PABLO

2006-08-11T06:37:00.000-07:00

I love Frens Haringhandel!!

No caption required

Stavros showboating - balancing upon his billiards cue

One day in Amsterdam.......

Themed narrative #1

2006-08-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

"I want gyros!" bellowed Stavros, a swarthy, beady-eyed Greek (man from Greece) whose protuberant gut and lubricious hair attested to his love of rotated meat goods.
His slightly less hirsute wife protested:
"But Stavros honey, I have gone to all this trouble to make you a cheese pie. Pleeease eat my cheeeese pie."
"I want gyros! GYROS!" Stavros insisted phlegmatically, a great shower of saliva puctuating the sentence.
"Oh Stavros darling," pleaded his wife. "Why won''t you eat my cheese pie. I have gone to all this trouble to make it."
"By Zeus! I'm a fifty-eight year old man! I can eat goddam gyros if I want to!!" thundered Stavros before grabbing his billiards cue and storming out- leaving his wretched wife, tears dribbling onto her beloved cheese pies, making little yellow rivulets in the creamy pie discharge like the pitter patter of rain drops through the sulphourous exudate of Santorini's volcanic springs."

Stavros was already feeling happier for having left the oppresive culinary tyranny of his abode. He started to sing a song to further lift his spirits. Without thinking, the words spewed forth from his mouth, like a man coming second last in a 5-man vomiting competition.

"Like a slow motion pirouhette, the rotisserie turns.
Like a Dutchman in a pancake house, for gyros my body yearns.

The joy and fulfilment i feel when i chew,
Are like a mans love for his best billiards cue.

As surely as a beggar knows the joys of buggery,
Gyros is the only food that sates the hunger in me."

As these last words, like an estranged nose, left his mouth a great trembling of the earth occured, causing a similar trembling in Stavros' bowels (borborygmi). Then a crack appeared in the ground; a torrent of magma shooting out with similar ferocity to the Bristol 7 stooge spraying from Stavros' derriere. From the ground emerged an ungodly creature- half badger, half beggar, threequarter gypsy. It boomed in a bassy baritone:

"I am the Santorini genie.
Your song summoned me.
Ask but one question,
the answer is free."

Stavros ignored the warm defecate covering his inner thighs and instead thought of the question to which most desired the answer. Ever since Stavros was a small, oily child he had wanted nothing more than to be a professional billiards champion and gyros gourmet. "How can I become more than a mere billiards lover: a grand billiards master?"

"That billiards cue,
there in front of thee.
Break it to segments
So they number three.

Then put it together,
so it be one piece.
For glue and adhesion,
use gyros meat grease.

Exceptional stance
and great skill too,
will come to all
that use said cue."

Stavros was so excited, he promptly lost control of his bowels again, before trotting off to do as he had been told.

From that day forward, Stavros devoted himself to billiards as completely as a beggar devotes himself to filth and indencency. His magical billiards cue - held together with the grease of low quality pork, squirrel and other meats -endowed him with superhuman billiards abilities. He could defy laws of nature and physics, he could leap metres into the air and hang suspended above the billiards table to play his shots from extreme advance positions.

Over the next few months his fame grew exponentially. Word spread throughout the International Billiards Community about the wild-eyed Greek with the gyros-grease-&-Canadian-Ash cue, who adopted such gravity-defying billiards stances as the Floating Foxton, the Inverted Gypsy, and the Reverse Breech Badger-Legged Spearfisherman.
His infernal wife still tormented him each evening with her grating soprano pleas to eat her cheeeese pies. Ï want gyros!! GYROS!!" Stavros would continually exclaim, his obese body quivering with rage. But the whinings of the wench were out of his thoughts as soon as he stepped up to the table to string.

The day of the first Olympic Games arrived, and Stavros was chosen to represent Greece in billiards. He cut through his International opponents like a hot knife through gyros meat, and reached the grand final where he was pitted against Australian Champion Walter Albert Lindrum. This would surely be his toughest match yet. Lindrum started with a perfect string and an opening break of 4168. Stavros was unperturbed as he responded with an equally impressive run from the Contrary Egyptian Gardener position.
The two GrandMasters traded blow for blow all day and night, like two fiercely competitive Amsterdam whores. The game was tied, and the time had come for Stavros to prove his worth. He remembered the words his father had spoken to him when he was 7 years old..."Stavros, I looovve Cheeeeese Pie." How he hated his father for that. With buttocks clenched and teeth grated, Stavros leapt into the air wielding his cue like an almighty truncheon. He shrieked like a gypsy as he formed his body into the posture of the Hovering-Haring-Handler, and prepared to play his shot.

Lindrum silently winked at him and tenderly bit into a large, damp cheeeese pie. A fiery anger billowed inside the burly Greek. He paused in his shot... then took off on his billiards cue, precociously prancing and Souvlaki showboating around the table. In quick succession, he adopted posture after posture, like a Euroman with a frappe at the beach. Then he started doing some outrageous stunts- extremely dangerous manoeuvres! He was high above the table balanced on his billiards cue- so high high he could feel the warmth of the billiards table lamp tenderly licking his back like tepid grill to the meat on a gyros rotisserie. Suddenly, like an iceberg in the year 2010, the gyros grease holding the cue together melted. Stavros tumbled from his lofty position...twisting and turning...and landing square on a section of billiards cue- tearing his perianal mucosa as it penetrated him sideways, but more importantly performing a pseudo-Icarus widthways autobuggery forefeit manoeuvre. In effect handing the game to Lindrum by law 24b of the Royal Rules and Regulations of English Billiards.

Themes of this narrative:
Ambition, ambition thwarted, family conflict, pride, Lindrumism, gastronomy, power of song, the environment, billiards-loving, theosophy, the occult.

Thought of the day- Man can eat 5 gyros in one sitting.
Gyros Tally: 51!!!

2006-08-10T04:50:00.000-07:00

Getting hammered.

About to get Slammed

Victory in the Billiards Tournament!!

The Ios International Billiards Tournament

2006-08-08T03:58:00.000-07:00

Upon arrival in Ios, our newly acquired resolve to seek out the mythical billiards cue evaporated like a bead of sweat on the sun-baked cleavage of a scantily-clad, Scandinavian schoolgirl. The Ios lifestyle has remained deeply routed in tradition since the days when ancient Greek orgies were common place. Although deep rooting was off the menu for our celibate protagonists, we were able to revel in the wild partying, focusing our efforts on Herculean feats of ethanol consumption.

The red cape of a free T-shirt for every septet of shooters sunk, was charged at with the sort of Bullish determination that would make Queen Minos moist. Drinking sessions in which pint after pint of pure spirits were energetically ingested would last for hours, before we would awake in our Aegean stable of a room to pop packets from our pharmacopia of pills, giving us the power to roll fom bed to beach for a heavy day of spectating toplessche Deutsche shulmadchen Bat und Ball.

It was a Friday night in Ios. We had spent the day in the recovery position on the beach - our bodies at the mercy of the roaring sun, and our minds mesmerised by the hypnotic hijinks of seminaked sporting Scandinavian schoolgirls. As we walked into Ios town oiur bodies ached, exhauseted from the strenuous activity of metabolising the previous night's booze.
We made our way into Fun Pub and immediately recharged ourselves with 7 shots straight up.
Then we saw the sign.

"Billiards tournament tonight, 50 Euros prizemoney!" read WGB. "Holy Siddartha's scrotum!" replied NFC. Here was a chance to legitimise our so-called 'billiards-loving tour'. We drank 10 shots of tequila and 4 pints of Amstel and signed ourselves up for the competition.
The PABLO started strong, canons blazing and hazardous hazards haphazardly hammered homewards. In the early rounds of the tournament most of the amateurs were eliminated, and the PABLO took on the pseudonyms "Big Boy" and "The Midget" to avoid being recognised as professional billiards lovers.
The hours rolled by like a cheese pie, and the balls spun around the table as constantly as a gyros rotisserie.
In the closing rounds The Midget was tragically eliminated - his undoing a daring attempt at an 8 point Double Lindrum Manoeuvre from the Badger-Legged Spearfisherman position. Only Big Boy and 'Dynamite' remained. Dynamite was a good billiards player, and coming into the last round he looked like he had the game within his grasp.
"Bugger my Uncle - I'm done for!", lamented Big Boy. "Stop that nonsense you strawberry fool!" admonished The Midget, and then he spoke these wise words unto his compatriot: "Just think like Walter Lindrum, and the game will be yours".
Big Boy closed his eyes, and let the roars of the crowd and the taunts of his opponent fade into a distant hum. He breathed deeply, and felt a tingling in his levator ani muscle group. The spirit of the late great Walt Lindrum possessed him.
Big Boy stepped up to the table, spat thrice upon the ground and adopted the Foxton stance. He proceeded to unleash a rampage of billiards fury that silenced the crowd and claimed him the trophy.

The PABLO had bested 25 international billiards players, and so they started their celebration with a platter of 25 shots of tequila.....

Thought of the day - There are 5 essential accessories for the EuroMan - A good pout, cockjocks, sandals, a cigarette, and a frappe.

Gyros tally: 39

Wind and Bestiality

2006-07-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

Not far from the Lefkogia Donkey Sanctuary was the seaside town of Plakias, revered worldwide by wind enthusiasts for its incessant and ferocious gale-force gusts. In fact the wind in Plakias is so furious that year after year hundreds of parents of children with intususseption ( a condition whereby the bowel telescopes in on itself and occludes) travel to Plakias for a special treatment. These parents instruct their bowel-obstructed children to stand on a high rock, remove their undergarments, and bend over in the wind. The children then receive a powerful wind enema which usually cures the intususseption.

With wind in our metaphorical sails and much gust-o, we blew into town and drafted a plan to continue our quest. We decided to travel to Knossos- home of the infamous Minotaur. Legend has it that the wife of King Minos- sick and tired of her husband's flaccid detumescence, and in an era pre- nasal delivery technology- dressed up as a heifer and parked her self in a field of bulls, winking suggestively at them. The extremely painful but satiating animal love that ensued resulted in the conception of the Minotaur (half -man, half-beast) and the conception of german pornographic movie plots for centuries to come.

To our dismay, we found the palace of Knossus in ruins. The labyrinth where the minotaur had once had its way with greek boys and girls had been ruthlessly eroded by wind and time. Where the once-majestic billiards halls of Knossus had once stood, rubble and ridiculously-attired Euro-tourists remained.
Goddamn!
When we were about to give up all hope, a particular gypsum tablet caught our eye among the ruins. The engravings depicted the ancient Greek writer Homer defeating the Minotaur in an epic Lindrum-esque billiards game. Following this incredible victory, Homer buggered the bull with the billiards cue in traditional fashion, then left Knossus with the magical cue to the island of Ios where he remained until the end of his days.

Our journey to this ancient Mycenean palace had not been in vain; our epic oddysey was to continue in Ios. First, howeveer, we needed to exCrete, which was to prove exceptionally difficult. We strained and pushed like an opiod-dependant pensioner with sigmoid diverticulosis, but as hard as we tried we were just unable to exCrete. What we needed was a good Fleet enema, but the entire Greek fleet was not at bay. With tremendous relief, our probing enquiries into manual evacuation were rewarded with a satisfying plop in the Aegean sea as we finally exCreted en route to Ios.

Thought of the day: Time goes by like a cheese pie

Gyros tally: 31

2006-07-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

Hung like a hinny

Mmmmmm.... gyros

Down to business

Man and Beast

2006-07-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

It was hot. The scorched earth seemed to tremble in the heat as we swaggered down the dusty path in the south Cretan hills. The wild wind whipped white whirls of dust around us, stinging our eyes and filling our ear canals with a fine billiards chalk-like powder.
A hunger gnawed at us, although we had been well fed with gyros. It was a hunger that meats and spices could not sate. It was the hunger felt by men of ambition - the stabbing pain that unsettles even the most peaceful moments of a man's day with restlessness and agitation. We were possessed by a nervous excitement and our souls yearned for the solace that would surely soon be found in the ultimate game of billiards.
Such were our thoughts as we pressed on through the infernal wind and dust before finally arriving at our destination.
The Lefkogia Donkey Sanctuary was founded in 1800BC by a mad Cretan farmer whose love for donkeys ran deeper than the deepest waterous formation. He rescued these humble beasts of burden from cruel farmers who buggered them and fed them tainted gyros meat. His legacy was the donkey sanctuary, and thus for thousands of years the sure-footed ruminants enjoyed a peaceful life frolicking in the lush paddocks.
The reason for our visit was cultural curiosity. We had been told by many that a Greek man loves nothing more than riding a good ass.

And so we rode ass.

And for a few beautiful hours the hunger was kept at bay. The wind died down and our nervous excitement settled into a contented bliss. Such was the transfiguring power of donkey-love.

Thought of the day: With regards to the assessment of cans, tone is an often underappreciated parameter: "cantone" is more important than can size.

Gyros tally = 17

Cretans and Cretins

2006-07-21T08:24:00.001-07:00

Our arrival in Crete was anything but discrete. To pass the time on the ferry we had stocked up on traditional Greek time-passing stocks: ouzo and more ouzo. Unfortunately, when we disembarked the rough sea had so disrupted our semicircular canals that we were swaying and tottering down the port, remarkably like to drunken sailors that had just consumed bucket-loads of ouzo. we had arrived in the charming Chania- a town with the architectural quaintness of the Venetians, the oriental flair of the Ottomans, mixed with the insalubrious refuse of the Greeks. It could have only been divine intervention by some local deity that we found somewhere to stay. The mystic, Marcos, entered our lives like a beautifully executed billiards string- very slowly and from the opposite direction. An animated discusion in which Marcos could speak no English and we could speak no sense netted us the Marlin of all accommodation (not to say that it smelt fishy).

Whilst WGB took the opportunity for a spontaneous loss of consciousness, NFC departed on a quest for that life-giving saviour of the post-inebriate, composed of two part hydrogen atoms to one part oxygen. Within 2 seconds, he was as lost as a hair louse in a Greek man's chest. He spent several hours staggering around, shouting oaths, shaking his fist at the sky and flying into a rage at all who came to his help. Fortunately his wild screams of Marcos!! were eventually greeted by the shuffling re-emergence of our Parkinsonian prophet who again guided him to the safety of our Cretan shelter.

Thought of the day- man can not eat 5 gyros in one sitting.

Gyros Tally = 13

Athens

2006-07-20T02:57:00.000-07:00

The billiards enthusiasts arrived in the sweltering heat of Athens in the early hours of the morning, their minds still clouded by the purple haze of Amsterdam. They headed straight to the local Billiards Hall, where they met Stavros - an 8th degree grandmaster of the noble art of billiards.
Stavros was indeed a wise man. As nimble as a hinny, with a sturdy pelvis that generated immense power in his regular Greek man-boy love sessions.
Stavros suggested that the PABLO start their search for ancient billiards memorabilia at the Acropolis - the site of the very first billiards game between The Lord Siddartha and Zeus (great great grandfather of Martin Honza Jansky).

PABLo ascended the hill to the Acropolis. They were awestruck by the solemn site of the Parthenon, and when they closed their eyes they could hear the clacking sounds of ancient marble billiard balls echoing through the ruins.
They scoured the Ancient Agora - the market place of Ancient Athens where Socrates and Plato once bought gyros, and purchased fresh white linen for toga parties.

Alas! Despite hours of searching through the ruins, no signs were found of the ancient billiards cue. Disheartened, the two men sat down to a plate of gyros. Ah, gyros! Surely the Lord Siddartha's most perfect creation. As they took in the scent of rotisserie meats, fetta, and perspiration drenched greek men, they planned their next move. Tomorrow they would set forth on a voyage across the Agean Sea, to Crete - seat of the ancient Minoan civilisation.

Thought of the day: Dieticians will agree that there are only 2 food substances which eaten alone can provide the entire gamut of nutrition to a human - Ensure plus or Gyros.

Gyros tally = 9

2006-07-20T02:25:00.000-07:00

A morning Tai-Chi session helps the bowels, which can grind to a halt due to excessive gyros consumption.

How's the serenity?

Neil consumes a flagon of beer

The search begins

A Traditional Dutch Table Setting

Hallindrumation

2006-07-20T02:20:00.000-07:00

One particularly hot and heady summer's day, the former badger-hunters were seated in the Smoking Bull coffee shop- heads heavy from overindulgence in Mary Jane's smoked delicacies. The air was thick with dense white smoke, eerie chords stuttering from the sound system blending with the buzzing of their bumbled brains. A doona of dullness descended on their drained minds. Their movements were as sluggish as a sober gypsy.
Suddenly they were startled from their reverie, awakened from this status tetrahydrocannibus by a piercing bright light emerging from the nostril of the bull's head carving on the wall. The bright light expanded and contorted- transforming into the humanoid form of the late great grandmaster, walter Lindrum. Then, as if this was not in itself miracle enough, the great man spoke unto the two of them and spake thus: "Look at yourselves, you strawberry fools, wasting your manly good looks and charming charisma in this futile pursuit of gunja giggles and hooch ha-has!" And then Walter showed them the light... and they were much impressed by his knowledge of 1980s Dutch imported lamp shades. He told them of an ancient billiards cue, constructed many centuries before the year of the Lord. Legend had it that this mighty cue would impart powers of billiards dexterity unto the user, so great that all who played with it never were vanquished. Lindrum's wind had lifted the haze from their spaced-out minds, much like flatus clears space in a packed lift. Their goal was clear: to seek out this mythical cue. Cue atmospheric music and drop curtains.

Thought of the day - Hunger will remain a constant, k, as long as spliff consumption is proportional to stroopwafel consumption.

Gyros tally = 2

Life in Amsterdam

2006-07-20T01:50:00.000-07:00

Following the massive, multinational success of PABLO's semi-autobiographical account- The world through the eyes of a Badger Hunter- and the oceans of liquid cash that flowed into their previously parched purses, PABLO had lost all motivation for seeking badgers or seeking anything at all. Instead, they moved to Amsterda, living a debauched, Dionysian existence of whoring, hooch-smoking and hedonism.
A typical day would begin with an early afternoon shhhpliff and stroopwaffel followed by several more spliffs, linearly increasing their desire for stroopwaffel. They would wile away the remaining daylight gours at the local Billiardshhh Hall- the accumulation of points, the only point to their near-pointless existence.

Though at first this new life of self-indulgence, stroopwafels and spliffs seemed perfect, a vast cavern of emptiness gradually opened up within the hearts of the one-time badger-enthusiasts. At first they tried to fill this void with drugs and sexual misadventure, but day by day they came to realise that they lacked the sense of fullfilment that they had once enjoyed when traveling the world in search of badgers.

What they needed was a cause. Badger loving was no longer an option. Their publishing agent Harper-Collins had claimed copyright ownership of the very act of loving a badger. And the badger hunters were prohibited from maintaining their long-running internet blog about their badger-loving escapades. The continuing legal pesterings of Martin Honza Jansky also made life dificult for PABLO, as he tried to sue the badger-enthusiasts for violating his privacy, and breaching various copyrights, just as he violated and breached the innocence of Czech schoolchildren.

A Brief Summary of Billiards for the Unenlightened

2006-07-20T01:33:00.000-07:00

Billiards is a noble game with a rich history dating back to the Ancient Greek and Minoan civilisations. It is today practised by devout students of the divine art, as epitomised by the PABLO. The game is played with 3 balls - a red ball and two cueballs known as 'PLAIN' and 'SPOT'. Points are scored by such shots as the CANON, WINNING HAZARD and LOSING HAZARD, as well as advanced techniques such as the 4 and 5 point LINDRUM, and the TIEBREAK HAZARD. Tactical manoevres such as the DOUBLE BALK are often employed by experienced practitioners.

Arguably the game's greatest player was Walter Lindrum, born in Kalgoorlie Western Australia. Lindrum won a string of world titles and once scoreed a run of 4167 points.

For your interest feel free to peruse the following more detailed articles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lindrum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiards