Borussia Mönchengladbach 2 - Alemania Aachen 1

Well I got my mobile back. I still don't know whether to thank or curse the guy who took my phone on a round trip from Bochum to Mönchengladbach via Dortmund, but at least he was honest and gave me my phone back, so I probably was a bit harsh in the last post.

After leaving the grotty internet cafe (see post below) I needed to pee. As their toilet was broken, I went into the pub next door. Peeing there cost 50 cents for non-customers, so I ordered a beer. After a few minutes, some Mönchengladbach fans had returned from the stadium and joined me to celebrate their victory. I left and found the guy who had acquired my phone, got it back, and went for another beer to celebrate, inwardly singing

Ohne Handy fahre ich nicht nach Haus, ohne Handy fahre ich nicht nach Haus. [1]

I returned to the pub and bought a round of drinks, and the Mönchengladbach fans said that they would get me home, seeing that a couple of them lived in Essen, which isn't far from Bochum. We drank the way to Düsseldorf, visited a pub next to the station in Düsseldorf (a guy said he knew the landlord, Pedro), and then drank the way to Essen and Bochum. Right now I'm back in Bochum and drunk. Borussia Mönchengladbach are top of the league and aiming for promotion.

[1] Translation: I will not aboard the train to Bochum without my mobile phone.

Mönchengladbach

It could have happened even if I was feeling well, but these things seem to happen more often when I'm feeling down anyway.

I ate lunch at a chinese restaurant, famous for it's chicken meat courts, and left my mobile phone there. Someone found my phone, and claims to have taken it to Mönchengladbach, which is over an hour from Bochum by train. Leaving it in charge of the restaurant owners was obviously too simple for him, so I'm off to Mönchengladbach, in full expectation that this guy will mug me for my wallet and keys when I get there.

Today I have slouched, cried, retched and despaired, and that was even before I realised that I'd lost my phone. I'm starting to wonder if I can live an independent life. It all seems so complicated.

Update 20:21

I'm in Mönchengladbach, and the guy is nowhere to be seen. I rang him up, and he explained that he is in Dortmund, and had an accident. Apparently, someone broke his mirror, and he had to wait for the police. He hoped to be in Mönchengladbach in an hour. Quite why the cunt has sent me to Mönchengladbach I don't know, as he will be driving his silver fucking BMW through Bochum to get here, the wanker. Top quote from him so far, as I frantically shove money into the pay phone: "Can I reach you by telephone". Sure, just call yourself on my fucking mobile!!!

If this is a practical joke, be 100% sure that I will use violence when I find out. And if this fucking arsehole doesn't turn up at 9, I will call the police and accuse this verdammte Drecksau of stealing my phone. It's OK picking up lost items, but you really should remember to give them back.

By the way, this internet cafe is a piece of shit. They have old cathode ray tube monitors, the toilet is broken and they don't clear the memory of the web browser. The last sites visited include www.sexrelax.de, www.gina-wild.de and www.nightparc.de. The keys seem slightly sticky, too.

Referral Forms

Germans like to go and see their doctor, or even better lots of doctors. According to this article (in German), the average German sees a doctor 16.3 times a year, which is the highest rate in the world. In order to try and stem the number of visits, especially people diagnosing themselves and going straight to a specialist, patients have to pay 10 Euros each quarter in order to see a doctor. Referrals in that quarter are then free. This system is supposed to encourage patients to first see a GP (General Practitioner), who can send them to a specialist if necessary. This great step forward was part of the Gesundheitsreform.

I was sent by my GP (where I paid 10 Euros back in July) to a psychiatrist, who sent me back to my GP, who yesterday referred me to a neurologist. I got a little referral form explaining who (the GP) was referring me to whom (the neurologist) and wherefore (depression). I then rang up the neurologist, and was told that the appointment could only be made at the end of October as he was busy. The secretary of the neurologist explained that the referral was only valid until the end of September, and that I would need a new one if I came in October. The alternative would be to pay 10 Euros to the neurologist and then keep going to the neurologist to get referrals to the GP. So I will make a completely pointless trip to my GP in a weeks time to get a referral to replace a perfectly good referral that I got yesterday. Which means that her waiting list will increase until the point that nobody ever sees a doctor in the same 3-month period that they were referred, and 100% of the doctor's time is spent filling out forms again and again.

The alternative would just be to go to the bank, get 163 Euros in 10 Euro notes, and pay each time. This would be my favourite solution, but I quite like the idea that one doctor has a list of when you were ill and with what. I just wish that the referrals were valid for a reasonable time.

I cried a lot yesterday and took time off work. A friend forced me to tidy my room, which was one giant floordrobe. I found one of the toenails which had fallen off a few months ago. He said that I have let myself go, and need to sort myself out.

Torpedo Entenhausen 1 - Team USA 1

We should really have won this game against one of the few teams which are below us in the league table. Reading their website, it seems that they have had trouble getting a full team out on some occasions. Against us, though, they had enough for a full team and two substitutes, whilst we were down to the bare bones: our eleventh player was still putting on his boots as we kicked off.

We started the match strongly, and took the lead halfway through the first half. Team USA tried to clear the ball, but gave it straight to me. I passed to Aziz who beat one player and scored with a low shot. We should have added another goal or two before the break, but didn't. The advantage of a couple of substitutes was seen in the last half hour as we tired and Team USA scored an equaliser. They could have even gone on to win the match.

Update: Team USA have put up their version of events. It's good to see that the babelfish translation is as amusing as ever. Please be reassured that nobody really suffered shell shock in the match.

Duck-live vs. team U.S.A. 1:1 (1:0). In a combatstressed portion the ducks went by right after quite chaotic first 20 minutes into guidance. To appropriate speech and some restructuring we came better into the play and had numerous hochkaraetige gate chances. Janni refuelled itself in the 65 min by the strafraum... peng reconciliation. Afterwards run on a gate, unfortunately without victory. One point with which we first times can be so content.

I saw a psychologist this morning, and he diagnosed me with mild depression with ups and downs, or something like that. I will start a therapy course soon.

This music video is worth watching, if only for the mindless violence.

Better to cry in an ICE...

...than a Regionalbahn. I got the high speed train to from Bochum to Erlangen, and filled out some forms about my psychological health. I have an appointment on Monday with a psychologist, and I have a lot to discuss. When I finished filling out the forms, I burst into tears and shook quite a bit.

After half an hour of crying, I cheered up a bit, and the young girl sat opposite gave me a picture of a horse. She drew horses, the sun, butterflies and grass, and wanted Würzburg castle for christmas.

My Dad

If you want to know your future, it is often a good guide to see what your parents are up to. I have added my dad to the list of blogfriends. He likes to run up and down hills, and tries to organise others into doing the same on his car share webpage.

Sometimes I'm not quite sure what he's up to, but it sounds like fun, and over rough ground he's too fast for the police anyway:

This week's News.

Labrador Tea Plants. We all know about Mike's original mystery Tea Plant, placed at Outer Edge.

He permanently rues the fact that England's hills are too small, and is off to Austria to run up a mountain this weekend. It looks quite a testing route, but I think that he can at least take the cable car back down.

Claude Shannon

One of the most entertaining biographies in Wikipedia must belong to Claude Shannon. I first heard of him this year when I had to learn some information theory, which explains why the world of computing is based on 0s and 1s, and why u cn stll rd whn I wrt lk ths.

I could have also kicked off by pointing out that he planned the most beautiful machine . I think the beauty, as so often, lies in the symmetry of the device. The only action which causes it to open brings about an inside-out mirrored action which closes it again.

Alternatively, I could have led with the fact that he built the first juggling machine and gave it the head of comedian W.C. Fields, who made his name in a Vaudeville act.

Here is a video of Claude Shannon and his juggling machine.


and here is a video of his inspiration, W.C. Fields. I will try out the fake behind-the-back trick (3:44 left to go). I'm not very good at real ones, and from that angle it looks quite convincing.

Bowl Bloomin' Straight!

This looks like it is a Monty Python inspired joke, but it is deadly serious. The game of 20 overs (120 balls) a side cricket between India and Pakistan ended in a tied score, and a bowl out.

Labels

I went through my Blog and labelled all of the posts. I realised that this year I haven't written as much as in 2006. Must try harder. Having a little label bar according to frequency of appearance, I see that the top three are:

Football (15)
Stern-Gerlach Experiment (11)
Depression (11)

Having reread some of the posts on depression, I decided last week that it was time to get some specialist help, and will be starting a therapy course next week. I got this far in December, but then hoped that a job and a change of city would fix things. It didn't.

I have been feeling sad quite a lot in the last week, and shaking sometimes. On Thursday I tried to go to work but started crying and went home again. This weekend I slept lots.

This story about a web of lies told in an effort to skive from international football duty cheered me up a bit.

I would write something about the Stern-Gerlach experiment, to complete the top three, but I don't have anything to say about it.

Red Star Fussek 0 - Torpedo Entenhausen 2

You don't have to take my word for it; you can read that Torpedo Entenhausen won their first away match of the season as written by the opposition (in German).

Their pitch, as you can see in the picture which I nicked from their website, has an odd mixture of cinder fairway down the middle and deep rough grass on the flanks, as if their groundsman did his apprenticeship on a golf course. You can see it even better on google maps.


Größere Kartenansicht

Click here if the embedded map doesn't work

Our first goal was a wind-assisted 3-iron down the middle followed by a crisp 25-foot putt by striker Amin. The Red Stars then put us under quite a bit of pressure, but our defence held firm until the 55th minute, as we broke away down the right wing and then switched play to the left. I played Amin in behind the defence and he floated a cross to the back post which was headed in by Aziz for the second goal. Despite having no substitutes to replace some tiring legs (our spare striker is possibly still driving around Bochum looking for the ground), we just about kept going until the end to secure the points.

The occasion was lifted by the vocal support from the terraces (it's that thin grey strip at the side of the pitch outside the running track). Usually we are watched by the proverbial canine-assisted trio, but there were a couple of dozen supporters yesterday.

The Bermuda Cup

The centre of Bochum's nightlife is the so-called Bermuda Triangle. The area is full of pubs and stuff, and once a year they hold a seven-a-side football tournament to see which pub has the best team.

I imagined that the teams would be formed by dragging the regulars off their bar stools and sticking a football shirt over their beer bellies, but it seems that the cup is so prestigious that pubs try to get a few ringers in. So despite never having passed through their doors, I ended up playing for "Tucholsky" in a seven-a-side football tournament on Saturday. We went out in the first round, which was quite an achievement given that four of the five teams went through. We didn't even manage a consolation goal. The main problem was that the group stage took six hours, and most of the team were drunk by the final game.

Still, I have cheered up a bit, and I have learnt who Kurt Tucholsky was. I have just read quite a bit about and by him, so remember to "Buy German lemons."

Reasons to be Cheerful.

I am feeling very depressed. I went to the doctor yesterday, and told him that I was sad, scared, confused and unproductive. He referred me to the Centre for Psychotherapy at the university. I went there and filled in a form about my mental and physical health.

Since then I've been crying a lot (particularly when I think of my parents), walking around miserably, and having muscle spasms. I'm sat there, thinking about something, and then another thought comes in from somewhere, and the two thoughts collide and confuse me completely. All at once I blink, my head suddenly shakes and my shoulders hunch, throwing my arms to the centre. Sometimes my knees kick too. I managed to startle a girl in the cafeteria by doing this whilst exclaiming "Wuuhuuhh" rather too loudly.

Some miserable thoughts to end on:

A Film: The introduction to Trainspotting.

A Book: Cloud Atlas. I don't know if it was Robert Frobisher, the oppressive side of human nature or the future of humanity, but this depressed me lots.

Some Music: Like a Rolling Stone and From Ausschwitz to Ipswich.

If it's too much for you, why don't you take a break from it all? Go to Desolation Island or the Disappointment Islands.

Pölen with the VfL.

WARNING: this blog usually carries no advertising, in order to save your souls and because the income would be laughably small. If you go on to read this post, you could end up fat as fuck, addicted to green food colouring, overdosed on caffeine and supporting a football club for whom UEFA cup qualification is a sure-fire sign of approaching relegation. I'd leave now if I were you.








Ah, I see you're still here. Let us begin.

German TV advertisements are notoriously bad. They usually involve some Bavarians prancing around a meadow consuming beer or milk or sausages. I was thus surprised whilst watching the ZDF Sportstudio last night to see them feature the new advertisement for the VFL Bochum.



It contains no Bavarians at all, and carries on my good work of bringing the concept of Pölen (or Pöln, nobody seems to know the official spelling) to a larger audience. At 0:39 the guy in the white vest exclaims "Hömma... pölen is wieso aufm Hof verboten, weiße, ne?". This translates to

Please listen carefully. You are, I'm sure, aware that playing football in the yard is, irrespective of the present circumstances, not allowed.

This advertisement has nothing to do with the rest of the post, but is great: Fresh from the sewers to you. If you're convinced, why not sign this petition? Top reason for signing so far: "I am diabetic and need the turtle pies to survive."

Having first poisoned the youth of america with their pies and cereal (with Ninja Marshmallow!), at least the Turtles tried to save them from Marijuana and preemptively deal with the munchies.

(Sorry for the third link in. It's below the level of this blog, and I don't wish to promote some shitty coffee stuff by viral advertising, but I found it whilst looking for traditional Bavarian-style adverts and I'd just watched the two Milka ads. It got me completely.)

Juggling

I've not achieved much of note in the past months, but I learnt to juggle a four-ball Mills mess. This requires the juggler to keep crossing and uncrossing the arms like in some song with a custom dance. The routine looks a bit like this (around 1:40 he gets it to work very nicely). According to all reliable sources, the balls which start in one hand are never caught by the other hand, but every time I try to confirm this I drop them all.

Whilst looking for that animation, I read about Rupert Ingalese (a Yorkshireman, note) and his juggling book from the 1920s. Ingalese, although recommending his readers to start with wooden bottles and enamel plates, gives an idea of what people did before there were shops selling special juggling items: it seems they took whatever was lying around at home: lampshades, billiard balls, china plates, champagne bottles and midgets. Nowadays you can easily buy soft balls, plastic rings and weighted clubs, but juggling midgets are hard to come by.



In a laboured effort to connect the previous two paragraphs, I would point out that Ingalese probably never managed a Mills mess, as it was first popularised at some time around 1973. Had he been around at the time, I'm sure he would have mastered it whilst also balancing a couple of lampshades.