Rob, Rambling - A lot of things interest me...

Important question: is cheese better eaten hot or cold?

I’ve been thinking about where to go on my next holiday with the girlfriend, probably in early June, and am starting to narrow the list down. We want somewhere hot, for a lazy beach/pool holiday, but maybe with some activities thrown in.

My list currently looks like Greece, Cyprus, Croatia and Turkey. We could do a cheaper holiday in Spain or the Balearics, for example, but the thought of package holidays with Brits Abroad doesn’t really appeal too much.

Of that list, I’m leaning away from Greece and Cyprus because the exchange rate with the Euro is killing us right now. Venice was very expensive to eat and drink in, I thought, not aided by the crappy 1:1 exchange rate.

Turkey seems a bit far to go, considering that our big holiday of the year is in December, to South Africa and Zimbabwe. The idea is just a week in the sun in June to break the year up a little.

That leaves Croatia, which excites me. I’m thinking of going to the Dubrovnik area, down in the south of the country and right on the Adriatic coast. I’ve found a cool little hotel on an island just outside Dubrovnik itself, which should be thoroughly relaxing.

We might grab a car for a day or two, just to go explore the area, and maybe go over the border into Bosnia or Montenegro. Else, there’s sea-canoeing, yachting and a few other things we can do.

So, has anyone been there, or can talk me into going somewhere else? My criteria are for pretty much guaranteed sunshine, a beach, fairly quiet, but some outdoorsy activities to do once or twice. Oh, and in theory within a couple of hours flight out of London. Any ideas?

sabine asked: If you could choose a ride on a unicorn through a forest of golden apple trees (you were allowed to take one home as a souvenir) or a scuba adventure to Atlatis (no souvenirs allowed!), which would you choose and why?

Firstly, I have to admit to never having ridden a horse, and nor have I ever scuba-dived. I’m assuming that lessons for either of these are included, whichever I choose?

I think I’d take the trip to Atlantis, despite not being able to take anything home with me. When it comes to real-life holidays, I’m not big on buying physical souvenirs or sending postcards. I take a lot of photos, and video nowadays, and for me a holiday is about the experience of being there, wherever it may be.

Whenever I think of Atlantis (not that often, admittedly), I sort of see a Pompeii-esque town, frozen in time, with people on the streets exactly as they were when the city collapsed into the sea. It’d be cool to see that kind of image/setting, of a lost time and civilisation.

Whilst the financial gains of the golden apple tree forest is alluring, money isn’t everything, honestly. Although with enough golden apples I could afford to take a trip to Atlantis afterwards. Hmm.

And unicorns are just a bit girly, aren’t they? I’m thinking of that scene in Dodgeball when Vince Vaughn goes to Christine Taylor’s house and it’s full of unicorn paraphrenalia.

Having said all that, I’m going to wimp out and choose a middle ground. A middle ground, however, that is freaking awesome.

I would choose to ride a narwhal to Atlantis for a look round, even if I couldn’t take any souvenirs. Narwhals are probably my favourite animals, and they’re actually real too!

I’m visualising the narwhal talking to me (bear with me) as we descend to the bottom of the ocean, and then using its tusk to point out interesting things as we go through the aquatic streets of Atlantis. I’m sitting on its back, as it glides between the submerged buildings, turning corners and investigating everything.

I genuinely am visualising this, for what it’s worth, and it looks gooooood.

So, it’s Valentine’s Day on Sunday, and I’m wondering what to do with the girlfriend. We’re going to be getting back to London around 2.30 in the afternoon from my parents’ house, giving us the whole afternoon and evening.

I don’t particularly want to go out to dinner and get absolutely fleeced in a restaurant, so am trying to think of something a bit different.

My current idea (if the weather’s ok) is London Zoo, which I think will be quite fun. We don’t really make enough of all that London offers as it is, so this would be a good chance to do that. I’m a kid at heart, and so’s she, so wandering around looking at animals could be a good laugh.

Any other ideas?

sabine asked: E-squared infected me. Tag. You're it.

1. What is your favorite word?
2. What is your least favorite word?
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
4. What turns you off?
5. What is your favorite curse word?
6. What sound or noise do you love?
7. What sound or noise do you hate?
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
9. What profession would you not like to do?
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

1. “Onomatopoeia”, because it’s fun to say and because I like the group of words it describes, because they’re generally fun to say too.

2. “Ugly”, because it sounds nasty and it means something nasty, which is untrue.

3. I get excited and interested by the mundane, the minor details that are probably completely uninteresting to anyone else. I have the attention span of a gnat, except when something properly tickles my fancy, in which case I need to know everything about it. I then feel the need to tell as many people as possible about what it is I’ve discovered or investigated.

4. I get bored by things that become ubiquitous, inescapable. They don’t interest me at all.

5. “Fuck”. This could probably be my answer for question 1 as well. Seriously, I use this word on average every 30 seconds during my waking hours. It’s a verb, a noun, an exclamation, and it’s an infixation, particularly the way I use it.

6. Call me sad, but I really love the sound of the girlfriend’s breathing as she’s asleep on my shoulder. It’s relaxing.

7. The alarm clock in the morning. It’s something I still cannot get used to, and every morning I hate it a little bit more.

8. I’d love to go back to being a journalist. The girlfriend tells me tales of her days, and it makes me fall in love with the profession all over again.

9. There’s got to be something masochistic about wanting to be a politician, to be in the public eye so much. I don’t have enough of an ego to make that work, and couldn’t deal with that kind of scrutiny.

10. a) It doesn’t. b) Erm, I’m at a loss here. I’m so totally convinced that heaven doesn’t exist that I can’t even imagine how it would be.

Ask me anything.

doctornecessiter asked: What are your favorite UK comedy television shows of all time? I know and love several, but I feel like I've only scratched the surface of what's available to me, and I'm always looking to expand my horizons. Advise and suggest!

Ooh, great question. I watch far too much TV, and I tend to watch a lot of comedy shows more than any other genre. Thankfully, British TV history is full of some fantastically funny programmes.

Probably my all-time favourite, which I know you know all about, is Peep Show. For those that haven’t seen it, it’s a tale of two early 30-something guys living together, but the twist is that the point of view is always first-person, with that person’s thoughts making up the narration. There’s usually a nice sarcasm between the guy’s thoughts and what he says out loud.

There’s a little-known show called Nighty Night which had a couple of series a few years ago. It’s darker than dark, with a gloriously disturbing main character. The supporting cast are great too, understated in performance and letting the writing speak for itself.

The Thick Of It is a wicked political satire, the series from which the film In The Loop was spawned. If you liked that, you’ll love this. It really does make you think that government operates like this.

Speaking of satire, both The Day Today and Brass Eye are incredibly cutting, almost vicious in the way they tear apart the media and British culture. The Brass Eye paedophile edition is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

Surrealism had its prime-time appearance too, in the shape of The League Of Gentlemen, which is utterly fucked up and far too funny. Admittedly, it became a little too reliant on catchphrases by the third series, but the first two are great.

We have a bit of a thing here for comedy news quizzes, usually highly topical and news-related. The best of the bunch is Have I Got News For You, particularly as one of the panellists is the editor of Private Eye magazine. I have a soft spot for 8 Out Of 10 Cats, whilst Mock The Week is more of an outright comedy show with the merest hint of news.

Harking back to the 80s, Blackadder is utter genius, although you’ll probably need to be up on your British history to get all of the jokes. Other classic comedy shows from that era include The Young Ones and Red Dwarf.

Oh, and one final suggestion is Marion & Geoff. It’s a one-man monologue show, but so clever and dark in its premise, barely revealing any details and forcing you to figure it out for yourself.

Ask me anything.

pterodactyls asked: What's the best beer you've had lately? The worst? The most mediocre?

Hmm, I’ve mostly been drinking the bog-standard beers recently, round at mates’ houses and whatnot. They pretty much all qualify as mediocre, I guess. Easy to drink a lot of, let’s put it that way, but not the most thrilling liquids to ever pass over my tongue.

I reckon the most interesting one in the last few months was Negra Modelo, which I think is a Mexican beer. It’s really dark, with a malty, heavy taste, and nothing like the Coronas and Sols of that region. It’s got that burnt, charcoal taste that I would usually associate with a good stout, but it’s not at all creamy. A really solid beer, but I wouldn’t do a complete session on it.

The worst? I’m getting thoroughly bored of the beer I usually drink at my office’s standard lunchtime pub: London Pride. It’s an ale, which I quite enjoy because it’s not gassy, but it’s dull and not particularly flavoursome. I might have to switch to Guinness from now on…

My all-time favourite beers include Tusker (from Kenya), most German Hefeweizens, Duvel (from Belgium), and a really good British ale called Old Speckled Hen. Oh, and I tried Blue Moon for the first time whilst in the States last year, and loved that.

Ask me anything.