Parallel life?

Today, I received a letter from Continental Airlines profusely apologising for having recently lost my baggage and giving me a claim number. This confused me somewhat, as I’ve only flown with Continental once; that was several years ago and none of my bags went missing.

I also just received an email with my “personal” photos of me running the Prague half marathon, which happened when I was in Australia. To be fair, I’d entered for it but had decided that an Australian beach would be more fun. I'm curious therefore how personal my "personal" photos can be.

If I have a parallel second life that I’m unaware of, at least it seems like an interesting one. I don’t know what to do about the Continental Airlines thing. If I stay quiet perhaps they’ll offer me a free flight as compensation? I’m not sure what it’s compensation for but I’ll take any free flight going.

So where the bloody hell are you?

This is my first morning back in England and I notice from the BBC news website that the absolutely brilliant adverts for Australia tourism here have been banned, reprimanded or some other such nonsense. The adverts (see them here if you’ve not already) are a great showcase for Australia and finish with the slogan “So where the bloody hell are you”? It’s just such a good set of adverts, yet apparently the word “bloody” is shocking to a more delicate brand of Brit. Up theirs, I say. It makes me want to get on the next plane back.

MAD: 21st century thoughts

I’m writing this from Seoul airport, which is somewhat disturbingly close to Pyongyang and its “dear leader” Kim Jong-il. The cold war is over in Europe and so it’s easy to forget the nuclear threat. Instead, we worry about (grossly overstated) terrorist risks to our day to day existence. I have long felt that the threat of Islamist terrorism is comparable to the daily threat of the cold war (which I’m just old enough to remember) is like comparing one sneeze to a base dose of hepatitis, yet there seem to be much more noise day to day about threats now than when the Soviets were aiming hydrogen bombs at all our population centres. (Discuss: 25 marks).

Anyway, being in reach of North Korea’s new nuclear capability and aware of the recent attempts by Iran to piss off the West by kidnapping sailors got my mind moving to nuclear proliferation. As it would. Upon minor jet lag driven consideration, I’m of the mind that we shouldn’t worry too much about it for most states, as most states fundamentally act rationally. So I’m not too worried about Iran developing a nuclear weapon; not least as I don’t see how they could deliver the thing to Manchester unintercepted. Rocket technology is much tougher than nuclear weapons and making nuclear weapons small enough to “deliver” is much tougher than making one so bulky that nothing could ever get it in the air.

If I were the president of Iran, I’d sure as shit want my own nuclear weapons. History would tell me that the USA government isn’t averse to invading countries it sees as a threat, even a rather spurious threat. Israel has nuclear weapons that point at me 24 hours a day and they have a record of a distinct lack of restraint in dealings with Arab neighbours. In other words, I’d want big bombs for defence (a much mis- and over-used word). If I had some nukes in the basement, I’d be rather more confident that the yanks weren’t about to roll tanks into my country as such a move would provoke immense retaliation. In other words, mutually assured destruction.

People of my age (37) were brought up with MAD as a faintly cosy concept that guaranteed peace. I was never totally sold on that but it made a certain amount of sense. Only when leaders can be 100% sure that their own lives and lives of their families with be practically destroyed are they reasonably certain not to invade other countries. I wonder if Bush would have been so determined to invade Iraq if he’d known that his twin daughters would probably die as a result? I doubt it.

So I think we should stop being hysterical. There are rogue states in the world (eg North Korea) but even a fairly superficial analysis of just about every other purported threat shows them to be repugnant, but rational. If they develop the bomb, so be it. Meanwhile, I hope that somebody’s trying really hard to do whatever’s necessary to protect the good people of South Korea and Japan from their genuinely crazy neighbour.

Stuff I love about Australia

Many times, I’ve worried that I’m truly a miserable bastard. I really grew to dislike living in Prague when everybody kept telling me how great it must be. I truly struggled to find things about it that I liked. I grew to worry that I was a misanthrope and possibly even a nationalist.

This is given the lie by my views of Australia. I love this place, I really do. I actually struggle to find things about Australia that I don’t like. It’s basically some of the foreign tourists who bother me and that’s about it.

In no particular order, here are some things that I love about Australia:

• Virgin Blue airlines (I’ll do a whole separate blog on them)
• The Australian irreverent and ironic sense of humour, which is pervasive in just about all conversations.
• The huge number of 50 metre pools that are spotlessly clean and cheap.
• Customer service generally (eg the cheapish hotel I’m staying in provides free bikes for guests to use, enabling me to explore Sydney in a whole new way).
• The natural stuff: climate, landscape, vastness, the clarity of the night sky, the Great Barrier Reef.
• The fact that even the queens are nice to other queens. Trust me, when gay men are nice to other gay men instead of sniping and superior that’s friendliness.
• The kindness of strangers. In previous trips when I didn’t know my way around Sydney, I took to reading my map in doorways as I wanted to get my own bearings and locals kept offering help.
• The humorous slang, eg swimming trunks become “budgie smugglers”, the vast Bondi Junction shopping centre is universally nicknamed “The Death Star”.
• The food, which is cheap, often Asian influenced and healthier than in the UK.
• The quality of newspapers. The Sydney Morning Herald and “The Age” in Melbourne are the best all-round newspapers I’ve ever read.
• The phrases “No worries”, “no drama”, “She’ll be right” and the whole popular culture that goes behind them.
• The public spiritedness, exemplified in the surf rescue people. Those guys are utter wonders and I’d let myself down with any (or preferably all) of them.

So in summary, I like this place immensely, which means I can't be 100% a miserable bastard. Please don’t tell too many people though, as I don’t want any more “whining poms” here.

Aussies: friendly, easy going users of irony

I love many things about Australia. Chief amongst these things is the way that Aussies use the English language and their style of humour. They spell humour with a "u", so it's humour that contains irony. Compare most "humor".

For example, there are the slang names of things and places. A pair of Speedos is often referred to as “budgie smugglers”. Observe how well endowed men look when wearing them if you don’t get it. Quite commonly, an act of foolishness will earn a rebuke for being a “spaz” or even “special needs kid”. Such terms are to be heard on the radio, in parliament as well as in everyday conversation. Political correctness is seen as a silly affectation here.

The anti-drink driving campaign has for ten years been using the strapline “you bloody idiot” to good effect. For example, an advertising hoarding will have a photo of road carnage with the text “Only a bit over the limit? Only a bit dead. You bloody idiot”. It makes the point altogether better than any number of clever TV ads in the UK.

Last time I was here, I saw a rather quiet looking 20 something guy wearing a T-shirt that said in smallish lettering “I like quite heavy metal”. (“Quite” has the same meaning here as in the UK, ie a bit. In the USA it often means “very”). The understated irony made brought a smirk to my drunken visage all evening. The T-shirt’s owner was happy to share the joke and have a chat for a while. When even the cute 20 something year-old gayboys are friendly to 30 something year-old not as cute gayboys, you know that a society has something going for it.

The developers of the enormous Bondi Junction shopping centre in Sydney clearly made great efforts to make the place seem naturally integrated into the city (the food court offers the best low rent way to get a fantastic view of Sydney Harbour, backpackers may wish to note). I can only imagine their disappointment when Sydneysiders almost instantly took to calling the vast complex “The Death Star”. Trust me, it’s a funny and very apposite name.

There remains some scope for linguistic confusion however. I overheard a rather elderly woman describe how she found it hard to wear thongs and walk naturally. It becomes less disturbing an image when one knows that “thongs” in Australian English means what we Brits call flip flops.

Arrival in Sydney. Now for breakfast!

Jet lag is a most mysterious thing. Apologies for the slight tardiness of this posting but I’ve been spending the days wandering around in a state of slight bewildered confusion as day has inexplicably become night and night has inexplicably become day. What’s more, it’s inexplicably become early autumn instead of early spring.

Korean Air were pretty good on the way to Sydney. In the 34 hours it took to get here from Manchester, I even managed to get about five hours’ sleep. That’s not bad for me. Arriving at the Marriott hotel in Sydney at 8am, the darlings that they are took pity on me and found me a room straight away. A bathtub the size of Hertfordshire, a crisp linen bed and the wonders of the buffet breakfast awaited me. Having shunned most of the mediocre food on the flight, I was quite ready for a bit of a congratulatory blow out. I can’t remember exactly how much I had but it was something like this below. You may choose to sing this out loud, especially if you’re reading this in a crowded office.

On my first day Down under
My buffet breakfast be:

Twelve biscuits dunking
Eleven bowls of corn flakes
Ten mugs of coffee
Nine bacon rashers
Eight Danish pastries
Seven jumbo sausage
Six orange juices
FIVE HASH BROWNS
Four tins of beans
Three French toast
Two eggs benedict
And a partridge in a pear tree!

I’ve been guiltily starting each day since with a bowl of yoghurt and a black coffee.

Travelblog 2: part one

I have never before flown Air France. Based on my experience of how Air France on the ground (they do check in for Czech Airlines at Heathrow) I’d imagined them to be a byword for arseyness and poor service. Now it pains me to say this because as a true Englishman I reflexively sneer at all things French, but (shuffles feet and coughs slightly); well, I was wrong.

I was sitting in the first row, which enabled me to witness the rather young captain exchanging scribbled notes with the ground crew. This, it seems, was a bit of serial flirtation this particular captain has with some member of the ground crew who presumably wasn’t on duty this afternoon. On stopovers, they probably shag like rabbits. I would let myself down with him; he was, like, well cute dude. There was much good humoured ribbing of the captain from the very pleasant crew. Everybody seemed happy to raise eyebrows and share the joke with the nearby passengers. Eventually, the captain decided the door should be closed and we should go. He didn’t throw a Gitanes out of the door before closing it, but it would have completed the image if he did. Suddenly being British seemed a bit awkward and unnecessarily rigid.

I am now writing this from Charles de Gaulle airport, where I’m waiting for my connecting flight to Seoul. I’m on my way to Sydney via a rather torturous route.

I have decided that should I ever become a dictator, I don’t want an airport named after me, as it might one day end up like Charles de Gaulle. Do kindly note this, as I do fully expect to be asked to fulfil my function in life to sort stuff out on a grand scale. Anyway, back to the plot. The people are pleasant enough and I’m sure it makes some sense if you’re familiar with the place, but it’s bewildering on a vast scale otherwise. Baggage carousels, passport control and security checkpoints all seem to be in random places as if they know they have to have them but they’ve no idea what they’re actually for. I have no idea how I found my way to the business class lounge, but now I’m here I’m rather enjoying it. The airport is a concrete maze, but they have free Bollinger champagne to help yourself to. Only in France would that happen. In Britain, it would be a slightly mean and peevish affair, no doubt providing the nastiest of cava. I suspect that there’s a very material chance that my bag may take months to catch up with me, but I’m relaxing into the modus operandi of the place by pouring myself an uncivilised amount of free bubbly stuff. I am very much a lad from Wigan at heart and the idea of free (yet expensive) champagne means I give scant regard to the fact that I’m brewing up the hangover from hell. I am going to neck as much as I can without getting so drunk I might forget I have a plane to catch.

I’m not so much looking forward to the onward flight as I’ve heard that Korean Air isn’t a nice experience. They no longer crash with the frequency that they used to, but apparently the cultural difference can be trying for we English. The middle-aged Korean guy next to me on the flight here is obviously on the same onward flight to Seoul. I’d forgotten the cultural norm in parts of East Asia He was more snot than man. Anybody with ears could clearly deduce that his aim in life seemed to be to fill his head cavities with snot, leaving just enough air gaps to allow him to noisy and continually rearrange by snorting every ten seconds or so. Gross huh? You betcha. Ah well, I’ll just anaesthatise myself with free (yet expensive) champagne. I want to get pissed enough to fall instantly asleep, without being too hammered to enjoy the slight thrill of getting onto a plane and turning left. Like I said, I’m from Wigan. What do you want? Genuine class? of publicly making the sort of loud snot-dragging noises that an Englishman would feel a frisson of shame for making even alone in his own bathroom.