Tunuyán, Argentina. May 8

This is Argentina

Imagine you go on a tour of a winery in Argentina. Imagine that they split the group, and there is one tour guide speaking Spanish and one speaking English. Imagine that you are the only Anglophone on the tour, and therefore the English speaking guide gives you a one on one tour. Imagine also that the English speaking guide looks like this.

Imagine also that you have a longstanding weakness for Latin women with black hair and brown eyes. I assure you, the whole experience is like having a bullet fired through the forehead.

Perceptions can stick

It is certainly true that I have a history of being a cricket obsessive, although I have become disillusioned with the sport a little bit in recent months. This is perhaps why, despite what Alan Little posts, and despite requests from Brian Micklethwait for analysis, I don't think I have even mentioned the Indian Premier League on the web, and I have barely mentioned it in person to anyone. My disillusion is perhaps partly responsible for this lack of excitement. Perhaps also I have just been distracted by my own life.

Simple summary of the state of affairs. Does the rise of the IPL indicate the end of the cricket world as we know it? Very probably yes. Is this a good thing? Very probably yes also, although I would prefer they were playing a longer form of the game rather than the 20 over silliness. Do I have the inclination to research and write about this in detail at the moment? In truth, no.

Buenos Aires, Argentina. April 27.

Munich, Germany. April 14

Update: In case Brian has caused anybody to wonder, the building is the Haus der Kunst, which was built for propaganda purposes by the Nazis between 1934 and 1937 as a museum for what they saw as wholesome, non-decadent (ie bad) German art. It is still used as an art museum, but these days it has a nightclub in the basement.

Well done me, I think

I received a letter from my ISP the other day, telling me that I had breached the "reasonable use policy" on my "unlimited" plan. They did this the right way. It was a polite letter pointing the policy out, stating that according to their terms they could throttle my connection in peak periods or disconnect me, but stating that they would prefer to do neither and asking me to reduce my usage. My response to the letter will be to, indeed, reduce my usage.

Still, there something absurd about a world in which "unlimited" means that there actually is a limit, but that we will not tell you what it is until you breach it.

Another good thing about the K850i is the built in accelerometer. It doesn't use it nearly as well on the whole as does the iPhone, but for moblogging it is a godsend. Unlike with the K800i, for which uploaded photographs with the wrong orientation can be a serious problem, this phone remembers how you were holding it when you took a photograph. The photograph is therefore always uploaded to your blog with the correct orientation

Bath. April 5

Bath, England. April 4

London, April 1.

The K850i still has issues with the white balance, I fear.

I love London.

Just out of interest

I upgraded my phone in January, and all the photos posted to this blog this year have been taken with a Sony-Ericsson K850i rather than a K800i. This has a 5 Megapixel rather than a 3.2 Megapixel camera. I think the quality is quite lot better. The new camera handles low light and shots with flash much better than the old one.

Sadly, though, I think the phone may have gone backwards in other ways. Sony-Ericsson fixed the two most annoying things about the K800i: the lens cover that came open in your pocket and the SIM slot under the battery. However, they messed around with the user interface and controls on the main keyboard. This is a shame, given that this was the area in which the K800i was right the first time. This is annoying, and I think it means the K850i is not going to be quite as successful as the K800i (which was a huge hit). Shame

A camera in my phone that is good enough for day to day photography needs for web publishing has been a holy grail of mine for a while. I don't carry a dedicated camera everywhere, but I do take a phone. this desire on my part has led to me upgrading phones a good deal more often than I would have otherwise, which is probably what the phone manufacturers want. I'm still not there, but I might only be a couple of more phones away. 5 Megapixels is plenty - it is all about sensor quality now. (Actually I am aware that it has been all about sensor quality for several phones now, yes). There are one or two phones available now with optical zooms, although I am not sure how important that is. I guess I will see next upgrade.

London, March 9

London, March 5

Sopot, Poland. February 24

Vest

This is another photograph that relates to a comment I left elsewhere.