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Who wants to be a ranch hand?

2nd May 20262nd May 2026 funtime65

And when a guy in a Mississippi bar starts up with a lasso you put it on the bucket list for a twirl… so who wants to be a ranch hand?

America is many things to many people but for the post-war Old World generation their first introduction to the US was cowboy movies.

So when you get the chance to saddle up on the Prairies you take it with both reins.

As I did in Colorado channeling my inner Buffalo Bill.

With my fellow congress of rough riders of the world.

Although I’d say that easy-going Issy was made from a different breed from Bill’s steed Brigham.

And Issy would doubtless be happy to leave the other horses to rustle the cows.

The Big Sky

Having spent five minutes trying to get her to turn round I reckon I’ve some way to go to be much use around a range.

But luckily our old pals at American Sky have the very thing for wannabe cowboys and girls.

A chance to Live the Ranch Life in the Wild West.

Set within 60,000 acres in Arizona’s Rincon Mountains, on the eastern edge of Tucson.

Tanque Verde Ranch offers an authentic yet upscale take on the classic dude ranch experience.

Hit the trail

Guests can spend their days riding through desert trails, hiking among cacti or soaking up the scenery.

Before gathering for relaxed, communal evenings.

So get your cowboy boots on for this Wild West itinerary.

The special ranch

The Tanque Verde Ranch Stay is an authentic six-night Western adventure.

Which combines activity, nature and heritage.

From £2,649pp, on a full-board basis, including flights, accommodation and selected activities.

Now American Sky suggest a minimum three- night stay.

But they can tailor-make your holiday to suit you and book any number of nights at the ranch.

America, Countries, Cruising, Deals

Cruise through the American Civil War

9th July 20239th July 2023 funtime65

They’ve come a long way from the ironclads, and luxury liners are by far the safest way to cruise through the American Civil War.

American Cruise Lines have launched a history tourist’s dream, a 35-day Civil War Battlefields Cruise.

Where you’ll get to travel in the footsteps of the flower of America from the Union and the Confederacy.

ACS will bring you to every significant battlefield of the Civil War and 13 states.

So you’ll visit Fort Sumter, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Antietam and more.

And you’ll sail along the Mississippi River, the Tennessee River, the Potomac River, the East Coast Intracoastal Waterway and Chesapeake Bay.

All on board American Melody, American Symphony and American Eagle.

In the footsteps

The Virginian: At ‘Stonewall’ Jackson’s statue in Manassas

Of course, as much as we’ve absorbed of the American Civil War from our history degree.

And visits to Manassas and military hospitals in Virginia, and Tennessee, Mississippi and the buffalo soldiers in Texas.

There is nothing quite like being guided by someone with family history in the fight.

Davis’s boy

On a pedestal: Jefferson Davis in New Orleans

With the theme cruise led by Bertram Hayes-Davis, no less, the great-great-grandson of President of the Confederate States, Jefferson Davis.

Civil War buffs will get to experience the Anaconda/Vicksburg Campaign, the Western Theater, General Sherman’s March, Union Advantage/Naval Power, the Eastern Theater and the Battle of Gettysburg.

Cruise ship routes are connected via motor coach, with all transfers included.

The Big Easy

And you’ll get the added bonus of a complimentary pre-cruise stay in New Orleans, The Big Easy.

Hotels between your cruise, daily excursions and entertainment and all meals and drink.

And we know from our previous Battlefields and Booze adventures in these parts that the soldiers of the day loved their liquor.

So you’ll leave New Orleans on May 4, and end in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on June 6.

Where, we’d be disappointed if you didn’t channel your best Abraham Lincoln and deliver these immortal lines…

‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’

All of which freedom is priceless though alas for the rest of us you’ll maybe have to dig into the exchequer.

With your cruise through the American Civil War setting you back from $24,700.

Africa, America, Asia, Countries, Culture, Europe, South America

Fannie Lou to Putin a sweep of statues

14th March 202214th March 2022 funtime65

Celebrating 35 years of one and the toppling of another… from Fannie Lou to Putin a sweep of statues.

Bandanini and Bandanettes will recognise this as a pet subject here.

And how we prefer to champion statues of extraordinary ordinary people (and animals) than dubious war leaders and slave traders.

Fannie Lou Hamer died this day 35 years ago and is marked in the fist-clenched statue in Ruleville, Mississippi in the Deep South.

The Civil Rights activist who ‘was sick and tired of being sick and tired’ and upstaged LBJ at the Democrat Convention.

And Putin, the imperialist whose waxwork has been removed from the Paris Grèvin Museum’s gallery of world leaders.

The erection of statues and their deselection and destruction are a touchstone of where we are in society.

So it’s timely to ask where we are with totems of tyrants.

Putin on a podium

Few things say narcissist more than erecting statues of yourself or having someone do it for you.

And if your palm has been greased to the tune of $1.2million by a Russian-sponsored development agency.

Then you’ll be happy to put up a statue of the Russian megalomaniac in your ski resort in his puppet state of Kyrgyzstan.

Stalin structures

Go away you little people: Joseph Stalin

To the rest of us he was the perpetrator of the deaths of millions in the Soviet Union.

To some fellow Georgians (though not my old pal George, their ambassador in Dublin) Joseph Stalin is still a favourite son.

As he is in Russia, Mongolia and even more frighteningly outside a nursery school in Asht in Tajikistan.

Mao how

But in a game of Top Trumps psychopaths even Stalin would lose out to the master of the Cultural Revolution in China.

And yet Mao Zedong is still revered in Tianfu Square, Chengdu, Sichuan.

Where he is larger than life, a 100ft statue of the despot still looking down on the little people.

Chavez on high

The further south you get in the Caribbean the more interest the locals show towards dystopian Venezuela just a few miles across the sea in South America.

Particularly the Spanish Ladies who make Trinidad & Tobago their home.

Venezuela is depending on your viewpoint a brave resistor of American imperialism or a tinpot Latin American dictator.

Either way you can see Hugo Chavez’s likeness marked everywhere in Venezuela in the 17 or more statues and busts and countless tat.

A good Korea mood

And in North Korea it was even something of an export industry until the UN and their sanctions stepped in.

You get the Kims (obvs) but our browsing threw up a trade in statues for abroad.

From the Mansuade Art Studio in Pyongyang.

Where they do a roaring business to dictators, particularly in Africa.

The hold that dictators can have on us was brought home to me by a Ranger on our game drive.

In Mount Kamdeboo in the Eastern Cape in South Africa where when I asked the Zimbabwean emigree his thoughts on Robert Mugabe.

And he surprised me by saying that in Zimbabwe the people still respected their elders.

Come on your Rangers: And a Zimbabwean in South Africa

And where there is a demand the capitalist communists of Mansuade were always happy to oblige.

Something to dwell on as we recap today on where we are now. From Fannie Lou to Putin a sweep of statues.

Countries, Ireland, UK

Random Quacked Of Kindness Day

17th February 202217th February 2022 funtime65

Where these things come from Heaven knows but where we’re going with this is a shout out to my old pal Julie Hastings who has reimagined it as a Random Quacked of Kindness Day.

And yes, you can have that one Julie.

Hastings Hotels supremo Julie and me share a very important interest…

We’re both quackers about rubber ducks.

And she was good enough both to host me at the group’s flagship Belfast hotels the Grand Central and the Europa.

But also to send me on some from her collection (I’ll come to the many names for a group of ducks in a minute, and it’s not that) after I’d suggested names for her latest novelty ducks.

The Duckess of Cornwall

Lor’, love a duck: Duck and Duchess of Cornwall

When Camilla was visiting… and I came up with the Duckess of Cornwall!

Now Julie rarely misses an opportunity to get her rubber ducks in a row.

And so has been gifting them at the company’s head Offices today at their offices at the side of Stormont Hotel.

It’s a great quacked of kindness in what has been deigned by someone somewhere Random Act of Kindness Day.

There have, of course, been too many to count across my Travels from our holiday providers, our dream makers.

Five friends

Hit the road Zach: My pal Zach from Mississippi

There has been the wonderful gesture from Zach at Visit Mississippi.

He only had a courier bring the mobile phone I had left in a hotel 100kms back, to Jackson, on the MLK50 odyssey in the Deep South.

The hotelier who sent up two bottles of wine and a fruit basket to my room on my Greek odyssey.

After I had bust in on an aged couple post-coitus in the Intercontinental Athenaeum in Athens after I had been given the wrong door pass at reception.

The whole town of Monaghan in Ireland who rearranged their weekends to accommodate us.

When we turned up a week early (I give The Scary One one job to do, one job to do!).

Monaghan mates: And Sherry got us a table

Bertha at reception in Switzerland (it’s a recurring theme) who waived my carelessness in leaving the shower running.

In my rush to join my group and catch the train in Interlaken.

All of which meant water dripped from the ceiling into the breakfast room.

And Julie, of course, who I have never admitted to but it is true.

That I was caught short and was sick on the carpet of her beloved Grand Central Hotel.

After one of her famous hospitable nights watching Van Morrison at the Europa and then following it up with a nightcap (or three) in the Crown Bar.

What’s a group of ducks then?

Now I doubt whether I’ll ever reach the numbers in Julie’s rubber duck fleet, flock, company, diving, paddle, skein or wabbling.

And note to self, enough wabbling.

And on behalf of all of us, well done again Julie for your generosity on Random Quacked of Kindness Day.

Alas, every day cannot be so if you want to get your hands on one of the famous Hastings Ducks then you will have to book a room.

The duck will be free but the rest will be on the bill.

America, Countries, Music

Remembering Hooker and the Blues Brothers

21st June 202120th June 2021 funtime65

Boom Boom Boom Boom, today’s Rainy Days is Remembering John Lee Hooker and The Blues Brothers.

And giving Hooker, 20 years dead today, headline status in our list of Bluesmen (and women).

By Hooker by crook

John Lee Hooker, Boom Boom: And John Lee sets the scene with a live Chicago street riff outside Nate’s Deli in The Blues Brothers, 40 years old this week.

Memorably Jake and Elwood prepare to enlist Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy despite the objections of Aretha Franklin.

And here’s where to channel your inner John Lee by recording Boom Boom at the Grammy Museum in his native Mississippi.

Mississippi Crossroads

Robert Johnson, Crossroads: And the most enduring legend in Blues surrounds Robert Johnson.

The bould Robert is said to have sold his soul to the devils at a crossroads in exchange for musical success.

A bit of an oul divil himself Johnson is said to have been poisoned by his lover’s husband.

This and so much more you can l van earn at the Dockery Plantation where he worked and played.

Lady Sings The Blues

Warrior: With Medgar Evers’ widow Myrlie in Mississippi

Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit: And we’re grateful here too to Diana Ross for playing Billie in the movie, and introducing her to a modern audience.

Strange Fruit is a haunting inditement on Deep South racism with the lynching of blacks compared to fruit on trees.

All of which you can explore at the Two Mississippi Museums, the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, in Jackson,

Mama knows best

Big Mama Thornton, Hound Dog: Now Deep South women are, of course, a force of nature.

And Willie Mae who gave the world (and Elvis) Hound Dog is all Mama.

And if you’re in the mood (course you are) then rock your best Elvis at Sun Studio in his home town, Memphis, Tennessee.

BB meets Bono

BB King and U2, When Love Comes To Town And when anyone comes to Memphis town they come to BB King’s Blues Club, Beale Street.

BB was thus named by a DJ. I’ll leave you to come up with an epithet for the bould Bono (oh, there’s one).

BB, of course, is much storied and he called all his guitars Lucille after a woman two dudes were fighting over.

In a burning building he’d been playing a concert in and he’d gone back into to save his guitar.

So of course we’re happy to be remembering Hooker and the Blues Brothers.

And all the Bluesmen and women.