Not much to report today…

…except some pictures.

Taking stock

I was in Edinburgh on Tuesday for work – a long day that involved leaving at 6.45am and getting home at 11.30pm.  I took a few photos along the way.

That, however, is the last work trip I’ll be doing for about a fortnight, which gives me a chance to spend welcome time at home.

The next week or two will see me catching up with myself, wandering around with a camera in the increasingly light and warm evenings, hosting some couchsurfers and doing some writing.

I’ll be away to Deeside this coming weekend, but that will be pleasure rather than work.  I seem to be going there quite a lot lately – but more on all that another day.

In other, more geeky, news, my website – and this blog – hits the grand old age of 4 years today.  Which reminds me – I still have no solution to the problem I outlined here, and so any thoughts are very welcome.

Finally, if you read the title of this blog and expected an anecdote about the theft of soup ingredients, then I can only apologise for the disappointment you will now be experiencing.

Season 5

Thanks to exclusive deliveries from swish.tv, I’ve now seen the phenomenal first four episodes of Lost season 5.  It’s utterly jaw-dropping.

Not just in the normal way that Lost is, but taking the viewer on some even more incredible journeys than before, the plot twisting and turning in on itself in the most mesmerising and compelling way.   Some questions are being answered and new ones are being posed, but on the whole we are being revealed more and more about what lies behind the strange island at the heart of the show.

And most excitingly, some of the more recent characters have taken centre-stage and we are seeing less of the traditionally key characters.  There’s a mounting body count, and I am less confident in this series that the “core” characters are sacrosanct anymore.

I really can’t think of the right adjectives for Lost – compelling and jaw-dropping doesn’t quite capture the incredible depth and scale of this brilliantly-made drama.  With the exception of one or two truly terrible Australian accents by bit-part Americans, it is truly television at its very, very best.

It’s really got under my skin.  Season 5 has been a long wait, and I’ve thought about it many times, even having Lost-based dreams on one or two occasions, which is rather obsessive, I must confess.  So the new episodes have been a very welcome arrival on my doormat.

To check a couple of facts in my mind from the most recent episodes, I headed to the ridiculously detailed Lostpedia earlier this evening, which was a stupid mistake – I am one episode behind it, and inadvertently discovered something I really didn’t want to at this stage.

It’s almost enough to make me want to get a TV so that I can watch episodes as they are broadcast.

Almost, but not quite.

24 hours in London

I got back late last night from an overnight trip to London for work. It was a fun but packed trip (photos here).

I travelled on two buses, two planes, three trains, four Tubes, and two feet.

I endured London’s rush-hour (packed Tubes made bearable by the cold weather) and water (one film of scum on your tea, sir, or two?), but the famous snow was long-gone.

I also caught up with two friends and did a bit of exploration of the impressive St Pancras train station.

Oh, and I passed the LibDem MP, asteroid campaigner, and former Cheeky Boy Lembit Opik on the concourse of Victoria station in London on Monday evening.  He didn’t recognise me, though.

Not that he let on, anyway.

The white stuff

It seems I spoke too soon about the snow – a lot fell last night, and then this evening at dusk, just as I was heading out for a wee wander with the camera, it began to fall again.

Not too much though.  It was more than a light dusting, but less than a deluge.  A gentle shower, perhaps.  It made for some lovely scenes around Inverness, the sky strangely illuminated as the lights of the city were trapped by low, thick, snug cloud.

But I hope there’s not too much more snow fall overnight, as I am off to Edinburgh early in the morning for work.  I’ll be staying overnight which will give me a chance to catch up with some friends and see something more of Edinburgh than just the walk between Waverley station and my office, which I haven’t done in a while.

Then on Monday night I fly down to London for work for twenty-four hours.  It would be nice if there was enough snow to make London look  a little different and more interesting than it usually does, but not too much that it impedes my travel.  A difficult balance to strike, I feel.

Anyway, here is tonight’s crop of photos.

My website

Today, I renewed my ownership of the domain name www.simonvarwell.co.uk for another two years – for the ridiculously good value of £6.42.  Not bad, I reckon.

As you’ll see if you take a browse, though, the website’s a little out of date.  The mullet page hasn’t been updated since my return from New Zealand around a year ago, and is therefore missing a lot of the anecdotes, photos and thoughts arising from the USA trip and beyond.  It’s been at the back of my mind to update it for ages.

When I got my Mac a few months ago (it’s still lovely and shiny, thanks for asking), I figured it would be a good incentive to get going on the website, and perhaps give it a little facelift via iWeb, Apple’s web design software which – when I was being shown around laptops in the Apple store – seemed to be very easy to use.

However – and this is most unMaclike – it simply doesn’t work.  It turns out that you can only use iWeb to create and manage new websites, not import one made elsewhere and edit it.  This, I’m afraid, is most frustrating and disappointing.

I am sure there’s a way round it, but can’t quite see.

Any Macheads able to help?

Business as usual

It was heart-warming to read this article by Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian (via Peter Moore) about life in London under the blanket of snow that virtually shut the city down yesterday.

People getting out and about and appreciating the beautiful world.  Jokes with policemen.  Conversations with strangers.  Enjoying life.  Heart-warming, as I say.

But also rather sad.  Sad that it takes a blanket of snow to make London a happy, friendly place.  That it takes turning the city into a surreal whitescape to get people to have fun, let their hair down, feel like they can interact with their fellow man.  Or woman.

Up here, there’s never any problems with doing that.  And more to the point, Inverness has missed out on the snow, which is great.  I’ve been on quite a few trains in the last few days and they’ve been running fine.  Inverness is cold, dry – as normal, really.  It really is the place to be.

No other news, other than my latest photo upload.

I was in Dundee today, and will be in Edinburgh on Friday for twenty-four hours.

Wave if you see me.