All hail Bonlanden’s Tennis King!

Yes, that’s right people – I am the new Tennis King, and Bonlanden is my domain. Admittedly it’s not a very impressive domain, but it is mine, and I rule with an iron fist. Demolishing all opponents that dared return my serves, that tried in vain to chase my winners, that groaned in exasperation as my crosscourt forehead whizzed past their outstretched Tennisschläger and inside the far corner - I am Bonlanden’s new Clubmeister. Yes, King am I.
Naturally, as King, I have a crown. In fact, I have two: one I get to keep forever, it has German writing on it proclaiming me as Bonlanden’s Tennis King, and is a decent size. And the other – well it belongs in the Louvre, it is so magnificent. Doubtless a long lost work of Da Vinci (apparently he once worked at the Cup Shop), it is breathtaking in its beauty and size. Dwarfing the other crown, there is only one thing that could possibly improve its wondrous appearance – a nice inscription:
“2002 – Richard Maddock” I think it would go very nicely below “2001 – Reiner Klenk”.
But seriously folks, they were rabbits. Most of ‘em had only been playing for a couple of years and I won the final 6-1, 6-0, which is a bit of a caning that never really looked in doubt. That seems to be the trouble with Germany, there’s no in between. I play tennis in Bonlanden and they are crap; I am a God among muppets. I play tennis in Bernhausen and I am useless. I play soccer in the Black Forest and I am God again. I skin, I shoot, I score. I play soccer in Harthausen, and I’m a rabbit. In fact, I think I overheard them plotting to buy me a big rabbit suit, so I can wear that when I go to training. I might even do it, cos it would give me an excuse for being so crap. Where’s the in between? Where are the people like me, who aren’t crap, but aren’t awesome??
I have attached a fine photo for you showing my kingdom in all it’s glory, where the people say in quiet awe “Do you know that Australian tennis God? He once flicked sweat on me. I feel so honoured!”. Off to the left of that photo is Bernhausen, where the people say in open disgust “That Aussie rabbit? Oh, was he here to play tennis? I thought he was a ballboy.”

So, anyway – onto the festivities of Frühlingsfest. This is a bit like Oktoberfest, but in April/May, and in Stuttgart not München. I went there on a Sunday night a few weeks back, and it was great. If Oktoberfest is better than Frühlingsfest, then you gotta find some Germans and go with them, because it’s excellent. I think it’s fair to say it’s similar to the Royal Hobart Show, but with more rides (and better ones too), no shitty showbags, no bogans (I think. For all I know the place could have been crawling with German bogans – but I haven’t learnt to recognise them. Anyway, I think the German bogan is actually a Turkish immigrant) and best of all – beer tents!
Before we went to a beer tent I had a ride on the rollercoaster, and that was cool. Even though I’ve been to Dreamworld, Seaworld AND Disneyland, I haven’t been on a rollercoaster, and it was . . . well, if you’ve been on one you know what it’s like, and if you haven’t, well you should at least once. Once that had finished, my companions said “Without further ado, onto the beer!”. Although they did say it in German, so I’m just giving a rough translation.
Our first “tent” (just a big building really) looked a little dodgy. There was an over-40 women on top of a table dancing, ahem, “all-sexy-like”, and taking her clothes off and swinging them around her head. We ran to the nearest exit. We fared a little better at the next “tent” (just another big building really), and settled in.
When I was in München with Wigs, he was a little concerned about the habits of some our drinking companions – crashing their huge beer glasses together as if they were black box flight recorders, not glass, and thus indestructible. We were both a little surprised that time after time, the glass withstood this obviously horrific structural trauma. In Stuttgart it seems that the Germans have a lot of faith in their glass as well, and my drinking buddies were once again smashing their glasses together. It was as if they had no concept of what happens when a container that holds liquid gets a hole in it. I can’t remember exactly when, but after we had all received a round, much Prost-ing (cheers-ing - when you smash your full beers together) was to be had, and then CRACK - a full litre of beer drains from this guy’s glass all over the table, all over him, and all over his mate who helped caused the damage. Yep, a big hole was now in the bottom of the glass – and whaddya know? A container with a hole in it doesn’t hold stuff very well does it? So that was quite amusing, but I don’t think they learned from it – they just kept on smashing their glasses together afterwards.
The obligatory traditional German band was there, playing that shit-but-somehow-brilliant-after-a-few-beers music. Churning out all the old German favourites (yes Wig, I’m sure they played “Ein-Zwei-Sofa!”) – as well as those classic sauerkraut-fuelled, lederhosen-inspired German hits “Summer of ‘69”, “Heyey Baby, Ooh! Ahh! I wanna knowow if you’ll be my girl” and “Alice? Who the FUCK is Alice?” (Incidentally, when you go to a shop, eg a bakery, they say “Alles?” meaning “Is that all?”, only it’s pronounced “Alice”. I now have a strong urge to shout back at them “Who the FUCK is Alice?”).
But the song that totally brought the house down was:
“Ohne Holland, fahren wir zu WM!” And what does that mean, I hear you ask?
“Without Holland, we go to the World Cup!”
It seems the Germans and Dutch don’t get on to well, and the Germans love the fact that Holland missed out on the World Cup. I really, really, really, wanted to shout “Ohne Uruguay, fahren wir zu WM!” only that’s not goddam fucking true is it? Cunts. I also wanted to sing “Ohne Iran, . . .” – but no, that’s not fucking true either. Double cunts. Oh well, in 2006 I will sing (hopefully) “Ohne New Zealand, fahren wir zu WM!”
At some point an announcement was made concerning an upcoming event – somehow, we had inadvertently stumbled into the tent that was hosting the final of Miss Baden-Württemberg! Well, smiles all round from the lads, but we were a little dubious – it was kinda like having a Miss Australia contest at an Engi Barrel. But hey, there was going to be chicks in swimwear and evening wear – so who were we to complain? So the chicks came out, walked around a bit, changed into swimwear, walked around a bit more, and everyone cheered and stuff. I now know German for “I wish for world peace” and “Take your clothes off!”. You will all be pleased to know that nummer drei was the winner, closely followed by nummer neun. Mmm, there’s a nice mental image . nummer neun close behind nummer drei. . . mmmm.
Umm, where was I? Oh yeah – after the competition another announcement was made: all Aussies were invited back stage to party with some of the ladies. Well, I couldn’t say no, so I went with ‘em and had a few beers. Lovely ladies they were too. We were just about to get down to some jelly wrestling when I realised my last train home was about to leave, so I had to say goodbye – oh well, there’s always next time eh?

Nightlife
I went to a nightclub called XXL some time ago, and I’m sad to report that this isn’t a club for fat people. I was hoping to fulfil my long hidden (yet life-long) fat fetish, but sadly it wasn’t to be. (This isn’t true, and I only said it for the purposes of a joke). As nightclubs go it was very average, but it’s the only one even remotely within walking distance of my house, so I fear I may have to return at some point.

May Day was a public holiday here in Germany, and they celebrate it by doing something that I reckon would go down a treat in Oz. It works like this:
1) get a bunch of your mates together
2) get a wagon that will hold stuff and you can cart along with you wherever you go
3) put stuff in the wagon. This stuff should comprise beer (lots), food for BBQ (lots) and some branches with leaves’n’stuff (decoration). Optional extras: CD player, techno CDs and German flag
4) go to some woods, light a fire and have a bit of a Barbie
5) chat to all the other people doing the same thing as you
6) move onto another spot – if there isn’t a fire, light one, otherwise use the already burning fire and do the Barbie-beer-chat thing all over again.

In this way you can traipse all over the countryside, get pissed and crap on to strangers. I think this is an absolutely ripper idea, and it would be fantastic in Oz. Except we have this stupid rule about not drinking in public places. Silly laws.

Soccer (Fußball)
I watched the Man U v Leverkusen second leg (what an excellent match!) with some Germans, and I was, ahem, “fortunate” enough to be given a lift by a madman, and his mad friends. “Cruising” through the village “autobahn”, at a “snails pace”, it was really “delightful” watching the lovely houses with children playing “slowly glide” past the window. And when we “eased” to a stop at our final destination, I was “disappointed” that the “peaceful” journey had ended. I think that the “mint condition” Audi (which now had “slightly warm” tyres), was also “disappointed”. Aaaaand, these Germans were smoking as if they’re lives depending on it (now *that*, Ms. Morissette, is ironic), and so when I “alighted confidently” from the vehicle, it was from a cloud of smoke David Copperfield would be proud of. Nice one, madman; nice one madman’s mad friends.

Today’s German lesson:
Is on how to pronounce my new favourite german words (and what they mean, but that’s sort of irrelevant to you):

Kugelschrieber = pen. Take note Germany, “pen” is a lot easier to say - while all the little kiddies back home are learning to say “Hand me that pen will ya buddy. Cheers.”, all the little Fritzs and Hanses and Klauses and Helmuts are learning to say “hand me that koogel . . . ummm, kogga . . . errrr, kuntshr . . . ah fuck it.”
Koo-gel-shriber (with a hard g)
Staatsangehörigkite = Nationality. I like this word cos it rolls off the tongue nicely, but actually looks like a real bugger to say.
Shtarts-unger-err-ree-kite
Arbeitsgehnimigung = work permit. Mmmm, work permits are good, n’kay.
Arr-bites-ge-nee-mee-goong
Bleistift = pencil. Sort of sounds like a swear word eh?
Bly-shtift

Fancy cars and fancy women (without the women)
I went to the Porsche testing and development facility the other day. And how does one travel when one visits Porsche headquarters? One travels in one’s company car – a Porsche of course. Helmut took control (so to speak), and it’s certainly an experience travelling at 220 kph through moderately heavy traffic. It seems the most efficient way to let someone in front of you know that you would like them to move out of the way is to sit on their arse, preferably closer than 2m. This *might* seem like a good idea, but when you’re cruising at 170 kph, well, I have to question Helmut’s sanity. Still, Porsches kick arse, and pretty soon it’ll be me reprising the role of maniac behind the wheel – it sure is good overtaking absolutely everyone, and doing it in style (rather than a bronze ’85 Honda Civic).
At the centre itself – never have I seen so many Porsches at once. Naturally, everyone who works at Porsche, drives a Porsche. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of the things – fantastic. I even saw several of the new Cayenne, an SUV to be launched by Porsche later this year. Now, they were all painted a dull black, and I didn’t take much notice of it, until Helmut mentioned that they do that so you can’t tell what shape the car is. Well, news flash Mr Bright-ideas-for-keeping-secrets-man: I was there, I saw several, and I’m fairly sure I know what shape it is. Painting them a dull black ain’t gonna fool no one, got it?

70cm
I finally got a TV a few days ago – by my reckoning I have gone 6 weeks without a TV, which is very bad when you have nothing to do at home. I think I’ve already mentioned how bad german tv is (I think tv is generally bad though), and that it’s in german. However, it has taught me something. If I was a young woman on crutches, and a jilted ex-lover came to the door and demanded to be let in, if I said “Bitte gehe” (please go) rather than informing my jilted ex-lover that I actually do want him to go, it really is his cue to come barging through the door, knocking me down in the process and making my injury worse. So I won’t be doing that in a hurry.
Also, on one of the channels (I only have the free to air channels) at about 10 pm at night they showed naked chicks dancing around to crap music. What’s going on with that? It wasn’t very good though, so I only watched it for a couple of hours. I also have a brand new kick-arse computer, so feel free to send me any pirated games/software. Even stuff that’s banned in Germany, like games that involve killing Nazis (this is true, apparently).

Celebrities in Germany:
Hosting the Man U v Leverkusen was none other than Dermott Brereton! And guess who was providing special guest comments? Yes, that’s right – Ray Martin. Not only are Ray and Dermott soccer buffs (who knew?), but they also speak fluent German. Plus, Ray apparently played in the 1983 UEFA Cup Final and has changed his name. I also sat opposite Sven Goran Eriksson (is it Erikkson? Erikson? Eriksson? Erikksson? Errikkkksssssonnnnn? I think the smart money’s on Eriksson) on the train once. He was holding a German newspaper, obviously as a disguise. I saw through it though, and got his autograph. I think he wrote a fake name though, the dodgy bastard.

And so ends another masterpiece. I hadn’t written one for a while cos I couldn’t be bothered. But hey – it’s better to wait a bit and have a decent one, than to have a shit one eh? Long Live The King!
(that’s me)

P.S: At least four sentences in this piece are entirely fabricated, and the incidents they describe didn’t even come close to happening. So, sorry to burst your bubble about that. In fact, it’s probably more than four, but I’ll let you figure out which ones aren’t quite true.