How much could happen overnight. Well, quite a lot, actually. Something that is now close to confirmed is to arrive at the home of lefty Unplugged / Kevin Farrell sometime on Thursday. He is about two hundred miles from here and close to the same path I would be following anyway. I have admired his work in performance at Cat's Art MusikCircus and this is an opportunity to meet him. Some of you have worried that I'm moving too fast and I will miss things I may never see again but hopefully the articles from the last few days will show you how I'm doing this.
Part of the reason for dashing is that Thursday is Cat's birthday and I've needed to be somewhere I could play for her. I don't know if I can play, I don't even know if my stuff will still work, but I'm sure Kevin and I can get something happening to celebrate her day and I know if we did it together she would just be tickled pink.
Here are some miscellaneous themes that haven't really fit anywhere else.
As to who is driving on the wrong side of the road ... who cares!
You will find it is rather less difficult to switch back and forth so long as you're not driving, as Stirling Moss puts it, at 10/10 (i.e. using every bit of your skill). If you drive all out then you may react instinctively but 'on the wrong side' that instinct could very well be wrong.
When Americans would come to visit in Australia, all of them would say it feels so strange to be sitting on the left and not driving. As kids, we would always react the same way, "Mummy, why are they so stupid!"
Even this gets me a little misty as thoughts swirl through my mind here and they really do go back to when I was a child.
European toilets. This just has to be covered!
There are more bidets in Italy than in France. This observation may have some cosmic significance but, for a male, it really doesn't matter very much. Most places also had the, um, American standard hardware so, as with driving on the 'wrong' side of the road, who cares.
My personal favorite for something I had never seen before was a unit in which there are impressions for one's feet. Position yourself on these and then squat over a, um, receiving hole. While this sounds quite unusual, it's actually quite effective and very easy to keep clean as the basic rule of public toilets is very well-handled: Don't Touch Anything! This device doesn't require any touching at all. However, it's quite a sexist unit as squatting is much easier for a woman than a man. If you don't believe it, put your back to a wall and then try squatting to the floor. A man will not be able to do it but a woman can because the architecture of her hips is designed for delivering babies and is different from that of a man.
As I said, this material really didn't fit anywhere else (laughs).
Gas prices ... Quit yer bitching!
There's a lot of whining over gas / benzene / petrol prices at four dollars a gallon in the U.S.. Um, get the hell over it, honey! (laughs)
Fuel is priced here at roughly £1,50 or €1,80 a litre. Americanised that comes to somewhere around eight dollars a gallon. Some say that's Europe's problem but really it's the world's problem. That heads directly into editorial content and, again, you can write it yourself!
Cigarette prices ... See above!
While cigarette prices were a bit cheaper in Greece, that's the only country in which that has been true. I thought they were high in France (and they were) but England has the prize and I have seen them for £8,20 a pack. Yes, baby, that's over ten dollars a pack for the Americanised price. I was advised earlier the price for Marlboro is not the dearest (i.e. most expensive) either.
Don't look for Pepsi, you won't find it.
England is the first place I've seen Pepsi commonly-available. In Greece I rarely saw it and in Italy and France it just wasn't there. As above it doesn't matter as neither Coke nor Pepsi taste the same as in America anyway!
Some random thoughts on a roll. I'm sure there will be more!
Part of the reason for dashing is that Thursday is Cat's birthday and I've needed to be somewhere I could play for her. I don't know if I can play, I don't even know if my stuff will still work, but I'm sure Kevin and I can get something happening to celebrate her day and I know if we did it together she would just be tickled pink.
Here are some miscellaneous themes that haven't really fit anywhere else.
As to who is driving on the wrong side of the road ... who cares!
You will find it is rather less difficult to switch back and forth so long as you're not driving, as Stirling Moss puts it, at 10/10 (i.e. using every bit of your skill). If you drive all out then you may react instinctively but 'on the wrong side' that instinct could very well be wrong.
When Americans would come to visit in Australia, all of them would say it feels so strange to be sitting on the left and not driving. As kids, we would always react the same way, "Mummy, why are they so stupid!"
Even this gets me a little misty as thoughts swirl through my mind here and they really do go back to when I was a child.
European toilets. This just has to be covered!
There are more bidets in Italy than in France. This observation may have some cosmic significance but, for a male, it really doesn't matter very much. Most places also had the, um, American standard hardware so, as with driving on the 'wrong' side of the road, who cares.
My personal favorite for something I had never seen before was a unit in which there are impressions for one's feet. Position yourself on these and then squat over a, um, receiving hole. While this sounds quite unusual, it's actually quite effective and very easy to keep clean as the basic rule of public toilets is very well-handled: Don't Touch Anything! This device doesn't require any touching at all. However, it's quite a sexist unit as squatting is much easier for a woman than a man. If you don't believe it, put your back to a wall and then try squatting to the floor. A man will not be able to do it but a woman can because the architecture of her hips is designed for delivering babies and is different from that of a man.
As I said, this material really didn't fit anywhere else (laughs).
Gas prices ... Quit yer bitching!
There's a lot of whining over gas / benzene / petrol prices at four dollars a gallon in the U.S.. Um, get the hell over it, honey! (laughs)
Fuel is priced here at roughly £1,50 or €1,80 a litre. Americanised that comes to somewhere around eight dollars a gallon. Some say that's Europe's problem but really it's the world's problem. That heads directly into editorial content and, again, you can write it yourself!
Cigarette prices ... See above!
While cigarette prices were a bit cheaper in Greece, that's the only country in which that has been true. I thought they were high in France (and they were) but England has the prize and I have seen them for £8,20 a pack. Yes, baby, that's over ten dollars a pack for the Americanised price. I was advised earlier the price for Marlboro is not the dearest (i.e. most expensive) either.
Don't look for Pepsi, you won't find it.
England is the first place I've seen Pepsi commonly-available. In Greece I rarely saw it and in Italy and France it just wasn't there. As above it doesn't matter as neither Coke nor Pepsi taste the same as in America anyway!
Some random thoughts on a roll. I'm sure there will be more!
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