Bizarre Place Names

Ok there has been too much thinking in this blog. So i thought i would dumb it down a little by telling you some real place names around the world. I wonder if anyone has made a point of visiting them all.... Arsoli (Lazio, Italy) Bastard (Norway) Beaver (Oklahoma, USA) Beaver Head (Idaho, USA) Brown Willy (Cornwall,UK) Chinaman's Knob (Australia) Climax (Colorado, USA) Cunt (Spain) Cunter (Switzerland) Dikshit (India) Dildo (Newfoundland, Canada) Dong Rack (Thailand-Cambodia border) Dongo (Congo - Democratic Republic) Effin (Limerick, Ireland) Fuku (Shensi, China) Fukue (Honshu, Japan) Fukui (Honshu, Japan) Fukum (Yemen) Hold With Hope (Greenland) Intercourse (Pennsylvania, USA) Lickey End (West Midlands, UK) Little Dix Village (West Indies) Lord Berkeley's Knob (Sutherland, Scotland) Middle Intercourse Island (Australia) Muff (Northern Ireland) Nobber (Donegal, Ireland) Pis Pis River (Nicaragua) Sexmoan (Luzon, Philippines) Seymen (Turkey) Shafter (California, USA) Shag Island (Indian Ocean) Shitlingthorpe (Yorkshire, UK) Tittybong (Australia) Tong Fuk (Japan) Turdo (Romania) Twatt (Orkney, UK) Wank (Germany) Wankendorf (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany) Wankener (India) Wankie (Zimbabwe) Wankie Colliery (Zimbabwe) Wanks River (Nicaragua) Wankum (Germany) Wet Beaver Creek (Australia)

How to Cheer Yourself up for Winter (book a cheap flight to the sun!)

I would say, there is nothing better to raise your mood in this dark and wet (at least in Northern Europe) Winter, than to book a bunch of cheap flights!

There seems to be a raft of cheap flights right now  - Canadian Budget airline airtransat is doing Glasgow-Toronto for £159 upwards one way, with £90 to upgrade, albeit that just means free booze and marginally better seats (i'm guessing like Economy Plus) It also flies to London and various other British and Canadian cities.

If you're in US - check out spirit , another El Cheapo carrier - they charge you extra for luggage but you can get to Costa Rica or Nicaragua or any of the Latin American places for well under $100 (i just booked to Nicaragua, to cheer me up, but more on that later...)

Of course you have the perennial Easyjet, and Ryanair if you feel you need to be humiliated somehow....

Modern Art is Rubbish - Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow

This alcove  is infinitely more beautiful than the polythene bag. 

So what is it exactly about modern art though? I remember making a gross error of judgement and went to the 'Tate Modern' one time. I couldn't find a single interesting piece of art. Am I missing something? Have all the beautiful things been 'done' already, so the artist must push the edges and make some conceptual piece or are they simply not talented and its a big game to fleece a gullable fau-intellectual public?  I'd be on the latter side myself. In fact i was thinking about selling some blank canvases, with just my signature at the bottom, to portray the emptiness of modern culture (maybe thats been done already?!!)

Anyway, i thought i'd share these photos of the Glasgow 'GOMA' - Gallery of Modern Art, which actually is set in a beautiful building and is worth going for that, and maybe some of the more normal stuff on the upper floors. But seriously. Is that piece of polythene an 'Installation' or just a big piece of rubbish? I left the gallery none the wiser....

Monstrous carbunkles ruining a beautiful building - GOMA, Glasgow

Puking is NOT Art

And while we're on the subject of talentless artists....

I will venture an opinion here. sorry Milly, i know this is your career and all, but this is, while mildly amusing for 30 seconds, its total rubbish and no way to spend your life. There are plenty jobs out there.

Spudspotting/Hot Chicks With Douchebags - A New Worldwide Phenomenon

This link HERE isn't travel related, but i think may be interesting for those of you who do live life a little and observe what is going on here and there with regards to the ladies of the world.

I really see a trend here - our very own secret 'Spudspotting' community has been active in Tallinn for almost 10 years now, seeking out (it's not too difficult in Eastern Europe) amusing photos of 'Spuds' (ugly stupid looking, badly dressed men) with beautiful (but sadly tasteless and often leopardskin clad) girls.

But we are not alone. The hot chicks with douchebags website, has been operating across the pond, bravely and totally independently for a number of years. I feel that when we find there is an Asian or South American version, we truly have a worldwide brotherhood, which only goes to show, tragically that all men think alike....

Shoreditch Twats- As Predictable as an Estonian Girl Choosing an Inappropriate Boyfriend

So, im back in twat central - Shoreditch, Hackney, London. (Thanks to Oli, Mia and Marino for putting me up)

A Shoreditch Twat, yesterday

I had a great time mind you, went to 'kick' where you can pick up French girls while playing table football (if you want to), ending up in a bar called Spread-Eagle - Last time I was there it was ten years ago, it was a girly bar, on a Saturday Afternoon and they had for some reason Aussie Backpacker girls stripping to the sounds of AC/DC. Actually it was much better then, but now at least its open until 4am.

What gets me though about the Hackney 'centre of the universe' vibe is that its strangling itself on its own narcissism. The moustache count was high, (because it's just been movember but i'm more looking forward to early next year when the ladies repost with fanuary. I'll try to research as much as I can personally, although as i'm sure you fellas well know the ladies of Japan (and probably Pakistan for that matter) have been active here for years.)

But what next for a place thats so achingly trendy that no one is actually imaginative or original any more? Well, it hit me when I walked past the The Breakfast Club off Hoxton Square on Saturday morning. People were actually queueing up to pay and extra £3 so they could have fresh coriander on their bacon and eggs, instead of just walking (its about a mile though) to a real greasy spoon like i did. Actually probably they don't even give you coriander, but i do recommend it, it tastes great.

Anyway, if a place has gone like that, the only way can be down, surely? I didn't meet or see anyone or anything remotely inspirational in the whole area, seemed it was at that terminal phase, where Starbucks is about to move in (there's already one on Commercial Road nearby, watch out!) and the only people you meet are whining Dickheads from the home counties who have as much creativity as a bin-man (the only answer for these guys is of course to take coke, then you convince yourself that you're interesting and creative to everyone, voila!) 

Which I suppose describes the Shoreditch/Hackney phenomenon perfectly. Hackney is that pretty average looking guy you see out of his head on coke, totally convinced that he is an original, interesting and unique genius, but of course to everyone else he's just a boring, unimaginative loser with too much of his parents money, in a terminally downwards spiral.

Anyway, now i'll go and watch 'Another Earth' and leave you with this summary....

What is a Shoreditch Twat

1. Usually a new media, fashion student, photographer-type person with a privileged digital or old school arts background who lives/works/socialises in London's East End area of Shoreditch. A Shoreditch twat has at some point also worked/lived/socialised in the near-by Brick Lane. A Shoreditch twat is defined by their Hoxton Finn haircut, 80s retro 90s fusion clothes (usually a suit jacket, blue ripped jeans, and white trainers/shoes), an ability to talk about pseudo-intellectual artistic bullshit with no relevance to the real world, completely up their own backsides, and a failure to comprehend that they are the laughing stock of the rest of the normal local (ethnic) population.

2. 20-something dressed in over-priced torn clothing and numerous 80s retro fashion items, sometimes including pink legwarmers. Ridiculous haircuts also de-rigeur. Comonly found in Shoreditch/Hoxton area, usually making bad art in an overpriced warehouse apartment while living on seemingly limitless parental funds. Shoreditch twats where once refered to more politely by the BBC as 'Hoxton trendies'.

3. The Shoreditch Twat fanzine was published and edited by club promoter Neil Boorman on behalf of 333 from 1999-2004. Starting life as a listings magazine for the club, it quickly grew to become an irreverent, satirical fanzine at the centre of the creative boom in East London. Producing 25,000 copies every six weeks with funding from BAT, Anheuser-Busch and Diesel, Shoreditch Twat attracted writers from The Guardian, The Face, Arena, Loaded, ID and Sleazenation, and illustrators James Jarvis, Bump, Airside, Will Sweeney and Elliot Thoburn. In 2001, the term Shoreditch Twat became popular vernacular for an overdressed East London 'trendy' and the fanzine went on to produce an installation for the Barbican Gallery's UK culture exhibition 'Jam', which later toured to Japan. In 2003, Channel 4 Television and Talkback commissioned Shoreditch Twat to produce a one off comedy show. This show went on to win a specila mention at the 2004 Montreux Comedy Award. After four years and 31 issues, Shoreditch Twat ran into legal difficulties and was forced to close down. The publisher went on to edit Sleazenation Magazine.

People I know in London

The funny thing about people in London is they hate to be pidgeonholed. They'd all like to tell you how London life is great, and how (see those facebook photos?!) they are partying all the time, and life is amazing.

This is not what its like. and they can 100% be pidgeonholed - so here we go....

1. They have money but no time (because they work 24/7 in mildly satisfying but fundamentally pointless job) They have no time to enjoy life because they are worrying about losing their job or becoming one of the riff-raff. DONT get into a conversation with these guys about house prices or school fees.

2. They have time but no money (because they have normal or genuinely satisfying jobs, or are students, neither of which can pay the bills in London, never mind going out.) The only social life most of these guys get is protesting against 1, above.

3. If they have time and money, the last place you would want to live in London, so they aren't there.