Things You Don't "Get"

[chrisp65]

10 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

The curry though, the curry... 

Yeah, I know you're right, but I have a limited comfort zone, and I'm definitely risk averse. I think I prefer (psychological) relaxation to adventure. I've got a finite budget and (gulp) a finite amount of years left to me. If I was planning a trip, I'd be thinking "Third world, where I'd get some new experiences? Or Europe, where I know  EXACTLY what pleasures await me?" It's different enough from home for a nice change, but not so different that I'd feel unsettled. 

Bear in mind I never left the British Isles until I was married and nearly thirty. 

We went to Kenya. turns out I’m ok with seering heat, I’m ok with flies, everything in the water can sting you or eat you but that was fine. Food was a weird mix of fish curry and pizza. Some toilets were no more than a pile of shit. If you stared at any surface long enough, it was invariably crawling with bugs.

It was the poverty that made me really really uncomfortable. Once you got outside that hotel wall, wow, absolute dirt poor sleep in the gutter poverty. I stopped trying to take photos because I’d caught myself framing photos so as not to show the people in the gutter.

Loved Spice shopping in Mombasa, river boats, the safari and the pool at the Hilton lodge and the glass bottom reef boat and snorkelling in the Indian Ocean.

But yeah, uncomfortable to say the least. We both agreed we were really glad we’d gone, but we wouldn’t go back. Certainly not on the same sort of holiday. We’d have to include some sort of virtue signalling conscience soothing good works or something to make it more palatable.

 

Edited June 3, 2020 by chrisp65

[tonyh29]

20 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

It won't surprise anybody to know that food would outright stop me from visiting certain countries - India being the prime example - couldn't face all that bloody curry (although there are many other reasons that I'd avoid the place - heat, bugs, snakes, sanitation, poverty, etc.) Nice to see on a TV travel programme, but no desire to actually go there. 

It's France and Italy for the food and wine (and climate and culture) for me. 

I took a few emergency pot noodles with me when i went    ... never needed them , even for me there was a decent choice of food .

Heat was an issue and i got the dreaded belly ( from the local beer I think , rather than the food)  but snakes , bugs , sanitation etc weren't an issue .. poverty , tbh there is so much you sort of zone out to it after a while ... was a humbling experience to be in Amritsar hearing about the massacre and then to be taken into the golden temple to have people who barely have enough food insist you come join them to eat as part of the festivities going on .... its a fantastic place , if it wasn't for the desire of the Indians to haggle for everything ( its kinda expected but gets bloody irritating  .. how much  ? How much do you want to pay ? 10 rupee  ...  no sir that is not enough  ..well , then how much is it ?  , how much do you want to pay  , repeat ad infinitum   )  I'd rank it much higher in my list 

[HanoiVillan]

15 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

for me it would be Pork belly ..and bread  ... well , seeing as Bicks  isn't looking I'd actually have some lettuce in there as its one of the few green things I eat .... other than smarties and skittles 

How have you never had scurvy?

[tonyh29]

41 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’ve banged on about it before, I’m a big fan of Malta. But bloody hell, the tourist bit just amazes me that people are happy to go there, dirty, smelly, crowded and the food is basically chips. I guess if you want guaranteed sun, lager and chips and that’s the entire brief then it absolutely does that for you. 75% of the island is geared up purely for that. But bloody hell, I wouldn’t let that stop me going.

Places can be revelations. A weekend football trip to Belfast last year and now I’m utterly in love with the place and want to go back. Can you imagine ever putting Belfast on the top of a holiday wish list!

Malta - you forgot the pot holes , its the only country i've ever taken the additional car insurance on  when I picked up the hire car , I didn't find it that crowded but maybe its a seasonal thing, and  we were not really visiting beaches , did the tunnels , Hypogeum  etc

 

Belfast  - we went to a gig there the other year , hired a car drove up to Giants causeway , rope bridge , GofT harbour thingy ,  did the whisky distillery , drove back on the Jurassic route , had cracking fish and chips  , went into the prod part of town and saw the King Billy stuff , drove through the enemy part and saw the Bobby sands stuff , did Stormont , Titanic museum .. watched the FA cup final on TV , did the gig   ....and still got absolutley blotto as well  , if it wasn't for  the language barrier its a perfect lads destination

Edited June 3, 2020 by tonyh29

[tonyh29]

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

How have you never had scurvy?

i get my vit C from lightly fried seal meat 

[mjmooney]

12 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I took a few emergency pot noodles with me when i went    ... never needed them , even for me there was a decent choice of food .

Heat was an issue and i got the dreaded belly ( from the local beer I think , rather than the food)  but snakes , bugs , sanitation etc weren't an issue .. poverty , tbh there is so much you sort of zone out to it after a while ... was a humbling experience to be in Amritsar hearing about the massacre and then to be taken into the golden temple to have people who barely have enough food insist you come join them to eat as part of the festivities going on .... its a fantastic place , if it wasn't for the desire of the Indians to haggle for everything ( its kinda expected but gets bloody irritating  .. how much  ? How much do you want to pay ? 10 rupee  ...  no sir that is not enough  ..well , then how much is it ?  , how much do you want to pay  , repeat ad infinitum   )  I'd rank it much higher in my list 

Yuk. Think I'll stick to a hillside in Tuscany or Provence with a few bottles of the local wine, thanks. 

[AVFC_Hitz]

I worked in Limoges about 10 years ago and just up from the house was a petrol station, a proper old style one with tin signs and grumpy men smoking Galois. Anyway, they had this €5 euro lunch which was soup, half a chicken with cassoulet and limitless local wine. Hands down 50 of the best meals I've ever eaten.

[mjmooney]

7 minutes ago, AVFC_Hitz said:

I worked in Limoges about 10 years ago and just up from the house was a petrol station, a proper old style one with tin signs and grumpy men smoking Galois. Anyway, they had this €5 euro lunch which was soup, half a chicken with cassoulet and limitless local wine. Hands down 50 of the best meals I've ever eaten.

God, I could talk for hours about memorable meals I've had in France. Mostly in cheap local places like that. 

[chrisp65]

9 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

Malta - you forgot the pot holes , its the only country i've ever taken the additional car insurance on  when I picked up the hire car , I didn't find it that crowded but maybe its a seasonal thing, and  we were not really visiting beaches , did the tunnels , Hypogeum  etc

 

Belfast  - we went to a gig there the other year , hired a car drove up to Giants causeway , rope bridge , GofT harbour thingy ,  did the whisky distillery , drove back on the Jurassic route , had cracking fish and chips  , went into the prod part of town and saw the King Billy stuff , drove through the enemy part and saw the Bobby sands stuff , did Stormont , Titanic museum .. wtached the FA cup final on TV , did the gig   ....and still got absolutley blotto as well  , if it wasn't for  the language barrier its a perfect lads destination

Yeah, Maltese roads! I had actually forgotten that, we wrecked a good few hire cars. Drove one all the way back to the airport on the steel rim when the tyre got fully ripped off. Showered sparks for miles. Lost another in a ditch and abandoned another one fully beached on a giant trief kerb.

Belfast, I immersed myself in the local culture.

 

 

[sidcow]

Liam Gallagher. Am I the only one who thinks he's a bloody awful singer? Not just a bad singer but really truly horrible. Just been on the Glastonbury repeat show. He murders his own song. I actually find it painful to listen to him. 

[theboyangel]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

Liam Gallagher. Am I the only one who thinks he's a bloody awful singer? Not just a bad singer but really truly horrible. Just been on the Glastonbury repeat show. He murders his own song. I actually find it painful to listen to him. 

I've just finished the Mark Lanegan autobiography Sing Backwards and Weep and there's a chapter on Liam Gallagher and how he was an utter clearing in the woods during a tour. 

he's probably the reason I never took to Oasis and just labelled them a pub band. 

i recall being dragged by several mates to see them headline Glastonbury (2004) but couldn't get past the opening couple of songs which he was badly off and stopped several times to call the crowd w@nkers. 

My mate got a free ticket to see him play solo a few years back where he played 70% Oasis tunes instead of his solo stuff but sounded like a bad cover band. 

I find him a complete cock womble who fell lucky during the Britpop years

 

[chrisp65]

I thought the first Oasis album was excellent. Fresh and vibrant.

Everything since then has been a weird ego cult devoid of anything even remotely interesting.

[Xela]

He was a wonderful front man during the early years. Absolutely brilliant, but definitely acted like a cock

His voice seemed to drop off during the later years of Oasis.

However, I've started to like him during the last year or so. His solo stuff is decent. He also seems to have calmed down a bit in interviews. Love the song below

 

[sharkyvilla]

10 hours ago, sidcow said:

Liam Gallagher. Am I the only one who thinks he's a bloody awful singer? Not just a bad singer but really truly horrible. Just been on the Glastonbury repeat show. He murders his own song. I actually find it painful to listen to him. 

I saw they had the 94 set on iplayer and couldnt get past Liam being dressed like Monkman from University Challenge.  I was surprised they didnt show the 95 set where they got the wall of sound a lot better.  He is the greatest frontman of his generation but I get why people don't like him.

 

[villa4europe]

Xela is right, great at the start, then killed it after years of excess and now he's starting to getting back

Its a proper iconic voice, not a clue how many times I've seen him now, 4 times as oasis, maybe 7 or 8 times solo, couple of times acoustic, never saw beady eye though I couldn't get in to them 

His solo stuff is a mixed bag, some really good stuff in there, some playing to the crowd by the numbers stuff

I'm soon to be 36 and no one comes close to what oasis were, they're the biggest and best band in my life without a shadow of a doubt

[mjmooney]

His microphone technique is all wrong. 

[villa4europe]

9 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

His microphone technique is all wrong. 

That's how he gets the snarl

Without his voice and attitude and appearance* I don't think oasis work

* again his appearance is a big thing, the older guys can wheel off a huge list of influential rock stars who had an impact on fashion and culture in the country... Who is there now? Next to no one, Liam Gallagher ticks that box though, he's the only real proper rock and roll star of my time, no one is looking to see what Brandon Flowers or even Alex Turner is wearing and trying to copy it

[blandy]

4 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I thought the first Oasis album was excellent. Fresh and vibrant.

 

Yeah, me too. The second was good too, IMO.

2 hours ago, Xela said:

He was a wonderful front man during the early years. Absolutely brilliant, but definitely acted like a cock

Yep

1 hour ago, sharkyvilla said:

He is the greatest frontman of his generation but I get why people don't like him.

Hmmm. I'd go Nick Cave, though you could argue he's a slightly earlier generation, perhaps.

[theboyangel]

Gallagher wasn’t the greatest frontman of his genre let alone generation. The arrogant swagger was just well timed with the Lynx drenched days of 90s ladism. 

I think Jarvis Cocker was the best 90s Britpop front man and a nod to the likes of Brett Anderson of Suede and Shaun Ryder, Tim Burgess and Ian Brown (admittedly he was pretty awful singing live though!)

 

[Seat68]

5 hours ago, sharkyvilla said:

I saw they had the 94 set on iplayer and couldnt get past Liam being dressed like Monkman from University Challenge.  I was surprised they didnt show the 95 set where they got the wall of sound a lot better.  He is the greatest frontman of his generation but I get why people don't like him.

 

Just so I am clear the like was for the monkman reference.