Czech Dream

There was an interesting short film on the other day on one of the more obscure digital channels. Czech Dream (all in Czech with subtitles) about a wry look at how consumerism has taken over.

It recorded a large-scale hoax on the Czech public, culminating in the "opening event" of a fake "hypermarket" called Czech Dream and created a massive advertising campaign around it. Posing as businessmen, two film students managed to persuade an ad agency and PR agency to create a campaign for them. Billboards appeared on Czech highways, and 200,000 pamphlets were distributed in Prague. A jingle was recorded and there was a series of television commercials.

The shoppers came in their thousands. What looked like a huge building from a distance was actually only a canvas facade backed by scaffolding. When the "customers" finally realised that they had been deceived, they reacted in different ways. Some understood the filmmakers' message, some tried to take it optimistically ("At least we had some fresh air") but most were angry and many decided to blame the government…..

Spain

It’s soon come around and now is only a little over two weeks away. Belch sent me the address and I think I’ve found it on Multimap - On the coast a couple of km south-west of Fuengirola, about 25km SW of Malaga. I’m assuming that this place has bars nearby that we will venture into?? It’s just that I also have a vision of certain people wanting to stay in and play PES (OK slight exaggeration)...or being ‘too tired to go out'....or will Big Pete be the party animal out till 6am every night?!

Picked up a 2003 copy of the Rough Guide to Andalucia for £3 from a discount book store and there seems a fair bit of things of interest around. A few things that jump out at me are:
Malaga – is supposed to be a nice city with a good old town.
Ronda (recommended by my parents) should be quite easy to get to.
Gibraltar – and I think Big Pete and Markus are also keen on this one.
Cadiz is supposed to be really nice, but it’s a long way and there isn’t really a quick way to get there because of the mountains.
Some time on the beach would be good too but those with lighter skin may not be overly happy with this one.

Anyone else got many ideas?

Drink up!

Thanks to Wikipedia here are some interesting stats regarding which countries are the king of beer-drinking in the world (per-capita). Leading the pack out in front on their own? The Czechs. Followed some distance behind by Ireland and then Germany. Anyone who knows their beers wouldn’t find this a surprise. But then (and it was a surprise for me) come Australia!? I though all they drank was Fosters and XXXX, but they have a large number of breweries over there apparently and Fosters is only produced for the export market. Interesting. Then (another surprise for me) comes Austria and finally in at #6 comes the mighty UK (perhaps slightly disappointing for such a beer-producing heavyweight). The US comes in at #13, Poland #18 and Russia only #23 (but then beer only comprises 11% of all alcohol consumption). Though if it was Alcohol consumption alone, the Ruskies would be leading the pack by some distance. The French snubbed the charts by not even coming in the top 35. Here are the full results if you’re interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ordered_by_per_capita_beer_consumption.


There’s been a bit of talk about ‘safe’ alcohol levels recently. I thought that the world was unified in what was ‘safe’ and what was not. But this is not the case. The weedy yanks think that 14units per week is the max for males, with the hard-living Aussies thinking that it should be 28. The middle-of-the-road Brits and Germans think 21 units is the max.

Another case of global warming?

Some years ago (probably around 1990 or so) before it became ‘trendy’ to talk about Global Warming I remember listening to the weatherman John Kettley describing what it was. Contrary to popular belief, it would not necessarily entail the same weather albeit warmer, but instead significantly more changeable and extreme weather...there's always records being made (Winter 1947 and 1963 and summer 1976) but June 2007...Moscow has it’s hottest ever June temp – 38C, Greece has its highest ever temperatures recorded of 47C. Sheffield has its wettest day on record (10 days after the wettest day for 35 years) during the wettest June on record. I’m sure the finger-pointing will start soon about who was 'to blame' and the local councils will be the easiest target to pick on.

I have to say full marks to Sheffield Council and the team of volunteers on Monday regarding the provision of emergency shelter for those of us that needed it. It was well organised, everyone got fed and watered and provided with a duvet. Joe Public seemed to be in fairly good spirits, though I heard the odd complaint that the food was too spicy(!) and that there was only 2 choices available, and that they should have provided beds for everyone. What do some people expect?? It’s easy to moan but I’m sure if it had been Albania, the police would have probably run off home and it’d have been a free-for-all with every man for himself.

The Battle of the Booze

Forget Battle of the Buff, this is the real issue we have to worry about. It’s been in the air for a while now, but now the govt is planning a white paper on it. Basically the idea is to try and work out what will happen if they double the price of alcohol and try and make ‘drinking as anti-social as drink-driving or smoking’. Men who drink 4 pints in one siting once per week (surely this applies to 90% of the male UK population?) are now regarded as 'hazardous drinkers' The only reasons I can think of for this are:

1. The govt wants to a quick-fix scheme to save money on the NHS and is greedily eyeing up the money they think they might be able to suck out of drinkers.
2. It’s phase 2 of the campaign to turn the UK into an Islamic country?! Phase 3? Haven’t a clue – compulsory veils for all women over 15?!?
3. Gordon Brown just wants us all to believe he is (what we all think anyway) a dour, non-drinking, tight-fisted Scotsman who hates to see everyone else have a good time.

Prohibition has never worked in any country its been tried in. Just to name a few The US and Norway in the 1930s and the Soviet Union’s campaign in the late 1980s all failed…will the UK be next?

Review

Wednesday 23 – arrived Oslo Torp at 9.30. Bus into centre 90mins (220NOK, 21.50), stayed at Anker Hostel, dorm (17pounds).
Thursday Oslo-Bergen Train. Amazing scenery at Finse 1220m, highest station in Norway. Thick snow, temp -1C. Arrive Bergen (Belson?!) 5.30pm, pouring rain, hunt out Montana hostel 5km from centre, marked wrongly on all maps. After much cursing and having to ask locals, eventually find it 7pm. Dorm of 20, mainly Norwegians, two French, one Scottish guy, only Brit I meet, mid50s, annoying at first then turns out to be quite interesting. Spending 6weeks in Nor. Earns (7.5k?!). Lives off peanut butter sandwiches. Montana hostel – Owned Norwegian YHA, no alcohol sold or allowed on premises. Bit like YHA and SYHA. Bit puritanical. Few independent hostels in Nor. Exact opposite of Friendly Franks, Riga, Latvia.
Friday – up 8am – weather better, Ulriksbahn hill (642m) before ‘Lunch’ – supermarket = bread and cheese.Wander round old town/fish market pm.
Saturday – early train, Myrdal, down to Flam and then back to Myr again. Arrive Oslo 9.30pm. Hotekilen YHA 13km outside centre. Totally dead.
Sunday explore Oslo, warm day, Sunday night back in Anker Hostel. Heavy rain late evening.
Monday – wet all day – get T-Bahn to Frognaseterin ski centre, altitude 582m, walk around a bit, inclement weather. Return on Ryaniar flight 1900.

So Norway. Second time I’ve been there though first time I’ve really visited cities, though if your going for cities and nightlife you’re going to the wrong place. Overall remarks not bad, but I didn’t really think Oslo was anything particularly special. Some quite nice buildings and very modern, but think I preferred Helsinki. Norway did look slightly run-down (for the richest or second richest country in Europe) on some of the back streets (particularly Grunerlokka – though I had one of the best kebabs I’ve had had from a Turkish takeaway) and maybe they are experiencing the usual problems of others European countries. I’d definitely go back, but go for the wilderness areas though (but then I didn’t expect it any other way). Overall the trip met my expectations but didn’t exceed them, mainly due to extremely high costs and poor weather (again no surprises). Having your own transport would be an enormous advantage. Costs are ridiculous in Norway. Oslo-Bergen train (120quid return, even with student card). Beer in supermarket 1.60. Managed to cut total spend back to 260quid, though this did mean not a single meal out or alcoholic drink the whole time. Interesting as a stop-gap trip, but I’m expecting greece and spain to be much better.

Scores
Ryanair 10/10
Lonely Planet 6/10
Norway 5/10.

Norway

1p there and 1p back with Ryanair was just too tempting. Even with the £10 baggage fee I still saw change out of 50quid. A surprise as I'm probably one of G. Browns 'enemy of the people'.

Now I just need to find something to do over there. One idea was Oslo and Stockholm but I've decided to stick with Norway. Saw a bit of the Sognafjord and Jutonheimun National Park on a geog fieldtrip in 2001 so the mountains do again look tempting. I'll try and follow the taylor diet (tapwater, bananas and yoghurt) to keep costs down. But I won't be sleeping rough in graveyards. I hope.