2015 Abridged

So that was a year. I fitted quite a lot in. Where do we start?

Travelling? Okay, go on then, ten foreign countries; ten UK cities. Which is respectable for a year. Although two of the countries were tiny and one of the cities shouldn't count. Fave foreign city? Not Zurich, despite the hype; I'm gonna go with Marseille - how comes I haven't been to France more? Fave country?  Not Myanmar, despite it having been top of my list for who knows how long, obviously nowhere near as expensive as Zurich, but I still felt like I was getting ripped off at all turns.  I'm gonna go with Uganda instead.  What a humdinger of a country.

Music? Well there's not been albums that I've liked as much as last year - although I've probably not listened to as many either, but I actually went to gigs this year. Five of them. Although none especially cutting edge - two retro tours; two middle aged men who have been around for ages; one young polymath who has been getting regular mentions on this blog since it began. What was the best?  The one that made me feel the youngest, obviously.

Theatre? I saw some pretty big shows this year - the new Tom Stoppard; Bradley Cooper in Elephant Man; Nicole Kidman in Photograph 51; Rob Brydon in Future Conditional; David Morrissey in Hangmen - and still the best thing was improv.  Improv should be rubbish. This wasn't. I saw it three times.  That's how un-rubbish it was. It even made me go and see other improv. That was rubbish. And all was well in the universe. Despite me doing a fair amount of research, Lights... was probably better than any stand up I saw this year too, although honorable mentions to Jenny Collier.

Books? I made the bold statement on the third of January that Station Eleven was the best thing I read all year. I was correct.  Although I did really enjoy Smart, I'm looking forward to sucking the rest of Teri Terry's back catalog dry and I'm never gonna turn my nose up at a Parlabane novel (although you wait seven years for one and two turn up at once).

Art?  I had an Art Fund membership this year and barely used it, which was slack of me. I got to the two biggest shows of the year: Carsetn Holler and Ai Wei Wei and sort of enjoyed both of them.  The only thing that Art Fund really did was get me to the suburban nowhere to see Michelangelos. Which was unexpected.

Big Fat Bucketlist Moments? Northern lights. Gorillas. Getting my neck cut open. Tick, tick and tick.

Liechtenstein, Mistletoe and Wine

Zurich is spleen-poppingly expensive. Everytime anyone tells you the price of something it seems like a joke; it is at least double what you thought it was going to be, based on the London equivalent. Anyone who says it's the same price as London is misguided, lying or part of the aforementioned joke.

I'd been curious about coming to Zurich ever since it came second in a "Best Cities in Europe" list. The list had it better than Rome or Paris or Berlin or Moscow. Needless to say it isn't. It's pretty but it's basically a less good Munich. It would probably represent in a "Best Cities in Europe Beginning with Z" list, but then even second might be pushing it.

Still it loves Christmas here. Little gingerbread huts selling gluwein are secreted into every available cranny. There's a Swarovski Christmas tree in the train station. There are shops dedicated to selling over priced tree decorations. Santa is cruising town in his festive tram. Well Christmas.

We took a break from the staggering costs and festive exuberance of Zurich and headed to Liechtenstein. Now there's a train ride with some half-decent views: lakes nibbling the toes of mountains - that just about ticks all my Alpine train ride boxes.

Headed straight for Vaduz, the Capital city. I say "city" - it has the National Government building, a royal residence, a cathedral, a City Hall and a seventh of the national population, so it's basically London (plus it has a massive vineyard in the centre, which London doesn't have - better than London?) - I've worked in offices where there are more people. Still it is super pretty.

Back in Zurich now. Going to try and make the forty francs I've got left last the day. Wish me luck...

Liberte Egalite Fraternite

I've had exactly the kind of week that you should have if you've got access to degenerate, Western megalopolis; chock full of that culture it was.  So much culture that I walked out of a play at the interval so that I didn't over-culture my brainspace. That wasn't the reason, unless there was a dramatic shift for the second half, said play was in no danger of over-culturing anything.  A so-called comedy where the only joke was that everyone's name began with T.

I did see actual comedy though: Nish Kumar.  His show did contain jokes, which made it far funnier than the previous night's abomination.

Went to a gig too.  I saw that John Grant, he's a charismatic chappy and proper belted out some songs. Now you can read proper reviews of this gig if you want, they are very complimentary, although they don't mention the fact that most of the latest album sounds a bit like Visage, which seemed to confuse the audience somewhat.

And I saw some art.  A double bill of A artists. Auerbach and Ai Weiwei.  In terms of what I'd most like to have on my wall Auerbach wins hands down - it seems Ai Weiwei doesn't really go for the hanging on the wall stuff - and 200 tonnes of eartquake fractured rebar would probably just get in the way. A child burst a balloon when I was in the Ai Weiwei exhibition, given the politically sensitive nature of the show and what had happened in a nearby megalopolis a few hours earlier a lot of very scared people were incredibly grateful that it was a balloon.  

And a Bottle of Brum

It's pretty poor that I've never really had the opportunity to explore Birmingham before. Whenever I have been it's always been to do something specific (like change trains) so any exploring has been somewhat time limited. Put that right this weekend. Saw me some brum.

So what did I see?

First off I saw a skyline. Naively, I wasn't really expecting a skyline. But bam there it was. Not just the Bullring.

I saw a tiny cathedral, would barely have to duck its spire to get through the doors of Norwich. 

I saw the Staffordshire Horde. I'm pretty impressed that the guy who found it realised how significant it was. If it had been me I'd have thought it was Elizabeth Duke flytipping.

I saw a length of the more-canals-than-Venice canal. There may well be more canals in Birmingham than Venice but the Venice ones are a whole heap easier to navigate. Locks ago-go in that Second City, it would take ages to get a boat through that lot.

I saw that there library. That's a mighty impressive building. And it had fennel on the roof. More public buildings should have fennel on the roof.

So yeah, Birmingham, you're alright, you are. Sorry it took me so long to get there properly.

The Singapore of Africa

Kigali is a funny city. It seems pretty different from any other African city I've been to, with its manicured lawns and its cleanliness and its lane discipline. Positively refined.

Another Kigali peculiarity is that the main "attraction" is the genocide memorial. That was brutal, and scary-as that it happened only twenty years back. Humans are rubbish.

I'm now in Kigali airport, far too early, ready to head back to Blighty. I feel I ought to sum up the trip with something insightful but I've not really got much to say other than now seems a pretty good time to visit Uganda. Go on, you know it makes sense...

Muzungu in the Mist

My stupid Englishman naivety kicked in again. As I was heading towards the Rwandan border, I was fairly surprised to see refugee camps. One of many reasons why I'm an idiot.

Anyway, I'm in Rwanda. And today did the tourist-in-Rwanda cliche: gorilla trekking. The trek itself was incredible. Proper jungle up the side of a mountain: slopes and swamps and river crossings and machetes. Proper jungle. Then, at the top of the hill, gorillas.

There weren't any "what if this is as good as it gets" moments, this was straight gorilla action. The first gorilla we saw was right there and from that point they only got nearer. A silverback tried to walk through me: box ticked.

Here's an animal fact. Elephants poo approximately the weight of one silverback gorilla every day.

Channel?

If you are alone outside in the pitch black and a hippo does a growl it sounds like it is really close. And, if you have already seen the size of its teeth, that's kinda terrifying. 

Spent the last couple of days in the Queen Elizabeth National Park, over near the Congo border. It's a whole heap greener than the safari idyll I have in my head, which makes them there animals a bit tricky to spot. That's not to say we didn't get our fill. We saw three of the big five before we had even entered the Park proper. Just lions stretching at the side of the main road. Must be weird living in places like that. I get a bit freaked out if I see one of those tiny deer things at the side of the road when I'm driving and I reckon that they would do far less damage to your car than a buffalo.

Did one of those river cruise things up the Kazinga Channel. Saw a bunch of crocodiles and monitor lizards and enough eagles and kingfishers that they have both lost their novelty value.

Bring Out The Chimp

Bloomin' love a tropical rainforest. This was the fifth continent where I've tropicalrainforested and, if I'm honest, probably the best: it seemed like a jungle; there was no obvious deforestation; and there were animals hanging out.

By which I mean, I saw me some monkeys. Three different flavours of monkey, up close and personal. Also saw me some chimpanzees (which is a box tick), had the initial 'as good as it gets' fear. The first chimps we "saw" were forty-odd metres away silhouetted against the sky. We then wandered around to a heap of places where chimps were sleeping, in the hope that they would emerge. They didn't. 

 

Finally got lucky with two super cute baby chimps doing baby chimp things right in front of us. They dangled. They played. They cuddled. Well chimp.

Jinja and Free

Cicadas, frogs and monkeys in a who can shout the loudest competition. Bright red roads surrounded by a whole heap of green, topped with a sky that switches between sun burn and apocalyptic. Ladies with jackfruit on their heads. Concrete huts painted in Airtel colours. Smiling children running to wave as you pass. Smells like Africa to me.

I stumbled bleary eyed into Kampala at four in the morning, where I was shown my first bit of smiley Ugandan kindness, when hotel security took pity on me and gave me a room. I say pity, I was pretty stinky by then so they may just have wanted my stench out of the way.

I didn't really linger in the capital, instead I headed off as fast as I could to Jinja, Uganda's backpacker mecca. I spent my first day proper rafting the source of the Nile. Now I thought that that rafting was going to be on fast moving water, which meant paddling would be a novelty rather than a duty. But no, they properly made you earn the buzz of the rapids.

The local dish appears to be the rolex, it's an omelette inside a pancake. Eggtastic.

Ham and cheese

If there's one thing I've learned this week as I've travelled along the Via Emilia (well, caught the train near the Via Emilia, you get the picture. By the way, have you caught an Italian train before? Nope? Here's a tip: validate your ticket) it's that Italian cities of a certain size are all pretty much the same. The old city walls have been replaced with a leafy boulevard of a ring road. Inside the city walls are winding, cobbled streets full of houses of varying shades of orange with lots of shutters. There's a noisy square dominated by al fresco dining and a quiet square dominated by in-frescoed basilicas. There are people walking dogs, leads boobytrapping across the road. There are cafes that think not only is espresso an acceptable form of coffee but that it is also an adequate alternative to breakfast.

I guess it makes writing guide books pretty difficult, which maybe explains why Lonely Planet had to resort to this nonsense:

"If Italy were a meal Modena would be on the main course."

Really, you'd have Modena for main rather than Rome, or the Lakes? Or Tuscany? Or the Amalfi Coast? I had Bologna for my main and thought that Modena was a somewhat disappointing dessert. A creme brulee where the top wasn't fully crisp. And don't get me started on:

"If reincarnation ever becomes an option, pray you come back as a Parmesan."

So yeah, Rimini (albeit briefly), Modena (where it was strangely difficult to get a good meal, given the town's foody rep), Reggio Emilia (my favourite of the four, although that probably says more about me) and Parma. All nice enough, all a bit difficult to get excited about.

But we are here for the food right? The parmesan and the parma ham? I've made a fair crack at eating all of the food, but have had to resort to pizza more than I intended.

Tigelle - disappointingly small sandwiches.

Tortellini en brodo - epitome of student food. M'eh. 

Gnocco - one of the more curious 'specialities' that I've come across. Deep fried dough that puffs itself up like an empty ravioli, so that you can fill it yourself. Basically a sandwich that leaves you with oily fingers and fuzzy arteries.

Pesto do cavallo - horse tartare to the unwary. Not sure whether this is actually a thing but it was nice enough.

The Fat One

I'm in Bologna. The Fat One. The Red One. The Learned One. The One with Too Many Nicknames. It's a right hotchpotch of a city with its old and its towers and its porticoes. I like it.

Porticoes, hey. They're a thing. In Bologna if you can't travel there by portico then it's not worth going.
- But the Basilica of the Virgin of St Luke is one of the big attractions and that's 4km outside the city.
- Yeah it is. And yeah you can get there by portico.
Although it does beg the question of when a portico stops being a portico and becomes a what? A portico plus? A colonnade? An arcade? My limited architectural knowledge just can't answer that question.

Whilst we're sort of on the subject of the Virgin of St Luke. Is it bad that I'm somewhat skeptical about its authenticity? You've got to admire the brazenicity (let's all coin new words) of whoever sold that eight hundred years ago.

I've eaten bolognaise. When in Rome and all that... It tasted of bolognaise, which I guess shouldn't be a surprise.

And now it's Bologna Jazz Festival, so I'm off to snap my fingers. Or eat something carby. Or both.

One Long Strip Mall

I try not to negatively generalise about entire nations based on a few hours' experience, but San Marino is a bit rubbish. It's just a strip mall with a castle hat.

Now don't get me wrong "citte" del San Marino is mighty pretty with its medieval empty streets and its castles and its massive views but there doesn't seem to be anything else to do. To quote Shakespeare: a cable car doth not a country make.

I'm staying in Borgo Maggiore, which is just down the hill from the (air bunnies) city. I'd call it San Marino's second "city" but it's really only its second highest. It is, however, a prime example of the strip mall mentality - the only way I can get anywhere is by walking along a dual carriageway. It's like the whole country is set up for car drivers only. Like UAE but with trees.

All that aside, any country with a vampire museum can't be all bad.

Party Like It's 1994

Do you remember S*M*A*S*H? What about These Animal Men? What, were you not reading the NME in 1994?

Seems like there were a few people that were.  One of them has made a film about them called Flawed is Beautiful and to launch it he got both bands to play one of those gig things.

Now I don't know how much of it was nostalgia, of forgetting that I wasn't a teenager any more or how much of it was that These Animal Men are just an amazing live band, but that gig was absolutely phenomenal.

Surfing the Geekgeist

Oops, it appears that I'm doing something that's sort of hip.  Accidentally of course.

Turns out that over the last couple of years there's been a growing movement of people that aren't using computers for gaming, preferring instead actual interaction and doing table top gaming - you know? Boardgames. But like for grown ups. It seems boardgames have gone through a bit of a revolution over the last twenty years, with a lot more emphasis on strategy rather than luck.  

About a year ago our pubquiz team retired and we invested our meagre winnings into Settlers of Catan, since then we've geeked out somewhat - only it turns out we were actually being cool. In an effort to make myself less cool, I figured I should write about the boardgames - sorry TTGs - that we've been dabbling in.

Settlers of Catan / Ticket to Ride / Carcassonne
These are the big three gateway games, the ones that get you hooked.  Plenty of People have written plenty of words about them. You've probably played them already. All three are ace, now let's move on.

Pandemic
So this game you don't play against other people, you play with other people against the game. You know, like in Knightmare, or the Crystal Maze. Only on a table top. It is frustratingly tough.

Tikal
The first time I played Tikal it was super fun. I would talk concept but the make believe / role play aspect makes my skin crawl a little bit; let's say it's like Indiana Jones if Indiana Jones was a centimetre high wooden cylinder and leave it at that.  The next time I played it just seemed really slow - whilst most of the other games here are turn based, you will still be doing things on other people's turns, here you can nap.

Machi Koro
However you describe it, it is going to sound like Monopoly. It isn't like Monopoly. Monopoly is long, slow and rubbish; this is short, fast and great.

Puerto Rico
So this is like a next level game.  I felt like I should have taken A-Level economics before playing this. Or maybe instead of playing this. It's gone back on the shelf until I've sunk further into the tabletop mire.

So what next, any recommendations gratefully received.

Faggots and Peas

It seems that every time I go to Cardiff I walk away from any obvious signs of life to go to a beard-achingly-hip pop-up in an industrial premises. Last time it was Pyramid Scheme, a literary event in a print studio. This time it was Brewfest, the trendiest beer festival that I've ever been to.

In my head beer festivals are about barrels. You find a space - be it a marquee, a corner of a pub, a church or a school hall - and you fill it with barrels. Loads of them. In massive horizontal piles. Then you get served beer by a guy in a Camra poloshirt. This wasn't like that. This made a warehouse into a career fair for microbreweries, only with way more decor.

I'm staying in Pontypridd which was absolutely buzzing as the Lido has reopened. Had lunch in Ponty Market - the café advertised itself as "The Place for Faggots and Peas" which I kinda wanted to take a picture of but worried that that would make me look like a class tourist so figured that I would blog about it instead. I'm an idiot.

You Can't Go Wrong With a Footwear Song

I'm at the Edinburgh Fringe again. This time I saw this:

Messrs Brimson and Wilson - Shamefully I really quite enjoyed this. Two quasi-music-hall, lowest-common-denominator comedians telling averagely funny jokes before going "weird fringe" and doing a song about inflatable shoes.

Sofie Hagen - Warm and funny. The best thing I saw on Day 1.

Joel Dommett - thoroughly enjoyable, however the structure of the show was so similar to Sophie Hagen's that you couldn't help but compare the two.

Simon Slack - He reminded me of someone I went to school with so my highlight of the set was imagining that someone who once had a very promising future was now dancing in their pants in the back room of a club for coppers. Turns out it's not him. Sadtimes.

Full Scottish at Ryan's Bar - not strictly speaking an act, but worth sharing. 

The Walking Dead - more a lecture about the impending zombie apocalypse than a comedy show.

Kane and Abel - not been to a magic show in years.

Ben Clover - Ben's a mate so obviously this was great.

Russell Hicks - This guy managed to do a funny hour's set with essentially no material. Day 2's highlight.

Simon Munnery's fylmshow - he's one of those comedian's comedians that I've been meaning to see for years. Not certain that I wholly got him. He had two guests (whose names I missed), the first one may have been Njambi McGrath. It might not but she was really good.

Alternative Comedy Memorial Service - I found this mighty enjoyable. However I got the impression that I was missing out on a whole heap of injokes.

Mickey Scharma - We were aiming finishing with Liam Williams, but didn't realise there was a queue. Ended up here instead. Not quite the big big bang finale that we had planned.

"Like You, but Good"

Standon Calling time again.  Once again I saw virtually nothing, well done me. 

This year's highlights: 

Ezra Furman - this is the kind of nonsense I've always loved. I'm unsure how he has managed to release three albums before he's dented my awareness.

Malory Torr - a pretty voice singing pretty country songs - what's not to like? 

DJ Yoda - forty five minutes of euphoric pop hiphop mash up.

Poetry Goes Pop - a high-brow / low-brow panel show that didn't always work, but when it did it worked super well. Consequently I've had the Jabberwocky to the tune of Wrecking Ball stuck in my head for two days. 

Piggy Platter - I can't remember the name of the foodstall that sold this - Maple pork, maybe. It was tasty and massive and frankly set a new precedent for festival food which will probably never be superseded.

Caistor St Edmund

Norwich is a city that likes a dragon. Even without the GoGoDragons roaming the streets there is definitely an above average number of dragons in that there city.

Norwich is a bit of a weird one.  I went quite a lot as a kid but I had never explored the city as a grown up.  I'd always discounted it as just a slightly bigger version of Chelmsford. Which is somewhat false. The city was dripping with both history (with its Norman castle and enormous cathedral - Chelmsford cathedral could probably do a three-point turn inside Norwich cathedral) and culture (there seemed to be cinemas everywhere).

There just seemed to be a buzz in the town, at least when comparing it to the last similarly sized British city that I went to (which was Coventry a couple of weeks ago.  Now this is unfair, I'm comparing Norwich on Pride Saturday to Coventry on a Thursday afternoon. However Coventry didn't shower itself in glory when I asked at the tourist information what I should see if I only had a couple of hours - "it's after three, everything's shut now." Anyway, back to Norwich). I wandered out to the edge of town to get to the Sainsbury Centre.  This suburban, provincial art gallery was stuffed full of famous names. I know that this was a special exhibition and not the regular collection but three Michelangelos and a Titian?  Really?  That's just showing off.

Birthday Thoughts

A decade ago I lived with a guy called Nick and his extensive collection of Detroit techno singles in an uber-hip Manchester loft apartment. A fair chunk of my best flat-sharing anecdotes come from that year.  Here's a very small one:

"I'm just bobbing to the shop. Do you want anything?"
"Nah, you're alright, cheers."
"Catch you in a bit."
Nick returned home five days later - lucky I din't need milk.

Today would have been Nick's 40th birthday. It would have been a hell of a party.

The phrase "Rest in Peace" doesn't seem appropriate - it pretty much misses the point of Nick - but you get what I mean.

The Old Three Country Weekend

So I found out why I couldn't get a room in Basel. It was ArtBasel weekend. The world's biggest art fair. Basically like rocking up to Edinburgh in August and expecting to be able to get accommodation. Still not 100% sure what ArtBasel - or indeed an art fair - is; whether it's a South by Southwest or a Glastonbury. Or some kind of highbrow mutant of the two. Either way, I saw a lot of art.

It started in the morning with Parcours, a cheeky offshoot of the main ArtBasel project which put some of that there bonafide concept art in and around Munsterplatz, the historic core of the city.This was ace as it forced me into crannies and nooks into which I otherwise wouldn't have ventured. Had what I'm fairly sure is my first edible art experience chewing on art flavoured ice cream, which was, erm, flavoured.

Had an afternoon break from ArtBasel in order to see some art galleries, the pick of which was the Museum Tinguely with it's ubertrendy architecture and mechanised bobbins.

Evening was ArtBasel proper. Thought I'd smashed it in an hour and a half - you're not so big, biggest artfair in the world - only to find I was less than a third of the way through and had only seen those bits that were too big for the main hall.

Have you flown into Basel before? Turns out the airport's in France and is known as the Three Countries Euroairport.  When I couldn't find accommodation in Switzerland I snuck across the border into Germany and slept in Lorrach.  From the map it looked like it was just a Basel suburb but turns out it was a fairly substantial place in its own right - famous for Milka chocolate, apparently.    

In more UK based news, I saw Jenny Collier do some comedy. It was ace.

In even more local news I see that Elan Lounge is changing its name again. It'll be Backtrack from next week, never did get to go to Indigo, oh well, fairly sure it wasn't all that different from at least one of its five previous incarnations.

Dick Turpin and Other Essex Boys

Did a treasure hunt the other day it took in three Essex villages, which (unimpressively, as a local someone who likes an explore) I knew barely anything about.

It started in Thaxted, a village that I know mainly from driving through. Didn't know Holst lived there though. I feel like that's something I should know. Even more than  that, I definitely should have known that Dick Turpin came from Hempstead - that made me Wikipedia (is that a verb? It is now) - turns out he used to run with The Essex Gang. Guessing that they didn't have to worry too much about originality of gang names in those days - it's no Baseball Furies.

The adventure finished in Finchingfield. You've probably heard how pretty Finchingfield is. That's all anyone knows about it. Turns out the rumours are true. It oozes prettiness.

The treasure hunt itself is a bit of a weird one - doing it has made me approximately forty per cent more observant - but a mate had bought it off the internet. Now don't get me wrong, I am not belittling the treasure hunt itself - I had a thoroughly pleasant day - it's just that someone managed to get paid for doing something that was probably kinda fun. Wandering round making up clues is the kind of thing I'd do in my spare time, just because (or at least it would be if I wasn't so lazy). I tell you what Internet, if I'm feeling frivolous I might do you a treasure hunt. I won't even charge you.

Just been to the Barbican to see Sun Kil Moon. Not the kind of gig I normally frequent but that Kozelek fellow has a voice on him.

On a complete tangent, it was pointed out to me at the weekend that us Brits put in unnecessary Rs all over the show. And it turna out they were right. I say drawring rather than drawing. I've been trying out draw-wing in my head and it sounds all kinds of wrong. My reality feels a bit brittle.

Wrestling Elephants

Aah, theatre that I understand. Either I've got clevererer or I've dumbed down my theatre choice. I figure it's the latter.

First up a little wrestling and drag based comedy. Everyone loves wrestling. Everyone loves drag. Everyone loves comedy. What's not to love? This one was called As You Like It. Which, off the top of my head means I've now seen every Shakespeare play that I know a quote from. Is that something to be proud of? I am a bit, regardless.

Just seen Bradley Cooper in The Elephant Man: a play about a freakshow, with a pretty boy doing a pretty good job of being ugly. Not exactly high brow. Enjoyed it, mind.

I seem to be stuck in a confused-media rut. That was a play that seemed like a film. I've just read the new Nick Hornby novel (his best thing since About a Boy since you ask), which seemed like a play, and am currently watching The 100, a long form TV show which seems like a YA novel. So whilst I am understanding things in themselves now that it is summet, I don't seem to be able to distinguish between things. Which is a bit worrying.

Gadding Again

I didn't understand Carmen Disturbed at all. I got the impression that there were a load of references that went over my head. Maybe it was because I've not seen Carmen, or maybe it's just that I'm not clever enough. This not understanding malarkey does seem to be happening a lot lately. When out of the last four plays you've seen the only one you actually understood was the Shakespeare, I reckon it might be time to watch less pretentious theatre.

I'm not wholly sure that I understood the Essex Young Farmers' Show either. Don't get me wrong, it was a great day out but it was ultimately a field full of people looking at wellies and getting sunburnt.

I did understand Literary Death Match. Comedians judging writers in a pop-up dance hall, culminating in a classic-literature based quiz - what's not to get?

Keep the Masses from Majority

First gig in six years. You play the hits, right? Hermann Loves Pauline? God Show Me Magic?  Play It Cool? Or maybe you play some of the crowd pleasers - the smaller songs that you jump up and down to: The Teacher? Calimero? Guacamole?

Of course not. You've got to love a band that fills the middle of its set with five of the slower tracks from a deleted-for-fifteen-years Welsh language album. Fair to say the thirty-something Brixton crowd didn't seem to know what to make of most of the set.

Somewhat Side-swiped

So normally I write about the inside of my cosseted middle-class bubble, chatting about plays or travels and generally being dismissive of things other people rate. As a rule I find that I rarely write about things that matter. Is this because of my stiff upper lip Britishness? Is it because sneering at things is far more fun to right about? Probably a mixture of the two. I am gonna have to take a step away from my British stereotypicality for a bit, so if you want one of my standard posts you may want to jump to the last paragraph, otherwise you may find yourself knee deep in a mawkish quagmire.

You see, I've had a couple of lumps on my neck. My doctor didn't know what they were so referred me to ENT, who also didn't know what they were.  They appeared; they were big enough to be noticeable; big enough to be worrying, but didn't seem to change or grow.

This week I got unlumped (I believe that that is the technical term for it, or maybe it's delumped). Which meant I spent most of Tuesday slowly dehydrating at the NHS's convenience.

Some observations:

1. All you can think about is the fact that you're not allowed to eat or drink. You try reading but you find yourself skipping to descriptions of food. You try listening to music, all you hear is running water. I'm not sure how people manage to work during Ramadan. They must have about 80% more will power than me. Or maybe the average Muslim is just a whole heap less gluttonous than I am.

2. Anaesthetists seem a lot more human than surgeons. Fairly sure this has been said before (Quite Ugly One Morning maybe?), I'm guessing that this is because anaesthetists are keeping you alive and out of pain whilst everyone else is Rubik's cubing your innards.

3. I've hit mawkishness in this post, may as well do politics too. I struggle to see how anyone who has had an operation is against immigration. An uninformed, still-hazy-after-a-general-anaesthetic guess reckons that about 40% of the people who prodded me on Tuesday fell into the bracket that UKIP would want rid of. I can't think of an end to this paragraph that isn't wildly patronising, so I'm going to let you finish it yourself.

So yeah, the unlumping went alright. I now have a knifefight scar (which is kinda cool) but even less coordination in my left arm, especially when raised (less cool) and have to turn my whole body rather than just my head (also inconvenient). I didn't get to keep the lumps, apparently they need to test them to find out if it's something more nefarious than common-or-garden lumpiness, which I guess means that this may not be the only dull / cloying post. Here's hoping it is.

Whilst we are being uncharacteristically sentimental let's do it properly. All things being equal, whilst not the most fun week I've had, I do fully appreciate that things could be a whole heap worse: I've not lost everything I own and my family aren't missing. Syangbo, Debendra, Greg: here's hoping your weeks get much better really quickly.

And fade the sentimentality out.

I didn't get American Buffalo, even with the very shiny cast (John Goodman! I didn't even realise he was still alive). Nothing happens. I'm not sure what I make of plays where nothing happens.

And on the Sixth Day...

Three years. Sorry I didn't see you for so long. I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened I was doing my thing and you were doing yours and, well, three years went past.

Three years. And nothing has really changed, yet so many things are just slightly different. There are more hipster burger bars in the Northern Quarter and The Cedar Tree has gone - the gentrification has just about hit Ancoats. There didn't seem to be any Fingland buses on the Oxford Road. Cornerhouse is closed. Urbis is now a football-museum-cum-man-creche. All the restaurants on the Curry Mile have changed their names. A fair chunk of my friends there have had babies. And there's a too zany by half announcement in the Pendolino toilet. There's a time and a place for zany announcements; a train toilet is pretty far from it.

I appear to be trampling mawkish nostalgia into the carpet. I'll try not to leave it so long next time.

Scrambled Aix

I was going to call this entry Aix and Panes, given that I walked myself into an achey wreck and have seen a lot of stained glass windows, but everyone appears to pronounce Aix like eggs, rather than aches. Addes to that my main memory of Aix-en-Provence is being too tired to function and spending my time bouncing from bench to bench.

Yesterday I spent the day in Marseille and walked my socks off. Benefit of hindsight, I should have got the bus. I'm an idiot. I'm comfortable with that.

I spent the morning walking around the Frioul islands, made famous by Chateau d'If - where that Edmond Dante escaped from. I was promised 100 species of bird. I got a lot of seagulls. I spent the afternoon getting to / on the beach. Fairly average.

Aix-en-Provence is suitably Provencey. All herb shops, lilac covers and wooden window shutters. It managed to tick all the French clichés: onions, baguettes, berets. Good to know some things are based on fact.

So stained glass windows. I've seen a fair few over the weekend, and the bulk of them have been mighty impressive. One little criticism, they are all kind of similar.  Just about all of them are four grumpy looking middle aged men staring into the mid distance. Surely there must be more to stained glass art than this?

Allons Enfants de la Patrie

Marseille is one of those places that I've been meaning to get to for absolutely ages. I didn't know all that much about it, other than it's the second city of our nearest neighbour and it begins with M, which is always a good sign for a city; I thought I would kinda like it but I really wasn't expecting this. It's all on hills and it's all made out of pink marble. I thought it was going to be flat, modern and industrial like Hamburg or Rotterdam. I didn't think that stepping out of Gare St Charles would give me a Wow moment with its marble staircase and view of Notre Dame. I wasn't expecting this 2600 years of history that keeps getting dangled in front of my face. Marseille gets a massive thumbs up.

Another city that I've been meaning to go to for ages is Carcassonne. Turns out how I imagined Carcassonne was impossibly romantic. I thought I actually knew things about the city. In retrospect everything I know is either based on Labyrinth (Mosse not Bowie, no Bog of Eternal Stench, although I will leave that open for you to insert your own stereotype joke) - which was mainly set 800-odd years ago (I've made that number up fact fans) so is possibly not the most reliable tourist guide - or the board game (and I didn't knowingly meet a robber, a monk, a farmer or a knight, although there was an awful lot of knight-based tat). I was expecting a medieval walled city pretty much on its own, operating as an actual working town. That's not what it was like. First off it was pretty far from a working town. It was faux-medieval and nose to armpit packed with people buying cassoulet and wooden swords. Not quite as romantic as I'd envisaged. It wasn't even a solo settlement - and I should have picked this up from the boardgame - there's a second walled city within about 400m. T'uh. Carcassonne was approximately as disappointing as Marseille exceeded expectations, so far I'm rocking an expectation neutral weekend.

The only thing that I did know about Marseille is that I needed to eat a bouillabaisse. How is bouillabaisse a thing? It was a murky, brown puddle of sand and shrimp legs. It was like eating a rockpool only didn't taste as fresh.

Fjord Escort

I've been spending the last couple of days getting snowed on and heading back to where I started. This direction we've been passing that scenery stuff during daylight, which has the advantage of being able to see it. It's been some of the big name stuff that we've passed too: Trollfjord, Torghatten, The Seven Sisters (they were trolls before they were mountains, don't you know?), Raftsundet - all things that I hadn't heard of two weeks ago.

I've seen a couple of those town things too. I stopped at Svolvaer, which was positively abuzz with the cod fishing championships, and Bronnoysund, a town that has probably never been described as "abuzz".

Seen a couple more wildlifes. I saw a white tailed sea eagle (or an erne as my Dad would have loved to have pointed out) relatively close up, she came to inspect my lunch - she was out of luck, I'm not great at sharing lunch. I also saw four or five dark leapy things, they were quite far away but I suspect that they were minke whales. Still no puffins though.

So, Norwegian fjords box ticked. What have we learnt?

1. Most fjords are a lot less fjordy than I expected. In my head fjords are narrow with thousand foot high cliffs on either side. Most of the fjords I've seen are really quite wide with relatively gentle slopes. Guessing that both types exist, Norway does have a phenomenally long coast line after all (longer than Africa apparently - I've not checked that fact,  but it's too good not to regurgitate, never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn). Guessing that my fjord stereotypes aren't navigable in a car ferry in winter. I blame Slartibartfast.

2. You have to be fairly lucky to see the Northern Lights and even if you see them there's no guarantee that they won't be rubbish.

3. Norwegians love a statue. It seems that whether you're busking (Svolvaer), selling fish (Kristiansund) or waiting for a bus (Tromso) if you stand still long enough someone will carve you.

Stop, Hammerfest

Hammerfest. What a name. It sounds like a DIY expo or a celebration of horror movies. It's neither. Instead it's the world's northernmost town (and yes, I know that this is contested and potentially controversial but it's my blog so my rules). We had snow in Hammerfest which made it all the more Arctic and since then this nature stuff seems to have kept on coming. Hashtag smug.

After last week I was slightly worried that my expectations of the Northern Lights were unfairly high as they were based on photos and, as anyone with an SLR camera in the Arctic will tell you at length, cameras make the Northern Lights look way better as they pick out colours the human eye can't see. Was my perception of what they should look like skewed? Was last week's spectral smudge as good as it gets? They turned up last night and put on the full display - green shapes all over the place. The sky looked like a hifi from the early nineties.

Why have one phenomenon when you can have two. The moon did its eclipsing thing over a snowcapped peak. The impending clouds held off until peak eclipse, rolled in and hailed all over anyobe watching. All told more spectacular than my last eclipse experience where I missed it completely and had to make do with Matt and PJ re-enacting it on the side of a swimming pool.

And on top of all that nature, I saw me a wildlife. The man next to me stated with some certainty that it was a whale. I don't have any experience of whale spotting so who am I to argue? Turns out whales look more like seals than I expected.

Fjord Fjocus

I've been to Kirkenes. Now you've almost certainly not heard of Kirkenes because it's really far away. It's still in Norway, but I am probably further from Oslo than you are. Unless you're reading this from Malaysia where my blog is inexplicably popular, in which case, well done, you win.

At the risk of going boringly Lonely Planet on you, Kirkenes is basically in Russia. It's east of St Petersburg (fairly remarkably it's also east of Istanbul, which hurts my head a little bit) and the street names are bilingual, that's how in Russia it is. Yet it also has troll souvenirs and a designer kitchen appliance shop to let you know you're still in Norway. Added ro that there's door to door sheet ice to add a smattering of mild peril to every day life.

In other news, I've still not seen any wildlife more interesting than a seagull and those Aurora things - despite being all shiny back in Blighty - are conspicuous by their absence in these parts.

The Arctic Capital

I am in the North. I am about as far north as you can get on mainland Europe and there's not a fat lot here. Rocks and ice. Ice and rocks. And sea.

I left Tromso, the Arctic Capital, yesterday evening. It's the most northerly city in the world, apparently and has a history elbow deep in polar bear gizzards. It was a bizarre place. Surprisingly like any other city, with its H&M and its museums and its trendy cathedral and its cafe culture, just with piles of snow at one side of any surface people would be travelling on.

Went to Trollfjord. That's where the trolls live. Sadly I didn't see any. Which was hardly a surprise, given the all conquering darkness. Trollfjord is supposed to be absolutely spectacular. The small amount of it that I saw looked fairly much the same as any other circle of spotlight-illuminated rock. Note to self. Next time bring flares.

Reflections of Dead Maidens

I crossed the Arctic circle a couple of hours ago. Well Northern.

The big box tick since my last post is seeing the reflections of dead maidens; eskimo chiefs playing football with a walrus skull; Aurora Borealis; them there northern lights. Well Phillip Pullman. Now I know I can come across as someone who hates everything that other people like but I really don't mean to. That said, they were decidedly mediocre. Reminded me of the sky over Hylands Park on V weekend, only without thr throbbing bass. And way colder.

What else have I been up to? Mainly eating herring. 

I went to Trondheim, Norway's third city. I liked it. There was a buzz about it that was missing from Bergen.

I've also been to Alesund, a town which gave me an Elvis Costello earworm and is also chock full of Art Nouveau architecture.

In other news, I have just finished Wonder by RJ Palacio. When I started it I was pretty cynical (who'd have thought?) but it properly won me over. Off the top of my head I can't think of a book that has given me more of a warm glow, which is handy as I'm spending a lot of time standing in the Arctic wind watching faint smudges in the sky.

Fjord Fjiesta

I'm in one of those fjord things in that Norway. Seeing what all the fuss is about. I left Bergen yesterday, so don't have much of a frame of reference but so far, so fjordy.

Not certain what I made of Norway's second city. It was certainly pretty and quaint and wooden and UNESCOy and there seemed to be a fair amount to do, but I'm kind of glad that I didn't spend more time there, which seems like a horrible thing to say.

I'm travelling up the coast on a working ferry which means stopping at a whole heap of tiny, tiny ports (I'm reluctant to call them villages) in the middle of nowhere. My knowledge of Norwegian coastal geography is going to be immense by the time I'm done. Sadly Norwegian Coastal Geography is one of the rarer pub quiz rounds...

Ich Bin Ein Hamburger

When will I learn?  This is the third time I've been to Germany in wintertime and each time it has been mighty mighty cold.  Almost like the Ryanair flights are cheap because no one wants to go there then...

Hamburg has been one of those cities that I've been wanting to go to for years and I'm not certain how it's taken me so long to get there.  It seemed to be a town that was buzzing with energy, but it didn't make it easy for you to find where the actual buzz was coming from.  Except at half seven on a Sunday morning when the buzz was very much coming from Altona Fish Market. Bearing in mind absolutely nothing in Germany is open on a Sunday, the sheer volume of people that were up with the proverbial lark for breakfast (or still up for a late supper - given Hamburg's reputation, I probably shouldn't assume everyone loves sleep as much as I do) was fairly ridiculous. Beer, fish sandwich and live music to kickstart a Sunday.


I double-billed Hamburg with Bremen. Now Bremen is a place with a very pretty town square. It's also a place that loves a donkey, so it can't be too bad.

Didn't manage to eat pork knuckle, which was one of the main reasons I went to Germany. Did manage to eat a hamburger hamburger, so I ticked that box. Also ate Labskaus, which is a glow-in-the-dark corned-beef hash served with fried eggs and herring. Tastes just as you expect it to.

Hmmm, What Tasty Words?

Munch munch munch.  That is the sound of me eating my words.It's happened before and I'm sure it will happen again. It's just I can't think of a time when I have had to - wanted to - recant on a printed opinion so very quickly.

What is somewhat galling is that the catalyst for this volte face has been the catalyst for a previous subversion of my strongly held belief.  Namely that farces are all rubbish.

I saw that NT production of One Man Two Guvnors, barely even raised a smile.  I saw Noises Off at the Old Vic - that's as clever as a farce gets, right? I thought it was alright. So I'd sampled what was supposed to be the best fair around, and found it somewhat mediocre. Farces - m'eh. And then I stumbled into a tiny theatre in industrial north London and saw the Mischief Theatre Company do their thing and I was a convert.  So much so I saw their other farce and, most surprisingly of all given my base level cynicism, wasn't disappointed.

Which brings us to the point that I was originally making, just over a month ago I went to see some improv comedy - that Paul Merton fellow and his Improv Chums, who are apparently relatively good at the improvised comedy thing and to quote someone misquoting me, it was like watching other people have a really fun time with their mates. Improv m'eh. Yesterday I stumbled into a spin-off show and saw the Mischief Theatre Company do their thing and I laughed my proverbial socks right off.  Most I laughed since the last time I saw the Mischief Theatre Company. So yeah.  I'm going again next month. Hashtag converted.

In other news I have visited the White Cube to see the new Christian Marclay installation.  Somehow The Clock ("A masterpiece of our times", apparently) completely passed me by, almost like I was living in a desert when it was big news here. I made sure that didn't happen with the follow up, hell yeah.

Yangon: A Second

I'm back in Yangon, enjoying a respite between two days chock full of travelling to fill up on streetfood and avocado juice.

So that was Myanmar. 

Sort of what I expected, sort of not. Before I came out I had heard all kinds of things about the country so I figure I could do some public service by busting the myths:

ATMs work for international cards.  There's no need to bring all the money that you are going to need with you. I haven't heard anyone say that the exchange rate is way off the mark either - but then maybe noone has checked their bank balance. That was another one I had heard that it was best to change money on the black market as the rate was way way better than the official exchange rate. It seems to be just over a thousand kyat to the dollar (in Yangon).  And yes, you do get a better rate on 100 dollar bills than 50s. And 50s trump 20s. However you can pay for most (big) things in dollars at 1000 to the dollar.

Mint condition notes. I had been crazy paranoid about this and have kept dollars pristine. However I have seen people pay with fairly scrumpled dollar bills. I have only met one person who had a bill turned down - it was a hundred - they said it was mint.  They may check hundreds more thoroughly than other denominations, hence the better exchange rate.

Everything is either far more expensive or far cheaper than it should be. Any where you go there is an unexpected tax of between two and twenty dollars.

This is the country where I have spent the most on accommodation (per night). No question. A dorm bed here was roughly the same as it was in Luxembourg and I could only get a dorm in Bagan. Call me old fashioned but if I am paying Luxembourg prices I sort of want Luxembourg standard - wifi, warm water, showers, electricity - not had anight where all wete available throughout.

Getting to the bus station cost more than the six hour bus trip. And there's the rub, if you can do what the locals do it is crazy cheap. Lunch today was really good and enough to fill me up - it cost 60c, and that's not the cheapest lunch I've eaten.  Absolute bargain.

Party time (or not). Because of the inconsistent electric supply everything seems to be in line with the sun. I've been going to bed at 9. Not exactly Ko Phan Nagn. I've only seen one "bar" bar (80c mojitos - ridiculous value).

In peak season everything - accommodation, transport - is fully booked months in advance. This is just not true. Hours in advance maybe. In one instance I heard days. Mainly there were options if you needed them.

Your guidebook is out of date. The country is changing so fast that however new your guidebook is, it is out of date. In all probability this advice is out of date, so you may as well ignore this too.

And here are some things I hadn't heard:

Men wear skirts. You thought it was only Scotland? It's not, it is rife here. At least they have the climate for it. And it makes sense: have to keep the knees covered for the temples. "But what happens when they want to play cane ball?" I hear you ask. Simple, wrap the whole thing up into a big man nappy.

Thanakha. All the ladies wear it. It makes your skin stay youthful for longer - i.e. you are more attractive. The only slight issue is you spend your youth walking round with mud on your face - i.e. you are less attractive. It's a conundrum.

They drive on the wrong side of the road. Now that may sound like I am being imperialist, and criticising the driving on the right. I'm not. Well I am but only because they drive in right hand drive cars. They can't see when they overtake and they overtake a lot. The whole country lives for overtaking.

Sixty per cent of adverts are for coffee. Starbucks on every corner? Not quite. Rich n Creamy; Monkey; Super; Mikko: I can name far more brands of instant 3in1 coffee here than home. I don't even know whether we have 3in1 coffee at home.  "Mikko instant creamer - for the goodtimes" now that's a slogan. Incidentally my favourite slogan was for a fast food restaurant in Mandalay (and I appreciate that this is mean as what they meant was fairly apparent - silly foreigners not being able to see that in a second language there was a double meaning that subverted the original - idiots): "Good food keep on walking"

Burmese Daze

I'm in Kinpun, which, as you all know is the base camp for Mount Kyaiktiyo, better known as the Golden Rock. Now if I'd taken one of the pickups to the top if the hill and seen the Buddhist Disney land around the rock I would have felt a little bit short changed. The best thing for me was the walk, which I wasn't really expecting. But yeah, six hours of sweaty jungle mountain. Good walk.

About half way up I realised that what I really needed on the pilgrimage path to a Buddhist holy site was a bamboo replica of an AK47. Luckily the stalls on the way had this covered.

In other news, I had a traditional Burmese massage. I didn't enjoy it. That's an understatement.

Dangling Marrows

I finally got to Inle Lake to see what all the fuss is about. Only took two days. Got a boat guy to boat us around for the day. I can see what all the fuss is about, when we got to the actual lake and saw all the "fishermen" coming out of thr mist it was pretty amazing. At least until you realised that they weren't actual fishermen, just there posing for tourists.

Saw the stilt houses and the floating gardens with their dangling marrows - can't help but think that there is a risk of marrow loss having if you leave them dangling over water. Also saw all manner of local craftmen. Some even seemed ti be making useful stuff rather than tourist bobbins.

Spent yesterday avoiding the hawkers by hiking up in the mountains. Didn't get eaten by a tiger, so all good. Think I preferred the quiet mountain scenery to the tourist-and-diesel hubbub of the lake.

Quite enjoying monks usurping my expectations. In the last forty eight hours I've seen monks ride motorbikes, play football, splash around swimming and take my photo on their iPad. Funky monk.

In other news, I've discovered these small rice snacks.  They are all kinds of awesome. I'd bring them back as a gift but there is exactly no chance that I wouldn't eat them.

Can't Believe It's Not Buddah

Now this may surprise you but I've seen some more temples. Despite freak weather's best attempts. And yes, I know I shouldn't moan about the weather when it's minus three back home, but I have. So there.

I'm over the other side of the country now, in Nyaungshwe. Took advantage of the poor weather to venture out to Pindaya to see a cave full of Buddahs. That synopsis in no way does it justice. Neither does the poor quality photo I've attached. Pretty spectacular.

Beware the Temple Dogs

Crikey I've seen a lot of temples since we last spoke.  Somewhat templed out.

We ventured to the south of Mandalay to a whole heap of former capitals. All of which had a lot of temples. All of which, if I'm honest, looked pretty much the same.

We started in Imwa, where the main form of transport appears to be offroad horse and cart, went onto Sagaing (home of one of Asia's foremost Buddhist universities), then onto U Bein bridge. Now this bridge is probably Mandalay's most well known tourist attraction; longest teak bridge in the world, don't you know? We'd been to a teak monastery in Imwa, it was really pretty; covered in ornate carvings. We kind of expected the teak bridge to be similar. It wasn't. It was just a rickety bridge. It's got to run the Peeing Boy close for the coveted World's Most Overrated Tourist Attraction award.

Yesterday, we spent the day on the Irrawaddy. Didn't see any dolphins. For some reason Daniella thought I was lying about the small, pink dolphins that live in the river - can't see why.

We're in Bagan now. That's a place famous for its temples. There are loads of them. I'm comfortably into triple figures already today and there is a whole afternoon of temple based fun to go.

Squirrel-catching Gloves

Now I wasn't expecting the streets of Myanmar's second city to be paved with gold but I sort of was expecting them to be paved. 

I'm in Mandalay. Another one of those places that I sort of assumed was mythical. It's also a place that is ripe for blog titles. Instead I've gone for a callback on a six year old conversation that (probably) no one reading this will get.

So Mandalay doesn't have as much of the Asian mystique as I thought it would.  Turns out it's just a big dusty city. I've managed to squeeze in the most obvious city sights - the palace with its enormous walls and Mandalay Hill. Not meaning to come across all Lonely Planet on you, but did you know Buddha once climbed Mandalay Hill as a chicken.  Must've taken ages.

Yangon

I didn't understand lunch at all. A man gestured 'food' at me, so I followed him. He led me to a table where I shared bowls of stuff (rice, soup, something made of chillis, something made of onions, green goo and animal bones) with a bunch of strangers. Turns out the whole thing was free. I think I may have gatecrashed the leftovers of a school dinner. Not certain.  Tasty though. Especially the green goo, once you had got over the fact that it looked like pond weed.

Anyway, I am in Yangon. A city where footpaths are impassable due to pop up restaurants, roads are virtually uncrossable, where rambutans and mangosteens are readily available, where chickens hang upside down from handcarts, where monks are musclebound, where there's no toilet paper and inconstant electricity. In short where the travelling smells of weird.

I like weird.

I have already hit the main site, the Shwedagon Paya, a 2500 year old gold plated temple. It was impressive with its surrounding plinth of pagodas, colours, monks and activity. The sulky monkey within thinks it would have been even more impressive if the gold hadn't been covered by matting. But that's just me wanting the moon on a stick.

A-travellin' Again

They've spruced Doha airport up a fair bit since the last time I was here. There's all kinds of bells and whistles now - TV booths, children's play areas, enormous teddybear/desklamp art installation - which is kinda nice as my flight has just been delayed.

Not too worried about the delay, I was due to arrive in Yangon at 5, which is a pretty antisocial arrival time, so a couple more hours makes the whole caboodle somewhat more civilised.

I quite enjoy time at an abroad airport; hearing flight announcements for Islamabad and Beirut just sound a bit more exotic than the departures you get from Stansted. 

Anyway, the adventure has begun...

Actual Stuff I Liked

Not certain why I feel the need to do an end of year review - but I sort of feel obliged to. 

I think it helped looking through the year end charts and realising I actually liked music this year. Which is perversely disappointing. Like the Kate Tempest album.  Like the Gruff Rhys album.  Like the Run the Jewels album. Like the Madlib album. That's four albums I actually like - been ages since that happened.  And, as things stand, I've got more gigs booked than theatre trips - I feel like I'm back in my early twenties.  

Saw me some pretty good theatre this year. Last thing I saw was Golem - if I actually was still in my early twenties I would have loved it with it's anti-capitalist stance.  As it was I thought it was clever and fun, rather than blow your mind amazing. Not certain what the thing I liked most was.  That's a lie, I am fairly certain.  Streetcar... was ace.  Skylight was ace. A View... was ace. Titus Andronicus was suitably gory and I really enjoyed Urinetown.  But it wasn't any of them. It was The Play that Goes Wrong. Somehow it managed to live up to my ridiculously high expectations. 

Not been too shabby a year for travel.  Got into double figures for countries (yes, I'm aware that that's more in a year than a lot of people go in their life time), managed seven new European capital cities (think Sarajevo was my favourite, although Athens ran it close) and saw three of the most famously spectacular coastlines in the world. As I said, not too shabby.