Foot in mouth disease

Flipping on the telly to the channel I used to watch all the Olympics on and watched Japan versus Korea woman’s football match - For 38minutes. Trying to figure out what disability they had – I knew they had one [it wasn’t as obvious as a missing limb, but you got that feeling] then realised it was the Woman’s under 20 world cup football – One of those moments your glad your not in public.

This is not unlike me in the slightest and I know for a fact I’m in good company. A great friend of mine [Johnson my Johnson – as she’s known by the locals] and I thought for the majority of our lives that the Bryan Adams lyrics to his song ‘Summer of 69’ went a little like this

“I got my first real sex dream” – You sing it and you’ll see what I mean. In fact I prefer our way.

In fact I like my way of most things. In primary school in the last month of school before Christmas they would give us these general knowledge quizzes to take up time and as much as I didn’t give a rats arse about general knowledge and still don’t, some of my best work was right in that quiz:

Question 1.

Finish the sentence; “Every cloud has a …”

 I scratched out the “has a” and simply put – White and fluffy.

I was not wrong now was I?

Question 7.

 Who is Andre Agassi’s wife?  - Mrs Agassi.

Again, not entirely wrong, bit vague perhaps but you get the point across.

Question 24.

Where am I? I just visited Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, and Angel Islington? An absolute give away – Monopoly!

Now if you think that was just when I was under the age of 11 you best think again, this ‘Foot-in-mouth’ Disease is a lifelong illness. Playing our ritual ’30 seconds’ in Plett with the family and all our fabulous Plett friends and I was describing a name – which I had no idea who or what it was, so used the best technique I knew how.

Moi “What do you play pool with?”

Fabulous Plett friends “A pool cue”

Moi “Yes, yes, ok next word is then repeated, I went to school with her in Standard 6, short and blonde” [Don’t hate the playa…hate the game]

Fabulous Plett friends (of those who went to school with me) “Sarah”

Moi “Yes so put them together and double that last bit”

FPF [Abv. = way cooler] “Cue Sarah Sarah?”

Moi [Exstatic} “YES!!!!”

Enter the sceptics … “What, wait lets see the card, no way… [BURSTS OF LAUGHTER AND FINGER POINTING] that’s “Que Sera Sera”

Moi “ Yes, that’s what I said”

Insert Foot-in-mouth-disease here <--

I’m not ashamed, in fact it makes life a whole lot more exciting and funny, and who doesn’t love to laugh.

Yours truly,

Continually has Foot-in-mouth-Stu

xxx

Harsh but fair.

I feel as this is my last week in Turkey I should give those fellow travellers out there the full scope of my experiences here in Kas. Kas is a very small town with a gorgeous coastline of the blue-est water you will ever see. It’s about the one aspect they haven’t lied about on the travel brochures. We have been here just over 3 months and gone from seeing everything there is to offer here in Kas to just becoming locals at our favourite restaurant slash bar slash mid night snack spot – Jimmy Jokers [describing it as ‘fabulous’ would not be doing it enough justice]. But as much as I want people to visit this wonderful family owned restaurant where we have had many a great meal, drunken night and just good conversations, I wouldn’t want you to waste your hard earned money visiting Turkey.

Harsh?

Well I have to admit, it is beautiful, a lot like the picturesque coastline of Thailand, it doesn’t have beaches per se but rocky inlets that are kitted with large umbrella’s and ‘poofs’ to lounge on which is a great way to tan at the sea. But besides being beautiful, it doesn’t have much more to offer. Its over 40degrees just about every day – which I know sounds grand in theory but you have no idea of the unbearable, uncomfortable, sticky, sweaty, sleepless nights you will have. Its safe to say I haven’t had a proper night sleep since we got here. Not only is it just too hot, but the people are …to put this lightly … HORRIFIC, ok so horrific is harsh maybe dishonest, lying, greedy, disgusting, slimy, dirty, ignorant and horrendous is better?

Harsh?

I hate to sound so negative but it would be fab if you could remove all the Turks from Turkey – problem solved [now who said I wouldn’t change the world for the better huh?]. If you’re like me and feel that the locals can either make or break a place then don’t go to Turkey. They lie, cheat and steal their way into your pockets anyway they can, not only are they bad people in general but the men are slimy and disgusting – I don’t mind a glance at the ladies every now and then but they see an elbow and they are a walking hard -on.  They also have proper stores selling fakes at only 20% off the original price??? When I told them they were fake and should be cheaper [the inner bargain hunter in me] he said yes but its good leather and the best fake – where I simply replied “go to Asia”. Now I don’t care how stupid you are, why are you buying a fake Louis for €600?

Its not only their ‘great fakes’ that are extremely pricey, it’s the whole town – dinner costs us the same amount as it does in Monaco. Now if I wanted a fancy Mediterranean getaway I wouldn’t rough it in dusty Turkey so why charge so much for so little.

Every salesperson, worker, official, security guard, waiter and ferry ticket officer has given us more than one reason to hate them. They don’t care much for service or even after sales service so as soon as they have your money they all of a sudden ‘don’t understand’ – but your English was fine ten minutes ago? I guess it is possible we have had a bad run with terrible Turks, but in the 3 months we have been here I have met perhaps a handful good Turk – those are not good odds.

My advice - get rid of all the Turks then Turkey would be a much nicer place. I have met some tourists who say they love the people here, but clearly they never met ‘Firat’ – the plumber who pleasured himself while standing behind me watching me mop the floor [unfortunately a true story] Or maybe they didn’t meet ‘Mehmit’ – the contractor who we paid to work for us for three days and worked two hours a day and charged us for 3 full days? Or maybe they didn’t meet ‘Omur’ our sweet taxi driver who tried to charge us ten times the normal price on day two and then kept doubling it every other day, hey you have to admire his boldness I guess. Maybe it was all doomed from day one when they held me up in the police station as they didn't know that South Africa was an actual country. 

So if Turkey was on your ‘To-Do’ list, id take it off and replace it with somewhere nicer – anywhere else in fact, somewhere with more value for your money with people who appreciate your business and tourism.

Definitely first country to properly hit the ‘Stu-‘s sh*t list’ for sure.

Never again Turkey…Never again.

The best names from the Olympics

So the Olympics are almost over and I will most definitely be sad to see it go, productivity however will increase two fold and now I look forward to the ‘blooper’ compilations from this year. No not to make fun of someone’s misfortune but just for a laugh – trust me, I wish I had all my greatest tumbles on tape.

So keeping with the funnier and ‘lite’ side to the Olympics, I have had such fun with so many of the names of the Athletes – and I’m from South Africa where Honesty and Elvis are common names. Even though my name is somewhat normal I have always had trouble with people saying Sam is a boys name and replying ‘Dear Sir’ in all my emails, so I have particularly enjoyed the great names at the Olympics.

So here are some my favourites from these Olympics – I hope the next one brings even better names.

1.     Endurance Abinuwa. It’s even funnier that she is a runner; I wouldn’t like my chances running against her.

2.     Rusian Albegov from Russia. I believe his mothers name was Original.

3.     Aleksandra Aleksandrov is not only a male rower from Azerbaijan but also a male boxer from Bulgaria. What are the chances?

4.     There are an astounding 21 athletes with the surname ‘Chen’ from China alone.

5.     20 athletes with the surname Wang.

6.     17 Jungs and 9 Lee’s in South Korea alone. The phone book must be confusing.

7.     Taiwan claims 15 Changs while table tennis has 7 Lee’s.

8.     I know Ning Ding from china had trouble at school.

9.     Definitely the most apt for their sport is Equestrian rider Rich Fellas.

10. The eternally confused Mexican athlete German Sanchez Sanchez.

11. Mark Anthony from Oz and Chris Brown from the Bahamas’ are now trying their hand at the Olympics.

12. Unfortunate…plain and simple: Destinee Hooker and Brent Newdick.

13. Yuu Suk Kim probably suffers from self-esteem issues.

14. The most surprising name to come out of Australia being Miao Miao

15. The gold medal for the athlete with the longest name goes to 

    ‘Aleksandra J Klejnowska-Krzywanska’.

16. Yoshi Takeshita – I’m still laughing at this one.

17. And lastly my personal favourite Indonesian weightlifter ‘Deni’ just rolls with one name. Hey if Madonna, Prince and Ronaldo can do why cant Deni?

Please add the ones you loved, I am sure I have missed a few greats.

Till the next Olympics

Yours truly,

Stu

The Olympics – To your average Joe or Stu.

I have to admit it’s really hard not to get ‘the fever’ with the Olympics on, and it is an excuse for anything really including a slightly less productive day at work? Just saying. I have enjoyed the Olympic drinking games too [who doesn’t love drinking games] by making drinking rules for each event, I subsequently came home wrecked after the opening match due to not knowing a couple for countries existed (3 fingers of your drink) and no I am not embarrassed as I think a large percentage of the world didn’t either, I’m just honest enough to own up... even on a public sphere.

 I felt it would be a crime against my blog if I didn’t mention it so in the spirit of the Olympics I figure I shall try set a top score or ‘most views’ goal for myself and in lieu of previous posts it seems that the posts most liked where either in point form or pictures [Says a lot about the people reading my blog – YES!]

So here is my breakdown of the Olympics, in point form – for the viewer who doesn’t care too much about them, only enjoys the finals, only watches the short events and is perhaps as confused as I am with a lot of the rules:

The Olympics – To your average Joe or Stu.

1.     Synchronised diving – couldn’t confuse me more, how can such gorgeous men do such a queer sport. But a round of applause to the outfit designers and from me personally a huge thank you for the small Speedo’s, made for good TV.

2.     Men’s Gymnastics – Hot bodies no doubt but again I find it a strange choice of sport for a man, especially the floorshow.

3.     Woman’s gymnastics – I mean girls gymnastics. What’s next…Tandem toddler canoeing?

4.     Swimming – I couldn’t be happier with the South Africans two gold medals thus far but is it absolutely necessary to have so many heats? I feel like it’s all I have watched. Get cut throat with them, your taking up too many channels.

5.     Judo – Didn’t even know it was an Olympic sport (don’t judge me). Its beyond average, my thoughts are if you are going to insist on keeping judo – perhaps change it to cage fighting. Way more exciting. Nothing says ‘Olympic spirit’ quite like grounding and pounding a fellow ‘Olympians’ face into the floor.

6.     Shooting – seriously?? And surely South Africa could be involved in this somehow?

7.     Girls soccer – Now I am all for the age old debate of ‘whatever a man can do – girls can do as well', but for me…leave soccer to the men ladies – your doing yourselves no favours.

8.     Handball – Now I always thought that it was a game I played during break at school with a tennis ball. How wrong was I, I love the viciousness of it all and those guys and girls are tough as nails! Just a thought – allow elbow shots – viewership would surely improve.

9.     Woman’s weight lifting – have loved watching it this week, truly - but ladies, for your own sake and your countries…wear some more make-up or pad your bra a bit. There were a few moments, no many many moments where I had a double take. All that said… You girls (??) got game!

   10. Fencing – By far my least favourite, and how is it that fencing is an actual sport? Really?!?! At least let them wear less padding, there needs to be something at stake here.

Even though I wasn’t an overly sporty kid, it would be all kinds of awesome to win a gold medal so in my defence … I chose boobs, and a social life over a gold medal.

Till the next event …

Yours Truly:

Olympic Stu

You go boy!