December break?

Just been thinking about a short break in December, as I can only carry forward 5 days holiday into 2007 (I currently have 7.5). So I either take 3 Mondays in December off work, or I try and squeeze in a little trip somewhere.

Other complicating factors are:
1) I can't take time off before 14 December as I've got to do a presentation on either 6 or 13th at Uni.
2) I've got an Christmas parties on 15 and 21 December, which gives me a window of 17-20th December.
3) I'd like to go somewhere cold and I want to go from a local airport.
4) I don't want to book til quite late and I want it dirt cheap.

A tall order, but there may be some possibilities.

Options
Liverpool-Krakow, stupidly expensive
Liverpool-Oslo, bargain 99p return flight. Total cost 36quid return!!
Liverpool-Tampere (Finland), cheap 55quid return.

Any takers?

Iraq - time to go?

Yes!

I was never a fan of the Iraq war from day 1 – though nothing to do with it being ‘an illegal war’ (surely all wars are illegal?! Was it ‘illegal’ for Britain to declare war on Germany in 1939?!) or on being ‘mislead/lied to’ by Blair. I don’t think he or the intelligence services really knew what was going on, thought they could wing-it, and were caught out. Unlucky. It was a bad idea because it was clear there would be chaos after the overthrow of Saddam. Look at Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia. I’m sure we could demolish regimes in Syria and Iran in a weekend if we needed to. And then spend the next 25 years bogged down in a long and messy guerilla war.

The idea of building a stable democracy in Iraq is a joke (it’s highly questionable whether there is one in the US or Italy) and the prospects of getting one in the Middle East in the near future are virtually nil.

Iraq is on the point of a civil war and it shouldn’t be the British Army being shot at or targeted in the cross fire. The army has had a pretty bad press from the media in relation to so-called ‘atrocities’ – they’re being shot at every hour of every day and if they catch and beat a few gunmen, so what? Are we supposed to give them an ice-cream and let them off with a warning?

To be fair, we’ve probably not made the situation worse than it was under Saddam, we’ve just let the lid off a pressure-cooker of inter-ethnic hatred that has been simmering for decades.

Pull out immediately and let the Iranians/Syrians get their hands dirty trying to sort it out!

Cameron

Who?

The new tory leader. People seem to like him, though I don't know who and I don't know why - he hasn't got much going for him:
1) He's a Thatcherite (which will go down really well in some parts of northern England)
2) He’s straight out of the stereotypical ‘Eton-educated-very patronising-likes-hunting’ brigade
3) He’s liberal
4) He’s a wannabe Blair, without the charisma. And I’m not a Blair fan (though the more unpopular Blair has become the more I’ve started to develop more sympathy for him and his predicament.

Holiday in Grozny

I'm wondering how long it'll be before Chechnya features on the backpackers trails.

A train service from Moscow-Grozny started up last year and seems to be running relatively smoothly. Although things aren't good at the moment (no electricity or running water yet and 90% of buildings destroyed) Grozny seems to be starting to slowly re-develop and make some sort of progress. Although it isn't exactly a place you'd go for some peacful relaxation, the heavy shelling has stopped and there seems to be some sort of stability.

I can't find any websites relating to tourism in Chechnya yet and I think I'll leave it for a couple of years. But maybe one day...

The Russian bear growls!

Georgia looks very unlikely for a future wild east next summer.

Me and Taylor (and possibly Shiz) talked a while ago about visiting Georgia (and we don't mean America!). Georgia is in a mess at the moment, some say on the verge of civil war and there are shoot-outs between Russian troops and local militias at night. Problems have been exacerbated since the very pro-western, anti-Russian Saakashvili govt got in power in 2003 with hopes of joining the EU. Relations with Russia are at an all-time low and the Russian government has started deporting Georgians (and half of all Georgian males seem to be working in Russia illegally) from Moscow and St Petersburg. To be fair to the Russians though, why should they continually put up with a whole raft of illegal workers (who are only there to benefit themselves), paying no tax, and who are then hostile to the host country. Like most little countries in the world, the Georgians want all the benefits of being in an organisation like the EU, yet they'd comply with none of the regulations. And all the problems of the world are always the fault of big countries or 'colonialists'...

Poor 'ol Jack!

Jack Straw was never a politician I particularly liked as he was far too liberal and PC for my liking, so it’s a bit ironic that he gets castigated for saying that he asks Muslim women to remove the hijab (or whatever it’s called) in his constituency meetings. I can’t help thinking that there are tough times ahead and in a worse-case scenario we could start to go the way of Yugoslavia, especially in northern England. Though France seems even more in a mess than the UK.