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America, Caribbean, Countries

A Californian Christmas with the Adams family

18th December 202518th December 2025 funtime65

It’s altogether kooky, a Californian Christmas with the Adams family, where ‘even Santa will have a tan’.

For half the world where it glows rather than snows on Christmas Day.

Which is what it is for rock legend, the Groover from Vancouver, in his Californian home.

And don’t you know that Bryan Adams’ Christmas offering is the earworm on our radio stations this festive period.

Now does it do for you?

Bryan tells us that every day you know it’s going to shine in the Golden State and he’s never let us down in the past.

Chasing the sun

Of course, we’re all of us in the chilly northern bit of the northern hemisphere, dreaming of that.

And it has been our good fortune to find ourselves in warmer parts around this time of year.

Although, not as you would expect the Deep South of America.

Where I awoke in our coach journey through Mississippi to discover the fields in a blanket of white.

Which my Tennessean guide Heather told me was what the sharecroppers would call the snow.

Not that any of it diminished the warm welcome we received in an antibellum house.

Where we learned that the movie the Help had been filmed.

And a Caribbean Christmas too

Now we trust that our Californian chums will be indulging in their favourite pastime of hiking over the holidays.

And chilling out which is really all you can do in the warm.

And which our pals in the Caribbean have down to a fine art.

Not that we’d recommend the big red and white robes more suited to northern climes.

But which they faithfully don in a nod to our more Old World traditions.

Although, of course, as with all things in the Caribbean, and in this case Tobago it comes with a shot of rum.

An Irie and a peel of parang Soca music.

So whatever your poison or pastime the festive season is always better with a song in your heart.

America, Countries

The Huck stops here 150 years on in Missouri

22nd November 202522nd November 2025 funtime65

They’re literature’s ragtag rascals who stole our hearts and The Huck stops here 150 years on in Missouri.

Big reveal, I was cynical about Tom Sawyer and his outlaw friend Huckleberry Finn.

When I was introduced him to as an English Lit student in Aberdeen where I was a bit of a rascal myself.

Thinking the raggedy-arsed boys from Ol’ Mississippi a childish yarn and the racial language provocative.

To the Britain of my time, the Eighties.

Hannibal lecture

Only to have my eyes opened to the nuance in Mark Twain’s writings.

And piquing an interest in the Deep South which I have been able to explore later in life in Mississippi.

All of which naturally draws me to Hannibal in Missouri in a landmark year in 2026, 150 years since Twain introduced the bad lads to the world.

As part of the new self-drive from The Internet Traveller following in the footsteps of iconoclastic Americans.

St Lou too

Tom and Huck, Jesse James and the picture-book town that became the model for Disney’s Main Street USA.

All on the new ‘Missouri’s Legendary Trail’ 11-night self-drive trip.

Flying into St Louis, travellers can experience the iconic Gateway Arch.

And the city’s rich Blues history, and remember St Lou is the birthplace of Chuck Berry.

Before heading to Hannibal, the boyhood home of author Mark Twain.

And which inspired the fictional Mississippi river town of St Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Then continue west on Highway 36 – known as the ‘Way of American Genius’.

The best thing since…

To Marceline, the cherished hometown of Walt Disney who based his theme-park vision of Main Street USA.

On the beautiful real-life Main Street he knew so well.

Other stops along the Way include Chillicothe, the birthplace of sliced bread in 1928, the best thing since…

And the town of St Joseph which is steeped in Wild West lore as the eastern terminus of the Pony Express mail service.

While visitors can also visit the Jesse James Home Museum.

In the building where the outlaw was killed in 1882.

Continue to Kansas City for a final night, taking in the city’s rich jazz and barbecue scenes, before flying home.

Deal us in

The itinerary is priced from £1,739pps, including return flights, 11 nights’ accommodation and nine days’ inclusive car hire.

America, Countries, Music

Ah to live through the Taylor Swift Eras

13th August 202413th August 2024 funtime65

Future civilisations will read of the Simian, Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic eras while we, of course, are fortunate enough to ah live through the Taylor Swift Eras.

Our descendants will doubtless find Tay-Tay playlists, tickets, t-shirts and friendship bracelets from the early 21st century and wonder just who was this goddess of our age.

Unless, of course, the whole world is not by then worshipping at the altar of Taylor Swift.

Swiftie wisdom: To all you Swifties out there

But that is for then, for now let us just count our blessings that we get to see The Great One in concert and listen to her pronouncements.

It is, of course, entry to heaven to get to witness her hold worship at any of her performances.

Miss Taylor Swift

And so, for those who haven’t been able to then the next best thing is to see artefacts and memorabilia of Taylor Swift.

In the much-anticipated exhibition of her Eras at the peerless Grammy Museum, in Cleveland, Mississippi.

The exhibit is sponsored by Visit Mississippi and celebrates the 14-time Grammy winner’s unparalleled 18-year career.

From her 2006 titular album to this year’s The Tortured Poets Department.

Oh, to be alive across these Eras

On display until February, the exhibit will feature representations from each of Swift’s 11 eras, including:

The BCBG Max Azria dress worn on tour in 2007
Taylor’s custom Taylor GS-6 “Sparkle Guitar” played throughout her Fearless Tour from 2009–2010
A red sparkle top Gibson Les Paul played by Taylor during her Speak Now World Tour
Custom Marina Toybina ensemble and LaDuca boots worn during “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” at the GRAMMY Awards in 2013
Custom Jessica Jones bodysuit and jacket and Christian Louboutin boots worn during her 2018 reputation Stadium Tour
Gibson J-180 played during Taylor’s 2019 City of Lover concert in Paris, celebrating the release of seventh studio album, Lover
Oscar de la Renta dress and Christian Louboutin shoes worn at the GRAMMY Awards in 2021
Stella McCartney coat worn by Taylor on the cover of her 2020 album evermore
Free People coat worn in the music video for “Lavender Haze”
Maticevski gown and gloves worn in the music video for “Fortnight (feat. Post Malone)”

Golden Grammies

Now a day surrounded by Taylorabilia is a day to savour, but in truth any day spent in the Grammy Museum in Cleveland is one well spent.

And it is no exaggeration to say that it is never long enough.

From looking at how the wireless transformed the lives of cropholders and the poor whites of the Deep South such as the Pressleys.

To how the Blues and Country became rock’n’roll to rootsy bluegrass to cutting your own version of John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom Boom.

To be emailed home to you as a souvenir of your visit the Grammy Museum as part of your Deep South odyssey is magical.

And now on top of all that, and be still my giddy heart, is a celebration of what it it is to ah live through the Taylor Swift Eras.

America, Countries, Europe, Ireland, UK

Dragging up the statue debate

9th April 20239th April 2023 funtime65

News that 70,000 fans have signed a petition to have an erection of Paul O’Grady (he’d appreciate that) put up in his hometown Birkenhead sees us dragging up the statue debate again.

Whether the proposed O’Grady statue over the Mersey from Liverpool would be of pets’ pal Paul with a beloved pooch.

Or his beloved alter ego, Lily Savage, a celebration of this towering figure would be most welcome.

We make no apologies for dredging up this contentious subject again because simply put statues are a fixture of every tourist’s city break trip.

And it is our mission to redress the balance.

By putting up more cultural figures on pedestals to match, replace or overtake the mystery military statues that look down on us.

Who’s a hero?

A horse, a horse: Stonewall Jackson at Manassas

Statues was all the talk in of all places Barbados a few years ago.

When the Ski Club of Virginia made their annual pilgrimage down to the Caribbean.

And our new friends from the Deep South were alerting us to the gathering storm.

Over the statues of the Confederate leaders proliferating there.

Which I saw for myself when I went out to Virginia.

And visited Manassas, site of the first fighting in the Civil War, and home to Stonewall Jackson.

And alas the fighting was to resume not long after on the streets again.

I was fortunate to illicit the opinions of those on both sides of the divide through further adventures in the Deep South.

And meet the likes of Dr Martin Luther King and his unfinished statue in Washington DC.

And Fannie Lou Hamer, the little big woman who got tired of being tired in Mississippi.

The extraordinary ordinary

In the name of dog: Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh

Of course for every celebrated soldier, conceited king or quaffed queen there are real heroes and heroines who have rightly been placed in marble and stone.

Such as Anne Frank in Amsterdam, Workers’ champion Jim Larkin in Dublin or devoted doggie Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh.

Ah yes, you’ll see the message we’re sending out here, more children, women, working-class heroes and animals.

Gay giants

And LGBTQ+ champions and more drag queens.

Our trawl of statues turns up unexpectedly and disappointingly precious few of either.

Again our beloved Ireland leads the way somewhat and in spite of its repressive Catholic past.

With the louche and lounging statue of Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square.

While he is lauded and lipsticked in his gravestone in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, his last resting place.

Where Wilde led, the likes of Harvey Milk, the ‘Mayor of Castro Street’ in San Francisco.

Whose bust smiles at us from its plinth in City Hall, followed.

And Greenwich Village in New York, spiritual home for the Gay Liberation Movement, made a statement with a bust to Marsha P Johnson.

All of which makes the case for more statues which truly represent the people who live among them and represent them.

Redressing the balance

Alas, here in the UK as in most places representation is in short supply.

With only Alan Turing, the decoder who helped defeat Hitler, represented long after he was vilified and criminalised for his homosexuality.

So let’s hear it for the real heroes and heroines of our society.

Those we can identify with and look up to.

And that’s who I want to be looking at it on my city breaks.

And why I’m dragging up the statue debate again.

America, Countries

Drive for Martin Luther King 55

15th January 202316th January 2023 funtime65

They are the gift that keeps on giving, the National Civil Rights Museum who are running a blood drive for Martin Luther King 55.

This year marks 55 years since Dr King was assassinated.

On the balcony of his Lorraine Motel room which is now incorporated into the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.

While tomorrow, January 16, is The Great Man’s birthday.

When Stevie Wonder, who championed a day especially for the Civil Rights leader, invited us…

‘To have a world party on the day you came to be.’

It runs through the blood

Marching to victory: The Civil Rights movement

Only for those who need blood for health conditions every day is a challenge.

And Dr King would be proud that the Museum are putting the plight of ordinary people first as he did.

I’ve seen first hand too how the NCR Museum holds firmly to Dr King’s inclusive vision for his society, all colours, and all classes.

The museum is encouraging guests to bring non-perishable food items to support the Mid-South Food Bank.

And the blood drive for Martin Luther King 55 is all to support the Vitalant blood drive.

King Day will kick off a year of observances themed ‘Freedom Can’t Wait’.

As the Museum focuses on major civil rights milestones with anniversaries in 2023.

With, of course, the 60th anniversary too of his I Have A Dream speech from the March on Washington.

King Day

There will be time too to mark the 55th anniversary of his assassination (I was there in the year of the 50th) on April 4.

But for tomorrow, January 16, the doors of the museum will be thrown open free for those who give.

With a full day of entertainment on The Main Stage, including performances by Karen Brown, Gerald Richardson and the Cordova High School Choir.

And remember that Dr King was a music nut and friend of all the legends of the time.

While I’m glad to see too that the Satellite Band of Stax Music Academy.

And whom I broke bread with and listened to their performance around MLK50, will be singing too.

Fun for the family

And he was also a family man, down to his shiny shoes.

So he would welcome too that the children are being entertained too.

‘And that his dream come true that “black girls will be able to join hands with little.’

That will all play out on The Pavilion.

With activities and entertainment including magic shows, balloon making, face painting, African drumming, craft activities, music, community resources, and more!

America, Countries, Europe, Ireland, Music, UK

Mayday Bravo

1st May 20221st May 2022 funtime65

And whether you’re keeping the red flag flying here, celebrating the Internationale or just twirling around a maypole it’s Mayday Bravo today.

It was, of course, an Irishman, Jim Connell, who came up with the emotive words in 1889 to go with the tune O Tannenbaum.

He had been travelling by train, where you can do a lot of your thinking, in London.

So to mark May Day we’ll revive our Rainy Days and Songdays occasional series with these May Day tunes.

Way to go, Joe

Joe Hill – Joan Baez: And this workers anthem relates to a union leader, framed on a murder charge and executed in Salt Lake City.

But the organiser stands for everyman and of course returns to the narrator in a dream.

And in typical American storytelling style it covers the geography of the whole country… from San Diego up to Maine.

Lennon doctrine

Working Class Hero – John Lennon: They were more Lennon than Lenin in Prague during Soviet rule.

When they would congregate at the Lennon wall to protest.

Lennon, the Working Class Hero from Liverpool, has influenced as many if not more around the world from Hamburg to New York and beyond.

Tennessee tunes

Sixteen Tons – Tennessee Ernie Ford: This ditty of a song with the catchy refrain derives from Kentucky’s Merle Travis in 1947.

And the line ‘You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt” came from a letter written by Travis’s brother John.

We’ve taken Tennessee Ford’s 1955 version which hit the top of the Billboard charts and was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.

The New Boss

Won’t Get Fooled Again – The Who: And the Cockney Four whose shows were as much about menace as music nail it here.

And they captured the working class fascination of the Mods in Quadrophenia in their odyssey to Brighton.

But it’s this anthem against The Man and its clarion call: ‘Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.’

Lady Donna

She Works Hard For The Money – Donna Summer: Now you might not associate the Queen of Disco with a societal message.

But the New Yorker penned this after seeing a toilet attendant asleep on her shift at a post-Grammy event in West Hollywood.

And a reminder too for all that while music is replete with messages of working men, working women have had it just as bad and worse.

Africa, America, Countries, Ireland, UK

A town called Patrick

17th March 202217th March 2022 funtime65

Happy St Patrick’s Day everyone and here off pat around the world we celebrate you if you’re from a town called Patrick.

And there are surprisingly few too.

There are only eight Patricks across three countries.

McCool kid

And even more startlingly none are in the country where St Patrick is most celebrated, Ireland.

But in an island in the Irish Sea, all right, the Isle of Man.

Patrick (population 1,576) is in fact more of a parish, in the west of the isle, than a town.

The Isle of Man, of course, is a well-trodden soil for the Irish…

Mighty craic

And the craic there is always 80.

Of course it was invented when Irish giant Finn McCool was chasing a Scottish giant across Ulster.

He picked up a handful of earth and chucked it at him…

The sod created the Isle of Man and the crater he left behind is now Lough Neagh.

Moving on, and such was the footprint that the Irish have left on the USA that you won’t be surprised to see some Patricks there.

Off Pat in the USA

And so you’ll see a Patrick in Mississippi, Nevada, Arkansas, South Carolina, Kentucky and Texas.

Whisper it but the Patrick commemorated isn’t our snake-chasing saint.

The Nevada one is an American soldier Patrick McCarran, who bought the land and also begat a US senator.

The Texas a postmaster Patrick Gallagher.

Both obvs Irish-American.

Now we can only imagine Patrick and its region St Patrick (see we got one) in Lesotho is the Irish missionary influence in Africa.

The land-locked mountainous country is completely encircled by South Africa.

But it is timely to mention that it resisted the interference of South Africa and continues to do so.e

Even if it that means a continuing water dispute.

Water of the good life

Of course, today is more about the Guinness than the water.

And so if you’re a Patrick, come from a place called Patrick, or a region St Patrick’s.

As in the region north-west of Sir Grantley Adams Airport, Barbados.

Then you’ve got an extra reason to celebrate today on St Patrick’s Day.

We celebrate you if you’re from a town called Patrick.

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.

America, Countries, Europe, Ireland, UK

A kick in the baubles

18th December 202118th December 2021 funtime65

A kick in the baubles… I’ve lost my battle with The Scary One and her apprentice.

It’s five years since our MLK50 group was serenaded with Merry Christmas Everyone by a Southern singer at an antebellum guesthouse.

The Southern Ball

Southern baubles and belles: Mississippi

And every year when I see the Fairview Inn bauble from Jackson, Mississippi, I think of that Deep South Family…

Her, her husband and their eight kids.

This year though I have to crane my head around the back of the tree to see the Mississippian bauble.

Because The Scary One and her mini-me have decided to hide it there behind glittery shop decorations.

It is a daily ding-dong to get my baubles on the tree…

My belle and her baubles

We both love Venice so the Grand Canal bauble makes it.

While my Irish harp (an extra greening this year didn’t go down well).

Countered, of course, by the red phone box, a symbol of Englishness.

And a sorting hat and Harry Potter’s Gryffindor scarf.

Tigger doesn’t deserve to sit below Potter but I expect him to get up the tree.

He has the bounce after all.

A Christmas laaf

Up there and deservedly so are my favourite urchins, the Laafs I fell in love with in Ireland.

But who hail from the Netherlands.

Baubles were born in Germany as was the Christmas tree.

So if you were able to get to one of their Christmas markets then you know how tinseltastic they are.

Birthplace of baubles

Lauscha is the birthplace of the bauble and celebrates it every November with its kugelmarket.

Yes, you guessed it, it translates as bauble market.

And it all started in the glassworks of this German mountain town near the Czech border.

With craftsman Hans Greiner moulding the ornaments into the shape of fruit and nuts in 1847 and exporting them to Britain.

Neither of which would work with Santa’s little helper in Chez Murty who clears the tree of hanging chocolate every year.

Before moving my keepsake… it’s a real kick in the baubles.

America, Countries, Sport

Walking in Vegas and Memphis

11th October 2021 funtime65

And WC Handy will still look down on him… Rainy Days and Songdays celebrates Tyson Fury as he goes Walking in Vegas and Memphis.

The Gypsy King has become as big a headliner in Vegas as Celine Dion, Elton John and The Osmonds (yes, really).

The World Heavyweight champion brought the house down when he adapted another American classic in the ring after defeating Deontay Wilder, who really ought to have had the home fans in the palm of his destructive hands.

Memphis history

Now we’ll forgive Tyson for being disorientated.

And not quite knowing his surroundings after Wilder put him on the seat of his pants during the fight.

Because WC Handy was an Alabaman, who made his name in Memphis, Tennessee, as the Father of the Blues.

Tyson would be a thousand miles away though if he had touched down in the land of the Delta Blues.

The Delta being the juncture in the Mississippi.

Although we will give him his Beale (Avenue) in Las Vegas which we stumbled upon in Neon City.

Although the Beale which Marc Cohen was referring to was Beale Street in Memphis.

On the Strip

Mind you Vegas can recreate anywhere in the world in their own image.

Head down the Strip and you will almost think you have been transported to Paris or ancient Egypt.

And an anecdote here to prove my point.

Jetlagged on my arrival in Vegas I laid down on my triple bed in The Palazzo in the afternoon.

And against my better judgment I fell asleep.

Only to be woken up by a call from our host Tryphavana to say the party was sitting down for dinner at the Venetian.

The Grand Canal

Wiping my eyes, still in sleepy mode, I passed by gondolas on the Grand Canal.

And walked through to the restaurant and an Italian feast.

Looking up I saw a fresco of the Creation of Adam.

Sure, Vegas can recreate the world in their own image.

So go ahead, me and Tyson Fury love Walking in Vegas and Memphis.