Phone interview

I had a phone interview with people in a distant country (ok, not that distant, but still).
This was my working desk, but in the end, the landlord of the place I was staying in had sheduled a whole range of work to be done that afternoon I was to have that phonecall, and I bloody didn't know it. I had to retreat in one of the rooms and did most of the interview standing with my thoughts.

Greve geral !

Beer on the Tage

Only tourists on the terraces, somehow, portuguese don't seem to like hanging out in the open air.

Castelo de Sao Jorge, Lisboa

Now if the English, somehow, had invaded Portugal and managed to stay there (that's just an imaginary hypothesis for the sake of the argument), this lovely castle which looms over the hilly city of Lisboa would be covered with wires. The internal defense walls as well as the very rare barriers where such walls are lacking, are all below knee-length. It's great to be walking up there, but it's quite likely a couple of tourists break a leg every year or so. British health and Safety legislation would surely have erected vast metalic frames to prevent such hazards...

Ile de France

the couch or the desk

I haven't been working at a desk since March. I have mostly been working from couches and armchairs. But now, I have decided to try the desk again.
pros: the view (I know I know but short attention span is a given here, it enables me to do the little I do, therefore the view is important), the impressive corridor of books and files surrounding the desk, with a nice wooden environment, the cute Louis XVI desk itself on which I work, the use of the big computer with its large screen and keyboard.
cons: the risk of ruining my back

The Texas embassy in London

A new convert to marxist forces?

Alfredo Jaar, The Marx lounge, Liverpool Biennale 2010

Squash in Ile-de-France

So after one year out of competition, I was finally making my come back on the team spirit, playing for some nice fellows again but this time in the Western suburbs of Paris rather than on Merseyside. Some might remember the difficulties I encountered when I first started playing at number 5 in fith division up North, loosing seven games in a row, before finally getting the edge and leaving a clean score up at number 2 (still the fith division!) till my departure in 2009. Was I going to get straight back into that groove, or was I going to be undermined by my absence from the, however relative, competitive streak?
Well well, as things went, it wasn't a black out, no, but I did loose the game out of sheer nervousness. So it's back to square one, oh dear... Playing at number 4 in I would say a similar type of division (4th I think it is), I could have hoped for a beginner, these things happen, to get a bit of confidence. But I had the pleasure of playing a consistent fellow, in good physical condition, seems to me he could have played at number 1, or certainly 2 (in France you can't mess up with the order, it has to appear as the ranking goes). Went 10-5 in the first (all points count here contrary to what I was used to), and managed to loose it... That was a serioulsy bad start. Got my mind together, and played well again in the second, 11-5, looked liked I was going to be fine. Then the third I started to play too short again. What I didn't mention was also that I was so nervous I couldn't actually do any decent drop shot, which didn't help. Lost it 11-9. And the fourth, playing better, 10-8, and another mental collapse, 12-10.
Naturally, I feel rather terrible. But never give up, it should come back.
(team won 3-2, no thanks to me).

Futurist, Liverpool

Newcastle 4 Chelsea 3

At Stamford bridge. Chelsea supporters, of which I know a few, appear to rejoice in the energy savings this defeat represents.

Panini

remembrance

pool's reflections

When I came back from a week-end in Marseille to the swimming pool bathed in a late afternoon sunshine on the Mediterrenean sea, there was no more thrilling cricket to listen to, it was all about corruption. I wonder what is going to happen in Australia.

Yes festival, London

According to my friend Roberto, the audience was mostly Camberwell Art College. It lasts for three days, but I barely managed to support three hours of so called alternative music. On the whole, 'alternative' mostly means 'badly executed'. Great space though, and I quite liked School tour, that's the one guy with this weird machine looking like a guitar.

Aston Villa 0 Newcastle 6

Just so we don't get stuck with the previous game in Manchester here...

cricket sun and job seeking

International cricket is back on, there's finally some sunshine (in Paris), and radio five live is suddenly available from internet again; I have a thousand things to do but who cares!

Old Trafford 3-0

Right, that wasn't the ideal start for the magpies, and it could have been worse. The midfield was obviously outclassed, though they seemed to have had to play at the back to help a shaky defense against a level of football some of these players had not quite seen before. I like that Caroll dude at the front, not the finest (yet), but he seems to win a increadible amout of balls with the header, should give results against less worthy opponents.

Lime Street Station

They got rid of the nice book shops, but actually it looks pretty good too

Liverpool Nostalgia

I'm in Liverpool. I had forgotten I lived there for two years... I go to my usuals places, I see familiar faces, I look at the Cathedral from my favourite average northern pizzeria (actually, the quarter is so popular it has annexed the polish dely next door). Tomorrow I play squash with my friends from the Liverpool university staff team... I don't believe they got many jobs in art history to offer, paradoxically perhaps.

my private office

This are the views from my new office in Northumberland

Elder street

It has a certain charm actually.

Elder Street, Edinburgh

Actually, this building is going to be destroyed.

Church variations, Edinburgh

Tourmalet

The col du Tourmalet coming from the East is a 18.3 kilometer climb from Luz-Saint Sauveur at 7.7%. We used to have bikes whose names were of that famous pass. Somebody knicked them.

Yellow Jersey

Well well well... Guilty or not guilty?... I think at that point, although it's dramatic for Schleck who might have been able to make the difference, Contador doesn't really seem to be at fault. it will be difficult for the young northerner, more excitement for sure in the Tourmalet.

It's hot and steep

It's gonna happen tomorow in the Pyrenees, he said so, oh I love the May to July period, all these exotic and yet strangely familiar excitements. it will be a battle to watch it though, as I will only reach French national television in the evening.

Manchester, Piccadily Gardens

I already posted these wonders of the North a few years ago, but here is another shot with a nice close up on the monumental carvings of Manchester city centre.

Pimlico - Kings Cross

You can walk from Pimlico to Kings Cross, it's about two hours.

Tour de France

Right, I think Andy Shleck is a cool customer

Suarez

Suarez, it's the new shit!

the hotel series

I have this ongoing series of hotel bedrooms, a historical tradition I suppose

WC2010

Ok, after the French fiasco, the English disaster, let's go, euh, ... Japan?

Come on England

the crossing

Roland Garros

View from the massif du Pilat

And down there lies the charming St-Alban, one of the oldest nuclear plant in France, where six people working on maintenance just got a radioactive scare while we were around.

the job in the moutains that was not to be

summer deals

Now is the right time to go to Greece.

20 20

Australia 10 for 3!
Gosh, that sounds like a good start from England. However, what do we think of Twenty20?
Cricket in times of expediency?

Cracking Boris Johnson

"The Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said the coalition looked like "a kind of cross between a bulldog and a chihuahua".
"They've created a mongrel breed," he said. "And like all mongrel breeds I think it will have a great deal of hybrid vigour and strength."

Quoted in the Guardian, Wednesday the 12th of May 2010

Newcastle United ibid

Gosh, no money to invest in new players! Well, it sounds like team spirit then, and fighting for survival from what we saw on the pitch.

oh the great blue sea

I fancy a day out in Fos-sur-mer.


o

And now for something completely different

Arles on the first of May, the Camargue goes by

Out of the stadium

Stoke Newington, the view from the sports centre

Cattle trains for humans

bus

Off to London in a bus, I'll be reading 'on living in an old country', get myself attuned.

lurking taxes

Perhaps the hypothetic reader remembers my complaint when Liverpool city council, and in particular one bold bloke and one blonde girl in their standard black trousers and blue shirt whom I can imagine sharing a beer or three at the end of the day with a gosh-did-you check-that-weirdo-with-the-continental-car-today, refused to re-deliver a parking permit for my car, on account that it was French and the insurance wouldn't work etcetera. I was considering suing the wretched administration, how sad would that have been, but in the end resorted for the last months of my isolation to moving my car every morning before 8 to a street 5 or 10 minutes away depending on the competition, where you didn't need such a permit (I didn't leave the car there during the night as 5 minutes away from my street you were entering a curfew zone - this will all be included with a vengeance in my crime story based on squash and academics in Liverpool). Well, in a relatively low-key manner, this is now all happening in my home town on the outskirts of Paris. The new mayor believes in commerce (rather than industry), and consequently has expanded and multiplied payment zones in the centre of town. My friend C. tries to play with fire and has studied the movements of these forsaken creatures who distribute fees during their promenade, and parks his car as close as he can from home (like me, he lives near the church which doesn’t help) depending on the time of day. He had not read the signs properly yesterday, however, as he had parked his car in one of the roads which has been closed to parking on Saturday morning. He launched himself around 9 to his daily routine (he specialises in robbing people of their antique), only to find the car about to be impounded! 150 euros, you got watch your tires. On the whole, this place looks increasingly like London, you can have a car if you are rich, if not, you can use a bike and save the planet.

Volcanic truths

No more fruits and no more vegetable soon in Britain? I guess Charles will be ok!

One point to take at St James Park

Only one more point and Newcastle will have secured their comeback. It's bound to happen in the home game next saturday, though sadly I have left it too late to afford the trip. Oh well, some better games to watch next year surely!

Cricket

It's all over in Bangladesh, the guardian's blog was quite fun, with the coverage being done near St Pancras, starting around 3AM on a Saturday morning... It seems like a nice job sport journalist. And the ashes are already next winter! How on earth am I going to catch a glimpse of that?!

Cricket

There's some cricket going on, in Bangladesh. The weather is getting better, on these shores at least. Manchester won against Liverpool, I can't really take side I suppose, having lived in both cities, and somehow Newcastle are still top of the whatever the second division is called in England (although they drew, I noticed, against, was it Bristol? Nice city Bristol). More importantly, after six months of episodic games against friendly but limited opponents, I finally got a proper beating in St Germain, in which I managed not to make a total fool of myself, and have been consequently invited by this nice fellow to come and play with the guys on division 2! Unfortunalty, I am stuck at home with too much work (I am having a break right now).

The mountains

When the sky is clear, which is not actually the case here, you can see the mountains.

Slam or no slam

And now it's time for.......THE CRUNCH!

Scotland vs England 15 15

Well, I hadn't seen nor England nor Scotland play for a long time, and it was quite entertaining, in a brutal sort of way.

I believe I am unconsciously dreaming of living in that flat with one of those balconies.

Commercials

They have commercials on screens in Caen's buses.

Campsite

Newcastle 3-Preston North end 0

Number 26 for Preston was really good, and Newcastle right back did ok. The big young lad at the magpies front had the height advantage in a game which brought a flavour of old time's sake, when english football was all about tossing the ball high in the air. And that's the championship for you!
Anyway I had a great first time at St James's Park, and Newcastle will thankfully soon be back in the serious league, where, for my own trouble, I presume I will support them (the lads probably need to do some serious training this summer - and buy a game plan).

Ireland-France

I missed the game, how deplorable! We tried to get into a workshop about art and food at the INIVA in London where friends were talking, but it was packed and we couldn't get in. So we went to a pub at about four, and it didn't even have a telly!

'Panache' was what I heard

Meanwhile (le mont ventoux)

The Belfast to Derry road

Labour, the historian's way

Trying to be a historian can be a demanding process, much associated to the targeted sources, although I suppose I was quite comfy on the whole on that stool (for 12 hours).

296-9

When I be rich, I buy myself an extensive cable tv network, so I can watch England spectacular draw in Cape Town if I want to (ed. not a good idea).