Destination: England
Anthony Lane in Europe: “What Country, Friends, is This?”
by Michael Yessis | 04.26.06 | 1:19 PM ET
He’s got a pretty good day job as a film critic for The New Yorker, but in the magazine’s current Journeys issue, Anthony Lane focuses his considerable talents on a story about traveling via Europe’s low-cost airlines. As usual, the London-based Lane is hilarious. “[T]he best thing to happen to Great Britain in the past decade is the increasing profusion of ways to get the hell out of the place,” he writes. And so he does, recapping a few of his excursions on the Continent, including a great opening sequence about flying to Vitoria-Gasteiz, a place he’d never heard of and had no idea where it was located. He did know, though, that he could pay for things with euros.
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Yahoo! BuzzBritish Secondary Schools Add Michael Palin’s “Himalaya” to Required Reading List
by Michael Yessis | 03.31.06 | 1:54 PM ET
It’s part of an effort to bring students up to speed on their geography studies, the worst taught subject in British schools, according to the country’s Office for Standards in Education. “You can travel the seas, poles, and deserts and see nothing. To really understand the world you need to get under the skin of people and places. In other words, learn about geography,” said Michael Palin, a member of Monty Python and a well-traveled author, according to a report in the Mirror. “I can’t imagine a more relevant subject. We’d all be lost without it.” In Himalaya, Palin chronicles a six-month trek through India, Pakistan and China.
Which City Has the Worst Drivers?
by Michael Yessis | 03.31.06 | 1:45 AM ET
Is it Buenos Aires? Mexico City? Kuwait City? Rome? Los Angeles? London Times correspondent Chris Ayres devotes his latest So L.A. blog entry to his opinion on the subject. “[T]his week I returned from Buenos Aires, Argentina, a city whose entire population seems to be trying to break the land speed record in a 1984 Renault 9 GLS,” he writes. “And I concluded that the lapses of concentration demonstrated by motorists in Los Angeles is far preferable to the sociopathic stare of the average Porteno cab driver, who considers it his duty to accelerate towards stationary objects (including human beings) at double the speed limit, before averting multiple homicide by stomping on the brakes or swerving violently.” Sounds horrible, but I’m going the other way on this. I’ve seen some dreadful drivers here in Los Angeles. Just tonight, for instance, I was traveling a busy two-lane street when the guy in front of me swerved into the oncoming lane and stopped cold, just to drop off his passengers. No hazards. No signal. No brain.
The Australia Tourism Ad Controversy: ‘Has the World Gone Mad?’
by Michael Yessis | 03.24.06 | 11:04 AM ET
Now that the Canadians have joined the Brits in objecting to Tourism Australia’s “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign, and the U.S.-based American Family Association is poised to make its concerns known, Australians are asking themselves, “Is the ‘bloody hell’ ad campaign a growing embarrassment for Australia? Or is it the greatest marketing ploy of all time?” The comments are flowing on both sides at the Sydney Morning Herald news blog.
The Bloody Good Saga of Tourism Australia’s Latest Advertising Campaign
by Michael Yessis | 03.17.06 | 10:20 AM ET
Tourism Australia recently debuted a new advertising campaign that turns on the slogan, “Where the bloody hell are you?” Very cheeky. Very Australian. And quite offensive to the ears of the members of Britain’s Broadcast Advertising Clearance Center. (With an uptight, bureaucratic name like that, it probably doesn’t take much to offend.) Last week, the group banned the campaign from the country’s televisions because it uses the word “bloody,” which, according to The Age, is the 27th most offensive word to the BACC. That’s behind bollocks (No. 6), bugger (No. 21) and sodding (No. 24).
Wandering “Lonely as a Cloud” in the Lakes District? Watch Your Step.
by Jim Benning | 01.29.06 | 12:51 PM ET
The Whale Has Passed the Houses of Parliament*
by Jim Benning | 01.20.06 | 12:54 PM ET
A possibly ill northern bottle-nosed whale has swum up the River Thames in London, and CNN footage this morning showed people lining the river to see the whale, which recently passed the Houses of Parliament. It’s apparently the first sighting of this kind of whale in the river since records began in 1913. According to the CNN report, rescue efforts are in the works. * Update, Monday, Jan. 23: Sadly, after a rescue attempt over the weekend, the whale died. CNN reports that tests are underway.
Ernest Hemingway Sofas, Frida Kahlo Tequila, Renoir Mineral Water, and Now Lady Chatterley Thongs?
by Jim Benning | 12.16.05 | 12:35 PM ET
Oh yes, and those are just the beginning. There’s also Jane Austen writing paper and the Virginia Woolf Burger bar. The Times of London today offers an amusing overview of the products bearing the names of artists and novels of yore, as well as the controversies that surround them.
British Tabloid Travel Headline of the Day: ‘Santa Claus in Travel Ban’
by Michael Yessis | 12.07.05 | 12:32 PM ET
The Sun reports that Santa Claus lookalike David Powney had his passport application rejected because of his bushy white beard.
“Merci Pour Cette Belle Matinee Du Foot”
by Michael Yessis | 12.07.05 | 1:42 AM ET
As people around the globe come together this month in Japan and Korea for the World Cup, the Boston Globe’s Tom Haines has taken the opportunity to look back at his own soccer-related travels. The beautiful game, he believes, has connected him in a special way with the people and places he’s visited. “Through a traveler’s serendipity, like walking into a London pub to find a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd watching the first England-Scotland match in nine years, or determined planning, like the detailed reading of French league statistics, an outsider can begin to know and even feel the power of the world’s game,” he writes. “Travel, across borders and into the action, provides the ticket.”
Paul Theroux and the “Demon Eel”
by Jim Benning | 12.06.05 | 12:29 AM ET
Our own Frank Bures wasn’t the only one to take issue with some of the erotic writing in Paul Theroux’s latest novel, “Blinding Light.” Theroux’s prose also came up in a recent Los Angeles Times piece about the “Bad Sex in Fiction Awards” held in London last week. Started by the eldest son of Evelyn Waugh, the awards “lampoon dysfunctional literature,” explains Stephen Bayley.
British Cyclist Completes Four-Year, ‘Round-the-World Trip
by Jim Benning | 11.30.05 | 12:35 PM ET
You have to admire Alastair Humphreys’ determination. He left England in 2001, explaining that he was “trundling along towards getting a job” and “just wanted to do something a bit more difficult and challenging.” So off he went on a ‘round-the-world trip by bicycle. He wanted to quit many times as he struggled with loneliness. But the 28-year-old endured, and earlier this month, having passed through Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa, he was in Paris and finally pedaling toward home, where he planned to write a book about the journey.
On the Jane Austen Trail
by Jim Benning | 11.18.05 | 1:14 PM ET
With a movie version of Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” now in theaters, USA Today explores the travel possibilities for fans. UK tourism promoters, not surprisingly, are more than happy to help. Reports the paper: “Tourism folk in Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and the hilly Peak District have come up with a ‘Visit Pride & Prejudice Country’ promotion that features packages including tours of sites from the film and a free map of locations used in the movie and in the critically acclaimed 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries.”
The History of Guidebooks
by Jim Benning | 11.16.05 | 11:24 PM ET
Written Road today pointed to good read in the Sydney Morning Herald about the history of guidebooks. Written by Andrew Bain, a former Lonely Planet editor, the story traces their history back to “Descriptions of Greece,” the oldest surviving guidebook, written in about 160 A.D. for wealthy Romans.
19-Year-Old Martin Halstead Starts His Own Airline
by Michael Yessis | 11.15.05 | 4:55 AM ET
“Baby Branson,” as the British press has dubbed him, sees himself as a James Bond type. Translation: the flight attendants on Alpha One Airlines are hot.