Babies Names

When you're called Dougal, choosing a name for your little dude is simultaneously a cathartic experience and an opportunity. One the one hand you can right old wrongs and ensure that your child is not sniggered at stared at whenever they are calling the roll at school. On the other hand, you could resign them to the ranks of normality but calling them something universally unoriginal, never giving them the opportunity to answer the question: Yes, but what's your real name? A very polite people fall back on: Oh. Is it a family name? (Meaning, of course, do you have an excuse for that?)

To aid us in this dilemma, someone lent us the book, 10001 Babies Names. It sits in the bathroom, and as such one occasionally stumbles across the odd cracker... Again, as a Dougal, I'm on shaky ground taking the mick out of anyone's names, although I feel I am on particularly safe ground with any of the following beauties. I thought it amusing to put these in context, because it's easy to forget that these people are people:

- Oddrun
As in Come on Oddrun, you're going to be late (for your conselling)
- Chakakham
How would you tell off that kid without breaking into song? What have you done, Chakakhan, you silly boy, Chakakhan, you broke my mirror, Chakakhan...
- Conk
As in Please, just out the gun down, Conk, we can talk this through.
-Rockelle
As in that wrestler 'actor' the Rock's sister
- Schmoopie
As in, Dad, is it true that if I turn the car on and put a hose through the exhaust back into the window I can die from Carbon Monoxide poisoning, and thereby no longer be called...
- Tree
As in, You must be frikkin kidding me, you're calling your kid Tree? Which is hardly satisfied by the explanation. Yes, it means 'sturdy'. (Making it one of finite names where the explanation is a better name than the name)
- The
As in, I'd like to introduce you to The. To which I'm sure 'The' would often reply, And I would like you to burn in oil.

(Footnote: I should point out that The is from Thailand, and probably does not provoke hilarity in the Thai tonal tongue. However, spare a thought for the Kunti twins, who a friend of mine taught in Tower Hamlets. Recently moved from Bangladesh, how could the two little Kuntis have known what verbal bullying awaited them in the English speaking world. Unfortunately, it doesn't end there. As if that wasn't tough enough, the boy was called Ama and the girl? Seema. Tough call, no?)

A Few Facts About Chile

Having spent nearly 9 days in Chile now, I feel it is my duty to inform you a little about this ridiculously thin country.

1. Whereas in London on the Underground you are never more than 6 metres from a twat, in Chile it's much more exciting: you are never more than 7 feet from a Volcano!
2. There are more Germans in Chile than there are in Germany. This is evident in, amongst other thing, the amount of Kuchen available to buy.
3. The widest point in Chile is 37 kilometers, and the shortest point just 2 metres. If you fell off any of the Andes, you would land in the sea. There are three places in the country where you can reach both the East and West borders by standing on tip toe. Many parts of the country are so thin there is only a one way road, and 3 point turns are impossible in huge lengths of the country.
4. At any moment in Chile a volcano is erupting. Chileans loves to mis-quote Dennis Hopper from Apocalype Now, saying I love the smell of lava in the morning which is very drole. The Germanic influence evident once again.
5. The average Chilean owns 3 dogs: 2 of which at any time are tethered outside a hostel, all of which are barking.
6. Santiago has infamously just upheaved its public transport system, to the disgust of its inhabitants. Formerly, from what I can gather, every citizen was picked up from their breakfast table and taken to work for free in no less than 10 minutes. Now, the system is based on the London model: you walk 5 blocks to a stop for a bus that never comes, and if you don't have the exact change in the denominational coins that the driver specifies and in the right order, you are denied access and abused. Still, better than Mexico.
7. Chile has a population of around 17 million. 11 million of them have, in the last 48 hours, stood in the middle of a busy road for no apparant reason.
8. Chileans, unlike English speakers, especially English speaking fathers, do not feel honour bound to make puns on the similarity between the country's name and the English word indicating that you are quite cold.
9. A MORI poll recently contradicted the common myth that the most common form of unnatural death in Chile was not 'walking into a mountain', finding that it is 'drowning in lava', edging into 3rd last year's unsurprising winner 'being run over'. 'Being barked to death' is prominent, but due to the social taboo people rarely report such fatalities. That's statistics for you.
10. Chile is very very long and thin.
Question: If you were to take Chile's most Northerly point, and flip it vertically in a Southerly direction, do you know where its most Northerly point would land?
Answer: That's right. The Moon.
11. The Salmon industry is the fastest growing in the world, but not without controversy. It is very unsustainable. I read that you need to feed a salmon 4 salmons just to make one salmon.
12. The national sport of Chile is Motorway Wandering. the rules are exactly as you would expect. It should be that crap bat and ball game (again, rules are quiet easy). Absurdly high quality of that beach bat and ball game as evidenced by the beaches of Vina del Mar.

Oh, and do you know what Cafe Con Piernas are? No? It's definately googleworthy, as one of those people you might be 6 metres from in London might say.

And now you know some things.

New Year, Same Old Problems

Watching the news on January 1st was a reasonably terrifying experience. The titulos ran as follows on C5N, one of Argie's finest news channels, at the start of the news for 2008.

- Temperatures reach 41.6 degrees in capital (with clips of people melting, an interviewee offering the insightful, Si, mucho calor, mucho calor)
- Thousands left without electricity or water during heatwave (with clips of tired poor people carrying buckets of water)
- Carnivorous fish attack bathers in the lake in Rosario (no evidence offered to back this up at all)
- Boys shot by stray bullet in Quilmes
- ATMs out of cash over Christmas and New Year in BsAs (angry queues of people making Italian hand gestures)
- Volcano erupts over Chile (this was news everywhere else 3 days ago, but the wind had changed direction so suddenly it's newsworthy)
- Strikes and protests at Ezeiza Intenational Airport (complete with clip of PILOT, being restrained whilst trying to punch a PASSENGER)

Cuts to news anchor. He shrugs.

Text on screen.

- New year, same old problems.

Brilliant. How, seriously how can that be normal same old same old?

Happy New Year

We are in Chile. Updates on return, and photos that will make your eyes bleed with jealousy.

Now tell me what you really think...

Katie and I were standing in a queue yesterday, waiting to pay for something. The machine wasn't working, so we had time for a little chat. In front of us was a woman, maybe 35, who was starring and smiling at Katie's pancita. This conversation is absolutely typical of the type forced upon Katie has maybe once or twice a day.

Staring woman.
Six months, I said to her, pre-empting her question.
It's going to be a girl, the woman replied, with mystical confidence, rather trumping my forward thinking.
Interesting! Why do you think that? Katie replied, amazed at this woman's facility for gender prediction.
Oh, she said, continuing her charming tone, because you arms and your face are fat.
What? Obviously this was an incredulous What?, but our new friend interpreted this as a signal to define exactly What? she mean.
Fat. They're not thin (pointing at her own arms, just in case anything was lost in translation). They are fat. Chubby. Big smile, Good luck with everything, and off she went.

These people are hilarious.

Flaming

Has anyone seen the end of the movie: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? If you have, please let us know. The ending for us was kinda ruined.

I have long stopped going to Odeon type cinemas: people answering their mobiles, idiots confirming plot points (is it that the one that's James Bond?), other idiots not getting a babysitter... I can't abide it, and Katie can't abide me not abiding it.

Essentially you get a lifetime's worth of not abiding things in less than two hours. Rather like eating an orange, it's just not worth the hassle.

Well, this is a new reason. I do mean only the end. We sat through the initial, beautifully crafted 2 hours and 40 minutes of admittedly agonisingly slow paced filmmaking, and as the film approached its climactic, pivotal final scene, it burst into flames.

No, not metaphorically. It actually literally burst into flames in the projection room, in the projection reel. (See image)

After I ran to get help, the cinema manager arrived with some ceremony (no one had moved, which was quite weird too) and said (in Spanish obviously): Do not worry, Ladies and Gentlemen. We are searching for a solution which we will have for you in five minutes. Please remain in your seats

Five minutes later, following five minutes of What-Are-They-Going-To-Do? type glances and muttering from the audience, he reappeared.

Ladies and Gentlemen. There is no solution. Good night.

My woman

Walked past Big Mariano at work yesterday. Big Mariano is a beefcake of a PE teacher. We'd been talking about how Katie was pregnant and all the day before. He saw me in the corridor and came out with this little beauty:

Mariano: Hey Doug. When your woman gonna make family?
My reply: Hey. My woman make family when my woman ready.