So, where's the next kilowatt gonna come from?

Project Aqua - a large scale hydro generation proposal - has had - lovely irony this - it's plug pulled. Now, against a backdrop of increasing power demand and static generation capacity, folks are now asking the obvious: what's going to keep my business and my home a-hummin'?

A quick survey of the options:
Large-scale hydro: bzzzt - Aqua was to have used the last major resource that could be easily tapped. It had a high head and good flow, hence high energy potential. What's left tends to have one or other, not both, characteristics. And Aqua was in easy country geologically speaking.

Small-scale hydro: Maybe. But the same Byzantine processes of resource consent are needed, irrespective of project scale. Higher fixed cost equals higher running cost. And there will be a lot more generation points needed.

Geothermal: Maybe. That's if underground heat generated by vulcanism doesn't turn out to be a taonga, or be a major part of some taniwha's sustenance. And there's resource consent too...

Coal: probably. Although the Gummint doesn't like this turn of events: Govt Resists Coal Generation Option. Still, the vast lignite fields in Southland have to be a starter. The spectre of Kyoto is rather diminished these days, now that Russia has refused to ratify it. Oh wait, we stupidly signed up already? Sigh.

Nuclear: useful as a straw man to draw the impassioned bile of greens, and worth suggesting for the sheer sake of the ensuing spectacle. But chain-yanking aside, not, I think, a serious starter.

Wind: definitely possible, established in the Manawatu, but has already drawn NIMBY's in Christchurch (the sole generator, at Gebbie's Pass has had a rocky history, and the owners are still trying to quieten the gearbox, ferchrissake), and in Wellington, where a proposed Cook Strait facing wind farm got the evil eye from locals. The problem with wind is of course storage: power has to be used there and then (it does, after all, move rather quickly down them wires). So unless it's used to (say) pump water up into a hydro lake while the wind is blowing, it is rather useless for baseload generation, and by the same token, cannot be relied upon for peaks. And at around 0.5mW per tower, you need an awful lot of whirligigs to make even a modest amount of power. And then only sometimes.

Gas: maybe. Although we did seem to tear through the last major gas field we found rather quickly, no? The form of generation is here the major determinant: doing the gas jet under boiler, to steam - to turbine - to generator - to transmission, in a large centralised station, is not the most efficient usage of the potential. Dispersed generation - say via Stirling cycle technology like WhisperTech, is a better bet. That's big in the UK right now, especially for remote, isolated or small-cluster users. Watch this space.
Similarly, fuel-cells are another technology to watch.

But hey, there's another possibility! In the article, one of the NIMBY's down on the Waitaki river had this to say:

"there is a real head of steam developed for protecting the Waitaki River from such developments."

Quick: back up a turbine and generator, and hook 'em up to the grid!

Guns baaad. Explosive belts Gooood.

NZ Pundit reports on the, shall we say over-egged, response to kid-size guns. Note the rapidity and ferocity of the condemnation. The key line in the Parents' Centre quote runs like this:

"[the advertisement] sent a clear message to kids that it was OK to kill".

So I expect an equally vigorous affirmation from PC (cor, the coincidence...) for an American parent's commentary about Hussam Abdu - you will perhaps recall Abdu's 15 seconds of fame recently on global TV.

"If a bunch of men pressured some girl out of having an abortion the clever cheese-and-cracker set would be speechless with moral outrage.

Well, this is the new peer pressure in the Middle East.

And, it seems to me, bullying a kid into self-vaporization and murder is worse than teasing a girl into an eating disorder."

Teaching kids to kill - themselves! Shockingly unsupportive of kidz rightz. Let's hear it, Parents' Centre! Let's hear it, Minister(s) for Child, Yoof and Fambly! (Who is it, this week?)

I personally won't be holding my breath...

Lord Carey, retired, religious, and controversial

Lord Carey of Clifton has put in a religious-dialogue context, many of the issues surrounding our fragile co-existence with militant Islam. Huntington gets a mention. Ralph Peters' shadow lies over Carey's analysis of the various failures which have led Wahhabi-influenced Islamic cultures to their present pass.
And while the good Lord urges (what else?) more dialogue, the overall strategy on the ground is more in line with what the good Captain of USS Clueless has thoughtfully outlined for us.
My recent OE has hardened my own confidence in the merits - scientific, technical, creative-wise - of 'our' culture - culture is, after all, as any MBA can regurgitate, 'what we do around here' - nothing more. I'm a techno type, and I don't see too much of that in any other civilisational model - as the quip goes, 'there's no (fill in the blank here) way to fix a car (or a computer)'.
We're living in a 'climax community' - we're the old, great trees (think of the glorious old-growth rimu in Waitutu forest) and that takes maintenance. Like lopping off the odd strangler fig vine at its roots. You can't do that by talking at it.
But back to Carey's speech. He's evidently offended a few tender lilies here and there. Well, boo-hoo. He has a backbone, unlike invertebrate Spain and is unapologetic about that. We could use a few more Careys (and Warrens) out this way.

Nostalgia for Lost Jobs

As usual, Virginia Postrel has a great link:Would you really rather be a miner?
The argument, heard often in tandem with a vaguely anti-capitalist or anti-globalisation bleat, is that those awful (fill in the blanks) have stolen our Jobs.
Which were Ours, you see, by - well, by what right, exactly?

Inheritance? Nope, that's the British Royals.
Guaranteed by the Government? Nope, that's the French, and nobody's buying their stock at the moment. Government's money comes from?? S'right - us Evil Capitalists (EC).
Provided by Family, Tribe? Maybe - if there is an underlying EC somewheres in there - think Ngai Tahu. If not, then when the somebody-else's dime which must be propping the whole show up runs out, so do the jobs.
Threats of violence? Maybe. For a while, and if you're running a mafia or gangsta type op, then that 'while' can be generations. But standover specialists aren't exactly your basic patent-filer types: real innovation comes from free spirits, as a glance at Peters' yardsticks may show. No profits, no surplus to intimidate others into giving you a cut of, no parasites. And where do those profits come from? EC's, again.
Technology? Sure. But all those wagon-wheel and arrow makers of yore seem to have become aircraft engineers, farmers become biologists, miners become mobile phone account managers. Look in the papers - how many of those job titles existed even 20 years ago?

Having just finished Evan Eisenberg's Ecology of Eden, I'm inclined to think that these 'Lost Jobs' reveries are another instance of the 'expulsion from Eden' myth which he dissects so well. Like, there never really was an Eden, so there's no place to go back to. But the nostalgia stems less from this than from the inability to accept that our own reality (Eisenberg's label is the Tower - exemplified by the large cities - largely human-created but containing an essential wildness of their own) is part of nature/world/universe, too. And part of our human nature (when circumstances permit, see Peters again) is simply to create stuff that never existed before.

So the Our-Jobs-Have-Gone moaners seem to have quite a lot in common with the Let's-keep-feeding-people-into-the-industrial-shredders anti-war protesters.

Yes, they (Jobs, tyrants) are gone.
No, they aren't coming back any time soon.
And really, do you all want to go back into that factory, or down that hole? Or, into that shredder?

Al Quaeda to Europe: "Grease up. Bend over."

Hard to know where the Spanish capitulation will take Europe. Nowhere nice, that's for sure. Spanish, and by osmosis, European foreign policy can now be dictated by remote control. Lee Harris has likened the situation to inviting a Vampire inside the door.

The conversations will now go like this:

AQ: 'We've arranged to have a little reminder of 3/11 - you'll be able to tell by the large columns of smoke and the absence of a familar landmark - unless of course you agree to (fill in the blank)'

Spain or other hapless EU member: 'But of course. Jump - how high? We'll see to it right away.'

The sad joke is that the landmark will vanish in a puff of smoke and another few hundred lives, anyway. It's the classic stand-over trope from all those gangster movies - the enforcers, even though they have their percentage of turnover, always manage to break something on the way out, just to show who's boss.

Dr Seuss has a classic cartoon on the subject here.

But nobody should be laughing. As Yogi Berra said, it's deja vu all over again.

The first concrete step towards Eurabia

Robert Spencer, writing in WorldNetDaily, notes without glee that
"al-Qaida has adjusted Spain's foreign policy with a bombing".

Hat-tip to LGF.

Comments about Spain

Mark Steyn usually has thoroughly amusing yet pointed observations. This one is no exception.

Lee Harris is another one of those wise guys: he runs a thought experiment here past TechCentralStation readers. A quote:

"If a foreign agent is permitted to interfere at will with the internal affairs of a nation, then that nation no longer possesses national sovereignty -- a fact that can be immediately grasped in those cases when the foreign agent is another nation state."

Ralph Kinney Bennet is pessimistic. The opening quote says it all.

"Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering. (Seneca)"

Wisdom

Tricky concept. I seem to need large doses of this in times of uncertainty, and there are a few people I keep returning to for their latest efforts.
Victor Davis Hanson, for a cold-eyed look at the world around us - latest I've found is here.
Robert D Kaplan (recent Atlantic Monthly article), whose view of humankind is a needed antidote to all those damned idealists: dark and irrational passions lie deep in human nature. Think religious fanatics, berserkers, the 'creedal passion periods' that Huntington points to in American culture, the taniwha worshippers of our own little NZ, the cargo cultists of the South Pacific, the list just goes on and on. To the extent that real power is thus exercised, and that power always, always matters, this side of us cannot be glossed over or rationalised away.
Evan Eisenberg, author of The Recording Angel, shows a marvellous touch with this now out of print trawl through the co-evolution of jazz and records. I'm currently reading his Ecology of Eden and rather like his juxtaposition of the Mountain-Eden and the Tower-Technological Man. So far, anyway.
William Rees-Mogg , who co-authored with James Dale Davidson The Sovereign Individual which not coincidentally (in my edition's preface) has a telling reference to the (not exactly quoted) 'vulnerable steel and glass symbol of commerce - the Twin Towers'.
Which may lead on (but not tonight, more Eisenberg to digest, after a good steak, a passable shiraz and a glorious sunset viewed from the Southern tip-head mole at Greymouth) to a rumination about canaries in coal mines.

Andalusia is a front line

Tacitus has a thoughtful piece on Spain which echoes Mark Steyn's piece in the Australian yesterday. Essentially, because Spain was the site of the 1492 explusion of Muslims from the Iberian peninsula (known to history as the 'Reconquista' - the Re-conquering), it has been, is, and will be always in the sights of Islamofascists. And that's quite irrespective of the government of the day, its policies, its attempts at appeasement or indeed any actions.

I'm reminded of Tim Burtons 'Mars Attacks', where the negotiations between Earth and the Martians come to this point: Earth: 'what would you want us to do?' Martians: 'Die'.

As Mark Steyn notes in his piece, there's a sentiment-for-sentiment quote from Hezbollah to the same effect:
"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."

Today we are all Spaniards

Mark Steyn has a typically comprehensive article about the Spanish atrocity. Just read the whole thing (RTWT).

Carl Zimmer is blogging!

CZ is a journalist who has that enviable knack of making science interesting and topical, without mushing it down to a lowest-common-multiple in the process. It's a rare gift (grits teeth at this point). I first struck his writing in 'At the Water's Edge' - a marvellous trek through macro-evolution, which for me answered most of the 'but where are the intermediate forms?' questions. There were eight-fingered fishy things, a clear exposition on how genes could simply experiment with physical forms, the eternal question (much beloved by fellow apes who are still inclined to miraculous explanations of their origin rather than accept the bleeding obvious) of how eyes could have evolved, and so on.

He (CZ) is also responsible for 'Parasite Rex' - which is very useful for terrifying the squeamish, is not to be discussed at meal-times, and which contains perhaps the best explanation I've seen for (and a typically gorge-raising possibility for fixing) Crohn's disease.

As well as his own website, he also blogs over at The Loom.

Speaking as one with 65% fish genes, I thoroughly recommend these works. Look out too for his latest: 'Soul made Flesh'.

A thoughtful look at 21st century empire

There's such a lot of heat and so little light in the now rather enervated debates on world politics in the blogosphere. This piece is a welcome, energetic addition to that debate: Bobbitt

Back again at last, having figured links...

The blogging silence has been for two reasons:
1 - new job, settling in, sales to chase and implementations to do. Demanding - a lot of learning, new business relationships, new products and technologies. The initial 'deep-end' feeling has subsided somewhat now (I'm a fast study in techo stuff, being male - heh).
2 - the shock of coming back to little, young, empty, slow NZ took fully one month to work off. Not that, as I walk dogs down a practically deserted 10k of beach, I miss the terraced, 5 storey London that we worked in. But....

The ceramic we purchased in Barcelona has turned up, and in one piece! Thanks to the seller, who organised the coffin-maker to make a special box, and to FedEx. Ain't global transportation wunnerful?
It's still moving around as we figure how best to display it (and tie it down: NZ isn't known as the Shaky Isles for nothing).

Oh, linking. Here's a typically "I've thought it all out and here it is" fabulously detailed post - who else could? - on the new Iraq constitution: Steven Den Beste

Jan 17 - homewards bound

We farewell Anne and Doug - thanks guys for a marvellous time. The mood evaporates somewhat as we wend our way slowly through AA's queues, and totally as the TSA unpacks our bags - they've spotted the two air nailers I picked up at Home Depot, plus the bag of video cable fittings and other metal bits. Well, the nailers do look like guns, and the fittings might look like bullets. But it doesn't help us in terms of timing for the flight, because we suspect our names are then passed down to the personal check, and it's 'spread em' time. Very politely. 'I'm going to touch you briefly with the back of my hand'. Hey, I paid Florida sales tax too! Couldn't you linger? But what with all this, we make a 3.20pm flight at 3.23. 'Where were you?' We refrain from noting the obvious - that we were being felt up by TSA spooks. And so to LA. Great kinetic scuplture at Tom Bradley terminal. Terrible coffee - we've been spoiled. Then the long flight back. Then the lost baggage at Auckland. It's only a flagpole for a flag we bought on the Keys. But really!

Jan 15/16 - Florida Keys

After a leisurely start (breakfast, more Folgers coffee) we swing (well, crawl at times, remember those Florida drivers) down the Miami freeways, onto US1 and the Keys! The Keys are really a cross between a railway embankment (put down in the early 1900's by one Henry Flagler right down to Key West, then blown flat by the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 with attendant loss of life), and natural coral islands. The Keys divide the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, and have an Atlantic-side reef to protect them (well, until the next big storm surge - the 1935 event had 15-18 feet tides and an average land height of maybe 6 feet...).
So there's an air of devil-may-care and laid-back-ness about the Keys: certainly there are a lot of folk who have bought a boat and gone charter-fishing there. Ernest Hemingway and all that imagery, too. We have a poke around, a sun-soaked lunch, more of a look (searching for sailing hires - not many on offer) and finally a sunset Key lime pie (local delicacy, like a deliciously bitter cheesecake, needs a lot of beer to wash it down) and of course the aforesaid sunset. Which slides right into an inconveniently placed Key further down. Bugger.
Then off to our accommodation, which has raccoons on the ground outside. Fat raccoons, from thoughtless guests who feed them. On Dunkin' Donuts, evidently. We refrain. The raccoons yowl away for a while, we sit out on the balcony, and a delicious scent from outside vegetation steals through the room - gardenias, perhaps. We make vague, alcohol-propelled plans to buy a boat (with a sail) and move down here.
The next day, we locate a sailing hire down at Mile Marker 82, and an Enviro-tour which goes bird and manatee watching. The Mile Marker system is very sweet - all addresses are prefixed with the Mile marker (MM) so you can see that 85430 will be between MM 85 and 86. Very logical and useful. A slight quirk, MM's on the Keys run from Key West (the end). Well, they have to start somewhere. So going down the Keys (accommodation is around MM95) is a quick study in subtraction. Or using a calculator.
There is a correlation between driving and type of vehicle that, although we laugh it off at first, gradually really does become apparent. Ford F150's house the legendary flaky drivers, it seems. US1 is all single-lane, so it's very easy to get stuck behind a raised drawbridge, someone who knows they have to turn right somewheres around here (to within oh say 10 miles) and goes 20mph to check every street sign, or the aforesaid F150. And it's literally the only way in or out of the whole 118 miles of Keys - a scary thought if evacuation really needed to happen. However, mostly the traffic rolls right along at the predominant speed limit of 45mph.
Our Enviro-tour isn't, as it turns out, in a woven flax corracle with a sail, with a SNAG captain (or captess) who sings to the fishes. It's in a 30ft Boston Whaler with a 225hp Merc out back, Captain Reed at the helm (favourite sound bite "hang on back there" as he slams the throttle right forward), making around 35mph on the water. Well, we do have some territory to cover. And the Merc is enviro, being a four-stroke. We see manatee grass but no manatees, skates and sharks and lots of fishes. And birds, who take over certain mangrove clumps and not others. Note to diary: birdshit en masse really stinks the place up. No wonder every public building through Europe is festooned with upward-pointing spikes (laid out in collated strips, like nailgun nails) to discourage roosting. We idle through narrow little backwaters amongst mangroves and islands in an ultimately unsuccessful but hugely enjoyable search for the elusive manatee.
Back at the lodge, we have arranged a one hour sail on a Hobie cat, so I take Doug and Anne out on a very laidback cruise. Mild onshore breeze, so we can reach out to sea, tack away up the beach, sail right back. There's no jib, just a mainsail - the way a catamaran can go in even a moderate breeze leads me to suspect they've had to chase one or two right out to the reef in the past. We just pootle about, staying out of the way of powercraft, and generally having a great time. So I have to buy a sailboat fleet and move to the Keys, now.
On the Enviro-tour, we have spotted a decayed-looking drinking hole (Papa Joe's) which promises a better sunset. So once back onshore, we head there and await the sunset with a beer. Or two. It sets behind land (again! but by now we don't care) and a backdrop of power lines which serves as a good metaphor for the Keys - power poles marching to a vanishing-point, water and pelicans everywhere, good bar music from a real live entertainer (taking time out from fishing charters, probably) and good company. A sunset movie, naturally. And a long afterglow with underlit jetstream cloud overhead. Why isn't every day like this?
We trail back up US1 and witness a truly dopey piece of driving by (what else?) an F150 inhabitant. He's trailing a 25ft boat, going at much less than the speed limit, accumulating a respectable tailback behind him. And when he gets to the passing zone - he (you can't make this stuff up) stays in the fast lane, forcing everyone to pass on the wrong side.... Just as well Hemingway wasn't in the tailback. Mr F150 would have had his two brain cells plastered all over the inside of the cab once Ernie drew alongside.

Jan 14 - on the Inland Waterway and Cuban coffee

An early start to make a boat trip down the inland canals system into the downtown Miami area. The trip is very good: a bit of commentary about the houses of the rich and famous, passing under many bridges, waiting for others to open up (which they do very satisfactorily to W's engineers mind, and a movie to record the fact), past lots of rather dire condo-type blocks, and also a lot of very classy ones.
But the main impressions remain of the sheer size (we travel down perhaps 1/3 of Miami's total length), the amount of construction, and the general affluence. We don't really try to get to downtown - shops are the same anywhere - but have a good Cuban meal and discover Cuban coffee. Black, quite sweet, very strong, quite addictive. Two cups are in order. And T-shirts.
Back on board, back up the same waterway, but on the other side of the boat it's all new. The inland waterways extend pretty much right up the coast, and we pass two major ports: Fort Lauderdale (cruise ships, ro-ro vessels and oil tankers) and Miami (in the distance, at least 10 container cranes, lots of activity to judge by the semis with containers backed up right over the bridge into the port area). A great day.

Jan 13 - Miami

Early start, as we check out, very last tube trip out to Heathrow, where AF has actually delivered the luggage! We grab it and head for our plane. Timing is tight but Ok in the end. 9 hours in the air, Ernest Ranglin on the MuVo, good meals (we're flying BA this leg). The plane goes on a great-circle track from UK to Canada, then down the eastern seaboard of the US to Miami. M sees lots of snow in Canada as we overfly. They're having big storms, low temperatures.
Not in Miami, however, which is a comfortable 25 C, with low humidity. We get our bags (lots of queueing, but our NZ passports get us waved through once we get to officialdom). We mill around Terminal B for a while till we hook up with Doug (Host #1) and then circle around for a further while till Anne (Host #2) hoves into view. Then freeway travel with light traffic and minor examples of the fabled crazed Florida driving only, out to Lauderhill (north of Miami) and relaxation and lots of catching up.
The house is a large suburban one, with a swimming pool out back, lots of palm trees, a canal with ducks, snakes, toads but (we are slightly disappointed to learn) no 'gators - there's a grill out at the road end to keep them out. There was a iguana some time ago in the back, and photos to prove it. And fireants, until they got treated. So we plan tomorrow's excursions in relative safety, predator-wise. With great Folger's coffee.

Jan 12 - Air France - The horror, the horror

We visit the Zweigart factory for a look-through, have lunch with the directors, then off to Stuttgart airport (an exhilarating motorway trip in the trusty Audi - our host has bucked the Merc fixation) - where the AF horror starts. We had (at CDG pPaaris transfer desk) swapped our flights to earlier ones back to London, to allow us more time at CDG with that dreadful changeover. They (what else) fubar'ed both the original and the replacement flights at that point. Our efficient (German, of course) AF people at the desk sort this out, but it takes about 20 minutes and much dark muttering by three people. We hear the word 'kaput' more than once - never a good sign.
But Paris-bound we are, and duly arrive at CDG, and the inevitable bus.
Just imagine, you build an airport, taxiways, parking bays, runways, terminals, cargo and baggage areas. Each terminal has many gates, each with an airbridge. So far, so standard. But at Paris CDG, you do not let actual planes near the airbridges. In fact, you don't equip many of the gates with actual dockable airbridges, but terminate them in stairs to ground level. Instead, there are three rules of operation:
1 - keep those planes away from the gates by parking them a kilometre or so away
2 - transport everyone everywhere (plane-terminal, terminal to terminal) by bus, one planeload at a time. This guarantees bottlenecks, as there's only one bus allowed per plane, so it has to wait for the last passenger
3 - express incredulity and pained surprise when planes are missed and luggage goes astray
It seems fair to assume that this model of airport operation will not be emulated by other airports which want to have a future. And in our limited experience, it certainly isn't - most others exhibit reasonable standards of efficiency, cleaniness and punctuality. Including Mulhouse, but then it has Swiss and German exits which exert a benign organising influence. So there's the obvious answer to CDG: shift it to Strasbourg and let it imbibe the German attention to detail. With a fast rail link to Paris, it wouldn't even take longer.
We eventually make it to Heathrow and, quelle surprise, Air France has left all our luggage in Paris. They offer to forward it to our hotel. No thanks, we are going to Miami the next day. Monsieur, we can forward it there for you. Ah, but when? Not trusting AF to find its ass with both hands, we arrange to personally pick it up at Heathrow (different terminal from our Miami trip, of course, Sod's law) rather than trust it to AF's by now highly questionable stewardship. A last Picadilly then District tube (costs 3.80 instead of the rip-off Heathrow Express at 25.00) to Victoria and our hotel. What a day. But it's our last night in dear grimy tired London. Sniff.

Black Forest - Jan 11

Our marvellous host has a drive through the BF planned. We had always thought of it as an enclave or pocket, but it is absolutely huge: around 180k long and averaging 50k wide. We drive into the middle, to Bad Griesbach and (what else) a little local restaurant with local delicacies. But first, a small bush walk, to an abandoned dam which holds special memories for our host. Very rustic (dam was for a fishing lake) and quiet. And rainy. So we retreat to a lunch of wild venison (hirshragout) which is really gamy and marvellous. Then a schnapps - firewater, made from a cherry base. The first slug lifts the top gently from your head, the second (although you're technically meant to knock it all back in one swallow) gently stirs the brain cells with a long-handled silver spoon and the third... well you can't feel it.
The BF drive continues: there was a hurricane (150-200k winds) several years ago which simply flattened parts of the forest, and the processing industries (a lot of them, all over - the BF is a huge wood resource) are still working through the bulge in log supplies. Most of the region is well roaded: there are bush tracks for the logging, and the whole area is intensively managed or at least kept an eye on by rangers, compartment by compartment. The extent amazes us, even in the 200 k's or so we drive. Snow on the tops, pine forest (black trunks, dark interior, hence Black forest) on the steeper slopes. Then all of a sudden, on gentler slopes, a consistent pattern emerges: cultivated land, orchard trees amongst this, then a village in a hollow by a stream, more fileds, back into forest over the ridge tops. Many, many villages. Intensive cultivation, with no fences. Very neat and orderly, even to the extent of sealed narrow roads through the fields for the farm equipment, all open to the main roads.
It's all very Swiss/German postcard, and there is a whole lot of it. No wonder this area was coveted by the kings of yore. The weather as we drive through is not great - mist, rain, if it was colder there would be snow over the tops. But we like this: it gives a sense of how 'black' the forest must have seemed in older days, when bears, wolves and other carnivores roamed, the damp crept everywhere, the fire burnt lower and cabin fever set in. This is Brothers Grimm territory, no doubt about it. Again, this experience is not the usual touristic one: which is evidently limited to a selected few pretty villages, and a brief swing through some trees somewhere along the line. We really feel we've seen the real, hard-working, orderly Germany. And to cap it off, we take a short-cut through the cultivated fields on the way back to Sindelfingen (after stopping in at a fish ponds back in the forest, to buy some smoked trout for dinner), and it's like driving through the farmers' private territory. A 2.4m sealed strip, cultivated to within a metre or so each side, park-like trees dotted around. No fences, no stock (all is kept indoors except a few sheep). An absolute delight. And we have trout, more good wine, and cheeses for dinner. Ans see a totally delightful little film that is shown every New Years throughout northern Europe: Freddie Frinton's 'Dinner for One'. FF was English, but this is a rare treat, around 50 years old, very slapstick/music hall influenced. We'll try to get a copy somewhere along the way.
There's no doubt that the fabled German fussiness is there: nice smooth railbeds for the trains, orderly fields and forests, sealed roads down to farm lanes, beautiful machinery (the factory we see is spotlessly maintained and every cable and pipe has it's place), but what's missing from this stereotype is what we've seen: the humour, the earthiness, the sense of judgement in architecture, and the delight in nature (those monks and their ceiling paintings of which we have many photos). This won't be our last trip to this area.

Bebenhausen - Jan 10

Another Cistercian monastery, just up the road from Tubingen. Well preserved: there doesn't seem to have been the episodes of iconoclasm (image smashing) which destroyed so much of British churches and abbeys, and which occurred in France just prior to WW1. There is a great deal of painted stone left: something very common then but most old stone we have seen up till now has been cleaned back. Lots of botanical images, and the rising sun emblem (for Christ, we think) on celing bosses in the vaults everywhere. And more humour: a painted pulpit with a stone figure holding it up. A great afternoon, all round. Dinner with local and French wines in the evening.

Tubingen - Jan 10

Our hosts in Sindelfingen take us to the university town of Tubingen - 180 km/h on the autobahn (for only 5 k's, unfortunately) and a swing through what turns out to be an outpost of the Black Forest. Tubingen is a university town, enlivened by 30,000 students, and has a strong medical/genetic background: cell nuclei were first isolated in the schloss' kitchen, and the fuchsia was named after one Fuchs, whose house we photograph.
And those houses! They are everything the postcards say - stone bases, timber post-and-beam construction with brick or rubble infill, above. Ancient timbers, carefully replaced (this form of construction is quite easy to repair, as it's all exposed), and just oozing antiquity. Many humourous touches - carvings of little people holding up bits of the buildings on corners and under beams, and a lot of painting to resemble other, grander decorations on otherwise flat surfaces. Old timber. Bulgy stone walls. Delightful colours and lots of hills. We have a great old walk around - mine host acting as guide, and getting around the (inevitable) mediaeval streets without getting lost. We lunch at a Schwabian specialty restaurant (one of many): dumplings and various local dishes. Very filling and delicious.

Mulhouse - Jan 8

We arrive sans M's luggage, courtesy of those fubar Air France peasants. Not ever, ever flying Air France will become a resolution....
The trip next day to DMC goes well, access to their rarely-opened museum granted, and photos permitted. Then we take to the trains: Mulhouse-Strasbourg-Stuttgart. The first leg is SCNF (French) and is quite good - wending through the Rhine valley, with schloss (castles) on each major hill (the rich Rhine valley land has been traded back and forth between various overlords for some time, now). We change to DB (German) at Strasbourg, and immediately things improve even more: German timeliness and nice level trackbeds make for a very comfortable ride. Of which we see nothing, as it's now dark.
We brave the German language and the Stuttgart S-bahn (city rail, again courtesy of DB) and find our way to Bobelingen, then a cab to Sindelfingen and our hotel.
Sindelfingen is home to a large Mercedes plant, where the employees can buy a Merc for 20% under list, then sell it after a year for that same amount. So, unsurprisingly, the town is full of new Mercs. It's a rich area in farming terms as well: cultivated fields right up to the Mercedes plant and (we see in the Monday when we fly out) the airport too.

Paris - Jan 7 - stuck at CDG

Early start to catch an 0915 plane to Paris, then on to Mulhouse, all on Air France. Ha! We had reckoned without Heathrow's queues (for take-off) and Charles De Gaulle (CDG) airport's inter-terminal transfers. We make Terminal F (coming in) at the exact time the Mulhouse flight departs, and the transfer to Terminal B takes fully 35 minutes. There is quite a lot of activity at the transfer desks as passengers re-book missed connections - must happen a lot. It's the first airport I've seen with specialised busses, able to hold a whole planeload by the looks of them, with bodies able to be raised up to the airbridge level. Obviously a desperate measure to ferry round transfers, although the busses don't seem to be moving at all. But our inter-terminal shuttle has to crawl along behind baggage trolley tractors, wait for cross traffic, and dodge freight and airline food vehicles. Doesn't say much for the general level of organisation: mostly these streams are kept well segregated. Ho hum. We have a late afternoon flight to Mulhouse booked instead of the one we missed, and we re-schedule Monday's (coming) flights out of Stuugart, to allow a whole lot more time, and to allow a later flight to London. For we mustn't miss that Miami flight early Tuesday.... Two cafe-au-laits in quick succession restore the optimal blood/caffeine ratio. No wireless internet acccess in the terminal. Mais naturellement. But of course. CDG's stylised layout map, we notice, resembles a porcupine's outline. We think we now know why.

London - Jan 6 - last day

Work and then a hop across to Kypera up in Clerkenwell. I catch a Picadilly tube and get off at Holborn, thinking, it's a short step down the hill to Smithfield and Kypera. It's a long hop.... but I pick up a nice NZ Marlborough white on the way, for a very kind person whose NT card we have had all this time. Thanks sincerely.
Goodbyes all round, then a quick caffeine-up at a little Italian place in Cowcross St, and onto the Tube at Farringdon for the last time. This is the oldest part of the entire tube system, and looks it. I'll miss it heaps.

London - Jan 6 - Sir John Soanes

More work, but the Soanes Museum is open by candlelight on the first Tuesday every month. So off we go to Lincoln's Inn Fields. Sir J was an eminent architect in the late 1700's to early 1800's and his home is a museum of architectural fragments: castings, pieces, books, plans. Generally, the collection is unexplained, so you have to know a little about the times and styles to make much sense of it all. It's very crammed in, lit by an amazing variety of internal and external skylights, and just an absorbing session.
The realisation that we're leaving day after tomorrow is sinking in, and so we wander down on a last walk through central London. Down Kingsway, where the impressive blue-lit facade of the BBC looms, through to Somerset House. This is an old (1650 - 1700) pile, which hosts ice-skating over the December/January period. We stop, have a mulled wine and watch for a while. Most out tonight are the clutch-the-railings-and-hope brigade, it seems. Then we amble back up Father Thames to Westminster Tube station, and so home to dear old Victoria. One more day. Sniff.

London - Jan 5

Work, work, work. Macdonald's salad. Cheap, boring.

London - Jan 4 - Science Museum

Yet another huge place, up in the group of 3 museums (Natural History, V&A, Science) in South Kensington. So we cherry-pick: machinery and marine, plus the genetics/brain development part of the Wellcome Wing.
The machinery is quite astounding: some of the earliest steam engines (beam pumps from the Cornish mines, made by Boulton, Watt and Trevithick, around 1770) are there. Extremely crude in making: hand-filed cylinders (machine tools had simply not been invented), few screws, lots of wedges to hold things together, lots of wood. Yet the progress within just a few decades was also impressive: as those machine tools started to be used widely. So much is there: Stephenson's 'Rocket' locomotive (1829, looking very fragile, small, bendy frames), Brunel's block-making machines (the first production line machinery in wide use outside textiles), early lathes, planers, steam hammers. Not that I would have liked to run any of it: dangerous looking boilers everywhere, nasty flat-belt drives.
Driven by what else? There's a full-size, working (on steam) stationary engine - the real old workhorse type that ran factories in the UK and sawmills (in NZ bush). Huge flywheel: fully 20 feet diameter, making 700hp. And so quiet! A bit of clacking from the valve gear but otherwise pure rotation without noise. This particular engine ran 1700 looms in a woollen mill well into the 1970's, and now runs for a couple of hours on Sundays (at least). I'd heard of such engines: an old bushman mentioned one with a 24ft flywheel at the 'Razorback' mill on the coast south-west of Tuatapere, but I didn't really understand just how big they were. Drive was straight from the outside of that flywheel, so it didn't need to run fast - around 40-60rpm, to make good belt speed. And very little wear at that sedate speed, hence the longevity. Quite a peak, seeing this beauty.
The genetics/brain exhibit was very current and informative. Good written material, but no book back at the store afterwards - a disappointment.

London - Jan 3 - Evensong at St Paul's

Back across the Millenium Bridge. This was the suspension one that had to be hurriedly closed days after its opening in 2000 for 'adjustments' after it quickly exhibited resonance effects under the feet of several hundred people crossing it. Like there were no resonance issues generally with suspension bridges - think Tacoma Narrows for starters (it twisted itself to pieces in about 10 minutes during a moderate gale in the 1940's). Classic Brit engineering SNAFU. It's a nice bridge now though, after its de-bouncing treatment, and leads straight to St Paul's from TM.
We arrive at St Paul's at 5 pm - evensong is just starting, Hmm. This could become a habit. The tourists mill around all through the service, coming and going through the prayers, taking flash pictures (ushers try to stop this, but aren't everywhere). The service is very good: very inclusive (unlike the RC cathedral in Barcelona) with prayers offered (as in Salisbury) for victims and survivors of the Iran quake. A stirring organ voluntary at the end, with applause from the less aware tourists. St Paul's is under cleaning and reconstruction inside and out, so the glorious dome is visible in fragments only from inside. But it's a lovely tall, light-filled church, unlike (M feels) Westminster Abbey which was much more gloomy. And more obviously and obtrusively full of dead people to boot. Boot Hill, in fact. St Paul's is an absolute London landmark: it's dome shows up in the skyline everywhere (think, the river views in 'Love Actually'). Christopher Wren, the architect, has an epitaph which translates roughly as 'For my memorial, look around you' and it's still true 350 years later.

London - Jan 3 - Tate Modern

Bounced back after a good night's sleep: takes more than an overgrown calamari to do me in. And it hasn't soured Barcelona at all. Washing in the morning. Wander back from Monument tube stop along the Thames (overshot, but who cares when the way back is from Hooke's Monument after the Fire of London, along the river) to Millenium bridge and Tate Modern.
TM is in a former power station and the entrance is truly stunning: the former turbine hall (complete with overhead gantry crane) has been left empty, but a huge lit-up sun abstract is at the eastern end, and the ceiling is mirrored. There's a small mezzanine for viewing. People lie on the floor (in the 'sun'), make shapes, watch themselves in the roof, watch other people, take pictures pointing at the sun (which guarantees a Big Yellow Thing type photo unless you can control the camera exposure, which we can, thanks Nikon). It's a living work of art, just wonderful in conception, and constantly changing as the crowds come and go. A nice little tail-piece - a couple make as if they're pedalling a tandem, lying on their sides, watching themselves in the roof. A better introduction to abstract and kinetic art could not be had.
TM starts off very well - early 20th Century beginnings including one where I say to M - 'looks like that guy had seen a lot of Monet' - and it's a Monet!. Dali, Picasso (not much or interesting), some Tanguy, Ernst, Man Ray. Great kinetic art too - this sort of stuff just has to work. Then it gets a little silly (Man Ray again, someone who does heating vents, a flat-sided car). The crowds (TM is free, so lots of people of all sorts, knowledge and ages come) give some guide. Works that show (as I always look for) clear evidence of technical skill and familiarity with the materials attract people at least long enough to read the labels. A very popular work is a traditional musuem cabinet with opening exhibit drawers and display shelves, full of artefacts removed from two digs in the Thames outside the two Tates: South Bank (where we are) and Millbank (Tate British). There's everything from human bones to plastic Coke caps and AA cards. The installation runs to the head digger's overalls, boots and coat. People just love this stuff. There's drawer opening and closing, circling around and coming back, and the merest nod to 'Modernism' in that the artefacts are not arranged in a conventional way (no chronology or explanation - more by shape and size than anything). But it's capital A Accessible.
Which is more than can be said about some of the rest. The reaction of people en masse can't be mistaken for knowledgeable criticism, but it is noticeable that the circulation through is very fast, and the benches (except for that in front of a Pollock, for some reason) are not occupied by art lovers but, if at all, by parents and other fractious walkers who have just taken a few steps too far into the wrong part of town.
There are three main schools of art in this part of TM:
Hurl and Hope (Pollock),
Tray and Roller (Rothko) and
Squat and Push (we didn't stop to read the labels about which artist but they certainly had a good feed beforehand).
My Barcelona productions, framed, would have won prizes in two of the three categories I have devised. It is entirely understandable that artists of all sorts need to differentiate themselves, go against the perceived 'order of things' and generally challenge the senses. But when the effect (a Tray and Roller school piece) is a 2x3m solid red canvas, and the work has to stand on it's own against a lot of others, there is no context anymore, and the technical skill is certainly not evident. Most people can think of a partly stripped wall in a spare room that looks like some of these pieces. So they think to themselves, stuff this, there's bound to be something I can relate to further on, and just keep going.
Most of the works are too recent (this century) for real judgement to occur, but I feel history will quietly discard some of these pieces. Or the cleaners will make a dreadful mistake. Or, in the case of the heating vent 'artist', some hapless local heat/ventilation/air con (HVAC) engineering firm, summoned to attend to a malfunctioning plant unit in the vicinty, will take the thing away entirely. 'There's yer problem, guv'nor - thermostat's gawn'. Tee hee.
TM is of course well worth seeing for the sun, the art and the silliness. How else to figure it all out? It's only when things go way too far that a sense of where the middle lies, and what constitutes skill worth supporting, can evolve.

Barcelona - revenge of the calamari Jan 2

I (W) have a tummy bug: half the night speaking to the Great White Trumpet, manage to block the hotel's washbasin. Don't even ask how. And we fly back to London today. Fortunately, the worst is over by hotel checkout time: hot and cold flushes but I'm travellable. Barely. It was classic food poisoning, and I fear the octupus-wrangler from two nights ago may be to blame. We have run out of our 4-day Metro pass so just get a cab: the Placa Jaume L is just up the hill and as a seat of local government always has lots of cabs. Sleep away the time until the flight with music courtesy of the trusty MuVo, and have an entirely forgettable flight on an Airbus A320 back to Heathrow. I'd been looking forward to flying the Airbus, but it really is a disappointment compared to the Boeings I'm used to. Even allowing for my fragile state, the plane flies rough: engine vibration all the time during flight - and the air conditioning is a sad joke. Even Heathrow's taxiways feel extra bumpy. Just like me.

Barcelona - Gaudi day Jan 1

One of the nice things about Gaudi, architect and genius, is that he worked chiefly in Barcelona itself, so his opus is easy to get around. And it's New Year's day, with very little open. We head up to Park Guell, a 20 hectare site which Gaudi developed over 15 years or so. It's a World Heritage site, richly deserved. There's a bit of everything: fairytale gate-houses with mushroom roofs, twisted/sloping columns on walkways, an entire lookout space supported by stone pillars, dog head gargoyles, and viaducts including the 'enamorata' with included love-seats. And the salamander (tiled, huge, kids love it). And that's the best thing about this park, it is loved and used by everyone. Spanish dog walkers. Families, Tourists. Kids of all ages. And from the upper reaches the Sagrada is visible. What a marvellous memorial.
On the way back (the park is around 1.7 km from the Lesseps Metro stop) we have a cafe con leche y pastri (the Catalan language is quite easy to grasp if you've done Latin), then see the Casa Vicens - of which it's said it was the last straight line construction that Gaudi ever built. Very Moorish, rather sadly hemmed in now. Walked out (we got around most of the park). Head off to the main Cathedral which has a rather forbidding feel: they want tourists' money but deter them from being included in services. We visit the cloisters and the nativity scene which has real geese: the cathedral is built over Roman walls and the geese are descended from Roman stock. Lots of very richly gilded and painted saints shrines - dating back to the 14th century. A collection box by each. A service is starting but we don't feel welcome enough to stay. A tapas meal much later, with calamari (tempting fate, read on) back in Placa Reial, and the day is complete. Turns out that the streetlights in this placa (place) are designed by Gaudi - his first-ever commission. We had noted and photographed them first day out. Completes the circle, really.

Barcelona - New Year

Of course after the meal, we walk back to Barri Gotic up Las Ramblas, already getting noisily happy, find the Placa Reial (just down from the hotel) and buy ourselves a place at a strategic table with a truly excrable red vino and a barely passable beer. New Year happens quite quietly, considering: a bit of yahooing by younger people in a fountain, lots of slurry shouts and blurry phone-camera pictures happening, all very cheerful and good natured. To bed, very happy. The happy shouting goes on a bit but that's the same the world over. It do echo in these here old stone faced 2m wide alleys, but.

Barcelona - La pedrera and Sagrada climb

After Casa Battlo, we briefly look in on 'La Pedrera' (The Quarry) - same street, one tube stop away. The nickname suits it: apart from the patent curves and amazing ironwork on terrace balconies, it is quite unappealing from the street. The roof does have more Gaudi elements, but there was a queue... And a charge....
So off to the Sagrada - where we stand in a queue (no other way) to (it turns out) climb the eastern towers. The other queue was for the elevators (who knew?) but is cut off much earlier than the climbers one. So eventually climb we did. Round and round, up and up, with very little lighting or internal handrails (on the first part). The Spanish are very pragmatic about such things, no OSH police, clearly, and the next day we see steps in Park Guell fully 25 feet high, 1 m wide, no handrails whatsoever. Still, with all those saints (each with their own private collection box), they probably figure they are protected enough anyway.
The steps can only be climbed as fast as everyone in front moves, which suits, and it is dark once we get near the top - the floodlights come on while we are still going up. We can see the good progress made on construction - the nave is nearing completion, and we understand there's an NZ architect involved. Lots of scaffolding is up way past the existing height of walls, and that's an indication that much more wall is expected soon. On the back we can see reinforced concrete shell walls, faced with stone and decoration. Not as traditional but faster. One of the deadlines is 2026, the anniversary of Gaudi's death. He knew the cathedral was not 'his' (he had inherited an already built crypt) and perhaps purposefully left few detailed plans but a lot of impressions and sketches. In that way, the work was intended to evolve, and so it has.
We cross over between the two main towers and go down the other side. One photo - of the 'offerings' of fruit at the top of the second (down) tower stair. These upper stairs are between the outer and inner walls, so it is quite safe feeling going down. We really should have a T-shirt ('We climbed the Sagrada') but content ourselves with a tube ride down to the beach and a very Spanish dinner. I have bacalao (cod) which arrives in a black-ink octopus sauce, rather unexpected but very palatable. Of which more later.... I imagine there's a special chef out back with a specialty in annoying octopi till they squirt the aforesaid ink - a dangerous job, but somebody has to do it. OSH would have a fit. So would PETA.

Barcelona - Gaudi, Casa Battlo

We chose Barcelona because we have long known about Antoni Gaudi, and I picked up a Gaudi handbook a couple of years ago, at, in all places, Metropolis bookshop in Acland Street, St Kilda, Melbourne. Casa Battlo is a conversion of an existing building and has all the trademark Gaudi features: three dimensional woodwork, curves everywhere, tiles facade, chimney and roof decoration. We stump up the steep admission asking price and wander through, blissed out.

Barcelona Wednesday Dec 31 - Textiles and Sculpture

We (Jane/Trev and Maddy/Wayne) split up for the morning: we (M/W) head for the Textile Museum for some work research. It's in a marvellously Spanish building: large gate/door to the street (Carrer de Montcada - the one we overshot last evening), enclosed inner courtyard, tiles roofs everywhere. The textiles collection was less numerous than we had expected, but interesting nevertheless. A quick cafe con leche each, and we head down C. de Montcada.
But not for long - a sculpture in a shop window nearby attracts us in, and we gingerly ask the price. It's ours (assuming it survives transit) within half an hour. A Catalan ceramic artist, with echoes of Gaudi, South American faces, and some of Maddy's later pottery.

Barcelona - Sagrada Familia

We head for the Sagrada as the first stage of a Gaudi trail, late afternoon. It's a Metro excursion, and the station exit is right under the west facade of the Sagrada.
This is the crucified Christ facade - which Gaudi did not want built first, as it would frighten the supporters of the Church. He started the eastern (birth, life) facade first.
The western facade is indeed brutal: strong lines, chunky statuary, setting sun illumination. Very striking. The Sagrada occupies a whole city block and is a construction village: the work was started in 1882, Gaudi died after a tram accident in 1926 with little more than the eastern facade towers elementary structure in place, and it is hoped to have substantial completion by the centenary of his death in 2026.
The eastern side has almost closed up by the time we get there, so we have a leisurely cafe con leche and wait for the tower floodlights to be turned on. Promptly at 1800, they are, and photos ensue. The towers are around 100m tall, with distinctive flower crosses atop, and words around and down them. There are still people moving down the towers, which gives us tomorrow's plan (we have not paid to go in, suspecting something like this to be the case).
So we head back for a quick freshen-up and then a ramble down on the other side of our area. Which almost turns pear-shaped, as we overshoot the street and end up in little alleys where the locals eye us distinctly as prey. We smartly turn and exit stage right. We find the Santa Maria de la Mer church - ancient, shrines to many more saints than we know about, clear evidence of a simple but devoted approach to religion here, as a woman goes up the image of one of the saints, touches both knees, and kisses his feet. Back through more narrow streets, but friendlier, to Hotel Levante.

Barcelona - Museums

Tuesday, we have a breakfast at Placa Reial (through a narrow street (Carrer de la Lleona) from the hotel) and head down Las Ramblas (the main drag) to the sea. Barcelona is very much a working port, and the bottom of Las Ramblas houses the Harbour Board, the Navy, and a statue with a figure pointing west. We like to think it's Columbus but suspect he's Portguese. The inner harbour is very clean - we see fish swimming - and deserted (we are up early). We take a precarious cable-car from the harbour, then a chair-lift to Montjuic - a hill with a fortress which dates back to Roman times, although the guns are definitely 20th century German.
Montjuic starts the cat thing: Barcelona is full of wild cats. Further round Montjuic, at Museum of the History of catalonia, there are whole tiled roofs which are inhabited by pigeons and patrolled by clearly well-fed cats. Picasso hung out at a bar called Quatre Gats (four cats) which is there to this day, so the cats are of long standing.
The Museum is mainly notable for its location - on the slopes of this steep little mount, with an avenue of fountains all the way down the hill to a Placa (plaza) with impressive but ornamental towers. The fountains are off for the season at present.

Barcelona - arrival

Although Heathrow has been unkind, we don't really mind - Barcelona is largely closed (museums etc) Mondays anyway. We arrive and find only 1 of 2 bags there. Claim time. Spanish practice. It quickly transpires that a whole luggage trolley has missed the cut, and will arrive next plane. Or thereabouts.
On to Barcelona and our hotel. We buy 4-day Metro/bus tickets (very cheap) and hop a bus to the Plaza Catalunya - a short trip, then brave the Metro system (colour coded and lines are numbered too) to our stop. Everything works fine. We find the hotel without drama - it's in the Barri Gotic - think, 3 m wide streets, 4-6 storey buildings, but clean, lots of foot traffic, feels very safe but definitely exotic. Trev and Jane arrive later on, again without drama. We very much like what we've seen so far.

Barcelona - Heathrow Horror

Monday 29 December was carefully planned - 1030 flight from Terminal 1, so a District then Picadilly tube at 0730 to make Heathrow at 0830. Fine. Except that Heathrow was experiencing a fire alarm and would not let anyone in. 'Soon', which as any child knows means 'we haven't got a clue but hang in there'. Three 'soons' from an African attendant who clearly didn't know any more than we (about 100 by now) knew. So after the fire alarm clearance, the inevitable crush to get in and to the correct check-in area, and waiting in queues, of course we miss the 1030 plane to Barcelona. As must, we reckon, probably 80% of the seats sold. Didn't stop it flying though - possibly it is cheaper to fly anyway and not upset the repositioning and subsequent schedling domino effects, than to actually have paying pax. Only God and BA know.
So we go to (what else?) another queue to re-ticket, and are handed a card after about 1/4 hour waiting and shuffling, with a number to call to re-schedule by phone. But a nice little vignette occurs first.
A short, blond, American, loud female stalks up the queue, partner in tow, hapless BA employee by the buttonhole. Right opposite us, she stops and demands (the loud bit) why she has to queue, and where exactly the ticket office is. So many queues, you see. The BA bloke, polite to a fault but not without a certain smugness, points out the bleeding obvious: that he can show her the ticketing office all right, but then she and silent partner will have to return to the end of the queue anyway. And the queue will have grown. But of course she must see the ticket office. So she does. But with one little concession: she is ferried to the far end of the now much longer queue in a motorised trolley. By the same BA employee, smile more than fractionally wider.
We ring the number and, mirabile dictu, reschedule our flight for 1500 over the phone. So we check in - another queue, naturally, and then Murphy strikes again. Twice. We are (you couldn't make this stuff up) too early to have baggage checked. So we get seats confirmed and troop off to a cafe upstairs. Coffe and snack #1 goes down to applause all round. We get coffee and snack #2 and Murphy intervenes. Another fire alarm. Everyone out. We take ourselves, luggage and snack, but leaving coffee to its fate, outside where (what else) it rains. We have umbrella. And snack, to the obvious envy of some fellow travellers. Well, they didn't get on a tube at 0730 without breakfast, did they. We get back in. Coffee has been cleared away. We invest in coffee #3, and fast-check the luggage as soon as possible. The rest of the afternoon proceeds without incident, although the plane is 50 minutes late because some dimwit passenger checks luggage on but no-shows, necessitating a full unpack and re-pack of the hold. We'd cheerfully contract one of the many sub-machine-gun equipped police in the terminal to deal with the offending chap(ette) except, of course, being no-shows, they aren't there. We take off at 1600 - 5 1/2 hours late compared to schedule. And I have the final encounter with the short loud blonde thing: I use the loo on the plane, and she raps on the loo door to hurry me up! There are only three others, all empty. Where are the armed sky marshalls when you need them?

Evensong at Salisbury

In the weekend, we visited Salisbury via Shaftesbury. The latter is billed as a 'Saxon hill-top village' and to be sure it has a very photogenic cobbled steep street complete with thatch, bulgy stone walls and all the other 'Ancient Britain' trademarks. But nowadays the hilltop is crowned with a Tesco's supermarket and car park: not what the Saxons would have favoured, I suspect. A gloriously eroded St Peter's church on the side of the hill - more gargoyles and beasties duly photographed. More shibui.
Salisbury, on the other hand, is quite a delightful town. Grid layout, no less - no more easy to get lost in mediaeval twisty narrow streets. Lots of quite old houses and shops: mostly intact/restored above the ground level floor, better not to comment on that ground floor level though. Imagine, if you can, a Mr Minit below and a 15th century half-timbered three storey house above. Salisbury is full of these and the overall effect isn't nearly as clash-filled and unfortunate as might be expected.
Salisbury Cathedral is an amazing church. It was put up (as is usual) over several hundred years, starting in the 11th century, but it was when they started adding the 6,300 ton tower (123 m high) that things got interesting. The columns inside hadn't been expected to carry that weight, and they bowed. There was much hasty buttressing and lightening, in two goes, over the next three centuries, and it is now stable, we are assured. Inside, the bowed columns are very obvious: they have bowed towards the body of the church by around 15-50cm (by eye-ometer) and the tower centre is around 75cm out to the south-west as a result.
We did the usual tour around, then noticed that Evensong was at 5.30pm. So after shopping and looking round Salisbury a little more, we attended.
It's been perhaps thirty years since I attended church except for weddings and funerals, and we were seated in the quire (choir) stalls. The Cathedral itself is of course massive - 147m long on the nave - a nativity scene under the tower at the crossing (there is a technical term for that bit of floor space but the booklet is packed) and room for several hundred people in each part of the cross layout.
So, apart from the choir (people), the organist, the clergy (it took six or so), there were precisely 20 other people there, of course. Seated in the quire stalls, the choir was literally alongside, clergy either end, organ right above, and the celing was 30m up in the dark. Full Evensong service, complete with two lessons, intro organ and a voluntary organ piece to end. And a collection. We put in, to make sure that tower doesn't fall in the near future. But considering we are rather rusty at Church ritual of any sort, it was easy to follow (standing and sitting were clearly marked in the Order of Service) and of course, so close that it was all very real and moving. Evensong is sung every night in a well-ordered cathedral parish, and is quite a happy service. Keeps those gargoyles away for the night (not that Salisbury the building has many, certainly not like Notre Dame). We left into a light rain, strangely uplifted. Must have been that closing organ voluntary, an all stops out affair with rolling bass.
Then off to a playhouse with a light-hearted Xmas production: funny and the music (they all played instruments) very well done. And a meal, then home to Wincanton through the dark, sweeping curves of country A-roads. A great night.

Xmas and Brunel in Somerset

But first another little London vignette:
After the theatre in the West End, we were waiting (and waiting...) for a Picadilly line tube. Everyone on the platform suddenly noticed all these mice running around in the trackbed. We saw one with a suspiciously short tail. Then, in the usual deadpan manner of London Underground announcements, came this. "Ladies and gentlemen, your tube will be here in about five minutes. In the meantime, please do not, repeat, do not feed the mice, They are specially imported Patagonian fighting mice and are trained killers. Thank you".
Xmas Eve night, we had an amazingly fast bus trip out to Wincanton (roads were unaccountably empty). Xmas day was just marvellous: turkey, champers, a choice NZ red and white, pudding, chocs, more turkey, beer. Presents, including many books. Much reading. Missed the Queen's message. Bugger. And then a Nurofen or two in the morning....
And so to Bristol on a Brunel expedition: we've found that two things in a day are about the limit, so Brunel's SS Great Britain was #1 and his Clifton suspension bridge was #2. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a rather driven man but an engineering genius. Think, Great Western railway, for starters. And so it was, in that order.
Bristol city centre was badly bombed during the war (there were aircraft factories, docks, other juicy targets) and so is rebuilt in Glorious Concrete style. The river is flanked by abandoned factories, warehouses and lots of industrial archaeology, with some apartments on the water, multicoloured on the high rock terraces to the north. The Rustbelt.
SS Great Britain dates from around 1844 and is the first 'modern' steel ship: screw plus sail propelled. It was rescued in 1970 from the Falklands (where it had called in for repairs that never happened and was subsequently used as a hulk), and was docked in the dry dock where it was originally built, 127 years to the day since it was launched.
It has been being lovingly restored ever since: it now has most masts, decking, rooms and will have replica engines soon. It was (can't make this up) chain driven - the engine couldn't make more than 18 rpm and the prop needed 53. So a bike-chain type gear-up (suitably massive, of course) was the solution. Amazing stuff - it carted over 15,000 Australians during the Gold Rush era. It still retains a lot of Brunel's egotism in its lines, size and general air of Victorian confidence.
Then on to the suspension bridge, a very delicate affair with multiple plates as the suspension chains, slender rods holding the roadbed, and suitably slim, tapered masonry towers. It just leaps across the gorge just west of Bristol centre. The Avon is a lot more muscular than Christchurch's one: the tidal bore in the main Severn channel (well west of Bristol) can be up to 40 feet, and even here the Avon looks to have several tens of feet of tide, to judge by the silted walls through the town. Light is fading but photos are still possible. A beautiful piece of engineering.
Finally, we head back through the centre of town to find Briavels Grove: the pre-war family home. Found the Grove, as usual in Britain, the houses look all the same when built in a row as they so often are. Then, back through still surprisingly uncrowded roads to Wincanton. Dark at 4.30 pm, of course. Great day.

Another London weekend

Back from Harrogate, a little stuffed - exam on the Friday and then 4 hours travelling.
An expedition to the British Museum (off Tottenham Court Road, in Bloomsbury). The architecture is very massive and plain on the outside, but inspiring on the inside. There's a large central court, once clearly open, now enclosed with a geodesic structure roof, and the Reading Room - a very large elliptical floor plan - in the centre of the enclosure. Very impressive inside - vaulted ceiling and books stacked around the outside, and reference and reading space on the floor and in a gallery at second fllor height.
The Museum itself - we started just wandering through with only a map - was initially disappointing. There seemeed little organisation or themes - there was a ' living and dying' themed exhibition in the ethnographics section with the usual encomiums to 'spiritual cultures', but a lot of other items were simply stacked up in cabinets with only a vague chronology.
Then, on a whim and after a coffee, we went Rosetta-stone hunting and found the Egyptian wing. Big difference. Big pieces. Old stuff - some huge statues were 2360BC - that's 4363 years ago. Beautiful carving and scripts. The Rossetta stone was impressive - it is inscribed very clearly and deeply, in Greek, demotic (common script) and hieroglypics, and was the key to deciphering the latter. By an Englishman and a Frenchman. Some of the old stone columns had a palm frond top, were made of granite and have aged very well indeed. Very satisfying. Some of the smaller animal sculptures were positively modern in their stylisation - there really is nothing new under the sun.
Onwards to an Italian pizza just off Leicester Square and then the Odeon theatre and Rings III.
What an amazing movie. A three-hanky affair, with the best battle scenes we've ever seen. The audience spontaneously cheered at Legolas' little run (no scene giveaways here) and stood up and clapped at the end. Theatre was packed to the rafters, too. The sunsets and NZ scenery brough on a bit of homesickness, naturally. A lot, actually.
Monday, after a day's work, another little treat: a performance of Handel's Messiah at St Martin-in-the-fields. We had gallery seats right over the orchestra (mostly a string section, a couple of flutes/oboes/brass), and a drummer. The drummer was something of an obsessive: he constantly tuned, tightened, listened, tuned, loosened, listened. Couldn't leave those damned skins alone for more than two minutes at a stretch. There was a choir, naturally: mostly singing the words in roundelays. If you can imagine a religious version of 'Row row row your boat' with slight variations for two hours you have it. However, the church was beautiful: very plain outside, faded but massive and elegant inside, with a glorious pipe organ (not used for Handel, unfortunately). Not the biggest we've seen (that would be the 5,300 pipe one at York Minster, with a 32 foot bass pipe that had to be seen up close to be believed), just a 16 ft bass, but polished and with little angels carved right at the top of the pipe ranks. Despite the obvious talent of the performers, especially first cello who got a lot of work to do and was visibly enjoying herself, more memorable for the setting than the work itself. The singers were very good, but the content was just too labouredly religious for us unbelievers. With a drummer, double bass, cello and small brass section we did hope for some light jazz to finish off. Ha. Didn't happen. Walked back to the Westminster tube station in gripping cold. Need more possum fur.

Traffic

Talking to the guys at Coda (on the course) it seems that my stress-out experience with traffic is actually quite common. It's not unusual to take 4 hours to go 85 miles here in the Midlands, and accidents, fog, general congestion all compound that. Route-switching is needed quite often, and the A-roads clog very quickly. Sounds like traffic densities in some areas have reached the 'knee of the curve' - a fundamental of queuing theory - waiting time goes up quite linearly with increasing desnity until around 70% of capacity is reached. Then, quite suddenly, waiting times go through the roof. That certainly explains things here. Flying is very expensive, so the usual NZ city-hop is not on, and trains while great on the main city routes, can be sporadic elsewhere. Hard to get in and out of some cities and do a day's work. So driving it has to be, and they (other consultants) generally hate it. They are amazed that in NZ it's possible to average 90kph start to stop in most parts of the country. We don't know how lucky....

Retail Rant

We are quite bemused by retailing in the UK: there's a lot of low-paid jobs (around 5 pounds/hr) and a fierce job demarcation ethic: you cannot persuade a waitress or a cook to take the money if there's a cashier etc. Not my job, you see. A far cry from NZ. And there's a delight in petty officialdom and status in both government and retail. And queuing. We don't do queues as a rule but sometimes they are unavoidable.
The reach of EFTPOS is very small - cash is the norm. It feels very last century. The banks take 3-4 days to clear (transact) even electronic payments: you pay a high premium for 'same-day' transactions (!). Definite lack of competition here. Internet banking is in its infancy - a lot of suspicion (well-founded - read on...)
Back in London, doing a server changeover at a client, I get talking to the Kiwi IT manager and he confirms my low opinion of electronic preparedness here: their equivalent of a debit card (Cashflow etc in NZ) is a 'Switch' card.
I still cannot quite believe this - Switch cards do not have a PIN! Signatures are needed but are widely ignored. So if someone else gets your Switch card, or knows the number (like, you tell them over the phone while buying goods), they have an open door to your account! The banks have elaborate pattern-tracing software and will call you if there are for example transactions in two cities in one day, or an unusal rate of use. But talk about insecure! That's like ringing the stable and asking if the door is open. It certainly explains the hesitancy to wider adoption. PIN's are on the way - but the reluctance born of all the present Switch card fraud will be an inhibitor for quite some time. It takes a certain sort of genius to come up with the notion of an instant-debit card unprotected with a PIN, and the Brits have done it.

Harrogate, Half-fonged

After a grand Italian meal in Harrogate (yes, it seems like a contradiction in terms, but the proprietor - Luigi, what else? - has a very fine voice and we have had a very drinkable Montepeluciano red), the blog beckons.
I'm (W) up to Harrogate for an intensive training week. We've come to really like Harrogate: old stone buildings with a very human scale, that wonderful Northern Yorkshire accent everywhere along with a no-nonsense attitude to life, people who stop and talk (it's mostly heads down and keep walking in London) and good shops and amenities. Including Italian restaurants. And a totally disproportionate number of antiques shops. We wonder if we've stumbled across a money laundering scheme for the Russian Mafia or something - there are way too many for the immediate population. It's a former spa town (springs, spas, bottled water etc) and has an elegance and grace as a direct result. The firm (Coda) is right on the side of a hill facing south, so I walked there (half hour walk) three days in a row: up Cold Bath Road through the graceful old stone houses and shops, over the top of the town (Querns found here, according to an 1849 map of the area), down to Coda. Tom Waits, Dylan, Dido, Chris Rea, and Bic Runga accompany me on the MuVo. Certain music tracks have always meant places to me, and I have the feeling that some of these are going to stick, too, already.

A London weekend Dec 13/14

Two plays, a Victoria and Albert (VA) museum expedition and a shop-up on Oxford and Regent streets.
The plays:
Jumpers (Tom Stoppard, an early 1970's one revived to good effect) and Sweet Panic, a drama by Stephen Bukianski(sp?). Jumpers was the clear winner. Tom Stoppard's play is in some measure even more relevant now than then: he rails against the relativism that in the 70's was making inroads into philosophy, and that now is still excusing aspects of other ways of life even as those same 'other ways' are actively seeking our own culture's demise. Sweet Panic was billed with Jane Horrocks ('Little Voice') leading, but she wasn't there on the night, which doubtless contributed to our lower opinion. Jumpers was very verbally and gymnastically clever, and the lead actress (Essie Smith) turns out to be Australian. A great night. Both productions were in West End theatres, one near Picadilly Circus, the other near Trafalgar Square. There was a circus nearby in Leicester Square, with a large traditional merry-go-round and...dodgems! Hadn't seen those since I was a kid. Short movies of each were in order. Picadilly Circus has the statue of Eros, but the greater interest there is a magnificent statue in one corner of the Circus itself - horses leaping from a fountain.
VA: it's affectionately dubbed 'Britain's attic' - it certainly is. There were two exhibitions mounted when we went in: a Gothic (14th to 16th centuries), and a Zoomorphic one (natural world reflected in architeture). VA is just huge: we concentrated on the Gothic and the paintings, but there were another 6 wings we didn't look into at all. There's only so much one can take in: we've found 4-5 hours is it. You'd need a week to get around VA alone at that rate, and it's only one of a row of three: Science and Natural History are the other two. Then there's the British Museum up in Bloomsbury. It just goes on and on. Samuel Johnston said something to the effect that 'if you're tired of London, you're tired of life' and that's so true. Mind you, he hadn't seen Shadwell or Wandsworth.
Shopping:
Oxford and Regent streets are a strange mixture of high-end stores and absolute tat: we went to Hamley's, the famous toy store on 5 floors, but it was crammed to breaking point. Wonderful ship models. Looked in on quite a few shops but nothing memorable. However, Virgin Megastores had a good DVD deal so we accumulated a few old favourites and got an airline voucher too. The choice of CD's was simply the best we've ever seen anywhere. And the obligatory gadget buy for W further down the street: a Creative MuVo memory stick/music player. A 128Mb stick with track hop and volume controls, powered by an AAA battery. Depending on compression used, can fit a couple of hours of selected tracks on this.

Paris back to London

Early train - and it's dark again! Well it is winter, but we haven't seen anything of the French countryside or houses. Just Calais-Frethun which is forgettably industrial. And there are delays through the Channel tunnel too. Congestion. Must be cows on the track or something. Back to dear grimy old London. Grump. Over all too soon. C'est la vie.

Paris - Musee D'Orsay

The Musee is a conversion of a former railway station, which itself is a work of art. Rivetted steel beams with very elaborate infill panels, in a huge, soaring arch. C'est magnifique.
And the art! It's the first Sunday of the month and entrance is free. So a lot of people are there. We head up and away (there are three levels) but there's really no getting away from the crowds. The good stuff (Manet, Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Gaugin, Cezanne, van Gogh.....and so much more) is truly appreciated by most present. We spend a very happy late afternoon there.
Then back over the Seine, with the moon setting over the Louvre and everyone taking pictures (with flash - like that'll help) of this conjunction. We have an expensive but superbly cooked and presented meal at Hotel d'Louvre, and a Line 7 Metro back to Gare L'Est.

Paris - Le Metro et Tour Eiffel

A day Paris pass is only Euro 6.50! Much better than London's Tube equivalent. I manage 'what is the line for St Michel' in French and am told 'It's line one'. But of course. The lines are numbered (London's are named). We find the right one and our stop without problems and notice how clean the Metro is compared to London's tubes. Obviously they employ more cleaners below ground than above, it seems.
Onwards to the Tower! But it's an RER train there, and we spend some time figuring out which platform and which direction. Asking helps, as always.
The Tower itself (we get off early and walk down the river to it) is simply magnificent. Photos don't convey just how big a footprint it has, and how tall it is compared to the rest of Paris. It's very delicate, not massive - curliques of ironwork everywhere.
The queues are very long already (it's 11 o'clock by now) so muttering 'we don't do queues' we buy a ticket for the stairs and walk up to the first platform. Not too quickly, but steadily. Queues duly bypassed.
This platform is only 1/3 or so up (100 metres of perhaps 330) but the view is very impressive. We have to go to the top now, and queuing for the lift is inevitable, so we do. The original stairs (there's a piece preserved) were spiral, narrow and 'became dangerous' so were removed. They looked damn dangerous to begin with, to our risk-averse, OSH affected eyes. And they used to go all the way to the top...
The view from the top is amazing. Paris from this height is white, and the gilded domes of the Invalides (soldiers hospital), the other church domes and the woods, make an entrancing panorama. It is extremely cold, with a biting wind, and many of the people up here are badly prepared for this. We aren't - possums have given their all for our comfort. But somehow the slogan 'Come to Paris and freeze your sorry ass off' (it's 1 degree C at midday, fer chrissake) hasn't occurred to copywriters.
Down again, and back around the river for a dose of Impressionists at Musee D'Orsay.

Paris - Louvre and Opera house

Meal at a chain restaurant on Boulevard St Michel - the waiter is tolerant of our French, and is heartened when we recoil from the 'sauce' he offers (tomato ketchup!) to go on our steaks. It becomes a standing joke (M'sieur, is zis alright weethout le soss?). Of course it is. Mais naturellement. Exit, well satisfied and exchange Bon soir's with our waiter. But he probably still thinks we're Aussies.
We walk back to the North Bank of the Seine and along the Louvre wing on that bank. It is one very long building. And it's only one wing of three. We get into the middle (the bit with the pyramid of glass in the centre of the three wings) and realise just how vast the place really is. As a demonstration of the power of the kings, by using so much physical space, it's very effective. If a little overbearing. British royal buildings that we've seen so far feel more human scale.
Up to the Opera House, and more photos. The Metro (tube) stations increasingly intrigue us: gorgeously curvaceous art-nouveau railings, arches, and lights. It's a cross between Isadora Duncan and 'Alien' (the first, best one).
Then a loong walk back up to Gare L'Est and our hotel. We will definitely try the Metro tomorrow and save our achy hips.

Paris - the obligatory 'oh shit' moment

Walking back from Luxembourgh gardens to the Seine, I check the traffic (to my right), step off the kerb... Shriek of tyres, Maddy yanks me back, I wave the motorist on my left on... my dear brother had warned me about precisely this moment but it seems I'm a slow learner.

Paris - Cluny

On to Musee Cluny - a mediaeval museum built on the ruins of (from the bottom up) a Roman bath-house, an early abbey, and later churches and outbuildings. It's just beautiful: lots of early, primitive carvings, truly ancient beams in the mid storeys, painted stonework in one of the chapels (a lot of early stome was in fact brilliantly coloured, not scraped clean as we so often see it nowadays).
And of course the tapestries - weavings dating back between 300 to 800 years ago. Lots of pix (no flash allowed, but I'm getting quite good at long-exposure, hand-held stuff). Lots of what the Japanese would term 'shibiu' - a sort of dilapidation which has become beautiful and artful in its own right. Example: a statue head (probably of a king) which has eroded so that the lips form something between a sneer and a genetic defect. Ozymandias, indeed. And an 11th century newel post (for a stair) carved to look like thin, long leg-bones jointed together. Great, morbid stuff.
Then, senses sated, off to the Jardins of the Luxembourg Palace - where Parisians are at play. We buy hot roasted chestnuts and love the taste (but others bought later are not nearly as nice). A lot of schooldays French is returning - and it's enough to make an effort - the locals respond and we don't have one problem all weekend. I find myself back in London nodding at shop assistants and murmuring 'Merci'.

Paris - Pooh and Piglet

Yes, all you've ever heard is true - the streets of Paris are somewhat littered in merde-du-chien - that's dogshit. The Pooh of the title. Not at every step, but every now and then there's a quick sidestep. And more frequent are the dried and not so dry trickles running from a doorway or corner to the kerb. We aren't sure of the species (man or dog) which produced these - both, probably. Compared to 'our' part of London, Paris streets are very dirty.
We walk down to the Seine - a long walk down Rue Sebastopol past increasingly classy shops, the Pompidou Centre off to one side, looking quite squat and ordinary. The doors onto the street fascinate me: a great variety of massive doors, generally in arched openings with decorated stonework, and often with ground-level corner protectors of very ornate cast iron. Very beautiful.
As are the houses - mostly 5-7 storey apartments, but with appealing roof detailing (lots of round windows, reverse ogee curves) but of course at street level, the frontages have often suffered the usual appalling retail conversions.
Paris - The Island on the Seine - we arrive opposite Ile de Cite which contains Notre Dame, so that's the first stop. Queues everywhere, so we content ourselves with pictures and a gargoyle hunt. Notre is absolutely infested with them, and there's a spare parts yard out back with even more bits. Coincidentally, there's a pair of ex Notre gargoyles for sale back at a London antique shop for a cool 75,000 poounds, dating from the 13th century. One wonders - how did they get there? Fly? Those early mediaeval minds were surely possessed by the thought of all the dark things that could happen, to have festooned their churches with the variety and quantity of gargoyles that they did. Or perhaps it was just a release. Whatever, if God ruled inside and during the day, these little creatures surely rule the outside and the dark even yet.
All churched out, we wander east to Ile St Louis, which has some of the more exclusive housing in Paris. These islands are quite forbidding at river level: we walk around a quay and observe a lot of barred windows at a sub-ground level. Certainly, the Conciergeries at the far end of Ile de Cite had been an infamous prison and generally unpleasant place since the 13th century. The history lingers. We have a fabulous cafe et glace (coffee and ice-cream) at Berthillon in the south of the island, cross over to the South Bank proper and wander down Boulevard St Germain, just window shopping.
And here we find Piglet. At a food market with, in one cabinet, rabbits still in full skin, poultry with feathers intact, and Piglet. A whole, baked one. Piglet's bottom is being hacked off and sold off as we pass. Our own health gestapo would have conniptions at the general state of the market, but to us there's a healthy display of food in its natural state. I have to say - the salads we get (in UK and France) are very good: none of the browning lettuce and tired look we expected. Quite fresh, a surprising variety of ingredients considering it's mid winter.

Paris - a shaky start

We decided to have the obligatory weekend in Paree. Eurostar train, of course: gets there fast and to a central station (Gare du Nord). So we book and start off.
Eurostar leaves from Waterloo, and it was nearly ours. Normally, to get there from Victoria, one would take the eastbound District or Circle tube, then change to a southbound Jubilee/Bakerloo/Northern (all go to Waterloo). So unaccountably, I (W) first choose a westbound platform.... Not a good start. Which I compound by losing M while crossing against the flow of Friday commuters to the Eastbound platform. We eventually arrive at Waterloo (all of 3 km away) somewhat frazzled.
Eurostar itself is a very fast train - well over 150mph at peak. Doesn't really feel like it at night, when we leave. We have to stop (that's zero mph...) for 'permission to enter' the Channel Tunnel. So that blows the 100+mph average. And it's dark, a characteristic of night everywhere it seems, so the only thing we observe about France after we exit the Channel Tunnel is that they have orange street lights and neon signs, too. Not very exotic.
Then, the train is ordered to 'come to an immediate halt' somehwere north of Paris, at some sad looking wayside station. This in itself is never a good sign, and is confirmed when the local losers start throwing whatever's handy - bricks, bottles - at the train! We exit south at some speed.
We arrive in Paris without further ado, and find our hotel, down Rue Magenta then up a typically quaint and tiny street (Rue Luciens Sampaix).

London Sounds and Smells

The roaring of the tube trains over certain (ancient) sections of the track, (Todays news flash - a rail broke in the Tube today, and they've chained it together (!) and made the trains run at 5 mph. You couldn't make this stuff up.)
The distinctive smell in the deep tubes: iron (from the steel on steel) and low oxygen content (pre-breathed).
Everyone in the car, swaying in exact unison in the tube trains as they go over that old track (alright, that's a sight).
The musical 'ching-chong' we hear with every train that leaves Victoria, as they negotiate a certain stretch (probably points) - we're right by the Elizabeth Bridge, over the tracks out.
The brilliant blue flashes from those trains as the pick-ups arc over joints. Like lightning, and it probably plays hell with electrical devices close by, too.
Buskers in the tube tunnels - snatches of music that's generally very high quality - blues, sax, a capella are the favourites. The sounds carry for ages and can be very eerie.

National Gallery night

All work and no play etc, so we take ourselves off to look at some pwetty pixtures and then a meal.
NG is right on Trafalgar Square, which has Nelson's Column, Nelson way up there, but those four massive bronze lions that guard the base are what stays for me. Kids love them too - they get climbed all over. And St Martin in the Fields looking over the Square from the side - a plain, massive looking old church.
NG is free and has art from the early mediaeval period (1200 or so) through the early 1900's. We confine ourselves to the latter - the middle period (we sample quickly) is mostly boring portraits.
There are some familiar works: Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Monet's Bridge at Giverny, a slew of Constables, JWM Turners and (earlier) Gainsboroughs. Canaletto (earlier again, early perspective drawing) is a particular delight. Funny how many notes about paintings, views etc have little asides like ' the tower depicted in this view collapsed suddenly in 1744' - obviously the solidity of the structures left now, is the result of a rather darwinian survival race over the centuries.
What sticks are three impressions: the main movements in painting were often anticipated very early on: JWM Turner's Great Western Railway (1844) is pure impressionism, 40 years before the main body of this style was produced.
Seeing the actual works allows some insight into the techniques: you can see the slashes and scrapes and layers. Not possible in any reproductions.
And the sheer size of many of the works is never conveyed in books: some of the Gainsboroughs are fully 10 feet tall and exquisitely detailed in aspects like foliage and sky.
It would take days to explore this one Gallery, but that's Britain all over: everywhere has a story and it really is one big museum. We leave, visual senses satisfied.

Work, Rugby Ads and the Kiwi Invasion.

It's the middle of another work week, so mostly head-down, tail-up during the week. Work is just off Sloane Square, in Chelsea - a fashionable yet not expensive (lunches, pubs - clothes are another story) part of London.
At work, Kiwis are all over: one is in IT, another sold me a raffle (which yours truly plus the IT guy promptly won prizes in...) and yet another in the reprographics area. And that's only the first two floors. We are regarded as workers in the best sense - more of a work ethic, perhaps, and a tradition of just getting on with it.
Rugby ads for the British team, sponsored by O2 (a local telco), are still up in the big screens at the major stations round London, and are very clever. Two in particular:
'15 thorns in one side'
'It's been 200 years since we sent men this dangerous to Australia' (my own favourite)

And so to Dorchester and Judge Jeffrey

After the obligatory view of the Roman wall fragment and a wander down the main street and market, we stop for lunch at Judge Jeffrey's Restaurant. And what a history.
We get the story and a full guided tour from the new proprietor when we ask to see the Judge's bedchamber.
It (the whole building) has been around in some form since the 12th century - the front beams were a canopy for stalls, and shops behind. Then other buildings grew up over the next 300 years, and by Tudor times it was a priory for Glastonbury Abbey (a very rich abbey, which made it too dangerous for abbots to actually stay right there...)
There are allegedly secret tunnels through to the Antelope Walk (now a market lane) behind, the court chambers, and probably a lot of other places. Judge Jeffreys is infamous for the severity of his sentences: in dealing with the aftermath of the Monmouth Revolution (when the Duke of M attempted to take the Crown of England by force), the good Judge executed 72 of 292 prisoners and transported most of the rest to Virginia, which at the time was equivalent to life in a state of slavery.
And those executions weren't nice: they mostly took place in the cellar under the premises. There is a garroting post in the cellar (which we didn't see) and a local sport amongst the locals was to place wagers on how many garotte-revive-garotte-revive cycles a given prisoner would withstand. Par for the course for the times, evidently.
So it has the local reputation as an unquiet house - ghosts, things moving. The proprietor has only lived there 6 weeks, but has wanted the place since he was 5, and is just passionate about its restoration. He told us about his CD player switching on and off unaccountably when he was up a ladder painting, until he told the spirit to knock it off. Whereupon the CD starting playing and didn't stop again.
It has a monk's cloister, a bell tower, Tudor panelling carefully painted over (!) in the last twenty years, and enough restoration plans for the next twenty. A great meal and a spooky place. The personal tour was very unexpected (and he won't be able to keep that up) and very welcome. We hope he has an permanent understanding with the unseen residents.
The trip back to Wincanton has brilliant sunshine so some photos: a signpost series. Older Somerset signposts are cast iron, with a cast triangular weather cap and all picked out in black lettering on white. Very local: the weather cap has SCC (Somerset County Council). Within a few miles, there is Dorset, and Wiltshire in the other direction, each with their own signpost styles.
Sunday is Stourhead day: a National trust property with gardens by Capability Brown. And we have an NT card....
It rains quite heavily while we are there, but we are equipped. The gardens are of course winter season - leaves gone (which opens out the views). The walk around (we stay on the short walk) is designed to reveal successive views and with transition points through grottoes (with statues) and buildings. And a little house with a roaring fire halfway, with the usual retired volunteer as a staff member. Very restful and great photos.
We wander up to the main house (closed until March) - a park vista out front (the gardens are in a valley off to the side). There are many people here - and we meet a couple with Cairn terriers that are just like our own two, down to colours and temperaments. A photo, naturally.

Somerset weekend

Usual Berry's bus out to Wincanton to see Trev and Jane. Rapturous welcome from dogs. And relatives, it goes without saying.
Saturday is Judge Jeffrey's day.
We go with Trev or on the standard service-bus run he takes, to Dorchester. The trip is through back lanes, far from what tourists ever see. And it is raining very heavily at times.
The lanes are down to single lane at times, all are sealed, and there seems to be two basic rules:
1 - don't go straight for more than 200 metres
2 - dig them into the landscape by 1-3 metres
Rule #1 means overtaking is practically impossible, and passing by head-on trafiic is fraught.
Rule #2 means that the lanes become the de facto drain for the surrounding catchment, and mud from the dug-in-ness under these conditions is inevitable. Plus, there is literally nowhere to go if trouble occurs. Those banks are unyielding.
Narrow, twisty, muddy: that's Somerset country lanes. 20-30mph max, on the single track bits: there's just too much risk of not being able to negotiate a bend or execute a passing maneouvre otherwise.
But needless to say, this also makes the lanes quite beautiful in their own way. And, of course, almost impossible to change or improve: they're too embedded.
The little villages (Stallbridge, Sturminster, Plush, Mappowder) start to blur into each other: they share similar features: a twisty, narrow road through them with buildings crowding the road, a pub, a few houses, a crossing or central open space with a signpost or monument. Repeat every 3-5 miles.
Passed the River Piddle, and took a photo on the way back for Ike. Toilet humour always goes down well at age 6.

A London working week

First working week: routines established. Only 'trip' has been a Tube excusion to Waterloo (because we will go to Paris on Eurostar from there) - then out to South Bank for yet another walk around.
Work routines are a little different from NZ: many staff do not arrive much before 10 (transport issues, usually), have the occasional 2 hour pub lunch, and work till 6-7 at night. The pub lunch will take some practice to perfect.