get your hands off my counter you tourist filth

aloha ma laila

it is so that the majority of people who have ever lived in the last two hundred or so years (whether now presently alive, or since deceased, look you see) associate the date on which this was published, it being 20 January, with the arrival, or if you like landing, of Captain James Cook in Hawaii. his arrival, in 1778 no less, was at Waimea on an island of Hawaii known as Kauai, fact fans. given consideration to how this is the first (documented) instance of what is known called a European landing in the place, it feels quite right to mark the anniversary with a post.

well, ok, yes, sometimes it is so that this particular date (the twentieth of January) is known as "inauguration day" in the USA. but that is conditional on elections, a non-incumbent person being elected (or manipulated) as president, if it is a Sunday and so on. a right headache, it is, to work out if any particular year has an inauguration day, so it is best to just leave it aside as it isn't all that important a thing anyway. 

besides, no inauguration day has had the long term influence or consequence what James Cook touring Hawaii has had. probably, at least, i have not read up much on it, but my understanding of the modern world is that assumption and opinion reign supreme. things like surfing, and that smart Theme From Hawaii Five-O (but not the show, that was quite dull), probably would not exist were it not for Cook going to Hawaii, and no US President has ever created (directly or indirectly) anything as cool as them. 

how, exactly, did James Cook's trip (or sojourn) to Hawaii work out, or go? as in, what happened? this is probably something i should have read up on before writing this, but did not do so. but i would like to think a good deal of it served as, in many respects, inspiration for some key moments in A Fistful Of Traveller's Cheques. 

for those of you who don't know, or are unaware, A Fistful Of Traveller's Cheques is the third best thing ever to be done by Comic Strip Presents, with the first two of course being Bad News and the most excellent film The Supergrass. quite interchangeable, it is, which is the absolute best of the three, but then i suppose i shall forever and always love Bad News above much in this life, or presumably the next. 

no, it probably isn't likely that James Cook turned up in Hawaii dressed like Lee Van Cleef. also, i would be surprised to learn of it being so that when Cook landed there was such a thing as hotels, and that one of them would have been called Hotel Bastardos, as that does not sound particularly Hawaiian. not that i am too familiar with how they speak. 

did the people of Waimea, acting as they were in the role of impromptu ambassadors for the whole place, welcome James Cook and his crew? the latter element (the crew) presumably being there, since i suspect one chap could not have sailed one of them big ships all alone. but maybe he did, for all i know, as i declined to read up on it all prior to writing. 

i would like to think that the welcome he (they) got was not quite so rough and inhospitable as the below video (yes, we've got a video). and yet also, with my view being that the whole episode somehow influenced A Fistful Of Traveller's Cheques, i suppose it would have to be along these lines for my theory to be correct. or however that should be worded. 

that is a scene which has not ceased to amuse me over two centuries across a number of decades. blimey, wow, i am old, where did time drift to. no idea why this is so, it has just always appealed to my sense of humour, i guess. 

so much so, as point of fact, that i have longed wished to use the term "Tourist Filth" as the name for one thing or another. probably a band, at some stage, as that would be a really cool name for a band. back when music was decent, of course, but still. with no music ability at all, i could not form a group myself, but i am pretty sure that i used the name (Tourist Filth) for a pretend band in the game Rock Star Ate My Hamster on the Commodore 64.

on the whole, i would consider it improbable, yet remarkable, if for some reason in Hawaii James Cook was greeted by a quasi mock Spaniard, brandishing a hammer, wearing mirror sunglasses and a string vest. perhaps they should just say that actually, yes, it did happen like that, so as to make history far more interesting. well, no, history is interesting. appealing was the word i was looking for. 

have i any ambition or desire to visit Hawaii? well, any time in my life (thus far) what has seen me kind of follow the path what James Cook had been on before (rather than after) has worked out very well indeed, in truth. so, i have nothing against doing so. but, if what was presented to me (improbably) was a straight choice between Hawaii or staying at Hotel Bastardos, then the latter would very comfortably win. 

right, that's that, then. whatever it is you decide to do to celebrate the anniversary of Captain James Cook arriving (kind of) in Hawaii (or inauguration day, should you insist or be American), i hope it all goes very well indeed. 

maikaʻi loa kekahi i kekahi !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!