Basia Unleashed

A friend of mine, well actually, my cocoa pop, has some photos of himself being a snow angel and it brought back memories of snow and Finland and snow. And more snow. It’s all I can remember of the year I spent there, wading through snow, falling over a lot in snow and drinking some weird flavoured vodka to keep warm from the snow. Honest guv. The snow started on my birthday, in October, and finally gave up it’s icy grip sometime the following mid May.

Of course, it being Finland and therefore Scando-paradise when it comes to the council doing what it should, no one suffered from snow attack. Not like back home where three flakes constitute a national emergency. The buses all came at the precise moment they were supposed to, no matter how much snow fell overnight it was cleared from the roads by morning and generally even though it was often -40C during the day (and your nostrils stick together when you breathe), it was beautiful with clear pure air and skies (and icicles like Excalibur waiting to pang down on your head).

I did, however, venture into the snow one night, well, it was probably the wee small hours actually. Ever heard the saying that God looks after drunks, kids and feisty women? Well I was all three of those that night - the night I was a snow angel.

Apparently I just flew from the house, strangely snatching the housekeys as I went (thank you Lord), wearing very little, urged on by the power of Stolichnaya. While everyone else was struggling to put on their boots, I was already out there, in a massive pile of snow, waggling my little legs and bare feet and getting snow hair.

I arrived back breathless and snowy only to find no one else had moved apart from trying to put their boots on in their drunken fug. You have to make your own entertainment on the long snowy nights in Scando-land…..

Posted by Basia at 8:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was reminded of a conversation I had with Taoist via email whilst perusing his own blogette (in which he claims he is not a geek. Delusional, is what you are sweetheart). About him being a pedant and an encounter with a policeman during which the Taoist’s pedantry and cheek was to the fore. So anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the email conversation during which I recounted an encounter with Australia Post. Picture the scene, I am in the posty about to mail a birthday present to a friend in New Zealand. The envelope weighs next to nothing and contains a purty Bloom make up bag, a Bloom lip gloss and a birthday card with one of those pin badges on it with a picture of a martini glass. Apt. Anyway….

Me: Air mail to New Zealand please
Man takes envelope and weighs it.
Man: Please fill in this form. Customs
Me: Which part of the form goes on the envelope
Man (indicates): that one
Me: Oh, so she can see how much I spent on her birthday present?
Man: Put ‘no commercial value”
I put ‘no commercial value’

and here’s where it gets a bit bizarro

Man: I need some ID
Me: WHAT?
Man: I need some ID
Me: What FOR?
Man: is lost for words. Then rallies.
Man: The machine wants an ID
(he means his cash register thingie machine)
Me: To post a make up bag to New Zealand?
Man: Yes
Me: Where am I? Stalinist Russia?
Man (looks amazed): It’s been like this since 9/11
Me: Not in the free world it hasn’t
Man: Any card will do
Me: I don’t HAVE a card - oh except for a National Health Prescription Exemption Card
Man (looks puzzled): Ok
Man fiddles with machine and card
Man: That’s six dollars twenty

Money is exchanged. Man looks at me like I am mad, I look at man and am ragin’.

Man (indicating to huge boxes behind him): Lucky you didn’t want to mail something like that!
Me: What would I need? A blood test and the handing over of my first born?
Man: ummmm

Amazingly the man actually sent my package to New Zealand and not to some fella in Uzbekistan or somewhere who’d be all humpty about now about someone sending him a pink make up bag from Australia…

This is all John Howard’s fault people tell me. People also tell me they all know no one who voted for Howard during the last election. John Howard’s government wants to know even what you had for your breakfast this time last week. Thank God for Spain and Spaniards, is all I can say…

Posted by Basia at 3:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

any hangover cures?

Posted by Basia at 1:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Let me say from the get go that I do NOT approve of violence. In any shape or form. But call me a commie pinko liberal and I say give a man a second chance. Like Mark ‘Chopper’ Read. The subject of the movie Chopper starring Eric Bana. Well, at my second premiere of the Sydney Film Festival, did I or did I not meet Chopper? The real one?

Let me also call a spade a spade. A crim a crim and a man with a great story a man with a great story. For those who think otherwise, look away now.

Mark Chopper Read is the real deal. Johnny Boxer is the real deal. Men with a history that is both unattractive and yet compelling. Men that want to spend a day in a bar with you to see if they can shock you (coming from Belfast, lads, that’s kinda hard but still my eyes watered).

Charisma is charisma. Charm is charm. It’s hard to reconcile with the anti violence peace at any price streak in me but they don’t judge so why should I?

Me and Chopper have a date later this week. So more, later. This week,

Posted by Basia at 4:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There is nothing quite like being at 40,000 feet, where time seems to stand still, where the world is pure and bright and beautiful. Unless it’s a night flight and all you can see is the void. Which reminds me of the days when a girl could ask to visit the cockpit and be allowed without being considered a threat. Today I am not even allowed to bring eyebrow tweezers on board in case I kick in the flight deck door and give the captain a much-needed brow job.

So I suppose I should explain why I was in the cockpit in the first place. It all started with a certain Capitan Teresano, an Argentinian airforce pilot, who allowed me into the cockpit of his Fokker as we flew from Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia to Ushuaia, the most southerly inhabited town in the southern hemisphere. For those who don’t know, the Argentinian airforce used to sell seats to civilians as they shuttled around southern Patagonia, maybe keeping their eyes on the Malvinas as they did so. Anyway, this flight deck thrillsville was a revelation to me. Because the planes don’t fly to great heights like jets, the topographical views are mesmerising. I saw the tip of Chile and Argentina as it turns up at its most southerly point back towards the Atlantic, I saw the gentle blue curve of the Earth itself - and I saw the ground rise up to meet us as the Captain landed the plane with me standing upright jammed between him and the navigator. I was addicted.

The night flight from Rio de Janeiro to Amsterdam was, however, something that made me a small child once more. The pilots were after chitchat about Ireland, I was after seeing some stars. The cockpit of a 747-400 series is the size of an average room in an average house. There were three extremely tall Dutchmen, an equally long limbed stewardess and me, with plenty of room between us to set up a dining table and get the drinks out. The pilot duly switched off his cockpit lights so that some random wee Irish girl could sit on the floor and press her face to the window like a child, staring at stars the size of Chinese lanterns for a good 25 minutes. Hundreds of thousands of glowing gleaming dazzling pieces of cosmic light. The sight of them burned a hole in my conscious.

I could have stayed there forever but he wanted his dinner. When I got up to go, still mesmerised, I asked him why they flew with the cabin lights on, thus rendering everything into a gaping void before them, he just laughed and asked why he needed to see where he was going.

“Oh it’s not that,” I said, “it’s what you might not see coming towards you.”

But that, dear reader, is another story….

Posted by Basia at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)