Tongue in cheek

If you just happen to have a spare 8 minutes, have a look at this. Ricky Gervais at his finest (released last year, but still terribly funny). 

Looking forward to the election?

The news WE get from Australia

I had to laugh when I read that the chasers got up to some more mischief last week. It was actually on the front page of the train newspaper - and I recognised the dick head immediately from the chasers war. In case you were unlucky enough not to see what happened...

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/chaser/war/

You can sometimes miss good aussie humour here!

Will post some pickies from London shortly.

Open your eyes, the world is outside your door

Here's one for you mum and anyone else who is disgraced yet fascinated with the Australian language...

Hey do you speaka my language?

Small word problems...

Just a short one to mention the latest language problem I have been dealt with....

For fun, I call colleagues by (what I thought were) endearing names - for example - mama martine (self explanatory), or
schatti-lou (cutie-lou) for Nathalie, Beffy for stefanie and Befke for Jeff (notice how the last two are almost the same...) - Imaging my shock when I found out that the word 'Beff' (or Beffen to be more precise) is the verb in dutch for 'the act of a female being gone down on' or cunnalingis! (Notice how polite I write this - I could use a more descriptive definition, but wish to convince my parents that I am not completely marginal!) Once again, I have used this incredibly inappropriately, and it wasnt until someone else laughed at my familiarity with a male colleague (which I thought was harmless...) that I picked up on it.

They should be smarter like the english speakers and choose a word for this 'action' which doesnt rhyme with a relatively common name...

Dunno if it beats the use of the verb vingeren (fingering) to my boss by accident when I meant to use the plural for fingers... (many plurals end in 'en').

I'm going to polish my husbands Oscar while he rummages around in my basement

For those of you who like a little Ricky Gervais humour... enjoy

Het lijkt op een huis met een dak erop...

Just a sweet line from the the latest cutey song of the week here... I will try to write it - if you are interested, I will translate it below...

Mama kijk eens hier in de W Ceeeeee,
Kijk, ik heb gepoeped er zijn er twee,
Het lijkt op een huis met een dak erop
Ja, dat is mooi, trek je broek maar op.

Link to the Cute Song

If you click on the link, then in the right window, click on the link "trek je broek maar...) the song will start... Now for the translation:

Mummy come and look here in the toilet,
Look I have done a poo, and there are two,
It looks like a house with a roof on top,
Yes, that is nice, now pull your pants up.

Perhaps I am a little bit of a kiddy, but I just think the style of music is quite schlager-esque, and quite Belgian/Hollandish/German!

The reason for my distorted way of life

An oldie but a goodie

I know the rest of you probably see this frequently, but I just found it again today and it reminded me of home!

Funny of the Week

Ma kik aa is deur den bek sleuren?

What a load of gibberish 'right?! Just a simple line to demonstrate the hassles one goes through in this land! A country of 10 million (of which not all are Flemish speaking...) and a gazillion dialects to go along with this! The sentence I have used as a title is written how it is said (for example, an aussie saying that they are 'strayan') and should be said

Mag ik u eens door de mond kussen?

See my dilemma. For those of you who dont know what it means, go to www.freetranslation.com (my internet bible...) and don't forget the question mark! It translates quite literally, but you will get the meaning. However, the problem here is that nobody (except newsreaders, and not all of them at that) speak the clean language, so I am constantly learning from the Antwerp language. Have managed to put my finger in it a few times though when I introduced myself to Tom's step-grandmother (we will call her Rosa for comfort sake) as Tom zijn wijf (in antwerp language, this is Tom, his woman - in east flanders language, it is Tom's Bitch) - had a little uncomfortable laughter in front of a group of old people.

Apart from language learning, have been relatively settled the past few weeks: election results, Socialists are once again in control in antwerp, although the celebrating was ruined when both tom and I decided to throw up everything we had eaten and paint the walls in the meanwhile. Not our finest moments..., Leaves are beginning to fall off trees, and the winter-depression is setting in. It is a condition which has only come so prominently to my attention since living here, and for the first time, am beginning to feel it. Apparently, autumn has a high rate of suicides, and deaths in general (along with an overall feeling of melancholy). Quite a horrible feeling actually - but just another minor obstacle I guess!

Have decided to play with my side-bar a little today - found a funny little clip of Borat from the European MTV awards last year (one of the funniest presentations I have ever seen - consequently he has been banned from hosting anything again, I say bring on more Borat!). Hope it is enjoyed....

Happy Birthday, my delicious beau

Nothing like a bad birthday joke to greet you on your birthday...

Birthday Present
A wife decides to take her husband to a strip club for his birthday. They arrive at the club and the doorman says, "Hey, Dave! How ya doin'?"His wife is puzzled and asks if he's been to this club before. "Oh, no," says Dave. "He's on my bowling team. "When they are seated, a waitress asks Dave if he'd like his usual and brings over a Budweiser. His wife is becoming increasingly uncomfortable and says,"How did she know that you drink Budweiser?""She's in the Ladies' Bowling League, honey. We share lanes with them. "A stripper then comes over to their table, throws her arms around Dave, and says "Hi Davey. Want your usual table dance, big boy?"Dave's wife, now furious, grabs her purse and storms out of the club. Dave follows and spots her getting into a cab. Before she can slam the door, he jumps in beside her. He tries desperately to explain how the stripper must have mistaken him for someone else, but his wife is having none of it. She is screaming at him at the top of her lungs, calling him every name in the book. The cabby turns his head and says, "Looks like you picked up a real bitch tonight, Dave."

Hope you have a lovely day, and am looking forward to your surprise tonight... (for all you dirty people out there, it doesnt involve any nudity, and if it did, it is merely for comfort reasons... it has been 35°+ the past few days, so you can imagine how sexy everybody feels...

Male information

Hi everybody,

I just wanted to congratulate Ingi for this blog. In fact she put it all together so all credit goes to her. But I did want to write something because she is only sticking sappy pictures in here like me with a baby. So I will have to post some male pictures (anybody interested in Tom in his Tarzan outfit??). Anyway I hope you have fun reading of our "Tom and Ingrid do Europe" blog and don't be shy to write your comments.

What have we been up to lately? Here's the short version: gone to a lot of concerts: Bob Dylan, Starsailor, Bloc Party (absolutely awesome), The White stripes and I think I am forgetting some. We've gone to a couple of footballgames: Liverpool vs Wigan when we were visiting Tim and Tash: great atmosphere. KV Mechelen-Antwerp, was fun, nothing more nothing less. Been to Liverpool for Ingi's birthday and Barcelona. But still hadn't had the change to see a game of barca. Anyway been pretty busy partying as well and are looking forward to going skiing in January in Morzine. We'll keep you all posted. bye bye for now