The Off Topic Topic

[Valmy]

You could still travel mostly 1914 style.  You could take the train to Liverpool and then take a ship to Houston or New Orleans, then take a train to the West Coast and then get another ship for Alaska.  Finding a horse taxi to move you around the cities might be tough though.

[Sheilbh]

So I went to the TUC march today and wondered do the Socialist Workers guys get the irony of their situation when they hand out the newspaper with the headline 'UNITE TO FIGHT'?

[Valmy]

So I went to the TUC march today and wondered do the Socialist Workers guys get the irony of their situation when they hand out the newspaper with the headline 'UNITE TO FIGHT'?

Explain the irony?  Don't Socialists always want everybody to unite internationally?

[The Larch]

You could still travel mostly 1914 style.  You could take the train to Liverpool and then take a ship to Houston or New Orleans, then take a train to the West Coast and then get another ship for Alaska.  Finding a horse taxi to move you around the cities might be tough though.

I don't think you can get many transatlantic passenger ships nowadays.

[CountDeMoney]

I don't think you can get many transatlantic passenger ships nowadays.

The QM2 is still doing it for Cunard.

[Sheilbh]

So I went to the TUC march today and wondered do the Socialist Workers guys get the irony of their situation when they hand out the newspaper with the headline 'UNITE TO FIGHT'?

Explain the irony?  Don't Socialists always want everybody to unite internationally?

There's no more splittist, factionalised, divisive movement on the British left than the SWP

[Valmy]

I don't think you can get many transatlantic passenger ships nowadays.

Yeah probably not without taking a Royal Caribbean two week cruise.  That might slow you down a bit.

[mongers]

Is travel 'better' now?

Pretty sure I could go from London to Alaska now in less than 40 hours rather than 40 days.  Heck it looks like it would have taken 10 or more days to get to Austin from London and now we have direct flights.

It being mongers I'm sure he was just dreaming about the time when travelling meant adventuring.

Oh I wasn't dreaming of some mythic time, just reflecting that as you correctly deduced, should a lot of it be about adventure?

And yes I think that's still possible now, and not just in the tickbox/got the T-shirt approach.

[Valmy]

There's no more splittist, factionalised, divisive movement on the British left than the SWP

Well that is just because they are left wingers.

[alfred russel]

Oh I wasn't dreaming of some mythic time, just reflecting that as you correctly deduced, should a lot of it be about adventure?

And yes I think that's still possible now, and not just in the tickbox/got the T-shirt approach.

I think the adventure is still there if you want it. What I think is unfortunate is that many places are rather overwhelmed by mass tourism. For example, parts of the center of Paris. Or more appallingly, Eurodisney.

[Valmy]

Eurodisney?

[alfred russel]

Eurodisney?

[Liep]

So are the Swedes catching that Russian sub already? Or did it sink? Is it a nuclear sub? Is Harrison Ford to old to play in the movie?

[Maladict]

Is travel 'better' now?

Pretty sure I could go from London to Alaska now in less than 40 hours rather than 40 days.  Heck it looks like it would have taken 10 or more days to get to Austin from London and now we have direct flights.

It being mongers I'm sure he was just dreaming about the time when travelling meant adventuring.

I don't know, I'm not not looking for adventurous traveling but I generally go out of my way to avoid air travel. It has become a particularly obnoxious way to travel, even without the environmental cost.

[mongers]

Is travel 'better' now?

Pretty sure I could go from London to Alaska now in less than 40 hours rather than 40 days.  Heck it looks like it would have taken 10 or more days to get to Austin from London and now we have direct flights.

It being mongers I'm sure he was just dreaming about the time when travelling meant adventuring.

I don't know, I'm not not looking for adventurous traveling but I generally go out of my way to avoid air travel. It has become a particularly obnoxious way to travel, even without the environmental cost.

Indeed.

Possibly my favourite travelogue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_I_Walked_Out_One_Midsummer_Morning

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) is a memoir by Laurie Lee, a British poet. It is a sequel to Cider with Rosie which detailed his life in post First World War Gloucestershire. The author leaves the security of his Cotswold village in Gloucestershire to start a new life, at the same time embarking on an epic journey by foot.

It is 1934, and as a young man Lee walks to London from his Cotswolds home. He is to live by playing the violin and by labouring on a London building site. When this work draws to a finish, and having picked up the phrase in Spanish for 'Will you please give me a glass of water?', he decides to go to Spain. He scrapes together a living by playing his violin outside the street cafés, and sleeps at night in his blanket under an open sky or in cheap, rough posadas. For a year he tramps through Spain, from Vigo in the north to the south coast, where he is trapped by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

....