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Published: August 8th 2009
Respect to the man in the ice cream van
Looks like the Aussie cricketers got here first...So I'm sitting here in Assosa. It's a dark and stormy night.
No chance of a burglary (the three robbers are sat in a cave, telling tales).
We just spent the afternoon waiting at the airport for a flight to Addis that never came.
Delayed from 12.30 to 2, then 3.30, then 6. Right on cue at 5.15, just as the plane left Jimma, the sky goes black and we huddle in the departure lounge while the rain hammers down on the tin roof.
Finally we get the good news. No plane today. Let's try again tomorrow.
The locals bum rush the two official Ethiopian Airlines vehicles for the free lift back to town (a 10km hike) while us Ferengi (and Anithya - she is Indian and not officially Ferengi - Ferenge have to be white skinned, even though most Ferengi - "foreigners", therefore the rest of the world - are not; that's the deal) are left to politely fend for ourselves.
Equally politely the Ethiopian Airlines staff offer us a lift with an important-looking geezer, now that the official car's full.
Our man scurries down to a waiting
4x4 with a stressed looking driver - head jammed under the raised bonnet and doing the Ethiopian equivalent of a "tut-tut".
We pile in and the driver slams the bonnet and turns the key.
Nothing.
Yellum.
WD-40 where are you?
The official cars file past in the mud. Our driver pops the bonnet and gets out.
Our man explains he is from the Ministry of Transport and is acting as an advisor for the redevelopment of Assosa International.
Er, so that's ironic - this is a Bureau of Transport car and it, ahem, won't start?
Girl Power Our man and the driver exchange some heated words in Amharic and after 10 minutes of in/out, bonnet up/down, he heads to the rear and starts to push.
Whoa! Hang on there. We may be Ferenge but we ain't no strangers to the bump start!
Anithya and I jump out and the three of us slip and slide, ankle deep in mud, and man/women-handle the car to the top of a muddy incline.
Right about now Sara wishes she (a) hadn't worn some trendy cool daps instead of wellys today and
Halls of un-natural history
Oops! Flash photography? Wasn't me...honest (b) had got out to help with the pushing.
The car dips and slides - zig-zagging through the mud - down the incline, seemingly out of control, while the driver tries in vain to jump start the engine.
With no power, the power steering doesn't work so we watch the car bob and fishtail towards the asphalted intersection with the main road, while Sara clings on for dear life in the back seat.
Handbreak stop before the asphalt, Sara jumps out (sweating) and joins us (sweating even more) on pushing duties.
Finally, once on the tarmac we bump the car into life.
Sara claims it was girl-power - her and Anithya, that tipped the balance; though I could argue it was because we were pushing a lighter car, now she was no longer sat in it, but hey I didn't want a muddy dap where it hurts..
😊
The official Ethiopian Airlines car is now on it's way back to check we are OK and the three soaked, muddy Ferengi wave and pray the driver doesn't stall in the next 15 minutes.
Back home now we have a free night. House is
Yikes!
Was Banksy at Sara's hen do ??? packed up. Bags are packed.
So with a fridge full of recently purchased ice cold (it's an electricity day) Bedele Beer, I have settled down for an hour of so and blogging and Iron Maiden on my iPod (I'm having a middle-aged dirtbag retro phase) while Sara watches episodes 378-391 of season 1,430 of the Gilmore Girls...
The past is a foreign country Well, actually it was.
And they do things differently there for sure.
We hopped off the train at London Bridge and realised we had made a schoolboy tubeology error. Should have stayed on for just one underground line to Paddington, instead of the two or three we now needed.
Still, I sometimes find the tube quite interesting. Watching all those Ferengis (and not-Ferengis) that are probably mostly British. I felt sorry for the American family that got on in the middle of nowhere looking for the tourist zone. Hubby was getting both barrels from the good lady wife while daughter whinged and son played with a toy.
At Paddington we had one of those weird 'out of context' moments. We met Julia - an ex-volunteer and friend who had spent
Jeepers!
He was at our honeymoon too....!! :) 3 or so months in Addis last year - for a takeway coffee and quickie chin wag. She is a Landanah and is back volunteering on a new FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) project.
Yet again we didn't have enough time before the guards slammed the doors and we were off down the Great Western towards Bristol.
Wedding Preparations We now had 3 days before flying to Bordeaux for Ondine's wedding on the Saturday. We would stay at my Dads, with a night at Stu & Jo's, our oldest buddies in Bristol (without Jo, I would have never met Sara; and Stu is my one of my oldest friends - of around 30 years).
Sara's main aim for these next few days was firstly to see her old work mates and confirm with her boss that she could have her old job back and secondly to get all those womanly pre-wedding things done; fingers, hair, hair and toes.
Thanks to my cousin Angela, she even managed to get a toof clean and polish - she had missed her appointment with the dentist in Addis due to her food-poisoning.
I was busy with my mate Stu,
Flight to Egypt
£35? Cheaper on Ryanair watching England A verses the Aussies in a warm-up to the Ashes match on Sky and playing with this wonderful new invention (since I have been away in Ethiopia) broadband wireless over the mobile phone network.
Buy a dongle with SIM (I got one for £5), plug it in your netbook and top up with £15 for 3Gb of downloads per month. I actually only used just over 1GB in the 10 days I used it, and most of that was downloaded Arsenal games from Arsenal TV!
We had also planned on spending a day together doing something and Stu suggested the new Banksy exhibition at Bristol Museum.
Apparently the museum was closed for a few days while the staff assumed it was for some sort of refit, and when it reopened it had been given a complete pimp-over by Banksy - the anonymous Bristolian graffiti artist.
The mild, mild west Banksy is a bit of a Bristol legend. People say that Bristolians are too busy chilling and smoking weed to produce any good artists but we are quietly proud of musicians such as Massive, Tricky and Portishead.
And we both like Banksy stuff
Escape from Guantanamo
It's that damn rat that ate my earplugs... - it's funny and clever.
In fact a year or so ago there was some rumour that Banksy was actually some kiddy who went to Bristol Cathedral School about the same time as me and would have been a couple of years below Stu and I. I don't recall any memorable graffiti around the place so I guess that story was a fake..
I know some people think that his graffiti is vandalism (maybe some of those who bought and laughed at the Nigel Rees Graffiti books in the 70's) but I'm not sure people take the time to actually look at what he does; and I guess the purpose of art is to generate an emotion - whether positive or negative.
And as someone pointed out in a message board I recently read - in some countries free speech is illegal; but that doesn't make it wrong.
Personally I have no problems with graffiti - having seen the new stuff around Stoke's Croft since I came back, I have to say it looks a lot better than plain wooden boards over windows or grey concrete.
It also looks better than huge advertising hoardings that
Jerusalem
No sign of the falafel seller outside the west gate? scream out corporate messages for products that you don't need or want to see. But of course, they are legal.
There was also some great stuff along the motorways in France.
Haven't seen much graffiti in Ethiopia, though I am told that if you want to find out the people's opinion on current affairs, read the writing on the back seats of the blue Toyota line taxis in Addis.
Though with regular patrols of the blue-uniformed Federal Police - with unlimited powers - I wouldn't want to get collared with a spray can in Addis...!!
Sadly Stu was telling me that some idiot is going around Banksy's works in Bristol throwing paint over them. Now that *IS* just pointless, talentless vandalism.
Day at the Museum There were queues! Would you believe it? At Bristol museum!
Took us about 20 minutes to get in, and that was good. We later saw queues down past the traffic lights at the top of Park Street. You are talking 45 mins to one hour there!
I'll let the pictures paint the thousand words. You know I could write them...but I know you don't want me to
Two cornets and a mini milk please?
Look, just p*ss off love - this is a serious work of art 😉
The exhibition was great for us - I had seen many of the pictures before, but not the statues and 'modified' original exhibits.
It was great for the schoolkids - they were chasing around looking for the 'rat' in the prehistoric section. This sort of learning was kind of cool. They got to see the regular exhibits amongst the Banksy stuff.
It was great for the regular Joes who would never normally visit a museum but got to see - like the kids - both Banksy stuff and historical exhibits.
It was also great for the museum - I bet they have never seen so many people filing through their doors!
There was no entrance fee and I overheard one of the staff members say Banksy was paying himself for the extra staff costs.
Hopefully these people will come back to the museum the next time there is an exhibition or just to take a longer peek at some of the longstanding exhibits.
And was it great for Banksy?
Well you'd have to ask him.
I can't believe it was just an opportunity to promote the "Banksy" brand (and sell
Athenian Bag Lady in background
Bristolian Bag Lady in the fore... more - and more expensive - pictures to Madonna or whoever).
I'd rather believe it was just a Banksy gift to us all...his fellow Bristolians 😊
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