Or: The gig where I was about a foot away from being scalped by a chainsaw.
I hadn't been to Cargo in Shoreditch before. After being given directions by a guy in a pub, I managed to make it there for Shit & Shine, but was told I might not get in. Their drummers had to set up on the floor of the venue and so they were only at half capacity for Shit & Shine's performance. This made my heart sink. I was there literally 5 minutes before they were due on, having run to the venue for fear of missing them. Now I was being told that I may not get in. I stormed my way towards the venue room practically barging my way through people in the vain hope I would make it in due to the fact that although the woman at the desk said "May not", her face did that tilting to one side with a slight squint of the eyes that means "Probably won't" in these situations. I got to the security guards and was pretty much expecting to be turned away, but I'd forgotten that ever so sweet golden rule. Put a bar between the front door and the live room and most people will go to get a drink before going into the live room itself. I got in with plenty of space, and breathed a sigh of relief.
See, I saw Shit & Shine at Audioscope at the Zodiac last year, and it was virtually the greatest single thing I have ever experienced in my whole life. So if I had missed them here, I would've probably cried.
This was a medley by Shit & Shine standards. They're known for pretty much just playing one riff over and over with minimal variation (and a scarcely used bridge/change), over a similarly relentless and repetitive drumloop seemingly played by as many drummers as each venue will physically allow (they recently played a gig in Dresden with 20!!) way beyond the point where it should've become boring, instead managing to form some kind of utterly mesmerising mantra that you NEVER want to end. This time though, they played about 3 riffs! They started out with a quick garage-rock style riff that made me wonder how they would create the same effect with, but excited to see how they would play this out. Masters of their craft they clearly are though coz after about 10 minutes when this riff started to show signs that it may have run it's course, it descended into feedback and the drums slowed down to that familiar Shit & Shine pulse, and then IN came the next riff, and I almost had an orgasm. For about 15-20 minutes this new riff throbbed and pulsated along in the typical S&S way, utterly engrossing and hypnotic it was too. Then, well not so much a riff maybe, as an extended outro winding things down to the unfortunate fact of a conclusion. It was never going to be as good as the first time, but it was still better than pretty much anything else in existence. Shit & Shine are the greatest live band ever.
Which immediately put Faust at a disadvantage. Seriously, I don't care who you are, there is no following that. But Faust had a go. I was excited about seeing Faust, don't get me wrong, I've wanted to see this legendary Krautrock band for years, but following Shit & Shine just isn't possible. ESPECIALLY, when yer opening gambit is an overlong combination of limp psychedelic soundscaping and piss-poor beatnik poetry. This would've probably been incredible if you were on acid 40 years ago, but sober and in the 21st century this is godawful. One man beating shells together while a woman goes on about how "10 months from now I'm still lying here" while the rest of the band plod out a lifeless jam in the background. Fuck, this was looking to be the biggest letdown since seeing Shack at Brookes in 2000. Luckily this seemed to be a false start, as Faust went on to provide an excellent set afterwards. They treated us to an oldie, followed by an improvisation that was infinitely superior to the opener, and included the drummer taking an angle grinder to some sheet metal. This was the first Faust trick to come out of the bag. Then they treated us to a new song, which was pleasingly very good. After this their set comprised of the old, the new, and the improv. At one point two of them started arguing on stage during a song, and it took a while for me to work out that this was part of their act. Unfortunately, writing this nearly 2 weeks after the gig itself, a lot of it has blurred and the things that stand out the most are the last 2 songs of the set (before the encore). The penultimate song was when I realised just how good but dangerous my position in the crowd. With 2 drummers pounding out a repetitive beat, the woman came out into the crowd to do a very bad painting of a face, while - I think it was - Jean-Herve Peron came out to raid a collection that was suddenly at the stage left side of the room. Peron pulled out - I think it was - a drill and started trying to kill a metal bin with it. Then out came a chainsaw. He turned it on, revved it up, and started swinging it around with a bit too much reckless abandon, coming about a foot close to scalping those of us closest to him at this point. This industrial show went on for a bit, ending with Peron carving the words "A NOSE" into a canvas, then getting up on stage to recite a poem about a friend of his who had "Such a grand nose!".
The final song was a rendition of probably their best song, "Krautrock", which was so good it caused at least half the audience to collectively orgasm. This was the Faust cum-shot. This is exactly what we had all been waiting for. That driving bassline, those motorik drums, it starting up again when it seemed like they were going to finish it, the addition of an improvising sax player, pure sex in German music form. The only criticism of it was that they should've done a Shit & Shine and kept if going for about 3 times the length, coz you just did not want this to end. But end it did, and the crowd went apeshit. You really couldn't have asked for too much more from them. The crowd however wanted an encore. They did come out for one, but I didn't stay for it for three reasons:
1) After "Krautrock", I personally didn't need anymore and thought that (first song and a dodgy part of another improvisation that centred around tearing paper aside) they had delivered a near-perfectly complete set that didn't really need any more.
2) I had a return train ticket back to Oxford and was worried that I would miss the last train. As it was I ran at least two-thirds of the on-foot parts of the journey back to Paddington and made my train with 1 minute to spare.
3) They had pulled out every classic trick in the Faust book. I was a little worried they might go one further and pull out the lesser known London Garage '98 trick and tear gas the crowd.
This is the best gig I have been to this year so far. Faust were mostly awesome. No-one beats Shit & Shine tho. Incredible. Best live band ever. I cannot stress that enough.
I think that's it for now.
Monday, 15 September 2008
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Apple Unveils 'Thinnest iPod Yet'.
Have you seen this? Apple have made an iPod that's about as thin as 3 communion wafers on top of each other and the world is supposed to collectively jizz itself empty with excitement. I don't wanna harp on like some old bastard, but Jesus when did everything have to become as small as possible?! All micro this and lite that, yes, now a product is only truly marketable if it's easy to lose. It's as if all the companies got together to decide that the only way they can get us all to buy all their essential products - coz fucking God knows we need them all, don't we? - is to make them as small as possible so we won't have any problem storing them all. I personally can't wait for the day that Apple come up with "Disposable iTunes". Yes folks, it's the latest of my million pound ideas. "Disposable iTunes" is basically a cross between iTunes and Wrigleys Extra Thin Ice strips. Basically, you buy a song that prints out as an edible minty strip. You place the strip on yr tongue and as it dissolves in yr mouth the song plays. In your head. Inaudible to the rest of the world, you just hear it playing in yr own head. When the song finishes, that's it. And you have fresh breath.
Come on, that's a fucking awesome idea. Can't find or don't have a song when yer out and about on yr iPod? Just go to a "Disposable iTunes" vendor and for about 20p you can get that song on a cool minty strip just like that. People fucking pay a quid to hear a song on a jukebox in a pub, there is no way they wouldn't pay a fifth of that to hear a song that gives them fresh breath. AND you wouldn't have to put up with some twat singing along badly and getting the words wrong.
And don't even TRY and use the argument that people wouldn't buy them coz they'd get too into the song and look like twats coz no-one could hear what they were hearing. That has never stopped people using hands-free on their mobiles.
"Disposable iTunes". Come on, it's a much better idea than yet another smaller iPod. What's the betting the 5th generation Nano will be 2D? Ridiculous, pointless, and it won't do shit all for yr breath.
Come on, that's a fucking awesome idea. Can't find or don't have a song when yer out and about on yr iPod? Just go to a "Disposable iTunes" vendor and for about 20p you can get that song on a cool minty strip just like that. People fucking pay a quid to hear a song on a jukebox in a pub, there is no way they wouldn't pay a fifth of that to hear a song that gives them fresh breath. AND you wouldn't have to put up with some twat singing along badly and getting the words wrong.
And don't even TRY and use the argument that people wouldn't buy them coz they'd get too into the song and look like twats coz no-one could hear what they were hearing. That has never stopped people using hands-free on their mobiles.
"Disposable iTunes". Come on, it's a much better idea than yet another smaller iPod. What's the betting the 5th generation Nano will be 2D? Ridiculous, pointless, and it won't do shit all for yr breath.
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
Axl's Adventures In The Mediterranean: Part 7
Wed 20th: Sea Day #3.
On our way back to Barcelona everyone had one last chance to go into coma mode and lie in the sun. My day consisted mainly of eating food, playing scrabble, packing my stuff, and writing more notes for these blogs in the open air by the pool while a terrible semi-live calypso band were playing. Oh, and I saw another turtle, which Micaela saw and therefore had to believe me about seeing the first one. On this holiday I rediscovered a love of reading and a love of wearing shorts, although the latter of those died a couple of days after I got back to the UK.
I thought on this day just how much I didn't want to come home. This was the best holiday ever and I had no great desire to have it end. Although it would be nice to see the news. And listen to some music, god it had been about 2 weeks without listening to music (I'm not counting having to hear the awful trash that they piped through in certain areas of the ship. I mean actually choosing to listen to something you want to hear). The only news I knew was that Isaac Hayes had died (which prompted an earlier brief post), the president of Pakistan had resigned, and lots of stuff about the Olympics (Including the fact that Usain Bolt had broken Michael Johnson's 200m world record, which quite frankly I couldn't believe. I remember watching MJ's record on tv years ago and thinking it was pretty much the most amazing thing ever. Hey, I was 15.).
Thur 21st: Going home.
No time for a Barcelona reprise. Straight to the airport and then back to merry old England. What a day to see some news too. Boy, I could've handled one more day, or even a few more hours to see that story! That story being the fact that the previous day there was a plane crash in Spain that killed 150 people. That sure helped my fear of flying. I nearly had a panic attack when we had a rough landing at Heathrow, but managed with a tactic of extreme squeezing of armrests to avoid that embarrassment.
And that was it. Holiday over. There's plenty I've forgotten to mention, stuff to do with being on the ship mostly, but I think you've probably all had enough of reading about this cruise by now. Back to business next blog.
Just in case i didn't say it enough, this was the best fucking holiday EVER!!
On our way back to Barcelona everyone had one last chance to go into coma mode and lie in the sun. My day consisted mainly of eating food, playing scrabble, packing my stuff, and writing more notes for these blogs in the open air by the pool while a terrible semi-live calypso band were playing. Oh, and I saw another turtle, which Micaela saw and therefore had to believe me about seeing the first one. On this holiday I rediscovered a love of reading and a love of wearing shorts, although the latter of those died a couple of days after I got back to the UK.
I thought on this day just how much I didn't want to come home. This was the best holiday ever and I had no great desire to have it end. Although it would be nice to see the news. And listen to some music, god it had been about 2 weeks without listening to music (I'm not counting having to hear the awful trash that they piped through in certain areas of the ship. I mean actually choosing to listen to something you want to hear). The only news I knew was that Isaac Hayes had died (which prompted an earlier brief post), the president of Pakistan had resigned, and lots of stuff about the Olympics (Including the fact that Usain Bolt had broken Michael Johnson's 200m world record, which quite frankly I couldn't believe. I remember watching MJ's record on tv years ago and thinking it was pretty much the most amazing thing ever. Hey, I was 15.).
Thur 21st: Going home.
No time for a Barcelona reprise. Straight to the airport and then back to merry old England. What a day to see some news too. Boy, I could've handled one more day, or even a few more hours to see that story! That story being the fact that the previous day there was a plane crash in Spain that killed 150 people. That sure helped my fear of flying. I nearly had a panic attack when we had a rough landing at Heathrow, but managed with a tactic of extreme squeezing of armrests to avoid that embarrassment.
And that was it. Holiday over. There's plenty I've forgotten to mention, stuff to do with being on the ship mostly, but I think you've probably all had enough of reading about this cruise by now. Back to business next blog.
Just in case i didn't say it enough, this was the best fucking holiday EVER!!
Axl's Adventures The Mediterranean: Part 6
Tue 19th: Carthage & A Random Tunisian Village.
Dido went to Tunisia and fell in love with a hill apparently. She branded the place where the hill was "Carthage", and claimed it as her own. What a weirdo.
Today's Carthage is a museum town of Roman ruins. Baths, Amphitheatre, the whole bit. Carthage is still an attractive place, Dido was right, but my memory of it would be much better if we hadn't had to stop at a village I can't remember the name of on the way back to the ship.
See, this was one of the 2 times we went on an organised tour (the other being at Herculaneum), and this included a scheduled hour plus stop in this village.We were told that this was the best place to shop in Tunisia. If that's actually true, I never want to go shopping anywhere in Tunisia ever again. Basically the main street consisted of an uphill outdoor market, and the stereotypes of market traders in this part of the world are all true. They are pushy, unpleasant and reluctant to give you any breathing space. I very quickly learned that if you look at anything for longer than about 2 seconds, it is assumed that you want to buy it and negotiations begin. In about 5 different languages, just to make sure they've got yours. If you're not looking at anything, they will bark things at you like "HALF PRICE IF YOU ARE ENGLISH TODAY!!" (Dammit, I was English yesterday! Why oh why did today have to be Belorussian day?!)
We didn't actually have it that bad. A couple of women were literally being chased down the street by a guy trying to sell them a bracelet.
Virtually all of them sell nothing but total crap too, it's such an off puttingly obvious tourist trap. It's a shame coz once you finally negotiate yer way out the other end, it's a really nice pretty place. beautiful views and architecture, shame that in order to get back to the coach we had to run the gauntlet again.
The fact that we were in this place for over an hour when we were taken thru the places of actual interest in Carthage (especially the Roman bath ruins which were simply stunning, although a little scary as they were right next to a Tunisian army camp and soldiers were walking around with huge guns. I had to stop myself taking a couple of photos for fear I may have been shot. Apparently the army folk don't take too kindly to being photographed round here.) relatively quickly was pretty frustrating and very annoying.
That night we tried our hands at Black Jack again and were far less pleased, losing our money almost instantly. Not so fun. At least last time we'd had a decent go at it. Ah, but that's gambling I suppose. Oh, and the underage kid with his fake ID was back too. We saw him later on getting refused entry into one of the bars which was pretty funny, but I can't seem to properly explain why at the moment.
Dido went to Tunisia and fell in love with a hill apparently. She branded the place where the hill was "Carthage", and claimed it as her own. What a weirdo.
Today's Carthage is a museum town of Roman ruins. Baths, Amphitheatre, the whole bit. Carthage is still an attractive place, Dido was right, but my memory of it would be much better if we hadn't had to stop at a village I can't remember the name of on the way back to the ship.
See, this was one of the 2 times we went on an organised tour (the other being at Herculaneum), and this included a scheduled hour plus stop in this village.We were told that this was the best place to shop in Tunisia. If that's actually true, I never want to go shopping anywhere in Tunisia ever again. Basically the main street consisted of an uphill outdoor market, and the stereotypes of market traders in this part of the world are all true. They are pushy, unpleasant and reluctant to give you any breathing space. I very quickly learned that if you look at anything for longer than about 2 seconds, it is assumed that you want to buy it and negotiations begin. In about 5 different languages, just to make sure they've got yours. If you're not looking at anything, they will bark things at you like "HALF PRICE IF YOU ARE ENGLISH TODAY!!" (Dammit, I was English yesterday! Why oh why did today have to be Belorussian day?!)
We didn't actually have it that bad. A couple of women were literally being chased down the street by a guy trying to sell them a bracelet.
Virtually all of them sell nothing but total crap too, it's such an off puttingly obvious tourist trap. It's a shame coz once you finally negotiate yer way out the other end, it's a really nice pretty place. beautiful views and architecture, shame that in order to get back to the coach we had to run the gauntlet again.
The fact that we were in this place for over an hour when we were taken thru the places of actual interest in Carthage (especially the Roman bath ruins which were simply stunning, although a little scary as they were right next to a Tunisian army camp and soldiers were walking around with huge guns. I had to stop myself taking a couple of photos for fear I may have been shot. Apparently the army folk don't take too kindly to being photographed round here.) relatively quickly was pretty frustrating and very annoying.
That night we tried our hands at Black Jack again and were far less pleased, losing our money almost instantly. Not so fun. At least last time we'd had a decent go at it. Ah, but that's gambling I suppose. Oh, and the underage kid with his fake ID was back too. We saw him later on getting refused entry into one of the bars which was pretty funny, but I can't seem to properly explain why at the moment.
Monday, 8 September 2008
Axl's Adventures In The Mediterranean: Part 5
Monday 18th: Sea Day #2.
Sea days are a curious thing on a cruise ship. With no place to go, people seem unable to decide how to spend their time. Most seem to try to solve this by sunbathing. I've never been one for sunbathing. Some people are using their sunbathing time to read a book - this I can understand. What I can't relate to is people who just lie there, cooking themselves. All that wasted time! You know these are the same people who complain about never having enough time in the day to do things. Why then when they get the time do they waste it doing the most inactive thing in the world?! If they spent this time at home, lying on their beds they would be called lazy & unimaginative. Is the pursuit of bronzed skin really so righteous that these peoples inactivity is a good thing? I'm probably being too harsh. I've never understood the draw of beaches after all. Until this year, I was very much of the Bill Hicks "What's so great about the beach? It's where dirt meets water!" opinion. Even as a kid, beaches were alright, but no big deal. This year I've enjoyed being on beaches twice. At ATP, and in Cannes. So I'm coming around to beaches. If yer actually doing something though. I will never understand sunbathers.
The book reading ones I get tho. I spent some of this sea day outside reading while the ship sailed thru the open sea. It was nice. Real nice. Good book, nice setting, those guys have the right idea.
I saw a huge turtle in the sea today. Micaela didn't believe me because all cruise long she's been playing a game where every now and then she'll break off mid sentence to cry out "Whale!", "Shark!", "Mermaid!" etc etc. I definitely saw it tho.
I watched some people playing volleyball up on deck 12. I was amazed how this one guy was taking it a bit too seriously, until I realised the entire opposing team were taking it FAR too seriously. I privately revelled in watching them get beaten. The teams seemed to be split up into USA Vs Rest Of The World. USA lost. A lot of Americans (especially males) seem to take sport so seriously that they can't even seem to handle guessing a coin toss wrong, and attempt to turn any conversation into either an argument they refuse to back down from, or a display of chest-beating one-upmanship. American men taking a friendly contest way too seriously and getting beaten was a pretty sweet thing to see, especially coz the ROW team had 2 women in aswell. If there's one thing that American males too into sport REALLY hate, it's being beaten by women.
In the early evening, there was a mist on the horizon that made a far away boat look like a pirate ship, which was cool but also pretty spooky. Also a bit of a let down when you could see about half an hour later that it wasn't.
After dinner that night, I spent my first money in a casino. Had a little fun losing money on the Roulette table and at Black Jack. And seeing the underage Spanish kid somehow being allowed to gamble with a really bad fake ID. The fact he wanted to change up $200 into playing chips probably helped.
Sea days are a curious thing on a cruise ship. With no place to go, people seem unable to decide how to spend their time. Most seem to try to solve this by sunbathing. I've never been one for sunbathing. Some people are using their sunbathing time to read a book - this I can understand. What I can't relate to is people who just lie there, cooking themselves. All that wasted time! You know these are the same people who complain about never having enough time in the day to do things. Why then when they get the time do they waste it doing the most inactive thing in the world?! If they spent this time at home, lying on their beds they would be called lazy & unimaginative. Is the pursuit of bronzed skin really so righteous that these peoples inactivity is a good thing? I'm probably being too harsh. I've never understood the draw of beaches after all. Until this year, I was very much of the Bill Hicks "What's so great about the beach? It's where dirt meets water!" opinion. Even as a kid, beaches were alright, but no big deal. This year I've enjoyed being on beaches twice. At ATP, and in Cannes. So I'm coming around to beaches. If yer actually doing something though. I will never understand sunbathers.
The book reading ones I get tho. I spent some of this sea day outside reading while the ship sailed thru the open sea. It was nice. Real nice. Good book, nice setting, those guys have the right idea.
I saw a huge turtle in the sea today. Micaela didn't believe me because all cruise long she's been playing a game where every now and then she'll break off mid sentence to cry out "Whale!", "Shark!", "Mermaid!" etc etc. I definitely saw it tho.
I watched some people playing volleyball up on deck 12. I was amazed how this one guy was taking it a bit too seriously, until I realised the entire opposing team were taking it FAR too seriously. I privately revelled in watching them get beaten. The teams seemed to be split up into USA Vs Rest Of The World. USA lost. A lot of Americans (especially males) seem to take sport so seriously that they can't even seem to handle guessing a coin toss wrong, and attempt to turn any conversation into either an argument they refuse to back down from, or a display of chest-beating one-upmanship. American men taking a friendly contest way too seriously and getting beaten was a pretty sweet thing to see, especially coz the ROW team had 2 women in aswell. If there's one thing that American males too into sport REALLY hate, it's being beaten by women.
In the early evening, there was a mist on the horizon that made a far away boat look like a pirate ship, which was cool but also pretty spooky. Also a bit of a let down when you could see about half an hour later that it wasn't.
After dinner that night, I spent my first money in a casino. Had a little fun losing money on the Roulette table and at Black Jack. And seeing the underage Spanish kid somehow being allowed to gamble with a really bad fake ID. The fact he wanted to change up $200 into playing chips probably helped.
Axl's Adventures In The Mediterranean: Part 4
Friday 15th: Venice.
Venice is without doubt the most beautiful place I have ever been to. It's like crawling into a beautiful painting and walking around in it. I wanted to photograph almost everything I saw (apart from all the clothes shops). When it was hot & sunny, Venice was beautifullyy picturesque and a breathtaking sight. Then came a torrential downpour - some of the hadest rainfall I've ever seen - and Venice was still just as beautiful. In fact, it cleared San Marco square, so you could actually see it properly. When you'ld managed to negotiate yer way thru the other tourists who had crammed themselves into any available sheltered area. Some were stupid enough to go into the San Marco cafes and get a 16 or 17 euro ice cream. (About an hour later, we had an ice cream a few streets away for just 1 euro, and it was possibly the best ice cream I've ever had. Tiramissu flavour. Yum.) That's just for a regular sized ice cream too by the way. I don't care how much it rains, that's just fucking stupid. Then the rain stopped and rainsoaked Venice looked just as incredible as dry Venice or being-rained-on Venice. The rain even kinda made some of the backstreet areas look even nicer. I'm not really saying anything about Venice am I. I dunno, it's difficult to write about a place I was just so in awe of. I just can't really put it across in words. I'll stop gushing about Venice now.
Saturday 16th: Murano.
(The only morning where we didn't wake up in a different place.)
We decided to go to Murano. I'm not sure if Murano is a part of Venice or a different place in the same area, but it is just as beautiful. Just with less tourists, and a bit more rustic. Glass is Murano's thing. Just about every shop in Murano sells glass products, from the practical to the decorative. The things they can do with glass are pretty incredible. Murano itself is like a village version of Venice, so there's not really anything I can say without repeating myself. It's just an incredibly attractive place. And it has a restaurant where I had one of the best meals ever. Giant plate of parma ham and melon to start, big old bowl of homemade carbonara for main. Axl's belly was the happiest ever.
Sunday 17th: Split.
Split is a port town in Croatia. Split looks pretty much just as you would expect a cityin a former Yugoslav state to look. The old town looks quaintly worn and beautiful in the sun, a maze of backstreets and alleyways. The newer parts, a shadow of Western European cities. Again, being a Sundayin Europe, there's not a great deal to do other than eat and look at pretty things, but I guess that's mostly what we've been doing anyway, just with more distracting open things.
Split has possibly the best church we've seen so far. It's doors, 2 huge wooden slabs with several carvings depicting stories of Christ on each, were worth going for alone. I'm not a Christian, but there is something amazing about European churches. Stunning architecture and an extreme attention to detail, I almost view them as works of art rather than places of worship. It always amazes me how much time and devotion has been put into them. Lots of gaudy gold things too. Can't be a big European church without the approved amount of tackiness, right?
Not much else to say about Split. It's not that it was any less nice than most other places, it's just that when yer in another beautiful European city with great architecture and gorgeous views, to describe it sounds like yer describing most any other place. It's hard to get across the details. The feel of a place, the subtle differences that make everywhere different and just as wonderful to be in. Just coz you run out of new things to say, doesn't make it any less good.
Venice is without doubt the most beautiful place I have ever been to. It's like crawling into a beautiful painting and walking around in it. I wanted to photograph almost everything I saw (apart from all the clothes shops). When it was hot & sunny, Venice was beautifullyy picturesque and a breathtaking sight. Then came a torrential downpour - some of the hadest rainfall I've ever seen - and Venice was still just as beautiful. In fact, it cleared San Marco square, so you could actually see it properly. When you'ld managed to negotiate yer way thru the other tourists who had crammed themselves into any available sheltered area. Some were stupid enough to go into the San Marco cafes and get a 16 or 17 euro ice cream. (About an hour later, we had an ice cream a few streets away for just 1 euro, and it was possibly the best ice cream I've ever had. Tiramissu flavour. Yum.) That's just for a regular sized ice cream too by the way. I don't care how much it rains, that's just fucking stupid. Then the rain stopped and rainsoaked Venice looked just as incredible as dry Venice or being-rained-on Venice. The rain even kinda made some of the backstreet areas look even nicer. I'm not really saying anything about Venice am I. I dunno, it's difficult to write about a place I was just so in awe of. I just can't really put it across in words. I'll stop gushing about Venice now.
Saturday 16th: Murano.
(The only morning where we didn't wake up in a different place.)
We decided to go to Murano. I'm not sure if Murano is a part of Venice or a different place in the same area, but it is just as beautiful. Just with less tourists, and a bit more rustic. Glass is Murano's thing. Just about every shop in Murano sells glass products, from the practical to the decorative. The things they can do with glass are pretty incredible. Murano itself is like a village version of Venice, so there's not really anything I can say without repeating myself. It's just an incredibly attractive place. And it has a restaurant where I had one of the best meals ever. Giant plate of parma ham and melon to start, big old bowl of homemade carbonara for main. Axl's belly was the happiest ever.
Sunday 17th: Split.
Split is a port town in Croatia. Split looks pretty much just as you would expect a cityin a former Yugoslav state to look. The old town looks quaintly worn and beautiful in the sun, a maze of backstreets and alleyways. The newer parts, a shadow of Western European cities. Again, being a Sundayin Europe, there's not a great deal to do other than eat and look at pretty things, but I guess that's mostly what we've been doing anyway, just with more distracting open things.
Split has possibly the best church we've seen so far. It's doors, 2 huge wooden slabs with several carvings depicting stories of Christ on each, were worth going for alone. I'm not a Christian, but there is something amazing about European churches. Stunning architecture and an extreme attention to detail, I almost view them as works of art rather than places of worship. It always amazes me how much time and devotion has been put into them. Lots of gaudy gold things too. Can't be a big European church without the approved amount of tackiness, right?
Not much else to say about Split. It's not that it was any less nice than most other places, it's just that when yer in another beautiful European city with great architecture and gorgeous views, to describe it sounds like yer describing most any other place. It's hard to get across the details. The feel of a place, the subtle differences that make everywhere different and just as wonderful to be in. Just coz you run out of new things to say, doesn't make it any less good.
Friday, 29 August 2008
Axl's Adventures In The Mediterranean: Part 3
Tue 12th: Rome & The Vatican.
St Peter's in The Vatican is insane. Totally mad. I dunno, maybe it's from being brought up by a mother who loves tacky Christian iconography to the point of near obsession, but the whole thing, while undoubtedly impressive, seems to me to be a bit gaudy, excessive and, well, ridiculous. From the intricacy in detailed decoration covering every surface, the the grandness of paintings, tombs, statues (including one which, Micaela pointed out, looks suspiciously like the Pope lording it over his bitches. Basically a prototype gangster rap album cover.), etc, to the Vatican guards who apparently are members of the Swiss Army or the Swiss Guard, I dunno. They're Swiss. Anyway, they have to dress up like something out of Alice In Wonderland for some reason, wearing a ridiculous costume that looks like full body pantaloons. The colour scheme is bright red, yellow and blue, with a big white collar and black berets and shoes. It's all very big and very impressive and looks incredible, if not a tad silly. Basically, to me it all just looks like the inside of my mothers head, only with less gay men and science-fiction. Or the same amount, depending on your views of Christianity.
Rome has some cool graffiti covered trains, and the Colosseum, which is HUGE. We didn't go in coz the queue was stupidly long, but it's impressive enough from the outside. Rome has loads of old Roman architecture dotted all over the place, making for an absolutely beautiful city.
Wed 13th: Naples & Herculaneum.
At last! A city with flaws! This makes Naples more human in a way. Like yer in an actual city and not a European museum. The downside of this is that it makes it the worst place we go to on the whole cruise. Naples was a dirty, rough little town full of clothes shops, shoe shops
and not a lot else it would seem. Apart from Newsstands that all seem to have bins of cheap dvd's and an unhealthy amount of porn. Oh, and tobacconists that don't sell booze. Europe has a disturbing lack of places to buy booze. Europe needs more off licenses. And music shops. On a half day of looking round shops, there was a distinct lack of variety. Naples is boring. And a bit ugly. While most of the other places felt a little like a museum, I can spend a whole day in a museum or gallery if the exhibits grab me. All the places so far had. Ironically, Micaela, her mum, and a guy called Stuart we were with actually went to a museum instead of coming to Naples, and had a great time. And saw Mormons getting embarrassed by sexual art. Tee hee hee!
In the afternoon we went to Herculaneum - AKA the port town where everyone from Pompeii fled to to try and escape the sudden wrath of Mount Vesuvius. However, many people died there as Herculaneum itself didn't escape MV's wrath and got buried under smog and ash. There's been a big excavation project and a lot of Herculaneum seems to have been very well preserved. Stepping into this ancient town was like stepping into an Asterix book. I've been reading Asterix books since I can remember, so I had a bit of a moment seeing all these Roman columns, mosaics, structures, paintings, etc. It was incredible to walk around this place and see for real things I've admired in cartoon form for years. It made me very happy. It made me smile a childish grin. And there was a statue of Hercules with one hand behind his head and the other on his cock. The tour guide we were following said Hercules was having a piss, but he was blatantly wanking.
Thur 14th: Sea Day.
The first day when we were just on the boat. We went to the on board spa and sat in these heated chairs which are ludicrously relaxing, especially with the view we had. I've never been to a spa before, so it was my first time in a steam room and a sauna. Again, I found the steam room a bizarrely relaxing experience. The sauna was like a dry steam room. I preferred the steam room. Aside from spa stuff, we read, played chess, played bingo, ate food and drank booze. It was a good day.
St Peter's in The Vatican is insane. Totally mad. I dunno, maybe it's from being brought up by a mother who loves tacky Christian iconography to the point of near obsession, but the whole thing, while undoubtedly impressive, seems to me to be a bit gaudy, excessive and, well, ridiculous. From the intricacy in detailed decoration covering every surface, the the grandness of paintings, tombs, statues (including one which, Micaela pointed out, looks suspiciously like the Pope lording it over his bitches. Basically a prototype gangster rap album cover.), etc, to the Vatican guards who apparently are members of the Swiss Army or the Swiss Guard, I dunno. They're Swiss. Anyway, they have to dress up like something out of Alice In Wonderland for some reason, wearing a ridiculous costume that looks like full body pantaloons. The colour scheme is bright red, yellow and blue, with a big white collar and black berets and shoes. It's all very big and very impressive and looks incredible, if not a tad silly. Basically, to me it all just looks like the inside of my mothers head, only with less gay men and science-fiction. Or the same amount, depending on your views of Christianity.
Rome has some cool graffiti covered trains, and the Colosseum, which is HUGE. We didn't go in coz the queue was stupidly long, but it's impressive enough from the outside. Rome has loads of old Roman architecture dotted all over the place, making for an absolutely beautiful city.
Wed 13th: Naples & Herculaneum.
At last! A city with flaws! This makes Naples more human in a way. Like yer in an actual city and not a European museum. The downside of this is that it makes it the worst place we go to on the whole cruise. Naples was a dirty, rough little town full of clothes shops, shoe shops
and not a lot else it would seem. Apart from Newsstands that all seem to have bins of cheap dvd's and an unhealthy amount of porn. Oh, and tobacconists that don't sell booze. Europe has a disturbing lack of places to buy booze. Europe needs more off licenses. And music shops. On a half day of looking round shops, there was a distinct lack of variety. Naples is boring. And a bit ugly. While most of the other places felt a little like a museum, I can spend a whole day in a museum or gallery if the exhibits grab me. All the places so far had. Ironically, Micaela, her mum, and a guy called Stuart we were with actually went to a museum instead of coming to Naples, and had a great time. And saw Mormons getting embarrassed by sexual art. Tee hee hee!
In the afternoon we went to Herculaneum - AKA the port town where everyone from Pompeii fled to to try and escape the sudden wrath of Mount Vesuvius. However, many people died there as Herculaneum itself didn't escape MV's wrath and got buried under smog and ash. There's been a big excavation project and a lot of Herculaneum seems to have been very well preserved. Stepping into this ancient town was like stepping into an Asterix book. I've been reading Asterix books since I can remember, so I had a bit of a moment seeing all these Roman columns, mosaics, structures, paintings, etc. It was incredible to walk around this place and see for real things I've admired in cartoon form for years. It made me very happy. It made me smile a childish grin. And there was a statue of Hercules with one hand behind his head and the other on his cock. The tour guide we were following said Hercules was having a piss, but he was blatantly wanking.
Thur 14th: Sea Day.
The first day when we were just on the boat. We went to the on board spa and sat in these heated chairs which are ludicrously relaxing, especially with the view we had. I've never been to a spa before, so it was my first time in a steam room and a sauna. Again, I found the steam room a bizarrely relaxing experience. The sauna was like a dry steam room. I preferred the steam room. Aside from spa stuff, we read, played chess, played bingo, ate food and drank booze. It was a good day.
Thursday, 28 August 2008
Axl's Adventures In The Mediterranean: Part 2
So anyway, waking up at God-knows-when o'clock in the morning, on August the 9th we went to Heathrow to catch a plane to Barcelona. Now, I don't particularly like flying. I remember flying to Denmark when I was 8 and thinking it was pretty awesome. Imagine my shock a couple of years ago when I flew to Paris to find myself mildly crapping myself as soon as the plane started leaving the ground. Foolishly I had assumed that something I was fine with when I was 8 would be fine still when I was 25. Axl, you ageing plonker. So now, at 27 I was already crapping it when I got on the plane (I was crapping it even more on the flight back, but that will have to wait.) and I'm sure this made it worse. Needless to say, there were some tense moments. Taking off and landing, to be precise. Anyway, we made it to Barcelona, went straight to the cruise ship, got our Butlins style greeting, and found that we had a couple of hours to spare, so we decided that it would be really fucking stupid of us to not go into Barcelona.
We were in Barcelona for about an hour & a half in between getting our stuff on the ship and boarding proper, so I only got a first impression of the place, which was that I loved it. It's such an attractive city. Had nowhere near enough time to take it all in.
You soon realise that on these things though, you only really get a chance to have a flavour of somewhere, so most places end up in essence the same. Almost everywhere is beautiful & picturesque and has great sidestreet restaurants with amazing food. Never being in a place for more than a few hours means you rarely see a places faults, which makes for a very pleasing holiday of snapshot memories and opinions.
Sat 9th: Barcelona.
Spent time wandering round the centres sidestreets. Barcelona is absolutely beautiful. I want to go back sometime yes please. Barcelona had an amazing cathedral - the name of which I can't remember now and we didn't actually have time to go inside it, a really pretty square, and a guy walking the streets naked. That's most of what we had time to see.
Be careful with yer wallet/purse tho. Micaela's mum had her's nicked from out of her bag.
Sun 10th: Cannes.
Cannes was beachy. Pretty much everything was closed coz we were there on a Sunday and it would seem that the rest of Europe hasn't been quite so taken with the pursuit of money over all else just yet. Which made for a nice Sunday afternoon of swimming in the sea, eating ice-cream, seeing the line of famous peoples hand prints in the pavement near the beach (including Luc Besson & David Lynch) and wondering around the streets not going into anywhere coz everywhere's closed. Which meant that we could properly stop and marvel at the ridiculous pet shop we saw, without the scariness of actually being inside it or near the type of people who would shop there.
People in Cannes love those tiny little dogs that look like rats. There were tons of the little bastards. You know, the ones like Paris Hilton carries around with her so much that they can't use their legs properly and so are submissive enough for her to shove up her vagina and use them as tampons.
Now, people in Cannes love their little tampon rat-dogs soooo much that they have the most ridiculous pet shop in the world selling ridiculous accessories like costumes, sun visors and perfume. Yup, I said perfume. It's called (and I really wish I had a photo to prove this because it's so perfect that yer gonna think I'm making it it up) "Oh My Dog!". As if that weren't good enough in itself, it had a notice on the advert saying, in French & in English, "This product has been made in connection with animal rights workers and vegetarians." So you can use this product on your pet, safe in the knowledge that no animals got blinded or injured by the testing process and then had to be eaten to end their suffering. They made one for cats too called "Oh My Cat!" which I did take a picture of to show my mum (yet it never occurred to me to take one of "Oh My Dog!". Fool!), but I can't get it on here right now. It's a shame coz the male model they've used in the advert for it is fucking scary.
That was pretty much it. Half the time wondering empty streets (apart from the people walking their tampon rat-dogs) after spending the first half of our time on the beach. I enjoyed swimming in the sea for the first time in years, then while trying to discreetly change clothes, managed to flash about 4 kids. They giggled. I was incredibly embarrassed.
Mon 11th: Lucca & Pisa.
Lucca is a very pretty village in Italy with a big wall bordering it. It's main points of interest are a church which is kinda pretty but a little dull but faces onto a nice square which is nice to sit in when waiting for everyone else to finish looking around, and a tower that takes ages to walk up to the top of with some unsafe looking stairs towards the top but is totally worth braving it to see the area at the top which has really cool trees growing in it and provides an amazing setting to see some absolutely beautiful views from. Oh, and the fact that Giacomo Puccini either lived there or was born there. Lucca is totally obsessed with Puccini. They have statues of him and notices about him all over the place. They have bars and B&B's named after his operas. They are clearly VERY proud of him.
We pretty much just went to Pisa to see the leaning tower, which totally defies belief when you see it in person. I mean, we've all seen pictures of it and gone "Woah, that's pretty weird. I mean it like, leans a bit to the side.", but, and I'm aware that this may make me sound like a total wanker, it really doesn't actually physically come across in photos just how much it leans, coz when yer there in person, seeing this massive fucking tower that looks like it's about one accidental nudge away from crashing down, it's pretty much incredible.
On the way back to the ship, we had a fun game of "Prossiespots." A game in which you basically try to be the first person to see a prostitute. This was because we were clearly driving down the place to be for a bit of an exchange of money and bodily fluids. It was yer bog standard country road that just happened to have a lot of prostitutes hanging around, waiting for business to come their way. A couple of time we saw cars pulling off the road towards one of them for some sky rockets in flight, afternoon delight. Ohhhhhhhwuh-hohhhhhhhh, afternoon delight.
And why should they wait until the middle of a cold dark night, eh?
We were in Barcelona for about an hour & a half in between getting our stuff on the ship and boarding proper, so I only got a first impression of the place, which was that I loved it. It's such an attractive city. Had nowhere near enough time to take it all in.
You soon realise that on these things though, you only really get a chance to have a flavour of somewhere, so most places end up in essence the same. Almost everywhere is beautiful & picturesque and has great sidestreet restaurants with amazing food. Never being in a place for more than a few hours means you rarely see a places faults, which makes for a very pleasing holiday of snapshot memories and opinions.
Sat 9th: Barcelona.
Spent time wandering round the centres sidestreets. Barcelona is absolutely beautiful. I want to go back sometime yes please. Barcelona had an amazing cathedral - the name of which I can't remember now and we didn't actually have time to go inside it, a really pretty square, and a guy walking the streets naked. That's most of what we had time to see.
Be careful with yer wallet/purse tho. Micaela's mum had her's nicked from out of her bag.
Sun 10th: Cannes.
Cannes was beachy. Pretty much everything was closed coz we were there on a Sunday and it would seem that the rest of Europe hasn't been quite so taken with the pursuit of money over all else just yet. Which made for a nice Sunday afternoon of swimming in the sea, eating ice-cream, seeing the line of famous peoples hand prints in the pavement near the beach (including Luc Besson & David Lynch) and wondering around the streets not going into anywhere coz everywhere's closed. Which meant that we could properly stop and marvel at the ridiculous pet shop we saw, without the scariness of actually being inside it or near the type of people who would shop there.
People in Cannes love those tiny little dogs that look like rats. There were tons of the little bastards. You know, the ones like Paris Hilton carries around with her so much that they can't use their legs properly and so are submissive enough for her to shove up her vagina and use them as tampons.
Now, people in Cannes love their little tampon rat-dogs soooo much that they have the most ridiculous pet shop in the world selling ridiculous accessories like costumes, sun visors and perfume. Yup, I said perfume. It's called (and I really wish I had a photo to prove this because it's so perfect that yer gonna think I'm making it it up) "Oh My Dog!". As if that weren't good enough in itself, it had a notice on the advert saying, in French & in English, "This product has been made in connection with animal rights workers and vegetarians." So you can use this product on your pet, safe in the knowledge that no animals got blinded or injured by the testing process and then had to be eaten to end their suffering. They made one for cats too called "Oh My Cat!" which I did take a picture of to show my mum (yet it never occurred to me to take one of "Oh My Dog!". Fool!), but I can't get it on here right now. It's a shame coz the male model they've used in the advert for it is fucking scary.
That was pretty much it. Half the time wondering empty streets (apart from the people walking their tampon rat-dogs) after spending the first half of our time on the beach. I enjoyed swimming in the sea for the first time in years, then while trying to discreetly change clothes, managed to flash about 4 kids. They giggled. I was incredibly embarrassed.
Mon 11th: Lucca & Pisa.
Lucca is a very pretty village in Italy with a big wall bordering it. It's main points of interest are a church which is kinda pretty but a little dull but faces onto a nice square which is nice to sit in when waiting for everyone else to finish looking around, and a tower that takes ages to walk up to the top of with some unsafe looking stairs towards the top but is totally worth braving it to see the area at the top which has really cool trees growing in it and provides an amazing setting to see some absolutely beautiful views from. Oh, and the fact that Giacomo Puccini either lived there or was born there. Lucca is totally obsessed with Puccini. They have statues of him and notices about him all over the place. They have bars and B&B's named after his operas. They are clearly VERY proud of him.
We pretty much just went to Pisa to see the leaning tower, which totally defies belief when you see it in person. I mean, we've all seen pictures of it and gone "Woah, that's pretty weird. I mean it like, leans a bit to the side.", but, and I'm aware that this may make me sound like a total wanker, it really doesn't actually physically come across in photos just how much it leans, coz when yer there in person, seeing this massive fucking tower that looks like it's about one accidental nudge away from crashing down, it's pretty much incredible.
On the way back to the ship, we had a fun game of "Prossiespots." A game in which you basically try to be the first person to see a prostitute. This was because we were clearly driving down the place to be for a bit of an exchange of money and bodily fluids. It was yer bog standard country road that just happened to have a lot of prostitutes hanging around, waiting for business to come their way. A couple of time we saw cars pulling off the road towards one of them for some sky rockets in flight, afternoon delight. Ohhhhhhhwuh-hohhhhhhhh, afternoon delight.
And why should they wait until the middle of a cold dark night, eh?
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Axl's Adventures In The Mediterranean: Part 1
So the reason I haven't updated this blog for ages now is that I was on a cruise around the Mediterranean. Oooh la de da, look at me why don't you. Yes, a cruise.
The cruise ship itself was a 13 story metal behemoth, a floating hotel and holiday complex.
And this baby has a name.
"Brilliance Of The Seas".
Now, a cruise is essentially a flash, upmarket package holiday (or is a package holiday just a cheap version of a cruise?). I guess if you were to analyse it, the comparison is pretty obvious. It wasn't something that had occurred to me tho, until the Butlins style greeting we got. Some poor girl was being paid to applaud us as we went inside the ship. Yup, we were greeted by clapping and "Yaaaaayyyyy, you made it! Well done!", which to me echoed the forced enthusiasm of the greeting we recieved when we went to ATP (Seriously, what better way to greet a bunch of "cooler-than-cool" indies to a festival than to have an equivalent of everything they hate about music personified and pushed at them, blocking their way in?).
Off the point, I don't know about any of you, but I found that the runner up in the U.K.'s "The Apprentice" (Claire) this year really reminded me of an evil Butlins employee. I got the feeling that if she wasn't so sure of herself, she would've been the Butlins equivalent of Michael Douglas in the film "Falling Down". Scary thought.
A lot of the employees on this cruise ship have that Butlins sort of forced enthusiasm, which I personally often find slightly sinister. I find it hard enough enough being courteous to people at my job sometimes, let alone being nice to them. If I had to force enthusiasm and "FUN" at them on the level these people seem to permanently have to, I think I'd go apocalyptic. I'd probably end up like one of those disgruntled U.S. postal workers you often used to see or read about in the news years ago coz they'd finally snapped and gone on a killing spree.
Luckily, none of this lot do. Although if they did, there were a few people on that boat who could've probably done with a bullet in the face. OK, that's a bit harsh. They only really deserved being beaten up a little. A couple at least deserved to be Vanilla Ice to my Suge Knight. A bit of a dangling over the side of the ship. That would've shut them up.
American in a lift (the cruise ship has lifts): "Hey, did you guys go off the ship today?"
Me & Caela: "Yeah, yeah we did."
Him: "Oh yeah? Wha'd I miss?"
Us: "We saw some Roman ruins, you know, baths, columns, an amphitheatre. We saw the old port..."
Him: Chuckles, then dismissively says "A bunch of rocks then."
NO YOU FUCKING IMBECILE! YOU BRAIN DEAD TOSSCOCK! Just coz your idea of culture is eating a Chinese take-away while watching the Discovery channel. Here's a tip, if you have no interest in anything another country has to offer, stay at fucking home. At the very least, don't let that stupid flapping mouth of yours ejaculate your stupid fucking "opinions" at me. Look, I realise that as your mouth's primary function is consumption of lard, you've probably forgotten how to use it properly, so I'll go easy on you. Come with me now to Deck 13. Actually, Deck 12's balconies are more over the water, we'll do it there. Come with me, and I'm gonna dangle some fucking sense back into that brain of yours. Let's get the blood to yer brain rather than that bulbous belly of yours. Now, I warn you, you are pretty heavy, so once I've started dangling over the side of the ship, I don't know how long I'm gonna be able to keep a hold on yer cankles for. What? I'm back in my cabin. Oh hang on, I didn't actually say any of that did I. This last diatribe has all been in my head hasn't it. Balls. I was really enjoying..... Micaela's undressed. Hang on, what's she... oh hello...........
The cruise ship itself was a 13 story metal behemoth, a floating hotel and holiday complex.
And this baby has a name.
"Brilliance Of The Seas".
Now, a cruise is essentially a flash, upmarket package holiday (or is a package holiday just a cheap version of a cruise?). I guess if you were to analyse it, the comparison is pretty obvious. It wasn't something that had occurred to me tho, until the Butlins style greeting we got. Some poor girl was being paid to applaud us as we went inside the ship. Yup, we were greeted by clapping and "Yaaaaayyyyy, you made it! Well done!", which to me echoed the forced enthusiasm of the greeting we recieved when we went to ATP (Seriously, what better way to greet a bunch of "cooler-than-cool" indies to a festival than to have an equivalent of everything they hate about music personified and pushed at them, blocking their way in?).
Off the point, I don't know about any of you, but I found that the runner up in the U.K.'s "The Apprentice" (Claire) this year really reminded me of an evil Butlins employee. I got the feeling that if she wasn't so sure of herself, she would've been the Butlins equivalent of Michael Douglas in the film "Falling Down". Scary thought.
A lot of the employees on this cruise ship have that Butlins sort of forced enthusiasm, which I personally often find slightly sinister. I find it hard enough enough being courteous to people at my job sometimes, let alone being nice to them. If I had to force enthusiasm and "FUN" at them on the level these people seem to permanently have to, I think I'd go apocalyptic. I'd probably end up like one of those disgruntled U.S. postal workers you often used to see or read about in the news years ago coz they'd finally snapped and gone on a killing spree.
Luckily, none of this lot do. Although if they did, there were a few people on that boat who could've probably done with a bullet in the face. OK, that's a bit harsh. They only really deserved being beaten up a little. A couple at least deserved to be Vanilla Ice to my Suge Knight. A bit of a dangling over the side of the ship. That would've shut them up.
American in a lift (the cruise ship has lifts): "Hey, did you guys go off the ship today?"
Me & Caela: "Yeah, yeah we did."
Him: "Oh yeah? Wha'd I miss?"
Us: "We saw some Roman ruins, you know, baths, columns, an amphitheatre. We saw the old port..."
Him: Chuckles, then dismissively says "A bunch of rocks then."
NO YOU FUCKING IMBECILE! YOU BRAIN DEAD TOSSCOCK! Just coz your idea of culture is eating a Chinese take-away while watching the Discovery channel. Here's a tip, if you have no interest in anything another country has to offer, stay at fucking home. At the very least, don't let that stupid flapping mouth of yours ejaculate your stupid fucking "opinions" at me. Look, I realise that as your mouth's primary function is consumption of lard, you've probably forgotten how to use it properly, so I'll go easy on you. Come with me now to Deck 13. Actually, Deck 12's balconies are more over the water, we'll do it there. Come with me, and I'm gonna dangle some fucking sense back into that brain of yours. Let's get the blood to yer brain rather than that bulbous belly of yours. Now, I warn you, you are pretty heavy, so once I've started dangling over the side of the ship, I don't know how long I'm gonna be able to keep a hold on yer cankles for. What? I'm back in my cabin. Oh hang on, I didn't actually say any of that did I. This last diatribe has all been in my head hasn't it. Balls. I was really enjoying..... Micaela's undressed. Hang on, what's she... oh hello...........
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