Holiday-yay

There's all sorts as go on holiday, and the House of Boyo is one of them. Unlike you fuxin peasants, however, we have a house abroad in the hancestral homeland of Mrs Boyo and Dustin Hoffman, what is Ukraine.

I can't recommend Ukraine too highly as a place or idea, so go and find out yourselves. Kyiv is the city Cardiff would have been if The Labour hadn't cacked on Zaha Hadid's plan for an hopera house/arms dump instead of that Mileniwm Stadium no one bothers to use. All we've got left is a Dr Who set, Clwb Ifor Bach and Lord Elis-Thomas's Tlws of Destiny. In Lviv they still worship the King-Emperor Francis Joseph I, and eagerly await the coming of the II though he may tarry.

The food is plentiful and deep-fried, drink is given away by policemen at the gibbet-decked crossroads, porn is compulsory on all 876 TV channels from lunchtime, and the entire female population aged 18-40 think that American kickboxing flicks are a guide to fashion. Gwych.

On top of that, vodka addiction has turned 150 million Russians into a dwarf-saluting bunch of noseless trolls, but for Ukrainians that just isn't enough. Instead, they add paprika and horse radish (that's chrayne to you and me) to give it a bit of a kick. Sinus problems and the ability to perform simple mental addition become things of the past.

To sample all of this, I can recommend Khatynka (see photograph - and hat tip to The Lord Stent) on Velyka Vasilkivska, Kyiv, where the staff will give you a warm welcome and complimentary mouse. I gave mine to an obliging Uzbek lady who'd followed me in.