I Like

I'm writing this from my new UK iPhone. And it's nice,that I can say.

delirium?

Tales Of Brave Ulysses
by Eric Clapton and Martin Sharp


You thought the leaden winter would bring you down forever,
But you rode upon a steamer to the violence of the sun.


And the colors of the sea blind your eyes with trembling mermaids,
And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave Ulysses:
How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing,
For the sparkling waves are calling you to kiss their white laced lips.


And you see a girl's brown body dancing through the turquoise,
And her footprints make you follow where the sky loves the sea.
And when your fingers find her, she drowns you in her body,
Carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind.


The tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.


Her name is Aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell,
And you know you cannot leave her for you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave Ulysses; how his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing.


The tiny purple fishes run lauging through your fingers,
And you want to take her with you to the hard land of the winter.

2s2b

too sick to blog

uff

completely knackered, bad cold, but hopefully enthusiastic enough for work tomorrow :)

just a quickie

hey,
need to catch the ferry at 4.
hope to meet jason later on in galway, have a couple of pints and watch england get thrashed.
in unrelated news, i think i'm pretty good when it comes to opening oysters.
see y'all later

island in the... well, grey

hi
I'm on bofin 'till tomorrow mid-day, then galway and sunday back to london.
no working internet in galway and only a darned slow connection out here, so blogging's a pain.
it's all kind of weird spending a week with the parents, weird indeed.
anyhoo, it's been nice to see my mates over here, especially the big j who I'll be meeting to watch the rugby final tomorrow evening.
it's strange, even though all seems fine my mood is a little like the weather, grey.

travels

sittting at dublin airport right now, gate A12 to be precise.
paris was wonderful and now i'm looking forward to see my mates, my parents and my favourite pubs in galway. not sure if the internet is all set up over there, though, so dont panic if I'm not able to let you know what's going on (won't be all that much anyway, it never is).

slainté

late night posts ain't no good.

Sunday in Paris.
It's marvellous here, wonderful weather, nice people and an overall great city. I mean, I wouldn't want to trade it for London as a workplace (although Proximity Paris is somewhere near the bois de boulogne..hmmm) but it certainly is fascinating. Everything seems so much more playful and more effortless than in London.
It's nice to see both those sides and I guess one should not be made to choose between these cities, but simply enjoy both of them in their right time.
à tout à l'heure,
Jean

zut alors!

the french lost to england today... too bad, but i still had a good time.
anyway, i'll know who'll i be rooting against next weekend...

A question of clothing

I like clothes. Good clothes, that is. What are good clothes? Clothes I like. Even though I possess this great knowledge, there are some questions that remain a mystery to me.

I know that horizontal striping lets you appear fatter (I don’t need that) and that vertical striping lets you appear taller (I don’t need that either).

But what about this? Does it let me appear queer?

short update

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.
- Mr Dumby; Lady Windermere's Fan; Oscar Wilde

tommorow Paris. Nice!

equal parts funny and plain stupid

Song For The Perfect Girlfriend - Watch more free videos

poetry I

The Grave of Shelley
Oscar Wilde (1881)

Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed
Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;
Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,
In the still chamber of yon pyramid
Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.

Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb
Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,
But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb
In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,
Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom
Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.

england v france in paris

hey, i just realised that I will be in Paris on Saturday when England is playing France st the Stade de France in the semis of the RWC 07. Sweet... now I really have to get a French shirt...

ugh, sundays

huh, sunday evenings, not nice. well, better than monday mornings i guess.
hitch on telly, which is alright, washing mashine running, necessary evil.
got some new sweet new shirts and a jacket yesterday, that's about all thats happenend on the weekend, which might have been a little on the dull, but certainly also on the relaxed side of things. i must admit that i really really look forward to my holidays.
got to get my washing sorted,

cheerio

rwc 07

i must clearly express my appreciation for the great sport of rugby. i always like to watch an odd bit of rugby, but since i came to england and was able to see most of the world cup in france i must say that i have become a fan. i even bought myself a little rule book because i didn't have a clue when and why penalties were called (to be honest, at first a match of rugby looked to me like one huge penalty).

sadly however ireland has already been eliminated from the tournament by strong teams from Argentina and France (they're foux about le rugby over there). so now i have to figure out who to lend my support for the remainder of the world cup.

so let's see, england already have (surprisingly to me) defeated Australia in the first quarterfinal and New Zealand are leadig France after currently 30 minutes of play by 13. New Zealand, the all blacks, seem like an obvious choice, they are favourites in this tournament and play attractive rugby. argentina also seem a viable option, even though they defeated my team. they are certainly one of the less known rugby nations, but they play with great determination and have a very talented team (and awesome shirts).

I will seve myself into the retreat of saying whoever is best should win the lot, be it the all blacks because they are a great team and show a nice haka, the french so they can retain the cup in the northern hemisphere or argentina as a reward for great effort. hell, fiji would be alright even though that would be a miracle and South Africa certainly has its chances as seen in the springboks demolition of england. may the best win... as long as it's not England!

Here are the quarterfinal pairings.

Australia v England
New Zealand v France
Argentina v Scotland
South Africa v Fiji


if you'd ask me now I'd pick rather conservative pairings, New Zealand v England with a slightly more risky pick for the second semifinal Argentina (sorry fellow scots) v South Africa. In the final I would pick the all blacks in a close match ocer the springboks... but don't take my word, I'm usually wrong when it comes to predicting...

anyway, enjoy the games
cheers, John

EDIT:
alright, fuck my predictions, france just upset new zealand again (they already did so on several other occasions, most remarkably in the world cup semis in '99) i clearly didn't see that coming again. so it will be les bleus against the three lions next weekend. just where did i put this French jersey...
obviously this probably means you should reverse each of my picks if you want to impress your friends with your expertise

sorry

wait i don't need to apologise... maybe a proper post tomorrow :p

parisian skies waiting

this is my mate severin with the fabulous homecoming crown (which he inexplicably won!) he's in paris right now where he completes his German civil service... good work, that is. why do i tell you this? well I'm going to visit him there when my holiday starts at the end of next week, wheay! really looking forward to it, vive la france.
in related news, american scientist have conducted a study which told them that when bloggers can not be botherd to use their brain to much they will post meaningless content such as pictures and stuff.

cheerio

sound like a travis song to you?

rain

books from boxes

amazing song

cold and annoyed

as i said, I'm cold and annoyed. duh.

Walton Street

this is Walton Street, photographed from its South Kensington end, leading right up to Knightsbridge and practically ending at Harrod's. I like it, it has a very London feel to me.
please note 'Itsu', there first restaurant on the right, fantastic sushi place with several outlets throughout london and right behind that an Eclipse bar, one of my favoured watering holes around that area, even though slightly dear. hey, if you'll ever visit me here we'll go and have a drink there, alright?

saturday evening smirk

oblom(l)ovely

I spend most of today in bed, sleeping, reading, listening to music. as i tried to cure my cold i realised that this is probably what most saturdays are supposed to be spend on. no, not lying in bed, but doing your favourite things.
in related news, clothes are still unironed, flat is still untidy...
catch you later

Goncharov knew it

fairplay

well well, the combination of a proper cold and a hangover, not the best of combinations. anyway it's friday and work was alright. there seems to be a kind of fairplay agreement in terms of workload here. what i mean is that everyone gives 100% during the week, tries get everything done and done smoothly. then on friday, it is a much more relaxed atmosphere, which i truly appreciated today.
Even though this isn't the case everyday it still seems to be the sensible thing to do. of course i believe that similar agreements agree everywhere, it's just that it seems ever so present to me in britain. after all i think it is safe to say the british are people which value fairplay more than many others. I'll give you an example I witnessed recently, in the domain in which you'd rather and more often find fairplay: sports.
It was, as i recall, a first round match between djokovic and... well, some other guy. Me not knowing the name of that fella kind of sums the situation up, it was a rising star against a complete underdog. As far as I recall it was a pretty easy win for the former, but what really struck me once again was the crowd and more specifically it's reaction.
In the beginning, it was clearly favoring djokovic, and who where they to blame to support a player showing some great tennis. He won the first set easily and went up 2:0 early into set two. there the crowd realised "wait, this guy (the underdog) is really giving his best, we probably cheer him on a bit, we want to see a good match." at least this is what i thought them to think. anyway, what they did was shift their symphaty. what i'm trying to say is, i like their attitude over here, I hope I kind of could make my point.

any questions, leave a comment, I am available for interviews from just 2 pints of guinness hourly rate.

slainté

fairplay steams ahead

g&t

leaving do. guinness. corona. beautiful girls. raspberry mochitos. music. darkness. touch. dance. gin and tonic...

not quite the same as home but still... let the good times roll.


this post was brought to you by alka seltzer

the name game

alright so you might ask yourself (or you might not, I'm just going to supply you with this info anyway - why? because i'm a dictator in this little banana republic) what the fuck 'bofin' is supposed be.
well bofin, which i have used as an internet nickname since my first hotmail address (ages ago) is short for Inishbofin, which is a small island off the west coast of ireland. Inishbofin is the english version of the irish name Inis Bo Finne, literally meaning 'the island of the white cow' - a pretty sweet name for an island, i think.
anyway, my family owns a house on this island, i've been going there since i was born and hopefully will do so forever. nice to dwell in all the great memories :)

that reminds me, i'm on holiday from the 12th October, you have zero guesses where i will be going, that's right, bofin & galway (which i will tell you about later, maybe). so glad to meet my mates over there.

cheerio

laughable

it's weird. i'm not the kind of person who laughs out loud very often when he's alone, yet since i've been in london, that happens so much more often. mind you, not often as such, but more often than other times. i find it disturbing, i mean, i'm sitting in front of the tv for example, see something truly hilarious, laugh out loud and halfway through it strikes me as something extremely weird. i mean, it's not sad or anything, laughing alone is better than not laughing at all but i never experienced anything like this back in cologne.

in the air tonight

alright, I need to figure out what I'm able to do with this blog... how about embedding a video...

as I mentionend before, I'm currently working at an advertising agency, I've been interested in great adverts ever since I was a kid.

The following video was all the rave at the office in the last couple of weeks, and I must say it still cracks me up every time I see it... as an advert, I don't know... it works but I'm not exactly sure what the message is supposed to be. see for yourself:

check it out

guys, i'd like you to check out my mate James' blog

FIRE TRKY >>>>>>>>>

he's from NYC he's been blogging since '03 which is absolutely incredible, i think and he has convinced me of starting a blog of my own. i've always truly enjoyed his writing, be it trivial or thoughtful, seriously, he helped me figure out a lot of stuff and even though we don't talk often on the phone or write mails, the blog keeps one connected and has shown me even though we live continents apart that sometimes you just still feel the same. enough sucking up, go check it out.

london calling

London is brilliant.
i have been here since june now and i will stay here until just before christmas. i live just off queensgate in south kensington, which i'm very thankful for, as it is in my eye the perfect place to stay in london. not only is it central (think twenty minutes to harrod's, strolling in the afternoon sun, uh, drizzle rather) but it is also close to where i work (old marylebone road in, you guessed it, marylebone). It takes me about about 45 minutes by foot to work, which comes in handy when the tube doesen't go (which RARELY happens...).
but seriously, london is cool. great pubs, great gigs, great art - i like it. I must say, it doesen't always come in cheap, but whatever, it's not like you have the chance to live in the coolest city of present times everyday, is it?

explanations are for loosers

Hi everyone,
so I have decided to start my own blog.

Who?
I'm John, people who visit this site probably know me anyway. For those who don't, I was born in Dublin in 1988, but grew up in Cologne, Germany. I posess both, the German and the Irish nationality. I completed my Abitur in May 07 and am currently working in London at a communicatins agency as an account co-ordinator (basically I do everything the others don't want to do.

Where?
Well, as I mentionend above, currently I'm blogging from London, but I will try to keep it up where ever I'll go. That brings us to...

How?
Well, in a technical sense, with my lovely MacBook Pro and (preferably) a beer, when asked 'how' like in 'how often' I'd like to say everyday, but, as fellow Bloggers will certainly be able to confirm, this will be a nearly impossible task to accomplish. For once, not every day my brain will have enough power for a post (I'm happy when it gets me through the day mostly) and I mean, not every day brings something noteworthy, does it?
Anyway, I'll try to keep it up. On to more pressing matters...

Why?
Honestly, that's a good one. First, let me say that even though the thought of having a blog crossed my mind regularly over the last couple of months, I still hesitated to finally start one. Event though the medium 'blog' is a fairly new one indeed, it kind of felt to me as if blogs were already a little bit 'yesterday' as they have become a well known part of the establishment. Blogs are no longer only personal journals but sources for news, entertainment and opinions.
Yeah, whatever.
I obviously did not decide to start this blog out of some kind of fashion, but just because I'd like to write down some stuff... I guess. If anyone is actually interested in it, hey, that's great. I don't approach the blog as any kind of art, with intellectually challenging posts, but as a fun, simple and interesting project.

That's it for now,
cheers, John