Bart's European Tour

One night in Bangkok

2012-01-23T20:00:00.004Z

Now I’m not too sure why this blog has taken me so long toget around to. Maybe it was the shock of being back in London to be met with a Spring that gotcolder the closer to summer it was. Followed by back at work and day to daylife, and before I knew it Christmas was around the corner.

No, I think it’s more the fact that the idea of compoundingtwo months of travelling around Asia in to areadable, entertaining and mainly short entry was far too daunting. Rememberingthat what I write is rarely readable, never entertaining and brevity – like myawesome modesty – is never my strong suit, I conceded that I should begin. But for those that feel that even this is too arduous to read, I'll be breaking the trip down to a few manageable blogs over the next few weeks.

And for you even lazier ones, here's a quick video of the first leg.

South East Asia

Let’s start from the beginning.

One day in mid-2010, Adam Governi and I were sitting on abeach in Spain and heproduced a Lonely Planet on

Mexico

“When are you going there?” I asked.

“Not sure, end of the year when I go home,” he said.

“You’re going home??” I asked.

And that was the moment that Gov revealed no more man dates,ruining our perfectly good man holiday. This was big news for me. What was Igoing to do now? Who was I going to hang out with? Who was going to cuddle mewhen the thunder got too loud? Thank GodAnna came along when she did otherwise I would probably having been sitting ina corner staring at a wall for all of 2011!

But what this did mean was that there was time for one lastman epic (think Ken and Ken with no Barbie, but less gay and no pink Cadillacor Malibu beachhouse).

So heading back to work the next week I had travel on mymind and decided to throw it all in for the bustling markets of Thailand, thebeaches of Vietnam, the jungles of Cambodia, the trees and rivers of Laos andthe general shit chat of Governi.

Thailand

อยากให้ผมได้นำความได้เปรียบของลูกเจี๊ยบในวันหยุดมากขึ้น

What a place Bangkokis. You can’t really just wander around and have a look. You’re either kneedeep in tourists, eating Pad Thai from the side of the road or you’re beinghassled by every second hawker asking you if you want a pineapple, coconut,‘company’, etc. I was glad that it was my first port of call as I slept off anyjet lag by day and was able to happily bounce along the Koa San by nightwithout having to deal with the daily mash of locals ‘helping’ to call you atuk tuk and give you directions to a very special monastery (before you end upat a gem store).

Shaking off my London ‘friendliness’ - basically being rude and not wanting to talk to anyone - ittook a few days to get in to the swing of things, get a base coat tan -basically like a medium rare steak: burn both sides and rest – and revert to atravelling state of mind.

Bangkok donw I went back to the airport, walked throughsecurity and just happened to bump in to Guv who had been in

Mexico

for a month. When I saybumped in to, I mean stalked like a cat stalks a bird…creeping up behind himfor a good 5 minutes before scaring the shit out of him – I was having a whaleof a time! It was down to Koh Samui before Koh Panyang and our holiday begun.

Arriving at the world’s most beautiful airport, it wasn’t agood omen when I broke my finger tying to pull my bag off the conveyor belt. Ican still remember the lady’s face behind Gov turn white when I held up my handand the top of my finger was at right angles to the rest of it – ha – everycloud I guess. Stopping by a local McDonalds (we of course were in such aremote Asian paradise…) for a cup of ice and some tape to wrap up the firstinjury of many, the excitement of the next couple of months was intoxicating.

And Koh Panyang was just how I wanted a Thai island to be.Parties on the beach and jungle at night, lounging around the pool by day,drinking games, shakes on the mountain and just general revelry. However, I wassurprised how much I just sat and read, managing to get through a combined 815pages of book (that was 2.1 books) in two days, while Gov slept off his jetlag. I told you I didn’t know what to do when he wasn’t about!

Lost in thought while waiting for the Princess and the Peato wake from his slumber, I realised I was a travel snob. Not that I’ve tried tobe, but I’ve now been travelling for six years (albeit an anchor in the UK) and beforethat was fairly worldly anyway. My frustrations peak when people can’t navigatean airport; those who spew on about how 'they are travelling to find themselves'; people whose accent change after 30 seconds in a transit lounge;or ‘I love X ’ t-shirts - these all drive me bonkers.

The best t-shirt I saw in my travels was hand made by a guydoing a season in

Laos

.It read:

Brian
English
28
Working here
…now stop asking me the same f*&king question.

Why was I thinking about this? Because I’d been in

Thailand

for a week and nearly every conversation I heard was pretty much the same.

The night before a young guy, about 19, came up to me andasked where I was from. The young fella was so excited as he was from Melbourne too. My responsewas: ‘and?’. Dented him a little, but his enthusiasm was so great that he ranand grabbed his other Melbournian friends to quiz me about where, etc, etc,etc. Quickly, but politely telling him I lived in London and hadn’t actually spent more thanthree weeks in Mebourne for five years was a way to escape. But at least he wasan excitable little chap.

With a week of the beach under our belt, a few nights in KohSamui (and bugger me there are some Aussie bogans there) and it was off to Laos to put ourparty practice up to the test. 2010 had been a fair practice run for Gov and I, so we werepretty sure we could do this with ease.

And we were now joined by Dwayno.

Laos

นี่คือจุดที่ผมคิดว่าแอนนาเริ่มที่จะตั้งขึ้นอีกคน

First stop on the way is the Laotian capital of Vientiane. Now, whenLonely Planet references ten pin bowling as a number one tourist attraction inthe city, you know there isn’t much to do there. And we were right.

Doing the obligatory walking around the town, trying somelocal cuisine, popping on for a beer and trying to talk to the locals, we wereflush out of ideas.

So we went ten pin bowling.

One night there and it was off to the main reason forheading to Laos– tubing.

Even the four hour bus ride that was cut prematurely shortwhen the bus broke down couldn’t dent our spirits (which we lifted when wecould successfully hitchhike for the last 30 mins).

Hitting Van Vieng just past lunchtime, bags down, hoteldoors locked, tubes armed, buckets at the ready, it was time for the experienceknown as tubing!!

Now the basic premise of tubing is you start at the top of ariver, get in an inner tube and float down it, stopping in the numerous barsalong the way via little Laotian fellas throwing you ropes with inner tubes,bottles, etc. At these bars there are water slides, swings, and massive 50pvodka red bull bucket fuelled partiers. Following these parties, which endabout 6pm, it’s back to the relatively small town until it kicks off at 10pmall through the night, followed by doing it all over again the very next day.Most people do this for two or three days.

We were there for six.

I’m not going in to too much detail – primarily because Ican’t remember much of it – and it ended up blurring in to one, what seemedendless, week. In between bouts of jumping up and down like I was a 5 year oldwith ADHD,

Laos

whiskey shots, playing football with the local kids, floating down theriver…there were swings.

I F*&KING LOVE SWINGS!

Always my favourite playground equipment…actually, who am Ikidding by putting that in past tense: my favourite playground equipment. I spent the majority of my time seeing howmuch higher, further, closer to the edge of bar I could get before being inserious danger….and then back flipping in – I was having the time of my life!

A week after entering the Laos jungle, we finally excited asshells of our former selves. It was then off to Vietnamon a propeller Laos Air – no crashes since 2002 apparently – we checked.

After countless days ofdrinking, sleeping pills became the only way to combat the heartburn or get to sleep after numerous litres of red bull. Unfortunately, for some reasonthey didn’t actual affect me. So while Guv and Dwayne took 1, maybe even ahalf, I popped 2, 3, 4 to seemingly no effect.

That’s not until we got to Vientienne airport and sat down.Displaying all the flexibility of a highly spoiled cat, I flopped and purredall across uncomfortable seats, and one point snoozing across three departurelounge seats with a steel rod in my back, and had to be led to the plane Weekend at Bernie's style.

I slept all the way to Hanoi.

Day time fun

2010-11-23T17:53:00.021Z

So without much to do over the past two weeks of unemployment I've had to stagger activities through the days. The first week was okay given I had to prepare for interviews and do a lot of reading. However, the second week has been more difficult to fill.

The Ashes has helped, as has organising my trip and an empty gym to go to, but now that winter has kicked in there's not much more you want to do than sit at home, eat and watch daytime TV. Particularly in this:

Yep, an all in one tracksuit.

Why would I resort to such lengths? The typical UK December blizzard of course.

What gets me every year is without fail all essential services in the UK shut down when the snow kicks in. And every year the people running it say 'we weren't prepared'. The only surer thing will be that in March they will then say they have learned the lessons of the past and improved...only for the same thing to happen the next year.

How can this keep happening when the rest of Europe snows heavier, for longer, and with less resources - Poland is minus 16 for God's sake. How? British blame culture.

As I've said in the past, I haven't lived anywhere where 'it's their fault' is more used. Blame will go in circles for 2 months before there's no one left, and then they give up. Take the below for example:

No trains departing (especially lovely after several weeks of strikes) and the milk-less corner store. You order milk everyday, how can you run out?? It's not as if the four days of snow and news that people stayed home rather then went to work should surprise you there's a greater demand.

So anyway, trapped inside has given me a lot of time to simply watch day time TV and surf the net. That's where I discovered a very unusual facebook ad. You know the ads that appear down the right hand side? Well, a recent one was advertising virus protection. Take a look at the ad - have they used an image of The Hoff??

But tomorrow it's off to sunny South East Asia for two months where these problems won't follow me. Don't miss me too much and I hope to regale you with stories of intrigue, mystery and amusement on my return.

Hope I can wear my onesy there.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

2010-11-02T19:58:00.015Z

They say music is food for the soul, and while it may be, I think food is love. Well, not so much that but more if you've got the love thing down, all you want after that is food.

I’m baffled when watching people in a relationship that everything becomes about food. But not so much when people get together, but more when they move in. The conversations around my house now days are constantly about food - not me - my flatmates. It's 'what are we having for dinner' and 'what’s for breakfast', the supermarket is the new nightclub, the kitchen top is a defrosting machine, and the constant sound of grazing is heard by everyone in sizzling, popping, crackling distance from Clapham Common. In fact, MasterChef is the most watched programme, with Come Doine with Me being second.

It’s not unusual I guess. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs established that the base things that people need in order to he happy are food, shelter, procreation. So when your missus moves in you’ve got two (albeit one drops off a little) so you may as well go gang busters on the third – num num num!!!

Why am I on about this? Well, I've just gone through a break up myself. It was my decision, and there are no hard feelings. In fact, I would even go back one day if the opportunity was there. Yes, after nearly four years, Lloyd's and I have gone our separate ways. 'That's not a break up' you say, but I disagree. For many years I've been married to my work and putting it first in most circumstances - in fact ending proper relationships when they got in the way.

I've been loyal to it, spent all my time with it, gone out with it and taken it home with me. It quite ironic that the Who's song (below) played on my iPhone in shuffle mode when I left..spooky.

But now time for a little break in my relationship with work. Why - because it's frigging freezing and I'm going to Asia to warm up! It's so cold that people are lighting fires in the middle of parks and letting off fireworks in the name of Bonfire night.

'Remember, Remember the fifth of November'.

For those that don't know, this is the rhyme taught to kids to celebrate the plot by Guy Fawkes to blow up the houses of parliament many moons ago (can you imagine celebrating this now?). Some know it as Guy Fawkes night, others know it as Bonfire Night. I know it as Let's Burn Shit.

The premise is that everyone crowds in to a small patch of grass to watch fireworks, usually put on by the Borough (or council for others), who then don't pay for anything else for the rest of the year despite charging what's called 'Council Tax' - yep, even the local council gets slice of your income. When I moved to Sydney, we saw fireworks nearly every second day - we thought we were being shot at, but the English go nuts for them

And how typically English was it that on Bonfire Night (called that due to what occurs, obviously) that the London Fire Brigade decided to go on strike. Yep, the day when they are needed the most, it's time to lay down the hoses. In fact, right now there are a few strikes.

Take the tube for example, they're always downing tools, but they do it in the strangest way. Some lines on the underground, and even some sections of lines, operate under different unions. This means that catching the tube during a strike is like Transport for London's big game of Snakes and Ladders.

Get on at Clapham South on the Northern Line, go passed three closed stops, Stockwell up, Central Line back, pass Bank and end up at London Bridge... the Tube should pay Mattell royalties!

And I ask you, what are they striking for - it's not as if they pay attention when they are are working. Here's the update on their website which monitors where the trains are (check out the top one)!!

We've got a rogue locomotive!!!

Damn vermin!!

2010-10-03T11:11:00.021Z

The chill is starting to set in. The days are getting a tad shorter, the sun a little lesser, the rain more frequent and the ciders are not as appealing as a large glass of red. Yes, winter is rattling down the Northern Line (when it's running) to my little area of the world. But what do I care - I'm on the shores of Morocco, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia for two months.

But anyway, on the way back to the London winter I'll spend some time in Seoul – basking in averages of -1 degree. Should have me in good stead for my UK return! A few people have asked why I wouldn’t just pop home to Aus for a few days. Admittedly these are English people who might not realise that it’s an 8 hour ‘pop’ home on the flight. And why would I want to go there now? Sure, there’s the lovely weather and the Ashes will be there, but hey I’m a frigging Ashes celebrity – just look at the Daily Mail for God’s sake.

http://barts-european-tour.blogspot.com/2009/12/july-sep tember-legal-yet.html

And after a conversation between a group of us at work the other day, I didn't realise how safe the UK is!

About now back in Aus you start having those stories about some bloke ‘missing’ from a secluded beach in WA, a surfer looking down and finding his leg’s gone, a Japanese or German tourist being taken by a croc, and there’s definately a snake attack a day. And what of the UK, well, it’s not necessarily the Utopia I described, they have their dangers too – just look what was in the Daily Telegraph (second page, mind) last week:

Grey squirrel threat to Highlands

Concerns have been raised over the further spread of grey squirrels after sightings in the Cairngorms.

Look out.

But if it’s not the dreaded grey squirrel, the UK has an even deadlier snake – The Adder!

The Adder (Vipera berus) is Britain’s only poisonous snake but will very rarely attack. Their usual approach is to use its exceptional camouflage to avoid being spotted or to disappear into the bushes and undergrowth at speed if they feel the vibrations of a threat approaching. The venom is actually quite strong but the adder does not inject much at any one time so there is less risk than from other venomous snakes that will strike repeatedly or inject more in one go.

What a British snake it is too: ‘listen, if I have to have a go I will, but only just enough so that you’ve learnt your lesson, old boy!’ If this sucker bites you, you have a week to get to hospital. Yep, a week. You’d chance it wouldn’t you?

‘Want to go to the pub?’
‘Nah, have to go to the hospital. Got bitten by an adder.’
‘When?’
‘Last Wednesday....yeah bugger, should be fine’.

Australia’s deadliest snake is the Taipan. And you have 7 minutes.

Now, I really got in to this topic when I started writing it. And for those that know me well, you probably understand that after a simple discussion I decided to try to find out as much as I could about this! So in my research, I found that we actually have all ten of the world’s deadly spiders, and of the top ten most deadliest snakes of the world, Australia has six on the list. Did you know even our humble platypus produces one of the most excruciating venoms known – cheeky little fuckers.

During this discussion, a collegue pointed out something that I actually found even more amazing– Aussies simply actually name things as we see them.

Watch (with some descriptions from Tourism Australia):

The Box Jellyfish - The creature has a square body

Blue Ring Octopus - this octopus has distinctive blue rings

Stone Fish - The stonefish is well camouflaged in the ocean, as it is a brownish colour, and often resembles a rock.

Red Back Spider – this spider has a distinctive red streak across its back

Brown Snake – not even going to tell you why.

Tiger Snake – come on, take a guess?

Great White Shark – it’s big, it’s white, it’s a shark. Done.

My personal favourite is the ‘red belly black snake’. Simple: it’s black and has a red belly (and what does every Aussie kid get taught...never run over one on your BMX unless travelling really fast, and always check under the car).

Now some may say it’s because – as the common collegualism sets us – we’re laid back, slow to react and, well, may seem a little simple. But I contend,that if you know if one of these things gets you you’re too fucked to remember the name:

‘Can you remember what bit you?

‘It looked like a box’.

Nurse – Box Jelly Fish, get the antidote.

Either that, or you’re too scared when something’s chasing you:

Run!!!

Why?

Brown thing moving!!!!

On the other hand, if an adder bit me, I reckon I could take the Doctor out for a round of golf to thank him before he treated me.

Why on earth did I decide to write this blog on animals? Well, as I said earlier, it started with the story of the squirrels, moved on to a girl from work telling us that she wants to move to Aus, but doesn't like spiders, and then descended in to the home of intelligent banter on Friday night – the pub. Why? This topic of conversation: ‘do you think foxes are getting arrogant?

Beg yours? But unfortunately I actually understand this one –and yes, yes they are.

It used to be that when I woke up early enough and left my house you’d see a fox running around the streets, or through the lane ways or across the common. But nowadays they down right come up to your door, knock, and ask for a cup of sugar. They’re also getting bigger. As one of my flatmats put it ‘they look like a small goat’. So while they may rival the Adder for severity and danger, I still think they’re pretty tame.

Back in the USSR!

2010-08-18T19:41:00.021Z

With my travels lately - both work and play - taking me over to New York a few times and Boston, as well as a weekend in Paris, and a few others it seemed only fair to make sure that the other side of the Iron Curtain received an equal measure of love.

Before I go into it though, I do have to point this out about Boston. It is considered the home of where America founded itself as a free nation. It's where they stood up against the English and said: 'we're our own people'. So it's good to see that the place they made the decision to express their national identity - Boston's Old Court - is now a steakhouse...

There actually is a Starbucks next door too.

There’s not a huge amount to say about Berlin accept how awesome it is. Still one of my favourite cities in Europe, last time I went there it was 3 degrees and with a girl, so in summer with 6 blokes, it's a little different experience this time around. And that’s what is so good about Berlin, it has such variety that the landmarks and tourist sights play second fiddle to the experiences and changing nature of the city. Every time you’re there somthing different is happening, and you’ll never do the same thing twice.

But Berlin is Eastern Bloc lite. On this little trip we were venturing in to the last Soviet bastian outside of Moscow, and what was essentially the poster boy for Communist States – the Ukraine.

Donners and I continued our tour through Eastern Europe, but this time decided that rather than go for the southern states of the old Bloc, we'd head to those that are still in semi-revolution! We should have realised the difficulty in travelling when we needed a visa to simply enter the coutry and had to keep our ‘papers’ on us at all times.

Flying in to Warsaw (Poland) we mucked about for a few hours before boarding a night train down to Krakow and then crossing the border at around 2am. Now, we thought by getting an overnight train we’d effectively be able to sleep over the crossing – not in the Soveit Bloc my friend. After being woken for three separate passport checks by loud banging on the door, we quickly realised that the conductor of the train had alerted the border guards, customs guards, shin guards and dental guards that we were the only foreigners on the train, and weren't they happy to triple check why we were going in to their country.

Evertually we were left to rest, but given the alphabet is in Cyrillic, we had no fucking idea where we were when the train stopped. Now travelling through areas that use the Arabic lettering that we use in English you can kind of recognise a place by the word. This is very difficult when you know where you are going is spelt Lviv, but in Ukrainian it is 0yUvLI.

After we were thrown off the train and shouted out for staying too long, we wandered aimlessly looking for a sign that we were in Lviv. Half an hour later we took a guess and made our way donw the dustry road in to town. This is when we discovered that no-one, and I really do mean no-one, speaks English in the Ukraine. We were lucky enough to stumble across a bloke at the hostel who was studying law (because he wants to life his country out of corruption – swear to God), who helped us out. He also took us shooting and informed us that he was the third best arm wrestler in his weight division. Random, but true.

A night and day spent in Lviv and we got back on board the night train down to Odessa, the Black Sea port which houses the Russian Baltic Fleet. Now Odessa was made famous by the Potemkin Steps. You may not know your Russian Revolution history, but the Potemkin Steps was a movie made just after the Bolsheviks over threw the Tsar, which showed Russian sailors of the Battleship Potemkin mutinying after Tsarist soldiers massacre hundreds of people on the steps leading to the port – the Potemkin Steps.

Thank you, steps

Odessa – like the study sessions – was great. Beach, sun, clean; even the train ride down was good. We opted for the first class cabin and were pretty proud of our new found Ukrainian language skills:

Added to this, the owner of our hostel was a Polish girl who had only recently opened it and was pretty frustrated that there were not really any people that came to Odessa to take advantage, she showed us the sites, night life and beach life that makes the seaside city so good. It only took a day for us to abandon our plans to go to Crimea and spend a few extra in Odessa, before the bus ride through the middle of Ukraine to its capital Kiev.

And wasn’t that a mission! A bunch of Ukranian blokes standing around a few mini vans shouting put the names of places. So siddling up to what we thought was certain kidnapping and death, we were bundled in and the four-hour drive north to the capital commenced.

After being dropped of at Kiev bus station (a car park) in the middle of the night, we should have realised what the city had in store for us when the cab driver tried to charge us $100USD each, despite the cost being only about £4. An interesting conversation occurred, but in the end Donners and I managed to give him £8. He wasn’t happy, either were we, but the adventure continued.

How? Well.....I’ll wrap up quick because i’m sure you’re bored of reading by about now, but after walking through the park and having a drunk following me making stabbing motions, I decided to go and stand next to some police officers. The guy laughed. I didn’t feel too safe in the city. And the I realised why. Heading back to the hostel a cop – acting on someone dropping money – accused us of stealing it, took our wallets, emptied them, and walked off. Wow – welcome to the USSR!!!

The schitzo Sun

2010-06-22T20:25:00.025Z

Well it’s got a little warm. Not hot...just warm.

The UK summer is duplicitous in how it gives you a little taste and then turns around and spits at you.

It has an amazing way of tempting you in, like that cruel girl who sends one little smile your way and then giving you nothing for weeks. Or those last three forkfuls of a curry that says ‘come on – you know you want to’ and you fart flames for 4 more hours. And like flames, the British summer time is here – uncomfortable heat followed a chilling down pour just to keep you on your toes.

What they didn’t tell you about is Pride Tuesday. It's when the very next day when the temperature plummets from the scorching 18 degrees to 2. Why Pride Tuesday? Because one is too proud to pretend it doesn’t bother them!

I, unfortunately, had my Pride Tuesday early in the season, March to be exact. Now this meant I spent the next two months in single digit weather refusing to take with me my scarf or over coat. Walking around in the brisk London spring, head held high, not feeling my toes, I was content. But now it’s good to see that the sun is here and it’s Cider Season.

I’ve actually never been able to drink cider, and when I left Aus no one did. I was very interested to see when I was back in November that it has caught on. And after 4 years, I can actually drink it too. There’s nothing like a cider in the park in the sun (that’s what we do in the UK).

But even better with this summer is the World Cup. This competition is brilliant. The underdogs standing up to do the best they can possible do; taking on the more powerful opposition and hoping for the best.

Now lately England aren’t doing too badly in the sport game. They’ve won the ashes, Murray (technically Scottish, but hey, we claim Russell Crowe) is doing alright in tennis, they beat us by one point in the rugby over the weekend, and they came through their World Cup qualifiers quite well. But yet, the media and the public in this country want a reason to lose – they really do. They don’t like success. It’s phenomenal.

The national cry for England: their attempt to build the spirits of their nation; the hopes of a country that built a global empire is and has a history of being the successful underdog.....’Maybe’.

Yes – ‘Maybe’. It’s short for ‘Maybe this is our year’. If I’m going up against the Brazilians, Argie Bargies, The Spaniards, even the Dutch – I’d want something a little better than Maybe?? Even just ‘Probably’ would help a touch. But this is the mentality: we’re not going to win so no real need to bother. Fair point.

January - good so far

2010-01-06T20:20:00.026Z

The past two weeks have seen me exercising my little (large now) arse off. Now it’s at this point (I think January 15 to be exact) when people drop those New Years resolutions. Now I've been going to the gym fairly regularly.

So seeing as my resolution isn't the usual 'get fit', what am I (not) dropping? I think it’s to be more yes based. What does that mean, well it’s a symptom of a peculiar disease that I have – Fomo.

Fomo? What is FOMO. Fear Of Missing Out. It’s a terrible disease. It means you always feel the need to back up several nights in a row and you're ever curious about what might be happening when you're not there - it's probably fun - lots of fun - you must get there!!!! You have to always be out.

But my resolution is a little different - it's to be more yes based around doing different things. Here I am in arguably the largest and busiest city in the world and I find myself doing the same

things every weekend. Don't get me wrong, I love doing the things I do; but the same pubs, the same clubs and the same entertainment does get tedious after a wee little bit. Granted, due to London's size and population the people (except for your mates) are usually different and experiences too, but sometimes you need to get out of the bubble. And what's the bubble?

Well, my bubble is Clapham. The area that stretches from Clapham North down to Balham, then across to Northcote Road, up through the Junction and into the Old Town - this is my bubble; and many of us never leave.

Why? Because it's our security blanket!

No more though - 2010 will see me leave the bubble.

So I'm going to continue with my Fomo, but do it differently - I'm going to break the bubble and move out in the greater London area. NO more will Notting Hill be a shitty Hugh Grant movie! No more w

ill Wimbledon be about tennis and Mayfair a spot on the Monopoly board. It will bring with it discomfort and being out of my bubble; but march on I must.

But one needs to be ready for the discomfort. Living in a city the size of London, it means that iPod earphones are the new condoms – you don’t go out with out them as you don’t know what’s going to happen. Particularly given the North/South divide (the areas of London separated by the Thames). Chief ‘North’ towns are Camden. Angel and Shoreditch while the South is occupied by Clapham, Putney and Balham. And you shouldn't insult either while in that territory. I'm a South boy. I like my open spaces, greenery, multiculturalism and knife crime.

What other resolutions? Well I think I need to be more accommodating. I came back from Australia more patient and relaxed, but good lord it’s difficult holding on to this. Christmas was a difficult one – not for the season, but the race for the Christmas Number one.

So with the holidays over, it's back to work...or at least it was until 3 days in we were sent home in blizzard like conditions for the phenomenon known as 'Snow Day'. Basically London can't operate when it snows. Everything shuts down - I know, I know strange for a country that sits on the 51st parellel and can't handle cold. Next thing you know Hawaii's struggling when it gets a little muggy.

So everyone has to get home before all the transport shuts down and you're left high and (not) dry. Unfortunately it also means that it feels like a day off, so once you're home the phone's out and your trying to arrange people to meet at the pub - not that good when you're attempting to have a sober January, but rather amusing to see that the people who were the most hell bent on a sober January are those that are the most enthused keep to head out on the snowy Wednesday afternoon!

October - December: All roads lead to home

2009-12-22T11:28:00.055Z

Well we’re in the back end of the season now and it finally blossomed in to a cracker.

In a topsy turvey three months that I’ll never forget, I went back to Central Europe, took over the Presidency of the Wandsworth Demons Australian Rules Football Club, returned home after three years to figure out that it didn’t really feel like home anymore and I got promoted.

The start of the 4th quarter started with me sitting in a university apartment block approximately 20 minutes drive out of Prague. After agreeing to take a tour group from Prague to Oktoberfest to Vienna and then on to Budapest.

But Oktoberfest beckoned, and nothing could stop me and my leaderhousen returning!!!!

In the interests of brevity, I won’t go in to too much detail about Oktoberfest, as you can read about my previous adventures in the two posts below:

2006

2008

You may even notice the appearance on Suzanna in the 2006 blog. Well after 3 years we found each other again. And by the look of the before and after shots, I found Atkins.

2006 2009

A good time had by all in the two days there, and once again I enjoyed watching the reactions of people who had not been there before - and watching them fail to pace themselves for what is literally and exercise of consuming your own weight in beer and roast chicken. And alas, some failed early and some lasted. For all those that head to Oktoberfest, by the way, the best fun happens afterr 6pm when the locals start flooding in. Go strong early, but not crazy, because you're still got 4 hours of attempting to keep up with the German locals. On the flip side, buy shots for someone you want out of the way - works a treat.

After several days of hard drinking it was great to simply kick back in Vienna in a small Austrain restaurant, with a schnitzel, struddle and some wine. A little group of us stayed until close with a big, old Austrian in the corner playing the piano accordian - it was so clichéd it was great.

This was my final tour for the year, and it was by far one of the best groups I’ve taken around. All really good value and enjoyable fun. Sometime you feel like you are actually working when you’re taking 50 odd tourists around Europe and showing them the sites, but I actually had a real good time with this group; primarily down to a couple of people.

Finishing up in Hungry I had made the God-awful decision to catch the 7am train from Budapest back to Munich and Oktoberfest, and good damn getting out of bed was hard. I quick summary of that – NEVER AGAIN!! Good Lord that was bad. I met a few mates there to continue the festivities.….but until next time Oktoberfest, may I say:

But back to London town and killing time before getting on that big old plane to Aus. I was quite nervous to go home. It had been so long and I had no idea what to expect, who to see and where to go when I got back. Capping it off, Mum and Dad did the loving parent thing of deciding to go on holiday for the first few days of my return, which meant I was in a hotel or on my friend Catherine’s couch for the first five days - in my own home tow! They laugh now; but it ain’t going to be so funny when I miss the family day at their retirement home because I’m in Bora Bora (hi Mum…)!

Arriving in Melbourne at about 4pm I had two hours to get ready and meet Catherine before the Demon’s 20th anniversary dinner and the celebrations that were going to be taking place over the next week – including standing in a suit at the races on a 38 degree day with no shade! Catching up with friends I made in London who had now moved home was good, but I spent most of my time with my old Melbourne friends; well mainly Catherine really. We were pretty inseparable at Uni, and in the time between when I moved back from Sydney to Melbourne before heading to London, so it was good to spend most of our time just creating chaos wherever we went; and that she now has more partners in crime.

(now remember to click play...)

I also managed to make a trip up to Sydney – barely (never fly Tiger Airways) - to see some friends, past and present, and was a little surprised that I felt more at home in Sydney than Melbourne. Might be because I lived there for the three years before moving to London, but was a little weird all the same.

I was excited to come back to London though. I did miss the old girl and was looking forward to returning. But not before a stop over in Dubai to say hello to Rachel. I still have no idea what happened on the night that we went out, but don’t go drinking with flight attendents.

So we were both out the door on the 24th of December, but I was at least heading back in the New Year. But I had to make it through the Christmas break first. Now I'm a bit of a scrooge. I'm fine to say it, and I'm fine being it, a fact that seems to be enjoyed by the girls at work given their fun with my desk when I was in a meeting.

But this year it was going to be different: I was planning on having a family Christmas. The past four have either been on a snowboard or in a Castle in the Scottish Highlands.

Several of us were heading up to Cockermoutn (yes that's its name) to celebrate the holidays with the Nicholsons, the long suffering parents of my mate Gary. And weren't we the toast of the town. Four Aussies arriving in a far Northern town to spread the Christmas cheer - I felt like a frigging reindeer such was the excitement. And God did I eat too.

There was a Christmas feast, fresh meats, homemade bread, homemade sausage rolls, pork rolls, biscuits, muffins, scones and cheese....and that was breakfast . I did a before and after weighing session for the four days to see what the change was - 3.6kilos gained in 4 days - and heart burn was my best friend. I went back to London to have a rest before heading even further North to the windswept streets of Newcastle - or fake tan town - to see in the New Year in a brisk -4 and snow.

The running joke about Newcastle is that the colder it gets, the less clothes are worn. No idea where that comes from, but they do know how to throw a rollicking good time!

Me dealing with Newcastle weather

Locals dealing with Newcastle weather

The Northerners were a great craic.

So bye bye to 2009, and hello to 2010. December has led up to be the perfectly closing party to a great year; so let's just see what tomorrow has in store.

July - September: Legal yet?

2009-12-18T15:39:00.038Z

The third quarter of 2009 things changed a little bit. The countdown was on to get my visa, I tried to prove I was tough, roasted at a brilliant festival and on a boat, and had a reason to spend a little more time in London and less in Europe.

But first it was time for The Ashes. About 9 months ago Mum, Dad, my uncle and my aunty were looking for tickets to the First Test. Knowing the tour group that I volunteer to take tours for, The Fanatics, I got four from them and passed them to the family; however, without telling them I bought my own. Heading off to Cardiff for the first test the plan was to surprise them. I told Dad a few weeks before of my plan, as I hadn’t seen Mum in nearly 2 and half years and I was wary of a heart attack. So plan hatched, the morning of the First Test I was crossing the road and heard a voice behind me: “Is that you Bart?” And there was Mum – surprised the shit out of me. I nearly had a heart attack.

Aussies went on to a draw and we know the rest, but God damn Cardiff is good fun. We even got in The Daily Mail.

Can see me (top right)?

A little closer (on the left with the headband)

Following the Ashes, I boarded a train for Rock Wercheter, a four-day festival in Belgium; and what a four days. Hovering around 35 degrees each day, it was blinding heat, smashed antics and some brilliant bands. When there's too much to say, I'm going back to slideshow story telling (and for those that couldn't figure out the Vegas slide show, just click the play button). These little videos are great. I use to put all photos on a flicker website, but this is so much easier. Good to see we’re about to go in to a new decade and I’ve just caught up to 2004 technology!

So after not showering and being in the baking dry heat for four days, I decided to switch it around and revert to the 8 degree weather, mud, water and barbed wire of the Tough Guy competition, which is an assualt course set over a half marathon. It sounds like hell, but it's actually really good fun. Apart from the nettles, cut knees, the claustophobic tunnel crawling, electrified wire maze and falling backwards in to a pile of burning hay bails - it's a dandy little stroll in the English Countryside. So in a time of 3 hours, 54 minutes and 59 seconds I pulled myself across the finishing line.

Behind the guy in red

Definitely doing it again – and there were only several dozen broken limbs and a few people taken to hospital with hypothermia - well it was in the middle of British Summer.... Like a new relationship, fuck I was happy to finish, but I know I’ll give it another go, and hopefully it will be less painful - but more dirty (I really can go on with this analogy all day to be fair, so I’ll stop).

About now London, and all of Europe shuts down for Summer holidays. Late July to the end of August is fairly quiet, so most people take this opportunity to travel. However, my visa application was in and I was enjoying spending time in London, so I decided to not go very far. It was pretty enjoyable just concentrating on football, after work summer drinks with a few people, other functions, and yes Catherine, a sailing trip that involved sitting completely still for at least 2 hours next to the world’s most unthreatening ‘fort’. And speaking of the Irish, I managed a U2 concert in there somewhere.

Anyway, after several seasons of moderate success, 2009 proved to be a cracker for the Demons, winning two of the three premierships available (losing the Firsts by a measily 7 points)!

I was actually supposed to fly out of London for a holiday on the Thursday night, but changing my flight for the game (couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t) – and a pretty good Thursday night from memory – we celebrated well in to Sunday morning before Lukey, Dutchy and I made our way to the airport. Dutchy and I were drunken, smelly messes, while Luke on the other hand was fresh after returning home after the game to have a shower, and promptly falling asleep for the rest of the night!!!!
But on board, I was out like a light, before touching down in my favourite country – Croatia!!!!

Once again, what a place. This time I had Tricia in tow. Tricia and I worked together in Sydney for a few years, and now she had been let loose on Europe. So wanting something a little different from the usual Italy, France and London, I invited her along.

Tricia looks so excited to be there

So from Split we made our way to island of Brac and the port of Bol, and boarded a boat (lots of Bs here) to cruise up and down the Croatian coastline for a week. Brilliant time. Can’t really be bothered with making another video though (but when you see all the photos below, you'll understand the ease of the videos).

There was dancing...

..and eating...

...and we can't forget finally being close to the sea again!

.....and at the end of the month I got my nipple pierced on footy trip in the back streets of Majorca, Spain.

Let's end it there.

April - June: Donners and Bart go East

2009-12-15T20:15:00.031Z

Three main things happened in this quarter: Donners returned to the UK; I finally got to see AC/DC live; and a lost passport causing a right fuck up. Here's the Monday morning conversation:

Bart: Lou, sorry, I've missed the train so I'm going to be late.

Lou: Just catch the next one.

Bart: It's not for another 2 hours.

Lou: Where are you?

Bart: Lille

Lou: What?

Bart: I'm in France, Lou...France. It was a big weekend.

In brighter news, at the start of April, Donners had returned to the UK. We won’t go in to details about why he hadn’t done much travelling when he was last in town, but we decided that we wanted to start seeing the more rugged side of Eastern Europe. That was to take a Friday and Monday off and spend the next four days travelling through some of the poorest and most rural areas on the continent. So, with travel buddy in hand it was off to see what the far away lands held.

Eastern Europe doesn't do directions

Now I knew what was in it for me: Donners is a nice guy, never a bad word to say about anyone and always ready to go off the beaten track to see something new and different. I still can’t figure out what was in it for him, but decided it must have been my pleasant nature.

Deciding that the first place we’d hit up was Romania, we had a stellar plan to fly in to the capital - Bucharest - explore during the day and then train it east to Brasov, before heading up in to Transylvania and going to Dracula’s Castle in Bran, back through Rasov and in to Bucharest again. We had friends in the area, so catching up with them our little trip started.

Now it’s damn hard to find bars in Bucharest, but after kidnapping a local we found it easy to get around (no seriously, we did – we stole him from his friends and took him with us everywhere, buying him drinks and ended up paying for a bed form him in the hostel that night simply so he could lead us to the train station the next morning). And weren’t we lucky that we had his advice. No sooner had he left than we were drinking with local Romanian Gypsies. That was until a man who spoke a little English whispered over and suggested that we leave what we were doing and board the train. Well, it was actually: ‘be careful. You will die’. Good point. Time to get on the train.

Now I want these blog updates to simply be quick to let everyone know what’s been going on in the past year, and as I’ve got to summarise a lot, I’m really going to make this quick.

Dracula lived in the castle behind me (Castle Bran)

And apparently converted his currency here

A few weeks later we took the hint from someone that Bulgaria was a bit up and coming, and we should check it out. So taking a day off either side of the weekend, we headed off to the capital, Sofia. However, this time we wanted to do it a little different, and rather than wasting our time on trains, we decided to travel during the night and pay the little bit extra for sleeper cabins (basically chairs that folded back half way in a separate cabin).

Leaving Sofia – not really much to say but it’s a shitty dust bowl – we were heading to the other side of the country to a town on the Black Sea called Varna, which I think translates to ‘Resort for Fat, Rich Russians’. Now these trains are famous for bandits attacking you in the middle of the night and stealing all your belongings, so with us sleeping on the train, the risk of being attacked was a little higher. With that, I set up the perfect security plan – I made sure Donners and Wortho (our new travelling companion) slept closest to the door. Genius.

Now Varna was an interesting place. It’s trying to be a sea side resort town in the middle of one of Europe’s poorest areas – I think the crude oil shipping lane in the middle of the sea says it all…
However with a long line of bars up the beach we weren’t in the water for long. In fact, we made many friends very quickly.

It wasn’t long until we realised that our new friends were in fact Bulgarian mafia that ran the beachside town. And it was so clichéd. You had the big, fat guy sitting in the corner not saying much, but trying to pimp out his daughter to Donners; his little henchman who did all the talking; and then the huge tattooed guy who laughed at random points and stared you down at others.

I don't know what was said to Mafia Man #2, but I know we left soon after

Escaping with all our fingers we spent the night up and down the beach before the next day heading North in to the mountains. The next few days were the usual site seeing that I won’t bore you with, but all in all, our decision to abandon the more popular places for the relative isolation of Eastern European countryside paid off; and we’ll be doing it again in 2010. Donners – Ukraine and Serbia – got our names all over it!

The quarter closed on the awesomeness of AC/DC at Wembley. All I need to say really. It took my neck, back and air guitar arm at least three weeks to recover, I stunk like piss and was covered in at least 34 cigarette burns. It was hilarious to watch the old and the new fans. Right at the start you had a lot of the older fans at the front of the stage after getting there early of course, but by half way through the first song they flooding back to the seats after the pushing began.

The next blog sees me head to Belgium for Rock Werchter and U2 at Wembley, but easily the highlight of the year concert wise was this.

We've got an app for that

2009-12-07T20:50:00.009Z

So I returned home to Australia for a little break. I hadn't been home in three years, work had kicked up a gear and my future plans had to be thought about. I'd heard horror stories about people deciding to go home to Aus, packing up, leaving and when they get home hating it. So, in an effort to see what it would be like for me I made a conscious decision when I left for a few weeks to have nothing to do with London, to not reply to text messages, emails or Facebook messages – to basically leave the UK as if I was leaving it for good. Not a dry run, but an experiment. After nearly three years away, it surprised me how refreshing it was. But I got my answer - the UK is home for now - I missed it far too much to leave for any stretch of time.

So, with this self-imposed exile it was interesting to return home and have the same question – where have you been and what are you doing? Here I was relying on Facebook to keep people up to date, but apparently the blog helped with this more, so I’ll get back on it. In the past year, I've written three posts

One of the primary reasons for the lack of blogging is that I don’t think I’ve got the time – but that’s actually bullshit - it's like saying 'I'm far to busy at work', but spending most of your time emailing your mates. Two years ago, when sitting in an airport, I’d take out a scrap of paper and write some ideas – some dot points – about my trips, or what I observed, or anything. Nowadays, I’ve got a Blackberry and, the worst offender - an iPhone.

Why is an iPhone worse? Applications. These little fuckers do everything that you never needed them to do. I know that if I want to make a spaghetti carbonara I need mushrooms, pasta, cream, bacon maybe an onion, and some parmesan. And I know that I can go to Sainsbury’s to get it. But this nowadays is a mystery to me unless I check iRecipes - and it tells me exactly what I thought anyway!

But some of these recipes apps are alright. I wouldn’t know a salmon soufflé if I hadn’t typed salmon, cheese and eggs (the only items in my fridge) in to my phone, and who knew iMonopoly can be addictive. But some apps are just ludicrous.

For example, I was sitting in Munich airport two months ago fiddling through my phone and I found an app called, I shit you not - Cycle. What is Cycle? Well, cycle is an app that lets you know when you are about to have your period. Now, not that I’m questioning its usefulness, I’m just questioning its practicality. Who needs an app for this? Just ask the boyfriend. I guarantee you he knows better than anyone, anything or any application ever invented.

Sure, we have no fucking idea what size shoe or waist you have (we know your cup size - trust me), and the leverage involved in the toilet seat going down baffles us. But two days before we sense we should make ourselves scarce for fear of being abused for no reasons whatsoever, and for a week later productivity at work triples and we spend more time with our mates - there's nothing else to do. You should have Boyfriend by Apple – that would show up on iTunes Top 10 let me tell you.

Along with that is Facebook, the constant bane of many lives, but yet you can’t seem to say no. Now I’m quite hypocritical here. Half the time nowadays when I’m on holiday and see something or do something, I’m not reaching for the camera, I’m updating my status, because let’s face it, we mostly take photos of things to show other people, so what better than to tell the straight away? Although I do think cameras are better for somethings, because let's face it, the the update ‘Bart Nash is making a home porn’ is far better on film.

But, next year I need to get off the Facebook at the airport and think up blogs that I used to write.So 2010 is a new year, but it's going to be difficult to top 2009.

I did say this in 2008, granted, but the years are obviously so different. This time in 2008 I'd just got back from a fair bit of travelling, my boss had resigned, and I was thinking about moving house. So now sitting here typing this after a day of house hunting and sorting through my travel photos I'll have to wrap it up and get some rest as I want to be fresh for my bosses leaving party on Wednesday - wow, how times change!!

But that means 2010 will be epic. 2009 started as such an unassuming year, then it threw in some unbelievable twists, turns, trip and travels. Starting afresh, over the next two weeks I'll summarise the year quickly in four three-month sections (and let's face it, half of you are going to be bored over the Christmas break).

The Hangover: New Year’s to Vegas in three helpful steps

Okay then, to be honest with you I’ve spent nearly all of this year travelling and working. Up until my focus changed to other things in August, all I really had to show for the year was a lot of time in Customs and more time on the computer and blackberry.

My first memory of 2009 was welcoming in the year from the crispy freshness of Edinburgh Castle’s garden with 20,000 of my closest friends, a Groove Armada concert that we hasd snuck into, and Joel doing his best impersonation of Anthony Keidas on a bender – this was going to get very interesting, very quick. The rest of January seems to be a blur. All my intentions of a detox were soon out the window, and the get fit before football season kicked in was quickly quashed by the increase in responsibility and volume at work...well, and the pub, but work sounds so much more productive, doesn’t it?

Some side trips were the order of 2009, namely a weekend in Cologne to play a German Aussie Rules team (don’t prepare for a game by having a pub crawl till 6am the night/morning before), but it was really all about that little town in Nevada – and fuck didn’t we do a fear and loathing trip.

It contained everything – private tables in clubs, gambling, Elvis, ruined marriages, trashed hotel rooms, Playboy bunnies and all on 13 hours sleep in four days. Now the adage is ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’, but it’s not like we did anything too bad, it’s just a city that doesn’t sleep and you don’t sleep with it. So much to do, so little time to do it, and for a young impressionable lad – so little to say no to.

Who here has seen the Hangover? If you have, there’s a picture show right at the end with the credits, I think that’s the best way to show off the Thursday to Monday, and let’s face it, if you’re trying to get through a whole year in 2 weeks, brevity is key.

Catching up 'Days of our Life' Style

2009-05-15T16:06:00.013Z

Does anyone remember when Days of our Lives in Australia was so behind due to, well, I'm not really sure, so they basically condensed 6 years of programmes in to a week of episodes to catch up? Even then things hadn't changed - So and so was still wrestling with the fact that her pool boy was her husband's illigitmate gay lover who turned out to be her best friend's nephew kind of deal? Well, my attempts at writing over the past few months have been as unpredictable and haphazrad as midday television, so I thought I would wrap up the past six months that way. But then I thought this would not be appealing:

I went skiing at Christmas. It was cold. There was snow. I had fun. New Year's in Scotland - Vegas - Germany - snow day - booze - work - homeless man boxing - football - etc.

I then sat down and thought why did I start this blog? Well, firstly it was an easy way to show people what I was up to. But then Facebook came along. Secondly, it was a way to tell a story behind the photos, but then there were status updates. And not the 'Bart is moving forward' (seriously, what the fuck are people on about with these incoherent blabberings on status updates - you're not in Dawson's Creek - you just look like a tosser).

Thirdly, I thought maybe it was a way to make people laugh; Fail.

Then it struck me, it was a way to bitch and release frustration.

I've become content - I've settled down. At the start of 2008 I was fancy free and running around like a leopard on speed. Halfway through the year I got a girlfriend and work started taking on greater importance and time. The blog stopped; the late nights ceased; the rash stopped spreading; and I no longer noticed the little nuances that day to day bugged me so magnificantly about this country. Halfway through 2009 and the girlfriend is gone, I got the promotion and am on top of work, but it's a little bit harder to get in to the 4am Wednesday night finishes - but I'll try.

What's prompted this - I've rediscovered stupidity! While I found it difficult to question what nowadays to me has become normal course in the UK (being told the devlivery man will take three weeks only to take five; Royal Mail abandoning signatures for parcels opting instead for a simple 'tick the box' so there is no accountability when a package gets lost; or maybe it snowing in February which causes the busiest city in the world to shut down because no roads, trains - even underground ones??? - or people's legs are able to move).

Snow day: giving Coomba a chance to beat small children

No, I'm used to all these, so it was with great enthusiasm when a new cedent appeared on the scene - I have an iPhone.

Now the iPhone not only allows a variety of applications, functions and abilities, it provides the UK with another way to fuck up. Amazing.

On purchasing my iPhone it was only a matter of time before I broke it. Well, a beer and the floor broke it, but let's not dabble in specifics. Being a smart boy, I had insured my iPhone. So I called O2 for a replacement. They were quick and painless and replaced it easily, to my great surprise. But this was just the light caressing foreplay before they decided to have their way with me. The phone was broken.

Calling O2 to ask for a new one I was told it wasn't their problem. As the handset was not their original it was the insurer's issue - not theirs. After calling the insurer I was told that as I had never claimed before, they could not help me?? Doesn't one have to claim a first time? And here is what I like to call the 'UK bounce' - an issue that is bounced between two parties: O2 to the insurer and back; the bank to the rental agent and back; immigration department and common sense and back - it's a serious fucking sport!

Speaking of the immigration department, I've just got my visa renewed, which gives me another three years - this is good. What they have done to my photo which makes me look like Astro Boy - this is bad.

Any English girls out there that may want to marry me, please stand up - I don't want to be lumped with this photo for three years!

However, my current visa has changed - you now need a Masters to be able to apply. Now this is a kick back to immigration numbers rising and people blaming migrants for taking their jobs. Now I don't think these two are linked. Given that in the current economic environment, I know of none of my Aussie mates that are skilled workers losing their jobs, but I know about at least 10 Brits, there's a reason. This 'UK bounce' spreads to all areas, where as we seem to know that there is a job to do and actually do it. For example, the other week there was a transport strike for three days, and good God the excuses for not coming in to work.

My mates have told me some crackers: 'I need to walk a kilometre to catch the bus and it's forecast for rain, so I don't want to get wet'; 'I don't have the right walking shoes to get in'; and 'I'll need to get up an hour earlier, so I'm working from home'. It used to be the British way to have a stiff upper lip; now it seems to be pass the buck.

But this is why I, and many of my friends, are staying. It's not hard to excel in a City where so many blazing lights splutter out due to a perceived heir of false accomplishments and a belief that they are owed something for nothing. So wish me luck with my visa renewal, it's back to living fancy free and excitable, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the random stupidity of day to day life in Mother England continues.

The rash is back though.

We're all going to die - but at least we're full

2009-02-24T18:29:00.015Z

If it's not bovine, equine, avian or climate chang-ine; it's some other thing lurking around the corner. But I never thought that pigs would be the supreme rulers of the world once we have all died out, albeit ones sipping away on Lemsip.
London is the world's most visited city, being a hub between Europe, the America's and Africa. The damp weather and cramped conditions are the perfect breeding ground for an infleunza like bug, and well the Tube is basically a pietry dish. But it's not that I'm worried about. It's the meat.

The meat?

The shortage of meat. Experts say that animal infleunza based illnesses are the result of mass produced livestock. Say you placed 300 people in a tight space, forcing them to eat, sleep and relieve themselves with in centi metres of each other (ladies and gents - The Tube once more). It's not long before an infectious diseases rips through the masses. Well, that's what happens with our little piggy friends too. They start going - no more full English. And demand for meat in the UK is phenominal.

This is the land of what I call, the double meat. Why add two when you can have three?
I'm not complaining, but a country that has faced mad cow, signs of avian flu, and now swine - you'd think they'd learn to maybe eat a salad every second Wednesday - or at least one kind of meat in a sandwich.

The usual are prawn and chicken stirfrys; beef and turkey mince bolognaise; chicken and bacon sandwhich, or my favourite - at Christmas we get the Pret Christmas Bloomer: that's turkey, ham, stuffing, cranberry and bacon - on white. Double meat is everywhere! Triple even - chipoloata sausages are wrapped in bacon...and you only get them with a Sunday roast (chicken, pork or beef of course). No wonder the flu is being passed on to humans; there's fuck all animals left.

The UK also imports over 60% of its meat, which means that cows, pigs and Australians are their greatest immigrants, a fact I learnt when I went up to regional England - Liverpool - and saw none of any. And boy wasn't that an interesting trip! But it was not all gastronomic fantasia and Home office data collection, we also went to the football.

Worst case of advertise placement...ever!

Going to Merseyside (the river the stadium is near) to get to Anfield you pass some very derelict area – called Liverpool. Down town Liverpool is old, boarded up, and not very welcoming. But what does that matter to us – we were wearing the red of the Scouse and it was obvious who we were there to support. So it was with complete comfort that we went in to the nearest boozer – no windows, just slated boards and a bar in the back – and prepared ourselves for the Kop.

The Spion Kop (or Kop for short) is the name of the supported end of Anfield, named so due to their steep nature, resembling a hill near Ladysmith, South Africa that was the scene of the Battle of Spion Kop in the Second Boer War. The Kop is renowned for giving Liverpool a very good home advantage. Supporting in the Kop was interesting. The game kicked off after Liverpool’s home song – Walk On – and the next 90 minutes taught me words, I’d never heard, gestures I’d never seen and I think I caught swine flu from the seat.

Aye – what da fock was dat you fooking carnt. Imm going to fooking cut your fooking throooat.
Billy, 7 years old, directly behind me to the ref

But all this was simply preparation for walking back to the station with the aggression of a couple of thousand fans who had witnessed a 1-1 draw. Scooting our way back through the roped off, hazardous buildings and parks that you knew you are only one step away from standing on a Hep C needle, we got back for the 2 hour train ride to London.

At least returning from London on these little trips you get to stretch out on the train back before you have to deal with the tube. But I prefer to not think about that, and simply get stuck in to my pork, chicken and turkey ham sandwich.

Bart's Austro-Hungarian tour

2008-12-14T16:04:00.048Z

The reason why there's been peace in Western Europe for over 60 years is Ryan Air. Cheap flights have allowed people to travel here, there and everywhere - immersing themselves in a variety of cultures. However, this cheap travel is about to end. But I don't think it will matter. London is so multicultural that you don't really have to leave your town to experience the world.

I bought my train ticket off an Indian, before getting my coffee from a Polish girl. Bumping into an American on my way down to the tube and standing next to a Japanese lady I cursed myself because I had left my Spanish homework in the kitchen. Coming in to work I sat down with my English, Scottish, Canadian, French and Irish colleagues, chated to a Kiwi opposite me, said hi to a Fin and Norwegian by the coffee machine, took phone calls from Portugal, Germany, Brazil and the US before sending an email to a Chinese journalist. Shared a bench with Saffa at the gym, had a pint pulled by a Canadian at my local while talking with my Aussie mates and got home to plan my trip to Slovakia...and that's where we begin our story.

In 1867 the Austro-Hungarian Empire stretched from Germany to Czechoslovakia, down through Austria and in to what is now Hungary. It was one of Europe’s richest areas; steeped in beauty, wealth and had some of the most intelligent, artistic and powerful people in the land. It only seemed fair that I travelled to it to show them what all these qualities looked like in a person.

Bart’s Austro-Hungarian Tour!!!!!

Once again I was a Fanatics tour guide: this time on the road. The plan was to take 47 punters from the Spires of Prague to the two cities separated by the Danube: Buda and Pest (or Budapest for you cartographers). On the way we’d wet our whistle in the beer halls of Munich at Oktoberfest, mark our respects at Dachua – the original concentration camp – and tour the beautiful city of Vienna. I’d then go on by myself to explore Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. So off we go…

Prague , Czech Republic
skoro podvádění

If you’ve been keeping up, and you should as this will count for extra credit, I was only here three weeks earlier (http://barts-european-tour.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-now-pronounce-youstag-do-participants.html), so I tagged along for the walking tours pissing off the guide with my constant interjections, and took my little group to the bars of Prague at night. Things are a little different when you are a guide. People follow you everywhere. So rather than going to the bars that I like, I went to the tourist sites. When you are doing this, you do get to act like you are on a Griswald family vacation. Prague is famous for its Absynth; however, it is only usually the tourists that get in, well when in Rome...

Ordering a few, I sat in the corner with the a double shot, a lighter and tablespoon of sugar – slowly melting the concoction, stirring it in and tasting that familiar. I was careful not to have too much of the green fairy after the last time I consumed this beverage (which ended with me forgetting where I lived, chasing a waiter around a bar trying to steal the food he was serving to patrons, passing out in my lounge room and then eating butter from the container as it was the only thing in my fridge). But this time I was fine. All that happened was that one of the people on tour went missing, and when they came looking for me to help I could only reply from behind my closed door – ‘It’s okay, delivery is on Tuesday’. No idea.

Oktoberfest

Munich, Germany
Ich fickend Liebe oktoberfest. Das und küssend zufällige Küken in Zelten.

Like an ex- on a drunken night, I went back (http://barts-european-tour.blogspot.com/2006/09/oktoberfest-oh-mein-gott.html mein-gott.html). The difference being that I love Oktoberfest. Completely, wholly, unfalteringly, passionately, damn near obsessively love Oktoberfest. Everything about it. Huge quantities of beer, food, tradition, colour, laughter, smiles, music and shouting/singing. You talk with someone who doesn’t speak a word of English, but it’s the best conversation you’ve had in years. There are tens of thousands of people a day there, many very drunk, but no fights. I’m not sure if it’s the Bavarian style music, the fact that there are no additives in the beer or all the revelry, but no one really has much aggression. I would say there isn't much crime, but stein stealing is a great game. Oktoberfest beer mugs (1-litre-Steins, Masskrug in German) are made from heavy glass and typically have a decorative brewery logo on the side, thus making them very popular souvenirs among visitors. If you get one out of the beer halls you then have to deal with the security guards patrolling the park grounds. Once passed them you have to try to get out the gates with police there. Now here's the bit that amateurs fall for all the time. Once out of the grounds, many take their stein out of their hiding place - wrong move. About 300 metres from the exit along the bridge to Munich, plain clothes police wait and catch those that think they have got away. Apart from that merriment, the rest of the festival is about pure glutony. Just check these stats out:

Visitors: 6.2 million
Beer: appr. 6,940,600 litres (126,900 litres non-alcoholic) - who orders non-alcoholic beer????
Wine: 79,624 litres
Sparkling wine: 32,047 litres
Coffee, tea: 222,725 litres
Water, lemonade: 909,765 ½ litres
Chicken: 521,872 units
Pork sausages: 142,253 pairs
Fish: 38,650 kg
Pork knuckles: 58,446 units

Arriving in Munich in the mid-afternoon, it was straight in to the Lederhosen, wrist strapped up to support the steins, and in to the beers halls. Straight towards Hofbrahaus (tourist tent) where it was packed. Sitting 46 people is pretty much impossible, despite the tents getting 10,000 in - as the Germans had packed in work for the day and were in the tents themselves - so we spread out. Didn’t worry me, it was full steam ahead for the steins and pork knuckles.

What's German for inuendo?

The next day was in earlier (10am) and off to . The beers didn’t taste that great so I did try a little Bavarian treat of schnapps, moonshine and sherbet. Interesting.

Back to the beer. I decided to do wander around several beer halls, sampling each one. Each tent brews their very own beer, so imagine a Stella Tent, Fosters Tent, Kronenburg Tent, etc. Leaving that night, one of the punters had managed to steal me a stein from the Lowenbrau tent and gave it to me as a present. I was chuffed.

Leaving the belchy haze of Munich, it was off to Vienna, but via Dachua. The last concentration camp I went to was Auschwitz during a football trip to Poland, so I was still in that hungover state. For those that haven't been to a concentration camp, they have this eerie silence and a bit of a chill. I remember Poland, and while it was 30 odd degrees in Krackow, Birkenau felt like it was only 2 degreeshttp://barts-european-tour.blogspot.com/2006/09/football-trip-krakow-poland.html). Dachua was much the same. Once you pass the gate with the words Arbeit Macht Fret (work sets you free), which is on the gates of all concentration camps, no one says a word. Opened in March 1933, it was the first regular concentration camp established by the Nazis and served as a prototype and model for the other concentration camps that followed.

Vienna, Austria
Ist für lang aber eine unfassbare Stadt nicht geblieben

We didn't get in to Vienna until late, so it was only a few drinks in the hotel while we relaxed after a decent crack at the past few days. Vienna is an architectural marvel of a place, with stunning buildings, statues, parks and streets; however, we only had a few hours before we headed off to Budapest, so not a huge amount to tell you.

Budapest, Hungary
Hungarinan asszony – szexis bár fene

Now I didn't really enjoy Budapest last time I was there (http://barts-european-tour.blogspot.com/2007/11/budapest-hungary-not-worth-of-witty.html) but then again I did get food poisoning from eating horse so I thought I'd give it another try - Budapest - not the horse. In fact my next encounter with a horse was much more enjoyable. In the middle of Buda there is a statue that if you rub the horses..., shall we say, area - it grants you good luck. Before exams, students jump over the barrier and do it. Well, I needed a little luck so why not. In front of a crowd of tourists I popped on to the statue and gave those little equine plums a jolly good squeeze.

After exploring the palace of Buddha for the second time, it was down across the famous chain bridge and in to the Raday area - a street full of bars, restaurants and all manner of kooky places, including a personal favourite: Paris Texas. On one side of the bar is karaoke, on the other a DJ - it's like a screaming match with a stereo.

The next day while strolling around Pest I realised that I actually really enjoyed this city. I had made the mistake of coming here on a boys' trip - and it is really not that sort of place. It's a place to wander, to explore, to go to smaller clubs (not the larger ones) and to blend in. For those back home, it's a Melbourne vs a Brisbane. In fact on the closing night we ended up at a place called Mono, which had seperate little areas where you hide away from the crowd - it was awesome. Following a large night it was time to head to the Baths to warm up before we went our seperate ways.

The baths are split between outdoor and indoor, the hot pools (up to 42 degrees) and the cool ones outside, but unfortunately not male and female. You may think that a good thing...but when you go on a Thursday morning, there are no nubile young things bouncing around. Let me tell you, the only thing worse than an 85 year old woman getting a semi-nude massage is a 80 year old man getting a fully nude scrub down.

Leaving shortly after I had time to visit Statue Park before my train to Slovakia. Now, when the Communists pulled out of the Eastern Block many locals destroyed all the old war propoganda, statues and posters. I for one find these propaganda tools amazing - possibly explaining my choice in career - and was delighted when I heard that Hungary actually kept them, and moved them to Statue Park. Venturing out there in 2 degree, raining weather, I was astounded by their sheer size. I mean look at me next to them - I'm dwarfed - some of them must be at least 6 foot!!!! That's me standing at their base.Racing back to Keleti Station, another piece of 1960s Soviet Union transport pulled up to whisk me away to Slovakia; 3 hours North-West.

Bratislava, Slovakia
Ne ten najväčší priateľský ľudia

Slovakia and Bratislava are stunning. The old town streets, the castle on the hill and the crystal blue sky are all great attractions...but that's it. I could talk about the statues that are displayed around the town: there's a man in man hole, another taking a picture, a statue of Napolean leaning over a bench to listen to peoples' secrets (conveniently located outside the French Embassy - I told him where the Rainbow Warrier was docked); and the Schoner Nazi - yep you heard right - tipping his hat to strangers.

I should mention that Slovakia was part of Czechoslavkia until they split in to the Czech Republic and Slovakia (the smarter of you would have seen what those names are together...). There is a bitter jealousy between the two. One got the history, the supermodels and the excitement, the other got the goats.

And we're done. Borat should have said he was from here, seriously. Their tourist guide is hilarious. In the interesting facts section, the third fact down about the country is their divorce rate?? On page 10 under 'Bratislava - Info Update', under the subheading of 'Jogging Bratislava' the guide prints: "Every Thursday afternoon there will be a trainer at the Janko Kral Hay (jetty) to advise how to start jogging a pick up speed." I didn't know it was hard - just run faster!

Page 34 under 'Tourism', it starts with transport and then the next paragraph is nearly a page dedicated to the commercial sex trade with the line 'its connection with the tourism industry is complex'. It goes on further to tell me that it is illegal for hotel workers to arrange sex for you. Thanks - these are the things that Easyjet's in flight magazine just won't tell you, and golly gee I would have had egg on my face. But it least it was easy to find a club to go to. Ah well, at least they've given up the dark arts.

So after a week of highjinks, fun, sun and pork knuckles, it was time to return home to the UK and in to the winter. Little did I know at this stage, that I would not set foot out of the country for another two months, the winter would be come one of the coldest on record, and in a few weeks I would be celebrating the 4pm sunsets and -2 degree weather in the lead up to Christmas as a single man while everyone stayed at home and snuggled on the couch - it was going to be a boozy December!

I now pronounce you...stag do participants

2008-11-02T22:03:00.035Z

So where, what, how, when and why have I been. These constant interruptions I keep having have been getting in my way. Unfortunately for you – my worshipping public – I have not really had the chance to waffle on, being too embroiled in work, travel and relationship to be able to look out at the wide world of the UK and realise once again, the hilarity that is presented to me. But no more! I will not let you down. The New Year brings with it a new commitment to my adoring public, but I'll need to pump out a couple of prequel blogs in 2009 to bring you up to speed.

First things first, for the second time I have chosen the UK over a perfectly healthy relationship. Unfortunately Alyssa’s visa ran out and she had to return to Australia. Pondering a possible return, I decided not to. Sitting here on a cold day after looking through photos of her in the sunny Sydney weather, I question the decision. As I look outside at the drizzle running the down the window, wake up alone and wish the heating had clicked on just the 15 minutes earlier and then push my face in to a random man’s armpit on the tube, I question why again.

Well – travel of course. That and I just got promoted, so I'll focusing on that.

However, one thing to be missed about living with your girlfriend is coming home to find your draws with this kind of organisation...Pre-break up, however, waiting for an answer on the visa, I was jaunting around Europe on boys’ trips. Football trip followed by two stag dos in quick succession meant Central, Eastern and Western Europe all got hit up. First up it was time to go to the capital of the Czech Republic, Prague!

Prague, Czech Republic
Oko šoustání velké město

What I can’t really tell you is what we did – what goes on footy trip, stays on footy trip. However, once the usual crowd of 30 football guys left, it was left to Worm and I to do the site seeing.

Prague is a stunning city. It has been named again and again as ‘The City of Cities’ and was the centre of Europe. The Bavarian kings (German) used to use Prague as there Summer capital. That bavarinan influence – which I love so much myself – is obvious.

Hoping on the back of a walking tour we visited some of the classic sites of Prague:

Old Town Square

Located between Wenceslas Square and the Charles Bridge, Prague's Old Town Square is an oasis for travelers wearied by Prague's narrow streets. Among many churches, there's the Astronomical Clock on this square, while the tower at the Old Town Hall offers a panoramic view of Old Town.

Charles Bridge

Its construction started in 1357 under the auspices of King Charles IV, and finished in the beginning of 15th century. As the only means of crossing the river Vltava (Moldau), the Charles Bridge used to be the most important connection between the Old Town, Prague Castle and adjacent areas until 1841. Also this 'solid-land' connection made Prague important as a trade route between east and west Europe. The bridge was originally called the Stone Bridge (Kamenný most) or the Prague Bridge (Pražský most) but has been the "Charles Bridge" since 1870.

The bridge is 516 meters long and nearly 10 meters wide, resting on 16 arches shielded by ice guards. It is protected by three bridge towers, two of them on the Lesser Quarter side and the third one on the Old Town side. The Old Town bridge tower is often considered to be one of the most astonishing civil gothic-style buildings in the world. The bridge is decorated by a continuous alley of 30 statues and statuaries, most of them baroque-style, erected around 1700.

But you'll probably remember it as the bridge that Jon Voight fell off in Mission Impossible.

Astronomical Clock

The Orloj is composed of three main components: the astronomical dial, representing the position of the Sun and Moon in the sky and displaying various astronomical details; "The Walk of the Apostles", a clockwork hourly show of figures of the Apostles and other moving sculptures; and a calendar dial with medallions representing the months. The clock is so complicated and stunning, that the designer had his eyes gouged out on its completition so that he could not replicate it!

The background represents the Earth and the local view of the sky. The blue circle directly in the center represents the Earth, and the upper blue is the portion of the sky which is above the horizon. The red and black areas indicate portions of the sky below the horizon. During the daytime, the sun sits over the blue part of the background and at night it sits over the black. During dawn or dusk, the mechanical sun is positioned over the red part of the background.

Written on the eastern (left) part of the horizon is aurora (dawn in Latin) and ortus (rising). On the western (right) part is occasus (sunset), and crepusculum (twilight).

Golden Roman numbers at the outer edge of blue circle are the timescale of a normal 24 hour day and indicate time in local Prague time, or Central European Time. Curved golden lines dividing the blue part of dial into 12 parts are marks for unequal hours. These hours are defined as 1/12 of the time between sunrise and sunset, and vary as the days grow longer or shorter during the year.

Inside the large black outer circle lies another movable circle marked with the signs of the zodiac which indicates the location of the sun on the ecliptic. The signs are shown in anticlockwise order. In the photographs accompanying this article, the sun is currently in Aries, and will be moving anticlockwise into Taurus next.
The displacement of the zodiac circle results from the use of a stereographic projection of the ecliptic plane using the North pole as the basis of the projection. This is commonly seen in astronomical clocks of the period.
The small golden star shows the position of the vernal equinox, and sidereal time can be read on the scale with golden Roman numerals.

Prague Castle and Cathedral

Prague Castle (Czech: Pražský hrad, former Austrian: Prager Burg) is a castle in Prague where the Czech kings, Holy Roman Emperors and presidents of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic have had their offices. The Czech Crown Jewels are kept here. Prague Castle is one of the biggest castles in the world (according to Guinness Book of Records the biggest ancient castle) at about 570 meters in length and an average of about 130 meters wide.

Bird watching (four nights in a row)

And Darth Vader (still not sure what the hell this actually is!!!)

Shuffling around the city that night we were fairly tired after a big long weekend and decided to have a few beers somewhere small. After bumping in to some Irish lads and lasses on the street we had one or two and headed home. Walking in the door at 5am it was time to head back to London.

On leaving Prague, we were reminded why this city had endeared itself to us....a place where beer is cheaper than water!

Edinburgh, Scotland

The next week was time for the Stag Dos. First off the rank – Doc’s Edinburgh epic. A nearly missed train, early celebrations and an apartment looking over the Royal Mile were some obvious highlights. Me trying to joust people with a mop and a cushion as a shield was not.

Monday morning was very difficult for me, and so was the following week leading up to Gary ‘Guns’ Gillgallon’s stag do in Estonia – smack right next to Russia. And don’t they remind you of it.

Tallin, Estonia
Uimastav naispere, uimastav linn

Estonia is great fun and the people are extremely friendly…if you’re not Russian. It’s the only place I've been to that has out and out xenophobia so much so that as you walk in to a club they ask you if you are Russian. If you say no, in you go. If you say yes, out you go, with a foot closely following. Asking a local, apparently it’s because the Ruskis take great pleasure in coming to the cheaper city of Tallin, boozing up and hitting people. We saw a little of it in Estonia, but it was ramapant in Prague. Of course, they spent most of their childhood eating concrete and trying not to be tortured, so who can blame them for bursting on to the world's beaches and bars in a tizzy of frills, Versace sunglasses and extraordinary tight pants.

Once again I nearly missed my plane – mainly due to the insistence of Ryan Air to fly out of airports situated miles away from any area that could remotely be called civilization and the only means to get there is bus at 4am. So obviously tired, it probably wasn’t wise for the first thing for us to do was to go to a medieval Estonian tavern to drink home brewed beer and eat wild boar. Worse still was that then then decided to go play with shot guns. Now the only guns I have ever used are an air rifle when I was 10 – shooting balloons on a board in Northern Pakistan – or a .22 at cans on a mate’s farm in Garfield (yes that is a place). So I wasn’t expecting to actually be any good at this.

After missing 6 of the 7 targets in the practice round, hearing the people talking about bear hunting (apparently there are bears in and around the area the forests we were wandering through) focused my attention. Hitting 80 per cent of the targets in the next three rounds, I was surprised as anyone that I turned out to be the best shooter. It was time to go looking for those bears.

Heading out the night I was very proud of my medal and did actually tell random stramgers about my success. They didn’t really seem to understand. Never mind, I was two sheets to the wind and having a ball. Most Estonians didn’t really know much about Aussies so several of us were a novelty.

The next day I still couldn’t find any bears, so we decided to pursue them on wheels. Many moons ago Eastern Europe – the people’s paradise – produced cars called Ladas. They were pretty much made out plastic, cheap and plugged along like that old car you had when you first started driving. They main use for them now s just to trash them around a racing track. And we did. Coming just shy or rolling my car, Guns smashing in to a tree and cracking his radiator meant that the game was over. But good fun nonetheless. More bear watching followed.

'Don't play with me - tell me where I can find more of you!!'

And back to the bars in and around Tallin. Venturing around the odl city centre, I finally found my prey. Deviating down and side street, into a doorway and sitting down in an Estonian restaurant, I finally found a bear.Not how I expected, but quite tasty. Kind of tasted like a sasusage with the consistency of steak.

So it's back in London and the single life for me. Ah well, I guess it's not all that bad!
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article5257166.ece

More photos here.

Here bully, bully, bull!

2008-10-19T18:58:00.024Z

Not content to simply enjoy my beef served up with a baked potato and a little pink, I once again decided to head down to Pamplona in Northern Spain to run in front of them; and these ones are served very rare. Just check out my last experiences with 600 kilogram quadrupeds (here).

This time; however, I was the tour guide. Would you follow me???!!!!!
Waiting in the cold with Kiwi Rhys to my left and wondering why the bus hadn’t shown up 2 hours ago when it was supposed to, I questioned my choice. By the time the bus got there, everyone was decently pissed (we waited in a pub) and were lamenting the 18 hours drive.

Now one thing I’ve picked up doing these tour guide gigs is that people ask you the dumbest questions. Questions that they should be able to answer by themselves quite easily – such as ‘do they have euros in Spain’, ‘will it be cold’ and ‘is the running really dangerous'. Answers are usually quick ‘yes’, ‘about 8 degrees at night’ and ‘are you fucking five?’. But, it does mean I get a free holiday, hang around with some really good people, and see a lot more of Europe.

So all aboard, and we’re going back to San Fermin!
I’m not going to go in to the bus trip as it truly was painful. We finally arrived at the campsite just out of Pamps in the pouring rain and exhausted. Luckily for me Kiwi Nick and Glasso were on hand to dish out the beer bongs and Diamonds fed me. I hadn’t seen most of the people since Turkey, so it was a big night. And I knew what was coming…

Now, it’s not the bulls that scare me – it’s the opening party. Last year I thought I was going to die, and the girl next to me nearly did. It is the biggest crush I have ever had (and I see myself in the mirror every morning – get it!!?), and was not something I was looking forward to. Imagine tens of thousands of people crammed in to a small, slippery cobble stoned courtyard, sangria and champagne is thrown everywhere, and glasses are smashed on the ground, which leave bits jutting up waiting to be stepped on. Now, add a 30 degree day. The heat generated by the crowd and the sun becomes hot enough that all the booze starts to evaporate on your clothes, creating a steamy sauna like environment and people are crushed in to you. Bake for 1 hour. Serve on a bed of panic and hyperventilation, and side of drunkenness.

This year, though, I decided to get above it all - and squirt sangria from someone's shoulders!
The enjoyable part of the day is the ‘tits out for the boys’. Whenever a girl gets on shoulders – top off. I thought I was safe, but no, mine got taken too.
This time I knew what was coming, so I didn’t mind it so much. But I could tell the punters who didn’t see it coming where shitting themselves. With the day over, it was time to get people back to the campsite; the pool and general looseness ensued.

Waking up the next morning at 5am, I knew the feeling that everyone had. Taking my group in, most of them wanted to watch the first run and then do it the following day. So, knowing the way around, we watched the first run from the seats, where I randomly bumped in to Donners and his bolt-ons…

Best placed t-shirt ever

Now, it looked pretty vicious from the stadium, but I had never had this view before, so wasn’t sure if this was how it normally looked. It wasn’t until later that the race was called one of the most violent they have ever had, that I realised the full extent of the carnage.

Basically, right at the start a bull had slipped, which meant that the 5 behind him moved to the right to avoid, and ploughed through dozens of people. Now, I told my group one thing – don’t get hit because I don’t want to deal with it.

This is one of my tour punters on the left of the girl.
Now this is him to the left of something a little more threatening - note where the horn is.
How about a little bit closer...
Deaf prick.

The next few days drifted by in sunshine filled madness – both on the streets of Pamps and the campsite. But by the end of the week it was time to go back to London, and I had managed to recruit Coomba away from Rachel and on to my bus, so I had someone to do my bidding. Two miles out of Pamps the damn bus broke down. This was all we needed. Coomba was relentless in his abuse.
Pulling back in to Waterloo early the next afternoon I’ve told myself twice is enough.

“Waiter – medium rare thank you.”

More photos here.

Come on, say it, you missed me!

2008-07-24T16:37:00.026Z

Well it has been awhile, hasn’t it?

I have been quite busy, but that has never stopped me in the past. I’m starting to think it’s because I’m lacking inspiration. It’s when this happens that you start to worry – am I so used to London that the stupidity no longer affects me? Am I so used to the hell that is catching the tube to work that I fail to notice the hilarity that a Northern Line station attendant literally shrugging his shoulders and walking off when someone asks him if there is a replacement bus service between Angel and Camden? Do I have so much inner peace that I don’t feel the need to throw an ash tray at the TV when I see the latest reality show is named ‘Choir Wars’?

Someone forgot to tell Ralph that 'Britain's Greatest Over Actor' was next door

Well, I’ve just been busy. Alyssa has been forcing me to see the tourist sites, and after 2 and a half years of really not caring to see them - as I walk past them daily - I relented. There really is a lot to see in London that doesn't include someone's kitchen floor at 4.37am. Maybe that's why I haven't really written many blogs; it's because I've kind of settled in.

So with contenment looming, it was time to head to that truely English institution - the festival. What better place to go to completely forget who you are, which way is up and what personal hygiene is - all the things that English find dear - than Glastonbury.

It was a three hour drive to Glastonbury, which after making friends with a bottle of scotch was relatively painless. Stonehenge shot by on the right - missed it - the 40 minute walk from the car to the campsite - missed it. Falling through a tent, trying to crawl in to Coomba's to stay warm, telling tall stories and finally Coomba having to set my tent up as a I couldn't stand that well only for his to flood in the rain and mine to be bone dry-misse..well actually I remember that and it was pretty funny.

The mud, the crowds, the 900 litre hole in the ground that is used by 130,000 people as a toliet, all fall away when the excitement and sensation flooding fun kicks in for the next three days.

Some embraced the rain...

...some didn't.

Things seemed a little calm on day one. With so many things to pick from we ended up settling in at the Pyramid Stage. In a crowd of 130,000 people it was quite bizarre that every second person I bumped in to I knew. Yakka, Steve Canty (who bizarrely enough I only bump in to at festivals - Virgin, Glasto, SW4) and finally waking up in the morning I look over and unnoticed to me, I (well Coomba) seemed to have set up the tent next to Michael Valvo from Uni.

Highlight of the evening was undoubtedly Kings of Leon who closed the day before we all went off to watch Fatboy Slim while Coomba explained his theory of economics to random strangers.

Falling out of my muddy, hot tent the next morning I wondered to myself why Guantanamo Bay wardens simply don't make prisoners sleep in tents and do away with water boarding - a lot more effective style of torture. The slow crawl to the 'toilets' in gumboots was made much worse by the knowledge that I had two more days and nights of this. Shower in a can and sanatised wipes, all was forgotten when we walked in to listen to Sneaky Sound System, and promptly bumped in to Tess and Treve steaming away. Definately a highlight that one. Fast forward through our experiences in the hippy section of Glastonbury, we headed back to the Main Stage to listen to Amy Winehouse.

I've lost my Kiwi friend - anyone know him?

Wow - what a train wreck she was. Obviously forgetting the words, she was basically singing half a second behind the backing band, stumbling across stage, before finally coming to the front of the crowd and punching fans - hilarious. Dutchy screaming out 'you're a crack whore' at the top of his voice when it was most quiet was a highlight for me. Following that, Jay-Z performed in what I thought with as a pretty lack lustre performance.

Fast forward 24 hours and we were standing in front of Groove Armada and the most expensive light show put together. I don't really remember a huge amount except for what looked kind of like an explosion, flares and lots of people bouncing.

The rest is kind of a blur. Wandering around like lost children for the next five hours it was time to go home. After no sleep for seveal days and the excitement levels of a Morman accountant, that car ride was painful.

Glastonbury was over for me.

A couple of weeks later, I went to a more cultured festival; that is that it was just up the road and I got to shower. SW4 (so named as that is the postcode for Clapham) is Carl Cox's festival, which is basically an excuse for him to invite all his DJ mates to come around to the Common and have a play.

Says it all really

Next day Alyssa was heading home to sort out her visa situation. This basically means that I'll have more time to be able to get the blog back on track. On that, I better get cracking.

More pics here.

Gobble, gobble

2008-07-03T16:51:00.051Z

Like an annoying stalker London has a way of punishing you if you leave it while still maintaining that façade of being nice. The double back-handed insult. The killer smile, etc. Arriving back in London from a two week holiday it had been a sunny week with great temperatures and beautiful weather. And I caught a killer cold. Not just me – but at least 10 other people I was there with!! And friends of friends who went to Turkey for ANZAC Day as well. London is a revengeful madame!

But anyway, let’s move on to Turkey. Now for those that have read my blogs since day one know that they are usually quite detailed and descriptive. I don’t think I can do it for this one, for three main reasons:

there was such a diversity in what happened in Turkey;
it was quite lengthy – two weeks; and
I wasn’t sober much (ironic when travelling an Islamic country).

Istanbul

Arriving in Instanbul, Longy, Kiwi Falan and Kiwi Nick greeted me with roaring hangovers and advice where I could get one. Taking that advice the opening night was a blur of shishas, Efes and some randomness….

It wasn’t pleasant that I was woken the next morning by Kiwi Nick telling me that the bus was about to leave with out me and I had missed breakfast – he found me in jocks spread eagle on the bed with my tongue hanging out. There were no winners on that day.

Moving out of Istanbul we headed to Anakara and Mutsfa Attaturk’s tomb, which is a testament to how much Turkey loves their founder. Fresh from defeating the Allied Forces in Gallipoli he then won the civil war and founded Turkey, before completely rejigging the economy, establishing a parliament, a new currency, etc, etc. Pretty lazy guy. No idea why he picked Anakara over Instanbul, as it’s in the middle of a dry, hot sand bed. After pushing our way up the hill, I realised that it must have been the abundance of booze and how bad teh devil drink made you feel that made him come here from Istanbul. Kiwi Nick was having similair thoughts about my semi-nakewd waking pose. We pushed on.

Buried on the hills over looking Anakara his tomb is spread out over an area that you usually see reserved for pharaohs. Feeling like I needed a tomb myself, we slowly carved our way East to Cappadocia.

Cappadoccia

The town is a bizarre place. Surrounded by limestone towers that over the years have been carved out for housing by nomads, tribes fleeing invading armys and the Flinstones, ‘rock houses’ scatter the landscape. And not to mentione, hard as nailing shit to a wall to get down once you climb in one!

Arriving late, a few of us decided to take a look around the town. Four minutes later we had finished. It’s amazing how quickly you get bored when you can’t even have a perve on the Turkish ladies. Once that sun goes down there are no ladies on the streets. Walking through town all we could see were dozens of guys, hunkered down over back gammon sets, sipping their coffee and smoking away. Making friends with the locals we got a few beers and had a little chuckle before it was time for bed. Ducking behind a building to relieve myself of the ‘strong beer’, I finally found the women. Well, three of them staring at me. First sight of woman in four hours and they are staring at me decorating the side of a house.

Up early the next morning we were going to see the lime stones caves of Cappadocia from the air.

Now people talk about the serene beauty of hot air ballooning, and Lonely Planet says that ballooning over Cappadocia is one of the Top 100 things to do before you die, but after 15 minutes it does get a bit tedious.

So soaking up the rising sun while the dry crisp air gently ruffled our hair and the intermittent burst of the air balloon’s flame punctured the silent morning…..it seemed a perfect time to tell fart jokes. And we did.

This went for three hours.

Air ballooning and site seeing over it was time for a shower, shave and slap on some Turkish kit for a night of sampling Turkish culture. Being taken to by a paucnhly old man with a cut throat razor while your friends behind make fun of Turkish TV is a scary thing, but the ‘cut throat shaves’ are vunderbah!

So all Turked up – no shower, BO and constantly failing to make a dent on the world soccer stage – it was off for one of those tourist ‘this is our real culture’ evenings. By the end of the night the only Turkish culture I had experienced was my head being slammed in to a door by an over zealous security guard and a similar thing by a kiwi.

Waking up with a sore head and no idea where my wallet, camera, phone or keys were, I was glad to be leaving the moonscape of Capadoccia for the Treehouses of Olympus.

Items returned a few minutes later and away we went.

Now bounding around the Turkish countryside, seeing scenery and experiencing the sensual flavoursome food was on all our minds, so the arid highway, Bangkok Hilton toilets and oh so wonderful tourist buffets studded along the path didn’t endear themselves to us. Every now and again you’d duck in to a mega mall in the middle of nowhere to get something. Kebab..kebab…kebab…Burger King…kebab…kebab. In one such mall I was accosted by two men: one with a microphone, one with a camera. Bleating at me in Turkish, my confused looks let him know I wasn’t from around there. After getting over the language barrier, they asked me to smile and say yes after he said something followed by a wave and a smile. I did.

I’m hoping that it wasn’t for the Turkish dating game or I’m some how in an arranged marriage?

Arriving at the treehouses in Olympus we were glad to be unloading – and after drinking Efes for three hours we unloaded quite quickly – and then took our bags off the bus.

Olympus

Our initial disappoint that a fire had ravaged the treehouses and now they were just houses made of trees was quickly forgotten with one visit to the treehouse bar, of which I never had in my treehouse as a kid (did have a treehouse meth lab and brothel…but no bar). For the rest of the night I rushed around at play in my little treehouse world until we were told there was a night club around the corner…so off we toddled. Now this ‘club’ was much like a colosseum – and hosted some gladiatorial battles that night – with a large fire in the middle, a DJ booth up high on one of the walls and a bar in the corner. Pepped up of ‘tree nectar’ I was having a riotess time minding my own business until I was set upon by a random girl named Alyssa. Trying to experiment and impress with my athletic prowess, I was all confident and decided to bust out some dance moves that involved catching her…

Waking up on my face I was told that my head hitting the ground made a clunk sound, kind of like a log being hit with an axe. Apparently I didn’t even put my hands out to stop, so my face caught the brunt of it. It was off to bed for me.

The injuries and the attacker!!

Rising the next morning to a face that resembled a burn victim, I decided it was good to get some salt water on to it to wash out the dust/dirt/ash and shame.

My last swim in water was San Sebastian beach in July 2007, so I was ecstatic to be peering out over the wonderful the Mediterranean! A quick dip and it was fucking freezing, so we hiked for about an hour to take a look at the Chimera – an eternal flame that the Turks thought was a devil as you simply can’t put it out. And as you walk for an hour and come to a rocky outcrop with cracks and holes that spew out flames, you can be convinced it is. After singing the Bangles ‘Eternal Flame’ to it, it was time to go back and on to another night at the Treehouses via a five hour cocktail session at a bar along the way. One of the best sessions ever. This bar was a series of huge ‘beds’ with pillows, a big table and shishas all around. And a bar man keen to please.

As you know when a bar man makes the drinks he tests them by dipping a straw in and tasting a tiny bit. Half way through we had ordered so much our barman was pissed. Stumbling back to the treehouses, Alyssa apologised for blatantly tripping me and making me land face first on the ground* and we moved on to the treehouse club again…. and for a second time in the trip….a Kiwi abused an Aussie. But this time kickboxers were needed!

*Some or all of this story is fiction.

It was with great pleasure that the next four days were going to be spent on a boat cruising the Turkish coastline with nothing to do but swim, tan, drink and eat. I don’t usually simply like lying there doing nothing, but this was awesome.

Sailing

There really isn’t a lot to say about sitting on your arse doing nothing. The first day we simply cruised and swam. Now the Mediterranean is basically one big chasm, and as Turkey is at the end of this chasm, the land simply drops away when it hits the ocean. We were moored no more than 10 metres from islands and the bottom – although the water was crystal clear – was gone. It took one anchor 19 seconds to hit the bottom...10 feet from the bank. But what sailing trip would be complete without pirates.

About half a day sail from Olympus is a little alcove surrounded on three sides by small islands and nestled on one of these islands is Smuggler’s Inn; a cool bar that you can only get to by boat. So we put on our best pirate gear, raided a launch and ended up seeing the better side of £2 vodka redbulls. I limped away from the bar later after realising that you can’t do the caterpillar on a hard wood floor. Knees bruised, pride dented I was glad to limp back to the boat to a joyous welcome.

The next few days were a bit more subdued. There was a lot more swimming, a lot of cannonballs and a few boat parties here and there. With three large boats, all sleeping about 16 – and a random larger one that followed us around – you can imagine the parties when they are all joined together.

After a particularly rough evening and some more sailing, we decided to throw ourselves off a perfectly good mountain. Motor boating (hehehe) in to port we took some jeeps up one of the thinnest and scariest drops in to the valley below, that I’ve ever seen. Finally making it up to the top I was strapped in to the front of some guy (who actually said ‘can I scare you’) and ran off a cliff. After the intial fun, it gets a little dull. Simply sitting there taking in the scenery. After gliding around for an hour, we came in to land and back to the boat for another party.

Falling off the boat after four days we were in Fethiye, and what a lovely place it was.

Fethiye

Finally a bed to call my own and flushable toilet (on the boat you couldn't flush paper, so you had to wipe and place in a bin). Strolling through the town I was amazed by how long it took to find a freaking kebab, but buoyed on by the promise of a massive night at Car Cemetery (a bar owned by the cousin of our tour guide) I needed to eat. Now the bar for the evening, as I said, was owned and operated by one of the tour guide’s best friends (or relative) so we were taken care of and left to run rampant, which we gave a red hot go at. As all the drinks were named after cars it did get a little confusing when ordering and I did often need to refer to drinks as: “the red one – and I want mint!” Stumbling out of the bar and half past fuck knows I ended up finding a dog and trying to take it home – and when I say dog I mean canine!!!!After my suggestion of the drink Datsun 180B (containing VB, Ouzo, half a pack of Winnie Blues and some grease) was denied, I needed the comfort. The dog left me for Nick. I wasn’t happy.

I needed to relax. Thanks Christ, we were heading to the lime pools at Pamaluke the next dat for a little bit of a lie down.

Pamakkale

Pamakkale is something else. You can see it long before you get there. The lime pools cascade down the hillside and make it look like snow from a distance. It is formed by hot, lime rich water bubbling from the ground, which as it cools drops the lime forming encrusted pools. Where the water comes from the ground there is a pool that dates back to Roman times and invites you to bath in the warm water. The water forms bubbles on your skin and as you move the surface of the water fizzes like a huge glass of lemonade. For thousands of years it was used as a spa bath.

Oh, and did I say I found weapons of mass destructions.
Moving swiftly away from the radio active weaponry we travelled to Ephesus.

Ephesus

Ephesus used to be one of the most important cities in Turkey, until the ocean receded and the trade routes with Europe and Asia took precedence, moving the ecomony to Istanbul. To this day it is still a large, spread out city that, by the standard I’ve seen in ancient cities, quite large. With a hospital, running water, sewage system and an underground tunnel that connected the library to the local brothel – this place had everything!!!!! Oh, but did I mention it was ruined?

A spot of sight seeing and we were back on the road for lunch. Lamenting what we thought was going to be the stock standard, German finger-licking, tourist buffet was not to be. We set up shop in a local restaurant and had some bizarre pancake like things.

It starts here...

and ends up here.

Sight seeing out of the way, the next stops were all on the way to Gallipolli for the main event. But not before one final stop off in Kusdasi to, basically, party our asses off, as the next two days were going to be quiet, respectful, cold and late. Jim’s Irish Bar took the full force of the blow. Not sure if it was the buy one get one free vodka red bulls or the..hell…I don’t know what it was, but the night got a little out of hand – in a good way of course – and ended with walking on glass in bare feet (Nick?), tattoo contemplation and Alyssa and I walking around looking for a kebab for nearly an hour – why can’t you find a frigging kebab in Turkey when you need one???

In fact, after walking up to a hamburger shop, asking for hamburgers and being told that they only had apples – I was done.

Gallipoli and Anzac Cove

A few days later we crossed the Dardanelles on to the Gallipoli Pennisula. There are statues, memorials and every single shop is selling a Aussie or Kiwi flag all around when you get in to the port. Driving for another hour or two you start to hit the huge line of buses that snake their way down from the entrance to Anzac Cove. Off the buses, through the checkpoints, another 20 minute walk and you’re there.

Turks and the Aussies at it again

Like a mini-festival there are shops, toilets, stands, etc. After pushing down to the front, you set your sleeping bag up and wait. Horseshoeing around the grass area are seats where the people sit upright for 12 hours (you need to arrive by midday or you probably won’t get a space) we were glad we were lying down with sleeping bags. Didn’t help with the fuckwit MC blaring out his opinion on everything from the weather to how to act respectful to insulting cultures and nationalities. Apart from him ruining the day for 70 per cent of the crowd, the event was a moving ceremony.

As soon as the sun went down the temperature plummeted. So crawling in to our sleeping bags we had a 10 hour wait before the Dawn Service. After the ceremony, it was an hour walk up to Lone Pine, the site for the Australian war memory, due to the area hosting significant battles between the Turks and Aussies.

Finishing up with a ceremony at Lone Pine, we were all totally bushed from two weeks of partying and no sleep the night before. I was looking forward to getting back to London, funnily enough. I could on and on about the history, battles and more, but I'm guessing you probably would just scroll over it.

One thing that was mentioned and is reinforced all through the area is that both armies really had no quarm with each other, but were part of a larger plan. There is a large statue when going up to The Nek of a Turkish soldier carrying an ANZAC back to his trench after he was injured. More amazingly is that this actually happened, and these stories are not rare.

Istanbul..again

Back in Istanbul and not a moment too soon. We were sore. We were tired and we were ready to go home. I for one was ready for bed. But push on we did. The memories of the diggers still in our minds, we ventured back to the Sultana Bar for some two-up and shisha – what a mix of cultures. The following day was tourist time in Istanbul – what a perfect time for Alyssa to have her card swallowed by the ATM. To let you know, this place is mosque city: there’s hundreds of them, and they are all superb. It was built between 1609 and 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I. Like many other mosques, it also comprises a tomb of the founder, a madrasah and a hospice. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque has become one of the greatest tourist attractions of Istanbul. And it’s not difficult to see why. Stunning on the outside and vast on the inside, it’s not only cavernous but imaculate in detail. It is mirrored by the Süleymaniye Mosque which was finished in 1557, but was used as a place of worship for both Christians and Muslims. But I’ve seen enough of mosqus, forts, castles and temples to last a life time in my years, I wanted something else.

After speaking to our friendly neighbourhood police officer, off to the Grand Bizarre for a bit of shopping. The Grand Bazaar (or Covered Bazaar, Turkish: Kapalıçarşı (Covered Bazaar) is one of the largest covered markets in the world with more than 58 streets and 6,000 shops, and has between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily. In two words – farking huge. After walking around with a few people, Alyssa and I peeled off to do our own thing, which included eating from the street vendors, buying some spice and being growled at by shop owners, with a bargain and barter thrown in here and there for good measure.All shopped out it was time to say goodbye to everyone in a closing party. A wild endeavour it was too. On the way home, Alyssa and I were accosted at the door of a nightclub near the hotel:

“Allo – you want to have drinks?”
“No thanks – we just want a kebab?”
“We do kebab – wait here.”

And off the man went – in to a heaving nightclub with people dancing on the tables and the music blaring…and 10 minutes later he emerged with two kebabs!!!! The entire holiday we had been searching in vane for a Turkish kebab, but we were foolishly looking in kebab shops, not nightclubs. Amateurs. But in the end we finally found our kebab.

For all photos, please click here and here.

Weed, whiskey and Wales

2008-03-21T10:36:00.025Z

It was off to Amsterdam for my birthday, and it was good to see my family there to say goodbye.

Amsterdam, Holland
Een dag ga ik een van die raammeisjes kopen

Arriving in Amsterdam everything was going my way. As the plane touched down everyone cringed and waited for the crash landing that is your standard Easy Jet touchdown, but no, we smoothly kissed the tarmac and came to a non-white knuckle landing. They must have heard I was on board. If they hadn’t the customs official had. Pawing through my passport he noticed my impending birthday and smirked:

“You coming to Amsterdam for birthday? I’d like to see how you on your return. Have fun.”

I found my home!!!

I like the Dutchies. This was followed by a very friendly ticket collector, the train was waiting, we were 5 minutes from the red light district and 5 from the train station. Coomba and I threw our bags to the ground, grabbed my Ricoh and disappeared in to the depths of the seedier side of Holland. We had three hours to kill before the 11 other people got there. And we killed them. We did such a good job of that, that we must have buried them too, as I don’t really remember where they went or what we did in them. Although the next morning I had eaten something and there was half a bottle of Fanta in bed with me.

We were in town now and fresh from polluting ourselves the night before we decided we needed our ‘vegetables’. Legumes down, we wandered to a park. Had a laugh, had a chat and then experienced some very weird things. Now I hear you saying ‘but Bart, of course you did, what were you expecting’, but some of the things occurring was out of place.

For example: there was one man who was walking around the park shouting at people. Simply shouting and throwing his tennis ball. It took me 10 minutes to realise he was getting closer, but we all thought he was talking specifically to us. Another man dressed in a tight blue leotard trying to scare the homeless people; a crow with an afro; and big dogs looking very out of place was making us a little nervous. I would have liked to see a photo of us walking away, but 13 of us moving as one, never more than an inch away from the other one when leaving the park must have been a sight (safety in numbers).

Leaving the park in to the big bad world, I realised how big and bad it actually was. People moving, sounds everywhere, trams, bikes, cars – fuck me! Crossing a footpath, road, footpath, took about 3 minutes to try. I eventually stepped out and raced across to the traffic island….only to see 12 guys didn’t follow me. I felt so alone. I heard Becks turn to Glasso and say: “Shit, he’s out there by himself”. So I ran back over the road to stand with the group. We finally made it to a pub where we could hide. I was glad when it was all over some 4 hours later and we could navigate back to central Amsterdam. The evening involved a birthday dinner and plenty of shenanigans. We’ll end the story there.

I was glad we were leaving in the morning…as we left Coomba standing all by himself on the platform as we vaulted on to a train as the doors were shutting. Now juxtaposed to my trip to Holland, my trip back felt made me feel I was not welcome back in London. First, Dutch Customs held me up as my passport – coming off second best against a bottle of water falling in a draw – is a bit tatty. Second, another typical Easyjet landing. Third, walking down in to the customs area of Gatwick there is a big sign saying ‘Now entering the UK’. Just before I crossed that line, my foot scuffed something, I looked down, and it was £10. This was Europe’s final ditch attempt at saying: “No, Bart, no. Stay out of the UK.” Nevertheless, I crossed the barrier and was back in the ‘ol Bligh.

But not for long. Easter was just around the corner, and like that random person that comes home for an impromptu house party after a night out, I had to leave.

Republic of Ireland

Anyway, Easter – the non-sense holiday. A chance to eat chocolate, take a four day weekend, be forced to eat fish and – sometime I hate religious holidays – not drink. With forced sobriety; Luke, Coomba and I pondered where we could go to get a drink. Ireland had to be serving Guiness – it’s in their blood – and they’re not religious are they?

So it was off to Dublin with these two excitement machines:

Landing in Dublin was one of the hardest I’ve had (Ryan Air). The pilot landed half way up the runway, was dipping the wings on approach and damn near went off the end (well probably not, but he slammed on the brakes and even the stewardesses looked a little worried). Stepping in to a lovely 1 degree Dublin afternoon, it wasn’t long before we started looking for a pub. Alas, Dublin was dry. Very dry. So back to our room we went. The night was interesting. I tried to practice my Spanish on a group from the Canary Islands, and was rather pleased that while I’m not that good at speaking it just yet, I can follow bits of a conversation; we got abused by some random Aussie who had been living in a hostel for two months; and in the end got the best sleep ever due to no drinking on Good Friday and bed by 10pm.

Fresh the next day it was off to Killarney, but first we had to go the Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney stone. Kissing the Blarney stone is supposed to bequeath the gift of the gab. After a shocking start I needed to smooch it to regain my chat, Coomba needed some extra jokes (as the old faithfulls simply weren;t working), and Luke needed better lines than simply saying ‘no chat’ or ‘shit chat’. We all kissed it. Didn’t work.

Moving on to Killarney, we took in an Irish monologue act (won’t get that time back), some Irish stew and some Irish beer. I felt Irish..drunk. After some bar hopping, we ended up at a great place and I had one of the best nights I’ve had in ages.

The next morning we were all feeling pretty rough, but Coomba was about to die. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that bad. Crossing over to the North Atlantic coast, the wind coming up the cliffs was hurricane like. Eventually we had to cross a bay on a ferry – a few of the boys looked worried about the prospect of a rocking boat in their frame of mind. I went to the pub to steel my nerves.

Nerves steeled, on to the boat, ocean crossed, and off to Doolin.
On the way to Doolin are the Cliffs on Mohar. Sheer rock walls that impressively rise out of the ocean for hundreds off feet, quite a sight to behold. Just as impressive is Vice, a sheer rock man that rises out of the ground for 5 foot 8, quite a sight to behold.

Vice is our big Irish friend. Vice once bet us that he could drink 10 pints of Guinness in an hour. He did…and had a pint of larger to finish as he had extra time. Think about that – that’s the equivalent of eating 35 metres of road tar. Vice’s family home is just out of Doolin, so we were invited to spend the evening with the McNamara clan (Vice’s real name is Brian McNamara; but he crushes you like a vice, hence the name). But after coming all that way to see his family, he didn’t even show up to retrieve us. This has nothing to do with the story, I just wanted to have another go at him, plus it’s scary to do it to him in person. So we had another Irish night in Doolin (there are six buildings in Doolin and two are pubs).

Gayest...photo..ever!

Going cross-country in the morning we swung by one of Ireland’s oldest distilleries to learn about whiskey. I was only there for the tasting, but found the process quite interesting too. A monument and cathedrals on the way back to Dublin, but it was homeward bound. Getting home after two hectic weekends was good. Unpacked the bags, washed the clothes, and then threw them back in the bag for Wales.

Cardiff, Wales

Cardiff, the capital of Wales, was the place for the 2008 Wandsworth Demon’s football trip, with 40 guys descending on the town. Can’t really go in to more than that, as we all know the moniker ‘what goes on football trip, stays on football trip’. But I had a great night. Most of the bars in Cardiff are on one main street, so at 4am, when they all close everyone stumbles in to the street for a random street party for a few more hours.

Only Bart knew of the chaos to come...

Great town.

Photos and the usual here: photos

Kind of like going back to an -ex

2008-03-01T12:45:00.015Z

I’ve moved.Not in: a hottie brushed closely against me by accident in the supermarket and ‘I moved’, kind of way, but pack up your life, throw it down the stairs, leave half your stuff behind and gawk in amazement about how one backpack and a rucksack have become enough to fill a VW Golf (thanks Doc, or Mrs Harris as I shall now call it) moved.

Now I hate moving. Loving settling in to a new place, but hate moving. Let’s face it we all do. If people liked to move we simply wouldn’t have obesity. But after the huffing and puffing that is the actual moving, the sweet and sour deal is getting to know your area. First the sweet.

I’m now in Balham. This little area just south of Clapham is like Fitzroy. There’s a whole bunch of cafes, pubs, bohemian style bars, restaurants, Chinese takeaway for Luke, and the world’s greatest kebab shop. All in all a good little area. Now for the sour.

It’s not the area, but the act of moving to a new area. When you live somewhere for so long (I was in St John’s Hill for 18 months) you get used to everything there, namely the supermarket. I went to my local Sainsbury’s for the first time last week and mass confusion galore. I couldn’t blame anyone. I was the retard. You get use to your own way of dealing with things in your own supermarket. The flow, the people, where things are, how it all works, etc. A new supermarket is so confusing. The OJ is not where it should be, the steak is next to the lamb not the pork – it’s a mess. I was well confused.

But this is nothing compared to the thing that I have returned to. The bridge that I thought I’d burnt. The ex-girlfriend I’d thought I’d left – Mrs Northern Line!

Just like a dagger through my heart, that little Black Line that runs South to North from Morden to Edgeware has crept back in to my life under the guise of being helpful. After being smacked in the face with the musky smell first thing on Monday morning, I knew I had returned. And like a revengeful harpy – it knew I was back – throwing a crowded train with a greasy haired man too closely invading my personal space (I definately didn’t move). I had to cop it like the returnee I knew I was. And just to add insult to injury, the good old queue was back.

Now I don’t mind the queue in the UK. These guys realty know how to do it. Line up in one long queue and branch off at end. It’s better than the mass rush at a door that occurs in Eastern Europe or the queue envy you get back home if the other one goes faster. This was one thing that I knew how to do in my new area – queuing. After dithering around for 45-minutes in the supermarket and bumping in to things like a drunk playing Tetris, I showed those fuckers when it came to lining up! I love queues.

On top of all these issues with the Tube there has been talk about metal detractors in some underground stations. It’s damn busy enough. There’s not one way in hell that this would work. I for one blame the current climate of fear for this knee-jerk reaction. I mean take Lego for example. There was a time when the Lego Airport collection was sweet and innocent:

That is the one I had. When on earth did we start seeing full security scans at Lego Land Terminal 3????

Well at least they got one fucker – Off to Camp Guanta-lego Bay with you, sir.

All this talk of threats and violence makes me scared. Think I might just go home and go to the supermarket. Maybe even try to find the Lego in that maze. Not too sure where it is on the shelves. Might just join a queue instead.

I'm Bart: long time reader, first time writer...

2008-02-26T16:52:00.006Z

First thing in the morning when I get to work, I read the papers - all of them. Knowing what the media says is a big part of my job. I browse the business pages, take a slight interest in the main news and read only about the sports and teams I like. My attention is primarily focused on one area and one group: Joe Public and their letters to the Editor.

My old boss once said to me that as you are working in a field where your job is to influence how the public perceives an issue, you need to know what they are thinking. Furthermore, what you read in most papers is dressed up information as news. My mind goes back to a second-year university class: Advanced Communication Techniques. A statistic that still sits in my mind is that what you read in the business pages and news pages, is 90% and 60% respectively derived from a source with a vested interest. That’s to say that the majority of what people read in a newspaper is ‘placed’, ‘pitched’, ‘sold in’, ‘offered exclusively’, ‘embargo offered’ or ‘leaked’ by people like me. And for those of you that know me well, there’s fuck all chance you would believe what I tell you. Investigative journalists might argue that they track down, double check and trust their sources when writing a story - but the original idea to write on an issue came from somewhere...and someone.

Sport, letters and the obituaries are all you can really rely on for truth. The only reason sport isn’t affected to a great level is that the action takes place right in front of millions of people and it’s pretty hard to spin that…but we’ll try.

Two team mates get in a fight on the field due to having massive egos: A spokesperson said: “XX and XX are two passionate players that love the club dearly, and sometimes this passion boils over.”

Player obviously still drunk/drugged from the night before: Sources (usually the club leaks a false story) revealed that XX was suffering from dehydration and a slight stomach virus.

Here's where some people usually go down the 'oh no, but I read the editorial section so that I can get an educated opinion'. Well, I've got news for you - the editorial opinion, not the words but the slant, is dictated by the publishers of the newspaper and not by the journo writing it. Do you really think that The Times would ever write a piece praising an FT initiative, or a Rupert Murdoch paper criticising News Corps movements in trying to gobble up Yahoo! Sure it may make the the try-hard intelligensia feel better that they can waffle on verbatim about an issue that they read in the opinion section of Saturday's paper, feeling that they have an informed opinion (well at least copying someone's) little realising that there are greater economics/politics at play, but it ain't the truth.

Mum, Ron - how is Leonie?

But the letters page is where you can get some truth. The problem is that people who write in to the letters page usually just want to see there name in print (not that there’s anything wrong with that, Trev??) and the editor just wants to get some banter going. This can lead to some comedic value, but mainly you worry about people’s sanity. Let’s go with this story that appeared on Monday afternoon:

Plot fired for perfoming 320mph ‘fly-by’ with landing gear up

Captain Ian Wilkinson performed a "fly-by" manoeuvre to entertain VIP passengers on the maiden flight of the 230-ton Boeing 777-300ER just 28 feet above the runway at 320mph.

But 55-year-old Captain Wilkinson was fired from his £250,000-a-year job with the Cathay Pacific airline after footage of the incident was posted on websites including YouTube.

A spokesman for Cathay Pacific said that the fly-by had been approved by air traffic controllers in Seattle after a call from the pilot but not by the airline, which was the reason Captain Wilkinson had been sacked.

An airline insider said: "He is a very senior captain nearing the end of a highly-distinguished career but he seems to have thrown it all away for a moment of madness."

Now here comes the fun - letters time!!!

What a hectic modern world it is when you get sacked for having a bit of harmless fun. I was once taken for a trip in a friends four seater light aircraft; we buzzed the control tower on a fly-past over the airfield at low level. Nobody moaned.
Dr Bent, UK

Friend’s four-seater light aircraft compared to a £100 million, 230-ton Boeing 777? Not too sure if they really are comparable. Are you a doctor like Dr Seuss or Dr Pepper is a doctor?

Why was he supposed to have his landing gear down at over 324mph?
Frederick, London

Ha – thanks Fred – my faith in humanity has been restored!!

He’s an idiot. I never want to fly with him.
Richard, Workington

And then you go and take it away, Dick. Which part of he was fired close to retirement are you struggling to get?
Tadick doesn’t know what he’s talking about – ‘stressed by ground effect pressure’. What rubbish. It is unlikely that U/C could be lowered at that speed anyway. Trouble with this sort of incident is all armchair experts come out of the woodwork.
Peter, Inverness

Can you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E, Peter?

The flex on the wings in picture 3 looks worrying to me.
Louise, Rochdale

Louise – you’re not only observant, you’re a poet too. Claps for you. Cival Aviation Authority should not even bother looking for a black box if a plane goes down; just ask you. You’ll even entertain them with verse.

Good luck to the two pilots. With their experience there would be minimum risk.
Dr Spittle, Kent

Are they just handing doctorates out now?

Safety is paramount
James, Stoke-on-Trent

You’re a thinker.

Thank goodness it didn’t go wrong. Everyone would certainly be condemning him then.
Alana, Berkshire

You and James should have kids.

Could he try it again, this time with all the members of this Labour government and special guest Tony Blair?
Anne, North Yorkshire

There’s always one that wants to bring it back to politics, isn’t there?

What a shame we can’t sack our Prime Minister for the far larger lapses of judgement he makes every day!
Phil, Winchester

Make it two.

He is a very senior captain nearing the end of a highly-distinguished career. Nice cheap way to get rid of a guy that was goin g to have a great pension and benefits. Well done Cathay.
Peter, Sussex

Oohh, I like Peter. Pay attention folks. I’ll put the house on it that Peter works as a press flack for an opposing airline and is planting a story/idea to fire up the media. God knows it’s what I would have done.

He knows the aircraft very well and would have known exactly what he was doing.
Sally, Norfolk

Let me explain ‘maiden flight’ of the 777-300ER to you Sally…

I have done similar low approaches. But not in a large commercial jet.
Anon, Great Britain

So you really have don’t similar low approaches at all have you?
And with a name like Anon, why aren’t you rapping somewhere. In fact call yourself Dr Dre and you can hang around with the other doctors who have commented on this page. Dr Bent has done similar approaches in a four-seater - you two should meet up!

That’s nothing. The pilot of Flight 77 which hit the Pentagon managed to fly at 450mph, 11 feet from the ground, while avoiding dozens of lamp posts or not digging the wig tips in to the lawn outside – now that’s amazing.
Dave, Kewick

Sounded funnier in your head didn’t it, Dave?

Much ado about nothing? Try it at 27 feet at Heathrow – now there’s news.
Mike, UK

Pay attention Dave, that’s how it should have been done.

Boys and their toys.
Name withheld

The person who doesn’t feel the need to promote themselves is the person with the best comment - kudos to you withheld!

So see, while you were drearily reading the story, you have been missing all the fun on the letter page. Funnier than the jokes section, more entertaining than the sports page, more factual than the news section and more puzzling trying to figure out the real meaning of what is being said than the crosswords...

Bartholomew, London

Oops I did it again

2008-02-07T17:44:00.001Z

What a weekend. The sun was shining, people were cheery - it truly was a glorious Saturday... as I bounded out of bed at 1pm. Then came Monday. Winter was back and London proved itself to be the schizophrenic bitch we all know it as.

But now there is hope in sight. That little glimmer of summer is just over that foggy horizon waiting to burst forth. If you recall last winter, I informed you all of this disease called SAD (seasonal affected disorder) or something like that. Basically it gets light at 8am and dark by 4pm, so the resulting lack of vitamin D, cold weather and everyone feeling like they want to hibernate, makes you feel depressed. Last year I went home for January, so it wasn’t too bad, but this year was a little harder. But hey, it's not all bad - at least I’m not everyone’s favourite car crash…

Britney Spears – what the fuck are you on about? I completely disagree when people start saying ‘it’s the media’s fault’, ‘why don’t they leave her alone’, ‘they’re only exacerbating the situation’. Well, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

The media didn’t ask her to marry trailer trash and pop out two kids with hunky, dory ‘hey look at me I’m from the south’ names like Billy-Ray-Jo or Kyle-Yeeeha-Chad, or whatever the yokel they are. Neither did they say:

"Hey Britney, flash your privates when getting out of the car – no one will pick up on that!” Nor did they say: “Hey Britney, shave your head!”

Then again someone probably did tell her to make sure the collars and cuffs matched…

Britney's decent into weirdness has to have some sort of scientific explanation, and I think I've cracked it:

Good so far, all good.

Did we learn anything here? That's right - Red Bull makes you do silly things. Fuck, the only thing left now to save her is for Angelina Jolie to adopt her as her next under-privileged child - she'll probably eat better.

Second – don’t give me this ‘I wish they left her alone’. She makes more than you by opening her mouth and singing a verse for four seconds than you do in a week. Google her name and it comes up with 77,700,000 mentions. Google mine and it comes out 231,000 (including this gem here - yes, I was a child actor). So admit it – you love seeing her lose it.

Third - you people that say ‘poor her’. Bah - if you’re being hounded by paparazzi, what’s the worst thing you can do? That’s right – start dating a photographer. My sympathy ends when that level of stupidity is employed!

The one group I feel for the most in this whole debacle are the late night talk show hosts. This stuff is comedy gold…shame all the writers are on a writers strike! Well... one isn’t. That’s the guy who updates Britney’s facebook status – busiest man alive:

Britney is confused (updated 1 minute ago)
Britney is in hospital (updated 56 seconds ago)
Britney wants fried chicken and grits (updated 52 seconds ago)
Britney something something (updated 50 seconds ago)…and so on.

Scotland - a wee little ditty

2008-01-14T22:34:00.000Z

Scotland
Was there ever a question - I was always going to take the low road!

After the body destroying, doctor looking back and pinpointing the exact moment that you contracted dementia, liver disease and a slight case of gout trip that was skiing for Christmas in 2006; Luke, Kasi and I decided to head to Scotland for a relaxing tour of the Highlands.

Starting in Edinburgh, once again the town didn’t disappoint. The city with the castle on the hill is one of my favourite in Europe. Doing a bit of a mini bar crawl, Luke and I ended up at the Three Sisters – a bar that I have had some memorable nights in before – and it proved itself again. The next morning I was thankful that it was a long drive to head in to the Highlands, as my head wasn’t right and I needed sleep.

The best bits about Scotland is not really the scenery to be honest. While it is stunning, it is very similiar. Imagine New Zealand...but include interesting history...and you have Scotland. Wind swept plains, craggy mountains jutting out of nowhere and rain that descends on you in about three seconds – what a place for a holiday!

Did I mention the ghosts? Checking in to our first hostel we were told that there were two rooms that were supposedly haunted. Didn’t phase us, there were about 15 rooms to pick from: and guess who got the haunted one? I decided to imbibe myself with scotch to avoid the whole issue, but it didn’t help. Despite sampling the Highlands best, I still couldn’t escape the scrapes, sights and eerie sounds. Yes, it was a scarey night listening to Kasi singing (Whispering Jack vs Kasi).

Moving on up through the loch district and in to the rough Highlands, we were treated to stories of the Campbells, Glencoe and the battling tribes. Now my knowledge of Scottish history was a wee lacking; all I really knew was Mel Gibson in Braveheart. You’d think that a Scot commissioned to create a sculpture of William Wallace would know history pretty well – not create a statue of Mel Gibson with Braveheart emblazoned across the shield!!!
The irony of this statue is that it has ‘Freedom’ carved across the bottom, but as it is such an embarrassment it has to be locked away in a cage every night to avoid being damaged.

Moving swiftly along through the Highlands and on to the Isle of Skye, where the main beauty is that there is no one around - plus has one of the best views from a car park of all time. With time passing swiftly, Christmas was upon us and we all bunkered down in a pub near Loch Lachie for Christmas turkey.Jeez did we get boozed. Brussel sprout fights, exploding ballons and of course Uno kept the evening going until the wee hours - a little different from French police raids of the year before but still enjoyable.After a few days spent in hostels along the journey our final night was spent in a castle. Arriving at a large stone entrance and wall, we were all a little taken a back that we were going to be spending the night in an actual huge castle - I was thinking it was just going to be a big house. Entering, there were all the trade marks – statues, large pictures, libraries, trap doors, Professor Plum in the conservatory with the lead pipe, and – yes – their own ghost in the tower. Some Scottish dancing, drinks, open fires and someone literally hanging from the chandelier, bed awaited for some – while others refused to go to bed due to feeling a draft and convinced their room was haunted.

Back to Edinburgh the next night via Loch Ness. Now, apart from thee myth of Nessie, it really is just a big body of water. I wasn’t convinced. Not sucked in at all.So after watching the water for 8 hours it was time to go home after seeing nothing. Couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched, though. So we struggled back to Edinburgh and managed to head out for a few drinks, but the week was over and we were ready to not only go home, but to not see each other for a few days after being together for every waking moment. After everything was stress free, worked well and done in a cheery manner, it was with little surprise that the English train bound for London was over booked, people had to stand the whole journey and it took 1.5 hours longer than it should of – ahh London. It makes you wonder why you stay really. Well I've got a good reason; she won't let me leave. Thursday, 17 January was my return flight home - which I obviously didn't take - but even if I did it would have been difficult. My flight was due to leave at 1.30 from Heathrow, and at 12.45 a British Airways plane belly flopped onto the runway I was supposed to leave from, causing cancellations across the board, which would have been me. See what I mean? The UK - love to leave, but you just can't.

Scrooge - expect anything less?

2008-01-09T18:06:00.000Z

So this is Christmas, and what have you done?
Another year over, a new one begun.

Okay, I'm very late on this one I will give you, but the point remains - I for one lamented the end of 2007. I had a great year. While 2006 was good, it started bad, was a struggle once reaching the UK and it wasn’t until I met my now regular group of friends at Christmas 2006 that I would say the life I enjoy now really began. When that clock struck 12.00.01am, I’m not really going to be too happy about it. And on that note, I don’t really like Christmas too much either.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the holiday, I don’t mind the presents, but Christmas cheer – bugger off. There’s nothing fun about Christmas carols. They blare in your ear, the grate down your spine and they annoy any passer trying to listen to their iPod. Just because it’s Christmas do you think I’m going to put money in your bucket? I don’t give money to the phone lines for X Factor fools singing off key, there’s bugger all chance I will for your effort!

So with all that, I spent Christmas in Scotland (more on that later) never getting the chance to sleep in for the Christmas break, and only received one Christmas present. This meant all I had for Christmas was the desire to knock out carollers two front teeth.

New volleys - best present ever!!!

There are a few highlights for this time of year though. There’s the office Christmas party for example. I won’t go in to this year’s as it was a reasonable tame endeavour, which ended quite civilised. Of course there was the amusing dancing of your colleagues, or the office romance between departments that you could so easily tell had broken up long before as they simply wouldn’t speak to each other (thank Christ it wasn’t my department). No, I’d prefer to relive some of the others.

Christmas parties - opportunities to stick your face where it's not wanted

Who could forget AMP’s Christmas party in 2004 when I walked home from Darling Harbour to Balmain – about 10kms – as I couldn’t get a cab (we had to steal someone’s ride this year and give the driver £60) only to realised I couldn’t find my keys. So unceremoniously I scaled the front of our apartment complex, humming the Spiderman theme song to myself mind you, till I got to the bedroom on the third floor. Naomi was not as impressed with my acrobatics as I was. Considering the three story plunge while balancing on a brick ledge pissed as a fart, I don’t really blame her.

Or 2006 when a Thursday night ended in piggy backing to bars at 4am. Waking up the next morning at 10am I did question why on earth we had Christmas party on a weeknight. Receiving a phone call from my boss at 10.15am wondering why I wasn’t in - which I thought a strange question as a hung over was the obvious answer - made me curse Christmas again. Made it in to work at 1pm that day.

Fun times.

But at least at home you can lie in the sun, go to the beach, or relax by the pool. But not in the Ol’ Bligh. Let me give you a quick run down of the jolly season. Firstly there's betting on whether it will snow or not. Sounds fun and happy and all things tinsel doesn't it? Well not when every year no snow comes but it pelts down with freezing ice storms. People happily chuckle 'well maybe next year, ha ha', avoiding the grim realisation that they just lost 20 quid, are wet, freezing and have to listen to carollers rattle on about harking the herald angels.

The novovirus: This little arse kicker has been ripping through London since December. I've had it, the bloke next to me has had it and guaranteed if you are in London now - you'll get it. It is a 48 hour vomiting disease that has been decimating the Capital for a month, infecting 100,000 a week and is expected to blossom when school goes back. Combine this with the stock standard Janaury flu and it's more fun than a blind convention in an abattoir.

You know you have been here for too long when this doesn't phase you, and you even cheer up when you start considering the fact that 22 December is the shortest day and you only have to get through January until you get to see that glowing ball of heat and light in the sky. Might go and place a bet on whether it will be a warm summer or not - will probably snow.

West to East - can I get whoop whoop??

2007-12-01T12:04:00.000Z

Now you know you’ve had a hard weekend when there has been two arrests, a fight, a case of gastro, a dance off and someone being taken off the plane by paramedics and going to hospital while his ‘mates’ film it and put it on YouTube while saying: 'I wish you were dead'. Here begins the final legs of my multi-European sojourn. In fact if I was Indiana Jones (firstly I definitely would trade the Holy Grail for the Nazi spy - wouldn’t you??)…I mean, the past month (this weekend inclusive) would have looked like this on a movie screen: It may have made more sense to stay in one area, but hey, you know what they say about the size of a man’s carbon footprint. But first, off to that little Russian border country of Latvia, and time to rip it up in its capital, Riga – or the surrounding rural areas in some cases.

Riga, Latvia

Two days away from work and off again, this time to Latvia. Appearing at the airport on Friday with gastroenteritis, I knew this trip was going to be hard. Passing on the drinks and food at the airport, drinks on the plane or even drinks at the hotel bar in Riga, I was struggling. But thanks must go to Posty for giving me some great advice for the night – straight scotch - and plenty of it. And what do you know, the vomiting only occurred ever second hour; but burned the crap out of the inside of my nose. Soldiering on I made it out to three, but not without the help of the locals. Spending the evening at a bar called Nautilus, we were gob smacked. Every person in the club was a supermodel. I had to go to bed due to my eyes hurting so much. Well, not from the talent, just watching Coombe try his sidle up dance moves or Crowey’s karate chops. I’m really not going to say too much about Riga, as it simply is Eastern Europe in winter. That sounds quite basic for those that haven’t been there, but those that know the former Russian states, know that they are miserable without sunshine.

Eastern Europe has this romanticism about it, but nothing can be further from the truth. Most people don’t live well, it’s grey, cold and they are sick of people they think are English coming over and spending big and leaving. I got talking to a few locals on this trip, but usually it’s fairly difficult. Second, these weekends tend to be simply footy trip-esque. Although I couldn’t do it this time, so I decided to wander around the town while most simply sat in the bar. After wandering around Riga for 2 hours I think I saw everything – a statue commemorating the Soviet withdrawal and the Museum of the History of Latvian Occupation 1940 – 1991: I went in. There was a Latvian flag, a Russian flag and seven books on stands. I picked up one of the books and was yelled at for touching it. I went back to the bar.
The flight back was a little more eventful with one of our members passing out and having to be taken to hospital. I don’t think the cries of ‘harden the fuck up’ from us helped. Anyway, I had three hours to get from Luton to Gatwick. This was going to be tight. Rushing back home I managed to pack a new set of clothes and straight out to another airport, but made it in time. I was on my own and bound for the dinky dye Irish city of Dublin! But seems my mates had got there first: Man steals Guinness

Ireland & Northern Ireland

Arriving in Ireland I was a little excited. I was by myself. I haven’t been by myself for so long. I live in a house with three others, I catch the tube with 3,000 others, I get to work, I go to the gym with others, I go out to a bar with heaps of people, I get home and people are there, and on the weekends I’m always surrounded by mates. This was going to be good. Walking around Dublin on a Sunday night I bumped in to some locals and some travellers and we teamed up for a pretty good night.

The next day I was off to Derry. Now Derry was where a lot of the troubles in the 60s started. After wandering around the town for a little but I ended up in an old mans’ pub on the Catholic side of town. Settling in it wasn’t long before I had a few locals chatting away. After several pints I decided to broach the subject of the troubles over the past few decades. I wasn’t expecting how honestly they answered some of my questions, but a couple of responses I was not prepared for at all. From Derry it was off to Belfast via the Giant’s Causeway – the large piles of hexagonal rocks on the North coast. It was there that the sheer beauty of the coast line inspired me to write a poem:

It's winter in Ireland;
Fuck i'm cold.

Beautiful.

Moving swiftly to Belfast.

Now while the troubles in Northern Ireland started in Derry, they reached breaking point in Belfast. After watching Derry slowly turn in to a powder keg the residents of Belfast waited. And in 1969 it happened. A Catholic walked in to a bar in a Protestant neighbourhood, said something and was shot. Two days later it all kicked off.

Despite me thinking a lot of the troubles had ended, they really haven't ended. Pictures tell a thousand words, so what better way to explian.

A wall on the Protestant side - Ulster Freedom Fighter - it follows you wherever you walk

To seperate the two groups, this gate shuts at six and doesn't open until morning

Writing on the Peace Wall. About 10 metres high the wall stops the two groups throwing firebombs at each other...

...so I thought this advertisement on it was in poor taste!

Enough of this little collage, let's move on. A charming night was spent in the Belfast Christmas markets. Basically a way to fleece pensioners from their savings, Christmas markets sell tacky over priced shit for a stack of whatever currency you have - they're all over the place throughout Europe. But they do sell one thing; namely my number one gastronmic delight - Bratwurst. But then who can resist some fudge packing too?

After stuffing my face it I decided to settle in at the Crown. The Crown was founded in the 1800s by a Protestant woman and her Catholic husband. Swearing allegiance to the monarchy, the wife wished to call her pub, The Crown. Not having any of this the Protestant husband refused, until he has a canny idea. He agreed with his wife on a proviso: that if they call it the Crown, he could put a tiled mosaic of the English Crown at the door so his Cartholic friends could walk over it whenever they wanted to enter. Smart man.

Whilst in the Crown I started to talking to a local lass named Siobhan (Chevon). After about 15 minutes she let me know that she was about to head out for a concert. So saying goodbye she left. Five minutes later she walked back in, grabbed me by the shoulder and said: "You're coming with us." Rushing me out to a car, I had no idea where I was going. After about ten minutes driving through Belfast I finally found out that one of the group's friends was too drunk to take her ticket to this show and I was the replacement. It wasn't until we got to the arena that I finally found out that the band in store for me was the Stereophonics... live in Belfast - damn I love random travel!!!!!!

A great night topped of Belfast and after flagging down a bus I was back to Dublin. Another night ensued where I bumped in to some random travellers, but it was early to bed – 2am – to get myself ready for the main deal: Guiness factory!!!!

Traipsing off on an early Thursday morning I made my way around the city of Dublin, finding myself at the Guiness factory. Not really much to say here except I really went a little nuts on the free pour and stumbled out of this lovely place.

Heading back out to the airport I looked back and bid this fair land farewell, only to know that I will return at Easter. Ireland is full of friendly people and fun experiences. Eastern Europe is dreary, most of Western Europe thinks you're English so won't talk to you, but Ireland is different. They speak your language, know you're not English and are more than happy to show you a great time. I thoroughly recommend it and can't wait to get back.

And I finally was awarded for pouring a perfect pint!

Seville - it doesn't have pigeons, it has doves!

2007-11-22T22:49:00.000Z

After the disaster that was Budapest, I was hoping Seville would turn out better. And I have to admit it really did. No rushing to get to the plane, a few drinks on it and bugger all non-EU residents making passport control a breeze, we were in Seville, Spain.

Seville, Spain

Sevilla es gran y las mujeres hay, a pesar de todo son Americanos!

Seville is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain and more than two thousand years old. The passage of the various people instrumental in its growth has left the city with a distinct personality, and a large and well-preserved historical center. It has been fought over by the Romans, Portugese, French, Muslims and finally the Catholics in nearly all this time, and has finally been colonised by drunk American students.With Colombus setting off from Seville to find the New Land, Yank students flock to this place to work and learn Spanish in much the same way that Aussies do to the UK to learn public drinking and ‘flag gathering’.
Seville is much like the old city in Barcelona with its cobbled streets and beautiful old buildings from the 16th century. As Seville was the centre of the Spanish empire for trading with Africa and the Americas, much money was pumped in to it, meaning the buildings were not thrown up but meticously crafted. Also, being between France, Portugal and Africa, this place was taken more times than a drunk Kiwi at the Red Back on a Sunday, meaning many sets of defenses and extra sturdy buildings. Due to this constant occupation, the architrecture is an ecletic mix of Muslim, Catholic and, according to Scary Spices paternity test, even Eddie Murphy. This also has caused some real bastard child creations.

The main Seville Cathedral, Catedral de Santa María de la Sede, is one of the largest in the world and due to it being built in 1401, has seen more extensions than an episode of Our House, everytime the city was taken. To date, you can walk around the structure and in it, and see the dome and minarets of a mosque, the Star of David and the arches of a Catholic church. So much has it been changed that there are four pulpits where the priest may stand and a shrine smack bang in the middle. Enough history – yeah – let’s get stuck in to the tapas eating, sangria drinking, macarena dancing of the rest of the place!

Arriving in Seville we were blown away by how stunning the place is. All lit up and sparkling. Straight of to a tapas bar followed by…actually I can’t really remember. I think we may have ended up at an Irish bar. I’m really not too sure. But anyway. Friday was the walking tour of Saville and taking in all the sites. The Plaza de Espanya, Festival of Americas and everything in between. So after a day of touring, a siesta, and some more food, back on out to the friendly world around us. Deciding to cross the river to the local area of the city we were soon lost as to where to go out. This is where I took charge. Being there with two Brisbanites, I knew immediately if it wasn’t up in lights, on the beach or truly Brisvegas tacky, these boys wouldn’t know where to go. So donning my Melbourne hat we slipped down several back alleys, around a corner, under a box and tapped our left leg three times and there was a bar before us. Walking in it turned out that we had found ourselves a nice little shisha bar. Fernando, the waiter, knew there was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando – stoked up a strawberry shisha smoked through a bowl of dark rum, and we were off.

Well, that’s all I’m going to say about that night. After hobbling out of a bar bleeding on the pavement after a disagreement in the establishment, the less said the better.

The next day Toddy and I explored the fort of Seville. A combinaton of hung over and my injuries meant a slow day exploring the sites – although I did manage to get through an entire English breakfast in about 6.3 seconds. The main site to look at was the Seville Fort, popular for its oranges (Savillian oranges are famously exported to the UK to make marmalade). But yet, I was still hungry and tired. That’s when Bart’s guide to the morning after comes in.

First - find some food

Step two - hydrate

Step three - eat what you've found

Final step - sleep

The same night insued with us hitting the local scene outside of the main town (which basically involved us in a bar with 40 spanish men watching the football and trying to decipher what they were saying about us). Good times. Packing up the next day and finishing with some tapas, we made our way to the airport. But not before seeing Seville fashion at its finest.

Even getting home in London at 2am and having 4 hours sleep before work, I couldn’t shake my love of Seville. I thoroughly recommend the place. In fact, bugger Croatia, Seville is the place for my honeymoon. I said it the first time we walked in to the town and it is the perfect example of this lovely city - there is not a pigeon in sight. No winged rats like London. I shit you not, Seville doesn't have pigeons, it has doves. For more photos, click here.

Budapest, Hungary - not worth of a witty comment

2007-11-12T19:38:00.000Z

After a struggle to recover from the weekend, Thursday night was around and I was flying out to Eastern Europe on Friday. So perfectly happy that Thursday was the Wandsworth Demons AGM. After a few people asked me to run for Vice President I decided at the last minute to give it a go. And what do you know; I won a fair few votes and took the position. http://www.wandsworthdemons.com/

Strangely enough I’m the VP to Mark Wallace whose girlfriend’s father is my father’s accountant – small world. Anyway, a boozy night and I woke up ready to head to Budapest.

Budapest, Hungary
A asszony van tehát forró fáj -hoz megjelenés

That’s where the story should end. I’d usually give you a run down on what happened, the fun had and the stories – but I can’t. I spent the best part of the trip with my head in the basin, out a cab door, in a toilet or just outside with some food really not agreeing with me. But let’s give you a run down anyway.

Budapest is the capital of Hungary, and made up of two cities: the western town of Buda and the eastern town of Pest, separated by the Danube. In 1873 these cities were united. Apparently they didn’t struggle too much with the name. Across the city bridges cut back and forward between the two sides but you still get confused as to which side you are on. Lucky Coomba was able to get a local to draw us a map which vaguely resembled what Picasso would have drawn if he decided to become a cartographer and inject acid between his toes at 25 minutes intervals for 6 straight hours a day. Suffice to say we got lost on Friday night in 3 degree weather at a time where all our bank cards would not work – sign 1.

Sombre lion

Happy lion - just need to know where to touch them

Now Saturday, it was the usual site seeing time. So, with Crowy, Guv and Duncan deciding to go to Mongolian BBQ (more on that later) we hit the streets of Buda and of course, Pest. Now I’m not sure about this place. It was overcast and cold and seems like quite a depressing city. It looks like Berlin, but doesn’t have that feeling in the air that something is going on. It might be that it is so spread out, but I just couldn’t pin point it. So after some sites we went off to Mongolian BBQ to join the boys.

Now Mongolian BBQ is a great place. You walk in and form a line. There are dishes of all different meats marinated in all different sauces. You select what you want, hand it to the chef behind the grill and he cooks it up. All you can eat and all you can drink for about 10 quid as well. And the best is that it’s all pretty much traditional Hungarian. So with that, we couldn’t avoid anymore. We’d been tempted in Slovenia, but we couldn’t hold off for much longer. So with that, Coombe and I started with…horse. And I tell you what, it’s pretty good. Quite salty and tender, it tastes a little like a gamey version of steak, with the same consistency. After that I moved on to rabbit. Not too long later something in my stomach was saying no. Three hours later it was looking bad. I’m not going to talk any more about that night.

Sunday was a good day…in the morning. Soaking in a Hungarian bath with 100 odd other people and then watching the snow come down outside. And you feel so refreshed after these baths. You skin is all smooth, you feel all warm and just want to sit there smiling like a fool. And I don’t care how wrong having a 40 degree bath with your mates while salivating over the bikinis walking past you sounds - I enjoyed it.

I felt so smooth and happy that the 4-hour delay on my flight due to snow didn’t phase me. Or the 1.5 hour wait at Customs as 21 planes had arrived at Luton at the same time and they had not put on enough staff as they weren’t expecting this. Or being threatened to be sent to the back of the line or a holding cell after the Customs staff said this and I shouted: “It’s not as if planes fucking materialise out of thin air – don’t Customs check the Arrivals board! (well I did lose my cool there a little I guess). Or that I missed that last train and had to catch the bus, which after showing up, the driver broke the door and we had to wait for 15 minutes for a replacement. I am the calm little centre of the world.So suffice to say, I will go back there in summer as it does deserve a second chance. But for now, if anyone asks, I’ve never been to Budapest. Although the music on the underground trams was fun. More photos of the 'the trip' here. Please show me more of Bart's pain!

Racing now!!!!!

2007-11-05T22:37:00.000Z

Being the other side of the world there are things that you miss: sunshine, competence, tasty food that’s not Indian and the joy of open spaces. But there are others that you don’t miss whatsoever: everywhere being far away, the Australian dollar or the Melbourne Cup.

The Melbourne Cup you say - how Bart? The sun, the races, the totty, the excitement, the day an entire nation downs tools at 12.30 and says let’s have a piss up. Hell, in my state (that’s a county English buddies) we take the day off and do no work. It’s kind of like a normal Wednesday in the UK, except we have a horse race.

But people, who needs the Cup when you have….The Wimbledon Dogs!!!!
BARDA BARDA BUP BA BAAAA!!!!

And we’re off and racing.

In memory of the Melbourne Cup, a chilly Friday night saw Lukey, JB and I shaking like a greyhound in the cold (analogies are low on the ground today) clutching our beers and wondering how much we were going to win. Throwing 20 quid in to a kitty we had the kingly sum of 60 pounds to put a fiver on each little speed machine.

Thanks to Luke and JB we made our money back and left with our heads held high. Thanks to me for giving them something to try to win back too. We all played our part I feel. I don’t know what the other fellas were playing to do with their money, but I was going out to buy myself some bling.

The following night was Bonfire night or Guy Fawkes night. It celebrates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot on the 5th of November, 1605, in which a number of Roman Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Now if you are new to the UK you’re not sure what to expect. There are explosions going off everywhere. When I first got here I thought there were simply many illegal fireworks or a car backfiring. Now I know it’s just gun shots.

Watching Bonfire night from a house party on the top of an apartment complex (well la de dah – it was only four stories) you could see fireworks going off all across the city. You could also hear ambulances every six seconds going off to fix up some intrepid fireworks victim. It was a good night and I left with all fingers intact. Thanks to Bluey for DJing all night before having to head off to do a set in West London at 6am - you poor, poor man. Also, goodbyes to Leah and Nadia - I'd give you a blog update that I give others but you guys will be back at the start of the year so no blog for you. And Leah, hurry back. I can't take care of the kids on my own!

Well, this marks 101 blogs. Didn’t think I’d get this far. After 18 months in the UK I’ve met some amazing people and seen some brilliant things. You can have an amazing time when everything seems transitory. Friends come ago in the space of months, so you have more fun with them – squeezing in everything you possibly can. You won’t say no to an idea lest you never get that chance again. And irony becomes a very close companion. As me and several of my friends will let you know. You bump in to a long lost friend, two days before they are flying home – and they lived around the corner. You meet a Polish girl just as they move back to Poland. You meet a fantatic girl from England, and they move to Australia – what the fuck – now you’re just having a laugh!

But you’ve always got the memories. And with that, isn’t it great that just as I planned this blog my computer crashed and I lost all my photos – 18 months worth. But amazingly enough, I’m calm as a Hindu cow. After losing my photos I came to the realisation that the photos are for other people: for you to show them what you have been doing. The real experiences are in your head and all you actually need is something to spark those memories. And with a dawning realisation, I remembered - I’ve got that thing. And I’ve just finished updating it with its 101st entry.

Facebook - social network this!

2007-10-14T23:09:00.000Z

Rant anybody? Don’t mind if I do!

Well there’s one thing that grinds my gears. One thing that deserves a rant. As blackula weather man, Ollie Williams, would say: “he gone get it!”

Class is in. Facebook – you’re my bitch today.

Now I don’t mind Facebook, in fact I quite like it. Facebook has seemed to illustrate normal world trends and really is quite a good sociological experiment. It took off in North America, followed closely by the UK. It took a few more months before my mates in Australia signed up and now I’m getting some people from South America. It has proven what music, movies and fashion has shown time and time again - a world wide trend line has a set path. So I will give it that.

Further, if someone is having a bad day – you can tell. Watch for that person who has commented on 25 photos and uploaded 6 albums on one day. Give that person a call – they’re having a bad day and want some love. And if you send them an email or write on their wall, I guarantee you’ll make there day. It’s a good ego boost.

But there are several things that annoy me about it.

Facebook should not be used at work. Once you start tagging, downloading, changing your status and updating your events, it gets so addictive that it’s 6pm, you’ve got no work done.

Maybe that is what I should change my status to – Bart is swamped. Brings me on to the next point – the wit of your status. People try to use their status bar to show how witty they are, how funny, how amazing. Here's a fact for you - no one cares how intriguing your status is. If you are sitting there trying to think something up, your status should be: 'so and so is bored'. Or 'so and so is wondering what to do with their time'. But if you are wondering what to do with your time, how about you become a pirate... but for fuck sake don't ask!

If I get one more of those invitations I’ll scream. I don’t want to be a pirate, vampire, werewolf, ninja and everything else you send me. I also don’t want to play Texas Hold Em, Scrabble, Poker, throwing a Frisbee, knowing my movie choices and I really don’t care how alike we are judged by an electronic formula that asks 10 questions and why the fuck are you positing a shitty drawing on my 'superwall'.

Facebook has also destroyed any meaning of who you choose to be your good friends – everyone is your damn top friend. Friends have lost all meaning in this cyber popularity contest. There was a time when sending someone a kiss was special, now you get kisses, hugs, spat at, hit with a sheep, bought a beer and can have a bear thrown at you. Some people believe that others are thinking about them: no they're not! They've been sent something and have forwarded it. And then damn strangers do it to you and you spend 2 hours trying to to figure out who the fuck they are???

But the number one bug bear is people you used to know, vaguely, stalking you. If I wanted to stay in touch with you, I would have. And people take it personally if you don’t accept them as a friend. There are many reasons, ranging from you can’t remember them, to you weren’t that good friends in the first place, to - now read closely - you do actually want to accept them as your friend but you don’t want to see if they all of a sudden change their relationship status to ‘in a relationship’ and then you are alerted when someone leaves a message on their wall saying ‘last night was fantastic, when can I see you again’ so you sit there staring at the screen having an internal battle as whether to accept them as a friend after you’ve ignored them once already and deleted the request as you’re not quite ready to see those intricate detail of their love life just yet…or something like that. So if your friendship hasn't been accepted, take a step back and think there may be a reason that isn't your fault. But that’s from the side of someone who doesn’t want to see others actions…then there are the stalkers. I have actually had someone have a go at me for going out one night, which someone tagged me in a photo, because I didn't care to go out with them on the same night - stalking!!!

Tagging also! No I don't want my parents to see me running nude through some strange hostel. No I don't want that picture of me dressed as a smurf to be made available to everyone. Chances are if it is a shit photo, you'll be tagged. Well that's about it really, not much more on facebook.

Next - rugby. After a tournament full of surprises it was with great joy that the the world's worst team to watch was beaten by the world's 'best' blokes in the world's worst final. Oh my lord what a stinker that turned out to be. But all in all, I was glad South Africa won. It's about time that English rugby realised that rugby is a game involving hands - not simply kicking. And at least South Africa thought they'd win. A week before the final, England ran out of jerseys for the fans. You know why? The board of England Rugby didn't even think they'd make the semis!!!! They even came out and said it - that must be a confidence boost.

The Springboks didn't even have a chance to fuck you, your defeatism did that before the game even started!

We've got two World Cups - we wouldn't want to be greedy

2007-10-07T13:05:00.000Z

So Australia is out of the World Cup. Bit of a bummer, but what’s worse is being pushed out by that spastic sporting power of the world - England - and now having to deal with them all!!!!! Now I don’t mind losing, I really don’t. Being Australian it’s not something we often see, but there you go. What I don’t like is being dragged down to the shit level played by England, the world’s most boring rugby team. As the tale goes William Ellis was playing football one day and decided to pick up the ball and run with it – and 184 years later English rugby has decided to return to its routes and do nothing but kick the ball. All you do is kick it. It's the most boring style of sport anyone has ever seen!

Latest English rugby recruit had all the appropriate skills needed

But good on you my pasty ancestors. May I say one thing? If you are English, have a go. Come right ahead. But don’t give up just yet. How can you be so excited when you haven’t actually won the World Cup – YOU WON A SEMI FINAL?? That’s the most bizarre thing - you haven’t actually won anything yet. A country of your size, proud history and talent, maybe rather than celebrating being able to make it in to a final, go for victory. You might actually win a trophy.

What I can’t stand are those that never actually succeed, having a stab at us being knocked out. To you I say this:

South Africa – ha, wouldn’t waste my time. In annuals of history you truly are Australia's whipping boy. World Cup and World Cup - in sooo many different sports - never has a country been beaten by us so many times. South Africa loves to play the role of our bridesmaid.

Face down in front of an Aussie - a South African pastime

New Zealand – ohhh, our little brothers can actually do something on a world stage. Oops, sorry my bad. Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands and the rest of the Pacific islands can actually do something. Seriously guys, the day you have a player in your team that is actually from New Zealand, I’ll give you some respect. No wonder you win, you’re a team made up of 12 countries. Fuck, you can’t even get your own flag. You just saw the Aussie one and said: “Um, hey bro, let’s just colour those stars in red bro. Bro.”And another thing, why does every kiwi need to wear a t-shirt that says ‘I call NZ home’. Its not that we don’t know where you’re from, we just don’t care. But hey, you lost anyway. At least we've got cricket. What on God's green earth do you have now? Four more years boys. Four more years.

Put your hands up for Detroit!

So after walking home from the pub I copped all manner of abuse from every second person. So I got home and went to bed…it was 5pm. The last time I felt this way was the end of the 2003 World Cup. I don’t think I spoke for three days after – Naomi was in heaven. Although Coomba being told by a homeless man that we got beaten in rugby had to be the best. Even the homeless were having a laugh. So with all that, it is with great thought I could seriously consider going home, as I don’t think I can deal with this shit. What a good segue to another goodbye.

Good old Care Bear – Carrie Bailey. There are some people that you just connect with, some people that you just get, some people that you may not speak to for months but when you see each other, it’s as if no time has passed. It’s quiet refreshing when you meet someone like that. Pisses everyone else off that they had no idea what we were laughing at when we didn't have to speak to know what each other was thinking most of the time, just a look. Have a good one Singo – skiing, Spanish bars and autobiographies about mirrors will never be the same. See you soon.

Speaking of home; here's to Oli anad Sac. The two blokes who decided to take the 26 hour flight home to watch Geelong win the flag and then return to London 25 hours later - good to see Channel 7 decided to give you a new story on it!!!! Olly on tour story.

Sac and Olly- to the left, to the left

Pension line please?

2007-09-11T21:27:00.000Z

This blog is in memorial to Holly Gilbert Jones' twenties.

At what point are you officially old? Friends are getting married, having kids, buying houses – is that old? No, that’s normal. That’s what you do when you’re ready to settle down. Two hours sleep on a nornal Tuesday night, waking up in a garden or being stared by families at 7am when catching the Central Line from Epping still in your suit after you end up in Essex - that's still normal for many. So I don't think it's in your actions. For you old people out there I am going to introduce a few subjects in thie mild rant, so please keep up.

Old is when you start wearing the same clothes as your father and don't bat an eye lid. Well not the same, but there is some similarity. Now I’m not talking about during your day-to-day life. I’m talking when you get home. I’m sitting here typing this in a pair of shorts and my work shirt with the sleeves rolled up with socks still on. We all know this Dad look, and you know what, I’ve even got that Dad logic – I don’t want to get some clean shirt and I think it looks good.

So does that make me old? Well, kind of. I blame living in the UK does that. Everyone around me is the same. All of my friends encapsulate that work hard, play hard metality. There's no time between the nights out for the gym in the evening, so you're up early to squeeze that in, 8-10 hours of work and out you go to the social life of the city. Weekends result in 3 hours sleep all up and before you know it it's time to wash, rinse and repeat. Want proof. Below is the first photo taken of me compared to the most recent:

May 2006

September 2007

This is only 17 months apart! As an aside I must also say a heart felt goodbye to Tina (pictured). Everyone leaving gets a picture, so Tina, here's to you. From funny beginnings of meeting me and Higgo after an all nighter to everything in between, have fun back in Bris-vegas, but hey, with an Italian passport we know you'll be back.

So, back to my point. What happens with people's age when they get to the UK, well, different living style I guess. But here's the strange pattern: you get here healthy, some gain a fair bit of weight while some lose a fair bit, then after a year it returns to normal. Weight is lost, weight is gained, health is returned and you feel normal after a year of 'what the fuck happened and where did it come from'. There's a simple reason: those remaining after a year are here for an extended period of time. Discuss? Okay.

We’ve all heard of the Heathrow injection. It’s this phenomenon - usually with females - that once you get off the plane someone injects you with 10 extra kilos. It comes down to less fresh fruit and vegies, less chance for cardio work due to the long, dark winters, and the abundance of pubs. But for the fellas we tend to do okay. We’re not really used to a fruit salad for breakfast, so the lack on them doesn’t phase us. Don’t really go for a run outside but rather just use the weight room in a warm gym. And pubs, well with football nearly every night on TV and being ‘rather popular’ you can’t get to the pub's bar as often as it's too crowded. So our bodies tend to be use to it. And we’re usually out drinking most nights so forget dinner and just pass out at 2am – we’ll just get a fruit salad in the morning…

But after a year this changes. The Heathrow injection starts to wear off. The body gets used to it. You don't booze and party as much. You stay home some nights. Work takes over a bit. And more importantly, your travelling/partying buddies' visas run out.

This is how you can tell who’s got an English passport or who has a Highly Skilled Migrant Visa. The ones who can stay, do. They start realising that they are living here and not just staying here for a party. They start going back to the gym, start eating better, start getting more sleep, and, generally, become healthy again. So next time it looks like my eyes are following quite an attractive antipodean, please don’t be as sexist as to think it’s because she's hot, it’s simply - as my the logic above can show - this person must be quite intelligent and I’m very interested in their intelligent mind!!! Philistines.

I'm skilled!!!

How do I know this? Here's how. The Highly Skilled Migrant Visa is reserved for the smartest of the smart, the elite of the elite, the skilled of the skilled….believing me yet? Well..actually just those that make a little bit more money than an random backpacker so you aren't a burden on the public system...and you pay high taxes. But to get this visa you have to have the experience to earn the money to apply. And what gives you experience...age.

So here it is: for those dressing like your parents you should always remember with that little bit of age comes some extra entitlements, some more opportunities, the chance to stay in the country and lose that post-UK weight so you don't go home fat. In other words: age = beauty.

So there you are Holly. At your 30th remember this: while those girls in the corner are ten years younger; you're a doctor, haven't got that new to the UK weight and can quite easily wear daggy clothes in public and not care - all of which comes with age. As for being South African with a Kiwi boyfriend - you got yourself into that mess, only God can help you now!

But if you need to feel younger, you can simply revert back to your child hood and dress like a smurf.

Premiership, super happy fun times and beach

2007-08-23T10:10:00.000Z

Since the age of three or four when Dad tried to make me kick a football I’ve bumped, ran, fallen, lunged, jumped and thrown myself over had, wet, soft, uneven ground. I’ve split knees, my head, hand webbing, fingers broken and collar bones, and I’ve looked like an epileptic high on crack whilst walking under a strobe light doing it. So after trying to win premiership with Gembrook Brookers, Haileybury Bloods, Balmain Tigers and the UTS Bats, it’s with great relief that after 27 years I can finally hold a medallion with the South London Demons.

A hard fought game was blown apart in the last quarter with the final result of 1.4.10 to 5.11.46, which did not reflect the first three quarters, but showed the arm wrestle across the middle that it was. But game over, I wished I could have stayed, but it was off to V-Festival for a music extravaganza….with medal in hand of course. Some photos of the day here.And this was the line up we were to face:

Foo Fighters
Snow Patrol
Pink
The Killers
Kanye West
Paolo Nutini
Editors
The Kooks
Babyshambles
Jet
The Fray
Damien Rice
Corinne Bailey Rae

Sophie Ellis Bextor
Basement Jaxx
Manic Street Preachers
Lily Allen
Mika
Mark Ronson
Kasabian
The Fratellis

Arriving in Chelmsford at 3.30pm I realised finding Doc, Lucy and Neil was going to be a problem with 75,000 and bugger all phone reception. So searching for my tent, which had been kindly put up by Lucy, it didn’t take long before I realised that 75,000 campers have a lot of tents also. After hiding my bag in a tree I set back off to the concert grounds before realising that 3 in 75,000 people in several square miles of farm land are even more difficult to find. So I decided to just lap up Kanye West and let what ever will be simply be.

Through delayed text messages and a mutual love of booze, we ended up finding each other by one of the bar tents. From then on it was a slightly messy, fantastic, funny, wrong, but oh so right evening. So after Pink and Snow Patrol, we pushed our way right down the front for Foo Fighters, who didn’t disappoint. Dave Grohl has to be the funniest frontman going around, and by the end of the set had people eating out of his hand. By 10pm the rain was pissing down, but the collective heat of the crowd meant that people were not getting wet, rather the water evaporating about a metre above the crowd.

By the end we were all very, very loose units, so Doc and I decided the world needed to be tackled - so much love to give, so many people trying to run away from us. Off to the tents to continue, but not after eating a hamburger from the ‘Great British Grub’ van (it was no Posh Burger, which markets itself as ‘a finer class of fast food' - because when you’re knee deep in mud, sleeping in a wet tent, haven’t showered for two days and using the same porta-loos as 75,000 people, a finer class of fast food is what you want).

The next day it was difficult to get up. I was sore, could barely sleep the night before and was cold. The rain was bucketing down and I stunk. So, shower in can, packed the bags away in the car, bacon, egg & sausage roll, breakfast beer and back to the music.

By the time the day got going it was great fun. After deciding to buy random things, find random signs and tackle random strangers (including an inflateable condom), we hit the mother load: Police officers. With our Aussie charms we managed to get a hat swap going on. And that’s when the Essex police made a bad decision: giving two random fellas who were nowhere near the right frame of mind a symbol of power - badges. Mind you they were just pin badges, but what junkie/drunk/kid knows the difference if you shout out with confidence:

“ESSEX POLICE – I'm confiscating all your contraband!”

We had people shitting themselves all over the festival! One poor little man that I walked up behind and said: ‘Essex police, move out of the way thank you’ actually screamed and ran away.

Mistake - talking to me

Mistake two - giving me something I could play with

Essex police!

After a little while we decided to pop off and see Sophie Ellis Bextor. Three minutes later I felt like I had been labotomised, so we left to watch Mika. In my frame of mind, watching a man as camp as a row of tents bouncing around on stage singing ‘big girls you are beautiful’ was not doing it for me, so Doc and I continued with policing ways. Returning for Lily Allen – who won a new fan in me – was a good move, with her giving shit to basically everyone and playing the crowd very well.

About 9pm it was time to head back to the main stage to see The Killers. While they didn’t have Dave Grohl up front, their music definately got the crowd going more. With the rain pouring down and the festival winding up, The Killers did three encores until it was time to go. So going back to crash tackle the tents – finally – we left on a high. Photos and videos of the V-Festival here.

One week later...

After a short week of work, some 38 of us headed to Mallorca (Majorca), Spain for the football trip. But as we all know what happens on trip, stays on trip.

Denmark: Well, the nightclubs at least

2007-08-08T15:36:00.000Z

Denmark
Den kvinder er hed , den foreninger er sjov og JEG ligne hver anden dag pågældende.

There are only three times in a man’s life when he is allowed to cry:

If he’s kicked in the nuts;
If his dog dies; and
In anticipation of the pain that he will experience on Matthew Oliphant’s stag do.

So with this in mind, Choca and I boarded a flight from Heathrow to Copenhagen. Arriving in Copenhagen it was time to carbo-load before the big weekend ahead, so two hot dogs for me, hotel to freshen up and it was off to hit the bars.

Groom-to-be

Thirty-three phone calls in 2.3 minutes from the 18 guys already in the establishment we were heading to (they got in earlier) and we knew the weekend was starting. Approaching the door we were informed by the bouncer that: ‘most people in there are 20 – 24,’ in an effort to say we were too old – although I still looked younger than everyone else – and it was up the stairs and in. The first thing that struck me was the drinking style. You pay 60kroner (£6) and it’s unlimited beer and champagne. The other option is you buy a bottle of spirits and four mixers for 200 kroner – fun times all round. So several vodkas (Breno – who buys gin?) and the night was starting. Now, when you are a foreigner in a strange land many things are your oyster - mainly coversation. People can pick you out of a crowd and often come up to you to ask you where you are from. Unfortunately for me, I think I have found my origins, and they must be Danish. Most places I looked there was me looking right back at me. Same hair colour, eyes, complexion, etc - damn god looking mob I must say.

The Danes are very talkative, quite flirty, fun to have a laugh with, very approachable and, well, not the ugliest of people you’ll meet. So a good night was had with my exact doubles before back to the hotel at first light and to the hotel bar, which I couldn't believe we had to wait until 9.30am to be served! Contemplating hte day ahead there was not enough time to fit sleep in, so we headed down to the harbour to board a yacht cruise. There really is not a lot to tell you about 20 blokes on a yacht with free drinks, so the less said the better. At least Frank let the locals know he was there.Arriving back in the evening it was time for a quick shower and back out to the clubs. Arriving at K3, thanks to Colourful Bird - one of Ollie’s mates who lives in Copenhagen - we had a reserved balcony/table area looking over one of the many dance floors, many bottles of vodka, rum, red bull and mixes as well as personalised service and the night went well. No more stories to tell for eveyone's sake.

Another sleepless night and the only thing to do was for the remaining group to head to a park for some sunshine and to wait until our flight. Walking through Copenhagen – the first time I actually stopped to look at the city – all of a sudden I started recognising sites and places. It’s a bizarre feeling to look at a statue or Tivoli Gardens and recognise something that you recognise, only to realise that it's because you were in the exact same spot 17 years ago. Then contemplate the state of mind you are in and how much it’s changed from such a long time ago. Time travels pretty quick.

In the end no sleep caught up on most of us at this point so a quick nap on the grass with KFC chicken bones being thrown at my head, roused from my slumber and packed off to the airport, safe in the knowledge that I’ll being doing it all over again in Mallorca, Spain in two weeks.

More photos of Denmark here.

Wetter than, well, I might just leave that one...

2007-07-23T10:44:00.001Z

Last summer was a blinder. Perfect sunshine, intense heat, not a cloud in the sky. Most days it was hotter in London than it was in Portugal, Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean. But that was then, this is now. Last year at this time it was the hottest summer on record (click here for the blog on that) and now we are in the wettest on record. Mother nature, you schitzophrenic bitch!

Pa, Pa! A storm's a coming!

It hasn’t stopped raining in weeks. And this isn’t light rain. A rain drop hit me and broke my arm yesterday, I swear. Most areas of the UK are underwater in the worst floods since records began. People have drowned, died from exposure and the threat level in the UK has been raised to 'moderately peeved'. To cap it all off, now the sewers in these towns are over flowing and the water is turning toxic. It’s either that or it’s the first time most people in regional England have had a bath since December 2004 and the waters turned septic – might go with the latter.

Just look at these stats:

Items that have sold well:

Wellies – up 400%
Umbrellas – up 250
Cough and cold remedies – up 247%
Tumble driers – up 100%
Patio heaters – up 20%
Pies and carrots – up 162%
Red wine – up 30%

Items that have gone down:
Flip flops – down 27% (obviously didn't survey Aussies)
Ice creams – down 38%
BBQ – down 90%
Sun cream – down 7%
Hay fever remedies – down 30%
White wine – down 15%

The sun never sets on the British Empire – never fucking rises either apparently. To add insult to injury Eastern Europe, France and Germany are burning in a 45 degree heatwave.

When this is summer, it’s no matter that pharmacies do so well. Take Boots for example. Now Boots is the big pharmacy. It sells cold relief, plasters, panadeine, prescription drugs, sandwiches, bandages, sushi, cough syrup, shampoo, salads, moisturises…whoa, whoa whoa I hear a few voices say. There are some things in there that seem out of place – sandwiches, sushi and salads. Why yes, this really did baffle me.

Now here’s the deal - in the UK space is a premium. If you’ve got a building, you sell god damn everything!! Chemists sell soup, supermarket chains offer insurance, banks offer holiday packages and deparment stores deal in foreign exchange services. Here’s an idea that would make everything work so much better – get your core product right in the first place!

I have requested a bank statement three times now for a visa extension and HSBC have tried three times to send it to me: attempt 1 – wrong month, attempt 2 – wrong year, attempt 3 – wrong year. If you fuck up giving me a piece of paper, fat chance I'm letting you organise a holiday for me.

Although the post office does seem to work well, I will give that. I went in there on Friday with my boss to renew her car registration - I just felt like going for a walk. The lady at the counter was a little surprised when Louise said she was there to renew her rego and I chimmed in with: "I'm just here for fun." But anyway, the line moves fast, you only need to buy one stamp for nearly everything, and yes, they sell insurance, give loans and do everything a local chemist would. Another business that does it well: Starbucks. They stick with their core product. Alas I'm not too happy with them lately. Anyone got a Starbuck's girl? You know the one; a sweet Eastern European who you get your coffee off in the morning - mine was Ukranian - and have a little flirt so you walk in to work with a little pep. My mate BJ loved his Starbuck's girl he married her. Sure he wanted a Slovakian visa (he's our little mail order husband - the post office even organises that) but it would have happened anyway. Now my Starbuck's girl has actually left, now I have a gay, bald Italian saying to me every morning: "I lurve yuur aksent." Great. Now I have to go to the chemist to get my coffee.

Good segway back to Boots selling food aye??? This is where I find things bizarre. People actually go there to buy it. They walk past perfectly good sandwich shops (pommes love the humble sandwich – dedicated pre-packaged shops everywhere), pass restaurants, corner stores, pasta joints and kebab houses to walk in to a chemist, ignore prescription medicine, around the tinea cream, scuttle on when they see the condoms, take a right at the pain relief and get there hands on an over priced ham, cheese and pickle bloomer (the name of a sandwich apparently) and pay more than you would for a house to eat it.

I for one blame UK food. Starched, mass produced drivel made by cheap EU labour and packaged, shipped and sold to those with more money - ahh capitalism. You wouldn’t catch the Greeks, Germans or the French eating pre-packed sandwiches from the chemist – they’d be too busy getting their sunscreen.

Spain - Running with the Bulls

2007-07-13T12:48:00.000Z

Spain
Bien si usted quiere que una manera rompa un rato seco va simplemente a España!!!

It’s a Tuesday night (well it's actually Monday night a week later and I'm recovering from a massive weekend in Nottingham and JB's birthday drinks), CSI Miami is on, I am typing on my laptop in the kitchen with my infected foot – the calf is basically double the other one - in a bucket of salted hot water and I’m popping antibiotics. What has done this to me?

Fiesta de San Fermin, or as Hemingway titled it in The Sun also Rises; The Running of the Bulls. Well that and a cheap 48 year old Bolivian prostitute - but back to the point...

Nine days earlier

Sunday morning 8am. Rolling out of bed, the celebrations of beating West London in all three grades combined with Clarke’s birthday meant I was sore. A quick few calls and the boys weren’t in much of a mood to get to Gatwick. But march on we did. Flopping in to the plane it was an arduous 2 hours to Barcelona with Crossy and Becks by my side, but safe and sound we arrived and it was straight to the usual tourist sites mixed with sangria and tapas.
7pm – time for a siesta. Rising at 11pm it was time to hit the clubs. A random night saw Crossy disappear with in 11 seconds of us leaving the club, Becks and I get into a random car with an invite to some dodgy bar by two German girls – only for is to be convinced we were going to be robbed and dumped in the streets (so we ditched them at the door) – a walk around the city looking for food, and stumbling in at 7am to the abuse of our new roommates.

I knew immediately I was going to like this town

Monday we slept. Beach from 1pm to 6pm. Bart burn from 2pm to 8pm. Bar hopping and tapas from 9pm to 1am then Bart had to go home to nurse his third degree sun tan. More tourist stuff and bar hopping, blah, blah, blah, let’s get to the bulls.

A six hour bus drive meant we finally got some sleep, arriving in the afternoon and partying through the evening.

Walking the course in preparation for the next day was the plan follwed by exploring the town before it stunk of piss and drunk people, which was very quick mind you, and then a lazy day by the beach in San Sebastian before heading back to the camp site for fun and frivolity.

The next morning things started well. We had our Sangria and it was time for the Fiesta De San Fermin opening. Basically, thousands of people crowd in the Plaza Consistoriala and at midday the mayor fires a rocket into the sky to signal the opening of the festival. It starts well. People are happy. You are soaked in champagne, sangria, beer and flour. Strangers turn in to best friends and more, and there is a huge festival feel.

Before sangria

After sangria

Then at 11am the pushing begins. The pushing becomes so intense and ferocious that it is actually dangerous. You can’t move, breathe and if you fall you’re fucked. With 20 minutes to go KiKi (a girl travelling with us) fainted in to my arms, eyes rolled back and lips started turning a different colour. Crossy seeing the same started pushing through the crowd, which is basically immovable. After 10 minutes we had moved 3 feet, Crossy had been separated from the pack and I was alone holding KiKi. Luckily right next to us was an Aussie nurse – Graham – who took her while we literally fought out way through the pack by punching, eye gouging, biting and - my favourite - stomping on the ground so glass sticks in your shoe and then running it down the legs of people who were pushing back. Even with this it took us 30 minutes to get KiKi three metres to a wall so that we could barricade our way around her so she could breathe. You may think this is an exaggeration, but remember a lot of the people that were there are reading this, so I can’t really talk crap. By the end of this the city is so crowded with pickpockets, drunks and everyone groping (well, the women anyway), you don’t push past people when you’re walking but you drop your shoulder and charge them. It’s really difficult to stop this habit once you start. I even started bowling people over on the way to the pool at the campsite, and the first day back on the tube was fraught with tempatation!!!

Back to camp for a siesta. We were rooted. It was a 5am start the next day for the bull run so we were ready to get an early night. A day by the pool followed by a live band and flowing bar at the camp site meant we ended partying with some very funny Sydney girls who were in the tent across from us, including Deb, my verbal jousting partner for most of the trip. Turns out her ex-boyfriend is the media manager for the Wallabies so she was well trained in the ways and tricks of a shit spinner and more than capable to banter.

The two hours sleep that night meant I wasn’t really refreshed to throw myself in front of a 700 kg beast. But march on.

The next morning I was pumped, sick, quiet, loud, excited, scared and nervous. Crossing over the double safety fencing, past the wide eyed spectators and in to a feverous sea of red and white, I was numb. Everyone was. It was strangely quiet with a lot of people fidgeting and shuffling. I started to dance to the trumpets being played to get rid of the nervous energy.

Walking to the course - I believe shit scared is the correct term

It’s 7am and the safety demonstration comes on. Am I the only on that finds this pointless? I’m going to throw up. I need some water. There’s an open shop 40 metres back so I head in there as it is about to board up. Heading back I hear commotion. The Spanish police – with no explanation – have decided to start hitting people with batons and rolling tear gas in to sections of those assembled. This was their way of clearing the crowd as it had become too large. I’m locked on the other side of Dead Man’s corner; where the Mercaderes and Estafeta streets join and form a 90 degree turn where bulls and people go flying and are most in danger. In 97 years there have only been 15 deaths and 200 horn injuries in the run. Twelve of those deaths have been on this corner. This was where my race was to begin. At 8am the rocket to go was due to fire, but confusion and panic meant people sprinted for the Palza deTores (bull ring) with out the bulls being released. Not seeing any bulls a few of us waited while hundreds ran off. We didn’t come all this way not to see the damn things!

Then you hear them. A clip clopping in the distance is drowned out by shouting, but it gets louder and is soon the only thing you hear. All of a sudden the balconies around you are ringing with ‘Toro, toro, toro’ and then that excitement turns to sheer terror as coming around the corner are 700 kilogram giant steaks with horns. These things are massive. Head to ground you’re looking at 6-foot plus. But you don’t see that. You just see horns rising above the crowd. Then it becomes a scene out of Braveheart – how long can you hold. Then the crowd splits and you run for your fucking life. Sprinting up the middle of the street you soon realise how fast these things are. Looking back I got the fright of my life when I realised how close a big black one was to me. Hearing it snorting as it ran, I peeled off to the side as a steam bulls ran by to my left. Running with them soon became difficult as the amount of people means you get pushed out. So slowing down and stopping for breath, I shared a laugh with the Spanish man in front of me. Smiling and joking his face suddenly turned to ash white.

Quickly turning around I got the scare of my life as a bull, which had been separated from the pack after falling at Deadman’s corner, was flying through the crowd hitting everyone in it’s way in a panic to find the herd. Before I had time to move it collected the man next to me who was tossed to the bull’s right and, with a well placed elbow, hit me in the face and knocked me on to the ground filled with broken glass, sangria and other assorted nasties. Rising from the ground I started to head towards the area before realising that I had a 2 inch piece of glass protruding from the achilles heel. Pulling it out I thought: ‘she’ll be right, no need for antiseptic cream on that’, hence my current predicament with the antibiotics.

My race was over. I’d survived.

Returning to camp after watching the action in the bull ring post-race (where they release bulls with corked horns in to the crowd simply to injure people – alright!!!!) it was pool and siesta time. That night we were off to party in Pamplona down San Nicolas and watch the fireworks. Trumpets, sangria, joining parades – I joined one that had a rainbow flag and jeez they were friendly – fire works and general frivolity and our running with the bulls experience was complete.

Leaving the next afternoon this was our goodbye to sweet Emma who was departing for Australia for good. So, farewell Em, you know we’ll all miss you even though it’s only be 8 months I’m sure we’ll all remember you. While you may think we’ll remember you like this:
It’s more like this that will stick in my memory.Good luck and see you soon.

For photos and videos click here.

Now that's just below the belt

2007-06-29T13:25:00.000Z

Now - trains, planes, buildings, oil platforms, etc, I can understand why terrorists would attack them, but trying to blow up Tiger Tiger in Picadilly has really pissed me off. Where else am I supposed to go to pick up drunk Polish and Ukranian immigrants?! Huh? Damn terrorists.

Slovenia - the land that breakfast forgot

2007-06-28T13:09:00.000Z

Slovenia

Oče jaz didn't slovo to pokrajina brž jaz hoteti življati poročen a 13 leto star.

With the wettest June on record setting in on the UK, dams bursting, people drowning and tornadoes touching down (shit you not) Coomba and I decided to go West; as life is peaceful there, go west, to the cool mountain air, go wes.. okay enough of that. So strapping on our travelling shoes we jetted off to the central European country of Slovenia.Arriving in Libjuana on Friday night we wandered the streets before setting our bags down and going for a little wander. Many things caught our eye in this city – well it’s more like a big village – but mainly the dragon statues (Slovenia ‘invented’ the dragon myth), every second shop is an ice cream shop, everyone roller blades and there seems to be no one above the age of 20 or below the age of 32 in the country. After a fair bit of walking, drinking and Coomba’s ice cream eating we decided to hit a club.

Cast of characters

Located next to Zvezda Park, the Bachus Centre promotes itself as ‘a popular hangout for late night partiers’. And I do agree. If you are in a bar before 1am in Libujana it’s dead. So about 1.30am the crowd starting building. This is when we realised quite quickly that jail bait is a popular dish in this town. Leaving later in the night wondering if half the crowd even knew that George Michael was actually in a band before a solo career and Michael Jackson didn’t always like 25 year olds (because there are 20 of them – bah boom cha) we made our way back to the hostel. Coomba ate another ice cream. Arriving back we found two American girls and an English bloke (who since January had cycled from Gloucestire to Istanbul). He said it was a challenge, whilst I recalled my last flight with Ryan Air and thought his mode of transport was apt.

Site seeing the next day made Coomba and I realise that there weren’t too many sites to see. What we realised further was there is no such thing as breakfast in this country. We walked for hours and could not find a meal. We found a market that sold nothing but blueberries – billions of them!!!! Coomba found a chocolate doughnut - it shut him up for a little while. I was still hungry through, and the selection on offer didn’t really appeal.
Thinking this was just a one off, the Stallion steak and Horse fillet in the next place told me the Mc Mr.Ed was not a once off. Taking a look around the Three Bridges (it’s just three bridges next to each other), a look at Dragon Bridge, and then I realised that they really liked their bridges. So making our way up the mountain, which is smack bang in the middle of the town, we had a little peek through Libjuana Castle. There wasn’t much in the castle – except for two ice cream vans – and only took us 30 mins to get around it. We did find much amusement in the term Pentagonal entry tower as a name of one of the buildings so spent the ten minutes on the way back down giggling like school girls. Then Coomba got an ice cream.
Hungry after our massive ‘site seeing session’ we sat down for our well deserved late lunch. Sitting down at a pizzeria we placed our order. Well, I placed my order, Coomba was ordered for. With three sizes – small, medium and family – I ordered a large beer and a medium pizza. Coomba struggled a little here. Ordering a family size the waiter said: ‘No, too big’. Fair enough medium then. Ordering a bottle of beer, the response; ‘No, pint’. Okay then. So waiting for mine and the waiter’s order, we realised why Coomba was dissuaded from ordering the family (seeing it later is was the size of a truck tyre).

In fact we had to go and have a little granny nap about 7pm to prepare for the night. Going out and having the usual drinks before the club.

Sitting at a bar along the River Ljubljanica we were entertained by some live DJs for some Bacardi Breezer promotion. Aware that we both had testicles we quickly refused to drink the Breezers. Speaking with some Americans from the Air Force – and recently back from Iraq - kept us entertained for a little while. After an hour or two we called Patty, a friend from London who was in town with his missus. Having a few drinks with them Coomba and I headed to Global, which advertises itself as ‘wait in line at the glass elevator outside Nama with the other late-night partiers for your chance to strut your stuff with the in crowd.’ Now don’t get me wrong, the people there were quite an attractive bunch, but I wouldn’t call bopping along to the Macarena the ‘in-crowd’, but that’s Eastern Europe for you. After ascending in the glass elevator to the top of a 6 storey building (no line’s when you earn pounds in Eastern Europe) the view of Libjuana was amazing. Chatting to a few locals, the night ended quite amusingly and boozy, until I finally found my desired meal at 3am: Slovenian kebab!Next morning we got up early for a trip to Lake Bled and white water rafting in the Bovec Valley in the Italian Alps. After a stop at Lake Bled, a stunning valley with a huge body of water in it, I recognised a castle on an island in the middle of the lake from a Disney movie when I was young. This is one thing I love about many places in Europe. You don’t know where something is or expect it, but all of a sudden something that you saw in your childhood is right in front of you and you didn’t even know it was there.

And with this we drove through a forestry valley and spotted helipads and tents. A quick word from our guide and we were told that the valley we were crossing through was were they filmed the first Nania – Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe movie, and all the tents is where they are filming the second one. Passing through and ascending in to the Italian Alps we reached the top and were greeted by a freezing breeze – great time to wear wet shorts and a singlet. Descending down in to the Bovec valley we got to our launch site. Changing and off to the river we pushed down the rapids with two other crews. With the other crews crashing and flipping we ruled the river. At one point a crew dangerously flipped in the larger rapids which meant our crew – the fastest one – had to power our way down to rescue paddles and people. Now I know how Superman feels.
Coomba and I were pretty wrecked after the rafting, so we spent most of the night sitting in a bar and people watching. The next day was a national holiday but the town was dead. Everyone had gone away for the weekend, so an earlish night. The next day spent walking the city again, out to the airport, stuck on the tarmac for an hour and we were back in sunny England to news that the country has received a months worth of rainfall in one day – welcome back. Coomba got home and had ice cream.

More photos of Slovenian action here.