An arch with a view

At the former British consulate, Kaohsiung.

Solidanorsc centre, Gdansk

Chic! Derry city hotel view and not so chic Belfast Ibis mirror

Rusland in Amsterdam

Bookshop, Newcastle

Shoes

All my friends are buying smart expensive shoes, should I do the same?

Greve geral !

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...

The Texas embassy in London

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.

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

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!

Commercials

They have commercials on screens in Caen's buses.

Newcastle Boer monument

Obviously no one gives a damn anymore in Newcastle about once mythic now slightly unpolitically correct colonial wars, such as the Boer one where the troops of her majesty fought to many a death not such a long time ago. Well, in a long line of appalling urban design move, none withstanding the fact that apparently the top of the monument had to be replaced and is now made of plastic (or something), there is this new unveiled metro entrance structure, smashing!

Distinction

According to my insider's information, Newcastle University is showing its muscles out there in the tough world of academic competition.

'Duck island' Tory MP is forced to retire

This should go down as a classic moment in British politics:

"A 'furious' David Cameron last night forced a former Conservative minister to stand down as an MP at the next general election after he admitted claiming 1, 645 Pounds for a floating 'duck island' in his garden.
Sir Peter Viggers, a Northern Ireland Office minister in the late 1980s, was told by the Tory leader that he would be stripped of the Conservative whip immediatly unless he agreed to retire.
Cameron acted after the daily Telegraph revealed that Viggers, the MP for Gosport since 1974, had claimed 32 000 pounds in gardening expenses over three years at his Hampshire home. This included a claim for a floating duck island designed to protect his ducks from foxes. This was rejected by the Commons authorities.
Viggers also claimed for 28 tonnes of manure..."

Nicholas Watt in the Guardian

John Bercow

Bercow, who moderated his views after marrying his labour-supporting wife Sally Illman in 2002, said in his letter: "I have been on a political journey of enlightenment from the Thatcherite right to the political centre ground".
Senior Tories can barely bring themselves to speak to Bercow. One shadow cabinet minister said: " The problem with Bercow is that he discovered sex and new Labour at the same time".

banks

It looks like the three banks I have (very limited) funds in, all seemed to have gone bust! I am to thank the British and French governement I dare say, if I can eat my pancakes this evening.