It's Only Mondo's Super Amazing Christmas Shopping Guide!!

Waking up in a hut in Bali is something most of us do on Christmas morning ...before we actually wake up, realise it was a dream, realise that its freezing and go back to sleep. Last year however, for me and my intrepid travelling buddies it was reality. Despite it being an incredible experience, it wasn't Christmas. This year I can't wait to decorate a monstrous tree, drink copious amounts of mulled wine and turn down hundreds of mince pies (seriously people, they're all kinds of wrong). Obviously I have therefore fully embraced commercialism again and have created a Shopping Guide with all the most awesome, geeky and weird things you can buy for your family and friends! Clearly just an excuse to put up some cool design links to stuff we can't afford then...eh, yeah. Let's begin...

Danny Kuo, who is a bit cool, has created this ingenious storage system.

Just what Granny needs...

Daisuke Motogi have a sweet homepage worth looking at because it's a Japanese cartoon about a cat, and they've only gone and made THE BEST CHAIR EVER! Seriously, I have chronic problems finding things that are obviously beside me. This is brilliant.

Books, iPhones, Sandwiches, you'll never lose them again!

I have no idea how much these things cost but getting a chair down a chimney is not easy I would imagine, so let's help St Nick out with links to more manageable items...

Like this, which I love,

Parinto Tank Girl T-Shirt

Anything Jamie Howlett influenced is fine by me and if you ignore the hideous, Lori Petty-starring movie, Tank Girl is actually pretty badass. Dayglo is now drawing the comics and it looks like he's nailed the feel with this print. By the way, if for some reason you don't know who Jamie Howlett is, please watch this.

Sticking with a comic book theme, The Walking Dead has been taking over TVs but far superior is the original book. Definitely worth investing some time on those cold nights by the fire. No link because you should be going to support your local comic/book shops!

Finally, movies you really should have because it's nice to. Links to Amazon because they're not like books :)

Inception (Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy)

Don't believe the hype, just watch it yourself and create more. Possibly my favourite cinema experience this year. It's just awesome.

Lost in Translation [Blu-ray]

Somewhere, Sofia Coppola's new movie is out this week so here's my chance to plug what may be my favourite movie.

Elf (Ultimate Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray]

No Christmas is complete without it!

Summer Wars: Movie [Blu-ray]

Not out till February but this is just incredible. Gorgeous anime and definitely worth checking out this studio's other work too.

Pixar Short Films Collection: Volume 1 [Blu-ray]

Everyone raved about Pixar's Toy Story 3 this year and...it's good. Better than Cars but miles off Nemo and The Incredibles. This Shorts collection is my Pixar pick of the year though. Every single one is a gem.

More during the week as the countdown to my first Christmas in two years continues. Next up is all my favourite Christmas tunes. Peace x

P.S. If Santa is paying attention, can I have one of these please?

He looks about 25/26. Obviously hammered. Stumbling through Euston at 7.30 on a Saturday morning is never pretty. No ticket. Oh, well sir, you better come this way as we introduce you to our Direct Payment Machine. No excuses, no chance for him to escape. Of course, you appeal. But who has time for that?

"The man told me..."

"I don't care what the man said sir, the only way for you to leave is to give a generous donation to our National Rail Service"

Pay now, get it back later. What are the other options here? Fake name? Address? He considers it but no way he could pull it off. Not here. Not this twisted. Reaching inside his coat pocket he finds the answer. This will save me thinks. Offers it to the good employee, truly convinced.

It is a lime.

Simple plans on a Friday night turn into frightful attempts at human contact. The desire to feel wanted. Friends battle over the affections of another. No words are exchanged, no heated conflict, but we, the outsiders, know what's happening. Yet no-one will admit it. Not on the night, in the midst of war. The following day, the smoke has cleared, the grass still trampled. It always starts with "remember when...". Nervous agreement. What else did I do? The questions rattles around the eggshell that your mind has become. We all laugh now and pretend to be embarrassed but secretly embrace our pride. I created a story, we all think. The protagonist of everyone's thoughts today.

Breaking down a night out the morning after is our generation's equivalent of the therapist's couch. Tell story, hold some back, gauge reaction, repeat. It's incredible to see the abject failure of some to hold back delight. The resonance of the Irish Storyteller runs deep in us as we subject ourselves and our friends to the masses. I abhor banality. Give me chaos. Show me someone generally ashamed of what they did last night and I will show you a liar. We try to create our own legends but we only do so by forgetting this. It is only when we surround ourselves with the right conditions, the right people, that we are in danger of being brilliant. I believe in you. You can be unashamedly proud of the funny thing that happened you. You got shot down by a girl. Your friend told you she had a boyfriend and you went back to her to apologise.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you had a boyfriend. I shouldn't have gone in for a cheeky smooch there."

"I don't have a boyfriend..."

"Oh..."

Some brilliant people I know have things for you to do.

If you're in Dublin, support the Westway Flyover. They packed out the Twisted Pepper for their last shindig so keep your ears and eyes peeled for the next joint.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Westway-Flyover/277424843355

And London hold tight for the Tasteless massive descending on Holloway Road once again this Friday 12th November. Dave Magnier and his crew bring the sexy to the Herbert Chapman.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169580426389453

Next time, a collection of music and images and less bullshit.

See you all at something soon x

Do you remember the diagram from Junior Cert geography for precipitation? The one with the smiley cloud that rains on the mountain and it runs down and evaporates and repeats the cycle? That's the Irish in London. We get pissed on in Dublin until Michael O'Leary sucks us up and pours us into the pint glass that is London and eventually we drip home for a few days until it repeats itself. It's weird.



I find it funny that even after all the humalaboo about Autotune in the X Factor, they still use it for the robot that is Cheryl Cole. Shameless tripe out of her tonight anyway. Its even funnier that I'm writing about the X Factor. In my defence, I've been sick for two days and someone did sing Led Zeppelin (appallingly) but I can't deny I've been sucked into Cowell's malevolent grasp of all that is wrong with the music industry. They've attempted to make all nice with the public this year and have "different" acts. Mary B's on a mission to reclaim a bit of Irish dignity from the newly skeletal Louis Walsh but she's struggling to keep her wibbley chin up it seems. In fairness, he actually knows something about music unlike the crispy wafer that sits beside him.

It's not that I hate ALL the acts though. Byrno does have a serious set of lungs on her and poor little Cher(yl) Lloyd has a decent bit of sass. My only real gripe outside the judges is the producer's little mistakes. I mean, how hard is it to spell Page and Tracy really?

In the end, we all know its a big fix yadda yadda yadda so I'm calling One Direction to win. Get your money on now, expect the big push as Simon begins to fight for his one act (yes, one act) and everyone realises how much they definitely already totally was like only just saying to their mate the other day how much they knew they wanted a new boyband to love/be shoved down their throats. You heard it here first...



Found a bit of paper that I had scribbled some things on whilst on a train recently. That's right, live and uncensored, my innermost thoughts...

I definitely predicted the recession.

Deranged is an incredibly evocative word. I immediately picture a man throwing squirrels.

Train-racing?

House Parties are totally the new Eurovision Song Contest.

An Post is grossly underappreciated.

Vegans are surprisingly full of energy when full of Class A drugs.

What. The. Fuck. Back to my meandering anyway. I'm planning on doing a bit more of this so called writing soon. Join me some time when I'll be interviewing myself about potentially writing my own memoirs among other topics.

Here's a picture of a chair that I took.

Not The Morning Metro News

So the World Cup dropped by, left an annoying ringing noise in our ears and crawled back into the arse-end of Sepp Blatter's sweaty underpants. Fair play Fifa, you continue to undermine "the beautiful game" from its very core. Cheating is fine, the ball was the only thing anyone spoke about and in case you didn't hear him, Maradona DEFINITELY likes the ladies, NOT his players.

In other news, everything is shite apparently. The world will soon be covered in a big, black ball of oil thanks to BP and ironically everyone will still be broke. Poor Mr-BP-man-who-was-sacked-unfairly is being sent to Russia in a classic move straight out of the 1700s. Seriously, at least strip him of his ELEVEN MILLION POUND PENSION first. Give him a toothbrush with no bristles and a pair of flip flops with the weird rubber bit a little too tight so its really uncomfortable and make him walk to Russia I say. Ah well, when the world collapses next week we'll all be in the same position I suppose. Except a certain Mr Kane of somewhere, UK, who now has THE KEY TO THE INTERNET. Yes ladies and gentlemen, he can turn off the internet if and when the need arises with 7 (I may be making that number up) others who all possess keys. Except wait, they can only unlock 98% or something silly like that. A Mr.O'Bama has the only key that can unlock everything. You might even call it THE ONE KEY. Wait a second, two towers fell...he lives in the white house... Let me be the first to break the news that Barack "The White Wizard" Obama is in fact Gandalf and has recovered the ONE KEY from the wasteland that is the internet. All we need now is a midget to drop it into Mt. Eyjafjallajökul and the world is saved again. Where's Tom Cruise when you need him...


Speaking of the end of the world, to make everyone feel better, here's some lovely French house from the end of the nineties, when that loon Nostradamus got it all wrong.

It's been a while...

I'm currently struggling to put an article together for a magazine. 250 words by tonight and I can think of about eight. Always the way isn't it? My last entry here seems shamefully distant too. I've managed to move my life from Dublin to London in the meantime which is nice though. I've met some incredible people, seen some brilliant sights and said incredibly inappropriate things of late.

I should be able to wax lyrical about our new London lifestyle far more than this of course but its been a crazy month. Moments escape me. The combination of English bureaucracy, cheap booze and map reading has created a shiny, fuzzy mess where my brain used to be. Stories are attempting to free themselves from this and soon they will. But despite my inability to remember any details of this momentous change for now, here's what it sounds and looks like in my head...

We'll see how long this lasts due to my current debilitating case of unemployment but as the summer breaks over London Fields, I can't see myself anywhere else anytime soon.

The Gili Islands

There are no cars on the Gilis, no motorbikes and no touts screaming "transport, transport". Horses clip-clop up and down the one street on the island and bike bells tinkle as locals and tourists go about doing as little as possible. This is the kind of paradise that books are written about and films try to capture.

As for our time here, we spend the days swimming in crystalline turquoise water or watching movies in little beach huts when the rain comes. At night, the smell of fresh fish and satay grilling entices everyone to the strip of bars and restaurants that line the beach. Groups form to create a sort of alcohol fuelled U.N. at the various raves; Blue Marlin in a loft, Tir Na Nog on the street and Rudy's in Rudy's very ownpot-hole covered bar. Every bar advertises magic mushroom smoothies with eye-catching signs like:

We have bloody fucking fresh muchrooms
Take you to the Moon and back
No Transport Needed

Rudy's staff are particular advocates of mind expansion and eat a few shrooms before each shift.

Somehow it all works to create an amazing harmony of cultures. This is not Kuta. There are no 'Bintang' laden morons, no groups of Australian clones trying to see who can be the biggest dick. Leonardo DiCaprio went looking for an idyllic paradise in 'The Beach", he went to the wrong island.

After a week spent with our favourite Swedes, Jax strolled through our door on a sunny Sunday morning. Cue a day, no, wait, make that week, of dancing, drinking and myself and Jax's own brand of unintelligible humour. We're now known on the Irish as either "crazy Irish" or "double whiskey" by the locals. We have actually tried to leave the island twice now but winds and swells of up to 6m have meant that no boats can come or go. It's like theres a bubble around the island and we're stuck at the center. So for now, all we can do is sit back and enjoy all that the island has to offer. Not a bad problem to have really.

Half-time...

4Am and we're standing at the base of Mt Bromo wrapped in Jeans, jumpers, woolly hats and scarves. We've been waiting for the jeep for an huor in the freezing cold at 1500m. The jeep finally arrives to take us the further 1500m to the sunrise view point. We bounce up and down, clinging onto bits of the jeep, each other and anything in sight to stay in. It's pitch black and we're in the clouds so when our lights decide to retire early, what can you do but laugh? Our maniac driver does anyway so we chuckle along and prepare for our deaths.

Surprisingly we make it above the clouds and find ourselves peeling layers off as the sun rises over Bromo and 3 more very active volcanoes. We take phots of the spectacle as everyone else takes photos of us. Still not used to that particular Asian custom. Some do it on the sly, some ask but no-one ever explains why they do it...weird.

We hurtle down the hill and the driver decides to get involved in a race that exists only in his head.Swerving around jeeps, cars and motorbikes we get to the bottom only to be put on horses to go back up.

"Ah, we go fast, yes?"

the horseman asks and without waiting for a response, takes off at a sprint beside the horse. We bounce up to the 253 steps and begin our assault on the crater. Thankfully the horse doesn't attempt the steps too. We climb up to witness an active volcano spit smoke into the sky meters from where we stand. A nice pay-off for what was a fairly blurry start to the day.

A few days later, we climb Ijen Plateau which was a far more arduous task and continued our Javan fitness regime until we realised that we were headed towards Lovina with two sets of French folk.

"Ah, sure look" we exclaim, "we should all go together. And we have Arak!"

"Super" the French reply, " we have Calvados!"

So Yann, Bernard, Dewi, Sophie, Alex and ourselves end up celebrating Laurant's birthday on a beach in North Bali. Nice.

After a few days of speaking bad French and eating good food it's off to Ubud with Sophie and Alex before heading Eastwhere Christmas flies past in a flurry of Arak, phonecalls and photographs. Next it's Kuta's turn to welcome us and it does so to a soundtrack of shit music and drunken "schoolies". After managing to rope some Swedes into song-writing, drinking and general Kuta banter we've reached New Year's Eve and the halfway point of the trip so far.

Some particularly brilliant moments stick out and last night's very Irish conversation about our fine army is up there.

Alan: He was a sniper, did mad shit
Eoin: What the fuck was he sniping though?
Alan: I don't know..........Bosnians.

Classic stuff Duffman.

Recent Highlights...

Going on my admittedly limited boating experience, I assumed that a 24 hour boat to Borneo would be somewhat enjoyable. Wrong. It is not. We arrived at the port in Semarang, Java, to a throng of Indonesian families trying to find space to camp before we board. We make our way past stacked boxes of indeterminable cargo until a guard, sensing our confusion offers assistance. Ah, yeah, this will be great we chime. Stepping onto the boat provides a different outlook. A big, open room greets us. Eh, is this a...cabin? For 70 people? Unsure of what to do, we quarter off a section of the floor with our bags and sit in our seats for the next 24 hour...on the floor. So where do we sleep? You guessed it, the floor. We quickly requisition some leather mats for the journey. Seriously, leather, in 40 degree heat, with no AC and 70 Indonesians surrounding us staring. It's going to be hot.

"Maybe we'll see some dolphins or a whale or something, guys!" I enthusiastically offer.

Jen and Alan flash me looks that scream "Shut up Eoin" so I hunker down and prepare for a journey for what could actually constitute torture in some countries. We're obviously the only Westeners on board which confirms that no-one else is as stupid as us and we therefore are the focus of intense staring and laughing throughout the trip. I try to watch Rambo 4 on the amazingly annoying TV situated in the middle of the room but its a Muslim censored version (not joking) so its over after, oh, about 18 minutes. I have never seen Stallone kick so little ass in such a short time.

The following morning I inquire into how the others slept. Those looks shut me up again and we eventually tramp off the boat having seen no dolphins, no whales and no-one's throat torn out by Sylvester Stallone.

Why would we subject ourselves to this? To get to Tanjung Puting in Borneo. I'm writing this 2 days later on another bloody boat. This time though, its different. I feel like Martin Sheen, sat on a little, chugging boat, cigarette in hand and jungle on both sides closing in on us. Instead if searching for Marlon Brando however, we're searching for a similarly proportioned but altogether different beast. The Orang-Utan is our Kurtz. Feeding time is at 2 apparently. We're headed towards the brilliantly named Camp Leakey research center. Instead of being a level in Super Mario though, it's the launch point for our quest to make friends with our hairy cousins. Alan's playing guitar on the bow, Jen is engrossed in a novel and Apocolypse Now this definitely isn't. It's way more fun.

When we step off the boat and make our way through the jungle, nothing prepares us for our first sighting. Our guide suddenly stops and then we see whats he's heard. A mother Orang-Utan, child clinging to her back stares at us and then nonchalantly turns her attention back to the sugar cane she's munching on. They are heart-stoppingly beautiful creatures. So human in everything they do but managing to make the most mundane actions clumsily graceful. As we venture further into the dense foliage, more cross our paths, literally. One is following our trail, about 2 metres ahead of us, stopping every so often to make sure we're still there. It's like she's leading us. Gibbons, proboscis monkeys and wild boars just add to the menagerie we have come across.

Back to the boat and it's time to grab some z's ahead of our trip back. We sleep on the deck of the boat with just mosquito nets between us and the two moons I can see through it. Wait, two moons? I stick my head out and shout to Jen and Alan to get outside quickly. It turns out that neither of the lights I saw were moons but the biggest, brightest stars that I have ever seen. Millions more joined the celestial light show to create the most incredible sight I seen in my short life. We are on the equater which is as close to the stars as you can get while standing on the earth but no words I can write here can describe what this looks like. It's a perfect moment to end our jungle experience with and having forgot about the safety zone of the mosquito nets, the best 150 bites I have ever received.

Next up for us is Banjarmarsin (cheeky preview: first messy session in weeks) and then back to Java before Bali, Lombok, Komodo and KL again. More soon...

Asia, first encounters

We're handed umbrellas as we leave the plane. Are you kidding? But as we breeze through customs, baggage and into the heat of the KL night something else is amiss. Nothing went wrong. The Petrona towers come into view as Strobe hits its crescendo. Hang on, this is too good to possibly be true. Where are the lost bags? The touts ripping us off? The sense of dread as we check into a shitty hostel? Nope, nothing doing as everything goes to plan and we get a good nights sleep in a wicked little part of town called Bukit Bintang. Breakfast the following morning is in a mall that is so Christmassy I half expected it to be served by Shane McGowen.

KL has an incredible sense that its touristy and commercial but doesn't really give a shit. The locals smile and sit at stalls eating food you can't pronounce while the suits and tourists whizz around trying to spend every ringgit they can. Photos echoing Lost In Translation are taken and an American (I know, right?) called Aunnie is enlisted into the gang for vistas at the top of the city and impromptu, drunken sing-a-longs. In fairness, Aunnie is probably the only American I've met who actually suggested drinking and then (nearly) matched us. Despite the Indonesian Embassys best efforts, KL has got us. Hook, line and drinker. The 40 degree heat of the Batu Caves and a bottle stealing monkey attempt to dampen our spirits but wet season in Asia seems to continue to deliver.

Wet season is an odd one. It doesn't rain and its fucking hot. Wet season, in short, is brilliant. As Athlone disappears underwater like Atlantis without the pomp we disappear into a whiskey called Winner to cool down. It softens the blow of 7AM buses to the jungle the following morning. Oh, no, wait, it doesn't at all. After planning an early night, the indefatigable Aunnie has us drunk enough to get half an hours' sleep prior to our hellish journey. Its the first big night since London and we're a little worse for wear to the say the least. A room (that is all) greets us and our guide John grates on us during our night walk through the world's oldest rainforest but the creepy-crawlies and subsequent morning's hike up a great, big mountain make it well worth the pitiful sum we parted with. The least rapid rapids I've encountered offer stupidly good fun and our boat down the river back to the bus and KL was all the relaxation we needed but maybe hadn't deserved!

5am and Singapore customs welcomes us with a poster of a man with a gun against his head. Not just a gun, mind. The most unnecessary M16 I've seen since the days of gratuitous 80's action flicks. Singapore throws confusion and what I consider idiocy at us for 3 days. A highlight was watching football in a bar and being asked to move 2 feet away from the table to a yellow box for a cigarette. I was still standing beside the table. And we were outside. In fact, I almost think I could hear Alan better. We revel in our shared disposition towards this pulseless sham of a country and actually love our time there if not the setting. Anyway, after looking at stolen architecture and empty streets its off to Yogyakarta for something completely different. The start of a month around Java and the dark, heart trembling island of Borneo...



(Photos soon when the Internet stops being a brat. Check for updates!)

Old London Town

"Name 3 countries that start with A but don't end in A"

"Ok, ehhhh...Iran?"

Cut back 2 days and I'm giving Alan the last beating in Pro Evo he'll receive for a while. After inhaling a large and very full breakfast we find ourselves in the hands of Aer Lingus' finest for the first part of our journey across the hemisphere. Now, I don't know about you, but for me no trip of this nature would be complete without saying goodbye to a certain group of ex-Dubliners in old London town. A quick phone call upon arrival confirms that Karl and Tom are in the wrong train station. A good start. Rush Hour tube traffic shows us that a backpack do not make you the most appreciated of people. We left children, old women and one very small Chinese man reeling as we cut a swath through the depths of the city with our weighty pals on our backs.

The France match. That is all...

Hmm, drowning sorrows much? Sean gets the double house whiskeys in before we traipse across Camden to the much more cheeky borough of Angel. Botles of Morgan Spiced and cans of Red Stripe were the drinks of the night as Karl revealed his somewhat well meant racism. His imperious descriptions of red cabbage, 6 year old Jewish children and his confusion about rap kept us laughing until breakfast 5 hours later in the local grease factory. 4 still drunk Irish lads met for tea, toast and all the tasty trappings the poor staff could fit on their biggest plates before fulfilling a childhood dream of mine by checking out the wonderful dinosaurs in the NHM.

Thursday night provided more laughs as the night took a more smoke filled form in Sean's place. And that was the location for Tom's particularly idiotic "Iran" quote. Question Time with Alan Duffy revealed some incredible stupidity, a little brilliance at times and without doubt the funniest thing I've heard someone say in real life. Alan said it and you'll have to ask me when you see me to tell you what it was. No way I'm putting it on the Interwebs :)

The Tate took up Friday's time before we end up playing Black 5 in Stansted with Jen, who has been waiting as we negotiated the tube with our trusty load bearing bags again. Delay? Of sourse. Eventually, the clouds break to the sounds of Phoenix as Jen drifts off and Alan gets stuck into a book. I can't help but think that this trip is going to be fucking incredible.