Hmm, what with the south of Thailand getting dodgy, with all the apparently Islamic militants around and twenty four teachers being killed in the crossfire, the education ministry in Bangkok has allowed teachers to carry guns. Well, that will stop the staff asking for a transfer LOL. Hmm, reading the story sounds almost as bad as Nepal - the schools there are either 'taxed' by the Marxists or used as target practise.
Just what India needed - more militants rampaging around Ayodha. Six gunmen were killed in a pitched gun battle with police earlier today. If you remember correctly, back in late 1992 Hindu militants tore down the mosque that had stood on the site that they say is the birthplace of one of the Hindu gods, touching off communal rioting that cost the lives of at least 2000 people. And then the Hindu nationalist politicians who didn't exactly condemn the razing got into power at the next election. Hmmph. I guess when you have a population three times the size of America's, twice the size of the EU and hmm fifty times the size of Australia, you have a lot of issues just simmering under the surface...
More depressing news from Asia - the American special forces group in Afghanistan that the Chinook helicopter was sent to find and was itself subsequently shot down has been three quarters located - two dead, one alive, one still missing. Rumours abound that the Taleban has taken the fourth special ops soldier alive, but is hard to verify. Not that the bulk of US Global War On Terror effort is in Afghanistan any more, but even with Iraq, I just get visions of the way the Soviets left in 1989 (or was it 1990?).
On Triple M just before they were doing a retrospective chart from 1996 - my first extended overseas trip, Singapore, London and Contiki, versions Scandanavia and Russia and usual Euro tourist traps LOL. Anyways, will leave the Moscow drunk thoughts for the moment, and the two songs that were on Triple M that I can associate Moments with are How Bizarre and the Macarena...
Yes, with How Bizarre how sad, I know I know, but that one is remembering from the Royal National Hotel in Soho, where Contiki were based in London, and the bar - watching the rugby, Sean Fitzpatrick had just captained the team to the first 'series win' in South Africa like forever - although we had really won the series the week before, what with the two Tri Nations games not being counted for the purists LOL. And then talking to the European tourist trap trip gang, that I was going to get to know much better over the next three weeks, and then topping that evening off (if I have the right one in mind) by talking to this intriguing New York girl, whom I talked late into the night with, and the offer was there, again if I remember correctly, to head up to her hotel room. Me, being STUPID, said no, I have to get a good night's sleep, and your hotel is all the way across THE STREET and I might miss my bus in the morning... yeah right LOL, I look back on that as one of the silliest decisions of my life thus far - hmm, did I manage to get a phone number at least LOL, I think I may have, now where's that 1996 diary LOL.
The other song, the Macarena - rolls eyes LOL. My most lasting impression of that one is a Stockholm nightclub, and that song being on AFTER the band in the place headbanged to AC/DC's Thunderstruck LOL. Mmm, Acca Dacca :) And then it being err 3am and there being light outside - they are pretty high up in the latitudes, and I was never up at that time of the morning in Canadian summers a few years later LOL. Mmm, the two Canadian girls from Vancouver, and to a lesser extent the Melbourne girl, I was dancing with that night - of course, the getting drunk on the Stockholm Turku ferry and later in Moscow (damned Russian champagne), I lowered my hopes quite a bit LOL.
Secondary thought to the Macarena is of the bar in Hopfgarten in Austria, but to a much lesser red slash across my mind (if you can imagine how one memory leaps out at you much more than the other) than Stockholm. More a winding down, cold, drizzly, stay in the bar in the hostel time, watching Dave on the TV (the movie about Kevin Kline as President), and being petty interested in who was sleeping with whom, than the wow I'm in Stockholm during their Water Festival and migod look at the price of the alcohol, and that Canadian is cute LOL, although hmm at that stage about twelve years older than me :P And Stockholm was three weeks into the trip, Austria was eight weeks in, two weeks from the end...
The thing with red slash across the mind memories is that they kick off thoughts you haven't had in ages - Copenhagen was nice, and what possessed me to wear the black All Blacks jersey in about thirty degree heat LOL.
I could go on and on here about overseas travel, but I will shut up, think about things, be back same bat time same bat channel tomorrow :)
Pauly
Just what India needed - more militants rampaging around Ayodha. Six gunmen were killed in a pitched gun battle with police earlier today. If you remember correctly, back in late 1992 Hindu militants tore down the mosque that had stood on the site that they say is the birthplace of one of the Hindu gods, touching off communal rioting that cost the lives of at least 2000 people. And then the Hindu nationalist politicians who didn't exactly condemn the razing got into power at the next election. Hmmph. I guess when you have a population three times the size of America's, twice the size of the EU and hmm fifty times the size of Australia, you have a lot of issues just simmering under the surface...
More depressing news from Asia - the American special forces group in Afghanistan that the Chinook helicopter was sent to find and was itself subsequently shot down has been three quarters located - two dead, one alive, one still missing. Rumours abound that the Taleban has taken the fourth special ops soldier alive, but is hard to verify. Not that the bulk of US Global War On Terror effort is in Afghanistan any more, but even with Iraq, I just get visions of the way the Soviets left in 1989 (or was it 1990?).
On Triple M just before they were doing a retrospective chart from 1996 - my first extended overseas trip, Singapore, London and Contiki, versions Scandanavia and Russia and usual Euro tourist traps LOL. Anyways, will leave the Moscow drunk thoughts for the moment, and the two songs that were on Triple M that I can associate Moments with are How Bizarre and the Macarena...
Yes, with How Bizarre how sad, I know I know, but that one is remembering from the Royal National Hotel in Soho, where Contiki were based in London, and the bar - watching the rugby, Sean Fitzpatrick had just captained the team to the first 'series win' in South Africa like forever - although we had really won the series the week before, what with the two Tri Nations games not being counted for the purists LOL. And then talking to the European tourist trap trip gang, that I was going to get to know much better over the next three weeks, and then topping that evening off (if I have the right one in mind) by talking to this intriguing New York girl, whom I talked late into the night with, and the offer was there, again if I remember correctly, to head up to her hotel room. Me, being STUPID, said no, I have to get a good night's sleep, and your hotel is all the way across THE STREET and I might miss my bus in the morning... yeah right LOL, I look back on that as one of the silliest decisions of my life thus far - hmm, did I manage to get a phone number at least LOL, I think I may have, now where's that 1996 diary LOL.
The other song, the Macarena - rolls eyes LOL. My most lasting impression of that one is a Stockholm nightclub, and that song being on AFTER the band in the place headbanged to AC/DC's Thunderstruck LOL. Mmm, Acca Dacca :) And then it being err 3am and there being light outside - they are pretty high up in the latitudes, and I was never up at that time of the morning in Canadian summers a few years later LOL. Mmm, the two Canadian girls from Vancouver, and to a lesser extent the Melbourne girl, I was dancing with that night - of course, the getting drunk on the Stockholm Turku ferry and later in Moscow (damned Russian champagne), I lowered my hopes quite a bit LOL.
Secondary thought to the Macarena is of the bar in Hopfgarten in Austria, but to a much lesser red slash across my mind (if you can imagine how one memory leaps out at you much more than the other) than Stockholm. More a winding down, cold, drizzly, stay in the bar in the hostel time, watching Dave on the TV (the movie about Kevin Kline as President), and being petty interested in who was sleeping with whom, than the wow I'm in Stockholm during their Water Festival and migod look at the price of the alcohol, and that Canadian is cute LOL, although hmm at that stage about twelve years older than me :P And Stockholm was three weeks into the trip, Austria was eight weeks in, two weeks from the end...
The thing with red slash across the mind memories is that they kick off thoughts you haven't had in ages - Copenhagen was nice, and what possessed me to wear the black All Blacks jersey in about thirty degree heat LOL.
I could go on and on here about overseas travel, but I will shut up, think about things, be back same bat time same bat channel tomorrow :)
Pauly
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