Sweet Nothings

Beautiful Windy City panorama (wind not pictured) The 2016 edition of the Goulds’ annual Stateside trip saw a move away from the West and East coasts, instead taking in a chunk of the Midwest and some good ole Southern comforts. Masochists can read all about my 2011 visit to Chicago here , complete with tortuous title pun. My wife and I covered much of the same ground this year, the main difference being an increased, nay all-consuming, focus on food. Indeed, this entire holiday presents further evidence that we are now selecting destinations purely on the basis of treat availability, and in the sincere belief that calories consumed abroad will magically have no effect. Hence we enjoyed a  Ghirardelli hot fudge sundae and stocked up on bags of their absurdly moreish chocolate squares, abandoned our salads at the Michigan Avenue branch of the  Cheesecake Factory halfway through to ensure room for the mountainous slice of eponymous dessert, and made sure to sample s...

Group E Switzerland, Ecuador, France, Honduras The intricacies of FIFAs world ranking system are only marginally less opaque than those of their host-country selection/trough-feeding process. And so Switzerland are apparently the sixth best team in the world, despite their utter failure to do anything of note at a major championships. Maybe it’s all a deliberate ploy to give some lower-ranked teams a better chance of success – certainly Ecuador and Honduras will be far happier than had they drawn any of the other seeds, all of whom are actually any good. They do have the mercurial French to worry about, however. Their fantastic display of stereotype-confirming petulance in South Africa took some of the heat off England’s pathetic showing, and it’s true that they looked down and out after the first leg of their playoff against Ukraine. However, they did have the misfortune to be drawn in Spain’s qualifying group, practically condemning them to the playoffs from the off, and si...

Doge's Palace (not the real one) At first, I thought that Las Vegas was going to be my favourite city in the world. Yes yes, it obviously represents the nadir of humankind's narcissistic greed, but just look at all those bright lights! The airport is right next to the Strip, so as soon as you get into your taxi you're confronted with a giant pyramid shooting a laser beam into the air for no discernable reason, whilst a TV screen in the back of the cab bombards you with enticing ads for the latest shows. Truly, it feels like you're being ushered towards a cornucopia of unimaginable delights. Once we'd checked in and gotten some of our bearings, reality then bit. When you realise you can only hope to dine at a mere fraction of the hundreds of eateries, and that you're never likely to see the vast majority of these shows, nor play at every table or slot machine, and that you can't stay in every hotel, you do start to think that maybe all this is, ra...

The story so far: The USA's unfathomable governmental structure conspires to close down all the country's National Parks the day before we fly out there for our long-planned holiday. We miss out on a visit to Alcatraz, and have to rearrange our travel schedule for the first week because Yosemite is shut. Wednesday 9 October - Monterey: with neither side showing any sign of conceding defeat, we are forced to abandon our plans to stay at Grand Canyon Village as well. At least this allows us to (a) we book ourselves into the Monte Carlo on the Las Vegas strip for three nights, and (b) book ourselves on a day tour to the West Rim of the canyon for Saturday. NB. The West Rim is owned and run by Hualapai Indians... sorry, Native Americans (definitely not  Redskins ). Although this means it has remained open, everyone seems to agree that compared to the South Rim, aka the "proper bit", the West Rim is smaller, tackier and generally a bit shit. Still, from my point ...

Carmel beach Coastal California has been fairly well mythologised over the years - the mere mention of Big Sur, Monterey or Santa Cruz evokes hazy visions of sun-dappled semi-paradises where the surf is high and so are most of the people.  If I wasn't as excited about this part of our trip as I was about San Francisco or Las Vegas, not forgetting the Grand Canyon (status pending), it was almost solely down to The Thrills, whose jangle-pop dirges "inspired" by the area sapped the life out of my ears a decade or so ago. It's hard to credit how such a stunning environment could possibly inspire such tepid music, but basically Brian Wilson - often imitated, never remotely bettered - has a lot to answer for. Another unfeasibly bourgeois Carmel shopping arcade Thanks to Yosemite being closed, we were able to see a lot more of this region than originally planned. First stop was Carmel, whose official name of Carmel-by-the-Sea better reflects its picture-book natur...

So, most of the US Government is shut. Obviously some functions are being kept going, except it seems for the really essential ones, such as KEEPING THE NATIONAL PARKS OPEN FOR NICE UK TOURISTS WHO'VE PLANNED THEIR VISITS TO ALCATRAZ, YOSEMITE AND ESPECIALLY THE GRAND CANYON FOR MONTHS . First they decide to elect a new Pope just before we go to Rome, thereby depriving me of seeing the Sistene Chapel, and now this. Screw you, Tea Party nutjobs. Screw you, world in general. Still, at least I've been able to see San Francisco for the first time, which is possibly the least practical city on earth. Sure, those pioneer guys who first set eyes on the beautiful Bay Area must have thought they were quids in, but they failed dismally to consider how the 20th century population expansion and the invention of the motor car might work vis a vis the massive sodding hills surrounding the bay. I doubt Top Gear's budget stretches to converting entire cities into racetracks, but San Fr...