Coming to you from deep in the bowels of Dublin
Come back every Monday for the news according to Good Bastards
Monday the 24th of December No. 12
Thought for the week
If experience is anything, it is everything
100 thousand apologies
Sorry I never got back last week, that bloody Peter Teen ran Pam, Tanya and I ragged showing us the sights of London. Between eating, sleeping, drinking and sight seeing there just was no time for anything else.
Where were we....... France
We were staying at this 300-year-old Hotel across the road from the Notre Dam Cathedral. It is called The Esmeralda Hotel.
Went over to the old Cathedral for a bit of a look, that was where Quasemoto hung out. He had the job there as a bell ringer you know.
Went up to the bell ringing tower and there was no sign of him, but you could see where he had used his head to ring the bell.
Leo's House
We decided to go out to a place called Amboise about 2 hours from Paris on the train. It was a good job we had Tanya with us, as we would never have got there with all the bloody spelling up the shit.
Anyway Amboise has this great castle there that was the home of King Francis the first who we will call Frank 1.
It is also the home of Leonardo de Vinci. It turned out that Frank 1 and Leo were great mates and the old Franko gave Leo this beautiful house on about 20 acres of land not far from the castle.
They had this secret tunnel that went from Leos house over to Franks place as Frank use to like talking to Leo. I'm not about to say there was anything more in it than that as Leo was such a brilliant bastard. (There is hope for bloody Leo, our good mate from Hokitika, yet)
Leo not only was a great painter, he was also a great ideas man and made all these drawings about 600 years ago of stuff we have only got around to inventing in the last century.
He designed the first helicopter, the first parachute, the first aeroplane, the first tank, car jack, double skinned ship hulls, pumps and a whole host of other stuff.
The blokes and Shelia's from IBM have taken those drawings and made working models of all these things he designed. They have them all on display at Leos house, fantastic stuff. We spent about three hours there and shot off at least a roll of film.
If you come to France make sure you get to Leos house.
Murray Deaker
While we were in Amboise, Murray Deaker from 1ZB News Talk tracked me down and rang up in the middle of the night and did a bit of an interview on the wireless. I hope it made sense at that time of the morning as we had been out to a pleasant French Restaurant and had some great food and plenty of French Wine.
Cold
We have been having fantastic weather, no rain and quite mild for this time of the year except for France. Would freeze the wheel nuts off a train.
No Passport Stamps in France
Over the years I have been quite proud of collecting Passport stamps that is until we got to France.
The bloody froggys don't stamp your passport. Bit of a piss off really, still I suppose we still have the photos. This pommy bloke at British customs told us that the reason why is that when an undesirable arrives from France, they can't send him back because there is no documentation. Sneaky bastards eh!
London
Peter Teen Esquire met us at the airport and gave us the Cooks tour around London before heading for his place.
It was a bit like driving around a Monopoly board.
Tanya has a mate Bronny in London so she stayed with her. Bronnys and her boyfriend Simon came over to pick her up from Peter and Trisha's place. (Trisha was out meeting another old mate.)
Simon is the manager of one London's Night largest nightclubs called The Spearmint Rhinoceros. It turns over around 300,000 pound a week.
We all had a few beers at Peters, and Simon invited us all be his guest at his club that night.
Trish had a previous engagement jacked up and couldn't come, anyway Pam, Peter, Tanya, Bronny and himself all fronted up and had a fantastic evening.
Fantastic food, fantastic wine and fantastic company. They had girls in the place wall to wall. Eighty of them in fact all with very little on (one only had a piece of dental floss on as a G string, that's what Peter reckoned anyway)
They put on this continuous show around this slippery looking pole one at a time and also a few more doing the Go Go dancing around the room. Great stuff.
They then will do a special dance for you for about 10 bucks or so. One came up and asked Pete, he said why would I want to pay you when we saw you do it for the bloke sitting in front of us. Made good economic sense to me.
After a few hours of this great food and wine it was time to go home, or so some of our group suggested. Anyway we get ready to cut a track, we had caught the tube over and were planning to do the same on the way home.
"No way" says Simon "I have a limo out the front waiting for you."
Sure enough here is this mile long limo out the front the same as the ones in Las Vegas that had the sag in the middle.
What a great night we had had. Between all the beer we had drunk before hand and then the wine etc at the club I, for one, was a bit pissed. Peter had told us he only had a small place, well small or not, when I woke up looking for the loo I got bloody lost in it.
Eventually I found it then got lost finding my way back.
Liz and Phil's House
We went on a Bus tour around London, an even more detailed tour of the Monopoly board. Great value at about £15 a head. You had a commentary for about three hours and you could hop on and off the bus wherever you wanted. It included a boat tour on the Thames and a walking tour around Buck House.
We did the walking tour to see the changing of the guard. What a smart move that was. This little bloke called Ernie trotted us all around and gave us the drum on all the past Kings and Queens.
What a mad pack of shagging bastards they were. Great role models like Michael Jackson and O J Simpson.
He reckoned the best plan was not to hang around the front gate like every other bugger, instead go to Saint James Palace where Charley and the Queen Mother hang out.
That way we were able to march down the mall with the highland pipe band and all the Guards, geez it was a great atmosphere.
Instead of going up to the front gate with the throng, we cut across and joined up with the other guards coming on duty with the brass band. It really was a great experience.
We then into the palace and checked out all the coaches and Rolls Royce's.
The biggest coach was the Coronation Coach; it weighs four tonne and takes 8 horses to pull it.
It is coated in gold and a really ponncy thing if ever I have seen one.
We went to Piccadilly Circus and could find the tent so didn't hang around.
My Fair Lady
Pam and Tanya wanted to take in a show at West End where there seemed to be about a hundred on.
We finally settled on My Fair Lady.
What a great experience, it was sooooooooooo well done.
I took a bit of time checking out all the dudes in the theatre. Now there is an interesting exercise for you.
First there was those ponncy bastards trying to make out they are something they aren't.
Then there was those ponncy bastards who were some bastard in there own right, boring bastards. Heads so far up their own arses they were sticking out their mouths.
Then there was the Good Bastards. Fortunately there were quite a few of us, so if a bit a blue had broken out I think we would have sorted the rest of them.
No such blue eventuated.
Marcus Heveldt
Marcus Heveldt, son of good bastard Kerry Heveldt was kind enough to offer us a car while we were in England. Geez he is a good bastard.
We took him up on his offer and headed up towards Bath and on the way saw this place called Avsbury or some name similar. It is where all these stones are growing out of the paddock about six feet tall. A bit like a set of false teeth from the air I reckon.
Pete Teen reckons they are historically more significant than Stone Hedge and he would know.
We stayed the night in this very good B&B spotlessly clean, warm great food. Not only that it was run by a female version of Basil Fawlty.
She provided much to chuckle about over the next couple of days. I think I might have to write about it.
Worcestershire Sauce
Did you know you couldn't get black sauce here? Well at least not at any of the places we stayed at. While we were chuffing along we noticed a place called Worcester, so I think it would be a good idea to go there and get a bottle of black sauce.
Now it is probably a very nice place, we however got lost couldn't find a shop and couldn't get out of there quick enough still without the sauce.
Spokeshave
We headed over to this place called Stratford on Avon where Shakespeare was born. Great relaxing place, very touristy with loads of atmosphere. Could easily have stayed there a couple of days.
The B&B we stayed at was called the Sunnydale and was excellent. The man of the house was a Royal Chef having cooked for the Queen and in major hotels.
The breakfast was better than any we had ever had and laid out like they had brought in a landscape gardener to do the job.
Lady Di
Pat Condon will be pleased to know we went to Allthorpe where his Lady Di is buried.
Now it took a bit of tracking down; but Tanya did a great job. Even though it has all these signs to get you there, when you eventually arrive, there is no signs to say you have or anything about her.
Took some photos of the house from a distance and the front gate and buggered off.
Dublin
Arrived here on Saturday and we have booked into a guesthouse on Gardiner Street not far from the centre of town.
We went out last night, Saturday, to check out the place and finished up at O'Donnaghues in lower Baggot Street.
When we arrived there, after having had a meal, it was about ten thirty at night, there was six people in the bar. This young chap came up to me and asked if I could take a photo of him and his lady with the band in the background.
Bugger me if they aren't from Sydney. We had a great evening with Jason and Julie who have a dog named Jock back in Oz. The two j's with the two p's
Within half an hour the place was packed, you could not move. Didn't worry us, we were at the best table in the bar enjoying the music and the ambience of it all.
Today we meet up with Friends from Australia, Greg and Heidi who have just welcomed their son Aiden into the world.
Gregg is the Operations manager with MacDonald's for Ireland.
Secret Good Bastards Business
Just prior to posting this we have been having a couple pints of the Guinness with John and Dermott who told us a lot of interesting stuff, including this Secret Good Bastards Business about the "Holy Water"
It is also called Poitin, a moonshine made out of potatoes that if you don't like it and you spit it on the fire it will set your chimney alight and burn your eyebrows off.
They know a bloke who is so mean that he eats his dinner in a draw so he can slam it shut if any one comes and he doesn't have to share.
Seems this bloke is a good source of the Holy Water, so we will be tracking him down with a bit of luck.
Last Word from Paddy
If travel broadens the mind then I should finish up like Einstein by the end of this trip.
Cheers
Paddy and Pam
See you next week
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Last Update 24 December 2001