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I’m moving back to Liverpool in a few months and am pondering whether to start writing a little about rediscovering the city…
I’m not sure a blog is the best way to do this anymore (if it ever was) but I’ll be publishing pictures on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nancychristopher/), and might start looking at Twitter again (http://twitter.com/chrisallen) and even Friendfeed (http://friendfeed.com/c3allen)
No posts for ages, I know. We’ve been away the last two weekends, most recently to the Lake District, where we spent four days in Great Langdale. Alas, while the rest of the country basked in sunshine, we were subjected to torrential rain and gale force winds. We lost the path at the top of Crinkle Crags in what were probably the worst conditions I’ve ever experienced while hiking; visibility was down to a couple of metres, which meant that any path that wasn’t completely continuous became a real hazard. It was, ultimately, a really satisfying day, given the challenges faced, but in future I think I’ll consider what emergency equipment I’ve got in my rucksack a little more carefully – for the first time I was contemplating thoughts of having to spend the night on the fells.
I should add that Crinkle Crags, would, on a fine day, be a great walk; I can’t wait to try it again.
We were camping at the National Trust campsite in Great Langdale which I would recommend. I usually prefer a more secluded smaller campsite, but it does have very hot showers and well maintained facilities. There is a great hikers pub nearby (The Old Dungeon Ghyll) with lots of real ale (Black Sheep Bitter, Black Sheep Ale, Old Peculier, Yorkshire Terrier, Theakstons XB, Jennings Cumberland Ale) and loads of malt whiskies (I stuck to Tallisker 10 yr old, as it happens). Down the road is another pub worth looking in at called The Sticklebarn. We walked from the The Old Dungeon Ghyll along the bridleway past Dungeon Ghyll waterfall to get to it, and stopped for a pint of the delicious Bitter and Twisted. I’d give the next pub along, The New Dungeon Ghyll, a miss.
These are probably the best optical illusions I’ve ever seen:
http://www.purveslab.net/seeforyourself/
Some of them beggar belief….
Would like to be posting first impressions of the Alastair Campbell diaries…but despite pre-ordering weeks ago, Amazon haven’t even dispatched my copy. I don’t suppose they’ll have the same problem getting out copies of Harry Potter.
A major part of my job at the moment is developing a read/write intranet for work (a collaborative workspace incorporating, for those who know what one is, an ‘enterprise wiki’.) I’m using a piece of software called Confluence, which I really am enjoying. Now that I can see the potential for this, it amazes me that many organisations are still using static HTML intranets. Interestingly, the project started when I was tasked last year with looking into social networking sites, and in particular, Facebook. Back then there was hardly a single person I knew on in it; now, just nine months later, virtually every person I know is on it. Even six weeks ago I was struggling to explain what it was to many of my friends, and now even those who sounded sceptical about it are becoming addicted. The one thing that I’m doing that I don’t see many others doing, is using Facebook from my phone. I think this really may be the killer app. The mobile version works so well that I now have it set as my phone’s homepage. Admittedly having a flat data tariff as I do helps with photos etc. What I can’t decide is whether Facebook will replace Fickr and even this blog. I think I prefer having the blog separate, but the idea of integrating with flickr is very appealing…we shall see. Either way, Facebook will, I suspect become the de facto standard for social networking in coming years.
Oxford is very lucky to have Blackwell’s bookshop. I’ve stopped going in the main shop so much these days because it’s just far too tempting to spend a lot of money there.
[Which reminds me - I haven't forgotten to write a post about The Golden Notebook, it's just that I stupidly forgot to take it to Hong Kong; I'm back to it now and I'm enjoying it a lot, but it can be hard work at times. While I was away I therefore read Ian McEwan's new, and very brilliant, On Chesil Beach. It is quite short so I read it in one sitting on the plane, without so much as averting my eyes (the gloopy beef noodles served for dinner not quite the distraction that I hoped they would be).
McEwan is, I feel, begining to break away from the rest of the field and I cannot remember the last time he put a foot wrong (before you say it, I happen to really like Amsterdam). The Observer reviewer drew comparisons with Roth's Everyman, a book I've not yet read but I've long thought that McEwan seems set on emulating Roth in peaking in his autumn years. McEwan's not even 60 yet; Roth is in his mid seventies and in the last ten years has written most of his best books. The phrase that seems to follow Roth everywhere now is that he is writing 'at the peak of his powers'; I'm not sure McEwan is anywhere near his yet.
What struck me most about On Chesil Beach was how McEwan illustrates the the couple's problematic sexual misreading of each other and particularly their misinterpreting of each other's body language. He handles the bedroom episodes brilliantly, effortlessly weaving together two conflicting standpoints in a seamless narrative - a series of akward moments that never reads awkwardly. McEwan's mastery of the third person narrative is as evident here as it is in any of his previous work.
I also read A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian which I wasn't expecting very much from, but which I thought was quite good really. Never going to be a classic, but fine for something light hearted on holiday.]
Anyway, back to Blackwells. Today I spent my lunch in the art and poster shop which was very enjoyable. I spent most of the time flicking through a book on Egon Schiele. I can’t say I’d ever really seen much by Schiele, even in books. Ruben, with whom I shared an office in Belgium had a couple of postcards pinned up which I always quite liked, but I’d now like to get to know his work a lot better. Not sure if it’s the kind of stuff I’d be allowed to have hanging in the kitchen, but certainly worth a trip to a gallery or two. (Strangely I’d gone in with the intention of having a look at the large books on Titian and to see if they had a copy of Allen Staley’s Pre-Raphaelite-Landscape, which they did and which I might have a look at next week).
My plan to blog and post photos from Hong Kong didn’t quite work out; I was just too busy. I should, however, write a little about how Hong Kong has gone up massively in my estimation. I visited HK about four years ago and although I found the the city fascinating, I certainly didn’t fall in love with it. Hong Kong Island seemed to me at the time to be completely devoid of culture and to have a blatant disregard for history: nothing but a vast shrine to commercialism and greed. For the most part I’d probably agree with my notes from the time stating that HK island was the ugliest place I’d ever seen. I suppose if skyscrapers and homogeneous high rise housing are your thing, then it has a great deal to offer, but for me even the most architecturally impressive buildings leave me feeling cold. What I did enjoy last time around, and even more so on this trip, was the food: crowded restaurants churning out bowl after bowl of steaming noodles; glistening, sticky dishes of meat and poultry, strangely butchered; fragrant piles of vegetables in oyster and soy; and fresh fish and seafood cooked in a myriad of styles. We ate in the full range of eateries: from street stands and tiny cafes packed with hungry locals, to chic, expensive restaurants alongside the city boys and girls, washing down the very spiciest of Szechuan dishes with surely inappropriate fine red wine (it’s my understanding that the alcohol in wine intensifies the spiciness of food- so god only knows how they were physically managing this; even the [vast quantities of] beer I was drinking seemed to be making things worse. 0ne night a smiling maître d’ persuaded us to try a whole fresh crab cooked Szechuan style. During the course of that meal we both experienced the most intense chili heat by inadvertently eating a single pepper; the crab itself was delicious).
My higher opinion of Hong Kong comes largely from having spent most of our time away from the city, hiking along the various trails that that both the mainland and islands have to offer. Even the trails right on the doorstep of HK’s skyscrapers (such as the famous Dragon’s Back) are fantastic, and exceptionally well maintained. For us, however, the highlight of the week was a trip deep into the New Territories, a 90 minute ferry and train ride from HK island towards China-proper, to a series of waterfalls near the village of Ng Tong (see here and here). Hiking up-hill in the intense temperatures and humidity made the plunge pools of the falls extremely welcoming: cool oases to take the heat out of the day. If I ever go back, I’ll pack an icebox and some cold beer, because that’s about all that was missing from a near perfect day (and as luck would have it, on the way down we popped into the local Buddhist temple [it was Buddha's birthday] who sprung the biggest surprise of the week by welcoming us with a fridge full of icy cold drinks: I was expecting to have to settle for a Coke, when lo and behold I caught a glimpse of a couple of cans of local beer nestling amongst the Fanta. I thought Buddhists were largely teetotal, so I can only guess that the beer was there to offer relief to thirsty travellers. Village churches of England take note!)
Night three in Hong Kong, and having eaten neither of the above before, tonight’s meal yielded quite a few unexpected culinary experiences. The former came with marinated fish roe and was surprisingly palatable – almost like gelatinous noodles. Next came taste-bud-blistering Sezchuan squid – marked on the menu as being ’spicy’, thereby surely violating some kind of advertising understatement code of conduct. People say you shouldn’t drink beer to calm the fire of chili; maybe not, but at least being a little drunk anaesthetised the pain. Never could I have imagined my girlfriend greeting the arrival of fried pig’s throat (as in oesophagus) with such genuine relief. The cool offal, a soothing balm to her scorched tongue.
I have had a few queries about David Deutsch, to whom I alluded recently, so I thought I’d recommend this video of his TED talk a few years ago. The links to download it are just below the photo. It’s fascinating, quirky and thought provoking, and a good introduction to Deutsch.
I can’t stress how highly I recommend his book, The Fabric of Reality. I read it last year after a conversation about parallel universes with the best man at a stag-do (how often can you say that?)
It blew me away. It’s not just (as some people imagine) about quantum physics. It’s also about Karl Popper/epistemology, Dawkins/Darwin/evolution and Turing/computation. But even if you’re not especially interested in any of these issues individually, I still recommend it as a superbly written book of outstanding clarity that can genuinely change the way you think.
I should add that I am not a physicist, or a competent mathematician; you need to be neither to get a great deal out of Deutsch’s writing.
What a great little application…
