Back to Earth. Had an early one last night and slept at Rohacova, to be woken at the usual time of 7am by the ubiquitous builders below, who are now drilling in three-part disharmony.
This morning I lay in bed upstairs and heard shouting underneath. Then Amanda came upstairs to tell me that Jacques had actually snapped to the point of kicking her, twice.
I don’t like to be melodramatic, but that is aggravated assault, yeah? And he can go to prison for that I’m sure, so we are doing him some kind of favour by not calling the police I believe.
God I feel sorry for all the other people who’ll have to live with him in the future.

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Long weekend

A weekend and a half. Still broke, even more so in fact, but with some nice memories.
Started Friday night as usual at the pub. An electro-hip-hop band from Oakland called The Hornay Troof were playing in the back room and everyone went crazy for them. They should be big – best show of the year so far, no contest. Everyone was in a great mood afterwards and chatting to the band, etc.
Further details of the night elude me. I recall somebody was buying me Becharovka shots, but apart from that all I have is a vague recollection of drunken happiness turning slowly into fucked up drunken crap. Same old story and don’t want to dwell on it. At 5.30 Hamish + I were left at the Blind Eye with nowhere to stay. Chrissy offered his place, so we left as the bar was shut and tried to get into a gigantic taxi, but the driver wouldn’t take us.
We got some keys, promised to be quick, and decamped to a Herna with Dean from Pumpster.com, where we drank watery Gambrinus and watched Teletubbies.
One beer was enough, we had to get to Chrissy’s house. Stopping only to get some junk food in Wenceslas square. It was past 7 when we got there, only to find the key wouldn’t work in the main door, and we were stuck without beds.
After a long long bottomless coffee in Bohemia Bagel and a third unticketed tram journey across the city we got to the Clown + Bard hostel, where we found the bar closed and therefore unsuitable for hanging out in. Johnny’s doorstep was the next location, but we couldn’t wake him so we just sat on the porch and insulted people walking past for a while.
There was only one real solution – to go back to the house and hope Jacques wasn’t in. Fat chance.
“Hello”
“Hi, this is Hamish, we’ve come to get Russ for a game of football”
“He’s asleep”
“Oh, that’s ok, we’ll come and wake him up.”
“Hmmm….”
The door buzzed and he let us past. For two hours we had to sit at the dining room table pretending to be awake until finally at 12 o’clock he went out and a bed of sorts could be had.
I awoke at 8pm, feeling a little better, and got down to Blind Eye for the 1st anniversary birthday party. The place had gone very punk for the night, with leather trousers and studs everywhere. We hid in the back room for a while, taking advantage of the free beers. When the bar got a little quieter I decided to return to the house, using some keys I’d picked up off the table earlier that day. I must have been a little dazed when I took them because on getting to the front door I realised they were the keys to the deadbolts we never use and that I was locked out.
Twenty minutes later I was back at the bar and everyone was getting out of the place. Johnny, dressed in bow-tie and tails for the occasion, took me, Tim + Hamish down to a Herna bar, stopping along the way to jump through a window, dance with an old lady (“…you boys want to come back to my Pension and dance with me there?..), break into an apartment block and buy disgusting Haribo crap at an early morning grocery shop.
The Herna bar was packed with gambling derelicts and we subconsciously took it upon ourselves to piss off every one of them, using various techniques. Johnny’s special skill was sitting down at tables and chatting up girls while sitting next to their boyfriends. Mine was more along the lines of falling asleep with my feet on the table.
When the second round of drinks came around, the crone at the bar took the opportunity to ask us to leave, giving the excuse that we had to have more than one beer between the four of us. The other punters, goths, gamblers and raving tramps, having had more than enough of our antics, turned on us at the same time and told us there was a problem with our staying.
We could have had a fight but instead we all went for a sleep in Johnny’s house.
Then on Sunday we had a quiet day. It was Tim’s last in Prague, so we went with him to a bizarre fake castle folly thing in Vrsovice, which I really can’t bring myself to describe. After that we had a meal in a dodgy pub where the meat was about as suspicious as possible. Tim didn’t want his “girlfriend in a korma” so I had it, then felt sick.
There was a free movie, but it was one we’d already seen, so we went back to the pub and Tim did a good DJ set, combining equal measures of early house music and Prince. It was a great night, everyone seemed to be at the bar and in a good mood. At 4 it was already over and I was left with Alex. There was one other figure in the bar, a hideous old queen who was buying me and Alex drinks to try and get us back to his house. I didn’t mind him calling me darling but when he offered me a blowjob in the back room I though it was time we’d better leave.
This morning I woke up on Alex’s sofa and watched some Simpsons, a ‘Lord Of The Flies’ episode I hadn’t seen before, then met up with Amanda to go to U Houdku for Lunch.
And that’s about it. I’m really not an alcoholic and will prove it by not drinking all week. Well, not much anyway.

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Ok, a break from my escapades to tell you all about the kind of dick who hangs around in this city.
We have an expats website here, at http://www.expats.cz
I was attempting to sell my computer on it.
I need to sell my computer to get some cash, I have none left.
I need a house, hence some money for rent.
The natural place to sell the computer is this site.
So…
Meanwhile I also post a stupid joke.
http://www.expats.cz/ubb_forumfiles/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/64/t/000723/p/1.html
Nobody gets the joke. Eventually it winds up like this:
http://www.expats.cz/ubb_forumfiles/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/64/t/000723/p/2.html
You may wonder why I am getting so furious down the page. The reason is that the tit with the penguin logo found my other post and did this to it:
http://www.expats.cz/ubb_forumfiles/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/6/t/002006.html
Hence nobody has bought the fucking thing.
Some people hang around posting to message boards all day, then they act all intimidating to other people if they post to them, because they are some kind of internet character, “famous on the website.” Like they have some kind of moral high ground.
The internet is shit sometimes. A lot of the time. Because of wankers like this one above.

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Last night was spent at the pub, then on Alex’s sofa. Today, then, consisted of Futurama instead of job hunting. Still, I had my one lesson, so returned to Rohačova to get my Headway books from Russ. To my dismay my entrance was quickly followed by that of Jacques. I sat with Amanda in the dining room for a while, as he rattled dishes and shouted French swearwords, in his time-honoured fashion. Then, as I left, he decided to start having an actual go at me. Since I no longer live at the house, his material is wearing a little thin and he was forced to resort to accusing me of leaving a jar of marmite in the house. The house where 3 of my friends live, that would be. Some days that would be funny, but I’d had enough humour so all he got was a swift exhalation of breath and a brief “shut up,” which he took as provocation to order me to leave the house and never return again – “If I am here, you must leave!!”
I would like to use Jacques as a character in a sitcom treatment I’m writing, but have decided not to as nobody could really believe in such a ridiculously prissy gay Frenchman.

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Another day of trouble. Some new chap from Australia is moving into what was my house, but can no longer be called such. Also, the summer courses appear to have fallen through, which is utter utter annoying crap. Moving back to the UK now looks more likely, but I will try to see the summer out.
Today was supposed to be an active day, but for many reasons has not been. Tonight I will sleep elsewhere and tomorrow I really will get my fucking shit together.

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By the below I mean that I am better, finally, except for major wisdom teeth problems, which have been rectified by the taking of large doses of ibuprofen. Last night I even combined painkillers with beer and found out why they tell you not to. Still homeless and jobless, meanwhile, but otherwise in a good mood and active insofar as I can be in-between buying drinks I can’t afford. Tomorrow I go on the hunt for jobs and flats. Despite having moved out of the house more than two weeks ago I’ve somehow slept there every night but one since I got back from the mountains. Tomorrow, though, Amanda + Miriam move out too, and I no longer have a place to sleep free of Jacques. A house is needed immediately. I am a slack fucker.
There will be hindrances to my mood of urgency though, as even more people are leaving soon. There’s always someone going. This time it is said Norwegians, going back to the cold. There will have to be a good sending off, involving alcohol and / or other substances.

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Back to drinking. Hope all is well with you.

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Vuff.
Tired, still sick and still homeless.
However, winter has ended all of a sudden and the surprise choice of substitute season has turned out to be summer. So I am well chuffed. The staff in the park are clearing the leaves off the tables, ready to reopen the gigantic beer garden again. This means that it will rain tomorrow. Probably. We have been sitting on benches doing fuck all instead of sitting in cafes in old town doing fuck all, so a dramatic change of lifestyle has taken place. Russ just bought a football too, so we took it to the park and watched him and Tim play against some twelve-year-old kids for a bit, then got some chips and went to the clown and bard instead.
There are supposed to be 30 Danish girls arriving there tonight, but latest reports suggest that this may not be true. I will go along anyway and hang around in the bar, right now in fact, in the spirit of hope.

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Sick as a dog, homeless and with 3500 crowns now in my pocket. Things are not going too well. I did find free internet though, so not everything has turned out bad.
Have continued to sleep in the house for the last 3 nights – in the hallway and on floors. There is a new guy in my room called Stan, he is allegedly australian. Some other single late 20s guy is moving into the girls room in a week and a half so it’s not only me who is homeless.
Heavy flu is affecting my ability to stare at a screen so I will sign off here.

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Back in Praha. The last night in the mountains was spent bowling, and I won, as always. I am the bowl king. At the end I was invited to work in similar hotels over the summer and am pleased to say I now have a decent job. Though not for a few months at least.
Then there was a long drive back to my lack of a house. I am officially homeless again, but the situation should soon be remedied as I have got up extremely early to go and look for work. And I have 3943 crowns left to last me until whenever I start earning. Bar jobs await (?) or poss. English teaching, will see.
Went last night to see “Big Fish,” and recommend it highly. It’s a classic already.

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