Saturday, 30 December 2017
Hashtag Still Smug
Saturday, 23 December 2017
God Bless Us, Everyone
A tale of three plays:
Let's start with The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was a big ol' daft Shakespeare farce. Pretty silly, pretty fun. Nice idea making it a sixties juke box musical but ultimately that was... Who am I kidding? It was a terrible idea making it a sixties juke box musical. There isn't very much intersection on the rocknroll-Shakespeare Venn diagram, especially not if you throw a suburban am-dram circle into the graph.
I also saw Glengarry Glen Ross. When you see one of the big, shiny London shows with a big, shiny Hollywood star in the centre it does make you realise how spoilt you are. It also emphasises how bad the idea of staging an amateur, rocknroll shakespeare in a provincial market town is.
And then there's a Christmas Carol. Yeah, you know the story. No, it's not even a real play. But gee whizz was it feelgood. Snow, satsumas, sprouts, clapping, turkeys on ziplines - all the festive main ones. It even got my sleighbells jingling, and they don't jingle easy. I feel like it's limbered me right up for Christmas. Bring it.
Tuesday, 5 December 2017
Brum, They Told Me
Had to check up on the Second City last weekend. Don't worry, it's still there (which is a tenuous description for the train service - although "still there" might be apt for the train we were due to get) and it's got its Christmas on. The Birmingham Christmas markets are insane. Peoples and Christmases everywhere.
I'm finding it a bit weird that bands I like are doing twentieth anniversary sets as standard nowadays. It means that you have a crowd of tired looking 40-somethings punctuated by grinning idiots thinking they can hit the high notes of Lava. I was one of those. Silversun were ace. Sleeper were ace. And that's me sucked into a Britpop sinkhole.
Oh and as I'm feeling strangely festive and it's the season of goodwill, let's celebrate people trying to do something nice. Go and visit Counter Culture it's above Dark Side comics under Chelmsford Viaduct. Go and get your geek on. You know you want to.
Sunday, 19 November 2017
The Hills Are Alive

Sunday, 12 November 2017
Paris When It Drizzles

Friday, 27 October 2017
Lion City

Thursday, 26 October 2017
Batavia


Monday, 23 October 2017
Here Be Dragons

Gee whizz this island is pretty with its peaks and its three different coloured beaches and that photo that everybody takes. What noone seems to mention is that as you go behind it the sea goes nuts. I think it's where two currents meet: it's hard to explain, you'll have to go and see for yourself.
With the benefit of hindsight my expectations for Komodo were ridiculous. I thought it would be a bit like looking for land iguanas in the Galapagos, where big lizards were out doing their lizard thing. It wasn't. Turns out komodo dragons don't like the sun so they spend their days in as shady a place as they can find, ie. where you can't see them.
To say I've seen Flores is a bit like going to Pogradec and saying you've seen Albania (that was a self-indulgent reference even for me). I've been staying in Labuan Bajo for the last few days, a fishing village-cum-tourist centre on the western nose of the island. I've seen virtually nothing of one of the prettiest islands in the world. Which might just become a feature of this list...
And this is even more tenuous. I changed planes in Bali. Didn't leave the airport. Having barely seen any westerners for the first week being in Bali airport was a bit of a reality jolt. We were due to go back to Bali but this volcano thing still hasn't made up its mind...
Friday, 20 October 2017
Crocodile Vs Shark
Wednesday, 18 October 2017
Bananas for Bromo
Monday, 16 October 2017
Djogdja


Saturday, 14 October 2017
Where to Start?

1. Beer is not easy to come by.
2. The food here is spicy. The sambal with lunch was spicier than any streetfood I ate in India.
Friday, 29 September 2017
Too Essexy For My Shirt
Figured I ought to slow down the gallivanting and appreciate what's around me, because Essex is looking particularly handsome this Autumn with its new yellowy orange coat on. Castle Park, Marks Hall, even Essex Regiment Way all have a certain golden dignity about them.
So let's talk Essex:
Coggeshall
When I heard Baumann's had closed I was sad. But I went there and it's still the same. Apparently the old Head Chef has taken over, so aside from it being called Ranfield's (which is much easier to spell) it is the same. You should go. The food is awesome.
Fingringhoe
I saw a kingfisher. That makes the UK my third kingfisher country of the year. Fairly sure that's never happened before.
Colchester
I've been dabbling in Street Hunt. It is super geeky. Thought it would be right up my leafy boulevard but frankly, my knowledge of suburban Tendring is nowhere near good enough. Street Hunt, you have defeated me.
Chelmsford
And this is the biggy. A bina fide box tick: I went to the horse racing. I didn't understand it. It just seemed to be people getting drunk and making decisions which resulted in them losing money. My complete lack of knowledge of (or interest in) horses probably didn't help. Still, box ticked.
Monday, 18 September 2017
Industrial Drinking
Another trip to South Wales and another opportunity to drink beer in industrial premises. It's starting to become a thing...
Bloomin' love Pontypridd. Gonna keep the blogging about it short because everything I did - rugby, faggots and peas in Ponty market, drink craft beer on an industrial estate - I've mentioned at some point before. But still, ace.
Also ace was The Ferryman. Everyone else has already told you to see it. They're correct. That is all.
Sunday, 3 September 2017
Highway to Hull
Wednesday, 30 August 2017
The New Normal
So I've been back a month now and, frankly, I'm quite enjoying pottering around Essex doing Essexy things. Keeping it local. I took the foot ferry from Brightlingsea to East Mersea. How Essex is that?
It's been weird seeing what's changed and what hasn't. I was aware of some of the big changes (Bond Street) but it's the smaller changes that have perhaps been more surprising. I mean Baroosh has gone, that is a surprise. What happened? It was perpetually busy and overpriced, surely that's the dream combination for a successful business.
What else? The UB is a gin and real ale bar. The Snip is flat. The Saharan restaurant is now a Turkish restauant and the Co-op is about to be a turkish restaurant - who knew there was that much demand for souvlaki? Oh and a new Co-op has popped up to feed the student market.
I have had a sneaky London sneak too. Had to get my culture on - drinking craft IPA at the Bottle Bureau wasn't quite culture enough. Went to the Sir John Soane Museum. I hadn't even heard of that. And yet it:
A. was quirky enough to be right up my boulevard.
B. Had a Marc Quinn exhibition on. And
C. Had The Rake's Progress hidden in a cupboard. That's a proper famous painting. Hidden. In an obscure museum. How does that happen?
I doubled down on culture with that Tin Roof play. Didn't get it. It seemed too long and nothing happened. All the powerful character bits were undermined as I just didn't care about the characters. M'eh.
Sunday, 6 August 2017
Sell Out
Thursday, 20 July 2017
Bye Bye Pig City

Best: Sun Temple, Konark
Weirdest: Temple of the Divine Madman, Panaka (yes, yes, I know, but none of the temple-weird that India offered came close. I see your chariot of filth and I raise you two children playing with phallus-a-like human femurs. If you're gonna insist on an Indian weirdest temple then) The Monkey Temple in Jaipur, although the weird was more whatever it was that was going on there, rather than the temple itself.

Tastiest: saffron lassi, Jodhpur
Weirdest: cashew/chocolate/pistachio/glacé cherries/whatever-else-is-around lassi, Konark
Tastiest: anything on the menu, Varangula, Navi Mumbai - this is an interesting cultural case study. A lot of the Brits I know that have been there (correctly) rate it as their favourite Indian curry; all the Indians I know that have been there think it's average.
Weirdest: brain curry, Karims, Old Delhi
Spiciest: Naga chutney, NagaCuisine, Guwahati
Tastiest: Chaat, Kashi Chaat Bhandhar, Varanasi
Sunday, 9 July 2017
Introducing the Bandh


Monday, 26 June 2017
The Open Hand


Sunday, 25 June 2017
Monkey Menace

Monday, 19 June 2017
The North East

Thursday, 15 June 2017
Happy Bloom Day
So I finally read Ulysses.
By which I mean I read Ulysses so you don't have to. Seven hundred pages of thoroughly wasted time.
I'd heard that Leopold Bloom was one of the most well-drawn characters in literature. Personally I found him entirely unbelievable. He speaks in cryptic crossword clues and doesn't have any answers. If we're taking modern references to Troy, I found Achilleus in The Enemy a way better drawn and far more believable character. "Heroes are usually dicks" indeed.
Now I was all ready for it to be incomprehensible, clever-clever bobbins - I'd heard that one of the "chapters" was musical and opened with Joyce "tuning up". Bring on the pretentious.
The main thing I knew about Ulysses was that it was a modernisation of the Odyssey set in 24 hours. That sounded brilliant. Much like Joyce, I've loved the story of the Odyssey since I were a whippersnapper (although unlike Joyce I read the Tony Robinson version, rather than the Charles Lamb) so I'd been looking forward to reading it, just waiting until I was grown up enough for all the modernist self-indulgence.
Given this, I had kind of assumed that there would be a plot. But there didn't seem to be. The whole thing was like one of those filler episodes on a long form TV show, where they spend the whole episode doing exposition just to get the episode count up. Only for the length of a box set (I'm aware I've just described the last series of The Walking Dead). I wanted a cyclops in Temple Bar and a whirlpool in the Liffey; I got a man eating a cheese sandwich and talking about Hamlet.
I'm half tempted to write the novel I wanted to read: Diss and his mates going out to a club - maybe to see a DJ called Troy - stop in a one-eyed cannibal's kebab shop after the club then take ages to get home, as they have to go via the underworld and pass a hydra and turn into pigs. Might need a bit of fine tuning but I'm sure I can work it out.
Inevitably I won't bother. I'd also be very surprised if I got round to trying Finnigans Wake.
Saturday, 10 June 2017
Boulevards of Bishkek

Yssyk-Kol
Wednesday, 7 June 2017
Leprosy Porridge

Monday, 5 June 2017
Myfirzstan

Saturday, 27 May 2017
And on the Sixth Day... (pt. 2)
Well Didsbury Mosque has been in the news this week. Did I tell you I used to live opposite Didsbury Mosque? Guess I wouldn't have mentioned it, no real reason to. It was before they had open days, so I never visited. Barely noticed it was there, apart from Fridays when the street was full of cars. The mosque was doing its Burton Road thing and I was doing mine.
Manchester is ace. I wasn't going to write anything for fear of seeming a grief jumper but I sort of couldn't not.
Once upon a time, I was travelling down the Oxford Road when the whole bus - both decks - spontaneously broke into Maggie May. That's the Manchester I remember, so seeing St Anne's Square spontaneously Oasisise, that made me feel warm and fuzzy. You can add to that the homeless heroes, the Sun boycott, Dan Hett's joke and the general cross-community pulling together that's being reported. It makes this grumpy, old cynic remember the wide-eyed twenty something that desperately wanted to be a part of that city.
Anyway...
Since I've been in Delhi, the Number 1 sight to see (according to Trip Advisor) has been Gurudwara Bangla Sahib. I found this odd as I hadn't heard of it - it doesn't have the international cache of a Red Fort or an India Gate. But then neither does Akshardham and Akshardham is brilliant with its garish, OTT, Disney vibe. Maybe noone has heard of it because the name is too long and my simple English speaking ears just can't comprehend all those syllables.
It was alright. If you stumbled across it you'd think it was ace with its golden ceiling and its domes and its cormorant doing its business in the holy water that people were drinking (some religious idiosyncrasies are weird, aren't they?). It would probably make my Delhi Top 20 but Number 1 is a whole heap more hype than it should have.
Whilst we're talking about religious places with overlong names, I also visited Hazrat Nizam-ud-din Dargah. That would probably feature higher up my recommendation list, although admittedly more for the uncomfortable, juxtaposed weird than the end spectacle. You go into a really local market, then walk barefoot through an intimidating, winding tunnel of beggars before it opens out into the flower-scented religious complex.
Sunday, 21 May 2017
I Can't Believe It's Not Butlin's

Monday, 15 May 2017
Go Cricket!
I did the crickets. I thought I should see what all the fuss is about. It was one of those fancy IPL ones where all the teams have very silly names.
Turns out the crickets is mainly about sweating. It's definitely sweatier watching the crickets than it is playing. Admittedly I have never played the crickets in 40+ heat, so I don't really have an appropriate control sample for my experiment.
Apparently some of the crickets that I saw were famous. Which is nice. I saw a Chrisgayle, which seems to be like a normal cricket but much bigger. A colossus amongst sparrows. And there was no doubting that the crowd love the Viratkohlis even more than they enjoy holding cardboard in the air and cheering at fanfares.
The whole experience was kinda experiencey. We were in the cheap seats which mainly means that: a. You spend the whole time sweating, and b. If you stand up, someone is standing on your seat next time you want to it down.
Judging by the crowd the Viratkohlis definitely won. The Crickets came second. Not sure who came third.
Friday, 12 May 2017
Centurian?
So with last weekend's trip I can claim membership to the Traveler's (sic) Century Club. For those of you that don't know this is a "club" for those people that have "been" to a hundred "countries". I don't know much more about it than that.
What I do know is that they have a broad definition of what going somewhere means - they accept changing planes - and an even broader definition of what constitutes a country - Balaerics anyone? From that and the way they spell "traveller" I'm prejudging that it's a club I don't want to be a member of.
I've not been to a hundred countries. By my definition (it was a distinct visit to see something; the country is in Sporcle's "Countries of the World" quiz) I'm in the mid-eighties, which I don't think is too shabby. By the far more stringent Eldad rules (two full weeks, including two days in the capital city; the country is universally recognised as a country by all UN member states) I'm on the somewhat shabbier sixteen.
Monday, 8 May 2017
Leh Lady Leh

Wednesday, 19 April 2017
Horses for Gorses

Wednesday, 12 April 2017
The Rock Tower

Sunday, 9 April 2017
Clock watching


Tuesday, 4 April 2017
The Tiger's Nest

Sunday, 2 April 2017
Thunderbolt of Flaming Wisdom


Saturday, 1 April 2017
The Land of the Thunder Dragon

A. 5am is a rubbish time to fly, especially given the unpredictable queues at Delhi's passport control.
B. Knowing that you're gonna pass Everest isn't conducive to sleeping on the plane.
The national animal is a takin. They say it came about because an old God (or maybe a King) put the head of a goat on a cow.

Archery is the national sport. Now you're thinking of Olympic archery, aren't you? You're thinking "That's not that weird." Aside from a bow and arrow there's not too much in common with Olympic Archery.
They treat chillies as a vegetable. This means cheesey chillies is a thing. What's not to like about that? It goes well with a nice cup of butter tea. Hmmm. Butter tea.
Monday, 27 March 2017
Dolphins for Breakfast
They love a backwater in Kerala. I thought they were gonna be this super exclusive thing, but nope, they have backwaters everywhere. Even in the middle of the city. Those backwaters are a bit stinky though, not exactly the picture postcard houseboats-and-Chinese-fishing-nets backwaters that they advertise.
Talking of which. First bit of picturesque Keralan waters and there were dolphins, just hanging out. Doing the dolphin thing. In Kochi Harbour. By the Chinese fishing nets. You don't get dolphins in the city centre back in Blighty; Chelmsford needs to up its game.
I snuck out of the city to Cherai Beach, an out-of-season resort town on a superlong stretch of sand where everyone was just lazing - as I guess you do on a beach when there are no tourists. I ate my first Keralan fish thali in about the least restauranty restaurant I've ever seen; a battered patio table beside an old man's house. The food in Kerala is a bit different to the North. You get rice and poppadoms (like a proper British curry) rather than the bread you get in the North. And they love a banana leaf - fish cooked in banana leaf, curry served on a banana leaf, banana served without the banana leaf. The food is still not spicy though, even when they even promised to make it "Indian spicy".
I spent the last day cruising the backwaters (box ticked). The nice ones, not the stinky ones. You could tell they were nice, they were full of water snakes and kingfishers: if there's one thing I know about water snakes and kingfishers, it's that they are very particular about their accommodation.