Where I've Been
Back in January I uploaded a video quickly going over my then current attitude towards YouTube and general disillusionment with the whole thing. And would you look at that, six months have passed by already.
Truth be told, there are still many, many things I’m not liking about YouTube and the way it’s heading. Every day it feels like I’m seeing more AI slop, more adverts and more disturbing decisions being made. But if I forget about all that terrible stuff for a moment and get more personal, this half a year break has done what I hoped it would - help me realise just how much I get out of YouTube as a hobby.
I’d like to say I spent the time reading more or exercising more, or maybe continuing to learn Spanish so I can say more than just “a small beer, please” (una caña, por favor). Sadly not. That’s not to say I’ve wasted away the days being a complete slob, in fact I’ve been fairly busy for a lot of the time travelling or seeing friends which I’ll mention about later. But what the time away from YouTube did do, as it’s done in the past with smaller gaps, is highlight its benefits to me.
Don’t worry, I won’t pontificate endlessly about the creative outlet it provides, and the ability to connect with others. Simply put, I just like yapping away into a microphone playing games and adding it to my little corner of the internet. Over the years I’ve spoken a lot about how the bank of videos I’ve made since 2011 is my own digital diary. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t gone back recently to watch a few Minecraft videos from 2016 or livestreams from even earlier to get a snapshot of my life at the time. It’s pretty cool to be able to do that…even if it requires wading through some very cringe commentary.
So long story short - I’m back making videos! How regularly, who knows? I’ve never had a schedule, but I’ve built up a fair collection of video ideas I want to make, as well as the ol’ faithful point and clicks I want to record. I’m keen to pick up live streaming again too, which I had just started to do back on YouTube before this break. In other words, content-wise things won’t be changing too much. I will be moving around where things are uploaded though. It’s always been obvious that mixing one-off videos alongside longer-term series was a recipe for disaster when it comes to the YouTube algorithm. I was just too stubborn to accept it and wanted things in one neat and tidy place. Well sucks to that, I’m finally giving in to the machine. All the longer stuff like point n’ click Let’s Plays and Minecraft will now sit on the More Muckluck second channel.
Anyway, enough about that. Because my break on YouTube also extended to social media and Discord, I’ve pretty much ghosted you all - sorry. I’ve never been one to feel required to document everything on the internet (else did it really happen?) but I have done some cool stuff these past six months that I quickly wanted to ramble about in a blog post.
And that’s mainly…holidays! That’s right, consider this a digital version of being forced to listen to an in-law’s recent family trip away. Nevermind, you can close this blog if you want to, I wouldn’t blame you.
Oxford
Back in April I spent a long weekend in Oxford as a city break. The main reason for the visit was to see Anastacia live. Yeah you heard me, Anastacia. It was a gig attendance years in the making, but perhaps that’s a story for another time. Either way it was a good opportunity to explore the city and make a trip out of it. Oxford was brilliant - the sun was shining, the architecture beautiful and the history fascinating. We did the staples, starting with a visit to a university college - in our case Magdalen College (which is rather confusingly pronounced ‘mawd-lin’). As we wandered past the Great Tower, through the cloisters and around the deer park I grew increasingly jealous of the students lounging on the grass or studying together in a group. How dare they be young and smart and no-doubt filled with ambition, able to spend their time in such a beautiful environment.
Magdalen College had the option to purchase a two-in-one ticket to also access the Botanic Garden which we decided to visit afterwards. Lots of lovely plants and flowers of course, but best of all were the greenhouses! I love a good greenhouse and these were top notch. I half expected Miriam Margolyes to show up holding a mandrake because there was some weird looking stuff in there. I’m pretty sure this is a Pokemon…
The next day we had a look around the Ashmolean Museum which was very…museum-y! It reminded me of a mini version of the British Museum. Obviously lots of cool stuff in there but the standout piece for me was a replica of the Artemision Bronze, an ancient Greek sculpture of Zeus from 405 BC discovered in 1926. A replica, you may ask, what’s so good about that? Not only is it a great statue (both in size and pose), but the novelty for me personally was that I’d seen the real deal only a few months beforehand at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Move out the way Pitball, there’s a new Mr. Worldwide in town! (If by worldwide you mean mostly just Europe.) Here are the two side-by side:
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One last bit on Oxford - we booked a short tour of the Bodleian Library, one of the oldest libraries in Europe. The tour guide was obviously very knowledgeable, but perhaps to her own detriment - she was speaking a mile a minute trying to squeeze all the information in! Her laser pointer was whizzing all over the place so fast I was sure some stray cats were about to swarm us. The tour started in the Divinity School, one of the university’s earliest purpose-built rooms for teaching and oral exams. Again, reaps and reaps of history associated with it, but me being the superficial pleb that I am, found its use as a filming location far more interesting - we were standing in Hogwart’s hospital wing! If only I’d brought my earwax flavoured jellybeans. And to my horror I had unknowingly entered the restricted section of Hogwarts library when taking the tour. I started getting flashbacks of being caught by Filch in the Philosopher’s Stone PS1 game. Well, well, well! We are in trouble now, aren’t we!
Prague
Goodness gracious me I shouldn’t have waffled so much about Oxford because the next trip is even more…wafflable. At the end of May we visited Prague - somewhere I’ve wanted to go for quite some time but made a priority to visit thanks to the recent release of Kingdom Come Deliverance II.
And wow is Prague an amazing city. Because of its history? Sure. The people? Hmm. The landmarks? I guess. The beer? YES! After landing, getting to the city centre, checking into the hotel and having a quick wander around the Old Town square, my lips were ready for a big, cold, hearty glass of the good stuff (I’m getting all hot and bothered just writing this.) The go-to beer is Pilsner Urquell - after all, they did invent the pilsner. And though it was very, very nice, my favourite ended up being Kozel Dark - a refreshingly drinkable, malty, dark beer. I really need to track some down here in the UK.
I’m being flippant of course, there was so much more to Prague than just the beer. I won’t list every single thing we did since we managed to cram a lot into the four days there, but the highlights were:
The trams! Not only does Prague have a ridiculously cheap travel pass (three days of unlimited travel on the buses, trams and metro was £11), but alongside newer models of trams they’re still using these retro looking ones built from the 1960s onwards. A quick google says they’re the Tatra T3 models. I love their design and wish more things still looked like this. The fact that public transport was reliable, frequent and easy to navigate was icing on the cake.
Prague Castle - an obvious tourist spot to visit but well worth it. We did it as a tour with Real Prague Guides, and though it was perhaps on the pricier side for something like this, it did include all the entry tickets and stuff like that. Plus the tour guide (I forget his name) was really engaging and informative, and the group itself wasn’t too large. For being a castle, it’s humongous and doesn’t really look like a stereotypical castle you’d imagine - it’s more a big fortified collection of multiple buildings. One such building is the imposing Saint Vitus Cathedral, which was great to see the inside of but even better to climb up. After 280-odd spiral steps to the top, I felt close to passing out and dizzy but the view was worth it!
After the long trek around the castle grounds under the hot sun, we’d most definitely earned ourselves a beer. Prague had no shortage of beer gardens and so half an hour later we found ourselves in Letná Park with a couple of Pilsner Urquells and a panoramic view to go with them. Little did we know we’d also find a full-blown furry meet up going on. It’s not my cup of tea per se but no judgement here, some of the costumes looked great. I dread to think how they were coping inside of them given the temperature though, yeesh.
One last very important thing to mention - James Bond! No I didn’t meet James Bond in Prague, that’d be weird. But take a look at my previous blog post from all the way back in February 2024 and you’ll see I’m quite fond of hunting out 007 filming locations whenever I’m travelling. And sure enough, Prague has a couple which I was determined to visit before the trip was over. Better yet, they were from Casino Royale - my current favourite James Bond film (but hey if you’d listened to all five hours and 34 minutes of this, you’d already know that). I didn’t manage to see all of them and the ones I did see didn’t go quite according to plan, but I’m still glad I tried. The first was located at the Strahov Monastery which, aside from the Bond connection, was a bit of a let down - there’s not much to actually do there and half the things were closed when we visited. But the Philosophical Hall acted as the Houses of Parliament where poor Villiers is getting an earful from M as they leave a committee meeting. It’s the scene with the great line from M:
“In the old days if an agent did something that embarrassing he’d have the good sense to defect. Christ, I miss the Cold War.”
What I didn’t realise was the room is off limits unless you buy a specific tour of the monastery which of course was sold out. So I could only appreciate it from the door way, which was fine I suppose. I would have loved to strut my stuff in a huff just like Judi Dench though. The limited space in which to view the room also meant it was crammed with people snapping pics. I quickly got into position and had this taken - the slightly pained expression due to ten or so people staring right at me wanting to move out of the way!
The other location was a bit of a fail, despite the fact it was only a ten minutes walk from our hotel. Danube House, a rather plain looking office block, features in the memorable black and white pre-title sequence of Casino Royale where Bond earns his 00 status.
There I was eager to pose as the treacherous Dryden only to discover the whole building was wrapped in scaffolding. And even if I did still want to line up the shot, this huge pile of insulation was smack bang in the way.
A pity? Yes, considerably - but not the end of the world. Prague was such a delight that I’m eager to go back and explore more, including other locations I missed and perhaps giving these ones another shot. Just before heading to the airport we took one last stroll along the increasingly-busy Charles Bridge. And though it’s likely just some tourist claptrap, we followed the ritual of touching St. John of Nepomuk’s statue which is meant to bring good luck and ensure you’ll return to Prague soon.
More crusin’
The last big trip of the year so far was mid-July where I continued my cruising adventures, this time another Mediterranean-based itinerary departing from Barcelona, around France, Italy, Malta and then back again. I’ve spent lots of time rambling in videos about my cruise trips here and here, which I’ll probably do again for this one because there’s far too much to write out. What I will say is that having done four cruises before this most recent one, I’m becoming a cruise snob! The more I do, the easier it gets to compare and contrast and find faults. Sadly that was the case with this one with the cruise line MSC. Don’t get me wrong, I still had a good time overall and visited some really cool places (Malta in particular was lovely) but MSC left a lot to be desired. They say an image is worth a thousand words so I’ll stop there and sum up my experience with this one photo:
Phew! That about does it for what I’ve been up to since January, and that’s ignoring the two weddings, video game concert, theatre show and other guff in between. But suffice to say, you probably don’t care about all that. What matters is I’m back, eager to return to YouTube video creation and settle into the swing of things once again. And I just hope some of you are still out there wanting to watch, despite the fact I disappeared for half a year. If so, great! If not, well I’ll just be talking to myself in front of a microphone for no reason. Either way, I’m happy.
