Dr. Gonzo

I don’t like him at all tbh. He’s very stubborn even when it’s clear he needs to change tactics up - he believes in his ideals even if it means sacrificing things like defending competently, attacking competently, winning football matches. Also his personality from his press conferences and that shite documentary make me think he’s a self-absorbed dickhead. He’s fortunate he managed Suarez to make him look better than he is. I also think we would have won the league with any halfway decent manager with Suarez and Sturridge in the year he almost took us to the title, but Rodgers didn’t see the importance in defending competently. And I’ll never forgive him for wasting Stevie’s last year. He looks great in a league where he’s got the best side by far though. Although I hope Stevie beats him to a league title. All in all, good luck to you if you get him - I think he’s an overrated dickhead though and I don’t like him at all.

Yeah I think that’s true, burritos come from Texas originally - then California perfected them. San Diego has lots of Tijuana-style Mexican food though that costs a couple dollars more than it does south of the border but tastes twice as good. And you’re much less likely to shit yourself after eating it - a major plus in my books. I think that’s a difference to say me coming to China and learning nobody here eats the Chinese food I thought they would.’ Yeah I’m planning on that famous duck once I’m back in Beijing. Been wanting that since I knew I’d be flying out.

I mean the best Mexican food I’ve had wasn’t in Mexico, it’s been in California and Texas, so you never know! But yeah the food I had today was fucking great. Beijing noodles are incredible. Tomorrow morning I’m flying out to Harbin to meet some other clients and freeze my balls off. Completely unprepared for being somewhere that cold, so that’ll be interesting. 3 days out there and then back to Beijing, which is good because I want to see the Forbidden City & Temple of Heaven if I can manage to make the time for it.

That’s exactly where we went! I recommend it

This is true, the one time I got hungover on a plane I wanted to fucking die. Just ask for some water with every drink though and you probably won’t get hungover you’ll just be needing to piss a lot. Which I don’t mind because it gets me out of my seat and means my knees won’t be right up against the seat in front of me for a bit. So I tried to upload a photo from where I’ve just been (well 4 hours ago)... but the upload keeps failing. But this might be the best business trip I’ve ever been on because I’ve just been to the Great Wall. Never thought that would happen. Also it turns out the Chinese food in China is the best Chinese food I’ve ever had.

I’ve never flown business class - only economy. The trick is you get fairly drunk before getting on, but not drunk enough to where they won’t let you board (although I didn’t know that was a thing until it happened to a friend), then get a few more drinks on the plane. I think there’s something about being drunk in high altitude that makes you more drunk. Then I’m able to sleep for at least 7 hours of a long haul flight, which makes it much more bearable.

So what about us backing the Saudis, who then back ISIS, who then have terrorist attacks in Europe? We're backing the oppressors to make ourselves oppressed in that case. Meanwhile when was the last time Iran did anything seriously bad to us? Detaining some sailors who were in their waters - then releasing them unharmed. And then before that, the 1981 embassy siege where the SAS came in and fucked them over on television. And honestly, what the fuck had Chavez's Venezuela done to us. If you actually look at those 2 oil producing countries that we don't have good ties with... and then Saudi Arabia, that we do have good ties with but they also want to back wahhabist fuckheads… it does beg the question of what the fuck is wrong with the status quo of our foreign policy. Personally, I think DUP propping up May's failure in government is more simply explained than their dislike of Corbyn. They were once irrelevant and now they're the lynchpin holding a British government together. They've never had this much power, why would they want to give that up?

I haven’t, but the advantage they have over Atlasglobal is I’ve heard of them before

I didn’t see this but... most airlines have terrible reviews because they’re all substantially the same service and largely speaking if you aren’t in business class or first class (I’ve NEVER flown in anything better than coach/cattle class, idk why they call it business class if none of my business trips are business class - but that’s a personal gripe). And a lot of the good reviews for airlines that go in depth about why they’re a good airline I’ve seen are mostly rich people saying it’s a great flying experience in business class. So I don’t put too much stock into airplane reviews. I go mostly with personal experience... which obviously isn’t the best, because what was true for me isn’t necessarily the same as the others. So in my personal experience I’ve never flown atlasglobal ever. I flew Pegasus once and they lost my checked in bag, then mailed it to the wrong address, then I finally got my fucking bag once I was back at my parents house. So out of those 3 I’d choose Turkish Airlines

We aren't forbidden by the great firewall! But my work email uses gmail servers... so I've had to run a VPN in any case. I wonder how many Chinese people are doing the same thing - I know our clients use a VPN for business purposes (otherwise they probably wouldn't have responded to any of my emails ever).

Oh those fucking Chevy adverts are unbearable. If I ever see that irritating cunt who's in them in real life, I'm gonna smash his fucking head in. Normally I do other shit at half time so I don't have to watch any of that. But generally speaking, I legitimately don't know how I survive in America without smashing my tv - that's a good question, the ads are the fucking worst in America. If you think it's bad for football, give watching sports that are actually popular in America a go. Those sports have been made easy to break up for adverts, so you get an insane amount of them throughout the whole game.

I’ve just landed in China

to that last bit. Yeah if I'm still out in San Diego, I'd be happy to get smashed with you one night. I'm planning on moving to the Bay Area sometime pretty soon, but that's all tentative shite and I don't really know when it's going to happen (if ever). I think San Diego's got the most breweries in the USA, but even if that's not true, it's definitely got the most in California. It's a beer mecca out here, so if you like beer this is a good place to visit. As far as if it's cheaper... it's tough to say - some things are cheaper in LA, some things are cheaper in San Diego. It's roughly all about the same price. The Bay Area is pricier than both of those & doesn't have the sunshine and beaches. The flight's a bit longer to San Diego, but not by much - by like 30-45 minutes. Vegas is definitely a fun place for getting absolutely smashed, and yeah that 5 day "night" was absolutely mental. And yeah, we wandered all over Vegas - not just the strip - saw a lot of weird shite and met a lot of weird people. Bonded with an Irish bloke at a casino that was following some American lad wearing a Man United shirt with Rooney on the back, harassing the fuck out of him . Not sure I met a single person (other than the people working in Vegas), that was sober. I think the only other place in the US that compares to it for going absolutely mental with drinking is New Orleans.

I've only had 3 business trips to Tijuana - with my first job down here in San Diego, twice at the request of my then clients - the rest were to get totally fucking smashed and eat cheap food and then end my night at a place in TJ called Hong Kong (look it up - I can't go to now that I'm engaged... if I want to stay engaged). Those business trips did sort of open my eyes to Tijuana though, it sort of demystified it and also took away some of that fear element that a lot of people have about Mexico. I wouldn't spend more than 3 days in Vegas. It seems like a cheap place to live it up, but it does add up pretty quickly. And a lot of what you do in Vegas is gambling and drinking heavily - both of these things tend to get more expensive if you keep drinking and keep gambling. Also it takes a toll on your body - my friend had a 5 day "stag night" trip out there (but it was obviously more than a night because of how many days it was). I've never done more blow and had more to drink, by day 4 I was basically dead on my feet, I don't really have any recollection of day 5 other than being worried about missing my flight. I also, personally, hate LA - but if you've never been, it's worth a trip out and there's an awful lot of tourist shite to do. I think the 2 best places in California generally are the Bay Area and San Diego - San Diego's got the beaches and shite that you'd want of SoCal, but it's not got the awful traffic of LA (granted, traffic still gets pretty bad sometimes) nor does it have the pollution. Plus LA can sometimes get unbearably hot. The Bay Area has probably more touristy things than San Diego, but very different to Southern California in a lot of ways. LA probably has more touristy stuff to do than both of those areas. But it's also LA, therefore an unpleasant shithole imo. A lot of people live even more south than TJ and commute every day to San Diego for work - I've got a few friends that live in Ensenada (which is an excellent place imo). Trump's humanitarian crisis isn't going to be an issue for any tourist - considering it's a crisis at the border that he's manufactured with asylum seekers who aren't even Mexican. There is a chance, though, that because asylum seekers need to come in through ordinary ports of entry (i.e., not just randomly anywhere over the desert in CA/AZ/TX), you might get some delays coming back into the U.S. There's certain areas of TJ and Ensenada that are more dangerous, some that are less dangerous... pretty much the same with most countries out there in the world. The drug war is the only thing that makes Mexico as dangerous as it is - simple solution for tourists going to Mexico is: don't fuck around with shite like that and be street smart.

Yeah, I agree with you. I really want to like Corbyn, but I constantly find myself questioning his approach. Honestly, I've said it before and I'll say it again, it seems like it doesn't matter which party it is nowadays - if you're in a leadership role in a party in Britain, you're probably incompetent and you're definitely in way over your head. I don't know if it's always been that way, and I'm just older now so I can see it a bit clearly... but it certainly feels like the overall level of competence in the party leaders has generally been completely eroded. And I don't know if it's just because May and Corbyn are both piss poor orators and I have memories of Blaire and Cameron (both of which, I must add, are two giant bags of dogshite disguised as people who then led the fucking country). But even compared to those two awful excuses for human beings, May and Corbyn come off looking way more inept. Maybe it's because they're left squabbling over the mess Cameron left behind. May being propped up by DUP is a joke though and now we've got this totally shite PM who is tremendously unpopular, incapable of negotiating anything with the EU that will pass a vote here, and continuing to stare uncertainty in the face with this absolute joke of a PM still holding the reigns. I miss the day where DUP were a fringe party of barely any political relevance, instead of being a fringe party that's keeping a dogshite PM at the helm.

I think it's a combination of a couple things. Ian Ayre was great for us on the commercial side of things... not so great for the development of our football club though. Michael Edwards clearly has a knack for the business side of footballing decisions though, and him being given the authority to handle these without having to defer too much to manager's input (as he found in Rodgers' transfer committees) I think lets us handle the business side of footballing decisions pretty smoothly. And the other thing is we've now got a side that looks very good, has gradually improved each year, and we've got a manager that our players want to play for and that the fans love. Our pastures look more green than they used to, to our players, rather than them looking at other clubs and wistfully thinking what might happen if they joined another club.

I've been to Tijuana relatively frequently. It's relatively safe, you're not going to get in any issues if you're not fucking around with people who work in cartels. But if you're hanging around with those people or trying to get involved in their drug running, then it's an incredibly unsafe place. Tijuana's (legitimate) economy is built around border tourism, and even cartels have diversified their investments into that, which generally means if you're just going down to Tijuana doing ordinary tourist stuff there (which includes their night scene which is fucking mental) - you'll be fine. And if you're popping down there for cheap beers and their nice restaurants on the cheap... that's like the best reason to go down there and you'll be fine. Having said that, I've heard certain stories that are far less safe than my own experiences. But in my experience, it's fine just keep an eye on your wallet/phone. It's easy to find good deals on Vegas hotels that don't fuck you over - you just have to be willing to be patient. In the USA (but probably anywhere), fuck hostels... I'd always do hotels over hostels.

Legitimately have no idea how good of a source this guy is but... some slightly less negative news about Trent:

I think this is all very cool - but also the first graphic in that quoted article suggests one of the plants they're trying to grow on the moon is "oilseed rape" *edit* upon googling... oilseed rape is also known as rapeseed. And it's not a hilarious typo. Probably the least trustworthy plant on earth if they decided to name it after rape.

I'm not surprised. You don't really have a home right now and imo Wembley is motivating the better sides to treat it like a cup final or some shite like that... because we've seen big performances against Spurs at Wembley this season from the better sides in the league. This hasn't been a good month for you or us in terms of injuries this January, but particularly you. When's Son meant to be back? Kane out until March is a big loss.

I really fucking hope I don't end up in a Chinese prison Yeah China takes drug enforcement very seriously, I think much too seriously... but, I think it's because of the Opium Wars & drug addiction taking China to its knees twice. I think for certain drugs, you get the death penalty, which is mental. Not as bad as Singapore or the Philippines though, as far as drugs go.

It's probably my best bet for alcohol tbh. Not ideal, as hotel bars are usually a bit more expensive and are never as cool as seeing an actual bar in a new (and totally different to what I'm used to) place. My worry is that I'm pretty sure I'm sent out on these trips with our clients because my boss has decided I'm fun to drink with... and if that's the case, these Chinese clients may be fairly disappointed with the much more cautious and sober Gonzo. Beats spending 3 weeks as a prisoner though, I suppose.

This isn't even going to be close to a holiday but I'm off to China for work in exactly a week and I've just learned that the cops there conduct random raids on bars where foreigners hang out and demand urine tests. And then if you test positive for drugs, you get detained for 3 weeks (2 weeks drug rehabilitation, 1 week Chinese prison time) & then immediately deported (I'd prefer to be deported right away tbh). I wouldn't pass a drug test as I smoke weed all the fucking time. So now I think I have to just avoid bars. Which is a shame because I fucking love drinking. Not sure how much of this trip I'm going to enjoy at all now.

A classic