COUNTDOWN

It's now only about 10 days until I leave for China. 1 of my Chinese colleagues has gone to London to meet with her research partner and the other professor leaves for London on Friday -- I won't see them now until I meet them at Nankai.
Prof Guan hosted a farewell meal at the Chung Ying restaurant in Birmingham (one of the oldest and, supposedly, best in the UK) which was very enjoyable -- particularly after we found that the school of Public Policy wasn't part of the event, just a coincidence!

I hope my colleagues have safe journeys home - I'm looking forward to seeing them again!

So, what happened to the weather?

Something strange has happened!
Traditionally, the August bank holiday weekend is grey and wet. So far it's been (almost) uninterrupted sunshine and decent temperatures! Still it's really nice to be able to sit in the garden!

Now I feel Guilty!

As soon as I said 'I Love Skype', most of the system crashed -- the logon software has a problem so most of the world can't use it! I know it's not my fault really, but you can't help but wonder...

I love SKYPE! --- I hate wireless networks!

I think Skype's wonderful! Today I've spoken to friends and colleagues on three continents and been able to see them too!

I've been a computerphile for a long time now, from the 'middle ages' of computers where you had to learn strange languages (CPM+ was ny favourite) to make it all happen. I thought I was pretty good at using modern PCs, but connecting a wireless ADSL router to my ISP has almost driven me insane -- it would really have helped if Tiscali had made it obvious where I could find the configuration info (to be fair, their tech support was pretty good). Anyway, it seems to be up and running and even my PDA can see it -- what fun!

Chinese Visitors to the Folk Club

Traditional English folk song clubs really have their roots in the folk revival of the 1960s and are a particularly idiosyncratic part of English life. They enjoyed a brief popularity and then returned to their obscurity.

I invited my Chinese collegues from Nankai University to come along to the folk club that I help to run, and I was delighted when they sang! The club members thought that they were fantastic! (So did I!)

Chateau Pichon-Longueville (again)

Last month I said that this was where I'd most like to be. We had dinner with a friend last Saturday. He produced a bottle of this Chateu's wine from 1980! Sadly, it was past its best, but still had colour and some fruit. How generous (and what a shame we didn't drink it 10 years ago!).

The picture is the public tasting room at the chateau.

I was just checking ...

I was looking for a piece of software to test my wireless mouse. I didn't find it, but I found this interesting way of testing your personal political called THE POLITICAL COMPASS. I found that it was (surprisingly?) accurate for my position. Why not try it and let me know what you found?

My hands are too big (or why I hate cars)!

One of the headlight bulbs on my car failed. It turns out that they're a bit unusual, so I had to mail order them (the Toyota garage was horrifically expensive) - when they finally arrived (ordered the wrong ones first) I just had to fit them. There was a LOT of swearing! I did (finally) get it done, but it would have been so much easier if I'd had little hands!

Back to work!

So, home from the south of France. Missed the bad weather and the terrorist attacks.

Back to University today (quite nice to have been missed) for lots of meetings, but especially pleased to be meeting with 'my' Chinese students. It's nice to find such enthusiasm.

BIG IT problems for most of the day -- it isn't very nice to find that your network access has been deleted while you were away, but all sorted now.


Marseille is a wonderful, vibrant city - rather like Birmingham, but by the sea. Learnt a lot about tourist retaurants as well (and how to avoid them).

FOOD!

I like good food! We have some academics from Tianjin in China working in the Institute at the moment. I took them to lunch at the staff restaurant yesterday for (possibly) one of the worst meals of my life. I guess they'll do the same for me when I visit them?

It irritates me that England has good ingredients and some decent chefs and STILL manages to serve food that is only borderline edible.