Barely travelling

Ok not really travelling at all, unless you count far flung bits of London like Shepherds Bush or Charlton. Plus a trip for a meeting at St Albans for 8:30am.

Shepherds Bush trip was to see Simon Amstell, ex-presenter on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and now doing the stand-up circuit. Have seen him do stand-up a couple of times before so knew what I was letting myself in for, although this was wholly new material. His is not gag a minute sort of humour, but he is always entertaining and just interesting. Its quite cerebral in parts, and I like the self-deprecating stuff, but he also does go in for some pretty biting and cruel stuff - as was shown off on Buzzcocks. And yes I rather like that too.

That trip was after seeing a couple of exhibitions at the Royal Academy. The Glasgow Boys was especially good, but really full. I just imagined that Monday afternoon there would be no one about, but far from it.

Charlton was unsurprisingly to watch a Charlton match. There could be no other reason for visiting the place. Having more than one Bristol Rovers supporting friend is I guess somewhat unusual outside Bristol, but I have three, with one of whom I attended the game and another I spotted while trying to get a re-invigorating half-time hot chocolate. Yes it was cold. Not too bad on arrival, but getting into hypothermia levels by the final whistle.

Actually a very entertaining one all draw. Rovers goal was a little out of the blue, and the source of much rejoicing at our end. And after about an hour of quite nice football but with little incident, Charlton suddenly came out all guns blazing looking for an equaliser and so the rest of the game became full of goalmouth action. Fine goal-keeping display from Rovers' Danish under 21 international Mikkel Anderson kept the reply down to a solitary goal.

An enjoyable night, but wasn't impressed at turning up with a few minutes to kick-off to find a long queue behind one solitary pensioner selling tickets to away fans, next to 3 firmly closed ticket windows. And if anyone says we should have turned up earlier, they do not travel out of London Bridge. Travellers fall into two categories; regulars who have a despondent look on their faces as yet another train is cancelled, and the infrequent traveller like us who have puzzled expressions as they try to find a platform for their preferred destination, and having missed one train then try to work out where the next might be from.

Odd week

Been an odd week. First full week back at work, but even then it started with my triennial medical examination. Somewhat to my relief that didn't seem to reveal anything untoward. Cheeringly I was told I was now passing the age to worry about testicular cancer - and onto the age of prostate cancer. Oh goodie.

And loved the way that medics are so concerned about our feelings. Lying naked on the table I was politely asked if I minded if she touched my genitals. Surely its all about context? In my office I would probably feel such a request a trifle presumptuous, but on the examination table, well that's what I am there for so am fair game.

Then Tuesday night met up with my room-mate for our Middle-East trip. Mike was just spending a week in London before his next jaunt. He seemed wildly enthusiastic about London as a city, which seems a common trait amongst Aussies - odd given we view Australia as the good life. I pointed out that if he was blase about beaches in New South Wales I could take him yo our local equivalents - say Southend or Clacton. I tried not to take all the credit for London personally, and then tried to do the amateur guide bit with advice as to what to do on his remaining days. Well, at least I had some advantages over our Syrian guide - I speak English like a native and have some idea where everything is. Took him to L'Autre for dinner, being London's only Polish/Mexican restaurant (indeed possibly the world's only Polish/Mexican restaurant.)

Then Saturday night was gig night. Off to see Athlete at the Forum. Now I am a bit of an Athlete junkie. The concerts/festivals I have seen them live at must be getting on for double figures now. But never been disappointed even though I have to say the quality of their 4 albums is a consistent downward trend (matched by their sales figures). Had a spare ticket which almost went begging but one of my colleagues has a 14 year-old lad into indie music so I took him. Most agreeable company and how often am I going to get to hang out with a cool teenager? Have to groom the next generation of gig goers as my mates slip into their 30s and beyond with families on the way and so lose their reliability for a night out in Kentish Town.

Manchester

Well I could give a report on The Annual Conference of the Association of Pension Lawyers 2010, but for you non-pension lawyers out there, there is a problem. While I might find what you do for a living interesting, if I try to explain what I do I need medical assistance at hand to resucitate you from the catatonic state I will have just induced. So in the absence of a nearby St John's ambulanceman with defibrillator, I will just say it was probably the strongest card in the years I have been going, and the gala dinner in the Town Hall was very nice. Even worth getting dressed up in the old dinner jacket, although I wasn't thinking that on Wednesday afternoon while running for a train wheeling case behind me and flapping DJ in other hand.

The town hall is a great venue, a fine example of Victorian gothic medievalism. Strange this style was so derided only a few decades ago. TheVictorians were so much better at medievalsim than pepole were in the middle ages, imbuing it with romance and fine industrial craftsmanship, rather than the brutish poverty-stricken reality of the original.
(Somewhat less impressed that the grand front entrance was blocked by a vast Father Christmas, but then I do belong to the bah humbug school of Christmas celebrations)

So the only other remark I will make of the conference is to pass on the best joke. (Pension lawyers are really nowhere near as dull as one might expect).(I have not asked Ian Pittaway's permission to use this abbreviated version, but am sure my attribution is sufficient to waive any copyright issues)

"My wife went to a clairvoyant.

"I am terribly sorry to have to tell you this, but I am afraid I see your husband dying a horrible violent death in the coming year"

"Oh" the wife replies. "Will I be acquitted?"


Well I liked it, and Ian told it better than me.


So then onto staying with a friend in Manchester, or rather Didsbury. Now one might say Didsbury is not real Manchester, like many London "villages" are not the real London. It is a village expanded to deal with posh Victorians and then swallowed by the City. But it is very gentile and utterly lacking the gritty realism of a Northern city. Thankfully.

Saturday afternoon, we (myself, mother and proudly self-proclaimed 4 3/4 year old daughter (how long ago since you last considered your age in fractions of a year) pottered off to Quarry Bank Mill, to get a bit of Northern grittiness in the guise of an old textile mill. Actually this is a brilliant museum in the old water-mill, even if it doesn't sound the ideal afternoon out for an under-5. Its really interesting as social history, or engineering history, or econmoic history. It has lots of working macinery, lots of big story boards and just enough interactive stuff for kids of pretty much any age. I suppose I like the social stuff more, the photos of the village football team from 1925, or the wages of the various workers, or the stuff about the kids working from 8am to 8pm, from age 8 to 18. What I hadn't appreciated was that the mill effectively took over the orphanage. Instead of kids being the responsibility of the parish, they were apprenticed at the mill which had plenty of work for little hands to do, and an incentive to feed and clothe them in what would have been at the time a good manner, although the porridge-rich diet might not go down well with modern youngsters. But one surmises less of a problem with childhood obesity. Although more with rickets.

I was also left musing on how much better run all the ruins, houses, sites, etc I had seen in the Middle- East would have been if run by the National Trust like Quarry Bank. Just so well and thoughfully presented, and so much better conserved. And such nice tea-rooms and toilets. Could the National Trust really be our leading export to the world? And so nice just to have one shop selling you over-priced tat in a very English non-presurised way. Ah well.

Now I have come to the conclusion that by and large I like kids. But unfortunately, am seen as a bad influence. Take dinner time when said 4 year-old, having mixed cream into her apple-puree, announced to the table "It looks like sick." Sorry I did the only thing I could do instinctively and laughed, to be rebuked by mother "Don't encourage her Mark." What did I do? And then compounded, on her taking her first spoonful by "It doesn't taste like sick." Sorry I tried to keep a straight face. I really did. But  I am only flesh and blood.

And then I was passed seemlessly like a men's 4x100m realy baton change (ok bad analogy in light of recent championships) to further friends in Cheshire on Sunday. Didn't really do a great deal, lunch, tea, down to pub with Dave at night, played board games with the kids in the afternoon. And I loved it. Really love their kids (15 and 11, give or take a year) because they are just such fun. And having known them both since they were babies, they just treat me with no respect whatsoever. But who really wants respect from kids (ok outside parents and teachers)? Much prefer to be laughed at. I will take any audience.

Coventry

Ok not as exotic as Cairo (indeed not really as exotic as most places in the world) but its home in a way. So first weekend of my return from travels sees me going up to Coventry to watch Coventry v Leeds and see my mum.

Somehow in my absence Coventry had managed to claw their way up to 4th in the Championship so I felt I ought to see why/how. Not really any the wiser after 3-2 defeat, but the appetite for success in the city could be seen from the crowd of 28,000. Any signs of success and we all flood back, only to have hopes dashed. Actually not awful but just ok. Lots of slightly hopeful forward balls. But the main observation (especially for non-footie fans) I would make is how much more enjoyable a match is when one goes with friends. Which of course is what most people do.

Then you are in your own little group bubble and tend to notice just the general atmosphere (ie good) rather than the irritating habits of your fellow spectators. On your own the latter start to come home to roost. And not the obvious bits of swearing and invective. Just things like the girl in front being so under-dressed for the day that she was shivering and my knees against the seat in front felt like they were resting on a vibrator. Or the little kid next to me. Now if one wanted evidence of the fallibilty of our Creator it would be the lack of a volume knob on little boys. Something as small as a 7 year old should not be able to produce such a piercing sound. Any signs of a Coventry attack and the ears of every alsatian in North Warwickshire must have started to bleed. God that kid's vice needs to break soon. And then on the bus home, I ended up in the bus with the nutter. His rendition of Robbie Williams' Rock DJ to the bus will live in my memory for all the wrong reasons. High volume and so flat that I started to hanker after the shrieking 7 year old.

 But if you are watching a match with mates most of these things just fail to register. (Well the the last bloke's singing would still have done.)

But have to say I got more out of watching my friends' 15 year-old playing on Sunday morning in the park. Really high skill levels these kids have, lots of goals. But could do with a bar for half-time and some terracing. To be fair though conditions better than most of my previous attempts to watch him play when the weather felt like a monsoon hitting Antarctica. But at least I haven't paid £27 for the privilege.

Cairo

And so to last stop on my Middle-East tour - Cairo. What a chaotic city. Pandemonium. While I have commented elsewhere on driving in middle-eastern cities, Cairo takes the biscuit. Our cab driver seemed very well adapted to the dodgems cum video game being played out before him. While using his left hand for his mobile phone his right was stretched across the steering wheel with his fingers used for turning the wheel while his thumb could press the middle of the wheel where the horn was located. And the horn was pretty much in constant use. 10 times a minute would be no exaggeration. So you can imagine what the traffic sounded like. Added to the sheer density of it, no one is going too fast so it is not the roar of traffic you hear but the honk of it. As for crossing the roads as a pedestrian, well forget it. Our guide said just find an Egyptian pedestrian and get inside him, and when he runs do so too, always keeping him on the traffic side. There is a video-game to be made here, although maybe "Egyptian pedestrian" is going to need a snappier name.

One very full day in Cairo. The inevitable trip to Giza to see the pyramids and the sphinx. Effectively there are 3 great pyramids and yes they do impress. But the one bit I hadn't realised is that they are not in the middle of the desert, but completely swallowed by Cairo's every burgeoning suburbs. A city of 20 million and rising rapidly.

Then onto the archaeological museum. A rather splendid collection. All the Tutankahmun stuff in there and surprisingly not totally obscured by tourists. And the sheer amont of gold really needs to be seen. There is also a lesser but not to be sniffed at treasure of Tarsis to see too, plus heaps of statues, clay models of every day lfe (very interesting - especially of boats - one excellent one with all the oarsmen straining against their oars (which sadly were missing) another of a pair of fishing booats complete with net and identifiable species of fish) and mummies (including those of every animal they had available - cats, dogs, birds, horses, ibex, baboons, cocodiles - if it moved they quickly stopped it moving and mummified it!)

And finally an evening walk around some of the City, the walls, mosque, a grand house now converted into a museum and the bazaar for a last chance to buy tacky souvenirs. I opted to guzzle mint tea rather than partake of the shopping experience, but that didn't stop vendors coming up to you in the cafe and offering jewellery and the inevitable genuine fake rolexes. For dinner decided to go for a local dish - two pigeons stuffed with rice. My first and probably last attempt to eat pigeon. Plenty of spicy rice but no noticeable amount of meat.

And then it was all over bar the 5:30am wake-up call for the flight home. At least that beat the traffic.

So, didn't see a broad spectrum of Egypt, although I had been to Loxor recently too. Chaotic feel to it. Not too easy to love Cairo although the buzz was pleasant enough. And the walk through the poorer commercial district did give a feel for real Cairo, right down to the herds of sheep being held for sale in the alley ways so that everyone could buy a fresh one to take home to slaughter and eat. Imagine buying your Turkey early for Christmas and keeping it in your back garden for a couple of weeks.

Certainly not a hassle-free holiday destination, but Dahab was a pleasant by the sea oasis of calm and good food, although definitely not typically Egyptian.

Overall, a great trip around the Middle-East - much enjoyed the tour group, the comfort of having your own little coterie of familiar faces as we pottered around, and of meeting new people. I really could travel perpetually I think. 3 months hasn't left me sated.

St Catherine's Monastery and Mount Sinai

Well pretty much a blank entry here. The Monastery was closed the day we arrived, although one could wander around the exterior and take a few pics. (And a shifty bloke came up to me to say the monastery was closed. But then said, "If you need to get in..." leaving it fairly clear that if I paid him he would get me in. Mammon 1 God 0.)

Of course I could have done the other activity arranged for our stay here, namely to climb Mount Sinai to see the sunrise. But this involved a 7kms walk before reaching the 700 steps to the summit to join  500 or so  others that would share the experience. And it was cold and, the coup de grace, it required setting off at, wait for it, 1:30am. On a Saturday night that is more like the time I would go to bed not get up out of it. Well sorry no thanks. Those who did it were needless to say too knackered on reaching Cairo to do anything but eat and go to bed. I slept in and felt smug. Very smug. It is one of my talents.

Of course accommodation at St Catherines for all these visitors is in short supply and so can afford to be crap. And it was. Hostel rooms with 7 beds and even then sharing bathrooms with another 7 beds. The door handle fell off our door as soon as we entered. And meals were done on an industrial scale in a huge room which had a distinct tower of babel feel given the many nationalities on their semi-pilgrimages to this religious site. Of which the Italians were noisiest. Surprise.