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Visted none of those.... but I have been to Lenin's tomb in Red Square...which is spectacularly surreal!!
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I can tick off 3, but I have been to many surreal places not listed there.
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"but I have been to many surreal places not listed there."
Me too - Cromer Pier in November is as surreal as it gets.
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I've heard of seven of them. Not seen any.
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Errr...........1.
Tulips in The Netherlands. Not very exotic.
And I thought I was fairly well travelled.
Seen plenty of surreal human behaviour, mind.
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>>And I thought I was fairly well travelled.
There's about 200 countries in the world, it changes.
I've been about 120.
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Eight on that list for me, but many others of similar beauty.
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I haven't been to any of those places. Nor have I set foot in more than half the world's countries (60% of them FMR - chapeau!).
Not sure I would have used the word 'surreal' myself. Remarkable perhaps, and in most cases beautiful. But what's 'surreal' about them?
Modern comedians draw heavily on the surrealist outlook. Watched a very funny Armstrong & Miller sketch last night of a mild-mannered bloke buying a tent and open-air barbecue for a family holiday. He goes inside the tent and immediately starts shouting furiously at his children, then comes out and attacks his wife with bitter sarcasm over her lousy cooking. Neither the wife nor the children are present, and the shop assistant is growing extremely anxious with this nutter on his hands, until the bloke stands up and says in a normal voice: 'Perfect. I'll take it.'
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Surreal? As misused by the merkins as 'ironic'.
Maybe a bit more surreal? :
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/BryceCanyon-Amphiteatre1.jpg
Edit: AC beat me to the 'surreal' bit :-)
Last edited by: Lygonos on Tue 19 Nov 13 at 18:02
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I've heard of 5 of them and been to one.
120 countries that's impressive, I'd like to think for my age I was well travelled, probably two dozen. I'd be happy with 50 countries before I croaked it. Hopefully I'll have another 4 off the list next year.
@ NoFm2R, how did you get to visit some many countries work or pleasure?
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Been to three..heard of two,
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Don't know about surreal,wouldn't mind going to Tibet don't know why something about the place.
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My impression is that FMR does a lot of business travel, airport, taxi, worldwide posh chain hotel (an archetypal 'non-place'), business meeting or meetings, taxi. airport... always struck me as pure torture and I mainly avoided it in the days when I did things.
For what it's worth, my impression is also that FMR has a bright-eyed, bushy-teiled side and manages to escape quite often into the real world. He couldn't possiby be so amusing and irascible otherwise.
I don't want to exaggerate. He's obviously a curmudgeonly, irritable, intellectually circumscribed neurotic like most of us here and all car enthusiasts everywhere.
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>> obviously a curmudgeonly, irritable, intellectually circumscribed circumcised neurotic like most of us here
I have no idea what intellectual circumcision means but it seems appropriate for this forum!
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>> circumcised
Speak for yourself Lygonos. You medics all have a sadistic side.
The explorer and founder-member of the SAS, Wilfred Thesiger, who 'never married' and liked remote desert places with tough young tribesmen as companions, used to perform circumcisions in Iraq, Sudan etc. No doubt his patients benefited as he had a concept of hygiene and antibiotics to hand as a rule.
I went to a formal circumcision party in Algeria once. The victim, aged about four, had already been circumcised hygienically by a doctor, but at the climax of the party the Imam approached the terrified nipper ceremonially brandishing a curved blade and uttering the appropriate prayers. The poor child clearly feared it was going to happen again, only worse, and his howls must have been heard for miles.
His uncles had a jeroboam of Johnnie Walker black label but the carphounds didn't even offer me a drink although I hung about looking politely thirsty and non-Muslim. I think it was because I had been taken there by a tough, stogie-chewing French woman hack who was a friend of the nipper's dad. Algerians can be extraordinarily sour in their manners.
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Not a fan of non-medical circumcision on infants and children.
Ridiculous practice that I feel ranks along with Spaniards throwing goats out of high towers for religious relevance.
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>> Not a fan of non-medical circumcision on infants and children.
Or anyone else I hope. You don't seem to have noticed that the Algiers middle-class child being formally circumcised by the Imam had already been operated on properly by a doctor.
Still, when you're only four and someone has recently given your penis a painful wound, how are you going to react to a bearded stranger praying, interfering with your clothing and brandishing a curved blade? You aren't going to take it well are you, even though it's a mere formality, no more cutting. Because you don't know that, but you do already know that the world is a threatening, treacherous place.
I must say I was expecting a bit more sympathy over the Johnnie Walker black.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Tue 19 Nov 13 at 20:03
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>> >> Not a fan of non-medical circumcision on infants and children.
>>
>> Or anyone else I hope. You don't seem to have noticed that the Algiers middle-class
>> child being formally circumcised by the Imam had already been operated on properly by a
>> doctor.
>>
>> Still, when you're only four and someone has recently given your penis a painful wound,
>> how are you going to react to a bearded stranger praying, interfering with your clothing
>> and brandishing a curved blade? You aren't going to take it well are you, even
>> though it's a mere formality, no more cutting. Because you don't know that, but you
>> do already know that the world is a threatening, treacherous place.
>>
>> I must say I was expecting a bit more sympathy over the Johnnie Walker black.
I suspect the phrase non-medical meant without physiological reason rather than whether performed by a Mohel or doctor.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Tue 19 Nov 13 at 20:07
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>> I suspect the phrase non-medical meant without physiological reason
Guh... you could well be right Bromtonaut.
So our shock Jock doc is going head-to-head with two of the three great monotheisms is he?
When I was a child circumcision was quite common in gentile, non-Muslim circles, a sort of modernist fashion. Cavaliers and Roundheads, the categories were called at school... I have a feeling it's unfashionable these days.
Te really awful thing is female circumcision. That's absolutely wicked and really needs to be banned by law.
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>> really awful thing is female circumcision. That's absolutely wicked and really needs to be banned by law.
I believe it is in the UK.
For a number of years it has been referred to as Female Genital Mutilation, as circumcision suggests a modest 'trim'.
In some cases it involved grotesque remodelling of the vulva, sometimes with removal of the clitoris to minimise sexual enjoyment and thus reduce the risk of adultery, and sometimes the entrance to the vagina is stitched almost shut causing obvious problems later in life.
The practice is usually by non-medical female members of the societies who almost certainly victims of the same procedure in their childhood.
And as for going head-to-head with two of the great monotheisms... bring them on: they are all bogus entities driven by men's desire for power over each other, and usually women - most of them are also intellectually retarded and are running 100-200 years behind current social and scientific knowledge.
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Apparently 14yrs jail is the maximum term for FGM in the UK:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24915967
Apparently not a single prosecution since it was made illegal. Pretty shameful.
Last edited by: Lygonos on Tue 19 Nov 13 at 21:00
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>> bring them on: they are all bogus entities driven by men's desire for power over each other, and usually women - most of them are also intellectually retarded and are running 100-200 years behind current social and scientific knowledge.
Quite.
I won't repeat my personal evidence for this, but the girls victimised by this backwoods phallocratic practice have been told by their victimised mothers and aunts that the practice is Muslim and Arab, an initiation to those two magnificent statuses.
Nothing to do with Islam or Arab ethnicity needless to say.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Tue 19 Nov 13 at 21:11
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>> I must say I was expecting a bit more sympathy over the Johnnie Walker black.
Not my favourite - I used to be quite partial to the Green Label (a blend of single malt whiskies) but that was discontinued.
Gold Label is my current favourtite JW whisky (£37/bottle from costco.co.uk delivered as mentioned elsewhere...), but I believe this is being replaced by Platinum which I am yet to try.
Blue Label I haven't had, but at £120+ per bottle it is out of my comfort zone, and reviews suggest it is not noticeably superior to my favourites.
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>> Blue Label I haven't had, but at £120+ per bottle it is out of my comfort zone
Honestly Lygonos, I wasn't talking about whisky connoisseurship, just about dying for a drink the way you can on long-drawn-out social occasions after a long day in a hot dry place with inhospitable carphounds being dog-in-the-mangerish about some grade 2 commercial whiskers...
I'm no real connoisseur anyway. Single malt tastes better, if not too peaty, and is less liable to give one a headache. JW black tastes a bit better than red. But all that was in Algeria for heaven's sake. Whisky is whisky in places like that, except in high society.
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>>@ NoFm2R, how did you get to visit some many countries work or pleasure?
Age 16 - 26, mostly just wandering aimlessly.
Age 26 onwards, almost entirely work.
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>> I've heard of 5 of them and been to one.
>>
>> 120 countries that's impressive
,>>. I'd be happy with 50 countries before I croaked it.>>
>>
I have been fortunate to visit about 50 countries, a mixture of business and pleasure.
I have visited two on the list. Probably the nearest and furthest from Surrey.
Three of the surreal places I have visited:-
1. A few years back I climbed down inside the crater of Vesuvius
2.Hired a car and drove to what is claimed to be the only drive in Volcano in the world -La Soufriere in St Lucia. It was not that impressive but driving the car in there was.
3. I drove my team to Leptis Magna and Sabratha in Libya.
We were the only four people visiting. To walk down street after street whose buildings ( just the outer walls either side of us)) were still to be excavated , that to me was a surreal place l
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>> Surreal? As misused by the merkins as 'ironic'.
>>
>> Maybe a bit more surreal? :
>>
>> upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/BryceCanyon-Amphiteatre1.jpg
>>
>>
>> Edit: AC beat me to the 'surreal' bit :-)
Done Bryce Canyon, got friends in Utah.
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>>I've seen 10 of them.
I've just seen all of them ~ Thanks!
:}
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If you want surreal try Motherwell on a wet Wednesday afternoon in November.
It's more or less how you'd imagine the world to be after a nuclear holocaust. Strange hooded creatures lurking in doorways and a feeling that nothing at all has actually happened there for longer than is reasonable.
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Motherwell must be on a par with Keighley then. They dream of a nuclear holocaust. Luxury.
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As soon as I saw Runfer's mention of Motherwell I thought 'Motherwell and Wishaw'. Sounds like a small firm of solicitors - but I think they must have been a combined Scottish burgh (Just outside Glasgow?) which was / were allotted the GM registration before they all got moved around in the 70s.
I had A738 CGM, registered in Reading: but many years before, looking for my first banger, I came across a depressed-looking Morris 8, circa 1939, with GM and four numbers. Strange isn't it, the things you have no need to remember, but do.
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4,6,10,11,14,19,26 and Bryce Canyon
Must tour South America sometime.
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>>Must tour South America sometime.
More people should. Loads to see and do.
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Surreal places to visit before you die... - RichardW
