Andrew Girardin's Blog

And The Survey Says...

2012-02-01T23:57:00.000+01:00

Recently, Cecile wrote an article on her blog about women, beauty, and self-confidence. Her conclusions were based on an anonymous internet survey she created. Sadly, the results were somewhat distorted because I filled in the survey four times, disguised as women.

Cecile's questions were thought-provoking beyond belief, and any feminist would have been proud of them:

How good-looking do you think you are?

How often do you wear high heels?

Would you like to lose weight?

Do you have any complexes?

Have you ever considered plastic surgery?

...

CHARACTER ONE: The Nine

Like most of my fictional characters, The Nine was more a collection of witty responses to prompts than anything resembling a realistic, coherent person.

Cecile started a chat with me an hour after I filled in the form. She was suspicious...

Cecile: I saw your survey thingy
lol
It was the only one where someone selected "9" to
describe themselves

(This was surprising, since I knew Cecile herself had filled in the form, and she had once spent ten minutes trying to think of someone hotter than herself. She finally said, 'I dunno, maybe Helen of Troy.')

Me: huh?

Cécile: It has to be you.

Me: what are you on about?

Cécile: did you fill in my survey?
and selected 9 to say how good looking you were?
and then put jokes in it
it can't be a real girl who did it

Me: why not?

Cécile: because
I know it is you
lol
I'm reading it again
you're sick!
anyway
I got dood results

Me: that's dood

Cécile: I meant good!
34 women and 1 man did it
I'd like to get more results though
maybe you could tell your students about it or smthg?

Me: 1 man? huh?
what did he write?

Cécile: yes, YOU
he or she wrote, in reply to:
Why do you wear heels?
"To make sex kinkier"

Me: That sounds reasonable

Cécile: Do you have any complexes?
"I own a factory complex in Guangzhou"
lol
I'm still laughing!
and on plastic surgery
"I think about having my ears symmetricised"

Me: So she's American. A Brit would write 'made symmetrical'

Cécile: no
an american would write
symmetriciZed

Damn! Busted by my innate Britishness. Well, she was on to me now. No need to be subtle any more.

CHARACTER TWO: The Bald Dwarf

Bald Dwarf slash Midget

Q: How much time per day do you spend doing your hair?
A: 0 Minutes.

Q: Do you have any complexes?
A: As a bald dwarf, life can be hard. I'm very aware of people staring at me. People tell me to get a wig but I'd prefer to feel good about myself the way I am. It's hard, though, because magazines and movies tell us we need to be tall and have hair to be attractive and happy.

Q: Have you ever seriously considered plastic surgery?
A: I guess if I won the lotto I'd have a leg extension op. It's painful, but being a couple of inches taller would improve my quality of life tremendously.

Email from Cecile:
You're insane! You're disturbed! You're obsessed with dwarves! You're fucking up my survey stats!

CHARACTER THREE: Siamese Twin 1

Conjoined Cecile

Q: How often do you wear high heels?
A: 3 times a week
Q: If you wear high heels, why do you wear them?
A: I don't want to, but my sister loves them, so I have to, otherwise we'd look stupid.

Q: Would you like to lose weight?
A: Yes.
Q: If you selected yes, are you on a diet?
A: Not a diet exactly, but I'd like to lose about 60 kilos. That's how much my sister weighs.

(I wish I'd been there to see the puzzled look on Cecile's face.)

Q: How much time per day do you spend choosing your outfit?
A: Longer than 30 mins.

Q: Do you have any complexes?
A: I have a complex about my sister. I think men prefer her. She's always been the pretty one. And we have fights all the time about what to wear, that's why it takes so long to choose our outfits. She wants to dress much sluttier than me.

Q: Have you ever seriously considered plastic surgery?
A: Yes. Surgical separation (to remove my sister).

CHARACTER FOUR: Siamese Twin 2

Q: Why do you wear high heels?
A: Partly it's to look good, and partly because my sister doesn't know how to walk in them. It makes her look clumsy and thus I seem more elegant.

Q: Do you have any complexes?
A: I think men think it's strange having sex with my sister watching. And she's ugly, so maybe they worry about her touching them while we're making love. Then again, some guys are really into it. For some, it's the closest they'll ever get to a threesome.

Q: Have you ever seriously considered plastic surgery?
A: I'd have a surgical separation done if it were less dangerous. But it's not so bad having my sister by my side (excuse the pun) all the time. She makes me look good, and I like bossing her around.

Q: Do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share?
A: I'm highly confident and look down on insecure women such as my sister.

...

Ironically, although my fake answers were weird, illogical, and a cruel pastiche on female insecurity, the real results were little different. Go have a look and see for yourself. Click here.

Then click this link to see a diagram that explains how women's brains work. It's worth the half a calorie it will take, I promise! (The text at the top means 'The way women think has finally been modelled.')
.

Nice Things About Switzerland #1: Toilets

2012-01-27T11:15:00.000+01:00

Nice Things About Switzerland

1. Toilets

There are always spare toilet rolls in Swiss toilets, which are normally spotlessly clean.

'Please use me.'

See the spare rolls? In England, they'd be stolen or used to clog up the toilet.
See the graffiti? No? Exactly.

(There's an amusing story behind this photo. Ask me about it next time you see me.)

Twin Toilets

Meanwhile, the setup in the above picture is becoming more common in Central Europe. Not sure if it's spreading to other parts of the world. It's a twin toilet for women who don't want their bowel movements to interrupt their non-stop flow of bitchy gossip. I'm pretty sure twin toilets is how the decline of the following empires started: Roman, Ottoman, Cylon.
.

Nice Week (Days 3 to 7)

2012-01-19T01:00:00.000+01:00

Nice Week

Part Two

Read the first part first, obviously...

DAY THREE

I went to play badminton with Cecile and Nick. Cecile had been at her father's birthday party and had drunk some wine. This made her even more inept at the game than usual. I tried saying things like "Oh, good try!" and "Nearly! You'll get it next time!" Strangely, she didn't like it.
Later, we went to their place to have fondue. I didn't really want to go, because their flat is really far from the rest of society. It's like going to Albania. On a goat. They promised me that it was really simple to get there. "You can take this train or that tram or even a bus. It's sooo easy!" Then they spent fifteen minutes showing me an iPhone app with all the super-easy routes we could take.
So we took a train, got out, waited in the cold, took a tram in the direction of a bus stop, then suddenly decided we could take another train. This involved a mad dash across several busy roads, with my badminton racquets slapping me in the back of the head at every step.
I didn't say anything.
We finally arrived at their flat a mere thirty minutes later than they'd promised. I sat down to relax a bit before the fondue was served. "Cut this!" demanded Cecile. She'd placed a cutting board, a sharp knife, and a loaf of bread on the table. "Cut!" she barked. I thought of lots of things to say in reply, but didn't say them, because of Nice Week.
"Hmm," said Nick, ominously.
"Quoi?" asked Cecile.
"We don't have any fondue gel, a basic requirement for making fondue. Well, we have one. But it has evaporated."

Left: gel at Chez Butcher Right: one of the many full tubs at my flat

I stared at the empty tub in astonishment. My mouth opened, but I closed it again, and stared at all the bread I'd cut. Maybe we could just put ketchup on the bread cubes. Maybe it'd still be nice.
Nick was undaunted. "I'm going to put a tea candle under the caquelon. It might be hot enough."

My reconstruction of the tea candle/caquelon incident

My astonishment nearly turned to apoplexy. I remembered Nice Week, and said, "It was very nice of you to invite me to your home to eat. That's more important than whether food is ultimately served or not. But... maybe you could put more than one candle?"
With about 8 tea candles artfully arranged under the caquelon (generating more than enough heat to slightly melt a marshmallow), Nick brought the cheese in. I eagerly speared a cube of perfectly-cut bread and dipped it into the cheese. Or at least, a substance with the colour of cheese. What emerged from the bowl was a damp, oily piece of bread. I redipped the bread and stirred the mixture. There was some cheese in there somewhere, if you poked around long enough.
"Um, Nick," I said, politely, "I think maybe you forgot the corn starch?"
"Ah, yes!" he said, snapping his fingers. "I did." He lifted the rapidly-cooling caquelon from its frame and brought it back to the kitchen, where he began adding corn starch, stirring the yellow mess, and saying, "Hmm... perhaps a little more." Again and again, for about ten minutes. At this point I began to wonder if the whole evening was a stress-test of the Nice Week concept organised by Nick and Cecile, or even one of those hidden camera TV shows.
"Um..." I said, wondering how to be nice about this. "It smells good, though!"

When I got home, I found a message from a friend called Terry. "This Anna girl, if you could package that smile and sell it, you would be a millionaire."
I sent the quote to Anna. It would be the first thing she read when she woke up.

DAYS FOUR + FIVE

I was nice both days. Almost. I did have a slight slip-up when a student told me he'd tried and failed to invite me to his Facebook event, claiming the email link didn't work. (For anyone not on Facebook, this involves copying and pasting a link, which is utterly foolproof.)
I became so exasperated I started to splutter, but became progressively more calm as my Nice Week training took over: "What?! I mean, just, just, it's so... but that's fine. It could happen to anybody."
I even managed to keep my cool when I was rudely awakened at the ungodly hour of 09:30 by a phone call. "Andrew speaking, how can I help you?" I said sweetly.
For some reason I decided to dress up for work, even wearing a waistcoat and my best shoes. I didn't really see how looking nice fit into the Nice Week concept, but it seemed to work. It felt right. I bumped into a gorgeous au pair I'd met a while back and she was so taken with my niceness that she invited me out for a drink. High five!

DAYS SIX + SEVEN

Niceness was now becoming commonplace. My default reaction to anyone saying anything was to pause and think about how I should reply. It didn't seem like such a bad way to live one's life.
I had dinner with Anna and Lisa, and didn't say anything mean to them the whole time. I even gave them some nice compliments about the largeness of their breasts, even though they didn't do anything to earn that compliment. It's true that I left early because of the strain placed on me from working so hard not to be a dick. But still, I think they appreciated me trying to be nice.
Anna told me that the 'smile' compliment I'd passed on to her had 'made her day.' I told Terry. He was having a bad day, and the fact that he'd made Anna's day made his day.
I can't say that it made my day, but it didn't cost me anything to pass on the messages, except a fractionate amount of time. And Anna booby-bumped me (deliberately, I think). So it was worth it.

On the last night of Nice Week, I had drinks with the au pair and five of her young female friends. It was as pleasant as it sounds, and as the two of us waited for her bus home to come, I gave her my blue Nepalese woolly hat, because she was cold.
"That's so nice of you," she said.
"When I first met you," I said seriously, "I thought you were really attractive." She looked pleased. "But now I've seen you in that ridiculous hat, I don't think I'll ever be attracted to you again."

Nice Week was over.

.

True Love: Girlfriend for a Day

2012-01-15T10:16:00.000+01:00

True Love: Girlfriend for a Day

by Andrew Girardin and Cécile Meier

Project: Nice Week

2012-01-11T08:15:00.000+01:00

Nice Week

It was a typical Tuesday. I learned how to say 'You're so mean!' in German because an annoyed student kept muttering it under her breath in the face of my relentless teasing. I also received a one-word text message from a friend which simply said 'DICK'.

But surely inviting a German girl to watch a movie and buying her a drink would get the day going in a more positive direction? Maybe not. I accidentally made a joke about her and she exploded.
"You're a shit friend," said Anna, slapping me with her scarf.
"Who me?"
"Yes. You're a jerk and a shit friend."
I couldn't think what I'd done to deserve this. Last year I'd gifted her a cute pink cat calendar for her birthday (how could I know she hated cats?). This year she'd shown great interest in Cats That Look Like Hitler and the House That Looks Like Hitler, so I spent ages on Photoshop creating a personalised internet meme just for her (see picture below). Instead of thanking me, she raged at me to delete it from Facebook, repeatedly calling me a jerk.

The day after the 'shit friend' comment, she suggested we go to a cafe and talk. I had to go to my next class, so I said no, without saying why. She kept hassling me about it until finally, to make her stop, I said (with extreme irony, stopping just short of actually winking), "Okay, I'll see you there!" This made her smile.
Half an hour later I got a text which said simply "WORST FRIEND EVER". So she hadn't understood that I was joking and had gone to the cafe. Amazing.
Curiously, when I told people this story, they - without exception - looked horrified and agreed that I was a terrible friend and person. Many of them told me that while I was fun and interesting, I wasn't nice.

The CEO of Barclay's Bank had started firing people for being jerks. "No one should ever not be nice," he said, revealing he'd fired 30 people for being assholes. Maybe nice was the new black? I thought I'd at least give it a try, so I created Nice Week - seven days of me trying extra hard to be nice to people.

Anna, who had quickly forgiven me for the 'see you there' incident, was excited when I told her about Nice Week.
"Yep," I said, "It will be interesting. Maybe I'll learn something about the world or myself or whatever. It's going to be the 20th to the 27th of December."
"But that's when I'm away on holiday. Those are the exact dates." I just smirked at her until she understood I was joking. I planned to start it in two days. "Jerk," she announced.
"It ain't Nice Week, yet, baby. Now buy me a coke."

DAY ONE

I was ill. Cecile texted to say she'd left some medicine in my locker. I replied with "Thanks, that's very kind of you." I expected to experience a burst of smugness like when I invented Microfinance. But I didn't feel like a better person. Then she sent back, "I love nice week :-)" which briefly made me furious. As though I never say thanks! I'm a well-brought up English gentleman. God.

In my lunchtime lesson, I didn't make fun of the students or laugh at their mistakes. But I didn't feel like doing that anyway, because I was still a bit poorly and feeling sorry for myself.

Cecile had complained that I never give enough praise. So when I discovered one of my students had made another loan on Kiva, to a guy in Georgia who needed the money to send his wife to hospital, I wrote to the student immediately and told her she was a great person. Would I have done it without Nice Week? I'd probably have waited till the next lesson and said it to her face. But maybe I'd have forgotten by then. And the student subsequently made a lot more loans, so maybe my instant response made her feel even better about it.

A friend texted me that he was in a bar talking to someone from Cecile's region, and told me an insult I could use on her that would probably be amusing. I replied that I couldn't use it yet because of Nice Week. "Nice Week? Can I have 500 Francs?" "Yes," I replied, "Anytime you actually need it. Otherwise I'll send it to Bangladesh to buy pigs."

DAY TWO

Still sick, I didn't really feel like going out, so I tried to be nice via the Internet. I had an opportunity to do it while helping Cecile improve a post she'd drafted about weird Swiss parenting. Before we started to write, she told me she'd failed to get a cat from the cat place. She had gone to a cat sanctuary to get a cat, and failed to get a cat. I nearly had pizza coming out of my nose when I read that. I typed something funny slash mean but deleted it.

Then we moved on to the editing. I normally use the 'Steve Jobs feedback method', where things are either Insanely Amazing or Total Shit. Being Nice Week, I had to give her great notes to help her improve, but without being mean. So I didn't laugh at her when she kept talking about that famous punctuation mark, 'the coma'. Then I typed out another great zinger about her curiously inexpressive forehead. And again, I deleted it.

We edited and improved the post, but it was much less fun than normal. I enjoy pretending to get furious at mistakes she's made and exaggerating things to the point of obnoxiousness. And quite often, by pushing her to the edge, we come up with some killer joke, or a metaphor that brings everything together.

And she goes to bed grumpy but wakes up realising the post has become brilliant.
But that's not nice.
Still, the post turned out adequately.
.

Mastering/Outsourcing Online Dating: The Dates

2012-01-06T01:00:00.000+01:00

I failed to get any dates through the internet, but Cecile's hard work got me three. I dutifully turned up and tried to enjoy them. It seems ungentlemanly to write about them on my blog, but everyone insists I have to do it. So here's what happened. My sincere apologies to the women involved, should they happen to read this.

Date One

I'd had a long day at work - stupidly long, actually - so it wasn't a great time to go on a date. But I really didn't have any other time that week. These days I don't get nervous about dates but I couldn't remember who I was supposed to be meeting or anything about her except her name.

I called Cecile. "Ello?" she said. She sounds 300% more French on the phone.
"Hi, I'm about to do this date."
"Ah, oui. Ze date. Gud lock." It sounded like she would hang up.
"No, wait. Who is she?"
"Quoi? Who she is? Just check ze emails. You ave the password."
"I didn't have time. I worked twelve hours non-stop. And she's supposed to be here in a minute. Just quickly tell me."
"Ah, I understand now. This is the English way hof joking."
"No, it's no joke!" I was starting to get stressed. Why wouldn't she just tell me a couple of key facts? "Is she the French one?"
"No! No! No she is not French! Ow many times must I say these? She his Swiss-French. Putain de merde!" And then she hung up.

'Sunny' showed up on time, looking exactly like her photo. She was attractive. A bit short, but not so short that it would be like having sex with a dwarf. I checked her out thoroughly, using car wing mirrors and reflective shop windows to secretly check for weird deposits of body fat or anything misshapen, but things seemed good. She had a nice belt, too, I remember thinking.
I didn't want to do a datey-date but I had worked all day and was hungry and whatever, so I took her to an Italian restaurant near my school. It's pretty much the most typical first date in the world, but I guess it doesn't hurt to be normal sometimes.
Our table seemed to be well-located so I accepted it and sat down. But on her side there were no chairs, just a ludicrously high bench. It was too late to change tables. We spent a very nice evening with her peering down, quietly judging me.

I kept hoping she'd give me clues about her life story so I could remember what she'd said in the emails I'd skimmed. For example, she might say 'My brother called me today' and I'd say, 'Ah yes, your brother who lost his legs in Vietnam' and she'd be impressed with my attention to detail.
But the conversation was difficult. She didn't refer to anything from the emails. It was hard to connect with her. She didn't ask me many questions. She did react well when I stopped analysing her every micro-gesture and just started talking passionately about something I love, like how I make fun of my students, or why Master of Orion is better than Master of Orion 2.

The main problem was that she didn't laugh at my jokes, even my one about the Eskimo and the constipated pig (punchline: a pigloo). Still, we spent about four hours together after a loooong shift at work. If she'd been a bit more into my humour, maybe it could have worked. But she wasn't, and it didn't. Happy now?

Date Two

I took 'Cloudy' (the cupcake girl) to a cool outdoor event with lots of things to do, eat, drink, and look at. I was very nice and charming and tried not to check out other women.

"Where are you from?" I asked her.
"I grew up near a military port. Horny sailors used to come and get drunk and try to pick up women at the local bars. The Americans were fun. The Italians were sexy. The French were the worst. They'd just come right up to you and start humping your leg. My sister liked that a lot more than I did."
Oh. Okay. "What about other online dates you've had?"
"Well, the worst was with this one guy who said he was 180cm tall."
"What's that? Six foot?"
"Yeah, about that. So I met him and he was only 175. I was disgusted. And then he said 'Let's go to the Irish bar' and I said, 'What, so you can meet other women?' and he said 'Yes.' So we went there and he bought me a drink then went to flirt with some au pairs."
"Um. Yeah. I probably wouldn't do that. So what else?"
"Oh this one guy! It just didn't work with him at all. We didn't click and he gave off kind of a creepy vibe. Anyway, he texted me every day after that."
"And you never replied?"
"No."
"So how long did it take him before he gave up?"
"Gave up? No, he still does it."
"What? How long ago was this date?"
"About a year. Ten months or so."
"Wow. And you never saw him again?"
"No. Well..."
"What?"
"I did see him one more time. He came to my flat about a month ago. Somehow he worked out where I lived and one day my buzzer rang and it was him. He asked if he could come up and use my toilet."
"Huh?"
"So, I didn't want to, but he insisted. I buzzed him up, and he came in, said hi, and ran into the bathroom. He was in there for ages, then I heard the toilet flush and him starting the shower."
"The shower?!" I exclaimed.
"Then after the shower I heard him using my hairdryer for ages. That was weird because it was in the cupboard under the sink."
"I think it's just weird regardless of where it was."
"But then the strangest thing -"
I interrupted. "The strangest thing hasn't happened yet?"
"No. The strangest thing was that when he came out of the bathroom, his hair was still wet." We walked in silence for a while. Then she asked me, "Why are you an ovo-lacto vegetarian?"
"I'm not."
"Your profile says you are."
"It doesn't. Why would it?" I didn't realise that Cecile had put that on my profile as a joke.
"It does."
"You want me to kill a cow and eat it right here? Is that what you want?"

Date Summary: A very nice woman. Quite cool, intelligent. Some weird, funny stories, well told. Would be a fun friend, if that's what I was looking for. I actually meant to call her to hang out again, but I forgot. Because I'm a dick.

Date Three

I wasn't confident about 'Rainy,' what with her being five years older than me, so I decided to go to a cafe with great cheesecake, because if the date was bad, at least I'd get a cheesecake. She was lovely, but not my type. She kept laughing at everything I said. It was irritating. She was clearly very attracted to me, though, so I decided to do a social experiment and see how much shit I could say to her and still get a second date.

"I like men with tattoos," she said.
"Oh?" I said, noisily chomping down my cheesecake. "I only have one tattoo. It's on my back. It's a vampire girl taking a shower. She's crying. Oh, and she's a lesbian. How do you know she's lesbian? Because there's another vampire girl in the shower with her. It takes up most of my back, actually. The tattoo artist went a bit mental with it. I passed out three times. I think he overstepped his brief, actually."
"You're funny. Tell me a joke."
I thought for a second. Then said, "Why has no woman ever been to the moon? Because there's nothing to clean there."
"What's your best pick up line?"
"I just stare at the girl like this," I said, eyeing her with hate in my eyes, "and say, 'Hey baby'. Gets them hot."
"I love the British sense of humour."
"I'm not joking. Two words. First word, hey. Second word, baby. The end."
"Can you speak German?"
"Yes. I can say 'du hasst einen shrumpkopf.' (You have a shrunken head)."
"Giggle. That's cute."
"Oh," I said, "Did you want some cheesecake?"
"It does look quite good," she admitted. "Maybe I could have a little bit."
"Okay," I said, but then accidentally-on-purpose coughed all over the cheesecake. "Hmm... maybe it's best if I don't give you any."
"Um... yes," she said, worried. Then she brightened up. "But I'll get one next time and share it with you!"
Next time? Win.

POSTSCRIPT

I took the train back to my flat in kind of a weird mood. I'd met three lovely women in the space of a week. Each of them would make a great life partner for someone, and I'd spent a lot more time with them than I'd expected.
So what was the problem? I didn't know, and it depressed me a bit.

The train station near my house is bleak. It's dark and depressing, especially at night. Morrissey would have written songs about it. I got out of the train at the wrong end, and as I walked back past all the carriages, I stared inside, looking for help. Looking for answers. There were attractive people and ugly people. Lonely singles and hugging couples. I wondered what it all meant.
Then I saw a stunningly attractive woman, staring at me through a window. I stared right back. And kept staring. She burst into a huge grin, and I just couldn't help but smile in return. It was like a dam bursting, and it felt awesome.
The train pulled away, and I stood there, smiling and shaking my head. Chemistry. Maybe you can find it through the internet. Why the hell not? But you have to have chemistry. When you do, the world is a beautiful place.
.

The Adventures of Vladimir Putain 2

2012-01-02T00:38:00.000+01:00

This post was inspired by the very funny Vladimir Putin Action Comics. You might need to know that putain is sweary in French.

Asterix in Switzerland: Latin Jokes Explained

2011-12-24T12:07:00.000+01:00

Book 16 - Asterix in Switzerland

1.
The story: In Asterix in Switzerland, there are numerous gags about the Swiss. Fortunately, Professor Ibrox has lived in Zurich and can explain them.

#1: Being Quietly Smug

Professor Ibrox explains: "Number one is simple. The Swiss aren't very showy and can be quite modest. But they're sure their way is best and can be quite smug about it. Ask a Swiss banker what his bonus was, and he'll smirk and say, 'It was in line with my performance.' And that'll mean a billion francs or something."

#2: Cleaning Up During Parties

"This might not make sense to anyone from Poland or America. But I went to loads of parties there where everyone would clean up after themselves the whole time. I had to stop my maid service because I ran out of money. So I started having weekly parties to make sure the flat got tidied up."

#3: Love of Paperwork

"They love paperwork. The tax collection rate in Switzerland is 100%, and that's because the Swiss love filling in the forms. In the eighties, a left-wing town introduced a standardised suicide note to make bureaucracy a bit easier. They lost half the population in a week."

#4: Food and Drink-related Punishments

"If you don't cheers someone before you take a swig of your beer, you can't marry them or anyone in their family. If you don't look someone in the eye while you cheers them, they have the legal right to take all your livestock. If multiple people are cheersing, their arms mustn't cross. Otherwise, there's a risk of full protonic reversal, which is punishable in some cantons by two weeks in jail. If you drop your bread in your fondue, you have to swim naked in the lake and buy drinks for everyone. If you eat fondue in summer, no Swiss person will have sex with you. If you burp before, during, or after eating, you're chained to a radiator and the only way out is to cut your arm off with a Swiss army knife.

"Strangely, if you bring beetroot to a girl's flat you are almost guaranteed great sex."

2.
The story: Far from home in beastly France, some bored Romans pass their evenings by having world-class orgies. Governor Varius Flavus explains why his orgies are so great.

Professor Ibrox explains: "Varius says that he gets the impresario Fellinus to organise the parties. I don't know why Andrew needs me to explain this. It's a reference to Federico Fellini, who made debauched films like Casanova."

Andrew Girardin whinges: "I lost a bet with my Spanish friend, and had to go to a movie of his choosing. If I'd won, it'd have been something fun, with robots and space lasers. But he chose Fellini's Casanova, which was in Italian with German subtitles. Two languages I don't know. And was about four hours long. After a twelve-hour work day. I nearly tore my own eyes out. There wasn't a break to buy beer, even though the stupid little arthouse cinema was attached to a bar. God! And I had to pay for his ticket, too. It was torture. Never bet with a Spaniard."

3.
The story: Asterix and Obelix have to go to Switzerland to get some Edelweiss, a plant made famous by the movie The Sound of Music, which was set in Austria. They beat up an officious border guard. The other guards choose to stay neutral.

Professor Ibrox explains: "Maior e longinquo reverentia is from a brilliant but grumpy historian called Tacitus and means 'the greater the distance, the greater the beauty.' In this case, the legionaries mean that Switzerland seems nice until you get there and people start beating you up.

"Things being more beautiful from a distance reminds me of this woman I saw in a bar in Zurich. Oh, and one in Greece. Oh, and that one in Bogota. Ah yes, and that one in Minsk. And..."

The story: The Romans are chasing Asterix and Obelix, who have jumped into Lake Geneva.

Professor Ibrox explains: "First, the legionary asks if he should take his caligae off. Caligae are the sandal-type shoes worn by the Romans. They seem to be in fashion now.

"Then the centurion tells them to jump into the lake and yells 'Nunc est bibendum!' It's from Horace, who was celebrating the death of Cleopatra. The English translation is 'Now we must drink.' The Glaswegian translation is 'Let's get smashed with cheap booze.'

"It might help your foreign readers to know that a body of water can be called 'the drink'. As in, I got smashed with cheap booze and nearly fell into the drink. That's why the centurion says it here."
.

Adverts

2011-12-20T18:41:00.000+01:00

I put adverts on the blog to raise money for hard-working poor people all around the world, and for a great project I'm trying to set up in Kenya. (More on that later...)

The amount I get is pretty trivial, until someone clicks on an ad. Clicking on an ad is like sending me a dollar. It's amazing!

So help me help some poor people. Click on one ad a week. (Not too often or google will tell me off, apparently.)

(Especially click on adverts for companies you don't approve of. You can make them waste their marketing budget!)

.

The Adventures of Vladimir Putain

2011-12-16T10:21:00.000+01:00

This post was inspired by the very funny Vladimir Putin Action Comics. You might need to know that putain is sweary in French.

True Love: Love on a Bus

2011-12-10T01:51:00.000+01:00

True Love: Love on a Bus

by Andrew Girardin and Bethan Mure

Adapting Your Writing to Other Genres

2011-12-05T23:08:00.000+01:00

Adapting Your Writing to Other Genres

If, like me, you mostly write soppy romantic fluff, your work is unlikely to be published in the highly lucrative sci-fi or fantasy markets. So here's a tutorial on how to adapt ANY piece of writing for publication in Cyborg Monthly, Pandev's Conbobulum, Sword of Seance, or one of the other famous sci-fi/fantasy mags.

The Sci-Fi Market

First, take a normal piece of writing:

The first time Susan stayed the night in my flat in Shanghai, long before I bought the heater, I gave her my hot water bottle at considerable cost to my own comfort. When I woke, cold and confused, I went into the living room; Dani had gone to work. I had the flat to myself. Unless… I looked at the bathroom door; it was closed. I stared at it; it opened. A magnificent wave of steam rolled out, rising, falling, convecting, turning my drab, tired bathroom into a tiled Chinese dragon breathing fire and water – and there in the midst of the mist stood Susan. She was surprised to see me, and I was surprised to see she was wearing only a miniature towel.

Then modify with robots, lasers, space imagery, and consonant-heavy names.

The first time ZuXann the Space Minx stayed the night in my ultrapod in the upper atmosphere of Shangixx the Water Planet, long before I bought the anti-cold nebulators, I lent her my spinal warmth implant, at considerable cost to my own comfort. When I woke, cold and confused, I went into the shared-space pod; Dhani had gone to work. I had the space cabin to myself. Unless… I looked at the air-powered sliding bathroom door; it was closed. I stared at it; it opened. A magnificent wave of steam rolled out, rising, falling, convecting, turning my drab, tired bathroom into a space-chrome Chinese dragon breathing fire and water – and there in the midst of the mist stood ZuXann. She was surprised to see me, and I was surprised to see she was wearing only a miniature towel.

Done! Now you're ready to send it to a sci-fi magazine and cash in.

The Fantasy Market

Same kinda thing, but with orcs, swords, spells, and names that are a bit different to modern English ones.

The first time Sosenneh stayed the night in Shang High Castle, the ancestral home of Ulrich my father, son of Halbert, son of Niq, long before I bought the dragonfire stones, I lent her my warming pan, at considerable cost to my own comfort. When I woke, cold and confused, I went into the Solar; Dani had gone to work. I had the wing to myself. Unless… I looked at the garderobe doors; they were closed. I stared at them; they opened. A magnificent wave of steam rolled out, rising, falling, convecting, turning the drab, tired room into a wooden Oriental dragon breathing fire and water – and there in the midst of the mist stood Sosenneh. She was surprised to see me, and I was surprised to see she was wearing only a chastity belt.

Perfect! Using these methods you can quickly triple your writing income. Remember to use give some of your money to good causes.

True Love: The Kite

2011-11-27T11:43:00.000+01:00

Sadly, the latest True Love comic doesn't look good on the blog. Here's a taste:

To see the whole thing, click here to see it on my website. My other comics are there, too.

andrewgirardin.com

True Love: The Red Baron

2011-11-20T14:29:00.000+01:00

True Love: The Red Baron

by Andrew Girardin and Rachel Schwarting

Outsourcing My Online Dating

2011-11-17T00:43:00.000+01:00

Outsourcing My Online Dating

A while ago I heard about a guy calledTim Ferris and because of what I heard, I bought his book The 4-HourWorkweek.

The book explains how he outsourced asmany aspects of his life as he could think of, leaving him with just 4hours of work per week, and almost unlimited free time to learn languages and practicejujitsu on the sandy beaches of Thailand or Rio. It inspired me to try outsourcing my comics.The results are clearly ace.

So I'd read the book and tested some ofthe principles. But after failing to master online dating, Iremembered how I'd originally heard of Ferris. His friend had challenged him tooutsource his dating, believing it to be impossible. So Ferris set up four project teams in India, Bangladesh and so on, assigned them a dating website and told them to get twenty-minute coffeedates for him. The team with the most dates would get a bonus.

He got ten dates in a week and a bunchof funny stories worth much more than the dollar cost of the project. I decided I would try that. But instead of payingMBA graduates in Bangalore to go on dating sites and pretend to be me, I'dmanipulate Cecile into doing it for me for free. (Check my blog in a few months for a cool article called 'How to Manipulate Cecile').

So now for the rest of my online datingstory, you'll have to travel over to her blog.

Part one was published today. Here's four reasons to read it: 1) It's about me. 2) It's laugh out loud funny. 3) Cecile says that if 50 people visit her blog because of this post she'll set me up with a Swedish girl. 4) Praise from someone who read the whole story: "Cecile! I just read the entire story start to finish, it is SO entertaining, GOOD WORK!! I was laughing out loud :O)"

Online Dating Expert Helps Lonely Guy (1)

Online Dating Expert Helps Lonely Guy (2)
Online Dating Expert Helps Lonely Guy (3)
Online Dating Expert Helps Lonely Guy (4)
Online Dating Expert Helps Lonely Guy (End)
.

Mastering Online Dating: Part Eleven

2011-11-13T10:00:00.000+01:00

Mastering Online Dating: Last Chance

After only six weeks of research, experimentation, and trying multiple dating websites and approaches, I finally came close to finding true love on the internet.

I wrote to a good-looking woman with the user name Swan, and she wrote back. She wrote back! Loads of times!

How did I do it? OkCupid tells you how often women reply to messages. Swan's said she 'replied selectively.' So I started with that:

Replies selectively, huh? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Then I hit her with some cold reading stuff. She checked out my profile and said:

Challenge won I guess. ;) Hello! God your eyes are blue.. :)

My fake analysis of her had been a hit:

So you think you worked me out? Actually you did or let’s say you’re on to something.

She told me what I'd got right and what she didn't quite agree with. Then she peppered me with questions, some of which I answered. We exchanged four or five emails. She was interesting and intelligent. I liked a lot of what she wrote and how she wrote it.

So it was going great! Great success!

Surely all I had to do to get a date was continue to be socially normal and not screw up? Well, that would have been boring. So I started giving her points for things I liked, and removing them when she screwed up. I told her I'd meet her when she had 15 points.

YOUR POINTS SO FAR
likes cats +2
replied to me +1
isn't totally passive, makes conversation progress +2
is insecure about her English -1
likes my eyes +1
funny +3
cynical about self-improvement -1
gave me mental image of being snubbed by dolphins which made me laugh +1
claims to have been emotionally hardened by tough job in marketing -1

That went down pretty well. Then I pushed it too far and she got fractionally pissed off at me. But she conceded I was the most interesting guy on the site and we got back to messaging each other frequently.

In order to push for the first meeting, I unleashed the Federpig technique I'd invented slash read about somewhere on the Internet. You start describing the first date and try to get her to finish the story.

"There she is, coming towards me in the penguin enclosure of the zoo. (etc etc - see part 10 for more).

Your turn! What comes next?

She fudged with 'busy', 'traveling on business', 'just got back from the gym' type messages for a few days. Finally, she did what I asked. Her Federpig reply was 530 words long, which for a non-native user of English means a lot of time and effort. And it was really cute and charming.

Snippet:

Wow his eyes are really super blue! But I won’t give him the pleasure of asking if they are real. He sticks out his hand, I like that. Three kisses would have been fine too but this is much more classy because you actually touch.

So, this girl was cute, intelligent and interesting, and interested in me enough to play my games and write long essays for me. And she wanted me to touch her. We had to get this off cyberspace and into a Love Hotel! I'd done MORE than enough to get a normal, mentally healthy woman to meet for a coffee.

I pressed for a date. She didn't reply for a week. After another round of mails and another week, she (finally) agreed that the next step would be to get a coffee sometime. I told her a date I was free, and a time, and left my phone number.

She never replied. She'd been using the internet to get some extra male validation in her life. A little harmless internet romance to pass the time at work. If she had any genuine interest in meeting people, I'd have met her.

But she didn't.

Because online dating is a stupid waste of time.

ONLINE DATING PROJECT RESULTS

* Some bots (fake humans) were interested in me on a site I had to pay to use (Zoosk AKA Boo!sk). I refused to blow 30 chuffs that could be used to buy pigs in Bangladesh into the pockets of scam artists.

* On Metrodate, there was a total of one woman who was not a Nigerian or Russian scam artist. She didn't reply to my mail.

* On Plenty of Fish, all the hot women had seen my funny but obnoxious profile and decided not to write to me.

* On OkCupid, my refined profile and genius mails got me great cyberflirting. And zero dates.

I failed at mastering online dating.
So I got someone to do it for me.

Now read - Outsourcing my Online Dating
.

True Love: The First of the Gang

2011-11-09T10:03:00.001+01:00

True Love: The First of the Gang

by Andrew Girardin and Gonzalo Muñoz

Mastering Online Dating: Part Ten

2011-11-02T14:02:00.000+01:00

Mastering Online Dating: OK Cupid

By now I was heartily sick of online dating. It's not an efficient way to meet people. But I'd told everyone I was doing it and they kept bugging me about my progress. And I'd written loads of chapters...

So I forced myself to carry on.

OkCupid is a free site owned by Match.com and seems to be run to help them study the habits of online daters. Fine with me.

Signing up to these dating sites is often slow and tedious, but OkCupid have made it slick, quick, and hassle-free.

I tried to take it moderately seriously...

On the bit that says, 'The first things people usually notice about me' I put 'My piercing blue eyes.' God! Lame! Horrible! Predictability is the enemy of attraction. Edit!

I changed it to 'His eyes are so blue. They must be fake. He has fake eyes.'

I asked my online dating expert Cecile about it. She liked it, but being a bolshevik she couldn't resist adding her own thoughts. We had a surreal conversation on gmail chat.

Cecile: you can write that you turn red when a girl says your name

Me:
???
it's not true

Cecile:
it is soooo true!
It is literally my first impression of you
I remember
I met you one time
then the second time you saw me you called me by my name and I had a moment of panic because I did not remember yours
but then it popped in my head and I said: "Your name is Andrew, right?"
And you turned all red
lol

Me:
lies
outrageous lies

Cecile:
NO it is EXACTLY what happened. I'm offended you don't remember!
that would be a good mix of over-confidence and shyness
the blue eyes thing plus the turning red
it goes great together

Me:
it's not a poem

Cecile:
well you wanted smthg original and different
and that would be original and accurate at the same time

Me:
yes
except for the accurate part

Cecile:
admit it
I would not invent such a thing.
And then every time I said your name you made a weird face, a bit red

Me:
you're mental
you have actually lapsed into a vegetative state

Nevertheless, although it was the product of a fevered imagination, I decided I liked it and stuck it on the web.

So my profile was tight. So tight that a gorgeous Germanic girl visited my page. Her profile picture was mostly just neck. The other picture was just her cleavage. Intriguing...

I mailed her suggesting that if she lived closer I'd have written an elaborate mail to get her attention.

Her reply:

Oh please send me that elaborate mail just for the sake of it. ;(

I decided to play along, as I had a new idea to test, which I call the 'First Date Role Play Gambit' (or Federpig):

Sigh, I don't know. It's a lot of work, analysing your profile and writing cool and amazing things and being awesome. But okay. Pretend this is the first thing you got from me...

Hi, I like (thing she wrote on her profile), too! It seems we think the same way. But we should put that to the test... Here's my plan: I'm going to tell the first part of the story of our first date, based on your profile and my imagination.

"There she is, coming towards me in the penguin enclosure. I told her to wear something casual. She has ignored me, and is overdressed. I'm annoyed, but in a good way. I'm glad she made the 182km journey to come and try to seduce me.

"She's close now. I've been admiring her walk to the exclusion of all other brain function. She has a sensual grace. She's understated. Classy. Suddenly I experience a moment of panic. Should I kiss her three times on the cheeks or once on the lips? She has a quirky smile as though she knows my dilemma.

"'Hi, I'm Hot Internet Guy,' I say, sticking my hand out like frikkin Hugh Grant in a lame movie. 'Hi,' she says, 'I'm Mirzipan.' That is her real name. Her hand is soft and her voice is attractive. She's wearing a ring on her middle finger."

Your turn! What comes next?

She didn't exactly play along, but we had a fun conversation, and she gave me one of those stupid awards things, which would make me more attractive to other women on the site. Maybe.

Federpig was a massive hit. I used it in my last, desperate attempt to meet a woman from the internet, which you can read about soon...

Next time - Last Chance
.

True Love and the Sorting Hat

2011-10-29T13:49:00.000+02:00

True Love

and the Sorting Hat

by Andrew Girardin and Gonzalo Muñoz

Mastering Online Dating: Part Nine

2011-10-26T17:11:00.000+02:00

Mastering Online Dating: For the Good of the Article

Despite getting mad at Zoosk and women (not in that order), I started to feel I could get consistent results. But still, replies were distressingly rare. I sent some messages before a class, and kept my laptop open during the lesson.

"Hey!" I said to my students, "Some girl wrote to me!" I was supposed to be teaching them business English or something, but this was more important. I could only see the first few words of the message - 'Thanks for your mail'. I'd have to read the rest when I got home.

"Oh, tell us everything," said my studes. So I read the previous eight chapters of this guide to them, doing sexy voices for the hot girls and a high-pitched squeak to mimic Cecile. The students were rapt. Halfway through, another woman added me as a friend on Zoosk. I'd be able to chat with her. The students were just as excited as me. Then it was time to go home. "Andrew, that was much better than the normal lessons."

When I got home, I tried to read the full message the woman had sent me. Zoosk said, 'To access this feature you must be a member. Click here to purchase membership.' What, reading mails is a feature?

No matter, I'd just chat to my new Zoosk friend. I tried to open the chat window. Surprise, surprise, I had to be a member for that, too.

Membership cost 30 francs a month (or more; I was too furious to write it down).

Finally, having wasted about eight hours (cumulatively) of my life perving at women on Zoosk and creating elaborate fantasies about them, I realised why changes to your profile have to be approved by a human - it's to make sure you don't put any info in your profile that could let people contact you. Thinking about it, it struck me that they certainly moderate messages you send, too, removing any contact info you try to sneak in. So you HAVE to pay them money. They've got a complete information lockdown. There's no way around it.

So how did that one girl add me on Facebook? She didn't. It was a random Facebook add unconnected to my online dating project.

ARGH!

The Zoosk site is amazingly well designed to let you get obsessed with multiple women before letting you in on the important news that you don't get anything on Zoosk for free.

I finally made myself do some research on Zoosk. I probably should have done that in the beginning, but I'm not the kind of person who reads instruction manuals.

Agoogle search revealed millions of unhappy online daters complaining about being scammed by Zoosk,non-existent customer service, and sharp practice. A comment I read on one website suggested that many women on Zoosk are bots (phantom women who send out fake messages and flirts), which are used to sucker men into getting subscriptions.

Anddespite all this, I was still considering getting a one-monthsubscription. The first woman who wrote to me had written again, andI really wanted to know what she'd said and chat to my Zoosk friends. Yes,friends, for now I had two.

Iasked my online dating expert Cecile for advice. She suggested I pay the money 'for the goodof the article'. Grumbling, I decided to bite the bullet. When Ilogged in again to sign up, it said I had one friend.

Iused to have two. The girl who sent me loads of messages had dumpedme! And I couldn't find her anywhere on the site. What's the deal?

Ifinally found evidence of her existence:

carol6is no longer a Zoosk user. Maybe she found someone on Zoosk.

Iliterally exploded with rage, then re-formed into more or less the sameshape as I was before. I hated this project! I wished it weredead!

Fuckyou, Zoosk! You'll never get a penny from me.

Next - OK Cupid (and the secret of online dating)

True Love: The Hike

2011-10-21T08:39:00.000+02:00

True Love: The Hike

by Andrew Girardin and Gonzalo Muñoz

Mastering Online Dating: Part Eight

2011-10-18T08:03:00.000+02:00

Mastering Online Dating: More Zoosk¹

It was finally happening! After a couple of weeks of silence and lameness from internet women, I suddenly had responses from my cold reading victims. One added me on Facebook, and the other wanted to chat with me. Cold reading was two for two. It was working! Amazing.

I had a break at work, so decided to go nuclear with the cold reading stuff. I sent tons of messages out. Like, two.

I found a sexy spiritual hippy-type. Deadly green eyes, she had. Oh, my! I was smitten. Based on her pics, I could tell she was sex-mad, so I sent her a more sensual kind of message:

I love the sight of an outgoing extrovert, free from society's BS, but the funny thing is your eccentric side is just a hint of the many things going on inside you.

A twist of rebellion, free will, and independence, you're like the point where punk rock meets poetry. It's a beautiful disaster. [Yes, I just quoted a song.]

I'm guessing you're a little bit of a narcissist, but in a good way. The way you present yourself doesn't just display a sexy confidence, but it's almost like a gift for anyone willing to take a second out of life to look your way.

Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. But I think you would be an interesting person to talk to.
Hello. :)

Then I saw another girl who wasn't super-hot at first sight, but grew on me to the point of total obsession within minutes. I spent a bit more time crafting the perfect cold read for her, then mailed it.

Just after I'd done that, a message came on screen to say a girl was checking out my profile. She was pretty fit. I started thinking about what it would be like to impregnate her with my babies. On the site you can answer an icebreaker question, then people can comment on your answers. Useful for shy people I guess.

Since she'd looked at me first, I could try something a bit different. I thought I'd start by being kind of a dick, then do some cold reading, then finish by being nice. The classic 'nice cold dick sandwich' technique.

Hi, I noticed you cyber-stalking me. I came here to write and complain, but actually I like the way you write on your profile. Although why you need 24 icebreakers.... don't tell me you're shy!

(then the bits about being romantic and narcissistic etc)

I guess the easiest way to talk is on FB? Andrew Girardin - my profile is open so you can cyber-stalk me a bit more. Write me!

This was a whole new level of genius. I clicked send and nothing happened. FUCK! My internet had died. What the hell?! This was my dream woman and I was losing her because of dodgy wireless. Before my head exploded, I re-established a connection and sent the message.

There was no reply.
Ever.

Next - For the Good of the Article

¹ Remember that Zoosk is bad and I warned you not to go there. Don't even go there to see if I'm doing reverse psychology or something. I'm not. I genuinely think you should avoid it. There are other sites where you can perv at equally hot babes.
.

Asterix and the Roman Agent: Latin Jokes Explained

2011-10-14T09:37:00.000+02:00

Book 15 - Asterix and the Roman Agent

1.
The story: In one of the best Asterix books, clever Caesar has sent a phenomenally annoying guy to sow discord in Asterix's village. Along the way, he practices his methods on the pirates.

Professor Ibrox explains: "Auri sacra fames - the accursed greed for gold. The old pirate is saying that men will do anything for money. It's interesting that his speech bubble isn't green - the green bubbles represent the insidious effect the annoying guy has on everyone.

"So maybe he's not saying it against the black guy. Maybe it's a reference to whatever French political scandal was going on when it was written. Or maybe the old pirate had debased himself in his youth with his personal lust for cash.

"Like the time this guy asked me to wait outside a bank in my car and then give him a lift to the station. He said he'd give me two thousand pounds, which was a lot of money at the time. I guess deep down, I knew it wasn't kosher, but I needed some new flares and the plan went down like clockwork. But yeah, auri sacra fames."

Outsourcing My Charity Work Part 3

2011-10-09T08:00:00.000+02:00

Outsourcing My Charity Work Part 3

I rolled up to my Tuesday class in mostly optimistic mood. When I'd given them the homework of pitching someone for me to loan money to, they'd looked moderately interested. But they were IT geeks. Maybe they'd have spent the week playing World of Warcraft in darkened rooms instead of helping me do some good? Another worry was that one of the students had emailed me saying it was hard to choose and depressing because there were so many people who needed help.

I needn't have stressed. It was one of the worst lessons I ever did, and one of the best.
The worst because I don't think the four students who came learned a single thing about the English language.
The best because it restored almost all of my faith in humanity.

The first student, C-Man, told me how he'd made his choice. "I started by filtering for educational loans. I wanted to invest in education because that's long-term value, not just some guy who wants to buy a van or something. There were only nine to choose from. The best was this group in Sierra Leone. The Field Risk rating is 3 out of 5 - I think that's good. The delinquency rate is 0.27%, which is impressive. The loan will help a guy send his kids to primary school. The teachers are going to take a pay cut to repay the loan."

Minkailu S's Group

Huh? The teachers are going to take a pay cut so that their friend can send his kids to school? If someone tried to cut my pay I'd implode the whole frikkin universe before letting it happen.

The second student, P-Dog, started his presentation by saying he didn't have a connection to any of the countries represented on Kiva. I thought he was going to say, 'so I didn't find anyone.' I began to get disappointed... until he blew my mind with his awesomeness! "I really got into it. It was the most interesting homework I've ever done. I tried to find a country I had a connection with... and I found it in Azerbaijan." Huh? What? "As you may know, Azerbaijan won the Eurovision Song Contest with this song." He then tapped his iPhone and it played a song. He had prepared!

It was this song (Running Scared):

Obviously the song is mediocre pop silliness, but I loved that he'd put even the slightest effort into it. But there was more. Much more! "I found an iPhone app to look at all the people on Kiva. I spent 90 minutes on the train checking them all out. I chose this guy Galamhuseyn Djahangirov. I liked his face. The other people who invested in him seem young and cool. He needs 2000 Azerbaijani Manat to buy construction tools. I tried to find that currency on our banking software and it wasn't even there."

Galamhuseyn Djahangirov

It was already the best presentation since An Uncomfortable Truth. He continued, "The Field Partner has a 4-star risk rating and a ZERO percent delinquency rate. They've made over 3 million dollars of loans already. They're going to take all the currency exchange rate risk.

"I also liked that he's in construction. Azerbaijan is ugly. I saw that when I watched Eurovision. So this guy will have a lot of work, making it look good for Eurovision. Also, they're bidding for the Olympics, so that's even more work!

"And the girls there are super hot. You could make the loan and then go over and meet hot Azerbaijani chicks. Ugly buildings, beautiful women."

Best. Presentation. Ever.

"M-and-M," I said, turning to the last student, "Follow that!"

For a moment, I thought M would just give up. But he didn't. He believed in his choice too much!

"I chose Anthony Steve Mori Mendoza," he said, "And you should, too. For the same reasons as C-Man, I also started by choosing the education sector. Anthony is from Peru, and he's studying Computer Science. I liked him because he had the best grades in his university, and he needs the money to continue his education. He works part-time, so he can repay the loan. The Field Partner is solid, but my favourite thing is that it says he has a goal. I'm in IT, too, and I just found that I can relate to him."

Anthony Steve Mori Mendoza

Dammit! All the presentations were ace! The students saw that I was undecided, and started adding arguments in their favour.

"If you choose my teacher guys," said C-Man, "You benefit the highest number of people."
"Yeah but my guy has 4 kids," said P-Dog, "So that's loads of people who benefit, indirectly."
"Look, Andrew," said M-and-M, "I believe in my guy. If you don't invest in him, I will."
"Okay guys," I said, "I'll let you know my decision later."

I mailed them:

Dear Students,
Thanks for a great lesson today. I was delighted you put so much effort into the homework.
We had three great presentations. The winner was P-Dog, because of his unlikely use of the words 'Eurovision Song Contest', 'hot Azerbaijani girls', and 'I liked his face.'
But in the end I decided to invest in all of them. Attached you'll see my 'portfolio' of loans.

I checked the loan status twice an hour, because I'm a total nerd. Within half a day, two of my students had invested their own money in the guys they'd recommended to me, and two of the guys asking for money had been fully funded.

Join my Kiva lending team - Andrew Girardin's Lonely Hearts Loan Band.

(Update - in 2011 we reached our goal of raising $1,000 dollars for the world's hard-working poor.)

Mastering Online Dating: Part Seven

2011-10-04T08:49:00.000+02:00

Mastering Online Dating: Zoosk and Cold Reading

I decided to change things up by going to another website. I tried Zoosk¹, as one of my Swiss students mentioned she'd tried it. First impressions were that there were lots of local girls there. The other sites had more expats. Second impression, there were a LOT of quality women to mess with. This time the name FunStorm was available, so I used that.

I refined my profile even further. The main change was at the start. I wrote 'This is what you'll come and read after I've sent you an interesting message and you can't resist checking me out...' Cheeky! Women like cheeky.

I had to wait for someone to approve my text, which took the wind out of my sails. It could take days for someone to manually check what I'd written. I wanted to hit on girls right away, but The Man wouldn't let me. Don't these jokers realise that internet users have a six-second attention span?

Fortunately I was motivated enough to wait because I wanted to try my new strategy - cold reading. That's what fake psychics, mediums, and fortune tellers do to get women crying and receptive to the idea of giving them money.

I told Cecile my plan, and she reminded me of something I'd done years before. Apparently, I'd said to one of the female teachers at my school, 'You're the kind of girl who is outgoing and fun but once you get a boyfriend - zoompf! We never see you again.' She denied it and got pissed off at me, but it messed with her head because it was true.

Cecile wanted me to cold read her (even though I'd known her for almost a year and knew everything about her already). Annoyingly, instead of listening to me explain why cold reading was manipulative and I'd rather not do it anymore (except in a desperate attempt to be good at internet dating), she kept saying, 'Do me! Do me!' So I said, 'You're the kind of person who interrupts interesting guys and wonders why she never hears the ends of stories,' and then I went home to cold read some hot chicks.

I logged in to Zoosk. I had a message! It said they had scientifically found my ideal match! Exciting!

When I clicked on my scientifically ideal match, she looked like this:

My dream woman, according to Zoosk

So I didn't click on the button that said 'yes, hook me up', and clicked on the button that said 'search for sultry Swiss sirens'.

I saw a nice-looking brunette and scanned her profile. Within seconds I was in love. She was gorgeous! In her pics she was well-dressed with a sly smile. I sent her this:

Oh boy! We have a true eccentric here. You seem to be a fun person who enjoys the simple things in life. You can't resist a classy gentleman, and you're probably intuitive enough to weed through the losers, even though you tend to overlook small details and probably hate reading the instructions to new things you buy.

You're probably a good friend and a great listener, but you probably talk a lot as well...when your turn comes in conversation.

Even though most of your pictures show you in a fun way, you are most likely one who stays in and catches up on your favourite TV shows on the rainy Zurich days.

A unique kind of woman, and passionate.
I think you would be an interesting person to talk to.
Hello. :)

Next was a thin blonde. You could tell she was getting hit on all the time because she had pages and pages of 'gifts' from horny guys (pointless little icons that adorned her profile). I sent her the same message as the first one, but forgot to change Zurich (the place the first one lived) to Bulach (where this one lived), so she might have been able to guess I was sending the same thing to everyone. I SUCKED AT THIS! At least I remembered to tell her how to contact me on Facebook.

Zoosk threw another chick in my face through the scientific matching system. She was kind of somewhat nice-looking, in a dumpy way. I had the choice of clicking 'yes' to see what happened (I guessed that if she clicked 'yes' too then we'd be told we liked each other). That was interesting in terms of making fun stuff happen to write about. On the other hand, she was a bit dumpy. I didn't want the internet to think I liked dumpy women, so I clicked 'no'. Send me hotter girls, retards!

I went to bed and dreamed of threesomes involving my future brunette and blonde internet girlfriends.

¹ Please do not ever, ever sign up for Zoosk. You'll see why in part 9.

Next - More Zoosk
.

Outsourcing My Charity Work Part 2

2011-09-30T09:13:00.000+02:00

Outsourcing Charity Work 2

Last week I set my students the homework of choosing someone for me to loan money to on the charity website Kiva.org. My Monday lunchtime class is two banker women. When I got to the next lesson, I was pleased and relieved to see the students had prepared little presentations.

My students do what I tell them! I am all powerful!

The first option was Turbat from Mongolia. He wanted money to buy a wider range of stock. My student had chosen Mongolia because she'd been there on holiday. "It's a very wide country and you have to drive a lot, and there are no restaurants on the way. So he could do a deal with travel agencies. They'd stop their buses outside his shop and they'd buy things there, and he'd pay a commission. And he wants to buy a van. He could do a delivery service and be a courier while his wife runs the shop."

She was full of ideas of how the guy could improve his business, but they were her ideas. I wished Turbat had said all that. Instead, he just stood in front of some shelves of Coke. Was his plan just to buy Pepsi as well? Oh, Turbat, you have to give us more info!

So I chose to invest in Dara Sun. That's this guy:

He's Cambodian and works in construction. He wanted 500 dollars to buy construction equipment for his business. The student who chose him impressed me because she'd chosen someone with some financial data for me to chew on. "His income is six and a half dollars a day, and his wife makes two and a half dollars a day. He spends sixty dollars a month on food, eight on electricity and twenty on other expenses." Detailed!

The student scored more brownie points when I asked how she chose Dara. "First I searched for the Field Agent with the best Risk rating. This one has a five-star rating and a really low delinquency rate." Wow! She was really looking after my money. Why do bankers have such a bad reputation?

So, as promised, I went home to send my money through the internet and into Dara's pocket. The process was very simple. I already had a PayPal account, so in a couple of clicks it was done. (You can also use credit cards and stuff.) There was an option to donate a bit towards Kiva.org as well, to help them run the website and that. Fair enough. I stumped up a dollar for them. Total cost - 17 British pounds.

The next page on the website asked me what I wanted to do when the guy repaid the loan. You can either get it credited to your Kiva account and relend it, or donate it (with good tax breaks in the US). You can also withdraw your money. I'm going to relend mine, keep it circulating around the world doing good.

Soon after, I had a new mail in my inbox. In short, it thanked me for being one of the bestest, most generousest people in the world, and linked me to a new page on the website for amazing people like me who lend money. The page is called My Portfolio and has some graphs and stuff on it.

It kinda makes me feel bad that I don't invest in women.

Next - The IT Crowd

True Love: The Flight

2011-09-24T08:00:00.000+02:00

The Flight

A true story of love, by Andrew Girardin and Cécile Meier

Mastering Online Dating: Part Six

2011-09-20T10:22:00.000+02:00

Mastering Online Dating: A Daring Adventure

I rewrote my Plenty of Fish profile because the obnoxious one was funny but off-putting, and I wanted to start actually meeting chicks. On my new profile, I used this Helen Keller quote as the heading:

"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." The rest of the profile fit that theme.

My research led me to believe that you should include a 'call to action' in your profile. That's why adverts finish with 'call now' or 'call today'. So I wrote this at the end of my profile:

Join the adventure. Write to me!

After improving the profile, I spotted a hot babe and decided to try it out. She had great hair and in one of her pics she was wearing an Arsenal shirt. She claimed to love men who watch football.

Suspicious, but whatevs. I wrote:

Hey, I liked what you wrote on your profile, even though there wasn't much detail. The Arsenal shirt is a huge problem, though. Can you try again with something sexier, like Manchester United?

Next, I chose a very attractive 23-year old and wrote:

Hi, I read your (short) profile... You sound normal enough. Now tell me what's REALLY wrong with you! ;)

To a cute girl with a nice smile:

Well, you sound like you might be more than just another pretty face. Something tells me that you're probably getting about 50 emails a day from loser guys saying things like "Hi, I'm freshly divorced from my seventh wife, have 5 kids I never see... but the good news is that I have a good chance at finally getting a job when I get out of prison..." etc.

In any event, I'm a teacher, have my life together, and I'm more than the usual amount of interesting and funny, so you'd better like to laugh.

You sound like you might make an interesting friend, so let's get together for a cup of something delicious and some interesting conversation... if you think you can handle it, that is!

I forced myself to send the same message to the prettiest girl on the site, who I'd been cyber-stalking like a maniac since I signed up. I made a slight change in that I sent it as a proper message instead of as a quick message - the quick messages all ended up with the subject line 'hi'. So lame! I didn't know! No-one told me!

...

Couple of days later the only responses I was getting were from Nigerian scam artists. What the hell is wrong with women? They go to parties to meet guys and sit huddled in the corner. They go online to meet guys and never write or respond. Why?

Me raging at online dating

It was both a blow to my ego as a man and as a writer. How were they not seduced?

I decided to try and use Nick's profile. Nick is the husband-to-be of Cecile. They met online, making him a trillion times better at this game than me. But Cecile told me that, in fact, she was more or less the only woman who replied to Nick in months of him trying.

Worrying! If I'd known that I might not have started the whole thing. This project could end up as a damp squib.

But I still had some places to go. I could send follow-up mails to girls who didn't reply to me the first time. Then there were other websites I hadn't tried yet, including the most important one in Switzerland, Swissfriends.ch ("where Switzerland falls in love"). And my failures had forced me to come up with a different approach, which I was ready to try.

Next - Zoosk and Cold Reading
.

Outsourcing My Charity Work (Kiva.org)

2011-09-16T10:10:00.000+02:00

Outsourcing My Charity Work

I came across the website kiva.org somewhere or other, and was quickly intrigued. It's a microfinance portal. Microfinance is where some farmer in Bangladesh wants to borrow a hundred dollars to buy a cow. He sells cow eggs until he can repay the loan, at which point he's richer by one cow. (Something like that, anyway. I'm not a farmer.) The loans are too small for normal banks to deal with. I knew all about that. Good project. Nothing to do with me. Until I found Kiva.

The Kiva site brings normal people like me in 'contact' with the guy who wants the cash. When you visit the site, you see the real faces of the real people who want your money. You like them, you send them 25 dollars, they get it, they grow their business. A year later, or whenever, you get your money back, and lend it to someone else. Or take it back, if you need it.

Hmm. Interesting. I like the idea of my spare money circling the world making lives better. The guys asking for money don't have my good looks or incandescent talent, but they are good family people who work hard and have a simple dream. I like that.

Leonard is a 41 year-old businessman. He is married and blessed with five children. For the last five years, he has been managing a hardware business to support the family. He has employed three people to help him to manage the business. In the next 5 years, he wants to open another outlet of his business. His dream is to expand his business and to improve his living standards.

It's my kind of project, because I'm loaded, but hate giving money to beggars or normal charities. Beggars because they just want to buy cheap beer (or once, when I worked in a corner shop in Manchester, turpentine), and charities because a big fraction of the donation goes to marketing and management.

So I was totally sold on the Kiva concept. There was only one problem - choosing who to give my 25 bucks to. My solution was typically elegant (AKA lazy). I made it my students's homework to choose for me. They had to find someone they liked, and pitch their choice to me in a short presentation. I didn't know what to expect from them. Would they take it seriously? It's kinda weird homework.

I didn't want to micromanage them, but I did give them a couple of pointers. In particular, I wanted them to take notice of the Field Partners. The Field Partners are they guys who work in developing country X and go round interviewing the entrepreneurs and checking they have a business plan. Obviously, they are key to the whole process.

Next - The First Presentations

Mastering Online Dating: Part Five

2011-09-13T09:28:00.000+02:00

Mastering Online Dating: Storms and Scams

I met with French online dating expert Cecile, and showed her what I'd written so far. After laughing uncontrollably in a crowded vegetarian restaurant for ten minutes, she then decided I'd done it all wrong.

"You should make fun of the women, too," she whined, "Not just the men."
"But the women are articulate, sweet-sounding people who just want to meet someone. Their spelling and grammar is nice and normally they write cool, interesting things."
"That's not true."
I showed her some profiles. She realised I was right. Nevertheless, she gave me some potentially useful feedback. "You should remove the funny picture of you in a jester costume." I agreed, and replaced it with this:

Your Face Here

I suddenly had an amazing inspiration for my username - instead of Better Than Perfect I would go with FunStorm. A storm of fun! But it had been taken. Stupid horny men taking my ideas!

I also got Cecile's opinion on my Metrodate profile, to which I'd finally added some text. After some minor arguments and revisions, it looked like this:

The next morning, I had two responses. One was a proper message, and one was a 'flirt'. Flirt seems to be a button you can click to let the other person know you're interested, but without doing any work yourself. Both the message and the flirt were from women who wanted my email address. Huh? Weird.

I did a quick search for 'online dating scams' and got this:

It's likely to be a scam if your correspondent asks you to go straight from on-site messaging to Instant Messaging (IM), or regular email (they don't want the evidence of their scamming to be visible to the site administrators as they will normally be kicked off)

Well, that fit the bill. But I tried to make the most of it. I sent fake woman A the email address of fake woman B, and vice versa. Hopefully they'd email each other asking for money transfers to be made to Western Union to unlock funds for blah blah blah.

A quick look around and I identifed a few common factors with the profiles that were probably scams - they talk about God, or wanting a god-fearing man, or use biblical language in general (is that how people talk in Nigeria?). They're often widows. For a good model of a Nigerian scam artist, look on this site and scroll down to the bit about Bryant Harris.

Next - A Daring Adventure
.

Arsenal and the Hat Shop

2011-09-09T14:21:00.001+02:00

Fans of Arsenal Football Club will be dismayed to learn of a fresh crisis engulfing the club. After a poor start to the Premier League season, there was cautious optimism after they signed four players on transfer deadline day.

But now it seems the deals have not gone through. "We've been gazumped," lamented manager Arsene Wenger. "It seems a woman in a hat shop faxed over some registration forms, which were accepted by UEFA. She now controls the registrations of the players. Do not ask me more about the players. I can not tell you. We do not have them."

Confused fans were seen in the club shop trying to return replica kits they had bought. Bob Starling, 27, said, "I bought this Mertesacker shirt when the papers said we signed him. Only it seems he's gone to the hat shop instead. It's all a mess. How could this have happened?"

Alicia Simon, who runs the Arsenale hat shop in Seville, explained her transfer policy. "Mertesacker was available for 9 million Euros, which is a bargain for a player of his experience. Plus, at 198cm he can reach up to the high shelves and clean the tops of hats."

And the other signings?

"Arteta is Spanish, but he's learned English in his time at Everton, so we've brought him in to deal with tourists. We get lots of Asian women in, so we splashed out on Park Chu-Young. It's a risk, but we think he's got a lot of potential. We might loan him out to a Belgian hat shop for a year to let him get some experience. And the Israeli lad has been around. He's going to sell us a lot of hats, as long as he doesn't hurt his back tying the bows.

"We believe these signings are very positive for our brand."

Breaking news on this story can be found here.
.

Asterix in Spain: Latin Jokes Explained

2011-09-08T09:59:00.000+02:00

Book 14 - Asterix in Spain

1.
The story: The Romans have kidnapped a little Spanish boy in order to stop his father making trouble. Stupidly, they decided to take him to Totorum, one of the forts near Asterix's village. Sure enough, Asterix and Obelix beat up the soldiers and rescue the kid. The Romans are glum, until one has a sudden realisation.

Professor Ibrox explains: "The first soldier says it'll be all right because it doesn't matter if the kid is holed up in Totorum or in Asterix's village. Either way, the kid will be safe and a long way from home.

"The second one says, 'Beati pauperes spiritu', which means 'blessed are the poor in spirit'. As you know, that's from the Bible. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"You can imagine him saying it pretty sarcastically, I would have thought. He's just had a thrashing and doesn't share the first guy's optimism."

2.
The story: Asterix has been tricked by an undercover Roman, and is now in a cell. A Roman general comes to tell him that Obelix is still at large, and has the Spanish kid.

Professor Ibrox explains: "The general guy complains that Asterix has disturbed the Pax Romana, the roman peace. But, he says, it's an ill wind that blows no good. That is, every cloud has a silver lining.

"The good he takes from this situation is that he can use Asterix and some magic potion as entertainment in a circus. And circuses are the focus of the Latin phrase he uses. 'Panem et circenses' simply means 'bread and circuses', a phrase used by Juvenal to describe governments who distract their citizens through spectacles and showmanship.

" Juvenal is spot on in the sense that the government of now is quite happy for people to have X-Factor, the Olympics, Sky Sports and the Sun, but give people no money for education, so the country becomes a cultural wasteland and kids don't know what a comma splice is."

The Clock, by Christian Marclay

2011-09-05T01:16:00.000+02:00

The Clock, by ChristianMarclay

Paris, September 2011

I had decided to visitAnais in Paris in one of her between-boyfriend periods. She's one ofthose women who gets a boyfriend and then vanishes. After they breakup, she emerges from her cave, shields her eyes from the sun, andstarts calling and messaging her friends. I always know when she'ssingle because she 'likes' my blog posts and writes to me. Thisautumn seemed to be one of her out-of-cave periods, so what bettertime?

"What do you wantto do when you get here?" asked Anais, "Because there's anexhibition about clocks. This Gnarles Barkley guy took bits of movies about time andsliced them all together. And it's all synchronised with the actualtime. It seems amazing." It sounded like the perfect thing tosee in Paris and complain about. I wrote, "That sounds pretentious andannoying. What could be more French? Let's do it." "I'mnever talking to you again EVER," she wrote back.

I arrived late onFriday. French cuisine is the best in the world, I am often told, mostly by French people. Anais chucked a frozen pizza in the oven.Don't get me wrong, I was grateful. But if you want to dispel themyth that French food is inherently good, then eat a French frozenpizza.

On Saturday morning wewent to the The Clock exhibition at the Pompidou. My plan was to watchit for ten minutes, pacify Anais, and then go outside and make fun ofthe French. The installation was like a cinema - screen at front, dark, every sound and movement annoying. There were a fewcomfy chairs in the middle, all occupied, and a few people sitting on thesides and at the back.

There were a few clipsfrom movies and TV shows - Patrick McGoohan looking at his watch, DeNiro in uniform barking orders in front of a clock, someone askingChris Rock 'what's the time?' After a few minutes I realised that TheClock exhibit was exactly as Anais had described. 24 hours of minislices of film history, painstakingly researched, sliced into place,and at times skilfully juxtaposed (one man knocks on door, a different man in a different movie enters). I had a mental image of the artistrolling into bars bleary-eyed and scoring chicks through his use ofthe words 'concept', 'movie', 'project' and 'installation'. Myderision levels started to rise.

But... but somehow itwas... ace! I felt bad about enjoying the horrid pretentious Frenchart, but I couldn't help it! Fortunately, it wasn't French. Christian Marclay is Swiss-American. So that was better. But it was still a sillypost-modern concept taken to a ludicrous extreme. Why was I havingfun?

First, on a superficiallevel, you can play the game of naming the movies and TV shows. I'dseen loads more than Anais. [Presumably she only watches movies whichare a) four hours long b) in French and c) about a man who lives in abox, where the box is a metaphor for Jacques Chirac's foreignpolicy.] In the first five minutes, I recognised Mission Impossible(the TV one), Minority Report, and loads more.

Next, a lot of theclips are dramatic. At three o'clock a woman will lose her house. Atthree oh two, some tense criminals will jump into action. At three oh four James Bond will try to disarm a bomb. Time, time, time! Merciless, uncaring, implacable. Accompanied by great acting. Sigh...

Then you've got a rollcall of Hollywood A-listers through the ages. We saw Johnny Depp,William Shatner, Nick Cage and Cher, that guy with the broken nosefrom the 50s, the guy who did the voice on Thriller, John Cleese,everyone! You see a young Mel Gibson and an old John Wayne. Cinephilejoy!

There's alwayssomething happening so you have no time to think 'what might comenext'? But sometimes The Clock rewards your instincts - I hoped tosee something from Back to the Future, and was moderately thrilledwhen I saw Marty and Doc next to the big clock in 1855.

And Anais andI had seen the movie Jumper when she'd visited me in Prague. Andthere it was, right there on the screen! Hayden Christensen standingat the base of Big Ben holding an umbrella. Romantic or what? Ifyou're into that kind of thing.

And, of course, there'sthe artistic merit of the piece. I don't want to encourage these madartists by praising their demented concepts, but I'll make anexception here. The importance of time, the ubiquity of watches,electronic timepieces, clocks, and time - you don't leave the exhibitwithout thinking about it all. We live and die, bathed in time.

I'd expected to hate The Clock, yet was mesmerised. But we were both hungry. "Let'sgo get some food, then come back and watch it for ages," I said.In Anais's mind, that was probably the sexiest thing I'd ever said.However, it seems Anais and I don't appreciate art in quite the same way.Every time a new 'minute' came on screen, she checked her phone tosee if the time matched. That's what an education in La Sorbonne getsyou!

We left, and ate.

FRENCH CULINARYINTERLUDE

Pizza Hut was full, sowe tried the Frenchest place we could find, Le Escargot. After beingasked to move table (from a table for four to a smaller table, even though the place was almost empty) I had amediocre walnut salad followed by a tough beef blob with a bitof cheese on top. Served with American fries. I'd have been underwhelmed toget that in a pub in Moss Side. But yeah, French food isgreat. Best in the world. Etc.

After that, we strolledback to the Pompidou hoping to spend a while watching time go by indreamy fashion. "Christ!" I whinged, "Look at thequeue! What's that all about?" It seemed the snobby Frenchcultural elite had been spreading the news - Clocks was bothen vogue and de rigeur. "Stupid French snobs! Let's come backlater."

We went, and went back,and realised we'd had very good timing in the morning. The queue waslonger than ever. I drank a 1664 Blanc and joined the stupid bloodyFrench queue in a foul mood. At least three thousand bloody rude Frenchpeople tried to jump the line. The greatest living Frenchman is theguy who works at the front of that line. He shrugged at would-bepushers-in, and wagged his fingers at people who would pull a fastone. For me, at least, it was love at first shrug.

After a painful wait,we got inside and watched more time. It was brilliant. We watchedmore than an hour, which makes The Clock at least fifty-nineminutes more interesting than most pieces of art I've ever seen.

Then, we ate again. Mystarter was extraordinary, but the meat in my main course was dry andthe cocktail was odd. Nice place, though.

Sunday, back at thePompidou, hungry to see more time on screen, we were disconcerted tofind coachloads of people milling around. It took a full minute for me torealise what I was seeing - the queue now stretched from inside,through the front doors, and out into the big plaza, where it doubledback on itself. Christ on a bike! There were about six hundredpeople waiting!

I didn't want to waitthree hours to see the thing. Maybe the artist would put it on theinternet or something. It would, genuinely, be one of my favouritewebsites if he did.

Before Ileft Paris, Anais took me to have crepes. Merde! My 'chopped steak'was a hamburger, clearly cooked from frozen, and my crepe was as dry and tasteless as my waitress was hot and sultry. Next time someone tellsme how great French food is, I'm going to give them both barrels ofmy shotgun of scorn. And next time someone tells me about some mentalart that's going on, I'll think twice before dismissing it.

If The Clock is showing in your town, eat, drink, go to the toilet, and spend a good many hours there.

Mastering Online Dating: Part Four

2011-09-02T09:35:00.000+02:00

Mastering Online Dating: Trying More Sites

I decided to let my 'annoying jerk' profile swim in the Plenty of Fish sea for a while, and moved onto another site, Metrodate. It's much smaller than PoF, but size isn't everything. Just ask someone with a micropenis, e.g. me.

I used the name better_than_perfect again. I added one normal photo and one of me dressed like a court jester. I captioned it 'My Work Uniform' and decided to add it to Plenty of Fish, too. Women like fun, right?

My Work Uniform

Metrodate has a lot of fields you can fill in describing what you're looking for. In my research, I read about a guy whose theory was that if you are super-selective, women will be more interested than if you say you'll take anything. I decided to test the theory.

The Internet told me that the average height for a woman in Switzerland is 164cm, which is 5'4" (the same as in the UK). I decided my dream woman should be at least 170cm, but no more than 175cm. She's also a non-smoking atheist. And widows need not apply!

Since I was testing the super-selective thing, I decided to be a bit more socially normal with regards to the profile text. Hmm... what to write?

Instead of thinking for myself, I decide to go into the chat room and meet some chicks and outsource the work to them (by asking them what I should write). I logged into the chat, and it was a sausage-fest. Frustrated guys were screaming at each other to 'fuck off and die'. The only 'woman' in the chat had a listed age of 100. It was a guy in New Mexico pretending to be a girl, and not very well. I logged out of the chat...

Instead of writing my profile, I checked out some chicks on the site. A couple were suspiciously hot. One was supposedly aged 25 but looking for a man aged 40-85. Huh? 85? Really? Really?

I remembered why I never gave online dating a chance before - because it's full of Nigerian scam artists. I sighed and vowed to continue the experiment.

Next - Storms and Scams
.

Mastering Online Dating: Part Three

2011-08-28T10:43:00.000+02:00

Mastering Online Dating: Sending a Message

My research into rival men's profiles was making me a top expert on the whole online dating thing. My conclusion: men don't really think about how their profiles will be understood.

Okay, so that was lots of fun, but it was time to get back to MY adventures.

Having chuckled myself to sleep after posting my profile, I woke up and messaged a couple of hot babes before breakfast. My research told me that women don't often make the first move by sending the first message. What was more likely is that I'd write to a girl, and she would check out my profile and write back. Or not.

So how to get their attention with my introductory message?

Tsch! Too easy!

I sent this to a fiesty girl whose profile pretty much said 'Don't write to me unless you're awesome.'

Hey, I don't think we're a match, but I thought your profile was cool. I love how picky you
are, and wonder if it will stop all the horny guys trying to waste your time... Good luck with
your search.

Huh? A guy is writing to ME and telling ME I'm not a match for HIM? My female brain is exploding!

I sent the same thing to another woman, but adapted to her profile. Both women came across as totally awesome people I'd love to meet. In fact, there was a huge disparity between how thoughtful and mature and interestingly self-aware the women were, while men came across as lame, inarticulate, and apologetic.

The site allowed me to see who had read my profile. Unsurprisingly, a couple of days into the project, only two women had looked at it - the ones I'd written to. So I'd cracked the secret of getting women to read my profile. The profile was maybe probably too obnoxious as it stood, as neither responded to me (although as only 1 in 3 dating site messages are replied to, my sample was statistically irrelevant). However, I was already way ahead of most guys.

Interestingly, another woman later checked me out - I had added her to my 'favourites' list so I could write to her when I had more time. Presumably she checked her favourite thing too, to see who was stalking her. She was smoking hot.

Next - expanding to more sites.
.

True Love: Better, Stronger, Faster

2011-08-25T08:55:00.000+02:00

When I was a boy, I dreamed of making comics. But instead of taking art lessons and working hard at my draftsmanship, composition and understanding of the medium, I instead decided to play Championship Manager and watch rap battles.

But now, thanks to the internet, I can plug hugely talented Chilean artists directly into my imagination and produce...

...the next in my series of True Love comics...

Enjoy!

True Love: Better, Stronger, Faster

by Andrew Girardin and Gonzalo Muñoz

.
.

Mastering Online Dating: Part Two

2011-08-21T09:37:00.000+02:00

Mastering Online Dating: My First Profile

Time to set up my Plenty of Fish profile.

First I needed a username. This was huge. The right one might not generate a lot of interest, but the wrong one can be a dealbreaker.

WRONG ONES:
jedimaster
i_wash_everyday
DADDYpimp
peni_shaver

I wanted to use sexy words like 'discover' and 'imagine'. Or maybe something romantic like 'Shining Knight'. I stared at the screen for about fifty minutes. It's harder than it seems to think up a name. Part of the problem was that everything had already been taken, even 'hot_teacher4u', so I had to be over-creative or use lots of numbers at the end of the username, as in Hot_Guy8888888888888.

I finally chose 'better_than_perfect' and also set up an email account with that name.

NOTE - you will get thousands of spammy mails from these websites, so set up a separate email account for it.

Surprisingly, the site wanted to know my income range and whether I was the oldest of my siblings. They claim it makes better search results. Porn sites give pretty good results without that info, but maybe it's different when finding true love.

I had to choose the headline that people would see, and write some info about myself.

BAD HEADLINES (real):
looking for gud relationship
Hi
am look for a virtures woman
fishing for my cousin (amazingly, the profile is dedicated to finding a date for his 'cousin'!)

I finally went with:

Headline: I'm too good for you
Profile: I'm a selfish jerk. I look good in a shirt or a hoody. Young enough to do it. Old enough to do it right. I don't smoke. I'm lots of fun. I don't have time for petty drama or emotional hysterics. I'm intelligent and well-educated and don't care what anyone thinks of me. I do what I want, when I want - but you probably figured that out already.
If I had to write a newspaper personal, it would read something like this:
Handsome, cultured intellectual with perfect body and perfect technique seeks beautiful married woman to make her husband jealous. In return, I want diamonds, fast cars, and expensive meals.
If you think you could handle me, think again. But if you really insist on taking on a challenge you can't handle, get in touch.

(The text was based on a 'be a jerk' video that came up in my research - can't take all the credit).

Next, the photo. I chose one of me looking hot and emphasising the blueness of my eyes. It's me next to a hot girl, but I cropped her out. Nevertheless, you can see part of her face - enough to know that she's smoking hot. Ace psychology!

Then the site gave me a 40-question personality test. It didn't take long to do and the feedback was pretty 'accurate'. Things like, "You sometimes feel like the most attractive person on the train." Having said that, I recognised a lot of cold-reading material in there, so I was dubious about whether it was going to work or not.

Next - My first messages.
.

Mastering Online Dating: Part One

2011-08-14T10:24:00.000+02:00

Mastering Online Dating

BACKGROUND

Online dating is weird and odd and strange and wrong. Or is it? I decided to rethink my attitude to the whole internet dating thing when I realised that two of the hottest girls I know met their boyfriends online. Hot women are cruising for men online! The future is now!

I decided it might be fun to conquer the world of online dating and write about it for your amusement, and to serve as an instruction manual for lonely, horny men who don't have access to the quality of babe that I do.
I had some funny ideas to try. But it wasn't totally a joke - maybe I'd meet a lovely fraulein to settle down with. And we could raise sheep and make hot chocolate for each other and argue about who should bring the bin bags outside, and everything else involved in true love.

GOAL OF THE PROJECT:
To find out how to get women to reply to me on websites, and ultimately, to meet one of them in real life.

** NERD INTERLUDE **

First thing I did was try to find my copy of Freakonomics, because it had some interesting data about online dating. I lent it to someone, and couldn't remember who, but this site here summarises the info.

In short, on your profile:
* You must have a photo
* Everybody lies
* It's best to 'overestimate' your income - women care about it when searching (I'm genuinely surprised.)

STEP ONE - CHECK OUT THE COMPETITION

I had a look at the Plenty of Fish website, which seems to be one of the main ones in the Anglo-Saxon world, at least, and searched for men my age. Wow. If these guys were my rivals, I'd be overrun by female attention within days:

Username: Stew
Heading: Shrek's brother

Profile: im honest (honestly. lol), im cheeky, im fearless, i may look like shrek on the outside but i also have his heart of gold and have all the love in the world to give to the right person

My reaction: Actually, that's not too bad. "What you can't fix, feature." And it's kind of funny. But still, he looks like Shrek and I'm way hot.

Username: BigMan
Heading: looking for good woman

Profile: i am tim i live alone have 4 kids i seen all time work for me self have few cars because i bye and sell them i like to do my own think and i like makeing money i dont drink or smoke

My reaction: Women like grammar and spelling. And kids, but not four kids, probably from four different women.

Username: LonelyHeart
Heading: Oooooosh!

Profile:

IF YOU HAD ME ALONE... L0CKED UP
IN Y0UR R00M F0R TWENTY-F0UR H0URS
& WE COULD DO WHATEVER YOU WANTED
WHAT W0ULD Y0U D0 WITH ME? TELL ME IN
A MESSAGE... CUZ ITS A SECRET... THEN
REPOST THIS IN YOUR PROFILE... YOU MIGHT
BE SUPRISED WITH THE RESPONSES YOU
GET...LOL

My reaction: If I had you locked up in my room I'd steal your identity and credit card info, buy torture equipment on the internet, and use it on you until you stopped being such a lameass. And what is 'oooosh?' anyway, and why should a girl like it?

...

And so it went. Every guy positioned himself as a nice guy. Half included the word 'genuine'; few the word 'fun'. Most had weird stretchy photos that looked shit. If I had a uterus, I wouldn't look twice at any of them.

Next: I set up a profile.

The 40 Saddest Songs in the Universe

2011-08-10T08:00:00.009+02:00

York, 2006

The two-week summer language programme always ends with a disco, and the teenagers always end up crying. I'm walking around watching them blub into each other's shoulders. It's fun. But there's one Italian girl who isn't crying. It annoys me. I take her aside and ask what her problem is.

"I no feel so sad," she says in rubbish English. She hasn't learned English, and she isn't crying. Well, there's only one of those things I can fix right now.

"I know what you need," I reply.

"No," she says, seeing my intention.

I take a deep breath and do my sad face. "Bright eyes," I sing. "Burning like fire." Her lip wobbles. "Bright eyes, how can you close and fail?" I see there's a lump in her throat. "How can the light that burned so brightly suddenly turn so pale?" She's weeping now. "Bright eyes," I add, unnecessarily.

I doubt she's understood many of the words, but it doesn't matter.

Bright Eyes is the saddest song in the universe and its power transcends language.

Zurich, 2011

Cecile is in a total mood, which is amazingly annoying. Isn't it her boyfriend's job to put up with that? What's in it for me? I decide to make the most of the situation and see what songs make her cry.

Naturally, I start with Bright Eyes. It doesn't work, because somehow she's worked out what I'm trying to do. So I turn to plan B - Somewhere over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole.

"It's not working," she says, although I can see tears streaming down her face. "My eyes are crying, that's all."

"Yes, but your eyes are connected to you. You haven't outsourced your eyes and tear ducts. Anyway, it's okay to cry. First, it's healthy. You get better blood pressure and stuff. Also, no woman can resist crying at those songs. They're infinitely sad."

"They aren't that sad. I know sadder," she sniffs, wiping away tears from the eyes that are crying for their own reasons.

Later, in a better mood, she asks me if I want her collection of songs that made her cry.

"Yes," I say, with as much calm as I can muster. "Yes, I do." My head is already spinning with the possibilities. They're bound to be lame! I can make fun of them on my blog! Don't show too much enthusiasm or she'll suspect!

She leaves a USB stick with 40 songs on it in my locker. It also has instructions for use: run a bath, light candles, etc. She's such a sweet, thoughtful person that I almost feel bad about making fun of her.

(ANDREW iN A BATH) SAD + crying

The 40 Saddest Songs in the Universe

By coincidence, I'd planned to have a bath that night anyway. So I started the playlist and got in.

It started pretty well, with Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. It starts with slow guitar plucking, which certainly sets the mood. Then a husky voice comes in and wonders, 'So you think you can tell Heaven from Hell; blue skies from pain?' The logical side of my brain quickly said, 'yes, I can tell the difference' but it didn't make me less sad, because the emotional side of my brain had fixated on the word 'pain' and all the many kinds of pain I've experienced in my life.

Next up was Wind of Change by The Scorpions. It starts with a haunting whistle, like the ghost of a worker, which is quickly followed by a husky voice. This voice sings some of the saddest lyrics of the modern era. They praise David Hasselhoff for defeating Communism, but warn us never to forget that socialism leads to oppression and suffering and sad babies. "They've never had bananas," croons the main Scorpion, "Until now. And that's a good change of the Wind of Change." A poignant guitar solo reminds us that while capitalism has its faults, it's better than the alternatives.

The next song, If You See Her, Say Hello came on (link takes you to Hurricane because there are few original Dylan recordings on Youtube and I liked that movie. It's by a million miles the best Dylan song, anyway). Husky-voiced Bob Dylan starts singing. I'm starting to think that husky voices are inherently sad. "If you see her, say hello," he warbles. So far, so sad. It's obviously going to be a song about lost love. Everyone can relate to that. It's a genius opening line, in fact. I've already got my line ready for the blog - HE HAD ME AT HELLO. But there's more to the song. "If you see her, say hello. She might be in Tangiers." Huh? Tangiers? Why is she there? That's weird, isn't it? Why does she want to go there? How does he know she's there? Why does he say might? She might be in Tangiers. Is that based on her credit card activity? Did she have family in Morocco? He could have said, 'she might be in Africa'. That'd be more likely, statistically. So what's all this uncertain specificity? Perplexity dried up my tears.

The next song was Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm by the Crash Test Dummies. It's easy to see how people are affected by the song. It's deep and dark and the lyrics are at once staggeringly specific yet movingly universal. "Once there was this kid who got into an accident and couldn't come to school. But when he finally came back, his hair had turned from black into bright white." Has any other lyric ever made us more aware of the immediacy of our own deaths?

I wasn't crying - it was just the bath bubbles stinging my eye. Many other songs came and went. Most were legitimately emotional: I Just Can't Get You Out of My Head, I Kissed a Girl, Smile, Hollaback Girl, Reading a Book, and every Bob Dylan song ever released in France.

But then came the sucker punch: NSYNC's Bye Bye Bye. At the start, keyboards swell for just a moment, but then it's BAM! Right into the beat. Right into the words. "I loved you endlessly when you weren't there for me, so now it's time to leave and make it alone." My tears dropped into the wispy foam of my peach-scented bath bubbles. Why was I crying? What did this song stir inside me? Obviously, like Cecile, I'd had to walk away from dysfunctional relationships before, and it's always sad. But not sad enough to make me cry, surely? Then it hit me - this was the song that presaged Justin Timberlake's departure from NSYNC and his focus on a solo career. "Time to leave and make it alone." For me and Cecile, hardcore NSYNC fans, truly the day the music died.

"Don't really wanna make it tough

I just wanna tell you that I had enough

Might sound crazy but it ain't no lie

Bye bye bye."

Who Won? Einstein vs Stephen Hawking

2011-08-07T09:00:00.003+02:00

Epic Rap Battles - Einstein vs Hawking: Who Won?

I have recently become obsessed with this video:

It features a rap battle between Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. Choosing the winner of a battle of this magnitude needs a judge with the wisdom of Solomon. Maybe even someone wiser than Solomon, since he was all about slicing babies in half. I have appointed myself as that judge.

Diss Quality

Einstein: Starts well with 'Take a seat Steve, oop, I see you brought your own.' The next part, about being schooled and being Hawk-ward, is weak. He comes back strongly in round 2, landing huge punches with 'if you could stand', and 'bigger than the hole in your black hole theory was.' The 'back of my hand' mocks the alleged abuse Hawking suffered in the care of his ex-wife. A cruel but well-aimed diss.
Hawking: Starts poorly with 'moustache on a troll doll' and the 'TI-82' gag ensures he finishes with a big whimper instead of a big bang. However, in between is the most epic diss in history: 'There are 10 million, million, million, million, million, million, million, million, million particles in the universe that we can observe. Your mama took the ugly ones and put them into one nerd.'
Score: Einstein 10 Hawking 9

Bigging Up Oneself

Einstein: Alby scores well here, reminding us of the things he's most famous for - relativity and that equation. The Albert E equals MC squared lyric is smooth as silk. He also points out that he's one of the giants of scientific history.
Hawking: Claims to be the Snoop Dog of science, and if he's standing on the shoulders of giants that would make him slightly taller than a giant. Admits his work is based on Einstein's, though.
Score: Einstein 10 Hawking 9

Real-world Application

Einstein: I tried to diss a Finnish woman by saying, 'You can't destroy matter or me' but she just blinked at me. Einstein's raps are too specific to be used in polite society.
Hawking: I sang the 'your mama took the ugly ones and put them into one nerd' bit at two different German women (long story). One gave me the finger, the other laughed so hard she stopped breathing.
Score: Einstein 0 Hawking 1

Rap Skillz

Einstein: His German accent adds to the percussive nature of his distinctive voice, but his harsh timbre and screechy anger could get tiresome.
Hawking: The Professor scores highly through his innovative use of autotune. The extended 'You' in 'You've got no idea' and the long pause before the 'particles' line show an impressive sense of flow. He sets these moments of liquid mellow against his opponent's constant abrasiveness, but 'like gravity stretches time' shows that he can staccato with the best of them.
Score: Einstein 8 Hawking 10

Teachin Da Kidz Da Science

Einstein: Einstein whomps out an ace rhyme: 'You can't destroy matter, or me.' Do kids understand the law of conservation of energy? They do now.
Hawking: Tells us how many particles there are and that gravity stretches time. Also, 96% of google searches for 'Carl Sagan' came from the rap battle video (bake raps from scratch refers to Sagan's quote - 'If you want to bake a pie from scratch, you must first create the universe' - which is why I never learned to cook). Add 99.6% of searches for p-brane (related to string theory) and Hawking edges this one.
Score: Einstein 8 Hawking 9

Dance Moves

Einstein: Sometimes goes over-the-top with his moves, and throwing an apple at a man in a wheelchair isn't cool, even in the heat of a rap battle. But when he's on, he's on. Forget splitting the atom - Einstein has his own way of doing the splits:

Einstein does the splits

Hawking: At first, Hawking doesn't seem to do much more than roll around. Fail. But wait! On closer inspection, a face which seemed as wooden as Keanu Reeves' is as subtly expressive as Campbell Scott's. A twitch of the eyebrow, a roll of the eye, and a sly grin - it's enough. Look:

Hawking gif I made

Score: Einstein 9 Hawking 8

Humour

Einstein: Speak and Spell brought back memories of my childhood, but didn't make me laugh. And referencing Brief History of Time was amusing. But in general, he comes across as too angry to score highly.
Hawking: Hawking finds a good balance between dissing, self-aggrandisement, and playful self-deprecation. 'Dropping mad apples' brings Newton to mind, and there's a nice pun on pea-brain. The particles joke is amazing. But my favourite is '12-inch rims on my chair, that's how I roll.' While Einstein takes himself too seriously, Hawking's humour shines like a supernova.
Score: Einstein 8 Hawking 10

Who Won?

Final Score: Einstein 53 Hawking 56

Winner!

Asterix and the Cauldron: Latin Jokes Explained

2011-08-06T08:00:00.003+02:00

Book 13 - Asterix and the Cauldron

1.
The Story: Asterix has been banished from his village after losing a cauldron full of coins. Tired and hungry, he heads toward a new inn established by the pirates.

Professor Ibrox explains: "Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant means 'Where they create a desert, they call it peace.' It's from this guy Tacitus. He's most famous for his Annales. His Latin is very complicated and stylised, so the Annales are a pain in the arse at times.

"This quote is from his book about Agricola. Agricola was a general who won battles all over the British Isles - even in Scotland! A great Caledonian chieftain - think an ancient Walter Smith - gave a big Braveheart speech. It was basically an epic whinge about the Romans. The quote could be rewritten, 'It's easy to have peace when everyone's dead'.

"In the comic, the quote is again used to complain about the Romans - this time for not paying their bills. Not exactly as bad as laying waste to the whole of Europe, but if it's your restaurant, and none of your customers ever pay, I can see how that'd be annoying."
.

True Love : Too Much Work

2011-08-02T23:43:00.000+02:00

I love comics and graphic novels and always wanted to make my own. Problem is, I can't draw. But other people can! So I've drawn first drafts of a bunch of comics and commissioned more talented artists to make them pretty.

Here's the first one, drawn by a 12-year old French girl. She's French, which explains why she didn't follow my clear instructions that there should be no text, and why the text she did include is in French, and thus incomprehensible to 99.99% of human beings.

And don't ask me why there's a rabbit in it all of a sudden. That was her idea. She also changed the main character from a man to a woman. It's great, though, and captures the essence of what I was shooting for. Who'd have thought the French would be such good collaborators?

TRUE LOVE : Too Much Work

by Andrew Girardin and Léa Pertuiset

"Honey, can't come, too much work"

"And a bit more rabbit" (?!)

You're very welcome to leave a comment. The nice ones will be passed on to the (12-year old) artist.
.

The Best Friend Test

2011-07-27T10:18:00.000+02:00

WHO IS ANDREW'S BEST FRIEND?

When you live in another country you soon find that your friendships are ephemeral, transient, and fragile. My best friend in Taiwan ended our year-long bestfriendship because he was mad that I went to see Star Wars Episode 3 without him.

So what we ex-pats need is a scientific test to find out who is truly our best friend. Fortunately, I've created such a test. A test you can trust.

What makes a best friend?

There are six components to bestfriendship:
1: They say 'a friend in need is a friend indeed'. So a true friend helps you when you really need it. Like, even with something unpleasant or hard.
2: Although it's not a good idea to lend money to a friend, it's a pretty damn good indicator of how much someone's welfare means to you. My best friend should be willing to lend me a sizeable chunk of money.
3: The unpleasant job of pointing out home truths falls to the best friend. Hence your best friend is the one who says, 'Dude, you are so whipped by your girlfriend', or 'just get over yourself already.'
4. Another function of a friend is to take whatever character defects you have (in my case, being a dick) and accept them. My friends have to be able to accept the fact that I'm quite likely to make them look retarded in multiple blog posts.
5. Friends also have to be willing to take a bullet for you. This means things like talking to the ugly girl while you seduce the hot blonde, and taking the blame for something you've done.
6. Your best friend should be on the constant lookout for hot women for you to meet, even if it means someone in their own family.

With that in mind, I created six easy questions to determine which of these guys is my best friend:

The Candidates:

Candidate #1: CECILE BUTCHERMEIER (French Stropster)

Candidate #2: SERENA VEGAS (Model student, and model)

Candidate #3: MARK (Hot Swiss male friend)

Candidate #4: ANNA BAGEL (German woman with penchant for beer)

Candidate #5: TATIANA (Fun student from Soviet Bloc)

And now, the results of the test:

1. If I had an accident and I was in a wheelchair, would you push me to the disabled toilet, watch me poop, and help me wipe my bottom?

Cecile: "No." (She later tries to change her answer to 'yes' when she realises that I'm keeping score.)

Serena: "No. But I'd get some guy to help you."

Mark: "No. Gross."

Anna: (Far too quickly). "Yes, of course."

Tatiana: "No!"

2. Would you lend me 1,000 francs (750 pounds)?

Cecile (well-off): "Depends what you need it for. To pay the rent, yes. For you to pay for a threesome in Vienna, no."

Serena (rich): "Yes."

Mark (rich): "Yes. Is it for that threesome thing?"

Anna (poor): "Yes for something important. No for a prostitute."

Tatiana (earns slightly less than me): "Yes."

3. If I were dating someone bad for me, would you tell me?

Cecile: "No, if you were happy. That's what good friends do - put aside their personal feelings."

Serena (grinning like she'd enjoy it): "Yes."

Mark (Has done this several times): "Yes."

Anna: "Actually, chatting to my other friend on Facebook is more important than this test." ANNA DISQUALIFIED

Tatiana: "Yes. But only if she were bad for you, not just that I didn't like her."

4. If I mercilessly made fun of you on my blog for the amusement of me and the general public, would we still be friends?

Cecile: "Well, you've done it like ten times already, so yes."

Serena: "Yes, if it was funny." (Well, duh. It would be.)

Mark: "Yes."

Tatiana: "No, I'd hate that. I'd ask you to delete it."

5. If I didn't have a ticket on the train, and the ticket guy was fat and old and gross, would you aggressively flirt with him until the next station while I hid in the toilet?

Cecile: "Yes."

Serena: "Yes."

Mark: "Yes (but only if it was a hot woman)."

Tatiana: "Of course!"

6. Would you introduce me to your hot sister/cousin/ex-girlfriend with the tacit understanding that one day I might be making babies inside her?

Cecile: "Yes, but my hot sister doesn't speak great English." (Earns bonus 0.1 point for showing me photos of sister in bikini.)

Serena: "I don't have a sister but yes."

Mark: "Yes, but not my ex-girlfriend."

Tatiana: "No. I never do matchmaking. It doesn't work."

TOTAL SCORES:

Serena: 5.5

Mark: 5

Cecile: 3.6

Tatiana: 3

Anna: ZERO

WINNER:

My best friend. For now.

Try the test on YOUR friends - you may be surprised by the results!
.

Asterix at the Olympics: Latin Jokes Explained

2011-07-24T10:05:00.002+02:00

Book 12 - Asterix at the Olympics

1.
The Story: Only Greeks and Romans can enter the Olympics and cover themselves in eternal glory. This means Asterix and the other Frenchies won't be allowed to compete. But wait! After Caesar's conquest of Gaul, Asterix and the others ARE Romans, technically. Hooray for loopholes! The Gauls have a huge party to celebrate. But this is bad news for Centurion Gaius Veriambitius, who is training Rome's best medal prospect.

Professor Ibrox explains: "The centurion goes, 'Et nunc reges intelligite erudimini qui judicatis terram'. It means, 'And now, kings, understand; you who decide the fate of the Earth, educate yourselves.'

"He's basically whingeing about Caesar invading France without thinking of the effect it would have on the Centurion's career. How is he supposed to train the best Roman Olympian when there's a village full of French guys with magic potion next door? It's like trying to be the one clean rider in the Tour de France!"

2.
The Story: Turns out magic potions are not allowed in the Games, and the French, surprisingly, agree to the rules. Thus, most prizes (palm leafs) are won by the Greeks. A colossus from Rhodes wins gold in wrestling, all-in wrestling, and boxing. The runners-up wonder if their palms were worth the pain.

Professor Ibrox explains: "Sport keeps you fit... It's like those gags squaddies say in dull or dangerous situations. 'Join the army, they said, see the world, they said.' Except this one's in Latin. 'Mens sana in corpore sano' means 'a healthy mind in a healthy body.'

"I remember being taken ill, and doctors had no idea what caused it. I had to stay in hozzy for weeks without moving. My brain was working fine, but my body just wasn't working right. All I could do was blink. Took twenty minutes to place one bet on one horse. Nightmare. Turns out, my ex-wife had been slowly poisoning me because I wouldn't buy her a new fridge. We sorted it out with a new Indesit with the money I saved from not gambling."

Why I Didn't Flirt With You

2011-07-19T15:51:00.000+02:00

1. Girl in Domino's Pizza

I watched you come down the street. I thought, 'Gosh, she looks nice. I hope she comes in here so I can find true love.' And you did. You looked Scottish, but spoke Swiss-German. You had a fragile beauty. You ordered a Hawaiian pizza with EXTRA pineapple, and confirmed the order, stressed that you might not get enough pineapple. Pineapple on a pizza is a crime, and that's why I didn't flirt with you.

2. Cute Girl at Football

You turned up in the middle of our game, looking innocently cute. You had a tight shirt on. You looked at me and waited for me to tell you it was okay for you to play. I said it was okay for you to play. But I didn't flirt with you. Because you were 45 minutes late.

3. Girl at Gay Party

You were one of few girls at a gay guy's party. You said some interesting things, but when I said, 'Hey, come and play this fun game I just invented,' you said 'no'. So you kind of blew your one shot at finding happiness.

4. Hot Girl at Gay Party

You were a girl. You were hot. You live on a different continent. Anything more than 20 minutes away is too far. That's why I didn't flirt with you.

5. Girls Sitting on Chairs in Remote Corner of Party

You were some girls at a party. I'd been told you were single and looking. You sat in the corner the whole night, scrunching your breasts with your tight, cross-armed postures, pretending the rest of the party wasn't happening. I asked myself if I wanted to date a girl who would go to a party to meet a guy and then do whatever possible to prevent flirting from happening.
The answer was no. I don't want that.

6. Girls Standing in an Impenetrable Circle at a Party

Same deal as number 5. Seriously, try mingling.

7. Potentially Attractive Woman on Train

You were well dressed. You had a ponytail. These are things in your favour. But you were wearing sunglasses. On a train. At night.
So for obvious reasons, I didn't flirt with you.

.

The French Art of Destroying Conversations

2011-07-15T14:49:00.000+02:00

York, 2006

There are three French women sat at a table. They are teachers, come to York to watch over a band of French teenaged thugs. They fail in spectacular fashion - one of the kids is deported for buying an air rifle in Scarborough and shooting a baby.
But two of these French femmes are way hot. I could easily fall in love with either. I approach.
"Hey there," I say, charmant. "I am going to see a movie. Does one of you want to come?"
They look excited - at last a break from their routine of chain-smoking, changing outfits, and buying cigarettes. They decide that only one can leave - two must stay and watch over the kids. They huddle and discuss who should go. My body is angled significantly towards the hottest one. They choose Munta, who is oddly-shaped and oddly-faced. I am distraught, but I don't show it, because I'm an English gentleman.

In the queue to the cinema, I bravely engage her in conversation.
"So, Munta, do you like movies?"
"Yes, I am French. I like French movies."
I point at a poster. "We could watch this one. But maybe it's a bit sad. When's the last time you cried at a movie?"
"Why would I cry at a movie?" she says contemptuously. "It's just a movie."
Conversation over.

My Flat, Zurich, 2010

I'm talking to a French woman who has come from Prague to visit me. We talk about stuff and suddenly I get excited about the relationship between dreams and creativity. In particular, I've always been fascinated by people like Steven Spielberg and Stephen King, who turned their childhood fantasises and nightmares into movies and books in their adult life.
I turn to the French girl. "Yeah," I say, bouncing and buzzing, "It's like with Steven Speilberg..."
But I get no further.
"Spielberg?" She spits his name. "Ee is shit."
Conversation over.

Zurich, Walking Around, 2011

The Apprentice is one of the best things on TV, and one of my favourite things ever. It's a business-based reality TV show. I love the candidates's stupidity and the way they crumble under pressure. But I wouldn't watch it if it weren't, at heart, true-to-life. I tried to love the American version, but found it very fake and turned it off after half an episode. The British version is superbly edited to be as entertaining as possible, but the show is real, and I love it.

The Apprentice 2011

Cecile, a moody French woman with a habit of uninviting me to parties based on perceived slights, found it shocking that I left her company on Wednesday night to get home in time to watch The Apprentice. On Thursday, she asked me if I enjoyed "that show".

My whole body language changed as waves of positive emotion flooded my body. "Oh, man!" I said, excited, "It was great! There's only six of them left now. Four did a great job; they really understood the task. But the other two totally lost the plot." I paused to think how best to describe their paralysing stupidity.

Pausing was a mistake, for it allowed Cecile time to piss on my cornflakes. "Oh, they choose retards to be on the show," said the woman who has seen a grand total of zero minutes of The Apprentice. "It's all fake."

Conversation, fin.

Zurich, Bubbles café, 2011

Cecile went to the toilet. I opened my laptop. My next class was going to be with a manager pretty high up in a bank. I checked the stock market. Everything was down - way down. Shares in his bank were phenomenally low. Maybe a good time to buy? Make some quick money? Or could it be the beginning of a new financial crisis? Maybe my student would have some insights. Maybe some of my friends and students' jobs would be at risk. Maybe his big meeting with the CEO - the reason for our lesson - would be postponed. Certainly, there would be plenty of interesting and important things for me to talk about with him.

Cecile came back, sat down, and rudely pulled my laptop screen back so she could see what I was looking at. "What's that?" she asked, apparently unable to decipher the names of companies with numbers after.

"Huh? What's that?"

"The stock market," I said, ready to inform her and educate her about the world-changing events unfolding digitally before my eyes.
"Oh," she said, Frenchly, "The most boring thing in the universe."

And that was the end of the conversation.

Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield: Latin Jokes Explained

2011-07-09T10:32:00.006+02:00

Book 11 - Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield

1.
The story: After the battle of Alesia, where Julius Caesar defeated the Gauls, French loser Vercingetorix lays down his shield at Caesar's feet. Later, an opportunistic legionary nabs the shield. Then...

Professor Ibrox explains: "Whoo, tons of stuff here! Ruber et niger means 'red and black.' Later in the book you can see they are playing a game of cards. That's annoying, since card games were invented in the middle ages.

"The losing player declaims, 'diem perdidi!' It means 'I've lost the day'. The winner says, 'you can quote me on that too.' I think it means that although he's won the game, he's wasted another day of his life playing silly card games that haven't been invented yet. Diem perdidi is a quote from a chap called Suetonius, who made a career out of calling Caesar 'a gay'.

"Then we have a grammar frenzy, with present tense, active voice, and imperative used in a punfest. Followed by Cicero's famous 'O tempora! O mores!' It means, 'Oh, what times! Oh, what customs!' It's like when Alan Partridge says, 'this country!'"

2.
The story - Asterix and Obelix bump into Roman envoy Noxius Vapus. After watching his guard get beaten up, the corpulent tribune shows surprising bravery.

Professor Ibrox explains: "Vade retro! Audaces fortuna juvat! Get back! Fortune favours the brave!"

3.
The story - Caesar tells Noxius Vapus to go and find Vercingetorox's shield so he can go and remind the Gauls who won the war. He can't find it.

Professor Ibrox explains: "Arms and feat is a nice gag. When Caesar hears the bad news, he says 'no commentary'. Not a Latin joke, exactly, but to get it you kinda need to know that Caesar wrote lots of commentaries on his various campaigns. So, now you know."

4. The story - The Romans have sent a spy to get information out of the Gauls. Wily Asterix turns the tables and gets information out of him.

Professor Ibrox explains: "The drunken spy says 'sol lucet omnibus' and then 'hic haec hoc'. The first means 'the sun shines on everyone' and the second is some latin grammar disguised as drunken hiccups. The translators are genius!"

5. The story - Caesar has turned up, and found his army in disarray and the shield in the hands of the Gauls. Noxius Vapus tells him that the plan is to attack Gergovia - site of one of Caesar's many victories - to get the shield back. Caesar isn't keen.

Professor Ibrox explains: "Placent means please. So 'bis repetita don't always placent' would be 'things twice repeated don't always please.' A bit like Professor Bhooj and his story about being stuck in the lift with the plus-size model. You never want to hear that more than once."
.

Henrici and the Cupcake Crisis

2011-07-03T11:08:00.001+02:00

My temporary obsession with cupcakes started on a Monday. I went out with some friends to Rimini. By day, it's an outdoor swimming pool for gay men. By night, it's one of the hip places in Zurich. That night they had a special event - a market running around the edges of the bar. One of the stands was selling cupcakes.

There I met Cupcake Angel, a woman of indescribable perfection who, for one tiny fraction of a second, I thought was an actual angel. Like, from the Bible. That's how glorious she looked in her heavenly white dress. I flirted with her a bit. She laughed at my jokes. I don't think I'll ever stop loving her.

Imagine this suddenly appearing in front of you and laughing at all your jokes

On Saturday, Cecile asked me if I wanted to go out. I didn't. But then I thought I could go to the new cupcake shop in town - Cupcake Affair - and see if Cupcake Angel worked there. She didn't, and the cupcakes were expensive, but I bit into mine and it was delicious. Cecile waited before trying hers, because she wanted to take it to Henrici and eat it with a pot of Chinese tea.

Henrici is a nice coffee place in a good location in Zurich's main tourist spot. The owners are friends of friends, so I heard about it when it opened and it needed customers. Since then, I've been millions of times and told all my friends about it. On my Tourist Simulator Day, I brought 25 people there. In total, I've probably taken more than 60 people to Henrici. Indirectly, who knows how many? One of the guys I introduced it to is my hot Swiss friend. He takes all his dates there, and that's a lot of dates.

Over time, it has become busier and busier and I've gone less and less. It became impossible to go there after Friday night football because of the slow service and the frequency of being overcharged.

I still liked it, because the staff are attractive and the ambience is nice. And let's face it, you shouldn't bring cupcakes into places. But Cecile is French and thinks the rules of society don't apply to her. Still, I wouldn't have predicted what happened next.

We stood for a second to choose the best table, then headed to the corner. We sat, and a member of staff came over. But he came a little too fast, especially given the normal speed of movement in Henrici. What was up? He placed his hands on the table and leaned at us. He then gave us a dressing down in angry German.

"YOU CANNOT EAT THAT HERE, OKAY? THIS IS A RESTAURANT; WE SELL FOOD. HADN'T YOU NOTICED? YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT. IF YOU COME HERE, YOU HAVE TO BUY THE FOOD WE SELL HERE."

I stared at the guy like he was a mildly interesting exhibit in a mostly dull museum. My lack of reaction seemed to annoy him as much as the cupcakes, so he turned to bully Cecile. He repeated everything he'd said, then jabbed his chin at her and fumed, "DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M SAYING?"

I nearly laughed at him, which wouldn't have helped things. We stood up and walked out of Henrici forever.

Now, it's obvious you shouldn't take food into places that serve food. Obvious to anyone who isn't French, anyway. And if they'd come over and said 'hey, come on, play fair,' or any of the billions of possible ways to handle the situation in a positive way, we'd have gone outside, eaten the cupcake, and gone straight back in to give them twenty francs for two containers of hot water and some tea leaves.

But Henrici has grown beyond the need for my custom.

Good for them.

Click here for Cecile's version of these events.

30 Day Alcohol-Free Challenge

2011-06-30T18:33:00.000+02:00

I tried to give up alcohol for thirty days.

Why?

The week leading up to my Vienna trip was a booze-fuelled funfest. In Vienna, I consumed Schneider Weisse like it was candyfloss. Post-holiday, high on life, I partied like it was 1989. After about three weeks of constant glugging, my skin had died and I was seeing the world as if through opaque glass.

What did I hope to achieve with the project?
Feel better, lose weight, save money. Complete an arbitrary challenge. See what happened.

Day One:
Easy. Willpower 100%. Victory in challenge certain.

Day Two:
An early test. Had booze-loving German girl round to watch The Apprentice. Tradition is to get wasted while watching the candidates's comic ineptitude. German girl drank prosecco and beer. I had camomile tea.

Day Three:
Still easy. German girl left loads of booze in my fridge, though. Stupid Germans.

Day Four:
Major crisis! After football I met up with guys from work. Was already pretty thirsty, but with willpower still maxed out I was rock-steady and resolute. Suddenly, one of my friends plonked a cold, refreshing Schneider Weisse down in front of me.

Look at that condensation! How sexy is that? Is this how the snake tempted Jesus in the desert? I touched the glass. It felt nice. I pushed it away. People kept pushing it back. I didn't drink it.

Day Eight:
All going swimmingly. I'm amazing at completing challenges. I went for a curry with Cecile. She hesitated about ordering a beer while I had water. "No, that's fine," I said. "It won't affect me at all." The cold beer sat there on the table, mocking me, the whole time. Stupid French women!

Day Eleven:
Friday night again. My order of 'diet coke' led to moderate ribbing from football guys after the match. They don't realise that weight is literally evaporating from my body and therefore nothing can deter me. Also, the jokes came from the losing team, whose opinions don't matter.

Day Sixteen:
Wednesday. Huh. I got tickets to see a preview of Larry Crowne, a romantic comedy with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. The trailer looked terrible. I invited Anna, to punish her for being German, and asked her to bring mini bottles of wine and something for me to eat. Why did I do that? Because it's what I always do when I go to the cinema - drink little bottles of wine. I forgot about the stupid challenge, okay? I also forgot that you get free drinks at the previews. I turned up and Anna plonked a free glass of prosecco into my hand, and I took a swig. Shocked by the fizzy loveliness, I realised what I had done. Bah! What to do? Down the prosecco and drink the wine, obviously. It made the movie better.

So, challenge FAILED. Not because of willpower, but bad planning and carelessness.

Maybe I'll try the challenge again some other time. Or maybe I'll just cut down on my drinking. A bit.
.