Preamble

OK so I missed another weeks journal.

Nothing too outrageous happened - managed to work a 48 hour week mainly due to Robin and I travelling in together and calling each other at 6am to ensure the other was out of bed. Pretty much had a week off the alcohol. A minor hiccup on Thursday, Friday and Saturday when I went out in the evenings ho-hum. Over the weekend I went swimming - well, sliding down water slides and sunbathing. I also managed to put in a few miles of cycling as I had Robins bike in my possession.

Oooh ooohh almost forgot - on the Thursday [ the day I fell off the wagon ] I went out with a colleague called Stuart - we went to the Irish bar and met up with a couple of the people that work for Siemens. Well it just so happens that there is a new chick working there. Yugoslavian chick - with the *cutest* smile ever. Very beautiful face - and the way a little lock of her hair kind of flops down when she pours drinks is really really cute.

What can I say......Mr Steele is in love. She's called "B?????????". In other words she has this Yugoslavian name that begins with "B" that I cannot pronounce.

So the Thursday hiccup began a "ooooh lets pop in to Murphys tonight and see if "B" is working." She wasn't on Friday but she was on Saturday :) So it was the Saturday night when I got chatting to her.

Monday 14th August 2000

Boring day at work which was pretty much spent organising my travel up to Bochum the next day.

Richard Sims had returned to Ulm late on Sunday night and so as we hadn't been out for a week or so we decided to go out for a beer or two...as you do.

We started at Capo's, as per usual, had a few beers with Mark, Flag and Carla catching up with what had been going on. Making jokes about potato's, Lithuania and generally being horrible to Richard. Richard and I decided to take a wander down to the Irish bar to....oh I don't know...errrr.....perhaps see if the future Mrs. Steele was working this night.

She wasn't

But as a nice runners up prize Fiona was. [ Fiona has been mentioned before but only briefly ]. The sighting of Fiona was enough to remind Richard of a bet that was made with Fiona and myself a little under six months ago.

When I was going through my arrogant, drunken stage [ so from about the age of 16 until present day then ] I made a bet with Fiona. The bet was that within 6 months she would be naked on her hands and knees walking around my apartment barking like a doggy whilst I sat on top of her and spanked her naked arse to make her crawl faster.

So far I'm losing...but hope springs eternal.

Anyway, I digress. During this evening Richard and I proceeded to get very drunk and began to have lewd conversations with Fiona. I offered her 1000 DMs to sleep with me...she refused. So I upped the offer to 2000 DMs and she refused again. I didn't really care too much it was only a bit of a laugh. Anyway, I wandered off to the toilet and when I returned, Richard told me with a wicked grin on his face that Fiona had asked if I was being serious. It was probably just Richard having a laugh though as Fiona is a little sweetie. But you know, paying 2000 DMs to win a 50 DM bet may not be a sound economic idea, but it's the principle of the thing.

So Richard left due to drunkeness, and I left a little later, due to drunkeness. Got home at maybe midnight or 1am - set my alarm for 4am since I had to fly to Bochum - and passed out on my bed.

Tuesday 15th August 2000

My alarm went off at 4.00am - I snoozed it.
My alarm went off at 4.06am - I snoozed it.
My alarm went off at 4.12am - I snoozed it.
At some point I switched it off.

My phone rang at 5am.

"Hi Darren I'm here" said Ingo.
"Where?" I replied in my most wide-awake voice.
"Downstairs outside your apartment" came the reply I was dreading.
"OK, I'm nearly ready, I'll be down in two minutes" I calmly said.

Once again I adopted the Hugh Grant method of running around [ or rather staggering since I was still a little pissed from the night before ] shouting "Shit, shit, fuck......FUCK".

My shower was little more than a cursory sticking my head beneath the shower, my packing involved putting on a pair of jeans, a shirt, some shoes and throwing some spare trousers and a shirt into my bag. All clothing items were found on the floor and hence were dirty.

I successfully remembered my wallet and Nokia ID along with my house keys and phone. But forgot my toothbrush, deoderant, shaving equipment and my book.

I made it downstairs pretty quickly, bid Ingo a good morning and promptly fell asleep in the passenger seat.

We travelled to the office where I bid everyone good morning, changed cars, and promptly fell asleep in the back seat.

I awoke at Augsburg airport where we cleared the security. I drink 3 cups of tea and 2 orange juices in the space of 15 minutes - smoked 3 cigarettes, got on the plane, and promptly fell asleep.

Once we got into the hire car at the Dusseldorf end I was a little more awake and chatted with my companions for the journey between Dusseldorf and Bochum.

Endured meetings all day which wasn't too much fun.

In the evening about 15 of us went out, drank copious amounts of beer, ate good food and generally had a laugh.

Wednesday 16th August 2000

Meetings all day. Uneventful trip back to Ulm. Dozed in the evening, went to bed at 9.00pm, slept.

Thursday 17th August 2000

This day was of course the day that Mummy Steele arrived. Since I'm a lazy unorganised barstage I hadn't cleaned my flat. So I had a 4.30pm departure from the office and began the process of washing up two weeks worth of plates, glasses and cups. I also managed to multi-task the cleaning of the bathroom and washing various clothes. Needless to say, by the time I'd finished I was sweating like a paedophile in a Kindergarten but my house was clean.

Drove my arse over to Stuttgart where I met my mum and Paddy and brought them back to Ulm. I think on the journey back my mother set a world record for speaking without actually inhaling breath, quite quite incredible.

Upon arriving at Chez Steeley Paddy proceeded to make a serious hole in my vast wine collection. I collapsed in bed and slept the sleep of the dead.

Friday 18th August 2000

Awoke at 6am and drove up to the office. At about 11.30 Richard and I drove into Ulm. Richard had to drive back as he'd fucked up one of his forms for his impending marriage. He had to get Ligita to sign something and send it over to Scotland where he is to be blessed. Anyway, on the way in to Ulm I phoned my mother.
"Hello" said she.
"What are you doing?" said I.
"Well you've just got me out of bed" came the reply.
"I'm on my way home, get the sausage and bacon on" I said.
"Rightyho" was the most acceptable response.

So I had a fantastic lunch of sausage, bacon, beans and toast - Richard got laid. Quite a close call about which one would be the better option.

So a couple of hours of later we drove back to the office, read our e-mails, I took a dump - see the poop journals - and then we went back to Ulm to begin the night of chaos which was Richards stag night.

Richard and I departed the office at roughly 2.30pm. We dumped the car at his place and wandered down for a few pre-drinking session warm up beers. My mother and Paddy joined us and we generally whiled away the afternoon discussing such unimportant things as the upcoming coprophilia web site that Richard and I are doing.....ummm and not a great deal else really.

Mark arrived, Flag dropped by, Thyeson appeared, Andrew had a wlk on part and we all proceeded to get plastered. At some point people left and probably more people joined but I do seem to have blacked out for a while.

The handcuffs didn't appear so the plan to handcuff Richard to the drainpipe in the main road, pull his pants down and jam a windmill up his arse didn't quite take off either. Shame.

I believe at some point we popped into Murphy's, but I don't remember - I suspect I'll have to consult my colleagues about the finer details. One detail that I do remember is that three of us made it to the lap-dancing bar. Now the regular readers of my journals will know that I usually don't sink to such levels of filth and depravity. However, in this situation, what with it being a stag night I decided that I could allow myself to sink to the level of sticking 10DM and 20DM bills into the G-strings of bare breasted girls. The things I do for mates.

We all eventually ran out of cash and Richard and I eventually staggered back into Ulm. During the journey back Richard decided that the contents of his stomach would look much better adorning the pavement. I managed to get a picture of it - see the foties section - and pay attention to the before and after shots.

Saturday 19th August 2000

The day began calmly enough. Mark popped around to ensure everyone had survived the stag night, I crawled out of bed to meet him and used him as an excuse to crack open some beers....just to help my hangover of course.

Went to Vienna - got lost - found ourselves - saw the sights. This will be uploaded when written.....dunno when this will be as I'm about to fly to England for a few days

Sunday 20th August 2000

blah blah to come