Settling In

The heavy wooden door swung open to reveal a pleasant hallway. Manuals of organic chemistry neatly lined the bookcase. Duck-headed walking sticks josteled for attention in an enormous vase. A monstrous fern cascaded luxuriously down from the mezzanine above. I poked my head into the living room, which spectacularly failed to yield junkies, piss stains or fluffy mountains of coke. I wasn't in Glasgow any more.

I also wasn't in my flat.

That delight lay on my right, behind the locked door. It would be three months before the kindly family I live with described my employers as 'bastardos', but the flat gave me the first hint that the next 6 months weren't going to be all honey and blow jobs.

I dumped my cases and pulled out the laptop. I gingerly plugged the adapter into the wall socket. The socket lolled extravagantly into the skirting board and made an ominous crackling noise. I wrenched the plug out and tried another socket which, if I had to guess, had been installed around the time Caecilius was meeting his fiery end in Pompeii. The plug didn't fit, and the socket joined it's friend in the dark recess of the wall for a frantic electrical rave. I stopped fucking with the sockets.

Never mind, there was laundry to do. I searched the kitchen for a washing machine. No joy. Then I checked the bathroom. There, lodged between the bidet and the shower was a washing machine of indeterminate Soviet Block origins. It's ancient wires danced merrily across the room to a plug socket within broiling distance of the shower head. Tired, hungry and not in the mood I grumpily stuffed clothes into what I had wittily Christened 'The Bastard' and slammed the door. Immediately the waste pipe sprang from its foetid hole and pelted me with cold water and the accumulated grunge of too many foreign keck washings.

I sat on the sofa and weighed up my life. Here I was, a thousand miles from the nearest friend, unable to charge my laptop or phone, caked in soap powder and starving. I needed beer or a gun, and either involved leaving the house. No problem though, I thought, in a town of 30,000 there's bound to be a open corner shop open somewhere.

Dear Reader, was I ever so naïve?

I tramped up the road in a foul temper, past inexplicably closed bars, Tabacs and those shops you get on the continent that stock pink plastic children's tat and eye-watering Hardcore on the same shelf. Up ahead the lights of a garage bleared at me out of the mist. Thank Christ, hear was the opportunity to stock up on lager and Ginsters and retire until that mythical morning when 'everything looks better'. The sign said '24 ora' and it was, in a sense. That sense being that it had no shop, one pump and a general sense that muggings could happen regardless of the hour.

I turned around to see a party of vast Latino hags giggling merrily into the Gala Bingo across the street.

It was bedtime.

My First Day

"He's a wanker mate"

It's 7am and we're speeding down the A47. My eyes are clogged with sleep cum and fag smoke. I'm not in the mood for conversation.

"Your 'as to Kettrin' in 45 minutes mate. He's fuckin' mental mate, we'll never do it"

I'd booked the taxi the night before. I thought the timings were optimistic but what do I know? I'm not a cabby, they're steeped in this mystic road confidence bullshit. If they say it'll take 45 minutes then you can bet there's 10 minutes built in for arriving late after sneaking in a crafty shit.

"Look, if we... christ... if we miss the train". At this point, I'm not sure who this 'we' is, he has a firm economic interest in me not catching the train, but I've already let him spark up in the cab so as far as I'm concerned we're muckers now and this is our Somme. "How much will it cost to get to Luton?".

A long, ruminative drag on the fag followed.

"Dunno mate, we've gotta get round the one way system first, thats a bastard. After that we're round the upper gyratory and into the Kennington flaps, could be another hour and 60 quid if we get caught behind a lorry in the Wentworth Banana".

I confess, I don't drive and I tuned out after 'one way'. I understood though, that missing the train would result in a severe financial shafting.

20 minutes later I was on the platform just in time for the train. The train, as always in these situations, was fashionably late.

4 hours later I was in Turin. A frantic windmilling of arms and fragments of Italian had procured me a coffee and a cake. I had learned, not for the last time, that language courses are designed by a guffawing cabal of sadists intent on making you look like a tit. No local calls a cake 'una pasta'; if an Italian ever asks you where to catch the omnibus for the roller disco you can bet they've been using a BBC course.

The night mists descended as we hurtled out of Porta Nouva station. At the end of the line I hauled my battered luggage onto the platform of Knockers station. I approached a local and asked him where the taxi rank was. He was Russian. And he didn't speak Italian. Or English. Or French. We got on fabulously.

I lugged my cases across Piazza Roma, down Via Italia, past Via Cavour, along Via Vittorio Emmanuel, round Garibaldi Circus and into 'Hey look! We unified the country!" Road. The girl at reception was pleasant. I explained that I was English, I had come to work, I was a train and wanted very much to build house in the fungus, danke. She smiled indulgently and gave me a key. We switched to French for the directions. I had to look for number 38, or 380, or perhaps 3/8. It was near a bakery though, so I couldn't go wrong.

There are 7 bakeries in downtown Knockers. Trust me.

Wanking into a dishcloth

I come from Lincolnshire. Somebody had to.

After spending those formative years tipping cows and evading buggery at a minor public school, I moved to Glasgow, where I lived for 5 years in splendid indolence.

I now live in a small Italian town which we shall call Knockers, because it amuses me and gives me a shred of anonymity.

I work for a moderately well known company, currently bent on world domination. More on them in due course.

I harbour a deep and nigh on sexual desire to work for the BBC. With my limited talents I can but fail to achieve this.

I'm currently drinking Molto Malto, a Trappist style Italian beer made from Golden Hops, water, wolves and levity.

I don't speak Italian.



So, introductions over. Last July I graduated from university with a 2.2 in 'pretty much anything', having done little of any worth academically. A succession of temp jobs followed, accompanied by a gradual sink into numbed depravity. Stepping out for a crafty wank in the disabled toilet soon became a staple, then a highlight, then a necessity, of my day. Fruit and breakfast were discarded as unnecessary Bourgeois trappings. Mayfair Lights lit up my weekend. I considered a hard drugs habit, just for something to do.

But then, a light! Just before Christmas I got a phone call. My application had been successful, I was moving to Italy. Booze-fuelled goodbyes were said, Mr Spiky the cactus was dumped on friends, the gaudily stained relief-map of a mattress in my student hovel was cavalierly turned over for the next guy. I was off, my spirits soared.

Of course, I would have to learn Italian. But you can pick up language in a weekend... right?