Old Keane, New James

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Wow. It’s like the 1990s and the early 2000s never went away, because:

I dunno. But lying on a tropical beach overlooking the Indian Ocean took me back – way back – to our honeymoon several (or more) years ago. And I’d just got my first ever iPod, brought over from the UK by one of the wedding party. Sadly though, there wasn’t the time, the knowledge or the bandwidth to get much on there before we headed off to Mozambique, and so I ended up listening to Keane’s Hopes And Fears on repeat.

That sort of thing could drive a man mad, but a) I was so chuffed to have an iPod, b) I was so chuffed to just have married the girl of my dreams, and c) it’s actually a rather good album.

In fact, they toured it on its twentieth anniversary last year.

And so, I downloaded it while I was away in Mauritius last week (the resort wifi was incredible) and did it all over again. It’s still very good.

In fact, I need to re-revisit it because it may actually be one of those very rare albums with no bad tracks at all (I can only think of three off the top of my head).

Watch this space.

And…

James have a new album out tomorrow. It’s a greatest hits with a couple of new additions and a live version one. I heard one of the new additions – Hallelujah Anyhow – this morning on 6Music and it was really decent stuff.

Always enjoyed a bit of James. I even went to see them back in 2018. Yeah, that’s less of a concert review and more of a social commentary the likes of which you might well have noted on other 6000 miles… posts about concerts. Sorry about that.

But I digress. Often.

Looking forward to the new album. Might review it.

Watch this space.

The journey back

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Wow. That was a great few days away.

Lovely company, great place, amazing weather, superb service, friendly people. It had it all.

But can I admit that I was rather disappointed with the flight back?

Heading out to Mauritius, I went via Joburg and landed (pun intended) with my bum totally in the butter on one of Air Mauritius’ (almost) brand new A350-900s.

And yes: that’s how modern air travel should be. 4 hours (ish) of comfy seats, legroom, wifi, fancy screens, USB charging and really decent service.

And if you’ve ever been to Mauritius, you know that stuff just works. The roads are well-maintained, the streetlights work, it’s clean, it’s tidy. There’s a sense of pride about the place.

So when we flew back on the 6 hour trip to Cape Town last night, I don’t think it was unreasonable to look forward to the same level of comfort and the same sort of high standards.

Eish.

We ended up on a 20 year old A330-200. Cramped seating, uncomfortable armrests with handsets in (remember those?), a screen that looked like it had come from a 1980s laptop.
A cabin that was hot, cold, and then overwhelmingly hot again. No personal air vents.

Ugh.

I’d genuinely forgotten that medium/long haul flying used to be like this. And it was nostalgia I really didn’t want to relive.

I have to say that I have no issue with flying on old, clunky aeroplanes up to Joburg or Durban. 2 hours is no time at all, and anything is bearable. But when you’re on there for 6 (or more) hours – and you’re paying damn high fares for the privilege – I think it’s ok to want a bit more.

That’s why I don’t tend to go anywhere with British Airways anymore, as mentioned here and here. Although to be fair, they do sometimes have nice A350s and B787s on the Cape Town runs, now. But there are still some 777-200s on BA59 that are even older than yesterday’s relic.

They might have had some cabin upgrades though. Maybe that’s something Air Mauritius should think about, because unfortunately, that plane (and I believe that they have another of the same… “vintage”) really does really let their brand down.

But. Safe flight. Decent landing.

And then we were back in Cape Town, and immediately got both sides of the South African welcome: a truly miserable cow at passport control, followed by the nicest, most cheerful toilet attendant in the baggage reclaim hall.

Ah… So very South African.

Welcome home!

Rabbits

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I don’t know why the weapons were taken away from rabbits at the end of the Middle Ages.
I don’t even know why they were given weapons to begin with.

But that is a great image of a flying kick.

For reference:

The British Library describes manuscripts from the 14th century showing rabbits hunting and fighting hounds, a reversal of their typical predator-prey relationship.
The imagery plays on the idea of the “world turned upside down” and represents “bunny vengeance,” amusing medieval artists who understood the real-life danger rabbits faced.

Ah. Medieval satire in picture form.

Hilarious stuff.

Capital tour

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I have absolutely no desire to visit America. The United States thereof, that is.

I didn’t have much desire to visit there before Captain Cheeto came along – maybe Monument Valley, and Washington State, but the rest of it: nah – and I have a good deal less now.

Yeah, I’m sure that I’m missing out with my simplistic anti-American views, but I’m not ruling out travel altogether. It’s just that there are a good number of countries that rank above the US in my list of places I want to visit.

I’d like to do a capital city tour of Europe for example.
Although, maybe I should actually head to the USA for that. Because look at all these places:

Deeply, deeply unoriginal, but I suppose that we need to blame the European settlers for that, rather than the Americans that they became.

And we’re not even going to be able to get to:

Andorra la Vella (Andorra)
Baku (Azerbaijan)
Bratislava (Slovakia)
Bucharest (Romania)
Budapest (Hungary)
Chisinau (Moldova)
Helsinki (Finland)
Kyiv (Ukraine)
Ljubljana (Slovenia)
Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
Monaco (Monaco)
Nicosia (Cyprus)
Podgorica (Montenegro)
Reykjavik (Iceland)
Riga (Latvia)
San Marino (San Marino)
Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Skopje (North Macedonia)
Sofia (Bulgaria)
Tallinn (Estonia)
Tbilisi (Georgia)
Tirana (Albania)
Vaduz (Liechtenstein)
Valletta (Malta)
Vatican City (Vatican City)
Vilnius (Lithuania) or
Zagreb (Croatia)

if we do this the American way.

So let’s not.

Incidentally, I am reliably informed that there is no Port Louis in the USA either.

I’ll just have to manage with the one here.

Bum bum

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Warning: Juvenile post ahead!
(As if you hadn’t guessed from the title.)

But seriously, Little Miss 6000 recently did her Grade 7 vocal exam. And the natural progression is now to Grade 8, although there’s a consensus that there’s not going to be too much hard work towards that in the remainder of this year.

Just a look.

And so the books were brought home last week. And… well… I was honestly expecting something a little more grown-up and challenging than this:

The rest of the piece (and this bit too, I suppose) is in German.

And I’m sure that it’s going to sound beautiful. But if you can read music, then you’ll note (no pun intended) just how bars 29 and 30 are going to sound, and you’ll understand that I’m going to struggle to keep a straight face.