Oh Vienna!

Back from Christmas and New Year and slowly getting settled back into the routine for a while. Now this year was a bit of a turn up for the books for New Year, as instead of the usual non-event, I saw in 2006 with friends in Vienna. I'm making my way through the photos, but for now the shots I took on my mobile have been added to the fotopic gallery. Photos from the SLR to come!

Another Christmas unwrapped

As Boxing Day draws to an end, in some ways it's the end of another Christmas. That is, the official portion of the holiday containing the word 'Christmas' is over, yet part involving 'New Year' is still to come. Not being interested in the Christian significance of the holiday, it's a bit of a funny one, as I'm unsure whether the importance of each day over the holiday should be dictated to me by the number and quality of films being aired on the terrestrial TV channels, or whether I should determine this myself.

This year for once I'm going to pack myself off for a few days abroad, so even the TV rules won't apply on this occasion, and it'll be entirely ad lib on my part. Normally New Year is an event resulting in almost universal anti-climax, but this year I'll actually be doing something, yet the exact nature of that something is still to be decided upon. I'll be enjoying the best of a foreign capital, and quite what that will involve on New Year is impossible to foresee prior to arriving there in person. I suspect it could be a memorable one, not least as this year the traditional Christmas Eve at the local pubs was foregone. The stakes are high. Whether we end up partying hard or freezing to death, I suspect there will be a many a story to tell afterwards.

Call of the blogs

It's been another quiet spell for me on the blogosphere. To be honest as Christmas approaches work steps up in pace and I normally return home feeling drained of any creative energy that may once have existed in my poor worn out grey matter. However my thoughts and time have also been distributed over these past few months across other forums. (I suspect fora is grammatically correct, however I stick by my belief that it looks odd.) There are a huge number of online discussion groups, yet finding one that hits the spot or that covers an area that's of particular relevance isn't always a simple task. Fortunately I've found such corners of the internet during the course of the year, and much of my time has been spent their, learning, reading, shareing experiences and information. It really has been an enlightening and highly constructive process.

I suspect my blogging will however see a dramatic resurgence in 2006. There's much travelling on the cards, and being far from home I suspect a blog may be the new preferred means of keeping in contact with the many folks at home, and friends in many countries following my progress. It'll making something of a change, as previously I've stuck to lots of e-mails, but I fancy with a bit of practice I'll be able to match off the need for personalised entries with trying to be as all encompassing as possible. I don't really have the foggiest how much internet connectivity I'm likely to come across. Some areas will be technologically developed, but many will not. It's funny, I've not really got a great idea of just how widespread the internet has becoming. My travels might providing something of an eye-opener on this, as much as on the other aspects of the lands around me.

Targetted advertising

A Toys R Us ad during a programme about the Somme on Channel 4 at 10:30pm. Interesting placement that one.

Random morning

It's been a fairly normal sort of a day but with scattered with slightly odd random events.

I was walking home at lunchtime and going through the FM band on my Roberts Radio which I don't normally use, but did today because my mobile was hidden under a pile of junk somewhere, when I stopped at a station playing No Doubt - It's My Life. The signal was a bit weak but listenable enough, and the DJ came on and identified it as Invicta FM from Kent! That's miles away, I didn't know it got anywhere near this far West. I suppose the hill helps.

Arriving home there was some post; in particular a Water bill wrapped in a GNER flyer. Very odd!

Heimat

For the past few weeks I've been enjoying Heimat, an epic of German television portraying the changing times of German throughout the 20th Century. However I only caught all of Heimat 3; the most recent series, which fortunately was well publicised. Heimats 1 and 2 I almost entirely missed, and according to the BBC Four website they have no plans to repeat them due to cost grounds! I am quite disappointed by this, but at the same time I'm not sure if I want to fork out £50 for each series on DVD.

Come on BBC! Let's have another chance to see this marvel of television.

Italy

I've been away for a few days in Italy, and am now going through and choosing the pick of the photographic crop to put online in the next few days. I still need to design the layout for the new photo section of the website which will replace to some extent fotopic, although due to ease of use I think I'll continue to use Fotopic for less high quality images.

No queue jumping!

I was in the local Sainsbury's at lunchtime, having remembered for once that I was otherwise destined to get back to the flat to discover I had naff all to eat. Somewhat startlingly a film crew were huddled in a corner by the supermarket entrance; wedged between the stacks of blue plastic hand baskets and the lifts. The camera didn't appear to be on; just as well too as I didn't fancy being accosted and ending up saying something stupid, which I would inevitably do if put on the spot.

I pottered off to collect a few items for lunch, and while queuing for the checkout the camera crew leapt into action, and some chap wearing an old fashioned detective's outfit, looking slightly like Sherlock Holmes, appears from nowhere and starts spouting something enthusiastically to camera. Fortunately the supermarket staff were on-hand for an explanation "they're from Channel 4....don't worry about then, they've been here all morning!" Turns out they were filming something about queue jumping. Been beckoned to the checkout I was destined not to discover more, although I'll be on the look out for something bizarre on Channel 4 in the weeks to come.

Indian summer

I can't believe how warm it's been these past couple of days. Let's just refresh our memories by taking a look at the calender. It's October; mid-October nearly. Now September is fair game when it comes to a late spell of summer and is much welcomed. But the depths of October?? The temperature has reached 23 degrees for two days in row in the big smoke. Not normally reason of complaint, but at this time of year the central heating of many buildings have been running for a week or two, making the conditions unbearable. I always have been a cold weather fan; it offsets my naturally high operating temperature. The weather is set to break tomorrow and thereafter refreshing forecasts of 15C.

New photos on their way

Regular visitors to the site may have notice that I haven't been putting much in the way of new photos online of late. This isn't due to a lack of photos being taken, far from it. It is in part to do with the gig of webspace now at my disposal. As a result I'm currently working on putting some high quality images on the website directly, rather than being hosted on Fotopic. I'm in process of going through the best of the summer's photographs to put online. However it all needs optimising, and so it's taking some time. When it's done, I hope it'll be an improvement on the photo quality currently available. Thanks for being patient!