I can't think of a title for this post, so I'll leave it to the Administrator to fill in this gap

Our founder having sunk this blog to the depths of his stoat killing antics (not to mention pictures of sexy buttocks) I feel it’s time to rescue it.

The first Liberazzi event of any significance happened at the weekend as a few of the old Harcov gang gathered for Charlie’s wedding. For those that don’t know, Charlie set out to Taiwan in ‘99 to make his fortune. As far as I know he’s still skint but he has, remarkably, managed to convince the beautiful Jade to marry him.



Here’s the happy couple. Charlie is a very lucky man.

For me the wedding marked the end of my reign as ‘champion organizer of bureaucratically challenging weddings’. It took us 6 months to get all our ducks lined up in Korea. Charlie’s achievement was extra special in that he added a speed element to the competition, managing to jump through all the hoops in a little over a month. Anyone wishing to steal Charlie’s crown will have to marry an underage homosexual Bolivian in Pyongyang a week tomorrow.

And here’s a few faces from Harcov a decade or more ago.

All looking as young and fresh faced as they did U Vachy in ’96.

Finally here's the only one I have from the business end of the evening in Hotel Praha. Some serious Jamesons Oirish fuelled reminishing going on here. It was wonderful to see Le Frenchman who was keen to round of the night with a nostalgic trip to some of the old haunts. Perhaps he did??

A lovely afternoon and evening. Just like a classic 8 hour lunch in Zverinek really. Plenty screaming, dribbling and crawling around on the floor, even some bare bottoms and I think someone threw up. The small army of under 3s are learning fast.

Signing off (for a week)

I got sick of looking at that dead rat each time I came in to check how much mileage we're clocking up here, so I thought I'd post something more aesthetically pleasing. I could have posted something from Our Man in Liberec's new Flickr site in homage to the unmistakable evidence that his biological duty has been performed, but I shall follow the ethical course trailblazed by celebrity magazine editors around the globe (...) and resist placing kiddy pics in the public domain (assuming the seven people who know about this blog and couldn't get by each day without reading it outnumber those who know about the Flickr site).

And so what can I say about the couple pictured here? You don't need to rub too may brain cells together to produce that spark of recognition in regard to that man on the right. The early stages of a receding hairline, the Chesire grin, the jokeshop blackened teeth and the ability to ham it up at someone else' wedding are a dead giveaway. The wee lassie on the left, on the other hand, is none other than our Scottish mascot, Bindy; not to be confused with the equally pint-sized heir to Steve Irwin's estate. Despite the reasonably intimate-looking nature of this photo, I have it on excellent authority that the bloke here was more interested in the bride rather than the guests, although the latter's later catatonic state precluded any potential interference in what were otherwise very happy nuptials.

And my other motivation for posting today is that I'm off tramping for the next week, so you blogophiles will have to get your fix elsewhere, or else - and I know this is a crazy idea - file your own posts. I'm doing the Travers-Sabine circuit in the Nelson Lakes region, which is going to take me about five days hard slog over mountain passes and all on my Jack Jones (to see where I'm heading, take a look at this link http://www.tramper.co.nz/index.cfm?view=object&id=275). See you at the end of it.

You doity, doity rat

Me: So, mate, what did you do last weekend?

Kivak: Thought I'd slow down my rate of posting and instead head out into the bush for my fortnightly commune with Mother Earth.

Me: I guess that'll explain this picture, huh? Looks to me like a case of wanton death and destruction out there in the native forests of Aotearoa...

Kivak: Erm, these little fuckers are an introduced species out here. True, the Maori fellas brought another species of rat with them on that leisurely cruise a thousand years ago when they set out from Hawaiki, i.e. the Polynesian homeland, but they were actually a relatively benign type of rodent and are now so rare that they're actually protected themselves.

Me: So get to the point then.

Kivak: Right. These are the evil little European buggers that arrived on board early whaling and colonists' ships. They've devastated the native bird population since then by eating freshly lain eggs and killing nesting chicks.

Me: So you're a one-man paramilitary death squad, right?

Kivak: Not quite, you sarcastic twat. I assuage my middle-class consumerist conscience by working as a volunteer for the Rimutaka Forest Park Trust's Kiwi Proctection Programme. I'm responsible for a line of 20 traps on the Big Bend track and Lower Turere Stream in the Orongorongo catchment area, about 10km from Wainuiomata. There are other lines of traps all around the area to help protect about nine Kiwis rereleased into the forest last year after an absence of more than a hundred years. Here's a picture of the missus during one of the release ceremonies.


Me: So does it actually make a difference?

Kivak: Well, the traps are actually designed to kill stoats, but I must admit I've only ever caught rats so far. Amazing how quickly they decompose; often there are just the odd paw or vertebre left in the trap by the time I check them. Just doing my little bit to rescue the planet.

Me: Gosh, I think you're wonderful and I'd like you to be the father of my children.

Feeling bored? Time to kill? Winding down on a Friday? Send another post!

Well, alright then. I guess I should only post once a day at a maximum, but I'm feeling a bit garrulous this afternoon, and as a typical obsessive-compulsive I like to keep my posts nicely compartmentalised. And what's more, I came across another set of party photos when rummaging through my files last night that reinforce my own personal impression that life in Mitteleuropa in the 1990s really was a bit of a doddle and a total stress and responsibility-free zone (give or take the odd alcohol-induced bout of psychosis following 72-hour benders in Opava).

After commiserating with myself the other day over my apparent lack of photos of our Canadian colleagues, I was heartened to stumble across this pic from June 1999 taken in Jarda's back garden. Here we have Rob in full beer-flow while Dirty Dog Rotten laughs at all the jokes in the hope of receiving some alms to shore up the brain-ooze precipitated by the previous evening's festivities. We trust Rob isn't relating the story of the not-so-slow dance with Shena in 'S' Klub.

The ghost of Samuel Beckett, ah

Did a double-take when I opened my mail inbox at work this morning and found what at first sight looked a message written in homage to Samuel Beckett, or maybe even sent by Sammy himself. I naturally thought to myself, 'Hah! Here's an opportunity to lift the blog into the stratosphere of the high brow and dispense with toilet humour and naked men's buttocks (no names, Bedrich).' So imagine my surprise when upon closer inspection I realised it was clearly one of the those well-known and considered panegyrics from the legendary 'ah' alluding to his recent discovery of the half-dozen emails from Kivak lying dormant in his own inbox:

"ok i've got over ionital hurdle and actually looked at it tiny steps my friend it's lunchtime and the pub awaits ah"

Note the worldly-wise use of the famous Beckettian literary tool of blending sentences together in a sort of stream-of-consciousness slurge on the keyboard and the eye-catching and distinctive lack of punctuation. Here we also note ah's brilliant mimicking of the stark and fundamentally minimalist approach of Beckett. We also see here ah's depiction of life's obstacles (having to get over an "ionital [sic] hurdle" together with the comedic ruse of affecting somebody afflicted with dyslexia and hence placing further emphasis on the sense of battling against the elements), while ultimately mitigating the perceived pessimism by demonstrating that the journey is finally worth the effort and can be achieved through an inherent optimism in the human condition (the awaiting "pub" providing the imagery for mankind's salvation).

Whether this message acts as a precursor to a fuller disclosure of the complete range of ah's literary prowess remains to be seen. In the meantime we shall dig through the photographic archives and see what we can come up in the way of an old image of ah before he does a salinger on us.

Freak out. Still more frivolity

Don't worry - I've just about run out of pictures from the party that these originated from; I'm just still a bit excited about the fact that I've actually mastered the technology to put colour versions of hard copy photographs onto the Internet. I'm sure the novelty will wear off in a week or so. But here anyway are a couple of the last characters from the mainstay at Harcov budova 'A': B & K. K's still in Liberec, having produced the next generation with Tomas, while B is still somewhere in Prague fronting up for the city's "premier indie-punk band" Freak Parade (see http://www.freakparade.org/). Sorry about the picture of you here, B, but it's the best I could do, and there was little I was able to do to airbrush that prat out of the picture; Bedrich might have better luck with his photoshop software that he's no doubt pirated from a shareware website. Nice interior furnishings though. I had better luck with K's picture - not too difficult to excise that wally from the frame, although it's still his lughole listening in at the side.

Enough of the frivolity

Had to make another post to avoid seeing that pair of buttocks first thing and arousing the curiosity of my nearest neighbours here at work. And this picture seemed like a good antidote and could possibly also explain why we haven't seen cobbers from parts of Bohemia for a while. This is apparently a picture of the recent inversion in the north of the country - Jaslovske-Bohunice (?) - curtesy of Dezicek.

Wasted half the day yesterday participating in a job interview, although according my gullible current employer I was attending to an emergency out the back of the house when a flood of raw sewage came bubbling up the gully trap at the back door, requiring the immedate attentions of a plumber. All came to nowt however, as the interviewing panel clearly saw through my weak attempt to carry off some gravitas and wasted no time in telling me so. Things started to go pear-shaped at the second question, which was the classic, "So, tell us what gets you excited?", at which point I probably closed my eyes, consciously tightened my sphincter, and desperately held back to urge to say something like "Polishing my purple policeman's helmet, you fucking knob".

Back to the drawing board then. Shouldn't complain though, as where else could I goof off as much, as well as get the funding to prolong my neverending university studies. Will have to get a little bit more serious this year though, as there's no exam which means all assignments have to completed on time and not handed in six weeks late, as has been my habit until now. The name of the paper this year, since you asked? Topics in Sustainability. First assignment should be fun: a film review of something with a sustainability theme or depiction of native peoples. I was thinking of maybe The Emerald Forest, which would provide ample latitude to analyse in minute detail the scenes featuring naked South American Indian nubiles. Any recommendations?