Different Directions

Be Our Friends on Technorati

We're not one for shameless acts of self promotion, but sometimes it just has to be done. This one is simple, if you use Technorati and love this blog we'd be particularly chuffed if you added us to your favoured blogs. To make the process even easier I've added a handy button on the right.

While we're on the subjetc of handy buttons, I've also included a bookmark tool so you can quickly save pages to your favourite bookmarking service.

Oh yeah, and one last thing. Those of you not using RSS will probably have noticed the new look for the blog. This isn't permanent, a result of semi disasterous technical problem. Normal service will resume shortly.

New Linkeage

We've added a few links to our blogroll today, which always deserves a little explanation.

First up is Gadling, the Weblogs Inc. travel wing.  This deserves a link for pure workrate.  As far as I know this is the most post-heavy travel blog out there, churning out 15 a day...even at the weekends!  As with its Gawker foe Gridskipper, the skew is global, so interesting nuggets pop up fromall over the place. Props.

Second is the Matador Travel Featured articles.  To be honest I'm not entirely sure what Matador is trying to be, beyond a blog network, but it's definitely trying to be something acording to it's about pages.  Which is good.  Anyway, the featured articles are always well-written, well researched and well worth a read.

FInally we've got the ever-dancing Where The Hell is Matt, who is back on the road, and coming soon to a town near you.  This time he's inviting you to be part of the fun.

Which brings me to a rather pertinant tangent that we frequently scratch our heads over.  As much as we love the coverage from across the pond..why is the travel blogosphere so US-dominated?!  Obvious answer: because the blogosphere is US-dominated, duh.  But anyway,  /discuss .

Greece Tops Shag Poll

Turns out those insatiable Greeks really do shag a lot.  Its official- according to Durex's recent Sexual Well-Being Global Survey.  On the whole, Europe does quite well, especially out in the east, where 76% of Poles seem to be humping on a weekly basis, and 80% of Russians nob eachother at least once a week.  Not a patch on the Greeks though, of whom 87% indulge in weekly bonk sessions.  Although we'd like to know exactly how much of that percentage Kavos is responsible for.  Annoyingly, the UK is bringing up the rear (not literally, that'd be another survey alltogether) at 55%.  Which is odd, considering we are home to this (very, very readable) girl.

Cheers the the ever-blogging Willy Volk at Gadling for the heads up.

London Undergorund Dinner Party

Ah, the tube.  Like a slightly regrettable one-night stand; we've all done it, it feels a bit dirty, and when you're drunk it seems like the best thing ever.  Yet  It seems our beloved underground is quite the sophisticat these days, thanks to an enterprising gaggle of local students.

For all things underground, do have a butchers at the Going Underground blog, and have a listen to this.

Exit Festival Announce DJ Line Up

Originally started by a couple of students from the local university in 2000 as a covert anti-Milosevic protest, Exit Festival has grown exponentially, attracting the electronica set from all over Europe to an 18th-century fortress on the banks of the Danube in the Serbian town of Novi Sad. This year, former Led Zepper Robert Plant is joining the otherwise beat-intensive ranks on the main stage. Best of all ... a ticket can be had for just over £50.

And...you're going to have to trust me on this one...Exit is going to be THE European festival this summer.  Every day somebody tells me they are going to get there somehow.  And, as we did with the Sziget Festival in Budapest, Different Directions are chuffed to bring you the first DJ lineup, with names not yet announced on the official site, fresh from an email that appeared in my inbox this afternoon.  So, here goes:

Danny Tenaglia
Roger Sanchez
John Digweed
Richie Hawtin
Eric Prydz
Trentemoller LIVE
Blackstrobe LIVE
Collabs 3000 LIVE
Nic Fanciulli
Paul Woolford
Magda
Sebastien Leger
Justin Martin

For a further rundown of European festivals this summer, check out the G-Diddy article.

Yapta a New Form of Flight Price Comparison

Techcrunch has to be one of my favourite sites on the net for discovering new websites and other cool techy.  But I appreciate that to your average traveller talk of APIs, Ajax and Apollo is less than revetting.  Never fear, I intend to happily fill such a void with my watered down ramblings.

This week Techcrunch covered a new site currently in 'closed beta' (read you can't sign up yet) called Yapta that plans to launch another flight comparison engine.  It is however slightly different from it's competitors in that it neither pulls info directly from the Airlines, like Expeida, nor does it crawl lots of other sites and republish the information.  Instead, Yapta wants your help.  By bookmarking flight deals using a Firefox plugin Yapta can pull the information onto their site and monitor any changes to it.  In affect the pricing info can change in real time.  Another benefit to the system is that if a price changes after you have bought the ticket, Yapta can inform you and advise you on how to claim the money back, a legal requirement the airline is bound to that many do not take advantage of.

It all seems great, the major problem being that the site needs a critical mass in order to offer real value.  That or a dedicated team of employees paid to scour the web for discounts.  It is takes off, it could be a handy extra resource.

Jaunted Embedded Travel Guide Wrap

For those of you that have been paying attention, I was guest posting for Jaunted over the last two weeks as their first "Embedded Travel Guide".  It was emotional.  And here's what I waxed about:

The Great Tube Debate

If You Can't Beat Brick Lane, Join It

The Banksy Link Survival Pack

The Tate Turbine Hall

My Back Yard

Saarf London Rocks

The DLR is a Bit Like Sex

Sex Exhibit Craze Sweeps London

East End Football Photo Tour

Camden Crawled

Dresden Filed

As some of you may have noticed, whenever I go somewhere for work I blurb my ass off about it for the Youngin Europe Guide upon my return.  The latest blurb splurge has been on the Neustadt area of Dresden, some of which I included in the g-diddy article, but a lot of which I didn't.

So this is a bit of Youngin Europe value added service, if you will.  Do check out the blurbs on Cafe Oosteinde, the The Frauenkirche, Katy's Garrage (pictured) and Scheune.  Neustadt-tastic.

Metroblogging Street Art Competition

Metroblogging is a great network of city-focussed blogs, whose Berlin wing has recently launched a street art competition.  As Jaunted notes, the details are a bit hazy, but if nothing else the flickr pool will be worth keeping an eye on.

Whilst on the subject of Metroblogging, I was lucky enough to meet up with one of their Graz bloggers, Julian Ausserhofer, this weekend in Oslo, where he is doing an Erasmus placement.  I met Julian through couchsurfing, and we talked about being geeks over a particularly tasty curry in Gronland.  mmmm.

The picture on the right is of me and my local Banksy.  We got on pretty well, although I did find I was leading most of the coversation.

Thursday is Blurb of the Week Day

...well it is this week anyway.  Have a butchers at davey T's blurb on Taylor John's House in Coventry, "a club-bar-music venue all sort of squashed into one."  Tis a cracker, and puts good ol Coventry, home to The Italian Job (really!), The Specials, and  Keeping up Appearances firmly on the Youngin Europe map.