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America, Caribbean, Countries, Cruising, Culture, Deals, Ireland

Holiday Snaps… why we don’t want 24/7 sunshine

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Yes, you read that right, as 24/7 sunshine like we had been getting in the UK means the world is dying that little bit quicker.

While strewth, at the other end of the world, our Australian cousins have been shivering.

And that includes their kangaroos… and snowllabies.

No, best keep the hot places where they’ve always been and the cold ones too.

Imagine Barbados, Tobago and the Caribbean and its people without their sunny disposition.

Thankfully we don’t have to…

Woooah, we’re going to Barbados

With Sandals offering seven nights from £2375pp with travel dates May 1-June 30 at the Sandals Royal Barbados.

You’ll be staying in a south sea crystal lagoon club level Barbados suite with Balcony Tranquility Soaking Tub. With flights from Virgin Atlantic,

And I know a thing or two about Tranquillity Soaking Tubs.

A welcome from the Nations

And I’m channeling the good guys

We’re on the eve of the 400th anniversary of the First Thanksgiving Dinner in Plymouth, New England next year.

When the Pilgrims and the Natives shared harvest.

And that alas, if it happened like that at all, is when the sharing stopped and the newcomers took their land and sent them packing.

The pipes of peace

Which is probably where the Choctaw Indians and the Irish were sent to Hell or Connaught by the same British forged their links.

The Choctaw sent money to the starving Irish during the Famine and the Irish reciprocated during these COVID times.

And that’s the subject that remains hanging in the air from the last AIATA webinar.

I’ll return to it and my Native American friends whom I first met in Washington DC and then again in Denver and LA

Wigwam Jim

When I’ll get me the American Travel fair that COVID robbed me of in Vegas.

AIANTA’s will come from Albuquerque next month and will reach us all virtually with the organisers waiving the registration fees.

I’ll be there to bring you all the news.

And it’s gentle cruising

The sea oh the sea is the gradh geal mo croide. Long may it stay between England and me. It’s a sure guarantee that some day we’ll be free. Oh thank God we’re surrounded by nothing. – The Dubliners

And for the uninitiated those strange Irish words mean ‘sweet love of my heart’.

The song is a celebration of Irish waters.

Including my favourite Meeting of the Waters in my erstwhile County Wicklow home which was immortalised by poet Thomas Moore.

My old friends at Travel Department are used to taking us to exotic places near and far.

And now in Ireland too.

Galway, Connemara and the Aran Islands is from €599pp for three nights including 3* B&B hotel, transfers, excursions and local guide.

Depart October. Ring (00353) 1 637 1600.

MEET YOU ON THE WATER (AND LAND)

America, Countries, Ireland, Music, UK

Rainy days and Songdays – Aloe Washington

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And if you share with me your dollar I will share my story with you – Aloe Blacc

Cheap at the price too.

Aloe Black has been omnipresent across my American Travel fares.

The cool dude in the pork pie hat was there to greet us on the National Mall in Washington DC on our evening and sing us his standard I Need A Dollar.

We’re down there somewhere… on the National Mall

Only the best for us as they closed it off for the IPW international delegation to parteeee.

And how we did inside the Smithsonian National Space and Air Museum.

So much so, and I blame my old friend Michael from Irish Travel Trade Network for leading me astray, that we all but missed the act.

I’m flyin’ high: The National Space and Air Museum

Thankfully Aloe was back to wow us with another set at one of the lunches between our hall meetings with the states.

And busy boy that he is he had also managed to compose a video and the power of music.

Which he had put together on a whistlestop tour of the US and which the IPW fare in Washington showed us on the big screen.

Aloe there

Great idea and great memories and they all came flooding back as I listened to BBC Radio 2 last week.

Who were featuring him as their artist of the week.

An uplifting message in these times and as Aloe would say and indeed sang to us in Washington… Wake Me Up When It’s All Over.

Countries, Culture, Food, Food & Wine, Ireland, Music, UK

Hungry and Thursday – Elvis food

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The King was taken from us 43 years ago this week so were he alive today he would have been 85. So what would he have looked like?

I prefer to imagine him hair dyed, squeezed into a jumpsuit and taking himself off.

As in his send-up version of Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Because for everything that’s been said about Elvis it is always worth remembering that he was a born entertainer.

And so had an enormous appetite for fun, life. Yes, and food.

It’s early in the morning and I’ve had something of the meat sweats on me.

From the good ol’ Southern food on Beale Street in Memphis the night before.

When my Southern host tempts me with a favourite from the menu at Elvis’s top diner, The Arcade.

When he was young

It is the legendary peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich.

I could bluff it here and say I had it but the grits had left me with a heavy tummy.

Instead I sat at his favourite table and imagined instead.

After all I’d channeled my inner Elvis already at Sun Studio where I stood at the very spot where he had sung That’s All Right Mamma.

Where The King sat… and Elvis!!!

And roared like a lion in the Jungle Room in Graceland.

Graceland is smaller than you imagine, probably because you expect everything to be larger than life in Elvisland.

Certainly the hangars that contain his motorbikes and cars and another with all his jumpsuits point to that.

Full of grace: Graceland

As does the aircraft outside dedicated to his daughter Lisa Marie, one of a few he owned.

But in truth Elvis’s world was small, his father Vernon, mother Gladys, wife Priscilla, Lisa Marie and family and friends he grew up with.

Elvis and his peers would divebomb the swimming pool, play racquetball (he had a game the day he died) and whizz downtown in their golf buggies.

Hear me roar

And the locals who had known him since he was a kid would just say: ‘Aw, Elvis how are you.’

While the folks at The Arcade would chat to him like they would any patron, easy-going Southern hospitality.., ‘how’s your family.’

Only Elvis was different… after all, nobody else had as sweet a tooth or ordered a peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich.

Ah, yes, the Jungle Room

How to make it:

Spread the peanut butter on one side of one slice of bread.

Top with slices of fried banana and slices of cooked banana.

Cover with the other slice of bread.

Spread butter on the outside of the sandwich.

America, Countries, Culture

How New York’s leaders are betraying 9/11 heroes

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Firehouses aren’t on your New York tourist itinerary but they should be, and there are some native New Yorkers who would do well to visit one.

Like New York’s leaders who are betraying the memory of those heroes by pulling the annual light show memorial because of COVID-19.

Like most who have Irish blood coursing through their veins New York is part of my family’s story.

Three of my uncles decamped there, worked in bars and went on to open up their own businesses.

They never forgot what New York had given them, nor their children who went on to serve in their schools, hospitals, the NYPD and the NYFD.

Village route

And it was to his firehouse in Greenwich Village that my cousin Eddie took myself and my family when we visited.

Pride of place went to the lost firefighters, his friends who perished that fateful day, whose pictures adorn the walls.

The Village is notable, of course, for its artsy vibe and as the birthplace of the Gay Rights movement and that’s no coincidence.

As unlike the rest of Manhattan it predates the gridded road system.

Which was a hindrance to the 9/11 firefighters who had to negotiate the sharp bends on their way to the Twin Towers.

And Eddie took us up on an engine to show us how the firefighters did that with a hand-held turnilever at the back.

Which obviously slowed up their progress.

In the family

Eddie and another firefighter cousin of mine, Gary, worked 24/7 in the aftermath going above and beyond the call of duty.

So they and NYFD’s finest deserve a light being shone on them for what they did.

Oprah Winfrey did when she brought them on her show to cook.

While Eddie got his moment in the sun when he appeared in a calendar all buffed up.

Which we saw on a newstand on that family break.

Poster boys

We had, of course, got an earlier peek when Eddie showed it off at another Auntie’s funeral in Dublin.

When he took delight in alerting my other auntie’s, my own Mum among them.

And they all needed a seat.

We are that sort of family!

Asia, Caribbean, Countries, Cruising, Culture, Europe

Lay your hands on me… the best massages

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I’m looking forward to having a beautiful young woman lay her hands all over me… and maybe later I’ll have a massage

Some people need a humour transplant.

Back in the day when I edited Ireland’s then award-winning Travel section I had some massage fun in a Barbados article.

Only by the time it got to the inhouse clickbait site it was edited out.

As it didn’t sit well with The Third Wave of Feminism overseers.

Who missed the point totally as Barbados is gloriously irreverent and saucy.

And which is why this Scot just clicked with the Bajans.

And I will have to work off this belly

Now you’re nice and relaxed

I’m floating on air as I write this post after being a guinea pig for my daughter as she keeps her skills up.

And I’m thinking of my five fave places where I’ve just laid back and thought of..

Acting all goofy in Orlando

Animated in Orlando

Orlando: Travel trips often throw the most unlikely people together but I found that I had a lot in common with Finnish Paula.

Not least when our hotel in Orlando mistook Mrs Murray for my wife (lucky her).

And to this day, and today is that day I greet her as Missus.

A massage is just the thing after cricking your neck and being twisted this way and that on a Disney World rollercoaster.

And this drink Becherovka is a healing potion

The Czech Republic: And it’ll come as little surprise that in this land of spas and wellness that you’ll get a great massage.

Especially in the Spa Triangle.

Watch though whose dressing gown you pick or you’ll have a small Japanese woman shrieking at you.

And a swim will relax the muscles

The Maldives: Because you’ll be stressed out on this island Kuramathi with no traffic bar the golf buggy buses.

Bur it’s hot, hot, hot. And so is the weather outside.

The Western Med: It’s often been said that I need my head looked at.

And who better than a cruise and what better than an Indian head massage?

And for a minute I thought I was going to end up with a revolving head like Clunk from Stop the Pigeon.

Sweat off the rum and food

Barbados: I’m guided as always by my friends and Travel professionals Michael and Niamh and Bronagh.

Who helped to prompt this tour around massage destinations.

By flagging up the Irish-owned Sandy Lane on the island’s Platinum Coast.

But equally you can travel with Tropical Sky pop next door to Club Barbados for your massage.

Without having to sell off a vital organ to pay for it.

MEET YOU IN THE PARLOUR

America, Countries, Europe, UK

School’s back for ever

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I’m reminded in this month when classes return in the UK that my last school day was in New York

I had left school in Scotland three months previously and my parents had rewarded me for my efforts with a trip out to see my cousins in America.

Eddie was (and still is) my wee cousin, my junior by a year, and so was still at school.

And so for me to hang out with him I’d have to join him in class.

Yes Sir

Lady Liberty hasn’t chamged

I still recall his headmaster sitting us down and telling me I’d have to behave (my reputation had clearly preceded me).

And that I nodded obediently despite the principal in truth holding no authority over me.

The experience was fairly unique as holiday expeditions go.

And I might as well have been from Mars as far as Eddie’s schoolmates were concerned.

So when I stuck my hand up and answered the teacher’s question their jaws fell as they’d never heard such a sound as came out of my mouth.

Teacher’s pet

The story ought to end there with me being a minor celebrity for the day… only for Eddie to reveal more years later.

On my extended trio down Memory Lane three years ago with detours through Washington DC and Philadelphia which ended of course in New York.

I of course revisited the family bar, the iconic Irish Cottage in Queen’s.

And I discovered that at least one girl that day back in Eddie’s school had wanted to meet me later to get to know me.

All of which ramblings are a celebration of the last summer after school.

Everywhere from the UK through Ireland and over to America, the three countries I know best it is a rite of passage.

And I dare say in other countries too.

French lessons

The previous year to America I had hoped was going to be my last in school only for me to miss out on university and have to repeat.

And I spent Summer ’82 it in the French Riviera… it was St Raphael then and Cannes years later in the Noughties.

There were no girls then either but not for the want of trying… but then that’s a different story.

Now for all those who are licking their wounds after not getting the grades you deserve because of COVID I feel your pain.

And that you haven’t got the holiday you earned either.

But rest assured all good things will come to he who waits.

As the guy waiting outside one camper’s tent in St Raphael told me when I was 16 as he awaited his turn.

America, Countries, Cruising, Culture, Deals, Europe, Ireland, UK

Holiday Snaps – a drive-thru the UK and US

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We’d seen them on the movies and heard them on Meatloaf songs but when it came to my time my first drive-in movie was with my BROTHER!

It was a James Bond movie, The Living Daylights, in a Canadian field?

But it was magical all the same.

Today is National Drive Thru Day and drive-in movies here in Scotland are selling out fast.

In California naturally, they do things bigger.

And drive-thru everything from a giant sequoia in Yosemite to views of statues, bronze babies and murals in Greater Palm Springs.

Derry’s Galway Girl

The girls and one boy in the Derry mural

‘Humour’s so subjective really’… and so it would appear is location really.

With everyone’s favourite Derry Girl fessing up to not really being a Derry Girl. Really!

Nicola Coughlan, aka gullible Clare, has revealed her Galway roots for Tourism Ireland.

Tourism Ireland and the iconic Abbey Theatre in Dublin have put on a digital experience.

With 50 writers and 50 actors in a collection of ‘theatrical postcards’.

Howabiteye? Clare. Visit all Ireland but she makes a great case for Galway and Derry/Londonderry.

I’ll ask her

And as brutally as the Cruisestapo are trying to kill cruising after shaming us all for years.

As fervently we will work to get our ships back on the water.

American Holidays are looking to 2021 with their Alaska Cruises.

Now I know first hand the fun and games you can have on board.

With ziplines and surf simulators in Barcelona with Royal Caribbean

But on your Alaska cruise you’ll be wanting to get out on land and trek to a glacier and go on whale watching excursions.

A trip of a lifetime with a hot offer of from €1699pp, one night Seattle snd seven night cruise

America, Caribbean, Countries, Europe, Ireland, UK

Holidos and don’ts – Green List and Scottish isles

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And is your country on the Irish Green List https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0721/1154621-coronavirus-travel/where you’re now allowed to visit?

And some more guidance too on if and how we insure ourselves amid contradictory Government advice.

I’m indebted here to my good friend Dominic Burke, of Travel Centres https://www.travelcentres.ie/.

Where are the humans: The Gibraltar Barbary Apes

And the Irish Travel Agents Association https://itaa.ie/ in Ireland for flagging up some anomalies here.

That Gibraltar is on it, but that you can’t get there unless you go through Spain which isn’t.

Monaco the same with France too left on the list.

While if you want to visit the eskimos of Greenland you’ll need to go through Denmark which you guessed right is off the list.

I notice too that Belgium where I first met the similarly coiffure-bearded Dominic is off the list.

And we were invited to present the wreath at the Menin Gate in Ieper www.visitflanders.com, https://gtitravel.ie/ and In Flanders fields.

We’ll share a Trappist beer there again yet, Dominic.

Let’s all Muck in

I might not be able to get over to Ireland, well at least the southern part.

So it’s just as well that we’ve a few glittering isles of our own in Scotland.

Muck in the Inner Hebrides, or Western Isles, is reopening its self-catering accommodation, although Eigg is not.

Not every Scottish island has a funny name but I do love Ewe.

Get it… they do with it being a popular island to propose.

See www.visitscotland.com and Sunday Sermon – God’s Own Country Scotland.

A cruise to bear in Ireland

Cruise & Maritime Voyages’ descent into administration will be felt on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Whom we know through JMG Cruises http://www.jmgcruise.com

Our Irish ports will be hit hard.

Belfast was set to homeport in 2021 as was Cobh, no stranger to cruiseheads.

They have started and finished their trips in the past and were ready to do so again next year.

Visit https://www.thecruiseroomireland.ie/.

Over there, over there

It was an uplifting American war-time song… ‘and it won’t be over till it’s over, over there.’

The Americans, lest we forget, joined our two major conflicts in the last century.

And also led (and are still leading) us through the Cold War.

And yet, nobody it seems wants them.

The haters have been smirking that the Mexicans have been turning away American tourists at the border.

But it is no laughing matter, not least for a British, European.

And especially Irish market which relies so heavily on the Yankee dollar.

With Bajan Geraldine and Virginian Patay

The good news is that a vaccine looks on the way and that there are countries who want to welcome the Americans back.

We all know how much Americans love the Caribbean.

And I was embraced by the Virginia Ski Club on their annual trip to Barbados www.theclubbarbados.com with www.tropicalsky.ie and www.tropicalsky.com.

And I’m glad to say that that feeling is mutual.

With much of the Caribbean reopening to Americans, subject to requirements.

And my sailing pal Patsy

I got out to see for myself how history is still being made in Virginia https://www.virginia.org.

And Sign up for the Civil War… it is Virginia www.visitusa.ie and www.visitusa.co.uk.

And I am hankering to get back.

America, Caribbean, Countries, Cruising, Culture, Food, Food & Wine

Cocktail Hour around the world

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It’s Cocktail Hour all day today (not just 6pm) because it’s World Cocktail Day, and I’ve been swallowing up the hours.

And while holidaymakers may like to mark their territory with their towel, I like to claim a coaster at the bar.

For my fave Strawberry Daiquiri cocktail.

Which I have savoured… from the Maldives to the Caribbean My kiss with Rihanna and Turtle recall and https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2020/03/17/ready-steady-goat-racing-in-tobago/. And http://www.visitbarbados.org and http://www.visittobago.gov.tt

Now if we can’t get out there to our exotic locations we can at least conjure up the taste of the Tropics at home.

With these cocktails:

Something for Buffalo Bill

The Colorado Bulldog, Colorado:

Ingredients: Vodka, coffee liqueur, cream or milk and coca-cola.

A White Russian with a fizz… and this would put even more whiskers on Tsar Alexander’s bushy beard.

How to: In a shaker mix vodka Kahlua, cream/milk. Pour into a glass with ice and add Coke.

Visit www.colorado.com and take in Beertown Denver www.denver.org and Go West and The New Frontiersmen.

Take it as red

The Redhead in Bed, 25 Degrees, Huntington Beach, California:

Ingredients: Ketel One Citroen vodka, strawberries, lemon juice, sparkling wine.

I’ve yet to have a Redhead in Bed anywhere (honestly) but if I did it would be in Huntington Beach.

How to: Mix One Citroen vodka, strawberries, lemon juice, and sparkling wine for an added kick.

For those who like to drink their dessert, 25 Degrees offers four spiked shakes, mixing vanilla ice cream and your choice of Guinness, Maker’s Mark, Kraken Black Spiced Rum, or Kahlua among other sweet milkshake additions.

Visit www.surfcityusa.com and My weekend with Marilyn and Stair Wars.

Turning Japanese

Shochu Mojito, Japan

Ingredients: Mint, shochu, sugar, lime, fizzy water

If you had been planning to get out to Japan this year for the Olympics then you have our sympathies but here’s a multi-discipline event you can do from the safety of your own home.

This is a Japanese twist on a classic mojito which swaps the rum usually found in a Mojito with shochu, a Japanese liquor typically made from buckwheat, sweet potatoes or barley.

This is an easy cocktail to whip up once your guests arrive (two minutes prep time) and is a guaranteed crowd pleaser.

How to: Add the lime, mint and sugar to a tall glass and bruise with a muddler. To this, add the shochu and fizzy water and stir. Serve over ice with mint to garnish. www.japan.travel/en/uk/

And, of course, you all know by now that all your favourite Scottish bartender needs is a cocktail brolly, a maraschino cherry and a shaker and we’re talking Jocktail Hour… Jocktails… the Strawberry Daiquiri, Jocktails – Whisky Sour, Hungry and Thursday – sangria and La Sagrada, Jocktails: The Bajan Monkey,

Jocktails – the Hurricane Jocktails – Mimosas Jocktails – the Sazerac.

And a host of others.

America, Countries, Culture, Ireland, Sport, UK

My Sporting Weekend – Boxing clever

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And in the blue corner ‘Jugular Jim’ Murty and in the red corner ‘The Clones Cyclone’ Barry McGuigan.

We ought to start at the very beginning here when a sallow cub reporter was sent by his news editor to talk to the boxing champion.

Barry was appearing in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and I asked the former World Heavyweight champion which dwarf would he be playing.

Take that: Barry in action against Eusebio Pedroza

He bristled before regaining his composure.

On returning to the office my news editor fell upon the idea of us putting on a pretend sparring session.

All of which circling around the ring brings me onto the return of boxing in England this weekend.

There won’t, of course, be a crowd but one of the upsides is that we’ll be able to hear every thud and grimace more clearly.

Which you can only really do otherwise if you’re ringside.

Which I was lucky enough to be in my spell as a boxing writer in the Nineties covering the likes of Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn and Pat Clinton in Glasgow https://peoplemakeglasgow.com/.

Of course the Mecca for boxing is the US and it is every boxer’s dream to fight at Madison Square Garden and Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas.

And every fight fan (hands up) too… and while I love both cities https://www.google.com/amp/s/jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2020/03/28/old-new-york-hamilton/amp/ and Strip… the light fantastic I’ve yet to see ring action there.

See also www.lvcva.com and www.nycvb.com.

MEET YOU RINGSIDE