Week of Chaos pt.4: Wednesday

I’ve clearly spent too long in France. I keep forgetting we’re in Prague and defaulting to thinking about us being in Frenchland. We decided to get up early today and do Breakfast; this didn’t happen, surpisingly. We did get out before noon at least. The plan was to go to Wenceslas Square (which isn’t in any way square) and go from there. Wander wander wander. Some very large buildings around here. One rarely sees the horizon – which I’m used to, living in a city, but Edinburgh has considerably more horizon, being built on more and larger hills and having large chunks of green space to split the place up. Postcards were bought, we passed another thousand or so performances of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusic and kept wandering. Stopped for lunch, which was lovely (although we were served by someone who was practically a child and the restaurant wanted us to PAY to use their toilets! I had no cash so slipped away from a tutting cleaner; Helen was less fortunate...), watched the astrological clock thing in action – while hardcore tourists cheered it on – and then went up to the big museum at the top of Wenceslas not-really-Square before splitting up(!). Helen was told when and where to meet us and she went off shopping while Ollie and I went to look at Liliova, an area we had bypassed yesterday. Nobody takes down posters here. They just keep plastering them on top of each other, which makes for some fascinating advertising strata. They’re best when they start to peel around the edges. There appear to be gas lights in the streets as well – I must check when it’s dark and they are lit...



Mozart is around every corner. Apparently Don Giovanni was premiered here (Ollie posed outside the venue in question, although I think the Nazgul statue in memory of the piece is far more interesting than any Mozart is likely to be). There are also a ton of puppets on sale, Black Light Theatres on every other block and an astonishing number of Absinthe- and tobacco-related shops. They advertise Absinthe not by how strong the alcohol is but by the mindbending effects of the active ingredident. Weird, yet appealing... The buildings are a tour de force of trompe l’oeil. Very often I have to squint at them to decide whether they are excitingly built or just very well painted to look like they are relief stones, rather than flat painted surfaces – which they invariably are. There’s also a water feature around every corner, some as fountains, some as washing/drinking places. The people of Edinburgh complain that the city is undergoing constant roadworks (even pre-Trammage) and that there is scaffolding everywhere. Prague is, in this, a sister city. While the roadworks are fewer – the trams are well-settled, hurrah! – the scope of the building works take some time to sink in. There is scaffolding everywhere! And unlike Edinburgh, the centre of Prague is almost entirely made of good Old buildings, rather than being a hodgepodge of classic architecture, 60s monstrosities and new builds, so I dread to think what they’re doing. Perhaps it’s a lot of cleaning, as the old buildings still have that industrial patina which Edinburgh has mostly lost over the last few decades; many of the most interesting buildings are pretty much black. I’d also love to see the reaction of the moaning Edinburgers who bitch that the roads and pavements are uneven and a danger to pedestrians/cars. The pavements here are generally made of tiny cobbles, about 2” square and often in interesting patterns. They are not, however, even. I often find myself slipping on broken, torn up pavements and car tyres sometimes make particularly dstressed noises as they pass. We made our way back to Wenceslas Square Boulevard and Helen, turning up rather early in our eagerness not to abandon her. Stting outside a coffee shop waiting for Ollie to fetch some cold milky caffeine drinks, I felt an urge to take photos of the cobbles and submitted to said urge. On looking up from my attempts to make small square stones appear interesting, I realised that there was a Local looking between me and the cobbles wth a look of bafflement on his face. Grinning awkwardly I put the camera down, but we seemed to provide considerable entertainment for the remainder of their stay. Naps have been the theme of the week so far. On Monday we all collapsed for hours after little sleep and a long journey; Tuesday I passed out after dinner, followed by Helen and Ollie fell asleep in the bath. Today I skipped my nap, so I will probably collapse about 2300h, while the others romp around all night. Oh well. Tomorrow we are off to meet everyone and head to Susice; we’re a little sad about this as it’s been quite nice having no pressure to meet Mayors, climb mountains, perform etc.

Week of Chaos pt.3: Tuesday

My head is still a little bit muzzy. You know how your muscles feel after a lot of exercise – not necessarily sore, but achey and tired? Well, that’s how my head feels post-flight, with a side helping of slight headache.

We managed to get out of the house a little before noon and went for a wander to the river and investigate the scary statues we had seen last night. Sadly they were far less creepy in daylight, although we managed to confirm my conviction that they were a Political thing – the statues are part of a memorial dedicated to the victims of Communism. After that we meandered towards the Castle, encountering a number of interesting water features (they may have been for handwashing, drinking... there was no way to be sure) on the way and toying with the idea of getting a funny funicular train up to the top of the hill.

There’s an unusual Christian fetishism at work in the city. We found a church dedicated to the Infant Jesus, a statue which was brought here about 350 years ago (I think) and has become like a religious barbie doll, dressed by nuns every morning. The church he lives in features a museum upstairs, filled with outfits which have been sent from aound the globe and lit like a fabric museum. On the stairs there are numerous images of the more garish sets of clothing which the statue has worn, and the church itself has a large shrine to contain him. The colour scheme is a dramatic black and gold (the whole city is covered in gold, it’s remarkable at first but eventually becomes, like the stupendous collection of architectural styles, a bit fatiguing on the Wonder), and there is one very noteworthy thing which made me happy: behind the altar – bedecked in black and gold statuary, etc. – is a large painting. This may sound unremarkable, but if you think about churches you will remember that the centrepiece is usually a giant, brutal crucifix, hanging above the altar where it cannot be missed. Here, there is a small crucifix to the side of the altar, no more than person-high, and otherwise you could almost forget that this is a shrine to a religion which glories in the torture and death of its God. It gave me hope.

The Castle in Prague is conceptually not dissimilar to Edinburgh Castle; both are a strange mishmash of buildings atop a hill, rather than a large fortress. Beyond that there are few similarities. Here there are countless examples of what look like Government buildings, mixed in with a GIANT cathedral which makes St Giles look like a cheap pretender to the title and a bewildering array of structures dating from all over the past few centuries, arranged to a-maze any invaders it would seem.

I’m concerned by the Illuminati’s unquestioned presence here. I first noticed an eye in a pyramid in the church of the Infant Jesus, and after that I spotter them everywhere – on a stained glass window in the cathedral, atop an obelisk in a square, gilded onto the tops of buildings... am I missing something here?

Getting out of the Castle is a challenge in itself; there is no clear route down, ust a lot of paths which might, if you’re lucky, do more than peter out into a dead end or No Entry sign. When we found ourselves somewhere recognisable there was a rousing cheer, even if it was a little weary. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill there was about enough mustered energy between us to get back to the apartment where we ate and napped.

Later in the evening we went for a wander again, nighttime being far easier on the constitution in warm weather. I found the wacky building I had seen on Kevin's photostream but had left the camera behind deliberately, to allow us to see some of the city at a normal pace. Of course this meant that we had to go the same way on Wednesday night so that I could take photos of things I had seen...

We ended up sitting outside a cafe/bar on the west side of the river. Helen had beer (which she drank slowly, like the English and Czechs do; if I could drink the stuff these days I'd have shown them what enjoying beer means...) while Ollie and I had girly soft drinks. Which were far more expensive than the beer, of course. Usually one gets a half litre (equivalent to a pint) of beer for about £1.25 to $1.40, while a 200ml coke will cost more like £2.00. Dammit!

While sitting about, the others had noticed something lying on the pavement a little way off and were discussing what it might be. When a streetcleaning machine came past and sucked the object up they realised it had, in fact, been a dead rat. Lovely. Two in 24 hours.

Week of Chaos pt.2: Monday

We had ordered a taxi for 0530h; everyone was up, and we got into it and to the airport in good time. Coffee and Cornish Pasties were had, money was changed and we made our way to the departure gate, my anxiety levels rising steadily. Post-security I paused to put my earplugs in and purchase some fluids to take onboard. It was at this point that Helen realised we were due to be checking in NOW and so we made a break for it, pausing only to snatch some juice out of a passing vending machine.

Once on the plane, I settled in for a few hours of possible agony. I giggled at the staff when they were demonstrating emergency procedures, particularly the smirk they exchanged when doing the ‘emergency exits are located here, here and here’ section. All drugged up and ready to go, then! I love takeoff, I love landing, I like turbulence and anything that emphasises where you are and makes it feel less like a school bus. Sadly, my head doesn’t share my enthusiasm, though at least on this occasion the discomfort was less; I felt he need to jiggle my legs the whole way, no idea why, and managed to fall into a sleep-like state for a large part of the flight. Extreme ear-popping was the order of the day and I kept wondering if I was going to be singing with a ruptured eardrum. I was very relieved when we landed and I could take the earplugs out – which had started to hurt – and review the surprising lack of structural damage I had suffered.

While sitting bewildered on the bus into town Ollie befriended a local (with a Scottish accent) who was already helping a couple of Canadian girls find their way around. As a result we managed to get off at the right stop and get the connecting underground into the centre. Our new guide left us at Mustek and Ollie took over, stepping into a Tourist Information place where he got directions to our apartment. We set off (to Helen’s cries of “Ooh pipes, I want a pipe!!”), passing a Tesco on the way (Tesco, in this case, being a multi-level department store with the supermarket section hidden in the basement), with me squee-ing over the trams endlessly, yet somehow we found the place we were going – only to be sent on to the actual apartments a few blocks further away.

The apartment was lovely. Recently done up, filled with IKEA goodness and strange cupboards. Major failing? Poorly equipped kitchen. There are only the very basics as far as cutlery and crockery are concerned (literally – most of these things are Tesco Basics branded!), and nothing at all in the cupboards. I would expect at least salt and pepper, perhaps even some tea? Two large bedrooms with an array of windows (one of which is really a living room with a good sofabed and whose window/door thing sports a pigeon and two eggs on a few twigs); a bathroom, featuring a bizarrely raised bath, and a bidet, of course; kitchen, with small balcony lacking a view of anything other than the surrounding buildings and a corner of a hill and the tip of the castle in the distance; person-wide cupboard/room of the kitchen with a window and nothing else; cupboard in hall with window which opens onto the stair; further cupboard with a mattress; and finally the Other Room, which houses the boiler and looks like it should be a room-sized shower: it’s all tiles up and very smooth-edged but completely lacking in a shower. Pity.

On going a-wandering in the evening, a tramp approached Helen and spoke Czech to her. She looked blank and said ”Olliiiieeeee…”. He quickly told the tramp that we didn't speak Czech (Ollie has an unnerving ability to pick up the basics of a language very quickly), which should have defused the situation nicely; however, the tramp paused – looking thoughtful – and promptly started asking in quite comprehensible English for some money. Helen grinned in terror and thrust 20Kr (about 65p) on him before making a break for it. She then spent the rest of the evening hunting for a bathroom to wash the tramp off her hand.

While walking along the river we heard a cry of “Excuse me!” followed by some English chaps – two from Liverpool which amused Ollie muchly – asking us if we knew where "The Club" was. We’re still not sure which Club this might be and weren't a whole lot of help to them...

We paused momentarily, as Ollie and Helen inspected a peculiar object on the ground, wrapped in a tatty drinks cup. After some consideration there was a cry of “Ewwwww,” as they concluded that it was, indeed, a dead rat – rather the worse for it by the look of it!

Scattered across the city are doggie bags. I don’t mean bags to put your leftovers in, but bags for putting your dog’s waste into. They are in handy dispensers with cute pictures, all over the place! That’s surely a better use for the city’s waste-related money than a neverending stream of newly designed waste containers, all of which are in some way horribly flawed (this, btw, is a reference to the biannual relaunch of Edinburgh's litter bins, which unerringly don't do all of what they've been designed to do)?

Week of Chaos pt.1: Sunday

What a long and exhausting day that was! Well, weekend. Friday was a flurry of last-minute shopping for The Trip and then a (failed) attempt to get an early night before The Recording. The early night was somewhat spoiled by a spontaneous outbreak of Poker in Ollie’s living room which left us frazzled and grumpy.

Saturday morning featured myself, Ollie and Helen trying to get to the church on time – pausing briefly for them to make sandwiches for the choir (awwww how thoughtful!).

Many many many hours of recording later, we ‘wrapped’. Helen and Ollie were both quite satisfied with the outcome so we can look forward to the new CD (which I really hope will get called What Are They Doing?, after the Veljo Tormis piece we’ve been singing, Mis teil tehaske?) being filled with a unique and eclectic variety of music, rather than just a fifth disc filled with folk tunes for our public... let's see how they react!

Post-recording we had another fancy dress party, this time hosted by The Siv. I hadn’t had nearly enough time to create an exciting costume so I didn’t even try; I was also a little dazed from all those hours standing around singing with not nearly enough carbs to keep me going. Ollie more than made up for my lack of effort with his Pierrot costume, complete with accordion for that special Tiger Lillies aesthetic. A million (roughly) photos later I stumbled home, having completely forgotten my plan to snatch a few shots of the Moonwalk as it set off. Oh well.

Sunday was destined to be hellish. I had arranged to meet Ben so that I could a)Pick up a book of mine he had and I wanted to take with me and b)Borrow his old laptop. I managed to get into town and met him at the car boot sale in the Greenside Place car park, which was strangely disappointing. I blame eBay, personally: without leaving your seat it is possible to wander around the largest car boot sale imaginable, picking out the things you want without having people randomly shouting at you; it’s also a great lure for the sellers, where they have no pressure to sell in a couple of hours and are likely to get a lot more for their rubbish. So the car boot sale in person lacked something, primarily anything useful or interesting.

We went for coffee in the new café they built onto the side of St Mary’s (the Catholic one) and were generally quite pleased! The coffee was nice, Ben wolfed down his carrot cake and Robert was terribly happy to get a bacon roll for breakfast. Just as well the café wasn’t attached to a synagogue, I suppose. Laptop and book in hand (well, in bag) we set off for some last-last-minute shopping, before I had to dash home and Get Packed!

On reaching Ollie’s house, it transpired that we had a lot of things to do before sleep could be surrendered to. I had been (vainly) hoping that if we were aiming to be at the airport by 0600h then we might get to sleep before 2300h perhaps? But no. Too much, too much to do – not least of which was Helen getting the recording equipment back to the Music Department. I eventually collapsed about 0030, Ollie (I think) an hour or so after that; Helen says she ended up getting about four minutes kip before having to get moving, which explains why she slept so much on the journey...

There's so much to tell that I am going to split it up by days, so tune in later once I've caught up with Monday.

Anxious? ME?

Last time I went somewhere in an aircraft I was subject to horrific head pain which had involuntary tears of pain streaming down my face and the thought "I wish I would just hurry up and die, rather than suffer this," running through my head. The return trip was moderately less cause for suicidal wishes, but I was very well rested, hydrated and stuffed full of co-codamol, tyrozets and Rescue Remedy, with earplugs for good measure. It was still awful.

In the intervening years it transpired that I had some sort of chronic rhinitis, caused by - well nobody has worked it out yet. I know some things that will make it worse but nothing so far has made it better. The swelling makes it difficult for air pressure to reach a painless equilibrium in my head.

I now face, almost ten years later, another flight. I spent yesterday with a thumping headache due to the change in the weather, pressure changes of this sort being the main cause of headaches these days. I have paracetamol, ibuprofen, steroidal nasal spray, non-steroidal nasal spray, rescue remedy, valerian, skullcap, essential oils to clear passages and, of course, earplugs. The prospect is still causing me some distress...

Furthermore, the weather in the Czech Republic is going to be a good ten to fifteen degrees too hot for my liking.

And there is to be a coach trip up a mountain so we can go for a nice walk. I hate coaches rather like some people hate aircraft. And this is on the day of our concert so we'll have to dash back to our respective hosts' houses to wash and get ready after wearing ourselves out.

I now discover that our carrier, jet2, has baggage restrictions considerably lower than standard. This is going to make it very difficult to carry camera, basics and laptop onboard - it must be under 10Kg and not in excess of 46x30x23cm- nevermind trying to fit clothes etc. into a container which will be secure, sturdy enough to be "handled as many as 15 times between check-in and Baggage Reclaim at your destination airport" and still come in at less than 17kg. A total of 27Kg? I've been known to carry more than that on a daily basis!

I dread to think what disasters may arise when it comes to staying hydrated on the flight. And of course they're sure to dislike my passpost photo, which now looks NOTHING LIKE ME.

So yes, I'm getting a little tense. Which is a pity because I really like flying.
Passport
Me now

Nerdery

Three Dr Who-related things of note. Disclaimer: Yes, I like Dr Who, no I don't think the original series was the best thing EVAH, I mostly like some of the books because they can be thoroughly enjoyable. So there.

1. Just encountered an amusing quote from Russell T Davies:

[Those rumours about a new Who series get a definitive statement...] Don't ask me about Dr Who, no comment. Except, of course,the Doctor will be gay, his assistant a rent boy, and K9 a condom machine. Russell T Davies 12/11/99

2. A few years ago, just as Tennant was due to kick off, I discovered that a contemporary author of Dr Who (and Faction Paradox, no less!) novels was coming to the Edinburgh Festival. For no good reason I suggested we meet up for a drink and we did so. It was odd but fun.

3. As we are about to go on holiday to the Czech Republic (see Relative Pitch for more information on this) I feel the need for a good new book - i.e. one I haven't read at least twice before. Last time I was due to leave the country I managed to source a Faction Paradox novel I hadn't yet devoured. This time I had almost given up hope until I convinced someone selling the latest FP on eBay (the only one, I might add, to have ever sold it on eBay) to let me Buy It Now. It was only then that I realised the seller was actually the author.

In summary, it's nice to see that Whovians (this may be an official term by now. Eugh.) are far more of a community than some fan groups. Authors/writers and readers/viewers can encounter each other in far more Real ways than with almost any other TV genre. I respect that, even if I do kinda hate what they've done to the stories since putting them back on the telly.