Delphouneso

No matter how many times I come back to Joanna Newsom after not listening to her for a while I'm always just as dumbfounded at how good she is.

Apparently we lost 2-12 to Chelsea U18s this morning.

I only really buy vinyl these days. I stopped buying CDs a few years ago, I refuse to pay money for a hard copy if the only added bonus I'm getting over downloading it is a plastic jewel case and a one page liner, it's just laziness and penny pinching on behalf of the artist/label. If bands/labels go the extra mile and produce CDs worth buying (see Sufjan Stevens' Christmas box set) then I'll buy it because it's worth having. More labels need to take note that going the extra mile is the only thing that will sell records in an age where the music is so easily accessible for free.

Who are the Vamps and why are they butchering a Simon and Garfunkel song live (questionable) on television?

Mariah Carey - Shake It Off

On the obscure music debate: I went in to Tudor Tunes in Lichfield when I was 14/15 and bought an album by an artist I'd only heard the name of, 12 years later Heartbreaker by Ryan Adams is still one of my favourite albums. Sounds a bit cliché, and by no means is Ryan Adams an obscure artist, but it raised a concern for me that unless I actively make an effort to find it Album X by Artist Y will forever remain the greatest album I've never heard. So for me it's not a case of listening to obscure music for the sake of listening to obscure music, it's listening to everything because I don't want to miss out on something brilliant.

First cassette: Power Rangers theme tune (with remixes) First CD: Thriller First film: Can't remember, it was either Toy Story, Jumanji, or Aladdin I think.

Had my jabs this morning, and just booked the flights. We were originally going to book with Finnair for £440, but I figured I'd do one last check before we booked and found an Emirates flight had appeared for £447 so we've booked that instead. Out of curiosity I looked at the cost of a single on the same flight, £559. So there could be people on our flight who have paid £112 more than us and our price includes a return from Delhi as well, madness.

I had a look at that website and shall probably get in touch with them once we get a basic itinerary sorted. We've got up to two months to cover India though so we're quite flexible for that part of the trip, currently looking into whether it's worth applying for restricted area visas for visiting places like Sikkim.

Thanks for the recommendation Tony, Access Tibet have been fantastic, we've even managed to arrange for two separate train journeys (Beijing - Xining, Xining - Lhasa) so we can acclimatize for a couple of days in Xining, and we've provisionally booked with them (waiting for Chinese visas). The first (and seemingly the most complicated!) leg of the trip is pretty much sorted! We're flying in to Beijing the second week of November, spending five days there, getting the train to Xining, then the train to Lhasa, doing the overland tour to Nepal, ten days in Nepal then we fly in to Delhi at the beginning of December. Now to start planning India! We may even be adding Singapore to our trip as I have a friend who will be there around the same time we'll be in eastern India and flights from Chennai to Singapore are only £70! Looking forward to it now the hardest part of the planning is over, but I'll be much more excited when I know for sure we've got our Chinese visas!

If we were going to do South America it would've been part of a longer trip where I'd hopefully spend a while teaching in Brazil/Argentina, hence the concerns over being able to do it on such a small budget. Having said that I'm glad we've opted out of that as if/when I ever get round to going to SA I wouldn't want to have to worry about money/time constraints. I've been looking in to this a little and a lot of people appear to be booking cheap flights out of China which they don't intend to use as proof of onward travel. Other than our flight to Beijing the only other flights we intend to book in advance are Kathmandu to Delhi, and Delhi to London, are either/both of these going to be proof enough of onward travel? Or is showing them a flight out of Kathmandu likely to make matters worse if they assume we got there via Tibet? On a slightly more positive note I managed to find a flight in to Bhutan for £70, now it's just a case of figuring out whether we can afford the £140/day to be there! Couple more questions.. Is it worth the extra money for a soft sleeper on the train to Lhasa or would we be better off saving £40ish and booking the hard sleeper? And are there any Tibetan tour companies you'd recommend? I've been through tonnes of them, and the Tripadvisor/Lonely Planet reviews for them, but it all seems a bit of a minefield with a lot of conflicting reviews, a recommendation from experience would be much appreciated!

Regrettably it looks as though we may have to leave out Bhutan, the flights in and out are just so expensive! I've been looking at trying to make it part of our route round India by flying in from Bagdogra hoping it may be cheaper to fly from there as it's closer, however whenever I search for that flight on Druk Air it says 'no route for selected date' so I'm either going to have to try tonnes of different dates or get in contact with them. Also I'm sure I've read somewhere that if you leave India you can't return for two months? I don't know how accurate that is as I can't remember where I read it but that would make a trip to Bhutan difficult! I also discovered we can get the train direct from Beijing to Lhasa, so our current plan is: Beijing > Lhasa > Nepal > Dehli and then our rough route through India (limited to ten destinations with Google maps!): Hopefully with an excursion to Bhutan through Bagdogra.

Having read through your (very informative) post Tony (great pictures too!) I think we've decided on option B. I think we'd both got our hearts set on South America but realistically it's just not affordable on our budget. So, a very rough itinerary: Fly into China > Xining to Lhasa train > Bhutan > Nepal (+ Base Camp / Annapurna) > India > Fly home (as I said, very rough!) I was hoping you could answer me a few (more) questions: I've looked at flying into Beijing then getting a train to Xining (£50ish train fare from what I can gather), would you recommend doing this or is there an airport closer to Quinghai? I like the idea of spending a few days in Beijing first, but it means getting a 20 hour train to Xining, to then get another 20 hour train to Lhasa, unless it's worth spending a day or two in Xining? What's the overland travel like between these countries? A very quick flight search came up with an open jaw ticket LON > BJS / DEL > LON for £426, obviously we'll be getting the train from Xining to Lhasa, but would you recommend flying between the other countries? Last one: Are internal flights round India cheap/expensive? I notice in your India itinerary you flew from place to place, was that due to it being an easier option or down to time constraints? One more: You mentioned Bhutan being difficult/complicated to enter, is there anything specific we need to know in regard to that?

Thanks Tony, at work at the moment but will delve in to all of that later! One quick point regarding Base Camp, I have read in a few different places that people who are unfit (smokers in particular) tend to deal with altitude sickness better than others, so maybe I'd be okay after all!

The missus and I are planning a trip hopefully beginning November (as soon as possible basically but allowing for 6-8 weeks for vaccinations) but can't decide where to go. We have a budget of around £2,000 (each) and I was hoping for some advice on whether the following plans would be affordable, and some suggestions of things to do whilst we're there. These are our current options (but I'm open to suggestions): Option A - Central America We reckon we could afford a two month trip covering Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. (We plan on skipping Honduras and El Salvador as I've heard we wouldn't be missing much anyway and the missus is a bit concerned about it being dangerous). We'd like to include Cuba in this as well but aren't sure whether it would be an affordable option with the added flight expense. Another concern with this trip is the expense of flying out of Panama, but a return flight to Mexico would mean travelling all the way back up from Panama, is there a better round trip way of doing this? Option B - India/Nepal/Tibet Again probably a two month trip, however I'm concerned that may not be long enough to cover all of India and trips through Nepal and up to Tibet. Also I'd always planned to do the trip to Base Camp if I ever went to this region but a) I don't think I'm fit enough at the moment, it adds further expense with the cost of the gear involved etc. and that's not something I really want to miss out on in case I never get chance to return to the region. Option C - South America This is the trip that both of us really want to do, but to cover all of it on a budget of £2,000 would appear to be impossible. Any suggestions? I'm a TEFL qualified teacher so I'd toyed with the idea of turning this into a much longer trip with me trying to pick up work over there to fund each leg of the trip but that's probably easier said than done, anyone have any experience with that? Option D - Your Suggestions! Open to anywhere really that we can afford to go for 2-3 months on our budget. Other than Thailand/Cambodia etc as the missus has not long got back from making that trip. Also I've read about having to book things like the Inca Trail way in advance, are there any other things we'd need to book in advance or risk missing out on? We're in panic mode right now because until we decide where to go we can't book vaccinations!

Rufus - Tell Me Something Good

One of my Polish students suggested going to the salt mine but we didn't have time in the end, I do intend to revisit Krakow at some point in the future though. And no I didn't try the hot beer, although one night we ended up in one of the underground bars who had their own home made spirit, it was a huge bottle about three feet high with a skull and crossbones as a label, the murky red liquid inside was probably the worst thing I've ever drank, and we forced the stag to do a 100ml shot. One thing I would say if any smokers intend to go to Krakow is take plenty of tobacco with you, I found it impossible to find tobacco anywhere the shops only seemed to sell straights.

Went to Krakow for a stag a few months ago, brilliant weekend. It's actually a really nice city, we turned up (all 21 of us) and went straight out on a guided bike tour which I'd definitely recommend, felt a bit sorry for our guide but she soon got in the swing of things and allowed us to turn it into a bar crawl, probably helped that all of us tipped her 20 zloty. Auschwitz is only an hours drive away and the whole trip was worth it just for that. And then there's the shooting ranges, the 20p pints and the strip clubs.. Definitely a place worth visiting stag do or not. Edit: Worth mentioning there's no short supply of attractive women there either.

FKA twigs - LP1 Probably my album of the year so far. Also been enjoying St. Vincent's new album, although I still think Strange Mercy is her best album, the new one feels as though she's gone a little too 'art rock queen' and lost a little of the intimacy of her first three albums. It's still brilliant though. Other highlights so far being Angel Olsen, The War on Drugs, Sun Kil Moon, Lee Fields, and I really liked the new Antlers album, despite a lot of reviews saying the tracks were too homogenous I think it's a brilliant headphones record. Special mention to Todd Terje, really didn't expect to enjoy his album as much as I did, this is one of those songs you just can't help but move your feet to. Edit: Also managed to pick up the blue reissue of Portishead's Dummy before it sold out, though I'm never taking it out of the cellophane.

Haven't read through this thread in fear of spoilers. Finished 400 Days last week (wasn't hugely impressed, but it was after all just an intro to Season 2) and started Episode 1 today, I'm impressed so far. Already seems like it's going to be a little more action orientated than the first game.

I've got Draw/Villa so that'll do me.

Completely agree, thought it was brilliant. You've reminded me I need to re-watch this. As much as I enjoyed it the first time round I think I spent too much of the first half of the film worrying about the potential for the second half to be disappointing, there seemed to be so many elements of that film that could've been dealt with badly, but it didn't disappoint. Went to see Guardians of the Galaxy last night. I was pleasantly surprised, enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The soundtrack was pretty decent as well. However I thought a couple of the characters were a little weak.