Thursday 9 September 2010

Mo' Zart, Mo' Blues.

I've been away for a few days and, just before I went, I felt like I really needed it. Most of the comedians on Twitter had turned on poor Morrissey just because he's racist and I felt sad. I love Morrissey. Leave him alone. He loves everyone (who is white and English/Irish or beautiful and Mexican). Why must comedians always attack racists? But I got home yesterday and was proud to find out that not all comedians on our circuit go the boring, obvious, completely natural route of hating bigots. I might go to see this lovely production: http://www.mayflower.org.uk/event.asp?show=STAND11

The thing is, the Edinburgh Fringe is so utterly stressful that it's always best to book a few days away somewhere nice right after you get back. But I am Michael Legge. I do things differently. I had the most stress-free, relaxing Fringe this year so decided to go away somewhere completely horrible: Vienna.

It started well. I was met at Vienna Airport by Alex, a distant relative of Muki's. He is very young, very handsome and wears a baseball cap. I should totally hate him but he was just lovely. His English is pretty much perfect but his one error made this meeting wonderful to me. I thanked him for picking me up and he replied "It's a pressure". I like him. I've also come up with a new theory that holds no water but one that I will stick to. All young people are evil unless their phone is shit. Alex's phone is really shit. Plus he didn't roll his eyes when an obscure Beach Boys' song came on the radio. He clicked his fingers and did an embarrassing seat-dance. I really like Alex.

I also liked the drive from the airport to Vienna because I liked laughing at all the foreign words, a bit like Morrissey probably does. If only our roads had dich and fahrt written on signs everywhere. Plus I saw the best, and most unlikely, bit of graffiti in Austria along that road: "Fuck DFS".

Alex is Austrian, not Viennese. I hate all people from Vienna and everything in Vienna (except the zoo, it was really nice and the animals are endangered in the real world but well looked after there). The people there are so rude that I started to walk around thinking "Oh, think you're rude? I'll fucking show you rude". After being bumped into for the 500th time in an hour I started to treat walking down the street like I was trying to score a touchdown. Push that old lady, shoulder that child, push and shove everyone, now I'm at a museum. SCORE! You might think that I'm being a bit overly sensitive but genuinely there was barely a minute went by when someone didn't walk in my way and I started to take it personally. Muki tried to calm me down initially but after hearing my complaints so often just told me to shut up. How happy I was back at the airport, half an hour before leaving, when Muki grumpily said "I'm sick of this. They really do all just walk in your way". I love it when I'm right, smug face on.

So, don't like the people, what about the place? Meh is the best description and even then I'm being generous. How can so many beautiful and historical buildings be so uninspiring and dull? In a way, you have to congratulate them for doing that. The rest of the city looks like a really shit market. It's clean yet somehow disgusting. Again, well done for that achievement. Still, they do have the Donauturm, a revolving platform that gives you a view of the whole city from a height of 165 metres. The tower promises a beautiful restaurant and glamorous bar. I'm telling you now, it's a very tall greasy spoon, that's all. If, like me, you were born and raised in Newtownards then the Donauturm is basically Cafolla's in the sky. I even felt like I was bunking off church just being there. Mind you the booze was big. I do like big booze.

But the worst was kept for last. Jerk had been ill just before I left and, although I knew she was in good care, I just wanted to get home to see her. I'll be home by 8pm and I'll have a few hours with her before bed. Perfect. It should go without saying that my flight was delayed by an hour and a half. FUCK! Fine. I'll be home by 9.30. I'll still have an hour or so with her before I'll collapse into sleep. That's do-able. Then right outside the departure gate, just before boarding the plane, an announcement was made. In German. It took me a while to figure it out but apparently all hand luggage had to be re-checked because of weight issues. I had no hand luggage except for Robin Ince's book (although that is full of obvious mental baggage) but just about every other fucker there had decided to bring a massive suitcase on as hand luggage. The stupid fucking cunts. Why do people do that? This delayed the flight for another half hour while everyone babbled and squabbled in German and William Orbit and I just looked grumpy (yeah, you read that right). Finally we get on the plane and I sit next to a "mother" and child.

Here we go again. As if waiting for ages on the runway listening to a very sarcastic Lenny Kravitz's Fly Away on a loop wasn't bad enough, I was sat right by the worst Mother in Austrian history. Oh, you can Mrs. Fritzl all you want but at least when her child was making noise they shut her up. Two and a half fucking hours of hearing "lowalowalowalowalowa" over and over and over again while he punched and kicked the seat in front of him and then stood on his seat and then screamed and then sat down again and went "mamamamamamamamamamamamamamamama" and then blew raspberries and then shouted and kicked and screamed and punched. All the while his Mother was engrossed, calmly and relaxed, in her magazine. Did the boy have anything to read? Did he have anything to do? FUCK NO! How could Mummy remember things like that when she MUST buy the German version of Heat for the flight? She's a fucking cunt and she had me over a barrel. You can't tell people off in the air. No matter how little yoghurt you throw it still looks bad in the sky. But, after much circling above Heathrow, we eventually did land. And that is when I came into my own.

"Congratulations", I said.

"Sorry?", she replied.

"I said congratulations".

"Erm...?"

"On being the only one on this plane who could successfully ignore your son".

Her face tightened up. I had made her cross. Good.

"Next time you travel with him", I said. "Why not give him something to do so he's not bored? Bring him a book or a game. That way he's not disturbing everyone else".

"It's none of your business", she said, really angry now.

That's when the woman sitting in front of her joined in. "Well, I wanted to read my book but I couldn't. You had no problem reading your magazine".

And then the woman next to her "He kicked my seat the whole flight".

YES! YES! People are rising up against the rude. Finally! I'm so thrilled for us all. Maybe there is hope amongst the thoughtless, rude cunts that we all have to suffer every single fucking day of our pigging lives. The Mother then apologised! You see? All we did was tell her what she was doing (admittedly, I did it sarcastically, you may choose a more polite approach) and it got through to her. She realised that not everyone likes her little angel. This could be the greatest moment in this woman's life and I hope that's how she see's it. All of a sudden her friends won't be embarrassed to be seen in public with her. They might even start inviting her round to theirs like they used to before she gave birth and became the single biggest selfish bastard on the planet. I felt good.

So good that I did a good deed.I saw William Orbit looking lost in arrivals and then passed a man holding a piece of card with "William Orbit" written on it. I went back to the man and pointed William out to him. William got his car without fuss. I did that. And he'll never know. I am a fucking saint.

I got home at 10.30 and stayed up with Jerk until 1am drinking wine. That's right. We both drank wine. So what?

Tomorrow, I will tell you all about the massive cunt we met on Vienna's underground train. He is such a total cunt that you might want to hunt him down, find him and kick his teeth in. I won't stop you from doing that.

www.michaellegge.info

2 comments:

Blackout said...

The mother could well go the other way now and imprison the little bastard in a cellar so he doesn't bother anyone ever again. Still, it's one way to fix it.

Is Jerk better that she was? Give her a hug from me.

Michael Legge said...

Jerk's doing great now, thanks.