Skiiiing; a.k.a. A Week in 1984

Going to Alpe d'Huez with 7 lads was an experience even if I discount the skiing...but we'll start with that.

I'd never been skiing before, and hadn't realised one thing (which now seems painfully obvious); the only hard part is slowing down. Sure, there's a bit of technical skill in shifting your weight gracefully during a turn, or getting some good height on a jump; but the majority of my time was spent trying not to go too fast, and learning how not to die when that wasn't possible.

My development was therefore aided greatly by my willingness to fall down a lot, and my decision to treat fear as excitement ("it's all the same hormones anyway", noted a psychology researcher I met out there). Unfortunately this resulted in what I can now confirm is a cracked rib and a collection of interesting bruises. The goggle-mark sunburn and chapped lips I have no such excuses for - that was just idiocy on my part.

Skiing then, was fantastic - and I'm definitely going again, but when I do, I'll have all the proper gear. However, by gear, I don't mean a beautiful pair of skis or well-moulded ski boots. I mean clothes that were at the height of their appeal in 1984.

Because, being on a ski resort really is like living in the 80's. The only songs that were playing (at all hours of the day) from post-1987 were ones that would still probably have hit the charts if that was when they were released. 80's sunglasses and headbands were in abundance and everyone on the slopes looked on in envy when someone in neon-green salopettes (with spiked hair of a perfectly matched colour) walked by. We even had little CB radios with our own call signs (and the obvious, endless Top Gun quotes).

Now, to spend the rest of the weekend doing absolutely nothing ^^
Xx

Holiday Planning

Some people book holidays well over a year in advance, and have every little detail of the holiday and every minute of their itinerary accounted for long before they set off. Those guys are no fun. Here's how I do it:

1. Find a destination
Contrary to what bad American movies tell you, turning up to an airport and trying to board the next available flight is not a good idea. Quite apart from the cost and the fact that most of the flights going anywhere nice are full, there's the sheer danger of turning up at an airport full of edgy, armed police with no plausible explanation as to what you're doing.

My particular preference at this point is to find a hotel/hostel/b&b booking site - I like Lateroom - and abuse its search engine. Lateroom, for example, insists you search for a destination, but happily throws back nearly all of its database if you plug 'hotel' into its search engine. Other sites even allow wildcards, so a simple search for '*' gets the lot.

From here, set a comfort/adventure threshold. I find randomly taking 10 places, and forcing myself to pick the best of these 10 and go there, works best for me. You may wish for the thrill of taking whatever's at the top of page 6 regardless, or the cowardly safety of giving yourself an entire three pages to pick from. One important rule here, no more than a few minutes' research on any given place is allowed.

2. Buy a phrasebook. Study it.
You'll thank me for this as we progress down the list..

3. Turn up and make friends
Seriously, you may be tempted to get guidebooks, or to search around the Internet trying to find out where the biggest museums and most tourist-friendly sights are before you leave. This is boring. If you want to know what's exciting in a new place, go and find some local people and ask them. If they don't speak English, good, you can try out your new vocab. If they do speak English, try their language first anyway; if they start responding in English then speak Welsh at them until they believe you don't know any English.

4. Explore
Walk down alleyways. Stop and see what's happening whenever large groups of people are heading in one direction; or standing around waiting; or gathered around some attraction. When on public transport, don't be afraid to get off before your stop, or continue past it, if things look like being interesting. When driving, allow yourself to get lost and see what happens.

5. Act blindly
In a restaurant? Pick something you can't pronounce or translate. See a door with no sign on it? Go through it and find out what's on the other side. A lack of understanding regarding the local culture or language is something to be treasured, there are so many things this will allow you to do that you might otherwise have avoided or been too scared to try.

Enjoy. Let me know about your adventures.
Xx

On Italy

I learned two key lessons on a recent holiday with Julie-oh to Bologna and Ravenna:

1. The fact that I'm on holiday, in the sunshine, has no bearing whatsoever on the temperature of the sea in mid-October.

2. Italians really do just sit around drinking espressos and wine all day.

I particularly liked the concept of 'cocktail buffets' that pervaded most of the cafes and bars we visited: buy a single cocktail and help yourself to the range of oft-replenished, gorgeous little savoury & sweet delights placed around. Then, get another cocktail, rinse, wash and repeat.

Although the aforementioned sun was a treat in October, I did manage to acquire a slight sunburn, about which I was inexplicably embarassed and self-conscious on my return to rainy London (I mean, really, sunburn in October? How pretentious). The looks we got from Italians as we walked down the beach were priceless (the sandals I inadvertently left there, unfortunately not).

Finally, pro-tip: plenty of food in Bologna is labelled as "..alla Bolognese" and none of it is remotely like the Bolognese sauce we get over here. In fact, most of it is *way* better :)

Ina: AssItalia

Somewhat unfortunately, I appear to have a fantastically* handsome rear end. This makes it very difficult to walk backwards for any extended period of time before I am stopped by a well meaning stranger and have to spend five minutes bashfully accepting their compliments.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more acute than in Italy. On a recent short visit to Bologna and Ravenna, the locals were particularly impressed. In particular, the Ryanair attendants were so thrilled they made me wait around for nearly an extra hour just so they could call up some more friends to stop and stare.

This started off fairly innocently; someone would walk past animatedly chattering in Italian about (I presume) my posterior. We'd go into bars and the waiters would immediately comment on this (again, I presume - my Italian is a little flaky).

However, things started to get a bit creepy when the artists and architects got involved. What started off as harmless stained glass graffiti:



Soon turned into the defacement of historic cultural buildings:



Whilst I'm naturally flattered, this is a bit worrying and I'm not sure I'll be showing my face (or rear end) in Bologna again anytime soon. It was, however, nice to win the annual 'Ass of Italy' award - a moment I'll treasure and have on my CV for many many years to come:



More Italy pics/stories later :)
Xx

--

* Understand that here I refer to both definitions of fantastic; 'great' and 'surprising'.

Ryanair

I just got back from a long weekend in Italy (and I'll gloat about how wonderful it was in a post replete with pictures shortly), bookended by flights from The Low Fares Airline.

Somehow (and not just thanks to the Microsoft expenses account) I've always avoided Ryanair in the past. Apparently their foibles are well known but, despite recent claims that they were considering charging for toilet access or planning a super-budget model, whereby passengers stand for the journey I still didn't quite appreciate what an experience it would be.

Boarding was fun, with a priority aisle available for anyone who paid for it, or the very old & very young. I thought this a lovely idea, until it actually came to boarding and we found that the priority passengers simply got to stand around on some stairs for an extra 10 minutes whilst everyone else waited by the gate. After that it was all equality...everyone got to stand around in a stairwell. Why on earth don't they just assign seats? It can't cost any more (not even printer ink, given that everyone has to pay £5 to check in online).

Onboard there was some beautiful classical music playing as we walked on (I later found this same 18 second file plays at the start of every flight, it's not an indication of their cultural aspirations). A soothing pre-recorded Irish voice talked us through everything and we were away with no extra charges..

..but the voice continued, offering us scratchcards, hot food, cold food, perfumes, gifts - there's less advertising in American TV than on a Ryanair flight. The voice was occasionally interrupted for a J20 advert (which could naturally be bought on board). The flight attendants spent much more time trying to sell stuff than...anything really.

It's not all negative - there was a little fanfare as the plane landed which prompted cheering from the passengers, and Ryanair are now giving away a million free seats (actually they're £4.99 and don't include taxes) after their recent tiff with the BBC.

I still wouldn't recommend it though.

Xx

My Favourite Bridge

On the slim off-chance that any residual coolness from my university days is still lingering about the place, here's a blog post about a toll bridge in Bath. Not that toll bridges aren't immensely cool, but still making blog posts in 2009? Seriously?

On with the joy.

On a recent trip which in no way involved Bath, I happened to be in Bath for a couple of hours. Those of you who've made the thrilling journey from Bathampton to Batheaston (fabulous naming scheme by the way) will know exactly what's coming up, but let's build the suspense a bit for those who haven't yet had this life affirming experience.

I want you to imagine that you have a pressing, burning desire to get from Bathampton to Batheaston (the reverse is rarely true). You're sitting there, nearly in tears at the thought of having to take the A4 all the way to Bath proper, only to come back on yourself along the A36. "There must be another way", you cry, "I just can't bear this".

Enter the ruthless, inspired, creative genius that owns The Old Mill, together with its bridge. This man (it can only be a man) lets people drive across his private bridge for the princely sum of 60p, if it's sunny and he can be bothered turning up to work. If not, there's an 'honesty box' for you to contribute your fare, so the automated barrier of invisible karma can rise.


_{Click on the picture for an amazingly large version. Seriously.}

This bridge, this beautiful, tiny bridge, can only fit one car along its road surface. This leads to long queues in one direction, and then the other. The reason for this? Two excessively wide stretches of pavement (never used), one on either side of the bridge.

Finally, in a desperate bid to be accepted by the bigger kids over on the M6 and on the Welsh border, the masterminds behind the Bathampton toll have now got a list of charges for various types of vehicle. So, a car (crossing time, 5 seconds) will cost you 60p, but a car with trailer (crossing time, 5 seconds) will cost 90p. Dare to bring a caravan (crossing time, 5 seconds) and you'll be up to £1.20. Bring a lorry and it'll be about £100 for recovery I imagine.

If all this wasn't enough to sway you, I should point out that this bridge is really pretty. Really, very pretty. Unfortunately, in the 5 minutes of queueing to get on it, all you'll see is an Audi's exhaust pipe. In the 5 seconds of crossing it, you'll be too busy worrying about the narrowing at the other side, and the exceptionally high chance of losing some of your paintwork.

Xx

Back from America

..and ready to pollute the Tubes once again. North Carolina was empty, Washington DC was cold, New York was colder and I couldn't get a good cup of tea anywhere. Also the cheese sucked. There were probably some good points to the holiday too, I imagine I'll elaborate on them later, with copious pictures.

Now, to try and get some sleep so I'm not horrifically jetlagged for my interview in 36 hours.

Xx

Kids in America

Tomorrow I'm off home to Cardiff...and on Tuesday I fly out to the US of A to spend Christmas and New Year with Lucie. We're going to be hanging around her home-for-the-year in North Carolina for Christmas proper before riding on over to do some touristy things in Washington D.C.

From there we're off to New York, where we'll spend New Year's eve in Times Square. The night before that though, we're heading over to the legendary Smoke Jazz Club to see the New York All Star Sextet play, and enjoy the whole experience. Can't wait.

Any further suggestions for places to go or things to see are much welcomed. Get in touch :)

Xx

Microsoft Student Technology Day

I've resumed my duties as a Microsoft Student Partner for this year, and the second treat* was an expenses-paid trip down to London for me and some friends for a series of technology talks from a few folks from Microsoft, including the CEO himself, Steve Ballmer.

The whole shindig was in Festival Hall, and started off with the CEO of Huddle.net giving some advice on how to start and run your own little start-up company, drawing on his experiences from starting Huddle. There were some really useful tips about how to deal with venture capitalists, how to get funding in general and how to get help and support from various groups, one of which I can personally vouch for - Minibar London.

Next up was 'The Science Behind Live Search'. Unfortunately, we didn't actually get to see much science, but saw lots of cool usage trend graphs - bit scary to see how much you're monitored as you search away. Also interesting to note that 40% of searches end in failure, 50% of searches are just repeats of something that person has looked for before and that enough people actually use Live Search to be able to gather reliable statistics like these ;)



The third talk was the reason I turned up - Artificial Intelligence by Microsoft Research. Given that my final year project's going to have a bunch of that stuff in it, it was great to see it explained, and the various formulae put into context. Cool presentation too - mostly based around computer games.



Next was Steve Ballmer...and if you've never seen him present then:

a) Find a YouTube video
b) Find a YouTube video

Seriously, the guy is hilarious. 'Exuberant' doesn't come close to describing his style. He also had some very interesting stuff to say about the future of technology, and really knew his stuff well.

We rounded off the day with a presentation from my old colleague Paolo, who got to show off the trendy Surface, which even has a programmable API and emulator that'll be released to the public soon. Sweet.

Edit: Found a video of a bit of Paolo's talk:



Get in touch if you want any more detail on the above, or some contacts to talk about this stuff with :)

--

*_{The first treat was a nice shoulder bag filled with goodies and software...and four RJ11-RJ11 adapters. Note that that reads 'adapter' not 'extension'. If anyone can think of a use for a RJ11-RJ11 adapter, let me know.}

Recording Pics

Lots of people I've been talking to over the past couple of weeks think that recording studios are exciting places full of fairies, neon lights and whirring machinery. There were a large selection of machines that did indeed emit varying green and red lights, but other than that, it really was just a couple of (rather cold) rooms that get quite tiring after 10 hours a day, day after day.

That being said, here's some pretty pictures:


<sub>My pretty guitars


(Not my) Steinway Grand Piano, 1872


Could you try that again please Ina? And again...and again...


...screw it, we'll just get Tim to fix it


Drum boy, drum


Harpsichord, hand-made by William De Blaise


Parking facilities were...sparse


But the views were lovely</sub>

Back from West Wales!

Sorry things have been a bit quiet around here (other than the tweets) - I decided to take a short break from the internet, and so popped off to West Wales for a few days.

This proved to be quite a futile gesture as Twitter is available on my mobile phone nowadays. That, and everyone who's been ignoring me whilst I've been available suddenly had urgent questions to ask me, and great parties to invite me to. I'm sure they were just making it all up.

Being the bank holiday weekend, it was the busy season over in Pembroke - which meant that up to thirty people were in the town centre at one point. The coast, too, was similarly crowded - with it being necessary to deviate from a straight line to traverse the width of the beach at one point.

Despite the rain, which kept me indoors for the duration of my first full day there (Die Hard 4.0 & The Andromeda Strain are awesome films by the way), and soaked me on the second day, it was a welcome break and now it's time to rejoin the world of the internet.

In other news, apparently some graph I drew ended up in Wired Magazine. I wouldn't bother buying a copy just for that though, as it's freely available online. Looks like I'm not getting any money out of it too :(

"However, by submitting User Submissions to Pet Holdings, you hereby grant Pet Holdings a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Websites (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels."

Gatecrashing and other Parisienne Adventures

I hate to disillusion anyone, but my recent trip to Paris wasn't entirely spent sitting in a corner of a room writing, writing and writing about the United Nations Education Leaders' Forum that was going on in front of me.


_{Real time analysis, research and inventive writing requires concentration...and silly faces}

There was also a 'networking' aspect to the proceedings, which in the first instance required me to visit a lovely restaurant that was located on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, once I'd gotten up this high, and consuming a certain amount of champagne, I was seemingly unable to persuade those I was with that yes - I really didn't like heights, and no - I really didn't want to go on top of the tower.


_{The rave lighting's even better when you're actually on the tower}

Once the conference was over, we decided to stick around and gatecrash a party for the Imagine Cup (a bit more on that in another post methinks) that Microsoft were throwing simultaneously in Paris. We popped into the awards ceremony, which - as you can see, was a bit more chaotic than the ordered UN meeting of ministers and the like:


_{The Brazilians were so much fun during this chaos}

The awards were given out by a range of minor celebrities, each with their own unintentional level of comedy. From the professional snowboarder who was very clearly ill at ease with public speaking (or numeracy, telling the first place team they'd won third...) to the French cabinet minister with the translator from a student party.

This particularly serious politician had to give his speech in French, as government policy dictated. The translator, who'd been with students all week decided to add a level of 'pep' to his talk, by rephrasing half his sentences and adding in her own little bits (even referring to herself in the third person a fair few times) whenever she thought it might be amusing. Given that the minister probably spoke flawless English, I dread to think what happened afterwards...

Later that evening, there was a party for the ~400 students and Microsoft staff that had made up the finals of the Imagine Cup, and worked hard all year (and especially hard all week) for the privilege of an open bar with good music and great food, all in a trendy little club underneath the Seine. Quite noticeably not on the guest list was...me - but little things like that shouldn't spoil the night.

After talking my way past the first two 'layers' of security outside the club, I arrived at the reception desk - which had yet more security folks with lists in front of it. A quick complaint about the poor listing system, and the hold up from the first two sets of security and I had a blue armband, which apparently was some form of party ID meaning 'let this guy in' - gatecrashing with style.

The party was great, all the people I met over the few days were great, the two hours of sleep before my flight was not great and when can I go back to Paris please? :)

Week's drinking in Newquay

A couple of weeks ago I headed off to Newquay for Summer Break, hosted by the events company Outgoing.

For the uninitiated; Summer Break is a week long beach party for > 5,000 students. A couple of large holiday parks with tents and caravans are booked out and a horde of students descends upon the frightened local residents of Newquay.


_{With so many people around, it was easy to make friends}

The days are spent on the beach - with plenty of organised entertainment there (blindfold sack racing and the bikini contest stand out as a couple of highlights). The nights are spent in one of the handful of local clubs taken over by Summer Break, with a few big name DJ acts providing the music and a lot of very drunken students providing the atmosphere.


_{The nights out were themed. I believe this one was 'drunk student' night}

I've been busy since getting back, and have neglected to blog about the various fun and events that I did recollect, and as such have only hazy memories of the entire gig even existing. So, you'll have to make do with the pictures scattered throughout this post and the following excerpts from my Twitter feed at the time.

Off to a good start..
packing - 5.40am start tomorrow :( 11:11 PM June 07, 2008 from web

off to Newquay! 05:55 AM June 08, 2008 from txt

Things seem pleasant and innocent enough
enjoying fire and meat and sunshine 06:18 PM June 08, 2008 from txt


_{Disaster strikes at the launderette}

Some time passes, alcohol is consumed, a Radio 1 DJ turns up
off to the 80's. So drunk 08:34 PM June 08, 2008 from txt

was just kissed by Scott Mills. No tongue... 01:26 AM June 09, 2008 from txt


_{I'm at a beach party. In Newquay. And I still manage to find a cone...}

More innocent fun
beachtime! 11:55 AM June 09, 2008 from txt

volleyball, frisbee, real water. Awesome 04:37 PM June 09, 2008 from txt


_{You'd think I'd be too old for this. You'd be wrong.}

No updates follow for the rest of the 9^th. I wonder why?

A possible explanation
worst hangover ever 09:54 AM June 10, 2008 from txt

no, wait. Just tried walking. Apparently still Very drunk 10:28 AM June 10, 2008 from txt


_{The morning after...}

Anyone know what this was about? Anyone?
Indiana Jones and the temple of MAGIC BUS 12:43 AM June 11, 2008 from txt

We decide to leave the beach and alcohol behind for a bit...
walking through fields, lots of stiles but not a fence in sight 01:43 PM June 11, 2008 from txt

found a gorgeous village with a top-notch local pub. Real food too, rather than BBQ I've been having all week 02:52 PM June 11, 2008 from txt


_{Why were there about 9 stiles, but no fences?}

...we were 50% successful I suppose
we'll never get to the beach if we stop off at every pub. Nice cyders though 03:41 PM June 11, 2008 from txt

a small walking tour of Cornwall's breweries' offerings later, I'm at the beach. Anyone know the formula for drunkenness vs depth of water one should swin in? 04:16 PM June 11, 2008 from txt

This hurt so, so much more than I can describe
waterproof suncream in eye versus water. Currently losing: my eye 06:16 PM June 11, 2008 from txt


_{Students know how to set up drinking games}

I'm guessing this explains the rip I found in my shirt..
Pendulum DJ set was ace. So was window climbing 01:57 AM June 12, 2008 from txt


_{Seriously, students know how to set up drinking games}

I'll never eat trifle again
just remembering the semi-solidified shot cocktail I drank last night makes me feel queasy 09:33 AM June 12, 2008 from txt


_{I will not mix cream-based shots with tequila.
I will not mix cream-based shots with tequila.
I will not mix cream-based shots with tequila.}

The last day dragged on a bit
pub breakfast complete, just 13 hours to kill before coach arrives...somehow. Ideas anyone? 12:14 PM June 12, 2008 from txt

team awesome and friend are acing the pub quiz 10:53 PM June 12, 2008 from txt

I appear to have volunteered to write pub quiz software for a pub in Newquay. Self-five 12:33 AM June 13, 2008 from txt

I wrote him the software a few days later. He now sends me a copy of his pub quiz every week - awesome!

Seriously, I saw the box labelled 'hash browns'. She just hadn't heard of them before
at the worst takeaway ever - the menu bears no relation to the staffs' English vocabulary 12:06 AM June 13, 2008 from txt

THE HASH BROWNS ARE IN THE FREEZES YOU CRAZY TURKISH LADY. I PROMISE THEY'RE REALLY A FOOD. GET MY DAMN HASH BROWNS :( 12:12 AM June 13, 2008 from txt

chips, the poor man's hash brown. I'm crying inside. 12:32 AM June 13, 2008 from txt


_{End of an adventure. Note the lack of hash browns.}

The aftermath
ill :( 06:36 PM June 15, 2008 from web

feel like death...can I take my first day back in the office off sick? Probably not.. 09:36 AM June 16, 2008 from web

it's some combination of a carnivorous diet, alcohol overload and freshers' flu I think 11:43 AM June 16, 2008 from web

Keeping busy

With only two weeks left in Reading, I've decided to make sure that I get around and enjoy all that the city has to offer - and all that the folks I've met here can give me in the way of interesting company.

According to my Outlook calendar, the next meeting I have to attend is 'Drinks O'Clock', as today's the last time that all of my team is likely to be around in one place before I leave this place for good.

Having run into one of our trendy London colleagues in the office today, we're now off to a members-only cocktail club, The Player - over in Soho, which should be pretty cool. Expect drunken tweets if the night goes as planned.

Tomorrow I'm off to the Jolly Anglers, a lovely canalside pub for a jam night. I'm a bit worried about carrying guitars back next to a river with beer-legs, but I haven't been to a jam night that wasn't jazz-themed for a while. I really hope some 18 year old goth kid turns up wanting to play black metal.

Friday is a birthday party for one of the other interns - not much to say about that one, it'll just be fairly generic and studenty. I'm sure Facebook pictures will fill you in on the details.


_{Lol Coxhill - can't wait}

On Saturday I'm off to see avant-garde saxophonist Lol Coxhill over at the Rising Sun Arts Centre. It's an eclectic venue (in the truest sense of the word), and I've seen some very good gigs there, and some very bad ones too. Hopefully this will be of the former variety, as I've heard very good things about Lol (got to love the name) but never seen him live.

Sunday, therefore, is for Rock Band and sleeping. Exciting times eh?

Off to Newquay!

I'm off to Newquay for a week-long beach party over the next week, so there won't be any updates. I'll be tweeting though, if you're still interested in keeping up with me.

Xx

Camping with the boys II

Apparently, last year's camping in the Peak District didn't quite involve enough walking up mountains, so last weekend I accompanied Will Thompson, Tim McCormick and 'Terra' Ben Duff up to the Lake District for some walking.

Not having done my homework, I presumed this would be a stroll around some lakes, popping into one of the numerous lakeside pubs every hour or so. Apparently, however, I was mistaken, and the lake district is in fact, full of mountains.

We arrived a bit late on the Friday, so the only walking we got done was on the way to the drinking house. A bottle of wine apiece was followed by some stumbling home - with all of us managing to avoid the nearby river.

On the Saturday, we left early, and I was a bit surprised to see us walking up, and up, and up. Things weren't as flat as expected - and lots of short breaks to have a sit down and audition for various musicals were in order, given my hangover.


_{I don't recall quite what we were pointing at...}

Soon enough we were at the entrance to Striding Edge. No-one had thought to mention to me that we'd be crossing a path of certain death that was a couple of feet wide, with long long drops to either side.


_{Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah}

Upon Striding Edge, I had the choice of either walking directly across the top of the rocks (like the seemingly suicidal chap below) or taking a 'path' of sorts just off to the side in places. Once my fear of heights got the better of me, I took to the path, until it crumbled away from me - fortunately I was holding onto some rocks at the time, but I was still scared out of my skin by the experience.


_{Looks impressive, until you consider that there must have been enough space to the side for a cameraman at this point}

The day before I went walking, someone fell 200ft from Striding Edge, and there were a spate of deaths for walkers scrambling over the ridge earlier this year. Fortunately no-one informed me of this in advance, or I doubt I'd have made it over the top.

Next up it was a run down the side of a slightly less steep mountain (only a 45 degree gradient) to the beautiful lake surrounded upon all sides by the mountains we'd just been walking over, followed by a long (but safe) walk home.


_{Lovely lake}

A gorgeous meal in a surprisingly good restaurant that night was followed by another day's walking on Sunday. We found an interesting looking National Trust path from an ancient guidebook, and then somehow completely lost the path - possibly because it didn't exist any more.

Instead, we climbed up a river for a while (last year, Will climbed down a river) before reaching the amusingly (yet accurately) titled 'Surprise View', and then finally walking at ground level next to a nice lake.


_Surprise!

Last year, we popped off to nearby Bakewell, and bought some Bakewell Tarts from a Bakewell Tart. This year, we headed off to Kendal to buy some Kendal Mint Cake...from Woolworths. It was local produce, but apparently was only sold in high-street chain stores - bizarre.

On the way home, we played GHOST until that got boring, at which point I invented a new game. I've now called that PRINCESS, after a logo I accidentally doodled at a customer meeting when my colleague managed to talk about databases for an hour and a half, leaving me in silence, but I'll blog about that later, when I've finished computerising it.



So, all in all, camping was good fun all around, but I'm definitely in favour of somewhere flatter next year. Any suggestions? It'll have to be near somewhere famous for its confectionary..

Fun on the tube

I've been working in London recently, here's a few amusing little titbits:

1. I was sitting in the carriage next to an empty driver's cabin, and looking through the window to see what the exciting life of a tube driver looked like. On the 'emergency pod' was a listing of all emergency equipment stored inside (flares, first aid kit, etc) - and at the bottom of the list on a post-it note was written 'orange Kit-Kat'.

2. Tube Surfing. It's not really relevant to the last couple of days in London, but I've recently been falling in love with an Urban Sport with the unfortunate name of Tube Surfing. Unfortunate, because it's the same name given to another very dangerous sport I just linked to. This one, far more tame, involves getting a bit drunk (or a lot) and then seeing how far you can travel on the tube without holding on or falling over. Central Line West is a nightmare for this.

3. Guards love the feeling of power they get when they can close a station to newcomers because it's too busy. One of them chased someone who sneaked through yesterday to yell at her - and the other hundred or so people 'sneaked' behind him without him noticing. His face when he turned around was priceless.

Edit: 4. Tube Poker. Thanks to Gareth for the link in the comments. This looks like the best game ever.

Back to my meeting now, more fun later.

Xx

Adventuring

Drumming on Rock Band is a tiring ordeal, so Julie-oh and I decided to pop over to London yesterday for a fun day out. We started off in a psychadelic little square hidden away just off Covent Garden known as Neal's Yard.

Apparently very popular amongst the vegan community, Neal's Yard is precisely what would happen if a bunch of hippies got hold of the square Monty Python used to live on at the same time that Dulux were trying to shift some of their more unusual shades of paint. I'm told this is exactly the case.


_{Python's old house, and some of the hippy shops}

I was a fan of the unorthodox decor and atmosphere leant by the kind of people who sit around such decor, and surprisngly also of the food there, which was the reason we went. Julie-oh found lots of gluten-free goodness there to eat (pies, bread, lots more) and I'm sure she'll blog about that, but for now I'll just say that it was better than normal, fully glutenated food. Sweet.


<sub>The 'restaurant'


The deli serves meat based food too, if you don't mind a dirty look or two</sub>

We decided to pop over to Camden Town after this for some shopping, and across the way stumbled over some graffiti that Will had been showing us in a book just the night before. It's a piece by Banksy, drawn straight onto a standard brick wall. Apparently he'd painted it white the week before the actual drawing by dressing up as a workman and putting some signs up - smooth.


_{Masterful - click to embiggen}

In Camden I managed to add to my pretentious look by buying a great beret, along with some other tie-dye oddities, of the ilk normally found in Camden market stalls.


_{I think the sour look and neck-tie set it off well, if only I had a moustache...}

Finally, it was off to the Museum of London - one of the lesser known London museums, but still really cool. They had skeletons from 200,000BC found in what is now London, along with the usual (but well done) whipthrough of the evolution of man, from bits of stone through to rough axes through to sharp swords - all the ways of killing things you could want. Women, on the other hand, invented nice pottery in about 2,000BC and didn't move on much, from what I can see.

There's also a tacky piece around the Great Fire there (apparently it was quite hot) and a fairly interesting Roman section too. Worth a visit if you've done the other museums.

Work work and more work

Sometimes I think I work too hard. There's an option in Microsoft's vacation booking tool called 'day off in lieu' - I'm sure I could book off most of my remaining contract if this was actually used seriously. Don't believe me? Here's my week to date:

After a weekend of debauchery (ok, just playing around in the sun - drinking and football mostly) during which I did nearly no work (shock horror!) I ended up spending a late night coding on Sunday to get work done on a project with a swiftly approaching deadline.

This was followed by a bleary eyed 9am start, after which I met my placements tutor and ended up whiling away hours with him plotting my final year project, and also how Aston University can take advantage of some Microsoft technologies. I even appear to have signed myself up for various talks and events to help out with this adoption - and most of these are after my contract ends!

2pm or so and it was time to head off to Glasgow, where I did some more work, whiled away an hour filling up all the space in the Holiday Inn 'Let Us Serve You Better' comments card with complaints about the room & service. It's just a pity all the guides are laminated so I couldn't correct their spelling and grammar direct. EasyJet should be thanking their lucky stars that I didn't have a comments card in the plane too - it wasn't exactly my favourite trip.

A 5.45am start this morning, getting home around 8pm, and I'm still working right now, so I can be ready for a nice 9am start tomorrow. Then it's off to Newcastle on Thursday, so I can be up bright and early at 5.30am to do another Roadshow there :(

Only 6 weeks to go though - scary!

Paris Hitch 2008

I've just spent 36 hours hitch-hiking to Paris, eaten an average bowl of chips and then caught a 12 hour coach back to Bath. Tomorrow morning I need to be at a venue in Cardiff to start work at 6am. I'm off to sleep very soon...but here's a quick update as to why I suddenly disappeared off the face of the planet a couple of days ago.


_{The secret to hitching? Smiley faces and the word 'CHARITY'}

I was on the phone to Lucie at 11.30pm on Thursday night, having just had what I thought was an exciting adventure with a fire alarm in Asda. I thought I'd been fun and impulsive suggesting we follow a BMW leaving the Asda car park to see if they were going to another supermarket (they were).

More fun, and more impulsive, and more exciting, was finding out that her partner for the Bath University Paris Hitch had let her down and that she needed someone male to travel with. After checking I met the strict criteria it was a very early morning train to Bath for me on Friday morning, after a late late night staying up making sure that Work wouldn't fall apart without me for a day.

A million health and safety briefings at Bath later, and it was time to start hitch-hiking. Finding a lift to the M4 was no problem and a couple of cars and a lovely lorry-ride later, we were at Newbury Services. Stepping out of our ride to Newbury Services, we were accosted by a gentleman who saw our sign and offered us a ride to Reading Services. 4 seconds from leaving one ride to getting another - that has to be some kind of record. Pity it was just back to Reading, which I'd left at 7am to get to Bath...


_{I had to point out the problem with Lucie's original idea to get us on the M25 going anticlockwise}

An unplanned trip to Heathrow followed (to the chap from Roadway to Runway: 'No, the M4 is *not a dual carriageway with a nice lay-by, and no we can't just "run across it". Also, screw you for dropping us at Heathrow) which did rather put us out a bit. Once the police had moved us along from the terminals, it was a long long walk around London in the rain before a charitable cabbie got us back on track - all for free.


_{Dover really was quite cold}

A Polish lorry driver took us down to Dover (letting us off in the middle of the docks, in an area security were very unhappy to see us in) where we ended up spending the night. People aren't too happy to pick hitchers up at midnight in the dark and cold I'm afraid to say.


_{On the ferry, our 'destination whiteboard' also served well for Pictionary}

After a cheap night in the Eastcliff Hotel (possibly the worst establishment on this island), we managed to get through to Calais the next morning, which is a complete and utter dump. We eventually arrived at Paris around 8.30pm - just in time to walk through some increasingly disturbing ghettos before finding our Hostel. Then, after the aforementioned plate of chips, it was a coach ride all the way back again.


_{I wasn't the only tired one on the coach ride back. Aren't they cute?}

Bed for me now.
Xx