Best of 2024, Not from 2024

Continuing to rest in the comfort zones of retro styles, but my new calling as a junior roleplaying Game Master kept me from stagnating and got me scribbling furiously on notepads again. Welcome to this year's influential round-up of Some Things I Liked This Year, Not Necessarily Also Produced This Year, Although Some Were.

Best of 2018, Not from 2018

Tasty morsels I've digested in 2018, most not made in 2018, most not literally food.

Scraping the barrel: reviewing bog roll, hamsters, etc.

Dave's dooyoo stats

Reviews: 1,750 (Frankingsteins) + 136 (Brains)

Timeline: 27 June 2000 – 5 January 2011

Word count: ~1,035,000 archived (+ 275,000 lost or I didn't bother to save, so imagine how bad those must have been)

Earnings for all that: Maybe £1,300–£1,500, most of that in the year after graduation when I cranked out a £50–£150/month production line before getting steady employment. It helped.


Dave's dooyoo archive

Music reviews (Ab-Am | An-Az | Ba-Bi | Bl-Bu | C | D | E-H | I-J | K-M | N-Y | Offspring | Korn)
TV reviews (Sci-fi | Comedy | Kids)
Film reviews (Juvenile)
Book reviews
Game reviews
Internet/shopping reviews (Top 10 websites 2003 | 2004)
Edinburgh Fringe reviews
Misc. reviews (that's this page you're on now, idiot) [Classic Dave c.2004]

Bringing an end to my obsessive-compulsive filing of my old consumer reviews from a dead website that should have been allowed to rest in peace, here's what I thought about groceries, theme parks and other miscellany on the rare occasions I ventured outside my comfort zone or house.

Written for dooyoo.co.uk aged 15–24.

Penelope: A confessional memoir

The following is a true story that I have to get off my chest.

It's up to you whether you think it's an actual experience from my life or the authentic transcript of a dream I just had, fuelled by reading some messed-up horror stories, listening to a radio discussion about dreams and an undigested bit of beef fajita.

Deleted scenes: Year two

Another year's worth of photos, videos and blog self-flagellations that weren't good enough to be uploaded at the time, or just didn't fit in with whatever agenda I was trying to push.

Does not include South Korea, which has enough leftovers for a dedicated post.

Deleted scenes: Year one

It won't have escaped your attention that I'm not a professional photographer. Professionals don't stubbornly and stingily persevere with the same cheap camera long after its LCD display has broken, meaning they're unable to play around with the settings or even see the poorly framed pictures they've taken until they get back to their hotels. I don't owe you fancy pictures.

But sometimes I'm pleased with photos I've taken, as are thieving bastards apparently. Whether it's down to the serendipity of animals striking austere poses, the sunset picking out details in satisfying ways or me managing to pull a face that doesn't look smug, I'll try to find ways to include as many photos as I can that fit whatever agenda I'm going for in the relevant blog post, giving the nicest ones top billing.

For every photo transferred from my camera to my hard drive there are 10 deleted, and not all of these survivors make it to the internet, especially in the early days. When I've dragged old folders down from the proverbial loft to dredge out any unused pictures of Dave in a cave or Dave from a slightly different angle, I kept coming across photos that I forgot I had, which I never shared with the world because I was worried about storage space or irrelevant pictures distracting from the narrative arc of the post. I can take this much too seriously sometimes.

So here's a selection of previously unseen photos, videos and writings from my first year of travelling, after those first few countries I rebelliously tackled without a camera and excluding Thailand and Malaysia too, which were too big and get their own summer specials. It's guaranteed to be entirely free from coherent plotting beyond 'Dave saw some things and aimed his camera at them.' This post could just as well be titled 'Misc 1.'

Bachelor

Freedom used to be my most cherished possession. I'd sooner have gone to prison than have my freedom taken away from me... oh hang on, that's the same net result.

The glimmer of freedom has tarnished since I met someone I like spending my time with, who I had to leave behind for a few weeks due to a combination of visa expiry and a cleansing religious festival that didn't exactly require boyfriends to be around.

Fortunately, I'm an expert at killing time and treading water in South East Asia, and I took the opportunity to visit a few places on my to-do list that Jackie probably wouldn't be that interested in when we started travelling together. Staving off my depression by visiting some of the bleakest tourist attractions in the world helped for a while, but then I accidentally checked in at a tranquil resort where everything was mockingly designed for two and the solitude was rubbed in my face.

As I watched the sun set over the Gulf of Thailand from my balcony with one too many chairs, I comforted myself by visualising the shackles of codependence slowly approaching over the horizon. We'd be together again soon. I'm a traitor to single travellers and the values I've stood for over the last two years, but I have to admit it's nice being able to share experiences and actually have someone to talk to rather than just typing my frustrations. Here's hoping this is my last solo excursion for a long time.

Anonymous Hong Kong eateries

This was originally written for my friend Jemma's food blog, because I wanted to try something different and failed. I'm mainly re-posting it here because it's annoying having it wafting around in my drafts.


Eating blind has mostly been a rewarding experience in the various non-English speaking countries I've lived in over the past 18 months, though it carries risks. I won't go into some of the disgusting things I've eaten by accident here.

But for a change, I was visiting Hong Kong with someone who spoke the dialect, and could help me understand what I was putting in my mouth. Unfortunately, it turned out she couldn't read Chinese, so most of the time we were back at square one with the blind leading the blind. At least our senses of taste were still working, so here are three random, anonymous dining options from Tung Choi Street in Hong Kong's ridiculously bustling Mong Kok district.

Tossers of the world

I don't play by your admittedly sensible and important rules

This might surprise you, but I'm not perfect. I've gone on record describing myself variously as 'a bit of an asshole' and 'a dick,' but I don't think I'd go as far as to call myself 'a tosser.' I'll reserve that privilege for those more self-assured and insufferably cocky men I've encountered on my travels (they are always men) who make modest boasts about what they view as their impressive or unusual achievements that tend to look rather mediocre or even pointless to the objective eye.

These are usually the objective eyes of women who fail to be impressed when being insulted through their association with the lamentable tourists surrounding the tosser, who are probably only here on holiday, doing a bit of sightseeing on the well-trodden path, unquestioningly following their Lonely Planet guidebooks before going back to their humdrum lives. Like there's anything wrong with having something to go back to.

Here are some true examples of modest boasts, failed attempts to impress and general tossiness that I've enjoyed from an impartial vantage point elsewhere in the room, usually when I'm working, writing these blogs or finding other ways to avoid interaction. Most of these are from South Korea the first time around, which was the last time I shared rooms and hung around in communal areas in hostels, so is probably why those are freshest in my memory. I've embellished the events slightly for dramatic purposes, and although most of the featured tossers could conceivably be me, only one of them actually is. But which one?

There's snow snow anymore

Seoraksan was one of my favourite places in South Korea last time, but I didn't get to see much of it due to the winter weather making things unreachable without decent boots and ice picks. So it was inevitable that I'd come back in the summer to spend more than a couple of hours here and see Korea's first national park at its third-best.

Everyone seems to agree this place looks most spectacular in the autumn, so I guess I'll have to come back again. And then I'll feel compelled to come back in the spring to see the pink cherry blossoms and complete the set. Normally, those sort of self-imposed obligations would be a cause for annoyance, but I'm already looking forward to it. Any excuse to justify coming back to Koreagainagain.

And if I accomplish nothing else in my life, charting The Four Se(or)a(k)s(a)[+o]ns would be legacy enough.

Kyoto-tal recall

If Tokyo was a sci-fi utopia (let's face it, it practically is), its jumbled anagram namesake Kyoto would be the evil dystopian twin. But once you've spent some time walking between pleasant temples and gardens on this city's convenient grid layout, you realise it's sprawling Tokyo that's the evil, unhinged one. The used schoolgirl panties vending machines should have been a hint, really.

But evil is always a lot more fun, so Kyoto unfortunately seems a little boring by comparison. I hope you like temples and things.

How many New Years do you people need?

Four months into 2012, I'd already had to endure three new years in the countries I visited. The Solar New Year (1 January) and Lunar New Year (23 January) in Korea were easy enough to avoid, and the swarming streets didn't look much different from the safety of my tower. But the Sinhalese New Year in Sri Lanka (13 April) was a different matter, as the family-owned shops, restaurants and hotels that are so pleasingly prevalent in developing countries all took the day off so they could go swimming in the lake. Where's an evil corporation when you need one? I'm thirsty.

It was like being back in the UK during that dead period between 25 December and 3 January when the Western world shuts down (I never did work out what was going on there). It's my own fault for not doing my research, as I'm pretty sure there are websites and leaflets out there designed specifically to inform me about this. If I'd known the country would be sleeping for 48 hours I wouldn't have spent my Thursday uploading photos of old ruins on a tediously slow connection - I could have done some emergency stockpiling instead. But if there's one thing you will have noticed about me in recent months, it's that I'm incapable of planning ahead.

All the Dazaifu lives

Towards the end of my Korea trip, I got pretty bored of shrines, temples and other commemorative red structures built to honour dead people or gods or whatever, so Shinto shrines weren't at the top of my priority list in Japan. But like Bulguksa, the proximity of a semi-famous shrine seemed worth a day trip from Fukuoka to Dazaifu, especially as the place is apparently dedicated to a scholar, rather than a pretend guy or a real guy who was just great at killing people.

If the public figures of Japan's Heian Period were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sugawara Michizane would be their Donatello. Actually, he'd probably be their Splinter, considering Splinter was actually Japanese. Or at least Hamato Yoshi was, before radioactive mutagen fused him with an American sewer rat and he became Splinter. Though in the film version, Splinter was a Japanese rat owned by Hamato Yoshi who later became man-size - what was that about? Why did these 'ninja' Turtles have Italian names anyway? What the hell were we watching?

Anyway, I enjoyed the shrine, though probably not for the reasons I was supposed to.

Seoul long and thanks for all the kimchi

It's a good thing I made some friends in Seoul who I could go places and eat ludicrous food with, otherwise my experiences in this city would have been mostly negative.

I don't have any problems with Seoul itself, which feels the same as any other fairly anonymous, oversized East Asian capital to me (so nothing special by default), but the problem was with some of the people I met/endured in its guest houses, who seemed to consist mostly (or at least most vocally at 4AM) of inconsiderate, borderline alcoholic, borderline racist, borderline rapist, out-of-work English teachers.

This was partly bad timing on my part, as it turned out my second visit to Seoul coincided with these expats' last week of freedom prior to the new school term/initiation, which would explain the spring break mentality of the new arrivals and old timers. But it was disappointing to have to listen to pissed Brits, Americans and Canadians after most of the people I met in other parts of the country were more polite Koreans. These Koreans don't tend to stay in guest houses when they're in Seoul, because they tend to actually live there.

The party hostels were good for one thing at least - I was more motivated to get the hell out of there and see more of Seoul's mediocre sights. Here are some final things from South Korea - maybe I'll come back, but like a cash-strapped parent I'll take my trip outside of half term. School's in, suckers! (If you're actually on my side with all this, I'm afraid you may be as boring as me).

And that's why Koreans eat dogs

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten all about the dog meat thing. That's Korea, isn't it? That was probably one of the first things I'd think of if Korea was mentioned in the old, pre-travelling days (let's not give me more credit than I was due - it was the only thing I'd think of), but obviously it's not the sort of thing you see in every high street or restaurant in the South Korea of today. I haven't seen it anywhere, or even heard anything about it, and the thorough research I've just carried out reveals that it's basically illegal.

So dog lovers have nothing to worry about there - you can happily tear away at the scorched flesh of some other intelligent mammal without the nagging doubt that it might be a lovely pooch. Yeah, because I'm so vegetarian. A few weeks ago I actually planned to abstain from meat for a week in Korea to see if it's too difficult (provisional blog title: 'Vegetakorean') but by 7PM on Monday I was happily tucking into a bulgogi pizza and the experiment was void. Just eat bibimbap all the time and stop whining - save your strength.

But today I met an irritating little bowwowin' bastard who was cruisin' for a marinadin', and who I'll pretend hindered my plans to wander the hills around Jeonju, when in reality I just couldn't work out what was a public footpath and what was someone's private driveway. Never mind, this blog is a catalogue of failures and I wouldn't want to disappoint you by doing something right.

You're snow fun anymore

Near the end of last year, I was being driven through the centre of Jeju Island, on the slopes of South Korea's tallest mountain, and I saw my first fallen snow in almost two years - having spent the previous winter in sub-tropical Taiwan where it doesn't quite get cold enough to make rain fun.

I saw more snow in Seoul when I forced myself out of the hostel to visit Seodaemun Prison, and en route to my next destination in Gangwon Province I was delighted to see snow-capped boulders trapped in frozen rivers. I was looking forward to visiting Seoraksan National Park while this winter weather lasted, so I could have the rare privilege of seeing the landscape covered in snow and ice.

What I didn't realise was that I'd have to walk on the stuff.

Whaddido?

You really can't win sometimes. I was under the mistaken impression that by travelling to different countries, paying my way and cleaning up after myself, I wasn't contributing to the meltdown of the global economy and clanging the death knell of Western civilisation. But there are people who are prepared to take issue with anything, and when you're dealing with someone as indefatigably moral, upstanding and all-round ace as me, you do have to dig deep to find the bad stuff... oh hang on, that sentence alone has proven you don't.

I've been criticised as a dropout and a deserter for leaving my home country behind for so long. It's an overly antagonistic but otherwise accurate assessment - I didn't feel like living in the UK any more, and I had the means to leave, so I left. They don't make it all that difficult to escape, to be honest. But desertion didn't seem to be the main problem - it's that I'm still going and haven't settled down somewhere and got a real job. Again, I didn't feel like setting down and having a real job again, and I had the means not to, so I didn't. This really riles some people up.

By floating aimlessly and carefree (not entirely carefree, as blogs like this prove), I'm apparently not 'doing my bit,' 'giving something back' or 'some other platitude that I feel the need to put in inverted commas.' Like I'm a hedonist raping the world of its resources to satisfy my insatiable appetite and doing more harm than good. I just don't see what I've done wrong.

Busan-d one more thing

It's very easy to get around in South Korea since they installed Stargates in all major city centres. It's faster than the KTX, but there is the minor possibility that your atoms could be scrambled or scattered across the cosmos, or that flange-voiced aliens imitating the Ancient Egyptian gods could enslave your planet. But that's the price of progress.

I'll probably be back in Busan before the month is out to take the ferry across to the amusingly named Fukuoka and begin my Japan tour, but this city in South-East South Korea was a nice end to my Christmas holiday. That's right, I'm still on December - rest assured I've done practically nothing but sit around in my pants and eat bulgogi in the weeks since, so we'll soon be up to date.

Spam attack

I'm very sorry to anyone who got a spam/virus email from 'me' today (that's about 900 of you). I just signed into my Gmail and witnessed chaos. It was also telling me this blog was deleted for a while, which felt like losing a child (I imagine). Obviously you should delete the email immediately and not click any links that it might contain. It's not some amusing joke I'm doing. I feel violated.

There are many reasons it might have happened, and although it doesn't look like I've got any viruses in my email account or on my computer I do spend most of my time on unsecured Wi-Fi networks. I've at least now worked out how to delete all my non-contact contacts from Gmail, so when it inevitably happens again, you can rest assured only the people I care about will be at risk. I've also made a second email account that I might switch to in case this one is truly screwed, since it's probably not wise to use a single email address for everything ever. Some elementary 1990s internet security tips for you there - you're welcome.

Jeju - The Isle of Wight of South Korea

The language barrier and ethnic homogeny clearly delineate South Korea from Great Britain, but in other ways this East Asian republic isn't a million miles away from England (actually, only about 5,400 miles). Take a look at this scene from Jeju Island, for example:

How am I managing to survive in such an alien environment?

South Korea is also roughly the same size as the UK and even its coastline doesn't look all that different, with South Jeolia jutting out to the south-west like some kind of Cornwall, and South Chungcheong basically being Wales. I guess that makes North Korea the Scotland of Korea? I can't see any problem there.

That means idyllic and slightly backwards Jeju Island, the southest you can get, is an ideal candidate for the Isle of Wight of South Korea - not its Hawaii, as the tourism industry wants you to think. Anyway, what's Hawaii got that the Isle of Wight hasn't? Exactly. Stop talking, I already said 'exactly,' which closes the debate.

Here's more stuff from Jeju.