Happy New Year

Greetings from the McDonnell family estate in salubrious North Dublin. Last night I drunkenly promised to start updating my blog again when reminded that my friend Benny looks forward to them greatly. When writing these things there is always the nagging sensation that they are trees falling in the vast sound-proofed forest of the internet, and bearing in most of the other trees contain porn, it can seem a tad pointless. However, Benny assures me otherwise and seeing as he works in the glamorous field of waste management, I realised that my ill-punctuated ramblings are the silver lining in what we'll tactfully refer to as a cloud for at last one person. They way I see it, if I improve Benny's working day, he'll executively manage waste more efficiently, that whole environment thing will be taken care of and this blog may single-handedly save the planet. At the very least, blogging is easier than figuring out exactly what Leamington Spa's arsey recycling collectors will or won't take every second Friday.

And so here I am at 7:30PM on New Years Eve, lying in bed, abusing the neighbour's unprotected wireless Broadband connection. I'd like to tell you I'm knocking this off quickly before heading out to some fabulous New Year's Eve party but I'm not. The reasons for this are twofold, firstly, I'm feeling a bit fragile after last night's drinking and secondly, New Year's Eve can bite my turkey-filled arse. How a housekeeping event of one year rolling into a new one became worthy of such special attention boggles the mind. Don't get me wrong, miserable grouch that I am, I have no problem with copious drinking, collective counting down from ten to one and snogging nearest and dearest, or even just nearest but the collective desperation to have a 'great' new years eve and the willingness to pay through the nose for it, I find faintly depressing. I have also spent enough time over the years in the irrational victory of hope over experience that is a Dublin taxi queue to be happy to give that a miss. Wars have been fought in less time than it takes a Dublin taxi queue to clear and with considerably less casualties.

The one thing I will miss though is watching several hundred people all trying to get mobile phone reception at the same time. Previous generations had joining hands and singing nonsensical songs; we have people hanging out of windows trying to get three bars to ring their ex-girlfriend in Mayo. How many people fall to their deaths from tall buildings every New Years' Eve trying to get decent reception? Not nearly enough in my book.

Happy New Year!

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Wax on, wax off!

Well, I'm back in dear old Blighty. I should point out that for all my whinging and moaning about stuff, I did have a fantastic time in the states - whinging and moaning is how I appear to enjoy myself. It's a Catholic thing, we love the misery.

The San Francisco wax museum being a perfect case in point, my God was that place brilliantly terrible. The first clue was the Brad Pitt they had outside, who looked more like a bad David Beckham. I'm sure when he arrives in LA next year, it'll no doubt become their bad David Beckham. Also, their Beyonce was, I kid you not, a blacked-up copy of their Angelina Jolie. Tremendous!

The World leaders section was a joy, not least because the British politician was.... have a guess.... Go on...

Tony.... no no no.

Gordon - Hardly

Maggie Thatcher  - good guess but no.....

John Major!

Really. The only man whose wax work is more life-like than he is. How unlucky were they to pick him to spend all that valuable wax on? He wasn't really a PM, he was kinda like the bloke who stood in while somebody proper came along. He was like the substitute teacher of world leaders, only without the commanding authority.

The scientists bit - oh, that was properly offensive. Darwin, Freud, Da Vinci and... Bill Gates! The man actually never invented anything! Windows was developed by a team, his great moment of insight was getting IBM to sign over the rights to it... hardly makes him a genius. Maybe whoever runs this wax museum had a fetish for geeky blokes in glasses?

The Americans presidents bit was great. They'd all the Republicans on one side and all the Democrats on the other. Even in wax, they can't get together. George Washington and Roosevelt had the weirdest expressions standing in the middle of the two warring factons. George had a severe case of the sweats and Teddy looked like he was gagging. Mind you, bearing in mind the company, who can blame them. They looked less like ex-presidents and more like a fancy dress stag do who were about to get very messy.

Bill Clinton meanwhile, appeared to be checking out Jackie Kennedy's arse, some things never change.

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Sunshine

Well, we're on our last day in San Francisco, and the weather has been spectacular. I'm under strict instructions to say that, as if you find out that Britain and Ireland were having better weather, which they definitely aren't, then the power that be will be well pissed off. So again, the weather is lovely, don't check, take my word for it.

San Francisco is lovely if a little on the lumpy side. I can only assume the first settlers here were mountain goats, it's like a much bigger version of Edinburgh (with much much better weather of course - pleasse, she hits me!). We went to the SF wax museum yesterday, it was brilliantly rubbish. More later.

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F.P.H

Today, we drove up from Monterey to San Francisco. Monterey was cool, a superb stop for anyone who likes their seafood, highly recommended. Not bad for a place I only stopped at in the mistaken belief it featured in the lyrics of the legendary 'Smoke on the water'. (That's Montreux in Switzerland but of course, you all knew that) There's also nothing like going for a romantic walk up the keys at midnight and hearing the oddly eerie sound of seals honking and clapping off in the distance. My stand-up comic instincts did occasionally kick-in and I had an irresistible urge to head towards the sound of applause. Elaine had to hold me back from diving in. 'Hey, whats the deal with tuna?'

Our drive up today was broken up nicely by my new driving game. We eventually set the record of 67 FPH, or Flags Per Hour. It's a simple game, count how many times you see the American flag in 60 minutes. The yanks are seriously in love with the stars and stripes, it's like a weird national fetish. As a European, it all seems very odd. Why does someone put a massive flag in their backyard? Do they think people might be unaware which country their garden is in? Is it there to watch over the Mexican gardner or The Puerto Rican pool guy to make they don't do anything unAmerican to the garden gnomes when nobody is watching?

Even in the many ethnic enclaves we've seen in LA and San Francisco there is a plenitude of American flags. Also, if you see the flag of another country, it's invariably flanked by the stars and stripes either side. It's like any other flag needs a Yankee security guard in case it runs off and tries to do something un-American. We can't have Italian flags running around unchecked in case people forget where they come from and start switching sides in wars as opposed to sticking to the wrong side they came in with.

Back home, if the next door neighbour sticks up an Irish flag, we all check to see what sporting event is kicking off we've missed. If they sticks up a George's cross we all start freaking out in case the BNP have moved in next door. If they stick up an American flag, we move - checking the fire insurance is up to date beforehand.

One of the perennial bug bears of American politics is the issue of flag burning. Every candidate in the forth-coming US election has to state their position on it. Are you for free speech or patriotism?
'Mister candidate, If you find yourself trapped in a warehouse in Alaska at sub zero temperatures, naked, with nothing but a lighter and a crate of American flags, what would you do?'
'We're in two wars, have a bankrupt pension scheme and we have no health care, wouldn't you like to ask me about something else?'
'You a commie boy?!'

Bar anything else, surely burning isn't the worst thing that can happen to old glory? We were here for memorial day weekend, the amount of confectionery embodiments of the flag they've come up with is mind-blowing. Cakes, muffins, cup cakes - even a flan! I ask you, which is less dignified for a flag - going out in a blaze of glory or being stuffed down the gullet of old aunt Maud? If given the choice, I'd rather end up as ashes than winding my way through an old lady's lower intestine - does that make me unamerican?

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Nuts, Bacon and Denmark Fakin!

This morning we left LA on our three day drive up to San Francisco. I've been a bit lax on the blogging front, so I'll do a bang up-to-date one and then I'll fill in about our time in LA later.

We headed off at about midday, heading up the scenic pacific coast highway. At least, I'm reliably informed it's very scenic, I've never driven an automatic car or on the right side of the road before, so my sight-seeing was slightly curtailed by the unfortunate necessity of trying not to kill us. There was plenty of ocean and rolling hill-sides and fantastic houses over-looking both that I didn't really get to see but Elaine assures me were fantastic.

We stopped in a nice town called Ventura where we chilled out on the beach for a bit and I got to work on my farmers tan. I've either got a bit of colour now or I've developed into a permanent state of embarrassed at my ludicrously pasty look, either way... mission accomplished. On the beach I saw something I was surprised by, a grey squirrel. I didn't think that was something you'd ever see at the beach, the availability of nuts etc. Not being exactly bountiful save the occasionally misplaced Snickers bar. Maybe he was on holiday too? Either that or he's an advanced scout for the grey squirrel army. After their successful colonisation of Britain and the wiping out of their red squirrel brethren, maybe their next step is Japan?  Someday, somebody is going to leave a speed boat unattended and then its lock up your nuts Tokyo, those crazy Yankee squirrels are a coming! If nothing else it would explain why he was wearing a kimono and reading a Japanese phrase book. Grey squirrels are the ultimate Americans; constantly looking to expand their nut-lead empire.

I decided to liven up the rest of the drive by playing chicken with the car's fuel tank. Well, I didn't decide it, that's just how things turned out. We started looking for a petrol station when the tank hit one quarter full, it dawned on us at about the one tenth of a tank left mark that ironically, despite America being the ultimate service economy, they've no concept of a motorway services. When we figured that out we were unfortunately, in the delightfully scenic arsehole of nowhere and the panic really set in. In twenty miles all we passed was a pig farm which helpfully had fully grown porkies for sale. I stopped looking at the gauge at that point; instead mentally trying to figure out the complex maths of Elaine plus how many pigs would be required to tow our car? It was hilly and pigs are undisciplined creatures – I was just hoping they'd be won over by Elaine's cheery disposition and give it some oink. Failing that, we'd never go hungry. I've limited experience in management but I've always believed if you eat one of the employees, the rest will typically fall into line sharpish.

On we went with the car now reading empty. It's hard to describe the feeling of coming over a hill top to be greeted by a spectacular panoramic view of miles and miles of glorious rolling countryside and your only thought being, why the hell hasn't some yank plonked a big ugly petrol station here? They mess up everywhere else but they leave this untouched, the selfish bastards! Anywho, we eventually made it to a gas station, running on nothing more than desperation. A full tank of gas cost about £25 compared to £45 in the UK. Americans get the cheapest tank of gas in the first world but you'd never guess it from the amount of moaning they do about it. If they want to live somewhere with an endless supply of oil why don't they just move somewhere like that? Oh wait, I've just seen the news – apparently they tried that but it's not been working out too well.

We're now staying in a hotel in a town called Solvang. It is genuinely one of the weirdest places I've ever been, so much so that I'm not entirely sure this evening wasn't a very odd dream. At some point this town had a meeting and said to itself – we need something to bring in the tourists. Las Vegas has the gambling, Los Angeles has the showbiz glamour but do you know what people really love and they just aren't getting enough of? Denmark! Let's go Danish crazy!

The town is referred to as 'Little Denmark' and every last building is done in this style they've clearly decided is Denmark through and through. It's a kind of Hansel and Gretel style of architecture which gives you the odd feeling you're walking through a scaled up version of Legoland. They have lots of windmills and shops selling clogs. The thing is, both Elaine and I would consider those to be associated with Holland, not Denmark.  It seems rude to point that out, not that we could though, the place is virtually deserted. We had to walk around the whole town to find the only one of its many many restaurants that was still open, this was at 8PM. The only people we passed were another couple with the same 'is this place real or am I having a bad sea-food based hallucination?' expressions. There are a good dozen reasonably sized hotels here, which I'm guessing is about two more than the current amount of tourists staying here. 

There's a plaque in the hotel lobby proudly proclaiming that the King and Queen of Denmark came here a few years back. I really hope they rocked up unannounced on a Tuesday night like we did. I'm cheered by the image of the royals in fully crowned regalia wandered around going – 'Christ, who thought this was a good idea? And what's with all the clogs?' Perhaps I'm being harsh, maybe the place did a roaring trade in Muslim coach parties until the unfortunate cartoon fiasco of a couple of years back and now their economy is heavily based on idiots who don't realise they should have filled up the tank in Los Angeles.

No pigs, squirrels or clogs were harmed in the making of this blog entry.

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Those damn aliens!

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Correction: Big Elvis

I've done some research into Big Elvis, it turns out I was wrong; He wasn't 850 pounds, it turns out he was 900 pounds!

Check it out if you don't believe me:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2007/Mar-09-Fri-2007/news/13066140.html

1:50 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

A whole lotta hole

Los Angeles - 24/07/07

Today we went to the Grand Canyon; actually technically it was last night, seeing as we had to get up at 4AM to go on our tour. By 5:30AM we were on a propellor-engined plane with one sweet old Korean lady and a load of Japanese tourists. The poor Korean lady was getting a bit annoyed as the guide and even the Japanese tourists kept speaking to her in Japanese, which she didn't understand. I thought the Japanese people were supposed to be able to recognise who was and wasn't Japanese from the eyes, maybe they thought this lady was really enjoying the tour and was in a state of wide-eyed wonder for the whole day?

Once we got to the Grand Canyon airport, following a flight that might have lost someone their breakfast only of course, nobody had time to actually get one as we left so early, it was time for our orientation video. We were told of the native American's great love of the canyon and how they were really the world's first environmentalists, such is their respect for nature. There was a lot of stuff about spirits while at the same time pushing us to go for an upgrade to get the helicopter tour of the canyon. They kept referring to these tours as eco-tours as they cause no damage to the canyon. Unless their helicopters are vastly different to other copters, they are still the least environmentally friendly way to travel; the Indians clearly haven't grasped the eco big picture yet.

After a short bus trip, we got to go on the world famous Skywalk; It's the glass walkway that the Indians built extending out over the canyon where you are able to look straight down 4,000 feet at the valley below. There is nothing between you and a fairly brief but brutal demonstration of gravity than clear glass. They go to great lengths to assure you its completely safe. Apparently the structure can withstand the impact of 42 747 airplanes. Clearly the Indians are either expecting an incredibly committed attack from Al Queda or they've just figured that throughout history their luck hasn't exactly been brilliant and getting nailed by 41 jumbo jets is the kind of thing that would happen to them.

Walking out on it means over-riding every instinct in your body. Every fibre in your being is telling you not to walk out into mid-air; it's a very weird sensation. It's like getting to do the fun bit of suicide without the unfortunate loss of life side-effect normally experienced. The Indians have some very strict rules to respect the spirits of the canyon. No cameras or mobile phones are allowed. This all sounds very mystical until you get out on the Skywalk and realise the main spirit that'd be offended is that of their official photographer, who'll take your picture for twenty two bucks. I was disappointed, outraged and yet still on holiday – I only got the one copy.

After that is was on to an Indian outpost for a BBQ lunch. Again, the tree-hugging credentials of the native Indians took a bit of a hit when big chief flipping burger handed me my meal in its Styrofoam container. All-in-all, as holes in the ground go, I've never seen a more impressive one but whatever the Native American's once were, they're now a corporation who are looking for their share of the big tourist dollar just the same as every casino owner in Vegas. Still, if you ever get the urge to take a wander 4,000 feet in the air, I highly recommend it.

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The King has left the buffet

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The $49.95 special

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