A lovely sunny autumn day here in Vienna.
The transit system here is easy and quick and I used it to potter around town this afternoon, even going so far as to go into an eating establishment and have Viennese goulash (made with veal) and Viennese Apple Strudel, both of which were delicious. But now I've had my fill of local colour and I have to go and do some work.
Well, money, obviously. But maybe not the way you think.
I've just thought of a word play I can't resist and I just have to post it. I had a very pleasant evening out last week. I went up to London to see the Mayor's Festival. Thanks to some corporate hospitality I had an excellent view from the Oxo Tower, looking down on the Thames. They had a fantastic fireworks display: the fireworks were on barges in the Thames front of us. The fireworks were not only beautiful and spectacular but also really loud, so loud that the building was shaking. I mean really shaking.
Who doesn't love fireworks! Especially when they are paid for by London taxpayers and not us suburbanites. It meant that I could literally watch Londoners money going up in smoke, and enjoy every bit of it.
We're having an extension built on our house. Well, we're planning to have an extension built on our house, assume that when I go back to the bank with a more exactly estimated size for my begging bowl they will lend me the money (what else are they going to do with it though, I wonder). Anyway, I've not been through this process before, but having established how infeasible it is consider moving to a slightly larger property (not at all feasible under the current regime) we've gone down the well-trodden path of Middle England and hired architects to draw up a plan and then submit it to the local council. I popped round to the neighbours to check with them that they were O.K. with it -- they were -- and then told the architect to get on with it and thought no more about it.
A couple of weeks ago we got a letter from the council saying something about planning consultation or something. If said something about a web site where you could look at our planning application, but when we followed the URL it turned out that it would be a few days before the application would be visible. When we remembered, about a week later, we'd lost the letter so we're still none the wiser about the cyberplanning process, but not to worry.
Then, a few days ago, I started getting letters from builders touting for business, self-storage companies offering their services and all manner of helpful tradespersons. It hadn't occurred to me that enterprising individuals would, of course, scour the local council planning applications to find new business opportunities. Good on them, I don't mind in the least. You could understand them looking through these things, but no-one else.
But then my wife got a phone call from a friend of hers from work, who said that she had been reading through the planning applications in the local paper and saw our name. It subsequently transpired that whereas, for many years, I have picked up the local paper only when one of my children is featured in it, other people actually subscribe to the neighbourhood Bugle & Trumpet. My wife's friend says that she sits down with a cup of tea, looks through all of the property pages at all of the houses for sale (even though she is not actually looking for a house) and then looks through the planning applications. To her, this is relaxation.
I have never, ever, in my entire life, ever looked at the property pages except when we were buying a house. Even then, I delegated this dreary task to my good lady wife, and confined myself to looking at the estate agent's details for the properties she had shortlisted. But under no circumstances would I ever look through planning applications. When I mentioned this odd behaviour to a colleague, he told me that his wife does exactly the same thing. Now, I knew that the peculiar Middle England obsession with property was greater than I personally felt, but I had no idea it went this far.
Is it a Surrey thing? Or an woman thing? Or a Surrey woman thing?
The Italian driving test must be very different from ours. I snapped this woman in Milan, simultaneously talking on the phone, smoking a cigarette and overtaking. With style and verve.
I'm jealous of the Italians, there's no getting away from it. They are too relaxed, too stylish, too happy.
Formula One fever is sweeping Singapore. A bit. I turns out that in a couple of weeks they're going to have a night Grand Prix through the streets there, which sounds kind of fun. This is why you see this kind of thing when ambling down the street.
In the evening, the bar near this display was full of a number of very attractive young ladies who had obviously been stood up by their boyfriends, as they were still hanging around waiting for them. Is this connected?
I went swimming in sea for the first time since... actually I can't remember the last time I went swimming in sea. But when the sea looks like this, as it does on Jeju, it's irresistible.
It's not as if I don't like going swimming in the sea, it's just that I live in England, where the idea of swimming in the sea is thoroughly unpleasant. The last time I went on to a beach, which I think was in Somerset, all I can remember (apart from the ever-present threat of hypothermia) was that I was the only person in the vicinity without a tattoo, and that included the women.
I'm in Seoul. And have nothing interesting to say, but I simply could not allow that headline to go unused. So I'm posting a picture of my toilet, which is the first one I've ever used with its own control panel.
And, while I'm think about it, respect to Seoul Incheon International Airport. While I was waiting for a flight from gate 23, I noticed a free wifi lounge. I wandered over, ordered a Coke, sat down and logged in. Great service. But get this: the seat had a Macintosh magnetic power adapter coming out of it, so I didn't even have to unpack my adapter. Highly recommended. See, I don't only moan when traveling.
When I was in New York recently, I happened to read in the newspaper there about a court case involving multi-millionaire J. K. Rowling and some hapless fan of hers. I won't go into the details because they are too boring, but following another blog trail when I was bored because there's no footie on, I came across this, which I can't resist linking to...
Rowling's hypocrisy is so thick I can hardly breathe: Prior to the publication of each novel, there were books about them that were no more intrusive than Lexicon. I contributed to one of them, and there was no complaint about it from Rowling or her publishers because they knew perfectly well that these fan/scholar ancillary publications were great publicity and actually boosted sales.
[From J.K. Rowling, Lexicon and Oz]
As far as I know, this case is still awaiting judgement, but I had an idea for a settlement: since Harry Potter fan fiction and the like must have resulted in more books being sold and more movie tickets being sold, she could just give say 10% of her take to the fans who create and maintain these sites. Turn them into co-productions. Or, alternatively, just go away and leave them alone.
I was filling in a questionnaire on board my flight today, you know one of those forms they give to every Nth person. How was the check in? Great. How was the lounge? Great. How was the flight? 10 minutes late, but hey. Any suggestions?
Normally I ignore this sort of thing, refusing to provide for free the ideas that their management consultants are undoubtedly charging them millions to not come up with, but the experiences of the flight led to break the habit, so I suggested they modify the simply two-state lavatory door indicate from "Green: Vacant" and "Red: Occupied" to "Green: Vacant", "Red: Occupied" and "Yellow: Vacant, but I'd give it a minute."
Are you with me!
