Bad weight news

I have not updated you on my weight for some time. Can you remember those optimistic times during the summer of last year, where I reached 88 kg. It seems like a dream, because I am now 93 kg again. I don't think I have started eating badly again. Perhaps I am eating a bit too much bread.

Once the snow and ice are gone, I can do a longer walk to work.  I just tried to do a kettlebell workout from a video. I was destroyed after 10 minutes.

Why I want a 3D printer?

Everywhere I look I see three dimensional printers. I really want one, but they are still very expensive, but they are getting cheaper. I would try to get one for work, but I can't think of a good reason for needing one.

I like the idea of having a statue made when I retire. Something modest, like the statue of Yuri Gagarin under which I used to eat lunch, the last time I was in Moscow. I could not afford one of those nasty artists to create a sculpture , but now I just to have wait  for three dimensional printer to come down in price. I might not even need to own a printer, I could use an external service.

The raid

Last night I watched the raid on Itunes. A bunch of cops raid a tower block. The want to arrest the crime boss on the top floor, but things go wrong.  It is another great action film from Indonesia.

There is a lot of fighting, both with hands and machetes. There are some amazing stunts with people getting thrown around, over balconies and through windows. It doesn't have the cheesy cartoon feel of an american action film.

There is a great fight scenes with two brothers against a crazy guy. I have often wanted to fight side by side with my brother in bar room brawl. I am too much of a coward though.

More art in Lisbon

After I decide not to go into the Monastery in Lisbon on because it was still consecrated ground, I thought I would go the big art gallery close by. The art gallery was called Museu  Coleccao  Berado.
It was originally the art collection of a Billionaire. The building was very impressive. It only hel modern art.

To be perfectibility honest I didn't really feel like going to a gallery, but I had gone to the effort to go to Belem area of Lisbon. Outside the gallery was a statue made from bottles. This steals my idea of building a house from beer cans, so that I could say I am working the extension, while I sup beer and watch TV.

I am writing this over two weeks after going to the gallery, so my recollections may not be accurate.
Also the paragraphs below sound a bit cynical, I should say I really enjoyed the visit.

I don't normally like video installations, but there was one with a projector showing scenes on the two different walls in a small room. The sound of the projector reminded me of the disintegration tapes.


After seeing only nude painting in the building, I decided that is what modern arts needs is more naked women.  One picture was of the stars in the sky. This was more exciting to me than many of the other stuff.

Almost every piece had a lot of text which explained what the point of it all will be. We shall see how modern art fairs when everyone has access to cameras, camcorders and can distribute via the internet.

The picture below shows an art work perhaps sponsored or even made by Ikea. I have seen the future of modern art. Thanks Damien Hirst.

Watching cable cars in Lisbon

When I first arrived at my hotel in Lisbon, the receptionist told me about the different areas of Lisbon, after I had admitted that while I had a guide book, I hadn't actually read it. She told me about the modern area of Lisbon where the casinos were. She wore a suit and had long brown hair. I thought she was cute.

Although I am not a casino person I still took the Metro to the Orinet station. As this is where I believed I could get to an area called Parques das Nacoes. I was expecting super modern buildings, but also because I had a bad case of man flue, I couldn't really deal with an stress, complication or disappointment. It was also raining. Nowhere looks good in the rain.

There was a big railway station at the Metro station, lots of concrete and some pod like lifts. The railway station was connected to some big shopping mall over the road. I walked around with a flu high and watched the happy shoppers live their lives. What I really wanted was to see the river

After the Mall I walked outside to the river. There were two sets of flag poles with the flags of the countries of the world on them. I walked between them to the river.  I ate fish stew in a small empty restaurant.

The buildings were modern, but I didn't get the modern kick that you get from seeing Frankfurt as you arrive by train. I didn't find the casino.

By the river there was a big cable car. It went by the side of river. I saw many empty cars pass above me. It wasn't clear what the point of the cable cars was. I thought cable cars had something to do with skiing. If I been there with a woman, we would of gone for a cable car ride, so that we could build more happy memories (even if she had problems with heights). Instead I watched empty cable cars move above me. I was alone.

After a while I decided I had done enough tourist stuff, so I took the Metro back to my hotel. The TV was showing the The Big Lebowski .  I laughed a lot.

Anger before sleep.

I am trying to sleep better. So I watch some TV before going to bed and drink a can of alcohol free beer (some nights at least).

Last night I watched a Father Brown episode where there was a German priest. Many of the parishioners were still unhappy about the war. So part of the story was him making friends with people who hated Germans. In the end the German priest was the murderer.  The UK is still obsessed by the second world war, although we should be thinking of other more important things.

Then I tried to watch a Dr Who episode on Itunes, but it would only play for about 1 minute before stopping. Grr. My anger and stress rose. I shook my fist at Apple. Itunes is crappy bloated software.

I slept OK. I did have a dream where I was in court for nothing serious. I was trying to apply to get into Broadmoore mental hospital. I had a written application which was very heavy. Postage is very expensive now in the UK, but I put a lot of stamps on the envelope. I can't have been that mentally ill in the dream, if I worried about the cost of postage.

Django unchained

I sent to see Django unchained on Wednesday. I really enjoyed the film. It was funny and the action parts were great.

The film was shown in English with German subtitles. One of the bounty hunters was a German and there was a German theme to part of the film, so it made more sense to watch the film in English in a German cinema.

Of course I don't think that Tarantino made an important statement about slavery. It is just an action movie at the end of the day.


I made the mistake of watching the review by Mark Kemode. Mark is not a great fan of Tarantino. He did have a point about the length of the film. It was a three hour film and they started showing it 8:00. Unfortunately the cinema was in Barmen and the last train on the Schwebebahn is at 5 minutes to 11:00, so the length of the film meant I had a longer journey back to Eberfeld.

Nekropolis

I finally finished reading Nekropolis by TimWaggoner. According to Amazon I ordered it over a year ago. I think I sent it to my phone rather than my kindle. The idea behind the book is that the hero is a zombie trying to solve a crime in a city of dark magic called Nekropolis.

The description of the city is pretty good. There are lots of ideas, but a lot of the dialogue is pretty wooden. I still enjoyed it though.

There so many urban fantasy books out there, that I first though that he was just a rip off. There are a number of TV programs with vampires as detectives, so I thought I could see his thought processes when de decided on the zombie detective angle. When I read the last section of the book, he actually wrote it in 1995, so he was ahead of the rest. It took a while to get published.

Fado and Lisbon regrets

What do I most regret about my holiday in Lisbon? Well it is not going to see any Fado singers in some of the clubs I saw. Ok I only saw Fado at restaurants. It would have been cool to listen to sad singing at a small table with a bottle of champagne.

The web of fear (great intelligence)

So I read the web of fear as I travelled back from Lisbon to Germany. This is a DR Who story. The action takes place in the London Underground and the Dr is fighting robot yeti and some nasty web of something.

The alien mind controlling it all is the great intelligence. This enemy was also featured in the 2012 Christmas Dr Who special. So it is back. The Dr could have defeated it in this book, but his clever idea was stopped, because his Scottish companion used some extreme violence to smash a pyramid. But this was only a local victory, and not the total one that Dr Who hoped for.

The BBC web site has some images from the web of fear TV program.

What is worrying about the web of fear is that the great intelligence can take over humans without their knowledge. The web of fear as first broadcast in 1968. I was one year old. Perhaps I was influenced and I am controlled by the GT. Many of these old Dr Who episodes were wiped. There must have been a reason! What if I am reactivated by the new plot lines with the great intelligence?

Does Steven Moffat know what he is doing?

Why I love the Father Brown stories, but not the church

Sometimes we still love things we hate. I am not a great fan of Christianity, but somehow I still love the Father Brown stories.  It is the same with Jeeves and  Wooster. When I hear the word Eton, I think of a school where they teach you to steal houses and pensions, but I still love the Jeeves books.


I have been watching the current adaptation of the Father Brown stories on the BBC. I like the TV versions, but the stories are very different. I am not complaining, because the TV series is great, but it is well different. I also enjoyed the radio versions on the BBC with Andrew Sachs as Father Brown. In some sense the stories are propaganda for the Church, with the priest standing for rationality.

Today I watched The Eye of Apollo on the BBC. The original versions was more of a whodunit
puzzle, but it was totally different on the TV. Why do I like it. Perhaps I am hedging my bets for my immortal soul. Or perhaps this is the way I can win the Templeton prize At the moment I do research into physics, but I also like the Father Brown stories. Not really bringing science and religion together, but who knows.

If you want you can listen to the librivox readings of the stories.

First day in Lisbon

On my first full day of holiday I walked to the centre of Lisbon. I found a few squares with statues in them. People kept offering to sell me hash and cocaine on the street. What I found weird was that although there were so many street dealers, I never smelt any dope on the street.

I thought I would walk to the river. I thought the river was close. but as I walked I suddenly found myself on a steep hill. This didn't seem correct, but up the hill I went. It was an over cast day with terrible black clouds and cold. At some point it was clear I had moved away from the tourist section of the city, but I kept walking on. At some point I needed to go to the toilet. I went into a bar. I then realised that I don't even know the Portuguese for toilet or thank you, so I was reading my phrase book while I drank my beer. Also I needed the word for key, because the toilet was locked.

I wander around lost again. I wanted to find a Metro station, but there were none around. I was feeling bored and a bit miserable.  I stopped at cafe and got a burger and beer. Then the sun started shining and I decided to follow the bus route to a Metro station. I felt happier. I eventually found the Metro station and took a train to the centre of the city.

Back in the centre I find the river and the area called Bairro. I feel peaceful when I see the river. It is dark and very cold. I try and find a bar. I have to settle for a mixed pizza and cocktail bar. I order a cocktail and a beer and sit out in the cold. I think that gave some kind of cold or flu for the rest of the week.


The picture below shows the square when I spent much time reading. There were a number of stalls and a DJ playing african music.

Art gallery in Lisbon

One day while I was on holiday I thought I would go to an art gallery.  So when I finally got up I took the Metro to visit Centro de arta moderna. It was a pretty nasty rainy day, so it was good time to visit a gallery.

When I walked into the gallery I tried to buy a ticket. The woman at the desk was talking on the phone for a couple of minutes, while I waited. When she finally stopped talking it turned out that the ticket was free. They were replacing some of the exhibits, so the gallery was almost empty.
In parts of the gallery they were installing new things. It was hard to focus on the paintings, when there is a crane installing things.

I think there should be more technology in galleries to keep the arts and crafts people rooted in reality. In fact I would go further and power art galleries with teams of artists on treadmils - just to get them to do something useful for once in their life.

My guide book claimed that I would see some paintings by Paula Rego. I don't think the painting below was the one I saw, but it looks sort of the same as two pictures I saw in the gallery. I like here work, so I will just imagine that I have seen some of here work.

Saturday in Lisbon

So on Saturday, the last full day of my holiday, I decided I should do more Tourist stuff. There is an area called Belem Lisbon that contains a famous monastery and a big new art gallery.

I took the Metro up to Cais de Sodre. I took the tram 18, as the guide book suggested to a town close to the Monastery. It was an old yellow tram. I was expecting to see many tourists get on, but it looked as though all the passengers were local. The tram was old and creaked along in a charming, if bone juddering way. The tram made many stops and it picked up a bunch of old people with their shopping. There was no information on the tram as to where I was. At some stage there was a big building which looked like a museum, so I got off and followed a family with a shopping trolley full of food.

The building did seem to be a museum of some kind with police on guard, but the museum was not mentioned in my guide book. Also the area I wanted to see was close to the river. I was on some hill, but I could see some fancy building in the distance. So I marched in the general direction, which was luckily downhill.

On the way I passed and army barracks. There was a small tank outside the compound. I almost took out my phone to take a picture but decided that that the local may think I am a spy.

I found the interesting area. The Monastery was indeed amazing to look at it. it did remind me of the "Sanctuary building" in the TV series. I was about to go in, when I noticed that they still hold mass in the building. i don't really like treading on consecrated ground, so I decided to not go inside.

Smoked out of an Irish bar in Lisbon

I discovered something in Lisbon. I was in this Irish bar full of non-Irish people. The next day I smelt smoke in my room. The pub was full of smoke. I actually only managed to drink two pints of beer before the smoke drove me out.

When I was growing up all the pubs were full of  smokers. It didn't bother me much, but now I could barely stand it in a room full of smokers. I am getting soft.

Oh yeah the Irish pub had tapas of black pudding. Yummy!

A visit to Lisbon castle

Thursday in Lisbon started badly. My man flu gave me a coughing fit that got worse and worse until I nearly threw up. I had eaten the night before, so my stomach felt OK, but coughing is coughing.

I decided to go to the castle. I had seen it on top of the steep hill. I could have got there by public transport, but hey man it is not a proper holiday, unless I suffer a bit.
After much weezing I made it to the back entrance of the castle. A nice security guard explained to me and a guy from Brazil how to get to the main entrance. I was so tired when I got to the main entrance I drank a coffee, served by two surely woman at a cafe near the entrance

The castle had great view of Lisbon. I walked around. I am not of these people, who hate noisy children, but I have noticed that many young children are bored by tourist stuff. They would  much rather be playing on the beach, rather than visiting a Moorish caste in Lisbon. One mother had solved the boredom problem by walking her child on the edge of the castle walls. I am just saying that it would have been bad if the kid had fallen -- I know his mum was holding his hand, but it didn't look safe to me. But I am not a parent so what do I know.

I walked up some steep steps to the battlement of the castle. I then started worrying how I was going to get down the steep steps with out falling and smashing my skull in.
Anyway I did  the tourist thing and looked at the even better view. I did get down the wet steps with no problems.

After I had done the castle thing I walked down the hill and started to hunt up some food. I wanted some grilled sardines I didn't pick a good place, because the boiled potatoes were essentially inedible, because they had not been cooked well enough. The Sardines were good and tasty. This time they were grilled. At the end of the mail I ordered a brandy and espresso. I am pretty sophisticated, because I now drink a brandy after my meal. I discovered that they don't give a single measure when you order a brandy. I guess they think that the extra booze will help oil a good tip.

The large beer and brandy took their effect so I just wondered around after that. There is an elevator to a viewing platform that perhaps I should have queued for, but I had already walked up a big fucking hill to a castle that was much higher, so I thought why bother?

The sun had tried the seat enough so I could sit. I read abut the early history of Portugal on my kindle. I wandered around a bit more. In the past couple of days I had not seen any bars in the area, but now my mind was better tuned. I found a small place that served the cherry brandy (Ginjinha). The waiter didn't speak any English, but he understood what I wanted. I found the Ginjinha to be very tasty. I only had one, but I will drink this again.

One of the guidebooks I had said positive things about the HARD Rock cafe in Lisbon. Umm. I went in for a beer. The staff were friendly, but it took a while get served.
I sat at the bar. The rock video were really doing my head in. I don't normally watch that many music videos. I do of course watch Youtube for music. There was a video with some white guys rapping about being cowboys in a very non-interesting way. Later there was a video with some beautiful women singing in a music video. This was not live music, but just here using with some probably gay attractive male friend. What made me laugh was that she played the harmonica at the start of the set. She was some kind of low energy Madonna clone. They still seem to be spending a lot of money on music videos, but boy is the music very wimp assed shit.

After that I took the metro back to my hotel room. I washed "The Dude" on TV and drank another can of beer.

Spending Friday in Lisbon with Harry Hole

Although I visited Lisbon to do tourist things, sometimes I just want to relax. So on Friday I did nothing really, but hang out on the streets and read "Robin Redbreast" by Jo Nesbo. This was a novel about the Detective Harry Hole. Being a genius detective Harry is of course not good with discipline and is an alcoholic. In this story he only goes on big bender when his police partner gets murdered while he was trying to chat up a woman.

I purchased the book after listening to a show about different fictional detectives around Europe on the BBC. Harry Hole is from Norway. Part of the book's story was dealing with the Nazi past of Norway and perhaps the Neo-Nazi future.

I got sick while I was in Lisbon. My throat was so sore on Friday that I could barely talk. I just croaked words out in a very deep voice.

Bar hunting in Lisbon

I can't help feeling that a large part of my time n holiday for me is trying to find some run down sleazy bar to drink in. For the first couple of days here in Lisbon I couldn't find any decent bars, even when I searched around areas such as Rossie that my guide book assured me was the place to go after work for drinks. (I didn't spend all my time drinking I might add, but there are issues with the Internet in the hotel., which stop me telling the full story of my trip.)  There is beer available everywhere, but I don't see the point of drinking beer in a fast food cafe.

On Wednesday evening I took the metro to Cais de Sodre station at the end of the line. My guide book promised me this was the area to be for a wild night out. It had used to be a red light district, but was much smarter now. I thought it was worth a visit even though it could end up with me just getting a kebab and beer.

So I am on threat alert mode. I get off the train and walk to the exit of the station following the rest of the passengers. For some reason they have painted giant blue bunny rabbits on the walls of the station and this reminds me of the Wicker man film. I get out of the station and just see buses and tram stops and one small half closed bar.

I was disappointed. I walled around the half open bar and looked at the river. A Chinese guy was there and he asked me whether it was a river or the sea. What is this I thought, is this pub quiz night? I told him I thought it was a river and he said "but it smells of salt."

I then found a cluster of bars. There were some women wrapped in coats standing around some areas, which made me think that it was still a bit of a red light area. In fact one black women talked to me as I was wondering around. There were also a lot of single females walking around who looked like standard students, which me think it is a safe area.

I went into the British bar, because I wanted to drink a Duvel beer. I am not sure what was British about the bar. It didn't serve any British beer (ok it served Guinness) and no one in it was British. I finally decided it was British because they sell crisps.

After that I went to an Irish bar which was playing Johnny Cash. I drank a small beer. I noticed that many people were drinking half pints of Guinness, so I am just guessing they were probably not Irish.
So after my two drinks I headed back to the hotel. There were not that many people around.

 I did the same thing on Thursday night and there were even fewer people around

Diary of a man in despiar

For complicated reasons I am not so interested in Nazi Germany. However, Amazon recommend that I read "Diary of a Man in Despair" by Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen. Friedrich was a German aristocrat who kept  a diary during the years that Germany was controlled by the Nazis. He was an educated right wing guy of the type that you no loner see after Regan and Thatcher took over the the right win cause and all they believe in now in stealing as much money as they can.

It was interesting to see his very negative remarks about Prussia and Berlin.

In 1932 or so he was in beer hall with his gun and Hitler was there on his own. He said afterwards if he had know what was going to happen latter he would have shot him then.

He was eventually shot in 1944. He almost survived the war, but at the end the Nazis' were going crazy shooting all kinds of people.

Barlach, cancer and crime

As I mentioned earlier on this blog I listened to a radio adaption of The Judge and the Hangman by Durrenmatt. This was a fantastical crime story with a detective dying of cancer. There is only one other novel with the same detective, so I got a paper copy of the Inspector Barlach Mysteries.

The story I had not heard was suspicion. This was a story where Barlach tries to hunt down a Nazi doctor who is hiding in a Hospital in Switzerland, just after he has been operated on for cancer and has only 1 year to live. The stories are philosophical and very well written. The story suspicion deal with identity and the fear of the ever clicking clock.

Barlach is now my favourite detective.

Dr Who and the great intelligence -- part 1

As background reading to the Christmas Dr Who special I read Dr and Who and the abominable snowman on the way from Germany to Lisbon. It was perhaps not a very deep read and frankly I was a bit embarrassed at reading it. I didn't get too much insight into the "Greatl Intelligence" from the book, but perhaps when i have read "the web of fear" on the flight back - it will all make more sense.

Man with all this additional DR Who knowledge I will be able to explain the plots of future programs to other people. Although whether I can find anyone who cares...

Start of my holiday in Lisbon

So I find that spending a week at my Mum's house is not enough at X-mas to relax me for the stress of work. So this year I booked a holiday in Lisbon. I flew from Bonn-Cologne airport, but because I had a morning flight I got up around 5, so ended up with about 4 hours sleep. I walked to the railway station, through the dark, empty streets. I saw an empty bus coming the other way.

At the railway station I saw an old guy shuffle around with a stick His skin was bloated like a bull frog. Click-click went his stick as he shuffled around the station with no purpose. Perhaps a glimpse of my future.

Normally at the airport I drink a beer and a ice cold shot of Vodka. However, at 8:30 in the morning my stomach told me it couldn't face the vodka, so I just had a beer. The only time it is socially acceptable to drink in the earl morning is when you travel, or if you have been working all night. I watching a TV program abut ur relations with China. Before we imported lots of tea, the English used to drink beer for breakfast. The trade with Tea with China hurt the UK's trade deficit, so my morning beer helped the trade deficit.

I had spent some time planning how to get to my hotel from the airport. I had even got google to plan a bus route, but at the airport, I almost decide to get a Taxi. But I could feel my ante-taxi rage, because I could visualize the guy ripping me off when it was time to pay. Luckily I saw a sign for the Metro. This was not mentioned on the web site for Lisbon airport, but I knew that my hotel was close to a station. My printer is no longer printing good enough for me to be able to read it, so I spent half a hour trying to work out which underground station to aim for. After that it was a short trip on the super efficient Lisbon metro to my hotel. Interesting enough my guide book told me that the Metro close to my hotel has a problem with muggings. One of exists with a long tunnel is close at night and that would be the one I would use to take someone out.

Saturday stalking

I was just looking for a DVD of the film: Life Is Cheap... But Toilet Paper Is Expensive , but then I found instead this post and then I found this post.  So now I am in love with alicia elaine.

She seems so lonely. What could I offer her?

• A cosy evening in listing to Kevin Coyne and swilling Becks lager.
• Me telling her parents about my alien abduction experiences.
• Praying to Aleister Crowley for a talking erection of an evening.
• Hunting in the woods behind my apartment for the lost pyramid of Eberfeld
• Trying to communicate with telepathy, because we should be able to if we loved each other enough. 
• Talk a lot about Dr Who
• She could comfort me because my chi**2/dof are never under 2

Now that I have read this post, I can see that this fantasy relationship is going no where.

Just to show I am a nice man I will never contact her -- but admire her from afar. But she will think I am an arsehole for writing the piece in the first place. Although we do share that we both write blogs as vague practise for writing.

So in the end this blog has degenerated into cyber stalking. Perhaps I will get a restraining order. My excuse will be I was just looking for the DVD of Life Is Cheap... But Toilet Paper Is Expensive. No jury in the land would convict me.

Bourne legacy, but why

Last night I watched Bourne Legacy on Itunes. I enjoyed the film, but really what was the point of it? It looked as though they copied parts of the three previous films. See this review.


Itunes was really pissing me off last night. It would stall every 5 minutes and freeze. I was watching the film on a medium powered laptop. Perhaps the CIA was messing with my computer to stop me learning the truth about treadstone. This is more likely than Itunes is a bloated piece of software written by the evil suing Apple.

Last night in my bed

Last night I was investigating the deaths caused by a serial killer. We worked out that there were two serial killers who had stored their victim for nearly a years. I was working with someone else.

Next I had won or stolen a lot of money. To celebrate I took a bath. I wanted to keep browsing the web . The water flowed over my laptop, even though it was not in the bath. I thought it was water proof, but then I panicked and tried to dry it out.

At the end of the dream, I was planning to fight another physicist I know in a tournament. I tried to remind myself to find out what the rules were. Anyway I was planning to knock him our rather than do any grappling. Than I woke up. I am glad it was a dream, because I don't think I could have won.

Divorce, lust, floods and explosions in a dream

Although I was shocked to hear about a couple I know were getting divorced, in my dreams I took his ex-wife out for dinner. I don't think that this was a date as such. We went to a restaurant by the sea. She was telling me of the problems with her ex-husband. It wasn't clear that they were divorced, but it was clear that the relationship was in trouble, because she described him as a bad man.

There was some kind of flood at the restaurant and I rescued her by holding her hand and guiding her to the car. I asked a policeman, as to whether the flooding was due to a hurricane. She drove me to another restaurant, but said nothing to me. I could not think of anything to break the silence.

At the second restaurant she started flirting with a table of Hungarian gangsters, and ignored me.
Later in the dream there was an explosion at the gangsters hideout under a church. The police arrested the gangsters. The dream was set in the US. I decided to investigate. There was a lead from a bank account number.

It was a good dream, but it did mean I overslept.

Bad dreams at the start of 2013

I slept badly last night. I had a dream where I was running around Wuppertal trying to find a meeting room. I had been to the room before, but I kept getting lost. I couldn't even get the level correct. I went up and down stairs. There was a meeting going on and I should have been there. I met various physicists from Germany, but they were not so friendly to me.

The alarm went off. I woke up, but I found that my legs were too cramped for me to stand up and switch the alarm off. I crawled on my knees and hit the off switch.

Not a good start to the first day of the working year. With out writing this post I would have forgotten the dream by midday.

Bring the Jubilee

I have wanted to read Bring the Jubilee for a long time. This is an alternative history novel, where the South won the American civil war. It was interesting to read about how New York would have been, if the South had won. According the book, the North would have been very poor and there would have been racial problems.

Also there was some philosophy at the beginning of the book about free will. I had not thought about it before in the context of time travel changing future events.

At the end of the novel there is some time travel business and the future changes.

The Hidden fortress -- another reason to hate George Lucas

I spent part of new years day watching the hidden fortress by Akira Kurosawa. When Kurosawa died, the BBC showed many of his films. They were all great. I watched 7 Samurai in London and it was an amazing film -- even though it is long.

I really enjoyed the hidden fortress. Cameron and his friends have put class war back at the top of the political agenda. These  Kurosawa  are all about the peasants versus the Samurai.

According to Amazon George Lucas was influenced by the hidden fortress when he wrote the Star Wars films. I can sort of see the similarities, but this is a must better film.

void festival review

To be perfectly honest I don't listen to too much electronic music, however when I saw that there was an electronic music festival in Wuppertal on new years ever, it seem like a better option than watching some films on Itunes.

The evening started badly, because although I only had drunk a can of beer and a glass of wine, I didn't manage to get to the venue with out a piss. Luckily the  venue was close to the University and there is not much housing close. I felt bad though, a bit grubby start of the evening. When I walked into the venue there were a bunch of guys pissing after they got off the bus, so I felt more clean.

The festival claimed there were three floors, but there was only one big room and two smaller rooms. The big room was actually a sports arena. It took a while to figure out the token system for buying drinks.

I moved between the three floors and drank some beer. I enjoyed the music more than I thought and everyone was friendly. Suddenly it was 4:00 in the morning and it was time to go home. Perhaps I could have stayed until the end at 6:00. I certainly could not have gone to the after show party.