TV

Funniest. Thing. Ever.
I nearly hurt myself laughing at Never Mind The Buzzcocks last night. Back in the day, I was a fan of this show. Then the host was the superslick 50s throwback Mark Lamarr. He was great and I thought would not be easily replaced. Nonetheless the new guy is fantastic: I'd had a brief review of this guy at Ratkinson's House of British Review (in Khandallah) and was impressed, but that was as nothing to a particular moment in this show (not to mention his non-stop riling of Jermaine Jackson). It was suggested that Courtney Love could crush the slender host like a twig. To which his riposte, presented like a Poirot resolution with a biro comported as a cigarette holder... "Or maybe she kill me and make it look like suicide". I almost threw my back into a spasm laughing while the screen flashed up the message "SIMON AMSTELL IS DEFINITELY WRONG".

I've also been watching the monstrous I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. It's trite, annoying and utterly hypnotic with the most loathsome panto characters (most of whom would be nice as pie outside the artifical construct of the show). But, my goodness, it is compulsive. From plastic Janice Dickinson through Rodney Marsh with his repetitive humour/misogyny to the New Age patroniser Lynne Franks it is utterly theatrical.

Hopefully they'll also bring over the new comedy/drama about estates agents. Entertaining stuff in a mainstreamy sort of way, even if a bit mean-spirited. It's nice to be watching telly again, as you may have guessed.

Did nothing today, and yet I don't feel I wasted my time. Needed, I think. I'll get back into the swing soon enough, and there's only Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to organise before the plan kicks in again. Then I have no free days until Christmas! Scary stuff, eh?

Perpignan piccie:


Have more Narbonne while we're here...

Some piccies

Carcassonne castle

More of the castle

Beautiful Minerve

"Resting"

Well, I've covered about 1,000 miles in the last few days so technically it probably doesn't count as resting although it is still a holiday.

I now have received all the contact details for the remainder of the trip - what a pile of paper that is! I wasn't worried, just a little nervous that my communications were being lost. Turns out all is well, and I have a pile of reading to do in addition to everything else. All good.

Spent the weekend with old friends and all was good. Wine is cheap and tasty and food is widely available, as long as it isn't Sunday or Monday... It is a fine, fine place. We went to the claustrophobic Perpignon (not great), Carcassonne with its wonderful castle (very fine) and best of all the peculiarity that is Minerve. I'd describe it, but you are better off seeing pictures. When I can etc...

So I have 1 week before I'm back to Barcelona. This slow, restful period suddenly looks a lot shorter than I had expected. At least there is much less chance of getting bored now.

En France

Coping with peculiar keyboards again... But at least I have found a little somewhere for today at least...

It is colder at nights now - below freezing, but all is very well. Catching up with old friends and resting a bit: although not that much yet.

Probably the scariest thing I've done on this trip so far was getting into the hire car in Barcelona. I hadn't driven in two months, everything is on the wrong side and I had no idea where I was going. Apart from being a little brake-heavy, it's all working out fine. Although you may wish to get confirmation of that from the passengers...

In Narbonne today after Carcassonne yesterday. Beautiful towns indeed. Hopefully pictures later.

Done

I am finished. The energy has left me. It's been an exhausting, exhilarating time, culminating in today's visits to the Aquarium, the Egyptology museum and La Pedrera (a Gaudi house).

The Aquarium: good, but none too big and dominated by the shark tube. They have something similar at Brighton (I think it was), so I felt a bit miffed at the cost, which was high. A little disappointing - the Berlin one was better, and so was Copenhagen for involvement.
Egyptology: Excellent - good price, good content and a lovely visit. The stuff was not as big as the museums in London (British Museum) or Vienna (Altes Kunstmuseum I think) but good quality and well presented.
La Pedrera: Probably the best presented of all the Gaudi things. I'd probably recommend going there first and then deciding which of the other places you wanted to go to. I'd still have ventured to exactly the same places, but it would have been good to know more about Park Guell for example.
The Roy Liechtenstein statue near the harbour

The Columbus memorial: the commentary makes a singularly facetious point that it is the biggest such monument in the world. Like that matters. They then get a bit snippy and say that if he's supposed to be pointing at the New World then he's pointing the wrong way. My response is that if he pointed inland (i.e. the right way) then it would look more ridiculous than pointing out to sea. It's great.

The roof of La Pedrera (this means 'quarry' by the way)

The model of La Pedrera inside the building itself


I am off to France tomorrow where I shall not be doing much. I doubt I'll have internet either for a bit, but I'll try to stay in touch. If not, I'll be back online in Moscow... And very cold.

Day Tripper

A bit of a meh day today. Should have been good but... well, you'll see. Three parts to the day:
1) Torres Winery and tasting
2) Montserrat
3) Sitges

I'll get the cr@p out of the way first. The winery visit was dull, followed by a 'tasting' where they gave us each a half glass of their cheapest plonk. And it tasted like pish (although the more charitable folk said it was too young). Waste of time. Still, some suckers bought some wine so I guess they weren't too unhappy.
Sitges is probably a pretty seaside town, and it certainly has some interesting buildings, but by 7 it is dark at this time of year. So not the best use of time either (especially when tired and a bit ratty).

But then there's Montserrat. I'm not much of the spiritual, so I only really appreciate the physical side of it. And it's impressive indeed.

Great imagery...


Cloister, with plants representing hope, power, life and health. Or something.

Looking down on the monastery

View from the top

Television

Being the spiteful swine you no doubt are (that'll win 'em over), you will all mock my ignorance, whilst admiring my chutzpah. Probably the first anyway. Anyway, I met someone from Boston and a couple from Alaska. In my knowledge-challenged way, I pointed out that Alaska was known to me only by the TV show Northern Exposure, while Boston was far more familiar owing to the various David E Kelly shows set there. You see, I just don't know a dman thing about these places. Fortunately the Alaskans took it in the right spirit (noting that while the show was technically correct with moose roaming the streets, the one showed was actually an elk - far smaller).
The Bostonian was similarly amused, possibly because she was from California originally, so TV and first impressions are very important.

"Get on with it" you cry. Okily dokily...
I went to the Gothic quarter today. Goes back to Roman times, and there's plenty of stuff filling in the gaps between then and now
A broken aqueduct...


Yay! A fountain in a cute courtyard




Another fine fountain. Loved the colours here.

An extraordinary cloister. With geese!


I've got a rapidly growing collection of images of gargoyles, but you'll have to wait until either 1) I get bored or 2) I get to show you. Either way, do try to control your impatience ;-)

Look carefully, and you'll see the original Roman columns under the cathedral

Cathedral square

And outside:



I tried to capture the colours of this Gaudi roof. Can't do it justice...


I thought this was a lovely view of La Sagreda Familia, with the streetlight in the foreground

What's that? Sacrilege you say? Like I care. "This one goes out to all you Phoenix fans out there". Poor guy asked what team it was. Telling him didn't help, happily :-).