Globe Lie European Tour

Next Stop

Tour Diary

Sarajevo, Bosnia. 28th October 2019

Arriving at the border of Montenegro, we discovered that we were meant to buy a green card (essentially a road tax) to travel across the country and that without it we were liable to a €200 fine, but after a little Serbian sweet-talking from Jak, the border guard allowed us through anyway but told us that we wouldn't be able to cross the Bosnian checkpoint without one, and the only place to get it was closed until the morning, so we were forced to sleep in the no-mans-land between the borders.

The next morning, there were no hitch at the Bosnian border, but I finally had to say something to Lisa, because as delightful as the fragrant aroma of Lisa shit might be to Jak, I find that it never fails to illicit a gag reflex every time Lisa forgets to close the little trap door at the bottom of the toilet that separates us from excrement infused with Aloe Vera, Spirulina and a whole raft of new age, "health conscious" snake oil, that really doesn't require digestion to become shit. I'd practically severed my tongue on previous occasions, and I had nothing left to bite, so through gritted teeth I had to remind her to close the toilet properly so that her dietary choices aren't shared with the rest of us trapped in a confined space... Fortunately for Lisa, she seemed to take my suggestion on board, because the only option left open to me would be to rub her nose in it, the next time it happened.

Soon after, we picked up Moke, a Bosnian flat earther that I'd previously communicated with oved the Dischord chat and continued on to Sarajevo.    We drove through some fairly bland countryside sprinkled with a mixture of ancient and modern ancient buildings and then on into the city which showed no sign of the fierce conflict that occurred 25 years earlier, apart from a single mural on the side of a building that said "Remember Srebrenica".

Moke had organised a new SIM card so that we could live-stream and then went off to the local Police station to obtain permission to do our stuff and that's when we ran into our first problem, the location we had chosen was privately owned and so we would be moved on immediately, a more suitable location was found but then we hit the next problem, although the new SIM card connected us to the internet, it would not allow us to connect to YouTube, and after about an hour of playing with settings, phoning the SIM card manufacturer's tech support we decided to use the phone as a mobile hotspot and use the backup phone to log into it and live-stream, which worked... Kind of...

We'd chosen a good spot with a decent amount of foot-traffic but we discovered that the overwhelming majority of the people of Sarajevo who walked passed our stand seemed to be blinkered, neither looking to the left or right, in fact they seemed to be impervious to the Flat Earth Forcefield yet most never even glanced at the banners.

Jak and Lisa gave out a large number of leaflets, so much so that Jak had to go back and retrieve more but the had very few actual interactions, Jak reported maybe 3 - 4 very brief conversations and Lisa had none.    I found that I had to go to people who actually took notice of the banners from afar and drag them, kicking and screaming into a conversation but it paid off and I engaged with a group of men over a wide range of topics in and around the flat earth.    Once again it was the local man, Moke, who was the star of the show, after being thrown into the thick of it in his first ever street activism he had several lively conversations in Bosnian and was still buzzing once it was all over and we were back at the van.

Moke invited us back to his home when we were able to all have a shower and a warm bed for the night, which Jak and Lisa made immediate use of, leaving myself and Moke to participate in the nightly update.

Podgorica, Montenegro. 27th October 2019

Immediately after crossing into Montenegro we were hit with dramatic scenery, breathtakingly mountains, stunning seascapes, in one moment we could have been driving through the Turkish or Greek countryside, but if there were a few palm trees dotted around then we might have been in St. Lucia, however, looking around at the modest dwellings and utter lack of swanky marinas chock full of million dollar yachts, it suddenly dawned on me that I had mixed up Montenegro with Monte Carlo.

Not far over the border, we picked up Gilee, a friend of Vesco, and someone that I'd been in contact with over the Dischord chat. We arrived at an outdoor cafe where we met Mabus, apparently Montenegro's leading flat earther with a huge following in such a tiny country, and, as it happens, a Police officer, which was a first, as normally they are trying to stop us not join us.   Mabus explained that today was the Montenegro Marathon, many of the roads had been closed off for it and our location was to be in the main square which was right next to the finish line.    It soon became evident that the unnecessarily loud PA system was going to make activism impossible so we were forced to wait it out until the marathon ended which I could not help but notice was inevitably won by three tall, slender Kenyan men.

I thought about standing on the side of the road with my hand out to any runner who was desperate for water and giving them a leaflet instead, but as engaging as the information might be, I concluded that dead runners are unlikely to find it interesting.

As the last stragglers dragged themselves over the finish line, more flat earthers arrived, one man rushed up to me excitedly and explained how he and his wife had only just learned that we were in Montenegro and literally dropped everything to come and be part of it.

Finally, the last award was presented, the last wildly optimistic would-be marathon runner has been carted off to intensive care, and the event along with the PA system, that was no doubt designed to allow the entire population of Montenegro to follow the action from the comfort of their own living rooms, was over and the crowd that had assembled to watch the marathon vanished with it.

It was probably a combination of it being a Sunday, the roads being closed for the marathon and the only people in the area being those interested in the marathon, but for whatever reason, the square was deserted apart from a small but animated band of flat earthers. After an hour or so, more of the local population came out of hiding.

I had a good conversation with a very attractive young woman who seemed very receptive and I was just working out how to steer the conversation away from the absurdity of the International Space Station and toward a romantic dinner, followed by Gin & Tonics on the veranda, when Mabus arrived and began a lively conversation in Serbian... I eventually wandered off unnoticed, wondering how one would say "Fuck off" in Serbian.

Gilee and The other locals all got into conversations in Serbian and I had a couple more successful interactions with a pair of Italian men and a Hungarian man in his twenties who was so intrigued that he came back three times with more questions.   But for the most part we were giving out leaflets which were almost always received with a smile and a polite "Thank you".

I felt a tad embarrassed that we had so much help but not very many people to talk to, but for the locals it was the first time that they had met each other after years of believing that they were alone, so they didn't seem to mind at all.

We finished the evening at an outdoor cafe with Gilee, drinking in the relaxed Mediterranean ambiance of Podgorica, which could have been any laid back Italian city, an impression that is reinforced by the fact that people here say 'Ciao' for goodbye.

The lack of punters notwithstanding, it was a very good day, except for the nagging idea of Mabus on a veranda somewhere sipping G & Ts :(

Tirana, Albania. 26th October 2019

Because of an oversight in the scheduling, mission control was under the impression that we had a pretend day off to get to Albania so that we could do the activism the following day, however, our schedules included no such extra day, so Jak drove 1000 km through the night and then had to negotiate some very narrow streets looking for somewhere to park.    He eventually had to give up looking for a space near the centre and parked in a car park a few miles away from our intended destination.

It was a Sabbath day for me so Jak decided to forego the usual setup and just film Lisa and himself handing out leaflets since they would have to drag all the equipment a couple of miles into the city, but mission control did not like that idea, so they came back to the van in a taxi to retrieve the banners and somehow managed to fit it into the taxi.

As the day wore on, I been to notice that it was getting dark and the others had not returned, we normally finish up around 5:00 PM but now it was 7:00 PM and there was no sign of them. By 8:00 PM I was starting to get worried, all the worst case scenarios were playing out in my mind. What if Jak and Lisa had encountered Police like those in Sofia, and were languishing in a mail unable to communicate with their captors? What if they had been mugged for the expensive phones and battery packs they were carrying and they lay bleeding on the side of the road? I had no phone, no internet access, no way to communicate with anyone, alone in a car park, somewhere in Albania.

At 8:15 PM they arrived back, apparently the number that the taxi driver had given them did not work and so they'd had to walk back from the city... It turns out that they had been approached by the Police but they were friendly and interested in the information and Jak ended up giving them all a hug.

One of the Albanian guys who worked at the car park offered to show us where the local supermarket was located, so we walked with him chatting and laughing all the way, I'd been told that Albanians were not the friendliest nor the nicest of peoples but this one man dispelled all such stereotypes.

Jak the navigator led us from the supermarket, torward the bus... then past the bus and on for another mile and a half down the road until his homing-tortoise-like senses detected that we'd gone wrong somewhere.

Athens, Greece. 25th October 2019

Our early departure from Sofia meant that we had the luxury of another free day where nothing was required of us, so once over the Greek border, (more documents, more money) we picked up a couple of German hitchhikers who told us where the nearest beach was so we headed there for some much needed R & R. It seems incomprehensible that we could be swimming in the Aegean Sea on a blazingly hot day in late October.
Lisa decided that it was an ideal opportunity for some nude sunbathing, so once again I left the couple to it, I mean, if I wanted to see small saggy breasts, unshaven armpits and a washboard arse then I'd hang around the men's changing room on geriatric night at Basildon Gym.

We continued on to Athens passing through eleven toll booths, paying anything between €3 and €20 each time, often only fifteen minutes apart.

The name of Athens evokes images of majestic ancient ruins but I wasn't prepared to see such ruinous and unkempt modern buildings that seemed uncared for and covered in graffiti. We took a walk around and found a nice street cafe and sat down for breakfast.   Through the trees, I caught sight of an ancient temple on a hill and remarked to the waiter that it looked a bit like a smaller version of the Acropolis only to be told it actually was the Acropolis, I felt like I'd arrived in New York and told a New yorker that the big green lady with the torch looks a bit like the statue of Liberty.

We setup in the market but found the Greeks reluctant to even approach our stand but I found that if we left the stand looking like it was unattended and I stood reading the banners as if I was a punter then passers-by would approach, one man who was lured in by this method was surprised when I turned around and offered him a flyer, he said "Oh, I thought you were reading this" as if he would not have come over had he known I was connected to the display.

Jak's most notable interaction of the day came when he found himself in epic debates with two separate groups of science students, he managed to get them to switch from mockery to asking serious questions but it was a long conversation that left him a little tired but happy.   I noticed a couple standing afar off, laughing at our banners, so I decided to chase after them and after conversing with them for several minutes, I was able to get them to come over and actually see what was on our banners, and after a little more back and forth they left with a visibly altered mindset.

While live-streaming, the phone's battery gave out so I went back to the bus to retrieve the backup phone but was only able to add another 17 minutes to the stream, however, when we returned to the van, (not more than 30 minutes after I'd retrieved the phone) we found that someone had smashed the driver's side quarter window, nothing had been stolen, and the damage was on the side of the van that faced the pavement, so it would seem that it was an act of pure malice.

That evening, during the update, Roxanne asked how we were managing with being thrown together Big Brother style living together in close proximity, I turned the camera toward Jak and Lisa so that I was off-screen, hoping that I would not be called upon to answer this question because I would have a hard time not being honest.

While I don't have anything against Lisa per se, and I don't think she has an evil or malicious bone in her body, just being cooped up with her drives me mad, she speaks like an hyperactive twelve year old who's just learned her first swear word and laughs like a demented hyena with whooping cough and a megaphone, and on those rare occasions where she isn't eating noisily, she is complaining that she hasn't eaten in the last 15 minutes, or she has a headache, a stomach ache, or tactical tiredness, or she's stressed and needs Aloe Vera juice, or a bee pollen smoothie or some other new age "health conscious" bullshit that pretentious "Love-n-Lighter's" from Glastonbury brag about.

The bite marks on my tongue testify how much I want to say something to her, but I know that no good will come of it, as it would be like criticising a 12 year old with Down's Syndrome, they simply won't understand what's going on and you'll just end up looking like a dick.

Sofia, Bulgaria. 23rd October 2019

Crossing the Bulgarian border we were stopped five times by Police who demanded to see our passports each time, it did not bode well for the rest of the day.

We parked in the car park of the National Palace of Culture, in plenty of time to take a look around and scout our location.    While Jak caught up with some sleep, our bus was attracting a lot of attention and I had a few off-camera conversations with locals, most notably with a group of three men who approched me saying "This is bullshit right?" but after 20 minutes, even though they were late for work, the ringleader didn't want to leave as he was visibly intrigued by what he had learned.

We had to carry the stand and banners about half a mile to the location which was another shopping precinct called "Bul Vitosha" and even while we were setting up, we started to draw a crowd who thronged around looking at the banners.

I'd started speaking to two men for 15 minutes when two Police Officers approached and indicated with a gruff, "This, No" that we were to cease all activity and were taken aback when we did not immediately comply.   The Police obviously did not speak English so the man I was speaking to started to translate what I saying to them, and I could see that the older more senior cop was getting annoyed at the foreigners who were not showing them the proper respect and his hand dropped from his waistband to hover around near his gun.   I tried to reason with them but even my translator said "This will not work" another man from the gathering crowd said to us fearfully "This is Police, you must obey".

Two more police had arrived in the meantime, and the senior cop stepped forward angrily and with short staccato motions indicated that we were to pack up immediately, and even stopped the locals from even looking at our banners.

Seeing that we had little choice, we started to take down the display. Jak started to mutter something in Slovenian as he worked and even though none of us could understand what he was saying, it was obvious to all that he wasn't wishing joy and happiness to their mothers, the cops responded by again getting annoyed and demanding to see our identification, which only increased when we told them that our passports were back in the bus.

One policeman accompanied Jak to retrieve the passports while myself and Lisa waited by our stuff guarded by two police and once they had the passports in hand, they literally had us sit around for another 30 minutes for no apparent reason, there was no radio communication, no identity checks, the passports were visually scanned by one cop, they stood around and chatted and laughed for half an hour and then we were told we could go... and not come back.

We returned to the bus a little dejectedly but we were approached by a group of schoolboys who had been following us on youtube and searching for us during their lunchbreak, they were very excited to see us, so we took some pictures, gave them some badges and fridge magnets and a stack of flyers for their friends.

We left Bulgaria with less than 15 minutes of live-streamed content to show for it, but the experience showed me, more than any thus far, that we are actually in a precarious situation and we could, at any time, find ourselves at the mercy of corrupt or power-drunk police and locked up in a foreign country where they cannot be bothered to speak English or care if you understand what is going on or not.

Skopje, Macedonia. 22nd October 2019

Despite our very late arrival, Milenko was a gracious host, I drove with him in his car while Jak and Lisa followed us to Milenko's home. We chatted about what had happened in the 4 years since our first meeting and I let him know just how influential our interview had been within the Flat Earth community.

At his house, Milenko's production crew were waiting patiently, I wanted to have a quick shower before we started but Lisa felt that her need was far more urgent, and so Milenko ordered us some food and we launched straight into a 45 minute interview. The interview went well though it wasn't quite as "in depth" as I would have liked but Milenko and his crew seemed happy with what they had by the time we had finished, Jak and Lisa had polished off all the food and left me nothing.

Next morning Milenko led us to a parking area and showed us how to get to the main square in Macedonia, an impressive looking open area with reproductions of classical architecture (Interestingly featuring Ionic columns, which according to my research might provide a possible insight into where their allegiance lies), and crowned with an enormous status of Alexander the Great mounted on his horse in a dramatic pose, set upon what looked like fairground ride, surrounded by vomiting lions.

As impressive as it was, I still got the sense, as I did five years earlier, that they were trying too hard to establish themselves as a separate culture (which is understandable under the circumstances), and it still retained the air of a building site of the Forth Bridge variety, as they were rushing to build these impressive "ancient" buildings, the streets that they had started with five years earlier were already crumbling.

The people of Skopje seemed very difficult to engage with, even though many people walked past our display, very few even glanced in our direction, and for the first 3 hours the Flat Earth force-field seemed to grow in power, keeping anyone who was curious at a comfortable distance.    We did however, meet several people who were already flat earthers and Jak got talking to a TV host who has been a flat earth proponent for 50 years and had invited us back to his place afterwards for an interview.

As the day wore on we seemed to get a flurry of activity.

While Jak and Lisa sat on a bench engaged in love play, a couple of young men, who seemed to be doing their best to emulate Wham! seemed to have taken on the task of convincing a larger group on our behalf, but I couldn't really tell what was going on as it was all conducted in Macedonian (I only found out later from Jak that they were Macedonian flat earthers who had come down specially to help out, so I wasn't able to get their names or introduce them to the live-stream of even thank them for their participation)

After we packed away, we went for a meal (Lisa was able to squeeze in a soup and bread after the multiple food stops that ended minutes earlier) Lisa, had already returned to the van, resting after her latest bout of CSCFS or Conveniently Selective Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (which seems to affect her most after an hour of handing out leaflets At midday, yet does not seem to stop her from all night pole dancing till 8:00 in the morning.) I left Jak at the restaurant using its free Wi-Fi, returned to the van and lay down to write my daily log, but I dozed off.

I awoke to the overwhelming, but now distinctive sickly sweet odour of Lisa piss (because she keeps forgetting that she needs to "flush" the toilet every time she uses it and not leave a pool of urine open in a hot enclosed space).    I was alone in the van, in a strange neighbourhood wondering if we had been robbed because Lisa had left the passenger door wide open.   Both Jak and Lisa were enjoying the hospitality of the TV host Jak met and had participated in an interview and conducted the video update with Mission Control without even asking if I wanted to be involved.

It seems more and more that I have to actively push to be part of the Jak and Lisa tour.

Nonetheless, It was great to see Milenko again, and I also met up with one of Milenko's associates who had spent a considerable amount of time as my tour guide, chauffeur and host five years ago, I had spoken to him about urine therapy back then and he had told me that It was something that Macedonian people would not do, but today he was excitedly telling me how much urine therapy had changed his life and those of people he had told of it.

Pristina, Kosovo. 21st October 2019

During our time with Vesco, he had warned us that there is a curfew in Kosovo, and that we would only be able to travel during the day, and that because of the continuing tensions between Serbia and Kosovo that we may experience difficulties at the Kosovo border, so we decided to travel through Macedonia and cross over into Kosovo from there instead.

Jak and Lisa bought the new SIM card that Vesco suggested so that GPS was available, however, Lisa selected a destination that led us to a farm in the middle of nowhere, Jak took us back to a petrol station to preload the maps for the corrected journey but then Lisa erased them mid-route, undaunted by this potential disaster, Lisa used the opportunity to browse Facebook, now that the phone was free...    Cracks in their budding relationship began to show.

I suggested that we cut our losses and head to straight to Milenko's but this was overruled by Team Jak/Lisa.

I'm not going to say much more than how thoroughly pissed off I was today, admittedly the lack of internet access and the unreliable GPS were beyond anyone's control, but I totally felt like getting off the bus and walking home.

We arrived somewhere in Pristina, (Any hopes of reaching our assigned location lay abandoned on the side of the road by a farm in Kosovo, along with any high spirits I might have had) and again I stressed to Jak that the Milenko meeting was more important to me than handing out leaflets in Pristina, but instead we made a half hearted attempt at an hour of street activism, before packing up and heading off to our meeting with Milenko, the only meaningful conversation I managed to have was with a group of schoolchildren, who were open minded and curious, and who left saying that they couldn't wait to ask such questions to their teachers, even if it would likely get them into trouble.

When we got back to the van, Jak was after directions and Lisa said that we had Milenko's home address but she had entirely missed the message that instructed us to go to Skopje Airport and call him when we got there.    Once again I found myself astounded by Lisa's inability to follow simple instructions, or remember something she learned twelve seconds earlier or to faithfully repeat a message she'd been given.

Please Note: This is probably very unfair of me but I am still in a bad mood as I write this :(

At the Macedonian border we were told we required a green card insurance for 90 Euros and we were held up there for over an hour doing paperwork, something that had we encountered it three hours earlier as I suggested we would still have made our meeting in plenty of time.

I am surprised the I still have the power to speak, with the number of times I've had to bite my tongue today.    I simply had to leave them to it, retire to my bunk and do some deep breathing exercises, I was too annoyed to participate in the circus today had become.

Hours after we were due to meet Milenko, I could hear Jak swearing "Where is the fucking airport??"

Today was not a good day.

Belgrade, Serbia. 20th October 2019

We arrived at the Serbian border early in the morning and just as we suspected, we were once again required to produce our passports and vehicle registration documents.   Unfortunately though, we encountered another problem, moments after we crossed the border, our mobile Wi-Fi device suddenly stopped working, apparently Serbia is not part of the EU and do not share mobile phone networks with anyone else, the problem was our GPS navigation depended on the Wi-Fi as was our connection to Mission Control, and since our phones no longer worked, live-streaming was going to be impossible.

We bought a local sim card with 4Gb of data which I managed to install into Lisa's phone, so we were back in business.

We arrived at what we thought was our location, a green area in the middle of an eerily quiet city, in fact, I started the live-stream standing in the middle of a street which would have been the equivalent of 5th Avenue in New York City, there was virtually no traffic on the roads and surprisingly few people.

There did not seem to be a particularly good spot to setup so we walked around checking out various places, Jak was carrying the several metal struts that made up our stand, but since they were awkward to carry, he left them at one spot while we scouted the next, once we decided, Jak went back for them and inexplicably took off running, it turns out the he'd spotted that someone was walking off with a couple of the metal struts, Jak managed to wrestle the key cross-member away from the man but he made off with one of the small supporting bars...   It is said that when you depart from a country a small piece of you remains behind, it appears to be true because somewhere in Serbia, a man is probably using a small piece of the Globe Lie tour to beat his wife with.

We setup in the park and I began the live-stream, but it disconnected within about 15 minutes and refused to re-connect, so that was the end of the live-stream, but at least we now know that the local exchange rate is 4 Serbian Gigabytes equals 50 UK Kilobytes.

The park was pretty much dead so we decided to relocate to the town centre, but fortunately the 15 minute live-stream was enough to let a couple of locals, Alexander and Vesco, know exactly where we were situated, they arrived just in time to relocate with us and we set up on the main pedestrian precinct exactly in the centre of Belgrade, marked by a small pyramid with a detached golden capstone, Hmmmm...

Vesco came to our rescue regarding our internet connection problems and allowed us to tether to his phone, and just like that we were live-streaming again.

The Serbs were a particularly open minded people, virtually everyone who was offered a flyer eagerly accepted and began scanning it immediately. Both Jak and Vesco were immediately embroiled in very animated conversations that looked like they would come to blows but I was assured that they were typical Serbian conversations.    For the Most part, the interactions I experienced were with those who either already knew the earth is flat or did not require much convincing, or they left the conversation doubting the official story. It was such a well out and lively place that we continued well after dark.

Our new Serbian friend, Vesco, showed us the hospitality that we have almost come to expect from our extended flat earth family.    He introduced us to his friend who likes to be known as George Smith (probably because he thought it sounded all exotic) and in our conversation that stretched into the early morning, he was able to help me with my research into the link between the biblical Canaanites and The Slavic peoples, and I hope I was able to help him in his quest to discover the origins of his own language.

It was a great night and even better day before it.

Bucharest, Romania. 19th October 2019

We found our way back to Sandor's house and so I had more time to catch up with my friend, and while we were chatting on the balcony, I spotted the UPS van trying to find its way to us, and so the documents that were impeding our progress arrived, which gave us enough time, if we drove through the night, to make our date in Bucharest.    Jak drove and I stayed up ready to take over, we arrived, once again at the Romanian border oddly hoping that we would be asked for the same documents again, which we were, but this time we passed through without a hitch and a cheery smile from the nice man with the gun.

Today was my Sabbath, so once again, my participation was minimal, Jak and Lisa took the banners and stand, and left me in the van to my bible studies.   A few hours later, I went for a walk to see if I could find them, but they were not where Jak told me they would be, so I walked toward what looked like was deeper into the city.

Bucharest reminded me of Antalya in Turkey, it was a curious mix of old and new, as if perpetually stuck at the point where they were transitioning from one to the other, an ultra modern shopping mall sat opposite an extensive old market that probably hadn't changed in 200 years, and was surrounded by high rise concrete slab apartments, populated by people, many of whom still wore traditional Romanian dress.

I couldn't find them in that direction, so I started a methodical search pattern, starting with outside the mall, then through the old market, then I finally saw Jak, handing out leaflets, standing almost a head and shoulders above everyone around him, the display stand was tucked away at the outermost corner of the mall, where there was virtually no foot traffic.    Lisa explained that during my absence, they had been moved by security three times and this was all they could find, and having walked around about a half mile in all directions, I had to agree that there was no ideal location. Because of this and the significant language barrier, we were reduced to handing out leaflets and having brief shallow interactions...    I guess you can't win them all :(

Though not a real problem, the dynamic on the tour bus has inevitably changed, where it was three on the bus, it is now two plus one. Once shared conversations are now private, and only appropriate for me to join in when it doesn't seem like I am eavesdropping which is tricky and awkward, so I find myself withdrawing and giving them space, further widening the divide.

Chisinau, Moldova. Day Off - 17th October 2019

The next leg to Chisnau, Moldova was going to be a gruelling one, 700 miles through the night, so Jak started driving while I slept so that I could take over the driving when Jak got tired, however I was woken at 3:00 AM at the Romanian border because they wanted to see our passports, the border guards were a bit jumpy and somehow found it particularly suspicious that there was a third person sleeping at 3:00 AM in the back of a large vehicle equipped with beds.   Our papers were in order but then they wanted to see the registration documents for the tour bus, something that nobody apparently thought to include on a motorhome travelling across Europe.

Mission Control tried to appease the border guards with a photograph of the registration documents, but the nice men with the guns weren't having it so our only choice was to reverse course and head to the nearest motorway service station rest-stop to rest and er... stop.

While we waited for Mission Control to figure out our next move, we found ourselves with an actual day off, so Jak and I spent it doing all the housekeeping that we otherwise simply did not have time for.   While tidying up, I could make out Lisa off in the distance meditating in a field so I took out my Nikon P610 and thought I'd get a candid shot of her meditating only to discover that she was in fact doing so in the nude (For the Lisa fans 8 x 10" glossy prints are available at reasonable prices)

That night I cooked "Vegetarian Combo", my signature dish that I reverse engineered from a catering company's menu and it seemed to be well received and I started a live stream to update everyone regarding our situation on the tour.

Sensing that my presence was not required after dinner, I announced that I would have an early night and catch up on sleep (which I really did need) and retired to the bunk that I shared with Jak.    This is the point where romance blossomed on the Globe Lie bus. Jak and Lisa did in fact get a room and Jak relocated to it.

The next morning we found out that the documents that we required were being couriered to Sandor on Friday, so Moldova was definitely off the tour, and depending on exactly when they arrive we will either pick up the tour in Romania or Serbia.   So we decided to head over to Lake Balaton, the site of two successful laser experiments, but we arrived too late to add it as an unscheduled stop on the tour.

Budapest, Hungary. 15th October 2019

We arrived at our location in Budapest in the early hours of the morning. It was a Metro station car park, outside of the city as we were advised that it would be impossible to park any closer, and our destination was only a 15 minute subway train ride away.
So we had 5 hours to spare which the others spent flirting with each other on the grass beside the bus, I wanted to tell them to get a room but since I would be sharing that room with them, I thought better of it.

Since a couple of decisions that I'd previously made were met with a half-joking, half-sarcastic salute and a "Yes Supervisor!", I decided to take a step back from what was apparently being seen as an overly assertive, leadership position, however, 30 minutes before we were due to start live-streaming, Jak and Lisa were still sat on the grass.    It was fortunate that I had already gone ahead and learned enough Hungarian to find out which station was our destination, which train we needed, which tickets and how to get them etc. because by the time Jam and Lisa were ready to leave the bus, we were already late.

Once we arrived at Vorosmarty Square, I again stepped back from being assertive or bossy about choosing a location to set up our stand, and was met with annoyance because I was not making the decision and so Jak was reluctantly forced to decide where we situated ourselves.

Just before we finished setting up a group of Hungarian men approached us and asked if we were the flat earthers, and then the leader of the group asked if I knew Alex, who was their country's leading flat earthers, and before I could say no, he handed me his phone and said "Here, speak to him"
I was pleasantly surprised to find that Alex was in fact, my friend Sandor, who had invited me to Hungary three years earlier to participate in a laser experiment across Lake Balaton. Sandor told us that he would be joining us a little later.

Vorosmarty Square was noisy in terms of building work but quiet in terms of pedestrians, nonetheless we had some good conversations, there was one in particular that stood out, and that was with a Swedish couple who did not even want to take a flyer at first but we spoke for 30 minutes and they came back several times to ask more questions and finally when I answered his "Why?" question, I had him nodding and saying " That's a good answer"

Once again the local guy was the star of the show, Sandor leapt straight into action, engaging them right from the start, the body language of those he spoke to indicated that they were fascinated.    Lisa got caught by an evangelical Christian and I misunderstood her appeal for help, and opted not to step on her toes.    Jak found himself speaking to a very open minded School Teacher and his wife who were both very excited by the topic, so much so that they took a stack of flyers to give to their students.

Long after we packed up the display, Sandor was still engaging a couple of locals which left Sandor buzzing and wanting to do more activism.

We spent some time with Sandor at his house before we eventually said goodbye to Sandor and Hungary... Or so we thought...

Bratislava, Slovakia. 14th October 2019

After my first good night's sleep being able to actually stretch out (I have hitherto slept on the short bed that is made up by converting the table and chairs), we awoke early and found we had a few extra hours to spare, we were finally able to do some housekeeping and other tasks, Jak and I replaced the missing side window with a reasonable looking cover while Lisa practiced Yoga poses on the grass.

There was a little dissention in the ranks when Jak started cutting out numbers out of black vinyl and placed a large 6633 in reversed numerals on the front of the van, I asked why he did it and he said that those numbers have power and that we should reclaim those numbers back, I pointed out that essentially he had placed a reversed 666 on the front of the van and explained that it is like a sign to let those who have the eyes to see, know who is responsible for it and that there is probably an esoteric power or significance to these numbers that we don't understand.    Jak tried to argue but I said that it would be like painting a pentagram on the front of the van, and it doesn't matter if you believe a word magic explanation for it, it's still a pentagram and it still invokes things whether you believe them or not.    Jak then said that he would remove them if I was uncomfortable with its presence, but was visibly annoyed when I said I was.   He then proceeded to place the reversed numbers on the inside of the rear door anyway.

We found the near perfect spot right next to Hveiezdoslavovo Square in Bratislava and since we had two hours before we were due to broadcast, we decided to try and find a laundrette.   A passerby gave us directions but due to another case of Jak's stunningly inept navigation skills, we walked a kilometre in the wrong direction and then had to walk back one and a half kilometres in the other way only to find we'd been directed to a Dry Cleaner who promised to have our clothes ready by Thursday, when we'll be nearly 1000 miles away in Moldova. We were then directed across the river (Which we later discovered was the Danube) and after about a half hour of walking we realised that we were already late for the live-stream.

The layout of the location was not ideal but we chose the best location we could find, but foot traffic was light over the whole area.    I volunteered to be the cameraman but since there were relatively few customers, I walked around and absorbed the atmosphere. Bratislava exudes an unhurried, mediterranean feeling with wide tree-lined streets, fountains and water features that one might find in Spain or Italy.    The square was somewhere one could come to on a summer sunday afternoon and just chill and watch the world go by.

Although the relatively few interactions we had were on the whole good, Lisa was tied up for a very long time speaking to a lawyer who quite predictably argued with everything and dismissed anything inconvenient, and I had my fair share of arrogant Americans, so much so that I felt I needed to rant on the live-stream, but the show was stolen by Peter, who travelled for 3 hours to join us.

Peter engaged with people with a natural easy-going charm which won over those who initially did not want to take a flyer, such that he not only engaged them in a lively conversation but got them to take a flyer anyway.
Peter was a legend, and it was he who'd sent his friend Jan our way in Prague and Jan was also legendary.

After we packed up and took the obligatory pictures by the Globe Lie bus, Peter treated us to a delicious local meal with the best soup I have ever had in my life. It was a creamy garlic soup but it was served in a small round hollowed out "bowl" of bread with a "lid" of bread and a liberal dollop of Cream just under the lid.

Once again we were humbled by the warmth and kindness of our flat earth family.

Vienna, Austria. 13th October 2019

I woke up to find the Jak had driven through the night to get to Vienna and was preparing to take Egor to the railway station, and so Egor left the tour but promised to meet us in Ljubljana, his home town.

Vienna was cold and grey and seemed quite a sterile place, the streets were clean and tidy yet somehow clinical and impersonal, the nondescript architecture reminded me of the impossible city in the film Inception.    We set up on the corner of St Stephen's Cathedral as we tried to unpick the irony of preaching Flat Earth from the steps of the church.

For me the interactions with the public bridged two extremes, on the one hand I spoke to several people who claimed to be Scientists, Physicists and one even stated that he worked on satellites, and virtually all of them had strong opinions regarding the ridiculousness of Flat Earth but were oddly reluctant to discuss the matter. One woman physicist who did engage, painted herself into a corner and was forced to state that constant motion in a circle is NOT acceleration, another insisted, once I showed him the impossibility of satellites reflecting the sun, that satellites had powerful floodlights that allowed them to be seen at night.

On the other hand, I met several young people, including a group of Australian students, who initially mocked us with their questions but were visibly intrigued with the answers, I could see the wheels turning in the head of one student as I showed her a thought experiment that disproved both Newtonian and Einsteinian conceptions of Gravity.

About two hours in a familiar scene began to unfold, with lights flashing and sirens blaring, a Police car screeched around the corner on to the pedestrian precinct and came to a half just beyond our display and jumped out Starski and Hutch style, Lisa and I braved ourselves for what seemed to be another Police encounter with a pair of overzealous cops, but they ignored us and ran into the church instead no doubt to arrest a choir boy for biting off a priest's dick :/

The funniest moment came when I offered a flyer to a man who refused it, so I told him that I don't want to give him one anyway because the information in it was too valuable, and hid them behind my back, but then he became intrigued and after a few minutes of Flat-smacking he virtually begged me for a flyer :)

Vienna seemed rather reserved compared to Prague, but it was a good day nonetheless.

Prague, Czech Republic. 12th October 2019

While on the gruelling 700 mile journey toward Prague, we received word that the Czech Republic had just beaten England in a European league match and the Old Town Square was full of drunk pissed off England fans.

The folks back at Mission Control had gotten nervous and suggested that we divert to Wenceslas Square instead, but as we approached Prague we decided that instead of parking up somewhere outside of the city and finding a location the following day just before setting up, we would just head over to the Old Town Square and check out the situation there.

By the time we got to the city it was 4:00 AM, there was absolutely no traffic and we were able to secure the perfect parking space yards from the square.
Lisa was in the mood to go dancing, so she and Jak, decided to go out and ended up at a strip club where Lisa jumped up on stage and started Pole Dancing with Security attempting to get her off the stage...   She managed to do it twice and won a round of applause from the patrons.

It is doubtful that we'll be allowed back in Prague again.

The weather in Prague was beautiful, it was warm, and sunny, deep blue skies without even a hint of chemical death trails in the air. Because it was the Sabbath for me, I could not help out with the set up, and I reduced my participation in the discussions, but the discussions I did have were, on the whole, very positive.    We were joined by Jan, a Czech local who had been following our progress, and he confirmed that our decision not to go to Wenceslas Square was in fact the right one as there were lots of Police clashing with England fans there and there was nothing of the sort where we were.

Jan fielded all our Czech visitors with a softly spoken voice and a welcoming smile and really enjoyed his first time in street activism, he also showed us photograph of a local astronomical clock that was recently changed from showing a flat earth map, accurately displaying sunrise and sunset times, to a spherical projection that was purely decororative.
The Hundredth Monkey effect also seemed to still be in operation, as despite the large Police presence, not one of them bothered us for the six hours we were there.    The square was packed with people ensuring that we had a never ending supply of visitors.

As our time in Prague drew to a close, the England fans began to do what England fans do in a foreign country when the sun goes down, they gathered outside of the Irish pubs and loudly sang football chants, intimidating the locals.

The City of Prague is a beautiful place, clean, rustic streets, awe inspiring architecture with a chilled romantic atmosphere, yet somehow thousands of England fans appeared not to notice and instead reduced it to just another Saturday night outside the Plough and Tractor in Basildon with its inevitable fights, broken beer glasses and alternating pools of urine and vomit.

Vilnius, Lithuania. 10th October 2019

Today was a rather subdued day, we arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania and it was cold wet and miserable, and in a break from the usual routine we arrived earlier than we needed to be there and decided to relax in a cafe and share a hot chocolate together.

The location in front of the Town Hall was a little unusual, there was a large empty paved plaza bounded on all sides by streets lined with shops, but unfortunately this is where all the people were, there seemed to be no reason for anybody to cross over and pass by our display, however, we scouted around and this was the only location that we could have utilised, so foot traffic was predictably light, nonetheless we had some interesting engagements with people, notably a group of college students who initially found the idea quite hillarious, however the questions that were being relayed through a young woman who was the group's spokesperson stopped being mocking and became more and more inquisitive and detailed

It began to rain quite heavily, and Lisa began to complain about being cold and wet so we decided to call it a day after only a couple of hours, the day didn't look like it was going to improve and we still had a mammoth 700 mile journey to Prague ahead of us.

Riga, Latvia. 9th October 2019

Our day started early in the morning with finishing off the Globe Lie Bus with placing the remaining stickers on the relatively bare side of the bus. After a little discussion we decided the only place we could put Mark Sargent's picture was over the window of the campervan's toilet, the unintended consequence of this is that I can no longer to go for a wee in the campervan because it looks like Mark Sargent is watching me go :O

Conflicting GPS directions meant that we were an hour late arriving at Riga Town Hall, admittedly, we were also "forced" to stop when we spotted a huge statue of a monkey in a spacesuit (There was no was we couldn't make a quick detour and take a picture of the giant space monkey) and we eventually found a spot in front of the Town Hall (called the Riga Dome), opposite a building with the most incomprehensible clock I'd ever seen:

As usual things started off rather quietly, but I did notice that there was a man sitting across from us watching us intently as we set up our banners, he was later joined by a large woman with green hair, but neither of them approached us.    After a short time we started to generate some interest, mainly from students as apparently the building next door was a University, but then predictably the Police appeared, or rather one lone police officer was dispatched to deal with us.    This time Jak spoke with him and rebuffed the usual attempt to move us on but he sent him to me as the group's "supervisor".
The young cop politely waited for me to finish my interaction with a very receptive local and then asked me for my identification for his report, I introduced myself as Dave, shook his hand but declined to provide any other form of identification, citing that unless I had committed a crime, I have no obligation to provide him with identification. This time he gave up quickly with a long sigh, leading me to believe that there is a Hundredth Monkey effect occurring between the Police in Europe... Hopefully :)

I took a turn holding the livestreaming camera and decided to take a wide shot of our little installation and noticed that the green haired Teletubby had a small sign on her back which read "Sci-Man Dan says Make fun of Flat Earthers".

Sci-Man Dan is a weasel faced, opportunist who makes money from YouTube by ridiculing flat earthers with pseudo-science, and apparently two of his minions answered his call and staged a silent protest against us... So silent in fact, that it was two hours before we'd even noticed them.    Apart from standing off at a distance looking silly, it appeared like they had no idea how to protest our presence or make fun of us, they did not interact with anyone or do anything but have the she-hulk stand around with a sign on her back that only served to draw attention to her rather bovine posterior.

After a short debate Tweedle Dee had stormed off feigning outrage at being told to be quiet, which conveniently removed her from any further discussion, while her partner feigned stupidity because he could not explain a simple moon landing hoax contradiction.

They left soon after, tails firmly between their legs.

Come on Sci-Man Dan, surely you must be able to do better than this?    We have a campervan, we can come to your house if you like?

We were helpfully joined by another Dave, an Australian living in Latvia and we completed an otherwise uneventful day of Flat-smacking Latvia.

Tallinn, Estonia. 8th October 2019

We thought we'd given ourselves plenty of time to get to the town hall but we didn't figure on the difficulty with parking the bus. Nonetheless we managed to arrive only 10 minutes late, and so the waiting media were not too stressed out. While the others set out the banners, I have the interview with Delphi TV.