whitebait

Small pleasures

Whitebait salutes the small pleasures of Little Britain. This time in the form of the people's sensible choices re urban vehicles to get them around the city. The vast majority of cars here are small, sleek and European. Nowhere near the number of oversized 4WDs (SUVs) that make the streets of Australia such a nightmare (in terms of the safety of bloggeurs and the ecological footprints of same vehicles).

Damn it is cold here. Whitebait woke to snow yesterday morning. Then is was off to the Cheddar Gorge in Somerset (not made entirely of cheese as expected) for a spot of rambling around the hills and farmland. Freezing but beautiful. The town at the base of the cheddar gorge is, err, a bit cheesy but had many unique pieces of kitsch and some nice cider and cheese. Most interesting material to be found was about the existence of Cheddar Man. (Whoops, time is up - the library has no mercy).

No sleep till Portishead

Whitebait is on the move again so posts could once again become slightly erratic. This time he is walking the streets of Bristol, UK. And what an excellent city it is. Not too large (about 400,000+) and home to lots of excellent architecture and industrial stuff like the Clifton Suspension bridge. Also home to a wonderful public library that allows free internet access - respeck to the people of Little Britain! In fact, Whitebait has noticed that his travelling priorities are showing significant degrees of technology dependency. First mission upon arrival was to secure a new, pre-paid sim card for his mobile telephone whereas the second was to connect back to the internet. Being on planes high, high in the sky is not a worry. Contrary to popular myth, it is not timezones nor air-conditioning systems that turn the traveller's body into a wobbly, confused and dehydrated mess. Rather, disconnection from email and the internet will harm you and is an awful trial to put your body and mind through. Speaking of the trials Whitebait must endure to bring you his comparative city reports ... one word, Kimmy: Quaint-ass. Yes, the national air carrier of Australia is also perhaps the nations worst disgrace and the mere mention of its name will bring out Whitebait in a paroxysm of crankiness. Fly another airline you say; but such is the monopolistic nature of the industry that this is often more difficult than you would think. Even this time, when Whitebait thought he had gotten round the problem by flying the otherwise delightful JAL (Japan Airlines), one of those codeshare routines ruined the leg between Melbourne and Tokyo. Every flight to a new urban wonderland is tempered by just one malformed sentence that Quaint-ass begin their safety drill with: 'Subtly, every aircraft is different'. I don't think so you adverb abusers.