Tales from Peru

Well, here we are in Bolivia having spent a week or so in Peru. The highlight of course has to be Machu Picchu, shown in this photo, which was taken from the "Hut of the Caretaker of the Funerary Rock". Quite why a rock needs a caretaker is beyond me, especially when the rock weighs about 3 tonnes. Perhaps they needed to create a post to keep some jobsworth busy:

"Oh mighty ruler Kamasawa, please tell me what is my role?"
"Ombogo, you have served me well, and I shall award you the role of high priest"
"And what of I might Kamasawa?"
"Loyal Umbuli, you shall join my palace of the Royal Guards with Isashi and Ombozok. Pray, go stand over there with them...no, not there...yes, that´s it"
"Boss, lookout! Here comes Bognot!"
"Bugger! What role can I give him?? Remember last time when I made him guardian of the Sun Temple and he let those Mexicans brigands in? In took us ages to clean up after that. Shhh, here he comes..."
"Oh mighty Kamasawa, please honour me with the knowledge of my post"
"Ah, Bognot, didn´t see you there. You can, er, you can be the .... Caretaker of the Funerary Rock. Yes, that´s it"
"Say what?"
"The Caretaker of the Funerary Rock. You know - Funerary, like funerals and stuff I guess. A most important role."
"That rock all the way over there? Miles away from everyone else?"
"Yes, that´s the one"
"Fair enough. Oh mighty Kamasawa, i shall guard the Funfairy Rock with my life"
"Good. Run along then Bognot"

Fan mail

Cool, I have fan mail from some Brazilian dude! Only trouble is, I can't track him down now. Not that this is what you do when you have fans. I suppose I should remain cool and aloof. Besides, I can't find him, or her so I guess I've got no choice. Where is the mysterious "Projetores"? What does this name mean? It must symbolise something. It sounds like the Portuguese for "bull fighting project" perhaps, or something cool like that. Ah well, I suppose I do have one bigger fan anyway:

Sorry, couldn't resist.

The Daily Rant

Ok, so perhaps I'm turning into a grumpy old man, but how come every call centre you ever call is always experiencing 'higher than normal call volumes'? How can they be 'higher than normal' if the norm is for them to be 'higher than normal'?

Can't they just be honest and say 'we're experiencing the same call volumes as usual but we'd rather keep our customers waiting for 10 minutes than employ some extra staff'???

Pill*cks

Nappy Yew Hear!

... as the card from the DNA wished me (National Dyslexic Association). I can write that 'cos I'm a bit dyslexic so it's ok. Look carefully at my carefully written prose and you'll see some spelling mistakes that evidence this incontrovertibly. Just to be sure I cause no offence I'll make a joke at my expense - what do you call a scouser in a suit? Guilty. Harharhar.

Anyway 'appy new year me hearties! It's snowed here and I'm still feeling fetsive and full of good cheer.

(By the way, for those of you that aren't familiar with the fetsive feeling, it's similar to the festive feeling but not quite as good - kind of festive but still a little pensive at the same time.)

You know, it's funny how people make all these life-changing promises for their new year resolutions, when all of us have the power to wake up and change things for the better every single day. I watched "Bruce Almighty" last night and was disproportionally moved by it. And it wasn't just at the thought that God might look like Morgan Freeman. Someone said that God is all aorund us. Someone else said that God is inside all of us (though I'm not aure I'm 100% comfortable with the idea of Morgan Freeman being inside of me). Others don't believe in God. I say that God is what you want him/her/it to be. Me, I like to think of God as the best part of human nature - the act of doing selfless deeds to make others happy and the little warm feeling you get inside after you've done them. Call it love if you want. Oh, and by the way I don't want to get into some philosophical debate about whether a truly selfless deed actually exists - I recognise the fact that the "warm feeling you get" could be construed by a pinickity philosopher as a selfish motivation for doing the deed in the first place. But let's not go there. What I'm trying to say is that, to me, religion at the very least serves a purpose of providing a moral framework that encourages people to be nice to each other, and that the spirit of mankind inside all of us is an infinite, beautiful and loving thing. And if that doesn't sound like God then nothing else does to me.

Anyway, that's my New Year's Message. Let's all try and do things every day to make lives better for those around us, and the world will be a better place.

(Oh, ok I admit it - it's an old photo from January 2007. Look, when I said it's snowed here I never specified when did I? Gah, I feel like I've morally extinguished all of my philosophical rantings above now by posting a misleading photo. By the way, the snowman looks like he's ignoring me in the photo - he was just giving me the cold shoulder)

Aal Aabout Aalesund

The next day, wandering round Aalesund, we kept seeing blokes who looked just like a young version of Gareth Hale, and we couldn't help but wonder exactly how many sons the chap we had met in the bar the night before actually had. Either that, or he was just a really fashionable guy who everyone in Aalesund tried to mimic.

Aalesund really is the most beautiful place, nestling in between icy deep fjords and towering snow-capped mountains. It was burnt down at the start of the 20th century (by accident,of course), leaving the townsfolk in the freezing weather with, well,er, only a huge fire to keep them warm. At the time, there was a huge depression in Norway's building industry and so all the builders piled into Aalesund. The art deco style was selected as the style in which to rebuild the whole town, resulting in the beautiful architecture we see there today. This story sounds really far-fetched now I think about it, but it made a lot of sense in the Aalesund museum.

What a comedian

....That was an exciting lead in, wasn't it? Blimey!

Sunday night we explored Alesund's local bars and, turning from the more well-to-do tourist traps of the high street, took a detour down a side street to the less-immediately-inviting but much more authentic looking "Darts and Billiards Bar".

"Yes" I thought, walking in to loud heavy metal music as several tough bearded locals turned to stare at us "This certainly has a certain je ne sais quoi". Darts stopped mid-air. Even though we were in Norway, I fully expected one of the Beardies to turn and say, in a thick West Country accent, "ere be strangers, not from these parts". But they grunted and went back to their beer.

It was a friendly enough place though; and the heavy metal music, it turned out, was part of a pleasant medley on the pub jukebox, and not part of "How to Intimdate Strangers Volume V" selected specicially by the pub landlord for "strangers in these ere parts".

Soon enough one local came over to talk to us. He looked a bit like one half of Hale and Pace. Gareth Hale, I think, not Norman Pace. I suppose Gareth Hale would be more than one half of Hale and Pace, strictly speaking, if you were doing it by body weight. Anyway, this chap didn't try and sell us any Clorets, so we safely assumed that he was not Gareth Hale.

Norway José

Just got to Norway and it's frikkin' expensive. Cold and expensive. Em and I jumped in a taxi and I then spent the next 20 minutes gazing in horror at the meter and hoping that I'd somehow got my maths wrong with the exchange rate. But, try as I might, working and reworking the complex maths time and again, I still couldn't get away from the fact that 470 Norweigian Kroner equalled 47 pounds sterling.

Gritting my teeth from more than just the sub-zero temperature, I handed over the cash to the driver and then staggered (well, walked really, but staggered sounds more macho somehow, like a tired cowboy struggling home after a hard day on the ranch or something) into the hotel. But Thor, cruel Norse God of Fate, as well as being God of Thunder (aside - Thor was more famous for this latter role, but shared the role of God of Fate with Loki, the Trickster. Thor found time to fit this in after dropping the role of God of Needlework, fearing it didn't fit his image, and besides, thought Thor, being God of Thunder sounds much cooler) - anyway, I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, Thor, cruel God of Fate, had another surprise in store for me - our hotel room had no curtains and overlooked the local pub, from which a live band was blaring their greatest hits at 200 decibels at 2 in the morning. "Curse you Thor!" I thought as I popped my ear plugs in and settled down for a hard night's sleep.

What could be in store for me tomorrow? .......

On the way home

On the way home tomorrow, here's my transport. Not really, obolob, that would be daft. Cows can't fly.

It's been a crazy month, and a great experience all round. I've made some friends out here, learnt a lot from Keystone, and learnt some new things about myself.

Looking forward to seeing my wife, friends and family and catching up with good old Blighty.

To all the guys at Keystone - thanks for making me feel so welcome, for all you've done. I hope to be back one day with Emma, and of course if you are ever in the UK then let us know and we'll return the hospitality!