Junkman's Guide To Britain

[Junkman]

Aus gegebenem Anlaß (der Urlaubssaison) möchte ich hiermit potentiellen Großbritannienbesuchern einige wertvolle Reisetips geben, damit Ihr mir nicht hinterher vorwerfen könnt, ich hätte Euch nicht gewarnt.

A. England

1. London

The last school trip isn't too long ago. Nonetheless, meanwhile London became still more congested, dirtier and dowdier. Cheaper too, since inflation is passionately pushed in Britain at all cost.
"This city will never be like it was back in the Fifties", Queen Elisabeth sighed recently. She did not only refer to her coronation, but also to the economical collapse, which started with the loss of the colonies and is making rapid progress ever since.
London only grew in size: Since Margaret Thatcher's abdication, half a million immigrants from Commonwealth countries moved there. Meanwhile the majority of London's population belongs to some ethnic minority. Globetrotters, who are starved for cash and time, take a ride on the London Tube. It is the quickest and most colourful journey around the globe. In contrast, the historic places of the city seem like rotting dinosaurs.

Most visited flops:

The Tower
This massive fortress is nicely centrally located on the banks of the river Thames. And that's it.
For a thousand years, it was used to hold ransom, torture, and murder by the order of the Royal Family. Now, the proceeds of these efforts are on display there - the Crown Jewels. After queuing for an eternity, visitors are transported past the bullet-proof glass display cabinets on conveyor belts. "The most tedious trip of my life" noted author Frank McCourt.

Westminster
Westminster Abbey is a Gothic cathedral, in which English kings were crowned, before they were beheaded by their successors in the Tower. Most of them were subsequently returned to Westminster Abbey and buried there. This is why the floor consists mainly of tomb slabs.
Around the building, the City of Westminster, drowned out by Big Ben, and the City of London are ailing. The latter is an economical crash-test-centre, filing more bankruptcies in any given period than the rest of Europe combined.

Piccadilly Circus
A common crossing, which was considered the centre of the world during the British colonial imperialism. Nowadays groups of tourists meet there, asking each other covertly, why they are here. Nobody knows. Anyhow, a huge Coca Cola advertisement can be seen (illuminated evenings).

Buckingham Palace
The palace, in which the Queen deposits her handbag, where her husband is fed three times daily, and where Queen Mom became an alcoholic. Visitors have to make do with the ritual of the changing of the guard. Mounted soldiers ride along the so-called Mall, scream something, and ride back, which goes on for roughly three quarters of an hour.

St. Paul's Cathedral
This domed church is considered a disreputable place, because Charles and Diana had their wedding there. On Walpurgisnacht it is ever since the meeting point of English wicca-witches.
For a brazen admission fee, visitors can schlep themselves up the stairs to the Whispering Gallery, where whispered words can be heard across the dome. Some even make it to the Stone Gallery, from where one best jumps down.
St. Paul's' architect, Christopher Wren, is hyped as London's last true master-builder. He died in 1723.

British Museum
America, Africa, Asia, and Southern Europe: Wherever British troops were able to conquer a country, they crated up the art treasures and shipped them to London. The accumulated proceeds are displayed in the British Museum. UNESCO-officials thus libel it the fence-cave of colonialism, although, the stolen goods are excellently preserved there.
In their countries of origin, the goods would not have stood a chance to survive, according to the museum's management. Even nowadays, these precious objects would promptly be blown up for religious reasons in their home countries, according to the British Secretary of State for Culture, the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt (MP). The Empire hands back nothing.

Annual Fair and Shopping
For the Millennium, a ferries wheel was erected on the bank of the river Thames, the London-Eye. Countless travellers relinquish further sightseeing after they saw the city from above. The newer London Bridge Experience is a scream-laden ghost ride through history, approximately as exciting as the somniferous wax figures at Madame Toussaud's. House dust allergists better avoid both buildings.
Travel guides love to send their hoards for some rip-off shopping to the congested Oxford Street, or even Harrods. Whoever manages to transverse the latter's ground floor without being soaked with perfume, gets the Golden Pin of the travel agency.

Notting Hill and Portobello Road
Gabbling travel companions, who actually wanted to see the Queen, are best sent to Notting Hill. "Hugh Grant lives there and Julia Roberts owns a house. He really aged severely lately and she is always wearing sun-glasses". This is not entirely incorrect.
"And should you not run into them, you can still visit the famous flea market at Portobello Road". Nowhere else in London tat is more expensive.

London Underground
"You get there quickest with the Tube! We walk". Infamous trick, since one is faster on foot in the city centre. The world's oldest underground, called 'Tube', has at the same time the most convoluted route layout in the world. The straight lines on the maps hanging around everywhere have nothing to do with its actual subterranean curliness. The traveller is supposed to find this out for himself. "Just switch at King's Cross". This is the most chaotic of all stations. Many travellers, who intended to switch there years ago, still live in the corridors, if they haven't been blown to shreds by bombs recently.

London Pass
This tourist pass for dummies comprises travel fees for buses and the Tube, as well as admission to the museums, which is free anyway. “You got to have it! We had it last year! You really get to know London with it”. Yeah right, but only such abdicable anomalies like the Battersea Park Children’s Zoo or the London Canal Museum, both of which would remain entirely unvisited if this ruddy pass didn’t exist.

London Weather
It is not true, that it permanently rains in London. It only rains, when one has no umbrella. The weather is more unsettled than elsewhere. The fog, which billowed around the backdrops in the old Sherlock Holmes movies, definitely doesn’t exist anymore. It was smoke from the factories, which, mixed with damp air, polluted the streets.

London Filth
Since there is no more fog in London, one can now see that the public cleansing service is permanently on strike.
Londoners, like all other Britons, have a very straightforward view of waste separation. If they want to separate themselves from their rubbish, they throw it in the streets. The immigrants also only very begrudgingly give up their home country habit of dumping their waste in front of their homes.
The hotels have long since assimilated. Cockroaches in the breakfast room, silverfish colonies in the bathroom, chips from the last ten occupants underneath the bed, this is all part of the Five-Star Standard.

The Londoner
The picturesque picture of the gentleman, who drinks tea and chats about the weather, is hundred years old. Back then, slaves in faraway colonies mined valuable mineral resources and exported them into the country of their oppressors. Those acted distinguished. “From 1850 to 1950 we managed to appear courteous” explains theatre author Mark Ravenhill. “Before that, we were savage, and now we are savage again.
A weekend in London: People are lying in the gutters, fight and puke”.
Insiders call this an ‘understatement’.

London Food
Nowadays, only prisoners are forced to eat traditional London Cuisine. Everywhere else in town, the recipes of the immigrants have taken over. The fish-and-chippers have been replaced with Indian takeaways. They offer dishes like a lentil-glue named ‘Dal’, or ‘Chicken Tikka Masala’, which is shredded chicken with curry sauce. These have a creepiness all of their own. Coffee is traditionally terrible; Starbucks is considered a gourmet restaurant.
Since India became independent, tea consists of water and milk only. Bread exists in the form of soft white crumbs, or as ‘Plum Pudding’: Lard and syrup formed to a ball, which is non-perishable for twelve months and also useable as a weapon. Apart from breakfast bacon, mint sauce and fully synthetic Cheddar cheese, I must mention the delicious salmonellae, which lack in no self-respected London kitchen.

Useful Facts for Conversations
The foreigner first wonders, why rubbish bins are non-existent, second why there aren’t Bobbies anymore, and third that cars indeed approach from the right. The latter often occurs to him too late. In no other European city more tourists are killed in traffic accidents.
Apart from this rather funny anecdote, visitors from Germany can mention that their grandmother had a grandfather clock with a Big Ben chime. The sound was considered fashionable during the founder’s days. Kaiser Wilhelm II was a grandson of Queen Victoria after all.
The conversation will be elevated onto a scientific niveau if one mentions the zero meridian, which goes through a quarter called Greenwich. A British astronomer decided that everything is zero there in London. The time zones, the meridians, the existence of civilized life as such. What does this mean for the sunrise? Is the date line located exactly opposite? Evening saved!

Experts on London

“Since the bus drivers stop to pray, I’m confident that London is under Islamic right.”
(Stanley Kubrick)

“If you don’t live here, and never visit, it’s almost bearable.” (Judy Dench)

“Never tell anybody you are German. Say you are from Austria or Switzerland, especially in places where beer is served. Otherwise you don’t get any and you’ll never make it out of them alive.” (Anthony Burgess)

2. Stonehenge

If one drives from London to Cornwall, one can adjourn spiritually minded co-travellers near Salisbury. And that best forever.
For them, ten kilometres outside this small town, at Stonehenge, UFOs land in regular intervals, drop off high frequency creatures and abduct clodhopping humans to transform them on board.

The one-and-a-half stone circles are much more impressive on a photograph, than in nature. The mellow monument is ballyhooed as a mystery. Everybody with half a brain, who has actually seen it, senses that it’s not worth being solved. No energy is emitted anymore, since the circles have been fenced in thirty years ago, after the last hippy eso-festival, complete with ruction and rape. Whether the stones are arranged astronomical, or have been used for ceremonial circle peregrinations, is really only interesting for the dimwits who wrap themselves with bed sheets there every summer solstice and hoot that they are druids. For all others, neither the detour, nor the seven Pounds admission fee, for which one can rub his face at the fence, is worth it.

3. Brighton
Everybody who wants to permanently lose all respect for the English people must visit Brighton. Mind you, this is England’s favourite seaside resort. The hilly landscape descends there into the English Channel. Pensioners move there for the soft climate, homosexuals too. Old ladies seek the proximity to the Royal Pavilion, a 200 year old pleasure palace in an Indian-Chinese mixed style. Queen Victoria abandoned it, because she disliked Brighton’s countless drunkards. She died, the drunkards prevailed. The most severe boozers, however, aren’t locals, they come from London. Some of them work the summer at the rusting fairground rides, on shabby merry-go-rounds, inside the ghost rides, or they bolt together a shaky rollercoaster.
For all visitors, guaranteed wins are waiting in gambling halls, casinos, and at the bookies. Highly recommended are the weekly seminars “Problem Gambling – Signs, Symptoms, and Treatments”, as well as the three local Gambling Addiction Treatment Centres. However, German pathological gamblers are best advised to visit a therapy in their home country because of the language barrier.

4. Cornwall
In summer mild and humid, in winter mild and humid, Cornwall is exclusively visited by elderly people who love to wear anoraks. The peninsula is England’s dozy apophysis into the Atlantic. There is a lot of grass and heather, flat and hilly, complete with sheep, cows, thistles, brambles, menhirs, and fresh cheese with chives. In the tourist trap named ‘Penzance’ well dressed pensioners roll balls across a lawn, in the formerly nicer St. Ives the demented veterans of the marihuana era, which blossomed there 40 years ago, go stale. From the westernmost rock, called Land’s End, all visitors take a photo of the sunset. It is exactly like Schleswig-Holstein, only with left hand traffic. The popular roundabouts (on average one every 50 metres) are thus best entered from the left. Otherwise the natives react surprised. The roads in Cornwall aren’t only narrow and steep, but also littered with shaved off rear view mirrors and mangled car body panels. The Continentals were there.


B. Scotland

Old stereotypes say, Scots are stingy, the scenery dreary, and the weather rainy all the time. Whoever has been up there knows better. The Scots aren’t stingy; they just simply don’t spend any money. The scenery isn’t dreary; it is rather monotone in many ways. And the weather is by no means rainy all the time; it offers a fascinating variety of precipitation. Fog, high fog, crawling fog, drizzle, mizzle, spray, cloudburst, downpour, heavy showers, steady rain, freezing rain, sleet, hail, snowfall, blizzards and sometimes even thunderstorms, and all this without long and boring breaks, but rather interleaved.
Scotland has four seasons in a day says the typical proverb. Meant by this are the four Scottish seasons, early autumn, late autumn, winter, and sudden cold snap. These seasons are not only accompanied by hefty precipitations, but also fierce winds. Umbrellas aren’t customary in Scotland, since they snap the moment one sets foot outdoors.
Intrepid visitors need several layers of water repellent clothing with double hoods, since once out and about, there is nothing that could provide any shelter. Scotland does have a few shrubs, but no trees whatsoever. The country is as bald as the head of its most famous ambassador, Sean Connery, who entirely by the way left it as soon as he could for the Bahamas, from where he asserts his solidarity ever since.
Theodor Fontane, the classic German poet, who visited Scotland 150 years ago, noted:
"Barren land, nothing going on, with the exception of the occasional English artillery passing through.” Meanwhile even the English artillery prefers to stay at home, or pass through still bleaker landscapes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The only thing now crossing one’s path occasionally is a shepherd with his sheep and dogs. This is about as exciting as artillery fire, since the dogs, due to the stinginess of their owner, must fend for themselves. Unarmed tourists are regarded as delicatessen.
Another protected predator species in Scotland are the mosquitoes, called ‘midges’, which thankfully only prey on the few days without snowstorms. But should there be a remotely mild overcast day in summer, they leave the bushes in dark swarms, preferably at dawn.
Whoever wants to see a group of hikers run just has to scream ‘midges!’ and the panic begins.

Scottish Highland Dancing allegedly started, when men wearing skirts were beleaguered by midges.

The itching caused by the stings can be alleviated by applying home made whiskey to them, albeit the deployment of this liquid remedy orally into the internals yields quicker results.

Then there are the Lochs, those deep lakes which were formed during the ice-age. In one of them, called Loch Ness, a prehistoric monster raised its head above the water by accident. This was in 1934. In total disbelief, it turned its dragon-like head in all directions, was appalled by what it saw, quickly dived again and swam through the Caledonian Canal to flee for the Atlantic as fast as it could. After a long and exhausting odyssey it finally arrived at the coast of Costa Rica. Zoologists found out, that it found a new home on the Isla Sorna. To finance her stay in the Caribbean, Nessie occasionally stars in Steven Spielberg movies to never have to return to Scotland.
So much for Scottish nature. Is there anything else worth seeing? No. Admittedly, there are towns, though.

1. Edinburgh
A visit is well worth the while. Whoever trots through the grim, grey, and gloomy streets of Edinburgh, will finally cherish his home town.

2. Glasgow
Whoever trots through Glasgow, will finally cherish Edinburgh.

In between these two strongholds of melancholy, bagpipe players stand in every bend of the Highland roads. For considerable amounts of money, they can be persuaded to at least temporarily stop making this unbearable noise.


Gute Reise!

[schraubenkoenig]

Well !

[Junkman]

Well !

Well what???

[schraubenkoenig]

Well done!
Kann ich nur teilweise bestätigen- ich hab unterwegs aufgegeben... War nicht hart genug für das volle Programm....

[Junkman]

Well done!
Kann ich nur teilweise bestätigen- ich hab unterwegs aufgegeben... War nicht hart genug für das volle Programm....

Ich würde nichtmal in Erwägung ziehen, auch nur damit anzufangen. Eigenartigerweise sind viele Europäer aber nur sehr schwer davon abzubrigen, ihren Urlaub auf derartig sinnloses Survival Training zu verschwenden. Ich wollte lediglich davor warnen.

[Ron_Devous]

nicht jedem mag sich der "charme" londons erschließen. aber wenn man zuviel geld in der tasche hat, dann kann man sich da prima betrinken.

[Hptm]

nicht jedem mag sich der "charme" londons erschließen. aber wenn man zuviel geld in der tasche hat, dann kann man sich da prima betrinken.

das kannst du in meinem laden auch günstiger haben

[roughneck]

stimmt!

[schraubenkoenig]

nicht jedem mag sich der "charme" londons erschließen. aber wenn man zuviel geld in der tasche hat, dann kann man sich da prima betrinken.

das kannst du in meinem laden auch günstiger haben

Das ist doch mal ne Herausforderung:

Nen Ort finden - wo man trotz zuviel Geld keinen Spass hben kann....

Wenn ich mich irgendwann auf ner Müllkippe wohlfühlen sollte fahre ich wieder hin- wobei Indien in dieser Hinsicht sogar noch reizvoller sein soll...

[Junkman]

nicht jedem mag sich der "charme" londons erschließen. aber wenn man zuviel geld in der tasche hat, dann kann man sich da prima betrinken.

London schaffe ich noch nichtmal schönzutrinken.
Ich hab mich nur schon immer gefragt, warum England-Touristen sich immer in diesem fürchterlichen Nepp da unten tummeln und nie dort hin fahren, wo es schön ist.

[Trencher]

Ist das die Sorte von Reisewarnung, die eigentlich vom Auswärtigen Amt herausgegeben werden sollte?

Und Du hast außerdem Yorkshire vergessen. Als ich 1986 meine (übrigens sehr hübsche...) Brieffreundin dort besuchte, fiel mir sofort der Verfall auf. Ich hätte auch genausogut in Nordirland sein können. Möglicherweise ist ohnehin nicht mehr viel von beiden Landstrichen übrig geblieben...

[Junkman]

Ist das die Sorte von Reisewarnung, die eigentlich vom Auswärtigen Amt herausgegeben werden sollte?

Und Du hast außerdem Yorkshire vergessen. Als ich 1986 meine (übrigens sehr hübsche...) Brieffreundin dort besuchte, fiel mir sofort der Verfall auf. Ich hätte auch genausogut in Nordirland sein können. Möglicherweise ist ohnehin nicht mehr viel von beiden Landstrichen übrig geblieben...

OK, ich hole jetzt nicht irgendwelche echten Eigentümlichkeiten Britischer Wesensart hervor, deshalb sag ich nur so viel:

Where the fuck is Yorkshire ?????

[Besengte Sau]

OK, ich hole jetzt nicht irgendwelche echten Eigentümlichkeiten Britischer Wesensart herv

Machs einfach......Lachen ist gesund, und das wollen wa doch alle sein, oder?
Lass mal richtig den Engländer raus......

Grüße.

[Junkman]

Die Arbeit, über Yorkshire auch noch Witze zu machen, kann man sich getrost sparen.

From an English point of view, Yorkshire is a foreign country. It was lost to the French in the Battle of Waterloo, but they didn't want it either for obvious reasons. Hence Yorkshire is foreign for everyone. Consequently, Yorkies had to invent everything on their own.

- Houses were invented in 1926
- Indoor toilets in 1986
- Running water in 1994
- Window glass in 2002

Last year, the people from Yorkshire discovered the railway tracks laid there by the English in 1846 and subsequently wanted to sell them for scrap. The scrap metal business is Yorkshire's main economic factor, as the visitor can clearly see by the piles of scrap and other rubbish in every front garden. The only other source of income is pest control.

Nuff said or do you really want to know about the main attractions not worth seeing?

[Besengte Sau]