Planes, Tanks, Ships and Automobiles pt2

This is the second part of my weekend adventures 'darn sarf', get up to speed here in Part One.

After sleeping for half of the night on one arm to keep it warm, then waking to discover that the cold had temporarily frozen solid the other arm and having to turn over to reverse the process, I awoke to toast and tea provided by Frida. Not being British, she had no idea how a good British breakfast works and kept plying Justin and I with more rounds of toast than any human being could physically eat.

No wonder the heating doesn't work... The landlord had applied his own brand of wiring to the the place, If you tried to turn a light on downstairs the bathroom fan upstairs came on...

I declined the offer of a shower after Frida had told us no-one in the house had yet used the newly installed downstairs shower room in case they were electrocuted. Over breakfast we discussed what to do with the day in Southampton. I had a vague idea that the Mary Rose was located in the town, Justin expanded on this with the information that there was a historic dockyard which not only housed the Mary Rose, but also HMS Victory! Ideal, I thought, I can get some pictures of the cannons forged in Rotherham that I talked about in this previous POST. Whipping out his phone, Justin dialed up the Internet and found to our horror that HMS Victory was not visitable until April. Not only that but the Mary Rose exhibition was closed until 2012!

Closed until the Mayan Prophecies come true!

Justin calmed us by telling us about the Spinnaker Tower that he had been up when he was younger. This was our goal, we decided. We waddled out of the house (not forgetting to wipe our feet as we left...Ttch, Students!) and headed to the university to find out more information on one of the computer points. It turns out everyone of the above mentioned visitor attractions were not even in Southampton, but in Portsmouth instead. Boy, did we all feel like total douchebags? A quick scan of what was on offer in Southampton revealed a maritime museum, an Archaeology museum and an aviation museum. We took in the former and latter of these choices. Being archaeologists as our day jobs (when I'm working) Justin and I didn't want to spend our spare time looking at archaeology. The museums were good, but the best feature of the Aviation museum was the amount of signs telling you not to do this, or not to do that: No running, no stepping over the kerb, no sitting on the glass, no touching, no spitting, no dogging, no looking, no exit, no burning churches, no false God worship, no bananas, no fun, no large group gatherings, etc etc. I provide a few photos of these signs below:

Good God, is there anything we CAN do in this museum?

Mind you it wasn't that surprising as when we arrived the young attendant told us he couldn't change our twenty pound note rather brusquely. Justin then overheard the head curator berate the poor lad for about ten minutes on the etiquette of informing visitors about the lack of change in the till. I bet it was that bastard that insisted on the signage. The museum was good apart from that, literally packed to the gills with aeroplanes, including the R J Mitchell designed Supermarine S.6A which won the Sneider Trophy in 1929, but I'm sure you knew that already. After having a seat in the Sandringham Sea Plane and seeing a couple more signs we headed for chips and home.

This sign was behind a piece of glass, it said NO ENTRY. How the fuck would you even be able to enter anyway? What the fuck is going on here? This is Madness!!

Home James, and don't spare the horses!

Justin and I drove back to Steyning where Lucy had made a great dinner for us weary travellers. We were all absolutely shattered and I think Justin wanted to spend at least an hour alone with Lucy on Valentine's Day, so I hit the hay. I awoke the next morning said farewell to J and L and headed off to the M25 again, this time, East bound and towards Waltham Abbey, where Dr David Kenyon works as Curator of the Royal Gunpowder Mills. Danny Boy met up with us as well and David allowed us to indulge ourselves in his playroom; the exhibit he has been working on for the past months. Basically a room packed full of weapons. Danny and I were like kids in a sweetshop. We messed around for an hour with the Luger, Walther PPK, MP44, MP40, AK47, M1911, MG42, MG34, Webley, Mauser K98 amongst others. All the while taking photos to send to Justin as he sat at his desk slaving away at work.

Hande Hoch Mutterfucker!

I finally arrived home to be taken out for a curry buffet as my brother was home for the weekend. My third and final curry of a great weekend!

Simon Jenkins is a Dog Bummer

I have just returned from a week in France so I thought I'd tell you all about that, also, you can read about last night's Damnation Festival, the highlights and lowlights of a day of METAL! First off though, France:

Moody battlefield cemeteries...

After Danny deciding he was going and then deciding he wasn't going about forty times, I travelled down to Brighton, stopping on the way to see Jo at Victoria Station, we had a jolly nice meal at Cafe Rouge, in order to get me ready for France. It was really good to see her again, albeit for an hour or so. I carried on to Brighton and met Justin ad Lucy at the station. Back at their gaff Bob (aka Sarah) called over (in a fucking sweet Reign in Blood t-shirt...) and in time so did Danny. After a wild drinking session, the bunch of us piled upstairs to play with Justin's gun collection.

Rule number one of gun safety, never point your weapon at someone else unless you intend on killing them...

We had to get the guns out from under Justin's bed where he'd hidden them in case the landlady came round and didn't take too kindly to her house being used as an arsenal. After more drinks and curry we hit the hay for the early morning rise for the trip to the ferry. The ferry journey was enlightened by a lovely Romanian girl who gave us all a massage for next to nothing. She offered to take me to a private room for my massage and I must say the offer was tempting... But I didn't fancy getting thrown overboard by the ship's crew for giving her undue attention. Arrival at Ocean Villas tea rooms was greeted by meeting the rest of the lads and lasses of NML and also Walter Rapp, the descendant of Jakob Hones, the body I discovered at Serre a few years ago. Shaking hands with the descendant of a body you have excavated is a humbling experience. After a look around Avril's museum and a buffet meal, Justin, Danny and I made for the place we were staying for the week, Snowden House:

Sixteen archaeologists crammed into a house packed with World War One Militeria makes for a great week!

By the time we had reached Snowden House the Irish Contingent of the team had arrived and we said fond hellos. I haven't seen many of them nearly two years and it was great to see everyone again. Even Simon, the Dog Bummer. During our stay in Snowden house we were over looked by this rather alarming looking fox:

David had to be physically restrained from trying to hunt this poor fellow

Unaware that Sunday was supposed to be a work day, Danny, Justin and I took off on a walk around a small part of the 1916 front line. The day was beautiful and we didn't want to waste it by working so we settled down for a snooze by one of the many CWGC cemeteries that dot the landscape of the North East France. It was the middle of shooting season and there were many French farmers walking around blasting anything that moved, so we didn't linger too long in anyone place for the fear of taking a peppering of buckshot.

The lanscape of a small portion of the 1916 battlefields

The main reason we were in France was to work on trenches that we had excavated in previous years. A few years ago, the Somme Association of Northern Ireland had bought Thiepval Woods opposite the Ulster Tower, Carol, the boss of the Somme Association had asked No Man's Land (of which I am part) to help out excavate the trenches that lay in the woods. This was in order for it to be turned into an interpretive visitor attraction for the growing tourist market in the area of the Somme. Actually it works as a non-profit attraction but tours of the trenches have to be booked at the Ulster Tower before hand and they are the only excavated original front line trenches that exist on the Somme Battlefields today.

A Mortar Pit, situated just behind the front lines, as excavated and reveted by NML and the Somme Association

Obviously the trenches need constant repair and rework in order that they don't collapse in on themselves. Over the past few years work has been done to revet and sandbag the trenches and this trip was another one of similar repair work. The trench which I had worked on for the most time was a second line trench system which had an associated dugout. The trench had cut through an early dugout, which had collapsed, possibly due to shell damage. We had quite a difficult time working out the sequence of events but a small amount of archaeology conducted on the end of the trench cleared up our confusion. I had small but crack (head) team under my supervision: Black Shining Heather, Dog Bummer Jenkins and Mo-Jo, we were augmented by the demonic sandbagging abilities of Douchebag Philips:

Area 8 team, left to right: Dog Bummer, Mo-Jo, Douchebag, Black Shining and self

We were so fucking great we had all our work done by Thursday morning a full day earlier than expected. The trenches looked fucking amazing and it was testament to everyone's hard work that we got it all completed so quickly.

Area 8 before

Area 8 after!

The rest of the week between work was taken up with drinking and playing Wings of War. The other highlight included Dr David Kenyon eating a plate of shredded carrots without using his hands for three euros. Like a fucking horse.

Go on Dobbin, get it in you..

As ever with trips to France, I come back with more things than I left with. I try to travel light but the return trip always has an increased weight bag. This time I returned with a hat that had been sitting in David's car for two years, a fake Iron Cross from the turfed out collection at the Waltham Gunpowder Mills, a pair of moleskin trousers from Steve and a pair of Army boots from Major Carling. All in all it was a great trip, especially since I haven't been out to France for eighteen months and haven't seen the Irish lot for even longer. I miss them all and it is the proof a of a great friendship that we can all get along as though no time has passed between our last meetings!

Proudly eating shit for NML since 2003

Last night was a night of something slightly different, Dave, Ross, Amy and I drove over to Leeds to spend the evening in the company of about a thousand social misfits and chronic masterbaters at the Damnation Metal Festival. We saw some great bands although the venue seemed to suffer from bad sound all the way through. I was gutted that the Romanian Negura Bunget didn't play, the singer had laryngitis apparently. I would have thought that should have only improved the performance... Rotting Christ were my overall highlight, their set was fucking great. I've been into them for over fifteen years, so to finally see them play live was great. They were full of energy as well and put on a blistering performance.

Rotting Christ, the angriest Greeks around...

The other highlight of the festival was the last ever performance by Mistress. I'd never heard them before but their set was fucking brilliant, with stage diving galore, just like it was 1991 again. The lowlight of the day was by far Akercocke, a British Black Metal band, a poor man's Emperor in their shit days. Dave said the singer and keyboardist looked like they worked in a call centre and the bassist was a homeless.

Akercocke? Shit Cock, more like

The other band I was really wanting to see was Jesu, the project Justin Broadrick formed following the split of Godflesh, as you no doubt already know. This performance was completely ruined by the sound engineer fucking everything up and playing the vocals and drums too loud in the mix. Jesu perform a delicately balanced soundscape of beautiful low-fi music and it needs to be mixed correctly to be able to appreciate Justin's incredible song writing abilities. The sound engineer should have been dragged out and shot. In the event I dragged myself out to go and watch Lock-Up, who's cover of Fear of Napalm was the highlight of their set.

Jesu: it could have been brilliant...

Danger High Velocity Road!! Italy pt 3

This is the final part of the Italian Blog, I promise you, after this I can get back to telling you about the abuse I mete out to the students I am currently teaching. Click on the link to find Part One and Part Two.

I forgot to mention we had a hardcore game of Zug um Zug (some of you who have been here since the beginning will remember that I didn't get to play this game during Play Night in Iceland...) on Monday night with Frida's cousins. as is usual with games, I never remember who won, so we'll just say I did, to save arguments. Frida's cousin Marika (I'm not sure how to spell her name...) was learning English and wanted to hang out with us so I could teach her in English. My lesson plan consisted of me shouting 'In English!' everytime she spoke Italian to Frida. It seemed to work.

Frida and Luana celebrate getting to Trento alive despite my best efforts to get them both killed...

Trento was next on the list, along with Luana, Frida's friend, who had until recently lived in Trento as a student. Her unparallelled knowledge of the city was a God send. I drove the three of us in the family tank. But unlike most Italian tanks, (which have five gears: one forward and four backwards) this one was a bit more lively. It was my first time driving on the wrong side of the road, but what made it more difficult was the fact that I had two Italian girls jabbering in my ears, the car was about forty times bigger than the one I am used to and the crazy Italian drivers and their disregard for the rules of the road. Throw into this mix a burst tyre just after getting onto a high speed road and it makes for a very sweaty, nervous and tense Alex. Miraculously After all this misfortune we arrived at the Castello Del Buonconsiglio in one piece and spent the afternoon absorbing the very large Egyptian exhibition and the various Medieval frescoes the Castle had to offer...

Have some, yer fucken bitch!

Further archaeological treats awaited us at the S.A.S.S. An underground Roman city this time. Yawn. The Romans are like the Ikea of the Ancient World. You could be in Danum or Thysdrus, the street layout would be exactly the same. Like the Dead Kennedy's said 'This could be anywhere, this could be everywhere'. The Romans were just the flatpack for the BCs. Anyhoo, the museum consisted of large parts of the original street layout of Trento as it was back in the day. There were the usual Latin inscriptions which Frida translated for us.

The teacher and the teacher's pet; 'This one says "Alex is a Douchelord"'

In all seriousness, the place was fucking amazing, the original Roman road alone was mind blowing. I'm not usually moved much by archaeology anymore, but I was thinking what a pleasure it would have been to excavate this site. Then I realised what I was thinking and stopped being such a fucking nerd.

Frida is thinking: 'It's a fucking Roman road! A road the fucking Romans walked on! All of them! All of the fucking citizens of the Roman Fucking Empire walked on this fucking road!! What the Fuck?!'

After a quick look at a Piazza built by Mussolini after he pulled down a load of crappy Medieval buildings and a Fascist Building we left the delights of Trento Behind.

Awwww, look the Friendly Fascist is waving at us! They can't be all bad...

The following day Frida and I headed out to Largo Di Ledro, a large tourist lake which seemed to be populated by Dutch tourists trying in vain to pay for free parking. On the side of the lake there was some rather nice Palafitte Buildings dating back to the some monkey-rock-bashing-prehistoric period or other. The reproductions weren't really up to scratch but to see the original timbers still in the water was pretty sweet.

That's right Bitch! That's some motherfucking prehistoric timbers right there!

We climbed the roads of Monte San Martino in the family's other tank, the Fiat Uno of Doom. Climbing hills in Northern Italy with a crapped out Fiat Uno with a blowing exhaust is no joke. It was a similar experience to what wrestling a bear must be like, but with more wheels. The gear box was fucked and the stick needed kicking into place. With turns that required many gear changes this was a difficult task, only confounded by the mind melting heat. Finally we made it some Roman ruins that Frida wanted to see and they made a welcome relief after the trauma of having to get to them. We were standing in front of a mocked up inscription stone and I began reading out the inscription, Frida turned to me and said 'Wow, how did you learn Latin so quick?' I just pointed out the fact I was reading out the translation on the panel next to the stone.

Breaking the Law, Breaking the Law!

We overlooked Lake Garda from the mountain, I was not allowed to get closer as Frida said it 'only a lake full of Germans.' In lieu of seeing where a James Bond (pronounced by Frida and Cinzia as 'Zero Zero Seven'...) stuntman had crashed, we called in on a smaller lake, who's name I forget, but which was still packed with Germans. We finished the day off with a visit to another Prehistoric palafitte site, which was no where near as touristy as the previous one.

The palafitte remains were not as impressive as this evening sky, so enjoy this instead...

On the way back we pulled into the square outside Frida's house where her neighbours were sitting enjoying the evening sun. As we did I kicked the accelerator several times, giving out the loudest revs ever from the fucked exhaust and rattling all the nearby windows. Frida just slid down below the window in her seat in embarrassment. The evening was spent at Lorena's then Jessica's place where we got to play with some of Emanuele's WW1 collection...

Hände hoch!!

Austrian Stormtroopers come in all shapes and sizes...

Then after all the crappy archaeology we finally got to the good stuff. My final day in Italy was spent in the kingdom of Nerd at the Museo Grande Guerra in Spiazzo. Alessandro, Emanuele's brother got hold of the keys for us to get in because the museum had some weird opening hours. They generally seemed to be when the rest of the world was asleep. After checking out the main exhibitions, Alessandro opened the Aladdin's cave that was the upstairs store rooms. OH MY FUCKING GOD!! The beauty held within those rooms. The place was packed to the rafters with War goodies. I have never seen so many Great War Austrian helmets in one place. We spent what seemed like hours going through the collection, even Jessica joined in:

Sicilian Mafia Molls, doing daddy proud...

'Wonderful things...'

'I make him an offer he don' refuse'

Soon it was time to leave and then time to leave Italy all together. An early start the next morning, two trains, a wrestle with the crowds at the airport and I was back in Terra Britannia. What made it a brilliant holiday was the warm welcome that Frida's family gave me. It felt like within days I was part of the family and they all went out of their way to make me feel welcome. I am sorry to say I didn't get to say thank you to Frida's parents for their hospitality before I left, so if you're reading this Frida, thank them both for me. Also thanks to Frida, the best tour guide Northern Italy has to offer! I will remember for a long time the unbelievably Italian experience of sitting in a kitchen, eating salami and cheese and listening to opera whilst Rosa whipped up more incredible pizzas. I would like to return, as there are First World War Galleries built into the mountains to explore, but I will have to start my mountain climbing training...