Rotterdam or Anywhere

Now I can just about see how you could confuse Rotterdam with Liverpool (both big port cities with shiny new waterfronts) but Rome? Really? I've been to very few cities that are less like Rome than Rotterdam. The only similarity is that capital R.

Rotterdam gets a big fat thumbs up. The buildings are well architecture (I was able to namedrop Renzo Piano and sound like I knew what I was talking about) and there seemed to be a background hum of exciting stuff happening across the city. You know? Like art and culture and stuff?

Just been on a bike ride through that there rolling Utrecht countryside. Cycled through the red light district - most bizarre - just like the Amsterdam one, with its knocky windows, but on a series of houseboats right next to a motorway.

One thing I've learned this weekend is that my phone doesn't work abroad. I don't know what's more surprising, that in 2012 there are phone networks which don't have international roaming as standard, or that it's taken me four countries to notice.

Come and Gdansk With Me

I kinda went to Gdansk at the weekend for a joke. Don't get me wrong, it was a lovely joke. I ate sausage soup served in a bread roll and listened to Polish versions of Irish sea shanties. So far so lovely.

It went a little bit sour on the way home. Had my first emergency landing. I say it went sour, it went way more sour for the guy having a heart attack in front of 200 other people with no other in flight entertainment. Someone was taking photos on their phone - makes me embarrassed to be human. Poor guy - absolute best case scenario he's stuck in Germany and missed his holiday, whilst some arse blogs about it.

In other news Heart-shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne is very good, unlike Blogger which has decided that it no longer likes paragraphs.

Is This An Ostrich I See Before Me?

Now I'm fully aware that this little blog thing that I write isn't one of those things that informs the zeitgeist. I don't have to worry that me saying I like something is going to lead to a rush of panic buying and general unavailability.

That being said, I don't really have any other outlets to big up things that I like, so I'm going to have to use this. I saw two things that were really good yesterday.

The first - Inside Out Animals - is pretty well known. Even the most a-cultural amoeba has heard of the Natural History Museum, right? And Inside Out Animals is Gunter Von Hagens latest derring-do so has arrived in a demi-maelstrom of hype. That in no way stops it being brilliant, it just means I don't need to do anything other than give it a casual thumbs up.

The second was a version of Macbeth set in a disused prison in Clerkenwell. By talking about it I risk turning into a gushing fool, so I'll be succinct. It was definitely the Shakespeare that I've enjoyed the most and, off the top of my head, I can't think of a play I've enjoyed more. It's on for a month. See it.

Hot Crossed Pun

I really want to go for a run. Why is that? For the last while I've felt like I should go for a run because I was "in training" for a race and I really didn't want to, because if you've got to do something it becomes a chore. But now that I can't put all that much pressure on my ankle without it hurting, I know that I shouldn't go for a run, but really want to.

Things I've learnt since my last blog entry:

1. There's a reason why people don't do cross-country races in dresses and fishnets. Neither very good for running in when muddy.

2. Dean Macey and Dean Gaffney are two different people (my friends are starting to get irked by how little I know about popular culture).

3. Barbecued python isn't great.

Always be a Town in my Eyes

So the football team is no longer a misnomer, it now is Chelmsford City.

Whoop.

But hang on a minute, something doesn't sit quite right. Doesn't this increase in the number of cities there are devalue city status, more than it bigs up bland, suburban nowhereville?

Chelmsford, like Preston before it, is a town. No two ways about it. It's a medium-sized market town with a small, ill-equipped centre, acting as a commuter base for a nearby metropolis. That's not something to be celebrated. It's like putting an ornamental nameplate on a garden shed, it just serves to make ornamental name plates seem tacky.

Pleasant? Yes. Safe? Yes. Somewhere you would want to raise a family? Undoubtedly. A City? Nope. Not a chance. I appreciate that Chelmsford is marginally more city-esque than some of the other "cities", St Asaph and St David's spring to mind, but that doesn't justify anything, except maybe that we've already got too many cities. If I had my way I would reduce it to a manageable number - ten maybe - and only include cities that are actually cities: big urban areas where things happen.

Obviously if you're not from Chelmsford and try to say it doesn't deserve city status then you are categorically wrong, it does - it's got a Cathedral,a Crown Court, a Prison, a University and a whole heap of history - but it's my prerogative to slate my hometown. Illogical, but fact. So there.

Till the End

Lately I've been getting annoyed with till receipts. I just seem to end up with so many of them balled up in coat pockets / tucked inside my wallet. Surely in an increasingly green world there is no need for a small piece of paper to exist saying that when I bought a pint of milk I received 6p change. It's littering my person.

Speaking of littering. Virgin Media seem to be doing their best to litter inside of my house, they seem to send me at least one offer of cable tv a month, normally more. Not sure how many they need to send before it counts as fly-tipping or harassment. I'm going to do my best never to buy another Virgin product.

In other news, I went to the theatre last night - Bingo with Professor X. Didn't really get the play, it was a bit too, erm, cerebral for me (given how excited I am about the Hunger Games at the moment, that's not saying much - incidentally, did you read Gary Ross's splendid denial of how much HG is like Battle Royale? Quote "I promise you, the main character in Battle Royale didn't end up in a revolution and become a Joan of Arc leading an uprising." I'm not sure I like how casually this man breaks his promises). Highlight for definite was the older lady in front of me falling asleep then waking herself up by projectile vomiting on the row in front. The chunky arc looked beautiful in the theatrical lighting.

Concrete Jungle That Dreams Are Made Of

New York, New York - so good they named it twice. Only one thing to do with that kind of hype - a one-day smash-and-grab of Philadelphia. In your face you over-sized, pomacious metropolis.

Philadelphian highlight? Was it the Liberty Bell? Was it the birthplace of America? Of course not, down in the boho ghetto a crazy man has turned his house into a mosaic - Philadelphia Magic Garden, down on South Street - and whilst you're down on South Street you can get yourself a Philly cheesesteak. Or not bother, because it's just a hard to eat sandwich. Overrated.

Speaking of which, one of the big things I was aiming at whilst in the States was to eat as many of the local dishes as was viable. So here goes the Traveller Cliche guide to the cuisine of Louisiana - remember I eat these things so you don't have to:

Biscuits and Gravy
Biscuits and gravy? Get right in my face you. Oh no, wait, you're not what I was expecting at all - you're flavourless bits of dough in a boring white sauce. How mundane? I was expecting chocolate hobnobs in beefstock - at least that would've provoked a reaction of more than an ambivalent shrug.

Crawfish Etoufee
What is the fuss about. People go crazy for this and I don't understand. It's not unpleasant - well the taste isn't unpleasant, the smells fairly bad and the texture / look reminds you just how crawfish live - but it's not something I'd go voodoo for.

Grits
Feels a bit like you're eating an ants' nest. Taste's alright though.

Gumbo
Watered-down curry.

Shrimp Po'boy
Right, shrimp bo-boy sounds really quite exotic whereas a scampi sandwich sounds a bit Kerri Katona. They're the same thing.

Oysters
If you deep-fry stuff in breadcrumbs it tastes of chicken - why would you do that to the poor little oysters?

Jambalaya
Jambalaya=good