I’ve wanted to visit Switzerland for a long time. Of all the western European nations, it’s one of the most interesting politically, historically, scenically and racially and so I was really pleased when James (who I tend to do photography trips with) decided he’d like to try it too.

I gave myself the week off and we flew from Luton on a bitter Sunday morning, and were more than relieved that despite the temperature in Geneva, the weather was crisper; less sleety and less wet.

We spent the next few days as the only residents of a hotel in Interlaken (quite literally, even the staff weren’t on-site most of the time) and took time to explore Murren, Thun, Wengen and number of other mountainside/lakeside villages. Ski season hasn’t yet commenced, but the first snow is falling, which made for ideal photography conditions - unspoilt slopes, no overcrowding and complete isolation in some cases. On a couple of occasions we ended up in normally buzzing villages only to find that most of the transportation wasn’t running, let alone anyone else in sight. It was highlighted by the fact in the five or so days I was away I didn’t have a single opportunity to speak to anyone who wasn’t Swiss.

Limited German and French didn’t matter much as most people speak English, but I actually enjoy the challenge and being the only other two languages I have any knowledge of, meant I got to try both.

The highlight of Interlaken was definitely heading up to the Jungfraujoch - 3471 metres. Stupidly, despite my own interest in the mountain and it’s conquest, it had completely escaped me that the Eiger (especially the White Spider, or famous North Face) was actually in the immediate group of three mountains ahead of us. It really was stunning. The weather had been snowy and cloudy below about 2000m, but from the railway station at Kleine Scheidegg, looking up at the three mountains, we had exceptionally good visibility.

It’s expensive in Switzerland, but Swiss Pass railway passes halved the price on the few lines that aren’t ‘all inclusive’. You could feel the altitude, although it wasn’t anything like Tibet (where dizziness turned into a splitting headache), and instead made the whole experience even more surreal. Outside on the plateau the temperature was a chilling -18.8°C but it made a great platform for taking photographs. The only downside of these pre-prepared spaces is that everyone gets the same image - but unfortunately there is little other option at that sort of height without a helicopter and money to burn.

On Wednesday we returned to Geneva and had a chance to have a look around the Old Town, not before James took the hotel’s rooms to pieces (critically, not literally). As someone who designs them for a living he was able to point out some pretty clever cost saving techniques that you wouldn’t necessarily have considered before.

Historically of course, Geneva has an important role to play in both the League of Nations and the UN, and it was interesting to step in the same footsteps as some of the greatest world leaders. Inter-war European relations was one of my pet topics until A-Level and it really puts things into perspective when you see the rooms from where Haile Selassie made his impassioned plea and where the Geneva Convention was first signed in the Alabama Room at the Hotel de Ville. All good history stuff.

After getting back in time for Saturday’s rugby, I caught the train to meet with Sean before the match. I don’t think we expected too much from England’s performance, but after a fairly stale first half against the All Blacks (6-12), the second half could have provided a surprise result. It did, and we lost spectacularly.

Actually it wasn’t all bad, but some pretty awful discipline left us playing with 14 men for most of the game, and some lazy play and lazy kicking meant we we’re pretty stuffed.

When I got back at around 11pm I was surprised to find myself in the car heading over to Kidderminster to meet up with George, Tom and Gaz for a celebratory drink (George getting back from Canada). We ended up in a lock-in I think because the beer was still flowing until the early hours, but I had the benefit of a fantastically comfy spare bed and didn’t wake up until midday.

A good week off, all-in-all. Photos are here.

Comments (0)

I like Manchester, and on Saturday evening I found myself sitting at a low table with picking up cards with a beer in my hand. The best way to enjoy Manchester I think.

It was Mike’s birthday and just an overnight stop, but his new flat is very nice and a lot of people turned up to trash say hello, including Ben and Noel who I haven’t seen in an age.

As I’m off to Switzerland at the weekend, I’m going to have to slot in quite a lot before the week is out. New camera batteries should be en-route, but cold-weather clothing has yet to be arranged. Hotels booking are somewhat light on the ground also.

There was mass relief this morning as completed a fairly ugly integration project between two large systems. It’s all working now and I’m quite proud, although why it needed to be made so difficult in the first place is beyond me, and my client agrees.

I was once again annoyed that I’ve missed out on Eddie Izzard tickets. Four more dates were announced, but apparently not to the mailing list usuals and so lost out again. There are strictly a few seats remaining, but I don’t really fancy paying £65 to go on my own (not to mention getting down to London/arranging to stay the night too). I’m just keeping my fingers crossed he will do a proper UK tour.

Oh and it’s that time of year again, so the taxman has written me a lovely letter asking me for my money once more. Is it so odd that I just want it out of my account right now so I don’t even have to look at it mournfully for the next three months?

Comments (0)

Last weekend was the November Multipack and proved to be pretty packed out… we struggled to find seating big enough to accomodate us all at the Old Joint Stock so eventually moved on to the Windsor. There were some new faces along too which is always good, and I was able to interrogate Mark and Anthony about technical things, so pretty productive really.

Finally I got the opportunity to see Tim Minchin live on Wednesday at Huntingdon Hall in Worcester. It’s an odd building in as much as we initially couldn’t find the entrance, but the converted church made an interesting comedy venue (we we’re all sat tongue-and-groove in the pews) and it was a very enjoyable evening. I was a bit concerned about the acoustics initially as we we’re pretty much the last people to book seats and so were sat right at the back, but it wasn’t too much of a problem. I’d forgotten how hard it had been to get hold of tickets in the first place until I learnt the family next to us (oddly split up with us in the middle) had travelled down from Blackpool - a four hour journey one way - just to get the last few seats for the show.

And tomorrow I go to Manchester for Mike’s birthday. My last visit was exactly one year ago, and I have a feeling it probably will get as messy as last time (Mike is a little predictable when it comes to organising get togethers).

I thought this was quite funny.

Comments (0)

I don’t know anyone this side of the pond that didn’t want to wake up to hear that Barack Obama had won the election this morning, me included. I can only hope that he really can deliver change. For all the rhetoric of election time, it’s hard to know what the reality will actually be, but I remain very optimistic and very happy.

And to the other great victory this week, Lewis Hamilton got his reward for a fantastic nail-biting season, not least the final moments of the final lap of the final race of the calendar. My heart was in my mouth for the last three minutes of the Grand Prix - the most exciting race I can ever recall seeing, and complete restored faith in British F1 motorsport.

Not content with those two highs, I saw the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace last night with Tom and Raj. I’d attempted to lower my expectations to avoid disappointing myself, and tried not to listen to too many reviews, which was just as well as I came out more than satisfied. I will admit, it didn’t quite deal the punch Casino Royale did, but then again, we’re now a little more used to this Bond now and so know what to expect - just compare Casino Royale to Die Another Day and you’ll see what I mean. If you’ve yet to see it, my advice would be to ensure you go in in a mood to concentrate - I felt that considering it’s rated 12A, the plot required a fairly adult level of focus. Overall though, I enjoyed it.

Finally, I wish I’d upgraded to Expression Engine 1.6.5 a lot earlier - this flies compared to the version I was running before…

Comments (0)

This week has flown by. I’ve no idea why, but it’s just gone. Today helped - I spent most of the day in Birmingham on business, where I located this larger than life Google Maps marker, or at least that’s what it appeared to be. Do I win a prize?

I finally caved in an sorted out setting up internet on my phone on Monday. Until now, I’ve used another hand held device, my PocketSurfer, but really I don’t need to be carrying that thing around all the time, making sure it’s charged etc etc. Plus it was due for renewal, and using my K850i is sort-of less fiddley, so I’ve ditched the old device, at least for the moment. I’m running Opera Mini which I’ve found is just as nice as everyone has ever told me it is, and have been delighted to be able to use it quite a lot this week. I think the thing that surprised me the most was how goddamn easy it was to tether it to a Macbook. My mouth is still a little bit ajar with the shock. I don’t really see myself using it for that sort of thing, but there have been those odd emergencies in the past…

Also, I found out something of interest regarding why you can’t watch QI on iPlayer, or in general any programme that was made before a certain date in 2006. It’s because the original licences don’t allow it. This is why when it comes to watching some programmes you get an unhelpful ‘Not Available’ message. I could have guessed it was something to do with licensing, but at least it means any new episodes won’t be affected.

I’ve recently picked up a renewed interest in Expression Engine, it’s going to be interesting to see if I ever use it for anything commercial. A couple of articles in recent days, and a little exploration of the more in-depth menus proved a good stimulus, although I’m still not convinced that I will reap the benefit of the extra cost on many of my projects, so it’s yet to be seen whether anything will come of this new-found curiosity.

If I haven’t mentioned it to you in person already, I’ll do it here, but I’ve been very impressed with what Andy Clarke has been turning out at ForABeautifulWeb.com. It’s quite refreshing to move on from what seemed like a period of stagnation in the web design community, and his blog is my current hot tip.

I’m very much looking forward to Quantum of Solace.

Comments (0)

Will turned 23 last week, so we had a bit of a packed out Saturday celebrating. Starting with clay pigeons in the afternoon followed by a trip into Broad Street (my first proper excursion there for a number of years). I think my sharp-shooting skills have improved on last time and I finished a more than acceptable third out of the ten or so of us. So there’s a bit of boasting for you.

The night was also good fun - I have to admit I’m sceptical when it comes to nights out on Broad Street - I can’t help but think it’s a bit like having a night out put together by the people who manage package holidays, but I have to admit it exceeded expectations, was a fantastic night and I was impressed with the Gatecrasher refit of what once was ‘The Works’.

It did take an age, but enough pestering from fellow Multipackers amongst others, I ended up on Twitter this week. I’ve had an account for ages, but it wasn’t until now that it’s seen any use. I have to admit, I can see how an addiction can develop. I think the two biggest drawbacks of it are, firstly you have to fit whatever you wanted to say into a fraction of size of how you wanted to say (the same pariah as you encounter with text messaging) and secondly, you can’t make individual twitters semi-private (or if you can, I haven’t found out how).

You see, I have an uncontrollable urge to swear sometimes. I want to say things like ”****ing NoChex. What a bunch of ****s”, where any four letter word noun or adjective befitting of NoChex could be entertained.

Unfortunately, sensible me knows that is a bad idea, because one day I may have to communicate with the ****ing ****s at NoChex again. They then may have read what I have written about them and their ****ing policies - something they might like to ****ing outline to me, or at least allow me to talk to one of their ****s about. ****s.

And so on Twitter, saying that sort of thing in public would not only be in bad taste, but incredibly difficult to convey in just 160 characters.

If somebody at Nochex does read this and wants to know why the asterix key on my keyboard needs replacing, please contact me, as the email you sent me this morning was particularly condescending and I’d love an opportunity to explain my sentiments.

FWIW, I spent two hours in a seminar this morning learning lots of interesting things about the state of world finances.

Also, for anyone who wants an update on my miserable state of health right now, I’m single-handedly sponsoring the livelihoods of half the workforce at two very well know throat-sweet companies, and am viewing the world though a sticky cloud of paracetamol dust and the atomised contents of my nose. The only upside is that I have had a legitimate reason to consume half a jar of honey in any hot drink in the past two days, and will continue to do so until I elicit enough sympathy and regain a good mood.

Comments (0)

I’ve not seen one in the flesh; that wouldn’t been possible, but the brand new Macbook and Macbook pro lines are mouth-watering. The hardware upgrades, the change in look, the improved graphics; that’s all nice, but really peripheral to the one ‘feature’ I find intriguing. This ‘unibody’ idea is beautiful.

Anyone who has worked milled aluminium knows how gorgeous the stuff feels, both before and after it becomes a product. Working it down from a solid chunk into a final form is infinitely more satisfying than working with any other material in my opinion. Milling can be frustratingly slow, and if you get it wrong, it’s impossible to make a seamless fix. With CNC you cut that out, but you swap that for a level of precision that is hard to rival even in the most highly-skilled handmade version - the result is a million miles away from a sheet or cast metal construction. It genuinely feels more organic, sharp, natural and real - a single body is infinitely more sophisticated than something that feels like it has been bolted together, no matter how well that has been done.

And that’s why I’m dying to pick one up and hold it. I’m not actually that fussed about forking out to own it - my current model still does more than well enough for my needs (though it’s not like I would turn one down if anyone is offering) I just don’t need an upgrade. But the fact is that you can plainly see from the photos, the videos (especially the manufacturing one) that this a beautifully engineered and solid piece of construction. This technique is to be rolled into their two new notebook products, and that means that even by Apple’s previously high standards, this casing is going to bring the feel of this laptop into a league of it’s own, because as far as I am aware no other company has done this in mainstream laptopware before.

Admittedly, the Macbook Air has used a similar technique for a while (again a stunning product to hold), but I think this technique will lend itself even better to the thicker design of these new products. It’s a bit unusual to be more excited by the manufacturing method than the complete product, but I am.

There is one caveat though. I can think of a number of reasons why other manufacturers might not have gone down this route in the past, and although I can banish most of my qualms about it, there are couple I still don’t have an answer for.

This process is more complicated and initially more expensive to setup due to the hardware involved, but over time it’ll pay for itself and any machinery can be re-tasked for future models. The complexity of the assembly is going to be considerably reduced at the pre-digital component stage.  The thing that gets me is the waste and energy required to produce it this way.

My gut feeling would be that in waste terms, the system is actually going to be pretty efficient - Apple wouldn’t want to be squandering all that expensive material it’s paid for. Although you might be essentially removing a large percentage of the mass as milled-out swarf, that can be melted down and reused, and I would imagine that is what Apple will be doing. The gold and silver trade became incredibly efficient at this a very long time ago. But even if that is the case, the big drawback of this is that you constantly have to keep re-melting down the material, as opposed to the current method of applying a smaller amount of heat for a shorter period of time just enough to form a shape. And that’s expensive. The closest thing to an analogy I can think of is boiling a kettle of six cups for every time you want to make one just for yourself.

For all their talk of green, I do wonder whether this will erode at their other credentials? I mean keeping metal molten for long periods (whether its in their own factories or further up the food chain) is not that efficient. I just imagine it can’t be particularly energy efficient even if their other production processes are. I’d love to know, but I don’t believe tours of the Apple factories are that easy to come by.

Comments (0)