Бог је прво себи браду створио*

We are currently in the Hiroshima City Sunday League off-season, so attempting to replicate professional players as much as possible both David and I are on a 'strict' Spring diet. Those of Christian persuasion will also be fasting because of Lent. Now David being a pseudo Red Sea Pedestrian, tries to follow certain ecclesiastical observances as much as he can. So he is the middle of a 40 day holiday from imbibing alcohol. That being said...there does seem to be certain sacred occasions where according to church doctrine (The Church of Hurley the Chaste) those abstaining can break their fasts. Such allowances are as follows; drinking at Italian chain restaurants, drinking in the middle of 18 holes and drinking to celebrate the return of fellow drinkers. It might be perhaps more of a challenge to renounce not not drinking.

For want of a opening paragraph I have poked a little fun, but to be fair there was a splendid reason for the breaking of David's alcoholic abstinence - the grand opening of the new Hurley Heights in the suburbs of Hiroshima. A significantly vast improvement on his last abode for nothing else than the spacious head room that can now allow one to walk from chamber to chamber without sustaining a gashing head wound. The house is indeed a little gem with a tardis like ability to conceal wardrobe space larger than the living area.

After drinking a free bottle of red wine at said Italian Chain restaurant (like an absent minded great-uncle they very kindly forgot to write everything down on the bill) and with a rabble of the Hiroshima Gaijn Set, our small menagerie headed to more drinking and a game of mahjong at Hurley Heights.

Now I wish to avoid repeating events regarding mahjong that will be documented on Hurley's blog, so I will omit such details. One story that I will re-tell refers to a rather amusing put down flung at me from one member during play. Tim, who in another walk of life would have made an excellent Catholic Priest - in the best way, is usually a reluctant mahjong player. I believe his average breaks down as 1 game per year. He is though somewhat of a game old thing, especially when it doesn't involve any disruption to his beer intake. Beer to Tim is what blood is to a thirsty vampire. During one very long hand where Tim and I were getting thumped he made a very piquant observation to my lack of victories despite being a so-called Mahjong veteran:

"In this game, you are to me what the Dutch were in Srebrenica."

Not quite Oscar Wilde, but it has to be admitted that this was sharp intellect nonetheless. It did also get me thinking about Dutch proverbs - are there any good Dutch proverbs? In Hiroshima we do have at least one resident Dutchman, Alex, a good bloke despite being an Ajax supporter. The studious option would have been to get myself down to Kulcha and asked him, but that was just too much effort for 10pm on a Sunday night. So with the beauty of internet search engines, I ended up on the following couple to retort to Tim with:

"Hoge bomen vangen veel wind"
(meaning - The more important the person, the more criticism he receives)

"Kleren maken de man"
(meaning - Good clothes add to a man's stature)

I did try and go for cheap laughs by combining national stereotypes and wooden footwear, but alas to no avail could I find a decent one and well, Ruud does ply his trade with the Busby Boys...

*The first thing that God created was his own beard.