Wednesday, July 07, 2004

 
It is pissing down in Wellington. It has been a truly quadraseasonal day.
I blog, therefore I am.
Actually I blog to kill time. I have been moving house this week, one bicycle load at a time, up to the heady heights of Kelburn. I have one load to go, but that will have to wait for the end of the rain. The rain just stopped.
posted by James 5:22 AM

Monday, October 06, 2003

 
I took yet another trip to Prague, this time with Dan accompanying me. With any luck he´ll put a few more photos on his website. There was enough stuff I hadn´t seen to keep me amused during the few brief non-beer drinking intervals. This included an equestrian statue which had somehow escaped my attention before. It is allegedly the biggest in the world and it stands at the top of Zhizhkov hill. It is big. Very big. I also had a wander down a street in the castle which may or may not feature in The Golem by Gustav Merink but does contain a house Kafka lived in.
Now I am in Barcelona again. I have a couple days more here, then perhaps a night or two in Girona before six days in London and my flight back to NZ.
I am staying with a friend who works sometimes in the bar downstairs, which is very dangerous. I have yet to rise before two in the afternoon. The bar is called Astrolabe and has a pirate theme. There is a live performance five nights a week: usually a singer-songwriter type act. Last night the performer was singing in Catalan and so the lyrics were completely incomprehensible to me. Hopefully tonight´s performence will be in Castillano and so only mostly incomprehensible.
This will almost certainly be my last European blog for the next year or three.
I hope my pony knows the way back home.
posted by James 6:23 PM

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

 
Taking Off by Milos Forman. Find it and watch it.
posted by James 11:15 AM

Thursday, September 18, 2003

 
Philip Roth's "Our Gang"
President Trick E. Dixon's Military Coach advising on how to deal with a Boy Scout protest movement which accuses him of being in favour of sexual intercourse:

"Common sense tells us that even the enemy is not so stupid as to stand around waiting to be shot, but if he has had sufficient warning that he is about to be killed, will take some kind of cowardly and, often enough, vicious means of protecting his life, such as fighting back. Now I, of course, abhor that kind of deviousness as much as anyone; nonetheless we must face up to it: these people haven't the slightest sense of fair play, and many of them will not even stand still waiting around to be jailed, let alone killed."

"Now it's one thing to ask my men to mow down Scouts; it is another for them to have to deal with little boys and girls half that size. Those kids can run like the dickens, and they're small. As a result, what right now would still be a routine street massacre, will be converted into dangerous house-to-house fighting, in which we are bound to sustain heavy losses by way of our soldiers shooting mistakenly at each other."

I have now officially retired. I came back from Morocco, worked for a week and have now booked all my tickets. A week in Prague with Dan and Hamish, a week in Barcelona, then back to NZ, flying into Auckland on 18 October.


posted by James 7:50 AM

Thursday, August 21, 2003

 
I went on a camel trek in the desert with a guide named Mohammed who was very nice but slightly disturbing when he would say "jihad" and chuckle quietly to himself. We spent one night in the dunes and one with a bunch of nomads near the Algerian border. The silence of the desert is incredible.
Camel shit must be one of the most aesthetically pleasing of all excreta. They are one inch long capsule shaped objects, beautifully black and shiny. They would make delightful paperweights.
A night in Er Rachidia then one in the Dades Gorge. Then on to Ait Ben Haddou: allegedly the most impressive Kasbahs in Morocco. Many film directors have concurred and an assortment of movies have been filmed there, Gladiator one of the most recent.
Hamid, a shop owner spotted my guitar and invited me to dinner. He had a bunch of french kids staying with him and we all ate, drank, smoked and made music in the back room of his shop amongst piles of carpets. He and the three others from his tribe who also worked in the shop invited us back and we ate with them the next morning and evening, between which I wandered up the valley to another kasbah and back again.
I am now in Marrakesh, but more about that later.
posted by James 5:00 PM

Monday, August 18, 2003

 
I never made it to Fez, but went to Meknes instead, a smaller and allegedly quieter town. From there I made a day trip to Volubilis (some Roman ruins) and a small town nearby. In Meknes I had a look at the mausoleum of the chap who united Morocco and his grainaries which were used in Scorcese's "Temptation of Christ". I also became intimately aquainted with the porcelain of my hotel during the worst case of the shits I have experienced.
From Meknes I went to the desert, the western edge of the Sahara. It hadn't rained there for three years. It rained every day I was there. Must go, bus is here.
posted by James 1:55 PM

Friday, August 08, 2003

 
Work is at an end for a month or so and the travels have begun again. I arrived in Morocco on Tuesday, flying to Malaga then taking a bus and ferry across the Straight of Gibralta from Algeciras to Tangiers. Tangiers was not so bad as I had been led to believe. There were only two or three people offering or demanding this or that who were any problem to get rid of. I may or may not have been conned by a man named Yousef who claimed to have a Souvlaki shop on Columbo Street. His knowlege of Christchurch was far more impressive than your average conman but you can never tell for sure (I'll check up on him when I get back). He took me to a workshop where they make jallabas, the traditional Moroccan dress which is still worn commonly: a hooded gown sort of thing. I bought one which I shall wear in Marrakesh, apparently even hotter than Tangiers.
The museum in the kasbah was closed for refurbishment, as it has been for a couple of years, so I went to the old American Legation. It was America's first piece of foreign land, gifted by the King of Morocco. It has pictures of all the old American writers who stayed in Tangiers: Paul Bowles, Allan Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and so on. There is a new photo of the King of Morocco with President Bush (our guide, an employee of the Legation, intimated in hushed tones that he would like to tear it down the middle and throw away Bush's half).
Alcohol is hard to come by in Morocco so a cold beer is becoming a special occasion. I had to go to the bar of one of the flasher hotels to get a pre-dinner drink. It had photos of it's previous inhabitants: everyone from Rita Hayworth to Timothy Dalton. The bartender was quite jolly and promised to put up a signed photo of me that I gave him.
I am now in Chefchaouen, a small super-touristed town in the mountains. Nice and clean and comfortable. The medina (old town) is quite fun but full of tourist shops and nice chaps just down from the mountains selling hash.
It is bloody hot. Too hot for a hike in the mountains, unfortunately, so there is nothing to do but sit in a shaded cafe with the rest of the tourists. I am off to Fez tomorrow.
posted by James 12:47 PM

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

 
I think I have been on the wrong side of the world too long, losing sight of the truly significant things. I saw this headline on xtramsn.co.nz: "Blair Shows The Critics Why" and thought that someone over there had misinterpreted the report that was released yesterday on the misuse of intelligence information by the British government in attempting to justify the invasion of Iraq. Nope, it was referring to Ben Blair's performance in the Ranfurly Shield match.

In other news, sports day was yesterday. Taking the Maths Department team home in the final leg of the staff relay I fell on my arse in front of the entire school. Bugger.
posted by James 7:55 AM

Thursday, July 03, 2003

 
Last Friday I popped over to Barcelona for a quick and dirty weekend. I arrived at my friend's bar (she was working until 0330) dumped my meagre possessions and had a little wander 'round to find some tapas and another bar or two. A plate-full of sepia con albondigas and a weissbeer later my eagle-eye and doglike ear located some funky sounds eminating from a bar and I walked in to find a superb jazz-funk band playing. They kept me amused until Laura finished work.
Next morning I indulged in chocolate con churros (see previous post from Cadiz) before heading down to the beach for a quick swim. Laura and I had a menu del dia (fairly average) at a restaurant near the beach before ambling home via the main park and gothic cathedral. An uneventful evening then ensued.
Sunday we went to the park designed by Gaudi which was very pleasant. Loads of different types of buskers: some traditional instruments, some jazz and so on.
Gaudi is fabulous. All the more so for me because I had no idea what his buildings were like before I stumbled across one (they shouldn't leave them lying around) walking into town (quite how it was walking into town I am not sure). If you haven't seen them before, they are cavernous things with multi-coloured icing. Apartment buildings that the witch from Hansel and Gretel might have retired to.
Mind you pronounce Gaudi with the accent on the second syllable or you will be greeted with blank stares by Spaniards.
"When was Gaudi around?"
"Gaudi?"
"Yes, Gaudi."
"Who?"
"You know, el arquitecto."
"Uh?"
"The man who built the buildings."
"Aaaaaah, Gau-dee...."
Sunday late afternoon saw the crowning meal of the weekend: some superb tapas in a Plaza near Laura's place. Gambas con ajillo, pan con tomate, choricillos, croquettas and ensaladilla rusa (which I will treat you all to on my return to NZ).
I arrived back at Stansted airport after the last train had left and caught a few hours sleep on the cold hard airport floor before the trip back to Shenfield and Monday morning's classes.

posted by James 9:01 AM

Friday, May 30, 2003

 
Photos (courtesy of James McGowan)

Photos
posted by James 9:35 AM