food and travel

One problem with going to places where I don't speak the language is that I always worry that I will not be understood enough to buy food, so I end up starving to death. Once i have got that first meal, then I know i will live. i usually stand in front of the counter like a sad stray dog *clutchng a 20 euro note) and point. The servers take pity and a bowl of hot food comes my way. In Istanbul on the bus ride to my hotel i saw all those kebab shops. I knew was in heaven and that I would certainly not starve. After 2 straight days of kebabs, I tried some fish today. Yet another country where they don't serve chilli source with kebabs. I am off to try some more raki.

carpets

I have had a pleasent day wondering around some of the sites in Istanbul. I will post more about this later. A slight pain are the number of people trying to sell me carpets. i am minding my own business totally lost just trying to find something that is usually in front of me. Then someone will kindly help, and the start asking "where are you from?" The conversation will then end up them wanting to give me their card for a shop that sells carpets. This is not a big deal, but I have learnt many useful things. When I say I am living in Glasgow they immediatley say "Glasgow Rangers" and laugh. This tells me that not many people from Glasgow visit Istanbul, because any celtic fan would make sure they never say "Glasgow rangers" with a smile ever again. Also, when someone asked about the capital of Scotland, and I said "Edinburgh", he didn't look convinced that the city existed. I assume he didn't know of any famous football teams from Edinburgh. I decided not to tell him that Edinburgh is famous for "Trainspotting", "Rebus2, and "Dr Jykll and mr Hyde": junkies, drunks and murderers, but I doubted that would have helped, I made the mistake of saying one time "that I don't like carpets". As he said what does that mean.

Luton

I stayed in the easyjet hotel in Luton. It was cheap and very convenient for the train and airport. However, did they have to paint it so orange? I couldn't get any sleep, becaue of the glow from the walls.

Istanbul

I can't help feeling that God was against this holiday in istanbul. First off two days before I left there was a big bomb in Istanbull. They didn't hit the tourist areas. Since we get bombs in London and flaming cars going into Glasgow airport, it didn't make much difference. There seemed to be many other problems that seemed designed to stop me. As I got on the bus to go to the railway station, some kind spat on me by mistake. At the railway station they sold me a ticket to Newton instead of Luton. I didn't look at the ticket until I nearly got on the train. The bus driver from Luton to Luton airport didn't know the route. The people on the bus had to tell one time he was going the wrong way, I flew from Luton via Easyjet. One hour into the journey, the pilot reported that one passenger didn't have anough oxgyen to make it to Istanbul, so we had to turn back to Luton. I was all for letting the guy take his chances, but company rules are company rules. So instead of getting to Istanbul at 16:00 I was there at 19:00. I missed my ride to the hotel. So I got a shuttle with another company. They dropped me at the wrong hotel (with a similar name). Luckily it was close to te hotel I was meant to be at. To top it all, there was no minibar in the room. Just en empty fridge. So when I meet the devil in hell after some big bombing, he will no doubt say "we did try to warn you off, but you missed the omens. We don't want your whining in hell."

The highway men

I have just finished reading "the highway men" by Ken MacLeod. This is short novel set in a postwar Scotland. The dialogue and descriptions of the green bits of Scotland were good. I probably would never have found this book with out the buying choices made by the clever librarians at Hillhead library. (Perhaps they will excuse the fine now).

Parliament of whores

I find that as I get older I am definitely getting more right wing. I have just finished reading "Parliament of whores" by P.J. O'Rourke. O'Rourke is a right wing humorist and journalist. The book is about the American politics around the early 90s. O'Rourke is not a fan of government, particularly of welfare, although he seems happy enough with the military.

I sit in a hotel room in Marseilles. I am on the way to a conference in a nearby city. Easy-jet run a route from from Glasgow to Marseilles and this turned out the easiest way to go the conference. About the only research I did for visiting Marseilles was watching the film French Connection II sometime ago. I should go out and order Jack Daniels at a bar like Popeye did in the film. I got a hotel near the port area. It is a very civilized city, although there do seem to be some gangster types wondering about. The weather is not and sunny, certainly much better than Glasgow, where it was threatening to rain almost all the time. The women here are beautiful and sexy. I am probably not used to seeing a woman not wearing a thick rain coat, but I felt things in my loin stirring as I wondered around the busy streets. I was amused to see a Durex machines on the side of buildings. They would get destroyed in the UK. Why have some pleasurable sex when you can have more fun smashing a box of metal up? I still seem to be on heat. There are a lot of nice cafes around here, so I am not sure why I had dinner in a kebab shop. The French take their food very seriously. I got chips with the meat in my kebab. Classy. The hotel has decorated each hotel room in the theme of a different painter. I am in room for Paul Gauguin. Needless I can only afford to stay here for one night.

The quark machines

I am totally stressed out with upcoming conferences, but somehow I managed to find time to read "The quark machines how Europe fought the particle physics war" by Gordon Fraser. The book contained an account of the building of the various particle accelerators around the world. Perhaps I should have known some of this stuff. I now know who John Adams is. Some HEP people would be shocked that I didn't know that before. The reason I read this book so fast was because it is almost written like a thriller as one country goes ahead, and then another catches up. I didn't realise the long history of the LHC, that they even were planning to start it 10 years ago. It is interesting to reread about what happened with the SSC when there are current problems with particle physics in the US and UK.

The hacker and the ants

I have so much too do, but somehow last night I decided that rather than do work, I would finish of reading "The hacker and the ants" by Rudy Rucker. I can't be bothered explaining the plot, but it involved writing software for robots in various Silicon Valley start ups. Some quotes

"I sighed heavily. Look Ben I want to use a real language, not a LISP language. A language with documentation and support would be nice too, a language faminar to more than thirteen Taiwanese graduate students? Can I keep woking with SuperC?"

(There was a high level language to program the robots in one of the companys he worked at, that he started to like a bit later). Title of chapter seven "Bloodlust hacking frenzy". Another quote

"Even though Ross and I were still exchanging scientific information, we were at the same time in the throes of a flame war. But it didn't really matter. As Roger Coolridge had once told me, if you are a serious hacker you don't let flames bother you. Instead you grow thick scales."

Anyway the novel has a subplot of him breaking up with how wife that was not so interesting as the computer science stuff. Rucker has had an interesting career. He started by getting a PhD in maths. Then he wrote many Science fiction novels. After 10 years of that he got a job a University teaching computer science, with out an experience in programming. He then converted him self into c++/java hacker. (This explains some of his rants against LISP in his book, that surprised me for a Professor in a computer science department). Anyway I will checkout more work by Rudy Rucker. It looks like some of his work is infected by the hippie virus, but that is just the "pot talking" -- the hacker maths background seems sound.

Krav Maga

I borrowed "Krav Maga" by David Kahn from Hillhead library. Krava Maga is a martial art developed for the Israeli self defense forces. The book emphasized punches from boxing and low kicks. There was a small amount of work on grappling. I thought that some of the blocks looked a bit weird and slow. It seemed fairly practical, but I guess a more experienced eye would see faults in the technique.

the hulk

I am really tired and burn out at the moment. A week's holiday would sort me out, but I don't have time for a vacation until mid July. So I wonder around like some zombie and yawn a lot. So that is my excuse for going to see the latest Hulk movie last night. The first hulk movie gets dissed a lot for being too art house, but I think I enjoyed it more than the latest one. In the latest Hulk film there is a fight between the hulk and an artificially engineered soldier. I think that this is some kind of metaphor for the fight between physics and biology. The hulk stands for physics, because he has been injured by good clean honest gamma radiation. The nasty soldier was infected by some kind of nasty biological sh*t. My cousin's son put me onto a book called "the hero with a thousand faces". This book was meant to influence George Lucas when he wrote the original star wars movies. The idea in the book was that the heroes quest is really a quest for improvement of an individual's mental health. Anyway perhaps I shouldn't have jumped up and shouted "take that you mother fu*cking biologists for stealing our grant money" when the hulk trashed the super-soldier in the cinema.

Melt Banana

I have just been to see "Melt Banana" play at the Oran Mor, a venue a mere twenty minutes walk from where I live. Melt Banana are a famous Japanese hard core punk band. The lead singer is female. Among the many crimes against humanity that George Bush has committed, the trivialization of the the word awesome, may perhaps be the smallest one. Anyway melt Banana were totally awesome tonight. The lead singer had a huge amount of charisma. She wore a white sweatshirt and moved in a slow controlled way. The last tour of the band in the UK seemed to do 20 gigs in 21 days. Outside the Oran Mor I saw a small blue minivan, those guys are really hard core. I had been to see the band play before. John Peel used to champion them. He read out a pub they were meant to be playing at in Liverpool. I went there, but the gig had been moved to another pub. When I got to the new pub, the place was packed. At some stage the bar staff decided to not serve any more drinks. They would pull pints and then vanish. I think they had a secret stash of regular drinkers who had to be watered first. The pub was so full of people I could only see a little bit of black hair jumping up and down. All the people who used to go to punk shows seemed to be there.

diary

Chuck Palahnick is one sick f*ck. I just finished reading his novel "diary". Frankly the book is almost too bizzare for me to explain the plot. It does involve a failed painter, starting painting again. It was a clever book moved went along at a fast place. I don't think that Chuck teaches writing, so the book didn't contain any Profs. It is not clear how they could film this book, but then that was true of his book "fight club" and that turned out to be a great f

managing humans

A couple of week's ago I read "managing humans" by Michael Lopp. This is a great book about managing software projects. It is essentially a bunch of stories, since I believe the book started out some BLOG entries. There is extremely useful advice for getting the most out of a meeting. Also there is the "Monday morning freakout". I was happy to learn that I can now read a book, listen to music, an-ed watch TV at the same time because this is just NADD (nerd attention deficiency disorder). I am no longer alone. It has a useful glossary. I was amused to see his definition of collaboration, as "a word used to convince you to work with people you would rather avoid."

unleash the warrior within

I finished reading "unleash the warrior within". This is a self help book based on the author's experience of being a navy SEAL for ten years Even though I have a pessimistic and fatalistic attitude to life, I still like reading self help books. It is not so clear to me that insight gained fighting in the snow is going to help me in civvy street. I guess I should be more focussed. Perhaps less time writing blog entries and more time doing physics calculations.

father's day

I was amused to see what Tesco was selling for father's day: beer and car stuff. I still feel guilty that when I was a child I bought my mum, some clothes pegs for mother's day. I wish I could remember her response. If I was an emotional kind of person, father's day would make me think of why I don't have children. I can imagine my son giving a me present, such as something I really want, such a baseball bat. "What is the ball for?" "I thought we could play in park.". "No, boring", as I politely toss the ball out of the window. I would test the bat by hitting the door frame. "So son, let's go out. I want to teach you about responsible vengeance." For Father's day I got myself a Duvel glass. Duvel is a strong Belgium beer. I look so classy with my Duvel glass full of golden beer, not like a sad TV drinker in any way at all. Tesco have discounted the beer by 20%. I once payed five pounds for a bottle of Duvel in London town. Just another reason not to go further south than Manchester.

On Friday

I had just got to the bottom of the hill on Queen Margret drive, when I saw a white van for a cleaning company. A cloud of black soot jumped out of the exhaust and headed for me. I turned my head to the left and saw the crossroads pub has long thing stain glass windows. The wind dispersed the dirty cloud, so I continued on. Further on I saw a house with a long set of steps leading to an door. As I looked up the door slowly closed.

butthole surfers - a second chance

People always seem to complain when bands reform and start touring again. When I was maybe 19 the last sane boyfriend my sister went out with suggested that since the butthole surfers were playing in Manchester we should go seem them. At that time I didn't go out to gigs much, so I didn't bother to go. I regretted not seeing them play. If I can get my act together, I can make this good, since the butthole surfers are playing Glasgow next month.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night at the Grosvner cinema in the West End of Glasgow. I am wondering around in haze of work stress mixed up with a slight dash of depression, with a topping of pure rage, so I almost had the shakes when I was buying the ticket for the film. There is a great line in Leonard Cohen song that goes something like "you stumble into the movie house to take away the pain." One of the friendly ticket sellers was trying to be helpful by showing me the seat number on the ticket, but he must of thought I was in a bad way, if couldn't find the word seat on a piece of paper. I did have enough energy to buy a beer for the film and limp to my seat. I enjoyed the film. It didn't suck and it passed the time.

a week in Berlin

There was aa quote from a famous America author that no matter where you travel you are still the same odious boring person. This quote haunts me as I spent the last week in Berlin. Somehow this was not so full of adventure as perhaps it should have been. I am sure there was a lot of decadence in Berlin, but it moves to a too a techno beat for my indie heart. I was also staying in Zeuthen. It took a while to get into the center via the S-Bahn. Somehow getting to Zeuthen involved changing trains even though there was one line. Any way I was actually there to work at DESY Zeuthen. Cat power was playing Berlin one of the nights I was there, but the show was sold out. It was incredibly hot in Berlin, I had to keep drinking to keep from evaporating. There is a nice lake at Zeuthen and lots of big trees. On the Friday there was a barbecue by the lake. There wasn't much cutlery, so they used a few pocket knives. I was happy I didn't bring one of knives, because I don't have useful things on it such a bottle opener, but it does have a single blade and a good solid lock to keep the blade from closing on the fingers. After lunch we walked to the edge of the lake and stared at it. I foolishly mentioned that it was too peaceful in Zeuthen for me. I need to work in a city where I can get mugged or murdered -- just to get that creative edge. Unfortunately just as I left Glasgow, there was a terrible murder at an Italian restaurant that our work group used to go to a lot on Friday lunch time. A new manager was knifed to death late at night. She may have served and perhaps even flirted with members of our group (but not me). When I was thinking of writing this, I was worried that the police might read this blog entry. Then they would come around and interview me. I had a great alibi ready in that I don't really like Italian food. Although I did like the mussels at this particular restaurant. They have found the people who did this (ok people have been arrested). One was a Spanish waiter who used to work at the same restaurant. We think he may have served us too. The guy was very jolly and used to complain that we didn't talk enough. Friendly people get on my nerves, but perhaps I should have not told the manager that. The butterfly effect and all that. Of course if the waiter I am thinking of is a different person to the one being prosecuted than I am going to crap myself if he serves us again. I will be able to show my martial arts skills to my work colleagues by going to the toilet and sneaking out the window to go the subway shop on Byers Rd to get a sandwich I could safely eat at my desk. Anyway the woman murdered was 25 and clearly didn't deserve that terrible end to her young life.