Confession

On the eve of my last tour as a Sandeman's New Prague guide, I suppose I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment to look back on the last 11 months.

The job I have being doing for close to a year has fulfilled many a quota on a perfect job list, but there's no such thing as a perfect job. They are called hobbies.

I must have given over 200 tours during this time and easily over 2000 tourists, and there very few that I remember very well.

I of course do remember some and I bet those people that I remember now will be images that stick with me when I remember this time in my life 40-50 years down the line.

But even though the job is the reason I came out here, it's not the reason I stayed. I could have left several months back and there were many a moment that I thought I should have. I stayed because of my friends of course. Within the confines of the job I outlasted a helluva lot of them. Some people who were only here for short periods, some who were here for several months, some of them who still are here and have moved on to bigger and better things - but not always.

Considering the amount of my friends that have been forcibly removed from their position as SNE guides, I consider myself lucky to have been able to keep this job for so long. According to Daddy himself the average lifespan of an SNE guide is 5-6 months.

I will be going home to pursue my love of writing, but who knows maybe you'll see me on the streets of London giving tours through the Big Smoke, but otherwise I guess Confessions of a Tour Guide, like I've said in a previous post, won't be Confessions of a Tour Guide for much longer. I will keep writing as I've landed an internship with altsounds.com so I will be reviewing music there that you can check out.

Maybe I will continue to blog and just change the title to Confessions of... the unemployed I'll have to see when I get home but otherwise...

... like I said right at the top of today's tour, me and my colleagues at Sandeman's New Europe, don't receive any other funding for this, so if I have entertained and informed you guys enough today, if you feel today's tour was worth paying for, then I will except your tips, but if you wanna help out in other ways, go back to your hostel, your hotel, whoever recommended you and give them a big kiss on the lips and say thanks, if not, then take a flier slap in the face with it and say why not!

Music

Music should be written for yourself, no one else. The term ‘selling out’ derived from artists and musicians going against their natural sound and style of music. When an artist naturally changes their sound over a certain period of time, it’s less about selling out and more about progressing.

Green Day are a perfect example of a band progressing. Those guys have been playing music together since they were about 14/15. Their original punk style, stuff that you might hear on 1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Faces in which their songs were about wanking alone in their bedroom because no one understands them is the perfect lyrical content for a teenager even if their musicality could have been a bit more intelligent.

They then slowly progressed into the classic works like Nimrod, in which the two combined. The music started to get a little more intelligent and even though they were still singing about the same sort of stuff it was all put together slightly more intelligently.

Then Warning had them expand musically and their lyrics became slightly more out there but you still had the sense they were Green Day.

Which brings us to today, even though I am not a fan of their new work as much, I don’t believe they have sold out. The band are trying to do things musically that pushes boundaries, and the lyrics seem to have resorted back to them being teenagers in a nostalgic sense. They are still Green Day but they are far removed from what they started out with but it has been a natural progression of music.

Then there’s bands like Good Charlotte who had two albums about angst and growing up on the mean streets without their father and the struggles they’ve had and writing songs about how they hate the Rich and the Famous. Next thing you know they are rich and famous and are the people they used to sing about and make fun of, dating rich daughters of famous fathers and openly calling their style ‘emo’. What artist willing wants to be placed into that category unless you’re so far up your own arse, you are willing to sell out.

If Jay-Z still rapped about how much coke he’s selling these days he wouldn’t still be around, subject and talent progresses, it’s the heart and soul that stays the same.

But my original point was that you should write music for yourself, not people you hate, not people that hate you, not for someone you love or someone that loves you. You should write your music for you, if a song is about those people, grand, but it shouldn’t be for them. The moment you do that you have no heart or soul, no passion, and if you lose that you will never become the artist you want to.

A Chata de Praga, what a wonderful phrase, A Chata de Praga, it aint no passing phase

A chata is this awesome place that Czech’s were given during communist times to basically have holidays and weekends away in. Obviously they weren’t allowed outside the country and had to settle on holidaying inside the country. I went with M and T down to T’s family chata and it involved driving down this country road that quite frankly last looked like it was paved the first time they paved it, and instead of continuing down said lumpy road T veered off and started driving into the middle of the field. Of course your first thought is ‘Oh my God, I’m going to be raped and murdered and chopped up into a pile then thrown in the river’.

T found good parking spot underneath a tree and surrounded by a bush, just next to the disabled parking and we then grabbed all of our stuff out the car, pushed back some branches, walked over some undergrowth until a shape appeared, a shape that was shaped into the shape of a house. It was an odd shape to appear in the middle of a woodland area.

We proceeded to walk down the path and yes, indeed the shape was a house, but to be more precise, a chata.

T’s parents and grandparents had managed to trim back enough of the forestry to essentially create a garden. They had their own things growing, plants in pots, picnic tables (albeit a rickety one), campfires set up, and everything a normal garden has.

Due to the lateness, we decided grab some food, some beer, light a fire and catch an earlyish night. Btw, peanut snips rock.

So the next morning, we woke up at a reasonable hour and I found myself able to relax in the sun for 60 minutes. And after some breakfast we went for a walk to collect elderflower. Myself, not being great at the outdoorsy stuff, felt like a city slicker whilst the other two went in search of elderflower trees and examined the flower itself before determining that realistically we should have been picking said flowers two weeks ago. I smiled nodded and picked them anyway.

After our little adventures we returned upon the chata to do a little bit of work in the garden, have and make some food. As old chata’s rarely have such modern cooking appliances it soon came to my understanding that instead of an oven, we would be cooking large chunks of turkey meat on an outside grill – not a BBQ, an outside grill, there is, as I have discovered, a difference.

Due to unfortunate circumstances, said grill was deemed problematic as the motor that would turn the meat was broken meaning that some muggins would get the short straw of sitting in front of the oven, hand-turning the meat for an hour. Who do you think got that job? Well at least I didn’t have to mow the lawn. After food we would then make our way back to Prague to commence watching the Germany vs England World Cup match…

This was all going rather well until I revealed a little too late that actually the Germany vs England World Cup football match started at four, in what would have been approximately 45 minutes. Being an hour and a half removed from Prague and only just sitting down for food it was deemed impossible that such catchings of matches would ever occur.

So post-munch, we went back to the garden retiring to the fact that no football would be viewed by our tired eyes.

The garden soon became tidy, the car soon became packed and the two travellers and I were soon on the road again. On route, a stop off became imminent as T’s mother had to be picked up.

T’s parents lived on a plot of land that literally had a shack built on it in which they housed. Surrounding the shack, they had grown lots of different foods to essentially live off, ranging from Strawberries, peppers, tomatoes, not to mention the flower gardens. The shack itself was decked out with television aerials, wifi signals, and the majority of it was run off various motors and car batteries. After strawberries and coffee, that went surprisingly well together it was time to hit the road twice, metaphorically of course not physically, well I suppose physically but not in a violent manner.

Prague was on the horizon and all was left was to pop on the internet, and of course let anyone who wants to read about my adventure, do exactly that.

P.s. from my day in the sun, I somehow managed to get a backwards t-shirt tan. I put sun-cream on my arms then proceeded to take my t-shirt off later in the day, forgetting to re-up the cream. Now I have red shoulders, chest, belly, and tops of arms, the bottom of my arms, a slight brownish twinge. I am a backwards sun-burn. Always remember to wear sun-cream kids.

World Cup Fever

I say it's world cup fever, not just because the world cup is on, but because, it has very quickly spread around the world like the H1N1 virus.

Every facebook status, every conversation, every pub, and every television is themed on the World Cup.

Now I am openly not the biggest fan of football but I do enjoy the World Cup when it's on, but does it really have to dominate every facet of life like this? Whilst writing this blog I am yes, believe it or not watching football.

Realistically I have no idea who's going to win because I don't know enough about football to make an educated decision, but from the disgust of a lot of my friends about the performance of the English team so far, apparently they are in with a chance. Either this, or like every major competition that England plays in, the media has overly publicised the fact that the World Cup is on and with an internationally renowned manager and the 'talent' of some of the English players, they are in with a fighting chance.

As of recent times however the entire country has destroyed Fabio Capello in the media, and figured that he's the worst coach in the world. I remember a time not so long ago, when everybody raved that they had such a clever and experienced coach, and this seems to be the case with many an England manager. Sven, Keegan, that red headed prat, and even Capello now have all been victimised by the British public.. The interesting fact being that all of these managers have had winning records. In for the past 55 years only two coaches have had losing records the reason being both of these managers were simply caretakers after another had been fired and they only coached 4 matches between them both.

The realistic problem being is that maybe, just maybe, the England players aren't talented enough. Blame it onthey're lack of playing time together, blame it on the media's high expectations, blame it on the high profile of the players caring more about earning money than playing for their national team, blame it on what you want, but is it really that fair to pin all the blame on the manager.

The fact of the matter is that the talent hasn't really been there. There are a select few world class players; Rooney, Gerrard, umm, I'm going dry now. But also players play within systems for their clubs and it's very hard for certain players to adapt to different systems.

So all I'm saying is, there will be a lot of pointing fingers at Capello and he will probably be fired but lets try picking on your beloved players on the actual pitch first.

Rant over

Stream of consciousness

So I wanna watch game 7. It starts in 2 and a half hours, it lasts for two and a half hours, the time now, 1 o clock in the morning, I don't think I will.

What I do wanna do it repeat the same nightly process that I have had the past 5 days.

Is Iced Tea, Iced Tea, if the tea doesn't come with ice?

Can you really trust jobs off craigslist?

Home is around the corner. I will miss Prague.

Hot Tub Time Machine looks like a cool film, shame about the title.

You know what else looks like a cool film? TOY mother STORY fo-ing THREE! Hell to the Yeah.

I hate shaving but when its worth it, it's worth it.

That will be all...

...Actually it wont, COME ON BOSTON!

Tour guide Out

Between a rock and a hard place

The rock is several miles in one direction and the hard place, perhaps even further in the opposite direction. It doesn't really worry me that the rock would suck just as much as the hard place, sometimes you just want something.

People with direction in their life fascinate me. I think everyone obviously has direction in their life but when you're at a crossroads, you sometimes get envious of those who are on one of the many paths that are available. They may regret their decision later to take said route, it may be catastrophic but, they have at least moved in a direction.

I suppose it's a bit like the greener grass thought process also. The intersection isn't a bad place to be standing. I suppose people who are not on the intersection may be jealous of the fact that I have so many options available but, occasionally you think it would be nice to have the courage and conviction to take that first step, whether the eventual destination is said rock, or hard place, just knowing would sometimes do.

...yeah

The Underpants Embargo

There comes a point in every man's life, in which they have to face the inevitable. One has to step up to the plate, take the hit, take that extra step toward truly becoming an independent human being with much to gain out of life.

There comes a point in every man's life, where you have to buy your own underwear.

As a male in this species we call human, this concept is new to all of us at some point and I'm sure anyone reading will fully understand completely, but for those of you, perhaps many of them women, who don't understand, allow me to ellaborate.

As a women sure you do have underwear bought for you up until a certain age, but you are almost eased into buying your own underwear by going out with your mother to buy underwear for yourself, this then leads into you going shopping with your friends to buy underwear and you become very adept and comfortable with performing this task from a younger age, lets say for arguments sake, early puberty.

Now lets flip the coin. The average twelve/thirteen year old boy, firstly would hate to have been seen dead with their mother shopping, not to mention shopping in a store that has male AND female underwear practically on the same rack. In some higher classed boutiques, you may be lucky enough to have an aisle in between the areas but the level of embarrassment for a boy who's voice jumps up and down like a kangaroo on speed to be discussing a small cloth that covers the area they are the most self conscious about, IN PUBLIC, is just straight up, ridonkulous.

So because of this crazy level of embarrassment in said situation, young, adult, pubescent males refuse to go shopping with their mother to buy underwear. Thus the mother becomes solely in charge of buying the underwear. There is an exception to this rule, during Christmas for example when Mum doesn't buy the underwear, Santa does. During the majority of the time though, no boy will ever buy their own underwear.

Which brings us up to the present day. I am a 21 year old male, and I have never bought my own underwear. How is it done? Where do I go? Should I set a budget? Do I want sexy underwear, or go for comfort? What is sexy underwear on a male anyway?

These are the problems I am faced with ladies and gentlemen especially since the job I currently do requires me to expect a lot more out of my underwear as I walk around constantly, completely juxtaposing their original job of collecting my farts.

So wish me luck, because whether it be tomorrow, the next day, or a year from now I, Huw Hopkins will have to step up to the plate, take the hit, take that extra step toward truly becoming an independent human being with much to gain out of life. I will have to buy my own underwear.