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Published: February 8th 2010
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8th May '09:
Namibian has put paw to paper once more. If anybody can make sense from his sequel then - frankly - I doff my hat. Here is his inimitable contribution:
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Hi to all blogers,,Namibian is back on open air gigs mmmm,,After having a few days
at home to get homework up to date out again for 3 and a half months. Now would like
to tell about how I get about in Europe,, Barny has been a good teacher as it was he that got
me in to touring and loving it,,
As im not the youngest driver on tour but am the rook y of the tour,, The drivers have 8 to 30 years experience between them they are all great to talk to and have amassing story”s if U asked
them anything U need to know they are never to busy to help. I follow Barny 99% of the time as our truck speed is different,,but;;;a big but,,He makes me plan the rout find the address for the gig and sort all what is needed,,I spend a lot of time getting the directions,,write
it down,take to him for approval if wrong he
will say no find a better rout, then sometimes when iv spent 3hrs.s. getting it sorted already to leave ,,he will come on the tesco radio ;;OK LOVE IV CHANGED MY MIND WE GO A DIFERENT WAY THAN WHAT I PLAND,GRRRRRR
then Im f*%$£+as iv no idea which way,,I tell after U spending a time with auto route,Saturn ,maps,and go ogle earth Im lost then,, its all good fun in the end..
Hope U all have a lovely summer Namibian.............
9th May:
Four idle days in Munich: lovely. Well, the truck is idle in Munich, but of course I've sneaked off to Nuremberg - to meet the “Munich man-eater”. Bettina is a girl I met a couple of years ago in Canada's remote Queen Charlotte Islands, just below the Alaskan border. She texts me before I arrive: ‘no snoo-snoo’, which apparently means no sex. Do I have a reputation then? I hadn't even thought about it, let alone suggested it, yet the matter is pre-empted. Kissing her on both cheeks, we sit down for a beer and some catching up. Or that’s what I thought would happen. However, within four minutes she announces that she has already spoken
to her boyfriend, asking for permission to have a steamy night with me. Now, I haven't even agreed to this, so I'm about to put my foot down, and tell her in no uncertain terms that I need to be seduced gradually, when she says, ‘but Eddy said no.’ Oh. Well, because it is now “verboten”, I quite fancy the idea.
Nuremberg - or just Nurnberg if you can find an umlaut on your keyboard - is a beguiling, manageable-sized city, awash with medieval history. Also here, in the former centre of the Holy Roman Empire, stand the largest Third Reich buildings in the world. Hitler, that infamous megalomaniac, blighted eleven square kilometres of the city with his monumental building projects. Nuremberg is not only famous for his rallies here in the Zeppelin field, but also for the War Crime Trials - the Nazi leadership was proven guilty before the eyes of the world.
There is a flea market on today, held twice a year for a whole 24 hours, covering the centre of the city. Oh goody, I've always wanted a ribbonless typewriter and a broken tennis racket. Who actually buys a Casio keyboard with broken keys,
or a scratched Abba record, or that ubiquitous earthenware so hideously decorated that even a great aunt would discard it? I return to Bettina’s flat empty-handed. Eddy is there, and we bond immediately, no trace of awkwardness from Bettina’s forthright request.
We go out for dinner, and discuss Eddy's mature studentship in economics, and how it is funded. Bettina, in her frightfully Teutonic manner of speech, says, ‘the good thing is that Eddy’s father has died.’ Unabashedly stuffing a garlic naan into her mouth, her bald statement simply explains how Eddy’s fees are met. In England one might tread more delicately over the matter of parents expiring. That said, I do keep reminding my father that his current spending on travel is rather eating into my inheritance.
‘Do you want to meet three gay men?’ she then asks, perhaps the finest example of a non sequiteur that I’ve ever encountered. I shrug noncommittally, and so we mince down to the Hans sachs bar. As it turns out, we’re not just meeting gay men, but entering a gay pub - that fact may have affected my answer. When Bettina excuses herself to the toilet, the gayest of the three
asks me, ‘do you live with your husband?’ He realises his mistake in English, but I smile, wondering if I’m flattered or not.
Back at the flat, while Bettina nurses a Temazepam and Marlboro Light, I get my instructions for the morning. She has a little English-speaking project for me, on a computer with fingerprint recognition software. ‘You need my finger tomorrow, or shall we turn on it now?’ She meant 'turn it on', but even that seems funny, too. I heartily recommend a visit to Nuremberg..
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