Kissing the bride

Here's a snap that I took at the wedding of my former house-mate and accomplished etymologist (for the esteemed Oxford English Dictionary), Jane. Her and her husband Mike are currently in New Zealand, indulging in a bit of "tramping". Another former house-mate, Rebecca was the bridesmaid and she can be seen in the pic in the left foreground.

The wedding was held at the fascinating World Heritage site, New Lanark, which is south of Glasgow. They have restored the cotton mills and the other buildings that comprise the 19th century example of utopian socialism created by the noted social reformer and philanthropist, Robert Owen. He's also credited as the "father of the cooperative movement and was the father of the US Congressman, Robert Dale Owen. Amongst other things, Robert Dale Owen drafted the bill that resulted in the formation of the Smithsonian Institute.

The ceremony took place in the building formerly (and delightfully) known as the Institute for the Formation of Character. The lighting was pretty tricky as there was a strong yellow glow from the incandescent lights and also, the sunlight coming through the windows was constantly changing.

Anyhow, the history lesson, lovely natural setting, kilts and dancing are captured in this Flickr set.

Computing on the move

At the end of last year, Bruce came to visit and blogged about being pleased that there was Wireless internet access on the somewhat mis-named Oxford Tube…which isn’t a train but is the 24hr bus service linking the 60 miles between Oxford and London. It’s available for free on all of the buses but I expect that there might be a charge once it gets out of trial mode. Anyhow, I’m typing this right now on the GNER train between London and Glasgow, speeding up the East Coast Main line on one of their “Mallard” trains. You’d think it would make more sense for us to get the Virgin train up the West Coast line, as it goes through Oxford but for unknown reasons, symptomatic of the Jerry-built UK train network, it works out to be a lot more expensive this time round. Heading to Dundee for Xmas, it was the other way round. They’ve got Wireless access on this train as well but they are charging more than I’m willing to pay for it:

30 minutes £2.95
1 hour (60 minutes) £4.95
2 hours (120 minutes) £7.95
24 hours (1440 minutes) £9.95

Also, I nabbed a Vodafone 3G laptop card from work, so that I could check emails. The only problem with that is that there is only intermittent 3G coverage and the rest of the time it switches to GPRS which is not great. When the 3G is cranking though, the performance is pretty good. Web pages are a bit slower but not to bad. Using MS Outlook via a VPN connection to my work is hit and miss though. Outlook seems to crash a lot waiting for server connections etc. So I decided to stop working and write this. I’ll wait until we reach York and hopefully consistent 3G so I can post it to the blog.

Burns Night and Australia Day

Right nows it's Burns Night, the de facto Scottish national day (night). No one seems to celebrate St Andrew's Day as much as they do Burns Night...I could be wrong of course.

Kate and I celebrated with a wee dram of the fine Speyside, single malt, Dalwhinnie. The past couple of Burns Nights we have celebrated by having a gathering where, veg. haggis, neeps and tatties have been consumed...along with several varieties of whisky. Last year, we combined the celebration of the life of Scotland's favourite poet, Robbie Burns with a celebration of life and times of infamous Scottish "poet and tragedian", William Topaz McGonagall.

Being Australian, I also marked Australia Day, which is 26 January. Even as I type, it's officially Australia's national day. 26 January, 1788 was the day that the first British colonists arrived in Botany Bay. Hence, some people have taken to calling it "invasion day". Some may accuse this nomenclature as being (overly) politically correct...however I think that there is definitely a logic in thinking about it like this.

Anyway, I think it's good that Scotland's unofficial national day celebrates the life of one of their greatest literary figures and not some battle/massacre/victory etc.

So, to the image that adorns the start of this post. TNT Magazine is a publication that has a large focus on the backpacker/working holiday/overseas experience markets in the UK. They cover some latest news from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa...mainly of the "what's happening on the OZ/Kiwi/Saffa version of Big Brother" variety. Other than that, the rest of the magazine seems to be advertisements for companies that will ship your accumulated crap back to the Southern Hemisphere. They also have Australian and New Zealand editions of the magazine which I imagine work in reverse...target market, Brits on tour in the Antipodes.

Having once been the target market of TNT Magazine UK, I do admit to having read the odd edition picked up for free from stands in London or from Bar Oz when there used to be one in Oxford. So a couple of weeks back on a trip to London, I flicked through a copy of TNT in a café in Southwark.

While I was in Canada, the ski resorts were full of Australians working their way around the world and I met a ton of nice compatriots. For some reason however, I could never see the need to hang out with other Australians in London just because they were Australians...particularly Aussies on tour in London. However, when I saw the ad for the Mr and Miss Australia '07 competition, I briefly had a flicker of interest but then decided that, I might be a bit too much of a yobbo and too ocker to get through to the final...NOT. Actually, I couldn't think of anything worse...apart from attending the now defunct Aussie themed "Sunday session" at The Church

Don't get me wrong, plenty of ex-patriate Australians have class but I fear they might be outnumbered at the The Sports Café tomorrow night.

Anyhow, this weekend I'm going to be at former housemate Jane's (and Mike's) wedding in Lanark in Scotland instead. Good luck guys.

Happy Australia Day.

Oh no!!!!

I just realised I inadvertently blogged about Star Trek the other day!!!!

Aloha Damon and Tara.

My close friends in London, Damon and Tara are leaving tomorrow for a stint in South America, so I thought I'd immortalise them in a blog post.


The above photo is of Damon, myself and Gerard (the cycling trio) at Damon and Tara's farewell dinner the weekend before last in London.

Since I first met Damon on a charity bike ride between Oxford and Cambridge in 2004, we've shared some great cycling times. For example, going to the Tour de France in 2005, participating in the London bike courier roller race Rollapaluza IV, a 120 mile cyclosportive last year and many enjoyable training rides. In the couple of years I've known him and Tara, they have become good friends and I hope that their adventure is all they want it to be.

Aloha!...or should I say Adiós!

US politics, Comedy, Star Trek and George Takei

Every time I watch this excerpt from the Daily Show with John Stewart, the comedy just gets more "Champagne".

Here's Congressman David Wu's original, quite strange address to the US House of Representatives a few days ago:

I love George Takei...he's a great Asian "brother".


These lines are gold!
"John, the remarks proffered by Congressman Wu, are troublesome in many regards"
"And you felt his telephone voice was more distinctive than mine?"
"Do you realize that by our sixth film, I'd become a Captain, while Spock had become marginalized?"
"Well, then. Takei out...motherf****r"

I love it!

Ed out...motherf****r