An update.......

I phoned my pal Derek yesterday, he tells me that since I left Aberdeen they've had constant snow, night-time temperatures of -16 degC and daytime temperatures of around -4 degC. Sounds like leaving was a good idea!

I've just caught up with a film I wanted to see - "The Motorcycle diaries" the story of Che Guevara's early travels around South America with a friend on a 500 Norton named "the mighty one". I enjoyed it for many reasons, the main one being that the fim is in Spanish with English subtitles; and as its basically a buddy road movie, there's loads of swearing. I love to hear swearing in Spanish, it seems so much more descriptive yet almost poetic. I work in 'Engineering', so our everday vocabulary consists of the f-word, the c-word and a few descriptive additions like "nut" or "bolt" thrown in to add clarity ( although I did once hear probably the ultimate description comprising of swear words - "this f#ckin' f#cker's f#ckin' f#cked"-classic!) but we 're not very descriptive when it comes to insults. I mean, no-one would say "son of a bitch" and expect it to raise an eyebrow, but somehow "hijo de puta", especially when the emphasis is placed on the "puta", has a special ring. In fact I was so impressed with the swearing in the film that I'm working on a couple of new phrases that I could use if I ever go back to South America. The first one is "may your excrement turn solid and block your back passage for ever" which is non-gender specific so could be used in almost any situation; also because I love to say the word "eternidad", it does actually sound like forever. I'm also working on another one "may the tip of your penis heal up and force your testicles to explode" but thats still a work in progress. In the meantime I'm going to continue with my meditation, beard-growing and self-imposed task of consuming the total EU production of wine and beer. Bottoms-up!