Christmas

A Happy Christmas/Yuletide/Winterval/etc to you all. I hope that Father Christmas brings you everything you asked for tonight, and that you enjoy stuffing your face tomorrow!

Walnut Walnut

I experienced more new bits of London over the weekend, which is always nice. On Saturday we were in Beckenham (which likes to call itself Kent, but is London really). It's a suburb of SE London, about 20 minutes out from Victoria. In the evening we set out to Walnut Walnut, a restaurant in West Hampstead, for dinner. It was very good - the food was excellent, and I liked the exposed kitchen. The dining area itself was pretty cramped though! We finished quite late and got a minicab back across town at about 100mph, which added a high-adrenaline aspect to the evening.

The next day we went for a walk around Blackheath and poked around the shops and farmer's market there before heading down to Greenwich for a spot of lunch. We tried the Cutty Sark Tavern, but missed last food orders by about a minute. Still, we had a pint and the pub was pleasant enough. Afterwards we headed back to Paddington via the DLR. It was the first time I've used that - it's sort of like the tube but you can see out of the front. Also, I'm pretty sure it's automated, but there seemed to be a DLR worker sat at the front. Not sure what he does...

Lost?

So, series 2 of 'Lost' ended last night and I got that strange feeling of being satisfied, yet at the same time quite annoyed that it was all left in the air! I only watch about 3 things on TV at the moment, Lost being one of them, so in some ways it's good that the series is over as it frees-up another hour a week. At the same time though, I do like it. It's wacky and daft, but fairly compulsive none the less. Just right for telly really.

America

I got back from the States on Sunday night. Still haven't quite recovered. It was great to have three weeks away and see such amazing stuff. The Grand Canyon is very big, and sequoia trees are too. Lots of big things. However, I'm not going to run through my holiday here as that is dull for 99% of you, so instead, here are my observations of America:

• There is lots of good seafood to be had along the California coast. However, all restaurant owners seem compelled to call themselves Italian or Irish or something.


• Driving is generally ok, although everyone speeds. On the highways and interstates the speed limits seem to only apply to tourists. In fact people get a bit angry if you stick to it, or 10mph above. Also, the signs are rubbish. No warning for motorway turnoffs, and as for the cities? Urgh.


• Talking of the roads, they are long, straight, and pretty boring. A lot of them are in a sorry state of repair, even the big highways. Not as bad as the ones in Moscow, but pretty poor. It's quite bizarre though, being the only car on a fairly main highway in the middle of the day.


• There are far, far more poor people than I imagined. Lots of homeless in the cities (especially San Francisco), and loads of little towns along the highways where people are living in crappy corrugated iron houses with smashed-up cars in the garden. This seemed to be the norm in the more desert areas of California, and pretty much everywhere in Nevada and Arizona. The level of poverty in some people seems much worse than in the UK. Utah, on the other hand, seems really quite nice. No evidence of poor housing there, although I'm sure there is some, somewhere.


• They still use lots of polystyrene (or 'styrofoam', as they call it). Coffee cups, takeaway containers... loads of it. It's like the 80's


• Everyone is very friendly, or at least the 'real' people you meet are. The people in shops and restaurants seem the same as here, or perhaps a little worse, when it comes to being friendly. The US customs people have a real problem though. Jeez, it's like you're the scum of the Earth when you walk though there


• American TV is insane. There are adverts every two seconds. And the news? I knew Fox News was pretty bad, but even CNN had items called things like 'Know Your Enemy' about the meeting of non-aligned nations in Cuba. People like Hugo Chávez were presented as 'hating America'. Man, no wonder a lot of Americans have mad ideas about the world! I thought CNN was meant to be a serious news source. I think they tone it down for the UK and the rest of the world and make it more sensible.


• It's almost impossible to eat healthily if you depend on diners etc. for breakfast. It's pancake with syrup, or bacon, or anything else that's fried


• Vegas is mad, in a great way. You really have to see it.


• Petrol is really, really cheap. However, beer isn't really

I'm sure there's more. I had a great time. Some of the sights were pretty amazing. I've got lots of photos that I will put on Flickr soon, that way I can show you the amazingness rather than having to describe it.

Christmas in New Zealand, birthday in the US - makes me feel quite the international traveller! I've been feeling a bit odd since I got back though - not really had a chance to get over the jet lag, I think. I've found myself having strange emotional bursts, like being bothered a bit too much that some people hadn't remembered my birthday, which is unlike me. I need some sleep...

We're all going on a summer holiday

I'm off to the States for three weeks. This will be my first trip there, so I'm going with an open mind. Obviously I will post my impressions here when I get back. First though, I must brace myself for the combined madness of bank holiday airports and paranoid travellers...

Summer school

I've just had a fantastic week away in Durham for the summer school for my OU course. Fantastic stuff. We flew to Newcastle from Bristol, got the Metro to the station then the train to Durham, so it was only a couple of hours door to door (although that's more money to Future Forests to offset that evil CO2!). It was an early flight, and thanks to my objection to buying anything other than beer at airports we had a particularly early 7am pint. Still, start as you mean to go on eh?

We got to Durham pretty early so we got a chance to look around too. Durham is quite similar to Bath in that it's a pretty small city with lots of old bits, and there are several nice pubs to sit in and while away the time. As we discovered. Soon enough it was time to go back to the university to register. We were based in Hatfield College for A214, which is right next to the cathedral in the nice old bit. Some other courses had summer schools going on further out, but we didn't really have anything to do with them. We were lucky as all of the buildings we used had great locations, and were close together. Can't fault it.

The hall we were staying in was... basic. I've seen and lived in some halls in my time, but these were pretty ropey. It was no problem for a week of course, but I might have got slightly depressed if I was in there for a year. Still, there were some great people in there with me. There were so many great people on the course that it just didn't seem long enough to meet them all - I was still meeting fascinating people on the last night. Does this all sound a bit gushing? Well, it really was that good and some of the people really that great. To top it all off, the work itself was great too. Hard in places, but great. It was so good to be with loads of people doing a subject they love - just like university again really, and actually in a university obviously added to that.

If you ever do an OU course with a summer school, make sure you go! You won't regret it. If I had to come up with a regret, I'm just sorry that I won't be able to do it again.

Hot

It's flipping hot isn't it? Can't complain about the sunshine, but the heat does knacker me out a bit. My 2 mile or so walk home is all up a reasonably steep hill, and in this heat I'm pretty much soaked in sweat when I get home. Yum.. there's a mental image you could do without eh? Needless to say, I just want to chill out a bit with a gin and tonic when I get here so I'm not getting as much done as I'd like.

Anyway, the weekend was good. On Sunday we went on what is now almost a traditional yearly trip to Longleat. I took a camera this time and managed to get some photos of animals (which you'll find on on my Flickr page) before the battery inconveniently ran out. It was a lovely day but the downside of that was that pretty much everyone else seemed to have decided to go to Longleat on the same day, so it was very busy.

Rather excitingly the company I work for got bought by another much bigger company yesterday. This has caused much idle gossip and speculation at work, which is always fun in itself. Time will tell how it all pans out I suppose - it doesn't make much of an immediate difference to me but our directors and senior management can probably retire early. Not that they will, the mugs. If I had enough money to retire then I would! Unfortunately my shares in the company aren't exactly going to go far towards paying off a months credit card bill, let alone the mortgage!

Random Elephants

It just so happened that my pal and ex-housemate Luke was in Moscow on Friday night, so he gave me a call and I ventured out into the city to meet him and his pals for a bite to eat. The original plan was to eat at a place called Gogol near the Marriott Aurora, but that turned out to have some gig or possibly football going on, so we wandered off to find somewhere else.

Wandering around Moscow is strange. It's quite chaotic of course, and I'm getting used to that, but we came across some weirdness. There was an elephant in the street at one point, with lots of balloons. There was obviously a reason for it but there didn't seem to be a crowd or anything. Strange. Anyway, we went to a bar that was a favourite of Luke's friend Esther. I can't remember the name, but they served very sweet Russian 'champagne' and tasty food (although in rather small and randomly delivered portions). My suspicions about Russian customer service was confirmed throughout the meal. The waiter was a bit abrupt (stopping just short of being rude), and he warned us that his shift was finishing so we'd better pay up now (or words to that effect). Can't be missing his tip can he? It was an enjoyable evening though, and on the way back I had my first experience of a car home the way most Russians do it, i.e. sticking a thumb out and hopping in one of about 5 cars that instantly stop. For 500 rubles we took a very fast trip through Moscow in a knackered old Lada with a smashed windscreen and no seatbelts. The gearbox was also making alarming noises on every gear change - apparently it failed completely soon after I got dropped off at my hotel. Fantastic.

Today I met the others near the same spot and we had tea in a cafe before heading to the bus station on the Metro to see Luke off. Luke had forgotten to bring any rubles so I performed a handy currency exchange (I knew that carrying cash and not depending on my card had to be useful one day). They were lucky to get a relatively modern bus rather than one of the many Soviet-era black-smoke-spewing ones. It actually looked like it would make the six hour journey in one piece. We then wandered back to the Metro and I did a short tour of the grander stations... you know, the ones with the mosaics and chandeliers. They are indeed very grand, but it's not quite like all of the Metro stations are like that, as I had heard. Worth seeing though.

Now it is nearly 8pm, or 5pm GMT, so the England-whoever game must be on. People care less here now that the Ukraine are out, but it's actually quite nice to be away from all of the football hysteria. A quick check of the BBC website reveals that it is half time and 0-0. Good to keep up with these things in case I bump into another expat in the hotel who can't really talk about anything else!

Moscow again

Here I am in Moscow again! Going by my blog I guess it doesn't look like I ever left, but I did the day after my last entry. I've done some stuff back in the UK of course but have mostly been busy with my OU course. I did attend the Bath Storytelling Circle in The Raven, which was rather good. We also went to see The Fountainhead in the Little Theatre, which was a one-off showing done by the Bath Film Festival. Very weird but good. The World Cup has been going on of course, and I've seen one game. It's about as interesting as football gets, I suppose.

So anyway, here I am in Moscow again, and for slightly longer this time. It's hot and sunny which bodes well. There's some inconvenience with the hotel being quite full so I have to move rooms three times while I'm here, but that's last minute travel for you! At least I don't have to change hotels completely like I had to in China. I also get a weekend here too this time, so assuming work doesn't go all pear-shaped I might even get to see the parts of Moscow that aren't on the road to the airport or the office!

Moscow observations

Some observations:

• nobody wears seat-belts, even though speeds in the city are about 60mph and zero, but nowhere in between.


• Speaking of cars, everyone has either a bashed-up old Lada or a very expensive Merc, etc. Nobody seems to bother with something in the middle


• very, very few people in the street are smiling, even when it's sunny. They seem happy enough when you actually talk to them though


• There seems to be a trend with women of dying their hair (or some of it) red. Also, tight jeans that stop halfway down the calf seem very popular. On the other hand there are lots of very stylish people in expensive clothes


• Everyone eats more soup than you'd think, especially rather thin, watery soup with vague bits of fish in it


• The cotton-wool-like seeds from the trees that make it look like it's snowing are rather pretty, and you really have to see them. It's funny that everyone here are so used to it that they wondered what I was talking about at first. There are huge piles of seeds everywhere, and the rain has only thinned them from the air a little bit. Bizarre.

The good weather finally departed today and it rained in the afternoon. Still, this is the first rain I've seen for weeks so I can't complain! At least I've now seen the city in bad weather too. It doesn't quite stop people driving like lunatics of course, but that adds to the 'fun'.

I'm flying back tomorrow. When I was booking the car to the airport the lady laughed at my 3.5 hours of allowed time and said I'd never make it in that on a Friday. Bear in mind that I'm in Moscow and this is Moscow airport we're talking about! See what I mean about the mad traffic? Having said that, I dread to think how long it would take to get from, say, Leicester Square to Heathrow in the rush hour, and that's roughly what I'll be doing...

Moscow

The food at my hotel continues to impress with the 'Russian-themed' restaurant in the hotel providing yet another excellent classic Russian meal. It was quite flashy, and lunch in the canteen of the company I am visiting today was a marked contrast. This consisted of a large boiled tongue on a plate of pasta, along with some horseradish. It turns out that ox tongue with horseradish is a traditional dish, but it was challenging in its tongue-ness. Tasty though.

The weather remains rather magnificent and the golden roofs on the Kremlin looked particularly sparkly today. The traffic was really heavy so I had a good chance to appreciate the views. It turns out that the huge queues of people (and police with guns) that I saw outside the Christ The Saviour cathedral yesterday weren't as normal as I'd assumed. They have the 'right hand of John the Baptist' on loan from Montenegro. It's 'believed' to have healing powers and is in Moscow for the first time since being smuggled out of Russia after the revolution. This seems to be enough to bring out the crowds (it was a particularly impressive queue), so the locals must be quite a cultured lot. It's a shame that you don't see so many locals when staying in hotels, but I was too knackered to venture out too far today. I hope that work doesn't end up going to the wire and I get some time to look around a bit more...

From Russia, With Love

..or if not 'love', at least some sort of warm and fuzzy feeling. Here I am in Moscow, and you know what? It has made a good impression on me so far.

The day didn't start off brilliantly. I got to work to park the car while I'm in Russia only to find myself trapped in the car park for 20 minutes. We have a cunning key-card entry system for our work car park you see, and I managed to drive in when someone else was leaving. Once parked I found that my card didn't work, so I couldn't get out. It's just as well it wasn't a weekend or I could have died of thirst, or hypothermia or something. Madness. Anyway, eventually someone came in to the car park so I could get out and walk to the station, where conveniently I hadn't quite missed my train.

I experienced another of life's firsts at Heathrow when I was paged over the PA. It was all quite exciting. I left to queue for checking-in and went to find out what it was all about. About half an hour later I had discovered that it was just a request from some of our guys in Russia to pick up some mains adapters which, while not massively exciting, was at least one of the few things it is possible to do at Heathrow airport. Plus I now know how it feels to be all important by getting paged - the reality is that the airport staff don't really know who to phone or what's going on. This is an interesting insight into the way airports operate in itself.

The flight to Moscow was uneventful. Some Russian girl has sat in my seat but it was a good excuse to strike-up conversation. She was clearly reckless as she continued to use her mp3 player during takeoff/landing despite being told off several times. This would have made her sexy and exciting if she was good looking, but since she wasn't it just made her appear a bit lippy. Still, there are worse people to sit next to. The film on the plane was 'Firewall', which was actually quite good. I have decided that Chloe from '24' (who co-stars in it) can actually be attractive. I'm not sure what they do to her in '24' to stop this, because in that she's just annoying.

Moscow airport is like many in the east. As soon as you're through passport control your ears are assaulted by a thousand minicab drivers all asking you if you want a taxi. Thankfully mine was all ordered in advance so it was just a case of finding my name on a sign. This done, it was an hour's cruise into Moscow. First impressions of Moscow are good - it's nice and green with lots of parks and trees, the traffic doesn't seem to be insane, and we drove right past the Kremlin and other landmarks, which is nice. It feels a bit like London in some ways, what with the bridges over the river and the seat of government right on the river bank. It looks clean and they seem to have made a real effort with interesting public art, nice flags on the bridges, and so on. Hopefully I will be able to get a few photos to illustrate these points.

My hotel is ok. The room is nothing special, but there is a good selection of restaurants and very posh shops downstairs. I went to the 'Russian' restaurant for dinner and it was very good, although very quiet. Afterwards I met up with a colleague for a drink in the bar and we talked about work. Hopefully it will all go ok tomorrow...

Another night of music theory

...or to be more accurate, another night where I should be doing some music work, but I've managed to faff about until 8pm so far. My first minor panic involved not being able to find my MOT etc. to get my tax disc tomorrow. I eventually decided that it must have gone into the recycling and resigned myself to an 80 quid fine and a load of hassle. However, it turned out that it was in my work bag all along, so I had a beer to calm myself down. Time has somehow slipped away further since then. Once I get this blog entry done though... yes.. that's when I'll start on cramming four weeks of work into the remaining 4 days before my assignment is due in. I work (best) under pressure.

Anyway, what has been happening? Mostly work. Last week I was in London for a work training thing. I went down on Saturday for drinking and fun at the Seymour Place Salon and a good time was had by all. There was some competitive 'Taboo!' and I met my first right-wing Australians. Afterwards we retired to the pub and watched Finland win the Eurovision Song Contest, much as I'd hoped they would (but in one of the way that you hope for something that you know is impossible). Fantastic. After the pub we went back and talked nonsense until the early hours.

On Sunday morning it was raining a lot, but that didn't stop us visiting almost every eatery in the area trying to decide where to have breakfast. Eventually we ended-up in the planned choice, Providores, on Marylebone High Street. The Turkish poached eggs were excellent. A casual day of lounging around followed, but we managed to get some geekiness in there with a trip to Maplins on Edgeware Road.

On Monday I get to the Radisson Edwardian hotel in Heathrow nice and early for my week long training course. It was interesting and actually useful, plus the hotel had top food. We got the level of drinking down to a level I could cope with this time too - it was quite hardcore on the last training course! The hotel itself was massive and seemed to be a corporate favourite. Our merry band was small compared to the large group from an 'ethical pharmaceutical company' who seemed to employ mainly attractive women in their twenties. Top stuff. Their fancy dress party on Monday night was most amusing.

On Friday the course finished at midday so I went into town with a colleague to see X-Men III at the Odeon in Whiteleys. It was ok, although I felt it could have been a bit longer as it was all rather rushed. He then headed off and I met Dave and we went for some food at The Shish on Queensway where I accidentally had some nuts and felt all allergic for a bit. Afterwards we went to the The Old Duke and sat out on the balcony where we talked to two random Oxbridge escorts. It was all quite bizarre but they were friendly enough and invited us to a strange non-drinking lock-in. At one point I thought they may have been trying it on but one of them had this weird bloke hanging around. London eh? I don't know what the hell is going on there most of the time.

Oxbrige people are funny. Usually I'm with the 'they're just like us' brigade. After all, I did go to a private school so I can relate to being called 'posh' and having kids from other schools randomly abuse me, so I'm usually the first to defend those who seem to attract such treatment. Sometimes it does begin to grate though, as was the case on Friday night. We fell into the whole university thing and it ended-up with the 'of course we're better because we went to Oxford' thing. Of course it's probably true that academically Oxbridge types have to be better qualified to get in, but it does result in some badly adjusted people coming out the other end who seem incapable of dealing with non-Oxbridge people. I guess people stick to what they know but I have to bite my tongue when I hear someone saying they could never marry someone who didn't go to Oxford. It's very weird, and in a way it makes me feel like I'm being judged, if indirectly. Maybe I'm just oversensitive. Anyway, you can pay to go out with both of the girls I met on Friday (and plenty more like them) if that sort of thing floats your boat. Look under the 'elite' section. Says it all really. Thankfully the vast majority of Oxbridge graduates I know are lovely people, but I'm sure they know people who suffer from the whole elitism thing. Mind you, perhaps I'm guilty of the same thing (although in my case it would be graduates, rather than Oxbridge graduates)? I don't think so though.

Project Red

Bono is guest editor of The Independent today, and half of today's revenue will go to fight AIDS. Why not help fights AIDS while getting your news fix today and buy a copy of arguably the best national paper?

Last night we went to see Luke (and some other people, obviously) in My Head Was A Sledgehammer at the Bristol Old Vic. Very avant-garde and abstract but great fun. You can catch it again tonight.

After the glory of coming first in the 'Best Cake Baked By A Man' category in Matt's 'Birthday Spring Fete And Agricultural Show' last year, this years cake could only make second place over the weekend. Still, a good time was had by all and we had some happy hours sampling the various categories and voting. I will have to make cakes more often and get some practice in to ensure future first places.

China and Hong Kong

This morning I got back from my trip to China and Hong Kong. I've had a little sleep and I don't feel too bad actually, but I'm down quite a few hours (I can never sleep on planes) so I'm sure it will hit me again in an hour or so. So, let's soldier on!

As I mentioned previously, my trip in to China was uneventful. I met the limo driver at Hong Kong airport with no trouble and followed him out of the airport where the heat really hit me - it was over 30 degrees and very humid, and I'd just been at more or less a constant 15 for hours. It was fairly oppressive and I feared that I was going to sweat to death in a shirt and tie over the week, but it turned out that the day was particularly hot. Anyway, no problem for the limo with its aircon. I traveled in style through the Hong Kong / China border without leaving my seat and before long I was at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Shenzhen.

The hotel is relatively new and the entrance/lobby is very grand. My room was very nice and the view pretty good. No complaints at all really, the main downside being that I only had a room until Tuesday as it was booked up after that. Annoyingly there was a huge trade show going on all week (the guy sat next to me on the plane was going to it so I knew a bit about it) and lots of hotels were full. I didn't worry as I thought we'd find something. Anyway, that evening my colleague and his wife arrived and we had a nice dinner and caught-up (he's based in Japan these days).

For five days we were based at a customer site in the city, so we'd catch a cab from the hotel in the morning and another back in the evening (the evening being much more difficult, both finding a cab and with the traffic). The journey was about 40 - 50 minutes, and.. well... if you've not seen Chinese driving then you wouldn't quite believe it. Maybe it's not all of China and is just Shenzhen, or maybe it's an asian thing? I don't know. What I do know is that it scared me silly. The roads are massively busy and nobody pays much attention to lanes, signs and so on. You progress through traffic by barging in and hoping for the best, beeping your horn a lot and flashing your lights. It's all very aggressive, although in some way everyone seems very calm. In the huge number of very closely missed collisions that we had nobody seemed to shout or get out of their cars to have a go at someone else. It's was bizarre. I'm amazed hundreds of people aren't killed every day, especially pedestrians, who seem to weave in and out of the traffic without looking like they are too bothered. They don't even particularly hurry.

As well as the mad drivers there is the whole scary communist thing going on. One day on the way back from work the army stopped us and asked to see our passports. I didn't have mine of course (don't they always tell you to leave it in the hotel safe?!) and I sat there with images of dodgy Chinese prisons and visits from diplomats going through my mind. Thankfully it was rush hour and the soldier didn't seem to want the fuss, so he waved us on. I carried my passport after that. It was scary, and if anything it reinforced my view that a British ID card would be bad. Not only would I not like to go through that feeling again, but I don't think it gives a very good impression of the country to tourists and the like. Anyway, it was all ok in the end.

The hotel had a couple of reasonable restaurants in it and on Monday we went to the 'Chinese' one (they were all Chinese of course, this just happened to do Chinese food). It was very good, if slightly bizarre. We ordered a number of dishes including a roasted duck. With some fanfare the chef brought it out and sliced it for us before showing us how to do the pancake bit (much like a Chinese in the UK). The strange bit was that he started with a whole duck and sliced off the skin before wheeling the trolley away. We sort of assumed that he was off to do the boring meat slicing elsewhere but he never came back, so from the whole duck we just got the skin. Very odd. The next day we quizzed one of the people in the Chinese firm if that was normal and she looked at us as if we were crazy, so God only knows what was going on there. For dessert we were offered ice cream or something but we thought we'd try something authentic so we asked for a 'Chinese dessert'. With some trepidation the waitress brought us some pots with a very dark jelly and a pot of honey, the idea being that the jelly was a bit bitter and the honey is for sweetening it. We ate it and it was ok (with the honey), but I wasn't a massive fan. The waitress seemed vaguely impressed that we'd eaten it anyway. Later we pondered what it was over drinks and couldn't decide. I didn't think about it again until we found out that it was probably made from the inside of a turtle shell (which is scraped to get the black stuff). Yum.

Luckily someone at the Chinese company we were working at found us a hotel for the rest of our stay so on Tuesday we checked in to the Landmark Hotel, much nearer the centre. I was impressed - it certainly looked nicer in the rooms than the Sheraton, the food was pretty good, and the service was impressive. There was rosewood everywhere and you even get a 'butler' who leaves you cute little notes. He's just one of about a million staff who seem to be employed just to say good morning to you as you leave, but hey, I'm shallow and I really liked that. The location is more central as I mentioned but seems to be a bit of a seedy district at night. That might be your thing of course, but if it isn't then the hotel food is good.

On Friday we got our work done (on time and more than was asked for, of course!) and checked out of the hotel and got the limo back to Hong Kong. The way back was less smooth - the queue at the border took ages and customs went through my bag (I must look dodgy to the Chinese army) but in the end we were through. My colleague and his wife flew back to Japan but I couldn't get a flight until Tuesday, so I went to a hotel in Hong Kong. I got a room at the Grand Stanford. It was ok but I felt rather unimpressed after the Shenzhen hotels. It was more money (everything in HK is more) and the service was far worse. I also had a really rubbish view of a wall from my room! It's true that the hotel itself does have an excellent view of Victoria Harbour but don't expect that in all the rooms! Anyway, there's more to life than views so I didn't worry too much about it.

The hotel is in the Kowloon district which is known for its shops, and boy are there shops! However, a lot of these seem to be hairdressers (bizarrely) and Indian guys who make made-to-measure suits. These guys almost ruin any stroll around town as they are good at spotting Europeans and chasing you around trying to convince you to get measured-up. You have to be pretty forceful to get them to go away and... well.. it's just not British to shout at strangers is it? I did feel like telling them that I might have been interested in a fitted suit if they'd just shut up and let me look at their posters (which is true), but starting any conversation with them is daft.

Hong Kong was generally very hot and I restricted my strolls to relatively short bursts. Sadly, as I was in China on business my suitcase was full of suits, shirts and so on rather than summer wear so I had to improvise a bit around what I had on me, and it wasn't massively suitable. Still, I did get a good poke around the place. I'd really recommend it for a holiday - there's lots to do and there's enough English spoken for it not to be a problem (much more than Shenzhen). It's got quite familiar touches too thanks to being British until so recently so you sort of feel at home. Be prepared to spend quite a lot of money if you like a drink though (a pint often costs more than your main course). If you were there for a holiday rather than killing a couple of days then it wouldn't be cheap.

I'm a bit of a newbie to business travel and one thing really hit me on this trip. My hotel has its fair share of 'business men' and they were easy to spot since they were like me, sat at the bar reading a paper or something rather than chatting to obvious wives/girlfriends. There was a purpose to this though as most of them seemed to come to the hotel bar to pick up hookers. It was a real eye-opener - you sit at the bar on your own and within about two minutes a girl will come and talk to you. Now these aren't trashy-looking women and some were beautiful, but it was a bit odd. Thankfully they weren't pushy at all and it all seemed to operate on a bit of an 'understanding' - the men would say very little to them before wondering off to their rooms. Somehow the whole thing wasn't at all seedy though and you only noticed it if you watched what was going on. Most of the bar was filled with couples and groups. It did serve to give me a pretty negative impression of men traveling on their own though. I don't doubt that some of those men have wives or girlfriends, yet a lot of them probably 'relax' with hookers quite often. It's sort of depressing really.

Anyway, here I am back at home. China and Hong Kong were great and it was a fascinating trip. China is the 'most foreign' place I've been and it was a bit of an eye-opener in many ways. Still, every new country I go to reinforces the idea that people are all the same pretty much anywhere you go. The Chinese may live in a dodgy state that does questionable things, but most of them seem to be happy and are just getting on with life. Of course I didn't go to any poor or rural areas where it's completely different, so I'm not blind to the fact that it is completely different. One thing I do know though - there's a lot of money there and a lot of big companies with big ideas. I'm sure we'll all see more Chinese influence in the world at an rapidly increasing level.

See some pictures including the fascinating view from my hotel room in Hong Kong on Flickr.

Trips away

Last weekend we had a lovely few days in Mousehole in Cornwall. It's a small harbour just along the coast from Penzance and it very cute in that typically Cornish harbour way. I'm not sure why I haven't been before since I've been to pretty much everywhere in Cornwall before. Having said that we also popped in to Land's End, another place I haven't been before (and less tacky than I thought it might be, mainly because you can ignore the tacky bits). Anyway, Mousehole was great. If you ever find yourself there then I really recommend The Old Coastguard - it's a very good bar/restaurant with great views. The Ship Inn is also a good pub with great pub food. I was surprised that there weren't more places to eat/drink on the seafront actually - the old Lobster Pot restaurant is now flats, and with so many tourists clogging the place up you'd have thought that there was money to be made. Ho hum.

Anyway, I'm starting a small phase of visiting places beginning with 'C' and I'm now in China. I'm in a rather nice hotel in Shenzhen having arrived via Hong Kong a few hours ago. The flight was as ok as flights can be - the extra legroom I had this time (last time I flew to Hong Kong in Economy my legs didn't really fit) made it much more comfortable. Funnily enough I sat next to a guy from Cornwall on the plane and we talked about last weekend. There's some massive trade conference going on here and he's over to sell his wares. The hotel staff were slightly surprised when I said that I wasn't here for the conference and perhaps it is bad timing since a lot of flights were booked-up and I have to move hotels on Tuesday as this one is full. Not too bad for a trip mostly booked on Friday though.

More on China as I experience it. In the meantime I have to adjust to the whole jetleg thing and chill out a bit...

It's funny how some things in the world are different in a way that you can't easily predict. For example, despite knowing a few Americans and working with them every day, today I discovered that electric kettles (of which there is at least one in every house in the UK) are pretty rare in the US. Why this is God only knows, but you can check out this Amazon review to see their reactions to a kettle that turns off when the water has boiled, and so on. It's quite sweet.

I had an entertaining weekend dismantling a piano. No, it's not a terrible waste since the piano is knackered and beyond economic repair, and I finally decided to get on and do something about it. Nobody was willing to come and dispose of it without charging a good deal of money for the privilege, so I decided to break it up and take it to the dump myself. At this point I can assure you that dismantling a piano is easier said than done! The initial part (removing the keyboard, hammers and dampeners) is easy, but when you get to the cast iron frame and string it gets massively irritating. To get the iron frame off the main wooden piano frame you have to remove all of the strings, which is a time consuming (and blister-inducing) job. It's also rather more noisy than you might think - God only knows what the neighbours thought I was doing! Still, it's almost got to the point where I can separate the iron frame now, at which point it can get into the car. It will be nice to free-up some of my sitting room and paint the bit of wall where the piano was (which remains in the previous owners tasteful 'hot pink'. Out of destruction I can bring order, you see. Sort of like God.

A Delayed Hello to 2006

Well then, I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year? Good.

I spent December in New Zealand on holiday. It was absolutely fantastic. It would be hard to describe a month of doing loads of stuff every day here, so I won't attempt it. Instead, if you want to hear more about it then check out my photos. There are comments on each one so you can get a sort of running commentary, should you wish to.

What else? Well, before I left for NZ I left my job in Reading, and now I'm back working in Bath. No more 5 hours of commuting every day! It's quite a relief, and while I enjoyed my old job and the people were great, I've got a lot of my 'life' back now. After a year and a half of hardly being at home it's nice to actually do something all day other than working and sitting on a train.

In the news, interesting times for the Lib Dems. Short term damage for some long term gain, I think. Tomorrow I'm probably going to a meeting with Sir Menzes Campbell at the constituency office. It should be interesting and there'll be plenty of chances for questions in such a small venue. I think he's an intelligent man and a good politician, but Simon Hughes is still likely to get my vote. He can ride out his current media trials and do well, and he's sufficiently left-leaning for my tastes. I guess we'll see how it turns out.