Friday Is Hopelessly Lost
RIGHT – lifeboat helpers, thank you very much for volunteering, we need as many bodies as we can get. Tomorrow Mrs. Toad cooks roast lamb, as it’s nice and Springy these days, and we get in a gallon of red wine and after pestering the good people of Stockbridge for their spare cash we shall eat and drink and record a podcast and make merry. Our house (email if you don’t know where that is) between 10am and 4pm please!
In other news it is the eagleowl EP launch tonight, at the Roxy Room. Hairy bollocks that EP is good, and my review will appear here next week (when it’s actually available to buy, as per usual), but if you want to get your sweaty little palms on one then tonight is the time to do it.
Last weekend while Mrs. Toad and I turned her fortnight stranded in the States (Pittsburgh, poor girl) into a romantic weekend in Paris she suggested that I do a Friday Five based around travel disasters – we’ve all had them. Unfortunately I got the email far too late to actually do it, but it was a good idea, so I thought we might just use the idea this week.
The Friday Fives are all about taking the opportunity to waste a good day’s work by fannying about talking bawshank on the internet remember, so don’t worry about the comments section on this site being the usual old cronies, this is a de-lurking amnesty so please introduce yourselves and say hello. No nasty, gory pictures of shredded limbs this week either – I actually got complaints about that you know, not harsh ones, but complaints nevertheless. Which is a good thing really, it was quite nasty, but then that was the point.
1. Favourite boat-based work of fiction, novel or movie or poem or whatever.
2. What’s the best you have made of a travel disaster?
3. What’s the most needless travel disaster you have brought entirely on yourself?
4. Most hair-raising or barely-functional form of transport you have taken.
5. Crappest place you have travelled to either on holiday or for business.
These songs are from the eccentric but nevertheless enjoyable compilation CD released about six or seven years ago called ‘Biba – Champagne & Novocaine‘. I don’t really care what it was about but it had some skinny girl’s naked arse on the outside (and no-one wants to see a skinny girl’s arse really, do they) and an oddly good mix of tunes on the inside.
Marilyn Monroe – I’m Through With Love
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Sparks – This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us
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Tiny Tim – Tiptoe Thru’ the Tulips
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Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band – Cherchez la Femme
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1. erm….errr…fuck….oh aye ‘Swallows and Amazons’
2. When I was about 19 I went inter-railing round Europe and i left a mini ruck sack at a train station in Nice. The major fuck up was that it had all the train timetables and scheduled in it. Thankfully though that meant we just did what we wanted and went to some pretty amazing places, cesky krumlov in the czech republic being a major stand out
3. Missing my flight from Vegas to San Francisco, because I looked at the flight times for a completely different flight (thankfully though we got let on the next flight for nothing, thank fuck as it was my honeymoon)
4. Any bus in Glasgow
5. Birmingham, sorry but that’s place sucks baws
yas podium!!!!
1. The Wreck of the Hesperus – because I bought a boat called the fucking Hesperus when I lived in London. I really should have known better.
2. My friend Andrew and I more or less exploded a car somewhere near Stratford, whilst driving down to someone’s birthday when we were about eighteen. The army barracks nearby wouldn’t help (fuckers). So we ended up camping on the back lawn of some guy’s house, after spending the night sitting on a sofa on his front lawn with him and his pals, shooting the breeze and eating beans on toast cooked on a little camping stove. He had a pet tarantula. Then, in the morning, we went into Stratford, went boating on the Avon with a gigantic bottle of cider, went to see some Shakespeare, camped in a farmer’s field overnight and got the train home in the morning. Brilliant weekend!
3. Mrs. Toad and I got hopeless lost on the two-hour drive from Lyon to my parents’ house this Christmas. It ended up taking us ten hours, and if it hadn’t been for my iPhone we’d be there still. I know that route quite well, too.
4. In Madagascar we crossed over to Ile Ste. Marie on a boat called the Riziky Karim 2. All the other boats had numbers after their names too, and it was only after a panicked hour battling the surf that we realised that this was becase numbers one and two were at the bottom of the Mozambique fucking Channel.
5. Mrs. Toad goes to Syndey, New York and Montreal. I go to Slough, Basingstoke and Shotts. It does not rock.
Not even first on my own fucking site. I suck at this.
1. Well I quite like ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’, but it only leaps to mind because I was thinking about it just the other day, really. The only other boat related thing I can think of right now is ‘Titanic’, and yeah, it’s not 1997 any more.
2. Ummm I don’t think I’ve ever had one. Unless you count all the times I decide to take short cuts down back roads and end up in a ditch at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by cows.
3. See above. You don’t have a sat nav, Agnes. Or anything even vaguely resembling a sense of direction. And now you’re talking to yourself. Idiot.
4. Any car driven by any of my friends who were fortunate enough to get their license before I was. They’re all still alive today too. I think.
5. Ha! Wallace Rockhole in the Northern Territory was pretty interesting. And you’ll never catch me going back to Coober Pedy, NT every again. Shivers.
Oz has the best place names.
1. Master and Commander. Especially the cannon-ball’s eye view down the ship
2. When I was about 17, myself and a bunch of chums drove down to Cornwall for the weekend in a mate’s car (I say “mate,”, but we only befirended him cos he had A Car). We also stayed in said “mate’s” dodgy friend’s* rustic cottage (which didn’t have such fripperies as running water or electricity). About half a centimetre of snow fell on the Saturday night, so we said we were snowed in cos we couldn’t get back across Bodmin Moor and carried on drinking for several more days…
3. Nothing really springs to mind, apart from the usual misreading of timetables etc. I’m sure Wilf will remind me of some “hilarious” incident caused by myself which I have totally blanked..
4. The 11.30 train from Glasgow. I have heard rumours of a midnight bus, but refuse to contemplate taking it.
5. Newquay
*He used to be his teacher, back when he was at public school. Yes, that kind of dodgy.
Yes – Yorky’s Knob and Rooty Hill are two of my favourites.
Yes – Yorkey’s Knob and Rooty Hill are two of my favourites.
Oh delete the first one of those would Matthew? I wasn’t quick enough. Oh, and delete this one too, would you?
Cesky Krumlov!
Great place, have just had instant interailing flashback..
Too late – Three-Post Mentalism from the classy lassy from Wogga Wogga.
I actually met (and made a rather half-hearted, ultimately unsuccessful attempt to shag) a girl from Wogga Wogga once. She was lovely – tall, long strawberry blonde hair, loads of freckles… no idea what her personality was like, of course, but who cares where imaginary Summer flings are concerned.
1. Jaws; being as we were talking about Roy Scheider last night.
2. Flying back home from India, the airline charged me something like £400 in excess baggage charges for the countless bags full of tat I’d picked up living there. I didn’t have that sort of cash available at the check-in desk at the airport at that time in the morning, so I had to put it on the company credit card. Unexpectedly and rather luckily for me, no-one at work queried it when I put my expenses through the system.
*walks away whistling*
3. I’ve seen Speed 2: Cruise Control.
4. This.
5. Peterborough.
Fuck. You. Baggins.
Peterborough is indeed shite.
*snigger*
I have been there. I can confirm this. Also shite is Livingston – somewhere else I’ve been on business.
Oldham? Shit.
Brentford? Really shit.
Yeah? Yeah? Well fuck your multi-post mentalism.
1. Apocalypse Now
2. On a day-trip to Mexico from Texas I was advised I’d only need my Texas ID and not my passport. However that’s not what the US border guards thought when we tried to get back in, and after my chump of a host decided to tell them I wasn’t a US citizen. Said host was dispatched on a 4 hour round trip to get my passport while we all went back into Mexico for an amazing steak dinner, margaritas and a jalapeño eating contest. Win.
3. Nothing major springs to mind. Probably something crap like being too lazy to book a train ticket in advance and massively underestimating how extortionate it will be on the day for an embarrassingly short journey. Fuck you, southwest trains.
4. At guy at school had a knackered old bmx that we used to muck about on. It was originally his little sisters and apart from being tiny it was also missing the seat. Fortunately it was him riding it and not me when it literally began to disintegrate around him while bombing down the steep hill behind my house! When he tried to stand up from the mangled heap of metal at the bottom of the hill he was a bit distraught to find that what was left of the bike came with him due to the exposed seat pole being embedded in his arse cheek!
5. Hamilton.
1. Das Boat
2. sleeping on the floor in a village hall eating homemade lasagna
3. not putting the bonnet down and then doing 75mph along the motorway and it flipping up and smashing the windscreen into my face…..lovely
4. my legs on most fridays at about 3am
5. Preston
‘because I bought a boat called the fucking Hesperus’
i don’t know which part of this to pick on first…..that’s a great tactic Matthew!
4. my legs on most fridays at about 3am
Haha! Brilliant! Chutters comes out with a genuine funny!
Maybe we will miss you a little bit after you leave..
1. The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat.
They took some honey, and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“Oh lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love
What a beautiful pussy you are, you are, you are!
What a beautiful pussy you are!”
2. An Edinburgh-Copenhagen I had was ‘indefinitely delayed’ a couple of years ago. So I took a gamble that the airport lady wasn’t lying when she said it may be around 12 hours late and went to see a film in town, took a walk up Arthur’s Seat, did a half-day at work and then went back to the airport to see everyone else waiting in the same seats as when I’d left. Oh how smart I felt.
3. I got drunk in Malta and set my alarm for 7pm rather than 7am, meaning I managed to wake up after the plane had already landed back in Glasgow. It cost me 2 days at work and £300 to get home. Good night though
4. A rickety bobsled in Latvia
5. Las Vegas
1. Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. And I’ve only seen the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa7ck5mcd1o
2. I don’t think I’ve experienced a travel disaster- but maybe that’s just my determination to enjoy myself no matter how wet/hot/penniless/surrounded by fuckwits I am
3. Arriving in Melbourne for a six week jaunt round Australia and realizing we had approximately £5 to spend each day. A diet of dry bread and bananas ensued to fund trips to Ayer’s Rock
4. Pickup truck in the Galapagos. The place I was staying was up in the hills, and the half hour drive down twisting corners at 40mph hanging off the back of a truck was so fun it was almost dangerous
5. Canberra. Greyer than Aberdeen but with none of the charm
David wins at waiting!
Adam – I have actually seen Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and it is every bit as awesome as it looks. And ha Debbie Gibson in it.
Chutters – When I was in London £12k on a boat to live on vs. £300k for a tiny, shitey flat out near the M25 seemed like a very sensible decision. It was cool as fuck, but nothing like as posh as it sounds.
1. Favourite boat-based work of fiction, novel or movie or poem or whatever.
Jaws, of course. Smile you son of a bitch. Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies. Etc.
2. What’s the best you have made of a travel disaster?
Had a wank.
3. What’s the most needless travel disaster you have brought entirely on yourself?
Being in a van on tour with Jesus H Foxx….”Madge is in a bodybag” being sung in harmony for half an hour relentlessly had to be the lowlight of the whole sorry affair.
4. Most hair-raising or barely-functional form of transport you have taken.
Is a rollercoaster transport? You end up at the same place…..
5. Crappest place you have travelled to either on holiday or for business.
The Albe Marle hotel in Scarborough as an 8 year old. Shite.
Another de lurk as Friday is less than usually frantic.
1. I have a real weakness for Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey / Maturin series of books.
2. Got my wallet and travellers cheques pinched in Indonesia, 1,000 miles from the nearest Amex office. So instead of my ambitious programme of travel and activities, I spent two weeks lying on a beach and staying in a small basic hut in a compound. Most relaxed I’ve ever been.
3. Lying on a beach in Corsica, watching a plane take off that turned out to be mine, as I had yet again misunderstood the 24 hour clock.
4. It’s the attitude of the driver that is often the scariest thing. Recently took a limo from Toronto airport to a city centre hotel, in fast rush hour traffic, with the driver on the phone to our hotel to find out where it was, simultaneously talking on the radio to his controller about his next job, whilst overtaking everything in sight.
5. I’ve stayed in business hotels across the UK and in north America, and they are invariably deeply depressing.
1. Three men in a boat by Jerome K Jerome. Pretty ridiculous.
2. I make the worst of all travel disasters!
3. Flying 35 FREAKIN’ HOURS on (the now defunct) Phillipine Airlines – Melbourne to London, , via Manilla (9 hour delay), Abu Dhabi (frisked by rifle-carrying airport security men) and Frankfurt (cleaners came in to vacuum).
4. Hot-air balloon.
Picture it: Spring. Sunrise. Napa Valley…lovely, romantic…until I vomitted – at altitude, over the gorgeous vineyards – and then I fainted, thus spending most of the US$170 ride unconcious on the floor of the basket. Pilot lifted me out as soon as we got within 2 metres of solid ground.
Also horse. Does horse count?
5. Adamski, I’m with you – bloody Canberra – the city where fun goes to die. Awful. Never go there. Never, Matthew.
ps. Haha Slough…makes me think of dead skin cells…you know, sloughing off…
EAGLEOWL!!! EAGLE fucking OWL!!!
Oh yes indeed!
eagleowl…..nothing more than average in my book…..i bet the fucking skinny loves them
“Canberra – the city where fun goes to die. ”
Win!
I win? Woohoo.
I’m still hopping about that, Chutters. It’s not that they shouldn’t write exactly what they honestly think, because of course they should. It’s just so epically, spastically, enormously fucking wrong. It’s like being in Paris or Rome with someone and them wanting to get a coffee in Starbucks and eat in McDonalds.
What are you hopping about, Toad? ‘fused.
i don’t want to get started on the whole thing….but maybe you give boy a call and ask him if he had the right CD in……cos he was/is talking utter fucking garbage with his comments.
and breathe, and pack another bloody box…….
Hello, another de-lurker
1. Favourite boat-based work of fiction, novel or movie or poem or whatever.
Shadow Divers, although its really about divers, but they do use a boat in it an awful lot. Read it.
2. What’s the best you have made of a travel disaster?
On a Euro driving trip I was supposed to be visiting a distant relative in Lausanne, spent ages driving round the city in circles looking for anything that matched the directions I’d been given. Turns out I was supposed to be in Luzern. Cue the most amazing, gorgeous drive across Switzerland, with my very annoyed, now ex, boyfriend.
3. What’s the most needless travel disaster you have brought entirely on yourself?
An overnight bus journey the length of Malaysia with a very upset stomach, I shudder at the memory.
4. Most hair-raising or barely-functional form of transport you have taken.
Camel, pyramids at Giza, sleazy Egyptian camel driver(?) hitting on me. Boak.
5. Crappest place you have travelled to either on holiday or for business.
I had to go to a conference in Blackpool once, I quite like Blackpool, but it was off season and everything was shut, and it was just shit.
1. Jaws. I wanted to use the rubbish answer of Speed 2, but it’s been mentioned already. Does the cover of Rum, Sodomy & The Lash count?
2. When living in England I missed a train back up to Scotland for the weekend. Since the next train wasn’t till morning I went to the pub. Upon realising that I was in London to get the train, some distance from Watford where I lived I noticed I had nowhere to stay. Miraculously I pulled a lass so I’d have a bed, then went and got the early train before she woke up.
3. I’ve missed many last trains, last buses and so on. Worst would probably be missing a flight home from Majorca because I got smashed during the day, and fell asleep on a beach. Indirectly this is one of the reasons why I’m not allowed a credit card anymore.
4. I’ve been on a bus that has caught on fire more regularly than you’d think possible, but nothing trumps the 4am night bus from Glasgow to Paisley on Saturday/Sunday
5. I live in Paisley, I once moved to Watford for a job. Everywhere else is bliss compared to that combo.
1. Favourite boat-based work of fiction, novel or movie or poem or whatever.
None. Boats scare me.
2. What’s the best you have made of a travel disaster?
I missed a flight to Scotland a few years ago because I spent too long in the pub. But this meant that I didn’t have to spend the Easter weekend at my parents’ place, so – result!
3. What’s the most needless travel disaster you have brought entirely on yourself?
Losing my bank card after pre-booking a train ticket for my friend’s wedding, then failing to realise I should have let the train company know that I had a different card number. I got charged £110 for a peak-time single to Leeds from King’s Cross. This was also the morning after my work summer party, so after I paid for the ticket, I had to go to the 30p-a-piss cubicle to alternately cry and throw up.
4. Most hair-raising or barely-functional form of transport you have taken.
My brother’s Mini – first car he had. You could see the ground through the holes in the footwell. It was one step up from Fred Flintstone’s.
5. Crappest place you have travelled to either on holiday or for business.
Slough Magistrates’ Court, in my past incarnation as a barrister. A court. For petty offences. In Slough.
A barrister? I didn’t realise we were so classy around these parts.
Dolly, are you coming to the Meursault/eagleowl show at the Old Queen’s Head on 6th June? Or one of the Loch Lomond shows on 23rd/24th May?
When Mrs. Toad and I were living in Edinburgh and London respectively and only able to spend weekends together she would miss the last train back occasionally. That was always ace.
1. Favourite boat-based work of fiction, novel or movie or poem or whatever.
Fitzcarraldo
2. What’s the best you have made of a travel disaster?
Maybe I’ve been lucky, or just boring, but I haven’t had too many disasters. I’ve had a few near misses, like getting time zones wrong and being an hour late for a flight from Tunis to Cairo and still making it. I couldn’t make up my mind about driving from Monterey to LA and after leaving it late while I pissed around in Big Sur, I opted to drive to Yosemite instead and it turned out to be fucking fantastic, which everyone assures me LA is not.
3. What’s the most needless travel disaster you have brought entirely on yourself?
Drove to Connect festival, arrived way too early, first into the car park, had to get towed out on the Sunday night by a tractor and drove back coated in mud. Had to get the car cleaned professionally. That was pretty stupid, but not as stupid as holding a festival in the biggest rain sink in the world.
4. Most hair-raising or barely-functional form of transport you have taken.
Taxis in Cairo are always fun. 400-year-old Fiats with wooden bench seats and drivers with no compunction about tailgating the car in front at 60mph with no brakes. A colleague was going out to Heliopolis when the taxi wheel fell off and rolled away down the on-ramp. The driver wanted his help to track it down and reattach it. He had to walk back down the on-ramp to hail another taxi.
5. Crappest place you have travelled to either on holiday or for business.
On geology field trips as an undergrad, we invariably ended up in really shit accommodation, but the one that sticks in the mind most was a crappy green corrugated shack near Kinlochleven. It was March and we had a wood-burning stove and no hot water.
I’ve been to a few North African hot spots with business. Tripoli could be described as crappy, but I like it. The modern architecture is hilarious, the old medina is pretty run down and the roads have holes you could lose a car in, but the folk are friendly and genuine.
Still going to be in the middle of exams in May, but the 6th is the weekend after my last one, so I’ll absolutely be at the OQH gig; I hope to be pished and singing along tunelessly by teatime.
I think I’d be scared shitless in a hot air balloon, so you have my sympathy Elli. And at least you vomited outside the basket, right?
I are Scientist – road trip, dodgy mate, dodgier uncle -sorry teacher, rustic cottage, copious amounts of alcohol – was this a Withnail and I themed holiday package?
Brutalgoose – I think you’re probably better off without him. Such an epic fail can only be treated with laughter.
Lots of that holiday was epic fail.
3500 miles where he did 100% of the driving, I did 100% of the drinking and 100% of the vomiting.
I found out during/after my 16 hour ferry to Holland that I get seasick, so arrived in Rotterdam, was sick and stood in dog poo, within about 10 minutes of arriving. Terrible start.
Confirmed my new found seasickness in Venice. Fucking boats.
Found out that I fucking hate camping, slugs in France and Germany are orange, and that it rains, quite a lot in Bonn.
Such fond memories of our time together… Matthew you are 100% correct.
I don’t mean to betray your trust, but it doesn’t sound like all of that was absolutely 100% your fella’s fault though.
Maybe it was though. Him and his fucking slugs – fuck him!
Errrmmmm…. Well I guess they weren’t entirely his fault.
Yeah whose side are you on here? He wouldn’t let me back in the car after the dog poo incident! And I was to ill to clean it off and had to throw away my shoes.
That was pretty harsh, then he was entirely unsympathetic as I vomited my way around the back streets of Venice, and kept on threatening to abandon me every time I tried to lie down…
Maybe I should really just stay at home…
But still- what a shitty boyfriend?!
I have just remembered that I should change my answer to Q5 to Bournemouth “International” Airport and Q3 to “booking a return flight to Bournemouth Airport”.
Gary – Only just spotted the Withnail similarities!
You could make a fortune on film-themed holidays – The Shining, Psycho etc…maybe not
I don’t recall you laughing on our ten hour drive Matthew..
1. Favourite boat-based work of fiction, novel or movie or poem or whatever.
Waterworld. So shit its good. except not really. Or the Poseidon Adventure. Really – what was that about, were the writers smoking crack?
2. What’s the best you have made of a travel disaster?
Getting stuck in the US was crap but it meant I made it to my friend Katy’s wedding party in Ottawa.
3. What’s the most needless travel disaster you have brought entirely on yourself?
Failed to check itinerary and arrived at Melbourne airport to fly back to the UK only to find ticket was for a flight back from Sydney.
4. Most hair-raising or barely-functional form of transport you have taken.
That bloody boat in Madagascar. I stared death in the face and it ain’t pretty. Did Matthew mention that the Mozambique Channel is famous for two things? Vicious currents and a primary shark migration site.
5. Crappest place you have travelled to either on holiday or for business.
Where to start? I’ve been to Gary, Indiana. However, shit places in the UK are invariably worse as they aren’t even charmingly foreign. I would have to say that two days at a training centre outside Watford has to be the nadir closely followed by attempting door to door sales in Glenrothes.
1) Damn this time difference. Chutney beat me to it. Alright then, Mariners Revenge Song by the Decembrists.
2) On trips with my wife and brother (different trips) I have arrived in cities that were totally shit, taken a look around and said “this is shit, I’m leaving”. Once I ended up on a river cruise and once I ended up on a boat bound for Thailand. Never been so surprised to see a border guard in my life, so was the guard when he asked why we were coming to Thailand and Matthew and I bother replied “Er, where now?”.
3) Arriving for my plane a day early.
4) Tuk-Tuk.
5) Worcester, Massachusetts. Good Christ. Mallorca. The first English people ( wasn’t related to) I’d seen in two years, and frankly it made me want to run screaming. Shell suits are dead.
4) Tuk-Tuk.
My first thought was the auto rickshaws in India, but then I thought, considering there must literally be millions of them running about each city, you don’t see many broken down by the side of the road or careering off the edge of a half-finished motorway flyover.
It took me a few days to actually get the courage up to get in one, but after that the idea of flitting from one side of the city to the other for 20p, with the breeze blowing through the back seat providing a rare and delicious opportunity to cool off a bit, became more and more appealing.
That trip to Thailand was hilarious. We got to some place in Malaysia – Langkawi I think – decided it was shit and just fucked off, only to arrive a border we hadn’t known was coming en route to a place we knew nothing about. An anticipated two-hour bus journey turned into an eight hour one with The Best of the Eagles on constant repeat and an inexplicably hilarious gastronomic mishap with some peculiar substance called Fishy Chew. Still, it was fucking great when we got there.
Incidentally, on the way back I got to the Thai/Malaysian border just as it closed and was told to “run.. RUN!” across the bridge by armed security guards. I arrived in a tiny hamlet on the other side at dusk with fuck all cash and no idea where I was. Erm, great.
Actually, the rickshaws in Edinburgh must be fucking lethal. Not for most people, but for those of us living in Stockbridge, I can’t imagine many of these guys having the strength to stop one of those things as it hurtles down the hill with three people in the bloody thing. So, as the light turns red…
1. The Life of Pi. It has taken me HOURS to think of anything boat based, and I’m surprised that this is actually pretty good.
2. I got stuck in Bratislava and decided to go hashing (running based thing, famous for being the playgrounds of rich ex pats) and ended up at a pool party at this amazing house in the diplomatic district, with a massive wine and whisky cellar that we were given free access to. The guy (well, his maid) cooked us the most incredible breakfast the day after too. Awesome.
3. Missing my flight from Paris by not understanding that the train had changed routes while we were on it. I can barely understand British train announcements, but when half the people on the train got off at the next stop, I went with the half who stayed on. Turns out they were all foreign tourists who had also misunderstood the annoucement. Then there was an accident, and I stood on the train platform in the pouring rain as my flight left. Arse.
4. Either being pressed against the front window of a totally rammed coach all the way from Novy Bor as the driver drove like a mental, or reversing the hire car onto a “ferry” across a Latvian river that was actually a floating wooden platform pulled across the river on a rope by an ancient old man. Latvian roads are something else.
5. Milton Keynes or Bedford. Haven’t decided which sucks the most.
…decided to go hashing (running based thing, famous for being the playgrounds of rich ex pats)
As in the Hash House Harriers? Also famous for being the reason the name of the ‘gate’ key on a computer keyboard changed to ‘hash’
Yes, and really? Explain!
Over here they call it a pound, which is just wrong.
I’m led to believe that, as the hash symbol resembles the Hash House Harriers’ interlocked letter-H logo, and that many of the ex-pat community were also amongst the first office computer users and software developers, then their colloqualism seeped into general usage.
Out neighbour runs in the Hash here in Edinburgh. I have been invited, but never gone.
I can still taste that fishy chew. I think there was honey on it.
1. Favourite boat-based work of fiction, novel or movie or poem or whatever.
That Johnny Depp thing with pirates, come on! Who wouldn’t pick that! It’s got Keith Richards in it for crying out loud!
2. What’s the best you have made of a travel disaster?
When trapped in a Nagoya train booking agent office where no one spoke English save my sweet girl and me, I was subjected to a pack of nasty Belgiums who thought that I didn’t understand enough French to realize their rude comments about my voluptuous ass and it’s general obvious offense to their euro-trash sensibilities. Apparently the size of my ass somehow was equal to the raping and pillaging of innocents in Iraq done by my government at the orders of then president Bush. And I was a prime example of American greed gone too far. (See, my French was still quite good!) all this is going on while my darling lady is dutifly planning our train travel across Japan, looking up times and cities in the Japanese only books. I’m throwing these nasty children dagger looks as they talk louder and louder. She finally interjects in perfect French some comment about Belgium’s role in African colonialism and the words “baskets of hands” get thrown about… They scuttle away to a corner. Our trip tickets are secured, but not before we have the privilege of seeing their panicked and desperate faces as she tells them that no, no one in the building speaks English and no, there are no time tables in English or French (all true) and no, we weren’t inclined to assist them. My gargantuan ass and I sauntered out the door to squeeze into a very small train seat, and I didn’t care one bit
3. What’s the most needless travel disaster you have brought entirely on yourself?
Trusting someone else to plan a 12 day trip to Turkey which had enough travel to fit 30 days. And letting them talk me into renting a car to drive from Instanbul to Ephesus and back. At night.
4. Most hair-raising or barely-functional form of transport you have taken.
’68 Plymouth Scamp… goddamn I loved that car – my first
5. Crappest place you have travelled to either on holiday or for business.
New year’s eve in Blythe, AZ. We had dinner at Sizzler, tried to go to the strip club but it was closed (!) and went to the Motel 8 room to watch bad movies instead and clean up dog pee (our dogs at least)
I didn’t realise the Hash was posh. how come Matthew got invited? Actually our neighbour is a mad old sod so I suspect the Edinburgh Hash is quite a lark.
On hashing – apparently it is sometimes confused with engaging in bioterrorism http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20441775/
..at least by the sort of dumbfucks that live in New Haven, Conn.
It is at least comforting to think that bioterrorists are caring enough to chalk arrows indicating where they are perpetuating their outrages.
Belgians, it should read “Belgians” of course. And it’s Motel 6. Geezus, you’d think I just woke up or something
Mrs Toad, did you somehow know I have just become a resident of New Haven, CT, or is that just a really bizarre coincidence?
There were some truly bonkers old men on that Hash. The drinking afterwards was legendary. Is it Becherovka or Demerovka they have in Slovakia? Whichever it was, there were shots of it at every decision point, and I could barely see straight by the time we got to the end. I have a sneaking suspicion the Edinburgh Hash may not be quite this fun.
Becky are you off being terribly clever at Yale or something? are spoons involved? For christs sake don’t get caught outside the local IKEA wielding a mouse foetus brain spoon. The FBI will be after you.
On the plus side, its probably big enough if you need to scoop out the brains of the local constabulary in a getaway scenario.
I am trying to. Thus far I have succeeded in working for 5 weeks and almost not getting paid, which doesn’t strike me as particularly clever. I have yet to see a useful looking spoon, which is a ridiculous disappointment. I’ll maybe have to filch one when I return for my Viva…
1. Jaws and Swallows and Amazons have already gone so I’ll have The African Queen.
2. I don’t really have travel disasters, largely because I am your hick cousin from the valley who’s heard of journeying to other places but thinks better of it. One time I got the train south instead of east when trying to go to work and spent the morning walking around Carding Mill Valley instead of through Heath Town, which i guess is a bit of a win.
3. Agreeing with another student that I would pair up with them for teaching practise in a school in Solihull, which was the most difficult of all the ones on the list to get to from where I lived (Shrewsbury) because she’d give me a lift from the middle of Birmingham every day, and then she missed 80% of the placement on long term sick leave.
4. My friend Nic’s Vespa which was held together with string and rubber bands. Although it was still a Vespa.
5. I had to go to Doncaster for a court hearing, the judge had said we couldn’t appoint local agents but had to turn up ourselves, fuck knows why, I traveled four hours there and another four back (and had to go to Doncaster) in order to say ‘We agree, Your Honour’.
Noah…he was good at boats….really really good if you had a friend
Free party in Amsterdam with some Irish folk for giving up our seats on the last KLM plane home………in retrospect that was possibly the best anything ever.
I once got in a car with someone who couldn’t find Leeds, refused to listen and drove 2 hours back to Newcastle. waster
Indian driver drinking whisky and smoking dope over the mountains to Jaipur…….so scary we had to drink whisky and smoke dope
Seal sands…..Teeside….no seal and no sands!…rubbish
Better late than never !!I have been stuck in a quarry in Co. Durham all day before dashing back in order to see a very excellent Eagle Owl gig (again).
1. Favourite boat-based work of fiction, novel or movie or poem or whatever.
Any of the 60′s captain Nemo films or 20,000 leagues under the sea
2. What’s the best you have made of a travel disaster?
We once booked into a hotel Tolouse after a two hour serch looking for a room on the last night of our holidays. After dropping our bags we dashed out for some food and a bottle or two (probably 4) of wine. We then found ourselves in a rum bar until silly-a-clock and realising we didn’t have clue what our hotel was called or where it was. Spent the next few hours wandering in ever decreasing circles until we found it with the help of a also very drunk frenchman.
3. What’s the most needless travel disaster you have brought entirely on yourself?
Deciding to catch the later train while lying in bed in some dutch town as we would have plenty of time to catch the plane home !! Got to the usually perfectly running dutch railway station to find it in complete meltdown. Luckily we got to the airport with about 2 seconds to spare (and only because we had hand baggage).
4. Most hair-raising or barely-functional form of transport you have taken.
A third class train from Luxor to the Aswan dam, although this was made bearable by lots of inquisitive school kids on the same train.
5. Crappest place you have travelled to either on holiday or for business.
I was going to say Doncaster which really is a horible place to spend two weeks but I seem to have been usurped at the last so it will have to be Fort William. The most stunning of countryside with this horrible little town dumped in the middle of it.
Fyi..Something is wrong with the volume on The Kinks – Celluloid Heroes,download..You have to turn it way up just to hear it,after it’s downloaded..It could be my iTunes but,don’t think so..
By the way you have great site..Thanks..