I must have that kind of face!

It’s happening too often for it to be coincidental!
Over the past few years I seem to have been attracting women. “Isn’t that a good thing?” I hear you asking. Well not really Readers.
These women have sussed me out as the kind of fella who will part with a cigarette and not accept any remuneration, whether it was [...]

Jeremy van Beadle is alive and well and living in Schiphol!

The madness continues!
Not only has it been decided that my conquest of Europe should continue, I’ve actually been given a new role which will see me visiting my cheese-eating cousins more and more often.
I’m even learning German one phrase at a time and can now fluently tell people that I’m knitting a scarf, and that they are just [...]

OK Laura I heard you the first time !

I received a text message from my colleague, Laura, whilst I was in Holland. Avid readers may understand some of the content. But it went:
“Well done with the shirts. Just hope the soap doesn’t smell of cabbage! Game not started yet, will let u know the outcome”
All fairly random stuff but, at the time, quite [...]

Nice one Kenny !

Whilst on tour, big chunks of the Rugby World were happening.
I completely missed the fact that the England squad adopted Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” as their battle-cry – well there wasn’t that much coverage on either CNN or those interesting short-story channels I found in Hamburg.
But, as I’ve been having a bit of a “youtube” [...]

Very Rough Guide to ……………… (Part 4)

Fourth (and final) Stop
This time, after an extended visit home of 5 nights (albeit with a European Conference and bowling tournament in the middle), I found myself in Amersfoort once again.
Last time I visited (April 2007) I stayed at the Lange Jan hotel, almost directly under a chiming clock tower. This time I moved slightly [...]

500 up!

I never thought this would have happened but this blog just chalked up its 500th view.
As I’ve been testing a feed from iGoogle this morning though, I think that 500th viewer was almost certainly me!
So I get the prize. Ah well look at what you could’ve won …………

My memory is playing tricks on me ……..

An acquaintance of mine “The Pearly King”, pointed out to me that some of my ramblings (earlier in this blog) about “The Great Escape” may have been factually “questionable”.
This played on my mind a bit to the extent that I blew the dust off the old DVD and had a butcher’s (“butcher’s hook” = “look” – [...]

Very Rough Guide to ……………… (Part 3)

Third Stop
After a brief visit home I arrived in Hamburg for my third hotel stay at the Heikotel -Hotel am Stadtpark.
 
A nice enough place (short distance from airport and the German office) with a nice little bar (somewhere I became quickly familiar with). In fact on my second night there the “hotel boss woman” had [...]

Very Rough Guide to ……………… (Part 2)

Second Stop
“Second” is the right word here. Not only was the Comfort Hotel Europa in Copenhagen the second stop of this tour, it was also the second time I had stayed there.

So having stayed there in June and enjoyed the relative luxury of this very big room…
europaroom.jpg

…. (albeit right above a strip club), I was hoping [...]

Very Rough Guide to …………….. (Part 1)

I believe there are some travel guides called things like “The Rough Guide to Collyhurst” or ” ………… to Rio de Janeiro”. Well this is my “very rough guide” to the inns, taverns and hotels which had the pleasure of me (and are now slightly down on stocks of matchbooks, shampoo and shower gel) on [...]