Author: admin

The Rheinube River Ramble Part 7

admin

After an uneventful trip back to Manchester – well uneventful to the extent we only got lost once – we set off for the first day on our river cruise, the main reason we are over here.

Day one was not promising. The travel company wanted to pick us up at 6.27 am for a 10 minute ride to the airport and an 11.10am flight. Not bloody likely. Sitting around airports is bad enough without having to spend an extra two hours in one. But the airports did get even with us because our connecting flight from Amsterdam to Zurich was delayed by two hours. Such is life.

As seems to be the case whenever we go on a cruise, the CB and I are amongst the youngest on board. I know we’re not the youngest on this one because my cousin (Cuz1) and cousin-in-law (Cuz2) are with us. As we approach the Black Forest for our first excursion, and this is going to sound rather mean-spirited, I look around the bus and there are as many chins on chests as there are socks and sandals and walking implements.

But us youngsters stick together and relax together which is the main reason we are here. And what options do you have to relax on a boat – round the pool or in a bar. That’s a no-brainer for someone with my complexion and I have to say Cuz1 is a prodigious beer drinker even if he is universally acknowledged as the most impractical man in the world. Still you don’t have to be able to bang in a nail if you can successfully prosecute a court case while throwing down a pint of lager.

Speaking of bars, we went to the boat bar last night and stumbled on a quiz night. We weren’t going to participate but Cuz2’s competitive juices began to flow when we knew the answer to the first question, so we were in. A commendable equal second place finish was probably as good as could be expected considering the opposition. Let’s face it, some of them are useless on hilly, cobbled streets with their hip replacements and walking sticks but anything that happened in the 20th century, most of them had read about it in the newspaper. Another early night sacrificed on the Bacchanalian altar.

Yesterday we did our own thing in Strasbourg rather than go on a guided tour. Strasbourg is in France but very close to the German border and through history has alternated between the two countries so the people behave like surly waiters but are really, really efficient. It’s a beautiful city spoilt by two things – the EU parliament and graffiti. Graffiti is ubiquitous (as is the EU in E) which goes to show, there are idiots everywhere (including in the EU parliament which is no different to any other) and they’re worse in this part of the world because they are spraying centuries old buildings. At least our graffiti vandals in Australia have the good grace to paint the outside of moving trains and occasionally fall off.

Notwithstanding the obvious draw-back of graffiti, European history is front and centre almost everywhere. Also, wherever you go in the world where there is any degree of tourist interest, the Chinese are there in numbers. So a visit to the Renaissance era (although it was started in the 13th century) Heidelberg Castle was like watching a Chinese progressive dinner as they rushed from one stop to the next. I was reminded of the old saying, “if it’s Wednesday, this must be Belgium”. But if you consider that a few years ago Heidelberg was visited by 3 million tourists a year and it’s now 11 million a year, the Chinese are doing an excellent job of redistributing wealth which is what you would expect from a good communist / capitalist people.

The Rheinube River Ramble Part 6

admin

We are now back in merry England – York – after a slightly longer than expected drive down from Nairn. Nigella the satnav lady and various roundabouts, especially around Perth (Scotland not Western Australia – we weren’t that lost) conspired to send us in the wrong direction numerous times but we got here in the end. Incidentally, the CB thinks the satnav lady sounds like Theresa May. I much prefer Nigella.

Now that we are here I can safely say I have never seen so many speed cameras – the ones that calculate your average speed. In the three hours or so driving south from Nairn on the A roads before hitting the motorways we passed one every few miles. I am not exaggerating. They were everywhere. If the UK government cut the speed camera construction budget in half they’d be able to house the homeless. And show me a politician who won’t say they are there for road safety reasons. Of course they are. And everywhere else in the world.

In my previous post I commented on the paucity of economic activity in Scotland, especially the Highlands. I forgot the speed cameras which are probably their biggest revenue earner. This epitomises why I could never be a politician. To stand in front of a camera (of the filming variety) and say with a straight face that speed cameras are a road safety initiative is not something I am willing to do. In fact I often look at politicians (pick a country, it doesn’t matter which) and wonder how they can say what they say and expect that we, the great unwashed, will believe them. I’d be hanging over a toilet bowel puking with embarrassment if I was required to mouth the sanctimonious claptrap they come out with on a regular basis with nary a smirk.

I need to write something with a bit more substance than speed cameras and politicians. Did I mention windmills. No no. Get back to you tomorrow after a day in York.

Being in York means being in crowds again. On a walk round the Minster last evening we saw many flag waving tour guides surrounded by posses of gawking tourists from all over the world. And gawk-worthy York Minster most certainly is. We saw nature’s majesty in the Highlands of Scotland and here we saw an example of man’s ingenuity and a gothic engineering feat hard to reconcile with the time of construction.

The crowds reminded me of one of those useless statistics that you occasionally hear and which I am guilty of using myself (see A Toe-Hold on Insanity). At the Loch Ness Visitor’s Centre we are told that the world’s population can fit into Loch Ness three times over. I once worked out that if you gave every person in the world 100 square metres of land you could get everyone into two thirds of Queensland. So don’t tell me the world’s over populated. It’s under utilised. It’s not over-population (or climate) that causes famines, it’s people, specifically despotic scumbag politicians. How did we get back to them again?

And with crowds come things the British have come to be famous for and have developed considerable expertise in – queues. Imagine the refinement of this cultural imperative if an unreconstructed old communist like Jeremy Corbyn takes over and empties the shops of anything worth buying. Anyway, the CB and I haven’t had a good queue since the Peak Tram in Hong Kong over a week ago so it was good to get back to civilisation outside the Viking Centre, one of the very many interesting historical York attractions including 400 year old pubs – now that’s history worth studying.

The Rheinube Ramble Part 5

admin

Just sat down with a Highland Park single malt and it’s seductive properties are making me wonder why I started writing this when my attention should be elsewhere. Back in a short (or maybe not so short) while.

It’s now a day later – that’s a serious seduction. This is a whisky which is distilled in the Orkney Islands and I have discovered to my very pleasant surprise that it is available at our local Uncle Dan’s in Brisbane. Oh joy.

The reason I have been able to sample this drop is because our hosts at the Cawdor House B&B in Nairn have provided a whisky bar honour system arrangement. How civilised is that? This gives me a perfect opportunity to mention our hosts of the past week as this is our last day in Scotland. So, to Jan at Beaches in Ayr, Toby and Bev (a couple of Aussies) at Mansefield House in Fort William, Agnes at Hazel Bank on the Isle of Skye and Andy and Anika at Cawdor House, many thanks for making our trip to Scotland memorable and enjoyable. And thanks Andy for allowing me to sample the aforementioned Highland Park – one of those unexpected pleasures that we live for.

They’ll probably never read this but you never know. On a cold miserable Highlands winter’s day, one of them, with nothing better to do, may type the name of their establishment into Google and there on page 412 will be a link to this blog.

Now back to said blog.

Yesterday we travelled from the Isle of Skye to here, Nairn near Inverness. On our way we got lost in Fort Augustus because I forgot to look at the compass in the car. We needed (I thought) to cross from the right side of Loch Ness or its southern equivalent to the left side for the trip north. After five traverses of the town and wondering why the satnav kept taking us in the opposite direction to what we thought we wanted, I realised we had travelled south into Fort Augustus and not north – duh!

Then we stopped at the Loch Ness Visitor’s Centre and were told why every sighting and theory regarding the monster does not stand up to even (in some cases) the most cursory scrutiny. Way to kill your business. I always had Nessie up there with Santa and the Tooth Fairy as romantic fantasy figures but there’s no Centre for the Debunking of Santa Claus is there.

Next stop Inverness. The traffic is as bad as Bangkok. That’s all you need to know.

Today we found a pub. Also, we visited some wonderful places – the very solemn Culloden Moor, site of the last major battle on British soil in 1746 which the Jacobites who were mostly and nominally Scots lost resoundingly to the mostly and nominally English. Incidentally we also visited Fort George, built in the 1750’s and 1760’s mostly to help quell any future Jacobite uprising which never came. There was a reenactment of scenes from the TV series Outlander being performed. And the people watching were still cheering for the Jacobites. That’s loyalty for you. I’m also reminded of an old adage regarding doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. If you don’t know about Outlander, look it up. Or not – suit yourself.

But yes. We found a pub – the Cawdor Tavern. I have previously commented about the scarcity of pubs up here. So we had to go in and sample their wares which were more than adequate. A modicum of confidence in Scotland was restored but I have to say Jocks, you’re about 5000 behind Ireland at this stage.

While on the subject of Cawdor, those of you with a smattering or English Lit may recognise the linkage with Shakespeare, specifically Macbeth who aspired to be and eventually became (by nefarious means) the Thane of Cawdor. We visited the castle and said hello in passing to the Dowager Duchess who still lives there and looks nothing like you would imagine Lady Macbeth to look. She wasn’t even carrying a dagger.

Now we all consider Scots to be quite dour (apart from Billy Connelly) but the person who wrote the commentary about the various rooms and features in Cawdor Castle was either me or someone with a rather unusual piss-taking sense of humour. So we read about the maid whose job it was (ostensibly) to warm the duke’s bed and how British Rail could learn from the Duke’s train time keeping and many more nuanced comments which I can’t remember now because it’s quite late.

I’m going to finish today’s entry with a bit of political commentary. Scotland wants to be independent. I suspect this is one of those all care and no responsibility independence plans, as in they want to be masters of their own destiny but want the English to pay for it.

And get away with it they will have to because the Highlands comprises no manufacturing, a few kelp farms, logging and tourism. So there is very little wealth generation up here. The upside is that consequently the requirement for scenery destroying windmills to provide planet saving power is at a minimum. But they are still making their insidious way into this pristine landscape like so many triffids. But I digress (as usual). Regular readers will be aware of my unhinged hatred of these monstrosities.

And I’m going to finish with another non-sequitur. Why are a bunch of skirt wearing kelp farmers considered so tough as the Highlanders undoubtedly are? I’ve lived here for a week, in summer. And I don’t wear skirts. Even in an Australian summer. Enough said.

The Rheinube Ramble Part 4

admin

When I drive I usually listen to music. Since we’ve been over here we haven’t turned the radio on or tried to Bluetooth anything from my iPad in case it drowns out Nigella the satnav lady. As it is, all we seem to hear from her is “recalculating”. The next bit – “you idiot”- is silent. So if there’s no music coming at me I listen to my own, in my head. I like to go through songs I have learnt or am trying to learn to keep them fresh in my memory. The number of songs I know would keep my mind occupied round an average sized roundabout so it’s important I can nail them.

So most of the time I’m singing the words in my head and calling the chords, as in A minor On a dark desert highway, E seven, cool wind in my hair, G, warm smell of colitas, D, rising up through the air, and so on.

But something happened a few days ago, somewhere between Southport and Glasgow. A button was pushed like on those old car radios and my subconscious said, “hey, what happened to Hotel California and why are we singing “But ah wud wok fave hundrred miyles nd ah wud wok fave hundrred more, just t be the mon who woks a thoosand miyles, t fawl doon at her door”. You have to read that with a Scottish accent which is how I got through Trainspotting and some of the other Irvine Welsh books. I don’t proclaim that my phonetic Scottish is up to his standard however.

So as our iPhones automatically adjust the time and weather data wherever we are, it seems my brain automatically knows where I am also and adjusts accordingly. This is an interesting concept because in the younger days of my chosen profession – marketing – I have entertained and been entertained to within an inch of my life and always managed to return to the designated safe haven. Not always with my credit card in the best of shape it has to be said but with life and limb (liver excluded – yes, I know it’s not a limb) intact.

Which brings us to the Isle of Skye off the Scottish coast. It is a land of spectacular scenery and sparse population in keeping with the rest of the Highlands we’ve seen. The child bride and I are staying in a place called Colbost and went out to dinner tonight to a restaurant in a place called Edinbane – the Edinbane Inn. It’s a pub sort of place but it’s also a hotel. Not a pub with rooms to let but a hotel with a bar and restaurant. I make this distinction for a very simple reason – there are no real pubs in the Highlands of Scotland.

In remote Ireland you’re tripping over them but here there aren’t any although apparently there could be one in Stein, not far from here. I’ll never know. But even if there’s one, what are they thinking? And I’m afraid a liberal sprinkling of scotch distilleries is scant compensation.

But I digress because we had previously changed the subject to credit cards. When I tried to pay the bill tonight I discovered my credit card was missing. I thought I’d lost my passport in Istanbul once and the blind panic is somewhat similar. But I hadn’t. I’d mistakenly put it into a different wallet compartment, deeper than the usual one so I couldn’t see it. Anyway, all’s well that ends well. We are in the lounge of our B&B drinking wine, the CB is plotting tomorrow’s activities and I’m just about to finish writing this. Done.

This One Almost Slipped Through the Cracks

admin

I put this in the wrong place originally which is why it seems a bit out of whack – time wise.

A few years ago the child bride and I visited Vietnam. I have previously reported, via the Mekong Muster, a trip through Cambodia and Southern Vietnam. What I’m about to report here occurred a couple of years before that.

Why, you ask, is it now coming to light. The answer is that I am sitting in Hong Kong airport contemplating Day Zero of the about to happen Rheinube River Ramble and associated activities in Europe. A day’s stopover in Honkers was an unexpected (at the time of booking) bonus, hence the “Day Zero”. So I go into Notes in my iPad to jot down a few thoughts on the activities of the past 24 hours and there it is. Long forgotten and totally unblogged. On reading it again, it absolutely deserves to be blogged so here it is. I suspect it is buried in Facebook somewhere but I couldn’t be bothered scrolling back because it’s here. Enjoy (or no, as the case maybe).

Generally when one goes on a holiday, the expectation is of no stress and maximum relaxation, unless you get your jollies climbing mountains or bungee jumping. You don’t expect to have to learn a new set of life skills. And so we thought when we arrived in Saigon. As we were driven to our hotel, a feeling of unease started to develop as we contemplated the next day’s walking tour of the city and wondered whether this involved actually crossing any roads. By foot.

This issue was put temporarily on the back burner when we met our fellow tourists, a couple from the Hunter Valley in NSW, a couple of ladies from Adelaide and a couple from Chester who turned out to be our drinking buddies on the trip. Actually, they would probably claim that we were their drinking buddies as they were much more proactive in seeking out the best imbibing spots where one could indulge a few Vietnamese sherbets.

Anyway, back to the walking tour. If you’ve ever observed a column of ants, you’d have noted that they generally head in the same direction but tend to bounce around the designated track like pin-balls. If they were all on scooters and there were 100 times as many of them, you would get an impression of the average city street in Saigon (and Hanoi). Miraculously the scooters rarely collide with each other or pedestrians but we didn’t know that on that first morning. Needless to say we all needed a stiff scotch by about 10.00am. The trick when crossing roads (and you can forget about traffic lights) is to assume (ha ha ha) that they will avoid you if you walk at a predictable speed in a predictable direction. I’ve seen pedestrians do this in India but with cars to negotiate. India’s road toll is horrendous. Anyway, none of us were maimed so the holiday was a resounding success thus far.

While on the topic of roads and life skills, I’ll jump forward to Hanoi or the road to Halong Bay to be precise. You can look up Halong Bay yourselves (it’s breathtaking) so I won’t get into details. What you won’t read about (apart from here) is the trip from Hanoi to Halong Bay. It’s about 3 hours on average, 5 hours if it’s one of us driving or 2 hours with our driver. I’ve never been in a NASCAR race, nor do I want to but I have an inkling of what it would be like. Imagine you are in a bus in a NASCAR race but the track is only half finished. Now imagine that half the field is travelling in the opposite direction without lights at night time. Now imagine that your driver is Keith Moon. The feeling is as close to helpless as it’s possible to get.

 

The Rheinube River Ramble Part 3

admin

I write a lot of stuff about travel but it’s never been my intention to review accommodation or hand-out “to do” lists although I do occasionally write about these things in passing. I’ll leave that to the Union of Soviet Socialist Lonely Planets and stick to quirky and interesting (to me, anyway) observations.

So I was going to tell you about the bathroom in the B&B we stayed in in Ayr in Scotland. It’s roof over the toilet and washbasin was about 5’6″ high (we were under stairs). If you are shorter (like the child bride), no problem. If you are 6’0″ it’s at eye level so you are reminded to duck. If you’re 5’8″ like me you will have hit your head on it three friggin times after only 3 or 4 hours in the room. And the showers all over the UK – intelligence tests one and all – twist, push, pull, smack, dial, smack again, swear, freeze, swear again etc. My cousin has one with a tap. She stole it from the London Museum.

But enough of these trivialities. We travelled through Glencoe on our way to Fort William and any thought of showers and bathrooms was as ruthlessly put down yesterday as the MacDonalds were in 1692. I’m talking about the scenery which completely dominates everything so there’s absolutely no room for petty quibbles when presented with nature’s overwhelming majesty.

If you appreciate glacial geomorphology, this is the place for you. The Principles of Physical Geology by Arthur Holmes or “Holmes” as we knew it in high school and at university, came flooding back. Well, not quite but recollections of U-shaped valleys, cirques and tarns and drumlins were still sufficiently clear to appreciate the awesome forces of nature that produce them.

And it’s not just nature that sculpts and builds. The Scots have been pretty good at it as well. There are eight locks at the Fort William end of the Caledonian Canal which stretches up to Loch Ness forming a waterway that goes from Fort William to Inverness and effectively cuts Scotland in half. These locks drop the water level 20metres and they were built between 1803 and 1822.

But if that’s not impressive enough, there’s a castle here called Inverlochy which was built in 1280. There’s another with the same name which was built in 1863 which is now a hotel and has a better roof than the 1280 version but impressively, most of the 1280 version still stands. In this throw-away, built in obsolescence society that’s some serious longevity and something a few builders I know could learn from.

We joke about Melbourne’s weather – if you don’t like it, wait a minute. Now I don’t know if this absolutely applies to Melbourne. The weather there is generally pretty atrocious (just ask anyone from any other state in Australia) and it’s making even more people go to football games in winter so they can huddle together to stave off the cold. Comrade Dan, Supreme Leader of the People’s Democratic Socialist Republic of Victoria has closed another coal fired power station so people can’t turn on their heaters as much, thereby reducing the earth’s temperature and saving the planet. I’m not sure it actually works like this though.

But the weather variability thing absolutely does apply specifically to Fort William and the Highlands generally I expect. We must have transitioned through the four seasons numerous times over the past two days. Being freezing cold, dripping wet, sweating and occasionally comfortable in five minute intervals just comes with the territory I guess.

The Rheinube River Ramble Part 2

admin

We are now in Scotland; Ayr to be precise. I love Scotland because there are more redheads per square metre here than in any other place on the planet. Having said that, it is necessary to be a bit careful because they are a volatile bunch. I’ll let John Cleese take over here temporarily and he’s talking about security threat levels as in the American Defcon 1-5 and the English version which ranges from “miffed” through “peeved”, “irritated”, “a bit cross” to “a bloody nuisance” which was last invoked in 1588 when the Spanish Armada threatened.

“The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards.” They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for 300 years.”

Thank you John.

So I suggested to the CB that she not irritate the locals. This is somewhat problematic because she has recently taken to suggesting better or more interesting ways to cook food to waiters in restaurants. As long as this happens after the food has been delivered I am sort of okay with it. Doing it beforehand is really asking for trouble (or food poisoning).

But let’s backtrack a bit first because we had a few terrific days in England. England is part of Great Britain which if we’re completely honest is better described as “Fair to Middling Britain” these days. But after all of England went ape-shit due to winning a penalty shootout to advance to the last eight of the World Cup, try telling that to anyone from Carlisle to Bournemouth. I know I’m mixing countries here, but it’s my blog. However the places we go to and the people we see (mostly relatives) still qualify for greatness I have say.

So after a few days of “hostile hospitality” (a phrase coined by a very good friend of mine in India who was and is peerless in this regard), the CB and I are now able to regroup and do a bit of touristy stuff.

Still on England, many years ago Francis Rossi asked his legion of fans “Would you like to ride my Deutche car”. If this is a bit esoteric for some, refer to Status Quo’s classic song “Paper Plane”. The legion responded by saying they would like to ride in a Deutche car but not his and promptly went out and bought their own. Consequently every second person owns a BMW / Audi / Mercedes / Volkswagen (strikeout whichever is not applicable). Either there’s a massive amount or wealth in this country, a massive amount of debt or we in Australia are being massively ripped off. It reminds me of Cambodia where every second car is a Lexus. That’s a Machu Picchu-like mystery which no one has been able to adequately explain to me yet.

The real Scotland experience starts tomorrow when we visit Fort William and seek out some Scotch distilleries. Hopefully the child bride won’t start telling them where they’re going wrong.

The Rheinube River Ramble Part 1

admin

We haven’t hit Europe’s impressive river system yet. That’s about 10 days away. First up is visits with rarely seen relatives and some wonderful (if you call a raging hangover wonderful) reunions. So the title of this and the next few entries will be something of a misnomer. So, from the beginning.

The CB and I are now winging our way to London. A break of almost a day in Hong Kong was nice. The CB hasn’t been here for years and it’s changed a bit. However it’s good to be back on our way to the final destination. Actually that’s an interim final destination – Manchester and probably better described as “the start” as Hong Kong has been designated Day Zero. The “final” final destination is Budapest in four weeks.

Anyway, it was a good day spoiled by the fact we have been given the two middle seats of a row of four on our flight to London. Those of you who have read my previous travel stuff will know I am a firm believer in frequent traveller privilege. That’s a bit like white privilege but not as insanely PC. We are in premium economy with seats configured 2-4-2. Qantas wouldn’t have dared put us in those seats but we are on British Airways and despite the fact I was born in England, I suspect winning back the Ashes hasn’t counted in my favour. And just for the record, when sitting in a Cathay Pacific premium economy seat, I can’t reach the seat in front of me. On BA I can almost reach the seat in front with my elbow. And not to labour the point (much) when the seats are dropped back for sleeping (they go back a long way – big plus), I am trapped.

But let’s scroll back. The flight to Honkers was fine. I had an aisle seat. Okay, okay, enough. Pretty uneventful. Airline coffee is not remotely like real coffee and I fell asleep before Stephen Hawking had got though the two years he was initially given to live, in the movie about his life. Did you know he outlived his doctors?

It’s August so Hong Kong is hot and sweaty. Notwithstanding, the usual haze was absent so the CB and I got the Peak Tram up to the Peak (funnily enough) to look at one of the most spectacular views in the world. We had to queue for about half an hour. Not too bad considering the time of year but I am willing to bet money that in all of that time we didn’t encounter one member of Asia’s most exclusive club – the Personal Space Appreciation Society. When I traveled frequently for a living and especially during the period when I had a pathological hatred of wheeled luggage, I used to carry a suit bag, the sort that carried a week’s worth of clothing, a couple of pairs of shoes and a spare book. If anyone nudged up behind me, they wore that bag which could be swung around savagely, ostensibly to realign it on my shoulder. In these circumstances I’m always reminded of a sketch on the old Dave Allen (the late great Irish comedian) Show where about eight cloth capped workers marched into the sardine factory, for want of a better phrase, dick to bum.

A few cold beers and a bit of pub food in Lan Kwai Fong (see previous post, A Week in Honkers) and we were knackered. It would have been almost unbearable had we not been able to walk almost all of the way from Hong Kong station to the Peak Tram station, undercover and mostly in air conditioning. The walk-way system round Central is brilliant.

We have now landed in London. Immigration hasn’t improved since last time (see European Safari). We faced long queues, minimal personnel and total indifference. If minimum airline connection times used Heathrow as their base line, they’d all be increased by an hour.

To finish Day Zero on a positive note, the weather is excellent…….but we haven’t got to Manchester just yet – sorry, couldn’t help myself.

 

A Dog with a Cattitude Problem

admin

It’s time for a treatise on pets. They’ve been mentioned in despatches occasionally in my Facebook musings and the occasional atrocity has been described and pictures published but it’s now time for an in-depth investigation. What has prompted this, you ask? It’s all about a rug and then some. Apparently “and then some” was a phrase Kurt Vonnegut used a lot – he wrote Slaughterhouse Five. I learnt this from a National Lampoon magazine parody of great English language writers not from an analysis of his writing style. But I digress.

The rug in question is a beautiful Turkish piece that the child bride and I bought in Turkey, funnily enough. In fact it’s one of two we bought in Kusadasi on a trip some years back. We didn’t want to hang them on the wall and make the place look like a Middle Eastern brothel because being rather expensive and hand-made they are quite durable so we put them where one normally puts rugs – on the floor.

IMG_0081

In the picture above you can see an opening on the right which is the doorway into the laundry. On the other side of the laundry wall are located not one but two litter trays. These are placed there for the cats’ convenience however one of the cats has decided that he doesn’t like grit in his furry hobbit-like feet so he occasionally craps on the rug. I am sure this is also to keep us on our toes such that when we stagger downstairs first thing in the morning to give the cats their breakfast (also located in the laundry) we have to watch where we step. Hence the first order of business (if you’ll excuse the pun) is to stand and stare at the rug until the morning’s booby trap has been located if there is indeed one there. It took me three stares one morning before I saw the offending bratwurst. If you want to know what that’s like imagine doing a Where’s Wally puzzle when you’re half pissed.

Now in that photo there is a cat crap somewhere and I defy you to find it. I’ve forgotten where it is and I can’t find it. Top left I think.

Cats are considered to be fastidiously clean because they lick themselves constantly. What this means is that they swallow a lot of their own hair and occasionally it comes up the same way it went down in the shape of a fur ball. And cats will chunder where they stand which is what we woke up to this morning. We regularly wake up to last night’s dinner spread all over the floor or dripping down the back of a chair because the cat couldn’t be bothered getting off the dining room table.

Charlie the small white dog on the other hand, will demand to be let outside and he’ll bounce around like a pogo stick if he really needs to go outside. He may be a veritable crapping machine but he knows where the convenience is – anywhere outside.

The most alarming thing about cats is that they epitomise the old saying “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. They fight each other regularly although it rarely escalates to a full on biting, scratching death tangle because one’s a bully (Ed) and the other one (Kaos) isn’t. The bully is big and slow and the other is small and agile so spends quality time under chairs which are no-go zones for Ed of the ponderous bulk.

Ed and Charlie on the other hand have lived an inter-species truce for the past year or so except for the past few months where Ed has taken to stalking Charlie and literally boxing him when he least expects it, like when they are seemingly innocently walking past each other. Of course Charlie recognises that he has to stand up for canine pride so the occasional biff from Ed degenerates into sound and fury. This is where the enemy thing comes in. If Charlie and Ed are in a blue, Kaos charges in and blind-sides Charlie in a neat pincer movement. So the poor little bugger is being punched in the head from all directions.

I challenge anyone to attempt to break that up with anything other than a broom or if one isn’t handy, a foot. I reached into one of these altercations a while back and months later we were still finding blood spatters in odd places after a vein on the back of my hand was opened by a razor sharp cat claw.

If we didn’t lock the cats outside and Charlie inside when we go out, God knows what we’d come home to. We love Charlie but look forward to the day David gets his own place and moves out with his dog. Unfortunately, the preferred living option at the moment is right across the road from us so during working hours we would be right back where we started. Not to worry.

 

The Song Does In Fact Remain the Same

admin

Last night was a trip down memory lane – back to the times when we spent hours standing in smoke filled rooms getting our ear drums assaulted. The only differences last night were the complete absence of cigarette smoke (or any type of smoke for that matter) and the difficulty in standing for two hours without both knees locking up.

Yes, the child bride, the son-in-law (who kindly provided the tickets), one of his mates and I attended a Led Zeppelin tribute concert at the local Hamilton pub. The Hammo has an upstairs room with a laughable VIP section right at the back, a very long and well attended (both sides) bar, very few tables and chairs and a stage just big enough for a four piece band and all of their gear. Actually, that’s not quite true – two of the speaker stacks were on the floor in front of the stage. So they were just a little bit closer to us. We were about six or seven metres from the stage.

Of course a Led Zep tribute band doesn’t work unless the singer sounds like Robert Plant. This guy pulled it off with aplomb although the little thermos he occasionally sipped from, I’m sure was filled with honey and Lemsip, rather than vodka. Getting through Stairway to Heaven which starts slow and low and finishes fast and high would challenge the most muscular vocal chords let alone two hours of high pitched wailing.

Listening to the real Led Zep taught me the value of a tight rhythm section. Forget Plant and Page. It was Jones and Bonham who held it together. The two P’s were always keen to demonstrate their virtuoso capabilities with musical and vocal flights of fancy but it was the other two who kept herding them back onto the straight and narrow. Without them, the more complex songs would have become a self-indulgent cacophonic mess. And so it was with “Song Remains” which I believe was the name of the band in question. No, not a cacophonic mess, a rhythm driven performance.

Every time the base player hit a note it felt like I’d been punched in the lungs and the base drum is still pounding my skull 12 hours later. However I could have done without the 10 minute drum solo. I thought drum solos had gone out with Iron Butterfly and Cream. Still it gave the other guys an opportunity to indulge the rock god/groupie paradigm with some of the “girls” from the audience. Or maybe they just had a rest.

I’m assuming now that these guys haven’t been too successful to date although that would be a shame because they are very talented. What drew me to this conclusion was the fact that the guitarist only appeared to have one guitar. In a four piece band where one of the four doesn’t play an instrument and two of them are keeping the beat, the fourth has to fill a considerable musical void. So the distortion level is turned up to broaden the sound but not to the extent that it disguises those famous riffs. That’s all very well on Rock and Roll and The Immigrant Song and Black Dog but doesn’t work at all on Stairway to Heaven where a much cleaner sound is required. A pedal would have done the trick but he must have left it at home. Knit-picking I know because he did manage to sear a trench between my ear-drums as those famous riffs were being meticulously reproduced.

We’ve been to see a lot of the bands of our youth in recent years – Rolling Stones, Status Quo, Eagles, John Fogarty, Mellencamp and others – and as the CB says, it’s as interesting to observe the crowd as it is the band. And so it was last night. When we arrived there was a group of skinny seventy somethings who looked like how you would imagine Spinal Tap would look today. Where these people hide during the day is beyond me. We thought they may have been the band. They weren’t but they did park themselves right next to the aforementioned floor mounted speaker stacks from start to finish. They may have been the road crew but didn’t seem capable of lifting their heads such was the mass of hair, let alone a massive speaker.

And of course there’s the obligatory wanker who wants to work his moves and doesn’t care about bumping those near-by or jumping in front of others while the missus feigns indifference. No doubt he had ambitions of indulging the rock god/groupie thing when they got home. I hope she had a headache for the ages.

And have you noticed how in a crowd, if you leave a space, someone will come and stand in it. It’s like waiting for your luggage to appear on the carousel at the airport. Unless you are hard against the carousel, someone will come and stand in front of you. So we had a reasonable area around us which respected our and others’ personal space and then the Andrews Sisters came and occupied it. Their jiggy little coordinated dance move where they hopped from one foot to the other would not have been out of place at a Barry Manilow concert. It was absolutely unacceptable at a rock and roll concert.

As the CB is fond of saying, I’m getting grumpy in my oldish age. That may be true but I prefer to characterise it as reducing tolerance for idiots whose indulgences reduce my enjoyment of an event. And if you believe life’s too short, that’s non-negotiable. Notwithstanding crowd induced minor irritants, it was a great night.

As an epilogue, we got home in time to see Djokovic beat Nadal 10-8 in the fifth at Wimbledon after Anderson beat Isner 26-24 in the fifth in the other men’s semi final. The equally remunerated women’s final was a 6-3 6-3, 65 minute romp. If you believe in the gender pay gap, there’s a perfect example of one. But that’s another story for another day.