- Wolfson court. How can I help you?
- Hi! Er, I was staying at Wolfson court last week, in room 304, and I forgot there an elephant!
- All items found in the rooms have been disposed after the guests left, I am afraid.
- You mean Elmer... oh...
- What have you left in the room, once again?
- An elephant, my conference elephant.
- I am sorry, it has been disposed off.
...
How much of emotion!!! #*@&^%£$~"@
Be mercy on your soul, Elmer!
There I got you in Cambridge, there I lost you. I could be hoping some stoned gypsy child will find you on the landfill, and you will be brought to a slum in the mire, to share the joys and the tears of a poor and dirty but lively family. Eventually be torn to pieces in the mud by the children and be shit on by the cart-horses. But no, there are no gypsies searching the landfills here, you will stay forever alone with the ravens and the rotting apples.
...
After all the travelling this summer I got invitations by cool people to go everywhere - Juelich, Trento, Tuebingen, Glasgow, etc., it seems only in the place where -I have to- live for most of the year, I havent got friends. So I decided I should take measures if I dont want to be forever alone too - yesterday I went to the medieval reenactment society - and it was fucking cool stuff! - learning to fight with swords on one lawn on campus, make shield formations, march and so on. Only everyone was SO AFRAID to show they like it.
When the guy asked "did you enjoy yourselves?" people would be like "...mmmmyeeaaahmmm..." afraid they might look more enthusiastic than appropriate. And the worst thing is I too complied to the general situation! I mean, in front of professors and "serious environment" I also tend to be like that, but here we`ve come to have fun, not to be serious under a funny helmet! But my excuse is I was very unlucky with my first encouter! So, I was somewhat late to the session and was quickly given helmet, bonnet ;), gloves and a sword and hurried into the starting pairs training.
Let me explain first there were three pretty or, well, "ok" girls in the group (depends for how long you lived in the Midlands ;)). I was telling my housemate all the women I could meet in such a society will probably be stocky, muscular and with moustaches but luckily I was wrong. Well, indeed there were two of those but they were the sergeants and this is good! You dont follow a sergeant in battle because she is pretty but because she can well beat you up otherwise, right? ;)
...
Oh, by the way, I am part of the bad guys now. The very bad guys I mean. As the period they are reconstructing is the XI-XII century - thats just before all those honourable knights board the ships of the Fourth crusade and go and sack Constantinople, the jewel of the Christian world! Later, as I was recuperating from the thought that I also might be asked to relieve my lowly needs onto the Patriarch's throne in the name of historical accuracy, some idiot stopped me on the street to enlighten me about "Jeeezaaz" with one of those books in all languages. I tried to scare him away, told him im a neuroscientist and my job is to tweak monkeys brains and check if they still live after that. But he was well trained not to listen to people. Excited that he got an east-european he started on "they say that today a lot of people in Russia need the Book! Many of our brethren have already gone to help your people learn about God!" i felt the strong urge to confirm his words with a rather unchristian act of kicking him in the bollocks! %&*@#$*&@'
...
Anyway, from the new recruits there were three ok girls.
And as I was putting on my bonnet I ran up straight into the prettiest! And as we turned towards and our eyes first met, there was that (think slow-motion here!) first glance spontaneus feeling of... antipathy springing up into the air! She made that face of "Oh no, Ill have to put up with that stinker!?". So we start "fighting" and I`d try to mount on some sort of conversation and maybe even sense of humour... But when she`d have to answer my words she`d always insert "uffff" and even between blows her limbs would manage to speak loudly "uffff". "Well, bitch, I don`t like the ones like you either but we`ll have to live for a bit!" I was thinking it must be the spite keeping her so slim until this grown up age! Her figure is not so common here.
Naturally, after invoking so many ufffs in a couple of minutes, and being the impressible lad that I am, for the rest of the session I didnt feel like standing out above the crowd`s minorial mood.
Fortunately even the instructor noticed things are going bad and swapped me over with another pair. Next partner was much kinder and in fact very britishly polite (indeed even on the battlefield!). She would say "Would you attack me, please?". In a while I overcame my eastern-barbarian bruteness and started to reply appropriately - "Of course, my lady!" -SLAM-, or when she missed to block my sword she`d say "Oh, I am sorry!". "Nothing to appologise for, madamme, you died - not me! :)". I still don`t know her name, lol!
But she smiled in a good will a couple of times, so I am hoping I might even become friend with her and maybe she introduces me to her friends and they to theirs and one late clear night I will arrive to an unknown party in some remote place in the countryside and meet there the girl in whose eyes I can see the stars...
sigh, dreams. this process just does not work in the UK. :(
Sleep well, children! This is the news from Nikola, your agent in the Kingdom. I am supposed to be preparing a talk on my research for next week. I want to show the brain of my supervisor but he said he`s got only a hardcopy yet. But promised he`ll try to make it into .pdf and email it to me soon.