Holidays and hoaxes

Well, I’ve had a delightful week off. 

In Holland. 

In the rain.

[Here's a picture for all Minecrafters out there who've forgotten what the real world looks like after 5 weeks in their bedrooms]

But despite the rain, it was nice to get away, and travelling by ferry from Hull we were able to get to Amsterdam, the Dutch capital city, driving fewer miles (255 miles) than if we’d gone to London (340 miles).

And if you go via Newcastle, it’s a shorter car journey (130 miles) than to Glasgow (133), Edinburgh (135), Manchester (145), Liverpool (148) or Leeds (148).

The capital city of Belgium, City of Brussels, is only 175 miles away if you travel by ferry from Newcastle to Zeebrugge.

Not only is it a short trip (discounting the overnight stay on the ferry), but it’s hassle free, unlike air travel – we didn’t need to go through the customs’ lane, no-one searched our bags, or made me take my shoes and belt off.

Sure it starts innocently enough

but if you accidently mention drugs or terrorism things get nasty real fast

It really is easy to travel to foreign countries. But that could all change if we left the European Union.

That’s something that we aren’t particularly told in all the debates that go on. The pro- and anti-Europe camps will tell you all about trade agreements, sanctions and embargoes, because that stuff is really important. They’ll tell you about the impact on migration and employment, on services and taxation, and that’s important too.

But they don’t seem very good at talking about how anyone’s next holiday to France or Spain may be affected. Will we get frisked at the airport? Will duty-free still be duty-free?

It’s worth asking those kind of questions, because these are the things that will affect us directly before anything else.

According to social media, Wednesday night was the first time in living memory that Mars appeared as large as the moon. Did anyone stay up late to see it?

The lesson here is: don’t believe everything you see on the internet.