Oranges: The New Black

I like Seville. There's a mighty buzz about the place. Especially on a Saturday afternoon, when every square is chock full of people drinking beer. When i say "chock full", I don't mean that all the al fresco dining seats had been taken, I mean that people were standing shoulder to shoulder absolutely filling any public space near anything resembling a bar. I  asked someone what people were celebrating. Turns out it was Saturday.

There are orange trees everywhere. They give a certain Mediterranean exoticism to a boulevard of Moorish architecture or a palace garden, but when they are growing through a rundown, seventies precinct they just seem a bit desperate. In the time I was in town, I didn't see anyone pick an orange. If you had that many oranges in a UK town hey wouldn't last the weekend.

I thought Seville but give me a Wow moment. I was expecting it to come from the cathedral (biggest in the world, by a basilica technicality) or its donkey tower  (you have to bring your own donkey, disappointing). Maybe from the Real Azucar or from the enormous, fungal parasol. But no, it came from Plaza de Espana, a shiny hotchpotch of pillars and water that I really wasn't expecting.

Much like with not appreciating that Leipzig was in Saxony, I didn't appreciate that Seville was in Andalusia - I'd never really given much thought to where Andalusia was. Once I found out, well that meant Debaser was cemented into my head.

I Like The Way You Move

Gentrification, hey? To be honest, I'm surprised it took so long.

Have you been to the Duke? It's round the back of Waterloo, across the Millennium Park from the Old Vic. You may have been on a grim Tuesday night whilst waiting for a train or something. You might have walked in, then quickly left due to it seeming just a little bit intimidating. If this is the case then you probably won't understand why the mourning. Just another London pub that hadn't moved with the times.

If you've been at the weekend though, what a different place. It's karaoke armageddon.  What a stonker of a night. I've been going fairly regularly for six years now and I'm gutted that it's closing down at the end of the month (only for a refurbishment, but it's hanging hands, and I just don't see it being the same afterwards).  If you've not been, go there, you've got three 'oke opportunities left.

Last night was my last Duke. Ben sang Minnie the Moocher. Claude brought his own CD. Students made chants for all the singers. I sang Ms Jackson with a stranger. Everyone got very drunk. Standard Duke. A man at the bar said, "This is the greatest Friday night there is." He might just be right. Duke of Sussex, thanks for all the good times and here are your best bits:
 
Honest Dave * The really drunk Norwegian girl * New metal No Scrubs * Kevin Spacey * Funky Cold Medina * PK's 30th * Slurring Your Mother's Got a Penis at a bemused room * Anna Burns Burns Burns * The first time Dom sang * Hugging a tramp * Jump Around * "Jane"'s sister subverting She Loves You * The fight * But most of all, yeah, most of all, I like the way you move.
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In other news I saw the Noise Next Door this week.  The whole concept of a comedy, improv boyband filled me with dread, but they had been recommended to me, so I figured I ought to see them.  They were brilliant (if you ignore the maybe ten minutes where they drifted into the self-indulgent parlour game territory).

Last week I almost posted about going to Cambridge for a gig. I couldn't think of anything to write that did't make me sound like Clarkson, so I said nothing at all.

Here's a question for you, internet, why is Cthulhu so popular at the moment.  Lately, nary a week goes by without me seeing a Cthulhu reference - is there some kind of Lovecraft revival going on that I'm unaware of? Or is it just that I mix in circles pretentious enough to reference characters in fairly obscure, 1920s, sci-fi novels

Bach to the Future

So Leipzig wasn't quite what I expected. I had heard that it was multicultural, I expected that that would mean it was a bit edgy and a bit arty. In reality it meant that it was easier to get a pho than  bratwurst. It was strangely difficult to eat German - or maybe the person I asked for recommendations was an idiot ("Where can I go for some local food? I want something really GDR." "Try Vapiano, that's really good." "Isn't that a chain Italian?") - I ended up in the German equivalent of Brewers' Fayre eating an underwhelming pile of pork.

Anyway, enough about food (never enough about food), Leipzig tricked me with some culture. They had a concert, doing some Bach at St Thomas Church where Bach was kantor. That sounded pretty Bachy (ergo pretty cultured) to me, but the whole experience turned out to be a bit religious. The bounders.

I had the obligatory bleak museum trip today - the Stasi museum in the old Runde Ecke headquarters. I think that that's the most fake noses I've seen in a museum.

Other Leipzig observations:
- they love an alleyway;
- they have probably the shiniest church i have ever seen;
- they don't seem to be set up for foreign tourists;
- I wasn't set up for week-old snow.

Talking of which, my afternoon in Berlin slip-sliding through slush was a very different Berlin to the 30 degree football frenzied Berlin that i visited a decade ago.

One other thing, the efficiency of German public transport is wildly exaggerated. I can cope with fifteen minute delays (that just reminds me of home), but unmanned stations where cash machines give out fifties and the ticket machines don't accept them smells a bit like inefficiency to me. Sort it out, Germany, I expect better of you.

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.