civilization

While I was holiday I finished reading "Civilization" by Kenneth Clark. This was the book for an old TV documentary that followed art and the growth of civilization.

One think I decided to note was that he didn't know where chivalry came from. In particular why the women had to be chase and worshiped.

When I was ordering some stuff ftrom Amazon.de, I needed to make up an order upto 20 Euro to get free shipping. I purchaded a copy of "A Xenophobe's guide to the Germans".

I am not going to discuss in detail evrey point, partly just in case there are any German readers and I don't want to upset anyone, but mostly because I have the feeling that I have read it before.

One interesting point was that the book claimed that many German toilets are designed for ease of studying a person's crap - for health reasons. And indead you can see that the toilet in my flat allows a careful examination of my shit. This will be important tomorrow after the two chillis I added to my stirfry. My stomach is burning, but I feel like a food hero,

Two Way split

I moved some books from a box in my office to my home. On top of a pile of books, I saw "Two Way split" by Allan Guthrie. This was a book I got from Waterstones for a pound.

The book is a thriller based on robbing an Edinburgh postoffice. There was a bit of mental illness thrown in. I enjoyed reading the book, but it was ultimately pointless. Still that is what I wanted.

The Morality of Murder

Umm, I have just had a pretty non-productive weekend. At least on Saturday, I had the excuse of having a minor hang over. Today I did some computer work, but it was mostly setting jobs off, and that is time consuming and not so interesting.

This evening I had meant to work on a project, but while reading the BBC technology papers I found a web site with videos of lectures from Universities. This is like the Utunes from the Itunes store, but I can watch them under linux.

I made the mistake of watching "The Morality of Murder" from a Harvard Professor. I only watched the first 10 minutes of the lecture. I thought the lecturer's techniques was fantastic. Now that the fees for the UK Universities are going up, we sometimes discuss what a person gets for the 25,000 dollars tution fee for a top US University. Now I know! I hope the lectures doens't degenerate into some justification for torture, such as waterboarding.

Watch it on Academic Earth

Friday night shopping

There is not much night life in Wuppertal, so I have to find my own entertainment. Last night I was shopping at my local supermarket. To amuse myself I look at the other people's shopping at the checkout and try to guess their life. The tall woman in front of me was buying a 10 inch pizza, a bottle of some sugary wine, some sweets, and some other stuff of little interest..

My guess was that she was single with an age close to 30. What did she think of me life? I was buying 3 cans of beer, a small bottle of vodka, and some fruit, but no pizza. Perhaps I should have smiled at her.

Malt Salt

One of my German colleagues was complaining about the completely normal British habit of putting vinegar on chips. My mouth started to water, as I thought how much more tasty the French fries, I was eating, would be with some vinegar on them.

I have poured something from a small jug onto my fries in Wuppertal. This turned out to be milk, so I was not best pleased. I could fill my hip flask with vinegar, but that would strike people as weird, and the flask would hold a year's supply of vinegar.

There is an article in today's Guardian about Malt Salt. Vinegar flavoured salt. Now that Amazon supply groceries, I did try to see if I could order sme from them, but no (not yet anyway).

Local Wuppertal beer

Like most towns in Germany, Wuppertal has a local brewey. When I was in the supermarket on Friday, I saw a bottle of Wupperhell bier.

Although I am not a beer expert. I don't have too high standards for beer. For example I have drunk Tennents and Carling when other beer was not available. I didn't really enjoy the Wupperhell beer as much as I wanted to.

Vindaloo

Quite often Europeans say to me "English food is shit". I am usually stunned to hear this, and I try to list all the great traditional English foods. However, my list starts and unfortunately ends with Roast Beef. In the UK I would mostly eat Indian, Chinese, or Greek food.

I spend a lof of time trying to find that strong chilli hit in Germany. A number of times I have ordered a Vindaloo curry in a restaurant in Germany. I know the correct German word "scharf", but still I always end up with a mild curry. When I order a Vindaloo in the UK, there are gasps of horror and worry. After two mouthfulls I can't feel my mouth, and I can't taste anything for a couple of days.

I keep hunting extra hot sauces in German supermarkets.

The origins of the second world war

I have been secretly reading "The origins of the second world war" by A J. P Taylor. This was a controversial books when it was published just after the second world war. Taylor discusses the origin of the second world war in terms of state craft. He doesn't just say the second world war happened because Hitler was evil.

This is not a revisionist history, because the fate of the Jews is discussed, but this had very little influence on the war. I would like to point out that I didn't read the book, because of the "German question", but because the people on the left who advocate ethical miltary intervention in conflicts, use the example of the second world war as a justification.

I now have a better idea of appeasement, and the issues with Austria, Checkoslovakia, and Poland.

sharp practice

I don't like shaving, but I don't want a beard either. It would be too itchy and probably ugly as well.

I have read the short book "sharp practice" by Anders Larsen. The book was a history of shaving and also a good manual on different techniques for shaving. Some of the sections on the history of shaving looked like they were copied of the Internet, but he told some good stories. I liked one where he fell asleep in a barber's chair, and the barber shaved all his hair off.

The book was particularly good for learning how to use a cut throat razor. The reality is that I don't have time to properly learn how to use one. Also, it would be a problem to take a cut throat razor in my hand luggage. Still I used to like looking at the cut throat razors in the shops around Manchester Piccadilly railway station.

I would look so cool shaving with a cut throat razor - much more of a man than now, when I shave with a wimpy Gillette Fusion. And I would save money, given the high cost of the fusion blades.

Wine

n the past, my understanding of wine was summed up by the phrase: "I would rather have a beer". I do know that I should have red wine with meat and white wine with fish, because this was covered in the film "From Russia with Love."

Occasionally I get invited to people's homes for a meal, so I bring a bottle of wine. I do find it stressful to chose the wine, because I have no idea, what is considered a good wine. In an attempt to educate myself, I ordered from Amazon the book "I don't much about wine, but I know what I like" by Simon Woods. The book gives a number of hints about wine. I don't want to become a wine snob. I now know that screw tops are not as bad as I thought, before reading the book.

Now I am tempted to get a case or two of wine from Amazon.

The secret ascension

I think I have read most of Philip K. Dick's novels. So how I am going to keep the paranoia going? Luckily Michael Bishop wrote "the secret ascension" that is written in the style of Philip K Dick and actually features Dick as a character from another reality. As you would expect there is an alternative reality, but also stories of normal folk, who are just trying to survive.

Photographs

For a long time I resisted taking photographs. I prefered to let the memory of the scene stay in my brain with no artificial reminders. It is also now almost impossible to walk around any tourirst site, because everyone is taking millions of pictures with their digital cameras, and you don't want to get in their way.

I now of course sometimes take pictures. They do brigten up my blog. My technique is to take a picture when I see something I like, or some scene I can weave into a blog posting. I don't do any planning of the visual aspects.

At my mum's house there was a book called "Creative photography" by David Kilpatrick from Marks and Spencer publishing. The book was full of tips and techniques and frankly an eye opener. I will think more about foregrounds and backgrounds. I have even looked at the instructions of my camera so that I could learn about the zoom.

Halloween

I have so much to do, but today I have been distracted. It is Halloween and Satan is tempting me. I miss the sound of fireworks, as children in the Uk get ready for Guy Faulkes day, by throwing fireworks at strangers.

I was planning on learning hypnosis today, but I am even too apathetic to do that.

The one downside of living by a forest is that it gets depressing when the trees lose their leaves. Ok, so perhaps the new colors are pretty, but it looks so bleak and barren when I look out and see through empty branches to a big road.

I have tried to read some uplifting poetry on the internet, but "Gacela of the Dark Death" by Federico García Lorca made me feel worse.

The Girl who played with Fire

A month ago I finished reading "The Girl who played with Fire" by Stieg Larsson. This is a very popular thriller based on the exploits of Lisabeth Salander .

Lisabeth had a hammer, a can of mace, and some condoms in her bag. Why can't I meet a chick like that? She likes computers too.

After I had told my German teacher that I liked the books by Stieg Larsson, she asked if I dreamed of blood. Luckily I didn't mention that I sometimes read the work by Marquis de Sade.

What is science education for ?

After the many and continuing crisis in the funding of physics in the UK, I have been reading more about science policy.

A couple of weeks ago I finished a books of essays called "What is science education for" . The book was a series of essays prompted by the introduction of some new science GCSE in schools. There was a tension between educating non-scientists and those who wanted to do science at a University level. I am now of the opinion that we need better science educated politicians.

All this worrying about particle physics in the UK will probably affect future relationships. If we are shopping for engagement rings, and my partner says "diamonds are a girl's best friend", I am likely to respond with "I fucking hate Diamond -- it keeps stealing money from particle physics" .

Failure

I have been trying to learn German again. It turned out that there was a free lunch time course at the University. So for two hour and half seesions per week, I try to master Deutsch. The course is a well hidden secret, because there are two students from chemistry and three people from our physics research group in the class.

At the end of the last semester the class was tested for the A2 level. Someone in the EU has standardized the tests for different languages. To cut a long story short. I failed the test. I was the only person who failed. I did all the homeworks and studied for the exam. The exam was actually an order of magnitude harder than the homeworks. Two days after the exam, I went to a meeting in Graz, so I was also writing a talk, and I couldn't do a last minute push.

Anyway, excuses, excuses. So it is just me and the bottle tonight, so time for some shots.....

Second day in Sarajevo

Frankly I had seen most of the old town on the first day of my visit to Sarajevo. So on the second day, I decided to visit a museum. There were two museums close to the railway station.

I should have taken a tram, but it was such a hassle to buy a ticket. Anyway I walked by the tram lines that also followed the river. It was a bit of a boring walk with standard buildings, after I left the old town area. It started to rain.

I wasn't entirely sure that I was going in the correct direction, so I was happy to see signs for the museums. The signs seem to point over the over the river, so over there I trudged in the miserable rain. But then there were no more signs and the area looked residential. So back over the river I went, and I continued my journey to the train station.

I finally did see the museums. I chose to go into the one about the history of the Sarajevo. On a web page somewhere I had read that the was some dispute as to who pays for the museums. ands indeed it did seem slightly run down. The entrance was run by a family.

Everything was in a one big room. There was a lot of historical stuff that showed that Bosnia was a separate country with a long history. This is a big deal, because both Serbia and Croatia have recently wanted to swallow up Bosnia. Before this trip I was slightly cynical about whether Bosnia was a separate nation (based on no facts I might add). I was more convinced by the museum and additional reading that I did. The museum also had exhibits about the siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995. This was really tough on people of Sarajevo. One of perhaps many complaints of them was was that there was an arms embargo, but that only stopped the countries that didn't have large stock piles, such as Bosnia. (There was a Star Trek episode that explained this to me). There were some home made guns on display.

Outside the museum there was kind of small fair. There was a stage with traditional singing, and people doing various fun sporting activities, such as playing table tennis. The rain had stopped so people were smiling. Also there were people in military uniforms teaching the kids to punch pads and use padded sticks. I wanted to do some boxing as well, but I only knew how to say "thank you" in Bosnian, and not "I want to punch my fist through people's heads".

The museums were near the American embassy. There was some kind of fair being set up, sponsored by Redbull, involving tram tracks. I had some chips and a beer at a restaurant near the railway station, and then walked back to the old town.

Stray dogs and cats

There were a lot of stray dogs and cats in Sarajevo. As far as I can tell in Wuppertal, most people have about 3 dogs each, unless they work in the theory group, when they own 2 cats. I was shocked to see animals on their own in Sarajevo, especially given how fast the cars drive. To prove this I show a picture of cat. I think the cat wanted to be friend (if I ad food of course).

Apple

I was walking around Sarajevo. I saw another interesting building. In the window I saw the apple log. This most be the coolest Apple store in the world.