Roman Holiday part two: Colosseum.

This was the only way Aston Villa were going to get to the venue of the Champions League final. Actually, I'm cheating a little bit; this pic was taken on a different day to the one I'm writing about.

For our first full day in the Eternal City, we decided to go to the Colosseum. So after Heather had opened her cards and prezzies (it was her birthday, after all) and we'd eaten our breakfast of weird bread with ham and and even weirder cheese, we left the hotel and went to Ciampino train station via the hotel's shuttle service, which is basically a pissed-off elderly Italian driving a people carrier.

We got on the train, which was a double-decker ( why don't we have those here in Blighty? I'm sick of paying through the nose for train tickets only to stand up all the way there. I better stop before I go off on one about public transport again!) and off we went into Rome.

As you go into Rome on the train, you notice three things. One, there's history all over the place. You'll see an apartment block, then a bit of ancient aquaduct, a football pitch, then a bit of ruined castle. The town planners have just built around what's left of Ancient Rome, whereas here, if we discover some Ancient Briton burial site, we'll let some archaeologists dig for a couple of weeks and then tell them to piss off and put a multi-storey car-park on top of it.

Two, there's loads of graffiti. All the bits that aren't ancient have got some toerag's tag on it. I'm used to seeing graffiti here in Brum, but it's everywhere in Rome. Then again, 'graffiti' is an Italian word, isn't it? I suppose it's not surprising then, if you think about it. There was an interesting piece of graffiti at the Colosseum, but I'll tell you about that in due course.

Three, it's fucking sweltering. Apparently, we'd arrived during a heatwave, and even the local Romans were moaning about the heat. There was a digital display on the train that tells you what the temperature was, and it was just shy of thirty-five degrees Celsius. I'm not good when it's too hot. I'm not a big fan of sweating. I'm also not a big fan of other people's sweat, especially when the train was as humid and as smelly as the inside of a Chelmsley Wood postman's sock on giro day.

After about twenty minutes in the sweatbox, we got off at Rome's Termini station and because the receptionist at the hotel told us isn't wasn't far, we decided to walk to the Colosseum. To be fair to the receptionist, she had given us a map, and it's not that far really. But to us, who don't know our way around and are very hot indeed, it seemed a fair old distance. Another thing about the inhabitants of Rome, is that they like to dawdle along. Put them on the road, in a vehicle, they go mental, but if you take them out of their car or off their Vespas and put them on a pavement and make them walk, they just saunter along. That's if there is a pavement, of course.

Anyway, after about half an hour of frequent stops to look at the map, and trying to navigate around five dawdling Italians walking side-by-side, we found the Colosseum. It's pretty hard to miss, actually. It is a very impressive building. I'm always amazed when I see something I've only ever seen in films or on telly with my own eyes. When you're there by the Colosseum, you're also surrounded by ancient arches and the remains of the Forum, and you do really get a sense of what ancient Rome must've been like.

Outside of the Colosseum, there's shitloads of tour groups, usually led by someone holding up a stick with a flag on it, there's also loads of blokes dressed up as gladiators or Roman centurions that charge you if you want your picture taken with them. Spoiling the effect, however, is the fact that most of these 'gladiators' are about sixty and smoking a roll-up. There's also quite a few market stalls, selling the usual shite you get at any tourist trap. I'm normally against giving any of these arseholes my money, but Heather talked me into going round the Colosseum with a tour guide, and I'm glad we did because our tour guide was a headcase.

So we sign up for a guided tour and we get given a little blue sticker to show that we've paid, and we join the rest of the punters who have also signed up for the tour. Along comes our guide, who looked a little bit like a younger Fabio Capello, holding what appeared to be a children's picture book about the Colosseum. Because our group wasn't as big as he'd like, he starts waffling on about any old shite to kill time while the group gets bigger.

He was an Italian, and a proud Roman. He began by asking us where we all came from. It was like a word association game for him. One of our group was from New Zealand (which didn't surprise me as looked exactly like Bret McKenzie from Flight Of The Conchords. We asked him about it later on and he said 'we all look alike in New Zealand, probably because we're all related.') When finding where he was from, the tour guide said 'Russell Crowe! Gladiator!'

When he found out where we were from, he replied 'Fish and chips!' and on he went, shouting out the national dish or footballers or film stars relating to the answer of the punter he'd just asked, until he came to one guy who was Dutch, and he was stymied, and decided to start the history lesson.

He started off telling us what it was like in Ancient Rome. About food, and orgies and slaves and the Vestal Virgins and about how badly women were treated. In fact, every time he mentioned any misogynistic acts the Romans did, he high-fived a man in the group in celebration. He then went on to tell us how clean the Romans were and are. He looked at us and said 'We Romans are so clean, when we invade your Breetan, we name a 'ole city 'Bath'! Not like French. French are Steenky, like skoonks!'

Then he told us that the films Ben-Hur and Gladiator are full of mistakes, most notably, both of those films show chariots being used in the Colosseum, which was never the case, as it was too small for any chariots. If you wanted chariots, you had to go the Circus Maximus, a much bigger venue down the road. (we had a look at the Circus Maximus later in the week, and it's just a vast green field these days, but you do realise how massive it must've been.)

For all his casual xenophobia and sexism, though, he knew his stuff and told us lost of interesting facts. For example, two million people were killed at the Colosseum. And of those two million, guess how many were Christians? Just one, Saint Ignatius. Apparently, persecution was big business, so all the Christians were murdered at the Circus Maximus instead, where there was a bigger audience to see it, as it had a capacity for 120,000 spectators. In fact, they set fire to Christians and used them as human torches so the spectators could see where they were going.

Also, the word Colosseum is an English name, coined by the Venerable Bede in the 9th Century. It's proper name is the Flavian Amphitheatre.

Another interesting fact is that the number four being represented by 'IV' in Roman numerals, came along after the empire became Christian, to save space and chiseller's carpal tunnels because it was 'IIII' when the Colosseum was built, as you can see when you look at the numbers above the gates into it.

Every time he gave us an interesting fact, he would back it up by showing us a picture from the children's book he was holding. At one point, he roped in one of the blokes dressed as a gladiator to help him. He looked authentic until his mobile phone went off. He fished it out of a little drawstring bag and proceeded to have a little chat. When he finished, he pointed to his phone and said 'Cleopatra'.

Anyway, after about half an hour of this, he'd got enough people for his group, and after a free photo-op with the gladiator, which I declined ,as he was far too tanned and good looking, and I'm always nervous around people holding swords, but lots of the other members of the group had their pictures taken with him, we were off into the Colosseum.

The first thing he pointed out to us after we got through the gates was a bit of ancient graffiti. An ancient Roman had carved a big phallus into one of the walls. 'See the penis?' he shouted. 'Look at the penis! Take picture of penis!' I hope he was referring to the graffiti, anyway. I'd hate to think he had a fetish for getting tourists to take a snap of his pudendum.

There was a middle-aged American couple in front of Heather and I, and the husband asked the tour guide 'Why's it so small?' The tour guide smiled and gave him a high-five.

You get an eerie feeling when you walk around the place, which isn't surprising, considering the amount of people killed there. This feeling was abated a little bit by the tour guide pointing out ancient bidets and saying ' Look! Arse-washers!'

So, we walk around for another forty minutes or so, looking around the place in the stifling heat, until we get down to where the fights actually took place. There's not much left of the floor now, but you can see where they had the lifts that elevated lions and other ferocious beasts into the arena. The tour guide pointed to a picture of a lion in his book, in case we'd all forgotten what the king of the jungle looked like. 'Lions are bastards,' he said. 'Capisce? BASTARDS!' and then he went on to explain how they had archers on standby should the lions decide to attack and eat the spectators. It was alright to eat the gladiator, but not the punters.

He then told us about the big crucifix that's there now, put there by some pope or other who came and blessed the place and prayed for the two million or so who died there. Like that's going to help them, seeing as all but one of them were pagans.

Afterwards, he took us to meet the other tour guide, who was taking us around the Palatine hills, but I won't dwell on her as she was informative, but a bit dull, but the area is lovely, and we came away, having looked, amongst other things, at the remains of the forum, well educated about ancient Rome, but also very sunburnt. And we'd been walking for miles. As soon as we got out, we headed for a pizza and a beer in a restaurant overlooking the Colosseum, and despite there being a whole boiled egg in the pizza, it had been a good day.

Roman Holiday, part one; Getting There.

It's been a while since I last posted, I know, but I've got a good excuse this time, as my girlfriend and I were in Italy for a good part of my hiatus. This was my first proper holiday in God knows how long, my girlfriend and I were going to celebrate our Birthdays in Rome (yep, our birthdays are in the same week. Weird, huh?) and I was looking forward to it immensely, but the main problem about Rome is the fact that it's abroad and you have to get on an aeroplane to get there. And you can't get there directly from Birmingham International Airport, either, you have to go to Heathrow, which is nearly a hundred miles away.

I'm not a big fan of flying. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of it; I quite like the bit when you're actually up in the sky. I love looking down at the world from above, seeing coastlines and the tops of mountains and the topside of clouds. It's just a pity I can't sit in a window seat because I'm poor and can only afford to travel economy and therefore end up with my knees around my earholes because I have the audacity to be taller than six feet. Anyway, as I said, I enjoy the actual flying. What I don't enjoy is all the rigmarole you have to go through before you can actually get on the plane. All the checking in and security checks and putting all your bottles in plastic bags and all the general fucking about really gives me a cob-on. (That's a Brummie phrase meaning 'in a bit of a mood')

When you get on a bus or a train, do they ask you to take off your belt first? No. And recent events tell us that buses and trains are just as likely to get blown up by terrorists as planes are. The stuff they won't let people take on, either; Tweezers, for example. If anyone ever mounted a successful hijack armed with just a pair of tweezers, then they deserve the fucking plane, if you ask me. (Not that I had a pair of tweezers, by the way. Anyone who knows me well enough to inspect my eyebrows can testify to the fact that I don't use them!) Don't get me wrong, I know we need security, but there's a difference between security and paranoid hysteria.

So, anyway, we flew from the new Terminal Five, which looks like something out of Flash Gordon, but unfortunately without a bellowing Brian Blessed. Actually, it'd be cool to have him do the Tannoy announcements. You certainly wouldn't ignore them. Typically, as this is England, our flight was delayed for an hour and a bit, but after we got on, it was all fairly plain sailing. Or Plane-flying, if you will.

Two and a half hours later, we land at Fiumicino Airport, and I knew for sure we were in Rome as the woman who checked my passport looked like a Vogue model and I was surrounded by loads of nuns.(Sounds like a dream I once had.) These nuns weren't your normal, boring, black-and-white penguin types, these ones were all in white, except for their wimples, which were navy blue. I suspect these nuns were Tottenham supporters. (if they were indeed Spurs fans, I bet their faith has been sorely tested lately!) Anyway, I get through passport control with a minimum of fuss as I'm from the EU. My girlfriend, however, with her American passport, had to queue for ages with the rest of non-EU undesirables. However, this just meant I had to go and get our luggage, which, as is usual for me, were the penultimate bags to come out onto the belt.

We were picked up by an elderly taxi driver and taken on a half-hour walk to where his car was parked. We were staying in a hotel which was on the other side of Rome, in a town called Ciampino. The taxi driver couldn't find it, and spent a lot of the journey talking and swearing to himself in Italian. Now, I don't know if you've ever been to Rome, but one of the things about the place is that everyone there drives like an absolute nutcase. The speed limit is seen as just a rough guide and stuff like traffic lights and roadsigns are just there to make the roadside look a bit more interesting. It's like Death Race 2000. (RIP David Carradine, by the way. Surely, he should've learned from Kill Bill that the palm technique was dangerous?) The village we were staying in didn't have the big roads Rome does, it just had single-lane roads and dirt tracks and roads that share space with train tracks and no pavements, so sitting in the back of a taxi with a swearing taxi driver who's lost whilst everyone else is doing their level best to collide with you was a bit worrying.
Anyway, after a while, and probably more through luck than judgment, we got to where we were staying, and it was a lovely-looking place. It was an old farmhouse which had been converted into a few apartments. We checked in, dumped our bags and went for a night-time al-fresco dinner. I normally struggle to make any kind of decision, especially when picking from a menu, but the hotel's menu helped me on this score as it only had three dishes to choose from on it. Chicken, beef, or a plate of cheeses. A vegan would be fucked, basically. Anyway, I had the beef, Heather had the chicken and afterwards we drank and looked out over the lights of Rome in the distance. It wasn't the best meal we've ever had, but it was just what we needed.

(Right. I seem to have been typing for ages, and we've only just got there! Serves me right for going off on one about air travel. There's another five days of this shit yet, so I've decided to do it in episodes. Next one soon!)

George Carlin R.I.P.

This video, as you may expect, contains some rude words, so be careful if you're at work or near children. If you're within earshot of a Christian fundamentalist, please play at maximum volume.
The world's a much poorer place now George Carlin's gone.

"Evolution is a lie."

I know I said I wouldn't be on here for a bit, but I've just drawn one of the best pages I've ever done, and had a down and up and down again Villa match to put up with (we're still sixth, I suppose!) so I need a bit of internet downtime to calm down! It's a shame my scanner is still problematic, as I'd share the page with you.

Anyway, I have to share this site with you, I don't know if it's hilarious or frightening. You decide!

Too Much To Bear.

This Teddy is insulting Jesus! Let's behead it!!


I think it's absolutely right that Gillian Gibbons, that teacher in the Sudan (It's one of those rare areas with 'the' in front of it, like the Gambia or the Hague. We should have it here, 'The Birmingham' sounds ace! Although, I've just thought of a drawback; It's already the first two words of our two main local papers, asking for 'The The Birmingham Mail' might make you sound like Gareth Gates in the days before he had the speech therapy.) should be found guilty of insulting Islam. She named a teddy bear after Mohammed, and when you think about it, the other most famous bear in the world was called Pooh. So she's calling Mohammed 'Pooh'! And Pooh hung around with a pig! It's an outrage! I can perfectly understand why those people want her to be executed.

Actually, I think it's an absolute travesty that this poor woman is being put through this ridiculous ordeal. It's time these people moved out of the seventh century and joined the rest of us living in the actual real world, where most people would be quite pleased to have a teddy bear named after them, as it's a sign of endearment, not an insult. (Although, the thought of a bear called 'Mick Trimble' might actually frighten the more sensitive child.) Does this mean that anything called 'Mohammed' is an insult? That all those millions of people who have named their sons Mohammed have also insulted the prophet? I could understand it if it was a soft toy of an unsavoury animal, like a snake, or a rat, or a pig, or an alien facehugger (My youngest daughter has a facehugger plush. Yes, it is weird, but she loves it!It's got it's own velcro egg and everything!) It's not as if Gillian Gibbons even named it! Her class are the actual guilty party, yet no-one's demonstrating saying they should whip, or even execute them, are they? Maybe that's because they're not from the decadent West, but it's okay to be our friends whenever there's a famine and they need our help, but if we give a fucking stuffed toy the wrong name- well, we've just stepped over the line!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all Muslims are mental superstitious, bloodthirsty headcases. The ones I know certainly aren't. (Well, one might be...) Muslims in this country are trying to shake off the 'They're all terrorists' tag that the Daily Mail and other stupid people label them with. Muslims say that Islam is a tolerant, peaceful religion, and I'm sure that, for the most part, this is true. But this kind of thing happens and knocks their cause back to square one. They should be angrier than anyone that these backward, stupid idiots are willing to spill blood over a teddy bear. For fuck's sake.


Justice has been done! Result! Praise The Lord!!

Sorry, Sir.

Back in July, in this post, I regrettably made a flippant comment about the'Peter Pan of Pop' and got a few comments from irate Cliffites who had nothing better to do than stick 'Sir Cliff' into Google and have a go at the first person they saw having a moan about him. I wouldn't mind, but the post was about shouting Everest-climbing yeti hawkman Brian Blessed! Gordon's Alive! Anyway, I'm sorry for any distress caused to deluded menopausal women with a fixation on a man who isn't remotely interested in pleasures of the flesh. Apparently.

Anyway, I shall atone for my sins by embedding this video, which shows me the error of my ways:

And that Madonna's a horrible gap-toothed slag with man's arms!
(That may seem totally irrelevant, but I want to do a future post with a similar video so I can use my 'Embed with Madonna' joke that won't fit in anywhere else but Blogger or Facebook.)

Fame Remaining: 14 mins and 59 secs...

Last night the BBC, as part of its Ramadan season, broadcast a programme entitled She's A Thoroughly Modern Muslim. I mention this because I was in it. For all of one second. Maybe a second and a half. The programme featured four Muslim women from around the country and how they're getting on in 21st Century Britain. One of the women was a member of the Midlands Comics Collective and rising star in the world of cartooning Asia Alfasi. The programme showed her at one of our meetings and I was in the background in my rather cool Silver Surfer T-shirt looking all handsome and talking to fellow MC2-er Mikey Ball (possibly also looking handsome, but you couldn't tell, as you only saw the back of his head). For all of one second.

Anyway, none of these thoroughly modern muslim women were quite as thoroughly modern as the lady I saw the other day. She was wearing the hijab headscarf, and she was also wearing quite revealing denim hotpants! Nothing illustrates the east meets west melting pot that is Brum better than that!

Maybe they should do another, similar documentary about another misunderstood minority in this country called He's A Thoroughly Modern Nerd, where I could talk about how society stereotypes me and thinks I'm oppressed, and think I'm forced to wear strange clothes, clothes like my rather cool Silver Surfer t-shirt. (NB. said garment was bought way before the Hollywood travesty FF2 came out and made Norrin Radd a bit rubbish. It depicts the cover of Silver Surfer #19 and has groovy John Buscema art on it. I love John Buscema's art.)

Anyway, us thoroughly modern nerds have something to shout about, as BBC4 are currently having the Comics Britannia season, the Comics Britannia show itself was quite good, focusing on the history of the Dandy and the Beano and all their spin-offs and imitators. It was good as I found out what Kevin O'Neill looks like, and he surprised me as he doesn't look like his drawings. People say the characters in my strips look like me (although, looking at my strips, I've yet to draw a fat four-eyed bastard, so maybe they're wrong), and a lot of the fairly well-known artists I've met over the years look like their drawings. Especially Bisley! But Kevin doesn't. That would be quite difficult though,as Kev O'Neill's characters are a lot more abstract than most other mainstream artists. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting them to be interviewing a real-life Nemesis The Warlock on his love for the Beano, but that would've been cool, though, wouldn't it? My main problem with the documentary was that a lot of the original creators and fans said that political correctness had ruined the D.C. Thompson comic books, but I'm sick of this notion that all P.C. is bad and restricts any kind of freedom of expression. You can't have a comic book aimed at kids (or anyone, really) that's as full of racial stereotypes as the Beano used to be, especially as a fair number of the readers of these books are now from a non-white family. And having bullying and corporal punishment used as entertainment just can't be right. Despite this, I enjoyed the documentary, and I'm looking forward to the next part. Also, on Sunday is a show called In Search Of Steve Ditko, in which Jonathan Ross interviews the Spider-man co-creator. Also fab, are the re-runs of the old '60s Batman TV show, which are great. The sight of Batters disco-dancing with Jill St. John is fantastic and gives me an excuse to re-post this clip, one of my YouTube favourites:

See you all again soon.

Jose Who?

I'm still smiling (I know it's strange) from the brilliant result the mighty Aston Villa got against Chelsea on Sunday. The cheating Cockney bastards got stuffed 2-0! First time they've been beaten in seven months! Our mostly British team beat the team of expensive foreigners! Both goals scored by lifelong Villa-supporting Brummies as well!
Drogba, who is up for a BAFTA for his performance as 'man who has just been elbowed in the face' even though there was no contact at all, ironically REALLY did get injured and had to be helped off at the end. Serves the cheating bastard right. He is one of the best strikers in the world at the moment, and it saddens me that players of his calibre have to resort to play-acting. The same goes for that Ronaldo at Man Utd.
After the match, a bloke came into the pub covered in blood, telling someone on his mobile that he'd been jumped by three Chelsea supporters (it was probably only two, really) but, like he said 'at least we beat the cunts'. If he'd worn a claret shirt instead of a white one, the blood wouldn't have shown up anyway.
Being a Villa supporter is very hard work sometimes, but every now and again they do something that makes it all worthwhile, and Sunday was one of those times. When the second goal went in I was so happy it took me at least twenty minutes to get back to my natural 'slightly pissed off' state.
Also priceless was this moment, which happened straight after Gabby scored:


The way Doug Ellis is laughing at Abramovich almost made me like him again.

UP THE VILLA!!!

Bloody Catholics.

The Catholic Church piss me off. They wanted a veto on allowing gay couples to adopt children from their orphanages. The government decided that they shouldn't have such a thing. Bloody right too. Surely, if anyone is prepared to make the sacrifices and love and look after these poor kids, then they should be given the chance, regardless of creed, colour or sexuality.
If it wasn't for the Roman Catholic stance on contraception, there wouldn't be so many unwanted children in the first place, and if you ask me, getting vulnerable children away from the Catholic church can only be a good thing. Remember, the current Pope tried to hush up all the claims of sexual abuse in Catholic institutions.
They say Homosexuality isn't natural, yet they deny Jesus had any kind of sexual relationship with women. they forbid their Priests from having sex or getting married. This tells me that they think men having sex with women is bad. You'd think they'd be all for homosexuality.
Think about it. Jesus knocked about with twelve geezers who were all 'fishers of men'. The only woman Christ loved was Madonna. If all that washing of feet stuff doesn't have a gay subtext, then my uncle wasn't Mr. Gay UK!
If God created us all, then he created gays and lesbians as well.
Surely any decent religion should be based on love, not hate. If these kids need a loving, decent home, and there's someone who is wiling to give it them, what harm is being done?

Bad Religion.

I kind of liked the old pope. When I lived there, there used to be a picture of him on the landing at my Nan and Grandad's house.(My Grandad's Irish, he was brainwashed by nuns long before he got to England.) He was smiling at you with his finger up, like he was blessing you for putting the immersion on. (Downstairs, my Nan was cursing you for putting on the water heater, as it cost her money, and she could never understand why people need to be warm when they're having a bath.)
That Pope, after what seemed the longest serious illness ever suffered by anyone ever (thanks, God!) died and regenerated into Pope Ratzinger the 42nd, or something. The Vatican, in its infinite wisdom, replaced the old Pope with someone older, which is always a bad idea. Like when Roger Moore replaced Connery as 007. This Pope has said a silly thing which has upset people. I mean, before, he was just a nice, straightfoward, ultra-conservative homophobic ex-Nazi in a dress, but now he said all wars are unholy, I've gone off him.
Now, if you want to make the point that there is no such thing as a holy war, Jihad or whatever because all wars are evil, fine. Just don't accuse all Muslims as being evil and violent at the same time. And If I was a Muslim, how would I react to such a slur? Just ignoring the old fool? Or proving him right by setting churches on fire and shooting nuns dead? The Pope now will need that bulletproof Popemobile (there's faith for you!) and him saying sorry has put paid to the notion of Papal infallibility.
I'm not saying religion is a bad thing. Well, I am, but it can have good things to offer. Just not to me. When my afore-mentioned Grandad nearly died earlier this year, he kept his little crucifix with him at all times. My Nan praying for him every night helped her cope with the ordeal. Highly religious people such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, and Desmond Tutu have actually made the world a better place whilst the totally godless regimes of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot led to the deaths of millions.
The Muslims I know and work with are nothing like the idiots I see on the telly most nights. There must be more moderates than extremists. It's time they spoke up and took the Koran back from the headcases. Saying the Pope is the AntiChrist and burning effigies of him just turns you into Ian Paisley, and you don't want that! Christians need to sort their own headcases out as well, and sit down and find common ground, because there's plenty. They both hate homosexuals, contraception and abortion, freedom of choice and the Jewish! I mean, that's something to start with!
Let's stop using a mythical God as an excuse for good or bad behaviour. I mean, every time there's a horrible disaster, someone asks 'how can god let this happen?' and we're told we can't understand what His plan is; yet when it comes to sexual intercourse, we're told exactly what God thinks!It's up to us normal human beings to behave ourselves and treat each other with respect. It's also about time Songs Of Praise and Cliff Richard packed it all in, as well!