Destroy All Onions!

I’m still on holiday in Majorca. Here are some more holiday thoughts.

• There are lots of nice cycle paths along the roads here. But only on one side, so you’ve got a mini-road for cyclists going both directions alongside the road for cars. This works very well, except for when I reached a roundabout and the cycle path just suddenly ended at a kerb as the road builder didn’t know quite how to deal with the roundabout, since we were on the wrong side of the road. Fortunately that only happened once, as at other roundabouts the bikes had their own roundabout around the main one, effectively crossing the road approaches to the car roundabout. It seems to work. But it does put quite a lot of faith in drivers. But I guess we always do when we’re cycling. 
• Bikes are cool. The road bike I hired is comfortable, and quite nippy.
• Peter F Hamilton’s “The Reality Disjunction” is quite unlike any of his other books that I have read. It has a very unexpected plot, and at times is a little horrible. But he is definitely a really good writer – that much is certain. 
• Ants really are persistent blighters. Gangs of them keep breaking into the wardrobe where I have my pringles and drinks stashed. They can’t get into the pringles tube or bottles, but they just keep coming. Fortunately, so does the cleaner with her ant spray.
• I’m off cycling tomorrow morning with a group from the bike rental shop. I hope it goes well. I’m not used to cycling with a group, and it’s entirely possible that I’m not up to it. I guess I’ll soon find out.

So here I am, travelling again. The difference this time is that I chose the destination, and there is no work involved. I’ve done a lot of travelling this year, but this is the first actual holiday, and I have to say I’ve been looking forward to it for a while.

So, I’m in Puerto Pollensa, in the north of Majorca. It’s dark right now, but my balcony faces the sea, which is beautiful and blue. I’m also surrounded on most sides by mountains, which are cool, and the sky has been that amazing deep shade of blue you only get when you are wearing sunglasses on a lovely day.
Things to note so far

• rum and raisin ice cream is very nice, but I have no idea why rum and raisin is such a well-known combination.
• tutti frutti is also very good.
• Radio 4’s Bleak Expectations is a work of comic genius.
• Motion-X GPS software for the iPhone is very helpful, as it allows you to store a map for offline use. I used it hiking today, and it rocked.
• I haven’t any sun burn yet, which is excellent news.
• I finished my first book today, and Alistair Reynolds is a really good writer.
• The iPhone isn’t ideally suited to this blogging site. It does work, just not quite as intended. But I’ll just be happy it works.
• It’s really, really, really good to be away from work.

So, after a week of uncertainty, late on Friday night two weeks ago I was asked if I could travel to Singapore, to join the project team that I am working with. I had a surprisingly easy conversation with American Express travel, and I was booked to fly to the other side of the world on Sunday.

And now here I am on the otehr side of the world, 7 hours ahead of the UK.

So what’s it like?

Well, the office is pretty much like any other office. There and desks and chairs and computers and phones. I’m far from the window, so there’s no sense of the time of day, or weather. One useful feature of Singapore is that the plugs are the same as home, so there’s no mucking about with adaptors and all that nonsense. And I’m pretty much doing the same work that I’ve been doing, just sitting with the people who care about it.

The weather has been unexpectedly poor. Apparently it is meant to be warm, sunny and humid but instead there’s been a lot of rain, with flooding in places, due to tropical storms.

The hotel is very comfortable, but with a disappointing lack of free wi-fi. Singapore has an excellent public wi-fi network, but it’s only accessible to locals with a Singapore mobile number, which is a bit of an irritation. However, I am coping 😉

Right, that’s all for now. At least I finally posted it. This post was started over a week ago. I’ve been busy y’know.

It’s been a while since I’ve been here.

But I’ve been busy!

The start of the summer has become a really busy time since our church moved our two major summer clubs, the one for the primary school children and the one for the teenagers, from the end of the summer to the start. The logic is impeccable – if we do it at the start of the summer, we can use the schools to do some promotion the week before, and try and bring in some new faces.

But the other thing that has increased the workload for me is the success of our puppeting last year. That meant that we had to do it all over again. So not only was I committed to driving down to Craigavon to church every night for 2 weeks, but I was also up and down a lot for a fortnight before, writing schetches for Bella, Bert, Bindi and Buttercup.

On top of all that, work got very busy as well, with some big deadlines looming for a major contract that I am doing some wok for.

So, I got busy and stressed out for a month. But it was worth it – both of our clubs went well, and I would have to admit that I enjoyed them both.

And then, just as I was settling down to relax after all that, something unexpected happened. And that will come in the next post.

Just a quick note to say that yes, I am still here.

And I haven’t fixed the banner graphic yet.

But I just haven’t been in a blogging mood recently I guess.

Main news items are:

• I completed the Marie Curie Cycle Challenge last Saturday, on a beautiful sunny day, which was completely different to last year’s rain-soaked affair.
• Which made me realise that I haven’t been doing any running in preparation for the Lisburn 10k, which I plan to do next month, to raise money for ACTS ministries. So I ran just under 3 miles on Sunday, and just over 3 miles on Monday. Together they would make up the 10 kilometers, but I think I have to do the run in one day, disappointingly.
• But I have discovered the fantastic combo of iphone + runkeeper + bluetooth headphones for running, which gives to the stats on my run, and keeps me entertained wirelessly as I go, which is cool.
• And my magic sunglasses with the polaroid lenses have broken, so I have lost my superpower until the new pair arrive.
• Life has now more or less returned to normal after the trip to India.
• And I finally managed to see the end of Lost today.

As my trip to India went on, it became harder to get wi-fi acces, and I spent more of my time in the evenings working. So the blogging kind of stopped suddenly. But there were a few more things I had planned to write about. So I guess I’ll try and cover a few more of them, before I forget.

One of the things that impressed me while I was away was BBC World, the international news channel from the BBC. During the election, they showed the main BBC coverage, so I was able to watch the middle-of-the-night election results without being up in the middle of the night. I was in a hotel room in Calcutta when I saw the joyous news that Peter Robinson had lost his seat.

But good election coverage would be expected, and was just sharing content from BBC1. What impressed me more was a debate on whether Barack Obama what it took to bring about peace in the Middle East. It was a very balanced, and mainly very reasonable and reasoned discussion about a really complicated subject. I also managed to catch a Hard Talk interview about the capitalist system, how it’s working and its future.

Both of them were thought-provoking contributions on subjects that are not really mass-market, and the opposite of the kind of dumbed-down media we see so much of.

Well done the BBC.

It wasn’t easy to get up, but I did manage it. Breakfast in the Marriott is very nice, and I felt no need for lunch later in the day. The receptionist was also able to put together a bit of an itinerary of places for us to visit, and to arrange one of the hotel taxis to drive us about. It’s definitely warmer here in Pune than in Bangalore, but we remembered to put our sun cream on, and the heat wasn’t a problem.

We saw a splendid old fort, a very pleasant garden, an interesting museum, some more pretty things in craft shops, and got a bit of a feel for the city itself as we drove around.

I also managed to nearly kill Helen when I misunderstood that we were meant to be following our driver, and crossed the road instead. I was quite embarrassed that there was a bridge just a little further down, that we were meant to use. As Helen pointed out “Even the locals don’t cross the road here”. Oh well.

We headed back to the hotel, a bit tired out by the heat and walking, but I was determined to go to the gym, so I spent an hour there before dinner. It was a very nice gym, with very good equipment, and our meal was very good too. So the only downside so far is that the wifi in the rooms is very expensive, so there’ll be significant restrictions on the internet use over the next few days. Boo!!

On a completely different note, I had wondered if the new Doctor Who’s bow tie would start a new fashion craze. You can image how pleased I was to see Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York, wearing his bow tie to be interviewed about the Times Square incident today. Who’d have thought he would be a fan!

It was Saturday – a day off.

I was determined to get up early and go to the gym before breakfast, but instead I realised that what I actually needed to do was pack my case so that I was ready to check out of the hotel.

Then I went and did a little exploring of Bangalore. One highlight was the state parliament building, a beautiful ornate looking example of Indian architecture (pictures to follow). Ironically, opposite it was the high court, an example of classical architecture, and even painted red it looked kind of out-of-place opposite the parliament. Also interesting was the motto above the door of the parliament “Government work is God’s work”.  In the week that sees the election in the UK, I thought that was a little though provoking in some ways given how we tend to think about government and politicians.

Had a really good lunch in a well-known Bangalore eating place called the Empire, where the butter chicken and ghee rice were excellent, and proper examples of Indian food. My colleague was a little worried that I might not enjoy it, as he didn’t know Banaglore and didn’t know what it would be like, but it was very good.

Then on to the temple at Iskcon, a modern temple building that blends the classical styles of carvings, marble and gold with glass. Not knowing a great deal about Hinduism, I can’t say that I understood a great deal of it, but it was an interesting visit.

And then off to the airport to catch my flight up to Pune. My plane turned out to be propeller-driven, and a little bumpy in places, but we made good time and arrived early. And I read the first half of Thunderball, one of the James Bond books I brought with me.

My taxi driver met me at the airport, and a taxi ride later I was able to check in at the hotel, and get into my very welcoming bed.

I noticed a few things today.

• In the office, the guys have their blood group on their security pass. What made it more interesting was this article on the BBC News web site, implying that it might be for romantic or personnel reasons. But it turns out that it’s just for boring safety purposes.
• And talking of safety purposes, I also read on the BBC news pages that they are closing the road between the courts in Belfast. This came on the same day that we were prompted to update our emergency contact details in work. Looks like the threat assessment is increasing. Not good. Not that things are any better in India, with securitys issued today by the government warning of potential terrorism in Hyderabad and Kolkatta.
• But on a brigther note, there is a certain joy to the open plan office. It’s very large, with the desks in banks. Every time I get up to go to the exit, I feel like pac man, going through a maze! Haven’t found any ghosts or power-pills so far though. Except of course for the Mountain Dew, which I guess is as close to a power pill as I need.

My last day in the office in Bangalore – tomorrow is the weekend, and a day off. Hooray!

Today we managed to resolve the problem with the design I came out to work on, which gave a satisfying end to the week.

I also went out for tea with my development team. They wouldn’t let me pay, but at least I got a chance to thank them properly, instead of in snatched conversations in the office. We went to the Silver Metro, which wasn’t very far away but it took us a long time to get there as it was absolutely pouring with rain! The puddles were huge, the traffic was terrible, and I felt sorry for the folks struggling home on motorbikes and bikes in it.

We ate in the Silver Metro, a buffet restaurant which was themed on a railway station, with all the staff in dark blue uniforms with caps, and two fake trains on either side of the restaurant. But the food was very good. It had been pointed out to me that maybe the food I had eaten so far was mild because it had been tamed to western tastes in the hotel and the office. But tonight I ate out in a properly Indian place, and I still enojyed the meal. Admittedly I avoided eating anything red, in case it was too spicy, but that’s just typical playing it safe, and the point is I enjoyed the meal and the company.

Now I’ve finished writing my objectives (which I couldn’t do during working hours, as it is a mandatory part of the process that the objectives system must crash on the due that they have to be completed), so I am going to bed.

G’night All.