YOU DON'T REALLY KNOW ME DO YOU?

No wonder this blog never gets written with all the Vermouth, Pimms, white wine and brandy in coffee that I seem to be putting away. Somehow things do get done like battling with a parasol that needs to be wedged in with old photocopies of English idioms on account of Henderson not buying a base to support the beast. I spied the phrase 'do you always stick to your guns if you think you are right, or are you willing to compromise?' on one of the papers.This reminded me of just about every conversation I have ever had here. Last night I was told by Spanish friends to change my photo on Facebook which is of a bull that has had enough and is leaping into el publico and shows a bunch of suited and booted geezers shitting themselves. For some Spanish friends this photo is awful and I should change it at once. The Spanish and especially the Aragonese are known for their stubborness but few have come up against the tenacity of someone from The Atlantic Isles. To show how difficult or impossible it is to be understood here the bull is a good point of reference. Even though I thought the photo was stating the bleeding obvious others see it as disgusting, but not for reasons you would imagine. When pressed, I realised that as the photo shows the bull leaping into the audience from behind it shows it's arse which was also dirty and this was the complaint, that it was 'dirty', 'disgusting' and was showing the animal's arsehole ( Facebook/Arsebook goes amiss...). As a Taurean and well known for leaping on people if they stick the knife in I thought it was rather novel, and reminded me of my fellow fire horse Eric Cantona when he leapt into the pit and kicked a hooligan. It never ocurred to me that people would think this big arsed beast would be perceived as something horrible to the eye. Which sums it up really. OK to dress up like a nonconformist, which, let's face it, is another name for a poof, flare the old nostrils and slaughter a poor animal in the name of entertainment than show it for what it really is, morally repugnant. The' it is culture' argument doesn't wash as so-called female circumcision is cultural for some. Henderson has the idea of hijacking a bullfight wearing nothing but a pair of wooden clogs, and, armed with a rifle he says he would shoot the bull, turn round and holler, 'there, that's how it should be done'. One can only wait.

Talking of hollering, I thought of a cure for the loudness that is de rigueur throughout the land here. Import some sergeant major from the Irish Guards and get them to sneak up on an overbearing native and let rip into his ear. There, that's the way to do it. I'm not sure what cure is needed to solve the insatiable inability to say what needs to be said in five mintes instead of five hours. I don't mind if food is the subject but if it meanders off into how someone got from A to B with not much in between I class this as unreasonable behaviour and hackles and rise are words I start to harvest, not to mention thoughts of manslaughter.

If all this sounds like someone who shouldn't be living here if she/he doesn't like it don't get me started on my comrades back in Old Blighty as they deserve a good bashing too and the longer I am here the more I am prepared to put up with that extra loud comportment if it means staving off a typical Brit, although the cruelty to animals does depress.