View Article  The Beijing Live Music Scene
Back in London, Hannah and I were regular attendees of the live music circuit, surely one of the best music scenes in the world (if not the best). One of the things we’ve missed the most since we’ve been living in Beijing (it’s been officially over a year now!) is the ability to go and watch some excellent live music at a moment’s notice, or buy tickets to see a live music juggernaut play to a stadium sized crowd (Muse at Wembley in 2007 springs to mind). This has been made so much more unbearable when you hear the kind of music that Beijingers seem to like. If you watched the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony you will have seen and heard the dreadful pap that they love here; boy and girl bands singing the type of fearsome rubbish spouted out by reality TV shows like X Factor and Pop Idol. Now, I think that my views are generally quite liberal, but for people and “bands” like these, and the boil on the anus of music that is their sound, I make a strong exception (and even more so for the, frankly, waste of sperm that are people like Pete Waterman and Simon Cowell). Drab music and meaningless lyrics sung by plastic shells of human beings with homogenised singing voices. There is no punishment in my eyes too harsh for the abysmal horse manure that is produced by these festering piles of sloppy excrement. People may say that they are clean cut, don’t do drugs and are a good image for our children to follow. Well allow me to quote the late, and very great, Bill Hicks in response; “when did mediocrity and banality become a good image for your children?!” Anyway…   more »
View Article  The Women's Olympic Marathon
On the day before the race, David and Becky (in China on the last leg of their year long world tour and our guests for their stay) and Hannah and I decided that we would get up early and make our way to a section of the marathon in order to cheer on the athletes as they tried to write themselves into the history books. We had done our research the night before and found several sources depicting the route the runners would be taking on the Chinese version of that taken by Pheidippides running from the Battle of Marathon to Athens. This proved far trickier than we thought it would; a quick search turned up several different Beijing marathon routes, each of which claimed to be the “Official Route of the Marathon of the Beijing Olympic Games”. Deciding that the safest bet would be the route published most recently, we set our alarms for what can only be described as offensively early and retired to bed for what felt like about two minutes ...    more »
View Article  Chinese Toilet Sign
I quite like the fact that the authorities don't often seek for proper approval when sign writing. I prefer to think that they get someone like Mr Tourette to do it instead ...   more »
View Article  Camel Convoy
These are members of our tour group on camels, preparing to scale the sand dune and bracing for a brief spurt of terror as the camels, supposedly sure footed, feel like they're about to topple over as first they climb the dune and then lurch forward once they've crested the peak ... more »
View Article  Moon Lake Oasis
This is the lake where our hotel was situated in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Strangely it was covered in a thin layer of mosquitos. It was impossible to get anywhere near the waters edge without being eaten alive by the little blighters ... more »
View Article  Desert Road Sign
There were a handful of road signs placed on the route we took, obviously for the drivers benefit, but I found this one the most amusing. In the unlikely event that some mentally deficient person thought to drive their car on the desert, I don't think they would have made it this far ... more »
View Article  The Military Truck
This is the truck used by the Mongolian drivers to get us across the desert and to our hotel. It's an ancient thing, almost as old as the dunes it ploughed through but that's not to criticise it ... more »
View Article  Sand Dune in the Gobi
I quite liked the rather pristine nature of this dune and was a little upset that the driver ignored my pleas to careen up it and carve tyre tracks everywhere ... more »
View Article  The Desert
The Gobi Desert appears almost as soon as the Helan Mountains are left behind. Stretching on as far as the eye can see are the sand dunes, making their way slowly across the province of Inner Mongolia ... more »
View Article  Helan Mountains
hese peaks form part of the Helan Mountain range and the natural border between the two Chinese provinces of Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. On one side lies the baked and parched Gobi desert and the other holds the still quite dry but altogether more hospitable city of Yinchuan ... more »
View Article  Oriental Pyramid
Unbelievably this structure is over 4000 of our years old and houses some really ancient dead people, who were once very important ... more »
View Article  Western Great Wall
This is me bravely posing on a crumbling segment of the western section of the Great Wall of China. Mere moments after this photograph was taken, the ruins gave way, sending me plummeting to Earth in a jumble of ancient bricks and sand ... more »
View Article  The Gobi Desert
To celebrate that I’d finally secured a job in Beijing, Hannah and I thought we should go on yet another holiday. Having never been to a desert before (unless you count sailing down the Nile through the Sahara as going to the desert - I don't) we decided that we'd go to the Gobi desert in Inner Mongolia (curiously, Outer Mongolia is a country in its own right, whereas Inner Mongolia is a Chinese province, although both speak the same language). We both liked the idea of sitting by an oasis and looking out at the sand dunes as they flowed to the horizon and beyond ...   more »
View Article  An Apology
I feel the need to write an apology for those people (particularly MJ, who has been the most vocal) for my tardiness in updating my blog. My only excuse is that I've recently got a job in Beijing and I've been in my "settling in" period, where I needed to get used to getting up early again and going into work (quite tiring when you haven't done it for 8 months!) ...   more »
View Article  Zhangjiajie Valley Floor
The peaks from the point of view of the valley floor. A huge presence towering into the sky sees everyone gazing up with their mouths slack jawed and not looking where they're going ... more »