Ribe Vs Rome

Denmark's oldest town, Ribe, has been invaded by hundreds of Weedles, bizarre little half-cute maggots. I have seen 107 of them and caught 95. I don't want to see anymore for the rest of my life. I'm assuming you've never seen any. They have a large spherical pink nose and a white horn or pointy little hat on their heads. They look quite happy, despite having no mouths. They have three stages of evolution, finally turning into Beedrills (which are basically as useless as Weedles). This bullshit is all from Pokemon Go, a walking phone game which I assume I don't need to describe. All things in this cartoon world are useless. Players have to pretend that there is some sort of value or point to it (like banknotes) for the system to work. I'm never horrified at dismally painted backgrounds at pantos, I believe them. Suspended disbelief. It's ever decreasing fun. As I'm a highly competitive childish psychopath, the game is extremely addictive. I only need a large round pink ball type man holding a white egg (Chansey) to complete Pokemon Go. There is a good chance I'll never find Chansey, just as you will never find the thing that drives you on.

I have now associated the whole of Denmark with these gross little Weedle pipsqueaks, which is a shame, because Denmark, as everyone knows, is wonderful (if very, very white). While there, during a bizarre Danish birthday celebration I shook hands with about 60 people, very formal. Reminded me of the excellent film Festen. A whistling song was sung by everyone except me. We visited the most beautiful graveyard I've ever been to, a font heaven. All the while we were surrounded by Weedles buzzing in my pocket. My girlfriend hatched a 10km egg (very exciting) and got the worst character in the game, Jynx. Her disappointment was a joy to us both. We text updates to our Pokemon Go Whatsapp group. The group consists of me, my girlfriend and two doctors. We are the last four people on Earth who are still playing. The addiction of these two doctors is a balm to my shame. One of them was in Rome, playing the game in a frenzy of joy. Rome has a dizzying variety of rare Pokemon. Somehow I've never been to Italy.

Michael Crowe
2016