Countries Archives - Page 7 of 215 - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

And hope for all superstitious suffering sports fans everywhere, the Curse of Mayo is lifted… now for other jinxes.

Mayo’s trials are legend in Ireland where they have suffered 75 years of hurt (take that Baddiel and Skinner).

Since they upset a priest officiating a funeral with their boisterous celebrations in the village of Foxford.

On the occasion of the county’s last All-Ireland title in 1951 before this week’s one.

The pastor cursed the squad that they’d win no more Gaelic Football Championships while any of them were still alive.

Mayo for Sam

Fast forward 75 years and 11 lost All-Irelands later the Yew County are All-Ireland champions again.

And you can make of it what you will.

But the last connection with the 1951 team, Dr Mick Loftus died three years ago.

Now the story of Mayo’s retribution has gone viral with the Diaspora and Mayo descendant Joe Biden’s cri de coeur.

With the ex-Prez of the Oo Es of Eh posting ‘Mayo for Sam’… the trophy named for GA titan Sam Maguire.

Gods of sport

It’s never wise to upset the gods (have you seen The Odyssey?) or God, or even the Mother of God.

Particularly in Catholic Argentina, where in 1986 manager Carlos Bilardo pledged to the Virgin of Copacabana.

That if they won the World Cup he would return to give homage.

Only he and Diego Maradona and the boys forgot all about in the excitement.

And Argentina failed to win another World Cup for 36 years.

The squad made amends in 2018 and Our Lady bestowed her blessings on her Argentinian children although she made them wait.

Until that god in human form Lionel Messi led Argentina to World Cup four years later in Qatar.

Don’t tinker with gypsies

Nor is it ever wise to trample over gypsy land…

Just ask Birmingham City, preferred team of the Peaky Blinders Shelbys, who built on gypsy land.

And had to wait 100 years for the curse to be lifted and for them to win their first major silverware.

Even after managers had put crucifixes on the floodlights and urinated at the four corners of the ground.

While fellow English clubs Leeds and Derby have also dallied with the Romany community and lived to regret it.

The Penn is mightier

Sometimes a curse can be imposed across sports as what happened when Philadelphia’s Big Four teams were cursed.;

For the hubris of city builders in 1987.

Who perhaps didn’t think that the Ghost of William Penn, the city’s founder wouldn’t notice that they erected a building taller than the peak of his hat.

On his statue atop the spire of City Hall.

A no-no in the City of Brotherly Love.

When the final beam of the Comcast Center, was raised in 2007, iron workers attached a small figurine of Billy to the beam in an attempt to break the curse.

And it seemed to work with the following year, the Phillies winnimg the 2008 World Series.

Ten years later, when the even taller Comcast Technology Center was topped out.

The iron workers did the same thing and the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl.

And in other curses

Pitching for success: Cubs’ Wrigley Field

Add to that the Curse of the Bambino (Babe Ruth’s trade from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees) and Merkle’s Boner and the Curse of the Billy Goat placed on the Chicago Cubs.

And you’ll see that there is no limit to price that can be paid for perceived indiscretions.

Though what our own Scotland did to offend the deities which ensures that our football team can never progress.

Beyond the group stages of a major football finals.

Well answers on a postcard… and yes, we all know the joke about Scotland returning home before the postcards.

Countries, Culture, Europe

Ich bin Queen Berliner

27th July 202627th July 2026 funtime65

It has been a gay magnet since the hedonistic Cabaret Thirties and for the tragic day that’s in it we say Ich bin Queen Berliner.

And reflect on making the pilgrimage to the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism in Berlin.

Not because I’m gay, because I’m not, but rather that is not the point but because hate crime comes for us all.

Spelling it out: Remembering the gay victims of the War

As best expressed by Pastor Martin Niemoller in his testament They First Came.

Inscribed on a wall in the Hall of Witness at the New aEngland Holocaust Memorial in Boston.

Outside my old Faneuil Hall stomping ground.

And the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.

A cloak of honesty

That points to the Nazi vilification, victimisation and evisceration of homosexuals and lesbians.

Berlin wears its history in its memorials and museums but not as a hair shirt but as a cloak of honesty.

The German capital is, of course, a great learning city and a great walking one.

And you can stumble upon the memorial to the gay victims of the Third Reich.

While on your way through the city to your digs.

In the shadows

Learn how 50,000 were convicted and thousands sent to their deaths in concentration camps.

And were still criminalised after the War and that it was not until the Millennium that there sacrifice began to be acknowledged.

And 18 years ago that a lasting memorial was erected.

The kiss-off

Everyone’s doing it: Brezhnev and Honecker

In a concrete tribute with a film depicting a same sex couple kissing inside.

Which is the Berliners’ calling card to the world.

With their satirical merchandising of the Brezhnev and Honecker kiss on every stand.

Anyone can, and does kiss each other at the big Berliner Pride party at the Brandenburg Gate.

Or Christopher Street Day on July 15 and 25 over these past 47 years in commemoration of the Greenwich Village protests from 1969.

The most enabling resistance day

Christopher Day 2026 will forever be remembered for the victims of homophobia.

But the near million and maybe more, and many straights among them, will be back next year.

For the most enabling resistance day in its history.

Countries, Music, UK

Roll up for Jay and Macca’s Magical Mystery Tour

26th July 202625th July 2026 funtime65

And as recommendations go there’s some beating this… roll up for Jay and Macca’s Magical Mystery Tour.

And we won’t even ask Jay Johnson for a refund for not getting Paul McCartney to wave and greet us.

Like he did to the passengers on his bus on Hope Street in Beatles Town.

With Macca even showing the gasping tour group who he was talking to on his video call… one Ringo Starr.

With a little help from his friends

Now if you think that was just too much of a coincidence then you might be right.

Because MMT boss is only the brother of Holly Johnson, he of Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

And he knows Macca as well as he knows himself after playing him in stage production Two of Us.

A tale of Macca and John Lennon meeting in New York in 1976 in Lennon’s NY flat.

And how they almost got back together.

In my life

New tales to tell his Fab Four fans then on his tour around Liverpool.

Where they were born, strummed their first songs together and the places we all know and love from their songs.

Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields… and the stories behind them.

Now Lennon famously said that while he was born in Liverpool he grew up in Hamburg.

Where then Super Six (OK, our name), including Lennon’s pal Stuart Sutcliffe and Ringo’s predecessor Pete Best honed their act.

Jasterday

All of which you’ll learn in fuller detail in Stefanie Hempel’s Beatles-Tour.

With a ukulele set thrown in from Stef… it was George Harrison’s favourite instrument after all.

Now your Beatles odyssey should, of course, take in Abbey Road in London.

And the Dakota Building and Strawberry Fields tribute in New York.

As well as, of course, Liverpool and the Cavern Club from where you’ll pick up your Magical Mystery Tour Bus.

And insert your own Beatles-related link here.

And we’ll Get Back to you.

America, Countries, Food & Wine

Stein down by the Ohio

21st July 202621st July 2026 funtime65

And for our US friends, and one particular half-German-half Scottish American, we say Prost to 50 of years of the Oktoberfest stein down by the Ohio.

The Cincinnatians (the Germans use a Z instead of a soft ‘c’) are marking the half century of Oktoberfests in timeous fashion.

With a massive two-story clock tower inspired by a traditional glockenspiel.

Which will include a biergarten on the ground floor and a performance stage on the second.

With a Cincinnati-themed backdrop and a 31ft bell tower with a working clock.

Its five 3D-printed mechanical bells will chime electronically every hour.

Which we imagine will set the weiners running for the three-day Oktoberfest Zinzinnati unique showpiece.

Everyone’s a wiener

Just mustard: Making his way to the starter’s line

The Running of the Wieners itself marks 19 years of sausage dogs dressed in hot dog costumes.

Now if you don’t have a dachshund in your life and remember they are the most popular pet dog in the USA.

You can just cheer on the runners.

And know that there are other events you can participate in.

Everybody as you would expect in a festival which draws 500,000 Cerevisaphiles and is the largest in the USA and second biggest, after Munich, in the world, joins in.

In the Gemütlichkeit Games.

The curtain-raiser which pits media personalities and civic leaders against each other in Bavarian-style competitions.

Brewing up a storm

If you’re the active kind then there are 14k and 7k brewery runs passing by famous beermakers.

With prizes and a party for all those who take part.

While if you’re the more stationary type then the Hoisting of the Steins will be more your thing.

The rules of which even the most lubricated of Beerfest visitors will understand.

So that’ll be fair drinkum then for an Aussie/Kiwi and one Jock Top Deck crew from 1985 and 1986 reunion then.

The trick is to keep your arm fully extended and horizontal.

Munchen date: Getting ready for the Beerfest

While dropping the arm or spilling any of the beer results in immediate disqualification

And we’re with you in thinking that the hardest thing is keeping your Sam Adams (the sponsors and our favourite Boston tipple) at arm’s length without drinking it.

Tweet music

Don’t chicken out: Join the Chicken Dance

Now you won’t need to imbibe to take part in the world’s biggest chicken dance but we reckon it helps.

Komm wieder (that’ll be come again in Teuton).

Well, some 72,000 took part in the dance to the Tweets’ Birdie Song.

Oktoberfest Zinzinnati returns to Cincinnati’s riverfront from September 17-20.

You can fly from London to Cincinnati from £778.69 with British Airways on September 16, returning September 20.

Now get into training and…

EIN PROSIT, EIN PROSIT, DER GEMUTLICHKEIT

Africa, Countries, Europe, Sport

Bring on the 2030 World Cup and Spain, Portugal and Morocco

19th July 202619th July 2026 funtime65

And by the time you read this it will be all over so bring on the 2030 World Cup and Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

Which we would suggest, Mexico excepting, is ‘football coming home’ to the Old World.

And closer, and less expensive, for those of us who live in the tip of an island in the North of Europe.

A Nou experience

Barca legends: Messi is still everywhere

Now Spain, Portugal and Morocco are loco about their football as we have discovered first hand.

When we helicoptered over Barcelona (is there any other way?) and gasped at the sight of the Nou Camp.

Only to be told by the pilot that that was the reserve side’s ground.

While Jose, our Special One guide, in Portugal explained.

That under the dictator Salazar he ran the country by the Three Fs… Football, Fado and Fatima.

Portugal’s secular God

All of which became clearer in that Marian site when meeting the niece of one of the Little Shepherds (as you do) in the porch of her house.

And seeing that among the stands of holy relics and statues of Our Lady what stood out was…

A beach towel of Portugal’s secular God, one Cristiano Ronaldo.

Now we’ve flagged up already this year how the AFCON tournament held in Morocco was pitched.

At the kind of prices that would buy you a hot dog and a beer at the WC.

Although once Gianni Infantino gets his claws into that we expect tagines and mint teas to surge in price.

Shirt hits fan in Morocco

While you’ll have to have your wits about you when it comes to bartering.

Again which we found out to our cost when buying the oblig national football team’s shirt in Jemaa el-Fnaa in Marrakech.

Now if you’re reading this in South America, you’ve got the consolation of having single games in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay.

A nod to the centenary of the first competition held in Fray Bentos land back in 1930.

All that’s left now is to pull down the 48 flag bunting from the garden fence.

Who knows who’ll be on it in four years’ time but we do know should Scotland get there then they’ll do it the hard way.

Caribbean, Countries, Sport

Gary Sobers, a Bajan legend cast in stone

17th July 202617th July 2026 funtime65

When you’re young you don’t mind approaching sporting legends but that gets lost over the years, all of which springs to mind reflecting on the life of Gary Sobers, a Bajan legend cast in stone.

Alas, the old autograph book of the players from that cricket match in Glasgow, including the great Sir Gary’s scribble, is also a thing of the past.

Windies blow in: With Jevan at the cricket

While in the haze of rum from a day out at the cricket at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown I lost the courage to approach the great man, sat in the crowd.

Or ask him his recollections of Old Anniesland or the boy who had crept through the bushes to see him.

In with the bricks

Sobers, for those of us who were lucky to see him back in the day was the OG all-rounder.

And the first to hit six sixes in a six-ball over.

You can imagine just how.

Standing by his statue outside the Bridgetown ground flashing his bat in the air.

Now passing over my own limited cricket career, best score 2, playing with the Sri Lankan staff in the Maldives.

I feel that over the years I have got in with the bricks with West Indian cricket and cricketers and Barbados.

And here in fact is the evidence on the Builders of Barbados Wall of families who have contributed to the island’s history.

The shoulders of giants

And hanging out with fellow Bajan greats Joel ‘Big Bird’ Garner and Collis King.

Although I’ll never live down asking a demure small moustachioed fellow reveller at Foreday Morning during carnival if he played a bit of cricket.

Irie, if you call what Brian Lara did on a cricket pitch, playing a little.

It was, of course, fitting that it was Sir Garfield Sobers who made Brian Lara a special presentation in Antigua.

After he surpassed his world record 365.

There won’t be a cloud safe enough from Gary’s big sixes now.

RIP Sir Gary Sobers (1936-2026).

Countries, South America, Sport

Hutton and why Scots cheer Argentina against England

15th July 202615th July 2026 funtime65

And for the day that’s in it’s hats aff to Watson Hatton and why Scots cheer Argentina against England.

And you thought it was because of Diego Maradona and his Hand of God.

When it was Scottish teacher Hutton, the Father of Argentinian Football, all along.

For it was Gorbals boy Watson who popularised the game in Buenos Aires along with his fellow Caledonian emigres.

Watson, a keen sportsman (obvs) introduced kickball at the St Andrews Scotch School in the nation’s capital in 1882.

And the Glaswegian was behind the formation of the Argentine Association Football League in 1893.

And two years later the Buenos Aires English High School and a former pupil’s team in 1898 which became known as the Alumni Athletic.

Argentinian Alumni

Now historians of Argentinian football will know all about Alumni, the leading lights in that country’s game in the first two decades of the 20th century.

Watson was himself standing on the shoulders of another giant, an Alec Lamont, a head teacher from St Andrews, who two years prior to Watson’s league set up the Argentine Association Football League.

The earliest known league outside of Britain which St Andrews won after a play-off with Old Caledonians.

Our cup of Lipton tea

Now World Cup anoraks will be quick to tell you that the first final was between Argentina and Uruguay.

But it was an established rivalry by 1930, again because of Scots.

Glasgow tea magnate Thomas Lipton donated the Copa Lipton trophy in 1905 for competition between both nations which ran until 1992.

Watson’s son Arnold starred for Alumni and scored in Argentina’s 2-0 Copa Lipton win over Uruguay in 1906.

And that Scottish thread has been running through Argentinian teams ever since.

James Brown’s Boys

With a James Brown, one of the original Scottish settlers to Argentina in 1824 delivering manifold to the Argentinian cause.

Seven brothers and a cousin, all grandchildren of James Brown, would play for Argentinean clubs and six would also play for the Argentinian national team.

Jorge Gibson Brown captained Argentina from 1908 to 1913 and if you recognise that name in a previous Argentina team then ten out of ten.

Jose Luis Brown scored one of the goals as Argentina won the World Cup in 1986.

Vamos Argentina

While World Cup winner and key member of today’s Argentina team Alexis Mac Allister, is clearly one of Jock Tamson’s Bairns.

All of which you can regale your Argentinian friends with when you visit the country’s iconic grounds.

And the museums Museo River Plate, Boca Juniors’ interactive Museo de la Pasion Boquense and the intimate Diego Maradona Shrine at Argentinos Juniors Museo.

While, of course, you can pay pilgrimage to the Father of Argentinian Football himself, Watson Hutton.

At the British Cemetery (Cementerio Britanico) on Avenida Elcano in the Chacarita neighbourhood of the capital, accessible via the Federico Lacroze subway station.

Countries, Culture, Europe

In the sandlestraps of Odysseus

13th July 2026 funtime65

And ahead of the release of this summer’s Ancient Greeks blockbuster here’s how to follow in the sandlestraps of Odysseus.

Now we know, like your Bandanaman, you’ll recognise Ody’s itinerary from studying the poem in your Ancient Greek class.

We join Ody in the island of Ogygia where he is held captive by the goddess Calypso (poor little soldier).

And those of us who love the Maltese archipelago might recognise it on Christopher Nolan’s movie as its little sister Gozo.

Our love odyssey

But don’t take our word for it. Well, actually do, but no less a figure than the ancient historian Callimachus.

Which lies 350 miles southwest of Corfu (Ody’s penultimate stop Scheria in the poem).

And perfectly aligns with Odysseus’s perilous maritime journey.

And, of course, we channeled our inner Calypso and Ody by getting engaged on Malta and honeymooning on Corfu.

High land and island

Ody tells us that his journey back to his homeland of Ithaca all began at the end of the Trojan War.

And yours will too, in what we believe was Troy, in north-west Anatolia.

Its archaeological site is situated on the mound of Hisarlık, near the village of Tevfikiye, 20 miles south of city Çanakkale.

You may too want to visit (best not raid) the foot of Mount Ismaros in Thrace, in north-east Greece.

Better known among Homerians as the Land of the Cicones (Ismarus).

Before diverting to the island of Djerba, Tunisia, this lad really could have done with GPS, or this site.

To the Land of the Lotus Eaters which Herodotus and Pliny the Elder credit as being the site of Lotophagi.

And where Ody no doubt enjoyed his downtime with the inhabitants who subsisted on narcotic, memory-erasing lotus plants.

Never mind the boulders

Now you would need that if your next mission is to fight and blind a one-eyed monster, Polyphemus.

On the island of the Cyclopes, which we know today as Sicily.

And which is also billed as the Land of the Laestrygonians where man-eating monsters sank Ody’s pals’ ships with boulders.

Of course today’s Sicilians are far friendlier although best start by calling them Sicilian and not Italian.

Now following Ody’s trail you’ll be glad that the Med islands transitioned from chasing tourists to welcoming them.

Pigging out

It helps, of course, to have the right God on your side.

Which would be, and we really hope you don’t need him.

But if the sorceress Circe tries to turn you and you’re family into pigs then Hermes is your go-to god.

Of course, don’t let any of this put you off visiting Cape Circeo (Mount Circeo), the erstwhile Aeaea.

A small peninsula on the west coast of Italy, about 100 km south of Rome.

While for all the misadventures Ody has in Sicily, Homer obviously likes it because he sends him back there (or Trinicaria).

Though maybe not mention his name around the island as Ody’s crew destroyed Helios’ sacred cattle there (no, us neither) and Zeus totalled them out at sea.

Ithaca Homer run

All of which meanderings and choppy maritine mayhem brings us to Ody’s home in Ithaca.

Where his Scary One, Penelope is waiting for him.

Now you can overload on all things Homer, or better still get a local guide to take you around.

The Cave of the Nymphs, Stavros Archaeological Museum, Polis Cave, and Homer’s School.

How to get there quicker

And because few of us have ten years free to wander around the east Med and daren’t risk the wrath of our Scary Ones either.

The quickest way to get to Ithaca is either by sea through Kefallonia and Lefkada, as well as with the mainland (Patras and Astakos).

While the closest airports are Kefallonia and Aktion-Preveza.

America, Countries, Europe, Flying, Sport

A tale of Lief, Erling and Transatlantic Norse power

11th July 202611th July 2026 funtime65

The Americans have never seen anything like it before, only they have… it’s a tale of Leif, Erling and Transatlantic Norse power.

Because, in truth, Leif Eriksson and the Vikings were the first settlers of North America.

Nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

When the longboats made terra firma at L’Anse aux Meadowes in Newfoundland.

And made their way over the years, four million of them, to the Upper Midwest and the Pacific Northwest.

Mostly to Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Washington State and California.

The Norse Home Country

Well, they’ve been joined, as we’ve all seen in the last month, by crewmen and women from the Old Country.

With the Norwegians giving the Scots a run for their money as the party people of this World Cup.

With their Viking-rooing, or Viking rowing crowd surge.

Even taking over escalators in Boston.

And those very same Scots taking to Norway as their adopted team.

Well, the nearest train station for Shetlanders is Bergen.

Row, row, row your boat

And while none got wet in its production apart from spilled lager.

Modern Norsemen did put their backs into it to row all the way across the Atlantic.

With 338 Norwegian supporters crossing the Atlantic on Norse Atlantic Airways’ longship to New York.

Of course, most of us don’t have that amount of time (and that’s our excuse) so we avail instead of their flights.

The stuff of legend

Norse have been putting on extra seats for Miami for their quarter-final match with England.

And we dare say that Norse flights will be in high demand for the final on Sunday, July 19 in New Jersey.

But here they are, should you be free for next Sunday, from £1,082 return Saturday to Monday.

America, Countries

Okie Bronco saddle up for National Cowboy Day in Oklahoma

10th July 202610th July 2026 funtime65

Okie Cowboy saddle up for National Cowboy Day in Oklahoma… where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain.

Now there are many states that claim to be the home of the Cowboy and we’re making it our mission to trail as many as we can.

Although by new-fangled transport because Izzy here has nowhere to go and is getting there slow.

But ahead of the Cowboys’ Big Day, which celebrates its 21st birthday this year, we’re flagging up Oklahoma.

Whose charms Irish cousin Eddie O who has relocated to Edinburgh has been regaling us with these past months.

So let’s whip-crack-away, whip-crack-away, whip-crack away out to Oklahoma to see what’s been going on.

Well, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum are inviting Wild West fans to join them for a celebration of our Stetson-hatted heroes and heroines.

A ride good time

Of course, the Okies are encouraging us all to go native and dress up in our Western duds.

While we can also look forward to a presentation from Cowboy Cook Kent Rollins.

There will be family-friendly activities and crafts while exploring Prosperity Junction and Liichokoshkomo’ (no, us neither).

And we dare say a nod to famous Oklahomans Will Rogers and Gene ‘The Singing Cowboy’ Autrey.

The biggest boot

Now the Museum is certainly putting its foot down in stamping its claim on being the Home of the Cowboy for this year.

To correspond with the centenary of Route 66.

With the erection of a towerig 35ft-foot (sorry) sculpture, the biggest in the world, that celebrates the Great Highway’s history.

The newest attraction at the museum, it is designed by Okie artists Cameron Eagle and his son Daniel.

Beyond its artistic significance, it reflects the family’s deep roots in Oklahoma, as Cameron’s grandfather helped build Route 66.

The fun kicks off, as it always does, on the fourth Sunday of the year, this year Sunday, July 25… so get your boots on.