Category Archives: Uncategorized

Tweets on 2008-05-17

  • Updating next year’s municipal diary on my phone with the help of google calendar and goosync. Hopefully. #
  • Dismayed to discover there’s no Sunday mail collection anywhere in Nottingham. #
  • Looking at next week’s forecast and zipping fleece back into raincoat. #
  • @rfenwick there’s a carrot shortage? I have a bag in the fridge that are fine if you cut the slimey bits off. #
  • Establishing through the medium of text message that I have a bigger tummy than my full-term sister-in-law. Eek. #

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Tweets on 2008-05-15

  • Finished leafleting nearly 400 terraced houses but defering cake celebration to lunch as I have a committee this afternoon. #
  • Aha – that "What is love? (baby don’t hurt me)" church sign now reads "Love is patient." I know where it’s going now. #
  • Intrigued to hear so many people are now smoking outside in city centre that cigarette butts are starting to block the drains. #
  • Dear god *another* city centre starbucks? Feels like I’m being hunted down by a giant dulce de leche frappacino #
  • Boy, that council officer really wanted my attention. 3 phone messages, one word of mouth and a chase from council reception #
  • @dr_nick really? FREE wifi? #
  • Was that the sound of @jamesgraham choking to death? #
  • @rfenwick don’t mind me, you need fattening up. But venti? I hope you’re not going on public transport with that 🙂 #

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Sometimes I love this job

You know, the whole job of councillor / local politician. Someone texted to ask me my availability in June, and my answer was:

Sorry, 6th we’re giving freedom of city to to Alan Sillitoe and 7th I have public meeting with Lembit Öpik- have to pick him and Cheeky Girls up from airport.

And the thing is – it’s almost entirely true! The Cheeky Girls almost certainly won’t be coming, but the rest is right.

To fly or not

For the past few years, I’ve had an informal personal policy of limiting the amount of flying I do. One short-haul return flight a year.

This hasn’t previously been much of a hardship.  Up until this year, the idea of jetting off on more than one holiday hasn’t really come up.  This year, however, lots of opportunities have arisen.  We’ve already flown medium-haul to Cyprus; in July, I have booked Lufthansa to get to Munich, and now the latest opportunity is a trip to Dublin in the Autumn with the gay bellringers. (Actually, it’s been a gay year all-round, staying with gay friends in Larnaca, and the Munich trip is organised through Thingbox).

So, I’m already over-carbon-budget on flying with a medium haul flight.  Munich compounds that because you can’t fly direct to Munich from many places, and the itinerary I have ended up with involves two flights in each direction (Birmingham International to Munich via Frankfurt outward bound and via Dusseldorf on the homeward leg.)  I did consider the overland alternative to Munich, but ruled out the rail journey as a little too complicated:

  • 3 hour train Nottingham to St Pancras
  • 2h30 journey from London to Paris Gare de Nord
  • 6hr20 journey from Paris Gare de l’Est to München Hbf

You’d be looking at nine hours just on a train, with assorted complications with changing, customs, passports.  And I’m not sure it’s possible to buy a through ticket which could mean you’d be in a mess if you messed a connection.

Mind you, there’s the sleeper alternative – this Guardian article has some interesting long weekends in Europe by rail, most of which entail a sleeper service at some point.

My other alternative was considering a direct flight from EMA to Salzburg in Austria followed by a 30minute ICE train journey to Munich, but it transpired that the EMA/Salzburg service is winter only, and only on a Saturday, which wasn’t terribly convenient.

But if you think 9 hours to travel the nearly 900 miles to Munich from Nottingham is bad, trying to get to Dublin overland is worse!  The National Rail router says Nottingham to Newport (South Wales) then a five-hour long train from Newport (South Wales) to Holyhead (North Wales) – before a short ferry trip from Holyhead.  All in all, just … another nine hours on a train.

RailEasy comes up with a slightly more sane route that avoids South Wales at least by adding changes at Derby, Crewe and Chester, but still only brings it down to 7 hours.

So, for Dublin, I could

  • Drive to Holyhead and catch ferry
  • Spend an entire day and more on dreadful slow local trains
  • Fly direct from EMA, and to hell with personal flight policy
  • Not go at all.

Hmmm.

Scots and modern languages

Depressing bit of trivia on the British Council website.

Numbers
Presentations for Modern Languages in Higher Grade Examinations in Scotland

1976

French 11,610
German 3,130
Spanish 659
Italian 364
Russian 114

1997

French 4,840
German 2,078
Spanish 788
Italian 188
Russian 22

Source: McPake et al, 1999

http://www.scre.ac.uk/scot-research/hallcont/chapter3.html

I found this because for some strange reason, Google suggests this blog if you search for “French words to Scotland the Brave.”  Apparently.

It also points me at bizarre autotranslations of posts I wrote in 2005.  I particularly like “Nous savons tous ce que disent les grenouilles.”

Tweets on 2008-05-09

  • Heading into my ward to see a lady about a tree. #
  • @thoroughlygood we could have a wine bulletin replacing the sport. "And now here’s Nigel with a cheeky little barolo" #
  • Ruling out camping this weekend – too many fires to fight at home. #
  • Popping into PC world "to browse." An eeePC just jumped off shelf and bit my credit card. #

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Tweets on 2008-05-07

  • Packing, getting ready to leave. #
  • How warm is it in Blighty? Can I pack my coat away? 🙂 #
  • Phew. I’m actually feeling ready for sitting down for 7hrs on plane and in airport. #
  • U #17 @todo #
  • Being herded into an airport holding pen with seats for only a small fraction of the spaces on the plane. #
  • Airport buses circling around on the tarmac like hungry lions stalking gazelles. #
  • Just landed. Oh, god, aargh, my ears are killing me. #
  • Not clear why an airport is supposed to be "visual experience" but apparently EMA is to be transformed into one. #
  • Assessing burglary damage. Actually appears slightly less bad than we’d pictured. #
  • Cats pacing up and down angrily and talking about renegotiating service level agreement. Once daily feeding not enough! #

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