“Eg eri fullur, kanst tú lovad maer inn a hotellkamarið!”

That’s the Faroese for “I’m drunk, please help me into my hotel room.”

I’m not, I should point out. I’m currently sitting in Justin’s living room in a very haar-ridden Aberdeen in advance of tomorrow’s flight, and I’m quite sober, thanks for asking.

But it’s one of the very useful Faroese phrases supplied to us by the SFA. Along with our Scotland tickets for Wednesday came a little fold-out guide, not unlike a Snapfax. It contains some handy tourist tips, information about the stadium and how to get to Toftir, and a section entitled “Winning Words” - some snippets of the local language every Scottish fan will need.

So I am currently trying hard to get my tongue round the key phrases the SFA believe no Tartan Army foot-solider should be without, including “you have beautiful eyes”, “do you want to learn a song?”, “my mate is a bit crazy, but he’s harmless”, and of course “nice weather you have here.”

Sadly, there’s no translation of “We hate Jimmy Hill, he’s a poof.”

Off to the Faroes!

I should have been packing for the Faroes tonight, as it’s my only free evening this week before heading off. I go to Aberdeen on Thursday evening, and then Justin, Niall and I fly to the Faroes on Friday afternoon. I can’t wait. However, when I came home from work today I found the final eight episodes of Lost waiting on my doormat.

Packing, or Lost. Can you guess what I spent the whole evening doing? Yes. Back to back. Not even a toilet break. It was stupendous - gripping, edge of the seat, and I don’t think my jaw could have dropped any further if I’d detached it from my head. I can honestly say that I am left quite shell-shocked by the finale.

Back to matters Scandinavian, I’ve not managed to “revise” the guidebooks as fully as I’d hoped. But there’s plenty to do and see in the Faroes that we know of. Not least, two football matches to watch - we have tickets sorted to the Italy match on Saturday, though tickets for the Scotland game on Wednesday are not yet in the bag. No doubt we will have plenty of exciting daytrips to various parts of the islands, and perhaps even an overnight trip to a further-flung corner. A friend told me the other day that Torshavn has an oustanding nightlife, too.

We’ve got a self-catering flat sorted in the town, which has internet access. I’ll be taking my laptop, so not only will you get blog updates, you lucky things, but there’ll probably be copious numbers of photos as well.

Anyway, it’s late and I should go to bed. And after seven hours of back to back Lost, I really need a pee…

Books and cinema

Besides reading guidebooks to the Faroes and USA (separate publications, I should stress), I’ve just finished Charlie Connelly’s In Search of Elvis.

Now I’m not an Elvis Presley fan in the slightest. While he was clearly a talented singer I am not into the music, and find it hard to understand why such a cult has built up around a man who died on the bog with a hamburger in his hand.

However, I am a big fan of Charlie Connelly, who has an ability to write humorously and intelligently about topics as diverse as the shipping forecast zones and Liechtenstein football. So I reckoned I’d give In Search of Elvis a blast. And it was dead good - the writer follows the legend and myth of Presley around the world, including the USA, Israel, Uzbekistan and even good old Aberdeenshire. It’s a terrifically funny book with Connelly’s usual self-deprecating wit mixed with a real compassion for and interest in the people he meets. The bits of Elvis trivia and biography aren’t too off-putting for a non-Elvisist like me, either. A good read, and laugh-out-loud in many places.

In the last few days I’ve also seen Spiderman 3 and Next at the cinema. Spiderman 3 was a bit rubbish - despite the good action sequences and special effects, it was far too long and the seats in the cinema were very uncomfortable (not the fault of the filmmakers, admittedly).

Next, about a man who can see the future who is roped into helping foil some terrorists, is a silly film. It’s a great concept, done well on the whole, but has the rather irritating Nicholas Cage in the lead role. There’s some monumental moments of comedy in it, but the sad thing it was hard to tell how much of the humour was intentional.

One joke from Next I took my hat off to - and laughed far too loudly at - was about a Zen master who went to a hot dog stand and said he wanted one with everything.

One with everything… get it?

Re-think

As you’ll maybe have read, I’ve been working towards heading off mullet-hunting in September and have been trying to make plans. I’ve also, however, been struggling to convince myself that this autumn is the right time to go.

While my heart says “go” and my head says “hmm, not sure”, my wallet has been having apoplexy at the prospect of returning jobless and penniless from six months’ travelling to face thousands of pounds of debt. I’m all in favour of doing stuff on a whim, but not at the risk of repossession or bankruptcy. Granted, prison would be a great place to get lots of writing done, but I’d much prefer to be considered worthy for travel writing shelves, rather than a genre popularised by Adolf Hitler and Jeffrey Archer.

And so, with some reluctance and embarassment, I have more or less decided to stick around Glasgow for another year. I’ll do a week or two in the autumn to bag the Canadian mullets and maybe one or two of the north-eastern American ones, but postpone the rest of the world tour until probably the autumn of 2008.

I say reluctance and embarassment because this is something I have, until now, been very confidently declaring as my plan and aiming towards for months. I’ve been looking forward to getting the mission finished and finding out what lies ahead for me in life upon return. So it’s a shame that I’ll be delaying things for another year and dragging the mission over into my thirties, by which time I’d hoped I would have grown out of stupid projects like this.

But on the other hand, I am sure I’ll be able to save up enough money in a year to do the world tour without risking financial ruin. And in any case, another year of Weegieland might just be the time and space I need to get cracking with another couple of ideas I have.

And, of course, to pray for peace in Haiti.

Way-ay, man

Photos from the weekend in Durham and Newcastle are now all uploaded. I’d have got them all up sooner, but I haven’t had a free evening until now.

It was a fun couple of days, and while I had been to Durham before I had never been to Newcastle. Or Gateshead, where I stayed with friends, which I suppose I should mention given that it is a separate town.

Gateshead, incidentally, is home to a substantial Jewish population which is unusually for Britain almost entirely ultra-Orthodox. So there’s a factoid for your next dinner party.

Sunday was spent touristing around Newcastle which I was dead impressed with, boasting lovely buildings in both the city centre and the riverside. Landmarks like the Baltic and the Sage (both technically in Gateshead), the various bridges, the sensitive mix of architectural styles and good use of open space, all combine make it one of the best city riversides I’ve seen, and a good example to cities that need to work on theirs. I’m looking at you, Weegieland.

And above all, the wider conurbation boasts a light railway network, which is always a plus in my book. Especially when they have amusing features such as this.

Ticket to ride

I was in Auld Reekie yesterday evening, which involved a quick sprint into town to catch the last train before the rush-hour fares kick in. Such was my rush, however, that I didn’t pick up my return ticket from the ticket machine.

So I had to explain this to the conductor on the train to Edinburgh that I didn’t have a return, and what should I do? He said as long as I had my outgoing ticket and proof of purchase I should be fine, and it happened to people all the time. Fine.

But then I had to repeat myself to the guy at the barrier at Waverley when I arrived, again when I turned up at Waverley at the end of the evening, then on the return train, and one last time at the barriers at Queen Street.

Not a particular problem, as they all accepted that I had proof of having bought the ticket. I just got a bit fed up having to keep repeating myself, and there was always the nagging doubt that I would have the misfortune of running into a total jobsworth who would insist on me buying another ticket.

And I hate going anywhere without everything I need, like the relevant tickets. For instance I feel naked without a watch on, and when I am abroad I have an almost paranoid obsession about always knowing where my passport is. And when I leave the flat each morning I do a quick self-bodysearch to ensure that I have my wallet, flat keys, work keys, iPod, phone, and anything else I need that day, in a routine that resembles a very bad attempt at the Macarena.

It’s ironic, therefore, that I forgot to take my camera with me to Edinburgh (and yes, that is irony and not just bad luck. I hope you’re reading this, Morissette). So no swathe of uninspiring black and white photos of the Scottish Parliament from me, you’ll be glad to know. Which after a brief circumnavigation of the exterior, I can confidently report is one of the ugliest buildings I’ve ever seen. With the possible exception of St Nicholas House, the home of Aberdeen City Council.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of Edinburgh, I’m quite proud of myself that after a year or so of Weegieland, I can now fully and easily tell the Glasgae accent, man, from the Embra accent, eh.

Getting Lost

Technical problems overcome, I received three and a half episodes of Lost in the post this week from Justin. I watched them all in one evening when I should have been planning for the big trip. They were amazing episodes, and one particularly was a well-made, self-contained story that was very much in the vein of something like Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected.

Lost really is a fantastically deep and well-made show - it combines drama, mystery, humour, elements of horror and science fiction, great characterisation and well-thought out plots. The overall story is (slowly) reaching a very exciting and seemingly crucial point. I am always left wanting the next episode.

Justin tells me that I am now about 4 episodes behind what’s currently on Sky One and these will be winging their way to me in the post soon. Then the final episode of the series comes just before the Faroes trip.

In other news, I will also be getting lost in Durham this weekend - I am heading to the so-called “north-east” for a joinee gathering. Full report upon my return.

End of the season

So, another season of football is over.

And sadly, as far as the SPL is concerned, it seems to be business as usual with the Old Firm finishing ahead of the rest of the crowd. So much for the Romanov revolution in 2005, which captured headlines around Europe, promised to overthrow the existing order and introduce some unpredictability and new quality into Scottish football.

And yet, 18 months later, Hearts are a shadow of the side they were under Burley. See the line-up that beat the then champions Rangers in September 2005 - a mix not only of top Scottish internationals and excellent foreign players, but of long-standing Hearts players and new blood.

And for insane reasons only known to Romanov, he has pretty much decimated that team, sold two-thirds of the “Riccarton three” to rivals Celtic, and left Hearts in a position to challenge for no more than third, with a line-up mostly comprising young, inexperienced Scots and second-rate Lithuanians.

I can only hope, in the interests of an unpredictable, entertaining, competitive league, that the steady progress made by Aberdeen, and the tentative, emerging stability at Hearts (however long it lasts), will see a strong challenge to the Old Firm next season. But I have my doubts - as long as the Old Firm can pay significantly higher wages than the rest, they’ll continue to poach talents like Alan Gow and Scott Brown from the competition.

All this of course pales into insignificance at the sad news of the mighty Ross County’s relegation to division two - which if nothing else threatens one of the best youth set-ups in Scottish football. I’m also not convinced by them appointing Dick Campbell as manager, but it’s good that they’ve said “get us promoted again or you’re out” - an honest, ambitious and unambiguous challenge. Here’s hoping they go straight back up.

Good luck, though, to Gretna as they take on the SPL. It will be interesting to see how they fare.

Photos from the past

Kieran has recently uploaded photos from a road trip he and I took in the summer of 2004, which has brought back memories of a very enjoyable adventure.

We were going to do an aid convoy but for various reasons it never happened. However we had the two weeks booked off and so decided to just follow our noses to the south of Europe, with Monaco and Andorra as vague destinations in mind.

Our plans never quite worked out, though, and we ended up turning left in the north of France and “doing” Belgium and the Netherlands. And it was fun. Highlights included having lunch with the chief of traffic and public order of the Paris police, hanging out with a pile of Finns, watching Euro 2004 in pubs festooned with orange, and getting adopted by the youth wing of the Dutch Socialist Party. As you do.

Interesting things always seem to happen when Kieran and and I go places. I must tell you, for example, about our major diplomatic incident at the Greece-Macedonia border in 1999 en route to Kosova. It involved Robin Cook, Radio Scotland, and a police escort.

But that, and the whole convoy, is a story for another day.

City of the Dead

In the east end of Glasgow, serenely resting in between the Tennent’s brewery and the M8 motorway, is the Necropolis.

Dating from the 1800s, it’s effectively a posh man’s graveyard, full of extravagant, bombastic and beautiful memorials of those members of Victorian Glasgow society who could afford them.

I’ve been meaning to take a wander around it for ages, and finally did so today (Saturday). It’s a thoroughly impressive place, in so many ways.

It is a demonstration of the wealth which (some) Glaswegians boasted, and the vanity in which they used it to commemorate themselves. There is even a memorial to John Knox, one of the leaders of the Reformation in Scotland.

The Necropolis also has impressive views of the city, and is an ornate, atmospheric and almost surreal oasis of calm in an otherwise hectic city.

One of my favourite memorials, however, is to a 19th century actor called John Henry Alexander. The memorial is clearly created with affection, containing a poem, a stage, and carvings representing tragedy and comedy.

You can see just the Necropolis photos, or you can see all the photos I took today, which includes the Cathedral and one or two other snaps taken around the city.