I want one of these for Christmas

Big ship, broken cars, tiny man

Ship requires massive cheesewire

Remember that car transporter that capsized in the Channel a couple of years ago and was chopped up with a giant cheesewire so that it could be carted away in bite-size chunks?

I found some pictures.

Toyota Madness

I’ve been tasked at work to buy a Toyota Landcruiser for a project in Tanzania. Amazingly enough there’s a 12 seat version. So I’ve three sites to look at, http://www.toyotatz.com/landcruiser_gx.html where it takes 20 days to buy a car. I was also told to have a look at Toyota Gibraltar who it turns it out supply 30% of all those Lancruisers you see on the news in disaster areas, famine relief and so on. I then had a look at the Japanese site, and ended up on their robot page.

Toyota have invented a scout walker:

http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/vision/emerging_tech/p_robot/details.html

Foolish Smorgasbord

Spot the shoes

I just googled Niketown and I see that just about every big city has one, but I did manage to find a picture of the one in London. See if you can spot the shoes in this picture.

Nike no shoes town

I was in the big Nike shop on Oxford Circus yesterday. Its called Niketown. Its very big – three floors, but it was remarkably difficult to find some shoes. I’m not convinced that they sell much in there. I mean there isn’t really that much to buy so they can’t feasibly sell much. Its just one of those brand placement places. You go in and ooh and aah at how big it is and you leave impressed that Nike have this big shop with glitzy stuff and you tell your friends, wow have you been to Niketown in London, then other people come and everyone has a jamboree about the size of this place. But they don’t buy anything.

Methinks I’ll end up on Neal Street buying my sneakers at Offspring. And why sneakers over trainers? Well, I’m more likely to go sneaking than training.

Very funny

http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/

Wonky Eyes's Album

The Eraser - Thom Yorke's new(ish) album

I was halfway through a tirade about Queen's Innuendo album that took 5 years to make and resulted in 12 paltry songs and then Freddie Mercury died, and somehow the long wait wasn't worth the money paid. And then I was going to say that this offering from Thom Yorke has been, oh I don't know, 2 years in the making, and its only 41 minutes long but it really is bloody good. Then Firefox crashed for the second time today and that pissed me off. God forbid the new Internet Explorer 7 should somehow be better than Firefox. It still has a long way to go.

So where was I? Thom Yorke may have a funny shaped head and some serious misery issues but his drum machine is on the Kid A settings and its all very hummable. There's a song called Black Swan where the chorus is: "Its fucked up, its fucked up", but really its not. 'I'm Going Slightly Mad' on Innuendo is fucked up. I especially admire the lyric, "I think I'm a banana tree". But I suppose Freddie was half-dead so I shouldn't be too harsh.

Grand National: A cracking album

A Jockey Slut special. That was a good music mag. Gone now, more's the pity.

Look: a 1980s Flake Ad

I'm so hip that I post videos on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEOVRhUUnCw

That said , I just don't get myspace et al. I mean the saviours of mankind the Arctic Monkeys came from Myspace but how much shit must you have to trawl through to find something half decent? Not that I've listened to the Arctic Monkeys. I've only just listened to the first Kasabian album. I bought it when it was released, listened to it once - I liked that Madchester single which I heard on xfm, thought the album was unutterably shite and got my money back from virgin. Then I heard it in Thailand and it was good (I was stoned...) and downloaded it and its all good apart from track 4 which is irritating like Led Zeppelin. Stupid whiny voice.

Grand National are good. One of the best random albums I've bought (Kicking the National Habit). Talking of which I spent £25 on random cds in Fopp the other day. Its a great shop for that. I got some good ones too. Problem is that they get loaded into my mp3 player and the next day I can't remember what they were and can never find them. Its like I never bought them in the first place...

Should get on with some work now...

Yay! I've worked it out

All I need to do is let blogger.com autofill my name and then I can get in. It all goes wrong when I type my name in. Now I know this is a beta but that really is very silly.

Major Login Difficulties

Jesus! I switched over to Blogger Beta about a month ago and haven't been able to log back in since - something to do with my Google Account login. I could login to the Google Account, but that very same email would not work on Blogger. Its because I randomly played silly buggers that it worked this time, but I can't trust it anymore. Blogger Help was about about as useful as a chocolate teapot but then its a free service so what can you expect?

I've decided to kill this blog on blogger, and take it over to a new program, a program I haven't found yet...

There's one called blogspirit which has a free 30 day trial and harps on about affordability. How about making it free like all its competitors!

blog.co.uk is blatantly a german start-up. The templates look like what the swiss would design if they were told to be interesting. I think 'dry' is the word. Uploading images was too tortuous.

I just tried to do something on Yahoo 360 which is some kind of bollocksy social network crap but it really didn't work out. They ask way too much private information and I couldn't change the things I wanted to change and basically it was a waste of 5 minutes of my life.

Right I'm going to experiment with logging back in using IE7.

If I can't get back in, consider this blog dead. You'll know if I don't get back in as there won't be anymore posts.

Bonkers Fancy Dress

My Final Day on Bottle Beach

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPUkwo2hENw

My Videos from Thailand, and one from Shanghai

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45ixEkmUg_s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPzWFfH0pOQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpjc9VQrXPo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2pYBTdO9GQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGuzlzhwDlw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_9f3bHfXrU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UprX15kbAr4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1kjSbpdAtg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS47ycG7sUw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uzyGFIGO8g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX0DNvHxi6A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RFAdVSzKGs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DYtPeve4CU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU44F6Og2x0

Shanghai 2005

I just had my final roll of film developed and scanned and found this. It was a boiling hot day as I remember and the sun was just starting to break through in the late afternoon. 

The Banana Split Show

On a happier note here are the Banana Splits. God knows what that was all about.

Threads: Utter Misery

This film covered all bases: inter-continental nuclear armageddon, nuclear winter and eating raw sheep, the list goes on. Like all good docu-dramas you end up thinking, "What would I do?". Indeed at school one of the big questions was, "What would you do if the 3 minute warning started?". You had to have an answer, as after those 3 minutes if you were lucky you'd be dead, and you don't want to spend them wondering what to do next.

I do now have a fascination with Cold War bunkers, and subterranean London. There's a city down there built with our money and we know next to nothing about it. I read a dreadful book called "Domain" by James Herbert about giant rats eating survivors of a nuclear war in London. Though the book was crap, he was right about a place called the Kingsway Exchange. Obstensibly this was a telephone exchange behind Holborn but in reality was the heavily reinforced entrance to a bunker. There's a huge bunker under the MOD but from what I've heard of people that have actually been in it its not as exciting as it sounds. That either means that its not exciting or that its so mindblowingly exciting that they're not allowed to say. Its called Pindar and cost an absolute fortune.

Bleak and twisted films

I saw Children of Men last night. It was a good film, bleak and brutal and though I enjoyed it immensely I remember thinking to myself that I need never see it again. The Guardian's reviewer said he was reminded of Threads when we watched it. Threads is a docu-drama made for the BBC in the early 1980s chronicling, without pulling any punches, how unmitigatingly horrific nuclear war would be. I saw it first when I was 12 and had nightmares for 2 years. It followed the lives of 3 families living in Sheffied, then the nuclear attack itself, then the aftermath of nuclear winter and complete hellishness of it all. Now Children of Men is a pretty grim portrayal of future Britain, and not withstanding the lack of nuclear annhilation, if it all goes to shit, Britain would become a very unlovely place.

I've two other decidely unlovely dvds languishing on my shelf. One is 'Ichi the Killer', which a friend described as being completely horrific (but in a non-nuclear kind of way). Its Japanese and directed by the guy that did 'Audition', and its fully fucked up. I tried to watch it the other day and got as far as the menu screen and couldn't take any more. Total Film said of it, "Virtuoso... Teeth gnashingly violent, deleriously inventive". A bit like Wallace and Gromit with chainsaws then.

'Oldboy' is the other dvd awaiting my viewing pleasure. Its definitely Korean, and definitley fucked up and wrong on a massive number of levels. Still the Daily Telegraph descibed it as "Magnificent" and it won the Cannes Grand Prix du Jury 2004.

I saw a film called 'Hostel' a few months ago which I actively discourage people from watching. I didn't understand why it was made. It wasn't enjoyable. It wasn't literally sickening, but gratuitous violence as a description doesn't come near. Violence aside it was also a very shit film.
So don't go there.

Heathrow Airport

It defines 'Bedlam'.

Terminal 2 is the most revolting, foul, unpleasant building in Britain.

And the queues for the passport check getting back into the country for EU members are a joke.

And you've just walked about a mile to get to that bastard queue.

And the travelators are broken.

And the security is a ludicrous.

And the duty-free shops make a killing on bottled water and lighters.

And the traffic jam getting into the place is just obscene.

And the Heathrow Express is the most expensive railway in the world.

And the oh sod it, the Spanish own it now, so blame them.

Kit Kat Chunky Peanut: Right or Wrong?

It may be disgustingly sweet but there is something revoltingly good about the latest Kit Kat concoction. The peanut butter is peanut butter in the sense of the "beef" in a McDonalds burger. You wouldn't spread it on a piece of bread but you don't need to as its surrounded by chocolate. Similairly I dare you to eat the "meat" from Mcdonalds without the gherkin, mustard, ketchup or bread. I'm not even convinced that there is peanut in that peanut butter, but it is a modern marvel that they can create a substance that is sweeter than sugar. True, you can't crunch the sugar, nor does it make your mouth burn, and it actually tastes quite rank. Yet it still works.

Coup d'Etat TV

BBC heralds the (frankly alarming) breaking news on Tuesday night (20/9). The blue one and the yellow one below are what the 7 state channels showed on a loop for over 12 hours. I wasn't so good at the karaoke. Then there's me with Wednesday's edition of the Bangkok Post.

Living Under the Shadow of a Gun

I've just been in Thailand for a month's holiday and was in Bangkok for the coup, which was huge fun. Here's the email I sent on Wednesday evening on 21st September, at the end the first full day of Martial Law:

Being as I am in Bangkok, I thought that I should fill you in on what is really happening here. George Alagaya, BBC's World at One anchor finished his report today with the line that Thais are, "living under the shadow of a gun". Technically speaking this is true, but then everybody in the world lives under the shadow of a gun. It was such a gross exaggeration that I was actually stunned by it. The coup that he's reporting is a completely different one to what I've seen today. I was also told that there is "Martial Law" in Bangkok. I've no idea what that means. The BBC failed elaborate so we are all none the wiser. In fact the BBC made it seem like we are all trapped inside, shivering in fear for our lives, awaiting the evacuation order from our embassies. That tanks are cruising through the streets, that the streets themselves are full of troops, that there is a curfew, that "We're all going to die!".

Its, um, not true. As far as I know, the tanks are around government house. Martial law may be in effect but there's no discernible difference to normal Bangkok, which is a fairly abnormal city anyway. I went out for a pizza in the centre of town this evening and it was only on the way back in the taxi that I actually saw any troops. At one junction there were a couple of soldiers in camouflage with helmets and M-16s standing on a traffic island under a bridge looking bored out of their minds. Just round the corner were two army trucks parked at the side of the road full of sleeping soldiers. Opposite from my friend's apartment there is a Navy radio station which today had two guards in khaki with rifles, again looking about as bored as bored can be. I almost felt sorry for them. Oh, and I saw another one in khaki on the back of the scooter out buying his lunch. It is certainly no Tiananeman Square.

When the news broke last night that there was a coup underway it was rather alarming. I saw it first on the BBC website at about 10.30pm, and switched on the TV. All of the Thai channels, seven in all, were showing the same video, images of the King and Queen with patriotic music playing. Along the bottom of the screen was Thai text that filled with blue. I soon realised that I was watching Karaoke Coup TV with Sing-along subtitles. BBC and CNN were fairly sketchy about what was happening apart from the mention of tanks and troops entering government house. I quickly rattled off an email home saying I was ok, then soon after went to bed, as it became apparent that none of the stations knew what was happening. When I woke this morning at 7am all the international news channels had been taken off the air which was more alarming as, as loathsome as they are, they are actually quite useful when things go pear-shaped. The Thai channels were still looping the same Karaoke video; I'd never realised that I'd miss Thai TV quite so much. As it turned out, today was a public holiday and there was almost no traffic, which made getting around town really really easy, and there was far less pollution. In some ways I wish there was a coup everyday then Bangkok would be almost pleasant.

BBC and CNN came back on around lunchtime which is how I saw their frankly laughable reports. Various taxi drivers said that it was good that, "Army no bang bang", "1992 lots of bang bang", "England Number 1!", "Premier League very good" and that there had been a curfew last night at 10pm and that that poor taxi driver had only made 200B in four hours, which was "No good".

It has been a genuinely exciting day. I can now say that I've been in a capital city having a military coup and I really enjoyed it. I'm extremely glad that it has been bloodless as it would have been really bad if there had been shooting and nastiness. I'm also rather glad that I did see some troops this evening as I was starting to think that it was the lamest coup ever. I mean what kind of military coup doesn't involve soldiers? And then I saw some and felt much better. They don't even look out of place. All security guards here, and there are loads of them everywhere, and all the police are pseudo paramilitary so its good to see some proper non-corruptible no nonsense soldiers. As a friend of mine commented, he almost felt safer now than when the police were in control.

From what I can gather the coup has been completely welcome in Bangkok. It is not an army seizure of power but an army instigated removal of a completely crooked, corrupt and for the last month absent leader, Thaksin. He's been described in the Bangkok Post as Caretaker Prime Minister as the results of the General Election in April/May were annulled after the opposition refused to stand - the BBC will fill you in on the why and wherenots of who he is and why he's so despised. He's now en route to London where he's just bought a new house, and the talk of the town is whether he will come back to Thailand or not. He was rumoured to be returning tomorrow so school has been cancelled for a second day, but really its all guesswork.

Fingers crossed that tonight is peaceful, that the military rule is as short-lived as the generals say it will be, and on a personal level, that my flight isn't delayed on Friday as they were last night and today.The pictures attached (see next post) are of the state TV video loop, and me getting overexcited with today's Bangkok Post.

I HATE DRM

And its bloody annoying. I bought 9 songs in all from itunes, and because of DRM I can't convert them from aac to mp3, so I can't play them on my Creative. Even JHymn has been defeated (a program that strips most DRM from music files). I'd bought some nuggets too.

Take The Beloved's Sweet Harmony. Recently featured shamefacedly on the Homebase adverts during the World Cup. The chorus goes, "Let's come together, right now, oh yeah, in sweet harmony" which could mean any number things now that I think about it, but can I suppose it could also apply to football, and DIY. Its a bit like The Shamen's Ebeneezer Goode. Yes that song really is about a man called Ebeneezer. Not pills. As it so obviously was. Not that the frenetic video with a saucer eyed Mr.C gave anything away. But Sweet Harmony song is tops for a number of reasons, not like Ebeneezer which really is shit. First off, Beavis & Butthead liked it as the video was full of naked women. Then there's a saxophone which sounds wrong, but this came from the M People era and sounded just fine then. And the whole thing runs along quite nicely, and its an old favourite.

DRM spoiled my party, and I ended up buying it again on Windows Media Library or whatever the Microsoft site is called.

And DRM? Its the equivalent of buying a CD which will only work on one CD player and there's no way to get it to work anywhere else. Bloody Digital Rights Management. Designed to shaft the customer by head in the sand music execs, who all have bloody ipods, and that says it all.

I heard a rumour recently that when Microsoft launches the Zune, it'll allow users to exchange any tracks bought on itunes with the equivalent wma files on its own music shop. That would be good.

By the way has anyone noticed that songs bought on itunes have a really low bit rate and therefore sound a bit crap?

Superb Reggae

If you ever see this cd on sale, just buy it, as it is awesome. For me I found it for a quid while out music shopping. Even with all these mp3s of which I have about 50gbs, of which I actively listen to only about 10gbs, I can't get away from the joy of second-hand music shops. So much music, such cheap prices, and the joy of finding a complete gem that you'd just never find on the internet, unless you knew what you were looking for which I don't in music shops. I just fix a price in my head and immerse myself for an hour, and come out with some bundles of joy, and some real crap, but that's all part of the fun. Still, people are flogging off their cds for a pittance now (bloody ipod generation, in my day etc) so bring it on, indulge me. God I'm sad sometimes...

Its a friend of mine's 30th birthday soon. I gave him two choices for presents. Dolphin Hammering or Thermo-Nuclear Whale Hunting. He went with the whale nuke.

Seems I'm not alone with my disposable ipod:

http://money.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1783783,00.html

Once bitten, twice shy: I bought a Creative M Vision Plus (stupid name, great gadget) last week:

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=14331

Then downloaded a 70 minute video of Radiohead playing at Glastonbury 2003, uploaded it onto the Creative and watched it on the Tube on the way to work.

It is an awesome machine.

Simple Pleasures: Type "Whitney Houston Drugs" into Google. Doesn't she look happy...

An Apple Genius at Work

She's obviously an idiot. You can see it in his eyes. Notice John and Yoko in the background placed there as if to emphasise the Genius aspect of Apple. Btw Apple are screwed when white goes out of fashion. I reckon black is on the way back. You heard it here first...

Ipod Hell

I know there are more important things in life than a bloody ipod. I know that there are massacres in the Sudan and that the icecaps are melting, but Apple are seriously pissing me off, and when I'm commuting that is the last thing I need. I could rant and rave about Apple for reams and reams of pages, but I think that it would be easier just to list the things that I hate about Apple. Before I start, I now realise that I hate Apple more than Microsoft.

Here goes:

1) That whole California thing catches in the back of my throat.

What California thing? You know, Google's "Don't be Evil" and Apple's Genius Bar. I mean what kind of c*nty knob-ends come up with spiel like that? Is it meant to make me, Johnny customer feel better when my overpriced mp3 player blows a gasket after 13 months? Does it fuck.

2) Genius Bar. This is blue-sky thinking at its finest. Most people call it Customer Service or even Help Desk. Not Apple, they have to rub your nose in it. They have to show you up for the dunce really are. You are thick. Come and see us and our Geniuses (or is it Geni-i [like cacti]) and we'll explain all and sundry to you.

3) The famed Apple Warranty/13 month ipod breakage

A brief resume of my run-in with the Genius Bar. My ipod headphone socket is dodgy... actually there's a post about this problem in the January archive. So, I finally took my ipod in and then felt like how a woman feels when she takes her car in for a service. I'll need the headphone socket replaced but, it seems that my warranty had expired. Cue sucking of air in over teeth, a sly knowing smile playing over the lips of the Genius as he said, "its going to cost you". Feverish sums in my head resulted in a personal guestimate of £70 repair cost: £20 post, £20 service charge, £20 parts, £10 because they can and they will. A headphone socket probably costs £5 tops.

But that genius quoted £160!!! To replace the headphone socket. In one fell swoop as though scales had fallen from my eyes I realised the true meaning of the Genius Bar. Its a license to print money.

4) That Genius who then went on to try and sell a video ipod to me

And you've got to give him credit. I've come into the shop expecting to spend £50 tops, and he wants me to leave with 2 ipods, one new, one broken, and short 0f £220. Suffice to say I didn't take up his wonderful offer. After all a new ipod is only £80 more than the extortionate repair charge for the old one.

5) itunes software.

That whole silver Apple our software just works and is well written and so on, and if its so bloody wonderful then why do I have to run bloody quicktime all the time too. Dicks.

6) Unexpected ipod hibernation

You turn it on and that black screen with a silver apple appears, and then the machine does bugger all and may work and may not and you really don't know. What you do know is that you need to plug it into the mains as a burst of electricity wakes it up. But you've left the house, and the only option is to go into Apple and plug into their demo sockets, in Regents Street. And in the meantime its completely useless.

7) Bono. I know he's not Apple, but he seems to be their mascot, and he's almost as much of a prick as they are.

8) Its a hard drive but not a hard drive. Really, why can't it be used as a hard drive? Why can't I download from it? That's just a stupid restriction on technology.

9) Thieving gypsy bastards.

I've been looking at the competition and I'm going to buy one of these before the end of the week:

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=214&product=14331

And there I was worried that I wouldn't like the menu software on the thing and then I read that Creative hold the patent for the gui and that Apple have copied it.

10) One more thing. The ipod is a beautiful piece of product design. It is tactile and responsive and feels as expensive as it looks, and that click-wheel is brilliant and its a shame to be leaving that behind but I just can not bear its shortcomings anymore.

Microsoft's new operating system, Windows Vista is to going to be launched in January 2007, replacing what, apparently is a now redundant XP. Today MS published the minimum and recommended specs for running Vista:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4996998.stm

Should I want to run it at full spec, then it means a new pc for me (and mine's only a year old). The problem MS has is that they are launching a product just after the peak period (Christmas) on a market which doesn't neccessarily still exist. Though XP has had its security issues, on the whole its a very stable OS and for the average user there are few faults with it. I'm not convinced that MS know why XP needs to be replaced, other than that's the business model they work from: continually replacing software that if it had been made right in the first place wouldn't need replacing. Look at Word 2003. Its utterly shambolic - the epitome of lazy programming. They could fix it, but why should they now that there's a new version of Office coming out soon.

Of course MS is a company and companies sell stuff to stay in business. The problem comes when you reach complete market saturation. When you look at a pc you look at Windows xp, much the same as when you look through a hole in your wall, you look through glass. Now there's fancier glass around, specialised glass. Windows 3.1 was your standard glass, 2000 and XP your double-glazed and tinted.

What's Vista going to be?

Freaks Ahoy!

Amsterdamm does strange things to you...

Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace

How to beat jet lag.

Arrived back from China on a Friday evening. Took valium and slept for 4 hours, lunched at 9pm in Kensington High Street, partied in Amsterdam on Saturdau until 11am on Sunday morning. Lunched out. Again:

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rcadean/album?.dir=/666b&.src=ph&.tok=ph5JFjDBh._ynKt4

Me in Pingyao, China, munching on watermelon. Pingyao is preserved walled imperial city. It was very hot, and my brother and I had been out on bicycles. My brother took this, and its one of my favourite pictures. There's just so much going on it.

That's me on the far right. This was my first day. I can think of worse ways to start a holiday.


These are the two emails I sent from China last August. The third and final one never happened.

China 1:
Hi all,
Hmm, the final frontier... I've been here a week now, and as holidays go its pretty good fun. Its funny, whatever you might read about China's grasp of capitalism, it really doesn't prepare you for the reality. This country, from what little I've seen, is not communist. Its rather more authoritarian capitalism. Vietnam was more communist than this. Shopping seems to be the big thing here, shopping and neon. They like skyscrapers too. I'm currently in the provincial capital of the Yunnan province in a place called Kunming. Its down in the southwest of the country and borders Laos, Burma and Vietnam. Unlike Shanghai which was completely mentalist its called the City of Eternal Spring. Its 28C in the day and 19C at night and is like this, give or take, all year round. Its also quite high at nearly 2000m. Sadly the latest Chinese trend is here. Demolish the old and build the new, and so there are the requisite skyscrapers, malls and monster shops, and lots of neon too. Last night I went searching for the Muslim quarter as there's meant to be an ancient mosque there but its just a building site. Still it meant getting lost in the market which wasn't so bad. The old town is fairly old, comprised of two storey wooden houses with grass growing on the roofs. The food stalls on the streets are great too; I'm only really held back by my almost total lack of Chinese. Hello and thank you only get you so far. I'm moving on tomorrow either down south to get a taste of SE Asia or up north towards Tibet. There's a place called Tiger Leaping Gorge which follows the Yangtze, and I may go on a three day trek up there. The landscape is apparently stunning, and very Tibetan without being Tibet, but it borders Tibet. I'm spending two weeks down here, and then flying up to Xi'an which is where the Teracotta Warriors are. I'm then travelling with my brother for 5 days, heading to a city called Pingyao, then 2 days in Beijing, a final day in Shanghai then back home (a weekend in Amsterdam). I've heard that at this time of year Xi'an is oppressively hot, temperatures touted as being as high as 40C which'll be amusing. Xi'an and Pingyao are perfectly (although that's Chinese perfect) preserved Imperial cities. They're both UNESCO sites so I'm looking forward to that.

And Shanghai. Now that's a cool city. Its something of a cross between Bangkok and Singapore. It has, surprisingly, the cleanliness and skyscrapers of Singapore, and the hubbub and freneticism (could be spelt wrong) of Bangkok. But what is all the more remarkable is the transformation and speed of change that the city has undergone in the last 15 years. The amount of construction is astonishing. I saw at least ten office developments that are the size of Canary Wharf. Skyscrapers are shooting up everywhere. Its very much out with the old and in with the new, and the decision of what goes and what stays comes down to cash or Mao. I had dinner in a part of town on Monday that had the feel of Covent Garden. Lots of brick 2 or 3 storey pitched roof houses transformed into boutiques and restaurants and bars (PWC have an office right next to it). The block was going to be demolished, and indeed much of it was. I'm travelling at the mo with a Chinese-American who went to school there, which is now a lake. The only reason that the whole area wasn't demolished was that Mao held a meeting there once. Its a sweet irony that the area is now rammed with western chains.

Most of Shanghai - the old city, the French Concession where the Europeans lived in the 1930s and the Bund where the great banking and trading houses stood are on the east bank. The west bank was, until 1990, paddy fields. Its now called Pudong and is filled with skyscrapers. On Wednesday I was over there and went up the Jing Mao (or something) tower which is 88 storeys high. The view would have been awesome had it not been quite so smoggy. That was something I noticed as I came in from the airport. The city has expanded so rapidly that factories are still within the city limits belching out filth. All the cars still run on leaded petrol and so the city is filthy like you wouldn't believe. General practice is not to touch anything as there's this black dust everywhere. I'd heard that the Chinese like to spit and they do, but now I see why. You don't want that dirt to fester in your lungs.

I stayed with my brother for a week which was huge fun. Generally a lot of drinking gets done, with that stalwart of city life, Red Bull and Vodka rearing its head again. Of course the Red Bull is different here. Its not like its stuffed with ampthetamines like in Thailand, as its not speedy, and its not as repellent as the stuff in the UK. It just works a treat. So there's lots of going to cool bars, and a bit of going to bad ones, and because its so cheap you use taxis all the time. I arrived a week ago today and on Saturday went to an all day swimming pool party in a hotel in Pudong. There were two pools on the 5th floor of a hotel, surrounded by skyscapers and it was uncharacterically a clear and sunny day. There was a dj playing cheesy techno which was a little full on for 1 in the afternoon but the view made up for it. That ended at 8 then we went for dinner then on to a rocking club called Bar Rouge. This is a bar which is a roof terrace on a 1930s office block on the Bund opposite Pudong, so very much art deco. That went on til 5. To recover we went to another pool on the Sunday, which had a swin-in bar. Life can be tough sometimes.

The chinese are a funny race. They have no manners and are like children when they get behind the wheel. Basically they don't know how to drive, and driving rules are strictly guidelines which makes crossing the road tricky. The thing is that they use the horn the whole time. Its almost as though its attached to the indicator. They hoot at anything. They sit at the lights and hoot. Traffic jams, bikes, buses, anything in site. Its really tiresome after a while. Yet although the traffic is completely anarchic there are few accidents. Its as though there's a method in the madness. Its not India. As for their manners. On the underground they barge on and practically push old ladies out of the way to get a seat. Then they sit there looking really pleased with themselves. Considering how many there are of them you'd have thought there'd be less shoving. So hoot hoot get out of my way or hoot hoot I can drive or hoot hoot look its a car. Its cross making.

However they may be short of manners but they are friendly too, especially old people. They seem to have an built in respect for foreigners which must have stemmed from before the communists. People are also very keen to practice their english, and a smile and a nod is a good icebreaker. I haven't stretched to mentioning David Beckham but its only a matter of time.

I went tea tasting last night which was great. Green tea is the big drink here. The green tea I had was fresh and bitter at first but after a while tasted of honey. It was rather akin to wine tasting. Puts a whole new slant on having a cuppa. My tastes were predicable for the guy who ran the shop. Jasmine and black tea is what the english like. Jasmine tastes a little like Earl Grey. So, for the first time, I've found a country where one can find a decent cup of tea.

Well, for all that writing I don't think that I've imparted any great pearls of wisdom about China. What I can say is this. Thay are not as anal about rules as the Vietnamese. They like shopping more than we do. KFC is bigger than Mcdonalds. The food is fantastic. BBC news online is blocked, which sucks. Volkswagen builds (I think badges) all the taxis. The nouveau riche, of which there are many, have absolutely no concept of style and as a result look like complete tools. Tsingtao is the beer of choice and gets my seal of approval.

That's me done and dusted. I hope you're all safe and well,

Bye for now

Charlie
China 2:
Hi all,

Time for more tales from China.

China is amazing. Its as simple as that. I suppose its about 2 weeks since my last email and I've travelled far and wide. After Shanghai I went down to Kunming which is the provincial capital of Yunnan Province which is in Southwestern China. From there I took a slightly alarming plane journey up to a town called Leijing. This is a town of two halves. On the one side there is the new town, low rise urban spread in typical developing country grimness, surrounded by hills and verdant lush vegetation. The only point of interest was that Mao's statue's hand pointed towards the bus station. The big message inside was to watch out for TB. With all the gobbing going on its more a matter of when rather than if I catch it. The old town is a pedestrian only maze of ancient houses with large granite slabs as paving, all low-rise, higgeldy piggeldy and extremely easy to get lost. Down the sides of the roads and paths are little brooks and streams, and overhanging them were numerous weeping willow trees, which are everywhere here. One of my favourite trees. There are a lot of plane trees too which is surprising as I thought they only grew in London. It took an hour to find a guesthouse as Lonely Planet maps are really more guides than maps. I've only learnt this through harsh experience. This was particularly unamusing as I was hungry and I knew I was walking in circles and this town is at 2000m and rucksacks start to get quite heavy at altitude. So I found this guesthouse which was in a 200 year old building. It had rooms on 3 sides then a restaurant on the fourth, all facing a courtyard. Think any kung-fu film you've ever seen and that's what it was. Nobody ran in for a fight though which was a pity. It was pretty cool (and cheap which is a rarity here (that's relative cheapness, its all very cheap but surprisingly expensive if you get my drift)). Leijing has sadly been tarred with the brush of Chinese tourism. We backpackers (God I sound like a cock) like to search out little undiscovered gems, only for unscrupulous locals to turn up and exploit our dollars followed by large tour operators turning idyllic paradise into generic resorts. The Chinese saw Leijing as a backpacker hangout and with the help of an earthquake and a UNESCO certificate have turned what was once a tradtional working town (and this really is a rarity in China) into China does Disneyland. Every day hordes of Chinese descend on the town, wearing matching baseball caps, following locals dressed in traditonal ethinic wear carrying umbrellas or flags, or following these miniture loadhailers that amplify their voice by about a half, making them really annoying. Then the thousands charge around the place looking at shops that once sold everyday things but now just sell identical souvenirs. This inconvenience aside, it is a beautiful town, though as is so much the case now, it was not what I expected to see in China. I also saw something which was a real taste of the past. There I was drinking my tea reading my book, which is such a luxury and then I heard this rousing music coming over the wall and went to investigate. On the other side was a large community hall with a conductor and a grand piano and before him about 50 OAPs. They were singing what I suppose is the Mao theme tune. It was a song written for Mao during the Cultural Revolution and the words were probably along the lines of 'Mao you're great, we love you, you rock'. (Of course Mao was destroying the country at the time). It was a cracking tune though and was sooo Chinese, with a wonderful treble and all the men at the back, and really was splendid to see. A chinese guy there filled me in on what the song was, and I've heard it before, primarily on a Mao lighter. Its sad how great musical talent is often somehow waylaid in writing what are at the time perfectly accepable nationalist anthems but in hindsight are completely abhorrent. The Nazi's 'Horst Wessel' is a prime example. A belter like Jerusalem with unsavoury lyrics to boot.

I spent about 3 days there and then got a bus down to a place called Dali, a walled city, but very small, about 3 hours south. The good news is that Chinese bus drivers are not quite as suicidal as Indians. To this end I only saw two crashes. One was a minibus - one of those sh*t toyota Hilux w*nk mobiles that are everywhere in Asia. It was being fished out of a ditch after suffering what looked like a highly effective roll. The other was a tractor that had fallen over. The tractors here look like they were designed in the 1950s in some machinery commune, and perhaps carved out of a solid block of pig iron. They produce a monstrous amount of noise and thick oily smoke and go maybe 10mph. I'd heard all sorts of talk of landslides and so on, and saw a few photos of some near misses that befell some English guys I met. A cliff literally falling on the road in front of them. Ahhh, bus travel in the rainy season on mud tracks, don't you just love it.

Going back to my last email about offensive use of the horn. Some people were in a bus and their driver used the horn so much that he broke it! They then had stop for15 minutes so he could fix it because he couldn't drive without it!

So I got to Dali, and it rained for a week and was cold and I had to wear jeans and my shoes and socks (call this a holiday) and then I got ill for 3 days and then I seriously tired of everything Chinese and generally had a sense of humour failure. I didn't really see anything apart from an hysterical amount of Chinese tv. The Chinese army is the biggest employer in the world (3 million) followed by the NHS. Unlike the nhs the army has almost nothing to do, and so they put on huge martial concerts on CCTV3. This involves massed ranks of surly bored soldiers watching a starched, government approved, deeply communist uniformed greased up medalled 'entertainer' singing rousing songs about the motherland (perhaps). One concert was in a colossal hall complete with marching and all sorts of excitement with an audience of thousands, a bit like The Royal Tournament but without the fun. The other was set in an army base in the back of beyond. Even with all the dynamic Top of the Pops style camera work nothing could diminish the fact that these soldiers were having a miserable time and didn't appreciate sitting in mud whilst being musically harangued and assaulted. Its great stuff.

All this sitting around feeling sorry for myself got me thinking about Chinese history. All through school in the west we are told how the Chinese had gunpowder whilst we were being mauled by sabre-toothed tigers and were writing when we didn't know our arses from our elbows and basically they were really advanced and we had issues making fire and designing round things to put under carts. They missed one vital element and they still haven't nearly got the measure of it yet. And its essential. Its the loo. Chinese loos are beyond redemption. They are the single most revolting fetid rank creations I've ever seen, and I thought India was bad. Holes in the ground I can deal with, but they don't have doors here and they don't have walls either. Nobody needs to see a line of China men crapping ensemble in the morning, all spitting and gobbing and smelling, because they don't really go in for washing either. Nor do they go in for flushing. It is wrong on so many different levels. I mean really. Is a door too much to ask for...

So after Dali I flew (again) to Kunming, where I was prepared for a quiet couple of days before heading to Xi'an. Luckily I met some teachers who acutally live there and so saw the other side of the town, as to see a city properly its best to know someone who lives there. And I definately saw another side. So there's the requisite bars and so on and getting drunk on the local brew and being stalked by hookers which is not ideal. Then the next day we went Chinese ballroom dancing, as you do. The Chinese are amazingly elegant dancers and the contrast with a similar scenario in Britain is striking. Rather than making a beeline for the bar the Chinese headed straight for the dance floor and what a set up it was. It was a huge room like a roller disco with the same kind of lighting but what could be described as a varied playlist. There was a selection of Chinese romantic numbers followed by some up-tempo pieces which had a somewhat martial feel to them. Really think of the drums of the Coldstream guards and you're there. Dancing is cheap and fun for the masses, a bit like clubbing. So rather than sneaking off to the corner for a snog, the lights are turned off every ten minutes or so for 5 minutes so that there can be embarrassment free frottaging and so on. Very funny.

After that we went clubbing which was huge fun and which led to a number of revelations. We went to the Cobra club which was unlike anything I've ever seen. First revelation is that you can get drunk on the fiendish combination of Budweiser and Coors Light. I've never bothered trying before. Chinese beer is about 3% which means that it is very lightand eminently drinkable. A bottle of local brew, Dali beer is about a pint and a half and costs 8 RMB (14RMB to the pound). In this club there was no entrance fee, rather you paid 100rmb and got 7 cans, and 120rmb bought 12 cans. So we sidled in, and let me just say that being the only blonde white person there attracts a certain amount of attention. We met some Chinese who were already well oiled then layed into the Bud. They drink their beer in glasses which are about the size of 2 shot glasses. The toast is 'gambai' which is 'neck it' and off you go. The club was heaving even on a Monday night. Girls come round and take your drinks orders and even though there are bars you can't actually buy anything from there. Of course, being China, there are bartenders (as everyone has a job) but they don't actually do anything. It was musically challenging. Think bad hi-energy Euro techno with a chinese slant. That went on until 5am, which wiped out the next day but I'd seen everything of value there.

On Wednesday I flew from Kunming to Xi'an which is in the middle of the country in Shaanxi Province and is where the Terracotta Army is. After getting fleeced by a taxi driver who had a hidden meter and pulled the old 'oh the meter didn't start' and then whinged and then I ended up paying the amount he plucked out of the air which was a third again more than I should have payed and I felt like killing him and I really wish the police had been there so that I could report him. General feeling towards crime is as follows. The Chinese as a whole are under instructions to make foreigners as welcome as possible, what with the Olympics coming in 2008. To this end any crimes committed against foreigners are strictly dealt with, which means that there is basically no crime (touch wood). The Lonely Planet in the pointless, alarmist and paranoid dangers & annoyances section for Dali said that in 1997 two people were robbed. And then nothing for the next 8 years. So crime is low. The sentiment is that if you are robbed or something then you give the robber a kicking because reporting him to the police can result in a harsh penalty. I heard a great story last night about how a foreign girl had been pickpocketed on a train about ten years ago. She told the guard. He then stopped the train and everyone was searched. The thief was found with her wallet, taken out on to the track and shot. Hence, low crime.
But the mentality of petty crime is different here. What we would regard as dishonesty and cunning, which we regard as underhand and not very nice is seen here as an enviable quality. Its just different. So the trick the taxi driver pulled on me was of the enviable cunning variety not to preclude from the fact that he deserved a thorough beating.

Its midnight now, and as I was on a sleeper all last night I'm pretty tired. Surprisingly enough the beds are a little too short. The staff have gone to bed and the aircon has a vicious draft running down my neck. I'll have to save the Terracotta Warriors for later. I will say that they really were quite something, they really were.

I'm back in a week's time, but I should manage one final email. These emails effectively double as my journal so on a personal level I've no option but to write another one.


Bye for now
Charlie

I tried but failed to get the links to work on the right side bar. I'm at work and html is a bit too detailed to be getting into right now.

There's (obviously) some great animation on the web, and there's this guy called Monkeehub who did the video for that JCB song that got to No. 1 just before Christmas. They also did a stunning animation for Radiohead's Creep. You'll need flash:

http://www.lowmorale.co.uk/creep/

I found it by chance using a search engine randomiser called Stumble:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

It works best (like all these things) in Mozilla. You tick a load of boxes to choose the subject you're interested in. Then a Stumble button sits at the top of your browser. When you're bored you click stumble and then off you go. The beauty is, and this is where the magic lies, that it only finds quality sites. It could so easily be crap. But its not, its great. That's how I found the Monkeehub site.

Brand of the Week


Coppella: In particular the apple one. 250ml may cost £1 which is pretty steep. On the other hand its pure apple juice with vitamin C added and with the plethora of coughs and sniffles on the Tube its completely necessary. And it counts as one of my 5 portions of veg a day (according to the label).


Un-Brand of the Week

Entirely coincidentally another apple. Big ipod/itunes/istore issues this week. My remote control broke and there's a dodgy connection in the headphone socket where the lead disconnects, though its still attached, then the bloody thing pauses. And I don't know where my receipt is, which means that all this vitriol is aimed by proxy at me. So in effect I'm the un-brand of the week.

Hence Mental Deposit

Me in Amsterdam for Queens Day in May 2005