Hace un par de años desarrollé una especie de miedo a volar que me impedía disfrutar de un viaje. Sin embargo, a base de vuelos y más vuelos ya lo he superado. Bueno, lo cierto es que me sigo sintiendo incómodo dentro de un avión, pero he encontrado un método infalible basado en relatos sobre la prisión de Guantánamo y lo que allí acontece: la privación sensorial. La técnica es sencilla, y de lo que se trata es de mantener ocupados todos los sentidos. Tocar un lápiz al escribir, oler un café, saborear unas “pretzels”, oír lo que tengas en el iPod, y ver la multitud de textos que uno debe llevar en la mochila en estos casos. Todo eso al mismo tiempo si se puede.

Y así transcurrió mi último viaje a Valencia. Un viaje relámpago en el que pasé tanto tiempo en Valencia como lo que duraron los viajes de ida y vuelta conjuntamente (y “sensorialmente” privados). Fueron 30 horas viajando para pasar 30 horas en Valencia. Con todo ello, la verdad, mereció la pena. Me dio tiempo acabar varias cosas del trabajo y a disfrutar de algunas lecturas placenteras durante el camino. Y al final del viaje, volví a Manchester con la maleta llena y los huevos vacíos. Ahora es tiempo de recargar las baterías.

¡Hay que ver lo como pasa el tiempo! Llevo ya un año y tres meses en la (en mi opinión mal llamada) Pérfida Albión. Recuerdo que cuando llegué el olor de Inglaterra me chocó. El curry picante en los restaurantes, el amargor de la Ale (cerveza local) y el olor a podredumbre de los “meaderos” de todos y cada uno de los locales (incluídos los más “posh”). Pero al poco de llegar empecé a perder el olfato. Nada, un año yendo al médico y la doctora no le ha dado importancia. El problema es un tanto serio porque no huelo ni el asfalto recién puesto ni cuando se me quema la comida. A veces tengo como ligeras recuperaciones… pero el espejismo se desvanece a las pocas horas. ¿Será algo de esta tierra que me jode este sentido?

La cuestión es que llevo tiempo sin oler lo que me rodea, y eso es algo que me molesta porque yo soy mucho de vista/olfato. Más de una vez (y añado, MÁS DE UNA Y DOS Y TRES) he salido del váter pensando “haishhhh, otra vez que cago sin olor, la comida británica me sienta divina”. Hasta que veo la cara del pobre desgraciado que entra después de mi y cambio inmediatamente de opinión. Cuando miras a los ojos de alguien que quiere matarte y vomitar al mismo tiempo te das cuenta de la cantidad de matices olfativos que estas perdiendo. ¡Hasta echo de menos poder oler mis propios excrementos! ¿Es grave, doctor?

Esta tarde me he pasado por el supermercado, después de completar una dura jornada de trabajo, para comprar unas cervezas. Como no huelo una mierda, y mi sentido del gusto está lógicamente afectado, me he decidido por comprar las cervezas más baratas del LIDL. ¿La marca? “Excalibur” (tócate los huevos). He llegado a casa hace un par de horas. Me he preparado una pizza y tampoco he prestado atención a los ingredientes y cantidades. Total, ¿para qué? Pero al dar el primer bocado he podido diferenciar que el queso era Cheddar, y no Mozarrela (más caro). “Mierda de pizza, pero al menos he recuperado algo del olfato/sabor”. Trago de cerveza y… ya se pueden meter por el “orto” los del LIDL la Excalibur de los cojones. Por lo visto hay tres tipos principales de cervezas: las lager, las ale, y las de mierda (como la Excalibur). Si el rey Arturo levantara la cabeza…

Pero lo que más me ha molestado de mi recuperación olfativa no es eso, es el darme cuenta de algo que, seguramente, todo el mundo menos yo era consciente. Para mi es un decubrimiento y, la verdad, me afecta como ser humano y defensor de la buena praxis. Amigos, amigas, enemigos, enemiga, señores diputados, su santidad el Papa, grandes y pequeños… ¡me huelen los pies!

Corran la voz antes de que sea demasiado tarde.

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All started right after work. I was going home while thinking what movie I should see and what to cook for dinner. A friend of mine, let’s call her Lady T to not to give any real name, invited me for a drink in a pub nearby the University. In this pub I met for the first time Lady K. I usually drink faster than anyone else, but Lady K could drink beer as fast as I do (or even faster). She’s a proper Mancunian lady! The thing is that Lady T, Lady K and I decided to go for a meal. Heading the restaurant, the girls proposed to drink another booze before the dinner. I realized then that my liver would not be happy the next day but, what the heck! It’s Friday!

After a tasty dinner with Australian wine we started again our drinking routine at pubs. My head started spinning and I decided that, perhaps, I should go home. Getting out of the last pub, I was preparing my departure when, suddenly, someone pull me into a taxi cab. It was Lady T. Both girls kidnaped me and brought me into a club. The plan was keep drinking and dancing. Now I was afraid of a liver collapse or something worst.

The club was a good place. I loved it. Music was good, decoration was great, and one of the waiters was a pure geek. He even understood my “O R’Lyeh?” T-shirt. And I was there, totally wasted, listening “Don’t Stop Believing” of Journey…

… when Lady T started asking for Tequila shots! OK, I was gonna die anyway so, let’s make it quick, I switched to Gin and Tonic. I had so much fun. After some blurry memories, next thing I remember is waking up at home with a terrible hangover. I said to myself: “No more drinks in a month!”.

But, my friends, the flesh is weak and this very same night I went to another party, drank almost as much as the day before, and even engaging in a discussion with a psychopath that wants to establish a business about “killing bad people”… but that’s another story (I may tell you one day).

P.S. I leave you with a piece of advice. Whenever you decide to drink back-to-back with the locals of Manchester, please, double check that you have aspirins at home.

Once upon a time, a weird guy from l’Olivereta (a neighbourhood of Valencia, Spain) promised that he would never buy a computer. This person already had some experience with an Amstrad CPC 464 back in the late 1980′s. And he liked it! But he was a bit afraid of this new fashion by which everyone was acquiring a PC and talking about games and something called MS-DOS and the brand new Windows 3. Few months after his promise, he bought a PC. This machine, baptised as ‘Judas’, had 64 megabytes of memory and 3.2 Gb of hard disk. It was, by far, the best computer in the neighbourhood. And not for the first time, not at all for the last time, Toni (the very same that is writing these lines) broke a promise.

I had my first experience with the Internet with an Olivetti Intel 286 in the Faculty of Biological Sciences, in Valencia. You could spend like 30 seconds to load a text message, and only about five minutes for a low quality picture, thanks to the new and successful GIF format. There were like 20 computers in that room, and you had to book it a week before. Everybody was holding the screen like a baby to prevent anyone to look at it. Then, you went out of the building, look through the window, and you could actually corroborate that most of the screens were showing naked chicks. That was the time before Napster, when 99% of the Internet was porn (now it’s just 95%).

A couple of years later I bought a package from Yazztel (a Spanish Telecom company) to connect to the Internet. It was something like 90 pesetas (former Spanish currency: 0.5 EUR, 0.7 USD, 0.45 GBP) an hour. My brother and I agreed that we should put 100 pesetas in a pot every hour we spent in the Internet. At the end of the month we gave this money to my mum so she can pay the telephone bill (I was then living at mum’s house). We never reached a quarter of the actual bill. And this video is dedicated to the mums of the world, the first sponsors of our Internet connections:

One day I was drunk (as usual) and I came home. It was like 2 or 3 a.m. Probably Saturday (I don’t know). But the think is that I was wondering, after an argument, whether Lager and Pilsner were the same type of beer. I closed the door quietly (my family was sleeping) and I went to my bedroom. I took the dictionary and… the answer was not clear enough. Then, I start smiling and I though… what about this Internet thingy? I connected the modem and put my coat over it. The noise was unbelievable annoying. Google, Youtube, Wikipedia or Facebook didn’t existed at all. I opened a Webcrawler page and typed: “Lager Pilsner beer difference”. And the answer I was craving was right in the screen. Easy. This very same day, everything changed.

Either by chance or just because my friends are nuts, I managed to convince 20 people to go from Manchester to Liverpool to watch “The Magic Flute”, last Mozart’s opera. A few of us dressed up, I looked like a decent person (something that doesn’t happen very often). Weather was crap (even for Manchester standards) but I had my brand new and fancy jacket (bought in an outlet, but don’t tell to anyone). Most of us arrived to the train station almost the minute before the train left, but we made it. And following the most pure British tradition, we bough a few beers for the trip. Did you know? You can drink alcohol and eat in the trains here in England, and even in theatres and the like! We still have to learn many thinks from the Britons.

After a couple of beers we got into the theatre. I’m pissing like hell, but I pretend I’m not and I try to enjoy the show. Powerful overture, curtains up, and here we go, a giant serpent and… what the f**k? It is supposed to be a snake in the first scene? And it’s a giant shrimp! They changed a bit the plot. They even changed a bunch of animals for a lion that reads the newspaper, a funny walking moose, and even a stork dressed like a whore. Music was, although, impressive. I have to admit that I kind of enjoyed these little details. Here’s the trailer that this group (the Welsh National Opera) prepared for The Magic Flute. It worth take a look:

Little break, time to pee. Actually, I wasn’t pissing at the begining, but 5 minutes before the second Act begins my bladder almost exploded. Once in the loo I went to the water-closet, it’s always my first choice. I heard someone inside but he is leaving. At this very moment a funny man enters and slipped in front of me. He looked and smiled at me! “Hey, are you OK? I’m waiting as well?”, I said. He kept smiling and looking at me. OK, I just wanted to enjoy a peaceful opera (and a piss-full moment) so I didn’t complain again. I went to this thing, that I don’t know how it is called in English, but it looks like a water trough for horses (“abrevadero” in Spanish). I don’t like it because, quite often, people splash at you. So I start my long lasting pee, but when I was almost finished I felt like someone looking at me. I turned right… and it was the same funny smiley guy that I saw before. A voyeur, a peeping Tom, looking at me (not always at my face) and smiling! Bloody hell. I better shake my willy and get out of here. Worst thing, he didn’t even gave me his eMail address!

Back in the seat, relax (now I can totally relax without any humid consequence), and let’s enjoy the second Act of the opera. At the end of the day, evening was good, opera was great, company was awesome, and I got a new “friend” in Liverpool. Next time I’ll pee in the street, it’ll be safer.

P.D. Me alegra que el blog funcionara hasta ahora, y espero para el nuevo una larga vida. Sin embargo, y como antes, esto sólo depende de vosotros. Recordad que principalmente escribo estas líneas como la persona egoista que soy buscando un poco de atención. Pero la razón por la cual estos pensamientos los podeis leer en el blog es por vosotros. Porque pienso cada día en cada uno de vosotros. Y para todos vosotros está dedicada esta nueva aventura digital.

P.D.2. LA foto del nuevo blog la tomó, de nuevo, Lev. Creo que eso te hace el fotógrafo oficial del blog. Te debo una cena. Pero antes tendrás que venir a Manchester.

P.S. I’m so happy the blog worked so far, and I hope for the new one a long life. However, and once again, this depends on you. Remember that I mainly write these lines as a totally selfish person looking for some attention. But the reason why these thoughts are available online it’s because of you. Because I think everyday in everyone of you. And for all of you is dedicated this new digital adventure.

P.S.2. The picture of the new blog was taken, again, by Lev. I think that makes you the official photographer of the blog. I owe you a dinner. But you have to come again to Manchester to have it.