Hmmm? Isn't it? Banana?

Navigation and all that

Many moons ago, me and Keith decided to trundle down to Wales and visit a mate of ours. This mate was involved in many drunken and marvellously stupid evenings in my home town before he left, and is the bloke most famous for being found (after going missing from a party just before everyone was about to fall asleep where they sat from major alcohol consumption) the following morning lying on his side in the bath with his nob in his hands, snoring away. He'd gone for a piss, and the relaxing effect of emptying his bladder had been enough to gently slide him over into slumberland, and he had fallen sideways into the bath and lain there for about 5 hours...

The bloke was a legend. Nicest guy in the world, too.

Anyway, we go down to see him for the second time since he moved back to his hometown of Swansea, a journey of about 200 miles. The journey was punctuated by several giggly and stupid moments, not least the one where I decided (having been picked up straight from work for the journey) to clamber into the back of the car to change my clothes not realising that I was just in time for the toll booth of the bridge crossing. Genius, eh? The woman in the booth was a little unsure what was happening, as the driver was in hysterics trying to hand her money, and the bloke in the back was giggling and trying to hide the fact that he had no trousers on...

So we arrived in Swansea after about 2 1/2 hours of car-bound stupidity and decide to try and find the place. We had been there once before (2 years before for our mates wedding) and Keith has always been impressed with my ability to drive or navigate directly to places having only been there once, or it was years ago or the like. Unfortunately, the only time we had been there before was for the wedding, and I was doing a lot of driving around the area around my mates house, so sadly everything looked familiar. I was falling flat on my arse, and getting a heap of abuse for it.

All was appearing to be of major confusion, until we found a bit of paper in Keith's scruffy as hell car with the street name that we were aiming for. It was a proper Welsh name, so we couldn't even say it, and we had to drive around for a bit trying to find someone to show the piece of paper to and say "Where's that?". So we spend no small amount of time cruising the Welsh city for people to accost for information.

We see two likely candidates.

Even better, they are female. Even better that that, they appear to be attractive. Things are looking up.

We pull alongside them, I lean out with my most charming 'lost bloke' smile, and start to ask for directions. Only to be cut short by a flurry of foreign. They are only bloody french, aren't they? There we are cruising around a Welsh housing estate, and the only people that we find to ask directions are bloody french!

Only in my life are things this complicated, I'm bloody sure. And after all this, we said our farewells to the french girsl (I bet they had hairy armpits anyway) and drove about 10 yards up the road and found the street sign that we had been looking for. What are the chances? You drive around looking for a street and no joy. You drive around looking for some women to flirt with, and you stumble upon your destination.

There's probably a moral there somewhere, but I haven't got the faintest fucking idea what it is.

posted by Brock @ Thursday, April 21, 2005