The 'American Bicycle' - 'Irish Heritage District' South Buffalo, New York

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There's nothing particularly wrong with South Buffalo. It's a collection of average looking houses on average looking streets in an average looking American town. With silly Gaelic street signs so plastic paddys can pretend they're Irish not American (actually I have seen some black guys with ginger hair though !)

But thats the tragedy - it is American....sooo American, and in every wrong way possible. The people are generally very nice, but I'm flabbergasted daily by the wholesale accepted ignorance of the populace in little slices like of the western world like here, where it seems the past 30 years just slipped by without any change whatsoever (except their diet, of course) Anyway heres what's been happening this week...

An 'American Bicycle' yesterday in the supermarket 

Travel Smart! - I walked into the bank down here yesterday, and the teller had never seen a foreign passport (or been overseas.) She had to spend 20minutes looking over it in detail with the bank manager to check I wasn't one of those ther 'Al Queedas' you hear about on the TV.

Nutrition Concious! - Tonight, as I was starved and food options are limited here, I ate a pizza in 'Wise Guys' Pizza. An enormous fat guy waddled in and waddled out with a box the size of a small car, quite possibly all for his own consumption. There are more vegetables for sale in a Glasgow Chip Shop than down here, believe me. But sadly it seems there are no proper restaurants (unless you count Macdonalds, Taco Bell, or dodgy looking faux Irish Bars.) I really have no idea why only two thirds of the American Population are overweight - where the hell does the other 1/3 eat to stay normal ?? (what an awful statistic though)

The infinitely more sophisticated cuisine of Buffalos 'East Side'

Bike Friendly, how progressive! - And if, you have the impudent cheek to cycle around, especially at night, even if you have a helmet and lights, every third car peeps their horn at you, as if to say 'Get off the f*n Road!'   Haven't these guys down here seen bikes before? I suppose it is Friday night after all so obviously they're in a rush to drive home from the bar to beat their wives.

Anyway, I'll take a proper cycle round the neighbourhood tomorrow and along the 'Seneca Bluffs' and see if i can find an oasis of non-corn syrup monsanto'd up food somewhere, although i'm pretty doubtful since i'm not quite sure if the internet even got here yet.

American Culture

If American mass culture could be summed up in 3 words, it would be 'How are you?'

I've gone through the stages of saying 'fine', which basically means a waste of breath, to just making up something amusing like saying. 'I have 2 days to live' or coming back sarcastically with 'I'm Greeaat, how are YOU?'

And then as despair sets in, a smiling 'do you really want to know?' (which confuses them of course, because they really don't care how you are, but another part of them believes that they are sincere good people so it ends up in a 'cant' compute' loop)

And finally now, I've sussed it - I simply look, smile, and totally ignore the question.

Thats the only way to stay sane in even the most functional city in the dysfunctional dystopia which is the inanely distracted, nero-esque farce which, sadly leads the western world in mass hypnosis and cancer giving 'food'.

But enough of politics for the time being. At least in Europe I don't see gay black 'baristas' prancing around to Proclaimers Im gonna be (500 miles) on a sunday afternoon in 'Coffee Culture'. (By the way bravo, Buffalo for having nicer local coffee chains like that above, and 'Spot' Coffee,  with well priced drinks and grub, so i can avoid Starbucks (although i couldn't turn down free coffee in Macdonalds last week)

And finally, apologies for the lack of posts this month, I seem to have hit a 'writers block' with regards to travel writing for the moment, but fear not, I plan to travel round Scotland in November, to some strange and haunted places, all of which i'll write about....