My Dear Readers, I am sorry for the horrific lack of updates. I can give you no legitimate excuse other than my laziness. The truth is, you've become a task and it's no longer fun to regale you with stories of wit and amusement.

Naaaaaaaahhhhhhh; not really, it just evaporated from my mind that I've got a horde of adoring fans sitting shaking and waiting for their next moist installment of A-grade adventure and humour. So here it is:

I'm in the process of getting a contract on my future flat in the heart of Berlin's 'funky hip young things' district - Mitte. It's just above the Tiergarten which is this big mass of trees you see below:



We're the third floor balcony - here's the frontal face of die haus:



It came at a very reasonable price too. I've read a statistic that the Berlin living cost is even lower than Budapest, which seems hard to believe. Does this mean that rather than the Hungarian standard of 40% Polish chemical content per kilo of miscellaneous food we'd be going up to 60%? Will we soon be speaking Polish and working menial jobs with a strong Catholic ethic? God only knows. Oh God, it's happening already!

As per usual, Peter's mother still finds amusement in sending us to abandoned, smoking and tramp-infested warehouses on the outer district of this fair city. Peter claims that he was sent into the Peckham of Budapest. Oh yes, and when did blighty descend into this gun-crime-ridden Harlem-wannabe island?

I'm awoken with Mr. Humphrys shouting at me about gun crime; in a half-asleep daze I feel like I should be putting my arms up and handing over my wallet.

We've met a new American friend -- he's called Erich and he fits all the important American measurement criteria:

1. He's not in America so he knows of this other world we call Europe
2. He likes English humour
3. He knows what irony is
4. He has no intention of mating with a vegetable



He's doing maths or some other limp, boring magnolia-flavoured subject [Now now, we'll have less of that. I find sine and cosine liberating, and even sexy! - Ed]

- Philip + Peter

P.S. Betsy has developed a penchant for hippidy-hop youth music, so she has now been fitted with one of those suspension devices that gangster folk have in their automobiles:

We've actually had some work to do (shocking, I know), so it hasn't been all joy et jeux this week. I should probably start by saying that Peter was again besieged by women armed only with rusty scissors:



Before long he'll embrace the genius of using a breadknife, like me.

We're so sick of hearing the high-pitched intimacies of our neighbours' private lives through these paper-thin pre-fab-tastic walls. We've reached the unquestionable conclusion that the couple living next door are swingers as we always hear loads of people 'round there chatting, shortly followed by sounds of a morally disingenuous nature. When morning breaks we see people leaving with blow-up mattresses. It's even worse when both our neighbours are at it -- it's in surround sound!



There is a famous Hungarian dish called 'Paprikás Krumpli', but because it's so cheap to make it is thought to be a poor person's gruel, thus making it an unlikely dish to find in the [for the most part] fine eating establishments of Budapest. So I summoned up the cauldron; I divinely dispersed several kilos of miscellaneous food, probably full of Polish chemicals, and cooked it on the burning mouth of Betsy. I noticed the finished broth was a bit oily, so I scooped some out, but it just kept spontaneously creating more and more raw unhealthyness until we had a whole jar of fat and oil:



It's now been sitting on the balcony for a week. It's gone hard and nasty. Neither of us dare touch it. The food itself was good though.

We've had some interesting tram drivers recently. One thought it was fun to accelerate and decelerate at full power to make all the old ladies hold on for dear life (and to his credit it was quite funny). Another one started smoking in his little cabin, which slowly filled up with smoke until it became translucent. One driver just stopped the tram and stepped out of his cabin, crowbar in hand, and started hacking away at the tracks. Perhaps he was mending them, or changing the points, or killing a sleeping gypsy. I couldn't quite see. Which removes the likelihood of the latter, as gypsy killing is normally considered a fine spectator sport here. [cf - burning gypsy-lady last week]

Now, recent political news in Hungary is that about 150 MPs walked out of parliament and pushed down the barriers which are currently in place to stop anyone from protesting outside the seat of government. The police soon remedied this by padlocking every fence segment together:







Tensions seem to be running high. One may ask are they ever low over here, but it does seem that March the 15th may result in yet more tear-gas, stone-throwing, and rubber-bullet escapades. I do hope the government don't make the mistake of putting a tank in the centre of town... again.

In other news, I'm getting better at Hungarian now. I think I might go on their equivalent of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.



We're not sure how this happened:



I've found a revolutionary new way to dust pillows:



We never really noticed just how dusty some of this 1970s furniture is. But it simply adds to the glorious retro vibe.

I've been making a cake; it turned out to be bloody nice. It's a combination of scone and apple. Here's a photo of me posing - in a suitably effeminate and Delia-esque stance - with said baked ambrosia:



- Philip + Peter

P.S. Those of you who have seen the film "Kontroll" will understand the reference:

Back in Hungary

After seven long weeks in England, we're back in Hungary, and we managed to smuggle a Craig into the country too:



We hid him behind some luggage on the train so as to hide him from the authorities who were now searching for him:



It was Craig's first flight, which was moderately exciting. However, Craig (and of course, as typical, Peter) had to get out their laptops. The novelty soon descended and so too did our conversation into whose laptop has the longest battery life. Mine, of course.



The air pressure caused some interesting effects:



The first thing we did was death march up Gellért Hill, as all tourists should do on their first night, but we already have plenty of pictures from up there in a previous post. All the hill drudgery caused a panging for liquid refreshment tendered from our favourite ruin bar -- Szimpla:





After Szimpla we got the Metró home and ate some food forced upon us by the generous Nati.

On the second day we decided to go to Hőssök Tere and see those really big fancy statues. Then we went to what is potentially Europe's nicest coffee shop: Centrál Kávéház. We did many other tourist type things which I'm not going to write about since they contain only minor amusements in comparison to other more random events. But also, I can't be arsed.



We were out one day and decided to have some pancakes as we're sure they have some sort of significance within Hungarian culture. They're full of fattiness which makes them typically Magyar. Peter took us to a 24 hour pancake house which he vaguely remembered stuffing his drunken face in after a boat party. This was also his rubbish excuse for why he thought ordering 5 (!) savoury pancakes would be just enough food. It wasn't. We almost died. Seriously, it's like they pack them with foam and once it hits your stomach acid you inflate to proportions normally only seen in Texas. Please tell me why Peter refuses to use his eating weapons and decides instead to consume pancakes in a style more befitting to the Slitheen (Doctor Who, not Slovenian nationals).



There's a nice photo of Budapest.



Some peasant jumped into the shot. So Craig kicked him in the face.



There's me hugging a tree. I'm not sure why.



One night we decided to go to the Frank Zappa Café. It was full and they made us sit in the non-smoking area. We were slightly intoxicated on Swedish vodka. Rather defiantly Craig got up and smoked about two inches outside of the non-smoking area. The waiter did not revel in this act of extreme provocation! I'd wager he spat in our drinks, the cheeky bastard. After the cigarettes he sat down and started to consume his Zappa trademarked booze. It was going quite well, glasses were being held and alcohol was pouring out of them and successfully refreshing our pallets. A minor smash occurred. Craig had dropped his glass from a small height onto the table and the top chipped. It was OK though since he could grab it and save it from the frying pan. No, instead he decided to watch it fall. Silence. Smash. We laugh. We get asked to leave.

We then went to a Gothic sort of DnB ruin bar called Kultiplex. Here's a short film. A word of warning, contained within one will find stupid fucking dancing, foot burning, and lots of loud swearing.



The next day we awoke to a snow-covered Budapest. Most people would go and swim in hot outdoor baths at Széchenyi or something, but instead we chose to march through the Buda hills. There were some very nice views from up there though, and we found some sort of Soviet transmission base:







Ushanka + cigarettes + snowy hills + soviet transmission base + Ivan Rebroff on Peter's phone + a camera = a video opportunity too good to miss:



The sun began to set, and we didn't feel like getting stranded in the middle of nowhere, so we caught the last train back down. Now, instead of going back the way we came (which would have been far too sensible), we took a different railway called The Children's Railway. I thought it might just be one designed for children in some way, and I was looking forward to getting free sweets or something. The train pulled up and a bunch of kids dressed as train conductors jumped out and started to throw snowballs at each other while the passengers clambered onto the platform, trying to avoid the cross-fire. Little did any of us know that the entire thing was ran by screaming kids!



One hour later we were cold and very hungry. The best way to solve this at any time is a trip to Sir Brian's -- the place where they play modern music sang by monks, your food comes on a huge wooden platter and you're not allowed to use a fork (so this is Peter's territory). It was all going well until the mealtime entertainment started, which consisted of a large man who used his arms to move various uninteresting things and made the children cry.



Just as we walked out the door we saw them dousing a Roma-lady in some sort of unquestionably flammable liquid from a canister. Perhaps it was "Burn The Gypsy" night, but now we'll never know. I wish we had stayed for a little longer, and perhaps the opportunity to roast marshmallows on the smouldering carcas of a lady of the night would have presented itself.

On the day of which we call 'Sun', nothing much is open in Budapest, except for churches. So we went to visit the stupendous "cave" church built inside Gellért Hill. Now, either that whole hill is filled with Polyfiller, or they're not really caves at all. Barstarding wankers.



After the heart-attack excitement of the rather dull 10-metre-deep cave ("It's almost like being blind" - Ed), I dictated that later that soire we went to a retro chillout club called Mono ElectroClub. We were quite lucky in that this club almost propositioned us into the pitfalls of another existential predicament. We clawed our way out by finding the door. It was interestingly furnished, and came complete with a hippy sitting in a birdcage who promptly produced a small collection of musical instruments including a violin (I really doubt a Strativarius - Ed) and a flute. He then played them much to the chagrin of the DJ who was trying to mix chillout music with Powaqqatsi.





As with any time we are outside our concrete communist tower after sunset, we headed for Szimpla for more drinks before heading home.



We didn't do anything very interesting the next day, except Craig and Peter laughed at me trying to grab at a hologram:



To sum up the next 48 hours: pancakes, walking, pancakes, walking, sitting, taking photos, pancakes, walking. And for Craig's last night we failed at ice skating. Well, Craig was actually quite good, but Peter and I struggled to skate properly on the poorly maintained surface. These zany Hungarians must think it funny not to smooth the ice all day so that it's basically a cheese grater. Then some crazed kurva (yes, that is indeed the Hungarian for a prozzie) ran into me and I fell on my arse.



That's it. Craig flew home and I hear he did a job of the landing -- jolly good. Peter and I teleported home.

Not really, we had to spend an hour in a Metró carriage with smelly tramps who kept falling asleep on their cigarettes and burning their hair. We love Budapest.

- Philip + Peter + Craig in spirit (He's not dead - Ed)

P.S. We've named the toilet Lucy Loo