Life has largely got in the way of me updating the website during much of October, so as we reach the end of the month and put the clocks back to GMT (or whatever your local equivalent may be), it's a good opportunity to look both back and ahead.
The main event of October for me was a trip to Valencia, Spain's 3rd largest city, lying near the county's East coast. It was a short trip, a long weekend really, but it was great to get away from the big smoke and get abroad for the first time this year, which is remarkably infrequent by my standards.
For me Spain will always remind me of childhood holidays to Majorca or the Costas. Happily many elements that made Spain memorable back then remain. As I booked my flight very much last minute, I ended up taking indirect routes to avoid paying an arm and a leg. In the end this took me via Palma, Majorca on the way out, and via Madrid on the way back.
I looked forward to going to Majorca to rekindling some old memories. I wasn't staying there; in fact I only went between the terminals at the airport when changing flights, but seeing the distinctive windmills around Palma was heartening. I assume there are still the same twig-like sun shades on the beaches of the resorts. I've heard that many of the 1970s hotels are being knocked down and replaced by more modern constructions, but at least Palma airport was reassuringly 70s, which in some ways is part of my image of Spanish holidays.
Valencia was an interesting city: historic yet modern, by the sea but not a seaside town. It took a while to get used to eating at 10pm, and then on a few occasions going to a Valencia nightspot until 5am with my Spanish friends. I'm too used to British opening hours, obviously.
Although the reason for my trip was to visit a friend, the fact that the sun was shining, and the temperature was akin to a good 6-weeks earlier in the UK (i.e. summer), it made it feel all the more like a conventional holiday; something which, as much as I enjoy it, a winter trip to Sweden just doesn't convey :) It's years since I've been on a beach-holiday. Now don't get me wrong, this wasn't a beach holiday, but having visited the beach on a couple of occasions it was certainly the nearest I've been in a while. I suppose when you get to a certain age you want something more engaging than working on the melanoma, the city-breaks take over as the preferred type of holiday.
So it was: I had a fine few days in Valencia, and you can view the pictoral evidence on my photography website.
Now speaking of photographs I've got new content coming in that respect thanks to a new camera I've got. More soon on that.
20041031
20041001
Where did the summer go?
My God it's October already. The heating has been switched on in the building, the shops are (to the irritation of everyone I've heard from) filling with Christmas related merchandise, and we're a few short weeks away from the clocks going back.
I was hoping this weekend might allow a last glorious blast of summer, but it's not looking particularly likely so far, with Sunday looking like a potential washout. Nevertheless, if there's a sign of sun, I shall be making an effort to get out and about. At least it's still quite mild, and not unconducive to enjoying the great outdoors.
I was hoping this weekend might allow a last glorious blast of summer, but it's not looking particularly likely so far, with Sunday looking like a potential washout. Nevertheless, if there's a sign of sun, I shall be making an effort to get out and about. At least it's still quite mild, and not unconducive to enjoying the great outdoors.
20040922
Travel in pictures
Images are now being added to the travel section of the website to add a bit of colour to the guides. The pages about Britain are the first to see images added (as I've the most choice of photos to go on) but more will be added in due course. At the same time I'm also continuing to add and update the information on the pages.
20040919
Over 500 photos!
Updates to both this blog and the website are definitely due, so I've added a couple of new sections to the photo gallery website, bringing the total number of images in the gallery to over 500. The latest sections are those photos taken during September so far, and from the excellent Proms in the Park, which took place last weekend in Hyde Park. There are still more shots to be added to the August section when I have a spare moment.
Photos still needing to the travel section. I haven't forgotten. Actually I'm rather fancying some more trips around Europe at the moment, as there's certainly no chance of a bigger trip before next year. I'm not sure where yet, but as I've signed up for a German course Germany, Austria or Switzerland may well be on the cards. That said, the Baltic states are coming well recommended, and Ryanair is starting flights to one of the capitals (I forgot which) from the end of October.
It's Open House Weekend in London this weekend, where there's the chance to look around hundreds of the capital's landmark buildings that are normally out of bounds for the general public. I was hoping to go to the Gherkin until I heard today that people were queueing 4 hours. That's a long wait for a good view.
Photos still needing to the travel section. I haven't forgotten. Actually I'm rather fancying some more trips around Europe at the moment, as there's certainly no chance of a bigger trip before next year. I'm not sure where yet, but as I've signed up for a German course Germany, Austria or Switzerland may well be on the cards. That said, the Baltic states are coming well recommended, and Ryanair is starting flights to one of the capitals (I forgot which) from the end of October.
It's Open House Weekend in London this weekend, where there's the chance to look around hundreds of the capital's landmark buildings that are normally out of bounds for the general public. I was hoping to go to the Gherkin until I heard today that people were queueing 4 hours. That's a long wait for a good view.
20040906
Going digital
I decided to go shopping at the weekend and enter the world of digital radio and television. I've been suitably impressed by both so far.
DAB radio offers around 50 stations covering a wide variety of formats and musical genres. Strangely though, or perhaps not so strange; of the stations programmed into the radio's presets, many are the same I'd listed to on analogue radio - BBC Radio 4, 5 Live and the like. It's fantastic to be finally able to receive the World Service in high-fidelity, and 6 Music is sounding good so far too. As for the commercial offerings; well I've never been a great fan of commercial radio, although many of the digital stations seem to be fairly light on advertising for the time being, which is fine by me. Planet Rock plays a good few quality tracks you'd not hear elsewhere, and I'm working my way through many of the other stations, sampling a few minutes of programming from each. There's something for most moods; it's just a matter of trying to remember everything that's available to listen to!
Freeview was a less expensive secondary purchase from the weekend. Remarkably easy to set up, and no signal problems at all, considering I'm just using an internal area sitting on the dining table. Saying that, there's a direct line-of-sight to Crystal Palace from many places around here, so it's perhaps not terribly surprising, but it's good to see that the sound 1920s construction of the building doesn't block all signals. (Wireless internet is not so lucky.)
There aren't a great number of stations of Freeview, since many of the higher profile ones such as E4 and Discovery are subscription based. Nevertheless, for news-junkies such as myself there are three news channels and a UK History channel which shows a good number of documentaries. Even the Sky Travel channel shows some decent fare, such as vintage Whicker's World. Fantastic! BBC Four has also been looking good, and seems to be the place where World Cinema has now relocated. I remember in the past there being a decent amount of films on Channel 4 and BBC2, but this seems to have dried up in recent years. There was a great French film on over the weekend though, and it looks as if my fortunes are looking up.
DAB radio offers around 50 stations covering a wide variety of formats and musical genres. Strangely though, or perhaps not so strange; of the stations programmed into the radio's presets, many are the same I'd listed to on analogue radio - BBC Radio 4, 5 Live and the like. It's fantastic to be finally able to receive the World Service in high-fidelity, and 6 Music is sounding good so far too. As for the commercial offerings; well I've never been a great fan of commercial radio, although many of the digital stations seem to be fairly light on advertising for the time being, which is fine by me. Planet Rock plays a good few quality tracks you'd not hear elsewhere, and I'm working my way through many of the other stations, sampling a few minutes of programming from each. There's something for most moods; it's just a matter of trying to remember everything that's available to listen to!
Freeview was a less expensive secondary purchase from the weekend. Remarkably easy to set up, and no signal problems at all, considering I'm just using an internal area sitting on the dining table. Saying that, there's a direct line-of-sight to Crystal Palace from many places around here, so it's perhaps not terribly surprising, but it's good to see that the sound 1920s construction of the building doesn't block all signals. (Wireless internet is not so lucky.)
There aren't a great number of stations of Freeview, since many of the higher profile ones such as E4 and Discovery are subscription based. Nevertheless, for news-junkies such as myself there are three news channels and a UK History channel which shows a good number of documentaries. Even the Sky Travel channel shows some decent fare, such as vintage Whicker's World. Fantastic! BBC Four has also been looking good, and seems to be the place where World Cinema has now relocated. I remember in the past there being a decent amount of films on Channel 4 and BBC2, but this seems to have dried up in recent years. There was a great French film on over the weekend though, and it looks as if my fortunes are looking up.
20040831
So much for the summer
The remaining few minutes of the summer tick away and shortly we'll be entering September, which for most people means Autumn has arrived, and with it the end of lounging on the beach in the sun, long golden days. So the theory goes. Britain has a reputation for its erratic weather, but from what I've heard via friends the same lack of summer we've been experiencing has affected more or less all of Europe at similar latitudes. Still, there's hope for an Indian Summer yet.
20040830
'Impeach Blair Now'
It was the above title which made me pick up and buy a copy of the Spectator magazine the other day. Although I do like to pick up one of the political periodicals fairly regularly, the Spectator isn't normally one I'd read, as its partisan line isn't exactly to my own tastes. However on this occasion mention of impeaching the PM did grab my attention.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been so easily swayed by a headline, but in my opinion Blair's seemingly reasonable work at managing the country so far has been irrevocably overshadowed on what appears to have been a fool's errand in Iraq, and I won't at all mind seeing the Blair - Bush pact given a bloodied nose over the whole affair. And so I read about the proposed impeachment of Blair with at least a touch of expectation.
The Spectator made the proposed impeachment sound like quite a realistic proposition, whereas in the story on the BBC website, the whole idea seems to have been given little regard by MPs as a whole. Interestingly, it transpires that Boris Johnson, editor of the Spectator, is one of the 11 MPs supporting the impeachment. I suppose that explains their upbeat coverage of the proposal. Alas, perhaps Teflon Tony will walk away with it again ...until the election at least.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been so easily swayed by a headline, but in my opinion Blair's seemingly reasonable work at managing the country so far has been irrevocably overshadowed on what appears to have been a fool's errand in Iraq, and I won't at all mind seeing the Blair - Bush pact given a bloodied nose over the whole affair. And so I read about the proposed impeachment of Blair with at least a touch of expectation.
The Spectator made the proposed impeachment sound like quite a realistic proposition, whereas in the story on the BBC website, the whole idea seems to have been given little regard by MPs as a whole. Interestingly, it transpires that Boris Johnson, editor of the Spectator, is one of the 11 MPs supporting the impeachment. I suppose that explains their upbeat coverage of the proposal. Alas, perhaps Teflon Tony will walk away with it again ...until the election at least.
20040829
Back from a break
I'm back following a week or so of travelling, seeing the sights and entertaining friends. Look out for photos from some of the trips and places appearing in the photo album soon, which includes a trip on the Caledonian Sleeper from London to Inverness. I can't claim that much sleeping was actually done, but it's certainly a reasonable way of making such a long journey.
I've also been to the Edinburgh Festival, and I've got to say that the shows I saw were excellent, both thoroughly entertaining and proving to be of a higher quality than I had expected (having seen Newsnight Review's coverage of some of the shows). Street-performers I can live without, but the show about John Lennon's death and an evening of comedy poetry both went down an absolute storm. The latter had the lyrical wordsmiths pay homage to the 80's, declare their love for an orange girl (who had been on the sunbed too long), and declare the hell-holes that are call centres, each in their own distinct and witty styles.
I've a great deal of sleep to catch up on, as the past week has consisted largely of full days working and sightseeing in many cases, then eating out and getting to bed late. Unfortunately given the current hour unless I make a particularly valiant effort to sleep in tomorrow I'll still be behind on my quota for kippage.
I've also been to the Edinburgh Festival, and I've got to say that the shows I saw were excellent, both thoroughly entertaining and proving to be of a higher quality than I had expected (having seen Newsnight Review's coverage of some of the shows). Street-performers I can live without, but the show about John Lennon's death and an evening of comedy poetry both went down an absolute storm. The latter had the lyrical wordsmiths pay homage to the 80's, declare their love for an orange girl (who had been on the sunbed too long), and declare the hell-holes that are call centres, each in their own distinct and witty styles.
I've a great deal of sleep to catch up on, as the past week has consisted largely of full days working and sightseeing in many cases, then eating out and getting to bed late. Unfortunately given the current hour unless I make a particularly valiant effort to sleep in tomorrow I'll still be behind on my quota for kippage.
20040812
Slogan of the day
While browsing International Broadcasting websites I came across the following banner graphic for Aljazeera. Good choice of slogan I reckon...
20040809
Night shots
The next set of photos to appear on the photography website will be some night-time shots I took the other weekend in central London. Some of the shots were challenging, in that i was trying to get the camera to balance on the side railings of say Westminster or Waterloo bridge in order to take a shot down the river. Some came out, others not.
My favourite shots from the evening were the long exposures of traffic, which isn't something I'd really tried before, not least due to having lived in a place where there's not much traffic anyway. No such problems on Waterloo Bridge or on the Mall, and some of the results look pretty funky. It's certainly something I'll be experimenting further with in the future. Red London double-decker buses make for some of the most best subjects.
My favourite shots from the evening were the long exposures of traffic, which isn't something I'd really tried before, not least due to having lived in a place where there's not much traffic anyway. No such problems on Waterloo Bridge or on the Mall, and some of the results look pretty funky. It's certainly something I'll be experimenting further with in the future. Red London double-decker buses make for some of the most best subjects.
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