Couchsurfing

During my first incarnation in Inverness, I signed up to Global Freeloaders, a free accommodation network for travellers. It’s a simple idea - you search for the place you are aiming to stay in, find a list of local people, read up on the descriptions of themselves and their accommodation, and drop them a line to see if you can stay with them.

Such things must sound a bit scary to some people, either as hosts or guests. And while you can never totally legislate against axe-murderers, the idea really seems to work. Such sites always tend to attract a certain type of person - internationalist, easy-going, friendly, trusting, and up for new experiences. And with the ability in these sorts of sites to leave honest testimonials of people you meet through them, they’re very self-regulating.

Over the course of a couple of years or so, I hosted loads of people in my flat, from all over the world (although Aussies, hobos that they are, featured strongly). It was a great way to meet people from different countries, and proudly show off Inverness to them. For them, it was a chance to see more of the “real” Scotland and its people than the typical (and expensive) tourist trail might normally allow.

I hosted an eclectic bunch of people over time, all of whom were polite and respectful guests, and most of whom had amazing stories to tell. Many had travelled the world themselves and lived incredible lives. I recall one guy, a seventy-something who’d lost his family and self-made millions to alcoholism and now lived in a wooden shack in the middle of nowhere in darkest rural USA: the last person I could have imagined getting on with, but he was fascinating and easy-going company. I am still in touch with many freeloaders, including some I stayed with in turn when on my own travels.

However, partly through moving to Glasgow and partly through the site being less than easy to use and the traffic to Inverness seemingly drying up, I decided to leave it.

The other day, though, I signed up to another example of an accommodation exchange network site, Couchsurfing, on the recommendation of a number of friends (including another ex-Global Freeloader). It’s a much better site - more interactive, more information about people, and a generally livelier and more reassuring feel to it. Plus now I am back in my old flat, I have the space/freedom to take in who I like.

I got my first request just this evening. Perhaps an indication of many more to come?

If nothing else, it will be an incentive to get the flat tidied.

Facebook - first thoughts

So, I’ve been on Facebook for a couple of weeks and thought it would be worth summing up my thoughts about the social networking site I was initially very resistant to.

And I have to say my first impressions have been good. Facebook has been fun and interesting, although by no means instantly essential to my life, nor something I want to make full use of.

For the uninitiated, Facebook is one of the internet’s many networking sites, which apparently has its origins in high schools and colleges in the USA.  You set yourself a profile, giving as much personal information as you like, and you designate people as “friends” who might be acquaintances, colleagues, or of course actual friends.  You can interact by leaving messages on each others’ public “walls”, send private messages, upload pictures, and set your “status” so you can describe what you’re doing, where you are, what you’re thinking etc, in one short sentence.  Anyone who you’ve allowed to be your friend can see what sort of updates you have made.

Now all that is interesting.  I’ve found it fascinating seeing how many of my friends have Facebook pages, what sort of things they are getting up to, and who else they count as friends.  On a few occasions, I’ve been intrigued to see a couple of my friends actually know each other separately from me.

But what makes Facebook gripping for many is all the add-ons you can have.  You can put a fishtank or a garden, and friends can give you fish, gnomes or other strange “gifts”.  Add-ons can be seasonal - you can add Hallowe’en-type tools that allow you to “bite”, “gore” or do other spooky-type things to your friends.  You can even download a tool that allows you to throw sheep at your friends.

Quite why, I don’t know.  A reminder to a friend that you still exist?  Some sort of bizarre flirting ritual?  Who knows.  Personally I’ve downloaded very few of these frivilous and piontless tools, and blocked most of them.

One tool I have downloaded, though, is the “Friend Wheel”.  It puts all your friends in a big circle and draws a line between those friends who know each other.  It’s a fascinating representation of the circles and networks you’re a part of, how many of your friends know each other (or alternatively, know none of your other friends).

Another thing Facebook has been good for has been reigniting communication with people I’ve not been in touch with for a while.  Nobody has become my friend that I had lost touch with (which many Faceheads told me would happen), but there have been a few people I’ve not been in touch with for ages (but still had contact details for if I’d really wanted) who it’s been nice to catch up with.

As for privacy, Facebook looks good.  I can restrict access for my “friends” to my profile to the barest information if I want, and nobody who I have not accepted as my friends can see anything other than the fact I have a page, and cannot see any details about me.  Undiscerning people, however, who take any old person on as their friend, do leave themselves open to a bit of stalking however, and so care should be taken who you have as  a friend.

Talking of which, I am standing at 134 friends - a mix of friends in Inverness, Glasgow and Aberdeen, a few relatives, the occasional work-related contact, and a few folk I’ve met on my travels around the world.  And if that sounds like the tally of someone who’s treating it as a popularity contest, I have actually ignored the occasional request from people who, being honest with myself, are not really friends or acquaintances in any real sense.

One bit of “fun” I do allow myself is what I call “Facebook roulette”.  Everyone has, as standard, a corner of their page dedicated to their friends, where you can see how many friends a person has, how many of them you have in common, and a random selection of six friends’ pictures.  What I like to do, each time I visit my page, is have a look at who the random six are.  Usually they contain at least one or two who know each other but I get a buzz of excitement if I get six friends who are all strangers to each other.

Which if nothing else, reassures me that I do have lots of different friends in lots of different places.

Which is nice.

Extra time in bed

I slept very well last night.

Not only had the clocks changed, but the latest innovation at church, the second morning service, kicked off today. All in all, it added up to the glorious total of an extra two and a half hours in bed this morning - most welcome after getting back late yesterday after work.

Such has been the growth at Hilton, that the powers that be recently decided to introduce a second, later, service on Sundays. I quickly decided I would go to the later one, partly through laziness and partly due to the expressed intention that the later service would be a more experimental, informal one.

And so it turned out this morning. It was informal, it was a bit different, and somewhat reminiscent of Hilton’s evening services. However it didn’t tell me much about what it will look like in the future as the service was mostly led by some visiting missionaries. However the plan apparently is to shape the service around the sort of congregation that turns up. Which raises the question about what happens if nobody turns up because no plan/theme/intention is made clear.

It will be interesting to see how things evolve, and such is the depth of abilities in Hilton and the thought that has gone into the idea of a second service, that nobody appears all that worried about the second service not succeeding, which is encouraging and exciting.

Here today, gone tomorrow

On the way to and from visiting a friend tonight, I took some photos of Inverness.

Seeing as how that’s where I live and all.

It was a lovely still night, and the river was the calmest I’ve seen for a long time. If I was honest, I’d describe the pictures as good, but not quite brilliant.

In other news, I am away for work tomorrow for two nights, so if you want to burgle my flat, then you have until Saturday night to achieve your malevolence.

I’m aware I am due you, dear reader, an update on my Facebook experiences. I hope you can hold out a couple of days.

Swirls

The clocks change this coming weekend, meaning no more sunshine until sometime around Easter.

So I went for a walk after work today through the Ness Islands, determined to get some nice twilight shots while the afternoons are still vaguely bright. I’ve uploaded three shots which are slightly unusual for me.

The islands were busy. I saw plenty dog walkers and cyclists, a man practising Tai-Chi in the newly-developed open air auditorium, and even saw a bookcrossing book waiting on a bench for a new owner.

I didn’t take it, partly because I am not on bookcrossing, and partly because it was military history which doesn’t interest me and struck me as a bizarre genre for something as fluffy as bookcrossing.

Recipe for curry

Not that I have any intention of this turning into a food blog, but seeing as how Kieran asked so nicely, here’s the story behind my curry:

1. Fry up an onion and a wedge of garlic, in some oil. Add a bit of black pepper.
2. Chuck in bits of chicken, and add some more oil and some tandoori paste and a shake of hot curry powder. Stir it all up.
3. Cook it for a while at a low-ish heat. Add some more oil if needed.
4. Chuck in a finely chopped chilli. Take great care chopping this, and avoid rubbing your eyes (last time I cooked with chillis I accidentally got loads in my eyes and ended up under the shower, hyperventilating with swollen cheeks and tears and snot streaming down my face).
5. Fling in a can of Campbell’s condensed tomato soup (it helps if you open it first) and a wee pot of natural yoghurt. Mix it like a DJ.
6. Add anything that’s vaguely brown and powdery from your spice rack. In my case, hot curry powder, ground ginger, turmeric, garam massala and cumin. A generous shake or so of each should do it.
7. Bung in some tomato ketchup, Worcester sauce, half a glass of red wine, a few dashes of vinegar, and that essential omnipresent of cooking, brown sauce.
8. Leave it gently bubbling for a while until it’s done or you’re too hungry to wait any longer.
9. Bung a plain naan bread under the grill for a couple of minutes each side.
10. Serve up, with coriander sprinkled over the top of the curry.
11. Eat.

Yum.

How do you cook yours?

Booking flights

It’s a good job I have been saving hard these past few months, because I’ve just spent a scary amount of money on flights to New Zealand for the next leg of my mullet-hunting adventure.

The tickets cost something in the vague region of a month’s salary for me, and I am quite sure that I could have bought myself a lifetime’s supply of Ryanair tickets had I chosen to spend it differently. But then, I made the choice when I first committed myself to the mission: I’ve dug my own hole, and now I suppose I have to eat it. Or something.

Anyway. My trip will be three weeks or so, due to inconveniences like having a life, a job and a finite amount of money. And I’ll only have two of those weeks in New Zealand once I’ve taken out travel time and spending a few days over New Year in Brisbane.

So I have quite a job packing all four mullets - and perhaps seeing a bit of the country - into such a short time.

Tonight though, I have celebrated this purchase, and National Curry Week, by cooking and eating a curry.  It was quite magnificent, even if I say so myself.

MRSA!

Incidentally, I really must start buying the Highland News, Scotland’s top purveyor of sensationalist headlines.  I saw a copy over someone’s shoulder on the train this morning to Aberdeen, and the front page shout was “I GAVE MY DOG MRSA!“

The spirit of Chris Morris lives on…

The Maps album

Instead of going to the Maps gig in Glasgow tonight, I am sitting at home listening to the album which I bought yesterday.

I guess you’d pigeon-hole “We Can Create” as electro-pop, and is smooth, mellow, catchy and a little bit quirky.

The sound is very lively, chirpy pop music, (mostly keyboards and percussions), with lyrics that are just a few notches less enthusiastic, giving it both an upbeat and chilled feel at the same time.

All tracks are listenable, though some stand out more than others, so I think this will be an album where I listen more to certain tracks rather than treating it as a coherent set of songs that fit neatly together.

Which means that while I love the album, I am still not quite sure what to do with it after four or five listens: it’s a bit too upbeat and hummable to listen to late at night while falling asleep, or when trying to work or read for instance, but too downbeat to be particularly motivational.

Beautiful music, yes, but not necessarily inspiring. I found it worked quite well, for instance, while working on the train to Aberdeen and back today. However, I think it needs a few more listens before I draw proper conclusions.

It’s definitely great music, though, I am sure we’ll hear more of Maps, and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes their music to be thoughtful, chilled out and interesting enough to keep you listening.

Three nights at home

I’m just back from Edinburgh and Dundee.  No photos I’m afraid - unless you want to see blurry pictures from the Forth Rail Bridge half-obscured by bits of the bridge’s structure, or an entirely black picture I took just as my train entered a tunnel.

I am now going to enjoy three nights in a row in my own bed.  No Maps gig on Friday for me - as GV points out, it’s sold out - which is a big shame but I will console myself with buying the Maps album in town tomorrow.

Not that I need much consoling, really - I’ve just caught up on my blog feed and Niall’s latest offering is a hysterical and yet slightly disturbing insight into what happens when you’re bored on an oil rig.

Anyway, time to sign off.  It’s quarter past unexpected already…