M (Part 1)
Macedonia
The land of Tanya. If she is a fair representative sample, well Macedonia is full of very intelligent and batty people. Until explodey fun times of the 1990's it was a part of Yugoslavia and then blah blah blah. Of course the greeks dont like them calling their country that name, so they had to be called the artist formerly known as the former yugoslav republic of macedonia. The greeks claim they own the name and have a region called that too. why the cheeky slavs wanted a macedonia of their own ive no idea. I hope this situation has been resolved coz it caused tanya loads of problems with visas and wotnot. Skopje is the capital in case you were curious.
Travel advice-dont go looking for tanya there, shes in brazil or something
Madagascar
The setting for that famous book about the european that got washed up there and kept as an oddity by the local kings some centuries back. The book was a huge hit in europe but sadly turned out to be a hoax. Madagascar is a fab big island of the african coast in the indian ocean and i suspect home to some pretty funky wildlife. Definitely where recently the oldest fish ever was spotted, and it looked like bob hawke with a hangover.
Travel advice-swing a cat, i am sure theres enough room there for it.
Malawi
Malawi is great! There's a big malawi fan right here. It is one of the poorest countries in the world but with lovely shiny funky people. Malawi is bordered on one side by Lake Malawi (great name that), which is one of the biggest freshwater bodies on the erf. I learned to scuba dive there and couldnt see a bloody thing but got munched on the finger by an otter! The lake has spectacular beaches and there are kids that sell cobs of marywarner for bargain prices!
Yay for malawi!
Travel advice-go there, now. stop fucking about and go to the airport and get a ticket to lilongwe, now!
Malaysia
Yes it is isnt it? South east asia to a SEA. The end of the peninsula, (the malay pensinsula?) and the top slice of borneo and probably some islands make up malaysia. It is a muslim state (ho fucking hum) but at least it is vaguely democratic, not if you are mr anwar the former deputy pm. He got charged with bottomtouchytouchy which doesnt go down well in such places, but it was all a scam to keep him out of power. I have spent many quality hours in Kuala Lumpur airport so I am officially an expert on the country. I also hung out briefly in kota kinabalu airport and it looked bloody lovely outside, beaches and palms etc.
Travel advice - it would be a fab place for a beach holiday, but just dont get too homosexual or you might get in trub.
Maldives
All eleventy of them. A group of island not that far away from sri lanka or india in the indian ocean. Catherine lived there working as a wolverine dental assistant for quite a few moons and her photos and other evidence show it to be absofuckinglutely lush. All that postcard beach stuff. The only problem i can see is that its not easy or cheap to get to. To get to catherines island, you had to fly to north buttstan, catch a midnight goat express to Male and then swim backstroke with your nostril hairs across shark infested seas to get there. Probably worth the effort mind.
Travel advice- go there, lie down and suck it up.
Mali
Its big and its sandy and its a fair chunk of subsaharn west africa. It is home to the fabulously fabtastic city, Timbuktu. This city was pretty much the centre of the muslim worlds knowledge, at such a time when it had any. At this time it was ahead of europe before europe became enlightened and managed to largely throw off the shackles of christianity and the muslim world stagnated in the pitiful thing that is islam. These days timbuktu is small and mostly a big sand pit but 500 years ago it was fabled in both civilaztions until somehow it ended up being known as a good name for somewhere that probably didnt exist.
travel advice-byo ancient scrolls, you would think that as they are lying around under the sand they would be a bargain, but no!
Fireworks over Beijing during the Olympics opening ceremony. Photograph: Teh Eng Koon/AFP/Getty
Was it real? Was it faked? Does it matter? Chinese netizens are debating the computer simulated special effects used for one of high points of the Olympic opening ceremony, the footprints of fire that "stepped" from Tiananmen Square to the Bird's Nest stadium.
Although the procession of fireworks actually took place, it was deemed too difficult and dangerous to film, so billions of viewers were treated instead to a computer-generated film of what it might look like.
Many of those watching were unaware that the effect was expensively "faked" until the Beijing Times reported the following day that only the last of the 29 footprints was actually filmed during the live broadcast.
The newspaper revealed that Crystal Stone - a local production company - had spent almost a year creating the 55-second sequence for the other 28 steps, including efforts to capture the slight shake of a camera on a helicopter and the blurring effect of haze.
Olympic organisers said the decision was necessary for safety reasons, because a helicopter might have been vulnerable to all the fireworks let off that night and it would have been hard to capture the entire route from a single location.
Gao Xiaolong, the head of the visual effects team for the ceremony, told the paper that the final result was not perfect, but achieved the desired effect: "Most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished."
On the many online forums about the ceremony and its significance, most Chinese netizens defended the decision to use the simulated sequence. "Although the 3-D production has a different feeling from live filming, we should support the Olympics by taking the authorities at their word and not arguing," said a post by Xin Shuibin on a Baidu discussion site.
Others said it was disappointing but the decision to use computer-generated images was justifiable. "If it had been live, the helicopters would have been in great danger if they flow over the fireworks. They might have crashed," said a commentator who gave the name Waltzer.
Overall, the show was well received, although much of the online opinion on the mainland was more critical than that found among the mainstream media overseas. As has been the case for several of his recent films, the ceremony's director, Zhang Yimou, was lambasted by many for producing a show that was strong on style but weak on content.
Rather than demonstrate real antipathy, however, such criticism may reveal the huge expectations for the landmark event and the high standards to which its director is always held.
