Beware the Ice

19th February 2010

I thought I had been hit by a Scud Share:

There’s a lot of frustration in me today, and a lot of that is down to the fact I’m typing this with one hand. I’ll start from the beginning. In my youth my parents packed me off to boarding school, a Harry Potter style kingdom full of red faced boys from Monmouth and the Mendips. We had a game called Space Invaders, and it essentially involved lots of pre-teen unfortunates – Pegg, Payne (literally), myself – being lined up like skittles while the sporting legends launched rugby balls at us. Hilarious.

Anyway, I thought I’d left that behind, only I now find myself playing out the Polish version of this comedy. It’s meltdown season in PL, a time when three months of ice goes to goo, and random targets get lopped with icicles. That happened to me yesterday, and in doing so took off half my shoulder. I thought I had been hit by a Scud. If it’d been my head I’d have been fine, but my writing arm? Bad news. And I blame it on the old bats in front of me.

There was me slushing down Jerozolimskie when this vintage looking pair stopped dead in their tracks to look at a shop selling socks. Now I’m certain these people have survived all sorts privations – Hitler for one – but I don’t half wish they wore indicators on their coats. I slopped to a halt in a puddle of gunk only to have the Sword of Satan wallop bang into me from above. Ouch.

Thank God I wear disposable trousers, otherwise my washer would have had a proper war to think about. Near death defied I stepped - for the first time in years - into Champions, the classic sports bar in the Capital Cabbage. It’s still like I left it, high flyers doing high fives while random games get zapped on the telly. Great place, I guess, but not if you’re paying. I wasn’t, yahoo, preferring to save my round for a dive bar called Norka.

Now I’ve noticed Norka before, it’s practically opposite Namaste, but it was only last night that I stepped in. My piggy bank is on Minus Triple X currently, so any venue vending beer for four zeez gets my custom. Compared to Champions this was swapping glory for gory, but I have to confess nothing beats a classic Polski boozer – and that’s exactly what this place was. It’s the size of my bathroom, and even looks like it; aquatic colours, crates of lager and a fog so thick I thought someone had let off tear gas. Loved it, and even more so for the choice of beer, Ciechan or Krolewski, a good looking pair if ever I saw one.

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