playing nice and decided to have a really really nasty war. And the Austro-Hungarians lost. Now, the Allies were a teeny tiny bit miffed about the whole thing, so in 1920 in Versailles the French split up the mighty empire at the Treaty of Trianon, and the Hungarians lost out big time - two thirds of their lands were given away. This was not good for Hungarians, some of whom suddenly woke up in 1921 to find they lived in Romania, or Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia. It wasn't nice, but it happened.

Fast-forward 87 years. Most people who were initially affected by said break-up are, if not very nearly dead, very actually dead. Land that was Hungary hasn't been for quite a while, and although many Hungarians live in these other countries now, it's been this way for long enough so as everyone should have got used to it, right? Oh no, no, no, no. They are still very pissed off with the whole thing.

Look at a map of Hungary. Quite a small country, surrounded by seven other European nations. That's not what Hungarians see. They still see the empire that they lost, the huge mass that ceased to be nearly 100 years ago and they are not happy. They talk about it EVERY day, they argue about it EVERY day and they are throughly pissed off about it EVERY day. And not just the octogenarians who still wear their war uniforms and speak with a slightly suspicious German accent - the kids have a problem with Trianon too. I have student wearing t-shirts to class with the map of the empire, students who are too young to shave have beef with a 87 year old treaty.

Every map in the school is old Hungary, every tourist map is old Hungary, every souvenir boasts old Hungary. Hungarians still look at the lost land as Hungary. See how far you get by calling Bratislava Bratislava, or Kosice Kosice. No, they are the 'new' names that are just crude replacements. 87 years new.

Now us Brits had it all and some around the same time. We got in our boats, loaded our rifles and took what was not rightfully ours. And we didn't stop; we literally went all the way round the world telling poor natives here on in we were the boss. One third of the globe was British for a bally long time. Now what do we have? Malta and Gibraltar. Rule Britannia indeed. 

And do we complain? Do we pine for the Empire? No, we just crack open another beer, turn Simon Cowell up and shout abuse at the TV.

The Hungarians need to wake up and smell the cheap sausage. It's gone and it's not coming back. Ever. If they want to move on as a nation, they need to stop with the t-shirts and the stupid maps and thank themselves lucky they only lost a bit of one continent, not five of them.

Still pissed, 87 years on.

living in the middle of nowhere

I live in the middle of nowhere. Literally the middle of nowhere. Right in the middle, slap bang in the dead centre of nothing.

Let me try and illustrate with some wordsmithery. Szerencs (ser-rench) is about 200km from Budapest. Hungary is quite unique in that so much of it's population is congregated in it's capital, one in five roughly, so no one is here, they are all there. We are also 100km from Debrecen, the next biggest city, with 200,000 people. Between there and here are hills, fields, villages, stray dogs, run down communist factories and the litter of gypsies. That's it. 

I have never dared walk out of civilisation yet - I fear the Hungarian wilds. Walk for 20 minutes north of Szerencs to Szerencs Ond, the nearest village, and the path stops. It just stops dead and all you can see is fields and old people walking round with firewood tied to their backs. I haven't dared to venture that far south as I'm convinced the path peters off down there too and that will depress me too much. I am also not brave enough to step beyond the petering path as I would probably just appear at the end of the other path, like a real life freaky episode of The Twilight Zone.

The town also shuts at about 4pm. That means in winter, for 16 hours a day, most of the town is in pitch-black darkness. Grim, enveloping darkness. It's OK, I'm getting a good 12 hours sleep a night now - thanks to Szerencs I have the sleep pattern akin to a particularly lazy new born child or an 85 year old asthmatic whose family never calls. I also have rickets thanks to a lack of sunlight. Living in Szerencs in the winter is like living in sack. But colder.

But not that cold - it's not quite the winter I was promised. I was told tales of piles of snow, -15C, jaunty sleigh rides and carol singers. I have the occasional snow bluster and chilly wind. It's colder than England for sure, but just a slightly irritatingly colder.

Oh yeah, and the old ladies. They are everywhere, like Hitchcock's birds, and they all have their beady old eyes on me. My girlfriend cannot do wrong, she is cooed at and stroked when she walks past. I get the grimacing gurn when I walk past, followed by some hushed Hungarian. And don't be fooled, these old witches are in control round here. So, inadvertently, I seem to have made enemies with the Szerencs mafia.

I shouldn't complain though, there are worse places to live. Baghdad, for example, is a terrible place to live. I joke - I get lots of exercise, fresh air and have yet to meet someone as obnoxious as a Londoner on my travels. I just wish I knew what the old ladies had against me.

ski saturday

I have never, before today, skied. It's not my bag - I don't quite know what my bag is, but skiing has never been it. Skiing is for families that can afford skiing holidays. My family holidays were always more 'caravan - centric' than those on the piste; picnics on drab beaches, donkey rides, vomit-reeking cabaret halls, that sort of thing. So when I was given the chance to try skiing, Slovakian style, I thought it was about time to strap on my skis and get going.

To begin with, it was a bit chilly.  An arse-clenching, -10C chilly. Also, I was dangerously underdressed for the occasion. I'm from England, an extra sweater is all you ever need. It's cold? Oh, put on an extra sweater. So there we are: a few hundred trendy looking Slovaks decked out with the latest in sub-zero ski wear zipping about, and me in an extra sweater. Oh, and women's long johns (the local cheapo clothes shop didn't stretch to real men's thermal underwear). Undeterred, I took a deep breath, shivered a bit, and took my first step into the skiing world.

We found the ski school and booked an hour with an instructor. A really suave attractive, chiseled chin, eyes-you-could-get-lost-in instructor. He didn't fall on his arse once the whole time. Well, he did, but only to show the spread-eagled spaz (me) how to stand up again. To be fair to the spread-eagled spaz, I only fell on my arse a few times. And over an hour, that's like 0.2 embarrasing moments a minute. I would show Mr Impossibly Attractive who was the best skiing guy.

I didn't show him. I barely mastered going down a baby slope quite slowly without looking too ridiculous. He had just came back from skiing in the Alps and could probably ski down avalanches. And I bet he was wearing proper men's underwear.

By the end of the lesson, after a few up and downs on the baby slope I was feeling pretty good. I could technically ski, I hadn't fallen over that much and only three of my toes and one of my fingers were numb. Afterwards, we went to the cafe and got ourselves a hot wine and some lángos (bread and garlicy sauce) to celebrate. My girlfriend admitted although Mr Ski Man was dashing, dynamic and super cool, she had made the right life choices. I wiped the mayonnaise off my chin and jacket and agreed with her.

love is in the air in 8th grade Hungary

Today being Valentine's Day, I decided to ask my 8th grade class to come up with some love poetry based on the 'Roses are Red....' formula.  I expected them to be able to rhyme 'blue' and 'you' and 'too' and maybe, if they are feeling a little naughty, even 'poo'. 

After a few decent attempts from some of the smarter pupils, this then followed from a self-confessed bad-ass rapper from the ghetto (Ritchie, 12 years old), verbatim:

The pussy is red,

The cock is blue,

Today's the day for f*cking,

So I want to f*ck you.

No more poetry for the 8th grade, methinks. Next week I'm getting them exorcised.

I'll start with the muffins

This is my first ever blog. I am now a blogger.

This is yet another time in my life when I have begun to do something that I have venomously berated at a previous time. Harry Potter novels, travelling beyond South East England, cooking, David Bowie, listening to podcasts - all these things have felt my wrath at some point, but all these things have become a part of my life. I think the word is hypocrisy. 

I am a blogger. I am a hypocrite.

So why do I change my tune like the weather? Well because I am constantly, irritatingly, proved wrong. Potter, although a book for kids, it's an awesomely entertaining book for kids. Cooking is full of skill and joy and is sometimes the highlight of my day (I think I once referred to chefs as 'twats who just heat stuff up'). Travelling beyond England has been the best thing I have ever done and listening to Bowie is akin to dripping psychedelic honey in one's ears. So I thought I would, for the millionth time in my life, swallow my pride, and blog.

Also, I have spent the last two years being paid to write what other people tell me to write about, so it's about time I write what I want to write about. True, I won't get paid as handsomely, and I will have a lot smaller readership, but least I can use words like 'psychedelic honey' instead of 'repossession figures' or 'standard variable rate'.

So I will blog. I am now a blogger.

If you didn't know, I am currently living in North East Hungary, 1500km from home, 200km from Budapest, 400m from a gypsy camp, 340m from a post-communist sewage processing plant and 7m from about a dozen geese and a cockerel. So I will blog about my time in Hungary, the trials, the tribulations and the muffins.

I love cooking muffins. It is my passion, it is my joy. Like everyone else, I always enjoyed a muffin of an afternoon, maybe with a big cup of coffee or hot chocolate. But now, oh now it's not just a passing fancy. I think about my own muffins every day. I think of extra ingredients, I think of cooking times and most of all I think of the warm fuzzy feeling I get as I take that first bite. It's like crack, just with more calories.

Cooking muffins is one of the many ways I have changed and have grown. I miss my home, I miss my friends but I have shed a lot of unnecessary things that I previously held dear. So to fill the hole I have begun to cook, I read constantly and I actually enjoy a lot more things now. 

So i will write about my new experiences. I have a lot to tell after six months here, but I will try and fit it all in. Anyway my cinnamon muffins are done.