And I guess that’s what The Big Fiddle is all about, the largest in the world.
Mad George’s wife’s town
Skip to it: King George
Charlottetown, named for Mad King George’s wife, has echoes of an olde world, with what looks suspiciously like jarvie racing (they call it harness racing) at the Red Shores Horsetrack.
Don’t hang around though, get a gallop on, because you know the ship won’t wait for you.
And the Big Apple
Laddie and Lady: On the Hudson
Whether you’re a prince or a New York Princess.
The Big Apple is waiting and there’s no time to waste.
It’s become a fixture on the party and social calendar in the West but, of course, Pride is a revulsion elsewhere in the world, and in this World Cup year isn’t it queer how offside Qatar is to the world?
Now the football world (a different universe, of course) turned a blind eye to the Emirate’s discrimination and criminalisation of the LGBTQIA community when awarding Qatar the hosting of this winter’s World Cup.
Flagging up an issue: With Qatar
And quite what that’ll mean to LGBTQIA football fans who are wanting to follow their countries’ fortunes then we’ll try here to decipher.
While we all know too that of the hundreds of footballers, coaching staff and officials taking part not one will be LGBTQIA.
And that will get FIFA off the hook… and there won’t be anybody queer in that organisation either.
A word from the sponsors
Take that: The Qataris
Football’s World Cup is, of course, more than a sporting event.
It is a cultural, educational example and the tourist trip football fans have been planning for years.
So make of these welcoming words if you will from Qatari official Major General Abdulaziz Abdullah Ansari
‘If he (a fan) raised the rainbow flag and I took it from him, it’s not because I really want to really take it to really insult him.
‘But to protect him. Because if it’s not me, somebody else around him might attack (him).
‘Watch the game. That’s good. But don’t really come in and insult the whole society because of this.
‘Reserve the room together, sleep together – this is something that’s not in our concern. We are here to manage the tournament.
‘Let’s not go beyond the individual personal things which might be happening between these people… this is actually the concept.’
Right, where do we start? The Major General’s assertion that he really wants to protect ‘them’?
Qatari protection
Sheikh it off: The Qataris
So, protecting them then would be not exposing them to a punishment of up to seven years in prison and a fine.
And the possibility of death penalty if you are indigenous.
Of course this is for men because just like in Victorian Britain lesbianism wasn’t even considered thing despite upper-class society’s obsession with all things Classical where the Sapphists were chronicled.
Maybe here too Major General you might think.
About criminalising the people who would attack an innocent person simply because which sex they love.
And then what about their concession to gay visitors that they can ‘reserve the room together, sleep together’?
Well evidence this very year has shown that FIFA recommended hotels in Qatar are actively refusing to accommodate same-sex couples.
Or ‘these people’ as the Major General calls them.
Of course it’s not as if we hadn’t been warned.
Bla, bla Blatter
Out of touch: Sepp Blatter
That bastion of integrity, former FIFA chief Sepp Blatter had thought it all a big joke.
When he was asked about a lack of gay rights in Qatar shortly after they were selected in 2010… ‘They should refrain from any sexual activities.’
And the Qataris, naturally, must have seen this as a green light.
Because three years later the head of Qatar’s World Cup bid team, Hassan al-Thawadi, said that everybody was welcome at the event, so long as they refrained from public display of affection.
‘Public display of affection is not part of our culture and tradition’.
To which you can justifiably add… and particularly not when you’re holding hands with, or kissing, a member of the same sex.
American continental LGBTI army
The right path: Pride in West Hollywood
We can console ourselves somewhat that the next World Cup will be held in the USA, Canada and Mexico.
Where people are allowed to express themselves and love each other how they want.
Let’s hope too that by then there will be more than one openly gay professional footballer in the English league structure.
And that this is replicated throughout the country.
And that the sports whitewashing by Middle Eastern and Gulf countries who are buying up, or have bought up Europe’s biggest clibs, does not deter LGBTQIA players from coming out.
Now we’ll leave this heavy but necessary subject.
To get back to checking out where I can get my best Pride experience around here in sleepy North Berwick, near Edinburgh.
A Dutch of class
The future is Oranje: The Oranje Army
But before we go, big hats with feathers off.
To the Dutch politician who suggested that the Netherlands national team play in pink rather than their traditional orange, in solidarity with the LGBTI community.
We’ve not heard whether that this is being taken up by the Dutch football federation.
But having partied with the inclusive Oranje Army on the way to Rotterdam to see them play Greece a number of years ago…
We know the supporters’ only rule is that you love Total Football.
When you’ve already visited 120 countries (there are 195) then it’s difficult to choose your best… but here to mark her 70th anniversary of her coronation today, are the Queen’s platinum destinations.
That leaves just 75 countries for Queenie to visit too (and she won’t let her 95 years put her off).
Among them Greece, where Philip had some unresolved issues, Madagascar, Cuba, Israel and Peru.
And that leaves the rest of us in the ha’penny place (her head was on that too) when it comes to the Queen’s platinum destinations.
And as the gratitudes are handed out over the course of the year, what most people will be glad of, is the four bank holidays Britons are getting this year.
It’s a country I love and where I should be this month, and it might surprise you, but there are benefits in going Cold Turkey.
Turkey is for ever set at a crossroads, of continents and civilisations and change.
And diverse colours, hues of peoples and views.
And that changing perspective is as true of Nature and the seasons as it is of the peoples of this multi-faceted country.
As holidaymakers we’re more used to seeing Turkey when it’s roasting.
But it’s resplendent too when it puts on the winter whites.
Cappadocia caps it
Balloons for all seasons: In Cappodocia
Don’t just take my word for it though (well do) but Cappadocia glistens more than anywhere in the world according to our Instagrammers.
Wellness experts at Area 52 have looked at locations across the world and analysed Instagram hashtag data to see which are the most relaxing winter destinations to de-stress this year.
And Balloonists’ Nirvana Cappadocia tops the list with
And all the focus on COP26 just along the road in Glasgow has got us all thinking about water, the source of life… and prompting us to bring you Holidos and don’ts where to drink the water.
And particularly when we think back on how we were always warned against drinking the water when we were abroad (mostly in those days, Spain).
Sup up: And something to clench your thirst
The fact though is that Spain is safe to drink from the tap and so there is no need to buy plastic bottled water from the supermercato.
Even better, of course, is to find yourself a stream in the country, and better still if you can stumble upon a Camino along the way and follow it through the Santiago.
La Citta Eterna, of course, prides itself on its water.
The fountains which are around every corner and in every piazza.
But also the beautifully adorned taps with carvings of Romulus and Remus and their wolf mother which proliferate around the city.
Wolf down the water: With La Famiglia underneath the wolf and Romulus and Remus
In the cloying humidity of a Rome heatwave you’ll be glad of a tap to fill up your flask.
And didn’t Silvio Berlusconi just know it when our guide told us that he wanted to start charging the locals for the water… something not even Benito Mussolini dared try.
Back to our friends at Globehunters and they reflect that the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Northern and Western Europe, the US and Japan have the best water.
All of which means that you need to take more care in south-eastern Europe, much of Asia, Africa, Central America and South America and it pains me to say the Caribbean (although ‘rum is mi only medicine’ there).
Holy water
Water of life: In the Pyrenees
There are, of course, parts of the world, those where Our Lady has visited, where the water is straight from Heaven.
And yes, I know, that all water comes from the heavens, although a politician in Ireland when I was living there didn’t.
When he railed against the idea of water charges by saying just that ‘that it was’t as if water fell from the heavens’.
The Maryest of Marian sites is, of course, Lourdes, where the Pyrenees water in Cauterets is among the purest and spirited of anywhere.
So be sure to sup from the streams and the waterfalls.
Your own water
Wait for it: Guinness and its magic Irish water
It was always a matter of great pride that your own country had the best water.
And this has always been credited as the magic ingredient of Ireland’s famous Guinness stout.
And Scotch and Irish whisk(e)y.
So now we’re all back out on the road then look out for the taps in towns, and the streams and waterfalls in the country.
And fill up your flasks.
Ditch the plastic
Heat map: Of where is best to drink your water
It also tastes better when it’s not out of a plastic bottle.
And the fishies in the seas, my old pal Mother Turtle Vanessa in the Maldives, and our future generations will thank you.
Be warned too that now we’re all travelling again I’m hardly going to stop here with Holidos and don’ts where to drink the water.
And I’ll back with more Holidos and don’ts… in the blog that’s not all blah, blah, blah.
Well, at least, not the type of blah that will destroy our beautiful blue planet.
