Its not a log, its a blog!

Three peaks

2009-06-23T11:18:00.003+01:00

The three peaks challenge seems to have a folklore all of its own. Most people have heard of it, most of them who don’t walk regularly or climb mountains seem to regard it as something that only the dangerously insane would attempt. I have a number of said friends, one of whom caught me at a delicate moment (ie she bought me a lot of wine) and got me to agree to it.

So, the plan, as relayed when I was drunk and therefore when it sounded somewhat reasonable. 10 of us were to hire a minibus, leave Clapham Junction at about midday and drive up to Fort William in Scotland. We’d sleep, wake up refreshed, bound up Ben Nevis, jump in the bus, drive to the Lakes District in England (singing all the way), climb up Scafell Pike before sleeping soundly in the bus on the way to Snowdon in North West Wales and enjoying a leisurely stroll to the top and a champagne breakfast whilst there, all the time laughing and singing. All this within 24 hours, that is the challenge. What could be easier.

The first real snag was the trip up to Scotland. We got away from Clapham Junction at midday. Spirits were high, songs were being sung, all was good. Several queues, much swearing and a couple of satnav inspired wrong turns later, we arrived at our hotel, at 1am. I will say that the hotel had the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in, such a shame that we really only got 5 or so hours worth of sleep prior to undertaking the challenge.

Ben Nevis was the starting point. It was by far the highest mountain at 1,400m, and was also the only climb which started at sea level. We started at about 8:00. Two thirds of the way up was the first sign of snow. Yep, snow. It wasn’t actually snowing, this was snow that had yet to melt from winter. Amidst the snow, we did come across one of the more bizarre sights over the course of the trip. Three Christian guys had read a section of the bible which said “Jesus said to pick up your mat…”. This caused these three guys to pick up a mat-tress, a double mattress mind, carry it to the top of the mountain and toboggan down the snow. They were my heroes.

Summit reached, walk to the bottom, pot noodle break before off to the Lakes District at about 3pm. We arrived at Scafell Pike at about 10pm and began to climb in the fading sunlight. Climbing Scafell is like climbing a narrow, massive and very steep staircase for a couple of hours. Whatsmore, we chose to do this challenge on a weekend where several other groups were doing the same thing. Some of them start at Snowdon, but we all get to Scafell at about the same time. So really, it’s like climbing and descending a steep staircase for a couple of hours with thousands of other people in the dark. Most of these other people were dressed like they were climbing mountains, but one guy was doing this challenge whilst dressed as Bananaman, which deserves a special mention.

A few wrong turns and a few close encounters with rabbit and sheep poo later, we were on the road to Snowdon at about 2:30am, arriving at about 6:30am. The challenge is to get from the base of Ben Nevis to the top of Snowdon within 24 hours. There was some spirit left, but the reality is that after climbing 2 mountains and having a bad night’s sleep in a bus on bumpy roads, the last thing any of us really felt like doing was climbing another friggin mountain, especially the long and winding road that leads to the top of Snowdon. But we did it, and ended up getting there at about 9:30, making a final time of 25 and a half hours. Not within the 24 hours then, but by the time we got to the top, nobody really cared.

As most of you know, this was a charity event. Overall, between myself and my fellow smile train collector, we managed to raise over £600 – well over double what we’d set out to do, and enough to pay for life changing surgery for 4 children. A very special thanks to those of you who did sponsor me.

Photos are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=98967&id=528267125&l=809b5d9b81

Three peaks part 2

2009-06-03T22:52:00.003+01:00

Well, this whole idea has taken on a life of its own. Not only has a total of £191 been donated to date (and thank you to all of you who contributed, individual thank yous will be sent after the walk), but my wonderful friend Ross Robinson has taken it upon himself to design 3 Three Peaks t-shirts, which I'm happy to say are now available for sale, with all profits going to the Smile Train.

Uk users have a look at: http://www.zazzle.co.uk/ThreePeaks

Australian users have a look at: http://www.redbubble.com/people/sambo999

Buy loads of them! Or just provide me with feedback, they can always be changed!

Proper 3 peaks

2009-05-29T22:54:00.003+01:00

Upon finishing the Yorkshire Dales 3 peaks last year, the one thing that stood out was how much fitter the boys I had done it with were. It was quite annoying. They'd all shoot off up the hills, I'd struggle on manfully. I'd catch up with them all, they'd all be resting up against a rock. Upon my arrival they'd all say "right, time to go", before shooting off again, leaving me to struggle onwards without a break.

We finished that walk at the pub. I was absolutely knackered and could barely lift my pint. The rest of the guys were ready to do another walk, I was ready to join the dog in the kennel. It was on the back of that trip that I bought the bicycle and decided to get as fit as the boys. I can beat most of them at squash, time to get fitter than the rest of them. The feckers.

Good intentions yes, they will come under severe scrutiny in a couple of weeks time when I attempt to climb the tallest mountain in Scotland, the tallest mountain in England and the tallest mountain in Wales, all within a 24 hour period. The fabled 3 peaks challenge. We have a driver, we have a will, we have a greater level of fitness than we did last year, but this one is going to be seriously hard work. Let's see what happens.

I won't bang on about this too much, but it's for charity. The Smile Train, the largest cleft palate and cleft lip charity in the world. My target of £150 represents the cost of operating on one child, reaching it will make a difference.

Donating is easy. Simply visit http://www.justgiving.com/sammccormack1, they'll do the rest. Every donor will receieve one blog entry. What a deal!

Snow!

2009-02-03T20:31:00.001Z

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=74616&l=5016e&id=528267125

Photos of the trip

2009-01-24T19:32:00.001Z

Those non-Facebook luddites who would like to see some photos of the trip can follow the following link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=72591&l=8953c&id=528267125

Krabi

2009-01-21T09:16:00.007Z

Following an overnight train journey and a bus trip, arrived in Krabi. By this stage I was acutely aware of the budget, so got a room for £10 a place on the beach which was 'near Krabi'. The pamphlet I relied upon for this information stated quite clearly that the 'resort' was on the beach in Krabi. 30 minutes in the back of a ute later, I learned that Krabi was not just the name of the town, but the name of the entire province.

No matter. The bungalow was on the beach and the seclusion was just about right. First day was spent sleeping.

Second day I hopped on the resort's bicycle and rode, in searing heat, to another beach about an hour away. If anyone ever wonders where old scooters and mopeds go to die, it appears that the answer is Krabi. Hundreds of these little things went speeding by as I struggled on in searing heat. The people on the scooters (there were sometimes 3 of them) generally looked at me with an expression which varied from amusement to amazement. I couldn't really understand why. Anyways, got to the beach, sat, read a book, cycled back to the resort and retired to the hammock for the rest of the day/night for more book and beer action.

You're probably asking yourself, Sam, where are all the people you met? Well, truth be told, no one was much interested in talking. It was an odd resort, chock-a-block full of Germans. And they weren't friendly. I guess that they probably saw me, a young guy (no comments please) travelling in Thailand alone and assumed what I assumed when I saw guys by themselves in Bangkok. My cause probably wasn't helped by the fat middle aged German who was travelling with his 'friend', a young Thai boy who couldn't have been older than 25. Oh well. If it's that you're looking for, I guess you can find it in Thailand.

The following day I decided to rent one of the scooters. £6 a day. No wonder the locals were looking at me strangely.

Initially I was content to travel at the listed speed limit of 21 kph. (Sadly, my camera had packed it in by this stage, I don't have a photo but I swear this is true) This wasn't working at all. I was being overtaken by old ladies carrying 2 children and a bag of bananas. This wouldn't do. Turned the handle a bit more and showed those old ladies who was the boss.

There wasn't a strict destination in mind, just a desire to see different things for a day. Ended up riding through Khao Sok National Park. And wasn't it amazing. The landscape is essentially volcanic, like the Glasshouse Mountains on the Sunshine Coast on steroids. Stopped in little towns, nodded and smiled at locals who did the same back, bought local food. I was hungry, I didn't ask what the meat was, they didn't tell me, both parties were happy with this arrangement.

So that was really about it, Krabi was complete, Sarah and Stacey arrived towards the end of night 3, time to move to Koh Phi Phi, which you'll just have to wait to hear about.

Bangkok

2009-01-10T01:52:00.009Z

Home. Dad pouring wine and sniggering. Mum updating us all on the family gossip from around the world and reluctantly but politely accepting dad's offer of a 6th half glass of wine. Louise telling us the dog kennel and Wurtulla stories once again. (Again, publicly, I deny all knowledge of any phone calls made to Wurtulla at the relevant time) Dan sauntering in after dinner has finished, scoffing leftovers and providing mum with feedback on the meal and ways it could be improved.

There's a certain amount of predictability and a whole load of familiarity. It's great. I'm here for a bit over a week for dad's 60th birthday. The big party was on saturday night, he had an absolute ball. My arrival here was a surprise. Dad was suitably surprised. This is essentially why there have been no blog entries for some time. Dad thought I was in Morocco. Had he known that I was in Thailand for 2 weeks, he may have smelt a rat.

I'll tell you about in Thailand in installments. First, arrival in Bangkok. Arrived on the afternoon of the 25th, and had an overnight train the following day. Time was limited, I was determined to fit as much into that 30 hour period as possible. So, immediately met my friend Jennifer and her new Thai boyfriend Teddy at their place before hitting the town.

You know, god bless Teddy, he really was trying to show me the best of his city. It was Christmas day, Teddy thoughtfully brought me to a shopping centre which had a Christmas tree. Sadly though, the Christmas tree wasn't serving any drinks, so we swiftly moved onto Bangkok's famous tourist strip, the Khao San Road.

Like so many tourist areas around the world, Khao San road essentially features a mass of pubs and bars which play western music and are frequented by westerners. Sadly, Jennifer insisted that we visit an Irish bar. My plea to the effect that I had just left a place remarkably similar to Ireland fell on deaf ears, so we trudged up the stairs, past the Irish flags and maps of County Kerry and into a dark bar. Then I discovered 'the secret'.

Usually, you'd go to a place like this, settle in, drink some beers and if you're lucky, be in the right place for the beer to have a decent effect and ensure you were having a good time. Thais serve their drinks as large cocktails. This means that they empty a bottle of Thai whisky, a bottle of red bull and some coke into a bucket and serve it up with many straws. Hygene, questionable. Effect, incredible. That is the secret. Within half an hour we were absolutely smashed and I would have done just about anything. The band, a seven piece Thai covers band, played note perfect versions of Oasis and incredibly, Sweet Child of Mine. It was a great night but really, after the fourth bucket, we could have been in the middle of the desert at midday and probably have had just as good a time.

I blame the buckets for what happened next. A vendor outside was selling deep fried insects. He wasn't doing a roaring trade, but it had to be done. We bought a selection of things. The grasshopper halves, flies and various unidentifed insects all tasted pretty much the same, crunchy and coated in the soy sauce sprayed onto them. I drew the line at cockroaches, no way, but mistaken believed that a juicy worm wouldn't have been a problem. This had a little more meat than your average fly though, and it very nearly made me vomit the whisky back up.

Sadly, that was all the culture that Bangkok offered on this day. We went home and due to jetlag, I slept til about 2pm. This gave us just enough time for a massage in the park before hitting the train station.

A word of advice though to our waitress Em on the off chance she's reading this. Dear, if you do want future westerners to be your 'boyfriend for the evening', probably best you take off the wedding ring first.

Lapland New Forest

2008-12-04T23:15:00.002Z

You have to feel for the average British family before Christmas. It's cold, Christmas is still a long and very expensive way away, and if you have kids, they're probably screaming in your ear that they want to see Santa. Santa, of course, lives in Lapland which, even with the advent of Ryanair, is an expensive place to visit.

A clever businessman came up with the perfect solution. Let's bring Santa to the south coast of England. Let's hire a snow machine, build a few log cabins in the forest, get some huskies, reindeer and a fat bloke in a Santa suit, hey presto. You've got yourself a Lapland within easy driving distance of just about anywhere in Southern England.

The website makes it look, well, awesome. Check it out:

http://www.laplandnewforest.co.uk/

Undoubtably, the first thing you would have noticed is the notice from the director of Lapland New Forest Limited to say that he has had to close the Childrens entertainment theme park down. How can this happen? This place has Hollywood Special FX's for goodness sakes! Scroll down a bit and have a look at the photos, Santa has never felt more at home.

Sadly however, the reality is never as wonderful as the marketing. Lapland New Forest didn't survive because it was rubbish. The photos on the website are lovely, but here is the reality:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/uk_lapland_new_forest/html/1.stm

I really like 2 things about these photos. The first one, the nativity scene. Compare that with the photo on the official webpage. Perhaps it does look lovely at night, from a distance, if you've got a torch, when you're both drunk and stoned. And the seventh photo. Note the scarily realistic yet obviously plastic polar bear in the background. Is it just me, or does the bear itself look like it has just finished urinating?

Very sad to hear that the place had shut. I will never get the chance to take any wide eyed young children there to spoil their Christmas dreams forever. Oh well, at least there's still pissweak marine world.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ji_DQEmtAEc

Windsor for an afternoon

2008-11-20T18:36:00.004Z

Due to the curious nature of the British holiday system, I found myself with an unusual dilemma a few weeks ago. I could either work until the end of the year and lose a week's holiday, or I could take a week's holiday in the knowledge that I couldn't really afford to go anywhere for the week.

The choice was obvious in the end. Hence I've been home this week doing not much at all. It's brilliant. Have read 3 books (well, 2 and a half at this stage) and have met lots of people for lunch etc.

Today's trip was to the lovely town of Windsor, home to Windsor castle, the official residence of the Queen of Australia. Thought it was only fair to go and pay the old girl a visit to thank her for all of her hard work on behalf of Australia over the years. Sadly, she wasn't in.

There is a chain of cheap pubs over here called Wetherspoons. Wetherspoons bars are great. Think of them as the Aldi of pubs. The beer is always very, very cheap. How do they do it you ask? By removing all semblence of atmosphere from them, that's how. There is never any music in a Wetherspoons, music means royalties. You won't be able to watch any live sport in a Wetherspoons, broadcast rights means licensing, which means money. Wetherspoons' wine is bought en masse, generally just before it all goes off, meaning they can sell it for next to nothing. And, Wetherspoons is the only place I've ever been to which sells wine on tap. Despite this, people (including myself most friday afternoons) flock to the places for cheap booze.

Wetherspoons pubs have their uses. One of their standard offers is a hamburger, chips and a pint for a set price, usually very cheap. The price does vary according to where you are in Britain. The friday afternoon pub charges £5.29. The pub in Penge where my uncle drinks charges about £4.39. In Windsor, the same thing will cost you £5.99. No need to draw your own conclusions, Windsor is a super posh town.

The castle itself is incredible. For a start, it's massive. You're only allowed access to a very small part of it, but it still takes you half a day to get through it, longer if you stop to listen to all of the stuff that the audiotour has to offer. There has never been a better example of the word decadent. So much gold, fancy furniture, paintings, all to support one family who, by accident of birth, found themselves in charge of a nation. What really amazed me was the fact that while this family was living in such absolute luxury, the people who paid for their excesses were ordinary taxpayers, ie peasants. So, while the average man struggled to feed their family, their kings, queens and cousins of the kings and queens lived in complete luxury. This isn't a criticism per se, every nation needs some sort of structure and order, that was simply what was used at the time. Looking back however, it does seem ridiculously unfair. It isn't hard to see why concepts such as Marxism were well received at the time they were introduced.

We're well off track now, wasn't I talking about Windsor?

That's right. Oh well, it's lovely. Come over and I'll take you (yes you) there.

Incidentally, posted something last month about the crazy bike paths in Battersea. I was going to go out and take some photos, but someone has already done it for me.

http://www.bike99.com/47.html

Cycling

2008-10-20T22:01:00.003+01:00

A new era has begun. Work offer a very generous 'ride to work' scheme. Basically, they pay for a bicycle and all the equipment you can possibly want, you pay them back. In the spirit of this magnificent scheme, I've purchased a rather lovely Pinnacle Stratos 2.0 and 3 days a week you can see me riding the 24 mile round trip to work. I'm sure you'll agree that these are exciting times. If nothing else however, cycling in this city has taught me a number of things, some of which I'd like to share with you.

1. Death
Transport for London operate a rather nifty website. Input a starting point and destination, and the TFL site will provide you with a detailed map as to the 'best' route to travel on if you're on bike. It seemed marvellous, however within a couple of weeks it was clear that there were a few problems with their suggested route.

The most obvious of these is one road, Battersea Park road. TFL recommend that cyclists take this road which runs from the bottom of Clapham Junction right the way into Vauxhall. This is about a 2-3 mile stretch, however the most obvious flaw with their otherwise sound plan is the fact that that particular stretch of road, which has shops on either side of it, is the road used by lorries. Hence the potholes. It became clear very early on that if I continued to use this road, I would die.

Mind you, this is the same website that recommends riding through the heart of Clapham Junction, a junction which is not cycle friendly at all. I took a friend of mine down the route, while we were sitting in a traffic jam he asked, quite legitimately, where all of the other cyclists were. It was a very good point. Other than those 2, TFL recommend cycling though vast expanses of council estates and, worse still, riding the wrong way up narrow one way streets.

Very kind of them really, although I should have known better. This, after all, is an organisation which deems it acceptable for leaves on train tracks to be a legitimate reason for trains to be late. There was a story last year where they blamed snow for delays in trains. When quizzed on this, the official response was that it was the wrong type of snow. Of course it was.

I'm now using a lovely route which passes through 2 large parks and runs along the river. Wearing a bright yellow jacket which hurts my eyes and a helmet which I'm sure would do absolutely nothing in any sort of proper accident.

2. Bike paths
Bike paths are to be avoided at all costs. You can see the logic and appreciate the good intentions of people who come up with these ideas. Let's keep cyclists off the road, give them a road of their own. Sadly however, the paths themselves are generally half a footpath, meaning that they're as flat as a pornstar. The other thing about footpaths is that they have things in the middle of them, such as trees and bus shelters. As a result, every cyclist in this city shares roads with the cars, while the cycle paths remain cycle free. And fair enough too, pedestrians will kill you before lorries will I reckon.

3. Weather
I don't want to go on about the weather here, mostly because I don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be. Yes, it is cold and dark for 4-5 months of the year, but it doesn't rain that much, and you just learn to deal with it. Ie, spend most of your time indoors, which is what people do in extreme heat.

Having said that, tonight I cycled home in persistent rain. Ordinarily this wouldn't be too bad, however halfway home is the worst time to find out that your waterproof trousers are not, in fact, waterproof.

4. Annoying
This is a bit misleading. I didn't know what to label it. There are two free newspapers available of an afternoon - the London Paper or the London Lite. (aka London Shite) Both are absolute rubbish. By way of example, the morning version featured, on page 3 mind you, a story about a bloke who was convinced that an iguana was stuck up his tree. He called the fire brigade, they came out and discovered that it was, in fact, an iguana shaped piece of wood. The headline? Wood you twig that this isn't an iguana. Quality journalism. Here is the link. Notice that it's not listed under the 'weird' tab, but that this story is important enough to be considered 'news'.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Wood_you_twig_that_this_isn%92t_an_iguana?&in_article_id=328615&in_page_id=34

Anyways, point being that being the competative bunch, vendors of both the Paper and the Shite love nothing more than to shove their paper in your face as you're walking innocently down the street. I was hoping that cycling would prevent this, it's rather annoying. No such luck. Stop at a traffic light near a tube station and they'll accost you with pages full of celebrity gossip. Like I'm going to read it whilst weaving through black cabs and double decker buses.

The good news is that I'm getting healthier. Most people who travel over here receive what's called the Heathrow injection, a curious condition that sees them leave much heavier than they arrived. I've actually lost rather a lot of weight now, and am enjoying the feeling of relative healthiness.

A day at the Bridge

2008-09-01T22:56:00.004+01:00

It's been a very busy few weeks. First there was the camping trip for the last of the bank holiday weekends, then, just to prove that there is some culture and dignity, there were the two trips to the proms, one to go.

This post though is about a different type of culture. The trip on Sunday afternoon to watch Chelsea play Tottenham at Chelsea's home ground, Stamford Bridge.

Chris and I were lucky to score a couple of free tickets to this game in the heart of the Chelsea supporters. Many years ago this would have been akin to a death sentence, particularly for Chris who is a Tottenham supporter. Thankfully, he left his spurs shirt and home and stuck to wearing Tottenham underpants. The ground is a standard sized football pitch, however the stands are very close to the touchline, meaning that the 40,000 crowd sit virtually on top of the players. The atmosphere was incredible, both breathtaking and intimidating at the same time.

From the kick-off, Chelsea were in control. Realistically, either Chelsea or Manchester United will win the premier league this season, Chelsea's domination of the first 25 minutes or so confirmed that. After a series of close calls and closer oooooos from surrounding supporters, Chelsea did score. Cue wild celebrations and hugs, as well as the songs, which were amazing.

The one that really stuck out was sung to the tune of Rod Stewart's 'We are Sailing'. Referring to Chelsea's 6-1 win over Tottenham at Tottenham's home ground White Hart Lane last year, the song started with 'We beat you 6-1, we beat you 6-1, we beat you 6-1, at the lane'. Innocuous enough. 2nd verse. 'It was easy, it was easy, it was easy, at the lane'. Fair enough. Bit of a pause before the third verse though, and I wondered whether the supporters had simply run out of clever phrases to sing. The third and final verse? 'You're all wankers, you're all wankers, you're all wankers, at the lane'.

Things were happy enough until Tottenham equalised just before half time. Cue incredible silence from the chelsea fans who occupied 90% of the stands. For Tottenham, a 1-1 result would be as good as a victory. For Chelsea, it would be a disaster.

The second half was a completely different affair. Chelsea were not playing well and the crowd really got on their backs. Every missed pass was greeted with a groan and after a while, outright abuse from the once supportive crowd. The game finished 1-1, but by then a lot of the crowd had already left.

It is very difficult to describe what sort of an impact football has on this country. It is huge, bigger than any other sport. The first proper fan I met was Terry. Terry has supported Fulham for 40 years. In that time, he has missed 5 home games. Just 5. Wedding on match day? No problems for Terry, ceremony in the morning, off to the ground to watch Fulham in the afternoon. I thought for a long time that Terry was probably close to a one off, that Fulham probably had his name etched into his seat. I was wrong, Terry's story is not unusual. It's not the story of the everyday man, but I have met several Terry's in my time here.

Tickets for one game at Stamford Bridge will cost you £50 minimum, goodness only knows what a season ticket would cost you, but it's fair to say that for the average supporter it's a significant outlay. That's why they probably get so upset when their team doesn't play well. Terry definately did. Nevertheless, the game was an amazing experience, easily the most incredible sporting event I've seen live, due mainly to the raw emotion on display.

Postcard from Korea

2008-08-29T00:44:00.002+01:00

There's nothing quite as wonderful as badly spoken English. A friend of mine sent me a postcard from Korea which contained a Folk tale on the back. It is reproduced below, I offer a prize to the person who can tell me what the hell it means:

"The folk tale is putting in the desire and a desire of the general people full. Well, the anger which is not the name which does not receive a picture study came to draw by the field. Consequently level high technique or refinement it pushes it lessens but the form and space composition of the thing which it expresses with line putting first are freer. It is fine and the free minute protection against the cold expression which is not bound in colouring and the frame which are gorgeous looks better, mes with the humor of our ancestors is displayed, sensibility without it is a picture which represnts a popular culture. Further sesthetic sense of our nation, it is honest and is reflecting even from point the questionable matter is big."

Now, I will be the first to admit that by not seeing the pictures on the front, desciphering this may be a little difficult, so by way of assistance I can tell you that 1 of the pictured features a couple of black and white cats, one of whom seems to be chasing the other up a tree, and a fat bloke sitting on a black stone. That last picture is a little blurred, it may well be a pile of his own faeces.

Obviously, I don't want to offend the person who sent me this. Any ideas?

Yorkshire Dales - 3 peaks

2008-07-30T09:36:00.005+01:00

It seemed like a really good idea at the time. Take a friday off work, get together with the squash boys, go to the Dales, stay in a lovely cottage and go for a gentle walk up three mountains on the Saturday. You have to admit, in theory, it sounds idillic. Provided you're a boy of course. And enjoy discussions about, um, boy stuff. And meat, you'd have to like meat too. Anyways.

Friday morning came. Armed with a carload of meat, Alex, Darren and I set off on the long trip north. 6 frustrating hours spent in queues and listening to driving South African rock later, we arrived at the small village of Dent, where we met up with Greg, Mike, Angus and Chris, who had come up on the train. They had used their time wisely. Ie, they were drunk. They brought 3 bottles of champagne, a 1 litre bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin and smoked salmon onto the train. Their fellow commuters probably couldn't believe their luck. (I freely admit that any cynicism detected is nothing but jealousy.)

Sometimes whilst living here, you receive subtle and not-so-subtle reminders of how small a world it really is. I remember arriving in Edinburgh for the first time a couple of years ago. It was delightful. I'd always wanted to go to Edinburgh, but really wasn't aware of just how beautiful it was. Anyways, arrived on the bus after a long day's travelling. I was really excited. Scottish flags were everywhere, whisky was dirt cheap, the buskers played bagpipes, it was marvellous. I felt wonderful and happy that I was so far away from home.

I walked aimlessly to the backpackers I'd booked into for 3 nights, strolled into the bar, and froze. Jimmy Barnes was playing. Something was terribly wrong. I went to the bar to lodge a complaint. A large gentleman who looked like he'd just walked off the set of Home and Away turned around and said "G'day mate, what'll it be?" All the romanticisim of travelling was dispelled immediately.

Dent presented something similar. Walked into the local bar expecting to see a range of warm, flat beers, hopefully brewed in the area. Nope. Smack bang on the centre of the bar was a tap for none other than XXXX. Sometimes I get the feeling that Brisbane follows me and just occasionally, when you least expect it, gives you a little tap on the shoulder.

Regardless, had a pint of XXXX (a pint mind, how novel) before heading to the cottage for a night of poker and meat. Alex, we discovered, had forgotten to bring his boots of all things. His choice was to either do the walk in flip-flops, or in a pair of my shoes. Alex decided on my shoes. Frankly, this was a hell of an undertaking, 20-odd miles in someone else's shoes which were seriously underequipped for the occasion.

First peak was Whernside. This was the tallest and was by far the easiest. A gentle walk up a long hill. This is Alex and Darren at the top of Whernside. As you can see, they're barely raising a sweat.

The other two mountains were a little more problematic. The distance between them was huge and after the second, Ingleborough, there was a long walk into the wonderfully named town of Horton-in-Ribblesdale. Horton itself had at least 3 pubs, with four miles and 1 mountain still to climb it was very tempting to simply stay there.

But we finished. It took 12 hours. It had been the hottest day in Britain that year. The humidity was high, even by Brisbane standards, and there wasn't a breeze to speak of. I ended up drinking about 7 litres of water. But the day itself was, in retrospect, very enjoyable. That was by far the most demanding physical activity I'd ever undertaken, it always feels good to have actually finished.

So naturally enough, after such a long day, we drank shots. We are boys after all.

France part 2 - Languedoc-Rousillon

2008-06-29T22:55:00.010+01:00

Following the adventures in Paris, I went to join my parents who were visiting the South West of France. Caught the train from Paris to Perpignan very early. It has to be said that the French train system is the best I've ever come across. Clean, fast and comfortable. They should be very proud of themselves.

Met the folks at Perpignan. Thankfully, mother didn't embarass anyone by bursting into tears or song at the sight of me. Quick stroll through Perpignan to look for some food. By that stage it had been at least 3 hours since the last meal (a hurried croissant on the train) and my stomach was beginning to digest itself. The food in France was so good, so very good, it was impossible to stop eating.

The stroll through Perpignan gave me a good impression of the place. In particular, I was struck by the number of very good looking women on the streets. So much so that the question 'which city has the best looking women in the world' has been answered by Perpignan. Perpignan, like Barcelona, is essentially a city full of Catalans, and I wondered whether or not this amazingly good looking women thing was going to be typical of Catalonians. Sadly, was brought back to earth with a shock a few days later. Read on, after you've admired these bells from a castle at the edge of Perpignan.

The folks had, once again, chosen very wisely. We ended up in a wonderful house in the middle of an old town named Prades. Same sort of thing as last year really, old stone house with character to burn. Tuesday was market day. It was very difficult not to walk up to each stall and say "I'll have one of everything please". Mum went out during the day and purchased Languedoc casserole, a dish which essentially consists of beans, duck, bacon and onions. It was delicious. I don't eat beans very often. Baked beans are served with just about every meal here, I don't really get the attraction. It strikes me as more student food than anything else. These beans were different to baked beans, but the effect was very similar. I'm pretty sure that the old stone foundations were shaken to their core that evening.

(Thankfully, there's no photos of that. This is one of the church in the centre of town)

The ruins which existed around that area were amazing. Special mention goes to the small 9th century abbey close to where we were. The monks who lived there made wine which they sold for 3 euro a pop. Nothing will really beat the value of the 1 euro wine from Hungary which was drank in Rome, but for sheer effort, this was admirable. This picture is for them.

Carcassone was very impressive, a large medieval city with a well maintained castle in the centre. It was huge, and almost impossible to take a photo of. So I didn't. But I nicked this one off someone else.

Bizzarely enough, a short drive away from Carcassone was the wonderfully named Le Parc Australien. Yes, that's right, an Australian theme park. Sadly, as mum and dad had only recently left Australia, they wouldn't be coaxed into being reminded about it. No matter, despite the fact that it is in French, I think the website probably speaks for itself.

http://leparcaustralien.free.fr/index2.htm

For the purposes of this blog however, the highlight of the trip was definately the day we went to one of the smallest countries in the world, Andorra. It wasn't the fact that mountains of beans had been consumed the night before, although that didn't help my poor mother and father who had to share a small Peugot with me. It wasn't the fact that the drive there was along tiny roads through the Pyrenees, although that being said, the drive itself featured some amazing scenery.

I am a bit of a facts and figures geek. In all seriousness, I used to spend quite a lot of time with an atlas looking up stats for things like smallest and largest countries. The existance of places like Andorra, Liechtenstein and San Marino were intreguing, and I had always wanted to visit them. Andorra has it's own flag, is the only country in the world where Catalan is spoken as a first language and is a burgeoning place for cheap ski resorts. In fact, the entire country appeared to be under construction. This was a bit of a shock to the system. After spending a few wonderful days being surrounded by beautiful, ancient buildings, it was a bit unnerving to see rampant commercialism all around.

Andorra does have one thing going for it, namely that it is a tax-free zone. As a result, the thing that strikes you upon entering the Capital city of Andorra la Vella, is that the city is stuffed full of duty free shops. It is quite a spectacular setting for a city, surrounded by mountains all around, however there was little to recommend. Andorra has a football team which plays in European and World Cup qualifiers, however our quest to find a replica shirt of the national team came to nothing. Much shrugging of shoulders and shaking of heads.

After lunch, the three of us split up for an hour to do our own things. This was not a good idea in retrospect, because Andorrans take siesta between 1:30 and 4. Quite a sensible idea for the average worker, but disasterous for the tourist. Further, and without wanting to sound too cruel, the ladies of Andorra were nothing to write about. We headed home, a little underwhelmed.

Thankfully, that didn't spoil the trip, which was wonderful. I really, really like France. Special thanks must go to the olds who chose to come out and hire such a wonderful house, making it much easier for me to see them. You guys rock.

France part 1 - Paris

2008-06-15T13:31:00.003+01:00

Once upon a time many years ago, I visited Paris for the weekend. I had no money at all and survived the weekend on a diet of baguettes. The treat that weekend was a dinner at McDonalds on the Champs Elyeses.

This time, the trip was with money, and it made all the difference.

The weekend held the promise of something special and delivered from the first minute. Stepped off the Eurostar and into the main station. Spotted a rather large French man struggling with his luggage, namely a large bag on wheels, two shopping bags he was carrying and an ice-cream, which was precariously placed on one hand. You know what happened next. He missed a step, the ice-cream fell off the cone and landed on the ground with a plop. He uttered a rather loud merde, everyone else got on with their lives with a little smile on their face.

Friday was the day to do all of the things I wanted to do last time, but couldn't afford to, namely Notre Dame and The Louvre. Both were fantastic. Got completely lost in the Louvre, which suited me just fine.

Saturday was a different day. I was staying with my twin cousin Nell, who had promised me the 'non-tourist' version of Paris. She was as good as her word, I was dragged around every homewares shop in Paris in search of a new sofa for her flat.

Sunday was back to normal. Big breakfast, big building with a panoramic view of paris, trip to Napolean's tomb (big coffin for a little man), snooze under the tower and a big dinner to finish. A lovely city.

One of the things I really enjoy doing on trips is to visit supermarkets or local stores and seeing what they have for sale. It was absolutely impossible not to be impressed by the wall of cheese and yogurt that hits you as you walk through even the smallest of local shop doors. The yogurt, I assume, is to assist with the digestion of the mainstay of French food, the baguette, which is taken very seriously. There must be a bakery or boulangerie within x distance of any point in Paris. There must be a pharmacy as well, which goes a long way to explaining why there is a pharmacy on every street corner. Not your average chemist with shampoo and shower gel, but a pharmacy which only sells drugs.

As for the boulangeries, if you order a baguette, by law, you must receive a baguette containing 3 ingredients only, flour, yeast and salt. That's it. None of your fancy, remaining fresh for longer than 3 hours bread, but the most simple of breads designed to always be fresh. What's more, the price is regulated, won't cost you more than a euro. And for those of you who are concerned about the rise of mass production, fear not. The ingredients in your baguette are not allowed to be mixed by machine, by law. All of this has been designed for your average corner baker to compete with the supermarket chains who commit the unspeakable sins of adding preservatives or mixing ingredients by hand. Still, a French baguette is a work of art and probably should be preserved.

To sign off, I'll leave you with a french lesson. Baguette in French means wand or stick. If you're in a Chinese restaurant and want some chopsticks, you would ask for les baguettes. Them Chinese must have some really big gaps in their teeth...

New digs

2008-05-10T08:50:00.003+01:00

The Clapham adventures are over, and I for one am very pleased. 9 months spent living in a cupboard above a high street was more than enough. The place was certainly very convenient but the lack of space, constant noise of vehicle and pedestrian traffic and the regular piles of fresh vomit outside the front door really took it out of this old man.

So I gave notice there and moved to Wimbledon. Address provided upon request.

The place is wonderful and my new flatmates are very pretty. (One of them is reading over my shoulder) Actually, the place is a bit of a score. There was a few things that sold me, namely a big room, king sized bed, ceiling fan (that'll come in handy), watercooler by the bed, big garden and gas barbeque out the back. Gas barbeques have been missed. The usual option here is for charcoal, which I just can't figure out at all. They take hours to start and end up smoking rather than actually cooking your meat.

The new job is fine. Nothing to get overly wonderfully magnificently excited about, but absolutely incredibly superbly better than the last job, which was slowly driving me insane. This job may well do as well, however there are advantages for the bigger picture.

Have been enjoying some culture in recent times, the highlight of which was undoubtably a trip to Shakespeare's Globe to watch a version of King Lear. The Globe is a recreation of the original theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, tudor decorations included. (And not the dodgy Stratford in east London) The stage is fronted by a large standing area. At certain parts of the play, the cast left the stage throught the crowd. Twas an excellent night, with a hey nonny nonny. Nonny nonny ho.

Debt repaid

2008-04-09T13:51:00.003+01:00

For the story behind this post, please visit the site of my formerly favorite Swiss friends:

http://aichenier.blogspot.com/

Bonjour mon ami! Comment ca va? Ca va tres bien merci beaucoup. Un deux trois
quatre. Le tour d'eiffel, c'est magnifique! Provence est bon. Paris est bon. Provence et Paris est tres bon! J'aime la croissant et fromage, mais je n'aime pas la croissant avec fromage. J'habite en Londres. Quelle heure est til? Essai! Sebastien Chabal est le homme des cavernes. Iain et Alessandra, ma ami, comci comca!

Right, that's one language butchered, moving on.

Ich bin nicht fraulein Meyer.

Cornwall

2008-03-27T20:54:00.005Z

Apologies in advance to those I sent postcards too. The jokes in this post may look remarkably similar.

Cornwall is the southwestern most county of England. Its Celtic name is Kernow and along with Ireland, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Brittany, is regarded as one of the 6 Celtic nations. It has a long and rich history and like most of the other Celtic nations harbours some thoughts of independence.

In short, it seemed like a nice place and far enough away from London to spend the Easter weekend. Fresh air and all that. And there was plenty of fresh air, most of it blowing strong and wet into my exposed face. I've never been as cold before in my life. So, plan A, which was to go walking through the countryside seeing the dolmens was out the door. I tried, dammit I tried, but it was pointless. The locals must be rather used to this though. The beaches (which were really rather nice) had the red and yellow flags up and lifeguards at the ready which, given the conditions, was quite a surreal sight.

So, plan A out the door, what to do next? Well, why not try the local pubs?

I was staying in Penzance, a town made famous by the musical. Much of Cornwall's history is that of pirates. If you didn't know this before you got there, every second shop reminds you. From the timber yard named 'Shiver me Timbers', to the Pirate internet cafe, the Pirate fish and chip shop ("cod and chips for pieces of eight!") and most bizarrly a Pirate charity shop.

So, the pub it was. Amazingly, the locals have what can only be described as a pirate accent. Initially, I wasn't sure if this was part of the show they do for tourists, but if it was then they all do it very well, and it sounded pretty genuine to me. If you think I'm kidding, imagine the bar tender exclaiming 'arrr, what'll it be then', or 'arrr, it be cold today arrrr'. It was very amusing.

I won't have fond memories of the Long Boat pub though. A fat 50 year old bloke with breath that smelt like car tyres tried to pick me up. I was at the bar innocently trying to watch the football when he came over and started talking to me. It started off innocently enough, but then the touching and the odd 'good looking young fella like you' dropped into bizarre moments of the conversation. I had to make some excuses before full time. Tightassed bastard didn't even buy me a drink!

So plan C was brought into force. 5 days reading books and watching movies. Came back very relaxed and happy.

You know, I wrote the last entry in a bit of a hurry and forgot to mention the most exciting thing I found out about Barcelona. If you get a moment, make sure you do a wikipedia search for Caganer. Christmas time is a time for little nativity scenes everywhere, but in Barcelona (and Catalunia generally) they add the Caganer, which is a little gnome, much like you'd see in your standard garden. Except that this one is not holding a fishing rod, this one has dropped his pants and is in the process of defecating. You might immediately think that this blog has moved beyond the bounds of bad taste, but I swear to you that this is true. Do the search.

I asked a friend of mine from Barcelona about this. He told me that the Caganer was supposed to represent the resoiling of the earth or something like that. He told me though that Catalans are generally quite open about their bodily functions, that people would excuse themselves from the dinner table with a loud "I must go and have a shit". (In Spanish of course, which adds a bit of a romantic twist to this story) Upon returning to the table, the rest of the family/group of friends would ask with genuine interest how the shit was. I didn't want to ask too much more, like how much detail your average family member really wanted to know about their mother's movement, but it paints a pretty funny picture of your average Catalan family.

So, to all my readers, may your next movement be a good one. Til next time.

Barcelona

2008-03-01T21:12:00.005Z

Travelling is wonderful. On so many occasions you are thrown in with people whom you would never meet in a million years in an ordinary day. And if you did, there's a good chance you probably wouldn't like them anyway.

18 months ago, when staying in a small hostel in Connemara, I met Sebastien and Christy. Seb is from Paris, and had decided to take a long weekend in Ireland. Christy is from Washington DC, had a week off, and thought Ireland, why not. Seb and I were friends for 2 days, the 3 of us went for a long walk on the second day. That's been about it really, I haven't exactly kept in contact with either of them. So, when Christy emailed us both to tell us that she was coming to Spain for a week, the only reasonable decision open was to fly down for a weekend and join her. And so we did. And it was great.

One man's influence has shaped Barcelona more than anyones. Anthony Gaudi, visionary architect and committed catholic who designed some of the most amazing buildings and structures you're ever likely to see. I couldn't take a decent photo of his most famous work, La Sagrada Familia, it was simply too big and incredible to fit into one shot, so I borrowed this photo from the internet.

Amazingly, they have been building this cathedral for 100 years. They plan on having it finished by 2026, exactly 100 years after Gaudi was hit by a tram. By then there will be many more melting candle style towers. This was, without a doubt, the most visually stunning building I have ever seen. When Gaudi wasn't making plans for this one, he was building apartment blocks like this one.

I was half tempted to ring the bell and ask if Darth Vader was home.

And so ended a weekend that went rather too quickly for my likings. Great city, great food, great sangria, what more could one ask for really?

Scotland for the last time

2008-02-11T22:10:00.000Z

Well, the title is a little dramatic. But the reality is that work was to take away my Edinburgh privilages away in March, so I went and got a new job. Seemed like the right thing to do really. Working at a boring job was so much easier when your manager was in another country and you got the privilage of visiting said country and stay at 4 star hotels, all invoiced to the British taxpayer. The thought of being London bound again was too much to bear.

And so, armed with my constant trusted companion Gerald, we visited Edinburgh for one last work trip for 'work', part of which was to visit Murrayfield to watch the Scottish play the French.

I have written about Edinburgh a number of times on this blog, perhaps without giving an accurate impression of the place. It is a small city built entirely of sandstone and slate, which are the nearest raw materials. Much of the old city remains, Edinburgh having been spared the bombs that fell on most of England's cities during World War 2. Pollution from coal fires and car exhaust over the years have combined to blacken the sandstone in particular, leaving some of the most recognisable of Edinburgh's monuments looking dark. Contrary to the picture this might paint, the effect is a spooky, gothic city, which is cold and usually overcast. It's a different world.

On sunday morning we wandered into an old graveyard which didn't look as though it had changed for about 100 years. The scenic background was the imposing Edinburgh castle, which rises high above the city. I don't think I've spoken too harshly about anything on this blog, but my regular trips to Edinburgh will be missed.

So. After treating ourselves to a long walk on Sunday morning, we trooped over to Murrayfield to watch the rugby. We had, all day, seen thousands of French fans walking through the city dressed to party, hopes were high for the atmosphere inside the ground itself. And indeed, the Flower of Scotland was sung loud and proud by just about everyone inside. But to be honest, the crowd was very, very subdued for the entire match. Except for the French parts, who were singing and playing trumpets. I wished we were sitting with them, the Scots around us didn't make a noise for the entire match. I cheered more for Scotland than they did.

The most entertaining part of the match though was midway through the second half. I had purchased a little radio which had direct feed from the referee's microphone. He spoke fluent French, meaning that many of his explanations for this or that penalty were lost. But one very amusing thing happened. Ref found himself caught next to a ruck, which suddenly moved sideways, knocking him violently to the ground. After a quick commando roll and one of the biggest cheers of the day from the crowd, ref was back up and ready for action. Next break in play he went to the touchline for a chat with the linesman. Transcript:

Fuck me mate, there's some big bastards there, couldn't get out of the fucking way...so fuck yeah

Those lucky enough to have spent £5 for the radio were then treated to the sound of the referee blowing his nose which, I and anyone else lucky enough to be listening at the time, could tell, he had wanted to do for a little while... All in all a brilliant weekend.

Xmas. And the Dam. And new years

2007-12-31T16:19:00.000Z

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

2007-11-22T19:52:00.000Z

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

2007-10-17T19:51:00.000+01:00

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

2007-10-10T20:10:00.000+01:00

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

2007-09-26T18:15:00.000+01:00

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

2007-09-23T00:27:00.000+01:00

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

2007-09-17T23:12:00.000+01:00

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

2007-08-24T22:08:00.000+01:00

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

2007-06-30T19:33:00.000+01:00

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

2007-06-05T22:26:00.000+01:00

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

2007-05-12T11:47:00.000+01:00

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)

2007-05-06T11:51:00.000+01:00

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

2007-04-24T12:48:00.000+01:00

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

2007-04-17T08:46:00.000+01:00

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

2007-03-20T09:09:00.000Z

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

2007-02-07T08:52:00.000Z

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

2007-02-06T17:40:00.000Z

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!

2007-01-04T18:29:00.000Z

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.

Christmas

2006-12-30T15:04:00.000Z

Hi guys. Very sorry, attempted to put some photos up, but sadly my phone is too complicated for this cafe. Well, more truthfully, the phone and computer combined are too complicated for me, and I've left the cable for the camera at home. This is a shame, christmas was excellent, was hoping to put on some photos of how excellent it was. Spent the day at Maeve and John's house drinking wine, eating food and getting to know cousins big and small. It was fabulous, very relaxing and a lot of fun.

Not a whole lot else to talk about. Most of my friends are still away, still getting in a lot of couch time. Life continues on as always. New years should be fun, have been invited to a party at a hotel in Hertfordshire. Loads of food, wine and a piper to bring in the new year. Can't do a lot better than that.

Whatever you're doing for new years and beyond, hope its a lot of fun. See you all in 2007.

Never warm again

2006-12-21T18:02:00.000Z

Please, ignore any reference I may have made to how cold it can be in the last post. It has, of course, gotten a lot colder now. The sort of cold which makes you think that you'll never be warm again. Cold mixed with fog and predictions of snow, its something else.

Having said that, it really doesn't feel like Christmas. Its freezing, Christmas should be spent in the pool with stubbies on a hot summer day! But enough about the weather.

Am missing home this week. This is the first Christmas outside of Brisbane or Sydney for many many years and its an odd feeling. Am having some great times in this here little town, but have a feeling that I'm missing something at home that's happening right now. Missing Matthew more than anyone if truth be told, am feeling the huge distance now more than ever. Still life goes on for the moment.

Am spending Christmas day with Aunt Maeve, Uncle John, Aunt Brenda, some cousins and some children of cousins. Who I suppose are also cousins. Vive la differance, family is family and I'm faring better than a lot of folk here who have none. Mind you, they've all gone to Prague for what sounds like a meat and beer festival of some description....

Anyways, to all who read this, have a wonderful, wonderful Christmas and an excellent new year. Will be thinking of you all.

Dreaming of a white christmas...

2006-12-05T08:05:00.000Z

Christmas is a funny time of year. No matter how many warnings you receive it seems to sneak up and catch you unawares. One minute you're cursing the carols in October, the next you're fighting your way through checkouts, knowing that the thing you're buying will be half the price in a week. Yay for christmas.

There's no sign of a white christmas here, in fact, it is 'unusually warm'. I've put that expression in inverted commas because that's what everyone is saying right now. This is troubling. Clearly, it is not warm, it is very cold. Proof? No worries. Look onto the street. Your average punter is not wearing a hawaii shirt and deck shoes, overcoats, big scarves and woolly hats are the order of the day. I think then that the phrase refers to the fact that it is not cold enough to snow, which is a bit of a shame really.

Anyway, it is the season to be jolly, and I do hope that thats what everyone who reads this drivel is actually doing. I'm trying to be good, still have designs on coming home in late January to see Matthew. If nothing else, the change in temperature will be a killer.

Have arrived at work this morning to the wonderful news that Australia has won the second test. Its great. When it comes to sport, the one thing that Australia and England have in common are that we are both very cocky prior to the game. The huge difference is that the English are rubbish at any type of game at all. Cricket, rugby, soccer, don't matter, they suck. When they lose, the team are torn apart mercilessly by the media and the public, who are amazingly negative, until the next game, where they are back to their 'of course we'll win, we're english' attitude. Since I've been here they've lost a game of soccer to Croatia, a game of rugby to Argentina and a game of cricket to a team selected by John Howard, all of which have been great fun to watch.

Anyways, better run. Hope you are all super.

Dark and cold....

2006-11-21T14:44:00.000Z

I'm sitting at my desk, its 2:30pm and thanks to a suffocating cloud cover, theres nothing but gloom outside. It is cold despite the blazing sunshine this morning, so current weather is a bit sad really. Can't complain much though, despite all of the warnings the weather has been really good from the start. Yeah, its cold now, but only outside, heating is a part of life in the same way that air conditioning is a part of life in brisvegas. Definately manageble.

Not a lot to tell. Birthday was fabulous, had a big p!ss-up at an old man's pub near work. Most of my new friends came along, most of them were very sick the following day. I was also, and had to be reminded that I had become engaged to a kiwi. Apparently a breakfast invitation and a marriage proposal got mixed up somehow, Louise ended up leaving the pub with my keyring firmly placed on her engagement finger. Apparently the wedding is scheduled for May if anyone wants to come along. I have insisted that the marriage be an open one, which hasn't impressed her too much though, it may be short lived.

Not much else to report really. Had a friend down from Scotland for the weekend, went on the tourist trail and showed her the sights. The highlight was probably Abbey Road. The road itself is quite a busy one, and the famous pedestrian crossing is quite close to an intersection. On the day that Mia and I were there, there was about 10 tourists anxiously waiting for a break in traffic so that they could pose a la the beatles. Of course, this being a city where everyone seems to be impatient, cars who were held up by this display of pure tourist evil were forced to sit at the crossing and honk their horns until people stopped having fun. It was pretty funny to watch.

Anyways, someone sent me a postcard, for which I am very grateful. I couldn't understand the first joke, but the second one was very funny. I would be happy if the person who wrote it would please own up, honestly don't know who you are.

See ya.

Ottery St Mary

2006-11-08T08:19:00.000Z

Ottery St Mary is a little town just north of Exeter, which is on the south coast of the country. It would usually be one of those places you pay a fleeting visit to before moving onto another town, both of which you'd probably forget in due course.

Once a year however it plays host to one of the strangest things I have ever witnessed, something that is at its heart, truly English. Put simply, residents of the town set alight tar soaked barrels and carry them on their back through the streets of the town. Sounds dangerous enough, the barrels have been soaked in tar all year in preparation, they burn alright. One would think that the safest place to observe such an event would be from the safety of your hotel window.

However, for reasons that no one can adequately explain, crowd participation is mandatory. Put another way, the residents carry the barrels through streets packed to the rafters with people who are generally very drunk or very stoned. The result is a kind of running with the bulls type effect, a mass of people moving out of the way as some loon literally charges through the crowd with a massive flaming barrel on his or her back. This is, of course, very dangerous. Quite often the crowd was asked to move aside to let through an ambulance taking another burns victim to hospital.

What is probably most odd about this event is that no one really seems to know why they do it. One explanation was that it was a pagan ritual designed to burn away evil spirits from the town, however it started in the 17th century, pagans had long since gone by then. What you're left with is a tradition which people do just because they've been doing it for a long time. In reality, this is as good a reason as any to keep doing it. In a world of spiralling insurance costs though, one has to think that the days of tar barrelling are numbered, which is a great shame indeed.

Nosferatu

2006-11-01T16:49:00.000Z

Had a lovely weekend. Was driven out to Berkshire by my cousin Chris to catch up with family, which is always a treat. I won't bore you with the details, but it was typically English in that it involved small village pubs, warm and flat beer, darts, pickled eggs (if ever offered, say no), pork scratchings, a dinner of roast guinea fowl and a barmaid with a heart of gold. Very satisfying.

My flatmate Helen and I went and saw a movie last night. They say that you can do just about anything in a big city, this was a very good example. We saw Nosferatu, the first Dracula movie, first released in 1922. This is, of course, a silent flick, a guy was standing next to the screen playing a guitar and keyboard. Tell me that that isn't the best way to spend halloween!

The quiet weekend

2006-10-23T08:38:00.000+01:00

Visited my local for the first time on Saturday morning, a little pub called the Mitcham Mint. Never expected much, and was completely satisfied. The decor is reasonable and the Guinness was very good, but I found myself mixing with a lot of English men who were busy drinking bitter and whinging about the state of English cricket. I was cheering their collapse quietly, it seemed the safest thing to do. It seemed to me that everyone there was named 'Fark', thats what the incredibly large man with a bad skin condition was calling everyone he saw. 'Hey, faaaaaarrrrrkkkkkk!'. He was only quiet when he stopped to shovel more food into his gob, it was quite a performance, one that saw me leave after a pint.

Then visited the pub that Rossco recommended in a previous comment. Despite the review, the place was half full of Aussies watching the cricket. This lasted until the innings break, when the television was changed to the racing. As soon as that happened, loads of dark looking people appeared from the shadows and shuffled their way towards the lonely television clutching piles of betting slips. Once that happened the place lived up to its reputation.

The pub after that looked quite fancy from the outside, but was just as bad on the inside. There was only one other person there, a wiry guy with a lot of tattoos who sat at the bar and stared at me with a little grin on his face, most disturbing. About halfway through my beer an asian girl came into the pub armed with a sackful of pirated dvds that she was selling on the cheap. As I was looking through them she said 'I have this', and shoved a wad of pornos under my nose. Went back to the Mint after that and found that the cricket had been replaced by the football. Had a pint with fark, fark and fark before going home and ironing. It seemed the best thing to do.

Queensland seems like a very backwards sort of place this morning for one reason only, that being that your average Joe or Liz simply isn't trusted with fireworks. Thats very different here, my local convenience store sells them for quite a reasonable price. If that doesn't seem dangerous enough, it is forbidden to set off fireworks in public places, like parks, leaving pyros with no choice but to do so from the safety of their tiny backyards.

Saturday night was Diwali, one of the big hindu festivals of the year. My area has a large Indian population. And so with ads on the radio telling you what to do in case you were hit by a firework in the eye, most of my close neighbours were setting off full blown fireworks in their backyards for about 5 hours on Saturday night. If that doesn't get you here for a visit I don't know what will.

See ya

8 days after monday

2006-10-17T08:11:00.000+01:00

Have just arrived at work. Had a bit of a sniffle this morning so blew my nose onto a tissue. Discovered that there were flecks of dirt mixed into the snot. The last time I remember this happening was at a big day out many years ago. It was a great festival, I remember that it was stinking hot and really dry. 70,000 others were also there, the jumping and moshing on the dry dirt of the parklands created something of a dust problem, eyeryone was reporting similar nasal problems. No one seemed to mind, it was a great concert, side effect only add to the story really. The train ride this morning probably won't be quite as memorable for the mass of humanity squeezed onto the carriages.

Thats not to say that there isn't fun to be had on the tube, no-sir-eeee. The other night I stood up to get off at my station, Streatham Common. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone looking at me. It was a little Indian fellow, all of 5 feet tall, very skinny and with an oversized red dot on his forehead. He was looking at me alright, he had a very intense expression which was aimed in my direction. I looked at him, at which point he said in a broad cockney accent "go on then, p*ss off". It was really very comical, I giggled and got off the train without further incident.

And such is life at present, continuing day by day.

Monday

2006-10-09T14:05:00.000+01:00

2 weeks people, 2 weeks. That’s really not that long! I’ll tell you whats happening if you want, but its not going to be that interesting.

Look, everything is great. The house is fantastic, flatmates are excellent, although it wouldn’t have been hard to top the last flatmates. As yet, neither of the girls have had their father over to give them a ‘special massage’. Jo is a budding opera singer. She has a terrific voice which is really loud. Helen is a hyperactive pharmacist who insists on spending Sunday nights watching period dramas. I’ve watched a couple of episodes of Jane Eyre. Its like a Mills and Boon novel set in Ye Olde England. Honestly, I think that shows like that set back the cause of feminism by a couple of centuries. The women are all submissive gold diggers who bow and scrape before their masters, who are rich and cocky. I did suggest to the girls that we should model our house along the Jane Eyre lines. Jo and Helen would then have to refer to me as ‘sir’. When speaking about me to each other I would become ‘The master’. They would cook and clean for me and generally compete with each other for my affections. Thankfully they took the suggestion into consideration, even if it was a brief consideration. Just went back to making them tea after that.

So yeah.

Very few stories to tell I’m afraid, very few interesting stories anyway. No photos to show you, work computers are ancient and have all had their sound cards and ISB ports deactivated. Work is as uninspiring as always, have nothing to do at the moment, but am obliged to be here so that they’ll pay me.

Hope you are all well.

and again

2006-09-25T21:46:00.000+01:00

another update. There may be less things to write about now that I'm safely locked away in an open floor office in London. Work is alright I guess. Now that I know what I'm doing its become painfully obvious that I have in fact got nothing to do. This is a bit of a problem having come from a job in which scratching was considered a luxury. I did raise my concerns with my supervisor. She looked at me like I was Oliver, you want more??? I persisted and was given a job involving paginating and hole drilling. Ah well, for this sort of money thats probably alright, probably won't be complaining in the weeks and months to come. It is a funny place to work at. Last friday a couple of the workmates said that they were going to the museum at lunchtime. The british museum is just around the corner, I thought there might be a nice egyptian exhibition or something. Of course, the museum is a pub right across the road from the museum. The only pieces of history there were the barflys who looked like they'd been there since the 20's.

Found a place to live. Its in Streatham, a nice residential area south of the Thames. Way south actually, its about 3 stops past Clapham for those of you in the know. Its a big room, will be sharing with 2 pleasant English girls, the place has a backyard and a bbq. It was always the preferred option for a number of reasons:
1. There is a common nearby.
2. There is no walkabout pub nearby.
3. There are no New Zealanders in the house. At least, not if I've got anything to say about it. :-)

That'll do for tonight, see ya.

Salaryman

2006-09-20T21:16:00.000+01:00

well, just finished 3rd day at work. Managed, once again, to successfully pass an entire day doing absolutely nothing. Read an accounting book for most of the afternoon before reading (once again) my one allocated file and trying to understand just what on earth I'm supposed to be doing. Did a bit of photocopying on Tuesday, that was fun. Found a machine on monday that dispensed something which the English refer to as 'coffee', although it doesn't resemble the drink of the same name from home.

Was looking at a flat near Finchley on Monday night, would be sharing with a houseful of Greeks. The smell from their kitchen at dinner time was so damn good. One of the girls casually announced that she was from the island of Lesbos. All sorts of comments flashed through my head at the time, but remembering the kiwi incident I just turned casually and gave her a knowing sort of smile. The kiwis still haven't called by the way.

Finally, just to prove that its a small world after all, 2 of my ex-collegues work with me. Michael Kely and Kat Dent. Both are ex-dpp. I can see Michael from where I am sitting, which is just a little bizarre.

Anyways, off for an early night. Adios.

Big and smelly

2006-09-16T21:13:00.000+01:00

Yup, London's all that. Random street corners that smell like vomit, women wearing ridiculously skimpy garments in cold weather, lager louts singing songs at train stations, it all happens here...

am back after spending 3 days in Edinburgh, what a city that was. Small, clean and absolutely packed full of history. Another place other than london which I could easily go to and be happy. Scotland was quite similar to ireland in that sense, both have made quite an impression, and I can't work as a lawyer in either.

Looking for a place to live now, which is proving quite difficult. Went and saw a flat today which I would have been sharing with 3 kiwis. I asked for a reduction in rent on the basis that I would be sharing with, well, 3 kiwis. Got 3 blank looks in response. They haven't called back either. Talk about sensitive, jesus!

Starting work on Monday, booooooooo.........

Scottish adventures

2006-09-10T15:42:00.000+01:00

Adventures is a loose term, designed to hide the fact that I'm still in Fort William. Am leaving for Edinburgh tomorrow for a couple of nights, meaning that Scotland has been limited to one night in Glasgow, 2 in Edinburgh and 7 here. There is a lot more that I wanted to see, the Isle of Skye for instance, but this has been a most excellent week. Have made some very good friends at the hostel, and have even been upgraded to sleeping in the staff dormitory. I can't remember being this relaxed in a long time, and the prospect of starting work in a week is not a happy one.

Fort William is set amongst a mountain range and a Loch. There is so much to see and do, it seemed a shame to leave without having a proper look around. The highlight was probably canyoning, which basically involves jumping, sliding and swimming from ledge to ledge down a rather large waterfall after signing a pretty flimsy disclaimer. The grand finale was a blind 30 foot jump over a waterfall and into a freezing cold rockpool below. Something you should all try once.

Climbed Ben Nevis yesterday, the tallest mountain in Britain. Was very lucky, the visitor centre claims that the peak is covered in cloud for 355 days of the year. I picked a day where there were no clouds, the view from the top was incredible. It made the 9 hour trek worthwile. The Ben Nevis Inn is quite possibly the best located pub in the world, its at the bottom of the mountain at the finish of the walk. It was a relatively hot day, just about everyone who climbed the mountain stopped for a beer at the end of it.

Of all of the sights I've seen so far, none has been quite as strange as the whiskey flavoured condoms sold at vending machines in the pub toilets here. I've often thought that the concept of flavoured condoms is a strange one, for reasons which I won't write about here because my mother reads this regularly. Yet, my confusion was nothing compared to a friend of mine named Maz, who admitted to a table full of people that when he first encountered flavoured condoms, his first thought was 'wow, do women have taste buds down there?'. This is a man with 2 degrees, obviously anatomy wasn't one of the subjects covered. My own embarresment was to come later, when I returned to the hostel armed with the condoms. A spanish girl in the living room asked me to try and put one over my head and blow it up. I tried, it tore, so I put the tip over my nose to amuse everyone. I then blew out heavily with my nose, which sprayed the spermicide hiding in the tip of the condom all over my face. Many things could be said at this point, but again, mum reads this...

Anyways, hope you are all well. My phone number here is +44 7789 055 716. I'm going to switch off my Australian account pretty soon, but feel free to send texts to that number. It won't cost you more than if I was in Australia stil.

Ciao.

Fort William

2006-09-05T10:17:00.000+01:00

Hi kids,

Fort William is a little town in the west of Scotland which advertises itself as being the 'outdoor adventure capital of the UK'. If one were to venture outdoors today, 5 minutes is all it would take for one to get very wet and freeze ones tits off. As such, I'm stuck in the backpackers reading books, which isn't a bad thing I think. What really sucks is that I've left my camera at home, so there won't be any photos of the haggis I ate last night, or the lone piper on top of the mountain. (Kidding, there is no piper) Haggis, well, its glorified sausage mince really. At least thats what it tasted like. They don't cook it in sheeps stomach these days, they have plastic stomachs.

People seem to want to know about the job. Well, the insolvency service acts as an official receiver for individuals or companies that have been declared insolvent. Ross was right then, they oversee the disposal of the remaining assets of the company. A debt collector, as my mother so eloquently put it. My role is in the investigative department, I will be investigating insolvent company directors with a view to determining whether they have acted in breach of the law, and whether an application should be made to the court for additional penalties. To be honest, it sounds dead boring, theres no court work and there is masses of financial documents to wade through, but its an income and that will do for now. Don't worry about that though Alice, just get yourself over here!

Anyways, better get back to the book. miss you all.

Employment

2006-08-29T21:12:00.000+01:00

This is a big city, and things tend to happen very quickly, but I wasn't expecting this.

Had a job interview with the Insolvency service at 4pm today. Whilst on the train home they called and offered me the job, which I accepted. Whats even better is that it doesn't start until 18 September, giving me plenty of time to travel a bit more and sort stuff out. Everything has managed to work itself out very well!

Its not the job I wanted, it doesn't pay quite as much, but its still pretty reasonable by Ipswich standards and sounds quite interesting. Plan now is to head to Scotland soon, before coming back and sorting out a place to live.

This is so cool!

Brighton and Liverpool

2006-08-28T23:40:00.000+01:00

Hey guys,

well, just returned from a whistle stop tour of brighton and liverpool.

Brighton is a largish city on the south coast of England, famous for Brighton rock and the pier, which is a tacky tourist attraction. The pier houses the erroniously named 'Palace of Fun', which could probably be renamed 'Palace of shite'. The city itself was very nice, and it did have a pebble beach, which looked quite bizzare. Had a couple of lovely nights there with friends. Did also have my first curry on English soil, which lived up to its reputation.

Liverpool though was something else. We landed right in the middle of a big free musical festival. We missed the proclaimers by about half an hour, which was a great shame, but we did see Hermans Hermits of all people. Who are they you ask? Well, only the people who wrote 'Theres a kind of hush, all over the world...'. Mum and dad will no doubt remember who they are. It was strange, the average age of people who go to the festivals I do is about 20, the audience here averaged about 50. Many of them wouldn't have been out of place in a mosh pit such was their dancing style.

Of course, we were also in the middle of beatles week, meaning that beatles tribute bands had arrived from all over the world to perform at various landmark venues. On Sunday we went to the cavern, where the beatles first made an impression. there were beatles bands from Spain, Brazil, Japan, Liverpool itself, France, Holland and even a Russian quartet who played beatles songs with 2 accordians and some bongos. and they were all brilliant, except perhaps for the russians.

On at least 3 occasions I found myself in the position of not understanding a single word a local had said to me. I can only assume that they were speaking English, we were in England after all. I think the girl in the 80s bar was simply too drunk to talk properly, but the other locals had no such excuse, so thick and strange are their accents. The 80s bar deserves a mention, being in the position to buy plastic madonna boobies and a tinsel wig listening to 80s music was was like being in a very special place indeed.

A very satisfying weekend. Have a job interview tomorrow, which should bring things back down to earth a touch. hope you are all well.

London

2006-08-23T20:01:00.000+01:00

Well, here we are, my home for the next little while. London, big, cold, wet but generally very pleasant.

Had an interview with an agency yesterday morning. Seems they're crying out for Australian lawyers at the moment, they've put my name forward for 4 jobs already, all this in the space of 36 hours. The money is unbelievable, the job I really want pays £18.50 per hour. This equates to about £35 000 per annum, or $80 000 Australian. Whatsmore, the cost of living is not that much more expensive that what I'm used to. All in all, sitting back from the comfort of my uncle and aunt's house, the decision to come here seems like a very good one.

If I get offered any of these jobs, the plan is to delay starting for about 2 weeks, during which time I'll head up to Scotland for a look around. Never been there, it looks awesome and summer is about to disappear.

The weekend starts tomorrow, heading to Brighton to catch up with an old friend of mine, Rachael Smith. Then catching a lift with her to Liverpool to see Natasha Goss and a Beatles festival, before heading back to London on Monday in time for a job interview on Tuesday. Everything is happening very quickly, but its all a lot of fun at the moment. You should all make plans to get yourselves out here as quickly as possible!

Goodbye Ireland

2006-08-19T10:54:00.000+01:00

Its a sad farewell to Ireland today. The last 2 weeks have been wonderful, but the truth is that I can't stay. My law degree is recognised, but my qualifications as a barrister are not. For that to happen I would have to go through the usual post-degree route along with everyone else, which is basically a series of exams. This is complicated by the fact by the fact that 2 of the exams test your knowledge of Gaelic, the ancient Irish language. The only thing I know how to say in Gaelic is kiss my arse. Given that the language itself is spoken by so few people here, this would be virtually impossible, so back to England we go.

This isn't too upsetting, Ireland itself is a very short and very cheap flight from England. And I think that the last week has taught me that its not so much where you are, but who you are there with that makes the difference between having a good time and having a great time. I do miss the company of friends, and have many friends in London.

One tip for anyone that does come to Ireland in the future. Dublin is a lovely city, but the Ireland you see in the postcards is away from Dublin. Galway was an easy place to be. Buy a pint and chat to the closest person, they will respond. Had a couple of great nights there with people whose names I don't remember.

So, back to England tomorrow morning without any hand luggage. Have an interview on Tuesday morning with a recruitment agency, hoping that something excellent comes from that.

Cheers to all.

Photos

2006-08-15T19:15:00.000+01:00

Alrighty, theres some photos at this site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsnotalogitsablog

Connemara

2006-08-14T20:21:00.000+01:00

Its difficult to know what to write without sounding repetitive. Have just spent 3 glorious days in Connemara, a part of Co Galway famed for rugged countryside. It was spectacular and wonderful, just as everything on this holiday has been so far.

Stayed at a hostel on the shore of Killary fjord, which advertises itself as being the only fjord in Ireland. I was kinda expecting a glacier, but apparently fjord simply means deep narrow channel. There ya go, who said that logs weren't educational?

The first day was spent walking 20 kms with my trusty French companion Sebastian. We walked along the fjord to the Atlantic ocean. Unbelievably, we found white sandy beaches and a scuba diving centre. Even more unbelievable was that there were pasty white Irish families swimming in, a move which I described as close to child abuse.

We were joined by our American friend Christy (sorry if the spelling is wrong) on the second day, which was another 20 km adventure into the small town of Leenane and beyond. No walking trip would be complete without a pint, which I think made the spectacular scenery on the way back all the more exciting. Quote of the day belongs to Christy, who expressed surprise when a sheep baaed, saying 'they really do baa!'. Thats right Chris, although you know that they bark after sunset when they are on the hunt for human blood.....

On the third day myself and a the lovely Mireille from Quebec hitchhiked to and from a little town. This was another first, hitchhiking for me conjures up images of Ivan Milat style men carrying shotguns and driving massive black utes, however it is a testament to just how friendly this place is that everything went very very well. It was nice to be picked up by natives. Its been very difficult to find Irish people here, someone may well think that French is Ireland's first language. I asked one French couple why so many came to Ireland to holiday. They answered that the Irish and the French had one big thing in common, they both hate the English. This seemed a perfectly reasonable answer.

Back in Galway city now. Going to spend a couple of days on guided tours before heading back to Dublin to spread some charm at employment agencies. Miss you all.

Galway

2006-08-10T12:14:00.000+01:00

Up until now I've been travelling with Paul Alsbury, crown prosecutor from up Rockhampton way. We parted company this morning, he had to head back to Australia to work, which is very sad for him. We had a lovely night last night, in a pub with session musicians in the corner playing traditional Irish music. Its a great arrangement, they turn up with their instruments and play in exchange for free beer all night. Kinda wish I'd brought my recorder.

Paul's company has been a highlight of the trip so far. He tripped an old lady on the bus this morning. The best day we spent together was the 45 odd km bike ride through the Gap of Dunloe. I will try to post some pictures at a later date, although I doubt that they will do the place justice. The gap is a 10 km road which runs between two mountains. The scenery was absoutely stunning, green fields, steep mountains and glorious lakes. It wasn't hard to see why the Irish have so many tales featuring fairys and leprachauns, it was just the sort of countryside where you could imagine a little green fella talking about his pot of gold.

Having said all that, the experience would have been much better if Paul hadn't have been complaining about bruising to his perianal area. :-)

killarney

2006-08-07T17:33:00.000+01:00

have about 7 minutes left to write something meaningful.

has been quite a few days. Thinking about it, have quite literally travelled to the other side of the planet in the space of about 3 days. Am currently sitting in an internet cafe in the aforementioned Killarney, which is just gorgeous. Dublin was great. In the absence of anything to tie me down at the moment, may well stay there rather than London. made it to Dalkey which was a real highlight.

Flight was uneventful and long. Choice of 2 highlights really, the chinese fellow sitting next to me who farted all the way from Brisbane to Taipai, or the Irish fellow I met in Frankfurt airport at 7 in the morning who had bought duty free Jack Daniels from Sydney and insisted that we drink a bottle between us. London looked great after that!

Better run. Miss you all, keep in touch.

What to call it

2006-08-01T12:49:00.000+01:00

It seems that blogging is a worldwide craze. Up until last Saturday I had no idea that such a thing existed. My lovely sister Louise probably made the best comment, she thought a blog was something one left in the toilet after a boozy night out. I'm in full agreement, the title therefore serves as a constant reminder to both me and anyone who could be bothered to read the drivel that will no doubt appear in the next few months and perhaps years.

Its funny, I feel as though I should be more excited about the upcoming trip, but I'm not. Its not easy at age 31 to consider completely uprooting oneself from the place I've been settled in for 22 odd years. Christ, 6 months ago I was going follow in Nigel's footsteps and put myself into masses of debt. Now i'm heading off with a finite amount of money, no income and no real plan of attack. It feels like a very odd situation. Isn't this supposed to be liberating?

Mind you, I'm sure that 2 weeks in Ireland will sooth the worry in no time. I've always loved Ireland, theres a real spirit to the place. Its hard to put into words, but every time I've gone back I've always felt settled and happy.

Anyways, that ought to do for a first post. Will be in Ireland on Sunday, and drinking in my home town of Dalkey on Sunday night. This will be a first, and I can't wait. Paul and I are off to the lovely town of Killarney the following day. Killarney is in county Kerry. Last time I was there it was the middle of winter. It was still great, but I'd like to see it in summer. Am pretty sure that the pubs will be packed to overflowing with American tourists drinking half pints of Guinness, but hopefully there'll be one or 2 cute ones amongst them :-)

See ya.