Category: General

Rare “I’m not dead” update

Blimey. It’s close to 3000 hours since my last post. What a fucking shambles.

So, what have I not reported on?

1) My holiday to France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran and Syria. It was great, although eight days on a train for a man of my advanced years isn’t something I’d recommend lightly. Highlights included the cross-eyed hotelier in Tehran, the racist, permy-haired light entertainer in Romania, and a visit to the World’s biggest restaurant. Pictures are below.

2) My trip to Iceland, doing my best to save their ravaged economy. Highlights? Eating puffin, swimming in the Blue Lagoon on a blisteringly cold night, and that exhilarating Arctic wind. Photos follow.

3) Finishing my animal eating A-Z for The Observer. The full list of articles is contained in one nifty package here. I’m especially fond of ‘Y’, for yak.

4) Drinking lots of ginger beer. Ginger beer is ace. Especially the Bunderberg variety.

5) Cooking my finest ever meal: roast venison with parsnip puree, parsnip crisps, demi-glace and red wine sauce, braised red cabbage, beetroot fondant and creamed autumn mushrooms, followed by a chocolate and vodka parfait pyramid with mango and passionfruit coulis. I’m the white Ainsley Harriott, I tell you.

6) Buying an internet radio, listening to weeks of pre-election build-up on C-Span, and realizing that the most dangerous part of democracy is the bit where ordinary folk are allowed to vote.

7) The Hank Williams Unreleased Recordings box-set. To draw a parallel, this is like finding five previously unheard Beatles albums, all better than the original releases. Literally country & western-tastic.

8) The Kittenwar 2009 Wall Calendar! Available from Amazon now!

9) The Kittenwar 2009 Daily Calendar! Available from Amazon now!

10) Getting to review the new AC/DC album for the mighty WORD magazine. This is one of life’s checkbox moments, like visiting the Grand Canyon, eating at the Fat Duck, or sharing a bed with two of Girls Aloud.

11) Realizing, finally, that Bjork is never going to leave her husband for me. Or Lila Downs. Or Yma Sumac. Mind you, she’s dead, and when she was alive she was really old and stuff and probably smelt of ointment, so that’s possibly a good thing.

12) Realizing that I obviously have a bit of a thing for foreign ladysingers.

Banned

Blogjam.com, as it appears in Iran. I must be in league with the Great Satan.

Off

Bollocks to this, I’m off to Belgium, Germany, Austria, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran and Syria.

By train.

Noooooodles

This is the advertising board next to the Thai Noodle stall round the corner from where I work.

Whatever next? Sweet & sour Goebbels?

Photo Bonanza

In lieu of writing an incredibly witty entry, I’ve uploaded some photos to Flickr. First up are a few snaps from last year’s trip to Berlin, most of which provide a snapshot of life at the Stasi Museum and the Hohenschönhausen Memorial, better known as the Stasi Prison. My whistlestop tour of European misery continued at Auschwitz, before I jetted off to Beograd in Serbia, where I spent a few lazy hours before heading south to the music festival at Guca for a long weekend of binge-drinking, Macedonian choirs, boa constrictors, entire cows on spits, and red-hot gypsy brass.

Paris, literally in the spring

Apologies for all the craziness round here the last few days – blogjam was attacked by a nasty hacker while I was gallivanting round the scene of the World’s greatest nuclear disaster, and I only got round to fixing everything most things properly last night. A new! improved! blogjam design will be online sooner rather than later, and meanwhile you can view my pictures from Mr and Mrs Chernobyl over at Flickr.

And me? Bollocks to this, I’m off to Paris, for a bit of Serbian Opera. Ooh-la-la.

Ukraine

Bollocks to this, I’m off to Ukraine.

Why? Well, my reasons are two-fold. First, you need to be in Kiev if you want to go on a day trip to Chernobyl, which is how I’m spending Easter Sunday.

Secondly, have you seen their Prime-minister? Who wouldn’t want to visit a country with Yulia Tymoshenko in charge? I mean… compare and contrast.

Hardly separated at birth, are they? I know who I’d rather be governed by.

Kim Jung Mi

If I were to tell you that one of the greatest records ever made came out South Korean psychedelic pop scene in 1973, you’d probably doubt my sanity. And you’d be utterly, utterly wrong.

I don’t know much about Kim Jung Mi. I know she’s backed on this track by fuzz-guitar maestro Shin Jung Hyun and his band The Men, but that’s about it. It’s from an album called Now, and that the track is called The Sun.

All that matters is that it’s like Sweet Jane crossed with Hey Jude crossed with Francois Hardy, and that every second is 24 carat, take-your-breath-away magnificent.

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In Which I Fix English Football

Years ago, when Terry Venables was about to retire as England manager, I offered my services to the F.A., and applied for the job. Rather graciously, they wrote back and turned me down.

More than a decade later, the game is still a mess. They’ve obviously learned nothing. So after the recent Switzerland game, I wrote to the F.A. again.

Dear Brian Barwick,

I went to watch England last night. It was another anxious ninety minutes, deja vu all over again. But I have a theory, and I believe I have the solution.

Collectively, England players have three major problems.

1) They assume they merely have to show up to beat ‘smaller’ teams. Quite where this misplaced sense of superiority comes from I’ve no idea, although I suspect it might have something to do with us once having an Empire.

2) Conversely, they suffer from a crippling fear that this might not be the case; that San Marino can make them look stupid (as they once did) or that ‘minnows’ like Croatia might actually be a much better side (which they are).

3) It’s obviously a psychological issue, which makes things worse, because the last thing the average English footballer – David James aside – wants to consider is that there might be a cerebral aspect to the game. It’s all, blood, thunder and God Save The Queen, innit?

So if we assume that we don’t want to return to the desperate days of Glen Hoddle’s empty-headed quackery (the man is quite clearly a maniac) we’ve got to look for a solution that relies on the few aspects of the English footballer’s psyche that might – with a little prodding – become a positive: the fear of losing their place in the side.

Assumed wisdom in soccer circles – if there is such a thing – suggests that the introduction of a new manager spices things up: with the slate wiped clean, the players who’ve been coasting realise they need to prove themselves again, while those previously excluded are given a second chance. It’s all hands to the pumps.

So here’s my solution: employ a whole series of managers, but restrict their involvement with the national side to two games apiece. In the first game of each series, the players will be fighting for their places in the second. In the second, the players will be desperate to impress the new manager they know is coming in for game number three. As an added bonus, the involvement of managers clearly out of their depth (like Steve McClaren, for instance) will be kept to a minimum.

Please let me know if you’d like to discuss my idea further.

Fraser Lewry
(England fan #55355280)

PS. Did you know that Fabio Capello is an anagram of ‘I, Capable Fool’?

And guess what? No reply.

I pay through the teeth and go to every home game. I eat the ridiculously over-priced food. I put up with the queues. I watch the national side under-performing again and again and again. I suffer.

And when I offer to solve the crisis (for free, mind), they ignore me.

It’s no wonder the sport is going to the dogs.