What is George Hamilton doing in IACGMOOH?

Before starting I would like to remind Annabella that it is two weeks until the anniversary of her first (and only) blog entry.

Not that I am being critical - but I am anxious to see how she has moved on since 17 December 2008. I would particularly (for example) like to see some pictures of Stan and Ollie so that I can compare their plumpness with Monika.

We are now in the Swissotel overlooking the Bosphorus and Cate has gone off to do things with other people in the office. I used to do these sorts things and would go to the office every day to talk to people, have meetings, write notes and talk on the telephone.

At breakfast this morning I marveled at all the people having meetings about really vital things when all I had to do was wonder about where I was going to go to mooch around for the day.

You will see that I have an Internet connection. I was able to achieve this because my operating system is now in English and I can work my way through the maze of questions which need to be answered in order to establish a connection. It is horrendously expensive to do this in the hotel but I pawned my watch so that I could hook up long enough to post a Blog.

Since we arrived in Wien we have wanted to go to Do & Co. We have tried to book on a few occasions but have never been able to get in. Indeed – we could not for last Saturday for the main restaurant in Kärntnerstrasse so settled for the one in the Albertina.

Do & Co does the catering for Austrian Airlines so when Cate travels Business Class she gets to eat the food. I have had it twice when we flew Austrian Airlines on home leave and it is outstanding.

Of course some of the planes are not in real good shape. We have been on planes that were so old they had toilet seats held together with gaffer tape and they had to paint over the Swastikas on the wings – but this and the constant rattling and loose bits falling from the ceiling are nothing if you can have a decent meal.

Anyway Do & Co in Albertina was brilliant – and smoke free – and I can thoroughly recommend it.

We were not in Business Class coming to Turkey but I had a nice sandwich which I was able to scrunch up and insert into my nostrils so that I could not smell the very fat, hairy and odorous man seated next to me. He took up a great deal of room and I spent the flight perched at an angle hoping that my jacket wouldn't get stuck to his hairy forearms and require us to be separated by the emergency crews in Istanbul.

I was flicking around on the TV looking for something I could do to avoid learning German irregular verbs when I saw someone who looked like George Hamilton’s grandfather dressed in rags sitting on a log.

A watching this for a few minutes I realised that this was no ordinary TV show but something special – because I also recognised Joe Bugner who was at one stage the British Heavyweight Boxing Champion and now lives in Australia.

So I discovered this show ‘I’m a Celebrity – get me out of here’ (IACGMOOH).

I now know that this is a show where they take people who were almost famous and put them in the jungle where they wrestle snakes and eat beetles.

This is not a problem as we have discussed before that there are 350,000 different types of beetles and while it is tough going for the beetles that get eaten – and of course their families – it would do their little hearts good to know that millions of people around the world are watching them get eaten and this is a damned sight more coverage than they would get by being eaten in the dead of night by a Lesser Crested Mugwump.

I did a bit of research on IACGMOOH and they apparently do lots of other very unsavory things - many involving ropes, snakes and mud – I am not sure why but it is TV and apparently that’s what people want to watch – no I don’t know why – it beats the hell out of me.

Anyway – it was George Hamilton. What in the name of the Great Lizard King is George doing in a show like this where he can’t wear a tan and a cravat?

And I regret to say that Joe was beaten in whatever the contest was he had with a much younger man and was booted off the reservation – which was in Australia somewhere.

I read too much current affairs and too much history and I know things that it is not good for a person to know and to dwell on.

I am just about to delve into a ‘Europe: A History’ by Norman Davies. This runs to about 1,500 pages so it may be a while before I can report back. In the interim for the Turkey trip I am reading about Ataturk. I have to do this so that I can tell Cate all about the history of modern Turkey.

She can in turn belabor me with the history of the Habsburgs. She has told me many things about this enormous family but so far I have retained nothing.

Today I am going walking to take photos.