Well I'm still saying "doh" instead of "though"....

....but I'm no longer drooling, and that can only be a good thing.

The tempest begins next week. The new Semester gets into swing! The final year undergrad project students start in the lab full time, ek! We start the ball rolling with a lab meeting and presentation at which we senior people have to make our usual dross sound like cutting edge stuff for these young impressionables.

We have three girls in an all male lab, which will be a novelty. We have quite a sizist lab (all the chemicals and media are high up), so they're going to get annoyed at that. My student is a bit shy and quiet, but hopefully I can get her cracking along on her own steam fairly quickly (the alternative is that they become what we call "clingons" where they hang on your every word and check with you every second to make sure every movement that make is the correct one *groan*).

The boss's student (he always picks the cream of the crop) is going to keep us all on our toes. She speaks at about a million miles per hour and takes part in international hip-hop/breakdancing competitions. So we're all going to look old and frigid.

Autumn is coming closer. The weather's here, just waiting for the colours now....then it's camera season again. I'm not much of a Spring/Summer photgrapher, I love the Autumn/Winter end of the year so expect postings.

Anyway, thought I'd just write something to let you all know that I'm still out there.

Oh, and there's this:


This is so true it's scary.

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I have a cold....

*sniff*

Back soon...

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Okapi...

The okapi website says "Did you know...?" Well, to be honest, no I pissing well didn't!

Now it would be arrogant to presume that I should have heard of all animals currently identified on this planet, but I'm surprised that I have sat through all my Zoology lectures, books, Wildlife on One and never heard anything about this rather crazy half Giraffe/half Zebra looking Ungulate. It's not often a large mammal escapes one's radar.

You learn something new every day...

Now back to my thrilling book on Snowdonia Ordovician shales. Yes, shales. Rivetting stuff! (don't ask).

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The Arcade Fire...

Have recently discovered Montréal-based band The Arcade Fire and their debute album Funeral in particular. They've been described as "folk-influenced chamber pop that slots in somewhere between Belle and Sebastian's delicacy and the robust classicism of '80s New Zealand bands such as the Chills and the Verlaines". So there you go folks.

If you listen to Wake Up, you can't help but like some of their stuff. I heard that David Bowie payed testament to his current fave band of the mo by joining The Arcade Fire's Central Park gig the week before last and played/sang along to Wake Up - which is funny, because I thought of his tunes when I first heard it.

UK peeps: they are the score fronting the BBC's new Autumn Drama promos - if you hadn't clicked.

They're available on iTunes, still working my way through the album, so I'll be back tomorrow.

Adieu.

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A different point of view...

These are unashamedly stolen from The Independent (12 th September), quite literally, for I tore them from the paper in a coffee shop, hehehe.

The Paul Arden Column:

An interviewer with a wooden leg
said to Frank Zappa: "With your
long hair, from where I am sitting
you could be a woman."
Zappa replied: "Well, from where
I am sitting you could be a table."

Curiously, I was reminded to post this as I returned to my car today to find it covered with purple bird bombs - yes, it's autumn, the purple bird shit season:

...When plump wood pigeons eat their fill
Of elderberries on the hill,
And blackberries in the cottage hedge
Or damsons at the meadow edge,
Then country folk who are wise to that
Will go out walking in a hat
To catch the falling purple rain
And ward off every mulberry stain,
Autumn! season of rumination,
And deep-dyed avian defecation...

A little ditty for whom we can thank Miles Kington (The Independent) for bringing it to our attention.

With that, I shall bugger off and clean the shit of my car.

Toodaloo.

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In other news....

Edinburgh is full of tourists. Absolutely heaving. At this time of year they seem to be mainly Japanese and American, the former are identified rather easily and are usually buried behind a camera; the latter identified by the sun hats, sweaters bearing college or state names that are often, but not always, tucked into chino pants and covered over with a brightly coloured waterproofs of doubtful effectiveness.

I don't know what it is, but in my time in the States, I've saw anyone dressed quite so terribly. I guess they do it because they deem it to be comfortable. I guess those foul classless English do a similar thing when they flock to the Costa del Sol in their white vests and shorts that showing a little too much white (soon to be lobster) flesh. It is a mystery why people wear what they do when travelling; I guess we can't all be Paul Theroux or Justine Shapiro.

The other problem with tourist areas are the rip off prices; we encountered the same in the Lakes. I resent paying elevated prices (in an already overly priced economy), especially in my native county where I am well aware of how much I'm being ripped off. Luckily, climbing fells doesn't cost anything. Unfortunately, if one is to introduce the delights of Edinburgh to a newbie, one must partake of some of the museums and historical tours....to whit, the lady (not being a fan of whisky) is none-the-less now a member of the Whisky Appreciation Society, which I find immensely amusing.



We never made it into the Castle though. It had been the plan, but I had a sudden wave of get-me-out-of-here-ness as the touristiness was beginning to freak me out, so we beat a hasty retreat to Arthur's Seat where I once again dragged the lady's butt up a hill (to much grumbling). It was a pretty and thankfully quiet place to hang out for a bit.


(That's the Castle in the backgound, taken from Athur's Seat)

We decided that whilst the Royal Mile was shamefully over populated, it did have some jolly good cafés that lent themselves to a coffee crawl down the hill, an interesting experience. We also did manage to track down a reasonably priced,and damn fine, little gem of a resturant in Edinburgh's Southside area. It was called The New Bell, and I heartily recommend it to anyone heading to Ediburgh any time soon. Ooh, I can also recommend the Punjabi restaurant Omar Khayyam at No. 1 Grosvenor Street (Haymarket in the west end). Bloody good, and we know our currys!

More later...

In other news, my Tag died.
My Tag automatic watch, one of my prized possessions, blatently stopped at 5:09 pm on 12th Sept - sometime between walking from the Derwentwater launch (boat) and the place we were staying. Needless to say that one doesn't expect a watch of this calibre to just stop! It was made worse by the lady continually asking me the time to catch me out. Witch.


(...but mine has a - ahem - reptile leather strap ;-)

It's still under warranty, so it is with its makers - for four weeks!

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Well....

I have rather a lot of blograbilia, so I don't know where to start....with a few random pictures me thinks:


This was a Portuguese meal on my Mother's 60th birthday (That's Ma and Pa in the background). Damn fine food it was too (once we figured out how to get at it). Of course, I spent the rest of the night with rather acute, but self-limiting, food poisoning (yup, trotskis); not due to this meal though, but to a pie I ate at around 5 pm. That'll teach me - pie eater!


Yes, me reflectively staring out from the middle of Derwentwater towards the Borrowdale fells (the subject of the next day's walking).


Afore mentioned Borrowdale fells - we started with Glaramara and tracked a good 6 hourer via Gt. Gable and Seathwaite Fell


...again with the reflections, just off the top of Glaramara.


My focus from the previous pic - Sprinkling Tarn (a popular wild camp) behind which are Great Gable and Green Gable, with the North-West spur of Great End on the left.

Tomorrow, the Edinburgh trip (the lady's first and my umpteenth) - how to not get ripped off with tourist prices and how to avoid all those damn tourists.

Of course, I have a ton of washing to do, car insurance to re-arrange, Mountain Leadership texts to read, projects to design for the impending final year undergraduate project I'm running, and guests. So if I'm still awake, then there'll be more pics. Or I may just drool instead.

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I'm back!

Yes, here I am. Home from the mad sojourn about the isle.

More later ;-)

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Home (temporarily)

Phew, well I'd like to say that I've done lots....but I haven't - and that's just fine by me!

I've spent the last few days planning long hikes in the Lakeland fells as we're off there tomorrow for a few days. I've also decided to finish my Mountain Leadership (ML) (Summer) training, something which I started back in 1997, but got bored keeping my climbing logbook. Of course, now I can't find any of my notes and I have to re-prove my experience. Arse. Anyway, looking forward to that - another vocational qualification for when I eventually get back to living in the Lakes (or Snowdonia). It's all thanks to my friend Le Pew for giving me the bug again - she's off to do her training in Scotland this week.

On a different note, I've started playing with the idea of opening a Bed & Breakfast in the Lakes. Mad I know, but it's something I've been mulling over for a while. Not only would it make us our own bosses, but the lady and me could work together, live in the part of the world we dream of living and can also branch out and use the B&B as a basis for our other enterprises. These include selling our home-made secret family-recipe chutneys and jams, offering completely organic and locally sourced seasonal breakfasts, doing lifestyle coaching and nutrition advice (the lady's area) and me taking guests onto the fells (hence ML stuff). So expect more brain farts on this topic in coming months - because I'm sure I'm starting to bore people at this end!

On other things
I was amused to discover that our somewhat impoverished, and friendly, elderly neighbours have had an outside water tap put on the front of their house.

This might not be something out of the ordinary, though most people put such things at the back of the house where little kids in the area aren't likely to turn it on and flood us all. However, it strikes me as a little strange given that their guttering is shot and leaks when it rains, and their windows look like they're about to cave in. They could have better spent their money having these or a million other things repaired.

So why has old Alan had a tap put outside? Well to wash his car silly - the car that looks like it had it's last paint job with Dulux wall emulsion and has that permanently rusty look to it that all truely awful cars have.

For now I will leave you with some pics from last weekend. Expect more, maybe even including the lady (if she'll let me - she's very picky about what pictures I would use)







...a climbin' we will go...

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Nuts...

My nuts
I was eating some nuts and seeds on the way up through Cumbria, you know the sort - the ones where the packet says "Caution: May contain nuts" uh-huh. Anyway, I was reminded of another one of those childhood tall stories my Dad told me. You see, he was paranoid that I'd choke and die on some foods, so he told me that unless you chewed nuts into a mush you WOULD choke.

I took this to heart, and ever since then I have been convinced that unless you chew them to oblivion, you will choke on the little suckers. Of course, I found myself warning my fair lady of this dire situation as she casually downed my nuts (no inuendo intended *smirk*) - of course, realising the stupidity of my utterings, I shut up.

Ethereal memories
I have this weird thing of picking up memories when I travel back to old haunts. It's like the memory just floats in the air, much like a fart, and as I pass through it again I remember exactly what I was thinking the last time I was passing through that point in space. Is that weird? They are so vivid. It's not like déja vu or anything, it's just seems like I leave memories lingering around in the ether, ready to be picked up on my return. A little careless of me; I wonder if anyone else picks them up?

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Jollies...

Yes, I'm officially on my jollies now. No work for two weeks, ostensibly.

I finally managed to get a complete paper written and passed back to my boss for him to contribute his opinion. Of course, my task would have been easier had I not had to languish in a most unspeakably boring 2.5 hr seminar on Health & Safety. Just because some complete idiot in Civil Engineering managed to sensitise himself to some weird chemical, the whole University has forced all its staff to attend lengthy COSHH seminars. It was when I opened the booklet and saw the words "Common law was first introduced by King Æthalstan in the 10th century..." that I knew it was going to be a long day!

Amongst the rather dubious and somewhat inaccurate history lessons, I also managed to get some DNA sequencing sent off - to get an important clone, the subject of much recent work, tested to ensure it is correct. Being hopeful that it would be correct, I was a little crestfallen when I took a good look at the address of the analysis company: Lark Technologies, Hope End, Takeley, Essex. We can only hope.

We're off up to the Lakes tomorrow to visit the parental units. This week my Mother has been busy: she turned 60, retired from work and moved back into her newly (well, almost) refurbished home after it was gutted in floods in January. Quite a busy week by all accounts!

I shall be peripatetic, but online at various venues - even up in the Scottish Highlands, where we're heading next week - but then we are in the Hilton.

This news item made me laugh.

Smell you later!

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