Circus anyone?

Five-Year-Old's Mummy took Poppet, Pickle and me to the circus today as a reward for our sterling efforts in caring for her adorable child after school hours. It isn't much effort really, not when crawling around the classroom looking cute and saying the occasional 'miaow' will keep her amused for hours.


I asked Nobby if he'd like to come along to the circus, having never experienced a Hungarian one before. He thought about it for roughly two nanoseconds before saying 'no thanks.' This may be due to he fact that the last circus he endured was a travelling one which came to our village in France during our last few months there and that time I was already booked elsewhere and was in the priveleged position of being able to say 'no.' Thirty euros, two manky lions and a couple of pathetic clowns later Nobby was deep into circus-humbug mode from which he has never recovered.


However, now I've been to this one in Budapest I'm kinda glad.

Not because he missed out on a great show, I'm not that nasty, just because he missed all the drooling from Five-Year-Old's Mum and me.


See, it was the Colombian circus - a troupe of muscular, semi-clad Colombian chaps in their early twenties, throwing themselves high in the air from various swings, trapezes and see-saws, with a side order of dancing, wiggling and rapping and the occasional clown and sealion to make the kids laugh while we Mummies mopped our mouths.

A top quality afternoon all round I think.

Actually, I reckon Nobby was quite happy to stay home today after rolling in at 2am this morning following his debut at the British Dad's Club last night. He claims it wasn't a heavy night and he didn't feel hungover this morning. They were in the Scottish bar at 7pm, followed by a good British beer and curry-fest and rounding off the night in some huge bar where the antics on the dance-floor are beamed in to the drinking areas to encourage others to 'get on down'. Nobby told me about some unwitting girl with apparently 'huge knockers' whose girating was featured at length in nauseating close-up on the big screens...

So just a quiet night then? Hmm, I think not, and here's the deal-breaker.

Later on he told me the story of how he tried to dial a taxi at the end of the night - him being a 'numbers man' by the way, the one who always looks at the clock when the kids wake him up in the night so he can calculate how much sleep he's got left, the one who never forgets a wedding anniversary (as opposed to my annual 'oh crap' moments)... You can take the man out of accountancy but you can never take accountancy out of the man.

Now I know that Hungarian codes are tricky but I thought he'd have mastered them by now. For mobiles prefix the number with 061, for landlines just 01. Our regular taxi company is 061-seven-sevens. Nobby, in his 'sober state', forgot the number and dialled 107-seven-sevens.

Trouble is 107 is the Hungarian equivalent of 999.

Nobby: Beszelsz Angolul? (do you speak English)
Bloke on phone: Yes
Nobby: Can I have a taxi please? I am on the corner of This Street and That Street.
Bloke on phone: This Street?
Nobby: Yes
Bloke on phone: And That Street?
Nobby: Yes.
Bloke on phone: And you want a taxi?
Nobby: Yes, please!
Bloke on phone: Then why did you call the police?
Nobby: .....???!!!&*($&"£$£*£$**£(^$*!!!

Ok, dear, just a couple of beers with the lads, I believe you.