Krakow

We’re on our last day in Krakow now, and leave in a few hours on the night train to Prague. Everything has gone frighteningly swimmingly so far.

I’d heard from various people that Poland can be a little racist and unfriendly to Oriental-looking people, but so far the most viciously racist comments I’ve encountered have pretty much been from Alec. We’ve received impeccably professional, extremely pleasant service almost everywhere, and everyone has been very forgiving of our lack of Polish and general bumbling nature.

We have had meals of such high quality (at an absolute pittance too – the best restaurant in Krakow for £40 in total, including wine) and such variety that Alec hasn’t even felt the least craving for Chinese food yet. (This is to be contrasted to our return from Budapest, where we spent the entire tube ride from Heathrow trying to decide which Chinese restaurant we’d rush to as soon as possible.)

Krakow itself has been great. The city centre’s got that usual European charm, but trekking along green fields and phallic rock formations in Ojcow National Park and being wowed in Wieliczka salt mine have been nice breaks from city strolling. Holocaust “sightseeing” can be harrowing but very worthwhile – we explored Kazimierz, walked over the river from that to the dingy factory building which would be completely unremarkable if Oskar Schindler hadn’t used it to save thousands of Jews, and yesterday, finally made the journey to Auschwitz.

All in all, this has been so fantastic I fear the cosmos have something bad planned for us in Prague. Fingers crossed.

Reunion

Finished the DipSing exams on Friday (passing, however, is a huge assumption I’m not willing to make right now), hopped on a plane that very night and have resumed my perfect London life right back where I left off. Saturday lazy lunch, Covent Garden girliness, coffee at Paul’s with Nav, dinner and drinks in Brixton with Nick; Sunday mass at Newman House, Spitalfields Market trawl, lazy afternoon in Hyde Park with Russ and Dave, Múm gig at night. London is as beautiful and bizarre and all-out wonderful as it has always been, and the part of me that loves comfort zones wishes I had just decided to spend the entire 15 days here instead of attempting to explore new parts of Europe I haven’t been to yet.

There’s so much more I was meaning to write today, but Russ is waiting patiently for our precious Russ’n’Michelle time to start, and I don’t want to lose any of that. I think we’ll do a Regent’s Canal walk today.

I’ve been told by other people who studied overseas and have since had to return to Singapore that as time passes, you gradually begin to accept that you’re back, and that part of your life is over, and Singapore isn’t really that bad. Unfortunately, this has obviously not happened to me yet. Being here only reminds me just how much Singapore sucks donkey bollocks in comparison. I have not felt so happy, so sad, so thoroughly alive for months. And Alec hasn’t even arrived yet! (Later today. I can’t wait!)

Going Native

Me: So before I bought the camera, we walked around all the different shops selling it to compare prices, and see who would throw in more extra stuff.
Alec: Like a free travel bag?
Me: No!
Alec, stifling laughter: Or, say, a free radio alarm clock?
Me: NO! Relevant stuff like CompactFlash memory cards!
Alec, chortling out loud: But wouldn’t you prefer a free calculator watch?
Me: RRRROWR.

Even given the fact that Alec reads Talking Cock more than I do, the scary extent to which he is in touch with the Singaporean psyche still suggests he has not actually been in Ireland these past few months, but has instead been living a secret existence in a 3-room flat in Toa Payoh.

Radio Ga Ga

Matt asked for Internet radio links, an area I am willing and able to help with, given that I listen to all my music via the Internet these days (okay, okay, MTV too) due to the total banality of Singapore radio.

Matt-specific links:

  • Last FM: A great range of material and stations. From Aphex Twin to Emmylou Harris to Miles Davis to Portishead to Sonic Youth to you get the picture.
  • Videos from the Montreux Jazz Festival, including performances by Radiohead, Mogwai, Jimi Tenor and Big Band and, er, The Stereophonics if you like them. :P (I haven’t had time yet to see The Roots, RJD2 and Yo La Tengo performances, but certainly will at some point. Also Flavor Flav just for the fun of it!)
  • Not quite radio, but I don’t suppose you’ll say no to a mindbogglingly large array of obscure Radiohead mp3s
  • John Peel on Radio One

Other online radio sources I use regularly, for anyone else who’s interested:

  • D*I*R*T*Y for a large archive of mixes, including sets by DJ Shadow vs PC (and many other Solid Steel mixes), Matmos, Four Tet and Susumu Yokota
  • The Breezeblock on Radio One
  • Spank Radio: Lots of indie, mostly okay. Playlist includes Rachel’s, Polvo, Red House Painters, Interpol.
  • Anything on 1Xtra, where I wander from dancehall show to drum’n’bass show to garage show like a country bumpkin in a vast amazing city of utter joy.

[Mp3 treats for the day, courtesy of boom selection: scroll down the page to the entries for March 4 and March 6. There you will find a veritable treasure trove of the insanely catchy. Please treat yourself to drum’n’bass and glitch remixes of Toxic, and the dancehall divaness of Lady Stush ($ Sign) and Ce’cile (Rude Bwoy Thug Life).]

Nothing’s Coloured That Impossibly Red

Not To Mention Love: A Heart For Patricia (David Clewell) is a love poem I rather like.

“Here, the heart is the heart, and isn’t
a fist or a flower or a smooth-running engine
and especially not one of those ragged valentines
someone’s cut out, initialed, shot full of cartoon arrows:
the adolescent voodoo of desire. Here nothing’s colored
that impossibly red.”

Unlikely Budget Destination

Just bought my travel insurance. According to the brochure, I pay higher premiums for travelling to Europe than I would if I were going to Iraq.

They Didn’t Use To Call Me Brainy Smurf For Nothing, You Know

Today’s links-as-substitute-for-actual-content post will delight many and bore just as many. It represents a surprising break from tradition in that it a) contains no musical content whatsoever b) contains some vaguely intellectual content and c) contains some vaguely intellectual content authored by me.

  • Going straight is a fascinating Guardian article about reparative therapy used to “cure” homosexuality and the ex-gay movement in America. It even manages to be fairly balanced, although this lapses somewhat in the last three paragraphs.
  • Random surfing of the UCL Law Faculty site recently yielded an online version of the UCL Jurisprudence Review 2002, in which my dissertation was published. It basically involves me analysing Jeremy Bentham’s treatise which denounces the French Declaration of the Rights of Man as a load of shite, and concluding that he rocks. I wouldn’t actually recommend it unless you’re also a jurisprudence nerd.
  • Achtung Baby! blog has an mp3 of Nabokov himself reading from Lolita. Excuse me while I scream like the total groupie I am.
  • I lied. This last link isn’t intellectual. It’s about boobs.

Liturgy Of The Norman Mailer Word

My first Norman Mailer book since giving up on The Armies Of The Night in disgust is The Gospel According To The Son, which is either very appropriate or somewhat blasphemous to begin reading today, judging from its first page:

“While I would not say that Mark’s gospel is false, it has much exaggeration. And I would offer less for Matthew, and for Luke and John, who gave me words I never uttered and described me as gentle when I was pale with rage. Their words were written many years after I was gone and only repeat what old men told them. Very old men. Such tales are to be leaned upon no more than a bush that tears free from its roots and blows about in the wind.”

SUXORS

There I was all smug because I managed to be on-the-ball enough to get tickets to see Múm at the Old Vic (well, to get Russ to get tickets) the day after I arrive in London. And then I found out about this, conveniently organized for when I’ve fucked off to Krakow. Not living in England any more really sucks.

When something sucks this much, only novelty mp3 downloads can cheer me up, which is why it was fabulous to have found:

(I can’t exactly remember where I found the mp3 links, but I’m pretty sure they were from largehearted boy, which I increasingly realize I can no longer live without.)

These Boots Were Made For Alt-Country

Word to Adidas for using Calexico’s very lovely song Pepita as the background to their ad featuring big sports names running with Muhammed Ali. I’d have used Quattro instead, because it always makes me think of being borne across a vast expanse of night clouds at exhilarating speed with my bare feet skimming their cool damp surfaces, and that seems to be a fairly nice mental picture to have associated with sports shoes, given that my usual mental picture associated with sports shoes involves heat rash and a general longing for death. But Pepita’s cool too.