Xmas. And the Dam. And new years

Christmas is a very special time of year here. People seem to take it far more seriously, determined to enjoy themselves and be friendly to everyone at any cost. In many ways I think it's an attempt to give yourself something to look forward to in the freezing cold weather. There is a whole culture which surrounds Christmas. The songs on the radio all change, the Pogues play at the Brixton academy, cards are sent out by just about everyone I know, people are generally very happy. It's nice.

I spent Christmas with my father's sister Maeve and her family. After a gift opening ceremony with Aunt Brenda and twin cousin Nell, we went to my cousin Clare's house in Sevenoaks to eat the biggest turkey in the world and open more presents. Honestly, 6 grown adults and 3 little uns got through about a quarter of the bird, it was that big. We then drank, and drank, and showed the kids how responsible adults act at an important family occasion.

It was really lovely. Special mention must go to my uncle John. I've never met anyone who receives the same thing from every person he knows, a bottle of Jamesons whiskey. He ended up with about 6 of them, and he was very very happy about it. Thanks for a great day guys.

On boxing day I flew to amsterdam to spend 4 days with my friends Juergen and Vicki who, after spending a month or so in India, had spent a couple of weeks in Europe.

Amsterdam is an amazing city. Actually, Holland is an amazing place. Most of the landmass has been reclaimed, meaning that most of the country is in fact lower than sea level. The primary purpose of the windmills is to pump the water away from the land and out to sea. The Dutch have succeeded in completely transforming their landscape. Astonishingly, land reclaimation has been happening in Holland since the 11th century.

Amsterdam itself is beatiful. It was designed during the Dutch golden age in the 16th century, and consists of large roads running alongside canals, which are everywhere. We took in a lot of culture. The national museum, the Van Gogh museum, Rembrandt's house, a canal cruise, a day long bus tour to a clog factory and cheese making farm, complete with many windmills. I don't know of any place that considers the wearing of wooden shoes to be a good idea. We watched some being made. I don't care how much varnish or polishing you do to the damn things, and I don't care how long you expect them to last or how strong they are, they cannot be good for your feet! But you aren't here to read about clogs.

Most cities have a red light district. The thing that really makes Amsterdam quite unique is that it openly advertises the fact. Any map of the city will happily show the red light district, which is rather big, and features some rather lovely looking women standing in windows courting for business. Not all of them were beautiful mind you, but many were. DVD cabins were on every corner, sex shops were everywhere, live sex shows and peep shows were available through just about every door.

And if that wasn't enough to satisfy you, there are the coffee shops. If you see a place in Amsterdam that advertises itself as a coffee shop, it means a number of things. 1, that they sell dope or hash. 2, that you can buy dope or hash as easily and as quickly as a beer. 3, that they will allow you to smoke that dope or hash either at the shop or on the street. This really took some getting used to. Something that is so underground everywhere I've been to is so open there. And it is really cheap and, as we discovered, extremely good quality. At least, that's what Juergen told me.

Another feature unique to Amsterdam was the Argentinian steak houses, which were everywhere. Argentinian beef is rightly regarded as some of the best in the world, and after eating at a random restaurant, it wasn't hard to see why. It was in my top 5 steaks of all time. We surmised that Dutch food is pretty ordinary. We did look at a Dutch menu, which had entries like 'meatballs, cheese and saurkraut', or 'cheese, saurkraut and meatballs', perhaps Argentina saw an opening.

Whatever the case, the restaurant was incredible. The place was fully decked out in cow rustler type material. Our cushions were covered in leather, cattle brands adorned the wall, pictures of cows and men with big hats carrying whips were on the wall and cow print leather covered the bannister up to the toilets. This was nothing compared to the cowhead shaped catcher which lined the urinal, that might have been going a little too far. The restaurant gave us, thats right, complimentary, on the house, 2 of the strongest cocktails I've ever had. There was a lot more tequila than sunrise in mine. After the second one I went and took a photo of the urinal thinking that it might make a good blog picture. Given that I am now sober, you're all safe.

Given that this place was so kind to us, I promised them a mention. Dos Argentinos, near Leidesplien. Great steak, great decor, great cocktails. Get yourself there.

As for new years, very simple affair. Stood on waterloo bridge with a couple of friends with the intention of watching the fireworks on the London Eye. The first 3 - 4 minutes of fireworks were spectacular. Then the soft breeze blew all of the smoke onto the bridge. We could hear what sounded like an amazing show, but despite the fact that the Eye was no more than 200 metres away, we couldn't see a damn thing. Ah well, the champagne was lovely, as I hope yours was too.

Scotland part 97

I don't intend to write too much about the trip to australia. It was wonderful. Nigel and Lucy's wedding was wonderful, seeing my family and friends was fantastic, the warm weather was and is missed. But for the purposes of a blog which is essentially full of anecdotes, it wasn't really the best. With one exception.

As noted, the wedding itself was great. Nigel and Lucy are an exceptionally good match for each other, it was an absolute pleasure to be there with them. Generally speaking, no one has a bad time at weddings, people are generally very happy for their friend or family, this was no exception. Thankfully, the wine provided was of excellent quality and easy to drink. A little too easy in fact.

The morning after the wedding was a little less enjoyable than the night itself. I threw up three times, once for the wine at 7am and once for the main course at about 10am. I had a 12pm coach to catch to get to byron bay. So I bravely asked my father whether he'd be willing to take me to the coach station via Lucy's parent's house so I could drop the hired tux off. He agreed.

Again, thankfully, Mr and Mrs Morgan didn't live too far away. It was clear what had to happen when we pulled up. And so my father was subjected to the sight of his first born throwing up the entree against an unfortunate tree outside the house of the bride's parent's. To his credit, dad stood by my side, tissue in hand, waiting patiently for me to finish.

Once the tux was dropped off, we resumed our journey to the coach station. In a moment of utter generosity, dad handed me one of his old jumpers and said 'here, if you're going to throw up again, don't do it in the fecking car, do it in that would you?'. I feel like we bonded there and then.

Anyways, I again write from a train on its way back from Edinburgh, having spent a couple of days working there. A collegue overheard me talking about deep-fried pizzas. She let out a little squeal and mentioned that she was a big, big fan, and that I had been misled. You can get the damn things anywhere. Just go to a fish and chip shop and choose 'pizza' off the menu. Yes folks, that's right. If you order a pizza in Edinburgh, they will deep-fry it. Order a pizza supper and it will come with chips. And they're everywhere, sometimes battered, sometimes not. To get a pizza as we know it, you would need to order an 'oven pizza'.

Extrodinary right? Well not really. The same girl who expressed a love for this 'food' went on to tell me about some of the other things she's deep fried. I won't go through the list, but the best one was a cheeseburger. She described in great detail how the chippy cut the hamburger pattie in half, stuck a piece of processed cheese in between, battered it (I'm not joking), deep fried it and served it with chips. The issue of deep fried mars bars did arise, however for some reason this was described as something that people on the west coast do and attracted little support in sophisticated eastern coast Edinburgh. For some reason the thought of battering a mars bar was disgusting, but eating a cheesburger cooked in a pool of oil was fine. I silently opened and shut my mouth a number of times during this exchange.

I couldn't beleive what I was being told. She sensed this, so she went out at lunchtime and purchased a half pizza and brought it back to the office for everyone to share. She exclaimed to one and all that she got the meal for the bargain price of a pound, and encouraged everyone to break pizza with her.

I couldn't resist. What an opportunity. The paper bag it came in was soaked in grease, the sadly unbattered pizza itself looked like it had just come out of the bath. But it had to be tried. I had 2 bites. Truly, it was awful, but that was probably my brain's reaction to my arteries instantly hardening. It tasted like salt, and turning it over I noticed a great amount of salt. I pointed this out to my new friend, to which she said 'yes, I asked for salt and vinegar'. I gave up then and there.

Everyone tucked into this pizza, which featured cheese and tomato paste as its toppings. Even Paul, whose standard lunch is a creamy pasta salad with a small mountain of salad cream squirted on top and 3 packets of crisps.

Edinburgh is a remarkably beautiful city. It's small, less than half a million remarkably friendly people, the whiskey is cheap, the entire city looks to have been built out of sandstone, it has a huge castle on top of a hill at its centre and there are bagpipes everywhere. Just be prepared to starve once you get there.

A weekend in Blackpool

Look, I consider myself to be a reasonably seasoned traveller now. I've seen a lot of things, been to quite a few places and will probably go to many, many more before this life comes to an end. When my friend Natasha suggested that we go to Blackpool, I didn't think too much of it.

For those of you that don't know, Blackpool is a tourist city just North of Liverpool and Manchester. It is by the sea, the beach has sand and it has a remarkably good roller coaster. It is, so I found out, the most popular tourist destination in Britain. My friends and I spend about 18 hours there. The roller coaster was fantastic, 2 minutes of great, great fun. The rest amounted to 17 hours and 58 minutes of my life which I will never, ever, in my entire life, forget. Blackpool is, without doubt, the seediest, tackiest place I've ever encountered.

The first thing we saw driving in was that the Blackpool library had been boarded up. Having just driven from Liverpool this didn't seem like too much cause for concern, half the houses there are boarded up, maybe its just what people do when they go away for longer than a week.

Turned right onto the seaside promenade though and one's senses are immediately overloaded. It is difficult sitting here to paint an accurate picture of this town. Every fourth commercial area was, in order, an amusement arcade, a fish and chip or kebab shop, a clairvoyant and a pound shop. Put all of them, in order, for the 2 miles or so that the promenade runs for and you're getting close. Add to the picture a multitude of signs in bright, garish colours. Insert massive fairy lights strung between the various streetlamps, and top it all off with stag and hens nights and some very old people walking down the very busy street, and you're getting close. The final touch is Blackpool tower, which was probably built many years ago as a rival to the Eiffel tower. It looked like an oversized oil rig to me.

Unperturbed, we hit the streets in search of food and drink. I hope Tim won't mind me saying this, but he is a picky eater. We all ate at McDonalds, because none of us trusted anything else, however Tim had a rather more difficult time. In fact, when he approached a man on the street looking for a curry, he was told that there was a chip shop around the corner which would put curry sauce on his chips. Says it all really.

We ended up staying the night in an 80's bar. I think we all expected to hear 80's music, however the bar seemed to be half full of people who were approaching 80 years of age. Regardless, we drank their cheap spirits. We needed to after watching the rugby. Anyways, the night is a little fuzzy after that. I remember being approached by a group of skinheads and being asked if we were looking for trouble. I remember the perfume guy in the toilet who tried to get everyone to buy a squirt of aftershave with wonderful sayings like 'No splash no gash'. I remember stumbling home via a karaoke bar, where we sang some Creedence, accompanied by an uninvited guy with a ponytail singing harmonics. I remember us all waking up the next morning in agreement that we needed to leave Blackpool as soon as possible.

It is odd. This country is so beautiful. The Yorkshire Dales were incredible, what I saw of the Lakes district was breathtaking. Even the countryside surrounding London is well worth a visit. All this, and more Brits go to Blackpool than anywhere else. I guess we all want different things out of a holiday.

A weekend in Dublin

Dublin is a great city. Yes, on the surface it looks a lot like London with Irish flags, but as I've stressed so many times on this blog, the Irish are a people all of their own. By virtue of the fact that they are a small island they exist apart from the rest of the world, and for the most part uninfluenced by them. That is of course changing, the fact that they've joined Europe has not only seen a massive amount of money and infrastructure pour into the place, but it has seen immigration levels rise to previously unheard of levels.

But, it is still very easy to talk to a random Irishman or woman. Go into any pub and ask a question. However, as the following conversation illustrates, the conversation is not always a straight forward affair. I went out on Saturday with some cousins and ended up crashing at their hotel. Woke up, waved goodbye to Steven and Andrew, before taking off in the direction of where I assumed Landsdowne Road train station was.

10 minutes later, hopelessly lost with the first signs of a dawning hangover. Stop at a newsagent. Whilst purchasing a red bull, I asked 'Can you please tell me how to get to Lansdowne Road train station'?

His response, without batting an eyelid, 'Well, it is Sunday. What you need to do is head down that road there'...etc

Of course, this isn't the funniest thing in the world when I write it down sober. Quite clearly he was attempting to alert me to the fact that Ireland takes the sabbath very seriously, no one does anything on Sunday. Including the trains, had to wait for close to an hour in the end. But at the time, whilst still struggling for consciousness, all I could think about was which direction he would have sent me on a Thursday.

The trip of course ended in complete disaster when the Irish were beaten by Argentina and eliminated from the World Cup. They played like a team without a brain and suffered at the hands of a disciplined Pumas side with a point to prove. The upside was that I got to watch the game in a pub packed full of Irish fans in a pub around the corner from where I used to live as a kid, which was very special. Many thanks to Carl for sorting that out.

Mum was there. It was great to see her on her home patch so to speak. It was great to see Wendy, Carl, Adam, Toby, Anne, Mona, Chris, Steven, Andrew, many thanks to them all for super break. Many thanks also to the cow that provided me with one of the best steaks I've ever eaten in Malahide on Saturday night.

Going home in a week for Nigel's wedding. Last time was 9 months ago, might be a little different this time. We'll see.

Scotland the freezing

The British public service is a curious beast. Details of why this is would bore even those who read my drivel regularly. Suffice to say that I have never encountered an organisation with more red tape. Any attempt to break through these paper barriers causes an army of life-long devotees to the cause of maintaining the bureaucratic nightmare to drop their government issue pens and send you to a day long course entitled 'How to be submissive'.

Alright, I exagerate a little there. In fact, I'm currently enjoying the benefits of a very strange decision.

I work in the centre of London. For those in the know, I'm right next to the British museum. Until recently, my manager sat behind me. Now, my manager is based in Edinburgh. That's right, Scotland.

In an attempt to bring the Service into the digital, new wave, funky down with the kids age, the service has decided that I can be managed remotely by Scottish Ian. Apart from the fact that this means that my toilet breaks are no longer timed, it means that I get free trips up to Edinburgh every month or so. Score. In fact, as I write this I'm on a train back from Scotland. In fact, right now we're travelling through Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which has a replica harbour bridge. But I digress.

Many people know Scotland for bagpipes, tightasses and gingers galore, thought I'd tell you about a few other things I've noticed about the place.

1. Deep fried pizzas
Yes, you read right. Most people have heard of deep-friend mars bars. They are real, take any chocolate bar into a fish and chip shop and they'll happily batter (in the fish batter mind you) and deep fry it for you.

Perhaps a little less known stable is the deep-fried pizza. Method is quite simple. Get the cheapest, nastiest pizza from the supermarket, batter and deep fry for a delicious, crispy Italian feast. There are, of course, variations on this theme. The calzone for instance, usually a folded pizza base filled with mozarella and various other fillings. In Scotland, the calzone involves taking said cheap pizza, folding it in half, filling with brown (bbq) sauce, batter and deep fry.

This might seem unbelievable, but it happens, google it. Sadly, I went looking for proof last night, but was told that this was peculiar to Glasgow, which is also famous for its violent soccer fans. Given this, its hardly surprising that Scotland has the second highest rate of obesity at 23% of population, compared with 26% in the USA. I read in the paper this morning that school canteens were doing their bit to address this trend by selling chips at lunch only 3 days per week. Bit of a tip, that's still 60% of the week guys, try salads and stuff 100% of the time!

To be continued...

Not looking good

25 - 3 to France. France played well in a tight game with few chances, Ireland didn't ever get into the match. Now, they have to beat Argentina and score 4 tries. And to be fair, Argentina have played very well and deserve a place in the quarter finals, perhaps it would be unfair if the Irish made it above them.

Rugby world slop

It's not easy being a passionate Irish rugby supporter at the best of times.

This statement means a lot of things. In many ways it's a public acknowledgement that the Irish, not the Wallabies, are my first team. There is no rational explanation for this. We left Ireland for good before my 10th birthday. I've been back on many occasions, it is a beautiful place with even more beautiful people, but it hasn't ever felt like home.

I think it's more to do with the fact that Australia is just so damn good at pretty much every sport it takes seriously. We dominate rugby league and cricket, and can boast to being the only nation to win the Rugby World Cup more than once. That and the fact that the ARFU have for many years been part of a small-minded push which sees countries like Samoa, Argentina, Tonga and Fiji excluded from genuine competition outside of World Cups.

The Irish on the other hand have struggled for years and years. They haven't won anything since I was a boy. Anything other than the triple crown, which is like the prize you get for losing to France. For the last 3 years though, they've had a bloody good team, a team equal to the best in the world. They have beaten Australia and South Africa, regularly beat England and pushed the All Blacks hard in New Zealand. Hopes were high coming into this world cup, Ireland were serious contenders.

2 games in, and the team are a shambles. 27-17 over Namibia was an embarrassment, but watching the game on Saturday was like watching a slow train approaching while trying to untie the ropes that fasten you to the tracks. For those who don't know, we played Georgia, a nation of 300 rugby players and 8 rugby pitches. We won, 14-10, but the victory was hollow. No bonus point, no possession, and really, a feeling that Ireland were very, very lucky to win.

So the equation is this. We play France on Friday night this week, and Argentina the following Sunday. Beat the French and we're probably through, however the way they're playing now a 40 point thrashing looks likely. Lose to the French, don't get a bonus point, and we probably won't make the quarter finals. Desperate stuff. Beat the French and the French go out, however the French beat Namibia 85-10 or something ridiculous like that.

I guess we live in hope. This week, that is my hope.

Zagreb, Winchester and lots more

Yes, been a while. Sorry about that. Other than bone laziness theres no excuse. So much has been happening, but this will be limited to the trip to Croatia, which really was a blast.

My sister Louise popped over for a 3 weeks stint after her specialist exams. After wowing all and sundry with her wonderful personality, she left for Croatia. The nice parts, the coastal regions, the bits by the Adriatic Sea. I was supposed to meet her there for a long weekend of sand and bikinis, however the flights were too expensive, so we arranged to meet up in Zagreb, the capital. Famous for, um...

The first thing of note was the magnificant communist architecture, ie row upon row of council estates, each the same as the last. It was pretty depressing stuff. Sad really, Louise had raved about Dubrovnik, the medieval city on the sea, to be faced with the concrete city on the highway was a little dissapointing. But the best was yet to come.

Zagreb is a place unused to tourists. This is a shame in a way, the city centre is quite pretty and stuffed full of cafes and Italian restaurants. Despite this, the locals clearly haven't adjusted to visitors yet. There's no other way to describe it, most of the ones we came across were very rude. Perhaps it wasn't rudeness per se, perhaps it was just the way they were, but it was pretty funny. Most of the orders we made were met with a grunt.

Without doubt, the highlight was the visit to a bar recommended by the lonely planet, which was a Tolkien themed bar. We went on a Friday night, about 11pm, nobody was there. The entrance had 'rivendell' written above it. There was a glass cabinet with Lord of the Rings books, most in English. There was a signed photo of Elijah Wood, who did visit Zagreb, but not the bar. Apart from that, the most Tolkienesque feature of the bar was the orc-like behaviour of the staff. The request for two wines was met with an extended grunt. And I swear she had fangs. So we got our wines, sat outside on a hot night and started playing cards surrounded by such things as ceramic pots with 'tabac' painted on them. 5 minutes later the orc came out and demanded 'You finish now! Finish cards now!'

The guidebook I'd bought was correct in saying that most young Croatians do speak English, but its always best to learn a little of the local lingo, helps you to endear yourself to them. Happily, the Croatian equicalent of ciao is a throaty 'Bog'! Made me laugh every time.

A most memorable weekend. Louise left this morning which was very sad, had such a good time with her here. I think that more of you should come over, and soon.

Hope you're all well.

Rome photos

Ahhh Rome. Bellisimo. What can one really say...beautiful things to see around every corner, as I hope the 3 photos above illustrate. They are of course, just a sample - the place was amazing and packed full of history. I could go on about it all night. But I won't, coz it would just be more of the same, and I'm sure you would all like to hear about far more interesting stuff that how lovely the Vatican and pizzas were.

The hostel I stayed at was called the Navigator. It was a random pick from the hundreds of hostels in Rome, based mainly on price and what seemed to be a reasonable location. I didn't really look at the reviews written by people who had stayed there, which meant that I didn't have any expectations. I did not know then that the guy who managed the place, Omar, had been critisized by former patrons for not providing the free breakfasts offered on the hostel's website due to the fact that he was too high to get out of bed.

This was a party hostel like no other I have ever seen. I arrived after midnight on Thursday night and was greeted by Omar and a large plate of lasagne. I was also greeted by about 8 young early 20 something women who were also staying there. In fact, I was the only guy there, apart from Omar, who insisted at 1:30am that we go out dancing.

So we did. Omar dragged us out to, of all places, an English pub. I mean honestly, an English bloody pub, I couldn't believe it. I had a pint of London Pride, one of those warm beers you hear so much about. Not because I like the stuff but because it seemed to fit the ridiculousness of the situation.

The girls started dancing, they had been drinking cheap, cheap Italian wine for most of the evening, it seemed like the right thing to do. I hung back and watched for a while, trying to finish my 'beer'. I noticed that there were a lot of men on the dancefloor who had not been there on my arrival. I watched a bit more. It seems that Italian men hunt alone. The guys who were up dancing would perform some cheesy moves at a distance, working their way ever so slowly towards their intended target who, would try desperately not to make eye contact with them for fear of encouraging them even more. Before the poor girl knew it, she was dirty dancing with the man, who had clearly used some sort of magical jedi like powers. Being the protective, father-figure that I am, I decided that the best course of action was to get dancing myself, thus helping the poor women who were being harassed by these clearly untrustworthy men. Why wouldn't they trust someone they'd known for at least half an hour longer. It was quite amusing, one minute you would be dancing on the edge of a circle, the next the circle had turned into a circle with several slow moving Italian men, who snuck into it without anyone noticing. The night was still a lot of fun, myself and my new friends danced the night away to such well known Italian classics as the Grease megamix, YMCA and Come on Eileen.

You know what, the more I think about this, those guys were pretty successful, even the not-so-pretty ones. Perhaps we could all learn something.

This ended up being the pattern for the whole 4 nights. Worked out that I got about 14 hours sleep in total over the trip, including an hour on the flight back. It was great. If I was 10 years younger and didn't have as much responsibility, I would have stayed, learnt Italian and lived a good proportion of life there.

Apart from Rome, its been a busy month. Went to wimbledon on Friday evening, the only day so far which didn't rain. It was great, sat on Henman Hill sipping Pimms and eating strawberries. Went and saw one of the women play, Daniela Hantchukova. I told Helen that I wanted to see her play because she was hot, which caused many problems later on. When she missed a shot, Helen reckoned it was because she was too busy looking at me. I'd like to think that was true.

Moved house also, am now living in deepest darkest Clapham, on the main street, far too close to a number of pubs. Its a change of scene from the Streatham palace thats for sure.

Anyways, I've been drivelling for long enough here, you're probably all bored to tears. Time to go to bed. night.

Provence

Sometimes as I stand on the tube pressed against some stinky person's armpit, I do kind of wonder what on earth I'm doing in this city. I mean, lets be honest about this, its crowded, it smells, the people aren't friendly and during winter Santa Claus would be cold. (I'm being unkind there, 10pm sunsets during summer are a wonderful thing indeed.)

It does take weekends like last weekend to remind you what this experience is all about. The fact that a person can catch a 1st class train from Waterloo for a small expense and arrive in the South of France some 6 hours later was such a reminder.

The provence of Provence (ho ho) is the part of the South of France that people speak about when they talk about the South of France. Quite simply, it was stunning. I know that that has been said about just about everywhere I've been other than London on this trip, but this was a different kind of beauty. The countryside was amazing. There was no livestock, just fields of grapes, lavender, cherries and all sorts of other things.

The trip started in the city of Avignon, where my parents were staying. It has a population roughly the same as Ipswich. Unlike Ipswich though, the city itself is famous for 2 things. Due to a civil war in Rome during the 14th century, the papacy was moved to the large palace pictured above. (Mum, dad and wendy are in the foreground) 8 popes resided here before the return to Rome. The other reason is the nurseryrhyme which you do know - Sur la pont, d'avignon, lans y dance lans y dance.... Like ipswich, I'm pretty sure I saw some lappers on the friday night - ahhhh.

We moved from Avignon to our gite, or country house, in a small village named Menerbes. Mum and Dad booked this over the internet and really had no idea what to expect. What we ended up getting was a Mediterrainian style house in a small medieval style village on top of a hill. Wow, wow and wow, it was incredible. Funny thing is that villages like this are everywhere, you have to search long and hard to find mention of Menerbes anywhere, but it was typical of the many towns and villages to be found in this region. Probably the most visited is Gourdes, which is a bit bigger than Menerbes. I've tried to get a photo of gourdes on the post - hopefully it worked.

In fact, the only reference to Menerbes I could find was the 'world famous' corkscrew museum. Dutifully, we entered the darkened room and stared in awe at each of the exhibits. I've never been so underwhelmed. Thousands of corkscrews, each as ordinary as the last. Scarily, many of the exhibits were identical to several corkscrews owned by mum and dad. The trip and the 4 euro / $8 entry fee (upkeep of these things is expensive) was made worthwile by the girl behind the counter. I would have paid more than $8 for a guided tour of the museum, but alas, a couch full of French schoolchildren put that idea to bed.

The other highlight was the trip to the Cote d'Azure, most well known for the city of Nice and Monaco. Again, I've tried to post a photo of the view of Nice. How blue is the sea?? Monaco houses the Monte Carlo casino, which dad and I graced with our presence for an hour or so. I won 25 euros on blackjack before dad blew the lot on roulette.

It was amazing. Plan upon winning the lottery was to get a masters. Now I think I'll just move to a large vineyard near Menerbes and study externally while selling wine with a French girl in a tight red top.

See ya!

Roger Waters

The majority of this post will mean nothing to you if you're not a fan of Pink Floyd.

I'm a simple fella. 3 major loves in this world, women, music and sport. The sporting highlight of my life was probably the trip to see Manchester City play Liverpool 7 years ago. The women highlight, well, thats not really for general consumption sorry.

Music highlight occured last night. My favorite band in the entire world is Pink Floyd. Those of you who know me may know that the one thing in this world that I want is to see them reform and play a concert. Just once. And they did, at live 8 last year. Roger Waters and David Gilmore put their differences and egos aside for 20 minutes, just long enough to remind us fans why they were and are so wonderful. Sadly, I was in Toowoomba at the time, a long way from Hyde Park.

Last night was about as close as one could get to fulfilling that dream. Roger Waters, the bass player and chief inspiration behind the band, played at the band's spiritual home, Earls Court. It was incredible.

The first set included works from the Wall, Animals (my personal favorite), the Final Cut and a lot of his solo stuff. The music was accompanied by a pretty incredible light show and pyrotechnics display, and was just so powerful. For the real fans out there, the pig, so famously set free above Battersea Park power station, made a welcome return to the arena.

The second set was a real treat. His band and he played the Dark Side of the Moon from start to finish, uninterrupted, and incredible. I've never heard noise like this crowd made to get him back for an encore. Another brick in the wall was belted out before the whole thing finished with the greatest song ever written, Comfortably Numb.

For the second half of the show, I was lucky enough to have a seat right next to the stage. On several occasions Waters walked to the side where we were sitting/standing/cheering like idiots. He was literally 10 metres away. At one point he looked at me and mouthed 'Thank you'. Rob, whom I was with, swore that he was looking at him, but he was wrong.

The experience was amazing, the show and the music were so powerful, I don't mind admitting to shedding the odd tear during the performance. Without doubt it was the best concert I've ever been to, and definately one thing on the list of things to do before you die crossed off. He's playing again tonight, I'm looking around for a ticket. He was in Australia last year, but is still fit and clearly enjoys what he's doing, may I take this opportunity to recommend his show to all of you out there, whether floyd fans or not. You will not be disappointed.

The grey skies of London are brighter than ever today as a result. Hope you are all super.

Liverpool (again)

Coming to Liverpool is like travelling back in time about 30 years. The buildings are old and un-snazzy, the men have naturally windswept long hair and wear vests and no one is really sure what to do when they meet people from somewhere other than Liverpool. Mind you, I have no idea what to do with them either, can barely understand a word they're saying.

Having said all of that, Natasha Goss has asked me to point out that coming to Liverpool is not a bad thing. I tend to agree, its certainly an experience. The one thing this city is famous for is the Beatles, and their presence is everywhere you care to look. John Lennon International Airport is apparently a favoured tourist destination for many a Japanese tourist.

It is then something of a surprise to find that the city that produced probably the most influential rock band of all time has a nightlife which revolves entirely around cheese. A walk down Mathew St will take you past the Cavern Club, which the Beatles played in hundreds of times. A bit of culture. By the end of the street however, you have walked past (and certainly not into) 2 x 70's bars, 2 x 80's bars and a 90's bar which apparently focusses on recent house music. The most surprising bar was perhaps 'Rubber Soul'. A name like that conjures up images of Rockabilly types jitterbugging late into the wee hours. The truth however was that this was the Down Under bar without the backpackers. We found ourselves surrounded by mid-30's scousers wearing far less than the weather demanded of them sculling bacardi breezers and dancing around to such classics as 'How will I know' by Whitney Houston.

Truly a surreal experience and I wish to thank Tash and Tim for humouring me on what was quite the magical mystery tour.

Off to see an aunt and uncle this evening before heading home tomorrow. Its a long weekend here and at home, hope that you're all having a good one.

More photos

Finally got some photos of Ireland trip number 2 up on the photo sharing website. Go have a look - http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsnotalogitsablog.

Sunshine and ice cream

Stuck for conversation in this country? Relief is available, the weather is a national fascination. And I'm pleased to report that the past 2 weeks have been nothing short of glorious. Bright sunshine and warm weather, apparently it was about 27 degrees yesterday.

And it is amazing how this lifts the mood of Londoners. Its hard to quantify, but everyone is generally friendlier and happier. The pavements outside of pubs are packed with people sipping pints out of plastic cups. Nobody complains about anything. The smallest patch of grass is all the encouragement your average pasty skinned pom needs to strip down to their smalls and roast themselves red raw. Walking through Hyde Park on Sunday was like walking through the set of a Benny Hill episode. That alone was worth the cost of the flight over.

And sadly, thats about all to report right now. It's been a pretty quiet few weeks post-Ireland. Spent much of Easter in bed recovering from a nasty, nasty cold. Long weekends in Liverpool, south of France and Rome are all booked in the next 2 months, there'll be plenty more to report on soon.

Hope you are all well.

Diddly diddly dee

The magical thing about being in London is the fact that so many destinations are a short and relatively inexpensive flight away. There is so much to see and do at your fingertips, a long weekend is an opportunity for infinite variety.

So, with this motto in mind, I went back to Ireland last weekend to enjoy St Patricks day and finish it off. Needless to say, it was a brilliant weekend.

We stayed in a fishing town called Kinsale, which is generally regarded as the gourmet capital of Ireland. Every meal over the course of 4 nights was absolutely sensational. The town itself was very picturesque and the Irish people themselves were, as usual, brilliant hosts. St Patricks night was a highlight. We spent the evening in a little pub called the Spaniard singing along to diddly diddly music which was playing in the corner. It was one of the best nights I've ever had.

In between, on what turned out to be a very busy weekend, we kissed the Blarney Stone and visited the remote Beara peninsula, which is famed for rugged countryside. You know, the sort of place that Ireland is famous for. The highlight of the Peninsula was right at the end, where a rickety old cable car (The cable car of death as Gerald described it) will take you across an extremely windy stretch of water to Dursey Island, population several hundred sheep.

As for the Blarney Stone, well, its supposed to give you the gift of the gab, but all I've got is a slight tingling sensation on my lips...

Ireland is a truly magical place, and I would repeat my earlier comments to all of you, if you are visiting, don't miss it. I think that its time to explore other parts of Europe now, perhaps Rome for Easter, that sort of thing. We'll see.

Ciao for now.

Australia 1 Denmark 3

Loftus Road stadium is not generally regarded as one of the great stadiums of the world, however it seemed like a more than adequate venue for what I expected to be a not very well attended friendly soccer game between Australia and Denmark. In the end, 12 000 people turned up, and given that Loftus Road is located in Shepherd's Bush, the vast majority of them were Australian.

And so it was, freezing cold and very hungry that we pushed our way through crowds of people to the turnstiles. Had to really resist the urge to stop at a takeaway van named 'Chubby's Chow'. One look at Chubby himself was enough to make me think that eating his food would not be in my body's best interests. Clearly, Chubby was a fan of the food that he sold.

Enter the stadium and squeeze into seats. Oddly enough, the ground itself appears to have tied down a potentially lucrative sponsorship deal with Sellotape, ads for sellotape covered one side of the front of the stand next to us. Not really sure what sellotape have to gain from this deal, its not like theres a lot of competition in the transparant sticky tape market, but I could be wrong.

So, take find seat. Immediately notice that there are a huge contingent of Aussies around, a huge section of gold. Most seem in high spirits. The Danish anthem is played. Jimmy Barnes was booked in to sing the Australian anthem, sadly he cancelled, that really would have been worth the price of admission. We had to be content with the acapella version supplied by the hoardes of boguns around us. Barnsey would have been very proud of their efforts.

And so the game got underway. It then became obvious that the Australians in our section were very, very orgainised. They had warcrys, lots of them. It was like being back in school. They varied from the imaginative 'Australia, nanananananana....', to 'Your next queen's an aussie', to 'The only great dane is a dog (woof woof)'.

Within 4 minutes, Denmark scored their first goal. Right in front of us too, the cheek! It was a good goal, our goalie didn't even bother trying to stop it, but needless to say the reaction from the folk around me was quite an honest assessement of their mood. The cheering and encouragement continued soon afterward though, but it was noticably quieter when Denmark scored again after about 20 minutes.

We seemed to be getting back into the game after that, a disallowed goal was proof, however you really got the feeling that the Danes would score again. They did, just before half time after a really wonderful passing movement which made me think that they were just toying with us - 'you score' 'no you score' 'oh go on'. They did, 3-0 before half time. There were no warcrys left after that, the encouragement was replaced by people shouting 'come on you useless bag of (censored for mum's benefit).

Half time came. Loads of people left at half time despite the fact that Khe Sahn was blaring out of the PA system. Even that couldn't help the crowd. I left 12 minutes early, 3-0 was probably enough.

Twas an excellent evening.

Home again home again clickety click

Well, here we are, sitting at my desk back in London. Its bitterly cold outside - the forcast for Thursday is a maximum of 2 degrees and snow. Upon arrival at Heathrow it was obvious that I had returned. A couple next to me were busy feeling each other up (literally), the haircut I saw on an otherwise smart looking businessman defied description and surprise surprise, the trains were subject to massive delays. The question has occured to me a number of times over the last few days, what on earth am I doing here?

Of course, this feeling hasn't been assisted by the 2 weeks of glorious sunshine that greeted me in Australia recently. It was a difficult trip for many reasons. There were many highlights, seeing the Big Potato fulfilled a lifelong ambition. Sadly the major objective of the trip was not . Most of you know the story, I won't bore you with details.

It was an odd trip in many ways. Had been looking forward to it so much. The dinner with friends was fantastic, lunch at Ipswich was everything I wanted it to be. Ross and Yvette, you guys are the absolute best, thanks so much for looking after me. It felt like I'd never left, not really the sort of feeling you're looking for.

There is still a lot to do here though, a lot of travel to look forward to, including St Patrick's day in Ireland next month, which will definately be a highlight. The prospect of short breaks in Europe or a week in Morocco or New York is very real and probably closer than my credit card wants it to be.

Anyways, better run. Off to see Australia play Denmark in soccer tonight, looking forward to it. See ya.

Happy new year!

Its 2007! Woooo! Happy new year one and all!

Seems a bit silly to be saying that on a blog, but new years always seems a little unimportant really. Its an excuse to have a party and a chance to reflect on the previous 12 months, which is I guess worthwile.

So, thought for this post that I'd cover some personal highlights of 2006.

By far the best decision was to leave the DPP and come to the UK. A fresh perspective can make all the difference, even if at the end of the day you come to realise that the most important things are the things you've left behind. Having said all of that, travelling is fun, seeing the world from a different perspective is fun, meeting new people is fun and getting to experience life in an exciting, vibrant and filthy city is fun. Will miss this crazy town when we eventually part ways.

The sight of the year was the west of Ireland in late summer. Whether it be the countryside visited, the new friends made or old friend that travelled with me, the Irish themselves who are so utterly genuine, or the pubs at night with the traditional Irish music. Sure, most of it might be for the tourists, but there's just something about modern Ireland that leaves a huge impression. People often come here and miss Ireland. I guess it depends what you're looking for on your travels, but consider this a strong recommendation.

Ireland also accounts for story of the year. I can't really vouch for the truthfulness of this story, can't see anything on the internet which would support it, but it makes for a good story regardless. On the coach back from Galway I sat next to a member of the Irish swimming team. He told me that a big problem the Irish used to have with their team was that there were no 50 metre swimming pools in Ireland. Flushed with European money, the Government decided to fix all that, and built an aquatic centre in Limerick. If anyone has seen Angela's Ashes they might realise the absurdity of this idea, but moving on.

The pool was opened amidst much fanfare, and it was an instant success. Irish swimmers swam and broke all sorts of Irish and European records. People came up with various theories, the water in Limerick was good, the lane ropes were excellent, even that their training was top notch. It wasn't until someone got the idea to measure the pool that they realised, somewhat sadly, that it wasn't quite 50 metres long, more like 49 metres long.

In many ways, this is such an Irish story.

Best book, well, finally got around to reading all of the Harry Potter books, they are way up the list. Best movie was Borat, without any doubt. Biggest rip off was the £28 I had to pay to get a minicab to take me 10 km on account of it being Christmas day, when there is no public transport. Fluke of the year was landing my excellent house and mediocre job so quickly upon arrival. Physical highlight was definately climbing Ben Nevis, was screwed for days after that.

Twas a good year all up, one of the best yet.

Hope you all had a great new year, look forward to speaking to you all soon.