Friday dawned bright and clear, plus the Saturday flower show

In fact it was clear before dawn – I can bear witness to that.

Awake at 5am, what’s a chap with a commission and a camera supposed to do, other than take pictures?

So I went and stood on the balcony that overlooks the 2 main settlements visible from here. The sky was gently changing from a steely grey-blue to pinkish at first, and there wasn’t much light, so off came the 28-105mm zoom that’s for walking around and on went a my old manual focus 135 f2.8 prime that can deliver decent landscape images at f4 instead of f13. The sun gradually came up, throwing light first on the mountain opposite, then gradually down onto the settlement on the ridge before inching down towards the valley. Over about 30min it went from dark to daylight.

Finally I went back to bed until 6.30.

Today’s plan was to get to the Piano Grande below Casteluccio for the wild flowers, with journey time just over an hour, we left at 8am so that I could photograph the fields of wild flowers before the sunlight became too harsh.

The roads round here are bloomin’ twisty, and en route we passed an increasing number of cracked and partially ruined houses. Finally some kilometres west of Montegallo we found the road closed and could go no further. Now normally a satnav/mapping app will provide the user with a bunch of options for choices of routes, but in this case Microsoft Maps remained resolutely blank, refusing to show the road maps I’d downloaded. We turned back, drove a different way, forced it to re-calculate and then followed it’s suggested route for around 20km only for it to take us back to the exact same spot. In the end I’d had enough after driving for 90min of some near-lethal roads (often in 1^st or 2^nd gear, hoping that no-one came the other way on a carriageway barely wide enough for 1 car).

We stopped for a bit in Montegallo. The town had been hit badly in the quake too, and although there were a few residents, the place was like a ghost town, bars and restaurants shut, weeds growing between paving slabs and on footpaths, drifts of dead leaves at the edges of steps.

We stopped at the Tigre supermarket in Comunanza on the way home to get more groceries including a particularly nice local speck (smoked cured pork usually found in Austria and Germany). Just before shopping it began to rain, with huge, widely spaced droplets, and showered hard while we were in the shop, easing again as we came out.

Quick siesta, then off to Ascoli Piceno, which is the nearest city/provincial capital.

Just before we left, some really substantial clouds rolled in creating some interesting lighting & formations over the mountains, & we could see it absolutely pouring in the distance, though we just had a few drops before it cleared again.

Ascoli isn’t huge, but it’s no town either. We parked up & walked in across a bridge, enjoying the view of another smaller bridge across the river in the distance. While we were enjoying the sights of the cathedral in the main square, the rain caught up with us and after leaving we both got wet getting back to the car. This time it absolutely poured on the way back, and we saw a number of cars just pulled over, drivers unwilling to continue. The rain continued hard until we were just a few kilometres from the house.

Naturally it stopped raining as we got here.

It’s an ill wind, as they say. The rain & clouds gave rise to some great skies and great light as the sun went down, and we even got in a pleasantly cool post-dinner stroll after sunset.

An interesting flipside of knowing someone who owns a house here is that it’s easy to start playing the ‘where would you like to live’ game when driving past semi-derelict houses (abandoned before the quake, and there are plenty).

This house is wonderfully isolated, yet seems to have gas, electricity, water etc, and I get reasonable 4G wireless internet* on my old Lumia. The views are nice – not breathtaking, but still pretty good – but the dirt track isn’t ideal. So we’ve been looking at some of the empty places round here, some even up for sale, thinking what about……..

It’s not going to happen, but speculation isn’t always bad.

*Think I’ve sussed the non-functioning of my Xiaomi. Italy uses 900/1800mhz for 4G data, and I suspect my phone doesn’t have those bands, but what really kills it is that, unlike England, they don’t also push data down 3G. Although I can make voice calls, there’s no data and therefore no internet.

Today is Saturday and we went to a flower show.

But first, breakfast – everyone should start with a good breakfast.

Italian bread has a built-in self destruct system that makes it stale by the day following purchase. That even applies to soft brioche-style rolls that you might buy the day before in order to eat the following morning for – you’ve guessed it – breakfast.  I understand this house has a breadmaker, somewhere, and now can see why this isn’t just a bit of faddish frippery like it has been in so many UK households.

So this morning we went to the market in Comunanza, which took a very little time, and then for a walk around the old part of the town, which has some fascinating nooks and crannies. And quite a few buildings ‘a vendi’*. Bits of it look seriously ancient, and also some parts are really crumbly. We saw through a few front doors, and behind at least one smart door lay a mouldering hallway, while behind another was a very attractive home. Damp is a problem with many houses, from what we could see.

So what of the flower show?

Chris thought she’d managed to find another route to Casteluccio and the Piano Grande plain where the flowers grow in the fields of Fioritura (that sounds like something from the Hitchhikers Guide).

And she was right.

So rather than use the fairly direct route through Montegallo, which would take about an hour, instead we drove to Acquasanta (Father Christmas in a wetsuit) then Arquata del Tronto and finally to Casteluccio.

We turned right shortly after Arquata del Tronto onto a crumbly winding road that climbed into the mountain on narrow hairpin bends. On the way up we passed through 2 villages that had been effectively destroyed in the earthquake, and they looked like a scene from WWII. Some houses were just piles of rubble, while others had lost an entire wall, leaving rooms, still fully furnished, open to view. Still others had round holes in the stonework, as though some kind of projectile had entered. below the villages (and others that we saw later) there were new villages of single storey pre-fab buildings in neat rows where we guessed the residents had been re-homed.

A part of my plan for this trip was to enter and photograph some of the abandoned houses, but seeing how things were here, I just couldn’t do it – legality and safety issues aside. These weren’t homes that someone had carelessly left to rot, but the result of a disaster and then extended hardship.

On the way up to the great plain we entered the Sibilini mountain national park, and could already see in increase in numbers of wild flowers by the roadside. However nothing prepared us for what we saw after rolling over the final crest and starting down into the plain. The road descends over the distance of a few kilometres, and in the distance against the mount on which Casteluccio was built we could see chequered fields of red, purple and blue, with the occasional white or yellow field beside the road. The hills rise up all around the plain, with a couple of steep mountainsides punctuating the rim.

In the distance we could see the town of Casteluccio, and it didn’t look too bad at that stage. We stopped for photos a couple of times on the way down before finally reaching the fields and having an extended walk and photo session.

Eventually a need or food drove us up to the town, and as we drew closer we could see the true extent of destruction. While many houses were still standing, in places there were cascades of rubble where houses had fallen and the stones poured like water between the other buildings.

At the main junction, where one would normally turn into the town, there were armed soldiers standing in front of the wire mesh barriers erected to keep visitors out and the area was declared Zona Rosso – something we’d seen in other closed off sections of places we’d visited. In front of this were parked about 40 or 50 motorcycles, with people milling about, queuing for food at the mobile snack bars and buying drinks etc. We drove carefully past, eventually finding a parking space about 100 meters out of town on the far side.

We found a place doing Panini formaggio e salumi – Chris didn’t fancy the salumi, but was much happier whe it became prosciutto instead, however we were a lot less impressed with the ‘panini’ consisting of 2 slices of stale white bread. Those with more facility in the language might have complained, but we just got on with it and used the calories.

After lunch we drove down the other side from Casteluccio, where there lies a second great scooped out plain, though smaller than the first and without the dramatic flower show. The plan was to find things to do in the park until the sun had descended somewhat in order to get good lighting, however the villages that we might have visited on the other side were likewise destroyed and inaccessible. Eventually we gave up & returned, however the clouds had moved in and so after a few more photos, we headed back to Comunanza for dinner, then home.

I may yet try a 5am photo-trip back there for special light, but that’s only a maybe. Tomorrow, the plan is local walks, possibly also photographing the house interior.

*We keep doing the ‘what if’ we bought a house here. While I love the solitude of Casa Bella Vista as our friends named this place, and the views are OK, it’s a real drag to have to drive up 1.7km of steep and narrow dirt road multiple times a day. I’ve developed affection for Comunanza and Chris thought a medium-sized apartment in one of the older buildings would be ideal, but I’d rather have somewhere with at least some kind of interesting view, perhaps a bit more out of town. Guess we’ll never know. J

Canned heat was a good title for this series of blogposts.

So this morning we drove back into Comunanza, the nearest town, this morning to pick up some groceries etc. 27 very sticky degrees centigrade before breakfast.

The supermarket chain is called Conad. That’s not right to my eyes, and it should be called either Conrad or Gonad.

It’s like many small European supermarkets, crammed with stuff, some over-priced brands, some excellent value offers, some local specialities. We buy bread, cheese, milk, steaks for dinner (special offer) passata (but forgot veggies) crisps just because.

But before all that, around 7am I got my slightly dozy backside out of bed and went to take some pictures with the sun just spilling into the valley below us. This morning the lavender scent from outside the kitchen doors was really strong, blending with the mix of other perfumes and spices. I wandered a few hundred meters (we’re in Italy now, so no imperial measurements permitted ;-) ) to get a better backdrop behind the next town across the valley from us, and just because it was nice to be outside in cool fresh air. By the time I got back home I was covered in perspiration from the walk back up & the humidity.

And this morning we just spent time airing the house, doing washing left behind, cleaning the fridge (penicillin anyone?) and finding maps & other stuff to enable more exploration. Goal achieved, maps found, Castelluccio and the flower meadows of the Fioritura identified, that’s tomorrows plan.

At 12.50pm we’re presently sheltering in the house from the heat outside. All the shops in town shut from around 12.30pm to 3.00pm and stay open until 7.30pm, and that sounds like wisdom to me.

Bread, cheese, yoghurts, apples. Lunch.

We siesta the afternoon away.

After a dinner of steak and pasta we drove over to Amandola, the next town north of Comunanza. As we approached the place we saw the old town perched on top of a hill, suburbs sprawled around below, and driving up it looked much more prosperous than the rather down-at-heel Comunanza. However once we’d parked up, post purchase of gelato, we walked in the gathering dusk to the top of the old citadel.

It was very quiet up there.

Part way up we noticed the first building held together with big industrial straps connected to large bolts through the walls -  basically they were holding the end of the house in place where it had separated from the rest of the building. A little further on we came across a narrow passage between the houses that was closed for safety and then more buildings obviously empty and being kept together with some very substantial eternal supports, some with roofs caved in. There’s a lot of  damage from the earthquake in Jan 2017, and we wondered how they would ever manage to fix it, considering the tiny streets and inaccessibility of the buildings.

I managed a few shots of the town, going up and coming down, plus some blue hour stuff after sunset. When we got near to our parking place we came across an open door to a shop-type room with signs up about a photo exhibition and some small mono pictures pinned to boards around the room.  After my times of working in the darkroom, seeing photos held up with pins makes me cringe, considering the hours they used to require to create. Some images were good, some forgettable, but interesting to see. The room itself had a table with opened soft drinks on it, but was otherwise empty, so we wandered round for a few minutes before heading back.

Driving back on super-twisty mountain roads after dark isn’t ideal, but with care it’s OK. Back at base we settled with those crisps we bought earlier and a glass of local wine, accompanied by a tiny version of the local variety of scorpion that seemed to have found its way into the living room.

Cue Canned Heat “On The Road Again”

This is going to be long, and is retrospective (we're back).

Airports are fascinating, repellent, exciting, horrid places.

I love the airport.

I loathe the airport.

So many people, so much happening, so much hope and anticipation.

So many people treated like cosseted cattle, to be herded, fed and amused while in transit.

There’s a large rotating screen above us in Gatwick North terminal, showing luridly coloured adverts for Wagamama (the egg, oozing jaundiced-yellow goo when it’s cut open is stomach churning, although the frying bacon looks good). A boring picture of a black Tom Ford perfume bottle on a hot-pink background,  picture of a ‘sexy’ girl in a pilot-style dress for the TV program Love Island (available through ITV Hub that I first misread as pornhub) a topless bloke in a car wearing sunglasses for RayBan (he’s pulling a duckface, rather than being cool). The only ad that actually looked good was for the GoPro travel camera showing well crafted shots of fascinating places and people having good times.

There’s a black family sat across from us. She’s gone off (shopping?) and the father and son are passing the time together while they wait for a flight. A slim girl in the distance wearing thin trousers and displaying an unfeasibly wobbly bottom walks across the concourse. Everywhere are people pulling bags, people in shorts, wearing tee shirts, sun tops and shorts. There’s a queue to buy raffle tickes to win a sports car that’s on display in the middle of the floor. There are women in Islamic dress, covered from head to toe, guys in uniform or wearing dayglo vests to show workman status, young people, old people, smart people scruffy people.

There’s a temptation to take pictures, but I’m here to travel and not feeling creative that way.

High up on the mezzanine there are restaurants and bars, feeding the heaving thronging masses: Pret, You sushi, Wagamama, Jamie Oliver, while down below is all the nominally duty-free merchandise.

It’s an unreal world of fake materialism to make people feel good & buy stuff, while dealing with the need to move people through. In some ways it reminds me of trips to Houston, especially visiting the mall at Webster with any and everything available to purchase or staying at the Residence Inn at Clearlake, where it was like living in someone’s luxury home, but never yours.

A few years back we saw a film with Tom Hanks, where his character was stuck in an airport for an extended period, not able to either fly away nor to enter the country in which the film was based. I wonder what it would be like to live in that environment, suspended between worlds and trapped in a marketing dream.

And yet I love travelling.

There’s an anticipation when you’re in the airport, an excitement for what’s coming, seeing new places, meeting new people, visiting lands only seen in photos or film, eating foods that aren’t available at home. I have a slight sense of shame in that, jaded traveller that I am, there’s no longer the same level of excitement when the plane takes off, and I often almost fall asleep in the first 20min onboard.

Having easily walked and waited through in the usual way, the plane we’re on is an Easyjet operated job, from Gatwick to Ancona on the eastern coast of Italy. It’s not exactly luxurious (there’s barely space to write on a small laptop) but it’s so much less uncomfy than they used to be. While you do have to pay to book seats, at least that’s stopped the scrum to be at the front of the queue to board. 2 rows in front of us there’s a couple wearing pointy multicoloured party hats. I have no idea why, but there’s lots of ‘heads close together’ so I guess they’re pleased to be where they are. ;-)

At the airport we should be collecting a car for the drive up to Lisciano near the Sibillini mountains. There’s a minor amount of trepidation when settling into driving in another country for the first few minutes, not least because of learning to drive on the ‘other’ side, and also because road rules and signs vary from place to place. In Spain a couple of years back it appeared as if there were areas of major road with 40kph limits, just because the signage was unfamiliar to us. So in Italy motorway signs are green and normal signs blue – the opposite of the UK.

And then there’s the challenge of changing gear with the door handle. :-p

This trip is a holiday, but it’s also work. We’re visiting the Marche region of Italy so that I can take pictures of a neighbours house and the area around it. They wanted photos that give a sense of depth and perspective to the area, and, I hope, I can provide that. This area is also close to the region hit hard by earthquakes last year (January 2017) with several villages being effectively destroyed. I’m hoping to capture some of that in a sympathetic, rather than voyeuristic way.

I’ve heard the fields around Castellucio can be full of wild flowers at this time of year. Yup, anticipation is running strongly right now.

And here we are.

Having written that, it’s hard to think what to say next, exactly, since the day has been full of new things.

Getting off the plane at Ancona airport was like walking into a cool sauna, with the temperature around 29 Celsius and very high humidity, giving the gentle breeze a soft feeling on my skin. We tropical-walked to the terminal from the plane, grateful for the cool air inside, despite the pleasure of being in the open a moment ago.

Passport control was OK, ditto luggage collection, collecting the hire car etc. We got in and drove out of the airport.

And didn’t have a clue where to go.

Place names of road signs didn’t help, and although we knew we needed the A14, we did not want to go to Bologna, which was the one option offered. Pulling into a petrol station off the main road, I discovered that although my phone was happy to make calls, it resolutely refused a data connection, declaring I had exceeded an arbitrary internal limit. More later.

Oh toss.

Fortunately Chris’s WinPho DID manage a data connection and satnav, but without providing any kind of map or visual route, and in just under an interesting 2 hours later (we got stuck behind what appeared to be a travelling circus doing about 20kph on a steep bendy section) we found ourselves at the house, up in the mountains.

Our friends had bought the place in 2003, only to have their first builder knock it down (not in their plan) and then gradually rebuild it over the next 5 years or so. When they acquired it the place was in a terrible state, and they’ve done an amazing job. It’s not been lived in much recently, and although pretty damp from being closed up & natural high humidity + being partly into a hillside, wasn’t at all bad.

The house is sited 2km down a dirt road that had us questioning whether we’d understood the instructions at first, and considering the size of the drop on one side, we were glad not to meet anything coming the opposite way.

Having unpacked & explored a little we were driven by hunger to re-visit the nearest town and poke holes in our personal comfort.

Italian.

Great language. We don’t speak it. Prego.

So after a brief wander round the town we found the Bar Tuxedo open and serving food. On the principle that they want to sell us food & drink, and a willing attitude and cheerful demeanour go a long way, we asked for menus, ordered pasta and pizza plus drinks & sat outside to wait. It wasn’t too difficult really, but it’s just a bit of a challenge when you can’t communicate easily.

Every country has its own smell. This part of Italy smells of pine trees, incense, vegetation and ancient buildings. It pervades the place we’re staying, the air in the town and the countryside around abouts. It smells of old churches and pine-fringed beaches, of building sites and quarries. It’s a good smell, but characteristic, just like Stockholm smelling of chipped flints on the first occasion I visited.

So we got our food.

Carbonara was more yellow than expected, but tasted good, rather like roasted meats. Chris’s pizza was less pleasing, because it was basically Margharita instead of the buffalo mozzarella and tuna she had ordered. coffees came & went and then we paid.

A quick after-dark wander round the town told us there were lots of interesting parts to the old quarter, plus some new buildings built onto the river including the town hall that were a real carbuncle – a brutalist blot on the landscape that couldn’t be more out of keeping with the town if it was made from glass and chrome. But it was fronted by the town hall façade. We also found a low-flying stag beetle, which we carefully avoided (if you’ve never seen the nippers on one then you won’t understand).

And then finally back again.

We were followed out of town by a car that kept with us all the way up through the hills, turning off twice onto small roads. In the end I found a gap & pulled over to let them past just before turning down the track to this place. They paused behind us & then went past. I have no idea what that was about, if anything more than coincidence.

Now (11.20pm local time) is probably a good time to turn in.

-->

How desperate can you get?

Don't answer that.

Zombie films.

I mean, WHY for heaven's sake?

Look, I love stupid films. One of my favourites is Mars Attacks, just because, but zombie films leave me cold.

Apart from the physical impossibility of the zombie concept actually working (there's a reason we breath, eat normal food, require a working circulation etc) why would a dead person try to catch a live person instead of eating another closer, slower zombie? And don't get me started about how they might actually locate a live person when they wouldn't be able to see, hear, smell or have a functioning sense of touch.

But I digress.

Fear the walking dead. OK, good advice - like idiots, they'll drag you down to their level & then beat you with experience.

Pride & zombies - probably an improvement on the original.

Shaun of the dead - definitely an improvement on Dawn.

Girl guides and zombies - is that a barrel I can see the bottom of?

Cockneys and zombies - you're 'avin a swift 'alf mate.

MILFs and zombies - what the actual pox?

Stripperland - a deadly virus kills women and then makes them turn into zombie-strippers before they eat your brain (not that they'll ever find it if you watch this)?

Osombie - Osama is back, and he wants your brain.

etc.

I've seen just one of the above thus far (Simon Peg does know how to make a funny film) but the range and sheer DUMBNESS of zombie films will never cease to amaze me - that and the fact that people obviously finance these things being made (which is potentially comedy gold in its own right: you want to borrow money to make a film about something that can't happen, the film will become an object of ridicule AND lose money - sure, how much do you want to borrow?).

I guess you never can tell with people.

On second thoughts, maybe this IS proof zombies exist. ;-)

Hope the odd pun isn't wasted.

And what might this mean?

I have a feeling blogger is about to sod up page layouts, but let's try to post anyway. Actually this should have been posted yesterday, but a bug in blogger for Android that was present a couple of years ago hasn't gone away, where trying to add a photo to a post from phone storage crashes the app. You can take a picture & add it, but not use one off the internal memory, so I'm a day late, posing from a PC.

So I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK. Chris said I should title this blogging about logging.

A few years back a neighbour in the village took down some trees and we acquired the logs, thus having stored them since they are nicely seasoned and presently dry. Naturally they weren't conveniently stove-sized logs, but hey, what would life be without a challenge?

Naturally one remembers to take pictures part-way through a job of work, but here's the log-store area. :p

The chain saw hasn't been run since autumn last year, so having checked necessary fluids were present I gave it some choke and pulled the chord.

Who knew a starter handle could bite? My ankle is still slightly swollen >24 hours later, though I did manage to run on it this evening.

It was mid-afternoon when I started work, and I didn't want to run out of steam too badly. Also Chris has a nasty cold, and was basically out of service all weekend, so no help stacking the logs as she would normally do. So I got about half the logs cut in the end, and have filled a lot of our log storage space.

There're something wonderful about the smell of fresh-cut wood, and although this is probably only larch, it still smelled great, mingled with rose scent (and not sweat, as suggested by a colleague).There's also something amazing about using a chainsaw for cutting, the way it just slides through the timber gradually making a slot in the work. Then there's the odd sensation of a warm stream of fragrant shavings spraying against my bare lower legs and rapidly filling my shoes with prickly bits of wood. In the days of the old homelite, the shavings would also be distinctly oily, due to a slightly generous setting for the chain lube pump, and ones clothes would smell of chain saw oil and wood dust.

There was also a little resistance in the next stage.

The wood was very dry and generally split easily, however some logs were a little knotty. With these the successful technique was generally to get the axe hanging behind my back, then bring it forwards as fast as possible at full arms length, aiming for a point a few inches inside the centre of the log. In this case there were some internal knots running across the log, and it took the first blow without even showing a serious crack. The log below is a different one, but it quickly gave in.

So we shouldn't be cold this winter, at least, not if we have to rely on log burning. The log store area in the shed is full, and the external log store is half full. I may try to finish off the rest next weekend, and see if I can make enough space in the shed to store the excess timber.

IT hardware upgrading

Is like rust.*

My drive is almost completely full.

That's a phrase to strike terror in a heart or 2.

The 1TB SSD I bought a couple of years back had about 15GB space left, despite careful culling of excess images, and I really didn't want to throw more away, yet at the same time I couldn't afford to get a bigger SSD (REALLY couldn't - 2TB? That would cost more than half the value of the laptop!).

So I'm back to fragile, noisy spinning rust. It's cheap, spacious, not too slow and working adequately. I loved having a silent laptop that I could just toss onto the settee while it was still on, but this does what I need at a price I can justify. It IS slower than the SSD, but not enough to be a problem.


*You only hold it back for a time, no matter how much future-proofing you spend money on.

Business completed, however.

At this point I would normally go walkabouts except that:

a) the weather is glum
b) my right heel rubbed sore walking the couple of miles to and from the embassy
c) the winds here are pulling fibrous seed casing from the trees so that the air is misty with them, and they make your eyes really sore.

This last is a problem for everyone. I've seen several people rubbing their eyes, some coughing badly. From this bus shelter it looks like a fine rain.

In other curious news, I bought a ticket at the Oxford park and ride, got on an x90 bus with no trouble. Came to return just now and the x90 driver pointed out I had an Oxford tube ticket. Weird. So here I am, waiting for another bus. 😒

Hello Hyde park

And do you ever wonder what YOU are?

From the elevated position in the bus, I keep seeing scenes to photograph, from the tube train running past a clot of power cables and a decayed futuristic building, to a new development with hoardings proudly proclaiming what they are building half buried in weeds.

Am I scientist or artist? Not that it matters.

And now the rain has arrived. London is damp and dull, clogged with traffic and restless in the drive to make and sell more stuff. How well Brexit frames our confused and hopeful, yet hopeless society.

Do you wonder what people think about?

Perhaps I'm as bad. There's a chap hammering away on a laptop a few rows in front of me, another chap who just got off at Hillingdon who was working the whole journey here. Others working too.

What is that kind of life like? When they get home, do they have mental energy to think about love, laughter and life or are they consumed by planning the next day's work? Perhaps they get lots done on the bus, so they can leave the office early? Are occupied minds less likely to have time to think troubled or troubling thoughts?

So many unknowns, but watching people is fascinating. If I could blag and bluff the funds, it would be interesting to do this journey every day for a year and write about the experience.

Good morning world.

Sometimes it's just easier to use the bus.

Going through the old green tin.

Tomorrow I must visit the Austrian embassy in London in order to renew my passport. Previously it's been possible to do everything by post, but current practice is that all renewals must attend in person, so I have a day off tomorrow and a trip right into Belgrave by Hyde park, as early as I can manage.

This afternoon's job was to hunt through the documents we have here for all the needed stuff. Laying awake during the night, I realised that I'd not taken time to hunt info etc for the application, and rather than scrabble around desperately this evening when I would be tired, decided it's worth taking time out to do with no-one else around and space to lay things out.

We keep our most 'historic' and personal docs in an old green metal tin that has been with me since before we married as my filing repository (tempting to say suppository, but that would be scratchy!) and so I dug it out and opened the lid.

The stuff we have in there was jammed tightly front to back. There's the recent UK passports envelope containing Chris's current passport plus sometimes mine when she decides to put it away before I secrete it in my preferred storage place, EHIC info & other stuff. There's an orange envelope with my old Reisepasses right back to 1962 when I first came to the UK, re-validated when I was 6 for a re-visit to Republik Oesterreich - the pages are all punched and have a multi-coloured thread passing through in a loop, held with an official seal on the last page. There were tax receipts, old payslips and letters confirming salary increases, insurance documents etc. Right in the back I came across the envolope containing marriage, birth & death certificates and finally my Staatsburgerschaftsnachweis - certificate of state citizenship - that I need for tomorrow.

I went through the lot, right down to the Triumph, Triton, BSA etc waterslide decals in the bottom. Hiding right there were some small pieces of paper, tightly folded & covered in fine handwriting.

It's really good to read, after almost 40 years together, love letters from before we were married. Puts a lot of perspective on how we got here, who we were and are, where we might go from here. It would be false to say I'm not sentimental, but that doesn't matter and I'm glad I married this slightly nutty woman.

There appears to be a link...........

............ between myopia and the amount of time spent in education.

What a short-sighted piece of research.

Fingerprint sensors may not be *the* answer to security.

The tip of my right index finger is frequently subject to wear, dry & peeling skin and general attrition fro guitar playing (among other things). This does not make for a reliable recognition when using a fingerprint sensor.

I know the sensor works OK because the other fingers I have set up work pretty much first time, every time, although having a slightly deeper case on the phone has reduced reliability because it reduces the contact area of the fingertip.

Guess it's slightly reassuring.


In other thoughts, Apple may be a better supplier of hardware than many others. It has nothing to do with the actual hardware and everything to do with the fact that they're a hardware manufacturer who doesn't have a business model based on selling you, the user, to advertisers and others. It's not that I think they are now a good, friendly, ethical company - absolutely the opposite - but their business model is becoming focussed towards selling secure devices to wealthy people, and sales would suffer if they thought their devices were not secure.

Having said that, the reality distortion field around Apple hardware has been such that at times, leaky security would have been presented and accepted as a better thing than selling secure hardware. Never believe the promises of someone looking to make money by selling you stuff you can't understand.

Out of context but....

       .....in the light of the previous post I was amused to find this:

"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day."
Dean Martin

I am also reminded of the Dean Martin definition that states if you can lay on the floor without holding on then you aren't drunk - hope that's a test I never need to undertake.

How long can you get away with ignoring stuff?

Especially when it's knees, and they hurt after running.

Laying in bed a couple of days ago I could remember the feeling I had as a child, running as hard as I could, and how good it felt. The bouncy feeling in ones legs when starting a run in my early 20s. Now, when I begin running it's cautiously, trying to get the pace & footfall right so that it doesn't hurt or feel like I'm doing damage.

Alzheimers may have been Terry Pratchett's embuggerance, but other aspects of aging remind me of the feeling that word expresses too.

At least I can walk down stairs this morning without having to put most of my weight on the banister rail instead of the right leg. And you know, I could do with getting another run in, either tonight or tomorrow, to stop the fitness going backwards and to try to extend my range a little bit more. Poxing mortality. And I'm one of the 'lucky' ones (and I know it).

And thinking about this feller, I seem to have got away with the aging pretty lightly so far. There's a side of me that compares our 2 different testimonies and wants to make it positive "God at work in my adversity - my weakness allows Him to be strong" but I don't really believe that to be true, at least for me. Can God use me more when I'm ill or weak or failing than He can when I'm happy, healthy, fit and able? I'm more inclined to believe we can be used or not used in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, whether we're standing up or falling down, though it's ALWAYS better to make the best than the worst of circumstances.

We saw Solo last night.

Saturday night, bank holiday weekend.

This is a new starwars film, just released the day before.

Gonna be crowded we thought, and the cinema did not allow seats to be booked for this film, so we got there 20min before the program started instead our preferred 20min after (to miss the adverts).

There were probably 10 people in a cinema designed for 150+.

And that was probably about right. Sad to say, I think Starwars has really run its course, and I'm glad we didn't bother with Rouge 1. This wasn't meant to be a whinge-fest, but OTOH if you have £30 in your pocket there are probably better uses than 2 tickets for this film.


"Dad, dad, what's for dinner tonight?"

"Wookie steak, son"

"Is it good?"

"It's a little chewie"

*edit*
A couple of other points sprang to mind while I was away from the computer:

There were times when the dialogue was very indistinct, and we occasionally turned to each other to ask "what did he just say?" - this isn't really good enough for a modern high-budget film with all kinds of clever audio processing going on.

The female lead's name is Kiera. We've had Luke, Ben and we've got Han and Chewie in this film. She is always called Kiera in the film, so who is this Qi'Ra character? Stop trying too hard.

"Alexa, please stop recording what I say"

"I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that".

Like many, I dreamed of the idea of a computer I can speak to and interact with. But like one of the commenters in the link above, not all of my dreams were intended for broadcast to anyone else.

As a child I imagined technology serving mankind, making life more and more amazing, opening previously unthinkable possibilities and opportunities while solving poverty and health problems. The reality is that technology is primarily designed to make money for enormous corporations and key individuals, using the buyers as the product. Yeah, tinfoil hat time. Mankind does benefit enormously from IT, but like everything people touch, there's always a mix of the clean and the corrupt.

Following up on the 'Stupid dilemma' I had recently, I bought a Chinese brand Xiaomi (apparently pronounced sh ow me) phone. The phone came without the often mandatory Facebook spyware that apparently logs user data even when they have no connection to facebook at all, but did have a lot of their own applications that all wanted access to things they had no business touching (why does the cleaner app need access to my contacts, the ability to send messages and make phone calls etc?).

And then there's the business of acoustic cookies.

I wonder where we'll be in 10 years time, and whether there will be a tension between worldwide energy consumption and cryptocurrency mining? I'm not paranoid (are they out to get me anyway?) but it looks to me like there's a trend and shift in culture going on.

GDPR or why Britain isn't suited to being in the EU.

The European Union is enacting a piece of legislation to do with data protection and ensuring that businesses really have been authorised by the public to hold information and send them spam information. Most of us in blighty have been pestered in recent weeks by businesses wanting us to confirm our desire to remain in contact so that they are legally compliant.

Pestered by BRITISH businesses, that is.

Many in my industry have connections with European businesses, and as a colleague pointed out this morning, none of the Euro businesses have been in contact.

This is EU legislation - not British, remember.

While it's no surprise at all that the rest of Europe doesn't give a stuff about the rules Brussels invents (except when it's about privacy issues and data going to the US, or British products being sold in Europe) the difference in compliance is astonishing. As a European I like the effectively borderless Europe, ease of travel, customs-free purchase of goods in the EU etc, not to mention the trade benefits. But the rest of Europe takes the pee when it comes to regulations they don't like, while this country just nods acceptingly and applies the regulations to our own hurt.

Nuts.

It seems our family is a little larger than it once was.

This is Alfie (with his dad).

Now to discover what being a grandparent is about.

I have a 'stupid' dilemma.

The time for replacing mobile phones is approaching.

I bought a Microsoft Lumia 640 in autumn 2016, and while it works well as a phone, and in many ways as a smartphone too, the gradual falling away of support is causing an increase in frustration as various apps stop working. Last year I started having problems with the Kindle app, having to re-log in with dual authentication every time the phone updated, and eventually at the end of 2017 it refused to accept my login any more. Then earlier this year I realised that Opera mini had become unusable, needing minutes to open a web page where microsoft edge took seconds. Endomondo continues with limited functionality, and the Kobo reading app is as painfully slow to open as it always was.

To my disappointment, the enormously irritating whatsapp continues to funtion with annoying speed and efficiency, but at least that's useful.

While I love the 3-5 day battery life, excellent GPS performance and good call quality, the gradual failing of key bits of software have made me start looking at a replacement sooner that I'd hoped. Having paid less than 70 quid for this, I'm now reluctant to splurge 300+ quid on a phone, and have begun looking at the Chinese market as an alternative supply route. Xiaomi have a good reputation, and I can get a decent phablet through that route for around £100-£130, give or take. Really I'd like something smaller, preferably with a sub-5" screen that could fit comfortably in a trouser pocket, but such things just aren't made for mainstream users any more. So a phablet seems almost inevitable - might as well go large in that case - since my present 5" phone is too big already.

What dilemma?

China is outside the EU, and in order to get a good price I'd be dodging customs. Some might see that as entirely reasonable, and I was fairly ambivalent about it a couple of years ago, but it just doesn't sit so well with me now.

Ho hum.