Well after applying for some holidays I have confirmed these travel arrangements:
1. Pampalona, Barcelona, Bilbao (July 7th-14th)
Spain in the height of the European summer! Not sure if I will go overland through France or Fly there yet.
Highlights include Running with the Bulls in Pampalona and my long awaited visit to Barcelona.
2. India with Mathatanma Cote (A Hindu guide and Bombay taxi Driver) (Spetmeber 24th-October 6th)
Well this will be an adventure running through Rahjistan, Marharshma from Dehli to Bombay .
Adventures here might include the remake of the famous Peugeot 206 add, taking unuasual forms of transport including camels, ambasador cars, elephants and Indian sleeper trains.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Ah I think I am starting to miss Sydney
Sydneysiders love to strut their stuff. They head for the newest really good restaurant, cafe or bar, the grooviest new promenade, or the smartest, nearest beach. They love to meet friends to eat, drink and be merry. There's an energy and boldness here that is irrepressible and uplifting. It's urbane, but fresh and curious.
With its wonderful climate and carefree lifestyle, Sydney has inspired some stunning young designers who have taken the multi-layered cultural influences and translated them into fashion.
The Mercedes Australian Fashion Week in Sydney sets the stage and has proved to be a highly successful venture, marketing Australian fashion to the world. Designers such as Collette Dinnigan and Akira Isogawa have become globally acclaimed.
Stroll up and down Oxford Street, Paddington, to see the funkiest designers. For more formal fashion, Double Bay is the place to shop. A trawl through the city arcades and streets - Skygarden, the MLC Centre, Chifley Square, Martin Place, the new Grace Bros fashion floor - should bedazzle the
shopper with alternatives.
Down at Bondi, view the best of Australian surf and beach wear that has blazed new trend trails internationally. If you can't find a 'cossie' (swimming costume) in Campbell Parade, there's something wrong. Don't miss the Mambo store for the ultimate in surf chic.
Sydney is a also an architectural dream. Many homes overlook the water or nestle in the bush, and are cantilevered over cliffs or dug back into the scenery (featuring light and space, layers of texture and looking outwards to the environment). This Australian architectural idiom was pioneered by Sydney architect Glenn Murcutt. It has been translated and adapted by many who have followed him.
With its wonderful climate and carefree lifestyle, Sydney has inspired some stunning young designers who have taken the multi-layered cultural influences and translated them into fashion.
The Mercedes Australian Fashion Week in Sydney sets the stage and has proved to be a highly successful venture, marketing Australian fashion to the world. Designers such as Collette Dinnigan and Akira Isogawa have become globally acclaimed.
Stroll up and down Oxford Street, Paddington, to see the funkiest designers. For more formal fashion, Double Bay is the place to shop. A trawl through the city arcades and streets - Skygarden, the MLC Centre, Chifley Square, Martin Place, the new Grace Bros fashion floor - should bedazzle the
shopper with alternatives.
Down at Bondi, view the best of Australian surf and beach wear that has blazed new trend trails internationally. If you can't find a 'cossie' (swimming costume) in Campbell Parade, there's something wrong. Don't miss the Mambo store for the ultimate in surf chic.
Sydney is a also an architectural dream. Many homes overlook the water or nestle in the bush, and are cantilevered over cliffs or dug back into the scenery (featuring light and space, layers of texture and looking outwards to the environment). This Australian architectural idiom was pioneered by Sydney architect Glenn Murcutt. It has been translated and adapted by many who have followed him.
Ah why did I leave Sydney! It got voted best city in the world yet again :)
Simply the best
Islands, hotels, airlines, cruise ships ... travellers rate their top destinations. By Geoffrey Williams
February 11, 2005
PLENTY is happening on the widening paths of travel. The world is still in love with Sydney; independent travellers from across the globe pick Australia as the next place they would most like to visit; there's a developing taste for strange meals and an around-the-world cruise is the ultimate holiday.
Sunset from Santorini, Greece
The younger generation – that's the 18-to-35 Contiki age bracket – wants a "weird experience" such as witnessing a black magic exorcism in Malawi as part of their travels, while a much older group, now defined as "bloomers", just want to travel and spend their money.
It's also come to pass that emerging travel hot spots are Africa, Alaska, Antarctica, Bhutan, Borneo, Cambodia, Central America, Cuba, Iceland and Mongolia.
Travel food for thought is that cultural culinary delights now available, with some adventure touring, include barbecued lamb skulls, pot-cooked goat innards and balut, which is a raw, developing baby duck still in the egg.
But here, we rate the barbecue as our favourite Australian speciality followed closely by Vegemite – now in a 145g easy-squeeze travel pack – but we're really not keen on damper.
How do I know this? It's because of the plethora of travel industry surveys which the good people at Lonely Planet, STA Travel, AAT Kings, Zuji and a welter of travel magazines and journals all conduct through their websites and then provide the results.
Some of the results are not surprising – as one of the top travel writers in the US, Gary Warner, sounded off after Sydney was again voted best 2004 city in the world by Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure.
His response to his readers: "Sydney, Sydney, Sydney. Yawn, yawn, yawn.
"Come on! Anybody have any creativity out there? OK, the Australian metropolis is drop-dead gorgeous and a great place to visit. The people are friendly, the prices are reasonable and the beaches are among the best in the world.
"But this `best city in the world' title year after year after year in the major travel magazines is getting beyond monotonous. It's irritating. It's sending hordes of tourists Down Under in search of some kind of urban Shangri-la. OK, it is, but that's beside the point. Let's rally 'round Rome. Paris. San Francisco. Shanghai. Anywhere but Sydney." Gary is writing in jest, because he says he is returning as soon as he can.
It was the release this week of Lonely Planet's Travellers' Pulse Survey at www.lonelyplanet.com which shows Australia is still the world favourite.
Almost 20,000 respondents from 167 countries hit the survey site and rate Australia the destination they would most like to visit next.
Then come Chile and Brazil – echoing recent trends towards South American destinations – with New Zealand and India rounding out the top five.
Australia also is tops in favourite destinations that travellers have visited, followed by Italy, Thailand, NZ and France.
While travellers from all over the world want to come here, Australians are itching to head to South America, with Peru as the country Aussies most want to visit, followed by Chile, Italy, Brazil and Canada.
Globally, the Lonely Planet vote shows Europe is the world's favourite region, with a 28 per cent vote just shading Asia at 24, then South/Central America at 16 and Australia/Pacific at 15 per cent. This doesn't leave much support for Great Britain, North America or Scandinavia or Africa, although plenty of individuals are looking at the Dark Continent.
In its worldwide survey of more than 20,000 travellers, STA Travel had 10 of its world divisions – Australia/NZ, Austria, Germany, Japan, Nordic, North America, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland and the United Kingdom team up to tap the feelings of regular world travellers.
A quick snapshot of Australia/NZ shows that 59 per cent of them spend between $1400 and $4520 a year on travel; 45 per cent plan to go to Europe this year; and 18 per cent have woken up next to a total stranger while travelling.
It's Singapore-based ZUJI, the Asia/Pacific's high-profile online travel company, which has found the "cruising wish list".
Interesting in that ZUJI is a joint venture between Travelocity, an international leader in online travel and 15 leading Asia/Pacific airlines – All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Airlines, EVA Airways, Garuda Indonesia, Hong Kong Dragon Airlines, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Qantas Airways, Royal Brunei Airlines, SilkAir, Singapore Airlines and United Airlines.
The survey hits by Australians showed that if money was no object, more than half would circumnavigate the globe on a luxury cruise; far fewer are interested in seeing whales and icebergs on an Antarctic cruise and under 1 per cent want to cross the Atlantic in style on a London-to-New York cruise.
Perhaps the cruising voters were the "bloomers". That's the name British specialist holiday company Journeys of Distinction has given to those people over 60 who have the time, inclination and the money to travel. There are plenty of them in Australia and they are major players in all sections of tourism, from hiking and biking to coach, rail and air travel, and especially cruising.
A survey by the company asked people whether they were boomers – people with grown-up kids seeking adventurous travel holidays, or bloomers – people aged 60 or more who were retired and whose holiday patterns were determined by destination and accommodation.
The survey had 5000 responses, with 89 per cent describing themselves as bloomers and aged over 61. More than one-third take six or more weeks of holiday a year, spending up to $24,200.
Journeys of Distinction says: "The bloomers market is potentially lucrative and the travel industry should be taking it seriously because it is growing in number and spending power."
But its a survey by coach holiday company AAT Kings which is the last word and shows that even Aussies like Sydney best. The ratings for Australia's favourite city resulted: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart, Adelaide and Darwin.
Compiled by Travel Editor Geoffrey Williams from online survey results submitted and AAP.
VOTED NO. 1
Apart from Sydney, here are the tops of the top around the world, and who votes them so.
Best island: Bali – Travel & Leisure magazine.
Best European island: Mykonos and the Cyclades, Greece – Conde Nast Traveler.
Best destination: Norway's fjords – National Geographic Traveller.
Best hotel in Europe: Four Seasons Milan, Italy – Conde Naste Traveler
Best US hotel: Peninsula Hotel, Beverly Hills – Travel & Leisure and Harper's Hideaway Report.
Best international hotel: Four Seasons George V, Paris – Harper's Hideaway Report.
Best international airline: Singapore Airlines – Travel & Leisure.
Best value for money cruise line: Carnival.
Best megaship: Queen Mary 2 – Porthole Magazine.
Best large ship cruise line: Crystal Cruises – Travel & Leisure.
Best small-ship cruise line: Silversea Cruises – Conde Nast Traveler.
Islands, hotels, airlines, cruise ships ... travellers rate their top destinations. By Geoffrey Williams
February 11, 2005
PLENTY is happening on the widening paths of travel. The world is still in love with Sydney; independent travellers from across the globe pick Australia as the next place they would most like to visit; there's a developing taste for strange meals and an around-the-world cruise is the ultimate holiday.
Sunset from Santorini, Greece
The younger generation – that's the 18-to-35 Contiki age bracket – wants a "weird experience" such as witnessing a black magic exorcism in Malawi as part of their travels, while a much older group, now defined as "bloomers", just want to travel and spend their money.
It's also come to pass that emerging travel hot spots are Africa, Alaska, Antarctica, Bhutan, Borneo, Cambodia, Central America, Cuba, Iceland and Mongolia.
Travel food for thought is that cultural culinary delights now available, with some adventure touring, include barbecued lamb skulls, pot-cooked goat innards and balut, which is a raw, developing baby duck still in the egg.
But here, we rate the barbecue as our favourite Australian speciality followed closely by Vegemite – now in a 145g easy-squeeze travel pack – but we're really not keen on damper.
How do I know this? It's because of the plethora of travel industry surveys which the good people at Lonely Planet, STA Travel, AAT Kings, Zuji and a welter of travel magazines and journals all conduct through their websites and then provide the results.
Some of the results are not surprising – as one of the top travel writers in the US, Gary Warner, sounded off after Sydney was again voted best 2004 city in the world by Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure.
His response to his readers: "Sydney, Sydney, Sydney. Yawn, yawn, yawn.
"Come on! Anybody have any creativity out there? OK, the Australian metropolis is drop-dead gorgeous and a great place to visit. The people are friendly, the prices are reasonable and the beaches are among the best in the world.
"But this `best city in the world' title year after year after year in the major travel magazines is getting beyond monotonous. It's irritating. It's sending hordes of tourists Down Under in search of some kind of urban Shangri-la. OK, it is, but that's beside the point. Let's rally 'round Rome. Paris. San Francisco. Shanghai. Anywhere but Sydney." Gary is writing in jest, because he says he is returning as soon as he can.
It was the release this week of Lonely Planet's Travellers' Pulse Survey at www.lonelyplanet.com which shows Australia is still the world favourite.
Almost 20,000 respondents from 167 countries hit the survey site and rate Australia the destination they would most like to visit next.
Then come Chile and Brazil – echoing recent trends towards South American destinations – with New Zealand and India rounding out the top five.
Australia also is tops in favourite destinations that travellers have visited, followed by Italy, Thailand, NZ and France.
While travellers from all over the world want to come here, Australians are itching to head to South America, with Peru as the country Aussies most want to visit, followed by Chile, Italy, Brazil and Canada.
Globally, the Lonely Planet vote shows Europe is the world's favourite region, with a 28 per cent vote just shading Asia at 24, then South/Central America at 16 and Australia/Pacific at 15 per cent. This doesn't leave much support for Great Britain, North America or Scandinavia or Africa, although plenty of individuals are looking at the Dark Continent.
In its worldwide survey of more than 20,000 travellers, STA Travel had 10 of its world divisions – Australia/NZ, Austria, Germany, Japan, Nordic, North America, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland and the United Kingdom team up to tap the feelings of regular world travellers.
A quick snapshot of Australia/NZ shows that 59 per cent of them spend between $1400 and $4520 a year on travel; 45 per cent plan to go to Europe this year; and 18 per cent have woken up next to a total stranger while travelling.
It's Singapore-based ZUJI, the Asia/Pacific's high-profile online travel company, which has found the "cruising wish list".
Interesting in that ZUJI is a joint venture between Travelocity, an international leader in online travel and 15 leading Asia/Pacific airlines – All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, China Airlines, EVA Airways, Garuda Indonesia, Hong Kong Dragon Airlines, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Qantas Airways, Royal Brunei Airlines, SilkAir, Singapore Airlines and United Airlines.
The survey hits by Australians showed that if money was no object, more than half would circumnavigate the globe on a luxury cruise; far fewer are interested in seeing whales and icebergs on an Antarctic cruise and under 1 per cent want to cross the Atlantic in style on a London-to-New York cruise.
Perhaps the cruising voters were the "bloomers". That's the name British specialist holiday company Journeys of Distinction has given to those people over 60 who have the time, inclination and the money to travel. There are plenty of them in Australia and they are major players in all sections of tourism, from hiking and biking to coach, rail and air travel, and especially cruising.
A survey by the company asked people whether they were boomers – people with grown-up kids seeking adventurous travel holidays, or bloomers – people aged 60 or more who were retired and whose holiday patterns were determined by destination and accommodation.
The survey had 5000 responses, with 89 per cent describing themselves as bloomers and aged over 61. More than one-third take six or more weeks of holiday a year, spending up to $24,200.
Journeys of Distinction says: "The bloomers market is potentially lucrative and the travel industry should be taking it seriously because it is growing in number and spending power."
But its a survey by coach holiday company AAT Kings which is the last word and shows that even Aussies like Sydney best. The ratings for Australia's favourite city resulted: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart, Adelaide and Darwin.
Compiled by Travel Editor Geoffrey Williams from online survey results submitted and AAP.
VOTED NO. 1
Apart from Sydney, here are the tops of the top around the world, and who votes them so.
Best island: Bali – Travel & Leisure magazine.
Best European island: Mykonos and the Cyclades, Greece – Conde Nast Traveler.
Best destination: Norway's fjords – National Geographic Traveller.
Best hotel in Europe: Four Seasons Milan, Italy – Conde Naste Traveler
Best US hotel: Peninsula Hotel, Beverly Hills – Travel & Leisure and Harper's Hideaway Report.
Best international hotel: Four Seasons George V, Paris – Harper's Hideaway Report.
Best international airline: Singapore Airlines – Travel & Leisure.
Best value for money cruise line: Carnival.
Best megaship: Queen Mary 2 – Porthole Magazine.
Best large ship cruise line: Crystal Cruises – Travel & Leisure.
Best small-ship cruise line: Silversea Cruises – Conde Nast Traveler.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Ticket Inspector
Ticket Inspector
After happening to be in Prague for the weekend with my old pal Ben (who was visiting from Australia) we went to 3 Disco's within 72 hours and slept for only 10 of those. The rest of the time was spent wandering the streets of this beautiful city and admiring it's beautiful dewls.
We were standing on a platform at the metro when Ticket Inspector man sprung us! This dude came out of nowehere! He was undercover and it was 12pm on a saturday!
A short plumpish man with a smug smile on his face walked up to us, he said in a thick czech accent 'Ticket Inspector' and then showed me this cool badge that looked very official. I thought to myself "oh shit..."My ticket ran out 1 hour ago. I proceeded to fumble around in my pocket for my ticket and then I thought, mmmm the ticket is written in both Czech and English, maybee I should pretend that I don't speak english and act dumb and speak only French. Nah, it won't work, I will just try acting liek a dumb foreigner.
He looked at both of our tickets and it was plain obvious we knew that we had done something wrong. So he said, "Passports!", Ben and I reluctantly handed them over. He proceeded to write us out a ticket for 400 K. I had this strange feeling by the way he was pushing what we got for our 400 k. Like, yeah you can ride the metro for 1 whole hour! And the trams as well. It was like he was trying to sell it to us. Afterwoods, I thought it would be a great idea if I got a photo with him, (This would be great, I have done this before with some unknown security personel in China after they caught me trespassing....)
After happening to be in Prague for the weekend with my old pal Ben (who was visiting from Australia) we went to 3 Disco's within 72 hours and slept for only 10 of those. The rest of the time was spent wandering the streets of this beautiful city and admiring it's beautiful dewls.
We were standing on a platform at the metro when Ticket Inspector man sprung us! This dude came out of nowehere! He was undercover and it was 12pm on a saturday!
A short plumpish man with a smug smile on his face walked up to us, he said in a thick czech accent 'Ticket Inspector' and then showed me this cool badge that looked very official. I thought to myself "oh shit..."My ticket ran out 1 hour ago. I proceeded to fumble around in my pocket for my ticket and then I thought, mmmm the ticket is written in both Czech and English, maybee I should pretend that I don't speak english and act dumb and speak only French. Nah, it won't work, I will just try acting liek a dumb foreigner.
He looked at both of our tickets and it was plain obvious we knew that we had done something wrong. So he said, "Passports!", Ben and I reluctantly handed them over. He proceeded to write us out a ticket for 400 K. I had this strange feeling by the way he was pushing what we got for our 400 k. Like, yeah you can ride the metro for 1 whole hour! And the trams as well. It was like he was trying to sell it to us. Afterwoods, I thought it would be a great idea if I got a photo with him, (This would be great, I have done this before with some unknown security personel in China after they caught me trespassing....)
Friday, February 11, 2005
A list of Funnies
Disco Man- A cool dude from Prague who is eternally searching for a disco
“I am Disco Man” is what he told me.
Four Foot Tall, Jolly, hyperactive, like a child.
Hamster Man- The funny man from China who does not speak English, for some reason he was travelling around Europe with his pet hamster and one night it escaped from the cardboard box he was keeping it in, in the hostel room. I woke up and a hamster was running around the room terrorising people. Eventually the next day he recaptured it four stories below.
Laundry Man- A Japanese fellow who lives inside his bunk bed with a laundry.
Fat Blackout Man- We went to rent an apartment from him and he wanted two months commission. “Yeah it’s normal” he said, then suddenly his computer blew up in his office and caused a blackout and we ran out…
“You know” Man- From Berlin, this guy could talk under wet cement! Each sentence had at least 5 of the phrase “You know”, he spoke really fast, hyperactive and had been to 15o countries, apparently had discovered god in Israel on a mountain top and been shot at several times in west Africa. Quite an entertaining fellow!
“I am Disco Man” is what he told me.
Four Foot Tall, Jolly, hyperactive, like a child.
Hamster Man- The funny man from China who does not speak English, for some reason he was travelling around Europe with his pet hamster and one night it escaped from the cardboard box he was keeping it in, in the hostel room. I woke up and a hamster was running around the room terrorising people. Eventually the next day he recaptured it four stories below.
Laundry Man- A Japanese fellow who lives inside his bunk bed with a laundry.
Fat Blackout Man- We went to rent an apartment from him and he wanted two months commission. “Yeah it’s normal” he said, then suddenly his computer blew up in his office and caused a blackout and we ran out…
“You know” Man- From Berlin, this guy could talk under wet cement! Each sentence had at least 5 of the phrase “You know”, he spoke really fast, hyperactive and had been to 15o countries, apparently had discovered god in Israel on a mountain top and been shot at several times in west Africa. Quite an entertaining fellow!
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
What is the real definition of "Cooool"?
Dust off your dial telephone and move to the suburbs - everything old and daggy is cool again.
Eytan Messiah, 22, has been a poet for four years. With spoken-word shows swelling up in pubs and popping up on youth radio stations such as FBi and 2SER, Messiah's once-fringe hobby has gone from wanky to swanky. His early gigs were attended only by other performers, but this year Messiah was one of six poets to take the stage in Slamming, a spoken-word extravaganza funded by the Riverside Theatre as part of the Sydney Festival. "It's funny how fads enter cultures and help us along a bit," he says. It's not just poetry that's doing a 180. When Huey Lewis sang, "It's hip to be square," in 1986, who would have thought people would take his word for it? Today, things that were traditionally the domain of the dork, dag and nerd have made it to the cutting edge of pop culture. Uncool is the new cool.
Ugh boots and thongs are staples in any Hollywood fashionista's wardrobe. Models knit to pass the time backstage at catwalk shows and funky youngsters go lawn bowling of a Sunday afternoon. Even Australia's bowls representatives are becoming cooler. Five of 11 players on the national men's and women's teams are under 30. And no pseudo-intellectual, artiste or wanker would be seen dead without chunky framed spectacles - just like the ones Colonel Sanders used to wear. Pubs are being "renovated" with worn-out couches like the junk people leave on footpaths for students to pick up. We used to laugh at the geeks who loved electronics like girlfriend substitutes, but now all we talk about is the iPod we have or the iPod we want.
And where fruit was once something we tried to avoid, these days it's so tasty when blended with a weird low-fat yoghurt substance, we'll pay $5 at a juice bar for it. The word "cool" was coined by black jazz musicians in the 1940s and became part of the popular vernacular with the birth of the teenager in the 1950s. From the 1960s, advertisers have used cool to try to get young people to spend money and since the 1990s it has been a "major factor in popular society and consumer culture", says Seamus Byrne, a media and tech journalist writing a PhD at the University of NSW on "How Cool Works". The Cambridge Dictionaries Online define "cool" as "fashionable or attractive", but outside the confines of a dictionary, the meaning of cool is not so clear. Byrne says: "That's the million-dollar question. If you could nail that one down in a nutshell, you'd make a lot of money." In a consumer society that tells us that image is everything but coolness is elusive ("if you're trying to be cool, then you're not," Byrne says), the whole "uncool is cool" phenomenon seems as disorientating as a broken compass. But, according to the experts, the fact that "uncool is the new cool" makes perfect sense. "Cool is defined as being special, out of the ordinary in some way," says Irma Zandl, the president of Zandl Group, a boutique trend research agency in SoHo, New York. Most trends start on the edge of society with "indies" or "creative hipsters", before moving into the mainstream, Zandl says. "Indies value being different and have an aversion to the mainstream," she says. "For example, if hotties like Ashton Kutcher or Paris Hilton are driving sexier fashion trends, indies will go for the chunky glasses look. The 'old man geezer' look is quite popular here [in the US] with young guys." Harry Blatterer, a social researcher at the University of NSW, sees the "uncool is cool" phenomenon as a reaction to the "merchants of cool" - the marketers and advertising executives who try to dictate what young consumers should want and buy. "If that means that they [young people] are engaging in practices that were once defined as uncool, then that's cool," he says. But rebellious consumers are not just cutting cultural products from the past and pasting them into 2005. Annalise Brown, director of the youth marketing agency Spin, says: "I don't think it's necessarily that they're coming back in the same format, it's using elements of the past and putting a different spin on it." "In the '90s and through to now there's certainly [been] a big retro phenomenon," says Byrne, "it's a mark of the noughties that people are finding more and more traditional, conservative entertainment forms and updating them." That's why our ugh boots now come in a range of colours and we go lawn bowling in bare feet while drinking beer. The rise of uncoolness is also due to a more relaxed breed of young consumer: "I think young people are much more open-minded about what counts as cool, so that's a definite shift; they're less worried about what is actually trendy," Blatterer says. The phenomenon is being helped by the nature of today's trend cycles. It's certainly not new that things move in and out of fashion (knickerbockers, anyone?) but the progression from cool to uncool and back again is much quicker today. This means more things are trendier but for shorter periods of time. That speed is due to our "huge appetite for novelty", Zandl says. "There do seem to be more fads than at any time in the past. We have a more fragmented consumer base and increasing media focus on trends and fads." There might be another reason for it - there is a comfort factor involved with uncoolness. Even though modern society is highly fragmented, everyone is affected by the unpredictable nature of the labour market, Blatterer says: "Life for young people is very, very uncertain now. I think it's very much about getting back to a time where everything was much more certain. I think it's a meaning-making exercise [and] about young people trying to find an anchor." So, while Messiah is enjoying the financial benefits of the boom in poetry appreciation, he hasn't given up his "thousand" day jobs just yet. "I'd like to see how long it'll last," he says. "I don't care if it's cool. I remember when it wasn't cool and I was still having just as much fun."
WHAT'S COMING BACK NEXT?
+ Spin Marketing's Annalise Brown says rollerskating and roller discos will soon be back, as will telephones with dials. Slow food that you've prepared from scratch will be cool again. And from a fashion perspective: "I think ultra-conservative will come back, the preppy, nerdy, almost computer-geek look."
+ Irma Zandl, of Zandl Group, predicts that the suburbs, pot-luck dinners and gaming will soon be seriously cool. + Seamus Byrne from UNSW agrees that old '80s table-top arcade games are "definitely on the way back", as are old gadgets that "people have managed to hold onto and not throw away". Nintendo's Game & Watch hand-held console from the '80s is set to be cool once more because it looks similar to the new Nintendo DS (Dual Screen). But keep your old Game Boy in the garage. Byrne says it won't be revived any time soon, as it's "too uncomfortable and unwieldy" compared with newer, smaller products.
Judith Ireland
Eytan Messiah, 22, has been a poet for four years. With spoken-word shows swelling up in pubs and popping up on youth radio stations such as FBi and 2SER, Messiah's once-fringe hobby has gone from wanky to swanky. His early gigs were attended only by other performers, but this year Messiah was one of six poets to take the stage in Slamming, a spoken-word extravaganza funded by the Riverside Theatre as part of the Sydney Festival. "It's funny how fads enter cultures and help us along a bit," he says. It's not just poetry that's doing a 180. When Huey Lewis sang, "It's hip to be square," in 1986, who would have thought people would take his word for it? Today, things that were traditionally the domain of the dork, dag and nerd have made it to the cutting edge of pop culture. Uncool is the new cool.
Ugh boots and thongs are staples in any Hollywood fashionista's wardrobe. Models knit to pass the time backstage at catwalk shows and funky youngsters go lawn bowling of a Sunday afternoon. Even Australia's bowls representatives are becoming cooler. Five of 11 players on the national men's and women's teams are under 30. And no pseudo-intellectual, artiste or wanker would be seen dead without chunky framed spectacles - just like the ones Colonel Sanders used to wear. Pubs are being "renovated" with worn-out couches like the junk people leave on footpaths for students to pick up. We used to laugh at the geeks who loved electronics like girlfriend substitutes, but now all we talk about is the iPod we have or the iPod we want.
And where fruit was once something we tried to avoid, these days it's so tasty when blended with a weird low-fat yoghurt substance, we'll pay $5 at a juice bar for it. The word "cool" was coined by black jazz musicians in the 1940s and became part of the popular vernacular with the birth of the teenager in the 1950s. From the 1960s, advertisers have used cool to try to get young people to spend money and since the 1990s it has been a "major factor in popular society and consumer culture", says Seamus Byrne, a media and tech journalist writing a PhD at the University of NSW on "How Cool Works". The Cambridge Dictionaries Online define "cool" as "fashionable or attractive", but outside the confines of a dictionary, the meaning of cool is not so clear. Byrne says: "That's the million-dollar question. If you could nail that one down in a nutshell, you'd make a lot of money." In a consumer society that tells us that image is everything but coolness is elusive ("if you're trying to be cool, then you're not," Byrne says), the whole "uncool is cool" phenomenon seems as disorientating as a broken compass. But, according to the experts, the fact that "uncool is the new cool" makes perfect sense. "Cool is defined as being special, out of the ordinary in some way," says Irma Zandl, the president of Zandl Group, a boutique trend research agency in SoHo, New York. Most trends start on the edge of society with "indies" or "creative hipsters", before moving into the mainstream, Zandl says. "Indies value being different and have an aversion to the mainstream," she says. "For example, if hotties like Ashton Kutcher or Paris Hilton are driving sexier fashion trends, indies will go for the chunky glasses look. The 'old man geezer' look is quite popular here [in the US] with young guys." Harry Blatterer, a social researcher at the University of NSW, sees the "uncool is cool" phenomenon as a reaction to the "merchants of cool" - the marketers and advertising executives who try to dictate what young consumers should want and buy. "If that means that they [young people] are engaging in practices that were once defined as uncool, then that's cool," he says. But rebellious consumers are not just cutting cultural products from the past and pasting them into 2005. Annalise Brown, director of the youth marketing agency Spin, says: "I don't think it's necessarily that they're coming back in the same format, it's using elements of the past and putting a different spin on it." "In the '90s and through to now there's certainly [been] a big retro phenomenon," says Byrne, "it's a mark of the noughties that people are finding more and more traditional, conservative entertainment forms and updating them." That's why our ugh boots now come in a range of colours and we go lawn bowling in bare feet while drinking beer. The rise of uncoolness is also due to a more relaxed breed of young consumer: "I think young people are much more open-minded about what counts as cool, so that's a definite shift; they're less worried about what is actually trendy," Blatterer says. The phenomenon is being helped by the nature of today's trend cycles. It's certainly not new that things move in and out of fashion (knickerbockers, anyone?) but the progression from cool to uncool and back again is much quicker today. This means more things are trendier but for shorter periods of time. That speed is due to our "huge appetite for novelty", Zandl says. "There do seem to be more fads than at any time in the past. We have a more fragmented consumer base and increasing media focus on trends and fads." There might be another reason for it - there is a comfort factor involved with uncoolness. Even though modern society is highly fragmented, everyone is affected by the unpredictable nature of the labour market, Blatterer says: "Life for young people is very, very uncertain now. I think it's very much about getting back to a time where everything was much more certain. I think it's a meaning-making exercise [and] about young people trying to find an anchor." So, while Messiah is enjoying the financial benefits of the boom in poetry appreciation, he hasn't given up his "thousand" day jobs just yet. "I'd like to see how long it'll last," he says. "I don't care if it's cool. I remember when it wasn't cool and I was still having just as much fun."
WHAT'S COMING BACK NEXT?
+ Spin Marketing's Annalise Brown says rollerskating and roller discos will soon be back, as will telephones with dials. Slow food that you've prepared from scratch will be cool again. And from a fashion perspective: "I think ultra-conservative will come back, the preppy, nerdy, almost computer-geek look."
+ Irma Zandl, of Zandl Group, predicts that the suburbs, pot-luck dinners and gaming will soon be seriously cool. + Seamus Byrne from UNSW agrees that old '80s table-top arcade games are "definitely on the way back", as are old gadgets that "people have managed to hold onto and not throw away". Nintendo's Game & Watch hand-held console from the '80s is set to be cool once more because it looks similar to the new Nintendo DS (Dual Screen). But keep your old Game Boy in the garage. Byrne says it won't be revived any time soon, as it's "too uncomfortable and unwieldy" compared with newer, smaller products.
Judith Ireland
Friday, February 04, 2005
I have found the Dream Backpack!
It's a photovoltaic backpack to charge your devices! Great, only $229 USD!
http://www.voltaicsystems.com/solarpanels.shtml#chargingtimes
http://www.voltaicsystems.com/solarpanels.shtml#chargingtimes
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
FLASHBACK "Khao San Road, Bangkok, Februray 2004"
Episode 1-A walk down Khao San
It's been a year since Khao San, yet the memories of this peculiar place are still vived in the mind.
It's February, it's humid, mild, warm. A nice change after spending the last three months in Wuxi China. I thought I would takea taxi from the Airport down to Khao San Road after being tipped off by a friend.
I got out of the taxi, straight in front of me lay a dirt road with people milling around everywhere, more taxi drivers, Tuk Tuk drivers, hippy's, travellers, wandering salesman, streetside stalls selling everything that a backpacker might need in Thailand from traditional thongs, trendy tee shirts, shoes, CD's, Ninja stars, Hand guns, knives of all sorts and of course, BEER!Wandering along this short strech, I could not happen but notice some of the street vendors were not Thai at all, in fact quite a few of them looked like European travellers who had gone localised Hippyish with Long Dreadlocks and nose rings. "Alternatives", my mother would say in a polite manner. Wow, I thought, this must be an interesting place for these people to stay here that long and live here becoming like weird locals.Further along this dirt road are laid back drinking establishments, Al-fresco drinking under the tropical trees. These establishments seem to be eternally packed out with English tourists wearing no tee shirts and thongs or if they were wearing a tee shirt, it would be a trendy one they bought for 200 Bahrt just around the corner yesterday saying "I love Osama" or something of similar political incorrectlyness...Walking into an internet cafe I sat down to check my email, for god knows what reasons I chose to do this but it seemed like a good idea at the time...maybee it was the external influences of all these English Backpackers around. Above my head was a lazy fan, slowly rotating through the tropical heat, mesmorising in its dance of futility as the heat and humidity rose up all around it and smothered it. The building was of traditional Thai wooden design, multiple floors with wide wooden stair cases as as I sat there checking my yahoo mail, I could not help but over hear a conversation takiking place right next to me....
It's been a year since Khao San, yet the memories of this peculiar place are still vived in the mind.
It's February, it's humid, mild, warm. A nice change after spending the last three months in Wuxi China. I thought I would takea taxi from the Airport down to Khao San Road after being tipped off by a friend.
I got out of the taxi, straight in front of me lay a dirt road with people milling around everywhere, more taxi drivers, Tuk Tuk drivers, hippy's, travellers, wandering salesman, streetside stalls selling everything that a backpacker might need in Thailand from traditional thongs, trendy tee shirts, shoes, CD's, Ninja stars, Hand guns, knives of all sorts and of course, BEER!Wandering along this short strech, I could not happen but notice some of the street vendors were not Thai at all, in fact quite a few of them looked like European travellers who had gone localised Hippyish with Long Dreadlocks and nose rings. "Alternatives", my mother would say in a polite manner. Wow, I thought, this must be an interesting place for these people to stay here that long and live here becoming like weird locals.Further along this dirt road are laid back drinking establishments, Al-fresco drinking under the tropical trees. These establishments seem to be eternally packed out with English tourists wearing no tee shirts and thongs or if they were wearing a tee shirt, it would be a trendy one they bought for 200 Bahrt just around the corner yesterday saying "I love Osama" or something of similar political incorrectlyness...Walking into an internet cafe I sat down to check my email, for god knows what reasons I chose to do this but it seemed like a good idea at the time...maybee it was the external influences of all these English Backpackers around. Above my head was a lazy fan, slowly rotating through the tropical heat, mesmorising in its dance of futility as the heat and humidity rose up all around it and smothered it. The building was of traditional Thai wooden design, multiple floors with wide wooden stair cases as as I sat there checking my yahoo mail, I could not help but over hear a conversation takiking place right next to me....
FLASHBACK "My thoughts after 3 months in China"
Until next time. Goodbye China. I will be back many many times on many more adventures and business.On the train ride home, for some reason after learning the language a little, I noticed that people are very accommodating of others when they have to be. I fell into a dreamy like sleep in contorted position centimeters away from a middle aged relative looking after his little 4ish year old. We both moved so that the 4ish year old could stretch out. Children should be treasured and happy. I couldn’t communicate effectively with him however we knew the common goal was to sleep as comfortably as possible while accommodating the little one. Every moment I feel welcomed here, but at this precise moment I felt like I was a part of the culture for a moment, on this train that was powering through the cold winter winds and mists.China is powering through the winter mists into its own light at tremendous pace…but where is this train going? Experience it if you get a chance. And if you want someone to hold your bag, I will really endeavor to find time and resources for a moment just for the adventure…
Luke's New List of Holiday Possibilities in 2005
Well due to the outstanding response for my List of Holiday Possibilities this year I have chosen!
1. Running With the Bulls in Pampalona (July 7-14th)
This is the classic, you have not lived yet if you have not done this. In my family this has a history, with my Aunt being the first ever women to run with the Bulls back in 1968...After asking her, she suggested I have to do it before they ban it.
So this is an invitation to anyone who wants to join in the great fun and have a life changing exhilarating experience with me and run with the Bulls in Pampalona Spain.
2. Adventure through India (Two unforgettable weeks in October with my old Pal Manish)
This one is still being planned in the works, however my good Hindu friend, MANISH and I are going to take a tour from Delhi to Bombay trying to be as sacreligous as possible and getting into generalised mischeif. So if you want to join the party, send an email to lfloorwalker@yahoo.com
By the way, you can still vote for other far out holiday possibilities (being the seasoned Floorwalker I am, nothing is out of the ordinary, nothing is too far out!), I am still open to crazy ideas. Any good ones I will seriously have a look at, and if you still want me to do some of the other possibilties i mentioned back in december then give them a vote on my chatterbox!
1. Running With the Bulls in Pampalona (July 7-14th)
This is the classic, you have not lived yet if you have not done this. In my family this has a history, with my Aunt being the first ever women to run with the Bulls back in 1968...After asking her, she suggested I have to do it before they ban it.
So this is an invitation to anyone who wants to join in the great fun and have a life changing exhilarating experience with me and run with the Bulls in Pampalona Spain.
2. Adventure through India (Two unforgettable weeks in October with my old Pal Manish)
This one is still being planned in the works, however my good Hindu friend, MANISH and I are going to take a tour from Delhi to Bombay trying to be as sacreligous as possible and getting into generalised mischeif. So if you want to join the party, send an email to lfloorwalker@yahoo.com
By the way, you can still vote for other far out holiday possibilities (being the seasoned Floorwalker I am, nothing is out of the ordinary, nothing is too far out!), I am still open to crazy ideas. Any good ones I will seriously have a look at, and if you still want me to do some of the other possibilties i mentioned back in december then give them a vote on my chatterbox!
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