As I type this I sit bored as hell in our company's London office. Not that the work is to blame, but more the fact that its going to be a quiet week due to the Americans of the world pretty much taking the next week off because of their thanksgiving. So this week is going to be quiet. I would go outside to have a walk around, but its just too cold. It probably isn't cold for any of the English readers of this blog, but bear in mind I've left a summer & 30 degree temperatures in South Africa to walk to work in the cold here in London.

Otherwise, we're being well taken care of. There are four of us South Africans that the company have flown over & put up in a flat in West Hampstead, which isn't a bad area but isn't the most interesting area of London to be living in either. They're taking really good care of us all actually: dinners paid for, drinks paid for, executive box seats for a Spurs game...so its pretty good. I'd actually forgotten how expensive it is trying to keep yourself alive in this city. We're drinking virtually every weekend (& most of the week actually), and eating total crap but its all about the experience I suppose. We were out in Angel on Friday night, most of the night is a blur & I do remember giving my number to some bird who I hope to never ever hear from again...so I'm guessing it was a good night. One of the blokes I'm here with is hellbent on spending a lot of time in Southfields & Fulham & other places were South Africans hang out in London. Which I reckon is pretty pointless, why leave South Africa to go to London to hang out with more South Africans. I don't get it!

Nonetheless, I'm halfway through my London adventure with just 3 weeks left to go. The rest of my trip will, no doubt, involve me drinking more, trying to pick up more English women, trying to find presents for everyone back home & hopefully making a good solid amount of money in the markets while I'm here. I've managed to get myself some tickets for the QPR game, so I'm really looking forward to that! Will be my first ever Sunderland away game! Then I'll be up in the North East visiting the remainder of my family that hasn't left the country. I'm planning on calling the SAFC ticket office to see if the kind people at Sunderland Football Club wouldn't mind sponsoring a Third Worlder 2 tickets to the Norwich game. Lets hope I can get that right cause that would be only the 2nd time I've been to the Stadium of Light.

Right back to work then...

Over 2 months since my last blog entry!! I got so bad at this! I think it may have something to do with my goldfish-like attention span that things can only hold my attention for a certain period of time. This extends to most things in my life: women, sporting activities (such as going to the gym), hobbies, the music I listen to &...obviously, keeping a blog updated. I'm constantly in search of new things to keep my mind occupied. The latest of which involves an unhealthy obsession with the calculating of football odds, statistics, complex maths & other betting strategies. But I won't bore you.

Needless to say, I've got quite a bit to write about seeing as though I haven't vented for over 2 months now. And all of that will come my eager blog readers (which is about 2-3 people in the entire world, the rest of you who have had the misfortune of stumbling across this webpage...I'm very sorry). I'll hopefully try to keep this updated over the next couple of days, months, hey...we'll play it by ear. But it will be updated. So you'll all be able to read about my trip to Joburg over the past weekend, my working life, my love life, my birthday (which is tomorrow incidentally), the trip to England that still hasn't happened & whatever other bollocks I feel like posting up here. Until then, I really should get back to work.

Bye.

So it’s my first update for a while. As I explained in my last entry, one of the directors of our company was coming down for 2 weeks so it was probably a good idea to look like I was doing some work. Was great having someone who trades in the kind of size that he does in our office, plus he took the company out for two dinners in two weeks…so it was pretty good having him around. My bad luck in the markets continued, although over the past few days things have started to look up so I’m quite pleased about that. It’s bad enough that I have to support a Sunderland team that loses most of the bloody time, I don’t really need that kind of luck spilling over into my work.

I’m just trying to think what I’ve done over the past few weeks & I can’t remember much, so they can’t have been all that eventful. My girlfriend got back from her university holidays, so it’s been good having her back. Our boss also got back from the UK, bearing gifts of Jaffa Cakes, Penguins, Polos and Fruit Pastilles, which our office scoffed down in about half an hour. He also brought back seasons of Little Britain and The Fast Show, which I’ve managed to power through over the past 2 weeks (I don’t have much to do after work during the week). It’s quite funny, because every now & then someone in the office will just burst out with a “Ooh! Suits You Sir!” at random intervals. My brother got back from his squash tournament in New Zealand, the South African team finished 11th and finished above countries like the US, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand & Switzerland…so they did quite well. He’s apparently had e-mails from Princeton (the university in the US) offering him full bursaries, all expenses paid packages and all that to go and play squash for the university. All of this & he’s still a year and a half away from finishing high school (the lucky bastard!!). I’m still going to gym, I haven’t been to Chelsea in weeks & don’t think that I will for a while (if you know what I mean *wink*), and generally life is good.

Went to the new Fashion TV Café place in Cape Town on Friday night, this was after getting fed up of playing poker and going all-in on a stupid hand so that I could finish. Myself & John had a school friend of ours, Steve, down from Joburg for the weekend. So took him out to the FTV Café on Friday night & then went to Stellenbosch on Saturday to do the whole wine tasting thing. Was pretty good. Then I just spent the rest of the weekend with the girlfriend.

Watched Goal (the movie) on Saturday night. I’d been having moral dilemmas with this movie because it is, after all, glorifying Newcastle. So I refused to pay money to watch it at the cinema or even pay money to rent it on DVD, because I’d be putting money into Newcastle’s pockets. Nonetheless, I managed to get hold of a pirate copy of it for the weekend, so I watched it as I figured watching a pirate copy of the movie is as good as stealing from Newcastle. So I felt much better about myself. Decent movie as well, shame they couldn’t find a lead actor who could actually play football.

I got some very good news yesterday as well (well, it was good for me at least). And that’s that I’m being flown out to London in September for work & experience & all that kind of stuff. So I’m really excited!! There’s 4 of us being flown over, 2 of the other guys being some of my closest friends (John & Stirling), and we’re all going to be staying in a flat in London for about 4-6 weeks while we gain some trading experience from the guys in London who’ve being doing it for about 5-15 years. I can’t wait! For the whole experience, coming back to England for the first time in 2 and a half years, being able to eat Jaffa Cakes & Banoffee Pie until I feel physically sick, being able to go up to the North East to see my family & possibly a Sunderland game, drink ridiculously priced drinks, eat ridiculously priced food!! I’m so psyched!! My girlfriend isn’t, but she’ll get over it.

Anyway, that pretty much gets everyone up to speed on what’s happening in my life. I’m off to mull over who’s going to be in my fantasy league team this year.

While it's quiet and boring at work I figured it would be an ideal opportunity to update the blog. You'd be forgiven for thinking I'm bored all the time. I'm not really, I'm normally just bored when I update this thing because I'm trying to find stuff to do. Today is particularly slow, hopefully things should pick up after 2:30 when the first US figures for the day come out. I also thought I'd take the time to update now because when one of the directors of the company comes down from the UK next week it's probably not a great idea to be caught stuffing around on the internet. I quite like this job and wouldn't want to lose it just yet.

It's probably just as well that I spend most of my days sitting on my arse behind a computer screen because, as of yesterday, I have pretty much lost the use of one of my legs. It all happened at gym on Tuesday when I kind of overdid things on the super circuit. Woke up on Wednesday morning with every intention of going back to the gym, that was until my entire right leg cramped up & now I can barely walk. So after a week of going to gym, I've already managed to fuck myself up. It's a talent! So I'm limping my way through life at the moment.

Things aren't all that bad though...Cassie has granted me permission to touch her boobs when she gets her boob job done. Nothing better than being allowed a bit of a fondle. I don't know what it is about boobs that really fascinates men? Maybe it's the fact that men don't have any. Well, thats not entirely true, some men do have some...but they don't lactate so it doesn't count really. At the end of the day, they're just lumps of fat with nipples on them. But they're great!!

Once again, my mind is in the gutter. Which means I don't really have much else to update on. Actually there wasn't much to update on in the first place...I was just bored. I'm off to surf porn!

If I could offer the wide world of the internet one piece of advice this morning, it would be this: Don't drink blue punch! This is a valuable life lesson that I learnt on Saturday night. It falls into the same kind of advice category as: "Don't eat yellow snow" & "Don't put you head into a bag of angry squirrels", the common sense kind of stuff. Unfortunately, common sense is something that evades you after a bottle of wine on a Saturday night.

The above-mentioned blue punch was available at a housewarming party that I got dragged along to on Saturday night. I only knew 4 of the people there, So the mate that I went with & I decided to entertain ourselves by parking off in the kitchen & drinking everyone elses alcohol. From what I remember (which isn't much) I had wine, vodka & coke, vodka & lime, double vodka & lime, vodka, vodka, vodka...are you starting to see a pattern here? Then came the blue punch, which tasted strangely like an energy drink...so it was fairly easy to drink. Then there are blurry recollections of pissing outside because I couldn't be arsed to wait for the bathroom to open up & a game of Twister where I was taken out by a sweep that Chuck Norris would have been proud of.

Once again, Sunday morning wasn't fun! Other than that, the weekend wasn't all that eventful at all! Watched 'The Break Up' on Friday night, which was crap. The microwave in our flat packed up yesterday, which pretty much destroys my sole means of feeding myself (microwave meals are a specialty of mine). That means spending more money on food. Things were so much easier when I lived at home: no rent to pay, mum did all the cooking for you, she even did your laundry & made your bed. I miss that!

Now I'm back at work on a quiet day for the market, with everything moving against me & pretty much nothing that I can do about it. Urgh...give me strength!

It's official!! I did it!! I actually got up early this morning & went to the gym. It's a big step for me actually, anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a morning person so the fact that I was able to get out of bed at 5:30 this morning is a remarkable achievement by itself! Only spent an hour there, have a bad feeling that I'm going to be incredibly stiff in a few hours as well. If anyone else is thinking about erections right now after reading that past sentence (as I am), you probably need to get your head checked (as I do), or get it out of the gutter at least.

Back on track...I've got the assessment thingy that they do tomorrow morning where they let you know your Body Mass Index, percentage of body fat, etc. So that should be interesting. One thing that is slightly disturbing is that men are incredibly comfortable getting naked in a gym locker room, myself included. Why the hell is that?!? Nonetheless, I saw more than my fair share of todgers this morning as well. And there I go talking about penises again...I'm starting to think that I have some serious issues.

Anyway, my girlfriend gets back soon. Actually, she can't get back soon enough...I'm really missing her. So for the sake of our relationship (and my sanity), she needs to get back to Cape Town before I do something really stupid (and it wouldn't be the first time!)

So it's looking like today may be a decent day...feeling good, feeling healthy, I'm one of the few people in our office that isn't sick. All I need now is for the Euribor market to start behaving & it might just be a good day!

So the big lug who is, more than likely, going to be South Africa's next president is suing all sections of the media for about R63-million. Nice work if you can get it. He's upset because newspapers, cartoonists and radio shows had a go at some of the things that he said in his recent rape trial. So much for freedom of the press and freedom of speech. For those of you who don't know, according to JZ it's practically agreeing to sex if you wear a short skirt and it doesn't matter that you have sex with someone who is HIV positive, so long as you have a shower afterwards to get rid of the germs. These are things that the guy said (under oath!!!) at his recent trial for rape.

This country is becoming more and more of a joke every day. And it's the people who are running it that are the most incompetent of the lot! The Health Minister has denounced the use of anti-retroviral treatment of the AIDS disease and has come out to the media saying that it is better to use natural remedies such as eating beetroot and cabbage! Now I know my parents always told me that eating vegetables was good for me...but I had no idea that they were a possible cure for AIDS.

Oh...and yesterday there was another pearler! The government now plans to spend about a billion Rand changing the name of a province in this country from 'Kwazulu-Natal' to just plain 'Kwazulu', apparently because the Natal bit still reminds some people living in the province of apartheid. It's just political correctness gone mad, and they are now going to spend a small fortune enforcing this name change rather than putting it towards something slightly more useful such as alleviating some of the poverty in this country (& trust me, there's plenty to be alleviated!). Every day living in this country becomes more and more laughable.

OK...I'm done with my rant. But now that I'm finished with that I realise that I don't have much else to write. The market was nasty to me last week (think it could have something to do with karma), and is showing no sign of letting up. Italy won the World Cup, probably because I was supporting France. Although the technique of Zidane's headbutt was just exemplary. Our boss has gone back to the UK for 2 weeks along with my orders for scores of Jaffa Cakes, Polos, Penguins and Fruit Pastilles. I fully intend to join a gym at some point this week in an effort to get off my lazy ass. My schmucky ways continued at the weekend. I also have to brave the SARS offices at some point in the not-too-distant future as well (something else that I'm dreading).

Not much else going on really other than me being bored out of my mind (and slowly starting to lose it as well).

Alright, so I’ve got really slack on updating this thing now. It’s been quite a few past couple of days, complete with ups and downs…it would have made quite a soap opera episode actually.

My brother is a little legend! He’s been down in the Cape for his squash inter-provincial and on Wednesday I watched the best game of squash I’ve ever seen. And I’m not just saying that because he’s my brother…it literally was a brilliant game that lasted an hour and a half that my brother won 10-9 in the 5th, and final, game to make him the number 2 under 19 squash player in South Africa. I was so chuffed for him & ran down the stairs after the game and picked him up off the ground I was so pleased for him. He’s still in Cape Town until Monday night with the South African junior team before he goes off to New Zealand for the World Junior Championships (or something like that). At least there’s one sporting being that I support that wins.

The English football team, on the other hand. I was so gutted on Saturday night. As soon as the game looked as though it was heading for penalties I just knew what was going to happen. Why is it that England never win bloody penalty shootouts?!? Went to the pub to watch the game & had one of the pubs dodgy pizzas, which I am still feeling the after-effects of. I’ve been to the bathroom more times than I care to remember over the past day.

My girlfriend left for Joburg on Sunday, so I’m going to be without her for a solid month. It sucks! At least it gives me more time to spend with the boys though. Went out on Friday night and played the role of wingman for one of my friends (not that he actually needs one, but I did it anyway). Drank a bit too much on Friday night, which left me in a terrible state for pretty much the whole of Saturday.

Work is going well, have a whole new set of targets to try and hit for this month, so at least I’ve got something to aim at. And it turns out that I’m actually quite shit at online gambling, which is kind of a blessing in disguise as it means I’m won’t be tempted to try and win on stupid tennis accumulators any more. I also recently finished reading a book (a big accomplishment for me considering I don’t actually do too much reading). The book is called Spud, it’s a South African book written in the style of the Adrian Mole books about a boy and his first year in an all boys boarding school, so I could really relate to it. It was really funny, and a cracking read!

Oh…and I’m a schmuck! The details of which I can’t actually go into on a public forum, but just take my word for it. I’m a schmuck!

And that pretty much concludes a rather abstract and very quickly done update on my life over the past week and a half. I’m off to the bathroom again.

It's Friday!!! Great stuff! Have been looking forward to this! Except that now I have the beginnings of a cold, which is kinda shitty. Its the last weekend I have with my girlfriend as well before she goes back to Joburg for a month & she's come down with bronchitis. So it's hardly going to be a fun-filled weekend.

My brother comes down to Cape Town on Saturday for his squash inter-provincial, so I'll get to see him play over the weekend as well but because of work I won't be able to see him during the week. So that's another thing I have to try and fit in this weekend along with spending time with Anuschka, taking her to the airport on Sunday, watching the World Cup, a house party and possibly the odd poker game. It's going to be a bit of a juggling act, but I'll be alright.

Work is slow again. The World Cup has completely killed this market, it's hardly moving. Which is alright when the football is on, but in the morning when there's nothing to do it gets quite irritating. Plus, now I have targets that I'm meant to achieve, which isn't going to happen with the market being as dead as it is. I can't take the boredom!! I've surfed virtually every internet page possible, checked every single one of my e-mail addresses, rate as many racks/bodies/camel toes as I can on the net, got bored on waiting for this bloody takeover to happen, hell...I've even updated this thing. Now I really have nothing better to do. Bring on the end of the day...I can't wait!

I've decided to change my avatar for this thing as well. My other picture made my head look kind of squashed and mutant-like, so I got rid of it and replaced it with the elf character. I like him.

Television is great. Not the actual stuff that they show on it...more the control that you have over what you are subjected to. You can mute things that are loud and annoying and if something displeases you all you have to do is change the channel. Sadly, real life is nothing like that. You could never have that kind of control.

"Where am I going with this?" I hear you say. Well yesterday was one of those days where I wish I had control. After being witness to a serious car accident outside of my flat yesterday I heard that one of my mates was nearly hijacked on the way home. It's a sad day for humankind everywhere.

The car accident was scary enough: some guy had been driving way too fast along De Waal Drive, rolled his car onto its roof & into the lane for oncoming traffic. The car was on its roof by the time I saw it, glass was all over the road & the tow trucks arrived within 2-3 minutes of the accident. In fact, there were at least 6 tow trucks before any paramedics, ambulance or police vehicles arrived 10-15 minutes later. That says something for the speed of response of emergency services in this country. Put a paramedic in a tow truck, I say.

South Africa has been in a sad state of affairs for a long time. The crime rate is so incredibly high & despite the politicians and statistics saying that things are getting better...they're not. And the events of the past few days for me have really underlined that: 2 blokes in my office have been mugged recently, my flatmate was involved in a smash-and-grab 2 weeks ago, the near hijacking last night, one of my mates even had his number plates stolen off his car while he was writing an exam at university. It really does make you wonder what the hell this world is coming to. And it makes you wonder just how the hell South Africa is going to cope with hosting the World Cup in 4 years time.

The policing services in this country are partially to blame for this. They have their priorities all wrong as far as I'm concerned. As proof of this, on my way home late on Friday night I was stopped at a roadblock by 8 policemen. I kid you not! And what were they doing? Looking for drunk drivers, that's what. Forget the fact that houses were getting broken into & that there were murderers and rapists out on the streets that night. It was more important for the Cape Town Metro Police to devote 8 members of their "highly efficient" force towards stopping people from drinking and driving. It's a joke.

I have had things stolen from me, I have been mugged before (twice) but thankfully I have never been injured or harmed during the process (touch wood). The difference between criminals here and anywhere else in the world is that the criminals here have nothing to lose because most of them live in extreme poverty. They will stab or shoot you (depending on what weapon they are carrying) to get what they want, even if it is just the R20 note you are carrying in your pocket. This is still a Third World country no matter what anyone tells you, and if things carry on as they are then there is no way that that status is ever going to change.

I know it's depressing and that I promised something positive, but to be honest I'm just not in the mood.

Right...so I haven't updated for a while. I was so good with this blogging thing up until recently, it happened to coincide with the start of the World Cup. Coincidence...no, not really. Over the past 2 weeks I have been back to Joburg, watched a lot of football, made money in the markets by doing very little and lost money on sports betting.

Being home was great!! Its always good to be home and see the family and all that. Even though it was a quick weekend visit, it was still good to be home. Arrived late on Friday night after it took the Airports Company of South Africa (quality blokes) 45 minutes to find my one bag. Went to watch my brother play squash on Saturday morning, watched England struggle to a win over Paraguay in the afternoon, then realised I had half an hour to write a speech for my sister's 21st. The 21st went well anyway, it was pretty small do with one big family table and another big table of my sister's friends. My sister has some fairly good-looking friends, the trouble is that they all had boyfriends who were either skinheads or greasy Portuguese-Italian looking fuckers. I'm way too clean-cut for my own good...I reckon I'm gonna shave my head; pierce my nose, eyelid and knob & then drive a car with neon lights and flames down the side. What a catch I'll be then! Fucking joke!

Anyway, my sister got spoilt rotten & had a nice hangover to match on Sunday morning. Saw my gran at the weekend as well. This was quite sad for me, because she is slowly losing her marbles. Its been quite a dramatic change since I previously saw her about 6 months back. Nonetheless, had a home-cooked Sunday lunch...man I've been missing those!! Had a roast with Yorkshire puddings, the whole lot...it was great! Then, sadly, it was goodbye to the family, back on a plane, back to the Cape & back to work.

It was a damn boring week last week, work-wise that is. Our connection to the market has been screwed so we're not really trading as much as we possibly could be. Nonetheless I still managed to make some cash despite all of this crap! At least I've had the football to keep me company. Although England have been piss poor, at least they're winning. Went completely mad in a pub when Crouch scored on Thursday night. I jumped up & knocked down chairs & shit. All of this is quite sad considering the opposition: Trinidad & Tobago. For fuck's sake...England should be winning those games about 5-0, even without Rooney. At least they're in the 2nd round though, hey! Also, it turns out that my fantasy league team that I thought was so good has actually turned out to be quite shit. 26 million for Ronaldinho...what was I thinking?!? Brazil are playing him as a bloody defensive midfielder! Anyway, I've been quite impressed so far by Argentina & Spain. I was quite impressed by the Czechs till they lost to fucking Ghana! That cost me some money, as did Mexico who couldn't beat bloody Angola! Brazil, England, Italy, France, Germany...in fact most of the teams who are meant to do well have all looked shite.

I've also managed to find myself a South African online bookies to place bets on. This is something which South Africa is lacking quite a bit, nevertheless the bookies are the same dodgy bookies that I use in Benoni only now they have a website. And they are more than happy to take my Rands off my hands. To date I have only had 1 winning bet, so I'm not doing that well really. Nonetheless, it's a Switzerland-Ukraine-Spain treble for today with a small outsider bet on Saudi Arabia. Watch me lose money again! It's fun at least.

Went out on Thursday night with my girlfriend & her friends for them finishing exams. Didn't go too overboard though because I had work the next day, but still drank quite a bit considering I was watching the England game beforehand. My girlfriend, on the other hand, was smashed!! Almost falling over smashed! When I arrived they were waiting in line for Tiger Tiger & had already had a bit to drink. They were in about the middle of this huge line, I saw some mates of mine a bit further forward so pushed forward in the line to stand with them. It turns out that the bouncer wasn't too pleased about this so decided to avoid waiting in line for a whole night & a potential beating & left for a club called Tin Roof down the road. I really fucking hate that place! My girlfriend loves it...sadly. I don't know...there's just something about being in a packed nightclub being covered in sweat and spilled beer & getting thumped around by the drunk masses that doesn't appeal to me. The smell of piss, sweat & vomit coupled with the shit drunken sing-a-long music that they play makes it a wholly unenjoyable place to be for any human being. Or so you would think. Not Anuschka though...she loves the shithole!

Had a nothing weekend after that really, watched 3 incredibly crap movies: Waiting, Layer Cake and I Love Huckabees. All terrible...don't bother. Out of the three, Layer Cake was probably the best. But thats not saying much. To quote one of the movies: "It's like bragging about being the smartest kid with Down Syndrome". Nevertheless, I got to spend the weekend with the girlfriend, it's the 2nd last one I get with her before she goes back to Joburg in holiday for a month.

Finally, it seems like I've ran out of stuff to bitch & moan about. For those who read this who don't know me you'd be forgiven for thinking that I'm a miserable bastard. I'm not really, I promise. I'll post something positive soon.

So apparently its warm in the UK at the moment? I'm sitting here in Cape Town (in the middle of winter I might add) in 25 degree heat! Miserable stuff!! :) It's yet another boring day in the markets today, things should get a bit busier tomorrow though but when the World Cup starts things will go downhill. Apparently it's trader etiquette not to trade while another European country's team is playing a World Cup game. I can live with that! It means I get to watch games at the office. What a great job!!

Was stuffed when I got home last night so went to bed pretty early (by my standards at least). Listened to Keane before I went to sleep. I really enjoy their music, many people would disagree with me and slag them off calling them morbid and depressing. I actually find them quite soothing! It's great that people's tastes in music are often so diverse and different from one another. While some people hate bands like Keane, Embrace, Coldplay, etc, I actually find them quite enjoyable listening. Other bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and sometimes the Black Eyed Peas, who tons of people rave about, I actually find quite annoying. And I think that's great!! You enjoy your bands and I'll enjoy mine. Imagine how boring things would be if everyone liked the same thing!

I actually have no idea where I'm going with this, so I going to stop writing now.

Christ...I think I'm getting old! I had my first "I wish I'd done that at varisty" moment last night. There's still a lot of things that I would like to learn how to do: learn French, learn how to play the piano, learn how to dance properly. But one thing that I've always been fascinated by is the way people that think and how to get inside people's minds. Perhaps actuarial science wasn't my true calling at university...I should have done psychology!! Sure, I'm good with numbers...but what I'd really like to be able to do is fuck with people's minds!! That would be great!

I was asked the other day which X-Men character's powers I would want to have. Screw metallic claw thingies that shoot out of your hands!! Screw being able to freeze anything or fart fire!! I would love to be able to get into someone's head. Mix up a bit of Derren Brown and Mel Gibson in "What Women Want". Life would be grand!

In the real world: it's another boring day in the markets. Plus our office is having trouble with the line connection to the market, so they keep bringing it down and fucking around with stuff, which makes things even more painful. I can't wait to get home!

So it's less than a week till the World Cup!! 4 days, 5 hours and 46 minutes to be exact (well, as I type this at any rate). I can't wait!! A solid month of football. Naturally, there are now obstacles to me watching every game...which I don't think I'm going to be able to achieve. Kulula.com (the prats that they are) have thrown me the first obstacle by rescheduling my flight back to Joburg till right in the middle of the opening game. So there goes that one and the one after it because I'll be in mid-air when that one is on.

My sister has then provided the next obstacle by deciding to schedule her 21st on Saturday night. What an inconvenient time to have a birthday! At least I won't miss the England game though, hey! I've already told my sister that she can think again if she thinks I'm going to help her set anything up on Saturday afternoon. But I'll miss other games, which is another downer.

Had a good weekend. Got pissed on Friday night, first with the guys from work then with my girlfriend and some varsity mates. Saw Jacques Kallis and Cindy Nell at Sobhar on Friday night as well. Even more impressive though was a lucky bastard who pulled one very good-looking bird and her equally as good-looking, probably bisexual, friend. He must have had a night to remember on Friday night!

I basically vegetated for the rest of the weekend. Ordered pizza and watched Varsity Blues on Saturday night, then did nothing noteworthy on Sunday night other than watch the last 2 episodes of Prison Break. What a great series that is!

I now find myself stuck at work, with nothing much going on in the markets today, trying to find ways to keep myself busy. It's painful!! There's some French Open tennis on...let's watch that!

This is a very very important warning!

If somebody comes to your door doing a survey and asks you to turn around so that they can see your ass...don't fall for it!!! They actually want to see your ass!

I feel violated.

Thank God the weekend is here!!!!

Despite getting a much needed 10+ hours sleep last night, I still feel tired. Which is strange considering I got about 4 hours sleep the night before and woke up feeling quite refreshed. Come to think of it...it may have been because I was still slightly drunk. It's quite weird that, because for some reason I feel really tired at the weekends, which is when I sleep the most. I'm considering insomnia as a life choice. Either that or 1 hour power naps between 3 and 4 in the morning...there's never anything on TV at that time anyway.

I've gone music mad over the past few days. Got We Are Scientists yesterday (who I thoroughly enjoyed before going to bed last night), have got Dirty Pretty Things, The Kooks and the new Futureheads album to listen to when I get home and the new Keane album is on the way...can't wait!! New music is something of an addiction for me...although it's not nearly as bad an addiction to have as cocaine. So I count myself quite lucky!

I ended up getting dragged along to a strip club last night. The House of Rasputin. I don't think you get possibly get a seedier name for a strip joint. I wasn't planning on going. In fact, my plans extended to going round to my boss's place to watch the England game and then to go home and sleep. The first bit of my plan happened, the latter didn't.

So after watching a poor first half followed by Peter Crouch doing the robot I was ready to go home. Crouch actually made a massive difference when he came on and I'd actually start him ahead of Owen at the moment. Never thought I'd say that! Nonetheless, back to the story...I was ready to bid everyone adieu who was on their way to the House when my boss told me I wasn't getting out of this one and I ended up driving him there and going in. I was there till 3 in the morning being accosted by Russian strippers who only know how to say: "Hello", "My name is Svetlana", "I dance for you".

Needless to say, I felt horrible this morning.

Thanks heavens for English Bank Holidays!! The spring bank holiday on Monday gave me a much needed day off while the rest of South Africa worked! It was great!!

Had a pretty good weekend. Friday night I spent watching Bend It Like Beckham with my girlfriend before I went off to play poker at my bosses place. It's the last time I let her choose the movies! She was planning to get X-Men 2 so we could watch the new movie at some point. Only when she got to the DVD place they didn't have it in so I told her just to pick anything she wanted to watch. Big mistake!! To be fair to her she thought I would enjoy it because it was about football and had Keira Knightley in it. Except it's women's football & Keira Knightley looks like a lad in the movie. At least I got to spend some time with her while she's studying for her exams though, hey?

The poker was cool. Ended up making some money. I split a pot of R550 with my boss in the first game, so that was my drinking money made for the weekend. I got knocked out in the first round of the next game though. Went all-in with a flush and the other bastard had a full house. Ended up getting home at about 3 in the morning, which was earlier than I thought I would.

Spent Saturday with the girlfriend. Glad that I didn't wake up early to try and watch the Super 14 final because you couldn't see anything. You've got to feel for the cameramen in times like that. What are they meant to do when the can't see the ball either. Apparently no-one even saw the Crusaders lift the trophy either. So spent the day lying in bed watching series and recovering from the night before. Watched Batman Begins on Saturday night as well, which I thought was pretty good. Much better than some of the recently done Batman movies.

Sunday night we went out to Cafe Caprice in Camps Bay cause we had the day off work on Monday. This place is completely amazing!! Went out for a bit of a dual party thing for John's birthday & also for this guy we work with who is leaving to go back to the UK. Not before he stops off in Germany for the World Cup though, the lucky bastard has tickets for every single England game at the World Cup..even if they get to the final!! Anyway, the guys set up a tab at the bar and so the drinking commenced. Caprice is a hangout for a lot of the models based in Cape Town as well, so the standard of the women that were there was incredible. Spent some of the night chatting to some German bird who looked a lot like Paris Hilton and then speaking to a girl called Lindsay, who was gorgeous and had apparently just got back from modelling in Milan. I think I may have to take a few more Mondays off work!

Woke up late on Monday morning. Laughed quietly to myself as I heard my flatmate leaving for work at about 7:30 in the morning. Went through to Paarden Eiland, which is an industrial area shithole part of Cape Town, to finally get my headlamp fixed. Turned out that it wasn't really the headlamps but one of the fuses that was buggered. At least that's what the mechanics told me. They're fucking dodgy those mechanics! Went to play some squash in the afternoon. Only realised then how unfit I had got, that's what 5 or 6 months of sitting on your ass will do to you I suppose. Went out for dinner with my dad last night as well, he's in Cape Town on business till Wednesday.

Also booked my flight home for my sister's 21st. Flying back quite late on Friday the 9th, but I'm happy to be going home even if it is just for a weekend. She's also having a bloody theme for her 21st as well: hats. Women always have themed 21sts!!! Why can't they just have a piss-up?!? I have to do a speech with my brother for her 21st as well. My brother asked me on Sunday when we were going to write the speech and I told him we'll worry about it on the morning of the 21st. I'll probably end up just having a few drinks and winging it. My poor brother...he likes to be quite organised and he's got stuck doing a speech with me!

As far as work goes, the shit position I was holding for about 2 weeks has finally started coming back my way so I'm making quite a bit of money off it now. I'm tempted just to sit here, pretend to be trading and just ride the move for as long as I can. Actually...that is what I'm doing!

Wow...that was quite an update! I'm done now.

I am so bored, it's actually beyond belief!! Our trading line went down at work today, which pretty much means that I can't work. That's why I've decided that the blog needs an update.

The weekend is here...finally!! Going to visit my girlfriend for a bit tonight before I sit down for a poker marathon with the some of the guys from work. I'm fully expecting to still be playing poker at 5 tomorrow morning. Spending the day with the girlfriend on Saturday. Normally I'd spend the entire weekend with her but she's writing exams at the moment, so I'm giving her a bit of time to study. It's not like she does a real degree anyway. Sunday I'll spend in bed watching movies before going out to Caprice on Sunday night. Going to have to try and win some drinking money in poker tonight.

I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with my day off on Monday either. Probably go to get my bloody headlamp fixed, the damn thing hasn't worked for about 2 months so I reckon its about time.

Line still hasn't been fixed and I've actually ran out of stuff to do on the internet, who'd have thought it. I've reached the end.

Let's see...what else...I bought the new FHM yesterday. It's kind of become a tradition for me to buy the 100 Sexiest issue every year so I bought it. Number 1 was...*drumroll*....Carla La Reservee. Yup, that's right, I hadn't heard of her either. It's a shocker this year, don't know what people were thinking. Jessica Alba at 8, Angelina Jolie at 13, Keira Knightley at 18, Elisha Cuthbert at 25, Adriana Lima at 36 and Alessandra Ambrosio at 99. All travesties!! I demand a recount!!

Alright, now I'm just typing stuff for the hell of it. So for the overall quality of the blog I'm going to stop now.

Why is it that it's always the first song you hear in the morning that gets stuck in your head for the rest of the day? I've got that bloody 'From Paris to Berlin' song stuck in there this morning. I wouldn't have minded if it was a decent song, but I've now got this piece of shit going round and round and round in my head. What's worse is that I'm prone to outbursts of it at work, and that normally gets everyone in the office singing it as well. It used to be alright when the Franz Ferdinand song was used on the Supersport comercials 'cause thats what everyone would end up singing, but now the office watches Bloomberg, probably because its more important that we watch that. All Bloomberg has is shit commercials...hence I'm stuck with:

Froooooooooooooooooooooooooooooommmmmmm Paris to Berlin na na na na na na na na na na na pumping for love

Yesterday was a completely blogless day. That's pretty much cause nothing was happening. Yesterday was alright, made some good money in the markets yesterday. Also had a 45 minute meeting with the MD of the company yesterday, it was only meant to be about 5-10 minutes long but it went on a bit which meant that I only ended up getting home at about 8:30. Still managed to get an episode of Lost in before bed though, I'm going to run out those fairly soon and I'm going to be stuck in the same situation I'm in with Prison Break...needing more!!!

Anyway, I've made a crap trade this morning and now I need to make some money. Cheers!