Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles (München edition)

Pretty old buildings, sunshine and lots of beer.

Marienkirche

eine surfing river

echt band

ein klein stein

zwei klein stein

ich liebe München, aber natürlich!

eine kleine probleme mathematik

die view from die tower olympik

un-echt

beer

an echt hat

bavariesche

schloss neuschwanstein

die marienbrücke, mit at least 10 different explanations for its existence, each one more implausible than the last

einmal gargoylie

fleisch halle...overpowering stench of meat on entry, clammy meat-sweats hanging in the air, busty wenches delivering meat, all in all a male paradise

frau eine

frau zwei

apparently legendary cinema hall that’s played the rocky horror show, EVERY NIGHT, since 1979, now serves as a mecca for rocky horror show geeks

schloss nymphenburg

You know you're in Germany when...

...you go to a metal club in a car park somewhere on the outskirts of the city, and there's a man in there wearing lederhösen, casual as anything, just on a night out, and then another man appears behind the bar and swigs petrol from a JD bottle and starts spitting fire everywhere, to the soundtrack of "Feuer Frei" by Rammstein, and you'll only accept beer if it's in a 1 litre vessel because mere pints just feel inadequate now. And then you wake up early the next day to visit a huge fantastical castle in the mountains, built by an insane king who was inspired by Wagner. And for breakfast you fancy a pot of pickled cabbage, and your friend eats one ginormous greasy Bratwurst covered in mustard that cost €1.

Ich liebe München!

BOOM!

Boomtown was excellent! Dancey and sunny and drunken. Now a quick stop-off in Kirdford before Germany - I have been doing essential tasks like mass-baking crumbles, cross-country running with Elsa, and binging on curry and Martini at Becci's house. My parents have bought a cool TV thing where you can watch iPlayer on the TV, and I found these excellent documentaries on Great Thinkers, with old BBC archive footage of amazing people like Jung and Russell talking on British politics and society. I love a good documentary. It directed me to this interview with Russell – as with everything he says and writes, it’s plain-talking, nail-on-the-head stuff.

Move, Learn, Eat, Zombies

I recently came across these three videos, described as "3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage... all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ....into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films....."


  






They were commissioned by STA Travel; I'm slightly reluctant to give STA the free advertising by reposting them, since I think the company is a load of wank, but in fact the videos are so emotive and eclectic in what they show, as well as being beautifully shot and edited, so I had to share the love on my blog. Whenever I find my wanderlust waning, I come across something like this, and I'm drawn back to my backpack and planning dream itineraries in my head.

My desire for travel and novelty fortunately coincides with the need to leave this fucked-up country; I don't think there's much point in adding my opinion to the confused jumble of both anger and sympathising to be found on Facebook statuses, let alone the rest of the Internet...suffice to say, it really is all going to shit. Whatever your opinion on the rioters and their motivation, it seems like another nail in the coffin of a country in complete disarray.

Peering out between the shutters of a kitchen in Islington last night, 'hoodie-spotting', definitely felt like I was in 28 Days Later. "Loitering! Two hooded figures loitering at 9 o'clock! Quick, put the chain on the door!" It was pretty exciting.

Life update for anyone interested: I'm finishing work here tomorrow, then going to a festival over the weekend, before going to Germany next Thursday until the 26th. There may be brief windows of my free time to be enjoyed, if you book early.

Thing what I did done

I’m really rubbish at posting when I’m busy! I hope I don’t lose my huge swathes of adoring readers.

Things that have happened: I got to go to the National Museum on a trip, and saw an awesome exhibition on life and death, with every pill the average person takes in their life (about 14,000) sewn into a piece of cloth. I also fulfilled a lifelong ambition to go to the Crobar in Soho. I was a week too late to catch Dave Grohl and Josh Homme in there, but I did see a crazy man assault a waitress. One of my Italian students came out as a neo-Nazi in my class. All my other students are really pleasant and much nicer than hoards of wailing Vietnamese children. I booked a trip to go from Munich to Berlin (LADS ON TOUR WOO WHO ARE YA) and I plan to develop a mature taste for fine Bavarian beer, rather than only enjoying weak Vietnamese piss-water. I’ve been inspired by this man to take up writing poetry, and have so far amassed a oeuvre of one whole poem. I hosted a tea party for the Taiwanese.

Good luck to my baby brother, who turned 17 yesterday and who’s going to Vietnam on his own tomorrow. Big adventure!

Pedo jokes don't go down well around here

Still hanging out in South South London ('Kent') and occasionally popping to Camden or Soho for gigs - Hanoi just doesn't do music like London does. We saw this band last night and they blew my mind - like, proper rock'n'roll.

I don't have any photos of anything because it's against company policy. Someone pointed out that if you were into pedofilia and that, the Internet would probably serve you better than taking a blurry photo of some teenagers reading a book. Teaching is going pretty well though, and I've discovered I might not be the worst thing to happen to the teaching profession since they abolished corporal punishment. I haven't had any tears or vomiting yet (from me or the students) so it's going well.

Tomorrow we're going to Sonisphere, woop woop, maybe I'll put some photos up after that.

Dirty smelly hippies

Everyone loves Glastonbury!

Onwards from Bristol, we arrived on the farm on Sunday evening and set up camp. This gave us a leisurely three days of wandering and sitting around at the Stone Circle before anyone else arrived on Wednesday, and meant that when punters did start arriving, we were easily the muddiest, smelliest people there (aided by a vicious Rej-Goob mud-battle early Wednesday afternoon). Evidently I consider this an achievement, because if you’re not a mess at Glastonbury then you’re not doing it right.

Come Wednesday, I was champing at the bit for music and dancing and running around like a hooligan. I guess there’s not much point in describing everything that happened from here on in, because it’d just be “We went to see this band and it was amazing! Then we went dancing and it was amazing! Mud! Cider! Fire!” There were also 20 hours spent with my head in a bin sifting through poo in exchange for my ticket, but I kinda like that.

There aren’t any photos from after Friday night, because my battery died and plus I’m too busy being awesome to record how awesome I am.

The first Sunday night...I love bin.

I love longdrop.

sunset view from Stone Circle on Sunday

tea in a boot and a Goob in a tent

Goob models how to keep warm at night

stuff getting set up in the Unfairground

muddy

ciders in boots

flags! by the Other Stage. everything looks so clean and grassy here.

tipis

mud buddies in the Greenfields

Columbo on a stone

campfire in the workers’ tent

Wednesday night fireworks at the Stone Circle

flags! somewhere in the greenfields. it’s all about the flags.

I love mud

lying in a nest in the greenfields on Thursday

goob in a nest... before we met a cockroach from Wales, heroically saved a worm, and discovered that all the flag poles are covered in greasy dead flies.

crazy spinning rope gymnastic mindblowingness. after leaving a shitty rainy Radiohead, we sat by a campfire and then stumbled across this. fuck the hype!

crazy sexy fire-breathing burlesque dancers.

then we went for a stompy dance in the mud in front of a fire-blowing monster spider.

tube train crashed into a tower block, in Block 9

smoking car crashed into an 80’s style gay disco that requires a mustache for entry

Shangri-La... we are all infected

the King Blues playing an tiny unlisted awesome gig on the Strummerville stage... so so good, it actually makes me tingle remembering it

So that’s only up to Friday night... Saturday I saw Flogging Molly and pogoed like I was 14 again, Sunday we ran around Shangri-La like kids in a sweet shop, Goob tried to sell cigarettes to Bez from the Happy Mondays, and Columbo swapped all his clothes for a pair of Doc Martens. Monday everyone had left so we went tatting (rummaging through abandoned tents to find valuable or otherwise desirable objects) and then Columbo made big fire and we sat with our new friends, drinking too much tatted booze and barbequing tatted bananas. This is one situation to which not even my usual epithet ‘rad’ can do justice... just the best times.

And now, I’m sitting in halls at the University of Greenwich, because tomorrow I start teaching English to more bratty spoilt kids who aren’t interested in learning. I’m hoping that this job will go well, because I definitely have negative feelings towards teaching and perhaps towards children in general, which I didn’t have this time last year or even six months ago. I’d like to be a good teacher, so I’m going to be smiley yet authoritative and hope it goes well...

I still would rather be sitting next to the campfire in Strummerville, drinking a can, with my boots stuck in the mud.