Bluelemur.org.uk

The missus has blogged about last weekend already, but I thought I’d add a few bits myself (and I’ve just done some upgrading on the software that runs this blog, so I want to test it).

It was a fairly fab weekend all round, seeing friends, doing a few touristy bits, etc. but one or two things were especially good.

Saturday morning we went to the British Library to meet friends and visit the Maps exhibition. There were lots of interesting maps there, although unfortunately they only had a reproduction of the famous Hereford Mappa Mundi, not the original.
Just upstairs from that, though, was something even better – the permanent Treasures of the British Library exhibition. This is an amazing display of lots of famous books and documents. Amongst them were a surviving copy of the Magna Carta, drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, original manuscripts of Lewis Carroll, and rough handwritten Beatles lyrics, including those to ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ scribbled on the back of a birthday card sent to John Lennon’s son. The highlight for me was one of the diaries of Scott of the Antarctic, open at the page where he recorded the last words of Captain Oates. Seeing it actually written in Scott’s own hand was immensely powerful and moving.

Both these exhibitions were free, but most people probably don’t realise they’re there. The Treasures exhibition in particular is one that everybody should go and see, highly recommended.

In the afternoon we went to be tourists at HMS Belfast. I went there years ago with my family, but it was interesting to go again and look round it all.

The main point of going to London was to see Penn & Teller, doing their first show in the UK for 16 years. I’ve wanted to see them for a while, so when I heard they were coming over I had to get tickets. It was a brilliant evening, well worth the trip down there. I enjoyed pretty much all of it, but some of my favourite bits just had Teller on his own, such as the Shadows Illusion, or the one with the goldfish. There’s something beautiful about those that sets them apart from the more ‘showbiz’ parts where Penn is doing the talking.

The one thing we didn’t get to see that I would have liked to was the Ray Harryhausen Exhibition at the London Film Museum. That’s on until next June though, so we should have time to go back for it.

Five years ago today, I posted the following list entitled “Ten things I want to do in the next five years”. They were all perfectly achievable things, and I’ve had more than enough time to do them, but I haven’t been all that successful. I’ve noted how far I got with each one.

1 Run the London Marathon – No. Done a couple of half marathons, but not a full one, in London or anywhere else
2 Make some money from writing – No. Not done anything much towards this.
3 Take up martial arts – Yes. I did this for a couple of years, although I’ve let it slide again now.
4 Learn at least the basics of another language – Yes (kinda). I tried to learn Spanish again for my Peru trip, not greatly successfully. Am now doing an evening class in Russian, which might have more success.
5 Make some money from drawing/painting – No. Done very little in the way of drawing and painting.
6 Brew my own beer – No. This should have been an easy one too. Just never got round to it.
7 Visit at least three other countries – Yes. Bearing in mind that I’d never been on an aeroplane when I originally posted this list, I’ve been to six different countries on four continents since then.
8 Pass a piano grade or two – No. Not played the piano all that much.
9 Do some sort of Theological study – No.
10 Win a prize in the Chester Zoo photography competition – Yes. This was the one I thought would be most difficult, but it was the first I achieved. Second prize in the digital category a few years back.

So that’s four out of ten. Which is pretty pathetic really. The ones I haven’t done are mostly due to laziness. I tend to be like this a lot, having loads of big ideas about what I want to do, but never actually getting around to doing anything about it. That was partly why I posted the list in the first place, to make myself do new and interesting things. Didn’t really work though.

Moving on from this, I’ve made more lists for myself.
One is things I want to achieve this year.
Another is things I want to do by 2011 (when I’ll be 30).
And the last is things I want to do by 2021 (when I’ll be 40).

Maybe after that I’ll write a mid-life crisis list for myself.

Anyway, I’m not posting these lists up (because some of the things on them are rather silly and not necessarily possible) but I’ll note on here if I manage to achieve any of them. Some items have been carried over from the list above, while others are new. I’ve tried to get themes running through, so if I want to do something by the time I’m 40, I’ve put an interim target in for when I’m 30, and an initial one for this year, to get me moving. And I’m checking in on the lists every so often and noting what I need to do next. I’m hoping that working to a number of deadlines like that will make it easier and more achievable.

We’ll see how I get on.

I went down to London on Sunday to watch the British leg of the Red Bull Air Race. Was well worth it, fantastic flying displays from some of the top aerobatics pilots in the world. I only had a little compact camera with me, but managed to get a few photos:

Knife-edge through the gate. Those inflatable pylons are about 20 metres high, and the pilot’s head has to pass below the top of it to count.

Through the last of the chicane

Kirby Chambliss, the eventual winner, turning round at the far end of the track, with a lot of G-force!

I only realised the other day that the next leg is in Budapest on the 19th and 20th August. Annoyingly, I’m going to be in Budapest from the 13th to the 18th, and if I’d known sooner I could have stayed an extra couple of days. Will hopefully spot them practicing though.

Also in London, I went to the Spar shop just off Oxford Street, where they sell Tim Hortons coffee and doughnuts, the first I’ve had in over a year. I became a big fan when I lived in Canada, and usually went a few times a week. It’s pretty much a part of Canadian culture, but there’s hardly anywhere you can get it outside of North America, and that’s one of the few places in the UK. Standing there with coffee in one hand and a Boston Cream doughnut in the other actually made me feel quite emotional. Sad, I know…

Back in June I went to Peru for three weeks on a group tour with Exodus. I’ve finally got around to putting a selection of my photos on Flickr: Peru Photos

Particular highlights for me were:

The Nazca Lines

Andean Condors

Eating Guinea Pig!

The Inca Trail

Machu Picchu

And of course, the wonderful group of people I went with, none of whom I knew beforehand

It’s a great country, friendly people, amazing scenery. I’d definitely recommend a visit.

Neil Gaiman complained in his blog that it was difficult to find your way around the convention hotel. Evidentally, other people agreed:

I went to a few other good talks and panels, plus I caught the second half of the show by comedian and musician Mitch Benn. He was excellent, and very funny. Some of the stuff he did had a geek/sci-fi theme, so it was the right audience for it. And Monday night I spent drinking far too much in the real ale bar with other random people.

It was a good weekend (well, two days), and I’m definitely planning to go again next year, especially as it’ll be just down the road from me in Bradford.

Multi-award winning author and all-round nice bloke Neil Gaiman giving a talk at the Orbital Eastercon. He’s possibly my favourite author, so he was one of the main reasons I came to this (although it’s pretty good, I’ll probably go next year even though he won’t be there). He read a short story, called “Orange”, and part of the first chapter of “The Graveyard Book”, which he’s just finishing off at the moment. Very cool.

I’ve also been to a panel on “Writing the Near Future”, where some authors discussed the problems of trying to predict developments that will probably be proved true or false within their lifetimes. Interesting stuff, went into quite a few different areas. Robots seem to be the answer to most things…

I’m at the Orbital Eastercon, a science-fiction convention in London. Just been to a talk by author Charles Stross:

It was a really interesting overview of various forms of technology, where they seem to be going over the next few years, and the implications of that for us. He’s obviously a really knowledgeable guy, who’s done a lot of research on a lot of different subjects. Made me think quite a bit about some areas I’d not considered before, as well as giving me a few ideas of stuff I want to look into further.

(not a great photo though, I was a bit far back, so I took one of the video projection instead)

I’ve just been to see Jonathan Coulton playing live in London, and by the miracles of modern technology I’m now posting this from my mini-laptop on the train back up to Leeds.

For those who don’t know, he’s an American singer/songwriter who’s fairly well known on the internet, and he releases most of his work through his website rather than via traditional methods. See his Wikipedia entry for more info on him.

This was his first concert in Europe, and all 400-odd tickets sold out easily. The atmosphere was possibly the best I’ve ever experienced at a gig, everyone seemed to know most of the words even though these songs have never been in the charts, rarely get played on the radio, and are about such obscure subjects as Mandelbrot fractal patterns, zombies who want to eat your brains, or a Christmas letter from people imprisoned on an asteroid by robots. Oh yeah, it was also by far the geekiest concert audience I’ve ever seen. He seemed taken aback at how well known his music actually is, and hadn’t expected to get more than 100 there, never mind a sellout crowd of die-hard fans.

He played my favourite, Drinking With You, as well as Code Monkey, Re: Your Brains, and the ending song from the cult game Portal. And loads more. Absolutely brilliant, I had a great time.

Videos will follow, as soon as I get chance to edit them together a bit.

I’ve been on a bit of a film watching binge since I joined LoveFilm a couple of weeks ago. They’re an online DVD rental company, they post discs out to you, and you send them back when you’ve finished. They claim to have every DVD legally available for rental in the UK, so they’ve got a fairly big selection.

So far I’ve watched:
Spirited Away – beautiful Japanese anime cartoon directed by Miyazaki.
Serenity – the Joss Whedon movie adaptation of his cancelled sci-fi series Firefly. In which River Tam Beats Up Everyone.
The Princess Bride – cult classic fantasy-adventure-romance-comedy film. I watched it twice in one weekend.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl – first of the trilogy, so I’ll have to work my way through the others now.

These were all things any self-respecting geek should have watched years ago. I’ve never really watched many films, so I’m now trying to catch up. Think I’ve got at least six months’ worth on my rental list already.

But yes, LoveFilm. Very impressed with them so far, cool stuff.

As is traditional in February, I need to have another look at the list I made a few years back and see how I’m getting on. It’s not looking good, with a year to go.

Ten things I want to do in the next five years:

1 Run the London Marathon – Nope, done a half marathon, but that’s it. Not looking likely, given that my knees don’t like me running much now.
2 Make some money from writing – Nope, but am doing a distance learning course in freelance journalism, so is still possible.
3 Take up martial arts – Done, have done Taijutsu and Krav Maga. And still am, when I get round to going again.
4 Learn at least the basics of another language – Not really, but am still attempting to learn Spanish. Veeeery slowly.
5 Make some money from drawing/painting – Nope
6 Brew my own beer – Nope, this should be the easy one as it just requires buying things and doing it.
7 Visit at least three other countries – Been to the Netherlands and Malawi, and then spent six months in Canada and the US. Definitely done.
8 Pass a piano grade or two – Nope
9 Do some sort of Theological study – Nope
10 Win a prize in the Chester Zoo photography competition – Done, second prize in the digital category for 2004. I thought this would be the hardest, but it was the first one I did.

Another year left, then I draw up a whole new five year list (which may include some from this one that I don’t manage to complete).