I am in Strasbourg in Alsace
Strasbourg is a beautiful city, and that it remains so strikes me as doubly impressive given the extent to which this part of Europe has been an issue of territorial dispute over the decades. But of course, although World War One did succeed in getting Alsace and Lorraine back for the French, the fighting did not actually reach here.
And speaking of reaching here, in a very Ryanair way I flew to Baden Baden airport over the border (which is the Rhine, looking rather less impressive than it does in Rotterdam) in Germany and got the bus here from that airport. I have been to Germany several times before, but on those occasions I have travelled around by rail. The amazing thing was that the bus ride was the first time I had been on a German autobahn. And it was a disappointment. The speed limit was 120km/h. Now I was already aware that many autobahns do in fact have speed limits so this was not a surprise. But given the reputation of the autobahn network, it was still disappointing. The speed limit actually increased when we entered France for goodness sake.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Redirection
I have a piece on lunch at the Sydney fish market last week over at Gastroblog. I shall post some more photos of the event here later, but alas I have to put in a day's work first.
I have a piece on lunch at the Sydney fish market last week over at Gastroblog. I shall post some more photos of the event here later, but alas I have to put in a day's work first.
Monday, April 04, 2005
Back in London
I somehow managed to get eleven bottles of wine through customs and into the United Kingdom this morning. This is a record and I am proud of myself. I also managed to go straight to work after the flight and manage to be at least reasonably productive, too. Right now though I am exhausted and must sleep. I have a great deal still to say about my travels, and hopefully I will indeed write most of this over the next few days and/or weeks.
I somehow managed to get eleven bottles of wine through customs and into the United Kingdom this morning. This is a record and I am proud of myself. I also managed to go straight to work after the flight and manage to be at least reasonably productive, too. Right now though I am exhausted and must sleep. I have a great deal still to say about my travels, and hopefully I will indeed write most of this over the next few days and/or weeks.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
The joys of Australian wine tourism
At Australian wineries it is possible to buy port in ten litre containers.
Alas, I found the prospect of getting this onto the plane and through British customs a little daunting, so I did not buy one. Which is a shame, as I would have been delighted to have been able to serve port out of a plastic container that looked more suitable for engine oil at my next dinner party.
At Australian wineries it is possible to buy port in ten litre containers.
Alas, I found the prospect of getting this onto the plane and through British customs a little daunting, so I did not buy one. Which is a shame, as I would have been delighted to have been able to serve port out of a plastic container that looked more suitable for engine oil at my next dinner party.
Friday, April 01, 2005
I continue to move around
I am now at my brother's place in Cessnock, which is a coal mining / wine town in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney, and my last stop on this trip to Australia. The Hunter is most notable for its lovely lemony white wines based on the Semillon grape, and also makes a lot of in my mind slightly less notable shiraz based reds. And there are a few in my mind quite fine Pinot Noir, which is totally bizarre given the extremely un-Burgundy like climate.
Anyway, I shall investigate these things further in the morning.
I am now at my brother's place in Cessnock, which is a coal mining / wine town in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney, and my last stop on this trip to Australia. The Hunter is most notable for its lovely lemony white wines based on the Semillon grape, and also makes a lot of in my mind slightly less notable shiraz based reds. And there are a few in my mind quite fine Pinot Noir, which is totally bizarre given the extremely un-Burgundy like climate.
Anyway, I shall investigate these things further in the morning.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Now in Sydney
I will blog something substantial soon. Sydney is cosmopolitan in a very predominantly Chinese Pacific Rim way (in a sense even more so than Hong Kong) whereas my sister's place in the Blue Mountains where I was yesterday is very, well, English. And the Gold Coast is sort of modern developed world internationalist. More on this soon.
I will blog something substantial soon. Sydney is cosmopolitan in a very predominantly Chinese Pacific Rim way (in a sense even more so than Hong Kong) whereas my sister's place in the Blue Mountains where I was yesterday is very, well, English. And the Gold Coast is sort of modern developed world internationalist. More on this soon.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
The modern world
I am presently staying with my parents on Australia's Gold Coast, which is a sort of lesser south Florida. (It's a very pleasant place, but it has certain qualities about it). My parents yesterday evening held a party, attended by a wide assortment of relatives on both sides of the family. Prior to the party, I was asked to take care of some background music for the evening. When he asked me to do this, I suspect my father expected me to go through his CD collection and find a few to play for the evening. Instead, I of course responded by plugging my laptop into his stereo, and announcing that everything was taken care of. I think he may have been slightly bemused by this.
Of course, prior to this I had to rush off to the local shopping centre and buy a cable with a 1/4 inch headphone plug at one end and two RCA plugs at the other. I have serveral such cables already, but alas they are in England. My mother now wants me to leave the cable with her and show her how to use iTunes prior to flying out from the Gold Coast on Tuesday.
And of course I have to flash the firmware on her DVD-ROM/R/RW drives to make them region free, too.
I am presently staying with my parents on Australia's Gold Coast, which is a sort of lesser south Florida. (It's a very pleasant place, but it has certain qualities about it). My parents yesterday evening held a party, attended by a wide assortment of relatives on both sides of the family. Prior to the party, I was asked to take care of some background music for the evening. When he asked me to do this, I suspect my father expected me to go through his CD collection and find a few to play for the evening. Instead, I of course responded by plugging my laptop into his stereo, and announcing that everything was taken care of. I think he may have been slightly bemused by this.
Of course, prior to this I had to rush off to the local shopping centre and buy a cable with a 1/4 inch headphone plug at one end and two RCA plugs at the other. I have serveral such cables already, but alas they are in England. My mother now wants me to leave the cable with her and show her how to use iTunes prior to flying out from the Gold Coast on Tuesday.
And of course I have to flash the firmware on her DVD-ROM/R/RW drives to make them region free, too.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
It's really okay
Jackie still seems slightly defensive about using her laptop in bed to access the internet. She shouldn't. This is what laptops and wireless were invented for. I have to confess that I had been using laptops in bed for years before I got wireless though: I just had to use a cable for the internet connection. What Jackie may or may not realise is that there is a moment in most wireless laptop users lives when they find themselves going to the bathroom, taking the laptop with them, and being still connected to global information networks while performing certain bodily functions. Most people conclude that this is going too far, but doing it in bed certainly isn't. In fact doing it in bed (just like doing it from a Starbucks in Shenzhen) is cool.
Of course, blogging from my laptop in bed is what I am doing now. I am at my parents place, and my parents have a WiFi network. My mother recently bought her first laptop. I made a suggestion with respect to the model, which she followed. (Like Glenn himself she got a Dell Inspiron 700m, which is a lovely little piece of kit. With this one Dell have really managed nice design, whereas most of their previous machines - like the Inspiron 8600 I am using now - have had good feature sets and have been excellent value for money, but a bit big and clunky. It's a shame Dell are not presently selling the 700m in the UK). I also recommended that she get a home WiFi network in order that she could use the laptop anywhere in the house, and she did. She and my father like to use the laptop on the kitched table at breakfast, and Mum likes to use it to read the newspapers in bed in the morning. (In fact, I just saw my mother take the laptop to bed with her). And my sister and I can use the wireless when we visit.
In fact, my sister will be here tomorrow evening, and she will certainly be bringing her laptop. It is possible that this house will have three people using its wireless network from their beds simultaneously as of tomorrow.
Jackie still seems slightly defensive about using her laptop in bed to access the internet. She shouldn't. This is what laptops and wireless were invented for. I have to confess that I had been using laptops in bed for years before I got wireless though: I just had to use a cable for the internet connection. What Jackie may or may not realise is that there is a moment in most wireless laptop users lives when they find themselves going to the bathroom, taking the laptop with them, and being still connected to global information networks while performing certain bodily functions. Most people conclude that this is going too far, but doing it in bed certainly isn't. In fact doing it in bed (just like doing it from a Starbucks in Shenzhen) is cool.
Of course, blogging from my laptop in bed is what I am doing now. I am at my parents place, and my parents have a WiFi network. My mother recently bought her first laptop. I made a suggestion with respect to the model, which she followed. (Like Glenn himself she got a Dell Inspiron 700m, which is a lovely little piece of kit. With this one Dell have really managed nice design, whereas most of their previous machines - like the Inspiron 8600 I am using now - have had good feature sets and have been excellent value for money, but a bit big and clunky. It's a shame Dell are not presently selling the 700m in the UK). I also recommended that she get a home WiFi network in order that she could use the laptop anywhere in the house, and she did. She and my father like to use the laptop on the kitched table at breakfast, and Mum likes to use it to read the newspapers in bed in the morning. (In fact, I just saw my mother take the laptop to bed with her). And my sister and I can use the wireless when we visit.
In fact, my sister will be here tomorrow evening, and she will certainly be bringing her laptop. It is possible that this house will have three people using its wireless network from their beds simultaneously as of tomorrow.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Monday, March 21, 2005
If it's Tuesday, it must be Sydney
I am now in an internet cafe in George Street in Sydney. Since I was here last, Australia has changed from being a "Short, Tall, Grande" country in Starbucks terms to being a "Tall, Grande, Venti" country. China and Hong Kong remain "Short, Tall, Grande" countries, however.
While on that, I forgot to redirect this little Samizdata piece on finding nerd heaven. This piece was actually posted over WiFi from a Starbucks in Shenzhen in China. (I was having a Grande triple shot latte at the time. I was fighting jetlag and really needed it).
I am now in an internet cafe in George Street in Sydney. Since I was here last, Australia has changed from being a "Short, Tall, Grande" country in Starbucks terms to being a "Tall, Grande, Venti" country. China and Hong Kong remain "Short, Tall, Grande" countries, however.
While on that, I forgot to redirect this little Samizdata piece on finding nerd heaven. This piece was actually posted over WiFi from a Starbucks in Shenzhen in China. (I was having a Grande triple shot latte at the time. I was fighting jetlag and really needed it).
Saturday, March 19, 2005
We haven't quite figured out the wireless business model.
I am now in an entirely different Starbucks clone in Hollywood Road. (The whole mid-levels / Hollywood Road / SoHo area in Hong Kong really is yuppie expat heaven). This one has free internet terminals for customers. This is a nice touch, and compliments to them. It also has wireless internet access. However, this is for pay wireless internet access. So it seems they will offer me a terminal plus internet access for nothing above the cost of a cup of coffee, but if I provide my own computer the internet access itself will cost money. That's a new one.
And yes, I do actually spend the majority of my time outside coffee shops, even when travelling. Really.
I am now in an entirely different Starbucks clone in Hollywood Road. (The whole mid-levels / Hollywood Road / SoHo area in Hong Kong really is yuppie expat heaven). This one has free internet terminals for customers. This is a nice touch, and compliments to them. It also has wireless internet access. However, this is for pay wireless internet access. So it seems they will offer me a terminal plus internet access for nothing above the cost of a cup of coffee, but if I provide my own computer the internet access itself will cost money. That's a new one.
And yes, I do actually spend the majority of my time outside coffee shops, even when travelling. Really.
I am in Hong Kong.
This is one of my very favourite cities in the world. Specifically, I am using a free hotspot in a Starbucks clone on a ferry pier on Hong Kong island. Today I have been to Cheung Chau island, and I am about to get an escalator to the mid levels. (Someone one expects that sentence to have been written by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World somewhere). More later.
This is one of my very favourite cities in the world. Specifically, I am using a free hotspot in a Starbucks clone on a ferry pier on Hong Kong island. Today I have been to Cheung Chau island, and I am about to get an escalator to the mid levels. (Someone one expects that sentence to have been written by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World somewhere). More later.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
My life is backed up
My Finnish readers will be delighted to hear that I have backed up the contents of my laptop hard drive onto this little box you see presently sitting on top of my desktop PC.
It is a Lacie 160Gb USB 2.0 external hard drive. On the outside it claims to have "Desgign by F.A. Porsche", but it just appears to be a bog standard Maxtor 160Gb 2Mb Cache hard drive in a box, presumably with some fairly simple IDE to USB interface in the box also. I am almost tempted to open it and take a look.
Except if course there are no obvious screws, so I am not sure how to open it. This must be that design by F.A. Porsche.
Maplin Electronics will sell me a box with the interface built into it into which people can install their own bog standard hard drives, but this seemed too much trouble. (Also, I didn't remember that until now).
My Finnish readers will be delighted to hear that I have backed up the contents of my laptop hard drive onto this little box you see presently sitting on top of my desktop PC.
It is a Lacie 160Gb USB 2.0 external hard drive. On the outside it claims to have "Desgign by F.A. Porsche", but it just appears to be a bog standard Maxtor 160Gb 2Mb Cache hard drive in a box, presumably with some fairly simple IDE to USB interface in the box also. I am almost tempted to open it and take a look.
Except if course there are no obvious screws, so I am not sure how to open it. This must be that design by F.A. Porsche.
Maplin Electronics will sell me a box with the interface built into it into which people can install their own bog standard hard drives, but this seemed too much trouble. (Also, I didn't remember that until now).
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
My life is on my non backed up hard drive
Yesterday, I read this interesting piece by Bruce Sterling discussing the fact that he has recently moved from Austin, Texas (where he has lived for many years) to Los Angeles where he is a visiting professor at a design school for a year, and he describes the fact that he no longer needs as many possessions as he once had, because a lot of the important stuff has been digitised.
As a rather itinerant and fairly tech-savvy person myself, I recognise this. My whole life is in my laptop, too. My television has barely been switched on in a year. (Here is a huge way in which younger people are different from older people - they don't watch television). Oddly, though, I haven't given up on television as an art form, but I have modified the way in which I watch it. For series television, I now buy the DVD sets of complete seasons of television series and watch them on my laptop. Television changed as an artform in the 1980s. Prior to that most episodes of most series had stand alone plots, whereas since then there has been much more continuity from episode to episode. (Steven Bocho is usually given a lot of the credit for this, although it may have been an inevitable reaction to the widespread adoption of the VCR). This works okay in the modern age of VCRs, PVRs, repeats and the like, but I think having the whole season on DVD at the same time is actually a better way to watch modern TV series. And the laptop makes it much easier to squeeze into the spare moments of my life. And I have a much greater choice as to what to watch and when.
And for watching sport on television I either go to a pub or I tend to put the game in a window at the top of the screen on my desktop computer, which has a digital TV card in one of its PCI slots. What would be good would be some way of watching lvie sporting events in a window on my laptop screen while I was travelling, but we are not there on that one yet. Some kind of digital TV card for a laptop (problematic with the sort of antenna one needs I think) or high speed streaming service over some sort of wireless internet connection would be useful. I am sure we will see it, but not immediately
But all my music, all my correspondence, things like details of airline bookings and insurance policies, address details of my friends, various pieces of personal writing that are of value to me - they are all on my laptop hard drive. If hard drive failure were to occur, it would cause major problems for me. And hard drives fail far more often than any other computer component, particularly laptop hard drives that get jostled around and suffer more physical shocks than desktop drives.
Which is slightly scary, because it isn't backed up at all. This is bad, but I fear not especially uncommon. Backing up a laptop hard drive is a nuisance. My laptop doesn't have a DVD burner (although my next one undoubtedly will), and CDs and (heaven forbid) floppies aren't really big enough. I could backup over my home network, but this is pretty slow too. I could unplug the laptop hard drive, plug it into my desktop and then copy at IDE connection speeds, but this is too much of a hassle to do regularly. Or I could get a large external USB or Firewire hard drive and backup to that.
Oddly, I also bumped into this article yesterday afternoon. It was a response to the fact that Fujitsu yesterday announced a 120Gb 2.5 inch hard disk for laptops, the largest yet available in that form factor. The argument is a little curious - it first gives one of those "Who on earth is going to have 120Gb of data on a laptop?" and then proceeds more to an argument that having drives that big will encourage people to put too much data on them and cause greater disasters when the hard drives fail, and the lack of easy backup solutions makes having big laptop hard drives bad rather than good. I can't really agree with this - I can think of plenty of cool new audiovisual applications that will work better with 120Gb than 60Gb, and the fact is that a great deal of data in this world isn't backed up, laptop or desktop. The author of the article does suggest an interesting solution though. Installing two hard drives in a laptop with a RAID-1 configuration. (This means having two drives with identical data on them, so that if one drive fails you simply save the data from the other).
I'm not sure that this is terribly practical though, because putting a second hard drive in a laptop would use additional space and would thus make the laptop bigger and would also cause the laptop to use more power, defeating some of the purpose of having a laptop by making it less portable. And there is an easy backup solution for laptops - the abovementioned USB external hard drives and regular backups. The fact is that the only reason most of our laptop hard drives have not been backed up is because we couldn't be bothered. Crippling our machines because our drives haven't been backed up strikes me as silly. The solution is instead to improve the quality of our backups, which can relatively easily be done. (On the other hand Toshiba has recently announced a 1.8 inch 80Gb hard drive and a 60Gb is already shipping, two of which would take up about the same space as one 2.5 inch drive. However, that would give up the improvements that could be gained in terms of size and power consumption by using only one 1.8 inch drive. Some subcompact laptops do use 1.8 inch drives for this reason).
Which leads to the question of what I should do myself. I could buy a USB external drive and backup my laptop hard drive regularly. Or I could move my life - all my archives of e-mail, documents I have written, addresses, important documents and everything else over to the desktop computer, add a second hard drive and RAID-1 to the desktop, and be absolutely secure.
But this is far less convenient than using a laptop for this. And I have to remember to transfer stuff that I develop and put on the laptop over to the desktop.
Sounds like work. But hard drive failure would be a disaster.
Yesterday, I read this interesting piece by Bruce Sterling discussing the fact that he has recently moved from Austin, Texas (where he has lived for many years) to Los Angeles where he is a visiting professor at a design school for a year, and he describes the fact that he no longer needs as many possessions as he once had, because a lot of the important stuff has been digitised.
When I was formerly a Texan author-journalist type rather than a Californian "visionary," I naturally lived like a pack rat. Then I drove my hybrid electric across I-10 to the gloriously unfurnished Pasadena pad over here, and I suddenly realized that I can thrive with something like 8% of my former possessions. Not that I've lost them. Basically – and this is the point for SXSW-I attendees – they've all been digitized. They got eaten by my laptop.
There's an Apple Store a block away, where Mr. Jobs is selling iPods like Amy sells waffle-cones when it hits 105 degrees. So, where're all my records and CDs? They're inside the laptop. DVD player? Laptop. Newspapers? I read Google News in the morning. Where're my magazines? I read Metropolis Online, I write stories for SciFi.com. Where's my TV? I got no TV: Compared to Web surfing on broadband wireless, watching a TV show is like watching ice melt. I tried real hard to sit down and watch a television dramatic episode recently – it felt like watching Vaudeville, with a trained dog act and a guy juggling plates. TV is dying right in front of us. It's become a medium for the brainwashed, the poor, and the semiliterate. Where's my fax machine? Laptop. Mailbox? Laptop. Filing cabinet? Laptop. Working desk? Laptop. Bank? Laptop. Place of business? Laptop. Most people I deal with have no idea I'm here in California. They'd never think to ask me. Why should they? They send e-mail, they get what they want, game over.
My laptop is even a library now; I've taken to reading books as e-text. For instance, a freeware, public domain version of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Silverado Squatters. This is the amusing real-life tale of a sci-fi novelist (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, etc.) marooned in 1880s California. Stevenson shows up in an abandoned California mining camp, where he immediately sees and uses his first telephone. The good folk of Cali, these grizzled miner 49ers, are already hip-deep into high tech telecommunications.
As a rather itinerant and fairly tech-savvy person myself, I recognise this. My whole life is in my laptop, too. My television has barely been switched on in a year. (Here is a huge way in which younger people are different from older people - they don't watch television). Oddly, though, I haven't given up on television as an art form, but I have modified the way in which I watch it. For series television, I now buy the DVD sets of complete seasons of television series and watch them on my laptop. Television changed as an artform in the 1980s. Prior to that most episodes of most series had stand alone plots, whereas since then there has been much more continuity from episode to episode. (Steven Bocho is usually given a lot of the credit for this, although it may have been an inevitable reaction to the widespread adoption of the VCR). This works okay in the modern age of VCRs, PVRs, repeats and the like, but I think having the whole season on DVD at the same time is actually a better way to watch modern TV series. And the laptop makes it much easier to squeeze into the spare moments of my life. And I have a much greater choice as to what to watch and when.
And for watching sport on television I either go to a pub or I tend to put the game in a window at the top of the screen on my desktop computer, which has a digital TV card in one of its PCI slots. What would be good would be some way of watching lvie sporting events in a window on my laptop screen while I was travelling, but we are not there on that one yet. Some kind of digital TV card for a laptop (problematic with the sort of antenna one needs I think) or high speed streaming service over some sort of wireless internet connection would be useful. I am sure we will see it, but not immediately
But all my music, all my correspondence, things like details of airline bookings and insurance policies, address details of my friends, various pieces of personal writing that are of value to me - they are all on my laptop hard drive. If hard drive failure were to occur, it would cause major problems for me. And hard drives fail far more often than any other computer component, particularly laptop hard drives that get jostled around and suffer more physical shocks than desktop drives.
Which is slightly scary, because it isn't backed up at all. This is bad, but I fear not especially uncommon. Backing up a laptop hard drive is a nuisance. My laptop doesn't have a DVD burner (although my next one undoubtedly will), and CDs and (heaven forbid) floppies aren't really big enough. I could backup over my home network, but this is pretty slow too. I could unplug the laptop hard drive, plug it into my desktop and then copy at IDE connection speeds, but this is too much of a hassle to do regularly. Or I could get a large external USB or Firewire hard drive and backup to that.
Oddly, I also bumped into this article yesterday afternoon. It was a response to the fact that Fujitsu yesterday announced a 120Gb 2.5 inch hard disk for laptops, the largest yet available in that form factor. The argument is a little curious - it first gives one of those "Who on earth is going to have 120Gb of data on a laptop?" and then proceeds more to an argument that having drives that big will encourage people to put too much data on them and cause greater disasters when the hard drives fail, and the lack of easy backup solutions makes having big laptop hard drives bad rather than good. I can't really agree with this - I can think of plenty of cool new audiovisual applications that will work better with 120Gb than 60Gb, and the fact is that a great deal of data in this world isn't backed up, laptop or desktop. The author of the article does suggest an interesting solution though. Installing two hard drives in a laptop with a RAID-1 configuration. (This means having two drives with identical data on them, so that if one drive fails you simply save the data from the other).
I'm not sure that this is terribly practical though, because putting a second hard drive in a laptop would use additional space and would thus make the laptop bigger and would also cause the laptop to use more power, defeating some of the purpose of having a laptop by making it less portable. And there is an easy backup solution for laptops - the abovementioned USB external hard drives and regular backups. The fact is that the only reason most of our laptop hard drives have not been backed up is because we couldn't be bothered. Crippling our machines because our drives haven't been backed up strikes me as silly. The solution is instead to improve the quality of our backups, which can relatively easily be done. (On the other hand Toshiba has recently announced a 1.8 inch 80Gb hard drive and a 60Gb is already shipping, two of which would take up about the same space as one 2.5 inch drive. However, that would give up the improvements that could be gained in terms of size and power consumption by using only one 1.8 inch drive. Some subcompact laptops do use 1.8 inch drives for this reason).
Which leads to the question of what I should do myself. I could buy a USB external drive and backup my laptop hard drive regularly. Or I could move my life - all my archives of e-mail, documents I have written, addresses, important documents and everything else over to the desktop computer, add a second hard drive and RAID-1 to the desktop, and be absolutely secure.
But this is far less convenient than using a laptop for this. And I have to remember to transfer stuff that I develop and put on the laptop over to the desktop.
Sounds like work. But hard drive failure would be a disaster.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Tuesday evening song lyrics
Summer Son by Texas, from the 1999 album "The Hush".
I'm tired of telling the story
Tired of telling it your way
Yeah I know what I saw
I know that I found the floor
Before you take my heart, reconsider
Before you take my heart, reconsider
I've opened the door
I've opened the door
Here comes the summer's son
He burns my skin
I ache again
I'm over you
I thought I had a dream to hold
Maybe that has gone
Your hands reach out and touch me still
But this feels so wrong
Before you take my heart, reconsider
Before you take my heart, reconsider
I've opened the door
I've opened the door
Here comes the summer's son
He burns my skin
I ache again
I'm over you
Here comes the winter's rain
To cleanse my skin
I wake again
I'm over you
Before you take my heart, reconsider
Before you take my heart, reconsider
I've opened the door
I've opened the door
Here comes the summer's son
He burns my skin
I ache again
I'm over you
Here comes the winter's rain
To cleanse my skin
I wake again
I'm over you
Here comes the summer's son
He burns my skin
I ache again
I'm over you
Here comes the winter's rain
To cleanse my skin
I wake again
I'm over you
Summer Son by Texas, from the 1999 album "The Hush".
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Back in London
Brief thoughts.
1) The Millau viaduct is simply mindblowing. You may know in advance how big and how high it is in terms of numbers, but when you see it it really blows you away. I have seen a lot of great works of engineering, but I cannot remember the last time I saw one that was simply as awe inspiring as this one.
2) After visiting places that produce fine food and drink, I have a tendency to buy the product in question in the shop on the way out. Rather predictably, this happened in Roquefort this afternoon. I thus have an impractically large block of cheese in my refrigerator.
3) In terms of what are the places where I have eaten the most overpriced food of the worst quality, the restaurant in the terminal at Toulouse airport this evening is going to be very hard to beat. (Many airport restaurants score highly on this score. None the less I recommend the airports at Rome and Bilbao as places where I have eaten excellent, reasonably priced food. It can be done.
4) Air travel is in many ways horrible. I had quite a few hassles and delays on this trip, and it was a little trying. None the less, for what it is it remains remarkable. This afternoon I drove across the Millau viaduct and went on a tour of somee of the caves in which cheese is ripened in Roquefort. Later I ate badly and expensively in Toulouse. I am now in my bed back in London.
Brief thoughts.
1) The Millau viaduct is simply mindblowing. You may know in advance how big and how high it is in terms of numbers, but when you see it it really blows you away. I have seen a lot of great works of engineering, but I cannot remember the last time I saw one that was simply as awe inspiring as this one.
2) After visiting places that produce fine food and drink, I have a tendency to buy the product in question in the shop on the way out. Rather predictably, this happened in Roquefort this afternoon. I thus have an impractically large block of cheese in my refrigerator.
3) In terms of what are the places where I have eaten the most overpriced food of the worst quality, the restaurant in the terminal at Toulouse airport this evening is going to be very hard to beat. (Many airport restaurants score highly on this score. None the less I recommend the airports at Rome and Bilbao as places where I have eaten excellent, reasonably priced food. It can be done.
4) Air travel is in many ways horrible. I had quite a few hassles and delays on this trip, and it was a little trying. None the less, for what it is it remains remarkable. This afternoon I drove across the Millau viaduct and went on a tour of somee of the caves in which cheese is ripened in Roquefort. Later I ate badly and expensively in Toulouse. I am now in my bed back in London.
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