finn travis

Made it back from Pakistan last week. Sorry I haven't posted about it yet, no excuse other than laziness and a holiday from blog land.
Well, what to say??? This was a great trip with almost every memory or experience being positive. The initial first couple of days in Karachi were a trip in themselves. Some local guy (who I nick named Mr Crazy) playing chicken with on coming traffic with me on the back of his motorcycle, eating a meal of cowbrains whilst being welcomed by some guy who was apparently number 2 in the Karachi mafia and then a day trip to a nature reserve, which turned out to be brown puddle full of Pakistani's floating in car innertubes. Trip really came into it's own when I went in to the countryside. Took a 6 hour bus trip through what looked like the wild west, to go visit my friend's home village. We'd bought a lamb off the street in Karachi, so we could set it free in the countryside, plus life gets a lot weirder in the sticks. Upon arriving I was informed that I was the first englishman to set foot in this village since the days of the British Empire. There was a lot of staring and curiosity on both sides, all of which was tinged with warmth and hospitality. Within the first half an hour of arriving, the village head sent two guys over to the house to take me over to his place. This initially freaked me out, what would have happened if I wasn't travelling with a Pakistani?
I asked this question and it became apparent that is the custom of this village that any stranger is invited over to the head honcho's house to be cooked a slap up meal and enquire if there's anything they want. Could you imagine that happening in Sidcup? So I met the boss who was like a sober stoned pakistani version of the Paul Whitehouse 'I was very drunk' character. It turns out this guy is the local magistrate, owns all the farmland, most of the businesses and still finds time to play hide and seek with the village kid's. One of the trip highlights has to be this guy calling up the local cops, just so I could inspect them. After that, had a steady flow of locals coming to the house as word spread, so they could see what the 'foreigner'looks like. Wasn't too sure what to expect as the media over here paints Pakistan as a very anti western place, but I must say that absolutely everybody I met was very friendly and welcoming. You've got to bear in mind that a lot of these people have never met a foriegn non muslim before, so their preconceptions of me could be quite negative. I actually had a couple of occasions where the people I was talking to said 'your a non muslim foreigner and i'm really glad I've met you because your a good man'. I found this very touching and had a lot of the'Islam, the intolerant/misogynistic religion' stereotypes blown away. On the whole had a brilliant trip and am very greatful to my friend for showing me a side of Pakistan which you won't read about in the news. Will have to take him over to my grans in Dublin, but i'd rather go back to that village, besides I've been told I've got an open door to the place now. Will put some pictures up later.

Fookin 'ell, can't wait. At 10 o'clock tonight I'll be boarding a plane to Karachi, Pakistan where I'll spend the next 8 days boar hunting, fishing and generally galavanting around (but no boozing). I was invited by a mate of mine and thought why not. To top it all off I'll be disguised as a local to avoid attracting too much attention. Apparently there's a northern tribe that look just like me (I always tick the box for european on forms, but to be honest I've got a bit of a Gallagher simian problem). I'm not too sure what to expect, apart from chaos and adventure. Wee bit apprehensive as I only just found out that Karachi is apparently the second most dangerous city in the world after Laagos, but to be fair how many cities in the world can you eat in the most expensive restaurants for the price of half a Big Mac?

With Valentines day fast approaching my thoughts are turning towards my girlfriend, Jane. It's been a while (the honeymoon period was over about 2 years ago) and as any seasonned relationship veteran will testify you gotta work to put that magic back in. So I'm after suggestions as to what I can do to adequately show my affection to this great woman without resorting to any cliche's. I've already got a few ideas, but would be interested to know what for you would be the ultimate beautiful romantic gesture...

Morning folks. Got a couple of nigggling questions I just though I'd put out there this morning...

First off. I bought a razor last week because I needed a shave. So far a very simple action/reaction equation. On my quest I found myself in a Boots in a shopping mall. Now I hate and fear shopping malls. There's no rational explanation, maybe it's something to do with the depravation of daylight and one too many viewings of Dawn of the Dead. Either way these are soul sucking places to be avoided. I buy then leave. Simple. This was the case when I picked up my razor. I grabbed, stood in line, paid and then immediately sought non synthetic light. Perhaps had I taken a little more time I would have realised that I was purchasing the all new Gillete M3 razor. It was only upon shaving that the powers of my razor became truly apparent. There's a hidden switch that makes it vibrate! Now I'm a great believer in technological innovation, indeed were it not for the invention of the wheel we'd all be on space hoppers (like that acid tinged advert of giant people on giant space hoppers happily bouncing to work). But for the life of me I can't understand what benefit the vibration of my razor brings to the contour negotiation of my stubbly chin?? Could it be that the gillette razor has completed its evolution and in order to stop customers becoming indifferent to the product further gadgets must be added?? If this is the case then I'd much prefer an inbuilt MP3 player, or perhaps the soothing dulcet tones of B. White welcoming me into consciousness and telling me how great I look clean shaven. I don't know, I'm not so sure, but I'm certainly not so stupid that I'm gonna buy a razor just because it shakes? Surely thats a bad thing.

Has anybody else noticed that Robbie Williams has mentioned the Vietnam War in his latest opus? Am I being paranoid or is there something totally wrong about this, or is the man with an 80 million pound record deal bringing his political conscience to the masses? We're talking about a war which resulted in the deaths of 3.5 million South East Asians (a huge fact barely mentioned in any western retrospective), a war of attrition and technology against a poor rural peasant population who merely wanted the right to self determination (sound familiar?). A war of such devastation that the only justification offered by Westmoreland (head of US forces) for US brutality was 'the average asian places less value on life than the average westerner'. Does mentioning Vietnam give you some sort of artistic credibilty? Will some Q magazine hack describe this as Williams new found maturity? One things for sure, seas of labotomized zombies will sway in unison with lighters held aloft.

Bit confused about this one...

Do I describe what i'm doing today?
I don't really need to get that one off my chest and wouldn't want to bore anyone.
Do I write about politics?
Tempted, but don't want to alienate anybody who likes to keep it light in blog land.
Do I keep it irreverant?
Not sure i know how...
Mulling this over. One things for sure, I'm at work at the moment engaged in a life/death battle against my old adversary- boredom. So if I'm getting paid I might as well write something...