Recently in Travel Category

Sweet fucking Jesus. A smell has just permeated the carriage.

This smell bears an uncanny resemblance to shit. It is 8:52AM and we arrive at 10:31AM.

It is going to be a long journey.

Congratulations must go out to V-Line trains in Victoria Austalia for having the dirties, shittiest trains I've ever caught.

Yes. They even beat Hull trains. This is an achievement.

I am currently going crazy as we creak and moan our way towards Benella from Melbourne at walking pace. I had more pleasurable major surgery than this.

Please don't ever catch a V-Line train. Not until they take their stock out the back and shoot them and replace them with, I don't know, Hull trains cast offs.

I've mentioned this before, I know I have. I'm going to mention it again because it is the the only aspect of visiting Australia that I despise.

They assume you're a fucking thief.

Now, unsurprisingly, I've devoted some thought to this. It could be a hang over from the great time when all the crooks in England banded together and sent the bread thieves and such like over to a foreign paradise because they were making UK-thievery look bad. There might be some subconscious trust issues happening.

The manifestation of this doesn't take place in the home, far from it. Australia is, in my experience, the one country where you find open doors and smiling people who are genuinely happy to see you.

No. It takes place in the shops.

Stop me if you find the following weird.

When you walk into the shop with a bag. If you explore the shop closely and carefully you'll find a little sign informing you that it is a condition of entry to the store that you'll let them search your bag. This sign is normally found on the back wall, somewhere near the changing rooms, conveniently situated so you have to go through the whole fucking shop until you find it. Then when you leave someone, normally small and weasely accosts you.

A typical shopping interaction goes something like this:

PERSON WALKS TOWARDS THE EXIT OF AN OPEN PLAN SHOP, WHERE ONLY THE MOST MYSTIC OF MYSTIC NINJAS COULD STEAL ANYTHING UNNOTICED.
SECURITY ADOPTS ASPECT OF SMALL MAN SYNDROME AND STANDS IN THE WAY PERSON OBSTRUCTING THEIR PROGRESS.
SECURITY: Can I check you bag?
PERSON: Absolutely, because I am very reasonable and a complete sheep and will not rock the boat, even though I am carrying a lot of bags, and this is very, very inconvenient.
SECURITY: Excellent, I will now stand here and not offer any assistance whatsoever. I might even chuckle as you dislocate your index finger trying to satisfy my little power trip.
PERSON: Ow. Um. Can you help, there is some blood loss taking place.
SECURITY: Sorry, I don't speak English.
PERSON: I feel rather fait.
SECURITY GLANCES IN BAG, DOESN'T NOTICE DISMEMBERED HEAD AND CLASS A DRUGS.
SECURITY: Grunt.
PERSON: I can't feel my arm. I have assumed Grunt means I am free to move on. I will now go to casualty.

As you can see it's not a pleasant experience. I have decided to play with this. This is how a Kristian shopping interaction takes place:

KRISTIAN WALKS TOWARDS THE EXIT OF AN OPEN PLAN SHOP, WHERE ONLY THE MOST MYSTIC OF MYSTIC NINJAS COULD STEAL ANYTHING UNNOTICED.
SECURITY ADOPTS ASPECT OF SMALL MAN SYNDROME AND STANDS IN THE WAY PERSON OBSTRUCTING THEIR PROGRESS.
SECURITY: Can I check you bag?
KRISTIAN: No
SECURITY: Sorry. Can I check your bag?
KRISTIAN: No
SECURITY: I have to check your bag, sir
KRISTIAN WAVES HAND
KRISTIAN: No, you don't.
SECURITY ADOPTS ASPECT OF FAILED BUSINESSMAN TO COMPOUND ASPECT OF SMALL MAN SYNDROME.
SECURITY: Yes, I do. It is a condition...
KRISTIAN INTERRUPTS THE RANT, MOMENTARILY WISHING HE HAD USED THE JEDI MIND TRICK FROM THE SUPERIOR TRILLOGY
KRISTIAN: So I read, at the back of the store. You would have thought that a condtion of ENTRY to the store would have been advertised out the front of the store.
SECURITY PAUSES. KRISTIAN'S SENTANCE WAS TOO LONG.
SECURITY: Open your bag please sir.
KRISTIAN: Tell you what, I know your just doing your job. You open the bag, and I'll have met you half way.
SECURITY LOOKS BLANK.
KRISTIAN: Um. I said OK. If you do the work.
SECURITY LOOKS BLANK.
KRISTAIN WALKS AROUND SECURITY, TOWARDS THE EXIT.

Now I'm going to pause at this point, because I think I should name names. I've had this in every store I've been in here. At first I thought it was me, then I noticed them stopping everyone. I particularly enjoyed an event when secuiryt stopped a tired mother with a pram, and searched the fucking pram, complete with infant in it, and in doing so woke the sleeping baby. This turned out to be much like waking the sleeping tiger.
Anyway, this event isn't fictional, it happened to me after spending AUS$450 at JB Hi-Fi at the central plaza in Sydney. Allow me to continue:

SECURITY PLACES HIS FUCKING HAND AROUND KRISTIAN'S ARM AND SPINS HIM. KRISTIAN'S BLOOD BOILS, HIS FOREARMS START HURTING BECAUSE HE IS SURE THAT WOLVERINE STYLE CLAWS ARE ABOUT TO BURST OUT. AS THIS HAPPENS OLD MAN WITH A CAIN TOTTERS INTO THE STORE. KRISTIAN: I suggest you don't fucking touch me. Ever. SECURITY: I'll have to get my manager. KRISTIAN: I'll have to tell your manager I just spanked $450 in this rat hole. Then I'll have to get my lawyer. SECURITY NOTICES OLD MAN WITH A CAIN TURN AROUND AND GO TO WALK OUT. SECURITY RELEASES KRISTIAN, AND ACCOSTS OLD MAN WITH A CAIN WHO WAS IN THE SHOP FOR 5 FUCKING SECONDS. KRISTIAN LEAVES. HE'S NOT PURCHASING JACK SHIT FROM THAT STORE AGAIN.

There is an important lesson there. I'm no longer spending money in any stores that search your bag, make you put your bag behind a counter (UTOPIA records, I'm looking at you), and generally treat you like a thief. I'll take my impressive London City wage elsewhere. Like the internet.

Magnificent sprawl of bountiful clouds carrying a delicious payload of sweetness-in-water.
Noxious fumes blocking my sweet sun?

Not sure, but it's a nice photo I've taken. However a lesson in the evils of instant photography; you still have to take time to compose, which I almost did, but nearly didn't.

The tree and the building and the whatever else tainting my art shouldn't be there, yet I was with it enough to have the light, the subject, in the middle.

I could edit this, but that'd be cheating.. and I don't like cheaters.

I hope I look this good when I'm older.

I wonder if it annoys you in the afterlife, y'know the not having organs thing? I wonder if it's frustrating, all that lumbering and such that seems to be the obligatory for the mummified undead? I'd like to be the stealth-ninja of the undead. The decomposing Mummy Ninja of whirlwind death.

Perhaps I could be the mutant decomposing Mummy Ninja of death? With extra arms. Wait. No. I'd have a mutation like throwing lightening. The extra arms will just be other mummies that I have killed with my ninja ways. I'll get them stitched on by an assistant, possibly called Igor. Not sure about that yet.

But I would sleep in a glass cabinet because that's trendy and new age, and then everyone could see me and be AFRAID.

So I touch down in the UK. Get a train (the Heathrow express. It's actually quite nice) into London, and wonder down to the tube with my luggage. It's very early, not that many people. A train rumbles into the station. I wearily stumble onto it, and, well.... sit down.

There I am, sat on the tube. Going from Paddington to Aldgate (the wonders of the Circle line!). I'm very comfortable here. The feel and sound of the London Underground are all wonderfully familiar. A strange part of me feels at home. I'm reading a book, which is one of my favorite things to do when I'm alone, and reclining in my seat. I shall be at work soon, and I shall see my friends and be merry and oh what larks I will have.

I turn the page.

The train stops in a tunnel.

I turn a page.

I turn a page.

I turn a page.

The little part of me that felt like it was at home gasps.

Suddenly the walls begin to close in. I swear I can smell the evil sickly smell of sulphur in the air.

The nice looking girl on the seat in front of me me speaks:
"I want to eat your soul"

Rather bloody inconvenient. She smiles at me, all pointy, needly teeth. I... hit her. Hit her with the hefty book I was reading, showing a darn sight more disrespect to the publication that I would like, but needs must. Her head lolls back, bloody spraying the window behind her, bubbling on the glass. The other passengers are looking at us. They all have long nails, pointy teeth; the daemonic horde surges towards me. I really hope the book doesn't get too battered, because it really is rather good.

The lights flicker.

The girl opposite me is, of course, normal and unbeaten... but you knew that. The book is undamaged in my hand. I am tired; however I know this... London wants to kill me.

We are still in the tunnel.

The PA coughs to life. As always you can't actually hear what the driver says, but you can get an impression of what the archaic technology is trying to convey.
There is a signal failure, we'll be terminating at the next stop. Terminated. Is this a warning?

The girl in front smiles at me, and points to my luggage.

"Just got into London?"

"Just got back, yeah."

"Ha. Welcome home."

The train deposits us, moves on. She gets off in front of me. I fancy I can see a little daemonic tail, but you can never be too sure.

Interestingly enough the station we are at is Edgware Road. One of the places that was bombed back in July. I'm on my way to Aldgate, another bomb site...

This place wants me dead. Welcome back Kris. Someone save me soon, for I hate it here, and I think here knows it, and really, really isn't happy about it.

Two episodes of Dalek apocalypse and awesome randoms. This flight is the best one I've ever had.

Only it's going the wrong way.

I miss home already. And I miss people. It's amazing how attached to people you can get, and I'm not nessicarily talking about the sort of attachment that normally gets discussed in the pub on a friday night, I'm talking aboutt

I lied to you all. I went missing to Australia. I'll be here for a little while. London - enjoy the break.