Cracker by Damian Christie

I’ve just returned from a class trip to Brussels, visiting the European Commission and NATO.

Unless you have pressing business with either institution it’s not a trip I would advise. Beer and mussels aside – which are just as abundant in more interesting places such as Antwerp, or even Vulcan Lane – it’s drab, drab, drab.

It’s the Canberra of Europe.

Having wandered in London, and flitted about Venice (more on that in a future post) I had thought cool old buildings were de rigueur in the Old World. Not so.

NATO is a point in case. It’s no small irony that the headquarters of Western defence during the Cold War looks like the absolute epitome of 1950’s Soviet bloc design, complete with pillboxes, checkpoints, armed guards and razor wire. The architecture isn’t so much uninspiring, as a unique example of soul-destroying brutal nihilism. The overall effect is not entirely unlike being hit by a big grey truck with a copy of Kafka’s The Trial sellotaped to the front.

We were later informed the complex was indeed built during the Cold War, but was originally intended to be a military psychiatric hospital. Well blow me down.

After surrendering our passports, cameras, cellphones and will to live, we were ushered inside.

Inside was less oppressive, but no more impressive. Renovated in seventies-office-meets-regional-airport chic, it wasn’t exactly the secret military complex kind of vibe I’d hoped for. No tables flipped over to reveal hi-tech world maps. No men in bio-suits studying banks of radar screens, and no master villains stroking white Persian cats while spilling their plans for world domination. If any of this was inside NATO, it wasn’t in the Media & Visitors’ Centre.

Instead, a small store sold newspapers, cigarettes and NATO merchandise. For €60, you too could be the proud owner of a NATO-emblazoned towelling robe. I immediately thought of NZ's own “International Man of Mystery”, DPF, who I'm sure would consider it rather fetching and may indeed place it high on his Christmas list. Just leave it behind if you’re planning on heading to the Middle East.

Despite being charged with security for the Free World, a large sign hung above a row of hooks: “NATO accepts no responsibility for coats left here”.

Nor is OSH a high priority. As our speaker informed us, rooms (such as ours) with an "A" in the doorway, identified the presence of a little treat I like to call “asbestos”. He assured us his frequent cough was just the end of a nasty cold.

The briefing was fairly innocuous. No classified information was imparted (like I’d tell you if it was). I recall thinking three things:

1. I wish I’d consumed more coffee at breakfast.
2. Shit the US spend a lot on guns.
3. Was I amused, disturbed, or both, by the speaker’s Freudian slip in referring to “the war in Iran… sorry, Iraq”?

After a few hours we left, and other than being oddly transfixed by a small door wedge with the name “Lange” written on it, I was generally unmoved in emotion and opinion.

If you’re in Brussels for a day, I’d probably give the group tour a miss.

Stay tuned for Part II, in which our intrepid hero visits the EU, spends One Night in Paris and still manages to arrive home in time for tea…

For those with time to kill on a Friday, watch this supercute and very clever music video. A JCB, in case the video isn’t completely obvious, is a brand of construction machinery.

“Still bored?” as Popbitch is wont to say? Banksy produces quite possibly the most amazing stencil art/vandalism I have ever seen – in the sense that it’s clever, funny, political and artistic, and it’s all over the place here. There’s a very nice hardcover book of his work called “Wall and Piece”, published by Century, which an imprint of Random House, so it might be available in New Zealand. In the meantime, give the website a good going over for pictures such as these.

Ka kite ano.

Isn’t Valentine’s Day just the *best* day to go out for dinner? Dozens of drooling idiot guys who really decided to think outside the square and treat their Special Someone to a slapped-up buffet while surrounded by hordes of equally unimaginative men in chinos.

While I think Valentine’s Day is a big stinking pile of commercially-driven faeces, I suppose it serves a purpose. For a woman, if you’re in a relationship with someone with all the romantic inclinations of a two litre tin of Dulux All Weather Matt paint, at least it means you might get flowers once a year. For a guy in a long-term relationship, having bought your Special Someone flowers and the aforementioned buffet, it could be the only day of the year (other than your birthday) you get a Certain Kind of Attention.

I’m more of a fan of the rationalist romantic cop-out.

“Valentine’s Day is so lame” I begin. “How sad is it that people need a day to express their love for each other?” Carefully judging the reaction from my partner of the time, I continue, “I’d much rather give someone flowers randomly, just because, not because I’m expected to. Don’t you agree hunny bunny?”

And having reduced her Valentine’s expectations to zero, you can safely never buy her flowers for the rest of the year. Of course, if you try the same ploy the following V-Day, a more astute partner may pull your random flower giving scenario apart with a pithy, “Yeah, but you don’t.” The only safe response, going out as I tend to, with liberated equal-opportunity women, is “Well when was the last time you bought me flowers?”

Of course, you should always ensure you have a comfy couch and spare duvet.

Waitangi Day 2006, London.

(Actually it was Saturday.)

The smell of cigarette smoke, cheap scotch and strippers hung heavily on the clothes I’d fallen asleep in. It might be cold outside, but central heating’s a bitch when you pass out in your winter woollies.

St Paul's from the Millenium Bridge

My mate Andy had gotten up a few minutes before and was already slumped on the couch, staring vacantly at The Crocodile Hunter Diaries. Tearing himself away from Steve’s intrepid adventures (“have a go at the jaws on this fella!”) he informed me there was a kiwi pub crawl following the Circle Line, to celebrate Waitangi Day.

It’ll be huge and disgusting, he promised.

Horribly embarrassing?

Yep.

Everything we despite about our country and our people?

You know it.

Cringingly awful behaviour and boorish cultural references?

Oh yeah.

Shall we go then? Ironically, like?

Of course we’re going. But only ironically.

Yeah. Stoopid kiwis.

The Evil Galactic Emperor at the Old Bailey

And that’s why half an hour later we were standing in the corner of a pub in Gloucester Road, drinking the beer we’d bought at the off-license on the way, with hundreds of other New Zealanders doing likewise. The publican tried his best, but just as with the impromptu road closure outside – simply by virtue of there being hundreds of people standing on it – it was all about Strength in Numbers.

A few ironic beers later, a bit of sniggering at people dressed as sheep, NZ police, sumo wresters(?), Elvis impersonators and the ubiquitous “NZ” cheek art, we started to warm to our surroundings. It was hard not to, the enthusiasm of drunken youth is strangely contagious.

By the time we got back to the tube station, the police had other ideas. They shut it down. I don’t know how common this is in London – if there are too many people somewhere, close the easiest way for them to actually get out – but you couldn’t help being a little bit proud.

Taking the bus to the next tube station, we passed a small protest outside the Danish Embassy. Given the amount of media coverage they got with their comparatively tiny turnout (there was nothing in the paper about us), I think next Waitangi Day everyone should carry signs demanding the repeal of recent changes to the Working Holiday Visa laws. Or, um, something.

Magdalen College quad, Oxford

Anyway, a few more beers and we were at the tube again. Hundreds jostled for position on the platform. But when it train arrived it was already bursting at the seams with Aotearoa’s finest. There was nothing for it. With a few calls of “hold…hold…hold…” as we politely allowed the bewildered Japanese tourists to escape… someone called “engage!” and we duly packed down, driving our way onto the tube.

Is it possible to scrum ironically?

Memo to all New Zealanders: Learn another Maori song other than this one. Just for variety's sake, please.

The event reached its cultural zenith at Westminster. Thousands upon thousands (I’d guess between ten and fifteen) gathered outside Big Ben. Police were directing traffic. Roads were closed. It was like that U2 video, but um, heaps bigger. Cars were stranded, obviously not having ever learned how to drive through sheep on a country road (slow and steady).

Running in from every direction, the skinniest and whitest of the men tore off their shirts and pushed forward. At Big Ben struck 4pm, a mass haka took place (no, I didn’t, give me some credit), immediately followed by the national anthem.

It was hard not to be a little bit stoked.

Magdalen College chapel, Oxford

The crowd dissipated. I suspect most went to the nearest Walkabout to compare their eyeliner moko. We split off and watched England beat Wales (bad), and Scotland beat the French (good).

Despite being on the go for the best part of ten hours, we still had some life in us. We cabbed to an illegal electro warehouse party in Hackey. And it was possibly one of the best nights dancing I’ve had in years; knowing almost no-one, just a room full of strangers grinning at each other.

It was a very good Saturday.

Happy Waitangi Day everyone.

Okay, well, one thing first off.

Travel to Europe is so cheap in the UK, which is great. It literally costs me less to book a flight to Amsterdam than it does to get the bus to the airport. But what sort of perverse business model makes it one-third as cheap to book a return ticket (£47) from Paris to London as it does to book a one way ticket (£150) for the same journey?

I don’t need to go both ways. And I figure they can’t make me return, can they?

So what happens? Well I book the return trip, knowing I’m not about to use the return part. It goes completely to waste. In my mind, there's a little Parisian orphan with tuberculosis who really wanted to see his English penpal before he dies is coughing blood on the train platform, while an empty seat returns to England.

And that’s what’s wrong with the world.

Yeah I know, booking continental travel, sucks to be me. Sorry.

So Oxford isn’t the most alive of towns. Who’da thunk it – medieval architecture isn’t synonymous with “party central”. So I’m living for the weekends, and London. Each weekend sees me exploring a different part of the city, because that’s where the party’s at. Whereas in Auckland most of my friends live within a few square miles (in Sandringham I’m almost on the outskirts), in London everyone is spread about fairly randomly, from Islington to Whitechapel, Old Kent Road to Park Lane, from Community Chest to Go To Jail. It's like (geographically) going for a night out in Papatoetoe or Albany (or Stokes Valley/Ashburton/Mosgeil for those of you in other parts of NZ). Any given night sees a combination of tubes, buses and good old fashioned walking into never before explored realms.

Fortunately the iPod makes life all good. My friend Smacked Face once wrote about how sublimely perceptive the iPod random song generator could be. On a crowded tube I need to chill, so I put on the extended mix of Odyssey’s ‘Native New Yorker’ (because it’s about riding the subway and stuff, but with a great groove)… the iPod chooses the next song – GnR’s ‘Welcome to the Jungle’. It’s like it knows, dude.

Seriously though, don't consider travelling the tube without music in your ears. For this kiwi at least it makes everything seem more like a cool, gritty, urban movie set in the big smoke and less like skanky, unreliable, public transport.

What else?

Well, I’m a little bit over being called names.

Not only does every English person I meet call me Australian(!), I was walking through Camden the other night when a guy walked past me muttering something.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, stopping to turn around.

“Mutter”

“Sorry mate, I can’t hear you.” I said, as I walked up to him.

“Shhh....Charlie?”

“No, it's Damian, but I’ve been getting that a lot around here. Does he look a bit like me?”

“No mate… Charrrrrrrlie?”

“Oh right! Stupid me. No, sorry, I’m totally out. I’ve got some loose change though, or a cigarette, if that’s any help.”

And then he just walks off without saying anything. I mean, you try to help these people…

Which reminds me of something someone emailed in – my first bona fide London joke.

“Knock Knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Biggish.”

“Biggish Who?”

“No thanks mate.”

Classic.

It’s a paradox of the internet that while the world is made so much smaller, it means you know exactly what you’re missing – the Big Day Out with yer mates – while you’re sitting on the other side of the world. I’m listening to bFM’s Big Day Out breakfast coverage on-line, and at a time when I’d usually be packing my survival kit (water, suntan lotion, speedos), instead I’m working out what’s sadder – going to a bar by myself, or yet another movie.

Not that I’m complaining.

I’ve been in Oxford about a week, and it truly is an amazing place. Dozens of colleges all functioning as self-governing bodies within the university. They range in age from the 13th century through to the late twentieth. Most are cloistered, with castle-like walls separating their historic libraries, beautiful chapels, students and fellows from the prying eyes of the unworthy public. Some take undergraduate students, some only post-graduate, and some have no students whatsoever. Yeah, I know.

Here's a good photographic example of a cloistered college - the student-free All Soul's.

The cloistered nature of the colleges means it’s very easy to keep students in, and the public out. Despite Oxford’s rich history and attraction for tourists, most colleges are off limits most of the time, some all of the time, and some only allow entry by admission. As a student I can enter any college grounds and rummage about the mammoth Bodleian Library, but each college’s crown jewels – the library and dining hall – remain off limits to all but their own members.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve been trying to sort out how life works for the average Oxford student, if there were such a thing. A warning about the following, it’s based on what I’ve learnt thus far, and there may be many exceptions or mistakes...

Big differences (from what most of us are used to) include the fact undergraduates don’t have exams at the end of each term, or even the end of each year (or at least not any that count). Instead, students’ three years of study are assessed by a series of exams at the end of their degree. Stress, anyone?

Lectures aren’t emphasised; most learning takes place in one-on-one or two-on-one tuition sessions. However with the talent available, you’d be crazy to skip lectures here. The day Russell wrote about Richard Dawkins’ new television series, I saw him cycling past me. Personally, I can’t wait until next week for the first lecture in a series by acclaimed British comedy writer Armando Iannucci (Knowing Me Knowing You, I’m Alan Patridge, and his new political comedy, The Thick Of It).

Still, right now I’m imagining myself plonked on the grass in front of the Magic Numbers.

Wish I was there.