My New Blog

As I promised last time I updated this I have now got a new blog on the go. I know it's taken a while but Rome wasn't built in a day you know!!! Anyway, here is the new address:

http://typingaloud.blogspot.com/

See you there.

Sorry, Can You Say That Again?

So here it as promised, the long awaited next entry. On this trip I saw some amazing things, experienced a whole range of new stuff, met some odd and great people and heard some of the most ridiculous things ever. This entry is dedicated to the most idiotic comments I heard on the journey. I have left my own little snide remarks and the country of origin of the guilty party to try and pad it out a bit. I hope you are sitting comfortably because here we go:

"Can I get a no gas water?" American - surely 'no gas water' is just water.

"Is there a beach in Prague?" American - beaches, my old chum, are incredibly hard to find in countries with no coast line.

"I'm a feminist." said by a Canadian MAN, how, as a man, can you possibly be a feminist.

"What is a kilogram?" American - no comment is necessary here I feel.

"Budapest? Where is that?" American - I just about give up. Idiot, absolute idiot.

Guilty Party: "Where are you from?"
Me: "Leeds, in northern England."
Guilty Party: "Oh I know someone from Leeds, his name is Pete, do you know him?" Australian - Maybe not so much stupid as just a bit dim.

"I've just been to Croatia, someone asked me if I'd enjoyed Split, I've never even heard of Split." American - Despite the fact that about 10 years ago you couldn't switch on the news without hearing about Split and the Croatian war, she had just been in the bloody country for a week. Moron.

"North Americans speak proper English, you English don't know how to speak the language properly". Canadian - I'm sorry but that is bollocks. Words such as gotten, favor(it's got a 'U' in it for God's sake) and gnarly are proof enough that that is rubbish. The next comment provides indisputable evidence.

"Great D man." American - You mean good defending, knobhead.

When ordering food in restaurant;
Idiot: "What's the tagliatelle?"
Waitress: "It's just pasta."
Idiot: "Oh, that sounds absolutely beautiful, I'll have that." Canadian - I know this isn't really that stupid, it's just been irritating me for weeks.

"England are going to win the World Cup." Me - I'm afraid that was 4 litres of Augustiner Brau Munchen talking.

Now whilst all these comments are 'special' in their own way, I have to dedicate a whole section to one very unique American individual. He came out with all these unbelievable things:

"What? Auschwitz is in Poland?" I'm actually lost for words at this point.

"Where is Poland? The man was in Germany, it's boarder country at the time.

"What is Scandinavia anyway?" He was going to Sweden the next day. Incredible.

Commenting on Cologne Dom:
"Why is it called a Dom, it's not dome shaped at all!" In this crazy world of translations, 'Dom' means 'Cathedral' in German.

Me: "Did you know that the Dom took 600 years to build?"
Idiot:"What? And they are still building it, look!" They were doing some cleaning repairs at the time.

I know there is an overwhelming amount of statements from Americans here, and I am not intentionally picking on the States, I do genuinely like Americans, but fuck me do they come out with some stupid things.

Anyway, it's time to go now and call time on this blog. I will be starting up another one in a few days about little curiosities and things that impress and annoy me and I will post a link to it on here. But until then, remember kids, there is no substitute for an education and please, pretty please, remember to think before you talk.

All that is left for me to say is "We'll meet again, I don't know where, I don't know when, but I'm sure we'll meet again in cyberspace",
Goodbye,
Rich

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane, Don't Know When I'll Be Back Again - Part 2

That heading should technically read 'I've Left On A Jet Plane, Don't Know When I'll Be Back Again - Part 2' as I am writing this entry back under the cloudy skies of Cleckheaton but it wouldn't have had the same John Denveresque qualities if I'd written it that way now would it.

For those that were paying attention when I first started writing this blog you may be more than a little surprised to find out that I am back in the art and culture capital that is Cleckheaton instead of the unruly and unrefined surroundings of Florence, but, true to form I spent all my money on alcohol and McDonald's again so I've had to return home. Don't worry though as this will not be my last entry, I'm in the process of preparing something that I hope will amaze and amuse in equal proportions. You'll have to check back in a day or so for that though as now I need to give you the lowdown (although considering the amount of mountains that should probably be highdown) on Switzerland.

As I have been judging entire countries on the performance of 1 city for most of this trip I feel it would be wrong of me to break with tradition now I am at home, so the future of Swiss tourism is precariously balanced in the hands of Interlaken. Luckily for the Swiss tourist board, Interlaken is absolutely amazing as you can probably tell from the accompanying photo. You may also like to note that I have added photos to my other entries as well. I would have done that whilst I was traveling to give you visual as well as literary pleasure but I forgot to take my USB cable with me which rendered my uploading capabilities somewhat useless.

Anyway, enough of the incoherent rambling about technical crap, let's get stuck into the meat and bones of Interlaken. After I left Copenhagen I traveled down to Nurenburg as a stop over on my way to Interlaken. A quick comment on Nurenburg, it is seemingly quite a nice place and after Germany lost to Italy in the World Cup semi finals you would probably expect it to be a little subdued, but instead it morphed into Little Italy with flags awaving and car horns abeeping everywhere you turned.

The train journey from Germany to Switzerland was top banana. Traveling along the banks of Lake Thun and Lake Brienz was very special, the water looked so clean and pure it was untrue. Once again we got lost looking for the hostel, that was until we bumped into a Finnish guy named Tuukku who was one of the craziest but funniest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. His main aim in life was to use the following 3 phrases: "I love you", "Follow that cab" and "Pint o' lager please barman." Genius. The first day in Interlaken was spent just getting used to my new surroundings which was helped and hindered in equal proportions by a 2 for 1 happy hour. Except this wasn't a normal happy hour as it lasted for 2 hours. Hello Mr Hangover, very nice to meet you.

Having been forced to rise early the next day by the hostel room cleaning police, Tom and I decided in our infinite wisdom to go mountain biking which was great fun, incredibly tiring but still great fun. For some reason every time I went careering off down a hill uncontrollably I felt compelled to sing the Superman theme tune at the top of my lungs which I enjoyed immeasurably but left a few farmers looking confused. Despite the fact that the heavens opened the moment we sent off and didn't relent until we got back it was absolutely mega. The mountains and scenery were perfect, if you can get better than perfect then they were probably that and it is something I would recommend to anyone. BRILLIANT!!

When we got back to the hostel we had some new room mates, Koreans this time. It has to be said I love people from the Far East as they keep giving me gifts. The first person from that part of the world that I met was my Japanese flat mate at university, who I called Mikoto despite that not actually been his name, who gave me a carton of Ribena Toothkind as a welcoming gift. Then there were the Koreans in Australia who gave me an ornate money bag to put money in so my wealth would grow. I put a dollar in that until I had to get it out again because I ran out of money. This time around, despite uttering no more than a courteous 'hello', I received a packet of Ritz Peanut Butter crackers. This would have been a great gift as I was very hungry at the time but they had to go straight in the bin due to my life threatening nut allergy. Still, kudos to the Orient.

The next day I decided to go for a swim in Lake Brienz, although I ventured down the wrong path and ended up stranded at the cusp of a fast flowing river so I had to feed the ducks instead which got boring after about 2 minutes (kind of like reading this I guess) so I went to Hooters to get something to eat, which, due to the attractiveness of Swiss girls, was great.

But anyway, the time has come for me to close yet another chapter on this trip. Switzerland easily slips into second place on the country leader board with a score of 8.99/10, mainly because of the scenery but also because of the Ritz crackers.

So as I say check back again either tomorrow or the day after for my next update but until then it is au revoir, auf wiedersehen, dag, szervusz, zbohem, hej, goodbye,
Mr Richard C Allinson

If Music Be The Food Of Love. . .Rock On!

So, as sure as day follows night and tock follows tick, so arrives another update in the greatest piece of 21st century literature since yesterdays copy of The Sun.

I've just arrived back in the land of the living having been at the Roskilde music festival for 6 days. I arrived back into Copenhagen in the early hours of Monday morning on what was something akin to Madnesses 'Night Boat To Ciaro', except it was a train and I was going to Copenhagen. The reason for this hasty departure from the festival was because we appeared to somehow get camped in the scally part of the festival site where 16 year old kids thought it'd be a top notch idea to set fire to tents. I know my tent stinks but arson is a bit strong! I'll get on to talking about the festival and Denmark in a minute, but first we have the small matter of Berlin to contend with.

As I'm sure you remember (and if you don't just scroll down and read it again) I signed off last time by mentioning the Berlin wall and a certain Mr Hasselhoff and my mission to locate both. Unfortunately, but perhaps more significantly, I only managed to loacte the wall. It was the longest stretch at some 300m and it did make you think about the the odd history Germany has had but also what a crap job the Russians did in trying to stamp their authority on the world. I was diassapointed to find that the aforementioned Mr Hasselhoff wasn't still 'Dancing To Freedom' atop the wall, but let's face it it was always a long shot!

To give a brief overview on what else Berlin had to offer, Checkpoint Charlie was quite interesting, The Jewish Museum (a museum about the history of Jews, turns out they don't have a very interesting history) the Reichstag and the Bradenburg gate. Just a quick comment on the gate, apparantly I was 1 of 1 million people there to witness Germany against Sweeden. That is a lot of people to watch television.

Now, as many of you are aware I'm not exactly a fan of what the kid's call 'dance music', infact i'd even go so far as to say "burn down the disco, hang the blessed DJ" (Morrisey/Marr) But that said Berlin is meant to be the capital of European club culture so I thought I'd put on my dancing shoes and hit the dancefloor. However, in my own inimitable style, we mangaed to end up in a place that bared more than a striking resemblence to the loft in which Oliver Twist, The Artful Dodger, Fagen and Bill Sykes AKA Oliver Reed lived i.e. it was a shithole. The whole feel of it was nicely complemented by the fact that instead of having your run of the mill furniture they had deck chairs.

A couple of final things on Berlin, on the way to the Brandenburg Gate you had to walk past the Adlon Hotel i.e. the hotel from which Michael Jackson felt it necesary to dangle his baby over the balcony. Chamone Motherf*cker!! Also, and this doesn't relate to Berlin specifically but more so to every country I've been to so far. It appears that you don't have to pay for public transport in Europe, I mean, yes, you are supposed to and, no, it's not optional but no one actually pays, it's quite remarkable really.

As for the rating the old east Germany gets i'll give it a decent score of 7.61. It was good just not as good as it's western counterpart.

Next stop after Germany was Copenhagen before Roskilde and the train journey was incredible for the sole reason that the train transformed into a ferry. I'm not talking the full Optimus Prime routine here obviously but the train had to be parked on a ferry to take us across the island on which Copenhagen is located. A bit more advanced than Richard Branson and his tilting tracks!

Not much really happened in Copenhagen, although I did make a sucessful return to the Sydney Two For One Tuesday eating contests when I consumed a pizza that was at least 22 inches in diameter - viva la junkfood!

Get ready to rock out now because i'm about to turn the amps up to 11 and tell you about Roskilde and it has to be said it was brilliant. However, it was on the first night when there was no music and I was bored out my tree drinking cans of warm Tuborg and upmarket goon that I decided as a trainee lawyer I was maybe a bit too old for this camping and not washing lark and made the conscious descision that this was to be my last festival. However, Thursday came around, the music started and I soon changed my mind.

The day kicked off rather late with Editors followed by Radio Soulwax, a little bit of Guns 'n' Roses (I missed most of this because I'd heard that the singer wasn't gonna turn up because he had been arrested for biting a security gaurd). After that I moved on to watch Sigur Ros, who were wicked right up until the point that somebody vomited on my shoes. These, were no ordinary shoes either, these were the same pair of Converse Allstars that I have been wearing for the last 5 years and I was going to retire them in some kind of prize giving ceremony at the end of the festival but the vomiter went and ruined all that.

Anyway enough of the sentimental crap, Friday saw me entertained by the likes of Babar Luck, Gogol Bordello, Martha Wainwright, Morrisey, Rufus Wainwright, Bob Dylan and The Streets. I have to give a special mention to Bob Dylan in the most uncomplementry way possible as he was shite to an unbelievable level.

Saturday.Football.Portugal.Wankers.Bollocks. Other than that I went to see a DJ called Tiga who played a rather dubious version of Everyday I Love You Less And Less by the Kaiser Chiefs and Kanye West who did a mega mix approaching Jive Bunny proportions which included Eurythmics, The Verve, Al Green, Michael Jackson and A-Ha.Bonkers.

I´ve already told you how Sunday finished but that was in direct contrast to the rest of the day which began with Arctic Monkeys, followed closely by The Strokes who were absolutly brilliant, then Franz Ferdinand and finally the Kaiser Chiefs who were most entertaining indeed. I would have gone back to see Roger Waters do Dark Side Of The Moon in full, but for a couple of reasons i.e. he´s shit and a pikey was going to burn my tent down I left early. I also went swimming on Sunday, that´s right, they had a swimming lake at a festival. If you are reading Mr Eavis, pull your socks up and get that sorted for Glastonbury next year please.Thank you.

Anyway, I´m in Switzerland now, and rest assured I´ll give you the lowdown on that soon but Denmark gets a score of 8.5, mainly because of the festival. If it was for the actual country it´s self it would still score quite highly but it would be more in the 7.1 region as it is so expensive and there is not a great deal to do.

I´m going now,
Rich