luckykaa

I bought flickums a murder mystery dinner party for her birthday. Flick decided to do the one in Southend-on-sea because that allowed a weekend by the sea. In honour of the occasion I turned into a lobster by driving with the roof down and no sunblock.

So, the murder; nuns and vicars themed. Seemed to be a 50/50 split between dressed up and not. Naturally we dressed up. I was Brother Cattus and Flick was Sister Brothers. The mystery itself was all pretty silly and hokey. Cast of 4, playing 5 characters (since one of them died near the start). They played out various segments with over the top characters. We also had a newspaper and a wordsearch to provide clues.

We met another two couples at the table and both groups seemed very much our type of people.

Did we solve the murder? Nope. Miles off. We didn't have a clue as to motive. Method was obvious (poisoned wine - I think we all got that before the murder even happened). Still it was a lot of fun. 

Hotel not so great. the room was really hot and I couldn't sleep. Also the place was designed by MC Escher. Impossible to get from the lift to a room on the same floor without two flights of stairs. We also had two plug sockets in the entire room. Well, there was a third for the TV but that was behind the telly. 

Anyway, we really got on well with one of the other couples at our tale and they suggested we do an escape room the next day. It's a seaside town so we did the pirate one. Well, these two were hardcore escape roomers. Definitely a low more experienced than us, although I'm pretty sure we proved our worth. Escape Live in Southend is definitely worth it. One thing that is nice is that we're explicitly told we get to ask for up to 6 clues (we only needed one in the end but we did have a couple of minor nudges)

After that we went to a board game cafe and played Dorf Romantik. An extremely low intensity game about building a landscape. 

Wanted to spend a bit of time seeing Southend. Actually a surprisingly nice seaside town. Somewhat geekier than I was expecting. There's pleasant pedestrianised shopping area, a lift down to the pier and beach level. 

Southend-On-Sea famously has a very long pier. 2100 metres (a mile and a bit in old money). You can walk it. Or there's a train. We took the train! A much less exciting pier than I'm used to. Places to eat and drink but no rides. There is a lifeboat station though. Seems a very long way for the volunteers to come in an emergency. They do at least have a second station closer to the shore. 

Flick donated generously in the RNLI shop. I had a glass of cider and we shared some candyfloss. We also sat in the giant deck chair. Then caught the train back to the shore.

Can't say much for Southend's seaside though. Not much of a beach at high tide. Shingle. Rather crowded. Lots of screaming girls. Was also really tired after a really bad night's sleep. Decided to flump in the hotel in front of a fan, and watched a video on fans. Well, most of it. Really I just wanted to spend time catching up on sleep. 

So, thoughts: Murder mystery was a lot of fun. I don't think it was solvable without a lot of guessing but it's low stakes. And I enjoyed the food. Southend-on-sea is a pleasant enough seaside town.

Boat trip today. See the Green Grotto. And the Blue Grotto. And see Capri.

We got on a boat. Zipped across the sea. And saw a grotto. We were asked about whether we wanted to go swimming before or after Capri. Well, everyone else was asked. We didn't. 

My impression of Capri is a tourist trap. We tried a cafe by the beach but felt 20 euros for a sandwich was a bit steep even for a tourist trap. Sun beds were also ludicrously expensive. 

Found a cheaper place, and after a short dip, found a slightly cheaper meal and cocktails, smoothies and fizzy drinks nearby. 

They have convertible taxis here, which is kinda cool. 

Taxi driver didn't seem keen to take us to the charlifts. Insisted queue wouldn't be worth it. He dropped us off at a shall town. Very busy. Lots of tourists. Had a ride on the funicular which took us to the other port, but decided to head back and spend the rest of our time there on the beach.

Didn't really rate Capri. Perhaps it would have been better had I had a better idea of what it was like and what we wanted to do.

Back at the boat we found others had been dissuaded from taking the chairlifts. Those who did only had a 30 minute wait. 

It was more fun to jump off the boat and go for a swim. I'm lazy enough these days to just want to float with a pool noodle.

We saw some other grottos. One was the love Grotto with a heart shaped pattern. Sadly we weren't able to go into the blue Grotto. Way too choppy.

Zipped back at speed. It was fun sitting on the front deck of the boat! 

Wanted to try somewhere a bit quirky for dinner. There's a restaurant in another hotel near ours. We liked the look of the menu we found online. 

The walk there was along a treacherous windy road with no footpath. Then we found a steep slope that lead to a locked gate. Further steep descent and we were led to the restaurant. Had a nice ambience with a covered terrace and kitty cats. 

Unfortunately we didn't get the menu we expected. It was pizza night. A starter consisting of a selection of foods, followed by a lemon pizza. Very nice but not quite what we were expecting. 

Aside from the cats and the ambience and the food - all of which Flick liked, she felt betrayed because she only went there for the chocolate mousse which they didn't have. That and the epic climb back up the hill, but it was really the mousse.

Early start to the day. Had a coach tour to Pompeii. It was a nice change to travel on a comfy air conditioned coach.

So Pompeii is not just a small archaeological dig. We have a whole city here. And while I knew this, I was expecting something like Akritori in Santorini. Pompeii was a much larger city.

A lot of it was remarkably well preserved. We have an amphitheatre, a bakery, temples... We can work out which buildings were shops, and the roads are pretty much untouched. 

Downside of this sort of a tour was following someone else's schedule. Poor Flickums was suffering from the heat by the end of it. Some very nice American tourists did try and fuss a little which was very nice of them. 

Rest of the day we spent chilling at the hotel. We plan to do a lot of that.

Evening meal at the Hotel Calypso. I had Sea Bass with Portobello mushroom and truffle, and Flickums had some very nice lamb. 

So far we've spent a lot of time waiting for transport.

Woke up early after a night of no sleep. Got on the plane. Flickums insisted we get there with plenty of time for security, which ended up taking about 5 minutes. Still, it gave us time for a leisurely breakfast. 

Naples airport seemed felt like a crime scene. We entered a tent, where sections were roped off, and entered details into the "ha you're not in the EU any more, suckers!" terminal, only to find that it didn't like me and I had to go to the manual booth. That took a while.

Bus to Sorrento would have involved a long wait, so decided to get the train. This involved getting a bus to the station. Apparently everyone needed to get into a long discussion with the driver. 

After that we got very lost trying to work out what train we needed. Apparently trenitalia is not what we need. 

Finally arrived at the hotel.

Pool was nice.

When talking about the Knives Out movies, Rian Johnson said that one of the rules in a mystery is the detective is not the protagonist. In Wake Up Dead Man, Benoit Blanc doesn't turn up until 40 minutes into the movie. The focus is on Jud Duplenticy - a priest who becomes the prime suspect in the murder. And this is the case in most mysteries. In a lot of Sherlock Holmes stories, the protagonist is the victim. Other stories might follow someone close to the victim.

In Columbo, the protagonist is the murderer.

The big name in the show was always the perpetrator. And there were some definite well known faces. Donald Pleasance, Janet Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, Robert Vaughn, many others. Definitely the A-list! 

The structure of a typical episode is a tragedy. The first act will focus on the murderer. We'll learn their motivations, their connections to the other characters. Sometimes we'll sympathise with them. The villain is often deserving of their fate. At some point we'll see them commit a murder. The murderer will typically prepare an alibi, or take steps to cover up the murder if it was something spontaneous. 

It's at this point Columbo appears and while the protagonist doesn't realise, the audience knows, at this point their fate is sealed. Throughout the rest of the episode we see how their careful planning is gradually unravelled by this dogged eccentric. Their arrogance and confidence is chipped away. Many a time they end up broken, seeing their arrest as a blessed relief that the torment is finally over. 

Columbo is probably the only show where the murderer as protagonist is possible. It's not a "whodunnit". It never meant to be. It's been described as a "howCatch'em". Although it is typically a mystery. A few questions remain unanswered. Sometimes the why. Sometimes there are a few missing details. But what is never a mystery - with the exception of one episode (Double Shock, where we have two identical twins)  - is who "dunnit". 

It's not the only show where the murderer is the protagonist. Several Hitchcock movies we are shown the murder, and even told how it's going to happen beforehand. Dexter and Death Note both focus on serial killers. Death Note even has a cat-and-mouse with a series of detectives. Columbo however manages to be the iconic example of this format.

Paris Day 3 & 4

Pleased we decided to skip the trip to Brussels. Would have been nice seeing friends, but we always do way too much in these trips. Instead we had the opportunity to go back to Disney village and go to the shops. 

Doing this in the morning is a much more pleasant affair. Hardly anyone around because they're all in the park. Shops are open. Plenty of space away from the crowds. We bought some Disney tat. Had a look at potential places to eat next time we're here. 

Flick was feeling tired so returned to hotel. I wanted to explore a little more. See if Paris has a Lego store. It does, although not as big as the London one. They do have the obligatory Lego Paris landmarks though. Bought a Spiderman minifig and was disappointed it was one I already have. 

Returned to hotel. Collected Flickums for going out again to the Père Lachaise Cemetery. It seems to be a thing for us these days to see dead people on holiday. We were a little early and Flickums was getting very unwell, and hadn't eaten so I bought her a ham and cheese baguette. But disaster struck! There was no cheese!!!

We had a very nice guided tour and saw graves of various people - One highlight for me was Jean-François Champollion, because I like Egyptology and I didn't realise he was there. Sadly the tour ended early due to poor light, so we didn't get to see Oscar Wilde. Did see several other tombs though, including Jim Morrison. 

We wrapped up the day with an open top bus tour. Seemed to be some confusion with another group; who we movbed for, but they were then herded off for some reason. 

Bus tour was okay but we did stop near the Eiffel Tower for a bit long. Also seemed to end a bit abruptly. But we did see the Champs-Élysées, Arc De Triomphe, and a bunch of other Paris landmarks. 

We wrapped up the final day with Flickums feeling somewhat like Death, but wanting to tick off a few remaining locations. Statue of Joan Of Arc. Oscar Wilde's tomb,  Georges Méliès tomb, Bizets tomb. Picked up some Belgian beers. Returned home.

Paris Eurostar Terminal refused to accept my passport at the passport gates. After 3 attempts it finally let me in, but then decided to keep me there while it tried to check my identity! I think it crashed. Apparently the French passport authorities didn't want me to leave!

Don't think the Paris Eurostar terminal is quite as nice as the London one.

So that was it. Really wish we didn't keep getting lurg on holidays. Really puts a downer on the whole thing. Still, it was nice to go to Paris and not break up on the way there. And to actually visit the Eiffel Tower rather than just see it. I had a nice time. 

We went to Paris! Via Sussex to visit parents. Eurostar is a little more convenient from Sussex. And I like Eurostar!

Anyway, we arrived. Found our hotel. Slept. And woke up far too late because we stupidly didn't think to set an alarm. We needed to get to Disneyland to meet Jack Skellington! And maybe Goofy. And, if we're lucky, a random princess!! Rides were there to fill any spare time.

Here's the thing about Disneyland; they've abolished physical queues for the meet and greets. Instead you need to sign up to a virtual queue on the app. We learned to hate those virtual queues. We got through the gate only a few minutes after opening time. After a lot of tinkering, we found we were far too late to have any hope of meeting Jack, and the queue was full. Instead we met Goofy, who just had a short regular queue and he was very nice. Decided we'd be first in the queue when they reopened in the afternoon.

In the meantime, we enjoyed the park. Had Mickey waffles. Went on Phantom Manor because it's great! And since we're old, we decided sitting on the bench was one of the best rides in the park! 

Had lunch at the Pinocchio themed Chalet de la Marionnette, and had the worlds most disappointingly bland pulled pork burger. It tasted on nothing. It had a slice of cheese that had no cheese flavour. There was no salt on the fries. All in all, pretty awful. Would not recommend. 

Anyway, afternoon queues were about to open, so we leaped on them, and kept getting unhelpful error messages saying "Oops, something went wrong". Eventually after several failures, we got a different error message saying the queue is full. Yeah, thanks Disney.We were a little miffed about this. Actually Flickums was mortified. She was putting up a brave front,  but it was pretty clear she was numbing her pain with copium.

However, after constantly prodding the app, an opening appeared. And I prodded a few times, and I got into the queue to meet a princess! This gave Flickums hope and after many many attempts she finally managed to join the Jack queue! And at this point Flickums was so happy she was bouncing off the walls! 

And Jack was really nice. He really got the voice and mannerisms right, and seemed to appreciate that we were fans! He admired the little demons we brought - Flick's K-pop plushies! I wished him a horrible Christmas. 

Princess meetup was with Merida, who was one of the princesses we hadn't yet met. She did a passable Scottish accent but was fun and did encourage us to do a bear pose. 

Honestly that was the only thing we really wanted to do. Flick wanted to see the Christmas parade - we missed the first one because we were seeing Jack but it was all lit up so seeing the night time one was a lot better. We went on a few other rides. We went to the steakhouse and had some tasty but overpriced skewers. Went on Star Tours - where there was no queue! Honestly, at this point we were just ticking off all the "would like to do" things. 

I recently finished The Rest Of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness. 

The premise is that in a world where heroes exist, and supernatural events are an every day occurrence, most people just want to live their day to day lives. In the background we have an alien race wanting to take over, but the prince falling in love with one of the chosen ones but that's just what's happening in the background. The actual story is a slice of life about a group of ordinary kids in their final year of school, their dysfunctional parents and the rest of the things that are going on in an ordinary life. The supernatural story is irrelevant (and actually really hokey).

I really enjoyed it! But this is not about a review. It's about a fairly simply fact that a lot of writers seems to miss. We don't actually give a damn about the end of the world. We care about the people it will affect.

A world ending, or universe ending plot is just a MacGuffin. It's not important. In Titanic, it's not really important that the ship sinks. We could replace that with any disaster, as long as there's a possibility of class warfare and peril. Star Wars it doesn't matter so much that the Death Star needs to be destroyed so much as as Luke is the one to destroy it. We want to see the hero beat the odds. We want to people to win. 

Far too many stories seem to be about upping the ante, and then fixate on that. Discovery season 4 was about something threatening the galaxy. The Force Awakens had an even bigger Death Star. The Rise of Skywalker upped the ante again with a fleet of planet destroyers, but they fixated on them and they weren't what's interesting. We don't have a a connection to what's at risk. People loved the recent Superman movie. Why? Because it's about the people. Superman says it himself. He's flawed and makes mistakes. 

What I don't understand is this; this is not a revelation! This is some pretty basic writing advice that anyone with an interest in writing will tell you. Make characters that people care about. Yet these are professional writers and they seem to think that what we want is bigger MacGuffins. The thing any writing guide will tell you not to focus on. So what's happening? 

Are the story decisions being made by the money men? Maybe. Whoever is doing this has lost touch. Don't tell us about the world ending because unless we're invested in the people who just live there, who cares?

Writing this after returning; because I didn't bring a laptop on holiday with me.

So, in short, Anniversary trip to Thessaloniki, Greece! Where I went up a mountain, caught a nasty lurg, swam by a shipwreck, soaked in a thermal pool, ate in a rotating restaurant, sailed on a pirate ship, and acquired some gods and monsters. Still suffering from the lurg.

In Long...

Thursday:

Flew to Thessaloniki. An afternoon flight, which is always a nice time to fly. No particular issues. Landed. Taxi to hotel. Hotel is veery nice. And we'd splashed out on a junior suite, which was pretty sweet. It came with lounge access; where I took advantage of the complementary wine. Then we got room service because neither of us wanted to go out hunting for food. I had a glass of wine. I think that might have been my undoing.

Friday:

Visited by Bilious the oh-my-god of hangovers. And didn't sleep well. Fortunately it was a pretty easy day. A drive to Dion - Archaeological site - and Mount Olympus. And apparently some waterfalls that we didn't actually see due to some confusion. Dion was fairly interesting. Ancient city with various excavations. The directions weren't great though. Took a while to find the Sanctuary of Zeus. It was signposted but the only way to get there would have been to wade through a stream. Eventually found another route.

Next stop was Mount Olympus. We saw the mountain. Didn't want to do any trekking so admired the scenery. There was meant to be a visit to a gorge. That seems to have been skipped. Still a bit confused about what happened there.

In the evening we hunted food. There seems to be a dearth of mid-range places to eat! Turns out my eyes were bigger than my belly anyway...

Saturday: 

Hangover has turned into a cold. I think I the booze might have done a number on my immune system. Still, not feeling too bad.

It was my day to be a catfish! We went on a shipwreck tour. Long boat trip around the Thermaic gulf and we chatted to other travellers, all North Americans living in Europe. Once we got there. I jumped into the sea, and then decided.. Actually maybe a lifejacket might be useful for getting to shore. Just felt extremely tired as soon as I hit the water. Although really I would have preferred something else. A jacket was a little too floaty. Still, it made getting to shore a simply matter of leaning back and slowly floating.

I was surprised how few people were there. Last time we saw a shipwreck it was massively popular! Here there was only one yacht (ours) and a couple of small boats.Still had some distance to go along the beach to get to the wreck and that was not an easy journey. The beach was hot and rather painful on the feet. Shell grit is not a good surface. It's sharp and painful and gets unpleasantly hot. By the shore the gradient is too steep, and underwater it's too easy to sink into. The 100m walk took a ridiculously long time. Still, I arrived and had some fun swimming around the wreck. Saw some fishes and made a point of startling them. Nobody told them there'd be Neil's in the sea.

Our Captain Mikos was friendly but I don't think I'll ever experience a crew as nice as Ruben and Marta in Gran Canaria.

Sunday:

It's our anniversary!!! And we're seeing Hot springs and a waterfall.

The weather seemed to be a little sullen though. And cold is getting worse. Not ideal day for it. Still, determined to have an enjoyable day and there's not a lot of high energy activity planned. First stop was the hot springs. A choice of 3 pools. Two small pools and a "large pool". Turns out the large pool is essentially just a swimming pool; except filled with hot spring water. We spent some time there but it seemed unexciting. We moved to one of the small pools, which are a lot nicer. Very silty, so the water was opaque. Weather was getting grottier which was fine while we were relaxing in the pool. No qualms about getting wet and the pool was warm! The only trouble was getting out. We didn't want to leave!!! Alas we had to.

Went from there to a very nice restaurant, where I had wild boar!

After that we went to the waterfalls. Sadly by this point, Flick was getting very waterlogged and didn't really feel like traipsing around a waterfall in cold wet weather while wearing wet clothes. I ventured down myself. However, Flick did retreat and head to a cafe about 30m too soon. I did eventually persuade her to come so she could at least say she'd seen the falls.

We also did out first souvenir hunt. We acquired Hera, to go with our collection of deities.

Returned to hotel, fortunately most of the route was under shelter, but Flick was feeling very soggy at this point.

Evening plan was to go to the Rotating Restaurant. Weirdly difficult describing to taxi drivers where we wanted to go until I pulled up a picture. They apparently don't call it OTE tower in Greek. We arrived, and the lift was out of order. After a long wait, we eventually accepted that we'll have to go up the stairs. Not something we were in the mood for. Still, we made it. I was also a little upset that the restaurant didn't appear to be  rotating. Turns out it was, just very very slowly. Takes an hour to do a complete revolution. Had a bit of confusion over the bill. Settled that and headed home.

Monday:

Cold is getting worse. Fortunately we had planned on doing nothing. So I napped. Then we went for a chocolate massage. Established that chocolate massage oil does in fact taste of chocolate. After that I was feeling somewhat rejuvenated, and somewhat hungry. Found a nice cafe that did a selection of seafood and cheeses, where we were pestered by cats. I shared some steamed mussels with the cats. Next bit of souvenir hunting - We acquired Hades to add to the collection.

Was originally planning to explore the city today but didn't feel up to it. Instead I took advantage of the hotel's indoor pool. It turns out it's a dimly lit pool with ambient music (and rather annoyingly, notification pings because it was just connected to a phone via bluetooth) designed for relaxation. Very pleasant.

Wrapped up the day with a ride on the Arabella! A pirate ship! Well, a 1930s ship designed to look like a pirate ship and functioning primarily as a bar, while 80s hit played - an authentic pirate theme obviously important here - We did get to zip along the coast of the city as the sun set, and enjoyed cocktails, served in piratically themed drinking vessels.

Tuesday:

Flying home. Was not a lot to do at the airport and I made the foolish mistake of going through passport control too soon. Manchester decided to welcome us back with rain. Boo! On the plus side, the airport was pretty much empty. Waltzed straight though to passport control.

I have to say, despite a few things not quite going as hoped and fighting a cold, I did enjoy the trip. I just wish I'd seen more of the city. it's not a big tourist area. We could easily have managed it on Monday if I was feeling up to it but I wanted to relax. And I don't think that was a bad thing. We booked a nice hotel for a reason so I'm, pleased we took advantage of the amenities.

Happy Birthday flickums ! Although by the time I write this, that was yesterday.

Came down on Monday. Checked into hotel and hunted for food. Finally found a steak house that does steak! In fact that's about all they do. The Flat Iron is a quirky little restaurant with a very concise menu, consisting entirely of steak and side dishes. There is no provision for vegetarians. I think the idea is that if you go there you're after steak or a burger. If you are after a steak or a burger I can wholly recommend the place. When you arrive, they provide a mug of salted popcorn (which gets refilled if emptied). Steak was absolutely fantastic. so were the sides. Chips are cooked in beef fat, as is tradtion! A nice bonus is they have an ice cream machine and offer ice cream to customers when they leave.

Since Flickums was about to have a birthday, and we wanted an early start, we started the birthday celebrations slightly early. So Flickums opened prezzies the night before. Seems the cross-stitch book I gave her really went down well. And I think the Frankenstein condiments set did as well.

So, after a hearty breakfast, we did the meandering journey to Highgate Cemetery. Turns out there's not any particularly convenient tube stop nearby and even buses are a few minutes walk away. We had a guided tour of Highgate. Lots of interesting history about the place, and how it went into decline, before being taken over by a trust to have a sense of managed decline. So nature is sort of making inroads but very slowly and carefully.

After the tour, we went on a very brief scavenger hunt. Found Douglas Adams - as one should on a 42nd birthday - , Karl Marx and William Foyle. There's also a very nice little gift shop in the ticket office. Flick, being the ghoul she is, bought a couple of grim grisly books about death and murder.

Went on the hunt for lunch. Found a nice pub. Unfortunately the kitchen was closed. Found another nice pub, and this one specialised in pies. I ordered a pie. Flickums ordered a pie. This trip is making me very fat.

Back to the hotel to chill for a bit before heading out again to our theatre date.

Flick has become a bit of a Wicked addict since the movie came out and wanted to go see the stage production again. Flick dressed in her Wizard of Oz themed dress and red sparkly shoes, which got a lot of compliments. Show was good. I think I prefer the movie though. It has a train!

Back to the hotel. Change at Earl's Court onto a train packed with some very loud, very annoying football fans. Fortunately it was only one stop. One of the more sane fans apologised on their behalf. I guess at least they were loud and annoying in a cheerful way.

Aaand flump! Fortunately following day is planned to be a lighter affair.