Five years ago, Chisinau, capital of Moldova
it was a football trip and Night 1 involved serious drinking ... Day 2 involved a major hangover and schlepping around town before the game ... I was wearing a dark jacket, a dark baseball hat and sunglasses ... and at one point I browsed an al fresco exhibition of truly awful paintings done by Moldova's only licensed hippy ... seeing my interest (or that I didn't immediately run away) he came over to talk to me and started to get quite excited ... "hoo hltn zzhnn," he said ... "sorry min, dinna spik either Russian or Romanian, sorry," I said, Scottishly ... he started to point and jabber saying repeatedly, "hnnng, hoo hltn zzhne!!!" ... the hangover fug cleared after several repetitions and finally I got it ... in heavily accented English, he was saying "you're Elton John". Oh dear god. The game was a glorious 0-0 draw and as soon as I got home I resolved to lose weight ...
( writerblock ... embedding disabled by request on, Fri 1 Jun 2007, 18:28, Reply)