A Turkish Delight

When you fly in from Warsaw, the final approach to Dalaman airport is spectacular, as the plane winds its way down through the surrounding pine clad mountains.  For much of it, even when the plane is low, a few hundred feet above the landscape, there is little sign of life – a network of unpaved tracks cutting through the trees (you can hardly call them roads) linking occasional clusters of abandoned-looking buildings that may or may not be houses in a small village or large farm, but there are no cars or trucks or tractors to be seen.  Only in the last couple of minutes, when you’re down almost to ground level, does that change, as you cross a motorway that when we flew in on a Thursday lunchtime had little traffic, then the town outskirts and warehouses surrounding the airport perimeter, dry looking smallholdings and olive groves, and you touch down at a small and slightly down-at-heel tourist airport.

The Arrivals and Baggage halls were a short walk from our gate, through a surprisingly quick and efficient passport and visa control – a cursory glance at our passports and on-line visas, a stamp on the page and a cheerful “Welcome to Turkey” – none of the chilly and unsettling waiting in line under the suspicious gaze of gun-toting Homeland Security gorillas that welcome you to JFK and Miami and the other US airports, or bumbling inefficiency and interminable queues at Heathrow and Gatwick.  By the time we reached the carousel, the first bags were emerging, barely ten minutes after the aircraft doors opened.  As arrivals go these days, it was a pleasure.

Another 15 minutes and we were on the coach to Fethiye, blinking in the hot sunshine as we waited for the last few passengers and the Itaka travel rep to join us.  Then we were off again, less than an hour after landing.  The drive to the hotel, just over 40km, was spectacular too, passing along a windy and undulating dual carriageway through those same mountains, through tunnels and dusty towns and villages with their gold-roofed mosques and tin roofed sheds and houses, all of which had water supplies in rooftop tanks like oil barrels.  Smaller properties had one tank, apartment blocks (seldom more than three or four floors) had perhaps a dozen, presumably one for each apartment.  Most had solar panels next to them, presumably for heating the water.  It was a far cry from suburban Ursynow.

On the road to Fethiye

 

 

Our hotel, the Jiva Beach Resort, lay at the end of a quite narrow and ill-maintained road, and was worth the trip.  It’s new, no more than three years old I should think (before we left home I found an aerial photo on Google of the resort next door, taken from just offshore, and the land where the Jiva stands was then scrubland with no trace of building work.  The picture dated from 2010).  It’s a clean and well maintained resort-hotel, with a selection of apartments and bungalows spread around the site, some with swim-up pools at their back doors.  The honeymoon suite has a larger deck and pool area, part enclosed for some privacy by thin curtains wafting in the breeze that also hide an outdoor Jacuzzi – very nice too.  We had a 2 bedroom family room, immediately opposite the honeymoon suite, and both had a lovely view west across a narrow road straight to the beach and the warm blue sea of Calis bay, dotted with dozens of little islands and providing the most beautiful sunsets.

Fethiye sunset from the Jiva Beach apartment

 

For entertainment, these is a good sized infinity pool with a generous allowance of sun beds and umbrellas, and behind it a splash pool with a selection of slides and a smaller toddler’s pool, again with sunbeds and umbrellas.  There is a decent pool bar with comfortable chairs, sofas and umbrellas, backed and surrounded by landscaped lawns and shrubs that form the venue for daily exercise sessions and darts matches.  There is also an outside pool table and a table-tennis set up that host tournaments too.  Further along is a small zoo (some ducks, chickens, peacocks and rabbits that seem to have the run of the place, plus a caged parrot), located behind the amphitheatre that caters for a nightly show of some kind, and close to that a building that houses the Kid’s Club.  So there was plenty to keep us occupied.  By the road, overlooking the beach and across from the honeymoon suite, is another larger bar, on stilts in the landscaped natural pool that runs down one side of the site, that stays open until midnight and serves a good selection of beers, cocktails and coffees as you relax in your armchair or sofa.  The pool itself houses getting on for fifty big fish – no idea what sort – and a colony of turtles that all seem to congregate around the bridge that crossed the pool to provide access to one of the apartment blocks (ours, in fact).  The ducks are frequent visitors too.   Finally, there is a big restaurant area, partly an outside terrace, that offered a good and varied daily selection of hot and cold meals, and a sumptuous range of quite delicious sweets – our diets were blown away within a couple of hours of arriving – and, below the main building that houses the reception and restaurant area, there is a spa facility offering a range of massages and treatments.

Our suite

 

The slides.....

 

....and into the main pool

All in all, it’s possibly the best place we’ve stayed at in our various holidays, and our all-in package (so including all flights, transfers, and all the food and local drink we could consume, for a family of four) offered exceptional value.  I’m told there are no travel agents in Britain that offer it, but we met one couple from Manchester so that may not be the case – or they may have booked direct from the resort’s web-site (http://www.jivabeachresort.com/) and travelled independently.  In any case, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

 

 

We were there for a very special day, not merely for a holiday: namely, my eldest son Doug’s wedding.   In the event, the timing was ideal and provided the chance to take a break between finishing one project in Bermuda, and starting a new one, long term, in Amsterdam, and at the same time spend some quality time with my family.  And not just Ania and the kids – my three nippers, all fine grown men now, from England were of course there with their respective partners.  We had been looking forward to the trip for some time (since the invite at the end of last year, in fact) but didn’t book anything in travel terms until August.  Doug had reserved accommodation for us in the same resort as everyone else – by coincidence the one right next door to the Jiva Beach – but finding flights from Warsaw was a nightmare.

We looked at many options, but whether we went through Frankfurt, or Paris, or Amsterdam or Istanbul, there was a minimum 5 hour connection between flights.  We even checked the possibility of flying to Rhodes (served direct by LOT) and then catching the ferry across to Fethiye – it only takes a little over an hour.  It might have been fun, but the return was again a problem, with the flight departing at 6:00 a.m., which would have meant crossing back to Rhodes the night before and staying at the airport for the night – a definite no-no.  The only direct flights from Warsaw were charters, linked to package holidays, which is why we ended up going the all-inclusive route.   In the event, the choice was brilliant, as the all-inclusive cost was only a little more expensive than the direct flights would have been (on any route) which made the value even better.

Of course, going this route mean having to leave the booking until the last minute to get the best price, and opened up the risk of not being able to get anything at all in the resort we needed.  But fortunately, we had met somebody, the friend of a friend, a good 5 or 6 years ago at a weekend canoeing trip, who worked in the travel industry, so Ania enlisted his help.  He came up with the Jiva Beach offer, and we would have taken it on cost grounds alone – but its location right next door (separated only by a narrow road) to Doug’s resort made it perfect.

The wedding made packing a little more complicated and bulky than a holiday would have been, since it included suits and smart shirts and ties and black shoes and beautiful dresses and high-heeled shoes and handbags, but we managed to cram it all into three cases – an impressive piece of work by my Beloved.  We also lugged down three sets of flippers, masks and snorkels for Ania and the kids to use – they alone took up half a suitcase.

The wedding was set for the Monday evening, so we had the whole weekend to enjoy the facilities and top up the suntans to look our best, and enjoy it we did.

 

 

Our room was very comfortable and well equipped (even though the only English language TV channel I could find was BBC World News – of course!) but the kids were quite happy watching Cartoon Network in Turkish.  As it happened we rarely switched the TV on – we would get up about 9, dress in swimming gear, shorts and shirts then head straight for breakfast and the pool.  And there we stayed all day, until about 6, then back for a shower, dress for dinner, after which off to the bar or the Amphitheatre for the evening’s entertainment.  Then bed.  It was terrific.

The kids had a wonderful time.  They both enjoy swimming and have been taking lessons for a while at our local pool (Kuba passed an exam back in July and has a certificate to prove he is a strong swimmer), but Ally up until recently has still needed arm-bands.  All that has now changed: we couldn’t keep them out of the pools (even if we had wanted to) so by the end of it she was doing lengths quite happily, diving in, clambering out, doing it again, turning somersaults under the water – the lot.  It was great so see.  And of course the slides were an absolute must for them.  It all gave Ania and I the perfect opportunity to just relax and enjoy the sun and various pool bar cocktails – which we did, a lot.

The kids also, after a slow shy start, got to know the girls from the entertainment team, and joined in a lot of the activities.  Every lunchtime, around 2, the team would line up at each end of the pool and do a carefully choreographed dance routine, and encouraged people to join in.  By the weekend, Ally and Kuba were up there dancing along with them – and very well too: they had all the moves.  In the evening there was a kid’s disco at the Amphitheatre and of course they were up on stage joining in all the dancing there too.  It was great to watch.  The girls fell in love with the pair of them, and at the end of the stay presented Ally with a signed tee-shirt and Kuba with a picture he had painted of Lightning McQueen from Cars, suitably inscribed – wishing them all the best, how much they had enjoyed their company and looking forward to seeing them next year.  They came to see us off on the coach when we left, and there more hugs and kisses.

On stage with the Girls in the Apmhitheatre

 

All in all, we had a quite brilliant time at the hotel, and would very definitely go there again – maybe for a couple of weeks, and hire a car to do a bit of exploring, and take some of the local excursions too – there are island cruises around the area, sea-fishing and snorkelling trips, and a day trip across to Rhodes amongst many others.

 

 

And what of the main reason for the visit – the wedding? 

It was great.  We were all bussed into the marina, across the bay at the far end of the resort, and boarded a pleasure boat all decked out in ribbons and flowers and so on.  On the top deck, open to the warm evening air, the tables were laid out for the meal, and the bar was below in the lounge.  The front deck was essentially the dancing area, with the music decks on the top with the food facilities.  We sailed out into the bay and cruised around for about an hour before anchoring just off a small island for the ceremony.  The boat was anchored facing west, so that the ceremony and subsequent picture sessions had the perfect backdrop of one of those beautiful sunsets.  It was all in Turkish, of course, conducted by a local official and translator, and went off with barely a hitch and lots of laughter.

I do.......

 

 

....I did!

 

Happy days......

 

 

 

 

 

Kuba and Ally were the only children there, and so were the centre of attention (after the happy couple of course).  They loved it, especially the dancing afterwards – a couple of hours or more of rave music (not at all to my taste, but still….) – where they joined in the whole time to the delight of everyone there.  And of course they were with their big brothers and their partners the whole time, which was lovely to see.  We have some fantastic pictures of them all jumping all over the place, and in Kuba’s case break dancing quite impressively (not sure where he got that from….) so captured some wonderful memories.  We pulled back into the marina around 11:30, and piled into a fleet of cars and buses, then drove at high speed through the town with horns blaring and lights flashing – a Turkish wedding custom.  The destination was a club in town where the party went on all night – we gave it a miss and went back to the hotel.

 

But it was pleasure to see Doug and Helen so happy, and I was immensely proud of all my kids, seeing them all happy and laughing together.  I even managed to get a good photo of us all, the first of me with my five offspring.

A proud moment for this old man.

 

It made the week complete.

Bermuda - The Last Post

I was surprised to see I haven’t written about Bermuda since June, during my first visit here.  As I’m coming to the end of my fourth (and last) trip I guess it’s time to change that.

Part of the reason I’ve been quiet is that I haven’t actually done a lot here, or been to many places to write about.  Most of the time, when I haven’t been working, I’ve been holed up in my hotel.  Two reasons for that.

 

On my first trip back home, in July, I took Ania and the kids to Mieroszyno for their summer holiday. We stayed at our usual little cottage in the forest there, with its big garden and a couple of miles from the beach.  It’s a lovely place, but this year I only stayed a few days as I was scheduled back in Bermuda the following weekend.  The drive up was very good, as the road system in Poland has improved a huge amount over the past couple of years, and there is an entrance to this new highway system five minutes’ drive from the flat in Warsaw.  From there, it was highway all the way to Gdynia, some 435 kilometres (and three and a bit hours) away, and just 40 or so from the cottage.  So a journey that used to take at least six hours, a good bit more if you went through the old Tri Cities road in traffic, takes not much more than 4 now.  So even though we didn’t get away from home until nearly 4 (late as usual), we were there by half eight and before it got really dark, and missed the worst of the afternoon traffic.

 

Our Mieroszyno home

 

So I had a good few days, and the weather was excellent.  The sun was out all the time, not a sign of a shower, and the temperature up in the high 20s.  In fact, throughout my months in Bermuda, apart from the last week at most, it’s been consistently hotter and sunnier at home…..and that is disappointing to say the least.  Anyway, we spent a lot time enjoying the beach and the (still chilly) Baltic and just being together on a family holiday.  Hopefully next year I’ll get more than three days (Ania and the kids stayed three weeks, and some friends visited for most of that time – they had a great trip).

So on the Wednesday afternoon, I was booked on a train from Wladyswawowo, the nearest station (about 5 km away).  It’s my annual trip – I always seem to do it, and this year again the quality and comfort of the train and had improved from last year.  It’s a pleasure, and I had a first class compartment to myself for the first couple of hours, then after that joined by a couple of young ladies and a guy who spent the entire journey on his mobile phone (fortunately the compartment had a power outlet that enabled him to keep the thing charging).

 

On my way home

 

So before we left for the station the kids wanted a little kickabout in the garden.  Love it, so of course I said yes.  Kuba kicked the ball to me, I controlled it with my right foot, planted the foot firmly to kick to Ally with my left – and turned my ankle.  Now I knew exactly what I’d done as I had done exactly the same getting on for twenty years ago, running the line for my eldest son Doug’s football team – torn ankle ligaments.  I felt the pop, and the pain – oooo, that hurts.  Of course, the kids found my writhing on the ground effing and blinding highly amusing.  Ania was less than impressed, but raided the first aid kit and found a bandage to strap it as tightly as possible for the trip home – but it was still about three times normal size and very painful.

I got home ok, by which time Ania had called and booked me in to a see an orthopaedic specialist at the local hospital the next day.  He took one look at it, and sent me along the corridor for x-rays.  They showed up what looked like a couple fractures, so I had to go to another hospital, the other side of town, for a CT scan.  That confirmed the fractures, but showed they were old ones (probably from the first injury years ago), that had healed but left bone scarring.  But yes, the ligament had gone.  So the ankle needed immobilizing.  No plaster cast these days  - with the old injury I was in a knee-length cast for three months - , the recommendation this time was for an ortho-boot that I could strap on tightly to immobilize it but remove to shower and sleep.  So that was Thursday taken care of.  Friday I had to hop (literally) onto metro and tram and bus to various outlets to buy a boot.  My sister-in-law was a great help, and found a place close to where she lives – right across town – that sold them, chose a couple for me to look at and arranged a decent price discount.

So by mid-afternoon I had the thing – black and heavy, well-padded around the ankle and held in place by three Velcro straps.  I also had an elasticated bandage to wrap the ankle inside the boot for extra support.

It made the return journey to Bermuda highly amusing, having to take the thing off at each airport security check point and hop through, but at least I got priority boarding on my flights and a seat by the emergency exit row on the long trans-Atlantic leg that allowed me to loosen the straps and stretch my leg out comfortably.

But it really spoiled the trip, because there was no way I could actually do a lot apart from work, then come back to the hotel, elevate the leg and apply ice-packs for a couple of hours to help the swelling come down and heal the injury.  No beach visits, no pool use at the hotel, no sight-seeing strolls around Hamilton or St.George’s, Docklands or Flatt’s Village or any of the other lovely looking spots on the island.

By the end of that three week trip the ankle was much better, so at the end of July it was back home for another week.  It was good to see everyone, and I spent most of it resting my leg as much as possible because I really didn’t want to have to wear the boot longer than I had to.  And it worked: by the time I headed back here for my final trip I was able to leave the boot at home and make do with two strappings – the elasticated one I had bought initially and a new elasticated ankle sock thing bought in Bermuda.  By the time I put on a sock and a shoe the ankle is, if not immobilised, at least well supported.  So good – I can get out and about a bit, and see stuff, maybe even swim.

Well, no, actually.  Bermuda, remember, has a sub-tropical climate, meaning it’s pretty hot and humid most of the year.  It also means the summer months coincide with the Caribbean hurricane season.  While the island is on the fringe of the danger zone and rarely suffers a direct hit, it means that the weather becomes increasingly unsettled – and, let’s not mince words here, bloody wet. This is good for the island, since rain water, carefully filtered by the white limed roofs, forms the vast bulk of its year-round water supply: the rain that falls at this time of year forms their supply for the rest of it.

And boy, has it rained this year.  Not every day, mind you – most of them, but not all.  And, of course, invariably at weekends.  So instead of hopping on a bus to Clearwater Bay or the ferry to Royal Dockyard, or taking a walk up the road to Admirals Park beach, I’ve spent my weekends essentially sitting in my room watching the lightning and the rain running in torrents down the hotel drive, through windows streaked by the monsoon rains.  It’s been depressing and not helped at all by the crap television here. 

 

Another day in Paradise.....

 

Remember the Springsteen song “57 Channels and there’s nothing on”?  It’s about American television – which is what serves Bermuda.  And, yes, Bruce, you’re right – it IS crap.  BBC World News and CNN International, even for a news junkie like me, don’t provide a balanced viewing experience, I’m afraid.  Throw in BBC America – not bad, but Monday nights devoted entirely to Top Gear (much as I love it), Tuesdays to nature programmes, Wednesdays to Gordon Ramsey, Thursdays to Star Trek and Fridays to a mish-mash of Top Gear and Ramsey and maybe a movie…..enough.  No coverage of Premier League football is a pain, but the kick off times make a 7:30 a.m. start impractical anyway (I do like a lay in Saturdays).  And the adverts!  God, they’re terrible, and the SAME ones every commercial break.  There are ads for bladder catheters (I know they are important and necessary for a lot of unfortunate folk, but not really what I want to see when I’m eating my dinner), for ambulance chasing lawyers offering assistance to people who have had burst trans-vaginal and bladder mesh injuries (whatever the hell they are), for a variety of off-the-shelf tablets for allergies, indigestion and sexual performance difficulties - all of which, no matter the ailment, can “under certain circumstances lead to serious complications, even death”.  “Consult your doctor immediately if you have an erection lasting more than four hours” is my favourite warning…..I should be so lucky!

I can’t wait to get home now.  This is my last weekend, and yesterday the sun came out (a bit – there was still a lot of cloud around and a strong, cool wind), so I finally got my day out.  I caught the ferry from Hamilton to Royal Dockyard.  It takes about 20 minutes, across the Great Sound and past a whole string islands, most of them not much more than lumps of tree-covered rock with perhaps a small automatic lighthouse or navigation beacon on the top.  But it’s a nice ride, especially on the upper deck, outside in the fresh air and sunshine (and it was fresh yesterday, believe me!) and offers a never ending stream of photo opportunities.  I enjoyed it very much, and took a lot of pictures.

 

Nice place to live......

 

Check out the map of Bermuda.  The island chain is in roughly a fish-hook shape.  The Royal Dockyard is at the point of that hook.  It’s where the big American cruise ships from Miami dock.  You can always tell when they’re in town, because Hamilton fills with overweight and loud tourists, who like most Americans of my experience are incapable of holding a conversation unless they shout.  It seemed quiet in Hamilton when I went in yesterday morning, and sure enough there are no cruise ships in this weekend.  So the Royal Docks were very peaceful and near deserted when I got there.  It’s a very picturesque place, lots of old stone buildings, and warehouses converted to shopping malls and gift shops and bars.  There is a small beach, Snorkel Bay, so called because it offers the “best snorkelling on the island”, with a coral reef just off-shore.  There are signs everywhere asking visitors to take care both in and out of the water to avoid damaging the fragile eco-system, and pick up your rubbish (“leave only your footprints in the sand”).  Yesterday there was no need to worry on that score – only one beach bar was open, with only two people (both in workers’ uniforms) using it, even though it was lunch time.  The restaurant was closed, and there were no customers anyway.  Apart from a middle aged American couple picking their way carefully along the concrete block breakwater, I was the only person there.  Not a snorkeler in sight.  I didn’t stay.

 

Snorkel Bay, noon, 30 August.  Busy....

 

I checked out a couple of gift shops in a converted warehouse but nothing caught my attention.  Opposite the door of the second I spotted a pub, The Frog and Onion, so as it was lunchtime I settled in.  I had a quite delicious steak and mushroom pie with steamed vegetables and a pint of the local ale (I thought it disappointing), then a tasty sticky toffee pudding and a latte.  It was a very tasty and enjoyable lunch, and I enjoyed just sitting there reading my book and enjoying the atmosphere and my own company.

 

Outside the Frog & Onion

 

Close by, another converted warehouse held a small mall of gift shops and an Italian restaurant, but most of the shops seemed to be closing and I saw nothing I wanted to buy anyway, so I strolled back to the pier and caught a bus back to Hamilton.  It took an hour, and was a pleasant ride through typical winding and narrow Bermudan roads, with sea views on both sides (often simultaneously) and across a succession of bridges linking the islands.  Small inlets, dotted with moored boats and surrounded by small white roofed cottages, appeared and disappeared every few minutes, small pastel painted churches and chapels, and now and again roadside supermarkets and small malls came and went.  Bermuda is a delightful island and I wish I’d had the opportunity of renting a motor scooter and exploring it more thoroughly.  One day, maybe…..

 

Just.....nice

 

 

The forecast for today (Sunday) was ok: sunshine and showers, which is par for the course right now.  So I figured I would either take the bus out to Clearwater Bay again, close to the airport, where I had my last beach trip way back in June, or maybe take a stroll twenty minutes up the road and check out a lovely looking – and mostly deserted - little bay in the old Admirals Park, on the north coast, looking across to the Royal Docks.  But no: I got up this morning to grey skies and rain.  It cleared for an hour or two, but the rain has come back with a vengeance, and the hotel drive has turned into a stream again.  The best laid plans of mice and men, and all that……  Work tomorrow, and home Friday, so it rather looks as though my Bermuda explorations have come to an end.

It’s a lovely place, as I’ve said, and the people have been unfailingly friendly and welcoming.  I’ve visited some lovely beaches – Elbow Bay Beach remains one of the most beautiful I’ve seen anywhere and Clearwater Bay is not much worse (and has the added attraction of not bordering a hotel complex that seems to move its boundaries in a completely arbitrary manner), but never managed to get to the famous and spectacular pink sand beaches on the south shore.

I found some good restaurants and bars here, and the food and drink was invariably tasty and filling.  I went to Flanagan’s Irish bar most, for the sea-view on the balcony and its excellent Kilkenny beer (its draught Boddingtons was equally delicious).   I never had a bad meal there.  The Hog Penny was also really good.  The local IPA bitter is possibly one of the best beers I’ve drunk anywhere, but the food delicious.  Probably the best meals I’ve eaten this summer on the island were served here, and as well as being delicious offer superb value for money. The Frog and Onion over in Dockyard was great as well, and all three have my highest recommendation.  Even the little Café Four food court in the Mall near the office is great – they do a good mix of hot and cold meals, including some delicious sushi, at good prices, and also a fantastic hot chicken and leek pie that I love.  If I’ve missed anything here it’s been a decent Starbucks coffee.  They don’t have an outlet here, although there are a few places (I haven’t tried them) that carry the famous logo but serve only a small selection of franchised coffee without the comfy old armchairs and relaxing décor that I enjoy so much.  

 

 

All in all, I’ve enjoyed Bermuda.  It’s been a good project and a great location.  I’d like to return under my own steam someday, and take my time to explore it properly.

So what’s next?  Well, home next weekend, then off to Turkey for a short vacation and my son’s wedding – with Ania and the kids.  I’m really looking forward to that, as apart from a couple of flight changes in Istanbul some years back I’ve never visited the country and I will of course write about it in a couple of weeks, when it’s done.  Then a new project in an old location – back to Amsterdam, a place I enjoyed way back in 2000 when I first embarked on This Travelling Life.  It’s long termer, and will cover visits elsewhere, to some more new destinations.  So there will be plenty more to come here, lots more traveller’s tales to waste your time in the months (and hopefully years) ahead.

Happy days.

 

 

Time for a Global Space Agency?

I saw an interesting Update on LinkedIn today.  Yesterday, 20 July, was the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon-landing, the first in history.  The poster suggested that the apparent lack of ambition in terms of space flight nowadays might be countered by the creation of a global space agency.  There were a couple of Likes and a couple of Comments, making the probably valid point that we as a species should be spending more money on cleaning up the mess we have made of our own planet before worrying about going anywhere else.

In the first place, I confess to missing the anniversary completely.  I can remember vividly as a 16 year old kid sitting in the Red Lion pub watching the Saturn rocket blast off from Cape Canaveral.  I remember sitting up all night watching the grainy black and white images broadcast to the world’s TV screens of the landing, and the “giant leap” moment when Armstrong stepped off the ladder to seal his place in history.  I can remember thinking that I would love to go there myself someday…..  I followed the entire mission closely, and that of Apollo 12.  Like the rest of the world, I prayed for the safe return on the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission (so well captured in Ron Howard’s movie).  I marvelled at the entire Shuttle program, and wept for the fatalities aboard the doomed Challenger and Columbia flights.

And I feel saddened by the apparent lack of imagination and intent displayed these days by once pioneering NASA.

I’ve blogged about this before (see the post “Out of this World” from October 2010 if you’re interested).  In the nearly four years since I posted it, not a lot has changed.

  

NASA concentrates on unmanned missions to the outer planets and asteroids and trying to land on comets, and supplying crews to the ISS, and planning, seemingly half-heartedly, for a manned mission to Mars at some ill-defined point in the future.  The Russians continue to provide the only means of getting people to and from the ISS in the absence of a replacement for the Shuttle.  They sometimes suggest they’re planning to go the Moon or to Mars, but it always comes across as even more half-hearted than NASA.  China and India continue to creep slowly forward with their own plans, mainly again in the realm of satellite technology, while both say they hope to go the Moon and/or Mars and establish viable colonies in 50 years or so.  The EU – satellites, and the odd national spending time in the ISS, mainly it seems for publicity.

And that’s about it.   To all intents and purposes, mankind seems indeed to have lost its mojo, at least as far space travel is concerned.  It depresses me now more than it did four years ago.

Now I know the arguments.

I recognise that sending anything into space is hideously expensive.  I know that the parlous state of the world’s overall economy means governments must think very carefully about the most cost effective and beneficial ways of spending what money they have – I have to do that every day as an individual. 

I know that things like climate change, and healthcare, and food provision, and waste disposal, and alternative energies, and a hundred and one other concerns require increasing amounts of funding too.  Governments everywhere face increasingly complex demands for their tax revenues.

I recognise too the arguments about going out into the universe and trashing other planets not being the best advertisement for human civilization (whatever that is – I’ve yet to see a decent definition), and essentially sympathise with them.

But, I’m sorry, I cannot bring myself to agree with them.

Man has always been an explorer.  I’m sure when Columbus set off to find a passage to India, a lot of Portuguese citizens complained about the Royal family wasting so much money financing this Spanish adventurer.  But off he went, got lost and discovered (or at least re-discovered) the Americas, and the rest, as they say, is history.  Britain probably faced similar complaints when it started its Empire building but got around the problem by employing the Armed forces and convict labour.

 

This is what humans do.  It is part of the never ending search for knowledge.  That is what has dragged us, often kicking and screaming, from the plains of pre-historic Africa, to every corner of this old world we inhabit.  That search for knowledge has also brought us from the first flint and bone tools to modern weapons systems (perhaps not the best advertisement for progress, but valid nonetheless).  It’s brought us from cave paintings in blood and sand and water to today’s 3D and wide screen tv’s and cinemas.  From the wheel to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland.

The Wright brothers first took the air in a flimsy wood and fabric glider in 1903.  That entire first flight, from take-off to landing, could have taken place INSIDE the body of a stripped down Boeing 747 freighter – a plane that itself first flew not much more than 60 years after the Wright’s maiden flight.  That’s well within a single lifetime.  Two years after the 747 took to the air, Apollo 11 landed.  That is phenomenal progress.

Look at old pictures of the Mission Control centres in Houston and the Cape.  Row upon row of desks, each with its own computer screen showing a little bit of information, each to be interpreted by its operator, often armed with a pen and paper and slide rule.  There is now more computing power in the average smartphone than ran the Apollo program.  We’ve gone that far, in terms of computer power, in less than 50 years.  The internet has grown from a handful of users, all scientists in a more or less closed environment, to ubiquity in half that time.

The oldest airline is KLM, founded in 1920.  Before it celebrates its centenary, Virgin Galactic, an off-shoot of Virgin Airlines (itself only 30 years old), will carry its first paying passengers into space for an hour’s joyride at a cost of a quarter of a million bucks or so.  It has a waiting list of passengers already.

This progress has all been great, and in many ways has given us all a better life.  But it’s not perfect – nothing ever is.

Not everybody has access to it all for a start.  Huge swathes of the population still live in poverty and have no job or home.  No amount of iPhone computing power is going to help them.  As manufacturing has gone up – and despite factory closures world-wide, businesses continue to start up and flourish -  the demand for raw materials shows no sign of abating.  This leads to increased output of greenhouse gases.  This in turn leads to global warming, as far as many scientists are concerned (although many more would strenuously dispute that).  And what no-one denies, the supply of those raw materials decreases, and once they’re gone there is nothing to replace them with.

The population too continues to grow.  There are in excess of 7billion people on this Earth now.  It’s expected to reach 10billion sometime around July 2060 (source: the fascinating Worldometers website at  http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/).   That’s a lot of people to feed, when the land mass itself isn’t changing size to keep pace with population growth and the amount of arable land is actually decreasing as cities and, worse, desert areas get bigger all the time.   So as well as shortages of raw materials like oil and various ores, we are facing, soon, food shortages too.  Expect poverty levels to go up then.

Scientists are working on of these issues of course, but they faces challenges as big – perhaps bigger – than any that we have faced before.  New energy sources are needed.  Nuclear is good but accidents like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and Fukushima have turned many people, in particular environmentalists and (crucially) vote chasing politicians against it.  Wind power increases in popularity but is still relatively inefficient and those same environmentalists tend to object to the proliferation of wind turbines that spoil sometimes beautiful landscapes.  It takes an awful lot of turbines to match the energy output of even the smallest power station.   Solar power is good and increasingly efficient, but expensive to install and still reliant on the weather: fine in the southern Mediterranean, the Gulf states and similar areas of high sunshine, less acceptable in say northern Europe, or the extreme southern parts of South America and New Zealand, where the climate is cloudier and wetter. 

In food terms, scientists in the Netherlands have grown meat (or something like it) by a sort of cloning process, building a burger cell by cell.  It took a couple of months and cost millions.  Other protein sources such as insects (fried cockroach anybody?) are being seriously discussed as foods of the future.

All of which, in my humble opinion, as a layman with no vested interests (beyond living), suggests that in not too many years’ time, this old Earth will become incapable of sustaining anything remotely like even a modest way of life.  Mankind needs, desperately, more space.  More raw materials.  More energy sources.  More food. 

For this reason alone, it seems to me, there is an imperative to move out into realms beyond this Earth.  This is what people have been doing since time immemorial, moving on to find themselves more space and food and, yes, wealth.   But we have almost exhausted everything there is to find and exploit here. 

So it seems to me we need to rediscover this spirit of exploration, of going somewhere new and dangerous and exciting.  We all know it will cost huge amounts in money and, perhaps, lives – but relatively speaking that has always been the case, and it hasn’t stopped us yet.  It should not stop us now. 

It seems, however, that NASA and its worldwide partners and competitors are lacking that spirit, at least individually.  Perhaps a Global Space Agency is the way forward, a pooling of minds and ideas.  It works at CERN, but that seems to be an exception.  The US, Russia, China, India and the EU seem incapable of sitting down in a room and coming up with any kind of consensus.  They have failed to do so in the face of the on-going Palestinian  and Syrian genocides.  They are failing to do so in the wake of the murderous downing of MH17 over Ukraine.  There are always, but always, competing priorities and cost concerns and vested interests.  Perhaps there always will be, but I hope for the sake of us all, and our grandchildren, that I’m wrong.

A final analogy.  Put yourself in the place of Mr and Mrs Ugggg, the first humans on the plains of Africa when food starts running low in their little valley.  Mr.Ugggg is insisting they should move on and find somewhere else where there is more to eat.  Mrs.Ugggg wants to stay where she is – she’s just cleaned the cave (again), she has skins to cure and the kids are settled and there’s still at least one wild pig to eat…..  But Mr.Ugggg is insistent, so move on they do.   And this turns out to be a good thing,  for their ancestors proceed to populate the entire planet over the next several millennia.

Sadly, it seems to me we are all turning into Mrs.Ugggg, at least as far space exploration is concerned.

What should we do about Putin?

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin used to run the KGB.  This means he has blood on his hands.  Lots of it.  After the destruction of MH17 over Ukraine he has another bucket load to rinse them in.

He can say as much as he likes that it’s Ukraine’s fault because it happened in their airspace.  Watch his body language making that statement: looking down at the desk, his eyes straying all over the place but never looking at the camera.  All classic indicators of bare faced lying.  The man would not know the truth if it kicked him in the crotch.  The statement – no, let’s be clear here: the LIE - ignores the fact that in many respects the Ukrainian government’s hands are tied.   Tied by the massed ranks of the Russian army, tanks, fighter planes and all, lined up just across their border, ready to move.  The forces have been there since Russia illegally annexed Crimea.   The LIE also ignores the fact that Russia is helping the rebels (sometimes I hate that word) by providing arms and assistance and training.

Look at pictures of the rebel militia men.  Despite the fatigues and the Kalashnikovs, they are not soldiers.  For a start, most of them are overweight.  Serving soldiers don’t normally wear ski masks to hide their identity either.  They are, quite simply, poorly educated petty crooks and thugs, the kind of person proliferating throughout eastern Europe.  They usually supply the muscle that helps organised crime flourish, and the oligarchs amass their fortunes.   The majority of them probably do not care about whether they are in Ukrainian or Russian territory, their main concern being who is lining their pockets with the largest amount of hryvnia or roubles.  Given a free rein, the Ukrainian police and armed forces could probably mop them all up in a week or so, with it must be said many casualties on both sides. 

But of course, the Ukrainian government does not have a free hand.  The Russian presence along the border assures that.  And of course, the thugs know it and are happy to strut around, posturing for the BBC and CNN cameras, fire off the odd round and intimidate any outsiders having the gall to enter their territory.  They clearly possess better armaments than the average criminal gang (for that is what they are), and know how to use it – the Ukrainian casualties, including military planes shot down, so far proves that.  Which raises the questions of where they have obtained the hardware, and who has provided the training required to master its use?  There can only be one answer, and it lies a few kilometres away across the border.

 

 

Which leads us back to Putin.  If, as seems certain, the arms and training have been provided by the Russian armed forces – and for the life of me I can’t see any other alternative theory that makes any sense – it is surely inconceivable that it would have been done without his knowledge and indeed approval.  Given the fatalities in the conflict so far, on both the rebel and (mostly) Ukrainian side, here is yet more blood on the man’s hands.

The downing of MH17 is now providing these gangs with their (I use the term at its loosest) finest hour.  The eyes of the world are on the wheat and sunflower fields of the border regions, and the smouldering wreckage and twisted decaying corpses of nearly 300 innocent souls, children and infants included, that disfigure the landscape.   Ignoring the human tragedy (and that is nigh on impossible to do), the downing is giving the rebel forces a power over events they can only have dreamt of.  Clearly, they are making no attempt to secure the site for the necessary investigation.  This ensures that anybody can wander into a field and pick up a piece of wreckage or someone’s pitiful belongings, as a ghoulish souvenir – though why anyone in their right mind would want to do such a thing is beyond me.  And yet there are many reports of this happening.  Instead of securing the site, the militia are actually hindering the efforts of investigative teams to reach the site at all.  There are reports of crash evidence being stolen or destroyed, the whereabouts of the flight recorders is disputed (some reports say they are in Ukrainian hands, some say in Russian and en route to Moscow, and others that they haven’t yet been found), and that the missile battery that allegedly brought the plane down has already been spirited away, back onto Russian territory, within hours of the incident.

It’s an appalling situation.  There are 300 odd families in this world, most of them in peaceful Holland and all of them thousands of miles away from a conflict that has nothing to do with them, trying to grieve for their loved ones, and understand why and how this was allowed to happen.  These poor people don’t even know when the bodies, or what’s left of them, are likely to be returned for a decent burial.   My heart breaks for them as well as the victims.

 

 

Back to Putin.  Over the whole period of this crisis in Ukraine, he has insisted on the right to protect the “rights of Russian citizens”.  We’ll leave out the fact that the people in Crimea and eastern Ukraine are actually legally Ukrainian citizens but of Russian ethnicity.  He has provided assistance to the “government” of Crimea and visited the province within hours of its proclamation, thus nailing his colours firmly to the rebel cause.  When the conflict moved on to the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, he made the same statements of support, and the gangs took over.  Russian forces moved up to the border, and despite denials from the Kremlin troops helped with equipment and training.  The situation remains thus today.

Western governments and the UN have made their usual statements of condemnation.  The US and the EU have imposed a number of economic sanctions and travel bans on Russian businesses and individuals “close” to Putin, and Russia itself has been expelled from the G8.  Its economy has been damaged, but not enough.  Obama and Merkel and Cameron have urged Putin to do something to rein in the rebels, pull back the Russian troops and engage in meaningful dialogue with the Ukrainian government to bring a peaceful conclusion to the conflict.  For the cameras and the world’s press he has appeared contrite and conciliatory and promised to do so.  More lies – nothing has changed, no troops have been pulled back and more arms and assistance have been provided.  His word is worth nothing.  He is a liar.  More blood…..

 

 

In the wake of MH17, more sanctions are being proposed, stronger ones.  There has been a fractious debate in the UN Security Council, but as usual the Russians have protested their innocence, the Chinese have sat there inscrutably saying nothing (thus tacitly supporting Russia) so the required unanimity for action is never going happen.

The US and the EU, if they are going to impose more sanctions, should no longer tread lightly.  They should impose financial sanctions and travel bans on one Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.  They should take similar action against his lapdog Dmitriy Medvedev and every other member of the Russian cabinet.  For good measure, do likewise to the heads of the Russian Army, Navy and Air Force.  While they are about, they should make public how much these financial sanctions amount to – the offshore bank accounts where Putin’s ill-gotten wealth is gathering interest, and the amounts in them – I’m assuming of course that the CIA and MI6 have been doing their job properly and have this information.  The whole sorry gang should find itself persona non grata outside of the Russian borders.  For their complicit support of the rebels in eastern Ukraine, they should be declared war criminals and indicted.

The UN, meanwhile, supported by the US and EU governments, and its entire membership, should announce that under UN treaties national borders are sacrosanct and the citizens living within those borders are citizens of that country.  In the case of eastern Ukraine, anybody who does not wish to live in Ukraine is free to cross the border into Russia, leaving their home and belongings behind them, and make a new life for themselves there.  Anyone remaining in the Ukraine is deemed a Ukrainian citizen and may be subject to investigation for war crimes, including the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, and/or conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by hiding or destroying evidence at the crash site.

 

These measures, of course, run the real risk of spreading the conflict across the Ukrainian border and onto the world stage, but frankly the murderous downing of flight MH17 has done that already.  The victims of that terrible event, and their grieving relatives, deserve justice.  The US was quick to react after 9/11, even if a little misguided in launching a War of Terror that 14 years later has arguably failed and made the world a more dangerous rather than a safer place.  Obama, for all his faults, comes across as a more thoughtful and less gung-ho individual than Bush, but with a determination to seek and bring about the sort of justice required here.  I sincerely hope he has the courage to act strongly in this situation too. 

Putin, no matter what he and his apologists may say, is behind all that is happening in eastern Ukraine, including the downing of MH17.   The rest of the world must stand clearly against him and his regime, and stop the bloodshed. 

It must bring him to justice.

 

World Cup 2014 according to Travellin Bob

Well, it was a good World Cup in the end.

Before the start, for months, there had been mass demonstrations by Brazilians who were (and I’m sure remain) decidedly pissed off that their Government chose to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure projects like new stadia in towns (like the capital Brazilia and Manaus) that don’t even boast a top flight team in the Brazilian leagues……stadia that will probably lapse into crumbling disuse by this time next year.  Roads were built – or at least started - , railways and airports upgraded, though often not completed.  Favelas, the slum cities where millions of Brazilians still live in squalor, were cleared by armed riot police, often without providing adequate replacement housing, and given a lick of paint to make them look a bit nicer to tourists.

Key things, at least to the population at large, like education and health care and state benefits, of course lost out in the cash stakes to this massive FIFA demanded splurge.  So I guess people had every right to be pissed off and complain, even though at times it did all get a little bit more violent than was strictly necessary (although much of the blame for that seems to lie in the usual heavy handed policing – at which Brazil is seemingly no different to anywhere else, including the Met Police and NYPD amongst others).

So there was massive doom and gloom before it all kicked off, and predictions (mine included) that it was all going to be a bit of a shambles.  TV crews, in the days before the opening ceremony, were busily shooting film of rickety temporary stands and entrance stairways at stadia throughout the country that did indeed look a danger to life and limb, and many pundits expected a tragedy or two in waiting.  Happily, it all turned out to be largely misplaced, with the only accident I can recall happening in Belo Horizonte where a new road bridge collapsed with a few fatalities.  The bridge was about 3km from the sparkling new stadium there, and on a new road linking it with the airport, so the link to the World Cup is clear.  

I can’t recall a single incidence of crowd trouble throughout the tournament, no fan fights, no riots, no nothing.  Indeed the atmosphere at every game I saw seemed electric, a wash of colour (largely Brazilian gold and green liberally mixed with national team colours) and singing and drums and brass bands – everything indeed that makes the World Cup such a wonderful spectacle.  I missed both the opening and closing ceremonies, but I gather J-Lo and Shakira shook their booties rather well, and of course Shakira can boast a longer involvement in the tournament than her other half.  She also became the first artiste to perform at three successive World Cups apparently – clearly good ole Sepp Blatter must be a big fan.

And what of the football?

I didn’t see a lot of the matches.  Despite being in a time zone close to Brazil’s the match scheduling often meant I missed the early game and a good half of the middle match as I was at work.  Later on, once the group stages were out of the way, the situation got even worse.   This was not always a bad thing – it meant I didn’t have to suffer the torture of England v Costa Rica.  But what I saw of it was excellent I thought. 

There was thuggery, as usual – the Uruguayan bloke who for no reason – apart from his team losing at the time - kicked Joel Campbell of Costa Rica up in the air, swore at him while he was on the ground then marched off without waiting for the obvious red card being probably the best example.  And of course Suarez taking a chomp at Chielini was unbelievable.  The ban he’s been given is about right, and at least Liverpool did the decent thing and packed the bucktoothed bastard off to Barca as soon as the right money was offered.  Frankly, the Catalans are quite welcome to the poisonous little shit (brilliant footballer though he undoubtedly is).

There was some great goalkeeping.  The Mexican guy, Ochoa. may have looked a bit of a wuss what with the hairband, but dragged his team out of the group and close to an unlikely victory against Brazil by his superb keeping.  Neuer was also superb for Germany, playing in the modern sweeper-keeper role and just about deserved his Golden Glove Award.  Honourable mention too for Tim Howard, USA’s finest.  His Tourette’s Syndrome has given rise to the best chant in the Premier League in my opinion: “Tim Timminy, Tim Timminy, Tim Tim terroo, he’s got Tourettes and he says fuck you”.  And what of Joe “Head ‘n’ Shoulders” Hart?  Well, if he is England’s best then we really are in trouble.  I would blame him directly for Italy’s winner – why on earth he didn’t come to collect a routine cross into his six yard box I’ll never understand (my old team manager would have subbed me straight away for that, even in the Tonbridge League Division 2) and he never looked confident.  Woy rightly left him out in the dead match against Costa Rica, but played 30 year old injury prone Ben Foster instead of 23 year old Frazer Forster, who has shone for Celtic in the Champions League several times.  The kid deserved a chance and surely is a better future prospect than Foster (or for that matter Ruddy, Stockdale, Butland or arguably Hart himself).

There were great goals.  Rodriguez’ volley for Colombia was a thing of beauty, as was Tim Cahill’s for the Aussies, but I still love RvP’s header against Spain…….a perfect cross and the sort of dive rarely seen since Andy Grey retired twenty years ago.  Quite stunning.

And there were shocks too.  England were never expected to get out of the group (except by me, of course – I thought we had enough to beat Uruguay and Costa Rica) but nobody saw Spain getting hammered by Holland and failing to get out of the group.  Even England lasted a couple of days longer, although that was down to match scheduling not ability – we were equally piss-poor.  Likewise Italy going out at the group stage raised eyebrows.  But the biggest surprise for me was Brazil.  They were almost universally acclaimed as winners before a ball had been kicked, but turned out to be pretty awful.  Their capitulation against Germany in the semis was the stuff of dreams.  Germany are good, no doubt, but 7-1 was an embarrassment – pub team defending and a coach who clearly hadn’t a clue what to do to change anything.  They weren’t much better against Holland in the Third Place Play Off either – 10 goals conceded over two successive matches is the stuff of park teams not five time world champions.  At least we English can make the excuse that our football needs as much of an overhaul as Brazil's and (arguably) Spain’s.

The right team won in the end, of course.  Germany were a step ahead of everybody else.  The best goalkeeper.  Best defenders.  A midfield to crave.  And strikers in Muller and Klose who know where the goal is. And a team ethic that everyone else should aim for.  I can see them ruling the roost for the next ten years, no matter what Spain do to rebuild themselves.  Argentina were solid enough, but as usual Leo Messi (how on earth did he get Best Player?) was a disappointment and Aguero seemed to be carrying an injury.  Holland were entertaining with some great displays and a very un-Dutch camaraderie – I look forward to seeing how van Gaal does at Man U next season.  But Arjen Robben gets a bigger embarrassment every time I see him play.  He seems incapable of running past another player without falling arse-over-tit, contact or no contact.  He’s always been a diver, but a season playing for the Blessed Pep has made him even worse.  Frankly, they are too horrible bald old gits who deserve each other.

So now we look forward to Russia in 2018.  Oh, what fun that will be!  And then – Qatar 2022….unless of course Blatter retires or dies, bribery and corruption are then proved and the tournament taken away from them (the same could be said of Russia’s tournament).

I’m not holding my breath.

Oh, and a final thought.  On the BBC News this morning, I watched the Germans arriving home, to be presented to half a million delirious fans at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.  There was the most wonderful atmosphere there as the players danced and sang along with the fans, signed autographs, kicked balls into the crowd and generally had an absolute blast.  I thought I hope our vanquished England failures are watching this, and feeling very envious and determined to do everything to improve and maybe one day do something similar, before I die.  Then I saw in the Mail Online some pictures of Joe Hart, James Milner, Jack Wilshere and others, pissing about in a pool in Las Vegas with champagne and cigars and scantily clad beauties with pneumatic tits, without a care in the world.  The Champions League Qualifiers kicking off.  Pre-season tours and friendlies started.

And I thought, nah.  No chance. 

English football?  You’re ‘avin’ a laugh.