Animals on the Underground
Tuesday, May 13, 2008 ~ No Comments
This is one of those silly things that seem to grab my attention from time to time. I’m a bit smitten with this, but not entirely sure why…
Back in 1998, Paul Middlewick was staring at the tube map during his daily journey home from work when he discovered an elephant hidden in the shape of the tube lines, stations and junctions of the London Underground map.
Since then, the elephant has been joined by many other animals from bats to bottlenose whales. What fun!
Found via It’s Nice That.
Weekender
Monday, May 12, 2008 ~ No Comments
Ironman kicked off Friday night, and I have to say it’s a darn good blockbuster with Robert Downey Jnr. on twinklingly good form as the rock’n'roll engineer and hero of the story. Jeff Bridges was pretty good too although we are convinced he had platform boots on or something because he suddenly seemed very tall. Gwyneth Paltrow is in it too but as the token tight-skirt wearing personal assistant she had little do (but what she did do, she did well).
Saturday was an odd day. I felt a little light-headed for most of it, still not sure why although I’m wondering if it was upping my blood pressure pills (ACE inhibitors, now on 7.5mg a day… will be 10mg next week). Spent most of day pottering really, finally finishing the kitchen floor and a few other little jobs.
And yesterday was BBQ and footie day. Prepared the food in the morning, watched Manchester United win the title, Fulham stay up (somehow!) and ultimately won 2 of the 2 fantasy football leagues I’m in! Then off out to cook enough food to feed about 20 people, despite the fact it was just us, my parents and my sister. Still it did mean we got to have some rather delicious Hungarian wine. Yum yum yum.
Aside from that, not much else going on. Well there is a LOT going on but it’s all work focussed at the moment, and that is a very good thing.
An open letter to Journalists
Friday, May 9, 2008 ~ 9 Comments
Dear Journalist,
I understand that at times it can be hard to find a good article, that deadlines must be met, and that you are under a lot pressure to deliver.
I also understand that the internet is chockful of content, a lot of it of good quality, and that blogs in particularly lend themselves nicely to the provision of the “human side” of the story. I understand that, really I do.
Unfortunately there seems to be a bit of an issue at the moment, with a few journalists pillaging blogs for content and the underlying view seems to be, “well, they are just blogs”. Now, I know (and I’m guilty of this in the past myself) that bloggers have always been the most forthcoming with credit when re-using your content but I think we are getting better at that and remember, just about all of us are amateurs.
That said, there really is no excuse for this sort of thing* which really doesn’t cast your profession in the best light and, even to the hobbyist blogger, spanks of shoddy work.
Like I say, I know that it’s only a few of you that are falling into this bad habit, and I guess that if you weren’t misquoting and badly researching your articles around blog stories, you’d be doing it on some other topic, but here’s the kicker.
We bloggers read each others blogs. We know them well, like old friends. We know the history, we know the personality behind the blog, so we know when all you’ve done is do a few quick searches and cobbled together a twisted view of reality.
And, really, we’d all kinda like you to stop doing that. Feel free to contact us, ask us questions, learn about who we are and why we blog, and most times we’ll be so accomodating you won’t believe it. Honest, most of us are pretty decent people just like most of you.
I hope that’s cleared things up a little,
Sincerely,
The Hobbyist Blogger
* In this case, the editor has been contacted and the article has been reported to the Press Complaints Commission. I’d encourage you all to spread the word about this, it’s not the first time and unfortunately I doubt it’ll be the last, so the more coverage this gets (hopefully) the lower the chance of it happening to you or I.
Back to reality
Thursday, May 8, 2008 ~ 3 Comments
As Budapest fades into rose-tinted memory the mundane returns.
Well it’s not mundane really, it’s quite exciting you know, getting up at 1am to save a little mouse from the clutches of our cat and then again at 4.30am to remove a dead mouse from the kitchen floor (different mouse, he’s getting good at this!).
Elsewhere, there are still a few small jobs to do in the kitchen to finish it off, including a rather bizarre problem with the new light I fitted. We are using LED bulbs (like a halogen bulb but with 8 LEDs crammed into the same space), and when you turn them off they … well they aren’t on full but they are still on. It’s only really noticeable at night. I’m wondering if there is a short somewhere but… wouldn’t that have blown the light? Back to O Grade Physics for me, for despite getting an “A” I can’t remember a damn thing…
And, of course, as we currently have the bright shiny thing in the sky the next two weeks are officially Summer. So, out to the garden we go to do some weeding and general tidying up, ignoring the fact that my office still needs some order restored as it is holding the remnants of the kitchen upheaval.
Ohh and on that, still no response to our complaint letter. If there isn’t a letter waiting at home this evening then tomorrow morning they’ll be getting a stern phone call.
So, aside from mucking about with Joomla with half a mind on resurrecting Scottish Blogs, popping pills and generally trying to be healthy so my next check up at the doctor will reveal a lowered blood pressure, and considering buying Wii Fit, it’s pretty much life as usual.
Which is, you know, quite a good thing.
Memories of Budapest
Tuesday, May 6, 2008 ~ 3 Comments
On reflection I don’t really have the words to describe just how stunningly gorgeous the city of Budapest is, we ran out of superlatives very early on and the sheer number of photos I took (even when you discount several retakes) of random buildings and parks, statues and memorials, should provide some indication of how much beauty is crammed into the centre of the city.
However it is a strange juxtaposition of ancient ornamental buildings alongside communist era concrete monstrosities and modern steel and glass constructions. Some of the older and more important buildings have been cleaned up, but throughout the city you can still see remnants of the 1956 revolution (and beyond), with bullet-marked buildings dotted around the sidestreets.
For someone of both my generation and my nationality, seeing bullet craters peppered across a building is an odd and unsettling sight. It makes the history so much more vivid, and I am genuinely glad that our Hungarian host was so forthcoming with the details of his the turbulent life of his country. On that note, perhaps we should be teaching Scottish history here in our schools, as I certainly couldn’t have gone into the level of detail he did.
He also made sure we got to try some real Hungarian treats, and so we found ourselves spending an evening grilling large lumps of bacon fat over an open flame, catching the dripping on thick wedges of fresh bread, and eating the crispy bits. And then we got to taste some Tokaji, a sweet Hungarian dessert wine that is about as close to alcoholic nectar as you can imagine, and all that was before the wine tour, the trip to the Széchenyi baths which was quite wonderful as the three different pools are all at different temperatures, and a dinner cruise on the Danube.
I had planned to write a lot more about this trip but the more I think about the more I realise that I don’t want it to be something that I try and capture, there are somethings you just can’t digitise.
It was a trip of delight, laughter, and genuine awe and wonder. We had entertaining company, gracious hosts, delicious food and drink, and even a 10 minute deluge couldn’t dampen our spirits. It is a wonderful city, full of friendly people, with an excellent transport system. A city which embraces the future whilst honouring the past, with an emerging cosmopolitan feel. If you do get a chance, go!
Snapshots of Budapest
Tuesday, May 6, 2008 ~ 3 Comments
It’s taken a while but I’ve managed to whittle the number of photos down to a manageable amount. There is a lot ‘missing’ and a lot of detail I’m still trying to recall (thankfully someone else was paying more attention).
(click the photo to view the set)
And before anyone complains, think yourself lucky, my family had to sit through twice the number I have posted to Flickr.
Update: Our travelling companion has posted some of her photos as well.
Food and Friendship in Budapest
Monday, May 5, 2008 ~ 2 Comments
I’m still downloading and sorting through the.. ahem.. 1568 photos I took whilst wandering round Budapest (and two videos), and thought I’d take a moment to try and capture my thoughts about our trip.
We were staying with friends in Solymár, which lies north-west of Budapest, right on the edge of the fantastic public transportation system, and you couldn’t find two more accomodating, generous and gracious hosts. A public thank you to them both, and of course to our intrepid travelling companion (herself a source of great merriment and generosity).
I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from Budapest, or indeed from Hungary in general. Remnants of Communist rule was the obvious theme in my mind but the truth was so far removed that I am almost ashamed that I didn’t do a little more reading before setting off. The region we were staying in was a little like a sunny Scotland, rolling hills of lush green vegetation, forests and flowers abound.
I also wasn’t quite sure what the Hungarian people would be like, having had quite a time of it historically (their geography makes them ripe for invasion) and I despite my incoherent stutterings of Hungarian (Yes, No, and Thank You), I saw little but smiling faces. It was, of course, slightly different in Budapest with the predominant accent being American (tourists), but we had the advantage as we were touring with a native Hungarian.
And then there was the food. I don’t think I’ve eaten as much meat in such a short space of time before, and unfortunately it was ALL delicious (even including the meal mainly consisting of bacon fat!).
But more on that, and the city of Budapest itself, later. Tales of Tokaj, Baclava-toting security guards and the many mustachioed men of Hungary will be forthcoming.
That and a few photos.
