Madness at O2

Suggs and others rotated in the middle of the O2 - a great way for everyone to get a good view. Even from the vertigo inducing 4th tier - where, once you stand up and up the chair up, there is room to grove the night away.

Paying Homage to Pelehonuamea

I couldn't fly all this way without paying a visit to the worlds most active volcano - although all visible activity had stopped a few months earlier. Having said that a new eruption had started on Thanksgiving Eve - the VOG we drove through was evidence of that!

There have of course been many visitors before me - some more famous than others! When Mark Twain visited the caldera was a lake of molten lava - that must have been quite a sight. Enough to inspire an entire mythology amongst the original Hawaiian population!

Some remarkable views above and below the lava fields.

Aloha from Waikiki

The sun is out and all is very relaxing - the view from my balcony is great. From what I'd read, I was expecting Waikiki to be more commercial and built up - but there is lots of green around - even the pink of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel next door, in front of me, seams to fit. Given that more than half the view is the wonderfully blue Pacific Ocean - it would be hard to build hotels on! It is too shallow for anything bigger than the couple of catamarans that do short trips from the beach to navigate - so no cruise liners moored too close - having said that the occasional large freighter does cross the near horizon. The current headline news here in Hawaii is about containers on one of these visitors to the islands that have brought unwanted visitors to the state in the form of yellow backed wasps in a shipment of Christmas trees! The fact that that is headline news indicates how worry free the atmosphere is!

Flight from LHR

My winter escape of the British winter has arrived - after many months of anticipation. The plan to maximise the return on my air miles did mean it was going to be the start of a long day of travel... with a planned arrival in Honolulu almost 24 hours after I'd left home. An 8am departure from home, to make sure I could clear the security checks at Heathrow and any possible other delays before my 11:40 first flight of the day to LAX. The ten hour time difference, meant that should be at the hotel before 10pm local time.

I made use of the time they insist you spend at the airport and enrolled in the iris recognition immigration scheme - hopefully winning some of the time back when travelling back to the UK. The technology was very impressive - at least in the comfort of the enrollment center - recording my iris pattern took a couple of minutes, and then testing it simply took me looking very briefly in the right place! Lets see what the reality is when I get back to London. With the one bag rule being relaxed next year, I could be out of Gatwick or Heathrow very quickly in future - no queues at all!

After iris registration, I made my way to AA's first class lounge - I did say I was making the most of my miles - 125K for a first class return to anywhere in the USA - and Hawaii counted - 35K more than the same business class ticket. I have to say I was not overly impressed - there just wasn't enough room - I'd have been better off in the much more spacious business class lounge - but that was just the prelude... next stop a first class seat for 11 1/2 hours.

What a pleasant way to travel. First class wasn't even half full - so lots of attention from the cabin crew - a half empty glass didn't last very long. Video on demand - so a maximised ability to catch up on the latest DVD releases - and lots and lots of choice. I'm really looking forward to the lie flat bed on the return flight - hopefully a good sleep will be possible to kill the jet lag!

Arrival at LAX was ahead of schedule, and even the slow US immigration process wasn't too onerous. My bag was waiting for me to re-check for the onward flight to Honolulu... Quickly locating the AA first class lounge I was much more impressed - as much space at the business class version I'd just walked through - but many fewer people!

Then a short walk to the next plane and my preselected seat at the front... Then my luck when travelling, that has been with me since a very unpleasant long delay on the runway at Toulouse airport ran out.... "we are just waiting for the log book to arrive and we'll be on our way"..."unfortunately this plane has been taken out of service!".

3 hours later the flight crew and ground staff welcomed us all aboard the replacement plane. New seating plan - and it was a very old 767 with a projector for in flight entertainment - and much larger first/business class section - so my nice quiet seat at the front was gone. I gave into the inevitable - and slept - it was 5 in the morning according to my body clock! After four hours sleep I arrived in Honolulu at 1:30am local time, 11:30am back in London!

The travel gods hadn't deserted me completely - my bag had arrived in-tacked and was one of he first in the luggage hall. A short taxi journey and a rapid check-in to my junior suite - a very nice upgrade and possible pay back from the travel gods...

So now to wind down and enjoy the fine weather - even at 2am in the morning it was 24°C - very nice...

All Blacks v The Oaks

In the Pool C match in Toulouse that every one had come to see, the already qualified for the next stage, All Blacks, could have taken the opportunity for a rest. But the Romanian Oaks put up good resistance, but weren't good enough to hold back the might of the tournament favourites! The 85-8 score was a fair reflection of the difference in class - New Zealand set out their store right from the beginning - returning the kick off from behind their try line to score down the other end! Having said that Romania did put a try on the score board - and held the score to less than three figures.

Rugby World Cup 2007- Portugal v Romania

	Doesn't seem like well over a year ago I bought tickets to the only two Rugby World Cup 2007 matches in Toulouse that I could get tickets for - as a warm up for the rout I expect the All Blacks v Romania to be this was an entertaining match. Great seats - well plastic "cushions" on concrete - on a walk way exactly on the try line - it felt like you could have reached out and touched the players.
From RWC 2007

Match 30 - Portugal's last chance to salvage something from the tournament - 108-13 to the All Blacks was no disgrace - crossing the try line something England failed to do against the Springboks! It was like a home match for Portugal - with lots of atmosphere. But that didn't stop the superior fitness of the Romanians eventually leading to their 10-14 victory. Roll on the All Blacks v Romania - for the half the Black's are playing towards us we should see lots of action in the Romania 22 and for the other half we'll have a good view of the conversions....

Trains don't terminate - Journeys do!

One of my pet hates - that I have to put up with every evening as I travel home - "this train terminates at the next station" - if it does, that explains the funding problems with public transport. It must be expensive replacing all those terminated trains! It is the journey that terminates - not the train! Maybe I should start a facebook campaign to get the British transport system to change their announcements. Another one that really gets me is when a automated announcements apologies for the lateness of a train and the inconvenience it is causing. When an automated system used the "royal we", it really devalues the sentiment of the message. More appropriate would be the "operators of this service" - the computer generating the message really could not careless! In fact a caring automated announcement system would be rather worrying. I supposed it reflects the way a human on the tannoy was replaced with a computer as a cost saving measure and a lack of thought to how it should change the script being followed!

Police at Twickenham

From Police - 2007

Rather hard getting decent pictures in a situation a full SLR would find hard to cope with when the policy is "no professional cameras" - define professional - my point an click had to do... But a few came out! Twickenham is a great stadium now it is finish, and once all the seats where full the sound was OK, but lots of echo from the empty stadium for the warm up bands! Having now experienced stadium concerts from tiered seats to the side, standing on the pitch and sitting on the pitch - I'd always choose tiered seating - sound was good in the middle, but it was hard to see much! Sitting, and then standing, in a fixed position on the pitch just doesn't work unless you are right at the front - unless you are as large/tall as the person one of the group had the miss fortune to be behind!

Andy Summers, Sting and Stewart Copeland on large screens so those further back than the front rows could see them....

Euro Star Travel

What a nice way to travel - as much hand luggage as you can carry, 30 minutes from check-in to departure, and direct to and from the centre of the city. No extra journeys in themselves to the departure point, and the place you are actually trying to get to.... Even the longer time actually spent in motion was pleasant - I really enjoy spending three hours with a Sunday Times. Breakfast going out was a little of a disappointment - but I'm not really a breakfast person - and the cooked version did look and smell very nice - even as a non-breakfast person I'll be going for that option next time... The meal on the return journey was a pleasure - only let down by the fact that the cheese provided was a rather plan boring piece of Cheddar - with all the wonderful french cheeses, you'd have thought they could have at least stretched to something a little more interesting... Maybe that was Eurostar preparing visitors to leave the gastronomic delights of France... That wasn't the only difference on French rails rather and English. While travelling between Paris and the tunnel we had to stop - some sort of electrical problem in the tunnel - the slowing down could really be felt - in major contrast to the rather gentle deceleration when stopping at Ashford - the train was clearly travelling significantly faster on the SNCF rails than on BR's! At least Paris did try to make me feel at home - for the first 15 minutes it poured with rain in a style London weather would have been proud of! It did dry up and failed to spoil the racing - although a wet Champs-Élysées would have made for interesting cornering... I don't think this will be my last day trip to Paris. Anyone for a few hours with the Sunday papers, followed by lunch next to the Seine?

Tour De France - La Finale

	So after an early Sunday morning start, at least for me, and a pleasant few hours with a Sunday Times, I arrived on the Champs-Élysées to stand and wait for a group of cyclist to flash past - at least they would pass by seven times... After an hours wait having been entertain for a short time by the sign painters....
From Le Tour 2007 ...

Then along comes a lion! Followed by various other cars, vans, lorries and motorbikes with modifications to advertise the main sponsors - entertaining - but also a little bizarre. Then another long wait - given the size of some of the vehicles, the riders needed to give them a good start - I'm sure some of the large trucks didn't proceed the tour all the way, taking easier routes along less narrow/steep roads to the finishes on the tops of the mountains! The for the real thing, and the gosling for position to see the riders well enough to take pictures - being just at the slowest point on the circuit there we a fare few people with large cameras and lens all trying to get them pointed in the right direction - of course those at the very front didn't even have cameras!!! It would have been really nice to be amongst the professionals - no problems with getting a good view. But lots of hassle from the french police in sharp black suits with little red "police" arm bands - they checked credentials of the same group of six cameramen at least five time - then when two or three more joined them that lead to all sorts of use of mobile phones to clear up if they where all allowed to be there - they all stayed! And then for the real event - bikes flashing past, the clatter of SLR mirrors in sports mode. To many pictures to post here - you'll have to visit the Picasa Album to see them.... And once that was done back to Eurostar - more about that latter... Share on Facebook

Tour De France - Grand Depart

"Le Tour" has visited London - and it was as if everyone in London was on the course watching - which meant a long hunt for a spot that I could see enough of the road to actually get some pictures! But I did find a good one - just round a corner - which slowed the riders down - just a little... I'm not sure who where braver - the riders taking the corners at speed or the camera men trusting their motorbike drivers to take the corner at a sensible speed.

This rider - Nicolas Vogondy I think, was the only one I saw fail to make the corner.

Fabian Cancellara was definately shifting when he past - and he proved to be the fastest on the day.

Upcoming Visit of Le Tour to London

A head of Le Tour 2007 arriving in London next week, I thought I'd post pictures from the Tour of Britain 2006 arriving in London...

	This rider tried to break clear - but on the rapid circuit of St James' Park a bunch sprint finish was inevitable.
From Tour of Britain 2006

Explosion of Data

I've just added 512MB of memory to my laptop - bring the memory in it to 1GB. It cost relatively little and appears to have breathed new life into the machine. It had started to feel very sluggish - and had occasional fits of spinning the disks and not doing a lot else! But the question is why do I need that much memory in a PC? The first computer I "owned" had 16K in it and no usable external storage - unless you count my parents tape deck and the audio tapes that played high pitched noise into the system to reload code carefully typed in - or games bought at relatively great expense... OK, that system only had 16 colours and did very little - but you could program it and it entertained me for hours... The next system the family owned had the incredible amount of memory of 256K - and 3 inch removable drives - we upgraded the box to 512K and added a 720K drive to the original 180K one... Two books, complete with diagrams, got written on that machine... I've just add 1000 time that as an upgrade - OK the modern machines does things we'd never dreamt of - but 18 months ago 512MB in a laptop was a lot! My first lap top had 64MB, and the second maxed out at 256MB. But is was only 20 years ago that 512K was more than enough to support a very usable system - at that rate we'll be putting terabytes in personal system. We are already approaching that in large system today - I was going to say in super computers - but they have even more because we've moved to building super computers from hundreds, if not thousands of separate boxes. The conclusion I draw, the software writers have shares in the companies that make memory. [I also personally think the day of a true software developer is dead - most of them these days use a graphical tool to pick items of a menu, then add a small amount of logic to each item - rarely thinking about the consequences of adding a Excel spreadsheet to one of those items, but that is an entirely different random thought] So where is all the data we store in these system coming from. I'd suggest that the human race is probably creating more duplicated and redundant data a month, than useful unique data exists in total... My suggestion - buy shares in the companies that make memory and disks - there is no evidence that the rate of data explosion is going to slow!

New Blog

And then there were two blogs to neglect! Hopefully my mum and brother will help with the latest one - enMatte. A place to record memories and developments in the south of France...

So what has inspired me to start doing this again?

Very good question. While struggling to spell taught, while writing up a particular stressful appraisal, I resorted to a Google search and came across SelfTaughtGirl - it distracted me for long enough to be re-invigorated in the writing I had to do myself!

British Property Market

Having spent the last 5 years watch in the UK property market in wonder - hoping to get on the property ladder, and the last 6 months helping my mother buy a property after she received an offer on her house that was too good to refuse, I think it is time for first time buyers to go on strike. If we all collectively point blank refuse to buy any property in the next 12 months, then combined with the rising interest rates, some common sense might return to the market. If only the government hadn't chickened out on HIPs, it might not have taken 12 months. My impression is that everyone telling us that house prices are rising have a vested interest in that being true. It is the mortgage companies - who can't loose these days, the estate agents - who like the high prices because they get even high fees for hardly doing a thing, and existing property owners who are building up massive unsustainable debt based on a property price bubble. Come on - average property prices six times average earnings, when the historical average is four time is not sustainable.

Improvement in British Sport?

It looks like British sport might be improving - if not off the death bed yet. We have a new young F1 driver who appears to have more skill than fear! And the cricket team have crushed the opposition - even if it was a West Indies team reeling from a World Cup even worse that England's and the retirement of their long term hero. But it might be a false dawn - now all our Tennis players appear to be failing by the wayside - Henman is almost finished, Rusedski has retire and the new young hope has over played and is out injured. And just as the prospect of having to defend the World Cup, the entire Rugby side appear to have gone down sick!