...ruffles...

It was the Ruffles' first family holiday this week. We stayed at the stunningly beautiful Pennard Hill Farm in Somerset. Resisting the temptation to call it a baby farm, which is something entirely different, it is designed to be baby friendly. This doesn't mean that it's all primary colours, face painting and teenage X-Factor rejects enthusiastically singing the theme tune to the Tweenies; it's just designed for people like us. Well, sort of, the other people staying there, who you would assume to be like us, had children called Florence and Sicily (aka 'Sistles').

The farm's whole approach is to avoid damaging children; its remoteness makes it completely safe, they have a 'eat at home' service; which is basically restaurant food delivered to your door. Even the pool is chlorine-free, it's cleaned by ultra violet lay lines or something. This meant that Millie had her first swim, which after a wobbly start she seemed to enjoy; until her daddy got a little over enthusiastic and bobbed her a too close to the surface of the water causing her to swallow half the pool and do the saddest little face ever.

Pennard Hill Farm is just round the corner (and up the hill) from Worthy Farm. Owned by Michael Eavis. Who organises the festival. The Glastonbury Festival. The farm overlooks the site though you wouldn't know it. Its not far from Burnham-on-Sea which is a classic crumbling English seaside town, which I truly wanted to enjoy. If you're a black and white photographer working for the Guardian it's probably a dream, if you're a visitor, it's pretty shit. Pound shops nestle amongst places selling fried things, fat people waddle around in England shirts and nasty gold jewellery. Part of me wants to love its English charm, but I just don't.

Having been to the festival but not the town, inevitably we also went into Glastonbury, which was much more my thing. It was full of women dressed in the fashion that fashion forgot; floaty skirts, black vest tops, leather flip flops. The men wore long wispy beards and t-shirts with purple unicorns on them. The shops are, as you'd expect, are all new agey, selling witchcraft and miscellaneous healing.

The common thing about both towns was their predicability and that they appear economically unsustainable (how can a whole town function on selling chipped porcelain dogs or healing algae?) You do start to wonder whether you're in the Truman Show that they're sophisticatedly branded theme parks, like Disney World with grit. In fact, when the fortieth numpty family blocks the pushchair whilst admiring tan leather sandals for 7.99 (for two pairs) you start to wonder whether you're being delayed whilst they set up the latest scene.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

The taps said it all. The hot tap in our hotel room turned clockwise, the cold, anti-clockwise. This is Cuba, a country pulling in opposite directions and yet, somehow, pulling together at the same time.

Take the Cuban economy, or should I say economies. Pesos for the Cubans and Convertible Pesos for tourists. There are separate shops for pesos and convertibles which work to different pricing structures. This is necessary because the average Cuban earns about £10 a month but the tourists can afford to buy a whole street at peso prices. Having two economies is the only way of getting in money and protecting against tourist driven inflation. The cheapest tickets for La Tropicana rock in at £40. The tourist industry is so potent within the Cuban economy that taxi drivers earn more than doctors. 3% of GDP is generated from US based Cubans sending home money.

The city itself is made up of perfectly restored colonial squares linked by wide leafy boulevards. These are punctuated within with slum-like alleyways where locals sit playing chess listening to loud salsa on poor quality stereos.

The streets are dark and could be perceived as menacing, but Cuba is surprisingly free of crime, especially violent crime. That said, you can’t walk down the street without a street hustler trying to sell you cigars, accommodation or prostitutes. Some simply shout at you (one broke off a date to try to talk to us). Others are more sophisticated spinning a yarn about needing milk for their babies. Apparently if you buy milk for them the shop will try to charge you about 6 pesos (£2). If you fall for that, the Jinetero simply returns the milk to the shop and splits the difference on the over inflated price with the shopkeeper. We were actually hustled by the same guy twice in two days; the first time we fell for it (he asked the time and said he had a friend in Cornwall; they all have friends in UK), second time we ignored him and he shouted “So you don’t speak to the Cuban people then?”.

The country is desperate for outside investment, and everyone is looking for money (the bellhop said he was quite happy to take our pounds when we arrived and our room cleaner told us that Friday was her day off, so we should remember to leave a tip on Thursday). Despite this, communism and Fidel is everywhere meaning the Americans and Japanese (the biggest source of tourist income) are notably absent. At the airport there are three TV’s showing departure times and 8 TV’s showing Fidel speeches. There are pictures everywhere that use brilliant revolutionary rhetoric of “glorious victories” and “gallant heroes”. Then is the CDR, a neighbourhood watch scheme designed to ensure that no Cuban gets too rich; anyone who gets above their station is reported to the authorities. Oh and there is an oppressive and pointless bureaucracy; 2 minutes per passenger going through customs (that’s 3 hours to process a jumbo jet of tourists).

Tell people you’re going to Cuba and they’ll tell you about the immaculate 1950’s vintage cars, the beautiful buildings, the salsa, the cigars and the rum. But this is re-branded Cuba and tells only part of the story. The real Cuba is sometimes like that, but the 1950’s cars are often seem held together with jam, the streets stink of diesel from the inefficient engines, the food is sometimes absolute garbage. These contradictions are what make it so interesting, it won’t last, the dollar is too seductive and the Cubans too desperate. When the US and Cuban governments finally grow up Cuba will undoubtedly become a more pleasant, but decidedly less interesting place to visit.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

Dateline: Havana. Project: getting home from holiday. We woke and it was raining; raining quite hard. This was the outer edges of Hurricane Katrina that was sweeping across the Florida Keys. We checked out from our hotel, as scheduled at 12pm.

+1 hour – The rain means a trip to La Plaza de la Revolution is replaced with a trip to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes

+3 hour – Back at the hotel, lunch

+4 hours – Walk to Parque Central Hotel to leave a message for a parent from Emma’s school that is in Cuba doing some work for Simply Red.

+5.5 hours – Bus picks us up; on the bus are Angharad and Drew. Angharad drives a drug education bus that visits Emma’s school every Summer. Not only is this slightly bizarre, it’s actually the second time this has happened; we bumped into them in Dubrovnik last year.

+6 hours – Arrive at the airport; informed that there is a four hour delay and the flight will not leave until 1am. We’re given lunch vouchers as compensation.

+7 hours – Go to the restaurant to get free lunch, turned away because of recently invented and obviously arbitrary rule that the free lunches were for the first 30 people only.

+8.5 hours – Go through passport control (two minutes per person). Drew is questioned as to why he has a British passport but was born in LA.

+9 hours – Arrive in departures; the restaurant options are manky hotdogs, manky hamburgers or manky pizza. I have a manky pizza.

+9.5 hours to +15 hours – Rain. No flights. No seats. No news. Rain starts coming through the roof filling up bins. Rain starts to come through light fittings, lights start to short out. Bins fill up and flood the floor. Messages and rumours start to circulate; the airport has been closed for hours, no it hasn’t, yes it has.

+15 hours – Departure time. No plane. Rain.

+16 hours – London flight called to gate B1, passengers go back through passport control, reclaim their bags and their visas (Emma, in a moment of trickery Paul Daniels would be proud of, manages to somehow pick my visa up and then put it back in the pile causing a momentary panic that it’s lost).

+16.5 hours – 500+ passengers with associated luggage stand outside Havana airport looking at coaches.

+18.5 hours – a long charade of people getting on coaches, then off coaches, then on coaches again. All of which is punctuated by false alarms, stampedes and one man shouting “PRESENTE” every two minutes. Rain is now lashing down.

+19.5 hours – Eventually board a coach which takes us to a deserted resort in Kholey. One couple complain that the mini-bar is locked and unplugged; some of us are grateful for a dry, clean bed to sleep in.

+24 hours – Wake up, miss breakfast, wander around resort.

+28 hours – Lunch, due to awful selection I have a plate of rice and pasta. Drinks are extra; then they’re free and give everyone their money back.

+29 hours – Coach arrives.

+30 hours – Arrive at check in desk, check in desk is closed.

+31.5 hours - Check in, plane due to leave at 4pm, delayed until 6pm.

+33 hours – Passport control (2 minutes per person)

+37 hours – Plane delayed from 6pm to 9pm.

+38 hours – 9pm. Plane delayed until 11pm.

+40.5 hours – Man with his head wrapped in toilet paper, wanders around the airport with an empty bottle of rum and a sign saying ‘28 hours’. Whoops and cheers all round.

+42 hours – No announcement and the wrong gate is showing the London flight but the plane begins to board. Emma is so demoralised she seriously suggests we don’t get on, after all, “we’ll just have to get off again”.

+42.5 hours – Flight CUB400 for London takes off 27 hours late.

+51 hours – lands London Gatwick (although it’s announced by the pilot as Heathrow)

+52 hours – Passport control, bags.

+52.5 Coaches. Car

+54 Home.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

Unlike us Brits, who have a predilection for specifics, it is not untypical for an American to be interested in the altogether more generic pastime of ‘sports’. When it comes to American sports, the Toronto Raptors command a similar level of importance in the sporting lexicon as the Springfield Isotopes. When we asked the hotel concierge to fix us up with some tickets, he said that he’d try but with the hockey season locked out “people do funny things, like see Raptors games”. And this guy is paid to sell us the city’s attractions.

The benefit this sort of anonymity enjoys is that, and all the guidebooks reinforce this, a Raptors game is a rare opportunity to see some of the world’s top ‘ballers e.g. those who play for other teams.

Last week the Chicago Bulls were in town, a shadow of the all conquering team of Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippin et al, but one of the bigger boys none the less. According to the Toronto Sun they are a young and exciting team, now I don’t know much about basketball but they were certainly too good for the Raptors.

With Hockey’s political problems marginalising its interest (though not its space in US news bulletins – go on, test me, ask me anything about the strike), the triumvirate of Baseball, Basketball and American Football (what we call Rugby according to our Niagara Falls tour guide) dominate the national psyche. But, similarly to the baseball we went to see a couple of years ago it is not the game of basketball that dominates an American sporting event.

Both the start and finish of a basketball game are strangely muted affairs. It’s a mere sideline to buying merchandise, food and finding your seat. As the clock runs down two and a half hours later the crowd leave as though they’ve just watched a rather average film. At least a football game always ends with a jeer, cheer or muted applause.

Yep, two and a half hours to make it through a 48 minute game something has got to make up the time. NBA have picked up on the Hip Hop chic that surrounds b-ball, so each attack is soundtracked by an instrumental hip hop break. The next day I went out and bought Ludacris, Nas, Lil John and De La Soul albums... suckah.

Interspersed with the game itself is all sorts of tomfoolery; the Raptors Dance Pak do three stints, we play NBA Bingo, Ralph Raptor, the Toronto mascot, shows his nifty moves to a track which has a hook of “Don’t you play around with my click”. He follows this with a skit where he runs into a popcorn selling stooge (evidently Torontonians love that sort of stuff). Then there’s the bit where they run the camera around the arena picking out some lucky fella to sit in the expensive court-side seats. There’s the One Minute Madness, where t-shirts are thrown into the crowd. At half-time the world’s cleverest dog does some appallingly executed stunts which apparently got him and his owner onto the Jay Leno Show. The owner, pushing forty and dressed in a cheerleader’s outfit, urged us all to “Do more stuff with your dogs” as she exited. Then a short ugly redneck failed to basket any of his prize winning shots from the free throw line. In the second half a larger rubberised version of Ralph Raptor appeared to stalk the perimeter of the court. His actions range from hilarious – falling off a ‘trash receptacle’ to downright suspect – mounting a small child. He returned later in his smaller guise to give the dominant Bulls the ‘I’m watching you’ sign (pointing at his eyes then pointing at his prey).

The game itself is a side attraction, it was all but over when, after 2 and a half minutes of the first quarter, the Raptors called an emergency timeout to solve the mystery of how they’d managed to go 10-0 down before half the crowd had finished their first hotdog (my previous assertion that American sports are just a more interesting way of consuming junk food wholly reinforced).

American sports are a fully evolved genre of show business, in Curse of the Bambino Dan Shaughnessy admits that most fans of baseball don’t really care how their chosen teams get on. Plenty happens, there’s lots of opportunity for advertising and making money and you’re almost guaranteed to be entertained – regardless of how good or bad the actual game is. Even though it was a great night of safe light-hearted amusement the game itself ended a rather meaningless 115 to 121 and the Raptors continued their march to humble obscurity. I’m no expert, but they could do worse than draft in their new English phenom, the slightly camp looking ginger number 18.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

Toronto was a grower for me, following an eight hour flight and a typically irritating tussle with immigration, my fatigued initial reaction was that the city was all building sites and grey snow. It didn’t have the buzz of New York; probably because it was Sunday and everyone was sensibly at home. Nor did it have the instant appeal of Boston, because the lush greenery that compliments Boston’s mix of Colonial, Victorian and Federal architecture won’t survive in Toronto’s sub zero winter temperatures. There’s a distressing number of homeless people struggling to survive on frozen streets sleeping on heated vents under piles of dirty blankets – but their presence is all the more conspicuous because the more fortunate prefer to spend their time in the PATH - the underground city which riddles Toronto’s downtown. Sometimes you feel like you’re stuck in a North America of the mid seventies. Snow tyres are necessities on the cars and trucks so they look typically huge. The workmen are rugged in heavy dungarees and hobnail boots and there are more handlebar moustaches than at a Village People look-a-like contest. It all feels very practical and dour.

But Toronto isn’t the tediously functional city it first appears to be. There’s the exclusive district of Yorkville and the cooler younger homelands of Queen Street West and Kensington Market. Expecting to encounter a stream of ruddy lumberjacks, it’s instead occupied by the stylish, the self-assured and the beautiful. I was surprised by its cosmopolitan complexion; its Chinatown is typically bustling, its Portuguese, Italian and Asian communities a surprise. It mixes modern commerce with colonial history; it’s a young and fresh university town and an exclusive enclave of the nouveaux riche. The city begins to reveal itself as one of effortless style laid over chunky affluent confidence.

Canadians are more direct than their cousins further south. Having set my bullshit-ometer to hyper sensitive to accommodate the infinite cheese of an American service culture, I had to reset to accommodate their more friendly, but pragmatic demure. They love it when you wince at their mild but sub-zero temperatures, telling you that a couple of weeks ago it was -24 (and out of the city, a very nippy -42).

It was mild when we were there, the temperatures didn’t drop below -5 although with the wind chill it was cold enough (Gareth upgrading its cold status from ‘eyeball cold’ to ‘bollocks cold’). The chill can be quickly warmed with a cup of Tim Horton’s hot chocolate so you can comfortably sit and watch (and not do) ice-skating in front of City Hall, visit the CN Tower, see some real, proper NBA basketball, shop at Sam the Record Man or the World's Biggest Bookstore or just hang out with real people living real lives. Valentine's Day was spent eating Burritos in a sparsely populated Tex Mex on Queen Street West with groups of, presumably, singleton Torontonians.

With most cities, four days is usually quite enough for me, mostly for the same reason they appeal; New York’s intensity, Boston’s tranquillity, Rome’s antiquity, Paris’ timeless style, Vegas’ crass commercialism. But I could have spent a few more days in Toronto visiting the Hockey Hall of Fame, or the Bata Shoe Museum, or the Royal Ontario Museum. We only scratched the surface really, there is still plenty to reveal.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

I suppose the least surprising thing about the Da Vinci Code is that Sophie is both brilliant and beautiful. I mean, you're just not going to get... 'Sophie was a brilliant cyptologist, but she was an ugly old sow'. The least surprising thing about Air Canada air stewardesses is that they are, at best, a little ruddy and well worn.

Four hours into the flight, they also managed to pour half a litre of water over my lap, and laugh at me whilst they did. To add insult to iminent nappy rash, my iPod, which was in direct firing line, also got it sploshed making the jog wheel work only intermitently. I completed an 'incident report' which will go to their insurance company. I don't know what the profit margin is on your average transatlantic flight but I doubt it stretches to a new iPod.

Toronto is wet and cold, this library is warm and dry. We shall return to the streets when we've thawed out.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

Stew. When we said we were going to Croatia on holiday some said we’d only be able to eat stew. Some questioned whether we’d be safe, after all hadn’t it been bombed to hell? Some read that it was the new cool place to go on holiday. Nobody actually knew what it would be like.

Dubrovnik was shelled into little pieces by Bosnian forces in 1991, apparently more to break the Croatian spirit than for any strategic reason. Despite months of siege, Dubrovnik didn’t fall, and when the war finished they embarked on an expensive rebuilding programme, which spiralled the country into debt, but revitalised the soul of its people.

Where most cities are in constant evolution, or in Vegas’ case; revolution, Dubrovnik is as complete a town as you could hope to see. The continuation of a seven hundred year old planning strategy means that even the most modern buildings use the same materials and are built in the same style of the rest of the town. The limestone streets have been polished to a shine over the years. The result is that the town always looks finished. Altogether it gives the place a magical feel, particularly at night. You can see why it is supposed to encapsulate the essence of the country.

Walking the city walls, or passing the [sigh] Irish pub, or talking to the sophisticated, cool, cosmopolitan Croats you forget its recent past. Anyone over the age of twelve was actually a victim, or even participant of the war. This was my first visit to anywhere that was a warzone in my lifetime (apart from the time I got lost in Manchester and skirted the edge of Mosside), I’m looking forward to a fortnight in Basra in a couple of years.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

For my birthday (which was now three weeks ago) Emma took me to Dublin for the day, flight out at 10am, back home by midnight. In between Trinity College, Grafton Street, Temple Bar, and all the other delights Dublin offers. It was a brilliant way of spending a day. Our mid-afternoon break saw us visit Bewley’s Café. According to the Rough Guide, Bewley’s is so much of a Dublin institution, when it ran into financial trouble the Government had to step in amidst public pressure and prop it up until new investors could be found.

I can’t deny that Bewley’s is one nice café; its labyrinthine layout hides a myriad of mezzanine floors and hidden rooms. Nice though it was, I didn’t I feel the magic that whipped that national fervour. My Fanta and pink iced bun were very nice, but it didn’t stir my spirit.

Well of course not, I’m not a Dubliner; Bewley’s has no history with me so it doesn’t exist in my soul. To get to the soul of something, you have to absorb it as much as possible. If I’d been visiting Bewley’s with my friends for years, and shared thousands of hours of laughter and sadness and drama, I’d have a connection that would stir me into action.

It takes years to get a connection with any city, but I can’t get anything at all just by turning up. For this reason we walked the Dublin sites rather than take a bus tour. I’m averse to bus tours or anything that reduces the meaning of visiting a city down to a tick list of ‘things to see’. It separates you from the true soul of the place, you may not really ‘get it’ in a day, but by sitting on a bus you’re guaranteed not to.

Likewise, people love Bar-b-que-ing because it makes a connection with their inner spirit to fend for themselves. It makes little sense on a practical level; you can’t guarantee the weather, it takes much more effort than regular cooking, it’s messier and less hygienic, but people love it. Making the oven, lighting the fire, nurturing it, and cooking it. Bypassing any element of the true bar-b-que-ing process releases another finger from that connection. That’s why I resist the pressure to buy a gas powered bar-b-que. I know they’re more convenient, I can’t deny that gas-powered bar-b-queing tastes exactly the same as proper a bar-b-que. But by rationalising the process, all in the name of convenience we will eventually get to the stage where we won’t bother doing it at all.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

Emma was sitting on the table looking bemused, in one hand she held my car keys in the other the deeds to the house. Slowly she was being covered in the clothes I was wearing. Finally, standing totally naked, when everything was gone, I was ready. Black, I said. It came up red.

OK, so this isn’t exactly how I lost my phone in Vegas. It was more of an absent minded packing incident. Apparently when Emma gave the coded signal (“Shall we just check the room before we go?”) I was expected to check that I had my car keys (I did, in the pocket of my jeans at the bottom of my rucksack) and my phone (I didn’t, it was under the bed).

It wasn’t until I got home that I realised it was lost, the fact it was so avoidable was frustrating in the extreme. I could claim it back on the insurance, but having to pay the £50 excess barely made it worth it.

I decided to speculatively contact the hotel, the website only had a phone number for reservations but was spam-bustingly free of email addresses.

I went back to Google, and put in “@luxor.com” perhaps somewhere on the web there was an email address I could use. There was one, deep inside the Luxor website there was an address for their Marketing and Promotions department who look after The Blue Man Group and the Ra topless nightclub. I wrote to them asking for my phone back.

It was a long shot, the hotel has 4,500 rooms, two Imax cinemas, a nightclub, theatre, shops, casino and numerous restaurants and whilst I could isolate the phone to somewhere in room 6016 the size of the hotel meant it was rather like sending an email to the Mayor of Thame to tell him my phone was lost in the sub post office inside Martins the newsagent.

I continued with my insurance application with little urgency or enthusiasm. On Tuesday we were left a card by the postman to say that they’d tried to deliver a package and that it was currently at the sorting office. Maybe it had worked; maybe the phone had been returned. I went to the sorting office and handed the card in…

It was another Brittannia Music Club CD, which they still send me despite endless requests to leave the club. On Wednesday, however, a package arrived from the Luxor, Las Vegas, no note, or complimentary slip, just one carefully packaged Sony Ericsson T310.

Except my phone is a Nokia 465. No, that’s a lie too. It was my phone, how good is that? If that email had arrived in my work inbox it would either have been deleted, or delegated into a black hole where only the lap of the gods would have controlled whether it would have reached a satisfactory conclusion or not.

I think they could teach our company a thing or two about customers. At a recent customer service training day the facilitator asked someone to describe our customers. “Timewasters mostly” responded the women in front of everyone including our Chief Executive. She is most dim-witted person I have ever met, but it’s a view reflected across the whole company.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

The Rough Guide gives you some very simple instructions about Las Vegas; if you want to go and look for the hidden city, the one the guide books don’t tell you about that the locals frequent. Don’t bother, it doesn’t exist.

It’s a refreshingly honest place. Turn up, spend money, have fun, go home. We are not here to enrich your soul or enlighten your being. We are bigger and stupider than anywhere in the world.

On average each of the 29 million visitors to Vegas loses $688 gambling. Each slot machine makes on average $250 profit a day, and each table $2500. The hotels are vast complexes which are pumped full of pure oxygen to keep gamblers awake, there are no exit signs or clocks, and drinks are served free to keep the punters’ gambling creative. Wadda place.

I’ll get round to all the various things we did and saw in good time, but in short…

Stayed at the Luxor, shopped at Caesars Palace, took part in some viewer research for an appalling comedy drama pilot show on UPN, went on the rollercoasters on top of the Stratosphere and New York New York, ate at the Bellagio Buffet, gambled a little, saw the Bellagio fountains visited Elvis-a-rama and saw an Elvis impersonator, ate a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, saw Lance Burton’s magic show, the MGM Lions and Siegfried and Roy’s Tigers, had taxi rides with one driver who wanted to assassinate the president, and one who thought it was funny to hoot his horn at an old woman crossing the road in an electric wheel chair. Took advantage of the outrageously good exchange rate and bought a stack of CD’s and trainers, saw the gondolas on the second floor of the Venetian, had burgers in the Mandalay Bay resort, but not the Rossini burgers, the one with truffles and fois gras, because they were $60…

But we didn’t get married much to the chagrin of everyone who called, emailed and texted within hours of us getting home. Sorry.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

Imagine if you will, the people of London converging on Trafalgar Square singing the songs of their region. East Londoners; The Lambeth Walk, those from the West; Tosca, the North, If I Were A Rich Man and the South; 21 Seconds by So Solid Crew. Each follows a horse and a little man in pyjamas, upon which their hopes and dreams rely.

The Siena Palio is the Italy’s most spectacular festival. Every July and August the town’s seventeen family groups or Contrada establish bragging rights through a series of brutal, lawless horse races around Il Campo, the town centre, not the Bolton centre back.

Before each race the Contrada march through the streets, singing songs of battle, afterwards they feast and celebrate. The races are riddled with corruption, it’s been known for jockeys, local Italian cowboys, to be kidnapped on the way to a race. Corruption runs so deep, it is said that by the time they get to the start line no more than three of the seventeen horses have any chance of winning such is the drugging and bribery that goes on.

After an hour and more of jockeying for starting positions, the race lasts 90 seconds, jockeys ride bareback and are frequently sent crashing to the floor. It’s a contradictory event, the rivalries are fierce, yet the atmosphere celebratory and friendly, the racing is chaotic, yet regimented by history and pageantry.

Emma nearly fainted in the crowds, we waited for three hours for something to happen, I’ve no idea who won. It was ace.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

On holiday we rarely got going before 4 o’clock. The heat was oppressive (the car registered 42 degrees one day) so we did little more than sit by the pool and siesta. I don’t really do sunbathing, to use a Danny Wallace-ism – “I know what I want and I know how to get it, it’s just that usually what I want is a cup of tea and a biscuit, and how I get it is by going to the kitchen.” So in between my five books we did frequent a few local towns.

The nearest was Pistoia, a town typical of the area, although you can become complacent of Tuscany’s beauty. As we sat in the square watching the Galetaria seller open her stall in preparation for the evening’s trade I turned to Emma and asked her a question I’ve wanted to ask for ever: -

“Is sweat dripping down your back and into your bumhole?”
“Yes what about you?”
“Yes”

Pistoia’s like that; it really needs something to lift it from being more than just another Tuscan town. Pisa is equally unremarkable but at least it’s got the tower. When you walk out of the meadow and into the town it is remarkable for its emptiness. It’s a town built on bad surveying techniques. Figuratively, not literally, if it was literally built on bad surveying techniques it wouldn’t be there.

Italian towns in August are dead; you can walk through them on a Saturday afternoon and not see a soul. Siesta is very unnerving for those of us cursed with a protestant work ethic. Would it be too much to ask the locals to siesta in the town square to assure hapless tourists that people live there? For all we know everyone could have been killed by a huge leak of noxious gases.

Florence on the other hand doesn’t fail to deliver or impress. When I went as a teenager it was in the middle of huge clean up so the Cathedral and surrounds were covered in scaffolding. That gone it is everything you hope for and more.

Emma, whose map reading skills are nigh on legendary told me before the holiday that we were so far from Florence that it wasn’t on our map although we were just 20km away from Firenze. It makes me wonder, how many people, and there have to have been a few, go to Tuscany intending to visit Florence but never make it because they are unaware of the Italian spelling.

We parked in a city centre car park, when we returned we were greeted by a swarthy unshaven Italian covered in sweat, in a dirty vest. He muttered something to his mate then turned to us and said “That will be 10 Euros please” in a voice which suggested he had learnt English from Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served? As we sorted through our funny money he broke back into his growling Italiano. we handed over the cash and he said “Thenk-ewe very maaaarch, your car is around the corrrrrner”. He even rolled his ‘Rs’. Apparently he went to boarding school in Dorset which has clearly paid dividends now he’s secured this late night shift in an undercover car park. Whilst we were tempted to ask about buggery and the intricate private school fagging system, we had to get home.

You’ve got to admit I’m a bit of a Bill Bryson, we visit the cultural behemoth of Florence and tell a story about the car park.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

Strategically it was a simple holiday; low key and low maintenance, and whilst there was something very fedora hat and imported copies of the Independent about a week in Tuscany, it met all pre-defined objectives. We were based in Il Cagnagno; a tiny hill village outside Pistoia which was accessible only by “A rough but asphalted road”, as if to say, ‘well at least it’s asphalted, what do you want? Jam on it?’

Emma took driving responsibilities, a fair challenge for the winding ascents to the apartment which were reminiscent of family holidays driving through the Alps and Pyrenees. One time mum took over from a tiring dad whilst driving over a precarious Alpine pass. As she pulled away, a guide book balanced on the dashboard slid down and jammed behind the steering wheel locking it up and putting the car on a direct trajectory towards the edge of a million foot drop. She eventually decided to brake, and shaken they swapped back over so dad carried on driving, fully rested from travelling fifteen feet in the passenger seat.

Our apartment was a converted something or other with narrow windows like those you find on castles. Maybe Il Cagnagno was an independent state, as many of the towns in the area seem to have been, although with a population of no more than six, its nuclear arsenal was likely to be limited.

The pool next door was a honeypot for beautiful middle class locals. Young Italian women are without exception slim sexy bronzed nymphets able to wear bikinis without a second warning, capable of walking in 38 degree heat without perspiring a bead of sweat, and able to exit and enter swimming pools like supermodels. But their gorgeousness is short lived because young sexy slim Italian women just don’t grow into older sexy slim Italian women. They leap straight to being gnarly 32 stone deep sea monsters with jowls like a clowns pocket. Could it be that the diet of pasta and pizza, and inevitable stream of dates they attract catches up with them? That they wake up one morning with legs like oak trees. Perhaps Italian men don’t marry the thin ones because mama wouldn’t accept them (no child baring hips, don’t like their food, sullied by years of being gorgeous) and the fat ugly ones, hidden away learning to cook for years, suddenly become desirable wife material. Emma thinks that British Women win overall because they may start plain, but at least they sustain their plainness longer. 


0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

"Is Walt Disney really called Walter"
"I suppose so"
"So is Mickey really Michael Mouse?"
"Only in contract negotiations"
"And Donald Duck?"
"Known as Don down the golf club"

As is only right and proper, we went to Disney with dark cynicism in our hearts. Disney is, after all, one of the main pillars in America's consumer lead imperialism - an evil cell holed up on the edge of Paris eating away at thousands of years of European culture, conditioning people to the laws of Americana.

Someone at work told me that anyone who didn't enjoy Disney needed their head seeing to, she also told me she'd walked out on a Whitney Houston concert because it wasn't as good as Celine Dion. It strengthened my resolve.

But Disney was great, it was saccharine and idealistic, but that is what they do, they're just not trying to be anything else. The parades are all about how everyone should love each other and get on, we can mock, but it's a fine sentiment. People may say that its unreal, and typically American - the Rough Guide was scathing, snottily proclaiming it to be fine for kids and stupid people, but anyone with a brain, i.e. anyone who reads the Rough Guide and who has kept it real by spending their holidays in small jazz clubs, will hate it.

But going to Disney is what people do, it's as valid as walking in the Andes or Yack herding in Peru, or any of those more 'real' pursuits people do in an attempt to justify their proclaimed eclecticism.

Mickey is, of course, an obvious presence, but disappointingly Donald Duck appears to be ostracised in favour of Winnie the Poo and his friends. I was shocked to see Ee Aww doing the running man dance during a parade rather than concerning himself with blustery days, but generally Disney have retained the values of Poo - which is to be applauded.

What you don't get from the Disney films is how close together all the characters live to each other. Did you know that Pinocchio and Peter Pan are neighbours? If you watch the films, you never see Peter Pan in the background when Geppeto is carving the lying bastard little boy in the garden. You would expect him to appear at the window naked scratching his testicles and rubbing his eyes or something.

At the end of the day we walked back through Main Street USA trawling the parade of shops looking for something for Emma's sister. The range is bewildering, you could easily furnish your house with Disney stuff, wear Disney outfits, live a 24/7 Disney life. People were trying to do it, scooping up great hoards of merchandise, as with all merchandise you have to try and take what your buying out of its context and put it back into real life. A 24 piece Mickey dinner service may look great at Disney, but at home? Think about it.

We moved from one store to another trying to find something to suit Sara, Emma carefully examined things, pulled a face and put them back. In the final shop she stood ponderously, behind her were hundreds of Mini Mouses all piled up. There she stood, with this backdrop. She looked me in the eyes and said "I don't know it's just not DISNEY enough".

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

Paris was great, and I'll tell you all about it in good time. To set the scene, let me tell you how me and Emma 'do' cities.

Rather than plan our sightseeing, soullessly ticking off from a list of must-sees we tend to wander the streets aiming for points of interest but en route taking in the quirky, interesting bits the guidebooks don't tell you about. We have a neat division of labour in order to do this. I do the days and Emma does the nights.

As peachy as this sounds, it is not without it's drawbacks. For one, my day plans, dubbed "Scott Walking Tours" - hilarious if my name was something like Scott Walkinshaw and not Justin Ruffles - tend to be rather badly paced. The first day is usually an epic, in New York we did nine different sights on day one, finishing with a walk from Time Square to Greenwich Village down Broadway - a very long way indeed. Mind you we did pass a man in immaculate tennis whites saying to nobody in particular that he was going to get "Some Jewboy Lawyer and sue the ass off you". I'm rather proud of my walking tours, but they don't half give you sore feet.

When we go out to eat, Emma fails to factor in the need to eat as part of the excursion. To her as long as we find a restaurant before it closes we're successful. In Boston we walked past about 30 perfectly good restaurants and, as everything began to close up, we ended up having to go to one which served up a tennis ball sized meatball on spaghetti which was frozen in the middle. Emma's biggest problem though is her disregard for the long established benefits of using a map. She has got better, now she is charmingly useless at map reading, and it's all a bit of a laugh. She was "Fucking useless" in Scotland a few year's ago when we drove from Edinburgh to the west coast after a night at the Festival. Whilst she slept I drove for an hour on the motorway, eventually I indicated to turn off at the designated junction. Suddenly she woke up and shouted "NOT HERE", at which point I swerved back onto the motorway and had to drive a further twenty miles, including over a toll bridge before we were able to turn round.

On our first night in Paris, having arrived a mere 90 minutes earlier, we set off for something to eat. We passed numerous restaurants (plumping for one two minutes from the hotel in the end), more importantly, Emma didn't think it was necessary to bring a map of this city neither of us had previously visited with us. After the meal we used Emma's bat like radar to find our way back, so we wandered the streets lost for hours though we were always about a minute from the hotel.

It came to a head on Sunday, we had headed south to rue de Mouffetard a boho enclave full of students and second hand bookshops. After that it was time to head home, and so we needed to head for Gare du Nord. With Emma's legendary sense of direction she suggested we walked back to give us some time to muse over what a good weekend it had been. I think this may illustrate her poor sense of direction, here's the route we'd have had to taken...

North up rue Mouffetard, right onto rue Ortolan, left onto Rue Monge, to St Julien le Pauvre, over the Seine and in front of Notre Dame, left onto Rue De Cloutre Notre Dame, right onto rue de la cite, over porte notre dame, left onto Quai De La Megisserie, right onto rue du pont neuf, right onto rue berger, left onto Boulevard De Sebastopol, left onto rue Reaumur, right onto rue montoguiel, north onto rue Poissonere, north onto rue Du Faubourg Poissonierre, right onto Rue La Fayette, and finally left onto rue de dunkerque.

We're great wanderers, but we're not that great. I illustrated the epic journey on the map using my finger to point the way, singing the theme to bod. We then had to find a toilet, because Emma nearly wet herself laughing.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday