Twixt Here'nThere

A spasmodic, serendipitous, journal to show what's happening or not in England, Spain, Portugal and wherever else perchance to roam. Travel, languages, sailing, religion, sex and politics, living abroad, the Pacific Ocean including Easter Island. News from: 'Navasola', in the hills of Aracena at Fuenteheridos; Cabanas de Tavira in Portugal; the cool cool banks of the muddy Humber; and from Pedro (Coelho), Max (Happydays), Tigger, Georgina (my Georgi girl) and Theo and friends in the Great Wen.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Heston, London
Just a very quick note to say I'm still here, kicking quite hard, not yet packed before going to Stansted and Northern Spain (Asturias) early tomorrow. Looking forward to Butterflies and Moths course with Teresa Farino (iberian wildlife)

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Carnival
A blog in Italian from Mexico.
Que es el Sufismo?
Asana Index

Barton on Humber

A most difficult day. Finding that a public blog doesn't necessarily meet the need for a private diary. I can say hello to friends: Hi Russell for example. But email is far preferable for many purposes, as is the phone, even the wretched mobile phone occasionally (though on balance I think we'd be better off without them).

Letters are only rarely useful for personal communication and even less so with email as well as phones. As for 'texting', however useful in extreme circumstances that's only really an everyday option for somebody with a mental age of 11-16.

Still don't understand though, given the ease of use of webpages (even creating your own by hand) and email, why mobile phones have to be so illogical and impossibly difficult to use. (Apparently designed by an even more degenerate idiot than the one responsible for video recorders).

Still a little warmer in London than Faro - remarkable for 11.30 pm on a July night.

Trovercoats Dog coats/apparel
Name:Jane Aireton
Location:alderney, British Channel Islands, United Kingdom

Kalahari Lighthouse - a blog from London with some interest for 'Easter Island' by 'The Moai'.

Rapa Nui News

Monday, July 03, 2006

Barton on Humber

Still quite hot both North and South with London still just warmer than the Algarve.
Worked on outline itineraries for courses in Fuenteheridos and dug out Hindi dictionary for Vijay as only available source of Devanagari alphabet. Took rubbish to the skip and sanded filler on Sara Ann.
Basic:
अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ए ऐ ओ औ क ख ग घ च छ ज झ ट ठ ड ढ त थ द ध न ण ञ ऩ प फ ब भ म य य़ र ऋ ल ळ ऴ व श श् श्र स ष ह
Special:
ङ ऌ � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � (not every special character!)

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Zikpo
A blog from or about Tibet with tibetan music, news of the new train line into Lhasa ('the highest railway in the world') and the Chinese occupation.

Barton on Humber
Spent the day at Winteringham where the weather has been hot and sunny. Carried out repairs to Sara Ann and cleaned and tidied up Uldra. However, spent most of the time talking to Bill, Jake, Andy and Vijay, not having seen Andy for a month or two.

Saw Phil who is recovering somewhat gingerly from her operation. Had a chat with Keith about his trip to Holland and concerns about the handicapping system. Also spoke to Ted who had some good pictures of the trip including one with Peter talking to Norman in Volendam. Asked him to email me one if he can remember my email address. His is his sail number @ntlworld.com but can't remember the number (U5114?).

Arranged with Russell to visit Wednesday night rather than Thursday as need to be back in London by Thursday night. He is still in Scotland at present at Adrian and Heather's wedding. Must remember to ring Siobhan and Iñigo tomorrow morning.

Window of Minerva's Owl
Delightful 'next blog' from Chinese Malaysian in Kuala Lumpur, partly in Chinese (I think!) and partly in English - fascinating!

Saturday, July 01, 2006

The first of the month and time to see the blog as diary. Forced to drive to the station this morning by son missing bus, I decided to spend some time in the wonderful 'steeltown' of Scunthorpe, (famous for steel making, the man in the "Dog and Parrot" and being inadmissible to search engines or browsers with 'decency' settings), as I'd not been there for quite a while.

Repaired to the second-hand bookshop and bought a selection of maps of India, Portugal and Spain, including Seville.
"You've no idea how many people have been in and asked for something about Portugal today." This seems interesting although much later in the day I wonder if it has anything to do with England v. Portugal in the World Cup. I explain we have a flat in Portugal and wonder if I could advertise it there.
"I think I should ask for a discount"
"Well everything is 25% off."
I hadn't seen the posters saying 25% off whilst England is still in the World Cup. (So that turned out to be the last day of the sale.)

Then visited Tom Dennis cameras where I saw the same Panasonic digital camera in the window that the fellow photographing Kestrel chicks in the Leg o'Mutton reservoir in Barnes had been using. To my surprise it wasn't an SLR but there were digital SLR's by Canon and Nikon to see (one of the latter being the cheapest at about £400 including a zoom lens). But they're still too heavy and bulky for my liking. (Actually, the Kestrel chicks weren't in the reservoir, just in a hole in a tree by the reservoir).

Next to a 'high-street' jeweller's (Ernest Jones - diamond specialists) where had a long and interesting conversation with the very acceptably buxom blonde shop-assistant about the ins and outs of diamonds, certificates, origins and other stones including sapphires, blue, pink and otherwise, rubies and others. It would appear that having a ring custom designed and made might be two to three times as expensive and in one sense not such 'good value' as an 'off the shelf' piece. However, it might be of better quality and 'heavier', not to mention the priceless? value of uniqueness and individuality. A ring ('off the shelf') for £1500 came with its diamonds individually certificated.

Later I try another 'high-street' jeweller's (F. Hinds) and pursue the same questions with broadly similar results. This chain looks a little more 'downmarket' (more reasonable, better value?) and can also have rings made to order by other manufacturers (if that's not the wrong word).

Thence to my second (excluding bookshop) 'second-hand' shop of the day (The British Heart Foundation) where, not having bought a pair of shorts for three pounds in the hospice shop, I buy 'Disgracefully Yours' - about ladies growing old disgracefully; The Road Ahead by Bill Gates et al with a nice explanation of email (1994) (my spell-checker doesn't like 'email' and suggests 'Emil', 'mail' or 'Em-ail' (sic) - Cupertino as bad as Seattle); and a little pocket book of the sacred symbols of The (bloody) Maya. There bump (almost literally) into Dave the trusty mechanic from South Ferriby.

Walking past the bookshop again I decide to pop in and see if they have any books by Thor Heyerdahl.
"Who?"
"I think I'm going to fall over, you haven't heard of Thor Heyerdahl??!!"
"No"
"I looked on the internet about ten years ago", (shop-assistants then barely in secondary school), "and found about 50,000 references for Thor Heyerdahl - I guess today it'd be about 5 million".
"Well what does he write?"
"Difficult to explain."
I try to explain anthropology and "Kon-Tiki".
"How do you spell higher-darl?"
I spell it and it's typed into the database:
"Oh, we had a copy of Kon-Tiki but nothing now unless it's on the shelves and we don't know about it."
"Where would anything like that be?"
We settle on travel or biography but find nothing except I notice "Out of India" by Tim Pigott-Smith and I decide to buy that with the 25% discount so it's only three pounds. Perhaps I should have had a good look at the Taschen coffee-table erotica bearing in mind the 25% off but I didn't. So little time! And it's a hot day.

Returning home I have to turn round when I bump into the tail-end of the Winterton Show parade. At home I snack on fruit and fruit-loaf and spend a couple of hours reading The Shooting Gazette which son has bought 'for a hoot' but left in the car.
It's all fascinating stuff. A different world of 'conservation minded lovers of the wild' who spend their time blasting hundreds of pheasants, grouse, partridges, duck, deer, dove, wild boar, foxes, hares, zebra, wildebeest and impala - to name a few out of the sky or landscape.

It's a fascinating read with all sorts of interesting articles on conservation, guns, dogs, duck punts, arts and crafts and clearly the gentry, from a totally different perspective - but why the hell do they do it? Perhaps I should have bought that biography of Peter Scott in the BHF shop for my possible enlightenment since he, I believe, was once a keen 'sportsman' but gave up shooting in favour of conservation.

Finally to the club (no, not Piccadilly, but the Humber Yawl Club, founded 1883, in Winteringham) for a little chitter-chatter. Show Vijay my Hindi printouts from Google in Safari. Discover England lost but a Portugal-Brazil final is not possible as they would meet in the semi-final (later Brazil are beaten by France so it's an all European semi-final with Italy and Germany besides France and Portugal I think.) No, I'm not interested in football but let's hope Portugal win.

Then a conversation about engagement rings with Lynne. Will I/Won't I buy one before going to Spain and Georgi coming out - perhaps we buy one in Spain?

'Nough for nough (ough nough nought that again!) and at 1.15am time for bed - will backdate post later so it appears under 1st July and not the second.

Satyam Sivam Sundaram

A South Indian blog from Kentucky USA
This is almost as much fun as using the internet in 1996 with late night IRC and all that stuff before the "Great Commercialisation" took place.

Not sure why the nude image blog below (Thursday June 29th) appears in Safari but not in Firefox (Mac). Does it appear in any browser on a PC - any ideas anyone?

Anyway, thanks to Satyam Sivam Sundaram (a medical man) for the link to Picasa.

This gets curioser and curioser. I now find the Picasa page (Google) is for me currently in Hindi in Safari but in English in Firefox. It follows that Google must be gathering, from Safari, that I'm desirous of having my web pages in Hindi, but not from Firefox.