Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
Yeah, I recommended Avebury.
To be fair, I don't know how disappointing the Statue of Liberty is, for example, but I suspect I'd at least want to see it and make my mind up for myself if I were a tourist and had never seen it before.
It is underwhelming.
American tourists tend to be after things they can't get at home, like castles and palaces and more generally anything really old. You don't get much older than Stonehenge. I've never visited it myself but I have driven past it and it looks pretty cool.
If I were building a 1 week UK itinerary it would probably look something like this: Day 1: British Museum (early); Thames River cruise; West End show or Ronnie Scotts Day 2: Maritime Greenwich; picnic in a park in South London; night out in Peckham Day 3: day trip to Cambridge; punt to Grantchester; pub lunch; return to London to catch sleeper to Glasgow Day 4: day trip Loch Lomond Day 5: train to York via Settle and Carlisle. Visit York Minster; hire a car and drive to Yorkshire Dales and stay at a pub Day 6: walking in Yorkshire Dales; pub dinner Day 7: return car, train back to London and flight home. Could replace Glasgow/Loch Lomond with Edinburgh/East Neuk.
7 days is a very short time for something like this. Night out in Peckham seems a bit err.. parochial..
If I was to change your schedule but keep the broad theme I'd go Buck Palace and Windsor castle for day 2
I was trying to give the tourists a taste of urban nightlife outside of Central London.
Er, why?
Er, why not? Isn't a night out one of life's great joys?
It certainly is but sampling urban nightlife outside of Central London is often a high risk activity especially if they are not from round here.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
Yeah, I recommended Avebury.
To be fair, I don't know how disappointing the Statue of Liberty is, for example, but I suspect I'd at least want to see it and make my mind up for myself if I were a tourist and had never seen it before.
It is underwhelming.
American tourists tend to be after things they can't get at home, like castles and palaces and more generally anything really old. You don't get much older than Stonehenge. I've never visited it myself but I have driven past it and it looks pretty cool.
If I were building a 1 week UK itinerary it would probably look something like this: Day 1: British Museum (early); Thames River cruise; West End show or Ronnie Scotts Day 2: Maritime Greenwich; picnic in a park in South London; night out in Peckham Day 3: day trip to Cambridge; punt to Grantchester; pub lunch; return to London to catch sleeper to Glasgow Day 4: day trip Loch Lomond Day 5: train to York via Settle and Carlisle. Visit York Minster; hire a car and drive to Yorkshire Dales and stay at a pub Day 6: walking in Yorkshire Dales; pub dinner Day 7: return car, train back to London and flight home. Could replace Glasgow/Loch Lomond with Edinburgh/East Neuk.
7 days is a very short time for something like this. Night out in Peckham seems a bit err.. parochial..
If I was to change your schedule but keep the broad theme I'd go Buck Palace and Windsor castle for day 2
That seems a slightly odd itinerary; amend as follows:-
Day 1: add London Eye. Day 2: add HMS Belfast unless from a state with its own ww2 warship museum. Day 3: or Oxford. Day 4: Glasgow to Loch Lomond; why? The Edinburgh Festival & Fringe are more entertaining. Day 5: (York) railway museum and/or air museum Day 6: OP must be a northerner if he/she thinks walking is a leisure activity, and if it is, why hire a car? Day 7: don't they have airports up north?
Also, Stonehenge is best driven past because apart from looking at the stones (from the road) there is not much else. I'd imagine you could do the whole tour on Youtube.
London Eye is good, I'll give you that. I've already put in a couple of things on the Thames, I think HMS Belfast is superfluous. I've put in Edinburgh as an alternative - personally I prefer it to Glasgow (although it isn't necessarily at its best in August) but I think a bit of Scottish West Coast scenery is necessary. The NRM at York is my favourite museum in the world but the itinerary already has a sleeper and the Settle snd Carlisle railway in it and our Amercan tourists may not share my passion for trains (and they should see at least one great medieval cathedral so I would prioritise the minster). The car is necessary to get to the idyllic village pub in the dales that will be their base. Oxford is shit.
Actually Cyclefree of all people probably knows you DO build law around rotten apples.
That's literally the point of most law and safeguarding, to protect people from the rotten apples.
Trans people need protections but NOT in a way that violates women's protections.
And that's the biggest problem with the Trans debate. The number of actual trans (men -> women) is sadly way less than the number of male sex abusers who can see an opportunity (open) to abuse...
The reality is that there is no decent answer here because both sides have such set views they are unable to see the valid points in the other side of the argument.
It's not that intractable imo. Reform the transition process so it's quicker and less medicalized. Then have a default principle in practice of trans inclusion. But with the option of exclusion (ie stay sex-based) if there's a genuine good reason for it. So, keep asking the question: is there a solid, evidence-based reason for excluding trans people from X? Where X is a place or an activity. Eg (my opinion) a Yes for elite physical female sports (real issue) but a No for public toilets (confected issue). That's my view anyway. And Phil is right to point out there are some real nasties active in the anti-trans movement. People who see it as a route to attack other rights and a safe space to vent their bigotry and spleen. There's absolutely no question of that.
I don’t like damning people by association. I wouldn’t want my trans friends to be judged by the actions and words of Jennifer Yaniv any more than I’d want my GC feminist friends tarred with the actions of the nastier obsessives. They tend to have different motivations.
That said, I think the difficulty comes from the conflation of a biological characteristic and a set of societal expectations that makes disentangling the two very hard. This is why I tend to get run down in the middle of the road between said groups of friends. I don’t think you can ignore sex, but society doesn’t have a right to impose gendered expectations on people just because of tradition, and we should support people who suffer because of it.
Damning by association is not good, no. But neither is it totally irrelevant who you are aligned with in having an opinion on something. If you find (eg) 90% of the world's softhead bigots agree with you on X then it makes sense to at least pay attention to that and ask yourself if it changes anything. Have you missed something about X? Why are all these ghastly people agreeing with you? If having done that you're still solid with it, fine. More than fine, you're in much better shape now. Not to do it at all is narrow minded and a failure of due diligence on yourself. It's not some admirable "I believe what I believe, end of, cos I'm an independent fearless free thinker" type thing.
Totally agree with your 2nd para. As I say, I don't think it's an intractable issue, but it is difficult, and for those reasons you say.
I assume the “you” is a general statement rather than a specific one . I think that’s reasonable to do on any issue really. However I think it’s not generally fair to conflate the motivations of two groups who might be coincidentally aligned but not operating from the same premise. There’s a group of feminists for whom the principle is the erosion of material rights that are hard fought and come from harrowing personal experience. There is also Whackdoodle McHookhands who has found a convenient culture war beat to bash and probably hates the former group as much as trans people. I’m not comfortable asking the former group to check themselves because the odious bigots have borrowed their hobby horse. It’s also why I tend to try to stay away from this debate (I know, ironic given I’ve done the opposite to a wee degree here). I have my views but I know they’re abstract and not rooted in the shitty lived experience of the interested parties. It isn’t my place to comment or play referee generally unless I’m asked to do so.
Actually, whilst I am sure that many of the gents here are acting from the best of motives, why do any of you think that who goes in or out of the Ladies Loo is any of your business? Are women incapable of deciding? Do we need male guardians Taliban style?
And on that note, I will bid you all Good Afternoon.
Because we have wives, sisters, girlfriends and daughters you insufferable twit
And it's important that you lay down some ground rules for them just so that we can all be clear on what's best for them.
Actually, whilst I am sure that many of the gents here are acting from the best of motives, why do any of you think that who goes in or out of the Ladies Loo is any of your business? Are women incapable of deciding? Do we need male guardians Taliban style?
And on that note, I will bid you all Good Afternoon.
Because we have wives, sisters, girlfriends and daughters you insufferable twit
And it's important that you lay down some ground rules for them just so that we can all be clear on what's best for them.
I have close friends with teen kids and those kids are mentally fucked up by this trans madness - so yes it is important to fathers as much as mothers. One friend’s kid has actually transitioned - in a traumatic way which destroyed the marriage and set the generations at war
You either don’t have kids or they were lucky enough to miss this insanity because they are too old
They are minors. So of course they need guidance. What about the "wives, sisters, girlfriends". Need your expert guidance do they?
The diversity movement is generally very keen on the concept of "allies", ie people not from a minority group but who actively support their goals. The idea of male allies supporting feminist initiatives is not controversial.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
Yeah, I recommended Avebury.
To be fair, I don't know how disappointing the Statue of Liberty is, for example, but I suspect I'd at least want to see it and make my mind up for myself if I were a tourist and had never seen it before.
It is underwhelming.
American tourists tend to be after things they can't get at home, like castles and palaces and more generally anything really old. You don't get much older than Stonehenge. I've never visited it myself but I have driven past it and it looks pretty cool.
If I were building a 1 week UK itinerary it would probably look something like this: Day 1: British Museum (early); Thames River cruise; West End show or Ronnie Scotts Day 2: Maritime Greenwich; picnic in a park in South London; night out in Peckham Day 3: day trip to Cambridge; punt to Grantchester; pub lunch; return to London to catch sleeper to Glasgow Day 4: day trip Loch Lomond Day 5: train to York via Settle and Carlisle. Visit York Minster; hire a car and drive to Yorkshire Dales and stay at a pub Day 6: walking in Yorkshire Dales; pub dinner Day 7: return car, train back to London and flight home. Could replace Glasgow/Loch Lomond with Edinburgh/East Neuk.
7 days is a very short time for something like this. Night out in Peckham seems a bit err.. parochial..
If I was to change your schedule but keep the broad theme I'd go Buck Palace and Windsor castle for day 2
That seems a slightly odd itinerary; amend as follows:-
Day 1: add London Eye. Day 2: add HMS Belfast unless from a state with its own ww2 warship museum. Day 3: or Oxford. Day 4: Glasgow to Loch Lomond; why? The Edinburgh Festival & Fringe are more entertaining. Day 5: (York) railway museum and/or air museum Day 6: OP must be a northerner if he/she thinks walking is a leisure activity, and if it is, why hire a car? Day 7: don't they have airports up north?
Also, Stonehenge is best driven past because apart from looking at the stones (from the road) there is not much else. I'd imagine you could do the whole tour on Youtube.
London Eye is good, I'll give you that. I've already put in a couple of things on the Thames, I think HMS Belfast is superfluous. I've put in Edinburgh as an alternative - personally I prefer it to Glasgow (although it isn't necessarily at its best in August) but I think a bit of Scottish West Coast scenery is necessary. The NRM at York is my favourite museum in the world but the itinerary already has a sleeper and the Settle snd Carlisle railway in it and our Amercan tourists may not share my passion for trains (and they should see at least one great medieval cathedral so I would prioritise the minster). The car is necessary to get to the idyllic village pub in the dales that will be their base. Oxford is shit.
Actually, whilst I am sure that many of the gents here are acting from the best of motives, why do any of you think that who goes in or out of the Ladies Loo is any of your business? Are women incapable of deciding? Do we need male guardians Taliban style?
And on that note, I will bid you all Good Afternoon.
Because we have wives, sisters, girlfriends and daughters you insufferable twit
And it's important that you lay down some ground rules for them just so that we can all be clear on what's best for them.
Actually, whilst I am sure that many of the gents here are acting from the best of motives, why do any of you think that who goes in or out of the Ladies Loo is any of your business? Are women incapable of deciding? Do we need male guardians Taliban style?
And on that note, I will bid you all Good Afternoon.
Because we have wives, sisters, girlfriends and daughters you insufferable twit
And it's important that you lay down some ground rules for them just so that we can all be clear on what's best for them.
I have close friends with teen kids and those kids are mentally fucked up by this trans madness - so yes it is important to fathers as much as mothers. One friend’s kid has actually transitioned - in a traumatic way which destroyed the marriage and set the generations at war
You either don’t have kids or they were lucky enough to miss this insanity because they are too old
They are minors. So of course they need guidance. What about the "wives, sisters, girlfriends". Need your expert guidance do they?
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
Yeah, I recommended Avebury.
To be fair, I don't know how disappointing the Statue of Liberty is, for example, but I suspect I'd at least want to see it and make my mind up for myself if I were a tourist and had never seen it before.
It is underwhelming.
American tourists tend to be after things they can't get at home, like castles and palaces and more generally anything really old. You don't get much older than Stonehenge. I've never visited it myself but I have driven past it and it looks pretty cool.
If I were building a 1 week UK itinerary it would probably look something like this: Day 1: British Museum (early); Thames River cruise; West End show or Ronnie Scotts Day 2: Maritime Greenwich; picnic in a park in South London; night out in Peckham Day 3: day trip to Cambridge; punt to Grantchester; pub lunch; return to London to catch sleeper to Glasgow Day 4: day trip Loch Lomond Day 5: train to York via Settle and Carlisle. Visit York Minster; hire a car and drive to Yorkshire Dales and stay at a pub Day 6: walking in Yorkshire Dales; pub dinner Day 7: return car, train back to London and flight home. Could replace Glasgow/Loch Lomond with Edinburgh/East Neuk.
7 days is a very short time for something like this. Night out in Peckham seems a bit err.. parochial..
If I was to change your schedule but keep the broad theme I'd go Buck Palace and Windsor castle for day 2
I was trying to give the tourists a taste of urban nightlife outside of Central London.
Er, why?
Er, why not? Isn't a night out one of life's great joys?
It certainly is but sampling urban nightlife outside of Central London is often a high risk activity especially if they are not from round here.
No Peckham is totally fine. I'm always out in Peckham, New Cross, Deptford etc, never had any problems.
This kind of emotional blackmail helps explain how things have become so toxic. What do you mean by 'eliminate'?
Would this qualify?
Chimene Suleyman@chimenesuleyman 3 Jun “[Trans people] are a huge problem to a sane world… Every one of them is a difficulty… they’re going to need things the rest of us don’t need… so the fewer of those people there are the better.” Helen Joyce literally advocating eugenics. Dear god.
Ah, the old quoting what people say isn't fair thing. At the risk of encouraging (even more) men explaining what women really mean, what do you think was intended by 'that means reducing or keeping down the number of people transitioning' or '(trans people) are a huge problem to a sane world' or 'so the fewer of those people there are the better'.
As to your second point, afaik no one is saying there are no harmed people in all areas of the trans process, certainly not me, but there appear to be some like the opinonating Ms Joyce saying that all trans people are damaged.
All invasive surgery is physically damaging. That shouldn't be a controversial point.
Reducing the number of teenage girls who feel the need to undergo voluntary mastectomies because of gender dysphoria doesn't seem like a particularly evil aspiration to me.
If you think they’re not doing the same thing in the UK, you’re naïve.
The Tavistock case on Gillick competance & trans healthcare was led by a prominent anti-abortion lawyer - where did the funding for that case come from?
I have a bunch of screen capped quotes from GC types on Twitter that were rapidly deleted, so won’t share them - you can find them easily enough if you want to. Posy Parker seems pretty explicit about it on Facebook.
and so on...
But once again, doesn’t it worry you that you’re taking the same political side as these people? Does it give you no pause at all? You are the one who dragged trans rights into this discussion alongside the rights to aborton & all the others - have you not noticed that the “anti women” groups that want to put all the other rights on the chopping block are also going after trans rights? Does the reality that you’ve chosen their side on this issue not give you any pause at all?
Many moons I posted on here that a friend of mine, prominent in this issue, had told me that one of the reasons that it was important to uphold trans rights (and they readily accept that eg prisons and sport are likely carve outs) was to look at who's on the other side of the debate at which point as you note, it becomes obvious that if you are "anti-trans" (I'm not saying anyone on here is but as a general umbrella term) then you line up with some pretty odious people.
But I don't think anyone is. I don't see how you could be. But if you just stipulate the three utterly obvious carveouts - sport, safe spaces from (mainly) heterosexual male predators, safeguards for children against being persuaded they are something they aren't - that's three utterly odious transphobic slurs. Apparently.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
Yeah, I recommended Avebury.
To be fair, I don't know how disappointing the Statue of Liberty is, for example, but I suspect I'd at least want to see it and make my mind up for myself if I were a tourist and had never seen it before.
It is underwhelming.
American tourists tend to be after things they can't get at home, like castles and palaces and more generally anything really old. You don't get much older than Stonehenge. I've never visited it myself but I have driven past it and it looks pretty cool.
If I were building a 1 week UK itinerary it would probably look something like this: Day 1: British Museum (early); Thames River cruise; West End show or Ronnie Scotts Day 2: Maritime Greenwich; picnic in a park in South London; night out in Peckham Day 3: day trip to Cambridge; punt to Grantchester; pub lunch; return to London to catch sleeper to Glasgow Day 4: day trip Loch Lomond Day 5: train to York via Settle and Carlisle. Visit York Minster; hire a car and drive to Yorkshire Dales and stay at a pub Day 6: walking in Yorkshire Dales; pub dinner Day 7: return car, train back to London and flight home. Could replace Glasgow/Loch Lomond with Edinburgh/East Neuk.
7 days is a very short time for something like this. Night out in Peckham seems a bit err.. parochial..
If I was to change your schedule but keep the broad theme I'd go Buck Palace and Windsor castle for day 2
That seems a slightly odd itinerary; amend as follows:-
Day 1: add London Eye. Day 2: add HMS Belfast unless from a state with its own ww2 warship museum. Day 3: or Oxford. Day 4: Glasgow to Loch Lomond; why? The Edinburgh Festival & Fringe are more entertaining. Day 5: (York) railway museum and/or air museum Day 6: OP must be a northerner if he/she thinks walking is a leisure activity, and if it is, why hire a car? Day 7: don't they have airports up north?
Also, Stonehenge is best driven past because apart from looking at the stones (from the road) there is not much else. I'd imagine you could do the whole tour on Youtube.
London Eye is good, I'll give you that. I've already put in a couple of things on the Thames, I think HMS Belfast is superfluous. I've put in Edinburgh as an alternative - personally I prefer it to Glasgow (although it isn't necessarily at its best in August) but I think a bit of Scottish West Coast scenery is necessary. The NRM at York is my favourite museum in the world but the itinerary already has a sleeper and the Settle snd Carlisle railway in it and our Amercan tourists may not share my passion for trains (and they should see at least one great medieval cathedral so I would prioritise the minster). The car is necessary to get to the idyllic village pub in the dales that will be their base. Oxford is shit.
If you think they’re not doing the same thing in the UK, you’re naïve.
The Tavistock case on Gillick competance & trans healthcare was led by a prominent anti-abortion lawyer - where did the funding for that case come from?
I have a bunch of screen capped quotes from GC types on Twitter that were rapidly deleted, so won’t share them - you can find them easily enough if you want to. Posy Parker seems pretty explicit about it on Facebook.
and so on...
But once again, doesn’t it worry you that you’re taking the same political side as these people? Does it give you no pause at all? You are the one who dragged trans rights into this discussion alongside the rights to aborton & all the others - have you not noticed that the “anti women” groups that want to put all the other rights on the chopping block are also going after trans rights? Does the reality that you’ve chosen their side on this issue not give you any pause at all?
Many moons I posted on here that a friend of mine, prominent in this issue, had told me that one of the reasons that it was important to uphold trans rights (and they readily accept that eg prisons and sport are likely carve outs) was to look at who's on the other side of the debate at which point as you note, it becomes obvious that if you are "anti-trans" (I'm not saying anyone on here is but as a general umbrella term) then you line up with some pretty odious people.
Odious people like Nick Griffin, who wouldn’t shut up about girls in Rotherham being raped by Asians?
Being raped is against the law. Using a loo isn't.
Edit: I see @Beibheirli_C also pointed out the obvious fallacy of the "but Rotherham" line of discussion.
Indeed. So why did the police and local authorities in Rotherham ignore the problem, just because the person championing the cause of the victims was known as a racist?
Just because odious people are complaining, doesn’t mean that their complaint isn’t worthy of investigation. Especially when the offences in the complaint are so serious.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
Yeah, I recommended Avebury.
To be fair, I don't know how disappointing the Statue of Liberty is, for example, but I suspect I'd at least want to see it and make my mind up for myself if I were a tourist and had never seen it before.
It is underwhelming.
American tourists tend to be after things they can't get at home, like castles and palaces and more generally anything really old. You don't get much older than Stonehenge. I've never visited it myself but I have driven past it and it looks pretty cool.
If I were building a 1 week UK itinerary it would probably look something like this: Day 1: British Museum (early); Thames River cruise; West End show or Ronnie Scotts Day 2: Maritime Greenwich; picnic in a park in South London; night out in Peckham Day 3: day trip to Cambridge; punt to Grantchester; pub lunch; return to London to catch sleeper to Glasgow Day 4: day trip Loch Lomond Day 5: train to York via Settle and Carlisle. Visit York Minster; hire a car and drive to Yorkshire Dales and stay at a pub Day 6: walking in Yorkshire Dales; pub dinner Day 7: return car, train back to London and flight home. Could replace Glasgow/Loch Lomond with Edinburgh/East Neuk.
7 days is a very short time for something like this. Night out in Peckham seems a bit err.. parochial..
If I was to change your schedule but keep the broad theme I'd go Buck Palace and Windsor castle for day 2
That seems a slightly odd itinerary; amend as follows:-
Day 1: add London Eye. Day 2: add HMS Belfast unless from a state with its own ww2 warship museum. Day 3: or Oxford. Day 4: Glasgow to Loch Lomond; why? The Edinburgh Festival & Fringe are more entertaining. Day 5: (York) railway museum and/or air museum Day 6: OP must be a northerner if he/she thinks walking is a leisure activity, and if it is, why hire a car? Day 7: don't they have airports up north?
Also, Stonehenge is best driven past because apart from looking at the stones (from the road) there is not much else. I'd imagine you could do the whole tour on Youtube.
London Eye is good, I'll give you that. I've already put in a couple of things on the Thames, I think HMS Belfast is superfluous. I've put in Edinburgh as an alternative - personally I prefer it to Glasgow (although it isn't necessarily at its best in August) but I think a bit of Scottish West Coast scenery is necessary. The NRM at York is my favourite museum in the world but the itinerary already has a sleeper and the Settle snd Carlisle railway in it and our Amercan tourists may not share my passion for trains (and they should see at least one great medieval cathedral so I would prioritise the minster). The car is necessary to get to the idyllic village pub in the dales that will be their base. Oxford is shit.
Is Cambridge better or worse than Oxford?
Neither are 'essential UK'. Both are thicko yank gawker friendly
Actually, whilst I am sure that many of the gents here are acting from the best of motives, why do any of you think that who goes in or out of the Ladies Loo is any of your business? Are women incapable of deciding? Do we need male guardians Taliban style?
And on that note, I will bid you all Good Afternoon.
A female friend last week, fed up with a 20-women queue for the loo at Camden Lock, used the men's loo instead - "they wouldn't dare to challenge me in case I was simply trans". Reported no problem. An unexpected bonus from the controversy.
Ah, we’ve moved on to the “trans women are sexual deviants who are coming for your children” part of the argument..
I think @Cyclefree and JK Rowling have a particular problem with the only requirement for biological men to access women only spaces being self identification.
Now, I don't think it's an outrageous to worry that some predatory men might... you know... lie to access female only spaces.
Does that sound like a ridiculous concern?
Yes.
Plenty of women have been assaulted in the Ladies Loo by men who were definitely not identifying as women. It has happened for years if not decades. Heck even Tom Cruise followed Kelly McGillis into the Ladies in Top Gun to pester her verbally.
Women have been beaten in toilets, assaulted in toilets, filming urinating in toilets (spycams) and none of it was done by "men identifiying as women".
I think you are missing the point.
Would you be comfortable with me sitting in the ladies changing room at the local swimming pool, oogling the ladies legally (because I now *say* that I identify as a woman)? The key being the word 'legally'.
Because self ID allows me to do that.
Now, I totally get the trans point of view. It's absolutely outrageous that someone needs to prove they are who they say they are.
But the problem isn't trans people. It is people pretending to be trans.
Now, in the long term, the simple solution is individual private changing areas (as happens at the Olympic Swimming Pool in Stratford). But until then, we have two choices:
(1) Allow biological men to access women only places *solely* on the basis of self ID (2) Impose restrictions on self ID before allowing those who have transitioned to access those spaces
Neither is perfect. And in many ways both are shit. But we have to accept that there is a balance of risks here.
If you think they’re not doing the same thing in the UK, you’re naïve.
The Tavistock case on Gillick competance & trans healthcare was led by a prominent anti-abortion lawyer - where did the funding for that case come from?
I have a bunch of screen capped quotes from GC types on Twitter that were rapidly deleted, so won’t share them - you can find them easily enough if you want to. Posy Parker seems pretty explicit about it on Facebook.
and so on...
But once again, doesn’t it worry you that you’re taking the same political side as these people? Does it give you no pause at all? You are the one who dragged trans rights into this discussion alongside the rights to aborton & all the others - have you not noticed that the “anti women” groups that want to put all the other rights on the chopping block are also going after trans rights? Does the reality that you’ve chosen their side on this issue not give you any pause at all?
Many moons I posted on here that a friend of mine, prominent in this issue, had told me that one of the reasons that it was important to uphold trans rights (and they readily accept that eg prisons and sport are likely carve outs) was to look at who's on the other side of the debate at which point as you note, it becomes obvious that if you are "anti-trans" (I'm not saying anyone on here is but as a general umbrella term) then you line up with some pretty odious people.
Odious people like Nick Griffin, who wouldn’t shut up about girls in Rotherham being raped by Asians?
Being raped is against the law. Using a loo isn't.
Edit: I see @Beibheirli_C also pointed out the obvious fallacy of the "but Rotherham" line of discussion.
Indeed. So why did the police and local authorities in Rotherham ignore the problem, just because the person championing the cause of the victims was known as a racist?
Just because odious people are complaining, doesn’t mean that their complaint isn’t worthy of investigation. Especially when the offences in the complaint are so serious.
Because it very quickly went into the too difficult pile.
A bit unfair on Japan. Didn't they decide to reinstate their territorial claims over the Kuril Is?
Hmmmmm. Let's be honest those scores (for the top 4) are not massively different. With regards to Japan there are probably a lot of don't knows. Diplomatically the PM seems to have been pretty stark in his criticism.
President Sandu of Moldova is in Ukraine today touring Bucha with Zelensky. A nice reminder to Putin of another client state that has stuck two fingers up at him.
It does seem as though this American artillery is starting to make a difference with numerous reports of strikes on ammunition depots. No doubt these would be deemed 'offensive' weapons though what could be more 'defensive' than destroying your enemy's ability to make war? It certainly seems like the obvious starting point.
Ah, we’ve moved on to the “trans women are sexual deviants who are coming for your children” part of the argument..
I think @Cyclefree and JK Rowling have a particular problem with the only requirement for biological men to access women only spaces being self identification.
Now, I don't think it's an outrageous to worry that some predatory men might... you know... lie to access female only spaces.
Does that sound like a ridiculous concern?
Yes.
Plenty of women have been assaulted in the Ladies Loo by men who were definitely not identifying as women. It has happened for years if not decades. Heck even Tom Cruise followed Kelly McGillis into the Ladies in Top Gun to pester her verbally.
Women have been beaten in toilets, assaulted in toilets, filming urinating in toilets (spycams) and none of it was done by "men identifiying as women".
In that case, why have women only spaces at all? If people with penises are allowed to enter them, why have them?
FFS!
They are not ALLOWED to enter them, but they do.
You are not ALLOWED to murder people, but it still happens.
Criminals do not obey the law, it is a career requirement for them...
The whole point is that a man who wished to ogle women by pretending to be trans would not be breaking the law.
Actually Cyclefree of all people probably knows you DO build law around rotten apples.
That's literally the point of most law and safeguarding, to protect people from the rotten apples.
Trans people need protections but NOT in a way that violates women's protections.
And that's the biggest problem with the Trans debate. The number of actual trans (men -> women) is sadly way less than the number of male sex abusers who can see an opportunity (open) to abuse...
The reality is that there is no decent answer here because both sides have such set views they are unable to see the valid points in the other side of the argument.
If I went into the Ladies and started behaving inappropriately, touching other women, photographing them, masturbating in their presence, would it all be OK because I am a woman?
Of course not! Anyone, male or female, behaving like that needs arresting. The sex or gender of the person is not really the issue.
But it is a great excuse to beat up trans people with....
"If I went into the Ladies and started behaving inappropriately, touching other women, photographing them, masturbating in their presence, would it all be OK because I am a woman?"
I was not suggesting the person would be doing *any* of those things.
Ah, we’ve moved on to the “trans women are sexual deviants who are coming for your children” part of the argument..
I think @Cyclefree and JK Rowling have a particular problem with the only requirement for biological men to access women only spaces being self identification.
Now, I don't think it's an outrageous to worry that some predatory men might... you know... lie to access female only spaces.
Does that sound like a ridiculous concern?
Yes.
Plenty of women have been assaulted in the Ladies Loo by men who were definitely not identifying as women. It has happened for years if not decades. Heck even Tom Cruise followed Kelly McGillis into the Ladies in Top Gun to pester her verbally.
Women have been beaten in toilets, assaulted in toilets, filming urinating in toilets (spycams) and none of it was done by "men identifiying as women".
In that case, why have women only spaces at all? If people with penises are allowed to enter them, why have them?
FFS!
They are not ALLOWED to enter them, but they do.
You are not ALLOWED to murder people, but it still happens.
Criminals do not obey the law, it is a career requirement for them...
The whole point is that a man who wished to ogle women by pretending to be trans would not be breaking the law.
This is not a complicated point.
Sexual harrassment is sexual harrassment regardless of your gender?
(Incidentally, it’s my understanding that there’s no actual law segregating toilets in the UK as of the current time - is this the case? Existing restrictions are mostly cultural rather than legal in other words.)
If you think they’re not doing the same thing in the UK, you’re naïve.
The Tavistock case on Gillick competance & trans healthcare was led by a prominent anti-abortion lawyer - where did the funding for that case come from?
I have a bunch of screen capped quotes from GC types on Twitter that were rapidly deleted, so won’t share them - you can find them easily enough if you want to. Posy Parker seems pretty explicit about it on Facebook.
and so on...
But once again, doesn’t it worry you that you’re taking the same political side as these people? Does it give you no pause at all? You are the one who dragged trans rights into this discussion alongside the rights to aborton & all the others - have you not noticed that the “anti women” groups that want to put all the other rights on the chopping block are also going after trans rights? Does the reality that you’ve chosen their side on this issue not give you any pause at all?
Many moons I posted on here that a friend of mine, prominent in this issue, had told me that one of the reasons that it was important to uphold trans rights (and they readily accept that eg prisons and sport are likely carve outs) was to look at who's on the other side of the debate at which point as you note, it becomes obvious that if you are "anti-trans" (I'm not saying anyone on here is but as a general umbrella term) then you line up with some pretty odious people.
This thinking is why Oldham happened.
I tend to determine my views on the merits of the argument not based on what those I dislike think about it.
Course. But as a general point (re trans or anything) if you found your opinion widely shared by people you consider bigoted fools and widely opposed by people you consider bright and balanced, it would at least give you pause for thought, wouldn't it? Cause you to take a closer look? Surely it would.
Actually Cyclefree of all people probably knows you DO build law around rotten apples.
That's literally the point of most law and safeguarding, to protect people from the rotten apples.
Trans people need protections but NOT in a way that violates women's protections.
And that's the biggest problem with the Trans debate. The number of actual trans (men -> women) is sadly way less than the number of male sex abusers who can see an opportunity (open) to abuse...
The reality is that there is no decent answer here because both sides have such set views they are unable to see the valid points in the other side of the argument.
If I went into the Ladies and started behaving inappropriately, touching other women, photographing them, masturbating in their presence, would it all be OK because I am a woman?
Of course not! Anyone, male or female, behaving like that needs arresting. The sex or gender of the person is not really the issue.
But it is a great excuse to beat up trans people with....
"If I went into the Ladies and started behaving inappropriately, touching other women, photographing them, masturbating in their presence, would it all be OK because I am a woman?"
I was not suggesting the person would be doing *any* of those things.
You suggested they would be “ogling”. Sounds like grounds for a sexual harrassment case to me...
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
Yeah, I recommended Avebury.
To be fair, I don't know how disappointing the Statue of Liberty is, for example, but I suspect I'd at least want to see it and make my mind up for myself if I were a tourist and had never seen it before.
It is underwhelming.
American tourists tend to be after things they can't get at home, like castles and palaces and more generally anything really old. You don't get much older than Stonehenge. I've never visited it myself but I have driven past it and it looks pretty cool.
If I were building a 1 week UK itinerary it would probably look something like this: Day 1: British Museum (early); Thames River cruise; West End show or Ronnie Scotts Day 2: Maritime Greenwich; picnic in a park in South London; night out in Peckham Day 3: day trip to Cambridge; punt to Grantchester; pub lunch; return to London to catch sleeper to Glasgow Day 4: day trip Loch Lomond Day 5: train to York via Settle and Carlisle. Visit York Minster; hire a car and drive to Yorkshire Dales and stay at a pub Day 6: walking in Yorkshire Dales; pub dinner Day 7: return car, train back to London and flight home. Could replace Glasgow/Loch Lomond with Edinburgh/East Neuk.
7 days is a very short time for something like this. Night out in Peckham seems a bit err.. parochial..
If I was to change your schedule but keep the broad theme I'd go Buck Palace and Windsor castle for day 2
That seems a slightly odd itinerary; amend as follows:-
Day 1: add London Eye. Day 2: add HMS Belfast unless from a state with its own ww2 warship museum. Day 3: or Oxford. Day 4: Glasgow to Loch Lomond; why? The Edinburgh Festival & Fringe are more entertaining. Day 5: (York) railway museum and/or air museum Day 6: OP must be a northerner if he/she thinks walking is a leisure activity, and if it is, why hire a car? Day 7: don't they have airports up north?
Also, Stonehenge is best driven past because apart from looking at the stones (from the road) there is not much else. I'd imagine you could do the whole tour on Youtube.
London Eye is good, I'll give you that. I've already put in a couple of things on the Thames, I think HMS Belfast is superfluous. I've put in Edinburgh as an alternative - personally I prefer it to Glasgow (although it isn't necessarily at its best in August) but I think a bit of Scottish West Coast scenery is necessary. The NRM at York is my favourite museum in the world but the itinerary already has a sleeper and the Settle snd Carlisle railway in it and our Amercan tourists may not share my passion for trains (and they should see at least one great medieval cathedral so I would prioritise the minster). The car is necessary to get to the idyllic village pub in the dales that will be their base. Oxford is shit.
I think most Americans seem to want to visit a stately home, cathedral, and/or a castle. Salisbury + nearby Wilton House is an option for two of those. Oxford has Blenheim nearby which has US connections of course. Warwick or Windsor for the castle maybe - plenty of other options there of course.
I'd suggest the Globe theatre on one of the London days, assuming it's not a winter trip - in place of the somewhat bizarre 'night out in Peckham'.
We once got talking to some Americans on the Dover Calais ferry - they were over for a week but weren't sure if there'd be enough to do in Britain, so had added the day trip to France to their itinerary!
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
Yeah, I recommended Avebury.
To be fair, I don't know how disappointing the Statue of Liberty is, for example, but I suspect I'd at least want to see it and make my mind up for myself if I were a tourist and had never seen it before.
It is underwhelming.
American tourists tend to be after things they can't get at home, like castles and palaces and more generally anything really old. You don't get much older than Stonehenge. I've never visited it myself but I have driven past it and it looks pretty cool.
If I were building a 1 week UK itinerary it would probably look something like this: Day 1: British Museum (early); Thames River cruise; West End show or Ronnie Scotts Day 2: Maritime Greenwich; picnic in a park in South London; night out in Peckham Day 3: day trip to Cambridge; punt to Grantchester; pub lunch; return to London to catch sleeper to Glasgow Day 4: day trip Loch Lomond Day 5: train to York via Settle and Carlisle. Visit York Minster; hire a car and drive to Yorkshire Dales and stay at a pub Day 6: walking in Yorkshire Dales; pub dinner Day 7: return car, train back to London and flight home. Could replace Glasgow/Loch Lomond with Edinburgh/East Neuk.
7 days is a very short time for something like this. Night out in Peckham seems a bit err.. parochial..
If I was to change your schedule but keep the broad theme I'd go Buck Palace and Windsor castle for day 2
That seems a slightly odd itinerary; amend as follows:-
Day 1: add London Eye. Day 2: add HMS Belfast unless from a state with its own ww2 warship museum. Day 3: or Oxford. Day 4: Glasgow to Loch Lomond; why? The Edinburgh Festival & Fringe are more entertaining. Day 5: (York) railway museum and/or air museum Day 6: OP must be a northerner if he/she thinks walking is a leisure activity, and if it is, why hire a car? Day 7: don't they have airports up north?
Also, Stonehenge is best driven past because apart from looking at the stones (from the road) there is not much else. I'd imagine you could do the whole tour on Youtube.
London Eye is good, I'll give you that. I've already put in a couple of things on the Thames, I think HMS Belfast is superfluous. I've put in Edinburgh as an alternative - personally I prefer it to Glasgow (although it isn't necessarily at its best in August) but I think a bit of Scottish West Coast scenery is necessary. The NRM at York is my favourite museum in the world but the itinerary already has a sleeper and the Settle snd Carlisle railway in it and our Amercan tourists may not share my passion for trains (and they should see at least one great medieval cathedral so I would prioritise the minster). The car is necessary to get to the idyllic village pub in the dales that will be their base. Oxford is shit.
London Eye is so boring you would need to take a book or plenty of booze.
Scottish West Coast scenery absobloodylutely Glasgow to Oban would be my choice then perhaps jump onto a CalMac ferry and hit one of the Islands (Mull is my preference and not just because I have fond, but hazy memories of Old Mull whisky).
Actually Cyclefree of all people probably knows you DO build law around rotten apples.
That's literally the point of most law and safeguarding, to protect people from the rotten apples.
Trans people need protections but NOT in a way that violates women's protections.
And that's the biggest problem with the Trans debate. The number of actual trans (men -> women) is sadly way less than the number of male sex abusers who can see an opportunity (open) to abuse...
The reality is that there is no decent answer here because both sides have such set views they are unable to see the valid points in the other side of the argument.
It's not that intractable imo. Reform the transition process so it's quicker and less medicalized. Then have a default principle in practice of trans inclusion. But with the option of exclusion (ie stay sex-based) if there's a genuine good reason for it. So, keep asking the question: is there a solid, evidence-based reason for excluding trans people from X? Where X is a place or an activity. Eg (my opinion) a Yes for elite physical female sports (real issue) but a No for public toilets (confected issue). That's my view anyway. And Phil is right to point out there are some real nasties active in the anti-trans movement. People who see it as a route to attack other rights and a safe space to vent their bigotry and spleen. There's absolutely no question of that.
I don’t like damning people by association. I wouldn’t want my trans friends to be judged by the actions and words of Jennifer Yaniv any more than I’d want my GC feminist friends tarred with the actions of the nastier obsessives. They tend to have different motivations.
That said, I think the difficulty comes from the conflation of a biological characteristic and a set of societal expectations that makes disentangling the two very hard. This is why I tend to get run down in the middle of the road between said groups of friends. I don’t think you can ignore sex, but society doesn’t have a right to impose gendered expectations on people just because of tradition, and we should support people who suffer because of it.
Damning by association is not good, no. But neither is it totally irrelevant who you are aligned with in having an opinion on something. If you find (eg) 90% of the world's softhead bigots agree with you on X then it makes sense to at least pay attention to that and ask yourself if it changes anything. Have you missed something about X? Why are all these ghastly people agreeing with you? If having done that you're still solid with it, fine. More than fine, you're in much better shape now. Not to do it at all is narrow minded and a failure of due diligence on yourself. It's not some admirable "I believe what I believe, end of, cos I'm an independent fearless free thinker" type thing.
Totally agree with your 2nd para. As I say, I don't think it's an intractable issue, but it is difficult, and for those reasons you say.
I assume the “you” is a general statement rather than a specific one . I think that’s reasonable to do on any issue really. However I think it’s not generally fair to conflate the motivations of two groups who might be coincidentally aligned but not operating from the same premise. There’s a group of feminists for whom the principle is the erosion of material rights that are hard fought and come from harrowing personal experience. There is also Whackdoodle McHookhands who has found a convenient culture war beat to bash and probably hates the former group as much as trans people. I’m not comfortable asking the former group to check themselves because the odious bigots have borrowed their hobby horse. It’s also why I tend to try to stay away from this debate (I know, ironic given I’ve done the opposite to a wee degree here). I have my views but I know they’re abstract and not rooted in the shitty lived experience of the interested parties. It isn’t my place to comment or play referee generally unless I’m asked to do so.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
Yeah, I recommended Avebury.
To be fair, I don't know how disappointing the Statue of Liberty is, for example, but I suspect I'd at least want to see it and make my mind up for myself if I were a tourist and had never seen it before.
It is underwhelming.
American tourists tend to be after things they can't get at home, like castles and palaces and more generally anything really old. You don't get much older than Stonehenge. I've never visited it myself but I have driven past it and it looks pretty cool.
If I were building a 1 week UK itinerary it would probably look something like this: Day 1: British Museum (early); Thames River cruise; West End show or Ronnie Scotts Day 2: Maritime Greenwich; picnic in a park in South London; night out in Peckham Day 3: day trip to Cambridge; punt to Grantchester; pub lunch; return to London to catch sleeper to Glasgow Day 4: day trip Loch Lomond Day 5: train to York via Settle and Carlisle. Visit York Minster; hire a car and drive to Yorkshire Dales and stay at a pub Day 6: walking in Yorkshire Dales; pub dinner Day 7: return car, train back to London and flight home. Could replace Glasgow/Loch Lomond with Edinburgh/East Neuk.
7 days is a very short time for something like this. Night out in Peckham seems a bit err.. parochial..
If I was to change your schedule but keep the broad theme I'd go Buck Palace and Windsor castle for day 2
That seems a slightly odd itinerary; amend as follows:-
Day 1: add London Eye. Day 2: add HMS Belfast unless from a state with its own ww2 warship museum. Day 3: or Oxford. Day 4: Glasgow to Loch Lomond; why? The Edinburgh Festival & Fringe are more entertaining. Day 5: (York) railway museum and/or air museum Day 6: OP must be a northerner if he/she thinks walking is a leisure activity, and if it is, why hire a car? Day 7: don't they have airports up north?
Also, Stonehenge is best driven past because apart from looking at the stones (from the road) there is not much else. I'd imagine you could do the whole tour on Youtube.
London Eye is good, I'll give you that. I've already put in a couple of things on the Thames, I think HMS Belfast is superfluous. I've put in Edinburgh as an alternative - personally I prefer it to Glasgow (although it isn't necessarily at its best in August) but I think a bit of Scottish West Coast scenery is necessary. The NRM at York is my favourite museum in the world but the itinerary already has a sleeper and the Settle snd Carlisle railway in it and our Amercan tourists may not share my passion for trains (and they should see at least one great medieval cathedral so I would prioritise the minster). The car is necessary to get to the idyllic village pub in the dales that will be their base. Oxford is shit.
Is Cambridge better or worse than Oxford?
From a visitor point of view they are both dire. The sheer weight of numbers has forced them into exclusion, isolation, corralling, monetising, herding and all the horrors of visiting as industrial process.
Which is why if you want to see, consider, admire, understand etc England/GB/UK you have to go outside the touristic industrial machines, abandon them as hopeless and think it out freshly.
It can be done. I live near but not in the 'Lake District', which has the same problems. But there are enormous parts of the county you can be on a fine Bank Holiday and be outside the tourist industrial machine altogether.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
Yeah, I recommended Avebury.
To be fair, I don't know how disappointing the Statue of Liberty is, for example, but I suspect I'd at least want to see it and make my mind up for myself if I were a tourist and had never seen it before.
It is underwhelming.
American tourists tend to be after things they can't get at home, like castles and palaces and more generally anything really old. You don't get much older than Stonehenge. I've never visited it myself but I have driven past it and it looks pretty cool.
If I were building a 1 week UK itinerary it would probably look something like this: Day 1: British Museum (early); Thames River cruise; West End show or Ronnie Scotts Day 2: Maritime Greenwich; picnic in a park in South London; night out in Peckham Day 3: day trip to Cambridge; punt to Grantchester; pub lunch; return to London to catch sleeper to Glasgow Day 4: day trip Loch Lomond Day 5: train to York via Settle and Carlisle. Visit York Minster; hire a car and drive to Yorkshire Dales and stay at a pub Day 6: walking in Yorkshire Dales; pub dinner Day 7: return car, train back to London and flight home. Could replace Glasgow/Loch Lomond with Edinburgh/East Neuk.
7 days is a very short time for something like this. Night out in Peckham seems a bit err.. parochial..
If I was to change your schedule but keep the broad theme I'd go Buck Palace and Windsor castle for day 2
That seems a slightly odd itinerary; amend as follows:-
Day 1: add London Eye. Day 2: add HMS Belfast unless from a state with its own ww2 warship museum. Day 3: or Oxford. Day 4: Glasgow to Loch Lomond; why? The Edinburgh Festival & Fringe are more entertaining. Day 5: (York) railway museum and/or air museum Day 6: OP must be a northerner if he/she thinks walking is a leisure activity, and if it is, why hire a car? Day 7: don't they have airports up north?
Also, Stonehenge is best driven past because apart from looking at the stones (from the road) there is not much else. I'd imagine you could do the whole tour on Youtube.
London Eye is good, I'll give you that. I've already put in a couple of things on the Thames, I think HMS Belfast is superfluous. I've put in Edinburgh as an alternative - personally I prefer it to Glasgow (although it isn't necessarily at its best in August) but I think a bit of Scottish West Coast scenery is necessary. The NRM at York is my favourite museum in the world but the itinerary already has a sleeper and the Settle snd Carlisle railway in it and our Amercan tourists may not share my passion for trains (and they should see at least one great medieval cathedral so I would prioritise the minster). The car is necessary to get to the idyllic village pub in the dales that will be their base. Oxford is shit.
I think most Americans seem to want to visit a stately home, cathedral, and/or a castle. Salisbury + nearby Wilton House is an option for two of those. Oxford has Blenheim nearby which has US connections of course. Warwick or Windsor for the castle maybe - plenty of other options there of course.
I'd suggest the Globe theatre on one of the London days, assuming it's not a winter trip - in place of the somewhat bizarre 'night out in Peckham'.
We once got talking to some Americans on the Dover Calais ferry - they were over for a week but weren't sure if there'd be enough to do in Britain, so had added the day trip to France to their itinerary!
People really down on the night out in Peckham! When I go somewhere I like to have a night out somewhere that has a great atmosphere and a buzz to it and isn't full of tourists. Kind of, where do the cool locals go out? I guess I picture my American tourists in the 30-50yo age bracket.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
Yeah, I recommended Avebury.
To be fair, I don't know how disappointing the Statue of Liberty is, for example, but I suspect I'd at least want to see it and make my mind up for myself if I were a tourist and had never seen it before.
It is underwhelming.
American tourists tend to be after things they can't get at home, like castles and palaces and more generally anything really old. You don't get much older than Stonehenge. I've never visited it myself but I have driven past it and it looks pretty cool.
If I were building a 1 week UK itinerary it would probably look something like this: Day 1: British Museum (early); Thames River cruise; West End show or Ronnie Scotts Day 2: Maritime Greenwich; picnic in a park in South London; night out in Peckham Day 3: day trip to Cambridge; punt to Grantchester; pub lunch; return to London to catch sleeper to Glasgow Day 4: day trip Loch Lomond Day 5: train to York via Settle and Carlisle. Visit York Minster; hire a car and drive to Yorkshire Dales and stay at a pub Day 6: walking in Yorkshire Dales; pub dinner Day 7: return car, train back to London and flight home. Could replace Glasgow/Loch Lomond with Edinburgh/East Neuk.
7 days is a very short time for something like this. Night out in Peckham seems a bit err.. parochial..
If I was to change your schedule but keep the broad theme I'd go Buck Palace and Windsor castle for day 2
That seems a slightly odd itinerary; amend as follows:-
Day 1: add London Eye. Day 2: add HMS Belfast unless from a state with its own ww2 warship museum. Day 3: or Oxford. Day 4: Glasgow to Loch Lomond; why? The Edinburgh Festival & Fringe are more entertaining. Day 5: (York) railway museum and/or air museum Day 6: OP must be a northerner if he/she thinks walking is a leisure activity, and if it is, why hire a car? Day 7: don't they have airports up north?
Also, Stonehenge is best driven past because apart from looking at the stones (from the road) there is not much else. I'd imagine you could do the whole tour on Youtube.
London Eye is good, I'll give you that. I've already put in a couple of things on the Thames, I think HMS Belfast is superfluous. I've put in Edinburgh as an alternative - personally I prefer it to Glasgow (although it isn't necessarily at its best in August) but I think a bit of Scottish West Coast scenery is necessary. The NRM at York is my favourite museum in the world but the itinerary already has a sleeper and the Settle snd Carlisle railway in it and our Amercan tourists may not share my passion for trains (and they should see at least one great medieval cathedral so I would prioritise the minster). The car is necessary to get to the idyllic village pub in the dales that will be their base. Oxford is shit.
London Eye is so boring you would need to take a book or plenty of booze.
Scottish West Coast scenery absobloodylutely Glasgow to Oban would be my choice then perhaps jump onto a CalMac ferry and hit one of the Islands (Mull is my preference and not just because I have fond, but hazy memories of Old Mull whisky).
Mull's distillery is still conveniently placed in a massive and free car park where the fish and chip van at the jetty nearby is very fine, and all done in the space of a small telephone box. Watch out for sea gulls.
For additional spectacular scenery get to Mull via the Lochaline-Fishnish ferry rather than Oban. No booking; just turn up. If you can find it.
NB Cyclefree: I do find it interesting that you respond to my query not with a direct response but a Gish Gallop of whataboutism. Did you have that text to hand ready to post, or did you type it all out just for me?
Some of those points you make are false, some of them are true but irrelevant & some of them I actually agree with. But if I took the time to respond to every single point (and my, there were a lot of them) it would never end & the endless argumentation would end up with everyone having completely forgotten the original question. Which I guess was your goal in the first place.
But the point stands: These people are coming for you, if they can manage it. Distracting you with trans politics is just part of the game - trans people are a side issue for them, a tasty snack on the way to the main event & if you think you can get what you want by siding with them & not have that rebound on you & yours in deeply personal & awful ways in the future I would personally suggest that you’re sorely mistaken.
In other words: it's much too hard work for you to respond to her argument so you're going to stick to ad hominem instead?
Did you count the number of assertions in that text? It would take days to go through each of them & give them the treatment they deserved.
But that’s the point of a Gish Gallop: to overwhelm with a flurry of assertions, knowing that the other party doesn’t have the time to refute (or even engage with) them all. You swamp the issue you don’t want to deal with a torrent of irrelevence, in the hope that the audience doesn’t notice.
Ah. The Too Much Evidence defence. “M’lud, the defence has presented so much evidence of their clients innocence that it is unfair on the prosecution to have to reply to all of it. Can I please have a guilty verdict, anyway?
Actually, whilst I am sure that many of the gents here are acting from the best of motives, why do any of you think that who goes in or out of the Ladies Loo is any of your business? Are women incapable of deciding? Do we need male guardians Taliban style?
And on that note, I will bid you all Good Afternoon.
Because we have wives, sisters, girlfriends and daughters you insufferable twit
And it's important that you lay down some ground rules for them just so that we can all be clear on what's best for them.
Actually, whilst I am sure that many of the gents here are acting from the best of motives, why do any of you think that who goes in or out of the Ladies Loo is any of your business? Are women incapable of deciding? Do we need male guardians Taliban style?
And on that note, I will bid you all Good Afternoon.
Because we have wives, sisters, girlfriends and daughters you insufferable twit
And it's important that you lay down some ground rules for them just so that we can all be clear on what's best for them.
I have close friends with teen kids and those kids are mentally fucked up by this trans madness - so yes it is important to fathers as much as mothers. One friend’s kid has actually transitioned - in a traumatic way which destroyed the marriage and set the generations at war
You either don’t have kids or they were lucky enough to miss this insanity because they are too old
They are minors. So of course they need guidance. What about the "wives, sisters, girlfriends". Need your expert guidance do they?
Boorish. Stop it
Christ, it’s the middle of the day and you are supposedly in sunny Montenegro. Is there really so little to do there?
Comments
I've already put in a couple of things on the Thames, I think HMS Belfast is superfluous. I've put in Edinburgh as an alternative - personally I prefer it to Glasgow (although it isn't necessarily at its best in August) but I think a bit of Scottish West Coast scenery is necessary. The NRM at York is my favourite museum in the world but the itinerary already has a sleeper and the Settle snd Carlisle railway in it and our Amercan tourists may not share my passion for trains (and they should see at least one great medieval cathedral so I would prioritise the minster).
The car is necessary to get to the idyllic village pub in the dales that will be their base.
Oxford is shit.
Reducing the number of teenage girls who feel the need to undergo voluntary mastectomies because of gender dysphoria doesn't seem like a particularly evil aspiration to me.
Just because odious people are complaining, doesn’t mean that their complaint isn’t worthy of investigation. Especially when the offences in the complaint are so serious.
Would you be comfortable with me sitting in the ladies changing room at the local swimming pool, oogling the ladies legally (because I now *say* that I identify as a woman)? The key being the word 'legally'.
Because self ID allows me to do that.
Now, I totally get the trans point of view. It's absolutely outrageous that someone needs to prove they are who they say they are.
But the problem isn't trans people. It is people pretending to be trans.
Now, in the long term, the simple solution is individual private changing areas (as happens at the Olympic Swimming Pool in Stratford). But until then, we have two choices:
(1) Allow biological men to access women only places *solely* on the basis of self ID
(2) Impose restrictions on self ID before allowing those who have transitioned to access those spaces
Neither is perfect. And in many ways both are shit. But we have to accept that there is a balance of risks here.
President Sandu of Moldova is in Ukraine today touring Bucha with Zelensky. A nice reminder to Putin of another client state that has stuck two fingers up at him.
It does seem as though this American artillery is starting to make a difference with numerous reports of strikes on ammunition depots. No doubt these would be deemed 'offensive' weapons though what could be more 'defensive' than destroying your enemy's ability to make war? It certainly seems like the obvious starting point.
This is not a complicated point.
I was not suggesting the person would be doing *any* of those things.
(Incidentally, it’s my understanding that there’s no actual law segregating toilets in the UK as of the current time - is this the case? Existing restrictions are mostly cultural rather than legal in other words.)
I'd suggest the Globe theatre on one of the London days, assuming it's not a winter trip - in place of the somewhat bizarre 'night out in Peckham'.
We once got talking to some Americans on the Dover Calais ferry - they were over for a week but weren't sure if there'd be enough to do in Britain, so had added the day trip to France to their itinerary!
Scottish West Coast scenery absobloodylutely Glasgow to Oban would be my choice then perhaps jump onto a CalMac ferry and hit one of the Islands (Mull is my preference and not just because I have fond, but hazy memories of Old Mull whisky).
Which is why if you want to see, consider, admire, understand etc England/GB/UK you have to go outside the touristic industrial machines, abandon them as hopeless and think it out freshly.
It can be done. I live near but not in the 'Lake District', which has the same problems. But there are enormous parts of the county you can be on a fine Bank Holiday and be outside the tourist industrial machine altogether.
For additional spectacular scenery get to Mull via the Lochaline-Fishnish ferry rather than Oban. No booking; just turn up. If you can find it.
PS London Eye is indeed boring.
Or both.