England, Wales and Ireland, March 1997

Here's a funny thing to consider. Until recently, the Irish didn't celebrate St. Patrick's Day by running around like a bunch of drunken yahoos and pouring green paint in their beers and rivers. I learned this whilst visiting in 1992.

Clearly a mistake, right? But one which they had started to rectify by the time of our visit.

So, Europe is truly stuck in the 70s. On the Continent, as they say, you get EuroTrash technoKlub type electronica (think ABBA jazzed to a hard-driving beat).

In Ireland? It's a bit different. You get John Denver. Seriously. We searched high and low for “traditional Irish music fare” and this was as close as we ever came, methinks.

Close enough, eh? Either way, it's better than our MTV where it's all rap and gangsta stuff. MTV Europe has "the rap song of the day" at something like 3am, and then it's back to regular programming. Sounds good to us.

But before we were to spend any more time inside listening to such wild tunes, it turns out the Irish had prepared for our arrival with a little parade and such in downtown Dublin.

Tom and Dan try not to look stunned by the crazed Irishmen (and women) around them, even as the crazed Irish woman tries not to look stunned at Tom's Flock of Seagulls hairdo...

A traditional Irish lass watches the parade and flags go by, sitting astride her pappy's shoulders.

We occasionally wished to be able to do the same, as things were exceedingly crowded and we could usually only see the tops of floats, making they interesting to decipher.

When I say crowded, I mean realllly crowded. Pickpocket-friendly crowded, you could pass out standing up crowded.

Inflatable Guinness?

Sometimes they say Ireland floats in Guinness. On St. Patty’s day it’s more true than not. Quickly we forgot about issues of hair and crazed Irish as the world's largest Pint O' Plain rolled down the street. Strong men crumbled, old men chuckled, and we looked for the nearest pub to quench a certain unslakable thirst.

But first we were stopped from crossing the street by a traditional Irish crowd control device. Yep, no self-respecting Irish party is complete without one of these. Hard to tell, but I’m guessing it’s a John Deere. Damn. They’re following us!

Having seen the largest pint of Guinness in the world, Dan joins a line of orange dunderheads surrounding their fantasy-sized pints o’ plain, not quite having a real stable grasp on perspective just yet.

Green water, green hair, green hats, but not green beer was being poured by bustling Irish barkeeps struggling to keep up with a St. Patty’s sized thirst. We almost got kicked out mere moments after stumbling in from our tractor encounter when BilFish even so much as joked about a green Guinness.

You can see this guy isn't exactly radiating that Irish Warmth after my dye request.

Suitably chastened for a bit, BilFish quietly sipped on his black stout, and then watched as Dan ordered some Potato Soup.

And sometimes words don't do justice, but they'll have to this go around as we were too flabbergasted to take pictures. We were just looking for a snack on a cold day, and while Guinness may warm the heart, it doesn't warm the hands. So Dan got a bowl of soup hoping that would do the trick.

Going back to the Potato Famine of, ohh, 1810 or something like that, Ireland has really been in love with the potato, and one way to show a bit of prosperity is to serve a lot of them. This was a prosperous pub and the bowl was essentially nothing more than a bit of soup broth with four large potatoes sticking out. Quite good, but definitely more than just a snack. Hence, it took us well more than just a snack-sized amount of Guinness to make our way through. Hence we stayed for a while.

I brought my Enforcers to St. Jame’s Gate for our tour of the lovely on-site brewery. Of course, by 1997 all operations there had pretty much ceased, it was simply a rollickin’ good museum. My 1992 visit saw more actual brewing action, definitely.

Still, an enjoyable journey at any time, and to consider the history of the brewery and the beer, and all it stands for, well, it made us thirsty quite frankly.

But then it was time to return to the mainland. Wales at any rate.
Back on the boat, zoom zoom, back to the castle landing, and back to our rental car.

We stayed at Saracen’s Head or somewhere in the country. Maybe it was Wales, perhaps England. I mean, it's as if you were arguing, "Oh, no it was Brooklyn. No, wait, it was Manhattan."

Whatever, it’s all reallly close together in those parts with squiggly little map lines, ya know?

No, not the ever-popular American bowel movement but the exquisite, gargantuan British Museum & Library.

This was our destination for the day. Back in London for miscellaneous last-minute sight-seeing and a return to the States, we opted for education over entertainment to start the day.

Simply one of the largest edifices ever built, The British Museum & Library houses the best of the ancient world’s edifices ever built.

Yep, it’s true. Oh, sure, go to Greece to see the columns of the Parthenon, but go to London to see the artistically-rendered friezes that were hacked off and carted back to Merrye Olde England.

Here's a good example of taking just the good bits. This sample used to wow tourists and foreigners from its place atop the Parthenon in Greece.

Basically, English explorers went round the world for the Empire where the Sun never Sets, taking whatever they could find and carry and get on a boat.

Usually, this entailed hacking off the top layer of sculpture or architecture or other cultural treasure and leaving everything else there.

The Limey Bastards stole the good bits pure and simple. Seriously, they would leave the entire body and just whack off the head and arm and bring ‘em back.

I’m not going to comment with my 21st sensibilities, but it does seem a bit harsh. For their side, the British felt they were preserving everything for posterity, assuming the inferior civilizations that had first made these objects couldn't be trusted to maintain them.

Or it was funny. I can’t remember the exact explanation just at the moment.

For the Parthenon, as a matter of fct, the BM created an entire room that is lined with all the best art and sculpture from the real Parthenon. When you go to Greece and visit the onsite museum, you see pictures of what is missing, color coded as to where it's at (mostly in London!).

Another famously interesting piece is the Rosetta Stone. Quite popular with the ladies until they see what it looks like.

Again, located in London of course. We almost had a bit of a run-in with the locals when I fell on top of the thing. Hey, I say let’s get close to history, no?

Besides, it’s not like they carved it thousands of years ago and it's all that important. Plus, I've got a picture of it so I'm sure we could put it back together.

Anyway, as I recall we did finally get to visit Khans Tandoori Indian food in the Bayswater area of London. Anyway, fantastic Indian food, the 300-seat place has 30 foot ceilings supported by columns, painted to seem like a blue sky with clouds. This partially offsets the manic crowds and hustling waiters running around the place during peak times, oh, say midnight or so.

But our education was not over. Then it was off to enjoy the Compleat works of Shakespeare (abridged). It was only 10 quid for good seats and one of the most popular Shakespeare performances to be created recently. The 97 minute comedy includes all of Shakespeare, 37 plays and sonnets and the whole bit. Abridged, as they say.

I'm not sure why everyone says the Bard is so exhausting, we were laughing the whole time and felt quite refreshed and knowledgeable after our departure from the theater. Excuse me, theatre.

Thursday <<<<<<< March 20th, last day of our very brief excursion Across the Pond

Rather than a low-priced, high value play we decided to see Phantom of the Opera, where tickets were high-priced and of low-value, 35 pounds a piece and shitty seats to boot. Obstructed view my ass.

Anyway, not knowing we'd be forced to sit through this, we enjoyed the morning and afternoon. Mostly shopping. Well, Dan shopped. First he hits the music stores for the latest import stuff (Domestic in London, I guess). Then he was out to find just one more “proper” tobacconist.

It turns out we found "the" tobacconist. And, the most proper of all was Harrod’s, whose personnel conveniently understood our dilemma (not being able to import Cuban cigars) and was willing to assist in a slight bit of shenanigans for the sake of peace.