If your a tourist in Oxford and you ask me:

"How do I get to the University?"

Then I will slap you round the face with a fish.

Really hard.

So hard infact; that you stand rooted to the spot for the next 10 minutes rubbing your cheek as it swells, wondering if that guy really did just fish-slap you, or if it was a figment of your imagination.

I'll skip away in the other direction confused as to why exactly I had a fish at that moment in time, and on the look-out for another one, and some string, so I can make fish nunchucks.

But in the unlikely event I don't have a fish to hand then i'll point you in the wrong direction.

Why?

(a) I'm a bastard,

(b) I have nothing better to do with my life,

But more to the point...

(c) Quite frankly, mis-informed tourists have become annoying

You see, there is no University campus or center, but lots of different colleges dispersed around the City which combined create Oxford University. But it seems 90% of visitors haven't quite grasped that despite having months to prepare themselves and a lonely planet guide in tow, and I'll be asked "How do I get to the University" a guaranteed minimum of five-times-a-day, similar to having a four year old (or midget-girlfriend) tugging at your trouser leg going; "why...why...why." 

Just as irritating is having tourists photograph me whilst at work; like the English bar-man is on an endangered species list, or radically different from one found at home. The only thing to come of it will be an awkward conversation as you flick through the photo-album with friends and explain;

"This is the guy who served our drinks... um... I couldn't tell you anything else about him... except that he gave us the wrong directions to the University."

And you friend will go: "Hey... wait a minute.... I recognise him, he's on the FBIs most wanted terrorist list for continual fish-slapping of US citizens."

I would charge for the photograph priviledge, but I make a fair amount from those same tourists tipping. With a British customer i'm lucky to have the occassional "keep the change" and subsequently a shiny bronze coin to my name, which if I save enough of then after a few weeks I might be able to afford a sock (just one, not quite enough for a pair.) But when you guys roll into town then I soon have enough money for all the socks to make my heart-content. Seriously you don't need to tip (unless it's me serving you of course.)

Whilst I can undestand photographing a red phone box, or a black-cab, or double decker bus, or policemen with their funny hats, I'm not quite sure why me at work is quite so fascinating (if any of the previous listed can be classed 'fascinating' that is.) 

Personally, i'd advise buying a map before travelling, that way people will realise there is no 'University' as such, and that they won't find Hogwarts. 

And whilst I'm at it; a few other misunderstandings to throw out the window:

• The United Kingdom is not a subsidary of McDonald's.
• We use pounds, not Euros. 
• I don't know/have not met/do not like the Queen.
• Robin Hood is no longer alive, so it's safe to travel through the middle of the country without being robbed at bow-and-arrow 'for the poor.'
• At the moment it's not raining, nor does it allways (but I guess true to form I have now talked about the weather)
• Since the invention of the toothbrush our dental hygiene has considerably improved.
• It's football, not soccer.

Although your right in assuming that David Beckham is God (note: capital 'G', whereas regular god, small 'g').

And I will use my accent to my own advantage.

Apolagies if this reads as me moaning - you'll have to excuse that as my distinct Britshness.

Cheerio chaps'

... for now.

Ps1: No tea was drunk in the making of this post.

Ps2: If your a hot female aged 18-21 ignore the above entry, and feel free to ask me "How do I get to the University", and i'll give you a personal tour of the City, English accent included for no additional charge.

Ps3: In true British fashion; please form an orderly que to leave a comment at the bottom of this entry.

Ps4: Sometimes I feel like the token English guy on Xanga.

Ps5: Wouldn't slapping someone with a fish be incredibly fun? I'm adding it to my list of things to do before I die, it can sit next to streaking at Disneyland. 

A transcript of Tuesday nights converastion whilst  playing Ring of Fire (also known as Circle of Death and Kings) with a few friends.

Emma goes to choose a card, and pulls out the 10 of Clubs. This means she has to select a category, such as 'Simpsons characters' and then starts with the first example of something from that category, ie. Bart. No example can be repeated and the first person to fail to come up with another example drinks two fingers worth from their glass. 

EMMA: The category is (pauses for a while thinking)...dinosaurs, so to start off; Velociraptor.

CHRIS: Stegosaurus, my personal favourite.

ME: (clearly struggling) Um... how about... I know, Rhinosersaurs.

MATT: (laughs) You can't just make it up as you go along.

ME: I didn't, that's a dinosaur right?

MATT: Are you joking?

ME: (embarressed) No. Thats the only dinosaur I know aswell, well at least it's the only one I thought I knew.

MATT: Oh.

A transcript of conversation earlier today:

(EMMA walks into the room, with phone in hand, and passes it in my direction.)

EMMA: Becca wants to speak with you for a moment if thats allright.

(BECCA is EMMA'S sister. I take the phone to my ear.)

ME: Hey there.

BECCA: Did you think that there was a dinosaur called Rhinosersaurus?

ME: Maybe.

(Fits of girly laughter can be heard down the other end as Becca tells her Mum.)

BECCA: (still giggling) Your so silly.

I am 21 years old. Whilst Becca (who loves dinosaurs) is 5.  

ps1. If you are Siamese twins and one of you enjoyed this entry then please rate this five stars. If both of you liked it then 'recommend' it aswell. This is done purely for research into the likes and interests of Siamese twins, and I am in no way using this method as a tool to promote my own writing. Consider this a disclaimer.

ps2. I wanted to point out I'm not stupid, but just have a dinosaur complex.

I'm sat here chewing my blue pen, trying to figure how best to write. It does seem I've been a little negligient of this account for quite sometime. I could fill you in with a million and one exciting stories, far-flung tales and adventures as to my disappearance, and the reasons would be all be quite delightful, but they would also have been made up figments of my imagination. So instead i'm left scratching my head with my blue pen as to why exactly I've left it so long. Rather than waxing lyrical, and more so a difficulty of justifying my xanga absence, its probably best to start as if I never left. Which means that from this point forward of this post you have to pretend you didn't see this start to todays entry, and that you've come to view my updates from yesterday. Capisce?

Right here it goes ...

One thing I could never quite get to grips with when I was employed in bars was an English law that affected me in the workplace; it is illegal to serve someone who is drunk. I've only ever had one collegue who used it as if he was a totaliterian ruler, and genrually its not widely enforced.

Its notion and practice seems a little contradictory. In English culture its kind of taken as a given if you are going out for a "drink or two" that in actual fact you'll probably not be seen untill the following morning, and you'll wake up wondering why your friend passed out on the sofa has a traffic gone on his head, how you could have lost a shoe during the course of the night, and who exactly is the young lady/man sleeping next you. 

I can't quite imagine the scene in an English nightclub if people were not allowed to be drunk on the premises as the law states. It would probably turn all 'school-disco-esque', with the hyperactive girls dancing around in the middle, and a few guys looking round awkwardly at the side, not sure if they should join in, or send their mate over to tell some lucky-girl "my friend fancies you", and then there is the selection of light snacks at the back of the room which you don't want too touch as you just saw that guy with the big-sweaty hands finger them all.

Or maybe I'm just being cynical, and it's because I don't know better, and I should have more faith in this nations young generation. Maybe I just don't like the thought of such a law ringing true; after all it would effectively mean I couldn't stumble in to do my night shift at work after drinking with friends in the bar round the corner all afternoon. 

So I got thinking about any other slightly circumspect British laws, and none seemed to cross my mind, and ended up doing a little research on the subject. It seems that over the course of our history so much jurisdiction has been passed that modern Goverment does not have enough time and resources to go through repealing it all. Here are a few of my favourites:

• In the city of York, it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow.
• It is illegal for a woman to be topless in Liverpool except as a clerk in a tropical fish store
• Any person found breaking a boiled egg at the sharp end will be sentenced to 24 hours in the village stocks (enacted by Edward VI).
• It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.
• It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down.
• In Lancashire, no person is permitted after being asked to stop by a constable on the seashore to incite a dog to bark.
• It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour
• In the Royal Air Force you may grow a moustache but are not allowed to clip it, the moustache must grow wild.

But it seems such folly doesn't just exist in my part of the world. Indeed your not safe from silly laws in most places. Now, I don't want my Texan friend getting in trouble, so thought for her benefit, I'd post a few that apply over there:

• A city ordinance states that a person cannot go barefoot without first obtaining a special five-dollar permit.
• It is illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing.
• It is illegal for one to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel.
• It is illegal to milk another person’s cow.
• A recently passed anticrime law requires criminals to give their victims 24 hours notice, either orally or in writing, and to explain the nature of the crime to be committed.

I've managed to bite through my blue-pen during the course of writing this entry and probably ought to go was my mouth out.

So anyway, behave yourself people, I don't want to turn on the news tommorow to hear about anyone being imprisoned for dying in the Houses of Parliament; you have been warned (that is, about potential arrest, not dying).

(To clarify for those few who are a little confused by this picture this man on the left is an on-duty policeman)

Best wishes,

Carax.