Maxpower

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Bow down Mister. Hare rama, Hare Krishna

This was a party at Rob's a few weeks back.Everyone had to get dressed up.'The brits' as Rob likes to call us were the Hare Krishna gang (do Hare Krishna's hang around in Gangs??). Rob was dressed up as a Sheikh & his wife Pooja was in a traditional Muslim outfit.

The party was excellent and as well as consuming muchos beer we were all partaking in the pipe that is in the foreground of the picture of me and Meesh.



'Mr Sandman bring me a dream'

I was in work last night and went to get a drink. Walking past the balcony area I saw from of the strangest sights since I've been here. The normally bright, sun drenched landscape was a dusty muted brown.

After watching this weird sight for a few seconds I soon realised that I was witnessing a Sandstorm. My range of vision was reduced to a few metres. There are some buildings near the office and the dust & sand totally obscured these. I almost expected a group of Tusken Raiders to emerge from the billowing sands???

The wind was howling and I was certainly glad that I was in the safe confines of the office. On the way back from work there were uprooted trees, Billboards blown over & the traffic was a nightmare. Most of the cars had a fine sheen of dust on them...

Even the locals here said they can't remember seeing a sandstorm that bad in Delhi before.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Poor Old Sebastian

Last night I had possibly the nicest meal since I've been here. The place is called Pan Asian, and is located inside the hotel. Although I've been there a few times, yesterday was the first time that we sat at the hot plate & had the food prepared in front of us...

My taste buds seem to have changed during my time here. Normally I'll stay away from Seafood of any description. In fact the closest I got was a couple of Bird's eye fishfingers??

However over here I can't get enough of the stuff. Any time I go out to eat I tend to have prawns for every starter. Last night I went Sea food crazy..Prawns soaked in Garlic, Prawn soup..Which tastes better than it sounds, and the big daddy for the main course was...Lobster

Now coming from the very poshest areas of Salford, Namely Sutton flats. Lobster, believe it or not didn't tend to be part of our staple diet. Much more along the lines of Carpet Burgers, Mince & mash, and anything that could be cooked in the deep fat fryer.

Now back to the giant crustacean. It looked like it had come from a cheesy 1940's monster flick..It was huge. The guy cooking for us was trying to show off as well..To make the fried rice he chopped the egg in half in mid air..Surprisingly Mark the rice was already cooked before he made fried rice...Weird that isn't it??

The lobster by the way was superb..I would have felt sorry for the creature but apparently after reading the fact that Lobsters, like Grasshoppers - feel no pain.
They have a decentralized nervous system with no cerebral cortex, which in humans, is where a reaction to painful stimuli proceeds..I didn't feel as guilty.

Everybody now....

Under the sea
Under the sea
Darling it's better
Down where it's wetter
Take it from me
Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'
Under the sea........

And for those of you that are pedantic, then ok, I know that Sebastian isn't a Lobster, but a crab....but who really cares

Friday, April 22, 2005

Brian and Marsh sitting in a tree ...



Well this must be a first.A nice picture of me & Marsh..Admittedly I'm still pulling a rather unusual face, but normally Meesh shy's away from the camera much in the same way that Matt talks bollocks & wears naff poncy clothes...quickly and all the time????

Well the night in question was to celebrate my birthday on the Saturday before marsha returned to the UK on the 10th April. The place was TGI Fridays' in versant Vihay

As you can see from the rather large cocktail in front of me I'd decided to hit it large in my last days as a twenty something....

As the cocktails flowed and I got drunker & drunker a strange notion came to my mind.I'm not too sure what particular piece of music inspired this thought, but I suddenly decided to re-inact a 'Jay One' classic. I wandered to near the bar and cleared some space, and attempted to do my own version of the now infamous 'Swan Dive'.....

No surprises for what happened next. I end up flat on my face looking like some floundering beached whale, with the staff of TGI's wondering what the hell this stupid Englishman was up to....

Although there ws only four of us, me, Marsh, Sue & Dave I had a top laugh. Another highlight was when the staff got me up on the table, give me a cake and proceded to wish me happy birthday.

Oh to be twenty nine again hey?



The Swan dive..Jay gave me 6.5 for effort, 3 for execution...Not too bad really



This is us leaving the bar at the end of the night. Sue went up to the little guy in the picture, and asked him where our driver was..Makes you wonder how drunk Sue was, as the poor little guy WAS our driver...Hmm he doesn't look nervous at all does he???

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

It's just not Cricket???

Hey everybody.Apologies for the lack of posts over the last week. Well I'm back and raring to go again.

What's I been up to this past week. Well the situation at the moment is that everyone else has gone back to the UK, and it's just me and Suse left now. It's not to bad, but with us covering the shifts it can get a bit lonely..sniff sniff.

Well as you all know I'm definitly the sporty type. With my perfect physique, natural ability & sheer determination I always thrive at any sport.

However the lads here have co-erced me to play 'Cricket' on Sunday. Now I'm up for anything, but the contemplation of someone hurtling a missile at my head does not entice me too much. this is coupled with the fact that they want me at the ground at 8.30 in the morning for training??? Me, Training.....

My problem is that I have the look of Ian Botham, minus any cricket skill whatsover. It's like sending Jay on as a centre forward for a football match. Sure it's looks good, but the end result is bound to be disapointing???

Brian 'Beefy' Jones

Monday, April 11, 2005

Eeeh. When I was a lad???

I don't know. I've only been 30 years old for about 19 hours and I'm already thinking about where the years have gone??

Here are some things I miss about being a kid. If you think of some then please add a comment.

1. Holding the end of your coat on a windy day, and seeing how far you get blown around the school playground.

2. Being the hero in 'kick ball hide' when you dash towards the football, releasing all your friends from capture.

3. Having a full day of water fights, during the summer holidays. How long did that six weeks last??

4. Getting 50p off my grandad every Sunday and buying football stickers, 20p mix, and a copy of 'Eagle'

5. Seeing a zx Spectrum for the first time & marvelling at seeing my name appear on the screen

10 PRINT "Brian is cool"
20 GOTO 10
RUN


6. Getting my first ever wages. That was working on Salford Market on the Shoe Stall. Think I earned about five pounds for the whole day

7. Playing Kingy. K-I-N-G-Y Spells Kingy, Ralivo, British Bulldog.

8. Watching programmes such as 'Dungeons & Dragons', Knightmare, Dramarama. They just don't make them the same anymore, do they??

9. Me and our kid playing football at the bottom of the flats, on Sutton Estate. I think we once played till one of scored 100 goals.

10. Playing A-Team, and me and 3 mates arguing who gets to play Hannibal.

Saturday, April 09, 2005

The Big Loo

Well I've experienced a vast change in the weather during my stay here. The heat is the obvious big change. It's steadily rising and will continue to do so until May-June. The Heat also creates the most wonderful Storms. The skies are often lit up with a a colourful montage of lightning bolts, arcing across the horizon.

Another phenomenon that has recently arisen is the wind that now blows across the city. This wind is like no other that I have ever experienced. In normal heat the wind often acts as a respite from the heat. This type of wind however only increases that. It is locally called 'Loo' and the wind is not only hot, but burning. This coupled with the dust storms that are created created,akin to what I think it would be like living in a desert!!!!

It does not make you sweat as normal, but rather dehydrates your whole body. You can feel it sapping away the moisture from your skin. My daily consumption of water has increased and I regularly drink up to 8-10 pints of water.

I thought one of my favourite poets Ted Hughes summed up the power of wind. I hope you enjoy it?

Wind - Ted Hughes

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up --
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.