tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38961272011-04-21T22:38:40.424ZThe Penultimate FrontierJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comBlogger411100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-1089178229363992372004-07-07T05:22:00.000Z2004-07-07T05:30:29.363ZIt is pissing down in Wellington. It has been a truly quadraseasonal day.
I blog, therefore I am.
Actually I blog to kill time. I have been moving house this week, one bicycle load at a time, up to the heady heights of Kelburn. I have one load to go, but that will have to wait for the end of the rain. The rain just stopped.Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-1065464585081771602003-10-06T18:23:00.000Z2003-10-06T18:23:04.986ZI took yet another trip to Prague, this time with Dan accompanying me. With any luck he´ll put a few more photos on his website. There was enough stuff I hadn´t seen to keep me amused during the few brief non-beer drinking intervals. This included an equestrian statue which had somehow escaped my attention before. It is allegedly the biggest in the world and it stands at the top of Zhizhkov hill.Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-1064920611019769612003-09-30T11:15:00.000Z2003-09-30T11:17:20.566ZTaking Off by Milos Forman. Find it and watch it.Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-1063872180881658902003-09-18T07:50:00.000Z2003-09-18T08:10:52.913ZPhilip Roth's "Our Gang"
President Trick E. Dixon's Military Coach advising on how to deal with a Boy Scout protest movement which accuses him of being in favour of sexual intercourse:
"Common sense tells us that even the enemy is not so stupid as to stand around waiting to be shot, but if he has had sufficient warning that he is about to be killed, will take some kind of cowardly and, often Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-1061485219341569632003-08-21T17:00:00.000Z2003-08-21T17:06:41.836ZI went on a camel trek in the desert with a guide named Mohammed who was very nice but slightly disturbing when he would say "jihad" and chuckle quietly to himself. We spent one night in the dunes and one with a bunch of nomads near the Algerian border. The silence of the desert is incredible.
Camel shit must be one of the most aesthetically pleasing of all excreta. They are one inch long capsuleJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-1061214907045412082003-08-18T13:55:00.000Z2003-08-18T13:55:06.906ZI never made it to Fez, but went to Meknes instead, a smaller and allegedly quieter town. From there I made a day trip to Volubilis (some Roman ruins) and a small town nearby. In Meknes I had a look at the mausoleum of the chap who united Morocco and his grainaries which were used in Scorcese's "Temptation of Christ". I also became intimately aquainted with the porcelain of my hotel during the Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-1060346831618063522003-08-08T12:47:00.000Z2003-08-08T12:47:11.456ZWork is at an end for a month or so and the travels have begun again. I arrived in Morocco on Tuesday, flying to Malaga then taking a bus and ferry across the Straight of Gibralta from Algeciras to Tangiers. Tangiers was not so bad as I had been led to believe. There were only two or three people offering or demanding this or that who were any problem to get rid of. I may or may not have been Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-1057737354546215352003-07-09T07:55:00.000Z2003-07-09T07:55:54.340ZI think I have been on the wrong side of the world too long, losing sight of the truly significant things. I saw this headline on xtramsn.co.nz: "Blair Shows The Critics Why" and thought that someone over there had misinterpreted the report that was released yesterday on the misuse of intelligence information by the British government in attempting to justify the invasion of Iraq. Nope, it was Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-1057222899124373622003-07-03T09:01:00.000Z2003-07-03T09:13:58.846ZLast Friday I popped over to Barcelona for a quick and dirty weekend. I arrived at my friend's bar (she was working until 0330) dumped my meagre possessions and had a little wander 'round to find some tapas and another bar or two. A plate-full of sepia con albondigas and a weissbeer later my eagle-eye and doglike ear located some funky sounds eminating from a bar and I walked in to find a superb Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-950733552003-05-30T09:35:00.000Z2003-05-30T09:36:46.000ZPhotos (courtesy of James McGowan)
PhotosJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-949916902003-05-28T15:11:00.000Z2003-05-28T15:27:06.000ZOn Friday I went to Paris to appreciate some real culture: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band live at the Stade de Paris. The concert was on Saturday night and was incredible. The Boss was on stage for three hours (apart from about two minutes between encores) jumping about like someone rather less than 53. He played most of the tracks from his latest album as well as a couple of covers and Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-943392402003-05-14T17:47:00.000Z2003-05-14T17:47:04.676ZI am out of the hostel now. This week I started a new job that will last until the end of July. It is in Shenfield (30-40 minutes from Liverpool St Station, London). I have moved into a flat near school which is absurdly cheap as it is subsidised by the school. So with no travel costs, cheap rent and guaranteed work until the holidays I will be loaded by the time summer rolls around. The school Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-936004462003-05-01T15:55:00.000Z2003-05-01T16:01:47.000ZCorfu
(Sorry, it must be SARS)
There is a backpacker resort on Corfu called The Pink Palace. Never stay there. It is super-corporate, the staff are all soulless freaks. Example: there is a free bus from the port, you pay 3euros for the same service back again, even though it is going there anyway to pick up more people. The woman on reception offered cash advances on credit cards at 5%, claimingJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-928814362003-04-19T09:25:00.000Z2003-04-19T09:25:52.343ZI had a super-touristy day yesterday. The Acropolis has finally opened again. I wasn't going to go, tickets being rather expensive and I have seen it so many times before from my hotel room and on picture-postcards but it was all for free yesterday so I went. It is rather rundown. Broken columns all over the place. You would have thought it would be better looked after, being the biggest thing Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-927687402003-04-17T09:18:00.000Z2003-04-17T10:44:38.000ZThe tear gas, my friend, is blowing in the wind
A major EU meeting has been going on in Athens for the past few days, including all the new breed of European fascist leaders: Blair, Berlusconi, Aznar. These leaders we the people are supposed to have elected to represent us are so scared of we the people that the birthplace of democracy has been closed for business for days while ten thousand Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-925868842003-04-14T15:23:00.000Z2003-04-14T15:38:25.000ZWe did a "reverse Ulysses" and through a long chain of accidents ended up in a little village in Ithaca.
James McGowan arrived safely in Rome while his luggage waited safely at Heathrow Airport. So we spent one extra night with Elisabeth, Fiona and Dee, wandering around what we could of the Colosseum and Forum after dark with a bottle of vino. It is all rather impressive.
Sunday morning, James Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-919839442003-04-04T14:48:00.000Z2003-04-04T15:08:15.000ZI flew into Rome last Saturday and saw the Colosseum and the Forum, but only from the air. I arrived at the central train station, walked three blocks to the hostel, met Elisabeth and her friends, went to bed, walked back to the station and took a train to Napoli. Tomorrow we go back to Rome and I should have time to have another good look at the central train station before I go to Greece with Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-903977592003-03-09T12:08:00.000Z2003-03-09T12:16:54.000ZMy last two days in Malaga were not as dull as I had expected. The bad weather continued but I did meet a couple of Dutch chess players who were playing in the Malaga open, a gay Spaniard who had just spent seven years in London designing and making sex toys (he introduced me to to Antonio Banderas' old drama teacher- AB is from Malaga) and I saw some good live jazz.
Back in London life is not Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-897184672003-02-25T16:34:00.000Z2003-02-25T16:58:57.000ZWell, the Spanish leg of the journey is coming to a close. One more night then I will away to London.
After the last post I spent a few more days in Granada, doing the usual Granada things: eating tapas, drinking, listening to music. I finally made it to the Alhambra which you can read all about here if you so desire.
The weekend saw me in Santomera, Murcia which you will hopefully recall from Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-891571442003-02-15T21:20:00.000Z2003-02-15T21:34:00.000ZDays of Wine and Tapas
Granada is the place to be for tapas. In most bars, every drink you order comes with tapas: anything from a plate of bread, olives and cheese to a small hamburger with french fries. Dinner for me consists of three or four rounds, in two or three different bars. The night life here is great. There is an incredible amount of live music and theatre going on in the bars and in Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-888138842003-02-09T21:38:00.000Z2003-02-09T21:54:27.000ZI left Cadiz on Wednesday for two nights in Jerez de la Frontera: birthplace of sherry and flamenco. I never saw any flameco, apparentIy it all happens in the summer. Nor did I get around to visiting any of the Bodegas but I did drink plenty of fino at an English pub quiz on Thursday night. Somehow my team, originally just me and a clown and translator from Tottenham, had expanded to eight by theJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-884691042003-02-03T12:47:00.000Z2003-02-03T12:47:28.563ZI have had the best time here in Cadiz. The first few days there were a violinist from Canada, a Peruvian drummer and a whole lot of guitarists and every night in the hostel we had big jam sessions. My days have been spent on the beach playing guitar and chess. I have swum once but until today there has been a polar wind which has made it not so fun. Hopefully the next couple of days will remain Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-882725262003-01-30T16:00:00.000Z2003-01-30T16:37:01.000ZLast week I had a couple of days off as the topographer was unwell so I did a little sight-seeing. Murcia is way off the tourist track and I am without any guidebook so I was left to my own devices. The obvious place to start was the bloody great statue of Christ on the top of a hill in Monteayudo. I am told it is the only one of its kind other than that in Rio de Janiero. Getting to the top was Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-877244882003-01-20T12:29:00.000Z2003-01-20T12:47:42.000ZThe Food
It takes a bit of getting used to. I went to a friend´s house for lunch (at about two in the afternoon as is normal). There didn´t seem to be a huge amount of food on the table, mostly canape-type things, but I ate what I could and almost satisfied my hunger. Then came the next course. Then the next one. Then the first round of desserts, then the second. All of this I was urged to try: "Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-872145792003-01-10T12:17:00.000Z2003-01-10T12:17:32.483ZThe rain in Spain falls not only on the plain. It also falls on the towns, in the mountains and on me and possibly in other places. So I have only had one day of work so far.
My work consists largely of carrying a long metal pole underneath high voltage wires. On the end is a little prism which reflects a laser beam back to the station on some convenient hill giving a reading of distance, Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-870666862003-01-07T17:08:00.000Z2003-01-07T17:17:43.000ZSo much for the quiet week. This will not be the post I had hoped for, as this cafe is full of muchachos playing games and yelling at each other and I am suffering a little from the neverending Christmas fiesta which ended yesterday. Entonces, I need to get the hell out of here and into bed.
I am now in Santomera, a small town near Murcia, staying with a friend. In Spain, the big Christmas-type Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-868780632003-01-03T15:14:00.000Z2003-01-03T15:23:46.000ZBest New Year´s ever. Went to a tapas bar for some eats and wine then went back to the hostel for a little party where we played some guitar and sang and drank. There was an absolutely lovely bunch of Italians amongst others. The hostel was closed from 2300 to 0200 and we all went to the hostel manager´s place to continue the festivities. His mother had made an enormous quantity of Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-867022202002-12-30T16:46:00.000Z2002-12-30T17:08:21.000ZThe traditional Czech Christmas dinner is fried carp with potato salad. The best damn potato salad: potatoes, gherkins, ham, yummy eggy sauce. Hmmmm. In Prague there were great big barrels of live carp on the streets. During the day there is someone there to gut your selected fish, or you can take it live and keep it in your bathtub until Christmas. At night they leave the barrels of carp out andJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-863139192002-12-20T11:17:00.000Z2002-12-20T11:20:30.000ZAnyone who has visited Prague as a youngish gad-about-town is likely to know the Akropolis (been there, James McG?). It is all things to all people, or at least quite a few things to a large number of people: nice restaurant, seedy nightclub, slightly less seedy nightclub and funky little concert hall. When I went there last week I was mildly irked to find that I had just missed performanes by Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-861669682002-12-17T14:41:00.000Z2002-12-17T14:46:16.000ZI have been back in Prague for just over a week now and have done nothing of consequence, as was my intention. I have managed to meet up with most of the people I met last time I was here and not much has changed apart from the weather. The lakes and the dog's piss on the pavement are now frozen. It snowed yesterday and it has just begun again. Hopefully I will get out into the country for a fewJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-861652842002-12-17T13:58:00.000Z2002-12-17T14:42:31.000ZHAMISH REVEALS SECRET SHAME!
In a shock admission earlier this week, ex-Coke man Hamish Bryce revealed that he has "acquired a taste for Pepsi" which is now his cola-flavoured beverage of choice.Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-856452092002-12-07T17:53:00.000Z2002-12-09T10:47:24.000ZThe fools! They let me into the Ritz! A friend was having a little do there to celebrate her birthday and becoming a fully-fledged solicitor so I spent the evening in the Marie Antoinette Room. A bottle of beer cost £5.50 (although a conveniently pocket-sized Ritz ashtray was included in the price). Thankfully I had the foresight to consume a few glasses of vodka before arriving, and there were aJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-854830612002-12-04T14:43:00.000Z2002-12-04T14:48:33.000ZHamish seems to have given a reasonable and not too incriminating account of last Friday so I will pass on to Sunday. There was a screening of the 1967 russian version of War and Peace on at the National Film Theatre in Southbank. It began at 1315 and finished at 2215: 431 minutes of screen time and three intervals. Unfortunately they couldn't get hold of the widescreen print (let down by the Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-851108762002-11-26T15:15:00.000Z2002-11-26T16:37:33.000ZThe Grand Old Duke
or
Smart Bombs in the Hands of Dumb People
Friday evening I popped up to York to see Billy Bragg and a couple of distant cousins, Joe and Perran. The trip is only two hours by train, theoretically: on the way up it took three hours due to the eternal crapulence of the British rail system which has not yet ceased to astound me. By the time I arrived I was thoroughly pissed off Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-847742672002-11-19T19:14:00.000Z2002-11-19T19:23:00.000ZGarlic born and bread
Ben has been a little slack in his language policing so I feel I ought to step in to correct some ridiculous spelling atrocities. Note spelling of the word ridiculous in previous sentence (you know who you are).
I played a spot of football on Saturday, two and a half hours worth to be precise, and suffered accordingly: Sunday was spent limping around Cambridge with Hamish Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-846179922002-11-16T11:40:00.000Z2002-11-19T18:47:48.000ZWho's been funding terrorism now then?
LONDON: The British government will this week go to unprecedented lengths to stop a renegade counter-intelligence officer, David Shayler, from making his most devastating claim yet : that the Libyan Islamic cell paid by British intelligence agents to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi in February 1996 were members of Al Qaeda.
The Libyan cell is believed to haveJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-844264442002-11-12T17:49:00.000Z2002-11-12T17:49:24.050ZBen seems quite taken with British place names (it's somewhere in that enormous blog of his). He has clearly forgotten the likes of Badger's Mount (just east of Pratt's Bottom).
Nothing wildly exciting to report. The best I can offer is a mention of a small belated Halloween gathering where I painted myself green, and Hamish did a very good impression of something that looked very much like Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-841104892002-11-06T11:07:00.000Z2002-11-06T11:07:59.330ZFor now I am staying at a backpacker's in Clapham Junction. I plan to leave for Spain on around about the 20th of December and it is hard to get a room for such a short time. The place I am staying in is not bad. There are only two others in my room and the kitchen and bathrooms are clean and well maintained and it is a mere £60 per week, £50 less than I was paying for my room in Wimbledon. It isJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-841098762002-11-06T10:43:00.000Z2002-11-06T10:44:18.000ZOn Saturday I went to the Royal Albert Hall . On show were the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Choir and a choir of boys from some poncy school. They were performing a march from The Damnation of Faust by Berlioz, Saint-Saens’ third symphony and Carmina Burana.
It was a tremendous show, perfect for a first experience of the RAH. Its magnificent organ was flaunted in the Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-840104162002-11-04T16:55:00.000Z2002-11-06T10:21:17.000ZThe two noteworthy events of my week were the anti-war march on Thursday and the performance on Saturday night at the Royal Albert Hall.
Last week I was working at a school which, although particularly unpleasant, was conveniently close to Westminster Square where the protest was to begin. I had a couple of beers at the Red Lion pub (absolutely necessary after my worst afternoon's classes) Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3896127.post-836562762002-10-28T11:20:00.000Z2002-10-28T11:20:53.953ZWon't be long now....Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16211645389570898552noreply@blogger.com