It's just occurred to me that it's Easter.
The clues were all there. Varwell's blog stated "Happy Easter", there was an article on the BBC website about pious Filipinos crucifying themselves, and the supermarket here in Vitoria was rampacked full of chocolates, eggs, and chocolate eggs. But only now did I put these sly clues together, and like Holmes (Sherlock, not Eamonn) on a trail, everything suddenly became clear - it's Good Friday. Good grief.
I feel that Easter is a holiday that has got a little lost over the years. Two millennia ago, when the rabbit pushed a rock down a hill and set Jesus free, or something like that, no-one could have imagined that this would transmogrify into a celebration of buns, chocolate eggs and little chickens. We have some giant bunny bounding around, and we paint faces on boiled eggs. What's going on? Whereas Christmas has remained a solemn event free of hype and marketing, Easter - which I'd have thought was the defining period of Christianity - has become a gaudy exercise in surrealism. It's just a few bonus days off work, and nobody, save the very pious (re: the aforementioned Filipinos) seems to take it very seriously. Which I suppose is inevitable when the current celebration resembles some kind of psychadelic kids' cartoon.
Anyway, for me, not being a Christian, not working a job with conventional hours, and not even believing in rabbits, Easter looks to bypass me with minimum of fuss. I got onshore yesterday, and am currently recovering from this in a beach-side hotel. I stuck very much to my plan, formulated excitedly over days doing nothing on the rig, and drank a bottle of wine, four beers, and ranted and raved to myself - all within the confines of my hotel room (I didn't want to be arrested). The music, however, went askew, and shifted from banging techno to Radiohead then Leonard Cohen. This created a morose end to the night, and is likely the blame of my upsetting dream (an old cat sitting on top of a chair meiows, tries to scratch me when I stroke it, then seizes up and tumbles onto the ground! It dies a few moments later and then, when my mother enters the room, it's faded into a mere wisp of fur.)
But a coffee, and maybe a second one soon, looks set to revive me and gear me up for my day of... nothing. Yes, the ennui of existence continues. I've just been two weeks offshore doing nothing, but for a day and an evening of labour, and now I'm onshore in Vitoria to do nothing. Nothing but wait, wait until I'm needed to go offshore again, to pull a few things out of a hole, connect them to my laptop and then let the electronics do the work for me. Then I can go home.
So for now it seems I can relax and enjoy life alone in a hotel room. I reckon I've got at least ten days. A similar thing happened last year, with time to kill alone in Vitoria, though just for five days, and I quickly spiralled into a routine of wild wine drinking in the evenings, and daytimes of surly black coffee drinking followed by an expedition to buy another bottle of wine. I've vowed to be more constructive this time, and use my free days to study Portuguese, explore the city, maybe meet some locals, and be a lovely, wholesome chap.
We'll see how that works out. For now, in celebration of the day and as season dictates, I'm going to nail a rabbit to a cross and chuck it down a hill. Happy Eastermas!
Friday, 21 March 2008
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Daddy By A Mile
It took me less than half an hour to get to over 6km in the rowing machine - all by myself. It's taken about 100 men with tons of heavy machinery two days to stick a bunch of pipe a mere 5km down a pre-existing hole, gravity of course on their side. Who's the daddy?
Thursday, 13 March 2008
Radio Ubiquity
Like people, every rig is a beautiful and unique individual, with so much to give to the world, and with so much we can learn from and be enriched. And, of course, loud and unsubtle, pumping out fumes, and from which we can’t wait to get away from. One of the quirks of the rig I’m on now – which is spacious, clean and with two-man rooms – is the speaker in the ceiling of every room including some corridors blaring out the radio. On the wall somewhere is a volume control, ranging from “silent” to “uncomfortably loud”. This being Brazil, a nation not known for peaceful reflection, “uncomfortably loud” is usually favoured.
Why it is that the Brazilian must live his life surrounded by din and chaos, I’m not sure. Whether I’m eating in the mess room, checking email in the third party office, or pumping heavy iron in the gym, I seem to be followed by this radio cacophony. Mercifully, in rooms with no-one else present I will dive to the volume dial and enjoy some relative silence, but frequently I am forced to endure the constant numbing stimuli of pointless sound. From an extensive study of the last five days, I have discovered that there are two songs currently popular in Brazil.
The first is Spears, i.e. Britney. The song she’s singing goes on about “Do you wanna piece of me?” and has a lot of processed vocals to an edgy rhythm. “Do you wanna piece of me,” her robot voice squeals. After much thinking – five days’ worth in fact – I have to say, “Sorry Spears, not any more.” Spears was quite lovely as a 17-year-old in skimpy schoolgirl’s clothing, but ever since she had two children, shaved her head and went completely crazy, I’ve gone off her a bit. Mind you, after a couple of drinks...
The next song is infinitely more inane than the Spears effort. The Spears effort, to be fair, has some production values and a pertinent message, something about her soul being devoured for the press and public’s gratification, as though a trafficked prostitute crudely exposing herself. But the other song flying high in the Brazilian consciousness is about a rainbow. A rainbow “so high” to be more precise. The singer of the song, if he is to be believed (which I think he is, as he sounds so desperately earnest) wants to fly, to this rainbow so high. Hence the lyrics: “Oh I, wanna fly, to a rainbow, so high.”
These nine words constitute the entire lyrical content to the song, and are heavily repeated, sometimes with urgency, sometimes with anxious reflection, always with great earnestness. The song renders me helpless with astonishment. Astonishment at the painful sincerity of it, and at the strong feeling that in this country of 150 million people I am the first person to actually listen to the words of the song and wonder just quite what the hell is going on. There are no other lyrics, nothing to give context to this earnest and fantastical desire, just the heavy repetiton sing in a variety of tempos.
I was trying to imagine who the target audience for this song is. It’s not clubby enough for clubs, not boyband enough for teen girls and it’s nowhere near “urban” enough for cool kids. But it occured to me: it is precisely inane enough for proles. In Orwell’s 1984, a book that acquires a finer vintage with every passing year, music is generated automatically by a machine and finely balanced to fit and tweak the mind of the proletarian majorty. This song, with its cheerful yet utterly hopeless and inane message, and inoffensively bland Euro bounce, seems safe enough to pump through the favellas that swamp Brazilian cities and keep the inhabitants placated, despite the rampant inequality, sub-standard conditions, drug and gun epidemics and profound hopelessness in the face of police corruption.
I suspect I’ve given more thought than is strictly warranted for this three minute wonder.
Fortunately, the radio in my room appears either not to work or to be deliberately disabled. Unfortunately, my Brazlian room-mate compensates for this by switching the TV on at all possible opportunities. He walks into the room, turns on the TV, and walks straight out again. If he’s in the room at all, for any purpose, the TV will be on, regardless of whether he’s paying any attention to it at all. Usually he seems to be making a pretence of watching it, but I suspect it’s going right through him, as light will travel through a vacuum. It’s just anonymous stimuli to keep the darkness of the mind at bay. He would certainly be sleeping with the TV on, but on the first night, when I heard his curtains draw and the TV still on, I made sure he switched it off, and since then he’s been very well-behaved.
It looks likely I’ll soon be moved from this over-stimulated rig to the sterility of a hotel room anyway. Yesterday was my day of work, and now my job is done for the next week or two. This job is a particularly straightforward affair – easy, you might call it – so there’s no use for me until my equipment returns from whence it came, that is kilometres underground. So, for reasons of bedspace I may be shunted to a beach-side hotel in Vitoria, where my TV and radio will be kept firmly off, and all thought of Spears and rainbows put aside. And in their place? Well, a beer of course!
Why it is that the Brazilian must live his life surrounded by din and chaos, I’m not sure. Whether I’m eating in the mess room, checking email in the third party office, or pumping heavy iron in the gym, I seem to be followed by this radio cacophony. Mercifully, in rooms with no-one else present I will dive to the volume dial and enjoy some relative silence, but frequently I am forced to endure the constant numbing stimuli of pointless sound. From an extensive study of the last five days, I have discovered that there are two songs currently popular in Brazil.
The first is Spears, i.e. Britney. The song she’s singing goes on about “Do you wanna piece of me?” and has a lot of processed vocals to an edgy rhythm. “Do you wanna piece of me,” her robot voice squeals. After much thinking – five days’ worth in fact – I have to say, “Sorry Spears, not any more.” Spears was quite lovely as a 17-year-old in skimpy schoolgirl’s clothing, but ever since she had two children, shaved her head and went completely crazy, I’ve gone off her a bit. Mind you, after a couple of drinks...
The next song is infinitely more inane than the Spears effort. The Spears effort, to be fair, has some production values and a pertinent message, something about her soul being devoured for the press and public’s gratification, as though a trafficked prostitute crudely exposing herself. But the other song flying high in the Brazilian consciousness is about a rainbow. A rainbow “so high” to be more precise. The singer of the song, if he is to be believed (which I think he is, as he sounds so desperately earnest) wants to fly, to this rainbow so high. Hence the lyrics: “Oh I, wanna fly, to a rainbow, so high.”
These nine words constitute the entire lyrical content to the song, and are heavily repeated, sometimes with urgency, sometimes with anxious reflection, always with great earnestness. The song renders me helpless with astonishment. Astonishment at the painful sincerity of it, and at the strong feeling that in this country of 150 million people I am the first person to actually listen to the words of the song and wonder just quite what the hell is going on. There are no other lyrics, nothing to give context to this earnest and fantastical desire, just the heavy repetiton sing in a variety of tempos.
I was trying to imagine who the target audience for this song is. It’s not clubby enough for clubs, not boyband enough for teen girls and it’s nowhere near “urban” enough for cool kids. But it occured to me: it is precisely inane enough for proles. In Orwell’s 1984, a book that acquires a finer vintage with every passing year, music is generated automatically by a machine and finely balanced to fit and tweak the mind of the proletarian majorty. This song, with its cheerful yet utterly hopeless and inane message, and inoffensively bland Euro bounce, seems safe enough to pump through the favellas that swamp Brazilian cities and keep the inhabitants placated, despite the rampant inequality, sub-standard conditions, drug and gun epidemics and profound hopelessness in the face of police corruption.
I suspect I’ve given more thought than is strictly warranted for this three minute wonder.
Fortunately, the radio in my room appears either not to work or to be deliberately disabled. Unfortunately, my Brazlian room-mate compensates for this by switching the TV on at all possible opportunities. He walks into the room, turns on the TV, and walks straight out again. If he’s in the room at all, for any purpose, the TV will be on, regardless of whether he’s paying any attention to it at all. Usually he seems to be making a pretence of watching it, but I suspect it’s going right through him, as light will travel through a vacuum. It’s just anonymous stimuli to keep the darkness of the mind at bay. He would certainly be sleeping with the TV on, but on the first night, when I heard his curtains draw and the TV still on, I made sure he switched it off, and since then he’s been very well-behaved.
It looks likely I’ll soon be moved from this over-stimulated rig to the sterility of a hotel room anyway. Yesterday was my day of work, and now my job is done for the next week or two. This job is a particularly straightforward affair – easy, you might call it – so there’s no use for me until my equipment returns from whence it came, that is kilometres underground. So, for reasons of bedspace I may be shunted to a beach-side hotel in Vitoria, where my TV and radio will be kept firmly off, and all thought of Spears and rainbows put aside. And in their place? Well, a beer of course!
Sunday, 9 March 2008
Eating And Drinking
It has come to my attention that I am eating and drinking far too much.
Two weeks now in Brazil, no work done, but almost every day two large meals. There is no choice here but to eat out, and when you do eat out the portions are baby-sized, i.e. the size of an actual baby. Then in the evenings, to kill the ennui of my existence, beer must be consumed for hours. It's tricky to judge exactly how much I'm drinking as the Brazilians go for dinky-sized glasses, i.e. a lady's serving. Thus a couple of gulps sees the glass emptied, and another beer ordered.
This fortnight of gluttony does not stand alone in 2008. Rather it is the trend. The month prior I had the good fortune to be allowed some rest at home, in Aberdeen. Alas, I didn't have the good sense to regulate my food and drink intake. While the month was spent productively, bringing order and charm to my beloved Market Street flat, it also included Bacchanalian levels of guzzling. I drank almost every night. When Green was at hand to cook, at least my evening meals had some level of quality, but while he was gallavanting elsewhere I was forced to resort to kebabs and pizza - an all too easy allure as premise selling these sordid items are within twenty steps of my flat.
The upshot of this is that a new belt era looms. Back in the day, before starting this job 16 months ago, I was sitting happy on Belt Setting 2. Sometimes, after a particularly large meal - usually a curry - I might notch up to Setting 3, but this would be a temporary adjustment. But within six months of starting work, or should that be "work", I'd shot up to Setting 4. 4! But it was a 4 that could sometimes manage a 3, and I could still suck my stomach in one beaches to look svelte and macho.
No longer. Belt Setting 5 looms ominously close. Already my belt protests, but I hold out, hoping for a reversal of fortune. But in this Space Year Of ZOOB, there can be no turning back, and expansion seems the only likely future. My belt, I note with worry, has only 7 settings. Should I ever expand beyond 7, I have vowed to kill myself.
But perhaps there is another way. Later today, I go offshore, and may have up to six hours of work to do. Rig food being self-service and usually terrible in Brazil, I can moderate my eating. There'll be a gym, and in my large amount of free time, I can exercise. Beer is unavailable. Some disciple and hard work, and maybe there's a way back. There is hope.
Disciple? Hard work? Oh dear. Nev360, the inflated version, is on his way.
Two weeks now in Brazil, no work done, but almost every day two large meals. There is no choice here but to eat out, and when you do eat out the portions are baby-sized, i.e. the size of an actual baby. Then in the evenings, to kill the ennui of my existence, beer must be consumed for hours. It's tricky to judge exactly how much I'm drinking as the Brazilians go for dinky-sized glasses, i.e. a lady's serving. Thus a couple of gulps sees the glass emptied, and another beer ordered.
This fortnight of gluttony does not stand alone in 2008. Rather it is the trend. The month prior I had the good fortune to be allowed some rest at home, in Aberdeen. Alas, I didn't have the good sense to regulate my food and drink intake. While the month was spent productively, bringing order and charm to my beloved Market Street flat, it also included Bacchanalian levels of guzzling. I drank almost every night. When Green was at hand to cook, at least my evening meals had some level of quality, but while he was gallavanting elsewhere I was forced to resort to kebabs and pizza - an all too easy allure as premise selling these sordid items are within twenty steps of my flat.
The upshot of this is that a new belt era looms. Back in the day, before starting this job 16 months ago, I was sitting happy on Belt Setting 2. Sometimes, after a particularly large meal - usually a curry - I might notch up to Setting 3, but this would be a temporary adjustment. But within six months of starting work, or should that be "work", I'd shot up to Setting 4. 4! But it was a 4 that could sometimes manage a 3, and I could still suck my stomach in one beaches to look svelte and macho.
No longer. Belt Setting 5 looms ominously close. Already my belt protests, but I hold out, hoping for a reversal of fortune. But in this Space Year Of ZOOB, there can be no turning back, and expansion seems the only likely future. My belt, I note with worry, has only 7 settings. Should I ever expand beyond 7, I have vowed to kill myself.
But perhaps there is another way. Later today, I go offshore, and may have up to six hours of work to do. Rig food being self-service and usually terrible in Brazil, I can moderate my eating. There'll be a gym, and in my large amount of free time, I can exercise. Beer is unavailable. Some disciple and hard work, and maybe there's a way back. There is hope.
Disciple? Hard work? Oh dear. Nev360, the inflated version, is on his way.
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
In-Flight Entertainment
Upon arriving in London Gatwick, the police boarded our plane, and arrested a crazy girl a few seats in front. I'd slept quite well during the flight, but it seemed like she might have been causing a disturbance, and certainly kicked up a bit of a fuss when the police arrived. They took her off the plane, and I saw her a few minutes later when leaving, as she was being held down in a corner. I wish I could have listened to her protests longer, as the insults I glimped briefly were gems
My favourite was, "Are you going to take my pajamas off, you fat atheist?"
My favourite was, "Are you going to take my pajamas off, you fat atheist?"
Sunday, 13 January 2008
Hotel And Base
Life for the past five days has been a steady but unadventurous mix of hotel indolence, insomniac exhaustion, and slogging on the Schlumburger base in the stifling heat.
We got onshore on Tuesday, in good spirits. The past 24 hours had been gruelling, as we'd rigged down and packed away our stuff at the end of the job, but with the job successful and a beer immediately in hand upon arrival at the hotel, life under the warm sun seemed good. The goodness continued as our kit didn't return to base for days, meaning we had the time to ourselves to laze by the pool, sip gin, and burn ourselves silly. I avoided the worst ravages of the sun, but my colleagues, "The Smiler" and "Mr Vinegar", were less careful and turned a marvellous shade of luminescent red. Mr Vinegar especially excelled in his redness, an gave a great impression of a panda due to having kept his sunglasses on.
It took a downturn from then on, alas. During these two days, free of worries, filled with the sun's warmth and the peace of our hotel on a hill, life had been sedate and almost resembled a holiday. To perk things up, about ten Irish girls appeared, and wore their bikinis by the poolside. This kind of thing is what I joined my company for. But all good things must come to an end, and in a cruel double whammy, our kit finally arrived from the rig onto the base, and joining the many Irish girls were a mass of loutish Irish boys and lots of Irish old people. In one fell swoop, indolence was replaced by duty - and the sunloungers were hogged by the Irish from early morning.
That cruel day was Friday, also the day The Smiler and Mr Vinegar - who had been excellent company - escaped on a flight home. Replacing them was a new start, a youth with boyband good looks, hence who'll be referred to simply as "Boyband".
Since Boyband's arrival, there has been no relaxing by the pool and life has turned tough. Trying to sort out two sets of equipment in a very hot Schlumberger base, and dealing with a load of tricky logistics involving six different companies. This is our first time in Trinidad, so everything is setting a precedent. Progress is in small bursts, but is at least moving in the right direction.
I wish the Irish would leave though. Dominating the pool, they lack the spark that I've known in some of the lovely Irish fate has thrown me with in the past. They're here for a wedding, which took place last night and was a terrible affair. Much of the reception seemed decidely subdued, but after I'd retired to my room the volume was pumped up with some rather inappropriate ragga-style music I'm sure wasn't appreciated by the grandmothers of the party. It took a downhill turn as Abba medleys were introduced, followed by rapid fire medleys of the worst songs ever written. This was accompanied by enthusiastic "whoop whoops" of the loutish Irish boys. I would have thought an Irish wedding would have some charm, but the only nod to Irishness was some ludicrous pumped-up phoney Irish trance tune - which elicted some especially boisterous whooping from the "lads". There was no charm.
God knows when the damn Irish will leave, but I'm hoping that my exit will be some time this week. If events tomorrow can fall into place well, then a flight back to Aberdeen will be forthcoming. Whoop whoop!
We got onshore on Tuesday, in good spirits. The past 24 hours had been gruelling, as we'd rigged down and packed away our stuff at the end of the job, but with the job successful and a beer immediately in hand upon arrival at the hotel, life under the warm sun seemed good. The goodness continued as our kit didn't return to base for days, meaning we had the time to ourselves to laze by the pool, sip gin, and burn ourselves silly. I avoided the worst ravages of the sun, but my colleagues, "The Smiler" and "Mr Vinegar", were less careful and turned a marvellous shade of luminescent red. Mr Vinegar especially excelled in his redness, an gave a great impression of a panda due to having kept his sunglasses on.
It took a downturn from then on, alas. During these two days, free of worries, filled with the sun's warmth and the peace of our hotel on a hill, life had been sedate and almost resembled a holiday. To perk things up, about ten Irish girls appeared, and wore their bikinis by the poolside. This kind of thing is what I joined my company for. But all good things must come to an end, and in a cruel double whammy, our kit finally arrived from the rig onto the base, and joining the many Irish girls were a mass of loutish Irish boys and lots of Irish old people. In one fell swoop, indolence was replaced by duty - and the sunloungers were hogged by the Irish from early morning.
That cruel day was Friday, also the day The Smiler and Mr Vinegar - who had been excellent company - escaped on a flight home. Replacing them was a new start, a youth with boyband good looks, hence who'll be referred to simply as "Boyband".
Since Boyband's arrival, there has been no relaxing by the pool and life has turned tough. Trying to sort out two sets of equipment in a very hot Schlumberger base, and dealing with a load of tricky logistics involving six different companies. This is our first time in Trinidad, so everything is setting a precedent. Progress is in small bursts, but is at least moving in the right direction.
I wish the Irish would leave though. Dominating the pool, they lack the spark that I've known in some of the lovely Irish fate has thrown me with in the past. They're here for a wedding, which took place last night and was a terrible affair. Much of the reception seemed decidely subdued, but after I'd retired to my room the volume was pumped up with some rather inappropriate ragga-style music I'm sure wasn't appreciated by the grandmothers of the party. It took a downhill turn as Abba medleys were introduced, followed by rapid fire medleys of the worst songs ever written. This was accompanied by enthusiastic "whoop whoops" of the loutish Irish boys. I would have thought an Irish wedding would have some charm, but the only nod to Irishness was some ludicrous pumped-up phoney Irish trance tune - which elicted some especially boisterous whooping from the "lads". There was no charm.
God knows when the damn Irish will leave, but I'm hoping that my exit will be some time this week. If events tomorrow can fall into place well, then a flight back to Aberdeen will be forthcoming. Whoop whoop!
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