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)

I am changing jobs, and my team very kindly bought me this as a leaving present. I can’t wait, but probably will – at least until we’re in the Lakes over New Year.  Michael Jackson (the other one) describes it thus ‘A huge, powerful, bear-hug of peat…The driest of Islay malts, and an established classic.’ Looking forward to posting my  thoughts.  Apparently teetotaller Johhny Depp sometimes orders a dram of this just to sniff; I shan’t be emulating him.

I don’t seem to be very good at keeping up with writing this at the moment…and now have far too much to write in a ten minute lunch break. Will try harder…

We spent two fantastic weeks in September/October in France, firstly in the Ardeche and secondly in a friend’s House in Marseillan.

The highlight of the first week was canoeing down the Ardeche River through it’s wonderful gorge, camping en route. After a day’s paddling in some of the best scenery in France, what better than to make a fire, cook a couple of steaks on it and wash it down with a bottle of red wine (miraculously having survived the journey) and some Talisker, smuggled into France in the hunter’s flask. We capsised fire minutes after getting into the boat the next day.

The second week involved lots of lazing about on a roof terrace reading, listening to music, eating cheese, drinking wine and playing Scrabble. This was punctuated by long walks along the beach, and blissfully lonely swims in the Med. Strange how books and music shape a holiday. Listened mainly to Joni Mitchell’s Blue and read Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers – both genuine masterpieces, the latter in particular shooting up my list of all time great works. Marseillan is one of the Oyster capitals of Europe and you can pick up a dozen for about 3 quid. Ate Oysters every day for a week; could I justify emigrating to the south of France based on the price of Les Huitres? No, but only because I’d miss English beer too much.

Last month I went the CAMRA beer festival in Oxford town hall. Absolutely worth going, if only to taste Hobsons Mild for the first time (CAMRA Supreme Champion Beer 2007). Wonderful flavours: quite malty and biscuity and with a nice bitterness. Haven’t seen it anywhere since. I’ve been into the Eagle and Child in Oxford quite a lot recently. It’s a pub I didn’t frequent as a student, but it’s just round the corner from where I work. Quite a good little pub (albeit with a misjudged conservatory style extension mercifully hidden at the back.) It’s where CS Lewis and Tolkien used to drink. They keep a good pint of London Pride, always seem to have Deuchars IPA (which I tend not to fancy after Summer) and I’ve recently been won over by Brakspear Bitter.

Listening:

Martin Simpson: Prodical Son  (Blew me away. Best album of the year.)

Davey Graham: Folk, Blues and Beyond (And have been since September. Why did nobody tell me about  this when I was eighteen. )

Joni Mitchell: Blue (See above)

Ralph Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending

JS Bach – Watchet Auf

Schubert – Winterreise

Reading:

Anthony Burgess: Earthly Powers (Genius. Read it.)

Iris Murdoch: The Sea, The Sea (In progress; not sold on it yet.)

Richard Dawkins: Climbing Mount Improbable and The Ancestors Tale

Alan Bennett: Writing Home and Untold Stories (Dipping in and out. Brilliant, obvioulsy.)

Viewing:

Mark Demsteader, Manchester artist, Oxford Inspires gallery (hit and miss, but a couple worth seeing.)

Joe’s Palace, BBC1 – The excellent Poliakoff at his best. Michael Gambon superb.

We now have a Nintendo wii (my wonderful fiance bought it for my birthday). It’s the first games console I’ve ever owned (although I did once ‘borrow’ a Playstation from my brother for a term to play Fifa 99 in university).  I’ve never considered myself much of a games player – probably because I’ve never been any good at them (well apart from frogger, Chuckie Egg, Sensible Soccer, Tomb Raider and Fifa) – but the Wii is fantastic. I just love the (ostensible) simplicity of it. I also love the fact that before Friday I don’t think I could ever have envisaged spending an hour playing a computer game with my girlfriend. We only have Wii sports at the moment, and although I think they all look really good, we’ve mostly been playing tennis. It’s clearly not designed for the hardcore gamer, and I think that’s why I like it so much. Really looking forward to having a load of mates over for a few beers and a tennis tournament.

She also bought me a couple of Dawkins books I’d not read (Climbing Mount Improbable and Unweaving the Rainbow, about which, once finished, I’ll write a blogpost, also incorporating the fascinating The Ancestor’s Tale) and a leatherbound ‘Hunters Flask’.  

12 Volumes, and well over 3000 pages later, I finally finished Dance a few weeks ago and I miss it a lot. It was funny, charming, and, in a strange way, quite moving. I’m not being melodramatic in saying that it has changed the way I look at the world a little.  Admittedly I was ready for the end by the time it came round simply because most of the characters I’d come to know had died. It really is a wonderful novel (or novel series) and I’d recommend it to anyone. It sweeps through the 20th century carrying an enormous number of characters (over 300) with it. Their intertwined lives are the plot, and there isn’t really a wider narrative to speak of (as there is in, say, A Suitable Boy) ; this takes a little getting used to, but I now see it as part of the novel’s charm. If you have some time on your hands, give it a go.

A ridiculously busy summer has seen the blog neglected, but I should say that the five days we spent in Rugen, an Island in NE Germany was fantastic. Staying in a remote cottage with a seawater lake at the bottom of the garden, wonderful beaches, sauasages,wild boar, bread and dripping, schnapps, bonfires, crosswords and sunshine. It felt like I’d been away for weeks.  Will write at length, perhaps about the dripping, soon.

A friend of my flatmate, whom I’d not met before, came round last friday – a really nice chap from Newcastle. After supper I offered him and my flatmate’s boyfriend a drop of whisky (I didn’t have anything special in, just the duty free J&B I’d bought on special offer from Frankfurt airport).  We had  a few drinks and got talking, it transpired that he worked for a large drinks company, training bar tenders. I asked him what this entailed and he stood up, saying he’d be back presently. He returned with an enormous rum-branded bag from which he produced bottle after bottle of rum. ‘I’ll show you exactly what I do,’ he said . He proceeded to give me a potted history and a tour through the world of rum. It was a fascinating experience, not having ever had any interest in rum.  We tasted around eight differnt rums including: Pussers (the original navy rum, a harsh and very strong rum  that British sailors recieved as a daily ration right up to 1970) Bacardi 8 (probably my favourite of those I tasted and the only one I would consider drinking straight), Havana Club, Bacardi Oro, and Appleton Jamaican Rum. The complexity of flavours – including wood, brown sugar and butterscotch – present to varying degrees in all these rums was unexpected, and the evening changed my entire preception of Rum.

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.

On Sunday we went to see Matthew Bourne’s modern ballet/dance/thriller, The Car Man  (based on Bizet’s  opera) at Sadler’s Wells, near Angel. Carmen’s 19th Century Spain becomes a 60s garage-diner in the midwest. It’s a rather raunchy affair, and the dancing is quite formidable; it’s great fun and I enjoyed it far more than I though I would. We stopped off at Fish Shop on St John Street beforehand which, though perhaps a little pricey, I thought had  a really nice feel to it. We sat outside and shared a dozen oysters, making the most of the only unbroken sunshine of the weekend. Somewhat unusually for us, we ate out on both days of the weekend, having dined at Chez Gerard on Charlotte Street on Saturday evening. I feel I should make mention of the steak that I ate there.  Chez Gerard is not somewhere I would immediately think to go for an evening meal. To me their restaurants always have had a business-lunch appeal to them (I had hitherto experienced only those in The City).  The one on Charlotte Street was, however, a revelation. The steak that I opted for was a French cut, an Onglet, that I had not tried before. I ordered it rare and it arrived cooked to perfection. Apparently, this steak is known as ‘butcher’s steak’ because butchers would often keep it for themselves rather than offer it for sale. It’s obvious why; I have never eaten meat so succulent or so intensly flavoursome.  I should add, for no other reason than to dispel myths about cheaper cuts, that it was the least expensive steak on the menu. It is the steak attached to the last rib and the kidney and apparently often ends up just being minced! The oysters I had to start were also excellent, although the following day’s perhaps had the edge, if only for the accompanying sunshine. 

Just been reading this: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/19/could-facebook-become-the-next-microsoft/

It suggests that Facebook could effectively replace not just your homepage, but actually replace your desktop. In other words instead of using, say, Microsoft Word or Excel, you’d use the Facebook word processor application or spreadsheet application ( in the same way as you currently, use, say, the email or photo application.) I’ve been using a web-based word-processor for a while (google-docs as it happens, but I actually think Zoho is just as good) and I’m not sure I’d ever go back to using Word. (Word now really annoys me in work, because it’s so much more difficult to work collaboratively on a document). Actually, in this piece there is talk of Facebook buying a company like Zoho.

I can’t really see how this can be a bad thing. The ability to access your desktop and  a wealth of applications from any PC (or mobile device) in the world is surely a massive step forward, and one that has been predicted for some time as being the next really important development on the web.