Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 12:33:12 AM

Login with username, password and session length

what have you seen that isn't very good that's supposed to be good

Started by madhair60, July 28, 2021, 10:17:37 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

idunnosomename

Oh Brussels is incredibly shit but does anyone say it's good?

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: The Dog on July 28, 2021, 11:27:55 AM
The future.

QuoteI have seen into the future
Everyone is slightly older
First you're fat and then you shrink
Into a common curse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vln92Tnl68

touchingcloth

Venice was a bit shite. Stinky wet streets, and plazas and streets as rammed full as nightclubs.

Inspector Norse

Terracotta Army went on a world tour and came by Stockholm. We queued up for ages then got shuffled single file around two dark poky rooms with about a dozen clay lads stuffed into glass cases. Some of them were missing bits. My sister saw them on another leg of their jaunt and said it was the same nonsense. I imagine the rest of them were at home in China still guarding their old emperor but it felt a bit of a swizz that they didn't advertise the fact that you were just getting the cannon fodder. Maybe you had to be there at the time[nb]the third century BCE[/nb].

Shout out to the statue in Budapest castle courtyard which was covered in a plastic sheet because they were repairing it, but someone had helpfully stuck a sheet of A4 on the plastic sheet with a colour picture of the statue so you could see what you weren't seeing.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: JaDanketies on July 28, 2021, 02:06:52 PM
Well what city are you even going to actually visit? I might not know what Aberdeen looks like, but everywhere that you'd actually visit is just as nice as Paris, if not nicer.

Yes you said average European city Prague isn't an average European city and neither are any of the other capitals and pseudo-capitals you've mentioned.  You do realised there are cities outside of capitals.

Anyway different cities have different qualities.

I know it's really trendy to slag off Paris but it doesn't stack up; the city is renown worldwide for a standout major city; I think it's a great city but I appreciate that Strasbourg in the heights of winter with it gothic architecture looks stunning and I'd probably go there for that kind of experience rather than Paris but I still don't think this warrants this silly idea that Paris is a shithole it's still an incredible city.

Beyond this I just don't like this aesthetics bollocks anyway for lots reasons; used to work originally with a lady from Bratislava who had been working in Newcastle then moved to Birmingham and constantly moaned about the city not being beautiful enough for her to go out in.  Well you know when you say things like this it actually says something about yourself and your privilege; she basically means she doesn't like things that look poor; and it transpires she lived in a part of Newcastle that was yuppified and posh and not in Tyneside, just like she didn't live in the poorer parts of surrounding Bratislava.

I'd say this maps on to Paris because I actually found some of the plinths etc...luxuriously oppressive for city that has an outer ring that has shanty towns/bidonvilles but I went to latin quarter spoke, drank and partied with the locals and saw what the people that live there are actually like.

Chedney Honks

The Terracotta Army is somewhat different when you see the entire thing in person, rather than a couple of the fellas on tour.

If you want to see proper Paris, go to St. Germain and hang out round there. Much of it is a dump, Eiffel Tower area is dogshit, but if you go to where well-off Parisians actually live, it's a beautiful city and an incredibly atmospheric place to just hang out, full of character.

buzby

Quote from: Neomod on July 28, 2021, 12:07:07 PM
Seen and consumed.


Yeah, their hotdogs are nothing special (not as good as the  Brennan & Carr's dipped beef sandwich I'd had earlier). While sat outside though  I was 'treated' to the spectacle of two of their female employees barging out of the side door and having a full-on catfight, while being cheered on by the locals.

The Dog

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on July 28, 2021, 02:24:39 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vln92Tnl68

Quote
I have seen into the future
Everyone is slightly older
First you're fat and then you shrink
Into a common curse

Quote
I've been to the year 3000,
Nothing has changed but they live underwater,
and your great, great, great granddaughter,
is pretty fine.

Zetetic

Quote from: Chedney Honks on July 28, 2021, 02:30:53 PM
The Terracotta Army is somewhat different when you see the entire thing in person
Enough to justify going to Xi'an, instead of Dorchester (Thomas Hardy Country)? No, according to a synthesis of TripAdvisor reviews.

Mutatis mutandis for dinosaurs and the wonders of Ancient Egypt, apparently.

Icehaven

I haven't been to Paris but I've been led to believe that watching Amelié and La Haine and drawing a line somewhere in the middle helps manage expectations.

finnquark

Quote from: Chedney Honks on July 28, 2021, 02:30:53 PM
The Terracotta Army is somewhat different when you see the entire thing in person, rather than a couple of the fellas on tour.

Thought it was awful myself, but that may have been due to a personal distaste for the Chinese state's attitude towards heritage, rather than the spectacle itself.

seepage

I really enjoyed Paris but just wandered along/near the Seine, no further north than rue de Rivoli/Champs-Elysees, and no further south than bd Saint-Germain. As above, Musée d'Orsay is amazing, could have stayed all day [and the next]. 

chveik

Quote from: icehaven on July 28, 2021, 02:58:40 PM
I haven't been to Paris but I've been led to believe that watching Amelié and La Haine and drawing a line somewhere in the middle helps manage expectations.

heh pretty accurate

even if you have no interest in the biggest tourists attractions, saying paris is a shithole is contrarian bollocks.

and brussels isn't that bad so maybe idunno is just a plonker who's bad at enjoying cities

seepage

Quote from: touchingcloth on July 28, 2021, 02:24:58 PM
Venice was a bit shite. Stinky wet streets, and plazas and streets as rammed full as nightclubs.

I preferred it along the front past the ferry terminals west of St Marks square, going towards the Biennale gardens, but that was probably missing the point. Also helps if you upgrade from Prosecco to Franciacorta.

seepage

Quote from: Shaky on July 28, 2021, 01:50:45 PM
Sydney Opera House is extremely underwhelming. The 80's made it look massive.

Fun fact: the designer of the Sydney Opera House also designed a café on Canvey Island.

Kankurette


Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: Neomod on July 28, 2021, 01:56:38 PM
Vienna. Awful chocolate box architecture full of Nazis.

Just to be pedantic but there aren't actually that many of those buildings in central Vienna, there are however wall to wall Austro-Hungarian Empire mansions in the old centre, which isolated would stand out but put together come across very samey, in an almost vulgar way. I would agree they are grand and not to my taste, but you wouldn't find them on a chocolate box.

Agreed on the Nazis.

Neomod

Quote from: chveik on July 28, 2021, 03:18:33 PM
even if you have no interest in the biggest tourists attractions, saying Paris is a shithole is contrarian bollocks.

This.

JaDanketies


Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quoteand brussels isn't that bad so maybe idunno is just a plonker who's bad at enjoying cities

The bad things are it is pretty run down between Midi and Bourse which creates a negative first impression. Some of the outlying districts are quite grey and bleak in that Northern European way. It is very expensive. It has poorly integrated immigrant populations (join the club). The Atomium is basically bollox but...

But:

- Museums falling out of its arse, a quite ridiculous number of interesting museums
- Art nouveau central, if you like that sort of thing, so many individual buildings are unique and draw the eye
- Hundreds of murals everywhere
- Centre of comic art
- Pub scene easily up there with the best cities in Europe
- Centre of Lambic brewing, unique, specialist, traditional and authentic
- Grand Platz is undeniably impressive no matter how many tourists are there with you
- Some nice suburbs, parks, imperial palace bollocks
-... Atomium is ok to look at
- Decent range of sports teams if you like dipping into local live events etc


It's basically fun, a city of activities with a slightly weird edge that it visibly enjoys inhabiting. Ghent and Antwerp are the purists choice, Bruges and Mechelen are prettier, Liège is all of Brussels bad stuff with a thin laying on of gruel. Now that is a bonafide, if not totally charmless, shit tip.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: JaDanketies on July 28, 2021, 03:33:22 PM
hey I didn't say it's a shithole. Just not very good.

Just for clarity you didn't say shit hole that was someone else.  You just said it was the worst city you've been too which implies you've not been to many cities.

The John Lennon Wall in Prague. The irritating buskers, the terrible graffiti, people not being able to take photos of it for their holiday albums as it is a wall and it is too wide, but still they get in the way and give it a royal try.

Jerzy Bondov

I'm a successful businessman and I recently visited the edge of space in my rocket plane the Unity, and floated weightless to a porthole, and I looked down on the Earth, and it was boring shite and too busy.

ProvanFan

Quote from: touchingcloth on July 28, 2021, 02:00:16 PM
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments were basically absolutely fine, like tears in rain. Three out of five.

Nearly did this and it would've been the second time I'd blundered in late with the Batty speech on this board, after that skidmark-based version a few months ago.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: confettiinmyhair on July 28, 2021, 03:44:49 PM
The John Lennon Wall in Prague. The irritating buskers, the terrible graffiti, people not being able to take photos of it for their holiday albums as it is a wall and it is too wide, but still they get in the way and give it a royal try.

Yep. As youtubers Honest Guide have pointed out, Lennon and any even faint connection to the bland hopes for love and peace has disappeared behind loads of people spamming their instagram accounts, and when the wall is full even grafitiing trees and bins and things nearby, even walls that are nothing to do with it.

It is about the closest thing to shit for cunts you can get.


Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on July 28, 2021, 04:07:29 PM
Yep. As youtubers Honest Guide have pointed out, Lennon and any even faint connection to the bland hopes for love and peace has disappeared behind loads of people spamming their instagram accounts, and when the wall is full even grafitiing trees and bins and things nearby, even walls that are nothing to do with it.

It is about the closest thing to shit for cunts you can get.

I love that  YouTube channel. They also share my hatred of those damn locks and bloody scooters.

WhoMe

Quote from: touchingcloth on July 28, 2021, 02:24:58 PM
Venice was a bit shite. Stinky wet streets, and plazas and streets as rammed full as nightclubs.

Had a pretty miserable, frustrating time in Venice. Beautiful, but stressful and expensive. My mate got racially abused by an old cunt on the bus on Lido, no one cared.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

I guess if you go to the Lennon Wall expecting something good you must be a fucking moron.

Not really a text example for the thread. More 'Huh, right, ok might waste ten minutes... OH GOD WHAT IS THIS SHIT, EVEN WORSE THAN I THOUGHT, MY EYES, I'M LEAVING'

I only visited because I was there for a month and I'd already been to the city 4 times before that without seeing any need to go near it.


JaDanketies

Quote from: TrenterPercenter on July 28, 2021, 03:41:26 PM
Just for clarity you didn't say shit hole that was someone else.  You just said it was the worst city you've been too which implies you've not been to many cities.

Yeah I thought people might've thought that, but then in fairness to me I clarified what I meant; cities you'd go to as a tourist. I mean I'd be more likely to spend a week in Paris than in Bradford. No offense to Bradford.