Deliver Us From Swedish Furniture

Most people usually wait until they are onboard before tucking into the complimentary drinkies, however Astronauts need to get that bit higher so they like to start early according to this.

Now this does make sense. I have a very good friend of mine that is utterly convinced that man never walked on the moon, it was just some hoax knocked up in a Hollywood backlot. Read the rest of this entry »

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A warm welcome of soon to be brother-in-law Paul and his friend Eddie that joined our tour in Munich.  They experienced the van (now officially renamed, Femka) and neither reported any ill-effects.  Great to have them along and great to have some drinking partners along (for those that didn’t know, co-pilot Mat is T-total).

Ivory Coast v Serbia was one of the games that people poured scorn on us attending.  It was in Munich (which is even more of a bloody long way away than Leipzig), involved two unfancied sides and was taking place at the same time as the more initially attractive Holland v Argentina.  Well, yah boo to the lot of ya naysayers.  Holland Argentina turned out to be a total turkey of a match, whilst IC v S&M turned into a classic. Goals, sendings off, bonkers fans, a monsoon and the most jaw dropping stadium in the world.

First the Serbs - scary bunch.  At one point there was a stand off between them and fully armed police. Police look edgy and nervous, while the Serbs look at them blankly as if they were faced with a bunch of school girls. The police back down.  In side the stadium the Serbians managed to smuggle in flares (a great addition to any crowd). Now a few days earlier stewards had been quite happy to throw out a couple of little Italians for throwing a deadly plastic cup in anoyance at some shooking play from their team.  However the stewards seemed less thrilled with the idea of tackling this lot.  England fans get arrested for nazi salutes, 2000 Serbs do something pretty similar and no one says a word.  Even when the S&M fans were being friendly a happy before the game there was menace afoot.  In an outbreak of bohname some Ivory Coast fans posed with the Serbians for photographs.  The Ivorians did a little dance thing to show their national pride and culture, while the lads from the Balkans thought about it for a minute and decided that the thing that best demonstrated their national identity was to pose with knives and pretend to stab their new friends.  All ‘light hearted’ but those guys really did look far to comfortable wielding knives. 

Next stop Nurenburg for USA v Ghana…..

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Back to bloody Kaiserslautern - or K-Town as the millions of US servicemen have debassed it to.  Dreary game, more Mexican Waves, more people sporting T&T flags than there are in T&T and that was about it.

Massive thanks to Gary for keeping us up to date with England’s latest innept performance.  Especially liked the insightful comments about Owen Hargreaves that really helped us get a feel for the atmosphere back home.  Similarly, the unbiassed views on Sol Campbell’s arrival on the scene, Michael Owen’s departure and why Carrick wasn’t playing were spot on.

Apparantly England drew the game, not that I would know as despite the fact that 7 games in 7 days sounds like a lot of football,. we have seen far less than we would have done at home. I still haven’t even seen the Joe Cole goal (although no doubt it was the best ever scored…)

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Smell update

I know a number of you were concerned that the pong from two blokes living in a transit van would be unbearable by now.  Well, it is not too bad. No, seriously…. the Germans, although being rubbish at food, are excellent at all other aspects of motorway services.  Every few miles there is a parking rest stop with toilet facilities where we can park the van at night for free and ever 30 miles or so there is a full service truck stop with showers for just a couple of euros.

As we have not sorted the digital camera problem, I can´t post pictures, but trust me, it is ok and not a total health hazard.  Tomorrow sees my future brother-in-law Paul join our tour between Munich and Nuremburg, so hopefully he will vouch for our state of health

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Does anyone know the German for “I don´t suppose you have any food that does not involve deep fried fattend pig, potatoes and vinegar” and “Any chance of some fresh fruit and vegetables”?

Sorry to bang on about it, but Germany makes Ireland look like Ramsey´s at Claridges.  In fact it is so bad that we may even need to go to McDonalds - many of which have apparantly been awarded the German equivelent of a Michellin star.

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We stayed in Ashford´s twin town last night.  In a couple of respects it is similar.  OK, it was only the drunk kids hanging out and shouting while I was trying to sleep that reminded me of home.  After that it is really quite nice place and as different to Ashford as one could imagine. Only one complaint - and one that I will be taking up with what ever puffed up bureacrat that currently calls himself mayor - in Ashford we have a massive great trunk road named after our German twins.  We have their crest on every sign that welcomes you to Ashford and we even flutter the odd flag too.  In Bad Munstereifel, not a thing.  No road names, no crests and the only sign of being any link was the most threadbare and motheaten Union Jack that I have ever seen, limply raised alongside brand new German, local area and French flags (assuming that this twinning thing means that our German hosts are also linked to Fougres in France). 

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It wasn´t me.  For the first time in the history of the world it was someone else and not Alex that got lost. Woooo hooooo. It was worth the hours wandering about and pain of the blisters just so I can lay to rest the notion that I can not get to the end of the road with a map, compass and GPS without still getting lost.  I am so happy.

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Togo were robbed.  Shocking linesman decissions and appalling ref made me realise that although we have morons running the line and randomly blowing a whistle in an officious manner in the Premiership, at least they are our incompetant fools.

Swiss fans were not too shabby.  The Togo supporters club apparantly got caught up in customs, otherwise I am sure that there would have been more than the 23 that actually made it.  Therefore the Swiss turned the whole stadium red and filled it with alpine horns, cow bells and a faint whiff of cheese.

NOW FOR A RANT……
Face paint and Mexican waves…. NO, NO, NO, NO and once again, for Christ sakes NO.  They are wrong in every possible way. Oh yeah, as are those most European of German fans that show up to some one elses football game wearing their own nation´s shirt and then adding flags or face paint to complete their ensamble.
FACE PAINT - it is just not on.  Unless you are one of those crazies that turns up (like some of the Togolese and Korean fans) covered from head to foot in hte stuff, and can only manage a little flag on your cheek then please stop. Same for those fools with national flag wigs. Stop it.

Worst of all though is MEXICAN WAVES. The true sign of people that know fuck all about football.  If the match is boring, then live with it. Stop trying to make you own entertainment.  It is dull, dated and makes everyone involved look a tosser.  England fans may have a lot at answer for, but at least when they get bored they invent an amusing song.  Even the Italians, who have been the most lifeless fans of the WC so far draw the line at leaping in the air like a bunch of tourist sheep with piles.

While I am on the rant…. all those Americans that think the UK are playing…. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE UK IN FOOTBALL.

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We arrived in Amsterdam, and very quickly pretended not to be English as one of the maruding packs of stag-nighters passed close by and we ducked into a cab over to the flat of our charming host, Ianthe. I met Ianthe a few years ago while wandering around the Yucatan and I have been abusing her hospitality when I stop over in Amsterdam ever since and she has been far too polite to want the favour returned. Since we arrived in Amsterdam in our usual state of disorder, we coerced Ianthe into taking us to places we could get our sleeping bags, maps etc. so we trotted off down the road with an outboard motor and a tank of petrol. This made a little more sense when we stopped by a small boat and Ianthe put the engine on the back…..well it does if you live in Amsterdam anyway. Off we pootled around the canals of Amsterdam, I didn’t see too many people eating Cornettos, but there was some pretty interesting debris floating by proving the Dutch are very much a fun loving people. Read the rest of this entry »

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Well, another match and another European footballing “superpower” makes a total balls up of playing a team that they thought they would trounce.  Any of you that wanted to know about the game will have watched it, so let me talk about off the pitch action….

Korean fans were amazing.  Firstly by dint of their numbers. there were millions of them and they all sang, jumped, waved flags, chanted, danced and banged drums in perfect harmony.  In contrast, after an impressive rendition of their national anthem, like their team, the french went to sleep, occassionally stiring to life only to be drowned out again by a team of what, in their off red/peach coloured shirts and face paint looked like Ompah Loompahs. Most impessive.  But not as impressive as our seats. No one seemed to spot us on tv, but we were in the front row directly behind the french manager. Given how piss poorly Les Bleus are playing it was like having front row seats for an execution.  When the Koreans scored we were close enough to see the blood train from the managers face and to read which jobs vacent adds he was circling in the paper.  We were also close enough to hear what William Gallas thought of the referee. He probably should have read my first blog entry

I know I said I was not going to mention the on field action, but the French had some dodgy centre forward that missed a tonne of chances.  Apparantly, he has just signed a new contract with Arsenal - looks like the gooners have got themselves a dud there.

Ah, in my last post I was in a quadry over who to support between Brazil and Australia.  Well, Mat and I came up with a better solution….. sit in a Spanish bar and eat what has so far been the only food in Germany with any taste or texture and did not involve vinager.  We missed the game, which by all accounts was dross anyway.

More later…..

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