Bob the Time Travelling Beer Delivery Man

Date: 05/02/09

I had an idea the other day about this chap called Bob who is a time traveler and also delivers beer for a living. Strange combination I know but let's imaging that Bob is one of those blokes that you see down the pub who has an opinion about everything, he reads the Daily Mail and firmly believes he is right all the while. Now let's send him back in time to meet some of histories most famous or most influential people. Then they enjoy some of Bob's fine ales, all CAMRA approved, and eaves drop on the conversations. Being an opinionated white British bloke who never shuts up about how brilliant the British are ("The real British people, mind, not your immigrants what come over here and are waving British passport five minutes later!"), he is never short of a well thought out response to the likes of Plato, George Washington or Napoleon.

Anyway, I need to come up with a list of interesting people that I want him to socialize with and then do some research before I unleash the Bobster on them. Pop back soon and I'll let you know what his schedule is like.

I'm thinking of leaving Napoleon for a while - I reckon that will be fun. I might start with the likes of Jesus or Buddha but absolutely have to include Emily Pankhurst and Joan of Arc but being ladies I might have to make sure Bob has some Bacardi Breezers or Malibu with him because I can't see Emily knocking back a few pints of Theakstons XB, although Joan might enjoy a couple of pints of Amstel before moving on to the vodka shots, being a feisty young girl. Yes, I will obviously have to include Mohamed but need to tread very carefully there - plus I willl probably have to wade through the Koran.

Jobs and parcels

Date: 21/05/08

Got back from Moscow and all anyone can say is “Shame you are not out there this week for the final of the Champions League”. Well, obviously it is but life goes on. There are things to do. Lots of them. So I took today off in order to close down a number of outstanding tasks. First on the list was to get the car to the garage for it’s MOT. As it turns out this was an uneventful job and I enjoyed the walked back from the garage in the pleasant spring morning. However, when I returned I found that the second item on the list had started. We are having a small extension added to the back of the house. I say extension, it’s really a replacement of what is already there and what is already there is a twenty five year old lean-to which probably would not see its way through another winter. So the builders have started to demolish it.

At ten thirty the wife drove me over to the garage to collect the car. Nothing to report, passed first time so I drove into town to buy the road tax. Post offices in the UK are always full of old people sending parcels and ours is no exception. The other thing about post offices in the UK is that the queues never move quickly enough and this really frustrated the old woman in front of me who huffed and tutted for the eon that was the three minutes that she had to wait until she was served and surprise surprise she was sending a couple of parcels. The car tax had gone up to £170 for a small hatchback. I paid and left, not having a parcel to send to anyone and not being old, yet.

So that was three of the day’s planned events; MOT, builders and car tax, that only left a trip to the hospital with the wife and waiting for the new brass trim that I had to have specially made for the new fireplace. I’ll cover the house improvements in a later post as there is much to tell but by eleven thirty I was becoming a little concerned about this one as they had promised it would be here today. Just when I was reaching the same state as your typical post office queue dweller the phone rang. It was the delivery firm – at last! The dialogue went something like this…

Them: “Hello, this is the delivery firm and we have a parcel for you and we are trying to deliver it.”
Me: “Yes, I know, I am in my house waiting for it.”
Them: “Ah, good, however there is a bit of a problem.”
Me: “Go on.”
Them: “You see the driver is outside your house…”
Me: “…great, I’ll let him in then…”
Them: “…but he has locked himself in the back of his van. Would you be so kind as to let him out?”

At this point I was unable to speak. The tears were streaming and I was having difficulty breathing. After a while I managed to pull myself together enough to walk to the front door. I opened it and sure enough there was a large white van parked on the road outside my house with the driver’s door wide open. I walked up to it and tapped on the side to let the prisoner know that I was soon going to grant him his freedom. I tried the door and it wouldn’t move. The driver informed me that I needed the key, which, as it happened, was in his pocket. He managed to push the door open enough to drop the key out and I unlocked the door, liberating the chap inside.
His first words were “Sign here mate.” It all appeared to be a natural part of the job to him. Perhaps he was too embarrassed to say anything else. I would love to know what was said back at the depot. Must be an interesting life being a parcel… Anyway, I took mine in the house, unpacked it and fitted it to the fireplace which is now complete.

Tramp dogs

Date: 07/05/08

John appears to have angered the gods. His jeans mysteriously vanished from his room the other day but then but after he mentioned the sudden loss to the reception they reappeared the following day. This is the same guy who was ‘robbed’ by the bar staff the other night. The clearly have their eyes on him. After leaving the bar last night he was followed and propositioned by a moderately classy prostitute in the corridor. She offered a ‘massage’ but John being a man of the world saw through this thinly disguised offer of intercourse and she left having failed to make a sale. Niaz was also propositioned a day later but so far they don’t seem to want to offer me any business.

Eating places are many and varied and we enjoyed lunch one day in what can only be described as a student bar complete with trestle tables and small portions of quite tasty food, with piles of different types of salad on plates. It was cheap too.

There are no fat people in Russia. I mean it. Statistically speaking there are none. Well, less than 1%, which in my book is none. And the women are all really slim and mostly attractive which goes against all of the stereotype messages that I have been fed since 1975 – the first time I became aware of Russia and the political situation of the time. Furthermore, they are all really nice if a little reserved and suspicious which is understandable give the rapid change over the last 19 years. And whilst we are on the subject of the population here there are no Asian or African races either. Just an observation by the way. Niaz is sure that the young man count is a tad low and this can only be explained by the fact that they are either in the enormous army or at university.

Whilst the hotel is aspiring to reach new heights of decadence the office remains functional to the last. Most noticeable is the quality of the toilet roll. The type to be found in the hotel is soft and luxurious and kind to anyone with Farmers like mine but the stuff in the office could be used between coats of paint to ensure a smooth finish.

There seems to be a glut of ATM machines in the city. Not surprising seeing as there are about 1300 different banks here. They are quite small affairs but they are literally everywhere. They are in cafes, bars, shops, and I dare say you may even be able to find a few located in toilets.

One interesting thing about the streets of Moscow is the presence of what I call tramp dogs. They are mad too. They are particularly mad that cars refuse to stop for them despite their efforts to bite the doors of passing cars. These are not small hounds either – they are quite large mutts that act like vagrants by hanging around in groups or lying down to sleep anywhere. And they do this without any fear of being woken up or moved. Their favoured place to rest seems to be the pavement, anywhere on the pavement. Perhaps that’s why men sleep under cars.

We went to the pizza and sneezed-on-salad bar again the other day and on the way there we pass the usual tramp dogs and vagrants but on the way back we were in for a real treat. There, sticking out from under the rear of a car was a pair of legs. Nothing unusual about that you may think and we also thought this was a chap engaged in a repair task of sorts but it transpired that, once past the car, the chap was in fact fast asleep. I’m sure there are more comfortable places to kip and safer too.

The flea market at Izmailovskaya was an incredible sight. Stall after stall of Russian dolls, fur hats, decorative eggs and military surplus kit plus other selected bits of old tat. Unfortunately once you have done about 30 metres it repeats ad nauseam like the background on a Scooby-do chase. We eventually found this out after walking for about 2 miles. After spending a couple of hours there we plodded back to the Metro station, picking our way past the sleeping tramp dogs that were sleeping on the pavement outside. The Metro stations are something to behold. Masterpieces of marble and stone, these are monuments to the proletariat, both functional and cheap and they are pretty big too.

First real day in Moscow

Date: 06/05/08

Last night my colleague was robbed. Not at knife point, like any usual robbery, but at the till when he paid for the drinks. We had been told that Moscow was a tad on the expensive side but £7 for a small beer is clearly taking the ‘you-know-what’. It wasn’t even really good beer, not even on a par with the rocket fuel my brother-in-law brings back from Belgium which, as it happens, is practically a fortified wine at 10%, and clearly exceeds even London prices which are also on the silly side.
The crime went unpunished and we went to bed.

The next morning was my first real taste of Russian life. The hotel breakfast was very continental in its nature and some of the meats could be described as ‘characterful’ so I stuck with the bread and cereal based foods, not wishing to fall foul of a dodgy tummy on the first day.

Cars were ordered and off we went to the office of our new friends and colleagues. The offices can only really be described as functional, and that is being kind, although they made every effort to accommodate our needs in a professional and friendly manner. The meetings were really only a kind of wallpaper to the day and not worth reporting to the reader. The really interesting elements of the day were the lunch and the dinner. Dickens was an expert at describing every detail of a meal and I am not going to try and match him so I’ll do my best to describe the environment, the nature, the essence of the mealtimes without striving to provide the reader with a virtual taste of the food and drink enjoyed during the day.

Lunch. Hmmm, lunch. Russians don’t really do lunch. They certainly don’t do a portable, eat on the go and spill it down your tie or eat at your desk lunch like we do in the UK. They are not that busy for one so they go and enjoy lunch at a café. I like that. It all seems very civilised if you ask me. A throwback to a more dignified period where gentleman were to be found in their clubs between the hours of 11:30am and 1:30pm. We could learn something from these guys. This is, remember, the capital of one of the largest countries on Earth.
The casual stroll through the streets of Moscow was pleasant enough and we even passed a group of immigrants all busy waiting for a job to be presented to them. We passed one or two chaps who had dried blood on their faces and appeared to have been severely mauled by someone or something. We also passed one of the numerous statues of dear old Lenin. Our hosts seemed a bit embarrassed by his presence and the stone figure could almost be heard to utter a silent tutt of indignation at the hoards of filthy capitalists passing his dais. He’s probably spinning in his mausoleum. Anyway, enough about the dead revolutionary and on with lunch which was enjoyed in a cosy little café called ‘Sbbor’. This place was created by a 70’s retro chic designer and offered such culinary treats as pizza and salad. The pizzas were passable but the salad was one to be avoided as they don’t employ sneeze screens. I’ve not yet developed a taste for Moscovite phlegm so I decided to give the salad a miss and stuck to a rather large slice of pizza and a cake wrapped in cling-film. I have a packet of Imodium but I don’t want to use them right now…

Dinner on the other hand was a bit different. One member of the party took us to an Uzbekistan restaurant not far from the robbing hotel. It is a fantastic place with brilliant decoration and the staff are all dressed in traditional Uzbeck costumes. The walls and ceilings are adorned with bright Moorish patterns and the chairs are intricately carved in a similar fashion. Our table was adopted by a cheerful lad who presented us with the food and drinks menu, both of which were enormous and probably the heaviest menus I have ever held. The choice of food was mainly based around chicken (worldwide favourite) lamb and horse (yes, horse) with some exotic additions such as quail and sturgeon. I could hear that old voice of reason saying ‘play safe mate’ so I chose the chicken starter and the lamb main course. As a party we ordered plenty of bread. Usually, when you order a meat dish in the UK, it is accompanied by the odd carrot or bean, possibly a potato or two. Not so this night. So my tea was basically meat and bread, and vodka. Yes, we indulged in the spirit of Russia, but you’ve got to. It would be rude not to. There were one or two interesting facets of the meal that really need to be mentioned. First, there was a live band playing a selection of top tunes from the Uzbeck hit parade (actually, they were kind of catchy and I am humming one now). Second, seeing that we had enjoyed our bread to the full and made a few crumbs on the table, the waiter arrived with what can only be described as a table razor. This six inch long strip of metal was efficiently used to clear the table of every last crumb. Obviously w do things differently in the UK and simple brush them onto the floor with a napkin. Third, and I really thing this could catch on, we were entertained by two charming belly dancers. True, they were not that good at belly dancing but they were very attractive so lets not be too harsh… And lastly, the final course, after the coffee was a strip of Wrigley’s chewing gum. I can’t really remember the last time I was presented with gum at a restaurant and I’m not sure if I ever will again but it kind of worked so I don’t want to be too critical about this fairly odd addition to the menu. Having said that I don’t think you are going to see it on offer at The Ivy. I also think Gordon Ramsey might have a thing or two to say about it…