18.03.10:

The Caucasus – it’s where us whities get our rather daffy pigeonhole ‘Caucasian’, a term lampooned by Lewis Carroll in his nonsensical Caucus Race in which everybody wins a prize – sounds like modern schooling to me. I would say that when it comes to describing the breeds of human, the term ‘Caucasian’ should be left to describe white skinned dark haired buggers (generally sporting a monobrow – think Noel Gallagher) while us fair and red-haired lot get our own categories… something to do with Vicky the Viking or Groundskeeper Willie would be nice. Gallagans, Vicks and Willies – that would sort the men from the boys. Or maybe we could just do away with the whole system of putting humans into different categories and just have one big box marked ‘human’, you know, separate us from the dolphins in the dole queue.

Oh do grow up, Double-O Hughes.

So I woke with thunder crashing in my head and soon realised it wasn’t my head it was out the window – the weather had gone from grim to Grimaldi Ferries and there was a full-on blizzard outside. I made myself a cup of tea and considered my options. I could stay in Nick’s flat all day like a big fat slob, abuse his internet and watch his DVDs or I could go out in the freezing cold and squint at the city through frozen eyelashes. I unsurprisingly chose the former. Later on, Jamil called and invited me around to his gaff for some authentic Azerbaijani grub – an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Jamil picked me up in his car (nice wheels, man!) and we fought through the increasingly furious storm over to his place where he whipped me up some aromatic rice and vine leaves stuffed with meat – it was delishhh. Kudos to Jamil’s mum for preparing it all! Afterwards, we traded internet memes before I headed off back to Nick’s to get some shut-eye. A hard day at work I guess.

DID YOU KNOW? There are very few countries in the +4 GMT Time Zone – just Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, UAE, Oman, Seychelles and Mauritius. And a tiny bit of Russia.