Another day in London, ostensibly to work (well, I did have one meeting), but mainly to fuel my social life. I took the opportunity this afternoon to wander along the Thames and do the tourist thing, and here’s one of its most recognisable buildings — surely everyone in the world could put a location to this shot. These Italians were chilling out by the river, along with thousands of other people.
Today marked the first time ever I have been to an academic conference and witnessed a play as my after-lunch session; let alone one aimed at teenagers and dealing with the issue of emotional relationship abuse. But I have to say Love Hurts? was very good. Well done to Sue Moffat of the New Vic theatre and her three talented actors. The woman on the right is playing the victim, the guy on the left, her friend (and mate of the perpetrator).
The truly superstitious probably wouldn’t have booked to fly on Friday 13th, but I am not among them, and the flights didn’t seem any less busy to me. This one was taken somewhere between Moscow and Amsterdam on leg one of my journey home.
So here I am back in Moscow, and the city thus appears on the blog for the first time since 29th October 2014, 558 days ago. The weather that day was glorious, and so it was today too. It was a public holiday here, Victory Day, but only the oligarchs and Putin confidantes get to hang around Red Square watching the tanks roll past these days, so I just worked a bit and wandered out in the early afternoon to take in the rays by the Moscow River, along with several thousand of the locals.
The bridge in the background has two decks, by the way — upper for the road, lower for the Metro red line (line 1).
In the first 1,520 days of the blog, that is, up until my return from Estonia last October, 341 of the pictures were taken outside the UK, around 22.5% of them. However, in the 196 days since, only five of them have been (on my trip to Norway in January). Whether this marks a sustained change in my travel habits is hard to say, for various reasons there probably will be fewer trips coming up but it is impossible to say for sure. Anyway — off today — as to where, you can find out tomorrow. At least it wasn’t a very early start, though this doesn’t seem to have made any difference to the guy stretched out on the seats.
Even on May Day this kind of behaviour is inexcusable. Really, you shouldn’t do this kind of thing in public, guys.
Although a chillier day today than it has been, I think we can still say that spring is here. Not sure whether these two were feeding themselves, or the ducks in the river below their feet (and cropped out of shot), but either way the title still applies. Why the black and white? Why not? Sometimes the colours just don’t work out so well.
One reason for going down south was to attend a game at Brighton & Hove’s other football team, Whitehawk FC. Why? Why not? They have an active set of Ultras, anti-racist, anti-sexist, a no bad language policy (exemplified by the chant, “the referee’s a… referee”) and the atmosphere put many much bigger clubs to shame. Right result too — Whitehawk 3, Wealdstone 0. Perhaps I have just found my second team.
Why? Because reasons, as Joe would say. And this was definitely his kind of event.
The Shoulder of Mutton in remains closed, as do about half the pubs in Hebden Bridge town centre. This guy looks mildly distressed by this fact, or possibly he’s decided that it’s really time he found a hobby other than skateboarding (I assume the board on the table next to him is significant).
Being 42 