Be Excellent To Each Other

Thanks Russ. Xxx

Sorry to hear about that, I hope it goes as well as expected.

Thank you Kovacs. Xxx

I'm going to the pub with myp today. sdg will be there though so I could equally have posted this in the 'yay' thread!

Eurgh, Tunisia.

Made me go through some emails between me and the wife from October last year. We were planning on going to Al Hammamet (about 10 miles down the road) this month. Then things changed so we couldn't. Almost a good thing.

I went there an age ago. It was really nice.

Went there 25 years ago for a week on my own, really enjoyed it.

Shooting unarmed people who work hard to save all year for 2 weeks on a beach is pretty fucking low.

Would guess this will fuck Tunisia up as a holiday destination for years now, plenty of other cheap sunny places that don't have maniac gunmen.

Are there though? Many/most of the cheapest sunny spots are either predominantly Muslim countries or are right next to them and it only takes one or two deranged people to pull of something like this.

You couldn't get me to one of these places on a bet, or if you paid me large amounts of money.

My brother went to Turkey recently, 'Hope you make it back alive' was the message I sent him on Facebook.

Menorca was lovely. No gunfire that I noticed

Well Tunisia was probably lovely the other day as well. And then it wasn't.

Mind you, I've only ever been abroad once (to Florida, it was too hot, was glad to get home), and I have no desire to repeat the experience.

Yeah I feel the same way. Mum went to Turkey once and said she was seriously harassed at the local market by people trying to get her cash.

I know these countries are hot but give me the cold and rain any day. Mrs JC and I decided a few months ago we're going to keep it to the UK now. We go to a place by the sea in Hampshire and in November you can get a week for £150 (in summer it's £1300 a week). So that does us. A few cheap weeks away like that a year

I've lived in all sorts of countries all over the world and I love the UK. Hygeine wise we're right up there, and unlike the yanks our poo doesn't go around in circles when we flush the bog

These days tend to have a week or 2 in Malaga in April\May which is nice and warm but not really hot.

Have a lot of time for Spain these days, warm and good value for money. Was always put off going to Turkey by the 4 hour plus coach trips to the resorts from the airport.

I think it pays to get a bit of a fucking grip sometimes. I don't remember everyone walking round permanently shitting themselves when the IRA were bombing the mainland or again after the attacks on London some years ago. Countries are generally quite big places and these are isolated incidents. Also Turkey is perfectly safe and the all the people we met (once on holiday and then again at my cousin's wedding to a Turkish lass) were sound and just generally quite lovely.

Yeah but the IRA didn't set out with the intention to target and kill as many innocent civilians as they possibly could, and tended to give warnings as well. (I remember them blowing up one of me and Mrs Hearthly's favourite pubs in Manchester when they bombed the Arndale Centre, we were back drinking in the city within days.)

Each to their own of course, but the closer you get to any of these places, the less comfortable I'd be. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure most Turkish people are lovely, but I still wouldn't go there.

Live in London do/did you Mark?

I grew up in South London. Mainly Brixton, Mitcham (Surrey) and Streatham. When I was a kid we used to get a Red Bus Rover and go out all day on the buses with Mum.

And every time we did I used to shit myself when we got on the bus/tube/train and saw the posters about unattended bags. It really was utterly terrifying. I mean sure, we got on with life, but it wasn't pleasant knowing that at any moment a bomb could go off.






Cities give me the creeps. They really do. I remember the first time I went to New York. My ex and her mother were all excited.. I remember looking up those Twin Towers from the ground and feeling dizzy just looking at it. I had a really, really bad feeling about it. My ex mother in law asked if I wanted to go in/up and I refused. I told her that something bad was going to happen.... Little did I know that a bomb had already been detonated in the basement a couple of years before. I really had no idea.. Look at them now (well, don't actually 'cause they're not there any more).

I think it could be an Aspie thing though that, Hearth. I absolutely fucking abhor places with lots of people all packed in like sardines. With the way we are viewed in the world you're just fucking asking for it IMO.

Not so much the bombers on the London Underground and bus that set out to kill as many as they could on July 7th, or those that targeted the Twin Towers, but people don't talk of London or NY in the same way due to thise incidents.

For context: I grew up in London, through the IRA bombings. I was on the tube the moment the bombs went off on 7/7 too, on the same line as one of them, a few stations along.

What has happened in Tunisia is fucking dreadful. As a result there will be a huge drop in holidays to anywhere with the slightest hint of Muslim religion. People will just not go there anymore for a good few years. To be honest I wouldn't myself give the choice between 2 beach holidays of similar price.

Not really the point. The point is about warped perspectives. The IRA were blowing stuff up all over the place, even firebombing round here, I never thought twice about going to Manchester, Warrington or London or anywhere else attacks were being carried out, meanwhile I'm sure many foreigners were avoiding the UK entirely. The unfamiliarity means it's easier to write off a whole country as dangerous and violent because of something you saw on the news but if it was the country you lived in then you would naturally tend to view the risks very differently.

Man on the news just now said the government have not advised against travelling to Tunisa as essentially these attacks can pretty much happen anywhere, you just have to look at Paris earlier this year. Someone with an automatic weapon can cause an awful lot of damage and is relatively easy to get in to almost any location.

My time in Muslim countries was nothing but delightful hospitality and friendliness. Even when we had gotten lost, ended up on top of a mountain in Oman and were invited into the guard post. We had coffee and dates and talked in football team and player names.

These are isolated attacks, I've an ex girlfriend who has spent substantial time in The Yemen and she has never had a problem until Saudi Arabia started bombing the city she was in.

There is two thirds of four fifths of fuck all danger to the tourist areas and it is Deffo not a refectory of the ideology of a country or religion and trying to tie the attacks to either is wrong.

Do you not think you are missing out? I mean this in the nicest way possible.

A walk along the Promenade d'Anglais in Nice is wonderful, seeing the canals of Amsterdam, the flat expanses of the American Midwest, a drink on the terrace of Raffles, watching the sun sink over the carribean?

The Star Wars set in Tunisi... oh, wait

Ugh.

Today I went out alone again (yay, wrong thread sorry) and bought some new clothes. Airwalk shorts, that sort of thing. Any way, I saw these trainers made by Karrimor and fell in love with them, and they were only £40 so I got them.

Came home and grabbed my 3 month old Nike Huarache Light (mango green and white..) and thought "Sod it they look dirty I'll throw them in the washing machine !". However, I had this really clever idea that I was also going to wash my black Adidas Stan Smith Star Wars (Darth Vader) and Luke Skywalker Adidas (both were dirty).

And my poor Huaraches the ink from the black Adidas ran, turning them a putrid grey colour and then I realised I hadn't turned the water to cold so it fucking melted the heel supports and made them bend in, completely writing them off.

Gutted.....

So I had to go and order a new pair

I would much rather stay at home then do any of those things. And I've done four of them (never been to the Midwest).

I'd like to visit Tokyo, but only if staying at home wasn't an option.

Yeah I must say I agree with Grim...

I've been to France, Spain, Italy, Belgium.. I've lived out in the states for all of those years but I tell you what nothing beats the UK. As much as I have my complaints about this country fuck me, I wouldn't even know where to begin with the USA.

My wife's father lives in Wiltshire.. So if we want green we have green. I live by the sea, so if I want beach I have beach. Mum lives slightly inland in a tiny little picturesque village, so if I want quaint I got quaint. I really could not ask for more. Britain is absolutely gorgeous.

And of course there's the place in Hampshire we go to.

The thing is though, a holiday destination doesn't have to 'beat' the UK because comparing them directly is weird and pointless. You're not going on holiday to scope out somewhere to move to; you're just going for a very temporary different experience. I doubt I would ever consider living in another country but I like going on holiday to other places for the sake of the experience.

I can't fucking wait to be well enough to go on holiday. Lost over a grand on the one we had to cancel due to my heart.

In May my lady and I went on holiday... 3 miles away. I'm not even kidding. We had a lovely time though. Got a caravan for four days and just chillaxed

And I'm going to Centre Parcs an hours drive away for a weekend with my family in July. I have no doubt it'll be lovely, but that doesn't affect how much I enjoyed being in Berlin, Rome and Majorca.

I live 7 miles from Blackpool so it's like I'm in a never ending nightmare holiday.

No travel insurance that might cover it?

Not been there for years, has any money been spent on development? Last thing I read they were making in the Vegas of the North with a "super casino" and other things getting built.

Or something provided by your bank account?

Oh yeah then there's that !

For our honeymoon we went on a Caribbean cruise. Mrs JC had a stroke in 2012, that'll be £650 please.

Sod that, I could get a friggin holiday for that much !

I'll see your £650 and raise you £2500 insurance for three nights at euro Disney.

No mate, that was the last thing we had to organise

The holiday was due in May so we thought we had a few months to get organised. But, we got a house out of it and I'm not dead, so that's cool.

Aha ha ha ha!

My mate went to Alton Towers and it cost her an arm and a leg!

My mate went to Alton Towers and it cost her an arm and a leg![/quote
Lolz.

I can't conceive of not wanting to visit other countries to experience differing cultures, languages, cuisines (yep, high on my list). I'm trying to imagine how I'd feel if I'd never set foot off ol' Blighty, not ever - and I just can't.

If you never leave, you can't have the pleasure of coming back

Order a Singapore Sling in the Long Bar in Raffles and they make it using premix and then charge you a fortune for the pleasure. Money-grabbing sods.

The novelty of being back in Birmingham wore off after two minutes of rude selfish Brummie twats.

It is the sentiment, not the details, sir!

Yeah, the 'pleasure' of arriving back into crappy old Terminal 1 @ Manchester Airport; that 70s architecture and grimy fit out is food for the soul; where they charge about £20 for an inedible cooked breakfast that I wouldn't give to my dogs let alone attempt to eat it myself, with an insipid instant coffee that last saw an actual coffee plant sometime back in the '80s; all the queues, the delays, waiting endlessly for luggage that never comes, the morose staff - and as if all this weren't enough, it's invariably pissing down.

Don't get me wrong, I love the UK but, you know, eating exquisitely prepared, grilled baby cuttlefish caught that morning (that cost much less than a tenner) at one of Xàbia's fabulous little bistros by the blue, blue sea lapping gently perhaps 2 feet from where you're seated, with family and good friends, watching the setting sun - just isn't gonna be replicated in Weston super Mare.

I've never been to T1

He was made up though once he had a Singapore Schlong in the Dong Bar.