One's coinage.

Her Maj the Queen has recently named the UK's largest ever warship, an aircraft carrier, after herself.  Naturally. Lucky she's not called Barry.

We Elizabeth's do insist that nearly everything in the Commonwealth world is named after ourselves, thus ensuring our name is written in the universe more times than Coca-Cola. You name it, we coin it, so to speak.

To this end, technically all coinage that exists in the Commonwealth belong to people called Elizabeth. One should engage in a class action to retrieve one's loot.  

One is also rather entertained when people with odd sounding names get all excited on seeing their crazy name on a mug in a cheap and tacky souvenir shop.  I guess that's what you get when you call yourself Krystyna or Jyssyca.

I've recently learnt that, during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, the tower that houses the Big Ben bell was renamed Elizabeth Tower. See what I mean. Everything must be named after us. It's the rules.

50 Shades of Green

As enticing as the title may sound, this post is not a saucy ebook about leprachaun relations. This is not that sort of blog. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Since arriving in Dublin five days ago we have had superb sunshine. I don't understand it either. It's very unIrish. But fortunately for me, I kept my weather expectations very low for my big trip to this region.

I had been warned about Ireland. You'll fall in love with it immediately in a very serious way.

You'll also be met at the airport by a leprachaun who speaks Martian (Gaelic, same thing) who drives you into the city through wild paddocks and forces you to down 24 Guinesses and then brands you on your forehead with a shamrock and crossbones. And then you have to check-in to your hotel drunk with this thing on your head.

Before coming to Ireland, most of what I knew came from cliches and 'an englishman, welshman and irishman walk into a pub' jokes.

Here's the deal about this place. It's such a cute little ditty. It is not naturally possible for the scenery to get any more lovely. The greenest green, 50 shades of leprachaun green, which is painstakingly borne out of torrential rain for nearly every day of the year. Except, surprisingly, when I've been here. It did rain yesterday but we were up in the hills, watching the leprachauns play with cows and goats. It happened.

The average summer temperature across Ireland is between 19-21 degrees celsius, which is hugely depressing. It's total blarney. I don't know any Aussies who could or would put up with that. No wonder the Irish spend their days in pubs scoffing Guinness.

We started our journey with 2 nights in Dublin at a quaint hotel in the city near the Christchurch Cathedral. Dublin is a vibrant, chaotic city, sort of a western version of New Delhi.

No-one can drive, the cyclists are nuts; they don't wear helmets and careen down the roads in between buses and cars. I'm all for sharing the road but it's probably a good idea to wear some sort of brain protection given that the car insurance industry is backed by the mantra that accidents happen.

Sleep time. I think I'll pen more tomorrow...

Gulf heat - Abu Dhabi in July

Having recently spent about 20 hours in an Abu Dhabian summer I can safely say this; I would never, ever live there. Not even an expensive arab gold bullion would tempt me.

Abu Dhabi is conveniently located in the fucking desert. Which is great if you are a camel or a cactus, but not so great if your skin melts off your skin like a golden gaytime. Speaking of gay times, I didn't really have one of those in my 20 hours.

The heat and humidity rudely hits you in the face about 8 o'clock in the morning as you are chauffered to your hotel. The heat is pure oppression.

Abu Dhabi is a ghost town in July which is probably due to Ramadan - no drinking, eating or fun having before sunset. It's probably also due to the fact that it's fucking hot, as I mentioned. I will mention it again because it is the defining feature of that little town.

When I say little, I mean extreme and over the top, as if the world's richest men were given a brief to compete with each other to build the biggest, weirdest, least pratical concrete structures they could come up with.

There is a permanent purpose built Formula One track. Whole complete grandstands built for one weekend a year where the desert town hosts Bernie Ecclestone and his racy mates.

One massive ugly building competition. You win, Abu Dhabi.

Early bird catches the plane

It's half past too fucking early in the morning. Do you know who's up at this hour? Worms, birds and those bloody annoying morning people.

I'm at a crowded but not so rowdy Abu Dhabi International Airport and I'm not especially happy about it. I'm waiting for things to happen. Specifically, in no particular order, I'm waiting, waiting, waiting for my flight to Ireland Land, my quadruple shot half strength cappucino to cool and my body to escalate my building fatigue into a cranky coma.

Must stay awake. Is carrying limp bodies onto planes part of the role of the long-suffering boarding staff? I would be devastated if I felled into sleep and missed all the interesting things that happen at airports in the middle of the fucking night.