This time last year I was alone in a bar in Washington DC, supping on a Scottish malt whiskey as I have done and will continue to do on this date since 2010. Today was my dads birthday, and it is the only time you’ll catch me drinking his favourite tipple. I’m generally not the biggest fan of the stuff. Anyway there I was nursing the liquor in an Irish bar in the US capital when I spied an interesting poster on a visit to the toilet. An Irish band had recently played the bar, and as I stood leaking the alcohol away, I couldn’t help but fashion a glassy eye at their name; ‘The Fighting Jamesons”. I went back to my spot alone on a stool and slurred something about my dad, his birthday and what I was called. Bless the guy behind the bar, he wasn’t really listening but poured me a free shot of Jamesons with which to toast the old man. My surname can really open doors. I need to abuse it more.
Fast forward a year later and I’m sat in a bar in the Czech Republic listening to crap music with an abhorrent, arrogant Australian with ADHD. He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him, yet here we are, thrust reluctantly together as wingmen. Everything that he spouts out of his mouth is some twaddle about how great Australia is, the vast majority of his ‘facts’ smacking of hearsay and tabloid rhetoric.
“Sydney is the largest city in the word by area” he boasts.
Err. No it isn’t.
“Australia owns 30% of Antarctica”.
Err. No you don’t.
I let him waffle on. As much as I want to berate him for spewing forth such nationalistic nonsense, I never like being confrontational in these situations, and with traveling you experience a lot of them. There’s always that moment shortly after you chime in with the correct fact and evidence to back it, that you’ve made a mockery of their ego and ‘intelligence’. They quietly seethe and loathe you for it. Not as bad if it’s just the two of you, but you’re never getting a Christmas card from them if it’s in front of a group. I’d rather stay silent, encouraging their dumbness and maintaining the status quo.
The instant I have anything to say he starts shifting around like a nervous meerkat on acid. He’s dealt a hand of beer mats to himself on several occasions, and is disagreeing with pretty much everything I say, although he’s not paying any attention at all when he’s not speaking. He’s talking directly at my face with his points of view, then when I finally get a word in he’s shuffled his beer mat deck again, leaned back, looked away, looked to the ceiling, checked his shoes, glanced round behind him and dealt a new hand. I decide there isn’t much point and retreat into contemplation, staring out the bottom of the whiskey tumbler.
Happy birthday dad, I’m just sorry we had to share it with this idiot.
Happy birthday dad
This time last year I was alone in a bar in Washington DC, supping on a Scottish malt whiskey as I have done and will continue to do on this date since 2010. Today was my dads birthday, and it is the only time you’ll catch me drinking his favourite tipple. I’m generally not the biggest fan of the stuff. Anyway there I was nursing the liquor in an Irish bar in the US capital when I spied an interesting poster on a visit to the toilet. An Irish band had recently played the bar, and as I stood leaking the alcohol away, I couldn’t help but fashion a glassy eye at their name; ‘The Fighting Jamesons”. I went back to my spot alone on a stool and slurred something about my dad, his birthday and what I was called. Bless the guy behind the bar, he wasn’t really listening but poured me a free shot of Jamesons with which to toast the old man. My surname can really open doors. I need to abuse it more.
Fast forward a year later and I’m sat in a bar in the Czech Republic listening to crap music with an abhorrent, arrogant Australian with ADHD. He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him, yet here we are, thrust reluctantly together as wingmen. Everything that he spouts out of his mouth is some twaddle about how great Australia is, the vast majority of his ‘facts’ smacking of hearsay and tabloid rhetoric.
“Sydney is the largest city in the word by area” he boasts.
Err. No it isn’t.
“Australia owns 30% of Antarctica”.
Err. No you don’t.
I let him waffle on. As much as I want to berate him for spewing forth such nationalistic nonsense, I never like being confrontational in these situations, and with traveling you experience a lot of them. There’s always that moment shortly after you chime in with the correct fact and evidence to back it, that you’ve made a mockery of their ego and ‘intelligence’. They quietly seethe and loathe you for it. Not as bad if it’s just the two of you, but you’re never getting a Christmas card from them if it’s in front of a group. I’d rather stay silent, encouraging their dumbness and maintaining the status quo.
The instant I have anything to say he starts shifting around like a nervous meerkat on acid. He’s dealt a hand of beer mats to himself on several occasions, and is disagreeing with pretty much everything I say, although he’s not paying any attention at all when he’s not speaking. He’s talking directly at my face with his points of view, then when I finally get a word in he’s shuffled his beer mat deck again, leaned back, looked away, looked to the ceiling, checked his shoes, glanced round behind him and dealt a new hand. I decide there isn’t much point and retreat into contemplation, staring out the bottom of the whiskey tumbler.
Happy birthday dad, I’m just sorry we had to share it with this idiot.