Tara is the dog of our friend Steve Grey who drinks in the local pub. Of all the people I have ever met Steve is the one who is closest to having a ‘daemon’ like the ones possessed by all the characters in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials novels – a companion soul who takes the form of an animal. Tara is Steve’s. They are almost impossible to imagine without one another.
Most of the Netherlands didn’t even exist until the 12th century, and Maastricht (from the Roman Mosae Trajectum) is the only genuinely venerable city in the country, having grown around crossing points over the river Maas (or Meuse). And here is the newest, the Hoge Brug or ‘High Bridge’. As you can see, it was something of a grey and dull morning, though not as bad as at home, where the early summer of two weeks ago has reverted to snow. Glad I’m away for a little while.
Jon Dron and Terry Anderson, of Athabasca University in Canada, get ready for their keynote speech at the Networked Learning conference. And very interesting it was too.
Spent the first part of the day on a plane then ambling through the German/Dutch hinterland on suburban trains: the second part of it at the Networked Learning conference in Maastricht, and part of the evening in the building in which the treaty of European Union was signed in 1992. Good photo opportunities today and I took three or four decent portraits of total strangers. This was the best: she looks pretty cool, I think.
It’s been interesting to use the progress of this blog to check the movement of the sun across the sky. Back in December it was setting behind the mobile phone mast you see here (and here); now it sets behind the houses much further round the valley. And the light hits bits and pieces of the architecture in slowly changing ways each week. Like this morning, when I looked out from my house and saw these chimney stacks lit up while the rest of the streets beneath were still in shadow.
A husband-and-wife team, I guessed. Saw no sign of ducklings, but it looks to me like they’re on the case.
Let’s think about it: will either David Cameron or George Osborne will have a statue erected to them in a hundred and twenty years’ time that will extol their contribution ‘To The Public Good? Considering the ideological stance of their party is that there is no such thing as ‘the public good’, I doubt they would want to see such a memorial.
On the other hand, considering that Mr. Heywood’s era resulted in Manchester becoming one of the most powerful and successful cities in the world, and built art galleries and universities and football clubs, and Mr Cameron’s era in Manchester is largely characterised by the closure of all but one of the city’s public toilets, it should be easy enough to predict the answer to the question posed earlier.
Well, there’s the views and then there’s the chance to get wine 24 hours a day (and sometimes for free). Oh yeah, and the occasional decent movie. (Watched The Ides of March today. Recommended.)
This photo was taken 5 minutes after take-off from Domodedovo airport, Moscow.
There’s got to be billions of these trees in Russia. They line all the roads out of the city of Moscow. They’re everywhere.
I know this is a similar theme to yesterday (and it’s taken from almost exactly the same spot) but I’m not doing much other than work on this visit: so little opportunity to get pictures of much other than the rather drab urban area around the Moscow School (Yugo-Zapadnya Metro station). As you can see, it was a bright, sunny day today, at least in the morning – but it’s still cold.
In Britain at the moment it is about 21°C and full-on summer, apparently. But here, in Moscow… it isn’t. I have no idea what this structure actually is, it is either a ventilation shaft for the Metro or just a brazier, possibly there to help warm the homeless overnight. Either way it shows the reality of the weather here right now. International travel? Yeah, it’s fun… somtimes!
Being 42 