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Glasto 2008

2008-07-09T17:10:00.006Z

It may have been a couple of months since I got back, but here's my post-Glasto roundup.

I think I arrived earlier than I have before. First weren't running the bus from Bath this year (boo!), so I got a train to Temple Meads and the shuttle bus from there. It all went pretty smoothly, and even though it started pouring with rain just after I got on the bus, it was sunny by the time we arrived on-site about 40 minutes later. They've sorted-out the traffic this year, so only buses could go through Pilton. I don't know where the cars were sent, but it made the bus a lot quicker not having to sit in all the plebby car traffic. Hurrah!

I'd sent my tent up and had a cup of tea by about 1:30pm, so I headed off to find some music. I spent a lot of time at the Small World Solar Stage where I caught Crystal Masters (sort of bluesy/country stuff), Celeste Lovick (who I thought was excellent - I bought one of the CDs she was selling), and Cornelius. I spent the rest of my Wednesday poking around the Green Fields and enjoying the site in its pre-mud state. Shrek III was inexplicably cancelled in the evening, but hey ho.

On Thursday there was a big fire at a scrap-yard outside the site, but the huge amounts of black smoke that hung around in the sky all day provoked some debate. I had discussions with random people about everything from 'terrorist attacks on music' to 'Street is on fire', but thankfully all were false. I spent most of the day catching the bands playing on the Bandstand, including The Doubtful Guest, who were as good as ever.

Friday kicked-off with breakfast at Henry's Beard, then Kate Nash on the Pyramid stage. I don't really know much about her, but she was ok. I stuck around for The Subways (who were unimpressive) and Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly, who were ok. I then trundled off to the Other stage to catch Vampire Weekend, mainly thanks to people going on about how good they are. They were ok, but I think they suffered from the immediate downer that my brain adds to any Other Stage performance. I wandered-off to the Green Futures field to watch Caroline Lucas wipe the floor with some Tory in a debate entitled 'Can the Tories Deliver A Green Agenda?', one of a number of interesting events in that tent. I then strolled over to the Avalon stage to catch Hazel O'Conner, which was suprisingly good. I then caught a strange act called 'Dancing On Your Grave' by 'The Cholmondleys and the Featherstonehaughs', followed by a cute singer/songwriter called Hera from Iceland/New Zealand (another set I liked enough to buy the CD afterwards). There then followed a few hours of managing not to meet-up with some friends, but I did catch the surprise Franz Ferdinand set on The Park stage.

Saturday morning saw the site beginning to dry-up a bit after the rain on Friday, with the Pyramid Stage not looking too bad. First up was Shakin' Stevens, who was pretty poor actually. For some reason he now refuses to sing 'Green Door', which leaves 'This Old House' as the only song anyone cares about. Martha Wainwright was up next, and she was suitably barmy. I didn't catch her whole set though as I had to be at the Leftfield for 12:30 to catch Seize The Day, who were as excellent as ever. Immediately after them came the mighty Flipron, who I've probably seen almost as many times now as I've seen anyone. Then it was back to the Pyramid to see the ever excellent Crowded House, followed by a bit of James Blunt (who really isn't that objectionable - I don't know why he gets so much stick). It was then time for a comedy break, so I went to the Cabaret tent to see Simon Munnery, Jeremy Hardy and Mitch Benn - all excellent as usual. Jeremy Hardy just doesn't do enough stand-up. Then it was off to the Jazz World stage to see Imagined Village, who had Billy Bragg on for a bit. I can't really remember the rest of the evening thanks to cider overload, but I think I saw Massive Attack. I definitely ignored Jay-Z.

Sunday morning brought another very pleasant breakfast at Henry's Beard in the Green Fields, then on to the Pyramid stage to see Marina Topley-Bird. I also caught Scouting For Girls on the Other Stage, before heading to the Pyramid Stage to get a spot for Leonard Cohen. I caught the end of the unimpressive Neil Diamond and the better than expected Goldfrapp, before the highlight of the festival, Leonard Cohen. He was blinding, as expected... and I've managed to see him live! I never thought I would. All is well with the world.

Monday was lovely and sunny. I spent a good few hours strolling around and poking at the (now much quieter) markets. It really was a lovely, sunny day. After the nightmare of last year's departure (thanks to See Tickets awful bus planning, the weather, early starts, and other rubbish), this year was about a million times better. Just look at the lovely, sunny and mud-free bus station!. The mud came over the top of my boots there last year, and we were all close to being hypothermic. Good times.

Glasto

2008-04-08T20:57:00.003Z

It has been an exciting old weekend. On Saturday Ally celebrated her 30th birthday. It was an excellent party, and photos will be appearing on Facebook very soon, I'm sure. I'm ashamed to say that I was the only person there not in fancy dress. I have an excuse though - before the party I went to see the always funny Stewart Lee doing his show '41st Best Stand Up Ever' at the Ustiniv. Support came from the also brilliant Kevin Eldon in the form of some amusing poetry. Stewart Lee's set was great as always - perhaps a little less confrontational than previous ones, but very entertaining none the less. Hopefully he will be at Glastonbury again this year... not that I'm sure that the naked man and Jesus with crucifix 'heckles' could ever be beaten. They were proper Glasto moments indeed.

Ah yes, Glastonbury! I was up for 9am on Sunday morning, ready for the annual madness that is clicking on refresh and redialing the phone for three hours until I get through. Sure enough, with three of us doing that constantly I finally got through and bought tickets at about half eleven. It's always a joyous moment, and I didn't even have to get the inconvenient coach tickets this time (although I'll still go by bus, of course). As the day went on though the tickets still didn't sell out, and they were still there by the end of the day. It was most bizarre, and obviously in hindsight I wouldn't have got up early and gone through the pain of watching timeout messages for hours. Tickets are, in fact, still there now. It's funny - last year I was hoping that the rain would put off some of the fair-weather fans (see what I did there?) this year, and it turns out that may have happened. However awful Jay-Z is, there are always so many artists for every taste that the lineup really doesn't make much difference, so I don't buy that line of reasoning. I really don't think that the weather and mud could be any worse, and even if it is, it will still all be brilliant. Can't wait.

2008

2008-03-31T23:02:00.003Z

Of course it has been 2008 for some time... in fact, we're now in 'Q2' as sales types like to say in an effort to sound important. It has been a while since my last entry, and for that I apologise. Life has been busy, etc etc. However, I will fill you in on what has been going on as best I can.

My last entry was about mince pies if I recall correctly. You may be pleased to know that they were very nice. I have decided that the single most dull part of pie making is pastry, and lack of pastry is something that cakes have over the whole pie world. Actually, not just cakes - any sort of non-pastry topped dessert or sweet. Is a crumble a pie that just has a crust made of something other than pastry though? Hmm... I'll have to think about that.

So anyway, after the pies, Christmas and so on I went to France for a spot of skiing. There was a big group of us and we headed down in three cars to the alps for a week of snowy fun. French roads eh? Driving on them loses its novelty value after about ten hours, but we get there without incident. The chalet itself was very nice, and only a mile or so from the lift. We were also blessed with excellent weather for the time of year and fresh snow for most of the time. It was my first time skiing and although I showed all the aptitude of a blind bull on crack, I really enjoyed it. The downside was breaking a couple of ribs just over halfway through the holiday, which put me in too much pain to actually move much. Sport eh? Dangerous business if you ask me.

I've started a philosophy course with the OU. It has been very interesting so far, and despite going straight into my usual last-minute essay writing mode I seem to be doing ok at it. The tutorials are probably the most interesting ones of any course I've done for some time, and the reading is the sort of thing I like reading anyway. I may feel differently come exam time, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

A few weeks ago I went to Minehead and found it to be much nicer than I remembered it to be. I suppose that being off-season adds a lot to it, but I was most pleasantly surprised. I'm not sure why tourism usually does horrible things to towns, but Minehead has a good selection of independent shops and a bustling high street, as well as decently priced housing, and the sea of course. It was one of those places I could see myself living in... just not quite yet. Good place to bring-up a family though.

This year will feature several 30th birthdays for friends, plus a couple of weddings. Big events, and as we all know, big events involve lots of tomfoolery and tipsy shenanigans. I'm sure there will be a few amusing photos posted to various Facebook profiles as a result. I'm looking forward to it all.

The Glastonbury Festival will feature none other than Leonard Cohen this year! I can't wait. Well, I may not get a ticket of course - I've been lucky so far. I've pre-registered for the usual rush (which will happen on the 8th), so fingers crossed. The lineup is excellent (not sure about JayZ or whoever he is.. one for the kids I suppose), and the weather can't actually be any worse, right? I'm also off to the Two Thousand Trees festival (featuring the brilliant Flipron), plus a few others I'm sure. Oh, and Billy Bragg later this month. In fact he's just released a new album (Mr Love and Justice) which you should obviously go and buy.

Life is generally pretty much the same as it was 2007 in most ways though. Kate Winslet still hasn't come to her senses and married me, and to be honest she'd better get her skates on before I tire of her coyness. 2007 did seem to feature some big swings from high to low with that sort of thing actually - hopefully this year will be more stable. Generally the last few months have been pretty cool but they sort of fade into a blur when trying to remember them in bed at gone midnight, as I am now. I will try to keep the blog postings a bit more regular from now on... there's a lot to spout off about generally, and it sort of loses its appeal after months have passed. One of the reasons I have forgotten stuff is because I haven't blogged it - you know you're old when you keep a blog as a memory aid.

Festive Food

2007-12-16T11:06:00.001Z

Christmas is rapidly approaching and mince pies take a minimum of a week to make properly, so yesterday I made this year's mincemeat. Some people seem to think that this is harder than it is, so I thought I'd stick the recipe down here to prove that it's probably as easy as buying the stuff in jars.

You will need the following things:

Now quantities are always vague, but I work on a ratio system. I think that a lot of recipes care a bit too much about exactly how much to use, and I usually go on this sort of vague 'one of these for two of those' system. It seems to work! Anyway, going through the photo from top left we have:

2 x good quality minced beef.

Small pot of mixed glace peel.. about 'half' in our ratios

1 x (by weight) rum, brandy or a mixture of both

Ginger in syrup, about the same weight as the peel

1 x beef suet. Your local butcher will have this

4 x single eating apple

1.5 x ground almonds

1 x single grated nutmeg

Mixed spice, about twice as much as the grated nutmeg

2 x dried fruit. I've used half currants and half raisins here.

1 x single lemon

1 x single orange

1 x soft brown sugar

Making the mincemeat is easy - just chop everything that needs chopping into small pieces and mix together! You'll probably want to peel and core the apples, and the skin of the lemon and orange needs to be grated into the mixture and the remaining fruit squeezed.

You should end-up with something like this:

Whack it into some old jars and keep it for at least a week. It will then be ready to fill some pies. Yum!

Green Christmas

2007-12-04T21:27:00.000Z

So December is upon us... so soon! Winter is a challenging time to stay green, and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to make it through all of 2007 while remaining carbon neutral. With this in mind I've started thinking about Christmas, and how I can green it up a bit.

Firstly, trees. A few years back I read a vaguely convincing article about how the greenest choice of tree is an artificial one. This is based an several assumptions, the most important being that the tree is reused for several years and recycled at the end of its life. If this is done then the benefits supposedly outweigh the fact that it is made of petrochemicals in China. However, is this true? Having looking into it a bit it seems that artificial trees are very hard to recycle since they are mostly made of steel and PVC. PVC can't easily be burned due to the emissions given off, while it's difficult to remove the steel without doing this since most trees are made by twisting the steel and PVC strands very tightly. One must also be realistic about how long trees are kept. My parents are probably reasonably unusual in that we had the same (aluminium) tree for about twenty years and it never seemed to get more scrappy, but how many people lose bits, buy a different size, or whatever? The sheer amount of artificial trees sold before Christmas at DIY centres suggests that people don't keep them forever.

So what about real trees? Some of the bad press they have received about their green credentials has been based on historical figures of imports. There was a time when the majority of trees were imported, but most are now British-grown, thus reducing the fuel used in transport. However, fuel is still used - there are the carbon costs of preparing the fields, planting the trees, the pesticides/herbicides used for growing, then transporting the trees afterwards. If the trees are grown in place of an older wood then there's also the impact of destroying the existing trees, which as a worst case could be an ancient oak forest. Plantations of Christmas trees do not lend themselves well to biodiversity, although of course they provide more cover for animals than bare ground.

So the best choice for a new tree is still not clear. I think that in the worst case for the real tree, such as one that is imported, grown on cleared deciduous woodland, heavily sprayed, and so on, an artificial tree may still be the best option. This is even more true if you can find a PVC-free, easy to recycle tree that is made locally. That is if those exist, of course.

It goes without saying that the greenest option is not to get a new tree at all. Use a living tree, or just buy a second-hand artificial tree (an easy way to recycle them!). You could also consider one of the cute 'grow your own' kits. These are all zero-carbon options, and you end-up with a tree that's just as fine. It's also a little reduction on the mad consumerism of the season of course, which is something we should all take some time to think about.

Now as for when to put the tree up... well, that's another kettle of fish!

The Future of Genomics

2007-11-30T17:54:00.000Z

On Thursday evening I was in Bristol for a public debate on The Future of Genomics at Expore@Bristol. It was a special event to mark the opening of the new 'Inside DNA' exhibition they have there, and since I've always been interested in genetics I thought I'd go along.

Sir John Sulston kicked-off with a half hour or so talk about the state of play in genetics research, then the floor was opened. The lovely Alice Roberts (yes, her from off the telly) handled the session. The audience was filled with several experts on genetics and the ethics behind it, and some of the questions were quite good considering that it was a public event. Given current events there was some interest in biometrics and ID cards (which are all pointless as well as scary) and databases, plus genuinely interesting tidbits.

Interesting tidbit example - they think they now know why we're seeing a rise in peanut allergies, something that concerns me as I have one. It's possibly because creams containing peanut oil were used to treat eczema in the 70's and 80's, and the proteins being absorbed through the broken skin provoked the intolerance. This explains a lot - I had eczema as a child, so it all fits. They discovered this through the 'child of the 90's' study which is taking place in Bristol. It's the most detailed study of its kind in the world and has provided a lot of information so far, so yay for Bristol.

The exhibition is well worth checking out, as it all of @Bristol, of course. It's a shame that they closed the iMax though - hopefully it will reopen one day.

Routemasters and Shibboleth

2007-11-04T22:20:00.000Z

I was in London over the weekend for a birthday party. A friend was 30 and hired a Routemaster bus to take us (along with a large amount of champagne) to watch the fireworks at Blackheath, then back to Victoria again for a slap-up feed at a Mexican restaurant. Much fun was had, and I don't think I've had quite so much champagne for some time!

Thankfully champagne doesn't seem to give me much of a hangover, so I didn't feel too bad on Sunday. I took the opportunity to catch-up with some friends while at the same time check out Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo at the Tate Modern. I must say that we were slightly underwhelmed - I expected something a bit wider and deeper I suppose, and while it was certainly long and looked strange in such a large space, it was less impressive than I thought it might be. Still, it was pretty busy so lots of people were obviously interested. In fact the whole place was probably about the busiest I've seen it.

After looking around at a few other things that were new since I was last there we headed off for lunch at Tas at The Cut. It's the second time that we've tried to get in to The Anchor And Hope (which is meant to be one of the best gastropubs in London) but had to go to Tas instead, but hopefully I'll get to try it one day...

Bath Film Festival

2007-11-01T14:38:00.000Z

Today is the start of the 2007 Bath Film Festival, and for the next eleven days there are some quality films. Some caught my eye.

Beautiful Young Minds, an interesting looking documentary about a maths competition (well, I think it sounds interesting!) on Saturday. Rescue Dawn is another film about Vietnam, but most importantly it has Christian Bale in it. Has he ever been in a bad film? I don't think so. The Yacoubian Building is a film about life in central Cairo that looks good and is being shown on Sunday. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Monday) is the story of a man who suffers a stroke - sad, but it looks quite inspiring. Taxidermia appeals to my surreal side (just look at plot outline!) and is on Monday. The Killing Of John Lennon looks interesting, as do The Band's Visit and The Aura. I'd also like to catch Hearts and Minds, an Oscar-winning documentary about the Vietnam war which is still pretty relevant. There's also an evening of locally made short films on the 11th which looks good.

So, lots of films to see, or potentially see anyway. There are some others that I wanted to list but I don't want to just reel-off films as much as bring attention to the festival. It's all good!

Running madness

2007-10-29T22:51:00.000Z

So I might well have gone a bit mad, but I have entered the next Bath Half Marathon. Considering that I haven't really run around much since school (where, let's face it, I was forced to.. usually by a rather insistent Brother James) this might seem like a slightly foolhardy step. However, I do have until the 16th of March next year to get ready for it, so it's not insurmountable.

Where there's a difficult looking task, there's a gadget to help. In my case I plumped for a GPS watch that I can plug into the computer to see my route and stats on Google Maps. This is sufficiently geeky to inspire me to actually do some exercise, so while some may say it's a bit pointless, if the end result is that I run 13 miles I reckon it's pretty good value for money.

So why run the race anyway? Well, I guess everyone has their reasons. I could certainly do with being fitter, and I could certainly be slimmer. In the end though, I think running a vaguely serious distance is something that I've always felt I should do at some point. Now seems a good time, and charity will even benefit a bit with sponsorship and so on. However, I am weak! I know this, so I need all the incentive I can get to see this through. Registering for the race was a start, but I intend to put my progress up on my web site. This way, any improvement (or lack of it) will be visible for all to see, which will in turn spur me on a bit. Hopefully.

Festivals Ahoy

2007-08-15T17:04:00.000Z

On Saturday I was in London for the Field Day Festival. The weather was perfect, and after a slightly delayed train journey I was still in London in good time. We met up and made our way to Bethnal Green, the nearest tube for Victoria Park.

None of us had been to Victoria Park before. It's actually quite nice and seems to be divided into two by a road. One part has a nice lake with plenty of birdlife hanging around on it, and is quite nicely landscaped. Over the road is the part of the park where the festival was being held, which was a much more straightforward green space with a few trees, along with some big monument thing. The festival was close to this, enclosed in a 7 foot fence.

The queue to get in was minimal, although for some reason that was never quite clear they divided people into male and female queues. I assumed that this was something to do with searches, but nobody was being searched anyway. Weird. All that it meant was that there was a lot of people hanging around just in the site waiting for their opposite-sexed friends. The rather overly-keen security staff were also taking food and drink, including water, away from people. This seemed a bit mean on such a hot day.

The site itself was quite small - apparently the capacity was 10,000, although I don't think that it got close to that while we were there. We grabbed some food (no queues for that) and had a wander around. This was fairly on in the day and the queues for beer were quite large, so we thought we'd wait and go later. That was our main mistake! As the day went on, beer queues grew and grew. There were only two bars for all 10,000 people, and it was taking literally hours to get served! Needless to say, we didn't bother. We stick with the rather strange cider-based 'Sungria', which we manged to get without much queuing early on. That was about the only alcohol we got all day though, thanks to the mad queues (which were nothing, compared to the toilets!). The lack of thought that had gone into bars and toilets was fairly amazing, and there were many disgruntled people. The music was pretty cool though, if hampered by a weedy sound system, so the day was still good overall. I just hope that next time the organisers try to decide how many toilets 10,000 people need when drinking they come-up with a number greater than 30.

After the festival we went to the pub for a few drinks, then onto a new sushi place in (I think) Kensington High Street, that was pretty good. After another few pints in the pub we called it a day.

On Sunday we went to see The Walker, which was actually very good. Woody Harrelson is a great actor - has he ever been in a bad film? Anyway, he was very good in this as a gay 'society walker' in Washington. I must admit that it's a career I have never really thought about, but it makes for an interesting film, and it's interesting how his 'society ladies' react to the events. Worth a go anyway. Now I just need to catch The Simpsons!

V Festival this weekend - I hope it stops raining! I've had enough of muddy festivals this year!

Glastonbury Roundup

2007-06-25T20:26:00.000Z

Well, I'm back from Glastonbury in one piece! You may have heard that it was a bit wet this year, and it was. Wetter than 2005 I'd say, but the new drainage stopped the flooding. It didn't stop the mud though! Anyway, more on that in a bit.

Our bus was due to go at 8:45 on Wednesday morning, but I got a text on Tuesday evening saying that it had been changed to 2pm. Slightly irritating, but that would mean getting on-site by 3pm or so, which isn't bad. We got to Bath coach station around 1:20 and settled in to the short wait, only to discover that the buses were rather disorganised. Our bus got gradually later, as did everyone else's. There was one guy from See Tickets (who were running everything, supposedly) and he was being mobbed by the 200 or so people waiting, but didn't know what was going on. He did have all of the tickets in a carrier bag though, and the first few people who asked got their tickets and made their own way. This got the guy a telling-off from his bosses though, so he soon stopped that. Time ticked on and the police turned-up as they didn't like 200 increasingly-annoyed people hanging around the coach station. There wasn't much they could do though (apart from telling people off for drinking), so everyone sat around getting frustrated for a few hours. Some reporters from the local paper turned up, but the only real story was See Tickets being inept.

Anyway, our coach finally left at around 6pm, and we were on-site by 7. Despite my earlier lofty plans to head for Dragons Field, we set-up in Woodsies as usual - it's a good spot, especially when rain is expected as it doesn't get too muddy. Even better, it's right next to gate A where we came in. Having set-up the tents we headed into the markets to look about. Foolishly we thought that the solstice was on Thursday night, not Thursday morning, so we missed all of the celebrations at the stone circle. Bah! Still, we grabbed some food from the excellent Garlic Kitchen (this guy is also a fan), then after a bit of wandering around went up to the cinema tent to watch Serenity. After that it was back down into the markets for a bimble about, then back to the tent for a relatively early one. Little did we know that it was the last time we'd see much on the ground other than mud.

It rained on Thursday, quite a lot. However, when it finished the ground didn't seem too bad. We did some things, but also drank quite a lot so I don't remember much about it. We spent some time in Chai Wallahs drinking their rather excellent chai, doing some wheatgrass shots, and listening to some of the guys from One Taste, including the really, really good Jamie Woon. Not only is he a great singer/guitarist, but he does a very impressive local loop one man band thing. You really have to see it. I can't remember anything else we did, but we were in the Leftfield drinking quite a lot.

On Friday the ground had got pretty muddy, but it was still just about ok in the morning. The bands had started of course, and we all had timetables in mind. First on my list were Flipron on the Avalon stage. I'd convinced Nicole that they were worth seeing, and I think she was convinced. They're always great and it's just a shame that the set wasn't longer. It was getting muddier all the time though, and after Flipron it was getting to the point where moving between stages had to be carefully considered as it took so flippin' long. More beer seemed to help my balance though. I caught Rory Motion and '4 in a Field' in the cabaret tent, although I only really laughed at a couple of the comedians (Sean Hughes was good, and Ed Byrne was a good compere). We caught Rufus Wainwright and Arcade Fire on the Other stage. I didn't bother with the Arctic Monkeys, but I probably heard most of Bjork as I was stuck in the human traffic jam heading towards the Pyramid stage.

Saturday was even wetter. The rain not stopping had got less funny, but it wasn't going to stop us! The mud gave it a good go though. We poked around the Green Fields, then spent a very enjoyable (and dry) afternoon in the cabaret tent watching Nina Conti, Simon Munnery, Paul Nathan, Murray Lachlan-Young, Jeremy Hardy, Rhythm Wave, Marcus Brigstocke, Phil Kay and Mitch Benn. The highlights were Jeremy Hardy and Marcus Brigstocke, but it was pretty much all good. I'm not sure what it says about me that the main thing I wanted to see on the day was comedy though! Anyway, after that it was off to the John Peel stage to catch 'Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly', then back to the cinema tent to catch Hot Fuzz, although we gave up before the end (it was cold, and I've seen it before... it's good though!). Oh, and we got into the Guardian photo montage thing, around about the 1:20 remaining mark. That's us, in yellow ponchos!

My main objective for Sunday was the Leftfield. We saw George Monbiot talk about his environmental ideas which are always very insightful. Eric Faulkner (yes him, from the Bay City Rollers) then played two guitars at once, which was very impressive. Then there was a debate called 'Another World is Possible' with Tony Benn, George Monbiot, and some union people. George Monbiot got very angry about the Iraq war and made some very good points again. The next act was Marcus Brigstocke again, with a reduced (but slightly different) version of his set from the day before. Still funny. Then Ed Byrne did a really funny set, Tony Benn talked about nuclear weapons and Trident, Shazia Mirza did her 'angry feminist Muslim' thing, then Mark Thomas did his funny (yet alarming) mass lone protest thing, ending with the good news that Gordon Brown has suggested that he'll scrap the restrictions on protesting near parliament. After that we hoofed-it up to the Avalon stage to catch Billy Bragg, in great form as ever. Sadly, far too many other people wanted to see him too, so we were stood some way outside the tent. Still a good gig though - he's always great to watch. After that we went back to the Pyramid stage and caught a bit of the Manics, but then gave up and went to Chai Wallah's again instead to drink chai and catch more Jamie Woon.

And today.... dear God, the organisation! Or lack of it. Our bus was due to go at 8am, so we were up early putting our tents away in the rain (it had rained all night), and trudged over to the site bus station. Of course, none of the buses were working and nobody knew what was going on. The mud was the deepest at the festival, and it actually came over the top of my boots for the first time all weekend. We gave-up waiting where we were meant to as it clearly wasn't going anyway, and went and stood near where the buses were coming in. It was very wet and windy, and some people were clearly very cold, despite the foil heat blanket things that were handed out. A bus for Bath eventually turned up at around 10, and about five coach loads of people tried to get on. We were lucky and made it in, but a lot of people didn't. I dread to think how long they had to wait. Urgh. So I got home just before midday, cold and wet, but overall happy.

It has easily been the wettest and coldest Glasto so far - even the floods of last time went away by Sunday, and it was sunny then too. This time the rain was just relentless, and the mud. I won't forget that in hurry. As for my highlight... Jeremy Hardy? Not very rock'n'roll, but there you go. And Billy Bragg from a musical perspective I suppose, but then I know all of his songs and agree with his views, so I probably got more out of it than the other guys. Jaime Woon was good too, and I intend to check him out...

Hot Vegans, Almost

2007-06-11T00:19:00.001Z

This weekend was really hot. I was in Bristol on Saturday, and when I left my house in the morning it was a bit overcast so I put some jeans on. Big mistake - by the time the train got to Bristol the sun was out and I was already overheating. Still, you have to make the most of these things, so buy combining the powers of ice cream and beer, I got through the day.

We went to the Glass Arcade in St Nicholas Markets for lunch where I tried some Caribbean 'Ackee and Salt Fish'. Tasty, although the women running the stall did her best to warn me that I wouldn't like it (nobody there, including her, liked it). I thought it was pretty good though - it sort of melts in your mouth. In a nice way.

We checked-out 'Encounters', a Manuel Vason exhibition at the Arnolfini. Despite the clever walk-activated lighting stuff, it rather suffered from a lack of context, but hey, it was suitably disturbing in parts to tick the right 'art' boxes! The Arnolfini do struggle to run their bar very efficiently when it's busy though, and it does get pretty busy on summer days.

During the afternoon we went to Brandon Hill and Cabot Tower. I don't know why I haven't been up it before, but I did this time. A great view is to be had from the top of it, and we had fun squeezing past the fat people on the thin spiral staircase. The tower is nice and cool when it's hot and sunny outside, so it was a bit of a welcome respite.

There was an intention to catch Puressence at the Vegan Fayre (the worlds biggest, no less), but a few drinks in the sun sort of messed-up our schedule. Still, we sort of heard the end of the set from the other side of the fence!

As I type this I'm watching Mick Jagger prancing about on stage singing Sympathy for the Devil at the Isle of Wight festival. He's not doing too badly for a pensioner! A few of my friends were there, and with the great weather and lineup, I'm sure they had an excellent time. My own festival excitement is for Glastonbury of course, but it has been ever so slightly tempered by the awkward Wednesday morning coach we are forced to get. Not so much a problem for me as a couple of the guys I'm going with, so hopefully it will turn out for the best.

Spiderman, Goya and Leaves of Glass

2007-05-17T17:26:00.000Z

It has been a busy few weeks since my last post. Sadly my trusty Mazda 323 badly failed its MOT and had to be scrapped. It was a good old workhorse, so it's a bit sad. Still, everything dies in the end, so we should not mourn!

Over the Bank Holiday weekend we went to Dizzy's birthday party. It was nice to catch-up with people again, and we couldn't have asked for better weather. There were lots of familiar faces, and it's always nice to meet new unfamiliar ones. Photos on Flickr, as usual.

Last week we went to see Spider-Man 3. It was... ok. Much too long, and not nearly as good as the last two. In retrospect I'm not sure it's worth seeing, although it did have its moments.

Last weekend I was in London to visit Dave, and we managed to fit quite a lot in despite the Circle and District lines rather irritatingly taking the weekend off. On Saturday afternoon we caught 28 Weeks Later at the Odeon on Tottenham Court Road. It was pretty good, although not as great as the first one. We had a few pints in random Soho pubs, then met-up with Helen for dinner at an 'smokehouse' place called Bodean's on Poland Street, Soho. They do some great barbecue-style food, including 'pulled pork', which is a bit like how you get duck when you order duck and pancakes at the Chinese. It's really good, and the prices are pretty good too. After that we went to see Leaves of Glass at the Soho Theatre. Not really an uplifting play, but it was well done. To cheer ourselves up we headed off to Sloane Square for Gerry's sister's 21st, which was good fun - lots of drinking and dancing, and everyone had a great time.

On Sunday the rain was appalling, so we sat it out and had a leisurely start watching DVDs and recovering from hangovers. After that we headed to the Science Museum, and we actually got to see quite a lot of it! In fact I don't think I've managed to see quite so much of the place in one day before - I usually get there only to find it's about to close! We met Frances for some cake in the cafe and then wandered around looking at science-y things. When we'd had enough of that we walked back through Hyde Park and grabbed a bit of food at Gourmet Burger in Bayswater before I headed home on the train. A rather busy weekend, all in!

On Monday I was hosting a CouchSurfer called Chris from California. We met in the pub after work and went for some food at The Salamander before heading back to mine for some geeky gaming on the PS3. On Tuesday I was hosting again, this time a student from Indiana called Emma. She 'enjoyed' a rather random evening of helping to push-start cars and going on a random trip to the cinema to see Goya's Ghosts, which was pretty good. The cinema was almost empty, but then it was a late showing and a bit of an 'arthouse' film. It was well done, but don't expect a happy story!

Slackademic

2007-04-29T22:14:00.000Z

It has been a busy week. Foolishly I have been doing two modules of my OU course at once (hey, they were 'short courses' and looked easy!) and the two main pieces of coursework were both due in on midday Thursday. This meant that, thanks to having to work and earn a living, they had to be in by Wednesday night. After a weekend and every evening I got them in. They could have been better, but hey, in the end I was just happy to submit them. I don't think it matters how old I get - when it comes to academic coursework I will always leave it until the last minute. When I'm sat there typing drivel in the small hours it brings back memories of undergrad days... all of us sat in the computer science labs, hacking away all night for a 10am deadline. Happy days! We always got it done though, and that makes you feel a bit invincible.

Anyway, the course has taken all of my free time for ages, but I did manage to get into London on Thursday to record the Girl Geek Dinner. More about that here on my 'tech' blog.

I've just been in the cinema to see The Painted Veil, based on the Somerset Maugham novel, at the Little Theatre. It was really good... slightly sad, but then aren't all the best dramas? I can't think of a bad film with Edward Norton in it, and this doesn't disappoint. Check it out.

New Job

2007-04-18T22:37:00.001Z

On Monday I started a new job. It's still programming - I haven't decided to become a stuntman or something - but it's in quite a different area. No more telco stuff for me, at least for a while, as I'm now in the exciting world of Internet startups and fun things. I'm also programming on a Mac so I don't have to suffer Windows on a regular basis again. Huzzah! I've now got a shiny quad-core Mac Pro under my desk, which is pretty darn nippy.

So all is good on the work front. The weather has also been exceptional recently of course, so that has been nice. My new job is a bit further from home (about 45 minutes walk rather than 30) so I've decided to cycle in. Since there is nowhere to put a bike in my new office I decided to get a folding one. Not only can this be left under my desk and out of the way, but I can sling it into the back of the car for weekends away and so on. After looking at various makes and models I went for a Dahon Speed TR. This was a tough choice as I really wanted to buy a British bike (support local industry and all that), but although the Brompton folds much smaller it just doesn't have the gear range I need for Bath. The new bike arrived quickly and I've been cycling into work fine on it. The smaller wheels make it look slightly girly I suppose, but that's something I have to live with if I want the folding! The rolling resistance of smaller wheels also make it slightly harder to move - I feel that on the hill on the way home! Good exercise though, I suppose.

I bought a PS3 - much nicer to look at than the XBox 360, and nicer firmware too. It also doesn't sound like a aeroplane taking off! I've just got 'Resistance' for it at the moment, but there are some more games on my list from ScreenSelect, so I'll get those at some point. The rental system works really well for games actually as I don't have to shell-out 50 quid for something I lose interest in pretty quickly. If only they carried Wii games they would be perfect. Anyway, if you want to 'friend' me then my handle is 'DominicUK'.

One final thing that I've been appreciating is the new Nine Inch Nails album, Year Zero. It's really good, but you don't have to take my word for it since you can listen to it on the NIN web site. The CD itself is pretty funky as it is heat sensitive. When you put it in the CD player it's black, but when it comes out it's white (with 'hidden' text). Cool! It goes black again when it cools down. It's a nice touch, and it makes me happier that I still buy CDs rather than downloading dodgy copies like skanky cheapskate pirates.

Crowded House

2007-03-20T09:33:00.000Z

Last night we went to the first Crowded House gig for years at the Thekla in Bristol. It was really very good. They played some stuff of their new album that is being released in June, but there were enough old favourites there to keep everyone more than happy, and they played for 2.5 hours so it was a good long set. The tickets sold out pretty quickly and the 15 quid original price went up to about 400 quid on eBay, which was a bit mad.

Crowded House are one of those bands that are a bit like the Beautiful South - I know I like them but I don't realise how many songs I know until I'm at a gig! I guess I've got three Crowded House albums and I listen to them reasonably often, so that might explain it. It was a pleasant surprise to find myself able to sing along to most of the tracks though. The band themselves seemed to enjoy it although there were some rough edges, but that isn't completely surprising seeing as it has been so long since they've played together in public, and this is a new line-up. Anyway, top stuff - catch them on their new tour if you can...

Back

2007-03-14T20:11:00.000Z

Well I got back from Tokyo in one piece, despite a slightly unnerving landing at Heathrow where we pulled away sharply after almost touching down - it turned out that an Emirates 'plane was rather unexpectedly on the runway we wanted to land on. What fun. Still, once more around London and we landed 15 minutes later.

My final week in Tokyo wasn't bad. On Thursday evening we went to a sushi place in the big shopping centre by Kawasaki station and shared big sashimi and sushi platters. The sashimi was very fresh - the fish was caught and prepared in front of us, and most of it was still quite intact when it arrived on the plate. That wasn't a problem, but a few minutes after we started eating it started to move around in a rather energetic way. I'm pretty sure that they were post-mortem twitches, but it was vaguely unsettling (and went on for about 20 minutes!). Still, it sure was fresh fish!

My plane on the way back was fairly empty so I had a chance to stretch-out a bit for the 12 hours. I also caught 'The Departed' which was pretty good, as well as another couple of films that I was clearly too tired to remember. I remember them being good though. After the efficiency of Tokyo's Narita airport I was expecting the worst from Heathrow, but my baggage was out quickly and the trip back to Bath was really painless. Mind you, travel makes you appreciate things more - I don't think any airport baggage handling can be quite as inefficient as San Francisco when we flew there from Vegas. That involved more than half an hour of waiting by the conveyor belt and was pretty painful. Airports eh? You would have thought that they could have got them right by now...

It Is Considered Disgusting To Blow Your Nose In Public

2007-03-06T02:29:00.000Z

I had a weekend of poking around slightly less cultural sights. On Saturday I went and had a poke around Akihabara to see the shops etc. It certainly has a good range of electronics and manga porn. Being unable to appreciate Manga porn I stuck to the electronics shops though. There are some great gadgets and the Japanese seem to have a large number of options for really lightweight laptops which I liked the look of, but they're not cheap. I also looked at buying a camera since they are a bit cheaper here, but the Japan-only warranty didn't sound like a good idea, plus the possible duty to pay if I keep hold of the box. VAT in Japan is only 5% so even being a tourist doesn't save you much money.

Akihabara is of course teeming with thousands of people looking for a bargain. They also have large numbers of women hanging around outside the station in strange French maid outfits handing out stuff. Not sure what they're advertising, but the Japanese don't bat an eyelid at such things. Most odd. Other than that, and the strange placing of sex shops between computer shops, it's all quite tame really. For shopping it's great as you don't get pushy salesmen grabbing you as soon as you stop to look at something. They do stand around and shout stuff, but it's to no-one in particular.

After Akihabara I had a quick kip before heading out to Roppongi, an area known for its nightlife. I went there early evening as I wanted to just have a look around before it got too crowded. There's certainly lots to do though, even at that time of day - a lot of the bars seem to optimistically open all day. I went for a drink in some 'British pub' to check out the local take on what British pubs are like, and from all of the St Patricks Day flags it felt a bit more Irish than British, but never mind! I then had a drink at the Gaspanic Cafe, which was empty, then a burger at the New Zealand Centre (oddly), which promised many NZ beers but only had one. After that I headed to Geronimo's which was highly recommended in my Lonely Planet. There I met a bunch of expats and went for a Chinese with them, which was all highly random and entertaining, but I was back in time for the last train home!

On Sunday I went for a drink and a bite to eat with someone from CouchSurfing not far from Roppongi again. We chatted and watched the water from the pier and had a most pleasant evening. I caught the last train back to the hotel and arrived there to find all of the electricity off. The hotel had decided to rewire something, so I had an entertaining time preparing for bed and generally getting around the hotel. It's easy to forget how much you depend on electricity. It's not so bad at home, but believe me, it has its uses when you're staying on the 22nd floor of a hotel!

Woo - another weekend!

2007-03-02T09:10:00.000Z

Made it through another week of working in Japan and negotiating the transport system! Actually, until today it wasn't too bad - we've been heading out of Ikebukuro away from town so the metro is really quiet. However, my colleague from the UK left today and I started on a week of a new journey to an office in Kawasaki. This new route on the train (rather than the Metro) takes me right around Tokyo so I've now experienced crowded trains! To be honest they're not that bad though - they go every few minutes, so if the current one is a bit of a crush you can just wait for the next one. This doesn't seem to occur to the locals though who are clearly in a rush to get everywhere, and they happily cram on until the train is about to burst. Madness. Mind you, they give me odd looks while I just stand aside to let them on.

The train I get takes me on the Yamanote line, and I don't know if this is unique, but all of the stations have their own little tune when you arrive. It's quite cute and I guess pretty useful when you get to know your tune, but some of the choices are a bit odd. One of them plays the tune from Goodfellas (or some other gangster film - I can't remember which)... you know, the guitar-y
Italian sounding one. Anyway, the trains are pretty smart and there are screens showing where
you are going, where you are, and so on. Also, Japanese railway stations seem to be much less
confusing than their Metro stations! All of the lines are clearly marked along with their
destinations, unlike places like our previous local Metro station Negatacho, where you know that there's a connection to the Ginza line, but the signs don't tell you that
you have to head for the Yurakucho line, walk all the way along the platform and up stairs
the other end, and then along corridors for another 10 minutes. They're huge.

The Japanese themselves are almost model users of public transport. Most people (bar the odd rebellious teenager) queue for the trains on the handy painted lines on the platform, wait for people to get off when the train arrives, and then get on (although they never stop doing this, of course!). People tend to either sleep or stare at their feet, but if you do make eye contact they seem friendly. I have to say though, the women seem to be much chirpier. I'm not deluded enough to think this is because they all fancy me... rather, there seems to be a bit of a macho thing with the men where they're not allowed to have facial expressions or something. The women, in comparison, giggle away at pretty much anything. The difference is quite noticeable... much more so than the UK. I can't begin to guess why this is. Perhaps it has something to do with a lot of the men openly reading porno comics on the way to work? It's an odd thing to see men in suits doing at 8 in the morning. You can't tell what most people are reading though since they tend to put their books into little covers so you can't see the title. Perhaps they're all reading porn?! Can't see why they would want to cover the book otherwise, but then there are many bits of Japanese culture that I haven't got to grips with yet.

Anyway, work went ok today and I'm now trying to plan what to do this weekend. It might be
my last weekend in Japan for a while, so I have to make it count!

First Weekend in Tokyo

2007-02-25T12:30:00.000Z

It's Sunday evening here now, almost a whole week since I arrived. Since my last post I've mostly been working. Days here are long and it doesn't leave much time for anything else, but we've been eating well! Food and drink is possibly more expensive here than anywhere else. It doesn't help that we get back from work too late to eat in most of the restaurants, so we have to resort to the bar at the top of the hotel (where a couple of beers and some fried chicken each is 60 quid - urgh).

Anyway, on Saturday we had a chance to see some sights. We went to the temple at Senso-Ji as we'd heard it was one of the best, and indeed it was. There are many tourist-tat shops that line the street (Nakamise-dori) between Asakusa Metro station and the temple compound and are interesting to poke about in. The temple itself is interesting but we were unlucky that when we visited there was some restoration going on, but there was still plenty to see.

After the temple we decided to take the Sumida-Gawa river cruise to see the city from a different aspect. Unfortunately the boat was completely enclosed with no deck to walk about on, so it was hard to see much! What we did see was mostly bridges and skyscrapers, so it was a lot less interesting than something like a cruise on the Thames. I wouldn't recommend it unless you manage to get an open boat anyway.

The boat took us to a commercial district near the Tokyo Tower. Everything was closed and nobody was around - it was a bit bizarre really. There was a McDonalds in the bottom of one of the office buildings where we reluctantly bought lunch before heading into whatever bit of Tokyo we were in, in an attempt to find a Metro station to get home. We walked under a monorail, which is an excitingly futuristic thing to have, and we saw a bullet train too. Very Japanese! Eventually we randomly found Mita station and got the metro back to the hotel.

On Sunday we had to move hotels. We're now in the Crowne Plaza Metropolitan, and I have another decent view from my room. The hotel is in a much busier area than the Akasaka Prince, so it looks like there will be more to do. We're right by Ikebukuro station which, like many Japanese stations, is absolutely massive. Still, it's a bit closer to the office so we'll shave half an hour off each leg of the commute from tomorrow.

In the afternoon we went to the Meiji-Jingu shrine. To get there you have to walk through an interesting bit of Japanese culture - Cos-play-zoku, or the 'costume play gang'. These are teenagers who dress up in goth and punk dress and then hang around every weekend, while tourists come and pose with them for photos. It's very bizarre. We had to walk though them to get to the shrine so it was an interesting diversion, although I didn't take any photos as it felt a bit 'wrong' to take photos of scantily-clad 14 year olds. Anyway, the shrine itself is in a massive (by Tokyo standards) site full of trees and 'countryside', which is very pleasant. I think I saw more tourists there than anywhere else in Tokyo. Most days you don't see any Westerners, but the shrine was crawling with them. It was an impressive site, and we saw a couple of traditional Japanese weddings taking place. It must have been a bit weird for the people getting married as they had loads of tourists taking photos, but I suppose they wouldn't have done it there if they had minded. Odd though.

After the shrine we went back to the area of the hotel and poked around BIC Camera, which is a bit like Richer Sounds. I don't think things are really that much cheaper in Japan though so I haven't succumbed to any impulse purchases yet. From BIC it was a short stroll back to the hotel where we had a rather nice meal. Hurrah! Bizarrely, an English sixth form college and a ballet company are staying at the hotel at the moment, so there's an interesting mix of people. It's a lively hotel so I'm happier about staying two weeks here than I would have been in the Akasaka Prince...

Big In Japan

2007-02-21T14:51:00.000Z

So here I am again in yet another country with difficult to read signs. I don't know what it is about countries that use different alphabets that makes my company send me there, but I'm not complaining. Actually Tokyo isn't too bad as most signs have the English on them as well, which is rather more user-friendly than China was.

The flight over here was ok. I caught Babel (not great), Flags Of Our Fathers (better than I thought it would be), and The Illusionist (really good), which took my mind off my increasingly cramped legs during the 12 hours. Tokyo airport is a model of efficiency and we were out of there literally 20 minutes after landing, and straight onto a bus that stopped at our hotel. The hotel itself (the Akasaka Prince) is nice enough - I've got a great view and a large amount of sofa space. The many restaurants in the hotel do seem to close bizarrely early though, which is inconvenient when we get back late from work. For example, on Monday night we went to the office after checking into the hotel around 2pm and ended-up getting back at 11. No food being available when you've not slept for 36 hours just makes you feel annoyed!

Getting around Tokyo is pretty easy using their rather good underground system. It's not particularly cheap but it runs on time and is very clean. The famously crowded trains certainly exist but are very directional, so our train (heading out of the centre in the morning) is going against the main flow and is practically empty, while trains going on the same line the other way are absolutely rammed. A fair number of people (about 10% I'd guess) seem to wear surgical masks for some reason best known to themselves. There are also 'women only' carriages for the trains at busy times thanks (I assume) to groping men. On the outside everyone looks like they wouldn't step out of line at all, so the idea of this seems odd. I don't doubt it happens though.

Japanese people seem very friendly and quite genuine about it. On the way back to the tube station today a girl bumped into me and apologised far more than she needed to. A few minutes later at the tube station she came up and apologised again before starting a conversation about where I'm from, her plans to visit Britain to improve her English, and so on. It says something about Britain that when she started talking to me I assumed she was after something or trying to con me or wind me up in some way. It's little things like that which give you a good impression of a place.

The work is hard and the hours long, but I'm looking forward to the weekend when I should be able to actually go out and see something. Even at this early stage I can forsee it being difficult not to automatically bow to people on returning to the UK. Not a bad thing though - I think all of this mutual respect thing is pretty great.

Billie is a Treat

2007-02-13T00:40:00.001Z

Last Thursday we went to the theatre to see Christopher Hampton’s Treats, starring the lovely Billie Piper, that guy from 'My Family' and the BT adverts (Kris Marshall), and Laurence Fox. It was an odd play really - you know the film 'Closer' with Clive Owen? Well, it was a bit like that in that you didn't really feel for any of the characters. It was well acted and produced, but at the end there was a general feeling of 'ah right, so is that it?' in the theatre. Some random bloke said "Well that was a load of old rubbish wasn't it?" to me on the way out, which I've never had before! I didn't think it was rubbish, but then it wasn't brilliant either. After the performance there was a brief (and well attended) Q&A session with the actors. They all seemed quite nice and their answers were pretty interesting, but I can't remember any of them well enough to repeat here.

We were a bit peckish when we left the theatre so we nipped into the Garrick's Head for a bite to eat. I had the excellent Devilled Kidneys, but everyone else's food looked great too, plus the beer was good. A top end to the evening!

Hot Fuzz

2007-02-06T23:45:00.000Z

Last night I was at a preview showing of Hot Fuzz, the new comedy from Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. Yes, that's right, the guys behind the brilliant Spaced and Shaun of the Dead. So, apart from the excitement of seeing a film a week or two before general release and getting a bag full of goodies, what can I say? Basically it's very good - starts off a bit slowly and you wonder where they are going with it, but it soon turns into the highly amusing nonsense that you expect. It's vaguely interesting from a local perspective for me as well since it's filmed in Wells, just down the road. While I enjoyed the film, I did think that the cinema had the volume cranked-up a bit too much. Perhaps I'm getting old but some of the load bits hurt my ears... I thought age was meant to make you deaf!

The Most Fantastic Alarm Clock Ever

2007-02-02T19:03:00.000Z

This has to be the most fantastic thing I've seen all week. Completely brilliant! The story behind its creation is also very interesting, especially for budding entrepreneurs.

Labyrinthine Pleasures

2007-01-25T19:56:00.001Z

At the weekend we were at an engagement party in Wimbledon. Now Wimbledon is a part of London that I don't think about much since it is south of the river, and I have memories of trying to get a night bus back from there after a party once. Urgh. However, this time I saw a nicer side of it. Not only can you get to it without changing lines from Paddington, but you can also drive back from there to Bath in less than two hours when the traffic is good. That's pretty cool. I was already slightly impressed then when we went for lunch at The Fire Stables, a gastropub near 'Wimbledon Village' that is pretty good (it won Time Out's best gastropub award in 2001). We only had a light lunch, but the food was good. The beer front was slightly disappointing though, since it's a Youngs pub. They only had one bitter on tap (Youngs, funnily enough), but it was nice enough. Certainly worth popping-in if you're after a bite to eat anyway.

On Tuesday we went to see Pan's Labyrinth, which is really, really good. Catch it while you can at the cinema - you won't regret it. I'd say it's possibly the best film of 2006. It's pretty freaky though - the white thing with the food?? My God. You'll know what I mean if you've seen it.

The Joys of Heathrow, and the lack of them in Uganda

2007-01-15T21:24:00.000Z

Last week I was at the Radisson Edwardian in Heathrow for a week of training with my company. It was interesting and worthwhile, but it's a bit odd not going outside for almost a whole week. The trouble is, there isn't much to go outside for when you're in an industrial estate next to Heathrow airport. Actually, 'industrial estate' is unfair - it's more of a strip of hotels, much like the Strip in Las Vegas, only without the gambling, strippers, and so on.

Come the weekend I was going a bit crazy so it was time to kick back a bit. Apart from generally chilling out I somehow knackered my knee, which still hurts. I blame this 'going to the gym' nonsense that I've managed to maintain since the New Year. We also managed to catch The Last King of Scotland, which is very good. It starts off fairly light-heartedly, but make sure that you don't have anyone too squeamish with you near the end. It's pretty gripping the whole way through though and really well done.

I hate to go on, but my knee is giving me jip. I'm going to have to drive to work tomorrow I think - I couldn't make the walk today and caught the bus after the first ten minutes. I don't think I could even do that tomorrow. I'm rubbish at pain, and I'm not afraid to admit it!

Water

2007-01-04T12:34:00.000Z

Bottled water is pretty stupid. Everyone knows this deep down, even if they insist on buying it. I must admit that if I'm out of the house and have to choose a soft drink, I do tend to pick water over Coke or something. However, there's no hiding the fact that drinking it in the home is pretty idiotic. If any of your acquaintances can't see this, then the fact that it is not particularly safe either might help to convince them. If that fails, you really should find the Marcus Brigstoke rant on the last series of the Now Show - the Podcast is still available!

This Life

2007-01-03T12:01:00.000Z

A happy New Year to you all!

This year I spent New Year's Eve at a party in Bristol. There were drinks and snacks, champagne at midnight, then an hour or two of playing music 'intro' identification board games. We made the most of the fireworks other people let off around midnight, and all in all it was a splendid evening. This is how I know I'm in my thirties.

I'm back at work now of course, and it still has a certain novelty value to it. I have made a positive start to this year too - I joined a gym. This sounds like the sort of thing that lots of people do as one of their 'resolutions', and while I'm generally not a 'New Year resolutions' person (if something is worth doing, do it immediately!) this seemed like a good time. I walk past the gym every day on my way to work and back, so it makes sense to pop in there every morning and at least use their shower instead of mine. Might get some exercise in too!

Last night I watched the one-off This Life +10. Retro memories abound! It was pretty good... always interesting to see characters as they are a few years after the end of a story. They're still messed-up of course, which is reassuring in some ways. (Potential spoiler coming up) I don't know why they killed-off Ferdy. The actor is still alive and well and they don't really mention why he's dead, unless I missed something. I guess his funeral served to get them back together, but that's a bit harsh for him...

Christmas

2006-12-25T01:29:00.000Z

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

2006-10-16T12:30:00.000Z

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?

2006-09-27T13:53:00.000Z

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

2006-09-22T15:02:00.000Z

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

2006-08-25T17:11:00.000Z

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

2006-08-08T22:37:00.000Z

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

2006-07-20T00:09:00.000Z

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

2006-07-01T19:30:00.000Z

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

2006-06-28T23:41:00.000Z

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

2006-06-15T20:31:00.000Z

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

2006-06-14T22:42:00.000Z

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

2006-06-13T22:19:00.000Z

..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

2006-05-30T20:07:00.000Z

...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

2006-05-16T10:40:00.000Z

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

2006-05-03T15:04:00.000Z

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

2006-04-23T09:21:00.000Z

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...

2006-04-07T21:18:00.000Z

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.

2006-03-13T13:47:00.000Z

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

2006-01-27T00:07:00.000Z

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.

Italian and French theme night

2005-11-16T10:08:00.000Z

Last night I met Dave and Luke in London for some food and a film. We met Luke at Bond Street and went to a little Italian in Mayfair (I can't remember the name - it was in a courtyard of small shops and restaurants opposite a tiny sushi place and just down from an interesting looking chocolate shop). The food was good and the service friendly, and after a very good tiramisu we had to dash off to the Curzon Mayfair to see a French film called The Beat That My Heart Skipped on the cinema's cosy Screen 2. It was an excellent film and I'd thoroughly recommend it (as I would the Curzon, probably my favourite London cinema).

After the film we took a stroll back to the tube past the American Embassy. I haven't walked past that since the whole terrorism panic took off so it was the first time I'd see the blocked roads, barriers, guns and whatnot. While it's not a very nice building anyway all of the barriers don't exactly make it look nicer. I don't really think that barricading themselves away like that makes a very good impression anyway - I also disapprove of all of the concrete and security around the Houses of Parliament. Of course it wouldn't be necessary if we didn't go and start pointless and nasty wars everywhere anyway. It makes it all worse somehow. Anyway, the Christmas lights on Oxford Street are very pretty this year so that cancelled-out the grimness of the embassy!

Lille

2005-11-16T09:48:00.000Z

On Saturday I took the Eurostar to Lille in France. I've not been to Lille before but it is very easy to get to on the Eurostar. The trip from Bath all the way to Lille was painless, and the bonus of getting the train is that you arrive in the centre of the city rather than some airport miles out of town.

We stayed in the Couvent des Minimes, an old convent that has been converted into a hotel. The central courtyard has been covered with a glass roof and how houses the bar and (very good) restaurant. The location of the hotel by the water and close to the centre of town is excellent and I'd recommend it as a place to stay if you're in Lille.

The weather on Saturday wasn't brilliant but on Sunday it was warm and sunny so I managed to catch the sights and get some touristy photos.

Remember remember the 5th of November

2005-11-07T10:04:00.000Z

...less treason and plot this year, more Chesney Hawkes, bizarrely. One of the largest fireworks displays in Bristol is held on Clifton Down each year by the Rotary Club, and this year I went along. There's more than just fireworks though. Not only was Chesney just starting on 'The One and Only' when we arrived, but he then went on to light the bonfire. It was 80's pop-tastic. The fireworks were pretty good too, although sadly the rain took some of the fun out of everything.

After the fireworks we went back to Jen's house in Clifton where we had a few drinks along with some traditional bonfire night snacks - toasted marshmallows on sticks, roasted bananas in foil and other stuff that could be cooked on a fire. It's funny to think that the next national celebration thing will be Christmas!

Chocolate

2005-11-04T10:37:00.000Z

Ages since my last update - sorry about that. You know how it is.

Last night I went into London to see More Chocology, a talk about chocolate at the Royal Institution. It always feels quite special hearing lectures there (they always start with a little history about the building... 'almost everything was invented here', or words to that effect), and the two speakers were fascinating. The first guy, Dr Patrick Couzens, works for Nestle (although I didn't hold that against him) and talked about the practical side of making chocolate and the chemistry behind it. The other speaker was Sara Jayne Stanes from the Academy of Chocolate who talked us through a tasting of chocolates from Amedei. The chocolate was absolutely fantastic :) Pricey though! (the 'Chuao' was recently voted the best chocolate in the world, and I agree with that assessment, I have to say).

After the lecture at the RI we went to the Sanderson Hotel (the 'hippest hotel in the world' no less, according to GQ) for chocolate cocktails. It's a funny place - I did wonder if all of the curtains everywhere might be a fire hazard - you just need a Labour politician to go in there and bye-bye hotel. Anyway, the bar was full of hip people busy being hip, as was expected. At least there was an area outside in a courtyard where you could escape them.

After that we went off in search of sushi. We ended-up at the Tokyo Diner, just off Chinatown. I really liked this place - cheap but good food and good value. It's also open until midnight which is why we went there in the first place - our regular sushi choices had closed by then.

Blue Eyes and Heels

2005-10-20T15:19:00.000Z

Tuesday was 'sushi and a show' night. We went to see blue eyes and heels at the Soho Theatre - a theatre which is rapidly becoming one of my favourites. We went to see Stewart Lee there a couple of weeks ago and there's always lots of stuff on. Stewart Lee was on after a play and before another comedian, and I think something was on after the show this week. It's nice to see a little theatre being so popular (it was sold out both times I've been) and dynamic. Anyway, the play has Martin Freeman (from The Office and HitchHikers Guide To The Galaxy) as an ambitious TV executive tasked with bringing wrestling back to TV. It's very well done and the characters are engaging.

Yet again I found myself wishing that I could write 90 minutes of drama around a simple static set and three actors - it's far harder than writing books/short stories or films. I've tried writing plays and I find it hard anyway, while short stories give you a lot more freedom. It's the constraints that make writing plays such as this one so tricky, and it's an enviable skill.

Christmas

2004-12-24T15:19:00.000Z

Well it's Christmas Eve and I've finished work for the year. Hurrah! We had a lovely Christmas dinner at the cottage on Wednesday which got me into the festive spirit, then Thursday seemed like Christmas Eve because everyone was finally feeling festive. Anyway, it is now properly Christmas, so merry Christmas everyone! I hope you have a lovely time.

2004-12-09T14:56:00.000Z

Last night I had slightly less sushi than expected thanks to my weird spell of feeling ill. I feel fine today - it's all most strange. Anyway, I think it may have been the sushi (or perhaps the beer) that made me better. Beer is one of the great medicines of course, and there is little that it cannot help, even if it doesn't cure it.

After sushi we went to the UGC in the Trocadero to see 'Enduring Love'. The Trocadero used to be one of the best things about London when I was a teenager - it had Sega World, the big arcadey bit, and a bunch of other things (including Alien War, which Dave and Ade had both been too and I was reminded yet again last night how annoyed I am that I never went). Now it is pretty much just a cinema and a load of boarded-up shops. It's funny how things change. Mind you, the cinema has about 10 screens. Most of them are up loads of escalators and down long corridors - it's all quite strange and disorientating. The film itself was excellent and I thoroughly recommend it.

The Trocadero may be a shadow of its former self, but there are lots of things left in London that are still pretty much as they've been for the last 30 years. I should go to them in case they close and I suffer the same annoyance that I never went. For example, I have never been to the London Dungeons, although they're meant to be better than Madame Tussauds (which I have been too). I haven't been to the V&A museum either, although I doubt that is in much danger of closing. I'm sure there's a bunch of other stuff I have yet to see. I will have to make a list...

2004-12-08T15:59:00.000Z

Sushi and cinema tonight. I think we are going to see 'Enduring Love', but it might end up being 'I Love Huckerbees'. Both of these have had good reviews so whatever we end up seeing I'm pretty sure we'll enjoy it. Dave has a problem with going to see Bad Santa, so if we end up watching that then there might be some amusement to be had. It's even meant to be quite good.

The downside of today is that I feel a bit poo. It feels like I have a temperature but I'm ok as long as I sit down, although my head feels funny. I hope it doesn't get any worse as not only do I hate being ill, but one downside of contracting is that you don't get sick pay. This sucks, as when you're in a permanent job you might feel like crap but at least it doesn't actually cost you anything! I've only had one sick day in the last six months though so I'm not doing too badly.

You may be slightly surprised to hear that the Ecoballs I was quite excited about after buying some at the CAT seem to work. It's like magic. Not only do they last 1000 washes (not bad for 30 quid), but you don't have to use nasty chemicals, plus you only have to use a quick wash as there is no powder to rinse out. Everyone's a winner! Good for sensitive skin too. Go buy some.

2004-12-06T11:46:00.000Z

I had a nice weekend in Aberystwyth. On Saturday I drove up from Bristol in decent weather and arrived in Aber at about 2pm. Finding somewhere to park there seems to be more of a problem every time I visit, and this time I had to go all the way to the other end of North Road before I found a spot! Madness. A lot of it is down to the fact that far more students seem to have cars these days. I don't know what the percentage is, but considering that I didn't know anyone at all with a car when I was an undergrad, that might explain how tight things have got. Perhaps it is time for the university to do something like Oxford and ban cars for students? It's not like they need them.

Anyway, I met Andy at the pub and through a combination of luck and coincidence we managed to find the owner of the B&B we usually stay at (Rosendale Guest House in Cambrian Street, which I thoroughly recommend) and got a room. Unsurprisingly for the time of year, there was plenty of space. There were us and a fat man, plus a couple who seemed to enjoy noisy sex (although they didn't make it down for breakfast so we didn't see them. It is always fun to speculate about what such couples look like - they are usually rather unremarkable rather than the young sex kittens you imagine they might be.

I caught up with a couple of friends over Saturday. This involved a rather splendid hot chocolate in The Treehouse.. it had chilli in it, of all things! Sounds weird but it works. Later, dinner in Little Italy was as good as always, and the evening was rounded off with the increasingly traditional walk up Constitution Hill and back, half blinded by the massive floodlights that seem to get a bit brighter every year.

On Sunday we had breakfast at the B&B (which was rather good as usual) and headed straight off to the Centre for Alternative Technology which is just down the road in Machynlleth. I haven't been there since 1994 or so, so it was good to go again. It took us a good few hours to look around. In the shop I bought some Ecoballs - they replace washing powder and work for 1000 washes apparently. I was sceptical but the CAT works on a scientific basis so I was willing to give it a go. A quick look around the Web shows nothing but positive reviews too so I'm fairly positive that they'll work. If so they will truly be one of those wonder products that I will recommend to everyone.

Anyway, as well as excitement about washing products I had a nice Sunday. We left Aber around 2 or so and I went to see Lizzie in her house (which must be one of the most remote houses in all of Wales). The rain and fog meant that the drive was quite 'exciting', and the mountain road from Cymystwyth to Rhayader was a good bit of driving, although suicidal sheep were there to keep me on my toes. At one point no amount of beeping, shouting and gently nudging with the car seemed to convince a particularly lazy sheep to get out of the way, so I had to get out and carry it to the side of the road. Sheep truly are stupid.

2004-12-02T11:50:00.000Z

The gig was every bit as good as expected. I'm growing to like the Astoria as a venue. The bar is quick thanks to them just selling cans (and to be honest there isn't much point getting pints from gas taps anyway - a can is fine), there was no queue to get in and even getting out was quite fast. Logistics aside, Therapy? were on top form yet again. We didn't think too much of the support band 'Tokyo Dragons' - they just had a guitarist and a drummer and did a lot of shouting rather than singing... not really my cup of tea. Therapy? played a good selection of stuff though and we were moshing about like loons. Great fun, although I have the bruises to show for it today. It was nice that there were so many of us there too.

2004-12-01T16:44:00.000Z

Tonight should be cool. We're off to see Therapy? at the Astoria in London. This will be the first T? gig I've been to since the last album came out a couple of months ago and the band became a three-piece again. Should be cool.

It will also be a reunion of sorts as there will be five of us there: me, Dave, Ben, Ciaran and Neil. Just like old times! Well, not quite like old times as I have earplugs with me this time. Last time we went to a club in London (I think it was Full Tilt at Camden) my ears rang for 24 hours or so. It was scary. I resolved to wear earplugs from now on, although I feel that the ones I have tonight may be a bit too effective. We'll see!

2004-11-22T12:53:00.000Z

Today I went to the Jazz Cafe with Chris and Libby for breakfast. Everyone else from Luke's party somehow sneaked off, but we had a nice old time anyway chatting about this and that. After breakfast we wandered around town a bit, checking out the new gadget shop 'I've got to have it' (I think), watching Chris talk to strange whistle sellers and brass bands, and that sort of thing.

In the evening I drove up to my parents in Newbury to sort out their computers. My parents have a wireless ADSL router and one of my old PCs which is rather slow, so I brought a not-quite-so-old 1GHz Athlon and 17" monitor for them to use. This is lightening-fast compared to their old one, so it should go down quite well. Reinstalling everything took a while though! I think I started at 8:30 and it's now nearly one in the morning. Computers eh?

Current Music: Don't Stop Me Now-Queen-Shaun of the Dead

Gambling

2004-11-21T16:19:00.000Z

It is Luke's birthday on Tuesday so as a celebration he organised a poker night last night. The game was Texas Hold 'em and we had three tables going. It was a good night. Needless to say, I ended-up losing my cash. Life is full of lessons on why I should avoid gambling! Anyway, I took some photos which you can see in the photos section of my Web site.

2004-11-19T16:19:00.000Z

I have been struggling to catch-up with my current Open University course. I applied for it a few months ago and had a vague idea that the course started at the end of November. Other things were planned as you'd expect, and it was only through luck that I logged on to the course Website the other day to see if there were any really keen people starting already. Predictably, I discovered that the course actually started at the start of November, and I was already a bit behind! Oh well... I work best (only?) under pressure! Last night was spent catching-up on what has happened so far, and I think I will be up with everyone else by the end of tomorrow. This is quite important as it is taught entirely on-line, so if you are not in the 'tutorial' conferences it's pretty obvious!

There are some universal truths that we must all accept. 'Being slack when a student yet somehow managing to get everything in on time' is one of mine. Well, as long as you don't include PhD thesis' in that, I suppose. I take some pride in never having handed any coursework in late, but it's a weird sort of pride since a lot of my friends who almost never got stuff in on time got their degrees in the end anyway. Mind you, they were arts students, and I think in the arts handing stuff in late is practically expected.

Christmas is fast approaching. I saw the first decorations going up in October. It's tempting to say something along the lines of 'It gets earlier every year!', but that's obviously not true; the people who say it are just getting older. They probably also think that Mars bars were bigger, there was less crime on the streets, and the grass was greener. All of these things are relative. In any case, I quite like the decorations going up early, otherwise everything is a bit grim in November after Guy Fawkes night.

Thinking of Christmas, I am undecided about what to do for a tree this year. A real tree is of course the nicest thing. However, I always feel slightly guilty that a tree has to die to give me a few weeks of enjoyment. Would a plastic tree be any better though? Both real and plastic trees can be recycled, and you can get some pretty decent looking fake trees these days. I think that the environmental choice is not as clear-cut as it may first appear. Hmm.

Therapy?, one of the best live bands ever, are playing Reading on the 3rd of December. Should be excellent. Come along!

2004-11-15T14:02:00.000Z

The weather this weekend was fantastic, so that made our trip to Worcestershire all the better. The drive up on Saturday morning was great - no traffic at all. The hotel near Stourport was easy to find, and everything went very smoothly. On the Sunday we went for a walk around Worcester. We caught the Remembrance service outside the cathedral, looked at the shops, and looked in the cathedral itself. I haven't been to Worcester for years but it's one of my favourite cities, I think.

The drive back to Bristol was equally trouble-free, and we got back in plenty of time to get to get to the cinema and see 'Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason'. I actually quite enjoyed the first film. Yes, it's girly and silly, but it was still amusing. This one was enjoyable too, although I didn't think it was quite as good. Still definitely worth seeing though, and if the attendance at the showing we were at is anything to go by, it should do very well.

2004-11-09T11:34:00.000Z

On Friday, after a bit of a misunderstanding that added a round trip to Newbury to my commute, we went to see The Polyphonic Spree at Bristol Academy. Even though we missed about an hour of their set the stuff we did see was really good. They're a top feel-good band, and 'Together We're Heavy' is almost always playing on my iPod these days.

On Sunday I was meant to go on a flying lesson, but it was cancelled because of the weather, which was a pain in the arse. I'll have to rearrange it now but by schedule is pretty full! It may have been just as well as I had to wake up early on Sunday in time for the lesson, so I wasn't 100% sharp. Apparently the planes have heated cabins now so flying later in the year shouldn't be a problem anyway. I just want to give it a go!

2004-10-27T10:22:00.000Z

Yesterday was a sad day thanks to the news that John Peel has died. Radio just won't be the same without him on Radio 1 playing music by obscure bands, or listening to Home Truths on Saturday morning. It's nice to see that the new bands stage at Glastonbury will be renamed as the John Peel stage. A fitting tribute to someone who cared passionately about music.

2004-10-19T14:00:00.000Z

I was ill over the weekend and Monday with some sort of food poisoning from pea and ham soup, of all things. You live and learn! Strangely it was from a can, and I didn't think canned things could be dangerous (unless the can is 'blown'). Come to think of it though, I have been ill from canned chicken soup before too. Hmm. I think perhaps I should just start avoiding canned soup? It's probably full of all sorts of crappy chemicals and GM stuff anyway.

Surprise surprise - foxes are actually not very nice and kill things. Yes, that's right. They're not just fluffy and cute, you hunt protestors! Can you tell I'm still angry at foxes in general for killing my chickens? Hmm.

2004-10-12T10:20:00.000Z

I had a pretty good weekend. On Saturday we went for a walk down the road at the back of my house. I hadn't been down there before, but it is excellent for walking, being a single-track country road with hardly any traffic. We did a circular walk through Inglesbatch, Priston Mill, Priston and Nailwell. Apart from a company Christmas bash in Priston Mill a couple of years ago, I haven't been to any of these villages before. This is a shame as they're very pretty, and so close to my house that it's bizarre that I haven't walked through until now. I must go for walks for the sake of exploration more often!

Last night we saw Arcadia at the Bristol Old Vic. It was very good. It got me wondering about the Old Vic though. There is a massive space at the front filled by nothing in particular (stairs and stuff, but mostly empty space) yet the theatre itself isn't particularly big. The space it does have is provided by being very 'vertical'. One wonders why it has ended-up like that. Perhaps I will look into the history of the place a bit, when I get the time...

2004-09-17T16:48:00.000Z

I've finally got floors downstairs! The floor people finished putting them in yesterday and they look really good. Hurrah! Soon I will have my sofa too, and I'll be able to actually set the house up properly. There's still painting to be done (very carefully to avoid getting it on the new floors!), but it should be relatively straightforward.

Here are things you must do this weekend:

Get Bjork's new(ish) album Medulla. It's really good. The last track ('Triumph of the Heart', I think), currently on 6 Music's playlist, is really good as you may know, and the rest of the album is top notch

If you can't get 6 Music thanks to your sad lack of a DAB digital radio, get one of those

Play Doom3. It's really good. Don't worry about the cost - you'll finish it after a week and get 20 quid back selling it, so that's a week's worth of entertainment for a fiver. It sort of loses it's appeal after a few hours anyway (HalfLife was so much better), but you just have to try playing it in a darkened room with 5.1 sound. Top stuff

Things to do before you're 30

2004-09-06T16:58:00.000Z

I hate lists like that, especially as I have now actually reached 30 so it is too late to do anything on any of them. Ho hum.

My weekend was rather fantastic, despite hitting middle age. On Friday we went to see Blithe Spirit, which was very good. After that we went for a few drinks in town. Then a few drinks turned into a few more.

I didn't feel too drunk when I got home, but on Saturday morning I felt really awful. However, I was pretty much recovered by then time Ben and Emma arrived around 3. Claire arrived shortly afterwards and we headed into town for a drink and a snack at the Pig and Fiddle, where we met the others. We then headed home to drop off bags and things before going back into town for the meal at 8 where the others arrived shortly afterwards. The Wife of Bath was excellent once again, and we were stuffed and jolly by 11. We wandered to T's for a bit of dancing but the queue was insane, so I headed back with some of the others. We then stayed-up until the early hours chatting about this and that, and laughing at old photos. This is what 30 year olds do, you see.

Sunday was blazing hot. We were up at a reasonable hour (oh, 10 or so) and headed into town for breakfast at The Jazz Cafe. After that we went to the International Kite Festival in Bristol. It was lovely weather for it... too lovely, you might say. There was very little wind, so the effort to fly the largest kite in the world wasn't as successful as they had hoped. It was still a nice day out though, and they managed to fly enough kites to be impressive.

In the evening I went to the cottage and we had dinner and birthday cake. A splendid end to a splendid weekend! It was lovely to see everyone and I got some lovely presents, cards, and people were lovely. I will stop now though, before I start gushing like a girl.

Travellers

2004-09-03T16:51:00.000Z

Some time over the Bank Holiday weekend some travellers parked-up in the car park here at work and have been living there in several caravans. This has caused some amusement to everyone here, but is no doubt a slightly less than professional image for the company. I wasn't really surprised when I looked out of the window this afternoon to see that there is a large flatbed lorry with a crane in the car park now, and it is lifting the caravans and taking them away. I'm not sure how the gypsies feel about this, but I can guess that they're not impressed.

Now I would be tempted to feel sorry for them, as I would for any generally persecuted group of people. However, this is the same lot who were camping on park about half a mile down the road for a week, and when they moved on they left the most horrible mess you can imagine. I don't just mean rubbish (although they could have put that into bags, at least), but pretty much everything you can imagine a group of people producing in a week. It was grim.

I know there are perfectly respectable groups of gypsies and travellers out there that care for their environment and are decent people, but all of them suffer thanks to the actions of people like those in our car park. Can't they see that they just make things worse for themselves? I don't pretend to know what the solution is, but it probably involves responsibility on their part before they can expect people to tolerate them.

2004-09-02T14:15:00.000Z

Yesterday was Corina's birthday, so to celebrate we went to ZeroDegrees in Bristol. It's quite a new place - part swanky bar, part restaurant (with good pizza) and part microbrewery. Beer and food were both good, and that only helped the evening along. Of course, we would have had a good evening even if we were somewhere rubbish as everyone was on top form and had an excellent time.

So, next up - my birthday. I can't believe I'm going to be 30 on Saturday. It's going to be a scary moment, although probably less scary than the day I turn 40! To tell the truth though, it's not bothering me as much as I thought it might. 30 might have sounded old when I was 20, but now it seems pretty reasonable. I just have to face some facts now - chances are that I won't be married by 30 (unless the next few days are bizarre), so it goes to show that some of life's expectations aren't completely reliable. I am trying to avoid all of those 'things you must do before you hit 30' lists, as I feel there may be too much to do in 1.5 days.

I still have a year (and a day) to go on a Club 18-30 holiday of course, so I'm not really old yet!